News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-11-04. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. 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. Amber Agriculture Named Best Startup at CES by Engadget Illinois-based startup Amber Agriculture, a startup that automates farmers grain storage through wireless sensors and internet of things technology, was award Best Startup at the recent CES event held by tech publication Engadget. The company, which originated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has developed connected devices to assist farmers with managing internal grain conditions, like humidity and temperature. From their smartphone, farmers can control a smart fan in the bins to keep these metrics regulated. Ultimately, the technology is designed to help cut down the amount of waste that plagues stored crops due to spoilage from poor climate conditions in storage bins. Agribotix Partners with SenseFly Agribotix, a drone-enabled agricultural intelligence company, has partnered with senseFly, a leading producer of professional fixed-wing drones, to adopt the eBee SQ as its new fixed-wing drone platform. The eBee SQ is built around Parrots Sequoia sensor. This features multispectral sensors that capture calibrated data across four highly distinct spectral bands (near-infrared, red-edge, red and green), plus RGB imagery, in a single flight. Indigo Cotton Produces 11% Yield Increase in Commercial Trials Indigo Agriculture, a microbiome seed company, has released preliminary data from its first commercial product, Indigo Cotton. Launched in the spring of 2016 on approximately 50k acres across multiple states, Indigo Cotton was developed to help increase water use efficiency, with the goal of improving yields when plants are growing under water stress. According to the company, data collected to date show that Indigo Cotton led to an 11% average yield increase in West Texas. The state has experienced moderate to severe water stress this growing season. Despite this, yield improvements were achieved without increased water or chemical use. The most successful combination of seed type and microbial treatment achieved a peak performance above 15%. Larta Institute Wins SBA Tibbetts Award Larta Institute, a Los Angeles-based accelerator for technologies and host of the annual Ag Innovation Showcase, was awarded the prestigious SBA Tibbetts Award for its work assisting SBIR/STTR-funded companies in commercializing their innovations. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer Research(STTR) grant programs represent the U.S Federal governments investments in cutting-edge research by small businesses and intended for commercial use. Since 2005, 66 of Lartas portfolio companies have been acquired, and the organization has tracked $2.6 billion of private investment raised by companies participating in its program. Dairy Groups Support Milk Labeling Standards Should almond, soy, and plant-based dairy alternatives be labeled as milk? Thats the burning question taking Congress and the dairy industry by storm early in 2017. A new bill proposed by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) called the Dairy Pride Act would mean all non-dairy products would have to bear their own distinct label and could no longer be labeled as milk, cheese, or yogurt. According to the legislators and farmers backing the bill, the legislation would protect the integrity of food standards by prompting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce existing labeling requirements, specifying foods labeled as milk and cheese have to come from dairy animals. The Baldwin bill would require FDA to issue guidance for nationwide enforcement of these definitions within 90 days. It also would require FDA to report to Congress two years after the bills enactment to hold the agency accountable for this update in their enforcement obligations. New FDA Rules Regulating Antibiotic Use in Livestock Take Effect The New Year brought about a new set of FDA regulations governing the use of some antibiotics in livestock production. In the livestock industry, many producers provide their animals with sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics to prevent disease and promote growth. The majority of the antibiotics administered are also used to treat human diseases. Under the new rule, antibiotics that are classified as medically important to human medicine can no longer be administered mainly for growth promotion. These medicines can only be administered to food animals to treat disease under the supervision of a veterinarian. Whether these rules will curb the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs is now the key question. Read more here. USDA Approves New Transitional Certification Program to Boost Organic Growth The Organic Trade Association (OTA) announced this week a new partnership with the USDA to help farmers transition into certified organic agricultural production. Using standards developed by OTA, the National Certified Transitional Program (NCTP) will provide oversight to approved Accredited Organic Certifying Agents offering transitional certification to producers. This will help ease the transition process to organic, allow farmers to sell their products as certified transitional at a premium price, and help encourage more organic production. Transitioning to organic production requires a three-year period during which the producer must follow organic production practices, but is unable to label products as organic. McDonalds to Sell 80% of Its Businesses in China & Hong Kong US private equity firm Carlyle group and Chinas government-backed investment group Citic are taking over 80% of McDonalds holdings in China and Hong Kong. Currently, the major fast food outlet owns and operates roughly 65% of the 2k stores it operates in China. The move towards more franchising allows McDonalds to keep earning profits while streamlining overhead and operational expenses. In spring 2015, the company announced that it was looking for partnerships to create over 1.5k new stores in Korea, Hong Kong, and China over the next 5 years. Other reports indicate that Yum Brands, McDonalds big competitor and owner of Pizza Hut and KFC, are giving their business interests in China a makeover. TerrAvion and Servi-Tech Partner TerrAvion, which takes aerial images for agribusinesses, is partnering with Servi-Tech to offer more growers across the country aerial imagery with NVDI, thermal and natural color images. Every week, TerrAvion takes hundreds of low-altitude flights to capture birds-eye views of farms and then uploads the images to the cloud so growers can plan scouting, management activities and interventions with unprecedented accuracy. Servi-Tech is one of the largest independent crop consulting and agronomic services company in the nation, providing agronomic services to over 1,900 producers across seven states, and its crop consulting division has over 1.1 million acres under contract. Servi-Techs laboratories analyze soil, water, feed and fertilizers and consult with growers on issues around soil fertility, disease and insect control, irrigation and data management. Poultry Lobby Objects to Calls for Slower-Growing Chickens A few days before the New Year, restaurant chain Panera Bread announced a new commitment to sourcing slow-growing chickens, demanding that its suppliers offer up new product by 2024. The chain also asked suppliers to provide enhancements to poultry living conditions and to reduce stock density. It also denounced live-shackling as a method of slaughter and will require controlled atmosphere stunning instead. Major food product and service provider Sodexo has announced a similar shift toward slow-growing birds. In a report released earlier this week, the National Chicken Council contended that a transition to slower-growing birds would be costlier and less profitable overall. The report claimed that using birds requiring an additional two weeks to reach maturity would lead to more animal waste and that feed requirements would skyrocket. Although the debate over whether broilers grow too fast is nothing new, Panera Bread and Sodexo have fired the first shot across the bow when it comes to major food companies enforcing a new standard. Other News Thats Fit to Chew: YEREVAN, JANUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. The meeting of Armenias Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan and Ambassadors of Iran and Turkmenistan was very important from geopolitical and regional perspective, economist Tatul Manaseryan said in an interview with Armenpress. Iran is interested in intensifying the ties with the Eurasian Economic Union. From the other hand, as Iran is bordered to Turkmenistan, the import of the Iranian gas to Armenia as well as that of the Turkmenistan gas can be considered as an alternative, he said. The economist attached importance to intensifying the relations with the neighbors in the region. He said Armenia also has enough potential. The export with two key sectors must be increased through your own, national competitive advantages. The one is the agricultural production, the second, which I give more importance, are the scientific fields, especially, the information technologies. Moreover, the demand of the information technologies is quite huge both in Iran and Turkmenistan. I think here there can be quite mutually beneficial cooperation, the economist said, adding that this process is important both in terms of economic development, diversification of energy resources, as well as from political point of view. To the view whether the intensification of relations with Turkmenistan derives from the recent developments, in connection with the payment mechanisms of transit of Russian gas to Armenia through Georgia, the economist said it cannot be ruled out. Of course, I dont rule out that. Moreover, there can be a good prospect for transporting Turkmenistan gas through the territory of Armenia, but in line with this, more importance will be attached to the bilateral relations, trade-economic ties. I dont think that the huge potential existing between the two countries is being utilized, he stated. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on January 9 held a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to Armenia Seyed Kazem Sadjadi and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to Armenia Muhammetniyaz Mashalov. PM Karapetyan said Armenias high level political relations with Iran and Turkmenistan enable to further intensify the bilateral economic ties, as well as establish a trilateral format economic partnership. The PM said Armenia is interested in developing Armenia-Iran-Turkmenistan trilateral economic mutual cooperation. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Caviar diplomacy will eventually be brought to an end - be it through criminal investigations and ensuing court sentences, be it because within Azerbaijani society this practice is considered less and less tolerable, MEP representing Luxembourg Frank Engel said in an interview with Armenpress, commenting on the announcement of civil society representatives of Azerbaijan which urged PACE to suspend the right to vote of Azerbaijans delegation. The Azerbaijani civil society has a right to parliamentary representation in international forums which does not constantly rely on the convincing powers of money and gifts. It will be interesting to see how many friends and allies Azerbaijan will have outside its borders when it will no longer be in a position to lavishly pay them for their support, the MEP said. YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. The only side which can have an interest in unsettling the status quo is Azerbaijan, Frank Engel, member of the European Parliament from Luxembourg told ARMENPRESS. It is sad that the Minsk group continues to appeal to "both sides" to refrain from aggression and blame - it should be abundantly clear to every observer that the only side which can have an interest in unsettling the status quo is Azerbaijan, he said. According to Frank Engel, the December 29 Azerbaijani incursion attempt on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border shows Azerbaijans determination to instill a feeling of insecurity and fear of attacks on the Armenian populations. It [Azerbaijan] wants to elicit disproportionate military reprisals from the Armenian side. Only in such a case would Azerbaijan be able to justify major military moves against Armenian forces, Engel said. Azerbaijani forces attempted a sabotage infiltration in the Armenian state border south-east of Chinari village, Tavush province in the morning of December 29. Three Armenian soldiers were killed during the Azerbaijani incursion. 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. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Overnight January 15-16 Azerbaijani forces carried out intense shelling of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR) posts in eastern and north-eastern parts. In some parts NKR forces took countermeasures to suppress the Azerbaijan aggression, the NKR defense ministry told ARMENPRESS. The ministry issued a statement, saying: The Azerbaijani defense ministrys January 15 statement on Azerbaijani soldier Fikret Nurshiravanoghlu Bashirov being killed by NKR fire is false. We would advise the Azerbaijani side to seek the reasons of their soldiers death in interpersonal non-statutory conduct inside their army. Moreover, overnight January 15-16 Azerbaijani forces continued intense ceasefire violations along the entire line of contact, firing 60mm and 82mm mortars in addition to small arms. NKR posts positioned in the eastern and north-eastern parts came under severe shelling, where Azerbaijan fired 51 shells from 60mm mortars and 3 shells from 82mm mortars. In some parts the NKR forces had to take countermeasures to suppress the Azerbaijani aggression. Azerbaijan bears the entire responsibility for the consequences of further escalation in the frontline. In case of Azerbaijan continues such conduct, the countermeasures of the NKR forces will be more severe. On January 15, at 23:35, 21 year old NKR soldier Garik Vardanyan, who had been wounded on December 30, 2016 by Azerbaijani fire, died in Yerevans Central Military Hospital. The defense ministry of NKR extends its condolences to the family and friends of the fallen soldier. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged the Belarussian authorities to immediately release Russian-Israeli blogger Aleksandr Lapshin, detained in Minsk, on an extradition request from Azerbaijan, Armenpress reports citing the CPJ official site. The Minsk Police on December 15, 2016 detained Lapshin who lives in Moscow and writes a popular Russian-language travel blog. He is wanted in Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in April 2011, October 2012, and June 2016, and for criticizing Azerbaijani policies on his blog. Azerbaijan included him in the list of wanted people. The CPJs statement says Azerbaijan and Belarus have close diplomatic relations. Recently a representative of Belarus's prosecutor-general's office said it was studying Azerbaijan's extradition request. Aleksandr Lapshin should not be jailed for expressing his opinions or traveling to a disputed region. We call on Belarussian authorities to release the travel blogger without condition and allow him to return home, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. An Israeli consular official met the blogger on January 12. The blogger's wife, Yekaterina Kopilova, told Haaretz that the diplomat told her that Lapshin was "in poor mental health," "depressed," and under pressure from Belarussian officials to agree to voluntary extradition. The CPJ recalls that Azerbaijan has declared 180 journalists personae non grata--meaning they cannot enter the country for visiting Nagorno Karabakh. Overall, the Azerbaijani MFAs this list, last updated on December 7, 2016, includes 623 names. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. A freshman of the Yerevan State University has been charged for murdering YSU student V. Muradyan and severely wounding another student R. Martirosyan, the Investigative Committee told ARMENPRESS. Earlier on January 11 first responders discovered the body of 19 year old Vahe Muradyan in the backyard of a residential building in downtown Yerevan. 18 year old Raffi Martirosyan had been hospitalized with stabbing wounds. The Investigative Committees Yerevan department launched a criminal case on the incident. Law enforcement agencies uncovered the circumstances which led to the fatal incident. An altercation had occurred, where V. Muradyan sustained deadly injuries and R. Martirosyan suffered serious wounds. The perpetrators were identified and apprehended. The YSU freshman was charged with murder and remanded in custody. A folding knife was found by law enforcement agencies in the apartment of the suspect, which according to his testimony is the murder weapon. Forensic expertise is underway. Notice: Suspect is innocent until proven guilty by the Court of Law. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. At least 32 people were killed in the Boeing cargo plane crash near the Bishkek airport, Kyrgyzstans Healthcare Ministry said, reports TASS. 8 more people were hospitalized from the crash scene in a serious condition, the Ministry said. Currently the search operations are underway, thus, the information on the killed people may change. Earlier, the Ministry said the number of people killed may reach to 40. The Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed near the Manas International Airport at 7.30 a.m. local time (05:30 Yerevan time) during the landing. Kyrgyzstans Transport Ministry said the plane was on the Hong Kong-Bishkek-Istanbul flight. The aircraft crashed at a dacha community, where people live permanently. Nearly 15 one-storey houses were destroyed. At least six children are among those dead. According to Anadolu news agency, the plane was owned by Turkeys MyCargo Airlines, also known as ACT Airlines. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. 22 year old Defense Army soldier of Nagorno Karabakh Arayik Sargsyan was fatally wounded on January 16, at 12:35 in an unnamed military position in circumstances which are yet to be determined, the NKR defense ministry told ARMENPRESS. An investigation is underway to reveal details of the incident. The Defense Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh extends condolences to the family and friends of the fallen soldier. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenia has a great potential to develop trade-economic cooperation with Iran, Head of Alternative research center, Doctor in economics, Professor Tatul Manaseryan told a press conference in Armenpress. He said Iran is a big market, and active work must be done in order to use its opportunities. Iran opens up to the outside world, sanctions are being eliminated. This direction can be an alternative to the remaining directions. Iran is a country where everything exists in terms of resources, It is a country where the information technologies are demanded an unlimited form, and Armenia has something to offer, has an opportunity to enter that market. It is absolutely unnecessary to make great expenses from the budget in order to develop the trade-economic cooperation with Iran, the economist said. Speaking about boosting the export and replacing the imported goods with the domestic products, the economist said Armenias government takes many steps on boosting the export which is visible. As for replacing the imported goods with domestic products, he said this process is still not moving forward. Meanwhile, in this context we have serious opportunities. There are serious local resources for production at a number of directions, the economist said. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan convened a consultation on January 16 to discuss the implementation process of the Armenia's jurisdiction program and future activities. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, Serzh Sargsyan touched upon the issues and priorities set for the Board. I believe its time for us to more vigorously involve international organizations, different specialists, and skillful people in Armenias development, the President said, stressing that in order to make Armenia more attractive for the international business we must give new drive to the reforms in judicial, financial and tax spheres, as well as improve our business environment. You know that I ratified on November 30 the legislative package adopted by the National Assembly according to which Armenia liberalizes the movement of legal entities from Armenia and into Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan said, noting that the Board was set by his decree on November 26 and the provisions elaborated by it have been approved by the Government. In fact, Armenia's jurisdiction Board holds its first plenary session today. I believe all of us are aware of the goals. Simple, to my conviction, we have to examine the international practice more deeply, and create the real image of the Republic of Armenia and create favorable jurisdiction for legal entities and companies in Armenia based on Armenias attractiveness, advantages, the capacities of our people, and first of all of our talented youth, as well as the role of Armenians in the world. I am sure that Armenias membership to the Eurasian Economic Union has a vital role here as well, as well as Armenias gradually rising participation in various EU projects, the President said, stressing that Armenias position on assisting the international efforts aimed at struggling money laundering, not tolerating the funding of criminal acts, fight against fiscal piracy and guaranteeing transparency in the financial sphere remains unchanged. Board Members of Armenia's jurisdiction program reported on the implementation process of the tasks set by the President. According to the Presidential decree, the Board Members will submit reports to the President on the implementation process of the program on quarterly basis. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev will discuss issues of cooperation between the two states in the sidelined of the Eurasian Economic Union during their meeting on January 24. Armenpress reports, citing the official website of the Russian Government, the meeting of the Heads of the Executives of the two states will take place in Moscow where Karen Karapetyan will visit at Medvedevs invitation. Issues of Armenian-Russian cooperation in trade and economy, energy, transport, humanitarian, as well as joint investment projects will be on the agenda of the meeting. Special attention will be paid at the integration cooperation between Armenia and Russia in the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union. Based on the results of the talks signing of a number of inter-governmental and inter-agency documents aimed at fostering Armenian-Russian cooperation in various spheres is expected. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. There is a huge interest worldwide for economic cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Member of the Board - Minister in charge ofIntegration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission Tatyana Valovaya said in a press conference on January 16. She informed that talks are underway with Israel, India, Iran, Singapore and a number of other states. This is a very positive trend. A trade and economic agreement with China is being elaborated. There is a huge interest worldwide, but naturally, its clear that the EAEU cannot hold talks with each of them simultaneously since it is not effective, Tatyana Valovaya said, adding that they have other cooperation formats, for example with Mongolia, Peru and Chile which are interested in economic dialogue with the EAEU. According to her the fact that nearly 40 states show great interest towards the EAEU, wishing to sign a FTA with it, documents that the EAEU is considered a single economic player with rather promising market. Everybody understands that by accessing to this organization they will derive great economic profits, Valovaya said. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Following an official invitation to observe the parliamentary elections in Armenia, scheduled for 2 April 2017, based on the findings and conclusions of the Needs Assessment Mission deployed from 30 November to 2 December 2016, and in accordance with its mandate, the OSCE/ODIHR is preparing to deploy an Election Observation Mission (EOM) for these elections. As Armenpress was informed from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, OSCE participating States will be requested to second 24 long-term and 250 short-term observers. The OSCE/ODIHR is currently looking for external consultants to fill the following positions: Head of Mission, Deputy Head of Mission, Political Analyst, Election Analyst, Voter Registration Analyst, Legal Analyst, Media Analyst, Co-ordinator of Long-Term Observers. EssilorLuxottica will have annual sales of more than 15 billion euros and employ a workforce of 140,000 worldwide French lensmaker Essilor has agreed to buy Italy's luxury eyewear maker Luxottica in a bid to create a new global giant in the sector, the two groups announced Monday. Shares in Essilor, the world leader in corrective lenses, surged by 13.8 percent on the Paris stock exchange and Luxottica shares were up 8.2 percent in Milan on the news as of 1100 GMT. The combined group will have a market capitalisation of around 46.2 billion euros ($49 billion), based on both companies' closing share prices on Friday. Under the terms of the transaction, the family of Leonard Del Vecchio, Luxottica founder and chief executive, will hand over his stake to Essilor, which will then launch a public bid to buy the remaining shares. Del Vecchio, 81, controls a 62 percent stake via holding company Delfin. "Finally, two products which are naturally complementary, namely frames and lenses, will be designed, manufactured and distributed under the same roof," Del Vecchio said. "With this agreement my dream to create a major global player in the eyewear industry, fully integrated and excellent in all its parts, comes finally true." The combined group, to be known as EssilorLuxottica, will have annual sales of more than 15 billion euros and employ a workforce of 140,000 worldwide. The merger is expected to create synergies that will save between 400 million and 600 million euros a year in the medium term. Bryan, Garnier & Co analysts called the merger "a perfect fit... as both groups are leading their respective categories" of lenses and frames. But they said the new group "might face anti-trust barriers since it would become a 'hegemonic supplier' for many independent opticians." Del Vecchio will become chief executive of the new group and Essilor head Hubert Sagnieres, 61, will be his deputy, with "equal powers", a joint statement said. - 'The same vision' - "We share the same values, the same vision, the same interest in the products," Sagnieres said. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. Story continues The deal still needs to receive the necessary regulatory approval, but is expected to be completed in the second half of this year. Del Vecchio returned to the helm in January 2016 after two years of management turmoil sparked by a falling out with his right-hand man Andrea Guerra, who quit in 2014. "Leonardo Del Vecchio's inability to find a successor probably weighed heavily on this idea of coming together" with Essilor, said a strategist at the French brokerage firm Aurel BGC. "The idea... has been around a long time, and though not on everyone's mind recently, and is now bearing fruit," he added. The two groups made a failed attempt to merge in 2013. Founded in 1961, Luxottica owns the Ray-Ban, Oakley and Sunglass Hut brands and licences for designer frames such as Giorgio Armani, Chanel and Ralph Lauren. The Italian group, which employs some 80,000 people, generates annual sales of around nine billion euros, while Essilor booked sales of just over 6.7 billion euros in 2015. Essilor's Sagnieres said: "Our project has one simple motivation: to better respond to the needs of an immense global population in vision correction and vision protection." The group is to be headquartered in France, at Essilor's location in Charenton southeast of Paris, Sagnieres said, without detailing which sites may be shut down. US motor giant Ford announced Monday the recall of 4,500 1.6-litre Kuga cars in South Africa after nearly 40 incidents in which vehicles were reported to have burst into flames. Over recent years, the SUV model has been the focus of repeated accounts in South Africa of spontaneous fires taking hold while the car was being driven. "We are now announcing a voluntary safety recall of the Kuga 1.6," Ford South Africa chief executive Jeffrey Nemeth told a press conference in Pretoria. "We can confirm that a total of 39 incidents have been reported to Ford... there may be some incidents that have not yet been reported to us." Nemeth said that the fires were caused by overheating due to poor coolant circulation that led to an oil leak. "If the oil leak reaches a hot engine component it could potentially catch fire," he said. "With this safety recall all affected vehicles, including those that have already been checked as part of our maintenance check, must be taken to a Ford dealer as soon as possible." One man, Reshall Jimmy, died in December 2015 when his Juga burst into flames, but Ford said it believed the death was not related to the fault. "We are not aware of any injuries that have resulted from our engine compartment fires," Nemeth said. Last week Ford said it was expanding a safety recall of some defective airbag inflators from Japanese parts maker Takata. The action extended the recall to about 816,000 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brand vehicles built in North America and sold in the United States and Canada for various model years between 2005 and 2012. Most major manufacturers have been affected in what has been described as the largest-ever auto safety recall. LAS VEGASAfter getting off to a great start with two big parties on Friday and Saturday nights, the 2017 [email protected] moved into the business realm yesterday for its first seminar, titled Real-World Solutions: How to Build and Manage Your Brand in Gay Porn. Four veterans got together to offer their perspectives. Jake JaxsonCEO of Media Partners, a distribution and production company that owns CockyBoysstarted off by confessing his love-hate relationship with the concept of brand. A director at his core, he focuses on whether hes enjoying what he creates: If Im authentic and Im real and the people Im working with feel that way too, his work will connect with audiences. Toby Morris of Falcon Studios Groupwhich encompasses four of the industrys oldest brands: Falcon, Raging Stallion, Hot House and Naked Swordcountered that viewpoint: You have to hone in on exactly what your customers are wanting. Douglas Richter, a cam model discovered by Chi Chi LaRue who has been in the live cam sector for a dozen years, agreed: You dont own your brand. A brand is owned by the public. To differentiate ImLives Supermen.com, he honed in on serving an unmet need: I wanted to build an environment where men could go to find a certain kind of content. and only see men who were interested in performing live sex with men. Danny Z of WebMediaProz and ZBuckz talked about building a brand by finding an underserved niche. He noticed there werent any gay Asian sites and went into that market for his first gay site, and it exploded. Now with multiple sites he does cross marketing between the niches because people who eat sushi regularly might want to eat pizza one day. Each concurred that customer taste is an important factor in another area: choosing which models to work with. But their approaches differ. For Richter, offering a broad palette of types is important. He watches the models who join the site, and if he sees an uptick in certain types, he will create a new category to accommodate them. I try to find a home for every guy who wants to do this, he said, whether they be twinks, bears, tattooed guys or BDSM aficionados. I have to help build individual stars brands. For Morris, he focuses on delivering on the brand promise with his contract stars. For Falcon he looks for beautiful, fit men. Muscled but not too muscled, because that would get into Raging Stallion territory, he said, adding, Hot House is more clean cut. Jaxson, not surprisingly, focuses on personality first. Because I has to work with them, he said, noting that he only signs one or two contracts a year. Joking about the reputation of his tight-knit CockyBoys family, he asserted, Were not a cult. On the subject of performers, each man offered some solid advice on how to help performers with their own branding and marketing. Danny z suggested that stars become affiliates, offering mutual benefit for both company and performer. The topic of social media was a major focal point. Douglas shared the guidelines he offers to his cam models: Out of every five tweets, only one should be their URL. Others should be about day-to-day stuff. He pointed out that with ImLives mobile broadcasting, even a trip to the market can be an opportunity to create live content. Jaxson also offered cautionary notes on the overuse of social media: Think about it in your head and if you sound like a jerk, dont share it. Twitter can become very negative, he said, adding, Look at our fucking goddamn president [elect]. From the audience, director Chi Chi LaRue asked the question that haunts a lot of content producers: How do you get millenials to pay for porn. Jaxson was optimistic, noting that his DVD sales are through the roof compared to two years ago. He said finding a lower price point and packing the DVDs with lots of value was an important part of the sales puzzle. Morris emphasized, You need to cast your net over all the distribution channels. For his veteran brands, that ranges from online sales to the venerable direct mail business, which is still strong. Addressing the gloomy truth that direct mail will eventually decline as older consumers fade away, Richter added an optimistic spin: Every day people are dying ... every day people are turning 18. He said the challenge is to create a new brand for young guys. ImLive has launched Sex.sex, where the cost of live cams is treated like crowd funding. Hes sympathetic to the plight of millenials, who dont have a lot to spend and are burdened with costs that earlier generations didnt have, such as cell phone bills. But they also need to be educated: By stealing theyre hurting us and also hurting themselves, because eventually there will not be high-quality content. The Internext Expo continues today at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas with a GayVN seminar titled The Future of the Gay Industry: Insights From the Pros, as well as discussions of social media, affiliate marketing, virtual reality content production, and more. See Internext-Expo.com for details. The event took place in the GayVN Lounge (pictured above), where all the GayVN events are scheduled. LAS VEGASOne of the main draws of Internext is the educational program that on Sunday delivered insights from experts across the adult digital spectrum. More than two dozen seasoned executives took the seminar stage in the Paradise Tower of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino to impart their wisdom on no less than six different trending topics in the tech space. The opening series of discussions covered adult dating, domains, mobile products, live cams, billing and the pot & porn connection, playing to standing-room-only audiences in Festival Hall C, where the industrys original adult digital conference found its rhythm on the second full day of the 17th annual expo. The day got off to a strong start with the Power Dating session led by Sean Christian, the CEO of Revolution Force, the Sacramento-based boutique marketing firm. His panelists included Alfonsus AK Kusuma of Madzuma, Brandon McLevis of DatingGold, Igor Komarenko of AuroraGlobal, Charlyn McNamara of AdultFriendfinder and Michael OSullivan of The Hubpeople. AK, a 16-year veteran who founded the private affiliate network Madzuma in 2015, may have summarized the heart and soul of the panel best, when he pointed out that relationships can make or break any dealing. I think the best tools are yourself, your knowledge, your experience and then your relationships, AK said. So what converts for my landing page might be great for me this week but then I have to know what converts for the advertisers themselves, which is why relationships are very important. Because were not here for quick money were here for the long-term. Christian noted that McNamara, the VP of marketing for FriendFinder Networks, was one of the first media buyers in the adult space. She said the key benefit of managing a network of sites is the ability to customize each promotion. At Friendfinder Networks all our focus is on the user experience, McNamara said. What better way to foster a user than to tailor the landing page to what theyre looking for. Igor Komarenko, chief marketing officer for AuroraGlobal, echoed the sentiment, saying, it is very important for people to feel like the brand is local. McNamara added, Its up to you and your testing and your ability to evaluate stats. We at AdultFriendFinder are constantly testing ourselves with traffic sources, different banners and different landing pages with users experiences. As much as possible I encourage everybody to test on their own to see what works better. Christian asked the panel to close with their views on the state of the dating sector. Mobile is going to be huge, AK said. Its going to continue to grow. Michael OSullivan remarked, Its going to be more niche more of the time. If you can provide a lot of solutions in a lot of different niches in the adult space theres plenty of room. Brandon McLevis, the chief operating officer of DatingGold, concluded, I would like to see more blending between mainstream and adult. There is only so much adult traffic available, but there is a plethora of mainstream. A quartet of go-to guys commanded the stage for The Domain Game panel, as Jimmy Wizzo Foreman (JuicyAds), Brad Mitchell (MojoHost) and Steven Winyard (ICM Registry) fielded questions from moderator Colin Rowntree (Wasteland) about whether the once lucrative domain industry still holds revenue potential. While some say top-level domains are dead in the water due to the massive drop-off of type-in traffic, the panel analyzed the pulse of the domain game in this mobile-first age. The top-level domains that are gonna be successful are the ones Google shows love to. It might not be forever but right now Google controls the internet, said Wizzo, the 17-year industry veteran currently with JuicyAds who has done consulting for various billing companies, traffic networks, pay sites, affiliate programs, tube sites, dating and cam programs during his prolific career. Winyard, the main board director and vice president for ICM Registry, owners and operators of the highly successful Top Level Domains, .xxx, .porn, .sex and .adult, reminded that a domain is only one reason that makes any website run well. Theres about 200 reasons why what makes your website successful; the domain is what you call your shop, Winyard said. Rowntree drew laughs when he confessed to owning MyBowelBlaster.com. What was I thinking? he said. Mitchell, the CEO of MojoHost who owns about 400 domains, noted, everyone always has to take stock of what their traffic metrics are and have a good monetization strategy for their domain portfolio. Really, the most important thing today with domainsthe value is in what you develop into your domains. The original content is king. Wizzo recommended, if youre looking to pick a domain name, dont get too creative because you want customers to come back. They need to be able to remember simple words. It has to be easy to remember no matter what TLD theyre on, Wizzo said. The number one thing isis this something that I would remember? Your domain is your brand, its a very important part. But its not more important than what your brand represents. Without question, one of the most anticipated panels of the weekend was the The Pot & Porn Connection that was moderated by Stewart Tongue, owner of EngineFood and founder of WeedStoreReviews.com. The panel included Nigel Williams (Mint Chip Media), Mike Ackerman (Actually Helping), Tom Hymes (MG Magazine), Lauren MacEwen (7Veils) and attorney Corey Silverstein. Dishing out lots of red meat, the group discussed the booming, yet tricky business of monetizing legal marijuana. Silverstein said there are now 28 total states that either allow recreational or medical marijuana use, yet there are many complicated questions surrounding the business of it. Its going to be a very busy couple years in terms of litigation, Silverstein said. Tom Hymes, the editor of the cannabis trade monthly MG, pointed out that all cannabis laws are local. Its a patchwork of laws and layered over that are the state laws. The most important point for people if youre looking to get into the industry is that you can do so legally, he said. Tongue, with no pun intended, added, nowhere is the legal stuff more hazy than with billing. Silverstein said that one of his legal colleagues in the audience, Larry Walters, created LegalPotLaw.com, but Facebook prohibited him from advertising the site on the social network. Nigel Williams is the founder and CEO of Mint Chip Media, the only search and display ad network for the cannabis industry, and Mint Chip Agency, a creative branding and digital marketing agency for premium brands in the cannabis industry. He said the level of risk varies greatly state by state. Hymes, meanwhile, said the cannabis industry is a monster. Ive never seen anything like it. In adult whoever has the best programmer wins; in cannabis whoever has the best chemist wins, Hymes continued. Its still an immature industry. There arent established relationships between retailers and vendors. But there are extremely sophisticated black market ones. Mike Ackerman, whose Actually Helping is among the first payment processors for companies and stores in the legal marijuana industry, has already signed on to provide billing services for several major brands in cannabis. He predicted before the end of Donald Trumps first term that marijuana would be medically legal everywhere and recreationally legal for half of the US. The mobile seminar featured an all-star group headed by Joey Gabra, managing director of mobile billing specialist, Affil4you, with panelists that included Ovidiu Necula (AuroraGlobal), Christoph Hermes (SaltyMobile), David Vince (Exoclick), Andy Wullmer (SexGoesMobile) and Yannick Ferreri (PornDoe). Certain products work really well with mobile billing, Gabra said. It caters much more to the quick impulse buy. The group noted there is "very little existing fraud" with mobile billing. Mobile is changing all the time, said Vince, the senior publisher account manager for Exoclick. Its important to keep up with whats going on. Carrier billing is changing all the time. Things can change overnight. Christoph Hermes, the founder of SaltyMobile, added, Each country is different and theres a huge difference between adult and mainstream. What is successful today can be super unsuccessful tomorrow. The live cams panel included remarks from Shirley Lara (Chaturbate), Shay Efron (ImLive), Yuval Kijel (Streamate), Jeff Wilson (Flirt4Free), Jim Austin (Stripchat) and Alex Lecomte (JuicyAds), who moderated the group. Lara, the chief operating officer for Chaturbate, said her company started in 2011 and has grown to more than 300 employees with an Alexa rating of about 130. As opposed to having a pay site with pre-recorded content, each cam show is very different, Lara said. The live-cam experience is very unique. Its the personality that shines that makes the users stay. Efron, VP of sales, marketing & business development for ImLive/PussyCash, said getting a user to a cam site should be his final destination. Users spend more than other vertical in porn, Efron said. Yuval Kijel, who manages Streamates new affiliate program and white-label builder, Cambuilder.com, agreed, saying cam users, they stay forever. Its not like a dating site where they stay three, four, five months. We have users from the moment we started. The group agreed mobile represents the future. Mobile rocks. Everything we do is mobile first for a few years, Efron said. if you are not in the mobile vertical you can close and go to the beach. Kijel added, Its a blessing for all of us. It expanded the exposure for camsOur 2017 is focused entirely on mobile, bringing new developments for our affliiates, for our models and obviously for users. It could be features. It could be applications. Meanwhile the billing panel brought out resident experts such as Gary Jackson (CCBill), Frank Gannon (Epoch), Jeffrey Rosenweig (SegPay), Jonathan Corona (Mobius Payments), Wendy Nelson (Netbilling), Karen Campbell (OrbitalPay) and Mike Ackerman (Actually Helping) for a thorough discussion on understanding the numerous options for billing. The evening festivities included the Internext Pajama Party in a private penthouse suite in the Paradise Tower sponsored by AWE, AdXXX, Paxum, Stripchat, Terpon, Epoch and Datetronix. On Monday, five more seminars will commence at 11 a.m. and the show will culminate with the keynote address at 5 p.m. by Gregory Clayman, the president of VS Media, parent company of Flirt4Free. Clayman will speak in Vinyl. The annual GFY Awards will be the main event Monday night in the same spot. For additional Internext coverage, click here. TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - January 16, 2017) - As the government commitment to expanding the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) moves forward, the need is pressing for Canadian employers to assess employee compensation, pensions and benefits, and to prepare for integrating the new CPP into their total rewards strategies. Yet according to research from Aon Hewitt, the global talent, retirement and health solutions business of Aon plc (AON), most Canadian employers have yet to begin this important task. In fact, less than half of Canadian employers say they will be planning for CPP enhancement this year, and nearly the same proportion do not know when they will begin the planning process. The survey, completed in early October, compiled responses from nearly 250 Canadian organizations in the private and public sectors about their attitudes towards and level of preparedness for CPP expansion; 95% of surveyed companies offer some form of pension plan (defined benefit, defined contribution or hybrid DB/DC). When it comes into effect in 2019, CPP enhancement could have a significant impact on employee compensation, pension funding formulas, total rewards strategies and other factors. For Canadian employers, the challenge and the opportunity of enhanced CPP lies in integrating the changes into their rewards and pension strategies. "The CPP enhancement is big enough to provide meaningful benefits, yet small enough that it won't cause the elimination of workplace pension plans," said Allan Shapira, Managing Director and Senior Partner, Aon Hewitt. "The challenge for employers now is how best to integrate a bigger CPP into their overall compensation and rewards strategies." According to the Aon survey, only 13% of employers have started to plan for CPP reform, and 35% will begin planning by October 2017. Meanwhile, 46% of respondents said they do not know when they will start preparing for CPP reform. The employers surveyed share some common concerns. Many (36%) are worried about increased administrative complexity; others (22%) are concerned about potentially negative employee reactions. The chief concern, cited by 65% of respondents, is increased cost, although there is no consensus on how best to address this challenge. Two-thirds of respondents said that they simply do not know. Of those who do, about a quarter (27%) said they plan to absorb any cost increases; eight percent said they will make changes to current retirement plans, and six percent plan to change other employee compensation. Meanwhile, only three percent of respondents said they expect to look at health benefits plans to find funding, even though the CPP changes provide an opportunity for employers to look holistically at their pension, compensation and pre-/post-retirement health benefits spends to maximize value. Story continues According to Aon, a comprehensive strategy to integrate the new CPP into their total rewards strategies is vital for employers. Most registered workplace retirement plans are designed to target an overall benefit level for employees, inclusive of current CPP benefits. As part of planning for public pension enhancement, employers should prioritize assessing benefits adequacy in light of a bigger CPP. According to the Aon survey, however, only seven percent of respondents said they are using the CPP enhancement as an opportunity to reassess total rewards strategies, and 18% intend to do so. Still, more than half (57%) have no plans yet. "The phase-in period for CPP enhancement is a long one, and for good reason, but pension plan sponsors should not look at it as a grace period," said William da Silva, Senior Partner and National Retirement Practice Leader, Aon Hewitt. "The work to design, implement, communicate and administer the changes is significant, and employers should not underestimate it." About Aon Aon plc (AON) is a leading global provider of risk management, insurance brokerage and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing services. Through its more than 72,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to empower results for clients in over 120 countries via innovative risk and people solutions. For further information on our capabilities and to learn how we empower results for clients, please visit: http://aon.mediaroom.com. Follow Aon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aon_plc Sign up for News Alerts: http://aon.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=58 Reuters BENGALURU (Reuters) -WhatsApp is globally rolling out a feature called Communities to organize various chat groups in larger structures, as well as other features such as bigger group video calls and in-chat polls, the messaging service owned by Meta Platforms said on Thursday. The Communities feature will bring together various chat groups under bigger umbrellas where administrators could send alerts to a community of thousands a feature that could be used by workplaces or schools. The app will now also allow chat groups to have up to 1,024 users, much higher than the 256 participants restriction it had until recently, according to a company statement. Photo: Instagram Hungarian celebrity Kata Sarka has joined a list of women who claim Donald Trump made sexual advances toward them while the current president-elect was married. Photo: Facebook The alleged pass occurred at the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow in 2013. Sarka recently recalled the encounter while a guest on Kasza Taxi, a Hungarian talk show in the vein of Carpool Karaoke. She told the shows host, Kasza Tibor, We were in Russia, at the final for the Miss Universe, and then a man approached me and grabbed my hand, drew me to himself and asked, Who are you?' That man, Sarka claims, was Donald J. Trump. He asked in English, and I was so embarrassed, I will tell you shortly who he is, I was so embarrassed that I couldnt say anything else but, Hungary! Sarka goes on to say. Trump then allegedly gave her his business card and told her what hotel he was staying in. Sarka says that Trump invited her to his hotel room, and she declined to take him up on the offer. Hes not my type Sarka told Hungarian tabloid Blikk. She also let the paper take a photo of the business card she claims to have gotten from Trump. Sarka was not a contestant that year but claims to have been in Moscow for the event as the CEO of Magyarorszag Szepe Kft., the company that ran the Miss Universe Hungary pageant at the time. Hungarys contestant in 2013 was Rebeka Karpati. This allegation comes in the wake of a controversial and unsubstantiated 35-page intelligence report suggesting deep ties between the president-elect and the Kremlin. The report also suggested the Russian government has blackmail material on Trump in the form of perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB. The report was prepared by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, on behalf of a Washington political research firm, Fusion GPS. The firm was compiling opposition research against Trump as his bid for the presidency began to take shape. The president-elect held a press conference earlier this week to address the report and dismissed it as fake news. News outlets BuzzFeed and CNN were singled out by Trump for writing stories on the report. Story continues CNN reporter Jim Acosta clashed with the president-elect at the press conference when Trump refused to take his question. Your organization is terrible, he told Acosta. Im not going to give you a question; you are fake news. Trump, once the owner of the Miss Universe contest, has been accused by women involved with the pageant of misconduct over the years. A former Miss Utah, Temple Taggart, claims Trump kissed her during a rehearsal for Miss USA in 1997 when Taggart was 21. Trump denies it happened. As far as Sarkas claim goes, the president-elect and his team have not released any statements. Sarka, it seems, is an Obama supporter; she posted a photo of the president and the first lady earlier this week to Facebook and Instagram, writing, #bestcouple #bestwife #dreamteam #bye. ???????? #bestcouple #bestwife #dreamteam #bye A photo posted by Kata Sarka (@katasarka) on Jan 11, 2017 at 1:07am PST Trump was, in fact, in Moscow in 2013 and in a strange twist even tweeted at the time about meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin. Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow if so, will he become my new best friend? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2013 According to NBC news the two tried to meet during the pageant but were unable to. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. This Account has been suspended. The Portuguese Socialist Party displayed a huge portrait of ex-leader Mario Soares outside their Lisbon headquarters, one day after his death on January 7, 2017 (AFP Photo/Patricia De Melo Moreira) (AFP) Lisbon (AFP) - Thousands paid their last respects Monday to Mario Soares, widely seen as the father of Portugal's modern-day democracy, as his funeral cortege wound its way across Lisbon to applause from mourners. The founder of Portugal's Socialist Party, who served as president from 1986-96, died in hospital on Saturday and Monday saw the start of three days of national mourning. Escorted by about 30 police motorcyclists, the hearse containing Soares's coffin, draped in the national flag, left his family home in Lisbon, where mourners laid red roses -- the Socialist Party symbol -- on a journey to the capital's 16th century Hieronymite monastery. It was there that Soares, then prime minister and soon-to-be president, signed Portugal's treaty of accession to the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the European Union. "Mario Soares will go down in history for his fight for freedom and democracy. We must thank him and follow his example," said Goncalo Garcia, a 16-year-old who watched the procession. Soares's body is to lie in state until midnight in a chapel of the monastery, where the cortege was welcomed with military honours. "Life is too short. You have to live with dignity and leave a good memory of what you did. That way, people continue to live in the heart of their friends," Soares once said when asked about death. He will be buried on Tuesday at the Brazeres cemetery in the west of Lisbon alongside his wife, actress and philanthropist Maria Barroso, who died in July 2015. Portugal's current Prime Minister and fellow Socialist Antonio Costa said Saturday that the country had lost "someone who has so many times been the face and the voice of our freedom, for which he fought all his life". "It's because of him that we escaped communism, Portuguese people didn't want it," said Maria Albuquerque, a 76-year-old shopkeeper who came to sign a condolence book at the Socialist Party headquarters. Story continues Soares was admitted to hospital in Lisbon on December 13, and although his condition initially showed some signs of improvement, he later fell into a deep coma and never recovered. The hospital did not reveal the precise cause of death, but relatives say Soares never fully overcame a spate of illnesses in 2013. His health had further deteriorated after his wife's death. As the incoming Trump administration over the weekend reaffirmed its commitment to simultaneously repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky got an early jump in promoting his vision of a suitable but relatively threadbare replacement. During an appearance Sunday on CNN, Paul unveiled the broad outlines of his plan that contains a number of measures favored by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the nominee to become the next secretary of Health and Human Services. Those include tax credits to help Americans defray the cost of health insurance premiums and increased use of tax-exempt Health Savings Accounts. Related: Rand Paul Is Coming to the Rescue with an Obamacare Replacement Plan But central to Pauls approach is totally scrapping Obamacare mandates and minimum coverage requirements that the Kentucky lawmaker says discourage younger, healthier Americans from purchasing individual plans. Instead, Paul favors dramatic changes in the system that would foster the sale of cheap, bare-bone health insurance policies. Currently plans sold in the individual market under Obamacare must include 10 minimum essential benefits, such as doctors services, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, prescription drug coverage, pregnancy and childbirth and mental health services. Paul would scrap all those requirements and allow people to purchase coverage keyed to their specific needs and income. Coming this week: THE Obamacare replacement bill. Done drafting the bill & will be discussing on @CNN Sunday AM and all week next week! pic.twitter.com/ycpBNBknOl Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 15, 2017 So one of the key reforms we do is were going to legalize the sale of inexpensive insurance, Paul told CNNs Jake Tapper. That means getting rid of the Obamacare mandate on what you can buy. Story continues That approach would also have the effect of lowering the overall quality of health care in the country, but Paul didnt comment on that. Moreover, it would make it far more difficult for major insurers to offset the cost of providing coverage to older and sicker beneficiaries with substantial premium payments from younger Americans. Related: 5 Key Pieces of a TrumpCare Plan that Could Affect Your Health Paul said he will also press for authorization for small businesses to band together to form networks to purchase insurance at a relatively low cost. Paul, who worked for years as an eye surgeon, said, Theres no reason why someone with four employees shouldnt be able to join with hundreds and hundreds of other businesses that are small to become a large entity to get leverage to bring your prices down. He said those negotiations with insurers could also be used to guarantee the availability of policies that "can't cancel you and guarantees the issue of the insurance even if you get sick." Paul dodged the question of whether many of the 20 million Americans currently receiving coverage under Obamacare would lose their coverage under his approach. A key question is whether the Republican majority in Congress and the Trump administration will attempt to rescind expanded Medicaid that provides the vast majority of Obamacare coverage in 31 states and the District of Columbia. Nearly 400,000 Kentucky residents would stand to lose coverage if that were to happen. Paul appeared to favor eliminating expanded Medicaid, insisting that the federal government cant afford to finance the program indefinitely with the national debt fast approaching $20 trillion. My point is that we should be honest about it, Paul said. If Kentucky or Tennessee or Ohio wants to expand Medicaid and they say we have a lot of people struggling and were willing to help them, thats fine. Probably we should then raise the taxes on everybody in Kentucky [and the other states] to pay for Medicaid, he added. Instead, we have this deceitfulness of President Obama saying it would be free. Related: Trump Promises to Repeal and Replace Obamacare Together, But Can It Be Done? Paul last week was one of the first on Capitol Hill to align himself with President-elect Donald Trump in insisting it would be a huge tactical mistake for the GOP to dismantle key elements of the Obamacare law before pulling together replacement legislation. He believes that garnering the support of rank-and-file Republicans would quell fears of chaos in the insurance market and the loss of coverage for millions of Americans. Some GOP leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Pauls fellow Kentuckian, argued that the Republican-controlled Congress should first approve a budget resolution repealing key elements of Obamacare, including its subsidies, taxes and mandates, before beginning the challenging task of adopting a replacement plan. McConnell said that Congress would follow up Obamacare repeal legislation with a replacement program very quickly, but without setting a timetable. But President-elect Donald Trump last Wednesday made it clear that action to repeal and replace had to occur at the same time possibly on the same day or the same hour and Paul agrees. I believe that its incredibly important that we do replacement on the same day as we do repeal, Paul told Tapper. Weve had six years to complain [about Obamacare] and we have complained. Ive been one of those complaining about Obamacare. Replacement should be the same day. Related: Why Republicans Are Hitting the Brakes on Obamacare Repeal Late last week, the Senate and House voted to begin the legislative process that would culminate in final action perhaps as early as next month -- to repeal Obamacare, but without addressing a possible replacement. Paul was the lone Republican in the Senate to vote against the resolution while nine Republicans in the House also opposed it. Ryan and other GOP House leaders now say they agree with Trump that repeal and replace must be accomplished simultaneously, in order to keep their campaign pledge and reassure the public and the insurance industry. McConnell has been non-committal on the topic, in part because he will need Democratic support in order to adopt comprehensive replacement legislation. Vice President-elect Mike Pence reaffirmed Trumps pledge to get both tasks accomplished in record time during an appearance on the Fox News Sunday program. The president-elect made it very clear to leaders in the Congress this week that he wanted to do both at the same time, Pence said. I would anticipate that in the first 100 days that we will deliver on that promise to the American people. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: By Sumeet Chatterjee HONG KONG (Reuters) - Keeping the euro-denominated clearing business in London even after Britain leaves the European Union is in Europe's interest, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirby told Reuters on Monday. The European Union is considering legislative measures to move London's euro-clearing business to the euro zone, but the changes would apply only after Britain leaves the bloc, an EU official said last month. "It's in Europe's interest that London retains euro clearing ... if you dismantle it, then you redistribute euro clearing, then it might end up in New York and then that's not in anyone's interest at all for that to happen," said Kirby, the economic secretary to the Treasury or "City" minister. "So, I am confident that we can keep euro clearing, and Brexit is an opportunity not only for us to get the best possible deal with Europe but also to build our global standing around the world," he said in an interview in Hong Kong. London dominates clearing of derivatives denominated in euros, mainly via the London Stock Exchange's LCH.Clearnet business - a dominance that the European Central Bank has tried to reduce in the past, only to find its attempt blocked by the EU's top court. Talks to move the multi-billion-euro business to a euro zone city, such as Frankfurt, have gained new impetus since Britain voted in June to quit the EU, with advocates arguing that euro-denominated derivatives should not be cleared outside the EU. But industry lobby groups in Britain such as TheCityUK have said keeping clearing in London is vitally important and should be one of the government's core aims in negotiations on new trading terms with the bloc. On Britain's trade partnership with Asia after Brexit, Kirby said that there was enough evidence of continued investments into the UK from across the Asian region, as also from elsewhere in the world. "Particularly in terms of financial services we have a strong relationship with China and as China moves along its rapid journey of financial and economic transformation, Britain will be at the centre of it," he said. Kirby said new and growing businesses such as fintech and Islamic finance in Asian countries including in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia provided good opportunities for Britain and Asia to boost trade ties. He declined to comment on the possibility of Britain reaching new bilateral trade agreements with the major Asian economies, or whether Britain would offer any incentive to Asian investors to remain an attractive destination. "It's too early to speculate on the detail of the deals to be done, but as a general comment I am confident that we can forge a truly global Britain working with countries around the world, including America and China." (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Adrian Croft) Maha Energy AB (publ) Biblioteksgatan 1 SE-111 46 Stockholm www.mahaenergy.ca Press release Stockholm 16 January 2017 This press release is not for release, publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland or the United States, or in any other jurisdiction where distribution of this press release could be illegal or subject to legal restrictions. See also section IMPORTANT INFORMATION below. Maha Energy AB (publ) ("Maha" or the "Company") Provides Operational Update for Brazil. OPERATIONAL UPDATE - BRAZIL The operations concerning the workover (the "Workover") of the SES107D well (the "Well") on the Company's Tartaruga Field near Aracaju, Brazil will commence Tuesday, January 17, 2017. Schlumberger Servicos de Petroleo Ltda ("Schlumberger") slick line equipment arrived on location on Sunday January 15, 2017 and Schlumberger will commence preparatory work to allow rig provider, Braserv Petroleo Ltda, to mobilize its 500 hp Drilling Rig 147 (the "Rig") later in the week and access the Well. The objective of the Workover is to recomplete the Well, install a hydraulic jet pump and to return the Well to continuous production. It is anticipated that the Rig will take 3 days to mobilize and rig up. The current estimate is workover operations will begin on Sunday January 22, 2017. History The SES107D Well was originally drilled in 1994 and was the discovery well for the Tartaruga Field. Oil was tested in the Penedo 6 sand and was immediately placed on production. The Well free flowed oil for 14 months, after which a shallower oil bearing zone -the Penedo-1- was perforated and completed. The Penedo-1 has been free flowing oil since 1996. No pump has ever been run in the SES-107D Well. The use of a pump should provide lift for the oil like the currently producing 7TTG well at the Tartaruga Field, which has been on continuous pump production since December 2015. The Workover The SES107D Well was recompleted as a free flowing well in 1996 in the Penedo-1 reservoir Attempts were made in 2013 to cut and recover the production string deep in the well as part of a recompletion of the Well to install a downhole pump. Unfortunately, the cut was unsuccessful, and the pipe cutter became stuck at 3014 m.; this and 2300 m. of wireline was left in the in the production tubing which together with some partially cut 2-7/8" production tubing need to be recovered before the jet pump can be installed. A very detailed program has been developed to fish the stuck pipe cutter, the associated wireline and the partially cut 2-7/8" production tubing out of the hole. Once recovered, a new hydraulic jet pump will be run in the hole. The Operator has been preparing the well and surface facilities since December for the installation of the jet pump (which was designed and purchased in the United States). As with any fishing operation, many contingencies have been planned for that can impact operations and the schedule The Pump Jet pumps generate high-velocity fluid jets to lower downhole pressures and increase production rates. The basic operating principles of the subsurface jet pump mimic those of the jet engine. Both the pump and engine contain a nozzle that converts pressurized, slow moving fluid into lower pressure, fast- moving fluid by adiabatic expansion. In the case of a jet engine, the fast- moving fluid-a burning mixture of air and jet fuel-generates the thrust that propels a plane forward. The thrust generated by the movement of a high- velocity jet pump fluid, on the other hand, lifts hydrocarbons to the surface.1 The selected hydraulic jet pump is ideally suited to handle Tartaruga's 40 deg API crude's associated gas rate and the paraffinic characteristics. The 'non-moving' parts of this pump and its surface access encourages more efficient production operations and less 'wear and tear' on downhole production equipment than other artificial lift choices. Upon completion of the Workover, the Company will provide updates on results of the Workover. For more information, please contact: Jonas Lindvall (CEO) Tel: +1 403 454 7563 Email: jonas@mahaenergy.ca or Ron Panchuk Tel: +1 403 454 7564 Email: ron@mahaenergy.ca Miscellaneous This information is published in accordance with the EU Market Abuse Regulation and/or the Swedish Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication through the agency of the contact persons set out above on 16 January 2017, at 0759 CET. Maha in Brief Maha Energy AB is a Swedish public limited liability company. Setterwalls Advokatbyra AB acts as legal adviser to the Company. FNCA Sweden AB has been engaged as Certified Adviser. The Company's auditors are Deloitte. The Company's predecessor Maha Energy Inc was founded in 2013 in Calgary, Canada, by Jonas Lindvall and Ron Panchuk. In May 2016, the new group was formed with Maha Energy AB as parent company for purposes of the Offering and the planned listing. Jonas Lindvall, CEO and Managing Director, has 25 years of international experience in the oil and gas industry, starting his career with Lundin Oil during the early days of E&P growth. After 6 years at Shell and Talisman, Jonas joined, and helped secure the success, of Tethys Oil AB. Maha's strategy is to target and develop underperforming hydrocarbon assets on global basis. The Company operates two oil-fields, Tartaruga in Brazil and LAK Ranch, in Wyoming, US. For more information, please visit our website www.mahaenergy.ca. Important Information Publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, of this press release could in some jurisdictions be subject to restrictions according to law and recipients of this press release, or part of it, are required to inform themselves of, and comply with, such legal restrictions. This press release is not for release, publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland or the United States, or in any other jurisdiction where distribution of this press release could be illegal or subject to legal restrictions. Copies of this press release are not being made and may not be distributed or sent, in whole, or part, directly or indirectly, in violation of such restrictions. Failure to comply with such restrictions may constitute a criminal act under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (as amended) ("Securities Act") or applicable laws in other jurisdictions. AIM: MARL TSXV: MARL 16 January 2017 Granite House, La Grande Rue, St. Martin, Guernsey ,GY1 3RS Channel Islands Issue of Equity- Warrant and Option Exercise Mariana Resources Ltd ("Mariana" or the "Company"), the AIM ("MARL") and TSXV ("MARL") listed exploration and development company with projects in Turkey, Cote d'Ivoire and South America, announces that the following warrants and options, due for expiry, have been exercised into ordinary shares with funds received. 152,160 Warrants exercised at 43.4p 152,160 Options exercised at 43.4p 70,708 Broker Warrants exercised at 16p The Company will issue and allot 375,028 new ordinary shares. Admission to AIM Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and the TSXV. Dealings are expected to commence on or about 20 January 2017 ("Admission"). Following Admission, there will be a total of 124,425,733 ordinary shares on issue. Included in the above issuance are exercised options and warrants (totalling 171,180) to Director Eric Roth and as a result his shareholding has increased from 478,191 to 649,371 Ordinary Shares (0.52% of total issued share capital). **ENDS** For further information please visit website at www.marianaresources.com or contact the following. Glen Parsons (CEO) Mariana Resources Ltd +61 2 9437 4588 Eric Roth (COO) Mariana Resources Ltd +56 9 8818 1243 Karen Davies (IR) Mariana Resources Ltd (Canada) +1 604 314 6270 Rob Adamson RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0041 Will Souter RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0050 In U.K. Oliver Stansfield Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5061 Jonathan Evans Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5016 Camilla Horsfall Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3224 Megan Ray Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3203 About Mariana Resources Mariana Resources Ltd is an AIM (MARL) and TSXV (MARL) quoted exploration and development company with an extensive portfolio of gold, silver and copper projects in South America and Turkey. Mariana's most advanced asset is the Hot Maden gold-copper project in north east Turkey, which is a joint venture with its Turkish JV partner Lidya (30% Mariana and 70% Lidya) and rapidly advancing to development. An updated mineral resource estimate of 3.43 Moz gold Equivalent (Indicated Category) and 0.09 Moz gold Equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) in the main resource zone as well as a maiden 351,000 Moz gold Equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) in the new southern discovery zone was reported for Hot Maden on July 25, 2015. Elsewhere in Turkey, Mariana holds a 100% interest in the Ergama gold-copper project. In southern Argentina, the Company's core gold-silver projects are Las Calandrias (100%), Sierra Blanca (100%), Los Cisnes (100%), Bozal (100%). These projects are part of a 160,000+ Ha land package in the Deseado Massif epithermal gold-silver district in mining-friendly Santa Cruz Province. In Suriname, Mariana has a direct holding of 10.2% of the Nassau Gold project. The Nassau Gold Project is a 28,000 Ha exploration concession located approximately 125 km south east of the capital Paramaribo and immediately adjacent to Newmont Mining's 4.2Moz gold Merian project. In Peru and Chile, Mariana is focusing on acquiring new opportunities which complement its current portfolio. Safe Harbour This press release contains certain statements which may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as at the date of this press release and include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, the realization, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource estimates, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, and requirements for additional capital. The words "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimate", "forecasts", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "may", "will", or similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the effects of general economic conditions; the price of gold, silver and copper; misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements; risks associated with international operations; the need for additional financing; risks inherent in exploration results; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters; currency and commodity price fluctuations; title matters; environmental liability claims; unanticipated operational risks; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities; political risk; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's annual financial statements for the most recently completed financial year which is available on the Company's website at www.marianaresources.com . Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Amsterdam, Netherlands - HERE, the Open Location Platform company, today announced that it is the provider of map content for Baidu Maps outside of China to support its recent expansion of coverage to Europe and the rest of the world.HERE has already powered Baidu Maps' desktop and mobile services in South East Asia outside of China for the last two years. Now they have extended to more than 150 countries worldwide.Baidu Maps has more than 350 million active users globally, and is expanding its map service to accommodate the growing number of Chinese visitors to Europe and other parts of the world outside of Asia, along with the increasing demand for high quality map data across the globe.HERE has mapped around 200 countries and makes millions of changes to its map every day using data collected from vehicles, cartographers, and tens of thousands of other sources."People rely on HERE to travel to new places and explore the world," said Bruno Bourguet, SVP and Head of Sales and Business Development at HERE. "We are excited that this extended agreement with Baidu will help a growing number of travelers and tourists, particularly from China, plan their trips and find their way to more countries and places than ever before."Baidu Maps is a comprehensive maps application that includes features such as local search, travel information, bookings, and reviews, both inside and outside of China.HERE Communications http://here.com/en/company/newsroom/media-contacts press@here.com HERE, the Open Location Platform company, enables people, enterprises and cities to harness the power of location. By making sense of the world through the lens of location we empower our customers to achieve better outcomes - from helping a city manage its infrastructure or an enterprise optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, including our new generation of cloud-based location platform services, visit http://360.here.com and www.here.com EDMONTON, Alberta , Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fedora Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced they have received non-refundable financial contribution from the National Research Council of Canadas Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). In addition to technical and business advisory services provided by NRC-IRAP, the funding is being used to develop a pipeline of antimicrobial product candidates. The company is currently conducting studies on a family of antimicrobial compounds with the goal of selecting one or more candidates from this family to advance into preclinical studies in 2017. Our aim at Fedora is to apply our scientific acumen to the challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), stated Christopher G. Micetich, founder and chief executive officer of Fedora Pharmaceuticals. Our first effort focused on the development of a family of beta-lactamase inhibitors that showed promise against all four classes of beta-lactamases and was licensed by Roche in 2015 for further development. Building on that success, we have begun development of a pipeline of antimicrobial candidates to address the incredible need that still exists in the treatment of drug-resistant bacterial and fungal infections. Mr. Micetich continued, Our efforts align closely with the goals of the Government of Canada which are committed to addressing AMR through surveillance, stewardship, prevention and innovation. We are dedicated to working with government organization as well as partners in the pharmaceutical industry to develop new products to treat AMR infections. About Fedora Pharmaceuticals Fedora Pharmaceuticals is developing a pipeline of antimicrobial drug candidates designed to have activity against multi-drug resistant pathogens. Fedora previously developed a family of beta-lactamase inhibitors that was licensed by Roche in January 2015 from Meiji Seika Pharma and Fedora Pharmaceuticals. Under the terms of the agreement, Meiji and Fedora will receive upfront plus development, regulatory and sales event milestone payments totaling potentially up to $750 million. In addition, Meiji and Fedora are entitled to receive tiered royalties on sales of products originating from this collaboration. Fedora was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In 2015, the company received the Alberta Life Sciences "Company of the Year" award and the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership (ASTech) Foundations award for Outstanding Commercial Achievement. For more information, please visit Fedora Pharmaceuticals website at www.fedorapharma.com. HOUSTON, Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Targa Resources Partners LP (Targa Resources Partners or the Partnership) (NYSE:NGLS PRA) announced its monthly distribution on the Partnerships 9.00% Series A Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units ("Series A Preferred Units") for January 2017. Targa Resources Partners LP announced today that the board of directors of its general partner has declared a monthly cash distribution of 18.75 per Series A Preferred Unit, or $2.25 per Series A Preferred Unit on an annualized basis, for January 2017. This cash distribution will be paid February 15, 2017 on all outstanding Series A Preferred Units to holders of record as of the close of business on January 31, 2017. About Targa Resources Partners LP Targa Resources Partners LP is a Delaware limited partnership formed in October 2006 by its parent, Targa Resources Corp. (TRC or the Company), to own, operate, acquire and develop a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. On February 17, 2016 TRC completed the acquisition of all outstanding common units of the Partnership. Targa Resources Corp. is a leading provider of midstream services and is one of the largest independent midstream energy companies in North America. TRC owns, operates, acquires, and develops a diversified portfolio of complementary midstream energy assets. The Company is primarily engaged in the business of: gathering, compressing, treating, processing, and selling natural gas; storing, fractionating, treating, transporting, and selling NGLs and NGL products, including services to LPG exporters; gathering, storing, and terminaling crude oil; storing, terminaling, and selling refined petroleum products. The principal executive offices of Targa Resources Partners LP are located at 1000 Louisiana, Suite 4300, Houston, TX 77002 and their telephone number is 713-584-1000. For more information please go to www.targaresources.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that the Partnership expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a number of uncertainties, factors and risks, many of which are outside the Partnerships control, which could cause results to differ materially from those expected by management of the Partnership. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, weather, political, economic and market conditions, including a decline in the price and market demand for natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil, the timing and success of business development efforts; and other uncertainties. These and other applicable uncertainties, factors and risks are described more fully in the Partnership's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Partnership does not undertake an obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This release is intended to be a qualified notice under Treasury Regulation Section 1.1446-4(b). Brokers and nominees should treat one hundred percent (100.0%) of Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors as being attributable to income that is effectively connected with a United States trade or business. Accordingly, Targa Resources Partners LPs distributions to foreign investors are subject to federal income tax withholding at the highest applicable effective tax rate. A Benin-based pastor who ministers at, Miracle House of God Ministry is currently on the run after a phone recording of an alleged love affair between him and a female member of his church was released. Emokpae Great was also accused of using charms after fetish items were found in his church. Charms, female underwear found in Benin church He was said to have run away when angry youths stormed his church on Sunday January 15, after the husband of the woman he was allegedly having an affair with released a recorded audio between the pastor and his wife. According to Vanguard, the husband, Anthony Ehikioya started suspecting his wife when she refused to have sleep with him for many months. He later asked his children and neighbours to keep an eye on her and they placed her phone on call-and-record. PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App In the recording, Ehikioya alleged that the pastor was heard telling his wife how good she was in bed and that she should come for s*x. Following the discovery, angry youths stormed the church and destroyed everything in the house of God. The youths claimed to have discovered charms, female underwear, photographs of clients and other fetish items. Policemen from the Saint Saviour police division arrested the churchs assistant pastor and took the charms and fetish items away. The pastor's father, Robinson, said his son is innocent and he is being blackmailed. READ ALSO: Charms, people's pants and photos found in a church in Benin He said: I am shocked. My son is a prophet. Those charms were planted by those that attacked the church. There is no evidence of my son sleeping with the woman. That woman just came to ruin my sons ministry. My son is being blackmailed. They said it was through phone calls. Anybody could have cloned my sons voice." Wonders shall never end! Source: Legit.ng 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 Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) A Taiwanese man was indicted in Taichung on Monday for using a mobile phone without permission during a flight, an offense that carries a penalty of up to five years in jail or a fine of up to NT$150,000 (US$4,733). According to the indictment handed down by the Taichung District Prosecutors Office, the 35-year-old man surnamed Liu was busted by airport police at Taichung Airport on May 9, 2016, after he got off a Far Eastern Air Transport flight from Magong in Penghu to Taichung. During the half-hour flight, Liu disregarded the chief flight attendant's request that he turn off his mobile phone, reactivating the phone after the flight attendant left to continue listening to music and taking photos, the indictment said. Liu's disrespect of the ban against the use of mobile phones in airplanes even angered other passengers on the same plane, with some throwing objects at him in protest, prosecutors said. Informed by the captain of the offense, airport police arrested the man at the airport soon after the aircraft landed. Taichung prosecutors looked into the case and determined that Liu violated the Civil Aviation Act, which bans the use of any device that may interfere with navigation or telecommunications in an aircraft. Those who violate the law are subject to a jail sentence of up to five years, detention, or a fine of up to NT$ 150,000. (By Liao Jen-kai and Elizabeth Hsu) ENDITEM/ls And theirs more; Copy/paste I THINK THIS GUY HAS IT PRETTY MUCH COVERED. I Am the New Democratic, Conservative, or Liberal Party's Worst Nightmare. I am a White, Tax-Paying, Canadian Veteran, Gun - Owning Biker. Thats me! I am a Master Mason. I work hard and long hours with my hands to earn a living. I believe in God and the freedom of religion, but I don't push it on others. I ride Harley Davidson Motorcycles, and drive Canadian-made cars, and I believe in Canadian products and buy them whenever I can. I believe the money I make belongs to me and not some governmental functionary that wants to share it with others who don't work! I'm in touch with my feelings and I like it that way! I think being a minority does not make you noble or victimized, and does not entitle you to anything. Get over it! I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to. My heroes are Malcolm Forbes, Bill Gates, John Wayne, Babe Ruth, Roy Rogers, and Willie G. Davidson, who makes the awesome Harley Davidson Motorcycles. I don't hate the rich. I don't pity the poor. I know wrestling is fake and I don't waste my time watching or arguing about it. I've never owned a slave, nor was I a slave. I haven't burned any witches or been persecuted by the Turks, and neither have you! I believe if you don't like the way things are here, go back to where you came from and change your own country! This is Canada ...We like it the way it is and more so the way it was ...so stop trying to change it to look like Russia or China, or some other socialist country! If you were born here and don't like it, you're free to move to any country that will have you. I also think the cops have the right to pull you over if you're breaking the law, regardless of what colour you are, but not just because you happen to ride a bike. No, I don't mind having my face shown on my driver's license. I think it's good ... and yes, I'm proud that ' Canada ' is written on my money. I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don't want you deciding who should be running our government for the next four years. I believe 'illegal' is illegal no matter what the lawyers think! I believe the Canadian flag should be the only one allowed in Canada ! If this makes me a BAD Canadian, then yes, I'm a BAD Canadian. If you are a BAD Canadian too, please forward this to everyone you know . We want our country back! I hope this offends all illegal aliens . My grandfather watched as his friends died in WW I. My father watched as his friends died in WW II . So I'm standing up for the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and the Canadian flag. Enough already . This message needs to be viewed by every Canadian; and every Canadian needs to stand up for Canada! We've bent over to appease the Canada-haters long enough. And shame on anyone who tries to make this a racist message. Canadians, stop giving away Your RIGHTS ! Let me make this clear! THIS IS OUR COUNTRY! This statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration! YOU'RE WELCOME TO LEGALLY MAKE MY COUNTRY YOURS, but please: 1. Get a sponsor! 2. Learn the LANGUAGE, as immigrants have in the past! 3. Live by OUR rules! 4. Get a job! 5. Pay YOUR Taxes! 6. Expect No Social Security until you have earned and PAID for it! 7. Stop Complaining! 8. NOW find a place to lay your head! If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone, then, maybe YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! We've gone so far the other way . . . bent over backwards not to offend anyone. WAKE UP Canada! (HealthDay)Children exposed to addictive drugs in the womb may be more likely to perform poorly in school, Australian researchers report. In the study, these exposed kids lagged behind their peers on grade-level tests of reading, writing, math, spelling and grammar. By seventh grade, about 38 percent failed to meet test standards in at least one of these areas. The study authors said their paper is the first to examine academic results in children with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS)when a fetus is exposed to drugs in the womb. It's a rapidly growing public health problem fueled by the global opioid epidemic. In the United States, it's estimated that an NAS infant is born every 25 minutes, the study authors said. Opioid painkillers such as morphine, Percocet (oxycodone/acetaminophen), OxyContin (oxycodone), Vicoprofen (hydrocodone/ibuprofen), and the illegal opioid heroin are responsible for many cases of neonatal abstinence syndrome. After exposure to these substances during pregnancy, babies experience withdrawal symptoms such as excessive or high-pitched crying, tremors, seizures or twitching, diarrhea and sweating, according to the March of Dimes. Yet little is known about these kids' long-term outcomes, the study authors said. Dr. Stephen Patrick, urged caution in interpreting the study's results. Patrick, who wasn't involved in the study, is an assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. A slew of factors, from children's home environment to the medications they receive to manage withdrawal symptoms, could account for poor long-term outcomes, he explained. Still, Patrick added, "We should be worried that there may be some long-term educational issues for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome. For me, what it really calls for are prospective studies for us to look at this in the United States." The study included more than 2,200 children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome in New South Wales, Australia, between 2000 and 2006. The researchers based their results on tests given in third, fifth and seventh grades. They compared the children with NAS with a control group of over 4,300 kids unaffected by the syndrome. Both groups were matched for socioeconomic status, gender and time spent in the womb. The test results were also compared with those of 598,000 other New South Wales children. NAS children's test scores, on average, were sharply lower than those of both groups of children. By seventh grade, their scores were lower than those of fifth-grade children. The study only found an association between NAS status at birth and lower test scores later in school. The cause of these effects is uncertain, the study authors said. Neonatal abstinence syndrome occurs when addictive drugs such as opioids or sedatives pass through the placenta during pregnancy. "These drugs cause brain cells to die more quickly and impair their proper development," said study lead author Dr. Ju-Lee Oei. She's a senior neonatologist at Royal Hospital for Women in New South Wales. Families affected by addiction also may be more "socially chaotic," the study authors said. Oei conceded that it's impossible to tease out the effects of children's home environment in this study. Her next project will tie in that data. Nevertheless, she said it points to the need for greater family outreach. "Early intervention and support for both the mothers and their children have been shown to be extremely effective in high-risk populations, and the benefits can extend for decades and even into generations," Oei said. Dr. Siobhan Dolan is an obstetrician/gynecologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, and a medical advisor to the March of Dimes. She said prevention is the key. "Every piece of outcome data [on children with NAS] is telling us how concerning this is," Dolan said. "Now we need to identify women [with opioid-use disorders] and get them into treatment and provide support," she said. The findings were published online Jan. 16 in the journal Pediatrics. The study was partially funded by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance in Australia. More information: Visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine for more on Journal information: Pediatrics Visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine for more on neonatal abstinence syndrome Copyright 2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Spiny dogfish. Credit: Doug Costa, NOAA/SBNMS A naturally-occurring compound has been found to block a molecular process thought to underlie Parkinson's Disease, and to suppress its toxic products, scientists have reported. The findings, although only preliminary, suggest that the compound, called squalamine, could be exploited in various ways as the basis of a potential treatment for Parkinson's Disease. The compound has previously been used in clinical trials for cancer and eye conditions in the United States, and a trial in Parkinson's Disease patients is now being planned by one of the researchers involved in the study. Squalamine is a steroid which was discovered in the 1990s in dogfish sharks, although the form now used by scientists is a safer, synthetic analogue. To date, it has been extensively investigated as a potential anti-infective and anticancer therapy. But in the new study, researchers discovered that squalamine also dramatically inhibits the early formation of toxic aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein - a process thought to start a chain reaction of molecular events eventually leading to Parkinson's Disease. Remarkably, they also then found that it can suppress the toxicity of these poisonous particles. The researchers tested squalamine in both cell cultures in the lab, and in an animal model using nematode worms. While their findings therefore only represent a step towards a treatment for Parkinson's Disease in humans, they described the results as representing significant progress. The study was led by academics from the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, based in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Scientists from the Netherlands, Italy and Spain also played key roles. The findings are published in Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences. Professor Christopher Dobson, who is one of the authors and Master of St John's College, as well as a Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge, said: "To our surprise, we found evidence that squalamine not only slows down the formation of the toxins associated with Parkinson's Disease, but also makes them less toxic altogether." "If further tests prove to be successful, it is possible that a drug treating at least some of the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease could be developed from squalamine. We might then be able to improve on that incrementally, by searching for better molecules that augment its effects." Professor Michele Vendruscolo, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a co-author, said: "This is an encouraging step forward in our efforts to discover potential drugs against Parkinson's Disease. Squalamine can prevent alpha-synuclein from malfunctioning, essentially by normalising its binding to lipid membranes. If there are going to be ways to beat the disease, it seems likely that this is one that may work." The study stemmed from research led by Dr Michael Zasloff, professor of surgery and pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in the USA. Zasloff, who also co-authored the latest study, discovered squalamine in 1993 and has since led extensive work exploring its potential as a treatment for conditions including cancer. In the new study, the researchers explored squalamine's capacity to displace alpha-synuclein from cell membranes - a phenomenon that was first observed in the laboratory headed by another co-author, Dr Ad Bax, in the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA. This finding has significant implications for Parkinson's Disease, because alpha-synuclein works by binding to the membranes of tiny, bubble-like structures called synaptic vesicles, which help to transfer neurotransmitters between neurons. Under normal circumstances, the protein thus aids the effective flow of chemical signals, but in some instances, it malfunctions and instead begins to clump together, creating toxic particles harmful to brain cells. This clustering is the hallmark of Parkinson's Disease. The researchers carried out a series of experiments which analysed the interaction between squalamine, alpha-synuclein and lipid vesicles, building on earlier work from Cambridge scientists which showed the vital role that vesicles play in initiating the aggregation. They found that squalamine inhibits the aggregation of the protein by competing for binding sites on the surfaces of synthetic vesicles. By displacing the protein in this way, it significantly reduces the rate at which toxic particles form. Further tests, carried out with human neuronal cells, then revealed another key factor - that squalamine also suppresses the toxicity of these particles. Finally, the group tested the impact of squalamine in an animal model of Parkinson's Disease, by using nematode worms genetically programmed to over-express alpha-synuclein in their muscle cells. As the worms develop, alpha-synuclein aggregation causes them to become paralysed, but squalamine prevented the paralysis from taking effect. "We could literally see that the oral treatment of squalamine did not allow alpha-synuclein to cluster, and prevented muscular paralysis inside the worms," Zasloff said. Together, the results imply that squalamine could be used as the basis of a treatment targeting at least some of the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Zasloff says he is now planning a clinical trial with squalamine in Parkinson's Disease patients in the US. Further research is, however, needed to determine what the precise benefits of squalamine would be - and what form any resulting drug might take. In particular, it is not yet clear whether squalamine can reach the specific regions of the brain where the main molecular processes determining Parkinson's Disease take place. The researchers suggest that it would be particularly interesting to start investigating the efficacy of squalamine as a means to alleviate certain symptoms. If taken orally, for instance, the compound may perhaps relieve the severe constipation many patients experience, by targeting the gastrointestinal system and affecting alpha-synuclein in the gut. It is also conceivable that a treatment of that sort could "cascade" signals to other parts of the body. "Targeting alpha-synuclein in the gut may perhaps in some cases be sufficient to delay the progress of other aspects of Parkinson's Disease, at least for symptoms concerning the peripheral nervous system," Vendruscolo said. "In many ways squalamine gives us a lead rather than a definitive treatment," Professor Dobson added. "Parkinson's Disease has many symptoms and we hope that either this compound, or a derivative of it with a similar mechanism of action, could alleviate at least some of them." "One of the most exciting prospects is that, subject to further tests, we might be able to use it to make improvements to patients' lives, while also studying other compounds with the aim of developing a more powerful treatment in the future." More information: A natural product inhibits the initiation of -synuclein aggregation and suppresses its toxicity, PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1610586114 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences A natural product inhibits the initiation of -synuclein aggregation and suppresses its toxicity, Credit: CHAjAMP/Shutterstock.com Norovirus, also known as winter vomiting disease, is on the rise again according to a report in the BMJ. A familiar set of warnings about ward closures and avoiding visits to patients in hospital was also issued, but why does this one virus cause the NHS such difficulty? While norovirus does occur year-round, there is a winter peak in cases that clashes with the winter rush on the NHS. The symptoms of norovirus diarrhoea and vomiting typically last a day or two. While you may spend those days wishing you were dead, the chances of long-term harm from the infection are extremely low if you are otherwise healthy. The people most at risk from norovirus are the very young, the elderly and people with impaired immune systems (those said to be immunocompromised). Unfortunately, these are exactly the groups most likely to find themselves in hospital. As a result of advances in transplant medicine and cancer treatment that suppress or affect the immune system, these immunocompromised patients make up an increasingly large portion of the population. While norovirus only lasts a few days at most in healthy people, those who are immunocompromised can struggle to clear the infection; it can linger for weeks, months or even years. Fortunately, it is rare that full-blown norovirus symptoms are experienced for this long. It does make it hard to absorb food and gain weight, which is a worry after major surgery and can make recovery much more difficult. As such these patients are a particular concern. It is very easy to pass on the norovirus. One tablespoon of diarrhoea from a single patient can contain enough infectious virus to infect everyone in the world many times over. To make things worse, like many other viruses, people may remain infectious for several days after symptoms have resolved and not every infected person may even be symptomatic. Many cases are traced back to food handlers who may appear well and have no idea they are infectious. The virus can be spread through touching infected surfaces or material and a lack of suitable handwashing or hygiene before. Outbreaks tend to occur in closed environments such as hospitals, cruise ships, schools and retirement homes, as these all share common dining and social areas and have many people eating food prepared by others. In the case of hospitals, many of these have a food court or canteen which is shared by staff, patients and visitors. In summer, many escape outdoors on lunch breaks to enjoy the weather. But in winter when norovirus peaks, everyone crowds together inside, away from the cold. Norovirus is often passed on by people handling food. Credit: Juan Gaertner/Shutterstock.com An expensive virus Hospital staff are at an increased risk of catching norovirus themselves as they deal with large numbers of patients. This is not only unpleasant for the individuals concerned, but also means it's possible for asymptomatic staff to spread the virus to patients and so exacerbate the problem. For this reason hospitals are very careful about decontamination, staff training, and discouraging ill staff from working for up to 48 hours after symptoms have resolved. For an organisation which runs 24/7, and relies on a great deal of shift work, this can be very disruptive. All these disruptions come at a cost lost hospital beds and closed wards, at a time when beds are already at a premium. In the two weeks before Christmas 2016, there were 15 hospital outbreaks of norovirus in the UK, 14 of which resulted in closed wards or restrictions on patient admissions. Past estimates of the costs of norovirus to the NHS put the total at over 100m (in 2002-03 prices). This is the same as employing over 3,000 extra specialist nurses, or around a third of the total cancer drugs budget. The cost to the global economy of norovirus has been estimated at a whopping US$44 billion, with US$4.2 billion of that to healthcare systems. At a time when NHS budgets are stretched, and hospitals are in debt, these additional costs are ones that hospitals can ill afford. With other seasonal and highly contagious diseases such as influenza, the NHS is able to offer and encourage its staff to take up free vaccinations in order to try and reduce the impact on staff, patient and visitor health. However, the absence of a vaccine means this is not yet an option for norovirus. Vaccine trials are underway While no drugs or vaccines are available, several vaccine candidates are in clinical trials. Sadly, immunity to norovirus does not last for long so, much like the flu vaccine, it is expected that regular vaccinations would be needed to make sure you remain immune. This would still be a huge benefit, and allow vaccination of workers at particular risk, or most likely to transmit the virus, such as NHS staff or those in the catering industry. The recent discovery of a means of growing different human norovirus strains in the lab, rather than having to rely on related animal viruses for research, will also boost efforts to find antivirals to help treat infection. If you have norovirus, there is little your GP or hospital can do for you. The most a visit in person is likely to achieve is to spread the virus to other people. The NHS recommends that you stay at home, drink lots of water and, if you are concerned, phone your GP or NHS 111 for further advice. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Katie Hopkins tears apart 'London boy' over nonsensical Brexit remark in savage LBC rant By Lizzie Stromme Mon, Jan 16, 2017Daily ExpressThe fired-up LBC radio host could not hide her annoyance with Kevin as she loudly sighed and put her head in her hands during his tirade.Having none of it, Hopkins thundered there are a lot of things she is embarrassed about, including Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn Im embarrassed to admit there's even a place in the UK called Islington, the LBC host said."I'm embarrassed to admit that our Labour Party is led by someone called Corbyn. I'm embarrassed to admit that 48 per cent of people who voted remain can't accept that they lost."I'm embarrassed to admit that all those people were behind Clinton because all she wanted to do was make everybody a victim.Continuing, the Donald Trump supporter said she was also embarrassed about bitter voters who could not accept the result of a democratic election.Hopkins continued: Im embarrassed that they still think they can protest the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States of America. That's what I'm embarrassed about."That's before we get onto the subject of my grandfather's piles Kevin!Appearing amused with Hopkins outburst, Kevin replied: Im sorry youre embarrassed about Islington but Im a London boy through and through and I love Islington but I live in Finchley.For me the fact is Trump is probably one of the most divisive presidents about to enter into the White House. Of course, we have to accept that. Even you will accept that.I dont, Hopkins snapped.Ignoring the interruption, the LBC caller continued: I suppose Obama was divisive for the people on the alt-right, the KKK, people who probably love you, Katie. Those kinds of people hated Obama.Youve got people out there saying hail Trump and white power. They love Trump and I would want to be as far awayHowever, before he could finish, the clearly fed-up radio host cut off Kevin again as she said both sides of the political spectrum have people who take things to the extreme.Toppling his argument, Hopkins thundered: And youve got people who support Black Lives Matter gunning down policemen so I guess on both sides of this argument there are lunatics on the fringe that none of us would want to be associated with. For many infectious diseases, a single bout of the illness protects a person against contracting it again. In some cases, the infecting microbe persists in the body long after symptoms resolve, and can cause disease later in life. Now, researchers studying the tropical parasite Leishmania have found a clue to explain the link between long-term immunity and long-term infection: The parasite (shown in green) is constantly multiplying and being killed by immune cells (pink and blue), keeping the immune system alert and prepared for any new encounters with the parasite. Credit: M. Mandell and S. Beverley Many infectious diseases are one and done; people get sick once and then they are protected from another bout of the same illness. For some of these infections - chickenpox, for example - a small number of microbes persist in the body long after the symptoms have gone away. Often, such microbes can reactivate when the person's immunity has waned with age or illness, and cause disease again. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studying leishmaniasis, a tropical disease that kills tens of thousands of people every year, believe they have found an explanation for the seemingly paradoxical connection between long-term infection and long-term immunity. By constantly reminding the immune system what the parasite that causes leishmaniasis looks like, a persistent infection keeps the immune system on alert against new encounters, even while it carries the risk of causing disease later in life, the researchers found. Understanding how persistent infection leads to long-term immunity could help researchers design vaccines and treatments for persistent pathogens. The research is published the week of Jan. 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "People had been thinking of the role of the immune system in persistent infection in terms of mowing down any pathogens that reactivate in order to protect the body from disease," said Stephen Beverley, PhD, the Marvin A. Brennecke Professor of Molecular Microbiology and the study's senior author. "What was often overlooked was that in the process of doing this, the immune system is constantly being stimulated, which potentially promotes protection against future illness." In a persistent infection, a small population of microbes remains in the body long after the patient's symptoms are gone. In addition to the parasite that causes leishmaniasis, many kinds of microbes can cause persistent infections, including bacteria responsible for tuberculosis and viruses that lead to herpes and chickenpox. "A lot of pathogens cause persistent infections, but the process was something of a black box," said Michael Mandell, PhD, the first author on the study. Mandell, who conducted the research for the study as a graduate student, is now an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico. "Nobody really knew what was going on during persistent infection and why it was associated with immunity." To find out, Mandell and Beverley studied Leishmania, a group of parasites that cause ulcers on the skin and can infect internal organs. An estimated 250 million people worldwide are infected with the parasite - found in tropical areas - and 12 million have active disease. The disease can be disfiguring or even fatal, but once a person is infected, he or she is protected from getting sick a second time. In other words, infection confers long-term immunity. People are thought to continue to harbor the parasite at low numbers for years after they recover from the disease, including some people treated with anti-leishmania drugs. This persistence may be to the benefit of their human hosts; studies in mice have shown that completely clearing the parasite often makes the animals susceptible to another bout of disease if they encounter the parasite again. Studying mice, the researchers used fluorescent markers to distinguish different types of mouse cells, and found that most of the parasites live in immune cells capable of killing the parasites. Yet, despite their dangerous homes, the parasites appeared normal in shape and size. Further, most of the parasites continued to multiply, yet the total number of parasites stayed the same over time. "Mike Mandell called it the 'Jimmy Hoffa effect' because we couldn't locate the body," Beverley said. "We were unable to show directly that the parasites were being killed. But some of them must have been dying because the numbers weren't going up." The immune cells that housed the parasites are responsible for killing pathogens and activating a more robust immune response. It is this process - the ongoing multiplication and killing of parasites - that the researchers believe underlies the long-term immunity associated with persistent infection, and thus explains why people typically can't get sick with the same pathogen twice. "It seems that our immunologic memory needs reminding sometimes," Mandell said. "As the persistent parasites replicate and get killed, they are continually stimulating the immune system, keeping it primed and ready for any new encounters with the parasite." These findings suggest that there are benefits as well as dangers to persistent infection, and, for some organisms at least, developing a vaccine that elicits life-long immunity might require a live vaccine that has the ability to persist without sickening people. "Usually scientists design vaccines to get sterilizing immunity. They're trying to just kill all the bugs," Beverley said. "But what you really need is protection against the pathologic consequences of the disease, not necessarily sterilizing immunity. For some of these organisms, solid, long-term protection may come at the price of persistent infection." More information: Antiviral screening identifies adenosine analogs targeting the endogenous dsRNA Leishmania RNA virus 1 (LRV1) pathogenicity factor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1619114114 Antiviral screening identifies adenosine analogs targeting the endogenous dsRNA Leishmania RNA virus 1 (LRV1) pathogenicity factor, Continual renewal and replication of persistent Leishmania major parasites in concomitantly immune hosts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1619265114 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Educators at UC Riverside recently completed a 4-year study designed to help young children with ASD in their early school years. Credit: ISTOCK Do you remember a teacher who changed your life for the better? Many people do, and scores of studies suggest that positive student-teacher relationships are one of the best predictors of children's academic success. But young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are less likely to develop positive relationships with their teachers than typically developing kids do, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This exacerbates an already challenging transition into elementary school for these children. The researchers hope that by understandingand ultimately improvingthese relationships, educators can support children with ASD in their early school years and help them make long-term gains in their academic, behavioral, and social adjustment. This study, "Smooth Sailing," has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. UCR's Jan Blacher and her team have spent the past four years studying 200 children with ASD as they move from pre-kindergarten into elementary school, tracking student-teacher relationships, children's emotional behaviors, and parental support. Children in the study ranged from 4 to 7 years old, with about 85 percent of them having what professionals call "high functioning autism," meaning they don't also have intellectual disabilities. The results are newly published or forthcoming in five new papers in top journals in the field, including the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders; Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities; and Remedial and Special Education. Blacher, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Director of the SEARCH Family Autism Resource Center in UCR's Graduate School of Education, said that behavior problems and social skills deficits, which accompany many ASD diagnoses, are one reason that students and their teachers fail to build strong mutual relationships. Externalizing behaviors, such as aggression, increase conflict, while internalizing behaviors, such as anxiety, can reduce the closeness between teachers and students. "When children with autism come to school, they are already struggling to make social and emotional connections, and when that affects their relationships with teachers it feels like a double whammy," said Blacher, who has shown in previous research that many children with ASD feel lonely at school. "A major goal that follows from this research is educating and supporting teachers so they understand how important their interactions with children are during this transitional time." Blacher's group also noted that one cause of behavior outbursts or other instances of "acting out" during the early school years may be an inability for children to control their anger or emotions. Such poor emotional regulation is common in children with ASD. Blacher notes: "Many intervention programs used by schools focus heavily on behavior management, but we found that supporting emotional regulation is an important tactic in helping children develop interpersonal relationships and complete school activities. Helping children with ASD take charge of their emotions before they manifest as behavioral problems will go a long way in helping students build positive relationships with their teachers." Blacher said the team also studied parents' roles in helping children make the transition into school, finding that shared reading increased children's knowledge of contextual language and vocabulary. "These shared learning experiences are social in nature and help support children as they encounter similar activities in the classroom. Early literacy is a strength for children with high functioning ASD, so this should be encouraged, as it gives the children something to be proud of. One hopes that increasing literacy skills will also lead to better classroom adjustment and, in turn, to more positive teacher-student relationships," Blacher said. Donald Trump has been consistent on one thing. He wants to weaken or end regulations on businesses and industries. As if on cue, House Republicans and a handful of Democrats recently passed three bills that would radically deregulate corporate America. Under the regulatory process, executive agencies write rules to carry out laws passed by Congress aimed at ensuring cleaner air and water, food safety and many other things vital to all Americans. The Republicans claim they want to reform the rule-making process to make regulators more accountable. But the practical effect of the bills, and their real intention, is to give Congress new power to repeal existing rules and block new ones. In essence, they would attack the protections in bedrock laws like the Clean Air Act, without directly attacking the laws or incurring the public wrath that would come with a frontal assault. The Senate, which has a stake in the underlying laws, should block these efforts to undermine them, by filibuster if necessary. One of the bills would let Congress repeal several of the regulations finalized in the last year of the Obama administration as a package, rather than one by one. Current law requires individual consideration to ensure proper debate. The second bill is even more devious. Currently, Congress has to actually vote to kill a rule. This bill says that a rule cannot become effective unless Congress votes to approve it. Congress, in short, could kill a rule by doing nothing. The founder of a local smartphone brand that has gone bust has blamed a weak South African rand and high demand for the companys liquidation. In 2015, Fin24 reported that local smartphone brand AG Mobile was planning an aggressive expansion in the country.But AG Mobile took a turn for the worst and founder and CEO, Anthony Goodman, confirmed to Fin24 that the business has been liquidated. Goodman said that numerous factors have led to the closure of AG Mobile ranging from trading losses, an inability to meet timelines and low profit margins. AG Mobile was one of very few South African smartphone brands that managed to enter the market at a low-cost. The devices were sold through mobile network operators and a majority through clothing retailer Pep. The reason the business was liquidated was because of cash funding, we grew too big and the ability to manage and maintain a very high growth capital intensive business with exceptionally owner-risk borrowing terms impacted the business, Goodman told Fin24. Goodman explained that the exchange rate fluctuation had a significant negative impact on the company. He told Fin24 that fast growth for the business coupled with the exchange rate fluctuation really hurt us terribly. We lost a lot of money on the exchange rate towards the end of 2015, he said. Success Goodman, though, said the AG brand saw success from sales within the country and around Africa as the company grew its turnover from R180m in 2014 to R550m in 2015. We saw an exponential growth, so our sales were really strong. But the market itself commands very cheap prices therefore your gross profits are always under pressure, he added. The Pep African chain was a key client of AG Mobile, in some countries AG Mobile saw 60 to 65% of total sales from the chain, he said. Sea vs air freight costs AG Mobile products were produced by a Chinese manufacturer with major input in design coming from South Africa the devices were white labeled and packaged locally before being sold in the market. Goodman explained that AG Mobile units could only be transported to the country by air freight and not by sea driving up import costs. Three million units were transported in 2015 and the difference between air freight and sea freight is approximately R25 per unit which equates to a difference of R75 million off our bottom-line, Goodman told Fin24. The business at that time was geared incorrectly and we were stuck in the cycle because we did not have alternatives. Our interest borrowings were very expensive, our trade funding interest 3% per month in dollars, he added. Botched resuscitations We had to bring in equity, permanent capital into the business. I found two very good opportunities for permanent capital. We turned over a fortune of products from a profit perspective but in the end the trade fund actually pulled the plug, Goodman told Fin24.B-Mobile, which produces mobile phones in South and Central America, expressed interest of a 51% stake in AG Mobile, said Goodman. They came to South Africa and did a due diligence on the business and wanted to buy half of the business and the deal would have been that they owned 51% of the business and 49% would have laid with the creditors until it was paid in full, thats how the equity transaction would have worked, he said. Goodman said that trade funders who were involved in negotiations of the deal had shook hands; however the deal was botched at the end. He added that another undisclosed South African JSE-listed company was brought in on the deal as an equity opportunity, but fell short of the mark. AG Mobile was marketed aggressively in South Africa with Goodman pioneering the space of personality branded devices. In 2015, local rapper, Cassper Nyovest was the brand ambassador of the #Hashtag smartphone by AG Mobile, with the Ghost device being released in 2014. Fin24 CareerJunction has released its December 2016 CareerJunction Index (CJI) report, which shows that software development remains the most sought-after skill in South Africa. The CJI uses data gathered from the CareerJunction website to represent labour dynamics in South Africa. An expected drop in jobs as well as job seeker activity was seen during the month of December, states the report. Demand continued to weaken within the construction, motor, and telecoms industries, with vacancy levels settling between 59% and 63% lower than the previous year. The finance and IT industries, on the other hand, continue to show a promising demand trend. Software development remains the most sought-after skill on CareerJunction, where over 25,000 jobs are posted monthly. During December 2016, over 25% of job postings were allocated to IT professionals with C# and .Net skills at the forefront of market demand. The graphs below show volume trends for IT and telecoms job adverts published on the CareerJunction website over the past 12 months. Now read: 6 tech jobs which will be in high demand in 2017 France, Singapore and Switzerland begin joint testing of experimental digital currencies Oil war is Biden's biggest mistake Japan considers possible deployment of hypersonic missiles by 2030 Germany to install better air defense system over Defense Ministry buildings Erdogan and Stoltenberg discuss war in Ukraine Armenian MOD: Azerbaijani Armed Forces open fire in direction of Armenian positions True cost of Europe's rejection of Russian gas White House tries to explain Biden's statement about freeing Iran Former Pakistani Prime Minister: Either we will have a peaceful revolution or a bloody one Aramyan: Why are police officers' salaries increasing, while defense officers' are not? Pentagon and U.S. weapons manufacturers to discuss Russia, human resources and supply chain Ankara says U.S. may approve sale of F-16s to Turkey within few months IMF: Turkey should tighten monetary policy and give the Central Bank more independence Pope urges religious leaders to keep the world from brink of abyss Putin awards Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II with Order of Honor U.S. says G7 countries realize need for coordinated response to China Round-the-clock curfew is introduced in Kherson Borrell says they can't put China and Russia on same level Olaf Scholz calls on China to influence Russia G7 foreign ministers express 'unwavering commitment' to protecting Ukraine, criticized PRC and IRI Political technologist explains why Pashinyan was elected chairman of board of ruling party in Armenia Erdogan signs up for TikTok China's army is constantly preparing for war amid provocative U.S. actions Kalin: Armenia is constructive about normalization of relations Poland asks EU to suspend fines Putin: Situation in Ukraine was deadly for Russia Portugal to test a four-day workweek US embassy in Armenia issues statement ahead of November 5 protests in Yerevan Dollar, euro go up in Armenia Baku authorities once again refuse to allow PFPA to hold protest rally Iranians commemorate anniversary of US embassy seizure Richard Kauzlarich: Azerbaijan, Armenia FMs meeting in Washington 'will send message to Putin' Russia ratifies protocol on requirements for length of service of EEU bodies' employees for pensions Armenia deputy defense minister in Russia, discusses military cooperation Yerevan receives proposal to hold Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan interparliamentary talks Health minister: We will work with fallen Armenia detainees relatives one more time after which bodies will be buried Putin allows mobilization of citizens with unexpunged criminal record for serious crimes Arnika, NESEHNUTI NGOs of Czech Rep. issue joint statement on plan to expand gold mine in Armenias Karaberd Putin urges to evacuate civilians living in Kherson from the war zone Iran parliament speaker to visit Armenia Ruling force MP: Canada is opening embassy in Armenia because we are one of worlds most democratic countries Girl with Armenian roots ends up in Vladimir orphanage Erdogan says he has agreed with Putin to supply grain to needy countries for free Armenia President, UK envoy agree to continue cooperation, close contacts Armenia FM receives EU Monitoring Capacity Spanish MPs don't approve agreement with Baku as a sign of solidarity with Armenia Japan says North Korea may go ahead with nuclear test Armenia government to allocate about $5M to Karabakh refugees support program Belarusian border service: Border guards intercepts Ukrainian training drone President appoints Ruben Vardanyan as Karabakh Minister of State US embassy expresses concern about human rights violation in Azerbaijan Azerbaijan continues muscle play on Iran border Ibrahim Kalin says Turkey will become an important gas center one way or another Biden: We're gonna free Iran Reuters: G7 countries and Australia agrees on fixed price for Russian oil World oil prices dropping Wizz Air to launch new flights between Venice, Yerevan EU assesses Armenia, Azerbaijan border commissions meeting in Brussels as constructive Artsakh President convenes enlarged working consultation Envoy: China supports Armenians Azerbaijan MOD disseminates disinformation, Armenia army did not fire Armenia ruling party recounts congress voting results Quake jolts Turkey Newspaper: Armenia PM once again manipulates topic of negotiations, Karabakh conflict Newspaper: Studies underway on Armenia MPs business involvement US wants to prevent Germany, other allies from working together with China Protests turn violent in Iran's Alborz Province Portugal is considering abandoning golden visa scheme Biden and Erdogan to meet at G-20 summit NATO supports normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and welcomes EU efforts Bank of England raises interest rates by largest amount since 1989 Scholz says Berlin must change its attitude toward China Cavusoglu and Stoltenberg disagree over Sweden's and Finland's fulfillment of commitments Turkish Vice President to visit Azerbaijan and occupied Shushi Britain buys 250 million pounds worth of oil from Azerbaijan from July 2021 to June 2022 Yair Lapid congratulates Benjamin Netanyahu on winning election Armenian MOD: Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense spreads another disinformation ENISA: War in Ukraine, geopolitics fuel cyberattacks Armenian MFA: Yerevan and Baku agree to speed up work on agreeing procedure of Commissions' activities Zelenskyy will not participate in G20 summit if Putin participates in it WP: Man who attacked Pelosi's husband was in the U.S. illegally At Upper Lars, 30 cars are allowed through per day instead of previous 300: What are authorities doing? Bloomberg: Turkey unlikely to sign Sweden's bid for NATO membership before the end of the year Military servicemen in Armenia to be attested: Discussion at parliamentary standing committee IEA calls for urgent action on gas shortages in Europe French Senate to consider resolution demanding immediate withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenian territory Papikyan: The final number of dead will be published after the identification is complete Armen Grigoryan presents to Patrushev consequences of Azerbaijani aggression Indonesia reveals its own kamikaze drones UN: Russia resumes participation in inspection of ships in Black Sea Grigoryan: Armenia interested in using communication routes through Azerbaijan Investigative Committee: 10 officers charged in Armenia FT: Azerbaijan demands EU funding and long-term contracts for gas supplies Security Council Secretary: Azerbaijani troops must leave Armenian territory US becomes 2nd largest gas supplier to EU Russian Defense Ministry reports release of 107 Russian servicemen from Ukrainian captivity How U.S supports Azerbaijan in 20 years by suspending 907th Amendment? Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will receive less funds in 2023 than in previous two years German government urges its citizens to leave Iran Armenian MFA: Unblocking infrastructures is one of the main directions of talks wapo againsome people never lern..and hillary lost and will likely go to jail eventuallyfrom the horses mouth instead of the horse's a$$ dept:HEALTHCARE REFORM TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAINSince March of 2010, the American people have had to suffer under the incredible economic burden of the Affordable Care ActObamacare. This legislation, passed by totally partisan votes in the House and Senate and signed into law by the most divisive and partisan President in American history, has tragically but predictably resulted in runaway costs, websites that dont work, greater rationing of care, higher premiums, less competition and fewer choices. Obamacare has raised the economic uncertainty of every single person residing in this country. As it appears Obamacare is certain to collapse of its own weight, the damage done by the Democrats and President Obama, and abetted by the Supreme Court, will be difficult to repair unless the next President and a Republican congress lead the effort to bring much-needed free market reforms to the healthcare industry.But none of these positive reforms can be accomplished without Obamacare repeal. On day one of the Trump Administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.However, it is not enough to simply repeal this terrible legislation. We will work with Congress to make sure we have a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country. By following free market principles and working together to create sound public policy that will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans.Any reform effort must begin with Congress. Since Obamacare became law, conservative Republicans have been offering reforms that can be delivered individually or as part of more comprehensive reform efforts. In the remaining sections of this policy paper, several reforms will be offered that should be considered by Congress so that on the first day of the Trump Administration, we can start the process of restoring faith in government and economic liberty to the people.Congress must act. Our elected representatives in the House and Senate must:Completely repeal Obamacare. Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate. No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to.Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines. As long as the plan purchased complies with state requirements, any vendor ought to be able to offer insurance in any state. By allowing full competition in this market, insurance costs will go down and consumer satisfaction will go up.Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system. Businesses are allowed to take these deductions so why wouldnt Congress allow individuals the same exemptions? As we allow the free market to provide insurance coverage opportunities to companies and individuals, we must also make sure that no one slips through the cracks simply because they cannot afford insurance. We must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to ensure that those who want healthcare coverage can have it.Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate. These accounts would become part of the estate of the individual and could be passed on to heirs without fear of any death penalty. These plans should be particularly attractive to young people who are healthy and can afford high-deductible insurance plans. These funds can be used by any member of a family without penalty. The flexibility and security provided by HSAs will be of great benefit to all who participate.Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals. Individuals should be able to shop to find the best prices for procedures, exams or any other medical-related procedure.Block-grant Medicaid to the states. Nearly every state already offers benefits beyond what is required in the current Medicaid structure. The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead. States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products. Congress will need the courage to step away from the special interests and do what is right for America. Though the pharmaceutical industry is in the private sector, drug companies provide a public service. Allowing consumers access to imported, safe and dependable drugs from overseas will bring more options to consumers.The reforms outlined above will lower healthcare costs for all Americans. They are simply a place to start. There are other reforms that might be considered if they serve to lower costs, remove uncertainty and provide financial security for all Americans. And we must also take actions in other policy areas to lower healthcare costs and burdens. Enforcing immigration laws, eliminating fraud and waste and energizing our economy will relieve the economic pressures felt by every American. It is the moral responsibility of a nations government to do what is best for the people and what is in the interest of securing the future of the nation.Providing healthcare to illegal immigrants costs us some $11 billion annually. If we were to simply enforce the current immigration laws and restrict the unbridled granting of visas to this country, we could relieve healthcare cost pressures on state and local governments.To reduce the number of individuals needing access to programs like Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Program we will need to install programs that grow the economy and bring capital and jobs back to America. The best social program has always been a job and taking care of our economy will go a long way towards reducing our dependence on public health programs.Finally, we need to reform our mental health programs and institutions in this country. Families, without the ability to get the information needed to help those who are ailing, are too often not given the tools to help their loved ones. There are promising reforms being developed in Congress that should receive bi-partisan support.To reform healthcare in America, we need a President who has the leadership skills, will and courage to engage the American people and convince Congress to do what is best for the country. These straightforward reforms, along with many others I have proposed throughout my campaign, will ensure that together we will Make America Great Again. YEREVAN. A demonstration against Belaruss intention to extradite Israeli citizenand well-known bloggerAlexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan was held Monday outside the Embassy of Belarus in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. The young protesters were chanting, Karabakh is not Azerbaijan and Dont support the [President] Aliyev authorities [of Azerbaijan], the Armenian News-NEWS.am reporter informed from on location. Also, they wished to meet with the Belarus ambassador and hand him a letter of protest. The ambassador, however, did not come down. As a result, the picketers left their letter of protest and signs in front of the embassy door, and they left chanting, Shame, shame [on you]! But a demonstrator told Armenian News-NEWS.am that this action of theirs will continue. In the letter addressed to the embassy, we wrote that Azerbaijan has violated human rights, he noted, in particular. After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search. The media report that the Belarusian authorities plan to extradite Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan. The students of Armath engineering club-laboratory of Akhuryan high school after Nikol Aghbalyan in Shirak Region of Armenia hosted the project representatives from Ucom and Union of the Information Technology Enterprises (UITE). During the tour the pupils of Armath demonstrated everything they have learnt throughout an entire year. Children became skilled in creating games, doing animation, performing mathematical calculations with the help of Scratch and K-Turtle programs, as well as in object modelling and printing with the help of three-dimensional printer. Here we not only design games, but also create robots, which may become applicable both in army and at home, believes Albert Hovhannisyan, a pupil at Armath engineering club-laboratory. Every time the Armath engineering labs students tell what types of robots they are going to create, I feel proud Ill be living in other Armenia. Our greatest wealth are these children, who quite often suggest more interesting and innovative technological solutions as compared to the older generation, said Hayk Yesayan, director general at Ucom. The number of the laboratory attendees is regularly increasing. Children enjoy learning programming and robotics basics, and after getting the three-dimensional printer they are delighted to do the design and printing of objects used in everyday life. I believe, that 60% of the current attendees will choose the metier of an engineer, said Shushanik Poghosyan, the head of the robotics laboratory. According to the Memorandum of Cooperation signed between the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) and Ucom, the latter is making investments to open around 70 more engineering club-laboratories named Armath in nine regions of Armenia. The project aims to promote the technological education in all schools of the Armenian communities, to assist pupils in their early interest emergence in modern high technology, to promote the development of engineering mindset from early ages and to prepare competent students. The project enables practical support for the integration of qualified IT-specialists into the Armenian and world markets, the exchange of the experience between them, and the attraction of large-scale investments into the IT-industry. It is noteworthy, that the software and assembly drawings of the labs-developed equipment are open to public. The computer programs and systems are armenianized to the extension possible, while during the project implementation for the acquisition of the equipment and software, the priority is given to the local producers, the vivid example of which are the high-quality three-dimensional (3D) printers, mini-computers, robotics kits and other devices produced in Armenia. The export from Armenia to other countries of the Eurasian Union grew by 156 percent in the period from January to November 2016. Member of the Board (Minister) of the Member of the Board - Minister in charge of the Development of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), Tatyana Valovaya, stated the aforementioned at a press-conference on Monday. In fact, Armenia recorded trade growth not only with Russia, but also with other EAEU countries, which shows that the multi-lateral cooperation is deepening inside the Union. Thus, the export to Russia grew by 154 percent, while that with Belarus and Kyrgyzstan increased by 2.3 and 3.4 times respectively. Of course, according to Valovaya, the trade between Armenia and these two countries is not big yet in absolute figures, but such a growth can suppose that the Union states are enhancing their cooperation not only with Russia but also with each other. The overall turnover of mutual trade between the Union states dropped in 2016 too, but much less. The decline amounted to 30.4 percent in 2015, and only 10.8 percent during the eleven months of 2016. In 2016, the growth of export from Armenia to Russia was of a recovering nature after the drop in 2015. During eleven months the export to Russia grew up to $337.3 million. The export to Belarus and Kazakhstan reached 13.6 and 5.6 million respectively. No significant volumes were exported to Kyrgyzstan. Fremont Police are investigating a home invasion after two armed men broke into an apartment at 10:15 p.m. Saturday. The incident occurred in one of the apartments in a building at 600 N. I St. Police Chief Jeff Elliott said when officers arrived at the scene two victims said the men had broken in and brandished a gun. A fight ensued between the victims and the assailants. The victims had non-life-threatening injuries. The suspects, who were wearing masks, fled the scene. Elliott said the case is under investigation. Police hope to make arrests sometime this week. Shabaab Claims Capturing Parts of Qoryoley City, Reports Attacks on U.N. HQ, U.S., Somali, and Kenyan Forces "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the Opioids and Public Health on Physicians' 2017 Legislative Agenda Opioid-related legislation will focus mainly on mandated prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) use but also on physician education, substance-use disorder treatment, and guidelines or restrictions on prescribing controlled substances The American Medical Association's annual State Legislative Strategy Conference held earlier this month in Amelia Island, Fla., concluded with physician leaders agreeing the top issues to address with state legislators during 2017 include the opioid epidemic and strengthening public health, AMA Wire Staff Writer Troy Parks reported. Strengthening Medicaid is one key topic, with many states preparing for debates this year about the future of Medicaid expansion and state medical associations seeking responsible Medicaid reforms that improve patient access and quality of care, Parks reported. Others include reducing the U.S. opioid epidemic and advancing physician-led team-based care. Legislation will focus mainly on mandated prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) use but also on physician education, substance-use disorder treatment, and guidelines or restrictions on prescribing controlled substances, Parks explained, adding that more access to naloxone and stronger Good Samaritan policies for anyone who aids someone experiencing an overdose are on the agenda. AMA's Advocacy Resource Center tracked more than 450 scope-of-practice bills in 2016 that included provisions to establish a framework for physician-led team-based care, and several states will consider AMA model legislation, he wrote. The public health efforts will concern vaccines, firearm safety, reproductive health, and other issues. "Assaults on the patient-physician relationship will continue in many states with legislation that attempts to decide what can and cannot be discussed in the exam room," Parks reported. "A number of states, including Iowa, Indiana, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington, aim to join California and Hawaii in raising the minimum purchasing age for tobacco products to 21. Missouri will attempt to ban texting while driving and fight against a repeal of the states helmet laws. State and national medical societies will be targeting a long list of additional issues such as diabetes prevention, decreasing cardiovascular disease, infectious disease prevention, obesity, student-athlete concussion and cardiac laws, womens reproductive rights, tanning restrictions for minors and many others." There was a time when removing a building from the landscape was a dramatic affair. Buildings were imploded with a boom and a plume of grey dust, or they were pounded by the repetitive thump of a wrecking ball. But these days, thankfully, theres a growing approach that seeks to keep as much waste out of landfills and reuse and recycle as much material as possible. The nonprofit WasteCap, for example, salvages architectural elements and materials from city-owned homes before theyre demolished. And when Northwestern Mutual took down the 16-story "east building" in 2014 to make way for its new tower and commons project, it salvaged much of the material, too. While Habitat for Humanity is best known for constructing urban homes, the nonprofits deconstruction team also does salvage work. And a lot of it. Theres so much residential and commercial deconstruction work from rescuing cabinets before a kitchen rehab in a private home to pulling out in-demand barn wood from an old factory that Milwaukees ReStore team is scheduled out at least three months ahead these days. "We have a lot of people both commercial and residential that will reach out to us when they're going and taking down a building like this as a way to make sure some of the materials just don't end up in the landfills," says Jake Brandt, Milwaukee Habitats marketing and communications manager, as we stand in a giant old Vilter Manufacturing shed on the western edge of Bay View. "We do charge a small fee of only $250 and that's a donation to Habitat to bring our team out there, which is typically significantly less than a standard deconstruction a salvage team would do." Founded in 1867, Vilter produces industrial refrigeration equipment, and during its long history it installed the first unit cooler in a small butcher shop in Milwaukee, and built cooling equipment for breweries, ice houses and meatpacking plants. It built the air conditioning equipment for one of the arenas at the 1960 Rome Olympics and in 2010 Vilter was the official sponsor of the U.S. bobsled team. Now based in Cudahy, the company long occupied this complex of buildings on South 1st Street, between Lincoln and Becher. The buildings are a hodgepodge, built and added to as needed over the decades. As such, theres a wide variety of material here. Habitat was salvaging everything from beam equipment to a scale to painted barn wood to metal and wood shelving, to doors, signs, fixtures, hardwood floors and much more. Basically, anything that would be of interest to customers in the ReStore shops at 420 S. 1st St. in Milwaukee, and 3015 N. 114th St. in Wauwatosa. The guard tower: exterior and interior. And, below, the view out the windows. As we check out the work going on at the site, deconstruction manager Jake Weiler tells me that most of whats being taken out of the old Vilter complex has been going straight to the shops and, in large part, is being sold within a day. Sometimes items are sold on their way out to the sales floor, he says. Sales at the ReStore outlets directly benefit Habitat for Humanitys work building homes in Milwaukee. "On top of that, anything that we salvage out of here, we provide a complete detailed list of what we've salvaged to the donor, and they can write that off on their taxes," Brandt says. In 2015, Brandt says that Milwaukee Habitat did about 75 deconstruction jobs, of which about 43 were commercial. "It's been leaning a little bit more towards the commercial side, but we do both. We were just, a couple weeks ago, at a home in Whitefish Bay that was being completely gutted and took out all these beautiful cabinets, wood flooring, pretty much anything and everything. "This team last year salvaged over $343,000 worth of materials from those deconstructions. That's all stuff that would have just been tossed in a dump, but instead, it's going to raise money for Habitat for Humanity." Deciding what to take and what to leave is key to the process. Anything hazardous lead painted covered in asbestos, etc. is not salvaged by the ReStore folks. Beyond that, its important to understand what will bring returns on the investment of removal. "We've got a couple amazing team-leader volunteers that have been volunteering with us since about 2010," says Brandt. "One of them comes from an interior design background, so she's got an eye to kind of know what's there going to be a market for. "For example, right now we're salvaging all the barn wood off of this building here. That's the kind of stuff that people are just eating up. Sometimes it's trial and error. We'll pull things that we think we see value in and got to put it in the ReStores to find out, but typically it's on our staff to look at the items and see what's there is going to be a good resale market for." The day I visited there were perhaps a dozen ReStore volunteers working on the long factory building that runs along the east side of South 1st Street the one with that little guard tower turret on the corner of Becher while a demolition team worked to clear a previously deconstructed building behind it. They were taking apart metal shelving units and wooden storage cabinets. They were pulling apart workbenches built into one of the walls up in the mezzanine. Outside, a couple was taking red-painted barn wood clapboards off the exterior. There were some other cool materials, like wooden paving "stones" that had been used to "tile" the factory floor. The ones that had been removed were piled up like a heap of coal. Alas, these were being left behind because they were laced with creosote. These folks were working hard and seemed to be having a great time, too, despite or maybe because of the fact that it wasnt a paid job. "This team is absolutely all rock stars," says Brandt. "These guys are out here every single week. Some of them are retired teachers. One was an interior designer before this. Another one of our volunteer leaders used to work at U.S. Bank. So it's really kind of diverse backgrounds coming together because they see how much value that they can bring to Habitat for Humanity. "Every Wednesday, they are at a new deconstruction project and, like I said, they're all volunteers. We have anywhere from to 10 to 20 volunteers on this team that are coming out every single week. It's really amazing. Amazing people." As Milwaukee honors the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, we look back at the occasions on which Dr. King spoke in Milwaukee in this story from the OnMilwaukee archives. In his lifetime, in addition to a commitment to nonviolent protest, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was known for his splendid oratorical abilities and, especially, his remarkable landmark speeches about racism, segregation, equality and other issues key issues of the Civil Rights Movement. His words have become etched into the American psyche. Dr. King spoke in Milwaukee on a couple occasions. His first speech here was delivered on Aug. 14, 1957 at the Grand Avenue Congregational Church (now the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center), 2133 W. Wisconsin Ave. He returned on Jan. 27, 1964 for a standing-room-only event at the Milwaukee Auditorium (now the Miller High Life Theatre). According to newspaper reports, at the Auditorium Dr. King spoke to 6,300 Milwaukeeans for about 40 minutes after holding a press conference upon his arrival at Mitchell Field. Here are some of the highlights: King encouraged people to erase two myths: "Only time can solve the problems of racial integration" and "Civil Rights legislation is not important." "It may be true that you cannot legislate morality but behavior can be regulated." "Law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. ... Law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me." "Time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively ... We must help time and we must realize that the time is always right to do right." "We have argued and discussed civil rights enough." He cautioned against getting "bogged down in the paralysis of analysis. ... This problem will not work itself out. Somebody must be dedicated. Somebody must be willing to stand up. There is a need for a sort of divine discontent." "It takes a strong person to be nonviolent. It has a way of disarming the opposition. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to handle it." "We will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope." It is also interesting to note that the FBI reportedly contacted Marquette University on March 4, 1964, asking that the school not to bestow an honorary degree on Dr. King. He was, they said, affiliated with communists. After King's assassination in April 1968, 15,000 people marched through the streets of Downtown Milwaukee. It remains the largest civil rights demonstration in city history and was among the biggest in the country at the time. Even after the ground surface freezes in the fall, Alaskan soils can continue to emit carbon. Credit: NOAA/Mandy Lindeberg A new NASA-led study has found that in at least part of the Arctic, scientists are not doing as good a job of detecting changes in carbon dioxide during the long, dark winter months as they are at monitoring changes during the short summer. That's a concern, because growing Arctic plants can act as a brake on global warming rates by removing carbon from the atmosphere, but increasing cold-season emissions could overwhelm the braking effect and accelerate global warming. Led by Nicholas Parazoo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, the new study compares our ability to observe increases in cold-season emissions of carbon dioxide and increases in warm-season removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The cold-season emissions come mainly from deep soil layers that retain enough summer heat to remain thawed after the soil's surface freezes in the fall. As the climate continues to warm, these buried layers are expected to remain unfrozen later and later into the winter, releasing more and more carbon. It will be important for scientists to track these releases carefully. However, it's hard to monitor carbon dioxide in the Far North. Alaska is more accessible than most of the Arctic, but most of the state is too remote and rugged for ground measurements to be collected. Satellite and airborne measurements fill these geographical gaps, but their higher-altitude measurements capture carbon dioxide that drifted into the state from sources that may be far outside the Arctic, as well as the locally produced gas, making small local changes hard to spot. Local and long-distance carbon Parazoo and his co-authors conducted a series of simulations with a global carbon forecast model. First they predicted how carbon dioxide will change as plants grow and deep soil layers thaw, then they simulated how well those changes could be observed if today's airborne and satellite measurements continued unchanged in the future. They used airborne data collected from 2009 to 2013 by NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, as well as satellite data from the Japanese Greenhouse Gas Observing Satellite (GOSAT). The researchers found that all measurements were dominated by carbon that originated elsewhere, with only 10 percent of carbon coming from Alaska sources. Isolating that small amount and then monitoring how it may be changing as the climate changes is difficult. However, because CARVE and NOAA research aircraft collect data at multiple altitudes, the measurements provide information about how carbon dioxide changes with altitude. Removing upper-altitude measurements, the team found that lower-altitude carbon dioxide was about half locally produced. That makes it easier to track changes in the local carbon dioxide. Aircraft also can collect data much later in the year than currently orbiting satellites, which require abundant sunlight to make their measurements. These characteristics mean that aircraft have the potential to monitor increases in cold-season emissions. Airborne measurements are key The study suggests that year-round airborne measurements across the state are the key to monitoring carbon changes, but there is no ongoing airborne program currently doing year-round carbon monitoring in Alaska. The scientists concluded that an expanded network of aircraft measurements could provide the temporal and spatial coverage needed to avoid future emissions going unwatched. Parazoo noted that several large-scale planning efforts are underway for future Alaskan and Arctic observing systems, so now is a critical time to develop new strategies and technologies that focus on these vital cold-season measurements. "We know [the Arctic] has the potential to change through warming and permafrost thaw, and those changes would have global impacts," he said. "We want to have the scientific capability to measure and interpret those changes when and if they happen. Our results suggest we can use aircraft data to detect those changes in as little as 30 years." A paper on the research, "Detecting Regional Patterns of Changing CO2 Flux in Alaska," is published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 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. To get at the heart of Malagasy genetic ancestry and reconstruct their history, a researcher team led by Dr. Francois-Xavier Ricaut investigated genome-wide genotyping data of Malagasy populations along with populations across the Indian Ocean, including two groups of anthropological interest: the Banjar and the Ngaju from Southeast Borneo.A rope bridge leading to a Dayak village, Southeast Borneo. Credit: F-X Ricaut More than 4,000 years ago, a proto-globalization process started in the Indian Ocean, one of the outcomes being a great human migration of African and Asian peoples spreading across the Indian Ocean to inhabit the fourth largest island in the world, Madagascar. Austronesian peoples came from Borneo on boats, and Bantu migrants crossed over from East Africa. Overall, the Malagasy is thought to be composed by more than a dozen of ethnic groups, and the specific geographic, linguistic origins and settlement dates are still hotly debated. To get at the heart of Malagasy genetic ancestry and reconstruct their history, a researcher team led by Dr. Francois-Xavier Ricaut investigated genome-wide genotyping data of Malagasy populations along with populations across the Indian Ocean, including two groups of anthropological interest: the Banjar and the Ngaju from Southeast Borneo A new picture has emerged on the settlement of Madagascar. Ricaut's group has shown that the Malagasy genetic diversity is 68 percent African and 32 percent Asian. Based on their evidence, the Banjar were the most probable Asian population that traveled to Madagascar. The genetic dating supports the hypothesis that this Austronesian migration occurred around 1,000 years ago, while the last significant Bantu migration to Madagascar began 300 years later, perhaps following climate change in Africa. Lastly, the authors propose that a language shift occurred in Southeast Borneo after the migration of Banjar to Madagascar. It is thought that the Banjar, currently speaking a Malay language, presumably spoke a language closer to that reconstructed for Proto-Malagasy. This linguistic change would have followed a major cultural and genetic admixture with Malay, driven by a Malay Empire trading post in Southeast Borneo. The collapse of the Malay Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries could correspond to the end of the Malay gene mix into the Banjar population. Dayak village with houses on pilotis, Southeast Borneo. Credit: F-X Ricaut "Our study is the first to reconcile data and hypotheses coming from linguistic, archaeological and genetic research to build an anthropological scenario placing the Malagasy ancestry in the Banjar group, living 6000km away," says Dr. Ricaut. A landscape from South of Madagascar. Credit: T. Letellier Shephard Ts'olo Lesofe secretly takes his sheep down to drink from the controversial Katse dam in Lesotho, which only provides water to South Africa For farmer Mohlakoane Molise, the view of the enormous Katse dam from his smallholding high in the mountains of Lesotho taunts him daily. His country is suffering through its worst drought in 35 years, but the vast and vital water reserves remain out of reach, destined instead for export to neighbouring South Africa. "I am very angry about that water, because it could benefit us, we could use it to water the crops when there is a drought. But that's not happening," the 65-year-old widower told AFP. Kneeling in front of his round, thatch-roofed hut, he sorted through his maize, examining each grain, one-by-one. The operation didn't take long. His total annual harvest filled just two large sacks, in place of the usual dozen. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the 2016 harvest for Lesotho's primary crop maize is estimated at 25,000 tonnes, a dramatic drop from last year's 78,000-tonne haul. Instead, the mountainous kingdom - entirely landlocked by South Africa - must import food from its larger neighbour. But it too has been hit by the drought after the El Nino weather phenomenon wreaked havoc on the region's rainfall patterns, and maize prices have sky-rocketed by 60 percent in the last year. According to the United Nations, 40 million people across southern Africa risk malnutrition by next year's harvest. "From September, we'll have nothing left and we'll struggle to buy maize from the shop," said Molise. According to the United Nations, 40 million people across southern Africa risk malnutrition by next year's harvest Below, the immense dark blue of the dam stood out in stark contrast to the bare, brown mountains. 'It's like a desert' The valley here was flooded in the nineties to make way for Katse. The deal: hydroelectricity for impoverished Lesotho in exchange for a reliable water supply to the bustling cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. "There were fields around the river before the dam was built, and there were trees, but they are covered by water," said Molise. "Since the dam is here, it's difficult to get water. The crops are very poor, even the grazing land. It's like a desert." In Sephareng, the village tap has run dry for months. Residents must instead make their way up the mountain - a good half-hour walk along a rocky trail - to a communal pump. There, a feeble trickle of water fills their buckets, while their cows and donkeys drink from the small puddles left behind by a vanishing stream. For its part, Africa's second-largest dam is fulfilling its mandate, despite the drought. "The level today is about 63.4 percent, which is quite low," said Tatuku Maseatile, Katse acting branch manager for the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). "We are still able to meet our annual targets in terms of both generation and water transfer." From his office high up on the soaring dam wall, he had an unparallelled view of the waters below. Farmer Mohlakoana Molise sorts through his last yield of maize "I do think people are benefiting from the dam," he said, ticking the projects off: a water supply system, construction jobs, two industrial fishing projects, schools. "And roads in the mountains, tarred roads brought by the project - another direct spin-off - and a clinic built and transferred to the government." Disastrous consequences Along those tarred roads, women trudged uphill for hours to reach the clinic for the WFP's monthly food distribution. "We give them four packs each," explained Mamakase Grace Sello, 21, a nutrition student interning with the WFP. "It's for lactating or pregnant mothers, and infants below the age of two. But we know that often the whole family eats some, including the fathers, even if they should not. The nutrients are for the babies." In a country where the overwhelming majority of families depend on their own crops for food and where nearly a quarter of the population is affected by AIDS, charities are predicting disastrous consequences by next year's harvest. Earlier this year, the Lesotho government declared the drought a natural disaster. "I've never seen a drought like this," said shepherd Ntoaesele Mashongoane, 32. "This drought is really terrible, especially for the pregnant sheep. They don't have enough grass and there's no water." His flock moved down the steep mountainsides to the water's edge for a drink - a small consolation - and the deep blue of the dam reflected the skies above, not a raindrop in sight. 2016 AFP Temnothorax rugatulus. Credit: Arizona State University As humans, we constantly strive for a good work-life balance. New findings by researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology suggest that ants, long perceived as the workaholics of the insect world, do the same. In fact, according to these researchers, it is imperative that some ants rest while others work to conserve food, energy and resources for the colony. And the larger the colony, the more important this work-rest balance becomes. "It has been a long-standing question in the field as to why large colonies of ants use less per-capita energy than small colonies," says Dr. Chen Hou, assistant professor of biological sciences at Missouri S&T and research team lead. "In this work, we found that this is because in large colonies, there are relatively more 'lazy workers,' who don't move around, and therefore don't consume energy. "We found that the portion of inactive members of a group increases in a regular pattern with the group size," Hou says. The research team consistently observed that 60 percent of workers were not moving around in a 30-ant group, whereas this percentage increased to 80 percent when the group size increased to 300 ants. "The simultaneous energetic measurements showed that the per capita energy consumption in the 300-ant group is only 50 percent of that in the 30-ant group," Hou says. By not consuming energy, these "lazy" ants are actually saving resources for the colony and making the colony more productive. This realization could provide valuable insight into making our societies more productive and sustainable. "Humans are like ants in a way that we all live together in groups, collaborating toward our own betterment," Hou says. "Both humans and ants face similar problems of allocating resources based on tasks and energy. Understanding how ants spend their energy in relation to their group and why they do so will provide insight into conditions for individuals that allow a group to perform collective optimization of behavior, that is, in the context of sustainable use of scarce resources." Hou and his team, which includes two undergraduate Missouri S&T students, discuss their findings in a forthcoming issue of the journal Insect Science. "Maximizing resource acquisition would require most individuals to be highly active, but would also result in high energy expenditure and long average foraging time. In contrast, minimizing time and energy expenditure would require most individuals to be inactive, but would also result in low resource acquisition," Hou says. "Thus, we postulate that ant colonies balance these two optimization rules by the coordination of the forager's interaction." Hou says his team came to its conclusion using a state-of-the-art computerized vision analysis program to track the motion trajectories of ants. His colleague, Dr. Zhaozheng Yin, assistant professor and Daniel C. St. Clair Fellow of computer science at Missouri S&T, developed the program. Using Yin's automatic algorithm, the research team was able to analyze the movements of ants over longer periods of time and higher temporal resolution than had ever previously been conducted. Previous studies had only analyzed the movements of ants in minute-long intervals. The analysis of a two-hour-long video by the research team showed a large variation in the average walking speed of ants in the colony, from .2 centimeters a second to 1.4 centimeters a second. "This indicates it is likely that the analyses of one-minute observations give only momentary snapshots, and may not well represent the ants' behaviors over long periods," says Hou. "These comparisons highlight the advantage of our automatic computerized tracking technique, because it is difficult, if not possible, to manually digitize coordinates of individual ants with high temporal resolution over a long period." By tracking ants' walking behaviors over longer periods of time, the researchers also determined how much energy ants consume while working as opposed to resting. "We found that walking ants consume five times more energy than resting ants," says Hou. "This means that energy wise, one walking ant is equivalent to five resting ants. Thus, if a group has 20 percent active members, this group would consume 180 percent more energy than a similar sized group with all inactive members." The research team, which also includes sophomore Nolan Ferral and junior Kyara Holloway, both biological sciences majors at Missouri S&T, and Mingzhong Li, a Ph.D. student in computer science, shared its findings in an article titled "Heterogeneous activity causes a nonlinear increase in the group energy use of ant workers isolated from queen and brood." The article will be published in an upcoming issue of Insect Science. "It is intuitive that colonies have inactive members, because these members may serve a backup role or buffer, which would be activated when colonies are under stress, such as an urgent need for nest maintenance or defense," says Hou. "But it is unclear why the proportion of the inactive members is not a constantwhy larger colonies have relatively more 'lazy' workers. Thus, our study calls for future research on ant interaction networking and behaviors." More information: Nolan Ferral et al. Heterogeneous activity causes a nonlinear increase in the group energy use of ant workers isolated from queen and brood, Insect Science (2016). DOI: 10.1111/1744-7917.12433 An artists depiction of GRIFEX in orbit. Credit: NASA The GEO-CAPE ROIC In- Flight Performance Experiment (GRIFEX) CubeSat was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday, January 31, 2015, as an auxiliary payload to the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. GRIFEX is a 3-unit (3U, 10x10x30 cm) CubeSat designed to verify the performance of a new spaceborne technology to study conditions in Earth's atmosphere. GRIFEX includes a state-of-the-art readout integrated circuit (ROIC)/Focal Plane Array (FPA) with in-pixel digitization and an unprecedented frame rate of 16 kHz. Intended for future imaging interferometry instruments and missions, the technology specifically targets the requirements of the GEOstationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEOCAPE) mission. GEO-CAPE was recommended by the NRC's Earth Science Decadal Survey to investigate the physical, chemical, and dynamical processes that determine the composition and air quality of Earth's troposphere. GRIFEX was released into space by a Poly-PicoSatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD) mounted on the upper stage of the Delta II rocket about 107 minutes after launch. Amateur radio collaborators in Europe were the first to detect the GRIFEX signal beacon about two hours after release. GRIFEX was put into an approximately 650 km circular, polar, low Earth orbit with a 95-minute orbit period. The GRIFEX project has fully demonstrated a key technology that will enable hourly, high-resolution spatial and spectral measurements of rapidly changing atmospheric chemistry and pollution transport from a geostationary orbit. The ROIC will enable development of all-digital FPAs capable of the high-speed imaging needed to observe the rapidly evolving conditions in the troposphere. This capability is relevant to the study of climate change, as well as for future missions such as GEO-CAPE that require advanced detectors. The GRIFEX team reported complete, successful demonstration of the GRIFEX ROIC/ detector in the space environment within the first six months of operation. As of this report, the spacecraft is still healthy and operational and is expected to continue sending data for many months to come. Yhe GRIFEX ROIC focal plane array. Credit: D. Rider,JPL/Caltech Provided by NASA Retrospection: Self-reflection of ones own past. Credit: Yasushi Miyashita (Phys.org)A team of researchers with the University of Tokyo School of Medicine has found strong evidence for the location in the brain of metamemory in macaque monkeys. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their three-pronged approach to search for the location and what they found. Metamemory is the ability to gauge how strongly someone believes they remember something. After cooking and eating dinner, for example, how much confidence do you have that you turned off the oven? That moment when you search your memory and then make a judgment on how strongly you feel about your degree of recall is your metamemory at work. Until recently, many scientists believed that only humans had metamemory, but subsequent studies have shown that other primates have it, as do some birds and rodents. But until now, it was not known where in the brain metamemory takes place. To find out, the researchers devised a three-pronged approach. The first part of their study involved teaching a group of macaque monkeys to play a memory gamethe monkeys were rewarded with differing amounts of juice based on how confidently they remembered images they had been shown earlier and if they were correct. The second step involved having the monkeys play the same game while inside of an MRI machine and watching which parts of the brain lit up. Doing so allowed the researchers to discern a pattern of lighting up in a region of the prefrontal brain. Experimental design and metamemory task. Whole-brain functional localization of metamemory networks for remote and recent events via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral reversible inactivation with a GABA-A receptor agonist (muscimol) in macaque monkeys performing a metamemory task. Credit: Courtesy of Science Realizing that brain portions lighting up does not always prove that an area of the brain is actually involved in a given activity, the researchers embarked on the third step, numbing the part of the brain in the monkeys that lit up in the MRI machine and then seeing if it impacted their ability to play the memory game. The researchers report that it did, disabling the same part of the prefrontal brain reduced their confidence in their ability to recall a memory, though doing so did not reduce their ability to build new memories or to recall those they already had. The researchers suggest their research might be broadened to the study of metamemory in other animals and perhaps even in humansand their approach could possibly be applied to other brain functions such as judging how strongly a person or animals feels about the strength of an emotion. More information: Kentaro Miyamoto et al. Causal neural network of metamemory for retrospection in primates, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aal0162 Abstract We know how confidently we know: Metacognitive self-monitoring of memory states, so-called "metamemory," enables strategic and efficient information collection based on past experiences. However, it is unknown how metamemory is implemented in the brain. We explored causal neural mechanism of metamemory in macaque monkeys performing metacognitive confidence judgments on memory. By whole-brain searches via functional magnetic resonance imaging, we discovered a neural correlate of metamemory for temporally remote events in prefrontal area 9 (or 9/46d), along with that for recent events within area 6. Reversible inactivation of each of these identified loci induced doubly dissociated selective impairments in metacognitive judgment performance on remote or recent memory, without impairing recognition performance itself. The findings reveal that parallel metamemory streams supervise recognition networks for remote and recent memory, without contributing to recognition itself. Journal information: Science 2017 Phys.org This Jan. 4, 2017, image provided by the U.S. Energy Department and its contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership shows workers moving waste underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The repository, the federal government's only underground spot for disposing of low-level nuclear waste, had been shuttered for nearly three years since a 2014 radiation release. (Sam Christensen/Nuclear Waste Partnership via U.S. Energy Department) The reopening of the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository nearly three years after a radiation leak marks a key step toward cleaning up a decadeslong legacy of bomb-making and research, but the U.S. energy secretary said more needs to be done before a backlog of contaminated material starts heading to the New Mexico desert again. The radiation release halted work at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and derailed a multibillion-dollar cleanup program, raising questions about oversight across the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and leading waste to build up at sites around the country. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told The Associated Press that sweeping changes have been made to improve safety and that hard work by employees and technological advancements over the last three years should bolster public confidence in cleanup efforts following the 2014 leak. "We are very, very excited about getting at least a resumption of operations," he said during an interview late Sunday. "I do want to caution we will not be at full speed yet for a few years." Moniz, Gov. Susana Martinez, members of the state's congressional delegation and others gathered Monday to formally mark the reopening of the site in southern New Mexico. Officials shut down the repository in February 2014 after a chemical reaction inside a drum of inappropriately packed waste caused the lid to burst, contaminating some disposal vaults, corridors and air shafts. The facility is carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile below the desert surface, with the idea that eventually the shifting salt will entomb the waste. Moniz acknowledged that the closure caused a backlog of waste at sites including northern New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where the basic materials used to fabricate nuclear weapons were produced. The secretary is hopeful shipments can resume later this year, but work to move the waste underground takes more time now because of the extra clothing, respirators and heavy monitoring devices that workers must wear to protect against the contamination. Limited ventilation also slows the work. While no schedule has been finalized, officials expect the repository will be accepting about five shipments a week later this year. The radiation leak also triggered intense state and federal investigations that revealed mismanagement, lax oversight and a failure to follow existing policies. New Mexico cited the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Los Alamos labwhere the drum was packedfor numerous permit violations, while federal investigators detailed a list of corrective actions. Negotiations eventually led to the largest settlement ever between the Energy Department and a state. "Bottom line: We moved quickly to hold the federal government accountable," Gov. Martinez said in a statement. She also thanked Moniz and the department for taking responsibility, noting the importance of the repository to the U.S. and the state's economy. The leak has been costly, with cleanup expected to approach a half-billion dollars once a new, permanent ventilation system is installed. Watchdog groups also have accused the federal government of rushing to reopen the facility. Following a series of reviews and an inspection by New Mexico regulators, workers last Wednesday moved the first two pallets of waste from an above-ground storage building underground. Moniz said the department has learned a lot since 2014: the criteria for characterizing, treating and packaging waste has been overhauled and numerous technological advancements have been made as scientists worked to solve problems the agency had not encountered before. "The workers had some really challenging environments to deal with because of the contamination," he said. "That really made for a tough period, but again ingenuity came to the fore." 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. B.K. Song collects water samples from an over-fertilized lake for analyses of microbial communities and nutrients. Credit: David Malmquist Those concerned with the health of Chesapeake Bay are familiar with nitrogen as a major pollutant whose excess runoff into bay waters can lead to algal blooms and low-oxygen dead zones. Perhaps less familiar is the significant role that a form of nitrogen gas plays in greenhouse warming and the destruction of Earth's ozone layer. Now, an international group of scientists including B.K. Song of William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science has discovered that production of this potent greenhouse gasknown as N2O or nitrous oxidecan be bypassed as complex nitrogen compounds in soil, water and fertilizers break down into the unreactive nitrogen gas (N2) that makes up most of our atmosphere. Their discovery, published in a recent edition of Scientific Reports, reveals an entirely new pathway in the global nitrogen cycle and could lead to new ways for farmers and others to reduce their emissions of harmful gases. The study's lead author is Rebecca Phillips of New Zealand's Landcare Research Institute, along with Landcare colleagues Andrew McMillan, Gwen Grelet, Bevan Weir and Palmada Thilak. Also contributing to the study was Craig Tobias of the University of Connecticut. Agriculture contributes more nitrous oxide to the atmosphere than any other human activityprimarily through nitrogen fertilization. This greenhouse gas is 300 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and 10 times more effective than methane. Nitrous oxide also moves into the stratosphere and destroys ozone. Associate Professor B.K. Song collects water samples from a local stream for analyses of nitrogen and microbial communities. Credit: David Malmquist Current wisdom holds that nitrous oxide is inevitably produced when soil nitrogenincluding fertilizer components such as ammonia, ammonium, and ureabreaks down. It's also thought this breakdown process, known as denitrification, requires the action of microbes and can only occur in the absence of oxygen. The current research contradicts each of these long-held ideas. "Our findings question the assumption that nitrous oxide is an intermediate required for formation of nitrogen gas," says Phillips. "They also throw doubt on whether microbial production of nitrous oxide must take place in the absence of oxygen." A farmer applies nitrogen fertilizer to a field. Credit: The College of William & Mary "We now have a pathway that doesn't require microbes," adds Song. "The process of denitrification can happen abiotically, without the need for bacteria or fungi." The team's discovery could lead to practical applications for decreasing the impacts of excess nitrogen in the environment, a topic they focused on while presenting their findings during a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Integrated Water Quality Program. "It might give us a way to engineer the system to reduce levels of fixed nitrogen," says Song. "By changing the types and ratios of nitrogen compounds in fertilizer, you might have a better way to reduce excess nitrogen, and to mitigate eutrophication or nutrient enrichment in nearby waters." Fertilization of home yards and gardens is another source of nitrogen to the environment. Credit: The College of William & Mary Phillips adds, "Further research could inform farmers of how to cultivate soil organic matter useful for nitrogen management. Organic forms of soil nitrogen, such as waste products from plants and fungi, could help convert excess inorganic nitrogenwhich would otherwise be leached into water or emitted as nitrous oxideinto a form that isn't harmful to the environment." However, the scientists say more research is needed to test exactly which forms of organic nitrogen are most effective. The team is now developing proposals for further funding that will allow them to investigate on-farm applications for transforming excess nitrogen from soil and water into unreactive atmospheric N2 gas without producing N2O. This may allow scientists to develop options to manage the fate of agricultural nitrogen while avoiding greenhouse-gas emissions. More information: Rebecca L. Phillips et al. Chemical formation of hybrid di-nitrogen calls fungal codenitrification into question, Scientific Reports (2016). DOI: 10.1038/srep39077 Journal information: Scientific Reports A graphene photodetector with gold contacts in the form of a snowflake-like fractal pattern has a higher optical absorption and an order-of-magnitude increase in photovoltage, as compared to graphene photodetectors that have contacts with plain edges. Credit: Fang et al. 2016 American Chemical Society (Phys.org)Researchers have found that a snowflake-like fractal design, in which the same pattern repeats at smaller and smaller scales, can increase graphene's inherently low optical absorption. The results lead to graphene photodetectors with an order-of-magnitude increase in photovoltage, along with ultrafast light detection and other advantages. The researchers, from Purdue University in Indiana, include graduate students Jieran Fang and Di Wang, who were guided by professors Alex Kildishev, Alexandra Boltasseva, and Vlad Shalaev, along with their collaborators from the group of Professor Yong P. Chen. The team has published a paper on the new graphene photodetector fractal design in a recent issue of Nano Letters. Photodetectors are devices that detect light by converting photons into an electric current. They have a wide variety of applications, including in X-ray telescopes, wireless mice, TV remote controls, robotic sensors, and video cameras. Current photodetectors are often made of silicon, germanium, or other common semiconductors, but recently researchers have been investigating the possibility of making photodetectors out of graphene. Although graphene has many promising optical and electrical properties, such as uniform, ultra-broadband optical absorption, along with ultra-fast electron speed, the fact that it is only a single atom thick gives it an intrinsically low optical absorption, which is its major drawback for use in photodetectors. To address graphene's low optical absorption, the Purdue researchers designed a graphene photodetector with gold contacts in the form of a snowflake-like fractal metasurface. They demonstrated that the fractal pattern does a better job of collecting photons across a wide range of frequencies compared to a plain gold-graphene edge, enabling the new design to generate 10 times more photovoltage. The new graphene photodetector has several other advantages, such as that it is sensitive to light of any polarization angle, which is in contrast to nearly all other plasmonic-enhanced graphene photodetectors in which the sensitivity is polarization-dependent. The new graphene photodetector is also broadband, enhancing light detection across the entire visible spectrum. In addition, due to graphene's inherently fast electron speed, the new photodetector can detect light very quickly. "In this work, we have solved a vital problem of enhancing the intrinsically low sensitivity in graphene photodetectors over a wide spectral range and in a polarization-insensitive manner, using an intelligent self-similar design of a plasmonic fractal metasurface," Wang told Phys.org. "To our knowledge, these two attributes were not achieved in previously reported plasmonic-enhanced graphene photodetectors." The researchers explained that these characteristics can be directly attributed to the fractal pattern. Fractal levels of the snowflake-like fractal design, along with a simulation of the electric field under the gold fractal metasurface. Credit: Fang et al. 2016 American Chemical Society "Our proposed fractal metasurface has the unique ability of supporting plasmonic resonances (free electron oscillations) over a wide spectral range in a polarization-insensitive way due to its complex and highly hexagonally symmetric geometry," Kildishev said. "Previously reported plasmonic-enhanced graphene photodetectors use simpler narrowband and polarization-sensitive structures, and therefore the enhancement is also narrowband and polarization-sensitive." As previous research has shown, the reason that a fractal pattern can improve optical absorption is that the fractal metasurface creates additional resonances, with the amount of resonance increasing as the number of fractal levels increases. In addition, the researchers here found that the fractal metasurface confines and enhances the electric field of the light that hits the surface. This ultimately leads to a higher photovoltage generated in the graphene photodetector. As Kildishev explained in more detail, there are two major mechanisms of inducing photovoltage in a graphene-based photodetector: the photovoltaic effect and the photothermoelectric effect. The photovoltaic effect uses the built-in electric field induced by differently doped regions in graphene to separate the optically excited electron hole pairs in graphene. The photothermoelectric effect drives the free electrons in graphene across regions with different thermoelectric powers (Seebeck coefficients), given a temperature gradient in between the two regions. The fractal metasurface enhances both effects in graphene photodetectors by increasing the electric field intensity and by heating via incident light in highly confined spaces. "The fractal metasurface enhances the photovoltage by making use of plasmonic resonancefree electron oscillations in gold under the excitation of light," Kildishev said. "This then confines the electromagnetic energy to ultra-small volumes, generating excessive electron-hole pairs in graphene which are then separated by the photovoltaic effect. The incident light also heats up the plasmonic structure to create a large temperature gradient across the metal/graphene interface, giving rise to a stronger photothermoelectric response." In the future, the researchers plan to explore the potential applications of graphene photodetectors, which could extend beyond photodetection to photoharvesting, with applications such as solar cells and optical heating. Technologies that require a fast response could also experience significant improvements due to the graphene photodetector's fast operation speed. "One great attribute of the graphene photovoltaic/photothermoelectric detector is that it reacts to light at an extremely fast rate, thanks to the ultrafast electron moving speed (photovoltaic effect) and the ultrashort time the electrons need to give away heat (photothermoelectric effect) in graphene," Wang said. "Such response speed is unparalleled by other photodetection materials. "Plasmonic enhancement has been known to sacrifice the ultrafast response speed to a minor extent. Therefore, plasmonic-enhanced graphene photodetectors are promising for all-optical modulator readout and other applications where response speed is key. Moreover, graphene has zero (or tunable) bandgap and uniform optical absorption in the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, graphene photodetectors can in principle be used to detect light of any frequency with identical sensitivity, which again is unparalleled by other detectors made of other photodetection materials." More information: Jieran Fang et al. "Enhanced Graphene Photodetector with Fractal Metasurface." Nano Letters. DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b03202 Journal information: Nano Letters 2017 Phys.org Shadow on TW Hydrae's Disk. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Debes (STScI) Eerie mysteries in the universe can be betrayed by simple shadows. The wonder of a solar eclipse is produced by the moon's shadow, and over 1,000 planets around other stars have been cataloged by the shadow they cast when passing in front of their parent star. Astronomers were surprised to see a huge shadow sweeping across a disk of dust and gas encircling a nearby, young star. They have a bird's-eye view of the disk, because it is tilted face-on to Earth, and the shadow sweeps around the disk like the hands moving around a clock. But, unlike the hands of a clock, the shadow takes 16 years to make one rotation. Hubble has 18 years' worth of observations of the star, called TW Hydrae. Therefore, astronomers could assemble a time-lapse movie of the shadow's rotation. Explaining it is another story. Astronomers think that an unseen planet in the disk is doing some heavy lifting by gravitationally pulling on material near the star and warping the inner part of the disk. The twisted, misaligned inner disk is casting its shadow across the surface of the outer disk. TW Hydrae resides 192 light-years away and is roughly 8 million years old. Searching for planets around other stars is a tricky business. They're so small and faint that it's hard to spot them. But a possible planet in a nearby stellar system may be betraying its presence in a unique way: by a shadow that is sweeping across the face of a vast pancake-shaped gas-and-dust disk surrounding a young star. The planet itself is not casting the shadow. But it is doing some heavy lifting by gravitationally pulling on material near the star and warping the inner part of the disk. The twisted, misaligned inner disk is casting its shadow across the surface of the outer disk. A team of astronomers led by John Debes of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, say this scenario is the most plausible explanation for the shadow they spotted in the stellar system TW Hydrae, located 192 light-years away in the constellation Hydra, also known as the Female Water Snake. The star is roughly 8 million years old and slightly less massive than our sun. The researchers uncovered the phenomenon while analyzing 18 years' worth of archival observations taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. "This is the very first disk where we have so many images over such a long period of time, therefore allowing us to see this interesting effect," Debes said. "That gives us hope that this shadow phenomenon may be fairly common in young stellar systems." Debes will present his team's results Jan. 7 at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Grapevine, Texas. Debes' first clue to the phenomenon was a brightness in the disk that changed with position. Astronomers using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) first noted this brightness asymmetry in 2005. But they had only one set of observations, and could not make a definitive determination about the nature of the mystery feature. This simulation shows a shadow sweeping around a gas-and-dust disk encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The simulated view is based on an analysis of data taken between 1998 and 2016 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This video also shows what the moving shadow might look like in the future as it continues its journey around the disk. The shadow completes a revolution every 16 years. Astronomers think that an unseen planet in the disk is gravitationally pulling on material near the star and warping the inner part of the disk. The twisted, misaligned inner disk is casting its shadow across the surface of the outer disk. TW Hydrae resides 192 light-years away and is roughly 8 million years old. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Debes (STScI) Searching the archive, Debes' team put together six images from several different epochs. The observations were made by STIS and by Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). STIS is equipped with a coronagraph that blocks starlight to within about 1 billion miles from the star, allowing Hubble to look as close to the star as Saturn is to our sun. Over time, the structure appeared to move in counterclockwise fashion around the disk, until, in 2016, it was in the same position as it was in images taken in 2000. This 16-year period puzzled the researchers. They originally thought the feature was part of the disk, but the short period meant that the feature was moving way too fast to be physically in the disk. Under the laws of gravity, disks rotate at glacial speeds. The outermost parts of the TW Hydrae disk would take centuries to complete one rotation. "The fact that I saw the same motion over 10 billion miles from the star was pretty significant, and told me that I was seeing something that was imprinted on the outer disk rather than something that was happening directly in the disk itself," Debes said. "The best explanation is that the feature is a shadow moving across the surface of the disk." The research team concluded that whatever was making the shadow must be deep inside the 41-billion-mile-wide disk, so close to the star it cannot be imaged by Hubble or any other present-day telescope. The most likely way to create a shadow is to have an inner disk that is tilted relative to the outer disk. In fact, submillimeter observations of TW Hydrae by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile suggested a possible warp in the inner disk. But what causes disks to warp? "The most plausible scenario is the gravitational influence of an unseen planet, which is pulling material out of the plane of the disk and twisting the inner disk," Debes explained. "The misaligned disk is inside the planet's orbit." Given the relatively short 16-year period of the clocklike moving shadow, the planet is estimated to be about 100 million miles from the starabout as close as Earth is from the sun. The planet would be roughly the size of Jupiter to have enough gravity to pull the material up out of the plane of the main disk. The planet's gravitational pull causes the disk to wobble, or precess, around the star, giving the shadow its 16-year rotational period. Recent observations of TW Hydrae by ALMA in Chile add credence to the presence of a planet. ALMA revealed a gap in the disk roughly 9 million miles from TW Hydrae. A gap is significant, because it could be the signature of an unseen planet clearing away a path in the disk. This new Hubble study offers a unique way to look for planets hiding in the inner part of the disk and probe what is happening very close to the star, which is not reachable in direct imaging by current telescopes. "What is surprising is that we can learn something about an unseen part of the disk by studying the disk's outer region and by measuring the motion, location, and behavior of a shadow," Debes said. "This study shows us that even these large disks, whose inner regions are unobservable, are still dynamic, or changing in detectable ways which we didn't imagine." More information: Chasing Shadows: Rotation of the Azimuthal Asymmetry in the TW Hya Disk: hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2017/03/pdf.pdf This horse mandible from Cave 2 shows a number of cut marks on the lingual surface. They show the animals tongue was cut out with a stone tool. Credit: University of Montreal The timing of the first entry of humans into North America across the Bering Strait has now been set back 10,000 years. This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by Ariane Burke, a professor in Universite de Montreal's Department of Anthropology, and her doctoral student Lauriane Bourgeon, with the contribution of Dr. Thomas Higham, Deputy Director of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at 14,000 years Before Present (BP) according to the earliest dated archaeological sites, is now estimated at 24,000 BP, at the height of the last ice age or Last Glacial Maximum. The researchers made their discovery using artifacts from the Bluefish Caves, located on the banks of the Bluefish River in northern Yukon near the Alaska border. The site was excavated by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars between 1977 and 1987. Based on radiocarbon dating of animal bones, the researcher made the bold hypothesis that human settlement in the region dated as far back as 30,000 BP. In the absence of other sites of similar age, Cinq-Mars' hypothesis remained highly controversial in the scientific community. Moreover, there was no evidence that the presence of horse, mammoth, bison and caribou bones in the Bluefish Caves was due to human activity. To set the record straight, Bourgeon examined the approximate 36,000 bone fragments culled from the site and preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineauan enormous undertaking that took her two years to complete. Comprehensive analysis of certain pieces at UdeM's Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory revealed undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones. Around 20 other fragments also showed probable traces of the same type of activity. "Series of straight, V-shaped lines on the surface of the bones were made by stone tools used to skin animals," said Burke. "These are indisputable cut-marks created by humans." Bourgeon submitted the bones to further radiocarbon dating. The oldest fragment, a horse mandible showing the marks of a stone tool apparently used to remove the tongue, was radiocarbon-dated at 19,650 years, which is equivalent to between 23,000 and 24,000 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present). "Our discovery confirms previous analyses and demonstrates that this is the earliest known site of human settlement in Canada," said Burke. It shows that Eastern Beringia was inhabited during the last ice age." Beringia is a vast region stretching from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to the Lena River in Russia. According to Burke, studies in population genetics have shown that a group of a few thousand individuals lived in isolation from the rest of the world in Beringia 15,000 to 24,000 years ago. "Our discovery confirms the 'Beringian standstill [or genetic isolation] hypothesis,'" she said, "Genetic isolation would have corresponded to geographical isolation. During the Last Glacial Maximum, Beringia was isolated from the rest of North America by glaciers and steppes too inhospitable for human occupation to the West. It was potentially a place of refuge." The Beringians of Bluefish Caves were therefore among the ancestors of people who, at the end of the last ice age, colonized the entire continent along the coast to South America. The results of Lauriane Bourgeon's doctoral research were published in the January 6 edition of PLoS One under the title "Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada." The article is co-authored by Professor Burke and by Dr. Thomas Higham of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, in the U.K. More information: Lauriane Bourgeon et al. Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada, PLOS ONE (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169486 Journal information: PLoS ONE For autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs), one of the most important issues is path tracking. Conventionally, steering and velocity control are two typical aspects of the path tracking problem. Steering control is key because it is important to path tracking and related to vehicle lateral stability. Most existing algorithms have been developed based on a point-line vehicle-road model. They regard the vehicle as a rigid point, and employ a continuous curve or discrete points to describe the desired path. Compared with practical situations, this may cause collisions when tracking a more complex road ignoring the size and shape of AGVs. In addition, ignoring the width of the road may make AGVs deviate from the designated road region. However, according to the corresponding literature, there are few discussions of path tracking that consider the shape of the vehicle and width of the road. Based on this, considering the shape of vehicle and repeatedly testing the width of road are the challenges to solving the steering control problem. Additionally, an ideal algorithm should make control decisions repeatedly for AGVs according to the previewed traffic environment and road information. A new study proposes a novel regional path tracking issue in which the shape of vehicle is considered as a rectangle and considers the width of road. Then the road boundaries and actuator saturation are considered as constraints, and a model predictive control (MPC) method is introduced to solve the regional path tracking problem. Moreover, the experiments based on Hongqi AGV HQ430 are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the presented regional path tracking moving horizon method. Researchers Hongyan Guo, Feng Liu, Ru Yu, Zhenping Sun and Hong Chen, scholars at the State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control in Jilin University, College of Communication Engineering, have written a study proposing the new algorithm. These five scholars reveal in the study, which was published in the SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences, that the proposed model predictive control method could track a more complex road by tracking the desired lateral position of the road centerline of autonomous ground vehicles. Path tracking is an important issue for autonomous ground vehicles. A novel regional path tracking description is presented, and model predictive control is proposed to discuss the regional path tracking issue which could avoid colliding road boundary when tracking a more complex road effectively. The presented method could be successfully applied to Hongqi AGV vehicle HQ 430 and experiments are carried out. Credit: Science China Press The research was aimed at solving the shortcomings of the pure-pursuit tracking method, which may cause collisions when tracking a more complex road while ignoring the size and shape of fully automated vehicles. Moreover, it aims at solving failures due to neglecting of the width of the path when using the centerline to describe the desired path. In the study, the road boundaries and shape of the vehicle are both considered. In order to follow the centerline in the given feasible region, it needs to minimize the difference between the predicted output and the road centerline. In addition, considering the saturation of the mechanical system, the action of the steering wheel motor is limited. It also ensures that AGVs consume less energy. The road boundaries and saturation of the actuator are also described as constraints. The validation experiments were carried out on the Hongqi AGV HQ430. The AGV Hongqi vehicle HQ430 is composed of an environment perception system and a driving control system. The driving control system runs on a single-board computer responsible for decision-making, planning and control. The environment perception system includes two parts: lane marking detection and preceding vehicle recognition, which run on two different computers. The sensors used for perception are the right-and-left wheel odometer, braking pressure sensor and throttle valve position, a gyroscope and two cameras. Additionally, in order to obtain vehicle velocity and sideslip angle, the system uses an RT3002 developed by Oxford Technical Solutions. Moreover, in order to obtain vehicle position information, the system includes a GPS integrated navigation system. There are two additional computers used in the experiments, where the regional path moving horizon tracking controller runs in a Thinkpad T420, and another Thinkpad T420 is used to configure the RT3002. In the experiments, the front steering angle obtained from the proposed MPC method replaces the original front steering angle computed by the driving control system. The communication between the sensors, steering motor and driving control system is shown in Figure 5. The regional path moving horizon tracking controller needs to exchange information with other systems, and the user datagram protocol (UDP) is used to communicate with RT3002 and driving control system. In addition, the CAN bus is employed to exchange information from driving control system to steering motor, and vehicle system. The additional sensor equipped on the experiment vehicle communicates information with other systems employed by UDP. More information: Hongyan Guo et al, Regional path moving horizon tracking controller design for autonomous ground vehicles, Science China Information Sciences (2016). DOI: 10.1007/s11432-016-0310-1 A widely held understanding of electromagnetic radiation has been challenged in newly published research led at the University of Strathclyde. The study found that the normal direct correspondence between the bandwidths of the current source and emitted radiation can be broken. This was achieved by extracting narrowband radiation with high efficiency, without making the oscillation of the current narrowband. The finding produced narrowband light sources in media where electromagnetic radiation would not normally be possible. It makes for a powerful tool for scientists that enables them to understand the intricacies of how materials, or even biological molecules, behave under different conditions, which has a major impact on people's lives through the development of new products and medical treatments. The research, published in Scientific Reports, also involved researchers at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), both in South Korea. Professor Dino Jaroszynski, of Strathclyde's Department of Physics, led the study. He said: "Coherent light sources such as lasers have many uses, from communication to probing the structure of matter. The simplest source of coherent electromagnetic radiation is an oscillating electric current in an antenna. However, there are many other devices are based on these basic laws of physics, such as the free-electron laser, which produces coherent X-ray radiation, or magnetrons found in microwave ovens. "Our study has shown that some common media with interesting optical properties can be taken advantage of if we imbed, or bury, an oscillating current source in them. Media such as plasma, semiconductors and photonic structures have a 'cut-off', where propagation of electromagnetic radiation with frequencies lower than the 'cut-off' frequency is not possible; we noticed that the radiation impedance is increased at the cut-off. "One consequence of this is that, for a broadband current source immersed in this type of dispersive medium, the cut-off frequency 'mode' is selectively enhanced due to Ohm's law, resulting in narrow bandwidth emission. What is curious is that novel physics should still be hidden in the classical cut-off behaviour; in our research, we uncovered a hidden face of the cut-off and realised a new paradigm of narrowband light sources in media that would not usually allow electromagnetic radiation to propagate. This is a remarkably simple idea based on straightforward physics theory that seems to have been overlooked. "This is a very exciting theoretical discovery that comes out of a very fruitful cross-continental collaboration. It shows that we should always keep an open mind and question even very basic assumptions. We hope to demonstrate this phenomenon at the Strathclyde-based Scottish Centre for the Application of Plasma-based Accelerators; there are numerous applications of electromagnetic radiation and the proposed source should have a large impact if we are able to demonstrate it experimentally." Professor Min Sup Hur at UNIST, Republic of South Korea, who leads the work from UNIST, said: "This new discovery is scientifically interesting, because it leads us to see the phenomenon of electromagnetic radiation from a completely different viewpoint. We hope the fruitful international collaboration, which brought us to this theoretical discovery, will continue with the experimental demonstration of the idea." Modern light sources, or, more generally, electromagnetic sources used as scientific tools require good coherency, monochromaticity, and high emission power. Coherency and narrow bandwidth - or monochromaticity - are important properties of electromagnetic radiation that allow it to be used to observe changes in the structure of materials subject to stimuli, such as a short intense laser pulse; material properties are deduced from changes that are made apparent in pump-probe studies. An analogy would be to making a movie by assembling many time lapse snapshots to animate the changes that are occurring in the material after it has been stimulated. The main challenge is making high power sources of electromagnetic radiation monochromatic. This is often done by making the oscillating current narrowband or filtering the spectrum, which is extremely inefficient. It is complicated, and can be expensive, to reduce the bandwidth of a current source while maintaining or increasing its radiated power. The Research Excellence Framework 2014, the comprehensive rating of UK universities' research, ranked the University of Strathclyde's Physics research first in the UK, with 96% of output assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent. More information: M. S. Hur et al. Increased impedance near cut-off in plasma-like media leading to emission of high-power, narrow-bandwidth radiation, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/srep40034 Journal information: Scientific Reports Image of the HST GOODS-South field, one of the deepest images of the sky but covering just one millionth of its total area. The new estimate for the number of galaxies is ten times higher than the number seen in this image. Credit: NASA / ESA / The GOODS Team / M. Giavalisco (UMass., Amherst) An international team of astronomers, led by Christopher Conselice, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, have found that the universe contains at least 2 trillion galaxies, ten times more than previously thought. The team's work, which began with seed-corn funding from the Royal Astronomical Society, appears in the Astrophysical Journal today. Astronomers have long sought to determine how many galaxies there are in the observable universe, the part of the cosmos where light from distant objects has had time to reach us. Over the last 20 years scientists have used images from the Hubble Space Telescope to estimate that the universe we can see contains around 100 - 200 billion galaxies. Current astronomical technology allows us to study just 10% of these galaxies, and the remaining 90% will be only seen once bigger and better telescopes are developed. Prof Conselice's research is the culmination of 15 years' work, part-funded by a research grant from the Royal Astronomical Society awarded to Aaron Wilkinson, an undergraduate student at the time. Aaron, now a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, began by performing the initial galaxy-counting analysis, work which was crucial for establishing the feasibility of the larger-scale study. Prof Conselice's team then converted pencil beam images of deep space from telescopes around the world, and especially from the Hubble telescope, into 3-D maps. These allowed them to calculate the density of galaxies as well as the volume of one small region of space after another. This painstaking research enabled the team to establish how many galaxies we have missed - much like an intergalactic archaeological dig. The results of this study are based on the measurements of the number of observed galaxies at different epochs different instances in time - through the universe's history. When Prof Conselice and his team at Nottingham, in collaboration with scientists from the Leiden Observatory at Leiden University in the Netherlands and the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, examined how many galaxies there were at a given epoch they found that there were significantly more at earlier times. It appears that when the universe was only a few billion years old there were ten times as many galaxies in a given volume of space as there are within a similar volume today. Most of these galaxies were low mass systems with masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. Prof Conselice said: "This is very surprising as we know that, over the 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution since the Big Bang, galaxies have been growing through star formation and mergers with other galaxies. Finding more galaxies in the past implies that significant evolution must have occurred to reduce their number through extensive merging of systems." He continued: "We are missing the vast majority of galaxies because they are very faint and far away. The number of galaxies in the universe is a fundamental question in astronomy, and it boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the cosmos have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we study these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes?" The new work appears in "The Evolution of Galaxy number density at Z < 8 and its implications", C. Conselice et al., The Astrophysical Journal, in press. A preprint of the paper is available on the arXiv via arxiv.org/pdf/1607.03909v2.pdf An ultralight high-performance mechanical watch made with graphene is unveiled today in Geneva at the Salon International De La Haute Horlogerie thanks to a unique collaboration. The University of Manchester has collaborated with watchmaking brand Richard Mille and McLaren F1 to create world's lightest mechanical chronograph by pairing leading graphene research with precision engineering. The RM 50-03 watch was made using a unique composite incorporating graphene to manufacture a strong but lightweight new case to house the delicate watch mechanism. The graphene composite known as Graph TPT weighs less than previous similar materials used in watchmaking. Graphene is the world's first two-dimensional material at just one-atom thick. It was first isolated at The University of Manchester in 2004 and has the potential to revolutionise a large number of applications including, high-performance composites for the automotive and aerospace industries, as well as flexible, bendable mobile phones and tablets and next-generation energy storage. The strap of the new watch has also been improved by the addition of graphene material. The rubber of the strap was also injected with graphene which has shown to improve its mechanical properties and its resistance to wear. Overall the ultralight watch weighs just 40 grams and is extremely durable. Prof Young, Professor of Polymer Science and Technology at the University, said of the collaboration: "The project with McLaren and Richard Mille involved an investigation into the possibility of incorporating graphene into components in composite watches to enhance performance with the view of saving weight." Shelfbucks Completes First 27 SmartDisplay In-Store Merchandising Campaigns P&G, Unilever, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, Duracell and others gather more than 20 million data points on in-store POP display performance; prove 77 percent show measurably increased sales, and identify opportunities for significant sales lift AUSTIN, Texas January 16, 2017 For the first time in retail history, a dozen of the countrys largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies launched technology-enabled, in-store merchandising display campaigns that provided daily performance data and alerts, proving increased product sales and identifying significant new sales opportunities. The 27 independent campaigns, enabled by the Shelfbucks SmartDisplay merchandising platform, generated more than 20 million data points and detailed observations every day and night from point-of-purchase (POP) displays throughout every stores selling areas and stock rooms. This unprecedented data precision, combined with daily sales and other rich datasets, yielded original and empirical insights about merchandising performance and the many factors impacting those results, such as merchandising supply chain, display arrival and set-up timing, sales floor execution and product sales lift. Shelfbucks analysis of campaigns found that approximately 77 percent of promotional displays drive measurable incremental sales increases at retail. Through analysis of these programs, Shelfbucks also identified improvement opportunities for retailers and brands that could increase incremental sales from displays by an additional 30 to 45 percent, yielding the industry tens-of-millions of dollars in incremental promotional sales, at scale. Twelve CPG manufacturers launched Shelfbucks-enabled campaigns, including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, The Kraft Heinz Company, Mondelez International, and Duracell. The campaigns incorporated 21 different consumer brands and were executed across two major retail channels, including grocery, and with three leading national retailers. Participating brands included well known products Covergirl, Oreo, Dove, Simple, Vaseline, Duracell, Kraft Mac & Cheese and Flonase. The campaigns were applied to eight different POP display types, including end caps, floor stands, trays, power wings, side wings and shelf extenders. In building its promotional merchandising ecosystems, Shelfbucks has partnered with nine leading POP display manufacturers, six of which participated in these initial campaigns. Historical processes for evaluating the performance of in-store merchandising campaigns have been complicated and lacking in the qualitative data one might find for other marketing vehicles, said Jill Andersen, director of marketing for Menasha, one of six POP display manufacturers that participated in the campaigns. And the time required for those analyses made them insufficiently actionable. Our customers Shelfbucks-enabled campaigns have shown that we can now gather performance data in real time to not only measure performance, but also identify how we can quickly, for example, adjust in-store placement to optimize our use of floor space for even greater customer interaction and sales results. Erik McMillan, CEO of Shelfbucks added: The actionable data weve gathered through these first campaigns are industry changing, whether we are confirming marketing successes or identifying execution missteps that contributed to campaigns underperforming. We can now, for example, identify and overcome logistics timing issues across the merchandising supply chain that have long plagued both brands and retail operators. Some displays arrive early to distribution centers and subsequently arrive in stores many weeks before a scheduled promotion. This can result in 20 percent of stores selling out of the display before the peak promotion. Other merchandising campaigns dont get placed on-floor until well after the peak promotional period. Both scenarios result in loss of sales, inventory imbalance and shopper frustration. Shelfbucks-enabled campaigns can now measure, adjust and overcome these challenges. CPG and retail customers incorporate the Shelfbucks platform into POP merchandising programs, enabling continuous, daily reporting on when and where displays are installed within retail stores. Shelfbucks provides detailed insights on performance against marketing and sales goals, enabling brands to optimize their campaigns to maximize sales. Shoppers browsing a product area can also easily interact with Shelfbucks-enabled merchandising materials using their smartphones to immediately access product content, promotional offers, ratings and reviews, and other relevant product or category information. Shelfbucks is continuing to partner with these and other brands, retailers and POP display manufacturers to for a wide range of additional SmartDisplay campaigns throughout 2017. About Shelfbucks Shelfbucks is the number-one in-store merchandising optimization and mobile media platform, enabling retail and CPG brand customers to realize additional revenue and brand equity from in-store marketing programs with insights that lead to better merchandising decisions, and new personalized shopper experiences that lead to increased sales per visit. Additional information on Shelfbucks is available at www.shelfbucks.com. Watch industry leaders speak on digital coming to the in-store experience at www.shelfbucks.com/insights. SmartShelf and SmartDisplay are trademarks of Shelfbucks Inc. Other Point of Sale blogs of interest: - A call has been made for the creation of Southern Kaduna state - The call comes on the heels of recent killings in the area - Apostle Emmanuel Nuhu Kure says President Buhari needs to create the state, to avoid disaster The National Secretary-General of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Apostle Emmanuel Nuhu Kure has called on the Federal Government to create a new state for the southern Kaduna people. The call Kure says is in a bid to avoid further violent upheavals between militant Fulani herdsmen and natives in southern Kaduna. In response to the intractable crisis which has claimed over 808 lives, the Kafanchan-based founder/General Overseer of Throneroom (Trust) Ministry told newsmen in a telephone interview that: nothing short of giving us a state, since we carry the same identity; that is we are Christians in the Southern Kaduna. Governor Nasir El-Rufai under so much pressure to quell the storm in Southern Kaduna I agree that it will not solve all the problems: the tribal languages and tribal problems would come up but giving us a state since we are carrying the same identity and we are more tolerantwe are tolerant towards the Muslimsit will help us manage our situations better. As long as there are silent religious interests from the other side of southern Kaduna, even if they solve the problem, there will always be imbalance, it will be to our disadvantage, rather than our advantage. I think the long run solution to the southern Kaduna is eventually to give us a state and when they do that we will begin from there, Apostle Kure stated. READ ALSO: Oyedepo denies inciting Christians against Muslims, says video is old He, however, commended the Federal Government for recently sending troops to bring in order. I also commend the International Community for taking interest because if the international community has not taken interest, the federal government would not act. If you ask me, it is because the international community took notice that is why the Federal Government is acting now and pressurising the state government to act positively. I pray the International Community will act in the same manner in other areas of conflicts in other parts of Africa where much conflicts are still going on, he stated. Reacting to the brouhaha over the Financial Reporting Code that led to the recent changes in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), he described the said code as very unscriptural. Apostle Kure said the recent sack of CEO of FRC was an indication that there are not enough checks and balances in the system. If the government has set up people that oversee what that particular department was doing and ensures that they were doing it rightly, I did not think we will have this problem. It is a warning to Nigerian government that some fellows representing government might just wake up some day and set the whole nation on fire. We need to be careful about that; especially at this sensitive moment when the whole world is going through all sorts of security challenges. We need to be very careful, he warned. Continuing, he averred that people are taking laws into their own hands because Nigerian Christians are mild, otherwise we are not bound to obey such a law, stressing that the work that we do as priests is not physical and it is not human beings that ordain us to do it. The God of our covenant will always defend His covenant. Apostle Kure further argued: When God gives a vision, it is for life. How do you make a visioner to hand over his vision to another man who did not receive nor understand the vision directly from God. If God has commissioned you to carry a vision, its only God Who can remove you when the time has come. The truth is that the law would be interfering with the will of God and some more serious Christians, will refuse to obey the law and that is the problem we will face in Nigeria if we continue with the law. We will have some Christians who will defile it and prefer to go to prison than disobey God, he added. Meanwhile, former head of state, General Abdulsalam Abubakar (rtd) has sued for peace among the warring parties within Southern Kaduna. Abubakar made the call during a visit with other leaders of thought to the Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai on Friday, January 13. The former military president had in his entourage, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Hassan Kukah and his counterpart in the Abuja Diocese; Cardinal John Onaiyekan. Source: Legit.ng Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived Cotonou, Benin Republic to celebrate the countrys 55th independence anniversary with his counterpart Boni Yayi. Benin Republic welcomes Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari. Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state and Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos state accompanied Buhari on the one day's state visit to the neighbour country. Buhari left the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport around 9am on August 1, today. President Buhari and President Boni Yayi with governors of Ogun, Kebbi & Lagos state. Cotonou, Benin Republic. The Nigerian leader, since his inauguration on May 29, has visited Chad, Niger and Cameroon and also, hosted a summit of Head of States and government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission in Abuja on June 11, 2015. Soldiers a military parade during Benin Republic's 55th Independence Day celebrations. President Buhari joins his Benin counterpart for Benin Republic's 55th Independence Day celebrations. President Buhari with President Boni Yayi at a military parade during Benin Republic's 55th Independence Day celebrations. Benin Republic's 55th Independence Day celebrations. President Buhari with President Boni Yayi and First Lady Chantal Yayi during Benin Republic's 55th Independence Anniversary. President Buhari and President Boni Yayi decorate officers at Benin Republic's 55th Independence Day celebrations. Among the purposes for the Benin trip was for President Buhari to draw support for the war against Boko Haram terrorists in the sub-region. Benin has not deployed any troops against Boko Haram yet, but has agreed in principle to join the force. Yayi Boni said this could begin once the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution, which has been in discussion for several months, endorsing the mission. Source: Legit.ng Northern Ireland will hold snap elections on March 2 in a bid to resolve its worst political crisis in years after the power-sharing executive collapsed on Monday. Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire announced the province's assembly would dissolve on January 26 and urged its feuding parties to mend fences and keep devolved government going in Belfast. The elections were triggered as a Monday deadline passed for Catholic socialists Sinn Fein to nominate a new deputy first minister to the executive to replace Martin McGuinness. "No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake," Brokenshire said in Belfast. "I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity." If, after the elections, the largest Protestant British Unionist and Catholic Irish nationalist parties cannot agree to form a new executive, the province could end up being governed from London. - Energy scheme behind crisis - McGuinness resigned in protest over a botched green heating scheme, following weeks of tensions with the Protestant, conservative Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The scheme was instigated by First Minister Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP, when she was economy minister. She repeatedly refused to step aside temporarily to allow an investigation into a scheme which could cost Northern Ireland taxpayers up to 490 million ($590 million, 560 million euros). McGuinness quit last week, accusing Foster of "deep-seated arrogance". Foster said Monday that with the challenges of Brexit, a new US president and the volatile global economy, Northern Ireland needed stable government more than ever. "NI does not need nor does its people want an election," she said. Sinn Fein "have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland's future and its stability, and suits nobody apart from themselves." Sinn Fein warned they would not return to the executive without the DUP shifting ground. "Today we have called time on the arrogance of the DUP... because we could no longer accept how these institutions were being treated with contempt," assembly member Conor Murphy, backed by his colleagues, told reporters. "There will be no return to these institutions... unless there is fundamental change to the approach of the DUP and how they do power-sharing." - Stalemate could linger - Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive and assembly were formed under the 1998 Belfast Agreement that effectively ended three decades of political violence in Northern Ireland. The sectarian voting patterns that have always characterised elections in the province's deeply divided society could remain intact in the next vote, bringing little prospect of an end to the political stalemate. If the two biggest parties are returned as expected but the deadlock remains, then a second election could be called if there is failure to form an executive within three weeks of the vote. The other option would be that Northern Ireland reverts to being governed from London. The last period of direct rule ended in 2007. In last year's Brexit referendum, 56 percent of Northern Ireland voters favoured staying in the European Union compared to the UK-wide result of 52 percent choosing to leave. The DUP was the only one of Northern Ireland's main four political parties that called for the UK to leave the bloc. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she plans to launch the EU exit procedure by the end of March. Brokenshire insisted that the snap elections would not have an impact on the timing of Britain launching the Article 50 departure process. May spoke to Foster and McGuinness on Monday to stress the importance of finding a way forward, particularly to make sure Northern Ireland has a voice in the Article 50 process, the prime minister's spokeswoman said. Gold chains are on display at the jewelry department of the Krastsvetmet non-ferrous metals plant, one of the world's largest producers in the precious metals industry, in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, December 14, 2016. Picture taken December 14, 2016. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin Blockchains give a continuous view of a transaction with each stage connected to the last. Seven major banks have signed up to a new project aimed at increasing global trade among small and medium-sized businesses using blockchain, or distributed ledger, technology. Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Societe Generale and UniCredit have all signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding, signalling that they will work together to develop and commercialize a new product called Digital Trade Chain (DTC). All the banks participating in the DTC project are equal investors and have each put in a six-figure sum. Andrew Betts, Head of Global Trade and Receivables Finance at HSBC, told Business Insider: What we like very much is the collaboration approach. Weve been advocates of the industry working together and blockchain has been very much front of mind. We really, genuinely pool our resources and expertise in terms of what we know about this technology so we can generate benefits for clients. DTC is based on a prototype trade finance tool developed by Belgian bank KBC, which uses blockchain technology to connect all parties involved in international trade buyers, sellers, transporters, banks financing the deals on either side etc. International trade is currently a disparate and convoluted process where each party deals directly with generally only one other participant, rather than seeing the whole process. Betts says: What were trying to do is get something that is simple, fast, efficient, and secure for customers to be able to trade within a secure platform. By using a strong, secure, authorised and closed network, enabled through blockchain, it will enable the customer to initiate transactions digitally, be it online or through mobile devices, and then be able to track those transactions all the way through from commitment to pay, settlement, notification, and so on. Story continues Betts said he hoped to have a version of the project launched to clients by the end of the year. The DTC project is the latest example of talk developing into action in the blockchain space. Banks around the world have been talking about the potential of blockchain to transform finance for almost two years now but the technology is only just beginning to filter through into concrete projects. Blockchain technology, also known as distributed ledger technology, is a form of shared database originally developed to underpin the digital currency bitcoin. It enables all parties to see the same version of a ledger and uses complex cryptography and group authentication to police the editing of the ledger. It will enable the customer to initiate transactions digitally, be it online or through mobile devices, and then be able to track those transactions all the way through Andrew Betts, HSBC The technology was originally developed to do away with the need for a central bank for bitcoin, meaning it could be totally independent. But this feature has almost endless applications for other industries and processes that involve a trusted middleman or central authority and banks have been particularly keen to apply it. Blockchains inbuilt security and trust checks mean banks can cut out middlemen in processes like settlement and clearing and instead deal directly with each other. This, in turn, cuts down costs. Santander estimated in a 2015 report that the technology could save banks as much as $20 billion. The seven banks say in a statement announcing the collaboration that the DTC will address the challenge of managing, tracking, and securing domestic and international trade transactions. By allowing real-time monitoring of various parties on the blockchain, the product will reduce paperwork and increase transparency. Last year the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Wells Fargo used blockchain technology for a proof of concept test on international trade, with two parties using the tech to buy a cotton shipment. The banks involved in the project will promote it in different areas: KBS in Belgium and Luxembourg; Natixis and Societe Generale in France; Deutsche Bank and UniCredit in Germany; UniCredit in Italy; Rabobank in the Netherlands; and HSBC in the UK. Learn more: The post Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and five other big banks are collaborating on a blockchain project appeared first on Business Insider. Japan pledged new patrol boats and $1.1 billion in aid to Vietnam Monday as part of a sprawling package targeting maritime and security affairs to bolster ties in the face of regional powerhouse China. Hanoi and Tokyo are locked in separate standoffs with Beijing over territorial claims in disputed regional waters, pushing the two countries closer in recent years. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the six new vessels and the 130 billion yen loan package during a two-day visit to Vietnam, which is also aimed at boosting business ties with the fast-growing communist nation. "I wish to make basic principles such as freedom of navigation, rule of law and peaceful resolution of conflict to become unshakable," Abe told reporters. Vietnam welcomed Japan's maritime pledge made earlier on Abe's trip, his third visit to the country as prime minister. "Both sides agreed on the importance of ensuring the maritime security on the issue of the South China Sea and promoting to resolve conflict by peaceful means (and) respecting international law," Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. Vietnam and China have traded barbs over disputed territory in the South China Sea, where Beijing has built islands capable of hosting military installations. Tokyo has also sparred with Beijing over its territorial claims in the East China Sea, and both Japan and Vietnam have repeatedly stressed that maritime disputes should be addressed according to law. Japan has made similar gifts of patrol vessels and aircraft to the Philippines, which also has competing maritime claims with China. - Trump meeting 'asap' - Tokyo is an increasingly vital ally to Vietnam -- it is the country's largest aid donor, the second largest foreign investor and a key trading partner. At their meeting Monday, both sides pledged to keep trade ties alive in the wake of a promise by US President-elect Donald Trump to scrap the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office. "We must create free, fair and rules-based market... we should all aim at the early entry into force of TPP," Abe said. Abe, who has previously said the TPP would be "meaningless" without the US, added that he he wants to meet the US leader "as soon as possible after he takes office" on Friday. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his shock election victory in November and on Monday he described the US-Japan alliance as "rock solid". His six-day swing through Asia-Pacific also took him to the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia before his final stop in Vietnam. Climate projects and waste management were also included in Japan's aid package to Vietnam announced Monday. Vietnam has come under fire for failing to enforce environmental regulations, especially in the industrial sector. Last year, Taiwanese steel firm Formosa was blamed for a toxic waste dump that killed tonnes of fish along Vietnam's central coast. The leaders also announced a visit by Japan's emperor and his wife in the spring. AFP News Pope Francis warned in Bahrain on Friday that "opposing blocs" and global divisions have put humanity on a "delicate precipice", a veiled reference to the Ukraine war. "We are living at a time when humanity, connected as never before, appears much more divided than united," he said during a speech to religious leaders in the Gulf kingdom. "We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall." Francis, who has made religious dialogue a pillar of his papacy, was speaking on the first full day of his trip to the tiny island state, where he arrived on Thursday afternoon. His visit comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and tensions growing on the Korean Peninsula. In his speech on Friday, Francis warned that "a few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs." "Instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs, weapons that bring sorrow and death, covering our common home with ashes and hatred," he said. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and centre of Sunni learning, also addressed the gathering. Tayeb warned that "market economics, monopolisation of resources, greed and arms sales to the Third World" were "manufacturing victims of war". Ahead of the pope's speech, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been "a few small signs" of progress in negotiations with Moscow. "All peace initiatives are good. What's important is that we carry them out together and that they're not exploited for other goals," he said. The pontiff's 39th international trip since taking office comes three years after he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates during the first papal visit to the Gulf region, where Islam was born. The pope's visit to Bahrain has been shadowed by accusations of rights abuses, particularly against Shiites in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, allegations Manama rejects. On Thursday the pontiff criticised use of the death penalty and urged nations to respect human rights. cmk/par/ho/it CAIRO (AP) An Egyptian court on Monday ruled against the government's attempt to transfer two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, an embarrassment for President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that could deepen tensions with his onetime Gulf patron. The decision to transfer the uninhabited islands of Tiran and Sanafir, announced alongside a Saudi aid package last year, fueled accusations of a sell-off and sparked the largest protests of el-Sissi's two-and-a-half-year rule. The deal was signed last April during a visit by Saudi King Salman, who announced billions of dollars in Saudi loans and investment. The government insists the islands always belonged to Saudi Arabia and were merely placed under Egypt's protection in the 1950s. But the Supreme Administrative Court, in a unanimous verdict, upheld a lower court's ruling that the move was unconstitutional. It said the islands were Egyptian and that the government provided no documents to prove otherwise. The ruling marks a major setback for el-Sissi, who rode to power on a surge of nationalism after leading the 2013 military overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt's first freely elected president. El-Sissi has since presided over a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, banning all unauthorized protests and jailing thousands. But the islands deal has galvanized opposition among many of his former supporters, and hundreds took to the streets last April after it was announced. Monday's verdict was met with an eruption of cheers from activists and lawyers in the Nile-side Cairo courtroom, with some singing the national anthem and chanting patriotic slogans. Khaled Ali, a former presidential candidate and the head lawyer contesting the deal, was lifted onto the shoulders of supporters while flashing the V-for-victory sign and chanting: "The land is Egyptian." "The verdict is a message to el-Sissi: 'Shame, shame on you!'" Azza Suliman, a prominent women's rights activist, said outside the courthouse. Story continues A small number of activists nearby chanted: "Saudi Arabia, take your money back, for tomorrow, the Egyptian people will trample on you." Minor scuffles broke out between police and demonstrators. "The legitimacy of this regime is on the line," said Malek Adly, one of the top lawyers who contested the agreement. The government was already under mounting pressure following a series of austerity measures enacted late last year in order to secure $12 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund. The decision to slash fuel subsidies and float the local currency has sent the prices of basic goods soaring in Egypt, where nearly a third of population lives below the poverty line. The government's turn to the IMF came amid souring relations with Saudi Arabia, which along with other Gulf countries provided billions of dollars in aid after Morsi's ouster in 2013. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are split over Syria, where Cairo views the government as a bulwark against Islamic extremists and Saudi Arabia supports the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad. Saudi commentators have also accused Egypt of doing little to aid the Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels in Yemen. Saudi Arabia cut off fuel shipments to Egypt in September after Cairo backed a U.N. resolution on Syria that was opposed by the kingdom. In an apparent attempt to mend ties, the Egyptian government sent the islands deal to parliament for ratification despite the lower court's verdict, but analysts say the damage was done. "The Saudis didn't want to watch the entire game and went ahead with the penalties," analyst Yasser Abdel-Aziz said. The government's options are now limited. It can appeal to the Supreme Constitutional Court, arguing that the president has the right to conclude such a deal, or submit the entire agreement to international arbitration. El-Sissi could also issue a new decree, but that would be subject to judicial review, and lawyers opposed to the transfer have vowed to continue pursuing the case. Tamer el-Shahawi, an el-Sissi supporter in parliament, said the court ruling would likely prevent parliament from ratifying the deal. "The government has managed this case in a very poor way," he said. AFP News Pope Francis warned the world is on the edge of a "delicate precipice" and buffeted by "winds of war" as he held inter-faith talks with one of Sunni Islam's top leaders in Bahrain on Friday. The 85-year-old Argentine decried the "opposing blocs" of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in a speech to religious leaders in the tiny Gulf state. "We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall," he told an audience including Bahrain's king and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque. "A few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs," he added. "We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs." The pope's visit, aimed at strengthening relations with Islam, comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been "a few small signs" of progress in negotiations with Moscow, warning that peace initiatives should not be "exploited for other goals". Francis, who is on his second visit to the wealthy Gulf, later met privately with al-Tayeb, with whom he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates in 2019. "This meeting has great symbolic importance, both locally and internationally, for promoting peace and peaceful co-existence between different religions and civilisations," said Hala Ramzi Fayez, a Christian and member of Bahrain's parliament. - Sunni, Shiite talks? - Leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, Francis has placed inter-faith dialogue at the heart of his papacy, visiting other Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. Al-Tayeb, who met with the pope on previous Middle East visits, also called on Friday for talks between Islam's two main branches, Sunni and Shiite, to settle sectarian differences. Later, the pope addressed 17 members of the Muslim Council of Elders, an international group of Islamic scholars and dignitaries, at the mosque of the Sakhir Royal Palace. He told them dialogue was "the oxygen of peaceful coexistence". "In a world that is increasingly wounded and divided, that beneath the surface of globalisation senses anxiety and fear, the great religious traditions must be the heart that unites the members of the body," he said. He also struck out at the arms trade, a "commerce of death" that he said was "turning our common home into one great arsenal". The pope, who is using a wheelchair and a walking stick due to long-standing knee problems, began the first papal visit to Bahrain on Thursday by hitting out at the death penalty and urging respect for human rights and better conditions for workers. Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's minister of finance and national economy, insisted the country has "led the region" with its criminal justice reforms. "We have some of the most robust and wide-ranging human rights and criminal justice protections in the region," the minister told AFP on Friday. "There are very well-established channels through which any of these critics can go, well established institutions of accountability," he said, adding that the pope's comments on the death penalty did not single out Bahrain. "It is important to note that that reference... was a general reference to countries around the world," the minister said. Bahrain has executed six people since 2017, when it carried out its first execution in seven years. Some of the condemned were convicted following a 2011 uprising put down with military support from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. cmk-lar/par/ho/th/dwo AFP News Zhang Yao recalls the moment he realised something had gone deeply wrong at the Chinese mega-factory where he and hundreds of thousands of other workers assembled iPhones and other high-end electronics. In early October, supervisors suddenly warned him that 3,000 colleagues had been taken into quarantine after someone tested positive for Covid-19 at the factory. "They told us not to take our masks off," Zhang, speaking under a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, told AFP by telephone. What followed was a weeks-long ordeal including food shortages and the ever-present fear of infection, before he finally escaped on Tuesday. Zhang's employer, Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, has said it faces a "protracted battle" against infections and imposed a "closed loop" bubble around its sprawling campus in central China's Zhengzhou city. Local authorities locked down the area surrounding the major Apple supplier's factory on Wednesday, but not before reports emerged of employees fleeing on foot and a lack of adequate medical care at the plant. China is the last major economy committed to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to stamp out emerging outbreaks. But new variants have tested officials' ability to snuff out flare-ups and dragged down economic activity with the threat of sudden disruptions. - Desperation - Multiple workers have recounted scenes of chaos and increasing disorganisation at Foxconn's complex of workshops and dormitories, which form a city-within-a-city near Zhengzhou's airport. Zhang told AFP that "positive tests and double lines (on antigen tests) had become a common sight" in his workshop before he left. "Of course we were scared, it was so close to us." "People with fevers are not guaranteed to receive medicine," another Foxconn worker, a 30-year-old man who also asked to remain anonymous, told AFP. "We are drowning," he said. Those who decided to stop working were not offered meals at their dormitories, Zhang said, adding that some were able to survive on personal stockpiles of instant noodles. Kai, a worker at in the complex who gave an interview to state-owned Sanlian Lifeweek, told the magazine Foxconn's "closed loop" involved cordoning off paths between dormitory compounds and the factory, and complained he was left to his own devices after being thrown in quarantine. TikTok videos geolocated by AFP showed mounds of uncollected rubbish outside buildings in late October, while employees in N95 masks squeezed onto packed shuttle buses taking them from dormitories to their work stations. A 27-year-old woman working at Foxconn, who asked not to be named, told AFP a roommate who tested positive for Covid was sent back to her dormitory on Thursday morning, crying, after she decided to hand in her notice while in quarantine. "Now the three of us are living in the same room: one a confirmed case and two of us testing positive on the rapid test, still waiting for our nucleic acid test results," the worker told AFP. Many became so desperate by the end of last month that they attempted to walk back to their hometowns to get around Covid transport curbs. As videos of people dragging their suitcases down motorways and struggling up hills spread on Chinese social media, the authorities rushed in to do damage control. The Zhengzhou city government on Sunday said it had arranged for special buses to take employees back to their hometowns. Surrounding Henan province has officially reported a spike of more than 600 Covid cases since the start of this week. - Distrust - When Zhang finally attempted to leave the Foxconn campus on Tuesday, he found the company had set up obstacle after obstacle. "There were people with loudspeakers advertising the latest Foxconn policy, saying that each day there would be a 400 yuan ($55) bonus," Zhang told AFP. A crowd of employees gathered at a pick-up point in front of empty buses but were not let on. People in hazmat suits, known colloquially as "big whites" in China, claimed they had been sent by the city government. "They tried to persuade people to stay in Zhengzhou... and avoid going home," Zhang said. "But when we asked to see their work ID, they had nothing to show us, so we suspected they were actually from Foxconn." Foxconn pointed to the local government's lockdown orders from Wednesday when asked by AFP if it attempted to stop employees from leaving, without giving any further response. The company had on Sunday said it was "providing employees with complimentary three meals a day" and cooperating with the government to provide transport home. Eventually, the crowd of unhappy workers who had gathered decided to take matters into their own hands and walked over seven kilometres on foot to the nearest highway entry ramp. There, more people claiming to be government officials pleaded with the employees to wait for the bus. The crowd had no choice as the road was blocked. Buses eventually arrived at five in the afternoon -- nearly nine hours after Zhang had begun his attempt to secure transport. "They were trying to grind us down," he said. Back in his hometown, Zhang is now waiting out the home quarantine period required by the local government. "All I feel is, I've finally left Zhengzhou," he told AFP. bur-tjx/oho/je/mca/cwl Two congressmen urged the Malaysian government yesterday to return to Manila the son of a Moro National Liberation Front leader tagged in the bombing of a Davao City market last September. President Duterte has confirmed that Datu Mohammad Abduljabbar Sema, 26, was arrested by Malaysian authorities in November upon arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport from Bangkok. Duterte also said all suspects in the night market bombing that left 15 persons dead and several others wounded had been accounted for. Nahuli ko na lahat iyan. Iyong isa diyan anak ni Sema, mayor ng Cotabato. He is now detained diyan sa Malaysia (I have captured them all. One of them is the son of Sema, mayor of Cotabato. He is detained in Malaysia), Duterte told businessmen in Davao City Saturday night. Representatives Ruffy Biazon of Muntinlupa and Tom Villarin of party-list group Akbayan said Kuala Lumpur should extradite Sema. It is imperative that the Philippine government exert efforts to bring the suspect back to the country and face Philippine justice in order to show our resolve to pursue and prosecute agents of terror who have attacked Filipinos and our way of life, Biazon said. He said the governments failure to take Sema into its custody would seriously affect the quest to bring justice for the victims of the bombing. Sema is the son of Muslimin Sema, who chairs a faction of the MNLF, and Maguindanao Rep. Bai Sandra Sema, who have not commented on their sons case. Villarin said the government should explore all legal avenues for the suspect to be brought back here to face trial. His extradition must be demanded from the Malaysian government, which has an obligation to do so as part of a regional effort to curb terrorism, he said. He said he expects the suspect to be afforded fair trial and given the opportunity to defend himself in local courts. Story continues Authorities have claimed that over 12 suspected terrorists were involved in the attack on the Davao City night market. So far, seven suspects reportedly belonging to the radical Islamist Maute group have been captured here in the country. Sema is the only suspect arrested abroad. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has told journalists that the government would request Malaysia to return the young Sema. With Alexis Romero Photo: AFP/Roslan Rahman Veteran Singaporean journalist Seah Chiang Nee, one of the worlds longest surviving heart transplant patients, has died. He was 76. Seah passed away on Sunday morning (15 Jan). He is survived by his wife Patricia Wong, 69, and his only son Seah Pei Kwang, 38. Wong told Yahoo Singapore that her husband had been in and out of hospital since July. He had been suffering from shingles and then diarrhea. He was always in the fighting spirit, in his careeer and his personal life. He was very passionate. Journalism is in his blood, said Wong. In a storied career spanning more than five decades, Seah got his start in 1960 as a Singapore-based correspondent for international news agency Reuters. In his decade with Reuters, he covered the Vietnam War for 40 months. In 1970, Seah became Malaysian bureau chief of the now-defunct Singapore Herald. He also worked in Thailand and Hong Kong before being appointed foreign editor at The Straits Times. He went on to become chief editor of now-defunct afternoon tabloid Singapore Monitor (1982-85), which veteran journalist P. N. Balji described as both the high point and the low point of his career. Balji recalled that Singapore Monitor had been established as a rival to The Straits Times, as the government felt that it needed competition to improve. However, as it took a long time for Singapore Monitor to start operations, then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew intervened. Balji, who was then-editor of The New Nation, explained, Lee arranged a deal whereby Singapore Monitor would take over the New Nation market and take over all the marketing contracts for the year but come out under the banner of New Nation. I think that must have been quite a blow for him. In 1985, Seah underwent a heart transplant in Sydney. He went on to become Singapores longest-surviving heart transplant patient. I In later years, the drugs Seah had to take to prevent his body from rejecting the new heart damaged his kidneys and contributed to his health problems. Story continues Glowing tributes In 1986, Seah began writing for Malaysian newspaper The Star. His column Insight Down South, a weekly analysis of news events in Singapore, ran until 2014. From 2000, Seah also ran a current affairs website www.littlespeck.com, whose columns were often reproduced on Yahoo Singapore in 2011 and 2012. Since the news of his passing, former colleagues have paid glowing tribute to him. Balji recalled, As a person, he was very gentle. He was not boastful, even though he had been a war correspondent. In a Facebook note, former journalist Suresh Nair also described him as the biggest-hearted editor Ive ever worked with. I was privileged as a rookie journalist to work with him at (the now defunct) The Singapore Monitor in the early 1980s, where he was the big boss to start a morning newspaper to rival The Straits Times. He was, in a nutshell, humble to the core and very approachable even to the office boys. Seahs former colleague Ismail Kassim also wrote on Facebook, For over 40 years I have known him, and have always found him trustworthy, and a great friend and colleague. Seahs widow Patricia Wong said she was heartened by the tributes to her husband, I feel contented that people knew what he did and appreciate what he did. Seahs wake will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday at Singapore Casket at 131 Lavender St, Singapore. Fact Check: Rex Tillerson on Climate Risks Posted on 16 January 2017 by dana1981 President-elect Donald Trumps nominee for Secretary of State and until recently the CEO of ExxonMobil Rex Tillerson was given a confirmation hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. In his testimony, Tillerson accepted the reality of human-caused global warming and that The risk of climate change does exist and the consequences of it could be serious enough that action should be taken. While he accepted the problem exists, Tillerson nevertheless proceeded to downplay its risks, saying: The increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are having an effect, our ability to predict that effect is very limited. Many climate scientists took issue with that statement, and for good reason. Climate models have been very accurate in their projections about many consequences of human carbon pollution. Its true that theres uncertainty in just how quickly some of those consequences will be triggered. The bad news is that recent studies have shown that many of those consequences are happening more quickly than climate scientists anticipated. Greater climate uncertainty translates into more urgency to tackle the problem, not less. The Gulf Stream could shut down sooner than anticipated The Gulf Stream which keeps the UK and surrounding area significantly warmer than it would otherwise be is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Research has shown it could shut down as a result of global warming: In 1997, the oceanographer Wallace Broecker, of Columbia University in New York, suggested that if the Gulf stream turned off, winter temperatures in the British Isles could fall by an average of 11C - plunging Blackpool or Berwick to the same temperatures as Spitsbergen, inside the Arctic circle. Any dramatic drop in temperature could have devastating implications for agriculture - and for Europes ability to feed itself. Just how quickly such a shutdown could happen has been a subject of debate and research among climate scientists. A study published in Science Advances in early January corrected for a bias recently identified in climate models that acted to keep the AMOC and Gulf Stream more stable than it appears to be in reality: Freshwater continually flows into the northern Atlantic through precipitation, rivers and ice-melting. But supply of salty waters from the south, through the Gulf Stream System, balances this. If however the current slows, there is less salt supply, and the surface ocean gets less salty. This fresher water is lighter than saltier water and therefore cannot sink into the depths so easily. Since this sinking the so-called deep water formation drives the Gulf Stream System, the current continues to weaken. There is a critical point when this becomes an unstoppable vicious circle. This is one of the classic tipping points in the climate system. In most climate models, the AMOC imports fresh water, which would make the circulation more stable. According to recent observational data, the AMOC is actually exporting fresh water. The authors of the study corrected for this bias, and ran the models in a scenario of an abrupt doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from about 350 to 700 ppm. This is a more extreme scenario than a more gradual ramping up of carbon levels, but importantly, the study did not account for meltwater flowing into the Atlantic from the melting Greenland ice sheet. Recent research has shown that Greenland meltwater may significantly weaken the AMOC in the coming decades. Under the studys scenario, the AMOC lost a third of its strength after 100 years, and broke down within about 300 years. As a result, average winter temperatures over parts of northern and western Europe would become 7C colder than today. Arctic and Antarctic ice is melting fast Global sea ice has also been tracking at record-shattering low levels. Global sea ice extent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The 2016-2017 records lows are shown in red. Climate scientists have known for about a decade that Arctic sea ice is declining faster than climate models anticipated. In 2016, Antarctic sea ice also hit an extreme record low, but until recently, had been stable and even expanding slightly. Counter-intuitively, global warming is one of the causes of that Antarctic sea ice expansion, as climate scientists Andreas Schmittner and Peter Clark explained: When the ocean temperatures warm, it causes more direct melting of the ice sheet below the surface, and it increases the number of icebergs that calve off the ice sheet The cold, fresh water freezes more easily, creating additional sea ice despite warmer temperatures that are down hundreds of meters below the surface. In December, they published a study in Nature finding that not only would the collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet cause large-scale sea level rise, but that it would also increase global climate variability, which translates into greater risks. Another study published in Science Advances in December found that Totten glacier in East Antarctica is melting from below due to warming ocean waters. During the Pliocene epoch 3 million years ago, global temperatures were about 2 to 3C hotter than today, but sea levels were a whopping 25 meters (80 feet) higher. The melting of East Antarctic ice may help explain that tremendous sea level rise. Meanwhile, a massive iceberg the size of Delaware is poised to break off the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, much as the Larsen B ice shelf did starting in 2002: Collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica. Scientists have also concluded that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is already underway and is likely unstoppable. The loss of the entire ice sheet would eventually cause up to a 4-meter (13-foot) sea level rise over several centuries. These are some of the consequences that led the Department of Defense unlike Tillerson to consider climate change an imminent threat. Verdict: while Tillerson was correct to say that climate change risks exist and may warrant some action, he proceeded to downplay those risks in a manner inconsistent with the scientific literature on the subject. If we listen to conventional wisdom, businesses should be using TV, radio and online banner ads to attract new customers. But when it comes to local businesses, these channels simply arent as effective as turning to local marketing. Many local businesses are finding that hyperlocal advertising in any media channel that is primarily focused on the needs and issues of the people in that immediate vicinity or community are more effective than traditional mass-market ads. Community-based newspapers and magazines, metro blogs, online neighborhood community platforms, plus out-of-home advertising (OOH) like posters at bus stops and digital screens at the gas pump are all good examples of powerful hyperlocal channels. Lets take a closer look at why they work so well. Why Hyperlocal Advertising Works Local Tribes for Local Brands In the digital age, its become easier than ever for small businesses to gain global attention. But is this really the right way to go? It depends on what niche youre operating in, but in many situations, what local businesses really need are more local customers. The smart use of targeted, hyperlocal advertising can be a powerful way to connect you with a growing, passionate, local tribe. Because local businesses generally have more budget limitations than the bigger players in the market, they must invest their advertising dollars more strategically, focusing solely on the most effective channels. For many local businesses, this means investing in hyperlocal media to get immediately in front of a local, relevant audience. This strategy works, because people are paying loser attention than many marketers realize especially when presented with contextually relevant opportunities as they move throughout their daily lives. This is definitely the case when were outside: Research from the Outdoor Media Association found that consumers are 2.5 times more alert when they are out and about than when they are at home consuming content on their own screens. You can also create a powerful branding tool when you tap into a culture thats unique to a local community. For example, a bank that advertises a good luck message to the local college team will be viewed as a relevant partner in the community. Finding these local events, associations and hot topics can help local businesses engage prospects in a more relatable manner. As a local business, your marketing should feel local. Take advantage of local stereotypes that could help personalize your marketing campaign, as well as any challenges that youll need to factor into your campaign planning. Does your area get hit with a lot of snow? Create a campaign around that challenge and offer customers a snow day special. Find out if there are any local events that may be relevant to your campaign, or local partnerships that could provide a mutual benefit. Understand that in order to build a loyal local customer base, its important to be viewed as a part of the community. Hyperlocal advertising is a great way to achieve this kind of relevance. Rediscovering OOH in the Local Context As mentioned earlier, OOH works especially well on the hyperlocal level, simply because it adapts to how people are living and moving through their cities and towns with billboards and signs near transit hubs and along the main traffic routes, and smart screens in stores and public spaces with lots of foot traffic. Consider these statistics about the power of out-of-home ads: According to a Nielsen report, 70 percent of purchase decisions are made while shopping or otherwise in stores. Some 79 percent of consumers take action after seeing an OOH ad. Approximately 59 percent of consumers take an interest in time/day/location specific OOH advertising. Video screens are great for OOH advertising, largely because theyre great for other engaging, locally relevant information too. Location-based video screens often offer content relating to local events, traffic and weather information, nearby special offers, and useful tips and recommendations. For instance, grocery stores can include recipes that highlight ingredients that are on sale for the week. This translates to a better experience for consumers, which is absolutely necessary for better, sustained engagement. In addition, OOH gives businesses the chance to place visually engaging messaging in strategic locations such as at the front of the store in full view of checkout lanes when customers are most bored with the shopping process. According to research from Millward Brown and supermarket video ad platform Impax Media, digital signs are better at capturing attention and promoting specific items than static ads. Not only that, but they resonate well with customers: 96 percent of shoppers noticed the in-line screens. 84 percent of them viewed the content to help them pass the time in line. Half of the customers surveyed said that digital screens in the checkout line improved their opinion of the retailer. Solutions like Impaxs represent a milestone in OOH advertising. Retailer content drives the programming mix, while additional non-retail information like local weather and news, event listings and other information keeps customers attention while they wait. By giving people the information they find most useful alongside relevant ads, its easier for brands to create strong positive associations in the customers minds. And brands can tailor their content based on locale-specific attention data, translating to higher relevance and engagement. As we navigate what marketers are calling the attention economy, this kind of in-retail OOH ad delivers exactly that attention, in a way that shoppers find interesting and enjoyable. A Holistic Local Media Mix The most effective advertising strategies for any brand must take a holistic media approach. OOH ads, in the context of a larger media strategy, can make all your advertising more effective by reinforcing it on the local level. When advertising includes a hyperlocal out-of-home element, its impact spikes. As the chart below from UK-based OOH trade group Outsmart demonstrates, the return on traditional media is compounded when combined with OOH advertising: Source: Outsmart Local OOH placements also perform better than any other paid media types when it comes to audience recall: Source: Outsmart The strategy behind where and when to use OOH is based on a simple idea: People in certain contexts will be more likely to pay attention, remember and take further action such as making a purchase, for example than others. For instance, customers who are already in a store are more likely to make purchase decisions that stray from their original intent and to take advantage of relevant on-the-spot offers. If you go into a store to buy a new coffee maker, its reasonable to think that youre also going to buy coffee beans and coffee filters; while youre there, you may also see an in-aisle ad for doughnuts and think, Mmm, I could go for a doughnut with my coffee in the morning. You didnt originally intend to purchase those doughnuts, but the advertising, viewed in the right place at the right time, influenced you to make the purchase. Its also straightforward enough to augment your offline local ad buys with online ones. Facebook Ads, for example, allows you to target people based on location, and you can combine these geo parameters with other targeting methods to reach only the people who are truly most likely to benefit from your product. Googles new Map Ads feature allows businesses to advertise in map search results, promote locations with map pins, and connect those map pins with in-store promotions. If youre using promoted pins, you can customize your local business page to highlight products that are currently in stock in a way thats easily accessible to prospects with the end goal of getting more physical traffic to your store. With local, targeted, social campaigns, brands can reach customers as they journey their way through various cities and towns, and keep their attention afterward by using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for continued engagement. Putting It All Together For local business, it all comes down to finding and engaging the local customer, in a way that enhances (rather than disrupts) their everyday experience in the community. Context provides powerful motivation to make purchases, and is the key to making products and services more relevant. Using local insights along with local reach is the fuel behind hyperlocal media like community publications, events, targeted ads and OOH media. Going local delivers highly relevant and highly targeted offers throughout the various stages of the customers journey, both literally and metaphorically. When done correctly, your customers will feel like youre speaking directly to them, understanding what they want and need in a highly personal way. When this happens, youre fostering higher brand affinity and bringing people closer to doing business with you. For the first time ever, a private company is heading to the moon. Moon Express got the approval from the U.S. government last year. And it recently raised enough money to make the trip. The companys goal is ultimately to mine the moon for resources. But that could be more easily said than done. The U.S. has already enacted a law that would allow private companies to mine resources from space. But the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 says that the exploration and use of celestial bodies can only be done for the benefit of all countries. So some think that private companies mining the moons resources wouldnt meet that criteria, and thus would violate international law. But since its essentially uncharted territory for private businesses, its possible that it could all work out. Of course, its also possible that Moon Express could spend all of its money exploring and laying the groundwork and then find out that they cant actually accomplish their main goal. Always Examine the Risks and Rewards Ahead of Time When dealing with new territory, no matter what the actual industry, theres going to be a lot of risk involved. In your small business, be sure to explore the risks and rewards before venturing into the unknown of a new product or service. MOSCOW, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Russian children's goods retailer Detsky Mir intends to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares on the Moscow Exchange, the company said on Monday. Detsky Mir said in a statement that the offering was expected to be exclusively of its secondary shares. The selling shareholders are the Sistema business conglomerate, the Russia-China Investment Fund, and certain members of the management teams of Detsky Mir and Sistema. Sistema intends to maintain strategic control over Detsky Mir in the medium term by retaining majority ownership, Detsky Mir said. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn) blackrock larry fink REUTERS/Chip East BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, wants the UK's biggest companies to rethink how much they pay their top execs, according to a letter that was first leaked to The Financial Times (FT). In the letter, written by the head of BlackRock's investment stewardship team in Europe, Amra Balic, Blackrock states that pay increases for top executives should reflect those given to the broader workforce. "In the case of a significant pay increase that is out of line with the rest of the workforce, BlackRock expects the company to provide a strong supporting rationale," said Balic. The letter, which comes as many UK firms start to think about pay packagers, was sent last week to the chairmen of all companies in the FTSE 350 index. It was accompanied by a set of guidelines that are designed to assist boards as they put their pay policies together. The letter, which will no doubt be welcomed by those that have campaigned against seven-figure salaries at large banks and hedge funds, also calls on the chairmen to reduce the generous pension packages that are often given to top executives. The letter says that retirement contributions should also be in line with the rest of the workforce. In October 2013, former Business Secretary Vince Cable introduced new rules that forced listed firms to give shareholders a binding vote on directors' pay. The new rules were introduced after investor anger over rising boardroom salaries at a time of falling share prices. The FT highlights that total pay for bosses of FTSE 100 companies has quadrupled over the past 18 years. Here is the full letter: RE: BlackRock Investment Stewardship Executive Remuneration Dear [xxx] As a long term investor and fiduciary on behalf of our clients, BlackRock has for many years engaged extensively with companies on a range of issues, including the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities businesses face. Story continues Within this context, we spend considerable time engaging with companies on the topic of executive compensation. To help companies understand our approach to voting on important governance matters, we have regularly published our guidelines on our website, including our key global remuneration principles. While our key remuneration principles have not changed, the upcoming votes on remuneration policies provide an opportunity for us to give companies more clarity on aspects of our approach. We are pleased to share with you a copy of our updated guidelines for the EMEA region on executive remuneration, which detail what we believe are the best practices regarding executive pay. We provide this information to assist remuneration committees and boards as they review their pay framework especially at those companies which will be submitting their remuneration policy to a binding shareholder vote in 2017. These guidelines are designed both to provide companies with a set of best practices and to help remuneration committees assess our support for their pay policies. Two core beliefs inform our approach to executive pay. First, we consider pay from the perspective of performance. Executive pay should be strongly linked to performance, by which we mean strong and sustainable returns over the long-term, as opposed to short-term hikes in share prices. Second, we believe it is the role of the Board of Directors to design and set pay aligned to long-term performance. This includes the critical assessment of pay outcomes and gauging performance based on metrics that are under the direct control of senior management. We consider misalignment of pay with performance as an indication of insufficient board oversight, which calls into question the quality of the board. We believe that shareholders should hold directors to a high standard in this regard. We would like to highlight some of the specific points included in our guidelines: Annual shareholder votes on pay should not be used as pro-forma justification to increase pay: pay should only be increased each year, if at all, at the same level of the wider employee base, and in line with inflation. Large compensation increases should not be justified principally by benchmarking but should rather progress in pace with the evolution of the scope of the role and its complexity. We expect pension contributions for executives to be in line with the rest of the workforce for new contracts. Where we determine that executive pay is not aligned with the best long-term interests of shareholders, we will also consider this in our voting decision for remuneration committee members re-election. Engagement continues to be an essential part of our stewardship activities. Aside from executive remuneration, we will continue to focus our engagement on the topics essential to delivering value for shareholders, such as how management is implementing the companys long-term strategy and approaching the range of factors, internal and external, that contribute to a companys sustainable growth. BlackRock firmly believes that pay practices are an important measure of a companys governance and we encourage you to consider the attached guidelines in developing pay practices that effectively serve all stakeholders shareholders, executives, and workers alike. We thank you in advance for taking the time to consider your shareholders views and our approach to future engagement on executive pay. If you would like to contact our team, please send an email to stewardshipemea@blackrock.com. Yours faithfully, Amra Balic Managing Director Vice President Edouard Dubois Investment Stewardship Investment Stewardship NOW WATCH: This behavior could kill your chances in a Goldman Sachs interview See Also: Jaroslaw Kaczynski, center, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, speaks with lawmakers during a parliament session after opposition lawmakers ended their protest in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The parliament session hall was occupied by opposition lawmakers in a protest against the budget vote that was according to them illegal. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) WARSAW, Poland (AP) Poland's most powerful politician said Monday that he would tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel during an upcoming visit that she has some responsibility for what he sees as the German media's critical and harmful opinion of Poland. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ruling party leader who holds no government office but dictates the government's conservative and populist policies, expects to meet Merkel when she visits Warsaw on Feb. 7 for talks with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. Kaczynski backs the pursuit of more independence within the European Union and of raising Poland's profile internationally. The Law and Justice party took power in late 2015. In a Monday interview on Radio Szczecin, Kaczynski said that he finds it "very worrying" that German media criticize neighboring Poland. He thinks that the media are "loyal" to Merkel's government, which he says makes her share some responsibility for the criticism. "I will have to tell the chancellor that Germany should decide what kind of relations it wants to have with Poland, because one cannot attack Poland, question its reputation and at the same time expect bilateral relations to be good," Kaczynski said. Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin that Germany wanted to maintain a "very good and close German-Polish relationship," but that that required "talking with each other, not about each other." He stressed that the "press freedom and the freedom of the press to report is an important part" of European values that Germany is following. Germany's leading daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said on Jan. 2 that Poland is a problem because the government is pursuing its own values and subordinating state bodies to its goals. The newspaper predicted Germany's relations with Poland would grow increasingly difficult. Kaczynski said that the talks would also focus on negotiations with Britain about terms on which it will be leaving the EU. Kaczynski said Poland wants Britain to stay as close to the club as possible and eventually return to it as a full member. He believes Poland could play an important role in the negotiations. Story continues The Radio Szczecin interview also touched on his view that adult cats shouldn't be given milk to drink and his preference for white wine from the Mosel region. ___ David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report. OSLO (Reuters) - Some 300 U.S. Marines landed in Norway on Monday for a six-month deployment, the first time since World War Two that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there, in a deployment which has irked Norway's Arctic neighbour Russia. Officials played down any link between the operation and NATO concerns over Russia, but the deployment coincides with the U.S. sending several thousand troops to Poland to beef up its Eastern European allies worried about Moscow's assertiveness. Marines from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina landed a little after 10 am CET (0900 GMT) at a snow-covered Vaernes airport near Trondheim, Norway's third-largest city, where temperatures were reaching -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit). U.S. troops are to stay in Norway for a year, with the current batch of Marines being replaced after their six-month tour is complete. A spokesman for the Norwegian Home Guards, who will host the Marines at the Vaernes military base, about 1,500 km (900 miles) from the Russian border, said the U.S. troops will learn about winter warfare. "For the first four weeks they will have basic winter training, learn how to cope with skis and to survive in the Arctic environment," said Rune Haarstad, a Home Guard spokesman. "It has nothing to do with Russia or the current situation." In March the Marines will take part in the Joint Viking exercises, which will also include British troops, he added. The Russian Embassy in Oslo did not immediately reply to a request for comment by Reuters on Monday. It questioned the need for such a move when it was announced in October. "Taking into account multiple statements of Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway we would like to understand for what purposes is Norway so ... willing to increase its military potential, in particular through stationing of American forces in Vaernes?" it told Reuters at the time. A spokeswoman for Norwegian Ministry of Defence also said the arrival of U.S. Marines had nothing to do with concerns about Russia. However, in a 2014 interview with Reuters, Norway's Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said Russia's annexation of Crimea showed that it had the ability and will to use military means to achieve political goals. (This story corrects reference in third paragraph from soldiers to marines) (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik, Gwladys Fouche and Dominic Evans) By Alessandra Prentice KIEV (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Monday for sanctions on Russia to stay, urging the world to stand up to its "coercion and aggression" after President-elect Donald Trump mooted ending the measures under a possible deal with Moscow. Speaking on a swan song visit to Kiev, Biden said the G7 nations and European Union should lift the sanctions only after Russia had fully implemented a peace deal on ending a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine and returned control of Crimea. Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday, raised the prospect that he would propose offering to end the sanctions imposed over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its role in the rebellion in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. Without mentioning Trump, Biden appeared to take issue with the President-elect's comments made in an interview published in Monday's edition of the Times of London. "The international community must continue to stand as one against Russian coercion and aggression," he told reporters, standing alongside Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Biden stressed the 2015 deal on ending the rebellion by pro-Russian insurgents which is still continuing, with Washington accusing Moscow of failing to keep its side of the bargain. "Together with our EU and G7 partners, we made it clear that sanctions should remain in place until Russia fully, emphasise fully, implements its commitments under the Minsk agreement," he said, adding that Crimea-related sanctions must also stay "until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine". U.S. support for Ukraine has contributed to a deterioration in relations with Russia to their worst since the Cold War. Under President Barack Obama, Washington has invested heavily in helping Kiev make a success of a 2013-2014 uprising which forced a Kremlin-backed leader to flee and installed the pro-Western opposition in power. Trump's open admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and stated desire to improve bilateral ties have stoked fears in Kiev that U.S. resolve to hold Russia to account could waver. Biden has mixed support with some tough talking about Ukraine's patchy efforts in tackling graft, and has previously warned that international help is conditional on Kiev making good on promises to tackle endemic bribe-taking. "You're fighting ... the cancer of corruption," Biden, who leaves office on Jan. 20 along with Obama, said on Monday. HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL Poroshenko said Ukraine believed in good cooperation with the new U.S. administration and urged sanctions to stay, without mentioning Trump's remarks on a deal with Russia. A Kremlin spokesman said it was too early to comment. Biden has been the front man for U.S. policy towards Ukraine, visiting Kiev five times since the change in power and maintaining such regular telephone contact with Ukrainian officials that he has joked he talks to them more than his wife. As Biden left the room, a journalist asked if he thought the Trump administration would give Ukraine the same priority as he had. Biden gave a thumbs up and said: "Hope springs eternal." Continued Western support is vital for Ukraine. The economy, which has been badly hit by the war in the east, is slowly emerging from two years of recession but remains dependent on external financial help. The United States has so far provided over $3 billion and said it could offer more, provided reform efforts continue. Andy Hunder, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said Kiev would have to put much time and resources into dealing with the new U.S. administration. "On Jan. 20 Ukraine will be waking up to a new reality," he told Reuters. "There is a concern in Kiev about how the new relationship will develop. It will require building new bridges to the influencers, the gatekeepers and decision-makers." Kiev has already taken steps to win the good favour of the those calling the shots in the Trump administration. Days after his election in November, Poroshenko's office started planning an official visit to Washington in early 2017. The Ukrainian government has hired former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour and his lobbying firm BGR Group to lobby U.S. politicians and arrange meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. This is not to say that Ukraine lacks senior political advocates in the United States. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including John McCain and Marco Rubio, said last week they wanted to slap a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Ukraine and Syria. A sanctions bill with similar provisions is being written in the House of Representatives. "Our job is to make sure this attention on Ukraine does not wane," Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaliy said on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Alessandra Prentice and Matthias Williams; editing by David Stamp) Naked inmates stand in line while surrounded by police after a riot at the Alcacuz prison in Nisia Floresta, Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. Security authorities said Sunday they have regained control of two Brazilian prisons after several inmates were killed during a riot, the latest in a string of prison disturbances across the country. (Frankie Marcone/Futura Press via AP) NAO PUBLICAR NO BRASIL RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Twenty-six inmates were killed in eruptions of violence inside two prisons in northern Brazil, officials said Sunday as they quelled the latest in a string of jail disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people died within two weeks. The state security office for Rio Grande do Norte state had reported earlier in the day that there were 27 deaths, but later lowered that by one. It also said all bodies had now been counted. State security officials said fighting between rival gangs broke out Saturday at the adjacent Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho prisons near the city of Natal. Officials waited until dawn Sunday before entering to try to re-impose control, state security chief Caio Cesar Bezerra said. "This way we guaranteed a calm intervention, a pacific intervention without resistance from the inmates," Bezerra said. President Michel Temer expressed concern over the rebellion through his official Twitter account, saying Sunday that he was following the situation closely. Like many prisons across the country, Alcacuz is overcrowded, with more than 1,000 inmates crammed into a facility meant for 620. The recent outbreak of prison violence began on Jan. 1-2, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of Brazil's most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Four other inmates were killed at a smaller prison. Then on Jan. 6, in the neighboring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out. Experts say First Command is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions in the penitentiaries to expand its reach across the national prison system. Meanwhile, the prison chief for the southern state of Parana, Luiz Alberto Cartaxo, told Brazil's Globonews network that 21 inmates escaped from the Piraquara prison on Sunday after using explosives to break through the prison wall. He said two other inmates died in a confrontation with police while trying to flee. By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA (Reuters) - Serbia plans to seize a slice of northern Kosovo just as Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014, Kosovo's president told Reuters on Monday, as the two Balkan neighbours trade accusations of wanting to ignite a new regional war. Kosovo special police units on Saturday prevented a train painted in Serbia's national colours and bearing the words "Kosovo is Serbia" from crossing the border. Serbia does not recognise the independence of Kosovo, its former province, and did not seek Pristina's permission for the passage of the train, which it paid for and organised. On Sunday Serbia's president, Tomislav Nikolic, said Kosovo's action had shown it wanted war with Belgrade. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci said the train was aimed at "provoking" Kosovars in order to create a pretext for Serbia to intervene militarily and annex northern areas of Kosovo, home to some 50,000 ethnic Serbs who refuse to accept the province's independence and want to be governed again by Belgrade. "Serbias intention is to use this train, which was donated by Russia, first to help carve away the northern part of Kosovo and then ... attach it to Serbia. It is the Crimea model," Thaci said in an interview. He was referring to Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and populated mainly by ethnic Russians who after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 continued to feel loyalty to Moscow rather than to the newly independent government in Kiev. Crimea's ethnic Russians welcomed Moscow's annexation - carried out initially by soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms to disguise their identity - though the move also triggered Western economic sanctions against Russia. "CHAIN REACTION" Serbia lost control of Kosovo when NATO air strikes forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops in 1999 after they had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians. NATO still has around 5,000 troops stationed in Kosovo to keep the fragile peace. As well as Serbia, its ally Russia and some other countries also refuse to recognise Kosovo's 2008 independence. After talks with Serbia's military top brass and state security chiefs in Belgrade on Sunday, Serbia's Nikolic threatened to send troops back into Kosovo. "If they are killing Serbs, we will send the army, all of us will go, I will go as well, it would not be my first time," said Nikolic, who is a former member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party and in the 1990s fought alongside Serb paramilitaries in Croatia. Responding to Nikolic's remarks, Thaci said any attempt by Serbia to annex northern Kosovo would set off "a chain reaction across the whole Western Balkans". Belgrade and Pristina both aspire to join the European Union and normalising relations is a condition of their progress, but Serbia continues to block Kosovo's membership of international organisations such as the United Nations. Bilateral relations came under renewed strain this month when former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj was arrested in France on a warrant from Serbia, which accuses him of war crimes. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Editing by Gareth Jones) By Anastasia Moloney TAPACHULA, Mexico (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Using a stone, Ahmed Ali Hassan scraped away at the side of the container truck until he made a small hole, and putting his parched mouth to it, gasped for air. The overcrowded truck carrying nearly 100 migrants, many from Africa, took turns to breathe in pockets of dry air as the truck rattled through rural Nicaragua. One man from Eritrea had badly swollen fingers, a sign of severe dehydration. "We all thought we were going to die," Hassan, a Somali, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he recalled last month's journey. "We were not treated with dignity," said the 24-year-old university student, who declined to give his real name. As Europe tightens its borders to stem the influx of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, Hassan is part of a growing surge of people from African nations seeking new routes to flee poverty, war and persecution. Hassan had paid a human smuggler $1,000 to guide him overland through Central America to reach Mexico in the hope of crossing into the United States. He is lucky not to have suffocated. In October, immigration officials in Mexico's Veracruz state found four migrants dead in a truck that smugglers had abandoned. NEW ROUTES The routes to Europe have become more difficult, said Claudette Walls, head of the field office for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Mexico's city of Tapachula. "What's happening in the Mediterranean is that it's becoming more and more hazardous and difficult to take that route," Walls said. "Through Latin America coming all the way up to Mexico and then on to the U.S. has become another route," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Many migrants from Africa fly to Ecuador and Brazil where few visa restrictions allow an easy point of entry into the Americas. They join the hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence every year, and who have been using the well-trodden route for decades. Immigration officials first noticed African migrants arriving in Mexico in 2013, when around six trickled in a day, mainly through Tapachula along Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. Hundreds now turn up every day. Last year between 150 to 700 African migrants arrived per day at Tapachula - with a total of 19,000 migrants arriving from Africa and Haiti in 2016 - according to Mexican government figures. This influx is expected to continue this year, Walls said. Mexico has also seen a tide of Haitians coming through as they seek a better life in the United States. Thousands of Haitians who had lived in Brazil are leaving because of the country's economic recession. Experts also say the surge north reflects a push by migrants to reach the United States and reunite with relatives before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. During his campaign, Trump took a hardline position on immigration, including a pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. DANGERS With few diplomatic ties with African nations, it is difficult for the Mexican authorities to deport illegal migrants from Africa home. As a result, many African migrants are given a temporary transit permit, giving them 20 days to leave Mexico. In practice this allows them to continue their journey towards the United States border without being detained by immigration officials. Like African migrants making the treacherous passage to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea where thousands die each year, the journey through Latin America is also perilous. Hassan reached Mexico in December, after a four month journey that included a flight from Somalia to Brazil, and then across seven countries on bus, boat and foot. He has spent $10,000 so far, hiding dollar bills in his underwear and socks. Most migrants say that at some point along their journey they have been robbed and or attacked by local gangs. Paying officials bribes starting at $20 to allow them to continue their passage is also commonplace, migrants say. Jose Ramon Cancino, head of migrant affairs at the human rights commission in Chiapas state, where Tapachula is located, said his office received 3,000 complaints last year from migrants, most involving extortion and abuse by police. Hassan said he and a group of migrants from Africa and Asia were robbed at gunpoint in Costa Rica by local criminals. "They checked us one by one. Even if we had anything in our mouths. They take everything," Hassan said. "I kept my shoes only because I'm a size 43 and the guy (thief) was a size 41," said Hassan, sitting on a bench at a budget hotel known as Mama Africa in downtown Tapachula, which has become a popular resting place among African migrants. JUNGLE CROSSING Most migrants say the worst part of the journey so far has been the gruelling six-day long trek across the Darien Gap - a mountainous rainforest wilderness that straddles Colombia and Panama. Some die on the way. "I saw skeletons in the jungle," Hassan said. Another African migrant, Chofong Betrand and two friends from the Cameroon, also survived the jungle odyssey. They arrived in Tapachula last month. Betrand hopes to reach the northeastern United States to join his mother who already lives there. Betrand, who belongs to Cameroon's minority English-speaking people, said he was briefly jailed by state security forces. "We want independence. French Cameroon take everything for themselves," the 21-year-old university student said. "There's fighting. They don't want to give us our independence," Betrand said, as he queued for three hours outside the National Migration Institute hoping to get a temporary 20-day permit. The hardest bit of the journey is yet to come. Migrants still have to reach the United States border, and then cross it without getting stopped by border agents. "A mighty hand is guiding us," Betrand said. "No one does this journey twice." (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, editing by Ros; Russell Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org) By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have decided to attend peace talks backed by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan to press for full implementation of a ceasefire they say has been widely violated by the government and its Iranian-backed allies. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing the rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo. The United States, which led failed efforts to launch peace talks last year, has not been involved in the latest diplomacy. Assad has already said his government is ready to attend the talks. After winning ground with Russian and Iranian military support, he looks stronger than at any point in the war. The rebels took the decision at meetings underway in Ankara, and are now working to form a delegation that will be headed by Mohammad Alloush, the head of the political office of Jaish al-Islam rebel group, Alloush told Reuters. He said the rebels were going to Astana to "neutralise the criminal role" of Iran. Analysts believe the rebels have been under pressure from Turkey, one of their main sponsors, to attend. Earlier this month, they called off any talks on their participation in the Astana meeting over what they said were government violations of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey. Turkey's priorities in Syria appear to have shifted away from toppling Assad towards combating Kurdish groups and Islamic State in areas of northern Syria near its border. Its ties with Russia have also improved in recent months. "The factions will go and the first thing they will discuss will be the matter of the ceasefire and the violations by the regime," said an official in a Free Syrian Army rebel group who declined to be identified because the rebel groups had yet to appoint a spokesman. "This will be a test for the Russians as the guarantor," he said. A second official, Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: "The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire - the humanitarian issues - aid deliveries, release of detainees." The rebel groups would reject any discussion of broader political issues at the Astana talks, the rebel officials said. FIGHTING CONTINUES The talks are scheduled for Jan. 23 in Astana. Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday that Ankara and Moscow had decided to invite the United States to attend. A Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday discussed preparations for forthcoming Syrian peace talks in Kazakhstan with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. As with last year's peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey. Fighting has continued despite the ceasefire, notably near Damascus where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah are trying to recapture a rebel-held area where the capital's main water supply has been bombed out of service. The rebel groups that will attend the talks include FSA factions fighting in northern Syria, some of them the groups defeated in Aleppo. Alloush's faction, Jaish al-Islam, is one of the bigger rebel groups, with a strong presence in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus. The delegation will be different to one sent to peace talks in Geneva last year by the main opposition council, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. The HNC, which includes political and armed opposition groups, represented the opposition in peace talks last year. Alloush sits on the HNC, which said on Saturday that it had supported efforts towards the talks in Kazakhstan, and viewed the meeting as a preliminary step for resuming the next round of political negotiations in Geneva. Malahifji said the new delegation would be formed in coordination with the HNC, but it would differ from it because "the Russians are focusing very much on the military factions". Assad said his last week his government was ready to negotiate on "everything" in Kazakhstan, including his own position within the Syrian constitution. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Dominic Evans, Giles Elgood, Anna Willard) WASHINGTON During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to make America great again, implying that the nations superpower status could be in jeopardy. Noel Pugach, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, contends that the United States is and will remain the worlds lone superpower for the foreseeable future, but challenges are on the horizon. Pugach will discuss the nature and future of American power during a lecture on Friday, Jan. 20, at the UNM Continuing Education Auditorium. The professors talk is part of the Albuquerque International Associations 2017 foreign policy series. Pugach will review how and why the U.S. achieved global predominance and examine whether that predominance it is sustainable. Its true no nation stays No. 1 forever, Pugach said in a Journal interview. You study history, and it is clear. But it doesnt mean our fall is inevitable in the near future. In the 1990s, we became the unquestioned superpower in the world, and that remains true to this day. We are still the greatest military power in the world the most advanced technologically, and economically, were still the worlds leader, he added. But we do have problems. Pugach said America rose to superpower status after World War I on the strength of a growing domestic economy, a unified public, a strong central government and the military resources needed to exercise influence. Those are basic to all the great powers of history, he said. But we had one other thing and its the clincher you have to have the will to lead, because its costly and its dangerous. Pugach pointed out than its early days as superpower in the 20th century, the U.S. was also protected geographically from outside invaders by two great oceans surrounding us and the fact that we had weak neighbors. Today, U.S. economic development has slowed and debt has risen, but the American economy remains one of the most advanced in the world. While globalization has altered the geopolitical landscape and compromised American dominance somewhat, Pugach suggested neither China nor Russia the only other countries approaching superpower status pose immediate threats to American primacy. China, in the long run, poses the greater threat, because Russia still has enormous weaknesses, he said. Russias economy is still dependent on oil, and it has this kleptocracy (culture of corruption) that I think is going to collapse in the coming years. Russia does not have Chinas technical advances, nor is there any sign that it will, and Chinas military might is growing. It also has a very strong and nationalist identification. So where does that leave the U.S. in this still-young millennium? Pugach suggested that the U.S. can retain its pre-eminent role in world affairs while making room for others, such as China. We need to forge a new national consensus, and maybe its a consensus that will say, OK, well accept a reduced role in world affairs, he said. Were going to have to give China a stronger voice in world affairs its insisting on it. Theyve taken advantage of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and this open economic system to gain a strong footing. We have to recognize that, and we have to pay some attention to them. New Mexico could be poised for a new upturn in oil production but, after nearly three years of bust, most local producers remain wary about the prospects for open recovery in the states oil patch. A recent agreement by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other foreign producers to cut world production about 2 percent, or nearly 2 million barrels per day, has pushed prices above $50 per barrel since November, their highest levels in more than a year. That, in turn, is spurring renewed activity in the Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas, where some of the bigger players are drilling again and rehiring workers. But OPEC and other foreign producers, led by Russia, only initiated output cutbacks this month, with full reduction scheduled to phase in over the next six months. Until those countries prove they intend to abide by their commitments, prices are unlikely to climb much more. In New Mexico, that means stunted recovery, at least for now, because most small producers need at least $60 per barrel or more to be profitable, said Gregg Fulfer, former Lea County commissioner and owner of the Fulfer Oil and Cattle Co. in Jal. Weve gotten some breathing room with prices up a bit, Fulfer said. Activity by the bigger producers is picking up and the service companies are hiring people back. But small companies like mine really need about $65 a barrel to make a profit and reinvest back into production, otherwise were still just treading water. If foreign producers do comply with cutbacks, oil prices could climb above $60 quite rapidly, potentially fueling a new boom in the Permian Basin, where some of the nations best producing wells are located, said Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at New Mexico Tech in Socorro. In fact, full industry recovery could propel southeast New Mexico and West Texas into the nations premier oil-producing zone, since the industry is only just beginning to crack open the vast production potential of shale rock formations there. The Permian is so geologically rich for future production that it could become what Alaska was in the 1970s, Fine said. Today, the largest investment flows are going into the Permian, not to other basins like the Bakken in the Dakotas or the Eagle Ford in Texas. With full recovery, I believe the Permian will become the key basin supporting the country. Commitment to cuts For now, however, all eyes are on OPEC, Russia and other nations that agreed to cut production to diminish oversupply on the world market, which pulled prices down from about $100 per barrel in 2014 to a low of about $27 early last year before rebounding some. The price crash hit New Mexico particularly hard. About 6,000 people lost their jobs between 12,000 and 18,000 if direct and indirect jobs are included. And the state is in the midst of a budget crisis because about one third of government revenue comes from the oil and gas industry. That includes a $69 million shortfall for the current fiscal year that the state Legislature will need to fill when the next session begins this week, plus $300 million less in new money available for FY 2018, which begins in July. Even with the recent rise in prices, the state remains in the red, because current revenue projections are based on oil prices of between $50 and $60 a barrel, said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who chairs the Legislative Finance Committee. I believe the price needs to be in the $65 to $70 range to make a real dent in the deficit, Smith said. At that price, government finances would improve, but state revenue would still be much lower than before 2014, since oil prices would remain about $30 per barrel less than before the bust began. For each $1 drop or increase in the price of oil, New Mexico loses or gains between $7 and $10 million in revenue. In any case, climbing above $60 a barrel will be a challenging, even with OPEC cutbacks, because current global inventories must still decline to balance supply and demand, and U.S. producers are poised to spring back into production as prices climb, offsetting efforts to reach market equilibrium. But compliance by OPEC and others will revive market confidence, driving prices up if agreement monitors confirm reductions are on track, Fine said. The first report is due later this month. The key number is 350,000 barrels by the end of January, Fine said. Thats the amount needed to offset an expected increase in American production following the recent rise in prices. If the monitors certify that, then the price could rapidly move to about $60. If foreign producers continue cutting as scheduled through mid-2017, global supply and demand could begin to balance out for the first time since the crash began in 2014, depending on how fast U.S. production comes back online, Fine said. Recovery prospects Assuming those milestones are reached, New Mexico could be looking at significant recovery later this year and into 2018. I believe 2017 could be another record-breaking year in oil production, with new rigs and well drilling and completion on the New Mexico side of the Permian Basin, Fine said. I see state production increasing by about 10 percent over 2016. New Mexico output already achieved record levels in 2015, despite the price bust. Production hit an all-time high of 147 million barrels that year, up from 124 million barrels in 2014. Production did decline last year, with output down by about 3.4 percent in the first 10 months of 2016, according to the most recent statistics from the state Oil Conservation Division. But now, with prices climbing since the fall, many big companies are ramping up again, with 37 rigs active in New Mexico as of early January, up from a low of 15 last June, according to the oil field service company Baker Hughes. Thats still less than half the number of rigs operating in New Mexico before the bust in 2014. But many people are finding jobs again, since each rig typically employs about 50 people directly, plus 50 to 70 more in support jobs. Unemployment in Lea County dropped from a high of 9.4 percent in October to 8.8 percent in November, according to the December report from state Department of Workforce Solutions. Expanding investments Some big companies are investing heavily in the Delaware Basin, an oval-shaped shale-rock formation that protrudes from southwest Texas northward into Lea and Eddy counties. Concho Resources, for example, paid $430 million in November for access to about 24,000 acres in Lea County sections of the Delaware. It expects to grow production there by 20 percent this year. Devon Energy of Oklahoma expects to increase its operations on the New Mexico side of the Delaware from three rigs last fall to up to 10 by year-end 2017. Devon executives say exceptional well productivity there, combined with company efforts to lower operating costs and improve efficiency, make Delaware investments profitable even at current prices. The cost-per-barrel of oil produced there is extraordinary compared with other places, Fine said. Thats why so much investment flow is going into the Permian rather than elsewhere. Still, with so much depending on OPEC and other producing nations, locals remain skeptical. My little company is not drilling at this point because we need at least $60 to get back out there and be active, said Raye Miller, president of Regeneration Energy Corp. in Artesia. Its all dictated by price. If it falls, activity will shrink right back down again. The Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas is one of the best producing oil zones in the U.S. today, particularly for plays in the Delaware Basin an oval-shaped shale-rock formation within the Permian that protrudes from southwest Texas northward into Lea and Eddy counties. The Delaware is currently generating the best returns in the country for operators, according to a December report from S&P Global Platts. Large producers, such as Concho Resources and Devon Energy, are particularly active there. Devon expects to operate up to 10 drilling rigs in the Delaware by year-end 2017, up from three now. Its focusing on three plays Bone Spring, Wolfcamp and Leonard Shale. Well productivity in those areas has proven especially lucrative, allowing Devon to reduce spacing between horizontal drilling lines to reach even more hydrocarbons trapped in nooks and crannies throughout the various layers of shale rock. The company is now exploring 9,000-plus potential drilling locations in the Wolfcamp alone, said Devon President and CEO David Hager in a conference call with investors in November. 2017 will be a breakout year for our Delaware Basin Wolfcamp program as we begin to actively develop this emerging play, Hager said. Martin Luther King Day is today and Inauguration Day is Friday. A Monday and Friday with nationally celebrated events that could not be more incongruous, given the individuals who will be lauded on those days. Kings legacy as a civil rights activist was triggered by Rosa Parks courageous action, in 1955, of refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white passenger. Until his assassination in 1986, King crusaded against injustice first injustice against blacks and, later, the injustice of poverty. Historians have noted that his message of non-violent protest was patterned after a rather ordinary lawyer, Mahatma Gandhi, who used passive resistance to fight racial inequality in South Africa and India. Perhaps King is best known for his 1963 I have a dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial. And now, some 54 years later, America will inaugurate a president whose public statements mock the dream that we live in a country where all are created equal. Newsflash folks: for people of color, for many ethnic groups, for people with gay and lesbian life styles, for the disabled, for women and for the poor, that dream has been the exception, not the rule. Sadly, many of the quotes attributed to President-elect Donald Trump reflect what many people believe and, like others, I underestimated the lack of a clarion call to cease and desist. , I was reminded of Kings quote that,After his notorious quote about Mexicans being rapists In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. It is fashionable to figuratively pick at corpses , and meticulously record the flaws and foibles of those who attain celebrity. It is not my purpose here to defend Kings character or to attack Trumps character. The truth is that the media is used to embellish the truth on the way up and embellish the truth on the way down. We live in a society of fake news where it is convenient to take some media-packaged political commentary and, if it sounds like what we think we believe, then we share . That is politics. , given the polarity and increasing violence that exists in our communities,But here is the dirty little secret the Golden Rule seems like an appropriate place to start. Yes, Republicans and conservatives might gain ground , and Democrats and progressives may lose ground, but the real message of the 2016 election remains the same message of 1963. The riches of freedom and the security of justice are still not rights enjoyed by all. When not even a third of your public school students can read or do math at grade level, why would you want to reduce accountability in the education system? Thats the bottom line to a question the New Mexico Legislature should take seriously. Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, is proposing a study group to come up with an alternative assessment model to measure student achievement, as well as a constitutional amendment to replace the state secretary of education with a 10-member elected state school board that picks a state school superintendent. His argument is that using student final exam and standardized test scores for teacher evaluations and school grades is essentially devastating entire communities, and relying on a Cabinet secretary to set priorities means the states focus changes with each administration. History and data prove he is wrong on both points. Regarding the assessments, Padilla says standardized tests cant capture diverse abilities and just filling in a bubble on a test, there is so much more to that young persons life. They may be skilled in art; they may be a musician. First, these are not basic bubble tests, as Padilla claims, but tests that require critical thinking and problem-solving, that give credit for being able to show your work, that even adapt up or down based on a students answers to truly gauge ability. Second, there are inarguably art and music talents in the Farmington, Gallup, Gadsden and Pojoaque school districts which rely on the same federally required standardized tests and Legislature-mandated final exams as everyone else. These districts have improved their students proficiency up to 36 percent in the past year. Real leaders in those districts have embraced accountability, data and mentoring programs, and proven it is possible to ensure more students can read and do math at a level that will allow them to succeed. Art and music are important; so is being able to manage your finances, and read and fill out a 1040EZ. And that peels back the real argument for bypassing student proficiency. There have always been proficiency assessments in our schools. But now teachers and schools being held accountable for what they produce in terms of student academic growth. Yet it bears repeating that teachers and schools that embrace data-driven programs are moving mountains: In the most recent round of evals and grades, 18 schools with low-income minority student populations improved their students academic performance so much that they bettered their school standings three full letter grades. In fact, the latest round of PARCC standardized test results show 57 out of 89 districts improved in English and 77 improved in math. And 12,000 more kids are reading at grade level. All any teacher or school is expected to do in the eval and grade system is improve their students performance. In addition, there is already much more to teacher evaluations and school grades than test results: Less than half of the states teachers are at the full 50 percent of their grade based on student test scores, and classroom observations account for at least 40 percent and up to 90 percent of an evaluation. There have been proposals to reduce the weight of student test scores, yet many legislative Democrats have refused any compromise and rejected using student achievement as a measure at all. With all that said, what, exactly, isnt working with how New Mexico measures student performance other than districts that focus on their adult employees more than their kids? As for Padillas renewed attempt to abolish the secretary of education post, a history lesson shows it was created in 2003 when the Democrat-controlled Legislature approved sending voters a constitutional amendment to get rid of the state Board of Education and state superintendent of public instruction. Voters approved the change and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, announced voters spoke loud and clear when they endorsed the idea of a secretary of education. They want real accountability for our educational system. Yet, now, Padilla wants to go back to that lack of accountability his party rejected more than a decade ago. As Sen. Gay Kernan, a Hobbs Republican, pointed out when Padilla tried this in 2014, its amazing how, when things are not to your liking, you want to go back to the old way. And what is not to the liking of Padilla and other opponents of education accountability is just that education accountability. New Mexico spends $2.75 billion annually to educate its 338,000 K-12 students. It is 36th in the nation for annual per-pupil spending, but 49th on quality of education measures. Just over 27 percent of New Mexico students are proficient in reading and barely 20 percent are proficient in math. Six years of school report cards and two years of PARCC scores reforms advocated by Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera show schools and districts that embrace accountability are improving their students academic achievement, and Skandera has ensured all the data is posted online so the public can finally see exactly what it is getting for its investment. What New Mexico schools have been getting is better. Padillas proposals would send them backward. And the bottom line is that New Mexico, its taxpayers, its businesses and especially its children cannot afford to go in that direction. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. Twenty-nine deserving students from more than a dozen high schools in the state have been selected to receive $1,000 scholarships that are part of this years Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Celebration today from 1-3 p.m. at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana Blvd. in Albuquerque. Several hundred students submitted 500-word essays on civil rights, diversity and community pride. The scholarship program is an ideal way to help promote Dr. Kings legacy, said Jewel L. Hall, the councils spokeswoman and past president. Excerpts from some the submitted essays follow. On the first day I came to America, I always got picked on; but after I followed the footsteps of great leaders such as Dr. King, I earned my respect through non-violence. I have a dream that our society will one day live up to Dr. Kings expectations. I can proudly look around my school and witness immense diversity. His tenacity has encouraged me to never concede and consistently be persistent even in the face of diversity. The dedication and faith that Dr. King exhibited in his speeches and protests have created a path for people who want to make a difference in this world to follow. I am one of those people. Thanks to the work of Dr. King I have the ability to strive and prepare a better future for my son to have and experience; a better future that isnt full of bigotry and racism; a future where he can lead a life of value and prosperity. Dr. King changed my views on the world, and helped me realize my dream. Dr. King wanted to bring people with different skin colors together, and I want to bring hearing and deaf people together, and create opportunities for both. Dr. King has inspired me to be a crusader in the quest for peace and kindness. He has taught me that my words and actions have power and meaning and I have the potential to bring justice to those who need it most. I have been inspired by Dr. King, who has fueled my dream of fighting injustice by pursuing a career as an immigration attorney. I want to offer immigrants the chance to prove to the world that they have the right to the American Dream. As a result of Dr. Kings leadership and principles, I am proud of whom I am, a young woman of color and I am not ashamed of how someone else might portray me. Scholarship sponsors include: Diane Gibson, Albuquerque City Councilor; Smiths Food and Drug Stores; In Memory of Milton S. Hall Sponsors Stephen and Renetta Torres; Second Presbyterian Church; Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc.; Modrall Sperling Roehl Harris & Sisk P.A.; Mitchell, Olsen and Richardson Memorial Scholarship; PNM; Wells Fargo; Silvio G. DellAngela and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Multicultural Council; Mitchell, Olsen and Richardson Memorial Scholarship; Rio Rancho Community Foundation Memorial Scholarship; In Memory of Tony Pakinkis Sponsored by Congregation Albert; Commissioner Wayne A. Johnson, Bernalillo County; Bank of America; University of New Mexico, Division for Equity and Inclusion; In Memory of Christopher M. Torres. We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com. Protesters carried bright signs and chanted as they marched around the University of New Mexico on Sunday, in one of dozens of rallies that drew thousands across the country targeting the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act and possible changes to Medicare and Medicaid. The coordinated action was launched by former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and high-profile Washington, D.C., Democrats. In Albuquerque, passing motorists honked in support as the group of more than 100 made its way down sidewalks and through the campus. Connie OMarra has insurance through her job, but said shes worried for the many people who rely on the ACA. We know the only way we can make a change or get the attention of those powers is to come out here and protest, she said. So many other people will be impacted. So many other people will have threats to their lives with the loss of this. Its important for us to stand up for everyone. Rupal Patel said that the ACA affects people who are privately insured, too. She pointed out that it was the ACA that brought insurance to people with pre-existing conditions, and it allowed dependents to stay on their parents plans until they turn 26. It impacts even the average Joe Schmo who has insurance, she said. ACA covers a lot of stuff that people dont recognize. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham spoke at a rally prior to the march. Our First Stand, the catchall theme for the protests, was brainstormed by Sanders, an independent, and Democratic leaders in Congress. Some of the rallies across the nation introduced crowds to men and women who had faced death or bankruptcy before the ACA went into effect, then challenged Republicans to listen to their stories. The immediate goal of the rallies is to show Republicans that the majority of people are against repealing the Affordable Care Act, Sanders said in an interview this week. I think people are waking up to the fact that the Affordable Care Act has been helping tens of millions of Americans, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., after a rally in Bowie, Maryland, organized by Maryland Democrats that drew 1,500 people. Energizing the public around a common goal can have an important result. David Weigel at The Washington Post contributed to this story. Copyright 2017 Albuquerque Journal Four people including a 15- and 16-year-old in Albuquerque are among the first to face pre-trial incarceration under the states new constitutional amendment allowing judges to keep defendants in jail without bail if its proved they are too dangerous to release. A prosecutor on Friday argued that the teens, who are facing murder charges stemming from an auto theft that left a man dead, are the exact type of suspects for which the amendment was created. Second Judicial District Judge Cristina Jaramillo agreed. Jaramillo said that despite their young ages, 16-year-old Lanise Padilla and 15-year-old Cornelius McCullum have shown they cant be trusted in the community because of their past criminal histories and because of allegations of crimes they committed in the days after the incident that landed them in her court Friday. She also criticized the teens families. Both of these children have had multiple referrals to the juvenile justice system, multiple, over the years, and I yet dont have any parents here. I just dont understand, Jaramillo said. No one from Padillas family showed up in court to support her. Her attorney said there wasnt contact information for the mother. As a mother, I think I would be on task for every hearing that my child had and that goes for (McCullums father), too. A parent should be here. I dont care what, you put those things aside, Jaramillo said. One of McCullums aunts showed up to support him and told Jaramillo the boys father was very sick but has attended other meetings and been in contact with attorneys. The aunt broke down as the judge slammed the families. She (Padilla) has shown that she is not amenable to any kind of supervised probation by picking up these two charges while on probation for another charge so there will be no bond for her, Jaramillo said. As for him (McCullum), there will be no bond until his father can come in and talk to me about his dedication and his responsibility for taking care of him. Until his father can come in and do that to me face to face, hes getting no bond because Ill tell you what, his father has not been involved in this 15-year-old running around with people like her. Prosecutor Spirit Gaines said Friday that she sought and secured a no-bond hold for two other defendants in the case, the first time she has done so under the new amendment that cleared the Legislature last spring and was overwhelmingly approved by voters in November. The teens are accused of being part of a five-person car theft spree Sept. 16 that left carpenter and church deacon Hector Aguirre with fatal injuries after he tried to stop them from stealing his work van. Police say that the two joined with three older teens Dominic Jiminez, Daniel Sandoval and Xavier Montoya, all 19 to steal cars. They say the group stole one vehicle in the morning and crashed it into one that was parked. They then went looking for another vehicle to steal, police say, and about noon found Aguirres work van, with keys in the ignition, parked in front of a house where he was giving a job estimate. As they stole it, Aguirre intervened and jumped on the hood and windshield. One of the 19-year-olds was driving, and Padilla and McCullum were in the back seat, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree. Police say one of the 19-year-olds pointed a gun at Aguirre, drove the van recklessly to get him off the windshield, then ran him over and drove away. The crew abandoned or possibly traded that van for drugs and just hour later, prosecutors told the judge Friday, they stole yet another vehicle. Aguirre, father to three sons, spent two months in a coma before dying. Each of the five is charged with first-degree murder, among 12 additional charges, in Aguirres death. And as of Friday, four of the five have been ruled too dangerous to release from jail under the constitutional amendment. Crime spree Prosecutors told Jaramillo they believe that just days after the car theft in which Aguirre was killed, the teens were involved in an armed robbery of a woman who had allowed McCullum to stay with her. And police have said the two teens were part of a gang of youths connected to at least one other murder and other crimes, including the fatal shooting of a Great Dane in the East Mountains during a burglary. These are increasing property crimes that lead to homicide and mobbing cases like Gerecke, said Gaines a reference to Steven Gerecke, who was shot and killed June 2015 at his Northeast Heights home about 3 a.m. after police say he confronted a group of teens who had broken into several cars and houses, including his, that night. Those teens, ages 14 to 17 at the time of the shooting, have all pleaded guilty. Police called their actions mobbing. Outrage over Gereckes death, along with several other high-profile crimes, helped carry voter support of a constitutional amendment that would change how judges can release defendants from jail pending trial. Prior to the amendment, the states constitution required judges to offer reasonable bail to everyone arrested, except in limited capital felony cases. Critics of the old bond system blamed it and judges for releasing dangerous defendants who continued to hurt people and property. Legislators last year approved the constitutional amendment that gives judges the choice to keep defendants in jail if a prosecutor can provide clear and convincing evidence that the defendant will not come back to court, and is a danger to the community. It also has provisions designed to help keep people accused of minor crimes, but who have no money to post bond, out of jail. In November, 87 percent of voters approved the amendment. What was there to do? The presidential election results had been a punch in the gut for some, a searing, sickening shock to expectations that perhaps should have never been so expected, so assumed. It had been more than just one candidate losing to the other, more than just another derailment of a womans rise to the highest office in the land. That glass ceiling was not shattered, but to some it felt the country was. It was like everything we hoped and believed in was suddenly shaken, Lindsay Conover said. The Santa Fe psychology student and astrological counselor said the election results devastated her. I actually was shocked at the response I had, she said. I didnt think I would be that emotionally affected by that. Lauren Meiklejohn, watching the election results in Albuquerque, felt equally stunned. I had the feeling of being overwhelmed with sadness, she said. But I also started to think it was a call to action. Maybe it was time to get up, get out and get about the business of cleaning up the whole mess. It was time to rally. One woman in Hawaii posted an idea on Facebook about how women from all walks should gather together in the nations capital Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, to march in support of causes and concerns that were feared to now be at risk under a new administration. Within hours, some 10,000 had signed up. Today, the Womens March on Washington is on track to become the largest anti-inauguration demonstration that weekend, with an estimated 200,000 expected to attend. Meiklejohn wanted to be one of them. But I felt conflicted, she said. I thought if I removed myself from here, Id be just another anonymous person who shows up there and leaves, not connected to that community instead of committing to where I live. I thought I owe it to Albuquerque to make a deeper connection right here. She heard about a meeting in Albuquerque for women interested in organizing a local march a sister march in conjunction with the D.C. event. Like most of the women there, she had never endeavored to organize or participate in a rally of this magnitude. This, though, was different. We did not know each other until we started this, she said. We just came together out of sheer determination and a willingness to work hard. The group of about a dozen women organized loosely under the name Albuquerque Womens Network and elected members to lead steering committees. Besides Meiklejohn, the others include Mariam Salas, Liv Marie Baca-Hochhausler and Rylee Escalada, a diverse group of women of different colors, creeds and backgrounds. We wanted it to be very democratic, said Meiklejohn, mother of two. While the Albuquerque women began organizing, a Santa Fe march was further along in the planning stages one of the first sister marches to be formed. Conover was the organizer. Honestly, something changed with the election, she said. It was like a fire was lit under me. Currently, more than 280 sister marches are planned next Saturday in all 50 states and in more than 55 cities around the world from Nairobi to Sydney an estimated 600,000 participants, all told. According to Facebook figures alone, more than 2,700 have registered to go to the Albuquerque rally and more than 1,300 to Santa Fe. Rallies in Las Cruces and tiny Fort Sumner are also planned. Men and children are also welcome. The organizers say that although it was the election of Donald Trump that inspired them to come together, the event is not about him. Instead, the demonstrations plan to focus on causes that are especially important to women racial and LGBT equality, reproductive rights, worker rights and concerns about the environment, poverty and immigration, among others that are especially vulnerable now. We dont want this rally to be about Trump or his incendiary ways that really thrive on the negative, Meiklejohn said. I am grateful, actually, to him because he is laying it out really clearly that we cannot depend on the government to champion the things most important to our values. Had Hillary Clinton won, we just would not have felt the same drive to organize. The Albuquerque march will also feature more than 20 tables of representatives from numerous local activism groups and causes. In that way, Meiklejohn said, rally goers can connect with the organizations to keep active in the causes of their choice after the march is over. Conover, too, said she hopes the march instills a unifying empowerment that endures. I think many of us felt like we are all kind of waking up and saying, oh my gosh, weve got to use our voices to effect change, she said. Maybe we didnt realize until now that we had to or we could. 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. Albuquerque: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Civic Plaza. For information, see Womens March on Washington in Albuquerque Rally or Albuquerque Womens Network on Facebook, @abq_wonet on Twitter. Santa Fe: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March from north side of Bataan Memorial Building to State Capital. For information, see wmwsf.net and Womens March on Washington Santa Fe March/Rally on Facebook, @WMWsantafe on Twitter. Fort Sumner: 10 a.m. at Dallas Park. For information, call 575-355-0098. Las Cruces: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Southwest Environmental Center. For information, see Las Cruces Coalition For Reproductive Justice on Facebook. OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) Think it's hard for firefighters to rescue a cat in a tree? Try a cow in a swimming pool. Firefighters in Oklahoma City were summoned Sunday morning after a homeowner reported hearing some sort of snorting coming from his swimming pool area. Emergency responders arrived and discovered a hole in the swimming pool's liner and a cow trapped in the water. Oklahoma City Fire Department Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson says firefighters used their pumps to remove about 5 feet of water from the pool so the cow wouldn't experience hypothermia. Crews then brought in a wrecker to hoist the nearly 1,500-pound animal from the pool and to safety. Fulkerson says the cow appeared to be uninjured after its ordeal. 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. DENVER Several thousand people walked through snowy Denver on Monday to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in the citys 31st annual marade. The crowd in the combination march and parade made its way down Colfax Avenue, chanting and holding signs expressing love for King and opposition to President-elect Donald Trump, The Denver Post (http://dpo.st/2jhlHLm ) reported. Im still trying to process the election, said Danielle Ryan, a Denver resident who was participating for the sixth time in the event. I like to come out to events like this because they give me energy. The crowd was smaller than the past two years. Vern Howard, chairman of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission, blamed the weather and a disruption last year by the Denver chapter of Black Lives Matters. Last year, demonstrators protesting the death of a man in Denvers jail briefly took over the stage during speeches traditionally delivered by lawmakers. The protesters yielded, but some in the crowd jeered Denver Mayor Michael Hancock when he spoke. This year, some in the crowd heckled U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman because of his vote to repeal the federal health care law. The Republican from Denvers eastern suburbs didnt acknowledge the hecklers and later marched. Some people were angry with Coffman after he left a public meeting in his district on Saturday before talking to them about his vote. Denver got several inches of snow but it eased by the time the march started. WARSAW, Poland Polish leaders welcomed U.S. troops to their country Saturday, with the defense minister expressing gratitude for their arrival and calling it the fulfillment of a dream Poles have had for decades. The ceremony in the western Polish town of Zagan comes some 23 years after the last Soviet troops left Poland. It marks a new historic moment the first time Western forces are being deployed on a continuous basis to NATOs eastern flank. The move has infuriated Moscow. We have waited for you for a very long time, Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz told the troops as snow fell. We waited for decades, sometimes feeling we had been left alone, sometimes almost losing hope, sometimes feeling that we were the only one who protected civilization from aggression that came from the east. The American deployment includes an armored brigade of 3,500 American troops from Fort Carson, Colorado. It comes in reactions to Russias annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and its backing of separatist insurgents in Ukraines east. Those actions have frightened many in Poland, the Baltic states and other countries in Eastern Europe that were once under Moscows control. The Polish government organized several other events across the country, including in downtown Warsaw, to welcome the Americans. This is an important day for Poland, for Europe, for our common defense, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said. The troops are due to fan out across seven countries from Estonia to Bulgaria for exercises. A headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany. After nine months they will be replaced by another unit. NATO will also deploy four multinational battalions to its eastern flank later this year, one each to Poland and the three Baltic states. The U.S. will also lead one of those battalions. The Kremlin has denounced all these deployments, saying it considers them a threat to its own security and interests. GREELEY, Colo. Peter Steeves has a heart for the hard cases, the ones that wrinkle noses at animal shelters, and perhaps the blind blue heeler knew that when he bumped against Steeves leg. Steeves is an animal control officer for the Weld County Sheriffs Office. He was there to collect the heeler because his owners were being evicted and didnt want him any longer. It didnt seem like they wanted him at all anyway. The heeler had a ragged coat, and his milky eyes were probably the result of neglect as well. Hed obviously spent his whole life outside. When Steeves offered him a treat, the dog sniffed at it the way a child might look at some cough syrup. Steeves heard from others that he was aggressive, even mean. Yet when Steeves put him in the truck, the heeler didnt growl. He cuddled. Right away, he seemed to appreciate Steeves warm hand, reported the Greeley Tribune (http://bit.ly/2igXp1P). When Steeves dropped him off at the Weld County Humane Society, he knew the heeler would be one of those tough cases, and of course his heart went out to him. Make sure that dog finds a home, he told them. Steeves applied to be an animal control officer more than two years ago because he wanted to help dogs. He came to Evans, where he moved into a home in July, because his wife, Tricia, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Northern Colorado. Tricia loves what Steeves does. She has a rescuers heart, too. He overturns the old stigma of the dog catcher,' said Matt Turner, spokesman for the Weld County Sheriffs Office. The Humane Society called Cindy Hungenberg to find a home for the dog. Hungenberg helps run a small rescue organization with foster homes in Greeley, LaSalle and Denver, and she has a thing for cattle dog types. She placed the dog in a foster home, and then she looked at the way Steeves visited the dog whenever he got a chance, and the way the heeler responded to him. Whenever she got a chance, she mentioned to Steeves that the heeler was available. Most of the time, the dogs pick who they want to be with, Hungenberg said. There was a bond there from the very beginning. You could sense it. Steeves finally agreed. But he already had three dogs, Xana, Dexter and Fonzi. They were all sweet and loving, even if they were all a bit off, the kind of cases Steeves enjoying taking in. He asked his wife. Threes already kind of a lot, she said. Steeves texted her a photo of the heeler. Bring him home, she said. They named him Spock because of his pointy ears. Just like the misfits who bond together in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the other dogs accepted Spock, even if one growls at him because Spock occasionally steps on them. Hes the smartest of the four, so Steeves just had to lead him around the house and the yard a time or two. Spock now finds the stairs that lead inside and outside, and its hard to tell hes blind, save for the times he runs into you. They had to put up a baby gate so he didnt roll down the stairs into the basement and some fencing so he didnt crash into a window well. They installed a fountain so he can hear the trickle of the water for his dish. Those are the only concessions. There are times when Spock barks, Steeves said. Part of the time thats because Spock cant find something. But other times, when Steeves leans against the dog, Spock leans back into him and quiets down. Maybe its those times when Spock just needs to know hes home. ___ Information from: The Tribune of Greeley, Co, http://greeleytribune.com NEW DELHI Counterterrorism police in Bangladesh have arrested another suspected mastermind of a July attack on a restaurant in the capital, officials said. The suspect, Jahangir Alam, was picked up on Friday night in a raid in Tangail district, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Dhaka, said Monirul Islam, head of the Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Details of the arrest procedures were not clear. The July 1 attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, a popular restaurant frequented by foreigners and wealthy Bangladeshis, left 20 hostages, including 17 foreigners, dead. Five young men belonging to the domestic militant group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, stormed the restaurant, sprayed bullets and threw grenades, and slaughtered the hostages. The attack by the group, which is thought to be inspired by Islamic State militants, demonstrated the rising threat of radical Islam in the South Asian country governed by largely secular laws. IS claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied that the Sunni extremist group has any presence in the country. Since the July assault, authorities have reinforced a crackdown on militants and killed about 40 suspects, including what they say were other masterminds of the restaurant attack. No major attacks have been reported since July, with authorities claiming success in their drive against hard liners. The restaurant killings followed several years of smaller attacks targeting scores of individuals considered by militants as enemies of radical ideology, including atheists, writers, bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners. The 35-year-old Alam, who also used other names including Rajib and Gandhi, was wanted by police who considered him one of the planners of the attack. Police said Alam had a close connection with Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian of Bangladesh origin, who was also killed in August in a raid near Dhaka. Police said Chowdhury was the main planner of the group. On Jan. 6, Nurul Islam Marzan, another top suspect in the restaurant attack, was killed in a police raid in Dhaka. Islam said they would interrogate Alam, and a magistrate in Dhaka granted police eight days to keep him for questioning. On Tuesday, the owners of the Holey Artisan Bakery, which had been taped off by police since July, reopened in a different place. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been a central player and one of the most public figures fighting infectious diseases in the United States. Appointed to his position in 2009 by President Obama, the 56-year-old New York native has led the Atlanta-based CDC longer than any director since the 1970s. His tenure has been tested by major disease outbreaks, from the 2009 global H1N1 swine flu pandemic and deadly respiratory virus known as MERS to the Ebola and Zika epidemics and a growing domestic overdose crisis. Like all political appointees, Frieden has submitted his resignation to President-elect Donald Trump and expects to leave his job at noon this Friday. Anne Schuchat, who was chief health officer during the H1N1 pandemic and has been principal deputy director since 2015, will take over as acting director. While in Washington late last week to take part in a National Security Council exercise for top officials across agencies who are coming or leaving, Frieden talked with The Washington Post about the accomplishments and frustrations of his tenure. He spoke about the successes in reducing smoking in this country, the importance of continued global leadership on fighting diseases abroad the best way to protect Americans at home, he said and the challenges ahead. The exchange that follows has been edited for length and clarity. TWP: What worries you about reports that the president-elect has discussed creating a vaccine commission with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading proponent of a scientifically discredited conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism? Frieden: The CDC is ready to work with the incoming administration to protect American people from threats. In terms of immunization policy, we arrive at these recommendations through the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. ACIP is a model for transparency. It involves not just doctors and nurses but professional organizations, community groups and consumers. Every single deliberation of that committee is open to the public. All of the materials are available on the Web. Weve always found that sunlight is a good disinfectant. When it comes to parents vaccinating children, the vast majority vaccinate their children on time and per physician recommendations. TWP: Congress is in the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Aside from health insurance, the law funds prevention and public health. Whats at risk? Frieden: Currently, more than a 10th of our budget comes from the [ACAs] prevention fund. It goes for programs which are broadly supportive: the block grants for state governments, immunization programs, the epidemiology and laboratory capacity programs that find and stop threats, tobacco control programs. These are programs that save lives and save money. And they are at risk. Its a budget decision more than any other decision. Regardless of what happens to the prevention fund, its extremely important to Americans health and safety that those programs continue. TWP: Youve been the longest-serving CDC director since the 1970s. What have been CDCs biggest successes during that time? Frieden: Fundamentally, Americans are healthier and safer because of the work CDC has done over the last eight years. Americans are safer because we have better capacities in place, better infrastructure in place in this country and around the world to find threats early, stop them quickly and prevent them wherever possible. Weve done that through laboratory work that looks at microbial genomics so we can stop outbreaks sooner. Weve done that by training the next generation of public health specialists more than 1,000 of them, fresh out of college and graduate school deployed out to state and local governments. These people will be protecting Americans for decades to come. Globally, weve increased laboratory, surveillance, epidemiology and response capacity around the world so we can stop diseases there and dont have to fight them here. And then, of course, in addition to strengthening the infrastructure, weve responded and stopped some of the deadliest threats that weve faced in recent years. Ebola was the largest mobilization of CDC in history. We had 4,000 people work on this, including 1,400 people who spent 75,000 work days in West Africa. They went to virtually every community where Ebola was spreading to improve contact tracing, infection control, health communication, incident management, laboratory work. And in significant part, because of their work, we stopped Ebola, particularly we stopped it in Lagos [Nigeria] where it could have gotten out of control and become a global catastrophe. We sounded the alarm early and often on the opiate epidemic. Weve been able to strengthen the ability of states to take action about opiates. We still need to do a much better job managing both pain and addiction. [And] because of efforts by the federal government, including CDC and partners throughout society, there are 10 million fewer smokers than there were in 2009. TWP: Whats still on the to-do list? Frieden: First and foremost is the establishment of a rapid-response fund by Congress. I think theres good bipartisan support for this, but CDC needs to be able to move quickly when theres an emergency. FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] doesnt go to Congress every time theres an earthquake or a hurricane and say we need money. We had to wait nine months to contract for improved diagnostics and mosquito-control technologies because of the delay in the Zika supplemental [funding]. A rapid-response fund would allow us to do the equivalent of stopping an earthquake. TWP: What scares you the most? What keeps you awake at night? Frieden: The biggest concern is always for an influenza pandemic. Even in a moderate flu year, [influenza] kills tens of thousands of Americans and sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital. That increase in mortality last year may have been driven in significant part by a worst flu season compared to a mild flu season the prior year. So flu, even in an average year, really causes a huge problem. And a pandemic really is the worst-case scenario. If you have something that spreads to a third of the population and can kill a significant proportion of those it affects, you have the makings of a major disaster. The Bush administration made important investments in public health, global public health and in influenza preparedness, and in the Obama administration, we have built on those. Its a baton that gets passed. Preparedness is really important. One of the things we learned from H1N1 is that the best way to respond to an emergency is with an everyday system that can be scaled up, not a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency system. So in the H1N1 pandemic, when vaccine became available from the manufacturers, we were able to send out over 300,000 doses to more than 70,000 places without a glitch. We used the Vaccines for Children program and its provider it was an everyday system that already provides half the childhood vaccines in the country. We were able to scale it up. The company that did that did a terrific job. They said it was the largest effort they had done in their 120 years. But you dont hear about that because it went so well. The point is, it was an everyday system. And because it could be scaled up, it went well. TWP: At a time when world is more globally connected than ever, coinciding with more emerging pathogens and an incoming administration that is considering just how to engage with the rest of world, do you worry that CDC will be less immune from politics, less able to do its job? Frieden: Just as you need the Department of Defense to protect America from security threats, you need CDC working around the world to protect Americans from health threats. Health often is a bridge. Even at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union worked together on smallpox eradication. In the 1980s, wars were stopped for childhood immunization programs. I was just with President Carter night before last, who was remembering the [1995] cease-fire they were able to broker in Sudan for six months so that they could move forward on Guinea worm eradication. Its still remembered, years later, as the Guinea worm cease-fire. If the resistant organisms emerge in one part of the world, they will inevitably come to other parts of the world. Flu virus spreads like the air around the world. You cant change that. And I think a pragmatic approach will rely on proven programs that protect Americans. TWP: Youve often talked about your frustrations with how slowly the federal bureaucracy moves. Were there times you were almost not willing to toe the line, even if it meant losing your job? Frieden: Ill mention one thing that was public. We were told not to do social media when there was the [2013 federal government] shutdown. But I was so [ticked] off that, [at] 10 oclock at night, sitting at my desk working, I typed into my iPad that Today, CDC had to furlough 8,754 staff. Yesterday they protected you. Tomorrow they cant. We are less safe. I hit enter. I was fairly new to Twitter at that point, and it went viral. It was on all the news the next morning because no one was giving any official interviews. It was a real problem. Because of the way the law is written, the people who keep working during a shutdown arent necessarily essential staff. Theyre just on different funding streams. And the people who I would consider as essential dont meet the criteria as essential. So we can respond to an outbreak, but we cant determine if there are outbreaks. We had to shut down a lot of our monitoring systems. I went to our central lab its a whole floor in one of our huge buildings. Its usually bustling with people doing tests and producing diagnostic kits. It was empty. And there was a machine beeping, an alarm going off. It was terrible, like something out of a movie. It turned out to be nothing life-threatening. But it was an example. There are real-life implications of what decisions are made here. If a tobacco program gets defunded, 16,000 more Americans will be dying from tobacco-related disease. TWP: Public health covers an enormous number of issues, from heart attack and smoking to emerging infectious diseases. Their risks are very different. Do you think those require different kinds of communication? After Ebola and Zika, what should your successor know about the most effective way of communicating those risks when he or she inevitably confronts the next emerging threat? Frieden: CDC has some of the top communications scientists in the world. Their key principles are be first, be right, be credible. You have to get it out there quickly even when the information isnt complete, and thats very uncomfortable for scientists, uncomfortable for doctors. We like to get all the information before we make a determination. But you often have to go with what you know. What Ive always tried to do is tell people what we know, tell them what we dont know. Tell them what were doing to find out the things we dont know. And give people specific things to do. One of the challenges with Ebola was, there wasnt any specific advice to give people. With Zika, you got people to wear mosquito repellent. If youre pregnant, dont go somewhere where Zika is spreading. With things like tobacco, weve learned that what really motivates people to quit are the real stories of real Americans showing their suffering and their disability with smoking. TWP: Do you think the risks from Zika were dealt with a little bit more upfront than they were with Ebola? CDC and federal officials said fairly early on about Zika that there will be other cases and that well see this in places like Florida and Texas. Frieden: We said there could be local [Ebola] cases but there wouldnt be spread. But we didnt expect it to spread [from a patient] to two nurses in Dallas, and I think that contributed to the concern. And we were deeply concerned about the safety of health-care workers. We had initial infection-control guidance that we believed would be sufficiently protective. It had been for 20 years. We had done clinical care of Ebola in West Africa before. But the diagnosis was initially missed. By the time [the patient] came back in he was deathly ill. The nursing care was very intensive, and we felt terrible the nurses got infected. And so we rapidly improved the infection-control recommendations. TWP: CDC labs have experienced numerous and repeated safety lapses. Even though CDC talks a lot about transparency, it has not released much information about what actually happened and where. Frieden: CDC has more than 150 labs with around 2,000 laboratory scientists. We do well over 1 million laboratory tests per year. We have the broadest range of pathogens and environmental risks that are tested for of any laboratory in the world. And we often work under time pressure thats unlike any other lab in the world, with a life-and-death decision that will be made based on whether [the pathogen is] botulism or anthrax or plague, or whether its resistant or not to be determined overnight. Improving laboratory safety is very important. And when there was an incident in one laboratory, we immediately began a thorough review of all aspects of our laboratory work. I specifically got the best outside experts I could find and told them no holds barred. They gave us a large number of recommendations, which were implemented. We now have an associate director for laboratory science and safety. This wasnt one of their recommendations, but its a great thing. Weve started a laboratory leadership service analogous to and coordinating with the Epidemic Intelligence Service. This is a group that will be making labs and better for decades to come. We also have worked hard to improve the culture of safety in our laboratories. So we encouraged reporting of not just incidents but near-misses, so that we can work with the laboratories to minimize the risk. And were encouraged that were seeing more reports. It doesnt mean were less safe. It means were more transparent. I think that the broader lesson on lab safety is that we must minimize, but it is impossible to eliminate, the risk of working with dangerous microbes. I think that this means that we should ensure both that we do everything possible to minimize risk and that we reconsider how many laboratories are doing research on these pathogens and how they are doing it. TWP: Whats next for you? Frieden: Im weighing the options. Ive made all my career decisions by asking one simple question: How can I save the most lives? Thats the question Ill ask in making my decision. President-elect Donald Trump, who spent the weekend engaged in a war of words with civil rights activist and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., met Monday with Martin Luther King III to discuss voting rights. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s eldest son came to Trump Tower with a handful of colleagues affiliated with the Drum Major Institute, a progressive public policy think tank where he is president. After it ended, he told reporters there they had a constructive discussion. It is very clear that the system is not working at its maximum when it comes to voter participant, he said, and Trump said repeatedly that he is going to represent all Americans . . . I believe thats his intent. I believe we have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesnt happen automatically, my father and his team understood that, did that. The private session at Trump Tower with civil rights advocates, on the same day the nation is honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday, represented a mix of symbolism and substance. King III has campaigned for years to establish a form of free government photo identification that could make it easier for Americans who lack a drivers license or other official ID to cast ballots. He and the other attendees, including the Rev. James Forbes, have urged Trump to endorse the idea of making such identification free. But it also provided Trump, who is viewed largely in unfavorable terms by African Americans, with an opening to the black community. In national exit polling in November, black voters favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by a margin of 89 percent to 8 percent. Trump tweeted Monday: Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for the great man that he was! Speaking on NBCs Today Show before the meeting, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said, Today, President-elect Trump is going to sit down with Martin Luther King III and others in New York and have a conversation about voting, about bringing more people into the system, the legacy of Dr. King and how we can continue to pursue that under the Trump administration. Many African-American leaders see the distribution of a free government ID as a critical boost to low-income Americans who cannot open a bank account without one. The lack of an ID not only makes it more difficult to vote in several states, but it also often makes individuals dependent on check-cashing operations that charge high commissions. In a letter to Trump, former U.N. ambassador and civil rights activist Andrew Young, who was invited to attend but had a scheduling conflict in Nashville, wrote that when he and others have pressed for the change, I always ask who could possibly be opposed to such a common sense solution and receive only one answer: check cashers. A photo ID card is truly a freedom card. According to one of the meetings participants, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation, Trump expressed a serious interest in making photos available on Social Security cards and said he would study the issue in further detail. Forbes began the meeting with a prayer about healing the nation, which Trump participated in, the person said. King III, who had urged the Obama administration to make a government photo ID ubiquitous, invited Trump on Jan. 8 to commemorate his fathers birthday by accompanying him on a visit to his memorial on the Mall. Instead, Trumps aides suggested that they meet at Trump Tower. All of the meeting attendees have a connection to the Drum Major Institute, which pledges to carry forward the nonviolent social change legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by promoting economic justice, building community, and fostering a global culture of civil and human rights. Forbes is its chairman; William Wachtel, a New York lawyer, co-founded the institute; and Scott Rechler, a board member who is the chief executive and chairman of RXR Realty, also attended the session. Young, who spoke to Trump by phone during the meeting, made a point of praising Lewis during the discussion. In the letter he sent to the president-elect beforehand, he said he thought the meeting should go ahead because the invitation was offered before the regrettable exchange between you and my friend John Lewis. The first rule of Kingian nonviolence is that you can never find common ground without conversation, he added. Speaking to reporters about Trumps dispute with Lewis, King III said, First of all I think that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides and that Lewis and others could serve as bridge builders over time. The goal is to bring America together and Americans. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post last week, King III noted that Trump won in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where minority turnout declined and stricter voter identification requirements may have deterred some minorities from voting. While we cant know how those affected would have voted, we can agree that every citizen should have the unfettered opportunity to vote, he wrote. Indeed, my concern is not how people vote, but simply that they vote. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, seven states have strict photo ID laws voters lacking such identification can only cast provisional ballots and eight have less-stringent photo ID requirements. King III, along with Young, has proposed that the Social Security Administration place a photo on the cards they give every citizen or that the State Department waive the $55 passport fee for low-income Americans. Many people are concerned that our new president could undo much of what the outgoing president has achieved, King III wrote in the op-ed. But in the area of voting rights, I am the opposite of concerned; I am hopeful in recognition that there is an opportunity to build a better system. Several prominent Democrats, including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, have endorsed the idea. But some such as Lewis have argued that it might leave Americans more vulnerable to data theft. And libertarians, such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also oppose a universal government ID. Proponents of the voter card emphasize that it will be voluntary, rather than universal, and said it represents a rational response to the fact that voter ID laws are poised to proliferate given Republicans recent gains on the state and federal level. Were going to end up with more and more voter ID laws, said American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norman Ornstein. And thats a reality, and the question pragmatically is, what is the best way to deal with it? Ornstein noted that looking at minority turnout in the 2016 presidential election results, It was down more in states with strict laws than in states without it. Thats pretty clear evidence that these laws are aimed to suppress votes. Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at New York University Law Schools Brennan Center for Justice, said in an email that the idea of a free government ID would theoretically resolve the dispute that has divided the parties in the past. My reservation is practical: no state has succeeded in providing free and accessible IDs to those without them, even when they have tried, Weiser said. Our system is not set up well for that. The Washington Posts John Wagner contributed to this report. BRUSSELS European leaders said Monday that they may have to stand alone without the United States once Donald Trump enters office, raising the prospect of an unprecedented breach in transatlantic relations after Trumps comments that the European Union is bound for a breakup and that NATO is obsolete. Trump said in a weekend interview with the Times of London and Germanys Bild newspaper that the 28-nation European Union was a vehicle for German interests and said that he was indifferent to the blocs fate. He also said he was committed to European defense even as he expressed skepticism about NATOs current configuration. Trumps attitudes have alarmed Europe, which is facing a wave of elections this year in which anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic leaders could gain in power. Most mainstream leaders had committed to working with Trump after his inauguration Jan. 20, even as they expressed hope that he would moderate his views once he took office. His hard line has created the grim realization in Europe that they may now have to stand alone, without their oldest, strongest partner. We Europeans have our destiny in our own hands, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. She pledged to work with Trump whenever it would be possible. The full ramifications of a breakdown in transatlantic relations are so extensive they are difficult to total. U.S. guarantees underpin European security. The United States and the European Union, with a population of 500 million, are each others most important trading partner. For decades, European nations and the United States have worked tightly together on issues of war, peace and trade. Trumps comments caused astonishment and excitement, not just in Brussels, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Brussels on Monday, where he was gathering with other European foreign ministers at a previously scheduled meeting. Coming directly from a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Steinmeier said NATO had listened to Trumps comments with concern. The incoming U.S. president is the first American leader since World War II not to support European integration. The European Union has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, because it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union expanded eastward into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies. Steinmeier said that Germany was still trying to assess what U.S. foreign policy will be. For example, James Mattis, the retired general nominated to be Trumps defense secretary, offered straightforward support for NATO and skepticism of Russia at his confirmation hearing last week. We have to see what will come out for American policy, Steinmeier said. French leaders, who face tough presidential elections in April, also appeared to be scrambling to handle the fallout. Trump allies have expressed support for the anti-E.U., anti-immigrant National Front, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is doing well in opinion polls. Le Pen lunched in the basement of the Trump Tower last week in the company of a man who has served as an informal conduit for Trumps contacts with Euroskeptic leaders on the continent, although the Trump transition team denied any formal meeting with her. The best response is European unity, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. As with the case of Brexit, the best way to defend Europe is to remain united. This is a bit of an invitation that we are making to Mr. Trump. To remain a bloc. Not to forget that the force of Europeans is in their unity. Some European leaders appeared to preserve the hope that Trump does not truly mean what he says or that his pronouncements will not be translated into policy. Ayrault appeared to hope that Trumps Cabinet would be the true force of the presidency, saying that he looked forward to sitting down with secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson upon his confirmation to discuss a range of issues of mutual concern to Europe and the United States. And Luxembourgs foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said he thought Trump might change his tune between now and Friday. One must hope that the statements of candidate Trump starting Friday will go in a different direction, Asselborn said. If the risks are summed up, it would be very destabilizing, which is not in the interest of America. Only one leader appeared to embrace Trumps comments, and that was British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who said he welcomed Trumps vow to negotiate a speedy trade deal between the United States and Britain. British trade relationships are in limbo as it negotiates its exit from the European Union. Its very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free-trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast, and its great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump, Johnson told reporters in Brussels. The Times of London was represented at the interview by Michael Gove, a journalist-turned-politician who was also a Brexit campaigner, which itself was a signal from Trump. People want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave, Trump said of the European Union. Personally, I dont think it matters much for the United States. Trump offered mixed messages about NATO, saying that he had called it obsolete in the past and calling it very unfair to the United States that most nations were not meeting their voluntary defense spending commitments. With that being said, NATO is very important to me, Trump said. WASHINGTON The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter, who was extensively questioned by federal agents in the days after the massacre, was arrested by the FBI on Monday in connection with the attack, authorities said. Noor Salman was taken into custody Monday morning in the San Francisco area and is facing charges in Florida including obstruction of justice. A Twitter post from the United States attorneys office in Orlando said Salman will make her initial appearance Tuesday morning in Oakland, California. Noor Salman moved to California after her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. FBI agents repeatedly questioned Salman in the aftermath of the shooting about whether she had advance knowledge of her husbands plans. Salman told The New York Times in an interview published last fall that she knew her husband had watched jihadist videos but that she was unaware of everything regarding his plans to shoot up the club. She also said he had physically abused her. Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night, her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement. Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person. Mateen was the only shooter, and by the time a three-hour standoff with law enforcement had ended, 49 patrons were killed and another 53 people required hospitalization. Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a 911 call to emergency officials during the standoff. He also made a series of Facebook posts and searches before and during the attack. Salman, who grew up northeast of San Francisco, wed Mateen in 2011 after the two met online. They lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, at the time of the shooting. We said from the beginning, we were going to look at every aspect of this, of every aspect of this shooters life to determine not just why did he take these actions but who else knew about them? Was anyone else involved? Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in an MSNBC interview on Monday. The Times first reported on the arrest. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement that Salman was facing accusation of obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones, Mina said. But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he hoped the arrest provides some comfort to the families who are mourning their loved ones, he added. Last month, Salman filed a petition in a California court to change the name of the son she had with Mateen. ___ Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report. Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP By continuing to bomb and abduct civilians and burning their property, the Islamic State (IS) militants are ramping up atrocities in Afghanistans eastern Nangarhar Province. The new spike in IS violence in the remote mountainous districts of Nangarhar, close to Afghanistans eastern border with Pakistan, comes after months of claims by Afghan government and international forces that the ultra-radical group is on the run and has been hemorrhaging territory, fighters, and leaders. On January 15, authorities in Nangarhar said they are trying to secure the release of at least 13 teachers who were abducted from a madrasah in Haska Mina district. The Taliban are not active in this district but Daesh (eds: local name for IS) occasionally pulls off such attacks, Ataullah Khugyani, a spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, told Radio Free Afghanistan. "The teachers were busy with exams at the madrasah when [the Islamic State] militants kidnapped 13 of them and took them to an unknown place." Also on January 15, at least seven civilians, including a woman and three children, were killed in a roadside bomb in Nangarhars Pachir Wa Agam district. The attack, while not claimed by anyone, happened in a remote region controlled until recently by IS. Shirin Aqa Faqir, a spokesman for the Afghan Army in Nangarhar, said Pachir Wa Agam was reclaimed from IS last week. "The IS group has been driven out of Pachir Wa Agam, and the area is now free of IS fighters," he told VOA's Afghan service. A day earlier, IS fighters attacked nearby Kot district. They first targeted local tribal volunteers who have picked up guns to defend their communities and later moved toward an Afghan police check post. Earlier on January 11, IS fighters burned some 65 civilian houses in Kots Baba Ghondai and Bar Sepai villages. Haji Amir Jan Kotwal, a local tribal leader, said houses were burned after local civilians refused to return to live under IS. Daesh has declared enemies of anyone who refuses to live under their authority or resists joining them to fight for them, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. Daesh did this to retaliate against the announcement of a government offensive [in Kot] that was backed by locals. Residents of Kot and nine more districts in Nangarhar have endured horrific atrocities at the hands of IS fighters, who first emerged in the region in early 2015. By that summer, they virtually controlled nine Nangarhar districts including Kot, Pachir Wa Agam and Haska Mina. Their atrocities against civilians were showcased in an August 2015 IS video that depicted bound and blindfolded Afghan laborers forced to sit on explosives. Even the Taliban joined Afghan government and political leaders in condemning the atrocity. Yet the group is regularly blamed for consistent extreme violence against civilians, which prompted thousands of civilian families to flee their home in the Nangarhar district IS overran. By the fall of 2015, IS atrocities had provoked an uprising among Nangarhars Pashtun Shinwari tribe and compelled Kabul and the U.S.-led international forces to act. Last year, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said Afghan and international troops have reduced IS sanctuaries to three districts from nine. He told reporters in September that Hafiz Saeed Khan, the leader of IS Khorasan Wilyat, the groups name for its Afghanistan-Pakistan branch, was killed in the summer. Nicholson said 11 other top leaders and 25 percent of IS fighters were also killed. We estimate their numbers are 1,200 or 1,300 fighters. They have some enclaves in [neighboring] Kunar Province, but primarily they are in Nangarhar Province, he told reporters. The increasing number of IS attacks in Nangarhar, however, showcase the groups resilience. With reporting by the Voice Of America BEIRUT Representatives of some Syrian rebel groups said Monday they will attend talks sponsored by Russia and Turkey scheduled later this month, despite mounting violations of a cease-fire across the war-ravaged country. A rebel adviser said the talks between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition, to be held in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana, will initially focus on ways to strengthen and monitor the cease-fire that went into effect Dec. 30. Opposition activists have reported widespread violence around Syria. Although the scale of the violence was not comparable to the government-led, Russian-backed offensive against Aleppo that preceded the cease-fire, airstrikes and shelling were reported in at least eight of Syrias 14 provinces Monday. The cease-fire excludes areas where the militant Islamic State group operates. There, too, fighting raged as militants closed in on a government military base while Turkey-backed and Kurdish-backed fighters clashed with the extremist group in two different provinces. Faced with the ongoing violations, members of Syrian armed groups have been meeting in Turkey for days to decide on whether to participate and with what delegates. Syrian representatives said the Turkish government, one of the few remaining backers of the opposition, was keen on convening the talks. They are scheduled for Jan. 23. U.N. sponsored talks will follow in Geneva in February. On Monday, Syrian rebel group members and an adviser to the fighting groups said the Astana talks will focus on violations of the cease-fire and ways to reinforce it. The first sessions will be to study the violations and implementation of the cease-fire, said Molhem Akidi, a leading member of the Fastaqim group. The group was a leading fighting force in Aleppo before its fighters left as part of a Russia-Turkey brokered deal. Akidi said the High Negotiations Committee, a political group that represented the opposition in the last Geneva talks, will provide support and technical help for the delegation. Osama Abo Zayd, a legal adviser to the Free Syrian Army rebel groups, said the first round of talks will last for four days and focus solely on ways to monitor cease-fire violations. Abo Zayd said Moscow has promised to rein in violations of the cease-fire by government and allied troops. If a mechanism is worked out, there will be a phase two of the talks, he told the opposition-linked Revolutionary Forces of Syria online. If Russia doesnt live up to its promises after phase one, Russia, Iran and the regime will be the main cause of fighting in Syria, he said. Abo Zayed and Akidi said Ahrar al-Sham, one of Syrias largest rebel groups, was not participating in the talks but support the delegation going. The other powerful group, Fatah al-Sham Front, is not included in the cease-fire, according to the government, and is considered linked to al-Qaida. The talks are considered a diplomatic feat for Moscow. After withstanding a crippling, months-long siege and punishing bombing campaign, the opposition surrendered one of its most prized urban centers, Aleppo. Rebel groups had control of nearly half of the city, once Syrias commercial center, since 2012. The United States was left out of the cease-fire agreement and it is not clear if the new administration will attend the talks next week. Rebel fighters and government allied troops have exchanged blame on who is responsible for violating the current cease-fire. On Monday, fighting mostly raged in the Barada Valley, near the Syrian capital. Clashes escalated between pro-government and opposition forces in and around a number of rebel-run villages as Syrian troops and allied militias advance toward the flashpoint area of Ain al-Fijeh, which holds the main water source for the Syrian capital. Pro-government media reported new government advances southeast of Ain al-Fijeh. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the Syrian war, said there was fighting in Aleppo when rebel groups fired mortars at a government-held neighborhood. Airplanes bombed rebel areas outside the city and violence was also reported in six other provinces. Also on Monday, the heads of several major U.N. organizations called for access to civilians cut off from humanitarian aid in Syria. The joint appeal urged an immediate, unconditional and safe access to all Syrians in need. According to the statement, up to 700,000 people nearly half of them children live in 15 besieged areas of Syria. _____ Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in from Davos, Switzerland, and Hashem Osseiran in Beirut contributed to this report. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Bahraini authorities ordered an independent newspaper to stop publishing online Monday and said a city hall was set ablaze during clashes between opposition protesters and police. The suspension of Al-Wasats online operations followed a spike in anti-government protests led by the countrys Shiite majority that began Saturday. The demonstrations accelerated after three men convicted of a deadly bombing targeting police were put to death Sunday. Opposition activists allege that the condemned men were tortured and see their executions the first since 2010 as inflammatory and politically motivated. Bahrains Information Affairs Authority issued an edict barring Al-Wasat from publishing online Monday evening and said the ban would remain in place until further notice. The ban did not appear to affect the print edition of the paper. It said it acted due to repeated publication of material inciting division in the community, jeopardizing national unity and disrupting public peace, according to a brief statement carried on the official Bahrain News Agency. The papers editor in chief, Mansoor al-Jamri, suggested the decision had taken the paper by surprise. Were trying to get information from the authorities on their points of concern, he said. Al-Wasat is widely seen as the only independent newspaper in Bahrain. It has been ordered shut twice since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising against the Sunni-led government erupted in 2011. Bahrains Interior Ministry said the blaze at the Northern City Hall appeared intentional and was contained by firefighters. Hundreds protested Sunday over the three Shiite men put to death by firing squad over the 2014 bombing that killed two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer. Some youth threw gasoline bombs and clashed with police into the night. Police fired tear gas and birdshot. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet and an under-construction British naval base. BRUSSELS European Union nations bracing for the looming Donald Trump presidency showed defiance Monday in the face of the president-elects stinging comments on everything from NATO and German cars to the crumbling of the EU itself. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the U.S. president-elects view that NATO was obsolete and his criticism that European allied members arent paying their fair share had caused astonishment. Trump also said Britains decision to leave the 28-nation European Union would end up being a great thing, and he predicted that other countries would also leave. At a meeting of EU ministers, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the best response to such comments was simple it is the unity of the Europeans. In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted: We Europeans have our fate in our own hands. Im personally going to wait until the American president takes office, and then we will naturally work with him on all levels, she told reporters. French President Francois Hollande was even more outspoken in his defiance. Europe has no need for outside advice to tell it what to do, Hollande said at a ceremony for outgoing U.S. ambassador in Paris Jane Hartley. Europe will always be willing to pursue trans-Atlantic cooperation, but it will base its decisions on its interests and its values, he added. Some EU officials fear Trumps frequent, often acerbic Twitter postings might be the prelude to a caustic presidency after Fridays inauguration. We are going to move away from, I guess, a kind of Twitter diplomacy, and then into a reality, said Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, adding that reality could be perhaps more difficult than what is going on on Twitter. EU foreign ministers were already worried what Trump might do beyond their continent. They came out against any plan by Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and warned that it could ratchet up tensions with the Arab world. It is very important for us all to refrain from unilateral actions, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said. We hope that there can be reflection on consequences of any move that is taken, she said. Although Trump had made similar statements about NATO during his election campaign, his recent comments still came as a bit of a surprise since his choice for defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, stressed his support for the NATO military alliance in his U.S. congressional confirmation hearing last week. Trumps views, in an interview published Monday with German daily Bild and The Times of London, contradict Mattis, Steinmeier said. If one compares the positions of the designated president and the future foreign and defense ministers, then one cant discern a common foreign policy line among the new U.S. government, he said. There have even been fears the U.S. military commitment to Europe would wane under Trump. A German newspaper group reports that Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has urged Trump to continue meeting the U.S.s financial obligations toward the alliance. Since World War II, the presence of U.S. troops has been a prerequisite for rebuilding the continent, safeguarding peace and ensuring security, she told the RND network of some 30 German papers. We expect continuity from the new U.S. administration. Trump must maintain this leadership role, to ensure security, stability and peace, she was quoted as saying. Trump indicated he was indifferent to whether the EU stays together or not, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which encouraged British people to vote to remain in the EU in the June referendum. I believe others will leave I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think, Trump said in the interview. The British exit from the EU would end up being a great thing, he said. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said its very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast. Trump was less kind to German industry officials, saying car manufacturers including BMW could face tariffs of up to 35 percent if they set up plants in Mexico instead of in the U.S. and try to export the cars to the U.S. Such tariffs would make the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive, Sigmar Gabriel, Germanys economy minister, told Bild. Gabriel suggested Europeans should exhibit more self-confidence in dealing with Trump. Were not weak and inferior, he said. Whatever his goal, Trumps comments were strong enough to make him the talk of the town in European capitals. It is clear that we are discussing this issue all the time, Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said at the EU meeting in Brussels. ___ Grieshaber reported from Berlin. David Rising and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed. The FBI arrested the widow of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen on Monday, authorities said. Noor Salman was arrested at a residence in the San Francisco suburb of Rodeo, California, on federal charges filed in the Middle District of Florida, an FBI spokesman said. The exact charges were not immediately clear, but the spokesman said they were related to the June attack at Orlandos Pulse nightclub. Attorneys for Salman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The U.S. Attorneys Office in the Middle District of Florida posted on Twitter that Salman would make her initial appearance at the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. A representative from the office did not return a message seeking comment. Salman, 30, had been under FBI scrutiny since Mateen shot and killed 49 people inside the nightclub, an attack that was inspired by the Islamic State. He was then fatally shot by police. A law enforcement official had previously told The Washington Post that Salman was with her husband on at least one trip to the club before the attack, and that she at one point went with him to buy ammunition. The FBI had interviewed Salman extensively after the attack, trying to determine what, if anything, she knew about his intentions. In an interview with the New York Times, which first reported the arrest, Salman denied any involvement or knowledge of what her husband was going to do. She said her husband beat her and lived his life in secret. Salman told the Times that she did not view her husbands buying ammunition as suspicious, and she had no idea he was checking out Pulse when she drove with him to Orlando. I was unaware of everything, she told the Times. I dont condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people. Authorities have said previously that Mateen, 29, seemed to have been radicalized online, and that the FBI had investigated him for 10 months beginning in 2013 after he talked at work about his connections with al-Qaida and dying a martyr. Authorities ultimately concluded he had no actual connections, and they closed their probe of Mateen which included putting him under surveillance, recording his calls and using confidential informants with no charges. FBI Director James B. Comey has said the bureau would scrutinize its earlier interactions with Mateen, but an early review found that agents could not have done anything differently. During his rampage at Pulse, Mateen himself called police and professed allegiance to the Islamic State during a series of calls with dispatchers and negotiators. Law enforcement officials have faced criticism for not moving quickly enough to confront the gunman, particularly after he holed up with hostages inside a bathroom in the club. Before the attack, Salman, Mateens second wife, had been living with her husband in Fort Piece, Florida, though she had family in Rodeo and was believed to have been staying there more recently. Those who knew her described her as friendly, outgoing and stylish. She and Mateen had a young son. In her interview with the Times, Salman said that when her husband told her he would not be home for dinner the afternoon before the attack, she asked him not to go. But Mateen left anyway, by Salmans account, saying he had to go see a friend. Salman told the Times that she tried to call her husband on the morning of the attack, and he sent her a text asking if she had seen what happened. When she responded she had not, according to the Times, he wrote back, I love you babe. That was their last contact. In recent mass shootings, federal authorities have moved aggressively to charge those with connections to the incidents or even just to those involved. Joey Meek, of the man accused of killing nine black church members in a mass shooting in Charleston, S.C., pleaded guilty in April to lying to the FBI and concealing his knowledge of the crimes. Dylann Roof, who is accused of shooting nine people in that case, had stayed with Meek and his relatives, and Meek told The Washington Post in a previous interview that Roof had spoken of going to the church and doing something crazy. Federal authorities charged Enrique Marquez Jr., who bought the assault rifles used in the San Bernardino terrorist attack that killed 14 people, with conspiring to carry out two other attacks in 2012. And they arrested three people tied to one of the San Bernardino attackers on charges of marriage fraud, conspiracy and lying under oath. HOUSTON Former astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the last person to walk on the moon returned to Earth with a message of peace and hope for all mankind, died on Monday, his family said. He was 82. Cernan was with his relatives when he died at a Houston hospital following ongoing heath issues, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned. Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nations leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon, his family said in a statement released by NASA. Cernan was commander of NASAs Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface. On Dec. 14, 1972, he became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon and he traced his only childs initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own. Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make, Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. I didnt want to go up. I wanted to stay a while. Cernan called it perhaps the brightest moment of my life. Its like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you cant. Decades later, Cernan tried to ensure he wasnt the last person to walk on the moon, testifying before Congress to push for a return. But as the years went by he realized he wouldnt live to witness someone follow in his footsteps still visible on the moon more than 40 years later. Neil (Armstrong, who died in 2012) and I arent going to see those next young Americans who walk on the moon. And God help us if theyre not Americans, Cernan testified before Congress in 2011. When I leave this planet, I want to know where we are headed as a nation. Thats my big goal. Cernan died less than six weeks after another American space hero, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Their flights werent the first or last of the Mercury and Apollo eras. Yet to the public they were the bookends of Americas space age glory. On Dec. 11, 1972, Cernan guided the lander, named Challenger, into a lunar valley called Taurus-Littrow, with Harrison Jack Schmitt at his side. He recalled the silence after the lunar landers engine shut down. Thats where you experience the most quiet moment a human being can experience in his lifetime, Cernan said in 2007. Theres no vibration. Theres no noise. The ground quit talking. Your partner is mesmerized. He cant say anything. The dust is gone. Its a realization, a reality, all of a sudden you have just landed in another world on another body out there (somewhere in the) universe, and what you are seeing is being seen by human beings human eyes for the first time. Three days earlier, Cernan, Schmitt and Ronald Evans had blasted off atop a Saturn rocket in the first manned nighttime launch from Kennedy Space Center. Evans remained behind as pilot of the command module that orbited the moon while the other two landed on the moons surface. Cernan and Schmitt, a geologist, spent more than three days on the moon, including more than 22 hours outside the lander, and collected 249 pounds of lunar samples. In that whole three days, I dont think theres anything that became routine, Cernan recalled. But if I had to focus on one thing it was just to look back at the overwhelming and overpowering beauty of this Earth. To go a quarter of a million miles away into space and have to take time out to sleep and rest I wished I could have stayed awake for 75 hours straight. I knew when I left Id never have a chance to come back. Completing their third moon walk on Dec. 14, Schmitt returned to the lunar module and was followed by Cernan. We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind, Cernan said. He later acknowledged that he had grasped for words to leave behind, knowing how the world remembered Neil Armstrongs giant leap for mankind on stepping on the moon in 1969. Before heading home, Cernan said he drew the letters TDC the initials of his then 9-year-old daughter, Teresa Dawn with his finger on the dusty gray lunar surface. He said he imagined someone in the distant future would find our lunar rover and our footprints and those initials and say, I wonder who was here? Some ancient civilization was here back in the 20th century, and look at the funny marks they made.' Eugene A. Cernan was born in 1934 in Chicago and graduated from Indianas Purdue University in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering. (Armstrong also was a Purdue grad.) He had been a Navy attack pilot and earned a masters degree in aeronautical engineering when NASA selected him in October 1963 as one of 14 members of its third astronaut class. Cernan had the looks of an astronaut from central casting. Hes your classic sort of handsome debonair flyboy, said space historian Roger Launius, associate director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 1966, he was pilot of Gemini 9, a three-day flight with command pilot Tom Stafford where they used different techniques to rendezvous with a docking adapter that was previously launched. On the flight, Cernan became the second American to walk in space, spending more than two hours outside the Gemini spacecraft. Cernan would later call the mission, that spacewalk from hell. It was very serious, said Launius, the historian. He lost all kinds of water, his equipment did not work effectively. He overheated. His visor glossed over with water, he could barely see. He barely got back in the spacecraft. Cernans sweat so much he lost 13 pounds. The space agency was forced to go back to the drawing board. That was a really important learning experience, Launius said. The difficult thing about that is they put an astronauts life at great risk there. They learned the lesson. With the Apollo program underway, Cernan flew on Apollo 10 in May 1969. It was a dress rehearsal for the lunar landing on the next flight and took Cernan and Stafford, aboard the lunar module Snoopy, to within 9 miles of the moons surface. The mission was marked by a glitch when the wrong guidance system was turned on and the lunar module went out of control before Stafford righted it by taking manual control. Cernan often joked that his job was to paint a white line to the moon that Armstrong and the rest of the Apollo 11 crew could follow. Yet Cernan was one of only three people to voyage twice to the moon either to its surface or in moon orbit. James Lovell and John Young are the others. In 1973, Cernan became special assistant to the program manager of the Apollo program at Johnson Space Center in Houston, assisting in planning and development of the U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission. He was senior U.S. negotiator with the Soviets on the test project. He retired from NASA three years later. He worked for a Houston energy firm, Coral Petroleum, then in 1981 began his own aerospace consulting company. He eventually became chairman of an engineering firm that worked on NASA projects. He also worked as a network television analyst during shuttle flights in the 1980s. A documentary about his life, The Last Man on the Moon, was released in 2016. Teresa was Cernans only child with his wife Barbara. The couple married in 1961 and divorced 20 years later. In 1987, he married again, to Jan Nanna, and they lived in Houston. In all, Cernan logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, more than 73 hours of them on the moons surface. I can always walk on Main Street again, but I can never return to my Valley of Taurus-Littrow, and that cold fact has left me with a yearning restlessness, he wrote in his 1999 autobiography, also entitled The Last Man on the Moon. It was perhaps the brightest moment of my life, and I cant go back, he said. Enriched by a singular event that is larger than life, I no longer have the luxury of being ordinary. Cernan is survived by his wife, Jan Nanna Cernan, his daughter and son-in-law, Tracy Cernan Woolie and Marion Woolie, step-daughters Kelly Nanna Taff and husband, Michael, and Danielle Nanna Ellis and nine grandchildren. ___ Borenstein reported from Washington. Associated Press writer David Warren contributed from Dallas. Next time you headed through the Albuquerque International Sunport, keep an eye out for certified, home grown, home made New Mexico products. The New Mexico Tourism Department has partnered with Avila Retail to bring attention to products that are 100 percent made in the Land of Enchantment, officials said in a news release. Featured products include New Mexico Pinon Coffee, Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Farm, Designs by Erika, and Senor Murphys Chocolate. Additional products are expected to be added over time. The products, all members of the departments New Mexico True Certified program can be located at three separate outlet in the airport Greetings from New Mexico, Earth Spirit and the ABQ2GO kiosk, all owned by Avila Retail. The New Mexico True promotion runs through mid-March and features window displays and kiosks encouraging shoppers to Buy authentic. Buy local. We know through research that our visitors have an interest in products and experiences unique to the Land of Enchantment, said Rebecca Latham, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Tourism Department, said in a statement. This first of its kind collaboration provides competitive advantage to local products made and manufactured in New Mexico by leveraging the successful New Mexico True brand. The state Tourism Department created the New Mexico True campaign as a counter to common misconceptions that New Mexico is a arid, barren desert state with nothing to do. To learn more about New Mexico True Certified visit NMTourism.org/TrueCertified. We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com. CHICAGO The release of a damning Department of Justice report, which found civil rights abuses permeate Chicagos 12,000-officer police force, was in many ways just the start of a process that could take a decade or more. Chicagos is among the largest police departments ever investigated since Congress in 1994 granted the Justice Department powers to do so and to force reforms if deep-seed violations are discovered. A look at how the process could play out: ___ Q: THE MAIN FINDINGS? A: The 161-page report found officers were too quick to use excessive force, shooting at suspects even when they posed no threat. It also pointed to a pervasive cover-up culture. The document blamed bad often-deficient training, describing one instance where an aspiring officer slept through an academy class on the proper use of force. ___ Q: WHAT HAPPENS FIRST? A: The most immediate priority is to explain the findings to city and community leaders, as well as to officers. Leader of Chicagos police union held a conference call Friday with Justice Department officials within hours of the report being released. ___ Q: AND THEN? A: Bilateral, closed-door negotiations between city officials and Justice Department counterparts to hammer out a detailed reform plan. Talks with far smaller cities have taken more than six months; negotiations with Chicago are likely to last at least that long. ___ Q: WHO WILL OVERSEE THE PROCESS? A: President Barack Obamas administration launched the probe in 2015 after a video showed a white officer fatally shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. But once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated this week, his appointees will be in charge. Career Justice Department staff could offer continuity, though Trump appointees could intervene to alter aspects of the process. ___ Q: WHAT ABOUT NEGOTIATING POSITIONS? A: Its unclear what will change in the negotiating strategy of a Justice Department under Trump, who was strongly backed by police unions Chicagos included. Obama-era negotiators made greater civilian oversight of police a core position. Its unclear if Trump appointees would push for the same level of civilian oversight, which some unions have criticized as overly intrusive and counterproductive. ___ Q: WHAT ABOUT CHICAGOS MAYOR? A: The perception that Mayor Rahm Emanuel badly mishandled the McDonald shooting hurt him politically. The Democrat may feel pressure to address all, or nearly all, of the report findings to restore his fortunes, and could end up advocating for a more extensive reform plan than Trump political appointees are inclined to back. ___ Q: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SIDES AGREE TO A REFORM DEAL? A: Under Obama, they usually took the plan to a federal judge to make it legally binding in the form of a consent decree. The court also appointed a monitor to ensure compliance. But Trumps pick to head the Justice Department, Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, has expressed reservations about consent decrees, saying they can unfairly malign all officers for the actions of some. ___ Q: HOW LONG WILL IT ALL TAKE? A: Some reform plans seek sustained compliance within two to four years. Reforms in larger departments with a history of abuses, like Chicagos, can take much longer. An investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department started in 1996 and a consent decree was in place by 2001 While the LAPD had complied with key provisions by 2009, it was only in 2013 that a federal judge ended all court oversight. ___ Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at @mtarm. ISTANBUL A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a New Years attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police operation, Turkish media reports said early Tuesday. The suspect was captured in a special operations police raid on a house in Istanbuls Esenyurt district, private NTV television reported. The broadcaster said he had been staying in the house belonging to a friend from Kyrgyzstan. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the nightclub massacre, saying the attack in the first hours of Jan. 1 was in reprisal for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack. Hurriyet newspaper and other media have identified the gunman as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbekistan national. The suspect was to undergo medical checks before being taken to police headquarters for questioning, the paper said in its online edition. Dogan news agency published what it said was the first image of the attacker. It showed a bruised, black-haired man in a grey, bloodied shirt being held by his neck. Private NTV television said the gunman had resisted arrest. NTV reported that the alleged gunmans Kyrgyz friend and three other people also were detained. His 4-year-old child, who was with him at the home, was taken into protective custody. Hurriyet newspaper said the alleged gunmans wife and 1-year old daughter were caught in a police operation on Jan. 12. Police established his whereabouts four or five days ago, but delayed the raid so they could monitor his movements and contacts, NTV reported. The television channel also broadcast footage showing plain-clothed police taking away a man in a white top and sweat pants, forcing his head down. The station said the images showed the gunmans Kyrgyz friend being taken to a police vehicle. The state-run Anadolu Agency likewise reported the arrest and identified the gunman, only with a slightly different spelling of his first name, Abdulgadir. It said a Kyrgyz man and three women were detained with him Anadolu said the suspects were being taken to Istanbuls main police headquarters for questioning. Police were carrying out raids on other suspected Islamic State group cells, the news agency said without providing details. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu posted a Twitter message thanking the interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, police and intelligence organizations who caught the Reina attacker in the name of the people. Earlier in the day, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the Reina nightclub attack had been carried out professionally with the help of an intelligence organization, a claim he had made in the first days after the attack. He did not name the organization suspected of being involved. Hundreds of people were gathered at the swanky Reina nightclub to celebrate the end of a tumultuous 2016 only to become the first victims of 2017. The gunman shot a police officer and a civilian outside the club, then stormed the premises. Most of the dead in the attack on the upscale club were foreign nationals, from the Middle East. The gunman had reportedly left Reina in a taxi. ___ Fraser reported from Ankara. AP Writer Dominique Soguel contributed from Basel, Switzerland. Donald Trump met Monday with Martin Luther King III, who said he used his time with the president-elect to discuss strategies to fix the U.S.s broken voting system. The oldest son of the civil rights leader trekked to Trump Tower amid renewed tensions between the incoming president and African Americans over Trumps weekend twitter attack on another civil rights icon, Georgia Congressman John Lewis. King told reporters his conversation with Trump focused on boosting voting rights for those who feel their freedoms are under threat. We did have a very constructive meeting, said King, who arrived at Trump Tower on the U.S. holiday honoring his father. Trump has said that he is going to represent all Americans and I believe that is his intent, King added. Trump didnt take questions from reporters following the meeting. King III has advocated for the government to issue free photo-identification cards that citizens could use to vote if they lack a drivers license or another form of official ID. He said he would like Trump to direct the Social Security Administration to put a photo on the Social Security card of anyone who seeks such identification, or to direct the State Department to waive the $55 passport card fee for low-income Americans. Either approach is within the presidents authority and would impose minimal costs to secure the most fundamental right for all Americans a right that most people consider priceless, King wrote in a Washington Post commentary. King wrote that minority vote totals had fallen from previous elections in battleground states that were key to Trumps victory, including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. The declines may be attributable to legislative efforts intended to make it harder to vote, King wrote. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said on Twitter Monday morning that the meeting with King III was intended to discuss his late fathers legacy. Trump was initially planning to travel to Washington Monday to visit the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, but canceled because of scheduling issues, ABC News reported, citing transition sources. A growing number of Democratic lawmakers have said they wont attend Trumps inauguration later this week following his criticism of Lewis, whose district includes much of Atlanta. The incoming president posted on Twitter Saturday that Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk no action or results. Sad! The tweets came after Lewis, 76, said he didnt consider Trump a legitimate president because Russians helped him get elected. Lewis, who worked closely with Martin Luther King during the 1960s and suffered a cracked skull protesting for voting rights, made the comments in an interview with NBC News. In the heat of emotion, a lot of things get said on both sides, King III said in response to reporters questions about the spat between Trump and Lewis. Trump has repeatedly rejected suggestions that hacking by Russia or other actors helped him win. He did concede last week that the Russian government was behind the hacking of Democratic Party computers and the leaking of internal e-mails, as U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded. With assistance from Toluse Olorunnipa This past weekend, in Phoenix, the candidates for the Democratic National Committees top jobs met for the first time. Nothing was resolved and nothing will be until the last week of February but plenty was learned about the state of the race. Whos running? The field in the races for chair and vice chair of the party is more or less settled. (The sames true of the lower-profile races for secretary and treasurer.) The candidates for the top job are Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Secretary of Labor Tom Perez; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley; South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison; Idaho Democratic Party Executive Director Sally Boynton Brown; and party activist/TV commentator Jehmu Greene. Thats everyone who made it to the first forum, conducted Saturday afternoon. Nothings stopping other candidates from entering, but to make the ballot for the vote in February, they must be endorsed by at least 20 Democratic National Committee members. How do you pronounce Buttigieg? Boot-uh-judge. Who votes on this? The 437 members of the Democratic National Committee. (Whatever else there is to complain about in this system, at least theres no chance of a tie.) That number includes every state (and territory and the District of Columbia) party chair and vice chair, as well as every DNC committee member. It does not include governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, etc., unless those people have deigned to become DNC committee members. That means the newsy announcements of endorsements, like Ellisons support from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Perezs support from Democratic governors, often have no effect on the DNC races math. What do they want? In a word, money. In several more words, a change from the Obama administrations sloppy, disinterested handling of the DNC. The majority of state parties that are in safely red states, safely blue states, or states that were seen as safely blue until 2016 like Michigan and Wisconsin, which now famously did not get resources they believed they needed. Every candidate for chair is promising to redirect more cash to state parties and help them become self-sustaining organizations instead of plug-in attachments to presidential campaigns. Its generally, bitterly understood that this approach was used very well under Howard Deans 2005-2009 tenure and copied effectively by Republicans under Reince Priebus, helping state parties make up the ground lost by a shambling Trump campaign. So whos in the lead for chair? Honestly? No one, though many DNC members agree that Ellison and Perez are the front-runners unless they do something to disqualify themselves. At this writing, Ellison has 15 public endorsements from actual voting DNC members, Buckley has 10, Harrison has two. But Perez et al. are keeping private whip counts, which show an extremely fluid race but plenty of room to win. Is this a replay of the 2016 primary? Absolutely no one running for the job will say so; Greene, who has the least experience inside the party structure, had her best moment Saturday when she blamed the media for trying to portray the race that way. But there is almost no ideological daylight between the candidates Ellison, who would be the first black Muslim chairman of a U.S. political party, basically sees eye to eye with Buttigieg, whos already branded as the heartland candidate. Still, it doesnt take a decoder ring to see how the various candidates are playing this. Ellison is running as the unity candidate, and in Phoenix, when members of the pro-Sanders union National Nurses United flooded hallways to cheer unity, it was clear what they meant. Elect Ellison, signal that the Sanders wing of the party is in control. Perez is viewed warmly by progressives they have only departed from him when he toed the Obama administrations line in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But as Perez told me in an interview this week, hes appealing to Sanders fans one on one by talking about his long progressive record inside the Obama administration, on everything from worker protection to overtime rules to voting rights lawsuits. Put another way: In 2005, panicked Democratic leaders briefly endorsed former Indiana representative Tim Roemer for DNC chair, explicitly because of fears that the party did not appeal to working-class white voters and religious voters. This year, there is no candidate in the race arguing that the party should shift right or abandon any part of its 2016 platform. How much clout do Berniecrats have in the party? Not much, but its growing. The weekend before the Phoenix forum, Sanders supporters organized in part by his post-election campaign group, Our Revolution flooded the usually-sleepy meetings at which California Democrats elect their delegates. The result, according to Sanders, is that more than half of the partys ground-level leadership comes from the movement, in a state he famously lost to Hillary Clinton. Our Revolution has been working the states where Sanders did even better, like Colorado, Nebraska and Washington, to put progressives in charge. The problem for Ellison is that the DNC vote will come before this is reflected in the states DNC membership. That reminds me, what about superdelegates? That question gets to how disorganized the DNC is in a post-Clinton world. Right before the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the party created a unity commission to study whether the party should have superdelegates at all. It was to be composed of nominees from three sources the Sanders campaign, the Clinton campaign and the DNC itself. At the time, Sanders supporters fully expected a victorious Clinton campaign to put on loyalists who would change the superdelegate system as little as possible. What happened instead was that the Sanders campaign nominated its members and everything else is in limbo until after the DNC elections. And when are the elections? Theyll take place at the DNC meeting Feb. 22 to 25 in Atlanta. Before that, there will be three more future forums Houston on Jan. 27 and 28, Detroit on Feb. 3 and 4, and Baltimore on Feb. 10 and 11. And there will be at least two more faceoffs between the chair candidates. The next one, sponsored by the Huffington Post, will take place in Washington on Wednesday at 7 p.m., streamed live. PHOENIX The man who shot and severely beat an Arizona state trooper last week was a former member of the Mexican federal police who was in the country illegally, authorities said. He had rolled his car on Interstate 10 before he inexplicably attacked the officer who had stopped to help. Leonard Pennelas-Escobar opened fire on Trooper Edward Andersson early Thursday after the officer had stopped on the interstate and set up flares in a bid to get motorists to slow down. Pennelas-Escobar said something unrecognizable in Spanish before shooting the trooper, and then he started landing blows with his fists and beating the troopers head on the ground, Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead said Monday. A passing motorist who witnessed the attack retrieved a handgun from his vehicle and fired two shots at Pennelas-Escobar after he refused an order to stop attacking Andersson. With Pennelas-Escobar incapacitated, the motorist tended to the wounded trooper but was later drawn back into the dispute when Pennelas-Escobar got up and resumed his assault on Andersson. The motorist then fired a fatal shot at Pennelas-Escobar. He definitely kept him (Andersson) from having much more serious neurological injuries from this beating, Milstead said. Milstead called a news conference Monday to offer more detail on the chaotic scene, but he was unable to provide an explanation on why Pennelas-Escobar attacked the officer. The 37-year-old Pennelas-Escobar was in the country illegally, a drug user and was believed to have once worked as a Mexican police officer, Milstead said. Still, Pennelas-Escobar had no known criminal history. Andersson arrived at the rollover scene about 55 miles west of downtown Phoenix to find Pennelas-Escobar holding his injured girlfriend, 23-year-old Vanessa Monique Lopez-Ruiz, on the edge of the roadway. She had been ejected in the high-speed rollover and was later pronounced dead. The cause of the collision hasnt yet been determined. Pennelas-Escobar was believed to have been the vehicles driver. Andersson, a 27-year department veteran, suffered gunshot wounds to the right shoulder and chest. He underwent surgery and has since been released from the hospital. The motorist who shot Pennelas-Escobar hasnt spoken out publicly about the shooting. Milstead said the motorist didnt serve in the military or work as a law enforcement officer, but he still had experience in using firearms. The DPS director described the motorist as a humble man with a strong religious faith. He knows he did the right thing, Milstead said. He is trying to reconcile that in his mind, which is difficult to take a life even when you know its the right thing to do. Arizona has a defense of third person law that allows someone to use deadly force against another who is threatening or injuring a third person. It was not unusual that the passing driver was armed in this gun-friendly state with loose regulation. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/jacques%20billeaud. They are some of the biggest names in the Republican national security firmament, veterans of past GOP administrations who say, if called upon by President-elect Donald Trump, they stand ready to serve their country again. But their phones arent ringing. Their entreaties to Trump Tower in New York have mostly gone unanswered. In Trump world, these establishment all-stars say they are PNG personae non gratae. Their transgression was signing one or both of two public Never Trump letters during the campaign, declaring they would not vote for Trump and calling his candidacy a danger to the nation. One letter, with 122 names, was published by War on the Rocks, a website devoted to national security commentary, during the primary season in March. The other, with 50 names, including some repeat signatories, was published by the New York Times during the general-election campaign in August. Now, just days before Trump is sworn in as the nations 45th president, the letter signers fear they have been added to another document, this one private a purported blacklist compiled by Trumps political advisers. Before he won, the conversation was, We really would love for you to change your mind and join us, Peter Feaver, a National Security Council special adviser under President George W. Bush, said of informal talks with Trump aides. Feaver, who signed both letters, added that, Since he won . . . the conversation is, There likely will be a blacklist of people who signed the letters who wont themselves be eligible for a post. Trump transition aides did not respond to a request for comment for this article. The president-elect has virtually no experience in national security and foreign policy, and his transition team could presumably benefit from the broadest pool of applicants for the influential appointive positions in the State Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security. But the purportedly blacklisted figures report to their jobs at Washington law firms and think tanks in a state of indefinite limbo as their colleagues, some working in the same offices, are flirting with potential administration jobs. Last week, the Trump transition held a private briefing for secretary-of-state nominee Rex Tillerson to prepare him for his Senate confirmation hearing. One former Bush national security official who works at a Washington think tank said that some of his younger staff assistants were invited to participate but that he was not. He assumes it was because he signed the letter. Its hostile, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of further retribution. Its not just that were frozen out. I was told they said there was an enemies list. Among those who signed at least one of the letters are Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, the first two secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security; two former U.S. trade ambassadors, Carla Hills and Robert Zoellick; two former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, John Negroponte and retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden; a former ambassador to NATO; and several former deputy secretaries of various U.S. government agencies. Not everyone who signed the letters wants a job, and some remain vocal critics of Trump. But many stand ready to serve or offer guidance if asked. The letters were explicit in their denunciations of Trumps professed support for torture of terrorism suspects, his pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico, his anti-Muslim rhetoric and his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letters also attacked Trumps character and temperament, asserting that he lacks self-control and acts impetuously, has demonstrated erratic behavior and is fundamentally dishonest. Former Bush administration lawyer John Bellinger III, who organized the letter published in the Times, said that many have not given up and are trying to help from the outside. Theyre seeing how it goes and trying to provide advice, counsel, support to our friends who go into the administration, said Bellinger, who has served as legal counsel at the State Department and the National Security Council. The scenario was set up by Trumps unorthodox candidacy and then his upset victory. The threat the New York business moguls populist campaign posed to the establishment of his party caused some of the Republicans leading lights to oppose him, even after he had clinched the nomination. The question after Election Day was how quickly Trump loyalists and the onetime GOP resistance would reconcile. In some cases, the process has gone fairly smoothly. Congressional leaders who had been lukewarm toward Trumps campaign have made nice with the president-elect, and they have vowed to work together on a conservative policy agenda. In other cases, it has been painfully awkward, as with Trumps flirtation with Mitt Romney for secretary of state. Romney had called Trump a phony and a fraud last March, but the 2012 GOP presidential nominee called to congratulate Trump on his election victory. After a courtship that included a dinner of frog legs and lamb chops in New York, Romney was passed over for Tillerson, the head of ExxonMobil. During a national security forum last week at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, K.T. McFarland, who was named Trumps deputy national security adviser, opened her remarks by referring to the elephant in the room. Most of the people in this room didnt support Donald Trump maybe not at first or maybe ever, she said. And I suspect most of the people in this room didnt think hed win. But he has. Some of the Never Trump letters signers fear they are at the bottom of the pecking order, below those who expressed verbal opposition to Trumps campaign but did not sign either of the letters. The conflict was exacerbated shortly after the election when Eliot Cohen, a State Department counselor during the Bush administration who had helped organize the War on the Rocks letter, aired new criticism of the Trump transition. In an opinion column for The Washington Post in November, Cohen said that a friend on the transition team had asked him to provide names of potential job candidates with the stipulation that he include no one who signed either of the letters. Cohen wrote that he became convinced there were pent-up resentments among members of the Trump team, and he warned young policy experts against working for the administration. Cohen has had no further communications with the transition team. Believe me my phone is not ringing, he said in a recent interview. Other letter signers said Cohen had misinterpreted emails from the transition official and overreacted, and some of them expressed a sense of regret. Mary Beth Long, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Bush administration, signed the War on the Rocks letter. But, she said, her opinion of Trump improved as he began to moderate his rhetoric and selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Long attended a Pence rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, in October, during which, she said, a local GOP official announced that a Never Trump letter signer in the audience had changed her mind and was now supporting Trump. The crowd cheered. But her about-face hasnt thawed the ice. Long said her inquiries to the Trump transition team to get clarity on some of his foreign policy positions have gone unanswered. She said that she has spoken with retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps designee for national security adviser, whom she knows from the Pentagon, but that she isnt expecting a job. If I were asked to sign a letter like that again, I would be much more careful about the verbiage that related to the candidate himself, she said. Some letter signers said the Trump transition might be overwhelmed and could reach out more broadly in the coming weeks. Some hoped that Cabinet nominees, such as retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trumps pick to head the Pentagon, could potentially have the freedom to hire them. Many jobs below the Cabinet level remain unfilled. But others are resigned to waiting until some of Trumps initial appointees begin leaving his administration. Frances Townsend, a former Bush homeland security adviser who signed the War on the Rocks letter, is friendly with Flynn. A few weeks after the election, she received an email from the transition team inviting her to meet with the president-elect. Ahead of the meeting, she thought over how to explain her past actions if Trump raised the letter but he did not, she said. I took that as a sign of maturity and graciousness, said Townsend, who has not taken a job with the administration and declined to say whether she was offered one. As I was leaving, I said I was privileged and humbled to come in and speak to him, she said. It was a veiled reference [to the letter]. Given the circumstances, I didnt expect to be there. TIJUANA, Mexico Several weeks ago, a former Guatemalan policeman walked up to U.S. private security guards at the border crossing here and asked for asylum in the United States. I am fleeing my country, the policeman later recalled telling the guards, explaining that he had survived two attempts on his life. I am being persecuted in a matter of life and death. The police offer said he was told he needed to see Mexican immigration authorities, who would put him on a waiting list to make his case to U.S. officials. But Mexican authorities refused to add him to the list, the policeman said, and he has been stuck in northern Mexico. The Guatemalan is one of hundreds or perhaps thousands of foreigners who have been blocked in recent months from reaching U.S. asylum officials along the border, according to accounts from migrants and immigration lawyers and advocates. The details of their cases vary. At the U.S. border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego, numerous asylum seekers from Central America and Mexico have been referred to Mexican authorities for an appointment with U.S. officials but Mexican authorities often turn them down, according to migrants and immigration lawyers. In other places, migrants have been told by U.S. border agents that the daily quota for asylum cases has been reached or that a visa is required for asylum seekers, a statement that runs contrary to law, immigration advocates say. A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Michael Friel, said that there has been no policy change affecting asylum procedures, which are based on international law aimed at protecting some of the worlds most vulnerable and persecuted people. And we dont tolerate any kind of abuse by U.S. border officials, he said. But the proliferation of problems has raised alarm among advocates for migrants. This is happening on a daily basis, said Kathryn Shepherd, a lawyer with the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based advocacy group, who says she has testimony from dozens of asylum seekers denied access to U.S. asylum officials at border crossings in San Diego; Nogales, Arizona; and Texas cities including Laredo, El Paso and McAllen. The council and five other organizations filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Securitys Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on Friday protesting the systemic denial of entry to asylum seekers. The U.S. border agency Customs and Border Protection, or CBP is part of the department. The surge in complaints comes as migrant advocates fear a broad crackdown on the border, one of President-elect Trumps main campaign promises. The United States has long adhered to international laws and conventions allowing people to seek asylum on grounds that they are being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or other factors. If a Border Patrol agent encounters a U.S.-bound migrant without legal papers and the person expresses fear of being returned to their home country, our officers are required to process them for an interview with an asylum officer, said Friel. The number of asylum applicants has been soaring. Some 83,000 such requests were filed at U.S. airports, border crossings and other entry points in 2015, more than double the number in 2011, according to a November report from the Department of Homeland Security. On a rainy morning three days before Christmas, a 34-year-old Honduran woman walked up to the Laredo, Texas, border crossing with her 6-year-old daughter. The woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Xiomara, to protect her safety, said in an interview that she had fled an abusive husband who beat her and her children with belts and machetes. At the border, a U.S. official told her she needed a visa to cross, the Honduran recalled. I told him that I dont have a visa but I want asylum, and he told me no, get out of here, and go back to your country, Xiomara said, according to a written declaration she made to her lawyer under penalty of perjury. When she tried to plead her case, a female U.S. border guard told me they didnt want illegals in her country and to come back if I had a visa, Xiomara said. Two days later, she said, she swam across the Rio Grande and was picked up by U.S. Border Patrol officers. On Jan. 3, she received a positive finding in her interview with an asylum officer, suggesting she has a good probability of winning her asylum case. Diego Iniguez-Lopez, a law graduate based in Dilley, Texas, who works with detained migrants, said he started hearing about cases of rebuffed migrants after the U.S. presidential election. Friel, the CBP spokesman, said there is zero [evidence] to corroborate any kind of change in tone or guidance or policy since Trumps victory. In Tijuana, one of the borders busiest crossings, lawyers, migrants and human rights advocates describe a bureaucratic change that appears to have gone awry. Over the past year, at least 16,000 Haitians descended on the city, many of whom had fled to Brazil after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and then rushed north once the Brazilian recession started to bite. With migrant shelters filled and Haitians sleeping on the street outside the port of entry, U.S. and Mexican authorities organized a new ticketing system to bring order to the chaos, according to Mexican officials. Under it, U.S. officials would refer Haitian migrants to Mexican authorities to receive a number on a waiting list, then process a limited number per day, currently about 20 to 50 people, officials said. The problem is that U.S. border authorities have been referring not just Haitians but other Latin American asylum seekers to the Mexican authorities, according to migrants, lawyers and staff at migrant shelters. And the Mexican authorities refuse to issue numbers to those people because the system is designed to handle only Haitians, said the head of Mexicos immigration office in Tijuana, Rodulfo Figueroa. Some migrants eventually reach a U.S. asylum officer with the help of lawyers; others venture elsewhere along the dangerous border or return home, said migrant advocates and shelter staff. Weve basically arrived at a place where applying for asylum is not available to most people, said Ian Philabaum of the Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit organization that works with immigration lawyers. Philabaum visited several migrant shelters in Tijuana in early November. He met 35 people, the majority Mexicans, who were denied or deterred the ability to request asylum, according to a memo he wrote after his investigation. A spokeswoman for the U.S. border agency in San Diego, Angelica De Cima, declined to provide information about the new ticketing system, beyond saying that the United States has collaborated with the Mexican authorities to improve the processing and humanitarian assistance of those individuals with no legal status to enter the U.S. This is being done to temporarily house the individuals in a more comfortable location and out of the elements. In early December, more than 20 migrant shelters and immigration organizations in northern Mexico sent a letter to senior Mexican officials saying it was illegal for Mexico to act as the gatekeeper for U.S. migration authorities. Mexican authorities do not have the ability or training to participate in the process and, when they do so, commit serious errors and violations of migrants human rights, the letter said. A 50-year-old Guatemalan woman who said two of her sons were killed by gangs tried on two occasions in November to apply for U.S. asylum at the Tijuana-San Diego crossing. But she was told by Mexican authorities that she would have to return to southern Mexico, where she had entered the country, to obtain legal papers allowing her to transit through Mexico, according to a copy of her personal statement given to The Washington Post by a shelter where she was interviewed. She traveled east to Nogales, but U.S. officials there also referred her to Mexican authorities, who told her she did not have the right to request asylum, according to her statement. Joanna Williams, director of education and advocacy with the Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative, which helps migrants recently deported from the United States, said U.S. Border Patrol officials in recent months have periodically rejected asylum seekers, claiming they do not have the capacity to process them. The Guatemalan policeman, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Wilson, because of fear for his safety, said he has been blocked at least four times in Tijuana from speaking with U.S. border officials. One one trip, which was videotaped, the private U.S. security guard told him he needed to go to Mexican immigration authorities. But they told him he could not be put on the waiting list to approach U.S. officials, he said. In the past two years, he said, he has suffered two assaults he was shot at, and hit by a truck while on his motorcycle with his 10-year-old nephew. He suffered a broken skull and his nephew was killed in the truck assault, he said. Wilson attributed both attacks to a person in the government who he said has threatened him. He declined to name the person or provide details of the threats. This is too much for me, he said. But Im not going back to Guatemala for any reason. Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report. Justice Department officials have completed their review of more than 16,000 clemency petitions filed by federal prisoners over the past two years and sent their last recommendations to President Barack Obama, who is set to grant hundreds more commutations to nonviolent drug offenders during his final days in office. Everyone has killed themselves here to get the final recommendations to the president, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said in an interview. We were in overdrive. We were determined to live up to our commitment. It was 24-7 over the Christmas break. U.S. Pardon Attorney Robert Zauzmer has not taken a day off since Yates brought him on in February 2016 to sift through the backlog of thousands of petitions. From her home in Atlanta, Yates said she reviewed hundreds of petitions during the holidays. As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, Justice officials worry that his administration will dismantle Obamas clemency initiative, which has resulted in the early release of 1,176 drug offenders who were sentenced under the severe mandatory minimum laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s during the nations war on drugs. More than 400 were serving life sentences. Yates said Obama will grant a significant number of commutations this week but would not specify a number. Several people close to the process said it will be several hundred. Those officials also fear that the next attorney general may undo new criminal justice policies. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder put in place a policy three years ago to reserve the most severe drug-offense penalties for high-level or violent traffickers and no longer charge low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that impose severe mandatory minimum sentences. Justice Department data indicate that prosecutors are now focusing on more-serious drug cases, and there have been fewer charges that carry mandatory sentences. Neither Trump nor his attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has said what actions might be taken on drug-charging policy or clemency, but during his campaign, Trump criticized Obamas initiative to grant commutations. Some of these people are bad dudes, he said. And these are people who are out, theyre walking the streets. Sleep tight, folks. Yates, who has been responsible for the day-to-day running of the 113,000-employee Justice Department, led the clemency initiative alongside other criminal justice change efforts. In November, for instance, she created a semiautonomous school district for inmates in federal prison. With its own superintendent, the school district offers programs for literacy, high school diplomas and postsecondary education. She cited research that shows that inmates participating in correctional education programs are 43 percent less likely to reoffend and return to prison than those who do not participate; the initiative could mean cost savings for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Federal prison costs represent about one-third of the Justice Departments $27 billion annual budget. Last year, Yates also oversaw the effort to mandate new standards for privately run halfway houses and directed the Bureau of Prisons to work to end its use of private prisons to house federal inmates. It is unclear whether these initiatives will remain in place, especially given that Trump has praised private prisons. I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better, Trump said last year. Hours after his election victory, the stock prices of the two largest private-prison companies soared. Yates pushed hard for sentencing change legislation in Congress, giving speeches and meeting with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The effort had a broad coalition of bipartisan support, including from the NAACP, the conservative Koch brothers, and lawmakers including Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Cory Booker , D-N.J. But the legislation, which would have reduced federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug and gun crimes, making the reductions retroactive for some inmates, went nowhere because of disagreement among Senate Republicans. I am really disappointed, Yates said. We had this moment in time where we had Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, and all sorts of interest groups. We even had the votes in the Senate but couldnt get it to the floor. At several points during the past two years, it appeared that Obamas clemency initiative might have been derailed, partly by a lack of resources but also by a cumbersome review process. After Holder and then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole began the effort in the spring of 2014, thousands of inmates applied. To help them with their petitions, outside lawyers formed an organization called Clemency Project 2014, which includes Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. About 4,000 volunteer lawyers signed up to help in what has become one of the largest pro bono efforts in the history of the legal profession in the United States. Once the lawyers submitted the petitions, the U.S. pardon attorney made recommendations to the deputy attorney general, who reviewed the cases and sent them to the White House counsel, who also reviewed them before choosing which ones went to Obama. When Yates arrived at Justice in the spring of 2015, the clemency program was overwhelmed and bogged down. Advocates criticized the inefficient process and urged the Obama administration to pick up the pace for the inmates waiting for relief from unfair sentences. There wasnt an apparatus set up, Yates said. When I arrived, they were doing the best they could . . . but we didnt really have a playbook. Early last year, more than 9,000 clemency petitions were pending, and the pardon attorney at the time was so frustrated that she quit. Yates brought on Zauzmer, a longtime federal prosecutor, who prioritized applications so that Justice lawyers could focus on inmates who met the criteria: Inmates had to have served at least 10 years; had no significant criminal history; had no connection to gangs, cartels or organized crime; and probably would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted today. These are big decisions that youre making, Yates said, alluding to the public-safety risks and the need to provide a sophisticated analysis to the president. If its to let someone out of prison early, earlier than what their original sentence was, youve got to be careful about those decisions, she said. Theres lots of people whose current offense or conviction is a nonviolent drug offense . . . but you have to look at their past as well and at their criminal history. You have to look at their conduct [in prison]. Not all inmates who have been granted clemency will be released immediately or even in a number of months. Last summer, the Obama administration began granting clemency to some inmates by reducing their sentences; in some cases, they will remain in prison for years. At the end of August, Yates announced that she would review and give Obama a recommendation on every petition from a drug offender that was still in the departments possession at that time about 6,195 petitions. She did that and included several hundred petitions received through Sept. 15, after her cutoff date. She also reviewed petitions that came in as late as Nov. 30 from drug offenders serving life sentences. By last Friday, the final number of petitions reviewed was 16,776. Sally deserves a lot of credit, Holder said in an interview. She set this goal of looking at every drug-clemency petition, and they accomplished that. The inmates whose names are on those clemency petitions are in a dark place, and the hope of clemency is the only light they have, said Sharanda Jones, 49, who received a commutation from Obama in December 2015 after serving nearly 17 years of a mandatory life sentence for her first conviction, a nonviolent drug offense. Clemency from President Obama literally saved my life, said Jones, who now lives in Dallas near her 25-year-old daughter and 7-month-old granddaughter. I could never thank him enough for the priceless gift of freedom, but I hope that my actions and the positive way I live my life show him the depths of my gratitude. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has appointed Blk J DDB Worldwide as STB's creative and digital agencyg for creative, digital and production duties. the appointment is for three years for a hotel career perception and recruitment campaign.Founded by DDB's Rowena Bhagchandani, Joji Jacob, Khalid Osman and Lester Lee, Blk J was launced in November 2016 as an independent creative agency. the agency will be working in partnership with DDB Singapore on the new Singapore Tourism Board project.Commenting on the mandate win, Rowena Bhagchandani, Blk J CEO, said, "We are humbled by the STB appointment and by our first win but really the victory lies in the work. So, our sleeves are already rolled-up." With the demonetization drive executed in the month of November by the Modi Government, the impact of the decision on the economy and on people across the country has become central to the popular discourse in the country today. It is against this backdrop that Budget 2017 will be presented it is expected that the Budget already historic in terms of its timing and the doing away of the separate Railway Budget, will strategically include several measures to fuel economic growth. CNN-News18, Indias most awarded news channel, will bring an array of special programming to decode and analyse the budget especially the impact of demonetization. The programming will run under the branding #BudgetAfterDeMo and will include several special shows and segments: The special shows on the channel will be as follows: Budget Yatra: A series where CNN-News18s top anchors Karma Paljor and Kajori Sen will travel across the country to measure the impact of demonetization on real estate and agricultural sectors. Starting January 14, on every Saturday at 8:30 PM & Sunday at 10 PM Budget on Campus: A series where the channel will visit the countrys best business institutes where the finest young minds will discuss their budget wish-list. From January 21 January 29, every Saturday & Sunday at 10:30 PM Axe The Tax: CNN News18s flagship show which captures changes that people want to see in the countrys taxation rules. This wish list is handed over to the Finance Minister. The show will telecast on Saturday, 28th January 2017 at 7:30 PM If I were FM: A special segment wherein people speak about the things that they would have done, had they been the Finance Minister, Starting January 16th, 2017 The GST Roundtable: This show will have tax experts explaining how GST will change common mans life, and its long and short term impact on economy Budget and Politics: Special episode of Roundtable discussions with politicians pre and post the budget Economic Survey: CNNNews 18 live coverage and discussions when the Economic Survey is presented Tune into CNN-News18 through January, 2017 for exclusive #BudgetAfterDeMo shows WOW Design, a strategic brand design consultancy has associated with Hersheys for strategizing the packaging design for its newly launched range of healthy flavored milkshakes. Evolving Indian consumers prefer richer, superior experiences when it comes to food and beverages as they are exposed to it on global excursions. The health foods category in India too is slowly evolving to meet with the consumers preferences. Various products ranging from flavored milkshakes to yogurts have hit the market already. Being well-aware of increasing consumer demands, HERSHEYS decided to launch its range of healthy flavored milkshakes. With apt understanding and expertise in packaging design, WOW Design stepped onboard with Hersheys for the product launch. Creating elegant and Impactful packaging WOW Design is a strong believer in creating elegant and impactful packaging, as its the face of any brand and allows an interaction of only a few minutes with the consumers before they make up their mind. For HERSHEYS product launch, WOW Design evaluated both - the current brand drivers and the challenges in launching a product that would appeal to both the buyer (mothers) and the consumer (Kids). These drivers were - existing equity with the consumers in delivering rich experience on taste, flavor and mouth feel and an aspirational imagery attached to the brand. The challenge was to find a fine balance between delight for kids and healthy goodness for mothers in a pack of milkshake while exhibited on the same shelf as its Indian competitors. Design Ideation A thoughtful decision was taken to leverage on the richness and consistency of the product to establish it as a milkshake versus the available flavored milk products. The designs stemmed from the core concept of it being the ultimate healthy milkshake that kids deserve. This was effectively communicated through a bold double splash. The upper splash subtly depicted a crown like structure to establish the premium feel attached with the brand. That the product is fortified with calcium and vitamins to make it a good healthy choice for the Kids was highlighted on the front of the pack, making it clearly visible and not to be missed by mothers. The final result was clean, yet communicative range of packs that retained the global appeal of the brand HERSHEYS and connected effectively with the health-conscious Indian consumers. Ms Deepti Kshirsagar, Partner and Executive director- WOW Design said, When it comes to think of a product like packaged milkshakes and is targeted primarily to the kids, the design strategy needs to work for the dual Target Audience- one the consumer and second the decision maker. Coming from an aspirational yet familiar International brand like Hershey's, the trust aspect for the mothers and tastefulness for the kids could be taken care of with a prominent brand endorsement in the design. The challenge was to imbibe the healthy goodness of the product, as that becomes a primary concern for the mothers and impact decision making to a large extent. We have managed to create a Pack design that talks clearly of the fortification to the mothers, leaving no doubt when it comes to picking it up from the shelves. Mr Saswata Das, Partner and Executive Director- WOW Design said, The rapid growth of the flavored milk beverages category in India has attracted many global players like Danone and even Coca-Cola to enter this segment. Hersheys approached us as it also intended to enter this growing segment to complement their existing premium portfolio range. We helped Hersheyss to take on the Indian players and charge a premium for their unique positioning and fortification benefit. Effie India award organized by The Advertising Club, honors effective marketing communications across India. In its 16th edition held recently in Mumbai, over 1,000 advertising professionals attended the ceremony where in One Grand, 15 Gold, 36 Silver, and 49 Bronze Effies were awarded to the 196 entries received. The entries, which witnessed 21% rise over the previous year, were judged by 275 industry leaders from across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. MRSS India, the countrys first and only market research firm that is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange was asked to be their analytics partner and deep dive into the judges views. Best Practices/Learnings ; Way results were presented ; Getting the challenge right ; Story Telling were some of the key things worth sharing from the EFFIES Repository. The strongest aspect in all the contributions was the quality of insighsts/ideas compared to various other aspects. We were pleased to be associated with Effie 2016 and look forward to our increasing contribution in the domain of evaluation of creativity and content. said Raj Sharma, chairman, MRSS India. TVS Motor Company has launched a new campaign for its most powerful entrant in the RTR series -TVS Apache RTR 200 4V. In this TVC, the motorcycle is featured on the race track staying true to the racing DNA that Apache has been always associated with. Being the winner of Indian Motorcycle of the Year 2017, the commercial also celebrates this major achievement. This film is a testament to the distilled spirit of racing. Beating the stopwatch is the purest form of racing. And thats why the Apache RTR 200 4V is engineered by the stopwatch. The film begins with a TVS Racing racer astride the new Apache RTR 200 4V which immediately displays the race acceleration of 0-60 kmph in 3.9 seconds. In a mere 25 seconds, it races along bringing to forefront the performance motorcycles racing aspects such as Pirelli Tyres, Race Spec Speedometer, Race tuned KVB Monoshock and Race derived OC3 technology in the engine. The films also highlights how the best racers constantly strive to hone their skills, to be faster, corner sharper and make lap times quicker. Commenting on the campaign, Mr. Arun Siddharth, Vice President- Marketing (Motorcycles), TVS Motor Company said, The TVS Apache RTR 200 4V, straight from the stables of TVS Racing, has been engineered basis our experience on the race track and with inputs from our racers. The purpose of the TVC is to effectively show the amalgamation of technology and racing pedigree. The TVC also showcases that we received the title Indian Motorcycle of the Year 2017. "We believe there's a perfect match between the spirit behind the Apache RTR 200 4V and the spirit of the finest racers. Which is that the best way to get better is to constantly outdo oneself. It is this spirit that the latest piece of communication for the Apache RTR 200 4V brings alive." Team McCann Police reports identify the woman as 83-year-old Marilyn Margaret Miller of Waterloo, and she is listed as the victim in the report. A funeral home identified the man as her husband, Neil J. Miller, 86. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on January 16 sent a letter of condolences to President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev after an aircraft has crashed at the residential area near Bishkek and killed dozens, press service of the Presidential administration told Armenpress. President Sargsyan asked to convey his condolences and support to the families and friends of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to all injured. MASON CITY The morning two police officers carried a fatally injured woman from a Mason City apartment building, they say one of the residents, Larry Whaley, was talking to himself. He was speaking so softly while in police custody, Mason City Police Officer Cameron Theilen wrote in a report, that at times the officer wasn't able to understand what he was saying. Then, according to Theilen's report, Whaley said what sounded similar to, "They were trying to break in." Video: Mason City man formally charged with murder for woman's death MASON CITY | A Mason City man accused of shooting a woman Friday morning was formally charge The report, part of a search warrant application filed the night of the shooting, sheds new light on what police say officers saw and heard the morning they found Samantha Teeter, 19, fatally wounded at 116 17th St. S.E. Created the day of the Dec. 2 shooting, the search warrant application didn't become public until it was filed with the Clerk of Court's office later that month. The documents do not say how police think Teeter was shot or who Whaley was referring to when he allegedly said he thought "they" were trying to break in, but detail what officers reported seeing, hearing and finding while responding to the shooting. When police arrived, Teeter was still inside the apartment building, which is across from Lincoln Intermediate School at the corner of 17th Street Southeast and South Pennsylvania Avenue. Mason City shooting victim remembered for loving, caring nature MASON CITY Samantha Teeter was a loving person whose life was cut short before she could b Two officers, Sgt. Mike Lillquist and Stratton Steffy, carried her from the building. Teeter died two days after the shooting. Whaley was charged with first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty. According to the search warrant application, after Whaley came out of his apartment and surrendered to police, officers found what they thought looked like bullet hole across the hallway landing from Whaley's door. An officer also reported finding a hole after looking behind the entry door to the apartment. A .44-caliber Ruger revolver containing three spent rounds and two live rounds was found under the couch in Whaley's apartment, according to the search warrant return. In the return, which is an itemized listing of seized property, investigators also reported taking meth pipes, baggies of marijuana, cell phones, bloody clothing and other evidence. Police Chief Jeff Brinkley would not comment on the documents or say what police believe happened that night. A criminal complaint filed seeking Whaley's arrest doesn't fill in the blanks either, stating simply, "Whaley used a firearm to kill the victim." His attorney, Public Defender Susan Flander, could not be reached Friday morning for comment on the allegations in the search warrant documents. A staffer who answered the phone at her Mason City office said she was not in the office and was unreachable. Assistant Public Defender Parker Thirnbeck, who is assisting in the case, also did not return a call seeking comment. Whaley was originally charged with attempted murder, but prosecutors re-filed with a charge of first-degree murder after Teeter's death. He was informed during a Dec. 5 court hearing of the nature of the new charge, which alleges that he killed Teeter willfully, intentionally and with premeditation. When Whaley was asked by Magistrate Judge Ron Wagenaar if he understood what the judge had told him in the matter, he said, "Not really, because it wasn't intentional, sir." The judge cut Whaley off before he could elaborate. "As I said, don't make any statements about your case, OK?," Wagenaar told Whaley, who didn't have an attorney yet. "I'm just saying, do you have any questions about the charge or the..." "... I was just wondering why it was first degree," Whaley began. Again, Wagenaar cut him off. The hearing, an initial court appearance, is to inform the defendant of the charges, set bond and advise him or her of the right to an attorney. It is not an attempt to determine someone's guilt or innocence. Whaley has since pleaded not guilty. His trial is set for March 7, but his attorney, Flander, asked the court for more time to investigate and prepare for trial, as well as to avoid scheduling conflicts with the assistant attorney general, who is prosecuting the case. She anticipated the trial would take five days, possibly a week, according to the court motion. Whaley remains held on $500,000 cash bond at the Cerro Gordo County Jail in Mason City. MASON CITY As the city searches for a developer of a downtown hotel, it has laid out seven requirements for any proposals it may receive. City Administrator Brent Trout said there is a difference between this search and the arrangement the city had with developer Philip Chodur of San Diego, who defaulted on his development agreement with the city because he could not come up with financing. "He came to us with a proposal and we said, 'go for it,'" Trout said. "This time, we are looking for developers who qualify for our project." New Southbridge Mall owner anxious for Mason City downtown development MASON CITY The new owner of Southbridge Mall said he is excited about downtown development The City Council will be asked Tuesday night to approve requests for qualifications from developers interested in the downtown project, and Trout says some interest has been expressed. If approved by the council, all qualification packages must contain: A statement of understanding of the project and a narrative describing the developer's proposal. Examples of similar projects completed and under construction. Letters of recommendation from city officials who have worked with the developer. Proof of a hotel franchise "flag" from a known select service or full-service hotel brand or demonstrated ability to obtain a flag soon after the project is awarded. If the developer proposes an independent operation, he or she must show how the proposed operation provides amenities similar to select service or full-service hotels and show the ability to independently own and operate a hotel and conference facility. A preliminary pro forma for the hotel and conference center. Evidence of financial ability to complete the project, including ability to secure a performance bond. Preliminary concepts for the hotel and conference center, including perspective drawings or examples of similar projects. Mason City Council to consider tax levy vote, hotel timetable MASON CITY The City Council will be asked Tuesday to set March 7 as the date for a special The plan is for city officials to meet with potential developers Jan. 23-Feb. 24, receive submissions up to March 1, select a developer by March 9, get City Council approval and begin negotiations for a development agreement by March 21, and approve a development agreement on or before April 18. The plan then is for the developer to have financing and a performance bond in place by May 1 and for construction to begin this summer. The hotel is a key component of the city's River City Renaissance project that includes a music pavilion, mixed use building, parking ramp and ice arena/multipurpose center. In all, it is a $36.2 million project for which the city has been pre-approved for $7.2 million in state funds through the Iowa Reinvestment Act. A requirement for funding is $10 in private investment. The hotel fulfills that requirement. If there is no hotel, the project is dead. Another piece to the puzzle is a referendum on the proposed ice arena/multipurpose center that would be paid for through up to $18 million in bonds which would be paid off through taxes and donations. The referendum is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 1. City officials declined to schedule it sooner because if there is no hotel, there is no need for a referendum on the ice arena/multipurpose center. The council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Mason City Room of the public library. Update: The Northern Secretary James Brokenshire says Northern Ireland election will take place on Thursday March 2. An early election is due to take place in Northern Ireland on the March 2 after the collapse of the government. It follows the break-up of the power-sharing government following a dispute between Sinn Fein and the DUP over a botched renewable energy scheme. Earlier, the DUP's Arlene Foster was put forward for a third term as First Minister, but Sinn Fein declined to put anyone forward to share the office with her. The assembly will sit for the last time on the 25th of January. Earlier: A snap election in Northern Ireland is due to be called around now. The DUP's Arlene Foster was put forward for a third term as First Minister, but Sinn Fein declined to put anyone forward to share the office with her. Northern Secretary James Brokenshire has been left with no option but to call the poll after Sinn Fein refused to nominate a replacement for Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister. Belfast based security correspondent Alan Murray outlines when an election is likely to take place: "It could either around the 23 February or the 3 March or maybe it could go on further to the 9 March but really the elections here usually held on a Thursday. "The electoral office is gearing up for that and they are just waiting to get the details from the secretary of state for when exactly the poll will be held." National Citizen Service has missed key targets and needs to reduce its costs by almost 30 per cent, the National Audit Office said in a report last week. The NCS is the government's flagship youth volunteering programme, and is projected to have an annual budget of more than 400m by the end of this Parliament. Theresa May renewed the government commitment to the NCS last week in the launch of her "shared society" vision. In the its evaluation of National Citizen Service, NAO said the government was spending too much per participant, was not recruiting nearly enough people to hit its targets, and had spent over 10m paying for places which went unfilled. It said there was also no evidence that the NCS provided enduring benefits to attendees, and that "significant and critical" policy changes were now needed. It said the OCS and the trust need to focus on reducing costs to be able to reach its ambitious participation targets. The cost per participant needs to fall by 29 per cent to 1,314 in 2019 for the Trust to provide 300,000 places and stay within the funding envelope, the report said. NAO said that at its current rate of growth it is unlikely to reach its participation target of 360,000 by 2021 and said controlling costs had been a low priority so far. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: NCS is now at a critical stage. The OCS and the trust have shown that NCS can attract large numbers of participants, and participation has a positive effect on young people. These are no small achievements, but it remains unclear whether these effects are enduring and whether NCS can grow to become 'a rite of passage' available to all 16- to 17-year-olds.The OCS and the trust now need to think radically about the aspects of the current programme that work and how best to achieve NCS's aims at a more affordable cost to the taxpayer. The report said it: OCS and the trust now need to show they can grow NCS as intended and run it at more affordable cost to the taxpayer. As currently constituted, it is not clear how the programme will do this. Weaknesses in governance and cost control need to be addressed. 'Costs too much' After looking at the NCS Trusts board minutes NAO concluded that it had not focused on understanding and controlling costs. OCS and the trust expect to spend 1,853 on each participant, which is 300 more per participant that the 2015 Spending Review implied. The NCS Trust spent a total 175m last year. The trust has secured 7m in corporate support for this year, falling 3m short of a 10m target. During 2016 the trust paid an estimated 10m for places not filled. For the first time it has commissioned auditors to try and recover the funding. It also spent 2.7m on media campaigns. NAO said the trust did this because of the emphasis on participation targets. It told us that without such high targets it could have shifted resources towards other levers to grow NCS, which may have been cheaper and more sustainable. In 2016/17 NCS is expected to cost 187m. By 2019/20 it is expected to cost 424m though HM Treasury has not yet confirmed funding to support the growth outlined for this year, according to NAO. Participation has not grown as quickly as desired In 2016 OCS again missed its participation target. Around 93,000 young people took part, filling 75 per cent of the 124,000 places available. NAO said significant and critical policy changes are needed if it is to meet its target for 2010. NAO also warns that participation targets are ambitious. It said that to reach 360,000 participants by 2020 it would need an average growth rate of 40 per cent over four years exceeding the 2015 and 2016 growth rate of 31 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. If participation grows as 23 per cent over four years it would reach 213,000 in 2020/21. The report highlighted that OCS and the trust had been hoping for more support from the Department for Education. At the moment the DfEs commitments do not included placing a formal duty on schools or considering NCS in Ofsted inspections, which the trust had hoped for. When plans to put the programme on a statutory footing were announced in the Queens speech, it included placing a formal duty on local authorities and schools to promote the NCS. However this was not included in the bill when it was introduced to Parliament. NAO said: Without these policy changes, alongside operational improvements, it is unlikely the OCS will meet its aim for 360,000 young people undertaking NCS in 2020. The OCS and the trust are now rethinking their long term aspirations and updating their implementation plans. ST. ANSGAR | The first 2017 Mitchell County legislative forum will be 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at St. Ansgar City Hall, 111 S. Mitchell St. It is an opportunity for Mitchell County citizens to meet and question newly-elected state representatives. Rep. Jane Bloomingdale, R-Northwood, and Sen. Waylon Brown, R-St. Ansgar, will give their reports on the opening of the legislative sessions. Forums are 10 to 11 a.m. on the fourth Saturday of the month during the session. Other forums are Feb. 25, Osage Public Library; March 25, Riceville Library; and April 22, Stacyville Public Library. The Bi-Partisan Womens Group of Mitchell County will sponsor the forums for the 2017 session. Co-chairs are Penney Morse from the Democratic Party and Mary Mills Dunea from the Republican Party. For more information, contact Morse at 641-732-4155 or email pjmorse@gmail.com. In recent years, there have been several studies which show that getting physical exercise can help counteract the development of depression. However, researchers have predominantly focused on adults and adolescents when conducting trials. To widen the scope, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and NTNU Social Research have tested how exercise can affect children's mental health. The findings show that allowing children to run around and actively play lowers the risk of depression as well. "Being active, getting sweaty and roughhousing offer more than just physical health benefits. They also protect against depression," said first author Dr. Tonje Zahl. Protecting against depression The researchers analyzed 800 children over a four-year period between the ages of six and ten. At three intervals, childrens physical activity levels were measured with accelerometers. Parents were also interviewed to gauge childrens mental health. The results showed that physically active six- and eight-year-olds had fewer signs of depression when they were reassessed two years later. The researchers believe this correlation could be important for parents when it comes to encouraging certain hobbies and activities. "This is important to know, because it may suggest that physical activity can be used to prevent and treat depression already in childhood," said co-author Silje Steinsbekk. Less active kids may not be depressed While the study does corroborate past research that extolls the benefits of physical activity, it also differs in some respects. Perhaps most notable is the finding that depressed children tend to also be less active; previous studies on adults had correlated a sedentary lifestyle with depression, but that did not seem to be the case with children. "We also studied whether children who have symptoms of depression are less physically active over time, but didn't find that to be the case, said Steinsbekk. So, what can parents take away from all of this? The researchers say encouraging physical activity is the main thing to keep in mind, but limiting TV and computer time may also be wise. The full study has been published in Pediatrics. WASHINGTON -- A synthesized steroid mirroring one naturally made by the dogfish shark prevents the buildup of a lethal protein implicated in some neurodegenerative diseases, reports an international research team studying an animal model of Parkinson's disease. The clustering of this protein, alpha-synuclein (-synuclein), is the hallmark of Parkinson's and dementia with Lewy bodies, suggesting a new potential compound for therapeutic research. The finding, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also demonstrated that the synthesized steroid, called squalamine, reduced the toxicity of -synuclein clumps that already existed. The pre-clinical study results show that squalamine prevents and eliminates -synuclein build up inside neurons by unsticking the protein from the inner wall of nerve cells, where it clings and builds up into toxic clumps, researchers say. The animal model used for this study, C. elegans, is a nematode worm genetically engineered to produce human -synuclein in its muscles. As these worms age, -synuclein builds up within their muscle cells causing cell damage and paralysis. "We could literally see that squalamine, given orally to the worms, did not allow -synuclein to cluster, and prevented muscular paralysis inside the worms," says the study's co-senior author, Michael Zasloff, MD, PhD, professor of surgery and pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine and scientific director of the MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute. The study's lead author, graduate student Michele Perni, and other co-senior authors, Michele Vendruscolo, PhD and Christopher M. Dobson, DPhil, ScD, are from Cambridge University. An additional co-senior author, Adriaan Bax, PhD, is from National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Scientists from the Netherlands, Italy and Spain also contributed to this research. Zasloff, an expert in innate immune systems, has been studying squalamine for more than 20 years. He discovered it in dogfish sharks in 1993 and synthesized it in 1995 (in a process that does not involve use of any natural shark tissue). His research, as well as that by other scientists, has established antiviral and anticancer properties of the compound. This is the first study to show it has neurological benefits in in vivo models of Parkinson's. In Parkinson's disease, -synuclein, a normal protein present within the nervous system, forms toxic clumps that damage and ultimately destroy the neurons in which they form. Considerable research has been directed at discovering compounds that prevent the formation of these masses, thereby representing potential therapeutics for Parkinson's disease. In this study, the researchers demonstrated in a series of in vitro experiments that squalamine, a positively charged molecule with a high affinity for negatively charged membranes, could literally "kick off" -synuclein from negatively charged membranes, where the protein binds, preventing the formation of the toxic clumps. The research team also showed that squalamine could protect healthy human neuronal cells from being damaged by exposure to pre-formed toxic masses of -synuclein, by preventing them from adhering to the outer membrane of the neuronal cells. The researchers then extended these studies to a living system, C. elegans, a well-studied model of Parkinson's disease. "Orally administered squalamine prevented the formation of toxic -synuclein clumps in this complex animal, and rescued the animal from loss of mobility," Zasloff explains. "This experiment taught us that the basic mechanism demonstrated in vitro achieved the anticipated outcome in an animal." ### The study's co-senior author, Professor Christopher Dobson, DPhil, Master of St John's College, University of Cambridge says, "Squalamine gives us a first generation compound, which we believe that we can incrementally improve through further studies of the underlying mechanism by which it affects the aggregation of alpha-synuclein." Zasloff says a clinical trial with squalamine in Parkinson's disease is being planned. "Squalamine could be especially suited to work in the gut with the goal of treating the gastrointestinal symptoms of Parkinson's," he adds. Zasloff is the inventor on a patent application that has been filed related to the technology described in this paper. The other authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study. Additional authors include Celine Galvagnion, Georg Meisl, Martin B. D. Muller, Pavan K. Challa, Patrick Flagmeier, Samuel I. A. Cohen, Pietro Sormanni, Gabriella T. Heller, Francesco A. Aprile, Tuomas P. J. Knowles, Michele Vendruscolo, Serene W. Chen, Ryan Limbocker and Julius Kirkegaard from the University of Cambridge, England; Alexander S. Maltsev, from NIDDK; Ellen A. Nollen, from the European Research Institute for the Biology of Aging, Groningen, The Netherlands; Roberta Cascella, Cristina Cecchi, and Fabrizio Chiti, from the University of Florence; and Nunilo Cremades, from the University of Zaragoza, Spain. The study was funded by the NIH Intramural Research Program, the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, the European Research Council (ERC), and the Centre for Misfolding Diseases at Cambridge. About Georgetown University Medical Center Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) is an internationally recognized academic medical center with a three-part mission of research, teaching and patient care (through MedStar Health). GUMC's mission is carried out with a strong emphasis on public service and a dedication to the Catholic, Jesuit principle of cura personalis -- or "care of the whole person." The Medical Center includes the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing & Health Studies, both nationally ranked; Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, designated as a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute; and the Biomedical Graduate Research Organization, which accounts for the majority of externally funded research at GUMC including a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health. Connect with GUMC on Facebook (Facebook.com/GUMCUpdate), Twitter (@gumedcenter) and Instagram (@gumedcenter). INDIANAPOLIS -- Nearly 20 percent of older Americans experience depression and the highest rate of suicide is among older adult Caucasian males. Despite the anticipated growth of mental health needs as the U.S. population ages, there is only one geriatric psychiatrist for every 23,000 older Americans. By 2030, there will only be one geriatric psychiatrist for every 27,000 adults 65 and older. How is the health care system expected to rapidly close this gap for the mental health needs of older adults? A new pocket guide to elder mental health has been written with the express purpose of rapidly teaching all health care professionals the basics of diagnosing and treating mental health disorders in individuals over age 65. The easy to navigate volume is written for primary care doctors and mental health professionals, as well as those in various internal medicine specialties, surgery, nursing and pharmacy. It is also designed to be accessible to family members and caregivers. The book's main purpose is to ensure information critical to the diagnosis and treatment of older adult is accessible to everyone who is involved in caring for an older adult--not just to those with geriatrics training. Is the elder mentally altered due to prescription or over-the-counter drugs which negatively impact the aging brain? Are there sleep problems? Is the elder suffering from post-hospitalization delirium? Does he or she have dementia? "Most older adults are seen by primary care physicians. Too often these busy physicians are juggling the patient's multiple physical problems, and incorrectly diagnose mental health issues as irreversible cognitive impairment," said Sophia Wang, MD, an implementation scientist with the Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at IU School of Medicine. "Because dementia is so common in older adults, clinicians may incorrectly diagnose it without ruling out other problems that we know can be reversed -- for example depression, sleep disorders, drug effects or alcohol. Dementia should be the last mental health condition they consider only after ruling out reversible causes of mental illness." "DSM-5 Pocket Guide for Elder Mental Health" by Dr. Wang, a geriatric psychiatrist, and co-author psychiatrist Abraham M. Nussbaum, MD, of Denver Health and University of Colorado, puts easy-to-read information on elder mental health problems and treatment at the fingertips of primary care and other physicians, physician assistants, nurses, social workers as well as family members familiar with the day-to-day activities of the older adult to help secure the correct diagnosis and treatment. The DSM-5, short for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, contains the diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder currently recognized by the U.S. health care system and is considered the bible of mental health diagnosis. The "DSM-5 Pocket Guide for Elder Mental Health," designed to make all healthcare providers comfortable with treating mental health, offers detailed guidance on approaching older adults about mental health issues -- a taboo topic for many seniors. The 400-page, 4.5 by 8-inch guide provides step-by-step instructions on beginning dialogues on depression, substance abuse and suicide as well as diagnostics on these conditions and others including delirium and dementia. It is published by American Psychiatric Association Publishing, a division of the American Psychiatric Association. "Implementation science has shown that dissemination of evidence-based knowledge can influence patient care so that clinicians provide their patients the best possible care," Dr. Wang said. "Ultimately they implement best practices." "Many health care professionals do not receive adequate training in geriatrics mental health. This book closes this gap for busy professionals," said Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, founding director of the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and associate director of the IU Center for Aging Research. "There needs to be increased awareness of geriatric issues in all health care professionals and family members to improve current diagnosis and treatment to the latest standards." ### The Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science, which is part of the IU School of Medicine and of the Indiana Clinical Translational Sciences Institute, employs implementation science and innovation to produce high quality, patient-centered and cost-efficient health care delivery solutions. Have you ever felt jealous about the attention your romantic partner was giving to someone else? Perhaps your significant other seems to be enjoying a conversation with someone a little too much, or a co-worker is flirting with your partner at a company holiday party. Researcher Xun (Irene) Huang, PhD, was eager to investigate whether these feelings of jealously motivated consumers to buy things that were more likely to recapture the attention of their partners. She and her team conducted a series of five different experiments, and the results revealed that feelings of jealousy increase the desire for eye-catching products--such as a bright colored coat instead of a dull-colored one, or a T-shirt with a big logo design versus a low-key design. A summary of their findings is available online in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. "We believe that this effect is not just restricted to jealousy in romantic relationships," says Huang, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "Children can be jealous of a sibling's relationship with their parents, or workers might be jealous of a colleague's close relationship with a supervisor." The researchers also found that the desire for eye-grabbing products disappeared when there was little chance that the product would be noticed by others in public. Participants who were experiencing feelings of jealously in one experiment were more likely to buy a noticeable gold lamp for their office, a public place. But if they were buying a lamp for their bedroom, interest in a gold lamp versus a plain grey one was equal. The researchers were surprised to discover that the desire to recapture someone's attention with eye-catching products even outweighed the risk of public embarrassment. In one experiment, participants were asked to imagine that they had been invited to a party. One group had been invited to a costume party organized by friends, and the other group had been invited to a formal welcoming party for new staff members at their company. Then they were asked to choose whether they'd prefer to wear an ordinary pair of sunglasses to the party or a unique and eye-catching pair. The researchers found that participants who were experiencing feelings of jealously opted to wear the eye-catching sunglasses to both types of parties, even though they could garner negative attention for this at a formal work party. These findings also have implications for marketing, Huang says. Print advertisements and in-store displays can capture situations in which jealously is at play, which could motivate consumers to buy products that will attract someone's attention. Television commercials that promote attention-grabbing products might also be effective during sit-coms in which jealously is a common theme. ### This study will appear in the July issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology See more at: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-consumer-psychology/forthcoming-articles/competing-for-attention-the-effects-of-jealousy For more information, contact: Xun (Irene) Huang, an assistant professor of marketing at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore: huangxun@ntu.edu.sg A naturally-occurring compound has been found to block a molecular process thought to underlie Parkinson's Disease, and to suppress its toxic products, scientists have reported. The findings, although only preliminary, suggest that the compound, called squalamine, could be exploited in various ways as the basis of a potential treatment for Parkinson's Disease. The compound has previously been used in clinical trials for cancer and eye conditions in the United States, and a trial in Parkinson's Disease patients is now being planned by one of the researchers involved in the study. Squalamine is a steroid which was discovered in the 1990s in dogfish sharks, although the form now used by scientists is a safer, synthetic analogue. To date, it has been extensively investigated as a potential anti-infective and anticancer therapy. But in the new study, researchers discovered that squalamine also dramatically inhibits the early formation of toxic aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein - a process thought to start a chain reaction of molecular events eventually leading to Parkinson's Disease. Remarkably, they also then found that it can suppress the toxicity of these poisonous particles. The researchers tested squalamine in both cell cultures in the lab, and in an animal model using nematode worms. While their findings therefore only represent a step towards a treatment for Parkinson's Disease in humans, they described the results as representing significant progress. The study was led by academics from the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, based in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Scientists from the Netherlands, Italy and Spain also played key roles. The findings are published in Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences. Professor Christopher Dobson, who is one of the authors and Master of St John's College, as well as a Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge, said: "To our surprise, we found evidence that squalamine not only slows down the formation of the toxins associated with Parkinson's Disease, but also makes them less toxic altogether." "If further tests prove to be successful, it is possible that a drug treating at least some of the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease could be developed from squalamine. We might then be able to improve on that incrementally, by searching for better molecules that augment its effects." Professor Michele Vendruscolo, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a co-author, said: "This is an encouraging step forward in our efforts to discover potential drugs against Parkinson's Disease. Squalamine can prevent alpha-synuclein from malfunctioning, essentially by normalising its binding to lipid membranes. If there are going to be ways to beat the disease, it seems likely that this is one that may work." The study stemmed from research led by Dr Michael Zasloff, professor of surgery and pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in the USA. Zasloff, who also co-authored the latest study, discovered squalamine in 1993 and has since led extensive work exploring its potential as a treatment for conditions including cancer. In the new study, the researchers explored squalamine's capacity to displace alpha-synuclein from cell membranes - a phenomenon that was first observed in the laboratory headed by another co-author, Dr Ad Bax, in the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA. This finding has significant implications for Parkinson's Disease, because alpha-synuclein works by binding to the membranes of tiny, bubble-like structures called synaptic vesicles, which help to transfer neurotransmitters between neurons. Under normal circumstances, the protein thus aids the effective flow of chemical signals, but in some instances, it malfunctions and instead begins to clump together, creating toxic particles harmful to brain cells. This clustering is the hallmark of Parkinson's Disease. The researchers carried out a series of experiments which analysed the interaction between squalamine, alpha-synuclein and lipid vesicles, building on earlier work from Cambridge scientists which showed the vital role that vesicles play in initiating the aggregation. They found that squalamine inhibits the aggregation of the protein by competing for binding sites on the surfaces of synthetic vesicles. By displacing the protein in this way, it significantly reduces the rate at which toxic particles form. Further tests, carried out with human neuronal cells, then revealed another key factor - that squalamine also suppresses the toxicity of these particles. Finally, the group tested the impact of squalamine in an animal model of Parkinson's Disease, by using nematode worms genetically programmed to over-express alpha-synuclein in their muscle cells. As the worms develop, alpha-synuclein aggregation causes them to become paralysed, but squalamine prevented the paralysis from taking effect. "We could literally see that the oral treatment of squalamine did not allow alpha-synuclein to cluster, and prevented muscular paralysis inside the worms," Zasloff said. Together, the results imply that squalamine could be used as the basis of a treatment targeting at least some of the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Zasloff says he is now planning a clinical trial with squalamine in Parkinson's Disease patients in the US. Further research is, however, needed to determine what the precise benefits of squalamine would be - and what form any resulting drug might take. In particular, it is not yet clear whether squalamine can reach the specific regions of the brain where the main molecular processes determining Parkinson's Disease take place. The researchers suggest that it would be particularly interesting to start investigating the efficacy of squalamine as a means to alleviate certain symptoms. If taken orally, for instance, the compound may perhaps relieve the severe constipation many patients experience, by targeting the gastrointestinal system and affecting alpha-synuclein in the gut. It is also conceivable that a treatment of that sort could "cascade" signals to other parts of the body. "Targeting alpha-synuclein in the gut may perhaps in some cases be sufficient to delay the progress of other aspects of Parkinson's Disease, at least for symptoms concerning the peripheral nervous system," Vendruscolo said. "In many ways squalamine gives us a lead rather than a definitive treatment," Professor Dobson added. "Parkinson's Disease has many symptoms and we hope that either this compound, or a derivative of it with a similar mechanism of action, could alleviate at least some of them." "One of the most exciting prospects is that, subject to further tests, we might be able to use it to make improvements to patients' lives, while also studying other compounds with the aim of developing a more powerful treatment in the future." ### The timing of the first entry of humans into North America across the Bering Strait has now been set back 10,000 years. This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by Ariane Burke, a professor in Universite de Montreal's Department of Anthropology, and her doctoral student Lauriane Bourgeon, with the contribution of Dr. Thomas Higham, Deputy Director of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. Their findings were published in early January in the open-access journal PLoS One. The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at 14,000 years Before Present (BP) according to the earliest dated archaeological sites, is now estimated at 24,000 BP, at the height of the last ice age or Last Glacial Maximum. The researchers made their discovery using artifacts from the Bluefish Caves, located on the banks of the Bluefish River in northern Yukon near the Alaska border. The site was excavated by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars between 1977 and 1987. Based on radiocarbon dating of animal bones, the researcher made the bold hypothesis that human settlement in the region dated as far back as 30,000 BP. In the absence of other sites of similar age, Cinq-Mars' hypothesis remained highly controversial in the scientific community. Moreover, there was no evidence that the presence of horse, mammoth, bison and caribou bones in the Bluefish Caves was due to human activity. To set the record straight, Bourgeon examined the approximate 36,000 bone fragments culled from the site and preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau -- an enormous undertaking that took her two years to complete. Comprehensive analysis of certain pieces at UdeM's Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory revealed undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones. Around 20 other fragments also showed probable traces of the same type of activity. "Series of straight, V-shaped lines on the surface of the bones were made by stone tools used to skin animals," said Burke. "These are indisputable cut-marks created by humans." Bourgeon submitted the bones to further radiocarbon dating. The oldest fragment, a horse mandible showing the marks of a stone tool apparently used to remove the tongue, was radiocarbon-dated at 19,650 years, which is equivalent to between 23,000 and 24,000 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present). "Our discovery confirms previous analyses and demonstrates that this is the earliest known site of human settlement in Canada," said Burke. It shows that Eastern Beringia was inhabited during the last ice age." Beringia is a vast region stretching from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to the Lena River in Russia. According to Burke, studies in population genetics have shown that a group of a few thousand individuals lived in isolation from the rest of the world in Beringia 15,000 to 24,000 years ago. "Our discovery confirms the 'Beringian standstill [or genetic isolation] hypothesis,'" she said, "Genetic isolation would have corresponded to geographical isolation. During the Last Glacial Maximum, Beringia was isolated from the rest of North America by glaciers and steppes too inhospitable for human occupation to the West. It was potentially a place of refuge." The Beringians of Bluefish Caves were therefore among the ancestors of people who, at the end of the last ice age, colonized the entire continent along the coast to South America. The results of Lauriane Bourgeon's doctoral research were published in the January 6 edition of PLoS One under the title "Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada." The article is co-authored by Professor Burke and by Dr. Thomas Higham of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, in the U.K. ### Many parents aren't sure when their kids should stay home sick, or when it is OK to pack them off to school, tissues in tow, a new poll finds ANN ARBOR, Mich. - It can be a nerve-wracking, game time decision for parents: whether their sick child should stay home from school. But opinions among parents differ when it comes to how sick is too sick, or the importance of sick day consequences such as parents missing work or kids missing tests, according to a new national poll from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Seventy-five percent of parents report at least one sick day for their child in the past year. The top factors in parents' decision to keep a child home included concern that the illness would get worse or spread to classmates, according to today's nationally representative poll report. Parents of younger children (ages 6 to 9) most frequently rate health related concerns as very important considerations in calling a sick day while two in five parents of high schoolers place similar value on missing tests or falling behind in class work. Symptoms also make a difference. Most parents (80 percent) are not likely to send a child to school with diarrhea, but have less agreement about vomiting (58 percent) or a slight fever but acting normally (49 percent). Few parents say they are not likely to send a child with red watery eyes but no fever (16 percent), or a runny nose, dry cough and no fever (12 percent). "Parents often have to make a judgment call about whether their child's sickness warrants staying home," says lead author and Mott poll co-director Gary Freed, M.D., M.P.H. "We found that the major considerations were whether attending school could negatively impact a child's health or the health of classmates." Freed says parents may recognize that certain symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting would significantly disrupt a child's school day. But most parents did not view familiar symptoms, such as a runny nose or dry cough without a fever, as serious enough to miss school. "It can be difficult to predict if a child will feel worse after going to school or how long symptoms of minor illnesses will last, so parents are often basing decisions on their best guess," Freed says. Logistics also influence the decision to keep a child home from school. Eleven percent of parents cite not wanting to miss work as very important while 18 percent say not being able to find someone to stay home with their sick child is a very important factor. This is less of an issue as children get older, with 32 percent of parents allowing older children to stay home alone when sick. Only 6 percent of parents say that missing after-school activities is very important. The report was based on responses from 1,442 parents who had at least one child age 6-18 years. What parents should know Off to school or stay home? Doctors offer guidelines to consider if your child is sick. * A phone call or visit to the child's health care provider can help you know whether the child has a serious illness, but may not clarify how long symptoms will last. Does your child have a runny nose but is in good spirits, playing and eating? Send them to school with extra tissues. But if symptoms are accompanied by decreased appetite, lethargy, mood change or breathing difficulty, call the child's health care provider. A spike in temperature does not always mean something serious. If children are attentive and playing, a school day likely won't hurt. But if the fever persists more than three days or comes with other symptoms (like listlessness or vomiting), keep them home, and consider calling their health care provider. The cause of diarrhea and vomiting could range from a virus to food poisoning. If symptoms will disrupt the school day, are accompanied by pain or fever or if the child is too young to manage symptoms (e.g. making trips to the bathroom, being conscious of handwashing) keep your child home. ### Read the full report: http://mottnpch.org/reports-surveys/parents-struggle-when-keep-sick-kids-home-school GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Jan. 16, 2017)--Scientists at Van Andel Research Institute and Rockefeller University have successfully described a crucial structure involved in DNA replication, placing another piece in the puzzle of how life propagates. The latest study from long-time collaborators Huilin Li, Ph.D., and Michael O'Donnell, Ph.D., published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, elucidates the interaction between DNA and the eukaryotic enzyme CMG helicase, which opens the DNA double helix like the slider of a zipper and prepares the genetic code for copying. "Since discovery of the DNA double helix more than 50 years ago, helicase's activity in preparing DNA for replication has been poorly understood," says Li, professor at Van Andel Research Institute. "However, recent advances in microscopy and study design allow us to create accurate images of these enzymes and observe their interactions with DNA for the first time." More than 40 diseases, including many cancers, anemias and ataxias, in addition to several rare and orphan disorders, trace their origins at least partially to inaccuracy or failures in DNA replication. Results of this study offer a schematic for a core driver behind DNA replication, which Li and O'Donnell hope will eventually help the development of new treatments for these diseases. "Biologists have learned a great deal about the molecular structure and functions of the enzymes and proteins related to DNA replication," says O'Donnell, professor at Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. "However, we still have much to discover, and this understanding of helicase activity brings us another step closer." Findings from the new study reverse a long-held assumption about the orientation of helicase around DNA. Images taken during DNA unwinding demonstrate that helicase's N-tier ring leads the C-tier motor ring and makes first contact with double-stranded DNA. Such orientation is opposite from the currently accepted polarity and has important implications in understanding the mechanism of replication. Helicase activity has long been recognized as a critical part of DNA replication, itself a fundamental process in the propagation of life. With the publication of this study, scientists have a more complete picture of how most advanced life on Earth proliferates. This study involved evaluation of CMG helicase purified from the baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an organism commonly used to model higher eukaryotes, including humans. The structure of the helicase on DNA was derived at Rockefeller University's cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) core facility, leveraging a groundbreaking imaging technology that has revolutionized scientists' ability to visualize and understand the role of fundamental biological processes. With VARI's recent installation of its own world-class Cryo-EM Core, including the powerful Titan Krios, Li expects the pace of discovery and understanding of these basic biological processes will accelerate in Grand Rapids. ### Study authors include Roxana Georgescu, Dan Zhang, Olga Yurieva, and Michael ODonnell, all of Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Lin Bai and Huilin Li, of Van Andel Research Institute; Zuanning Yuan and Ruda de Luna Almeida Santos of Stony Brook University; and Jingchuan Sun, of University of Pennsylvania. Yuan and de Luna Almeida Santos also are affiliated with VARI. Funding for the study came from Van Andel Research Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number GM111742. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. About Van Andel Institute Van Andel Institute (VAI) is an independent nonprofit biomedical research and science education organization committed to improving the health and enhancing the lives of current and future generations. Established by Jay and Betty Van Andel in 1996 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, VAI has grown into a premier research and educational institution that supports the work of more than 360 scientists, educators and staff. Van Andel Research Institute (VARI), VAI's research division, is dedicated to determining the epigenetic, genetic, molecular and cellular origins of cancer, Parkinson's and other diseases and translating those findings into effective therapies. The Institute's scientists work in onsite laboratories and participate in collaborative partnerships that span the globe. About The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is the world's leading biomedical research university and is dedicated to conducting innovative, high-quality research to improve the understanding of life for the benefit of humanity. Our 79 laboratories conduct research in neuroscience, immunology, biochemistry, genomics, and many other areas, and a community of 1,800 faculty, students, postdocs, technicians, clinicians, and administrative personnel work on our 14-acre Manhattan campus. Our unique approach to science has led to some of the world's most revolutionary and transformative contributions to biology and medicine. During Rockefeller's 115-year history, 24 of our scientists have won Nobel Prizes, 21 have won Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards, and 20 have garnered the National Medal of Science, the highest science award given by the United States. CHARLES CITY Craig Tjaden, 81, died Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017, at Cedar Health in Charles City. Service will be 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at St. Johns Lutheran Church with Pastor Bill Odermann officiating. Private inurnment will be held prior to the service. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17, at Hauser Funeral Home in Charles City. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials to St. Johns Lutheran Church or the National Parkinson Foundation. Arrangements are with Hauser Funeral Home in Charles City. Valtteri Bottas will line up alongside Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes in 2017 after Williams agreed to release the Finn from his contract. Bottas place at Williams will be taken by Felipe Massa, who is to come out of retirement to re-join the team on a one-year deal. Its mega to be driving a Silver Arrow this year, said Bottas in an address to the workforce at Mercedes' UK factory in Brackley. I cant wait to get working properly. My goal is immediately at the first race to get all the points that are available. I guarantee I will be giving it all. I want to thanks Toto [Wolff, Mercedes-Benz head of motorsport] and everyone at the Mercedes and Daimler boards for this opportunity. This is my fifth season in F1. I got nine podiums with Williams, but Im still missing my first win, so thats my first mission. On lining up alongside three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, the Finn added: "I think with Lewis we are going to be a strong pair together. I really respect him as a driver and a person. "I'm sure we are going to close, and we're going to be both pushing each forward. I'm sure we can work as a team." Toto Wolff, Mercedes-Benz motorsport chief, said Bottas was the ideal candidate to replace outgoing world champion Nico Rosberg. I think Valtteri fits very well in our team, as a driver he's very fast, and he has also the heart in the right place. "He shares our values and passion," Wolff added. "He's modest and humble and he's hard working." A 15th season of F1 for Massa The announcement that Massa will come out of retirement to replace Bottas, which came on the same day as Mercedes protege Pascal Wehrlein was confirmed at Sauber, means the Brazilian will race for Williams for a fourth consecutive season. Firstly, I am very happy to have an opportunity to return to Williams, said the 35-year-old, who will partner teenage rookie Lance Stroll this season. I always intended to race somewhere in 2017, but Williams is a team close to my heart and I have respect for everything it is trying to achieve. Valtteri has a great opportunity, given the turn of events over the winter, and I wish him all the best at Mercedes. In turn, when I was offered the chance to help Williams with their 2017 Formula One campaign, it felt like the right thing to do. I certainly have not lost any of my enthusiasm for racing and Im extremely motivated to be coming back to drive the FW40. The support from my fans over the last few weeks has been a huge boost and I'm grateful for that. I also look forward to working with Lance; Ive known him for many years and seen his talent develop during that time, so I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together. Speaking about the moves, Claire Williams, Williams deputy team principal, said: Im delighted that Felipe has agreed to come out of retirement to be a part of our 2017 campaign. With Valtteri having a unique opportunity to join the current constructors champions, we have been working hard to ensure that an agreement could be made with Mercedes to give Valtteri this fantastic opportunity. Valtteri has been part of the Williams family since 2010 and in that time has proved a huge talent, securing nine podium finishes. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him on behalf of the whole team, and wish him a successful season as he joins Mercedes. Felipe has always been a much-loved member of the Williams family, and having the opportunity to work with him again is something we all look forward to. He was always going to race somewhere in 2017, as he has not lost that competitive spirit, and it was important that we had a strong replacement in order for us to let Valtteri go. Felipe re-joining us provides stability, experience and talent to help lead us forward. He is a great asset for us." Feeding spring-calving cows grass clover can increase milk solids by 58kg a cow throughout the lactation, resulting in an additional 232 a cow (200), a three-year Teasgasc study has found. Researchers at Clonakilty Agricultural College, County Cork, say feeding a grass and white clover mix on the milking platform has resulted in an additional 720/ha (630) because of the extra milk yielded when compared with feeding grass alone. Lead researcher Brian McCarthy told delegates attending a tour to Clonakilty, one day ahead of the Positive Farmers conference on Tuesday, 10 January, that the difference in milk yield was driven by higher animal dry matter intakes, aided by higher-quality feed. Advice for feeding clover Graze it down to 3.5-4cm Get nitrogen on early in the spring aim to apply 70 units of N/ha by 1 April Stick to your spring rotational planner Aim to graze 30% by 1 March, 60% by 17 March and 100% by 4 April Graze the grass at low covers (500-600kg DM/ha) if clover content is high to stimulate the swards See also: Clover rewards with faster lamb growth at Dinas Island Positive Farmers conference co-founder Mike Murphy believes the research is the most valuable experiment he has seen in his lifetime. Nutrient breakdowns show grass clover analysed 24.4% crude protein compared with grass, which had a crude protein of 19.1%. Neutral detergent fibre was lower in grass clover at 44.2%, compared with 50% in grass-only swards. Dr McCarthy says: This means the fibre in the rumen doesnt take as long to break down and passes through the rumen faster, driving intakes. About the trial As part of the experiment, 30 cows were rotated around four areas made up of 20 paddocks. The four areas were sown with one of the following: Tetraploid sward Diploid sward Tetraploid sown with 2kg/acre of clover Diploid sown with 2kg/acre of clover. Cows were stocked at 2.75/ha and nitrogen was applied at 250kg N/ha across all areas. Animals entered paddocks at grazing covers of 1,300-1,500kg DM/ha and swards were grazed down to heights of 4cm, with a target of 300kg supplement fed a cow. Results over the three-year period (from 2014-2016) showed: Clover swards grew an additional 12kg DM/ha on average compared with grass-only leys, resulting in an extra 1.5t DM/ha The tetraploid clover mix grew slightly more than the diploid clover ley at 17.1t DM/ha compared with 16.9t DM/ha, although researchers said this was not significantly different Milk yield was 728kg a cow higher on average in the groups fed clover grasses. However, butterfat and protein levels remained relatively static Milk solids a cow were 58kg higher in the diploid clover- and tetraploid clover-fed groups Milk solids were 159kg/ha higher overall in the groups fed clover compared with those fed straight grass Over the 45-week lactation the extra milk produced resulted in an extra 232 a cow (200) and 720/ha (630) (with a milk price of 0.31/litre (0.27). Advice for beating bloat Bloat is a build-up of froth in the rumen that a cow cant expel. The risk is typically higher on a clover diet because the rumen is working faster and gases are being produced quicker than the cow can expel them. Here are some steps to beat it: Use bloat oil in dry weather, when water intakes will be high, as a preventative measure. Put 30-60ml a cow a day into tanks 12-24 hours before cows enter clover paddocks. It must be drip-fed so cows dont drink it all at once. Restrict access to high-clover content paddocks by grazing them behind a wire in three- to 12-hour slots. Skip paddocks with high content clover (>50%). Disadvantages of feeding clover One main disadvantage to the grass clover leys was grazing deficits in the spring caused by poor winter growth. This resulted in a difference in opening farm covers of 267kg DM/ha between grass-only and grass clover paddocks in 2015-16. On average, grass clover leys grew at 2-2.5kg DM/ha over the winter, but grass almost doubled this at 5kg. Some of the clover paddocks lost cover over the winter if they had a high clover content, explains Dr McCarthy. This meant cattle on these paddocks had to be housed by night for four to six weeks at the beginning of the season in February and March. Over these two consecutive seasons cows were fed 145kg DM extra silage an animal roughly the equivalent of a bale, which costed an extra 30 a cow. However, despite the extra costs in early spring, which amounted to 46 a cow (40) for extra labour, seed, feed and bloat prevention oil, overall net costs benefits still amounted to 594/ha (522), according to researchers. Furthermore, there are ways to limit spring grass growth deficits in clover leys, explains Dr McCarthy. If anything is losing clover [<30%], try to close them first so they grow well over the winter. Try to graze high-clover fields [>30%] at the end of the last rotation so you use the material that is there and it doesnt have the chance to decrease. Haiti - NOTICE : Application for university scholarships HELP The Haitian Education & Leadership Program (HELP) informs Philo students and bachelors in particular that admission forms are available at its office located at # 4, Rue 5, Pacot, Port-au-Prince (Zone College St Francis of Assisi). Deadline for filing applications on 30 April 2017 at 4h00 p.m. HELP's mission is to train, through its scholarships, based on merit and need, a community of young professionals and leaders who will promote a more equitable Haitian society. Since 1997, HELP has offered scholarships to young, academically deserving students from disadvantaged stata of society who are unable to enter university. These scholarships are offered at the level of the bachelor's degree in Haitian universities recognized by the Ministry of National Education (MENFP), the Rectorate of UEH and affiliated to the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF). Currently, HELP scholars attend universities and faculties of the following universities: Haiti State University, Center for Planning and Applied Economics (CTPEA), Quisqueya University (UNIQ), Higher Institute of Infotronics of Haiti ( ESIH), University of Notre Dame of Haiti (UNDH). HELP scholars receive the following support: payment of university tuition fees, loan of books required for their courses, access to their computer lab with Internet access, common housing, monthly financial allowance for food and transport, courses in English, Computer Science and Leadership, accompanying to the production of the dissertation, psycho-social supervision and placement and career services. Information and required requirements : Scholars are chosen on the basis of the following two criteria: academic excellence (merit) and low financial means (need). To ensure the continuity of the program and give the same opportunity to the largest number of students, scholars are required to contribute 15% of their income (15 gourdes out of every 100 gourdes earned) during a period of nine (9) years as soon as they started working. HELP does not fund medical studies or those at the master's level. Participation in HELP activities during the orientation period and throughout the academic year is compulsory from Monday to Saturday. Minimum eligibility requirements : HELP receives candidates currently in philo and those who have already passed the baccalaureat. However, those currently in Philo can forward their form before the final results of their school and those of the baccalaureate. To be eligible and receive a form, all applicants must total a weighted average of 7.5/10 minimum from the 9th fundamental year to the Rheto. But if the postulant has already completed the class of Philo, the general average of the class of philo will be taken into account. All applicants must be 22 years of age at the time of application. Admission Procedures : Step 1: Go to the HELP office (or a representative of HELP) with its note record from the 9th fundamental year to the Philo accounting for the overall average of 7.5/10 minimum. Step 2: The first step verified, the candidate will receive an admission form and will have to return it with all the required documents. For further information : 2943-0760 or 2943-0796 or write to the email address: admissions@uhelp.net HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - FLASH : The Embassy of Canada victim of fraud in Haiti An investigation by the Canadian government, which began after the first suspicions of fraud in 2015, just revealed that the Embassy of Canada in Haiti had been the victim of fraud between 2004 and 2016 for an estimated amount of nearly $2 million. Among the techniques used by fraudsters, the investigation revealed, among other things, overcharged amounts at the mission, theft of goods stored in Ambassade's premises, embezzlement of goods for the mission and collusion between employees and businesses. Following this investigation, according to our sources at least 15 employees of the Embassy, locally hired would have been fired. The administrative inquiry is continuing. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) could in turn investigate these frauds, which could lead to criminal charges. To be continued... TB/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Diaspora : 7 years later, Montreal remembers As part of the commemoration of the 7th anniversary of the violent earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010 causing more than 200,000 deaths, 300,000 injured and 1 million disaster victims, the Mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, reaffirmed his solidarity and sympathy to the Haitian people and the many Montrealers of Haitian descent. "Montreal has not forgotten and will never forget this terrible day of January 12, 2010. Our efforts to help the Haitian people to overcome this challenge are still continuing today, among others through the Municipal Cooperation Program Haiti -Canada, which aims to accompany the capital, Port-au-Prince, in its reconstruction efforts. The various projects underway, mainly institutional and budgetary reinforcement, street identification and the development of communal schools, will help to restore the capital to its feet and enable it to offer better services to its citizens. 'Montreal pap janm' bliye, le yon zanmi ate nou lonje men bali pou li sa kanpe sou de pie li. solidarite ! solidarite !'" declared Denis Coderre. "The city of Montreal is proud of its Haitian community and the bonds of friendship between Haiti and Montreal are still strong. They also demonstrated once again last October, following the passage of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti. Responding to the call for humanitarian assistance, the City has allocated $60,000 to help the affected population. We will always respond 'present' to our Haitian friends," concluded the Mayor. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping politics... Ballot papers printed in Dubai For the second round of elections on January 29, 2017, the ballots will once again be printed by the Dubai firm "Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing", Uder Antoine, the Executive Director of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) who confirmed the information, said he did not yet have figures on the cost of these impressions, adding, on the other hand, that all essential sensitive materials (ballots, minutes, etc.), will arrive in Haiti on 18 and 21 January. Special messages and thoughts... "On January 12, 2017, the General Direction of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) has a special thought for the many police officers killed during the earthquake of January 12, 2010. We share the pain of family members, colleagues and fellows. May their souls rest in peace ! Recognition and gratitude to the UNPol (United Nations police) victims alongside the PNH !" declared Michel-Ange Gedeon, Director General of the PNH. On Thursday, the Ministry of National Education had a special thought to all its employees who died in the earthquake of 12 January 2010, notably at the central office of the Ministry: Ginette Etienne, Director of Human Resources: Anne Prophete, Hermancile Viaud, Desjamin Cius, Herman Petit, at the Directorate of Vocational Training Gedeus Walter, at the State Examining Office (BUNEXE): Smith Cius, and Isabelle Hall; At the DAJ: Domingue Nessime and to the Directorate of Planning and External Cooperation: Jean Kenson Moise and Mildrene Simon. Japanese support in education This Friday morning was launched the project to support the development of teaching materials in mathematics for student learning. Note that this project is being carried out in partnership with the Japanese Cooperation which supports the initiative for around one million US dollars, ie 67 million gourdes. On the Agenda On Friday, 13 January, the National Telecommunications Council (CONATEL) met with producers of audiovisual content as part of the pilot experiment on Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT). https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-19603-haiti-technology-first-digital-tv-test-succeeds-in-haiti.html On Friday, the elected President of the Republic, Jovenel Moise, held a working meeting with his transition team. On Friday morning, French Ambassador Elisabeth Beton Delegue, accredited in Haiti, received representatives of the Group of Support for Returnees and Refugees (GARR), recipient of the Human Rights Award 2016 https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-19530-icihaiti-social-the-gaar-laureate-of-the-human-rights-prize.html handed last month in Paris by Jean-Marc Ayrault, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development. HL/ HaitiLibre RICEVILLE Marvin Duane Shoger, 83, of Riceville, died Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017, at his home. Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at St. Peters Lutheran Church in Riceville with Pastor Michael Parris officiating. Burial will be in Riverside Cemetery in Riceville, with military honors conducted by Roy Gue Post 244. Visitation will be 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17, at the Lindstrom Funeral Home in Riceville, and again one hour before services at the church on Wednesday. Arrangements are with Lindstrom Funeral Home in Riceville. Haiti - FLASH : Colombia has expelled more than 20,000 Haitians Sunday, the Colombian authorities revealed that during the year 2016, they had expelled from their country nearly 34,000 illegal migrants including: 20,366 Haitians, 8,167 Cubans, 874 Indians, 570 Congolese and 553 Nepalese. Foreign migrants were mainly arrested in the departments of Antioquia (North-West), Narino, Valle del Cauca, Cauca (Southwest) and Risaralda (Center), said Christian Kruger, Director of Immigration of Colombia, who explained that in these departments, are located the main road corridors used by the networks of smugglers which indicated that "The number of irregular migrants assumed by the Colombian migration services in 2016, is almost 4 times more than in 2015." Colombia, the official said, because of its geographical position is an obliged passage for all migrants seeking to reach Central America or North America "We are not the cause, nor the origin of this phenomenon, but to ensure the safety and integrity of these migrants we have had to increase our controls and work on regional strategies to combat this phenomenon and we have a zero tolerance policy against all individuals (smugglers) who benefit of these migrants to make a profit," adding that on average each irregular migrant pays between 2,000 and 2,500 dollars to these networks to cross the country. In addition, Kruger said that in 2016 his services had identified new routes for migrant trafficking, using as entry points the Putumayo Departments, which border Ecuador and Amazon (Border with Peru and Brazil). Also it was discovered that the Caribbean island of San Andres, was used by networks of traffickers as transit. On the island the groups of foreigners arrive with false documents, pretending to be Colombians, in order to take boats at destination of Central America. SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Tourism : Erol Josue celebrates the national holiday of Vodou in Benin Invited by "Laboratorio arts contemporains", a joint Haitian delegation from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Industries (MDT) and of National Bureau of Ethnology (BNE) staying in Benin from 9 to 20 January to take part in cultural and tourist exchanges, participate in the 24th celebration of the national festival of the Vodou in Ouidah (Benin) and to the meetings here and elsewhere of the "Laboratorio dArt Contemporain". Through this representation of Haiti, the Ministry of Tourism intends to use the podium offered by Benin to promote ethno-tourism and memory tourism on the basis of a circuit basically constituted of the history of the transatlantic slave trade and colonial slavery, as well as common cultural traits such as Voodoo shared by both nations. Tuesday 10 January was the day of the official celebration of the national holiday of voodoo rich in music, dances, traditional rites and endogenous religions. For more than twenty years, thousands of people from all over the world have visited the community of Ouidah in order to enhance the splendor of this festival. Haitian artist Erol Josue, Hougan and Director General of BNE, spotlighted the Haitian culture by giving a live performance in a concert at the Historic Museum of Ouidah at the end of Vodou Day. The Ministry of Tourism of Haiti hopes to use these typical cultural events to promote common elements that Haiti shares with Benin and also take advantage of Benin's know-how in the development of tourism in Haiti as a historic destination. Last Saturday, Godson Lubrun, the representative of the Ministry of Tourism, met in Cotonou with Sonia Couao-Zotti, Charge d'affaires cultural at the Embassy of Haiti in Porto Novo (Benin). On the menu of these exchanges, there was question to work on developing an agenda to facilitate from early Monday, meetings of the Haiti Ministry of Tourism with representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other local operators in the tourism industry in Benin. Moreover, on the sidelines of these meetings, the Representative of the Ministry plans to have a working session with members of the Haitian community in Benin, with a view to obtaining their active participation in the campaign to change the perception of Haiti. SL/ HaitiLibre Eagles of Death Metal frontman opens up about the night of the attacks for the new HBO doc, which includes interviews with Bono and Josh Homme. HBO has released the trailer for Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis, the Colin Hanks-directed documentary about the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan Theater. The trailer includes haunting footage from the gig just before the attacks, with Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes giving his testimony on what happened that night. "I saw fear take over everyone in that theater," he says, his face turned downward from the camera. The film also includes interviews with Bono, Josh Homme, and more paying their respects to the band. Bono states in the trailer, "Very few people have stared down cold-blooded evil." The film also focuses on Eagles of Death Metal in the months after the attack. In the aftermath of the tragic events, they continued with their music, eventually even returning for another gig at the Bataclan. Hanks also promised that the film wouldn't "walk around" the more controversial statements made by Hughes after the attack. During an interview on Fox Business News, Hughes implied that the security employed at the Bataclan was in on the attack, saying "It seems rather obvious that they had a reason not to show up." Hughes recanted his statements, but this upcoming documentary promises to tell the whole story, including more about those controversial remarks. Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis comes out February 13. Watch the trailer below. Oakland Post Toxic lead levels are dangerously high in Oaklands Fruitvale district, which has the highest level of contamination in California and are worse than in Flint, Michigan, according to a national report recently published by Reuters. Unlike Flints contaminated water crisis, which caught national attention in 2015, Oaklands lead is not in the water system but is coming from old buildings and chipping paint that is getting into the dirt and being tossed up in the wind. The result is that 7.57 percent of children under the age of seven who were tested have high levels of lead in their blood.A lot of tenants are afraid to inform their landlords of unsafe living conditions for fear of retaliation. Larry Brooks, director of the Alameda County Healthy Homes Department, says that it is imperative for residents and property owners to notify officials if they believe lead is a problem in their home. If youre seeing deteriorating paint and the building was built prior to 1978, theres a good chance that the peeling paint probably has lead in it, Brooks told the. Contact your landlord and let them know that theres deteriorating paint and that youre concerned, he said. They can hire people who do lead investigation services and can take sample paint to do risk assessments. A report released in September 2016 documents "critical flaws" in California's carbon trading system, proving many of the concerns the environmental justice community has long raised. The report, A Preliminary Environmental Equity Assessment of Californias Cap-And-Trade Program, authored by Rachel Morello-Frosch, Manuel Pastor, James Sadd, Lara Cushing, Madeline Wander, and Allen Zhu, "demonstrates that polluters using the cap and trade system are adversely impacting environmental justice (EJ) communities. The system is not delivering public health or air quality benefits, not achieving local emissions reductions, and it is exporting our climate benefits out of state," according to the California Environmental Justice Alliance. Big Oil Lobbyist Backs 'Well-Designed' California Carbon Trading Programby Dan BacherEnvironmental politics in California is known for the strange bedfellows that collaborate on some issues, including the state's controversial cap-and-trade program.The latest case in point is the statement issued on January 10, 2017 by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), supporting the continuation of California's cap-and-trade-program, as proposed by Governor Jerry Brown in his 2017-2018 budget, providing that it protects the economy and California families, consumers and businesses.Reheis Boyd chaired the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called marine protected areas in Southern California from 2009 to 2012, as well as serving on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast from 2004 to 2012. These marine protected areas fail to protect the ocean from fracking, offshore oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than sustainable fishing and gathering.Many environmental justice and indigenous organizations oppose cap-and-trade, calling it carbon trading or pollution trading, because of the tremendous adverse impacts the program has on indigenous communities and the environment throughout the world.Reheis Boyd says a "well-designed cap-and-trade program is the prudent approach to meeting the states climate change targets." Reheis-Boyd states:"The Governor, as part of his 2017-2018 Budget, has proposed to authorize California's cap-and-trade program beyond 2020.The proposal would include a 2/3 vote to allow the State to continue to raise billions of dollars.WSPA and its member companies believe focusing on a market mechanism to achieve California's climate goals is the prudent approach. In 2016, California adopted one of the most stringent GHG reduction targets in the world. Achieving this target will be difficult and costly. Achieving the reductions through a well-designed cap-and-trade program will minimize those costs. Where today's proposal falls short is that it simply layers the cap-and-trade program on top of costly and counter-productive command-and-control measures, disregarding the increasingly important role of cost containment.WSPA looks forward to working with the Governor and the Legislature on a climate program that works towards achieving California's climate goals while protecting the economy and California families, consumers and businesses."In his state budget released on January 10, Jerry Brown proposed the introduction of two-thirds urgency legislation in the State Legislature to continue the cap-and-trade program.The state has appropriated $3.4 billion in cap-and-trade auction proceeds to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with funding prioritized in disadvantaged communities," according to the Governors Office. With volatility in recent auctions due in part to uncertainty about the programs post-2020 future, the Administration proposes two-thirds urgency legislation to confirm the programs continued authority beyond 2020. Assuming approval, the budget proposes $2.2 billion in expenditures from auction proceeds, with a continued emphasis on low-income and disadvantaged communities.Indigenous leaders strongly oppose carbon trading and REDDOpposition to carbon trading policies this year led to the California Legislature removing cap-and-trade programs and the related REDD policies from green energy and climate change legislation Governor Brown signed into law in September 2016. Indigenous leaders and environmental justice defenders from throughout the world have strongly opposed cap-and-trade policies for the devastating impacts that they have on indigenous communities.A report released in September 2016 documents critical flaws in California's carbon trading system, proving many of the concerns the environmental justice community has long raised.The report, A Preliminary Environmental Equity Assessment of Californias Cap-And-Trade Program, authored by Rachel Morello-Frosch, Manuel Pastor, James Sadd, Lara Cushing, Madeline Wander, and Allen Zhu, "demonstrates that polluters using the cap and trade system are adversely impacting environmental justice (EJ) communities. The system is not delivering public health or air quality benefits, not achieving local emissions reductions, and it is exporting our climate benefits out of state," according to the California Environmental Justice Alliance.Researchers analyzed cap and trade compliance data from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) looking at residential demographics of communities hosting regulated greenhouse gas (GHG) facilities, along with trends in GHG and particulate emissions. Read the full report here: http://dornsife.usc.edu/PERE/enviro-equity-CA-cap-trade The growing opposition to carbon trading was spotlighted at the end of Governor Jerry Brown's keynote address at the World Climate Summit in Paris on Tuesday, December 8, 2015, when indigenous leaders heckled Governor Jerry Brown, challenging him on his support of controversial carbon trading polices that represent a new form of colonialism that could potentially cause genocide.Brown had just finished his brief remarks when Penny Opal Plant of Idle No More stood up and shouted, Richmond, California says no to REDD and no to evacuating indigenous people from their forests. NO REDD!Indigenous leaders and environmental activists in the room around her joined her in yelling, "NO REDD!"REDD is the acronym for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It is used by the Governors Climate and Forest Task Force, including California officials, to describe programs to promote reduced emissions from deforestation and land use, but Indigenous leaders say REDD really means "Reaping profits from evictions, land grabs, deforestation and destruction of biodiversity.A joint news release from the Indigenous Environmental Network and Friends of the Earth International described REDD as a carbon market mechanism, land-grabbing false solution to climate change that could potentially cause genocide. ( http://www.ienearth.org/un-promoting-potentially-genocidal-policy-at-world-climate-summit Instead of cutting CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, the UN, the US, the EU, China, Norway and climate criminals like BP, Total, Shell, Chevron, Air France and BHP Billiton are pushing a false solution to climate change called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)," according to Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network."REDD is a carbon offset mechanism which privatizes the air that we breathe and uses forests, agriculture and water ecosystems in the Global South as sponges for industrialized countries pollution, instead of cutting emissions at source," said Goldtooth. "REDD brings trees, soil, and nature into a commodity trading system that may result in the largest land grab in history. It steals your future, lets polluters off the hook and is a new form of colonialism. NO to Privatization of Nature!For more information, go to: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/9/1458504/-Indigenous-activists-challenge-Governor-Brown-for-backing-genocidal-carbon-trading-program Western States Petroleum Association is most powerful corporate lobbying group in WestIn case you weren't aware, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) is a non-profit trade association that represents companies that account for the bulk of petroleum exploration, production, refining, transportation and marketing in the five western states of California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Nevada."It is the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in the West and Sacramento and has spent more than other lobbying organization in Sacramento in recent years to exert control over the Governors Office, regulatory agencies and State Legislature.From January 1, 2009 to November 8, 2016, the oil industry spent $112,371,214 on lobbying expenses in California, according to a new report, The Chevron Way: Polluting California and Degrading Democracy. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) Sydney Office produced the report, in collaboration with a coalition of conservation, consumer and environmental justice groups.The Western States Petroleum Association led the oil industry lobbying expenses with $49,491,104 during this period, followed by Chevron with $24,035,901 and Phillips 66 with $4,821,144. For more information, go to: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/wspa-the-wests-most-powerful-corporate-lobbying-group/ To view the original version of the WSPA statement on cap-and-trade, visit the PR Newswire: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wspa-well-designed-cap-and-trade-program-the-prudent-approach-to-meeting-states-climate-change-targets SIPTU says it will ballot its members in Dublin Fire Brigade for strike action over an ambulance shortage. The union says the fire brigade is ready to put four extra ambulances immediately, but that Dublin City Council says they are unable to pay for them. ST. ANSGAR The St. Ansgar City Council has entered into a three-way agreement with St. Ansgar Schools and the St. Ansgar Historic School Project, Inc. regarding the former St. Ansgar Elementary School property. The city of St. Ansgar has access to $125,000 in restricted school funds earmarked for the demolition of the school. Those funds will be made available if the St. Ansgar Historic School Project fails to repurpose the school into a community center and teaching space, as project members have proposed. The funds will be available from the school until Oct. 1, 2019, to see if the project will continue as a viable organization in St. Ansgar. A demolition estimate has been secured from Popps Excavating until the Oct. 1, 2019, deadline, as well as inspection and an asbestos abatement. The school will be sold for $100, as decided at the Dec. 21 School Board meeting. Board members voted 4-2 to accept the proposal made by the Historic School Project, provided the intergovernmental agreements could be put into place. The School Project is not permitted to incur liens or mortgages on the property while the agreements are in place. I would feel better if we were to have an agreement with other people involved so the city doesnt get stuck with it and possibly more costs, Councilman Paul Groth said at a meeting earlier this month, where the agreement was approved 4-1. They have a firm bid for tearing down thats good through 2019, only we dont know if in two years there will be a DNR grant available. The DNR grant would possibly provide funding toward the asbestos removal at the time of demolition. If the grant was needed for demolition, it would be necessary for the Historic School Project to deed the property to the city. The city would take possession of the property anyway should it become derelict, Councilwoman Myrna Jorgensen said. So there is not much difference here. The school would need the same 28E agreement partnership if they were keeping it and applying for the grants for demolitions themselves. Estimates for asbestos removal are between $50,000 and $100,000. I think the community has pretty well spoken that they are hoping the project will be successful and are hoping for the best, Jorgensen said. They dont want to see the property wasted. Archbishop Charles Brown, the permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to Ireland, will visit the West Cork town on Sunday next to launch an illustrated visitors guide to the local and historic St Patricks Cathedral. The last time a papal nuncio visited was in July 1954 when Dr Gerald P OHara arrived amid much celebration to a town bedecked by papal flags. It is hoped, on this occasion, the archbishop will concelebrate 11.30am Mass in the cathedral before formally launching the visitors guide, attending a luncheon with members of the parish assembly and participating in a guided tour of the cathedral conducted by the authors of the visitors guide, Gerald OBrien and Philip ORegan. The guide was funded by a bequest some years ago by the late Monsignor Michael J Coughlan of Santiago, California, a native of Licknavar, Skibbereen. The booklet project was funded after the administrator of the parish Fr Michael Kelleher decided the money be used for something specific and special, explained Mr ORegan. Mr ORegan and his co-author Gerald OBrien carried out the background research for the guide while photographers Paddy Feen and Jeremy Kingston took the specialised, high-quality, photographs used to illustrate the image-led booklet. Our photographers went to extraordinary trouble to photograph the cathedral great skill was involved, said Mr ORegan. Copies of the guide will be available for free in the cathedral following the launch although, he added, donations to help produce reprints would be welcome. The spectacular cathedral, which dates from 1826, was, for more than a century, the seat of the Bishop of Ross and the guide is essentially a potted history of the building. The booklet comprises a series of detailed colour photographs with informative captions as well as a complete floor-plan of the cathedral and timelines of major events in its history such as the fall of the huge cathedral bell from its bindings, in the middle of ringing the Angelus, in 1987. The papal nuncios visit is much anticipated by residents of the town, said Mr ORegan, adding that the event has reawakened local interest in the cathedral and renewed appreciation of its beauty and history. SANTIAGO, Chile--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Orosur Mining Inc. (Orosur or the Company) (TSX/AIM: OMI), the South American-focused gold producer, developer and explorer is pleased to announce the results for the first half of its fiscal 2017 (H1 17) and second quarter ended November, 2016 (Q2 17 or the Quarter) and an update of its exploration and development activities in Uruguay. OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS The San Gregorio West Underground (SGW UG) mine commenced full production from its maiden stope on November 24, 2016 Project completed on budget and on schedule following a safe and efficient transition of equipment and staff from Arenal Construction included over 883m of horizontal development and approximately 663m of infill diamond drilling from 13 underground holes comprising the bulk of the zones to be mined within the existing FY17 SGW mine plan An additional 90,000 tonnes at 1.4 g/t Au not previously in the mine-plan were produced at Arenal UG mine prior to its planned closure at the end of Q2 17, deferring higher grade production from SGW UG Production for the Quarter of 6,852 oz was, as previously guided, affected by the transition from Arenal UG to the new SGW UG mine FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS Quarterly cash operating costs were $914/oz, in line with expectations(Q2 16: $858/oz) Guidance for FY 17 remains $800 to $900/oz Additional development capex related to the contruction of the SGW UG mine in Uruguay resulted in All-In-Sustaining costs (AISC) for the Quarter of $1,345/oz (Q2 16: $1,095/oz) Transition from Arenal UG to the new SGW UG mine led to an increase on Capital Expenditure (capex) to $3.8M (Q2 16: $0.9M) Cash generated from operations increased in Q2 17 to $2.2M (Q2 16: $0.9M). Total cash balance at period end of $5.4M, increased from Q1 17: $5.0M, and FY 16: $4.3M Q2 17 Net profit after tax of $0.9M (Q2 16: loss of $0.9M) Average gold price for the quarter was $1,252/oz (Q2 16: 1,100/oz) OUTLOOK Exploration drilling in and around the San Gregorio UG area has yielded positive results, successfully intersecting gold mineralization in every hole, which are expected to significantly enhance mine economics and increase reserves and resources in the short and medium term. Further drilling is underway During H2 FY17, the Company plans to accelerate exploration in open pit targets around the San Gregorio plant after receiving several permits and to drill seven RC/DD holes (1,600m) in the Arenal-SG corridor to test the occurrence of what could be a relatively large deposit In Colombia, the Company is finalizing a geological model of its high grade Anza gold project project to determine the exploratory potential with the assistance of Mine Development Associates (MDA) of Reno, Nevada. The results of this work are expected to be announced shortly Ignacio Salazar, CEO of Orosur, said: Operations remain healthy and profitable, with $7M of cash generated in the first half of our fiscal 2017. The successful transition to San Gregorio UG as the Companys primary source of ore feed to the plant in Uruguay, was a significant achievement for Orosur. The SGW UG mine successfully started production from its first stope on November 24 on time and within budget. The transition, achieved in a safe, professional manner, represents a significant technical and operational achievement and I am pleased with the technical capacity and execution demonstrated by our team. It was financed entirely from operational cash flow helped by the efficient transfer of equipment and staff between the two undergound mines. In parallel, more active and aggressive exploration work in Uruguay appears to have a good likelikood of enhancing the San Gregorio underground project and advancing the open pit projects around the plant. In Colombia, we are making good progress in the geological interpretation and modelling of our high grade Anza gold project and expect to be updating the market shortly. Operational & Financial Summary1 Q2 17 Q2 16 Diff YTD 17 YTD 16 Diff Operating Results Gold produced Ounces 6,852 8,172 (1,320) 16,802 20,643 (3,841) Operating cash cost3 US$/oz 914 858 56 783 916 (133) AISC US$/oz 1,345 1,095 250 1,135 1,138 (3) Average price received US$/oz 1,252 1,100 152 1,290 1,127 163 Financial Results (unaudited) Net profit/(loss) after tax US$ 000 942 (870) 1,812 3,701 (2,596) 6,297 Cash flow from operations2 US$ 000 2,234 924 1,310 7,029 1,097 5,932 Cash & Debt Summary (unaudited) Nov. 30, 2016 Aug 31, 2016 Diff Nov. 30, 2016 May 31, 2016 Diff Cash balance US$ 000 5,376 4,982 394 5,376 4,320 1,056 Total debt US$ 000 225 289 (64) 225 352 (127) Cash net of debt US$ 000 5,151 4,693 458 5,151 3,968 1,183 1 Results are based on IFRS and expressed in US dollars 2 Before non-cash working capital movements 3 Operating cash cost is total cost discounting royalties and capital tax on production assets. Q2 17 Operations and SGW Development Q2 17 production was 6,852 oz of gold, compared to 8,172 oz in Q2 16. The reduction is due to the implementation of the strategic plan previously announced in July 2015, in response to the lower gold price environment. Additionally, in this Quarter, the Company transitioned from its underground operation at Arenal to the new mine in San Gregorio, which resulted in lower quarterly production, as previously announced and guided. The Company defined and processed an additional 90,000 tonnes grading 1.4 g/t from the Arenal UG, which were not previously in the mine-plan or reserve base. The absence of development and mine fortification costs at Arenal in its final stages allowed the economic mining of ore with lower grades. In the short term, this has deferred higher grades previously planned for Q2 17 to the future, however management considers it is economically positive for the Company in the medium and long run. The construction of the SGW UG mine was completed on time and budget to allow first stope production to commence on November 24th. The development included a total of 883 m of horizontal development, as well as the drilling of a 103 m ventilation chimney. The ventilation development work was conducted by Peruvian contractor, Tumi, using a 3.1 m diameter raise borer. The raise borer technology was chosen to carry out the ventilation shaft work due to its productivity, reliability and cost advantages. During the Quarter, a total of 13 underground diamond holes were drilled, amounting to 663 m of infill drilling in SGW UG. This drilling campaign was designed to enable a more thourough assessment of the geometry and grade of the mineralized body in levels from +35m up to -5m, which entered into production at the end of Q2 17 and comprises the bulk of the scheduled FY 17 production from the SGW UG mine. Q2 17 Financial Summary Average cash operating costs were of $914/oz, compared to $858/oz in Q2 16. As already announced, the Company had previously budgeted and expected higher unit costs in Q2 17, as a result of the shift of its underground staff and equipment from the Arenal UG operation in its final months of production to the new SGW UG mine. During the Quarter, the Company invested $3.8M in capex and $0.6M in exploration compared to $0.9M and $0.7M, respectively, in Q2 16. During Q2 17, the Company increased its investment in the construction of the SGW UG ramp and access and finalized the construction of the ventilation shaft. In addition, the Company advanced the construction of the phase 4A of the tailings dam. As of a result of the additional capex, AISC were $1,345/oz compared to $1,095/oz in Q2 16. The average gold price realized for the Quarter was $1,252/oz (Q2 16: $1,100/oz). Profit before tax for the quarter was $1.0M compared to a loss of $0.9M in Q2 16. Net profit after tax was $0.9M compared to a loss of $0.9M in Q2 16. Cash flow from operations before working capital variations was $2.2M compared to $0.9M in Q2 16. YTD cash flow from operations before working capital variations was $7.0M compared to $1.1M for the prior year due to better operating performance and higher revenue. The cash balance at the end of the Quarter was $5.4M compared with $4.3M at May 31, 2016. The Companys debt balance was $0.2M compared to $0.4M at May 31, 2016 related to minor equipment leases. FY17 Outlook & Guidance The Company's forecast production guidance for FY17 remains between 35,000 to 40,000 oz of gold at operating cash costs of between $800 - $900/oz. As in the past, variations in production and unit costs are expected to occur, quarter on quarter, as the mine plan draws ore from multiple sources at varying grades, stages of development and stripping factors. As already announced, the Company incurred higher unit costs in Q2 17 due to the transition from the Arenal UG to the SGW UG mine which are expected to gradually decrease during the remainder of the Companys FY17. Uruguay Underground Exploration Projects - Potential for Significant Expansion of the SGW UG Mine SGW UG is a continuation, at depth, of the historic San Gregorio open pit deposit which has produced approximately 536,000 oz at an average grade of 2.12 g/t. During FY17, the Company intends to add reserves and expand prospective SGW UG operations within three neighboring underground projects. These projects are the San Gregorio East Underground, SGW UG Deep Extension and the San Gregorio Underground Central area. The last two projects relate to areas which were not previously considered in the SGW UG mining plans and represent new opportunities with a strong potential for near term resource and reserve delineation. A comprehensive and extensive drilling campaign is currently being carried out at San Gregorio. During FY17, a total of 9,000m of drilling are planned in order to confirm and increase reserves and extend the SGW UG mine. To the end of the Quarter, some 4,250m have already been drilled, with positive results. San Gregorio Central (SGC) A New Mineralised Area in the Core of SG New resources are being discovered at San Gregorio Central which are expected to have a positive impact on the economics of the SGW UG project. San Gregorio Central is an eastern continuity of the current SGW UG mineralized ore body. A total of twelve drill holes (2,252m) have been drilled in the area. Ten of these from underground drilling stations (1,514m) and two from the surface (738m). All the holes drilled to date have intercepted grades considered at present to be economic mineralization. The last five holes (1,381m) were drilled during Q2 17 and their mineral intercepts are shown below. Q2 17 intercepts from underground: Hole ID From (m) To (m) Intercept Including DDHUGSG16-024_08 119.45 125.45 6.0m @ 1.28 g/t Au 4.0m @ 1.44 g/t Au DDHUGSG16-024_09 139.10 146.10 7.0m @ 0.60 g/t Au 1.0m @ 1.34 g/t Au DDHUGSG16-024_10 155.95 164.35 8.4m @ 1.01 g/t Au 4.3m @ 1.53 g/t Au Q2 17 intercepts from surface: Hole ID From (m) To (m) Intercept Including DDHUGSG16-177 239.85 244.05 4.2m @ 3.52 g/t Au 1.85m @ 5.55 g/t Au DDHUGSG16-080 272.00 282.55 10.6m @ 1.11 g/t Au 1.10m @ 2.51 g/t Au A total of 3,600m of drilling distributed over thirteen holes are planned for this target during the remainder of the fiscal year. It is managements belief that this work has the strong potential to increase reserves. San Gregorio East (SGE) To date, the results from surface based diamond drilling at San Gregorio East UG have confirmed the continuity of the mineralized body. The grades encountered have been more variable than expected. Additional mineralization has been defined outside the originally known boundaries. The Companys preliminary interpretation is validating the current reserves defined in the area. At present, the geological model is currently being re-interpreted. A total of 19 holes amounting 3,800m of diamond drilling were finished during Q2 17. All mineralized intercepts are shown below: Hole ID From (m) To (m) Intercept Including SGDD16-060 149.05 159.40 10.30m @ 2.63 g/t Au 3.70 m @ 2.74 g/t Au SGDD16-061 215.10 220.10 5.00m @1.10 g/t Au 2.20 m @ 1.58 g/t Au SGDD16-062 183.75 197.80 14.05m @ 1.34 g/t Au 5.00 m @ 2.06 g/t Au SGDD16-063 173.60 180.85 7.25m @ 1.30 g/t Au 5.00 m @ 1.70 g/t Au SGDD16-064 169.80 184.85 15.05m @ 1.22 g/t Au 5.60 m @ 1.77 g/t Au SGDD16-065 186.25 200.75 14.50m @ 1.40 g/t Au 2.05 m @ 6.40 g/t Au SGDD16-066 224.60 229.25 4.65m @ 0.89 g/t Au 1.05 m @ 1.13 g/t Au SGDD16-067 153.25 161.45 8.20m @ 0.53 g/t Au 3.50 m @ 0.80 g/t Au SGDD16-068 181.70 187.00 5.30m @ 0.90 g/t Au 0.75m @ 1.74 g/t Au SGDD16-069 125.35 137.60 12.25m @ 1.81 g/t Au 6.80m @ 2.28 g/t Au SGDD16-070 153.65 166.25 12.60m @ 0.84 g/t Au 3.25m @ 1.87 g/t Au SGDD16-072 123.95 138.85 14.9m @ 0.56 g/t Au 0.90m @ 1.42 g/t Au SGDD16-073 119.90 128.00 8.10m @ 0.98 g/t Au 3.45m @ 2.26 g/t Au SGDD16-071 128.00 135.15 7.15m @ 0.50 g/t Au 1.10m @ 0.67 g/t Au SGDD16-074 119.60 137.90 18.30m @ 0.87 g/t Au 2.85m @ 1.70 g/t Au SGDD16-075B 107.70 128.95 21.25m @ 1.47 g/t Au 8.85m @ 2.52 g/t Au SGDD16-076 177.35 188.10 10.75m @ 1.65 g/t Au 7.05m @ 2.21 g/t Au SGDD16-078 165.95 176.65 10.70m @ 0.87 g/t Au 3.95m @ 1.19 g/t Au SGDD16-079B 205.25 231.75 26.50m @ 1.24 g/t Au 8.95m @ 1.70 g/t Au Potential for Delineation of New Reserves At Depth Below SGW UG Drilling for a deeper mineralized extension of the San Gregorio West UG body is currently in progress. A potential orebody was tentatively defined by two historically drilled holes and at present, one drill hole targeting a depth of 450m is underway. It is expected that this hole will intercept the mineralized body at approximately 400m depth. Another 450m hole is planned during Q3. Uruguay Open Pit Exploration Projects The production strategy that has been working successfully for the Company for the last 4 years comprises of one core underground mine providing 50 - 70% of the ore to the plant, complemented with production from one or more nearby open pits. The open pit ore feed provides additional operational flexibility and allows the underground to be better optimized with a more rigid design driven by operational efficiencies. As part of this strategy, the Company is accelerating an aggressive campaign to identify and evaluate new reserves amenable to exploitation via open pit mining methods, which can be fast tracked and included in its medium term production plan. Mina Peru At present, the Peru area has defined reserves totaling 5,389 oz (65,010 tonnes @ 2.58 g/t Au). Exploration to date has included the drilling of 110 reverse circulation (RC) drill holes amounting to 8,974m of drilling, of which 64 holes intercepted mineralization. As part of an ongoing strategy to better assess the technical and economic viability of this mineralization, four additional diamond holes amounting to 313m were drilled during the Quarter resulting in the following intercepts: Hole ID From (m) To (m) Intercept Including PRDD16-001 94.6 97.9 3.35m @ 1.32g/t Au PRDD16-002 84.7 94.7 10.00m @ 1.67g/t Au 1.00m @ 5.06g/t Au PRDD16-003 27.0 28.0 9.95m @ 3.41g/t Au 4.25m @ 7.39g/t Au PRDD16-004 13.9 20.8 6.90m @ 0.67g/t Au 34.0 35.9 1.90m @ 1.85g/t Au Next steps in the campaign include the drilling of 120 shallow pantera holes (1,800m) during the remainder of the current fiscal year. Veta Rey The Veta Rey open pit has produced some 18k oz over the last two years. During the Quarter, exploration continued towards the southern end of the current Veta Rey pit, where strong indications of continuation of the mineralized body exist. An initial extension of the pit is being defined and some additional 900m, totaling 12 RC holes, are planned for Q3 with the goal of further growing reserves. Los Naranjos Los Naranjos is the natural northwest continuity of the Argentinita orebody. Argentinita/ Zapucay is a mining area located 27 km south-east of the San Gregorio plant with approximately 100,000 oz of historical production. Following the recent approval of its exploration permit in Q2 17, a pantera drilling campaign of 1,500m together with 500m of RC/DD drilling are planned to test the available targets during Q3. The Sobresaliente Domain The Company owns three projects in the Sobresaliente area (Don Tito, Las Pampas and Mantos Verdes), approximately 6 km north of San Gregorio. This area has historic artisanal workings, with gold occurring in quartz veins hosted in granite similar to the ore bodies mined previously at Sobresaliente, in operation during 2011 2013, producing 21,667 oz of gold at an average grade of 1.04 g/t Au. Permits were granted for Don Tito in Q1 and exploration work completed 5 diamond holes, 7 Reverse Circulation holes, and 7 trenches with promising results (announced on October 12th, 2016). The project contains an anomalous area with high grade intercepts. Although structural controls remain unclear, there is a gold anomalous zone approximately 600m on strike and 50m in width which remains open along strike and at depth. On January 11th, 2017, permits were granted on the other two projects, Las Pampas and Mantos Verdes. Some exploration was undertaken historically in Las Pampas with drill holes under old workings which returned some encouraging results. Along strike to the south east, Crystallex drilled some shallow sections also with promising results. A wide zone of anomalous gold is evident and, within the zone, there are a number of higher grade narrow intersections. With permitting available in the three projects, the Company is able to optimize during H2 FY17 the exploration work in the Sobresaliente district with the objective of adding short term open pit reserves. Greenfield exploration in Isla Cristalina OMI is active in its search for larger deposits in Isla Cristalina, similar in size to Arenal or San Gregorio, each having produced in excess of 500,000 oz to date. Currently the Company has identified two key areas which have indicators of such potential; being the Arenal/ San Gregorio Corridor and Nueva Australia. The current geological reinterpretation of the San Gregorio Arenal corridor, if proven successful, would unlock an area of approximately 25,000m to new exploration. The Company plans to drill seven RC/DD holes (1,600m) in the Arenal-SG corridor during H2 FY17 to test the occurrence of a relatively large deposit. Nueva Australia is thought to be the northeast displaced continuity of the San Gregorio Main shear zone along which Arenal, San Gregorio, Santa Teresa and other historical deposits. Little systematic exploration has been carried out in the area where the geological features indicate the presence of a highly prospective zone. Historic mining workings and recent soil and rock chips sampling anomalies demonstrate the potential for near surface mineralization. Exploration permits in Nueva Australia were granted in Q2 17 and the Company is currently preparing the targets for drilling during H2 FY 17. Southern Uruguay The Companys priority at present is to swiftly obtain exploration permits in order to commence a drilling campaign at its Veta Madre project in southern Uruguay. Colombia The Company continues advancing its high grade Anza gold project. The Company is in the process of finalizing a geological model to better understand the gold mineralization. Based on this geological interpretation, an exploration target and recommendations to progress are being formulated with the assistance of Mine Development Associates (MDA) of Reno, Nevada. The results of this work are expected to be announced shortly. Qualified Person's Statement The technical information related to the current assets of Orosur Mining in this presentation has been reviewed by Miguel Fuentealba, a Mining Engineer who is considered to be a Qualified Person under NI 43-101 reporting guidelines. Mr. Fuentealba is a graduate in Mining Engineering from the University of Santiago de Chile and is an AusIMM Member and Qualified Person of Chilean Mining Commission. Mr. Fuentealba has 20 years of professional experience in the field of mining engineering, mine development and management. About Orosur Mining Inc. Orosur Mining Inc. is a fully integrated gold producer, developer and explorer focused on identifying and advancing gold projects in South America. The Company operates the only producing gold mine in Uruguay (San Gregorio), and has assembled an exploration portfolio of high quality assets in Uruguay, Chile and Colombia. The Company is listed in Canada (TSX: OMI) and London (AIM: OMI). For more information, please visit www.orosur.ca Toronto, ON / TheNewswire / January 16, 2017. Chilean Metals Inc. ("Chilean Metals," "CMX" or the "Company")(TSX.V:CMX, OTCQB: CMETF, SSE:CMX, MILA:CMX, FRA: IVV1, BER : IVV1). Chilean Metals Inc is pleased to announce it has commenced drilling on its primary project Zulema. Zulema is near the town of Copiapo Chile and is located about 30 Km's from the Lundin Mining owned Candelaria mine. The drilling program will test two geological distinct targets looking for a Copper Gold sulfide deposit with Candelaria as the model. The drilling program will be comprised of 8 holes with the program targeted to drill upto 2500 of core drilling. The program commenced on the weekend and is expect to take approximately two months. "We are very excited that drilling is started...we have been looking forward to this program with a lot of optimism. It's in a very prolific area and our mining professionals are very positive about this project. It will be an exciting next couple of months" commented Chairman Terry Lynch. "This is the culmination of many years' hard work by our Management Team & Technical Leaders. We are very proud to have executed stage #1of our business plan in 2016. We are extremely proud of our accomplishments and are driven to execute our 2017 Business Plan to drive and maximize shareholder value." stated Patrick J Cruickshank, CEO. Pictures of our drilling will be posted on the Chilean Metals website several times a week as it looks to show shareholders and interested investors progress as it unfolds. Drilling program is expected to last approximately 6 weeks or perhaps longer. We expect about 30m /day advancement in the Atacama Desert, Chile. We have chosen ActLabs as our Certified Labs to process our results and are expediting this stage of our program to get results back as quickly as possible. Day One: 1-15-17 About Chilean Metals Chilean Metals Inc. is a Canadian Junior Exploration Company focusing on high potential Copper Gold prospects in Chile & Canada. Chilean Metals Inc is 100% owner of five properties comprising over 50,000 acres strategically located in the prolific IOCG ("Iron oxide-copper-gold") belt of northern Chile. It also owns a 3% NSR royalty interest on any future production from the Copaquire Cu-Mo deposit, recently sold to a subsidiary of Teck Resources Inc. ("Teck"). Under the terms of the sale agreement, Teck has the right to acquire one third of the 3% NSR for $3 million dollars at any time. The Copaquire property borders Teck's producing Quebrada Blanca copper mine in Chile's First Region. Chilean Metals Inc is the 100% owner of four Copper Gold exploration properties in Nova Scotia on the western flank of the Cobequid-Chedabucto Fault Zone (CCFZ); Fox River, Parrsboro, Lynn and Bass River respectively. Initial targeting and geophysics has been conducted on all properties, At Bass River North, airborne geophysics identified a major VTEM cluster on trend with the Pb/Zn/Ag mineralization exposed at surface and in drill holes to the southwest. Modeling of the airborne data by Minotaur Exploration (Australia) identified 3 priority targets recommended for ground based geophysics prior to drilling. CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwired - Jan. 16, 2017) - Antioquia Gold Inc. ("Antioquia" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:AGD) wishes to report on progress at its Cisneros Project in Colombia. As reported in December, the receipt of Antioquia's final environmental permit has been the catalyst to take the development and construction activities at its Cisneros Project to a significantly higher level. The following update highlights some of the key events currently ongoing. Guaico Underground Work Activities - Progress to year end 2016: The main access ramp has advanced to a total length of 990m and reached an elevation of 1160 a.s.l., some 115 m below the mine portal. This level will be the first main production gallery of the Guaico Mine. Work on developing these galleries are scheduled to begin this month. Besides the 990m of main ramp development, additional operations totalled 1,374m including the following: Ore passes Ventilation raises Draw points Loading areas and cross cuts Production galleries An additional ventilation shaft is being raise bored to connect the 1240 level with the 1160 level; The underground explosives magazine has been commissioned and has a total storage capacity of up to 150t of explosives; Two intersections of the Guaico vein at the 1213 and 1200 level draw points assayed 13.8 g/t Au over 1.4m and 3.2 g/t Au over 1.3m respectively; Further exploration galleries have commenced on both the Manuela and Nus vein structures. The most notable channel sample result received to date from the Nus vein is 16.38 g/t Au over 1.8 m. This progress can be seen on Figure 1. - Progress to year end 2016: Figure 1 shows the mine tunnelling projected advance and Figures 2 and Table 1 show the complete results of the Nus sampling program which are attached as an Appendix and can also be found on the Company's web site (www.antioquiagoldinc.com). Guayabito Guayabito South Drilling - In the month of December the Company completed a 4-hole 470m diamond drill program intended to link the most recent drill results on this property to the resources on the original Guayabito structure. Laboratory assay results are pending. - In the month of December the Company completed a 4-hole 470m diamond drill program intended to link the most recent drill results on this property to the resources on the original Guayabito structure. Laboratory assay results are pending. Guayabito Mine - The final portal design is complete and development work will commence in early February; - The final portal design is complete and development work will commence in early February; Process Plant The following equipment has been delivered to site, photos can be seen on the Company web site; 500 tpd jaw crusher Vibrating feeder Cone crusher Vibrating screen The 10' x 8' ball mill is complete and is undergoing final inspection; arrangements have been made to ship it to Cisneros in the next couple of weeks; Topsoil removal activities are currently ongoing in preparation for plant and camp infrastructure; Other - Total manpower at the Cisneros Project including contractors and Antioquia employees at year end 2016 was 222. This total is expected to increase as Guayabito mine development gets fully underway and plant construction commences. In summary, the project continues to advance well with completion and production still anticipated by management in the 4th Qtr of 2017. Further information and photographs can be found on the Company's website www.antioquiagoldinc.com. Mr. Jim Decker, P. Eng., Vice President Investor Relations and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed the contents of this news release. VANCOUVER, Jan. 16, 2017 /CNW/ - Canasil Resources Inc. (TSX-V: CLZ, DB Frankfurt: 3CC, "Canasil" or the "Company") announces that Orex Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: REX, "Orex") has provided notice of exercise of the first option for earn-in of 55% interest in Canasil's Sandra-Escobar Project in Durango, Mexico. Orex also notified Canasil that it would not be proceeding with the second option to earn an additional 10% interest in the project for a total of 65%. As a result the project will proceed as a 55:45 Orex:Canasil joint venture. Orex has paid Canasil $500,000 and incurred more than US$2,000,000 expenditures to exercise the first option under the terms of an option agreement with Canasil announced on September 15, 2015. Orex exploration programs have included over 10,303 metres of core drilling in 65 drill holes, a helicopter-borne magnetic and radiometric survey and extensive surface sampling and mapping in the southeast of the project area. Sandra-Escobar Silver-Gold Project, Durango, Mexico Sandra-Escobar is located 200 km northwest of the city of Durango, Mexico, in the heart of the "Mexican Silver Trend", with excellent access and infrastructure. This prolific trend hosts some of the world's largest silver camps and deposits, with many past and present producing mines and significant silver-gold deposits. The project area covers over 6,976 hectares of mineral concessions and multiple mineralized epithermal quartz veins and breccia structures. These veins and structures form high level silver-gold-base metal systems, hosted in andesitic and rhyolitic rocks, and are centered on a large rhyolite dome complex in the north and silver-dominant systems around smaller rhyolite dome complexes to the southeast. The technical information contained in this news release is based upon the technical information provided by Orex and has been reviewed and approved by J. Blackwell (P. Geo.), a technical advisor to Canasil and a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About Canasil: Canasil is a Canadian mineral exploration company with a strong portfolio of 100% owned silver-gold-copper-lead-zinc projects in Durango and Zacatecas States, Mexico, and in British Columbia, Canada. The Company's directors and management include industry professionals with a track record of identifying and advancing successful mineral exploration projects through to discovery and further development. The Company is actively engaged in the exploration of its mineral properties, and maintains an operating subsidiary in Durango, Mexico, with full time geological and support staff for its operations in Mexico. TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jan. 16, 2017) - Galane Gold Ltd. ("Galane Gold" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:GG) is pleased to provide an update on the commissioning of the Galaxy Project: Underground development on 17 level completed and stoping ready to commence. Slimes reclamation from the Hostel dump running as planned. Crushing circuit work not yet commenced, however the ROM bin has been refurbished and a new crusher sourced. Mill circuit refurbished and running. Leach / CIL circuit first phase complete with 5 tanks running and oxygen plant fully functional. Second phase to complete another 3 tanks is under construction. Elution, carbon regeneration and gold circuit to be completed. Tailings circuit running as designed. Gold has been extracted from the loaded carbon from the CIL, using a neighbouring mines elution circuit, with the initial estimate for December 2016 production being 26 ounces. At the current stage the Galaxy project does not generate positive cash flows and further capital expenditures are required to complete the full commissioning. The Company is committed to fund the commissioning and subsidize operations at the Galaxy project from cash flows generated from the Company's Mupane mine. Mupane continues to generate positive operating cash flows; however at the current gold price it is insufficient to fully fund the Galaxy project. With the decline in gold price in November 2016 and the continued uncertainty of the price of gold, management of the Company has decided to be prudent and delay full commissioning at the Galaxy project until the Company has sufficient funds available. Galane Gold CEO, Nick Brodie commented: "Reducing the pace of commissioning at Galaxy is disappointing, but it is the correct decision in the current environment to avoid shareholder dilution. Galaxy forms a key part of our plan to reshape the Company into a long-life and low-cost operation that can produce positive returns for investors across commodity cycles. The decision to delay the full commissioning highlights why it is essential for us to deliver this plan and the management of the Company will review its position on a monthly basis. We do not believe that the current low gold price environment will be long term.(1)" Galaxy Description The Galaxy Gold mine is located approximately 8 km west of the town of Barberton and 45 km west of the provincial capital of Nelspruit (Mbombela), in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa and covers an area of 5,863 ha. The Galaxy Gold mine comprises 21 east-west trending gold bodies and four prospects at 600 - 2,000 meters depth. The technical disclosure regarding the Galaxy Gold mine is reported in the technical report entitled "A Technical Report on the Galaxy Gold Mine, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa" which was issued January 4, 2016 with an effective date of September 1, 2015 (the "Galaxy Technical Report"), and was prepared by Minxcon (Pty) Ltd and approved by Daniel van Heerden, B Eng (Min.), MCom (Bus. Admin.), Pr. Eng., FSAIMM, AMMSA, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"). The Galaxy Technical Report satisfies the requirements to be a pre-feasibility study and was reviewed by the Directors of Minxcon (Pty) Ltd, specifically, Daniel van Heerden; Uwe Engelmann, BSc (Zoo. & Bot.), BSc Hons (Geol.), Pr.Sci.Nat., MGSSA; Dario Clemente, NHD (Ext. Met.), GCC, BLDP (WBS), MMMA, FSAIMM; and Johan Odendaal, BSc (Geol.), BSc (Min. Econ.), MSc (Min. Eng.), Pr.Sci.Nat., FSAIMM, MGSSA, all of whom are Qualified Persons as defined by NI 43-101 and independent of Galane Gold for the purposes of NI 43-101. The Galaxy Technical Report can be found under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and on the Company's website (www.galanegold.com). The Galaxy Technical Report covers the following mineralised bodies:- Woodbine, Giles, Galaxy, Golden Hill, Agnes Top, Pioneer & Tiger Trap and Princeton mineralised bodies; Ivy and Ceska Shaft Pillars; and Woodbine (East, North and South), Alpine Pioneer, Hostel (East and West) and Biox North historical dumps. Currently, over 75 historical adits exist within the mining area, as well as tailings storage facilities comprised of previously mined and processed material. Galaxy's existing processing plants are in need of refurbishment and consist of a south plant where crushing, milling, flotation, elution and smelting take place, and a north plant where biological oxidation and leaching of flotation concentrate takes place. The south plant is designed to have a total run of mine capacity of approximately 15,000 tonnes per month and can be expanded through refurbishment and the introduction of larger mills and flotation equipment. About Galane Gold Galane Gold is an un-hedged gold producer and explorer with mining operations and exploration tenements in Botswana and South Africa. Galane Gold is a public company and its shares are quoted on the TSX Venture Exchange and the Botswana Stock Exchange under the symbol "GG". Galane Gold's management team is comprised of senior mining professionals with extensive experience in managing mining and processing operations and large-scale exploration programmes. Galane Gold is committed to operating at world-class standards and is focused on the safety of its employees, respecting the environment, and contributing to the communities in which it operates. Note: (1) This is forward-looking information and is based on a number of assumptions. See "Cautionary Notes". MASON CITY Thirty-seven Mason City High School students will witness the inauguration of Donald Trump as president Friday, thanks to the efforts of history teacher John Lee. Lee and five other adults will leave Mason City with the students at 2:30 a.m. Thursday, fly out of Des Moines at 6 a.m. and attend the inauguration at noon on Friday. He said the trip was planned long before the November election. "This is not about who won. This is about giving these students the chance to experience what has made us a unique nation since the 1700s," said Lee. "It's a prerequisite for a democracy." History will be made this Friday An historical event, which happens every four years, takes place this Friday morning. Four years ago, Lee took a group of 17 students to the inauguration of President Barack Obama. It's special for the students, he said, because for most of them it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "The trip was open to anyone who wanted to go. It's expensive a little over $2,000," said Lee. "But we put the word out early enough to give kids time to raise some money and some 'scholarship' money was donated for some who needed it." People who want to keep up with the students' activities can go to a Facebook page Lee is creating: MC in DC. The entourage will fly back to Des Moines Sunday night, arriving in Mason City at about 1 a.m. Monday "if everything goes according to plan," said Lee. LifeStyle The best LifeStyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel LifeStyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Deb Hutton and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand. Get Foxtel 16.01.2017 LISTEN Finally, the much awaited debut single by Bigail has been released. The song titled Dont Touch was produced by Amazin Studio. She featured P KQuese on this piece. Bigail is known in private life as Abigail Boatemaa. She is a Ghanaian neo soul vocalist, songwriter, performer, Afro pop and dancehall artist. Download/Listen to Dont Touch below and share with us what you think. Link: https://www.hulkshare.com/r14sbksold6o Hiplife artiste Nana Yaw Oduro-Agyei, popularly known as Trigmatic, is out with a groundbreaking musical album titled 'MATIC'. The much-awaited fourth album will be launched Saturday, January 21 at the Alliance Francaise at 7:00pm. At the launch, Trigmatic will thrill the audience with most of his hit songs and all the songs on the new album one after the other to entertain fans who have missed him for a long time. The event is expected to attract a large number of stakeholders in the music industry, fans of Trigmatic, radio DJs and presenters, musicians, among others. Some of the artistes billed to perform alongside Trigmatic at the launch include Stonebwoy, Epixode, Edem, D-Cryme, Joey B, Adina, among others. Based on his outstanding achievements since he joined the music industry in the year 2000, Trigmatic has performed on a number of platforms, as well as worked with a number of artistes, including Becca. In 2014, Trigmatic launched the Matic Foundation which supports a lot of orphanages in Ghana. He is the first to attempt a world record by creating the longest charity table to feed thousands in Ghana. He's also a recipient of several laurels, including VGMA Best Rapper of The Year (2011) and Record of The Year (2014), Best Dancehall Song of The Year (BASS Awards 2014), Best Special Effect Video (4Syte Music Video Awards, 2013), Best Practice Dubai Award, among others. Hiplife artiste Pope Skinny has been given a two-week ultimatum to retract or apologise for publicly confessing his love for Ghana's Second Lady, Samira Bawumia, or suffer the consequences of the fury of the Mamprugu Youth Association (MAYA), a development-based youth group in the Northern Region. We had to calm the youth down because they were ready to trace him and deal with him but I told them I would call the newspaper which put out the story and get them to tell the boy to retract his statement and apologise within two weeks. What he said is a taboo under our customs and traditions. Samira's husband is a Mamprusi Royal and it is impious and forbidden for any man to say he is in love with the wife of a royal. We are Mamprusis and would not watch someone trample on our traditions. We take strong exceptions to such blatant misbehaviour and we demand an apology from the artiste immediately. We assume he was ignorant of our customs but if he fails to apologise, then we know he has decided to intentionally step on our toes, King J. Azortibah told NEWS-ONE when he called the paper's editor and introduced himself as Chairman of the Manprugu Youth Association. Pope Skinny, host of Kasahare Level on Adom FM, was reported to have confessed his love for Samira while hosting the show a fortnight ago. Bawumia's wife has no size. Can someone get me her number so that I tell her that I want her to be my sugar mummy? I am in love with the womanForgive me Bawumia, you are my man but I am really in love with your wife. I wish I would have her for myself, Pope Skinny was quoted by adomonline.com to have stated on the radio show. King Azortibah explained further that apart from Samira being the wife of a royal, she is a Muslim wife and her religion frowns on men making such statements about married women. Even if the musician had said what he said in the form of a song, we may have taken it on a lighter note, and perhaps danced to the song, but he said it on radio and went ahead to state on his Facebook wall that the comment was not a joke. He has gone too far and ought to apologise ad retract his statement or we shall take him on as permitted by our tradition and accepted by law, he reiterated. NEWS-ONE could not reach Pope Skinny on phone to get a response from him, and he neither picked his calls nor responded to a text message sent to his phone. However, the paper visited Pope Skinny's Facebook wall and realised that on January 13, the musician had posted a comment on the subject and what he wrote was far from an apology. Considering the growing wrath of the members of Mamprugu Youth Association, NEWS-ONE took an editorial decision not to republish the exact words of Pope Skinny's January 13 post on Facebook. Ghanaian Songtress Lady Jay just threw shots at UK- Based Ghanaian music producer Juls on twitter. She vowed to never work with Juls again. She cited disrespect on the part of the UK-Based Ghanaian producer as the reason for her decision. Odarteygh.com followed her closely on twitter and per our interaction with her she disclosed that , Juls gave an instrumental to an artiste named Boj for a song she is featured on. However , she discovered the same instrumental had been given to another artiste without her consent. Which clearly showed that Juls doest not respect the terms of agreement or the relationship that exist between them. Therefore she took to her twitter handle to vent her feelings. Here are a few tweets are she posted: There are some people I will never work with again like Julz.. #norespect If u give my friend a beat n he works on it with me and u dont tell both of us and u give it 2 another person thats just plain disrespect. Didnt wanna say nothing but I am about to die clearly so gotta get it if my chest I dont care how long we took to put out the song but u have f**ked up julz u have and I will never ever f**k with u again. I have blocked u n dont need to see u on my timeline .. good luck with ur success U think u will always be blessed when u do s**t like that continue for now u have made an enemy n thats me Continue to do u me just want them to know I dont f**k with u no more u gave away me n Bojs beat when u knew that we wanted to put it out. U f***ed up. Who the f**k gives away a beat with out telling the people who have worked on it before. I am not the owner of the song but if I was I would be going about it differently. Keep working on ur new project be careful the bridges u are burning to get to the top. In ur way down u will meet us all again dont u forget. If I really wanted to b the b**ch that I know I can b Ill release mine n see whose own is lit. I die in a few days f**k what u think. Juls , is a BBnZ signed DJ/producer who is known for producing a number hit songs such as Mr Eazis Bankulize , Anointing , Skin Tight and recent of all With You featuring Maleek Berry, Eugy and Stonebwoy. 16.01.2017 LISTEN United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Two rebel groups driven out of Darfur by a Sudanese military offensive now operate mostly in Libya and South Sudan but hope to return to fight again, a UN report said Monday. Sudan meanwhile is breaking out of international isolation -- the Obama administration eased its sanctions on Friday -- giving the Khartoum government "more leeway to pursue a Darfur deal on its own terms," said the report by a panel of experts. The conflict in the vast desert region of Darfur -- it is roughly the size of Spain -- erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against President Omar al-Bashir's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of marginalizing the region. But in a recent military offensive in Darfur's Jebel Marra area, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Army led by Minni Minnawi (SLA/MM) were driven out. "JEM and SLA/MM no longer have a significant presence in Darfur as a result of the government's effective counterinsurgency strategy," said the report. "JEM now operates mostly in South Sudan, while SLA/MM operates mainly in Libya. These groups are engaged in mercenary activities and, allegedly, in criminal activities in those countries," it added. This leaves only one other group controlling some territory in Darfur: the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA/AW) led by Abdul Wahid al-Nour, who has been living in exile in France. The JEM and SLA/MM have adopted a "waiting strategy," working to rebuild their fighting forces in Libya and South Sudan until there are "new opportunities to re-engage in Darfur with strengthened military capabilities," said the report. The UN Security Council is due to discuss peace efforts in Darfur on Friday. Last week, the council met behind closed doors to hear a report from former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who traveled to Khartoum for talks last month as the African Union's peace envoy. The council wants all rebel groups to join the Darfur peace process. At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in Darfur since the conflict erupted in 2003, the UN says. Maiduguri (Nigeria) (AFP) - At least three people were killed and 15 others injured in a suicide bomb attack on a university campus in northeast Nigeria, police said on Monday. The blast happened at a mosque in the staff quarters area of the University of Maiduguri and is thought to have been carried out by a teenage girl, a local resident and a lecturer told AFP. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion will likely fall on the Islamist group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly used young women and girls as human bombs. Borno police spokesman Victor Isuku said that before the blast at the mosque, police on patrol shot a girl aged about 12 as she tried to get into the university at about 5:15 am (0415 GMT). "The IED (improvised explosive device) strapped to her body exploded, killing her instantly," he said in a statement. "Shortly after that a second explosion occurred in a mosque inside the university. "Four persons, including a professor and the second suicide bomber, died, while 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to UMTH (University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital)." One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said he heard two explosions at 5:25 am as he was leaving the mosque in his neighbourhood. "I rushed to the university, which is not far from my house. On entering, I saw the mosque in a mess. Three people lay dead, including a young girl, whose body was badly mutilated," he said. "Thirteen other worshippers were injured." A university lecturer who lives on site confirmed the resident's account. No let-up in attacks Filibus Yamta Mshelia, from the registrar's office at the university, said examinations scheduled for Monday had been postponed to a later date because of the attack. Nigeria suicide attack Examinations set for Tuesday will take place as planned, he added in a letter to staff and students. "We urge all students to remain calm and vigilant," he wrote. Access to the university campus has been strictly controlled, with checkpoints and searches at the gates, which until now had prevented a direct attack. But the site, on one of the main thoroughfares leading in to and out of the city, is vast and most areas are badly lit. Students also say security has been relaxed in recent months and some of the soldiers who manned the campus gates have been withdrawn. At least 20,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram conflict since it began in 2009 and more than 2.6 million others made homeless. Nigeria maintains the insurgency is in its final stages. Last month said it had flushed out Boko Haram fighters from their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital. Yet there has been no let-up in attacks both on troops and civilians. On January 8, at least five soldiers were killed when rebels targeted a base in Buni Yadi, in neighbouring Yobe state. The following day, suicide bombers killed three in Maiduguri. Boko Haram's name translates roughly to "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language spoken widely across northern Nigeria. Its fighters have attacked schools across the region for teaching a so-called Western curriculum. Many have only recently re-opened after being shut for several years. Christian and Muslim students live and study together at the university, which offers both Islamic and Arabic studies, as well as courses from medicine to law. Sorry, we can't find the content you're looking for at this URL. Oyem (Gabon) (AFP) - Ivory Coast made a disappointing start to their Africa Cup of Nations title defence Monday when held 0-0 by lowest Group C seeds Togo in Gabonese town Oyem. Paris Saint-Germain defender Serge Aurier came close to breaking the deadlock with two minutes remaining, heading a cross narrowly wide. The result maintained a trend of stalemates in the 2017 tournament, which kicked off two days ago, with four of the first five matches failing to produce a winner. MASON CITY | Tonight's drive home in Mason City is looking to be just as wet as the rest of the day has been. Forecasters say freezing rain, and possibly some sleet, is expected to continue throughout the evening on Monday. The chance of precipitation is one hundred percent. The National Weather Service expects total daytime ice accumulation to range from a tenth to three-tenths of an inch. Although the roads in Mason City weren't bad, untreated sidewalks and parking lots were coated in a smooth, extremely slippery glaze of ice. Forecasters say overnight rain and sleet could add another tenth to two-tenths of an inch of ice to that. There's also a chance of up to a half-inch of snow tonight. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Update: North Iowa roads improving, but some stretches still 100% ice-covered 10 a.m. Monday update MASON CITY | Motorists in Cerro Gordo County navigated the icy roads early Monday morning without any major incidents, officials say. That is in spite of the fact that roads were extremely icy before daybreak due to freezing rain overnight. Cerro Gordo County Sheriff Kevin Pals believed that was because people altered their driving to match the road conditions. "I think people were going slower," he said. He said conditions have improved since the road crews salted, sanded and plowed the roads. "Now theyre ice and slush covered so most people are traveling about 40-45 (mph) right now," Pals said. The Iowa Department of Transportation's 511ia.org website listed roads across North Iowa as at least partially covered in snow and ice. As of 10:05 a.m., two sections of North Iowa roadway were listed as completely covered in snow or ice: *Highway 65 from Sheffield to Highway 57. * Highway 3 from Rowan (Highway 69) to Dumont (County Road T16). Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Update: Many teachers also get day off due to North Iowa ice storm 8:30 a.m. Update MASON CITY | Several agencies and some schools canceled or delayed business hours due to bad road conditions on Monday. Although some schoolchildren already had Monday off in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, others got to sleep in thanks to Mother Nature. In many cases, teachers also got to stay home because staff development days set for Monday were also canceled. School-related announcements include: * Clear Lake Community Schools: Professional development day set for today has been canceled. Tonight's basketball games are postponed until Jan. 23. * Mason City Community Schools: The professional development day scheduled for teachers on Monday has been postponed. It will now be held Tuesday, Feb. 21. * Northwood-Kensett Community School: School and all activities canceled due to weather. * Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock Community Schools: Staff in-service is canceled. Other closings/delays: * The march in Charles City celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., set for Monday night has been postponed. * The Wright County Courthouse will open at 10 a.m. * Garbage and recycling pickup in Clear Lake and Ventura will be delayed one day for the duration of this week. * The Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank in Mason City will be closed due to the icy weather. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Update: Ice causing dangerous travel conditions in Mason City 7:30 a.m. Monday Update MASON CITY | Freezing rain continues to fall over North Iowa making for slick roads and sidewalks. Many schools and businesses have closed for the day. According to the National Weather Service in Des Moines freezing rain and sleet will continue throughout the day. Total daytime ice accumulation of 0.1 to 0.3 of an inch is possible in our area. Expect more freezing rain and sleet tonight, possibly mixed with snow until around 4 a.m. Tuesday. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Update: Timing keeps changing, but storm's still coming to Mason City Sunday update MASON CITY | Don't let the blue skies and sun on Sunday fool you: a storm packing snow, freezing rain and sleet is still headed for Mason City. A winter weather advisory is in effect for much of North Iowa from midnight Monday to midnight Tuesday. Forecasters from the National Weather Service expect the storm to arrive in Mason City around 1 a.m. Monday in the form of snow. It's expected to change into a combination of snow, freezing rain and sleet later Monday morning. There's a chance or more sleet and freezing rain Monday afternoon, but forecasters say the heaviest ice accumulations -- up to a quarter inch -- will be in southern and central areas of the state. Those areas extend as far north as northern Hamilton and Harden counties, as well as south of Fort Dodge in Webster County, according to the National Weather Service's forecast maps. North Iowa is expected to receive more snow than freezing rain. The heaviest snowfall in North Iowa is expected to be in Winnebago County and northern portions of Worth and Hancock counties. Forecasters say those areas could get 1-2 inches of snow. Other area counties, including Cerro Gordo County, are expected to get an inch of snow or less. However, even though forecasters don't expect North Iowa to get as much ice as the rest of the state, they say there will still be enough to make roadways and sidewalks slippery. There's also a 30 percent chance of freezing rain or drizzle before noon Tuesday in Mason City. However, the temperatures are expected to climb into the 40s later in the week. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Update: Storm expected to arrive in Mason City Sunday night 2:45 p.m. Saturday update MASON CITY | A storm expected to bring snow and ice is now expected to hit Mason City on Sunday evening. The National Weather Service's winter storm watch is now in effect from 9 p.m. Sunday to 6 p.m. Monday. The storm system is expected to hit southern Iowa Sunday afternoon and move into North Iowa several hours later. Forecasters say northern parts of the state will see more sleet and snow, while central and southern Iowa will receive more freezing rain and rain and thus have heavier icing. Sleet, snow and freezing rain is expected to fall in North Iowa through Monday night. The heaviest icing is expected to happen late Sunday night and early Monday morning. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. Weather: Expect 'significant ice' in weekend storm in Mason City Friday Update MASON CITY A winter storm capable of producing "significant ice accumulations" is expected to roll into Mason City on Sunday. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch in effect from noon Sunday until noon Monday. According to the bulletin, communities along the Iowa-Minnesota border may receive up to 2-3 inches of sleet and snow, and one-tenth to one-quarter inch of ice. The northern-most areas of the state will likely receive more sleet and snow, while communities further south will likely experience more ice, National Weather Service meteorologist Kurt Kotenberg said during a web briefing. "Northern Iowa will likely see more of that snow-sleet combination where central to southern Iowa will likely see more freezing rain and ice than snow, he said. North Iowa should begin feeling the impact Sunday with a chance of snow before midnight, transitioning to freezing rain and sleet early Monday morning and continuing through the morning commute. The mix of snow, freezing rain, sleet and rain will continue throughout Monday. There's also a 40 percent chance of snow Tuesday morning. People should expect slick roads, sidewalks and parking lots. Forecasters say tree damage and power outages also are possible from ice accumulating on limbs and lines. Check back at globegazette.com for updates on this developing story. 16.01.2017 LISTEN So much has been said about the December 1, 2016 Gambian Presidential election that saw Adama Barrow defeating the incumbent Yaya Jammeh. Mr Barrow, according to the declaration by the nation's electoral body, flopped Yaya Jammeh convincingly to strip him him of a position he has wielded for more than two decades. Indeed, Yaya accepted the result, conceding defeat to his real estate rival. He was applauded for this feat seen as the Achilles's hill of most African rulers lacking and which of recently has started making inroads into the continent. But no soon had he conceded, that Jammeh disputed the poll's result. He hinged his latest move on the claim by the head of the Independent Electoral Commission of the discovery of irregularities. The discussion, as soon as Jammeh made this rather stunning U-turn, shifted from that of commendation of the Gambian elections and of the beauty of democracy to that of grave concern and strong criticism. The focus have been to castigate the incumbent for his refusal to honour what has been widely described as the wish of the people of Gambia and the new tidal flow in Africa and to raise alarm over the crisis the decision is brewing. Many, much as beyond the question in context, have gone to censuring the man, wondering why he could not just step down for another after a whole lot of 22 years in power! He's been described as greedy, power-obsessed, insensitive and an anti-democratic dictator. And more to it, all these came to wear emphasis after his reverted decision to stay put. In all these, and together with the emissaries of heads of government sent to convince him, the man has refused to budge, insisting on staying on. But let's leave the emotional flight, of the censure-charade for a while, even momentarily. Let's leave the understandable anger from the distaste at such obnoxious temerity to resist popular choice, of the audacity to hang on. We're are going to look at the matter from just the 'Jammeh's perspective'. That's to say let's assume we're Jammeh and reason along with him... Let's just have it, and assume it to be so. Such that it might be easy to stream along with him-and somehow, find meaning-in the rationale of his desire to insist and remain adamant on a possible supreme Court's nullification of the presidential result and by so cling onto power. Let's give Jammeh some benefits of doubt. There are three points, from the narrative above, to consider. And these are (1) the fact that the Gambian Election Management Body, the IEC, declared Adama Barrow winner and (2) the fact that the same IEC made an admission that it discovered some infractions, later. In both cases, Mr Yaya Jammeh showed a believe of the electoral body. The last is something that has baffled him: (3) the decision of the Supreme Court to postpone judgment. The exercise of acceptance by Jammeh to the first issue brought him commendations. He received the announcement and had acted on the result; and thanks to the umpire. However, with the second exercise, following the same wave of receiving and acting on declaration, rebuke trailed; and no thanks, but to who? If indeed the electoral umpire had indicated a suggestion of irregularities- which believably could cause an obvious blinking towards the integrity of the already declared result- then, is it not something to be looked into, to be worrisome? Even for the singular reason that the credibility of the declared result is questioned, is it not something truly worth challenging? Is it not clear, from the positions of the IEC, that electoral body is in a dilemma over this, and would it be unfair to both conscience and democracy to seek a judicial review? And except it's been viewed as an opportunistic frame to criticize the over two decades cling to power, why should it be seen as an act of over-ambitiousness in seeking resolution and in the court of law? Then the last. If there seemed to be an obvious dilemma from the action of the electoral commission and having, also, taken such to the court for resolution and considering the limitedness in time, shouldn't the Supreme Court have acted swiftly in just deciding on an interpretation to save the deadlock? Fine, if there was no available judges as to indicate a judicial lacuna to drag the crisis, wouldn't all these ECOWAS countries feigning care and concern have found it more helpful and reassuring to 'lend' some judges so as to clean up the stale than threatening to forcefully install Barrow while the question lingers? From the immediate above, does it not suggest conspiracy from both the Supreme Court and from the ECOWAS 'big brothers'. Does it not beat the mind that the ECOWAS brothers have turned blind to making the simple yet helpful decision and has instead threatened brimstone? Are we following Jammeh's (assumed) perspective? My take... However, reasonable and acceptable Yaya Jammeh's bases of his insistence might be, I ask, would it not rather be more reasonable and more acceptable to respect the subsisting scenario, step aside and pursue his right, in what would be seen as a more constitutional manner as obtainable? But Yaya's take on this might be, how assured is he that justice could be delivered to him when outside the reins of power-considering the African power of incumbency? Yes, for even as on point as Jammeh could be... Indeed, it would be an usurpation of power to refuse the subsisting declaration and cling to power, waiting till May when the possibility of hearing such petition has been indicated by the country's Supreme Court. Kingsley Ahanonu writes from Owerri, Nigeria. (twitter: kings_emz) If anybody asked me, "What is martial arts?" I would simply say, "Martial arts is Bruce Lee and Bruce Lee is martial arts." In fact, Bruce Lee is, to me, the most iconic martial artist of all time most people do believe that. He was, and still is, the perfect embodiment of martial arts, and he grew into the biggest Chinese star in the world when he was alive. If there was one person who demonstrated complete rarity in his field, that person would be Bruce Lee. Besides, he proved that the axiom "life begins at 40" was actually ridiculous, because he had probably lived life to the full by the time he died at age 32. Bruce Lee is my role model; I learn a lot from him, especially his skillful supremacy. Though he is dead, his unsurpassed legacy remains etched in the memory of billions of folks worldwide. Okay, so who was Bruce Lee as an individual? Lee Jun-fan, as he was originally called, was a Chinese born in San Francisco, U.S. on November 27, 1940 but died mysteriously on July 20, 1973. He lived most of his entire life in the United States where he attended college and began his professional martial arts career. Bruce Lee was a martial artist he was the founder of Jeet Kune Do an actor and a philosopher. He started practising Chinese martial arts, particularly Kung Fu, when he was a little boy in his homeland China. He also perfected his craft beyond normal and soon became a titan in the world of martial arts. Interestingly, Bruce Lee defied the odds by introducing Chinese martial arts into mainstream Hollywood even in the face of opposition, scepticism and indifference. Yes, Bruce Lee could be described as superhuman! Now let us delve into the true rarity of Bruce Lee, arguably the world's most important martial artist ever. Bruce Lee practised about 5000 punches a day; no wonder he was the only one who could perfectly do the one-inch punch. He was incredibly fast to the extent that his martial arts moves in movie scenes had to be slowed down so they could look real. Bruce Lee was an avid reader who had a personal library consisting of thousands of books. He even dropped out of Washington University to establish a martial arts school to train people for income. Bruce Lee could also perform one-hand push-ups with only his thumb and index finger. Well, there are actually tens of unprecedented, unthinkable and mind-boggling things he did which portrayed his rarity throughout his lifetime. Therefore, young people who aspire to global greatness, no matter where they come from, ought to learn from the superhero Bruce Lee and not to really copy him or his personality. Bruce Lee was not just an excellent martial artist, he was excellence itself in martial arts so strive to epitomise excellence with your skill. He existed as a human being for just 32 years, but he lived and still lives on as a rare being for over 70 years now. Bruce Lee once stated that, "Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier." Again, he encountered several sickening challenges, yet he created opportunities out of them. He once said, "To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities." Lastly, Sircle Communications is extremely proud of Bruce Lee, and his absolute rarity contines to inspire the Sircle brand. Source: sirarticle.blogspot.com It has become increasingly clear and, yes, embarrassingly so, that Article 71 of the countrys 1992 Constitution is in dire need of a radical revision. Indeed, it is ironic that it is the very people who shot and rigged their way into the erstwhile Osu Castle and, presently, the Jubilee-Flagstaff House, on the motto of Probity, Accountability, Transparency and Justice who have today made a constitutional culture out of taking the hardworking but scarcely economically comfortable Ghanaian taxpayer to the cleaners, as New Yorkers are wont to say (See Review Provisions of Article 71 Occupy Ghana Citifmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/11/17). I have absolutely no doubt in mind that this insufferably unconscionable means of savagely siphoning the limited resources of the country for the benefit of the topmost few, was made possible when, if memory serves me right and accurately, the leaders of the then-political opposition allegedly launched a massive boycott of the Constituent Assembly, or some such apparatus established for the drafting and ratification of our present constitutional instrument. And so practically speaking, there clearly appears to be enough blame to go around. The sort of wanton political scam-artistry allegedly being indulged by former President John Dramani Mahama, in the form of his inexcusably outrageous demand to be gifted the official residence of the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, makes immitigable British colonial exploitation of the Gold Coast of yesteryear seem like the most selfless act of political volunteerism that ever happened to the generation of our great-grandparents and our parents, for the most part. In the latest racket, we learn that the official residence in question was originally the property of the former Ghana Cocoa-Marketing Board, and that it was used as a Guest House. I am of the opinion that the latter real-estate property ought not to have been alienated or commandeered from the CMB by any member of the Executive branch of government, to begin. This is tantamount to the most arrogant display of executive power, and strikingly reminds one of the seizure of the official residence of the Chief of the Defense Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, that is, the original Flagstaff House, by then-Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah in 1958 or thereabouts. And so if I were afforded the privilege, I would advise President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to have the property promptly renovated and returned to the present management of the so-called Cocobod. The evidently facile and decidedly erratic and promiscuous habit of rampant and indiscriminate Executive cannibalization of public property is not helping any remarkably with the instilling of discipline in the institutional establishment of the leadership of our country, both individually and collectively. I was also amused to learn that the former Mahama Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah, one of the two then-junior ministers in the Atta-Mills government and the executive front men who defied the Wood Supreme Court, in the matter of the Obetsebi-Lamptey public property acquisition cause celebre, was also at the forefront of this patently criminal affair. And so the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian voters ought to pat themselves on the back for successfully jack-booting these veritable white-collar thieves out of the Jubilee-Flagstaff House and onto the gray, or nebulous, margins of political opposition, from where they ought to never have been released into the mainstream of our national political culture. Indeed, the pointedly boorish behavior of the self-proclaimed former Presidential Spare Tire, in attempting to permanently occupy and own the official residence of the Vice-President of Ghana, that was first occupied by the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, by the way, is more than boorish. To be certain, it is nothing short of the most primitive or the worst form of political barbarism. There is also a glaring element of abject disrespect for Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia. It is almost as to say that the latter was not qualified to occupy the old post of the Moscow-trained former Rawlings Communications Minister. One also wonders whether Mr. Mahama has ever spent a split-seconds moment of his life to fathom if he would have ever had the privilege of occupying the subject landed and real-estate property, if Mr. Aliu Mahama had also demanded to be ceded the same at the end of his relatively far more progressive and prosperous 8-year tenure as Vice-President of Ghana. And would Mr. Mahama cotton up to the idea of the now-President Akufo-Addos demanding to be gifted the Jubilee-Flagstaff House at the end of his tenure, because he has become more comfortable residing there than in his longtime Nima residence? Maybe a Constitutional Amendment to Article 71 or, better yet, the article spelling out the qualifications of any prospective President of Ghana or Presidential Candidate, ought to require anybody aspiring to the highest office of the land to own his/her own real-estate property or home before applying for the job. Indeed, even as Mr. Ace Anan Ankomah, the co-convener of the Occupy Ghana pressure group, poignantly observed the other day, short of such basic work-related needs as personal security detail, every Ghanaian politician, from the President downwards, must be made to pay some of his/her income into a social security fund, like most of the rest of Ghanaian public and civil servants. The quadrennial constitutional scam of paying ex-gratia awards to parliamentarians and other members of government, namely, the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature, must be promptly revoked. In any functional democracy, equality of citizenship ought to mean precisely that. *Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs 16.01.2017 LISTEN We the New Patriotic Party community in Russia wishes to congratulate his Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo on his election and inauguration as the President of Ghana and Dr. Mumuni Bawumia as the vice president of Ghana. We know your track record on the role you have played on Ghana development, you are going deliver beyond the expectations of all Ghanaians and by the end of your 8 years rule, all the promised will have been fulfilled. We are grateful to hear that you are going to create an office for an independent body to fight corruption or an independent prosecutor, we have much interest in this area and we will want you to also take a very careful look at the Ghana missions abroad because that is always at the blind side of Ghanaians and Ghana journalist. We believe that fighting corruption will involve all of us and we will be willing to help you win over corruption just as how you beat NDC candidate hands down. We will also like to congratulate all NPP MPs that has won their seats and the entire NPP family in Ghana. Long live NAADA Long live NPP Long live Ghana Signed Ajene Abongo Mashood Jacob (Interim chairman) In the Ghanaian society as I have grown to come to know or establish, many Ghanaians have cultivated the habit of cowardice when it comes to telling the truth, or exposing perpetrators of crimes. They will rather choose to tell lies in support of the wrongdoer to help cover up their crimes than to tell the truth to shame the devil. It seems to have unfortunately become a culture in Ghana where those fighting for the establishment of truth and justice, exposing those abusing their powers or are deeply involved in corrupt practices, to be scorned and hated, rather than loved and praised. In a nutshell, due to the near-institutional corruption that has eaten into our very Ghanaian human fabrics, some Ghanaians tend to defend the evildoers out of fear or love of what I dont know, I cannot comprehend or I cannot decipher. However, Jesus Christ says in John 14:15, If ye love me, keep my commandments. The theme of my writing today to admonish Ghanaians and those appointed by His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo to help him administer Ghana will be centred on keeping in line with his avowed intents of being selfless, incorruptible, dynamic and dedicated in serving Ghana and his people (Ghanaians). Until his team of appointees shares his visions and aspirations in love, doing exactly what he wants, to truthfully uplift Ghana from her current economic doldrums, eschewing any instinctive behaviour of corruption they may have, his promises and plans in the best interest of Ghana as made known will never be achieved. Throughout his years that God Almighty will grant him to rule Ghana, especially during his first four-year term in office as the President of Ghana, all his appointees must strive to see it as an obligation on them to be faithful to him and to Ghana by not involving themselves in the same arrogance and corruption as depicted by NDC and former President John Dramani Mahama. It is only by keeping to the gospel wishes of the President to deliver on his promises to the nation and people in absolute faith, devoid of corruption, incompetence, nepotism, arrogance, insults and absurd quest for easy wealth that Ghanaians can keep the NPP in power for long. It is my prayer that those that the President has appointed and continue to appoint, will serve the nation and the people of Ghana in faith and in truth, exactly as it is his ultimate dream. I pray that Ghanaians will cease their habit of supporting those committing acts of corruption to rather support those who will challenge those involved in such corrupt practices. It is by this that we can collectively help uplift Ghana to the prosperous level that we all look up and forward to, through the government of NPP headed by His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo. I am hated and insulted for expressing or publishing my candid opinion about certain corrupt practices by those that we have entrusted our collective well-being to; however, I am never discouraged. I shall continue to do what I feel is right for my people and nation by resisting or condemning such irresponsible behaviours by our public and traditional leaders. To the newly-appointed Government Ministers, Deputy Ministers and government appointees in general, by His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo, please, obey his commandments to you to serve Ghana and Ghanaians in absolute honesty without resort to corrupt practices with the aim of illegally enriching yourselves. Should you disobey him to do the unexpected, being arrogant to Ghanaians, creating, looting and sharing as former President Mahama and his NDC brigade of the Arabian Ali Baba and his forty thieves did, then be ready to come under my dissecting pen or computer keyboard. I hope you will not create the fertile ground for me to challenge you for being corrupt. Stay tuned for more info from Rockson Adofo, the leader of the Mahama Must Go movement who is also trying to free the NPP-sympathising workers at the Tema Development Corporation from unnecessary intimidations and threats as well as endeavouring to get the Kotoka International Airport install Call Forward Systems at the immigration posts for the convenience of arrived and departing air passengers. The Call Forward Systems inform the head of a queue which teller or reception position is free next. This makes serving customers much more efficient. Please Ghanaians; let us do away with our habit of hating the one who tells the truth to rather support them for the collective good of all of us. A word to the wise is enough. I invite whosoever will, to come and drink freely from my overflowing fountain of wisdom, intelligence, selflessness and dedication to be of service to my nation and humanity. Rockson Adofo 16.01.2017 LISTEN Isn't it shocking that the man who had for past 16 years been chasing the presidency of this country with flattery and fancy promises packaged in a free slogan, finally becomes the president and engages in the most dishonest act in history of our country by going against his vow to reduce public expenditure by cutting the size of government. Mr. Akufo-Addo, Ghana's new president, after causing the country unpresidented embarrassment by summing up speeches delivered by past presidents around the world and presented it as his own in his maiden address goes ahead to form a government which is unequivocally the lagest in the history of this country. What makes the situation quite bizarre was his consisted chastisement of the then Mahama led government for the size of his government yet barely few days after assuming power, his ministerial portfolios have tripled, most of which are obviously duplications, which many pundits describe as an desperate attempt to reward "old lackeys" for party loyalty and allegiance at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer. The 72 year old Addo Danquah who many people describe as visionless and clueless when it comes to leadership considering his horrific tract records as leader of the then opposition party, now the ruling party, the NPP. After campaigning on cutting taxes, building factories at every district of the country, provides free secondary education, and many more, the early sign of intellectual dishonesty in display raises serious doubts about his commitment to keeping those juicy promises made to Ghanaians. Some ministerial portfolios created by the new government have been described by many as useless and unnecessary and has alarmed lot of Ghanaians slamming the old man as undeserving to be trusted with the developmental prospects of the state. So far 36 ministerial portfolios are created which is largest in the history of Ghana. The splitting of transport, roads and highways, aviation and railway, and water, sanitation and housing into separate ministries and others like senior minister portfolio which many have argued, it's totally needless because of a likely situation of clash and usurpation of authority of the chief of staff who is also deputised by two others. Other avenues like the regional re-organisation and development, Zongo and inner cities ministries are nothing less than comic relief. With the creation of four regions on top of his agenda one would expect a special attention to be given it but creating a whole ministry is only glorified in the realms of absurdity. Over the years many experts have advocated the need for strengthening existing institutions to make them effective instead of duplicating them for cheap partisan expediency. Mahama government was consistently criticised by the npp and their surrogates in the media, having engaged in all sorts of diabolical and naferious propaganda to effect regime change which luckily worked for them in 2016 elections, making their "grand wizard" the president is that they sought to achieve, and they lack the moral convictions to complain even in the face of staggering abuse and misuse of authority coupled with a clear case of job for family. Aside Akuffo Addo's ministerial controversies, another issue many Ghanains have expressed worry about is the appointment of his family members to key and strategic positions like the attorney general's position. One may count as much as seven (7) and still count appointees who are direct cousins of the president. The financial sector is anchored to the rib of his cousin who over the years, sources have revealed was the sponsor of his campaign as director of Data Bank. A clear case of nepotism at the highest office is a crime that cannot be treated with indifference. The early signs of failure are boldly indicative on the walls considering how things have started at the top, and considering personnels appointed many who debuted in the erstwhile Kuffour administration and led a terrible scandals which left unfading scar in the momeries of Ghanaians. Yaw Osarfo Marfo a former finance and education Minster currently a senior minister was at the centre of the popular CNTC loan and Macmillan dictionary scandals. These are the men Akuffo Addo has re-introduced to steer the affairs of the state in the next 4 years. Many Ghanaians are overwhelmed by the wanton display of intellectual weakness being exhibited by the 72 year old President. Many political pundits have argued on the need for some of the ministeries created. The question is, do we need Zongo ministry before reaching out to Muslims living in slums when ad hoc committee with a defined role could be designated to deliver any commitment government might wish to extend to zongo settlers. Is it going to be like all the campaign promises made to Ghanaians by Nana Addo and his team would require a designated ministerial portfolios, then in the coming days watchers and observers of this government should be expecting minister for Free SHS, minister for one million dollar per constituency and minister for one district one factory, one village one dam. This is the level the 72 year old man who has no knowledge or whatsoever about governance has reduced leadership of this country to, a theatre of comedy and jokes. Again many people have raised doubts about the competence of the old man with the creation of regional re-organisation and development ministry. With a major campaign promise of creating four regions out of the existing ten, one would expect a special attention be shifted to achieve that but creating a whole ministry for this purpose is very bizzare. The obvious question is, after creating those regions what would then be the exact role of this ministry considering the fact that, day to day running of various regions are handled by regional ministers. Many would have expected the setting up a team of expects or designations of existing institutions to be in charge of such development without necessarily inflicting such needless financial pressure on the already stressed national purse. There are whole lots of contradictions in the specificity of roles assigned to various duplicitous ministries created and concerns have been raised about policy conflict among individuals designated to handle those offices. This situation is projected to create power play among players on the filed which will obviously breed chaos and bad blood to choke and stall progress. Over the years, many Ghanaians have expressed deep concerns about increasing public expenditure and the need to curtail the annual surge, this informed the immediate past government to review its economic management strategies by cutting down spending through fusion of some ministries. Annual budget allocations and budget overruns have over the years inflicted a significant woes on Ghana's economic fortunes therefore the least one would expect from any serious government is the creation of useless and needless ministerial portfolios which will obvious drain national coffers considering huge emoluments, allowances and end of service benefits allocated to article 71 holders but that leader is not Ghana's new president who is poised to reward the old guards in his circles with positions at the expense of relevance and gains to the ordinary Ghanaian. He remains undaunted in his quest to do the odds, because he has succeeded in building an army of sycophants around him and in the media who continue to sing the usual alleluia choruses to champion his course. I'm very much confident many who voted for Akuffo Addo with the hope of bringing something different to the table have started freaking out because the signs on the walls are very indicative of the old man's attitude of indifference to major concerns of Ghanaians over the protection of state coffers which was his major campaign promise. God bless our homeland Ghana, and make us great again, the bible is my witness. Ivan Kyei Innocent [email protected] I have been listening to the commentary in the media about the Presidents ministerial nominees with keen interest and I have decided to explain these appointments from a corporate strategy perspective. In developing a corporate strategy, the key factor that shapes the strategy is the vision of the organisation. This vision is then broken into specific measurable goals and then strategies are developed to help the organisation achieve these goals. The type of strategies developed then shape the sets of activities that are required to execute the strategy and achieve the corporate goals in line with the corporate vision. For example, if a companys vision is to be an international player, the company will set goals that hinge on when, where and key targets after all the macro and micro environmental analysis have been conducted. The strategic options will hover around how the company intends to go international, what products/services to deploy and whether to use standardization (same products across markets) or adaptation (modify products for specific international markets). All of these strategic decisions will be shaped by the environmental analysis as explained. Another strategic issue to consider will be the mode of entry; whether to enter the new international market through a greenfield approach (set up from scratch), acquisition (buy an established local company), export through a local agent, export through the companys own agency and many other strategic factors. All of these factors will be determined by the objectives, speed of entry required, degree of control, financial resources, size of the company, international marketing experience, psychological and physical proximity of the new market, type of opportunity (sizzling or latent) and many more. For example, if a company wants to take advantage of a sizzling but fleeting opportunity its most likely to adopt the fastest entry mode which also gives it the quickest and easiest exit route after the opportunity has faded out. In corporate strategy, the organisational structure is also driven by the vision, goals and strategy. If an organisation considers a particular market area as critical, they divide the market into key strategic segments and employ human resources to pay critical attention to these market segments. The Akufo-Addo-led government won the mandate of tGhanaians on the back of various promises as captured in their manifesto and so well articulated by President Akufo-Addo and other senior members of his party.There is, therefore, that expectation to deliver with speed and precision by a the populace. The NPPs vision is the development of an optimistic, self-confident and prosperous nation through the creative exploitation of Ghanas human and natural resources, operating within a democratic, open and fair society in which mutual trust and economic opportunities exist for all. The key economic goal is to build the most business-friendly and people-friendly economy in Africa, which will create jobs and prosperity for all Ghanaians. A few of the notable campaign highlights included the following: one district, one factory One village, one dam Creation of new Regions to ensure equitable distribution of resources and development Ensuring the election of DCEs Development of a Zongo Development Fund to pay critical attention to the needs of the Zongo Community Abolish nuisance taxes Tackle corruption head on How do these Ministerial appointments feed into this vision and goals? For the purpose of this article, I will focus on only the seemingly contentious ministerial nominees Minister for Railways: As a young boy in the early 90s, I remember travelling from Takoradi to Awaso with my mum in a comfortable train called the Sleeper; where you could practically have a cabin to lf. If you wanted to sleep, all you had to do was pull a bed above the seat and sleep. Over the years, the Railway system has totally collapsed and transportation of goods and raw materials from strategic areas have to be done by road with its attendant negative effects. The quantum of work required to set a fully functional Railway system within the confines of time has been grossly underrated by commentators. Railway is highly strategic with massive economic implications and as such it requires critical attention at the highest level of government and it should not be subsumed under the Transportation Ministry especially at this phase of our national development when it is practically non-existent. For Ghana to accelerate its pace of growth and have a fully functional and world class Railway system, such critical attention is fundamental. This cannot be job for the boys!!! Minister for Regional Re-organization: the creation of a new Region is an extremely laborious process with all the legal processes, detailed stakeholder consultation and commitment required. This therefore requires the needed attention at the highest level to ensure the management of stakeholder expectations. The creation in itself can be counter-productive due to the wrangling that can occur as a result of boundaries and choice of the respective capitals. This very tedious activity therefore deserves to be driven with tenacity and a specialist focus since its also an integral development issue. Minister for Zongos and Inner City Development: This role is also another seemingly contentious one but in my opinion, it is as important as that of Gender, Children and Social Protection. Its no secret that the Zongos are very disadvantaged with peculiar needs and this is an indication that the government attaches critical attention to the enhancement of the Zongo community to ensure some level of equity in national development as captured in the vision of creating prosperity for all. Minister for Business Development: The most important focus of the governments vision is the creation of jobs. One of the key approaches is the development of one factory in every district using the private sector as an enabler. The role of Trade & Industry is to be the lead policy advisor to government on trader, industrial and private sector development with the formulation and implementation of policies for the growth and development of domestic and international trade and industry. The Ministry thus oversees a large ambit of key stakeholder groups aimed at facilitating both local and international trade. However, the Business Development role is a specialist function aimed at ensuring the fluid development of businesses and will therefore be a key facilitator in ensuring the actualization of the governments job agenda through business development. Minister for Evaluation & Monitoring: For me, this is one of the most critical portfolios created. One of our bane as a country is our inability to critically monitor and evaluate key deliverables. This specialist role will ensure the effective execution of key deliverables as captured in the manifesto. By this singular appointment, the President has indicated his intention to personally monitor and track the key manifesto promises. Governments are quick to forget their social contract and enter into a comfort zone but these evaluation officers at the ministries can only monitor and track projects at a tactical level because do not have the needed authority to exert influence at the highest level. This role is therefore aimed at the effective integration of all key issues, monitoring them and ensuring the relentless pursuit of strategic national initiatives critical to the achievement of the vision. Before I end, let me use a simple issue to illustrate the concept of value. If an advert in medium X costs Ghc100,000 but it reaches 1,000,000 of your target audience but an advert in medium Y costs Ghc10,000 but it reaches only 5,000 of your target audience, which medium delivers more value? As President Kuffour rightly said: "We should not be a nation that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Therefore the overarching argument should focus on value as opposed to cost and it must also be within the framework of the vision, strategic objectives, key deliverables/manifesto highlights, stage of economic development, time constraints and expected outcomes. Some of the arguments so far have been overly simplistic and pedestrian without recourse to these key issues. The government cannot achieve superior results by doing business as usual. What is required is a focused but radical approach to tackle fundamental issues within the confines of time with speed and precision by isolating critical issues that are central to the achievement of the vision. This is what the President seeks to do as per the social contract that has been signed with the citizens. Time for everyone to rally behind the government and push them towards the vision of creating a prosperous and equitable nation for all Ghanaians. Nana Yaw Kesse writes on Marketing & Corporate Strategy using illustrations from Ghanas corporate and socio-political environment. Contact: Website: nanayawkesse.com Twitter & Instagram: @nykesse Facebook: nanayawkessegh TORONTO, Canada, 16 January 2017,-/African Media Agency (AMA)/- Ethiopia's University of Gondar and Canada's Queen's University today announced a 10-year, USD$24.2 million partnership to advance inclusive higher education for young people with disabilities in Ethiopia and Africa as part of The MasterCard Foundation's Scholars Program. The partnership will provide 450 next-generation African leaders with a high-quality university education at the University of Gondar, while also providing 60 of the university's faculty members with the opportunity to study at Queen's University, where they will enhance their skills in innovative pedagogy and in leading collaborative research between African and North American universities. The University of Gondar and Queen's University will also collaborate to develop Ethiopia's first occupational therapy program. "We are excited to welcome the University of Gondar and Queen's University to the Scholars Program," says Peter Materu, Director, Education and Learning and Youth Livelihoods, The MasterCard Foundation. "Through their collaboration, these exceptional institutions will not only forge a new path for inclusive education in Africa, but will also bring much-needed perspectives that will enable us to better understand the needs of talented young people living with disabilities. This partnership represents a new innovation in the Scholars Program that demonstrates how one can leverage the capacity of one partner to establish and strengthen programs in priority areas of need in another institution." As part of the partnership, the University of Gondar will provide 290 undergraduate and 160 master's level degrees in multidisciplinary fields that will encompass health sciences, law, education, nursing, and rehabilitation sciences, taking special care to recruit young people with disabilities, as well as young people from conflict-affected countries. The University of Gondar will deliver an annual Summer Leadership Camp for Scholars across the Program, as well as a robust, practicum-based experiential program focused on giving back to community, through service and leadership skill development in the field of community-based rehabilitation. The University of Gondar will also pilot new models of Scholar support services, by integrating accessibility tools such as wheelchairs and learning materials such as braille books and rehabilitation lab access, into each Scholar's package of wraparound support. "The University of Gondar embraces this partnership with great enthusiasm, for it comes with an opportunity to boost its vision of becoming a Centre of Excellence in rehabilitation and inclusive education, research and community engagement," says Dr. Desalegn Mengesha, University of Gondar President. "This partnership will develop the capacity of both universities to plan and effectively undertake large-scale, people-centred interventions with multi-faceted benefits to the institutions and their respective stakeholders." Queen's University will provide 44 University of Gondar faculty members with PhD training to develop skills and capabilities needed to supervise Scholars' research and practicums. Queen's University will also support the University of Gondar as it develops and implements the first undergraduate occupational therapy curriculum and program in Ethiopia. This work will involve providing master's level training in occupational therapy to 16 University of Gondar faculty members, who will then work with Queen's occupational therapy faculty members to develop a curriculum and teach in the first occupational therapy program at the University of Gondar. "We are delighted to work on this tremendous, multi-faceted project with the University of Gondar and The MasterCard Foundation," says Dr. Daniel Woolf, Queen's Principal and Vice-Chancellor. "Without a doubt, this collaboration will change lives and create new pathways for education in Africa. It will also provide Queen's researchers and students new avenues for growth, as they join with University of Gondar faculty members on research projects and support Gondar faculty through training programs and the development of the first undergraduate occupational therapy program in Ethiopia." Together, Scholars and faculty members at the University of Gondar and Queen's University will undertake joint research, paving the way for inclusive education that places the needs of young people living with disabilities at the heart of scholarship. They will work together to strengthen the range and type of supports offered to Scholars with disabilities and all students attending the University of Gondar by focusing on accessibility measures that enable student excellence and barrier-free learning. The University of Gondar and Queen's University join a global network of 27 Scholars Programs committed to ensuring that all young people, no matter their starting point in life, have an equal chance to obtain a quality education and pursue their aspirations. The Program provides education and leadership development for nearly 35,000 bright, young leaders with a deep personal commitment to changing the world around them. These young people will create change that matters within their communities and will usher in a new era of inclusive prosperity in Africa and beyond. Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of The MasterCard Foundation. About The MasterCard Foundation The MasterCard Foundation works with visionary organizations to provide greater access to education, skills training and financial services for people living in poverty, primarily in Africa. As one of the largest private foundations, its work is guided by its mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world. Based in Toronto, Canada, its independence was established by Mastercard when the Foundation was created in 2006. For more information and to sign up for the Foundation's newsletter, please visit www.mastercardfdn.org . Follow the Foundation at @MastercardFdn on Twitter. About the University of Gondar Established in 1954 as the Public Health training Institute, and known as the Gondar College of Medical Sciences until 2003. The University of Gondar is the oldest medical school in Ethiopia and established with the philosophy of team approach and community-based teaching of health professionals. With 25,000 students, University of Gondar offers 70 undergraduate and 90 post-graduate programs. In addition, extension, distance and summer degree programs are offered by most of the schools, faculties and the college with the mission to deliver education tailored to societal needs in order to contribute to the sustainable socio-economic development of the nation. University of Gondar has recorded as one of the top three Universities in the country since the last five years and achieves both the National quality award and the Minister Universities first generation performance award with the first rank in 2016. The University of Gondar has partnerships with more than 20 Universities and hundreds of projects are being managed in partnership with different organizations around the world and it continues to forge new connections to help faculty and students share their learning and strengthen teaching, research and community services. The University has the only University based CBR program that works for equalization of opportunities and access to rehabilitation services to people with disabilities in North Gondar Zone, through the support of different international partners. To learn more about the University of Gondar visit us at www.uog.edu.et . About Queen's University Queen's is one of Canada's leading universities, celebrating its 175th anniversary in 2016-17. With a full range of undergraduate and graduate programs, the University offers a comprehensive research-intensive environment, and at the same time, an exceptional student learning experience. Queen's researchers lead the way in numerous fields, with notable advances made recently in particle astrophysics, cancer research, ecological history and environmental change, and clean energy technology. Queen's is also home to a Nobel Laureate, Dr. Arthur McDonald, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015. Through various partnerships, including its membership in the Matariki Network of Universities and the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, Queen's offers students and faculty members rich opportunities in international learning and research collaboration. Learn more about Queen's at www.queensu.ca . A delegation of professors and students from The College of New Jersey, (TCNJ) USA, is in Ghana conducting assessments for children with intellectual disabilities including Autism, and offering training to parents, teachers and caregivers on how to effectively take care of children with special needs. The trip by this Special Education group forms part of a study abroad program aimed at broadening their worldview on their chosen fields of study. The training program coordinated by The Beyond Aid Project in partnership with Haven International Centre for Special Education is to empower teachers and parents and share knowledge on best practices. Robert Kumapley, a co-founder of Haven International indicated the objective is not just to empower the teachers in developing new skills, but to also to help raise awareness on autism and other conditions . It is also to equip parents with needed skills to actively participate in the implementation of recommended therapies outside the classroom environment, he said. The facilitator of the training sessions, Professor Jerry .G. Petroff, a Language and Communication Specialist from New Jersey, expressed how excited he is to help children with special needs in Ghana. He recommended that the best way to assist such children is to identify developmental delays and conditions at early stages. This, he said will help in identifying the needed environment for the children. Fathers were encouraged not to leave the upbringing children with special needs in the hands of just the mothers. Some participants, especially parents who benefited from the training were grateful to the organizers for the opportunity given them to learn more about their childrens conditions. Another group led by Prof Michele Naples from the School of Business at TCNJ visited Enablis Ghana, the African Women's Development Fund, and the Gender Desk of the Trade Union to interact with them and learn about women's rights in the workplace. Whilst here, they are providing technical support to The Beyond Aid Project, a Social Enterprise on strategies to enhance the visibility of the work they do. They also provided suggestions on product lines that will do well in the US. Located off the Spintex Road in Accra, Haven International promotes the interest of people with autism and other intellectual disabilities in Ghana. Haven provides a one stop shop support to children and parents who need information on autism and other intellectual disabilities. 16.01.2017 LISTEN Mr Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), has called for improved access to financing to accelerate the transformation of African economies. He said this was likely to improve the quality of life of African populations. Speaking before African leaders at the Africa-France Summit, which took place in Bamako on January 13- January 14, Mr Adesina said Africa could speed up its economic transformation through the Bank's five main priorities: The High 5; Light up and power Africa; Feed Africa, Industrialise Africa, and Integrate Africa. These five key priorities are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union's Agenda 2063, as demonstrated by an independent evaluation conducted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Mr Adesina however noted that the resources needed for Africa's economic transformation were enormous and that was why the AfDB was poised to launch the Africa Investment Forum designed to create a space where supply and demand could meet. Advocating for agro-industrialisation and involvement of young people in the sector for the future, he said: The solution to the migratory crisis is in Africa. This was why the Bank launched the Enable Youth programme, which would help create 1.5 million jobs in 30 countries, helping to retain young people in Africa. That is why the Bank launched recently the Forum on Resilience in Africa, which will enable us to achieve the Top Five in 10,000 communities in 1,000 days, with an immediate impact in fragile areas. Lets mobilise and make the High Five reality in order to unleash the potential of Africa, he said. The President of the AfDB thanked donors for their commitment to support the African Renewable Energy Initiative, a joint initiative with the African Union that is now fully operational. Its aim is to accelerate and increase the enormous potential of Africa in the field of renewable energies. The European Union has already committed 3 billion, plus 6 million from France and 2 million from Germany. GNA MILPITAS, Calif., Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sierra Monitor Corporation (OTCQB:SRMC), a provider of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions that connect and protect high-value infrastructure assets, today announced that its industry-leading FieldServer IIoT gateways are now ThingWorx Ready certified and available on PTCs ThingWorx Marketplace, the single source for third-party IoT solutions, technologies, and services built on or specifically for the ThingWorx IoT platform. PTCs ThingWorx IoT platform offers a world-class set of pre-integrated IoT-specific development tools and capabilities. ThingWorx is utilized by hundreds of IoT solution builders, providers, and enterprises to develop, deploy, monitor, analyze, report on, and control solutions for a variety of industries including, manufacturing, smart buildings, smart cities, and oil and gas. Solution providers and enterprises can now use Sierra Monitors FieldServer IIoT gateways to connect field devices that speak standard protocols such as BACnet, LonWorks, Modbus, M-Bus, KNX and 140 other standard and device vendor-specific protocols to the ThingWorx platform. The FieldServer IIoT gateway ships with a pre-integrated ThingWorx connector, along with an intuitive web-based configurator that connects field devices and their data points to the ThingWorx platform without the need for any programming. "We are pleased to have Sierra Monitor join our partner ecosystem and complete the ThingWorx Ready certification," said Kevin OBrien, vice president of IoT partner sales, PTC. Solution builders can now leverage the combination of Sierra Monitors gateways and ThingWorx to easily integrate field devices, including those devices that use proprietary data exchange protocols and formats, into their applications. Some of the leading IIoT applications being developed and deployed today are being written on the ThingWorx platform, said Varun Nagaraj, CEO of Sierra Monitor. We are pleased to have developed and qualified new software on our gateway that connects to the ThingWorx platform along with configuration software that maps virtually any field device to the platform without the need for any programming. We believe that the solution providers and enterprises that rely on the ThingWorx platform will recognize that the Sierra Monitor IIoT gateway addresses all of their edge connectivity needs. Learn more about the FieldServer IIoT gateway and its associated Starter Kit in the ThingWorx Marketplace or at Sierra Monitor. About Sierra Monitor Corporation Sierra Monitor Corporation addresses the industrial and commercial facilities management market with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions that connect and protect high-value infrastructure assets. The companys FieldServer brand of protocol gateways is used by system integrators and OEMs to enable local and remote monitoring and control of assets and facilities. With more than 200,000 units, supporting over 140 protocols, installed in commercial and industrial facilities, FieldServer is the industrys leading multi-protocol gateway. Sierra Monitors Sentry IT fire and gas detection solutions are used by industrial and commercial facilities managers to protect their personnel and assets. Sentry IT branded controllers, sensor modules, and software are installed at thousands of facilities such as natural gas vehicle fueling and maintenance stations, wastewater treatment plants, oil and gas refineries and pipelines, parking garages, US Navy ships, and underground telephone vaults. Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley in Milpitas, California, Sierra Monitor was founded in 1979 and has been a public company since 1989. By combining its distinguished track record in industrial sensing and automation with emerging IoT technologies such as cloud connectivity, big data, and analytics, Sierra Monitor is at the forefront of the emerging IIoT trend. For more information visit: http://www.sierramonitor.com/ PTC, ThingWorx and ThingWorx Marketplace are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. At the last town hall meeting I penciled down your sentiments and concerns. I paid attention to the details and made sure I carried my reporters notepad with me. I heard you loud and clear. And I must say you couldnt articulate the issues better. All the concerns you expressed are of national interest. They touched nerves. And I view them as pressing issues that need urgent care. Yes, I heard your calls for change and I witnessed your votes for change. Now change is here it is time to marry her or make her your significant other. A bond with change will definitely engender marked growth. It would help Ghana put on her most beautiful garment. It would make her shine once again and begin to lead as she used to. However, change has come with a certain mentality---a new set of rules: Rules that many of you would feel reluctant to yield to. The reason is we are used to doing things our own way. And not until we wean ourselves from such negative attitudes we would be changing government/administrations s every four or eight years but with no meaningful impact. Change is difficult to put up with either positive or negative. Change is something that sweeps us from our comfort zones. She would ask you to do things her own way. Change would ask you to adapt her style. Change can be controlling and annoying. Would you leave Sodom and Gomorrah if change wants to redevelop the place? Would you stop littering, loitering and hawking in the streets if change offered you an alternative? Would you treat public work as your own? Are you ready to eschew tardiness, care free attitude at public offices and schools? If you found someone dipping his long hand into the national kitty would you report? Would you be a whistleblower if you suspected your boss is siphoning state funds? Would you report a neighbour if he illegally tapped power or electricity? I trust your calls for change were sincere. I believe you called for a positive change: A change for better economy, a change for a cleaner environment( better still proper sanitation), a change for quality education, health services and housing, a change to purge corruption, a change to end Dumsor and many more. Are you ready to work with change, given all the discomfort she brings? Would you take not, neither receive bribe from anyone? Well in my world everything happens because I make them happen. Things happen because you hope for them and you have faith that they will happen. You may sometime have to wait for a long period of time like good old Father Abraham. Or be like Biblical Joseph who was thrown into a pit by his brothers, imprisoned for no criminal offence but later became Prime Minister in a foreign land--Egypt. Sometimes change can ask you to do things that may seem odd. The walls of Jericho didnt fall because they planted dynamite in them. The people had to have faith and believed in what God had instructed them to do. They were asked to walk around the wall for seven days and blow their trumpets on the seventh day. Its all Gods mega plan. Indeed he that waits on him without swaying like bamboo in a storm stands to gain. So lets blow our trumpets by changing our same old negative practices. Lets make joyful noise with the vuvuzelas. Tell your friend to tell his friends friend. Ring the change bell. It would sound better if you start it from your end. See, when I told my audience that I had invited former presidents John Rawlings, John Kufuor and John Mahama to officially meet with President Akufo-Addo most of them didnt believe it would ever happen. How is that possible? One of them said to me. Some of them thought I was joking. How could you bring three super giants to this venue? Ladies and Gentlemen, Im happy to let you know that three of our nations former heads of state are joining us here this morning to discuss matters of national interest. All the three Presidents are currently in the Green Room enjoying some kokoo and massa. We are also blessed to have another proud son of Ghana, Busumuru Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary General) who will act as a special observer at the same time bring his immense diplomatic experience to bear on this civil discourse. I have got just one question for all three due to time factor: What would you change Sirs, if you had the chance to comeback? I think former President Rawlings would like to start You know I constructed the Kanda Highway during my tenure. And I think at the time I had the political capital even to change Nima thus relocate them. You know residents in Nima were paid off to be resettled in Madina during Osagyefos time. But they refused to move. And I think today its one of the biggest slums we have in our city. I see that as an indictment on my two administrations---military and civilian regimes. Honourable Busumuru I noticed you wanted to say something. Yeah, just wondering Mr. Rawlings why didnt you do it? What hindered to your desire to do so? Kofi I regret, I couldnt do it especially during the revolution time because it would have been easier. Three wouldnt have been any resistance whatsoever. It was all doable. What can I say I think I failed in that regard? Next is President Kufuor:: I strongly believe that we can make our cities streets appear cleaner---- devoid of chaos, hawking, loitering and littering if we allow the city councils to work per their by-laws without putting unnecessary pressure on them. First of all, I think all the mayors appointed to oversee our cities probably have what it takes to get them look good or better. But political expedience has denied us that chance to do whats right and fitting. I feel bad to say my administration couldnt solve the problem. And you President Mahama: They say opportunity once lost can never be regained. I blame myself today for not heeding the advice of my attorney Tony Lithur. I should have also listened to former Majority Leader Alban Bagbin. I think the two gentlemen had the soothsayers eye. My administration built the Circle Interchange; we built the Legon Medical Centre, we built the Ridge Regional hospital and many more. But we failed to listen to the cry of the masses. The average Ghanaian was suffering, the economy was bleeding but my aides told me we were winning and everything was fine. We were in comfortable lead So if I had another opportunity my government would be a listening government. Thank you all Sirs! I will let Mr. Kofi Annan to bring his closing remarks. I will entreat to you all to think Ghana first. Always remember we have one Ghana. And if we plan well, do things well, and change our attitudes the change we hope for will manifest. To you President Akufo-Addo, you have three former presidents to consult and seek counsel. Listen to the people and let honesty and accountability work. Rome wasnt built in a day we can do it if we make change work. African leaders are countenancing a conundrum created by one of their colleagues: Yahaya Jammeh has lost an election and he is refusing to go away, creating an avoidable tension in The Gambia. It is such a dangerous precedence which they must not allow as the people of West Africa are gradually appreciating the advantages of democracy and the need to uphold this wise and worldwide acceptable form of government, regardless of the contrary stance of dictators like Yahaya Jammeh. The end of diplomacy in dealing with a man who thinks he was destined to rule over his people by all means, the inappropriateness of it notwithstanding. It is a test which the regional economic bloc, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must pass or lose its deference. We have observed the painful and often incensing rounds of missions to Banjul by West African leaders, all in an effort to resolve the unnecessary impasse created by the dictator. The bouts of diplomacy in our opinion, must have a closure at a point and we think that time is now, otherwise other dictators or military adventurists would try the Jammeh module much to the detriment of the growth of democracy in Africa. It is important that Jammeh is forcefully uprooted by military force lest an unacceptable precedence is set for future application by African dictators. If they fail to end his bluff West African leaders would be reduced to nothingness in terms of their ability to effect their blocs policies and interests. If there is any time that ECOWAS leaders must flex their muscles that time is now. We are waiting to see whether Yahaya Jammeh or the regional bloc's leaders would win the day. We have heard rather regrettably that the winner of the polls is being asked to move to Senegal to douse the tension which has engulfed the small West African country, if he has not done so already. Why did they rather not ask Yahaya to move out? It is a decision which in our estimation smacks of indecision or a diplomatic blunder at a time when the leaders should rather be baring their teeth without any symptom of weakness. The backwardness of West Africa is steeped in the high incidence of bad governance occasioned by the rule of dictators over the years. Some countries have leaders who have stayed on for so many years and would not want to hear anything about regime change be it by the ballot box or otherwise. Change must come when the people so desire as the people of The Gambia did recently and which Yahaya accepted only to like an indecisive person turn his back on much later. When the challenge of upheaval strikes in a given country in the West African sub-region it is the rest of the ECOWAS member countries that would bear the brunt in terms of the cost of humanitarian assistance and the hosting of refugees, not forgetting the direct sending of food and other essentials to the war-ravaged country at a massive cost to the supporting countries already challenged by budgetary constraints. If we do not want to suffer from the foolishness of Yahaya then we must be ready to stop him from pushing his country to the brink of war. We expect in the next few days ECOWAS boots on the soil of The Gambia as a show of solidarity with the people of that country. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appealed to Ghanaians living in and out of the country to rally behind his administration as he seeks to return the country onto the path of progress and prosperity. Addressing a gathering of Ghanaians resident in Bamako, Mali, on Friday, January 13, 2017 after his arrival in that country for the Africa-France Summit President Akufo-Addo expressed confident in his government's ability to transform the fortunes of the country (Ghana) and give the citizens a dignified living. Reiterating his belief that the wishes and aspirations of Ghanaians can be met during his time in office, President Akufo-Addo noted, What we need to understand and believe is that we can also make it in Ghana, and improve the standards of living of our people. We can do it. He therefore, urged Ghanaians in Mali, and those living in other parts of the world, to start considering and planning your return home, so you can also contribute your quota in helping move our country forward. Ghana needs your strength and intellect. On the outcome of the December 7 elections, President Akufo-Addo noted that Ghana's standing in the league of democratic nations has soared greatly, largely as a result of the peaceful outcome of the polls. Our elections were conducted without any turmoil. The Ghanaian people exercised their democratic franchise peacefully. The then sitting President John Mahama also conducted himself very well by accepting the verdict of the elections. Ghana is at peace, and I am confident that very soon there will be a lot of more positive news on the economic and developmental fronts for all of us, he added. Communique The president together with heads of state and governments from about 30 African countries has committed themselves to ensuring economic growth in their respective countries. They want to supervise a more inclusive economy that will help to create jobs for the youth on the continent. In a communique issued on Saturday, January 14, 2017, at the end of the 27th Africa-France Summit, the leaders agreed to a framework of the International Sustainable Development Agenda which include the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the African Union's Agenda 2063. With French President, Francois Hollande in attendance, development assistance amounting to 20 billion euros to participating countries by 2018, was pledged by the French government. To this end, the heads of state and governments indicated that education and vocational training would be prioritized, adding that it would improve human development and the integration of young Africans in the labour market. They agreed to strengthen the management of education systems on the continent by focusing on quality, particularly by putting in place efficient training and assessment policies, as well as promoting top-quality vocational training. Regional Security On security in West Africa, the leaders resolved to develop joint border patrols in the fight against terrorism with a focus on the dreaded Boko Haram Islamic extremists, with France pledging to continue supporting the operationalization of the Africa Standby Force. In order to provide African peacekeeping operations with sustainable and predictable sources of funding, the heads of state welcomed the AU's decision to find a sustainable financing mechanism for the Peace Fund. They also welcomed the EU's contribution to the financing of these operations and reiterated the need to diversify international support. The communique also called for an urgent reform in the United Nations and in its Security Council, through the enlargement of its membership in both categories, with a greater African presence especially amongst its permanent members so as to make the Council more representative of today's world. The leaders stressed the key role of the African peace and security architecture in preventing, managing and settling conflicts, and, thus, called for more support. President Akufo-Addo was accompanied by 1st lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo; Minister-Designate for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway; Minister-Designate for National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah; acting Secretary to the President, Nana Asante Bediatuo; acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Francis Asenso Boakye; acting Director of State Protocol, Ambassador Hassan Ahmed and acting Director of Communications, Eugene Arhin. Otumfuo Osei Tutu II (left), The late Asantehemaa Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II (right) SAD MOMENTS will certainly unfold at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi today where the late Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II, will be laid in state for four days. All roads in the Ashanti regional capital would definitely lead to the palace where the four-day Ashanti traditional burial rites had been planned, beginning today (Monday) to Thursday. The highlight of today's solemn event will have the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, filing past the body of the deceased Asante queen mother his biological mother to pay his last respects. At a media briefing in Kumasi, the Akyeamehene of the Asantehene, Nana Nsuase Poku Agyemang III, said on Monday, January 16, 2017 that the body would be laid in state after some rituals had been performed at dawn for the members of the Asanteman Council, elders and royals to file past the body and wait for the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to also do same. From then, the Otumfuo will sit in state and receive dignitaries. Members of the public will also be allowed to pay their last respects to the late Asantehemaa. On Tuesday, January 17, 2017, traditional rulers from other parts of the country, including members of the National House of Chiefs, various Regional Houses of Chiefs and heads of corporate institutions will take their turns to file past the Asantehemaa's body and express their condolences to the Otumfuo. Wednesday has been set aside for dignitaries, including the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; former presidents, Members of Parliament (MPs) and heads of state from Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Swaziland, Seychelles and members of the diplomatic corps. Death Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II joined her ancestors at an advanced age of 111 years at the Manhyia Palace a few months ago after a short illness, officials at the palace announced. A one-week celebration of the queen mother's passing was observed at the palace; and it attracted dignitaries, including the then President Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo who was then an opposition leader. Reign The late queen mother reigned as Asantehemaa for 39 years having ascended the great stool in 1977. Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II is credited for playing important and crucial roles which had contributed to the massive transformation of the Asante Kingdom in recent times. She had been the pillar behind Otumfuo and also his number one advisor for the past 17 years that he has been occupying the Golden Stool. Church Service Per the programme for the burial, a mega church service would be held for the late Asantehemaa on Thursday after which she would be taken to Bantama for wreath laying and other traditional rites. Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II's mortal remains would finally be interred at the Royal Mausoleum at Breman on Thursday night; and the people of Kumasi had been advised to stay indoors during the performance of that traditional rite. FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi THERE WERE spontaneous jubilations in Kumasi following the appointment of Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh as Minister designate for Education. Dr Prempeh, nicknamed 'Napo,' who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia South, is much loved and adored by the people of Kumasi. He is widely seen by the people in the city as hard-working, committed, patriotic and a visionary person, who can change the face of education in the country. Most residents in the city were therefore on cloud-nine when President Akufo-Addo mentioned his name as the new minister for Education. Elated-looking people in the city, who could not hide their joy, were seen making merry and loudly mentioning Napo's name as they jubilated around. The people also commended President Akufo-Addo for being able to identify the qualities of Napo and consequently appointed him as a minister. It takes a good leader to identify the potential in people and duly appoint them into his government and the president has done exactly that, Kwame Boamah said. Boamah, who is a resident of Kumasi, added Napo has been an exceptional MP for the past eight years and everybody is aware of his extraordinary leadership qualities. President Akufo-Addo is also an experienced politician who had seen the special qualities in Napo, hence appointing him as a minister in his government. Yaw Agyare of Krofrom, on his part, boldly predicted that Ghana's education sector will boom with Napo as the sector minister. FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi Economist Dr. Joe Amoako -Tuffour has cautioned Finance Minister Nominee, Ken Ofori Atta on the need to find sustainable funding for the proposed new regions to be created by the NPP government. He contends the country risks huge financial challenges should government fail to align its revenue with expenditure with the additional regions. The rising fixed cost of government is largely the making of politicians. For instance, the creation of an additional 46 district assemblies and 45 new parliamentary seats in 2012, ratcheted up the fixed cost of governmentDr. Amoako-Tuffour opined. President Akufo- Addo during the announcement of the Nominee for the Ministry for Regional Re-organisation and Development indicated the creation of four new regions to facilitate the devolution of power. the four regions that we have chosen are those that we want to reshape and create new regions out of them. We're talking about the Western North region which I committed myself to and the manifesto also committed itself to, the creation of the Ahafo region out of the Brong-Ahafo, another express commitment on my part and backed by the manifesto, the northern region. But in an open letter to Ken Ofori Atta, Dr. Amoako -Tuffour also the Director of Research at the African Center for Economic Transformation explained that previous experiences with the creation of additional 46 district assemblies and 45 new parliamentary seats in 2012, increased the fixed cost of government as much thought was not given to what those actions meant for public finances. The cost of government was brushed aside by a premature exuberance about the coming oil revenues. The 1992 Constitution lacks the mechanism to ensure a fine balance between political expediency and fiscal sustainability, the open letter stated. At the time, each of the 46 districts was given GHc100,000 to purchase equipment and furniture. Meanwhile the economist has advised on managing government's expenditure. Some of the suggestions are to reduce ghost names payroll fraud which is prevalent in the education health as well as judicial sectors. In addition, Dr. Tuffour has appealed to Mr. Ken Ofori Atta to make good of Auditor-General's reports that expose acts of 'misappropriation, waste and embezzlement and the disregard of the provisions of public financial management.' By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana For four unending days, the Asante Kingdom will be wide awake observing the funeral rites of its longest-serving Queen, Nana Afia Serwaa Kobi Ampem. Sunday midnight sparked the beginning of elaborate activities expected to end Thursday when the Queen's body will be laid in a grave after a century and some 11 odd years of living. The longest-serving Queen will be served one of the longest-running funerals for royals in the Kingdom. With Erastus Asare Donkor reporting from Luv FM in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital, myjoyonline.com brings you live update of the kingdom in mourning. On Day 1 Monday, all the Chiefs in the Asante Kingdom get the first opportunity to file past the body of the queen and pay their last respects until 11 am. The Asantehene will then end the day's file past with his turn. The Otumfuo will then sit to receive commiserations from his subjects. Here is the exit from the ground where Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem has been laid in state. The body is heavy with gold ornaments, her head gets one last traditional royal haircut 'dansinkran' and to hold all this together, she is dressed in kente to the top and a white and black woven cloth down. Her skin glows with bronze and she has a countenance of peace in this final sleep. Today, homage is paid largely by the various paramountcies and mourners are queuing up in a pretty thick stream to enter the inner parameter. Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|Erastus and Edwin President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) party have received a lot of praise from the people of the Volta Region after the president announced the appointments of John Peter Amewu and Kofi Dzamesi as ministers-designate. According to them, the appointments seem to have naturalised their fear that the NPP would abandon the region after winning power to govern the country. The Volta Region is the stronghold of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). NDC Propaganda Prior to the elections, the NDC and its communicators took advantage of the support they enjoyed in the region to deceive the people that the NPP would abandon the region, should it win power. They, among other things, communicated lies such as an NPP government would not continue projects started by the NDC in the region and would not make ministerial appointments from the region. However, after the president's first phase appointment of ministers, two sons of the region have been appointed; John Peter Amewu as Minister-designate for Lands, Forestry and Mines, and Kofi Dzamesi as Minister-designate for Chieftaincy & Religious Affairs. Expectations The two appointments out of the 36 appointments so far have received a lot of praise and commendations. In gratitude, they argued that the inclusion of Mr Amewu and Mr Dzamesi as ministers speaks to the fact that the president would fulfill his promise of building an all-inclusive government for a prosperous nation. They said Mr Amewu who is an energy and mining expert and has more than 15 years experience in government, private sector, civil society and international development organisations is the right person for such a ministry. They have, however, cautioned him (Amewu) to handle his office diligently as his success is a success for Volta Region, and his failure is a failure for Volta Region. They also expressed the hope that Mr Dzamesi's successes as a Regional Minister in ex-President Kufuor's administration is testament to the fact that he will also make the region proud. They were also excited that by virtue of his appointment, Mr Dzamesi will work closely with the President of the National House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, to improve the chieftaincy institution in Ghana. The commendations, notwithstanding, they have pleaded to President Nana Akufo-Addo to ensure subsequent appointments in other sectors in his government would feature more Voltaians to keep with his commitment to an all-inclusive government. From Fred Duodu, Ho ( [email protected] ) THE PRESIDENT of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been urged to fulfill the New Patriotic Party (NPP's) Social Development agenda under the party's 2016 manifesto of having at least 30 % women in public office. The Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) made the call on Friday at a press conference in Accra to bring to light the low number of women nominated by the President (Akufo-Addo) in his first three batches of ministerial appointments. WiLDAF reminded President Akufo-Addo of his government's obligations to promote and ensure gender equality at all levels namely ministerial, deputy ministerial, ambassadorial positions, District Assemblies including District Chief Executives and Government appointees to Public Boards, Commissions and Councils. Nine women have so far been nominated to occupy various ministerial positions under President Akufo-Addo, out of a total of 36 which according to WiLDAF represents just 25 percent. This falls short of the International, Regional and National standards as well as the New Patriotic Party's own provision of minimum threshold of 30% women's representation in its 2016 Change, an Agenda for jobs Manifesto, Board Member of WiLDAF, Magdalene Kannae said. WiLDAF Ghana is concerned that, the current ministerial appointments made so far do not reflect the 30% minimum threshold of women, she added. 'Reject List' WiLDAF admonished the Appointments Committee of Parliament to reject the Executive's list of nominations for Ministerial, Deputy Ministerial and other public appointments if the list does not contain at least 30% females. It also urged the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and Attorney-General's Office to expedite the process of resubmitting to Parliament the Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Bill for its consideration. BY Melvin Tarlue The Chairman of the Northern Regional Branch of Parents & Teachers Association (PTA) of second cycle institutions, Alhaji Abdul Malik Salifu Husseini has indicated that failure by government to settle the outstanding two terms feeding grant could cause riot in schools in the Northern Region. Reports indicate that government had released funds to the various second cycle instructions to settle one out of the three terms feeding grants. According to him, there were fears made at the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) executive meeting that if the outstanding two terms feeding grants is not paid and the schools run out of food, the students might riot because there is no food to feed them. If the students are not fed the way they are supposed to be fed they will demonstrate and that is our fear, he stressed He indicated that the heads of the various schools were warned to be prepared before calling the students back to school. Second cycle instructions in the Northern Region reopened on Thursday 12th January, 2017. Meanwhile Alhaji Abdul Malik Salifu Husseini is appealing to the new government to speed up with the process in order to settle the rest of the two terms feeding grants for the schools. There are fears that, due to lack of funds, school authorities could reduce the quantity of food served students at the dining hall. The reopening of the second cycle institutions in the Northern Region was postponed until further notice over feeding grants. There will also be an emergency meeting between the headmasters of the various schools in the Northern Region to come out with a final decision today. The second cycle schools in the three regions of the north are indebted to food suppliers for three terms. Information available revealed that two terms of 2015/2016 and the 1st term of 2016/2017 making it a whole year was in arrears and such indebtedness would not allow them to go back to the suppliers. Some parents expressed worry that the situation could have adverse effects on the academic work of their wards. FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale English French Half-year report on Worldline SA's liquidity contract as at December 31, 2016 Bezons, January 16, 2017 Pursuant to the liquidity contract entered into by Worldline SA with Rothschild & Cie Banque, as at December 31, 2016, the following assets appeared on the liquidity account : 0 share 2,594,095.00 It is reminded that as at June 30, 2016 the following assets appeared on the liquidity account : 0 share 2,584,500.00 About Worldline Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. Worldline delivers new-generation services, enabling its customers to offer smooth and innovative solutions to the end consumer. Key actor for B2B2C industries, with over 40 years of experience, Worldline supports and contributes to the success of all businesses and administrative services in a perpetually evolving market. Worldline offers a unique and flexible business model built around a global and growing portfolio, thus enabling end-to-end support. Worldline activities are organized around three axes: Merchant Services & Terminals, Mobility & e-Transactional Services, Financial Processing & Software Licensing including equensWorldline. Worldline employs more than 8,600 people worldwide, with estimated revenue of circa 1.5 billion on a yearly basis. Worldline is an Atos company. worldline.com Contacts Worldline Investors Contact David Pierre-Kahn Email: David.pierre-kahn@worldline.com Worldline Press Contact Tiphaine Hecketsweiler Email: tiphaine.hecketsweiler@atos.net The Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) at Tema in the Greater Accra Region missed its revenue target for the year. Officials say the Tema Collection, which is the backbone of the country's revenue collection efforts, mobilized GH7,334,174,613.10 against a target of GH7,690.380.000.00. It narrowly missed its target by 4.63 percent. The Tema Sector Commander, Assistant Commissioner of the Division, Confidence Nyadzi, disclosed this at the Tema Collection Awards Night 2016. According to him, his outfit would streamline its supervisory role in order to meet the target this year. He noted that media capacity building and stakeholder's engagement would be prioritized by the Tema Collection. Motivation is key to improving performance levels, and it is the main reason for organizing the awards night to acknowledge the hard work of personnel and also encourage other staff to emulate the award winners, he added. George Blankson, Commissioner General of GRA, who was the special guest, called on the officers to discharge their duties excellently to enhance revenue mobilization. He urged all public servants to perform creditably to meet the high expectations of the populace and the government. We must bear in mind everything we do at this period of change and more is expected of us than before because we need to meet the higher expectations of the government and the citizenry, according to him. Awards were presented to some stakeholders such as Dangote Cement, which emerged the best importer and Bollore Africa Logistics Ghana Ltd, which won the best taxpayer award. Some staff of the Customs Division in Tema were also awarded for their hard work and dedication last year. From Vincent Kubi, Tema The Mile 7 Police on Saturday arrested three suspected armed robbers who concealed their weapons in the engine of a taxi as part of efforts to attack an individual at Fish Pond, near Abeka Lapaz. The suspects are Kweku Asamoah, 27, a trotro driver, Richard Asare aka Paa Kwesi, 23, driver, and Emmanuel Agyapong aka Kofi Emma, 24. The police also found three BB cartridges of 70MM ammunition on the suspects. The Mile 7 District Police Commander, Superintendent Iddrusu Tanko Issifu, who briefed DAILY GUIDE, said the suspects snatched a Kia Pride taxi from its owner for the robbery operation. At about 11:30pm on Friday, January 13, 2017, the three suspects hired the services of a taxi driver to transport them from Ofankor Barrier to Tantra Hill. Upon reaching Ola Street on the Tantra Hill Road, Kweku Asare asked the driver to stop for them to alight. Kweku Asamoah subsequently pulled a gun on the driver and asked him to get out of the car. The three suspects immediately boarded the car and sped off after the taxi driver alighted. The victim immediately rushed to the Mile 7 Police Station to report the case. A message was sent to all patrols in Accra to be on lookout for the taxi. At 2am on Saturday, the Mile 7 Police Patrol Team on patrol duties around Fish Pond spotted the taxi with registration number GW 9026Z and stopped it. Kweku Asamoah and Emmanuel Agyapong, who were in the car, were immediately arrested by the police. A BB cartridge was found on Kweku Asamoah and when the vehicle was searched further, their guns were discovered in the engine of the car. The two suspects later led the police to the house of their third accomplice, Richard Asare who was also arrested. 2BB cartridges of 70MM ammunition were also discovered in his room after a search. The three persons, who have admitted to the offence, would soon be arraigned before court. ( [email protected] ) By LindaTenyah-Ayettey 16.01.2017 LISTEN As a product of the Zongos I bet with every pesewa that the establishment of the ministerial portfolio for inner city and Zongo development should be a source of concern if not worry for the NDC rather than a platform for mockery. President Nana Akuffo may have come under heavy criticism for creating many duplicate ministerial portfolios or perhaps many ministries than the national Kitty can accommodate, but I say with all certainty that the creation of this particular portfolio is the most strategic move in all the appointments he has made so far. Indeed, it is yet the clearest if not sincere and realist indication that the President is committed to the welfare of the people of Zongo who constitute a significant percentage of the Ghanaian population. The Zongos undoubtedly are scattered across the length and breadth of this country. Indeed mention a single region that a Zongo does not exist and I will denounce my citizenship of Ghana. The Zongos like other segments of the Ghanaian voting population traditionally votes for the National Democratic Congress mainly for its social democratic posturing. The NPP with its capitalist property owning democracy has not enjoyed enough loyalty from people of the Zongos since we migrated into the era of multiparty democracy. In a rather dramatic twist and a complete departure from the political ideology of the NPP, their introduction of a new ministry to handle Zongo and inner-city development is the most strategic social democratic intervention to be introduced by a party with a capitalist orientation. Believe it or not Nana Addo inadvertently is appealing to the Zongos by this singular act not necessarily because he loves the Zongos. What this intervention will do if it succeeds is that it will totally erase the perception that NPP is anti-Zongos and secondly reduce significantly the votes and grip of the NDC within the Zongo communities. Another source of worry is the man to Mann this particular ministry. Boniface Abubakari Sadick is arguably one of the few members of the NPP whose loyalty cuts across the political divide. He is humble and hardworking and can be best described as a darling boy for the Zongo and Muslim community. His appointment should also be a source of worry for the NDC because that man will work. The NDC must find more pragmatic and innovative ways to reach out to the Zongos and a clear message should be sent out to all communicators on how to handle or discuss the creation of this ministry. Any attempt to ridicule or downplay this initiative by Nana Addo will thwart the efforts of the NDC to maintain a solid grip of the Zongos. Steve Kubate Salifu The writer is a Political Advertising and Brands Development specialist. [email protected] [email protected] +233247648864 Top of Form Bottom of Form 16.01.2017 LISTEN Ghana needs professionally trained teachers who have gone through programs recognized for their unique features, including their structure, partnerships, and curricular emphases programs with significant contributions to the theory and practice of teacher education which are enhanced by a strong emphasis on pre-professional field experiences. The new Ghanaian teacher needs both academic and professional preparation that combines rigorous general education, subject matter specialization facets and professional training. To achieve these there is the need to review the caliber of personnel who are accepted for training and preparation into the profession. The existing structure appears to be weak in terms of selection of students for training into the profession. The requirements for admission into a college of education is almost the same as those for a university a significant pass at the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). Those accepted into colleges of education are given diplomas at the of their course work while those who attended universities graduate with degrees. Why should students with the same qualifications be made to pursue courses with different emphasis? Consequently, after a three-year stay in a college of education, the teachers go ahead to be re-admitted into degree-awarding institutions to eventually become degree holders. This explains why Ghana Education Service (GES) is the only institution in the country that gives study leave to a large number of its personnel every year. Available data indicates that teachers on study leave peaked at 9,814 in 2000 and since then averaged around 6,000. The situation has become so disturbing that GES has now resorted to issuing quota for the number of teachers approved to proceed on study leave every year nationwide. In 2006/07 the quota was 3,000. These figures indicate a system that is sick and needs to be treated. Almost all those granted study leave pursued various courses leading to a degree. If the Cert A or diploma holding teacher was satisfied, would he go to a university for a degree? It has been the intention of almost every Ghanaian teacher to possess a first degree. If this is the ultimate why then would government continue to spend resources on their training when there are countless of graduates who wish to be teachers but for whatever be the reason are denied the opportunity. Government should go for graduates and spend less resources to train them to become teachers. By bringing them in as college graduates government would not be burdened with the constant demand for study leave with pay. It would also bring stability into the system since almost none would be looking forward to upgrade himself/herself as it exists now. Those who would go for advanced degrees would do so at their own time and financial expense The graduates already have the required academic qualification to be teachers. All they needed would possibly be a one year professional training to become accredited as teachers. This one year training could be done through sandwich classes during the school break periods at their own time and cost - that is for those who want to be considered as professionals and qualify for positions and promotions. On the other hand there could be a three-month intensive classroom academic work for all the jargons needed to be a professional teacher to be followed by three months of teaching practice. Accepting only graduates into the profession would make it easy to diversify the personnel into the various aspects of the profession. The existing method of training adopts the one size fits all approach for all teachers at the expense of the various specializations Guidance and Counselling, Special Education, Early Childhood Education; Educational Psychologists, Administrators, Curriculum developing; subject specialization and others more. When government gets out of the training of teachers, there would be enough funding available to give reasonable pay to teachers or competitive remuneration package for the profession. This would make teaching attractive to those with passion for the profession who had shun the initial call into the diploma awarding institutions to become teachers. It would also bring out the best in teachers by the exhibition of love and compassion for the profession. Ghanaian students would be the eventual winners since standards would be raised in the long run. Among other things, one of the major requirements for the success of fee free senior high school (SHS) education in Ghana is the availability of professionally trained teachers. Available data indicates that the Ghana Education Service (GES) has a teacher-deficit of about 60,000 throughout the country. The GES is unable to fill these vacancies because of the low number of teachers that come out of the 38 colleges of education every year. How then would the GES respond to the pressure that would be exerted on the system by the fee free SHS so far as teachers are concerned? On the other hand Ghana has 12 Public Universities, 64 Private Universities and 10 Polytechnic (Now Technical Universities). These sum up to 86 Universities and each is producing graduates every year. Combined these institutions send out about 65-70,000 graduates for the National Service Scheme (NSS). (Each graduate is required by law to serve one year under the NSS). Since both the public and private sectors are unable to absorb all of them after their NSS duties, they have become a public burden. One area in the system that can absorb them in their numbers is the teaching field. The system has already overproduced graduates and is unable to absorb them. Why would the government spend resources to train someone for a diploma while somebody had already been educated by a university for a degree at a relatively no cost for the same teaching position? As part of its commitment to employ the multitudes of unemployed university graduates in the country, it would be prudent for the government to cease from the training of teachers in its present form and depended on the universities for their graduates. For a while the payment of stipends (alawa) for teacher-trainees has become a problem for the government. President Nkrumah introduced it to woo people into the teaching profession. General Afrifas National Liberation Council (NLC) cancelled it. The Rawlings administration restored it and was maintained by Kuffours government only to be cancelled again by the Prof. Mills regime. It became a campaign issue for both the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. The On/Off again payment of alawa to the students is a problem that needs to be tackled once and for all instead of the ad hoc solutions proffered to it. A permanent solution would be the employment of degree holders into the profession and the cessation of training of teachers by the government. If you do not train them, you do not pay them alawa Is the government not discriminating against teachers in terms of conversion of all tertiary institutions into degree awarding ones? A case in point are the polytechnics. If anything at all the polytechnics Higher National Diploma (HND) was almost the same as the diplomas given to teachers. Effectively almost all the polytechnics are now awarding degrees to their products. Why cannot the same be said about colleges of education? Discrimination in any shape or form is disrespectful and dangerous. The Government of Ghana should at least stop this type of discrimination, show some respect to teachers by upgrading their minimum qualification to a degree and their institutions to be at par with all tertiary institutions in the country. It is high time government paid attention to the employment of college graduates to make university education more meaningful and rewarding to those concerned. What is the purpose of encouraging students to pursue higher education only to end up roaming in the streets begging for peanuts or settling for crumbs? My argument is that government should go for university graduates as teachers and spend little or no resources to train them as teachers and stop the financial loss to the state. Ghana Government should get out of teacher education! OPANIN KWABENA MENSAH NB: The same argument is being made for the government to get out of the training of Nurses The Writer 16.01.2017 LISTEN Due to Donald Trumps victory in the Presidential election this November North American foreign policy will experience radical changes. The new government creates hopes and fears. On the one hand, there is hope cooperation with Russia will be improved. On the other hand, peace dialogues with Iran are expected to worsen. However, international geopolitical equilibrium will have a different settlement. The US has always influenced South American political history due to its geographical proximity and its economic interests. So how will Latin America be affected by Trumps foreign policy? Hilary Clinton was supposed to continue Obamas political strategy in the continent. But which heritage did Obama leave in South America? Obamas inheritance During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama became famous worldwide because of his charm and great oratory skills. In his electoral platform there was a message of cooperation and peace to all Latin American governments. Obamas victory thus was celebrated by leftist Presidents in the entire continent. Lula the former Brazilian President from 2002 to 2011 said that Baracks election was a historical moment for the world, In the same way that Brazil elected a metalworker (Lula himself), Bolivia an aboriginal (Evo Morales), Venezuela a (Hugo) Chavez and Paraguay a bishop (Fernando Lugo), I believe it will be an extraordinary thing if in the biggest economy in the world a black person (Barack Obama) is elected president. Also Chavez was optimistic about improving Venezuelan cooperation with the US. Obama promised to improve North American partnership with South America based on multilateralism. But the opportunity to repair the relationship between Latin American countries and the US was already lost in 2009. In June 2009, the elected President of Honduras Manuel Zaleya was overthrown by a military coup. The US foreign office considered Zaleya as a dangerous leftist leader. Even though the OAS (Organization of American States) expelled Honduras after their break of constitutional order, Hilary Clinton, secretary state at the time, and President Obama pushed for new elections rather than asking for the return of Zaleya, the democratically elected President. US government immediately recognized the legitimacy of the new Lobio government in Honduras and it pressured other Latin countries to do the same. Clinton, when talking about Honduras coup, said Now I didnt like the way it looked or the way they did it, but they had a strong argument that they had followed the constitution and the legal precedents. [1] However, Hugo Llorens, the US ambassador in Honduras stated Zelaya may have committed illegalities but there is no doubt that the military, supreme court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the executive branch. [2] Obamas strategy in Honduras thus worsened the US relationship with Brazil and with all leftist parties in South America. Furthermore, the Colombian and US government signed an agreement on military cooperation in 2009 without consulting any other Latin American countries. American and Colombian economic and military alliance finds its roots since the 1990 with Plan for Colombia establishment. Former President Bill Clinton approved a massive military and economic aid initiative to fund Colombian struggle against drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups. The aim of the plan was to supply Colombia with military training and military technologies to contrast violence in the country. The flow of money from the US government to Colombia has not stopped since then. Former President G.W. Bush and Obama maintained Plan for Colombia. According to the US Foreign Office, in 2012 the US allocated 644.304.766$ in Colombia. Breaking down the aid, we discover that 446.552.148$ were funds for military and security help. The tight relationship between the two countries is confirmed by the trade deal signed in 2011. Besides chief architect and broker that of Cuba, Obama was a strong sponsor of the peace dialogue between the FARC and Santos government. He even promised to increase American economic aid to Colombia totalling 450 million of dollars. Even though Obama was not personally involved in the discussion of the peace agreement in Colombia, he has started a process of normalization with Cuba. The US and Cuba has not had diplomatic relations since the 1960s. After the communist revolution in the country, the US imposed a trade embargo against Cuba. Obamas plan was to improve Cuban and American relations by reviewing Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and by ending the economic embargo. After formal talks, American Congress will be called to vote for the official revocation of the embargo. The new course, however, was not just due to Obamas effort. The role of the former Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis was fundamental to foster peace between the two countries. Regardless the fact that it was a multilateral effort, the improvement of Cuban and American relations has been the most considerable heritage of Obamas presidency in South America. Obama has not been able to improve the precarious diplomatic relationship whit Venezuela and Ecuador. Even if the US is the largest trading partner of Venezuela, US governments have not sent Ambassadors to this Latin Am country since 2006. Their diplomatic relations are now extremely tense. Maduro accused US governments of imperialism and of trying to defeat his government in Venezuela, while American diplomacy denounced human rights violations against Maduros adversaries. The latter, instead, declared US Ambassador Persona non-grata in 2011 in response to the release of secret documents in which US diplomatists accused Ecuadorian President Correa to be corrupted. In the last months of 2015 Ecuador and the US re-established diplomatic relations. However, there is still a considerable tension between them. Guillaume Long, Ecuadorian foreign minister, said that he wanted to cooperate with the US but American governments needed to not interfere with internal political decisions in South America. In the last eight years Brazilian and American relations have been problematic. After the disclosure of NSA secret reports on Brazil, former Brazilian President Dilma cancelled her official state visit in 2014. NSA was spying the conversations of top Brazilian managers and politics, even Dilma was recorded during her private calls. It appears, at least, unusual that US secret services were spying the establishment of a country which is a stable democracy and an American ally for the last thirty years. Obamas presidency had tense diplomatic relations also with Argentina and her former President Kirchner. Specifically, their conflict was about Argentinian default in 2014. American hedge funds, which bought cheap Argentinian bonds in 2001, were asking for a full pay out that Kirchner refused to provide. Interestingly, both, Dilma and Kirchner, found themselves at the centre of scandals the last year. The former was indirectly involved in Petrobas investigation, the latter was accused to have covered Iranian responsibility on the terroristic attack which killed 84 people in Buenos Aires in 1994. With their defeat, Latin America is going through the end of the leftist season. The new Argentinian President, Mauricio Macri, has already endorsed his priority to mend relations with investors and big foreign groups. The new Brazilian President, Michel Temer, has already approved liberalizations on natural resources exploitation which will attract foreign investors in Brazil. The new courses in Brazil and Argentina seem to find North American support. Actually, Macri and Temer will be aiming to improve Argentinian and Brazilian economic and diplomatic cooperation with the US. Eight years of Obamas presidency has left lights and shadows. On the one hand, he fostered normalization with Cuba and he played an important role in FARCs and the Colombian governments peace agreement. On the other hand, he was not able to radically change American relations with Latin countries. Obama promised to establish multilateral relations with South American countries failed. It cannot be identified a turning point in how Obamas governments interfere with internal political affairs of Latin countries. Trump, uncertainty of US future Trump has promised to radically change US foreign policy. However, it is unclear how he will do so. During his presidential campaign, he contradicted himself several times. Trump said that he would reduce Americas intervention in the world. First of all, Trumps disengagement will alter US commitment to international organizations. NATO and the defence agreements with Japan and South Korea could experience a decrease of US military and financial dedication. In addition, the relationships with China and Iran seem to be critical factors in the international equilibrium. Trump criticized Obamas the Nuclear Deal with Iran, he could run away from the agreement and re-impose sanctions. His proposal to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese import would start an economic conflict with the Chinese government. The South American continent does not seem to be a priority in the new Presidents agenda. Three main topics on Latin America dominated his electoral campaign: (i) According to Pew Hispanic Center, in 2014 there were 11. 7 million Mexican immigrants residing in the US and 6.5 million of them would be illegally living in the country. So when he promised that 11 million illegal immigrants would be deported, it was clear whom he was referring to. Trump even claimed that he would force the Mexican government to build a wall on the border between the US and Mexico. His economic plan for making America great again claimed to bring back manufacturing factories to the US. Trump said he would overtax North American companies which produce in Mexico. After having described Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, criminals and rapists, in August 2016 Trump officially met Mexican President Nieto. But there were no significant results from their conversation. Actually, while Trump said Niento agreed to pay for a wall on the border, the Mexican President posted a tweet to contradict Trumps claim. (ii)Trump is one of the few Republican leaders that support the process of normalizing relations between Cuba and the US. The President-elected is said to agree with the Cuban Thaw, however, he argues that the US could have made a better deal. In this case, uncertainty about the future of Cuba-US relations is driven by the fact that the majority of the Republic party does not support the normalization of Cuban and North American relations. (iii)Even thought Nicholas Maduro, President of Venezuela, recently stated to hope for improving his relations with the US in Trump presidency, few days ago he called Trump a bandit. During his campaign, Trump was not friendly to Maduro, he said that Venezuelans are good people, but they have been horribly damaged by the socialists in Venezuela and the next president of the United States must show solidarity with all the oppressed people in the hemisphere. [3] Even if Trump does not believe in exporting democracy, it is unclear how he will work to improve US relations with Venezuela. It is not clear what Trumps presidency will mean for American and Latin countries relations, Trump is still a mystery. Obamas presidency instead was an unsuccessful hope that the US would have been able to establish multilateral forms of cooperation with Latin American countries. Nicola Bilotta has a BA and a MA in History from Universita degli Studi di Milano and a MSc in Economic History from the London School of Economics. He works as a Global Finance Research Assistant at The Banker (Financial Times) and collaborates as an external researcher at ISAG (Istituto di Alti Studi di Geopolitica e Scienze Ausiliari). [email protected] [1] N. Lakhani, Did Hillary Clinton stand by as Honduras coup ushered in era of violence?, The Guardian 31/08/2016 [2] N. Lakhani, Did Hillary Clinton stand by as Honduras coup ushered in era of violence?, The Guardian 31/08/2016 [3] [3] M. E. Jorge, Venezuela expectant as to how Trump will address Chavismo and country's crisis, Fow New Latino 18/11/2016 Former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, has said that former President John Mahama's request to keep his official bungalow as part of his retirement package was a ploy he nursed over the years. John Mahama last week backtracked following a public outcry on a request he made to the Nana Akufo-Addo government to allow him keep the bungalow No. 3, Prestige Link at Cantonments in Accra, which he occupied while he was Vice President, before becoming President. Martin Amidu, who is also an anti-corruption campaigner in his recent statement, said Mahama's request was full of malice. The John Mahama retirement residence and office saga nearly cost you well-meaning supporters both in your political party and amongst ordinary citizens of good will. The ordinary Ghanaian was quick to see that Mahama had with preconceived malice planned for years to take the Vice President's residence for himself as his life-long retirement home right after Professor Mills' demise. Even the ordinary Ghanaian sitting in the Madina trotro bus realized that Mahama's scheme of remaining in the Vice President's official residence instead of moving to the Presidential residence at the Flag Staff House was part of his pre-meditated and internalized looting behavior of state assets, he stated. The anti-corruption campaigner also argued that Mahama's U-turn on the matter was only a face-saving move. Mr. President, you need no reminder that an experience and eminent lawyer and statesman of your caliber ought to be wary when dealing with public purse looters of any hue. I thank God that like the monkey which says the mango at the tip of the branch of the tree top which he cannot reach and pluck smells badly, and therefore he does not want it, so too John Mahama with his tail between his legs seeing that Ghanaians were overwhelmingly against his looting of the official residence and office as his retirement award for life, has ingeniously made a face-saving by writing to withdraw his earlier letter of request with a curious copy to the King of Asante. Below is Martin Amidus full piece: Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana! We travelled the same path as fellow travelers and citizens seeking free and fair elections at the 7th December 2016 Presidential and General elections when you were the Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). That auditions journey, by the will of the electorate, resulted in the potentiality for positive and lasting democratic change for our great country Ghana when you overwhelmingly won the elections for President. Ghanaians have since been waiting with bated breath for their votes to be reciprocated with the transformation of the potential into real, concrete, and above all positive changes as you assured the nation. At mid night on 6th January 2017 Parliament was convoked with a majority of members belonging to the NPP which sponsored your candidature for President. The next day, 7th January 2017 upon your taking the solemn oath of office and assuming office as a popularly elected President and Commander-in-Chief of our dear Republic in recent memory we, your fellow travellers parted company with you as citizen travellers to remain citizens only while you took your additional and rightful place as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Ghana for the next four years. In these coming four years, your fate for the success or failure of the management of the enterprise called Corporate Ghana is solely in your own and exclusive hands. Mr. President there is no gain saying that the experiences of the majority of Ghanaians in the immediate past few years have generated tremendous support and enthusiasm for your professed cause of action to save our dear country within the next four years. In whatever you do for the next four years, remember that unlike your predecessor whose mandate was based on a casting vote of the Supreme Court, you received the overwhelming vote of the entire nation in spite of deliberate attempts by the incumbent to rig the elections. Electoral Commission and cohort member, it does not now matter to us whether the margin between the winner and incumbent stood at 1.5 million when you succumbed and declared the results or at your revised figure of 984,570 votes as you caused to be published on Starrfm on 12th January 2017 Gambian style we the citizens thwarted the rigging machine, period! Your Excellency Mr. President, in this new presidential journey upon which you have embarked, remember at all times during your tenure that your massive victory and thrashing of the incumbent, and the majority parliamentary seats your political party gained was not the exclusive work of members of the political party that sponsored your candidature. Indeed, it was the collective work of millions of ordinary Ghanaians including some frustrated supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), our brothers and sisters in uniform, retired persons on the reserve list, and retired persons generally who had committed their lives to fighting the machinery which the incumbent had put in place to facilitate rigging the elections against the winning candidate. Your Excellency, these ordinary Ghanaians are not looking for appointments or positions in your Government neither do they care about the usual diplomatic political correctness of the international community in pretending that these citizens did not actively thwart the incumbent's rigging machine that forced the acceptance of defeat and the symbolic arrangements for conceding defeat before the results were finally announced by the Electoral Commission. All that these ordinary and committed citizens care about is that you never repeat the mistakes of your immediate predecessor's government which simply took Ghanaians for granted as undiscerning and looted them to pulp. ECOWAS and the other international political establishments did not commission Ghanaians to defend their own country and its democratic credentials. This is Ghana, and John Dramani Mahama and his cohorts could not have refused to concede defeat when the victory was so overwhelming let alone to have done what Yahaya Jammeh did in The Gambia. Thank God! The facts and social and political interactions from 7th December 2016 to the formal declaration of the results will forever be preserved in cyberspace to support the fact that there were active malicious attempts to rig the elections in Ghana by the incumbent and his cohorts. And no amount of reframing of the facts by any external bodies to give the appearance that John Mahama voluntarily conceded defeat to the winner can ever change what really happened. The prime credit for successfully managing last year's elections goes first and foremost to the Supreme Court of Ghana for narrowing the windows for rigging and secondly to the vigilance of ordinary Ghanaians against that type of looting which must be acknowledged by the international community and not reframed. Your Excellency, I have read several written statements by fellow citizens showing the usual euphoria of victory in trying to deify you even before you can execute any of your promised developmental plans, adherence to the rule of law and good governance systems. Such unintended sycophancy is the greatest danger facing African leaders including Ghana with numerous examples of the halleluiah, halleluiah today and cries of crucify him, crucify him tomorrow. Remember always that governance as a human enterprise is susceptible to unforeseen natural contingencies that affect every human endeavor whatever one's good intentions and wishes. It works like applying quantum mechanics theory in social and political interactions. Mr. President, you have been in office for a week already and in the process of forming your Government. Ghanaians exhibit a great deal of good will for you to succeed as President. But make haste slowly and be fairly sure of each step you take. The John Mahama retirement residence and office saga nearly cost you well-meaning supporters both in your political party and amongst ordinary citizens of good will. The ordinary Ghanaian was quick to see that Mahama had with preconceived malice planned for years to take the Vice President's residence for himself as his life-long retirement home right after Professor Mills' demise. Even the ordinary Ghanaian sitting in the Madina tro tro bus realized that Mahama's scheme of remaining in the Vice President's official residence instead of moving to the Presidential residence at the Flagg Staff House was part of his pre-meditated and internalized looting behavior of state assets. Mr. President, you need no reminder that an experience and eminent lawyer and statesman of your caliber ought to be wary when dealing with public purse looters of any hue. I thank God that like the monkey which says the mango at the tip of the branch of the tree top which he cannot reach and pluck smells badly, and therefore he does not want it, so too John Mahama with his tail between his legs seeing that Ghanaians were overwhelmingly against his looting of the official residence and office as his retirement award for life, has ingeniously made a face-saving by writing to withdraw his earlier letter of request with a curious copy to the King of Asante. Manasseh Azure Awuni's beautiful article Manasseh's Folder: of a greedy nation and a homeless president should be a must read for citizens seeking a fair analysis of the Bungalow No. 3 Prestige Link (residence) and Bungalow No. 6 on 3rd Avenue, Ridge (office) premeditated looting saga (see myjoyonline.com). Mr. President, your anti-corruption promise and agenda in my view was your winning manifesto item at the elections whose actualization we are expecting you to implement without fear or favour, affection or ill will, no matter whose ass is gored. I agree entirely with former President Rawlings that it is the high anti-corruption moral ground you occupied over the NDC which made your victory a foregone conclusion. Many Ghanaians, like me, are not followers of your political party but I dare say that as long as you continue occupying that high moral ground and fight corruption in deeds you will succeed and your first four-year tenure will usher in the golden age of Ghana again. I also have no reason to doubt that as long as you always put Ghana First in your administration the present goodwill you enjoy will endure throughout your tenure. My humble observation from some of your recent pronouncements and acts as President, however, is that you appear to trust so many people without any reservations. In my experience, that has been the undoing of many an honest statesman. Duncan, King of Scotland, in Macbeth after describing Macbeth as: O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman! and declaring Great happiness! to the news of victory also said of his hitherto trusted Thane of Cawdor who had turned traitor and rebel that: There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust. But as fate had it Duncan immediately placed his unreserved trust in the valiant cousin and worthy gentleman, Macbeth, and that became his undoing. A word to the wise is enough or as some of us from northern Ghana playfully like putting it, a word to the wise is in the north. Mr. President, your fate for the next four years is entirely in your own hands. God helps those who help themselves. May God, Allah, help you Good luck! Put Ghana First! Martin A. B. K. Amidu Accra, 15th January 2017 By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @AlloteyGodwin Government has been urged to cancel agreements with Independent Power Producers(IPPs) who have not demonstrated the capacity to raise funds. During the power crisis which lasted for almost three years under the John Mahama led administration, government signed agreements with a number of independent power producers under a situation of emergency. Before leaving office, former Finance Minister Seth Terkper announced that government has put a halt on signing new power agreement with independent companies. But speaking to Citi Business News, the Head of Policy Unit at the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), Dr. Ishmael Ackah stated that the Minister nominated for Energy must cancel the agreements with companies that are yet to raise financing for the project. According to him, most of the agreements were signed at a period the country was desperately in need of power. He stated that such pacts did not really consider the financial implications since the nation was eager to increase it power generation capacity. So we signed a contract with you three years ago when we were having these challenges and three years after when situation is becoming a little stable you still not perform your part of the deal then it is better we either cancel it or convert it to a normal thermal plant agreement, he said. He was of the view that it is important to cancel such contracts or review them to save the nation some money. Normally under such agreements, we pay for high capacity charges and it so many with many emergency plants. Some of the IPPs, the agreement we signed was that, we signed it more like an emergency plant agreements, he said. By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana France has pledged to extend financial support worth 20 million Euro to Africa by 2018. French President Francois Hollande made the pledge at the just ended 27th Africa-France Summit held in Bamako, Mali, over the weekend. The forum was attended by President Akufo-Addo, together with Heads of State and Governments from some 30 African countries. A communique issued after the meeting says the leaders committed themselves towards ensuring that economic growth in their respective countries would lead to a more inclusive economy, which will create jobs for the youth in the coming years. They also agreed to the realization of this commitment within the framework of the International Sustainable Development Agenda. With French President, Francois Hollande, in attendance, development assistance amounting to 20 billion euros to participating countries, by 2018, was also pledged by the French government. To this end, the Heads of State and Governments indicated that education and vocational training would be high priorities, as these will improve human development and the integration of young Africans in the labour market. They, therefore, agreed to strengthen the management of education systems on the continent by focusing on quality, particularly by putting in place efficient training and assessment policies. The communique also stressed the importance of mobility and the movement of skills on the continent, in order to encourage economic dynamism and inno Introducing the new Government to the good people of Ghana, Prez. Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo made one thing clear to the watching world: he is tired of Politics! The outline of the new Ministers submitted for approval by the Parliament shows his desire to give as many of NPP Officials and Supporters a job in his Administration regardless of Gender, Age, and Expertise and work experience blowing up the Budget for his Government to the disadvantage of the good people of Ghana. In no Government of this world is a Minister for Parliamentarian Affairs walking up and down the Floors of Flagstaff House. A Minister for Sungu Affairs is more than a joke, it is a disgrace and waste of money. Minister for Aviation in a country like Ghanawhat a nonsense. A Minister for Special Development in form of a young Woman with first time in Parliament is madness of an old aged man. It is one thing to have a new agenda supposedly to better the lives of Ghanaians, it is another matter altogether to structure a Cabinet accordingly to deliver the right and effective Policy. What the President has decided is well known in Politics and unveils the real truth. Many newly created positions are redundancies of work for the simple reason, he does not trust his Ministers; like Adolf Hitler created SS to keep SA under control and make them powerful internal enemies against each other to protect himself and his position from destruction. The newly created Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation is nothing but Nanas Spy on the rest of the Ministers as the job description are the duties of a Chief of Staff which he has also assigned. The conflict in competence is obvious. Such a tactic Nana Akufo-Addo is using in his chosen set up of Cabinet, makes the Government less effective, creates more confusion and conflicts in the Power Running Machine of his Administration, burning money, time and ideas in times of need for effectiveness. When Nana Akufo-Addo claims the six new Ministries/Portfolios are located at the Office of The President and not located in an own Ministerial Building, he even reveals more of his real mind as in such a case it would have been the appropriate decision to assign Government Officials with certain assignments instead making them Ministers. While he thinks such an enlarged specialized Government will match with his Agenda promised to the good people of Ghana, History demonstrates clearly that the opposite is the reality. More Ministers are harder to handle, motivate and supervise opening the door to increased corruption. The old man in Flagstaff House wants to have a good rest and sleep well, but in less than one year the good people of Ghana will discover the real truth about his Administration to the effect, disappointment will take place. Having seen the Mahamas Administration messing up a Generation with no alternative in the NPP Government, Ghanas Voters will find themselves in an emotional and intellectual trap. Parliament will not perform to the much needed changes, leaving Ghana in a mess. It is therefore not astonishing that the Military, starting with Officers from the North of the country, ever louder express their concerns and worries about the state of the Republic of Ghana to the extent that they see the need for a radical change and take over once again the control of the country. Military Personel from the North will see in this move a revenge for the stolen election by the NPP to give justice to Prez. John Mahama and a clear statement to the good people of Ghana. When a Military Coup changes the fate of Ghana once again, the Officers must be advised to engage in such actions only with a well prepared mind and plan. A Coup with no Exit strategy is creating more harm than the situation supposedly to be corrected. The Constitution of 1992 needs to come under review and more so the people the new Civil Government needs to work with. This raises the question whether Local/National Boys are the best option for an Independent Ghana or Servants from outside not being trapped in a spider net of old feelings, traditions, owing favors, with a fresh mind focused on real issues and solutions to make a turn around to save the Nation from downfall. Author: Dipl.-Pol. Karl-Heinz Heerde, Lashibi, Tema West, Ghana, phone +233(0)265078287, [email protected] , 12.01.2017 Dear Prez Nana Addo, I have been beckoned into serious qualms as a true citizen of Ghana but wish to first cease this opportunity to congratulate you on your election as the president of our republic. Congratulations for making history as the second Akuffo Addo to have risen through the ranks to occupy the highest seat in Ghana's history. You have seemingly made the high office a monarchy. More on that, I applaud you again for remaining focused in naming your apparatchiks as cabinet ministers in spite of the numerous castigations from Ghanaians. Mr President, I deem it a privilege one in a lifetime to write to you drawing the attention of your high office to some of your policies which are likely to meet the displeasure of some Voltarians, I mean the reorganization of the Volta is likely to cause disaffection among some Voltarians home and abroad. Having been glued to one of my life time principles that says "without revolution, development cannot be a fundamental pride of any group of people or nation", we must equally be circumspect in the type of revolutionary decisions we make since the core motive of development may not be achieved but the adverse. Mr President, I vividly recall a couple of months ago how in your promulgations you promised the good people of the Western region a split in region which you were able to justify for which course they massively endorsed your candidature but not the angelic Voltarians. An attempt to split the Volta region will eventually turn the peace and unity of the people to land (territorial) disputes, chieftaincy problems and other resources into mayhem centers. Mr President, if by your conviction and intentions you wish to use the split to expedite development within the region, then I trust our local government structure which you are resolute to strengthening is more than enough to execute your true vision. Mr President, kindly permit me to use this space to brief you on the origin of the ewes and why it will be unnecessary to split them within a twinkle of an eye. There are many different schools of thought about their origin with a school of thought tracing it's origin as far back as an earlier settlement in Adzatome, a suburb founded by Ham, the second son of Noah in the Bible: Noah being the progenitor of various tribes. It's there we learnt about the famous biblical story of the building of tower of Babel to enable the people get closer to God, see him and pray to him. Another school of thought has it's trace to the famous King Agokoli 1 of Notsie (the present day Togo) where the ewes made the most important step into the future by walking backwards out of the thick Notsie walls after years of leadership unrest. The Dagbos as they were then called had to part ways at midnight through a secret opening in the Great walls to proceed towards freedom for a considerable distance from Agokoli. The journey this far hasn't been easy hence the good people deserves nothing but the best of democratic governance and peaceful geographical settlement as they are enjoying now. With this few enlightenment, I will however plead with you not to avail yourself as a vessel of destruction to these people with rich solid history unabated. I still can't imagine how families, clans, communities etc with same origin will have to part ways all in the name of regional reorganization. Mr President, posterity will not take it kindly with you if these monstrosities commences under your leadership. Ghanaians cried for change but remember not all changes are monumental to societal development. On this regards, I pray you to continue to make God's word the standard for your administration for it's on such wheels that you can make Ghana work again as you have always asserted. Thanks. Yours faithfully, ........Signed....... (Alfred Obimpeh-Obipeh Tumawu) Youth Activist 0243059622 Cc: 7th Parliament of the 4th Republic. Oslo, 16. January 2017 - The Extraordinary General Meeting of Navamedic ASA (OSE: NAVA) has elected Kathryn M. Baker as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Jostein Davidsen as a new board member. "It is an honour to assume the position as Chairman of the Navamedic Board of Directors. I look forward to working with the Board and the management team, as we continue to leverage on our strategy to deliver long-term growth, and maximize the potential of Navamedic's product portfolio, partnerships and the commercialization of Sippi," says Kathryn M. Baker. Kathryn M. Baker brings extensive board experience to the Chairman position, currently serving on the Executive Board of the Central Bank of Norway (Norges Bank), as well as on the boards of Catena Media (Stockholm SE), Akastor ASA, DOF ASA, and Sevan Marine ASA. Baker was a partner at Norwegian private equity firm, Reiten & Co for 15 years. Prior to that, she was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co in Oslo and a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York. Baker has also held several advisory board positions, including for the Tuck School of Business, DLA Piper Norway, and the Ethics Committee of the Norwegian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (NVCA). She holds a bachelor degree in Economics from Wellesley College and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Baker is an American citizen and has been a resident in Norway for the past 20 years. The election follows the decision of longstanding Chairman of the Navamedic board, Johan Reinsli, to step down due to an increased workload in other areas. Reinsli will continue as a member of the board. The Extraordinary General Meeting also elected Jostein Davidsen as a new member of the board. Jostein Davidsen brings more than 30 years of experience from the international pharmaceuticals industry, most recently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Acino Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland. Mr.Davidsen was the founder of Nycomed Russia- CIS which he built up to be one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the Region, with several BNOK in sales and 1500 employees until Nycomed Pharma was sold to Takeda Pharmaceuticals of Japan in 2011. Davidsen served after the transaction as a Corporate Officer and the Head of the Emerging Markets at Takeda Pharmaceuticals International based in Zurich. He was during this time named the world's second most influential pharma-industry leader in Emerging Markets by Scrip (the pharmaceutical international news journal). Davidsen studied Business and Administration at Handelsakademiet in Oslo and have completed several Executive Management Programs and Board learning program at IMD, Lausanne Switzerland. The new Navamedic Board of Directors: Kathryn M. Baker, Chairman Johan Reinsli, Member Kari Stenersen, Member Huaizheng Peng, Member Jostein Davidsen, Member Svein Erik Nicolaysen, Deputy Member For further information, please contact: Tom Ronnlund, CEO, Navamedic. Telephone +46 727 320 321. Navamedic ASA is a Norwegian medtech and pharmaceutical products company, delivering products to patients, hospitals and pharmacies in the Nordic and Benelux markets. The Group's Medtech business has developed and is currently introducing the next generation of digital urine meter Sippi. Navamedic's Pharma and Healthcare business is a distributor of products supplied by a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Navamedic is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: NAVA). President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has praised his predecessor John Dramani Mahama for his conduct in the face of controversy surrounding his settlement. He said the former president's conduct during the controversy has been a credit to the nation and Ghanaians must be thankful to God for such blessings. Mr Mahama withdrew a letter requesting he is allowed to stay in his official Cantonment residence in line with the recommendations for his emolument after leaving office. However, public outcry forced him to take a u-turn over the issue last week. The development now leaves government to find a suitable accommodation for him after he packed out of the Cantonment residence. Addressing congregants of the Accra Ridge Church Sunday, President Akufo-Addo also congratulated his predecessor for supervising a smooth transfer of power after the elections. He told the congregation Ghanaians to have to show gratitude to the former president for following in the "worthy footsteps of his illustrious predecessors ex-president's Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor and supervised a peaceful transition of power." In a related development, former president Kufuor says Ghana is a country of laws and there is always talk of rule of law so "if there is something in there that we do not like, go back and seek for solutions in the Constitution." "If you want to reform it, you have to use the constitutional process for solutions," he added. He said not until that has been done, Ghanaians must stop wasting their time with discussing and debating it. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim |[email protected] Pretoria (AFP) - US motor giant Ford announced Monday the recall of 4,500 1.6-litre Kuga cars in South Africa over safety fears, after nearly 40 incidents in which vehicles were reported to have burst into flames. "We are now announcing a voluntary safety recall of the Kuga 1.6," Ford South Africa chief executive Jeffrey Nemeth told a press conference in Pretoria. "We can confirm that a total of 39 incidents have been reported to Ford... there may be some incidents that have not yet been reported to us." Accra, Jan. 16, GNA - The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection regrets pockets of attacks against caterers of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in some areas in the country following the change of government. 'We are also aware that some individuals are instructing caterers to discontinue catering services they are providing to some Ghana School Feeding Programme beneficiary schools. 'The only authority mandated to abrogate, suspend or call for reconsideration of caterer contracts on the GSFP is the Ministry of Gender, through the GSFP,' Mr. Kwesi Armo-Himbson, Chief Director of the Gender Ministry stated in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Monday. The statement said as part of plans to expand the beneficiaries on the GSFP to 1.3 million, the programme will be recruiting new caterers. The statement said adverts will be placed in various media for this purpose. 'All caterers interested in providing services on the GSFP are directed to their District Assembly Offices to pick up application forms and apply accordingly. 'As part of the recruitment process successful applicants will undergo medical screening and training to ensure persons identified deliver safe and quality services to beneficiaries on the Programme. The statement directs all interested applicants to contact Alhaji Siiba, Public Relations Officers GSFP through: +233 244 690 137 The Government in 2015 changed the sectoral responsibility for the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. The GSFP is a social intervention by government to help boost enrolment in public basic schools and the nutritional needs of basic school children. The policy, meant to provide one nutritious meal each school day for all infant and primary school children from 4 -12 years. The programme was established in 2005 by Ghana and the Dutch Government as a means to boost domestic food production and increase school enrolment, attendance and retention among kindergarten and primary school children. The programme was inspired by the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme, Pillar three of NEPAD under the recommendations of the United Nations Millennium Task Force on Hunger. GNA By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA Gomoa Pomadze (C/R), Jan 16, GNA - Justice Saeed Kweku Gyan, a Court of Appeals Judge, has noted that the rapid social and economic development of the country was being impeded by narrow and partisan political interest. Speaking at the 85th Annual National Convention of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at the weekend, he said it was time to effectively halt and put to shame that dangerous trend and attitude. The convention, which was on the theme 'Engendering Patriotism, the role of Religion' brought together thousands of Ahmadi Muslims, Members of Parliaments (MPs), Ministers, Traditional leaders and other Christian religious leaders. Justice Gyan observed that crime seemed to be wearing 'political batakari' and shamelessly walked on the streets with gleeful impunity while there were no definite political will to combat the menace. He said corruption had seemingly become a negative development on the national psyche, manifestly threatening the peace, unity, stability and sustenance of 'our motherland'. He noted that the conduct and character of the political and the educated elite had emerged as an undesirable cynicism among the citizenry about their own nation and the institutions of the State. To this end, he said religious organisations must be proactive and embark on a permanent, concerted and systematic moral crusade throughout the country to save the nation from potential ruin. Justice Gyan said 'religious leaders must have the courage and integrity to speak the truth to those in power but must themselves be worthy messengers of the hard truth they carry'. He said the various religious authorities must be concerned about how their members suddenly gain wealth and poke their inexplicable wealth into the eyes of the Churches and Mosques. Religious authorities must begin a vigorous and conscious campaign to build a new Ghana, starting from individual family level by encouraging and sustaining responsible parenting, he added. Justice Gyan said Former President, John Dramani Mahama deserved to be applauded and recognised by all people of goodwill for his posture and conduct after the 2016 general election. According to him, the gesture of the ex-president to concede defeat before the formal declaration by the Electoral Commission (EC) brought huge sigh of relief to the people of Ghana and so such acts should be encouraged in the years ahead. GNA Gomoa Pomadze (C/R), Jan 16, GNA - Justice Saeed Kweku Gyan, a Court of Appeals Judge has said Former President, John Dramani Mahama deserved to be applauded and recognised by all people of goodwill for his posture and conduct after the 2016 general election. He said the gesture of the ex President to concede defeat even before the formal declaration by the Electoral Commission (EC) brought huge sigh of relief to the people of Ghana and as such should be encouraged in the years ahead. Justice Gyan who was speaking on the theme 'Engendering Patriotism, the role of Religion' at the 85th Annual National Convention of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community said his posture contributed to the admirably smooth transition. He acknowledged that the gestures, utterances and observations of the new President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo also deserved to be commended. He said Ghana was witnessing a new era and therefore fulfilling aspirations of the country depended on the conduct, action, attitude and performance of the citizenry irrespective of their political affiliations, gender, creed, position and religious persuasion. In this regard, the conduct, posture, transparency and specific performance of the newly elected leaders, particularly the President was of critical importance. He added. Justice Gyan indicated that it was the patriotic duty of all citizens to put their shoulders to the wheel of development and move the country forward as done by our forefathers in keen anticipation by the future generation. He noted that the conduct and character of some political and educated elites had bred undesirable cynicism among the citizenry about their own nation and the institutions of the state. 'It is this seemingly negative development that appears to have emerged and taken root in our national psyche which manifestly threatens the peace, unity, stability and sustenance of our motherland,' he said. Justice Gyan therefore called for an urgent and general rethink about the attitude of the citizenry towards the affairs of the country, especially in its political advancement He said religious authorities must begin a vigorous and conscious campaign to build a new Ghana, starting from individual family level, by encouraging and sustaining responsible parenting. GNA By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA Accra, Jan. 16, GNA - The Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has appealed to government to investigate the why workers five percent contribution towards the second tier pension scheme had not been released. According to TEWU since the scheme started in 2010 the previous government had delayed in releasing the fund, believing that such an investigation will facilitate the speedy release to managers of the second tier pension scheme. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency during an interview in Accra on Monday, Mr. Augustine Saakuur Karbu, General Secretary of TEWU, said should the funds be released, it would enable the scheme managers to invest the money so that it would yield dividend for the members when they retire. Mr Saakuur Karbu said "the temporal pension fund account in Bank of Ghana into which workers contribution were being deposited is generating some interest so we want the government to facilitate the release of these monies with the interest calculated and disbursed to various union fund managers to enable them to operate'. Stakeholders and unions under TUC found that the services rendered by Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) were not the best, so a move was made by them to reform SSNIT as the sole operator of pension scheme in Ghana, which led to deregulation of SSNIT resulting from the establishment of the first, second, and third tier pension scheme. GNA By a team of GNA Reporters Kumasi, Jan 16, GNA - Hundreds of mourners on Monday thronged the Manhyia Palace to bid farewell to the late Asantehemeaa, Nana Afua Kobi Serwaah Ampem II. The deceased was the biological mother of the reigning Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II. Installed in 1977 as the 13th Asante Queen, she died at the ripe age of 111. Her body would lie in state for four days for people from across the country and beyond to pay their last respect. The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor, John Dramani Mahama and other dignitaries are expected to attend the funeral to commiserate with Asanteman at some point in time. Security is tight - strong presence of police and military officers, as the large crowd of people clad in black and red, signifying their somber mood, stood in long snaking queues to file past the body. The beauty of Asante royal funeral was at full blast with traditional drummers and dancers putting up intricate performances amid the clattering of executioner's swords. The air is intermittently filled with deafening sounds of the firing of musketry, while the traditional priests and priestesses do their own things - esoteric rituals. Teams of health professionals alongside the Red Cross Society and the Saint John's Ambulance and the Ghana National Fire Service are also on hand to respond to any emergency. The mortal remains of the late Asantehemaa would be laid to rest at the Royal Mausoleum at Bremang, deep in the night on Thursday. GNA 16.01.2017 LISTEN Fiapre (B/A), Jan.16, GNA - Dr Gabriel Benarkuu, the President of the College of Organization Development (COD), says Ghana's democratic advancement would create numerous investment opportunities in the coming years. He said the nation's performance at the 2016 general elections gave a further boost to Ghana's democratic credentials. 'The political maturity, good governance system and peaceful co-existence are elements that boost investor confidence in a country,' he stated. Dr Benarkuu expressed the observation at a 'Talk Show' organized by the leadership of the St Peter's Catholic Church, Fiapre, near Sunyani, as part of activities by the congregation to mark the year in retrospect. He spoke on the topic, 'Prospects and Opportunities for Entrepreneurs,' and said the developed world felt safer and more secured to invest in a stable state and economy. The COD President cited areas like Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment, real estate development, agro-business, especially cashew production with public private partnership (PPP) and voluntarism through non-government organizations that would receive massive attention for business growth and development. Dr Bemarkuu, therefore, urged Ghanaians to brace themselves up to take advantage of the opportunities that come with the new political dispensation, to improve our lots and transform our nation. He also called on Ghanaian entrepreneurs to engage the media to promote their businesses in order to secure their brands and enhance profitability GNA Koforidua (E/R), Jan 16, GNA - A retired Public Servant, Mr. Agyei Adoquaye, has hailed the ministerial nominations made by President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo. He said he had absolute confidence in the nominees and he found them to be capable. Mr. Adoquaye, a former Director of Public Relations, National Population Council, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), that the President by his appointments had shown that the country was in 'good and safe hands'. He indicated that some of the designated ministers, had served in the Kufour Administration and had the skills, competence and experience to make things happen. He also touched on the creation of new ministries and said this would bring efficiency to aid the President to carry through his development vision. He cited the new Ministry of Railway Development and noted that it was the way forward to rapidly develop the railway system. GNA By Albert Nkrumah, GNA 16.01.2017 LISTEN By Ken Sackey, GNA Accra , Jan 16, GNA - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured stakeholders in the agricultural sector of Governments' commitment to increase efficiency in agricultural production through valued addition, storage and enhanced marketing facilities. Consequently, for the next four years, government would aim its policy interventions in modernising agriculture at value chain addition and creating additional business that would generate job opportunities in the areas of storage, processing, packaging and marketing agric produce to ensure higher incomes for farmers and fisher folks. President Akufo-Addo gave the assurance in a keynote address at the 68th New Annual Year School which opened at the University of Ghana, Legon on Monday. The 2017 edition of the New Year School, under the theme 'Promoting National Development through Agricultural Modernization: The Role of ICT,' focuses on modernising agriculture through the application of Information Communication Technology to increase agricultural production and making the sector vibrant to create employment for the youth. The conference would also discuss climate change and its effects on the agricultural sector and create a common platform for farmers to share relevant market and weather information. President Akufo-Addo said under the comprehensive scheme, district assemblies and traditional authorities would be assigned specific roles in agricultural development, and that the interventions would specifically target and support women in agriculture. He expressed hope that the deliberations at the School would come out with suggestions that would help integrate ICT into the agriculture to accelerate and modernise the sector. GNA ATLANTA - January 16, 2017 - Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE: AYI) today announced that it is showcasing its latest advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) technology for Smart Retail at the Microsoft Retail Industry Group booth during the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2017 Annual Convention & EXPO, January 15-17, in New York City. Acuity Brands delivers embedded Indoor Positioning technology within wirelessly controlled LED luminaires, allowing retailers to save considerable energy and maintenance costs, while deriving highly accurate, real-time location of loyal customers, employees and critical assets. Acuity Brands has leveraged the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to deliver an affordable, scalable and secured IoT infrastructure to address multiple business needs. "We've made considerable progress in the retail market, having deployed our fully commercialized Indoor Positioning System (IPS) solution in nearly 40 million square feet of working retail space," said Greg Carter, Acuity Brands Lighting Vice President and General Manager, IoT Business Unit. "We are excited about the opportunities to continue to enhance our offerings that will allow retail companies to provide more tailored, personalized and mobile-enabled omnichannel shopping experiences for their customers." Acuity Brands IPS employs both Visible Light Communications (VLC) and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology with accuracy less than 10 centimeters for VLC and a meter with BLE. The Company's smart retail solution supports existing and new mobile loyalty apps through a licensed software development kit for Android and iOS devices. In addition, it uses the Azure integrated cloud services platform that generates data analytics to help retailers make better decisions, strengthen customer relationships, and improve store operations. "For retailers, mobile-first is no longer the exception - it is the rule - and offering personalized marketing through mobile devices is the best way to foster a deeper level of customer engagement and enhance the shopping experience," said Brendan O'Meara, senior director of Worldwide Retail at Microsoft Corp. "Acuity Brands continuously updates and improves its IPS technology, powered by our Azure cloud services solution, and it is this steadfast commitment to innovation that enables retailers to unlock the power of their data for in-store personalized marketing that is comparable with online retailers." To see a demo of Acuity Brands' IPS solution during NRF, visit the Microsoft Retail Industry Group Booth 2803 at the Javits Center. Click here for more information on Acuity Brands' IoT and lighting-based indoor positioning services. About Acuity Brands Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE: AYI) is the North American market leader and one of the world's leading providers of lighting and building management solutions. With fiscal year 2016 net sales of $3.3 billion, Acuity Brands currently employs approximately 12,000 associates and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with operations throughout North America, and in Europe and Asia. The Company's products and solutions are sold under various brands, including Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, Gotham, Mark Architectural Lighting(TM), Winona Lighting, Juno, Indy(TM), Aculux, Healthcare Lighting, Hydrel, American Electric Lighting, Carandini, Antique Street Lamps(TM), Sunoptics, Distech Controls, Acuity Controls(TM), nLight, ROAM and Sensor Switch. Visit us at www.acuitybrands.com. All trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners. # # # Media Contact: Ketchum Alex Fencl 404.879.9122 alex.fencl@ketchum.com By Mispah Tumtuo, GNA Kumasi, Jan 16, GNA - Personnel of the National Service Scheme (NSS) have been urged to stick to good work ethics and avoid absenteeism. Mr. Prince Takyi, President of the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA), asked that they went the extra mile to make a difference at the work place. He made the call through the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi on Monday. He said the expectation was that they would continue to give it their all to raise productivity. That, he indicated, was the way to go to grow the economy and make things better for everybody. Mr. Takyi spoke of his determination to work with total commitment, energy and passion to serve the interest of the service personnel. GNA Despite calls for banks to merge in order to build their capacity, Citi Business News has gathered that four more banks have applied to the Bank of Ghana(BoG) awaiting approval from the central bank to commence operations. Out of the four, two are new banks applying to operate in the country, while the remaining two are Savings and Loans companies. If approved, the number of banks in Ghana will reach 37, making Ghana one of the countries in the sub-region with the highest number of banks. The Bank of Ghana last year granted licenses to Ghana Home Loans , Sovereign Bank, Omni Bank and Premium Bank to commence operations as commercial banks, pushing the number of banks to 33. Even though calls for mergers are rife, Banking Consultant Nana Otuo Acheampong believes the growing number of banks is good and will engender competition. According to him, it will be counter-productive if any attempt is made to put a ceiling on the number of banks that can operate in the country. He stated that a free market is good enough to determine banks that may want to merge in the future due to competition. Competition is part of the free market economy. In fact competition is an advocate of free market because the more competitive industry is, the more we can see free market, he said. He contended that, placing a cap will create a market where a few banks control the industry which may not inure to the benefit of consumers. If we allow that, we may have an oligopoly where you get a few institutions controlling the industry, he said. He was however of the view that it is important for banks to build their capacity to undertake high budget project. My only concern is in terms of the bank's ability to undertake big ticket deals like oil, gas and so on. And the banks we have now none of them singularly is big enough to do that so if by consolidating that's okay but we must not imposed restrictions on the industry, he said. By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana 16.01.2017 LISTEN The Central Regional Police has arrested a 37-year-old journalist, Emmanuel Orlando Matrevi, for collecting nude pictures of women and blackmailing them. The Central Regional Crime Officer, Superintendent Baffour Appenteng, said Olarndo Matrevi, employed with Coastal TV in Cape Coast, blackmailed the women and threatened to publish their pictures on the internet if they don't have sex with him. Supt Appenteng explained that, the suspects modus operandi is to lure girls and when he gets you, through either Facebook or WhatsApp, pretends that he is interacting with you from overseas then he will lure you to send nude pictures. As soon as he gets the new pictures, he will now show up his face and say that if dont allow me to do this, I will go viral and this is what he has been doing. He revealed that, two victims had come forward to file reports about Olarndo Matrevis blackmail attempts. They came and made the report and we have arrested him. We have his IPad where the nude pictures of the girls are kept. We are just praying that maybe he has not sent it as he intended, Supt Appenteng said to the media. The suspect is set to be arraigned today [Monday]. By: Akwesi koranteng/citifmonline.com/Ghana Pretoria (AFP) - US motor giant Ford on Monday recalled 4,500 1.6-litre Kuga cars in South Africa after nearly 40 incidents in which vehicles were reported to have burst into flames. Over recent years, the SUV model has been the focus of repeated accounts in South Africa of spontaneous fires taking hold while the car was being driven. "We are now announcing a voluntary safety recall of the Kuga 1.6," Ford South Africa chief executive Jeffrey Nemeth told a press conference in Pretoria. "We can confirm that a total of 39 incidents have been reported to Ford... there may be some incidents that have not yet been reported to us." Nemeth said that the fires were caused by overheating due to poor coolant circulation that led to an oil leak. "If the oil leak reaches a hot engine component it could potentially catch fire," he said. "With this safety recall all affected vehicles, including those that have already been checked as part of our maintenance check, must be taken to a Ford dealer as soon as possible." Dispute over fatality One man, Reshall Jimmy, died in December 2015 when his Kuga burst into flames, but Ford said it believed the death was not related to the fault. "We are not aware of any injuries that have resulted from our engine compartment fires," Nemeth said, while also offering his condolences to Jimmy's family, who attended the press conference. Kaveen Jimmy, Reshall's brother, said his family's campaign over the Kuga would continue and that lawyers were preparing a civil action case against Ford. "I think 50 percent of the battle has been won. Part of the goal was to get these Kugas from South Africa so that the safely of South Africans can be protected," he said. "The next leg of the battle is to get Ford... to look at the evidence (and) what caused my brother's death, a very senseless death." Ford said the vehicle were built in Valencia, Spain between December 2012 and February 2014. Last week the company said it was expanding a safety recall of some defective airbag inflators from Japanese parts maker Takata. The action extended the recall to about 816,000 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brand vehicles built in North America and sold in the United States and Canada for various model years between 2005 and 2012. Most major manufacturers have been affected in what has been described as the largest-ever auto safety recall. President Nana Akufo-Addo has outlined his government's vision for boosting agriculture, which he says requires a focus on modernized agriculture to enhance efficiency with the help of local government and chiefs. Speaking at the 68th Annual New Year School at the University of Ghana today [Monday], he noted that agriculture remains the anchor of the economy, but lamented the decline of the sector in recent years. Growth in this sector [Agriculture] has declined dramatically. Food is unnecessarily expensive in a country that is blessed with fertile land. Our production methods are not modern and income levels of farmers and fisher folk remain low, he stated. This decline as made the sector unattractive to the youth as a viable means of livelihood, President Akufo-Addo stated. However, President Akufo-Addo indicated that, his administrations vision for the next four years, is to modernize agriculture, improve production efficiency, and achieve food security and profitability for our farmers. District assemblies and traditional authorities will be assigned specific roles in agriculture development and we will adopt policies specifically targeted at supporting women in agriculture, he added. Planting for food and jobs Government is also set to launch a campaign themed Planting for food and jobs. Citi News Caleb Kudah reported that, the Minister for agriculture nominee, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, made this known at the New Year School. According to Dr. Afriyie Akoto, the programme, which is scheduled to take off in March 2017, the start of the next farming season, will create over 750,000 jobs for the youth. Governments plan is to have the programme make use of information technology to drive national food security and ensure improved income for farmers. Government also plans to give incentives to prisons, universities and state institutions to have their own farms. By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana Mr. Collins Mahama , a member of the Brong Ahafo Regional Communication Team , has told sunyani bases-Radio station SPACE FM, a private Radio station based in Sunyani , the regional capital that he was once upon a time abused verbally by the dismissed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) for remanding him of his own promised he had made to him (Mahama) sometime ago. The NDC Communication Team Member said, he requested a LAP-TOP from Dr. Opuni which he assured him he will deliver it to him. He said the LAP-TOP could have enhance his work as an NDC communication Team member in the region, but when he later called Dr. Opuni on his Mobile Phone to remand him about his assurance of delivering the LAP-TOP to him, Dr. Opuni verbally abused him seriously. Mr. Collins Mahama said he could have been one of those rejoicing over Dr. Opuni dismissal, if he wanted to. The NDC Communication Team Member said, he requested a LAP-TOP from Dr. Opuni which he assured him he will deliver it to him. He said the LAP-TOP could have enhance his work as an NDC communication Team member in the region, but when he later called Dr. Opuni on his Mobile Phone to remand him about his assurance of delivering the LAP-TOP to him, Dr. Opuni verbally abused him seriously. Mr. Collins Mahama said he could have been one of those rejoicing over Dr. Opuni dismissal, if he wanted to. According to Anthony Nukpenu, the Akufo-Addo government treated him [Opuni] with kid gloves by serving him a letter because they should have sent boys to throw him out. Speaking on the SPACE FM MORNING FLIGHT show, Mr. Collins Mahama explained that those rejoicing over the dismissal of Dr. Opuni are those who may have had personal issues with the former COCOBOD CEO. He stated that some NDC members are excited because Dr. Opuni snubbed them and resourced members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) against the NDC and alleged that he awarded a cocoa growing area road contracted to the suspended NPP General Secretary, Mr. Kwabena Agyapong The former Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Stephen K. Opuni, was sacked by President Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufo Addo . A dismissal letter dated January 12, 2013 from the presidency and signed by Nana Bediatuo Asante, Secretary to the President, directed Dr Opuni to leave office and hand over by close of day January 13, 2017. Dr Opuni was appointed CEO of COCOBOD by former president, John Mahama in November 2013 to succeed Mr Anthony Fofie who commenced his leave prior to the expiration of his contract at the end of 2013. His administration was however, fraught with allegations of corruption over the years, which triggered calls for his dismissal. Some members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), workers of the COCOBOD and some members of the public are excited about the dismissal of DR. Stephen Opuni. Greater Accra Regional Secretary of the NDC is excited Dr. Stephen Opuni has been sacked. . President Nana Akufo-Addo in a subtle way has reacted to critics who took him to the cleaners after it emerged parts of his inaugural speech on January 7, 2017 were quotes of two former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. The president failed to give credit thus was accused of plagiarizing the speeches of these former presidents a situation many including the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) said he exposed Ghana to public ridicule. To save himself for another controversy, President Akufo-Addo at a thanksgiving service at the Ridge Church in Accra amused the congregation when he appropriately sourced a quote from the Bible and reminded them that he has purged himself of any form of plagiarism. I want to refer to the book of Lamentation 3: 25, 26: 'The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord,' he read from the Bible. Akufo-Addo then broke the silence in the church auditorium when he joked, end of the quote. I have had problems with quotes so that there is no more confusion. -Adomonline Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The Gambia's top judge on Monday pulled out of hearing a bid by President Yahya Jammeh to halt the inauguration of president-elect Adama Barrow later this week, as the country's political crisis rumbles on. The small west African country has been plunged in political turmoil since Jammeh disputed Barrow's December election victory and refused to cede power. Jammeh has lodged a challenge to the election result with The Gambia's Supreme Court and last week filed a fresh injunction to prevent the chief justice from swearing Barrow into office. But on Monday Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said he could not hear the new case, dealing a blow to Jammeh's efforts to halt Thursday's inauguration. "Given that the injunction affects me in my capacity as the Chief Justice, I will recuse myself from hearing it," he said. "The motion therefore waits for the constitution of the Supreme Court or allow the judges to arrive in The Gambia." Edward Gomez, a lawyer for Jammeh's party, conceded it was "certainly not possible under these circumstances" to have an injunction barring Barrow from being sworn in. The Gambia relies on foreign judges, notably from Nigeria, to staff its courts due to a lack of its own trained professionals. Last week the Supreme Court said Jammeh's challenge to the election result could not be heard for several months as it did not have a full bench, and the extra judges needed to hear the case were not available. High tensions Barrow's spokesman on Sunday insisted he would be sworn in as planned on Thursday. Until then he plans to stay in Senegal. With tensions running high, Jammeh said later on Sunday that he had spoken to Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and was adamant he would not budge until the Supreme Court had heard his challenge to the poll result. "The so-called deadline of 19th January 2017 is not cast in stone and all parties shall await the outcome of the Supreme Court," he said on state television. Profile of Adama Barrow, the winner of Gambia's presidential election Leaders of neighbouring countries and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) have repeatedly called on the long-serving strongman to leave office peacefully, so far to no avail. As well as Sirleaf, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Ghana's ex-president John Mahama have appealed to Jammeh to step down twice in person, without success, most recently on Friday. Barrow was the surprise guest at a Bamako summit over the weekend, where he was welcomed as a head of state and introduced to several world leaders. The prospect of military intervention in The Gambia has even been floated in recent days, following declarations by the United Nations and African Union that boots on the ground could get the green light without a rapid resolution of the crisis. The head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel said on Friday that ECOWAS would ask the Security Council to approve the deployment of troops to The Gambia if Jammeh continues to refuse to leave office. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) says it would sanction a family planning organisation DKT International if it establishes that the company distributed illegal drugs across the country. FDA Head Thomas Amedzro said they would not hesitate in punishing companies that go against the FDAs rules and regulations for drug companies. Speaking to Prince Minkah, host of Joy FMs Top Story Programme Monday, he said the FDA would investigate the operations of the DKT in the country. An investigation by Joy News Kwetey Nartey has uncovered a covert operation of family planning giant, DKT International in the country in which thousands of unregistered drugs Misoprostol and Mifepristone were brought into Ghana. According to the investigation, the drugs were first sent to India and later taken to Nigeria before they were smuggled into Ghana. A waybill dated July 19, 2016, revealed that the family planning organisation used 500 packets of Mifepristone and 2,000 pieces of Misoprostol. Another document sighted by Joy News showed that on August 10, 2016, the organisation again used 500 packets of packets of Misoprostol and another 500 packets of Misoprostol. A former staff of DKT International (name withheld) told Joy News that she witnessed large quantities of the unapproved pregnancy-terminating drugs being shipped into Ghana through the backdoor. Kwetey's investigation further revealed that the drugs are sold alongside Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) approved drugs imported into the country by DKT International. A task force made up of FDA officials and police personnel confiscated some of the drugs at the premises of DKT International following a tip-off. DKT International and the Swiss national who helped in smuggling the unregistered drugs into Ghana were each charged GHC50,000. Joy News sources at the FDA disclosed DKT had settled its penalty but the Swiss national was yet to do same. More soon... Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers The day, the 15th of January, is very significant in Nigeria's history, reason being that it was on this day in 1970, that the Biafra war officially was called off. Though the casualties of the war was higher on the Biafran side, the Nigerian civil war still has not killed many Igbo's quest and longing for a Republic. Nnamdi Kanu, the nee face of the Biafra struggle has continued to wax strong, even in prison, and on Tuesday, April 25, he was granted bail by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. Having said this, the resolve of pro-Biafrans have grown stronger over the years, and below are 6 crucial reasons why they stand a chance to actualize the dream that was born over over 50-years ago. 1. It is legal When a people believe that they have been oppressed for too long, and cannot remain as part of the community in which they thrive, its is their right to request that they be set apart from the parent group. 6 strong signs Biafra may come to pass (Pictured) READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu taken away to Kuje Prison after getting bail There are justified reasons for secession, especially if it has to do with rectifying grave injustices, and violence is not involved in the process. The pro-Biafra agitators are of the believe that they have a legal right to demand an exit, and they have continued to push vehemently for that which they believe in. 2. Foreign countries support Just few months back, the struggle for the actualisation of a sovereign state of Biafra received a massive boost following the reported visit of a Phillippian envoy to Imo state. According to Vanguard, the Phillippian Senate presidents aide, Lady Cynthia Esgurrna Touraha, was a guest of Imo Bilie Initiative (IBI) a non-governmental organization that is also strongly behind the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) getting justice in an Owerri high court. The Phillippian was to witness the court proceedings on Thursday, March 31, 2016, in the suit filed by IBI against the federal government. 6 strong signs Biafra may come to pass (Pictured) The president of IBI, Innocent Amadi, who spoke with journalists in Imo state, informed that the visitor was in the court to witness the days proceedings. He said: "We were at the Federal High Court, Owerri, to keep our date, but we were told that the court always enjoyed one week break after the Easter festivities. Our case has been adjourned to May 2, 2016. "We shall employ legal framework and diplomatic channels in fighting for the sovereign state of Biafra." With more support such as this, the push for Biafra may not be a far cry. 3. International organization lending their voices In 2015, the Organization of Emerging African States (OEAS), expressed its support to Biafras immediate from Nigeria, simultaneously presenting a list of demands to the Nigeria federal government. The Organization that promotes self-determination and the end to colonial era boundaries in Africa has declared its support to the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and its adherents in a letter to the Nigeria federal government. Today the people of Biafra are locked in an emerging struggle with the Nigeria federal government, the inevitable result of which will be self-determination for Biafra. Unfortunately the Nigerian government has resorted to summary execution and detention of Biafran patriots. The situation will surely escalate unless immediate action is taken." READ ALSO: BREAKING: Fayose, Fani-Kayode defy DSS, enter court room to witness Nnamdi Kanus trial 6 strong signs Biafra may come to pass (Pictured) Asides the OEAS, many other groups have spoken in favour of the pro-Biafra agitators, and many more are still speaking for the course. Many are also listening to the pleas of the pro-Biafrans. 4. The power in Numbers Without a doubt, there is a massive growth in size as regards pro-Biafra agitators and pro-Biafra groups. Some argue that having too many groups might be a problem in itself, this is based on the theory that too many hands spoil the stew. 6 strong signs Biafra may come to pass (Pictured) However, there is straight in numbers and the pro-Biafrans are using this mightily. As the numbers swell, confidence is built stronger and with such confidence, they say "victory is certain". 5. Aligning Niger Delta militants and the South South Support Not too long ago, the IPOB, stated that Biafraland is not only the areas inhabited by the Igbo-speaking people of the country. The IPOB claimed that Biafra spans from Itsekiriland on the western boundary with Oduduwa to Bakassi on the eastern boundary with the Cameroons, and also stretches from Idoma and Igala land on the northern boundary with Northern Nigeria to the Bight of Biafra which is South of the island of Bonny. READ ALSO: BREAKING: Fayose storms Abuja court for Nnamdi Kanu's trial 6 strong signs Biafra may come to pass (Pictured) In a statement by the spokespersons of IPOB, Emma Nmezu and Dr. Clifford Chukwuemeka Iroanya, the pro-Biafra group pointed out that "in the present-day Nigeria, Biafra consists of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, and Rivers states as well as Igbanke in Edo state, Igala in Kogi state, and Idoma in Benue state." It said the above revelation showed that Biafra is not populated by the Igbo-speaking people, adding that the last head of state and commander-in-chief of Biafra was not from the Igbo-speaking area of Biafraland. Similarly, MASSOB pledged its total allegiance to the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), along with other pro-Biafra groups operating in the Niger Delta region. The Niger Delta Avengers has carried out a series of bombings in the Niger Delta region and also threatened to assassinate President Muhammadu Buhari if he visited Ogoniland in Rivers state. Along with pledging allegiance to the militants, MASSOB also demanded the release of Radio Biafra Director Nnamdi Kanu. A few months back, Comrade Joseph Evah, the national coordinator of the Ijaw Monitoring Group, said that the Niger Delta people were against the Igbos during the civil war but are now ready to support them in their agitation for an independent Biafra state. In an interview with Vanguard, Evah said the Niger Delta people made amends by participating in the burial of the late Chief Chukwuemeka Ojukwu who championed the Biafra civil war. He said the Igbos had forgiven the Niger Delta people which was why they were supporting them in their agitation. If the aliance work, then the Biafra agitators might have found an answer to the questions they seek. 6. Peaceful, simple but tactical approach In more recent times, secession has been approached from a no violence angle, the less report of violence by prio-Biafrans is a testimony to the fact that other very smart means are currently being employed to see that the dream is achieved. Recently, the European Union (EU) said that though it holds strong diplomatic and economic relationship with Nigeria, the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms remains a priority for the EU and we encourage the authorities [Nigeria] in every occasion to respect such rights. The EU went on to caution the OEAS and Biafran that the push for self-determination and border changes must be carried out within the ambits of established international law. It added that Biafra can only be recognized through international law and not through armed secession. On this day, it is wise for us as a nation to sit back and sober reflect on the Biafra war. The tragic, historic event, gives every one of us the chance to ask ourselves the one true question: "is Biafra the answer?" Source: Legit.ng MONACO - January 16, 2017 - GasLog Ltd. (NYSE: GLOG) ("GasLog") and GasLog Partners LP (NYSE:GLOP) ("GasLog Partners" or the "Partnership") announced today that, following a period of successful growth and the transformation of the Company, Simon Crowe has advised the Boards of both companies of his decision to step down from his position as Chief Financial Officer on June 30, 2017. In order to facilitate a smooth transition, Mr. Crowe will remain in his current position as the search for his replacement proceeds. Peter Livanos, Chairman of GasLog and Director of GasLog Partners, said, "Simon joined GasLog at a critical point as it evolved from a private business into a leading publically traded LNG transportation company. During the years Simon has held the role of CFO at GasLog, he has been instrumental in building a strong finance team and executing a great number of successful capital market transactions, the most significant of which was the IPO of our MLP, GasLog Partners. I would like to wish Simon every success in his continuing career." Paul Wogan, GasLog CEO said, "I have thoroughly enjoyed working closely with Simon over the last 4 years, absorbing his energy and passion for the business. His support and influence on the business will certainly be missed. Simon is committed to ensuring a smooth transition for his replacement and we are hopeful that an announcement on this will soon be forthcoming. We all wish Simon well as he moves onto other opportunities." Andy Orekar, GasLog Partners CEO, said, "Simon has been a trusted and valued partner to me since the inception of our MLP. He has developed an outstanding finance and accounting organization and served as a mentor to our high performing group of professionals. I am confident that Simon will bring his many talents and expertise to his next endeavor." Simon Crowe commented, "Since joining GasLog, I have been part of something very special as we have profitably grown from 10 vessels in 2013 to 28 today. It has been very rewarding to help build what is certainly a world class operator of LNG carriers, and develop a first class finance team. With the Company strategically and financially well positioned, I feel the time is now right for me to seek new challenges outside of GasLog and GasLog Partners. I wish the Company well and look forward to watching it flourish." About GasLog GasLog is an international owner, operator and manager of LNG carriers providing support to international energy companies as part of their LNG logistics chain. GasLog's consolidated fleet consists of 27 LNG carriers (22 ships on the water and 5 on order). GasLog also has an additional LNG carrier which was sold to a subsidiary of Mitsui Co. Ltd. and leased back under a long-term bareboat charter. GasLog's consolidated fleet now includes nine LNG carriers in operation owned by GasLog's subsidiary, GasLog Partners. GasLog's principal executive offices are at Gildo Pastor Center, 7 Rue du Gabian, MC 98000, Monaco. About GasLog Partners GasLog Partners is a growth-oriented master limited partnership focused on owning, operating and acquiring LNG carriers under multi-year charters. GasLog Partners' fleet consists of nine LNG carriers with an average carrying capacity of approximately 149,500 cbm, each of which has a multi-year time charter. GasLog Partners' principal executive offices are located at Gildo Pastor Center, 7 Rue du Gabian, MC 98000, Monaco. Contacts: Paul Wogan Chief Executive Officer Phone: +44 203 388 3108 Andy Orekar Chief Executive Officer Phone: +1 212 223 0847 Jamie Buckland Head of Investor Relations Phone: +44 7590 609274 Rampaging Fulani herdsmen yet again attacked Rafin Gona and Gbagyi villages in Bosso Local Government Area of Niger State and killed at least nine people including a police Inspector and an Assistant Superintendent Officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps. 7 dead as Fulani herdsmen strike in Niger state The herdsmen also killed a police inspector and an NSCDC official who were on a rescue mission. According to a report by Punch, farmlands, houses, vehicles and other belongings worth N700m were destroyed by the rampaging Fulani herdsmen. READ ALSO: National Assembly to strip Buhari powers to control resources The report said Chairman of Bosso Local Government Area, Alhaji Isah Wakili, who confirmed the incident to newsmen said about 6,000 villagers were displaced following the midnight attack I can tell you that almost all the houses in the villages including yam and corn barns were completely burnt in the attack. We put the estimate of all destroyed property at over N700m. Senator David Umaru, representing Niger East Senatorial District at the Senate, described the attack as barbaric and inhuman. He said, What I have seen is heart-breaking, it is an act of wickedness and complete disregard for human life. This is a very serious problem as a lot of people have been displaced. Most of them have fled from their houses and even if they were here, they would not have anywhere to stay because their houses had been burnt including their clothes and food barns. This kind of situation is not acceptable. He sympathised with the villagers and urged them to continue to maintain peace, assuring them that he was going to take up the matter at the Senate with the aim of finding a lasting solution to the problem of herdsmen/ farmers clash in the senatorial zone. The lawmaker said, The Senate has set up a committee on this Fulani herdsmen and communal clashes and I will liaise with the committee to also look into this problem in my constituency. READ ALSO: Nigerian Army releases 257 Boko Haram detainees Meanwhile, the displaced 3,000 Gbagyi villagers and about 2,000 Rafin Gona people were taking refuge in neighbouring Gbagyi communities, the 1,000 displaced Fulani herdsmen were being kept at the IDP camp located inside a private farm belonging to a former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd.). Recall that the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have said the Federal Government has not been able to live up to its primary responsibility of securing lives and property of Nigerians Source: Legit.ng Youths in the Niger Delta on Sunday, January 15, released a 22-point demand ahead of vice president Yemi Osinbajo visit to the region today. According to the a report on The Punch, the immediate release of detained activists and ex-militants arrested by operatives of the Nigerian military in the region, tops the list of their demand. Niger Delta youths give FG condition for peace ahead of Osinbajos visit The demands were contained in separate statements issued by the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and the Urhobo Youth Leaders Association (UYLA). READ ALSO: Niger Delta elders beg Avengers, others over renewing pipeline bombings The statement by the IYC was signed by the groups spokesman, Eric Omare, while the one by UYLA was signed by its National President and Secretary, Francis Arhiyor and Vincent Oyibode respectively. Omare of the IYC said: Ahead of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajos visit to the Niger Delta starting from Oporoza in Gbaramatu Kingdom of Delta state on Monday, January 16, 2017, the Ijaw Youth Council has called on the federal government to release all the Niger Delta activists and ex-agitators in detention without trial. The IYC believes that releasing those in illegal Federal Governments detention would be evidence of the governments sincerity to peacefully resolve the Niger Delta crisis. Several Niger Delta activists and ex-agitators, including Bounanawei Smith, Ezekiel Daniel, Alex Odogu, Aboy Muturu, Monday Ebimene, Churchill Oghoneye and others, are in different military detention centres without trial. The IYC pointed out that the Niger Delta people could not meaningfully dialogue with the federal government in the face of intimidation, arrests and militarisation in the region, urging the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to respect the wishes and position of the oil-rich region by immediately demilitarising the region. On its own part, UYLA, while thanking the federal government for initiating the visit, called for true fiscal federalism. The group also called for an increase in derivation benefit to the region from 13 to 50% within every period of five years. The group demanded an urgent repeal of all unjust and oppressive legislation, laws, policies that vested ownership and control of oil and gas resources in the country on the federal government. It equally called for the abrogation of all anti-federal and inequitable laws and policies related to the oil and gas industry. READ ALSO: Osinbajo to lead FG delegation to Niger Delta They also demanded the immediate restructuring of the Presidential Amnesty Programme so as to meet the needs of all ethnic nationalities in the region and equally asked the government to award the contract of securing the oil and gas facilities in the region to youths from the various ethnic nationalities. Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari was recently issued an ultimatum to sack two officials in his cabinet. The ultimatum given was given by a new militant group, Niger Delta Warriors. The group said the president must sack the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal within 14 days. Source: Legit.ng - Senator Ali Ndume has said his ambition was to be deputy senate president before the position was taken by Ike Ekweremadu - Ndume says while he missed a chance at the lofty position he had targeted, he was happy to have served as senate majority leader after just a term in the house - Ndume also pledged his loyalty to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, saying he would always support the Nigerian leader Ndume says his ambition was to be deputy senate president Senator Ali Ndume has revealed that he once had interest in the position of deputy senate president presently held by Ike Ekweremadu. Ndume, who was recently removed as Senate majority leader by the APC caucus in the upper house of legislature, made this revelation on Sunday, January 15 while speaking with reporters in Borno state. READ ALSO: Bomb explodes at University of Maiduguri mosque According to Daily Post, Ndume said while he missed a chance at the lofty position he had targeted, he was happy to be senate majority leader because he had only spent a term in the senate before bagging the position. I never planned to be a senator at the onset, it was Gods decision. My target was to contest for the deputy senate president, but I ended up as the leader. So, I thank God for everything. Ndume says he wanted deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu's position. Ndume pledged his loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari and noted that he would always stand with the Nigerian leader in any political alignment or realignment. READ ALSO: National Assembly to strip Buhari powers to control resources I want to say that nobody has contacted me yet on any political re-alignment. But for Muhammad Ndume, whenever there is any political re-alignment, you will find me where President Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari has been my long time mentor. When your mentor is on one side, you are expected to be with him no matter what, he said. Recall that Ndume had, after his removal as Senate majority leader, warned Ekweremadu on the floor of the house that he may be next on the list of deposed Senators. He also warned the Senate that such actions as his alleged arbitrary removal should not be allowed in future because it casts doubts on the integrity of the Senate and could affect an even higher leadership official next time. Source: Legit.ng - Gambias president-elect Adama Barrow has been taken to safety ahead of his inauguration on January 19 by President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and other ECOWAS leaders - Successive failures of African leaders to coax President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia to accept the result of last months polls which he initially conceded losing led to this step - Gambians are now reportedly fleeing across the border into neighbouring Senegal and to Guinea-Bissau as a result of the political uncertainty and fear of violence Gambians flee from home as Buhari escorts Gambias president-elect to safety President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia has remained resolute in his decision not to step down from power when his tenure ends on January 19 despite several overtures from ECOWAS leaders led by President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. And as a result of his refusal to quit power, the Nigerian president in company of other West-African leaders has succeeded in whisking Gambias president-elect Adama Barrow to safety. READ ALSO: Well force Gambia Jammeh to step down with military force- ECOWAS Reports from Premium Times have it that the president-elect would remain in neighbouring Senegal until inauguration day when West African leaders would accompany him to Banjul swearing-in. President Buhari had led a three-nation delegation to Banjul to persuade the Gambia leader to step down but according to Nigerian foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama, who was part of President Buharis delegation, the trip failed to get Jammeh to step down. Recall that the Gambia president said he would not stand aside until the countrys Supreme Court decides on his legal challenge which seeks the annulment of last months polls result, a result which he initially conceded losing. President Buhari Ghanas former president John Mahama; Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Mr. Buhari have spent the last month attempting to persuade Mr. Jammeh into leaving power. The African Union on the other hand claimed that there would be serious consequences for Jammeh, if his refusal leads to violence. READ ALSO: Jammeh will not step down when mandate ends Gambian minister Mohamed Ibn Chambas, head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel, however said on Friday that ECOWAS would ask the Security Council to approve the deployment of troops to The Gambia if Mr. Jammeh refuses to cede power. Meanwhile, thousands of Gambians are said to be fleeing across the border into neighbouring Senegal and to Guinea-Bissau as a result of the political uncertainty and fear of violence in case the president refuses to step down from power. Tibna Sambe Na Wana, the national coordinator for Guinea-Bissaus refugee commission, claimed that more than 1,000 Gambians had crossed into the country, where they do not require a visa, in recent days. It is clear that the total number is far higher than a thousand and rising daily, Na Wana said. Women, children and the elderly made up the greatest numbers, the official said, with more than 500 passing one border post near the town of Jegue in three days. They say they are scared of a military escalation, Na Wana added. In Senegal, the UNs refugee agency said several thousand people had crossed into the southern Casamance region from The Gambia, especially children. Meanwhile, a Nigerian army memo seen by Premium Times indicated that the country is preparing a battalion of 800 troops for a possible military intervention in Gambia should President Yahya Jammeh refuse to cede power when his mandate expires next Thursday. The memo reportedly signed by the chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, and describes the force as ECOMIG, or ECOWAS Mission in Gambia. Source: Legit.ng In its intensified efforts to find the remaining missing Chibok girls, the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group has joined the federal governments team on a day search sorties for the remaining girls to Sambisa Forest. Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group joins FGs search team The BBOG delegation includes the co-founder of the group, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, the spokesperson of the Chibok community, Dr Manasseh Allen, Aisha Yusuf and Ibrahim Usman. The group had earlier declined the invitation, saying government should apologise to the campaigners first. READ ALSO: Buhari support group lashes Ezekwesili, BBOG FG in a letter sent to the convener of the group, Ezekwesili and seen by Legit.ng, requested the organization to nominate 3 members from the group to join a trip which includes the Minister of Defence, Chief of Air Staff, Chief of Army Staff and some selected journalists to the Nigerian Air Force command centre in Yola. BBOG group joins FG's search team for missing Chibok girls in Sambisa forest (photos) The BBOG had given certain conditions before its members would join the search. The group requested a Pre-Tour Meeting with government officials and a retraction of some remarks allegedly made by the Chief of Army Staff, which it found to be slanderous. The government in a letter signed by the Minister of Information ad Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed had rejected the conditions given by the group and insisted that the team would proceed on the trip as scheduled. Following the position of the government, the BBOG reviewed the conditions and indicated acceptance to participate in the exercise. The minister of information and some journalists are currently on the trip with the Nigerian Airforce jet 913 to the forest. Source: Legit.ng For immediate release FLOW TRADERS RELEASES DECEMBER 2016 ETP MARKET VOLUMES Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 17 January 2017 - Flow Traders N.V. ("Flow Traders") (Euronext: FLOW), today releases the monthly ETP (Exchange Traded Products) Market data for the month of December 2016. This refers to general market data only. Global ETP Value Traded in December 2016 shows a decline versus November 2016, but remains well above average levels over 2016 as a whole. The average VIX for the month of December reaches 12.47 (versus 15.24 in November), with a low of 10.93 and a high of 14.72. Over whole 2016, the average level in the VIX is 15.83 (Source: Bloomberg). For a complete historical overview of the market data, please visit our website http://www.flowtraders.com/investors Contact details Flow Traders N.V. Serge Enneman / Investor Relations Officer Phone: +31 20 7996799 Email: Investor.relations@flowtraders.com DISCLAIMER This publication is prepared by Flow Traders N.V. and is for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to engage in investment activities and you must not rely on the content of this document when making any investment decisions. The information in this publication does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice and is not to be regarded as investor marketing or marketing of any security or financial instrument, or as an offer to buy or sell, or as a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell, securities or financial instruments. 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By accepting this publication you agree to the terms set out above. If you do not agree with the terms set out above please notify legal.amsterdam@nl.flowtraders.com immediately and delete or destroy this publication. - The ALl Progressives Congress in Enugu state has said that the Deputy Senate President Ike EKweremadu is an unwanted guest - The party urged Ekweremadu to remain in Peoples Democratic Party - The APC said it will overrun PDP in 2019 without the help of Ekweremadu The Enugu state chapter of the APC has said the Ike Ekweremadu is an unwanted guest The Enugu state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu is an unwanted guest. The party also urged Ekweremadu to remain in the Peoples Democratic Party as one of the pillars of the party. READ ALSO: Deposed Senate leader Ndume reveals interest in Ekweremadus seat Speaking through its publicity secretary Kate Offor, the APC said, Ekweremadu should maintain his stance in the PDP. Offor said the APC is in the position to overrun the PDP in the forthcoming 2019 election in the state without Ekweremadus involvement. She said: Whatever is the position of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we want him to remain in PDP. We wish to make it very clear that Ekweremadu is an unwanted guest in Enugu State APC. READ ALSO: PDP battles APC over plot to grab Ekweremadu Let him stay and salvage the inferno festering in the PDP. We dont want one party state. Most importantly we dont want him to infest and transfer confusion into APC, his trademark in the PDP from the time of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani in 1999 till date, she said. Recall that an APC senator from Zamfara state Kabiru Mafara had earlier pleaded with Ekweremadu to leave PDP and join the ruling party. Mafara said Ekweremadus defection will help him retain his seat as the deputy senate president of the National Assembly. Source: Legit.ng The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has lashed out on the leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) Raphael Uwazuruike. The IPOB said contrary to Raph Uwazuruike's allegations, Nnamdi Kanu is not a fraudster The groups attack comes a few days after an ultimatum given to Uwazuruike by the IPOB to produce evidence of allegation leveled against Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader. MASSOB had earlier accused Kanu and the IPOB of defrauding gullible people especially those from the South-East. READ ALSO: President Buhari might be planning another civil war against Igbos - MASSOB Uwazurike in his allegation said the IPOB leader had was an internet fraudster and had no certificate or job when he met him in London. But IPOB in its statement signed by its spokespersons Powerful Emma and Clifford Iroanya said Uwazurike is working towards peddling lies without evidence against the group and its leadership. The same thing Buhari did with Nigerian judges, by intimidating them into believing that Nnamdi Kanu is guilty of some phantom treasonable felony as charged without proof, is the same thing Uwazuruike is hoping to do with brown envelope and the help of hostile Yoruba media implacably opposed to Biafra restoration," Emma said. Ralph Lebeanya Uwazuruike having betrayed his people the same way Ifeajuna did during the war, is hoping to destroy this present earth shattering resurgent global agitation for Biafra spearheaded by Nnamdi Kanu out of shame, envy, greed and jealousy," he said. READ ALSO: IPOB-Trump solidarity rally to hold in Port Harcourt The group accused Uwazurike of having plans of damaging the global integrity of the IPOB. Anybody who has been privileged to listen to Nnamdi Kanu preach his gospel of Biafra restoration on Radio Biafra or any of his numerous stress interviews will know that only very few people alive today in this world can be said to be his equal or match intellectually. How can a man that taught millions of people on radio and television not be educated? All you need to do is watch one of Nnamdi Kanu's interviews on Biafra Television or on YouTube to validate this claim. Can anyone point to one single stress interview granted by Ralph Lebeanya Uwazuruike that received international acclaim throughout the decades he was left all alone to pilot the affairs of Biafra restoration? Predictably, the answer is a resounding no. We did promise to unmask Uwazuruike to the entire world should he fail to respond with evidence within four days. We will start with Mazi Nnamdi Kanus journey through the academic world to put the records straight, IPOB said. READ ALSO: 8 mysterious things you didnt know about Nnamdi Kanu (photo) IPOB The group further invited Uwazuruike to be forth coming with the history of his academic pursuits to let the world judge between him and Nnamdi Kanu. IPOB also showcased achievements and certificates obtained by its leader Nnamdi Kanu. Below is a list of schools attended by Kanu as provided by the IPOB: 1. Nnamdi Kanu started his academic journey at Cameroun-Road-End Primary School, Aba in the present-day Abia state. His teacher then was Mrs. Akpa, the mother of the then Miss Nnennaya Akpa. Before the Nigeria/British war of genocide on Biafra, this school was known as DickOrgan Primary School and currently the school has been renamed Green Street Primary School. 2. After completing two years at Cameroun-Road-End Primary School, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu proceeded to the best primary school in Umuahia known as Library Avenue Primary School where he completed his primary school education. 3. For his secondary education, the IPOB leader attended the prestigious Government College Umuahia formerly called Fisher High School which boasts of the likes of Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, etc. Throughout his stay at the school, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was a boarding student and his dormitory was Cozens House, which the hostel is named after the co-author (Stone & Cozens) of a popular secondary school Biology textbook. READ ALSO: See STRANGE attire Nnamdi Kanu wore to court today (photos) 4. He completed his secondary education and went further to the Rivers state School of Arts and Science popularly known as School of Basic Studies in Rumuola Road in Igweocha (Port Harcourt) for his advanced level studies. 5. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu started his tertiary education at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) where he was admitted into the Department of Geography, having agreed with his father to study Geography as a precondition to attending the Sowell Aviation College in Panama City Florida where he had a slot waiting for him to come and train as a pilot. 6. While at UNN, he lived in the hostel, specifically in Akintola Hall and one of his closest friends was Samuel Ude from Abiriba who is now resident in the USA, Chinyere Asuzu resident in Aba Abia State, Chidiebere Iwebuka Asaba Delta State and many more who can be reached for confirmation. 7. After two years at UNN and having received several theoretical lectures on rocks and typologies of rocks without setting his eyes on any practical example of these materials, Nnamdi Kanu felt that he was not getting the real training he yearned for and decided to persuade his father His Royal Majesty (HRM) Eze Sir Israel Okwu Kanu to send him overseas to obtain an education that is evidence-based and experiential. 8. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu traveled to England and was admitted to London Guildhall University now called London Metropolitan University (LMU). At LMU, he studied Politics and Economics and graduated with Second Class Upper Division, missing First Class Division very narrowly because of his publicly confessed difficulties with Applied Mathematics that accompanied Economics studies. 9. It is on record that for the entire teaching life of Professor Ann Philips (Professor of Politics at London Metropolitan University), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was the only student who achieved a perfect score of 100% (16/16) in her course because of the exceptional quality of his research work and the term papers produced by him. READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu is a freedom fighter, not a terrorist or coup plotter - Lawyer 10. We state without equivocations that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is the first and only person to work on a Thesis that provided an academic critique of the popular orthodoxy of Dependency Theory propounded by the renowned Political Economists Samir Amir and Walter Rodney. Supervised Dr. James Chiriyankadath, Nnamdi Kanu made his choice of a thesis based on his strongly-held belief that Africans should not blame Europeans or the Western World for their woes. His contention is that Africans are responsible for their lack-luster performance in leadership and governance and not people from other continents. In the history of academia till this day, no other African scholar has offered an academic critique of the Dependency Theory only Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, partly because of the penchant of most Africans towards finger-pointing instead of conducting dispassionate critical self-evaluation and introspection. 11. While at LMU, Nnamdi Kanu was part of a group of black students who came up with the idea to engage in post-graduation works that would transform Africa from its current stage of stupor to a continent and society where leadership and good governance will be the ethos of existence, human relationships, and transactions. 12. The following were members of the group; Jacques Tobo (Cameroon), George Ogunka (Ikwerre-Biafraland), Ayodele Dalghety (Guyana), Lolade Cameron-Cole (Oduduwa), Mului Mpopo (Tanzania), and Chris Kehinde Olopo (Oduduwa). These individuals can be contacted for the veracity of this claim. READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu's trial moved to February "Having produced this abridged version of the academic history of Nnamdi Kanu, we invite the public to contact the individuals mentioned to ascertain the correctness of the information. On the other hand, Raphael Lebeanya Uwazuruike should provide the public with the name of the University where he studied Law and at least two names of his former classmates at the University. We would like to know the title of Uwazuruikes Thesis and the name of his supervising professor," Emma noted. "Finally, Uwazuruike should provide the public with his Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) enrollment number since he claims to be a lawyer. Also, he should let us know the name and location of the Law Chambers where he worked or still working. "From all indications, Raphael Lebeanya Uwazuruike is the person that does not have any certificate and therefore a fraudster. "Had Uwazuruike Uwazuruike remained faithful to the cause of Biafra restoration and not engrossed in defrauding and deceiving unsuspecting Biafrans, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB would not have emerged," he said. Source: Legit.ng Legit.ng has some awesome news, thanks to all our readers and audience, we have been ranked among the top 5 websites in Nigeria. Alexa releases new rankings, see top 5 websites in Nigeria 2017 This is reflected in the 2017 ranking by Alexa.com for all websites in Nigeria. Legit.ng is ranked with such websites as Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Google Nigeria, all of the major players in the online industry. Below is a screenshot from the Alexa website of the top websites in Nigeria: Alexa releases new rankings, see top 5 websites in Nigeria 2017 Here is some background information on the websites: 1. Google.com Google.com As usual, Google is at the very top, the global search engine is the most used site in Nigeria and in most countries around the world. 2. Google.com.ng Google Nigeria The .ng domain is peculiar to Nigeria and Google Nigeria a subsidiary of Google.com is fittingly second on the list by Alexa.com. READ ALSO: Legit.ng Manifesto 3. Youtube.com Youtube The video watching and sharing American website, whose headquarters is in San Bruno, California is the biggest in the world. It was created by three former PayPal employeesChad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karimin February 2005. 4. Yahoo.com Yahoo Yahoo.com has had some problems as Google continues to take over their customer base, yet many Nigerians still use the site for email services and search purposes. It placed 4th. READ ALSO: Top 10 features smartphones will have in 2017 5. Legit.ng Legit.ng As the number one news website in Nigeria, it is no surprise that Legit.ng has placed 5th among the top websites in Nigeria. Alexa provides traffic data, global rankings and other information on 30 million websites, and as of 2015, its website has been visited by over 6.5 million people monthly. The website is regarded as the authority when it comes to website ranking worldwide. Source: Legit.ng - A senior civil servant with Ekiti state government has been found hanging on the ceiling of his house - Mr. Tope Afolayan, worked in the office of the state accountant-general as a level 10 officer - A source said the deceased had consistently complained to friends about the non-payment of his accumulated salary arrears APC has accused Governor Fayose of Ekiti of failing to pay workers in the state regularly. A senior civil servant with Ekiti state government, Mr. Tope Afolayan, has hanged himself over alleged unpaid salaries and his inability to pay his huge debt. READ ALSO: Probe stolen money from Ekiti government house, APC tells EFCC The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that, Afolayan, a native of Oye- Ekiti, worked in the office of the state accountant-general as a level 10 officer. A source said the deceased was found hanging on the ceiling of his house, located on Peace Avenue, Olorunda, Ado-Ekiti, on Thursday, January 12. Though the Afolayan did not leave any not behind, the source said the deceased had consistently complained to friends about the non-payment of his accumulated salary arrears. He said: "Although he didnt leave any note before hanging himself he had been very moody and heartbroken for a couple of weeks before the incident happened. He had been complaining about the debts he owed which he was unable to defray because of non-payment of the arrears of salaries. READ ALSO: Fayose says God will reveal next Ekiti governor to him In fact, he was among the last batch of applicants for car loan given by government last year but his name did not come out. We are shocked by Afolabis death because nobody thought he would go to that extent, we are still mourning his death. Afolayan who had been buried was a final year student of Law at Ekiti State University and an interpreter in a branch of Christ Apostolic Church, Ekute area of Ado-Ekiti. He was survived by his wife and three children. The police public relations officer in the state, DSP. Alberto Adeyemi confirmed the incident. Adeyemi said that the incident was reported at New Iyin Road Police Station in Ado Ekiti. In other news, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti state has accused Governor Ayo Fayose of trying to cover up the case of alleged theft of $50,000 in the Government House, Ado Ekiti. In a statement sent to journalists today, January 14, the APC claimed that the governor is making ''clandestine moves'' to withdraw the case has already been filed before an Ado Ekiti Chief Magistrates Court. Fayoses aides, Bamidele Temitope and Afolabi Sunday, and street forex operator, Shuaibu Amidu, were on Wednesday arraigned before Chief Magistrate Adegboye in Ado-Ekiti over theft of $50,000 purportedly belonging to Fayoses aide on Domestic Affairs, Sunday Omosilade. Police charge sheet( MAD/019C/2017) stated that the money belonged to Fayoses personal assistant, Sunday Omosilade but the APC says that the money belongs to the governor. Source: Legit.ng Editor's note: Femi Aribisala, a scholar, international affairs expert and iconoclastic church pastor in Lagos, in his latest piece, explains what Christians need to do to attain eternal life. Mr. Aribisala is the Legit.ng partner blogger. He could be reached through his e-mail faribisala@yahoo.com. You can also follow his blog Femiaribisala.com More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest bloggers. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Rich men dont run after passers-by in the street. Nevertheless, in the scriptures, a rich young ruler is shown running after Jesus. When he finally gets to him, he does something equally unusual: he falls down on his knees at his feet. What does he want that money cannot buy? There is a need in his life and it is great. There is a need in his life and it is pressing. So pressing, he forgets he is a big man. So pressing, he forgets he is a rich man and that rich men dont beg. So pressing, he forgets that the street he is kneeling in is probably muddy and dirty, and that his expensive clothes will be soiled. Chasing God I know you might have run after a bus before. It was the first bus in a long while, and you just had to catch that one. I know you may have run after a woman or man before. You were smitten and you just had to make his or her acquaintance. But have you ever had to run after the Lord Jesus? Have you run after him only to discover that the quicker you ran; the faster he walked? A church congregation during their prayer session READ ALSO: How most Christians concept of blessings differ from Gods Have you ever run after the Lord until you were completely out of breath? Have you ever run after the Lord, until you made a complete fool of yourself? Have you ever run after the Lord, until you lost your dignity, lost your pride and lost your self-respect? Have you ever run after the Lord until you became completely broken? Have you ever run after the Lord, naked and not ashamed? And so the rich young ruler, probably the equivalent of the Governor of a State today, ran after Jesus like a mad man. And when he finally caught up with him, he did not ask for bread. He did not ask for fish. He did not ask for long life. He did not ask for the life of his enemies. He was not looking for a contract, for accommodation or for promotion. The man had one pressing desire: he wanted to inherit eternal life. How badly do you want eternal life? Do you want it badly enough? Is it as urgent as the payment of your rent? Is it as critical as your school-fees? Is it as vital as the mortgage on your house? The kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12). Loving God The rich young ruler wanted eternal life, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The man asked the wrong question, and his question exposed the true condition of his heart. He asked: What should I do to inherit eternal life? But the inheritance of eternal life is not merely in the doing. Eternal life is God himself, and God is not just a task that must be done. The man did not ask: who should I love that I might inherit eternal life? He did not ask: who should I trust to lead me to eternal life? He did not ask: who can tell me what I need to know about eternal life? But he asked: What should I do? He wanted to attain eternal life. He wanted to accomplish eternal life. He wanted to climb the Mountain Everest of eternal life. This man should have come to Christ in defeat. He should have come saying: Lord Jesus, I have tried my very best, but I have come short of the glory of God. I have done all I have known to do, but to no avail. I have tried not to get angry, but have lost my temper. I have tried not to be covetous, but could not help but wish I were the one who bought the new car that my brother has. I have tried to remain pure in heart, but could not help but look at a woman lustfully. I need you to help me. I need you to deliver me. READ ALSO: Do you have right expectations in New Year? Jesus said to him: You know the commandments; how about trying to obey them? Have you tried doing those things and succeeded? Havent you already discovered that you could not do what God requires? But the man insisted that he had already bested the Ten Commandments. He needed more serious challenges than those Therefore, Jesus answered his prayer. He gave him a simple assignment: sell all your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. And suddenly, this gold medallist Olympian of salvation lost all interest in eternal life. Not by power There is great danger in strength, for by strength shall no man prevail. (1 Samuel 2:9). A mans strengths are infinitely more dangerous than his weaknesses. A mans weaknesses are liable to carry him to God while his strengths may deceive him into believing that he can do without God. The believer must be strong in the Lord and not in his self. In the kingdom of the world, when a child finally learns to ride a bicycle, he is likely to call out to his father: Come and see me ride without falling. Come and see me ride without holding the handle bars. Not so in the kingdom of God. In the kingdom of God, the child is likely to say: Father, come and see my weaknesses. Come and see my inadequacies: For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isaiah 57:15). The great physician has no ministry for those that are whole. He has come for the poor, the meek, the broken heart, the captives, the mourners and the sorrowful. Work of God Take another look at Davids petition in Psalm 51. David makes no promises to God. Lord Jesus, he says, I am in need of a Saviour. I need you to create in me a new heart. I need you to renew a right spirit within me. I need you to do something for me. I am not going to make promises I cannot keep. I am not going to make resolutions I cannot fulfil. Unless you help me, I know for sure I will sin again against you. READ ALSO: The heavyweight champion of life I cant do anything unless you first do something Lord. I cant be anything Lord unless you make me that thing. Quicken me, says the psalmist, and then I will call upon your name. (Psalm 80:18). Draw me, says the Shulamite, and I will run after you. (Song of Solomon 1:4). I must be your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. For without you, I can do nothing. Without you, I am done for. In everything, it is God who does the work. It is the Lord himself that works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13). It is his prerogative to do the work; and it is the responsibility of man to believe God will do it. Therefore, we must be co-labourers with him in it. Femi Aribisala The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Legit.ng. Legit.ng welcomes writers, bloggers, photographers and all sorts of noise makers to become a part of our Bloggers network. If you are a seasoned writer or a complete newbie apply and become Nigerias next star blogger. Send us some info about your career, interests and expertise and why youd like to contribute to the Blogger Network at blogger@corp.legit.ng Also, please send us the link to your blog and three examples of your work. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest bloggers. Source: Legit.ng NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr. Robert Resnik of The University of California, San Diego has been selected to join the Physician Board at the American Health Council. He will be sharing his knowledge and expertise on Obstetrics and Gynecology / Reproductive Medicine: Fetal Growth Restriction, Maternal Medical Disorders, Medical Complications of Pregnancy, Placenta Accreta, Prenatal Diagnosis and Imaging. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1860279c-c77b-4290-bc76-ca48138b7f26 With over five decades of experience in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology / Reproductive Medicine, Dr. Resnik offers valuable insight in his role as Professor Emeritus at The University of California, San Diego. As Professor at The University of California, San Diego since 1974, Dr. Resniks day-to-day responsibilities include teaching maternal- fetal medicine to students, residents, and fellows, and providing patient care. He has previously served as the Dean of Clinical Affairs, Associate Dean of Admissions and the Chairman of the Department of Reproductive Medicine. Throughout the course of his training, Dr. Resnik earned his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1965. Subsequently, he completed his Residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the Yale University in 1970. In 1974, Dr. Resnik completed an NIH Research Fellowship in Perinatal Medicine at the University of Colorado. He is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and the Subspecialty Board of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Dr. Resnik is an Elected Fellow ad eundem to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, United Kingdom and is a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is a member of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine. Additionally, Dr. Resnik has held several notable appointments such as: President of the Perinatal Research Society (1985), President of the American Gynecological Club (2002), and President of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society (2009-2010). His commitment to the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology / Reproductive Medicine has led to the following honors: 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine; 2005 Distinguished Guest Speaker for Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology; 2005 UCSD School of Medicine Faculty Mentor of the Year Award. Dr. Resniks interest in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology / Reproductive Medicine developed in medical school due to a great mentor. He attributes his success to enjoying his work and the satisfaction he experiences from his role as a mentor. Among his many achievements, Dr. Resnik has published more than one hundred peer-reviewed publications, in addition to be working on the eight edition of his textbook, Creasy and Resniks Maternal-Fetal Medicine: Principles and Practice. Nigeria woke up to the sad and petrifying news of the bomb blast that occured in University of Maiduguri. The twin explosion is suspected to have been schemed by the much dreaded Boko Haram group. File photo of President Muhammadu Buhari The explosion that occurred in a mosque within the staff quarters left 5 people dead with about 20 others sustaining different degrees of injury. The head of the veterinary teaching hospital, Professor Aliyu Mani, lost his life in the tragic incident. READ ALSO: "My account is still frozen. No, I got help!" Experiences of Nigerians as MMM resumes There was also another explosion at the university's 5th gate which is known to be used mainly by pedestrians. The occurrence has left the city in bewilderment as people are in total shock. UNIMAID had been a peaceful school despite the countless attacks launched on its environs. READ ALSO: 9 times ethnic and religious crisis threatened the peace of Nigeria The news of the attack has finally gotten to President Muhammadu Buhari who expressed his sadness over the incident. The president is keen on not allowing terrorism to triumph over the peace and safety of the nation under his administration. He stressed that the perpetrators have no understanding of the religion they claim to be operating under. Also, the president reached out to those affected in the gory accident through his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina. Check out how the president reacted to the news in the stateme below: President Muhammadu Buhari strongly condemns the terrorist attack Monday morning at a mosque in the University of Maiduguri. The President expresses sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the university community, families of the victims and the government and people of Borno State. President Buhari believes that this appalling attack on a revered place of worship and Ivory Tower shows that the perpetrators have no true understanding of Islam, adding that their despicable acts of terrorism are cowardly, criminal, unjustifiable and punishable before God Almighty and the laws of the land. READ ALSO: UNIMAID bomb blast: 6 things you need to know about the event The President reassures communities in Borno and others in the North eastern part of the country that his administration will continue to ensure that terrorism never triumphs over peace-loving Nigerians. He reaffirms the need for Nigerians to remain more vigilant even as the security agencies continue to use all means at their disposal to combat the remnants of insurgents and their sponsors. President Buhari wishes those injured in the attack a speedy and full recovery, and comfort for families of the dead. May the souls of the departed rest in peace. Source: Legit.ng Another brave Nigerian soldier, Lieutenant Aminu Dangaw has recently lost his life in the battle against the Boko Haram insurgency in the northern part of the country. Dangaw was killed after an army convoy he was in, was hit by Boko Harams Explosive Device in Yobe state on January 11. This report is coming almost a week after a gallant soldier met his untimely end at the hand of the Boko Haram sect. READ ALSO: Fallen hero: Nigerian soldier killed by Boko Haram survives by daughter and wife (photos) A Facebook User named Ross Alabo-George posted a brief on the death of his beloved friend, Captain Victor Ulasi. Ross described his friend as a fearless man, one whose loss cannot be replaced. Recall that Nigerians were thrown into a state of serious mourning when Lieutenant Colonel Abu Ali, the Commanding Officer, 272 Task Force Battalion at Mallam Fatori in Northern Borno, was killed alongside six other soldiers under his watch. May his soul rest in peace. Source: Legit.ng Reports in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) say that Hima Aboubakar, a Nigerian arms dealer, who is being investigated by local authorities over his part in the arms deal scandal has reportedly bought a luxury flat in the European country. Typical apartment blocks on Prague Libensky Ostrov where Hima Aboubakar has reportedly acquired a property. According to reports on Czech radio station Radio Praha, Aboubakars flat is a penthouse located in the luxurious Prague Libensky Ostrov. READ ALSO: El-Rufai duped by fraudster claiming to be my supporter Senator Sani Quoting Seznam, Czechs foremost web portal and search engine, Radio Praha reports that the flat is allegedly worth around 50million crowns (that is 1,959,693.52 dollars) which is around N615,665,030. Radio Praha says Aboubakar reportedly bought the luxury apartment in 2016 even while under probe of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Aboubakar, the owner of the Societe D Equipments Internationaux Nig Ltd or SEI has been accused of taking part in some shady deals. READ ALSO: Ekiti civil servant hangs self over unpaid salaries Side-view of apartment blocks on Prague Libensky Ostrov. Aboubakar, a contractor with the Nigerian Airforce (NAF), was at a time accused of giving a gift of N40 million and a car valued at N29.2m to former Air Officer in charge of Tactical Air Command of the Nigerian Airforce in Makurdi, Benue state capital Air Vice Marshal [AVM] Rufus Ojuawo. The infamous arms deal scandal which occurred under the Goodluck Jonathan administration and was reportedly orchestrated by former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki has remained a recurring issue in the anti-corruption war of the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Source: Legit.ng - A commissioner in Delta state has praised the Nigerian Army for taking over Sambisa forest and sending the Boko Haram insurgents packing - The information commissioner, Patrick Ukah, says it was commendable for the army to have achieved such feat - He congratulated their bravery and urged them to forge on and exterminate others still in hiding The Delta state commissioner for information, Mr. Patrick Ukah, has said that the gains recorded by the Nigerian army against the Boko Haram insurgents was a devastating blow to the insurgents, noting that it was a great success in the war against insurgency in Nigeria. Members of the Nigerian army Speaking at the backdrop of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebrated on Sunday across the nation, the commissioner said Nigeria was making headway in its fight against insurgency, insisting that the few Boko Haram members still on the run would be captured. READ ALSO: Sambisa forest will serve as training camp for soldiers - Nigerian army He expressed faith in the Nigerian Army, adding that with the current strength with which the army is pursuing the insurgents in the North east, they will be rooted from the country and peace will return. He noted that the rooting of the insurgents from their stronghold, the Sambisa forest, and the takeover of the hitherto dreaded forest by the Nigerian armed forces was commendable. Delta state commissioner for information, Patrick Ukah He congratulated the military for their bravery and urged them not to rest on their oars until the remnants of the terrorists are arrested, brought to book and permanent peace is restored to the Nigerian state. READ ALSO: Nigerian army on locations of Chibok girls Mr. Ukah called on Nigerians to continue to support and, most especially, pray for members of the armed forces who risk their lives to ensure the protection of law abiding citizens. He prayed for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives in the course of duty, in addition to good health and long life for serving and retired officers and men of the Nigerian armed forces. Source: Legit.ng SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), announced today it has achieved the milestone shipment of the 2,500th PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Cost Reduction Initiative (CRI) Solid Rocket Motor and its 500,000th PAC-3 Attitude Control Motor (ACM) to Lockheed Martin. The achievement was commemorated during a ceremony at Aerojet Rocketdynes Camden, Arkansas facility. Achieving these delivery milestones is a testament to the commitment and hard work of our employees, said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. We take immense pride in these accomplishments and look forward to continuing to deliver the highest quality and reliable PAC-3 hardware to our customer. Aerojet Rocketdyne produces 180 solid propellant ACMs used on each PAC-3 CRI interceptor that enable the high-velocity interceptor to maneuver so it can defend against incoming targets, including tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft. Aerojet Rocketdyne has been manufacturing the PAC-3 CRI since 2000 and the PAC-3 ACM since 2004 at its Camden, Arkansas facility. Aerojet Rocketdyne is an innovative company delivering solutions that create value for its customers in the aerospace and defense markets. The company is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, tactical systems and armaments areas, in support of domestic and international markets. Additional information about Aerojet Rocketdyne can be obtained by visiting our websites at www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com. Notwithstanding the reason, people who commit armed robbery are cruel criminals. They should be punished heavily. Fortunately, Nigeria faces armed robbery not very often. However, there are several fascinating and bloody stories about famous armed robbers. Take a deep breath and keep on reading. We offer you to have a closer look at top five most dangerous armed robberies in Nigeria. All lawbreakers who are described in this article have already gone down in bloody gangs history of Nigeria. They all were violent people who quickly killed their victims to take their money. Babatunde Folorunsho 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history This criminal is one of the most notorious armed robbers of Nigeria. His ruthless gang operated in many prominent Nigerian cities. However, Edo State was a homeland of all his crimes. Babatunde Folorunsho had no mercy to people. His group kidnapped and murdered many Nigerians. Violent armed robber Dr. Oyenusi 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history Ishola Oyenusi is righteously considered the cruelest and the most notorious armed robber in the history of Nigeria. His violence knew no limits. The criminal called himself Doctor, but nobody knew why. He operated in the 60s and 70s. Thousands of people feared him to death. Ishola Oyenusi did not go to school. Instead, from the early childhood, he dealt with crimes. At the age of eleven, he killed his first victim with a blunt knife. READ ALSO: Lagos police arrest 31 armed robbers in 7 days Armed robber Dr. Oyenusi killed people, carjacked, robbed banks, and kidnapped mostly in Lagos and the nearby area. In 1971, the police caught him and all his Gang of Seven. These crooks were publicly executed at the beach in Lagos. More than thirty-five thousands Nigerians witnessed the execution. Soldiers shot them dead. 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history In 1977, a film about Ishola Oyenusi was made in Nollywood. The bloody Inspector George Iyamu 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history Before turning into a criminal, George Iyamu was really a promising police officer. One day he immediately needed a huge sum of money. Therefore, the inspector decided to deal with armed robbery. Soon he became one of the leaders of the bloody gang titled Arms to Anini. They terrorized Benin City heavily in the 1980s. Fortunately, all members of the band were captured and executed for their violent crimes. Shina Rambo 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history He was a very mysterious armed robber. Opinions have divided. Many people are sure that Shina Rambo is merely a fascinating myth. Others are convinced that this criminal actually existed. According to them, Rambo is from West Nigeria. He was born at the beginning of 1963. The criminal quickly realized that he could quickly get enough money with the help of armed robbery. In the late 90s, his gang became really known in Ogun Stat where they operated. Later he switched to carjacking. Then Shina Rambo suddenly disappeared. There was information that the notorious criminal went on the right path and became an evangelical pastor! Abiodun Egunjobi 5 most dangerous armed robbers in Nigeria history As many others criminals in Nigeria, Abiodun Egunjobi was brought up in shantytowns. Abiodun Egunjobi is better known as the one-eyed assassin Godogodo. He was vigorous and cruel enough, which allowed this man putting together a gang. They started committing many bloody crimes. Over fourteen years in a row, the police have had no chances to catch him. There is a very horrific fact: together with his accomplices, he murdered over a hundred police officers. Abiodun Egunjobi and his gang committed many armed robberies in Lagos. On August 1, 2013, the one-eyed assassin was arrested during the armed robbery of a bank. Conclusion Now you know top five bloodiest armed robbers in Nigeria. They killed people and caused much damage to our country. The criminals finally got what they deserved. Police caught all of them and sentenced to death. Source: Legit.ng SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- POET Technologies Inc. (the Company or POET) (OTCQX:POETF) (TSX Venture:PTK), a developer of opto-electronic fabrication processes for the semiconductor industry, today announced organizational changes to streamline the executive roles and operations of the consolidated organization, including a realignment of management responsibilities and key new appointments. The acquisition of DenseLight on May 11, 2016 was undertaken for many strategic reasons including: to expand the Companys development facilities and capability; secure internal fab capacity; facilitate customer engagements across multiple product lines; and access established distribution channels. As part of ongoing integration efforts over the past seven months, both POET and newly hired DenseLight executives have been conducting a strategic review of the organizational, functional and operational structure of the DenseLight fab. In support of managements effort to streamline the consolidated organization as well as further leverage its DenseLight subsidiary, the Company has made the following appointments: Rajan Rajgopal as President and General Manager of DenseLight, replacing Jerry Rodriguez who has resigned from the position effective January 23, 2017. Rodriguez will remain on the DenseLight Board and continue to act as an important advocate for POET Technologies. Rajgopal is a seasoned semiconductor executive with senior previous roles at top multi-national leaders such as Micron, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Texas Instruments. He holds an MSEE degree from the University of Maine and a BSEE degree from the University of Texas at Austin. as President and General Manager of DenseLight, replacing who has resigned from the position effective January 23, 2017. Rodriguez will remain on the DenseLight Board and continue to act as an important advocate for POET Technologies. Rajgopal is a seasoned semiconductor executive with senior previous roles at top multi-national leaders such as Micron, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Texas Instruments. He holds an MSEE degree from the University of Maine and a BSEE degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Soma Sankaran as DenseLights Vice President of Sales for the Asia-Pacific region; current Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Bryan Patmon , will shift his primary focus to sales efforts in Europe and North America. Most recently, Sankaran led sales activity in the South Asia Pacific region for Cree, a leading global innovator of LED lighting, where he successfully identified and penetrated multiple new countries and implemented sustainable long-term growth strategies. Previously, he held numerous sales as well as product and field engineering roles at Avago, Agilent and Hewlett Packard. as DenseLights Vice President of Sales for the Asia-Pacific region; current Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, , will shift his primary focus to sales efforts in Europe and North America. Most recently, Sankaran led sales activity in the South Asia Pacific region for Cree, a leading global innovator of LED lighting, where he successfully identified and penetrated multiple new countries and implemented sustainable long-term growth strategies. Previously, he held numerous sales as well as product and field engineering roles at Avago, Agilent and Hewlett Packard. Dr. HaiQun Zheng as Vice President of DenseLights Field Application Engineering organization. Dr. Zheng holds 20 years of experience in opto-electronics research, engineering and sales, including new product introductions, production planning, inventory management as well as supply-chain management. He is exceptionally qualified to oversee the Companys critical applications engineering initiative. as Vice President of DenseLights Field Application Engineering organization. Dr. Zheng holds 20 years of experience in opto-electronics research, engineering and sales, including new product introductions, production planning, inventory management as well as supply-chain management. He is exceptionally qualified to oversee the Companys critical applications engineering initiative. Patrick Thong as DenseLights Vice President of Operations and reporting to President, Rajan Rajgopal. Thong brings more than two decades of experience in semiconductor fab operations, including plant operations, new-product initiatives, technology development, supply chain management, logistics as well as strategic sourcing. He has specific experience in end-to-end manufacturing starting from new product introductions to pilot-runs, and ultimately full-scale production and contract manufacturing. Also in support of consolidating the Companys operations and product development efforts and to achieve greater cost efficiencies, organizational changes have been taken to streamline the Companys leadership team and conserve cash resources. POETs Chief Operating Officer (COO), Dr. Subhash Deshmukh, resigned effective January 13, 2017 and will assume a new part-time role as special advisor to the CEO where he is expected to drive and lead special projects for the Company. POETs Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Thomas Mika, will fill the position Dr. Deshmukh previously held on DenseLights Board of Directors. The resulting vacancy in the COO position is not expected to be filled, as the Companys staff in Singapore will perform the various facets of this role in close coordination with Mr. Mika. Also effective as of January 13, the position of Corporate Chief Technology Officer (CTO), previously held by Daniel Desimone, has been eliminated. Consequently, Desimone is no longer with the Company, and the role of CTO will be assumed by POETs Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, who is intimately familiar with and had already been overseeing POETs technological development and product roadmap. POETs CEO Dr. Venkatesan commented, As part of the ongoing integration of our DenseLight subsidiary, weve continued to carefully evaluate the organizational, functional and operational elements of the business. With these realignment actions, we are significantly streamlining the consolidated organization in order to maximize the efficiency and productivity of our commercial platform. The individuals weve appointed bring tremendous depth of experience to POET. Collectively, they meaningfully enhance our existing product development and sales efforts, while also helping to ensure that we fully capitalize on the value of our fab and POETs international operations. Finally, as part of the announced realignment, POET is formally dissolving the Companys Technology Roadmap Advisory Board (TRAB), which was originally established specifically to monitor its critical lab to fab transition program. POET management believes this oversight committee is no longer necessary following the addition of critical technologically-centered staff through both the DenseLight and BB Photonics acquisitions, as well as with recently hired new executives. The members of the TRAB will remain available to offer support and informal guidance to POETs internal management committees. Grant of Options The Company also announced the granting of incentive stock options under the Companys stock option plan to Thomas Mika, effective January 16, 2017. The grant consists of the right to purchase up to an aggregate of 500,000 common shares. All of these options are exercisable at CAD$0.385 per share. The options vest in stages over a period starting on January 16, 2018 and ending January 16, 2021. The options were granted subject to provisions of the Companys stock option plan, which was approved by shareholders on July 7, 2016 and are subject to the TSX Venture Exchange policies and applicable securities laws. About POET Technologies Inc. POET (Planar Opto-Electronic Technology) is a developer of opto-electronics and Photonic fabrication processes and products. Photonics integration is fundamental to increasing functional scaling and lowering the cost of current Photonic solutions. POET believes that its advanced opto-electronics process platform enables substantial improvements in energy efficiency, component cost and size in the production of smart optical components, the engines driving applications ranging from data centers to consumer products to military applications. Silicon Valley-based POETs patented module-on-a-chip process, which integrates digital, high-speed analog and optical devices on the same chip, is designed to serve as an industry standard for smart optical components. More information may be obtained at www.poet-technologies.com. Shareholder Contact: Shelton Group Brett L. Perry Leanne K. Sievers sheltonir@sheltongroup.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains forward-looking information (within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws) and forward-looking statements (within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Such statements or information are identified with words such as anticipate, believe, expect, plan, intend, potential, estimate, propose, project, outlook, foresee or similar words suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. Such statements include the Companys expectations with respect to the capability, functionality, performance and cost of the Companys technology. Such forward-looking information or statements are based on a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions which may cause actual results or other expectations to differ materially from those anticipated and which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, managements expectations regarding future growth, plans for and completion of projects by the Companys third party relationships, availability of capital, and the necessity to incur capital and other expenditures. Actual results could differ materially due to a number of factors, including, without limitation, operational risks in the completion of the Companys anticipated projects, delays or changes in plans with respect to the development of the Companys anticipated projects by the Companys third party relationships, risks affecting the Companys ability to execute projects, the ability to attract key personnel, and the inability to raise additional capital. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information or statements are reasonable, prospective investors in the Companys securities should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because the Company can provide no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward- looking information and statements contained in this news release are as of the date of this news release and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise this forward-looking information and statements except as required by law. 120 Eglinton Avenue, East, Suite 1107, Toronto, ON, M4P 1E2- Tel: 416-368-9411 - Fax: 416-322-5075 President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia has failed in his bid to stop the inauguration of president-elect Adama Barrow on January 19, 2017. The incumbent president of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is refusing to relinquish power after he was defeated in the countrys presidential election. Gambia's chief of justice, Emmanuel Fagbenle, has said he will not rule on an injunction by the ruling party, Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), seeking to stop the inauguration Adama Barrow. READ ALSO: Well force Gambia Jammeh to step down with military force- ECOWAS Among other things, the APRC had called on Fagbenle to abstain from swearing Barrow on January 19. But Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle refused to rule on the motion because he is the subject of it, BBC reports. It is yet unclear what will happen this Thursday. Recall that Jammeh, who took power more than 22 years ago following a bloodless coup in 1994, lost the presidential election in December 2016 and is due to step down on January 18. But Yahya Jammeh is refusing to relinquish power after he was defeated in the countrys presidential election. A delegation of West African leaders, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, has failed to persuade Jammeh to step down. READ ALSO: Gambians flee from home as Buhari escorts Gambias president-elect to safety Nigeria's House of Representatives has approved a motion to grant asylum to Jammeh as long as he steps down when his term expires. Meanwhile, the president elect, Barrow, has told IB Times that considered himself the "rightful leader" of the country. He would be staying in Senegal until the day of his inauguration. Source: Legit.ng The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) carried out a counter operation against Boko Haram terrorists in their new hideout. According to a statement by the air force, the day and night operation was in response to an attack on military troops on January 12. READ ALSO: What Buhari told troops in Sambisa, Yola and Liberia The air force has promised to rid the country off terrorists and is intensifying effort to achieve this. Read the statement below: The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has struck Boko Haram new hideout about one nautical mile south of Tumbum Rego in northern Borno. NAF fighter jets and helicopter gunship assaulted the location in a coordinated day and night operation following Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) report that Boko Haram insurgents who attacked own Surface Forces at Kangarwa the night of 12 January 2017 had withdrawn to the said location. The enclosed footage of the Battle Damage Assessment indicated that the operation was successful as the insurgents hideout was successfully destroyed. Recall that the NAF, of recent, has intensified aerial patrol over the entire operation in the North East, as well as offensive mission around the Green Belt region near Niger and Chad Republics. The renewed effort is aimed at denying the remnants of the insurgents the opportunity to regroup and launch attack on own Surface Forces or people within the host communities. See the latest video below: Source: Legit.ng Sorry! This content is not available in your region Ms. Darasavath was hesitant at first, but the two hit it off and he asked to see more of her work. He took her on as an artist and she soon was being shown in Singapore and Laos, as well as in the 2008 traveling exhibition Underlying in the countries in the Mekong Region. The more I got to know her the more interested I was in how she expressed herself in the art world, said Misouda Heuangsoukkhoun, who co-curated Underlying and was one of the curators of the 2013 Singapore Biennale. If you see her works on the Internet or in books, the paintings feel flat, Ms. Heuangsoukkhoun said. But if you see the works in person, you see she has her own imagination about the world and the people surrounding her. Ms. Darasavath, who considers Salvador Dali to be something of an inspiration, said she followed her instincts when it came to art. I am not a political artist; I do not have an agenda, like some other artists who want to pass on their feelings about politics and society through their art, she said. I want to be a free agent, to have free thoughts and not get caught up in agendas. In contrast to most other countries in Southeast Asia, politics and social commentary have not played a major role in contemporary art in Laos. There is still a very strong sense of self-refrain and self-control, said Khairuddin Hori, deputy programming director at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and the co-curator of Open Sea. There is a kind of fear instilled in them about trying to question power. So a lot of art is quite traditional, and the growth is a little bit stunted because of the political mood and years of indoctrination and control. With billions of dollars in oil revenues since the early 2000s, military spending at least double that of most African countries, and 40 years of tough civil wars, most of which Mr. Deby has personally taken part in, he has built himself a formidable fighting machine whose movements and actions he coordinates personally, say those who know him. Without Mr. Deby and his battle-hardened soldiers, analysts and diplomats say, there would be nobody on the ramparts in this vulnerable part of Africa. The Chadians are essential. They are the most capable military in the region, by a long shot, said a veteran diplomat who spent years here. They are pretty much incomparable. Now, with Boko Haram on the ropes, temporarily at least, and in no small part thanks to his men, Mr. Deby might seem positioned for a triumphalist victory lap. But those who know him well say this is not how he operates. Deby does things coldly. He doesnt do things out of sentiment. Thats his strength, said Saleh Makki, a veteran opposition member of Parliament who spent 147 days in Mr. Debys jails in 2013 after being accused falsely, he said of fomenting a coup plot. Indeed, the armys relative strength is itself a function of Mr. Debys calculated insecurity. Rebels have made it to the capital twice in the past 10 years, burning ministry buildings, shooting and looting in the streets. The last time, in 2008, Mr. Deby found himself holding out nearly alone in the palace, refusing to evacuate. He took power by force himself at the head of a rebel movement in 1990 and has not budged since. NATO and American forces used a Tajik air base to gain access to Afghanistan from 2002 until last year, but now have left. Nevertheless, Afghanistans fate remains a major American interest, and so the West should push back against the rise of militancy and increase its aid to the region. In doing so, it will have to be willing to work with Russia, and vice versa. Why not just leave Central Asia to Moscow to sort out, if it wants? One reason is that only a fast-flowing river separates the Central Asian states from Afghanistan, and Central Asian militants who have spent the past decade hiding out in Pakistan are now being helped by their Taliban allies in northern Afghanistan to get access to Central Asia. This years Taliban spring offensive has been the heaviest since 2001, with the militants main goal apparently to control strategic towns and territory along the entire 1,200-mile border with Central Asia. I recently met with senior Tajik military and intelligence officers who rarely talk to reporters and never do so on the record because they are forbidden to publicly discuss sensitive security issues. They told me that more than 5,000 Central Asian militants from half a dozen groups were fighting in northern Afghanistan alongside several thousand Afghan and Pakistani Taliban members. In late April, those forces came within two miles of Kunduz, a major Afghan city. The Afghan Army pushed them back, but only to 10 miles outside the town. Other Central Asian militants are concentrated in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, a mountainous region adjacent to Tajikistan to the north, Pakistan to the south, and China to the east a potential roundabout for multiple cross-border acts of terror. Prominent among them is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, made up of militants from a range of Turkic-speaking groups and bent on creating a caliphate from Turkey to Xinjiang Province in China, which is populated by Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic people. Tajik officials say other groups include the primarily Uzbek Jundullah; the Tajik-dominated Jamaat Ansarullah; and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, largely made up of Uighurs. Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Turkmen fighters are sprinkled through these groups. MEXICO CITY On Monday, Yayine Mesilus was snatched off the streets of her small village in the Dominican Republic and taken back to Haiti, from where she had migrated eight years ago with her little brother to look for work. That, by the governments own account, was not supposed to have happened. Ms. Mesilus, 29, and other migrant workers in her situation were supposed to have until Wednesday night to register with the Dominican authorities before being deported. Yet for the last several months, under so-called Operation Shield, migrant workers have been routinely seized and expelled. Though this particular operation is meant to single out only those illegal migrants who have turned up since late 2011, the process is never clean, as seen in the case of Ms. Mesilus. Ms. Mesilus, who was forced to leave behind her brother, Clever, who is now 18, stands as an example of what many fear will come to pass starting Thursday, when a much larger, broad-scale deportation of Haitian migrant workers is set to begin. As that sweep unfolds, those who have complied with the law, even those born on Dominican soil, may be arbitrarily tossed out as well. sagarsabnis wrote: Constance Horner, chief of the United States governments personnel agency, has recommended that the use of any dangerous or illegal drug in the five years prior to application for a job be grounds for not hiring an applicant . (A) the use of any dangerous or illegal drug in the five years prior to application for a job be grounds for not hiring an applicant (B) any dangerous or illegal drug, if used in the five years prior to applying for a job, should be grounds for not hiring an applicant (C) an applicants use of any dangerous or illegal drug in the five years prior to application for a job be grounds not to hire them (D) an applicants use of any dangerous or illegal drug in the five years prior to applying for a job are grounds that they not be hired (E) for five years prior to applying for a job, an applicants use of any dangerous or illegal drug be grounds for not hiring them whats wrong in B??? The answer is A.From the statement we can clearly make out that its a case of command subjunctive, which calls for the use of "that" and "be".B- Incorrect: Never use "should" in command subjunctive.C- Incorrect: Disagreement between pronoun and number. The pronoun should be "his or her".D- Incorrect: Same as C. The pronoun "they" is outright wrong in this context.E- Incorrect: Same as C, and D. The use of the pronoun "them" is wrong.A correctly maintains the command subjunctive form.Consider giving kudos if you like this explanation COURBEVOIE, France One of Africas wealthiest presidents said this week that he was giving up at least some of his holdings to the people of Gabon, a declaration heralded by his inner circle but quickly met with skepticism by critics who pointed out the legal and political pressure the leader, Ali Ben Bongo, is facing over the vast riches acquired by his family. The holdings of the Bongo family have long been a subject of speculation and, for much of the last decade, a subject of legal action by the French authorities as well. Mr. Bongos father, Omar, ruled Gabon for more than four decades until his death in 2009, accumulating fleets of expensive cars, luxurious properties in France and overstuffed bank accounts along the way. Critics have long denounced the disparity between the lives of the people in a country where a third live on less than $1.25 a day and the familys sumptuous properties in Paris and elsewhere in France, the focus of a long-running judicial inquiry. Justice can reach anybody who breaks the law, said Attorney General Thelma Aldana, speaking to reporters in her office after the vote. She added, however, that it is very painful, very worrying that a president in office should be submitted to a criminal trial. The case ignited a flood of protest from ordinary Guatemalans, who began staging weekly protests in Guatemala Citys central plaza, demanding the presidents resignation, although he had yet to be linked directly to the scheme. But it was not until Aug. 21, when prosecutors announced that their evidence pointed to Mr. Perez Molina as one of the schemes ringleaders, that Guatemalas elite joined the calls for Mr. Perez Molina to step down. In an hourlong news conference on Monday, Mr. Perez Molina, a retired general, angrily denied the accusations and refused to step down, adding that he would submit to due process. I have not taken one cent from that fraudulent structure that was practically stealing from Guatemalans, he said. The congressional vote does not remove the president from office, and several steps remain before Mr. Perez Molina would face trial. First, a criminal court judge must rule that he is not fit for office and that a trial should proceed. The presidents lawyers have also filed motions before the nations Constitutional Court that might also delay the proceedings. OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso Military officers overthrew the government of Burkina Faso on Thursday, plunging the West African country into chaos and violence, while the leader of the countrys transitional parliament denounced the coup and declared himself the interim president. The coup was apparently led by allies of the countrys longtime ruler, who was toppled in October. Gen. Gilbert Diendere took control of the country, according to a military spokesman. General Diendere is a close ally of the former president, Blaise Compaore, who was in power for 27 years until last fall. The crisis began Wednesday evening when members of the Presidential Security Regiment stormed a cabinet meeting and seized the interim president, Michel Kafando, and the prime minister, Isaac Zida, along with other officials. They also raided the newsroom of Radio Omega, a station that was central in reporting news of the 2014 uprising, forced the journalists to cut off the signal, and set their offices on fire. CONAKRY, Guinea Even before the vote, the scales were widely seen to be tipped in favor of the incumbent. The presence of President Alpha Conde in the national news media dwarfed that of his rivals, while the trademark yellow of his Rally of the Guinean People party dominated the potholed streets of the city center, on posters and billboards firmly reminding voters who was in charge. As one diplomat at the French Embassy put it, He held all the cards. All seven opposition candidates have gone further, condemning the vote held on Sunday as fraudulent. The presidents main rival, Cellou Dalein Diallo, pulled himself out of contention on Wednesday, and opposition supporters have clashed with the police, all before final results have been announced. I have no president, shouted one protester during a standoff. They stole the vote in 2010, and theyve stolen it again now, the man added, referring to the controversy over the last election, when Mr. Conde came from well behind to beat Mr. Diallo in the second round of voting. OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso Gunmen from Al Qaeda stormed a luxury hotel frequented by foreigners in Burkina Fasos capital on Friday night, seizing hostages and killing others while fighting with dozens of security forces who began a counterattack hours later. It was Al Qaedas first major attack in this landlocked sub-Saharan country, a former French colony. Burkina Fasos interior minister, Simon Compaore, said Saturday morning that after an overnight battle, security forces had regained control of the Splendid Hotel in the capital, Ouagadougou (pronounced waga-DOO-goo), having killed at least three assailants and freed 126 people. A spokesman for the interior ministry, Abi Ouattara, said 22 people had been killed, not counting the militants killed by security forces. The attack, claimed by the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb affiliate along with an allied militant group, was at least the fifth time in recent days that armed militants had ambushed unprotected civilians in cities around the world, hitting sites in Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia and Iraq with deadly assaults that underscored the vulnerabilities of soft targets that are difficult to defend. Witnesses said the attack began when gunmen set off at least one explosion outside the hotel, leaving cars ablaze, and then moved inside and began taking hostages. Hours later in a statement released online, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said its fighters inside the hotel had killed 30 people, calling their operation revenge against France and the disbelieving West, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media. France, which maintains a military garrison in Burkina Faso, scrambled to respond to the siege, sending 30 of its soldiers to assist at least 40 from Burkina Fasos military who massed outside the hotel. Witnesses reported that the forces began a counterassault to retake the hotel early Saturday. One witness, Olympia de Maismont, said that several hostages had been freed and that intermittent gunfire could be heard. Later, Remis Dandjinou, Burkina Fasos minister of communication, said that 63 people had been freed, 33 of whom had been wounded. BUCHAREST, Romania Frustration with the political establishment is boiling over again in Moldova, where more than 15,000 people took to the streets of the capital on Sunday to vent their anger at the new government that was sworn in just last week. Opposition groups from both the pro-European and pro-Russian sides of the countrys political divide united in the frigid weather to shout antigovernment slogans and demand new elections. The protests in the capital, Chisinau, were the latest to rack Moldova, an impoverished former Soviet republic between Ukraine and Romania, since November 2014, when an immense bank fraud with political implications came to light. The trigger for the latest wave of protests was the appointment of Pavel Filip as prime minister late Wednesday night, leading the countrys third government in less than a year. The deeply divided Parliament had been wrangling for months over how to replace Valeriu Strelet, who lost a vote of no confidence and was forced to resign as prime minister in October after three months in office. What does seem clear is that the projects critics environmentalists, human rights advocates and economists have grown more outspoken and organized. In this part of the country, many homeowners have stenciled Go Away Chinese on the sides of their houses, and virtually all the re-election posters for Mr. Ortega have been hit with black paint balls. When he announced the deal in 2013, Mr. Ortega, a left-wing guerrilla turned pro-business politician, promised that the canal would transform Nicaragua and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, eventually doubling the countrys gross domestic product. Many Nicaraguans, eager for a better future, embraced the idea, and many still do. But a growing number say the benefits of the deal are not so clear. Some question whether the canal would even be commercially viable. Few supertankers and massive container ships now afloat will not be able to pass through the expanded Panama Canal set to open soon. And few ports are big enough to welcome those megaships. In the short term, some experts say, the combination of the Panama and Nicaragua canals would lead to overcapacity and price wars. There are also concerns about the seismic activity in the area, or the many volcanos. Some analysts point to Chinas poor record on environmental matters and Mr. Wangs inexperience in building anything, let alone a $50 billion (some say $80 billion) canal carving through miles of protected areas that are home to many endangered species, including the jaguar, and legally recognized indigenous lands. The little-known Mr. Wang made his fortune in telecommunications, not in construction. And then there is the 50-mile trench to be dug on the floor of Lake Nicaragua, the largest body of fresh water in Central America which many fear could end up contaminating, even killing, the lake. Economists and human rights activists also object to the powers Mr. Wang has to expropriate land at far less than market rates, saying the terms of Mr. Wangs concession could discourage anyone else from investing in Nicaragua. But the newly obtained case files point to a cover-up. They include cover pages from the inspector generals office of the Security Ministry, which oversees the National Police. So if Mr. Chinchilla carries out a wide-ranging investigation to show that the government is serious about fighting corruption, it could end up ensnaring some of the presidents allies in the National Party, which has been in office since the beginning of 2010. There was a type of pact of silence, said Thelma Mejia, a Honduran journalist. These files passed through various police chiefs and they did nothing. They were known by various security ministers and they did nothing. The early fallout of the scandal is beginning. Foreign Minister Arturo Corrales, who had also served as the countrys security minister, resigned late Thursday. The first announcements of police firings are expected as early as this weekend. A civilian commission in charge of weeding out corrupt officers has asked for background on the nine top-ranked active generals in the police force, including Jose Ricardo Ramirez del Cid, a former police chief in 2011 who is named in the case files as the mastermind behind the assassinations. According to the documents, Mr. Ramirez del Cid was one of the three who stayed behind the night before the antidrug czar was killed in 2009 to place the call to the drug lord. Another was Jose Luis Munoz Licona, who was appointed police chief in 2010. In interviews broadcast after the El Heraldo report, both officials denied any involvement in the assassinations. So did the police chief at the time of the antidrug czars killing, Salomon Escoto Salinas, who is also named in the documents. The case files leave little doubt that inside the police, at least, the results of the investigation were known. In May 2012, an official in the inspector generals office sent a copy of documents to the police chief at the time, Juan Carlos Bonilla, noting that he was acting under the orders of the security minister. At the end of 2013, Mr. Bonillas replacement as police chief, Ramon Sabillon Pineda, ordered special guards to protect the case files on both assassinations, as well as documents on other high-profile killings. She also promised a detailed account of how Mr. Morales, Bolivias first indigenous leader, had evolved from a good guy to a menace. Evo Morales was not the monster that he is today, she said. She and her lawyers also said she has damaging information about the presidents right-hand man, Juan Ramon Quintana, the minister of the presidency. But whether any of this intriguing material will be allowed to surface and whether Ms. Zapata will get to defend herself and name names is now in doubt. Last week, the government jailed her defense lawyer, Eduardo Leon, and an aunt, Pilar Guzman, who had corroborated her assertion that Mr. Moraless son was in fact alive. Mr. Leon, a prominent lawyer, has attended court hearings wearing a sign with the words political prisoner. Meanwhile, Mr. Moraless allies in Congress have been peddling bills that would curtail freedom of the press and regulate social media. What they fail to see is that Mr. Moraless defeat in February resulted from damning facts, not critical news coverage. And they are clearly nervous about the insider account of corruption Ms. Zapata stands to tell if she gets her day in court. They want to show company owners that they are going to punish any businessman in any part of the world, Mr. Bitkov said, explaining why he believes the bank has pursued them for so long over what he called false charges. Image Igor Bitkov last year. He is being held in a Guatemalan jail. Credit... Grigory Pasko Harvey Pacay, a Guatemalan lawyer for VTB in the case, said the banks concern was strictly business related. Our principal objective in this case was really for the investigation into the false documents, and then their expulsion so that they can be judged in their own country, he said. We dont know if they face political persecution, if they have problems with Vladimir Putin, Mr. Pacay added. The couples account of the case against them in Russia echoes the pattern of other corporate raids in that country. Company owners targeted by rivals or even by government officials often face a legal onslaught and the threat of prison time, intended to force them out. The Bitkovs said their problems began in 2006 after they refused to collaborate with Georgi V. Boos, the new governor of Kaliningrad, where they were one of the largest employers. Ms. Bitkova said she had declined an invitation from the deputy governor to act as the regional representative for Mr. Putins party. We didnt want to become their puppets, her husband said. Threats grew over the next two years, the Bitkovs said. The couple said Anastasia was kidnapped when she was 16, and was found three days later, only after they paid $200,000 to the police. They then sent her to study in Britain. 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. Its leader, Isaias Afwerki, an intellectual turned guerrilla fighter turned president, was once considered one of the smartest and most charismatic rebels in the world. During Eritreas war for independence from Ethiopia two decades ago, Mr. Isaias brought Christians and Muslims, nomads and farmers, and men and women together in the trenches; he even oversaw underground tampon factories for his female fighters. These days, though, many Eritrean analysts question his leadership. Mr. Isaiass stubborn refusal to modify his repressive rule has put the country in this position, said Dan Connell, an American journalist who knows Mr. Isaias personally and has written several books on Eritrea. Mr. Connell said he had been hearing stories of fear and repression for years. Denied a chance to express themselves at home, Eritreans continue to vote with their feet, which is as strong a confirmation of the commissions findings as any, he said Wednesday. Mike Smith, the chairman of the United Nations panel, said that the report found that the abuses inflicted by the government were a major impetus for the exodus of Eritreans: More than 47,000 applied for asylum in Europe last year. The three-member panel of inquiry urged the Security Council to recognize the human rights deprivations in Eritrea as a serious threat to international peace and security and to refer the allegations in the 94-page report to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The panel also called for travel bans against those accused of the crimes and human rights abuses, and the freezing of their financial assets. In rare cases, the virus has been associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder in which the bodys immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system, which can lead to paralysis, usually temporary. In New York City, two people who tested positive for Zika had Guillain-Barre. They have both since recovered, Dr. Bassett said. There is also a growing concern about the risk of sexual transmission. While all the cases in the city are believed to be travel-related, at least two other cases in New York State are thought to be the result of sexual transmission, health officials said. Under guidelines issued in February, all women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant and who have also traveled to Zika-affected countries should be tested, even those with no symptoms. During the first few months after the guidelines changed, however, many of the women considered most at risk were not being tested. Dr. Bassett said that once the city recognized the problem, health officials moved aggressively to inform communities with close ties to the affected areas. We are seeing the disparity close, she said on Wednesday. Several explanations have been offered for why such a large percentage of positive tests involve travel to the Dominican Republic, health officials said. In recent years, Dominicans have overtaken Puerto Ricans as the largest Latino community in the city, with 747,473 Dominicans living in the five boroughs in 2013, compared with 719,444 Puerto Ricans, according to the most recent census data. And as recent immigrants, Dominicans have a greater inclination to travel between their home country and New York than other immigrant groups do. Everything is governed by law if we look very carefully, he said. The sun that shines, because its always shined. The plant that grows from the ground. What we feel. Asked if these ideas could be chalked up to youthful idealism, Mr. Peil, the schools vice dean, said he did not think so. The countrys recent push to frame law as something that can complement, rather than compromise, traditional notions of justice may have made inroads with this youngest generation, said Mr. Peil, who was recruited himself, in part, because of his background in running international law programs. They were taking a very all-encompassing view of what the word law means, Mr. Peil said. What these guys just told us is formalism doesnt mean anything, that even if a law appears out of the mists of time and nobody knows where it came from, its still a law. In an American legal classroom, where the definition of law has crystallized under a common law system inherited from the British, these answers would not hold up, Mr. Peil added. In Bhutan, he said, the law includes not just the words of a judge or a legislature, but also unwritten rules of conduct passed down through centuries of Buddhist tradition uncorrupted by colonialism or violent upheaval. If that means Bhutanese have a binding obligation to respect the environment, to honor familial duties and to negotiate disputes through community justice, these are values the countrys first homegrown lawyers will be trained to defend, Mr. Peil said. Were not trying to marry Western liberal democracy to Bhutanese culture, he said. Were trying to come up with a Bhutanese solution. After the State Department announced the reward, an Iraqi news agency, Alsumaria, reported that Mr. Khalimov had been promoted to military commander for the Islamic State, replacing Omar al-Shishani, an ethnic Chechen from Georgia who was killed in the airstrike. Russian news outlets have also said Mr. Khalimov was promoted, but neither those accounts nor the Iraqi report could be independently verified. The U.S. putting a bounty on his head is significant, Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, in London, said in a telephone interview. But its not possible to know if hes the strategist of military operations. Further muddying the picture, the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist propaganda, has found no formal Islamic State announcement of Mr. Khalimovs position, according to Adam Raisman, an analyst who studies the groups postings. If Mr. Khalimov was, in fact, promoted, he would be the second Islamic State commander in chief to have been trained in American military aid programs in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Shishani, whose real name was Tarkhan Batirashvili, had served in the Georgian Army, which is equipped and funded by the United States as a bulwark against Russian expansion. American military aid to Tajikistan is more narrowly focused on fighting terrorism and narcotics, because the country is a close ally of Russia. The aid has flowed even though Tajikistan is ruled by an eccentric and authoritarian president, Emomali Rahmon, whose police forces are often accused of abuses. Along with jailing dissidents and using excessive force in one case, killing 20 civilians in a paramilitary action Mr. Rahmons police forces have been accused of more unusual human rights abuses. A provincial governor recently said that he had forcibly shaved the beards of 13,000 men suspected of sympathizing with fundamentalist Islamists. Muhiddin Kabiri, the exiled leader of Tajikistans main opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Khalimov was always against the moderate opposition and that his police unit was known for abuses, but that the United States had turned a blind eye. President Varela is also closely tied to law firms that handle offshore accounts. One Aleman cousin is now his chief of staff, and both his vice minister of foreign affairs and the minister of economy and finance came from the Morgan & Morgan Group, which includes a law firm known for its offshore business. And one of the presidents closest advisers until early this year was Ramon Fonseca Mora, a partner in Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that generated the Panama Papers. The German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung obtained the data and later shared it with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit group based in Washington. Mr. Stiglitz initially wondered whether the government was serious about his appointment, but he said two things had convinced him that it was. Panamas vice president, Isabel de Saint Malo, flew to New York to personally ask Mr. Stiglitz to join, and Mr. Pieth was also asked to serve. The group met officially for the first time in June in New York. The honeymoon did not last long. Everyone was guilty of bad Googling, said one person who knew the commission members. Mr. Pieth added, We didnt spend an awful amount of time on due diligence on our colleagues. Potential conflicts quickly became apparent, according to notes taken by an attendee. One member expressed concern about damage control, since the expanded canal was about to open a moment of great national pride and, the member said, we will use that moment to say this is who we are and where our future is headed. When the subject of a public registry of beneficial owners was raised, Mr. Stiglitz said, you could see them blanch. And, he added, there was no serious discussion about closer monitoring of tax-advantaged, free-trade zones, or the strong enforcement of the open-records law. The group agreed that it should secure a promise from President Varela that its final report would be made public. They said they would go to the government and get it, and they never did, Mr. Stiglitz said. Instead, on July 29, the group received a stern note from the government, saying that the presidential decree establishing the commission stipulated that the report will be the property of and used by the Republic of Panama and that it would decide what to share with the public. The government also said funds requested for operational expenses would not be coming. This documentary film is a dramatization of actual accounts of the UKs immigration detention system, narrated by the migrants who experienced them. All names have been withheld to protect anonymity My name is Abal al-Bashir, I am from Sudan. I came to this country to seek safety. I came as a refugee and I claim asylum. I was originally born in Ghana, but I havent lived or been to that country since I was four years old Well, I came to the UK not for any reason, but to seek asylum, for the safety of my life. I was at risk back home in Uganda When my application was rejected, I was on the verge of committing suicide I spent a total of two and a half months in detention Im originally from Sri Lanka, Im here to save my life, Im a victim of torture. Ive been detained in this country for almost six years I would like to sort of shed a light onto an important issue the majority of people are not awrae of and thats indefinite detention. In 1995 the Uk detained 381 people under Immigration Act Powers [Darren: your source says that this figure is the number in detention of May 1995. Do you have a figure for the total of that year? Otherwise approximateLC]. By 2015 that number had risen to 32, 446. Detainees are held indefinitely. The Uk is one of few countries in Europe with no upper time limit on detention. [Darren: On Pg 16, the report says The United Kingdom is one of only a few countries within the Council of Europe not to have an upper time limit on detention.] INVISIBLE John - 2.5 months in detention. Back home in Uganda, I was arrested, I was tortured, so it was just by luck that I left the country. I arrived in the UK, 4th of November, 2014. And on the same day I claimed asylum In itself I didnt know what was going on. They said they were taking me to a detention centre. The van it had disabled locks, it had quite a nasty smell because the windows cid not oopen at all. I looked at myself as a big criminal, like they were transporting a terrorist. What really terrified me was the big fence and the barbed wire and the officers that were guarding the place Thats when I passed out. Thats when my mind was like: Youre dead now, youre dead. They checked out stuff, took my phone That night I didnt manage to cathc any sleep whatsoever, I spent the whole night crying. I was scared, I was terrified. I was like: I think Im finished, I think Im finished, I think Im finished. David - Currently in detention. Welcome to Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre. If you have a touch headphone, please selct one of the following options: Press 1 for Colnbrook, or press 2 for Harmondsworth. Is this a real recording? Im at the detention centre, this one is called Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre. I have been detained for over a year now. People are desperate, people are desperate for freedom. Its a factory of mental illness, its completely diofferent from prison. They kill your hopes here, they kill your dreams, they destroy yourt family. When a human being has been stirpped of rights to family, rights to freddom, rights to expression, then you are no longer a human being. Thats why the suicide rate is very very high. Most of the time I feel like hitting the wall, I feel like I want to bang my head against the wall. Its frustration and some sort of mental pyschosis. You feel like you want to scream, you feel like you want to shout, you feel like you are going to die. Hearing somebody praying on their knees asking for strength not to kil themselves, its um yeah, its a very difficult thing, a very difficult thing Michael - 2.5 years in dentention. Self harm in detention was an everyday occurent thing. It ranges from people cutting themselves, trying to hang themselves The worst thing that I saw in detention was um I heard this scream. This scream wasnt like any other scream. So I decided to step outside my door. My whole body just froze. Everytime I try to picture it, it seems to be that he was on fire forever. How long? How long do I have to be in here until I reach that stage? Ive seen things. I have seen things. But nothing like this. In 2015, suicide attempts in detention centres averaged one a day. Of the 2,957 people on suicide watch in detention, 11 were children. Could be a week, there could be two. The two weeks might mount into a year. Two years or three. When I got detained, I was never given an explaination; why, or how, or when Id be released Idefenite means to be in a state, or be in a condition for a time you dont know how long. Thats indefinite. To me, asylum seeking in this country is like a living hell. When you look at the kind of beaureaucracy that is within detention and within the whole process of asylum seeking, its like climbing a mountain. Looking at all the forms and the procedure you have to go through is quite heartbreaking. When youre in a prison youll be counting your days down, but in detention youre counting them up. Many migrants in detention are deemed unreturnable to their country of origin. More than half of those detained are released back into the community. [what is the specific source for this? 55% per your press release is more than half, not nearly 2/3; cut rest of sentence] The happiness of release hits youa s a relaity of serious worries. Abdal - 6 years in detention. You only have your train ticket, or bus ticket to get you to the address the UK Border Agency has provided for you to go. You go back to society with nothing. No money, no clothes, no support, no nothing. You are starting form zero and youve got to build your life up again. Even though Im freed from detention, Im not free. Ive been tagged on my leg and I have to be at home every single day, as well as reporting every two weeks to the police station. For two years Ive been doing this. So how could I ever recover, how could I ever get on with my life? Is this an actor? May 7th 2016. Yarls wood Immigration Removal Centre National day of action against detention. I would like to see all detention centres closed down. I would like to see the word migrant iradicated. I would like to see the word illegal associated with a person iridicated. No person is illegal. But this is the country the aspire, this is the country that advocates human rights. This is a multi million pound industry for somebody. The routine detention of refugees and migrants has become an opaque and unregulated processas well as a multimillion-pound industry. They lock us up. We lost our family, we lost our children, we lost our self, our self confidence, our self esteem. And they broke us as mans[sic]. But will I sit here and cry about it? No. We still have guts, and we still have heart. Im gonna pick myself up, Im gonna stand, and Im gonna fight. MEXICO CITY Mexican officials said on Sunday that they had arrested an American citizen in connection with the shooting of an American diplomat in Guadalajara, Mexicos second-largest city. The suspect, who was not identified, was seen on a security video stalking the diplomat, and then shooting him as he drove out of a parking lot on Friday evening. The arrest was announced by the prosecutor for the state of Jalisco. The suspect will be deported to the United States, according to a statement released by Mexicos Foreign Relations Ministry and the attorney generals office. The officials did not give any information on a possible motive. The diplomat, who is in stable condition, was identified by the local news media as Christopher Ashcraft. According to Mr. Ashcrafts LinkedIn account, he has been a consular officer in Guadalajara, the states capital, since March. TEHRAN With the death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday, Irans political factions knew immediately that any space by reformers to maneuver had just significantly decreased. Change had come, and it did not favor those seeking to turn Iran into a less revolutionary country with more tolerance and outreach to the West especially the United States. Mr. Rafsanjani, a former president who helped found the Islamic republic, had been the one man too large to be sidelined by conservative hard-liners. Now he was suddenly gone, dead from what state media described as cardiac arrest and with no one influential enough to fill his shoes. Irans long-marginalized reformists and moderates, who would use Mr. Rafsanjanis regular calls for more personal freedoms and requests to establish better relations with the United States to advance their political agendas, suddenly felt exposed and weakened. The Turkish Parliament began debating legislation on Monday that would effectively rewrite the Constitution, vastly expanding the powers of Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and possibly allowing him to remain in power until 2029. Mr. Erdogan, the dominant figure in Turkish politics for 14 years, was prime minister from 2003 until 2014. That year, unable to seek another term in that office, he ran for president, vowing to strengthen the powers of what had largely been a ceremonial job. He won easily. The most dominant figure in Turkish politics since Ataturk, who created a modern secular republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Mr. Erdogan has largely been able to exert his will. Since a failed coup attempt in July, he has used emergency powers to crack down on his opponents, suspending or dismissing tens of thousands of civil servants, police officers, academics and others. At least 260 people died in the coup attempt. Mr. Erdogans ruling Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials A.K.P., and the Nationalist Party, which is nominally in opposition but supports the constitutional proposal, are believed to have more than enough votes at least 330 of 550 in the unicameral legislature to pass the changes. The package would then be submitted to a national referendum in the spring. The Constitution has not been amended since 2010. What is that light? The false glimmer of mirages Quinn knew from his time in the desert? The beacon, he wrote in what was to be his post-mortem letter to Carrie, that he hoped to provide for her in death, steering her clear of the rocks? The hope he once harbored for their relationship, cruelly torturing him now that hes crippled, and aphasic, and smells? [See where to stream previous seasons of Homeland at Watching, a new TV and movie recommendation site from The New York Times.] Carrie, for once, is putting up some real boundaries. And she appears actually to have found herself a home. She has Franny and a nanny and a brownstone with a rental apartment. And though her amped-up nervous system keeps bringing old-life reflexes into her new one panic rises instantly when she comes home and doesnt immediately see and hear her daughter and babysitter she does, in many ways, appear to have turned some kind of a corner. She begins the show as she has in the past as a passenger, by a window in a conveyance, haunting jazz playing in her mind. But theres none of the claustrophobia and sense of dread that isolated her in the armored cars of Kabul. Shes on a city bus, and the view out the window is sunny. She doesnt quite fit, of course: shes still jarringly blonde, and wherever she goes, people seem to dislike her. But, to a much greater extent than in her boring-bourgeois interlude last season with Jonas in Berlin, she does seem to be living the life of a real civilian. Otto During is back unwelcome in my view and, like Carrie, isnt winning any popularity contests in Brooklyn. It could be his highhandedness O.K., O.K., you can stop selling. Ive written the check already is not necessarily the best way to make friends with the little people. Or it could be those nonsensical patches of facial hair. This indicates that supply line disruptions were not IS' main goal, as it did not leave behind enough fighters to defend the checkpoints. Instead, taking the checkpoints which were not heavily fortified according to an IS propaganda video that showed three dead militiamen and one pickup truck at one checkpoint was likely part of the effort to probe for weaknesses on the supply line. The overarching goal of this string of attacks was likely to divert attention and resources away from Mosul, especially due to the increased redeployment of ISF troops from provincial areas. The IS fighters in these scattered attacks did not come from Mosul. They likely were members of IS sleeper cells in other areas of Iraq , including Anbar province, where IS has kept a low-level presence since 2014 and has been spotted with trucks and supplies from Palmyra. Because of its joint command structure, IS is capable of orchestrating attacks like these that are away from the main battle site. IS track record shows that it lashes out in this way when threatened. By demonstrating a continued ability to strike all over Iraq despite suffering losses in Mosul, IS is pressuring provincial leaders to recall recently deployed ISF troops by demonstrating their vulnerability. As IS loses more territory in Mosul, these attacks will continue, spiking when the ISF make significant gains such as crossing the Tigris River. Mondays attacks are evidence that IS remains capable of hitting targets while on the defensive, and that it is in a vulnerable position in Mosul. However, it is significant that none of these IS contingents had the strength or numbers to follow up these attacks, hitting their targets quickly and fleeing before the situation turned into a large-scale fight. Though IS can obviously launch attacks outside of its strongholds, it may have less fighters and resources outside of concentrated areas than previously assumed. A weeks respite combined with additional troops and increased coalition airstrikes has given the Iraqi forces the upper hand in the battle for Mosul for now. Though the battle is far from over, we will continue to monitor its progress and update readers on the situation on the ground. The Treasurys schedule of financing this week includes an auction of four-week bills on Tuesday. Mondays regular weekly auction of new three- and six-month bills has been rescheduled for Tuesday in observance of Martin Luther Kings Birthday. At the close of the New York cash market on Friday, the rate on the outstanding three-month bill was 0.53 percent. The rate on the six-month issue was 0.61 percent, and the rate on the four-week issue was 0.52 percent. The following tax-exempt fixed-income issues, valued at $50 million or more, are scheduled for pricing this week: TUESDAY Florida Board of Education, $150.2 million of unlimited tax general obligation refinancing bonds. Competitive. New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust, $73.9 million of debt securities. Competitive. Orange County, Calif., Sanitation District, $67.7 million of revenue refinancing bonds. Competitive. Senior centers across New York City receive varying levels of funding from the city, and the disparities are glaring: A center in Lower Manhattan gets just $3.54 to provide a meal to an elderly client, while a center in Brooklyn gets $18.36. The findings are in a report released on Monday by Union Settlement, a nonprofit that contracts with the citys Department for the Aging to operate four senior centers in East Harlem. The report, Separate and Unequal: An Analysis of Disparities in New York City Senior Center Funding, relied primarily on city data to analyze the financing of over 200 such centers across New York. The level of inequality in the funding of senior centers is very troubling, said David Nocenti, executive director of Union Settlement, a private agency founded in 1895 that also runs after-school, mental health and education programs. Every senior deserves to be treated fairly and equitably, and the quality of their senior center shouldnt depend on where they happen to live. The Department for the Aging contracts with more than 100 nonprofits to operate about 250 senior centers, where older people can receive meals and participate in cultural, recreational and fitness programs. In its report, Union Settlement said that the city acknowledged the disparities in funding, which can be attributed, in part, to the department having inherited centers from other city agencies over the decades. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. The company headed by Mr. Puzder, CKE Restaurants, says its practices follow the law. We have a very strict policy of compliance with California wage and hour laws and cannot comment on unsubstantiated allegations of current or former employees, said Charles A. Seigel III, executive vice president and general counsel. Mr. Puzder, who declined to be interviewed for this article, argues that his efforts to reward workers in more entrepreneurial ways were stymied by rigid California laws. He has said that he may support smaller minimum-wage increases, but that over all, the free market is better than the government is at helping people. Bullet Train to Nowhere : Construction of the California high-speed rail system, Americas most ambitious infrastructure project, Construction of the California high-speed rail system, Americas most ambitious infrastructure project, has become a multi-billion-dollar nightmare A Piece of Black History Destroyed: Lincoln Heights a historically Black community in a predominantly white, rural county in Northern California endured for decades. Lincoln Heights a historically Black community in a predominantly white, rural county in Northern California endured for decades. Then came the Mill fire Warehouse Moratorium: As warehouse construction balloons nationwide, residents in communities both rural and urban have pushed back. In Californias Inland Empire, As warehouse construction balloons nationwide, residents in communities both rural and urban have pushed back. In Californias Inland Empire, the anger has turned to widespread action Andy Puzder has firsthand experience saving and creating thousands of jobs, and he has an extensive record of fighting for workers, the Trump transition team said. As secretary of labor, he will be able to apply his business successes in a way that will benefit all Americans growing wages and creating opportunity. But Mr. Puzders appointment, already inspiring protests, could set off a national clash. In recent years, a resurgent workers rights movement has helped win an employer mandate for health insurance and stronger enforcement of overtime rules nationwide, and paid sick and family leave at the local and state levels. Mr. Puzder, opposed to some of those policies, could lead a backlash by business owners saying the new rules have gone too far. If employers are required to do too much, he told Business Insider recently, they may replace some workers with machines. Theyre always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, theres never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case, he said. WASHINGTON More than any administration in recent history, the Obama White House has focused on a law enforcement mission that might seem antithetical to hard-nosed prosecutors: getting criminal offenders out of jail early and trying to give them the skills to stay out. With a flurry of prison and sentencing initiatives in recent months, the Justice Department has worked to finish an eight-year initiative that Mr. Obamas attorney general, Loretta Lynch, predicted in an interview would make a significant difference in correcting the criminal justice excesses of past generations. And in his final week in office, Mr. Obama is likely to grant commutations to shorten the prison sentences of still more nonviolent drug offenders, officials said. He has already issued more than 1,000 commutations more than the number issued by the prior 11 presidents combined, according to the White House. But that legacy is about to come under quick siege with the incoming Trump administrations law and order platform, as Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, President-elect Donald J. Trumps nominee for attorney general, made clear last week at his confirmation hearing. Mr. Sessions a staunch conservative who has been a key roadblock in the Senate to legislation easing what many see as unduly long prison sentences vowed at his hearing that cracking down on drugs, violence, gun crimes and illegal immigrants would be among his top priorities. Those goals are the same ones he has had for decades as a federal prosecutor in Alabama and a United States senator. He also offered no explanation of how he would persuade Congress to pass his plan, though he indicated that it would have the backing of the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Mr. Trump said only that I wont tell you how, but we will get approval. He seemed to refer to his recent Twitter posts that helped persuade House Republicans to back away from a proposal to gut an ethics office. You see whats happened in the House in recent weeks, he said. Top aides to Mr. Trump declined to provide more information about the president-elects plans. In an interview last week with The New York Times, Mr. Trump said he wanted Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter. The president-elect told The Post that his plan would be unveiled soon after the Senate confirmed Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, to be the secretary of health and human services. Achieving the promise of insurance for everybody has been a goal of health care policy experts for decades, but the political and financial realities have proved problematic. Government-provided health insurance, known as a single-payer plan, has found little political support in Washington. And market-based solutions, like the Affordable Care Act, have proved difficult to carry out. WASHINGTON When Donald J. Trump strides onto the inaugural ballroom floor this week amid the sprawling celebration of his swearing-in, he will have corporate America and many of its titans to thank for the rapturous greeting. Chevron, the oil giant, has given $500,000 for the dayslong festivities. Boeing, which has been a target of Mr. Trump, pledged $1 million. And Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, giants of the gambling industry, are said to have donated more than that by themselves. They are far from alone. All told, the group planning the inaugural festivities says it has raised more than $100 million, which would be nearly double the record for an inauguration, with much of it coming in six- and seven-figure checks from Americas corporate suites. In exchange, Mr. Trumps most prolific donors will gain access to what amounts to a parallel inauguration week, carefully planned and largely out of public sight, during which they can mingle with members of the incoming administration over intimate meals and witness Mr. Trumps ascension from the front rows. Days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is engaged in a high-profile feud with some of the countrys most prominent African-American leaders, setting off anger in a constituency already wary of him after a contentious presidential campaign. Mr. Trumps criticism of Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a widely admired leader of the civil rights movement, has prompted a number of Democratic lawmakers to say they will not attend his inauguration on Friday. Blacks around the country have reacted to Mr. Trumps remarks with fury, and the subject has dominated social media and discussions among black activists. Mr. Trump said on Saturday on Twitter that Mr. Lewis, who asserted last week that Mr. Trump was not a legitimate president, should focus on his district and the burning and crime infested inner-cities. The angry reaction is driven not only by Mr. Trumps Twitter posts but by what many blacks say they reveal about the president-elects lack of understanding of the reverence with which the civil rights movement and its leaders are viewed by African-Americans. WASHINGTON In comments that are likely to create fresh tensions with the United States closest European allies, President-elect Donald J. Trump described NATO as obsolete in an interview published on Sunday and said other European nations would probably follow Britains lead by leaving the European Union. Mr. Trump has made similar comments before. But the fact that he made them in a joint interview with two European publications The Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper and did so days before assuming the presidency alarmed European diplomats. I took such heat when I said NATO was obsolete, Mr. Trump said. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying, Trump is right. Mr. Trump also said that Britains decision to leave the European Union would end up being a great thing and predicted that other countries would follow. People, countries want their own identity, and the U.K. wanted its own identity, he said. Thomas Rid, a professor of security studies at Kings College London, wrote on Twitter that disinformation campaigns have often deliberately blended accurate and forged details to sow distrust and confusion. If the news media and public figures publicize lies, they lose their credibility as trustworthy sources of information. Theres no reliable truth to rest upon, Professor Pearce said. Every piece of information you get is possibly true, possibly false. Degrading that trust can be deeply damaging. While in Russia in 2015, I was struck by how many of the people I met saw the world through a lens that I began to call the prudent hypothetical. They reacted to all information, whether from official sources or thirdhand rumors, as if it might be true. I came to realize that it was a self-protective impulse, a way to prepare for any potential outcome in an unpredictable, unreliable world. But they were also careful not to rely on that information, lest it turn out to be a fabrication. They trusted only the facts they had verified themselves, and only the people to whom they had close personal ties. I had seen the same thing in Guatemala several years earlier. There, spreading lies and salacious gossip to discredit ones enemies is referred to as a campana negra, or a black campaign, rather than kompromat. But the result was the same: Public trust had been so eroded that lies were equally capable of destroying the honest and rehabilitating the criminal. When it appeared that Yasmin Barrios, the judge presiding over the trial of Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, Guatemalas former dictator, might convict him of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013, a campaign of coordinated leaks and rumors portrayed her as a corrupt agent of foreign governments, willing to discredit her country in exchange for personal gain. Leaks and rumors attacked Judge Barrios personally, but by extension, they also undermined the credibility of the justice system in which she worked. For example, the news media reported that the judge had been seen dining with foreign women at a restaurant in Guatemala City, and suggested that this was evidence of foreign influence on her rulings. In fact, the foreigners were Judge Barrioss Guatemalan mother, her neighbor, and a nun who was a friend of the family. But the rumors had their desired effect: They discredited not only Judge Barrios but also the genocide trial. Look at how many brown people are here! Dean Obeidallah said to cheers after taking the stage Sunday at the Comic Strip Live, a comedy club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The Muslim stand-up performer, one of several on the bill that night, looked both jubilant and deeply satisfied as he continued to eye the sold-out audience of 200. This room, he said, is Donald Trumps worst nightmare. Mr. Obeidallah, who is half-Palestinian and half-Italian, created the recurring show, The Big Brown Comedy Hour, in 2009 as a way of giving stage time to comedians of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent, among others. But on Sunday, the jokes took on a different, more urgent tone than usual. With President-elect Donald J. Trump preparing to take the oath of office on Friday and having threatened tough new policies affecting Muslim immigrants, Mr. Obeidallah told the crowd it was time for comedy resistance. LONDON Who knew Art could be so angry? When Yasmina Rezas play opened in London just over 20 years ago, the three-character dissection of a male friendship torn apart by the purchase of a painting struck many as a sustained comic caprice that didnt dig especially deep. Ms. Reza may have insisted that her own play was fundamentally tragic, but audiences took it as a romp. One wonders what those same onlookers might make of the current and very fine revival at the Old Vic Theater, which reunites the original director, Matthew Warchus, with a play that in 1998 transferred to Broadway, where it won that seasons Tony; Mr. Warchus received his own Tony nomination for staging the triangular tussle. Mr. Warchus will return to New York this season as the director of the musical Groundhog Day, which premiered at the Old Vic last summer and tells of a man who finds himself reliving the same day over and over. But if theres a lesson readily learned from this latest London venture, its that directors can reprise decades-old material without necessarily repeating themselves. Much of the difference between Art then and now has to do with the casting, not least the presence in the oppositional drivers seat this time out of the quietly fierce Paul Ritter as Marc, a Parisian who seems to take personal umbrage at the abstract canvas that has been bought by his buddy Serge (Rufus Sewell). Like an attack dog who finally has a long-desired piece of meat within his grasp, the actor brings a fangs-bared intensity to a roundelay of truth telling that moves on from differences in artistic perception to a takedown of the mens choices of (unseen) partners and their own ways of being. Whats Streaming 13TH (2016) on Netflix. Ava DuVernay (Selma) confronts the prison industrial complex, which she likens to a plantation system for the enslavement of African-American men. The documentary takes its title from the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime a clause that she maintains has been exploited for political gain and profit. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it electrifying, adding that as Ms. DuVernay sifts through American history, you grasp the larger implications of her argument: The United States did not just criminalize a select group of black people. It criminalized black people as a whole, a process that, in addition to destroying untold lives, effectively transferred the guilt for slavery from the people who perpetuated it to the very people who suffered through it. AN AMERICAN GIRL STORY MELODY 1963: LOVE HAS TO WIN (2016) on Amazon. Marsai Martin (Diane on black-ish) stars as Melody, a 10-year-old in 1963 Detroit who starts to question her belief in the Pledge of Allegiance after four girls are killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Ala. This movie is available to stream free through Monday at midnight, Eastern time. Even books initially picked up as escape reading like the Hugo Award-winning apocalyptic sci-fi epic The Three-Body Problem by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin, he said, could unexpectedly put things in perspective: The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade! In his searching 1995 book Dreams From My Father, Mr. Obama recalls how reading was a crucial tool in sorting out what he believed, dating back to his teenage years, when he immersed himself in works by Baldwin, Ellison, Hughes, Wright, DuBois and Malcolm X in an effort to raise myself to be a black man in America. Later, during his last two years in college, he spent a focused period of deep self-reflection and study, methodically reading philosophers from St. Augustine to Nietzsche, Emerson to Sartre to Niebuhr, to strip down and test his own beliefs. To this day, reading has remained an essential part of his daily life. He recently gave his daughter Malia a Kindle filled with books he wanted to share with her (including One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Golden Notebook and The Woman Warrior). And most every night in the White House, he would read for an hour or so late at night reading that was deep and ecumenical, ranging from contemporary literary fiction (the last novel he read was Colson Whiteheads The Underground Railroad) to classic novels to groundbreaking works of nonfiction like Daniel Kahnemans Thinking, Fast and Slow and Elizabeth Kolberts The Sixth Extinction. Image The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Credit... Patricia Wall/The New York Times Such books were a way for the president to shift mental gears from the briefs and policy papers he studied during the day, a way to get out of my own head, a way to escape the White House bubble. Some novels helped him to better imagine whats going on in the lives of people across the country for instance, he found that Marilynne Robinsons novels connected him emotionally to the people he was meeting in Iowa during the 2008 campaign, and to his own grandparents, who were from the Midwest, and the small town values of hard work and honesty and humility. Other novels served as a kind of foil something to argue with. V. S. Naipauls novel A Bend in the River, Mr. Obama recalls, starts with the line The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. And I always think about that line and I think about his novels when Im thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true. Writing was key to his thinking process, too: a tool for sorting through a lot of crosscurrents in my own life race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole. President Xi Jinping addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, today, the first Chinese head of state to do so. Mr. Xi is expected to champion globalization, even as trends toward nationalism and against free trade and globalism raise doubts about the relevance and effect of the elites known as the Davos class. Wealth has grown so concentrated that the holdings of eight of the richest men on earth equal those of the poorer half of the human race. Its that time of year again: The worlds most expensive networking event starts at the snowy resort of Davos in Switzerland on Tuesday. This year, Xi Jinping will be the first Chinese president to grace the World Economic Forum with his presence. Theresa May, Britains prime minister, will also attend for the first time. Mrs. May is expected this week to detail her objectives for when she starts the formal process of negotiating Britains withdrawal from the European Union. Along with world leaders and businesspeople, Shakira and Forest Whitaker will be in attendance as well. Heres how the whole event comes together and how the hierarchy is maintained within the forum. The big question: How does the so-called Davos Man, a term coined by a political scientist to describe the economic elite, stack up against Donald J. Trump in the world hierarchy? Do the economic policies advocated by global executives at Davos over the years still hold sway after the populist surge of the last year? Its complicated. The dire warnings over the economic fallout of a vote for Mr. Trump or in favor of Brexit have not come to pass. The underlying strength of the economy could be an argument for the benefits of globalization and free trade. HONG KONG Hong Kongs richest man has taken a step closer to winning control of a big Australian energy company, as he seeks to overcome Australias occasional wariness toward foreign investors from China. Companies controlled by Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire, on Monday announced a sweetened deal worth 7.4 billion Australian dollars, or about $5.5 billion, for control of the Sydney-listed Duet Group, which operates natural gas pipelines and electricity distribution companies in the states of Western Australia and Victoria. The offer, valued at 3.03 Australian dollars per share, including a special dividend, was a step up from the 3 dollars Mr. Lis companies had bid in December. It also won unanimous support from Duets board of directors, who described it in a statement as fair and reasonable and in the best interests of Duet security holders. Although Chinese demand for iron ore and agricultural products remains a major driver of the Australian economy, investment from China or China-linked sources can still be regarded as suspect by the Australian government. Local would-be home buyers in big cities like Sydney and Melbourne bemoan soaring property prices, which they attribute in part to an influx of wealthy Chinese. LONDON Essilor of France said on Monday that it would merge with the Luxottica Group of Italy, owner of the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, in a $49 billion deal that would create a giant in the eyewear industry. The combined company, to be known as EssilorLuxottica, would be the largest player in the eyewear market, manufacturing lenses for prescription glasses and sunglasses, as well as frames. It would have a presence online as well as in stores, with brands including Foster Grant, Oliver Peoples, Persol, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Sunglass Hut. The deal follows more than four years of talks. The new company would have more than 140,000 employees and sales in more than 150 countries. Based on 2015 results, it is forecast to have revenue of more than 15 billion euros, or about $16 billion, in 2016. The new group would be a clear leader in the optical industry, with a strong brand portfolio, global distribution capabilities and complementary expertise in ophthalmic lenses, prescription frames and sunglasses, Fred Speirs, a UBS analyst, said in a research report on Monday. LONDON Rolls-Royce, the maker of jet engines and other power systems, said on Monday that it had agreed to pay $817 million to resolve several long-running bribery and corruption inquiries. The company said that it had reached so-called deferred prosecution agreements with the Serious Fraud Office of Britain, as well as the United States Department of Justice. It also reached a leniency agreement with the Ministerio Publico Federal of Brazil. The Serious Fraud Office is expected to seek approval of the agreement at a court hearing on Tuesday. The agreements relate to several inquiries into potential bribery and corruption involving intermediaries in a number of overseas markets, Rolls-Royce said. Rolls-Royce has cooperated fully with the authorities and will continue to do so, the company said in a news release. They have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cozy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous, Naomi Klein, a columnist for The Guardian, wrote in a searing analysis of the American election in November. She described the failure of elite neoliberalism to address the economic challenges of the masses. Success, she wrote, continuing to describe the middle class, is a party to which they were not invited, and they know in their hearts that this rising wealth and power is somehow directly connected to their growing debts and powerlessness. The Davos Man has either failed to properly articulate the benefits of open trade or the reality of open trade is more complicated than previously imagined. In a nod to this new reality, the World Economic Forum has put together an index of what it calls inclusive growth and development, which measures 109 countries according to their progress on economic growth and reducing income inequality and breaks out subsets of those countries to compare with different data sets. According to the index, median income actually declined by 2.4 percent between 2008 and 2013 across the 26 advanced economies where data is available, which may help explain the shifting political winds. Its our response to how capitalism has failed us and how we need to fix it, said Adrian Monck, a member of the forums executive committee. The United States ranked 23rd out of 30 advanced economies. In terms of wage and nonwage compensation, it ranked last; in social protection, it came in 25th. It also came in 25th on intermediation of business investment in other words, the amount of money that goes into productive investments, such as research and development and infrastructure as opposed to share buybacks. (Norway ranked No. 1. Living standards there rose by 10.6 percent from 2008 to 2013 while the economy grew only 0.5 percent.) Mr. Monck defended the idea of a globalist approach. The benefits of globalization are there to see, in jobs in China, India and many emerging markets, he said. Billions of people owe better lives to it. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today Once a year, a small group of executives who control trillions of dollars in American companies meet for lunch in Manhattan. Among the things they discuss: pushing for greater say in how companies are run. It is an elite gathering, but you will not see a single man in a suit in the room. The event, called the Women in Governance lunch, underscores a rare corner in finance where women dominate. Women hold the top positions in corporate governance at many of the biggest mutual funds and pension funds deciding which way to vote on the directors of a company board. They make decisions on behalf of teachers, government workers, doctors and most people in the United States who have a 401(k). The corporate governance heads at seven of the 10 largest institutional investors in stocks are now women, according to data compiled by The New York Times. Those investors oversee $14 trillion in assets. Corporate governance is playing a growing role within the broader ecosystem of corporate America. Each spring, publicly traded companies hold shareholder meetings and outline business strategy for the coming year. Shareholders like BlackRock, T. Rowe Price and State Street vote on corporate strategy and issues including company board appointments and compensation. South Koreas president, Ms. Park, has denied wrongdoing. Mr. Lee, who goes by Jay Y. Lee in the West, is part of the third generation of the Lee family to lead the conglomerate. While his father was widely seen as old-fashioned, Mr. Lee has been painted by Samsung as equally comfortable in Silicon Valley and in the boardroom, as a leader who could open up the clannish business and reinvigorate Samsungs flagging reputation for innovation in consumer technology. Samsung is the worlds biggest maker of cellphones. Beyond the arrest itself, this is going to be a big blow to the narrative theyve been building, said Geoffrey Cain, the author of a coming book on Samsung. Its hard to convince shareholders and partners they are a hip Silicon Valley-style company when these charges show them to be a company run like a feudal dynasty. Samsung is in effect a collection of widely disparate companies, each with an autonomous, professional management team. Samsung Electronics, the most important of those companies, is broken into high-functioning business units. Because of that, some observers say that the company could continue to run smoothly without Mr. Lee. Important matters that require Mr. Lees imprimatur could be delayed amid the distractions, said Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Company. I think thats the thing you need to worry about: big decisions, he said. If executives lower in the hierarchy are implicated, day-to-day operations could become complicated. According to South Korean news reports, other top company leaders have been questioned. Mr. Lees role at Samsung is not necessarily imperiled. South Korea has a long history of pardoning the leaders of its largest family-run companies. Because of Samsungs size, past efforts to penalize the company or its executives have been met with worries about the effect on South Koreas economy. But Mr. Lees problems could influence the companys strategic decisions at a time of major challenges, such as how to bounce back from the debacle over its Galaxy Note 7. A spate of fires last year forced Samsung to recall and then cease production of the phone, tarnishing the companys name and making it the object of airline safety announcements and jokes on American late-night talk shows. Mr. Ralston, 57, acknowledged the difficult environment. But he said he had long wanted to lead his own organization, and he thought the site could carve out a niche as an independent voice in a state where he believed the ownership of major Las Vegas dailies, The Review-Journal and The Las Vegas Sun, had compromised coverage at times. Mr. Ralston said most political reporting in the state focused on horse races and personalities. He wants to report more on public policy and how it influences the lives of people in Nevada. I have to tell you I think there was a real appetite out there for this, Mr. Ralston said. And I think people are thrilled to support something like this. Keith Moyer, The Review-Journals top editor, disputed the idea that there were gaps in the coverage of the state; he pointed out that his paper had added about 50 positions to its newsroom in 2016. We have yet to see the product, he said in an email, referring to The Independent. But if it is heavy on politics and business news, the R-J already covers all of those areas in depth daily. So they wont be filling some coverage void, per se. Ralstons site will be another source of information and, frankly, theres nothing wrong with that. For Mr. Ralston, the new venture could also be viewed as a denouement. He began his Nevada journalism career in 1984 as the night cops reporter for The Review-Journal, where he worked for 15 years. He went on to write columns for The Sun now an insert in The Review-Journal and The Reno Gazette-Journal. His blog, Ralston Reports, has a loyal following. In addition to his show on PBS, he has hosted a show on local NBC affiliates, and has appeared as a commentator on MSNBC during the campaign. Those who have worked with Mr. Ralston describe him as aggressive and confrontational. During TV interviews, he often cuts off the person he is interviewing to make points of his own. He does not suffer fools gladly, and hes absolutely all over the scene, said Steve Sebelius, the political columnist for The Review-Journal, who is also friends with Mr. Ralston. If somebody tries to put one over on him, forget about it. BEIJING In his latest criticism of what he sees as unfair trade, Donald J. Trump has taken aim at German cars. Why, the president-elect asked a German newspaper, do so many well-heeled drivers in New York drive a Mercedes-Benz, while Germans buy so few Chevrolets? Mr. Trumps question could set the stage for action by his incoming administration against the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which he criticized for its plans to build a new plant in Mexico. But the president-elects musing shows an incomplete understanding of how globalized the auto industry has become since Ronald Reagan went after Toyota and Honda in the 1980s. That Mercedes-Benz in New York, for example, may have been made in Tuscaloosa, Ala., depending on the model. BMW has a plant in South Carolina that exports 70 percent of the vehicles made there, it says. And Germans might not buy many Chevrolets, which are no longer sold in Germany, but they buy plenty of Opels, which, like Chevy, is owned by General Motors. Mr. Trump has criticized other companies and industries for moving production out of the United States at the expense of American jobs, such as appliance makers and pharmaceutical companies. But the vehicle industry in general and particularly foreign automakers, his new target illustrate how difficult it can be to parse American from international when criticizing global trade. BERLIN About five decades since the surge in modern feminism, it is unlikely that most women in the United States, at least would have anticipated the current political climate in which gender equality remains almost as elusive as ever and long-ago-won rights are under siege. What is more, a man criticized by many for his treatment of women will be sworn in as president of the United States on Friday. And in 2016, a woman still could not be elected to the job. After the gamut of emotions engendered by Hillary Clintons surprising loss to Donald J. Trump, women are once more confronting the big questions that have long enveloped the feminist quest. Put bluntly, is it sexism or the system that has so far prevented a woman from becoming president of the United States? And what lessons might be drawn from Europe, or places further afield, that could help an American woman get to the top one day? As members of the global elite gather this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, gender issues in politics and beyond will be hotly debated. You could make Melissa Clarks recipe for lemon bars. They are as sunny and inviting as Kansas in June. Take those to work tomorrow, and youll be monarch of the water cooler, everyones favorite colleague. Maybe you could cook fish tacos tonight, with a recipe I ginned up as homage to the beach towns of San Diego County. Or, if youd prefer, a tangle of stir-fried bok choy and a bowl of white rice. You could make this recipe for braised chicken legs I picked up from the California chef Cal Peternell. Or this recipe for ham and bean soup with collard greens. If you dont have a ham bone, use a smoked ham hock (or smoked turkey leg) from the market instead. You could make garlicky chicken with lemon-anchovy sauce. You could make a spinach and bacon tartine. You could make steak tartare. Thousands of other recipes to cook today and in coming days are on Cooking. Browse the site, and save the dishes you like to you to your recipe box. You can share recipes with family and friends, on email and social media. And, of course, you can rate them when youre done cooking. Please do. MILAN Jeremy Scott has been the designer of Moschino since the waning days of 2013, but he remains very much an American in Milan. He lives in a hotel within walking distance of Moschinos offices on Via San Gregorio; asked to name a favorite Milan restaurant, he couldnt. (He often dines at the Moschino cafeteria, which prepares him special vegetarian meals.) These are strange days to be an American in Milan. The United States press and retail contingent has parachuted in for the shows as usual, and most every conversation at the shows either delves into, or decorously but evidently avoids, the American election. It has preoccupied Mr. Scott, too. His new mens collection, shown alongside his womens precollection, in a gilded palazzo that the English set designer Gary Card spent three days festooning with blinking video monitors and strings of cable and wire to resemble a revolutionary bunker out of a Terry Gilliam dystopia, was called Paramilitary. I feel like we have to fight for art, Mr. Scott said. Its the war were in. The collection was begun before the election, but it was very much on my mind, Mr. Scott said, adding, It was consuming me to the point that I had to stop watching the news. Even amid the fantasy of a certain Hillary Clinton victory, he added: I was very cautious to people that this was a possibility. I said you have to take this seriously. He could win. Mr. Clarets own efforts may have helped. Ive traveled more than ever before this year, he said. When I go to see a collector, wherever they may be in the world, its a good decision. They can understand my passion and thats a big motive for them to buy. Image Starting at 68,000 Swiss francs, or $66,700, for a titanium model, the Maestro is the lowest-priced haute complication watch that Mr. Claret has created. It is one reason he invests in marketing and social media. Producing an animated film to accompany each watch introduction, he explained, helps bring a piece to life for a wide audience, even those not yet able to afford a Claret timepiece: It helps you understand the emotion, the context, the uniqueness of the product. Its very important for now and for the future. His decision last year to leave Baselworld after many years and to exhibit instead at the Salon de la Haute Horlogerie, or SIHH, was worth the considerable cost of the change, he said, as the smaller event has put his brand in front of a more select audience of buyers and media. While Baselworld draws hundreds of brands, Claret timepieces will be shown among only 30 brands at SIHH this year its great for our visibility, he said. Mr. Clarets laser focus on creating a brand with a secure future explains, at least in part, the inspiration behind his latest creation, the Maestro, which is being introduced at SIHH. Starting at $66,700 for a titanium model, it is the lowest-priced haute complication watch he has created yet and he hopes it will further broaden the brands appeal. The watch, which introduces a distinctive cone-shaped date function, also features a memo function that can be set to remind the wearer of a daily task, whether it be, suggests Mr. Claret, sending a romantic message or taking ones medicine. Mr. Claret has long been known for both new complications and playful touches, always moving on to the next one. When youre creative you always want to create something new, he said. I dont work for the money. I work for my passion. For many watch retailers, brands and fans, highlights of the first few months of each year include the industrys pre-eminent trade fairs: the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, or SIHH, which opens in Geneva this week, and Baselworld, in March. This year, however in a climate of weak sales, economic uncertainty and growing emphasis on social media marketing some brands are switching events in an effort to capture just the right audience. And others, evaluating whether participation in the costly fairs makes financial sense, are creating their own showcase events instead. Shinola, for example, is skipping Baselworld for the first time in several years, choosing instead to invite retailers and media representatives to visit its headquarters in Michigan. Were not going to Basel because the best representation of the brand is in Detroit, said Jacques Panis, the companys president. It allows people to see our facilities firsthand. Theyll be able to see watches and movements being built; theyll see leather straps and small leather goods being cut and sewn right here in the factory. And for those who cant make it to the American Midwest, the brand is organizing a small event before Baselworld at its London store, just off Carnaby Street. Polltakers for the General Social Survey, done by NORC at the University of Chicago have asked a representative national sample this question since 1977: When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patients life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it? The proportion of Americans responding affirmatively, always a substantial majority, has bounced between 66 and 69 percent for 15 years. But support was not evenly distributed: Such laws initially were enacted in states with predominantly white populations like Oregon, and to date the vast majority of patients who have used them are white. I hear people talk all the time about this being a rich white persons issue, said Donna Smith, legislative manager for the District of Columbia at the group Compassion and Choices, who is African-American. Now, we have proof on the ground that that is not true. Indeed, aid in dying has expanded to more diverse locales. Non-Hispanic whites represent a minority of Californians. Colorado is more than 21 percent Latino. In the District of Columbia, nearly half of whose residents are African-American, five of six black council members voted in favor of the legislation. State medical societies, once active foes of aid-in-dying initiatives, also have begun shifting their positions, citing deep divisions among their members. The California Medical Association, the Colorado Medical Society and the Medical Society of the District of Columbia all took officially neutral stances as legislators and voters debated, depriving opponents of influential allies. So has the state medical society in Maryland, where legislators plan to reintroduce a bill (the third attempt) this month. The American Medical Association, an opponent since 1993, has asked its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs to look at the aid-in-dying issue and submit a report in June, though without recommending any policy. But even as the idea gains acceptance, passage of a bill or ballot measure does not always make aid in dying broadly available to those who want it. In addition to the safeguards the law requires, its practice can be balky at least in the early stages. Almost a year ago, the World Health Organization declared the Zika epidemic a global health emergency, calling for an epic campaign against a virus that few had ever heard of. As it spread to almost every country in the Western Hemisphere, scientists and health officials at every level of government swung into action, trying to understand how the infection caused birth defects and how it could be stopped. The W.H.O. ended the emergency status in November, but the consequences of the outbreak will be with us for years to come. So maybe now is a good time to ask: Howd we do? Not so great, according to more than a dozen public health experts who were asked to reflect on the response. The battle was a series of missed opportunities, they said, that damaged still-uncounted numbers of babies across a whole hemisphere. Latin America was pretty much left to its own devices, said Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. I didnt see the kind of interactive response like the one that brought Ebola under control. With fewer than 10 months to Election Day, and no credible challenger having emerged, Mayor Bill de Blasios path to re-election in New York City would seem fairly assured, buoyed by the benefits of incumbency: name recognition and fund-raising strength. Yet Mr. de Blasios campaign team has attached some urgency and significance to the first fund-raising period of the year, which ended on Wednesday. Aides are hoping that a strong showing will ward off potential challengers and show the mayors strength heading into the heart of the campaign. It is particularly important for the mayor to demonstrate success in soliciting small donations. Cut off from some of his familiar sources by federal and state inquiries into his fund-raising practices, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, and his campaign have been pounding the pavement for such contributions, and have leaned on some of the mayors celebrity backers like the actors Cynthia Nixon, Mark Ruffalo and Steve Buscemi. Last week, prominent supporters implored fellow admirers of his administration to make small donations to the mayors re-election effort, a last-minute push to raise money before the deadline. It seemed like another normal day for Jose Rivera. His mother dropped him off at his school in San Salvador, hugging him tightly as she told him she would see him at the end of the day. But there was one detail that, even then at age 6, Jose thought was strange: She was crying. His mother, Flor de Maria Rivera, never returned to pick him up. A week later, he learned that his mother had left for the United States, to lay the groundwork for creating a better life for her family. Over the next 11 years, Jose and his younger brother, Juan, were raised by their grandmother. I didnt say goodbye because it would have been too difficult, Ms. Rivera, 35, said in a recent interview. I might have changed my mind. She worked in El Salvador as an elementary schoolteacher. She loved her job, but her meager salary was not enough to support the family the boys father had abandoned them soon after Juan was born especially after the death of her father, who often pitched in financially to help her. When Ms. Rivera arrived in New York City in 2005, she worked three different jobs. She never expected to stay in the United States for so long. Nearly five years have passed since an 18-year-old unarmed black man was fatally shot by a white New York City police officer who barged into the bathroom of his home in the Bronx. The man, Ramarley Graham, was killed on Feb. 2, 2012, in his familys second-floor apartment in the Wakefield neighborhood, where he was followed by narcotics officers who kicked in the front door after hearing reports he was armed. The bullet, which pierced Mr. Grahams lung and aorta, was fired by Officer Richard Haste, who on Tuesday will face a disciplinary trial at Police Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan. The Police Department is seeking to dismiss Officer Haste, 35, because he exercised poor tactical judgment leading to the discharge of his firearm, resulting in the death of Ramarley Graham, his lawyer, Stuart London, said. A second officer and a sergeant also face disciplinary trials related to the shooting. I think what theyre saying is, when he got to the house, he should have waited for the sergeant to tell him what to do, Mr. London said. But police officers dont wait to be told to do their jobs. On Dec. 23, on the Upper East Side of New York City, yet another construction worker died. His name has not yet been released, but he was the 31st to die on the job in the city in the past two years. He was working on a nonunion work site, as were 28 of the 30 others. Fabian Para, who worked nearby, explained that he was on the third floor, and he was wearing a harness but wasnt hooked to a cable, and when he fell, he just went down. Just three weeks earlier, Wilfredo Enriques fell to his death at the old Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn. Deaths 27 and 28 occurred on Nov. 22, when a steel beam fell four stories at a Queens job site, crushing George Smith and Elizandro Enriquez Ramos. Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the workers deaths were a tragedy and that we need to know, of course, right away whether it was mechanical, or was it human error? We dont know yet. Actually, we do know; it is abundantly clear: We are in the midst of a public health epidemic brought on by inadequate safety regulations and public inattention. Construction-safety lapses happen because it pays for companies to run the risk of letting them happen. When the dead are largely foreign born and, in many cases, undocumented, no one much cares. Spending in the construction industry is at a record high. And yet many contractors cant be bothered to pay for training programs and safety measures, even those required by law, such as installing fall protection systems like nets and railings. The federal agency tasked with enforcing such safety protocols, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is severely understaffed. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of building permits issued in New York City jumped by more than 18 percent, but the number of OSHA inspectors for all of New York State dropped by more than 13 percent (as of 2014, there were only 71 left in the state). It started around the holidays. My eyes began to dart involuntarily to call-outs of my name on social media. Just ask Alexa, the tweets read. Designed around your voice for hands-free convenience. Ask Alexa! No. I ask you this real Alexa asks you when did possessing hands become inconvenient? Amazon has installed Alexa, its voice recognition and natural-language platform, inside more than five million Echo units the company has sold since introducing the microphone-and-speaker device two years ago. When an Echos microphones hear the name Alexa, the device wakes and records your questions and commands. You can operate any Alexa-enabled device in your home, office or car with this voice-controlled computer in the cloud. You can use Alexa to order a car service or food delivery, or to book travel. You can also tell Alexa to buy other Amazon products, or to play audiobooks and music. Footnote: If you request Billy Joels The Downeaster Alexa, however, she may stop herself mid-stanza when she hears her name and record you singing instead. Montana, I say, swatting a hand vaguely westward. They ask about national parks and mountain oysters. Theyll tell me they always wanted to go there, but never did. Midwesterners, Ive learned, are content that way. Then the conversation swivels to easier queries: Whats your major? History and the classics? What are you going to do with that? Over the years, Ive learned to navigate these questions of identity and purpose, but still dread them. I never answer them well, never know whether Ive said too little or too much. And perhaps even more disturbingly, sometimes I cant even answer the question myself. Where am I from? I was born in Montana to Malaysian-Chinese parents, which is kind of like being both Polish and Jewish ones a nationality, ones an ethnicity. Growing up both in America and Malaysia, Ive spent most of life flip-flopping between the languages, cuisines and cultures I call home. Im not one or the other. Im somewhere in-between: a third-culture kid. We spoke English at home, but when R-rated family gossip was involved my parents switched to Cantonese. My mothers family spoke Hokkien and English, but when I went to a supermarket in Kuala Lumpur, we spoke Malay or Mandarin. When Im in Michigan I find myself sliding into a nasal dialect of American English; in Malaysia (or in anger) my diction adopts a British-Commonwealth tone. I can be archived under a plethora of labels: bookworm, American-born Chinese, suspected agent of the gay agenda. But labels cant convey the experience of living them all at once. Its a tension that no elevator speech or 20-page thesis could assuage. Ive found that alongside my rebels gumption for individuality stands a palpable sense of gratitude. I am who I am because a century ago an 11-year-old leapt onto a schooner in South China and landed on British Malaya to work the fruit orchards. Im me because I have two sets of founding fathers who carved forth from their great continents new nations. Perhaps this explains why Im studying history and the classics. My family members are the descendants of odysseys that have taken on near-mythical proportions. Our identities are layered by many intersecting stories. Studying myth and history helps me reframe those dreaded questions about identity. It lets me converse with the distinct voices of my past and quilt together a narrative about movement in place. To the Editor: Betsy DeVoss power and authority as an education reformer come from her ideas, not her wealth. Ms. DeVos embraces just the sort of reform this nation of low-performing students hungers for real choice, real freedom for parents, real innovation and competition, and, yes, ultimately a significantly smaller footprint for a federal department with overreaching mandates and budgets. Ms. DeVos is exactly what Trump voters are asking for, in counties across America. ALEXIS WITTMAN Portland, Ore. To the Editor: Thank you for your coverage of Betsy DeVoss extreme ideology and brazen influence-peddling. We take issue, however, with the suggestion that Ms. DeVos is tolerant of and even a supporter of L.G.B.T. people. If thats true, she needs to clearly distance herself from statements by organizations she has funded that say that transgender people are broken and deluded, and suggesting that transgender people should be barred from teaching. Will she denounce those statements? Ms. DeVos will be responsible for protecting the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of transgender students who just want to be their true selves but face tremendous bullying. We deserve to know if she will actually speak up for these students or if she will, like those she has funded, advise schools to isolate, segregate and stigmatize transgender students because of who they are. On Friday, the Georgia congressman, civil rights icon and Donald Trump inauguration-boycotter John Lewis told NBCs Chuck Todd something that I believe millions of Americans are thinking. I dont see this president-elect as a legitimate president, Lewis said. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The release of the clip in which Lewis made his stark assessment came on the same day that the F.B.I. director, James Comey, and other intelligence officials provided a classified briefing to members of the House, no doubt divulging information to which we mere mortals are not privy. After the meeting, Representative Maxine Waters of California blasted: Its classified and we cant tell you anything. All I can tell you is the F.B.I. director has no credibility! It would be easy to simply claim that emotions are running high or that partisan pain is abnormally acute. But I continue to argue, strenuously and adamantly, that to simply see the extraordinary events unfolding before us as purely ideological blinds us to the very real concern that our sovereignty has been compromised. The situation has long seemed frozen. Morocco has for more than two decades stonewalled the referendum that is the primary mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission here, known by its acronym, Minurso. In 2007, Morocco offered an alternative: declaring Western Sahara an autonomous part of Morocco, closing once and for all the issue of self-determination. Since last year, though, the pace of change has been accelerating. In March, Morocco expelled more than 70 civilians working for Minurso after Ban Ki-moon, then the United Nations secretary general, described the Moroccan annexation of Western Sahara as an occupation. In July, after the Polisario Fronts secretary general of 40 years died, the group elected a new leader, Brahim Ghali. Mr. Ghali is a former military commander who led operations against first the Spanish and then the Moroccans. The following month, Morocco violated the cease-fire and sent forces to accompany the building of the road through Guerguerat. Mr. Ghali sounded troubled when I spoke with him in the camps on the Algerian side of the border. As we sipped sweet tea, I told him things had changed since my last visit two years earlier. Back then refugees told me patience was their weapon. Now they were telling me their patience had run out. Since the expulsion of the peacekeepers, the actions of Morocco have been unpredictable. The king is perhaps underestimating the consequences of this escalation, he said. We have done everything to avoid a scenario of open conflict. On Aug. 15, Mr. Ghali sent a letter to Mr. Ban warning him of the danger represented by the Moroccan cease-fire violation. The Polisario Front requested that the United Nations intervene immediately to uphold the military agreement of the cease-fire, which stipulates that neither side may venture outside agreed-upon borders. No response came for 13 days, Mr. Ghali told me. In the meantime, the Polisario Front sent its own fighters to Guerguerat to stop the road building. They remain there today, locked in a standoff with the Moroccans, with Minurso vehicles watching over the standoff. Sahrawis, as the people of Western Sahara are known, say Minurso must either carry out the referendum or withdraw and make way for war. West of Tifariti, about 50 miles south of the wall, a unit of aging yet fine-tuned Russian troop carriers maneuvers and anticipates battle. Their commander is Abdelhay Moy, a 70-year-old who joined the Polisario Fronts guerrilla war against Spain when he was 19. This week, nearly five years after NYPD Officer Richard Haste shot and killed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham inside the bathroom of the Graham family's Bronx home, the 35-year-old officer will face a disciplinary hearing at police headquarters. Graham's family and social justice activists say the departmental proceeding, which comes with a maximum punishment of dismissal from the NYPD, follows a string of grave injustices. Haste was initially indicted by a Bronx grand jury on two counts of manslaughter, but the case was later thrown out due to a technicality. Another grand jury declined to indict Haste, deciding that the case lacked sufficient evidence. Then, last spring, federal prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges, also citing insufficient evidence. Meanwhile, the Graham family says, the NYPD has unjustifiably delayed its internal disciplinary hearing. The NYPD first filed disciplinary charges against Haste and two other officers from his unit in June 2012, but Haste has remained on modified duty since the fatal shooting, and reportedly received a raise in December 2015. Last year, records show, Haste earned $94,364. "The system already failed me, I think the whole world can see that," Graham's mother, Constance Malcolm, told reporters last spring, when the hearing was announced. "But to be at the disciplinary hearing will be a good thing for me so he [Haste] can see me and see the pain he caused me. He needs to see me." Haste in court in 2013 (CNN). Haste, formerly a member of the NYPD's narcotics unit, was watching a Wakefield bodega on February 2, 2012 when he was alerted that Graham, standing nearby, possibly had a gun. Haste then followed Graham to his home, and charged into the house and up a back stairwell to a second-floor bathroom, where he fatally shot Graham as the teenager leaned over the toilet. Graham's grandmother and six-year-old brother were inside the apartment at the time. Haste later testified that he believed Graham was reaching for a gun, but investigators didn't recover a weapon from the scene. Marijuana was found in the toilet, suggesting that Graham had leaned down to dump it. Haste's attorney Stuart London told the NY Times that his client is facing possible dismissal from the NYPD on the grounds that he showed "poor tactical judgment leading to the discharge of his firearm." (London could not immediately be reached for comment, as his office is closed for the holiday.) Another officer, John McLoughlin, and a sergeant, Scott Morris, are also facing charges. McLoughlin has been charged with "failure to notify police communications" and "failure to supervise members during a police incident," according to the NY Times. McLoughlin has been charged with "conduct prejudicial to the good order of the Police Department." The Graham family has not yet been formally notified of the internal charges leveraged against Haste, according to a spokesperson for Communities United for Police Reform, a coalition of social justice activists that has been organizing with the Graham family over the years. The NYPD also has not released any reports on an investigation into Hastes's actions, and did not respond to our request for comment. The city settled a wrongful-death lawsuit with Graham's family in 2015, totaling $3.9 million. William Aronin, a criminal defense attorney with the firm Perry Aronin, has represented victims of police brutality. Citing the recent sentencing of former NYPD Officer Peter Liang, who shot an unarmed man in a darkened stairwell in 2014, Aronin said he's noticed a pattern: no jail time, coupled with a civil settlement for the victim's family and internal discipline. "I don't know if it will be adequate for the families and activists, but it's probably what the police unions are trying to turn into the norm," he said. "Accountability, but keeping the officers out of jail." Graham's family and supporters are planning to pack the courtroom at tomorrow's hearing, which is open to the public. Beyond Haste, McLoughlin and Morris, they will call for the firing of the more than 12 officers allegedly involved in Graham's death and its aftermath. They will also hold a press conference and rally outside 1 Police Plaza, around 1:00 p.m. "All the officers responsible for Ramarley's killing and the related misconduct must be held accountable and fired from the NYPD," the group wrote on a Facebook page for the event. Activists are also concerned that the NYPD will withhold the outcome of Haste's trial, using section 50-a of the New York State Civil Rights Law. The NYPD typically released NYPD disciplinary records until last fall, when former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called for an end to the practice, citing 50-a. Mayor de Blasio supported Bratton's position, saying it was in accordance with the law, but has since called on the state to amend 50-a. Advocates say the mayor is not exercising his administrative powers to its fullest extent. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyis aura as an international human rights icon has understandably been tarnished. At the same time, criticism of her is so sweeping and excessive that it obscures the considerable obstacles she and her government face, and the complex realities of post-authoritarian Myanmar. For one thing, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was saddled with the institutionalized persecution of the Rohingya when she came to power. Relations between the Muslim community and the Rakhine, a Buddhist ethnic minority, were tense for decades, long before the outbreak of violence in 2012. Many Rakhine also deeply distrust the military and the central government, both of which are dominated by ethnic Burmese: The Rakhine believe they have been neglected and that their states natural wealth has been plundered. During the many years of military rule, the Tatmadaw fanned local ethnic divisions throughout the country. In Rakhine, it took increasingly repressive measures against the Rohingya, and violent campaigns in 1978 and in the early 1990s drove hundreds of thousands of people into Bangladesh. The government of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has already taken important steps to address these deep fissures. She announced the creation of the Central Committee for Implementation of Peace and Development in Rakhine State, as well as plans for comprehensive economic development. An Advisory Commission on Rakhine State was also formed, comprising several prominent international and Myanmar diplomats, human rights commissioners and retired officials, and with the former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan at its head. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized for reportedly requesting foreign diplomats to refrain from using the term Rohingya. But it is rarely acknowledged that she has also instructed Myanmar officials to stop referring to Rohingya as Bengali, a designation they reject and that is often employed as a slur. Her aim apparently is to tone down the often overblown and incendiary debate about the Rohingyas identity and refocus the discussion on finding practical solutions to problems affecting their livelihoods. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is also being taken to task for acts committed by the security forces, yet she has no means of reining them in. She is formally circumscribed by the 2008 Constitution, which gives senior military officers control over three key security ministries: defense, border affairs and home affairs. If she condemned abuses and insisted on holding perpetrators accountable, she would have few levers over the military to do much about them: The Constitution also reserves for the Tatmadaw one-quarter of all seats in Parliament. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyis failure to speak out against the militarys culture of impunity may indeed be emboldening its behavior in Rakhine. But she has to strike a very delicate balance and pursue a broad reform agenda, partly in the hope of amending the undemocratic Constitution, while making sure not to antagonize the Tatmadaw, which has the most to lose from further liberalization. The Rohingya issue also is unpopular: The group is widely reviled by the ethnic-Burmese and Buddhist majority. The international community, if it is serious about helping the Rohingya, must better understand the complex realities of Myanmars continuing transition, and balance its fixation with their plight an obsession out of proportion with the scale of the problem with the inescapable challenges that the N.L.D. government has inherited after decades of military mismanagement. Positioning the deplorable repression of the Rohingya in this broader political context does not exculpate the states failure to prevent and punish any abuses, or exonerate Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi for her seemingly tacit endorsement of heartless official denials. But only a more calibrated understanding of the difficulties faced by her government and Myanmar as a whole not blanket condemnation stands any chance of yielding practical measures that could alleviate the Rohingyas suffering. To the Editor: Based on his experience and obvious insights, there is no reason to doubt the validity of Robert Leonards explanation for Why Rural America Voted for Trump (Op-Ed, Jan. 5). However, perhaps he needs some help in challenging the caricature of the liberal of whom he writes. I just came home on a subway from Manhattan jammed with liberals who probably got up at the crack of dawn, put in a long and hard days work, and now were returning home to put dinner on the table for their families. Those liberals sleeping in? I dont think so. He should tell his folks in rural America that close to half of those liberal New Yorkers, the majority of whom are working, live below or barely above the poverty line, and 25,000 of our kids put their heads down in shelters for homeless families each night. And then Mr. Leonard should remind his rural friends that in terms of taxation and benefits, urban areas pay a disproportionate sum that ends up helping neighborhoods like his. The cane fields needed workers. Native Hawaiians, then a dying people, were too few. In their book The Hawaiians, Gavan Daws and Ed Sheehan explained the great labor migration of the mid-19th to mid-20th century: It was understood that the Anglo-Saxon would never perspire for plantation wages, bent over in the hot sun with hoe or cane knife. If you wanted Europeans, they would have to be just low enough to make them contented with the lot of an isolated settler and its attendant privations. In practice this meant Portuguese, mostly from Madeira and the Azores. Otherwise it meant Orientals, peasants: two kinds of Chinese, the Punti and the Hakka; Japanese from Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Hiroshima prefectures; some Okinawans from the Ryukyus; a handful of Koreans; and four kinds of Filipinos Tagalog, Ilocano, Visayan, Panganisan. About 300,000 recruits never went home. They joined the native Hawaiians and Caucasian descendants of missionaries and merchants to form the core of modern Hawaii, the source of its wondrous social polyphony. A pidgin English born in plantation camps became Hawaiis own creole. Racial intermarriage was unremarkable there, decades before Loving v. Virginia. Ethnic humor flourished without apology or embarrassment. A comedian telling jokes about portagees, pakes and buddhaheads could leave an audience convulsed without rancor, since none of his targets had ever oppressed any of the others, every family had roots in immigrant labor, and they were all related anyway. As a young man, Congressman John Lewis, who represents most of Atlanta, literally put his life on the line in pursuit of justice. As a key civil rights leader, he endured multiple beatings. Most famously, he led the demonstration that came to be known as Bloody Sunday, suffering a fractured skull at the hands of state troopers. Public outrage over that days violence helped lead to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. Now Mr. Lewis says that he wont attend the inauguration of Donald Trump, whom he regards as an illegitimate president. As you might expect, this statement provoked a hysterical, slanderous reaction from the president-elect who, of course, got his start in national politics by repeatedly, falsely questioning President Obamas right to hold office. But Mr. Trump who has never sacrificed anything or taken a risk to help others seems to have a special animus toward genuine heroes. Maybe he prefers demonstrators who dont get beaten? But lets not talk about Mr. Trumps ravings. Instead, lets ask whether Mr. Lewis was right to say what he said. Is it O.K., morally and politically, to declare the man about to move into the White House illegitimate? NEW LONDON, Conn. Keith Wille was metal detecting in the woods of Connecticut a few years ago when he found a triangle of brass about two-and-a-half inches long with a small hole in the middle. He thought little of the find at first, and threw it in his scrap pile. Mr. Wille, 29, is a manager at a survival training company, but spends most of his spare time metal detecting. In September, Mr. Wille drove from his home here to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center with several boxes of objects the highlights of his recent collecting. The museum a vast, glassy structure that looks like an airport terminal, complete with a 185-foot-tall traffic-control-style tower is a testament to the years when the Foxwoods Resort Casino made the Pequots the wealthiest tribe in the nation. Although those fortunes have declined, the Pequots are still financing projects by the archaeologist Kevin McBride, who works full time on what Lori A. Potter, a spokeswoman for the Mashantucket Pequot Nation, called history thats written by the conquered and not by the conqueror. Inside the museum, Mr. Wille unpacked his boxes, displaying items discovered around the Pequots homeland: George Washington inaugural buttons, musket and cannon balls, a gold ring, commemorative spoons, a 100-year-old military insignia and the triangle of brass. Dr. McBride, the museums director of research, and David J. Naumec, its senior historian, inspected the lot, but were most curious about the crude brass triangle. They knew it was a kettle point, an arrowhead fashioned from a piece of a brass trade kettle (which resembles a pail) an archaeological signature of the 17th century. The pluripotent stem cells [have the] ability to proliferate rapidly and infinitely. But its a double-edged sword. After multiple cell cycles, the chances of mutations increases. This could include mutation to produce an oncogene that can cause cancer. So these treatments are now on hold? Yes. We are developing allogenic stem cell lines stem cells from donors. They would not be the patients own, but compatible cells to transplant into the patient, much like blood transfusions with compatible blood types. We are performing rigorous quality tests, including sequencing the stem cells genomes to be sure the cells are free from cancer-causing mutations. We perform tests on adult retinal cells generated from these stem cells to assure that they function as normal retinal cells, and those cells are transplanted into mice or rats for a year to assure they are safe. Thats very different from the way stem cell treatments were originally described to the public. It was going to be personalized medicine using the patients own stem cells to generate the adult cells without risk of rejection. Well, we realized that it would take a great deal of time and would be unrealistically expensive to carry out the deep sequencing and animal studies for each patients cells. How many compatible donor cell lines do you expect will be needed to cover the Japanese population? Not that many. One particular line just one can work for 17 percent of the Japanese population. We estimate that altogether about 100 lines will suffice for the 100 million people in Japan. How many lines would be needed for the more diverse United States population? We would need only about 200 lines. In a boisterous early sequence, she rampages through a store snapping up everything in sight. But when she opens a newly bought package of Christmas tree ornaments, she also finds a note stuffed inside from a worker in a Chinese factory. It urges Mary to bring the plight of abused laborers in China to the attention of human rights organizations. Rebuffed by the Chinese-born Eddie when she seeks advice, she returns home only to find herself serenaded by a chorus of household products made in China, led by that perky plunger (Charles Pang), and a handgun. I was made by children in Hunan! the gun merrily sings. Fifteen hours each day, theyre having fun! Safely tucked away from awful sun, make for you the cheapest all-American gun! Things only get stranger from here. I dont want to spoil all the shows often-charming oddities, but eventually Mary and Eddie are plummeting down through the earth (via, ahem, Marys toilet) to land where else? in China, where they soon find themselves imprisoned, and then toiling in a grim factory. The nicely turned songs, with music and lyrics by Yan Li, are mostly in the style of traditional American musical comedy, with infusions of Chinese flavorings. They are performed by four members of the Norwegian chamber music group MiNensemblet, along with Mr. Yan and Max Mamon. Several are reflective laments by Eddie and Mary on their loneliness, their growing affection for each other or the bizarre predicament(s) they find themselves in. But the most memorable moments are lighter. Among the standout comic songs is a vaudevillian duet with Uncle Sam (Stephen J. Mark) and Mao (Mr. Pang) that jabs, with sharp humor, at the symbiotic relationship between the great maw of the American marketplace and the strictly controlled and often abused Chinese labor force: Deck the halls with profit margins, they sing. Undercut the brand designers, hire migrants, convicts, minors! LEXINGTON, Va. For years, the weekend leading up to the observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday has been overshadowed here by a celebration and a parade honoring two Confederate generals whose birthdays fall within days of the civil rights icons: Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. But this year, a group seeking to march in honor of King obtained the sole permit available on Saturday, the day that a Lee-Jackson parade is typically held. After a presidential election that has left the country sharply divided and emotions raw, some people in the town feared the worst, with town officials warning of unintended consequences if the King parade went ahead. But on Saturday, both groups held peaceful observances. It did not feel like we were doing something that radical, said one King parade organizer, Florentien Verhage, a professor of philosophy who teaches at Washington and Lee University. WASHINGTON With tensions escalating between President-elect Donald J. Trump and prominent black leaders, Mr. Trump met privately on Monday with the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the holiday devoted to the civil rights hero. The hastily arranged meeting at Trump Tower occurred as Mr. Trump feuded publicly with Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who fought for civil rights alongside Dr. King. It has highlighted the challenges Mr. Trump faces as he prepares to take office on Friday deeply distrusted by minorities across the country, many of whom have been offended by his false allegations that President Obama was born outside the United States, appalled that his candidacy drew backing from white supremacist organizations, and dismayed at policy proposals they consider antithetical to their interests. Mr. Trump on Monday did not address those issues, appearing in the lobby to allow news cameras to capture pictures of him shaking hands with Martin Luther King III, but ignoring questions shouted by reporters about their conversation or his statements about Mr. Lewis. Seeking deals in Russia became part of a broader strategy to expand the Trump brand worldwide. By the mid-2000s, Mr. Trump was transitioning to mostly licensing his name to hotel, condominium and commercial towers rather than building or investing in real estate himself. He discovered that his name was especially attractive in developing countries where the rising rich aspired to the type of ritzy glamour he personified. While he nailed down ventures in the Philippines, India and elsewhere, closing deals in Russia proved challenging. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. praised the opportunities in Russia, but also called it a scary place to do business because of corruption and legal complications. Mr. Sater said that American hotel chains that had moved into Russia did so with straightforward agreements to manage hotels that other partners owned. Mr. Trump, by contrast, was pursuing developments that included residential or commercial offerings in which he would take a cut of sales, terms that Russians were reluctant to embrace. Even so, Mr. Trump said his efforts put him in contact with powerful people there. I called it my weekend in Moscow, Mr. Trump said of his 2013 trip to Moscow during a September 2015 interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show. He added: I was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I cant go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary. When asked about Mr. Trumps claim that he had stayed away from Russia, Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said it was a fair characterization given that none of the development opportunities ever materialized. Mr. Trumps interest in Russia, he said, was no different from his attraction to other emerging markets in which he investigated possible ventures. Mr. Garten did not respond to questions about whom Mr. Trump met with in Moscow in 2013 and what was discussed. Stalking Deals Ted Liebman, an architect based in New York, got the call in 1996. Mr. Trump and Liggett-Ducat, an American tobacco company that owned property in Moscow, wanted to build a high-end residential development near an old Russian Olympic stadium. As they prepared to meet with officials in Moscow, they needed sketches of the Trump tower they envisioned. The architect scrambled to meet the request, handing over plans to Mr. Trump at his Manhattan office. I hope we can do this, Mr. Liebman recalled Mr. Trump telling him. The decision to charge her is not without risks for prosecutors. If the case goes to trial, prosecutors will have to contend with a jury that could be sympathetic to Ms. Salman, who said she was in an abusive relationship and living in fear. In an interview last year with The New York Times, Ms. Salman said she was unaware of everything in connection with the attack. Ms. Salman said she had accompanied her husband to Orlando with their child once when he scouted the club but did not know the purpose of the trip. On the day her husband drove to Orlando, she claimed he said he was going to visit a friend, named Nemo, who lived in Florida. But Nemo was not living in Florida at the time, a fact Ms. Salman said she did not know. She also said she had no reason to suspect that ammunition he bought in the days leading up to the attack was to be used in the shooting, given that her husband was a security guard who frequently purchased ammunition. On the day of the shooting, she bought her husband a Fathers Day card, expecting him to return that evening. Her lawyers believe that supports her story that she did not know about the attack. During his rampage, Mr. Mateen used Facebook to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State. President Obama has said that Mr. Mateen took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet and became radicalized. Federal investigators do not believe that Mr. Mateen, who was 29 and who was killed by the police after the shooting, received any specific training or support from the Islamic State. Part of their inquiry has focused on whether anyone in the United States assisted in his plans for the attack. There has perhaps been no figure more central to those questions than Ms. Salman, who grew up in an avocado-colored home in Rodeo, Calif., near San Francisco. In Rodeo, on a diverse block populated by Chinese, Indian, Korean and Mexican families, neighbors recalled a younger Ms. Salman as warm and kind. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS BY DAV PILKEY. This series, which has long been legendary for its compelling power over small boys, has sometimes been at the top of the most-challenged list, perhaps in part because (surprise) there are many jokes about undergarments. These books will definitely help children appreciate that bodies and their functions can be profoundly funny and silly (actually, most children seem to know this anyway). In addition to being attacked for their potty-mouthed humor, the Captain Underpants books have come under scrutiny because they are full of children playing tricks and disobeying and generally creating havoc; again, as with Junie B. Jones and her big mouth, there is this strange sense that children need stories about obedient model children. ARE YOU THERE GOD? ITS ME, MARGARET BY JUDY BLUME. In this widely beloved novel by Judy Blume, originally published in 1970, but still on the most-challenged list, the narrator is deeply preoccupied with the when and how of menstruation. An other Judy Blume perennial, Deenie, which came out in 1973, is about a young girl struggling with scoliosis and the brace she has to wear, but it was the most attacked of her books, Ms. Blume says, because it included references to masturbation. Much of the controversy about Judy Blumes books centered around information about puberty. I think the feeling was, if my child doesnt read this, my child wont know about it or its not going to happen to my child, said Ms. Blume. I used to get up there on stage and say, I have news for you, your kids are going to go through puberty whether you like it or not, so why not help them its going to happen whether they read my books or no books or somebody elses book. Ms. Blume said that often when adult tourists come into Books & Books Key West, the independent bookstore that she helped found and where she often works, they want to tell her how much they learned from her novels. Its like, thank you, thank you, my mother never told me anything and I wouldnt have known anything without your books. Ms. Blume said she recently sold a copy of And Tango Makes Three, the 2005 book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about two male penguins who hatch an egg and raise the baby together (youll find it on the list of challenged picture books) to a man who had just adopted a little girl with his male partner. Thats my new thrill as a bookseller, she said, to put that right book into the hands of someone who appreciates what its saying. I AM JAZZ BY JESSICA HERTHEL AND JAZZ JENNINGS. This 2014 picture book about being transgender has been at the center of controversy recently with some schools coming under attack for using it in the curriculum, and others arguing that it can be helpful in teaching tolerance. MEXICO CITY Five people were killed early Monday at a crowded nightclub in the popular Caribbean tourist destination of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, when an armed man who had been denied entry opened fire inside the club, prompting a gun battle and a stampede, officials said. Four of the victims, including three members of the security team that had blocked the gunmans entry, were hit by bullets, and the fifth victim was trampled in the resulting pandemonium, the authorities said. The shooting occurred at the Blue Parrot nightclub, which was hosting the final night of the BPM Festival, an international electronic music event that draws fans from around the world. The gunman entered the club around 2:30 a.m., but was turned away at the door because he was carrying a weapon, said Miguel Angel Pech, the state attorney for Quintana Roo State, on the Yucatan Peninsula. The man then opened fire, and as patrons threw themselves to the ground or rushed for the exits, security guards at the club repelled the attacker, Mr. Pech said, adding that the guards were apparently armed. NEW DELHI Indias election commission on Monday resolved a feud that had split one of the countrys most powerful political dynasties, by granting the politician Akhilesh Yadav his partys most recognizable asset: the image of a bicycle. In a democracy that is home to 287 million illiterate people, the simple party symbols that appear on ballots often matter more to voters than the candidates names do. Lots of people just look at the symbol and vote, said K.F. Wilfred, the principal secretary for judicial affairs at the election commission. When they dont have a permanent symbol, that political partys brand image just goes out the window. For the Samajwadi Party of the state of Uttar Pradesh led for years by Mr. Yadav, 43, and his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav that symbol was the bicycle. Akhilesh Yadav, who is now the states chief minister, fell out with his father after firing two ministers charged with corruption and was briefly expelled from the party. The father and son were each seeking complete control of the bloc and the image. The Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry said that at least 12 people had been taken to the hospital. An image on the website of the television station owned by Kyrgyzstans government showed a large section of the nose of the aircraft, including the cockpit windows, on the ground after the plane apparently crashed through a building. Wreckage was strewed across a wide area. A video of the crash scene showed emergency workers in a snow-covered neighborhood, with pieces of the plane interspersed among houses and wreckage in flames. Tents were set up to help shelter displaced residents from temperatures of about 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius). MANILA Rights advocates and survivors of the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former Philippine leader, criticized President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday for saying that he could impose martial law to curb what he has called a runaway drug problem. Mr. Duterte has made the war against illicit drugs a centerpiece of his administration. On Saturday, in a speech to business leaders in Davao City, in the countrys south, he warned that if the drug problem deteriorated into something really very virulent, I will declare martial law. No one can stop me, he said. My country transcends everything else, even the limitations. More than 6,000 killings across the Philippines have been linked to the antidrug campaign that began after Mr. Duterte took office in June. About 2,200 of those happened in encounters with the police, according to the Philippine National Police. The rest are classified as deaths under investigation, including those carried out by unknown vigilantes. More than a million people suspected of being drug users or dealers have also surrendered or been arrested. He has fascist dreams, Loretta Rosales, 77, a former chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines and a leftist politician, said of Mr. Duterte in an interview. She was detained and tortured under Marcos, who was elected president in 1965 and imposed martial law from 1972 to 1981. He was forced from power in 1986. DUBLIN Voters in Northern Ireland will go to the polls on March 2 in a snap election that was forced by the main Catholic party, Sinn Fein, after the collapse of a regional government in which Catholics and Protestants shared power. The election will be held in the shadow of uncertainty over Britains planned withdrawal from the European Union, a move that is broadly unpopular in Northern Ireland. Though a majority of Britons voted in a June referendum for Brexit, as the withdrawal is known, the vote in Northern Ireland was 56 to 44 percent against. Many in the region fear that security and customs checks will be reimposed along the border with Ireland, harming the economy, escalating tensions and threatening a return to sectarian conflict. Sinn Fein hopes to use the snap election to gain clout and weaken its unionist opponents, especially the Democratic Unionist Party, which holds the most seats in the regional Assembly, with Sinn Fein in second place. The unionists are allied in London with the Conservative Party, which is pursuing Brexit, while Sinn Fein wants Northern Ireland to stay in the European Union and eventually reunite with Ireland. Certainly, Mr. Trump knows how to give a provocative interview. He repeated past criticisms that NATO is obsolete for supposedly not confronting terrorism, only to quickly add that with that being said, NATO is very important to me. Mr. Trumps comments are a direct assault on the liberal order weve built since 1945 and a repudiation of the idea that the United States should lead the West, said R. Nicholas Burns, a former senior State Department official and ambassador to NATO, who also advised the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. To say that NATO is obsolete, openly support the disintegration of the E.U. and then denigrate Merkel and put her on a par with Putin is a fundamental break with 70 years of American policy and strategic thought supported by Republicans from Eisenhower to now, said Mr. Burns, who has served presidents of both parties. NATO is the great power differential between the United States and Russia, as our Asian alliances are the power differential between us and China. Mr. Trumps remarks almost certainly rankled Europes two most powerful leaders, Ms. Merkel and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. Mr. Trumps enthusiasm for Britains vote to leave the European Union, or Brexit if welcomed by British officials, in general terms has put considerably more pressure on Mrs. May. She is preparing to give a major speech on Tuesday about her Brexit plans, even as Mr. Trump promised to give Britain a quick and fair trade deal outside the European Union a deal that cannot take place for at least two years until Britain leaves the bloc. Awkwardly for her, one of the interviewers was Michael Gove, who strongly supported Brexit and ran for the Conservative leadership against Mrs. May, who immediately fired him from the cabinet. Mr. Trumps first meeting with a British politician was with another May adversary, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP. Ms. Merkel, who is known for her sang-froid and pragmatism, shrugged off Mr. Trumps latest criticism, saying that what matters is what he does in office. I am waiting for the president to be sworn into office. That is the way it is done, she said. And then, of course, I will work with him together. The police in Turkey have arrested the man accused of carrying out a deadly attack on an Istanbul nightclub early on New Years Day, killing 39 people, including a police officer and 25 foreigners, according to the semiofficial Anadolu news agency as well as Turkish news reports. The news agency said that a police raid on a residence in the outlying Esenyurt district of Istanbul had resulted in the capture of Abdulgadir Masharipov, whom the authorities described as an Islamic State militant of Uzbek nationality, along with four other people. The others were a man of Kyrgyz nationality and three women, whose nationalities were not given, Anadolu said. Turkish news organizations posted photographs of the suspect in custody, showing him bruised and with fresh blood on his clothing and face. He had reportedly been injured while carrying out the deadly attack on the Reina nightclub on the Bosporus. An estimated 69 people were wounded by the attacker, who went on a shooting rampage with a rapid-fire rifle inside the crowded and popular venue. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack the next day and said in a statement that it had been carried out in continuation of the blessed operations that the Islamic State is conducting against Turkey, the protector of the cross. Its always good to know not just the nice people in the neighborhood, but also the people who might commit crimes, Constable Bewley said. At the end of the working day, back at the police station, an army veteran approached them. After saying he had been drinking, he added that he was considering overdosing because of his marital problems. The man broke down crying as Constable Wheatley comforted him. I cant do this again, he said. Im scared. Constable Wheatley and Constable Bewley drove the man to his brothers house, sat with the men in the living room and calmed the situation. As the officers left, the men thanked them and said they would try to resolve the marital difficulties before approaching law enforcement for help again. But earlier in the police station, her arm around the mans shoulder, Constable Wheatley had reassured him. You dont need to be scared, she said. You coming to us was the best thing you could have done. But as is often the case in Iran, exactly what happened was open to interpretation. The drone was flying close to a forbidden zone, Ali Asgar Naserbakht, a city official, told the state news agency, IRNA. He was probably referring to a government compound in the center of Tehran where President Hassan Rouhani and Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have their offices. An investigation will be started into what institute or organization controlled it, Mr. Naserbakht added. Irans antiaircraft forces, which protect strategic places like the nuclear test reactor in the western part of the city and the airports in the south, are the last line of defense in case of an aerial attack. Placed in strategic rings around the city, sometimes covered under camouflage nets, they are rarely seen or heard. Bangladeshi man Abul Bajandar got the nickname Tree Man when he was about 25 years old. As jovial as it may sound, the title referred to an incredibly rare, debilitating disease that cost him his ability to work and even complete simple tasks such as brushing his own teeth. Bajandars conditionscientifically referred to as epidermodysplasia verruciformiscauses warts and skin tumors to grow rapidly, and often uncontrollably, throughout the body. For Bajandar, the warts grew around his hands, taking over them entirely and causing them to look as though they were covered in large, rigid tree branches. However, Bajandar will now finally be able to live a normal life again, as a series of 16 surgeries over the course of the past year have removed the warts, and allowed him to regain use of his hands. As tree man illness, as its often colloquially called, is both rare and highly invasive, Bajandars recovery makes him the first person to ever be fully cured of the disease. The reason epidermodysplasia verruciformis is so difficult to treat is due to its tendency to cause sever cases of human papillomavirus (HPV), which is often transmitted sexually and can cause genital warts as well as skin lesions. In the case of tree man disease, and in similarly rare HPV-causing conditions, the warts begin to grow almost entirely uninhibited and can take over entire parts of the body. In the past, those suffering from the disease have only had the hope of a cure, and many have died at a young age due to complications associated with their ailment. For example, theres the case of Indonesian man Dede Koswar also referred to locally as the tree manwho suffered from a similar HPV-related condition. Koswar, whose warts and lesions had encompassed both his feet and his hands entirely, died early last year in treatment while awaiting the possibility of a cure. With Bajandar situation, its still unclear whether or not his tree-like warts could grow back, but for now there seems to finally be a cure for this crippling, and wildly bizarre, disease. Dillon Thompson is a University of Georgia student and freelance writer with a love for travel and an addiction to coffee and hip-hop music. Newspapers and soul food? I never connected the two except when I ate at an old school soul food joint that wrapped their to go orders, particularly fried fish sandwiches and fries, in newspaper. Yes, I know that the idea of newspaper ink being a condiment does not sound very appetizing, but hey, some say it adds to the flavor. When I started researching and writing my book on the history of soul food, I had to think anew about this unusual pairing. On top of all of the slave narratives, oral histories of formerly enslaved people and cookbooks, I read thousands thats right, thousands of newspaper articles. Without newspapers, my book would have lacked the details that gave my history some much need context and added texture to the narrative. Journalism has taken quite a few hits of late, but Ive come to praise the newsrooms of the past, not to bury them. Newspapers especially in the articles written by curious journalists, tributes to cooks, racist propaganda and the food sections were my key ingredient to writing an illuminating biography of a cuisine that is much maligned and misunderstood. Before the advent of radio and television, newspapers played an important role in chronicling daily life in ways that no other medium did. Newspaper reporters were always on the hunt for human interest stories in their community. The white majority culture in the U.S. has long been curious about African Americans, and the rise of newspapers in the nineteenth century gave insight on what seemed to be an alien culture. Before the Civil War, most stories about African Americans centered on slavery, and food was often mentioned. By the 1840s, the adequacy and nutritional value of food increasingly became a litmus test for whether or not enslaved people were treated inhumanely. As abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates gave dueling accounts of plantation food systems, readers got a deeper sense of what the enslaved actually ate and under what conditions. This was information that rarely showed up anywhere else, and certainly not in cookbooks which were primarily aimed to middle and upper class white households. After Emancipation, newspapers were a mix of joy and pain for African Americans. White resentment fomented as chattel slavery was dismantled and African Americans received unprecedented legal protections. Yet whites did not sit idly by. Since slavery could not legally be revived, white media elites used popular culture to paint African Americans as people who did not deserve the full rights and privileges afforded by the U.S. Constitution because they are subhuman at worst and infantile at best. Along with minstrel shows, newspapers were an important vehicle for spreading such targeted, racial propaganda, and the food references fueled some of the most vicious stereotypes. The food that African Americans enjoyed was by default described as something that no self-respecting whites would ever eat. If blacks and whites enjoyed the same food, like fried chicken, catfish and watermelon, the way blacks ate and the circumstances surrounding their meals were the butt of racist jokes. The ridicule was not limited to the food itself. African American cooks were caricatured as enduring servile stereotypes: Mammy or Aunt so-and-so for African American women were domineering in the kitchen (but powerless everywhere else), ignorant, and natural born cooks. The Uncle so-and-so stereotype applied to older, impotent African American men who were dutiful servants and simultaneously lazy. Newspaper editors all across the country, not just the ones in the South, were all too eager to disseminate these negative images of African Americans. The pain of such stereotypes remains to this day, and much anger arises when whites use food to mock African Americans. The smear campaign against African Americans ultimately worked. By 1896, segregation became the law of the land, and the experiment of treating African Americans as full citizens was over. It would be six decades before those hard-earned rights were restored. A tremendously positive outcome from this era was the proliferation of African American newspapers which unceasingly challenged the racist narrative in the majority press. In more ways than ever before, African Americans had a literary voice, and they could tell their own story, especially about their food. For much of our nations history, being a cook was one of the few professions that an African American could hold without generating much white resentment. For this reason, African Americans dominated most aspects of the food service industry from Emancipation until the civil rights movement era. Every once and awhile though, an African American cooks culinary skill was so noteworthy that they were given tribute in a newspaper article. Readers rarely got enough of the cooks back story, but the cooks skill and the food prepared got top billing. These tributes were a godsend for described soul food was interpreted and performed in different kitchens. As an example, when President Benjamin Harrison hired Laura Dollie Johnston, an African American woman and private cook from Lexington, Kentucky to be his White House cook in 1889, newspapers across the country announced her hire and made a point of celebrating the way she made soups and cooked meat dishes. Another major contribution that newspapers made to my soul food book were the invaluable information found in their food sections. Newspapers had long included recipes, but they were often interspersed throughout the newspaper. It wasnt unusual for a recipe to be side-by-side with a news report. In the 1890s, newspaper editors began creating pages dedicated to domestic science, domestic economy or any other term for the tasks required of homemakers. In these food section pages, historians can trace the development of cuisine: what foods were favored and how they were prepared; how certain foods fell out of favor; how foreign foods were embraced; changes in cooking technology and tremendously helpful insight on the cultural, folkloric and social context for particular meals. African American newspapers were good at reminding their readers why sweet potato pie is superior to its pumpkin counterpart, as well as why one needs black-eyed peas and greens on New Years Day. Looking back on what newspapers meant to my research, I cant help but be saddened by the ongoing decline of that medium. Ive only shared only a slice of what newspapers have meant to my research, research made possible because private companies, historical societies and the Library of Congress have invested enough resources into digitizing old newspapers. In turn, this resource is easy to search and made available online. If I had to read all of those newspapers cited in my soul food books bibliography from front to back, I would have been a contender for the James Beard Award in 2049. Lets make an effort to support good food journalism wherever we find it. Who knows how future historians will feast on the stories we tell today. Adrian Miller is author of the James Beard award-winning book on the history of soul food, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. His next book, The Presidents Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families from the Washingtons to the Obamas, will be published on Presidents Day, 2017. Photo by Larry & Teddy Page CC BY More than 30 people have been killed during a riot at a Brazilian jail, including three inmates who were beheaded, in the latest gang-related massacre to afflict the countrys ailing prison system. Officials say that members of two rival drug gangs clashed violently at the prison, which is located in the northeast of Rio Grande do Norte state. The facility, which is located near the state capital of Natal, is built for 620 inmates but currently houses 1083. Police investigator Otacillo de Medeiros confirmed that over 30 people are believed dead, while a district security official said that the final number of victims would be confirmed once they took stock of the extent of the damage. Fresh Brazil prison riot this afternoon in city of Natal. 12 dead, according to media reports. This video reportedly from inmates pic.twitter.com/GzvOBCbZdT Johannes Myburgh (@johannesmyburgh) January 14, 2017 There are at least three inmates dead because we were able to see their heads, state prisons manager Zemilton Silva told local media. Brazilian media believes that this particular riot was between drug gang First Capital Command, and a group allied to its main rival Red Command. Police restored order at the prison on Sunday at dawn after 14 hours of violence. This is the latest in a series of massacres in Brazilian prisons, which left over 100 people dead many of whom are believed to be gang members. Source: News.com.au. Photo: TV Ponta Negra. Theres nothing like a story about Hollywood elites poking around regional areas of Australia looking for potential real estate opportunities to drive the punters wild. Feels like every couple of months we hear about some celeb skulking around a Byron Bay real estate agent looking to buy some vast mansion to visit once every ten years. Domain is reporting today that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi are looking to buy in the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. Real estate agent Greg OShea says hes been in contact with the couple about a particular bloody large property: Womans Day published an article recently saying Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are planning on moving to Australia. Now, I know that Portia is from that area (she was born in Horsham and grew up in Geelong) so I decided to get in touch with them. Their manager got back to me saying they are interested in the property, and that when they come to Australia, they want a private tour of it. Ive been told around February or March. The couple currently live in Los Angeles. Because I want to torture you with the gory details, the property sits on 20 acres, and features five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two powder rooms, three garages and a theatre room. Here it is: The price range is about $5.8 million, in case you were planning to swoop in and pick it up before Ellen does. I assume all of our readers have nearly six million lying around. Check your piggy bank. If DeRossi was a true patriot, she wouldnt just quietly buy some property down here. Shed invite us all round for a dip in that pool. Source: Domain. Photo: Getty Images / Anthony Harvey. CBRE Global Investors has acquired, on behalf of a separate account client, the Letnany Shopping Centre in Prague. The vendor was Tesco. Letnany is a well-established shopping centre, built in 1999, comprising 63,478 sq m of retail, 3,551 sq m of office space, 1,791 sq m where a petrol station [] East Finland Real Estate Ltd. (EFRE) has signed lease agreements for company stores for Zsar Outlet Village with Nike, Hugo Boss, Guess and Le Creuset. Zsar is located in South-Eastern Finland in Vaalimaa, immediately adjacent to the busiest border crossing point between the EU and Russia. The new lettings mean [] Toyota is yet to launch the Lexus brand in India. Ahead of that, their cars have already arrived at the garages of select few in India. Last week, we had interacted with one such owner, who is already driving around a new Lexus. As per him, Toyota has commenced sale of Lexus to select customers, and the on-road price of the car starts from about about INR 85 lakhs. Toyota India has not stated anything on the same yet. Earlier yesterday, a Toyota had arranged a special event to display their 3 cars which will soon be launched in India. Fly Wheels Hani Musthafa reveals Lexus RX & ES line up along with flagship SUV LX will hit Indian market! Entire line up with RC F was displayed at private sneak preview by Lexus Kochi. Sold as a CBU, Zauba reveals that a total of 29 units of Lexus RX450H hybrid SUVs have already been imported into India from Japan by Toyota. It could be these 29 units that will be sold in the first phase of launch in India. It was earlier expected that Lexus will launch diesel engine powered cars in India as they had imported the LX450d SUV in India. But it seems that last years ban on cars powered by large diesel engines, has played a deterrent and Toyota is going ahead with the launch of a hybrid Lexus. Lexus RX 350 Another reason why Toyota is choosing a hybrid variant, is the success of Camry hybrid in India. About 80% of the Camry sold in India are hybrid. This itself gives the car maker enough confidence to launch Lexus only with a hybrid powertrain option in India. Lexus RX450H hybrid SUV is a five seater hybrid variant. It is powered by a 3.5 liter, V6 petrol engine and an electric motor which will deliver combined peak power output of 308 bhp. The engine will be mated to a CVT gearbox, sending power to all four wheels. The Japanese luxury car maker plans on initial two showrooms in Mumbai and New Delhi while depending on demand, more sales and service outlets will be opened across the country. 2016 Lexus RX 450h Photos 2016 Lexus RX 450h F Sport Photos Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has submitted its final feasibility report on Mumbai-Ahmadabad bullet train corridor. The report estimates the value of the 505 km long high speed railway project to be INR 98,805 crore. With the bullet train capable of speeds of over 300 kmph, the train journey time between the two western cities of India will be cut short from over 7 hours to about 2 hours. Its also reported that the suggested train fair is higher than the first class AC ticket on Rajdhani express. Rough estimate puts its price at around INR 2,800. The JICA delegation, led by Japanese Ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi, submitted the report to Indian Railway minister Suresh Babu. The railway ministry will examine the report and decide the future course of action. The report also says that if construction work commences in 2017, Indias first ever bullet train will be ready to ply in 2023-24. The ministry is expected to prepare a Cabinet Note outlining project feasibility and timelines to seek approval. With a large scale adoption across the country, bullet trains will offer cheaper alternative to domestic air travel. It is estimated that by 2023, around 40,000 passengers will be ready to adopt bullet train journey and hence its a financially viable project. Its to be noted that apart from JICA, SNFC of France has also submitted its feasibility study and business model to the Indian government. Recently, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has finally consented to allocating land at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) for the first terminus of the new Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train that is set to go into operation from 2023. This is a dream project of the PM Narendra Modi which will cover the 508 km distance between Mumbai and Ahmedabad in a matter of 2 hours. The Bullet Train is expected to travel at operating speed of 320 kmph and at a peak speed of 350 kmph. For the first time, passengers aboard the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train will travel under the sea with a 21 km tunnel between Thane and Virar being planned while the project is set to be completed by 2023. The total cost of the Bullet Train is estimated at INR 99,000 crores with Maharashtra and Gujarat governments contributing 25% each while the Central Government will put in the remaining 50%. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train will stop at 12 stations across the route, of which 4 stations are in Maharashtra while 8 are in Gujarat. Japanese International Corporation Agency has prepared a detailed project report for the Bullet Train. Rolling stock and all necessary equipment required for the construction besides signaling equipment and power system will be imported into the country from Japan. A training center is also to be set up at Gandhinagar to offer training facilities to engineers and employees who will be involved in the construction of the Bullet Train. Royal Enfield Himalayan with FI was launched in India a few months ago. Priced from INR 1.84 lakh on road in Chennai, today RE announced the launch an accessory loaded variant called Sleet. It is priced from Rs 2.12 lakh, on road Chennai. The word Sleet means rain containing some ice, as when snow melts as it falls. Royal Enfield Himalayan Sleet is purpose built for those who want to go on those long road trips, without the worry of how the road ahead would be. The colour, is inspired by the snow-capped Himalayas. In addition to the new colour, you also get official Royal Enfield accessories package which include aluminium panniers, aluminium handlebar with cross brace, pannier mounting rails and large engine guard. Only the first 500 buyers will get this accessory pack. Bookings are only accepted only, via Royal Enfields official site. Royal Enfield President Rudratej Singh said, The new Himalayan Sleet is inspired by the terrain of Royal Enfields spiritual home the Himalayas, its craggy land, the gorges, edgy peaks all brought together in the colours of the sleet. The new Royal Enfield Himalayan Sleet is powered by the companys new BS4 engine and is based on the newly launched Himalayan, which RE has said is free of any issues. Named after the mighty Himalayas of India, Royal Enfield Himalayan features a relaxed seating postion, which proves to be a boon on long rides, especially the ones with bad raods. Long suspension travel with off-road tyres give the bike a very rugged appeal. Instrument panel consists of analog as well as digital meters. Powered by a new 410 cc single cylinder engine, Royal Enfield Himalayan is an entry level adventure tourer. The engine is rated to deliver 25 PS and 32 Nm torque via a 5-speed gearbox. News Release Replacing biomass and kerosene cookstoves used throughout the developing world with clean-burning ethanol stoves may reduce hypertension and cardiovascular risk in pregnant women, according to new research published online, ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. In "Randomized Controlled Ethanol Cookstove Intervention and Blood Pressure in Pregnant Nigerian Women," researchers report that the frequency of developing hypertension and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) were decreased in pregnant women who cooked with ethanol, rather than with traditional cookstoves fueled by wood or kerosene. Systolic blood pressure (the top number) did not change significantly. "Although previous studies found that exposure to household air pollution increased the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, no randomized, controlled trial had investigated whether clean-burning fuel would reduce the incidence of hypertension in pregnant women," said lead study author Christopher O. Olopade, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and family director of international programs at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Olopade and his colleagues enrolled 324 pregnant women living in Ibadan, Nigeria, in their study. Women who smoked or lived with a smoker or who cooked for a living were excluded from the study. None of the women enrolled were hypertensive (defined as systolic blood pressure ? 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure ? 90) when they enrolled and were randomized into the study between the 16-18th weeks of pregnancy. Half of the participating women who previously cooked with firewood or kerosene were randomly assigned to cook with ethanol. The other half continued to cook with either wood or kerosene. Blood pressure was recorded during six patient visits. By the end of the study, the researchers found: 6.4 percent of those cooking with wood or kerosene became hypertensive compared with 1.9 percent of those cooking with ethanol. 8.8 percent of those cooking with kerosene became hypertensive compared to only 1.8 percent who were randomized from kerosene to ethanol. Mean diastolic blood pressure was 2.8 mmHg higher among those cooking with wood or kerosene than those cooking with ethanol. Mean diastolic blood pressure was 3.6 mmHg higher among those cooking with kerosene than those cooking with ethanol. Dr. Olopade said the findings support the call by the World Health Organization to remove kerosene as a home cooking or heating fuel. All participants were informed about the harmful effects of smoke exposure, and women cooking with either fuel were encouraged to cook outside or in a well-ventilated room. "The results of our study add to the evidence that vulnerable populations, especially pregnant women, would gain important health benefits from stoves that burn clean fuels," Dr. Olopade said. "Additional studies are still needed to determine how much of a reduction in exposure levels will result in significant and sustained health benefits." Find the report at: http://www.thoracic.org/about/newsroom/press-releases/resources/clean-cookstoves-and-bp-in-pregnancy.pdf A University of Arkansas chemist and his collaborator at North Carolina State University have developed a new theory for explaining how proteins and other biomolecules function based on movement and change of shape and structure rather than content. Proteins are considered the workhorse molecules of cells. They are responsible for nearly all tasks in cellular life, including product manufacture, waste cleanup and routine maintenance. For example, some proteins are responsible for transport of materials and information between the cell and its environment, a vital task for the survival and normal function of the cell. Any disorder in protein function could result in disease, and the study of protein function is necessary for understanding the molecular basis of disease. "To function, proteins change their shape," said Mahmoud Moradi, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. "Because proteins are not static objects, understanding their conformational dynamics is a necessary step in deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying their function. The study of protein dynamics is therefore important for understanding the molecular basis of the disease and establishing a 'rational design' for developing more efficient drugs." The theory developed by Moradi and Ashkan Fakharzadeh, a graduate student North Carolina State University, describes and simulates the way proteins and other biomolecules change their shape to function. "Conventional theories of protein dynamics ignore the curved nature of the configurational space of biomolecules," Moradi said. "In this work, we have developed an innovative formalism that relies a geometric theory, traditionally used in general relativity and similar fields, to modify theories of protein dynamics." Moradi and Fakharzadeh will address two interrelated questions to further develop their theory: How do proteins function by changing their conformation and by undergoing concerted motions, and how can these conformational changes be simulated at an atomic level? Answering these questions would shed light on the structure-function relationships in proteins, Moradi said, and could improve scientists' understanding of diseases at a molecular level. The researchers' findings were published in the December issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, which reports new and original experimental and theoretical research in physical chemistry. A criterion for acceptance in the journal is that the research "reports a significant scientific advance and/or physical insight such that rapid publication is essential." The moth Spodoptera frugiperda, commonly known as fall armyworm moth, was first registered in Africa in 2016. It is not certain how it arrived, but DNA-analyses show that it is likely to have been more than an introduction. The species is a native of Latin America where it is a well-known pest. It can attack more than 80 different plant species, including important crops such as maize, rice, sugarcane, sorghum, grains and other plants in the grass family. So far, there have been reports of the moth in Benin, Togo and Nigeria, as well as the archipelago Sao Tome and Principe. However, it is likely that it may also be established in several other African states. In the coming years, it will undoubtedly be a big problem for all African countries where maize is an important crop. Extent of damage could be devastating Researcher May-Guri Sthre from NIBIO (Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy) has 15 years of experience with insect pests and biological pest control in Western Africa. This autumn, she returned to Benin to inspect the situation and discuss future project collaborations. "In Benin, maize is grown almost everywhere. When we visited the country in November, we went to several maize fields where there were enormous damage. Plants with tattered, floppy leaves. In addition, we saw many destroyed maize fields from the car window. In the university's maize field, where they grow certified seeds for the farmers, it was also total destruction," Sthre recounts. This was despite of two insecticide applications. Due to the high temperatures in the area, these moths develop very fast. They lay eggs in clusters of 100-300, which hatch after only 2-3 days. The small larvae immediately starts to eat plant material. Gradually they also become cannibals. The larvae stage lasts for 14-20 days depending on the temperature. The subsequent pupa stage lasts for 9-13 days. At any time, there are 4-6 overlapping generations, which means that the plants are unable to rest -- they are under constant pressure. advertisement "This pest-situation could potentially have a devastating impact on the poorest part of the population," Sthre says. "Maize and cassava are important food sources for millions of people. At worst, huge losses of crops could lead to famine and increased migration." Spread easily Usually, this type of pests crosses boarders as stowaways on exported plant material. However, it is not enough to look for egg and larvae. The adult moths have a very good spreading ability, which is quite unusual. In America, fall armyworm moth can migrate enormous distances in its lifecycle. During the summer, the adult individuals start dispersing. They follow northerly airflows and gradually appear throughout most parts of the USA and in Canada. Here, however, they die during winter, as they cannot survive the low temperatures. After all, this is a tropical species that thrives in temperatures around 27-28 degrees Celsius. Need new knowledge fast Currently, there are no successful methods to combat fall armyworm moth in West Africa. However, the extent of damage is already so large that it is crucial to get started quickly. In Benin, controlling this new pest is top priority for the agricultural authorities. advertisement Sthre wishes to set up an international research collaboration to combat the pest. However, this will depend on funding. "The aim is to establish a regional programme where we can obtain knowledge to benefit all countries in the region, including Niger, Nigeria, Benin and Togo," she says. "We had productive meetings with representatives from the Government of Benin in November. In addition, NIBIO has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a research collaboration with the National University of Agriculture (UNA) in Porto-Novo and Ketou. We have previously collaborated with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) for many years, and combined, we have both the expertise and facilities to start up on short notice." In addition to short-term control measures, we may also look at more long-term measures, Sthre says. This may for instance be to map out which natural enemies the species have in its' original areas. Is it possible to safely transfer some of these to Africa? Normally it would take years to obtain knowledge of pest control measures. The benefit in this case is that the species is known, and that there is already some knowledge available concerning the biology of the moth and also the natural enemies. There is a lot of literature available, both in Latin America and USA. As a result, the researchers do not need to start from scratch. "NIBIO already has a connection to Latin-America. This is where the pest originates. I imagine that we can set up a collaboration that also involves our Latin American partners." Could become a threat in Europe Fall armyworm moth is on the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) list of quarantine pests. Import to Europe is therefore banned. The species do appear from time to time, but is quickly managed. It often reaches Europe with ornamental plants, fruits or vegetables. "There is a high risk that the species could become established in the Mediterranean area. Therefore, it is important to have good control routines. Theoretically, it is not inconceivable that adult insects could cross the Sahara on their own, but they are dependent on favourable air currents to manage this." The variety of car models has increased significantly over the past decades. Take Volkswagen:In 1950, the automaker produced just two model ranges -- the Beetle and the transporter. This number had grown to ten by 1990, and today around 20 different models are rolling off assembly lines. Counting all twelve makes of the Volkswagen Group, the number even totals 300 models -- trucks, buses and motor bikes included. Long gone are the times when one factory fabricated the same car for years on end. There is a trend towards more frequent model changes and smaller volumes. A car factory with just one production line suitable to manufacture multiple models is what the future will look like. "This would require increased flexibility in production, more robots and a higher level of digitisation," says Andreas Nuchter, Professor of Computer Science at the Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) of Wurzburg in Bavaria, Germany. 3D models of production lines Nuchter is working to achieve to this goal. His team (Dorit Bormann, Florian Leutert, and Johannes Schauer) supports the group "Virtual Technologies of Corporate Research" of Volkswagen AG with the digitisation of production lines in preparation for a change of model: For this purpose, the computer scientists send a 3D scanner through the production line during live operation and then use the data to generate virtual three-dimensional images of the production facility. Subsequently, they simulate how the production line has to be converted to manufacture the new model. advertisement Scanning and evaluating the data takes about a month. Why so much effort when there are construction plans of the production plant available? "These plans are never up to date, because minor adjustment are being made all the time during live production," the JMU professor explains. "Previously, polystyrene models of the new car types were therefore sent through the production line to determine bottlenecks and other obstacles," Nuchter says. The solution of the Wurzburg scientists is certainly more up to date. The 3D scanner moreover allows them to cover areas that are difficult to access such as the tunnels where the vehicles' paintwork is dried. "We were commissioned by Volkswagen to go through this process for the new launches of the models Tiguan and Crafter," Nuchter explains. It turned out, for example, that the ceilings of the production halls had to be converted to prevent collisions in the Crafter production. The goal: automated data evaluation What is challenging about this job is not to scan the production environment, but to evaluate the scan data. "This is why we are seeking to automate as much of this step as possible," Nuchter explains. Presently, his team is also working on further developing the corresponding software. But the activities for Volkswagen are just a by-product of Nuchter's research. His actual expertise is mobile robots that scan their surroundings using 3D scanning systems. "Ultimately, it's no big difference whether we operate a scanner on a mobile robot or let it pass through an automotive assembly line," the professor states. Researchers at Birmingham City University are hoping to transform the fortunes of magnesium this year, by showcasing it as a viable alternative for luxury car makers and the aerospace industry. It comes as the institution has signed an exclusive partnership with the world's largest producer of magnesium components, Meridian. The strategic alliance will see the two organisations work together in the education, research and development of magnesium use, which will place fuel efficiency through weight savings and sustainability at its core. At 1.8g/cm, magnesium is the lightest of all structural materials, the eighth most abundant chemical element in Earth's crust and is 100 per cent recyclable. Originating in Strathroy, Canada, Meridian opened its UK facility in July 2003. Today, its Nottinghamshire plant produces around 5,000 net metric tons of die-cast products annually, serving automotive clients such as Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW, Ford, Honda and Volvo. However, being able to offer bespoke magnesium components for low-volume manufacturers, such as Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce, can prove costly using current manufacturing methods, as the costs of tooling and set up become more significant components of a project's budget. advertisement As part of the new partnership with Meridian, academics from Birmingham City University's Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment and personnel from the company will be investigating new ways to offer more sustainable goods for low-volume manufacturers, whilst making production financially viable for Meridian and its potential clients. Randy Chalmers, Plant Manager, Meridian Lightweight Technologies United Kingdom (MLTUK) said, "The strategic partnership we have signed with Birmingham City University is very much a first for us, but is one which we hope will pave the way for future expansion and sustenance with the institution as we seek to work together on our shared strengths in fuel efficiency and sustainability. "As being one the world's leading suppliers of innovative, lightweight cast metal solutions for the transportation industry, it is imperative that we remain at the forefront of the machining and casting capabilities of magnesium. "Our partnership with Birmingham City University will certainly catalyse this, allowing us to benefit from its leading edge research in the field and ensuring that the next generation of engineers continue to experiment with new ways in which to utilise the metal." In order for this to come to fruition, the University has established the Magnesium Innovation Group. From this group, 10 academics have been partnered with Meridian employees that best represent their area of expertise, and they will be actively engaging with their partner in the industry for the first half of 2017. advertisement Research findings will be published ahead of a major international magnesium conference, which will be held at Birmingham City University in July this year. Two psychologists from the University's Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences have also been appointed to the Magnesium Innovation Group. They will spend time interviewing engineers from across the UK and try to understand why there has been a historical aversion to designing products with magnesium, when compared to less sustainable and heavier metals. Magnesium is produced from sea water, brines and magnesium-bearing minerals which offer unlimited reserves, with an estimated 500,000 metric tons produced each year. It is 75 per cent lighter than steel and 33 per cent lighter than aluminium. Current magnesium manufacturing processes create the same amount of waste as product and the Birmingham City University Magnesium Innovation Group will be investigating ways on how value can be created from excess material. Although magnesium is 100 per cent recyclable, there are currently no plants in the UK that can process the material. However, there is a possibility, for example, that it can be crushed for tablets in the health industry. Other ideas being discussed at Birmingham City University include reacting magnesium with oxygen and water to create hydrogen, which can be used in the fledgling fuel cell industry, powering cars and smartphones going forward. Professor Hanifa Shah, Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise), Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment at Birmingham City University, said, "Birmingham City University is delighted to be entering into an agreement on magnesium research and education with Meridian, that builds on the heritage of the University as a catapult for growth among regional industries through knowledge transfer and offering a unique, interdisciplinary approach. "As well as benefiting Meridian's work here in the Midlands, we hope that our findings can enhance lightweight technologies around the world, ensuring that low-volume manufacturers in the automobile and aerospace industries have access to cost-effective and sustainable magnesium components." The partnership was agreed at Meridian's Sutton-in-Ashfield plant with a delegation team from Birmingham City University led by Professor Hanifa Shah, Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise), Faculty of Computing, Engineering and The Built Environment and the senior management team from MLTUK led by Randy Chalmers, Plant Manager. Do you remember a teacher who changed your life for the better? Many people do, and scores of studies suggest that positive student-teacher relationships are one of the best predictors of children's academic success. But young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are less likely to develop positive relationships with their teachers than typically developing kids do, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. This exacerbates an already challenging transition into elementary school for these children. The researchers hope that by understanding -- and ultimately improving -- these relationships, educators can support children with ASD in their early school years and help them make long-term gains in their academic, behavioral, and social adjustment. This study, "Smooth Sailing," has been supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. UCR's Jan Blacher and her team have spent the past four years studying 200 children with ASD as they move from pre-kindergarten into elementary school, tracking student-teacher relationships, children's emotional behaviors, and parental support. Children in the study ranged from 4 to 7 years old, with about 85 percent of them having what professionals call "high functioning autism," meaning they don't also have intellectual disabilities. The results are newly published or forthcoming in five new papers in journals in the field, including the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders; Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities; and Remedial and Special Education. Blacher, a Distinguished Professor of Education and Director of the SEARCH Family Autism Resource Center in UCR's Graduate School of Education, said that behavior problems and social skills deficits, which accompany many ASD diagnoses, are one reason that students and their teachers fail to build strong mutual relationships. Externalizing behaviors, such as aggression, increase conflict, while internalizing behaviors, such as anxiety, can reduce the closeness between teachers and students. "When children with autism come to school, they are already struggling to make social and emotional connections, and when that affects their relationships with teachers it feels like a double whammy," said Blacher, who has shown in previous research that many children with ASD feel lonely at school. "A major goal that follows from this research is educating and supporting teachers so they understand how important their interactions with children are during this transitional time." Blacher's group also noted that one cause of behavior outbursts or other instances of "acting out" during the early school years may be an inability for children to control their anger or emotions. Such poor emotional regulation is common in children with ASD. Blacher notes: "Many intervention programs used by schools focus heavily on behavior management, but we found that supporting emotional regulation is an important tactic in helping children develop interpersonal relationships and complete school activities. Helping children with ASD take charge of their emotions before they manifest as behavioral problems will go a long way in helping students build positive relationships with their teachers." Blacher said the team also studied parents' roles in helping children make the transition into school, finding that shared reading increased children's knowledge of contextual language and vocabulary. "These shared learning experiences are social in nature and help support children as they encounter similar activities in the classroom. Early literacy is a strength for children with high functioning ASD, so this should be encouraged, as it gives the children something to be proud of. One hopes that increasing literacy skills will also lead to better classroom adjustment and, in turn, to more positive teacher-student relationships," Blacher said. In August 2015, a dust storm blanketed large areas of seven Middle East nations in a haze of dust and sand thick enough to obscure them from satellite view. The storm led to several deaths, thousands of cases of respiratory ailments and injuries, and canceled airline flights and closed ports. At the time, the storm's unusual severity was attributed to the ongoing civil war in Syria by media outlets in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Reports blamed the conflict for changes in land use and cover -- and for activities like increased military traffic over unpaved surfaces and farmers reducing irrigation or abandoning agricultural land -- that created extreme amounts of dust to fuel the storm. Now, a team of researchers including Elie Bou-Zeid an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton who experienced the storm while in Lebanon, have found a more likely cause for the unprecedented storm -- it was not human conflict, but a combination of climatic factors and unusual weather. While reduced vegetation cover and soil disturbance can make more sediment available for emission in dust storms, the researchers say, the widely reported link between the storm and the fighting in Syria was untested and lacked empirical support. "The reports suggesting that this was related to the conflict in Syria were not supported by any research," Bou-Zeid said. "It was just hypotheticals thrown into the air." As the storm got more attention, Shmuel Assouline of Israel's Agricultural Research Organization and Bou-Zeid emailed several colleagues and suggested they look into the cause of the storm. For their study, published Nov. 8, 2016, in Environmental Research Letters, the researchers first analyzed vegetation cover data for the months leading up to the storm to see if the Syrian conflict had really changed the land cover that much. "These observations told us that the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) -- which is kind of a measure of how 'green' the surface is, how much vegetation there is -- was not abnormally low," Bou-Zeid said. "So, there was nothing to suggest that during this particular period there was less greenery or agriculture in the region than normal." In fact, the storm-struck region's vegetation cover was nearly twice as high last year than the 2007-2010 average, and also greater than the 2001-2007 average. advertisement After gathering data on surface air temperature, humidity and wind speed, and running meteorological simulations for the region before, during and after the storm using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, the researchers say that climate, not conflict, led to the conditions that made the storm possible. "The simulations showed that what was very unique about this storm is that first, it was preceded by a very hot period, and so the land that was not covered with vegetation would be drier and it would be easier to entrain sand grains from it," Bou-Zeid said. Summer 2015 was unusually hot and dry relative to the last 20 years, and extreme high temperatures and low humidity were more frequent in August and September than during the region's long-term drought, which lasted from 2007 to 2010, Bou-Zeid said. The extremely arid conditions increased the amount of dust available and lowered its threshold for erosion, making it more likely that the dust would dislodge into the atmosphere. The other factor that helped generate the storm, the researchers say, was an unusual wind pattern. "Usually these dust storms are created somewhere between Syria and Iraq and are transported south, but during this period the wind pattern was going east to west," Bou-Zeid said. The wind reversal added friction on the ground -- which dislodges more dust -- and transported it westward over long distances before depositing it in high concentrations on the densely populated east Mediterranean coast. The storm ultimately enveloped major parts of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. Bou-Zeid said it was important to answer the question of the storm's origins directly. "If the cause of the storm was human conflict, then when the conflict ends, the causes go away, and that's all good," he said. "But if the cause was not conflict and is more climate, and this is due to climatic conditions that are going to become more frequent in the future, then this is something that will reoccur." The team warns that if the Middle East becomes more arid in the long term due to climate change, extreme dust storms may become more common, and their impact unavoidable. Bou-Zeid and Assouline's co-authors on the paper, "Climate, not conflict, explains extreme Middle East dust storm," were Anthony Parolari from Marquette University, Dan Li from Boston University and Gabriel Katul from Duke University. The timing of the first entry of humans into North America across the Bering Strait has now been set back 10,000 years. This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by Ariane Burke, a professor in Universite de Montreal's Department of Anthropology, and her doctoral student Lauriane Bourgeon, with the contribution of Dr. Thomas Higham, Deputy Director of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at 14,000 years Before Present (BP) according to the earliest dated archaeological sites, is now estimated at 24,000 BP, at the height of the last ice age or Last Glacial Maximum. The researchers made their discovery using artifacts from the Bluefish Caves, located on the banks of the Bluefish River in northern Yukon near the Alaska border. The site was excavated by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars between 1977 and 1987. Based on radiocarbon dating of animal bones, the researcher made the bold hypothesis that human settlement in the region dated as far back as 30,000 BP. In the absence of other sites of similar age, Cinq-Mars' hypothesis remained highly controversial in the scientific community. Moreover, there was no evidence that the presence of horse, mammoth, bison and caribou bones in the Bluefish Caves was due to human activity. To set the record straight, Bourgeon examined the approximate 36,000 bone fragments culled from the site and preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau -- an enormous undertaking that took her two years to complete. Comprehensive analysis of certain pieces at UdeM's Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory revealed undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones. Around 20 other fragments also showed probable traces of the same type of activity. advertisement "Series of straight, V-shaped lines on the surface of the bones were made by stone tools used to skin animals," said Burke. "These are indisputable cut-marks created by humans." Bourgeon submitted the bones to further radiocarbon dating. The oldest fragment, a horse mandible showing the marks of a stone tool apparently used to remove the tongue, was radiocarbon-dated at 19,650 years, which is equivalent to between 23,000 and 24,000 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present). "Our discovery confirms previous analyses and demonstrates that this is the earliest known site of human settlement in Canada," said Burke. It shows that Eastern Beringia was inhabited during the last ice age." Beringia is a vast region stretching from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to the Lena River in Russia. According to Burke, studies in population genetics have shown that a group of a few thousand individuals lived in isolation from the rest of the world in Beringia 15,000 to 24,000 years ago. "Our discovery confirms the 'Beringian standstill [or genetic isolation] hypothesis,'" she said, "Genetic isolation would have corresponded to geographical isolation. During the Last Glacial Maximum, Beringia was isolated from the rest of North America by glaciers and steppes too inhospitable for human occupation to the West. It was potentially a place of refuge." The Beringians of Bluefish Caves were therefore among the ancestors of people who, at the end of the last ice age, colonized the entire continent along the coast to South America. The results of Lauriane Bourgeon's doctoral research were published in the January 6 edition of PLoS One under the title "Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada." 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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. In the United States, the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has hit the ground running, and created, as many expected, another layer of bureaucracy. Time will tell if these various new operations will have the desired effect. All of them reek of good intentions, but that's usually not enough to produce useful results. Among the various new ideas that have been implemented; Mission Managers. These are high ranking people, with a small staff, and the job of helping ensure that all available data is collected for specific missions. For example, there is currently an Iraq Mission Manager, and a North Korea Mission Manager. Audits. These consist of a number of projects, which aim to catalog what data, and collection resources are available throughout the entire American intelligence world. That's not as easy as it sounds, as there are a lot of operations that are kept really, really secret. Same for some data files. This effort is also collecting ideas and methods, which is expected to be useful when passed around to all fourteen intelligence agencies. Cooperation. This is a major activity all by itself. Always could use more cooperation. A big effort is being made to forge links between the FBI (which does most of the intel work inside the United States) and the other agencies, which specialize in operations overseas. For over fifty years, there have been problems getting the FBI to stay in sync with the overseas intel efforts. Getting the MASINT Measurement and Signature Intelligence) community better integrated with everyone else. MASINT is basically intelligence gathering operations that use esoteric math and data to find secrets. MASINT does not use Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), or Human Intelligence (HUMINT). MASINT has been getting more useful of late, but has always been difficult to explain, especially to senior users outside the intel community. Another useful effort, one that has been tried many times before, is to streamline the effort going into creating analysis and reports. Over time, more layers of editing and supervision get added, and eventually, this distorts the results. In general the DNI is trying to bring some organization and standardization to the production, and presentation, of intelligence. This immediately runs up against resistance to conform to new ways of doing things, just because the DNI wants standards. Much disputation and many disagreements have ensued. While this effort is good in theory, in practice it's gotten ugly at times. The DNI has gotten ugly on purpose in an effort to measure performance. Lots of resistance to this, but the people who use the product, and pay for it (White House and Congress) have been getting more insistent. At the moment, there's too much smoke and dust being thrown up, to see what, if any, progress is being made. Given the nature of the business, it may be a while before an unclassified assessment of progress, or lack of it, is being made. American soldiers of the 290th Infantry Regiment, 75th Division fighting in new snow near Amonines, Belgium. The 290th had only arrived in France December 14, 1944. By December 23, 1944, the 290th began offensive operations after being rushed to the front. X 0 20 Help Keep Us Soaring We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month. Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways: The Afghan government continues to be under attack but is doing better than the Taliban. The security forces and local militias have made life more dangerous for the Taliban and the drug gangs they work for. Yet no one is clearly winning. The drug business is too profitable to easily destroy. So a deadly stalemate endures. That has always been the problem Afghanistan could never solve. The main problems are corruption and a lack of local and national leaders willing or able to bring peace and prosperity. How this works, or doesnt can be seen in the security forces. The current strength of the army is supposed to be 190,000 but casualties, desertions and recruiting problems have prevented the military from growing much beyond 170,000. Similar problems with the national police, who are supposed to have 150,000 personnel but in reality can only maintain about 120,000. It may be more dangerous to work for the Taliban but the pay is better and looting is not discouraged. The main problem with the security forces is the quality of leadership. There continues to be a shortage of officers and NCOs troops are willing to follow. This is because of shortages of trained and experienced leaders as well as corruption and ethnic animosities. These last two items are the biggest problems for the military. The corruption is pervasive and newly arrived leaders have to convince their subordinates that the new boss will not sell them out. There is also corruption outside the unit and the unit commanders control. The government and army is full of senior people who steal money meant to buy things the troops need; like food, fuel, weapons, equipment, ammo, medical care and sometimes even their pay. While the Afghan security forces are suffering over 500 dead some months, the 10,000 American troops (and nearly as many other NATO troops and civilian contractors) are safer than they have ever been. In 2016 16 foreign military personnel (14 American) died in Afghanistan. During 2015 only 27 foreign soldiers died (22 American, two British and thee from other countries). In 2014 75 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and the peak year was 2010 when 710 died. Since late 2001 over 3,500 foreign troops (68 percent American) have died in Afghanistan. During the 1980s over 15,000 Russian troops died in an attempt to gain control of the country. The Afghans are having a more difficult time doing that themselves. One thing that keeps the Afghan war effort going is the more than $3.5 billion a year in foreign aid to pay for it. Most Afghans oppose the Taliban and the drug gangs and if someone is going to provide lots of money and some troops to help, the battle will continue. Making peace with the Taliban is less and less likely because the hard core religious and tribal (Pushtun) support for a religious dictatorship (dominated by the Pushtun minority) remains alive and surviving. Its the same problem the rest of the Islamic world has and there are no quick cures. Since the foreign troops left in 2014 the Taliban have been on the offensive. That, like most else in Afghanistan, has not worked out as expected. At the end of 2016 the Taliban only controlled about ten percent of the country and were very active (contesting control of) in another 20 percent. This is nearly ten times as much control as they had at the end of 2014. Most of the Taliban gains have been in Helmand because, as the old saying goes, follow the money. The Taliban also tried to improve their image and paid more attention to what al Qaeda leaders have been telling them for over a decade; avoid civilian casualties (as otherwise it turns potential supporters against you). Thus civilian deaths in 2016 (about 3,200) were not up while deaths among the Taliban and security forces were much higher. Losses on both sides have been heavier since the foreign troops left. Afghanistan claims its forces killed 18,000 enemy fighters (mostly Taliban) in 2016, which is more than twice what the security forces lost. Taliban losses have increased more sharply (more than doubling) since 2014 than those of the security forces (which have increased nearly 50 percent.) This pattern began to emerge in 2015. By the end of 2014 some 300,000 Afghan police and soldiers had assumed responsibility for security all over the country and as a result took a lot more casualties getting that done. At least 5,000 soldiers and police died in 2014, the first year the Afghans had to provide security nationwide. That produced a loss rate of about 2,400 dead per 100,000 troops per year. In 2013 it was about 1,890 which was a big increase from 2007, when the Afghan rate was about 700 dead per 100,000. The rate for 2015 was over 3,000 dead per 100,000, the first full year after most foreign troops had withdrawn. This loss rate was about twice that suffered by American troops during World War II but not unusual for recent Afghan history. The Taliban and drug gangs proclaimed the departure of the formidable foreign troops to be an opportunity. Most Afghans saw it differently and since 2014 the security forces have had help from a lot more tribal militias. These are usually part-timers but get organized in times when there is a local threat, like regular harassment by the Taliban or drug gang gunmen. The security forces value the tribal militias not so much for their firepower as for the information they possess about the local area and who is doing what for who at the moment. The Taliban is also having leadership problems. Mostly its because the Afghans have successfully adopted the American practice of going after enemy leadership. This means Taliban field commanders are sought out and killed or, if possible, taken alive. While there are always ambitious younger Taliban willing to move up, the most capable ones often back off and a growing number are turning to Plan B (take your skills and accumulated cash and get out of Afghanistan). Air Support During 2016 the United States increased its air support for Afghanistan over 40 percent. That meant 1,337 missiles and smart bombs used. The number of airstrikes was about 600, nearly double what it was in 2015. This was no surprise as in mid-2016 the United States revealed that earlier in the year it had ordered American forces in Afghanistan to go after all Islamic terrorists and do so with few restrictions. An easing of restrictions was noted earlier in the year but there was no official announcement until June. By then U.S. Air Force admitted that during the first five months of 2016 American warplanes used 451 missiles and smart bombs against ground targets in Afghanistan. Thats nearly twice as many as during the same period in 2015. That is still less than a quarter of the activity during 2011 and less than half the number of missiles and smart bombs used per month in 2014 (the last year American combat troops were in Afghanistan). The change in 2016 came after the Afghans finally convinced the American political leaders that more air support for Afghan forces would make a major difference. In early 2016 the United States agreed to allow American forces in Afghanistan to work more closely with Afghan forces against the Taliban and other Islamic terror groups. That change included more American air support and relaxed ROE (Rules of Engagement). Now local American commanders could decide when to use American air power or ground forces to assist Afghan forces rather than having to try and convince lawyers and politicians back in the U.S. that this particular attack was a matter of life or death. That cautious approach left a lot of Afghan soldiers, police and civilians dead and other Afghans noticed why. Afghan political and military leaders have been increasingly critical, often publically, about the earlier, more restrictive, American policy. The U.S. has not yet agreed to maintain or increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. Currently there are 9,800 U.S. troops there and that was supposed to be cut 44 percent by the end of 2016. The Afghans made a case for keeping more American troops in Afghanistan and now the reduction will only be 14 percent. Meanwhile more air support will be provided and fewer restrictions will be placed on the use of those aircraft. A new government in the U.S. is expected to be more effective in providing military and other assistance to the Afghan war effort. Meanwhile the U.S. continues to use UAV missile strikes against key Islamic terrorist leaders and often waits weeks or months to make details public. This is usually to confirm who got killed and exploit any intel obtained. The Americans have quietly moved many intel units back to Afghanistan since late 2015. This was something he Afghans wanted and it made a difference providing Afghan forces much more information on the enemy and in a timelier manner. It also enabled the Afghans to more effectively go after Taliban and other Islamic terrorist leaders. Throughout 2016 Afghan forces found and killed 40-50 of these leaders a month. A smaller number were captured alive and in all cases much valuable information was captured for the Americans to quickly analyze and alert the Afghans to any useful leads. The U.S. also used UAVs to go after al Qaeda and ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) leaders who were difficult for the Afghans to get to. The Hidden Menace Pakistan remains the primary source of support for Islamic terrorism in the region. It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny this as more and more evidence surfaces. This has led to open discussions about how to deal with the mess these lies have gotten Pakistan into. Some of these public discussions feature Pakistani officials saying that to move against all Islamic terrorists in Pakistan too aggressively would mean more Islamic terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and that is not acceptable. While maintaining some terrorist sanctuaries makes sense to many Pakistanis it simply angers Afghanistan and India (and now Bangladesh as well) because they have long suffered from Pakistan based Islamic terror groups that had (and still have) sanctuary in Pakistan and until recently any Pakistani openly admitting that would be called a traitor and risk prison or death. What changed Pakistani attitudes towards this official denial was the growing evidence that the Pakistani position was all a lie and a self-destructive one at that. That includes Pakistan trying to blame all Islamic terrorist violence inside Pakistan on foreigners (usually India). This became embarrassing when Pakistani Islamic terrorists would get on the Internet and provide evidence that they, not India, did it. The Afghans and Americans also lost their patience with years of Pakistani promises that they were working on the problem when, in fact, that was all for show. While China is an ally of Pakistan and is making major investments there, China has threatened to cut back if Pakistan does not improve security and is calling for greater international efforts to do the same in Afghanistan (where China has some major projects pending because of security concerns). This is a veiled criticism of Pakistani support of Islamic terrorism. Pakistan is the largest customer for Chinese weapons exports and increasingly dependent on China as a military ally and supplier of weapons. Yet even China has to deal with the terrorism threat created and sustained by the Pakistani military. All this has fueled the growing struggle within the Pakistani government as the military (and its intel branch, ISI) refuse to consider shutting down the remaining Islamic terrorist sanctuaries. While Afghanistans internal problems (corruption, ethnic and religious animosities) are caused and sustained by Afghans it doesnt help that neighbors like Pakistan actively keep the pot boiling. That is beginning to cause a lot more problems for Pakistan and in the long run that is a good thing for Afghanistan. Afghan Exit Strategies There are 13,000 Afghans who served as interpreters for U.S. forces between 2001 and 2014 who have applied to move to the U.S. to avoid death threats from the Taliban and other Islamic terror groups. While there were a few well publicized incidents of interpreters turning on their employers (usually because of disputes over pay and working conditions) most of them served faithfully and often at great personal risk. In the United States, however, there has been a lot of popular and bureaucratic opposition to letting this many Afghans in. The problem is not so much the interpreters as it is the children. A small percentage of them tend to get radicalized when they grow up. This is more common in Europe but it happens often enough in the United States to be noticed. Despite this terror risk the main incentive for allowing all, or most, of these interpreters in is to make it easier to recruit reliable interpreters in similar (to Iraq and Afghanistan) situations. This is important because using local interpreters has always involved some problems and risks. In Iraq the enemy sought to insert spies, or even suicide bombers, via Iraqi interpreters. They had some success, especially with the espionage. In Afghanistan, the Taliban take advantage of the more mercurial attitudes towards foreigners, and urge interpreters to turn on their employers. Sometimes this happens without any Taliban encouragement. Many non-fatal altercations are never reported. American soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have found that the Afghans can be harder to deal with. Iraqis have been doing business with foreigners for thousands of years, and consider themselves quite cosmopolitan. Afghans are more prone to viewing foreigners as a threat, not a business opportunity. Foreigners in Afghanistan have long been a source of loot or ransom, not a mutually profitable commercial deal. The Afghan interpreters are eager, even desperate, to get out and willing to do what it takes to fit in. This eagerness to leave might seem odd because Afghanistan has gone through a lot of positive changes since 2001. For example, life-expectancy had increased from 45 years in 2001 to 63 years now. This, plus the rapid economic growth since 2001 means Afghanistan is no longer the poorest country in Eurasia. The increased life expectancy is largely the result to improved sanitation and medical care, especially for newborns and children under five. One reason for the growing hostility towards the Taliban is the continuing efforts of these Islamic radicals to limit the spread of better health care and economic improvements in general. The most obvious example of this is the continuing Taliban opposition to vaccination programs, which the Taliban consider a Western effort to poison Moslem children. Then there is education, which has rapidly increased, despite constant, and often fatal, Taliban resistance. Better educated children are healthier because they learn about how to keep healthy in addition of how to read and count. Taliban insist that education concentrate mainly on religious matters and that girls be excluded. Islamic educators stress the importance of living like the original 7th century Moslems and avoiding modern technology. This is not popular with most Afghans. The problem with all this progress is that it encourages people to seek better paying and safer jobs in the civilian economy or overseas. Few talented people want to work for the government, which is seen as corrupt and dangerous. Worse yet, too many Afghans who do get some education and technical skills are willing to spend what money they have made to get out of Afghanistan, a place few educated people want to be. The Taliban, who worship ignorance and abhor progress, want to keep the country in a shabby and violent state and rule over the smoldering, but historically accurate, ruins. This struggle between progress and religious opposition to it has been going on in the Islamic world for over a thousand years. A growing number of Afghans see their own country as one of the worst examples of this and have given up risking their lives regularly trying to change that. ISIL Abides The growing unpopularity of the Taliban and other Islamic terror groups in Afghanistan has been a major boost for ISIL. As has happened elsewhere, the hard-core members of other Islamic terror groups see ISIL as a step up. Despite that ISIL is dying, largely because everyone (including nearly all other Islamic terror groups) oppose it. This means that since 2013 (when ISIL first appeared) the group has lost over 60,000 personnel to combat, disease, accidents and desertion. Most of the losses have been suffered in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Its believed that ISIL currently has only about 15,000 fighters available, mostly in Syria and Iraq. There are a few thousand more in northern Libya, eastern Afghanistan and Egypt. In all five countries ISIL is under heavy attack and ISIL recently lost its only major Libyan base. Defending it cost them the loss of some 3,000 dead, captured and deserters. ISIL is expected to suffer major losses in 2017, mainly in Syria and Iraq. That could mean in a year Afghanistan would be the largest ISIL force anywhere but not very large and under constant attack by just about everyone. Despite that ISIL will remain a minor factor because thats how ISIL operates. January 15, 2017: A Spanish foreign aid worker held captive by the Taliban since December 19th was freed unharmed. The government insists that no ransom was paid which usually means a large cash ransom was paid, one that included sufficient bribes for government officials to assure foreign aid donor nations that the no-ransom policy was still in place. It usually is, at least in terms of not releasing imprisoned terrorists or gangsters. An all-cash ransom is easier to pass off as a hostage freed because of intervention by tribal elders. Sometimes local tribal leaders are involved, if you can afford to pay the cash gifts demanded. January 12, 2017: In central Afghanistan (Wardak Province) Haqqani Network gunmen clashed with the army and lost 11 Islamic terrorists dead with no losses to troops or nearby civilians. January 11, 2017: The Taliban released a video showing the two professors (an American and an Australian) kidnapped on August 19th in Kabul. The two pleaded for the newly elected American president to negotiate for their release. That usually means releasing a lot of imprisoned Islamic terrorist leaders and other favors. The U.S. rarely does this, largely because it always backfires. Attempts to locate these captives is complicated by the fact that there are many areas in Afghanistan where the locals are encouraged (by bribes and threats) to resist any rescue attempts or efforts to collect information. These two captives are believed to be held by the Haqqani Network, which now controls the Afghan Taliban and has sanctuaries inside Pakistan, which are particularly good for stashing high-value hostages. January 10, 2017: Major bomb attacks in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand left over fifty dead and more than twice that many wounded. Some involved suicide bombers but some bombs were planted in high security areas. Most of the casualties were civilians, including over a dozen foreigners in Kandahar where a bomb was hidden in a high-security area of the provincial governors compound. That bomb wounded an Arab (UAE) ambassador while five other UAE embassy staff were killed. This the only attack today that the Taliban did not take credit for. Afghan intel later claimed that these attacks were apparently planned and prepared (personnel, training, equipment) at the Taliban sanctuary in Quetta (a Pakistani city just across the border from Helmand province.) The new American Secretary of Defense (a former general with a lot of experience in Afghanistan) affirmed that the Taliban sanctuary remained a key problem for Afghanistan and any effort to deal with Taliban violence. UAE security officials later revealed that they believe the Kandahar bomb was an inside job and more about corruption among senior government officials than Islamic terrorism. It seems that senior officials would threaten, or use, fatal violence disguised as Islamic terrorism to persuade foreign donors to cooperate in corrupt schemes. Unfortunately this is nothing new for Afghanistan and now, as in the past, foreign benefactors will withdraw aid (or trade) rather than submit to Afghan threats. January 8, 2017: In the east (Nangarhar province) Afghan forces clashed with some Islamic terrorists and when the battle was over found they had killed two known Haqqani commanders (both Pakistani) and two of their followers. Troops seized a large quantity of weapon and documents. January 6, 2017: The United States said it will send a military training team of 300 marines to Helmand province in early 2017. Since early 2015 the Taliban have regained control overkey areas of Helmand province and contest much of the rest. When foreign troops left at the end of 2014 most Taliban activity was taking place in two (Kandahar and Helmand) of the 34 provinces. Afghan soldiers and police replaced the departed foreign troops. At that point some 40 percent of the Taliban violence was is in ten Kandahar and Helmand districts. Why that concentration of Taliban activity? Its because of the heroin. The Taliban put most of their effort into protecting the districts where some 90 percent of the heroin in Afghanistan is produced. The other areas cursed with Taliban presence are ones that smuggling routes (to get the heroin to the outside world) go through. The Taliban dont like to talk about this and they terrorize local media to stay away from it. International media avoid it as well, but on the ground its all about drugs and the huge amount of cash they provide for the drug gangs and their Taliban partners. It was different when there were a lot of foreign troops in Helmand. In 2009-10, there were over 15,000 foreign troops in Helmand, most of them British and American who often worked together out of over 200 bases. In 2009 there were 4,000 (assisted by 600 Afghan troops) American m arines in southern Helmand while 9,000 British troops operating in northern Helmand. The American marines wanted an equal number of Afghan troops but the Afghan army didn't that many available. The marines intend to leave small garrisons all over southern Helmand, and wait for the Taliban to try and reclaim their little heroin producing cash machine. Eventually the Taliban did, but only after all the foreign troops were gone. The Taliban expected to drive all the Afghan forces out of Helmand in a few months and be running the country again in a few years. That didnt happen and the surge in heroin production (most exported to the West) is bringing the foreign troops back to Helmand. January 2, 2017: In the southwest (Nimroz province) Afghan ground and air forces attacked a rural compound that was a major Taliban base. The attack killed over 80 Taliban, about 20 of them foreigners. In addition the operation destroyed two bomb building workshops and large quantities of bomb components. This operation was not publicized for over a week so that captured documents could be analyzed (for the location of other Taliban in the area) and acted on (attacked those Taliban before they found out they had been located and were able to move.) December 31, 2016: Despite denials from the Iranian government Afghan border guards confirmed that their Iranian counterparts regularly accept the bodies of known Taliban for burial by their families living in Iran. December 27, 2016: Pakistan, Russia and China officials met in Russia to discuss the security situation in Afghanistan. China and Russia agreed to try and get UN sanctions against the Taliban lifted in order to encourage the Taliban to enter peace talks with Afghanistan. The U.S. had earlier revealed evidence of the Taliban getting some help (sanctuary, diplomatic support and information) from Iran and Russia in return for assistance in keeping ISIL out of Iran and Russia. Afghanistan accuses Russia and China of cooperating with Pakistan is trying to control Afghanistan via the Taliban (which was created by Pakistan in the 1990s for just that purpose). Afghanistan accuses Iran of secretly working with the Taliban when it will help keep Islamic terrorists out of Iran. Russia has also come out in support of the Chinese financed rail link between China and the Indian Ocean via Pakistan and new port facilities (and a Chinese naval base) on the Pakistani coast. India sides with the U.S. in criticizing China for blocking UN sanctions against some Islamic terrorist leaders who have proved useful to China. Afghan politicians openly accuse Saudi Arabia and Iran of supporting Islamic terrorists when it is in their interests, even if it means problems for other countries, like Afghanistan. Russia admits such links and points out that to fight terrorists you often have to cooperate with some of them. December 23, 2016: In Kabul police killed the last of three Taliban who had attacked the compound of a MP (Member of Parliament) 10 hours earlier. The suicide bomber died at the start of the attack but the two gunmen held out overnight before police got into position to kill them. The attack failed to kill any of the senior politicians who were meeting in the compound but eight civilians died, including two bodyguards, two grandsons of the MP and several others in the compound when the attack started. December 22, 2016: Afghanistan accused Pakistan of resuming the shelling of Afghan territory in eastern (Kunar provinces) and southern (Helmand province) Afghanistan. Although most of the shells landed in remote areas they still manage to kill or wound some people, usually innocent civilians. These rocket, mortar and artillery attacks from Pakistan have been particularly heavy in 2013 and 2014 but happened much left frequently after a new Afghan government joined the U.S. to call out the Pakistanis on these attacks. Pakistan usually refuses to admit they are even happening but because of the 2015 cooperation deal (mainly to deal with Islamic terrorists hostile to everyone) Pakistan became more receptive to these complaints. The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. 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Read More A proposed land exchange west of Helena which would consolidate state owned and private property brought a mixed response from the public. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks proposes trading 514 acres of the Spotted Dog Wildlife Management Area, located south of Avon, for 440 acres of the Cross Canyon Ranch. The department conducted scoping on the project last fall, sending letters to adjacent landowners and speaking with sportsmens groups to gauge interest and concerns. The nearly 38,000-acre wildlife management area is fractured by nearly 3,000 acres of private in-holdings. In 2011, the former Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission, now the Fish and Wildlife Commission, authorized FWP to explore trades or acquisitions of checker-boarded land parcels, improving management and facilitating public access to state property, according to the department. Its been a pretty protracted process negotiating terms with the landowner, said Rick Northrup, FWP habitat bureau chief, when asked why the project came up five years after the commission decision. Scoping makes people aware of the projects, and well be discussing some of the concerns out there. It may stop with scoping if we decide not to pursue the project. If we decide to proceed well do an (environmental assessment) incorporating the concerns and then going out for public comment. Cross Canyon Ranch owns two parcels surrounded by management area. The proposal calls for trade of one 240-acre parcel while FWP would trade 360 acres of another parcel, making both sections wholly owned by one entity. A major highlight of the exchange is Cross Canyons trade of 160 acres that would provide the only east to west connection for the public to access both sides of Spotted Dog. A couple of smaller parcels would swap, and FWP would give up a road setback totaling 114 acres to complete the project. The connector parcels will definitely provide walk-in access but it is unlikely motorized travel would be incorporated, Northrup said. The Cross Canyon in-holdings are not fenced out, which effectively means livestock could run freely onto WMA land in an unmanaged fashion, he said. It would provide a continuous landscape the state manages. The alternative is to start putting up fence. FWP would prefer fewer fences for the areas elk herds to contend with. Estimated fencing costs run about $90,000, he said. Public response during scoping was mixed, with some full support, others suggesting alternative exchanges and some in total opposition. Concerns included the discrepancy in acreage and whether the trade will cut the public from typical elk travel paths. FWP describes the traded parcels as similar in value despite the acre-for-acre difference in favor of the ranch. Chris Marchion, president of the Anaconda Sportmens Club, said theyre generally in favor of eliminating checker-boarded land, but the proposed exchange poses some access issues. Of particular concern is a section of state school trust land that would become much more difficult to access. Im very much opposed to isolating that piece of ground, he said, adding that he hopes FWP and the landowner will consider alternative swaps. I say lets consolidate but lets do it in a way respective of public values. Marchion says he is not particularly bothered by the acreage discrepancy as long as the lands offer comparable values. To me the question is whether our landscape is better than when we started out even if we lose a little bit of acreage, he said. Adjacent landowner Mary Ann R. Fiehrer voiced concerns about the exchange in a letter to the editor, saying the state gives away prime hunting ground and gets 74 fewer acres in return. This trade will only benefit the private landowner in his guiding endeavors, she wrote. If the trade has to be made, there are other ways to do so, that are not as detrimental to Montana. A request for comment from Cross Canyon was not returned in time for this story. FWP has not yet met to discuss the public comment and to decide if it will proceed with the land exchange, Northrup said. That meeting will include whether to tweak the exchange proposal and take it back to the landowner, who is from out of state which limits opportunities to negotiate. It took a long time to get both parties in agreement with a deal, he said. Im of the assumption that if we try to re-create or change this, Im not saying it wouldnt happen but it would take quite a bit of time. 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Ltd., Pfizer Singapore Trading Pte. Ltd., Pfizer Spain Holdings Cooperatief U.A., Pfizer Specialties Limited, Pfizer Strategic Investment Holdings LLC, Pfizer Sweden Partnership KB, Pfizer TRAE Holdings Kft., Pfizer Trading Polska sp.z.o.o., Pfizer Transactions Ireland Unlimited Company, Pfizer Transactions LLC, Pfizer Transactions Luxembourg SARL, Pfizer Transport LLC, Pfizer Ukraine LLC, Pfizer Vaccines LLC, Pfizer Venezuela S.A., Pfizer Venture Investments LLC, Pfizer Ventures LLC, Pfizer Worldwide Services Unlimited Company, Pfizer Zona Franca S.A., Pfizer spol. s r.o., Pharmacia, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc., Pharmacia & Upjohn Company LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn LLC, Pharmacia & Upjohn S.A. de C.V., Pharmacia Brasil Ltda., Pharmacia Hepar LLC, Pharmacia Holding AB, Pharmacia Inter-American LLC, Pharmacia International B.V., Pharmacia LLC, Pharmacia Limited, Pharmacia Nostrum S.A., Pharmacia South Africa (Pty) Ltd, PowderJect Research Limited, PowderMed, Purepac Pharmaceutical Holdings LLC, Redvax, Renrall LLC, Rinat Neuroscience, Rinat Neuroscience Corp., Roerig Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Roerig S.A., Sao Cristovao Participacoes Ltda., Searle Laboratorios Lda., Serenex, Servicios P&U S. de R.L. de C.V., Shiley LLC, Sinergis Farma-Produtos Farmaceuticos Lda., Site Realty Inc., Solinor LLC, Sugen LLC, Tabor LLC, The Pfizer Incubator LLC, Therachon, Thiakis Limited, Treerly Health Co. Ltd, US Oral Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd, Upjohn Laboratorios Lda., Vesteralens Naturprodukter A/S, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AB, Vesteralens Naturprodukter AS, Vesteralens Naturprodukter OY, Vicuron Holdings LLC, Vinci Farma S.A., W-L LLC, Warner Lambert, Warner Lambert Ilac Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Warner Lambert del Uruguay S.A., Warner-Lambert (Thailand) Limited, Warner-Lambert Company AG, Warner-Lambert Company LLC, Warner-Lambert Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Warner-Lambert S.A., Whitehall International Inc., Whitehall Laboratories Inc., Wyeth (Thailand) Ltd., Wyeth AB, Wyeth Australia Pty. Limited, Wyeth Ayerst Inc., Wyeth Ayerst S.a r.l., Wyeth Biopharma, Wyeth Canada ULC, Wyeth Consumer Healthcare LLC, Wyeth Europa Limited, Wyeth Farma S.A., Wyeth Holdings LLC, Wyeth Industria Farmaceutica Ltda., Wyeth KFT., Wyeth LLC, Wyeth Lederle S.r.l., Wyeth Lederle Vaccines S.A., Wyeth Pakistan Limited, Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Company, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals FZ-LLC, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals LLC, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Limited, Wyeth Puerto Rico Inc., Wyeth S.A.S, Wyeth Subsidiary Illinois Corporation, Wyeth Whitehall Export GmbH, Wyeth Whitehall SARL, Wyeth-Ayerst (Asia) Limited, Wyeth-Ayerst International LLC, and Wyeth-Ayerst Promotions Limited. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of InterContinental Hotels Group: 2250 Blake Street Hotel LLC, 24th Street Operator Sub LLC, 36th Street IHG Sub LLC, 426 Main Ave LLC, 46 Nevins Street Associates LLC, Allegro Management LLC, Alpha Kimball Hotel LLC, American Commonwealth Assurance Co. Ltd., Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BHMC Canada Inc., BHR Holdings B.V., BHR Luxembourg SARL, BHR Pacific Holdings Inc., BHTC Canada Inc., BOC Barclay Sub LLC, Barclay Operating Corp., Bristol Oakbrook Tenant Company, Cafe Biarritz, Cambridge Lodging LLC, Capital Lodging LLC, Compania Inter-Continental De Hoteles El Salvador SA, Crowne Plaza Amsterdam (Management) B.V., Crowne Plaza LLC, Cumberland Akers Hotel LLC, Dunwoody Operations Inc., EVEN Real Estate Holding LLC, Edinburgh IC Limited, General Innkeeping Acceptance Corporation, Guangzhou SC Hotels Services Ltd., H.I. (Ireland) Limited, H.I. Soaltee Management Company Ltd, HC International Holdings Inc., HH France Holdings SAS, HH Hotels (EMEA) B.V., HH Hotels (Romania) SRL, HI Sugarloaf LLC, HIM (Aruba) NV, Hale International Ltd., Hoft Properties LLC, Holiday Hospitality Franchising LLC, Holiday Inn Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Holiday Inns (China) Ltd, Holiday Inns (Chongqing) Inc., Holiday Inns (Courtalin) Holdings SAS, Holiday Inns (Courtalin) SAS, Holiday Inns (England) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Germany) LLC, Holiday Inns (Guangzhou) Inc., Holiday Inns (Jamaica) Inc., Holiday Inns (Malaysia) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Middle East) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Philippines) Inc., Holiday Inns (Saudi Arabia) Inc., Holiday Inns (South East Asia) Inc., Holiday Inns (Thailand) Ltd., Holiday Inns (UK) Inc., Holiday Inns Crowne Plaza (Hong Kong) Inc., Holiday Inns Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Holiday Inns Inc., Holiday Inns Investment (Nepal) Ltd., Holiday Inns of America (UK) Ltd., Holiday Inns of Belgium N.V., Holiday Pacific Equity Corporation, Holiday Pacific LLC, Holiday Pacific Partners LP, Hotel Inter-Continental London Limited, Hotel InterContinental London (Holdings) Limited, Hoteles Y Turismo HIH SRL, IC Hotelbetriebsfuhrungs GmbH, IC Hotels Management (Portugal) Unipessoal Lda, IC International Hotels Limited Liability Company, IHC (Thailand) Limited, IHC Buckhead LLC, IHC Edinburgh (Holdings), IHC Hopkins (Holdings) Corp., IHC Hotel Limited, IHC Inter-Continental (Holdings) Corp., IHC London (Holdings), IHC M-H (Holdings) Corp., IHC May Fair (Holdings) Limited, IHC May Fair Hotel Limited, IHC Overseas (U.K.) Limited, IHC UK (Holdings) Limited, IHC United States (Holdings) Corp., IHC Willard (Holdings) Corp., IHG (Australasia) Limited, IHG (Marseille) SAS, IHG (Thailand) Limited, IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan LLC, IHG ANA Hotels Holdings Co. Ltd., IHG Bangkok Ltd, IHG Brasil Administracao de Hoteis e Servicos Ltda, IHG Commission Services SRL, IHG Community Development LLC, IHG Cyprus Limited, IHG ECS (Barbados) SRL, IHG Franchising Brasil Ltda, IHG Franchising DR Corporation, IHG Franchising LLC, IHG Hotels (New Zealand) Limited, IHG Hotels Limited, IHG Hotels Management (Australia) Pty Limited, IHG Hotels Nigeria Limited, IHG Hotels South Africa (Pty) Ltd, IHG International Partnership, IHG Istanbul Otel Yonetim Limited Sirketi, IHG Japan (Management) LLC, IHG Japan (Osaka) LLC, IHG Management (Maryland) LLC, IHG Management (Netherlands) B.V., IHG Management MD Barclay Sub LLC, IHG Management SL d.o.o, IHG Management d.o.o. Beograd, IHG Orchard Street Member LLC, IHG PS Nominees Limited, IHG Systems Pty Ltd, IHG Szalloda Budapest Szolgaltato Kft., IHG de Argentina SA, IND East Village SD Holdings LLC, Inter-Continental D.C. Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Investment Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Partner Corp., Inter-Continental Hospitality Corporation, Inter-Continental Hoteleira Limitada, Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Owning Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation, Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation de Venezuela C.A., Inter-Continental Hotels of San Francisco Inc., Inter-Continental IOHC (Mauritius) Limited, Inter-Continental Management (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental (Branston) 1 Limited, InterContinental (PB) 1, InterContinental (PB) 2, InterContinental (PB) 3 Limited, InterContinental Berlin Service Company GmbH, InterContinental Brasil Administracao de Hoteis Ltda, InterContinental Gestion Hotelera S.L., InterContinental Hotel Berlin GmbH, InterContinental Hotel Dusseldorf GmbH (Germany), InterContinental Hotels (Puerto Rico) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Canada) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Espana) SA, InterContinental Hotels Group (Greater China) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (India) Pvt. Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Japan) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (New Zealand) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Shanghai) Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Customer Services Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Healthcare Trustee Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group Operating Corp., InterContinental Hotels Group Resources Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group Services Company, InterContinental Hotels Group do Brasil Limitada, InterContinental Hotels Italia S.r.L., InterContinental Hotels Limited, InterContinental Hotels Management GmbH, InterContinental Hotels Nevada Corporation, InterContinental Management AM LLC, InterContinental Management Bulgaria EOOD, InterContinental Management France SAS, InterContinental Management Poland sp. z.o.o, InterContinental Overseas Holding Corporation, Intercontinental Hotels Corporation Limited, KG Benefits LLC, KG Gift Card Inc., KG Liability LLC, KG Technology LLC, KHP Washington Operator LLC, KHRG 11th Avenue Hotel LLC, KHRG 851 LLC, KHRG Aertson LLC, KHRG Alexandria LLC, KHRG Alexis LLC, KHRG Allegro LLC, KHRG Argyle LLC, KHRG Austin Beverage Company LLC, KHRG Baltimore LLC, KHRG Born LLC, KHRG Boston Hotel LLC, KHRG Canary LLC, KHRG Cayman Employer Ltd., KHRG Cayman LLC, KHRG DC 1731 LLC, KHRG DC 2505 LLC, KHRG Donovan LLC, KHRG Employer LLC, KHRG Goleta LLC, KHRG Gray LLC, KHRG Gray U2 LLC, KHRG Hillcrest LLC, KHRG Huntington Beach LLC, KHRG King Street LLC, KHRG La Peer LLC, KHRG Miami Beach LLC, KHRG Muse LLC, KHRG NPC LLC, KHRG Onyx LLC, KHRG Palladian LLC, KHRG Palomar Phoenix LLC, KHRG Philly Monaco LLC, KHRG Pittsburgh LLC, KHRG Reynolds LLC, KHRG Riverplace LLC, KHRG SFD LLC, KHRG Sacramento LLC, KHRG Savannah LLC, KHRG Schofield LLC, KHRG Sedona LLC, KHRG State Street LLC, KHRG Sutter LLC, KHRG Sutter Union LLC, KHRG Taconic LLC, KHRG Tariff LLC, KHRG Texas Hospitality LLC, KHRG Texas Operations LLC, KHRG Tryon LLC, KHRG VZ Austin LLC, KHRG Vero Beach LLC, KHRG Vintage Park LLC, KHRG WPB LLC, KHRG Wabash LLC, KHRG Westwood LLC, KHRG Wilshire LLC, KHRG Zamora LLC, Kimpton Hollywood Licenses LLC, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC, Kimpton Phoenix Licenses Holdings LLC, Kimpton Sedona Licenses LLC, Louisiana Acquisitions Corp., MH Lodging LLC, Mercer Fairview Holdings LLC, PML Services LLC, PT SC Hotels & Resorts Indonesia, Pollstrong Limited, Powell Pine Inc., Priscilla Holiday of Texas Inc., RM Lodging LLC, Regent Hotels and Resorts, Resort Services International (Cayo Largo) L.P., SBS Maryland Beverage Company LLC, SC Cellars Limited, SC Hotels International Services Inc., SC Leisure Group Limited, SC NAS 2 Limited, SC Quest Limited, SC Reservations (Philippines) Inc., SCH Insurance Company, SCIH Branston 3, SF MH Acquisition LLC, SPHC Group Pty Ltd., SPHC Management Ltd., Semiramis for training of Hotel Personnel and Hotel Management SAE, Six Continents Corporate Services, Six Continents Holdings Limited, Six Continents Hotels Inc., Six Continents Hotels International Limited, Six Continents Hotels de Colombia SA, Six Continents International Holdings B.V., Six Continents Investments Limited, Six Continents Limited, Six Continents Overseas Holdings Limited, Six Continents Restaurants Limited, SixCo North America Inc., Solamar Lodging LLC, Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation (BVI) Ltd., Southern Pacific Hotels Properties Limited, Universal de Hoteles SA, White Shield Insurance Company Limited, and World Trade Centre Montreal Hotel Corporation. Read More In a recent editorial ostensibly outlining Republican priorities and agenda, state Sens. Scott Sales and Fred Thomas start by accusing Gov. Bullock of intentional mismanagement, denial, or ignorance. Note to senators: The election is over. Can we stop with the politics of personal attacks? Do we hear Gov. Bullock or Democratic leadership accusing Republican leaders of incompetence or fraud or denial or cluelessness? For Republicans, or at least Republican leaders, everything is ideology. Everything is a contest between evil, wasteful Democrats and solomonic Republicans. But Montanans dont believe this. Yes, Montanans elected a Republican-controlled Legislature, but we also re-elected our Democratic governor. What Montanans want is responsible government, visionary leadership and thoughtful approaches to addressing the financial and other challenges that face our state. There are real problems to be solved. And across the aisle there are genuine differences of opinion on solutions. But it is possible to disagree without disrespect. Stop with the politics. Get down to business. Show Montanans that you can come together in a bipartisan way and find solutions for the benefit of our state and our children, without the partisan sniping. This is what Montanans want, and expect, from our government. Rise above. Thomas Judge Helena The following companies are subsidiares of NOV: APL France SAS, APL Norway AS, APL do Brasil Ltda., ASEP Otomotiv Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Acker Holdings LLC, Ackerman Holdings C.V., Ackerman Holdings GP LLC, Advanced Production and Loading, Advanced Wirecloth S. de R.L. de C.V., American Pipe and Construction International, Ameron B.V., Ameron International, Ameron International Corporation, Ameron Pole Products LLC, Ameron Polyplaster Industria E Comercio de Tubos Ltda., Ameron Singapore Holding LLC, Andergauge Limited, Andergauge Redback LLC, Arabian Rig Manufacturing Company, Big Red Tubulars Limited, Bondstrand Ltd., Brandt Oilfield Services (M) Sdn. Bhd., C.M.A. Canavera S.R.L., CJSC Fidmash, CJSC Novmash, Chemineer Inc., Coil Services Middle East LLC, Cooperatie Intelliserv Holding U.A., Cooperatie NOV NL U.A., Danco AS, Elmar Far East Pty Ltd, Enerflow Industries, Environmental Procedures LLC, Fiber Glass Systems (Qingdao) Composite Piping Co. Ltd., Fiber Glass Systems L.P., Fiber Glass Systems Oman L.L.C., Fiberspar, Fiberspar Australia Pty. Ltd., Fibra Ingenieria y Construccion S.A., FidService LLC, Fjords Processing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing AS, Fjords Processing Australia Pty Ltd, Fjords Processing France SAS, Fjords Processing Korea Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing Limited, Fjords Processing Middle East DMCC, Fjords Processing UK Ltd., Fryma S.a.r.l., GPEX L.P., Grant Prideco (Jiangsu) Drilling Products Co. Ltd, Grant Prideco (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Grant Prideco III C. V., Grant Prideco Inc., Grant Prideco Jersey Limited, Grant Prideco Mauritius Limited, Grant Prideco Netherlands B.V., Grant Prideco PC Composites Holdings LLC, Grant Prideco S. de R.L. de C.V., Grant Prideco de Venezuela S.A., GustoMSC B.V., Hebei Huayouyiji Tuboscope Coating Co. Ltd., Hydralift AmClyde Inc., Hydralift France SAS, Inspecciones y Pruebas No Destructivas S. de R.L. de C.V., IntelliServ Norway AS, Intelliserv GP Holdings LLC, Intelliserv Inc., Intelliserv International Holding Ltd, Intelliserv LLC, JiangYin Tuboscope Tubular Development Co. Ltd, Keystone Tower Systems Inc., MSI Pipe Protection Technologies UK Limited, Merpro Group Limited, Midsund Bruk AS, Mono Group Pension Trustees Limited, Mono Pumps New Zealand Company, Monoflo NOV S.A.I.C., Moyno Inc., NKT Flexibles I/S, NOV (Asia) Inc., NOV (Barbados) Holding SRL, NOV (Barbados) SRL, NOV (Caymans) Ltd., NOV (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., NOV - Oil Services Angola LDA., NOV APL Limited, NOV Africa Pty Ltd, NOV Australia Pty Ltd, NOV Azerbaijan LLC, NOV Brandt Europe France, NOV Brandt Oilfield Services Middle East LLC, NOV CAPS Pte. Ltd., NOV CV1 GP LLC, NOV CV2 GP LLC, NOV Canada ULC, NOV Completion Tools LLC, NOV Completion and Production Solutions Korea Ltd., NOV Denmark Cooperatief U.A., NOV Downhole Argentina LLC, NOV Downhole Bolivia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Colombia LLC, NOV Downhole Comercializacao de Equipamentos para Petroleo Ltda., NOV Downhole Congo LLC, NOV Downhole Eurasia Limited, NOV Downhole Italia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Kazakhstan LLC, NOV Downhole Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Downhole Pty Ltd, NOV Downhole Thailand LLC, NOV EU Acquisition SNC, NOV Elmar (Middle East) Limited, NOV Eurasia Holding LLC, NOV Expatriate Services Inc., NOV FGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, NOV FGS Singapore (Pte.) Ltd, NOV Flexibles Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Flexibles Holding ApS, NOV Fluid Control B.V., NOV GEO GP LLC, NOV GEO LP1 C.V., NOV GEO LP1 LLC, NOV GEO LP2 C.V., NOV GEO LP2 LLC, NOV Gabon SARL, NOV Germany GmbH, NOV Germany Holding GmbH, NOV Ghana Limited, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Equipment Manufacturing LLC, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Products Middle East FZE, NOV Grant Prideco L.L.C., NOV Holding Danmark ApS, NOV Holding Sub UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 1 Limited, NOV Holding UK 2 Limited, NOV Holdings B.V., NOV India Private Limited, NOV Intelliserv UK Limited, NOV International Holdings C.V., NOV International Holdings GP LLC, NOV International Holdings LLC, NOV Intervention & Stimulation Equipment US LLC, NOV Intervention and Stimulation Equipment Aftermarket Comercio de Equipamentos e Servicos Ltda., NOV Kenya Limited, NOV Kostroma LLC, NOV Kuwait Light & Heavy Equipment Repairing & Maintenance Co., NOV LP (Trading) LLC, NOV MFG India Private Limited, NOV Mexico Holding LLC, NOV Middle East FZCO, NOV Mozambique Limitada, NOV NL Mexico Holding B.V., NOV Oil & Gas Services Egypt (S.A.E), NOV Oil & Gas Services Senegal S.A.R.L., NOV Oil & Gas Services Uganda Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Ghana Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Nigeria Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Tanzania Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Vostok LLC, NOV Oilfield Solutions Ltd., NOV Park II B.V., NOV Process & Flow Technologies AS, NOV Process & Flow Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies Pte. Ltd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies UK Limited, NOV QFZ LLC, NOV Rig Solutions Pte. Ltd., NOV Romania LLC, NOV Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., NOV Saudi Arabia Trading Co., NOV Services Ltd., NOV Servicios de Personal Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., NOV Tanajib Kuwait for Services and Maintenance of Oil Rigs Refineries and Petrochemicals W.L.L., NOV Tuboscope Italia S.R.L., NOV Tuboscope Middle East LLC, NOV Tuboscope NL B.V., NOV Tubulars and Connectors Ltd., NOV UK (Angola Acquisitions) Limited, NOV UK Finance Limited, NOV UK Holdings LLC, NOV UK Holdings Limited, NOV UK Korea LP, NOV Wellbore Technologies Norway LLC, NOV Wellbore Technologies do Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Wellsite Services Germany GmbH, NOV Worldwide B.V., NOV-BLM SAS, NOVM Holding LLC, NOW International LLC, NOW Nova Scotia Holdings LLC, NOW Oilfield Services LLC, NQL Holland B.V., National Oilwell (U.K.) Limited, National Oilwell Algerie, National Oilwell Varco (Beijing) Investment Management Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco (Thailand) Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Algeria, National Oilwell Varco Almansoori Services, National Oilwell Varco Bahrain WLL, National Oilwell Varco Belgium SA, National Oilwell Varco Denmark I/S, National Oilwell Varco Egypt LLC, National Oilwell Varco Eurasia LLC, National Oilwell Varco Guatemala Limitada, National Oilwell Varco Guyana Inc., National Oilwell Varco Hungary Limited Liability Company, National Oilwell Varco Korea Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco L.P., National Oilwell Varco MSW S.A., National Oilwell Varco Mexico S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco Muscat L.L.C., National Oilwell Varco Norway AS, National Oilwell Varco Peru S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Petroleum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Poland Sp.z.o.o., National Oilwell Varco Pte. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Rig Equipment Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Romania S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Solutions S.A. de C.V., National Oilwell Varco UK Limited, National Oilwell Varco Ukraine LLC, National Oilwell Varco de Bolivia S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco de Chile - Servicios Limitada, National Oilwell Varco do Brasil Ltda., National Oilwell de Venezuela C.A., National-Oilwell Pte. Ltd., National-Oilwell Pty. Ltd., PT Fjords Processing Indonesia, PT H-Tech Oilfield Equipment, PT NOV Oilfield Services, PT National Oilwell Varco, PT PROFAB INDONESIA, Pesaka Inspection Services SDN.BHD., Pipex Limited, Pipex PX Limited, Pridecomex Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., R&M Energy Systems Australia Pty Ltd, R&M Energy Systems de Argentina S.A., R&M Energy Systems de Venezuela C.A., R&M Singapore Holding LLC, RE.MAC.UT. S.r.l., RHI Holding LLC, ReedHycalog International Holding LLC, ReedHycalog L.P., ReedHycalog LLC, ReedHycalog UK Limited, Robannic Overseas Finance A.V.V., Robbins & Myers B.V., Robbins & Myers Foundation, Robbins & Myers GP LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings UK Limited, Robbins & Myers Inc, Robbins & Myers Inc., Robbins & Myers Italia S.R.L., Robbins & Myers N.V., Rodic S.A. de C.V., Romaco S.a.r.l., STAR Sudamtex Tubulares S.A., STSA, Screen Manufacturing Company Unlimited, Slip Clutch Systems Limited, South Seas Inspection, Subseaflex Holding ApS, T-3 Energy Preferred Industries Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Holdings Ltd., T-3 Energy Services Cayman Ltd., T-3 Energy Services LLC, T-3 Energy Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., T-3 Investment Corporation IV, T-3 Mexican Holdings Inc., Telluride Insurance Limited, Tianjin Grant TPCO Drilling Tools Company Limited, Tuboscope & Co. LLC, Tuboscope (Holding U.S.) LLC, Tuboscope Brandt de Venezuela S.A., Tuboscope Norge AS, Tuboscope Vetco (France) SAS, Tuboscope Vetco (Osterreich) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco Capital Limited, Tuboscope Vetco Moscow CJSC, Tuboscope Vetco de Argentina S.A., Tubular Coatings Solutions Ltd., Tucom Composites Polyester Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Urban WLY LP, Varco BJ B.V., Varco CIS LLC, Varco International de Venezuela C.A., Varco L.P., Varco US Holdings LLC, Vetco Enterprise GmbH, Vetco Saudi Arabia Ltd., Visible Assets Inc., Wilson International, Woolley Inc., XL Systems Antilles N.V., XL Systems Europe B.V., XL Systems International Inc., voestalpine Tubulars Corporation, voestalpine Tubulars GmbH, and voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG. Read More Oil States International, Inc. engages in the provision of manufactured products and services used in the drilling, completion, subsea, production and infrastructure sectors of the oil and natural gas industry, as well as in the industrial and military sectors. It operates through the following segments: Well Site Services, Downhole Technologies and Offshore or Manufactured Products. The Well Site Services segment includes a broad range of equipment and services that are used to drill for, establish and maintain the flow of oil and natural gas from a well throughout its life cycle. The Downhole Technologies segment provides oil and gas perforation systems and downhole tools in support of completion, intervention, wireline and abandonment operations. It also designs, manufactures and markets its consumable engineered products to oilfield service as well as exploration and production companies. The Offshore or Manufactured Products segment designs, manufactures, and markets capital equipment utilized on floating production systems, subsea pipeline infrastructure, and offshore drilling rigs and vessels, along with short-cycle and other products. The company was founded in July 1995 an A Helena legislator wants to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a proposal that drew both support and criticism Monday. Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, introduced House Bill 169 to the Business and Labor Committee. The increased minimum wage proposed by Dunwell would take effect January 2018. As is currently the case, the minimum would be raised by a cost of living adjustment each year after that. Montana's minimum wage is $8.15 an hour. Dunwell said it was appropriate to hold the bills hearing on Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King believed that fair pay for hard work is a human right, Dunwell said. A living wage in Montana is considered $14.40 for an individual, $19 for an individual with a child, and it goes on up from there. This is not near that, but its something. Twenty percent of Montanas workforce 96,000 Montanans earn between $8.15 and $10.10 an hour." Supporters Bills to increase the minimum wage have rarely left committee in recent sessions, where majority Republicans generally have opposed the minimum wage or increases to it as government interfering with a free market. Nonetheless, a handful of supporters presented testimony Monday. Montana Department of Labor and Industry Deputy Commissioner Galen Hollenbaugh said his agency supported the legislation as one way to attract new workers with stronger skills to the state as a significant number of Montana workers near retirement age. More than 6 percent of workers are older than 65 and nearly 100,000 more are between 55 and 64 years old, he said. Jules Shindel, an organizing director for Montana Women Vote and Montana Human Rights Network, emphasized that the people earning minimum wage today are different from those who did so decades ago. The idea that minimum-wage workers are just teenagers with weekend jobs or college students working over the summer is an enormous myth, she said. She cited some national figures: The average age of a minimum-wage worker is 35. More than half of the country's minimum-wage workers work full time. 27 percent are parents. She also offered some statewide numbers: More than half of Montana's minimum-wage workers are women. More than 8 out of 10 minimum-wage workers who receive tips (such as restaurant servers) are women. Supporters noted that full-time, minimum-wage work amounts to an annual income of less than $17,000 a year, or $1,400 a month. Most organizations and government assistance programs recommend spending no more than a third of income on housing, which would be about $460 at minimum wage. The average monthly rent in the state for a one-bedroom apartment is $601 and $759 for a two-bedroom, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. For most Americans, housing is the largest household expense, but for many Montanans the largest expense is actually transportation because of the distances to basic services and the needs for longer commutes to work. In rural areas with collapsed or sluggish economies, unmarried residents living at the national poverty line can spend as much as 72 percent of their income on transportation, as is the case in Sanders County, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A stressed-out worker facing crippling debt is probably more focused on personal problems than on their work, said John Ilgenfritz, a Helena resident who guided a job training program for years and had served on a 2009 state commission on community service. The raise is essential for their ability to be self-sufficient. Dunwell further argued that putting more money in the pockets of Montanans working for the lowest wages will help grow the states economy. This is a local economic driver, she said. These are not people that will be investing in international hedge funds. Theyll be spending that money in Montana. Opponents Opponents of the bill said the effect would be the opposite: Businesses would have to increase prices, cut jobs or delay expansions to absorb the costs of increasing wages and the correlated increases in various taxes and insurance policies linked to wages. Those challenges would hit restaurants the hardest, said Brad Griffin, president of the Montana Retail Association, who also spoke on behalf of the restaurant association. $10.10 an hour would disrupt the business model for the vast majority of restaurants, he said, noting servers agreed to minimum wage because their tips boost their actual income. Montana Chamber of Commerce Government Relations Director Bridger Mahlum argued that a minimum wage increase is arbitrary and not tied to actual workforce improvements. Let the market set the wage rate, he said. Real wage growth comes from increased productivity, not legislation. David Herbst, director for Montana chapter of Americans for Prosperity, argued a minimum wage increase had redistributive, not additive effects on the economy, which do not lead to real growth. Riley Johnson, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, noted that the average member of his organization has three employees and makes less than $600,000 in gross sales each year. Johnson, who has lobbied at the capitol since 1965, said increasing the minimum wage now would not end the effort. Well have to face this issue again. Itll never stop, he said. If this was easy, Dunwell said. We wouldve done it a long time ago. Closing testimony During Monday's discussion, three committee members called out a speaker some thought had made a veiled threat against anyone who would support the bill. At the end of his testimony, Americans for Prosperity's Herbst had said his organization would be scoring against it. Asked to clarify by Vice Chair Amanda Curtis, he said votes on the bill would be used calculate legislator scorecards to educate folks about how people vote. Rep. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, D-Crow Agency, defended legislators duty to listen to testimony and discuss bills. We should not be placed under threat, she said. At the close of testimony, Chairman Rep. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, offered a reminder to keep proceedings civil. Were all here to hear testimony, to hear good bills presented. A lot of work has gone into them, he said. We need to be sure to caution ourselves not to attack anybody or give any threats to make the committee feel like they're threatened in any way. Remember Michael Ignatieff, whom Canadians rejected for being an out-of-touch American Ivy League elitist? Remember the furor over former governor-general Michaelle Jeans dual Canadian/French citizenship? To that mix add the controversy of Giller Prize-winning author Joseph Boydens questionable indigenous ancestry. We demanded adherence to single national identities from Ignatieff and Jean, anything beyond simply Canadian raised suspicions of their loyalties, but of Boyden we seem to have a shifting line in the sand. Only Boyden knows the truth about his heritage. On record are claims he has made over the years to various indigenous communities. An investigation by APTN found none could be backed up or verified, meaning the medias favourite indigenous spokesman is likely a privileged white guy who used up space and awards and grants earmarked for indigenous artists (all of which he recently denied). Racial and ethnic identities are like religious identity, a tricky, fluid business. Is a person Christian because they go to church? Or is it because they behave in a Christian manner? Can they be Christian because they believe they are? Or do they have to be formally accepted by a designated leader? A statement by Boyden on Wednesday did not make matters any clearer. He offered this about himself, a white kid from Willowdale with native roots, which takes us exactly nowhere. The authenticity of Boydens roots is between him and the indigenous people of this land. It is for them to sort out whom he claims and which communities claim him. Its effect on the rest of the people is related to concerns over the authenticity of his writing and a perceived loss of authority over his subject matter. The prolonged debate surrounding the integrity of such a prominent public figure should bother us all, though. Given how quickly conversations become polarizing, especially within social media echo chambers, you would expect indigenous commentators to be frothing at the mouth at what many are saying is a case of cultural identity theft. Instead, its the outsider commentators journalists, publishers and friends of Boyden who are acting affronted. A particularly belittling piece in the Globe and Mail used the racially charged violent term lynching to describe the rather polite verbal outcry against a white man. As in, Mr. Boydens lynching should set off alarm bells in this regard. That the Globe originally also ran the word in the headline is a good example of the tone-deafness resulting from mono-cultural newsrooms, but I digress. It did make up for that with a series of articles by indigenous writers. Sometimes the best prescription is to shut up and listen. But no. Commenters waded into the tricky issue of native identity without taking into context years of indigenous discussions on this topic. They made it about blood quantum and DNA testing, which indigenous people have often said is irrelevant. The establishment closed ranks around its man, confusing talent with character. Were not going to rescind an invitation to the festival to a great writer over something like this, an Ottawa writers festival director told the Globe, echoing others who said it would be business as usual with the author. For many, the something like this is betrayal. Lets be clear. Boydens writing skills are not being challenged. Boydens freedom to write indigenous stories is not being questioned, either. Why did Canadians reject Ignatieffs Americanness and Jeans French citizenship? Because they assumed that it hinted at divided loyalties that would render them incapable of understanding and representing Canadian interests. Boyden was vocal and active about indigenous issues, increasingly involved in Reconciliation. To indigenous people, Boyden is not just a novelist; he is a politician, says First Nations writer Robert Jago in the Walrus. I dont believe dual citizenships or multiple ethnic identities dilute loyalty or affect understanding. The opposite is true. A wider perspective brings more empathy, not less. In this case, though, its not about Boyden having multiple identities, its about how they keep shifting Mikmaq here, Ojibwe there, Nipmuc elsewhere, with more such claims he has made emerging. It would be the equivalent of Jean saying she has Canadian citizenship, and French, um, no Haitian, err, Belgian. Credibility much? Who is Boyden? Does he have a right to speak for the groups he eloquently writes about? In his words, no. Ive become too much of a go-to guy, and I should be allowing those with deeper roots in their communities to speak for their communities. Im pulling back and saying no, others need to speak. By all accounts, Boyden shone a needed spotlight on native issues and acted in its interest. It doesnt sound like anybody is looking to ostracize him. There is room in our circle for Joseph Boyden, Anishinaabe politician Wab Kinew said in an article. Numerous elders have begun to reach out to me and invite me into their circles, Boyden himself says. How fortunate is Boyden to know that if he wronged entire communities, or trivialized their struggles, those that are distressed will still hold his hand. The sorry saga inflicted pain, but, please, not on the person being protected by a circle of privilege. Affinity to his work might make him a sympathetic character, but lets not treat him like the victim. Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar SHARE: MELFORT, SASK.A Saskatchewan woman has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the fatal stabbing of her 70-year-old great uncle. Candace Gail Moostoos of Melfort was convicted by a jury last October of manslaughter in the death of Alpheus Burns. The senior, who was a member of the James Smith Cree Nation, was discovered in his Melfort apartment in May 2015. Moostoos, who was originally charged with second-degree murder, turned herself into police the same day her uncles body was found. Court heard the woman was impaired by crystal meth and alcohol when she stabbed Burns five times after he sexually assaulted her in his suite. Based on time already spent in custody, Moostoos faces another 4 years behind bars. Court was also told that Moostoos had been on meth for six to seven days when she went to Burnss apartment to ask for a ride to the liquor store. At some point, he grabbed her crotch and asked for oral sex. When she couldnt escape, she saw a knife on a table and stabbed him five times. Justin Burns, who was chief of the First Nation in 2015, said shortly after the killing that Alpheus Burns was his uncle and a respected elder in the community. He said the death had hit band members very hard. He was a nice guy. He did a lot of ceremonies with a lot of our people back home. He got involved with our youth, especially during our cultural days. Upon her release, Moostoos faces a 10-year ban on possessing weapons. SHARE: A 44-year-old man has been charged with dangerous driving, fleeing a collision, and allegedly blowing two times over the legal alcohol limit, last Saturday in Markham, York Regional Police say. Shortly before 6 a.m., police received a report from a concerned citizen who had to swerve to avoid an SUV that was driving east in the westbound lanes of Legacy Dr. near Ninth Line and 14th Ave. The SUV was located by officers shortly after at Box Grove By-Pass and appeared to be involved in a collision. Officers then arrested the driver who was believed to be impaired by alcohol, and who blew over twice the legal limit of alcohol at police headquarters. Police say that the SUV fled a single-vehicle collision earlier on Saturday at the intersection of 14th Ave. and Markham Rd, nearly two kilometres from where the vehicle was found. It is believed that the vehicle had climbed a median at the intersection and struck a wooden pole before driving away from the scene, the news statement says. The Markham man is facing three charges including impaired operation of a vehicle, driving with a blood-alcohol rating over 80 milligrams, and dangerous operation of a vehicle. Last weekend, from Friday Jan. 13 to Sunday, Jan. 15, officers arrested ten men and two women that were charged with alcohol-related driving offences. Two of the incidents resulted in collisions, six from R.I.D.E. spot checks and four from calls made by concerned citizens. Despite repeated warnings by police and numerous senseless tragedies on our roadways, drivers are not getting the message. Impaired driving is the number one criminal cause of death in Canada, police say. Police say that 2016 was one of the worst years theyve seen recently for impaired driving deaths in York Region, after nine people were killed in drunk-driving incidents. SHARE: The new chair of the troubled York Region District School Board says an action plan sent to the education minister Friday in response to concerns around racism and foreign travel by trustees is a first step and wasnt meant to right all the wrongs. In the wake of criticism from parents who said the response doesnt go far enough, Loralea Carruthers said the open and public discussion of the plan at a special board meeting and the ability to get all the trustees to acknowledge there is a problem was a big step. MORE ON THESTAR.COM Draft plan to tackle York school board woes called disappointing New chair of troubled York school board vows to regain public trust It was big for our board to be able to get unanimous consent, Carruthers told reporters after the meeting Wednesday night. I know parents expect more, but they need to give us time to do that, she said. It is a first step in what we expect will be ongoing dialogue between staff, trustees and the minister, as we try to work through the concerns she has talked about. Education Minister Mitzie Hunter said she will take time to review the action plan to ensure these serious issues are addressed in a manner that will restore public confidence in the boards ability to meet the needs of its diverse population. It is very important to students and parents, and a priority for me, that issues of racism and discrimination are not tolerated in our education system, she said in a statement to the Star. We want all of our publicly funded schools to be inclusive and safe places for student well-being and student learning. It is unclear when Hunter would provide feedback to the troubled board. Last November, Hunter sent the board a strongly worded letter demanding concrete steps to address community concerns, particularly around the boards handling of issues of equity and discrimination. The final letter, which is largely similar to the draft plan, discusses the need for trustee and staff equity training, an independent equity audit of the organization and more self-regulation around international travel, among over a dozen other action items. But some observers say the response shies away from mandating any real change. For me the letter obfuscates the issues the minister raised regarding the need for mandatory diversity training and clearer accountability for how international travel connects to the board, not individual priorities, said Charles Pascal, former deputy education minister who is now an education professor at the University of Toronto. If one has the patience to read this overly bureaucratic letter a few times over, the board seems to be saying we have some problems but we will do an audit to be sure. Seems like parents and others already know what the problems are and what needs to be done, said Pascal. After the meeting Wednesday, when asked why equity training couldnt be mandated, Carruthers said: If it was simple and easy, we would be done already, she said. There is nothing in the education act that can make it mandatory for trustees. Earlier at the meeting, director J. Philip Parappally discussed the equity symposium, where staff are encouraged to participate in optional workshops on equity issues, but stopped short of supporting mandatory training of any kind. Among those who took part in the discussion around systemic discrimination was Georgina trustee Nancy Elgie, who is still under investigation by the board for allegations she referred to a parent by a racial slur. When asked why Elgie was allowed to participate in the discussion on discrimination, Carruthers said: Shes an elected trustee, and we have no means to stop her from speaking on behalf of her constituents who elected her. Elgie did not respond to a Star request for comment. On the issue of international travel, trustees discussed the need to review the policy, but fell short of curbing it, although parents have previously asked how those paid trips trickle down to classrooms. Trustee Susan Geller, who represents Markham and Vaughan, said any reason for travel must be justified. The places you are going, when you go, and the reason should be justified in advance. Also, it should be communicated who is going where, it should not be hidden, as it has been in the past. On some trips, we still havent received any disclosure, said Geller, referring to a trip last fall by the director and former chair Anna DeBartolo to the Netherlands. Trustees and few staff were informed about the trip until after the fact. In a Facebook post after Wednesdays meeting, Carruthers acknowledged as a board, we have a lot of work to do to regain public trust. Tonights meeting was one step in a long process. I want to work with you to solve this, the post says. You have my word: we will do better. SHARE: The night before he left for Ohio, Jason Lesko wasnt himself. His wife, Precious, recalls hed been acting oddly on Nov. 28 forgetful, easily confused and obsessive about mundane things he needed to do. He had been acting kind of funny in the past week before that, but particularly on that day he was really confused and was behaving erratically, Precious said. He was having heart palpitations, he was sweating profusely, he looked really stressed out. Early the next morning, she awoke to find the other side of the bed empty, her husband having disappeared from their Mississauga home without his cellphone or a change of clothes. Lesko was charged on Dec. 8 with attempted murder, felonious assault and disrupting public services in Ohio for an incident that day in which he allegedly harmed his brother with a knife. Portage County police initially sent Lesko to hospital, where doctors stabilized a thyroid issue he was experiencing and sent him to a psychiatric facility for 18 days. There, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and unspecified psychosis not due to medical reasons or drugs. Hes been in jail ever since he was released from the facility. The night Lesko left home, he had gone outside in the middle of the night to move the couples car out of the way of a neighbours vehicle on their shared driveway, according to Precious. She said she fell asleep again after he went outside and when she woke up, she realized he had never come back in. Lesko, 32, served in the U.S. military from 2003 to 2008, including two tours in Iraq. He is a permanent resident of Canada, where he has lived since 2009, and runs a bakery with Precious. They have three children together, ages 2, 3 and 5. Lesko had sometimes struggled with subtle reminders of his military service since returning from Iraq, his wife said. Loud noises, such as the sound of a dumpster opening, would make him jump. The rumble of a subway train passing beneath their old Toronto apartment used to bother him. On Nov. 29, Precious reported him missing to Peel police, who contacted authorities in the U.S. Lesko showed up at his fathers house in Ravenna, Ohio, later that day. His brother Kirk had gone over to try to persuade him to return home to Canada when the alleged incident took place. According to court documents, Kirk was stabbed several times in the neck, chest and hand with a kitchen knife. When they arrested (Jason), he was really confused, said Precious, whos been in touch with her husband since then. He didnt know where he was. I think he couldnt even remember his name. He didnt really know what was going on. He appeared in court by video on Dec. 21 and his lawyer pleaded not guilty on his behalf. Precious, a former reporter at the Star, said her husband has told her he has no recollection of what happened. He only has bits and pieces and parts of the story that people have told him, she said. He feels like some of those things were dreams. The day before he went missing, Precious had taken her husband to their family doctor, who referred him to a psychiatrist and prescribed anti-psychotic medication to take before bed. She said she hoped a court would order her husband to receive treatment, preferably in Canada. She hasnt been able to explain the situation in full to her children, who know only that their dad left home more than a month ago because hes sick. Nothings being done for him in jail, said Precious. I think its obvious to most of us that the right thing would be to get him help. In some circumstances, veterans charged with crimes in the U.S. can stand trial in Veterans Treatment Courts, which are designed to consider the effects of PTSD, said Chris Deutsch of the advocacy group Justice for Vets. However, he said, crimes resulting in serious bodily injury or death are not typically dealt with in these specialty courts. Its a really tricky issue, Deutsch said. If were willing to accept that (PTSD) can have such a dramatic impact on a persons behaviour, then I think we have to factor that in when theyre going through the court process. There are 306 operational Veterans Treatment Courts in 37 states, despite more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. This means many cases involving veterans arent dealt with in these courts simply because none exists in the district where the veteran is charged. Its a bit of a patchwork right now in being able to reach all of the veterans who really need it, Deutsch said. When you dont have that, it becomes a lot more difficult to sell the idea of sending someone off to treatment. Leskos lawyer filed a motion in court on Thursday to have him evaluated for competency to stand trial and sanity at the time of the incident. The latter would test his state of mind and whether he could differentiate right from wrong when he allegedly harmed his brother. It has a bearing on the sentence, said prosecuting attorney Victor Vigluicci. What were seeking will depend on where this thing comes out. If theres competency or sanity issues, then no, we would not (seek a maximum sentence). If found unfit to stand trial, Lesko could be committed to an institution until his competency is restored, Vigluicci said. He could also be committed if he were found not guilty of the charges due to insanity. We will meet with the victim and ascertain the victims wishes, he said. We always take the victims wishes into consideration. Leskos next court appearance is Tuesday. If a judge grants the defence motion and an evaluation determines that Lesko requires professional help, Vigluicci said its possible he could be transferred to Canada for treatment. Precious said despite her husbands unusual behaviour before he left home, she was shocked by the allegations against him. My husbands not a violent person, she said. He is gentle, he is funny, hes always going out of his way to help complete strangers. She said she long suspected he had PTSD, but it was never debilitating, as Lesko was capable of working and socializing on a daily basis. The couple lived a relatively normal life together, she said. For the most part I thought he had learned to cope, Precious said. A lot of people tell me unfortunately PTSD is one of those things that comes and goes and sometimes you dont realize you have it until many years later. SHARE: Another one bites the dust. Former finance minister Joe Oliver is the latest federal Conservative to lose a bid to run for Patrick Browns provincial Tories in next years election. Oliver, 76, was trounced Sunday in the York Centre nomination contest by upstart lawyer Roman Baber. Baber, 36, who was born in Russia and came to Canada from Israel at age 15, beat the Tory titan by 711 to 465 votes. I felt that my hard work would be rewarded, he said in an interview Monday, noting his outreach to the ridings Russian, Filipino, Tamil, Lebanese, and Vietnamese communities. Baber now hopes to wrest the Toronto seat from Liberal Monte Kwinter, 85, who has represented the constituency for almost 32 years and is the oldest MPP in Ontario history. A long-time resident of York Centre, Roman understands the opportunities and challenges his community faces, Brown said in a statement. Through our open nomination process, Roman has proven he will work hard to build a stronger York Centre and Ontario, he said. I am proud that our party is attracting so many distinguished Ontarians such as Joe, and we thank him for his ongoing commitment to the Progressive Conservative cause. Oliver, former prime minister Stephen Harpers treasurer until losing Eglinton-Lawrence in the federal Liberals October 2015 victory, had hoped to mount a comeback in the June 7, 2018 Ontario election. I congratulate Roman Baber on nomination for PC Party in York Centre, he said on Twitter. Hope he wins against Wynne Libls as part of new Patrick Brown Govt. His defeat comes after PC Party president Rick Dykstra, who was St. Catharines MP until losing in 2015, was stunned in the Niagara West-Glanbrook Tory nomination last October. Dykstra, 50, was pasted by Sam Oosterhoff, a 19-year-old Brock University frosh, in a seat that had been held by former Tory leader Tim Hudak. Oosterhoff, a social conservative backed by anti-abortion activists and those opposing the updated sex-education curriculum, romped to an easy win in the Nov. 17 by-election, becoming the youngest MPP in Ontario history. Last week, former Conservative MP Bob Dechert abandoned his bid for the Mississauga-Erin Mills nomination, complaining to the Toronto Sun that he had lost confidence in the integrity of the partys nomination process. So far only two defeated former Harper MPs Paul Calandra in Markham-Stouffville and Daryl Kramp in Hastings-Lennox and Addington have successfully secured PC nominations. Brown has repeatedly claimed he would not play favourites in his partys nomination process. That has led to some messy battles at the local level. PC MPP Monte McNaughton (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) said Monday there is much interest in the Tories, who lead Premier Kathleen Wynnes Liberals in public opinion polls. Look, its competitive; a lot of people want to run for the Conservatives in this election, said McNaughton. People are tired of the direction the premier and the Liberals are taking Ontario and people want change. So far, the Tories have selected 36 candidates in the 124 ridings expected to up for grabs in an election that is less than 17 months away. Read more about: SHARE: BILLINGS -- A day after Congress moved one step closer to repealing the Affordable Care Act, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., met with health care representatives in Billings to hear their thoughts about the impact that action might have. Tester has been holding a series of health care roundtables around the state, including one in Roundup on Friday and three on Saturday in Billings, Bozeman and Butte. More than 30 health care providers, administrators and community members met with Tester Saturday morning at Billings Clinic, most telling him what the ACA has accomplished. Uncertainty filled the air during the hour-long conversation, as participants wondered whether the repeal would be paired with a replacement piece. National news reports have said that Republican leaders intend to come up with a such a plan. If there is a replacement, I have not seen it, Tester told the group. Ive asked, and quite frankly, I havent seen a replacement from anybody. Tester told others around the table he wanted to hear the good, the bad, the ugly everything about the ACA. If we have a replacement, what should that replacement look like? he asked. Whats working with the ACA, whats not working? Scot Gudger, vice president of St. Vincent Physicians, said with more people insured through the ACA, including those covered through the expanded Medicaid, they are able to seek less expensive primary care. Without it, patients are more likely to wait until their only option is the costly emergency room or intensive care unit. The bill for charity care is compounded if we are forced back to a system where people dont have access to primary care, Gudger said. Mike Foster, regional director of advocacy at St. Vincent Healthcare, said if what the ACA provides is taken away, especially for the poor and vulnerable, thats a very deep and high concern for us. Were hoping whatever happens, theres a good bridge, where people do not lose their coverage, Foster said. Were talking about access here and also quality of life. Dr. Tersh McCracken, who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology at Billings Clinic, met a couple of months ago with a ranch woman in her early 60s who didnt have health insurance and had put off seeking treatment. By the time he diagnosed her cancer, it was no longer treatable. Another, even more personal example, McCracken said, involved his 13-year-old nephew who was diagnosed with leukemia this fall. Three months into treatment, his insurance company changed. Penny Ronning of Billings said she was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago. "Without the Affordable Care Act i would not be walking," she said. "Because I had insurance for the first time, I am here today, able to walk, to do what I can." Thank goodness for the pre-existing clause in the ACA so hes insurable, McCracken said. Otherwise he wouldnt have been. Dr. Randall Gibb, interim CEO at Billings Clinic added that with Montanas aging population, in five years there will be more people than ever accessing health care. That is compounded by a shortage of medical professionals, the exorbitant cost of technology and increasing drug costs. We have a really good opportunity as a community and a nation," Gibb said. "The ACA was certainly a good start, but we need to find ways to strengthen it to address all the concerns, Gibb said. Dr. Jonathan Gilbert, chief medical officer for the Billings area office of Indian Health Service (IHS), said the loss of the ACA would be a devastating blow to the Indian tribes of Montana. Since Medicaid expansion in December 2015, more than 8,500 Native Americans in Montana have enrolled, a 21 percent increase. Many other aspects of the ACA have benefited the tribes and their members, Gilbert said, including the permanence of Indian Health Care Improvement Act. With the repeal, Congress would once again have to annually approve the act, something it hadnt done for several years before the ACA's passage. Jace Killsback, president of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, added that certain waivers and exemptions have allowed tribal members to access quality health care, something not possible in the past with the chronic underfunding of the IHS. Tester was challenged on his vote Wednesday on a budget resolution designed to cut medication prices by allowing cheaper, identical versions of prescription drugs to be imported from other countries, including Canada. Tester, one of 13 Senate Democrats who voted no, which helped defeat the bill, said he was concerned with the safety of the imported drugs. Tester said he relied on the expertise of Secretary Sylvia Burwell, head of Health and Human Services, who said the drugs cant be tracked well enough to assure their purity. "If you want to give me the authority to be able to determine if they can be reimported, that's a different story," he said. "But that's not what the amendment did." After the roundtable, Tester was asked what he sees as the big takeaways from all of the listening sessions. One, he said, is the success of the Medicaid expansion in boosting individual health and reducing hospital charity care and bad debt. The repeal would eliminate the expansion. Tester has also gotten feedback on how mental health care would be impacted with the repeal, as well as preventative services. Theres a lot of the preventive services the ACA affords and we get some $7 million in the state of Montana that has its impacts, he said. Regarding impacts on rural communities, Tester said smaller medical centers in the midst of setting their budgets are living with uncertainty. Theyre concerned the model is going to change and they may not be able to offer the same services that theyve been offering their communities, Tester said. And potentially they could close down. Tester said, on the negative side of the ACA, hes heard a lot about high premiums and a lack of subsidies and higher deductibles that are hurting a lot of middle-class families. And that it does need to be fixed, it needs to be addressed, theres no ifs, ands and buts about it, he said. WASHINGTONNo, Donald, not Putin. Poutine. Canadas embassy in Washington, D.C., is celebrating Donald Trumps Friday inauguration with an invitation-only tailgate party featuring delectable Canadian cuisine including but not limited to poutine, British Columbia salmon, Canadian beef, and tourtiere, embassy spokeswoman Christine Constantin said in an email. There might be tasty surprises. The 2013 party for Barack Obamas second inauguration involved Tim Hortons coffee, Molson beer, Crown Royal whisky, and BeaverTails. The embassy shindig is always one of the most sought-after tickets of Americas celebration of democracy. Partly because Americans like Canadians, sure, but mostly because of its unsurpassed view of the parade route. The Arthur Erickson building on Pennsylvania Ave. is the only embassy located between the White House and the Capitol. The party has been held since Bill Clintons inauguration in 1993, though it hasnt always been a tailgate. Canadian diplomats this time expect 1,800 guests, including bigshots in politics, diplomacy and business. Newt Gingrich, a prominent Trump ally and the former speaker of the House of Representatives, has shown up for three inaugurations in a row. Most of the guests will hang out in the embassy courtyard and indoor Canada Room and theatre, watching Trumps swearing-in and inaugural address on television screens. The elite among the elite will get to have brunch with Ambassador David MacNaughton on the 6th floor, which offers majestic views of the Capitol. Like most of official Washingtons social events, this one serves a political purpose. Canadas schmoozing with U.S. power brokers may be especially critical at a time when the incoming president is vowing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, impose new import taxes, pursue Buy American, Hire American economic policy and change the U.S. relationship with its military allies. Hosting an event at our embassy gives Canada an excellent opportunity to welcome important guests, further build on our relationships and continue to advance Canadas interests in the United States, Constantin said. Constantin said some Canadian companies would cover the cost of the event and others would donate food and drinks. Read more about: SHARE: DAVOS, SWITZERLANDThe gap between the superrich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, anti-poverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. Its urging leaders to do more than pay lip service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last years election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britains vote to leave the European Union. It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the meeting in Davos. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy. Read more: Two richest Canadians as wealthy as poorest 30 per cent, report says The same report a year earlier said that the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. However, Oxfam has revised that figure down to eight following new information gathered by Swiss bank Credit Suisse. Oxfam used Forbes billionaires list that was last published in March 2016 to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion (U.S.). The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex, financier Warren Buffett, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Oracles Larry Ellison and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. They include higher taxes on wealth and income to ensure a more level playing field and to fund investments in public services and jobs, greater co-operation among governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich dont dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfams policy adviser, urged billionaires to do the right thing, and to do what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes. The ability of the rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called Panama Papers, a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary, Lawson told The Associated Press. Thats crazy. Its because of this kind of inequality that trust in institutions has fallen sharply since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to Edelman, one of the worlds biggest marketing firms. In its own pre-Davos survey of more than 33,000 people across 28 markets, Edelman found the largest-ever drop in trust across government, business, media and even non-governmental organizations. CEO credibility is at an all-time low and government leaders are the least trusted group, according to the survey. The firms 2017 Trust Barometer found that 53 per cent of respondents believe the current system has failed them in that it is unfair and offers few hopes for the future, with only 15 per cent believing it is working. That belief was evident for both the general population and those with college education. The implications of the global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging, said Richard Edelman, the firms president and CEO. It began with the Great Recession of 2008, but like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalization and technological change have further weakened peoples trust in global institutions. The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites. Edelman highlighted how the emergence of a media echo chamber that reinforces personal beliefs while shutting out opposing views has magnified this cycle of distrust. According to the survey, search engines are trusted more as an information tool than traditional news editors, 59 per cent to 41 per cent. People now view media as part of the elite, said Edelman. The result is a proclivity for self-referential media and reliance on peers. The lack of trust in media has also given rise to the fake news phenomenon and politicians speaking directly to the masses. Edelman said business may be best-placed to help improve trust. Companies need to be transparent and honest with their employees about the changes taking place in the workplace, improve skills and pay fairly, he said. The online survey was conducted between Oct. 13 and Nov. 16, 2016. The worlds 8 richest people are, in order of net worth: Bill Gates: American founder of Microsoft (net worth $75 billion) Amancio Ortega: Spanish founder of Inditex which owns the Zara fashion chain (net worth $67 billion) Warren Buffett: American CEO and largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (net worth $60.8 billion) Carlos Slim Helu: Mexican owner of Grupo Carso (net worth: $50 billion) Jeff Bezos: American founder, chairman and chief executive of Amazon (net worth: $45.2 billion) Mark Zuckerberg: American chairman, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Facebook (net worth $44.6 billion) Larry Ellison: American co-founder and CEO of Oracle (net worth $43.6 billion) Michael Bloomberg: American founder, owner and CEO of Bloomberg LP (net worth: $40 billion) Canadas 8 richest people are, in order of net worth: David Thomson, (net worth $23.8 billion) Galen Weston, owner of Holt Renfrew (net worth $9.3 billion) Garrett Camp, co-founder of UBER (net worth $6.2 billion) James Irving, owner of Brunswick News (publishing); and J.D. Irving Limited, a conglomerate with interests in forestry, pulp and paper, tissue, newsprint, building supplies, frozen food, transportation, shipping lines, and ship building (net worth $5.4 billion) Bernard (Barry) Sherman, created Apotex, Canada's largest pharmaceutical company (net worth $4.9 billion) Arthur Irving, owner of Irving Oil (net worth $4.7 billion) Jim Pattison, chief executive officer, Chairman and sole owner of the Jim Pattison Group (net worth $4.5 billion) Emanuele (Lino) Saputo, owner of Saputo Dairy (net worth $4.4 billion) Source: Oxfam Canada Read more about: SHARE: BRUSSELSEuropean leaders grappled with the jolting reality of president-elect Donald Trumps skepticism of the European Union on Monday, saying they might have to stand without the United States at their side during the Trump presidency. The possibility of an unprecedented breach in transatlantic relations came after Trump who embraced anti-EU insurgents during his campaign and following his victory said in weekend remarks that the 28-nation European Union was bound for a breakup and that he was indifferent to its fate. He also said NATOs current configuration is obsolete, even as he professed commitment to Europes defence. Trumps attitudes have raised alarm bells across Europe, which is facing a wave of elections this year in which anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic leaders could gain power. Most mainstream leaders have committed to working with Trump after his inauguration Friday, even as they have expressed hope that he will moderate his views once he takes office. His continued hard line has created a painful realization in Europe that they may now have to live without the full backing of their oldest, strongest partner. The European Union underpins much of the continents post-Second World War prosperity, but skeptics have attacked it in recent years as a dysfunctional bloc that undermines finances and security. We will co-operate with him on all levels, of course, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. But she said Europeans will need to take responsibility for themselves. We Europeans have our destiny in our own hands, she said. The full ramifications of a potential breakdown in transatlantic ties are so extensive, they are difficult to total. U.S. guarantees form the backbone of European security. The United States and the 500-million-people-strong European Union are key trading partners. For decades, European nations and the United States have worked tightly together on issues of war, peace and wealth. Trump appears skeptical that the European Union matters to American security or economic growth. People want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave, Trump said of the European Union in a weekend interview with the Times of London and Germanys Bild newspaper. He said he did not care about the EUs future. I dont think it matters much for the United States, he said. You look at the European Union, and its Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany, Trump said, meaning Germany had used the free-trade bloc to sell its goods to the disadvantage of others. He added that Merkel had made a very catastrophic mistake in opening Europes doors to migrants and refugees. And he offered no special credit to European nations for being long-standing U.S. allies, saying he will trust Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin alike at the outset of his presidency. I start off trusting both, he said. But lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all. Trump offered mixed messages about the NATO defence alliance, which is dominated by the United States, calling it obsolete and saying it is very unfair to the United States that most nations are not meeting their voluntary defence spending commitments. With that being said, NATO is very important to me, Trump said. The Kremlin embraced Trumps comments, with a spokesman agreeing that NATO is obsolete. British leaders also welcomed Trumps willingness to negotiate a trade deal in the wake of their nations departure from the EU. But among most U.S. allies, Trumps attitudes caused astonishment and excitement, not just in Brussels, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters Monday in Brussels, where he was meeting with other European foreign ministers at a previously scheduled gathering. Coming directly from a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Steinmeier said NATO had listened to Trumps comments with concern. The incoming U.S. president is the first American leader since the Second World War not to support European integration. The European Union has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, since it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union expanded eastward into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies. Steinmeier said Germany is trying to assess what U.S. foreign policy will actually be. For example, James Mattis, the retired Marine general nominated to be Trumps defence secretary, offered straightforward support for NATO and skepticism of Russia at his confirmation hearing last week. Other leaders said Europes future does not rise or fall based on attitudes in the White House. What we are looking for is a partnership based on common interests with the United States, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters. We always like to be in good company, but we determine our policies by ourselves. Some analysts noted that after Britains vote last June to leave the European Union, support for the EU in other nations increased. They wondered whether Trumps frontal challenge to the bloc might have a similar effect. But one said that if global instability rises as a result of Trumps unpredictable policies, the stress could weigh on the already taxed European Union. Over the last decades, the United States has played a huge stabilizing role. And when this stabilizing role of the U.S. around the world falls away, because theyre doing transactional deals, that will create lots and lots of messes which will implicate European interests, said Stefan Lehne, a former Austrian diplomat who now works at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based think tank. One prominent U.S. advocate of European unity was concerned about Europes ability to weather the Trump tsunami. As the European Union battles skeptical forces, U.S. cheerleading and support has been welcomed, outgoing U.S. ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner said last week. If there isnt someone like a (Secretary of State John F.) Kerry or an Obama . . . reminding people of the importance of the European Union, then theres a vacuum. French leaders, who face tough presidential elections in April, also appeared to be scrambling to handle the fallout. Trump allies have expressed support for the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front party, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is doing well in opinion polls. Le Pen lunched in the basement of Trump Tower last week in the company of a man who has served as an informal conduit for Trumps contacts with Euroskeptic European leaders, although the Trump transition team denied any formal meeting with the French politician. The best response is European unity, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. As with the case of Brexit, the best way to defend Europe is to remain united. This is a bit of an invitation that we are making to Mr. Trump. To remain a bloc. Not to forget that the force of Europeans is in their unity. But the most wishful approach to Trumps declarations may have come from Luxembourg, where the nations top diplomat said he hoped Trump was still in campaign mode. One must hope that the statements of candidate Trump starting Friday will go in a different direction, said Luxembourgs foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. If the risks are summed up, it would be very destabilizing, which is not in the interest of America. Read more about: SHARE: ATLANTAU.S. president-elect Donald Trump on Monday called on all Americans to honour Martin Luther King Jr. for all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Trump, who also met with Kings son later in the day, may be trying to put behind him the controversy over his criticism of Rep. John Lewis, a black congressman and civil rights icon, who had angered Trump by calling him an illegitimate president and saying he would not attend the inauguration. In a message sent on Twitter on Monday, Trump said: Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful thinsgs that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was! The son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a very constructive meeting with Trump on the holiday marking his fathers life. Martin Luther King III played down Trumps recent claim that Lewis was all talk. He told reporters at Trump Tower on Monday that in the heat of emotion, A lot of things get said on both sides. King said the focus of his meeting with Trump was to improve voter participation and stress the need to bring America together. He said Trump assured him its his intent to reach out to all Americans, even those who did not support him. Trump briefly appeared with King after their nearly hour-long meeting but ignored reporters questions. But as Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nations first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters. Kings daughter on Monday encouraged Americans to fight for the slain civil rights leaders vision of love and justice no matter who is in the White House. In Atlanta, Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her fathers Ebenezer Baptist Church four days before Donald Trumps presidential inauguration. She spoke hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 black voters in November after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, and tensions have flared anew with his recent criticism of civil rights icon Lewis, whom the president-elect called all talk and no action. Bernice King avoided a detailed critique of Trump, but said the nation still has a choice between chaos and community, as her father once said. At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go, Bernice King said. But, she added we still have to find a way to create what her father called the beloved community. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a failed presidential candidate, brought the Ebenezer assembly to its feet with his reminder that the slain civil rights leader was not just an advocate for racial equality, but a radical proponent for economic justice a mission that put him at odds with the political establishment. If you think governors and senators and mayors were standing up and saying what a great man Dr. King was, read history, because you are sorely mistaken, Sanders roared from the Ebenezer dais. Sanders, who struggled to attract black voters in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Clinton, recalled King opposing the Vietnam War as exploiting the poor. He also noted King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where hed gone to rally striking sanitation workers, white and black. Truly honouring King, Sanders said, means bringing that spirit and courage into the arena in 2017. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, Ebenezers senior pastor, didnt call Trump by name, but blasted the president-elect for his treatment of Lewis, now a Georgia congressman whose Atlanta-based congressional district includes Ebenezer. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBCs Meet the Press that he views Trump as an illegitimate president because of alleged Russian interference in the campaign. Trump retorted Saturday on Twitter that Lewis is all talk and said his district is falling apart and crime infested. Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history, Warnock said. As a young man, Lewis was arrested many times and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Warnock called him the hero of Bloody Sunday and the conscience of the Congress. Lewis was in Miami at King Day events. Warnock, meanwhile, praised outgoing President Barack Obama as a model for the office. Thank you, Barack Obama. Im sad to see you leave, he said. But, he said, Trumps inauguration will mean one less brother experiences racial profiling. Some Republicans have defended Trumps criticism of Lewis, arguing it is inappropriate for a congressman to question an incoming presidents legitimacy. Clara Smith, an Atlanta resident who came Monday to Ebenezer, scoffed at any GOP indignation, remembering that Trump for years questioned whether Obama was a natural-born citizen, as required by the Constitution to serve as president. He carried on with that knowing full well what he was doing to the nations first black president, Smith said. Smith, 66, recalled joining sit-ins and lunch counters of segregated restaurants in her hometown of Louisville, Ky. She said she tries to ignore Trump and his foolishness with the Twitter, but with everything thats happening around us she said we have to pass along that history. Susan Minsk, 48, came to Ebenezer with her 17-year-old daughter Sophie from Sandy Springs, a Republican-leaning suburb just outside of Atlanta and Lewiss district. As the white mother and daughter waited outside, unsure if theyd be able to get in, Sophie said she worries that Trumps rhetoric will make social tensions worse. He just burns so many bridges, she said. Why make everyone feel more segregated than they do already? There are celebrations around the country to honour the slain civil rights leader. In Memphis, Tenn., residents of the city where King was killed are honouring his legacy with neighbourhood cleanup events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked the day by pedalling to sites connected to a historic visit the slain civil rights leader made to the city. About 300 bicyclists participated in Mondays free 10-mile ride, which took in such sites as downtown Detroits Cobo Center. Read more about: SHARE: Whither Hillary? Out and about in New York mostly, attending the theatre, supping at restaurants eating burgers with Ralph Lauren as tweeted by a fellow diner the other day attending a handful of public functions, spending grandma time with Chelseas kids. Looking happy enough, a mere five weeks from the electoral disaster that has visited Donald Trump on the world as American president come high noon Friday; relaxed, the stress lines erased from her face. Enduring, just fine. Yet theres been no shortage of speculation over what Clinton should do with herself now that she wont be occupying the Oval Office, or unsolicited advice from supporters and critics alike. At age 69, one might have thought that whatever Clinton has done with her life a great deal has already unspooled. But 69, I suppose, is the new 49 and Clinton seems manifestly indisposed towards a life of retirement leisure. Shes had decades of experience in picking herself up and reinvention. Shed be forgiven for swearing off a ninth or tenth act in the public domain, although neither she nor husband Bill can ever enjoy the ease of anonymity as private citizens. Perhaps her most useful role during the Trump regime will be as an ever-present reminder of what an unhinged electorate did to spite itself on Nov. 8. These past few weeks Trumps cabinet appointments, the ascendancy of a billionaire autocracy in government, the president-elects savage incivility on social media, his ham-fisted recent press conference have already provided dismaying evidence of what the U.S. (and the rest of us) have coming. Nobody should be surprised because thats precisely how Trump sold himself during the campaign: thin-skinned, vindictive, loutish, bullying and staggeringly unfit for the highest office in the land. A fifth column party of one. I wonder if theyre still cheering in the Rust Belt and Middle America. But about Hillary. The betting line is she will devote herself in some public service capacity because thats her default switch. After all, the memoirs have already been written. Secretary general of the United Nations might be a good fit but that job has just been filled by former Portuguese president Antonio Guterres and, assuming the usual two-term duration, wont be open again until Clinton is 79. The most intriguing hypothesis is that Clinton could run in November for mayor of The Big Apple, a city where she is beloved, receiving 80 per cent of the electoral vote compared to just 17 per cent for Trump. Mayor might seem a huge step down for the woman who would have been the first woman commander-in-chief. But hey, its New York, Bright Lights and Big City USA, for all intents and purposes the capital of America, with a population and operating budget larger than many states. Its fun just imagining the agro she could cause NYC resident-in-absentia Trump from Gracie Mansion. Certainly its been the talk of the town, if more wistfully than realistically. Yet nobody from inside the Clinton camp has attempted to curtail the gossip. It may have begun as a lark, as The Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza characterized the Clinton-for-mayor buzz last week, but now that scenario is gaining legitimate traction, despite the popularity of left-leaning Mayor Bill de Blasio, who would surely remove himself from a Clinton tsunami at the polls. Most conspicuously, Clinton hasnt bothered to publicly rule out the possibility. As Cillizza wrote: Why would she knock it down, people who know her ask. She still wants to be relevant, and theres nothing wrong with speculation. The idea that people want to draft her is flattering, particularly after an embarrassing loss, they say. Plus the reality: If she ran, shed probably be so immediately dominant that de Blasio might have to just step aside rather than get crushed on the way to her victory. Cillizza and other commentators, however, are discouraging a mayoralty epilogue for Clinton. Better she should invest her energies in rehabilitating a Democratic Party in such disarray. Barack Obama, busy penning (and burnishing) his own post-White House bio, will likely not immerse himself in that project because hovering on the political scene is just not done by an ex-prez (Bill Clinton a notable exception). Theres no such thing as president emeritus. This isnt remotely about the Hillary faction refusing to concede defeat or accept the fact of President Trump, all those Hell-No rallies and petitions notwithstanding. Whats done cant be undone unless Trump gets himself impeached, no outlier scenario. Just keep talking and tweeting, bub. Carry on your bromance with Vladimir Putin, or continue refusing to disclose your tax returns, or fingering your nose at the U.S. Constitution and ethics laws, or trotting out heavyweight lawyers to show-and-tell rationalize why you wont divest your assets or place them in a blind trust, as is customary. Rather, theres every valid reason in the world for Clinton to apply her vast knowledge of governance and diplomacy to Mayor of Park Avenue America. Heaven knows she already has good relations with the money-bag contingent. On the Republican go-to cable mouthorgan, Fox TV, former New York mayor and long-time Clinton attack dog Rudy Giuliani advised Hillary not to even think about it, adding a dollop of threatening malice: that Clinton would be exposing herself to resurrected investigative scrutiny, reprising the odious LOCK HER UP mantra that Trump fostered during the campaign, then disowned election night. I guess all of the investigations get revived again, Giuliani laughed. Such a card, Rudy. Such a weasel and Trump fart-catcher. And such a stench emanating from D.C., where Clinton need never venture again. Really, isnt it about time Hillary won something? Read more about: SHARE: Microsoft Corp. and its competitors should eschew artificial intelligence systems that replace people instead of maximizing their time, chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in an interview Monday. The fundamental need of every person is to be able to use their time more effectively, not to say, let us replace you, Nadella said in an interview at the DLD conference in Munich. This year and the next will be the key to democratizing AI. The most exciting thing to me is not just our own promise of AI as exhibited by these products, but to take that capability and put it in the hands of every developer and every organization. Nadella is pushing Microsoft into consumer and industrial applications of software that can make inferences about its environment. He cautioned his own company and competitors about parlour tricks that show AIs power without preserving workers dignity. The 49-year-old whos entering his fourth year as Microsofts CEO after succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014, has presided over a 73 per cent run-up in Microsofts shares and Azure cloud-computing revenue thats been doubling year over year. Hes compelled Microsofts product groups to co-operate to ship products faster and has greatly expanded Microsoft software available on platforms other than Windows, including those from Apple Inc. and Google. Microsoft last month closed its $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp. Theres a thin line between hubris and confidence, Nadella said. Always there is risk of hubris coming back, missing trends. The only long-term indicator of success is, how good is your internal culture? What Ive learned if anything in three years as CEO is, its not about celebrating one product, he said. That, to me, is the sign of a company thats built to last. In tech its even more harsh. Microsoft suffered for a decade from a tendency to make stabs at technology it failed to propagate widely that ended up benefiting other companies mainly Apple. It developed tablet PCs, pocket computers and smartwatches in the early 2000s, and was selling software for cars in the 1990s. Because of Microsofts technical orientation, engineers have always wanted to stuff more and more features and tricks into the products, said Michael Cusumano, a professor of management at MIT Sloan School of Management whos written three books about Microsoft and its leaders. The products ended up becoming huge. Thats what slowed them down. On the AI frontier, Japan Airlines Co. is using Microsoft-developed holographic capabilities to simulate aircraft engines for training of repair technicians and to avoid costs of sending full repair crews to each broken plane. McDonalds Corp. used Microsoft technology to develop an automated order-taking system that compensates for noise encountered during orders at a drive-through. Microsoft has also designed software that can protect staff who work in environments surrounded by robots. Microsoft last Friday said it acquired Maluuba, a Montreal-based AI startup specializing in analyzing written content, for example sifting through businesses documents to find experts in given fields. Yet Amazon.com Inc.s Web Services division has been rapidly releasing AI services for businesses including the ability for developers to build spoken conversation support and speech translation. Alphabet Inc.s Google last year rebuilt its Translate service using neural networks to improve accuracy and produce language that sounds more like what a native speaker would say, and has made strides in image recognition, music and art. Theyre all great advances, said Nadella, whos reorganized the companys research arm around AI and shipped products including Azure cloud-computing services and tools for developers to build applications for artificial intelligence applications. We should be competitive there and we should be pushing there and we will be doing that, he said. But whats Microsofts unique contribution beyond doing that is democratizing the access to the same tools that we use for ourselves so that every developer can use them to create their own intelligence, he said. As Nadella and other tech leaders head to the Davos elite gathering in Switzerland this week, cloud-computings relationship with data privacy in Europe is also top of mind for Microsoft and its competitors. European businesses and governments could be reluctant to store data in clouds operated by American tech companies if the U.S. government can order access to it, and Microsoft has sued the U.S. Department of Justice in two cases over the issue. Nadella said having data centres in Germany operated by Deutsche Telekom AG has helped build trust with the German customers. The incoming Trump administration, European Union and China together need to weigh issues including the balance between security and data privacy, the CEO said. We have business in each one of these countries, Nadella said. These countries are going to have to work together and there are rightful concerns each one of these constituents has. Read more about: SHARE: MAIDUGURI, NIGERIAThree suicide bombers, including a child, exploded at dawn Monday at Nigerias northeastern University of Maiduguri, killing a university professor and another child, witnesses and police said. The bombers also died. One blast ripped through the mosque where professors were saying dawn prayers and at least one is among victims, police and rescue officials said. The second explosion occurred when police patrolling the back of the university shot a 12-year-old girl strapped with a suicide vest, setting off the explosives, according to police spokesman Victor Isuku. He said 15 wounded people were evacuated to hospitals. The National Emergency Management Agency which carried out the evacuations put the wounded at 17. Maiduguri has been attacked many times but this is the first attack on the university blamed on Boko Haram the Islamic extremist group whose name means Western education is sinful. President Muhammadu Buhari sent condolences to the families of victims and said the attack on a place of learning shows the perpetrators have no true understanding of Islam. Buhari, a Muslim, promised his administration will continue to ensure that terrorism never triumphs over peace-loving Nigerians. Mondays is the first major attack since Buhari last month declared that Boko Haram was crushed, after troops destroyed their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria. Nigerias army said Sunday that troops continuing clearance operations of remnants and fleeing Boko Haram terrorists killed several insurgents and rescued 58 kidnap victims, mainly women and children last week. One soldier was injured, it said. A separate statement Friday said three soldiers and 10 Boko Haram fighters were killed when the insurgents attacked an outlying army post in northern Borno state. Nigerias seven-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people. Read more about: SHARE: Give Donald Trump credit for this. The U.S. president-elect might not be everybodys favourite person. But he is showing that governments can successfully challenge the logic of globalization. In particular, he has demonstrated some of the worlds biggest companies can be strong-armed into repatriating high-wage manufacturing jobs. Since November, when Trump won the U.S. presidential election by promising to tear up or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, companies ranging from Ford to United Technologies have backed away from plans to move production abroad. Certainly, Trump has exaggerated his role in this. But a Washington Post analysis published earlier this month in the Star calculated that he can be credited for keeping or creating 9,630 well-paid American manufacturing jobs since the election. True, thats a pittance when compared to a U.S. workforce that numbers 160 million. True, also, that even as Trump focuses on trade deals, other manufacturing jobs continue to fall victim to automation. Still, 9,630 jobs is a significant win particularly for someone not yet in office. More socially acceptable politicians pat themselves on the back for doing much less. Last year, for example, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne took credit for a General Motors decision to create 750 new research and development jobs in Canada. Wynne crowed that her government had created the right conditions for a high-tech investment. Trudeau noted that during an elite conference in Switzerland earlier in the year he had personally informed GM chief Mary Barra of Canadas many virtues. Trumps style is different and arguably more effective. He doesnt charm CEOs. He threatens them with high tariffs and other measures designed to eat into their profits. Its an older style of job creation, one used with great effect by Canada in the 1980s when then trade minister Ed Lumley threatened to hold up Japanese car imports at the docks in Vancouver until companies, such as Honda and Toyota, agreed to open assembly plants here. Decades later, Japanese automakers continue to operate manufacturing plants profitably in Canada. What Trump seems to get and what Justin Trudeaus government seems to forget is that globalization is not inevitable. It is possible to operate a successful capitalist economy without embracing trade deals designed to drive industrial wages down to Third World levels. The big car companies dont have to move to Mexico in order to stay profitable. They simply would prefer to relocate there in order to become more profitable. Up to now, governments in Canada and the U.S. have handled the Mexican threat by bribing the auto manufacturers with subsidies and low-interest loans. Or, conversely, they have introduced so-called right-to-work laws in order to bust unions and push wages down toward Mexican levels. The Trump-Lumley solution is much better: Recognize the fact profitable companies can afford to operate in high-wage North American jurisdictions and coerce them into doing so. The Justin Trudeau government doesnt get this because it confuses unfettered free trade with tolerance arguing that countries that open their borders fully to commodities, investment and labour are somehow more virtuous than those that do not. In defending Canadas Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, even someone as sophisticated as Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland seems to be a captive of this 19th century delusion. Yet what she lauds about this pact is precisely what makes it so dangerous: It is not just about trade; it is about everything including governments ability to regulate in the public interest. It is easy to see why the Trudeau government is so easily able to conflate free trade and tolerance. In countries such as the U.S., France and Britain, the intolerant right has been far more successful in channelling anti-globalist, populist anger than the tolerant left. With his diatribes against Mexican migrants and Muslims, Trump has tapped into a dangerous strain of American xenophobia. But that doesnt mean everything coming out of his mouth is wrong. Trump is right about trade deals like NAFTA. They are bad news (a recent poll shows that even most Mexicans think the pact hasnt helped them). More important, he is showing that something can be done to rectify such deals. Like former Liberal Prime Minister John Turner, a fierce opponent of free trade with the U.S., Trump recognizes nations can thrive without embracing full-blown globalization. Trade does not require free trade. Trump seems to get that. Thomas Walkom's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Read more about: SHARE: Canadians may not realize it, but the Senate the institution that they perceive to be outdated and extravagant is changing at lightning speed. Tighter, more transparent senate spending controls have been put in place. Above all, the composition of the Senate has changed so much in such little time that the upper chamber is barely recognizable. Until last year, the Senate was essentially made up of Liberals and Conservatives. Today, 42 of the 105 seats are filled by independents, in other words, people who are not part of a partisan caucus and therefore not subject to party discipline. Those senators were appointed through a process created by the Trudeau government: the Prime Minister appoints senators from a list of candidates submitted to him by an advisory board, which itself selects the candidates based on merit from among hundreds of applications sent by Canadians from all walks of life. The disenchanted among us might say the independence of the new senators is nothing but a charade; after all, are they not still accountable to the prime minister who appointed them? That is immaterial, as we saw last month during debate on Bill C-29, which included a controversial clause on bank customers rights. Consumer groups in Quebec alerted me to this and I in turn rallied my independent, Conservative, and Liberal colleagues. I did not for a moment consider the fact my opposition to the bill might embarrass the very government that appointed me to my position. The clause of the bill in question was inconsistent with consumer rights and the interests of the provinces and, accordingly, needed to be voted down. A majority of independent senators, appointed by Justin Trudeau, quickly came to the same conclusion. Several Liberal senators applied the same reasoning, thereby demonstrating their own independence from the Trudeau government. The Conservatives, too, were prepared to vote against that section of Bill C-29. Faced with certain defeat in this new Senate that it created, the government chose to reverse course: the controversial clauses of the bill were withdrawn. As senators reaching retirement age (75) leave, the modern Senate will increasingly be made up of independent members. At the end of the current governments term, in the fall of 2019, there will by 59 independents, 34 Conservatives, and 12 Liberals. If the Liberals are re-elected and continue to use the same Senate appointment process there will be 75 independent senators, 25 Conservatives, and only 5 Liberals by the end of their second term in 2023. At first blush, this new reality is nothing but beneficial. Freed from party discipline, senators can study bills in full independence and concern themselves only with improving the wording, protecting the fundamental rights of Canadians, and preserving the interests of the regions. However, the new situation also raises some questions. Senate debates are currently structured around the presence of a governing party and an official opposition; the rules of the chamber were drafted on that foundation. In a Senate where the Liberals and Conservatives occupy less than half, even a third of the seats, this organization of chamber business no longer appears to make much sense. The question is: what do we replace it with? It is hard to imagine a chamber where the majority of its members are free agents. For the debates to be orderly, bills to progress, vote results to be predictable, and compromises to be reached, parliamentarians have to regroup. But if they arent members of a partisan caucus, what do they assemble around? Ideologies? How is that different from political parties? Others are proposing groupings according to regions, but that comes with its own set of challenges. What, then? Should one maintain the Official Oppositions status regardless of how many senators make up that group? If not, how do we ensure that government bills will continue to face an organized opposition that is on a level playing field with the cabinet? There are no easy or clear answers to any of these questions. However, we must find the answers. If not, the prime ministers Senate reform runs the risk of creating a disorganized, if not dysfunctional institution. Let us not forget the Senate enjoys considerable powers that are as important as those of the House of Commons. It is therefore in the interest of Canadians that a 21st century Senate is not only made up of competent and independent senators, but is also effective. Such is the main project now undertaken by Canadas senators. Andre Pratte is an independent senator. Read more about: SHARE: Last year, the Ontario government gave the Toronto District School Board about $144 million in grants to help level the academic playing field by providing supports to kids least likely to succeed: those from low-income or single-parent families, immigrants and others at increased risk of not graduating. This kind of investment has the potential to have an enduring impact. The evidence that demographic factors shape educational outcomes is overwhelming. If governments are going to even begin to break the cycle of poverty and ensure equality of opportunity, investments like Ontarios Learning Opportunities Grant, which is meant to fund breakfast programs, homework clubs and other educational interventions, are essential. Assuming, that is, the money is used as intended. But a new report from Social Planning Toronto, a non-profit community organization, shows that in Toronto, thats no safe assumption. A significant portion of the grant money, some $61 million, was diverted away from at-risk TDSB students last year to other budgetary needs of the cash-strapped school board. As so often happens, in a time of scarcity, its the most vulnerable who are being asked to wait. The board can do this because of a loophole in the provinces funding formula. Unlike most provincial allotments, the grant in question is unsweatered, meaning boards can spend it however they like. According to the report, as one of the few unprotected grants, [it] appears to be paying for a wide range of general programs and filling in gaps in provincial funding for mandatory core services. This flexibility is a relic of the Mike Harris years, as is the total lack of accountability that allows it to be widely abused. The only reason we now know what we do about how much of the grant is being diverted is that Social Planning Toronto started asking the right questions. Asked about the report, the head of the TDSB, John Malloy, said the money is used in ways that support our students at risk, but (also) supports their classmates as well. He insists that the grant is not used inappropriately based on what the regulation expects. That may be, but as the new report suggests, the board should start using the money in the spirit in which it was given and the province should change the rules so theres no choice in the matter. In Toronto, the child-poverty capital of Canada, schools have a special obligation to work to ensure that hunger and the other obstacles poverty poses do not determine educational performance and diminish life chances. This grant is one of the few tools to help kids break out of the constraints of poverty. The province should ensure that school boards dont fix other, legitimate funding problems on the backs of those most in need. SHARE: 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 The news that two 12-year-old girls took their own lives on the northern Ontario First Nations reserve of Wapekeka last week is heartbreaking. But tragically, the horror of children taking their own lives is all too common sometimes even epidemic on remote reserves across the country. In the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, alone, which includes Wapekeka, 70 children aged 10 to 14 and 200 young people between the ages of 15 to 20 took their own lives from 1986 to 2016. Another Nishnawbe nation, Attawapiskat, declared a state of emergency last April after 100 people, including children, tried to kill themselves in a community of only 2,000. Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde says the aboriginal youth suicide rate is five times the national average. Such a crisis would never be tolerated if it was happening in a white, non-indigenous community. It must be stopped. No wonder, then, that Nishnawbe Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler is asking for a national suicide strategy to combat the epidemic. As he points out, flying in crisis teams when suicides spike should not be the answer to a disaster that has gripped indigenous communities for decades. Its up to First Nations and Ottawa to work out quickly what such a strategy would look like. But in the longer term, the solution must be to root out the causes of hopelessness that fuel the spikes in child suicide. Among them are poverty, overcrowding, inadequate housing and schooling, a lack of mental health services, the high removal rates of children from their own homes by child welfare authorities, addiction and skyrocketing rates of sexual assault. In short, Ottawa must address the inequities that children on reserves face to stop the desperation that leads to suicide attempts in the first place. Canada has always had the answers about inequality, says Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. But instead of dealing with it, we have kicked the problem off into the future. In fact, that is exactly what the federal government did a year ago when the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal slammed Ottawa for discriminating for 25 years, no less against vulnerable First Nations children on reserves. The tribunal found Ottawa was providing less money for child welfare services than would be available off-reserve, although the needs are greater. It ordered Ottawa to cease the discriminatory practice and redress the wrong. At the time, the Trudeau government welcomed the decision and vowed to take action, setting aside $635 million to address the problem. But the money was to be doled out over five years, with the largest amount coming after the next election in 2019. These kids are in crisis right now, Blackstock points out. Its like sending out an ambulance years after a victim has had a heart attack. Its true that the government cannot solve the desperate situation children on reserves find themselves in overnight. But it has been over a year since the human rights tribunals ruling. Ottawa should have a plan in place to at least deal with the lack of child welfare services on First Nations reserves, never mind addressing with the other inequities. Its not as if money hasnt been available to help these kids. In the fiscal year 2015-2016, for example, the department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs spent $900 million less than was allocated to it money that could have gone to child welfare services, housing, schools, or even water treatment plants to improve kids lives. As long ago at 2008 the World Health Organization noted that inequities were killing people on a grand scale, Blackstock points out. Thats what were seeing with these kids. It should not take the suicide of another child on a reserve for the Trudeau government to listen and act. Shame on it if it does. Read more about: SHARE: Re: The PM's Trump shuffle, Editorial Jan. 11 Re: Wynne set to fill cabinet vacancy, Jan. 12 The PM's Trump shuffle, Editorial Jan. 11 For the sake of the governments reputation, the best she (Karina Gould) could do now would be as little as possible, and make sure voting reform disappears from Ottawas radar screen for the foreseeable future. A great many Canadians could care less about the Liberal governments reputation when we have an electoral system that repeatedly fails us all in electing a government that represents its people. For the sake of Canadian democracy (especially in the light of the state of American political affairs) I sincerely hope that Karina Gould picks up the torch of democratic reform, and actually listens to the ERRE, whereas Maryam Monsef seemed inclined to turn a deaf ear. If the Liberals are interested in their reputation at all, they should heed and keep Justin Trudeaus promise to make 2015 the last unfair election in Canada. Id be willing to bet that among the nations 60-plus per cent of progressive voters, its that very promise that helped him unite the left and grant him the opportunity to govern. The Liberals would be wise to not take that for granted, and I take issue with the editor insinuating that electoral reform is poisoned. Fair voting is not an unworthy cause, and first-past-the-post needs to be put out to pasture. John Shannon, Toronto Bad form, Justin Trudeau. You have removed from your cabinet and government one of the few principled and intellectual members of your party/government. Stephane Dion has been ahead of the country in his positions on the environment, national unity and electoral reform. Even former prime minister Stephen Harper turned to Mr. Dion to help quell the national unity issue. Trudeau has to learn that having a few experienced, intelligent and compassionate people sitting at the cabinet table is a necessity and not a hangover from the past. After enduring the disloyalty of the party insiders who opposed his election as leader but supported the inexperienced and bumbling Michael Ignatieff, Mr. Dion continued his work with his typical principled outlook. Mr. Trudeau has made a big mistake and should be prepared to admit it and correct it. After all, it is 2017. Martin Shulman, Thornhill Even in the cabinet of our first feminist prime minister, being the minister for the status of women remains a lesser role. For Maryam Monsef this appointment is effectively a demotion from her previous role as the minister in charge of democratic reform. How bizarre. How tragic. I cant imagine any cause on Earth more crucial to our social, ethical and economic well-being than freedom and equality for women. If, as I often suspect, the dismal treatment of women and the dismal treatment of the natural world are symptoms of the same pathology, then global feminism is crucial to our very survival as a species. I doubt it bodes well for our future on Earth that so many of us have such disdain and disregard for her wellsprings of life. Kevin Farmer, Toronto Wynne set to fill cabinet vacancy, Jan. 12 This headline should read, Kathleen Wynne will shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic Thursday. Edward P. Swynar, Newcastle SHARE: Re: A TTC utopia? C'mon, Mr. Byford, Jan. 11 A TTC utopia? C'mon, Mr. Byford, Jan. 11 I was not a fan of the late mayor Rob Fords Trump-like antics. However, there was never any doubt about his being on the side of the little guy. John Tory, on the other hand, has no qualms about sticking it to the least fortunate of Torontonians. He shows no hesitation in constantly nickel and diming TTC riders with a steady stream of fare hikes. In the TTCs 2014 budget highlights, the subsidy the TTC receives remains the lowest in North America at just $0.78 per ride. The subsidy other municipalities get: Montreal -- $1.16; Vancouver $1.62; Chicago $1.68; New York City $1.03; Mississauga $2.21; and York Region $4.49. This does not seem to bother Mr. Tory. He just keeps banging out fare increases. But when it comes to more reasonable ways of filling the citys coffers such as appropriate Land Transfer Taxes he is nowhere to be found. Vancouver collects Land Transfer Taxes that far exceed those in Toronto. As well, Vancouver has recently imposed a 15 per cent tax on foreign purchases of real estate. Where is Tory when it comes to this source of income? He is not around. Is it possible that he is already planning his next attack on TTC riders? Herb Alexander, Thornhill Edward Keenan seems to be blaming Andy Byford for a lot of the problems that occur with the TTC. For starters the TTC is one of the few large public transit authorities in the world, that has to find a large percentage of its operating costs from the ticket box. Also if you investigate the price of fares in Europe they are much higher than here in Toronto, and their governments subsidies are huge. To blame Byford for Bombardiers horrific performance to deliver anything on time, with a forever changing schedule is a bit of a stretch. My opinion of Mr. Byford is that he had brought about a lot of positive changes to the TTC, under difficult circumstances in a short time frame. Andy Henderson, Aurora Before Andy Byfords claim, I think we will meet (the) objective of being back to No. 1 in North America by the end of this year, I like him to consider the following questions: Have you waited at a bus stop for 20 to 30 minutes at 20 C for a bus that should be running every 10 minutes during rush hour? Have you been stuck in a subway for over an hour due to mechanical issue? Have you seen the crowd at the Finch bus stations when the buses were late and there was no space for line up? Are you willing to face constant fare hike for the deteriorated quality in services? After taking the TTC to work for the last 40 years, enough is enough. I retired. Aileen Wong, Scarborough SHARE: H&M (HNNMY) stock dropped in the first hour of trading in Stockholm Monday after it announced sales growth in December was slower than expected. The Swedish fast-fashion retailer said sales in local currencies were up 6%, against analysts's expectations of around 8%. Sales were up 10% when converted in Swedish Kronor, the company said. H&M stock lost 2.44% in Stockholm to Skr243.90 in the first hour of trading, extending their 52-week decline to to 12.32%. The Stoxx Europe Retail Index lost 1.08% on Monday, having gained only 0.95% in the past year. The Christmas sales miss follows November figures that showed sales were up 9% in local currency terms but against missed market expectations of a 15% increase. H&M is facing intense pressure from Zara-owner Inditex (IDEXY) , whose innovative business model have heralded it double-digit sales growth while other retailers flounder. Inditex stock was marginally down 0.80% in Madrid at 31.68, shares have gained 11.28% in the 52-week period. Inditex, the world's largest fashion retailer by market value, saw net sales rise by 11% in the nine months between Feb. 1 and Oct. 31 to 16.4 billion ($17.4 billion). In constant-currency terms, top line growth was 15%, "underpinned by solid same-store sales growth," the company said in its earnings released in mid-December. Germany's Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel lashed out at President-elect Donald Trump's comments on automotive imports from Mexico in an interview published in Bild on Monday, saying that they will merely force up costs for consumers. Trump, in a separate interview with the Bild also published on Monday, threatened BMW (BMWYY) and other German car makers with a 35% tax on imports from across the southern border, if they continue to produce cars for the U.S. market in Mexico. Gabriel said that such measures would make the U.S. car industry weaker and more expensive. BMW is in the midst of building a plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico that would build the BMW 3 Series starting from 2019. The company has said that it is committed to the Mexican production site in which it invested 1 billion ($1.05 billion) in 2016. The U.S. is BMW's largest market, accounting for an estimated 20% of the group's 94 billion of annual revenues. "Production is destined for the world market," BMW said on Monday responding to Trump's attack on its Mexico facility. "Thus, the plant in Mexico will complement the existing three-way production sites in Germany and China." Gabriel, who is right hand man to Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that he will wait to see how Trump's automotive policies go down in Congress, appearing to suggest that German industry could make allies of certain Republican lawmakers who have opposed some of the president-elect's more extreme policy. Gabriel also criticized the U.S. auto industry, when asked what America could do about the lack of reciprocity in automotive trade between the U.S. and Germany, by saying that American firms should build better cars. German automaker stocks were under pressure in early trading Monday, with BMW stock down by around 1.5%, Volkswagen (VLKAY) shares off by 1.7% and Daimler (DDAIF) down by 1.8%. The comments from Trump, who will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the U.S. on Friday, comes at a time when foreign car makers are not only facing scrutiny over where they manufacture cars, but also over their emissions output. Last week the Environmental Protection Agency filed a complaint against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU) over its alleged failure to disclose engine management software in its vehicles. The agency also said that it is investigating whether or not the software in question constitutes a defeat device, which is illegal and could pave the way for criminal charges. Fiat Chrysler stock was trading down by more than 4% on Monday morning, at 8.78 ($9.30). It fell more than 16% when the EPA made its complaint last week. The announcement came after German car firm Volkswagen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., among other things, following a lengthy investigation into its rigging of emissions tests. Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA provides dialysis care and related dialysis care services in Germany, North America, and internationally. It offers dialysis treatment and related laboratory and diagnostic services through a network of outpatient dialysis clinics; materials, training, and patient support services comprising clinical monitoring, follow-up assistance, and arranging for delivery of the supplies to the patient's residence; and dialysis services under contract to hospitals in the United States for the hospitalized end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and for patients suffering from acute kidney failure. The company also develops, manufactures, and distributes dialysis products, including polysulfone dialyzers, hemodialysis machines, peritoneal dialysis cyclers, peritoneal dialysis solutions, hemodialysis concentrates, solutions and granulates, bloodlines, renal pharmaceuticals, and systems for water treatment; and non-dialysis products, such as acute cardiopulmonary and apheresis products. In addition, it develops, acquires, and in-licenses renal pharmaceuticals; offers renal medications and supplies to patients at homes or to dialysis clinics; and provides vascular, cardiovascular, endovascular specialty, vascular care ambulatory surgery center, and physician nephrology and cardiology services. The company sells its products to dialysis clinics, hospitals, and specialized treatment clinics directly, as well as through local sales forces, independent distributors, dealers, and sales agents. As of February 23, 2022, it operated 4,171 outpatient dialysis clinics in approximately 150 countries. Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Bad Homburg, Germany. TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) At a sprawling desert base, a Marine recharged his radio's batteries simply by walking, while nearby fellow troops examined a rocket artillery system and a drone both powered by the sun. Navy and Marine Corps brass showcased the energy-harnessing knee braces and other innovations at a renewable energy demonstration at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base. The activity was one of many that have taken place at military bases as part of the Defense Department's shift away from fossil fuels under the Obama administration. The Pentagon has invested millions over the past decade into everything from hybrid electric ships to wind turbines. While a growing number of military leaders have declared global warming a national security threat, the strategy clashes with President-elect Donald Trump's vow to end policies that "undermine" fossil fuel producers. Trump has a chosen a Cabinet with climate change skeptics, though his pick for Defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, has advocated green technology to curtail risky fuel-supply runs for troops in conflict zones. It's not known if Mattis would support buying alternative fuels for ships and aircraft, among the military's biggest petroleum users. He didn't respond to requests seeking comment. Republican lawmakers have lashed out at many of the green initiatives for the Defense Department one of the world's largest energy consumers especially the Navy's Great Green Fleet that deployed ships run partly on biofuel amid falling oil prices. Military leaders say alternative energy makes warriors more agile and effective on today's battlefields. At the recent demonstrations, a Marine wore knee braces with tiny generators that transformed the energy he produced from walking to recharge batteries. The technology allows troops to generate their own power for as long as three days. The event also featured a M777 howitzer and a drone that use solar power. "To do something other than continue these programs would be a mistake," said Joe Bryan, the Navy's deputy assistant secretary for energy. "My expectation is that will be recognized no matter where people are on the political spectrum." Trump's transition team did not respond to questions about whether it would end the strategy. Republican lawmakers have said the Pentagon has propped up the alternative energy industry, investing in programs that are not sustainable. The Defense Department has been working toward generating 25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025. The Navy and Marine Corps set a goal to draw half of its power from renewable energy sources by 2020. GOP legislators have criticized the Obama administration for spending roughly $120 billion on climate change initiatives while putting in motion $1 trillion in defense cuts. "I hope the new administration allows the U.S. military to focus on the most important defense issues like fighting ISIS, defending from Iranian and North Korean belligerence, and guarding against aggression from China and Russia," Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck said. "Our military should use the most cost-efficient fuel sources, rather than burning money on green energy experiments." The most contentious initiative has been the purchase of biofuel for ships. Critics say while ships may leave port with a biofuel mix, they still must rely on foreign oil in many places near battlefields and the plant-based fuel has become more expensive than traditional fuel. According to a 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress' research arm, the Pentagon paid $58.6 million for 2 million gallons of alternative fuel from 2007 to 2014, or about $29 per gallon. At the same time, it spent $107.2 billion for 32 billion gallons of petroleum, paying about $3 per gallon. The exiled royal family of Rwanda has a new Kingan council flat tenant in his fifties living in England. Emmanuel Bushayija, a father of two, has been declared King Yuhi VI following the passing of his uncle King Kigeli V in October last year. King Kigeli V was 80. From obscurity to the throne: England-based council flat tenant, 56, becomes new King of Rwanda According the Royal Council, Bushayija will be the last to serve as King. It further said that King Kigeli V anointed him as his successor 10 years ago. The late King Kigeli V, who lived in exile in the US in modest circumstances, did not have children of his own. He had vowed never to return to Rwanda unless the Kingdom is restored, a demand the Rwandan government is opposed to. The royal family has been exiled from Rwanda since 1961 when a referendum ushered in a Republic in Rwanda. The late King Kigeli V Bushayija lives in relative obscurity in England. Contrary to images of wealth, privilege, and fame that come to the fore when royal families are in the spotlight, he is a man of modest means. He owns a small security company for a living. Prior to settling in England in 2000, he held small jobs in Uganda and Kenya. The new King rents a flat in this housing association property He also lived briefly in Rwanda between 1994 and 2000 before deciding to settle in England. It is indeed a remarkable story of rising from relative obscurity to occupying the throne and title of King of Rwanda. Source: TUKO.co.ke The State Emergency Service of Ukraine issued warnings for mountainous areas in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia regions, where possible avalanches are expected. On January 16, a considerable (III) level of avalanche danger is expected in the mountains in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia regions, State Emergency Service reported, referring to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Centers forecasts. iy Militants launched 60 attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in ATO area in Donbas over the past day. This is reported by the ATO press center. As noted, in Mariupol direction, the enemy used 122 mm mortars to fire at Hnutove (19km north-west of Mariupol). The militants also shelled Krasnohorivka (29 km west of Donetsk), Pavlopol (30 km northeast of Mariupol). In Luhansk direction, terrorists used 120 mm and 82mm mortars to shell Novozvanivka and Troyitske. Novozvanivka was also attacked with the use of rocket-propelled grenades and small arms. In Donetsk direction, the enemy used 152mm artillery systems in Avdiyivka. The militants also fired mortars of various calibers on the villages of Novhorodske and Dolomitne, as well as rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and small arms on Avdiyivka, and the villages of Zaitseve, Novhorodske and Verkhniotoretske. ish ish Ukraine and Singapore have signed Memoranda of Understating to promote research and development and facilitate investments. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry posted on Twitter: Ukraine signed two Memorandum of understanding with Singapore to promote R&D, learn best practices of good governance and facilitate investments. As earlier reported, on January 15-16, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin is on an official visit to the Republic of Singapore. The purpose of the visit is to maintain the dynamics of the political dialogue, intensification of economic and investment cooperation, the establishment of cooperation in the humanitarian and scientific and technical spheres. iy The United States has provided Ukraine with $3 billion of loan guarantees and $750 million in financial aid to support the economy and more than $600 million to strengthen the defense capability. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said this at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. "In addition to $3 billion of loan guarantees and $750 million in aid, which the United States gave Ukraine to strengthen the economy, the United States has also provided more than $600 million in aid to strengthen security," Biden said. He stressed that the United States helped to train Ukrainian servicemen, as well as provided a variety of equipment - body armor, radar installations and others. ish Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman at a meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Kyiv thanked him for the faith in Ukraine. Prime ministers press secretary Dmytro Stoliarchuk posted this on Twitter. Thank you for the faith in Ukraine, that Ukraine was and remains in your heart, the press secretary cited Volodymyr Groysman as saying. Earlier, the meeting of the Ukrainian prime minister with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden scheduled for 7.30 a.m. on Monday, January 16, started almost one hour late. Following this meeting, a meeting of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and U.S. Vice President is expected to take place. iy The Ukrainian government hopes for further fruitful cooperation with the new U.S. Administration. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stated this during a joint press conference with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. This morning, President Poroshenko met with US Vice President Joseph Biden, who arrived in Ukraine on an official visit. After the meeting, the Ukrainian-American talks in expanded format were held. iy Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko states that Ukraine will never return under control of the Russian Federation. The Ukrainian President said this at a joint with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden press conference, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Today we are building a new, strong, powerful, democratic Ukraine. It is by no means a state which was during the escape of bankrupt and criminal authorities and the start of Russian military aggression. It is Ukraine which has dignity, commitment to democratic reforms, it is Ukraine which will never return to the stall of the Russian empire, it is Ukraine which firmly defends democratic values, rights and freedoms that are common for Ukraine and the United States, President Poroshenko stressed. iy The Military Committee, NATOs highest Military Authority, will meet in Chiefs of Defense Session on 17-18 January 2017, at the NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium. On the second day of the session, the Chiefs of Defense will discuss the situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian delegation will be headed by Viktor Muzhenko, Chief of the General Staff - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. The session with Ukraine will provide an opportunity for an update on the security situation in and around Ukraine and assess the progress of the security and defense sector reforms, reads a report on the NATO official website. The Chiefs of Defense will also have a broad discussion on Russia. The last meeting of the day will see the Chiefs of Defense exchange views on Russia and the challenges it poses to the Alliance, according to the report. iy DECATUR Any family trip requires serious planning, especially on a limited budget, to make sure it goes smoothly. Students in fourth grade at Dennis School are getting a trial run in doing just that with their latest project. Sue Phillips, one of the teachers behind the assignment, invited Diana Ritter of Village Travel to talk to the students about the costs of making trips. The students each chose a state and were assigned to research that state and create a plan to visit eight sites. One must be a national park or, if the state doesn't boast a national park, a state park. California is vast, so Ritter chose the San Francisco area to concentrate on, because there are many things to see nearby, from the giant redwoods to Alcatraz Island. Fresno, a short drive from San Francisco, is home to two national parks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. I'm not a bridge person, Ritter said with a chuckle. I've driven to the Golden Gate Bridge and looked at it, but I can't drive across it. Travel agents call adjustments for clients' fears or physical limitations qualifying the client. If someone is afraid of flying or bridges, the agent plans a trip that avoids those things. Phillips had told the students they should plan to work within a budget of $2,000, so the kids' reaction to Ritter's final tally of $3,687, which included hotels, admission to national parks, renting a car, plane tickets, but not food, was astonishment and some laughter. No food? said Zoe Creighton. That's going to be a problem. Her choice of state is Oklahoma and her parents have been so impressed with her research so far that they're planning a real trip to the state to take advantage of Zoe's hard work. Daniel Muth chose Pennsylvania because he was born there, but his parents moved when he was a toddler and he doesn't remember it. Haydyn Watson chose California. I'd like to live there someday, she said. They have Disneyland and it's warm. Brielle Jackson's state is New York, home of the Statue of Liberty, which she wants to see. While it took Ritter only a short time to plan an itinerary and calculate prices and overall cost, she warned the kids that they should figure on quite a bit more time than that for their own projects. She has a ready list of airlines and hotels at hand and it's her profession, while they'll have to figure out things as they go. However, with the internet and handy sites like the National Park Service, plus tricks such as knowing to check with a city's Chamber of Commerce, the process should go smoothly, she said. Students will present their final projects at the school's Problem-Based Learning assembly in February. Chef Nathan Anda cooks hamburgers at Red Apron Burger Bar. (Jennifer Chase/For the Washington Post) Last year, McDonalds started testing fresh, not frozen, ground-beef patties at some Dallas locations. More than two years ago, Carls Jr. introduced an all-natural burger with hormone- and antibiotic-free beef sourced from grass-fed and free-range cattle. And since its launch in 2005, the Arlington-based Elevation Burger chain has touted its organic ground beef from similarly pampered cattle. As much as those developments represent upgrades in the hamburger world, they also reveal the industrys glaring blind spot: Burger joints, large or small, dont talk much about the sources of their beef. They may say their meat comes from North America or the United States, but they dont drill down to specific farms or even to a specific state. Theyre the stubborn holdouts of the locavore movement. Red Apron Burger Bar is selling burgers made with meat from cattle that have fed exclusively on grass. (Jennifer Chase/For the Washington Post) Which is why the recently opened Red Apron Burger Bar near Dupont Circle immediately stood out in the ground-beef market. The partnership between Neighborhood Restaurant Group and Red Apron Butcher promises to source all its beef from Virginia producers, including Leaping Waters Farm in Alleghany Springs, which raises Ancient White Park cattle exclusively on grass. If youve never had a burger made from the meat of grass-fed cattle, youre in for a surprise: The patties boast a deeply beefy, mineral-like flavor, so different from the buttery roundness of grain-fed steers. We have both a grass-fed burger for the new place as well as a grass-fed, grain-finished burger, says Nathan Anda, the chef, butcher and creative force behind Red Apron. You can tell both of them have a good amount of age, and both of them are bringing more of a beefiness, more of a steak flavor, as opposed to kind of the taste of the grill or the taste of the flattop. It has taken Anda years to develop the network of regional farmers who supply his Washington-area butcher shops with all-natural, humanely raised meats. Even so, he couldnt have launched his Burger Bar without the help of Ryan Ford, co-owner of Seven Hills Food in Lynchburg, Va. Ford is a wholesaler in fresh Virginia meats, which doesnt begin to explain all the work required to build a system with such a regional focus. A co-founder of the Organic Butcher retail shops in Charlottesville (now closed) and McLean (still thriving), Ford moved into the wholesale business about two years ago, when he and his investors spent millions of dollars to renovate the old Dinner Bell Meat Products processing plant in Lynchburg. Ford decided he would help remedy a problem that he encountered as a retail butcher: a lack of fresh, locally raised meats to feed a growing market. But as Ford explains, its not simple to transform a system that has historically catered to the commodity meat market. Virginia ranchers traditionally have raised cattle for giant corporate feedlots and processors, receiving a fraction of what they could earn by selling directly to chefs and retail shops. But the slaughterhouse, processing and distribution systems are not designed for small-scale, regional production. If ranchers wanted to sell directly to those willing to pay more, they typically had to arrange it themselves, via farmers markets and the like, often at exorbitant costs. At Red Apron Burger Bar near Dupont Circle, Leah Beilhart makes her move on a hamburger made with 100 percent grass-fed beef. (Jennifer Chase/For the Washington Post) Enter Ford and Seven Hills Food, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected slaughterhouse and processing plant that opened in September 2015. To create this regional system to process and distribute Virginia meats, Ford has had to find farmers willing not only to work with him but also to change their agricultural practices to improve almost everything, from animal welfare to the quality of the meat. Then Ford has had to find chefs such as Anda at Red Apron who are willing to pay a premium for grass-fed, grain-finished Black Angus beef, dry-aged for at least 10 days. Were laying the groundwork for something that will take years to build, Ford says. In its first year, Seven Hills processed 1,000 head of cattle. Ford says hes operating at only 10 percent of capacity and that there are plenty of Virginia cattle farmers who could move their animals into his system. Which is potentially good news for Anda. While the chef says he wants to perfect his debut burger joint before entertaining thoughts of expansion, it seems clear that he and the Neighborhood Restaurant Group have bigger plans for Red Apron Burger Bar. Maybe even Burger Bars scattered along the Northeast Corridor, each tied into regional beef suppliers. Ive done a lot of traveling from Philly to New York, says James Tracey, Neighborhood Restaurant Groups culinary director, who used to work for the Philadelphia-based Starr Restaurants group. I think the cows are there at this point, Tracey says about a potential Northeast expansion. The farmers would be happy. They could do more, and theyve said they can do more. Of course, its that kind of expansionist dreaming that can doom a concept, too. Just ask Mark Bucher, founder of BGR: The Burger Joint. When Bucher opened his debut BGR in Bethesda in 2008, all he wanted to do was sell gourmet, steakhouse-style burgers in a casual, counter-service environment. Bucher worked with Danny Alahouzos, co-owner of Prime Foods in Hyattsville, to create a custom hamburger blend for BGR. They took prime cuts (or near-prime when the higher grade wasnt available) of brisket, short ribs and sirloin (sourced from grass-fed, grain-finished Pennsylvania cattle) and mixed them lightly and gently with fat to arrive at the desired blend, Alahouzos says. The burger was a hit with critics and the public. But BGRs investors, Bucher says, wanted more. They wanted more stores. They wanted to franchise into markets outside Washington. Within a few years, the BGR concept had grown too large for the boutique operation that was Prime Foods. We had other obligations, Alahouzos says. I couldnt tell my regular customers, Im sorry. Theres this burger place thats taking over our place. We had to get help doing it. BGR turned to a large beef-grinding facility in New York, where Bucher says he worried he was losing control of the quality. Every now and then, Id taste the burger and Id say, Somethings not right, recalls Bucher, who divested himself of his BGR ownership in 2014. Plus, Alahouzos adds, once a company reaches a certain size, the owners inevitably start focusing more on price points than on meat quality. That, in turn, forces companies to move away from regional suppliers and into the commodity beef markets. Its not easy to determine where major hamburger chains buy their beef. Of the companies contacted for this story including Five Guys, Elevation, Shake Shack, Umami Burger and others only a few responded. A spokeswoman for CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carls Jr., emailed to say its natural beef comes from Australia, largely from JBS Australias Great Southern branded beef. A McDonalds representative likewise emailed to say most of the chains 100 percent beef is obtained from ranches around the United States. While we remain one of the largest purchasers of U.S. beef, we also import USDA-inspected beef from New Zealand, Australia and Canada, the McDonalds spokeswoman, Terri Hickey, adds in the same email. The founder of BGR: The Burger Joint says he lost some control over sourcing when the demands of expansion forced him to find a new processor. (James M. Thresher/The Washington Post) The Shake Shack chain has experienced major growth, but a company official says it has been able to maintain the quality of its beef. (Bill O'Leary/Washington Post) Major growth, of course, doesnt automatically cheapen a hamburger chains beef supply. With its influx of public investment money, Shake Shack has expanded to more than 100 locations, including outlets in South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Such a vast network of restaurants makes it impossible to source meat locally in each case, says Jeffrey Amoscato, the companys vice president of supply chain and menu innovation. (The exception, he says, is the Shake Shack at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., which relies exclusively on in-state beef.) Instead, the company buys only a specific kind of beef: whole cuts from grass-fed and grain-finished Angus steers. The cuts are sourced from the states of the upper Midwest, Amoscato says. Shake Shack, he adds, doesnt shop for meat based on price. Were really just looking for the best quality first; then well find a way to make it work with price, Amoscato says. If its got really good flavor, it will sell. Amoscatos point is important to those who follow the hamburger market: Local beef does not necessarily mean better beef. Although local grass-fed beef may be better for the environment grass-fed-cattle farms have some advantages over industrial systems, and vice versa, depending on how well managed each operation is it doesnt mean local beef will always be more flavorful than the commodity stuff shipped from the Midwest. The principals behind the Red Apron Burger Bar understand that. For me, just buying local to buy local doesnt make sense, says Tracey, NRGs culinary director. It has to be about quality. At the end of the day, people dont care that much. They do care, but if they dont like what it tastes like, theyre not going to come back. Will Red Apron Burger Bar patrons like the flavor of grass-fed beef from Virginia? Will they care about the provenance of the beef at all? The future of this ambitious project seems to hinge on the answers to those two questions. Red Apron Burger Bar, 1323 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-524-5210. redapronburgerbar.com. Grass-fed, grain-finished Black Angus burgers, $5.85 for a single patty and $8.95 for a double patty; grass-fed Ancient White Park burgers, $7.35 for a single patty and $11.35 for a double patty. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter, his 9-year-old daughter, Amy, and wife Rosalynn surprised spectators by walking the entire inaugural parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue. (James M. Thresher/The Washington Post) James Madison was about to be sworn in as our fourth president in 1809. He asked his friend, then-President Thomas Jefferson, to ride with him to the Capitol. Jefferson, who had led the country for eight years, said no. Today I return to the people, he replied. On Friday, Barack Obama returns to the people. At noon, we will have a new president, Donald Trump. After he is sworn in, he will give a speech, watch a parade and, that night, attend several large parties. This event, which happens every four years, is called Inauguration Day. The word inauguration (pronounced in-aw-gyu-RAY-shun) comes from Latin and means to be installed under good omens or signs. Inaugurations mark the peaceful transfer of power in our government. Within a few hours, one family moves out of the White House and another moves in. Although that part remains the same, inaugurations themselves have changed over time. They used to be in March, for one thing, and for years they took place on the Capitols east side. In 1981, they moved to the west side, facing the Mall, unless cold weather forces everyone inside. Here are some fun inauguration facts to amuse and amaze you. Credit goes to Paul F. Boller Jr. and his book Presidential Inaugurations. A cowboy lassoed President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the viewing stand during his 1953 inaugural parade. (Associated Press) Eighteenth-century gridlock forced George Washington to walk both to church and home after the fireworks for his 1789 inauguration, which took place in New York City. There were simply too many horses and carriages on the streets. A long time ago, inaugural events might be the first time people got to see the man they had elected. Spotting Zachary Taylor before his inauguration in 1849, one person noted, He is not so ugly as I had expected. Andrew Jacksons celebration in 1829 led to a near-riot in the White House. People in muddy boots stood on the chairs and sofas, there were fistfights over the food and drinks, and some drapes and dishes were destroyed. The new president escaped through a window and went back to his hotel. Abraham Lincoln had a similar experience in 1865, as guests helped themselves to silverware, glasses, candlesticks and pieces of the lace curtains. Nasty weather is a big inauguration worry. In 1841, William Henry Harrison wore neither a coat nor hat. He spoke for an hour and a half, got sick and died a month later. Historians still debate whether the cold led to his death. The temperature hovered at zero for Ulysses S. Grants 1873 inauguration. Musical instruments froze and West Point cadets passed out. Some canaries that were to sing at the party that night also froze. President George W. Bush and Laura Bush attend a 2005 inaugural ball with daughters Jenna and Barbara. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) After President Obamas speech at the 2009 inauguration, his younger daughter, 7-year-old Sasha, right, gave him a thumbs up said it was a pretty good speech. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post) Inaugural parades have had just about everything, including fancy floats and trained seals. Theodore Roosevelts 1905 parade had cowboys and Native Americans on horseback, led by the Apache chief Geronimo. Roosevelt was delighted, unlike Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was lassoed by a cowboy at his 1953 parade. Eisenhower grinned, but his son later said the stunt irritated him. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter startled people when they popped out of the presidential limousine and walked the entire mile-plus parade route in 1977. Their 9-year-old daughter, Amy, skipped part of the way. Washingtons 1793 inaugural address was the shortest: 135 words. Harrisons was the longest: more than 8,400 words. Few of these speeches live on in memory. But when Obama finished his in 2009, his 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, flashed him a thumbs-up and said, That was a pretty good speech, Dad. At the northeast corner of the National Archives building sits Robert Aitkens sculpture The Future, inscribed with some famous words from Shakespeares The Tempest: What is past is prologue. If you buy that, its possible to have a solid idea of what Donald Trumps presidency will be like for the American media and for citizens who depend on that flawed but essential institution. The short form: hellish. Consider, for example, the saga of Serge Kovaleski, the highly regarded New York Times reporter whose disability limits the use of his arms. Yes, this is the reporter whom Trump mocked during the campaign waving his arms in a crude but unmistakable imitation of Kovaleskis movements. When criticized for doing so, Trump vehemently denied that mocking Kovaleski was even possible because he didnt know him. (Which was also a lie.) All this, because Trump wanted to promote a myth talk about fake news that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated 9/11, which he falsely claimed Kovaleski reported while working at The Washington Post. Any reasonable person looking back at the facts would find that absurd. (Reuters) What can this small chapter tell us about whats to come? That Trump will be what columnist Frida Ghitis of the Miami Herald calls the gaslighter in chief that he will pull out all the stops to make people think that they should believe him, not their own eyes. (Gaslighting is a reference to the 1940s movie in which a manipulative husband psychologically abuses his wife by denying the reality that the gaslights in their home are growing dimmer and dimmer.) The techniques, Ghitis wrote, include saying and doing things and then denying it, blaming others for misunderstanding, disparaging their concerns as oversensitivity, claiming outrageous statements were jokes or misunderstandings, and other forms of twilighting the truth. But thats just part of what experience teaches us to expect from Trump. Heres another: Trump will punish journalists for doing their jobs. Famously touchy and unable to endure serious scrutiny, he has always been litigious although, as journalist Tim OBrien has pointed out based on Trumps failed suit against him, sometimes unsuccessfully so. Imagine that tendency, now with executive powers, a compliant attorney general and a lily-livered Congress. Trumps reign will probably be awash in investigations and prosecutions of journalists for doing their jobs, stirring up the ugliest of class wars along the way. Whats worse, as investigative reporter James Risen wrote recently, President Obama has set the stage with his administrations use of the once-forgotten Espionage Act to prosecute government whistleblowers and threaten journalists; the blueprint awaits. Another: He will relentlessly manipulate. For example, Trumps first news conference as president-elect last week featured a crowd of paid staffers who cheered his every statement, creating a false picture for viewers. After all, his public image as reflected in media coverage is perhaps his highest priority. And he has assembled plenty of expert help. As Emily Bell argued in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trump is a media entity unto himself: For Trump, the medium is not just the message, it is the office, too. His coterie stands ready: His chief of strategy Steve Bannon was most recently editor in chief at Breitbart . . . Jared Kushner, the son-in-law with Trumps ear, owned the New York Observer. Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who put Gawker out of business by backing the multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan, is also in the trusted inner circle of supporters. And media mogul Rupert Murdoch, head of Fox, is said to talk to Trump several times a week. So, we can expect President Trump to lie to the media, manipulate reality and go after those who upset the notion that adulation is his birthright. After last weeks news conference, Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev wrote A message to my doomed colleagues in the American media . He warned: This man owns you. He understands perfectly well that he is the news. You cant ignore him. Youre always playing by his rules which he can change at any time without any notice. To those who say lets wait and see, or maybe it wont be as bad as you think, or stay hopeful, Im having none of it. Journalists are in for the fight of their lives. And they are going to have to be better than ever before, just to do their jobs. They will need to work together, be prepared for legal persecution, toughen up for punishing attacks and figure out new ways to uncover and present the truth. Even so if the past really is prologue that may not be enough. For more by Margaret Sullivan, visit wapo.st/sullivan Michelle Obama, right, in October with Melissa Winter, a longtime aide who will serve as the first ladys chief of staff as she embarks on her post-White House career. (Lawrence Jackson/The White House) As Michelle Obama prepares to leave the White House, shes been talking publicly about how eager she is to return to normal life. I want to open my front door without discussing it with anyone and just walk, she told Oprah Winfrey in an interview last year. She has also said she wants to sit in a yard, stroll through a big-box store and open a window in her house, all things she has not been able to do for eight years. Yet a team is already laying the groundwork for whats likely to be a somewhat busier post-White House schedule for a popular first lady who has signaled her eagerness to continue her advocacy work of recent years and has proved to be a compelling voice in American politics. After a long break, Obama plans to get to work with a small staff that will move into office space in Washington. The group will be led by Melissa Winter, the first ladys longtime deputy chief of staff. A veteran Capitol Hill aide, Winter was the first ladys first hire during her husbands 2007 campaign. Mel has been by my side from Day One. There is truly no one I trust more completely to make order out of chaos and take an idea from inception to execution, Obama said in an email. For the past decade, she has been one of my most trusted advisors and dearest friends. The shadow of the commander in chief by its nature makes a first ladys work smaller. But the post-presidency has been a chance for some former first ladies to find new missions, and Obamas next moves will largely be hers to decide. Right now it is an empty plate, Winter said. I really think the most important thing is to give her time to breathe and get acclimated to being a private citizen again, knowing that she doesnt have to tell people where shes going to go, and we dont have to put out an advisory if shes going to go walk around a museum. [Michelle Obama makes a pitch to keep her advocacy work alive in a Trump White House] After that, we have space, [and] an idea of the size of the staff Mrs. Obama will need, Winter said. Because shes not the president, we dont feel the same sense of urgency to be up and running as soon as the administration ends. Laura Bush described her first few weeks at home after her husbands presidency ended as a relief. I would get in bed at night and think, Oh, now what do I have to do tomorrow? And then I would take this deep breath and think I dont have to do anything tomorrow, she told The Washington Post in 2014. Winter, who has worked for Michelle Obama since 2007, said there will be big public demand for her boss in coming years. When shes ready, our group will come together, and well do strategy. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Obama also needs time to feel what it feels like to feel bored, Winter said although she adds there is a hunger for her voice in public life. When shes ready, our group will come together, and well do strategy. And well talk about what does the first event for the new Michelle Obama look like. How do we want it to feel, and how does she want it to feel? Winter said. Their overarching strategy for Obamas next phase is sometimes less is more. She has such a powerful voice. You dont have to augment with a lot of things, Winter said. The family will also need income, to support themselves as well as the post-White House staffs they are building. Obama, who was once her familys primary breadwinner, hasnt earned a salary in eight years. To earn money, former first ladies and presidents have accepted paid offers to speak not always without controversy in addition to championing favorite causes. [In the homestretch, the Michelle Obama PR machine goes into overdrive] In the meantime, the president has said his wife is working on her memoir another typical income-generating project for former first families which is expected to net a multimillion-dollar advance. Probably down the line [there are] many books in her, Winter said. I think shed be a wonderful childrens book author. We havent set up a process for that, [but] down the line it would be a natural way to exhale from an experience like this. (Reuters) Now that she has held her last official events, Michelle Obama and Winters most pressing concern is moving from the White House to the 8,200-square-foot home the Obamas will be renting in Washingtons Kalorama neighborhood. The family will stay in the city for at least two years while their daughter Sasha finishes high school. Winter served as the point person in the White House guarding the Obamas time together as a family and overseeing the compilation of the first ladys briefing books a job focused more on logistics than policy. Winter has practically lived with Obama since February 2007, first in Chicago and later on call to the White House, said Tina Tchen, the first ladys White House chief of staff. (Tchen will not stay with Obama in the post-presidency; she plans to return to Chicago, where she was a corporate lawyer and early political booster of Barack Obama.) Winter knows what [Michelle Obama] needs on the weekends. She knows what the girls need, and she has a relationship not just with Mrs. Obama, but with the entire family, said Tchen. And now, after this long period of time, [she] can anticipate what kinds of things will they need to know about. [Whats on Michelle Obamas mind? Meet the speechwriter who puts it into words] She also has an uncanny memory for Michelle Obamas events and attire. Well sit and well be doing speech prep and Mrs. Obama will be reflecting and saying maybe it should be a little bit like and she wont quite remember an events details, Tchen said. Mel will be able to say, It was here and you wore the brown dress with the bow. I have felt like I have always worked for a family before a first lady, Winter said. I have made it my priority when we are in meetings and doing long-range planning [to remember] things like ballet performances, sporting events, parent-teacher conferences. All that stuff comes first. She also knows Obamas disparate groups of friends and has helped her move easily around Washington for her exercise classes, concerts, restaurant dates and walks in Rock Creek Park, a circuit she is likely to continue as she stays in the city as a private citizen. Washington to politicians is like L.A. to actors. At some point, they become less interesting, Winter said of Obamas experience. She goes all over town to different SoulCycle classes and people see her, and its almost passe. People dont necessarily whip out their cellphones anymore, and they definitely dont approach her. Obama told Winfrey recently that she has given up hope of anonymity but aims to find a new normal. Ive found that if you just flow into a pattern of life with people, they give you space to come in. Thats happened at my kids school and the places where I go and work out, she said. I hope to find a way to seamlessly work my way into a normal life. Its going to take time, but Im going to slowly. (The Washington Post) In the coming days, Sally Berk will be able to say that she lives in the same Northwest Washington neighborhood as Barack and Michelle, Jared and Ivanka, and a billionaire named Jeff. Ho-hum. Whats another president in the hood when five others have already resided in Kalorama, Washingtons very own version of Beverly Hills? Can you blame the soon-to-be first daughter for wanting to live a 13-minute, chauffeur-driven glide path to her father at the White House? And where else can a tech magnate find a 27,000-square-foot crash pad just 1.8 miles from his new media company? Were just so used to it, said Berk, who 36 years after moving to Kalorama is accustomed to the motorcades, Secret Service retinues and hovering helicopters that come with sharing sidewalks with Washington royalty. Yet, despite the neighborhoods history as a turret-happy crib for the countrys elite, it is not every day that three of the worlds most powerful names decide, at virtually the same moment, that Kalorama is the place for them. The former Textile Museum property was recently purchased by Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazons founder and owner of The Washington Post, became the latest A-lister known to plant a flag in the neighborhood, paying $23 million in cash for a 10-bedroom mansion on S Street NW. This home on Tracy Place NW was purchased by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) A bit more than four blocks away, on Tracy Place NW, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and their three children are moving into a six-bedroom, five-fireplace manse that was listed last year for a relatively reasonable $5.5 million. Around the corner, behind a newly constructed Secret Service guard booth on Belmont Street, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are set to relocate to their post-White House rental a nine-bedroom, 8.5-bathroom house owned by Joe Lockhart, who served as press secretary to President Bill Clinton. 1 of 21 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad See the neighborhood where the Obamas and Ivanka Trumps family live View Photos The former president and first lady, the daughter of President Trump and her husband, and the founder of Amazon.com (and owner of The Washington Post) are residents of the Districts historic Kalorama neighborhood. Caption The former president and first lady, the daughter of President Trump and her husband, and the founder of Amazon.com (and owner of The Washington Post) are residents of the Districts historic Kalorama neighborhood. The Kalorama neighborhood is home to politicians and diplomats. Barack and Michelle Obama plan to live on Belmont Road NW while their daughter Sasha finishes high school. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Famous people have always lived here, said Penn Lupovich, 81, a retired doctor, as he stood outside his house on Tracy Place, defiantly nonchalant about living across the street from Ivanka Trumps new address. No, Lupovich said, Kaloramas residents are not holding meetings to prepare for the arrival of their new neighbors. No one, he insisted, is sweating the prospect of security checkpoints and hordes of gawkers. Its Washington if you dont like it, dont live here, Lupovich said of his neighborhood of 42 years. I came here to change the world, and thats the way it has always been. Thats what we do here. Change the world! A majestic mix of mansions, townhouses, apartment buildings and embassies northwest of Dupont Circle, Kalorama is like any other neighborhood, residents insist albeit one that requires a minimum of several million dollars to buy into. Or if you have $20,000 a month available for rent, thatll work, too. The neighborhood includes next to no places to buy a cup of coffee, not to mention eggs or a quart of milk, though the bare essentials can be acquired at the 7-Eleven on Wyoming Avenue NW, a bit less than a mile from the Obamas place. Sure, the neighborhoods residents may be a bit more prominent a former congressman over here, Bloomberg Medias chief executive over there but they want trash picked up and streets swept just like anyone else. We have potluck dinners someone says, You bring the dessert, I got the dead cow on the grill, said Mario Castillo, a lobbyist who has lived on Belmont for 20 years. To me, theyre all just neighbors, and then they happen to be the Jeff Bezoses, the Ivankas and the Obamas. Are they going to be friendly? he asked. Are they going to be approachable? Can you have a conversation with them? Not as Jeff or Ivanka or Obama. But just as folks. Thats what appeals to me. Not the titles. Ted and Vicki were neighbors of mine Jim Bell, a Sothebys International real estate agent who describes himself as the king of Kalorama, predicts that the neighborhood will regain its quiet rhythms after an inevitable spasm of excitement greets the arrival of the famous new residents. Ted and Vicki were neighbors of mine, Bell said, referring (of course) to the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and his wife. Donald Rumsfeld lived here. Its a whole bunch of mostly quiet rock stars, and then once in awhile youve got someone who gets more press. And then it dies down. Everyone says, Enough is enough. At the end of the day, theyre just people. They have dogs and kids and they go to sleep at night. A sloping landscape of rolling knolls, the neighborhood in the late 1700s was defined by a single estate, known as Belair, which was built by a local commissioner before it was taken over by a diplomat who renamed it Kalorama, the Greek word for fine view,according to the D.C. Office of Historic Preservation. Thomas Jefferson was a regular visitor. The intersection of Tracy Place and Belmont Street in the Kalorama neighborhood of Northwest. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) After the Civil War, as Washingtons population grew, developers began dividing Kaloramas land and constructing massive homes that evoked a variety of architectural styles, from Victorian-style villas to Beaux-Arts apartment houses and Colonial and Federal mansions. Before Obama, Woodrow Wilson was the only president to move to Kalorama immediately after leaving the White House. At varying points, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover also resided in the neighborhood. Wilsons house, now a museum, is on S Street, next door to the mansion purchased by Bezos, a sale that was cheered by residents who feared that the property the former Textile Museum would be turned into condos. Bravo! someone shouted at a neighborhood meeting last week after Bezoss architect announced that the property was bought by a family who intended to restore it as a home, according to the Current newspaper. But the architect, Anthony Ankie Barnes, declined to identify the buyer, said David Bender, chair of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, who is not unaccustomed to such secrecy. No one from the presidents orbit, for example, notified the ANC that several guard booths would be built outside the house on Belmont the kind of exterior construction that the commission typically approves. We heard nothing, Bender said. Nor has he received many complaints, though parking is a concern, as is a recent uptick in the presence of reporters and photographers in the neighborhood (Absolutely not! We dont talk about our neighbors! a woman walking her dog near the Kushner-Trump house said when asked about their impending arrival). Councilman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), whose district includes Kalorama, said the Secret Service is planning to install gates on both ends of the portion of Belmont that encompasses the Obama residence. It will certainly be safe over there, he said. Castillo said a representative from the White House and Secret Service recently visited him to explain where the roadblocks would be set up and how residents would receive visitors. I have gardeners, and what about the paperboy? How do we make arrangements to get him in and out? he said. They were very professional. Its not going to be as draconian as you might think. A couple takes a walk down S Street in the Kalorama neighborhood. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) A historical marker for Joel Barlow in the Kalorama neighborhood. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) When he arrived in Kalorama in 1996, Castillo recalled, his neighbor sent over a housekeeper with a note on a silver tray that read, Welcome to the neighborhood. Castillo plans no such greeting for the Obamas, preferring to allow them a respite after eight years of a hectic life. I have the sense that they are a little exhausted. Lupovich said Kalorama is more transient than it was when he first moved in, and that he doesnt know too many of his neighbors anymore. Hes not expecting to interact with Kushner or Ivanka Trump, though he has already benefited by their presence, wandering across the street to hire their house painter to put a new coat on his living room (Ivanka ordered the rooms in her house to be painted simply white, the painter said). As for Obama, the retired doctor said he plans to extend an invitation to both the outgoing president and the new president to join him in his living room for what he hopes would be consequential policy discussion. I want the president and Don Trump to come over and talk health care, he said. Thats the way we did it in the old Washington. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in her final speech as head of the Justice Department, praised the work of the Obama administration to advance the dream of justice and said worries of difficult days ahead should be a call for action, not despair. Speaking in Birmingham, Ala., just days before leaving office, Lynch praised the work of President Barack Obama and acknowledged without mentioning President-elect Donald Trump by name some voters' anxieties for the future. "I know that while our accomplishments should make us proud, they must not make us complacent. We cannot stop. We have to work. I know that in our pursuit of a brighter future, we still face headwinds. We still face oppositions. We see it. Waves of hatred, waves of intolerance and injustice that are still blowing in this country, and they seem to grow stronger the more that we achieve, Lynch said. Lynch took the pulpit of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church for a celebration ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The church was the site of a 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four girls just weeks after King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech. The Obama administration last week named the church and other Birmingham civil rights landmarks as a national monument. Lynch drew parallels between the church bombing that killed the four girls and the massacre of nine people at a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. "Fifty years after that we still see our fellow Americans targeted simply because of who they are: not only for their race, but for their religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, as well," Lynch said. She said a half century after the victories of the civil rights movement there are "new attempts to erect barriers to the voting booth." Lynch praised the work of the Obama administration and the Justice Department to fight voting restrictions and prosecute hate crimes and to urge community policing tactics. Lynch said the Justice Department has, when, deemed necessary, investigated law enforcement departments for unconstitutional practices and policies and worked for reforms "because every American deserves to see law enforcement as a guardian, not a threat." In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Lynch, who championed a repair of relations between police and communities, said the federal government must continue to hold police accountable. Some in the predominantly African-American congregation and crowd said they were openly mourning the end of the Obama presidency. "I cried. I cried. I never thought in my lifetime I would live to see the day that there was an African-American president," Tara Banks said. Banks brought her granddaughter Kimorah Thomas to the church on her eighth birthday to learn about King's legacy and hear Lynch, the first female African-American to hold the post of U.S. attorney general. Lynch said she recognized the anxiety that some have about what is ahead, referencing Trump without saying his name. "And I have seen the concerns that the voting booth will be moved out of reach, that our hearts will close along with our borders, that a prayer in a different tongue or posture will place one at deadly risk. I have seen the fear that, with the turn of the electoral wheel, so many of us will be seen as children of a lesser God," Lynch said. But Lynch added she has also seen the determination of men and women dedicated to the future of the country. "Yes, these are challenging times and yes, we undoubtedly have more challenges to come. But many of our greatest strides, in equal rights, in human rights and civil rights have come after heartbreaking loss. .... We are Americans and we have always pushed forward," Lynch said. We shouldnt be surprised anymore. Theres apparently no depth too low for Donald Trump to sink in his unpresidented attacks on anyone who challenges him. And Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) certainly did that, citing Russian interference in the election and questioning the legitimacy of Trumps presidency. Even so, the president-elects Twitter tirade against Lewis at the beginning of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend is still mind-boggling and a national embarrassment. Trump called Lewis, who risked his life to defy segregation, who has been arrested 40 times for his unrelenting activism, who helped get voting rights for millions of Americans, who kept fighting even after his skull was fractured, All talk, talk, talk no action. So lets compare Trumps actions to Lewiss actions. (Ashleigh Joplin,Randolph Smith,Rhonda Colvin/The Washington Post) We can start in 1960, when Trump was 14 and Lewis was 20. They both clearly showed their leadership potential early. At New York Military Academy in Cornwall, N.Y., Donald Trump won a neatness and order medal. That same year, John Lewis became one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, defying laws that prohibited blacks and whites from sitting next to each other on public transportation. Three years later in 1963, man-of-action Trump led his private schools white-gloved drill team in the Columbus Day parade in New York. But he was also removed from that drill team command, classmates said, because he hazed younger students. That same year, Lewis helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and spoke alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In 1965, Trump got his second Vietnam draft deferment as a Fordham University student. In 1965, on a day that became known as Bloody Sunday, Lewis helped lead 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. When the marchers stopped to pray, they were tear-gassed and beaten by troopers. Lewiss skull was fractured. 1 of 33 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad These Democratic lawmakers are boycotting Donald Trumps inauguration View Photos They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Caption They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) Beyer tweeted: I just told hundreds of my constituents that I will not be attending the Inauguration Ceremony this coming Friday. John McDonnell/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. In 1973, Trumps actions got him sued by the Department of Justice. He was managing his dads properties and wouldnt rent apartments to African Americans. The Trumps eventually settled the lawsuit without any admission of wrongdoing. That same year, John Lewis was running the Voter Education Project, which pushed to register minority voters across the country. Trump owned the 80s, right? His actions that decade? In 1981, Trump bought a 14-story building facing New York Citys Central Park and began a campaign to drive out the rent-stabilized tenants so he could begin gutting and renovating the building. According to lawsuits, Trump cut heat and water to the remaining tenants. In 1981, John Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council. In 1987, Trumps book, The Art of the Deal, became a bestseller. Action? He didnt even write it; talk about talk talk talk. And his ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, now regrets the picture he painted of Trump in that book. In 1987, Lewis was elected to Congress. I dont think Trump knows enough about America or American history to have deliberately targeted one of our countrys civil rights heroes in his tweet storm. You can see that in his messages: Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime-infested). Much of Lewiss district is affluent. But Trump demonstrated again that he equates black people with crime. So there was hope last week when it was announced that he was going to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Martin Luther King Day. It looked as though he may have been willing to fill in some of the gaps in the American story hes been missing, including the part Lewis played in the triumphs of the civil rights movement. But then Trump canceled the visit. Turns out it was all talk, talk, talk. Twitter: @petulad Bobby Gobble was a janitor at Lebanon Elementary School when he began luring a boy to the custodians office and sexually abused him behind closed doors. Gobble later was able to convince the third graders family that the boy should move in with Gobble, and the abuse continued in Gobbles home, where he slept in the same room as the boy, according to court papers. Gobble pleaded guilty in 2014 to 150 counts of aggravated sexual battery, forcible sodomy and carnal knowledge in connection with his abuse of four boys two of them elementary school pupils. Although the abuse occurred behind closed doors in Gobbles office, in a stockroom and in Gobbles home, the boy who suffered abuse while living with Gobble claims that the school board and school personnel in Lebanon, Va., should have done more to protect him. A new lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that school employees were ill-equipped to prevent the abuse and to spot the signs that the boy was being regularly victimized. The boy, who goes by the pseudonym John Doe in court documents, filed the $10 million federal lawsuit last month, alleging that the Russell County School Board and school personnel turned a blind eye to Gobbles blatant sexual misconduct against John and other male students and created and fostered an environment in which John and other male students were vulnerable and subjected to Gobbles deplorable sexual abuse. Jim Guynn, a Salem, Va.-based attorney who is representing the board and school personnel, said he has not spoken at length with his clients about the lawsuit and could not respond to the accusations in detail. But he said school personnel cannot be held responsible for Gobbles crimes: I havent seen anything that indicates to me that any of the defendants had any idea that this was going on. A lawyer for Gobble, who is serving 70 years in state prison, did not respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit centers on a fundamental question: What obligations do the nations public schools have to prevent and investigate sexual assault on school grounds? As attention to sexual assault on college campuses has grown, it has become clear that colleges have specific responsibilities to protect students under Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination. Some experts say people are less aware that K-12 public schools have similar obligations to investigate and curb sex assault. There was a sharp rise last year in the number of federal civil rights complaints alleging that K-12 schools had mishandled a complaint of sexual assault, according to government data. [Sexual violence isnt just a college problem. It happens in K-12 schools, too.] Monica Beck, a Michigan-based attorney who is representing the boy in Russell County, said Lebanon Elementary School officials violated Title IX because they failed to conduct their own investigation after they learned of allegations against Gobble. According to the lawsuit, Principal Kim Hooker learned that the Department of Social Services was investigating Gobble after a complaint was filed. Hooker sat in when the department interviewed both Gobble and the boy; both denied anything inappropriate was happening. While the complaint was unsubstantiated, Beck argues that the school should have conducted its own investigation. Instead, according to the lawsuit, Hooker told Gobble that it would be best if John did not stay after school unless he was in the after school program, the lawsuit says. Hooker referred a request for comment to Guynn, her lawyer. Phillip Henley, who was principal of the school when the boy was in third grade, was aware that the child had moved in with Gobble and that Gobble was taking him on out-of-state trips, according to the lawsuit. But the lawsuit says he never ascertained whether Gobble had legal custody of the boy and assumed he was a relative or family friend, according to the lawsuit. Henley did not respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit also alleges that teachers saw signs something might be amiss but did nothing. Gobble disclosed to one teacher that his marriage had dissolved because his wife was jealous of the boy, and the boys fourth-grade teacher had observed Gobbles obsessive and overly friendly behavior toward the child, the lawsuit states. One teacher noticed Gobble always seemed to have his hands on the child and sometimes took the boy out of class to give him money, the lawsuit says. Although the teacher was uncomfortable with Gobbles actions, she took no action to protect the child from his abuse, according to the lawsuit. The teacher sometimes allowed Gobble to spend time in her classroom with students, even letting the janitor bring children to the custodians office with him, the lawsuit says. Another Russell County teacher also noticed Gobbles suspicious behavior toward the boy one summer day in 2013 when visiting her classroom to prepare for the upcoming school year. The room was dark when the teacher entered, but after about 10 minutes she noticed Gobble and the boy hiding behind several stacked boxes. Guynn, the attorney for the school board and school employees, said his clients cannot be held liable for Gobbles crimes when everything they observed about his interactions with the boys was legal. Its amazing that the plaintiffs turn around and make the allegations in those circumstances, Guynn said. He said it appears that even the boys family was unaware of the abuse: But the school ought to have known? Education Secretary John B. King Jr. is leaving his department to a successor with a radically different philosophy about the role of government in schools. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) The fiercest critics and most ardent supporters of President Obamas Education Department which has arguably wielded more influence and sparked more controversy than any of its recent predecessors generally agree that the agencys efforts were rooted in the faith that government has a critical role to play in improving peoples lives. Now the department is poised for a radical shift with the arrival of Donald Trump in Washington; the businessman, now president-elect, has often spoken about government as a bumbling failure and an impediment to success. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. who says public schools saved his life after he was orphaned young is preparing to move out of his seventh-floor office suite at the departments D.C. headquarters. His designated successor, Betsy DeVos a billionaire political power broker who has said public schools are a dysfunctional monopoly and who believes in private-school vouchers and the power of the free market is preparing to move in, her confirmation hearing set for Tuesday. Government can be a tremendous force for good, King said in an interview at his office recently. Government really sucks, DeVos, Trumps nominee for education secretary, said last year at the South by Southwest educational technology conference in Austin. And it doesnt matter which party is in power. Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos has said public schools are a dysfunctional monopoly. (Andrew Harnik/AP) [Government really sucks and five other principles promoted by DeVos] It is this ideological divide as much as any other that is at the root of what Trump has promised will be a very different approach to the nations public schools. He has said he will shrink federal oversight and interference and wants to spend billions of dollars to encourage vouchers which the Obama administration has vigorously opposed and charter schools. Obama administration allies worry that Trumps approach will overturn much of the work from the past eight years, from its reinvigoration of the civil rights division responsible for investigating complaints of discrimination to its crackdown on for-profit colleges accused of defrauding students. But King, a former U.S. history teacher who once wrote lessons about democracy and is now viscerally experiencing it, steadfastly refuses to speculate about what the next administration might do. Following Obamas lead, he speaks only obliquely about the disappointment over election results that endanger his legacy, using Obamas language about history never moving in a straight line toward justice but zigging and zagging along the way. And he says he believes the administrations work has created momentum to expand public preschool offerings, to prevent and appropriately handle campus sexual assault that will continue in schools, cities and states regardless of what happens in Washington. The next administration and Congress may do some things differently, King said. But in some ways, the culture has been fundamentally changed. [Trump could reverse Obama actions on sexual assault, transgender student accommodations] The battle over the role of the federal government has been a central tension in U.S. public education for decades, from the desegregation of the Jim Crow South to battles over prayer in classrooms. Republican President George W. Bush was a proponent of a strong federal role in schools through the testing and school improvement mandates of the No Child Left Behind law, which he said was necessary to address the soft bigotry of low expectations. Not since President Ronald Reagan who said he wanted to do away with the Education Department has the executive branch been so openly skeptical of the federal role in education. And while Reagan had to deal with a Democratic Congress, no such partisan roadblock stands in the way of Trump, who also has professed an interest in dismantling the department. Many of the items that King ticks off as recent accomplishments vigorous civil rights enforcement, new rules for teacher preparation programs and school accountability, and a crackdown against for-profit colleges accused of defrauding their students already appear to be in opponents sights. Congressional Republicans have put two sets of Education Department regulations on their list of rules to undo in 2017, and Trump surrogates have been intensely critical of the agencys Office for Civil Rights, which has fielded tens of thousands of discrimination complaints and has made headlines for pressing schools to accommodate transgender students and deal with campus sexual assault. The fate of the civil rights division whose efforts are as reversible as they are dramatic is a top concern for many advocates for children who are minorities, immigrants or LGBT or come from poor families. Weve got some tough times ahead, but we are up to it, Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Childrens Defense Fund and an education civil rights icon, told advocates and career Education Department employees at the departments headquarters. You might as well hunker down, do your crying at nights and on the weekends. We are not going backwards. Many conservatives welcome Trumps promise to scale back federal intervention after spending the past eight years pushing back against what they said was Obamas overreach into public schools. His efforts produced little in the way of improvements for children, they argue, pointing to stalled and in some cases sliding student achievement on national math and reading exams. High school graduation rates rose to record highs under Obama, but critics say thats a squishy measure of improvement, since states set their own graduation requirements and they can change over time. Kings predecessor, Arne Duncan, used billions of dollars in stimulus funding and the promise of relief from the most onerous provisions of the widely hated No Child Left Behind law to nudge states into adopting his preferred policies, including new teacher evaluations, new Common Core State Standards and new standardized tests. Those efforts sparked a backlash not only from conservatives but also from teachers unions and parents, ultimately helping to persuade Congress to replace No Child Left Behind with a new law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, that set significant limits on the Education Departments power. King allowed that, with the benefit of hindsight, there are things that he would have done differently. But he said that the fight over federal authority is mostly an inside-the-Beltway debate divorced from the substantive question of whats the work that we should be doing as adults on behalf of kids? The Obama administration has been correct on those substantive questions, he said. And many Republicans agree with the need for stronger teacher evaluations and standards. Its just that Republicans say that states should and will make those changes on their own, while the Obama administration says the federal government needs to be vigilant. States rights and civil rights have not generally traveled together in the history of the United States, King said. Thats not a partisan point, thats a fact. To some on the left, this is the sad irony of the Obama administrations legacy on education: In trying so hard to push states to do what they viewed as right, Obama officials undercut the federal governments ability to do its most important work protecting the rights of the most disadvantaged kids. If you say, as I do, that the federal government is a major source for equity in education, said Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, the Education Departments undermining of the federal role is kind of a tragic legacy. The Leesburg Town Council on Monday appointed retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Hugh Bugs Forsythe to fill a vacant seat, but not before discussing the nomination behind closed doors. The appointment came after several rounds of nominations, in which each of five finalists for the position failed to get at least four votes from the six council members. The council then retreated into closed session before emerging 20 minutes later and unanimously approving the nomination of Forsythe. It was one of the first official acts of the newly configured council under Mayor Kelly Burk, who vacated her council seat upon being sworn in as mayor. Forsythe will fill that seat until a Nov. 7 special election determines who will complete the term, which runs through 2018. Thirteen Leesburg residents applied for the position. To narrow the field, town staff members polled the council, asking the members to choose their top three candidates. The top five vote-getters Forsythe, Jed Babbin, Rusty Foster, Gwen Pangle and Joshua Thiel were invited to give presentations to the council Monday. After the presentations, the council members nominated each of the finalists in turn, deadlocking, 3 to 3, on each. Although the council is officially nonpartisan, the influence of partisanship was evident in the first round of voting. Burk, Ron Campbell and Fernando Marty Martinez, who were elected with the support of the Democratic Party, backed Foster and Pangle. Kenneth Reid, Thomas S. Dunn II and Suzanne Fox, who were supported by the Republican Party, voted for Babbin and Forsythe. Only Thiel received mixed support in the first round, from Campbell, Fox and Reid. However, when Thiel was nominated in the second round, Dunn and Campbell switched their votes, resulting in another tie. Campbell then moved that the council go into closed session, which he said allows us to have some open and honest conversation. Dunn and Reid opposed the motion. This is [an] open process, Dunn said. When you run for office, youre put under very strict scrutiny. . . . I dont know what weve got to hide by going into closed session. Dunn declined to participate in the closed session. When the other council members returned to the chambers, Burk promptly nominated Forsythe, who was affirmed unanimously. Burk said in an interview Tuesday that she felt it was appropriate to discuss the matter in closed session to protect the applicants integrity and avoid embarrassing them. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said in an interview that the Virginia Freedom of Information Act allows councils to discuss appointments in closed session. However, she said, it is better for such discussions to take place in public, particularly when an appointee to serve on the council is under consideration. This person is going to have the same vote as an elected official, so the people he is going to represent need the opportunity to see who that person is, Rhyne said. It is absolutely easier to have an open and frank discussion behind closed doors. But thats not what the Freedom of Information Act does. It is to protect the public. Forsythe retired from the Air Force a decade ago, after 41 years of military service. A 1969 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, he is an operations controller for United Airlines and chairman of the board of Loudoun Volunteer Caregivers. He and his wife, Judy, have lived in Leesburg for 20 years, a town news release said. In his presentation, Forsythe said he would focus on transportation issues, the relationship between the Leesburg Police Department and the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office, and the balance of commercial and residential development. He said he is also concerned about race relations, the drug problem, and the growing number of brewpubs and other alcohol-related businesses. The appointment of Forsythe marked the end of Katie Sheldon Hammlers service on the council after three terms. Hammler failed to win a fourth term in the Nov. 8 election. Although she applied to fill the vacancy, the council members did not select her as one of the five finalists. Because Hammler is no longer on the council, she will lose her office as president-elect of the Virginia Municipal League, to which she was elected last year. She said in an email Tuesday that she does not plan to run in the November special election. Brig. Gen. William J. Walker, left, will soon replace the man next to him, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, as head of the D.C. National Guard. (Bill O'Leary/the Washington Post) After days of controversy over the impending ouster of the Army general who heads the D.C. National Guard, the man slated to succeed him insisted Monday that the incident would not undermine Inauguration Day security. Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz told The Washington Post last Friday that he would be pulled from his post at 12:01 p.m. Friday immediately after Donald Trump is sworn in as president. The Guard plays an essential role in ensuring that the transition of power unfolds safely, and many people, including the D.C. Council chairman, have objected to the bizarre timing of Schwartzs removal. But Brig. Gen. William J. Walker, named Schwartzs interim replacement, said the tumult wont impair the days operations or how the thousands of service members under Guard command respond to emergencies. [Head of D.C. National Guard to be removed from post in middle of inauguration] Walker, who has worked on two previous inaugurations, began helping to plan for this one in February and prepared for it off and on throughout last year. In November, Walker said, he was placed in sole charge of the joint task force overseeing the weekends security, and he has worked on nothing but event prep over the past six weeks. While Schwartz and other commanding generals manage strategic big, big giant-picture issues, Walker said, lower-ranking officers always lead specific operations. Every January, he said, a one-star general oversees the inauguration. This year, more than 7,800 service members from 44 states, three territories and the District will be on duty. Im directly responsible for all the National Guard service members that will be on the street, he told The Post. Theyll all be under my direct command and control. And what would be different if Schwartz remained in his position through the end of the inauguration? Nothing. Im the joint task force commander, said Walker, a 31-year veteran and recipient of the Bronze Star. We execute the mission regardless. Even if an inauguration-related crisis had arisen under Schwartzs leadership, Walker said he would have directed the response. Schwartz, who did not respond to a request for comment Monday, said last week that Walker had been integrally involved and that the hand-over, while awkward, would be seamless. Still, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) has blasted the timing of Schwartzs removal as ridiculous and unnecessary. It doesnt make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment, Mendelson said last week. Unlike in states in which governors select Guard commanders, the president maintains that duty in Washington. Schwartz, appointed to head the D.C. Guard by President George W. Bush in 2008, maintained the position through President Obamas two terms. As is customary for presidential appointees, Schwartz had offered his resignation after Trump was elected. On Saturday, after news reports that he would leave in the middle of the ceremony, the Guard said Trumps transition team asked Schwartz to remain in command through Inauguration Day. Schwartz said he believes that the offer to stay on resulted only from the negative attention, and he turned it down because he had already notified his staff and begun to pack up his office. [Trump transition team says it asked D.C. National Guard general to stay] Transition officials for the new administration said on Friday that the team asked Schwartz to stay on to maintain continuity. They have not explained when and how the offer was made. I dont have any additional insight, spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said Monday. We have no further comment. Peter Hermann contributed to this report. BLOOD DONATIONS Blood drives Jan. 24, 8 a.m.-1 p.m., NALC Health Benefit Plan, 20547 Waverly Ct., Ashburn, 800-733-2767; Feb. 3, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, 801 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; Feb. 4, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Loudoun County Rescue Company 13, 143 Catoctin Cir. SE, Leesburg, 800-733-2767; Feb. 11, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Leesburg Public Safety Center, 65 Plaza St. Leesburg, 800-733-2767. Inova Blood Donor Center Mondays noon-8 p.m., Tuesdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Dulles Town Center, 45745 Nokes Blvd., Sterling. 866-256-6372 or inova.org/donateblood. FIRST AID First aid/adult, infant and child CPR/AED (Automated External Defibrillator) Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Fauquier Hospital Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $85. Registration required. HEARING Disability Resource Center Technical assistance through the state Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and presentations to businesses, groups and schools. Third Tuesdays 2-5 p.m., Workplace, 205 Keith St., Warrenton. Call for an appointment, 800-648-6324; TDD, 540-373-5890. Free. Free hearing tests Age 18 and older. Mondays-Thursdays 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. 703-858-7620. Registration required. Hearing loss, tinnitus and Menieres syndrome support For all ages, including parents of children with hearing loss. First Fridays at 2 p.m., Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2906. Northern Virginia Resource Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Age 18 and older. Second Tuesdays 10 a.m., Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. Hearing loss outreach Free referrals. Fourth Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Loudoun County Workforce Center, 102 Heritage Way, Leesburg; third Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Free appointments: 703-430-2906 or nvrcloudoun@aol.com . MENTAL HEALTH Counseling for sexual violence survivors Provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice. 703-771-9020. Crisis Intervention Treatment and Assessment Center Provides emergency mental-health, substance-use and developmental services to Loudoun residents. Daily from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. 102 Heritage Way NE, Suite 102, Leesburg. Emergency services are available 24 hours a day at 703-777-0320. Crisislink Suicide and crisis intervention. Community education, a volunteer crisis response team and CareRing, a telephone outreach program for the elderly and disabled. 703-527-6016, volunteer@crisislink.org or crisislink.org. Piedmont Chapter, National Alliance on Mental Illness Serves Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. Support group, education classes and events for people living with mental illness and their family members. First Wednesdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital, 500 Hospital Dr., Sycamore Room A, Warrenton. 571-426-8213. Mental health first-aid A public education program offered by the Loudoun County Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services that can help communities understand mental illness, seek intervention and save lives. Go to loudoun.gov/mhfirstaid. Northern Virginia Chapter, National Alliance on Mental Illness A support group, classes and programs for people living with mental illness and their family members. naminorthernvirginia.org. PREGNANCY, PARENTING Adoptive family preservation Adoptive families discuss common experiences; registration required. Third Tuesdays 12:30-2 p.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd. Call 703-941-9008, Ext. 23, or email jmellario@umfs.org . Baby care essentials Thursday 6-8:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Register. 540-316-3588. $25. Birthright of Loudoun County Free pregnancy tests, baby clothing, transportation and support throughout pregnancy, 823 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-7272. Bond Between Us A nonprofit organization that offers support to birth parents when children have been placed for adoption. Fourth Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. Call for location. 703-771-7844. Breastfeeding support Mondays 9:30-10:30 a.m., Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. Dad support New and expectant fathers share ideas. First Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. 703-858-6360. For the Childrens Sake A group for separating or divorcing parents to share advice. Four-hour session weekly. Information: 703-391-8599 or fitsfoundation.org. La Leche League Mother-to-mother support and breastfeeding information. 10 a.m. second Wednesdays in Warrenton, 540-351-6103. Third Fridays 10:15-11:45 a.m., call for location, 703-444-7386. Second Fridays 10:15 a.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., 703-829-0349; Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Panera Bread, 43670 Greenway Corp. Dr., Ashburn, lllashburn@gmail.com. Third Fridays 10:15 a.m., Christ the Redeemer Church, 46833 Harry F. Byrd. Hwy., Sterling, 540-338-4637. Loudoun Fatherhood Program Fathers discuss the joys and challenges of being a parent. Meets every other Saturday for two hours for four months; sponsored by Northern Virginia Family Service. 571-748-2796. Free. Loudoun Nurturing Parenting Program Positive parenting techniques; children attend with parents. Registration required. Call 703-771-3973, Ext. 27, or email nurturingprogram@lcsj.org. Free. Mothernet/Healthy Families Loudoun Program links first-time parents with medical, social and educational resources to give children a socially and physically healthy start in life. Family support workers meet with participants in homes. English-Spanish translation provided. 703-444-4477, Ext. 217 , or inmed.org. New mother support Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m. Inova Loudoun Medical Pavilion, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. Babies welcome. 703-858-6360. Young parent services Support for teenage parents. Loudoun County Department of Family Social Services, 52 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg. Call for times. 703-771-5375. Online childbirth education program Inova Loudoun Hospitals Web-based program uses animation, videos and interactive activities to guide users through the basics of childbirth, breastfeeding and caring for newborns. 703-858-6360 or thebirthinginn.org/classes. Parenting Alone group For parents of school-age children who have lost a spouse or partner to cancer. Second Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call 703-698-2536 or email jennifer.eckert@inova.org. Pregnancy and childbirth support Childbirth Solutions Resource Center, 8393 W. Main St., Marshall. 571-344-0438. SENIORS Chair yoga For people 55 and older. Mondays 11 a.m.-noon, Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Wear comfortable clothing. Bare feet or socks are encouraged. 571-258-3400. $2 drop-in. Exercise equipment Weights, treadmills, bikes and a cardio-glide. Instruction provided. Age 55 and older. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. Fitness for people 55 and older Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 1-1:45 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. $36, 12-visit card. Eye care LensCrafters staff members will clean glasses and make minor repairs. Second Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2397. Free. Inova Loudoun mobile van Blood pressure checks. Second and fourth Tuesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling, 571-258-3280; first Wednesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Laughing yoga for seniors I mprove flexibility and balance. Thursdays 9:30-10 :30 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. Loudoun Adult Day Centers For seniors with physical limitations or memory loss, a safe and social environment, therapeutic activities, individualized care and respite for caregivers. Limited transportation. Sliding-scale fees. Weekdays in Leesburg, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 703-771-5334; Purcellville, 571-258-3402; and Ashburn-Sterling, 571-258-3232. Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Senior Center at Cascades. First and third Wednesdays 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Sign up in the Leesburg Senior Center lobby. Second and fourth Thursdays 11 a.m.-noon and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Carver Center. First and third Mondays, 12:30-5 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 703-737-8741. Free. Tai chi Stretching and strengthening movements. Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. Zumba gold class Age 55 and older. Wear rubber-soled shoes and comfortable clothing; bring water and a towel. Tuesdays 11 a.m., Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 p.m. Senior Center of Leesburg, 102 North St. NW, Leesburg. 703-737-8039. $24 per month. Zumba For people 55 and older who are learning Zumba for the first time, or those who prefer a lower-impact version. The fitness program combines Latin and international music with dance.Thursdays 11 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. $12. SUPPORT GROUPS Al-Anon Service Center of Northern Virginia A volunteer is available 24 hours with information for spouses, family members and friends of problem drinkers. 703-534-4357 or 877-339-8350. Mondays 8 p.m. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 125 W. Washington St., Middleburg, 540-554-2747; Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg, 877-339-8350; Fridays 8:30 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 6507 Main St., The Plains, 800-344-2666; Tuesdays 12:15 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, Route 29 N., 540-347-7448; Tuesdays 7 p.m. and Saturdays 8:30 p.m. Warrenton Presbyterian Church, 91 Main St., 800-344-2666. Alcoholics Anonymous Various meeting times and locations in Loudoun County. 800-208-8649 or 703-876-6166. nvintergroup.org. Alzheimers caregiver support For those who care for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Fourth Wednesdays 4-5:30 p.m. The Villa at Suffield Meadows, 6735 Suffield Lane, Warrenton. 540-316-3800. Alzheimers caregivers support For those caring for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Second Mondays 7-8:30 p.m. Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-430-9229. galileeumc.org. Alzheimers caregivers support Emotional, educational and social support for family members and friends of people with the disease. Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. Call 703-771-5407 or email lesley.katz@loudoun.gov. Alzheimers caregiver support group Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831 or alz.org. Alzheimers support First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520. Alzheimers support First Wednesdays 4 p.m. Leesburg Adult Day Center, 16501 Meadowview Ct., Leesburg. 703-771-5334. Alzheimers support Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. Talk About Curing Autism A nonprofit organization educating and supporting families affected by autism. tacanow.org. Autoimmune support Last Thursdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jackson Building, 209 Gibson St., Leesburg. autoimmunesupport@hotmail.com. Bereaved parent support One-on-one counseling is available. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv. Bereavement support For those experiencing loss because of the death of a loved one. Age 18 and older. Third Mondays 1 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-957-1800. Bereavement support Tuesdays Jan. 24 through March 28, 7:30- 9 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free. Breast cancer support Fourth Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Tower, Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-0588. Breast cancer support For those with new diagnoses or starting treatment. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 5-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Breast cancer support For those who have finished treatment, have had a recurrence or metastatic breast cancer. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Free. Breast Cancer Support Assistance Fund Loudoun County residents who have received a diagnosis or have undergone treatment in the past 12 months are eligible to apply for financial assistance. Areas included are wigs, bras, puffs and prostheses, mammograms and medical bills, food and help with utilities, rent or mortgage, and transportation costs. The Pink Assistance Fund has been established by the Loudoun Breast Health Network. lbhn.org. Cancer support Oncology nurses, social workers and spiritual-care providers offer education and support to patients, families and caregivers. Second Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2273. Cancer support Life with Cancer, for patients, family members and friends. Second Thursdays 7 p.m. Ashburn Presbyterian Church, Room 202, 20962 Ashburn Rd. 703-729-2012 or ashburnpresbyterian.org. Caregiver support Emotional, educational and social support. Encourages caregivers to maintain their physical and emotional health while caring for people with dementia or other chronic illness. Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831. Caregiver support and resource group Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.-noon (no meeting first Wednesdays), Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv. Caring for Aging Parents Support group. Confidential. Fourth Wednesdays 7:30 p.m., Family Focus Counseling Service, 20-B John Marshall St., Warrenton. 540-349-4537. Chadd parents support For parents of children with ADD/ADHD. Fourth Sundays 3 p.m. KinderCare, 44051 Ashburn Village Shopping Plaza. chadd.nova loudoun@gmail.com . Chronic illness support Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 a.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv. Coffee and Conversation Support for those discouraged because of illness, bereavement, caregiving or a loved one in the military. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Compassionate Friends For parents who have experienced the death of a child. First Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg. 540-882-9707. Creating and Connecting Two-hour art therapy and relaxation workshop for cancer patients. Every other month, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-858-8850. Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance of Western Loudoun Saturdays 3 p.m. Purcellville Library, 220 E. Main St., Carruthers Room. Call 703-431-7160 or email kathy@dbsanca.org. Drop-in grief support Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. St. Davids Episcopal Church, 43600 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-597-1781. Families Overcoming Drug Addiction Support group. First and third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. myfodafamily@gmail.com or 540-316-9221. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and parent support A group in partnership with Metro DC PFLAG. Fourth Sundays 4-6 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church, 22135 Davis Dr., Sterling. 703-328-6518. Griefshare Nondenominational seminar and support group. Tuesdays 7:30-9 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free. Grief support Sponsored by Hospice Support of Fauquier County. Individual counseling available. First and third Thursdays 3:30-5 p.m. Hospice Support Office, 42 N. Fifth St., Warrenton. Registration required. Email hospicesupport@verizon.net or call 540-347-5922. Grief support Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Hospice support Free medical-equipment loan facility for Fauquier County residents. Especially needed are donations of wheelchairs, bedside commodes, rolling walkers, electric hospital beds, shower benches and chairs, adult diapers, lift chairs, Ensure and hospital bed mattresses. 540-347-5922. Look Good, Feel Better For women undergoing or emerging from cancer treatment. Every other month, 6:45 to 9 p.m. ,Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-776-2820. Free. Loudoun CHADD support Led by Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Leesburg Town Hall, lower-level conference room, 25 W. Market St. 703-669-2445. Lyme disease support Fourth Sundays 2-4 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Conference Room A and B, Leesburg. Go to natcaplyme.org or email loudounlymeadvocates@gmail.com. Lyme disease support Third Thursdays at 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com. Lyme disease support Third Thursdays at 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com. Lyme disease support Age 18 and older. First Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Email charphealy@yahoo.com. MADD Loudoun victim support For those who have been affected by drunken driving. Third Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. 210 Wirt St., Leesburg. 540-338-6491. Man-to-Man Cancer Support Sponsored by Loudoun Cancer Care Center, for prostate cancer patients and their families. Second Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Call 703-858-8857 or email karen.archer@inova.org. Menopause support Third Thursdays 6:30-9 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (second floor, Patient Education Room). 703-858-8060. Mens grief support Second Mondays at 7 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 703-568-3346. Free. Multiple sclerosis support Saturdays 10:30 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-2826. Multiple sclerosis support Last Sundays 2-4 p.m. Cascades Library, 21030 Whitfield Pl., Potomac Falls. 703-771-4256. Nar-anon family support For those affected by loved ones with addiction. Meaningful Mondays, 7-8 p.m., Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-203-9792; Wisdom Wednesdays 7-8 p.m., St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 37730 St. Francis Ct., Purcellville, 703-606-7125; Serenity Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. Leesburg Presbyterian Church, 207 W. Market St., Leesburg, 703-606-7125. Overeaters Anonymous For fellowship and support. For locations and times, call oa.org. Parkinsons support Open to those with Parkinsons disease, their family members and caregivers. First Tuesdays 1:30-3 p.m. Call for Ashburn location. 571-442-8851. Post-partum support Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Cornwall Campus, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. Call 703-909-9877 or email lamckeough@gmail.com. Registration required. Reach to Recovery Home visit program for mastectomy and lumpectomy patients. Temporary prostheses, exercise instruction and encouragement. 703-938-5550. Sexual assault and incest survivors group counseling Services provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice and the Loudoun Abused Womens Shelter are free and confidential. 703-771-9020. Sexual assault survivors empowerment support Sponsored by Sexual Assault Victims Volunteer Initiative. Child care available with 48 hours notice. Mondays; call for times and locations. 540-349-7720. Spiritual support group For cancer patients, family members and friends. Third Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8850. Spouse loss support Sundays Jan. 29 through April 2, 2:30-4 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. Facilitated by Liz Shaw. 540-349-5814. Free. Stroke survivors and caregivers support Second Wednesdays 11 a.m.-noon, Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second floor, Patient Education Room. 703-858-6199 or jill.lieb@inova.org. Suicide counseling Third Wednesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Leesburg Town Office, Conference Room 2, lower level, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg. 703-587-1618 or survivorsofsuicidelossleesburg@gmail.com. Womens support Sponsored by Services to Abused Families. Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Confidential location. 540-825-8876. Widows and widowers support Third Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Womens cancer support Woman to Woman, first Wednesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Registration required. 703-858-8850. MISCELLANEOUS Ask the Expert lecture series Treatment Options for shoulder Pain and Arthritis, Jan 24, 6-7:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Conferene Rooms A and B, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. Orthopedic surgeon Adam Lorenzetti will discuss surgical and nonsurgical approaches for treatment of an arthritic shoulder and other shoulder conditions. Seating is limited; register by calling 855-694-6682. Free. Brain trauma survivors brown bag lunch For survivors and caregivers. First Tuesdays, noon-1:30 p.m., Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second-floor Patient Education Room. Call 703-737-3150 or email jberg@braininjurysvcs.org. Free. Child developmental screenings For ages 2-5. Children may not be kindergarten-age-eligible. Sponsored by the Loudoun County public schools Child Find Center. 571-252- - 2180. Cholesterol screenings Weekdays from 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Fauquier Health LIFE Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Registration required. $35. Emergency food supplies Loudoun County residents in need can receive a free three-day supply of groceries. Supplies are distributed Mondays through Saturdays by Loudoun Hunger Relief. Call 703-777-5911 or go to loudounhunger.org . Fauquier free walk-in medical clinic Patients must call Thursdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to register for the clinic, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Patients are also seen by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fauquier and Rappahannock residents only. Bring proof of address for the first visit. Patients cannot have Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. Information: 540-347-0394 Tuesdays or Thursdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro Senior Supper Club Nutritious meals and fellowship for people 55 and older. Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro on the Hill, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $5.49. HEROES (Hometown Enabling Relationships, Opportunities and Empowerment through Support) is a program for military families. A trained volunteer provides support to military members and their families, from pre-deployment up to two years post-deployment. Assistance includes financial help, job placement, family care and mental-health services. caring@purbap.org or heroescare.org. Inova Loudoun Hospital Mobile Health Services Blood pressure screenings, Monday 9-11 a.m., William Watters House, 22365 Enterprise St., Sterling; Thursday 11 a.m.-noon, Lovettsville Community Center, 57 E. Broad Way, Lovettsville; Jan. 24, 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling; Jan. 25, 10 a.m.-noon, Lansdowne Woods, 19400 Leisure World Blvd., Leesburg; Jan. 26, 10 a.m.-noon,Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. For information, call 703-858-8818 or go to inova.org/mobilehealth. Free. Loudoun Cares information and referral help line Call 703-669-4636 for help in finding resources for county residents who are dealing with rent eviction, utility cut-offs, needed health care and employment. Motor skill screenings Birth to 21 months. First Thursdays, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. Call for an appointment. 703-858-7620. Free. Northern Virginia long-term care ombudsman Call 703-324-5861 for help in resolving complaints related to long-term-care facilities. Road to Recovery For cancer patients who need rides to appointments. Call 410-781-6909 or email jen.burdette@cancer.org. Free. Safe sitter classes For girls and boys ages 11-14. First Saturdays except for holiday weekends. 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. To receive a Safe Sitter Certificate, students must pass practical and written tests on babysitting concepts and handling an emergency. Bring a lunch or buy lunch in the cafeteria. $70, includes handbook and snacks during the day. Registration required. 703-858-8818 or charlene.martin@inova.org. Seven Loaves Food Pantry Individuals and families can receive a three-day supply of food, distributed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m.-noon. Go to sevenloavesmiddleburg.org or call 540-687-3489. Tree of Life Food Pantry Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595. Compiled by Sandy Mauck TO SUBMIT AN ITEM Email: ldliving@washpost.com Fax: 703-777-8437 Mail: Health Calendar, The Washington Post, 104 Dry Mill Rd. SW, Suite 101, Leesburg, Va. 20175 Loudoun County and Fauquier County health calendar Jean Jonnards son, Peter, was 5 or 6 years old when he came home from school one day and excitedly asked: Mommy, who is Richard Stands? Jean, of McLean, Va., wasnt sure what he meant, so she asked for some context. Well, Peter said, when we say a pledge in school we always mention his name. Ah: . . . and to the republic for Richard Stands. Children. Dont you just love their innocence and their shaky grasp of our countrys hallowed rituals? Jean wrote in after my recent columns on misunderstandings. [In name, not alone: A few cases of homophones, high jinks and mistaken identities] Anne McQueen of Columbia, Md., weighed in, too. When our son came home from his first day of kindergarten in 1971, he ran in the house asking us what the name of our country was, Anne wrote. The boy said hed been told in school that the name was Tis of Thee. Get it? Our country, tis of thee. Wrote Anne: We have never forgotten that story. Mistaken lyrics are one thing, mistaken people another. When Mimi Slavin delivered her first-born son, Robert, at Suburban Hospital many years ago, he was one of only two or three infants to be brought several times a day from the nursery to his new mothers room to be breast-fed. He liked his status, Mimi wrote. Its said that all newborns look alike, but Mimi suspected something was up when a nurse handed her a baby weighing nearly three pounds more than Robert. Mimi looked at the bracelet on his wrist. It read: Baby boy FLAVIN. Flavin. Slavin. Close enough. Wrote Mimi: I protested and requested a replacement. Penny Suritz and her husband, Michael, were once in the audience of the Shakespeare Theater their son was in the show when people around them kept walking up to introduce themselves. My husband was bewildered, but game, wrote Penny, of Arlington, Va. It turns out that Michael is apparently a dead ringer for another Michael: Michael Kahn, artistic director at the Shakespeare Theatre. After the play, we met with an actor who said that backstage had been all aflutter because Michael Kahn was in the audience until they were reassured that no, it was just the father of one of the actors, Penny wrote. We enjoyed brief celebrity. In the 1960s, Arlingtons Carole E. Hunt was one of four female computer programmers in an 80-person IT department at Pratt and Whitney in East Hartford, Conn. Her last name then was Czarsty. There was one other woman my age a very-good-looking blonde who had married a Hungarian freedom fighter whose last name was Karvazy, Carole wrote. I was a dark-haired twentysomething whose last name was Czarsty. Our computer-room people were constantly mixing up our test results because they couldnt keep the names straight, despite the fact that we were completely opposite in looks. Carole figures it was the Z in their last names that confused the IT folks. In 1957, Celeste Brodigan nee Plitouke graduated from Central High School, a school in London for U.S. military dependents in Bushy Park. We were treated to a lovely reception and dance, wrote Celeste, of Leesburg, Va. I was first introduced as Miss Marian Celeste Plitouke going down the reception line, then Miss Celeste Plitouk and finally as Misstook. Although I treasure my Lithuanian heritage, taking another last name when I married did make life easier, wrote Celeste. Cathy Alifrangis of Herndon, Va., admits that, compared with a lot of last names, hers is rather uncommon. Thats why when she was an assistant principal of an elementary school, everybody called her Dr. A rather than the more difficult Dr. Alifrangis. Wrote Cathy: My husband forever after was known as Mr. Dr. A. Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly. Chris Johnson shows off an M1903 rifle at his home, where he operates gun repair rm His Arms LLC. The businesss location was approved last month by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. (Jonathan Hunley for The Washington Post) Chris Johnson is a historic preservationist. But he doesnt toil in old buildings or frequent archaeological digs. Johnsons passion is working on guns from the past. He has a particular interest in the M1 Garand, the main U.S. military rifle used in World War II and the Korean War. And hes turning his hobby into a home-based business after getting permission last month to do so from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. Johnson is employed by a government contractor, but he also was in the Army, so hes been around firearms for much of his life. He also likes to know how things work. In junior high school, when he bought his first gun, he completely dismantled and reassembled it. Im mechanically inclined, he said. Now he is pairing that trait with skills hes learned over the years to tinker with other peoples guns. Johnsons new business, His Arms LLC, focuses on refurbishing and repairing firearms. Customers send their guns to Johnsons Bristow home, where he works on them and then ships them back. Patrons also can drop off and pick up their guns at Johnsons residence in the Braemar subdivision. Typical requests might include replacing or refinishing the wood on a rifle, or making a minor repair. What he charges varies based on the work, but a job typically runs $50 or higher, Johnson said. I want to offer personalized service, he said. Some tasks he isnt able to do, such as refinishing the metal on a gun, or selling or manufacturing ammunition. But hes prepared for most customer orders, and government officials have signed off on the business, saying its safe to have such a gunsmithing operation in a neighborhood. The Braemar community associations board of directors approved the home-based company. Johnson obtained a federal firearms license for the business, and Prince William Supervisor Jeanine M. Lawson (R-Brentsville), who represents the area where Johnson has lived since 1998, said it was easy to grant a county permit for the venture. How do you fault a guy who just likes to work on World War II guns? Lawson said. Tom Dean, who works with Johnson at the contracting firm, also praised his colleagues firearms endeavors. Dean, who has had Johnson refurbish a pistol and two rifles, said he usually wouldnt allow anyone to touch his guns. Johnson, however, is meticulous about his craft, Dean said. I think quite highly of him, said Dean, who lives in Spotsylvania County. Working on guns is like working on cars, in that some customers want to see their property restored with all original parts, and others desire modifications from the initial configuration. Johnson, however, anticipates that most of His Arms work will be preserving M1 Garands . Army Gen. George S. Patton once called the M1 the greatest battle implement ever devised, and Johnson noted that the military legend saw the semiautomatic weapon as an advantage for American troops. He really believed that helped the U.S. win World War II, he said. Mass production of the M1 Garand began in 1937, according to the Garand Collectors Association, and it became obsolete two decades later. But it continued to be used around the world through the Vietnam era, according to the website for the Missouri-based organization. The rifle was named for its Canadian-born designer, John Garand. Sunday, Jan. 15 Dale City farmers market 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Dale City Commuter Lot (behind Center Plaza Shopping Center), Dale Boulevard, Dale City. 703-670-7112 ext. 227. pwcparks.org. Free. Catharpin Run stream monitoring Join certified monitor Elaine Wilson and her team to monitor the water quality in the Gainesville area. Sponsored by the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District. Noon-2:30 p.m. James S. Long Park, 4603 James Madison Hwy., Haymarket. 571-330-7422. elaine.wilson@dcwater.com. pwswcd.org. Registration required. Author Chris Mackowski A discussion of his book Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864. 1:30 p.m. Manassas Museum, 9101 Prince William St., Manassas. 703-368-1873. manassasmuseum.org. Free. Bingo Proceeds support local veterans. On Sundays, doors open at noon, games begin at 2 p.m. On Mondays, doors open at 5:15 p.m., games begin at 7:15 p.m. Woodbridge American Legion, 3640 Friendly Post Lane, Woodbridge. 703-494-4304. $15 minimum. Mulan, Jr. Center for the Arts Pied Piper Theatre performs Disneys musical. 3 p.m. Hylton Performing Arts Center, 10960 George Mason Cir., Manassas. 703-993-7759. hyltoncenter.org. $20; age 12 and younger $15. Not for Glory: Manassas Veterans and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan This exhibit, produced in partnership with the Freedom Museum, uses first-person narratives to tell the stories of local veterans who served in the countrys most recent conflicts. Through Feb. 19. Manassas Museum, 9101 Prince William St., Manassas. 703-368-1873. manassasmuseum.org. Free. Off the Wall The annual Prince William County student exhibition is sponsored by Lockheed Martin. Through Friday. Center for the Arts, Caton Merchant Family Gallery, 9419 Battle St., Manassas. 703-330-2787. center-for-the-arts.org. Free. Turning Over A New Leaf An exhibit of colored pencil drawings by David Cochran of Alexandria and jewelry by Tyler Kulenguski of Annandale. Through Feb. 6. Artists Undertaking, 309 Mill St., Occoquan. 703-494-0584. theartistsundertaking.com. Free. Monday, Jan. 16 Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Oratorical Contest Middle and high school student finalists present their speeches. Sponsored by the Prince William County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. 11 a.m. Hylton Memorial Chapel, 14640 Potomac Mills Rd., Woodbridge. 703-590-0076. pwcacdst.org. Free. Job-search network group Discussion of various topics related to the search process. 1-3 p.m. House of Mercy, 8170 Flannery Ct., Manassas. 703-659-1636. Free. Bingo Proceeds support Dale City Knights of Columbus activities and charities. Doors open at 6 p.m., games begin at 7:30 p.m. VFW Post 1503, 14631 Minnieville Rd., Dale City. 703-491-2378. $9 minimum. Lake Jackson Mid County Lions Club meeting 6:30 p.m. Great American Steak and Buffet, 8365 Sudley Rd., Manassas. 703-369-6791. Free. Out of the Classroom, Into the Hall An exhibit of paintings from Creative Brush Studio students. Through Jan. 27. Manassas City Hall, 9027 Center St., Manassas. 703-257-8200. Free. Tuesday, Jan. 17 Friends of Leesylvania Park Regular meeting, new members welcome. The group raises money and supports park programs such as the Junior Rangers, free kids fishing tournaments and Haunted History hikes. 7:30 p.m. Leesylvania State Park, 2001 Daniel K. Ludwig Dr., Woodbridge. friendsofleesylvania@gmail.com. 703-583-6904. Wednesday, Jan. 18 Lake Ridge Toastmasters Club Members 18 and older develop their public speaking and leadership skills. 7:30-9:15 p.m. Tall Oaks Community Center, 12298 Cotton Mill Dr., Lake Ridge. 703-491-3020. contact-8913@toastmastersclubs.org. lakeridge.toastmastersclubs.org. $34-$64 membership fee. Thursday, Jan. 19 National Active and Retired Federal Employees meeting Woodbridge Chapter 1270. 11:30 a.m. Holiday Inn Quantico Center, 3901 Fettler Park Dr., Dumfries. 703-499-8902. vanarfe.org/1270. Free, lunch $18.50. Reservations required. Woodbridge Toastmasters Club An open-house meeting. Learn effective communication and leadership skills. 7:30 p.m. Ebenezer Baptist Church, 13020 Telegraph Rd., Woodbridge. 703-898-7171. woodbridge.toastmastersclubs.org. $68 membership fee. Friday, Jan. 20 American Legion dinner The public is invited to dinner with a different special every week. Proceeds support local veterans and the community. 5:30-7:30 p.m. Woodbridge American Legion, 3640 Friendly Post Lane, Woodbridge. 703-494-4304. vapost364.org. $5-$15. Beauty and the Beast auditions Actors ages 8-18 audition by appointment for Pied Piper Theatres April musical production. Friday and Saturday at Center for the Arts, 9419 Battle St., Manassas. 703-330-2787. center-for-the-arts.org. $10. Saturday, Jan. 21 Crop for Scholarships Xi Delta Gamma invites all croppers, knitters, crocheters and other crafters to participate in a full day that includes door prizes and breakfast, lunch and dinner. Proceeds support scholarships for high school students. 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Bethel Lutheran Church, 8712 Plantation Lane, Manassas. 703-304-1746. julie.brill@opm.gov. $35. Mystery Publishing Three local authors discuss their books, publishing and their favorite authors. 2 p.m. Potomac Community Library, 2201 Opitz Blvd., Woodbridge. 703-792-8330. Free. Theres a lot of carrot-and-stick talk these days about how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign to hack into a bulwark of U.S. democracy, a presidential election. Donald Trump makes it clear he prefers dangling carrots. Setting aside the stick, though, would be a serious miscalculation. If he comes through this relatively unscathed, Putin will meddle again. The U.S. intelligence communitys report on Russias cyber-operation to interfere with, and attempt to influence, the Clinton vs. Trump presidential campaign on Trumps behalf doesnt equivocate on Putins role: He directed his people to breach an American election, and to some extent his people succeeded. Theres no evidence that Russias subterfuge actually tipped the scales in Trumps favor. But that doesnt matter. Russia wasnt foiled it did hack into Democratic Party servers, and it did relay pilfered emails from Hillary Clintons campaign to WikiLeaks. To frame it as an unprecedented broadside to American democracy isnt an overstatement. The report notes that the Kremlin, both in Soviet and post-Soviet times, has a history of carrying out intel operations on U.S. presidential elections. Putins mission in the 2016 presidential election, however, demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations, the report states. The Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee servers was buttressed with an extensive anti-Hillary propaganda campaign that relied on fake news and the Kremlins English language mouthpiece, the RT network. The report calls Russias hacking campaign a new normal in Kremlin attempts to undermine American democracy. Trump has had ample time since his briefing with U.S. intel officials to craft a cogent, incisive response that reassures Americans that Russian incursions into U.S. democratic institutions wont be tolerated. Cogent, incisive responses, however, have not been known to be in Trumps quiver. One thing Trump can bank on: Putin will try it again. The Kremlin has a long pattern of going back to the well with guile that works. Trump continues to reach out to Putin with the promise of a new friendship. Instead, the American public needs to see their incoming president show backbone when it comes to an adversary like Moscow. He should in cold, firm language condemn the Russian leaders actions. And, he should begin crafting a new round of sanctions that punish Russia, sanctions that go beyond what President Barack Obama imposed in December. If Trump doesnt act, Congress should. We say this recognizing that geopolitics isnt a simple set of toggle switches. Russias cyber meddling is one element of a complex relationship. The U.S. has good reasons to maintain a working relationship with Russia in certain areas such as Syria, and Trump as an incoming president has a right to set his own agenda. But hes got to stand tall on Russian interference and back his intelligence agencies on their assessments or, even before taking office, hes undermining U.S. authority. Chicago Tribune Woodbridge orchestra hosts string auditions The Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra is expanding its string section and seeking experienced musicians, including a principal cellist. The volunteer orchestra rehearses Thursdays from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in Woodbridge. This season includes a collaboration with Gainesville Ballet on Feb. 11, featuring selections from Puccinis La Boheme and an all-American program of Aaron Coplands Hoedown, Lincoln Portrait and Quiet City. To audition, musicians must submit a curriculum vitae or other written record of their education, training and performance experience to the orchestras personnel coordinator, Chris Dixon ( chris@obco.org ). Musicians interested in the principal cello position should describe their orchestral leadership experience. For information, visit obco.org. 6 scholarships from Park West Lions Club Park West Lions Club is accepting applications for six $1,000 scholarships for students whose primary residence is in their service area, including but not limited to those at Stonewall Jackson and Battlefield high schools. Applications are open to graduating seniors who have been accepted to an accredited institution of higher learning, as well as to students who have been enrolled in such an institution for less than two years. The deadline to apply is April 15. For information or an application, call 703-392-0077 or email pwlions@aol.com . NOVEC offering $1,500 college scholarships Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative is accepting applications for scholarships from high school and home-schooled seniors who receive electricity from the electric cooperative. The deadline to apply is March 13. The NOVEC Scholarship Program will award $1,500 scholarships to qualified graduating public high school students in NOVECs service territories in Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties, as well as in the city of Manassas Park. An additional $1,500 scholarship will go to a student in NOVECs service territory who attends private school or is home-schooled. From the scholarship winners, selection committees will choose one outstanding student for the $1,500 J. Manley Garber Scholarship. The recipient of this scholarship will receive a total of $3,000. Selection committees will look for students who demonstrate scholastic achievement, community service, work experience and leadership skills. For information or to apply, contact Donna Snellings at scholarships@novec.com . A man was shot Monday morning at or around Crossland High School in Prince Georges County, police said. The victim was shot in the upper body about 11:30 a.m. and was taken to Southern Maryland Hospital, where he was in critical condition, said Cpl. Lamar Robinson of Prince Georges County police. The shooting occurred in the 4200 block of Farmer Place; police had no information about witnesses or a suspect. School was closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The downfall of Katie Nash as social-media coordinator for Frederick County Public Schools was, she said, sealed in a tweet. On Jan. 5, as a storm approached, a student tweeted a message asking the district to close school tammarow PLEASE. Thinking she would combine pedagogy with a little levity, Nash tweeted from the districts account, but then how would you learn how to spell tomorrow? and followed it with a smiley-face emoticon. District officials did not smile back. They asked her to delete the tweet and subsequent banter with students about possible school closures, and the student in question received an apology from the districts communications director. On Jan. 13, Nash was fired. It all set off an uproar on Twitter. Her original tweet had garnered more than 1,100 retweets and 1,400 likes. She became the subject of a hashtag, #KatiefromFCPS, and another one, #FreeKatie, after a report erroneously stated that she had lost access to the districts Twitter feed before being fired, the Frederick News Post reported . The spelling-challenged original poster weighed in, tweeting that he did not take it personally. That did not matter. Nashs tone and approach to social media were more laid back than her employer liked. The districts communications director, Michael Doerrer, told the News Post that its Twitter feed is expected to convey an FCPS voice, and Superintendent Terry Alban told the paper that Board of Education members had expressed concerns. Liz Barrett, the boards vice president, said the tweet was inappropriate and certainly created a lot of unpleasant responses in terms of other students piling on, according to the paper. Doerrer said that although he could not comment on personnel matters, we do have guidelines related to social media, and our number one goal is to lift up and to encourage students. Weve had very successful social media for the last several years, he said, adding that the districts social media is considered a model for the state and that the last person in the position was there for four or five years and did very well. He said employees have the right to appeal personnel decisions. Barrett also said she could not talk about personnel matters. She added that personnel matters are complex, and theyre so complex typically that they cant be summed up in a sound bite. Neither Nash nor Alban could be reached Monday. Nash, who reportedly started at her position in November, had been on a probation period. Three days before the controversy, she had tweeted, Love my job, from her personal account after talking to sixth-graders about books that changed them. Her offending tweet came as the district aimed to be more relaxed and conversational with students on social media, she told WHAG -TV. We had received feedback from some students in a focus group that our tweeting was a bit flat; they were looking for some more engagement, she said. I really took that to heart because I know that I am a little bit older and maybe not as hip as some of the students are. Nash, 34, is part of the parent-teacher association and has two children who attend school in the district, according to her Twitter account. Doerrer handed her a termination letter in a meeting that lasted four minutes, she told the New York Daily News. That day, she tweeted from her own account that she did not regret a tweet and wished the district success. The next day she tweeted, still a mom . . . just more time on my hands to yell at yall. Since Jan. 5, the districts tweets have been far less humorous. Budget forum tonight 7pm! reads one. Before the nine trombones, the 27 clarinets and the trumpets, saxophones, sousaphones, piccolos, euphoniums and drums, 6-foot-6-inch Marine Corps Master Sgt. Duane F. King will be marching in his bear skin hat. Hes almost 8 feet tall in the hat a giant in a red tunic with gold braid, white leather gauntlets and a black sash, called a baldric. Hell be carrying an ornate signaling staff, known as a mace, and a ton of responsibility. King, 40, is the drum major for the Marine Band, the Presidents Own, and on Jan. 20 he is scheduled to lead the legendary, 218-year-old band, for the first time as its drum major, in the inaugural parade. [A Marine veterans final inauguration] Easily the biggest performance Ive ever done, he said last week . Marine Corps Master Sgt. Duane F. King, the 40th drum major of the President's Own U.S. Marine Band, in full regalia preparing for the inauguration. (Bill O'Leary/Washington Post) Behind him, if all goes as planned, will march 99 musicians, in 11 rows, whom he must start, stop, speed up, slow down, help execute two turns, start playing, stop playing, mark time and keep in step. Its a huge role, he said at the bands headquarters in Southeast Washington. The band wont do anything if I dont give them the commands, he said. If I dont tell them to play honors when we pass by the president . . . then we dont play honors when we pass by the president. So, Ive got a lot on my shoulders, he said. King, a former trumpeter in Marine bands, must decide when to signal the two tunes between which it will alternate along the parade route John Philip Sousas marches, Semper Fidelis and The Thunderer and when to start the Marine Corps hymn, reserved for the White House reviewing stand. He must decide when to rest the musicians as they march, to give them time off their instruments. Ill let it go a certain length of time, in between playing the band, he said. That way, everyone in the crowd gets to hear the band play, but were not killing the band trying to play every single step of the way. The drum section three snare drums, two bass drums and a set of cymbals must play the whole time, to keep everyone in step. The bass drums are old-fashioned rope tension drums that provide a deeper, regal, more ceremonial sound, he said. Its going to be very stately, he said. [The inaugurations Voice of God announcer] But theres the potential for bad weather and protests, both of which must be ignored, he said: I just kind of block it all out and focus on what I have to do. As the bands 40th drum major, King walks in historys footsteps. One early drum major, John Roach, is said to have helped capture abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Another, Richard T. Johnson, was a drummer, blacksmith and chain welder in the 1860s and 70s. Another, Hiram H. Florea, headed the band in four inaugural parades one for Herbert Hoover and three for Franklin D. Roosevelt. During this parade, King must count cadence and keep a proper distance six to 12 paces behind the unit marching in front of him as they move along Pennsylvania Avenue and past the White House. Thats a lot closer than Im comfortable with, he said. To avoid rear-ending the preceding unit, he plans to add a little stopping distance. From the time I see the person in front of me stop, I have to do a handful of things to get the band to stop, he said. I cant just snap my fingers and the band stops. He has to judge: Is this a pause? A full stop? Is the band playing, not playing? And where in the music should he stop? He signals the band with the mace, a handmade, specially balanced, five-foot-long staff made of lightweight malacca wood wrapped in a gold chain and topped with a golden orb. To stop the band, he twirls the mace like a windmill the initial cue and turns and faces the musicians. He holds the mace horizontally at head level, then raises and lowers it four times. It can be a little difficult to see through his hats drooping black fur, which partially obscures his eyes, but its not usually a problem. The fur is from a Canadian black bear. The Marine Band, established in 1798, also provides music during the swearing-in ceremonies on the west terrace of the Capitol, starting at 10 a.m. There, it will be conducted by its director, Lt. Col. Jason K. Fettig. After the swearing in, scheduled for 11:50 a.m., the band leaves the dais and prepares to join the parade. Then its my show, King said. As the parade forms up, the band will be inserted at the head of the second of five divisions. The parade, which is expected to include about 8,000 participants, is set to start at 3 p.m. King will lead the group along Pennsylvania Avenue, following the light-blue line in the middle of the street that marks the way. At 15th Street, the musicians must execute a right-hand gate turn to head north for three blocks, then turn left back onto Pennsylvania Avenue for the critical pass before the president at the White House reviewing stand. Once you make that turn, you get everybody straightened out . . . its like a different part of the parade. Its like, Okay, weve finished the parade for the audience. Now heres the part for the president. Now were passing by him. A native of Jacksonville, Fla., King has been the bands drum major since 2014 and a member of the band off and on for six years. He started playing trumpet in the 6th grade and joined the Marines as a trumpet player shortly after high school. Hes been in the Marines for 22 years, and in 2007, because of his height and bearing, was switched over from trumpeter to drum major, a job that requires music and leadership skills. King said he admires renowned trumpet players such Phil Smith, formerly with the New York Philharmonic, the late Adolph Bud Herseth, the principal trumpeter with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and jazz greats Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis. Despite Kings obsession with perfection, there will be one flaw in the works he can do little about. The gold head of his mace has a tiny dent in the surface of the metal, due to a transport mishap. However, if King turns the mace just right, his thumb fits into the imperfection and conceals it. That dent is in a perfect spot, he said. Weather Icy weather falls short of dire predictions Sleet and drizzle glazed swaths of the central United States on Sunday, extending icy weather that some meteorologists acknowledged fell short of dire forecasts. Much of the region remained under an ice storm warning as stretches continued to be pelted by rain, often in areas where temperatures hovered at about freezing. A National Weather Service ice storm warning for the Kansas City and St. Louis areas expired Sunday afternoon as temperatures exceeded freezing. In central Nebraska, authorities said icy conditions contributed to a fiery crash involving two tractor-trailers shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday on Interstate 80, forcing a three-hour closure of 15 miles of Interstate 80. There were no injuries. Authorities said that ice contributed to a wreck in southwestern Kansas on Saturday night that killed a 35-year-old Oklahoma man and injured several others. Associated Press TEXAS Man on FBIs top-10 list arrested in El Paso A man placed on the FBIs list of 10 most-wanted fugitives after authorities said he killed two men in Milwaukee on July 17 was arrested Sunday in Texas, the FBI said. Terry A.D. Strickland, 24, was arrested in El Paso and booked into the jail. He has been charged in Milwaukee with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Authorities said Strickland fatally shot Maurice Brown Jr., 38, who was on the ground, then turned to Michael Allen Reed, 39, and shot him in the head. Associated Press People demonstrate for the Affordable Care Act during the First Stand Rally in Newark on Sunday. (Stephanie Keith/Reuters) Liberal groups are launching a two-month bus tour starting from Washington on Tuesday, an effort to muster public support for the Affordable Care Act even as Republicans begin to undo it. The Save My Care tour which plans to travel to as many as 20 states, from Maine and New York to Arizona and Nevada will be accompanied by a multistate digital and print advertising campaign in the high six figures, according to one of the organizers. The Alliance for Healthcare Security, a coalition of groups that include Doctors for America and the Service Employees International Union, is leading the effort. The intent of the tour is get beyond the talking points and sound bites to put the focus on the reality that millions of people rely on the Affordable Care Act to get health care, Alice Chen, Doctors for Americas executive director, said in an email. Doctors and medical students are joining stops throughout the bus tour to highlight our experiences and our fears for our patients. The launch will come just two days after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) headlined a Our First Stand: Save Health Care rally in Warren, Mich., one of several events across the country aimed at fending off attacks on the law and possibly Medicare and Medicaid. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) headlined a similar rally Sunday at Bostons Faneuil Hall, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) led one in Los Angeles. This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, Sanders told thousands of supporters as they stood outside in frigid temperatures. It is time we got our national priorities right. Karen Vermilya stands in line to enter the "Our First Stand: Save Health Care" rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders, members of the Michigan congressional delegation and local elected officials at the Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich. on Sunday. (Rachel Woolf/Getty Images) President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace the ACA with the goal of insurance for everybody. But as with other recent comments, he gave no specifics. [Anxious lawmakers to GOP leaders: Whats the plan to replace Obamacare?] The bus tour will feature several mayors and will highlight the stories of Americans who have been helped by the ACA. Along with the rallies, it offers a lens on how Democrats hope to counter GOP moves to dismantle the health-care policies they established under President Obamas tenure. Even Democrats acknowledge that many Americans remain skeptical of the ACA, despite embracing some aspects such as prohibiting insurers from denying health-care coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. According to SEIU spokeswoman Meghan Finegan, the union had 100 members connected to the health-care industry meet with their congressional representatives shortly after the presidential election. The group included nurses, doctors and home-care workers, who emphasized that many of their patients were not aware of the potential changes to their coverage. Gabe Montoya, an SEIU member who works as an emergency medical technician at a Kaiser Permanente facility in Downey, Calif., told several lawmakers that the people he sees for chronic health problems such as diabetes or heart disease are well aware of the law. Patients are really, really afraid of whats going to happen, Montoya said in an interview Sunday. Although he knows the GOP will go ahead with the repeal, he said he warned the staff of Rep. Steve Knight, a Republican who respresents Californias 25th Congressional District, that such a move could undermine one of the areas biggest employers by putting jobs at risk. They are going to have to take ownership of this, he said. Sen. Bernie Sanders stands on stage during the health-care rally in Warren, Mich., on Sunday, one of 40 taking place around the country in support of the Affordable Care Act. (Rachel Woolf/Getty Images) [Cancer survivor who once opposed federal health law challenges Ryan on its repeal] In addition to participating in the bus tour, supporters will communicate directly with Senate offices as well as some of the donors to lawmakers through calls, emails and Twitter. They also will seek to galvanize support among the broader public through Snapchat and text messaging. It remains unclear whether the tour has any chance of affecting Republicans strategy when it comes to changing the current health-care system. Speaking to reporters last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he would proceed methodically with dismantling the ACA and would not shy away from taking action quickly. Our goal, though, is to deliver relief as soon as possible, because this is just not a matter of us keeping our promise to the American people, this is a rescue mission, Ryan said. Updated 12:15 p.m. DECATUR The dense fog advisory for Central Illinois has been extended until 3 p.m. as drivers are encouraged to continue to use caution. The National Weather Service at Lincoln issued the advisory at 3 a.m. with an initial noon end time. Counties affected include Macon, Moultrie, Shelby, Christian, Piatt and DeWitt. Widespread dense fog will continue until the afternoon, then dissipate from south to north during the afternoon as rain spreads, the weather service said. Visibility could be reduced to a half-mile or less at times. Meteorologist Eric Laufenberg encouraged drivers to travel with their lights on, slower than usual and leaving plenty of distance before the next car. As the fog dissipates, you can also have where you have some clearing in some areas and then visibility almost immediately decreases, he said. Both the Decatur Police Department and Macon County Sheriffs Office said shortly before noon that there had been no traffic accidents related to the fog. Oyster boats deploy their dredges and work a small section of the Rappahannock River as the sun rises near White Stone, Va., in October 2015. (Steve Helber/AP) Oklahoma is 1,400 miles from the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Md., halfway across the country. But the distance didnt matter to Oklahomas attorney general, Scott Pruitt, after the Environmental Protection Agency drew up a plan to clean the polluted bay. He tried to stop it. Pruitt was one of 21 state attorneys general who signed an amicus brief opposing the largest cleanup of a water body in U.S. history. The brief supported a federal lawsuit filed by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau that claimed the EPA usurped the power of states in the watershed to regulate pollution that flows into the bay from cities and farms. Pruitt is now President-elect Donald Trumps nominee to run the EPA, the agency that Pruitt has railed against, suing it more than a half-dozen times over regulations on clean water and clean air that he disagreed with. [Trump names Scott Pruitt to head the EPA] As he prepares to face a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, environmental groups that fought to clean the bay decades ago, when its rockfish disappeared and crab stocks plummeted, are worried. And advocates for clean water in Oklahoma say they should be, given Pruitts record while he was responsible for waterways there. (The Washington Post) Scott Pruitt could sink the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project. At a crucial point, just as the bay is starting to show progress under EPAs new bay cleanup plan, Trump picks someone to lead EPA who as Oklahoma attorney general went out of his way to file a legal action to try to block that cleanup. But a spokesman for Trumps presidential transition team said Tuesday that Pruitt recently assured Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) that he supports the multistate approach to the bay restoration. The two met last week partly to discuss the nominees position on the cleanup plan. The spokesman clarified that Pruitt opposes any approach that would make the Chesapeake Bay a blueprint to clean watersheds elsewhere in the country. The EPA has repeatedly said over the years that it had no intention to take the plan nationwide. It also emphasized that point throughout the court proceedings. A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the EPA has the authority to limit pollution that runs into the Chesapeake under the Clean Water Act. The federation that lost that lawsuit is now hailing Trumps choice, and some farmers who struggled to pay for infrastructure to lower chemical and manure runoff from their land say they believe that the scales have tipped in their favor. I will say that I think . . . Mr. Pruitts strong suit is he comes from a state agency. He wants to work collaboratively with the states and be a little less top-down than the Obama administration, said Don Parrish, senior director of congressional and regulatory relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation. We all can agree that we want a healthy, functioning, clean Chesapeake Bay, Parrish said. Our farmers recreate on the bay; they enjoy the bay. There was nothing about the cleanup farmers disagreed with. Where we differed from the EPA was the reading of the statute, what should be EPAs . . . authority and where that authority should go. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Mark ONeill, said it strongly supports the nomination because it thinks Pruitt will provide some common-sense leadership to the agency to work to improve the environment without creating unnecessary and unlawful regulations that threaten the livelihood of farm families across the United States. The farm lobbies say the bay cleanup should have been driven by the six states in its watershed Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York along with Washington. Those states and the District had tried to collaborate on several cleanups since the 1980s and failed to make much of a dent in the nutrient pollution that plagued the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other groups sued the EPA in 2009 for failing to restore the bays health under the Clean Water Act, forcing a settlement that led to the current cleanup plan that started the following year and is set to end in 2025. Nutrient pollution, primarily phosphorous from human and animal waste and nitrogen from farm chemicals, is a deadly cocktail that causes algae to grow out of control and suck oxygen from water, killing animals trapped in the resulting dead zone. Under the EPA cleanup, the bay has improved, according to the foundations most recent biennial State of the Bay report. We believe the Bay is reaching a tipping point, the report said. Each of the three indicator categories pollution, habitat, and fisheries has improved, the report stated. Although grades as low as D-plus in each factored into an overall grade of C-minus, this was the best mark since the study series began. We are seeing the clearest water in decades, regrowth of acres of lush underwater grass beds, and the comeback of the Chesapeakes native oysters, which were nearly eradicated by disease, pollution, and overfishing, according to the report. Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, said he wont judge Pruitt before he takes office. What were going to try to do is to assume until proven wrong that Scott Pruitt will see the success of the program . . . and will want to take credit for the next phase of success. The cleanup is dramatic, Baker said, noting that it is allowing the bays health to recover. This is moving forward with great success. I can only hope the new administration wont try to undercut it. Massive algae blooms and dead zones occur in waters throughout the United States. Conservation groups in Oklahoma are familiar with them. The state attorney general before Pruitt, Drew Edmondson, sued neighboring Arkansas for failing to adequately regulate manure runoff from hundreds of chicken farms that fouled the Illinois River downstream in Oklahoma. Edmonson battled Arkansas and its poultry farms until he left office in 2011. But Pruitt took a different tack, opting to negotiate with the Arkansas state attorney. The talks led to a study that found that Oklahomas pollution limits were being violated as a result of upstream waste. Pruitt agreed to allow Arkansas to voluntarily undertake a cleanup, rather than enforce action through litigation. Ed Brocksmith, director of Save the Illinois River, said Pruitts relaxed approach to enforcement did not do nearly enough to lower pollution in Oklahomas waters. But he looked at Pruitts appointment with some optimism. Having an Oklahoman in such a high administrative position could be an advantage to us in protecting our clean water, he said. But Brocksmith said his group has concerns because of his close association to the farm bureau and his opposition to EPA rules and regulations. Whats the saying, hope springs eternal? Johnson Bridgwater, director of the Sierra Clubs Oklahoma chapter, was not as hopeful. He said environmentalists who want to see the goals of the bay cleanup fulfilled should be worried. If you look at how Pruitt handled a similar water pollution case in Oklahoma, and knowing he openly opposes EPA making these types of improvements in the state, they should not expect too much drive in the EPA continuing work in the Chesapeake Bay under his leadership. Leaders of an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in rural Oregon were driving to a public meeting a year ago when police shot and killed one of them at a roadblock. Now, LaVoy Finicums widow and their children are planning to hold that meeting later this month in the same town, John Day. Speakers are slated to talk about the Constitution, property rights and other issues. It is the anniversary of my husbands death. We want to continue with his mission, Jeanette Finicum said. The people within counties and states should decide how to use those properties, not the federal government. LaVoy Finicum was the spokesman for several dozen occupiers during the 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and has become a martyr for the movement to transfer ownership of federal lands to local entities. The U.S. government owns nearly half of all land in the West, compared with 4 percent in other states, according to the Congressional Overview of Federal Land Ownership. Oregon State Police shot LaVoy Finicum three times on Jan. 26, 2016, after he exited a vehicle at a police roadblock in the snowy Malheur National Forest, held up his hands and then reached toward his jacket. An 18-year-old woman abducted from a Florida hospital hours after her birth has met her biological parents for the first time. Kamiyah Mobley met her birthparents Saturday at the police department in Walterboro, the city where she was raised under a false name, media outlets reported. Craig Aiken said after the 45-minute meeting that he is still in shock about suddenly being reunited with his long-lost daughter and that their first meeting couldnt have gone better. Mobley was only eight hours old in 1998 when she was taken from a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., by a woman posing as a nurse. A widespread search and thousands of tips produced nothing until DNA evidence proved Mobleys lineage. Police charged Gloria Williams, 51, of Walterboro with kidnapping. She will be extradited to Florida to face charges. The Jan. 11 Politics article At rancorous confirmation hearing, senatorial courtesy is lost in tumult reported that a civil rights organization president observed of Sen. Jeff Sessionss (R-Ala.) testimony, Were seeing a senator who has said that in some ways hes changed since what we saw in 1986, but what we have heard and what he has said hasnt reflected any changes. One example of Mr. Sessionss failure to change and implicit bias jumped out at me while listening to his prepared opening statement. I deeply understand the history of civil rights and the horrendous impact that relentless and systemic discrimination and the denial of voting rights has had on our African American brothers and sisters. The message is honorable, but what does it mean for a public servant to call an entire population of our country brothers and sisters? It is a revealing, if tone-deaf, choice for describing the senators relationship to the African American community. People say brothers and sisters warmly among friends and family, members of houses of worship and other organizations of shared mission. The senators misuse conveys either the arrogance of presuming Im among friends with an entire population or, worse, an unacknowledged superiority in his view of the power in the relationship, as if he were a benevolent patriarch. Citizens is accurate and respectful to all. Maryann Germaine, Springfield Why do I not hear a meow from my Congressional Black Caucus? Where were the caucus members when the Rev. William J. Barber II held his rally on Capitol Hill? When I was the communications and media manager for the caucus the first two years of its existence, we were on top of such issues and would have stood up to the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general. What hurts so severely and deeply is that I spent the past 62 years of my life working and struggling for the rights of black Americans, since I started working with my father at 15 years old canvassing for voter registration in Bamberg County, S.C. Dad was the president of the Bamberg County NAACP. I am deeply disappointed in the lack of leadership demonstrated by the Congressional Black Caucus (except for my longtime friend, Rep. John Lewis), its silence and inaction. Who is representing the interests of black Americans? Waymon S. Wright, Frederick The Post made a persuasive case that secretary of state nominee Rex Tillersons lack of concern for human rights issues is disturbing [Mr. Tillersons human rights blind spot, editorial, Jan. 13]. But missing from the analysis was Mr. Tillersons largest human rights blind spot: the actions of ExxonMobil, before and during Mr. Tillersons tenure as chief executive, to promote climate-science misinformation and block action to address climate change. Mr. Tillerson dodged questions about that during his confirmation hearing. As Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) noted, Its shameful Tillerson refused to answer my questions on his companys role in funding phony climate science. Climate change has many facets. For example, it is an economic and a political issue. But, first and foremost, climate change is a moral and human rights issue. Our nations ongoing failure to address climate change with a sense of urgency is condemning millions of people around the world, especially the worlds poorest, most vulnerable people, to incalculable suffering. ExxonMobil deserves a significant portion of the blame for that. Mr. Tillersons actions as the companys chief executive and his lack of candor about climate change at his hearing disqualify him to be our secretary of state. Seth Heald, Alexandria E.J. Dionnes Jan. 12 op-ed, Trump proved Obamas point, highlighted a nasty encounter that President-elect Donald Trump had with reporters and secretary of state nominee Rex Tillersons Russia first stance. Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson reveal a worrisome belligerence that does not bode well for political positions that demand diplomacy and restraint. And given the clamor about some very real and problematic conflicts of interest that both will have, what about their interest in conflict? Such pugnacious attitudes in political leaders smack of underdeveloped nations strongmen and undeveloped emotional maturity. As Vice President Biden said, Grow up. Robert A. Rice, Takoma Park As an ordinary citizen, I was under the impression that confirmation hearings were a means to vet a presidential nominee and assess whether or not the nominee has what it takes to do the job and to serve in the interest of the American people. What I realized last week is that most of these confirmation hearings are a formality. Yes, candidates are grilled in order to have responses on the record, but party politics prevails. At the end of the day, once these nominees are in power, what they said on the record can be easily reworded, reinterpreted or altogether dismissed. I encourage all of our representatives to rise above party politics and to truly look out for the people. Beatrice M. Spadacini, Silver Spring Wild animals live among us. Thats a fact. They are beings with lives of their own. They raise young, search for food and seek secure housing, just as we do. When their lives intersect ours, they often take advantage of the messy, wasteful culture weve devised. For Courtland Milloy to avail himself of the literature regarding safe coexistence, look into the laws governing fur-bearing mammals and firearms in Maryland and Prince Georges County and then decide that he has a right to ignore the law and take that animals life because he cant be bothered to secure his own garbage is reprehensible [No mercy for the trash-can bandits, Metro, Jan. 11]. Why is his garbage so sacrosanct that a wild animal that dares get in it must die? A compelling argument posits an empathy gap in our society, and that lack of empathy fuels much of the division and violence in our communities. Teaching empathy starts with teaching the young to respect the feelings of other people and nonhuman animals, including wildlife. Does Mr. Milloys column contribute in any way to fostering empathy and promoting peaceful communities? No, it does the opposite. It suggests that laws are for suckers, and animals that inconvenience us should pay with their lives. Leslie Sturges, Mt. Solon, Va. For decades, Washington think tanks have been holding pens for senior government officials waiting for their next appointments and avenues of influence for sponsors of their research. Donald Trumps incoming administration is bent on breaking that model. Trumps appointments have so far have been heavy on business executives and former military leaders. Transition sources tell me the next series of nominations deputy-level officials at top agencies will also largely come from business rather than the think tank or policy communities. For example, neither the American Enterprise Institutes John Bolton nor the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass is likely to be chosen for deputy secretary of state, while hedge fund manager David McCormick is on the shortlist. Philip Bilden, a private equity investment firm executive with no government experience, is expected to be named secretary of the Navy. The president-elect favors people who have been successful in the private sector and amassed personal wealth over those who have achieved prominence in academic or policy fields. Those close to him, including chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner, see think tanks as part of a Washington culture that has failed to implement good governance, while becoming beholden to donors. This is the death of think tanks as we know them in D.C., one transition official told me. The people around Trump view think tanks as for sale for the highest bidder. They have empowered whole other centers of gravity for staffing this administration. Leaders of major think tanks dont agree the situation is so dire. But each is working hard to figure out its stance and strategy for the next four years. Those who focus on the nuts and bolts of governing could be useful to a Trump administration that has little understanding of or experience in managing much less changing government. The reason why the Trump people find think tanks less useful is, they are doing an acquisition, they are taking over a business, and when they ask people, Tell me how this business runs, most people dont know, said James Carafano, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the Heritage Foundation. Many Heritage staffers, including Carafano, are involved in the transition, but not many have gone into the administration. If Trump ends up shutting out think tanks, many will maintain influence by focusing more on serving Capitol Hill, industry and foreign entities. There are lots of customers for think tanks that are beyond the West Wing and the Oval Office, Carafano said. Other leading conservative think tanks are planning to play the long game. AEI, for example, has many scholars who signed letters opposing Trump during the GOP primaries and so might not be well-represented inside the administration. Moreover, Trumps plans on foreign policy are contrary to what the conservative think tank has long stood for. Danielle Pletka, AEIs senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, said the think tanks that will succeed are those that stick to their ideals and allow independent scholars to pursue independent research regardless of the administrations positions. Its not a game. Washington has always been and will always be an open marketplace for ideas, she said. I have no doubt that we will have a great working relationship with the Trump administration insofar as we have good ideas, and Im sure we will disagree with them at times. There will be links between major D.C. think tanks and senior Trump officials. Secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson is a longtime trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The defense secretary nominee, retired Gen. James N. Mattis, is affiliated with the Hoover Institution. National security adviser-designate Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, has been meeting with think tank leaders throughout the transition. For left-leaning think tanks, the calculation is easier. Theres a lot of demand and money for organizations to oppose Trumps policies. Think tanks of all stripes are adapting, said Vikram Singh, vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress. The choice is between defending the advances of the post-World War II era that are potentially now under assault, or trying to influence the Trump team to do what you think the country needs. If the Trump team succeeds in diminishing the influence of Washington think tanks and keeping their scholars out of government, policymaking will suffer. Many of these scholars hold the institutional knowledge and deep subject matter expertise the incoming administration needs. Trump should see them as an asset in the marketplace of ideas, not a liability. Read more from Josh Roginss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Donald Trump is not all wrong about China. That gives his administration an opportunity to reshape what, if not handled carefully, could become the worlds most dangerous bilateral relationship. During the presidential campaign, Trump was mostly off-base in his assessment of the world. NATO is not obsolete. Japan and South Korea are not freeloaders. Trade among Mexico, Canada and the United States has been good for all three countries. He was wrong in many particulars about China, too. It is not, for example, a currency manipulator as Trump asserts. But his underlying message of basic unfairness was right. China is not operating by the same rules as everyone else. When President Clinton promoted Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization, the expectation was that China would grow more prosperous and, in the process, more economically liberal and politically tolerant. The first prediction has proved true, which by itself is enough to justify the Wests decision. Globalization has helped China bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, an unprecedented achievement of human progress. The country is stable and at peace, no small thing given its turbulent history. Many of its problems smog, traffic, school access are challenges of a middle class that barely existed two decades ago. But the Communist Party is becoming more repressive, not less. Tibetans and Uighurs are more at risk. The Internet has become a tool of control, not a window to the world. The space for honest journalism and academic debate is being steadily squeezed. China has stepped up the bullying of its neighbors and its unilateral territorial claims. Meanwhile the Chinese economy, tantalizing as always to foreign investors, is far from open. China has found ways to suck technology from Western companies without giving them equal access to its markets. In the information business, it tightly restricts how many journalists and even which ones are permitted into China, and keeps its people from reading much of their work, while its propaganda outlets face no comparable obstacles in the West. Now, bolstered by their home-field advantage, Chinese companies are investing overseas in markets that remain mostly open to them. Its easy to describe how not to respond to all of this. Initiating a trade war, by slapping tariffs on Chinese products, would likely harm Chinese and Americans alike without accomplishing much. The United States should not make it easy for Chinas regime to portray the United States as hostile to the Chinese people. Nor should the Trump administration tilt the other way and seek some grand deal with Chinas regime at the expense of the Chinese people or the United States democratic allies. Trump provided a case study of how not to do things when he chatted by phone with Taiwans president. The conversation itself, though a departure from convention, was not unreasonable: Taiwan is a democratic ally, so why shouldnt the two leaders talk? But Trump followed the conversation with a tweet that positioned the phone call, which angered Chinas rulers, as payback for Chinese misbehavior: Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesnt tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? he asked. I dont think so! So if China behaved better, would Trump cold-shoulder Taiwan? Would he ask Beijings permission before taking another call? Thats precisely the wrong message. In the long run, the greatest cost of Chinas backsliding will be self-imposed. Many China hands in the West cheered the prospect of President Xi Jinping postponing political reform in order to impose economic reforms. But for the most part, economic reforms havent materialized, and they wont without more political freedom. To reach the next stage of prosperity, China needs more entrepreneurship, more creativity and more of the predictability that only rule of law can deliver. None of these are possible in a stifling one-party state. The Trump administration cant chart Chinas course. But it can have some influence if it engages more actively in the region and stays faithful to American values and those of democratic allies. Attention to human rights shouldnt be traded away for economic concessions; on the contrary, free-market principles and political liberty are on the same side of the coin. Trump should insist on more reciprocity in economic relations, but consistent with fairness and principles of economic freedom, not simply to gain an upper hand. American workers and firms would benefit, but the Chinese people would benefit most of all. Read more from Fred Hiatts archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Cornell William Brooks is president of the NAACP. Jonathan Greenblatt is chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. For more than a century, our two organizations have fought on behalf of justice and equality. We have worked together on anti-lynching laws, school desegregation, voting rights legislation, hate crime laws and criminal-justice reform. Both the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP have done much to make the United States a fairer and stronger nation, and we often have done it together. Either organization simply could stand on its legacy, especially on a day set aside to remember a hero of the civil rights battles of the past. But on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we recognize that this is no time to wax poetic about past triumphs or rest on our laurels. Now more than ever, we must build a strong coalition of now. The new administration is taking office this week after an extraordinarily divisive election campaign that featured dog-whistled and overt anti-Semitism as well as mainstreamed racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny and other forms of hate. Bigotry that for so many years was hidden, repressed or relegated to the fringes of society no longer appears to be taboo. Words that were once used only by extremists such as white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan and, more recently, the so-called alt-right have become part of the public conversation. Disturbingly, according to the FBI, the number of hate crimes reported to law enforcement increased in 2015, and a hate crime is committed every 90 minutes in the United States. At this moment in American history, we believe that the ADL and NAACP must renew and reenergize our long-standing civil rights partnership, stand firm for our values and our convictions, and oppose every form of bigotry and prejudice. In the months to come, we will seek to ensure there are adequate and comprehensive hate-crimes laws to demonstrate that bigotry will not be tolerated. We will fight the use of religion as a sword to thwart anti-discrimination laws that protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities as well as womens equality. We will debunk phantom claims of voter fraud and fiercely meet any effort to suppress voting rights or relax Justice Department enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. We will stand together against any effort to deprive individuals of equal educational opportunities, or the opportunity to live their lives in dignity, free from persecution because of who they are, how they pray, where they are from or who they love. As we honor Kings memory, we must acknowledge that these are not normal times. Our communities are increasingly divided. Bullying of all kinds is flourishing. Our public discourse not only has become more polarized; it has also degraded in an era of half-truths and false news. And yet, we will not accept this as normal. We will not stand back and learn to tolerate a society that is increasingly intolerant. We will work to create change now. So, if a Muslim registry is created, we this proud Christian and this proud Jew will be at the head of the line to register as Muslims. If they try to deport children who have grown up in this country but who are undocumented, then we this descendant of slaves and this grandson of immigrants and refugees will push back on such decrees and fight to keep families intact. If they try to dictate that businesses can fire people based on their sexuality or deny them service based on their gender identities, then we two straight, cis men will stand up and speak out for our LGBT brothers and sisters. We are under no illusions how difficult unity can be. While African Americans and Jewish Americans marched together with King decades ago, over the years there have been differences and disagreements. And yet, as we commemorate Kings legacy today, we must recognize that we are as he put it in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Now more than ever, there is no us vs. them. We are all black. We are all Jews. We are all Muslims. We are all women. We are all immigrants. We are all LGBT. And when the rights of one of us are threatened, all of us are threatened. These are the values that will guide this coalition of now as we stand and fight together today. We are as one, bound by the common cause of civil rights, justice and fair treatment for all Americans. Lawrence Summers is a professor at and past president of Harvard University. He was treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 and an economic adviser to President Obama from 2009 through 2010. An ironic contradiction is likely to define the global economic communitys convocation in Davos this week as it awaits Donald Trumps inauguration. There has not been so much anxiety about U.S. global leadership or about the sustainability of market-oriented democracy at any time in the past half-century. Yet with markets not only failing to swoon as predicted, but actually rallying strongly after both the Brexit vote and Trumps victory, the animal spirits of business are running hot. Many chief executives are coming to believe that, whatever the president-elects infirmities, the strongly pro-business attitude of his administration, combined with Republican control of Congress, will lead to a new era of support for business, along with much lower taxes and regulatory burdens. This in turn, it is argued, will drive major increases in investment and hiring, setting off a virtuous circle of economic growth and rising confidence. [Trump is being handed a great economy. What happens when it goes south?] While it has to be admitted that such a scenario looks more plausible today than it did on Election Day, I believe that it is very much odds-off. More likely is that the current run of happy markets and favorable sentiment will be seen, with the benefit of hindsight, as a sugar high. John Maynard Keynes was right to emphasize the great importance of animal spirits, but other economists have also been right to emphasize that it is political and economic fundamentals that dominate in the medium and long terms. History is replete with examples of populist authoritarian policies that produced short-run benefits but poor long-run outcomes. The new U.S. president will be operating on a weak political foundation, is unlikely to be able to deliver the results he has promised to key constituencies and seems likely to take dangerous gambles in the international arena. This makes it probable that a cycle of growing disillusion, disappointment and disapproval will set in within a year. Trump will likely be the first modern U.S. president to come into office with more public disapproval than approval. No outsider can know the validity of allegations regarding his campaigns involvement with Russia, but the shadow of possible scandal is far more present in the pre-inaugural press than it was even before Richard Nixons second term in the White House. And the Trump familys continued operation of his business interests offers potential for at least the allegation of serious misconduct. Nor is Trump likely to be able to keep his promises to key middle-class constituencies. The consequence of the weak Mexican peso that has been a consequence of his rhetoric is more Mexican immigration to the United States and more businesses choosing Mexico over Ohio as a location for production. [Paul Waldman: Republicans say theyll protect you if you have a preexisting condition. Dont believe them.] Moreover, it is not possible to repeal Obamacare without taking health insurance away from millions of Americans and placing new burdens on those with preexisting conditions. If Trump follows through on proposed increases in tariffs, the result will be lower real wages and incomes as prices rise faster than wages. All in Congress agree that tax reform will not happen in a few months, and it is impossible to reconcile the president-elects stated goals of major reductions in corporate and top rates, a fair distribution of the benefits of tax cuts and preventing a huge increase in federal debt. Finally, Trump will be taking some major risks. Seeking to use the one- China policy as a lever for extracting trade concessions from China risks major confrontation and will complicate cooperation on critical issues such as North Korean nuclear proliferation. Questioning the value of the European Union and NATO risks undermining our principal democratic allies at a time when they are already politically fragile. Unilateral imposition of tariffs or enactment of a tax system that subsidizes exports and penalizes imports risks both retaliatory protectionism and a spiking dollar, with potentially grave consequences for the global economy. And threatening businesses, as happened with the attack on the pharmaceutical industry during Trumps last news conference, risks major increases in uncertainty and even questions about the rule of law. Animal spirits are as fickle as they are important. Right now they certainly are an impetus to economic growth. The speed with which they changed after the Brexit vote and after the U.S. election should be cautionary. They can easily change again. If ever there were a time to hope for the best but plan for the worst, it is now. Kellyanne Conway is walking a Dangerfield line. We got no forbearance. We got nothing. We got no respect, the Trump strategist told CNNs Anderson Cooper last week, complaining about media coverage of her boss. This man is president of the United States! Conway raises a fair question: Why hasnt the president-elect been given more respect? Heres a fair answer: He hasnt earned any. To Trumps many self-assigned superlatives, he can now add another: the sorest winner. With charity for none and with malice toward all but his supporters, he has in the past two months set a new standard for gracelessness in victory. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Instead of brushing off criticism, as a president-elect can afford to do, Trump in recent days marked Martin Luther King weekend by telling off civil rights icon John Lewis (a King acolyte) and his falling apart and crime infested congressional district. He bemoaned Saturday Night Live spoofs as a hit job and used the words crap and sleazebag in his public statements. He called the top Democrat in the land the head clown and accused the American intelligence community of acting like Nazis. [Trump has absolutely no idea what black America looks like] He responded to criticism from Meryl Streep by calling her an over-rated actress and a Hillary flunky who lost big. He likewise cheered that his Celebrity Apprentice replacement Arnold Schwarzenegger got swamped in ratings compared with the ratings machine, DJT. . . . But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary. Trump said the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee is discussed only because the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed! At a news conference last week, Trump continued to gloat about the beautiful scene on November 8th, and he invoked his vanquished opponent five times, portrayed Hillary Clinton as weak. This campaign-style news conference followed Trumps thank you tour of campaign-style rallies in states that he won and preceded the disclosure that the incoming administration was weighing punishment for the press upending more than a century of precedent and evicting journalists from the White House. The losers often have hard feelings after elections. But this much enmity from the winner is extraordinary. Trump, after his election-night promise to bind the wounds of division and be a president for all Americans, never attempted reconciliation. A day later, he falsely condemned professional protesters, incited by the media, and at year end he taunted opponents via Twitter: Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just dont know what to do. Love! This explains Trumps short honeymoon. His favorability rating jumped from 34 percent during the campaign to 44 percent in late November in a Quinnipiac University poll as Americans gave their new leader the benefit of the doubt. But that same poll showed his favorability back down to 37 percent. Views about his honesty, leadership and ability to unite the country dropped similarly. His behavior during this time has not been what one typically calls presidential. He has echoed both Vladimir Putin and WikiLeaks Julian Assange on Twitter and blasted away in all caps. He attacked Vanity Fair magazine editor Graydon Carter after an unfavorable review of a Trump Tower restaurant. His attack on a local steelworkers union president resulted in death threats. 1 of 33 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad These Democratic lawmakers are boycotting Donald Trumps inauguration View Photos They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Caption They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) Beyer tweeted: I just told hundreds of my constituents that I will not be attending the Inauguration Ceremony this coming Friday. John McDonnell/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Trump has used Twitter to attack everything from the Hamilton musical to the Chinese government, and, in one tweet, he appeared to commit the United States to attacking North Korea to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States. [Trump picks the perfect time to show off his ignorance about black Americans] Above all, Trump has continued to taunt his former opponents: President Obama campaigned hard (and personally) in the very important swing states, and lost. . . . Vladimir Putin said today about Hillary and Dems: In my opinion, it is humiliating. One must be able to lose with dignity. So true! . . . I spent FAR LESS MONEY on the win than Hillary on the loss! . . . 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. In a typical stop on his victory tour, during which supporters revived the Lock her up chant, Trump remarked in Cincinnati that we did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary. He blasted the dishonest press at length and said he trounced his opponents. I love this stuff. Should I go on with this just a little bit longer? he asked. He did, mocking those who said that theres no way that Donald Trump can break the blue wall, right? We didnt break it we shattered that sucker. . . . That poor wall is busted up. Yep, he shattered that sucker. And now hes shattering any chance of earning the respect his office deserves. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. The hallmark of a democracy is the peaceful transfer of power following an election. An essential, if painful, corollary of that rule is to accept the outcome of the election even when its conduct may have been marred, even when questions linger about the nature of the victory. That was the difficult lesson of the 2000 campaign. But for a flawed butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County that diverted confused voters to Pat Buchanan, Al Gore would likely have been declared the winner in Florida and thus the 43rd president. But there are no do-overs in elections, especially presidential ones. There may be flaws and disputes. But at some point, after the procedures established by the rule of law have run their course, the country needs to accept the result, however difficult it may be. So for all of John Lewiss heroic service to his country, the Georgia congressmans assertion that Donald Trump is not a legitimate president was not appropriate or helpful. Indeed, it is not even the right way to think about the question. Trump is a legitimate president because our system demands finality and acceptance even in the presence of uncertainty. Posting an asterisk next to an election result is not healthy for democracy. Yet there is a difference between debating whether Trump is a legitimate president and continuing to express concerns about the legitimacy of the election. Exactly what factors produced Trumps victory can never be measured with precision: Hillary Clintons flaws or miscalculations? FBI Director James B. Comeys improper intervention? Russian meddling? Any or all of these could have made the difference. We will never know. We never can know. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) Trump, however reluctantly and belatedly, acknowledges the undeniable, the existence of Russian interference. But much as Trump and his team insistently proclaim a nonexistent landslide, they peddle the fiction that the absence of Russian hacking directly into voting machines equates to the absence of worry about the influence of other Russian mischief. The two are not the same. Russia meddled. Trump himself eagerly seized on the fruits of its hacking. I love WikiLeaks, he announced during the campaign. He cannot now be taken seriously in asserting its irrelevance. Donald Trump won this election fair and square, Vice President-elect Mike Pence kept saying as he made the rounds of Sunday shows. Yes, Trump won. It was not necessarily fair and square. Trump can blame the victim it was the sloppy Democratic National Committee. He can obfuscate other countries have hacked into other systems, for other purposes. But nothing can change the reality that a hostile foreign power sought to affect the result of the election that made him president. Thus California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made important and somewhat spine-chilling news when she told NBCs Meet the Press that she believes Russian intervention altered the outcome. Whether Feinstein is correct is less important than the unpleasant fact that she might be. And that is the flip side of accepting Trumps legitimacy: to insist on investigation and accountability. Feinstein put it in appropriately apocalyptic terms. We cannot ignore what has happened. To ignore it is really to commit ourselves to a very bad future, she said. This is the future of America. Its the future of democracy. And if we cant carry out an election without disinformation being pumped into it by another country, weve got a huge destruction of our system going on. A searching inquiry into what happened and how to prevent it from recurring is essential. That should not be a matter for partisan debate, as hard as it may be for Trump, especially, to accept. Whether that happens will not determine the legitimacy of Trumps election. It will shape historys judgment of his presidency. Read more from Ruth Marcuss archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook. They are some of the biggest names in the Republican national security firmament, veterans of past GOP administrations who say, if called upon by President-elect Donald Trump, they stand ready to serve their country again. But their phones arent ringing. Their entreaties to Trump Tower in New York have mostly gone unanswered. In Trump world, these establishment all-stars say they are PNG personae non gratae. Their transgression was signing one or both of two public Never Trump letters during the campaign, declaring they would not vote for Trump and calling his candidacy a danger to the nation. One letter, with 122 names, was published by War on the Rocks, a website devoted to national security commentary, during the primary season in March. The other, with 50 names, including some repeat signatories, was published by the New York Times during the general-election campaign in August. Now, just days before Trump is sworn in as the nations 45th president, the letter signers fear they have been added to another document, this one private a purported blacklist compiled by Trumps political advisers. (The Washington Post) Before he won, the conversation was, We really would love for you to change your mind and join us, Peter Feaver, a National Security Council special adviser under President George W. Bush, said of informal talks with Trump aides. Feaver, who signed both letters, added that, Since he won . . . the conversation is, There likely will be a blacklist of people who signed the letters who wont themselves be eligible for a post. Trump transition aides did not respond to a request for comment for this article. [From March: Trump fundamentally dishonest, say national security leaders] The president-elect has virtually no experience in national security and foreign policy, and his transition team could presumably benefit from the broadest pool of applicants for the influential appointive positions in the State Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security. But the purportedly blacklisted figures report to their jobs at Washington law firms and think tanks in a state of indefinite limbo as their colleagues, some working in the same offices, are flirting with potential administration jobs. Last week, the Trump transition held a private briefing for secretary-of-state nominee Rex Tillerson to prepare him for his Senate confirmation hearing. One former Bush national security official who works at a Washington think tank said that some of his younger staff assistants were invited to participate but that he was not. He assumes it was because he signed the letter. Its hostile, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of further retribution. Its not just that were frozen out. . . . I was told they said there was an enemies list. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Among those who signed at least one of the letters are Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, the first two secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security; two former U.S. trade ambassadors, Carla Hills and Robert Zoellick; two former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, John Negroponte and retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden; a former ambassador to NATO; and several former deputy secretaries of various U.S. government agencies. Not everyone who signed the letters wants a job, and some remain vocal critics of Trump. But many stand ready to serve or offer guidance if asked. The letters were explicit in their denunciations of Trumps professed support for torture of terrorism suspects, his pledge to build a wall along the border with Mexico, his anti-Muslim rhetoric and his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letters also attacked Trumps character and temperament, asserting that he lacks self-control and acts impetuously, has demonstrated erratic behavior and is fundamentally dishonest. Former Bush administration lawyer John Bellinger III, who organized the letter published in the Times, said that many have not given up and are trying to help from the outside. Theyre seeing how it goes and trying to provide advice, counsel, support to our friends who go into the administration, said Bellinger, who has served as legal counsel at the State Department and the National Security Council. The scenario was set up by Trumps unorthodox candidacy and then his upset victory. The threat the New York business moguls populist campaign posed to the establishment of his party caused some of the Republicans leading lights to oppose him, even after he had clinched the nomination. The question after Election Day was how quickly Trump loyalists and the onetime GOP resistance would reconcile. In some cases, the process has gone fairly smoothly. Congressional leaders who had been lukewarm toward Trumps campaign have made nice with the president-elect, and they have vowed to work together on a conservative policy agenda. In other cases, it has been painfully awkward, as with Trumps flirtation with Mitt Romney for secretary of state. Romney had called Trump a phony and a fraud last March, but the 2012 GOP presidential nominee called to congratulate Trump on his election victory. After a courtship that included a dinner of frog legs and lamb chops in New York, Romney was passed over for Tillerson, the head of ExxonMobil. During a national security forum last week at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, K.T. McFarland, who was named Trumps deputy national security adviser, opened her remarks by referring to the elephant in the room. Most of the people in this room didnt support Donald Trump maybe not at first or maybe ever, she said. And I suspect most of the people in this room didnt think hed win. But he has. Some of the Never Trump letters signers fear they are at the bottom of the pecking order, below those who expressed verbal opposition to Trumps campaign but did not sign either of the letters. The conflict was exacerbated shortly after the election when Eliot Cohen, a State Department counselor during the Bush administration who had helped organize the War on the Rocks letter, aired new criticism of the Trump transition. In an opinion column for The Washington Post in November, Cohen said that a friend on the transition team had asked him to provide names of potential job candidates with the stipulation that he include no one who signed either of the letters. [Complete list: See how many key positions Trump has filled so far] Cohen wrote that he became convinced there were pent-up resentments among members of the Trump team, and he warned young policy experts against working for the administration. Cohen has had no further communications with the transition team. Believe me my phone is not ringing, he said in a recent interview. Other letter signers said Cohen had misinterpreted emails from the transition official and overreacted, and some of them expressed a sense of regret. Mary Beth Long, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Bush administration, signed the War on the Rocks letter. But, she said, her opinion of Trump improved as he began to moderate his rhetoric and selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Long attended a Pence rally in Charlotte in October, during which, she said, a local GOP official announced that a Never Trump letter signer in the audience had changed her mind and was now supporting Trump. The crowd cheered. But her about-face hasnt thawed the ice. Long said her inquiries to the Trump transition team to get clarity on some of his foreign policy positions have gone unanswered. She said that she has spoken with retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trumps designee for national security adviser, whom she knows from the Pentagon, but that she isnt expecting a job. If I were asked to sign a letter like that again, I would be much more careful about the verbiage that related to the candidate himself, she said. Some letter signers said the Trump transition might be overwhelmed and could reach out more broadly in the coming weeks. Some hoped that Cabinet nominees, such as retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, Trumps pick to head the Pentagon, could potentially have the freedom to hire them. Many jobs below the Cabinet level remain unfilled. But others are resigned to waiting until some of Trumps initial appointees begin leaving his administration. Frances Townsend, a former Bush homeland security adviser who signed the War on the Rocks letter, is friendly with Flynn. A few weeks after the election, she received an email from the transition team inviting her to meet with the president-elect. Ahead of the meeting, she thought over how to explain her past actions if Trump raised the letter but he did not, she said. I took that as a sign of maturity and graciousness, said Townsend, who has not taken a job with the administration and declined to say whether she was offered one. As I was leaving, I said I was privileged and humbled to come in and speak to him, she said. It was a veiled reference [to the letter]. Given the circumstances, I didnt expect to be there. More from Politics: The Trump Transition: Dozens of Democratic lawmakers to boycott inauguration Everything you want to know about the Trump Cabinet confirmation hearings Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes up to be a relatively low-key affair President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obamas signature health-care law with the goal of insurance for everybody, while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid. Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with The Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his partys congressional majorities. Trumps plan is likely to face questions from the right, after years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health-care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans. In addition to his replacement plan for the ACA, also known as Obamacare, Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. Theyre politically protected, but not anymore, he said of pharmaceutical companies. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The objectives of broadening access to insurance and lowering health-care costs have always been in conflict, and it remains unclear how the plan that the incoming administration is designing or ones that will emerge on Capitol Hill would address that tension. In general, congressional GOP plans to replace Obamacare have tended to try to constrain costs by reducing government requirements, such as the medical services that must be provided under health plans sold through the laws marketplaces and through states Medicaid programs. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and other Republicans have been talking lately about providing universal access to health insurance, instead of universal insurance coverage. Trump said he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly and in unison in the coming weeks on other priorities as well, including enacting sweeping tax cuts and beginning the building of a wall along the Mexican border. Trump warned Republicans that if the party splinters or slows his agenda, he is ready to use the power of the presidency and Twitter to usher his legislation to passage. The Congress cant get cold feet because the people will not let that happen, Trump said during the interview with The Post. Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obamas health-care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details lower numbers, much lower deductibles he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Its very much formulated down to the final strokes. We havent put it in quite yet but were going to be doing it soon, Trump said. He noted that he is waiting for his nominee for secretary of health and human services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), to be confirmed. That decision rests with the Senate Finance Committee, which hasnt scheduled a hearing. (Alice Li/The Washington Post) Trumps declaration that his replacement plan is ready comes after many Republicans moderates and conservatives expressed anxiety last week about the partys lack of a formal proposal as they held votes on repealing the law. Once his plan is made public, Trump said, he is confident that it could get enough votes to pass in both chambers. He declined to discuss how he would court wary Democrats. So far, Republicans have taken the first steps toward repealing the law through budget reconciliation, a process by which only a simple majority is needed in the Senate. The process would enable them to dismantle aspects of the law that involve federal spending. The plan that Trump is preparing will come after the House has taken more than 60 votes in recent years to kill all or parts of the ACA to adopt more conservative health-care policies, which tend to rely more heavily on the private sector. I think we will get approval. I wont tell you how, but we will get approval. You see whats happened in the House in recent weeks, Trump said, referencing his tweet during a House Republican move to gut their independent ethics office, which along with widespread constituent outrage was cited by some members as a reason the gambit failed. As he has developed a replacement package, Trump said he has paid attention to critics who say that repealing Obamacare would put coverage at risk for more than 20 million Americans covered under the laws insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. Were going to have insurance for everybody, Trump said. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us. People covered under the law can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better. Republican leaders have said that they will not strand people who gained insurance under the ACA without coverage. But it remains unclear from either Trumps comments in the interview or recent remarks by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill how they intend to accomplish that. For conservative Republicans dubious about his pledge to ensure coverage for millions, Trump pointed to several interviews he gave during the campaign in which he promised to not have people dying on the street. Its not going to be their plan, he said of people covered under the current law. Itll be another plan. But theyll be beautifully covered. I dont want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people, he said Saturday. Trump did not say how his program overlaps with the comprehensive plan authored by House Republicans. Earlier this year, Price suggested that a Trump presidency would advance the House GOPs health-care agenda. When asked in the interview whether he intends to cut benefits for Medicare as part of his plan, Trump said no, a position that was reiterated Sunday on ABC by Reince Priebus, Trumps incoming chief of staff. He did not elaborate on that view or how it would affect his proposal. He expressed that view throughout the campaign. Timing could be difficult as Trump puts an emphasis on speed. Obamas law took more than 14 months of debate and hundreds of hearings. To urge lawmakers on, Trump plans to attend a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia this month. Moving ahead, Trump said that lowering drug prices is central to reducing health-care costs nationally and that he will make it a priority as he uses his bully pulpit to shape policy. When asked how exactly he would force drug manufacturers to comply, Trump said that part of his approach would be public pressure just like on the airplane, a nod to his tweets about Lockheed Martins F-35 fighter jet, which Trump said was too costly. Trump waved away the suggestion that such activity could lead to market volatility on Wall Street. Stock drops and America goes up, he said. I dont care. I want to do it right or not at all. He added that drug companies should produce more products in the United States. The question of whether the government should start negotiating how much it pays drugmakers for older Americans on Medicare has long been a partisan dispute, ever since the 2003 law that created Medicare drug benefits prohibited such negotiations. Trumps goal is uncertain, however, with respect to Medicaid, the insurance for low-income Americans run jointly by the federal government and states. Under what is known as a Medicaid best price rule, pharmaceutical companies already are required to sell drugs to Medicaid as the lowest price they negotiate with any other buyer. On his plan for tax cuts, Trump said that were getting very close to putting together legislation. His advisers and Ryan met last week and have been working from his campaigns plan and from congressional proposals to slash current rates. Itll probably be 15 to 20 percent for corporations. For individuals, probably lower. Great middle-class tax cuts, Trump said. On corporate tax rates, We may negotiate a little, but we want to bring them down and get as close to 15 percent as we can so we can see a mushrooming of jobs moving back. Trump said he would not relent on his push for increasing taxes on U.S. companies that manufacture abroad and insisted that the upcoming tax cuts should be enough reason for companies to produce within the United States. If companies think theyre going to make their cars or other products overseas and sell them back into the United States, theyre going to pay a 35 percent tax, he said. Briefly touching on immigration, Trump said that building a border wall and curbing illegal immigration remain at the top of his to-do list and that he is spending significant time looking at ways to begin projects, both with Congress and through executive action. He did not disclose what was to come on those fronts. Garik Vardanyan, a soldier severely wounded in Artsakh by Azerbaijani fire on December 30, died last night at Yerevan Central Military Hospital. The NKR Ministry of Defense also rejects claims made by Azerbaijan that Armenian soldiers shot and killed one of its soldiers on January 15. The ministry says that the Azerbaijani solider was probably killed due to the breakdown of personal order in the Azerbaijani military ranks. The ministry adds that Azerbaijan violated the Karabakh ceasefire yesterday and last night, firing 51 rounds of 60mm mortars and three rounds of 82mm mortars towards Artsakh Defense Army positions in the east and southeast. The ministry says its forces responded where necessary and that Baku assumes full responsibility for any flare-up along the Line of Contact. Lawyer Khaled Ali celebrates after the Supreme Administrative Court said two islands could not be transferred to Saudi Arabia, Jan. 16, 2017. (Amr Nabil/AP) A top Egyptian court on Monday overruled a government plan to transfer sovereignty of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, dealing an embarrassing and unexpected setback to President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and his attempts to reward financial benefactors in the Persian Gulf region. The verdict, by Egypts Supreme Administrative Court, rejected a government appeal of an earlier court ruling, and was final, said Khaled Ali, one of the lawyers who challenged the transfer. The plan to hand over the uninhabited islands had sparked unusually large protests in Egypt, shocking officials and defying a ban on demonstrations. Many Egyptians saw the possible loss of territory as overreach by an unaccountable government as well as an intolerable attack on identity, with the islands representing, for some, the countrys steady loss of independence and regional clout. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations have propped up Egypts faltering economy with billions of dollars in aid since 2013, when the military, led by Sissi, ousted President Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist leader from the Muslim Brotherhood and the countrys first democratically elected leader. During a visit to Egypt by King Salman of Saudi Arabia in April 2016, the government announced it was transferring the two islands, which sit at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba and are called Tiran and Sanafir. Officials said that the islands belong to Saudi Arabia and that Egypt had taken control of them in the 1950s, out of concern Israel would seize them. The backlash was immediate, with Egyptians criticizing the decision and mocking the government on social media. The fury of the reaction, which included one of the largest demonstrations in years, suggested that the nationalism Sissis government had stoked for several years to shore up its own legitimacy had suddenly backfired: For many, the giveaway of the islands was a red line, whether they belonged to Egypt or not. The judges of the administrative court ruled Monday that Egypts sovereignty over the islands was irrevocable. Celebrations broke out in the courtroom when the verdict was read, and outside the court, protesters chanted against Sissi, according to the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who attended the hearing and posted updates on Twitter. The chants are: bread freedom social justice, she wrote, and down down with military rule. The future of the proposal remains uncertain. Egypts parliament has been debating the transfer of the islands, and the government, separately, has challenged the jurisdiction of the administrative court to rule on the matter. Also left unresolved is the fate of dozens of protesters who were arrested during demonstrations against the transfer of the islands and are facing criminal charges. Fahim reported from Istanbul. Read more: Egypt hands Saudi Arabia two islands, outraging Egyptians Outraged Egyptians protest deal that gave islands to Saudi Arabia Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news European leaders grappled with the jolting reality of President-elect Donald Trumps skepticism of the European Union on Monday, saying they might have to stand without the United States at their side during the Trump presidency. The possibility of an unprecedented breach in transatlantic relations came after Trump who embraced anti-E.U. insurgents during his campaign and following his victory said in weekend remarks that the 28-nation European Union was bound for a breakup and that he was indifferent to its fate. He also said NATOs current configuration is obsolete, even as he professed commitment to Europes defense. Trumps attitudes have raised alarm bells across Europe, which is facing a wave of elections this year in which anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic leaders could gain power. Most mainstream leaders have committed to working with Trump after his inauguration Friday, even as they have expressed hope that he will moderate his views once he takes office. His continued hard line has created a painful realization in Europe that they may now have to live without the full backing of their oldest, strongest partner. The European Union underpins much of the continents post-World War II prosperity, but skeptics have attacked it in recent years as a dysfunctional bloc that undermines finances and security. We will cooperate with him on all levels, of course, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. But she said Europeans will need to take responsibility for themselves. We Europeans have our destiny in our own hands, she said. 1 of 33 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad These Democratic lawmakers are boycotting Donald Trumps inauguration View Photos They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Caption They say they are declining to attend in protest of the president-elects worldview and his criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, a congressman from Georgia. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) Beyer tweeted: I just told hundreds of my constituents that I will not be attending the Inauguration Ceremony this coming Friday. John McDonnell/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. The full ramifications of a potential breakdown in transatlantic ties are so extensive, they are difficult to total. U.S. guarantees form the backbone of European security. The United States and the 500-million-people-strong European Union are each others most important trade partners. For decades, European nations and the United States have worked tightly together on issues of war, peace and wealth. Trump appears skeptical that the European Union matters to American security or economic growth. People want their own identity, so if you ask me, others, I believe others will leave, Trump said of the European Union in a weekend interview with the Times of London and Germanys Bild newspaper. He said he did not care about the E.U.s future. I dont think it matters much for the United States, he said. You look at the European Union, and its Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany, Trump said, meaning Germany had used the free-trade bloc to sell its goods to the disadvantage of others. He added that Merkel had made a very catastrophic mistake in opening Europes doors to migrants and refugees. And he offered no special credit to European nations for being long-standing U.S. allies, saying he will trust Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin alike at the outset of his presidency. I start off trusting both, he said. But lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all. Trump offered mixed messages about the NATO defense alliance, which is dominated by the United States, calling it obsolete and saying it is very unfair to the United States that most nations are not meeting their voluntary defense spending commitments. With that being said, NATO is very important to me, Trump said. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The Kremlin embraced Trumps comments, with a spokesman agreeing that NATO is obsolete. British leaders also welcomed Trumps willingness to negotiate a trade deal in the wake of their nations departure from the E.U. But among most U.S. allies, Trumps attitudes caused astonishment and excitement, not just in Brussels, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters Monday in Brussels, where he was meeting with other European foreign ministers at a previously scheduled gathering. Coming directly from a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Steinmeier said NATO had listened to Trumps comments with concern. The incoming U.S. president is the first American leader since World War II not to support European integration. The European Union has long been considered to be in the U.S. interest, since it created a unified market for U.S. businesses, provided a bulwark against communism during the Cold War and helped quell the bloody slaughter that cost U.S. lives, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union expanded eastward into formerly communist nations, a development that leaders there say helped bring rule of law and stability as they modernized their economies. Steinmeier said Germany is trying to assess what U.S. foreign policy will actually be. For example, James Mattis, the retired Marine general nominated to be Trumps defense secretary, offered straightforward support for NATO and skepticism of Russia at his confirmation hearing last week. Other leaders said Europes future does not rise or fall based on attitudes in the White House. What we are looking for is a partnership based on common interests with the United States, E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters. We always like to be in good company, but we determine our policies by ourselves. Some analysts noted that after Britains vote last June to leave the European Union, support for the E.U. in other nations increased. They wondered whether Trumps frontal challenge to the bloc might have a similar effect. But one said that if global instability rises as a result of Trumps unpredictable policies, the stress could weigh on the already taxed European Union. Over the last decades, the United States has played a huge stabilizing role. And when this stabilizing role of the U.S. around the world falls away, because theyre doing transactional deals, that will create lots and lots of messes which will implicate European interests, said Stefan Lehne, a former Austrian diplomat who now works at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based think tank. One prominent U.S. advocate of European unity was concerned about Europes ability to weather the Trump tsunami. As the European Union battles skeptical forces, U.S. cheerleading and support has been welcomed, outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Anthony Gardner said last week. If there isnt someone like a [Secretary of State John F.] Kerry or an Obama . . . reminding people of the importance of the European Union, then theres a vacuum. French leaders, who face tough presidential elections in April, also appeared to be scrambling to handle the fallout. Trump allies have expressed support for the anti-E.U., anti-immigrant National Front party, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is doing well in opinion polls. Le Pen lunched in the basement of Trump Tower last week in the company of a man who has served as an informal conduit for Trumps contacts with Euroskeptic European leaders, although the Trump transition team denied any formal meeting with the French politician. The best response is European unity, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. As with the case of Brexit, the best way to defend Europe is to remain united. This is a bit of an invitation that we are making to Mr. Trump. To remain a bloc. Not to forget that the force of Europeans is in their unity. But the most wishful approach to Trumps declarations may have come from Luxembourg, where the nations top diplomat said he hoped Trump was still in campaign mode. One must hope that the statements of candidate Trump starting Friday will go in a different direction, said Luxembourgs foreign minister, Jean Asselborn. If the risks are summed up, it would be very destabilizing, which is not in the interest of America. Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report. Read more: Trump officials might be expecting E.U. to fall apart this year Meet the Donald Trumps of Europe After Brexit and Trump, Europeans are liking the E.U. again Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Antonio Tajani of EPP and Helga Stevens of ECR during the European Parliament presidential debate at the Residence Palace in Brussels on Jan. 11, 2017. (Stephanie Lecocq/European Pressphoto Agency) One of the most powerful jobs in the European Union is up for grabs Tuesday but few on this continent know about the election. The president of the European Parliament, a bit like the U.S. House speaker, has a sweeping ability to dictate the course of legislation that will affect the half-billion E.U. residents. But the race for the vacant job has generated little attention, despite efforts by European leaders to boost the legitimacy of the 28-nation bloc. As Europe struggles like never before in its modern history to hold itself together, its leaders success will depend on their ability to convince citizens that the E.U. headquarters of Brussels serves ordinary people, not itself. Failure could mean an E.U. breakup. Worriers point toward the world wars, the likes of which the E.U. was designed to avert. Which is why the silence about the Parliaments president is an ominous sign for the European Unions future. At a time when President-elect Donald Trump fetes European leaders who aim to break up the bloc, advocates of the border-free European dream need to seize every chance they can to connect with citizens. From the outside, its an example of everything thats wrong with the European Parliament and everything thats wrong with the idea theres an E.U.-level democracy, said Giles Merritt, founder of Friends of Europe, a pro-E. U. think tank. The European Parliament is a frequent target of euroskeptic forces across the continent, even though it was designed to give the E.U. a sprinkling of democratically elected leaders amid the unelected bureaucrats who write regulations covering such varied sectors as the safety of tomatoes, vehicle pollution and Facebooks business practices. It is an easy institution to mock. Packed with 751 members, it cannot propose any legislation but can only give a stamp of approval to laws that emerge from the bureaucracy of the European Commission. Some of its members are idealists or eminent former ministers from their home countries who throw themselves into the complicated business of reviewing regulations and holding agencies accountable. Others are party flunkies searching for a well-paid, low-stress sinecure. The entire apparatus legislators, assistants, translators, journalists and lobbyists travels to Strasbourg one week a month to the Parliaments second seat. Why? Because France wants it that way and it is baked into E.U. treaties, so no one can change it. The schlep costs about $118 million a year, according to auditors. Oh, and the European Parliaments administrative staff? Theyre in Luxembourg. The European Parliament is an institution that actually has a lot of power but at the end of the day, limited responsibility, since there are few ways to oust lawmakers during their five-year terms, said Alexander Stubb, who was a member of the legislature before becoming Finlands prime minister from 2014 to 2015. The presidency is still one of the top five jobs that you can have in Europe, he said. Its a big post and you need to respect it. But few ordinary European citizens are aware there is a race, nor are they familiar with the candidates, who will be voted on by their fellow legislators. Instead, national politics is dominating headlines: Britain is engulfed by turmoil over its impending E.U. exit. France is consumed by a presidential election that an anti-E. U. candidate might win. And anti-immigrant forces are breathing down German Chancellor Angela Merkels neck ahead of autumn elections there. Seven candidates are competing for the legislatures top job, which was vacated in November by Martin Schulz, a Social Democrat who quit to consider running for chancellor in his native Germany. Only three longtime insiders have any chance of winning: a protege of the flamboyant center-right Italian ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi; a veteran center-left Italian candidate; and Belgiums centrist former prime minister. Critics say none of them offer fresh ideas to shake up the institution. This has been a result of the old boys network, Helga Stevens, a Belgian candidate for the presidency from a small center-right party, said at a debate Wednesday. Five men from a small amount of countries have been running the E.U. for the last few years. But the insiders themselves say they see nothing wrong with the arrangement. Anyone who is president of the European Parliament is going to be some kind of insider, otherwise he wouldnt be elected, said Manfred Weber, head of the largest bloc in the European Parliament, the center-right European Peoples Party. He made the comment at a news conference he held to complain that his partys candidate, former Berlusconi spokesman Antonio Tajani, had to run in a competitive race at all, since he said that opposing parties signed a secret agreement in 2014 to throw support to the center-right party after 2 years of center-left control. (The opponents admit to signing the agreement but say it no longer applies.) Tajani has offered few specifics for his vision for the Parliament. We need a strong president, a strong Parliament, he said at this weeks debate. The spectacle has many independent pro-European advocates wringing their hands. This is a deal among the establishment parties, but there are political revolutions going on in national politics, said Heather Grabbe, head of the Open Society European Policy Institute. Read more Opinion polls missed Trump and Brexit. This French newspaper says it has the solution. Europe may face a grim future with terrorism as a fact of life The future of the E.U. is at stake as Europes leaders face a new fear: Voters Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news The body of a 38-year old man, frozen to death, was found near a cafe in Yerevan on Artsakh Avenue. It appears the man had no permanent abode, but slept in an abandoned building. Theres only one homeless shelter for people to go to in all of Armenia the one run by the Hans Christian Kofoed Charitable Foundation in Vardashen, a town in Yerevan province. Three years ago, Hetq wrote that there were an estimated 1,000 homeless in Yerevan alone. There is no indication that this number has gone down since. Currently, there are 108 people staying warm at the Hans Christian shelter. Many are senior citizens with no family on the outside. I have no other family. By luck or by accident, Ive wound up here, says 38-year old resident Garegin Kaladjyan. He lives in the shelter with his mother Aghavni. Garegin moved here in December 2013, when the homeless shelter in the village of Haghtanak was moved to Vardashen and combined with the Danish-Armenian Hans Christian Kofoed Charitable Foundation. Mr. Kaladjyan sometimes gets bit parts in films and TV. His mother doesnt work. Im in love with this woman who cant see. I would just like to ask if there might be a benefactor out there who could allot me some small space where the two of us could live, Garegin says. He then calls on relatives in the U.S. to assist him. The man says he only stays at the shelter because of his mother. Hasmik Daveyan lives at the shelter with her 18-year old daughter Ani. Hasmik says her husband, an Artsakh War vet died, she and her daughter wound up on the street. Shavarsh Khachatryan, Director of the Hans Christian Kofoed Charitable Foundation, says that the shelter is fairly well funded, in equal shares by Armenias Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Danish side. The Armenian government provides 56 million AMD, an amount that covers food, utilities and wages at the shelter. While Mr. Khachatryan says the shelter was envisaged to house 100, it could, in a stretch accommodate up to 150. We mustnt let our people die of cold outside. Thats why weve taken additional steps to obtain beds and mattresses. We have 108 residents now, even though plans were for 100. Thats to say our Danish colleagues pick up the tab for the difference. There shouldnt be any homeless out on the streets in Armenia during the cold winter, says Mr. Khachatryan. The director recalls that two years ago, also due to the biting cold, many sought refuge at the shelter. He says that some of the residents, mostly over fifty, can sometimes find work in construction and at bakeries. During the summer, some get work cleaning municipal parks. The U.S. military has deployed unarmed Predator drones and more than 100 troops to Niger, where they are spying on extremist groups in the region and assisting French forces in Mali. The U.S. drones operate from a Nigerien military base in the capital of Niamey. (Craig Whitlock/The Washington Post) The newest outpost in the U.S. governments empire of drone bases sits behind a razor-wire-topped wall outside this West African capital, blasted by 110-degree heat and the occasional sandstorm blowing from the Sahara. The U.S. Air Force began flying a handful of unarmed Predator drones from here last month. The gray, mosquito-shaped aircraft emerge sporadically from a borrowed hangar and soar north in search of al-Qaeda fighters and guerrillas from other groups hiding in the regions untamed deserts and hills. The harsh terrain of North and West Africa is rapidly emerging as yet another front in the United States long-running war against terrorist networks, a conflict that has fueled a revolution in drone warfare. Since taking office in 2009, President Obama has relied heavily on drones for operations, both declared and covert, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. U.S. drones also fly from allied bases in Turkey, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. Now, they are becoming a fixture in Africa. The U.S. military has built a major drone hub in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, and flies unarmed Reaper drones from Ethiopia. Until recently, it conducted reconnaissance flights over East Africa from the island nation of the Seychelles. View Graphic AQIMs area of influence The Predator drones in Niger, a landlocked and dirt-poor country, give the Pentagon a strategic foothold in West Africa. Niger shares a long border with Mali, where an al-Qaeda affiliate and other Islamist groups have taken root. Niger also borders Libya and Nigeria, which are also struggling to contain armed extremist movements. Like other U.S. drone bases, the Predator operations in Niger are shrouded in secrecy. The White House announced Feb. 22 that Obama had deployed about 100 military personnel to Niger on an intelligence collection mission, but it did not make any explicit reference to drones. Since then, the Defense Department has publicly acknowledged the presence of drones here but has revealed little else. The Africa Command, which oversees U.S. military missions on the continent, denied requests from a Washington Post reporter to interview American troops in Niger or to tour the military airfield where the drones are based, near Niameys international airport. Government officials in Niger, a former French colony, were slightly more forthcoming. President Issoufou Mahamadou said his government invited Washington to send surveillance drones because he was worried that the country might not be able to defend its borders from Islamist fighters based in Mali, Libya or Nigeria. We welcome the drones, Mahamadou said in an interview at the presidential palace in Niamey. Citing the feeble capability of many West African militaries, he said Niger which is three times the size of California and its neighbors desperately needed foreign help to track the movements of guerrillas across the Sahara and Sahel, an arid territorial belt that covers much of the region. Our countries are like the blind leading the blind, he said. We rely on countries like France and the United States. We need cooperation to ensure our security. Surveillance operations The Predator drones in Niger are unarmed, U.S. officials said, though they have not ruled out equipping the aircraft with Hellfire missiles in the future. For now, the drones are conducting surveillance over Mali and Niger. U.S. officials said they share video footage and other intelligence collected by the unmanned aircraft with French forces and African troops including 670 soldiers from Niger who are fighting the Islamist insurgency in Mali. Liaison officers from Niger, France and Chad work alongside U.S. Air Force personnel who launch and land the drones from the base in Niamey. Most of the surveillance missions are designed to track broad patterns of human activity and are not aimed at hunting individuals, said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. Although French and African troops are engaged in combat in Mali, the Obama administration has not given the U.S. military the same authorization. The whole issue is lethality, the senior official said. We dont want to abet a lethal action. But the rules of engagement are blurry. Intelligence gathered by the Predators could indirectly help the French fix targets for airstrikes or prompt Nigerien security forces to take action on their territory. Moreover, U.S. officials have acknowledged that they could use lethal force under certain circumstances. Last month, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the U.S. military had designated a handful of high-value individuals in North Africa for their suspected connections to al-Qaeda, making them potential targets for capture or killing. Missions duration unclear The Pentagon declined to say exactly how many Predator aircraft it has sent to Niger or how long it intends to keep them there. But there are signs that the U.S. military wants to establish a long-term presence in West Africa. After years of negotiations, the Obama administration signed an agreement with Niger in January that provides judicial protection and other safeguards for U.S. troops in the country. Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said the Pentagon ultimately wants to move the Predators to the Saharan city of Agadez, in northern Niger. Agadez is closer to parts of southern Algeria and southern Libya where fighters and arms traffickers allied with al-Qaeda have taken refuge. The airfield in Agadez, however, is rudimentary and needs improvements before it can host drones, officials said. The U.S. military has used Agadez since last year as a refueling stop for U-28 spy planes small, piloted aircraft flown by private contractors. U.S. officials have hesitated to send those surveillance aircraft across the border into Mali because of fears that the crews could be taken hostage if the planes crash or are shot down. Government officials in Niger declined to say whether they viewed the U.S. drones as a short-term fix or a permanent addition. I cant tell you how long they will be here, said Mahamadou, the president. How long it will take to stabilize Mali is one factor. The stabilization of Libya is another. At the same time, he said Niger cannot rely on French and U.S. military forces forever and needs to ensure its own security. To that end, the U.S. government has agreed to give Niger two Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft to transport troops and conduct surveillance. The intelligence is crucial for us, said Col. Mamane Souley, director of exterior relations for the Nigerien armed forces. We have a vast territory, and in that sense aircraft are fundamentally important. Low profile in Muslim nation The presence of high-tech Predator drones in Nigers skies contrasts jarringly with life on the ground. There are only a handful of paved roads in the capital. Many people live in mud-brick shanties. Goats and camels are a common sight in the city center. U.S. and Nigerien officials had worried that the drones might spur a popular backlash in Niger, where about 90 percent of the population is Muslim. Extra security barriers were raised outside the U.S. and French embassies as a precaution. So far, however, reaction has been muted, and many people seem to favor anything that the U.S. and French militaries can do to prevent a spillover of violence from Mali. Of course, we might have some narrow-minded Nigeriens, said Marou Amadou, who serves as Nigers justice minister and its chief government spokesman. But people understand that the presence of these drones is very, very helpful. . . . What is happening in Mali could happen in Niger also. Nonetheless, U.S. troops have kept a low profile. Americans with short haircuts and a military bearing occasionally surface at a couple of Niamey hotels to eat barbecue or drink beer, but most confine themselves to the base. The Africa Command did not respond to questions about how many U.S. troops are in Niger, but one U.S. official said the number of Air Force personnel had increased beyond the 100 troops Obama said last month he had deployed. We just know there are drones; we dont know what they are doing exactly, said Djibril Abarchi, chairman of the Nigerien Association for the Defense of Human Rights, an independent watchdog group. Nothing is visible. There is no transparency in our country with military questions. No one can tell you whats going on. Most Nigeriens are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist networks affiliate, and recognize that their country is vulnerable without foreign military help, said Boureima Abdou Daouda, an imam in Niamey who leads a regional council of religious leaders that advises governments on countering extremism. At the same time, as in many African countries, the presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue given the history of colonialism in Niger. Daouda warned that the government could face trouble if it doesnt shore up popular support and do a better job of publicly explaining why the American drones are necessary. Someone with bad intentions could say, They are here to cause strife with Muslims, he said. People might demonstrate. They might riot. Big flames begin with little flames. Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates at the Justice Department on May 15, 2015. Yates made recommendations on clemency for federal inmates to President Obama. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post) Justice Department officials have completed their review of more than 16,000 clemency petitions filed by federal prisoners over the past two years and sent their last recommendations to President Obama, who is set to grant hundreds more commutations to nonviolent drug offenders during his final days in office. Everyone has killed themselves here to get the final recommendations to the president, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates said in an interview. We were in overdrive. We were determined to live up to our commitment. It was 24-7 over the Christmas break. U.S. Pardon Attorney Robert A. Zauzmer has not taken a day off since Yates brought him on in February 2016 to sift through the backlog of thousands of petitions. From her home in Atlanta, Yates said she reviewed hundreds of petitions during the holidays. [Struggling to fix a broken system: How Obama began to unwind the drug war] As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, Justice officials worry that his administration will dismantle Obamas clemency initiative, which has resulted in the early release of 1,176 drug offenders who were sentenced under the severe mandatory minimum laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s during the nations war on drugs. More than 400 were serving life sentences. Yates said Obama will grant a significant number of commutations this week, but would not specify a number. Several people close to the process said it will be several hundred. Those officials also fear that the next attorney general may undo new criminal justice policies. Then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. put in place a policy three years ago to reserve the most severe drug-offense penalties for high-level or violent drug traffickers and no longer charge low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that impose severe mandatory minimum sentences. Justice Department data indicate that prosecutors are now focusing on more-serious drug cases, and there have been fewer charges that carry mandatory sentences. Neither Trump nor his attorney general-nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), has said what actions might be taken on drug charging policy or clemency, but during his campaign, Trump criticized Obamas initiative to grant commutations. Some of these people are bad dudes, he said. And these are people who are out, theyre walking the streets. Sleep tight, folks. Yates, who has been responsible for the day-to-day running of the 113,000-employee Justice Department, led the clemency initiative alongside other criminal justice reform efforts. In November, for instance, she created a semiautonomous school district for inmates in federal prison. With its own superintendent, the school district offers programs for literacy, high school diplomas and postsecondary education. She cited research that shows that inmates participating in correctional education programs are 43 percent less likely to reoffend and return to prison than those who do not participate; the initiative could mean cost savings for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Federal prison costs represent about one-third of the Justice Departments $27 billion annual budget. Last year, Yates also oversaw the effort to mandate new standards for privately run halfway houses and directed the Bureau of Prisons to work to end its use of private prisons to house federal inmates. It is unclear whether these initiatives will remain in place, especially given that Trump has praised private prisons. I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to work a lot better, Trump said last year. Hours after his election victory, the stock prices of the two largest private-prison companies soared. Yates pushed hard for sentencing reform legislation in Congress, giving speeches and meeting with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The effort had a broad coalition of bipartisan support, including from the NAACP, the conservative Koch brothers, and lawmakers including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). But the legislation, which would have reduced federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug and gun crimes, making the reductions retroactive for some inmates, went nowhere because of disagreement among Senate Republicans. I am really disappointed, Yates said. We had this moment in time where we had Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals and all sorts of interest groups. We even had the votes in the Senate but couldnt get it to the floor. At several points during the past two years, it appeared that Obamas clemency initiative might have been derailed, partly by a lack of resources but also by a cumbersome review process. After Holder and then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole began the effort in the spring of 2014, thousands of inmates applied. To help them with their petitions, outside lawyers formed an organization called Clemency Project 2014, which includes Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. About 4,000 volunteer lawyers signed up to help in what has become one of the largest pro bono efforts in the history of the legal profession in the United States. Once the lawyers submitted the petitions, the U.S. pardon attorney made recommendations to the deputy attorney general, who reviewed the cases and sent them to the White House counsel, who also reviewed them before choosing which ones went to Obama. When Yates arrived at Justice in the spring of 2015, the clemency program was overwhelmed and bogged down. Advocates criticized the inefficient process and urged the Obama administration to pick up the pace for the inmates waiting for relief from unfair sentences. There wasnt an apparatus set up, Yates said. When I arrived, they were doing the best they could . . . but we didnt really have a playbook. Early last year, more than 9,000 clemency petitions were pending, and the pardon attorney at the time was so frustrated that she quit. Yates brought on Zauzmer, a longtime federal prosecutor, who prioritized applications so that Justice lawyers could focus on inmates who met the criteria: Inmates had to have served at least 10 years; had no significant criminal history; no connection to gangs, cartels or organized crime; and probably would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted today. These are big decisions that youre making, Yates said, alluding to the public-safety risks and the need to provide a sophisticated analysis to the president. If its to let someone out of prison early, earlier than what their original sentence was, youve got to be careful about those decisions, she said. Theres lots of people whose current offense or conviction is a nonviolent drug offense . . . but you have to look at their past as well and at their criminal history. You have to look at their conduct [in prison]. Not all inmates who have been granted clemency will be released immediately or even in a number of months. Last summer, the Obama administration began granting clemency to some inmates by reducing their sentences; in some cases, they will remain in prison for years. At the end of August, Yates announced that she would review and give Obama a recommendation on every petition from a drug offender that was still in the departments possession at that time about 6,195 petitions. She did that, and included several hundred petitions received through Sept. 15, after her cutoff date. She also reviewed petitions that came in as late as Nov. 30 from drug offenders serving life sentences. By last Friday, the final number of petitions reviewed was 16,776. Sally deserves a lot of credit, Holder said in an interview. She set this goal of looking at every drug-clemency petition, and they accomplished that. The inmates whose names are on those clemency petitions are in a dark place, and the hope of clemency is the only light they have, said Sharanda Jones, 49, who received a commutation from Obama in December 2015 after serving nearly 17 years of a mandatory life sentence for her first conviction, a nonviolent drug offense. Clemency from President Obama literally saved my life, said Jones, who now lives in Dallas near her 25-year-old daughter and 7-month-old granddaughter. I could never thank him enough for the priceless gift of freedom, but I hope that my actions and the positive way I live my life show him the depths of my gratitude. The FBI arrested the wife of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen on Monday, charging her with serious federal crimes in connection with the attack, authorities said. Noor Salman was arrested at a residence in Rodeo, Calif., outside of San Francisco, on charges of obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, according to federal authorities and Orlando Police Chief John Mina. She is scheduled to appear in federal court in Oakland at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, though the charges were filed in the Middle District of Florida, authorities said. Attorneys for Salman did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Officials did not immediately release documents detailing what evidence they have that Salman committed the federal crimes of which she is charged. [Who is Noor Zahi Salman, wife of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen?] Salman, 30, had been under FBI scrutiny since Mateens shooting rampage left 49 people dead inside the nightclub, an attack that was inspired by the Islamic State. He was then fatally shot by police. Salman is the only person to face charges in the case. An undated photo from a social media account of Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter. (Reuters) It was always our goal, and we said from the beginning, we were going to look at every aspect of this case, at every aspect of this shooters life, to determine not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved, is there any other accountability that needs to be had here in this case, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Monday on MSBNC. A law enforcement official had previously told The Washington Post that Salman was with her husband on at least one trip to the club before the attack, and that she at one point went with him to buy ammunition. The FBI had interviewed Salman extensively after the attack, trying to determine what, if anything, she knew about his intentions. Mina said in a statement that he was glad to see that Salman had been charged with aiding her husband, as it brought some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime. Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months, and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served in this act of terror that has affected our community so deeply, said Mina, whose officers responded to the attack. In an interview with the New York Times, which first reported the arrest, Salman denied any involvement or knowledge of what her husband was going to do. She said her husband beat her and lived his life in secret. Salman told the Times that she did not view her husbands buying ammunition as suspicious, and she had no idea he was checking out Pulse when she drove with him to Orlando. I was unaware of everything, she told the Times. I dont condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people. Noor Salman faces charges that include obstruction of justice in connection with the attack that left 49 dead. (AP) [They took too damn long: Inside the police response to the Orlando shooting] Authorities have said previously that Mateen, 29, seemed to have been radicalized online, and that the FBI had investigated him for 10 months beginning in 2013 after he talked at work about his connections with al-Qaeda and dying a martyr. Authorities ultimately concluded that he had no actual connections, and they closed their probe of Mateen which included putting him under surveillance and recording his calls with no charges. FBI Director James B. Comey has said the bureau would scrutinize its earlier interactions with Mateen, but an early review found that agents could not have done anything differently. During his rampage at Pulse, Mateen called police and professed allegiance to the Islamic State during a series of talks with dispatchers and negotiators. Law enforcement officials have faced criticism for not moving quickly enough to confront him, particularly after he holed up with hostages inside a bathroom in the club. Before the attack, Salman, Mateens second wife, had been living with her husband in Fort Piece, Fla., though she had family in Rodeo and was believed to have been staying there more recently. Those who knew her described her as friendly, outgoing and stylish. She and Mateen had a young son. In her interview with the Times, Salman said that when her husband told her he would not be home for dinner the afternoon before the attack, she asked him not to go. But Mateen left anyway, by Salmans account, saying he had to go see a friend. Salman told the Times that she tried to call her husband on the morning of the attack, and he sent her a text asking if she had seen what happened. When she responded she had not, according to the Times, he wrote back, I love you babe. That was their last contact. In recent mass shootings, federal authorities have moved aggressively to charge those with connections to the incidents or even just to those involved. Joey Meek, friend of the man accused of killing nine black church members in a mass shooting in Charleston, S.C., pleaded guilty in April to lying to the FBI and concealing his knowledge of the crimes. Dylann Roof, who was convicted of killing nine people in that case and has been sentenced to death, had stayed with Meek and his relatives, and Meek told The Washington Post in a previous interview that Roof had spoken of going to the church and doing something crazy. Federal authorities charged Enrique Marquez Jr., who bought the assault rifles used in the San Bernardino terrorist attack that killed 14 people, with conspiring to carry out two other attacks in 2012. And they arrested three people tied to one of the San Bernardino attackers on charges of marriage fraud, conspiracy and lying under oath. The entrance to the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center, at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. (Ben Fox/AP) Ten former inmates of the U.S. detention facility in Cubas Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to Oman for humanitarian reasons, where they will temporarily resided, the Omani Foreign Ministry announced Monday. The transfer is part of a last minute effort by the Obama administration to resettle as many as 19 inmates to Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates and even Italy before the end of its term. President Obama had promised on his 2009 inauguration to close the facility opened by his predecessor and once housing around 700 inmates accused of terrorism charges. Congress stymied Obamas efforts, however, by refusing to allow any inmates be transferred to U.S. soil, forcing the search for countries abroad to take them. Under Obama, 179 prisoners were resettled. The statement by the Omani Foreign Ministry said that the men released from Guantanamo would temporarily reside in the country. The move was in response to a request by the U.S. government and out of consideration for their humanitarian situation. The statement did not identify the prisoners names or nationalities. There has been no official announcement by the U.S. government, but a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the transfer of the 10 detainees. An estimated 40 inmates will remain in the facility, which President-elect Donald Trump has pledged he would keep open and load it up with some bad dudes. The detention facility, which operates outside the U.S. legal framework, has long been criticized by human rights and legal experts. Prisoners first arrived in Guantanamo in January 2002 and it became a depository for those accused of plotting terrorism against the United States. But 16 years later, even the main suspects in the 9/11 attack, including mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have yet to be tried. Additional reporting by Missy Ryan and Julie Tate from Washington, D.C. Read more: With final detainee transfer, Obamas Guantanamo policy takes its last breath Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Pope Francis shakes hands with people after celebrating mass at the Santa Maria parish in Setteville, on the outskirts of Rome, during a pastoral visit on Sunday. VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images) The Vatican has continued to receive a high number of reports of sexual abuse by clerics during Pope Franciss papacy, according to a new book that also reexamines allegations against several of the pontiffs top advisers involving coverups or worse. The book by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi an advance copy of which was provided to The Washington Post, and which is to be published Thursday argues that little has changed in the way the church handles sexual abuse cases despite Franciss creation of a special commission for the protection of minors and a declaration of zero tolerance of abuse. The church is still afraid of the taboo, Fittipaldi said in an interview. Francis has been credited by some with taking more decisive action on abuse cases than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, did. Francis has set down a process for removing bishops for negligence in the handling of abuse cases and ordered the trial before a church tribunal of a Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic after accusations of sexual abuse surfaced. But Francis also has promoted officials who have been tainted by accusations of abuse or coverups, and the Vatican has been accused of still not doing enough. Even as it states that the flow of abuse reports has not slackened, the book, titled Lust, contains few revelations about new cases. Rather, it reexamines church responses to allegations that have mostly been previously aired, occasionally adding fresh details. Fittipaldis work has dogged the church before. Last year, he was tried in a Vatican court on charges of illegally publishing internal documents in a 2015 book, titled Greed, on Pope Franciss crusade to clean up Vatican corruption and excess. The charges were dismissed on the grounds that Fittipaldi is not a church official and the court therefore had no jurisdiction. The Vatican declined to comment on the details of the new book, which recounts several long-standing allegations against several members of Franciss Council of Cardinal Advisers, a group of nine senior officials who have the popes ear. Australian authorities, for instance, have been probing Cardinal George Pell, the top financial adviser to the pope, on multiple allegations of sexual abuse. Pell has strongly denied the charges. Fittipaldi claims to have unearthed documents showing Pell also sought to financially aid priests who had been jailed on pedophilia charges. Pell denied the accounts in Fittipaldis book, calling them smears. The work is not just a particularly shoddy and dated piece of journalism, which merely restates false allegations against the Cardinal in a blatant attempt to blacken his name and reputation, it is simply erroneous on many accounts, according to a statement issued by Pells office. The book also notes that Francis elevated Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, the former archbishop of Santiago, Chile, to a position on his council despite documents showing Errazuriz long ignored sex abuse claims against a priest under his jurisdiction. Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has promised more transparency and accountability in sexual assault accusations linked to clerics, a subject that has plagued the church for years. In a small number of cases, Francis has intervened by directly contacting victims and instructing local bishops to take the charges seriously. But Francis, Fittipaldi argues, has not necessarily held accountable bishops who have obstructed cases. He cites, for instance, the case of a former altar boy in the Spanish city of Granada who was personally called by the pope after coming forward with allegations that he was abused by 10 priests. A letter from the victims father published in the book says the archbishop of Granada, Francisco Javier Martinez Fernandez, did not encourage his son to press charges and for a time withheld information from investigating authorities. However, the Vatican did not sanction Martinez. Citing Vatican documents, the book also states that roughly 1,200 sexual abuse cases were filed with the Holy See during Franciss first three years in office suggesting a pace similar to that in the last two years of Benedicts papacy. In one notable case, the book says, an Italian priest defrocked in 2012 after being accused of sexually abusing several minors was reinstated to the priesthood in 2014 with the authorization of Francis, though only to live out a life of prayer and humble discretion as a sign of conversion and repentance. Read more U.N. panel blasts Vatican handling of clergy sex abuse New books allege mismanagement, excess at the Vatican Australian Catholics torn over allegations against their cardinal Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news Haitian migrants seeking asylum in the United States queue at the El Chaparral border crossing in the hope of getting an appointment with U.S. migration authorities, in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, on Oct. 7, 2016. (AFP/Getty Images) Several weeks ago, a former Guatemalan police officer walked up to U.S. private security guards at the border crossing here and asked for asylum in the United States. I am fleeing my country, the policeman later recalled telling the guards, explaining that he had survived two attempts on his life. I am being persecuted in a matter of life and death. The policeman said he was told he needed to see Mexican immigration authorities, who would put him on a waiting list to make his case to U.S. officials. But Mexican authorities refused to add him to the list, the policeman said, and he has been stuck in northern Mexico. The Guatemalan is one of hundreds or perhaps thousands of foreigners who have been blocked in recent months from reaching U.S. asylum officials along the border, according to accounts from migrants and immigration lawyers and advocates. The details of their cases vary. At the U.S. border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego, numerous asylum seekers from Central America and Mexico have been referred to Mexican authorities for an appointment with U.S. officials but Mexican authorities often turn them down, according to migrants and immigration lawyers. In other places, migrants have been told by U.S. border agents that the daily quota for asylum cases has been reached or that a visa is required for asylum seekers, a statement that runs contrary to law, immigration advocates say. A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Michael Friel, said that there has been no policy change affecting asylum procedures, which are based on international law aimed at protecting some of the worlds most vulnerable and persecuted people. And we dont tolerate any kind of abuse by U.S. border officials, he said. But the proliferation of problems has raised alarm among advocates for migrants. This is happening on a daily basis, said Kathryn Shepherd, a lawyer with the American Immigration Council, a Washington-based advocacy group, who says she has testimony from dozens of asylum seekers denied access to U.S. asylum officials at border crossings in San Diego; Nogales, Ariz.; and Texas cities including Laredo, El Paso and McAllen. The council and five other organizations filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Securitys Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on Friday protesting the systemic denial of entry to asylum seekers. The U.S. border agency Customs and Border Protection, or CBP is part of the department. The surge in complaints comes as migrant advocates fear a broad crackdown on the border, one of President-elect Donald Trumps main campaign promises. The United States has long adhered to international laws and conventions allowing people to seek asylum on grounds that they are being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political beliefs or other factors. If a Border Patrol agent encounters a U.S.-bound migrant without legal papers and the person expresses fear of being returned to their home country, our officers are required to process them for an interview with an asylum officer, said Friel. The number of asylum applicants has been soaring. Some 83,000 such requests were filed at U.S. airports, border crossings and other entry points in 2015, more than double the number in 2011, according to a November report from the Department of Homeland Security. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post) Bureaucratic change On a rainy morning three days before Christmas, a 34-year-old Honduran woman walked up to the Laredo border crossing with her 6-year-old daughter. The woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Xiomara, to protect her safety, said in an interview that she had fled an abusive husband who beat her and her children with belts and machetes. At the border, a U.S. official told her she needed a visa to cross, the Honduran recalled. I told him that I dont have a visa but I want asylum and he told me no, get out of here, and go back to your country, Xiomara said, according to a written declaration she made to her lawyer under penalty of perjury. When she tried to plead her case, a female U.S. border guard told me they didnt want illegals in her country and to come back if I had a visa, Xiomara said. Two days later, she said, she swam across the Rio Grande and was picked up by U.S. Border Patrol officers. On Jan. 3, she received a positive finding in her interview with an asylum officer, suggesting she has a good probability of winning her asylum case. Diego Iniguez-Lopez, a law graduate based in Dilley, Tex., who works with detained migrants, said he started hearing about cases of rebuffed migrants after the U.S. presidential election. Friel, the CBP spokesman, said there is zero [evidence] to corroborate any kind of change in tone or guidance or policy since Trumps victory. In Tijuana, one of the borders busiest crossings, lawyers, migrants and human rights advocates describe a bureaucratic change that appears to have gone awry. Over the past year, at least 16,000 Haitians descended on the city, many of whom had fled to Brazil after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and then rushed north once the Brazilian recession started to bite. With migrant shelters filled and Haitians sleeping on the street outside the port of entry, U.S. and Mexican authorities organized a new ticketing system to bring order to the chaos, according to Mexican officials. Under it, U.S. officials would refer Haitian migrants to Mexican authorities to receive a number on a waiting list, then process a limited number per day, currently about 20 to 50 people, officials said. The problem is that U.S. border authorities have been referring not just Haitians but other Latin American asylum seekers to the Mexican authorities, according to migrants, lawyers and staff at migrant shelters. And the Mexican authorities refuse to issue numbers to those people because the system is designed to handle only Haitians, said the head of Mexicos immigration office in Tijuana, Rodulfo Figueroa. Some migrants eventually reach a U.S. asylum officer with the help of lawyers; others venture elsewhere along the dangerous border or return home, said migrant advocates and shelter staff. Weve basically arrived at a place where applying for asylum is not available to most people, said Ian Philabaum of the Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit organization that works with immigration lawyers. Philabaum visited several migrant shelters in Tijuana in early November. He met 35 people, the majority Mexicans, who were denied or deterred the ability to request asylum, according to a memo he wrote after his investigation. A spokeswoman for the U.S. border agency in San Diego, Angelica De Cima, declined to provide information about the new ticketing system, beyond saying that the United States has collaborated with the Mexican authorities to improve the processing and humanitarian assistance of those individuals with no legal status to enter the U.S. This is being done to temporarily house the individuals in a more comfortable location and out of the elements. Not going back In early December, more than 20 migrant shelters and immigration organizations in northern Mexico sent a letter to senior Mexican officials saying it was illegal for Mexico to act as the gatekeeper for U.S. migration authorities. Mexican authorities do not have the ability or training to participate in the process and, when they do so, commit serious errors and violations of migrants human rights, the letter said. A 50-year-old Guatemalan woman who said two of her sons were killed by gangs tried on two occasions in November to apply for U.S. asylum at the Tijuana-San Diego crossing. But she was told by Mexican authorities that she would have to return to southern Mexico, where she had entered the country, to obtain legal papers allowing her to transit through Mexico, according to a copy of her personal statement given to The Washington Post by a shelter where she was interviewed. She traveled east to Nogales, but U.S. officials there also referred her to Mexican authorities, who told her she did not have the right to request asylum, according to her statement. Joanna Williams, director of education and advocacy with the Nogales-based Kino Border Initiative, which helps migrants recently deported from the United States, said U.S. Border Patrol officials in recent months have periodically rejected asylum seekers, claiming they do not have the capacity to process them. The Guatemalan policeman, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Wilson, because of fear for his safety, said he has been blocked at least four times in Tijuana from speaking with U.S. border officials. On one trip, which was videotaped, the private U.S. security guard told him he needed to go to Mexican immigration authorities. But they told him he could not be put on the waiting list to approach U.S. officials, he said. In the past two years, he said, he has suffered two assaults he was shot at, and hit by a truck while on his motorcycle with his 10-year-old nephew. He suffered a broken skull and his nephew was killed in the truck assault, he said. Wilson attributed both attacks to a person in the government who he said has threatened him. He declined to name the person or provide details of the threats. This is too much for me, he said. But Im not going back to Guatemala for any reason. Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report. Read more Fearing Trumps wall, Central Americans rush to cross the U.S. border How funding Trumps border wall could go south quickly for Republicans With Trumps victory, Mexicos worst fears are realized Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news IRAQ Mosul University is retaken, military says U.S.-backed Iraqi government troops on Sunday fully liberated the sprawling complex of Mosul University, an Iraqi military spokesman said, a major step in the massive operation to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State. The spokesman for the joint military command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, declared the campus under the full control of Iraqi special forces, officially known as the Counter Terrorism Service, whose members raised the Iraqi flag over university buildings. The troops searched campus buildings and removed bombs left by Islamic State militants, Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil of the special forces said. Fadhil added that the troops also entered the nearby Andalus neighborhood. Sundays progress is the latest of several swift territorial gains in recent weeks by the U.S.-backed Iraqi military. Some 30,000 troops a force that includes not only Iraqs conventional army, but also an array of other armed groups, including Shiite and Sunni paramilitary troops and Kurdish fighters are taking part in the Mosul offensive, which began in October. The Islamic State group captured Mosul in 2014 along with nearly a third of Iraq and large parts of neighboring Syria. Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, is the Islamic States last major urban bastion in the country. Associated Press BRAZIL Death toll rises to 27 in more prison riots Twenty-seven inmates have died in eruptions of violence in two northern Brazilian prisons, officials said Sunday, as authorities quelled the latest in a string of prison disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people have died within two weeks. State security officials said that fighting between rival gangs broke out Saturday at the adjacent Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho prisons near the city of Natal in Rio Grande do Norte state. Officials waited until dawn Sunday before entering to try to reimpose control. The recent outbreak of prison violence began Jan. 1-2, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of Brazils most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Four others died at a smaller prison. Then on Jan. 6, in the neighboring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed. Associated Press GAMBIA President-elect in Senegal amid crisis Senegal is hosting Gambias president-elect, Adama Barrow, until his Jan. 19 inauguration, as the small West African countrys longtime leader refuses to step down peacefully despite mediation efforts and calls from regional and international leaders. Gambian President Yahya Jammeh initially conceded to Barrow after losing elections on Dec. 1, but he changed his mind a week later, citing voting irregularities. Jammehs party has submitted a petition to the Supreme Court challenging the results, but there are not enough judges presiding to hear the case. At the request of West Africas regional bloc, ECOWAS, Senegal will host Barrow until he is sworn in, the official said. The bloc has said that if Jammeh does not cede power it will consider military intervention and that it has prepared a standby force led by Senegal, which almost completely surrounds Gambia. Nigerias army has also ordered officers to prepare a battalion of 800 troops. In the past 10 days, several thousand people, mostly women and children in buses, have fled Gambia for Senegal. Associated Press Turkish cargo jet crashes in Kyrgyzstan: A Turkish Airlines cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstans Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 16 people, the Kyrgyzstani government said. Rescue workers had recovered the body of one pilot and 15 local people whose houses were in the Boeing 747s crash area, the health-care ministry said. Stampede in India leaves 6 dead: At least six people were killed in a stampede during a Hindu religious festival in eastern India, an official said. The stampede took place as hundreds of thousands of people assembled on the banks of the Buriganga river in West Bengal state, about 75 miles south of Kolkata. Red Cross worker freed in Afghanistan: The International Committee of the Red Cross said a staff member who was abducted in northern Afghanistan last month has been released. The ICRCs head of delegation in Afghanistan, Monica Zanarelli, said the man is safe and sound and is with the ICRC team in Kunduz. From news services The leader of Italys Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, announced on his return from Christmas holidays that the partys 17 deputies in the European Parliament would leave the euroskeptic group (anti-European Union) and join the pro-European Liberals. The move, which was evidently agreed to with the leader of the Liberal parliamentary group, Guy Verhofstadt, surprised both allies and opponents of Grillo. The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD)to which Grillos Five Star Movement (M5S) has thus far belongedis led by the former head of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage, who played a leading role in the campaign for a British vote to leave the European Union (EU). By contrast, Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, is an enthusiastic supporter of the EU and chief negotiator for the European Parliament in the Brexit talks. Verhofstadts Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) is considered explicitly neo-liberal. It includes the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Free Voters, the Liberal Democrats in Britain, the MoDem and Parti Radical/UDI in France and the right-wing Ciudadanos in Spain. ALDE supports international trade agreements like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which Grillo allegedly opposes. Former Italian Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Mario Monti both belonged to ALDE; both have implemented drastic austerity measures in Italy on behalf of the EU. On January 8, Grillo allowed party members to vote online on the surprising shift, which they approved by 78.5 percent without internal discussion. In a letter to Farage, Grillo remarked on the change, You have won the most important struggle for UKIP, Britains exit from the European Union. An epoch-making result which would not have been possible without your intervention. The Five Star Movement still has to win its struggle. This would be more likely as part of a large parliamentary group rather than the EFDD, which had lost its dynamic and which UKIP will soon leave. There was obviously some backroom horse-trading carried out with Verhofstadt: the Grillini were to have supported Verhofstadts election as European Parliament president on January 17 and could even have nominated a vice-presidential candidate. In exchange, the ALDE group would have ensured the Five Star Movement deputies continue to enjoy the financing, parliamentary positions and opportunities that are bound up with membership in a parliamentary group. But the deal came to nothing: Verhofstadt slammed the door in Grillos face at the last moment. On January 9, the ALDE executive committee refused to give its backing to the agreement. The Grillo deputies reached out to Farage in a Skype discussion, who arranged their reentry into the euroskeptic group, without, however, their group leader David Borrelli. He was compelled to give up his European parliament seat. On his blog, Grillo denounced the narrow-minded Verhofstadt, writing that he ought to be ashamed for bowing to pressure from the establishment. The establishment decided to block the M5S from joining the third largest parliamentary group in the European Parliament, he wrote demagogically. All possible forces have united against us. We have shaken the system like never before. By contrast, the media interpreted Grillos failed about-face in the European Parliament as an attempt to draw closer to the establishment and portray the Grillini as a potential partner in government. According to the Zurich-based Tages-Anzeiger, Grillo wanted to show that the M5S is not the spectre it is believed to be in many European capitals Obviously the M5S is no longer to be primarily viewed as a populist, anti-system movement, but as a political force that wishes to jointly influence reasonably and constructively. Die Presse from Austria wrote, The Five Star Movement, chiefly characterised to date by its rowdiness, would have gladly adopted a more serious image through the alliance with ALDE. Because the Grillini want to enter government. Such hopes are based on opinion polls from December showing support for Grillos movement on the rise. When the December 4 constitutional referendum backed by the Renzi government failed badly, with close to 60 percent voting against it, observers generally saw the M5S as the main beneficiary. Grillo demanded a snap election and openly speculated about the possibility of defeating Matteo Renzis Democrats. The ALDE rejection in Strasbourg is the second setback suffered recently by Grillo. In mid-December, a corruption scandal exploded involving the M5S mayor in Rome, Virginia Raggi. In Rome, the M5S, which began as a diffuse, petty-bourgeois protest party, has proven itself to be an increasingly right-wing and anti-working class tool of bourgeois rule. The attempt to join a neoliberal parliamentary group in the European Parliament was obviously no accident. The party has thoroughly exposed its rotten political character in the Italian capital: it has declared a readiness to impose a drastic austerity programme on city employees and residents. Prior to this, Italys financial controller rejected the citys budgetary proposals. Raggi must now present a new budget by February 28. She must take steps to reduce debt levels, shed obligations, sell city property and save, save, save Grillo, commenting on the crisis in the capital, asserted that the Five Star Movement would fight tooth and nail to change Rome. In this context, this was a direct declaration of war against rubbish collectors, street cleaners, bus and tram drivers, social workers and on Romes residents, who rely on the infrastructure and social services. When the Five Star Movement secured a quarter of the vote in the 2013 parliamentary election, the WSWS warned that Grillos movement stood in opposition to the interests of workers and other employees. They will quickly recognise how right-wing his politics in fact are Under the guise of a struggle against corruption, monopolies and bureaucracy, it [the M5S] advocates an historic assault on the working class and the entire framework of the welfare state established in the post-war period. Grillo already made such policies clear on his blog several years ago: in his offensive against waste, he demanded an attack on the social achievements of the Italian working class. He sought to pit the unemployed and precariously employed young people against better-paid and state workers. He created a division between two blocks: block A, made up of millions of young people without a future, with precarious work or unemployed, and block B, chiefly dependent upon the state with monthly incomes of more than 5,000 [US$ 5,315]. Every month, the state had to pay 19 million pensions and 4 million salaries to them. This burden is unbearable. Grillo advances a nationalist programme, agitates against immigrants and supports the repressive state apparatus. On his blog he recently effusively praised the policemen from Milan who shot the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack, Anis Amri. In the same blog, he proposed a renegotiation of the Schengen and Dublin agreements, and to establish a European database on immigrants. He compared Italy and Europe to a sieve, which can be penetrated by any immigrant, demanding, Now we must act and protect ourselves. He called for all illegal immigrants to be immediately deported. The right-wing character of the Five Star Movement is becoming ever more apparent. Despite this, it continues to have a base of support in Italy. This is due in no small part to the rightward evolution of Italys pseudo-left organisations. Many former supporters of Rifondazione are enthused over Grillos rise. After supporting the bourgeois left camp for 25 years, they are now prepared to join Grillos openly right-wing movement. Eleonora Forenza, the candidate for the European Left Group (GUE/NGL) for the European Parliament presidency, stated, The Five Stars are a contradictory phenomenon. It would be wrong for the left not to turn to the people who vote for the Five Star Movement. The left had to develop political work in this contradiction. Historian Aldo Giannuli, who formerly commented in pieces for Il manifesto, Liberazione and LUnita, enthused last September, Thank heavens that it [the M5S] exists. Although he acknowledged a large number of errors, stupidity, backwardness and omissions, he claimed that only with the M5S could one combat right-wing populism, meaning Frances National Front, the Alternative for Germany, the Finns Party, Donald Trump in the US and the Lega Nord in Italy. The M5S is the only party with such a high poll percentage over such a long period of time, Giannuli wrote in September 2016. He noticed that many in M5S originally came from Rifondazione, the SEL (Left Ecology Freedom, led by Nichi Vendola) or the Democrats. Giannuli informed his blog readers that he had voted for M5S. Some 4,000 US troops, together with tanks, artillery and armored vehicles, arrived in Poland over the weekend, further escalating tensions with Russia ahead of the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. It is the largest US troop deployment in Europe since the Cold War. The troops will be dispersed over seven Eastern European countries, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which border Russia. After nine months, the troops will be replaced with another unit, making the deployment effectively permanent. NATO plans to deploy a further four battalions to the Russian border later this year, including one each to Poland and the three Baltic states. The deployment follows a week in which US politics was dominated by denunciations of Russia and President Vladimir Putin. In Senate confirmation hearings for Trump administration cabinet nominees, senators called Putin a war criminal, an autocrat and a murderer, while newspaper reports and TV broadcasts have been filled with charges of Russian plots to subvert the US elections. The US deployment to Poland is part of the quadrupling of the US defense budget for Eastern Europe in 2017, announced by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter last February. Annual US military spending in the region will rise from $800 million last year to $3.4 billion this year. In addition to deploying ground forces, the US plans to construct a missile defense system in Poland and further stockpile munitions and armaments along the Russian border. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the buildup a threat to our security especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders. He added, Any country may and will take a buildup of foreign military presence along its borders negatively. This is exactly how we take it. The deployment was originally scheduled to take place at the end of this month, after the inauguration, but it was expedited by an Obama administration anxious to prevent any retreat from the aggressive anti-Russia line demanded by dominant sections of the US military and intelligence establishment. The deployment was welcomed by the virulently right-wing and anti-Russian Polish government, which received a formal warning last year from the European Union for violations of the rule of law, democracy and human rights. Since coming to power in October 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) Party has sought to pack the countrys courts with right-wing ideologues and has cracked down on oppositional media. Polish officials hailed the US troops on Saturday with a ceremony in the western Polish town of Zagan. The officials made a series of hysterical remarks, seeking to present Russia as an aggressive menace to the sovereignty of Poland and other Eastern European countries. We have waited for you for a very long time, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz told the assembled troops. We waited for decades feeling that we were the only one who protected civilization from aggression that came from the east. He said the presence of the US military would ensure freedom, independence and peace in Europe and the whole world. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo added, This is an important day for Poland, for Europe, for our common defense. Speaking at the ceremony on Saturday, Paul Jones, the US ambassador to Poland, said the latest deployment signaled an ironclad commitment to Washington's NATO allies. This is Americas most capable fighting force: a combat-ready, highly trained US armored brigade, with our most advanced equipment and weaponry. One of the battalions supplied by the United States will be stationed in eastern Poland in the so-called Suwalki Gap between Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. These troops are intended to serve as a tripwire force, raising the chance of a full-scale military conflict between Russia and the US in the event of a border conflict. The nominal reason for the stepped-up deployment is the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, portrayed by the US and NATO as an act of unilateral aggression by Russia. In reality, Russias move on Crimea was primarily of a defensive character, a response to the February 2014 US-backed and fascist-led coup in Ukraine that threatened to cut off Russias access to its naval base in Sevastopol. The annexation followed an overwhelming referendum vote in mainly Russian-speaking Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. The US and its NATO allies used the annexation as the pretext for a series of retaliatory measures, including economic sanctions directed against the Russian government and individuals. The deployment of US troops has been largely downplayed in the US media, evoking a single mention, as an aside, on ABCs This Week" interview progam on Sunday. It was almost entirely ignored on Meet the Press and Face the Nation. To the extent that US news outlets, like CNN and the New York Times, reported the deployment, it was to present the move as a defense of small states on Russias border. Completely absent from this reporting was any historical context. The Second World War, which led to the deaths of 26 million Soviet citizens, began with the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, which saw the conquest of Poland as the prelude to an invasion of the USSR. Nazi Germany's "war of annihilation" against the Soviet Union began in June of 1941. Hilter considered the conquest of Soviet Russia to be the key to making Germany a world power capable of competing with the United States. Now, as the United States seeks to cement its stranglehold over Eurasia in preparation for a showdown with its main international rival, China, it prepares for a military clash with Russia, the worlds second-ranked nuclear power. While for now Trump has signaled a more accommodative stance toward Russia, this is only for the purpose of focusing US diplomatic, economic and military aggression against China. In an interview published this weekend by the Wall Street Journal, Trump simultaneously said he was open to lifting economic sanctions against Russia and reiterated his willingness to reconsider Washington's longstanding policy of not recognizing Taiwan. The Chinese have warned that such a policy move would lead to a rupture of diplomatic relations. Trump's nominee for secretary of state, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, used his Senate confirmation hearing last week to declare that the US under Trump would block Chinese access to its island posessions in the South China Sea. Chinese sources in response called any such action an act of war. In the increasingly bitter faction fight within the US political establishment over foreign policy, both sides favor military escalation against nuclear-armed powers, whether against Russia or China, with catastrophic consequences for the entire world. On Sunday night, PBS will not premiere a new season of Downton Abbey. The period drama wrapped up last year, but the network is airing a new historical series in its place. Victoria follows the rise of Queen Victoria. Doctor Who alum Jenna Coleman stars as the titular character, whose story starts in 1837 on the day she is told that she will take the throne. The series is different from Downton Abbey. After all, Victoria is retelling a piece of history rather than telling a completely original story. However, the two series share many similarities. Downton fans will likely enjoy these parts of Victoria: Costumes If you love gorgeous period costumes, Victoria provides some serious eye candy. The Queen of England wasnt walking around in anything but the best dresses and tiaras. We tried to reflect in Victorias clothes the emergence of the young queen from an inexperienced teenager, and onward to betrothal and marriage, costume designer Rosalind Ebbutt told Town & Country. The changing fashion of the time also helped reflect this, as the wide puffed sleeves of the late 1830s gave way to tighter sleeves, lower waistlines, and more bell-shaped skirts. Victoria costumes Photo: ITV Plc Opinionated Women Lady Mary would have liked Victoria. As soon as the teenager comes into power, she embraces her role. She is headstrong and ready to fight all the adults who want to tell her what to do. Victoria PBS Photo: ITV Plc Upstairs/Downstairs Conflicts The drama in Downton Abbey was always scandalous, and you should expect nothing less in Victoria. As Victoria moves into Buckingham Palace, there will be some changes to the staff that the downstairs crew will not appreciate. Torchwood alum Eve Myles plays a dresser who wont be happy when new staff members are added without her approval. Story continues Victoria downstairs Photo: ITV Plc Romance You can bet that everyone wants to marry the new queen. Expect plenty of suitors before she weds her husband Prince Albert (Tom Hughes). In the pilot, shell take a particularly fond interest in Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell). Victoria Photo: ITV Plc Victoria Season 1 premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on PBS, following the Sherlock Season 4 finale. Related Articles N'Djamena (AFP) - Seventy-one Chadian soldiers have been killed and 416 wounded in less than three months of fighting in the regional campaign to crush the Boko Haram insurgency, Chad's army said Friday. Chad has sent about 5,000 troops to fight alongside soldiers from Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon against the Islamist radicals whose Nigeria-based insurgency has increasingly spilled over into neighbouring nations. The regional fightback, concentrated in border areas south of Lake Chad and in northeast Nigeria, seems to have stopped the militants' advance for now. Chad army chief General Brahim Seid told reporters in his country's capital N'Djamena the "valiant soldiers" had died since February 3 in the "just and noble cause of bringing peace and security" to the region. "They (troops) have liberated 11 communities in Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria from the hands of Boko Haram," said Seid. "Chadian forces will continue to hunt the terrorists of Boko Haram wherever they are found." The stepped-up efforts against Boko Haram came after the Nigerian army was repeatedly criticised as ill-equipped and ineffective against the jihadists. Nigeria's military -- with major backing from its neighbours -- has since claimed huge victories over Boko Haram in the northeast, retaking a series of towns and villages previously under rebel control over the last two months. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's inability to get a hold on the insurgency that has killed some 13,000 people and sent 1.5 million fleeing their homes was a factor in his defeat at elections last month. Nigeria's president-elect Muhammadu Buhari will not take charge of the fight against Boko Haram until late May, but he has vowed to be a more effective commander-in-chief than Jonathan, in part by ensuring that the military is properly funded and equipped. The UN on Thursday launched an appeal for $174 million (164 million euros) to give "life-saving aid" to the almost 200,000 Nigerians who have fled the country due to the group's brutal attacks. Story continues After months of the aggressive campaign, regional military leaders believe Boko Haram's military capacity has been significantly weakened. They regularly claim to have inflicted heavy casualties on Boko Haram, though the numbers are impossible to verify independently. "That does not mean the threat has completely been averted," Niger army chief Seyni Garba said earlier this month. He noted that even if Boko Haram is weakened it has the power to carry out "massive assaults", including suicide bomb attacks. "There are still very small groups in certain communities," Garba said, referring to islands in Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger converge. A new attack happened Thursday when gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram Islamists killed two residents in Buratai village in northeast Nigeria. Two weeks earlier insurgents beheaded 23 people in the same community. PHILADELPHIA (AP) For Abdul Aliy-Muhammad, the Martin Luther King Jr. he learned about as a child was a man of love, peace and racial harmony, a gifted orator. It wasn't until Aliy-Muhammad became an activist that he came to know, and appreciate, the King who decried the Vietnam War as "unjust" and made a firm, insistent case for economic justice for black Americans. "There is a Martin Luther King that is important to the resistance movement that we don't hear about," said the 33-year-old co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Collective in Philadelphia. "We always hear about love and forgiveness. ... There was also a King who was radical." Younger black activists say they prefer the pointed, more forceful King to the Nobel Prize-winning pacifist who preached love over hate as he led nonviolent marches across the segregated South. They like the fact that the urgency in King's demand for equality in the years just before his assassination in 1968 is in keeping with the tenacious nature of today's Black Lives Matter rallying cry. "Then as now, it was about promises not translating into substantive transformation," said Princeton University professor Imani Perry. "The questions young people are asking and the way they're challenging the status quo are important. If we don't have that kind of vision, we end the possibility for change before we even have the conversation. In that sense, they really are carrying the torch." Fifty years ago this month, King retreated to the Caribbean with his wife, Coretta, and a few friends to write his final book, "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" In the book, published in June 1967, King argued for racial equality for black Americans through the wholesale embrace of social and economic reform. During the book's promotional tour, King spoke out against the Vietnam War and criticized U.S. leaders for allowing slum conditions to persist in the cities. "Everyone is worrying about the long hot summer with its threat of riots. We had a long cold winter when little was done about the conditions that create riots," King said in June 1967. Story continues Today's young activists say King's harsher words resonate just as much as his methods of peaceful protest. "We do King a disservice when we try to tell a flat story of turning the other cheek," said 31-year-old Charlene Carruthers, national director of the Black Youth Project 100 in Chicago. "It was never simply that." As Carruthers sees it, "agitation" was the core of King's work. "Their agitation shows up differently than how our agitation shows up today. However, I think King's work and the work we do are part of the larger tradition of black radical resistance." In an August 1967 speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King pointed out disparities in unemployment, housing, education and infant mortality. He called for black Americans then barely a century out of bondage to "assert our dignity and worth." "The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy," King told the audience. "Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery." King fought to end public segregation and fought for the right to vote. But he also advocated for a living wage and worked to close the employment gap for blacks and spoke out against discrimination in policing to which rioting was a common response. King reacted to the Feb. 29, 1968, release of the report by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner commission, by noting that the solutions suggested "have been made before almost to the last detail and have been ignored almost to the last detail." It is a familiar climate for some working in the Black Lives Matter movement, who see their efforts in cities like Ferguson, Missouri, Chicago, Baltimore and Cleveland on a continuum that reaches back to King. They identify with the fact that King was only 26 when he was thrust into a leadership role in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. When he died at 39 in 1968, before he could launch his Poor People's Campaign, King was still far younger than civil rights establishment figures such as A. Philip Randolph and Adam Clayton Powell. Remembering King as a community organizer places his movement alongside contemporary activism, said Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter. "He was really focused on poor black people," Cullors, 33, said. "Let's remember the King who was invested in changing the country that he loved so much, who called out elected officials who continued to endanger black people." ___ Errin Haines Whack covers urban affairs for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/emarvelous Djibouti (AFP) - The leaders of Djibouti and Ethiopia will oversee the completion of a railway linking their two capitals on Thursday, with the ambition that the link might eventually extend across the continent to West Africa. Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will attend the ceremonial laying of the last track in the 752-kilometre (481-mile) railway, financed and built by China, linking the port capital of Djibouti with landlocked Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. The first scheduled train is expected to use the desert line in October, reducing transport time between the capitals to less than 10 hours, rather than the two days it currently takes for heavy goods vehicles using a congested mountain road. "Some 1,500 trucks use the road every day between Djibouti and Ethiopia. In five years, this figure will rise to 8,000," said Abubaker Hadi, chairman of Djibouti's Port Authority. "This is not possible, this is why we need the railway." With a capacity of 3,500 tonnes -- seven times the capacity of the old line at its peak -- the new electrified line will mainly be used for transporting goods to Africa's second-most populous nation. Ethiopia's economy is growing fast, with almost 90 percent of its imports going through Djibouti. Both countries benefit from economic integration, with Ethiopia gaining access to the sea and Djibouti gaining access to Ethiopia's emerging market of 95 million people. "Ethiopia is an important country for us," said Djibouti's Transport Minister Ahmed Moussa Hassan. "It is the main customer for our logistics facilities and this new railway line will strengthen trade." The new line is in fact the resurrection of an old one, built in 1917 by the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company, but decades later it fell into disrepair and only worked erratically. Trains would regularly derail and it could take as long as five days to make the journey between the two capital cities. Story continues Some abandoned parts of the old line are still visible in Addis Ababa and in central Djibouti. - Djibouti's ambitions - Another new line linking Djibouti and the northern Ethiopian town of Mekele is also due to be built, but this is not the extent of the project's ambition. Hadi says the railway is a step towards a trans-continental line reaching all the way to the Gulf of Guinea, in West Africa. "We are already the gateway to Ethiopia. We intend to continue this railway line to South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Cameroon to connect the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Hadi. Djibouti, the smallest state in the Horn of Africa, is embarking on large infrastructure projects, building six new ports and two airports in the hope of becoming the commercial hub of East Africa. "Infrastructure is coming very late to Africa. It is impossible for a truck to cross the continent. To transport goods from the east coast to the west coast of Africa, it is necessary to circle the continent by boat," Hadi said of a sea voyage that can take more than three weeks. A trans-Africa railway is feasible "in seven or eight years," he said, as long as conflicts in South Sudan and CAR come to an end. Liu Xiaoyan, commercial director of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, who is in charge of the Djibouti-Addis line, said his company is ready to continue the work. "We want to show off Chinese technology to everyone, especially to Africa," he said, adding that it was also an opportunity to strengthen China's trade ties with Africa and its presence on the continent. As part of plans to turn AirAsia into a "digital airline", the company is organizing its first "hackathon," to take place March 18 -19 2017. Twenty selected teams -- who must hail from one of the 26 countries covered by AirAsia -- will compete in an 18-hour hackathon entitled AIRVOLUTION at the airline's HQ in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two of the three challenges have already been unveiled on the event website. Corporate hackathons AirAsia has joined the growing list of companies who run hackathons: events that invite groups of computer engineers, coders, programmers, graphic designers and anyone involved in software development to collaborate together and compete against one another on tasks relevant to the company in exchange for prizes. AirAsia ambitions Much like rivals Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines and British Airways have done previously, AirAsia is looking for ways of re-imagining the 13-year old company for the future, as well as to "spearhead innovation in the Asean region." http://airvolution.airasia.com/ By Rich McKay and Alex Besant ATLANTA/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martin Luther King's daughter said on Monday that "God can triumph over Trump," but the slain civil rights leader's son struck a conciliatory tone after meeting with the president-elect on the U.S. holiday that honors their father. The comments by the children of King, who championed racial justice until he was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, punctuated an imbroglio involving Donald Trump and African-American congressman John Lewis that broke out over the weekend. The dispute started when Lewis, 76, a contemporary of King's who endured beatings and jail time in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said in a televised interview that he saw Trump's election as illegitimate because of Russian interference in the campaign. That drew a scornful response from Trump. Bernice King, King's youngest daughter, told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta not to give up hope and "Don't be afraid of who sits in the White House." "God can triumph over Trump," she said, drawing a standing ovation, one of several times she was interrupted by thunderous applause. The service at the church where King once preached takes place every year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a federal holiday honoring his life. This year the holiday fell days before Barack Obama ends his second term as the country's first African-American president. Trump takes the oath of office as his successor on Friday. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spent part of their last MLK Day in office helping paint a mural in the "community room" of a Washington shelter, to which they donated a play set used by their daughters when they arrived at the White House in 2009. Trump, who won only 8 percent of the black vote, offered praise for King in a Twitter post on Monday, a few hours before meeting King's oldest son, Martin Luther King III, at his Trump Tower offices in New York. "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!" Trump tweeted. Trump and King III emerged from an elevator together, shaking hands. Trump said goodbye to King, then returned to the elevator without answering questions. King said they had a constructive meeting to discuss how to improve the U.S. voting system, which King considers broken, but he skirted questions about whether he was offended by Trump's comments on Lewis. "First of all I think that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides. I think at some point I bridge-build. The goal is to bring America together," King told reporters. Lewis did not mention Trump in a speech about the civil rights struggle to honor King, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, but he urged young black Americans to consider voting a "sacred" act. "We all must become participants in the democratic process. When you get old enough to register to vote, go and register and vote," Lewis said in a half-hour address in Miami. "The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent instrument or tool that we have in a democratic society, and we must use it." RUSSIAN MEDDLING The Trump-Lewis exchange began when Lewis told NBC News in segments of an interview released on Friday that he would not attend Trump's inauguration in part because "I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president." He referred to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia used hacking and other methods to try to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. Trump was withering in his response the following day, saying in tweets that Lewis, a revered figure who risked his life for civil rights, was "All talk, talk, talk - no action or results." While many Democrats and Republicans said they disagreed with Lewis, they also questioned Trump's decision to denigrate an African-American political leader of Lewis' stature, especially over the Martin Luther King Jr weekend. Civil rights leaders have also opposed Trump's nominee for U.S. attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after allegations that he was racist and harbored sympathies toward the Ku Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist organization. The Senate Judiciary Committee has received letters from 400 civil rights organizations opposing his confirmation to the country's top law enforcement post, Democratic Senator Dianne Weinstein has said. Sessions strongly denied that he is a racist during his confirmation hearing in the Senate last week. (Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Alex Besant in New York; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Peter Cooney, Frances Kerry and Alan Crosby) TORONTO (AP) Outfielder Jose Bautista and the Toronto Blue Jays are "working really hard" to bring him back to the club, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told the Associated Press on Monday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations are ongoing. The sides are discussing one-, two- and three-year agreements. The 36-year-old Bautista hit 22 homers with 69 RBIs last year while batting .234 in an injury-slowed season. Bautista (265) ranks second behind Carlos Delgado (336) on Toronto's career home run list. After Toronto ended a 22-year playoff drought with an AL East title in 2015, Bautista hit a memorable three-run homer in Game 5 of the AL Division Series against Texas, punctuating his shot with a bat flip. He did not accept Toronto's $17.2 million qualifying offer. The Blue Jays' failure earlier this offseason to re-sign fan favorite Edwin Encarnacion did not go over well in Toronto, which led the AL in attendance. Encarnacion signed a $60 million, three-year deal with Cleveland after the Blue Jays withdrew their $80 million, four-year offer and reached a $33 million, three-year agreement with Kendrys Morales. Encarnacion hit 42 home runs and tied Boston's David Ortiz for the AL RBIs lead at 127. Reuters (Reuters) -U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Friday again declined to block President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, this time in a challenge brought by two Indiana borrowers, even as a lower court considers whether to lift a freeze it imposed on the program in a different case. Barrett denied an emergency request by the Indiana borrowers, represented by a conservative legal group, to bar the U.S. Department of Education from implementing the Democratic president's plan to forgive debt held by qualified people who had taken loans to pay for college. Barrett on Oct. 20 denied a similar request by a Wisconsin taxpayers organization represented by another conservative legal group. SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Monday it was "deeply disappointed" Japan had continued whaling in the Southern Ocean after anti-whaling activists published a photograph of a dead whale, and two days after Australian and Japanese leaders discussed the issue. Australia has long opposed Japanese whaling and the contentious issue was raised in talks between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Sydney on Saturday, sources familiar with the discussions said. "The Australian government is deeply disappointed that Japan has decided to return to the Southern Ocean this summer to undertake so-called 'scientific' whaling," Australian Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said on Monday. "It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," Frydenberg added, without confirming the exact location of the current hunt. Japan's whaling in the Southern Ocean should stop, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 in a case brought by Australia, prompting Japan to suspend its hunt for one season, though it resumed in 2015. Australia, which opposes all forms of commercial and scientific whaling, will continue raising its concerns about the issue with Japan, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Reuters. Japan maintains that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is part of its culture. Japan started what it calls "scientific whaling" in 1987, a year after an international whaling moratorium took effect. Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd published a photograph on Sunday of a dead minke whale, that appeared to have been punctured by a harpoon, on the deck of the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru. Video footage showed the dead whale later covered by a blue tarpaulin. The group said the ship was hunting in an Australian sanctuary off the Antarctic coast. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook, Colin Packham and Byron Kaye; Editing by Michael Perry and Randy Fabi) VIENNA (AP) An Austrian court has found a man guilty of human smuggling and sentenced him to four years in prison after a truckload of migrants bound for Germany crashed, leaving 12 passengers seriously injured. The verdict and sentence issued Monday came after the 49-year old man acknowledged driving the truck that rammed into a concrete wall and overturned, spilling many of the 36 migrants packed inside the nearly airtight hold onto a highway. State broadcaster ORF says the truck picked up the Iraqi, Iranian and Pakistani passengers in Hungary and was on its way to Germany 18 months ago when a tire burst, causing the driver to lose control at high speed. The man was not identified in keeping with Austrian privacy laws. Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) - US Vice President Joe Biden, speaking just days before he leaves office, on Monday urged the incoming Trump administration to maintain his national fight to eradicate cancer. "This is the one bipartisan thing that exists and I pray will continue to exist in the new administration," Biden told an audience of executives and opinion-makers at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. The vice president lost his son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015. The Obama administration soon after announced a cancer "moonshot" programme intended to speed up research into the disease. Biden said he had already spoken to his successor as vice president, Mike Pence, about maintaining the programme despite the incoming administration's eagerness to rip up policies tied to President Barack Obama. "I have already spoken to the vice president elect, who is a good man ... about my willingness to continue to work with him and the incoming administration, to be committed and enthusiastic as we are in our goal in ending cancer as we know it," Biden said. "Our prayer is that they will do that as well," Biden added, speaking on the first day of his two-day stop at the Davos forum. Biden has said he will continue his work to organise cancer research once he leaves office Friday. MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) Two bombs exploded at dawn Monday at Nigerias northeastern University of Maiduguri, killing at least five people, witnesses and police said. The first blast ripped through the mosque where professors were saying dawn prayers and at least one is among victims, according to a student. The second bomb went off at an entrance gate, said a university worker. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety. Police Commissioner Damian Chukwu said 5 people died in the explosion at the mosque, including a university professor, and 15 wounded people have been evacuated to hospitals. It was not clear if the explosions came from suicide bombers or were planted bombs, police said. Maiduguri has been attacked many times but this is the first attack on the university blamed on Boko Haram the Islamic extremist group whose name means Western education is sinful. It is the first major attack since Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari last month declared that Boko Haram was crushed, after troops destroyed their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria. Nigerias army said Sunday that troops continuing clearance operations of remnants and fleeing Boko Haram terrorists killed several insurgents and rescued 58 kidnap victims, mainly women and children last week. One soldier was injured, it said. Nigerias 7-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people. LONDON (AP) Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas will race alongside three-time champion Lewis Hamilton at Formula One team Mercedes this season. The 27-year-old Bottas will fill the seat left by world champion Nico Rosberg's retirement. With Bottas moving on, F1 team Williams said Monday that Felipe Massa will come out of retirement to race with them for a fourth consecutive season. Rosberg retired only five days after beating Hamilton to his first world title in November. Mercedes also won its third straight constructors' championship. "Sometimes in life, unexpected circumstances provide interesting opportunities," Mercedes head of motorsport Toto Wolff said in a statement. "Nico's decision in December was a big surprise - certainly a challenging situation for the team to handle. But weathering the storm makes you more resilient and we see this as another opportunity for the team to grow." Bottas finished eighth in the drivers' standings with 85 points last season. In four seasons with Williams, he started 77 races and achieved nine podium finishes. Wolff said it was time for him to step up to the next level and "how he can challenge for race wins and championships." "Valtteri is a no-nonsense guy: down to earth, straightforward and very focused," Wolff said. "Pretty Finnish, to be honest, and a great fit for us." Massa will head back to Williams only a few months after retiring from Formula One. The Brazilian has agreed to a one-year deal and will race alongside F1 debutant Lance Stroll. "I am very happy to have an opportunity to return to Williams. I always intended to race somewhere in 2017, but Williams is a team close to my heart and I have respect for everything it is trying to achieve," Massa said. "Valtteri has a great opportunity, given the turn of events over the winter, and I wish him all the best at Mercedes." Earlier, Mercedes' young driver Pascal Wehrlein, who had been linked with replacing Rosberg, joined Swiss team Sauber. By Pedro Fonseca and Brad Brooks RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Police put down a new uprising at a prison in northeastern Brazil where 26 inmates were killed by a rival gang faction over the weekend and questioned five drug gang leaders they think ordered the bloodshed, authorities said on Monday. A SWAT team entered the prison before midday "to get control of the situation," said Major Eduardo Franco, spokesman for police in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, where the prison is located. Yet for most of the afternoon, television images showed inmates on the roofs of at least two wings of the Alcacuz prison, wielding large knives, waving banners with gang acronyms and yelling death threats to rivals. By evening, police said the SWAT team gained control of the wing housing members of Brazil's most powerful drug gang, who until nightfall had refused to hand over their weapons and allow police to enter their area. The officers located and questioned five of the prisoners who they think led the weekend killing spree of members of a rival drug gang. The five will be transferred to other prisons, the locations of which were not disclosed. It was in the same prison, located about 25 km (15.5 miles) south of the state capital Natal, that members of the powerful drug gang the First Capital Command (PCC) slaughtered 26 other inmates from a rival gang in a riot that began late Saturday and was not halted until Sunday. As in a series of other prison uprisings in recent weeks, many of those killed had their heads cut off and were badly mutilated or burned. At least 140 inmates have died in Brazil's prisons in just over two weeks. The intense violence is the result of a split between the PCC and Brazil's second-most powerful gang, the Red Command. For more than two decades the two gangs maintained an uneasy working relationship, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and arms easily made its way over Brazil's porous borders with the world's biggest cocaine-producing nations. But about six months ago, security officials and experts say, the PCC moved to fully take over trafficking routes and tried to push the Red Command aside. The Red Command responded by forming alliances with smaller regional gangs, primarily in Brazil's Amazon region and in the northeast, in an attempt to block the PCC from taking over those drug routes and gaining new turf. A New Year's Day prison massacre at the Anisio Jobim prison complex in Amazonas state in which 56 died ignited the recent violence. Most of those killed were members of the PCC, butchered by members of the North Family gang, which is allied with the Red Command. It was Brazil's deadliest prison uprising since a 1992 rebellion at the Carandiru penitentiary in Sao Paulo state that saw police storm the building and kill 111 prisoners. After the Jan. 1 bloodletting, members of the PCC on Jan. 6 murdered 33 inmates at the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima. Videos taken by inmates showed the slaughter, with those hacking away at bodies saying they were doing so in revenge for their "brothers" killed the week before. Brazil's prisons, mostly under control of states and not the federal government, have for decades been in a state of chaos, with extreme overcrowding and escapes and violence the norm. The prisons are also largely run by prison gangs and the state, experts and authorities acknowledge, has little control over the institutions. Drugs, guns and all manner of contraband seemingly enter the jails at will. (Reporting by Pedro Fonseca in Rio de Janeiro and Brad Brooks in Sao Paulo; Writing by Brad Brooks; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Nick Zieminski and Bill Rigby) Brussels (AFP) - British foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Monday the Iran nuclear accord that US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to tear up must be maintained. As he went into an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Johnson said it had been "a difficult and controversial deal, but one which has stopped the Iranians from acquiring nuclear technology they might otherwise have acquired, and it is a deal which we think has great merit and we want to keep going." BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday he was sure that Britain and the United States could conclude a free trade deal that was in their mutual interests after President-elect Donald Trump said he was keen for one. "It's very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast and it's great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump," Johnson told reporters as he arrived at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. "Clearly it'll have to be a deal that's very much in the interests of both sides but I've no doubt that it will be." In a newspaper interview, Trump welcomed Britain's decision to leave the European Union, a move which could give it the opportunity to conclude bilateral trade agreements. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; @macdonaldrtr; editing by Philip Blenkinsop) Dubai (AFP) - A municipal building was set ablaze overnight in Sunni-ruled Bahrain, the government said Monday, as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three Shiites convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police. The fire in the building at Shamalia, in the Shiite area of Aali south of the capital Manama, was eventually brought under control, said the interior ministry, without explicitly linking it to the executions. "According to initial reports, the fire was intentional and the specialised services are taking the necessary measures," the ministry wrote on Twitter. The blaze came after three Shiites were put to death by firing squad on Sunday over the bomb attack on police in 2014, sparking clashes between angry protesters and security forces. The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of Sanabes village chanting slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses. Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabes, the hometown of the three executed men. Sanabes is the closest Shiite village to the Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shiite-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011. The square's famous monument was razed to the ground after the protesters were driven out. Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shiite villages, according to other witnesses who said police opened fire to disperse demonstrators, wounding several of them. Bahrain's authorities do not permit international news agencies to cover events independently. The executions were criticised by international human rights groups, as well as Britain and the European Union. Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah strongly condemned the executions. Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Al-Khalifas for more than two centuries, has a majority Shiite population which has long complained of marginalisation. It has been rocked by sporadic unrest since the Gulf-backed security forces brutally crushed the Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011. I am sure as science and nutritional advances evolve, we will evaluate and incorporate new technologies and strategies, said Dale Mattoon, a Platinum winner of the Dairy Cattle Reproduction Councils ninth annual awards competition. Cow comfort, both physically and mentally, is a huge focus for us. I expect we will further depopulate our pens and continue to work on educating our staff on cow handling techniques to minimize stress on the cow, said the Locke, N.Y., dairyman who operates Pine Hollow Dairy with his wife, Colleen. Mattoon gave that response when asked, What are some changes you might implement to improve reproduction? All six of this years Platinum winners of the Dairy Cattle Reproduction Councils awards share additional insight in this Hoards Dairyman Intel as well as the Round Table found on pages 707 to 709 of the November issue of Hoards Dairyman. This year a record 128 herds were nominated for the award from 18 U.S. states and Canadian provinces. Here are additional responses to the question, What are some changes you might implement to improve reproduction? Copperhill Farm, Fairfax, Vt.: Cow comfort is something that we are continually trying to improve. We have started to replace rubber mats with mattresses and improved ventilation for cold months. A fresh group with low stocking density and headlocks to easily treat cows when needed would give cows a better start in early lactation. Dunlea Dairy Farm, Coudersport, Pa.: We are not looking at any technologies for reproduction at this time. However, the research in cud chewing does interest us a great deal to aid with the transition and therefore, reproduction. Pfeifer Dairy Farm, Bucyrus, Ohio: I have looked into other synch programs to eliminate heat detection. However, my thought is, If its not broke, dont fix it. Seidl Mountain View Dairy, Luxemburg, Wis.: We are starting a new program genomics to help identify productive animals to raise. SunBurst Dairy, Belleville, Wis.: Areas I like to look at first are facilities and nutrition. If an animal is relaxed in her environment, she usually responds. Weve had tube ventilation on our wish list for the holding area. This past year we implemented the second prostaglandin in the double ovsynch system. This Hoards Dairyman Intel article is part of an eight-part series detailing top reproduction tips from the Platinum-winning herds for the ninth annual Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council awards competition. Click here to view previous reports from this DCRC series: They get postfresh cows off to a great start How they handle problem-breeding cows Sexed semen has a role on some dairies Nutrition sets up reproductive success Records set the stage for winning entries Weekly, monthly, and yearly metrics matter To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2016 Dubai (AFP) - Authorities in Bahrain said Monday a municipal building was set ablaze as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three Shiites convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police. Tensions in the Sunni-ruled kingdom have been on the rise since the three men were executed by firing squad on Sunday, in a move that drew international condemnation. The Shiite majority in Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Al-Khalifa dynasty for more than two centuries, has long complained of marginalisation and the country has been rocked by sporadic unrest since 2011. A municipal building was torched overnight in Shamalia, south of the capital Manama, the interior ministry said, without explicitly linking the incident to the executions. "According to initial reports, the fire was intentional," the ministry said on Twitter, adding that it had been brought under control. But the ministry of municipalities said later that the arson was a "terrorist act." "Masked men attacked the building at around 5:30 am and locked security men in the guards' room while other assailants carried gas cylinders into the building and set them ablaze," it said in a statement. Protests broke out on Sunday after the executions, reportedly the first carried out in Bahrain in six years. Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tires and threw firebombs, and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media. The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of the village of Sanabis chanting slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses. Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabis, the hometown of the three executed men, but were blocked by security forces. - 'Dark day' for Bahrain - Sanabis was the closest Shiite village to the former Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shiite-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011. Story continues Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shiite villages, according to witnesses who said police opened fire with buckshot to disperse demonstrators, wounding several. Bahrain's authorities do not permit international news agencies to cover events independently. On Monday, the information ministry banned the electronic edition of the pro-opposition Al-Wasat daily, accusing it of "sowing sedition." The foreign ministry said meanwhile it had summoned Iraq's ambassador to denounce "meddling" after comments from Iraqi officials "condemning judicial rulings" in the Gulf island state. Bahrain's High Court last week upheld the death sentences against the trio convicted of a bomb attack in March 2014 which killed three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates. Seven other defendants received life terms. The Emirati officer was part of a Saudi-led Gulf force which rolled into Bahrain in March 2011 to help put down the protests. The executions were criticised by international rights groups, as well as Britain and the European Union. Shiite-dominated Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah also strongly condemned the executions. Bahrain is a strategic ally of the United States and home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. It has faced frequent criticism for cracking down on moderate Shiite opposition leaders, including for the jailing of opposition chief Sheikh Ali Salman, who is serving a nine-year sentence. Authorities have dissolved Salman's Al-Wefaq movement, once the largest bloc in Bahrain's parliament, and repeatedly arrested and detained other opposition leaders, including Nabeel Rajab, the founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. Rights group Amnesty International condemned the executions as "a dark day for human rights in Bahrain". "The fact that this execution was carried out after an unfair trial and despite claims from the men that they were tortured in custody makes this news even more shocking," it said. Californias former State Librarian Kevin Starr died Saturday at the age of 76. The author of Americans and the California Dream, Starr was the historian behind a series of social, cultural and political histories of the Golden State. A professor of history at the University of Southern California (USC), Starr died of a heart attack at a hospital in San Francisco, his wife Sheila Starr reportedly said Sunday. Kevin Starr chronicled the history of California as no one else, the states Gov. Jerry Brown said in a statement. He captured the spirit of our state and brought to life the characters and personalities that made the California story. His vision, like California itself, was bigger than life. Born on Sept. 3, 1940, Starr was a fourth-generation San Francisco native who was raised in a Catholic orphanage. He graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1962 and served in the U.S. Army. Starr earned his Ph.D. in American literature at Harvard University and went on to teach at a number of colleges. The accomplished scholar was appointed state librarian by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994 and served till 2004 under Gov. Gray Davis and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who named Starr the State Librarian Emeritus. Starr received the National Humanities Medal in 2006. He was the greatest historian Los Angeles and California ever had and ever will have, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan whose book club boasted of Starr as one of its original members, told Los Angeles Times. Kevin wrote til the day he died. He was a productive and indefatigable scholar and the greatest historian of California, longtime friend and fellow USC professor Dana Gioia told the Associated Press. He was brilliant, jovial, kind and amusing. He was fantastically good company. People who knew him held him in enormous affection because any situation was always better if he was around. Story continues Starr is survived by his wife, Sheila Starr, daughters Jessica Starr and Marian Starr Imperatore and seven grandchildren. Related Articles OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's ethics watchdog is investigating whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated conflict of interest laws by taking a New Year's vacation on an island in the Bahamas owned by the Aga Khan, the first such probe of a sitting prime minister. Trudeau has faced repeated questions from the opposition about his trip to Bell Island, the Aga Khan's private island, which sits in a national park in the Bahamas. He said last week that he had flown there by private helicopter. In a letter to a Conservative lawmaker dated Jan. 13, Mary Dawson, the federal conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, said she has "commenced an examination" to determine whether Trudeau's trip contravened the Conflict of Interest Act. The probe could hurt Trudeau, who has high ratings even as the Liberals have been dogged by spending controversies, including his health minister's use of a luxury car service owned by a party supporter. "Unethical actions are definitely a hot button for voters," said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch. "I think it will cause him to lose voter support as a result." The last Liberal government, ousted in 2006, was tarnished by a sponsorship scandal involving corruption and misdirection of funds to supporters in Quebec. In a bid to reconnect with voters, Trudeau scrapped a trip to this week's World Economic Forum in Davos and embarked on a cross-country tour instead. "I think the tour is too little too late," said Conacher. In the letter, Dawson acknowledged concerns about potential breaches related to the use of the private helicopter, as well as Trudeau's acceptance of the trip in light of the Aga Khan Foundation's lobbying of the government. Ethics rules introduced by Trudeau in 2015 bar government ministers from taking private flights without getting Dawson's approval. A Trudeau spokesman said the prime minister will answer any of Dawson's questions. A spokeswoman for the ethics commissioner did not immediately comment. Trudeau is facing a separate probe into fundraising by his Liberal Party, but an examination into the trip would be the first such investigation of a prime minister, said Conacher. Aga Khan is the title held by the leader of the Ismaili branch of Shi'ite Islam. The current Aga Khan, Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini, is a Trudeau family friend. The Aga Khan Foundation Canada is a registered lobbyist with the government and executives met with government officials as recently as December. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alan Crosby) Until pretty recently, there was nothing sexy about cauliflower. Boiled or steamed, it's bland at best. And if you overcook it, you'd better duck or suffer the smell of dirty diapers. But roasting or sauteing cauliflower is a different story. The veggie's natural sugars caramelize and its tasty inner cauliflower suddenly blossoms. Think popcorn with an attitude. Cauliflower is surprisingly versatile, too. Pulsed in a food processor, it ends up looking and feeling like white rice. Indeed, given that it's high in fiber and an assortment of vitamins and minerals, cauliflower is a healthy alternative to white rice. In the interest of coaxing out cauliflower's best flavor, I have cooked this recipe's allotment as if it were fried rice, sauteing it until golden. The "rice" is then infused with the usual Asian suspects scallions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil and bulked up with mushrooms, bacon and peas. (Vegetarians are welcome to swap in some tofu for the Canadian bacon.) Wonderful as it is the first time around, this dish is also the perfect foil for leftovers. Steak, chicken, shrimp, other cooked vegetables? Whatever's sitting in the refrigerator and awaiting its second chance, toss it in. And if you need an excuse to go Asian, consider the Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 28. Otherwise, feel free to enjoy this recipe year-round. FRIED CAULIFLOWER "RICE" WITH SHIITAKES, CANADIAN BACON AND PEAS Start to finish: 1 hour (40 active) Servings: 4 1 small cauliflower (about 1 3/4 pounds) 1/4 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil, divided 2 large eggs Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 4 ounces Canadian bacon, cut into medium dice 2 ounces sliced shiitake mushrooms 1 1/2 bunches scallions, sliced thin (white and green parts kept separate you will need about 1/2 cup of the whites and 1/3 cup of the greens) 2 teaspoons minced garlic 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger Story continues 1 cup blanched fresh or thawed frozen peas 1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce 2 teaspoons sesame oil 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted Remove the core and chop the cauliflower roughly into 1 to 1 1/2-inch pieces. In a food processor pulse the cauliflower in 2-cup amounts until chopped into rice-size pieces (you should have about 4 cups) In a large nonstick or stick-resistant skillet over medium-high heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a tablespoon of water, a pinch of salt and some pepper and add the eggs to the pan. Tilt the pan to spread the eggs all around to make a flat pancake. Cook until almost set, 30 to 45 seconds. Turn over the egg (you can cut it in a few pieces to make it easier, using the side of a nonstick pan-safe spatula) and cook for another 10 seconds. Transfer the cooked eggs to a cutting board. Add 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil, the Canadian bacon and the shiitakes to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is browned at the edges, about 6 minutes. Transfer the bacon mushroom mixture to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add 1/2 tablespoon of the remaining oil and the white part of the scallion to the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Transfer the mixture to the bowl with the bacon mixture and return the skillet to the heat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons vegetable oil to the skillet, then add the cauliflower and a hefty pinch of salt, pressing it flat with the back of the spatula. Cook until the "rice" is golden brown in spots, turning it over with the spatula, about 10 to 12 minutes. While the "rice" is cooking slice the egg into strips and add it along with the peas to the bowl with the bacon. When the "rice" is nicely crisped, add the contents of the bacon bowl, the peas, soy sauce and sesame oil to the skillet and cook, stirring, until the mixture is heated through. Transfer the fried cauliflower "rice" to four bowls and top each portion with some of the sliced scallion greens and the pine nuts. Nutrition information per serving: 483 calories; 350 calories from fat; 39 g fat (4 g saturated; 1 g trans fats); 121 mg cholesterol; 665 mg sodium; 20 g carbohydrate; 7 g fiber; 7 g sugar; 15 g protein. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: Sara Moulton is host of public television's "Sara's Weeknight Meals." She was executive chef at Gourmet magazine for nearly 25 years and spent a decade hosting several Food Network shows, including "Cooking Live." Her latest cookbook is "Home Cooking 101." BEIJING (Reuters) - China's courts must firmly resist the Western idea of judicial independence and other ideologies that threaten the leadership of the ruling Communist Party, the country's top judge was reported as saying by the official China News Service. Courts in China are not independent and ultimately answer to the party leadership, although legal reforms unveiled in recent years have aimed to give judges more independence and rein in local officials' influence over courts. Authorities in Beijing say China requires a different kind of legal system from Western models, one in keeping with a system of "socialism with Chinese characteristics", where reforms strengthen, rather than weaken, Party leadership. People's Courts at all levels must disregard erroneous Western notions, including constitutional democracy and separation of powers, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang told a meeting of the Supreme People's Court on Saturday, the agency said. Zhou's comments sparked much critical public discussion, with online participants citing comments in a 2012 interview by Jiang Ping, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, that only judicial independence could allow China to ensure a "just judiciary". However, searches for the article brought up no results on Weibo, China's Twitter-like equivalent, by early afternoon on Monday. In response to the discussion, the Supreme People's Court posted four articles on its official Weibo account late on Saturday, expanding on Zhou's statements and defending him against those who accused him of "driving against the tide of history". An article by the Court's official publicity department took aim at those who "agitate" for judicial independence, saying they were using the people's desire for social justice to further their own political ends. Creating a legal system independent of the party "clearly violates the constitution", which says administrative, trial and prosecution authorities are all subservient to the National People's Congress, China's parliament, the court said. Since taking office in March 2013, President Xi Jinping, who has a doctorate in law, has vowed to put "power within the cage of regulations" and called for judicial independence under the party. Zhou's comments on Saturday come after China's anti-graft watchdog ruled out the possibility of a mechanism independent of the Communist Party to keep officials in check. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) this month pledged to create a national supervisory commission and a corresponding national law, as part of efforts to reform the oversight system. But the reforms would stop short of placing power outside the party, commission officials said. (Reporting by Nicholas Heath, Lusha Zhang and Christian Shepherd; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Beijing (AFP) - Cash-strapped Chinese tech firm LeEco secured a $2.2 billion investment from a group led by property developer Sunac China Holdings, but shares in the rescuer plunged Monday on news of the deal. Hong Kong-listed Sunac said Friday it would plough 15.04 billion yuan into the sprawling LeEco empire, which has interests in various sectors including self-driving cars, smartphones, film making, and TV-set manufacturing. Its diverse ventures pit the company against Apple, Netflix, and Tesla and homegrown Chinese champions Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba. But the company's relentless expansion has put a strain on its cash flow, and in November billionaire founder Jia Yueting told employees the company grew too quickly and was short of funds. Shares in its Shenzhen-listed LeShi affiliate dived more than 36 percent last year and in December were suspended from trading before restarting Monday. It ended down 1.12 percent at 35.40 yuan in Shenzhen. The deal will make Sunac the second-largest shareholder of LeEco, with 8.61 percent equity in LeShi Internet, 15 percent in LeShi Pictures, and 33.5 percent in the TV unit Leshi Zhixin, Sunac said in an announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. But shares in Sunac plunged as much as 10 percent in Hong Kong Monday before paring the losses to end 7.96 percent lower at HK$6.71. At an event Sunday in Beijing, Jia was full of optimism, declaring that "though the road is bumpy, our dream is getting closer". Jia and Sunac Chairman Sun Hongbing were born in the same region of China, northern Shanxi province, and had a positive six-hour meeting last month, Sun said, adding that it gave him the "impetuous urge to invest". The deal takes Sunac far outside its primary business in buying and developing property. "Overseas investors see this as relatively negative to Sunac," David Yang, of UOB Kayhian Investment told Bloomberg News. The deal "can hardly bring much profit contribution in the near term." Sunac last year struck the largest number of deals in China, being involved in 13 deals totaling $4.2 billion, according to Bloomberg News. While were firmly optimistic about the real estate industry for the next five to 10 years, weve since long ago started an exploration journey to prepare for 10 years later, Sun said. By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday offered a stern parting message for Donald Trump days before the Republican U.S. president-elect takes office, cautioning him against loosening sanctions on Russia and warning him to watch what he says. Brennan rebuked Trump for comparing U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany in comments by the outgoing CIA chief that reflected the extraordinary friction between the incoming president and the 17 intelligence agencies he will begin to command once he takes office on Friday. In an interview with "Fox News Sunday," Brennan questioned the message sent to the world if the president-elect broadcasts that he does not have confidence in the United States' own intelligence agencies. "What I do find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly," Brennan said. Brennan's criticism followed a tumultuous week of finger-pointing between Trump and intelligence agency leaders over an unsubstantiated report that Russia had collected compromising information about Trump. The unverified dossier was summarized in a U.S. intelligence report presented to Trump and outgoing President Barack Obama this month that concluded Russia tried to sway the outcome of the Nov. 8 election in Trump's favor by hacking and other means. The report did not make an assessment on whether Russia's attempts affected the election's outcome. Trump has accused the intelligence community of leaking the dossier information, which its leaders denied. They said it was their responsibility to inform the president-elect that the allegations were being circulated. Later on Sunday, Trump took to Twitter to berate Brennan and wrote, "Was this the leaker of Fake News?" In a separate posting, Trump scolded "those intelligence chiefs" for presenting the dossier as part of their briefing. "When people make mistakes, they should APOLOGIZE," he wrote. Brennan also sounded an alarm on U.S. relations with Russia. Trump has vowed to improve relations with Moscow even as he faces criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump does not yet have a full understanding of Russia's actions, Brennan said, noting its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, its support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war and Moscow's aggressive activities in the cyber realm. "Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road that he, I think, needs to be very, very careful about moving down," Brennan said. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Trump suggested he might do away with sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on Russia in late December in response to the cyber attacks if Moscow proves helpful in battling terrorists and reaching other U.S. goals. PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS Brennan also said Trump needs to be mindful about his off-the-cuff remarks once he assumes the presidency, alluding to Trump's penchant for making broad pronouncements on Twitter. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests," Brennan said. "So therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound." "It's more than just about Mr. Trump. It's about the United States of America," Brennan said. Trump has picked Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and a former U.S. Army officer, to replace Brennan. Trump's comments about Putin and his reluctance to assign blame to Moscow for the hacking of Democratic political groups has opened him up to criticism that he will be too soft on Russia. For months, Trump had publicly expressed doubt about U.S. intelligence conclusions on the cyber attacks before acknowledging at a news conference on Wednesday that he thought Russia was behind the hacking. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told "Fox News Sunday," "What the president-elect is determined to do is to explore the possibility of better relations." Pence did not say whether Trump would undo some of the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions Obama had slapped on Moscow. Pence confirmed that Trump's incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, held conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington around the time the sanctions were imposed, but said the talks "were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats." However, Pence denied that Trump's team had any contact with Russian officials during the presidential campaign. "Of course not," he told Fox. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Friday they will investigate alleged Russian attempts to influence the election and links between Russia and the political campaigns. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Will Dunham) Another racially charged incident involving police came to light recently when video was released of a 2015 arrest. Lawrence Crosby, a graduate student at Northwestern University and a black man, was tackled to the ground by multiple police officers after a 911 caller suggested he was trying to steal a car. Only thing is, it was Crosbys car. Crosby is now suing the Evanston, Ill., Police Department. On CNN, Morehouse professor and journalist Marc Lamont Hill said that police officers tend to be overly aggressive with black suspects. Retired NYPD detective and CNN analyst Harry Houck disagreed. What happens is, when you see a black guy going into his car, people do a double-take, Hill said. Studies show this, if you believe in science. Police officers often are more aggressive with black suspects than white suspects. Theyre often read as more guilty than their white counterparts. So again, I dont think the cops had a racist intent I dont agree with that at all, interjected Houck. Im only basing that on what scientific studies show, but I get it, you dont have to believe in that, or dinosaurs or anything, followed Hill. Hill tried pointing to a study done by Phillip Atiba Goff at the Center for Policing Equity. According to the New York Times, the organization compiled more than 19,000 use-of-force incidents by police officers representing 11 large and midsize cities and one large urban county from 2010 to 2015. It supports claims that black suspects are treated more aggressively. Did he take a poll? Houck asked. No, he did a scientific, randomized study, answered Hill. He thinks this, Houck responded. No, he did a randomized study, Hill insisted. For whatever reason, Houck was unwilling to acknowledge that scientific data backed up what Hill was saying. I dont buy that, Houck said. Because I have experience out there on the street. How much time has that guy been out on the street? Probably zero. Actually, hes hired by police forces in Cleveland, San Francisco, and L.A., Hill responded. That does not mean anything, Houck interrupted. Finally, the panel with CNN anchor John Berman ended, but not before a not-so-subtle quip from Hill: This has been awesome. Story continues What to Stream: Civil Rights Movies for Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Tell us what you think. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter. MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) Not much room for error: six-time Australian Open champions Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic face tougher-than expected first-round matches on Tuesday. Both are chasing records at Melbourne Park, where Williams is hoping to set an Open-era record by winning her 23rd Grand Slam title and Djokovic is striving to be the first man to win the Australian title seven times. Williams, who lost to Angelique Kerber in last year's final, has drawn Belinda Bencic, who was seeded 12th here last year and who beat her in Toronto in 2015. Their career record is 1-1, with Williams having beaten Bencic on clay at Madrid in 2014. Bencic advanced to the fourth round at Melbourne Park last year. "I think it will be good for us both," Williams said. "She's done well here before. It's never easy for me. I didn't come here to lose in the first round, or the second round, or at all. If I can play the way I've been practicing, it will be fine." Djokovic, meanwhile, faces veteran Fernando Verdasco, a man he's beaten nine times in 13 career meetings. Verdasco had an upset win over fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal last year in the first round. "Fernando is a very complete player on any surface. In a given day, if things go right, he can beat really anybody on any surface," Djokovic said. He's not overwhelmed by the occasion of playing on center court. I'm expecting a tough one, there's no doubt about it." ___ BENCIC IS PUMPED: Bencic has a 9-2 record in first-round Grand Slam matches. Bencic found out about her first-round opponent when, she admitted, "my Twitter was blowing up. I was like, What's going on? My first reaction was really happy. So I think I'm super pumped, like excited I get to play on the big court." She thinks it's anything but back luck that she drew Williams: "I think we're going to play on the big court. It's a big match ... it's what everyone's working for." Story continues Williams has Bencic's record in first-round majors covered, and then some. She's 64-1 in Grand Slam first-round matches, her lone opening-round loss at a Grand Slam came at 2012 Roland Garros against Virginie Razzano. ______ RAFA READY: Rafael Nadal is coming off two lengthy injury layoffs last year, and his match on Rod Laver Arena against Florian Mayer will be the first between the pair since 2012, when Nadal won on clay at Rome. Mayer beat Nadal on hard courts at Shanghai in 2011. Nadal has reached the second round or better in all but one of his 12 previous trips to Melbourne Park the one failure coming last year when he lost to Verdasco in the first round. Mayer is hoping to end a seven-match losing streak at the majors and record his first Grand Slam match win since he reached the round of 16 here in 2014. ___ CAN KONTA DO IT AGAIN?: Last year, Sydney-born Johanna Konta was a surprise semifinalist at Melbourne Park, and the British player is now in the top 10 and coming off a victory in the Sydney International last week, where she overwhelmed third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska in the final. She'll play Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium to open the day session on Margaret Court Arena. "I played her (Flipkens) last year in Monterrey, she beat me there. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to play her again. She's a great player. She's a Wimbledon semifinalist (2013). She's been around the tour for a long time. That's by no accident." Konta has won only five of her 12 first-round Grand Slam matches. ___ RAONIC FAVORED: Last year's semifinalist and No. 3-seeded Milos Raonic plays Dustin Brown of Germany in the second match on Margaret Court. Brown has never won a match at Melbourne Park, and he's only beaten a top 10 player once in a Grand Slam. Advantage to the Canadian. They have played once before, when Raonic beat Brown in the first round at last year's U.S. Open. This month, Davos Man will come out to play. January is when the World Economic Forum (WEF) holds its annual conference at a Swiss mountain resort to improve the state of the world. More than a business meeting for 2,500-plus globetrotting academics, executives, politicians, and lobbyists, it is a tribal celebration for leaders who worship a holy trinity of ideas: capitalism, globalization, and innovation. In a 2004 essay, Samuel Huntington, who popularized the term Davos Man, described this breed of humans as view[ing] national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing. (And, yes, more than 80 percent of attendees at the WEF conference are male.) This year, though, something extraordinary is happening. While previous reports of Davos Mans death have been greatly exaggerated, a revolution is now brewing against his rosy ideals a revolt that is likely to spread in 2017 and send shock waves through the global economy. One portent, ironically, is in the annual survey of global experts that the WEF conducts. Traditionally, when participants have been asked to cite the biggest risks to global stability, theyve pointed to dangers like climate change and fiscal crises. In recent years, however, the issues topping the worry list have been income inequality, migration, and interstate conflict. Those answers partly reflect tangible facts; income inequality has risen in many Western countries, and geopolitical tensions are high. However, the results also expose an existential problem for Davos Man: Trust in the elite is crumbling fast. Take a look at a different survey that Edelman, the public relations group, releases every year. It asks people around the world which institutions they trust. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, overall trust in business and government declined. The number has gone back up, yet last year, only 53 percent of people said they trusted business. A mere 43 percent said the same of government. Most striking and important is the gap between informed and mass populations. Four years ago, it was just nine percentage points. In 2016, the disparity was 12, the highest ever recorded by the survey. Informed groups were bullish, but mass populations reported trust levels below 50 percent. They also said they were more likely to trust people like themselves than a CEO. When 2017 results are released, I suspect the gap will have widened even more. For other signals of revolution, look no further than the ballot box. Despite numerous exhortations from the likes of International Monetary Fund officials and U.S. President Barack Obama, voters in the United Kingdom could not be persuaded to reject Brexit. Today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they 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, Teresa May, the new British prime minister, declared a few months after the vote in what rings as a recrimination of Davos Man. But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You dont understand what citizenship means. Then came the U.S. presidential election. Elites were so sure Hillary Clinton would win that PaddyPower, a betting platform, paid out winnings to people who had gambled on the former secretary of states future before ballots were even cast. The confidence was driven partly by Clintons polling numbers, but it also reflected a collective disbelief that voters would ever choose the crude nationalism displayed by Donald Trumps campaign. Of course, voters did. And while Trump is nominally a Republican and certainly ranks in the wealthy set, his worldview has proved directly opposed to that of Davos Man: The president-elect wants to erect trade barriers, reduce immigration, and meddle in corporate decisions. He does not just want to Make America Great Again. He wants to put America, himself, and his allies first. Similar ideas are spreading across continental Europe. In December, 59 percent of Italian voters rejected a set of constitutional reforms proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, forcing him to resign; as with Brexit, this seemed to represent a howl of rage against globalization. When voters went to the polls in Austria the same day that Italians did, they chose between a right-wing populist and a former Green Party chief. Centrists, who had dominated the countrys politics in the recent past, were knocked out in an earlier vote. The Netherlands has Geert Wilders. France has Marine Le Pen. Nationalists are getting louder and more popular in Germany, too. What could send the pendulum swinging back toward the surety of progress toward everything Davos Man represents? It would require slashing income inequality; making governments more transparent, deft, and accountable; curbing migration flows; boosting economic growth and employment; making corporate giants and banks less powerful; and narrowing the information gap between elites and everyone else. Thats a wildly tall order, though. Dont bet on it happening anytime soon not when the Middle East is slipping deeper into conflict, advancing technology continues to wipe out swaths of middle-class jobs, people keep being uprooted by disasters and shrinking opportunities, and aging populations make it hard to unleash dynamic growth. At the very least, the elites who fall under the banner of Davos Man can take a small collective step by showing more humility: a recognition that they do not have exclusive rights to nor are they always right about the future. As Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, noted during a December conference in Washington, D.C., leaders must take seriously the unease of their citizens. People are insecure and anxious, Blair said. They see their communities and societies around them changing. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas, as they say, and elites are never going to reject the promise of globalization, in 2017 or any other year. But to stop the trust gap from widening and the ballot-box revolt from spreading and getting nastier, they need to use their resources, including their swanky gathering in the Swiss Alps, to talk hard truths. Otherwise, Davos Man may face a frosty death. In the meantime, he should brace for a turbulent year. We all should. A version of this article originally appeared in the January/February 2017 issue of FP magazine. Illustration by Matthew Hollister Seven days a week 10 hours a day, if shes doing overtime Huang Liyan spends her time with her fingers up Donald Trumps nose. Occasionally, she arranges his orange hair. Then she plucks skin tags from his slightly less orange face. Huang is one of 30 workers manufacturing a best-seller from the bowels of a southern Chinese workshop: latex masks of U.S. President-elect Trump. Her employer, Molezu Co., which operates in the factory hub of Shenzhen, also makes Halloween-ready rubber cadavers and bloodied limbs. But Trump is Molezus top product. So far, the company has sold 200,000 Trump masks, mostly to customers in the West, for $9.50 each. Every day, Molezu employees lug buckets of liquid latex and pour the viscous, white slop into molds of inside-out Donald Trump faces. After the masks take shape, they are peeled out and placed on drying racks. Workers then apply layers of orange spray-paint before polishers like Huang trim imperfections. Sometimes, like when reporters from TIME come nosing about, the factory hands wear thin masks. But mostly they breathe in the latex and paint fumes. Exhaust fans in the wall remain idle; electricity is expensive. Workers are paid more than $400 a month, not bad for a factory job in southern China. Read More: Donald Trump Details Plan to Rewrite Global Trade Rules Trump the man, not the mask has vowed to slap hefty tariffs on Chinese imports when he assumes the American presidency. He has said he will label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. Unlike other successful presidential candidates, who dialed down their tough trade talk after the polls, Trump has appointed economist Peter Navarro, author of a book called Death By China, as the head of a new White House National Trade Council. China is both the biggest trade cheater in the world and that country with which the U.S. runs its largest trade deficit, went a Trump campaign white paper Navarro co-wrote. The elaborate web of unfair trade practices includes illegal export subsidies, the theft of intellectual property, the aforementioned currency manipulation, forced technology transfers and a widespread reliance upon both sweat shop labor and pollution havens. Story continues Read More: Why America Would Lose a Trade War With China At the Molezu factory a sweatshop and pollution haven by some standards workers I speak to arent worried that a trade war could slow their production line. Mostly, they are intrigued by Trumps reputation as a successful businessman. As a rich guy himself, Trump will make the American people rich, says Fan Zhenzhu, as he wields a paint spray-gun. I know Trump will focus on the economy and bring jobs back to the U.S. But it wont affect us. China is a big country, and we have huge consumption power of our own. For Huang, an elementary-school graduate who lives in a cramped dorm room with three other factory workers, politics dont enter her mental calculation. I dont know who the president of China is, she says, snipping off bits of excess latex from Trumps face. I dont watch the news. Factory work is harder to get in southern Chinas Guangdong Province these days, as Chinas economy cools. Huang is grateful for her $430-a-month salary, even if she only sees her six-year-old daughter once a year during Chinese New Year. Read More: How Trump Could Start a Trade War in His First 100 Days Yet worker discontent is also rising in China, as income inequality yawns and housing grows increasingly unaffordable in the big cities. Labor protests have proliferated. Chinas economic weight is shifting from manufacturing to services. As factories decelerate, part of Chinas floating population roughly 275 million internal migrants who have traded rural lives for urban hustle has had no choice but to return home to fallow land. Some manufacturing jobs have even fled to lower-cost parts of Asia. Its precisely the kind of labor exodus that troubles many Trump supporters in America. Still, the enterprise and ambition of Chinese workers, who have powered what is now the worlds second-largest economy, have not changed. Xu Sumei is Molezus production manager in charge of churning out 3,000 masks a day. She stands amid piles of Donald Trump masks and exchanges factory gossip with other workers. During her five years at the company, Xu has watched salaries for entry-level workers double. Trumps rhetoric that Chinese laborers are stealing jobs from the American rust belt mystifies her. Arent U.S. workers willing to work for 3,000 to 4,000 yuan a month? she asks, figures that convert to between $430 and $580. Here, thats a good salary. In China, perhaps. But what American would take those wages for a chance to polish Donald Trumps face seven days a week, 10 hours a day? With reporting by Zhang Chi / Shenzhen Dozens of countries called on Israel and the Palestinians to recommit to a two-state solution Sunday at a Middle East peace conference in Paris and urged the United States not to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as President-elect Donald Trump has promised. Hundreds of pro-Israel demonstrators rallied outside the Israeli Embassy in Paris as the conference took place. Diplomats attending the conference, which did not include representatives from Israel, the Palestinians or the incoming U.S. government, expressed concerns over the possibility of moving the embassy, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warning, This is not the right time and We think its ill-advised. We will move the U.S. Embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem, Trump pledged during the presidential campaign. Lately he has tempered the pledge by suggesting the embassy could remain in Tel Aviv while the ambassador works out of the consulate in Jerusalem. European diplomats have warned moving the embassy could unleash further violence. Its very dangerous, a diplomat told CNN. Chances for the peace process are going very quickly its now or never. Violence is always a concern and, at this point, its probably easy for Palestinians to demonstrate their frustration. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned Trump moving the embassy would be a mistake. "Any statement or position that disrupts or changes the status of Jerusalem is a red line, which we will not accept," he said in a recent speech. British officials said they feared the Paris conference risked hardening positions. "We have particular reservations about an international conference intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them indeed which is taking place against the wishes of the Israelis and which is taking place just days before the transition to a new American president when the U.S. will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement," a Foreign Office statement said. Story continues The final Paris communique made no mention of the U.S. Embassy. In addition to calling for a recommitment to the two-state concept, it called for recognition of the Palestinians right to statehood as well as Israeli security needs. Oustanding issues include the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, settlements, security and borders. France and other countries fear the incoming Trump administration could stoke tensions in the region by condoning settlements in areas claimed by the Palestinians. "The parties remain very distanced in a relationship of defiance, which is particularly dangerous, and no one is immune to a new explosion of violence," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told delegates. "There will not be regional peace, solid and durable, as long as the conflict with the Palestinians will not be resolved." mideast Photo: Bertrand Guay/Reuters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the conference rigged, characterizing it as an attempt to force Israel to accept conditions against its national interests. Many members of Netanyahus coalition want to abandon the two-state solution and have called for the annexation of parts of the West Bank. They rejected the conference, calling instead for direct negotiations, something that hasnt happened since 2014. The final communique from Sundays meeting criticized incitement and terror, a reference to Palestinian attacks, but also lauded last months U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity the U.S. broke with tradition and abstained from voting on the resolution rather than vetoing it. The Australian government distanced itself from the final communique, with a spokesperson for the office of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop telling the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the government did not agree with everything in the document. Australia last month labeled the U.N. resolution one-sided and deeply unsettling. Kerry said Israeli criticism of the conference was unwarranted and emphasized the necessity of a two-state solution. Netanyahu has given lip service to the concept of a two-state solution but has repeatedly approved settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, something Palestinians say must stop if an agreement ever is to be reached. Related Articles European leaders have alternately welcomed and condemned remarks made in President-elect Donald Trumps first interview with foreign media, in which he said he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia, called NATO redundant and promised to offer Britain a quick trade deal. Some of his comments, in a joint interview published in the Times of London and German newspaper Bild, have caused fresh fears about what his Administration will do in office. But British lawmakers in particular were enthused by his views on Brexit. Russian sanctions Trump said in the interview published on Sunday that he would be willing to lift sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in exchange for a nuclear-weapons-reduction deal with Russias President Vladimir Putin. U.S. and Russia hold the worlds largest nuclear stockpile. According to the U.S. State Department, Russia has 1,796 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic missiles and bombers, while the U.S. has 1,367. They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it, Trump told the London Times. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit. Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden, called Trumps statement muddled thinking as the sanctions are over aggression against Ukraine, but called nuclear reductions a deal that would increase stability. Trump wants to lift Russia sanctions in exchange for nuclear reductions. Muddled thinking. Sanctions are over aggression against Ukraine. Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 16, 2017 Nuclear reductions important goal in itself. Russia will link this to missile defense issues. A deal here would increase stability. Pursue! Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 16, 2017 There was a similarly mixed reaction from Russian politicians, with Senator Konstantin Kosachev saying that annulled sanctions were not worth making security concessions over, Reuters reports. Another Senator, Oleg Morozov, said Russia would be open to discussions about nuclear cuts. Story continues The outgoing U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, who was in Ukraine Monday to meet Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko, urged the sanctions remain in place. The international community must continue to stand as one against Russian coercion and aggression, he said, Reuters reports. It is Ukraines best hope to move forward as a united country. NATO Trump repeated his view that NATO was obsolete, but went on to say the military alliance was nevertheless still important to him. I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, he told the Times, complaining that member states are not meeting the alliances guidelines for 2% of GDP to be put toward defense spending. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much from twenty-two. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Trumps statement on the obsolete alliance had been received with worry and concern. Ive just had a conversation with the Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who has expressed concern at the comments made by Donald Trump that NATO is obsolete, Steinmeier said, reports Deutsche Welle. The German Foreign Minister noted that General John Mattis, Trumps pick for defense secretary, had defended NATO in his confirmation hearing calling it the most successful military alliance probably in modern history, maybe ever. #Steinmeier in Brussels: #Trump comments on @NATO caused astonishment here and certainly not only here (1/2) GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 16, 2017 #Steinmeier: comments are contradictory to statement of designated defense secretary #Mattis during Congress hearing (2/2) GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 16, 2017 Moscow was more welcoming of Trumps remarks. NATO is indeed a relic, we also agree with this, Dmitri Peskov, Russias government spokesperson, told the press on Monday, Sputnik News reports. Brexit During the interview, Trump said the U.K. was doing great leaving the E.U. and showed eagerness to achieve a trade deal with the country very quickly. He also revealed that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May had given Trump a gift of a copy of Winston Churchills address to the American people in 1941, and that he plans to invite her to Washington right after he takes office. Im a big fan of the U.K., were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly, Trump told the Times. Good for both sides. I will be meeting with [Theresa May] in fact if you want you can see the letter, wherever the letter is, she just sent it. Shes requesting a meeting and well have a meeting right after I get into the White House and were gonna get something done very quickly. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who campaigned for the country to leave the E.U., told reporters in Brussels that Trumps comments were very good news. Its very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free-trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast and its great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump, Johnson said, Reuters reports. Clearly itll have to be a deal thats very much in the interests of both sides but Ive no doubt that it will be. May welcomed the news. We welcome the commitment from the President-elect to engage with the U.K. on this, to work together to agree a deal quickly, the Prime Ministers spokeswoman told the Guardian on Monday. (NEW YORK) Wading into foreign affairs days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump said Britains decision to leave the European Union would end up being a great thing and predicted the bloc would continue to break apart. The incoming president, in an interview published Sunday, said European countries are reacting to an influx of immigrants that threaten each nations identity. People, countries want their own identity and the U.K. wanted its own identity, Trump said in an interview with Londons The Sunday Times and Bild, a German newspaper. I believe others will leave, he continued. I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think. And I think this: if refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe I think its gonna be very hard to keep it together, because people are angry about it. The comments largely echo Trumps rhetoric during his presidential campaign. He helped rally white working-class voters by railing against illegal immigration and vowing to build a massive wall along the border with Mexico. Trump indicated he was indifferent to whether the E.U. stays together or not, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which encouraged Great Britain to remain in the E.U. last year. The vote injected instability across the region and triggered calls for similar moves in France, Sweden and the Netherlands. It also weakened the 28-nation blocs ability to push back against Russian aggression in Ukraine, among other regional challenges. Trump did not address Russia in the sections of the interview released Sunday. His praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin has come under intense scrutiny following reports that Russia interfered in the U.S. election to help him win. He did criticize German Chancellor Angela Merkels immigration policies. While saying he had great respect for the German leader, Trump said Merkel made a catastrophic mistake by welcoming an influx of immigrants into her country. He indicated that a December attack at a German Christmas market by a Tunisian was one effect of Merkels policies. Story continues Trump also took aim at another key western alliance in the interview. He called the North American Treaty Organization, commonly known as NATO, obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror and said member organizations arent paying their fair share. A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States, Trump said. With that being said, NATO is very important to me. BEIJING (AP) President-elect Donald Trump speaks like a rookie, Chinas state-run media said Monday, describing his suggested use of Americas position on Taiwan as a bargaining chip as despicable. The nationalist tabloid Global Times published an editorial blasting Trumps strategy and saying China would have a strong response to any reconsideration of the one China policy. Since recognizing Beijing in 1979, Washington has maintained only unofficial ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory a status quo that Trump has repeatedly threatened to upend since winning the November election. In the past, Trump infuriated us, but now we find him risible, said the newspaper, which is published by the Peoples Daily, the ruling Communist Partys mouthpiece. With a skyrocketing ascent in his political life, he has been stunningly confident in his ostensible knowledge of the job, though he speaks like a rookie. The English-language China Daily ran an editorial Monday accusing Trump of playing with fire. If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves, the newspaper said. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that everything is under negotiation, including one China.' It was the latest sign that Trump could shake up the U.S.-China relationship, particularly on Taiwan, which China considers a core national interest. Chinas Foreign Ministry responded with a statement Sunday saying the one China policy was non-negotiable. The government of the Peoples Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing China, spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement. That is the fact acknowledged by the international community and no one can change it. Story continues China was already angered by Trumps Dec. 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwans leader in nearly four decades. Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult. Trump then said in a television interview that he didnt feel bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade. On Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trumps incoming chief of staff, said that there are no plans to change the one-China policy. But certainly that policy is on the table if China doesnt also come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and whats happening there, Priebus said on ABCs This Week. After attacking China repeatedly during his campaign, Trump has continued to disparage China on his Twitter account over its military buildup in disputed areas of the South China Sea, allegedly manipulating its currency to put American companies at a disadvantage, and not doing enough to curb North Koreas nuclear program. He has also announced that a new White House trade council will be led by economist Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of Chinese economic policy who wrote a book titled Death By China. Trump told the Journal that he would not label China a currency manipulator as soon as he takes office, though he repeated his contention that China is manipulating the yuan. So far, Beijing has reiterated its refusal to negotiate on Taiwan and to push for positive cooperation between the two sides, though state-run media have run several strongly worded editorials attacking Trump. Chinese political observers said Sunday that they expect Beijings response to change once Trump is inaugurated next week. Trump has not taken office yet, so he is an ordinary person now, said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. Therefore, theres no need for China to take his remarks seriously or further respond to what he said. ___ Associated Press researcher Henry Hou contributed to this report. Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's top administrative court upheld on Monday a ruling voiding a government agreement to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia in a deal that sparked rare protests. The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had appealed against a lower court ruling in June that found the controversial border demarcation agreement was illegal. In its ruling, the High Administrative Court said it was its "unanimous" decision that the two islands -- Tiran and Sanafir -- were sovereign Egyptian territories. The courtroom erupted in cheers as the judge delivered the verdict, with lawyers and activists chanting: "These islands are Egyptian." The decision came after the government referred the agreement to parliament for a vote. It may further complicate ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a main financial backer of Sisi since the former army chief toppled his Islamist predecessor in 2013. Saudi Arabia has already signalled unease by stopping a promised flow of oil to Egypt, leaving Cairo scrambling to find a new supplier. But relations have cooled over Egypt's stance on war-torn Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is seen as closer to Russia than Saudi Arabia which supports rebels fighting him. Lawyers present in court told AFP the ruling was final, but a former senior judge said the government could still find a way to appeal it. - Unconstitutional? - Mohamed Hamed al-Gamal, the former head of the administrative court, said the decision was final according to this court's procedure, but it could be unconstitutional. "The law and the constitution affirm the absence of administrative court jurisdiction in sovereign matters such as international treaties," Gamal said. The government may challenge the ruling before the constitutional court, he added. The deal to hand over the islands, signed during an April visit by Saudi King Salman in which Riyadh showered Egypt with aid, provoked accusations that Cairo had "sold" the strategic islands. Story continues Cairo said the islands were Saudi to start with, but had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s. But even many who agreed with the government objected to the way the deal was announced, buried in a cabinet statement a day after it was signed. Two rare protests were held in downtown Cairo in April against the deal, leading to clashes with police and arrests of activists. More than 100 people were jailed for up to five years for taking part in demonstrations that police quickly dispersed, but they were later freed on appeal. Police had also made scores of arrests in the lead-up to the protests to discourage a repeat of a large rally on April 15 at which demonstrators chanted for the "fall of the regime". Sisi had defended the deal, and said in a televised meeting with politicians that his mother had taught him "not to take other people's belongings". He further requested that the matter not be brought up again. London (AFP) - Eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world's population, a level of inequality which "threatens to pull our societies apart", Oxfam said on Monday ahead of the World Economic Forum opening in Davos. The wealth of the world's poorest 3.6 billion people is the equivalent to the combined net worth of six American businessmen, one from Spain and another from Mexico. Picked from Forbes' billionaires list, they include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg who co-founded Facebook, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Oxfam pointed to a link between the vast gap between rich and poor and growing discontent with mainstream politics around the world. "From Brexit to the success of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, a worrying rise in racism and the widespread disillusionment with mainstream politics, there are increasing signs that more and more people in rich countries are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo," Oxfam said in its new report, "An economy for the 99 percent". The charity said new data on wealth distribution from countries such as India and China had prompted it to revise its own calculation, having said a year ago the wealth of half the world's population was in the hands of 62 people. Inequality will be among the issues topping the agenda as the world's political and business elite meet in Davos from Tuesday until Friday, when 3,000 people will gather for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. "Responsive and responsible leadership" has been chosen as the theme of the summit, which organisers said was a response to a "backlash against globalisation leading to two surprising vote results and a rise in populism in the West". In its report Oxfam called for an increase in tax rates targeting "rich individuals and cooperations", as well as a global agreement to end competition between countries to lower corporate tax rates. The charity also condemned lobbying by corporations and the closeness of business and politics, calling for mandatory public lobby registries and stronger rules on conflicts of interest. Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's ethics commissioner has opened a probe of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over his lavish post-Christmas vacation at the private island of billionaire philanthropist and spiritual leader the Aga Khan. In a letter to an opposition Conservative member of Parliament shown to AFP on Monday, Commissioner Mary Dawson said she was investigating whether Trudeau breached ethics laws in receiving a free Bahamas vacation and in using the Aga Khan's helicopter to fly to his private island. Trudeau and his family, as well as a Liberal MP and the president of the party and their spouses, stayed at the Aga Khan's home on Bell Island in the Bahamas for a post-Christmas vacation. The Aga Khan's foundation has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Canadian government to promote development and other projects in several countries. It is registered as a lobbyist. Canadian conflict of interest laws prohibit officeholders from accepting gifts. Free travel is specifically listed as prohibited for ministers. Trudeau last week addressed the controversy after the opposition complained to Dawson, saying, "This was a personal family vacation." The Aga Khan is a longtime friend of the Trudeau family, he added. On a cross-Canada tour to bolster support for his leadership and his Liberal Party, Trudeau told reporters Monday, "I've heard from a number of people across the country that they're concerned about this, and that's why I take this very seriously." He said he would happily respond to questions from the ethics commissioner and others. No Canadian prime minister has ever been found in breach of a federal statute, and even if Trudeau is found guilty of such a breach, the sanctions would be effectively a slap on the wrist. The political fallout, however, is likely to be much worse for Trudeau, who rose to power in 2015 on a platform of openness and ethical conduct. Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande replied bluntly on Monday to Donald Trump's criticism of the European Union, saying the EU "has no need for outside advice" on its affairs. "I say it here, Europe will always be willing to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will determine its path on the basis of its own interests and values," Hollande said at a ceremony in Paris for outgoing US ambassador Jane Hartley. "It has no need for outside advice to tell it what it has to do." In a hard-hitting interview published on Sunday by The Times of London and Germany's Bild, the US president-elect said Europe had been weakened by its policy on migrants. He criticised as "catastrophic" Germany's decision to open its borders to Syrian refugees, hailed Brexit as "a great thing" and predicted other countries would follow Britain in leaving the EU. "I think people want . . . their own identity, so if you ask me ... I believe others will leave," Trump said. "If they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back," he said. "(...) If refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe... I think it's gonna be very hard to keep it together because people are angry about it." Brussels (AFP) - EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini on Monday advised the incoming Donald Trump administration against moving the US embassy to Jerusalem as she "worried" about a possible worldwide popular backlash. Mogherini said the European Union delegation will keep its embassy in Tel Aviv and continue to respect UN resolutions opposing Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. "I believe that it is very important for us all to refrain from unilateral actions, especially those that have serious consequences in large sectors of public opinion in large parts of the world," Mogherini told a press conference when asked about Trump's stated plans. In a break with previous administrations, US president-elect Trump has pledged to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. Mogherini said at first she could not answer a hypothetical question when Trump does not actually enter office until Friday and no decision has been taken yet on moving the embassy. But she added: "For sure I'm worried that large parts of public opinion in parts of the world that are quite significant -- the Arab world but also Africa, Asia and parts of Europe -- could have in reaction of a move that for sure would not be in line with ... the international consensus." She cited the consensus embodied in UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980 which opposed Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem as part of its undivided capital. Israel captured east Jerusalem during the 1967 war and later annexed it -- in a move not recognised by the international community -- declaring all of the city its unified capital. "When it comes to Jerusalem, the European Union will continue to respect the international consensus embodied in UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980," the former Italian foreign minister said. Story continues "We will for sure not move our delegation that is in Tel Aviv," she said. Mogherini also described the weekend Middle East peace conference in Paris as "useful" for reconfirming international support for a two-state solutions, even if neither the Israelis or Palestinians attended. The Palestinians welcomed the gathering for calling for the end to the Israeli occupation, but Israel dismissed it as "futile" and warned it would hamper the prospects of peace. Berlin (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on Monday that "we Europeans have our fate in our own hands", after Donald Trump criticised the EU and praised Britain's decision to leave the bloc. Merkel also told reporters that she would work towards getting the European Union's 27 remaining member states to strengthen their economies and meet future challenges, including the battle against terrorism. The German leader's comments came after the US president-elect branded the NATO alliance as "obsolete" and lashed out at a key EU-US nuclear deal with Iran. In an interview with two European newspapers, Trump also took aim at Merkel's decision to let in refugees fleeing war in mostly Muslim nations, including Syria and Iraq, insinuating that this posed a security risk. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," Trump said, adding that he had "great respect" for the chancellor. But Merkel said Trump had mistakenly conflated two separate issues. "I would clearly separate (terrorism) from the existence of refugees in relation to the Syrian civil war. The Syrian civil war has been far longer, the majority of Syrians left their country because of the civil war, because of the fight against Assad or the oppression by Assad," she said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "In addition to this is Islamist terrorism and that concerns all of us, but the civil war as such was in Syria first," said Merkel, who has also come under fire at home after 890,000 asylum-seekers arrived in 2015 alone. Merkel shrugged off the latest comments, noting that Trump's position "is known". "When he is in office, and at the moment that's not the case, we will work with the new American government and see what kind of agreements we can reach," she said. (Reuters) - Facts about retired U.S. astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, who died on Monday: * In addition to being one of 12 men to walk on the moon, Cernan was the third person to walk in space, following Russian Alexei Leonov and American Ed White. Cernan spent two hours and seven minutes outside the Gemini 9 spacecraft on the 1966 mission but had to come in early because his helmet visor was fogging up due to exertion. Because the spacewalk was shortened, Cernan did not have a chance to test a new jetpack. He recalled the incident in his memoir in a chapter titled "The Spacewalk From Hell." * Cernan holds the moon's speed record, having driven the lunar rover at 11.2 miles per hour (18 km per hour) on a downhill run. * He almost missed out on Apollo 17 because he severely strained a tendon in his leg playing softball with NASA personnel two months before the launch. He used crutches for a week and willed himself not to limp so NASA officials would not pull him from the mission but said walking on the moon was painful. * Security at Cape Kennedy had to be increased for Apollo 17 because of the threat of attack from Black September, the Palestinian group that had killed 11 Israelis at the Summer Olympics in Munich three months earlier. Officials also were concerned about the astronauts' families, so authorities followed their children's school buses and federal agents kept an eye on their classrooms. * Less than two weeks after returning from the moon, Cernan and crew mate Ron Evans went to Bimini in the Bahamas for New Year's as the guests of the chief executive of Rockwell International. Cernan said the executive was an old friend but there were conflict of interest concerns in Washington because Rockwell manufactured modules for NASA spacecraft. Cernan was given a letter of reprimand from the agency. * Cernan met Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, at Purdue University, where they studied in the 1950s. (Reporting by Bill Trott; Editing by Ian Simpson and Paul Simao) By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With more British men wanting to take an active role in raising their children, are workplaces preventing fathers from spending more time at home, asks an inquiry launched on Monday, with men's rights groups calling for a "childcare revolution". British lawmakers want to know the barriers that prevent men from sharing parental duties, from lack of workplace flexibility to attitudes toward fathers taking paternity leave, and how that affects the gender pay gap. Flexible working for both men and women -- including job shares, and working from home -- is key to addressing the gender pay gap, according to the Women and Equalities Committee, which monitors the performance of the government's Equalities Office. "Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children," committee chair and Conservative member of parliament Maria Miller said in a statement. "(The committee) is now asking whether fathers are being failed in the workplace. Clearly more needs to be done." Men's rights groups say the current paternity package of 139.58 pounds ($170) a week was not enough for families to live off, meaning men had little choice but to keep working. Rigid gender stereotypes were also part of the problem as many fathers are stigmatized for going on parental leave, said Matt O'Connor, founder of rights group Fathers4Justice. "Dads need to feel that they can take parental leave and be encouraged to do so. We need to ditch this baggage that says 'men go to work, women stay at home'. It's rubbish, change it, it's antiquated," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. British parents are the worst in the developed world for sharing childcare duties, with fathers spending 24 minutes with their children for every hour that women do, according to a 2016 report by UK charity The Fatherhood Institute. Sweden -- where fathers are encouraged to take three months of paid parental leave and the number of working women is the highest in the EU -- won the top spot for gender equality among families, the report said. Nearly 40 percent of British fathers would rather earn less, however, if it allowed them to spend more time with their families, another report by work-life charity Working Families and childcare provider Bright Horizons, said. But with nearly a fifth of British fathers regarding their employer as unsympathetic about childcare, attitudes at work need to change, Mubeen Bhutta, head of campaigns and policy at Working Families, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Monday. "We're seeing a beginning of a generational shift where we've got a new generation of fathers who want to do things differently to perhaps how their fathers managed their work-life balance," she said. "But we're not necessarily seeing the corresponding changes in UK workplaces." The Women and Equalities Committee has previously called for fathers to be granted three months of well-paid leave as an incentive to help with childcare, and for mothers to be encouraged to return to employment after time out of the labor market. On average women earn 19.2 percent less than men in Britain. Despite the government's pledge to end the pay gap within a generation, it has remained more or less the same for the past four years with women over 40 hardest hit, the committee says. (Additional reporting by Magdalena Mis, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women's rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories) By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With more British men wanting to take an active role in raising their children, are workplaces preventing fathers from spending more time at home, asks an inquiry launched on Monday, with men's rights groups calling for a "childcare revolution". British lawmakers want to know the barriers that prevent men from sharing parental duties, from lack of workplace flexibility to attitudes towards fathers taking paternity leave, and how that affects the gender pay gap. Flexible working for both men and women -- including job shares, and working from home -- is key to addressing the gender pay gap, according to the Women and Equalities Committee, which monitors the performance of the government's Equalities Office. "Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children," committee chair and Conservative member of parliament Maria Miller said in a statement. "(The committee) is now asking whether fathers are being failed in the workplace. Clearly more needs to be done." Men's rights groups say the current paternity package of 139.58 pounds ($170) a week was not enough for families to live off, meaning men had little choice but to keep working. Rigid gender stereotypes were also part of the problem as many fathers are stigmatised for going on parental leave, said Matt O'Connor, founder of rights group Fathers4Justice. "Dads need to feel that they can take parental leave and be encouraged to do so. We need to ditch this baggage that says 'men go to work, women stay at home'. It's rubbish, change it, it's antiquated," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "To be a progressive society, men and women need to share parental responsibility. We want to see a childcare revolution," he said. British parents are the worst in the developed world for sharing childcare duties, with fathers spending 24 minutes with their children for every hour that women do, according to a 2016 report by UK charity The Fatherhood Institute. "(We need) forward-thinking employers who normalise active fatherhood among their employees, actively seeking to help fathers be the kinds of dads they aspire to be," said Adrienne Burgess, joint chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute. Sweden got the top spot for gender equality among families, the charity's report said. In the Scandinavian country, fathers are encouraged to take three months of paid parental leave, and the number of working women is the highest in the European Union, the Swedish government says. The committee has previously called for fathers to be granted three months of well-paid leave as an incentive to help with childcare, and for mothers to be encouraged to return to employment after time out of the labour market. On average women earn 19.2 percent less than men in Britain. Despite the government's pledge to end the pay gap within a generation, it has remained more or less the same for the past four years with women over 40 hardest hit, the committee says. ($1 = 0.8222 pounds) (Reporting by Lin Taylor, Editing by Ros Russell) Filmmaker Michael Moore is lining up celebrities for a pre-inauguration protest in front of Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York and defending Rep. John Lewis assessment that Donald Trumps election was not legitimate. Moore tweeted Saturday Avengers actor Mark Ruffalo and Alec Baldwin, who has been impersonating Trump on Saturday Night Live, would join him in front of the Trump-developed building about a half-mile from Trumps residence in Trump Tower on Thursday at 6 p.m. to protest Fridays inauguration of Trump in Washington. He later added Rosie Perez, the Rev. Al Sharpton and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to the list of those participating. On Faceboook, Moore listed six reasons he does not think Trump is fit to assume the presidency. Moore cited Democrat Hillary Clintons popular vote margin, what he described as Trumps narcissistic tendencies, Russian interference in the election, FBI Director James Comeys interference in the process, the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state and the possibility Trump has committed felonies such as tax evasion and sexual assault. Organizers of the event include Greenpeace and the liberal activist organization MoveOn. The Associated Press reported the rally, which is expected to draw thousands, will focus on immigration, climate change, healthcare and workers rights. "We are sending a message to Washington that we will fight, at every step, discrimination and harmful policies, today, tomorrow and every day," Ruffalo said in a statement, adding participants "are coming together to stand up for one another, as we will do every day, to protect the values we hold dear." Moore said Lewis was right in saying he didnt see Trump as a legitimate president. Lewis said in an interview on NBCs Meet the Press rejected Trump in light of Russias attempts to meddle in the election. Story continues "I don't see the president-elect as a legitimate president," Lewis said. Related Articles New York (AFP) - She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police -- designers refusing to dress her because of her husband's politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. "It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration," Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. From Mamie Eisenhower's pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama's white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America's first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favorites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a "traditional" first lady like Jackie Kennedy -- famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isn't their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband's insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. - Incompatible - "The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by," Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. Story continues "Personally, I'd rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters," Marc Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Women's Wear Daily that anyone should be "proud" to dress the new first lady and Trump's daughter Ivanka -- who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Year's Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a "thank you." Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. "Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity," von Furstenberg has said. - Buy American - But what is Melania's style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman -- manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman -- Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. She's already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the country's huge fashion industry. "The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors," Vera Wang told Women's Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. "Don't underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved," Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up." Pretoria (AFP) - US motor giant Ford on Monday recalled 4,500 1.6-litre Kuga cars in South Africa after nearly 40 incidents in which vehicles were reported to have burst into flames. Over recent years, the SUV model has been the focus of repeated accounts in South Africa of spontaneous fires taking hold while the car was being driven. "We are now announcing a voluntary safety recall of the Kuga 1.6," Ford South Africa chief executive Jeffrey Nemeth told a press conference in Pretoria. "We can confirm that a total of 39 incidents have been reported to Ford... there may be some incidents that have not yet been reported to us." Nemeth said that the fires were caused by overheating due to poor coolant circulation that led to an oil leak. "If the oil leak reaches a hot engine component it could potentially catch fire," he said. "With this safety recall all affected vehicles, including those that have already been checked as part of our maintenance check, must be taken to a Ford dealer as soon as possible." - Dispute over fatality - One man, Reshall Jimmy, died in December 2015 when his Kuga burst into flames, but Ford said it believed the death was not related to the fault. "We are not aware of any injuries that have resulted from our engine compartment fires," Nemeth said, while also offering his condolences to Jimmy's family, who attended the press conference. Kaveen Jimmy, Reshall's brother, said his family's campaign over the Kuga would continue and that lawyers were preparing a civil action case against Ford. "I think 50 percent of the battle has been won. Part of the goal was to get these Kugas from South Africa so that the safely of South Africans can be protected," he said. "The next leg of the battle is to get Ford... to look at the evidence (and) what caused my brother's death, a very senseless death." Ford said the vehicle were built in Valencia, Spain between December 2012 and February 2014. Story continues Last week the company said it was expanding a safety recall of some defective airbag inflators from Japanese parts maker Takata. The action extended the recall to about 816,000 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brand vehicles built in North America and sold in the United States and Canada for various model years between 2005 and 2012. Most major manufacturers have been affected in what has been described as the largest-ever auto safety recall. CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - U.S. auto-maker Ford will recall 4,500 Kuga SUVs sold in South Africa after dozens of reports of the vehicles catching fire spontaneously, the head of the company's South Africa unit said on Monday. In a joint statement with the National Consumer Commission (NCC), Ford's Southern Africa President and chief executive Jeff Nemeth said the company could confirm 39 incidents of the cars catching fire. "We are not aware of any injuries that have resulted from our engine compartment fires," Nemeth told a media briefing. He said early investigations revealed that fires in the Kuga 1.6 liter model, imported from Spain, were likely due to overheating caused by a lack of coolant circulation which could lead to a crack in the cylinder head and oil leaks. If oil reached a hot engine component it could catch fire, Nemeth said. Ford officials said at the briefing that hot weather in South Africa could be a contributing factor. The voluntary recall of the 4,500 cars is down from a previous estimate of 6,300, and will only affect Kuga models built between December 2012 and February 2014. Nemeth refused to reveal the cost of the recall to Ford, which will replace affected components on the cooling system, update software and conduct tests on cylinder heads. In October, the company's North American arm recalled 400,000 units of the Ford Escape - the U.S. version of the Kuga - also due to engine problems. "A product that poses any risk to our consumers does not have a place in our market place," NCC commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed said at the briefing. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by Andrew Roche) By Richard Balmforth PARIS (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, long tipped to win the left-wing ticket for France's presidential election this spring, trailed his rivals after a debate on Sunday where his immigration policies came under fire. In the televised debate, Valls faced six other contenders ahead of a Socialist primary starting on Jan. 22 to pick a candidate who can keep next May's presidential poll from becoming a contest between the centre-right's Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen of the far-right. The candidate chosen in the primary's runoff on January 29 could also have a crucial impact on the chances of independent Emmanuel Macron, a popular former economy minister whose campaign is rapidly gaining momentum, according to surveys. An Elabe poll of 1,053 people of mixed political views published soon after Sunday night's debate said 29 percent found former economy minister Arnaud Montebourg "more convincing" than Valls, who was put on 26 percent. A separate part of the poll, measuring sentiment only among left-wing voters, gave former education minister Benoit Hamon 30 percent of the vote compared to 28 percent for Valls. Valls, accused by many in the party of betraying left-wing values by overseeing a pro-business U-turn under Socialist President Francois Hollande, quickly found himself on the defensive in the debate over his policy on migrants while in office. He admitted France had taken in far fewer migrants than other EU countries since 2015 - 5,000 compared to the 30,000 it promised to accept - but vigorously defended his policy. "I'm fed up of hearing - and I have heard it again tonight - accusations against France about this," he said. "Either you have open borders or you put yourself in a position to control them ... France has been right to follow the policy it has." Hamon asked if that showed France was faithful to its own values and replied to his own question with a shake of the head. "We ought to be able to take in more migrants," he said, proposing that a "humanitarian visa" be introduced. Another former education minister, Vincent Peillon, also criticised Valls for his policy on migrants, reproaching him for publicly criticising German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her open doors policy. The debate, lasting more than two and a half hours, exposed some big differences among the Socialists, who are given little chance of stopping a likely knockout contest between Fillon, a former prime minister, and Le Pen, who heads the National Front. Polls say Fillon is likely to emerge easily as the victor from a head-to-head contest with Le Pen. But Macron, who served in Valls's government but has stayed away from the Left's primary to run as an independent, could still upset this calculation, many commentators say. Montebourg, a firebrand socialist who wants to levy a supertax on banks to raise five billion euros ($5.2 billion), was comparatively subdued during Sunday's debate. But he promised that if elected he would fight against "the wall of the powerful" constituting the superwealthy and the banks. "We must put an end to austerity," he said, pledging to "re-open hostilities" against free trade agreements under negotiation. (Reporting by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Tom Heneghan) Paris (AFP) - French lensmaker Essilor has agreed to buy Italy's luxury eyewear maker Luxottica in a bid to create a new global giant in the sector, the two groups announced Monday. Shares in Essilor, the world leader in corrective lenses, surged by 13.8 percent on the Paris stock exchange and Luxottica shares were up 8.2 percent in Milan on the news as of 1100 GMT. The combined group will have a market capitalisation of around 46.2 billion euros ($49 billion), based on both companies' closing share prices on Friday. Under the terms of the transaction, the family of Leonard Del Vecchio, Luxottica founder and chief executive, will hand over his stake to Essilor, which will then launch a public bid to buy the remaining shares. Del Vecchio, 81, controls a 62 percent stake via holding company Delfin. "Finally, two products which are naturally complementary, namely frames and lenses, will be designed, manufactured and distributed under the same roof," Del Vecchio said. "With this agreement my dream to create a major global player in the eyewear industry, fully integrated and excellent in all its parts, comes finally true." The combined group, to be known as EssilorLuxottica, will have annual sales of more than 15 billion euros and employ a workforce of 140,000 worldwide. The merger is expected to create synergies that will save between 400 million and 600 million euros a year in the medium term. Bryan, Garnier & Co analysts called the merger "a perfect fit... as both groups are leading their respective categories" of lenses and frames. But they said the new group "might face anti-trust barriers since it would become a 'hegemonic supplier' for many independent opticians." - 'The same vision' - Del Vecchio will become chief executive of the new group and Essilor head Hubert Sagnieres, 61, will be his deputy, with "equal powers", a joint statement said. "We share the same values, the same vision, the same interest in the products," Sagnieres said. Story continues The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. The deal still needs to receive the necessary regulatory approval, but is expected to be completed in the second half of this year. Del Vecchio returned to the helm in January 2016 after two years of management turmoil sparked by a falling out with his right-hand man Andrea Guerra, who quit in 2014. "Leonardo Del Vecchio's inability to find a successor probably weighed heavily on this idea of coming together" with Essilor, said a strategist at the French brokerage firm Aurel BGC. "The idea... has been around a long time, and though not on everyone's mind recently, and is now bearing fruit," he added. The two groups made a failed attempt to merge in 2013. Founded in 1961, Luxottica owns the Ray-Ban, Oakley and Sunglass Hut brands and licences for designer frames such as Giorgio Armani, Chanel and Ralph Lauren. The Italian group, which employs some 80,000 people, generates annual sales of around nine billion euros, while Essilor booked sales of just over 6.7 billion euros in 2015. Essilor's Sagnieres said: "Our project has one simple motivation: to better respond to the needs of an immense global population in vision correction and vision protection." The group is to be headquartered in France, at Essilor's location in Charenton southeast of Paris, Sagnieres said, without detailing which sites may be shut down. Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - An eight-year-old son of The Gambia's president-elect Adama Barrow has died after being bitten by dogs, a family source said Monday, days before his contested inauguration. Barrow, who is in Senegal, is scheduled to be sworn in on Thursday, but President Yahya Jammeh has declared he will not step down by then. "President-elect Barrow's son, Habibou, died yesterday evening (Sunday) after he was bitten by dogs," the family source said. Habibou was one of 51-year-old Barrow's five children. The boy was "buried this afternoon (Monday) in the cemetery in Kanifing," a suburb of the capital Banjul, watched by "several hundred sympathisers". No further details were available from Barrow himself or his entourage about the circumstances of the death. The small west African country has been plunged into political turmoil since Jammeh disputed Barrow's December election victory and refused to cede power. Leaders of neighbouring countries and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) have repeatedly called on the long-serving strongman to leave office peacefully, so far to no avail. Barrow's spokesman on Sunday insisted he would be sworn in as planned on Thursday. Until then he plans to stay in Senegal, where he arrived at the weekend after attending an African summit in Bamako. Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The Gambia's top judge on Monday pulled out of hearing a bid by President Yahya Jammeh to halt the inauguration of president-elect Adama Barrow later this week, in a blow to the incumbent head of state. The small west African country has been plunged in political turmoil since Jammeh disputed Barrow's December election victory and refused to cede power. Jammeh has lodged a challenge to the election result with The Gambia's Supreme Court and last week filed a fresh injunction to prevent the chief justice from swearing Barrow into office. But on Monday Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said he could not hear the new case, dealing a blow to Jammeh's efforts to halt Thursday's inauguration. "Given that the injunction affects me in my capacity as the chief justice, I will recuse myself from hearing it," he said. "The motion therefore waits for the constitution of the Supreme Court or allow the judges to arrive in The Gambia." Edward Gomez, a lawyer for Jammeh's party, conceded it was "certainly not possible under these circumstances" to have an injunction barring Barrow from being sworn in. The Gambia relies on foreign judges, notably from Nigeria, to staff its courts due to a lack of its own trained professionals. Last week the Supreme Court said Jammeh's challenge to the election result could not be heard for several months as it did not have a full bench, and the extra judges needed to hear the case were not available. - High tensions - Barrow is in Senegal, where he plans to remain until the inauguration on Thursday. On Monday his special advisor Mai Fatty read a statement on his behalf in Dakar, urging Gambians to "exercise restraint, observe the rule of law and not to respond to provocation". A personal tragedy struck Barrow on Sunday when his eight-year-old son Habibou died after being bitten by dogs, according to a family source. With tensions running high, Jammeh said on Sunday that he had spoken to Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and was adamant he would not budge until the Supreme Court had heard his challenge to the poll result. Story continues "The so-called deadline of 19th January 2017 is not cast in stone and all parties shall await the outcome of the Supreme Court," he said on state television. Leaders of neighbouring countries and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) have repeatedly called on the long-serving strongman to leave office peacefully, so far to no avail. As well as Sirleaf, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Ghana's ex-president John Mahama have appealed to Jammeh to step down twice in person, without success, most recently on Friday. Barrow was the surprise guest at a Bamako summit over the weekend, where he was welcomed as a head of state and introduced to several world leaders. The prospect of military intervention in The Gambia has even been floated in recent days, following declarations by the United Nations and African Union that boots on the ground could get the green light without a rapid resolution of the crisis. The head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel said on Friday that ECOWAS would ask the Security Council to approve the deployment of troops to The Gambia if Jammeh continues to refuse to leave office. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from NATO and European Union nations are concerned about comments on NATO that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump made in a newspaper interview published on Monday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "I've spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but NATO foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there's been no easing of tensions," Steinmeier told reporters when asked about Trump's interview with Bild newspaper and the Times of London. In the interview, Trump said he viewed NATO as obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks. (Reporting by Tom Koerkemeier; Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Paul Carrel) Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Monday warned US President-elect Donald Trump not to slap punitive tariffs on imports from carmakers like BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. "The American car industry will be worse, weaker and more expensive" if Trump were to levy a 35-percent tax on German cars, Gabriel told mass-market newspaper Bild. He added it would also hurt US carmakers if components were subject to higher duties. More German cars could be seen on the streets of New York than US cars on German streets, the Republican election victor had complained in an interview released Sunday. Gabriel responded that "the US will have to build better cars" if they want to change that. "It doesn't help to make others weaker, you don't yourself get stronger by doing that," he added. Trump singled out Munich-based luxury carmaker BMW in his interview with the Times of London and Germany's Bild, saying the firm would face the swingeing tariffs if it continued construction of a planned factory in Mexico, rather than the US. A BMW spokesman told AFP on Monday that construction at its factory in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, is "continuing as planned and expected to be finished in 2019". Series 3 cars to be built at the plant "are planned to serve the global market", and not just the US, he said. "We are a net exporter from the USA," he went on, pointing to the firm's largest factory worldwide in Spartanburg, South Carolina. That facility produced more than 400,000 vehicles in 2016 and directly or indirectly supports almost 70,000 jobs, the spokesman added. "The US isn't just an important export market for German carmakers, but also an important production site which delivers to the world market," Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, said in a statement. More than half the vehicles German firms produce in the US are then exported to third countries, he went on. Story continues "Erecting tariffs or other barriers to trade would be a self-inflicted wound for the US in the long term" if other countries responded in kind, Wissmann said. Gabriel told Bild that he expected Trump to change after being sworn in as president on Friday, when he will "realise how diverse the economic links" between the US and Germany are. "My only advice is not to get agitated," he said of Germany's future dealings with the US under the president-elect. "Not only we Germans, but we Europeans as a whole, we aren't somehow outmatched by him. We ourselves have something to bring to the table." By Tom Korkemeier and Andreas Rinke BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Foreign Minister said on Monday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's comments that NATO was obsolete had aroused concern across the 28-member alliance. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, speaking after a meeting with alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, said Trump's remarks contradicted views expressed by designated Defense Secretary James Mattis. He spoke also of "amazement". "I've spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but NATO foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there's been no easing of tensions," Steinmeier told reporters when asked about Trump's interview with Bild newspaper and the Times of London. "Obviously the comments from President-elect Trump, that he views NATO as obsolete, were viewed with anxiety," he said. Trump, who is due to be sworn in as president on Friday, said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terrorist attacks. He said also he had always had "great respect" for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but criticised her 2015 decision to allow in a wave of a million migrants as a "catastrophic mistake" that opened the door to terrorist attacks. RUSSIA AGREES NATO has been seen since the 1950s as the keystone of western European defences, extending its zone of activity in the post-Cold War period to the borders of Russia - much to Russia's chagrin. The alliance's founding treaty commits members to consider an attack on any one state as an attack on all. A Kremlin spokesman said he agreed with Trump that NATO, characterised by Russian officials as a hostile renmant of the Cold War, was obsolete. Germany's transatlantic coordinator, Juergen Hardt, told Reuters he did not expect Congress to allow Washington to give up its leadership role in NATO. He said key U.S. lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, had told him several weeks ago they expected Washington to remain a reliable partner in the 28-nation bloc, and he did not expect Trump to reverse the deployment of 4,000 U.S. troops to Poland. Norbert Roettgen, head of Germany's foreign affairs committee, said Germany should fight to restore Western unity. "Europe is not able to replace the security role of the United States so there is a lot at stake - the very foundations of liberal order internationally and European security. And for that we should fight because it is our very existential interest," Roettgen told Reuters. Trump repeated criticism of NATO members that fail to meet spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence. Germany is working to gradually boost its military spending, Defence Ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff told a news conference. Merkel in November said she could not promise the NATO target would be met "in the near future." (Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Andrea Shalal and Paul Carrel; Editing by Paul Carrel and Ralph Boulton) Paris (AFP) - That smoked salmon you bought for the New Year's festivities has a story to tell. The salmon may have been raised in Scotland -- but it probably began life as roe in Norway. Harvested at a coastal farm, the fish may have been sent to Poland to be smoked. It may even have travelled halfway around the world to China to be sliced. It eventually arrived, wrapped in that tempting package, in your supermarket. Globalisation has changed the world in many ways, but fish farming is one of the starkest examples of its benefits and hidden costs. The nexus of the world fish-farming trade is China -- the biggest exporter of fish products, the biggest producer of farmed fish and a major importer as well. With battalions of lost-cost workers, linked to markets by a network of ocean-going refrigerated ships, China is the go-to place for labour-intensive fish processing. In just a few clicks on Alibaba, the Chinese online trading hub, you can buy three tonnes of Norwegian filleted mackerel shipped from the port city of Qingdao for delivery within 45 days. "There is a significant amount of bulk frozen fish sent to China just for filleting," said a source from an association of importers in an EU country. "The temperature of the fish is brought up to enable the filleting but the fish are not completely defrosted." The practice has helped transform the Chinese coastal provinces of Liaoning and Shandong into global centres for fish processing. But globalised fish farming leaves a mighty carbon footprint and has other impacts, many of which are unseen for the consumer. Don Staniford, an activist and director of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture, called the fish industry's production and transportation chain "madness". - Environmental cost - "The iconic image of Scottish salmon -- a wild salmon leaping out of the river -- has gone. The Scottish salmon farming industry is dominated, 60-70 percent, by Norwegian companies," he said. Story continues The biggest such company, Marine Harvest, is the world's largest producer of Atlantic salmon, some 420,000 tonnes in 2015. Scottish salmon farms import eggs from Norway, the fish food from Chile and then send the fish to Poland -- "because it's cheaper" -- for smoking, said Staniford. "Consumers don't realise that cheap supermarket salmon comes with a huge social and environment cost," he added. One such problem is that integrated markets, with the free flow of fish and fish products across borders, may spread disease and new bugs. Antibiotic-resistant diseases or parasites such as sea lice require bulk slaughter on giant fish farms, pushing up prices. Chile, the world's second-largest producer behind Norway, suffered the ravages of an algae bloom in early 2016, resulting in high mortality, reducing its expected production by 30 percent. Despite such setbacks, the economic potential remains enormous. According to Allied Market Research, the global aquaculture market will be worth $242-billion (228 billion euros) in 2022, compared to $169-billion in 2015. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Bank go further and say that by 2030 two-thirds of the seafood on people's plates will come from aquaculture farms. - Employment mirrors changes - The tipping point may have come in 2014. Only 81.5 million tonnes of fish were netted at sea -- down from a historic peak of 86.4 million tonnes, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For the first time, more farmed fish were consumed than wild fish. On a broader employment level, fishing and aquaculture account for an estimated 56.6 million jobs across the globe. But a breakdown of the numbers again underlines change. Those involved in catching fish has fallen from 83 percent in 1990 to 67 percent in 2014 -- with the corresponding numbers in aquaculture almost doubling. The evolution of the industry has also been driven by overfishing, with fewer wild fish now being caught, leading to a concentration of large multinational fisheries. "We are seeing a new phenomenon of deals that have consolidated the sector in Europe and the world," said Francois Chartier, an economic specialist at Greenpeace. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A graduate student from suburban New York has made it his mission to fight for a series of tangible honors for the late astronaut John Glenn, including a statue, a portrait and a having Glenn's Ohio birthplace on the National Historic Register. It's not rocket science, but 25-year-old Adam Sackowitz's goals are lofty. When Ohio added a Holocaust memorial to its Statehouse grounds in 2014, it was after a three-year fight waged by the governor, $2.1 million in mostly private fundraising and no shortage of political conflict. Getting a birthplace recognized nationally, particularly one where the famous resident spent only two years, also is a challenge. Sackowitz, of Long Island, has the devotion of a groupie when it comes to Glenn, and he believes the space hero's legacy can make it all happen. Glenn died Dec. 8 at age 95. He was the first American to orbit Earth, in 1962, and became the oldest person in space at age 77 in 1998. He was also a decorated war hero, a record-setting aviator and a long-time U.S. senator. "I strongly believe we need to have something prominent in Ohio, and people have been very supportive," said Sackowitz, who is getting his master's degree in history at St. John's University. "John Glenn really inspired me. He left a mark on me, and the whole country. He brought people together. The country in many ways is divided now, but he was loved by everyone. You saw that at the memorial service." Glenn lay in repose at the Ohio Statehouse longer than any other figure in history, including slain President Abraham Lincoln. Thousands of people came to pay their respects and 2,500, including Vice President Joe Biden, attended a memorial service at Ohio State University the next day. State Rep. Michael Sheehy, a Toledo-area Democrat, said he's ready to work with Sackowitz on getting a Glenn statue created and placed on Statehouse grounds preferably on the lawn. "I think we need to strike while the iron is hot, because our culture moves so fast and some young people are just clueless that he was such a great figure, not just in Ohio but in the world at large," Sheehy said. "To my mind, he was the most public figure of my lifetime." Story continues Sackowitz said he first became interested in Glenn when, as a second-grader, he witnessed Glenn's return to space in 1998. His grandparents had attended the ticker tape parade in New York celebrating Glenn's 1962 orbit. Sheehy remembers that great feat, and recalls later handing out leaflets for Glenn's U.S. Senate campaign while he was in college. "He's the sort of the guy who appeals to all generations," Sheehy said. Officials are reviewing Sackowitz's application seeking a historic designation for Glenn's birthplace in Cambridge, Ohio, according to Emmy Beach, spokeswoman for Ohio History Connection, a statewide history group. Sackowitz said he's working with the city's mayor on a possible plaque marking the site in case the application is denied. Beach said most residences that make the national historic register were lived in "during the productive years of a person's life," as was the case with inventor Thomas Edison's home in Milan in northern Ohio, but not for the Glenn property in Cambridge. She said Glenn's childhood home in New Concord, Ohio, where the Glenn family moved when John was 2 years old, is maintained as a state historic site and museum. Nineteen poets, fiction writers and essayists gathered to read work on the topic of democracy at Madison Writers resist, held at the Gates of A judge announced that a former Melrose Place actress wont serve more jail time for a fatal 2010 DWI and triggered outrage from the widower of woman she killed. Read: Grandfather Stops Kidnapping In 'Tug of War' With Woman in Park Over 3-Year-Old: Cops Fred Seeman told the New Jersey judge Friday: It wasn't an accident, it was a crime. They don't get it, they don't wanna get it, she doesn't wanna get it." He added: We're not here for vengeance, we're here to beseech you, to implore you, to request that you follow the law, your honor. His wife of 38 years, Helene, lost her life when actress Amy Locane-Bovenizer was drunk driving and crashed into their car. Seeman told the judge: I almost died twice at the hands of this person! Locane-Bovenizer was found guilty of vehicular homicide in 2013. She faced 10 years in prison, but was sentenced to just three years so she could care for her daughter, who suffers from Crohns Disease. Seeman was back in court demanding a longer sentence, telling the judge: I owe this to the memory of my wife. I owe this to prevent any other people from being killed by people who drink and drive! His son also asked for a tougher sentence, saying: Her children are not victims. It strikes me as being very sad that they won't be with their mother, but that doesn't change the facts of the case. But their impassioned pleas did not sway the judge. Read: Baby Kidnapped From Florida Hospital in 1998 is Found Living in South Carolina With Alleged Abductor There is no compelling or persuasive reason to return this defendant to prison, the judge said. Locane-Bovenizer, who was released after serving two-and-a-half years, smiled as she learned she would not have to return to prison. Fred Seeman told Inside Edition, following the decision Friday: "This isn't gonna end here because justice has not been done. We are disappointed, dismayed, we're hurt, but we are not surprised." Story continues Helene Seeman's family called the judge's decision "appalling" and said it was just one more punch in the gut to them. Watch: Suspected Drunk Driver Crashes Into Medical Helicopter During Patient Transport Related Articles: Guatemala City (AFP) - The United States "doesn't have the luxury" of deporting millions of undocumented migrants as President-elect Donald Trump has threatened, Guatemala's president argued Monday. "Economically, the United States doesn't have the luxury of throwing out 12 million inhabitants or people who are on its territory without papers given that they produce, consume and contribute to GDP growth in that country," President Jimmy Morales told Guatemalan radio station Emisoras Unidas. Trump, who takes over from Barack Obama on Friday with a Republican legislative majority, has sent chills through nearby Latin American countries, including Guatemala, with his repeated vows to expel millions of migrants without residency papers. Morales said Guatemala had no contingency plans in case massive deportations did happen. But he stressed the incoming US leader would have to get lawmakers' consent to follow through with his threat. "The United States is a very institutional country where the executive branch isn't the only one to take decisions," he said. "The Congress and Senate have a lot of power." Morales said Guatemala had reinforced its consular staff in the United States, as had Central American neighbors El Salvador and Honduras as well as Mexico. Official figures estimate there are around 1.5 million Guatemalans living in the United States, but that fewer than a third of them have legal residency. Those migrants sent back more than $7 billion to Guatemala last year in remittances. Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Islamist movement Hamas rejected Monday the outcome of a Paris conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace, labelling the summit "absurd." "The Paris conference is a return to the absurd negotiation approach, which lost the rights of the Palestinian people and gave legitimacy to the Zionist entity on Palestinian land," Fawzy Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, said in a statement. Hamas rules the Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas controls the West Bank and is the partner for peace negotiations with Israel and the West. Barhoum called for the various Palestinian factions to unite on a "national strategy" around the "resistance in defence of our people." Around 70 countries attending Sunday's talks in Paris agreed a joint statement supporting an independent Palestinian state as part of a negotiated settlement with Israel. The statement warned Israel and the Palestinians against "unilateral steps" that could threaten a two-state solution, but included no serious enforcement mechanisms. Abbas ally Saeb Erekat welcomed the conference as creating "momentum" towards ending Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. This weekend marks the national holiday that honors the life and work of civil rights activist and peacemaker Martin Luther King Jr. To celebrate, a number of stores are offering sales and holiday weekend deals that will run through Tuesday. The holiday weekend, however, has come under fire in recent years for sales that accompany it. Consumers and brands were encouraged to refrain from capitalizing on the day out of respect for King. "All national holidays do not need fake retail holidays to accompany them, particularly ones that honor the life and work of a leader of the civil rights movement," fashion outlet Racked wrote in a post. AdWeek called out retailers in 2011 by publishing a "Most Offensive MLK Day Sale Ad" that depicted a tastelessly photoshopped poster of King, and MarketWatch chronicled the backlash that ensued when brands attempted to push "MLK Day" related marketing pitches. Yet, despite brands and retailers catching flack for trivializing the importance of the holiday, companies continue to promote sales, in some cases changing the promotion's name to de-emphasize the relationship to MLK Day, reverting to monikers like semiannual sale or friends & family sale. Since the advent of retail advertising, companies have used any holiday be it religious or in observance of a nationally renowned figure to promote sales. Arguably, a holiday weekend of any kind offers the opportunity for brands to capture the consumers pocketbook. For those looking to celebrate the life, memory and heroism of Martin Luther King Jr. on MLK Day, outlets like NBC News and the Los Angeles Daily News have published a list of services and tribute events and activities to participate in this weekend around the country. For those who are looking to celebrate a holiday weekend by saving some money and catching up on some seasonal shopping on a day off, here are some sales to consider: Kmart: Kmart will be hosting its 4 Days of Deals for the weekend, which will end Monday at 11:59 p.m. CST. Shoppers will be able to save an extra 10 percent when they spend $50 on bed and bath products, cookware, select kitchen appliances, home decor and Valentines Day gifts. Shoppers can use the code HOME10 at checkout. Story continues Old Navy: The apparel brand will offer free shipping on orders of at least $25 with the checkout code FREESHIP, which will end Jan. 22. Its Super Cash sale, which will end Jan. 26, will give shoppers $10 back for every $25 they spend. Crate & Barrel: The home goods and furniture companys weekend sale will end Monday and offer as much as 20 percent off media stands and consoles. Check the Crate&Barrel website for a list of discounted products. Pier 1 Imports: Pier 1s Friends & Family sale will feature 15 percent off regular price items with the code FRIENDS15. However, Rewards members will receive 20 percent off regular priced purchases with the code REWARDS20. In addition, shoppers will receive free shipping on purchases of at least $49. The sale will end Monday. Saks Fifth Avenue: Saks Fifth Avenue will be hosting its Martin Luther King Jr. Day Home Sale through Monday, online only. Shoppers will receive as much as 30 percent off select apparel. Ralph Lauren: The American design brand will be hosting its sale through Tuesday until 11:59 p.m. PST, for both online and in-store. Shoppers will be able to score select items and apparel on sale for an additional 40 percent off. Use the code SNOW at checkout. Le Cou: The fashion-forward apparel company will be hosting a sale Monday where select items will be available for as much as 40 percent off. Related Articles Liaison Restaurant + Lounge brought celebrities and VIP guests together Thursday for a private opening reception. Jeremy Piven was bombarded by paparazzi as he arrived at what is poised to be the newest hotspot in Los Angeles. The Golden Globe winner caught up with friends along with fellow VIPs at the brand new space that will open to the public on Friday. Original American Idol judge Randy Jackson was overheard at the invitation-only soiree gushing to friends about the design of venue. He was especially impressed with the venues retractable roof, which was open, allowing guests to view the sky along with cascading trees. Model Shaun Ross was spotted snapping pics with his stylish entourage and vibing to the sounds of DJ Fashen. Golnesa GG Gharachedaghi and fellow Shahs of Sunset castmate Shervin Roohparvar caught up with their pal, Tasha Nikpey, who is a partner in PB Hospitality Group and oversees operations at Liaison Restaurant + Lounge. Launch the slidehow to see more pics from the private opening event. Related Articles An appeal bid by two anti-China lawmakers against their disqualification from Hong Kong's parliament was rejected Monday, as the activists declared "war" on the authorities. Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching are part of a new movement calling for semi-autonomous Hong Kong to split from China as concerns grow that Beijing is cracking down on freedoms in the city. The pair deliberately misread their oaths of office, inserted expletives and draped themselves with "Hong Kong is not China" flags during a swearing-in ceremony in October. They were then disqualified from retaking their oaths by Hong Kong's high court, after an intervention by Beijing. Hong Kong's court of appeal rejected an attempt to overthrow the disqualification in November. On Monday it also rejected their bid seeking leave to take their case to the city's court of final appeal -- Hong Kong's highest court. Speaking outside the court, Leung, 30, told reporters: "This is the beginning of a war." Justice Maggie Poon based her Monday ruling on a special "interpretation" of the city's constitution by Beijing in November that effectively prevented Yau and Baggio from taking up their seats because of the way they took the oath. The latest judgment said Beijing's interpretation was "binding on the courts" in Hong Kong with the local and national systems "being within one country". An appeal would only be granted if it had "reasonable prospects of success" even if the case was of great public interest, the ruling said. The court also ordered the pair to pay costs of HK$167,851 ($21,600) each. Leung said the pair would continue to push their case. Under Hong Kong law, they can seek a hearing directly with the court of final appeal, without leave from the lower courts. The independence movement has started to gain traction since the failure of mass pro-democracy rallies in 2014 to win political reform. Story continues Leung and Yau were voted into parliament in citywide polls in September which saw several rebel candidates take seats for the first time, advocating either independence or self-determination for Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government has launched a legal bid to unseat four more elected lawmakers, sparking protests and accusations from the opposition camp that they are being subjected to a witch hunt. The four are not stridently pro-independence, but among them high-profile pro-democracy activist Nathan Law and teacher Lau Siu-lai have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong. Washington (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund on Monday boosted its estimates for US growth on expected stimulus spending by the incoming Trump administration, but kept the forecast for global growth unchanged. The IMF's quarterly World Economic Outlook (WEO) however said the forecasts for 2017 and 2018 are beset by uncertainty and risk, including signs of rising protectionism. It sees world growth of 3.4 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2018, unchanged from the October report, as concerns about slowing in major developing economies were offset by the recovery in advanced economies and China. The US growth estimate was raised a tenth of a point this year to 2.3 percent, and for next year by four-tenths to 2.5 percent. The IMF said it used the most likely of many possible scenarios for the United States under President-elect Donald Trump, one that includes higher spending and other steps to boost the economy. This is in contrast to the World Bank report released last week, which did not change the US forecasts because it said Trump's policy plans were too uncertain. Both organizations agree the forecasts are clouded by unknowns. There is "a wide dispersion of possible outcomes around the projections, given uncertainty surrounding the policy stance of the incoming US administration and its global ramifications," the IMF said. However, the forecasts should become more certain by the release of the next World Economic Outlook in April "as more clarity emerges on US policies and their implications," it said. Among the uncertainties, the IMF noted that increased spending to stimulate the economy, as Trump has proposed, means "stronger future demand implying more inflationary pressure," which in turn means the US central bank may have to raise interest rates faster than currently expected. The Federal Reserve increased the benchmark lending rate in December, and policymakers indicated they may need to implement three more increases this year, but they too stress the uncertainty about policies to be implemented by the Republican Trump, who takes office Friday. Story continues - Trade restrictions hurt growth - Trump has repeatedly threatened to slap import tariffs on goods from Mexico and China, and to restrict immigration, part of a growing protectionist political sentiment in many countries. But the IMF warned that executing those policies could backfire on the US economy and create ripple effects abroad. "We think at the end of the day that countries will recognize that these actions are not in their own self-interest, especially when there's the risk of retaliation by other countries," chief IMF economist Maurice Obstfeld said. The possibility of a trade war cannot be ruled out, he said, adding that it "would derail our baseline forecast possibly considerably" and could be "quite disruptive." If growth in the US and China increases more than expected as a result of higher spending, that would have "positive spillovers" to their trading partners, unless protectionist measures counteract that, the IMF said. - China gets a boost - While major developing economies like India, Brazil and Mexico are facing slowdowns, the IMF raised its estimate for China given increased government spending to boost growth. The IMF revised the 2017 China growth forecast to 6.5 percent, 0.3 point higher than in October, while the 2018 estimate is unchanged at 6.0 percent. However, the fund cautioned that the spending that is fueling growth in China will be difficult to sustain and "raises the risk of a sharper slowdown or a disruptive adjustment." The IMF also expressed concerns about Britain as it prepares for difficult negotiations over its departure from the European Union and as two EU powers -- France and Germany -- prepare for elections this year. "In Europe, Britain's terms of exit from the European Union remain unsettled and the upcoming national electoral calendar is crowded, with possibilities of adverse economic repercussions," Obstfeld said. But while the IMF, before the Brexit vote, had issued a somber prediction in the event Britons opted to leave the EU, on Monday it revised upward its outlook for British growth this year (up 0.4 point, to 1.5 percent), saying internal demand had resisted better than expected. The IMF cut the 2017 forecast for India by 0.4 percentage points to 7.2 percent, while the 2018 forecast was unchanged at 7.7 percent. Mexico saw its growth estimate slashed six-tenths of a point in each year to 1.7 percent this year and 2.0 percent in 2018. For Brazil, the estimate was trimmed 0.3 point to just 0.2 percent this year, rising to 1.5 percent in 2018, unchanged from the October forecast. But advanced economies generally are doing better, with Japan's economy seen expanding 0.8 percent this year, 0.2 point better than the last forecast, and 0.5 percent in 2018. The outlook for the euro area is picking up, with growth of 1.6 percent expected this year and next, an upward revision of 0.1 point in the 2017 forecast. This WEO forecast also incorporates a firming of oil prices "following the agreement among OPEC members and several other major producers to limit supply," the IMF said. That will help commodity exporters, including Russia, although the growth estimates for Moscow were unchanged at 1.1 and 1.2 percent for 2017 and 2018, respectively. In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, Yahoo News visited towns and cities across the country, speaking to voters who had supported Donald Trump in the election. As the shape of his administration emerged, we asked voters if they were happy with their choice and optimistic about the future. Here is some of what we found: _____ Click on the cities below to see their story. Donald Trump called them the forgotten people working-class Americans all over the nation who struggled to make ends meet, only to feel overlooked by the political elite in Washington and cut off from more prosperous parts of the country. The forgotten men and women became Trumps rallying cry in his unlikely quest for the White House, as he traveled to cities, big and small, all over the country, including many that had never before been visited by a presidential candidate. From the struggling manufacturing towns of the Rust Belt to the empty coalfields of Appalachia to the cities in the South and throughout the heartland hit hard by the shift of factory jobs to Mexico and beyond, Trump cast himself as the champion of downtrodden Americans, promising to put them back to work, revive their cities and restore the nation to something that was great again for everybody. The forgotten men and women of our country, people who work hard but no longer have a voice I am your voice, Trump declared as he accepted the GOP nomination in July. It was an unlikely message from a brash New York billionaire and former reality television star who had spent little time outside his gilded tower in the heart of midtown Manhattan before setting his sights on the presidency. But Trump won the adulation and, most importantly, the votes of Americans who embraced him as a change agent in spite of his lack of political experience and unprecedented ability to do and say inflammatory things that would have derailed any other candidate. But whether Trump can hold on to what hes described as his movement now faces its biggest test. As he prepares to move into the White House, the focus shifts to what his supporters expect of him and what he can actually deliver. Story continues After more than a year on the trail following Trump, this reporter hit the road again in the weeks after his Election Day victory, returning to forgotten places across the country where the candidate won to talk to those who voted for him about the election and what they now want him to do as president. It was a two-week, nearly 5,000-mile winding odyssey deep into the heart of Trumps America, starting in the Rust Belt town of Erie, Pa., and ending in Bakersfield, Calif., one of the last Republican areas in a state that has gone deeply blue. A Trump sign in Erie, PA. (Photo: Eric Thayer for Yahoo News) Slideshow: Scenes from the road in Donald Trumps America >>> Trump supporters have always been more complicated than conventional wisdom during the campaign recognized. They werent only angry white voters, though a large number of them were. And in the aftermath of the election, interviews with those who ultimately voted for him presented a more nuanced view than the caricature suggests. Not all his backers believe he will be able to deliver on everything he promised nor do they agree with everything he proposed. In fact, many who voted for Trump have realistic or even low expectations about what he will be able to deliver in Washington. Among other things, even his most ardent supporters doubt Trump will be able to deliver on the big, beautiful wall he promised on the stump to build along the U.S. border. And while there is hope, there is plenty of skepticism about whether Trump will be able to reverse the struggle in Rust Belt states that have been decimated by losses in steel and manufacturing. While Trump was known for his massive, adoring crowds who stood with him even as pundits again and again declared his campaign dead, many of his supporters hope he will curb some of his more blustery behavior, including his tendency to hurl insults at opponents on Twitter. Most are largely unconcerned about the controversies that have swirled around his incoming administration, including his relationship with Russia. Instead, they are focused on whether Trump can deliver on the most essential pocketbook issues: creating jobs and boosting the economy in places that didnt enjoy the recovery that other regions did in the aftermath of the recession. While many voters, especially in the Bible Belt, were driven by a dislike of Hillary Clinton, that wasnt entirely their motivation in backing Trump. They viewed him as a means of blowing up Washington, a city that has been hobbled by political gridlock. Trumps ability to deliver on change and create jobs will likely be the test of whether he can keep the movement of supporters who will help him get his agenda passed and determine the success of his first term. By Anuradha Nagaraj DARJEELING, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Two Indian schoolgirls will be awarded national bravery awards next week for helping police bust a cross-border human trafficking racket, leading to the arrest of suspects in the cases of missing girls from both India and Nepal. Shivani Gond, 17, and Tejasweeta Pradhan, 18, will be honored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for "showing exemplary courage" when acting as decoys to gain the trust of the traffickers, allowing police catch them red-handed. The girls, both from the hill district of Darjeeling in eastern India's West Bengal state, befriended the traffickers on Facebook in May 2016. They then spent days communicating with them by telephone, convincing the traffickers that they were willing to run away from home before leading them to the police. Government data showed a 52.8 percent increase in the number of minor girls "procured" and a 35.4 percent increase in the number of girls sold in 2015 compared to the previous year. West Bengal is among the top three states where traffickers lure young girls from poor families with the promise of good jobs, instead forcing them into the sex trade or into domestic servitude, campaigners say. Traffickers also targeted the two schoolgirls Gond and Pradhan, but were unaware that they were part of an operation jointly organized by police and non-profit organization Mankind in Action for Rural Growth. "When we spoke to them, they very openly told us that we would be required to meet the sexual needs of our guests," Gond told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "They asked to see our photographs, to make sure we were pretty girls. I was a little scared but we did everything they asked us to because we had to gain their trust." The National Bravery Awards are given to around 25 children between the ages of 6 and 18 every year. The recipients, selected from across India, are given a medal, certificate and a cash prize. They also receive financial assistance to complete their schooling. While children have won awards for foiling robberies, fighting off armed intruders, rescuing people from drowning, saving lives in a stampede and putting out fires, this is the first time one has been given in a human trafficking case. Many parents do not give consent for their children to be involved in anti-trafficking operations. "I also hesitated, but then realised that it was our only shot to get the traffickers," said Kamlesh Rai, Pradhan's mother and a school teacher. The police got their first breakthrough with the arrest of a woman who had traveled to New Jalpaiguri to pick up the girls. Her arrest led police to a missing girl from Nepal as well as a trafficking gang and a sought-after suspect in New Delhi. (Reporting by Anuradha Nagaraj, Editing by Ed Upright; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking and climate change. Visit www.trust.org) Shubat opened Madison Local Motive in April and is in the process of signing a lease with Roger Charly, who purchased the old depot property in 2013. A police officer has been arrested for allegedly raping a mentally challenged woman in southern India, an officer said Monday. He is accused of raping the 30-year-old woman in a moving vehicle after spotting her walking along a deserted stretch of road and offering her a lift. "The accused ASI (assistant sub inspector) Umesh has been suspended and arrested after the victim's mother filed a complaint on Sunday evening," police superintendent Isha Pant told AFP. The driver of the vehicle has also been arrested for abetting the alleged crime and attempting to hide evidence. The incident in southern Karnataka state took place during a Hindu harvest festival. "As it was a festive weekend, movement of public or vehicles was much less when the incident occurred," Pant said. India has been shamed in the past by headline-grabbing levels of sexual assault against women, notably in December 2012 when a student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi and later died of her injuries. DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will not renegotiate its nuclear agreement with world powers, even if it faces new U.S. sanctions after Donald Trump becomes president, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday. Trump, who will take office on Friday, has threatened to either scrap the agreement, which curbs Iran's nuclear programme and lifts sanctions against it, or seek a better deal. "There will be no renegotiation and the (agreement) will not be reopened," said Araqchi, Iran's top nuclear negotiator at the talks that led to the agreement in 2015, quoted by the state news agency IRNA. "We and many analysts believe that the (agreement) is consolidated. The new U.S. administration will not be able to abandon it," Araqchi told a news conference in Tehran, held a year after the deal took effect. "Nuclear talks with America are over and we have nothing else to discuss," he added. "It's quite likely that the U.S. Congress or the next administration will act against Iran and imposes new sanctions." Under Iran's agreement with the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China, most U.N. sanctions were lifted a year ago. But Iran is still subject to an U.N. arms embargo and other restrictions, which are not technically part of the nuclear agreement. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom) Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State group in Mosul on Monday retook an area where the jihadists levelled one of the city's most well-known shrines in 2014, officials said. "We retook control of Nabi Yunus area... raised the Iraqi flag above the tomb," Sabah al-Noman, spokesman for the Counter-Terrorism Service spearheading the Mosul offensive, told AFP. He said two other neighbourhoods in eastern Mosul were also retaken from IS on Monday. The Nabi Yunus shrine -- which was built on the reputed burial site of a prophet known in the Koran as Yunus and in the Bible as Jonah -- was a popular pilgrimage site. In July 2014, weeks after overrunning Mosul and much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, IS militants rigged the shrine and blew it up, sparking global outrage. IS destroyed several other key landmarks in Mosul and elsewhere it considered as part of heretical rituals and practices. Staff Lieutenant General Abdulghani al-Assadi, a top commander in the CTS, said "about 90 percent" of east Mosul was now under government control. Commanders have said it would only take a few more days to flush out the last jihadists remaining on the east bank of the Tigris River than splits the city in two. The destruction of all bridges over the river in air strikes has made it difficult for IS fighters in east Mosul to resupply or escape to the west bank, which they still fully control. The western side of Mosul, which is home to the old city and some of the jihadists' traditional bastions, was always tipped as likely to offer the most resistance. By Isabel Coles MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi special forces battled Islamic State militants in districts near the Tigris river in Mosul on Monday as they sought to bring more of the east of the city back under government control. The latest clashes occurred in the neighboring Shurta and Andalus districts. At least three Islamic State suicide car bombs targeted Iraqi forces in Andalus. There was no immediate word on any casualties. In an online post, Islamic State said it had carried out a "martyrdom operation" in the area. Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) said the militants, who seized Mosul in 2014 as they swept across much of northern Iraq, only to since lose much of that terrain to government counter-offensives, were fighting back hard. "We've begun breaching (Shurta) but there was an attack a few moments ago. By the end of the day we'll make some progress," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan said. Shurta and Andalus are situated close to the eastern bank of the Tigris, separated only by some woodland, and within sight of the city's northernmost bridge across the river. Iraqi forces, which have reached three of the five bridges, say they will soon fully control the eastern bank. They have already taken areas of the river bank further south. Once the east bank is recaptured, they can begin attacks on western Mosul, which the Sunni Muslim extremist insurgents still hold. Iraqi forces have seized most of the east in a 3-month-old U.S.-backed campaign to oust the militants from Iraq's second largest city, Islamic State's last major Iraqi stronghold. The Tigris bisects Mosul from north to south. A Reuters cameraman in a southern district along the Tigris said snipers from elite interior ministry combat units were firing across the river at Islamic State positions. Fighting has intensified since the turn of the year as Iraqi forces have renewed an offensive against the ultra-hardline militants. Troops had got bogged down in late November and December after entering Mosul as IS fighters fought back with car bombs and snipers, and concealed themselves among a civilian population of up to 1.5 million. MORE PEOPLE MADE HOMELESS The United Nations said a further 32,000 Mosul residents had fled the city in just over two weeks, bringing the total number of people made homeless in the campaign to retake Mosul to 161,000. A resident in western Mosul, reached by phone, said Islamic State combatants had stopped people living in the west from crossing the river to the east. Another resident said a number of IS militants, including senior leaders in western Mosul, had left the city in the direction of Tal Afar, a town toward the Syrian border. Shi'ite Muslim militias have advanced on IS-held Tal Afar, and linked up with Kurdish fighters nearby in November. The Mosul offensive, supported by U.S. coalition air power, involves 100,000-strong combined forces of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Shi'ite militias. As IS has lost territory in its Mosul bastion, it has carried out bombing attacks in Baghdad and raids on police and army outposts elsewhere in the country. Since the turn of the year, attacks in Baghdad have killed dozens of people. New York-based Human Rights watch said on Monday that Islamic State's bombings, which have targeted crowded markets, amounted to "crimes against humanity". "(IS) has routinely carried out devastating attacks that appear designed to inflict maximum death and suffering on ordinary Iraqis," HRW said in a statement. It urged the Iraqi government to greater assist victims of militant attacks. (Reporting by Isabel Coles in Mosul, Saif Hameed and John Davison in Baghdad; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f33710%2f20efe6bf-0fae-462e-b71e-997543f2dd0c The people manning the White House comments line have probably heard all manner of things from those that ring up to leave a comment for the president but we're willing to bet they've never heard anything quite like this. SEE ALSO: PSA: Here's a video of Donald Trump playing an accordion. That is all. In the video above, Irish comedian Ross Browne (a.k.a. Gangsta Paddy) raps a message for Donald Trump down the phone line. Here's a sample lyric: "A president of woeful proportions/ Was never pregnant but he thinks he knows about abortions." Needless to say, the rest isn't any more complimentary. Green Day drops 'Troubled Times' video in case it wasn't clear how they feel about Trump Grooming their way to doggie Insta-glory Tina Fey crashes Felicity Jones' 'SNL' monologue to beg for a 'Star Wars' gig Ben Affleck, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling all have hilariously awkward mum stories By John Irish, Lesley Wroughton and Marine Pennetier PARIS (Reuters) - Some 70 countries reaffirmed on Sunday that only a two-state solution could resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and warned against any unilateral steps by either side that could prejudge negotiations. The final communique of a one-day international Middle East peace conference in Paris shied away from explicitly criticizing plans by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to move the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem, although diplomats said the wording sent a "subliminal" message. Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel's capital despite international objections. Countries including key European and Arab states as well as the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council were in Paris for the conference, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as "futile". Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians were represented. However, just five days before Trump is sworn in, the meeting was seen as a platform for countries to send a strong signal to the incoming American president that a two-state solution to the conflict could not be compromised on and that unilateral decisions could exacerbate tensions on the ground. The participants "call on each side ... to refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final-status issues, including, inter alia, on Jerusalem, borders, security, refugees and which they will not recognize," the final communique said. A French diplomatic source said there had been tough negotiations on that paragraph. "It's a tortuous and complicated paragraph to pass a subliminal message to the Trump administration," the diplomat said. REAFFIRMING RESOLUTION 2334 U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters it would have been inappropriate to include the issue of moving the U.S. embassy, it being publicly debated in the United States. Relations between the United States and Israel have soured during President Barack Obama's administration, reaching a low point late last month when Washington declined to veto U.N. resolution 2334 demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory. Paris has said the meeting did not aim to impose anything on Israel or the Palestinians and that only direct negotiations could resolve the conflict. The final draft did not go into any details other than reaffirming U.N. Security Council resolutions, including 2334. Diplomats said that had been a source of friction in talks. "When some are questioning this, it's vital for us to recall the framework of negotiations. That framework is the 1967 borders and the main resolutions of the United Nations," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters. Kerry, who abandoned his efforts to broker peace talks in April 2014, told reporters that the meeting had "moved the ball forward." "It underscores this is not just one administration's point of view, this is shared by the international community broadly," he said. France, home to Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish communities, has tried to breathe new life into the peace process over the past year and argued that it should not play second fiddle to the war in Syria and the fight against Islamic State militants. FOLLOW-UP MEETING? The final statement said interested parties would meet again before year-end. But Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Sunday that "this conference is among the last twitches of the world of yesterday ... Tomorrow will look different and that tomorrow is very close." Britain added its criticism on Sunday. A Foreign Office statement said the Paris conference risked "hardening positions" given Israel had objected to it and that the U.S. administration is about to change. Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a sharp rebuke on Israel last month to its U.S. ally when she scolded Secretary of State John Kerry for describing the Israeli government as the most right-wing in Israeli history. The criticism aligned her more closely with Trump. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who said on Saturday that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would kill off the peace process, said the Paris meeting would help at stopping "settlement activities and destroying the two-state solution through dictations and the use of force." (Additional reporting Lesley Wroughton in Paris and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Tom Heneghan) GABORONE (Reuters) - Botswana has awarded a 1 billion pula ($95 million) contract to a joint venture between Italian companies Itinera and Cimolai to build a bridge in the remote Okavango Delta, a major tourist draw renowned for its wildlife. The project, which will be fully funded by the government and involves the construction of a 1.1 km long road bridge and pedestrian walkways, is expected to be complete in July 2019. It will replace a pontoon service across a section of the Delta. "An environment impact assessment was done since the Okavango Delta area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We will make sure construction will not disturb the environment," Elias Magosi, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications, told a media briefing. At certain times of the year, the Okavango Delta is home to some of the greatest concentrations of African wildlife, and development has generally been kept to a minimum there. It floods during Botswana's winter dry season, making it a magnet to herds of elephants and other animals. ($1 = 10.6610 pulas) (Reporting by Johannesburg newsroom; editing by Susan Thomas) MILAN (Reuters) - Tests conducted on Fiat Chrysler's 500X model showed the vehicle is compliant with regulations and there are no emissions irregularities as alleged by Germany, Italy's transport ministry said in a statement on Monday. Germany last year raised concerns over certain Fiat Chrysler models, including the Fiat 500X, alleging the existence of hidden software that allowed excess diesel emissions. After Italy rejected its allegation, Germany had asked the European Commission to mediate in the dispute. In the statement, the ministry said it had "carried out the necessary checks and sent a detailed report to the German authorities which shows that Fiat 500X, in contrast to what is claimed by Germany, is in compliance with regulations". It also added that the European Commission does not appear to have conducted any tests of its own that would confirm the German allegations. (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; editing by Francesca Landini) You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close By Ange Aboa BOUAKE, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Disgruntled soldiers in Ivory Coast reached an agreement with the government late on Friday resolving a dispute over bonus payments that had threatened to reignite a nationwide army mutiny, negotiators for the mutineers said. There was no confirmation of the deal from the government, and it was not immediately evident that the terms had been accepted by the rank and file, who took to the streets in Bouake, the second largest city, and other locations on Friday. Soldiers, most of them former rebel fighters, launched a revolt in Bouake a week ago that rapidly gained momentum in the world's top cocoa grower until the government was forced to yield to the mutineers' demands after two days. But the soldiers said they had received none of the 12 million CFA francs ($19,278) in bonuses they said the government had promised to pay each of them under an initial deal to end the uprising struck last Saturday. "We've reached an agreement. They will pay five million Monday and the rest each month," Sergeant Mamadou Kone, one of the mutineers' negotiators, told Reuters. "We haven't finished up, but that's the most important thing." The soldiers had appeared poised to relaunch their mutiny on Friday. Renegade troops sealed off Bouake as evening fell, even as a government delegation headed by Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi pursued talks with the mutiny's leaders inside the city. Gunfire meanwhile broke out at two strategic military camps in the commercial capital, Abidjan, and mutineers seized entrances to Korhogo, a city in the country's north. Ivory Coast has one of the world's fastest growing economies but has struggled to resolve deeply entrenched problems left over from years of civil war and political turmoil. The government has failed to bring significant reform to the army, which remains a patchwork of former rebel fighters and troops who stayed loyal to the government during the 2002-2011 crisis. Divisions and parallel chains of command persist. Heavy gunfire briefly broke out earlier in Bouake outside the venue for the talks, with mutineers blaming the shooting on soldiers venting their frustration after they accused the government of reneging on its promises. Sporadic gunfire continued through the evening, and telephone networks appeared to have been shut down, hindering communications with the city. Donwahi, his delegation and the mutineers' negotiators were trapped for several hours during a similar incident during the first round of negotiations last Saturday. But another leader of the mutiny said Donwahi, who was also accompanied by the heads of the army and gendarmes as well as the youth employment minister, was under no threat on Friday. "They're still here, but we will let them go after. The minister and his delegation will go home without any problems," said the soldier, who asked not to be named. (Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Richard Lough and James Dalgleish) By Ange Aboa ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast police fired teargas on Monday to disperse pupils and students protesting at government ministries in the main city, Abidjan, as nationwide strikes intensified, police and a senior union official said. Ivory Coast, French-speaking West Africa's largest economy and the world's top cocoa grower, is facing a growing wave of public sector strikes that threaten to paralyze the country and undermine an impressive post-war economic recovery. "Our men dispersed the protesters ... who were stopping workers going to their jobs in the ministries," said a senior police official who asked not to be named. "They were obliged to use teargas." He said the protesters were young people claiming to be aligned with the FESCI student union. "These were pupils who had gone to the Education Ministry to find a solution so that their teachers could get back to work," said Theodore Zadi Gnangnan, the president of a grouping of more than 100 civil servants' syndicates. Under the leadership of President Alassane Ouattara, who came to power in the wake of a 2011 civil war, Ivory Coast has emerged as one of the world's fastest growing economies. But his critics say only a fraction of Ivorians have benefited. The involvement of the FESCI - aligned with the Young Patriots street militia, which opposed Ouattara during Ivory Coast's 2002-2011 political crisis - marks a significant escalation of the strike movement. Young men entered school campuses across the country on Monday, forcing children out of classrooms. Pupils and high school students took to the streets in several cities. Ivorian public school teachers went on strike last year. They were joined last week by civil servants across the country, whose demands included salary increases, the reversal of a reduction in pensions, and payment of unpaid wages they say total around 243 billion CFA francs ($393 million). Disgruntled soldiers, meanwhile, said they had still not received bonuses the authorities had promised to begin paying on Monday as part of an agreement to end an army mutiny earlier this month, raising the specter of further unrest. A member of parliament in Bouake, the second largest city and the epicenter of the mutiny, said he had briefly been abducted on Monday by soldiers angry that they had not yet been paid. "We have no news. We've been waiting for the money since this morning, but we don't have anything yet," said one of the leaders of the mutiny. (Additional reporting and writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Tom Heneghan) Anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that President-elect Donald Trump asked him to lead a new government commission on vaccine safety. But science on this issue is already clear; numerous studies show that vaccines are safe and effective, and that serious side effects are rare. On Tuesday (Jan. 10), Kennedy met with the president-elect at Trump Tower, and later told reporters about the new commission. However, the Trump administration did not confirm that such a commission was in the works. A spokesperson for Trump said only that the president-elect was "exploring the possibility of forming a committee on autism," according to The New York Times. This response may reference the proposed, but discredited link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Members of the medical community quickly expressed strong concerns about the possibility of a government committee on vaccine safety, headed by an anti-vaccine advocate. "Claims that vaccines are linked to autism or are unsafe when administered according to the recommended schedule have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature," Dr. Fernando Stein, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and Dr. Karen Remley, executive vice president of the AAP, said in a statement. "Vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines save lives," the statement said. But how do doctors know this? First, the United States requires that all vaccines undergo extensive testing on safety and effectiveness before they can be brought to market, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And once vaccines are on the market, there are several systems in place to monitor the safety of the treatments within the general population. [5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths] These studies do show that, like all medicines, vaccines come with a small risk of side effects, but these side effects are rarely serious. What's more, the alternative of not vaccinating a child also comes with risks, because vaccines prevent diseases that can be dangerous and sometimes fatal, the CDC said. For each approved vaccine, researchers have determined that the benefits outweigh the risks. Story continues Here's a look at some of the data behind vaccine safety and effectiveness: Over the past two decades, childhood vaccines have saved the lives of 732,000 U.S. children and prevented more than 300 million kids from getting sick, according to a 2014 study from the CDC. Nearly 90 percent of vaccine side effects are not serious, according to the CDC. More than 20 rigorous scientific studies have shown that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, according to the CDC. The original study that claimed to find such a link has been discredited, and was retracted. A 2011 report from the National Academy of Medicine reviewed more than 1,000 vaccine studies and concluded that serious reactions to vaccines are extremely rare. The MMR vaccine can cause fevers, and some children who develop a fever can have a seizure; these are called fever-triggered seizures. However, studies show there is one case of fever-triggered seizure for every 3,000 to 4,000 children who receive this vaccine. And these seizures almost never cause harm over the long term, the 2011 review said. About one in 10 children who is infected with measles develops an ear infection, and such infections can result in permanent hearing loss, according to the CDC. For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from the disease, the CDC said. Two doses of the measles vaccine are about 97 percent effective at preventing measles, the CDC said. In rare cases, the rotavirus vaccine, called RotaTeq, is linked to the development of a serious intestinal disorder called intussusception. A 2014 study found that for every 65,000 children who received this vaccine, there was one case of intussusception. A 2011 study found that the rotavirus vaccine had prevented 65,000 U.S. children from being hospitalized with rotavirus since 2006. A 2012 study found that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is linked with an increased risk of fainting. The study, which included nearly 200,000 girls who received at least one dose of the Gardasil HPV vaccine, found that there were 24 cases of fainting per 1,000 people on the day of vaccination. For comparison, there were an average of four cases of fainting per 1,000 people when studied months after vaccination. The HPV vaccine was introduced in 2006, and during the next four years, the rate of HPV infections among teen girls decreased by 56 percent, despite a relatively low vaccination rate in this age group, according to a 2013 study. (HPV infections in women increase the risk of cervical cancer.) Studies on the safety of the chicken-pox vaccine found that about 3 percent of children had a mild, chicken-pox-like rash after the first dose of the vaccine, according to the CDC. On average, these children had two to five lesions, compared with the typical 250 to 500 lesions found in children who contract the actual illness, according to the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), a nonprofit organization funded by the CDC that creates and distributes educational materials on vaccines. Although chicken pox is usually a mild disease, it can cause serious complications, including bacterial infections of the skin, pneumonia, inflammation of the brain and blood stream infections, according to the CDC. Before the introduction of the chicken pox vaccine, there were about 4 million cases of chicken pox in the United States per year, and of these, an estimated 11,000 people went to the hospital with complications and 100 people died from the disease, the IAC said. After the introduction of the chicken pox vaccine, cases of the disease fell nearly 80 percent in the U.S. over a decade, according to a 2012 study. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations London (AFP) - Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that President-elect Donald Trump had been wrong to criticise "courageous" German leader Angela Merkel, calling his remarks "inappropriate". Stopping over in London on the closing stages of his final diplomatic tour just four days before Trump is due to take office, Kerry gave an interview to CNN International. Asked about the furore surrounding an interview by Trump with Britain's The Times and Germany's Bild, Kerry defended the European Union, Merkel and Germany's refugee policy. "I thought, frankly, it was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United States to be stepping in to the politics of other countries in a quite direct manner," Kerry told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "He'll have to speak for that," Kerry warned. "As of Friday he's responsible for that relationship. "But I think we have to be very careful about suggesting that one of the strongest leaders in Europe -- and one of the most important in respect of where we are heading -- made one mistake or another." In his interview, Trump declared NATO "obsolete", praised Britain's decision to quit the European Union and dubbed Merkel's generous policy towards refugees "catastrophic". Kerry said: "I think she was extremely courageous and I don't think it amounts to that characterisation at all." Kerry warned that Europe's enemies, including Russia, are trying to divide the West and recalled that President Barack Obama's administration had strongly opposed Brexit. While in London, Kerry was to have a private farewell dinner with Britain's top diplomat Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and give farewell interviews to media. On Tuesday, he is due to fly to the World Economic Forum in Davos for a final set of discussions with members of the global business and political elite. By Alessandra Prentice KIEV (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Monday for sanctions on Russia to stay, urging the world to stand up to its "coercion and aggression" after President-elect Donald Trump mooted ending the measures under a possible deal with Moscow. Speaking on a swan song visit to Kiev, Biden said the G7 nations and European Union should lift the sanctions only after Russia had fully implemented a peace deal on ending a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine and returned control of Crimea. Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday, raised the prospect that he would propose offering to end the sanctions imposed over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its role in the rebellion in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. Without mentioning Trump, Biden appeared to take issue with the President-elect's comments made in an interview published in Monday's edition of the Times of London. "The international community must continue to stand as one against Russian coercion and aggression," he told reporters, standing alongside Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Biden stressed the 2015 deal on ending the rebellion by pro-Russian insurgents which is still continuing, with Washington accusing Moscow of failing to keep its side of the bargain. "Together with our EU and G7 partners, we made it clear that sanctions should remain in place until Russia fully, emphasize fully, implements its commitments under the Minsk agreement," he said, adding that Crimea-related sanctions must also stay "until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine". U.S. support for Ukraine has contributed to a deterioration in relations with Russia to their worst since the Cold War. Under President Barack Obama, Washington has invested heavily in helping Kiev make a success of a 2013-2014 uprising which forced a Kremlin-backed leader to flee and installed the pro-Western opposition in power. Trump's open admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and stated desire to improve bilateral ties have stoked fears in Kiev that U.S. resolve to hold Russia to account could waver. Biden has mixed support with some tough talking about Ukraine's patchy efforts in tackling graft, and has previously warned that international help is conditional on Kiev making good on promises to tackle endemic bribe-taking. "You're fighting ... the cancer of corruption," Biden, who leaves office on Jan. 20 along with Obama, said on Monday. HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL Poroshenko said Ukraine believed in good cooperation with the new U.S. administration and urged sanctions to stay, without mentioning Trump's remarks on a deal with Russia. A Kremlin spokesman said it was too early to comment. Biden has been the front man for U.S. policy towards Ukraine, visiting Kiev five times since the change in power and maintaining such regular telephone contact with Ukrainian officials that he has joked he talks to them more than his wife. As Biden left the room, a journalist asked if he thought the Trump administration would give Ukraine the same priority as he had. Biden gave a thumbs up and said: "Hope springs eternal." Continued Western support is vital for Ukraine. The economy, which has been badly hit by the war in the east, is slowly emerging from two years of recession but remains dependent on external financial help. The United States has so far provided over $3 billion and said it could offer more, provided reform efforts continue. Andy Hunder, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said Kiev would have to put much time and resources into dealing with the new U.S. administration. "On Jan. 20 Ukraine will be waking up to a new reality," he told Reuters. "There is a concern in Kiev about how the new relationship will develop. It will require building new bridges to the influencers, the gatekeepers and decision-makers." Kiev has already taken steps to win the good favor of the those calling the shots in the Trump administration. Days after his election in November, Poroshenko's office started planning an official visit to Washington in early 2017. The Ukrainian government has hired former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour and his lobbying firm BGR Group to lobby U.S. politicians and arrange meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. This is not to say that Ukraine lacks senior political advocates in the United States. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including John McCain and Marco Rubio, said last week they wanted to slap a wide range of sanctions on Russia over its cyber activities and actions in Ukraine and Syria. A sanctions bill with similar provisions is being written in the House of Representatives. "Our job is to make sure this attention on Ukraine does not wane," Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, Valeriy Chaliy said on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets; Writing by Alessandra Prentice and Matthias Williams; editing by David Stamp) South Korean prosecutors on Monday sought the arrest of the heir to the Samsung empire over a scandal that has seen the country's president impeached, in the latest setback for the giant conglomerate. Samsung, the world's largest smartphone maker, is already reeling from the international debacle over its Galaxy Note 7, which was recalled after some devices caught fire. Prosecutors investigating the corruption scandal said they asked a court to issue an arrest warrant for Lee Jae-Yong, the only son of Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-Hee. The Seoul Central District Court said it would rule on the request on Wednesday. Samsung's revenue is equivalent to a fifth of South Korea's GDP and Lee's arrest could have an "important" impact on the economy, a spokesman for the prosecutors acknowledged. "But we believe that achieving justice is more important," he said. The scion is vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, the firm's flagship subsidiary, and the de facto head of the group after his father suffered a heart attack in 2014. If prosecuted and convicted he could face a maximum five years in prison, but leading South Korean businessmen have previously been given suspended terms for such offences -- including the elder Lee. The announcement sent the share price of Samsung Electronics -- South Korea's largest listed firm by value -- falling 2.14 percent, shaving more than $5 billion off its market capitalisation. Samsung is already trying to repair an image tarnished by the Note 7 recall crisis and faces stiff competition from Apple and smaller Chinese rivals. "This is a big crisis for us," Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed senior Samsung executive as saying. "We have to make aggressive investment and merger and acquisition decisions to race ahead of competitors. "But we are afraid that the latest development would cause great delays in our decision-making process." Story continues But Greg Roh, analyst at Seoul-based HMC Investment & Securities, said the firm had a "very well-organised management system" and was not driven by "a certain personality". The scandal could even help Samsung in the long term, said Shim Jung-Taik, an author of several books on the firm, if it persuaded the founding Lee clan to improve the group's opaque governance structure and become more transparent. - 'Hard to understand' - The political scandal centres on President Park Geun-Hye's secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil. Choi is accused of using her ties with the president to coerce top local firms into "donating" nearly $70 million to dubious non-profit foundations which Choi then used as her personal ATMs, in exchange for political favours. Samsung is the single biggest contributor to the foundations and separately paid Choi millions of euros, allegedly to bankroll her daughter's equestrian training in Germany. Lee, 48, who was questioned in a marathon 22-hour session last week, is accused of bribery and embezzlement for approving decisions to pay Choi 43 billion won ($36.4 million), and of perjury at a parliamentary hearing, the prosecution spokesman said. In a statement Samsung said the prosecutors' decision was "hard to understand". "There was no support that sought something in return," it said. - Choking with emotion - Prosecutors are probing whether Samsung's payments were aimed at securing government approval for a 2015 merger of two of its units. The merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T was seen as a key step towards ensuring a smooth third-generation power transfer to Lee. It was opposed by many investors who said it wilfully undervalued Samsung C&T's shares. But it was backed by the National Pension Service, a major Samsung shareholder. Former welfare minister Moon Hyung-Pyo was formally charged Monday with abuse of power for allegedly pressuring the fund's managers to approve the deal. Park was impeached by parliament last month, and the constitutional court is deciding whether to uphold the decision. Choi, who is currently on trial for coercion and abuse of power, appeared at its proceedings for the first time on Monday. She choked with emotion at one point and denied seeking any financial favours using her presidential connections. Choi admitted visiting the presidential Blue House several times to help Park handle "personal matters" and had shared an e-mail account with a senior presidential aide to edit some of Park's speeches. But she insisted she had no role over the Samsung merger: "It's way too complicated for me." Tripoli (Lebanon) (AFP) - In a tiny workshop in Lebanon's Tripoli, coffin maker Michel Homsi takes a drag on a cigarette, surrounded by his carefully crafted handiwork, waiting for customers that never seem to arrive. He hasn't sold one of his handmade wooden caskets in a year, due to competition from machine-made coffins but also to dwindling numbers of Christians in the northern port city. Most of Tripoli's residents are Muslims, who are buried in a simple shroud and have no need for Homsi's talents. And most of the Christians he once catered to have left the city in waves, fleeing first the country's 1975-1990 civil war, and then sporadic violence between local neighbourhoods. "The last people who bought a coffin from me a year ago got it for their mum, who was living here," Homsi told AFP, sitting in the sole chair in his dusty workshop. "After buying it, they left and haven't come back." Homsi began making wooden coffins in 1964, following in the footsteps of his father, though his first job was in the workshop of a competitor. He was inspired early on by a woodwork teacher and went into the coffin making business while just a teenager. After three years at a rival workshop, he joined his father's business in the Zahriyeh district, at the time a mixed neighbourhood of different sects. Initially, business was brisk, with the father-son pair making four or five coffins a month. The handmade caskets sold for anything from $100 for the simplest kind to thousands of dollars for more elaborate options. It took time for him to convince his father that he was up to the trade. "When I first started working with him he wouldn't let me touch anything, he just asked me to organise tools," said Homsi, 65. "But when he got tired I started working with my hands, and he liked my work." "My father didn't teach me about coffins, but he taught me to love wood." Story continues - 'Soft like silk' - Homsi's passion is evident in the work he continues to do, despite the dearth of customers. He works meticulously with pieces purchased from local wood wholesalers, cutting each to size with a handsaw before smoothing it to a fine finish. "Put your hand on the wood and feel how rough it is," he says before sanding it down. "Now feel it and see how it's become soft like silk." He nails the parts together and varnishes them, using several brushes to make sure every last spot is covered. The final step is to add the cloth lining inside. But that process waits until a buyer has chosen the casket, so nowadays Homsi is surrounded by unlined coffins. It takes him anywhere from three days to a week to finish a coffin, but with so little demand, these days he takes his time and works on one for up to a month. Coffin making is virtually the only trade Homsi has ever known. He and his father worked throughout the early years of the civil war that erupted in 1975. But in 1982, when the fearsome Sunni Islamic Unification Movement militia began targeting Christians, Homsi decided to flee. He moved to Germany and worked as a car mechanic for eight months, but returned home after learning his mother was ill. "I spent everything I had earned in Germany so she could get well, and thank God, she did," he says. Back in Tripoli, Homsi resumed making coffins with his father, but business had already started to dwindle as local Christians fled. By the end of the war in 1990, Homsi was making just one coffin a month and was forced to take up a cleaning job on the side to make ends meet for his wife and two children. - No new customers - Even peacetime brought no new customers for Homsi. Many Christians who had left failed to return, while others fled sporadic bouts of violence between the Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh neighbourhoods, near to Homsi's district, or felt it was now too dangerous to come to his workshop. While no official figures exist for the number of Christians in Tripoli, they made up just 22,000 of around 200,000 registered voters in the city in 2010, of which only 4,500 cast a ballot. Even that figure may overstate the number of Christians who actually live there. Lebanese voters are registered for life in the district where they were born, even if they move later on. Some of those who voted in Tripoli may have lived elsewhere for decades. It's a depressing turn of affairs for Homsi, who has decided not to teach his son his craft. Passersby say hello, but don't stop in, and he cancelled his phone line after being unable to pay his bills. "At church, people talk to me and say hello to me but nobody stands near me for more than a minute," he says. "Maybe they think I'm close to death or that their life will get shorter if they talk to me." But despite the difficult prospects, Homsi says he plans to stay open, waiting for clients. "Where would I go? Maybe work will come at some point. I'm waiting. Either I work or I die." ATLANTA (AP) The Latest on celebrations across the country for Martin Luther King Jr. Day (all times local): 7:15 p.m. Ohio's governor says Americans shouldn't focus so much on the highest-level people when there are ways to tackle many societal problems at the local and individual levels. Republican Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) spoke Monday in Atlanta at the King Center on the holiday honoring its namesake, Martin Luther King Jr. Kasich says King got the attention of people in power through a "bottom-up" approach worth emulating. Kasich says efforts such as addressing drug use and improving education need people committed at the community level. He also says it's important to keep an open mind. It was a message of cooperation from a governor who has dealt with division within his own party recently. Kasich is the Republicans' only 2016 presidential contender who didn't fall in line behind President-elect Donald Trump. ___ 7 p.m. Several thousand people walked through snowy Denver to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in the city's 31st annual "marade". The Denver Post (http://dpo.st/2jhlHLm ) reports that the crowd that made its way down the city's main street, Colfax Avenue, Monday chanted and held up signs expressing love for King and opposition to Donald Trump. The crowd was smaller than in the last two years. Organizer Vern Howard blamed the weather and a disruption last year by Black Lives Matters. This year during opening speeches by lawmakers, some in the crowd heckled Republican congressman Mike Coffman because of his vote to repeal the federal health care law. He continued speaking and participated in the marade. Denver got several inches of snow but it eased by the time of the marade. ___ Hundreds of Minnesota residents have marched through downtown St. Paul to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Afterward, city and state leaders spoke at the Ordway Center on Monday about the progress the country as made, as well as the inequalities that still exist. Story continues Speakers included U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Lt. Gov. Tina Smith. Poverty, justice and discrimination were among the topics. Klobuchar said income inequality, the achievement gap and an unfair criminal justice system still trouble the U.S., and creating change is never simple. Students from Maple Grove High School, the site of racist graffiti that sprung up after the election of Donald Trump in November, spoke about their efforts to organize a student walkout. ___ 5:20 p.m. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are honoring Martin Luther King Jr.'s memory by painting a mural at a family shelter in Washington. The Obamas joined residents of the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter to paint a display of the slain civil rights activist on a wall in the community room. The mural features a large rendering of King's face surrounded by butterflies, under the words "Wall of Hope." Obama was working on a butterfly and told reporters he was just trying to get it right. The shelter is also where the Obamas donated the swing set they installed on the White House South Lawn in 2009 for their daughters when Malia and Sasha were younger. Obama leaves office Friday. ___ 4 p.m. A Mississippi city has decided to rename the holiday it called "Great Americans Day" to honor slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The Biloxi City Council voted 6-0 to make the change Monday. The Sun Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2jspo2W ) the vote came moments before the beginning of an annual parade honoring the slain civil rights leader. Monday was a federal holiday and was recognized in most of the United States as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, in three states Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas the holiday has a dual designation honoring King and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The change follows an uproar on social media that erupted after a Biloxi spokesman posted that city offices would be closed for Great Americans Day. The name came from a city ordinance adopted in 1985 two years after the federal holiday was created. ___ 1:40 p.m. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day by pedaling to sites connected to a historic visit the slain civil rights leader made to the city. About 300 bicyclists participated in Monday's free 10-mile ride, which took in such sites as downtown Detroit's Cobo Center. That's where King gave an early version of his "I Have a Dream" speech in June 1963. He also led more than 100,000 marchers down Woodward Avenue in what was called the "Great Walk to Freedom," about two months before he delivered his famous speech in Washington, D.C. The tour took place in 30-degree weather, but sleet fell on riders toward the end. It is one of several events being held in the area and state to honor King. ___ 12:30 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump is calling on Americans to honor Martin Luther King Jr. for "all of the many wonderful things that he stood for." Trump, who is scheduled to meet with King's son later in the day, may be trying to put behind him the controversy over his criticism of John Lewis, a black congressman and civil rights icon. In a message sent on Twitter on Monday, Trump said: "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!" Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, had angered Trump by calling him an "illegitimate president" and saying he would not attend the inauguration. ___ 11:50 a.m. Residents of Memphis, Tennessee the city where civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed are honoring his legacy with neighborhood events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Volunteers on Monday fanned out across Memphis neighborhoods where blight is a major problem to take part in a "MLK Day of Service." They picked up litter and trash along streets, at blighted homes, in empty lots and in parks in historic neighborhoods such as Orange Mound and Soulsville. Visitors to the National Civil Rights Museum gathered for performances, youth-centered educational programs, a blood donation drive and a food drive. King was killed while standing on a balcony at the old Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The motel has been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum. ___ Civil rights leaders and activists are gathering at sites across the country to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. On the same day that Americans celebrate King's legacy, his son is scheduled to meet President-elect Donald Trump. Martin Luther King III will meet with Trump at Trump Tower in New York. The meeting comes amid lingering tensions between the president-elect and Congressman John Lewis. Lewis is the civil rights leader who called Trump an "illegitimate president" and said he will not attend the inauguration. Trump responded on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart." In Atlanta, a commemoration at King's storied Ebenezer Baptist Church will be headlined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. ___ This story corrects that Trump will meet King's son, not grandson, in 2nd paragraph of first entry NEW YORK (AP) The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST): 8:50 p.m. Military bands and units from all branches of the service, high school bands and even the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts will join newly sworn-in President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in Friday's Inaugural parade. More than 8,000 people are expected to follow the new president and vice president as they proceed 1.5 miles from the swearing-in ceremony on at the Capitol to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, continuing a tradition that began with Thomas Jefferson in 1801. The public can watch as bands and units from the five branches of the armed forces parade with high school bands and the Scouts from across the country, and military aircraft fly over their respective branch's parade units. The Presidential Inaugural Committee announced details of the parade Monday. ___ 2:10 p.m. The son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says he had a "very constructive" meeting with President-elect Donald Trump on the holiday marking King's life. Martin Luther King III played down Trump's recent claim that Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon, was "all talk." He told reporters at Trump Tower on Monday that in the heat of emotion, "a lot of things get said on both sides." King says the focus of his meeting with Trump was to improve voter participation and stress the need to bring America together. He says Trump assured him it's his intent to reach out to all Americans, even those who did not support him. Trump briefly appeared with King after their nearly hour-long meeting but ignored reporters' questions. ___ 12:50 p.m. Conservative media commentator Monica Crowley will not be joining the Trump administration following accusations of plagiarism. That's according to a transition official. Crowley had been slated to join Trump's National Security Council as a director of strategic communications. Her decision comes after CNN reported that several passages in a 2012 book written by Crowley were plagiarized. Publisher HarperCollins then pulled the book. Story continues Crowley's withdrawal from her position was first reported by the Washington Times. The transition official confirmed the decision on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. ___ 10:00 a.m. President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to lash out at critics in the intelligence community and Democrats in Congress who are vowing to skip his swearing-in ceremony. The tough-talking Republican questioned whether the CIA director himself was "the leaker of fake news" in a Sunday night tweet. The extraordinary criticism from the incoming president came hours after CIA chief John Brennan charged that Trump lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States. Trump shot back in a Twitter post Sunday, saying: "Oh really, couldn't do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?" Maiduguri (Nigeria) (AFP) - At least three people were killed and 15 injured in a suicide bomb attack claimed by Boko Haram on a university campus in northeast Nigeria, police said on Monday. The blast happened at a mosque in the staff quarters area of the University of Maiduguri and is thought to have been carried out by a teenage girl, a local resident and a lecturer told AFP. Islamist group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly used young women and girls as human bombs, claimed responsibility for the attack. "We are the ones that triggered the explosions in the University of Maiduguri," said Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in an audio message. "A woman can fight when the need arises." Borno police spokesman Victor Isuku said that before the blast at the mosque, police on patrol shot a girl aged about 12 as she tried to get into the university at about 5:15 am (0415 GMT). "The IED (improvised explosive device) strapped to her body exploded, killing her instantly," he said in a statement. "Shortly after that a second explosion occurred in a mosque inside the university. "Four persons, including a professor and the second suicide bomber, died, while 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to UMTH (University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital)." One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said he heard two explosions at 5:25 am as he was leaving the mosque in his neighbourhood. "I rushed to the university, which is not far from my house. On entering, I saw the mosque in a mess. Three people lay dead, including a young girl, whose body was badly mutilated," he said. "Thirteen other worshippers were injured." A university lecturer who lives on site confirmed the resident's account. - No let-up in attacks - Filibus Yamta Mshelia, from the registrar's office at the university, said examinations scheduled for Monday had been postponed to a later date because of the attack. Story continues Examinations set for Tuesday will take place as planned, he added in a letter to staff and students. "We urge all students to remain calm and vigilant," he wrote. Access to the university campus has been strictly controlled, with checkpoints and searches at the gates, which until now had prevented a direct attack. But the site, on one of the main thoroughfares leading in to and out of the city, is vast and most areas are badly lit. Students also say security has been relaxed in recent months and some of the soldiers who manned the campus gates have been withdrawn. At least 20,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram conflict since it began in 2009 and more than 2.6 million others made homeless. Nigeria maintains the insurgency is in its final stages. Last month said it had flushed out Boko Haram fighters from their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital. Yet there has been no let-up in attacks both on troops and civilians. On January 8, at least five soldiers were killed when rebels targeted a base in Buni Yadi, in neighbouring Yobe state. The following day, suicide bombers killed three in Maiduguri. Boko Haram's name translates roughly to "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language spoken widely across northern Nigeria. Its fighters have attacked schools across the region for teaching a so-called Western curriculum. Many have only recently re-opened after being shut for several years. Christian and Muslim students live and study together at the university, which offers both Islamic and Arabic studies, as well as courses from medicine to law. Cape Town (AFP) - Lesotho's army commander said Sunday that military action was now the only option against a general accused of masterminding an attempted coup, and appealed to neighbouring states for assistance. Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao told AFP in a telephone interview from Maseru, capital of the tiny Southern African nation, that efforts to negotiate with the renegade general after the coup bid had failed. Tlali Kamoli, who was removed from his post as army chief by Prime Minister Tom Thabane a little over a week ago, has refused to step down. Instead the military under his command attacked a host of police stations and his successor, Mahao, was the target of an attempted assassination. Thabane was also sent fleeing to neighbouring South Africa, where he spent days in talks before returning home last Wednesday under the protection of police provided by Pretoria. Kamoli had since refused all attempts to negotiate, Mahao said. "Negotiations have failed as far as we are concerned. At this point in time I think we are left with no option but military operations." The army chief was frank about the difficulties he would face in taking on Kamoli, who has taken to the mountains with a seized cache of weapons including artillery, mortars and small arms. "In the situation we are in it is very difficult to determine the numbers on his side and the numbers on my side until the strategy we are working on starts to take root," he said. He would not reveal details of the strategy but made it clear he expected a military confrontation in a country of just two million people, which is totally surrounded by South Africa. - Outside assistance 'helpful' - The renegade general is said by intelligence sources to have control of Lesotho's elite special forces unit of around 40 highly-trained troops, as well as the military's intelligence division. "In terms of equipment he has depleted the armouries, but we have the means and support to take him on," Mahao said. Story continues However, "it would definitely be very helpful" to get military support from the Southern African Development Community, a 15-nation regional bloc. "I have asked the relevant body in SADC to consider coming to our assistance," Mahao said. The stand-off with Kamoli needed to be resolved as soon as possible to stabilise the political situation in the country, the general said. "I have no doubt that with stability in the military there will be stability on the political side. If we are able to resolve that we will have peace." Mahao said the whole problem had arisen because both Kamoli and his political backers in the nation's uneasy coalition government faced prosecution for criminal offences. Asked to name the politicians behind the renegade general, Mahao said Deputy Prime Minister Mothejoa Metsing was "clearly one of those". "The problem is they have committed certain crimes and don't want to be prosecuted in a court of law," said Mahao, who has claimed that the deputy prime minister is under investigations over corruption charges. Mahao called on Kamoli to surrender and negotiate, but said his predecessor seemed bent on military confrontation. "Our analysis of his operations is that he seems to want to dig in in defence and perhaps go into some kind of guerrilla action," he said. Despite this, Mahao might have an uphill struggle to convince SADC to provide military support, as a request by Thabane for peacekeeping troops was rebuffed last week. However, South Africa is keen to ensure that the independent state within its borders does not fall into lawlessness and has deployed heavily-armed police to Maseru to guard key points. Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Forces loyal to Marshal Khalifa Haftar on Monday retook a district in Libya's Benghazi from jihadists after fighting that killed nine soldiers in two days, a military source said. "We now control the district of Abu Sneib" in the southwest of the city, said a commanding officer in the army headed by Haftar, who backs the parliament in the country's east. "Our forces now completely surround the Qanfuda area" nearby, the same source said. The source said 52 troops had died in fighting since January 1 in and around Benghazi. Haftar has managed to retake a large part of the eastern coastal city from jihadists since Benghazi came under their control in 2014. But jihadists still control the central districts of Al-Saberi and Souq al-Hout. These jihadist groups include the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, an alliance of Islamist militias that includes the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sharia. Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi. Libya has since fallen into chaos, with a UN-backed unity government failing to assert its authority over the country. The parliament based in the eastern city of Tobruk has refused to recognise the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. One afternoon about seven years ago, Marty Hadge tentatively stepped outside a two-family, white-shingled house in the former mill town of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Hadge, who was pushing 50, lived in one of the units, alone. He wore 280 pounds on his 5-foot-2 frame, a side effect of consuming antipsychotic medication for several decades. His skin was marred by a haphazard array of tattoos and scars from hundreds of small cuts hed inflicted on himself. Going out in public wasnt easy for Hadge, but he was desperate to save his own life. He didnt have a car and was afraid of taking the bus, so Hadge set out on foot, walking down roads dotted with hand-painted Pentecostal church facades, liquor stores, and auto-body repair shops. Mountains and the smoke-stacked ruins of brick factories sat in the distance. At the end of his mile-and-a-half journey into downtown Holyoke was a cozy room at the Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (RLC), which offers assistance to individuals overcoming trauma, addiction, and other challenges. Bookshelves were cluttered with self-help books, plants, an old boombox, and a clock in the shape of a sun. About eight people, all part of a support group, sat on worn couches and recliners arranged in a loose circle. Hadge was nervous. He took a seat in a stuffed rocking chair set apart in a corner. What came next, he hoped, would help him silence the urgent voices in his head that had repeated the same cruel refrain for going on 40 years: Kill yourself. Hadge started hearing voices when he was a small child. Born in West Roxbury, a suburban neighborhood in southwest Boston, his mother was an alcoholic who beat him. A neighbor sexually abused him. When he was 4 or 5, Hadge remembers having a waking vision of four dark ghosts on the stairs leading up to the neighbors apartment, an omen that he would die if he returned there. As a preteen, other voices began calling to him. Sometimes, they told him he had to commit suicide or murder his mother. They said I had to make a choice, that the both of us could not live together, Hadge recalls. They could go from being a whisper to yelling so loud it was hard to think. Once, when he was about 12, his mother hit him with a cast-iron pan. Schooled in Bible verses about honoring thy parents, Hadge had never fought off the beatings. That day, though, a voice urged him to retaliate. Story continues You have to do this, do this right now! it shouted. When his mother struck him a second time, he hit her back. In his 20s, while working as a janitor and selling drugs to scrape together college tuition, Hadge self-medicated with alcohol and heroin to drown out the voices. Over the years, he spent time in nearly every hospital in western Massachusetts, from Springfield to Deerfield to the Berkshires. He was told at different times that he had bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, trauma, and schizophrenia. Hadge didnt put much stock in the diagnoses because they kept changing. He was prescribed numerous drugs, including Haldol, Thorazine, Lithium, Effexor, and Lamictal. I was drugged to where I couldnt get off the couch, but I still heard voices, Hadge says. Some meds damaged his neurological system; his face would freeze in strange expressions, he struggled to read and to remember thoughts, and he sometimes shook so hard that he fell down. Periodically, he stopped taking his pills to feel alive for a little while. He would end up in a locked hospital room, naked, not knowing where he was. Things got so bad that, when he was 41, Hadges college-aged daughter from a long-gone romantic relationship declared herself his caretaker to prevent him from being committed to a psychiatric facility. A caseworker from social services regularly visited the house in Holyoke, which Hadges daughter owned, and was happy as long as the patient took his pills. Hadge, though, was too bleary to function outside the walls of his home. And the voices were still there, telling him, Youre too screwed up to fix. With nowhere else to turn, Hadge Googled peer support and mental health one day, hoping to find a program like Alcoholics Anonymous, which had helped him quit heroin. He discovered that RLC hosted one that promised a non-pathologizing, open way of understanding and supporting people through the experience of hearing voices. The support group was part of the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), a two-decade-old international health and social justice crusade. So Hadge found himself sitting anxiously in the rocking chair at RLC. From his many encounters with doctors, he had learned that if you talked about voices, you got in trouble: locked up for longer periods or given more medication. But he observed as Gail Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College who led the HVN session, encouraged people to identify their voices, listen to them, even answer them. If music came on in another room, someone might pipe up, Is everyone hearing that music playing? Do we have consensus reality on that? To his astonishment, Hadge realized that the gathering took one thing for granted: Everyones voices were real. The goal was not to get rid of them it was to engage them. The ethos was nothing short of radical. Even though no one took notes, monitored attendance, or would report what was said to outsiders, Hadge was too scared to speak. He returned the following week and kept coming back for six months, fascinated but never saying a word. A turning point finally came when Hornstein posed a question: If you were walking down the street and someone was following you, wouldnt you stop and ask them, What do you want? Voices had berated and intimidated Hadge for most of his life. Now, for the first time, he started asking them why. The concept of madness has existed for thousands of years, but the diagnosis of schizophrenia, derived from the ancient Greek words for split mind, was coined only in the early 1900s. It was based on patients inability to distinguish what was real from what was not. Symptoms included delusions, hallucinations, and hearing voices. When Sigmund Freuds theories dominated the psychiatric field, schizophrenia was believed to be the result of emotional issues, in particular the effects of having a withholding or cold mother. Later in the 20th century, professional opinion swung toward the belief that schizophrenia is a disease of the brain; that model was reflected in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). There is no definitive test for schizophrenia. Diagnosis is based solely on observations of symptoms. In 2013, Thomas Insel, then-director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, wrote on the agencys website, In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. For some experts, the fact that the most damning of psychiatric labels made more so by cultural depictions of schizophrenics as incurable, violent lunatics is based on imprecise criteria signals, at the very least, the need to name it something that more accurately captures its multifaceted nature. (Japan officially renamed schizophrenia integration disorder in 2005.) Research now points to both biomedical and environmental causes of schizophrenia. A growing body of studies shows a strong genetic component it tends to run in families and an association with abnormalities in brain structure. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, one of the largest research projects about the lingering effects of early-life trauma, found that the death of a first-degree relative in childhood resulted in a 39 percent greater chance of being diagnosed with schizophrenia as an adult. Other studies have found higher rates of the disorder, believed to afflict between 0.5 and 4 percent of people worldwide, in urban areas and among poor and minority populations. What nearly everyone who studies schizophrenia agrees on is that the diagnosis often has an abysmal impact on peoples lives. In the United States, people identified as schizophrenic are incarcerated at very high rates; compared with the general population, the percentage of individuals with serious mental illness is four to six times larger in jails and three to four times larger in prisons. Mortality also takes a blow. Some studies show that a schizophrenia diagnosis can take 25 to 30 years off a life, through suicide, an accident, or lack of access to medical care. Outcomes may vary across borders and cultures. Research from the World Health Organization published over the last 30 years has found that people in some parts of the developing world with schizophrenia have better outcomes than those in developed countries; for instance, they are nearly six times more likely to be able to work. There are a number of hypotheses as to why, including that the nature of life in poor contexts less regimented and more community oriented makes it easier for people with schizophrenia to get by. And some experts say the answer may be non-Western cultures tendency not to frame psychosis as a dreaded, permanent disease. As an anthropologist at the University of Puget Sound, Juli McGruder spent several years in Zanzibar. She found that anyone who violated social norms from speaking out of turn to hallucinating was seen as possessed by a spirit. People who would be diagnosed with schizophrenia in the West, then, were not seen as sick; they were under attack by outside forces. Rather than stigmatizing them, their communities offered support and ministrations. Research by Stanford University anthropology professor Tanya Luhrmann points in a similar direction. She and colleagues interviewed voice-hearers in the United States, India, and West Africa. Americans were more likely to hear voices that threatened and belittled, while some foreign subjects heard family members, friends, or deities and engaged in back-and-forth relationship[s] with the voices. Luhrmann argues, I think the consequence of the American idea that the mind is broken is so horrifying and upsetting for people that they feel assaulted by these voices. The insight that how people interact with voices might affect what they hear overlaps with HVNs central tenet: Hearing voices is only a problem if it causes a person distress. HVN began in the Netherlands in 1987 as a collaboration between Dutch psychiatrist Marius Romme and a patient named Patsy Hage, who had taken medication but still heard voices. She asked Romme why, if people believed in a god they never saw, they so quickly dismissed the notion that what she heard was real. Romme was intrigued. Through a television call-in program, Romme invited people to share their experiences with voice-hearing. Hundreds responded, and a significant proportion claimed they were untroubled by their voices and had never been treated by psychiatric professionals. In 1988, Romme organized a conference on voice-hearing in Maastricht. Two years later, the first peer-support groups started gathering. They rejected clinical terms like schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations and considered voices part of some peoples natural life experiences, potentially even vehicles for personal growth. All major religions have a story of a heroic voice-hearer, proponents like to point out, from Joan of Arc to the Prophet Mohammed. Today, HVN groups exist in about 30 countries, from Europe to Australia to East Asia. The network holds a global conference each year; it will gather in Boston this August. In England, there are more than 180 groups, including one in most prisons in London. In the United States, where the movement is still finding its footing, there are some 85 chapters. A few years ago, the Connecticut Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services helped establish groups in the state. In 2015, the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care (Excellence for short) began a three-year project to expand the networks national reach by training 100 group facilitators. Hornstein, of Mount Holyoke College, is working on the Excellence initiative and notes that demand for HVN chapters far exceeds the money available. If we had enoughwe could be doing a training every day of the week for many years to come, she says. There is no formal structure or leadership to HVN. Although founders are encouraged to participate in network-approved trainings, anyone can start a group based on a set of basic principles: During meetings, there should be no assumption that attendees are sick, and members, who are treated as experts in their own experiences, should make decisions together. Collectively, the network sees itself as nothing short of a human rights campaign in defense of a marginalized group. Hornstein cites a historical comparison to illustrate the big picture: Homosexuality was listed as a psychiatric disorder in the DSM until 1973. Today, gay people are a protected class of citizens. By removing homosexuality from the DSM, Hornstein says, Psychiatrists were admitting that the problems gay people faced werent necessarily the result of some intrinsic pathology, but reflected the homophobic assumptions of society and long-standing medical models. Marty Hadge spent decades trying to ignore his voices. Now, though, he listens and attempts to compromise with them. If one shouts, Throw that chair across the room! he will gently tip it over instead to see if thats enough to appease the voice. Such are the strategies that several years of HVN meetings have given him. Over his time with the group, Hadge has realized that, when he was a child, some of his voices were actually helpful companions the voice that told him to hit his mother, for example. Some voices, Hadge adds, were expressing feelings that there was no space for me to express. Hadge has come to believe that most of his voices are related to trauma or are spiritual in nature of a higher power. They come to him when hes having trouble recognizing his feelings or when an environmental trigger reminds him of some unresolved emotional issue from his past. The warning type, like the dark angels on the stairs or the ones that tell him to kill himself, almost never get big any longer, he explains. As soon as he hears them, he uses HVN guidance to respond. For the most part, his voices have become reassuring, like hearing or seeing friends orthings that are comforting. After years of profound isolation, HVN has also given Hadge a social group. I learned how to have a conversation again, how to interact with people, build myself up, he explains. Hadge weaned himself off all medication. His psychiatrist said he had to stop taking Haldol, because it can inflict brain damage over the long term; his daughter was nervous about him going cold turkey but supported a gradual process. After kicking meds, Hadge slowly regained his ability to read and think more clearly. Eventually, he was asked to learn how to facilitate HVN meetings. Hadge was skeptical that he could handle the responsibility, but also stunned that hed been asked. For his whole adult life, the medical system had treated him as too fragile to withstand failure. Being encouraged to take a risk was a revelation. As it turned out, Hadge was a top-notch facilitator. He now travels around the country leading HVN trainings. His official title is community bridger and trainer. Last spring, he led grand rounds at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center to give doctors an overview of what HVN does. He regularly goes into the local psychiatric units where he used to be locked up and supervises peer-support groups although he cannot always call what is being discussed hearing voices, for fear that patients might be forced to stay in the facilities even longer. During a three-day training at a Holyoke community college last June, Hadge and Caroline White, an HVN colleague, educated a group of some 30 attendees about how to lead their own groups. White, who is 34, opened the training. Thin with long dark hair, she was clad in black Adidas sneakers and a black dress. In order to pick up new tools, sometimes we have to put down old tools, White told the audience. She handed out small pieces of paper on which clinical words were written: prodromal, oppositional, high functioning, command hallucination, schizophrenia. For the duration of the event, White explained, the terms had to go. Many of us have been taught to use these words, but its really important to learn to describe our experience in our own words, she said. Hadge added, We need to create the meaning of our experience. By calling it a hallucination, we are saying its false, its a symptom, or a sickness. Whereas having a vision is more neutral and can be defined in lots of different ways. One by one, attendees ceremoniously crumpled the papers they had been given into balls and described how discarding them felt. Charlie Davidson, a clinical researcher from New Haven, Connecticut, noted that he was bound legally to use many of the words in his diagnostic reports. Hilary Andreoli, a voice-hearer who also works in a clinical setting, tilted her head back in relief when she tossed schizophrenia into the communal heap of trash. Im overjoyed to throw it in the middle of the room and never use it again, she said. White spoke about religious voice-hearers, including Mohammed: He describes hearing a voice from the sky that moved through him like a powerful wind. Many of the experiences that lead people to be slapped with psychiatric diagnoses, White added, are common in Kundalini awakening. Everyone then broke into groups of three. Two people took turns trying to have a conversation, while the third person spoke to them through a wrapping-paper tube in order to simulate a voice-hearing experience. A few voice-hearers shared their personal experiences with the room. One HVN participant who asked not to be named in this article said hed been accompanied with no distress for many years by the voice of a friend who had died when he was 16. Its the most important relationship in my life, the man told the room. I would never want to lose that. In HVN, he had been relieved to find a forum where he could discuss the voice without being judged. White said that she had been medicated starting when she was a teenager. In her 20s, she lived in a halfway house. When she got involved in HVN, she found ways to comprehend her voices and friends who helped her including some with whom she played roller derby for a while, under the name Mazel Tov Cocktail. I learned how to be assertive, said White, who is now married. I can talk back to my voices when they taunt me: Im Mazel Tov Cocktail. Who do you think you are? Now I have strategies. I can read a book out loud or ask them, Could you come back in a half hour? Some aspects of HVNs methods have made inroads into the mainstream. In 2014, the British Psychological Society released a report, Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia, which suggested that hearing voices should not necessarily be considered a sign of mental illness. It linked psychosis to creativity and discussed the idea that giving people a schizophrenia diagnosis may harm them, not help. In a study conducted at University College London, 16 people were asked to dialogue directly with a computer avatar representing their voices. In follow-up research, three people reported that they had stopped hearing voices, and all others experienced a decrease in their voices intensity and frequency. An expanded $1.7 million randomized study of avatar therapy is underway with 142 new patients. HVNs engage-the-voices approach, though, has never been the subject of rigorous clinical evaluation. Because the network grew up outside formal health and academic spheres, some of its members are wary of formal research. Many refer to themselves as survivors of the medical establishment. In a 2014 speech at a conference in Austin, Texas, Hadge said: Theres a huge divide between intent and impact. What some people call treatment, other people like myself call torture. The statement was met with applause. Larry Davidson, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, is seeking funding to determine if it would even be possible to study HVN. Its a tricky proposition. The things research requires recording progress, symptoms before or after treatment none of those are consistent with the hearing-voices model, he explains. Its not a clinical service, and people are not assessed. Participation cannot be recorded. Critics of HVN see the networks core beliefs as a risky reversion to the era when schizophrenia was seen as an emotional problem and patients didnt get proper medical care. E. Fuller Torrey, a medical researcher who specializes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and who founded the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, which promotes laws allowing forcible commitment and medication of severely mentally ill people, says treating schizophrenia as anything but a disease is dangerous. Focusing on the content of auditory hallucinations is a waste of time, Torrey argues. Schizophrenia is as much a disease as tuberculosis. Like Parkinsons, its a disease of the brain. He points to research indicating that people who have psychotic episodes that go untreated often have worse long-term outcomes than those who receive medical care. Joseph M. Pierre, co-chief of the Schizophrenia Treatment Unit at the VA West Los Angeles Healthcare Center, acknowledges that voice-hearing exists on a spectrum: Some people experience pleasant visits from dead relatives, while others are haunted and harassed by voices whose origins they cant locate. Pierre says there is a fine line, however, between destigmatizing mental illness and romanticizing it. Sometimes, peoples lives are transformed by cancer in positive ways for example, gaining perspective on whats important in life and what they want to do with it, he explains as a point of comparison. But that doesnt mean that we should think of cancer as a gift, taking time to understand its meaning in your life at the expense of seeking medical care. Some individuals have spoken out against HVN based on personal experience. Susan Inman, author of After Her Brain Broke, a memoir about her daughters schizophrenia, wrote an article for the Huffington Post that criticizes the alarmingly de-medicalized approach of the 2014 British Psychological Society report and HVN. Many people might want to be part of a nurturing group providing advice on how to respond to disturbing voices or other difficult experiences, since underfunded mental health services havent met these needs, Inman notes. Its problematic that the only group meeting these needs for voice-hearers uses ideas that dont support science-based ways of understanding their illnesses. In 2013, a journalist named Robert Whitaker was invited to speak about the dangers of antipsychotic drugs at a conference hosted by the Virginia-based National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Randye Kaye, a volunteer NAMI trainer who helps families with mentally ill children and who wrote a book about her sons schizophrenia, Ben Behind his Voices, says some audience members were outraged by the presentation. On a Facebook thread, one [family] posted that their son was doing incredibly well on medication and excited enough about recovery to go to the NAMI conference, Kaye explains. He attended the HVN presentation and decided he didnt need medications. He lost his job, lost his car, lost everything because of what he heard there. Kaye admits that there might be value in HVN-style support groups, but only as a supplement to medical treatment. She would never encourage her son to join the network. Sure, maybe if we lived in a tribal culture, hed be a medicine man, she says, but we live in Fairfield, Connecticut. One Sunday afternoon last June, Hadge opened the front door of RLC, where he first encountered HVN and now works. A blond woman who looked to be in her 30s was sprawled in the entryway wearing two different shoes. He bent over to talk to her. Are you OK? Hadge asked. Can I help you get up? Do you need an ambulance? The woman was agitated and confused. All she could manage was, Not good. Not good. Im not good. Hadge took her inside and microwaved some ramen noodles for her in the kitchenette near the room where his HVN group gathers. (Journalists arent allowed to document those meetings.) He brought an almost preternatural calmness and empathy to the situation. I try to talk to people like theres someone in there, he explained a little sadly, because I know what its like. These days, Hadge has lost some weight, and his dark hair is graying near his temples. Because he took medication for years, his speech sometimes slurs and his hands shake from nerve damage so badly that he cannot use a touch screen. He has to look directly at a speaker in order to follow what is being said. Any external voice without a face still presents trouble. In 2014, when Hadge was on a layover in Atlanta on his way to an HVN training, the airports automated announcements bombarded him. I was already tired, and all these voices were just coming out of the ceiling. I started losing my shit and yelling: Shut up! Everyone, shut up! he recalled. Other people he was traveling with reminded him that he was in control: They said, Youre not making sense, Marty. They told me to put on my headphones to block the sound and to focus on not yelling so I wouldnt get arrested. Hadge managed to calm down and make it onto his flight. A few years ago, when his mother died and he had to travel for her funeral, the thought of seeing people from his childhood was so upsetting that Hadge decided to go back on Haldol temporarily, just to make it through the experience. He said that Hornstein told him, Thats an excellent use of medication, Marty. Before joining HVN, Hadge faced multiple hospitalizations every year; in the last four years, he had been admitted just three times for episodes that, in his words, interfered with the ability to navigate the here and now. The stays were different from previous ones. With HVN techniques, Hadge was able to understand what had happened often, activation of bad childhood memories and tell himself he would get through it. Also, when hes in a hospital, he isnt alone. I have friends now, and they come and visit, bring me cigarettes, he says. At RLC, Hadge implored the woman hed brought inside to have some water. When I get into a state, I can forget to drink for a really long time and the dehydration makes things worse, he explained. Is there anyone you want to come get you? he asked the woman gently. Is there anyone I can call? He urged a coworker to find her some new pants, because she had urinated in hers. By the time she left the building, about an hour after Hadge had found her, the woman could manage full sentences. She looked him right in the eye. Thanks a lot, she said. Hadge nodded. Hadge says HVN has given him purpose and lent coherence to his days. He has what hes always wanted a life thats worth living. A version of this article originally appeared in the January/February 2017 issue of FP magazine. Correction, Jan. 17, 2017: Gail Hornstein is a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke College. A previous version of this article mistakenly said she was a professor of psychiatry. Vilnius (AFP) - Lithuania said Monday it plans to use EU funds to build a fence on the border with Russia's highly militarised Kaliningrad exclave to boost security and prevent smuggling. Baltic states have repeatedly voiced their concern at the Russian military build-up in the exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, both EU and NATO members. Construction of the 130-kilometre (80-mile) fence will start this spring and will be finished by the end of the year, Interior Minister Eimutis Misiunas told AFP. "The reasons are both economic to prevent smuggling and geopolitical to strengthen the EU's external border," he said. The two-metre (six-foot) high fence will cost around 30 million euros ($32 million) and will be mostly funded by the European Union. "It would not stop tanks but it will be difficult to climb over," Misiunas said. The stretch of border is currently a popular route used by Kaliningrad-based cigarette smugglers to ferry contraband into Lithuania. Misiunas said the fence could prevent cross-border "provocations", recalling a 2014 incident in which Estonia accused Russia of abducting an intelligence officer at gunpoint on the border. NATO is deploying troops in the Baltic states and Poland to deter Russia from making more land grabs following its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. The Kremlin denies any territorial ambitions and insists NATO is trying to encircle Russia. Moscow's deployment of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into Kaliningrad last year and frequent military drills in the Baltic region have rattled neighbouring Poland and Lithuania. Over the next few months, the United States will also deploy part of an armoured brigade to Lithuania and other Baltic NATO states on a rotational basis. Although no troop figures have been made public, Lithuanian authorities expect to host hundreds of US personnel for exercises with other NATO troops in the coming months. Story continues Ordered by the outgoing Obama administration to reinforce NATO's vulnerable eastern flank, the brigade arrived in Poland last week as part of one of the largest deployments of US forces in Europe since the Cold War, an operation that Moscow angrily branded a security "threat". The incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump has suggested it will seek to ease tensions with the Kremlin, but has not yet publicly addressed the issue of fresh US troop deployments near Russia's borders. According to Poland's Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, a total of 7,000 US and NATO troops will be stationed in his country in the coming years. By Alastair Macdonald and Jan Strupczewski BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Just as London appears to be coming round to the idea that it will need a temporary transitional agreement with Brussels to smooth its exit from the European Union, it may find the position of European leaders has hardened. For months the working assumption in Brussels has been that it would be impossible to manage Britain's exit from the EU by a 2019 deadline without a temporary transitional deal to govern trade terms until a final arrangement can be hammered out. The idea is favored by businesses on both sides of the channel who want to minimize uncertainty, and by the technocrats tasked with hammering out a deal, who say a final pact cannot be reached in time. The only people who didn't seem to like it were hardliners in London who said they preferred a clean break. But with Prime Minister Theresa May lately softening her "Brexit means Brexit" rhetoric to emphasize the need to avoid forcing businesses off a "cliff edge", the positions of European leaders only seem to have hardened. Senior European officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity no longer sound convinced that a transitional deal is as inevitable as it once seemed. "The technicians of course say it's obvious. But frankly, politically it's not at all," a senior EU official told Reuters. "Do the Brits really want it? On the kind of terms we can offer? "There's a real danger they will just fall off the cliff." LONDON SHIFT May intends to set a two-year clock running on Britain's exit negotiations by late March. She is due to give a speech on Tuesday, and any hint she gives that she will accept a transitional arrangement could make headlines. While she has so far given few details of her negotiating position, Britain unmistakably softened its stance on a transitional arrangement last month. David Davis, the cabinet minister tasked with overseeing exit from the European Union, said in early December he was "not really interested" in a temporary deal. But a week later British newspapers carried reports that he had privately said he was not opposed to one. EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, in his only detailed public comments so far, stressed last month that a transitional deal was no certainty and would depend first on broad agreement on the long-term way ahead. But generally EU negotiators have spoken in private as if a transitional deal were inevitable. They have long described Brexit as a three-stage process of negotiation, transition and divorce, which cannot realistically be rushed. That inevitability no longer seems to be the assumption in Brussels, even though the economic logic favors it. A second EU official closely involved in Brexit planning noted that Britain depends more on EU trade than vice versa, which means London needs a transition more than Brussels does. "Economically, the EU has much less incentive than Britain to arrange a transitional deal," the official said. "Politically the logic of the talks will be to keep the Brits as close as possible even after the divorce," the official added. The terms of a transition would depend on the long-term goal: if a free trade deal is the ultimate aim, it makes no sense to impose tariffs on British goods that are only going to be removed again, so a duty-free transition would be logical. TIME IS SHORT Time is tight even for a basic deal to settle issues on money, citizenship, law and so on next year, so any interim pact may need to be simple: "The divorce terms will be so difficult to negotiate that I think that it will be impossible to have a negotiation on the transitional arrangement," the lead Brexit negotiator from one of the 27 other member states told Reuters. "The timeframe is going to be really short." While all sides are still only hinting at their positions before formal negotiations start, continentals have been reminding British officials of the leverage given to them by the deadline specified in the EU treaty's untried Article 50, which covers the withdrawal process. With or without negotiated terms, Britain will be out of the Union once two years are up. One senior German official told Reuters that Britain should ask to stay in the European Economic Area (EEA) for some years, which would require it to accept free movement from EU countries and pay into the EU budget in return for continuing free trade. May should start by asking for a transition deal to avoid running out of road in the negotiations: "The risk is that the two years run out with no agreement," the German official said. The other 27 national leaders have shown a determination to stick together, whatever the complaints of their own business leaders, to insist Britain pay the price of a hard Brexit rather than allow a soft option that could tempt other countries to follow Britain out the door. Last week, the Maltese prime minister whose ministers will chair EU councils until June, called for a transition deal, notably because London remains Europe's main financial center. But Joseph Muscat also said that this would mean Britain accepting that EU courts would go on "dishing out judgments", Muscat said - a scenario May might find a hard sell to impatient Brexiteers as she seeks re-election by 2020. The second EU official said Brussels believed May could, however, try to sell a partial exit before the election that might even include continued payments into the EU budget. "Maybe it is not as different from membership as some would want," the official said. "But it is a step, and the direction for the next is clear too ... May will remain hostage to the Brexit hardliners, but she will also have to deliver something." (Additional reporting by Paul Carrel and John O'Donnell in Berlin; writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Peter Graff) BEIJING (AP) Donald Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established U.S. policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: ___ TRADE Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. The pact was the centerpiece of the Obama administration's outreach policy to America's Asian partners known as "the pivot," which also involves a greater military commitment to the region. Obama said the TPP would allow the U.S. to impose higher labor, environmental and human-rights standards, as well as give U.S. businesses access to some of the fastest-growing economies. The deal would have slashed 18,000 taxes that other countries impose on American goods and services, but Congress failed to act amid skepticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Trump's opposition to free-trade agreements has fueled fears of protectionism and puts him at odds not only with U.S. trading partners but also with many in the Republican Party. Killing the TPP may open the way for other regional free-trade initiatives, including those pushed by rival China. "With the U.S. withdrawing from TPP, Japan will have to redesign its external economic policy," said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Other options "may not be easy," Takenaka said. ___ CHINA Trump raised China in speech after speech during his campaign, at times accusing the country of ripping America off in trade and threatening a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese imports. Story continues Things turned far more serious after his election win when he took a phone call from the president of self-governing Taiwan, upending four decades of diplomatic protocol barring such direct contacts. Critics accused him of ignoring the "one-China policy," long considered unassailable in China-U.S. relations, to which Trump responded by questioning why the U.S. should be bound by such an arrangement without economic incentives. He again touched on the issue in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, saying "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" While the Chinese government's response was muted, the official China Daily newspaper said he was "playing with fire." Trump has also criticized the Chinese military's island-building program in the South China Sea, and accused it of blocking U.S. imports through high taxes and manipulating its currency to the detriment of American exports. ___ ALLIANCES WITH JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA Trump raised eyebrows during the campaign when he appeared to question the inviolability of long-standing U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea, seen as bulwarks against North Korea's military threats and China's push for regional dominance. The two were included in a list of countries that Trump said he would be "respectfully asking ... to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them." During the campaign, Trump suggested Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons so the U.S. would no longer be burdened with the costs of defending them, a disquieting notion in many Asian capitals. But after Trump's election win, Japan's Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him, sitting down in Trump Tower with the business mogul and his daughter, Ivanka. Japan is concerned about how spill-over from China-U.S. conflicts might affect its economy and foreign relations, possibly compelling it to play a larger role in regional security, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. "Trump measures would be the top priority for Prime Minister Abe this year. The biggest question is that Trump is unpredictable," he said. ___ NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT Trump's approach to North Korea probably offers the least divergence from previous administrations, but he faces stark choices on countering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's missile threat. After Kim, announced in his annual New Year's address that the country had reached the "final stages" of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump responded by Twitter: "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!" Trump has not said how his approach to the North might differ from Barack Obama's, although his campaign's position paper talked of more "modern destroyers to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea." That would appear to indicate continued support for deploying the advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea, despite Chinese and Russian objections. Trump appears to be a firm believer that North Korea could be reined-in if only its sole significant ally China would tighten the screws. ___ INDIA AND PAKISTAN During the campaign, Trump was largely positive toward both India and Pakistan, even while he piled negative rhetoric on China and other nations. However, his threat to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has raised accusations of Islamophobia. In the days after his win, Trump appeared to follow in the well-trodden path of seeking a balance between the nuclear rivals albeit in his unorthodox style. A phone call between Trump and Pakistan's prime minister was remarkable mainly for the effusive praise he reportedly lavished on the struggling state. Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the battle against Islamic extremism but is also close to U.S. rival in Asia, China. In its readout of that call, Pakistan said Trump described the country as "amazing" and expressed a desire to visit something President Barack Obama did not do. India's national security adviser followed the Pakistan exchange with a low-key visit to Washington to meet with a senior Trump aide in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration. __ Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report from Tokyo. Jon Field, Natural Resources Conservation Service district conservationist in Juneau County, Wisconsin, displays brown trout ready to stock in 2018. The agency partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to stock trout in a stream on the Nate Bell farm -- a stream that's part of a Little Lemonweir River restoration project. Dear Editor: The Student Multicultural Center, which includes the Mens Project, appears to offer a safe place for students to exchange ideas and concerns in a safe environment. Young people are passionate and energetic. They need guidance and understanding as they mature into productive adulthood. They are also much closer to the pulse of life than we old folks are and we are living through a very rocky time at present. I believe the activities provided are preferable to offering nothing and experiencing unrest on the campus. I was a student in Whitewater during the years from 1968-72 and remember vividly the unrest and resulting violence on my campus. The violence in Madison was much worse. It was during that era that multicultural centers began to appear on campuses and I think they helped. The cost of running the center is a good investment compared with the cost of violence and destruction on college campuses. I encourage Sen. Steve Nass to visit with students who are taking advantage of the center and listen to their points of view. My hunch is that they want a well-functioning society and culture as much as we do! Barbara Fett Janesville Send your 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. Pyongyang (AFP) - "That was a personal commission," says renowned North Korean sculptor Ro Ik-Hwa, pointing to a bust of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist denounced by the US as the world's greatest nuclear proliferator. The bust sits in Ro's workshop in Pyongyang's sprawling Mansudae Arts Studio complex, which has become the latest target of UN sanctions seeking to curb nuclear-armed North Korea's access to overseas hard currency revenue. The Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in early December included a paragraph explicitly preventing UN member states from buying statuary from them. The clause was aimed at a niche but lucrative business -- run from Mansudae -- of exporting giant memorials mainly to Africa. Ro, 77, is among the greatest living practitioners of such works, having been a lead artist behind some of the most iconic of Pyongyang's monuments. The Khan bust was commissioned after the Pakistani scientist visited the city's Revolutionary Martyr's Cemetery and admired the large bronze sculptures of individuals commemorated there. "He asked for something similar in size and shape... so I made one," Ro told AFP during a recent tour of his studio. "After he saw it, he really liked it and sent me a full-length photo and asked for another, so I made a two-metre tall one," he said. Revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb, Khan confessed in 2004 to sending nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, although he later retracted his remarks. As US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton described him as "probably the world's worst proliferator." - Made to order monuments - Khan's vanity purchase is dwarfed in scale and cost by the monumental multi-million dollar projects Mansudae has worked on overseas -- including the 50-meter high African Renaissance Monument, completed in 2010 outside the Senegalese capital Dakar. Story continues "We'll send teams for between one and five years to work on these projects," said Kim Hyon-Hui, manager of the Mansudae Overseas Project (MOP) group. A day after the latest UN resolution was adopted, the US Treasury added the MOP to its blacklist of entities that "support North Korea's illicit activities". Ultimate authority over Mansudae technically resides with propaganda chief Kim Ki-Nam. But according to Michael Madden, editor of the website North Korea Leadership Watch, its lucrative status marks it out for special attention from supreme leader Kim Jong-Un. "Given its prominence as a labour-service contractor and export company, realistic control over its affairs lies with Kim Jong-Un's sister, Kim Yo-Jong," Madden told AFP. A vice-director in the Propaganda and Agitation Department, Kim Yo-Jong has risen swiftly through the ranks of the North Korean leadership to assume what analysts see as an influential position. Last week, she was added to the US Treasury Department's blacklist in response to Pyongyang's "serious" censorship activities. According to Pier Luigi Cecioni, who has operated as Mansudae's official sales representative in the West for the past decade, Mansudae and the MOP enjoy an extremely high degree of autonomy. - Like a ministry - "They pretty much exist at the level of a ministry," said Cecioni who sells paintings by Mansudae artists through an English-language website he manages. African governments have been Mansudae's main market for large-scale projects, with statues, monuments and buildings ordered by countries like Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Namibia, Senegal and Zimbabwe. Kim declined to provide any details of MOP's earnings, and estimates of how much hard currency the company brings in range from $5.0 million to $13 million a year. "In terms of its revenue earnings, Mansudae is a fairly small player," said Madden. "Because of its importance and prominence in the country's political culture -- not to mention its "supreme" patronage -- Mansudae is not hard pressed to earn more," he added. Mansudae's socialist-realist style has proved popular with revolutionary movements-turned-governments looking to create a post-colonial memorial landscape, and it provides skilled workers at a very competitive price. "Only the North Koreans could build my statue... I had no money," the then-Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade, told the Wall Street Journal when the African Renaissance Monument was completed at a reported cost of $27 million. Close to 4,000 people work at Mansudae -- a vast complex the size of a small village with hundreds of studios housed inside cavernous cement buildings. It was founded in 1959 by Kim Il-Sung and a giant statue of the founding president and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il -- both on horseback -- greets visitors inside the main entrance gates. - Artist rankings - The studios employ 700 artists who are ranked in a clearly defined hierarchy. At the top of the pile sit around 30 designated "People's Artists" -- like Ro Ik-Hwa -- who enjoy numerous benefits including foreign travel and individual studios inside the complex. The North's art scene is tightly controlled -- there is no abstract art, which is regarded as anti-revolutionary by authorities -- and even the top artists work for monthly salaries that bear little relation to the sale value of their work. "We produce pieces that are demanded by revolution... that move people to revolution," said Hong Chun-Ong, 76 -- also ranked as a "People's Artist" and a 40-year veteran of Mansudae who specialises in wood cuts and propaganda images. Hong, described by MOP manager Kim as among the "top five" artists in the country, is one of the few to have travelled overseas -- attending promotional exhibitions in Asia, as well as some European countries like the Netherlands. "We sell works at our exhibitions, but also produce as requested," Kim said. "Those shown at exhibitions are more expensive because they don't get re-produced," she added. Provenance can be problematic for those not attuned to the peculiarities of the North Korean art market. Star artists often produce multiple copies of their most popular works which are also copied by other artists, so that more people can see them. At the same time, Mansudae cranks out a lot of works specifically tailored for foreign consumption. - Provenance problem - This makes finding high quality pieces, with a clear provenance and with genuine roots in the fabric of North Korean society, extremely difficult. Prices vary enormously, with large works by top People's Artists going for tens, or hundreds of thousands of euros. "I don't deal much with expensive works like that," said Cecioni. "The artists involved aren't well known here, so it's difficult to find buyers at that price range." Mansudae's only bricks and mortar foreign representation is the gallery it operates in Beijing's 798 Art District. North Korean art remains an extremely niche market, and China is one of the few places where works are bought and sold by collectors with any regularity. It is possible to buy direct from the complex in Pyongyang, but financial sanctions make it difficult. "You can't transfer money to North Korea, so if you can't go in person, there aren't that many options," said Cecioni. Charles Manigo, the man who raised 18-year-old Kamiyah Mobley since birth, is now dealing with the aftermath of finding out he is not her biological father. Kamiyah Mobley, whose name was changed to Alexis Manigo, finally met her biological parents, Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken, at a Walterboro, South Carolina, police station on Saturday after 18 years. Read: Teen Meets Biological Parents After Alleged Abductor Raised Her as Her Own Since 1998 Alexis received the shocking news last week that the woman who she thought was her mom, Gloria Williams, allegedly posed as a nurse and abducted her from Jacksonvilles University Medical Center on July 10, 1998, when she was just eight hours old. Manigo said he previously dated Williams and said she lied to him as well, telling him that she had given birth to his baby while he was away. I named her -- a name I had for a year: Alexis Kelly," Manigo told ABC. "She was the love of my life. The person she called dad for 18 years isn't her dad. Manigo and Williams raised Alexis from the time she was a newborn, sharing custody after they split up in 2003, according to reports. "One of the hardest things she said on Friday was, 'Dad I love you,' even though she knows what's going on," Manigo said. "I talk to her every day," he said. "The attention is overwhelming to her. She's still processing everything. It's a shock to me, it's a bigger shock to her." Although he claimed in the interview that he was a big part of her life, Alexis took to Facebook to say that he hasn't been there for her at all. "He did nothing," the teen wrote. "He was not there when I moved to Georgia, never saw him... You were nothing to me my whole life." Read: Woman Who Kidnapped Newborn, Raised Her for Nearly 2 Decades, Gets 10 Years in Prison Manigo said that even though he may not be her biological father, he will always be there for her. Story continues "She's still my child," he said. "I understand what's going on, but she's still my child." Manigo was identified earlier this week through a DNA test after two leads led police to South Carolina, where she was living with Williams, according to police. Williams is charged with kidnapping and is awaiting extradition to Jacksonville. Watch: Man Mistakenly Kidnapped By Biker Gang Still is Emotional 5 Years Later Related Articles: Mariah Careys very absent fiance, James, made a very present appearance on Mariahs World. After Mariah and company landed in Paris for her show, Mariah and James were going to finally be able to get together for a dinner party. But after all the heavy flirting between Mariah and Tanaka this season, Stella was left wondering if James was going to give Tanaka another busted knee. With Tanaka hobbling around the city of love on crutches due to a dancing injury, Mariah set out to get Tanaka some new clothes with the paparazzi in tow. While Mariah enjoyed dressing her boy toy, she also sent mixed messages by later getting fitted for her wedding dress, giving Tanaka a major reality check. Stella kept things at bay, though, during the dinner party, by keeping James and Tanaka out of arms reach, and lover boy had to ask himself if this was all just a sweet, sweet fantasy baby. Mariahs World airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on E. Watch Tanakas crush on Mariah reach its boiling point: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. US News Martin Luther King Day highlights transition from Obama to Trump As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nations first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most nonwhite voters. In Atlanta, Kings daughter, Bernice, encouraged Americans to fight for the slain civil rights leaders vision of love and justice no matter who is in the White House. King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her fathers Ebenezer Baptist Church just hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, is scheduled to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and gowe still have to find a way to createthe beloved community. Bernice King The commemoration of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, comes on the heels of Trumps inflammatory remarks about civil rights champion John Lewis, a Democratic U.S. congressman who marched with King in the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Ala., and was beaten by police. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBCs Meet the Press that he views Trump as an illegitimate president because of alleged Russian interference in the campaign. Trump retorted Saturday on Twitter that Lewis is all talk and said his district is falling apart and crime infested. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, Ebenezers senior pastor, didnt call Trump by name but blasted the president-elect for his treatment of Lewis, now a Georgia congressman whose Atlanta-based congressional district includes Ebenezer. Look for tough travel conditions on Monday as south-central Wisconsin is under a winter weather advisory through 6 p.m., with up to 0.25 inches of ice and under an inch of snow and sleet possible, according to forecasters. The low pressure system that will move from eastern Kansas to northern Illinois on Monday coated portions of the Plains with more than a half-inch of ice, the National Weather Service said. The primary area of moderate precipitation is predicted to arrive in south-central Wisconsin late Monday morning and remain into the evening. The mixed precipitation should turn to freezing rain and then mainly rain in the afternoon. The highest ice accumulations are expected north of a line from just north of Madison to Sheboygan. In addition to very slippery conditions on sidewalks, roads and bridges, weak tree branches could be downed, resulting in power outages, the Weather Service said. On Monday in Madison, look for snow and sleet before noon, then sleet possibly mixed with freezing rain from noon to 1 p.m., then rain possibly mixed with freezing rain after 1 p.m., and widespread fog, mainly after 5 p.m. Ice could accumulate to less than a tenth of an inch and snow and sleet to less than a half-inch during the day. The high should be near 33, with calm wind becoming east winds around 5 miles per hour in the afternoon. Madison Streets Division salters and sanders were out since 3:30 a.m. Monday, and most likely will stay out all day to try to keep ahead of the mixed precipitation. A temperature hovering just below freezing was helping applied salt work fairly quickly on city streets, and a lighter traffic load because of the King Day holiday made for fewer chances for slide-offs or crashes, authorities said. "Nothing earth shattering yet," a dispatcher at the Dane County 911 Center said at about 7:30 a.m. Monday. The state highway travel map showed slippery stretches from Wisconsin Dells south, with good winter driving conditions in central and northern Wisconsin. Many school districts were closed Monday because of the King Day holiday, but those that weren't closed for that closed because of the weather. Channel3000.com reported 90 school districts and individual schools were closed on Monday. A car crashed into a condo on Madison's North Side early Monday morning, but crews at the scene couldn't determine if the crash was caused by slippery conditions. Overnight, look for rain, possibly mixed with freezing rain, becoming all rain after 11 p.m. with widespread fog as the low edges down to around 32. Additional ice accumulation of less than a tenth of an inch is possible. There is a 60 percent chance for precipitation on Tuesday in the form of freezing rain before 7 a.m., then rain, with areas of fog before 9 a.m., cloudy skies, a high near 36 and northeast winds around 5 mph turning out of the northwest in the afternoon. Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, theres a 20 percent chance for rain before 7 p.m., with the low falling to around 26. The areas ice and snow will be melting the rest of the week in a dramatic warm-up, according to the Weather Service, with a 30 percent chance for rain Friday after 1 a.m. through Saturday night and a 60 percent chance for rain on Sunday. Skies over Madison should be mostly sunny Wednesday and Thursday, mostly cloudy Friday and Saturday, and cloudy Sunday, with highs near 39, 44, 43 and 46, and lows Wednesday night through Saturday night around 29, 32, 35 and 37. 27 Storm Track meteorologist Branden Borremans forecasts a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain through early afternoon Monday, then changing to rain, with up to 0.2 inches of ice accumulation; rain tapering to scattered showers overnight; a few light rain showers early Tuesday, scattered rain showers Friday, a possible few light rain showers Saturday, rain Sunday, and a few light rain showers next Monday. Borremans said skies over Madison should be cloudy Monday and Tuesday, mostly sunny Wednesday and Thursday, and cloudy Friday through next Monday, with highs near 34, 36, 40, 46, 43, 44, 47 and 45, and overnight lows around 33, 22, 30, 35, 36, 38, 38 and 34. Sundays high in Madison was 33 at 3:55 p.m., 7 degrees above the normal high and 21 degrees below the record high of 54 for Jan. 15, set in 1953. Sundays low in Madison was 6 at 7:46 a.m., 5 degrees below the normal low and 36 degrees above the record low of 30 below for Jan. 15, set in 1963. No precipitation was recorded at the Dane County Regional Airport on Sunday, leaving Madisons January and 2017 total at 0.75 inches, 0.14 inches above normal. The meteorological winter (December through February) precipitation total (rain plus snow converted to liquid) stayed at 2.78 inches, 0.43 inches above normal. Madisons record precipitation for Jan. 15 is 1 inch, set in 1906. With no snow on Sunday, Madisons January and 2017 snow total stayed at 2.1 inches. 4.1 inches below normal. For meteorological winter, Madison has received 24.8 inches, 5.1 inches above normal. For the snow season (since July 1), Madison has received 24.8 inches, 1 inch above normal. Madisons record snowfall for Jan. 15 is 3.8 inches, set in 1943. Madisons official snow depth is 1 inch. Tegucigalpa (AFP) - A Mexican who survived a murderous attack on a fellow activist in her Honduran home lodged an international complaint on Monday against Honduras for detaining him in the country for weeks after the killing. The Mexican activist, Gustavo Castro, announced the suit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights through his lawyers, who said Honduras had acted unconstitutionally and in violation of Castro's human rights. Castro, an environmental activist, witnessed the March 2016 murder by two gunmen of Berta Caceres, a high-profile Honduran activist who led an indigenous association fighting the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Honduras. The Mexican, who was wounded in the attack, was held by Honduran officials when he tried to fly back to Mexico. He was taken to the Mexican embassy in the Honduran capital for weeks of questioning before being permitted to leave the country. Seven people have been arrested in relation to the crime, including an employee of the company building the dam, and a Honduran seized in Mexico last week. President Barack Obama delivered an emotional farewell speech Tuesday to the nation in his hometown of Chicago. Malia Obama, Michelle Obama, President Barak Obama Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) But the American people are not only saying goodbye to a beloved president, they are saying goodbye to one of the most fashionable first ladies in U.S. history. At her first Inaugural Ball as the president's wife in 2009, Michelle set the style bar high when she wowed, wearing a white custom gown b American designer Jason Wu. For the 2013 Inaugural Ball, she turned to the American designer yet again, wearing a custom halter-neck scarlet chiffon gown with velvet, accessorized with Jimmy Choo shoes, a ring by Kimberly McDonald and Kimberly McDonald for Forevermark Diamond bangles. Michelle Obama Photo: Jeff Zelevansky/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images So it was no surprise that for her husband's farewell address, Michelle decided to chose to wear Jason Wu yet again, only this look was a bit more understated. FLOTUS chose a custom dark grey lace dress styled with a Narcisa Pheres ring, Harry Kolar studs and a Hearts on Fire ring. Malia Obama, President Barak Obama, Michelle Obama Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images Malia, 18, was also perfectly polished for the event wearing Cinq a Sept's $395 black and white Seaphina dress styled with black tights, black boots and simple, trendy choker necklace. Malia Obama, Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images) Story continues The Obama's younger daughter, Sasha, 15, did not attend the farewell event as she was busy studying for an exam. Related Articles By Ellen Wulfhorst NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Millennials, some so young they need their parents' permission and others with babies in tow, will join women's protests this weekend as their generation for the first time faces challenges to rights they have known most of their lives. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend the Women's March on Washington and sister marches in other cities around the world on Saturday, the day after Donald Trump is sworn into office as U.S. president. The display of unity is a show of opposition to Trump's potential impact on women's rights, particularly abortion access, health insurance, child care and workplace policies that could take a heavy toll on young women, activists say. "Everything that can affect the population in general is going to affect millennial women," said Jamie Kenney, 34, a New Jersey writer and mother of two young children. "Because we are young and because our careers aren't established and because most of us have uteruses, it's going to hit us in ways that it hits everybody and in ways that are going to be unique and harder to overcome," said Kenney, who planned to attend a women's march in New York City. Along with the main march in Washington, more than 270 others are planned in the United States and in 33 other nations, with more than 500,000 people expected to join, organizers say. The marches call for reproductive rights such as access to abortion and contraception, equal pay, affordable childcare, an end to violence against women and rights for gay, lesbian, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people. 'TURNING POINT' Trump has come under fire for his attitudes toward women that emerged as he campaigned for the presidency. In a 2005 tape that came to light during the campaign he brags about groping women and making unwanted sexual advances. He says he opposes abortion and has vowed to pull government funding from Planned Parenthood, a major provider of women's health care. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a national insurance program that pays for most birth control methods for women. Story continues "Millennial women have taken all of those things for granted," said Elisabeth Kelan, a professor at Britain's Cranfield School of Management and author of a book on millennials entitled "Rising Stars." "It's a real turning point for this generation," she said. Most millennials, 73 percent, have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to the Pew Research Center. Typically defined as those born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, they number around 74.5 million in the United States, according to Pew. The Trump presidency will have a lasting effect because people form political identities in early adulthood, said Benjamin Knoll, an associate professor of politics at Centre College in Kentucky who specializes in public opinion and voting patterns. "For the younger ones now in college and their mid-20s, they're going to come of age at a time when we have Donald Trump as president," he said. A millennial himself at 34, Knoll said he would attend a local women's march with his 8-year-old daughter. Alessandra Rizzo, 16, plans to ride the bus to the Washington march after her father agreed she could go with a friend, accompanied by her friend's mother. "I can't vote," Rizzo said. "So the march is just a way for me to express my dislike of what's going on." Trump's scepticism about climate change and his intention to make abortion illegal are most troubling, she said. "I'll be at the age of having to worry about this when he's the president, and that's just very scary to me," she said. (Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org) Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f349549%2fd64e9022-79ce-4323-9884-9c5b374ac391 On Sunday, what would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 88th birthday, his daughter, Bernice, tweeted a heart-felt tribute, honoring the civil rights icon and sharing an image of her standing with the monument to her father. SEE ALSO: Thanks to Trump, Rep. John Lewis is dominating Amazon's bestsellers list The memorial, located in downtown Washington, D.C., was opened in 2011. Born just five months before King's iconic "I Have A Dream" speech, Bernice was appointed as CEO of The King Center in 2012. Last week, in honor of this year's Martin Luther King Day, President Obama designated three Civil Rights sites as national monuments, including the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama, which served as a headquarters for the Civil Rights leaders, including King. I met Abdullah al-Fakharany on the first day of the Egyptian uprising against President Hosni Mubarak in January 2011. It was afternoon in Tahrir Square, and the police were attacking. The tear gas canisters arced high into the air before falling into the crowd. I ran, but not fast enough. The gas left me doubled over, tears streaming down my face. As I gasped for breath, a young man appeared beside me and helped me away from the smoke. He handed me his black and white kaffiyeh, motioning for me to wrap it around my head to cover my nose and mouth. When I could speak again, I asked him why so many people had answered the call for protest. This is the result of the pressure that has built up inside us from the corruption, from the repression, from the lack of freedom, Fakharany shouted, partly to make himself heard above the shouts swirling around us and partly out of excitement. More tear gas landed near us, and we jogged away from it. Fakharanys hair was thick and curly, and he had dark stubble on his cheeks. He told me he was studying medicine at Ain Shams University but found it unfulfilling. I was reporting on the protests, and before I left to write my story, I returned his kaffiyeh. Fakharany found me on Facebook the following day, and over the next few months we saw each other often. I usually found him in the field hospital during protests, using his medical training to patch up the wounded. Consumed by a desire to be a part of the change sweeping his country, he began working with a budding citizen journalism initiative called Rassd. It started as a Facebook page in 2010 as an attempt to challenge the Mubarak regimes narrative that dominated the media, and grew rapidly into a news service, with millions of followers and branches in other countries. Six years later, Fakharany sits in a cell north of Cairo. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 and is now undergoing a retrial on charges of spreading false information, belonging to a banned organization, and forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to defy the government. He has grown despondent after more than three years behind bars and now faces the possibility of decades in prison. Hes being held in Wadi Natrun penitentiary, where his health is deteriorating. Story continues Fakharany is one of at least 25 journalists currently imprisoned for their work in Egypt, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). After President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhoods Mohamed Morsi in a military coup in 2013, he launched the harshest crackdown on the press that Egypt has seen in decades. Authorities raided and shuttered television channels, censored newspapers, and arbitrarily detained reporters. Seven journalists have been killed six were shot while covering demonstrations, almost surely by security forces, and army soldiers shot a seventh at a checkpoint, according to CPJs tally. Yet the reporters behind bars receive scant attention. Those like Fakharany, who worked for media sympathetic to Morsi and the Brotherhood, receive even less. Unlike the formerly jailed Al Jazeera English journalists, two of whom have foreign citizenship, there is no worldwide campaign for his release, no celebrity lawyer, no statements by diplomats on his behalf. I was naive at least in the first days after I was arrested, Fakharany wrote in a letter from prison published in 2015. I thought that the world would rise up to defend me. Thousands chant anti-government slogans in Tahrir Square on Feb. 1, 2011 in Cairo. The massive protests would eventually lead to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) A generous heart In the months after the uprising, Fakharany and I ran into each other often at protests and sometimes met at cafes to talk about the state of the Egyptian uprising. He was ebullient and optimistic, despite increasing signs the military junta that had replaced Mubarak was uninterested in democratic reform in Egypt. We had only known each other for about four months when I experienced Fakharanys generosity for the second time. In May 2011, a mob attacked a church in Imbaba, a warren of narrow alleys on the west side of Cairo. The mood in the area was still tense the next day, and as I reported with two colleagues, two men began following us. We sensed the situation was turning dangerous, but before we could find a safe place, the two men had multiplied into a crowd and the crowd was turning violent. Just as they began shouting and grasping at us, we turned a corner and found a cordon of soldiers deployed to secure the area. They allowed us to squeeze past, and we were safe for the moment. But I was still trapped in Imbaba, and it would be difficult to get out alone. I called Fakharany and explained my situation. Stay there, he said. Im coming right now. Within half an hour, he arrived and escorted us to safety. Most of Fakharanys friends have similar stories. His magnetic personality gave him a wide network, which was useful to a young news organization like Rassd. Fakharanys key role at Rassd was in connecting it to outside groups, like Turkish and German news agencies, that worked with and trained the budding journalists. He often traveled to conferences and trainings abroad. Fakharany at Ain Shams University in Cairo, where he studied medicine. Fakharany during a trip to Washington DC in 2012. Fakharany visited the offices of the Associated Press on a trip to New York in December 2011. Fakharany visited the United Nations on a trip to New York in December 2011. He also sent in updates on protests or other developments in Egypt, which were published across Rassds platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and text messages to subscribers. Fakharany quickly became a member of Rassds core team even as he continued his medical studies. He worked with intensity and, usually, a wide smile. He was always taking the initiative, pushing ahead, knocking on doors, said Khaled Noureldin, one of Rassds founders and CEO. Rassd was growing rapidly. By the 2011 uprising, it had a core team of 22 people who were publishing updates from volunteers around the country and had accumulated between 300,000 to 400,000 followers on Facebook. That rose to nearly 4 million by the July 2013 coup, according to Noureldin. The page currently has more than 10 million followers and operates underground in Egypt Noureldin lives in Turkey, and reporters in Egypt dont use their names. Noureldin said at least nine Rassd journalists are currently in prison, though only five have been publicly associated with the network. Some of the Rassd team belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood. Fakharany told me he was not a member of the group, which Noureldin confirmed. He said Rassd has no connection to the Brotherhood beyond the personal affiliation of some members. But Rassds coverage was unabashedly sympathetic to Islamist parties, which dominated elections in Egypt after the uprising, and to Morsi. Morsi was the first freely elected president in Egypts history, winning by a thin margin in 2012 over a candidate associated with Mubaraks deposed regime. His win came just after a major power grab by the military that included dissolving the Islamist-led parliament. But the Brotherhood leader-turned-president governed with an overreach and incompetence that was compounded by hostility from state institutions and the mainstream press. His rhetoric, and the often sectarian language of some of his top supporters, alienated many non-Islamists. By the summer of 2013, he was deeply embattled, and Egypts media was as polarized as the public. Egyptian riot policemen point their guns toward protesters as security forces moved in to disperse supporters of Egypt's deposed President Mohamed Morsi in a huge protest camp near Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in eastern Cairo on Aug. 14, 2013. (MOHAMMED ABDEL MONEIM/AFP/Getty Images) Love in the firing line As the country was choosing sides around him, Fakharany was falling in love. In a Rassd workshop on social media strategy in May 2013, he met a young woman who had traveled to attend the course from her home in another Arab country. The pair quickly became enamored of each other. She found Fakharany smart, open-minded, respectful of women, and loved how he was always smiling. Fakharany was infatuated, said Mohamed Soltan, an activist who was imprisoned alongside Fakharany for more than seven months. The two bonded over their love of the intricacies of the Arabic language, he said, and their youthful passion for democratic change in Egypt. Soon they were having long conversations every day after the course sessions, said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous because her family doesnt yet know about their relationship. The day before she left Cairo, Fakharany surprised her with a marriage proposal. She didnt give him an answer at the time. But after she flew home, they continued to talk every day and made plans for Fakharany to come and meet her family in August 2013, a necessary step for him to ask her father for her hand in marriage. It was a meeting that the course of Egyptian politics would not allow him to keep. At the end of June, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marched throughout the country, calling for Morsis resignation. Days later, Sisi, then Morsis defense minister, seized control of the country. Many Egyptians welcomed the military takeover with celebration, calling it not a coup but a revolution and describing Morsis supporters as terrorists. Fakharany considered it a devastating blow to democracy in Egypt, and Rassds coverage was strongly critical of the coup. Two large protest camps formed in the capital, each teeming with thousands of protesters who vowed to stay until Morsi was reinstated. Many, though not all, of the protesters were Islamists, and rhetoric from the stages set up at the sit-ins was often fiery and sectarian, at times blaming Christians for the coup and hinting at violence if the president was not restored. Members of the Brotherhoods political party, which was under siege from the new regime, were mainstays at the sit-ins. Fakharany helped man a video feed from the larger camp, in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. Both he and Soltan felt the foreign media were wrongly portraying the protesters as angry Brotherhood supporters, instead of Egyptian citizens protesting an undemocratic power grab by the military. Soltan, a dual Egyptian-American citizen who grew up in the United States, was not a member of the organization, though his father was a senior leader. Fakharany spoke with the foreign journalists he knew and urged them to cover the protests fairly, said Soltan. On Aug. 14, 2013, security forces launched an assault on the Rabaa al-Adawiya camp that lasted 12 hours and likely killed more than 1,000 people, most of them unarmed protesters, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Fakharany was present for the assault and made it out late in the day with a light shrapnel wound to his arm. He had seen the worst of the carnage, his brother Abdulrahman said the hundreds of bodies piling up as those in the square frantically sought a way out, only to find all exits under fire from the security forces. The new regime had essentially declared war on the Brotherhood and anyone who spoke out against the coup. It embarked on a massive arrest campaign, detaining Brotherhood leaders and members, pro-Islamist journalists, protesters, and activists. Fakharany and Soltan spent 10 days away from their homes trying to avoid the dragnet. They and two others Samhi Mustafa, also of Rassd, and Mohamed al-Adly, of Amgad TV stayed together in apartments they believed were safe. Fakharany was gathering footage and information on the killings in Rabaa for the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. They were eventually undone by Soltans quest for clean underwear. Whereas the others in the group bought new clothes while on the run, Soltan didnt know his size in Egypt, as he grew up in the United States and had only been in Egypt for the summer. The four ventured to Soltans parents apartment to pick up some clean clothes. They had bad timing: While they were there, police raided the home looking for Soltans father. He wasnt home, but the officers were satisfied with their bounty of the four young men. When Fakharanys fiancee saw the news in a Facebook post from one of Fakharanys friends about a week before he was scheduled to meet her family at first she didnt believe it. And then I started to think, how many days will it be? I was thinking, did he go behind the sun? she said, using an Arabic phrase that describes those disappeared by the state who vanish without a trace. A few days before, Fakharany had given her the passwords to his social media accounts in case of just such a situation. It was evening. She opened her laptop and started deactivating his accounts one after the other to prevent police from using statements he made on those pages against him. And then I started crying until the sun rose, she said. Fakharany, Mohamed Soltan, Sahmi Mustafa, and Mohamed al-Adly pose in the cell they shared in Tora prison in fall 2013. The photo was taken on a phone they had smuggled into the prison. (courtesy Mohamed Soltan) Behind bars Nearly six months after Fakharanys arrest, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I saw a post from his account. I was startled. I had been following his case in the media he was still being held in pre-trial detention. So I wondered how he was posting on Facebook. I quickly typed a message, asking if he had been released. He responded six days later. Nope, I am still in jail, he wrote, with a smiling emoticon. I have smart phone in the cell. I wasnt convinced it was really him and wondered if Egypts security services had taken over his account. Fakharany started to give me proof, mentioning a time we met at a particular cafe. This wasnt enough. What else, he typed. The horse in Tahrir square, during camel war. Back in February 2011, the regime had sent men riding camels and horses to storm Tahrir Square in an attempt to drive away the protesters. It was unsuccessful, and the next day I met Fakharany there. In a dim alley near a field hospital we found a horse, a remnant of the previous days attack. The animal looked tired, its head drooping toward the street. Fakharany and I stroked the animals nose, feeling sorry for it. Finally convinced I was really speaking with Fakharany, we began chatting. He was matter-of-fact about his situation and sprinkled his sentences with emoticons. Fakharany and Soltan in their cell in Tora in fall 2013, before Soltan began a hunger strike. According to Soltan, he maintained his characteristic optimism and generosity throughout the seven months they were imprisoned together. Security forces had shot Soltan during the clearing of Rabaa al-Adawiya, breaking his arm. During the welcome party, as the beating that police give to new detainees is known in Egypt, Fakharany tried to use his body to shield his wounded comrade. We were literally on the floor, and they were stomping us and beating us, and you automatically try to go into a fetal position, to try to protect your main organs, your head, said Soltan. Abdullah would just he would kind of shift here and there to take some blows so they didnt come down on my arm. Fakharany was adept at making connections with inmates and guards alike to win small comforts for himself and his cellmates. He successfully obtained smuggled phones and carried out a daring plan to secure a pair of pliers needed for an improvised jailhouse surgery to relieve excruciating pain in Soltans arm. He was known for welcoming new inmates and finding ways to get them the basic necessities they needed. About a month after his arrest, Fakharany sent his first text message to his fiancee, sending her a line from an old Islamic song: Though the fates have parted us, the heart is your land, and love longs for you. Later that night, he called her. I miss you, she told him, for the first time. Fakharany laughed before responding. Should I be arrested just for you to say you miss me? When he was arrested, though she hadnt yet accepted his marriage proposal, she made a quick decision to stick with him. Later, she decided that she wanted to marry him. He is my choice, she told me. For those first months, he called her once a week, when he and his cellmates rented a smuggled mobile phone from another prisoner for the equivalent of $45 per night. He would keep saying that he would get out soon, she recalled. And especially because he is a journalist, he was thinking that every organization and media will not just keep silent about that. By February 2014, Fakharany and his cellmates had managed to get ahold of two phones to share among themselves, and he began calling her daily. It wasnt without risk: Once, when guards discovered the phone, he spent 10 days in the disciplinary ward, where 10 prisoners were crowded into a cell meant for solitary confinement, denied clothes, blankets, and beds, and given only a bucket for a toilet. But to Fakharany, it was worth it. In the first months of detention, according to Soltan, he agonized over whether to end the relationship to spare his fiancee the uncertainty of being engaged to someone facing the possibility of decades in prison. He knew ending the relationship was the logical thing to do, said Soltan. But he couldnt get his heart to do it. He tried, he had the conversation with her, but he couldnt. And she loved him back just as intensely. Al-Jazeera Englishs Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy speaks to Egyptian judge Mohamed Nagy Shehata on May 3, 2014, as part of a trial that included five Al Jazeera journalists, where they were accused of defaming the country and ties to the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood. (MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images) Mass media incarceration Fakharanys case is known in the Egyptian media as the Rabaa operations room trial. Hes being tried alongside 50 others a hodgepodge of people with different backgrounds, including at least five other journalists and senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, such as Mohammed Badie, the groups leader in 2013. The inclusion of the Brotherhood leaders in the journalists case was a clear attempt by the regime to tar the reporters with the anti-Brotherhood frenzy that swept Egypt after the coup. It really shapes the way the public is going to perceive the trial, said Yasmin el-Rifae, who until recently was the senior research associate for CPJs Middle East and North Africa program. I think they were sort of banking on him getting lost in the shrillness of the crackdown that followed. An Egyptian court banned the Muslim Brotherhood in September 2013, and since then the government has indiscriminately charged journalists and political dissidents with belonging to the group, according to CPJ. Fakharany is charged with belonging to a banned organization, spreading false news, possessing a walkie-talkie, and forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to work against the government during the dispersal of the Rabaa protest. Like other recent political trials in Egypt, it made little difference that the prosecution didnt present evidence to back up the charges. The only evidence presented against Fakharany was the record of his interrogation by state security officers. The court created a technical committee of experts to evaluate the photos and videos the prosecution claimed were fabricated, and the committee found that none of them were falsified. The lead judge assigned to the first trial was Nagy Shehata, infamous for issuing the guilty verdicts in the Al Jazeera trial and sentencing multiple groups of dissidents to death in recent years. As lawyers were giving their defense arguments, he made statements basically saying that he thought these defendants were guilty, said Rifae. That gives you an indication of the level of injustice that was being carried out. Shehata didnt even wait for all the accused to finish their defense arguments before issuing the verdict in April 2015, finding all 51 defendants guilty. He sentenced 14 people, including Badie and Soltans father, to death for planning attacks against the state. The others, including Fakharany, were sentenced to life in prison, which in Egypt is 25 years. I wrote to Fakharany on Facebook messenger after the conviction. At least I still have access to Internet, he typed back with a smile emoticon. I will never give up fighting. In the end for sure I get my freedom. Year, 2 or 3 years but I will get it ..Cuz I had a fake trial .. without any evidence without anything so for sure the appeal will cancel the verdict. He was partially right. In December 2015, a Cairo appeals court annulled the verdicts due to insufficient evidence and ordered a retrial. In the new trial, which began in February 2016, prosecutors have not presented any evidence against Fakharany save the record of his interrogation, said his lawyer, Ahmed Helmy. A journalist carries a placard which reads 'The journalist is staying and the tyrants are on the demise' in front of the Journalists' Syndicate in Cairo on Nov. 19, 2016, to protest a court verdict sentencing the head of the union and two members to two years in prison. (MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images) The best years of your life Fakharanys parents live in the fifth-floor apartment of a building on a desert plateau outside Cairo. When I visited them in February 2016, his mother was getting ready to visit him the next day. The kitchen was cluttered after a day of cooking in preparation for the prison visit inmates often depend on the meals delivered by family, and Fakharanys parents usually bring 20 pounds of beef or a dozen roasted chickens to feed their son and his cellmates. Large chunks of meat were sizzling in a pot on the stove; dishes filled the sink. Fakharanys father, Ahmed, wore a faux fur hat and rubbed his hands together against the chill. They had brought warm clothes for their son and his cellmates on a recent visit. The guards said, Oh, these are very, very nice, while holding up the clothes, he said, indicating they would take some for themselves. In January 2016, Fakharanys situation had gone from bad to worse. He was transferred from Tora prison to Wadi Natrun prison, separating him from friends and harshly downgrading his standard of living. Guards arbitrarily refuse to allow Fakharanys parents to bring food and clothes or sometimes even to visit. He no longer has access to a mobile phone. When there are hearings in his trial, hes moved temporarily to Egypts notorious Scorpion prison, a maximum-security facility with miserable conditions. His emotional well-being has sharply deteriorated. The last two times we saw him hes not OK, said his father. Hes crying too much. He said, I dont like for you to come and see me without a good face, without a good smile. Soltan, who was released in 2015 after coming close to death on a hunger strike and relinquishing his Egyptian citizenship, calls prison a living mans graveyard. Access to a phone, he said, makes you feel like youve got a lifeline. Without it, Fakharany communicates via smuggled letters. The hardest part of prison, said Soltan, is seeing the best years of your life just go by theyre being robbed from you, theyre being wasted, when you could be progressing in your career, when you could be building relationships, getting married, having kids. And I think its the thing that eats away at Abdullah. No one expected it to be this long. Everyone thought it was going to be a small crackdown and thats it. Egypts prisons are bursting at the seams, full of tens of thousands of political prisoners arrested since the 2013 coup. A September 2016 report by the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information estimates that there are currently 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. The governments bloody crackdown fed an already simmering jihadi insurgency, and some are worried that the mass incarceration of disillusioned dissidents alongside Islamic extremists could make the prisons a breeding ground for a new wave of jihadis. The selfie Fakharany sent me on his smuggled phone from his cell in Tora Prison in April 2015, after a court sentenced him to life in prison. That isnt the case for Fakharany. In a two-page handwritten letter to me penned in October, Fakharany said the full scope of the changes hed undergone in prison wouldnt be apparent until he was released. But he had experienced some paradigm shifts, he wrote. While the fight for freedom had previously been an event to cover, my days in prison taught me that freedom is a life that deserves a fight for. Imagine living in a sociological experiment for three years in a small room with 30 human beings representing the whole spectrum of the social prism, he wrote. Surprisingly prison has taught me to deal with a human being not the social hierarchy. In September 2016, Fakharany began a hunger strike, ingesting only sugar water, to protest his lack of medical treatment. He has an unexplained painful swelling in his leg, which has made movement difficult. In a late September message smuggled from prison, he wrote that prison officials have refused his request to be transferred to a hospital to diagnose the ailment. After he began refusing food, his weight dropped from about 175 pounds when he entered prison to about 110 pounds. In a letter to his fiancee written at the beginning of November, he told her that he had partially broken the hunger strike in order to be able to take pain medication. He ended the hunger strike around the beginning of December, because of his deteriorating health. The imprisonment has affected Fakharany more than any other event in his life. Three years ago when you asked me, it wasnt my main priority to be released. But my main priority was to retrieve the atmosphere of freedom, freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of speech, he wrote in the letter to me in October. But after three years of false imprisonment my biggest hope is now to be released, released from the oppression and the oppressor. Despite the fact that I know my release from prison will not return me to be free as before. But the struggle has not extinguished his idealistic fervor. Unexpectedly and against all odds the Egyptian revolution is still prevailing in the spirit of the Egyptian youth, he wrote. The regime is still feeling the threat of the resurrection of the Egyptian youth uprising. The day when Egypts regime falls may yet be a long way off, but for Fakharany, the future still contains the hope of personal and political triumph. My pen isnt able to describe my feelings in this moment, he wrote in tidy Arabic script over the summer to congratulate Soltan on his engagement. My feelings are happiness mixed with joy, happiness that you are free to get married and I am still imprisoned, and joy for you that God blessed you. He asked God to give us all freedom soon, and allow me also to marry the one I love. He ended with a smiley face. Fakharany, left, and Abdallah Noor Eldin attend a candlelight vigil in Cairo in March 2013 to commemorate the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising. Credit: Abdallah Noor Eldin. Maputo (AFP) - Mozambique, caught between a scandal over hidden debt that has prompted an aid cut-off and a commodity price slump, said Monday it would miss a $60 million interest payment. The country is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over resuming support that was suspended in April due to the hidden debt scandal. "The deteriorating macroeconomic and fiscal situation of the Republic has severely affected the country's public finances," the finance ministry said in a statement in Maputo. "The resulting debt payment capacity of the Republic is therefore extremely limited in 2017, and does not allow the Republic room to make the scheduled interest payment." The statement said Mozambique would not pay the $60 million (57 million euros) interest payment on a 2023 bond scheduled for January 18. The bonds were originally issued in April 2016, according to Factset. The bonds fell to 54.917 cents on the dollar by 10:58 am in London, having reached a record low of 50 cents last week, according to Bloomberg News. Last month, a parliamentary inquiry concluded that the government broke the law by securing loans worth more than $2 billion in hidden debt that had prompted the IMF and World Bank aid cutoff. The scandal dates back to 2013, when the government announced a contract for 30 fishing and coastal protection vessels between French shipyards and Ematum, a state-owned company that had previously raised $850 million on the eurobonds market without the knowledge of lawmakers. - Currency collapse - In April last year, more hidden debt worth $1.4 billion -- contracted without parliamentary approval by two more state-owned firms and the defence ministry -- was uncovered. The government claimed the loans were used to fund military vessels and defence equipment, and said it did not disclose them as a matter of national security. The finance ministry told investors in October it needed to restructure its commercial debt, Bloomberg News reported. Story continues The metical currency collapsed by more than 80 percent against the US dollar last year after falling 36 percent in 2015. Vast reserves of gas have been discovered in the north of the country since 2010 but exploration has been slow and gas prices have fallen in recent years. The government previously claimed tensions with the Renamo opposition group, which waged a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992, were behind its decision to hide the debt. Clashes between government forces and Renamo erupted regularly last year, with key roads often closed due to the unrest, though a two-month ceasefire is in place. "The Government is actively working with the IMF to establish the conditions necessary for an early resumption of its financial assistance to Mozambique," Monday's statement said. "Financial support from the IMF, underpinning an ambitious program of reforms to be agreed, will play a critical role in improving the Republic's public finances." Melbourne (AFP) - World number one Andy Murray was tested and Stan Wawrinka lost his cool as stars struggled on a hot first day at the Australian Open on Monday. Roger Federer and Angelique Kerber, the defending women's champion, both dropped sets on a day which threatened a host of upsets at Melbourne Park. In the event, fourth seed Simona Halep was the only major casualty as soaring afternoon temperatures gave way to a cool evening at Melbourne Park. Australia's often hot-headed Nick Kyrgios was uncharacteristically calm as he thumped Gastao Elias 6-1, 6-2, 6-2, despite a nosebleed which halted him mid-match. But Wawrinka drew gasps as he smashed a volley straight at a static Martin Klizan deep in the fifth set, en route to a difficult 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 win. "I stopped playing. He could play anywhere, the whole court," a perplexed Klizan said. "He could play anywhere on the court and he hit me." As afternoon temperatures topped 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), Murray came through a two hours, 47 minutes test against Ukraine's Illya Marchenko 7-5, 7-6 (7/5), 6-2. He fared better than Kei Nishikori and Marin Cilic, who were both taken to five sets, while Federer was extended 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 by Austria's Jurgen Melzer. "Any match is a good match," said the 35-year-old Federer, who missed the second half of 2016 with a knee injury. "Even if I would have lost today, it would have been good because I'm back on the court." Kerber, defending a Grand Slam title for the first time, laboured past Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 in an unconvincing performance. The German was an early loser at both of her warm-up tournaments and she took time to settle against Tsurenko. But she also started slowly last year, when she had to save a match point against Misaki Doi in the first round. - 'I'm dying, I guess' - "The first round is always tough. I'm just trying to enjoy it and I'm so so happy to be in the second round," Kerber said. Story continues Halep is rated as one of the fastest players on the circuit but her usual zip was glaringly absent as she went down 6-3, 6-1 to American rising star Shelby Rogers. Afterwards she said a knee injury had slowed her down as she succumbed in the first round for the second consecutive year. Venus Williams, the oldest player in the women's draw at 36, also found herself with a fight on her hands but she came through 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 against 22-year-old Kateryna Kozlova. "Girl, I don't know," she told on-court interviewer Samantha Smith, who pointed out that Williams turned professional in 1994, the year that Kozlova was born. "I know how to play tennis. I like to think I'm good at this. She hasn't had the years that I've had yet, the grey hairs and I'm dying, I guess. The wrinkles that I'm hiding... you're trying to make me feel old!" Japan's Nishikori, who says he is primed to win his first major title this year, came through a five-set battle with Russia's Andrey Kuznetsov 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-2. Cilic, the 2014 US Open winner, also needed five as he came from two sets down to dispatch Jerzy Janowicz 4-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3. China's Zhang Shuai, who made a surprise run to last year's quarter-finals, had an easier time with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus. Olympic champion Monica Puig stormed through 6-0, 6-1 against Patricia Tig before Canada's Eugenie Bouchard continued her recent resurgence with a 6-0, 6-4 win over Louisa Chirico. Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been questioned by police in a corruption probe, on Monday denounced an "unprecedented" media campaign to bring down his government. Police have questioned Netanyahu in a probe into whether he unlawfully received gifts from wealthy supporters. They are also looking into a recording of a conversation he had with the owner of top-selling Yedioth Aharonot newspaper about getting favourable coverage. Israeli media have leaked several details about the investigations, including a report by Channel 2 television on the alleged conversation between Netanyahu and Yedioth owner Arnon Moses. The Channel 2 report alleged that the two discussed "a deal that would help Yedioth in return for favourable coverage (of Netanyahu)." The television said the essence of the talk between Netanyahu and Moses was the possibility of downsizing or closing the weekend supplement of Yedioth competitor Israel Hayom, which is pro-Netanyahu. In return, it added, Yedioth would tone down its coverage of Netanyahu. At the start of a Knesset, parliament, session Netanyahu lambasted Israeli media which he said "are pursuing an unprecedented campaign against me in order to bring down (my) Likud government". "Among other things the campaign is aimed at putting pressure on the attorney general so that he would convict me," said Netanyahu. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is also overseeing the probe into whether the prime minister illegally received gifts from wealthy supporters. On Monday, Mandelblit said during a meeting with students that he would not allow himself to be influenced by "the background noise of those who are trying to steer us from our goal". He also said he would not render public, at least for the time being, the recorded conversation between Netanyahu and Moses. Media reports say Netanyahu allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from wealthy supporters. The premier's wife is said to have also received valuable gifts. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, saying repeatedly that "there will be nothing because there is nothing". According to media reports Moses was questioned on Sunday and again Monday by Israeli police but a police spokesman told AFP he could not confirm or deny the reports. New UK research has found that as many as 1 in 5 young people regularly wake up in the night to use social media. Carried out by Professor Sally Power, Co-Director (Cardiff) Wales Institute for Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD), the research looked at more than 900 school pupils aged between 12-15 years, who were asked to complete a questionnaire on their sleep and nighttime social media habits. The students were asked about their bedtimes and waking times as well as how often they woke up at night to check social media. Participants were also asked about how happy they were with various areas of their life including school, friendships and appearance. Published in the Journal of Youth Studies, the responses showed that 1 in 5 pupils reported "almost always" waking up to log onto social media, with girls much more likely to use social media during the night than boys. In addition pupils who woke up nearly every night to use social media, or who didn't wake up at a regular time in the morning, were around three times more likely to report being constantly tired at school compared to those who never log on at night or had a regular wakeup time each day. The study also found a link between always being tired at school and being on average significantly less happy than other young people, suggesting that logging onto social media during the night could be affecting young people's happiness and wellbeing. Calling the number of young people affected by the lack of sleep "small but significant," Professor Power believes that the "use of social media appears to be invading the 'sanctuary' of the bedroom." Although the findings support growing concerns and previous research on young people's nighttime use of social media, the exact cause of the tiredness at school could be one of many possible explanations. However the results come after a 2015 study also found that US teens are increasingly sleep-deprived. After finding that in 1991 72 percent of 15-year-olds reported sleeping a minimum of seven hours a night on a regular basis, compared to just 63 percent reporting the same in 2012, lead author Dr. Katherine W. Keyes also suggested that the increasing use of social media could be one of the main reasons for the sleep problem among teens. A study published last year also observed that among university students a lack of sleep is linked to a higher level of social media use, also finding a direct connection between a chronic lack of sleep, a bad mood, lower productivity, and more time spent checking Facebook. In this high school class, there's an unusual route to a well-rounded education: hip hop. The multi-faceted art movement along with its political roots, social history, use of poetry and other literary conventions, not to mention its worldwide impact on culture and the arts is the foundation for a yearlong course at Clark Street Community School in Middleton. The course aims to sharpen academic skills but, even more, to get students engaged. "It's what I was hoping it would be like," said Kristian Rynes, 16, who goes by the stage name Kristian B Legacy, and discovered his natural performance talents by taking the hip hop course. "This class is a movement." This winter Rynes and his classmates are writing, revising and rehearsing raps, then recording them in the Media Lab studio at Madison Public Library. They're designing album art and a marketing campaign with area professionals in anticipation of the limited-edition, vinyl record they'll cut by the end of the school year. They've already studied the history of hip hop a subculture (encompassing more than music) that grew out of political and social disenfranchisement in the 1970s. Lessons have included discussions of social justice issues, and even standard fare such as metaphors and alliteration. "I've definitely learned a lot more about the history of hip hop," said student Yoshi Benitez, 16, who calls hip hop "a huge part of my life." "This class offers a lot of opportunities," such as working in a real recording studio and even being interviewed by reporters, she said. "If you want to pursue music, you could start here." As with the classic high school essay, students penning raps in the hip hop class use "similar cognitive processes: thinking, editing, evaluating," said Michael Dando, a former high school English and journalism teacher who is pursuing a Ph.D. at UW-Madison focused on multicultural education, and helped create the Clark Street class. "But because there's this internalized investment because this 'matters' (to students) I've heard everything from kids from 'This is what I came to school for today' to 'I worked on my homework 'til 2 a.m., and I loved every minute of it,' " he said. Pop culture long has served as a way for teachers to reach students, said UW-Madison education professor Carl Grant, a scholar in multicultural education and also Dando's graduate adviser. "One of the things that Michael talks about is that you can't just take hip hop and drop it into a classroom, and say, 'Let me do a lesson using hip hop,' and call that good instruction," Grant said. "He doesn't believe in that. You have to think about it, you have to prepare students for it, you have to know what it is you're teaching." School districts are increasingly embracing hip hop as a vehicle for reaching students including the Madison school district, which co-sponsored a "Hip Hop Summit" at the Overture Center last fall along with UW-Madison's School of Education Outreach and Partnership School Network. In 2017-18, all four Madison public high schools will replace their "Contemporary Music Studies" courses with "Hip Hop Studies," according to Madison School District arts education coordinator Laurie Fellenz. East High already offers a spoken word course through its theater department, and Sherman and Black Hawk Middle Schools use hip hop curriculum in cross-disciplinary academics, Fellenz said. Middleton's new hip hop course grew out of a smaller pilot project at Clark Street Community School last year. Dando had teamed up with special education teacher Matt Ecklund, who formerly taught a hip hop class at a high school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ecklund himself had written and performed rap music since his teens, and knew firsthand how empowering it could be. With hip hop, "I think the biggest thing and Mike and I saw this last year is that you can engage students who haven't been engaged in a very long time," said Ecklund, who is now dean of students at Middleton High School, a short distance from Clark Street. Clark Street Community School was originally founded as the Middleton district's alternative high school. About five years ago it altered its mission and now offers project-driven, "democratic" education where students help manage their own learning plan, concentrating on the subjects that they most passionately want to learn about. Some students turned to Clark Street because conventional high school just wasn't a good fit. Others sought a different way to learn. There are 22 students about a quarter of the school's current population enrolled in the new hip hop course, taught by a team of teachers and funded through a grant Dando won from the UW School of Education. "The curriculum was designed so it meets certain social studies and English requirements," Ecklund said. "And I think there's ways to get even more creative and involve math and science." Students are "absolutely" picking up skills, including habits that can help them keep on track to graduation. "We're bringing them back into the classroom and saying, 'Hey, you can be successful just look what you accomplished,' " he said. "Ultimately we want to say, 'You did it in this classroom, you can do it in this (other) classroom.' " Hip hop "is not just rap," Dando stressed. "There are four pillars of hip hop: rap, break dance, graffiti and DJ. So we focus on how students work with those art forms to discover their sense of self, and also to figure out how to be active participants in a democratic society, participatory citizens." In a recent 90-minute class at Clark Street, English teacher Nikki Meyer urged students to polish and rehearse their pieces before heading to the library to record. History and social studies teacher Rick Evans reviewed a lesson on the origins of hip hop. And there was still time for students to get peer feedback on their raps. Student Emmy Peebles, a 15-year-old who had already impressed her teachers with her prolific output in the fall, worked on revising a song. "First quarter, I made four songs," she said. "It's easy for me because I've got a good ear, and it's easy for me to write because I've always done that. "So it's been easy and hard at the same time, because I've never really shared before. The process we go through at Clark Street is really to get this out there, to share it and get feedback, which was kind of scary the first time." Many student songs take on heavy subjects, from abuse to depression and suicide, to one student's longing for a brother who died as an infant. The teens' lyrics can be explicit. Peebles sometimes addresses politics. Hip hop "comes out of urban America, mid-1970s. It comes out of social and economic upheaval," said Evans, the history teacher. "If you look at the Bronx (considered the birthplace of the hip hop movement), you're talking about an entire community that was neglected by the powers that be. So what you have is a really important social movement springing from the people themselves. "Like the civil rights movement, you have the hip hop movement, which is about bringing people together, about bringing the resources together that you have to (in order) to create hope," he said. "As a social studies/history person, this is as important as teaching the breadth and depth of the civil rights movement. It's not a 'Let's candy-coat something because it's popular and see if we can get kids to deal with it.' This is a part of our shared history." By Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) - Britain's Northern Ireland minister called an early election on Monday for March 2 following the collapse of the region's power-sharing government that risks a lengthy period of political paralysis just as Britain prepares for talks to leave the EU. Northern Ireland is widely seen as the part of the UK most exposed to Brexit as it could upend trade and the free movement of people across its land border with the Irish Republic. Efforts to form a new devolved government will likely begin just before Britain starts the talks on exiting the European Union. "No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake," Britain's Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire told a news conference. "I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll. All must remain open to dialogue." An early election became likely last week when Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned in protest over First Minister Arlene Foster's handling of a controversial green-energy scheme. British Prime Minister Theresa May made a last-ditch attempt to persuade McGuinness' Irish nationalist Sinn Fein and Foster's pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to overcome the impasse. May stressed that political stability would give the province a stronger voice in the Brexit preparations, the prime minister's spokeswoman said. However, Sinn Fein, which had already begun picking election candidates in advance of Monday's deadline to avoid snap elections, refused to name a replacement for McGuinness. Sinn Fein, once the political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), has governed with the rival DUP for 10 years under power-sharing arrangements that put an end to three decades of sectarian violence in the province. They were voted back into power as the two largest parties only last May. McGuinness, who is to announce shortly whether he will lead Sinn Fein into the election after a break from some duties due to illness, has suggested the vote will be followed by lengthy renegotiations on the terms of the power-sharing government. "INDISPENSABLE" FOR PEACE Sinn Fein's demands are likely to include funding additional rights for Irish language speakers and the lesbian and gay community, which the DUP has blocked, and also inquiries into deaths in the "Troubles". "I would like to think that they will be sorted out because Arlene Foster, if they are not sorted out, will never be the first minister again," Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams told Irish national broadcaster RTE. Power-sharing formed a key part of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which ended the conflict between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and Protestant pro-British unionists wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom. Some 3,600 people were killed in those years. Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, whose government is a co-guarantor of the 1998 agreement, said the devolved institutions were "indispensable" for both peace in Northern Ireland and the big challenges it faces from Brexit. A failure to form a new executive would risk the first suspension of the province's political institutions in 15 years and the return of its 1.8 million people to direct rule from London. Brokenshire said he was not contemplating such a move and refused to speculate over how long post-election talks may last but a senior DUP member warned direct rule may be necessary. "After an election, I think we're in for a prolonged period of direct rule from Westminster whilst negotiations take place between the political parties," Jeffrey Donaldson told Northern Ireland's Newsletter newspaper. (Writing by Padraic Halpin in Dublin, additional reporting by Will James in London; Editing by Gareth Jones) President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., Nov. 10, 2016. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) President Obama says President-elect Donald Trump was an unconventional candidate who ran an improvisational campaign. But he doesnt think that approach will work in the White House. In an interview that aired on 60 Minutes Sunday, Obama was asked if its possible for Trump to run an improvisational presidency. I dont think so, Obama said. And so now hes in the process of building up an organization. And well have to see how that works. And itll be a test, I think, for him and the people that hes designated to be able to execute on his vision. But Obama says it would be a mistake to underestimate the guy, because he hes going to be 45th president of the United States. The one thing Ive said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions dont get eroded, Obama said. Because theres a reason theyre in place. Obama also gave rare props to the tea party. I give them credit for having activated themselves, he said. And they made a difference in terms of moving the Republican Party, in terms of moving the country, in a particular direction. Its a direction I disagreed with. But it showed that, in fact, you get involved, if your voice is heard, it has an impact. Do you feel the same way about Donald Trump? CBSs Steve Croft asked. Well, I think that he clearly was able to tap into a lot of grievances, Obama replied. And he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how youd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate. Related: The problem with Obamas last-minute moves What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency, he continued. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone. And I think that theres a power in that. Theres also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isnt the same as the process required to actually solve the problem. Story continues The president, who leaves office Friday, says he has very few regrets and is proud of the things he was able to change. Were probably the first administration in modern history that hasnt had a major scandal in the White House, Obama said. In that sense, we changed some things. But he said he is frustrated with what he wasnt able to change specifically, the gridlock in Washington. In the first two years, when I had a strong majority in the House and the Senate, we were as productive as any administration has been since the 60s, Obama said. But to sustain a governing majority, that requires an ability for Republicans and Democrats to find some common ground. And right now, the structure of the system is such where it makes it really hard for people to work together. One thing in particular clearly bothers Obama: the GOPs refusal to consider his final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. I mean, the fact that Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans, was able to just stop a nomination almost a year before the next election and really not pay a political price for it thats a sign that the incentives for politicians in this town to be so sharply partisan have gotten so out of hand that were weakening ourselves, Obama said. We couldnt even get a hearing, the president said. Trying to get the other side of the aisle to work with us on issues, in some cases, that they professed, originally, an interest in, and saying to them, Hold on a second. You guys used to think this was a good idea. Now just because Im supporting it, you cant change your mind. But they did. Also read: Obama as theologian-in-chief Obama said he wishes he could have taken a mulligan on the online rollout of the Affordable Care Act, his signature health care law, better known as Obamacare. You know, if you know you got a controversial program, and youre setting up a really big, complicated website, [the] website better work on the first day or first week or first month, he said. The fact that it didnt obviously lost a little momentum. That was clearly a management failure. The president also acknowledged that the red line comment he made in a 2012 speech about Syria using chemical weapons, which he said was not in his prepared remarks, created problems for the United States in the Middle East but he added that he does not regret saying it. Look, if youre putting all the weight on that particular phrase, then in terms of how it was interpreted in Washington, I think you make a legitimate point, Obama said. Ive got to tell you, though, I dont regret at all saying that if I saw [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people, that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria. I would have I think made a bigger mistake if I had said, Eh, chemical weapons. That doesnt really change my calculus,' Obama continued. I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that, in fact, there is something different about chemical weapons. At 55, the 44th president said he may look older than he did when he took office, but added, Physically, I feel probably as good as Ive ever felt and Ive got as much energy as I ever did. Still, Obama said he plans to get some much-needed rest beginning Saturday, the day after he leaves office. Im not setting my alarm, Obama said. That, Im certain of. Read more from Yahoo News: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama played down fallout from a U.S. abstention on a United Nations resolution last month demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory, saying it did not trigger a significant break in relations with Israel. Relations between the United States and Israel, which have soured during Obama's eight years in office, reached a low point late last month when Washington, defying pressure from longtime ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump, declined to veto the U.N. resolution. After the Dec. 23 vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the U.S. move as "shameful" and accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the U.N. move against the settlements, which are considered illegal by most countries and described as illegitimate by Washington. The White House denied the charge. "I don't think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel," Obama said in an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" airing on Sunday night, according to a transcript provided by CBS. "If you're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu - got fired up, he's been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency." Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel's capital despite international objections. Obama, who leaves office on Friday, said Israel's settlements had made it harder to imagine a contiguous, effective Palestinian state, seen as key to a long-sought two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney) WASHINGTON (AP) The increase of Israeli settlements has "gotten so substantial" that it is inhibiting the possibility for an "effective, contiguous Palestinian state," President Barack Obama said Sunday, in his final interview as president. Speaking to CBS' "60 Minutes," Obama dismissed the idea that there is a "major rupture" in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last month's decision by the U.S. to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. "Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the U.S.) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, 'This is a problem,'" Obama said. "It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States." The outgoing president reflected on his legacy and his biggest challenges during his eight years in office during the hourlong interview. A number of his policies from health care to his contentious relationship with Israel could be short-lived as President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th president later this week and vows to reverse some of those policies. Trump has been vocal about his disapproval of many of Obama's policies, often voicing his disagreement or engaging in public disputes with the president on Twitter. Most recently, Trump lashed out over hypothetical comments Obama made that he would beat Trump if they ran against each other in a general election. Over the holidays, Trump accused Obama of throwing up "inflammatory" roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with "total disdain." Obama acknowledged it's been an "unusual" transition, adding, "I suspect the president-elect would agree with that." "We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites and some headline that comes over their phone," the president said. "There's a power in that. There's also a danger what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem." Story continues He warned people not to "underestimate the guy" and urged congressional Republicans and Trump supporters around the country to be sure "that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place." Obama said there needs to be a focus on "making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity." With that, he said he's been "disturbed" about intelligence reports over Russia hacking the U.S. election. "I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government," he said. "You're not going to be able to make good decisions without building some relationship of trust between yourself and that community." Obama also reflected on his approach to the civil war in Syria, as it approaches its sixth year with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced around the world. The president acknowledged that his "red line" declaration about the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad's government wasn't in his 2012 speech and that he didn't have to use those words. They later prompted harsh criticism, since the U.S. did not follow through on the threat. "I would have, I think, made a bigger mistake if I had said, 'Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn't really change my calculus,'" he said. "And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think, in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons." Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama marked the first anniversary of the nuclear deal with Iran by emphasizing its "significant and concrete results" and warning against undoing a pact supported by the world's major powers. In language that seemed clearly directed at incoming president Donald Trump, who is set to take office on Friday, Obama said "the United States must remember that this agreement was the result of years of work, and represents an agreement between the world's major powers -- not simply the United States and Iran." He said the deal had "achieved significant, concrete results in making the United States and the world a safer place" and "verifiably prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." Such a diplomatic solution, he added, was "far preferable to an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program or another war in the Middle East." Trump has often denounced the nuclear deal, and in a Sunday interview with the Times of London and Bild newspaper of Germany he continued his criticism, saying, "I'm not happy with the Iran deal, I think it's one of the worst deals ever made." But he declined to say whether he intended to "renegotiate" the deal, as he asserted regularly during the presidential campaign. Obama insisted Monday that despite US reservations about other actions by Iran -- including its support for "violent proxies" and "terrorist groups" -- Tehran was "upholding its commitments, demonstrating the success of diplomacy." Iran, he said, had "reduced its uranium stockpile by 98 percent and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges." "There is no question, however, that the challenges we face with Iran would be much worse if Iran were also on the threshold of building a nuclear weapon," Obama said. Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped negotiate the deal, said the Iran agreement had "resolved a major nuclear threat without firing a shot or sending a single soldier into combat." Story continues "It was endorsed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council and earned the support of more than 100 countries across the globe," he added. For all of Trump's sharp criticism of Iran and the nuclear deal, the policy he will embrace once in office remains unclear. One of his top cabinet nominees, retired Marine general James Mattis, said last week that if he is confirmed as defense secretary, he will support the nuclear deal. "When America gives her word," he told senators during his confirmation hearing, "we have to live up to it and work with our allies." The pact was signed in July 2015 by Iran and six major powers -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- and led to the lifting exactly a year ago of most international sanctions against Iran. CHICAGO (AP) Authorities say an off-duty Chicago police sergeant shot and wounded a person after someone in a vehicle opened fire on the sergeant and his companions on the city's northwest side. Police say the sergeant was walking with acquaintances Sunday night in the Albany Park neighborhood when a group of people in a vehicle instigated a verbal confrontation. Police say someone in the vehicle fired shots, prompting the sergeant to draw his gun and return fire. The vehicle sped away. Police say a person in the vehicle, identified as a male, was shot in the head and taken to a hospital. Investigators recovered a weapon. Neither the sergeant nor his companions were wounded. The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating. The sergeant will be on administrative duties during the shooting investigation. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Oman said Monday it accepted 10 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had accepted the prisoners at Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners. "In consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 persons have been released from detention and arrived in the sultanate today for a temporary residence," the statement said. The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to questions about the transfer. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity as the transfer had yet to be publicly announced by the U.S., confirmed the prisoners had been sent to Oman. The official declined to elaborate. The Omani Embassy in Washington said it had no other information about the transfer. The U.S. Embassy in Muscat declined to immediately comment. The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Neighboring Saudi Arabia took four prisoners earlier this month and the United Arab Emirates took 15 in the largest-single transfer during Obama's administration in August. Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, remains in the grip of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels making returning Guantanamo detainees there impossible. Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obama's presidency. Obama has been unable to fulfil promises to close the facility in part because of congressional opposition to transferring any of the detainees to U.S. prisons. Congress ultimately banned the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil for any reason. Story continues Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Friday as America's 45th president, said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but "load it up with some bad dudes." That's put pressure on the Obama administration to find places to send as many of the prisoners abroad as possible this week. The U.S. began using its military base on southeast Cuba's isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on Jan. 11, 2002. At its peak, 18 months later, the facility held nearly 680 detainees. There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge. A September report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said 122 of 693 detainees transferred out of the prison, or 17.6 percent, returned to fighting. An additional 86 detainees are suspected of having returned to the battlefield, according to the report. The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. ___ Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Miami contributed to this report. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap. His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz. After a tumultuous year of innumerable celebrity deaths and unprecedented political divides, 2017 has kicked off with some egg-citing news: the launch of a limited edition Oreo Creme Egg. The Cadbury Dairy Milk Egg n Spoon Oreo is currently available exclusively in the U.K., retailing at 2 ($2.41) for four eggs. But TIME can confirm the sugary treat is soon to be rolled out in the U.S. nationwide. (A similar version has been available in Canada for around a year, according to reports.) Like most simple pleasures of the 21st century, the Egg n Spoon became tainted in controversy soon after its launch was announced. Cadbury have stolen my idea, a communications officer from Somerset told his local paper. [When] I first saw the Oreo Egg on social media I was a little surprised [and] then a little disappointed because there was no recognition. In the interests of research, TIMEs London bureau agreed to seek out the cookie-mixture-filled ovoids of chocolate to give our American readers an idea of what to expect. Heres our verdict: 1. Appearance The four milk chocolate egg shells containing a lightly-whipped Oreo mixture come nestled in a purple egg carton, complete with two plastic purple spoons (which youre recommended to wash before use). Selling the eggs within an authentic-looking carton is a nice touch, but using three different materials in the packaging (plastic, cardboard, and foil) feels a little environmentally unfriendly. 2. Taste Verdicts on taste were generally positive. Europe editor Dan Stewart gave the eggs a rating of eight out of ten, describing their filling as light and creamy. World news reporter Tara John also praised their lightness and pronounced them an improvement on the original Creme Egg an assessment echoed by intern Zamira Rahim, who said they were better than ordinary Creme Eggs. However, there was unanimous agreement that the eggs were very rich to the taste, and one was almost certainly enough (which is just as well: one egg is 191 calories). 3. Value for money At 50p (60 cents) per Oreo egg compared to 30p (36 cents) for one Creme Egg, this treat is only for those willing to splurge. It may also reflect a sign of the times, as many chocolatiers have begun hiking their prices in the U.K. in advance of Britains exit from the E.U. A spokesperson for Cadburys confirmed to TIME that a new line of Oreo eggs will begin rolling out from mid-February, at a suggested price of $0.99. Oslo (AFP) - Oslo will ban diesel cars from the road for at least two days this week in a bid to combat rising air pollution, angering some motorists after they were urged to buy diesel cars a few years ago. The ban, announced by the city late Sunday, will go into effect on Tuesday on municipal roads but will not apply on the national motorways that criss-cross the Norwegian capital. Better atmospheric conditions are expected on Thursday. Motorists violating the ban will be fined 1,500 kroner (166 euros, $176). This is the first time Oslo has implemented a ban of this type after the city council -- made up of the Labour and Greens parties -- agreed in principle in February 2016 on the use of such a measure. While diesel cars emit less carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit more nitrogen dioxyde (NO2). "In Oslo, we can't ask children, the elderly and those suffering from respiratory problems to remain holed up at home because the air is too dangerous to breathe," Greens city councillor Lan Marie Nguyen Berg told Norwegian media. The measure has angered some motorists, who were encouraged in 2006 by Norwegian authorities to opt for diesel vehicles, which at the time were considered a better environmental choice than petrol-fuelled cars. "Make up your minds. It wasn't very long ago that diesel was recommended over petrol by Jens (Stoltenberg, the former prime minister, now NATO's secretary general). Not sure you really know what is best," wrote an annoyed Irene Signora Maier Tziotas on the Facebook page of newspaper Verdens Gang (VG). Others used even stronger language. Mazyar Keshvari, an MP from the populist right Progress Party which is a member of the coalition government, urged motorists to seek compensation. "The biggest swindle of Norwegian motorists has now become a reality," he told TV2. "This was part of the red-green government's (Stoltenberg's coalition) ingenious climate measures," he ironised. Story continues "Not only did they recommend motorists to buy diesel cars, they also changed the taxes to make them less expensive. That led a lot of people to buy a car that they can't use now," he lamented. Other Norwegians were more philosophical. "Very good measure. We should introduce a permanent ban on diesel in all big cities. The fines should also be doubled," one member of the public, Kenneth Tempel, wrote on VG's Facebook page. According to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, air pollution causes 185 premature deaths in Oslo each year. reince priebus President-elect Donald Trump's incoming chief of staff warned the head of a top government watchdog organization on Sunday to be careful of its public criticism of Trump. Reince Priebus blasted Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub on "This Week" after he dubbed Trump's attempts to separate himself from his business interests this week "wholly inadequate." "The head of the government ethics ought to be careful, because that person is becoming extremely political," Priebus said. The incoming chief of staff incorrectly alleged that Shaub supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election Republicans accused Shaub of partisanship for refusing to criticize Clinton's public speaking fees. Priebus also praised Rep. Jason Chaffetz for last week summoning Shaub to Capitol Hill to address his public criticism of Trump's actions. "I'm not so sure what this person at Government Ethics, what sort of standing he has anymore in giving these opinions. I think Jason Chaffetz was correct to call for an investigation into the Government Ethics Department in the government for the positions that they've taken in this campaign," Priebus said. Trump attempted during a press conference last week to address concerns about potential conflicts, announcing he would hand over control of his businesses to his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr, and promised that his businesses would not pursue any foreign deals while Trump is in office. But top ethics officials have argued that the president-elect's continued ownership of businesses abroad is a potential violation of the US constitution, as it could allow foreign entities to curry favor with the president-elect by pumping money or favors into his businesses. Shaub, whose organization is the primary independent government watchdog that monitors the executive branch for potential conflicts of interest, has drawn criticism from Republicans over his outspoken skepticism that Trump has done enough to disentangle himself from conflicts of interest. Story continues "The plan that the president-elect has announced doesn't meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the past four decades has met," Shaub said last week at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He continued: "Stepping back from running his business is meaningless from a conflicts-of-interest perspective. The presidency is a full-time job, and he would've had to step back anyway. The idea of setting up a trust to hold his operating businesses adds nothing to the equation. This is not a blind trust it's not even close." NOW WATCH: The president's close friend of 40 years explains Trump's sense of humor More From Business Insider A car that had been reported missing overnight crashed into a North Side condominium early Monday morning, but nobody was found at the scene, including the driver. The crash happened at about 6 a.m. in the 300 block of East Bluff, Madison police said. The vehicle was found inside the unoccupied condo, but the driver had left the scene. "Circumstances at the scene indicate the vehicle was southbound on Sherman Avenue before leaving the road at Troy Drive," said police Lt. Anthony Bitterman. "The vehicle continued off the roadway and through a fence before striking the building." Madison Fire Department units were called to the scene to check for any unstability in the building, as well as to get the water turned off since the crash caused the kitchen sink to start leaking. The vehicle was almost completely inside the affected condo, the police report said. The investigation is continuing. One of the Pacific's last traditional navigators, or wave pilots, has died in Majuro, but not before passing many of his skills onto a younger generation of Marshall Islanders. For thousands of years, Pacific islanders have sailed between remote atolls without navigation aids such as maps and compasses, instead using wave motion and stars to guide them across vast distances. Captain Korent Joel, 68, was a master of the ancient techniques, which were recently highlighted in the animated Disney feature "Moana". Joel was determined these skills would not die with him and worked with the non-profit organisation Waan Aelon in Majel (WAM -- Canoes of the Marshall Islands) to teach youngsters. He also collaborated with international researchers keen to document his uncanny abilities and see if they could find a scientific explanation for them. His knowledge was also featured in several publications, including the New York Times. "Theoretically, a wave-pilot, dropped blindfolded into a boat in Marshallese waters, could follow a set of seamarks -- waves of a particular shape -- alone to land," the Times reported. Because Joel was also a licensed ship captain, he understood both traditional and Western navigation, giving him the ability to communicate his knowledge to outsiders as well as Marshallese. Stories about his navigation skills abound. WAM director Alson Kelen was with Joel in a small yacht sailing between Kwajalein and Ujae atolls when they were hit by high winds which blew them off course. Joel woke from a sleep and immediately told the crew they were heading the wrong way, even though it was pitch dark and raining heavily with no stars visible. They followed his directions and were amazed when dawn broke a few hours later and Ujae came into view. Once when Kelen was lost and radioed Joel for advice, the veteran wayfinder told to him "feel it" and read the swells. Kelen said that navigators such as Joel were traditionally a vital part of the ocean-going society -- with knowledge about how to plant seeds, build canoes, organise the community and protect the reef. Story continues He said the knowledge Joel has passed on was helping inspire young Marshallese to become marine biologists, oceanographers and take up other marine-related skills. "Its amazing how much we lost... I hope what Captain Korent started with other navigators won't stop now," he said. "This is the blueprint not just for navigation, but for life in the Marshall Islands." Joel was buried on Saturday, two weeks after he died in the capital Majuro. ISLAMABAD (AP) Pakistan's Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is about to become the first ever artist to co-chair the World Economic Forum. A Monday statement from Chinoy's office says she will also speak at the 47th World Economic Forum's annual three-day meeting starting Jan. 17 in Davos, Switzerland. It says Chinoy regards it as a great honor to represent both the artistic community and her country. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also left to take part in the meetings, which will convene 2,500 participants from 100 countries. PayPal co-founder and Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel who is also a big supporter of President-elect Donald Trump may be considering a bid for California governor in 2018, a Politico report cited three Republicans familiar with the matter as saying. According to the report, Thiel, 49, has been holding discussions about a prospective bid with a small circle of advisers like Rob Morrow, who has worked at Thiels California-based investment management firm and hedge fund, Clarium Capital. The journey, however, will not be easy. California is a predominantly blue state with just over 30 percent of people having voted for Trump. Those close to the billionaire are skeptical whether he will finally enter the race but it has not been ruled out, the report said Saturday. peter thiel Photo: REUTERS/Gary Cameron Republicans have had great success at both the state and federal level in recent years electing candidates who had backgrounds in business but who were political outsiders, Phil Cox, a former executive director at the Republican Governors Association, told Politico. With Trumps victory, we're going to see even more nontraditional candidates with backgrounds in business, not politics enter the political arena. Thiel, who became the first gay man to address his sexuality on the stage of the Republican National Convention as he endorsed Trump in July last year, has reportedly contributed over $8.5 million to federal candidates and committees since 2000. If he goes through with the bid, Thiel who is worth an estimated $2.7 billion will be able to fund his own campaign, making his path comparatively easier in a state that's known for its expensive political campaigns. Californias Democratic Gov. Jerry Browns term is limited and a number of his party members including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang have already launched campaigns for 2018. Related Articles MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest with China, its foreign minister said on Monday, over Beijing's installation last year of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems on its manmade islands in the disputed South China Sea. The protest note was sent to the Chinese embassy in December, after confirmation of a report from the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies about a weapons buildup on seven artificial islands in the Spratlys. One of those islands is located within the Philippines' 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay told CNN Philippines it was important to raise concerns carefully, and not create a big row. "I just want to assure the Filipino people that when we take action at engaging China in this dispute, we do not want to take such aggressive, provocative action that will not solve the problem," he said. China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion worth of goods passes every year. An international arbitration ruling last year invalidated those claims. Speaking up about that has become a tricky issue for the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte turned its foreign policy upside down by seeking engagement and a new relationship with China. Until recently the Philippines had been one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing's maritime assertiveness. "We cannot engage China in a war," Yasay added, but "when there are reports about the buildup of weapon systems in the area during our watch, we made sure that the interests and rights of the Philippines are properly protected." The Philippines this year chairs the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Yasay said last week he was confident a protracted code of conduct between the grouping and China could be finished by mid-year, after 15 years and limited progress. China's artificial islands became a hot issue last week when the U.S. nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, told a Senate hearing that Beijing should be repelled from, and then denied access to, the controversial islets. Yasay last week suggested the Philippines would play no part in that, and said of the United States, "Let them do it". (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Martin Petty and Clarence Fernandez) DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Media reports that Prime Minister Theresa May will unveil plans for a "hard" Brexit in a speech this week are "speculation", her spokeswoman said on Monday. Newspapers have suggested May's speech on Tuesday will outline plans to prioritise immigration controls and bilateral trade deals with Britain leaving the EU's single market and customs union. Asked whether the markets were right to expect an indication of a "hard" Brexit with no access to the single market, the spokeswoman said: "It's speculation". The pound fell as much as 1.5 percent on Monday, hit by media reports that May will signal Britain is on course for a "hard" Brexit from the European Union. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden) London (AFP) - Prime Minister Theresa May won endorsement from US President-elect Donald Trump over her Brexit course but sterling plunged on Monday on fears that Britain could be on a collision course with its EU allies. Trump said Britain leaving the EU would "end up as a great thing" and promised to work for a trade deal with post-Brexit Britain "quickly and done properly", speaking in an interview with The Times newspaper. Britain's foreign minister Boris Johnson hailed the comments as he arrived at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. "I think it is very good news that the United States wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast," he said. The government welcomed "the enthusiasm and the energy that the president-elect and his team are showing for strengthening UK/US trade" and was "looking forward to have early discussions", Prime Minister Theresa May's spokeswoman said. However, Downing Street stressed that Britain would "respect its obligations" to the EU, meaning it cannot enter and sign a free trade agreement with another country while still a member. Trump's comments did little to reassure investors, however, following reports in British media over the weekend that May is planning to announce a hard line on Brexit in a major speech on Tuesday. Sterling plunged to $1.1986, its lowest level since October's "flash crash" that had sent it to a 31-year low of $1.1841, in morning trading. It had clawed back some of its losses by early afternoon, standing at $1.2047. "The market is now positioning for some fairly punchy rhetoric from Theresa May," said Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG, an online trading company. "This idea of 'hard Brexit' and a clean break from the single market seems increasingly likely, with the government making a bid to gain full control over immigration," Weston said. Story continues - 'The full works' - Sterling "is an out-and-out political currency... and the prospect of volatility here is now very high" despite some positive macroeconomic data, he said. May has said she wants to cut down on EU immigration while retaining the "best possible" access for British companies to Europe's single market. EU leaders have said these are incompatible and market access would only be granted in exchange for accepting the EU's rules on free movement of people. In an interview with Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper over the weekend, finance minister Philip Hammond hinted at the new "hard Brexit" line. Answering a question about whether Britain could become a tax haven, he said it would be forced to "change our economic model" to remain competitive if it is shut out from access to the single market. May aims to launch two years of EU departure negotiations when she triggers the Article 50 exit process by the end of March, although a legal challenge is still pending before the country's Supreme Court. She has been under pressure to reveal her proposals for the talks that will establish the future relationship between Britain and the EU. Matching reports in several weekly newspapers said she was prepared to accept pulling out of the single market, the European customs union and the European Court of Justice, in order to regain control of EU immigration. "She's gone for the full works. People will known when she said Brexit means Brexit, she really meant it," a government source was quoted as saying in The Sunday Telegraph. Updated on Monday, January 16 at 4:05 p.m. Pro-life women are headed to D.C. Yes, theyll turn out for the annual March for Life, which is coming up on January 27. But one week earlier, as many as a few hundred pro-lifers are planning to attend the Womens March on Washington, which has been billed as feminist counterprogramming to the inauguration. With organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America co-sponsoring the event, pro-life marchers have found themselves in a somewhat awkward position. Whats their place at an event that claims to speak for all women, but has aligned itself with pro-choice groups? With roughly a week to go before the march, organizers also released a set of unity principles, and one of them is open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people. Some pro-lifers say theyll protest. A delegation from Students for Life of America will be there to march against the influence of the abortion industry in the womens movement, said Kristan Hawkins, the organizations president. And Jeanne Mancini, the president of March for Life, said she was planning to attend but doesnt know if she can now that the marchs policy platform includes support for abortion. But others are looking for solidarity. Many pro-life women felt just as outraged as pro-choice women about Donald Trumps conduct and comments, including the revelation that he once bragged about groping women without their permission. For their part, the organizers say pro-lifers will be welcome to march on January 21st. A pro-life group based in Texas, New Wave Feminists, was granted partnership status on Friday. Intersectional feminism is the future of feminism and of this movement, said Bob Bland, one of the events co-chairs. We must not just talk about feminism as one issue, like access to reproductive care. (On Monday afternoon, after the publication of this article, the Womens March organizers removed the New Wave Feminists from their website and list of partners. The Womens Marchs platform is pro-choice and that has been our stance from day one, the organizers said in a statement. The anti-choice organization in question is not a partner of the Women's March on Washington. We apologize for this error.) Story continues Recommended: Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter From Birmingham Jail' The pro-life movement is changing. Many young activists identify as feminists or atheists and reject a uniform alignment with the Republican Party, unlike their Phyllis Schlafly-style predecessors. Perhaps the Womens March on Washington is a sign that feminism is changing, too, ever so slightly: a first gathering of a truly intersectional movement which makes room for women with diverse convictions, including a moral opposition to abortion. Some of the pro-life women going to the march are looking for solace in the wake of the election. I was very concerned about the fact that in 2017, our presidential candidate was such a diehard misogynist, said Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, the Texas-based president of a group called New Wave Feminists. I get that he applied this pro-life label, but I dont know very many people who genuinely believe hes pro-life. While the organizers say the march is not an anti-Trump protest, the fact that its happening the day after inauguration is not a coincidence. The stated purpose is broadto send a bold message that womens rights are human rightsbut Trump is clearly the context. In some ways, the march is not just about women; its an affirmation of diversity. Bland gave a laundry list of groups whose voices will be at the center of the march, including people of color, those with disabilities, Muslims and those of all diverse religious faiths, undocumented immigrants, and LGBT folks. They have been particularly targeted during the election cycle, and now, theres a real concern that their rights will be stripped away, Bland said. Were marching to say that we support them, and all women. Recommended: These Americans Are Trying to Build an Escape Hatch From Trump's America Nothing about this mission is incompatible with a pro-life viewpoint. In fact, some pro-lifers would argue that their work is explicitly focused on promoting the dignity of all people, including folks who dont fit a straight, white, conservative mold. A small group of marchers associated with the pro-life publication Life Matters Journal will be there to support this actual affirmation of peace and human rights, not just for women, but for all people of any or no gender, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, age, or disability, said Rosemary Geraghty, a 20-year-old University of Pittsburgh student who works as the publications the social-media coordinator. The only difference between her list and Blands is that hers includes the pre-born. Optics-wise, it looks terrible that any pro-life group would go out and protest women. Other pro-life activists are attracted to the message of womens empowerment, but theyre not interested in opposing the incoming president. Im not going to protest Trumps presidency. Its done. Its over, said Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who started an organization to help anti-abortion health-care workers find jobs that line up with their views. But I do think he needs women to hold him accountable. She listed workplace inequality, the pay gap, and womens lack of access to health care as issues she wants to see highlighted under the next administration. Im just planning to go and join the march, she said. I have no desire to protest or anything like that. Catherine Glenn Foster, a D.C.-area lawyer who also works as a senior fellow at the Charlotte Lozier Institutethe research arm of the pro-life advocacy group Susan B. Anthony Listsaid shes going neither to protest nor to stand in solidarity. I would rather express that Im committed to the marchs ideals and would hold all of us to a greater realization of those ideals of non-violence for all, she said. Recommended: My President Was Black Some groups seem more interested in spinning up controversy than actually participating, though. Students for Life of America has invited hundreds of women to attend on Facebook, proclaiming that we will not sit by as Planned Parenthood, our nations abortion Goliath and a sponsor of this march, betrays women into thinking abortion is their only choice. Hawkins, who served in the Bush administration before taking the top job in the campus-based group, complained that Students for Life applied to be a partner in the march and never heard back, although they did receive an email encouraging all students to attend, she said. Bland said she was skeptical that any group would be rejected or ignored outright. The march has largely been put together by volunteers, many with little or no organizing experience, she said, and as a result, its been a little chaotic. Hawkins also objected to the high-profile pro-choice partners. The march originally had nothing to do with abortion, she said, but theyve allowed themselves to do is be bought out by big abortion. Some of the other pro-life women who are going expressly disagreed with this combative attitude, though. Optics-wise, it looks terrible that any pro-life group would go out and protest women, Herndon-De La Rosa said. Were not just pro-lifers who are also feminists. Were feminists first and foremost. While the pro-lifers I spoke with saw the pro-choice partnerships as a mistake, involving Planned Parenthood was a no-brainer for us, said Bland. Especially with a fight over the Affordable Care Act ahead, one of the challenges facing women in this incoming administration is access to reproductive care, she said. While pro-lifers might object to the organizations abortion services, 97 percent of what Planned Parenthood offers are reproductive-health services that are desperately needed by women all over this country. And yet, the march isnt primarily about reproductive rights, Bland said, or even narrowly committed to one view on issues like abortion. Weve had some really interesting discussions with conservative folks and folks who identify as pro-life, she said. While the organizers general position is that a womans body is a womans body is a womans body, she said, I cant tell you how many emails I received from women who identify as conservative who are marching with us on January 21 because there are so many other concerns. In all the emails theyve gottenclose to 1 million, Bland estimatedwomen have expressed worries about cultural misogyny, the state of education and health care, and a desire for their own daughters to be able to lead. Theres a lot more going on than one single issue, she said. Staunchly pro-choice advocates might argue that theres no room for anti-abortion views in any womens movement: The ability to decide when or whether to have children is key to womens opportunity to be financially secure and pursue their dreams, wrote Planned Parenthoods president, Cecile Richards, in an op-ed for Time in 2015. But the pro-life women who are attending the Womens March on Washington are going to keep showing up. I know people want to say we dont exist, or were an oxymoron, Herndon-De La Rosa said. But we do exist, and we are true feminists. Were not just pro-lifers who are also feminists. Were feminists first and foremost. The Womens March, in all its grassroots chaos, might be a feminist space where theyre actually welcomeor, at least, where they can inconspicuously march along with everyone else. For her part, Bland said, shell be glad to see women of all backgrounds show up. Thats whats really powerful about this: Its centering voices that have previously been either marginalized or silenced, she said. Im so grateful to have this opportunity to walk together with my sisters and brothers. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. The passenger in a vehicle that crashed and rolled over in Vernon County Saturday night was arrested for allegedly having methamphetamine with the intent to deliver. The crash happened at about 8:30 p.m. on Highway SS near Hall Road in the town of Liberty, the Sheriff's Office said. Ashley Fish, 29, of rural LaFarge, was driving west on Highway SS when she lost control of the vehicle, crossed the center line and overturned into a wooded area about 20 feet off the road. Passenger Joshua Czap, 41, of LaFarge, was injured and was taken to Vernon Memorial Hospital, then was arrested upon release from the hospital. He also was tentatively charged with felony bail jumping and a probation violation. No charges were listed against Fish. Noor Salman, the wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, was arrested Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a charge of obstruction, the New York Times reported. Mateen, who was killed by police, shot and killed 49 people at gay nightclub Pulse in June 2016 and investigators have been weighing charges against Salman ever since, according to The Times. Salman was arrested outside her home in San Francisco and is expected to appear in federal court Tuesday. When the investigation into the June 12 shooting got underway, Salman was reportedly questioned for hours and officials believed she wasnt being truthful. She is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent and told the FBI she tried to convince Mateen not to go through with the most deadly mass shooting in the countrys history, local NBC affiliate WESH reported. Salman, 30, eventually granted her first interview after the shooting to The Times in November. She denied having previous knowledge of the attack and offered condolences to the victims and their families. Salman said Mateen could at times be abusive, like pulling her hair or choking her, and that he could win a custody battle over their son if their marriage ever ended. I was unaware of everything, Salman said. I dont condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people. On her decision to speak out, Salman also said: I just want people to know that I am human. I am a mother. Orlando Police Chief John Mina released a statement about the arrest. Salman grew up in Rodeo, Calif., roughly a 30-minute drive from San Francisco and part of the Bay Area, and met Mateen in 2011 through an online dating website called Arab Lounge. Mateens first wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said in a television interview in September that Mateen targeted the gay club because she believed he was secretly gay and hoped to impress his homophobic father, The Advocate reported. Related Articles BANGKOK (AP) A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, home to several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. ___ BAD CHOICE OF WORDS? In comments that could raise the stakes in the South China Sea, Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state said the U.S. should stop Beijing from constructing artificial islands and deny it access to them. "We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed," former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said during his Senate confirmation hearing. He compared China's island-building in the disputed waters to Russia's annexation of Crimea. The outgoing U.S. administration has challenged China by sending warships close to man-made islands on four occasions, but the talk of denying access to those features could significantly raise the risk of military confrontation. It wasn't clear if Tillerson was referring to the islands with a Chinese military presence already established or those like Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing wrested from the Philippines in 2012 but hasn't built on yet. Blocking China's access to the islands "could spark armed conflict," said Mark Fitzpatrick, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "I can't help but think that he did not mean it this way." A person familiar with deliberations inside the Trump transition team was aware of no such plans, raising the likelihood that Tillerson misspoke. Retired Gen. James Mattis told his own confirmation hearing for secretary of defense that China's militarization of the South China Sea posed a threat to the global order. Asked about Tillerson's comments, Mattis said the U.S. needed an integrated government approach to avoid an incomplete or incoherent strategy. He stressed the importance of freedom of commerce and nurturing U.S. alliances in the region. Story continues "The bottom line is that international waters are international waters and we have got to figure out how do we deal with holding on to the kind of rules that we have made over many years that led to the prosperity for many nations, not just for ours," Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee. China's Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper called Tillerson's statements "astonishing," while China Daily says they are not to be taken seriously "because they are a mish-mash of naivety, shortsightedness, worn-our prejudices, and unrealistic political fantasies." The outgoing secretary of state, John Kerry, said that China's assertiveness has tested "whether the U.S.-China relationship will be defined by our differences or by what we can achieve cooperatively." ___ CHINA ANALYSTS SEE U.S. CARRIER DEPLOYMENT TROUBLESOME The USS Carl Vinson battle group is on its way to the Western Pacific to augment the Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan a move seen by China analysts as a sign that Donald Trump's administration will ratchet up the U.S. military presence in the South China Sea. The Carl Vinson's deployment coincides with Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and the just-completed drills by China's sole aircraft carrier in and around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The combat exercises involving the Liaoning , including takeoffs and landings by J-15 fighter jets and helicopters, have been closely shadowed by both Taiwan and Japan as China's largest warship sailed past its nervous neighbors. The Nimitz-class carrier's dispatch "shows that the Pentagon, including the U.S. Navy, wants to extend Obama's Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy and further get involved in the West Pacific," Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, told the state-run Global Times newspaper. He said that facing pressure from the U.S., China needs to enhance building up of strategic forces and the construction of reefs and islands. "The waters are an effective maneuver to curb China, as 80 percent of China's crude oil imports come through the South China Sea. If the U.S. controls the waters, it will be a blow to China," he said. The U.S. emphasis on freedom of navigation through waters China considers its sovereign territory is likely to intensify under the Trump administration, the Global Times quoted Lin Zhiyuan, a scholar with the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, as saying. He believes the deployment of the Carl Vinson was a move by the Pentagon to disrupt potential talks between China and other claimants notably the Philippines on solving the disputes bilaterally. "Although the U.S. relationship with the Philippines is deteriorating, it will continue colluding with Australia and India, as well as strengthen ties with Singapore, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries, in the hope of joint patrols," he said. ___ BEIJING GRATEFUL PHILIPPINES WON'T RAISE ARBITRATION RULING China has welcomed the statement by the Philippines that it won't raise its arbitration victory against Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea during Southeast Asian summit talks hosted by Manila this year. "We are not going to raise this issue ... because there is really no useful benefit," Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said. "This is a matter that we will be raising with China at some future time in bilateral talks and to do and involve others in the discussion of this decision is just simply counter-productive for our purposes." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the disputes were never an issue between Beijing and the 10-member Association of Southeast Nations as a bloc, but rather individual claimants. Yasay said if any country would like to pursue their respective claims against China, "they can do so and perhaps use the decision of the arbitral tribunal as a precedent-setting case in pursuing the matter." Citing improved relations with China, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also put on hold a repair of a runway on Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island in the Spratlys, which is also claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. ___ Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington in Washington, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Hrvoje Hranjski at www.twitter.com/hatbangkok PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande on Monday responded to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's criticism of the European Union by saying the bloc did not need to be told what to do by outsiders. "Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will based on its interests and values," Hollande said before awarding France's highest honor to outgoing U.S. ambassador Jane Hartley. "It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do." Speaking in an interview with London's Times newspaper five days before his inauguration, Trump described himself as a big fan of Britain and endorsed its citizens' vote last year to leave the European Union, predicting that more countries would seek to follow Britain's example. Trump also said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended adequately against terrorist attacks. Hollande, who in four months will step aside for a new French leader, said that the current geopolitical climate meant Europe had no choice but to strengthen its defense and military integration to ensure its voice was heard around the world. "This alliance (NATO) was conceived to strengthen the capacity of its members to protect themselves collectively," he said. "It will only be obsolete when the threats have become obsolete." (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; writing by John Irish; Editing by Kevin Liffey) PARIS (AP) I am, therefore I'm paid. The radical notion that governments should hand out free money to everyone rich and poor, those who work and those who don't is slowly but surely gaining ground in Europe. Yes, you read that right: a guaranteed monthly living allowance, no strings attached. In France, two of the seven candidates vying to represent the ruling Socialist Party in this year's presidential election are promising modest but regular stipends to all French adults. A limited test is already underway in Finland, with other experiments planned elsewhere, including in the United States. Called "universal income" by some, "universal basic income" or just "basic income" by others, the idea has been floated in various guises since at least the mid-19th century. After decades on the fringes of intellectual debate, it became more mainstream in 2016, with Switzerland holding a referendum and overwhelmingly rejecting a proposed basic income of around $2,500 per month. "An incredible year," says Philippe Van Parijs, a founder of the Basic Income Earth Network that lobbies for such payments. "There has been more written and said on basic income than in the whole history of mankind." But before you write a resignation letter to your boss in anticipation of never needing to work again, be warned: there are multiple questions, including how to finance such schemes. Here is a look at the issues: ___ WHY THE MOUNTING INTEREST? In a word, robots. With automated systems and machines increasingly replacing human workers, France could lose 3 million jobs by 2025, says Benoit Hamon, a former education minister campaigning for the French presidency on a promise of gradually introducing no-strings-attached payments for all. As work becomes scarcer, a modest but regular guaranteed income would stop people from fearing the future and free up their time for family, the needy and themselves, he argues. Story continues It could also encourage people to take risks, start businesses and try new activities without the risk of losing welfare benefits. The other pro-basic income candidate for the Socialist Party presidential ticket is outsider Jean-Luc Bennahmias. Like Hamon, the former European Parliament lawmaker argues that it is pointless to expect the return of economic boom times, with jobs for all. "Growth at two, three, four or five percent in western countries: it's finished," he said in a televised debate last week. "We have to speak the truth." Outside research backs up their arguments. An Oxford University study in 2015 estimated nearly half of the American workforce is at risk of automation. ___ PUT TO THE TEST Finland's small-scale, two-year trial that started Jan. 1 aims to answer a frequent question from basic income opponents: With a guaranteed 560 euros ($600) a month, will the 2,000 human guinea pigs drawn randomly from Finland's unemployed just laze around? Budget constraints and opposition from multiple quarters stymied ambitions for a broader test, says Olli Kangas from the Finnish government agency KELA, which is responsible for the country's social benefits. "It's a pretty watered down version," he said in a telephone interview. "We had to make a huge number of compromises." Still, he argues that such studies are essential in helping societies prepare for changed labor markets of the future. "I'm not saying that basic income is the solution," he said. "I'm just saying that it's a solution that we have to think about." In the Netherlands, the city of Utrecht this year plans to trial no-strings welfare payments that will also allow test groups to work on the side if they choose again, in part, to study the effect on their motivation to find work. To prepare for "a world where technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary," Silicon Valley startup financier Y Combinator says it plans a pilot study in Oakland, California, paying recipients an unconditional income because "we want to see how people experience that freedom." ___ THE COST Obviously, expensive. Hamon proposes the gradual introduction of basic income schemes in France, starting with 600 euros ($640) per month for the nation's poor and 18-25-year-olds before scaling up payments to 750 euros ($800) for all adults for a total estimated annual cost of 400 billion euros ($425 billion). Part of the cost could be financed by taxing goods and services produced by automated systems and machines, he says. Opponents argue that doing so would simply prompt companies to move robots elsewhere, out of reach of French tax collectors. Doing away with housing, family, poverty and unemployment benefits could free up more than 100 billion euros ($106 billion) to fold into a replacement basic income scheme. There'd also be less red tape, saving money that way, too, but switching to basic income would still require new taxes, a 2016 Senate report said. It estimated that paying everyone 500 to 1,000 euros ($530-$1,100) per month would cost 300 billion to 700 billion euros ($745 billion-$320 billion) annually. It recommended starting with three-year pilot schemes with trials involving 20,000-30,000 people. ___ THE CONS Costs aside, opponents argue that guaranteed incomes would promote laziness and devalue the concept of work. Hamon's opponents for the Socialist presidential ticket dispute as false his argument that jobs for humans are growing scarcer. Ultimately, to see the light of day, basic income schemes will need political champions, said Van Parijs. "We need radical ideas as targets and then we need clever tinkering to move in that direction," he said. PRAGUE (AP) Still recovering from a long-term injury, Tomas Rosicky says he has not ruled out a return to the Czech Republic national team. The 36-year-old Rosicky signed a two-year contract with Sparta Prague in August, but played for only 18 minutes as a substitute in a league game on Sept. 10 and has not been on the bench since. It was still more than the injury-prone midfielder played for Arsenal last season. Rosicky says he hopes to be ready for Sparta's game on Feb. 16 at Rostov in Europa League. He says he would consider helping out the national team if he's in form and the team needs him. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Parliamentarians in Russia gave a mixed reaction on Monday to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's proposal to strike a deal on nuclear arms cuts in exchange for Washington lifting sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the upper house of parliament's international affairs committee, was cited by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying getting the sanctions annulled was not a goal in itself and not worth making security concessions for. "We consider them (the sanctions) a stupid legacy of the outgoing White House team that need to be consigned to history along with them," said Kosachev. But another Russian senator, Oleg Morozov, was quoted by the same agency as saying that Moscow would be ready to discuss the issue of nuclear cuts, something he said Russia itself favored. Trump told The Times of London in an interview published online on Sunday that he would propose offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Reporting by Polina Devitt; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe) MOSCOW (AP) A controversial Russian performance artist said on Monday has requested asylum in France after being informed of rape accusations against him. Pyotr Pavlensky faced two trials in Russia last year on vandalism charges for stunts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In one, he set fire to the doors of the headquarters of the Russian security agency FSB, formerly the KGB, in Moscow, in what he claimed was political art. Pavlensky told Ukraine's Hromadske television on Monday that he and his wife were detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and told he was facing rape charges. Pavlensky said he was entrapped, but several friends of the actress have voiced support for her. He says he and his family are seeking political asylum in France. A Moscow spokesman for the Investigative Committee confirmed to Tass that Pavlensky was being investigated for a possible sex crime. Paris (AFP) - Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky, famous for radical performances denouncing state power that have landed him in jail in the past, has fled to France, where he will seek asylum, he told AFP on Monday. In an interview in Paris, the artist who memorably once nailed his scrotum to Red Square, said he fled Russia after he and his partner Oksana Shalygina were accused of sexual assault -- allegations he denies. The couple arrived in the French capital on Saturday with their two children. "We intend to seek asylum in France," said the 32-year-old performer, who was detained and questioned for nine hours last month over the assault claims. "If we had stayed in Russia, Oksana and I would have been sent to a prison camp for up to 10 years," he said. Pavlensky has gained a reputation for challenging Russian restrictions on political freedoms in radical, often painful performances that have won international acclaim. "My art is political," the gaunt-looking artist said, denouncing "individuals being treated by the state like cattle". - Striking performances - While best known for his 2013 Red Square performance entitled "Fixation", he also sewed his lips together to protest against the jailing of members of the punk group Pussy Riot. He has also wrapped himself in barbed wire and chopped off part of his ear. In November 2015, he doused the doors of the FSB -- the successor to the Cold War-era KGB, or secret police -- in petrol and set them on fire, in a performance called "Threat". He spent seven months in jail awaiting trial for damaging the door of the infamous Lubyanka building before being eventually freed in June. Russian media reported that the allegation of sexual assault was made by a young Moscow actress at a theatre known for its politically-themed plays, Teatr.doc. Pavlensky did not say whether there had been a sexual encounter. In a statement published by Ukraine's Hromadske channel, he insisted "there was no violence" against the woman, whom he accused of being an "informer". Story continues "I do not know the motivations of the person who made this false statement but it is very useful to the authorities who can use this case to exclude us from our sphere of action," he told AFP, referring to himself and his 37-year-old partner, who works at a publishing company. "A system of informing and reporting on others is re-emerging in Russia, showing that totalitarianism is setting in again," he told AFP. Russian authorities, he said, sought to control "all spheres of public and private life". - Prison or exile - Pavlensky said he and Shalygin were detained at Moscow airport on December 14 on their return from a trip to Warsaw and questioned under article 132 of the penal code dealing with sexual violence. "It's one of the worst in the Russian penal code because you can convict someone on the basis of a single statement," he said in the interview at a Russian bookstore in Paris. The pair were released after the questioning and told they had "more or less two possibilities: either go to a prison camp for 10 years... or leave Russia", he said. They left the country the following day, travelling west through Belarus and Ukraine on their way to France. Pavlensky, who spent a month last year in a notorious psychiatric hospital undergoing state-ordered tests of his sanity that found him sound of mind, said he had encountered no difficulty leaving Russia. "We left because I have no intention of being the regime's sacrificial lamb," he said. A pursuit in southeast Dane County early Monday morning ended with the car hitting a power pole and three juveniles arrested after fleeing from the car. The pursuit started around 3 a.m. at Highways N and B in the town of Pleasant Springs, and ended at Highway N and Hogie Road in the town of Dunkirk, the Sheriff's Office said. The three unidentified juveniles fled the car and were taken into custody with the help of Stoughton police, the State Patrol, Rock County deputies and the town of Madison police dog unit. The Sheriff's Office said deputies made a traffic stop on the car listed as a stolen vehicle. "Monona police had attempted to stop the same vehicle earlier, resulting in a pursuit that ultimately was terminated," said Sheriff's Lt. Chris Nygaard. The car sped away after deputies stopped it, with authorities in pursuit. The car left the road and hit a utility pole, taking out power for some residents in southeastern Dane County until repairs could be made Monday morning. By Alessandra Prentice and Margaryta Chornokondratenko KIEV (Reuters) - Russian dissident artist Pyotr Pavlensky, whose protests against the state have included nailing his scrotum to Moscow's Red Square, has said he plans to seek asylum in France. Pavlensky, 32, fled to Ukraine with his partner last month to avoid being sent to prison on what he said were trumped-up allegations of committing a sex crime. In his first interview since leaving, he said the Russia of President Vladimir Putin had become increasingly authoritarian and intolerant of dissenting voices. "I wouldn't say I was a threat, more a big inconvenience, because lots of money and resources are spent on propaganda ... then I carry out some action and it's a strike on the propaganda machine," he said. As their two young daughters played quietly in the next room, Pavlensky and his partner Oksana Shalygina - both dressed all in black - described how on Dec. 14 they had been detained by police at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. During a nine-hour cross-examination by state investigators, they learned that they had been accused of committing a sex crime by an actress they had both slept with. The crime is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The couple, who are in an open relationship, deny the allegation, likening it to the denunciations that led to mass imprisonments in the repressive Soviet era. "Through all of this we were shown that there were two ways for us to be got rid of, or taken out of the political context," Pavlensky said. "Either (they could send us) to a prison camp for the next 10 years, where we'd describe how we had become victims of state security scheming, or (they could send us) beyond the border limits of passport control." While they do not know if a criminal case has been officially opened against them, they decided it was too risky to remain in Russia. By the next day, they had collected their daughters and flown to Kiev, from where they plan to fly to France, he said. Russia's Interior Ministry and its Investigative Committee did not reply to requests for comment from Reuters on Pavlensky's allegations. The couple's decision to claim asylum is likely to draw further attention to Russia's patchy record on protecting freedom of speech. In 2012, the jailing of members of anti-Kremlin group Pussy Riot for performing a "punk prayer" in a church provoked international outrage. SEWN LIPS Pavlensky said the couple would not return to Russia until they believed they were no longer at risk of being prosecuted, even if this meant many years in exile. "Probably it's a good option for them if we disappear (abroad) and aren't able to be heard at all and are completely dispersed, but this isn't going to happen," he said. His works or "actions" have included sewing his lips together to protest at the treatment of Pussy Riot, and wrapping his naked body in barbed wire to express his opposition to laws he deemed repressive. In 2015 Pavlensky was detained by Russian police after he set ablaze the wooden door of the Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the successor organizations to the Soviet-era KGB. He avoided prison, but was handed a fine of over $15,000 that he did not pay. The performance, which he titled "The Threat", was meant to draw attention to what he called FSB terror tactics. Pavlensky said the sex crime allegations illustrated the security services' preference for underhand strategies. "It's clear that the people in the security services aim to work carefully and quietly, not messily or crudely. Probably they believe that beating someone and bloodshed is crude. If it's possible to do it quietly, they aim to do so." (Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan/Mark Heinrich) SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group said on Monday it could not accept the special prosecutors' accusations that its leader, Jay Y. Lee, paid bribes to further his succession or the merger of two affiliates in 2015. "It is difficult to understand the special prosecution's decision," Samsung Group said in an email statement in response to the special prosecutors' decision to request an arrest warrant for Lee, the third-generation leader of South Korea's top conglomerate. The prosecutors also said in their indictment of National Pension Service (NPS) chief Moon Hyung-pyo that he received an order from President Park Geun-hye to help the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc succeed. Moon was indicted on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony. He was arrested in December after acknowledging ordering the world's third-largest pension fund to support the $8 billion merger last year of two Samsung Group affiliates while he was head of the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. (Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Nick Macfie) By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Monday he was positive about the way the incoming U.S. administration wanted to restore American influence in the world, contain Iran and fight Islamic State. "We are optimistic about the incoming administration and look forward to working with it in all areas that are a concern for both of us," Jubeir told reporters in Paris. "We will look at the Trump administration's view as articulated. Wanting to restore America's role in the world, we welcome this. Wanting to defeat ISIS (Islamic State), absolutely. Wanting to contain Iran ... absolutely." Jubeir said the interests of the world's largest oil exporter were aligned with those of the United States, be it geopolitically - in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran - or on energy and financial issues. "The objectives we want to achieve are the same. We may have disagreements on how to get there, but we don't disagree on what needs to be done, and that will not change," he said. When asked specifically about Riyadh's relationship with its Shi'ite regional rival Iran and whether there could be a detente between them, Jubeir accused Tehran of destabilizing the region. Relations between the two worsened after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the 2015 Muslim haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Iran blamed the disaster on organizers' incompetence and boycotted last year's haj. Ties worsened further when Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia executed a Shi'ite cleric a year ago. Angry Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and Riyadh severed diplomatic relations. "Our relationship with Iran is tense and it's in function of its aggressive and hostile policies. It would be wonderful to live in peace and harmony with Iran, but it takes two to tango," Jubeir said, speaking in English. "We can't be subject to death and destruction and expect to turn the other cheek. We tried, but it didn't work." Jubeir added that proposed talks in the Kazakh capital Astana aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Syria were worth testing. However, it should not be construed as Riyadh abandoning moderate rebels fighting to topple Iranian-backed President Bashar al-Assad. "The objective is to arrive at a ceasefire and move on to the political process. Let's test it. So far it hasn't succeeded," he said. "If it does, then we go down the political path, but that doesn't mean we abandon the moderate opposition." The Astana talks, which are backed by Russia and Turkey, are due to take place later this month, with rebel military factions set to hold face-to-face negotiations with a government delegation. Jubeir, whose country has given military support to the opposition forces, said there had been close consultations with Turkey on the meeting and that it did not believe Ankara had changed its view on Assad leaving power at the end of a transition. "I don't see a change in Turkey's position. The fact the Turks are talking to Russians is not a concern. Turkey has people on ground in Syria and has direct contact with the Syrian opposition on ground," he said. (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Tom Heneghan) Riyadh (AFP) - Low-cost Saudi carrier flynas on Monday signed an $8.6-billion deal with European plane manufacturer Airbus to purchase 80 A320neo single-aisle jets. Flynas chairman Ayed al-Jeaid said at a ceremony in Riyadh that the deal includes an option for 40 more of the short to medium-haul planes, to cater for what airline executives described as a growing domestic market. Bander al-Mohanna, the chief executive of NAS Holding, of which flynas is a division, signed the agreement with Fouad Attar, Middle East director for France-based Airbus. Mohanna told a news conference following the ceremony that the aim of the deal was for flynas to "play a leading role in the market" which he described as "very huge". Delivery would begin next year and continue until at least 2026, flynas executives said. The 10-year-old airline exclusively operates the A320, leasing almost 30 of the aircraft, and its passenger numbers now exceed six million annually, executives said. The carrier concentrates on the Arabian peninsula and the immediate vicinity within four hours' flying time. "Our major focus is to serve the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," which accounts for 70 percent of the airline's flights, Mohanna said. State-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines, known as Saudia, is the dominant player and aims to expand its own fleet to 200 aircraft by 2020. Saudia flew more than 29 million passengers in 2015, and in June last year placed an $8-billion order with Airbus for 50 planes for domestic flights. Two new entrants, Nesma and SaudiGulf, have launched domestic flights but Jeaid told the ceremony: "We don't believe that such competition threatens us." - A young market - Under its wide-ranging Vision 2030 plan announced in April, Saudi Arabia aims to diversify its oil-dependent economy. Among the measures is development of the tourism sector, privatisation of state-owned services including airports, and a linking of transport networks to position Saudi Arabia as a regional logistics hub. Story continues The plan also calls for an increase in the number of Muslim visitors performing the umra minor pilgrimage to Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina. "We expect a lot more traffic just from local pilgrimage and international pilgrimage," flynas CEO Paul Byrne told AFP after the ceremony. He said that with around half the kingdom's airports currently served by flynas, the remainder provide growth potential, as does the kingdom's youthful population. More than half of Saudis are under 25. "There's a lot of young Saudis now who are going to generate a lot of business for the airlines in the coming years and decades," Byrne said. He added that owning planes, rather than leasing, gives the airline more control over its financial future. Leasing new planes would have come at "a much higher premium," he said, adding that the flynas purchase schedule calls for a maximum of 10 A320neos to be delivered in a year. Even before it unveiled its economic reform plan, the Arab world's largest economy was spending billions of dollars on building and upgrading airports. Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Co, a diversified global investor with stakes ranging from hotels to entertainment and banking, owns a 34-percent stake in flynas. Airbus said last week it had outstripped its own delivery expectations in 2016, closing the gap with Boeing and beating its US rival on orders. The European manufacturer said it delivered a record 688 commercial planes last year, exceeding its own target. Paris (AFP) - US ally Saudi Arabia is "optimistic" about Donald Trump's impending presidency, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Monday, hailing Trump's stern line on arch-Saudi rival Iran and promise to defeat the Islamic State group. "When we look at the Trump administration's view as articulated -- wanting to restore America's role in the world -- we welcome this," Jubeir told a group of reporters during a visit to Paris. "Wanting to defeat ISIS: absolutely. Wanting to contain Iran and prevent it from causing mischief through its negative policies in the region: absolutely, we have been calling for this for years," he said. "Our interests align," he said, declaring that Washington and Riyadh also shared the same objectives on Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, terrorism and "energy issues". "We look forward to working with them (Trump's team) in all the areas that are of interest or concern to both of us," he said. ABC president Channing Dungey recently opened up about the changes in the schedule for Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. Last week, it was announced that instead of Jan. 19, all three shows will air on ABC on Jan. 26 to give way to Donald Trumps pre-inauguration special. While speaking with TV Line, Dungey admitted that it was a very tough call for the network to have Shonda Rhimes three shows bumped to the following week. It was a very hard call. Nobody else had been waiting for it bigger than me, she said. Dungey added that ABC News was already having talks about possibly leading into Inauguration Day with a Thursday special. After all, the news department also wants to grab the opportunity to release the best story for the viewers. Despite the changes in schedule for Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder, the three shows will still have 24, 16 and 13 episodes, respectively. Meanwhile, unlike Greys Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder, which will both be returning to ABC for their 10th episode, Scandal Season 6 will be premiering on Jan. 26. In Survival of the Fittest, a new president will be named. In the finale for Season 4, Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) went up against Governor Vargas (Ricardo Chavira) for the position. Despite Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) helping Mellie with her campaign, the official synopsis for episode 1 revealed that the results of the election will shock everyone. Also in Season 6, a new vice president will be announced. Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) partnered with Governor Vargas. Mellie was paired with Jake Ballard (Scott Foley). According to speculations, an unlikely partnership could form in the White House. Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes, Ellen Pompeo Photo: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni Related Articles Scotlands Sunday Herald seized the opportunity to spoof reality-television-star-turned-President-elect Donald Trump in its print television section. Along with the usual television listings, the paper teased Trumps Friday inauguration as if it were an upcoming episode of The Twilight Zone. After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history, the teaser reads. [T]his huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, on Twitter over the next four years sets out to build an ongoing alternative present. The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017, in which huge sections of the U.S. electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. The satirical piece mirrored many of the stories written a mere few months ago when a Trump presidency seemed impossible that humorously speculated on what Trumps inauguration and first year might look like. The teaser quickly went viral on social media, thanks in part to actor and activist George Takei. A dashcam video taken from a Kansas State Trooper's vehicle reveals a near collision that was narrowly avoided in icy conditions over the weekend. The dramatic footage was taken Sunday as a winter storm swept through America's breadbasket, leaving dangerously icy roadways in its wake. Watch: Ninja to the Rescue: Man Saved From Choking by Stranger, a 'Ninja Warrior' Contestant While the camera rolls, a tractor trailer is seen losing control then veering across the median and into oncoming traffic, straight toward the trooper's cruiser. "Thankfully Trooper Poland had a quick reaction and no one was hurt," Trooper Tod Hays wrote on Facebook. Some other Kansas Troopers, or at least their vehicles, weren't so lucky after the treacherous storm. A Kansas Highway Patrol public information officer tweeted photos of badly smashed cruisers Sunday after two troopers were hit on the icy roads over the weekend. Thankfully, those police officers were spared injury, as well. Read: Trooper Who Was 'Ambushed' on Highway Was Likely Saved by Armed Passerby Nonetheless, Trooper Hays begged motorists to be careful following wintry weather: "Please SLOW DOWN and gauge the road mile by mile. Just because it's not icy where you are, does not mean it may not be icy 20 miles down the road. Again, if you don't need to drive please STAY HOME." Story continues Watch: 13 People Dead and 31 Injured in One of California's Deadliest Highway Crashes Related Articles: By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA (Reuters) - Serbia plans to seize a slice of northern Kosovo just as Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014, Kosovo's president told Reuters on Monday, as the two Balkan neighbors trade accusations of wanting to ignite a new regional war. Kosovo special police units on Saturday prevented a train painted in Serbia's national colors and bearing the words "Kosovo is Serbia" from crossing the border. Serbia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, its former province, and did not seek Pristina's permission for the passage of the train, which it paid for and organized. On Sunday Serbia's president, Tomislav Nikolic, said Kosovo's action had shown it wanted war with Belgrade. Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci said the train was aimed at "provoking" Kosovars in order to create a pretext for Serbia to intervene militarily and annex northern areas of Kosovo, home to some 50,000 ethnic Serbs who refuse to accept the province's independence and want to be governed again by Belgrade. "Serbias intention is to use this train, which was donated by Russia, first to help carve away the northern part of Kosovo and then ... attach it to Serbia. It is the Crimea model," Thaci said in an interview. He was referring to Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and populated mainly by ethnic Russians who after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 continued to feel loyalty to Moscow rather than to the newly independent government in Kiev. Crimea's ethnic Russians welcomed Moscow's annexation - carried out initially by soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms to disguise their identity - though the move also triggered Western economic sanctions against Russia. "CHAIN REACTION" Serbia lost control of Kosovo when NATO air strikes forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops in 1999 after they had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians. NATO still has around 5,000 troops stationed in Kosovo to keep the fragile peace. As well as Serbia, its ally Russia and some other countries also refuse to recognize Kosovo's 2008 independence. After talks with Serbia's military top brass and state security chiefs in Belgrade on Sunday, Serbia's Nikolic threatened to send troops back into Kosovo. "If they are killing Serbs, we will send the army, all of us will go, I will go as well, it would not be my first time," said Nikolic, who is a former member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party and in the 1990s fought alongside Serb paramilitaries in Croatia. Responding to Nikolic's remarks, Thaci said any attempt by Serbia to annex northern Kosovo would set off "a chain reaction across the whole Western Balkans". Belgrade and Pristina both aspire to join the European Union and normalizing relations is a condition of their progress, but Serbia continues to block Kosovo's membership of international organizations such as the United Nations. Bilateral relations came under renewed strain this month when former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj was arrested in France on a warrant from Serbia, which accuses him of war crimes. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Editing by Gareth Jones) A State Patrol trooper who saw a vehicle coming up fast behind him on I-39/90 near McFarland had to pull over onto the shoulder to avoid a collision, before following after the driver and arresting him for his fourth alleged drunken driving offense. The incident happened at about 1:50 a.m. Sunday in the northbound lanes near mile marker 144, the State Patrol said. Anthony Stiklestad, 38, of Janesville, was taken into custody to the Dane County Jail after failing field sobriety tests. The report said the trooper saw the fast-approaching vehicle in his rearview mirror, and clocked the vehicle at 91 mph. "The trooper thought the subject was going to hit him so he moved to the shoulder and slowed down," the report said. The trooper then caught up to the driver and made the traffic stop resulting in Stiklestad's arrest. UPDATE: 7:07 a.m. EST A hospital worker at CostaMed hospital in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, told NBC News on Monday at least two people were admitted with bullet wounds after a shooting incident at BPM Festival late Sunday night. The man was in "grave" condition, while the woman was stable, according to the hospital worker. BPM festivals official Twitter account, which said the shootings were being investigated, later deleted the tweet. Authorities are yet to confirm the death toll from the incident, which many believe was triggered due to gang violence. UPDATE: 5:55 a.m. EST Videos shared on social media show people running through the streets of Playa Del Carmen following the shooting at Blue Parrot club that reportedly left at least five dead. However, there is still no official confirmation of the death toll. Festival-goer Steven Rosado, a 26-year-old from White Plains, New York, told New York Daily News he heard at least five to six gunshots, adding: I saw everyone that was in line to go into the Blue Parrot running away. UPDATE: 4:42 a.m. EST According to some reports, security footage showed six people were shot during the shooting incident at Blue Parrot club in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, late Sunday night. Police are reportedly investigating the incident, which many believe could be gang-related. Meanwhile, a Toronto-based DJ who was at the club at the time of shooting said he was back stage when the shooting incident began. UPDATE: 3:58 a.m. EST The BPM Festival organizers wrote on their Twitter account that all parties have been shut down following the alleged shooting incident. UPDATE: 3:48 a.m. EST Soon after unconfirmed reports surfaced late Sunday night of a shooting at Blue Parrot club in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in which four people have allegedly died, social media users said shots were fired at another club in the area. Story continues Some users on Twitter also claimed the incident may be a gang-related shooting. Original story: Shots were fired at Blue Parrot club in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, late Sunday night during the closing party of the BPM Festival. While there is no official confirmation yet of the incident or the number of casualties, some local media reported at least four people were dead, including a security guard. Some people attending the festival took to their Twitter accounts to warn about the shooting, saying there were gunmen inside the club. This is a developing story. Related Articles ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico -- Vanessa Asher peers nervously into her sons mouth with a flashlight for a sign of infection. After a few moments, she turns off the hand-held light and sends her five-year-old son on his way to play. Tanner had complained earlier of an earache, but her son seems healthy now. Earaches and ear infections are somewhat common for Tanner, a charismatic little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. And the last thing Asher, a 31-year-old single mother, wants is to worry about him being sick -- or how much it might cost to seek out medical care. IMG_0549 (1) Photo: IBT/Alex Suarez The mother and son live in a modest adobe home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's two days after Christmas and a tiny decorated tree still stands in a corner of the living room. While all basic needs are met -- rent, groceries and the funds needed for Tanners Montessori school -- money can be tight and budgeting does not necessarily allow for things like vacations, pricey extracurricular activities or health care emergencies. For Asher, paying all of her bills on time can be difficult. I always follow the quote, 'borrow from Peter to pay Paul,'" Asher said. "One of my goals was to pay all of my bills, on time and at the same time when they are due. I know I will get there. I see the progress. Progress is one of the slogans from the Shepard Fairy posters that helped fuel President Barack Obamas campaign in 2008. Asher voted for him then and again in 2012. But now, Obama will make way for Donald Trump. In just five days, he will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, taking charge of the U.S. economy and other policy decisions that could change how Asher makes ends meet. Single mothers could be hit hardest by Trump's quest to Make America Great Again. Trumps tax reform plan proposed a reduction of taxes across the board, especially for working and middle-income Americans who will receive a massive tax reduction." But a report from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center published in October concluded the proposed tax changes could actually result in higher taxes for as many as 8.7 million families. Single working parents, most notably, would see a substantial tax increase. Meanwhile, Trump's promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act could also make life harder for single parents. Story continues There are nearly 12 million single-parent families in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. About 10 million single mothers, like Asher, live with children under the age of 18. Trump's proposed tax plan includes only three brackets: 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent, which means that families could pay higher rates (the lowest tax bracket now is 10 percent). Trump's proposal would eliminate personal exemptions as well as the head-of-household filing status, which eases the burden for unmarried families with child dependents. That means ultimately many single parents could find themselves paying more under his plan. A single parent earning $75,000, with two school-aged children and no childcare costs would face a tax increase of around $2,440, according to the Tax Policy Center report led by Lily Batchelder, a New York University professor of law and public policy and a former tax specialist for the Obama administration who served as majority chief tax counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. A single mother earning roughly $36,000, with one five-year-old child and no child care costs could expect to pay roughly $393 more in taxes under Trump's plan, Batchelder estimated. The Tax Policy Center analysis has come under fire from the incoming Trump administration for not factoring in all of the benefits that could come from other Trump reforms and for liberal bias." However, the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning policy think tank, supported Batchelders analysis and came to the same results after replicating Batchelders numbers. Her calculations are good, they seem valid to me, Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation who has been closely following Trump's tax policies, told International Business Times. For Asher, any additional pressure on her finances could be disastrous. There is already so little to work with. Ashers salary is comprised of a base salary pay with a commission pay that varies year-to-year due to client renewals and new business. For 2016, she expects to make just under $36,000. Her income after taxes is about $28,300. "Luckily, I have an amazing landlord and he allows me to pay my rent late every single month," Asher said on a recent day. "The tuition, my car payments and my rent are all due at the beginning of the month, so that is never all paid at the same time. My sons school allows me to split up the payments into two payments." Asher and her son's father separated when Tanner was 18 months and it's been mother and son since. Tanner spends two, sometimes three days a week with his father, depending on his dads work schedule, but Asher has primary custody. Child support comes in the form of monthly payments, and a chunk of that money is put toward Tanners Montessori school tuition. I get $500 a month from his dad $332 goes to school and the rest basically covers gas for me to drive him to and from, Asher said. Tanner is covered under New Mexico's Medicaid program until he is six. His health care insurance will then be covered by his father, who receives benefits through work, according to Asher. She herself has no health insurance. In his outline for healthcare reform, Trump proposed to cap federal funding for Medicaid. There are a little over 2 million people in the state of New Mexico, and more than 700,000 people in the state are enrolled in the federal health care program. Roughly 12. 8 percent of the state's population under 65 are without health insurance. IMG_0521 Photo: IBT/Alex Suarez IMG_0561 Photo: IBT/Alex Suarez On a recent bright morning in Albuquerque, Asher pulled into the strip mall parking space where she is employed as an insurance agent for R. Day Agency Farmers Insurance. She gets to work at 8:30 a.m. and will spend the day taking calls with clients and doing some minor training with two new colleagues. She will leave work a little early to pick up Tanner at about 4 p.m. She has an office to herself and its peaceful. It's right outside the waiting room where there is a sign that reads "Know the Gaps." Pictures of Tanner brighten her office walls. Whatever her financial circumstances, Asher said, she wants to make her dollars work for her son. I compromise on being able to pay the minimum payment on my credit card just to use it to pay for something else," Asher said. "And I compromise on gas. When I wont be able to use my car for the weekend because I wont get paid until next week, Ill have to save driving for the work week. So well stay home or walk." IMG_0536 Photo: IBT/Alex Suarez She doesn't have a plan yet to save for Tanner's college education, preferring to wait and see where his prospective career path might take him. My biggest hope for him is that I want him to love and accept himself as he is," Asher said. "I want him to be able to love and accept others... That seems like the ideal way to go through life. IMG_0546 Photo: IBT/Alex Suarez With so much uncertainty about where the U.S. economy is going, Asher, who became a registered Democrat when she turned 18, said she ultimately decided to vote for Trump in November. She is frustrated with a government that seems broken down and needs to be rebuilt. She looks forward to Trump stirring the pot so bad that people start giving a shit, Asher said. Asher was won over in part by Trump's pledge to help parents cover the cost of childcare through deductions and incentives, including a childcare rebate and a "tax-free dependent care savings account," as it's described on his campaign website. Like many low-income Americans who backed Trump, she looks forward to Trump fulfilling his promise to create more jobs. Thats what would help me, personally, since thats how I make my income," she said. Other single parents who might be fearful of Trump's America should welcome change, according to Asher. People are scared of whats going to happen. If you dont know whats going to happen, then why fear it? Just acknowledge that you dont know," she said. Related Articles Melbourne (AFP) - "Frustrated" fourth seed Simona Halep said she was struggling with a knee injury as she fell at the first hurdle for the second year in a row at the Australian Open on Monday. The out-of-sorts Romanian, who called for medical attention after losing the first set, went down 6-3, 6-1 to American Shelby Rogers on day one in hot conditions on Rod Laver Arena. Halep was playing the first match of the tournament on the centre court, and she became the first major casualty. It was a case of deja vu for the right-hander, who was sent packing at the same stage last year by Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai. Halep is one of the fastest movers on court but she was missing her usual zip against the 24-year-old American, who reached the French Open quarter-finals last year. "I had pain at my knee," she said, adding that she first felt the tendon problem in October at the WTA Finals in Singapore. "For me, in the second set, was difficult to move anymore, but she deserved to win. She was aggressive, and she hit very strong." Asked about crashing out in the first round once again, she replied: "I'm a bit frustrated, but you cannot change much. "I'm okay. Just looking ahead. It happens, and I just want to be well with the knee. And then I will think about the game." Rogers, in only her second Australian Open appearance, was ecstatic at claiming such a big scalp, having missed last year's tournament to focus on a lower-level ITF Tour event in Florida after injury problems. "It's pretty incredible, I played really well today," said the American, ranked 52 in the world. "There are no easy matches at this level so I am happy to get through and I take a lot of confidence from today." - 'I'm good enough' - She added that making the last eight at Roland Garros had given her the belief that she can beat the top players. "The biggest thing I took away from that was just that I can compete with the top players in the world and I'm good enough," she said. Story continues "So I have definitely carried that away from the French Open and just been enjoying it a little bit. There has been a lot of positive feedback, which has been nice. I'm just trying to keep that going." Playing the first match of the tournament on centre court, Rogers held serve first up when Halep sent a backhand wide as both players adjusted to the conditions. As sweat quickly started dripping off them, it went with serve to 2-2 in a close-fought contest as Halep was forced to save two break points to stay at level pegging. Rogers, coming off a run to the quarter-finals at the Hobart International, finally got the break in the sixth game to lead 4-2 when Halep smashed a volley into the net. The sluggish Romanian saved two set points on her next service game but Rogers wasn't to be denied and she wrapped up the set 6-3 in a gruelling 46 minutes. The usually tenacious Halep was clearly struggling and she called for the trainer at the changeover. But a confident Rogers broke in the third game of the second set to go 2-1 ahead before quickly reeling off the last four games. Rogers' reward is a second-round clash against either Australian qualifier Ashleigh Barty or Germany's Annika Beck. Southeast Asia's first heart transplant patient and one of the world's longest surviving cases has died, his family said Monday, more than 31 years after his operation. Singaporean Seah Chiang Nee, a former newspaper editor, died aged 76 in a local hospital on Sunday, his wife Patricia Wong told AFP. He was hospitalised in July. Seah underwent heart transplant surgery on October 12, 1985 in Sydney, when doctors removed his organ in a five-and-a-half hour operation and replaced it with that of a 17-year-old boy who had just died. "Based on his record he should be one of the longest-surviving in the world," said Kenneth Ng, a cardiologist at the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore. "The median survival rate for heart transplant is only 10 years... so it is definitely on the high end." The world's longest surviving heart transplant patient was a Briton named John McCafferty, who died at age 73 last year, 33 years after the transplant, according to British media reports. In an interview with AFP in 2005, 20 years after the operation, Seah said he would have been content to live for four or five years after the transplant. He said he had never imagined he would be able to welcome the new millennium. "Twenty years is a long, long time and I'm already very grateful," he said then. San Fernando de Henares (Spain) (AFP) - The most high-profile suspect in a major Spanish corruption scandal took the stand Monday, admitting for the first time in public that the ruling conservative Popular Party (PP) once had a slush fund. Luis Barcenas, who was party manager from 1990 to 2008 and then treasurer for a year, is on trial with 36 other defendants in the so-called Gurtel affair. The trial centres on a vast corruption network that allegedly saw companies shower PP lawmakers and civil servants with bribes in exchange for public contracts. Companies would give Francisco Correa, a businessman also on trial, a commission of two to three percent on the value of contracts, according to a confession published by Correa in online daily eldiario.es. He would then allegedly give this to Barcenas after taking his share. Some of the money also went into a party slush fund, according to the report. The fund is an ingredient of the current trial but not the focus, as as a separate trial on it is pending. Barcenas was nevertheless questioned on the subject on Monday, and acknowledged there existed secret accounts in the PP, pointing to "financial resources that did not appear in official book-keeping." The former treasurer had already said there existed such secret accounting in 2013 when questioned by a judge behind closed doors, but this is the first time he has said this in public. But he said that rather than bribes, businessmen gave donations "generously" without expecting anything in return. "I never received anything from Correa, not for me nor for the PP," he added, blasting the businessman's allegations as "nonsense." When questioned by the judge in 2013, Barcenas had also claimed he had given Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy envelopes of cash. But on Monday, he defended Rajoy, saying he had given orders not to use Correa's companies anymore in 2003, "because he was told that Correa was engaged in illegal activities." Barcenas, who is also accused of stashing up to 48 million euros ($51 million) away in Swiss bank accounts, faces 42 years in prison for corruption and tax fraud. Stan Wawrinka apologised for slamming a ball at Martin Klizan after he survived a tense five-setter to reach the Australian Open second round on Monday. The three-time Grand Slam champion, fought back from a break down in the final set to overhaul the 35th-ranked Slovak 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in 3hr 24min on Margaret Court Arena. There was a dramatic moment in the final set when Wawrinka fired a volley at a defenceless Klizan, who had conceded the point after a rally and was standing at the net. The Swiss fourth seed quickly jumped over the net to offer his apologies as Klizan sunk to his haunches in pain. "That was, for sure, a tough shot for him. The thing is there are some players they fake you, and you stop playing and then they just put up the racquet," Wawrinka said. "So for me I already miss some easy ones. For me the most important thing was to run straight over to him. "I just wanted to make sure he was okay. I realized he was okay. "I'm sorry I touch him in the wrong place. But I think it was okay at the end." Klizan preferred not to pass judgement on Wawrinka but he said the Swiss could have hit his volley anywhere on the court. "I stopped playing. He could play anywhere, the whole court," the Slovak said. "He could play anywhere on the court and he hit me." Despite the incident, Wawrinka was relieved to get through a difficult first-up match to stay alive at the year's first major. "It's most important to get through that match, to win. For sure it's a big relief, especially when you are a break down in the fifth, 4-3, 40-15, I'm really happy to get through," he said. Wawrinka, who beat Rafael Nadal to win the 2014 Australian Open, will next play American Steve Johnson. The Swiss hit 21 aces and 13 winners with his signature single-handed backhand, but made 43 unforced errors as he struggled to contain left-hander Klizan's powerful forehand. Wawrinka maintained his record of never having lost in the first round at his 12th Australian Open campaign. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who have pledged to cut federal taxes to boost the economy might consider looking first at lessons learned in GOP-controlled states that adopted similar strategies, only to see growth falter and budget gaps widen. The situation is worrisome enough in Kansas, Oklahoma and Indiana that lawmakers are now debating whether to reverse course and raise taxes. And political leaders in states that have seen expanded Republican control, such as Arkansas and Iowa, are signaling caution about any new tax-cut proposals. "It does not take a Ph.D. in economics to know that we can't say yes to every spending need, and we should also not say yes to every tax-cut idea," Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson warned late last year. The reforms show that tax changes always carry an element of uncertainty about the economy, government needs and even the prices of commodities such as oil. Although the federal and state tax systems are significantly different, both are subject to forces beyond lawmakers' control. A recent Associated Press survey found that more than half of the states 33 are currently dealing with a budget shortfall or expect to confront one in the coming fiscal year. Experts say state economic growth has been slower than expected, with revenue in some places failing to meet projections or keep up with rising spending needs. Hutchinson, who took office vowing to slash income taxes, has proposed a much more modest cut of $50 million annually for low-income taxpayers. Meanwhile, a top Arkansas GOP lawmaker has said any tax-cut ideas may have to be set aside for a few years until the state's financial picture improves. State revenue is running $8.8 million behind projections for the fiscal year. After Indiana Republicans cut income, corporate and property taxes, the state developed a $300 million budget gap. GOP lawmakers are now pushing a plan to raise gasoline taxes and adopt a new registration fee for motorists to help pay for road improvements. Critics say the effort is simply shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to everyone else. Story continues "This is going to be the first session I remember coming into that the Republicans are advocating for tax increases," said Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, a Democrat. "At the same time, we're continuing to give tax breaks to corporations and businesses. How are they going to explain that?" In Kansas, lawmakers have struggled to balance the budget since they slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at the urging of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. The state has faced economic pressures related to a decline in agriculture and oil prices, but the broad-based tax cuts are viewed largely as an unsuccessful effort to stimulate the economy. Lawmakers are now debating their third tax increase since the cuts were passed, with the state facing projected shortfalls of $1.1 billion through June 2019. The Brownback administration has proposed higher taxes on certain business owners, cigarettes, beer and liquor. Other plans include diverting highway money to general government programs, scaling back contributions to the pension program for public employees and liquidating a $317 million investment fund. Brownback's budget director, Shawn Sullivan, warned of dire consequences if the proposals are not approved. "You're left with huge tax increases or huge (budget) cuts," Sullivan said. "Even the mix between the two is huge." Whatever happens in Washington is likely to affect state budgets in some way. That gives lawmakers another reason to move cautiously. A congressional tax overhaul could eliminate key exemptions benefiting state and local governments. At the same time, the promise by Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act would probably reduce the amount of federal money sent to states. In New York alone, repealing the health care law would cost the state an estimated $3.7 billion in federal funding, or roughly 2.5 percent of the state budget. A House tax plan would reduce federal revenue by $3 trillion in the first 10 years, while Trump's plan would cut revenue by $9.5 trillion over the same period, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. Trump has disputed the analysis. Previous tax cuts are not the only reason for downbeat budget forecasts. In Democrat-dominated California, where voters approved tax increases and state revenue has soared in recent years, Gov. Jerry Brown is warning of a possible $1.6 billion shortfall. Medicaid costs are contributing to budget gaps in Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New York and Rhode Island. Other states are dealing with increasing spending demands in education and health care. Energy-producing states such as Oklahoma, Alaska and New Mexico have struggled in part because of a decline in oil and natural gas prices. Oklahoma's budget woes were deepened by a reduction in the top individual income tax rate that took effect just as the state's economy began to contract amid lower oil and natural gas prices. Three straight years of budget shortfalls were closed largely with cuts to state agencies. Now the Republican governor and GOP-controlled Legislature are considering raising taxes on cigarettes, gasoline and some services to help fill an $870 million budget hole. The state Department of Human Services has slashed about 1,200 non-child welfare positions to deal with the falling revenue. "Every time the government wants to cut," said Marcellius Bell of Oklahoma City, who serves as legal guardian for three adults with severe developmental disabilities, "it seems like they cut services to the disabled, the veterans and the nursing homes." ___ Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington, D.C.; and Brian Slodysko in Indianapolis contributed to this report. ___ Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina and Andrew DeMillo at www.twitter.com/ademillo. State superintendent Tony Evers and candidates seeking to unseat him debated on Sunday the use of public money for private schools, how to increase interest in teaching, and school funding levels in the candidates first forum. Evers, former Dodgeville School District administrator John Humphries and Racine Park High School math teacher Rick Melcher fielded questions for an hour at a forum organized by Madisons East Side Progressives, covering myriad education issues facing Wisconsin schools, including whether more public money should be sent to schools and where it should and shouldnt be spent. A fourth candidate, former Whitnall School District Superintendent Lowell Holtz, did not attend the forum. Holtz said the campaign had a big scheduling conflict. Evers, Holtz and Humphries will appear on a Feb. 21 primary ballot while Melcher is running a write-in campaign. The two candidates with the top number of votes will move on to the general election in April. The candidates on Sunday revealed a key difference when forum moderator Nan Brien, a former Madison School Board member, asked the three to answer whether they supported using public funds and local property taxes for private schools. Humphries said yes, while Evers and Melcher said no. Humphries, who is backed by conservatives, is a supporter of school vouchers, while Evers, who is backed by Democrats, and Melcher during the forum voiced opposition to the expansion of school vouchers in the state in recent years since the Republican-controlled Legislature has increased the number of taxpayer-funded vouchers available for students to use to attend private schools. Overall on school funding, Evers said that the state is not spending enough on schools and that more funding should be sent to schools with higher numbers of students in foster care, students living in poverty and students who dont speak English as a first language. Humphries said academic achievement particularly elementary reading levels should be raised and budget efficiencies should be found before funding levels are increased. He said schools also should be held accountable on whether theyre spending money on programs that are found not to be effective after years of use. Melcher said if elected, he would seek to increase funding for public schools by the same amount used to pay for private school vouchers in recent years. The three also differed on controversial legislative proposals to allow students to be drug tested in schools, prohibiting transgender students from using school bathrooms assigned to their gender identity and allowing concealed carry permit holders to bring guns to school campuses. In response to all three proposals, Melcher said the Legislature has better things to worry about. Really? We dont have more serious things to deal with? said Melcher. I have students showing up with a third grade (math abilities) and youre worried about what bathroom theyre using? Evers said the proposal to allow concealed carry on school campuses is just a horrible idea, and that a proposal that would allow parents to ask a school district to test their children for drug use is a concept best left to local school boards. On the school bathroom proposal, Evers said schools must respect transgender kids thats the bottom line. The idea that we would compel a transgender kid to use a bathroom of their (gender at birth) its absolutely ridiculous, said Evers. Humphries did not say whether he supported the pieces of legislation, but said if he were elected state superintendent, he would talk with the lawmakers making the proposals about how to best address the issues the bills are aiming to fix. The guns, the drugs, the transgender issue, and I would bring it back to the voucher question these are fundamentally legislative issues, said Humphries. The Legislature controls these issues. The state superintendent doesnt make laws. One point of agreement among the candidates was on raising teachers salaries and improving work environments to ensure teachers enter and stay in the profession. Evers and Melcher agreed on sending more money to school districts who otherwise would not have enough money to retain teachers that are offered more money from wealthier school districts. Humphries said the teacher preparation programs in the states universities and colleges need to be examined, to ensure the education schools are properly training teachers so teachers know what theyre getting into and dont leave soon after entering the profession. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f33680%2f622529ee-948b-40d1-8133-7cc4da40d407 It sounds like the plot of a terrifying thriller, but in this case, there's a lucky escape and no fatalities. A Japanese surfer was swept six kilometres (3.7 miles) out to sea around Bulli, on Australia's east coast, spending a night floating on his surfboard in the open ocean. SEE ALSO: Drone captures travel blogger's hectic brush with a great white shark The 37-year-old unnamed man was eventually picked up by sailors on container ship MSC Damla Friday morning, after he was sighted by crew. The man told police he got caught in a strong current, and struggled to get back to shore because of the waves, according to ABC News. "He was attempting to paddle back in for six hours before he ran out of energy and drifted at sea," Inspector Darren Wood from the Marine Area Command of NSW Police told the news outlet. Image: msc Wood said the surfer had been travelling by himself; so no-one knew he was at sea nor were authorities alerted to the fact he was missing. SC said in a statement that the despite the choppy sea conditions, the ship's crew were able to dispatch a lifebuoy from the vessel and bring the man on board. On the ship, he was given food, dry clothes and wrapped in blankets as the ship's crew waited for a pilot boat from Port Kembla to take the man to shore. He was taken to Wollongong Hospital for fluid replacement and checks, but was released in the afternoon. Port Kembla Water Police Sergeant Sean Netting told the Illawarra Mercury that the man seemed surprisingly unfazed by his ordeal, despite spending 16 hours at sea. "The risk would be hypothermia from exposure to the elements, and drowning, should he have become separated from the board. Most people that get themselves in that situation die. He's just so lucky that someone on ship spotted him," he told the newspaper. "He was in remarkably good spirits and basically had no [health] issues at all. He's a survivor." Story continues Image: MSC Kevin Clarke, MD for MSC Australia, said that news of the rescue made it "extremely proud of the crew." "This was, by all accounts, a dramatic rescue which appears to have enabled the man to walk free from his ordeal completely unscathed," he said. "Naturally, our crew are always being observant of marine traffic, but it is exceptionally fortunate they were able to spot this man waving for help from his surf board." UPDATE: Jan. 16, 2017, 7:51 p.m. AEDT Added images from MSC. ZURICH (Reuters) - Syngenta Chief Executive Erik Fyrwald expects regulatory approval soon for ChemChina's proposed $43 billion takeover of the Swiss pesticides and seeds group, he said on Monday. "I am very confident that we will finish the deal. We are making a lot of progress," he told broadcaster CNBC in an interview from the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. "We are working well with the U.S. and the EU regulators now toward finalising the agreements with them and expect to be finished in the not too distant future," he said. China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) [CNNCC.UL] and Syngenta AG have proposed minor concessions to the EU's competition watchdog to address concerns over their merger plan, sources close to the matter told Reuters last week. (Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Susan Fenton) Beirut (AFP) - Syrian rebel groups said Monday they will attend peace talks next week, in a boost to efforts by rivals Turkey and Russia to put an end to the nearly six-year-old conflict. The pledges came as the Islamic State group, which is excluded from peace talks as well as a nationwide truce deal struck on December 30, advanced in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province, cutting off a key airport from government-held territory. The talks, beginning on January 23 in the Kazakh capital Astana, are designed to build on the truce that has largely held despite escalating violence across several battlefronts in recent days. Organised by rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Russia and Iran, the meetings are the latest bid to put an end to the brutal war raging in Syria since March 2011. The powers have backed opposing sides of Syria's conflict for years but have worked closely in recent weeks to end the bloodshed. If the Astana meetings are successful, they could bode well for fresh UN-hosted political negotiations on the conflict next month in Geneva. "All the rebel groups are going (to Astana). Everyone has agreed," said Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group. "Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes," Alloush said. Sources from the opposition and the regime said the talks would "probably" be face-to-face. Several rounds of peace talks brokered by the United Nations have failed to produce a political solution to the conflict. The Astana talks will adopt a different approach, focusing strictly on military developments ahead of the discussions in Switzerland in February. - 'Only military' talks - Ahmad Ramadan, from the leading National Coalition opposition group, said the Astana talks would aim to reinforce the truce "while the details of the political process will be left to Geneva". Story continues Osama Abu Zeid, a legal adviser to rebel groups, said rebels were encouraged to attend by the fact that "the agenda will be focused only on the ceasefire". The opposition's delegation to Astana "will be only military" but will consult "a team of legal and political advisers" from the High Negotiations Committee umbrella group, he said. For Syria expert Thomas Pierret, the participants "will discuss military questions because those are the only ones they agree on". US President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has been invited but has not yet officially responded. Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was "optimistic" about the talks and would be "ready for reconciliation with (rebels) on condition that they lay down their arms". Hundreds rallied Monday in the Kurdish city of Qamishli in protest at the exclusion of Kurdish political or military groups from the peace talks. - 'Huge reinforcements' - Syria's conflict began with protests against Assad in 2011, but it has since morphed into a war that has killed 310,000 people and witnessed the rise of radical jihadists like IS. The group advanced Monday around the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, cutting off the regime's access route to a nearby airport. "The supply route to the airport is cut, and the city's eastern half is cut off from its western half", Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. A military source told AFP that government forces carried out more than 20 air strikes on IS positions on Monday. "IS has resorted to heavy use of infiltrators and huge reinforcements from Raqa and western parts of Deir Ezzor province," the source said. Raqa, to the north, is the de facto capital of the self-styled caliphate IS declared across Syria and Iraq more than two years ago. IS already controls more than half of Deir Ezzor and launched a fierce offensive Saturday to capture remaining government-held territory, where the UN estimates 100,000 people live. The Observatory said the assault has killed at least 28 regime forces so far, as well as 40 IS fighters and at least 14 civilians. By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have decided to attend peace talks backed by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan to press for full implementation of a ceasefire they say has been widely violated by the government and its Iranian-backed allies. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing control of districts of eastern Aleppo they had held for nearly four years. The United States, which led failed efforts to launch peace talks last year, has not been involved in the latest diplomacy. Assad has already said his government is ready to attend the talks. After winning ground with Russian and Iranian military support, he looks stronger than at any point in the war. The rebels took the decision at meetings underway in Ankara, and are now working to form a delegation that will be headed by Mohammad Alloush, the head of the political office of Jaish al-Islam rebel group, Alloush told Reuters. He said the rebels were going to Astana to "neutralize the criminal role" of Iran. Analysts believe the rebels have been under pressure from Turkey, one of their main sponsors, to attend. Earlier this month, they called off any talks on their participation in the Astana meeting over what they said were government violations of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey. Turkey's priorities in Syria appear to have shifted away from toppling Assad towards combating Kurdish groups and Islamic State in areas of northern Syria near its border. Its ties with Russia have also improved in recent months. "The factions will go and the first thing they will discuss will be the matter of the ceasefire and the violations by the regime," said an official in a Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group who declined to be identified because the groups had yet to appoint a spokesman. "This will be a test for the Russians as the guarantor," he said. A second official, Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: "The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire - the humanitarian issues - aid deliveries, release of detainees." The rebel groups would reject any discussion of broader political issues at the Astana talks, the rebel officials said. FIGHTING CONTINUES The talks are scheduled for Jan. 23 in Astana. Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday that Ankara and Moscow had decided to invite the United States to attend. A Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed preparations for the talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. As with last year's peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey. Fighting has continued despite the ceasefire, notably near Damascus where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah are trying to recapture a rebel-held area where the capital's main water supply has been bombed out of service. Separately, Islamic State, excluded from both truce and talks, has launched its fiercest assault in a year against a besieged government enclave in the city of Deir al-Zor. [L5N1F63Q1] The rebel groups that will attend the talks include FSA factions fighting in northern Syria, some of them the groups defeated in Aleppo. Alloush's faction, Jaish al-Islam, is one of the bigger rebel groups, with a strong presence in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus. The delegation will be different to one sent to peace talks in Geneva last year by the main opposition council, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. The HNC, which includes political and armed opposition groups, represented the opposition in peace talks last year. Alloush sits on the HNC, which said on Saturday that it had supported efforts towards the talks in Kazakhstan, and viewed the meeting as a preliminary step for resuming the next round of political negotiations in Geneva. Malahifji said the new delegation would be formed in coordination with the HNC, but it would differ from it because "the Russians are focusing very much on the military factions". Assad said last week his government was ready to negotiate on "everything" in Kazakhstan, including his own position within the Syrian constitution. (Additional reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Dominic Evans, Giles Elgood, Anna Willard) Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has risked Beijings wrath by remarking that her trip to Central America via the U.S. has allowed Taiwan to walk on the international stage, just a day after President-elect Donald Trump reiterated that American recognition of the one China principle was up for negotiation. China and Taiwan effectively split in 1949 following a civil war, though Beijing considers the self-governing island of 25 million a breakaway province with which it must one day be reunified by force if necessary. Chinese officials are extremely wary of any statement like Tsais that might give the impression that Taiwan is an independent nation. Our first objective [of this trip] was to consolidate our state friendships and allow Taiwan to walk on the international stage, Tsai said at Taipei International Airport on Sunday night, according Reuters. Tsai had already angered China by last month by speaking on the phone with Trump, marking the first direct contact between the leaders of the U.S. and Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979. Since winning the presidential election, Trump has also repeatedly questioned the one China policy agreed between Beijing and a previous Taiwan government. Otherwise known as the 1992 Consensus, this states that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to the same nation, even if their leaderships disagree on what the legitimate government of that nation is. Tsai, however, belongs to a political party that does not recognize the consensus and has historically favored formal independence. On Saturday, Chinas Foreign Ministry responded to Trumps latest remarks regarding Taiwan in a Wall Street Journal interview by saying that the one China principle was the nonnegotiable lynchpin of Sino-U.S. relations. It urged the President-elect to recognize the sensitivity of the Taiwan question. The Chinese Communist Partylinked Global Times newspaper went further by describing Trumps wavering over Taiwans status as despicable in an editorial. Story continues Beijing has long striven to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, vetoing its membership to the U.N. or potentially lucrative free-trade groupings. After Sao Tome and Principe switched its allegiance to Beijing last month, there are now only 21 nations that recognize Taiwan mainly small Central American and Caribbean states. Chinese officials had called for Tsai to be barred from transiting though the U.S. on her way to Central America. The U.S. government refused, however, and Tsai even met senior Republican lawmakers such as Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Houston during her stopover. However, there are signs that growing cross-strait tensions are hurting Taiwans economy. Chinese visitors to Taiwan have dropped by about a third over the past few months, and many Chinese provinces have nixed educational exchange programs. Beijing has also started rattling its saber, sending military aircraft over a channel adjacent to Taiwan and sailing an aircraft carrier fleet into the Taiwan Strait last week. Tsais personal approval rating has also taken a battering, with more Taiwan citizens now disapproving of her than approving. Around 40% of Taiwans exports go to the mainland, and many in Taiwan fear the economic fallout of worsening relations with China, especially as Trump simply appears to be using Taiwan to leverage concessions from Beijing. President Tsai has to be very careful, says Professor Rana Mitter, a China specialist at Oxford University. [Trump] has never talked about democracy or taking liberal American values around the world. Hes only ever talked about putting America first. In bustling Abidjan, a homegrown company has tapped into the global taxi app revolution that has spawned Uber and other online transport networks. While Uber has already jumped into several African markets from South Africa to Egypt, Africab seeks to provide Ivory Coast's emerging middle class with a locally-owned high-tech and reliable travel option. Africab's clients can use the company app to book its taxis -- which cannot be hailed in the road, and it advertises its services only online. Its fixed fares tend to be higher than for regular taxis, but clients benefit from extra perks. A daytime trip that would cost around 2,000 CFA francs ($3.2, three euros) in an old cab can cost 3,300 CFA francs in an Africab. But the start-up's sleek vehicles -- which are owned by the company, not by the driver -- are all air-conditioned. They are fitted with tablet devices and offer free wi-fi internet access. "Brr, it's cold inside!" jests Ivorian comedian Michel Gohou in an advertising video for Africab's fleet. "Africab is the new way of getting around," brags Vangsy Goma, the founder and managing director of the firm. The company, Goma says on Africab's website, seeks "to build an entrepreneurial culture that is based on technology and respects African identity." The idea for Africab came from trying to navigate Abidjan's unruly traffic, says Goma, a native of the Republic of Congo educated in the US and Europe and married to an Ivorian woman. - Tapping into growth - "When I came here, I often had difficulty organising journeys. You had to get out on the street, haggle... or sometimes rent a car and brave the traffic," he said. "The cars (regular taxis) were dilapidated, they are often more than 20 years old. Drivers are badly trained and for the most part, there is no air-conditioning." Until political strife erupted in 2010-11, Ivory Coast had long been the star economic performer in west Africa. Story continues But when former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down despite an election defeat, 3,000 people were killed in months of conflict. With a 10-percent yearly economic growth rate, the west African country is now back on the rails. The International Monetary Fund said last month that it was on track towards becoming the continent's fastest-growing economy. Companies like Africab are tapping into the budding optimism that the upward trend has brought. Its launch in February 2016 cost one billion CFA francs (1.5 million euros, $1.6 million) in investment, of which 800 million was raised by bank loans. Goma is confident about expanding the firm, with a monthly turnover that rose from 20 million CFA francs in April to 60 million by September and a fast-growing portfolio of business clients. In coming weeks, he says, Africab taxis will take to the streets of Lome and Cotonou, the capital of Togo and the economic capital of Benin. To make it work, the company is striving to adapt its services to local needs. As is often the case in African towns and cities, many of Abidjan's backstreets and alleys have never been named. To get round this, Africab maps the addresses of clients and familiar landmarks. And in a striking contrast with ordinary taxis, Africab drivers are bound to abide by the highway code. - 'Less stress' - Driving on pavements or in emergency lanes to avoid traffic jams is strictly banned, and all company cabbies have to retake both driving and highway code tests. Satisfied client Fatou Bamba, who manages her own company, finds Africab's cars clean and comfortable -- plus there's the internet bonus. "Above all, you're safe... You can work inside an Africab and you don't feel the stress of driving and the traffic jams," Bamba said. Taxi driver Ahi Mian, 32, appears happy to have joined Africab's fleet. "It's better for me. I drove a (regular) taxi before. Here we have fixed hours and the car is air-conditioned. But above all, there's less stress," he says. The government ethics officer who last week criticized President-elect Donald Trump for his decision not to divest himself of his assets before taking office is now under fire from both Trumps transition team and the chairman of a committee in the House of Representatives that could stand in the way of his agencys legislative reauthorization. Without presenting any evidence, Reince Priebus, Trumps incoming chief of staff, on Sunday accused Walter Shaub, the head of the Office of Government Ethics, of being ethically compromised himself. Not long afterward House Oversight and Investigations Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) declared that he believes Shaub, in criticizing Trump, has been unethical. Related: Blind Trust in Donald Trump Could Be Costly The anger at Shaub arose primarily from remarks he delivered at the Brookings Institution last week, in which he declared Trumps plan to hand over management of his company to his sons while retaining ownership a meaningless gesture that does nothing to ameliorate the conflicts of interest he will face as president. Like many ethics experts, Shaub had said that only total divestiture would insulate Trump from potential accusations of self-dealing. It's important to understand that the president is now entering a world of public service. He's going to be asking his own appointees to make sacrifices, he said. He's going to be asking our men and women in uniform to risk their lives in conflicts around the world. So, no, I don't think divestiture is too high a price to pay to be the president of the United States of America. Priebus, in an appearance on ABCs This Week, sounded a vaguely threatening note, saying, The head of the government ethics ought to be careful because that person is becoming extremely political. Apparently, may have made a -- publicly supported Hillary Clinton as calling out the president with information on Twitter about our disentangling of the business over a month ago. Story continues So I'm not so sure what this person at Government Ethics, what sort of standing he has anymore in giving these opinions. Related: 4 Ways Trumps Conflicts of Interest Could Actually Hurt the US Chaffetz, appearing on the same program, called attention to a series of tweets from the OGE Twitter account from Nov. 30, which Shaub had written. They praised Trump for his decision to divest his assets, despite the fact that the president-elect had made no such announcement. Shaub later said that he was trying to nudge Trump in the right direction using the vernacular of the president-elects favorite social media platform. My question is about the head of the Office of Government Ethics. Is he acting ethically when he sent out nine tweets praising Donald Trump saying that his plan was brilliant? Chaffetz asked. How did he come to that conclusion? And how does he come to his current conclusions having never done an investigation and never looked at the paperwork in the point where he can actually come to a reasonable conclusion? I think that's unethical. Chaffetz last week released a letter he had sent Shaub demanding that he present himself to staff members of his committee for a transcribed interview and left no doubt that the funding of his agency -- and his job -- would hang on whether or not Chaffetz approved of his answers. He also said that he was not inclined to request information on Trumps businesses once he is sworn in. Multiple ethics experts have warned that as both president and owner of the Trump Organization, Trump will immediately be in violation of the Constitutions emoluments clause, which bars elected officials from accepting payments from foreign governments. Chaffetz said investigating Trumps ties to foreign governments would be a fishing expedition. Indeed, the emoluments clause is not as black and white as some have alleged. Two different articles by constitutional scholars highlight the ambiguity. A piece in The New York Times by Seth Barrett Tillman argues that the Foreign Gifts Clause in the constitution does not apply to the President. Whether or not Donald Trump is violating the letter or spirit of the emoluments law is argued in The Washington Post by Jonathan H. Adler who says: Whether or not one concludes that Trumps business dealings violate the letter or the spirit of the Emoluments Clause, the underlying controversy is almost certainly non-justiciable. It is difficult to conceive of a scenario in which someone would have standing to challenge Trumps arrangements and even harder to think what sort of remedy could be ordered by a court. In other words, if there are concerns about how President Trump handles his various investments, the only remedies will be political. Related: Trumps Health Secretary Invested in a Company Linked to the Opioid Epidemic The pressure being put on Shaub, and the disinterest in Trumps potential conflicts has infuriated longtime ethics experts. Ambassador Norman Eisen, the former chief ethics officer for the Obama administration, said, I think that is terrible. Walt Shaub is a dedicated public servant, has come up through the ranks under both Democrats and Republicans...Walt Shaub is a true ethics hero for speaking out. The Office of Government Ethics has taken the right position on this, one consistent with many Republicans and Democrats, said Richard Painter, the former chief ethics officer for the George W. Bush administration. I believe yes, if he doesn't make sure that all the foreign government payments -- and this includes banks and other corporations owned by foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds, that all of that money is not out of the Trump organization by Friday, when he takes the oath, he will be in violation of the Constitution," Painter said. Eisen went on to criticize Chaffetz for placing his focus on a bureaucrat rather than the incoming president. Why is Congressman Chaffetz investigating Walter Shaub for doing his job...for speaking so courageously? It was one of the most extraordinary acts of courage that I've seen from a career public official. Instead of investigating the fact that the president-elect is going to be violating the Constitution? Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: HONOLULU (AP) One last putt. One more record. And two unforgettable weeks in Hawaii for Justin Thomas. Thomas began the Sony Open with a 15-foot eagle putt on his final hole to shoot 59. He ended it Sunday with a two-putt birdie from 60 feet that gave him yet another entry in the PGA Tour record book for the lowest 72-hole score in history. His final act was to stand before the members of Waialae Country Club, champagne flute in hand for the traditional toast. Thomas chugged it down, smiled and said to them, "I think I had a glass with a hole in it." Bottoms up, kid. The 23-year-old from Kentucky gave the best glimpse yet of his potential with a game that was at times overpowering and never more efficient. He closed with a 5-under 65 for a seven-shot victory, which gave him as much satisfaction as his score of 253 to set the record. Thomas, who won the CIMB Classic in Malaysia last fall, became only the third player since 1970 to win three times in his first five tournaments to start a PGA Tour season. The others were Tiger Woods (three times) and Johnny Miller (twice). His victory came one week after he won the SBS Tournament of Champions by three weeks at Kapalua. "It's been an unbelievable week. Unforgettable," Thomas said before going to sign his historic card. Thomas was more nervous than ever when he arrived Sunday from endless mentions that no one had ever lost a seven-shot lead on the PGA Tour. No one got closer than five shots all day, and with four birdies in a five-hole stretch around the turn, Thomas took aim at the record book. That was his only real challenge Sunday. Tommy Armour held the previous 72-hole mark at 254 in the 2003 Texas Open. Thomas also set the 36-hole record (123) and tied Steve Stricker for the 54-hole record (188). And while his 18-hole score of 59 is no longer a record, it's still a magic number. "I'm not joking when I say I won the other tournament," Justin Rose said after a 64 that was only good for second place. "Had he had a bad day, I was there to pick up the pieces. But that was never going to happen. He's on cruise control right now." Story continues Rose beat out Jordan Spieth, who also was playing for second place. Spieth shot 63 and finished alone in third. The first full-field event of the year on the PGA Tour was a one-man show. "He's got full control of his game, full confidence, and he's executing under pressure," Spieth said. "It's a lot of fun to see. Certainly stuff that myself and a lot of our peers have seen going back almost 10 years now. He's certainly showing the world what he's capable of." Thomas joined Ernie Els in 2003 as the only players to sweep Hawaii, and this performance might have been even better. Thomas was 49-under par for his two weeks, compared with Els at 47 under. He said on Friday that he hasn't "shown the world my best golf." He came pretty close these last two weeks. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm playing OK," Thomas said. "I would take the golf I played the last few weeks every week I play." He moved to No. 8 in the world. Thomas, thinking more about the trophy and another record when he started the final round, took no chances early on. He was 1 over through seven holes, making a soft bogey with a three-putt from 45 feet on No. 4 and a tough par save on No. 6, and still no one got closer than five shots. But when he poured in a 20-foot birdie putt on the eighth, Thomas shifted into another gear. That was the start of four birdies in five holes the exception was a birdie putt he missed from just inside 10 feet and he stretched his lead to as many as nine shots. Waialae was vulnerable all week with not much wind, fast fairways and greens that were softer than usual. Thomas produced the eighth sub-60 round in PGA Tour history Thursday. Kevin Kisner had a shot at 59 on Saturday until missing a 9-foot eagle putt on his final hole. And on Sunday, Chez Reavie made a hole-in-one with a 6-iron on the 17th hole that gave him a shot at a sub-60 round. Only a bogey on the sixth hole (he started on No. 10) stopping him, and he had to settle for a 61. That matched the third-best score of the week. Even in easier conditions, no one played like Thomas. Paris (AFP) - Record-setting Briton Alex Thomson is closing in on long-time leader Armel Le Cleac'h in a dramatic denouement to the Vendee Globe around the world yacht race. The exhausted, first finishers are set to arrive on Thursday to a hero's welcome at Sables d'Olonne on the French Atlantic coast. But whether it will be Le Cleac'h bagging the habitual success for France or Thomson scoring a dramatic first British triumph remains unclear after the latter's spectacular attempt to overhaul his rival. At 1700 GMT Thomson was just 74.6 nautical miles behind, with less than 800 nm to go. Sunday night into early Monday morning saw Thomson set a new record for distance covered in a single hulled yacht in 24 hours, skimming across 536.81 nautical miles of ocean at an average speed of 22.36 knots. That outdid the 534.48 nautical miles which Frenchman Francois Gabart set at an average speed of 22.27 knots. "I'm very happy but in reality I must try to get as close as possible to Armel," said Thomson. "It's tough at the moment, I'm not reducing the gap as much as I'd like." Gabart, commentating for the event's television channel, called the duel on the high seas "truly magic". "We're heading for a super finish between Armel and Alex. It is fabulous to see these boats go so quick. "The battle between Armel and Alex is magnificent. Armel is not in an easy position, he has much to lose. But he still has quite a few strings to his bow and everything it takes to hang in there." Organisers expect the race winner to cross the line in this 87th edition between 0700 and 1500 GMT on Thursday -- that would see another speed mark. If the winner finishes before 1202 GMT then he will come in just under 74 days at sea to smash Gabart's 2012-2013 mark of 78 days 2hr 16min. Le Cleac'h has been leading since December 3 in his Banque Populaire VIII with Welshman Thomson fighting to stay in contention in his Hugo Boss. Story continues Neither man has before won the race, an unyielding endurance test which Gabart says in his case "radically changed my life". Gabart was the youngest winner, aged 29, and was in floods of tears at the finish after his global battle against the elements. "I was awash with a real cocktail of emotions," he told AFP. "First of all there was relief -- under pressure for 78 days. Then of course there was pride and pleasure at meeting up again with loved ones." As Le Cleac'h and Thomson battle for supremacy, Gabart's next project is to circumnavigate the globe later this year in a multi-hulled, faster vessel. Vendee Globe standings at 1700 GMT 1. Armel Le Cleac'h (FRA/Banque populaire VIII) at 763 nautical miles from the finish, 2. Alex Thomson (GBR/Hugo Boss) at 74.6 nm from the leader, 3. Jeremie Beyou (FRA/MaAtre Coq) 841.38, 4. Jean-Pierre Dick (FRA/StMichel-Virbac) 2314, 5. Yann EliAs (FRA/QuAguiner-LeucAmie Espoir) 1751.24, 6. Jean Le Cam (FRA/FinistAre Mer Vent) 1757.07, 7. Louis Burton (FRA/Bureau VallAe) 2899.69, 8. Nandor Fa (HUN/Spirit of Hungary) 4497.68, 9. Eric Bellion (FRA/CommeUnSeulHomme) 5027.82, 10. Conrad Colman (NZL/Foresight Natural Energy) 5144.72 The nonprofit 100 Black Men of Madison, which works to reduce the educational achievement gap in area schools, received an infusion of $154,000 Monday the single largest donation in the groups history. The gift from the Madison Club Charitable Foundation should help the group double to 1,000 the number of students it helps in a year through mentoring, career advice, tutoring and other support, said Floyd Rose, president of 100 Black Men of Madison. This will propel us to go far beyond where we are, Rose said at a presentation of the check Monday at the Madison Club, 5 E. Wilson St. The size of the donation was record-setting in another way: It was the single largest sum raised to date by the foundation at its annual charity gala. The Madison Club is a private social club that draws its membership from among the citys most influential residents. A couple of years ago, the club surveyed its members for direction on where to focus its fundraising efforts, foundation president Sheryl Theo said. The achievement gap came through loud and strong, she said. Consequently, for the last two years, the foundation has focused on supporting organizations with a direct impact on the achievement gap, and it will continue that approach for the 2017 gala, Theo said. In 2015, the gala raised $127,000 for Simpson Street Free Press, a neighborhood-based nonprofit organization for young people that publishes student newspapers and helps students succeed academically. The foundation is taking applications through Feb. 15 for the next recipient. Information on the nomination process is at madisonclubfoundation.org. This years gala will be Nov. 4 at the Madison Club and will be open to the public. The recipient organization works in partnership with the Madison Club to publicize the gala and help make it successful, something at which 100 Black Men of Madison excelled, Theo said. They did a spectacular job of rallying the troops and getting everyone behind it, she said. The $154,000 will help 100 Black Men of Madison expand Project SOAR, which stands for Student Opportunities, Access and Readiness, Rose said. The project provides Madison middle and high school students with peer mentoring, career help and discussions on social issues that often drive up absenteeism and push down graduation rates. The project is primarily aimed at black male students ages 12-17 in the Madison School District, but Rose said the project serves students from all demographic groups and that young people across Dane County benefit. A child in need is a child in need, he said. 100 Black Men of Madison began in 1994 and was incorporated in 1995 as a nonprofit organization. It is an affiliate of 100 Black Men of America Inc. The Madison Club Charitable Foundation was formed in 2005. The total of all its donations since then surpasses $1 million, said Krista Laubmeier, director of marketing and membership. Other recent recipients of donations from the foundation include YWCA Madison ($70,000 in 2010), Ronald McDonald House Charities ($78,000, 2011), Domestic Abuse Intervention Services of Dane County ($114,600, 2012), Henry Vilas Zoo ($90,000, 2013), and Badger Honor Flight ($103,000, 2014). Three militants were killed in an overnight gun battle with soldiers in a village in Indian Kashmir, an army spokesman said Monday. Rajesh Kalia said troops cordoned off the village near the tourist resort of Pahalgam after receiving a tip that fighters were hiding out in a private home there. "On specific intelligence army soldiers cordoned off the village on Sunday evening and the gun battle started," Kalia told AFP. "Three terrorists have been killed. Their bodies and weapons have been retrieved." A local police officer said soldiers using mortar fire had destroyed the house. Hundreds of thousands of troops are deployed in Indian-administered Kashmir, where rebel groups have for decades been fighting for independence or a merger with Pakistan. The restive Himalayan region suffered a rise in violence last year after the killing in July of a popular young rebel leader in a gun battle with soldiers. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but both claim it in full. The two nuclear-armed neighbours have twice gone to war over the territory since gaining independence from British rule in 1947. VIENNA (Reuters) - Swiss police detained 32 Tibetans and Swiss nationals protesting against a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday, a spokesman said. Swiss authorities had limited the duration of the protest in the center of Bern to two hours before noon (1100 GMT) to avoid the kind of confrontation that marked the last visit by a Chinese president 18 years ago. Several people near a security zone set up for the state visit failed to comply with police instructions, Bern cantonal police said in a statement. "Thirty-two people were detained to secure safety," a spokesman said. At noon, police prevented a man from setting himself on fire, according to the statement. The man was taken care of by doctors. Fourteen activists were detained near the Swiss parliament building in the afternoon as they continued to protest past the time restriction, waving posters saying "Free Tibet" and "Don't Deal With Killers", the association of Tibetan Youth in Europe said. "The situation inside Tibet is getting worse day by day. Our people are being oppressed, our people are being imprisoned," the association's spokeswoman Migmar Dhakyel said. "We are really concerned (about) how our government, our own government treats us, doesn't permit us to demonstrate." Between 700 and 800 Tibetans and Swiss had gathered in the city center and protested peacefully against the Tibet policies of China, Tenzin Nyingbu, President of the Tibetan Community in Switzerland & Liechtenstein, told Reuters. Most of them left before noon as agreed with Bern municipal security, Nyingbu said. The Chinese leader arrived in the Swiss capital for a gala dinner on Sunday afternoon. After holding talks with Swiss officials on Monday, he will attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, a first for a Chinese president. In 1999, demonstrators took to roofs overlooking the Swiss parliament with banners demanding "Free Tibet" during a visit by China's then-president Jiang Zemin. Police intervened when people tried to throw eggs at the Chinese delegation. Jiang questioned Swiss leaders' control over their country and remarked that they risked "losing a good friend". China and Switzerland forged a free trade agreement in 2014 and Swiss companies count China among their most important markets. (This story corrects name of spokeswoman of the association of Tibetan Youth in Europe to Migmar Dhakyel, not Mimpara Dhakyel, in paragraph 7) (Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Marina Depetris; Editing by Clelia Oziel) President-elect Donald Trump told The Washington Post his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act will include insurance for everybody, adding he will force drug-makers to negotiate with the government on Medicare and Medicaid prices. Trumps description of NATO as obsolete has prompted Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to says Europes fate is in our own hands. Were tracking the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5). Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) certainly didnt expect Abbie Mills successor to be an 11-year-old child in Foxs Sleepy Hollow. In Fridays episode, the next witness was revealed to be none other than Homeland Security Agent Diana Thomass (Janina Gavankar) daughter Molly (Oona Yaffe). Furthermore, the once mute Molly started talking when she saw Crane. It was clearly a sign that she is destined to witness the apocalypse. But how does Ichabod feel about his new partner? More importantly, what role will she play in Sleepy Hollow? Clearly an 11-year-old cant be expected to fight demons with guns. There were lots of different avenues that the new Witness couldve gone down. An 11-year-old girl certainly wasnt one that I saw coming, Mison told TVLine, For Ichabod, to see that its an 11-year-old girl, knowing the sort of battle that shes entering, how could anyone be enthused? How could he be excited that hes found the next witess, when its a child? Sleepy Hollow Photo: Tina Rowden/Fox Although Ichabod and Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) chose not to tell Diana about Mollys pivotal role, he will break the bad news in the upcoming episode in Sleepy Hollow Season 4. Crane does a scene in one of the episodes where he explains to Diana that the witnesses in the Bible are only meant to be there to witness, Mison previewed. Theres nothing in the Bible that says, They go in with flaming crossbows and things. Ichabod and Abbie chose to fight, to battle against it. And Molly can choose a different route -- which I suppose is one that he and Diana and Jenny would encourage. Meanwhile, Sleepy Hollow Season 4, episode 3 will see the return of Cranes arch nemesis, the Headless Horseman. The synopsis states that the Horseman will threaten the safety of Washingtons highest officials. Additionally, Jakes (Jerry MacKinnon) extensive knowledge of the tunnels becomes important when the team uncovers a secret from the past. Story continues Sleepy Hollow Season 4, episode 3, titled Heads Of State, premieres Friday, Jan. 20 at 9 p.m. EST on Fox. Related Articles BEIJING (AP) Donald Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established U.S. policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: ___ TRADE Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. BEIJING (AP) Responding to remarks by Donald Trump, China's Foreign Ministry on Monday said the country's "one-China principle" regarding Taiwan is not negotiable and any attempt to reconsider the issue would be self-defeating. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that anyone attempting to use Taiwan's status in a negotiation would be "smashing their feet by lifting a rock." "Not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. "Whoever attempts to harm the one-China principle out of any motive or uses the principle as a bargaining chip will definitely be facing broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community," Hua said. JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) President-elect Donald Trump's billionaire business partner and possible political proxy in Indonesia nurses big leadership ambitions in the vast but perennially lagging Southeast Asian nation, which he says isn't developed enough to have a successful democracy and needs strong leadership. Boasting more than a million followers on Twitter, three popular television channels and a newly minted political party, Hary Tanoesoedibjo says he has had enough success in business and now wants power of the political kind. Tanoesoedibjo, better known as Tanoe, is like Trump a free-trade critic. He's making his pitch to tens of millions of Indonesians left behind by a lopsided economy that favors a few major cities. Story continues HANOI, Vietnam (AP) Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday urged Japan to invest more in the Southeast Asian country to become its top foreign investor. Speaking at a conference of business leaders from both countries also attended by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Phuc said Vietnam would like to see Japan invest more in infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing and services. "At this meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, we wish that Japan would be the largest (foreign) investor to Vietnam, not other countries," Phuc said. South Korea is Vietnam's largest foreign investor with total investments of $50 billion, followed by Japan with $42 billion. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) A Turkish cargo plane crashed Monday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Boeing 747 crashed at 7:40 a.m. local time while approaching Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek, in this Central Asian nation. Footage from the scene showed the plane's nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. A dozen body bags were laid out in the yard of one home. A car parked nearby was mangled in the crash, and a refrigerator lay open. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) In a departure from the leniency typically given South Korean big businesses, prosecutors on Monday requested the arrest of the de facto head of Samsung Electronics, the country's most valuable company, in an influence-peddling scandal that has toppled the country's president. Lee Jae-yong, the 48-year-old vice chairman at Samsung Electronics, faces allegations of embezzlement, of lying under oath during a parliamentary hearing and of offering a bribe of 43 billion won ($36 million) to a long-time friend of impeached President Park Geun-hye, according to Lee Kyu-chul, a spokesman for a special prosecutors' team investigating the political scandal. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) An Afghan official says that Islamic state militants stormed a religious school in eastern Nangarhar province, kidnapping 14 clerics who were teaching at the school and two administrators. Mohammad Asif Shinwari, spokesman for the provincial education department, said Monday that the attack by three armed men took place over the weekend. No one has claimed responsibility but police and government officials blame Islamic State militants, who are operating in the area. Meanwhile in northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province, police say gunmen shot and killed a senior government official. They say Mustafa Safayee was killed Monday by two gunmen on a motorcycle. MANILA, Philippines (AP) The Philippines has filed a low-key diplomatic protest with China after a U.S. think tank reported that Beijing appears to have installed anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons on its man-made islands in the strategically vital South China Sea, the country's top diplomat said Monday. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said the diplomatic communication was issued after the report came out last month. The Center for Strategic and International Studies report said anti-aircraft guns and weapons systems designed to guard against missile attacks appear to have been placed on all seven of China's newly created islands. Yasay told CNN Philippines that Manila had responded, but did so quietly. HANOI, Vietnam (AP) Japan will provide Vietnam new patrol vessels, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday on the last stop of his four-nation tour to boost his country's trade and security engagements in Asia amid China's rising dominance. "The two countries will further strengthen security and defense cooperation and this time Japan has decided to provide (Vietnam with) newly built patrol vessels at Vietnam's request," Abe said at a news conference in Hanoi with his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc. "We will strongly support Vietnam's strengthening its maritime law-enforcement capabilities." Vietnam already has six used patrol vessels provided by Japan and how many were in the fresh offer wasn't mentioned. PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) Cambodia has informed the United States that it is canceling an annual joint military exercise this year, even though planning for the event had already begun, officials from both countries said Monday. Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Chhum Socheath said the Angkor Sentinel exercise had to be postponed because Cambodian forces would be unable to fully participate as a result of two important events: local elections in June and a six-month campaign to eradicate drug-related crime. U.S. Embassy spokesman Jay Raman confirmed in an e-mail that the exercises for 2017 and 2018 have been canceled. He said military exchanges and training programs are not affected. Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump enters the White House embroiled in scandal, in a pitched battle with the intelligence services and news media, and facing a world on fire. Among the many challenges the president-elect will face after his inauguration on Friday, the most urgent may be to steady the ship. Even before being sworn in, he is facing a Congressional investigation into possible collusion between Russia and his election campaign. Fearing an asterisk is being painted next to his historic victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump has gone on the offensive. The incoming Republican leader has lashed out at "sleazebag political operatives," the intelligence services -- whom he compared to Nazis -- and the media, reprising campaign tactics that played well with his base. But add to that serious allegations of nepotism, legal problems over his business interests, the ill-preparedness of some of his cabinet nominees and a fracas over health care reform that has left Republicans in disarray, and the picture gets even bleaker. The image of "Teflon Don" -- who as a candidate rode out scandal like no one else in modern political history -- is taking on water. Quite aside from the cost in time and energy of fighting on multiple fronts, the crises appear to be eroding his credibility, the base currency of any presidency. His approval rating stands at 44 percent, according to a Gallup poll -- the lowest level of support for any incoming president since the organization began doing the surveys in the Clinton era. In the corresponding period before his presidency, Barack Obama enjoyed an 83 percent rating. That unpopularity will make it much easier for allies to bolt. Republican lawmakers up for re-election or in moderate states and districts are unlikely to go to bat for a deeply unpopular president. Senator Marco Rubio -- a former Trump rival for the Republican presidential nomination -- is already openly raising the prospect he could oppose Trump's pick for secretary of state, oil executive Rex Tillerson. Story continues Republican governors are also balking at plans to repeal Obamacare, and all the time Trump's victory is being called into question. A massive "Women's March on Washington" is planned for Saturday, the day after his inauguration. With this kind of sentiment swirling, Trump may be the first president to enter the White House with a bunker mentality. Peppering the first 100 days of his administration with populist legislation and executive actions would help stem the bleeding -- as would avoiding unnecessary fights. - Keep the band together - To help him run the country, Trump has turned to a disparate group of family members, generals, billionaires and establishment Republicans -- few of whom have any White House experience. The CEO-turned-commander-in-chief sees his freewheeling style as an asset. It will have a massive impact on how his decisions are framed. A variety of opinions inside the White House can be constructive, or fuel turf wars and jockeying for influence that can split the house asunder. Will Trump's daughter Ivanka or her husband Jared Kushner be the last person in the room? Will it be conservatives like Vice President Mike Pence or hard-right ideologues like chief strategist Steve Bannon? - Strongmen - Trump, like Obama, will take office at a time when rival regional powers are gaining more clout and are not afraid to use it. Preserving US primacy will be a full-time job. In Russia, Vladimir Putin may be the strongest leader since Leonid Brezhnev, as he aggressively tries to renegotiate the terms of the end of the Cold War. Putin's effort to re-establish Moscow's influence in Syria already hobbled the Obama administration. A similar Russian drive in Afghanistan, Libya or eastern Europe could pose serious problems for Trump's bid to smooth relations. Meanwhile, the president-elect has taken a more bellicose stance toward China, at just the time Beijing is feeling more assertive. Whereas Mao Zedong transformed Chinese society, and Deng Xiaoping made the country an economic power, current leader Xi Jinping wants to make China a diplomatic and military force. Trump and Xi's rival ambitions dramatically raise the possibility that various disputes -- from Taiwan to currency rates to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea -- could become flashpoints. - Allies - Few have been more perturbed by Trump's election than America's traditional allies. Trump has questioned the value of both NATO -- calling it "obsolete" in an interview with the German tabloid Bild and The Times of London published Sunday -- and Washington's treaty obligations to help secure allies in Asia, which underpin the global order. "Trump has long believed the United States is being taken advantage of by its allies," said Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution. "He would prefer that the United States not have to defend other nations, but, if it does, he wants to get paid as much as possible for it." So far, most -- including Britain and Japan -- have adopted a strategy of engagement, getting close to Trump in order to win his ear. - Situation room - Every president will endure surprise national security crises, but perhaps the biggest foreign crisis facing Trump is well known -- North Korea. The country has been working feverishly to fuse two lethal technologies, a ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States and a miniaturized nuclear device to be its apocalyptic payload. Trump has already painted that as a red line. "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It won't happen!" he tweeted. Making sure of that will be far more difficult. Sanctions against North Korea have had limited impact and Trump's hostility to China would seem to forestall any help from Beijing in squeezing Pyongyang. He could turn to more dramatic responses, from disabling North Korean weapons systems by cyberattack, airstrikes or invasion. "Trump will hear siren calls to launch a preventive war," said Leon Sigal of the Social Science Research Council. But that would mean trusting US intelligence. "For a president who, as a candidate, repeatedly criticized US military intervention abroad and was skeptical of alliances," Sigal said, "that option might be particularly unpalatable." Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f349136%2f771df08a-b5bb-4d0f-87c0-bc92597ce63a With just days left until Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, the president-elect has finally settled a burning question: where he'll tweet from once he's in the White House. SEE ALSO: Next time Trump tweets about a company, this app will let you know if it cost you some cash NBC News reporter Kelly O'Donnell reports that transition officials say that while the administration will take control of the @POTUS account, Trump himself will stick to tweeting from his personal account. Transition sources tell me @realDonaldTrump intends to keep using his own account as president, not switching to @potus himself Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) January 16, 2017 The White House social media accounts do transfer to the new administration and could still be used by Trump staff Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) January 16, 2017 Trump has previously said he'd continue to tweet while in office, though, in an interview in a post-election interview with 60 Minutes, he said he'd be "very restrained." While he's certainly tweeted less, the substance has remained typical Trump. In her report for NBC, O'Donnell had some video of Trump speaking on the matter. That Trump will maintain both accounts isn't really all that unusual. After all, there's only ever been one president in the existence of the @POTUS account Barack Obama and he also has a personal account. @realDonaldTrump & I working hard tonight. Thank you for the privilege of a lifetime, #PEOTUS. pic.twitter.com/tBcg8duiVj Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 29, 2016 In Obama's case, his @BarackObama account, as of Sunday night while he's still the sitting president, says it's run by staff at his Organizing For Action. He'll keep that account while the @POTUS account, the @WhiteHouse account, and other president-related social media accounts will transfer to the Trump administration. Story continues Of course, the tenor of Obama's tweets differ greatly from Trump's account. This is what happens when we focus on building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. https://t.co/op3Z74rPeI Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 26, 2016 Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017 Come Friday, while tweets from the Trump administration will surely populate those other accounts, we all know where to turn when someone says something bad about Trump. All about those numbers Trump also touched on the topic in a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Times (registration required), elaborating a bit more about why he'll keep using his own account rather than the official one. Spoiler alert: it's all about those follower numbers. Of course, Trump is fudging numbers a bit, combining followers from multiple platforms to get that 46 million number. On just Twitter, at the time this post was published, he has 20 million followers, while the @POTUS account has 13.5 million followers and President Obama's personal account (more on that shortly) has 80.5 million followers. In 5 days, I expect @BarackObama will take back his Twitter account from @ofa. 80.5 million followers. 4x Trump's reach, for those counting. Alex Howard (@digiphile) January 16, 2017 Obama also wins the battle of Facebook with nearly 53 million "Likes" to Trump's 17.5 million, and on Instagram where he has 12.2 million followers to Trump's 4.7 million followers. (That brings Trump's total to 42.2 million followers, compared to Obama's 145.2 million, across those three platforms.) So what happens to the Obama digital legacy? On Friday, once Trump has been sworn in, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will transfer all of Obama's tweets at @POTUS over to the account @POTUS44. The same will go for Joe Biden's @VP tweets (@VP44) and Michelle Obama's @FLOTUS tweets (@FLOTUS44). In fact, the NARA is busy making sure all of the digital and social media content created by the Obama White House across multiple platforms, from Medium to YouTube, will likewise be stored on new archival accounts so that they'll still live online and be viewed by the public. You know, just in case the latest incendiary tweets from president number 45 become a bit too much to bear. BONUS: As predicted, Donald Trump wakes up and rants about Meryl Streep on Twitter By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Monica Crowley, the foreign policy adviser tapped for a White House job under President-elect Donald Trump, will relinquish the post, a transition official told Reuters on Monday. Crowley had been chosen to serve as senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council. Her appointment had been shadowed by reports of plagiarism in news outlets including CNN and Politico. After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration, she said in a statement quoted by the Washington Times. I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trumps team and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal. A CNN review found this month that Crowley plagiarized thousands of words of her 2000 dissertation for her Columbia University Ph.D. In addition, Politico reported that it found more than a dozen examples of plagiarism in Crowley's Ph.D. dissertation. She had been hired to work for Trump's national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, who said in a statement quoted by The Times that he will miss the opportunity to have Crowley on his team. Related: For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by James Dalgleish) LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him, The Times of London reported. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete," Trump told the newspaper in an interview. "Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection. A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump said. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much." (Reporting by William James, editing by Guy Faulconbridge) UW-Madison awarded more Ph.D.s than all but two other universities nationwide in 2015, according to a survey officials announced last week. The 836 Ph.D.s UW-Madison awarded that year were a record for the university, and placed it third overall in the Survey of Earned Doctorates. Campus officials also noted that 75 percent of graduates who received Ph.D.s from UW-Madison in 2016 had secured jobs or were in negotiations by the time they graduated, compared to a national average of 62 percent. That points to the quality of a UW-Madison degree, Graduate School Dean William Karpus said. UW-Madison awarded the second- highest number of doctorates in the physical and earth sciences and the fourth-most in life sciences, according to the survey. UW System names new administration head The University of Wisconsin System has named UW-Platteville official Robert Cramer as the Systems new chief operating officer. Cramer, the vice chancellor for administrative services at the Platteville campus, will start Jan. 28 as vice president for administration at the System level, UW officials announced Friday. He replaces David Miller, who was UWs administration head before he stepped down last month to take a job with the University of Tennessee System. Cramer will oversee facilities planning, information technology and human resources, among other areas, according to the System. He will work with officials throughout the System and advise President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents. New restaurants open in Memorial Union Students returning to UW-Madison for the spring semester this week will have three new dining options in the Memorial Union, including the return of food service at der Rathskeller. The new restaurants, which open Tuesday, are the latest piece of the renovated Union to make their debut. Much of the popular campus hangouts first floor reopened in December. Along with the der Rathskeller kitchen, which serves sandwiches, appetizers, wraps and breakfast items, visitors can get salads and sandwiches from the new restaurant Carte. An Italian restaurant, called Strada, rounds out the new openings, and offers pizzas, pasta and Italian sandwiches called piadinas. Renovations to the Memorial Unions upper floors are continuing, and are expected to wrap up this fall. London (AFP) - US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday called for a deal with Russia that would "very substantially" reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions against Moscow, in an interview published by The Times. "They have sanctions on Russia -- let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," Trump said. "But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There were no details about the specific sanctions that Trump had in mind, or their range. Under Barack Obama, the US applied various sanctions against Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Washington's European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. Trump's comments were published hours after the outgoing CIA chief John Brennan warned the president-elect does not understand the challenges posed by Russia. "I don't think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russia's intentions and actions," Brennan told Fox News, prompting a swift rebuke from Trump. The president-elect has said it would be an "asset" if he gets along with Putin, while cautioning the duo may not become friendly. "If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia," Trump told a press conference on January 11. "I don't know that I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there's a good chance I won't," he added. Trump was speaking in the wake of a report claiming Putin was behind a campaign of hacking and media manipulation aimed at boosting Trump's election bid. The Director of National Intelligence report released on January 6 came just days ahead of the leak of a separate and unsubstantiated report that Russia had gathered compromising personal and financial material on Trump. The report also alleged close links between Trump and Kremlin aides during the US presidential race, denied by both sides. Donald Trump cancelled plans to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the recently opened Smithsonian Museum of African-American History in Washington, D.C., and will meet with Kings son instead. Read: The Kellyanne File: Trump Adviser's Past Includes Cheerleading and First Place in Blueberry Princess Pageant A spokesperson for Trump cited scheduling issues as the reason he will not be able to mark the holiday at the museum. On Monday morning, Trump tweeted about the slain civil rights hero and his legacy. Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2017 Kings son, Martin Luther King III, will go to Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City to meet with the president-elect and discuss the legacy the I Have a Dream speechmaker left behind. The news comes after a weekend of fallout between civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis and the soon-to-be 45th U.S. president. Lewis appeared on Meet the Press over the weekend and said that he does not see Trump as a legitimate president following the intelligence that Russia interfered with the U.S. presidential election and Trumps alleged ties to the former communist country. Trump called the civil rights leader and man who once marched with Martin Luther King Jr. across the bridge in Selma all talk. Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to...... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017 mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017 Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017 Trump's feud with Lewis has led two dozen Democratic members of Congress to say they intend to boycott Fridays inauguration. Story continues Read: Bush Twins Send Message to the Obama Girls As They Leave the White House: 'Your Joy and Laugher Was Contagious' Lewis has also penned a series of graphic novels about the civil rights struggle; his books soared to the top of Amazons best-seller lists following his war of words with Trump. Watch: L.L. Bean Heiress Faces Backlash After Her Pro-Trump Donation Related Articles: In an interview with the Times of London published Monday, President-elect Donald Trump called the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance obsolete, sparking alarm among other NATO members. The comments were especially worrisome to many in the West given the intense scrutiny of Trumps ties to Russia both substantiated and unsubstantiated. The Times interview marked yet another instance of Trumps veering away from decades of nearly unconditional U.S. support for its allies in the pactnamely, Canada and most of Europe, including his current wifes country of Slovenia, formerly part of the Soviet state Yugoslavia. On the campaign trail in July, Trump told the New York Times that he would not fulfill obligations outlined in Article 5 of the treaty creating NATO, which stipulates that if a NATO ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions is deems necessary to assist the ally attacked. The article has been invoked only once in the treatys more than half-century history, following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. We have NATO members that arent paying their bills, Trump told the New York Times David Sanger in July. You cant forget the bills. They have an obligation to make payments. Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what theyre supposed to make. When Sanger asked if newer members of the bloc including former Soviet states facing threats of power-grabs from Russia similar to the violent political turmoil rocking Ukraine could expect American military assistance in the event of an attack by President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, Trump said the answer would depend on financial matters. Have they fulfilled their obligations to us? Trump told Sanger, along with the New York Times Maggie Haberman. If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes. Story continues And if not? Haberman asked. Well, Im not saying if not, Trump allowed. Im saying, right now there are many countries that have not fulfilled their obligations to us. Officials in Moscow didnt appear to hear Trumps lax stance on defending NATO allies and maintaining the blocs power. Following the imposition of new U.S. sanctions against Russia in December, related to allegations that hackers in the country had tampered with the American presidential election, a Kremlin spokesperson said, according to Reuters, that Russia didnt expect a swift rejection of NATOs expansion in the East by the incoming U.S. president. Related Articles KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) Tests have confirmed that avian flu is responsible for the mass deaths of wild birds on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda, according to the government. The species so far hit by the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, are migratory white-winged black terns as well as domestic ducks and chickens, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement Sunday, warning of an imminent "catastrophe." Samples from at least two sites, including a beach on the shores of Lake Victoria and elsewhere in central Uganda, have tested positive for HPAI, some strains of which can affect people, said the statement. It was not clear which strain of the virus is infecting the birds, including the terns that migrate from Europe to Africa during winter. The H5N8 strain of the virus, which is harmless to humans, has been spreading in poultry farms in some parts of Europe, including France and Germany. The authorities carried out tests following reports by fishermen of massive deaths of birds on beach near a wetland that is a sanctuary for many birds and which attracts bird watchers from all over the world. The government is urging people not to eat birds and other wild animals that are found dead. LONDON (Reuters) - British climate scientists asked Britain's prime minister on Monday to press U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to acknowledge climate change risks and support international action to slow global warming. Prime Minister Theresa May will meet Trump in Washington in the spring, in the first visit with the new president by the leader of one of the United States' closest allies. In a letter to May, the 100 scientists said there were "potential threats" to the British national interest from Trump's election in November. Trump has dismissed the idea of man-made climate change as a hoax and several department chief nominees in his incoming administration, such as the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have rejected evidence of the risks. "In doing so, the President-elect and his nominated appointees are disregarding the findings and advice of the leading expert bodies around the world, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United States National Academy of Sciences," the letter said. "We believe that the United Kingdom must be prepared to respond decisively to these developments." During his campaign, Trump said he would ditch the 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by almost 200 nations, which aims to end the fossil fuel era by shifting to renewable energy in the second half of the century. However, Trump told the New York Times on Nov. 22 that he now had an "open mind" on the Paris Agreement. The letter urged May to use Britain's so-called "special relationship" with the United States, as well as international forums such as the G-7 and G-20, to press the incoming administration to continue to support the Paris Agreement and climate change research in the United States. The scientists said a senior adviser to Trump has called for an end to climate research programs at NASA, which provides vital data for monitoring and managing climate change. (Reporting by Nina Chestney; editing by Mark Heinrich) WASHINGTON (AP) The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter, who was extensively questioned by federal agents in the days after the massacre, was arrested Monday by the FBI in connection with the attack, authorities said. Noor Salman was taken into custody in the San Francisco Bay Area and is facing charges in Florida, including obstruction of justice. She will make her initial court appearance Tuesday morning in Oakland, according to a Twitter post from the United States attorney's office. After her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Salman, 30, moved back to California, where she had grown up. FBI agents repeatedly questioned Salman in the aftermath of the shooting about whether she had advance knowledge of her husband's plans. Salman told The New York Times in an interview published last fall that she knew her husband had watched jihadist videos but that she was "unaware of everything" regarding his intent to shoot up the club. She also said he had physically abused her. "Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night," her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement. "Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person," Moreno said. Mateen was the only shooter, and by the time a three-hour standoff with law enforcement had ended, 49 patrons were killed and another 53 people required hospitalization. Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a 911 call to emergency officials during the standoff. He also made a series of Facebook posts and searches before and during the attack. Salman grew up in Rodeo, a small Bay Area community northeast of San Francisco. The FBI in San Francisco said she was arrested there on Monday, though jail records where she is being held say she was arrested about 30 miles away in Dublin. Story continues She wed Mateen in 2011 after the two met online. They lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, at the time of the shooting. Last month, Salman filed a petition in a California court to change the name of the son she had with Mateen. "We said from the beginning, we were going to look at every aspect of this, of every aspect of this shooter's life to determine not just why did he take these actions but who else knew about them? Was anyone else involved?" Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in an MSNBC interview on Monday. The Times first reported on the arrest. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement that Salman was facing accusations of obstruction of justice and "aiding and abetting by providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization." "Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones," Mina said. "But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime." Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he hoped the arrest "provides some comfort to the families who are mourning their loved ones," he added. ___ Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco and Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP Kiev (AFP) - Outgoing US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday urged the international community to remain united in the face of Russian "aggression", insisting sanctions on Moscow should stay over its actions in Ukraine. Biden's comments during a visit to Kiev to voice support for Ukraine's pro-Western leaders came as US President-elect Donald Trump signals closer ties with the Kremlin. "Russia's continued attempts to undermine your success, your security, your sovereignty and your territorial integrity are manifold," Biden said at a joint press briefing with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. "Together with our EU and G7 partners we made it clear that sanctions should remain in place until Russia fully... implements its commitments under the Minsk agreement," he said referring to a February 2015 peace deal aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine. "The international community must continue to stay as one against Russian aggression and coercion." Biden's half-day visit was aimed at underscoring his personal involvement in providing support for the former Soviet country amid concerns that ties could chill under Trump. Biden has spearheaded efforts by Barack Obama's outgoing adminstration to push Ukraine towards reforms as the country struggles with Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for separatist fighters in the east. - 'Cancer of corruption' - Ukraine and its Western allies including the United States accuse Russia of fuelling the war by deploying troops and smuggling arms to separatists, claims Moscow has repeatedly denied. But Trump's softened stance towards Russian President Vladimir Putin raises questions over the continuation of harsh economic sanctions that Washington and the European Union slapped on the Russian strongman's inner circle. "I hope the next administration will also want to be a supporter and a partner in your continued progress but as you know no one else can do the hard work but the Ukrainian people," Biden said. Story continues "I wanted to come here one more time in my last trip as vice president to honour how much progress the people of Ukraine have achieved," he said, adding: "Americans and Ukrainians are united by deep bonds." Biden's visit came days after Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels accused each other of disrupting the latest in a series of fragile truce agreements declared in late December. That deal brought fresh hope of an end to almost three years of a conflict that has killed nearly 10,000 people. Biden praised steps by Ukraine's pro-Western authorities to tackle rampant corruption, but urged them to do more. "Thanks to the vital steps you have taken, your economy is now growing again. But there remains much work to be done," he said. "You are fighting both against the cancer of corruption... and the unrelenting aggression of the Kremlin." By Ashutosh Sharma KEERNI, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The past three decades have not been kind to the residents of Keerni. This village in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir sits on the disputed Line of Control between India and Pakistan, and has seen people and cattle maimed or killed in the crossfire or by landmines. Residents of Keernis 750 mud-built homes also have had to deal with intensifying border conflict following Indias strikes against purported terrorist camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in September. Now the inhabitants of this village in the foothills of the Himalaya must grapple not just with heightened security threats but with a state-wide drought that is hitting them especially hard. Experts say Jammu and Kashmir is reeling under the longest dry spell in a decade. Winter crops which would usually be sown by October or November cannot be cultivated this season in many areas of the state reliant on rainfall. Sonam Lotus, director of the states Meteorology Department, told the local press in early December that Jammu and Kashmir had been dealing with a dry spell since 2007 and it was unlikely to break anytime soon. Isolated border villages such as Keerni, which lacks road connections, piped water, a school or a hospital, are among those worst affected by the drought. Since our area has not received any rains until now, our farms remain unploughed. Well have to purchase food and fodder in the days to come, said farmer Mohammad Fakir. LOW HARVESTS, MILLS FAILING Fakir said two factors are making it increasingly difficult to stay in the village. Farming is our only source of livelihood and rains have become highly unpredictable. Second, the frequent ceasefire violations keep disrupting routine life, and no one feels safe here, he said. In the wake of ongoing skirmishes, we couldnt harvest crops in time. Due to the delay, wild animals damaged a lot of our standing crop, he said. Fakir said that he harvested 250 kg of maize and 30 kg of pulses from his half-hectare (1.25 acre) plot last season, only one-third of what he had anticipated. In the past, water shortages were not an issue, he said. The village would get 2-3 feet snow every winter about three decades ago, and there used to be no drinking water scarcity all through the year. But the snowfall has reduced drastically over the past few years. Now the village sees only a few inches of snow annually, he said. With no electric-powered flour mill in the village, the single water-powered mill has been struggling to meet demand as the flow of the stream declines. Villagers fear the mill may shut down due to lack of rain long before the stocks of grain to be milled are exhausted. PROBLEMS ACCESSING WATER Fakir said the security situation makes things even more complicated than before. In the wake of border cross-firing, (the) very few remaining water bodies also become inaccessible to us and our cattle, he said. People here are accustomed to the threats from ongoing border strife between India and Pakistan. In 2001, all Keernis residents were evacuated from the village for security reasons. When they were finally allowed to return to their rundown dwellings 10 years later, the village was virtually cut off from the rest of the country by a huge fence on one side, with landmines marking the Line of Control on the other. Residents of Keerni say they must effectively cross a border in the form of the fence to enter their own country a crossing allowed only during specified hours to get access to basic facilities such as healthcare and education. Fortifying the area ate up a large chunk of farmland and restricted access to resources such as water, residents say. What agricultural land remained also had degraded after being left uncultivated for almost 10 years. JOBS TO COPE? Nazam Deen Mir, a local teacher with a monthly salary of 3,000 rupees ($44), said that during the drought the government should provide villagers with jobs quickly under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, a rural job scheme. Otherwise, he said, a majority of our men will have to leave their homes in search of alternative livelihood opportunities. Citing drought affecting many parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in April that a massive effort would be launched under the rural employment scheme to improve water conservation and storage. Some villagers already have left Keerni, along with their families, to work as laborers in the states winter capital, Jammu. But others sound increasingly hopeless about future. A farmer in our border village knows exactly what to do in the face of exploding shells and bullets whizzing by said Khaleel Ahmed Mir, 22. One can somehow cope with the loss of life, limbs and livestock. But one really doesnt have any idea how to deal with this (drought) situation. (Reporting by Ashutosh Sharma; editing by James Baer and Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate) Madison's proliferation of liberals and young people quickly developed a love affair with Barack Obama, starting in 2007 when the young senator from Illinois was the first presidential candidate to visit the state during the Democratic primary race and continuing through his presidency. Last week, Volkswagen settled an array of criminal and civil charges over its 16-month-old diesel scandal with the U.S. Justice Department. The news of the settlement was quickly swamped by a variety of further stories, both on the regulatory and diesel fronts. Those included the arrest of one Volkswagen executive, and the issuance of warrants for five others who remain in Germany and seem unlikely to be extradited. DON'T MISS: 5 more VW diesel execs indicted, including R&D head, after weekend arrest But the deal signed by VW and the Justice Department is significant in its own right, because the company admits its guilt on no fewer than three felony counts of criminal misconduct. It will pay a criminal fine of $2.8 billion, and operate under the oversight of a court-appointed independent monitor for three years. In addition, VW will pay a further $1.45 billion to settle civil claims by the Customs and Border Protection agency under U.S. customs and environmental laws. Volkswagen TDI 'clean diesel' television ad screencap On top of that, it will pay the Department of Justice itself $50 million to settle additional claims levied under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). Volkswagen made it clear that the company "specifically denies any liability and expressly disputes" that last set of claims, but had agreed to settle them to avoid the uncertainty and costs of continued litigation. The court monitor will "assess, oversee and monitor the companys compliance with the terms of the resolution," according to the settlement, "including measures to further strengthen Volkswagens compliance, reporting and monitoring mechanisms and implementation of an enhanced ethics program." ALSO SEE: Emission updates for 2015 VW, Audi 2.0-liter TDI diesels OKed by regulators In its statement, VW said specifically that it did not intend to comment on the status of a report prepared by the U.S. law firm Jones Day after an internal investigation of how the diesel emission cheating scandal evolved. Story continues That decision was made so as "not to prejudice or otherwise impede ongoing investigations." The Jones Day report was shared with the Department of Justice, however, and a DoJ statement of facts that accompanied the settlement "draws upon" material from the report, which has not been released to the public. 2015 Volkswagen Golf TDI SE While the agreement settles the bulk of VW's liabilities under U.S. law, it did not end Justice Department investigations into actions taken by individual executives and employees. Those further investigations led swiftly to the arrest of executive Oliver Schmidt as he prepared to leave Miami after a vacation, and the five additional warrants issued days later. The U.S. settlement also has no impact on the continuing investigations into VW's diesel cheating by the Braunschweig and Munich public prosecutors' offices in Germany. CHECK OUT: These engineers uncovered the VW diesel emission scandal Volkswagen's admission of felony charges stands in contrast to the Justice Department's settlements with General Motors and Toyota, which resulted only in deferred prosecutions. The agency agreed in 2015 to the deferred prosecution of General Motors Company over defective ignition switches linked to 124 deaths, for which it paid $900 million in penalties. The year before, Toyota had also received deferred prosecution over concealing information about sudden-acceleration cases. Toyota paid $1.2 billion. 2015 Volkswagen Golf TDI Analysts noted that Volkswagen's felony admissions and the total of $4.3 billion in criminal penalties reflected its deliberate intent to violate U.S. law, as well as its years-long pattern of lying to and withholding information from regulators. In its own statement, Volkswagen noted that "the payment obligations are expected to lead to a financial expense that exceeds the current provisions" on its balance sheet for the costs of the diesel scandal. The settlement agreements with the various U.S. agencies must still be approved by a judge. _______________________________________ Follow GreenCarReports on Facebook and Twitter. President Barack Obama will appear on CBS 60 Minutes for his final presidential interview with a network television on Sunday, five days before transferring power to his successor, Donald Trump. The outgoing president will be speaking to Steve Kroft in an hour-long special broadcast. The interview conducted this week at the White House will cover a wide range of topics, including Obamas thoughts on the president-elect. According to CBS, the interview will follow the presidents journey, in his own words, beginning with his presidential bid in 2007 through his two terms in the Oval Office. Obama had appeared on 60 Minutes in his first post-election interview as president-elect in November 2008. He had also spoken to Kroft in March 2009 about his first two months as commander-in-chief and discussed the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. His last interview with the show aired in October 2015 during which he discussed the Syrian war and Russias involvement in the conflict. Earlier this week, the 44th president gave his farewell address in Chicago in which he thanked his peers, family, staff and the American people. Nearly 18,000 gathered at McCormick Place the same venue where the president made his victory speech after defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the 2012 race to witness Obamas final address as president. In his nearly hour-long speech on Tuesday, Obama urged the crowd and everyone else watching him on TV to protect their democracy. Understand, democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders quarreled and compromised, and expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity the idea that for all our outward differences, we are all in this together; that we rise or fall as one, Obama said. The 60 Minutes interview will air Sunday, Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. EST on CBS. The episode can be live-streamed here. Related Articles Noor Salman, the widow of the man who mowed down 49 people at a gay nightclub, has been arrested in San Francisco, according to the FBI. Salman, 30, was arrested at her home in the Bay Area, agency spokesman Prentice Danner told InsideEdition.com. Read: Here's What We Know About the Orlando Gunman Omar Mateen Salman had been interviewed multiple times following her husband's attack, federal authorities said. Omar Mateen, 29, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members nearly three hours after he opened fire at the crowded club. He had pledged allegiance to ISIS online. She was charged with aiding and abetting, CBS News reported, as well as obstruction of justice, in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The couple were married in California in 2011 and have a 4-year-old son. Read: Orlando Shooter Had Visited Pulse Nightclub Several Times, Used Gay Chat Apps: Witnesses Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night, her awyer, Linda Moreno, said in a statement. Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person. In a November interview with The New York Times, Salman claimed her husband had long physically and verbally abused her, and that she knew nothing of his plans to attack the Pulse nightclub. Orlando Police chief Mohn Mina said in a statement he relieved to hear of Salman's arrest. "Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones," he said. "But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime," Mina said. Salman petitioned a court last month to change her boy's name so he would not be identified as the mass killer's son. Story continues Federal agents have considered filing charges against the woman for months after she told investigators she had previously driven Mateen to the club, and had been with him when he purchased guns and ammunition, authorities said. Watch: Orlando Gunman Omar Mateen Was Caught On Camera in 2012 Documentary Related Articles: By Daniel Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The FBI on Monday arrested the wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub last year, a massacre that intensified fears about attacks against Americans inspired by Islamic State, officials said. Noor Salman, 30, is being charged with obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement.Salman's arrest came seven months after her husband, Omar Mateen, went on a hours-long siege at the Florida club that ended when police killed him. She was due to appear in federal court in Oakland, California on Tuesday morning. "Certainly I can confirm that an arrest did occur in this case," Attorney General Loretta Lynch told MSNBC. "We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter's life to determine - not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved?" Lynch said. Salman, who has a young son by Mateen, was arrested at her home outside San Francisco, The New York Times reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official. Salman has moved at least three times since the attack, attempting to avoid the news media, The Times said. The daughter of parents who immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, Salman was repeatedly questioned by law enforcement interrogators after the club attack, telling them she was with Mateen when he bought ammunition and conducted surveillance of the club. But she denied any involvement in the attack or any knowledge of her husband's plans, she told the Times in an interview published on Nov. 1. "I was unaware of everything," Salman told the Times. "I don't condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people."Her husband, who was 29 at the time of his death, claimed a connection to or support for multiple Islamist extremist groups, including al Qaeda, Hezbollah, al Nusra and Islamic State, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told reporters a few days after the attack. During the siege, Mateen spoke to a 911 emergency dispatcher and expressed solidarity with an al Nusra suicide bomber as well as Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh. Representatives of the FBI could not be reached immediately for more details. The Orlando massacre came about seven months after a husband and wife who sympathized with Islamic extremists opened fire in December 2015 on a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 22 others. (Additional reporting by Frank McGurty and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman) San Francisco (AFP) - The wife of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was arrested by the FBI on Monday at her home in California, a law enforcement official said, following questions over whether she was aware of his plans to carry out the attack. Mateen gunned down 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub on June 12, 2016, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Mateen, whose parents had immigrated from Afghanistan, had apparently become radicalized after watching online jihadist propaganda. Media reports have said that his wife Noor Salman, who is of Palestinian descent, may have had prior knowledge of his plan to carry out the massacre. She was taken into custody early Monday in Rodeo, a community about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, FBI spokesman Prentice Danner told AFP. He declined to provide further details of the arrest, but said she faced unspecified charges filed in Florida. Salman is scheduled to appear in federal court in Oakland, California on Tuesday, the US attorney's office for the Middle District of Florida said on Twitter. Several US media outlets cited law enforcement sources as saying that Salman faced charges related to obstruction of justice. "This is a matter that we continue to take very seriously," US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on MSNBC. "We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter's life -- to determine not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved, is there any other accountability that needs to be had here in this case." Salman told The New York Times in an interview published in November that she was "unaware of everything" related to the attack. "I don't condone what he has done," she was quoted as saying, telling the paper that her husband angered easily and often beat her. THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) Dutch firebrand populist Geert Wilders on Monday accused Prime Minister Mark Rutte of behaving like a "dictator" by ruling out a coalition with Wilders' Party for Freedom after national elections on March 15. Wilders is riding high in opinion polls, but appears increasingly unlikely to be able to form a majority government in this nation whose voting system all but guarantees coalitions. Rutte said in an interview Sunday that the chance of his center-right Liberal Party forming a coalition with Wilders' party was "zero." The prime minister was the latest mainstream politician to rule out working with Wilders, meaning that the fiery lawmaker who wants to drastically rein in immigration and lead the Netherlands out of the European Union appears unlikely to lead the country's next government. But Wilders remained defiant. "Rutte's comments are the remarks of an arrogant leader in disarray. Rutte is afraid," Wilders told The Associated Press. "Luckily not he but the Dutch voters are in charge on March 15, so all is still possible." It is not only Rutte who is distancing himself from Wilders, who brand of populism has been compared to that of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Over the weekend, Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer called Wilders a "radicalized" former member of Rutte's own party and said the socialists would "never ever" work with him. And a day before Rutte's comments, Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher said his center-left Labor Party must "offer a social, decent alternative" to a possible coalition between Wilders and Rutte. But that possible coalition seems further away than ever after Rutte said on Dutch television that Wilders' economic policies were more left-wing than those of the socialists while also accusing him of undermining "the values and freedoms of Dutch society" with his rhetoric. The deep divisions within Dutch politics mean that whatever the outcome on March 15, it is likely to usher in a complex and possibly protracted period of coalition building as parties seek alliances that will allow them to rule with a majority in both houses of the Dutch parliament. Caroline Zelinka knew something was unusual when her 85-year-old neighbor neglected to take in her newspaper two days in a row. And the small buildup of newspapers is what likely saved her life, at least indirectly. Thats not how she does things, Zelinka, 73, said a few days after the incident. If shes going to be gone for a period of time, she always tells me so I can keep an eye on whatever. Zelinka called the landlord, who alerted the buildings maintenance worker, and the handyman along with Zelinka, opened the door to find the woman on the floor in the hallway of her apartment, unable to get up. The woman, whom the State Journal is not identifying, suffered a medical emergency. Scott Hirschler, the buildings maintenance worker, calls her a petite and really interesting lady. He visited her at St. Marys Hospital the next day, and also Thursday, and said she was recovering well. She was recently discharged after about a week, and is now recovering in a nursing facility. Honestly, I was thinking I was going to open the door and then have to call dispatch to report a dead person, Hirschler said. Bruce Becker, whose family owns a complex of buildings on Heritage Circle, a cul de sac on the Near West Side, said everybody pretty much knows whos in the building. Residents in the eight-unit building watch for each other when someone is out of town, he added. Becker said the woman has lived there since at least 1972. He called her a very smart woman, who has seen a lot of things over the years. Meanwhile, Zelinka, whos lived in the building about seven years, called her neighbor extremely private and extremely independent. Becker said most of his older tenants are fiercely independent, including the 85-year-old woman. When anyone in his family would ask if she needed help, the answer was always, No, he said. Shes able to do everything herself and doesnt want to impose on anybody. Zelinka noticed that something wasnt right on Jan. 6 and went out of her way to take action, Becker said, noting that in this kind of world that we live in, people do pay attention and watch out for each other. Its one of the benefits of living in a building that isnt too big, so neighbors get to know each other, he said. Zelinka called her building a community where everyone knows each other and each others habits. She described her neighbor as kind of a loner who doesnt spend a lot of time out and about. At first when the first newspaper didnt get taken in, Zelinka said she tried to find out which car belonged to her neighbor, but wasnt able to. She also noticed that her neighbors lights didnt go on at night. Then, when she saw that the second newspaper didnt get taken in the next day, she knocked on her neighbors door and tried calling a few times. Finally, she contacted the landlord. Zelinka said she wasnt too shocked to go in with Hirschler and find her neighbor on the floor. It just had to be, she said, noting that as a former nursing assistant herself, she just went into reactive mode. LONDON (AP) Woody Harrelson is trying to do something that's never been done before, although he's starting to realize why his feat would be a first. The American actor plans to spend the early hours of Friday shooting a full-length film, called "Lost In London LIVE," which will be broadcast as it happens in over 550 U.S. theaters. "Someone was asking me earlier, 'Do you think that people will start doing this now? Filming a movie and live-streaming it at the same time?' And I said, 'Well, not if they speak to me first.' This is some harrowing stuff," he laughs. Based on a relentlessly awful night out he really had in the British capital, Harrelson wrote and is directing the film that combines comedy and drama. Talking on the movie's set in the streets of London's theatre district, where rehearsals are happening during the day and at night, Harrelson says he could do with three more weeks of preparation before the action unfolds in real time. Harrelson, 55, was arrested in London after a night out in 2002. He declined to say whether "Lost in London" is based on events from that night, but the set includes a recreation of the club he visited before his arrest. "Lost In London LIVE" is an attempt to merge his two loves, film and theater. And even though audiences will be watching on the other side of the pond when it's Thursday evening, Harrelson is convinced the event's live-streamed nature will add an electrifying element. "Will it mess up the performance? That's the question. Will the fear be too high to eke out a performance? I don't know," he said. Harrelson's co-stars are musician Willie Nelson and actor Owen Wilson, a close friend who also helped refine the script. "Owen Wilson is my best buddy. Now, that doesn't mean I'm his best buddy, but he's my best buddy and he is a tremendous asset because not only is he just so great on screen, and he's great as an actor and he's great to work with," he said. Story continues Harrelson's breakthrough as an actor came on the 1980s television sitcom "Cheers." He's since starred in a number of critically acclaimed TV shows and movies, from "Natural Born Killers" and "No Country For Old Men" to "True Detective" and "The Hunger Games" films. Harrelson next will be joining the "Star Wars" universe, with a part in the spin-off movie about a young Han Solo. Describing his character as a criminal and a mentor, he says he's delighted to be joining that "amazing world." "All you want is to make good movies, because eventually I'll be gone and those will still be here," he said. "You know what I mean?" Washington (AFP) - After winning the White House with a call to embrace "the audacity of hope," Barack Obama knows his place in the history books will be measured against the outsized hopes his 2008 election sparked in the United States and abroad. Beyond his wide smile, his legendary Hawaiian sense of calm and his drama-free style of governing, what will be remembered from the Democrat's extraordinary path to power and his two terms as the 44th US president? Will the son of an absent Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, who split his childhood years between the Aloha State and Indonesia, be lauded for bringing down unemployment, the raid that killed Obama bin Laden, or reforming the health care system? Will he be praised for revitalizing relations with Cuba or pushing through a global climate agreement? Whatever the historians write, Obama -- America's first black president -- can certainly claim some bona fide successes. But one dream got lost along the way: that of national reconciliation. Years of stalemate with an intractable Republican-led Congress and Donald Trump's shock election win -- which he did not see coming -- at the end of an unprecedentedly aggressive campaign have revealed a deeply divided country. Political divisions are to be expected, with Republicans and Democrats refusing to work together to the point of sometimes paralyzing government. But racial fault lines also came to the fore during Obama's presidency, and with an unexpected force. Careful not to be seen as a "president for black Americans," Obama paradoxically may have been the wrong leader to move the needle on the race issue. That reality is a bitter pill to swallow for a man who said, in the 2004 speech that put him on the political map, that there is "not a liberal America and a conservative America, there's the United States of America." "There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America," he said. "There's the United States of America." Story continues But Obama, criticized by some as too much of a policy wonk and sometimes professorial, may not have taken the pulse of Trump's America -- a mainly white, working middle class terrified by the whirlwind effects of economic globalization. - Still popular - With his temples a bit grayer now, Barack Hussein Obama will leave the Oval Office at age 55 with his popularity near his all-time high, much like Ronald Reagan in 1989. A relative political novice when he ran for president in 2008, promising to transform the United States under his optimistic banner of "Yes we can," Obama entered the White House in 2009, and the learning curve was steep. Just 47 at the time, four years older than John F. Kennedy, he freely admits he initially underestimated the difficulty of doing business in Washington. He could only shake his head at how Republicans systematically blocked his every move, even if he himself also lacked a certain sense of flexibility in his dealings with Capitol Hill. Confronted with economic and financial chaos upon his arrival in office, with huge sectors of industry at the edge of an abyss, he managed to push through an $800 billion stimulus package. Then, after an epic battle on Capitol Hill, Obama saw his signature health care reform plan -- which became known as "Obamacare" -- become law. Some 20 million Americans now have health insurance who did not before thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has pledged to repeal and replace. - Syria casts a shadow - Obama leaves behind a mixed record on the foreign policy front. The surprise Nobel Peace Prize he won in 2009 proved in some ways to be a poisoned chalice. The Nobel committee lauded his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" -- after less than eight months in office. But in accepting the award, Obama acknowledged his accomplishments were "slight" compared to those of the "giants of history" who preceded him. However, the onetime senator from Illinois can certainly claim to have made a clean break with the Bush years. He presided over the withdrawal of the vast majority of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (from 180,000 to 15,000) and banned waterboarding and other post-9/11 "enhanced interrogation techniques" now widely seen as torture. By bringing Iran -- Saudi Arabia's Shiite rival -- back into the international fold with a nuclear deal, and by showing that America had other priorities than the Middle East, notably in Asia and Africa, Obama tried to shuffle the deck. But his prudence and passivity in the face of chaos in war-wracked Syria, which has led to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, leaves a shadow over his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. While rejecting his critics, Obama has admitted he was somewhat powerless. "It haunts me constantly," he told Vanity Fair magazine last year. "I do ask myself: 'Was there something that we hadn't thought of? Was there some move that is beyond what was being presented to me that maybe a Churchill could have seen, or an Eisenhower might have figured out?'" - Highs and lows - On certain issues, such as climate change, Obama -- a constitutional law expert -- learned how to adapt. From the immense disappointment of the failed Copenhagen summit in 2009, he figured out that no global action would occur without Washington and Beijing working together. The Paris accord reached in late 2015 came together in large part thanks to their cooperation. On other issues, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Obama clearly failed. Two days after taking office, he signed a decree aimed at shutting down the US prison in Cuba within a year. Eight years later, although it holds far fewer inmates, the detention center is still there. - 'History zigzags' - A talented orator, Obama will also be remembered for a handful of powerfully delivered speeches. In Charleston, where nine black parishioners were gunned down by a white supremacist during a Bible study session, Obama offered a rousing eulogy -- and then began singing "Amazing Grace." The thousands of mourners joined in. In Athens, he recognized how "democracy, like all human institutions, is imperfect. It can be slow; it can be frustrating; it can be hard; it can be messy." In Chicago, where he cut his political teeth, he tried in his farewell speech this month to channel the energy of those who elected him in November 2008. "I'm asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change -- but in yours," he said to cheers -- and some tears. Conscious that much of his legacy could be picked apart by his successor, Obama has maintained his fierce optimism -- his political calling card, mocked by some and hailed by others -- until the very end. After Trump's victory, he called on the country to accept that "sometimes, history zigzags" and move forward. It's useless, he said, to "get into a fetal position." The Hague (AFP) - Former shareholders of defunct Russian oil giant Yukos were back in a Dutch court Monday as Moscow's lawyers pressed judges for a quick resolution of a complex appeals case. The claimants, led by the former main shareholder GML, in July last year appealed a Dutch court's decision to overturn a ruling ordering Moscow to pay them a record $50 billion in damages. "The Russian Federation has a significant interest in an expedient and concentrated conduct of this appeal," Russian Federation representative Albert Jan van den Berg told judges at The Hague's Appeals Court. The $50 billion in damages "is a massive amount, also for the Russian Federation," Van den Berg said, adding Russia "is entitled to obtain a final decision upholding the judgement of the District Court as quickly as possible." Yukos was once Russia's biggest post-Soviet oil company but was broken up after its former owner, Kremlin critic and ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003. His arrest came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin, then prime minister, warned the nation's growing class of oligarchs against meddling in politics. Yukos was sold off in opaque auctions to state companies led by Rosneft between 2004 and 2006. State-owned Rosneft was then small, but has since become a leading player among the world's biggest listed oil companies by production volume. The claimants have sought since 2005 to win compensation for what they say are their losses caused by the break-up of Yukos. The international Permanent Court of Arbitration, based in The Hague, ruled in 2014 that Russia had forced Yukos into bankruptcy with excessive tax claims and sold off its assets to state-owned companies. It ordered Moscow to pay "in excess of $50 billion" to the former shareholders -- a record award for the arbitration tribunal. In a legal game of cat-and-mouse, the claimants led by GML, have lodged cases in various European courts seeking the seizure of Russian assets abroad after Moscow refused to pay out. Story continues "Yukos had been illegally expropriated, it was politically motivated and the damages have been set at $50 billion," said Jonathan Hill, GML's communications director. "We have full confidence in the court that our appeal will prevail," he told AFP outside the courtroom. Khodorkovsky, who is no longer a stakeholder, spent a decade in prison on charges of tax evasion, fraud and embezzlement which he and his supporters say were trumped up in revenge for his political ambitions. He was suddenly pardoned by Putin in 2013 and flown out of the country. A decision setting the date for an appeals hearing could still take several months. Yahoo Life I think that struggle of whose responsibility is it, the parents or the schools, has been part of the conversation all along," says a sex ed historian. If his accuser proves to be correct, in Christopher von Keyserlings America, groping women is apparently now OK. (Photo: Getty) Connecticut Republican politician Christopher von Keyserling was having a political disagreement with a female colleague when the unnamed 57-year-old woman said to him that were living in a a new world, politically speaking. To that, the 71-year-old member of the representative town meeting and an outspoken commentator on town affairs allegedly responded, I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct, according to an arrest warrant, says Time. According to Greenwich Time, she replied that if the man was proud of that I cant help you, then headed off to her office. The arrest warrant states that von Keyserling called her a lazy, bloodsucking union employee, to which she dropped an F bomb. According to the warrant, the politician followed the woman into her office after the verbal altercation with an evil look in his eyes. At that point, the police arrest warrant says, he reached in from behind to place his hand between her legs and pinch her in the groin area, according to the publication. She threatened to hit him if he tried to pinch her again, and he replied, It would be your word against mine and nobody will believe you,' says Time. The incident happened on Dec. 8, according to Time, but the victim didnt work up the courage to go to authorities until Dec. 16. She feared retribution, according to Time, as well as negative public attention. But she decided to follow through when she heard that similar incidents had happened to other employees at the hands of von Keyserling. Security camera footage backed up the womans story, according to police, and the arrest was finally made on Wednesday. Phil Russell, a lawyer for von Keyserling, is defending the politicians alleged inappropriate actions, telling the Greenwich Time, In almost 30 years of practicing law in this town, I would say Mr. von Keyserling is the one person I would never suspect of having any inappropriate sexual predilections. Story continues He added, There was a playful gesture, in front of witnesses. It was too trivial to be considered anything of significance. To call it a sexual assault is not based in reality. Apparently, it wasnt all that trivial, as von Keyserling is now charged with fourth-degree sexual assault. He posted $2,500 bond and was released to appear in court on Jan. 25, according to Time. In court, Von Keyserling plans to enter a plea of not guilty, Russell said, concluding, Its a sad situation. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. (Photo: Facebook) Daniel Politte faces up to 99 years in jail after being found guilty of murdering his wife. His defense? That she was struggling with body image issues. It was March 11, 2014, when paramedics were called to the Politte home in Missouri City, Texas. I dont know whats wrong with her, but shes drowning in her own blood! Politte told a 911 operator. When authorities arrived they found a bedroom covered in blood and a revolver that had fired a single shot. Politte never mentioned the gun in his 911 call. At trial he would claim his wife, Stephanie, was depressed and suicidal. First he said he didnt remember her being shot, claiming that his memory was a blur. He then changed his story to say the two had wrestled over the gun and it had gone off during the struggle. Ballistic evidence gathered by authorities suggests otherwise. They found that the gun had been fired 11 to 15 inches from the back of Stephanies head while her face was pressed against something. Police found a photograph on Polittes phone taken just 20 minutes before Stephanies death. In it shes asleep, her face pressed against a pillow. Investigators also found that Stephanies blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit, making it unlikely she had struggled with her 30-year-old husband. That night as paramedics scrambled to save Stephanie, Politte was sitting in the back of a police car. He didnt realize he was being recorded by a dashcam. Im f***ed, he was recorded saying. Politte also made some unusual comments during his 15-minute 911 call. You know, youre so pretty, he can be heard saying, Very pretty. Youre a very pretty girl. When interviewed by police he was calm at moments and sometimes frantic. Politte was unemployed while Stephanie worked full time as a teacher for autistic children. Prosecutors suggested financial struggles may have been a motive for Politte in the killing. Nothing will ever bring Stephanie back, but knowing that the person thats responsible for her death had been found guilty is a great relief, said Stephanies father, Neil Kirkpatrick, after the trial. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. 2017 01 16_11 28 04 The Chicago Cubs visited the White House on Monday to celebrate winning the World Series, and during the trip, they presented the president with a special gift, his own personalized Air Jordans. Dexter Fowler revealed the Air Jordan 4s in a video on The Players' Tribune's Instagram page. The shoes are black and white, have the presidential seal on the tongue, and also have the president's signature etched on the side. First Look: @DexterFowler reveals the presidential pair of @jumpman23 made just for @BarackObama. Check out our IG Story for more from Dexter's White House visit. A video posted by The Players' Tribune (@playerstribune) on Jan 16, 2017 at 8:37am PST on Jan 16, 2017 at 8:37am PST NOW WATCH: Heres a simple no-weights workout that could lead to real results More From Business Insider Teachers may get a little imaginative when it comes to high school math curriculum, but one Pennsylvania high school took it to the extreme. Penridge School District administration issued an apology after multiple complaints over a math homework assignment that contained what many consider to be adult material. The question posed: Angelou was sexually abused by her mothers ___ at age 8, which shaped her career choices and motivation for writing. The choices were: a. (0, 2) boyfriend, b. (4, 6) brother, or c. (-3, -1) father Really? @PennridgeSD has good staff but some are terrible. This is what some low-grade staff thinks is ok to put on a test @PennridgeHSpic.twitter.com/LPkOHLITxe Pennridge Reform (@PennridgeReform) January 12, 2017 The following question on the homework assignment was just as concerning: The questions seem to revolve around late poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, who previously wrote about the horrors of being sexual abused as a child. After several parents complained about the homework content, school administration responded that the worksheet in question was downloaded from a website that allows teachers globally to share educational resources. It is not part of our approved curriculum, administration superintendent Jacqueline A. Rattigan responded to concerned parents in a letter. We apologize to anyone who was offended by the content of the assignment and have taken steps to avoid such occurrences in the future. @PennridgeReform heres the snapshot of the reply I received after contacting. No consequences whatsover for thisNONE. pic.twitter.com/KNl4c0OpBo DMKANDOIT (@DMKANDOIT) January 13, 2017 In a separate high school homework incident, a mother from Salt Lake City, Utah, recently complained when she saw an assignment requiring her 16-year-old daughter to go on a date with a member of the opposite sex with the goal being to not spend more than $5. Let us know what you think by tweeting @YahooStyleCA! WASHINGTON After my aunt died recently, a cousin found in her papers the Petition for Naturalization that our great-grandfather signed in 1913, 13 years after emigrating from Russia. The wording on the yellowed page required my ancestor to affirm that he was neither anarchist nor polygamist. The oath continued: It is my intention to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce absolutely and forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and particularly to Nicholas II, Emperor of all the Russias. The oath differs from the one President-elect Donald Trump will take at his inauguration. But if it was important enough for our nation to require a Brooklyn tailor a century ago to renounce the czar, is it too much to ask that our new president promise the same? Im not questioning Trumps citizenship or patriotism. But it would be reassuring to see him renounce fidelity to another repressive leader of Russia to demonstrate that he is no puppet of Vladimir Putin. The renewed attention to Trumps Russia ties is welcome, but the unverified dossier published last week is a distraction. Hotel liaisons dont threaten American security. The danger is that Putin and his allies might control a chunk of Trumps debt and therefore hold hostage his financial stability. Trump arguably owes his election to Putin. (In an election as close as this one, any number of minor factors could have been decisive, including the Russians leaks of Democrats hacked emails.) And he refuses to do the things that would remove fears that Putin has sway over Trumps finances: release his tax returns, divest of his businesses or put them into a blind trust. You dont have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if the incoming president is beholden to one of the nations most wily adversaries. Heres what we know: Trump, once the self-described king of debt, now claims he isnt highly leveraged, but theres no way to verify this without tax returns. A New York Times examination last year found at least $650 million in debt, twice the amount that could be found in Trumps financial disclosure. Though Trump has insisted he has no financial dealings with Russia, his son Donald Trump Jr. declared in 2008: Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. ... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. As The Washington Posts Michael Kranish recapped last week, Trump has attempted several deals in Russia over decades. He received $95 million from an oligarch for a Palm Beach mansion in 2008 and untold more from Russian investors buying his condos. Britains Guardian newspaper reported recently that the FBI unsuccessfully applied for a warrant during the summer to monitor four members of Trumps team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. Russias deputy foreign minister told the Interfax state news agency that the government had contacts with Trumps campaign and knows most of the people from his entourage. Trumps campaign denied this. Trump declined again last week to release his tax returns. Instead of selling his businesses or creating a blind trust, he announced that he gave control to his adult sons with his (unenforceable) assurance that theyre not going to discuss it with me. While having all these known or potential entanglements with Russia, Trump has questioned the value of NATO, said he would consider removing sanctions against Russia and recognizing Russias annexation of Crimea, spoken favorably of Putins leadership and resisted blaming Putin for cyberattacks and human-rights abuses. Trump hired as his national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has appeared on Russias state-owned RT network and sat with Putin at a dinner celebrating the network. Trump also tapped to be secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil chief who received the Order of Friendship award from Putins government. At his confirmation hearing, Tillerson declined to say Putin had committed war crimes or approved the killing of opponents and journalists. He left open the possibility of lifting sanctions against Russia. Happily, Trumps picks to run the Pentagon and CIA were more skeptical of Russia in testimony, but that potentially puts them at odds with their commander in chief. Asked last week whether he agreed that Putin tried to help him win the election and whether he would rescind Obamas actions punishing Russia, Trump replied: If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability. Clearly. And Putin, just as clearly, considers Trump an asset. The question is whether Trump is Putins asset because the Russian president controls the American presidents liabilities. BEIJING (Reuters) - The Chinese government has renewed calls for private investment in the country's telecommunication firms as it encourages them to cut fees and other costs and become more competitive in offering internet-related services. The country's big telecoms firms, China Telecom Corp Ltd, China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd and China Mobile Ltd, are all units of unwieldy state-owned enterprises. Those parent firms are seen as heavily overstaffed, inefficient and slow to develop key technologies. The government will open the telecommunications industry to private investment and give "free rein to telecommunications companies in the development of the internet," according to a notice issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. The notice, the latest in a string of increasingly proactive directives, urged further cuts to telecoms fees and said the government was committed to bolstering competition in the sector by easing rules and reining in subsidies. It also pledged to give venture capital firms and small internet businesses a freer rein. Concerned by the need to build high-speed networks in poverty-stricken and remote areas and lower bandwidth costs, China's leadership has been gradually opening core technology requirements to private firms which have shot ahead in developing cloud and big data services as well as mobile software. China Unicom has recently forged a series of partnerships with the country's top tech firms including Baidu Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Telecommunications is not the only industry being encouraged to adopt what the government calls "mixed-ownership" structures. In guidelines issued in 2015, the central government said it would seek to overhaul corporate governance in underperforming SOEs. In September, China launched a $52.5 billion fund to restructure lumbering SOEs. China Mobile is one of 10 firms investing in the fund. Most recently, Chinese state-owned arms manufacturer, China North Industries Group (Norinco) said on Jan. 5 it would consider a mixed ownership structure and work to amend its management structure. (Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese search engine Baidu Inc on Monday launched an augmented reality (AR) lab in Beijing as part of a $200 million effort to revitalise the company's shrinking profits with cutting edge technology. The lab, which currently employs 55 people, will initially aim to drive revenue through AR marketing, though will later explore healthcare and education. "AR marketing is taking off," Andrew Ng, the chief scientist overseeing Baidu's artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality and deep learning projects, told Reuters. "There are few content formats where the content is evergreen - AR will be like that," he said. Popularised in 2016 by Nintendo Co Ltd's Pokemon Go game, augmented reality involves rendering virtual images over real life settings viewed on a smartphone, headset or other device. In marketing, the software can be used to animate a product or a branded space. Baidu's AR launch comes as the company gears up to report full-year earnings next month. It has forecast a revenue drop of around 4.6 percent as it grapples with the aftermath of new government curbs on medical advertising. Those curbs have slashed into the profits of its core search business and saw ad customers drop 16 percent in the quarter ended in September. The company injected $200 million into its AI and AR unit in September in an effort to kick start new growth, followed by the announcement of a $3 billion investment fund announced in October focusing on mid-to-late stage startups. The company in a statement said it is currently working with AR in China with Yum! Brands Inc's KFC, BMW and L'Oreal SA's Lancome among other brands, and has demonstrated a small range of high-end applications. Baidu began working on the technology two years ago, and is working on integrating it with AI to produce visuals capable of interacting with real-time surroundings, unlike current popular AR games. "It's working quite well now, but it's clear that it could be better," said Ng. "I'm quite optimistic." AR technology is still going through a regulatory teething phase in China. While Pokemon Go is yet to launch there, location-based AR concepts have sprung up, drawing the ire of regulators who have refused to license some services over security concerns. According to Ng, Baidu is yet to run into the same issues. "I feel like the abilities for AR have risen up in China faster than the Western world may be aware," said Ng. (Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Christopher Cushing) Googles Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are currently the hottest handsets in the world for Android fans. The sleek, iPhone-esque glass and aluminum design is easily among the best youll find in the market today, and the practically pure Android Nougat build running on the phone provides all of the speed and functionality Android users want. But as is the case with all smartphones, however, the Pixel and Pixel XL arent perfect. There are a handful of aggravating problems that have been plaguing Pixel phone owners since the handsets debuted last year. We recently told you about one of the Pixels biggest problems and curiously, it mimicked a similar problem iPhone users have been experiencing for months. There are also a few other troublesome issues with Googles first in-house smartphones, and the company finally explained one of them in a recent email to a frustrated Pixel owner. Don't Miss: Behold what could be the worlds first clear view of the Galaxy S8 edge The battery life issue affecting some Pixel and Pixel XL handsets is annoying, to say the least, but there is a bright side: the problem only appears to be affecting a small number of handsets. Theres another problem with Pixel phones that is far more widespread, and a recently published note from Google support suggests that it wont be fixed with a simple software update. Many Pixel and Pixel XL owners report that their phones speakers have an audio problem that causes crackling and distortion when sound is played at high volumes. The issue was demonstrated in a recent video posted to YouTube by user Mark Buckman: As you can see and hear this is a serious problem that has been causing pretty big headaches for users (literally and figuratively). Some chatter bouncing around the web had suggested that it might be a software issue that could be fixed with custom ROMs, but not everyone wants to deal with installing custom software on their phones. Whats more, it now appears that any software that had been thought to fix the issue may have just been limiting the loudspeaker volume, because an email from Google posted on Reddit over the weekend states that the issue is actually a hardware problem. Heres the email in question (click to enlarge): Story continues The email states that only select build[s] of device are affected, though it does not clarify which phones are impacted. Google support also states clearly that the company is not offering refunds for this defect, but it is offering warranty service. Unfortunately, as noted in the YouTube video above, the odds seem fairly good that any replacement phones offered by Google will be affected as well. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Were used to seeing plenty of Galaxy S rumors this time of year, but theres always one report that stands out, and it comes from a source who has often provided extensive previews of unreleased Samsung devices. Well guess what, Android fans: Christmas came early this year. Don't Miss: Samsung chief Jay Y. Lee to be arrested on bribery charges Eldar Murtazin, a Russian blogger and Samsung insider who regularly scores early access to the newest phones, just gave us an extensive Galaxy S8 preview over at Mobile-Review. According to him, the Galaxy S8 was already shown to key carrier partners in December, in preparation for the launch. Just as recent leaks have suggested, the Galaxy S8 will come in two versions, and the second model will feature a larger screen than anything seen on a Galaxy S smartphone before. The phones wont be bigger than last years Galaxy S7 versions, but the screen-to-front ratio will be increased. The Galaxy S8 might also sport a fingerprint sensor under the display, although Murtazin cant yet say for sure. Apparently, Samsung also looked at placing the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone. Of note, recent Galaxy S8 case renders showed a phone that did not include a fingerprint scanner on the back. Murtazin also said that the design of the Galaxy S8 impressed carrier partners who attended private meetings with Samsung. The phone will be released in the second half of April, a source familiar with one mobile operators plans noted. This unnamed executive also said that while demand is expected to be high, supply may be constrained at launch. The phone is supposed to come in 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch flavors, sporting new AMOLED display technology that should deliver a larger color gamut, better brightness, improved color accuracy and increased energy efficiency. Murtazin says the phone shown in Samsung Displays promo videos a few days ago is not the Galaxy S8, but rather a demo of this new OLED tech. Story continues The battery size will be similar to whats found on the current Galaxy S7 models. The phone is also expected to pack a standard 3.5mm audio jack as well as a USB-C port. An Iris scanner will also be found on the front side of the handset, just like on the Galaxy Note 7. Murtazin says that both the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and the Exynos 8895 will be built on 10nm process technology, with Samsungs proprietary chip expected to power most of Galaxy S8 units, as usual. The phone will pack a new GPU, the Mali-G71, and itll ship with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage on the base model. Thats faster UFS 2.1 memory, Murtazin notes, and microSD support is still in the cards. Aside from screen size and battery life, the two Galaxy S8 phones are expected to offer the exact same features. Murtazin doesnt mention camera details, although improvements are expected. Curiously, however, a dual rear camera on the back of the bigger Galaxy S8 isnt mentioned either. Murtazin also says the phone will ship with Android 7.1.1 Nougat on board, sporting several Samsung software features on top of it. That includes Samsungs UX, Samsung Cloud (complete with new cloud purchase options), Samsung Pay, and the highly anticipated Bixby voice assistant that will compete with Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. The phone will also feature a special Game Mode (is this the rumored Beast mode?) that will let users make the most of the hardware. One of the Galaxy S8s most surprising rumors was apparently also confirmed by Murtazin. The Galaxy S8 will let users connect the phone to a bigger screen, and use Android on the bigger display in desktop mode. Samsungs Continuum rival does not have a name at this point. Pricing is expected to start at $700 to $750 for the Galaxy S8, and at around $850 for the Galaxy S8 Plus its unclear what Samsung will call the bigger model, though rumors have suggested it may be called the Galaxy S8 edge or Galaxy S8 Plus. Murtazins full report is available at this link. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com Microsoft might be out of the smartphone-making business for the time being, but the company has been rumored to be working on a high-end Surface Phone. Its unclear whether the company will go forward with a Surface Phone launch anytime soon, although a new discovery suggests that Microsoft is also studying foldable smartphones the kind of devices that could easily be turned into Windows tablets. Don't Miss: How to enable the dark mode feature hiding in your iPhone browser right now Samsung, Apple, and others are also researching foldable smartphones. Just like its competitors, Microsoft also has documentation that highlights its foldable smartphone vision. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-1 Found by MSPowerUser, USPTO Patent No. 9,541,962 describes a Mobile computing device having a flexible hinge structure. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-3 The patent, awarded on January 10th, features plenty of imagery to explain Microsofts vision. The user would be able to easily switch from tablet to smartphone mode, with the screen being placed on the exterior of the device. That way, the tablet could be used as a phone in compact form, or as a tablet when unfolded. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-2 A recent report said Samsung will release a smartphone just like the one Microsoft envisions later this year. LG is also rumored to have similar foldable screen technology in place, tech thats supposedly even more advanced than Samsungs. The report claimed that LG might even provide foldable screens to its competitors, including Apple and others. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-4 The Microsoft patent also imagines devices that would have two hinges and three foldable parts. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-5 Furthermore, Microsoft even lays out screen sizes for mini-tablet and smartphone mode, as well as resolutions. microsoft-foldable-smartphone-patent-surface-phone-6 Microsofts patent doesnt guarantee that such a device will actually be built. However, The Verge notes that the Surface Studio leaked out months in advanced thanks to patent filings. Trending right now: See the original version of this article on BGR.com By Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <005930.KS> investigation into what caused some Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire has concluded that the battery was the main reason, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. The world's biggest smartphone maker is seeking to put behind it one of the biggest product safety failures in tech history as it prepares to launch the Galaxy S8, one of its flagship phones, sometime in the first half of this year. Investors and analysts say it is critical for Samsung to provide a convincing and detailed explanation about what went wrong with the Note 7 and how it will prevent such problems from recurring if it is to regain consumer trust. "They've got to make sure they come clean and they've got to reassure buyers as to why this won't happen again," said Bryan Ma, Singapore-based analyst for researcher IDC. The results of the investigation will likely be announced on Jan. 23, a day before it announces detailed fourth-quarter earnings results, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and declined to be identified. Koh Dong-jin, head of Samsung's mobile business, will likely announce the results as well as new measures the firm is taking to prevent similar problems in future devices, the person said. A Samsung spokesman declined to comment. Samsung initially announced a recall of some 2.5 million Note 7 phones in September and identified the cause of the fire as a manufacturing process problem at one of its suppliers, later identified as affiliate Samsung SDI Co Ltd <006400.KS>. But new Note 7s with what Samsung said were safe batteries from a different supplier continued to catch fire, forcing the company to permanently halt sales of the device and dealing a 6.1 trillion won ($5.2 billion) blow to Samsung's operating profit over three quarters. "To me it'd be surprising if they said it was a supplier issue," IDC's Ma said, adding he suspects Samsung may not have given enough room for the battery inside the phone. The company in October said it will examine all aspects of the phone, including hardware design and software, and would hire third-party firms as part of its probe. The source told Reuters on Monday that Samsung was able to replicate the fires during its investigation and that the cause for the fires could not be explained by hardware design or software-related matters. While prospects for its smartphone business this year remain a major question mark for Samsung, profits are expected to rise sharply on the back of rising memory chip prices and growing sales of organic light-emitting diode screens for smartphones. ($1 = 1,179.2000 won) (Reporting by Se Young Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) On The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Phaedra organized a charity pop-up event to raise money for a camp for kids in Flint, Mich., who have suffered from the water crisis. With the housewives hawking their various products, we were left wondering if they could put aside their petty differences for such a worthy cause. It seemed the answer was no, as Kenya constructed an extravagant booth for her Kenya Moore Haircare line, dissing all the other booths, including Sherees Who Gon Check Me, Boo? T-shirt booth and Porshas wig booth. Things really reached a boiling point for Kenya when Marlo arrived the friend she stopped inviting to anything. Marlo confronted Kenya on what a terrible friend she had been to her, and Kenya made a halfhearted apology. Despite the histrionics, the housewives were able to raise $10,000 and the event was able to bring some of them closer together. But definitely not all. The Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Bravo. Watch RHOAs Kenya Moores relationship with Matt Jordan turn violent: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Cynthia LuCiette, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. I have learned the hard way not to put my personal life on the Internet. But suffice it to say that, God willing, things should be pretty much back to norm... 3 weeks ago Cardinal Blase Cupich spoke to the enthusiastic crowd before the march saying a simple message, "Life wins." He was joined on stage by Congressmen Darin LaHood, Peter Roskam, and Dan Lipinski. Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran was the master of ceremonies. A moving story was told by abortion survivor Gianna Jessen. Thousands of pro-life activists marched Sunday in Chicago to celebrate life and protest abortion in America. The march is held annually at this time of year in response to the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion 44 years on January 22, 1973, commonly called Roe V. Wade. There are estimates that 55 million babies have been legally killed (some say murdered) in that time. Others attending the march included Illinois state representatives Jeanne Ives and Tom Morrison, State Senator Dan McConchie, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Dan Patlak, and WLS 890-AM radio host Stephanie Trussell. Also seen were prolife activists Joe Scheidler, Eric Scheidler, Bonnie Quirke, Sandy Weir, Babette Holder, and Chris Iverson. The crowd included many young people coming from as far as Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana. This annual public event is composed of people from diverse ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds dedicated to defending and protecting all human life. There was a handful of pro-choice (pro-abortion) activists holding a counter protest across the street. They numbered about a hundred, but they left before the march began. The pro-abortion protesters had signs including "Abortion is healthcare " and "Safe clinics-safe abortions." One might ask, "How can an abortion be safe?" One pro-life sign that stood out indicating that abortion was the leading cause of death in the African American Community. Another sign read, "Common Sense 101, You Don't Kill Babies." There is a sense of cautious optimism as a new Republican Congress is discussing defunding Planned Parenthood who happens to be the largest abortion provider in the country. I had a chance to hear the president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards speak a couple months ago at the University of Chicago. She was asked in the Q & A this question, "Is a baby a baby the day before it is born?" She would not answer the question, but went on to discuss women's healthcare. Here is my story about it in Illinois Review. On Friday night, I attended the first annual Rose Dinner which featured a panel discussion by Illinois Senator Dan McConchie, Representative Peter Breen, Mary Hallan FioRito, and Eric Scheidler. Congressman Randy Hultgren also was a featured speaker. It was sponsored by SpeakOut Illinois and March for Life-Chicago. There was also a variety of church services and masses held that morning celebrating life including a large one at my high school alma mater Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. There is also more cautious optimism as a new President Elect Donald Trump is expected to appoint a pro-life conservative to the Supreme Court. Expect the debate to heat up over the coming months. The National March For Life will be held Friday, January 27, 2017 in Washington D.C. Again it can't be said enough, "LIFE WINS." Mark Weyermuller is a small business person, real estate professional, and conservative activist in Chicago. He is a citizen journalist and regular contributor to Illinois Review. Mark can be heard weekly on the radio in a "man on the street segment" at 10:31pm as a regular guest on the Stephanie Trussell Show heard Sunday nights 9pm-midnight on WLS 890-AM. On Day 1 of India Today Conclave Mumbai 2022, Varun Dhawan revealed that he always wanted to work in Telugu and Tamil films. He said that if Lokesh Kanagaraj offered him a role, he would love to take it up. He also expressed his eagerness to work with directors SS Rajamouli and Shankar. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) Three persons have been arrested for allegedly abducting a man who duped them by making them invest in a foreign firm on pretext of doubling their money in three months, police said today. Later, police also arrested the man who was abducted and his accomplice for allegedly cheating the trio. advertisement A woman had complained to police that her brother Kushal Chopra left their house on January 11 and did not return, DCP (East) Omvir Singh said. Next day, she got ransom calls and messages demanding Rs 36 lakh for freeing her brother, he said, adding investigation was initiated in the matter by Shakurpur police station. "Based on cellphone locations, a police party searched for the accused at various places like AIIMS, Safdarjung, Chanakyapuri, Dwarka and Najafgarh. "But they kept changing their locations and later switched off their phones once they reached Najafgarh," he said. On January 13, the culprits switched on their mobile phones and their location was traced to Laxmi Nagar, Singh said. The team laid a trap and apprehended one accused, Aman, and Kushal was rescued, the officer said. The other two accused Pankaj, the owner of a club in Gurgaon, and his business partner Akash were also nabbed later. During interrogation, Kushal told police that Pankaj and Akash called him to meet at Connaught Place but took him to a hotel in Gurgaon where he was held. The accused told the police that last year, Kushal had asked them to invest in the foreign firm which he claimed was registered under RBI. Kushal had introduced them to Manoj as the director of the company. "Manoj had urged them to invest money in the company to get it doubled in three months. The trio invested Rs 36 lakh in the firm. However, they didnt get any profit or their principal amount," the officer said. Following this, a case of cheating was registered against Manoj and Kushal. On the basis of the trios statements, Manoj was called for questioning. During interrogation, Manoj told the police that in August 2016, he went to Hong Kong where he met the director of the company who then made Manoj the director and asked him to look after their business in India, the officer said. "During investigation, when searches were made on internet, it was revealed that the company is Bulgaria-based and they are running a parallel economy in Bulgaria and are causing huge financial loss to Bulgarian government by using cryptocurrency," the DCP said. advertisement Following this Kushal and Manoj were also arrested in the cheating case. PTI SLB DIP --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) The AAP government is likely to notify the new municipal ward boundaries later this week after the Lt Governor cleared the final delimitation draft of 272 civic wards in the national capital. The notification on delimitation will be issued by the Urban Development Department for all the 272 municipal wards that will go for polls later this year. advertisement The draft has largely seen redrawing of some municipal wards in the city. An official said although the number of municipal wards in each of the three corporations--NDMC, EDMC and SDMC--has remained same, the number of wards in some assembly segments has completely changed, ranging from three to seven wards. "As the Lt Governor has given his nod to the draft of delimitation, the UD Department will issue a gazette notification in next few days, " the official said. The move comes at a time when both BJP and Congress accused the ruling AAP government of delaying the municipal elections that are scheduled to be held before April. According to an official, the number of municipal wards across all three civic bodies remain static at 272 which consists of 104 each in South and North municipal corporations while East civic body has 64 seats. Changes in the existing wards have been made in order to rationalise the number of wards as per the local population according to the 2011 census. Matiala Assembly Constituency in South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) will have seven wards while Vikaspuri constituency will now have six wards. According to the draft, the numbers of wards in North Delhis Chandni Chowk has gone down to three. PTI BUN AAR --- ENDS --- AIADMK MLA and former minister KP Munusamy alleged that senior party leaders have been sidelined. By Pramod Madhav: AIADMK MLA and former minister KP Munusamy has spoken out against party general secretary VK Sasikala, alleging that senior party leaders are being sidelined. KP Munusamy, an MLA from Krishnagiri constituency, was a Jayalalithaa loyalist and one of her trustworthy party members. Munusamy also opposed the speech made by Sasikala's brother V Divakaran at a Pongal event on Sunday, wherein the latter said that only Sasikala and her family members were instrumental in protecting the party from evil forces. advertisement Sasikala's brother made the speech in Mannargudi town of Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu. The attack comes in the wake of growing speculations surrounding Sasikala eventually taking over as the state's chief minister. ALSO READ: After General Secretary, paths being cleared for Sasikala to become Tamil Nadu CM DOUSING THE FIRE Following former minister Munusamy's attack on Sasikala and her family, AIADMK MP K Ashok Kumar tried to douse the fire. Kumar, an MP from Krishnagiri constituency, clarified that Munusamy has no problem in working under the leadership of VK Sasikala. Kumar said the former minister did not approve of the speech by Sasikala's brother. In his speech, Divakaran reportedly claimed that Sasikala's husband Natrajan was instrumental in saving the party during the split and bringing back the party symbol of 'twin leaves'. This comment, said Kumar, did not go well with former minister and MLA Munusamy. "Amma was the one who fought and got back the symbol," said Ashok. ALSO READ: Sasikala Natarajan era begins in AIADMK: Jayalalithaa's aide elected party General Secretary FISSURE IN THE CASTLE? Meanwhile, in a message to party men on the eve of the birth centenary of AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran, Sasikala said no one can fill the void left behind by Jayalalithaa. "Although none can fill the void left behind by Purathchi Thalaivi Amma (revolutionary leader mother), there is a big responsibility before crores of party workers who are its roots... That is to ensure that they don't allow enemies to exploit the crisis created by the sudden demise of Amma by any means," she said today without referring to anyone. The "defeated enemies" are looking for a "fissure in the strong castle" and see if they can make some redemption, Sasikala said. ALSO READ: Jayalalithaa death: Sasikala Pushpa and Sasikala Natrajan fight over legacy ALSO READ: With Sasikala at helm, Congress sending 'not hostile' feelers to AIADMK ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- A Bangladesh court has awarded death penalty to 26 accused in the sensational Narayanganj murder case, in which seven high profile people including a mayor were killed in 2014. Awami League leader Nur Hossain- prime accused in Naryanganj murder case being taken to court. (Photo: Sahidul Hasan Khokon) By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: Twenty six people including prime accused and Awami League leader Nur Hossain, and dismissed Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) officers Lt Col Tareque Sayeed Mohammad, Major Arif Hossain and Lt Commander MM Rana, were awarded death penalty in the sensational seven-murder case. Narayanganj Sessions Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain pronounced the sentence today. The victims including Awami League leader Nazrul Islam, were abducted and killed in April, 2014. The murder of seven high profile people had caused a national outrage in Bangladesh. advertisement Prime accused Nur Hossain is a former Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) councilor and a colleague of victim Nazrul Islam. BANGLADESH'S NARYANGANJ MURDER CASE: THINGS TO KNOW Seven people, including Narayanganj City Corporation panel mayor Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer Chandan Sarkar, were abducted from the Dhaka-Narayanganj link road on April 27, 2014. Three days later, their bodies were found floating in the Shitalakkhya. Nazrul islam's family accused Nur Hossain of plotting the murder. The family alleged that Nur Hossain paid Tk 60 million to senior officers of the local Rapid Action Battalion (RAB-11) to kill Nazrul Islam and other victims. Both Nazrul and Nur Hossain belonged to the ruling Awami League. After one year of investigation, the police filed chargesheet against 35 persons including Nur Hossain and three senior officers of the RAB-11. Nur Hossain fled immediately after the killings, but was held in Kolkata and brought back to Bangladesh on November 12, 2015. After over-a-year-long trial, the court today started reading out the verdict around 10:03 am (local time) amid tight security. Over 300 policemen were deployed on the court premises since 6:00 am (local time). Nur Hossain and the former RAB officers were in the dock along with 19 others when judge Syed Enayet Hossain handed down death penalty for the crime that shook the Bangladesh citizenry. Prime accused Nur Hossain and four others were taken to the court from Kashimpur jail in Gazipur while 18 other accused were brought from the Narayanganj jail around 9:00 am (local time). The families of the victims welcomed the court's verdict. Former councilor Nazrul Islam's wife Selina Islam Beauty said, "We want the verdict to be implemented as soon as possible and hope that the High Court will uphold it." Murdered lawyer Chandan Sarkar's daughter Sushmita Sarkar said, "We want quick execution of the verdict. Chandan's lawyer Shakhawat Hossain also expressed satisfaction with the verdict but said, "It would have been better if all of the 35 accused had been sentenced to death." --- ENDS --- Sources say that the first round of talks got stuck over the issue of 'transparency' with the BJP demanding clarity about issues like global tendering to be introduced in the civic body. By Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: After days of bickering, allies BJP and Shiv Sena have started seat-sharing discussions for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls. The first round of talks on Monday ended inconclusively with the BJP insisting on the 'transparency' clause. It is interesting to note that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while hinting at an alliance with Shiv Sena, too had spoken about transparency only recently. advertisement Also read | BMC polls: Shiv Sena leaders go into huddle, BJP plans separate manifesto on "transparency" Sources say that the first round of talks got stuck over the issue of 'transparency' with the BJP demanding clarity about issues like global tendering to be introduced in the civic body. Citing these issues as administrative, Shiv Sena leaders said that they needed to consult with their party boss. Speaking to reporters, Shiv Sena leader Anil Desai said, "These were very primary talks. Our leaders Uddhav Thackeray and CM Devendra Fadnavis will guide us on the further rounds of discussions". JAN 21 DEADLINE TO CONCLUDE BJP-SENA TALKS "We have set ourselves a deadline of January 21st to conclude the talks. As far as other parts of the state are concerned, local leaders have been given the authority to take the decision on alliance", said Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar. BJP that scored better than the Shiv Sena in 2014 assembly polls is in no mood to play the junior partner. Even before the talks began, BJP had demanded 115 seats, while Sena was not ready to give it more than 75 seats. Both the parties are claiming to have conducted their own surveys. Both the BJP and Shiv Sena say according to their survey, their respective parties are likely to win 100 plus seats in the 227 member house if they contest on their own. Also read | Dates for voting for 10 civic bodies in Maharashtra out, BJP-Sena discuss alliance for BMC polls BJP state President Raosaheb Danwe, Education Minister Vinod Tawde, Housing Minister Prakash Mehta, BJP Mumbai President Ashish Shelar, and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai, MLC Anil Parab and deputy leader Ravindra Mirlekar from Shiv Sena attended the seat-sharing talks. --- ENDS --- After Radhakrishnan, his brother's wife, Vimala also died of the burn injuries after CPM workers burnt their house down in December. By Revathi Rajeevan: After BJP worker Radhakrishnan, his brother's wife Vimala has also died of burn injuries. Radhakrishnan died on 6 Jan, both suffered burn injuries after their house was burnt allegedly by CPM workers in December. The BJP worker's house in Kanjikkode in Palakkad was burnt after CPM workers in the area allegedly set fire to bikes parked in front of the house. The fire then spread to a gas cylinder which exploded and burnt the entire house. advertisement Vimala had suffered 40% burn injuries and was admitted at a Palakkad hospital. Vimala took her last breat at 9am. Four people suffered burn injuries in the incident that took place on that unfortunate day. Also Read: BJP worker's house burnt allegedly by CPM workers in Palakkad The injured were Kannan, a former panchayat member and a BJP worker, his brother Radhakrishnan and Kannan's wife Vimala. The house was completely gutted in the fire. The incident was a continuation of ongoing clash between the two parties in the area said police. Radhakrishnan, the BJP worker who suffered burn injuries in the below mentioned incident succumbed to his injuries. He died at 2.50pm today at Trissur Jubilee Mission hospital. Also Watch: Jallikattu ban: Heavy Police deployed across Tamil Nadu amid protests --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Mathura, Jan 16 (PTI) A flying squad, including officials from UP police and the election commission has seized nearly Rs 6 lakh in cash and a large amount of jewellery, in multiple raids here ahead of the Assembly elections in the state. "The flying squad of Mathura yesterday seized Rs l.11 lakh from Hari Om near Akbarpur Tiraha while Rs 1.58 lakh were recovered from Radhey Babu," ADM Ravindra Kumar said today. advertisement "The squad also nabbed Sandeep Negi with Rs 1.58 lakh and 2.5 Kg of silver at a place falling under Kosi Kalan police station. Also, an amount of Rs 84,000 was seized from Bichpuri barrier falling under Raya police station yesterday," he said. The Additional District Magistrate said checking has been increased on Yamuna Expressway which is turning into a safe ground for carrying illegal money in cash or kind to be used in forthcoming Assembly elections. "On Friday, Rs 1.40 lakh was seizednear toll plaza on Yamuna Expressway and gold ornaments worth millions were unearthed at a place falling under Khandauli police station, the border police station of Mathura following which the checking has been intensified," Kumar said. "The manner in which Khandaluli police nabbed 1.25 kg gold from Sarraf Murlidhar, a resident of Shastri Nagar Distt, is an evidence of increased illegal activities on Yamuna Express Way," he said. Meanwhile, police have unearthed an illegal arms factory on the outskirts of village Utavar falling under Kosi Kalan police station. "Two country made pistols, few parts of arms and accessorieswere recovered from a person identified as Surra and his two associates from village Bishambhara Shergarh," Police said. PTI CORR EMY ARK --- ENDS --- Before the Lokpal Act was legislated, the CBI director was appointed by the 1946-DSPE Act. Now, the Lokpal Act governs the appointment of the CBI director but the functioning of the agency is still government by the pre-Independence Act. By India Today Web Desk: The search committee for the appointment of CBI director is meeting this evening to vet the final name from among over 40 contenders. The meeting is scheduled to take place at the Prime Minister's Office. Officers of batches between 1979 and 1982 would be considered for the post. This disqualifies interim CBI director Rakesh Asthana for the permanent post. advertisement A public interest litigation is pending in the Supreme Court challenging the appointment of interim CBI director Rakesh Asthana by the Modi government. An NGO- Common Cause- has sought quashing of Rakesh Asthana's appointment on the grounds that the ad hoc arrangement violates the Supreme Court 1998-judgment, which laid down principles for functional autonomy of the CBI. HOW ASTHANA WAS APPOINTED The former CBI director Anil Sinha retired on December 2 last year. His deputy Rupak Kumar Dutta was widely speculated to be the next CBI director. But, just a day ahead, he was surprisingly shifted out of the SBI and made special secretary in the Home Ministry. Asthana is a Gujarat cadre IPS officer, who supervised the probe into the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express train at the Godhra railway station. He was handpicked by the government to be the interim director of the CBI. Asthana's appointment came as a surprise as the search committee did not meet to clear his name. SO, HOW A CBI DIRECTOR IS APPOINTED: 10 POINTS The CBI draws its legality from the 1946-Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DSPE). The precursor to the CBI was the Special Police Establishment, which was India's first agency to investigate corruption. It was set in 1946 by the British. In 1963, the Home Ministry expanded its power and changed its name to the Central Bureau of Investigation. But, it is still governed by the 1946 Act. Before the Lokpal Act was legislated, the CBI director was appointed by the DSPE Act. Now, the Lokpal Act governs the appointment of the CBI director. The CBI director is appointed by the Centre on the basis of the recommendation of a search committee comprising of the Prime Minister as the chairperson, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of Opposition. The Chief Justice of India can nominate a Supreme Court judge if he does not attend the search committee meeting. In the absence of a formal Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the leader of the floor of the largest opposition party (in present case Congress) takes part in the search committee meetings. The process of selecting the CBI director begins in the Home Ministry, which prepares a list of IPS officers, who are eligible for the post on the basis of their seniority and experience in the field of probe. The MHA list goes to the Department of Personnel, which prepares the final list on the basis of "seniority, integrity and experience in the investigation of ant-corruption cases". The search committee examines the names and sends its recommendation to the government for the appointment of CBI director. The decision of the committee could be unanimous or divided with a member recording the note of dissent. Earlier, under the DSPE Act, the CBI director was appointed on the basis of the recommendation by a panel comprising the Central Vigilance Commission as chairperson, other vigilance commissioners, Home Secretary and Secretary (Co-ordination and Public Grievances the Cabinet Secretariat). --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: Colombo, Jan 16 (PTI) American beverages major Coca-Cola Co may set up a plant in Sri Lanka to feed demands in India, which has the highest demand of the firms products in South Asia, the Sri Lankan finance ministry today said. Coca-Colas interest was expressed by the Asia Pacific chiefs of the Company when they met the Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake here over the weekend, it said in a statement. advertisement "They pointed out that Sri Lanka could be developed into a production hub to re-export their products to India. India has the highest demand for Coca Cola products in the South Asian region." The Atlanta-based firms products include Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Thums Up and Limca, juices and juice-based drinks like Minute Maid and Maaza, packaged water, as well as Kinley soda. The non-alcoholic beverages market in India is said to be around USD 5 billion, according to the data available on the website of Indian Beverage Association, which is formed by firms with direct and allied interests in the non-alcoholic beverage industry. PTI CORR ABH AKJ ABH --- ENDS --- In February 2013, three 10th class students - vocalist-guitarist Noma Nazir, drummer Farah Deeba and guitarist Aneeka Khalid decided to disband after receiving threats and criticism from the local people and fatwas from the priests. By India Today Web Desk: When Kashmiri Dangal teenager girl Zaira Wasim apologised to people - ostensibly for meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a couple of days ago - she became the fourth person to succumb to the bullies by the local people. Coincidentally, the previous three were also teenagers and girls. About three years ago, three members of an all-girls music band had quit following fatwas issued to them. advertisement Also read | Dangal girl Zaira Wasim apologises after being trolled for meeting Jammu and Kashmir CM Mehbooba In February 2013, three 10th class students - vocalist-guitarist Noma Nazir, drummer Farah Deeba and guitarist Aneeka Khalid decided to disband after receiving threats and criticism from the local people and fatwas from the priests. HISTORY OF CRACKDOWN BY HARDLINERS The three girls in February 2013 -- all teenagers -- had formed the Pragaash (meaning from darkness to light) band and performed in December 2012. They had delivered an extraordinary performance in Srinagar at the annual 'Battle of the Bands' competition. They went on to win the best performance award in their very first public appearance. However, shortly after their performance, the girls had started receiving threats and abusive comments online and elsewhere. To make matters worse for them, government-backed grand priest Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad had issued a fatwa against the rock band. Jamaat-e-Islami, the socio-religious group, had joined the mufti in reprimanding the teenaged girls. They said that shariat strictly prohibits immodest activity, in particular obscene dancing of women in the presence of men. The hardline separatist Hurriyat Conference had also criticised the girls for emulating Western culture. They said that there were some values a citizen had to adopt to safeguard the ethical, moral and religious traditions. Failing to withstand the plethora of criticisms, the three girls were disbanded and called it quits. The same phenomenon finds itself repeated in a period of barely three years. In case of Zaira Wasim, a press release was issued recently by the Jammu and Kashmir government informing that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti met the Dangal actor. As per the statement, Mehbooba Mufti appreciated Zaira and her family and spoke to them. However, what followed was harassment for the teenager girl and members of her family. Succumbing to criticism, Zaira has been unfortunately been forced to apologise for meeting the state CM. Also read | Dangal girl Zaira Wasim's apology sets a haanikaarak precedent for Kashmiri achievers --- ENDS --- Two high-profile thieves came in an expensive car and looted clothes worth 25 lakh from a branded showroom in Delhi. By India Today Web Desk: Not all thieves are poor and needy; some also do it for an adrenaline rush, it looks like. In an unusual incident, two high-profile thieves were found looting a showroom in Delhi. In the CCTV footage obtained by the police, two thieves were seen blocking the front side of the showroom with their cars. They were seen loading the boots with clothes and accessories fearlessly. advertisement The robbery went on for about 90 minutes. They managed to ransack the entire showroom. The police went through the CCTV footage and is trying to nab the robbers. Take a look at the video: --- ENDS --- Donald Trump, in his first UK interview since becoming US president-elect, said that Brexit is "going to end up being a great thing" and that Russia's intervention in Syria is a "very bad thing". By India Today Web Desk: In an interview with British publication, The Times of London, US President-elect Donald Trump spoke on a wide range of issues, including Brexit, Russia, the NATO and the refugee crisis. This was the first time the Republican Trump, who is set to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States of America on January 20, spoke to a UK publication since his election victory of the Democratic Hillary Clinton. advertisement TOP TAKES FROM TRUMP'S THE TIMES INTERVIEW On Brexit: Terming Britain's exit from the European Union as something that "is going to end up being a great thing", the US president-elect predicted that more countries would follow the UK's lead in leaving the 28-nation bloc. The arrival of migrants into Europe was one of the factors behind Brexit, Trump told The Times, calling the refugee influx the "final straw that broke the camel's back". Trump said that he would work hard to get a trade deal with the UK "done quickly and done properly." The deal would be "good for both sides", he added, also confirming that he will meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after he takes office. Also read: Donald Trump on Brexit: Britons took back control of their country On Europe's refugee crisis: Trump predicted that continuing inflow of migrants into Europe could lead to the EU breaking up. "I think this, if refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe... I think it's gonna be very hard to keep it (the EU) together because people are angry about it," the Republican leader said. He further said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he termed a "fantastic leader", made a "catastrophic mistake" in letting migrants flood into Germany. On Russia: Trump signaled that he could offer relaxing sanctions imposed against Moscow if the latter agrees to a deal to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. He went on to criticise Russia's involvement in the Syrian civil war, calling Kremlin's intervention "a very bad thing" that had led to a "terrible humanitarian situation". Also read: Donald Trump's first press meet after win: If Putin likes me, that's an asset On nuclear arms: Speaking in the context of sanctions against Russia and making deals with Moscow, Trump said, "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially." On NATO: Complaining that the coalition had "not bothered about terrorism," Trump called the NATO alliance an "obsolete organisation" and, at the same time, said it remains "very important" to him. Trump also reiterated his often-repeated complaint that some NATO members weren't paying enough. "We're supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," the US president-elect said, adding, "There's five countries that are paying what they're supposed to. Five. It's not much." advertisement Also read: NATO says 'absolutely confident' of Trump leadership in alliance Also read: Trump could be first US President in 150 years to not have pet in the White House (With inputs from agencies) --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) East Delhi sanitation workers who were protesting non-payment of salaries today completely called off their 11-day-long strike. This was the last batch of workers who had continued their strike despite another section ending the protest on January 9 upon receiving salaries for the last two months. The sanitation workers decided to return to their jobs after a meeting between MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union and EDMC officials, including Commissioner Mohanjeet Singh. advertisement Over 17,000 sanitation workers of East Delhi Municipal Corporation had gone on strike from January 5 demanding payment of pending salaries and arrears among others. President of the Union Sanjay Gehlot said a number of demands, including reinstatement of removed employees, promotion for educated workers, regularisation of those engaged since 2013 and jobs on compassionate grounds, were made at the meeting. "The Commissioner accepted our demands and issued orders in this regard," he said. Gehlot said he has appealed to sanitation employees to resume work and ensure cleanliness in East Delhi. He, however, said a large number of employees from all the three MCDs will gather at Raj Ghat on February 7 and stage a demonstration against the Delhi government for "withholding" funds meant for the civic body. PTI VIT GVS --- ENDS --- Despite it being the auspicious month of Magh, devotees chose to stay away from the famous banks of river Ganga in Uttarakhand's Haridwar and Rishikesh. By Supriya Bezbaruah: As north India shivers, the devotees chose to stay away from the famous banks of river Ganga in Uttarakhand's Haridwar and Rishikesh. The 'arti' at 'Har Ki Pauri' in Haridwar and Triveni Ghat at Rishikesh wore a deserted look as heavy rainfall hit the Haridwar, Hrishikesh to Shivpur area, and snowfall was reported in the hilly area of Uttarakhand. advertisement The priests present at the ghats informed India Today that despite it being the auspicious month of Magha still devotees number at the banks of river Ganga has fallen this year due to the unprecedented winter season. The MeT Department has predicted that in the next 48 hours, the state will be hit by heavy rainfall and snowfall. --- ENDS --- Fawad Khan's wife Sadaf has shared the first photo of their daughter Elayna on Instagram. By India Today Web Desk: It's been three months since Fawad Khan and wife Sadaf Khan welcomed their baby girl - Elayna. The Pakistani actor, who was last seen in Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, returned to Pakistan in July last year to spend some quality time with his wife during her pregnancy. ALSO READ: Fawad Khan becomes dad for the second time, blessed with a baby girl advertisement ALSO READ: Fawad Khan announces baby Elayna's name with custom-made red velvet cakes And after months, Sadaf has shared the first picture of their daughter Elayna on Instagram. The adorable photo shows Fawad holding his Elayna in his arms. Elayna ?? A photo posted by Sadaf Fawad Khan (@sadaf.f.k) on Jan 15, 2017 at 11:46am PST The picture was taken at Fawad and Sadaf's son's birthday bash. A video of the family celebrating Ayaan's birthday has been posted by Fawad's fan club on Instagram. The video shows Sadaf holding Elayna as Fawad sings Happy Birthday along with kids at his son's birthday bash. Fawad's Sons Birthday! Happy Birthday Ayaan??????????? A video posted by Fawad Afzal Khan {F.A.K.O} (@fawad.afzal.khan.ofc) on Jan 14, 2017 at 4:16pm PST Fawad had earlier ordered 112 custom-made red velvet floral-themed cakes to announce the his baby girl's name. Fawad and Sadaf welcomed their second child in October 2016. On the work front, Fawad was recently nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Kapoor And Sons at Filmfare Awards. --- ENDS --- Starting today, the Delhi government's department of food safety will undertake an ambitious drive aimed at testing the quality and hygiene of food served at major eateries in the city. By Priyanka Sharma: The Delhi government will launch a food surveillance programme starting today to determine quality and hygiene of the fare served in restaurants and fast food chains across the city. The drive will cover major food hubs as well as sale of packaged food items like chips and juices. In the first phase, target areas to be covered under surveillance will be Connaught Place, Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, Khan Market, Lajpat Nagar and a few others, sources in the department said. The purpose of the programme is to ensure that eateries are conforming to conditions laid out in the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. advertisement "It will have a great preventive effect in the food market regarding unsafe and unhealthy food all across the national Capital, including leading food chains here," said Dr Mrinalini Darswal, food commissioner, department of food safety. AN AMBITIOUS DRIVE According to Darswal, this is one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken so far and the department has tied up with nine private laboratories with 'microbiological' trial facilities. Microbiological tests can detect pathogens and spoilage organisms in food which a normal chemical test facility cannot scrutinise Earlier, the department was conducting only chemical testing due to shortage of staff and food inspectors. "We have started our microbiological food testing labs which can detect bacteria, fungus and virus inside a food item. The officials can also write their comments in reports on the kitchen hygiene of these food eateries, besides sample tests," Darswal said. The commissioner said food officials will pick thousands of food samples everyday from the market irrespective of the size and brand of an outlet. "The officials from private labs will pick up surveillance samples (for preliminary testing) and if these food samples fails at in the initial testing then the government food inspectors will pick legal samples for prosecution purpose," she said. DRIVE COMES AFTER CONSUMER COMPLAINTS Food officials said the programme was planned after they received complaints from consumers against popular food chains operating in the city. The officials said the raids will include cooperatives such as Mother Dairy, transnational food chains like McDonald's or Pizza Hut, and domestic businesses like Haldiram or Bikanerwala. "Our sole aim is to ensure hygiene and standard quality served to the people by these eateries," said Darswal. Reacting to the programme on food safety, spokesperson for Domino's Pizza said they have always "maintained highest quality standards" and strictly adhere to all policies applicable on the food business. "We always look for areas for continuous improvement in our operations, supply chain and storage. As a practice, in case of a customer complaint, we closely investigate the matter and immediately take necessary measures," the spokesperson said. advertisement Queries to other popular city food chains like KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds did not elicit any response. PART OF A LARGER INITIATIVE The food and drug department of Delhi carries out surprise inspections and raids of food establishments and draws samples of food articles that can be potentially adulterated, substandard or misbranded. However, in the programme beginning Monday the scale will be wider, said officials. As per the official process, when the department receives a complaint about an adulterated food item, a report is filed and marked to the designated district officer, after which the officer collects samples. The samples are sent for testing where the food analyst supervises the work and sends the reports back to the department concerned. Officials said the programme is part of a larger initiative to spruce up food safety standards in the Capital. "A proposal has been sent to the Central government for commissioning more food laboratories and revamping the existing ones. The Centre has agreed to fund for state-ofart food laboratories," officials at food department said. The FSSAI recently trained at least 23,000 street vendors all across Delhi for food hygiene. "This was done under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and all the street vendors have been registered, trained food hygiene and provided with a certificate," officials said. --- ENDS --- advertisement Five men decamped with 40 kg gold from a Muthoot Finance branch in Hyderabad on December 28 last year. All five have been arrested. By Ashish Pandey: Eighteen days after five men pulled off a daring robbery at a Muthoot Finance branch in Hyderabad and decamped with 40kg gold, all the accused have been arrested. The heist was carried out by an inter-state gang with members coming from Mahrarashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. A team of Cyberabad Police, led by Joint Commissioner of Police Stephen Raveendra, traced the gang with the help of CCTV footage. advertisement Here is all you need to know about the case: Investigations revealed that gang members Sunder Rajaratnam Kangalla, Tukaram Gaikwad and Kaala alias Lambu had the backing of underworld don Chhota Rajan's associate DK Rao. Other two accused, Twinkle Mishra and Roshan Yadav, were gangster Ravi Pujari's men. Chhota Rajan DK Rao reportedly helped the gang convert the looted gold into cash. After the robbery at the Muthoot Finance branch in RC Puram, Hyderbad, the gang was planning to attack the house of a hawala operator in Mehsana, Gujarat. According to the investigation, one of the accused--Sunder Rajaratnam Kangalla-- wanted to contest in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections. He was reportedly planning to use Rs 1-1.5 crore, accumulated from various criminal activities, to fund his campaign. According to highly-placed sources in Cyberabad Police, 42-year-old Sunder Rajaratnam was likely to be announced as a Congress candidate from the Dharavi constituency in Mumbai ahead of the BMC polls. Of the total loot, police have recovered only 3.5 kg gold. The rest, police suspect, is with a Mumbai-based jeweller called Kumar Pal Shah. In the days following the robbery, the jeweller has received big payments through RTGS. Police suspect he could have distributed the gold among his associates. The jeweller will be taken into custody for questioning. ALSO READ: Hyderabad: 5 persons claiming to be CBI officials loot 40 kg gold from Muthoot Finance branch MODUS OPERANDI On December 28 last year, a person dressed as a traffic constable entered the RC Puram branch along with a security guard who was on duty. Four men followed him, with two dressed in safari suits and another wearing a mask. The man dressed as traffic cop said they were CBI officers and were investigating a crime of mortgaging stolen jewellery. Soon, one of them pulled out a gun and asked for the keys to the strong room. The robbers locked the branch employees inside bathrooms. The bike which led the police to one of the accused. As per the CCTV footage recovered by the police, the robbers, after looting the bank around 9.30 am, took the Hyderabad-Mumbai highway and crossed the Telangana-Karnataka border around 12 noon. ALSO READ: 40 kg gold loot at Muthoot Finance: Telangana Police suspect inter-state gang role THE CHASE The Cyberabad Police constituted 16 teams and dispatched them to neighboring state of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The team collected footage from 69 CCTV cameras and zeroed in on a black Scorpio with an Andhra Pradesh Registration Number plate AP-28- N-3107 and later a Maharastra registration number plate MH-06- AN-1174. The black Scorpio with a Maharashtra number plate. The black Scorpio with a Maharashtra number plate. advertisement The crucial lead came from a red Bajaj Avenger bike with the number KA-32- Y-3610, which was also used by the robbers. The police traced the bike to one of the gang members, and the other four were nabbed soon. ALSO READ: Muthoot Finance robbery: Police makes a crucial breakthrough ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma Beijing, Jan 16 (PTI) India should rethink its opposition to Chinese investments in Sri Lanka and join the port development in the island nation instead of feeling "jealous", Chinas state media said today. "It is understandable that the cooperation has left some Asian countries vigilant as media reports suggest that an 80 per cent share of the port, which sits on an important trade route, and land for an industrial zone will be leased to China for the next 99 years," an article in Global Times referring to Sri Lankas decision to hand over the Hambatota Port to China. advertisement Also there was public agitation over the land given to China to industrial zone in Hambatota. "However, joining the project would be better than standing aside and being jealous," the article said. "As more and more South Asian countries keep a positive attitude toward Chinas efforts to improve infrastructure in the region, skeptics in countries such as India should rethink their stance toward the Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka," it said. "China is likely to adopt an open attitude if other countries can put aside the idea of geopolitical confrontation and join in on harbour construction of the island nation," it said. Referring to concerns in India and Japan over Chinese investments totalling over USD 8 billion, the article said, "the Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka is not a nail being knocked into the geopolitical landscape of South Asia to curb Indias rise". Chinas economic cooperation with Sri Lanka does not target any third party, including India and Japan, because the project is just another move in pushing forward the Belt and Road initiative, an open, inclusive international cooperative proposal that any nation is welcome to take part in, it said. India and Japan should feel free to join the initiative in a bid to boost their presence in Sri Lankas economy, but it is questionable whether the two countries are willing to spend a large amount of money on supporting the economy of Sri Lanka and pushing forward regional economic integration, it said. "If Sri Lanka could not get enough financial support from India and Japan to build its port facilities, it seems inadvisable to prevent the South Asian country from seeking help from China, a country that is witnessing a boom in outbound investment," it said. "Some countries like India and Bangladesh will be the first batch of beneficiaries of Chinas efforts to build a network of roads and infrastructure facilities in South Asia to open up new trade routes. In this regard, Chinas economic cooperation with Sri Lanka will contribute not just to the local economy but to the whole region," it said. PTI KJV UZM KK --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Jan 16 (PTI) Indian-American Congresswoman from Seattle, Pramila Jayapal, has announced that she wont attend Donald Trumps inauguration this week, saying the President-elects "language and actions" undermine Americas democracy and its history. "I did not undertake the decision lightly," Jayapal said in a statement yesterday. So far two dozen US lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting Trumps inauguration. advertisement "I had hoped in the days following the election that we would see a President-elect who broke from his campaign rhetoric and worked to unite the American people. Instead, we have seen this President-elect continue to use language and take actions that demean our history and our heroes, and undermine our democracy," she said. The only lawmaker to oppose Trumps presidential victory confirmation during the joint session of the Congress early this month, Jayapal alleged that his Cabinet appointments underscore the grave threat to the country that his presidency represents. "Appointments of people such as Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Andrew Pudzer threaten the very fabric of our country and the institutions that these men and women will lead. The continued promises to create a Muslim registry, to repeal DACA, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and punish women for abortions, fly in the face of our 7th District values," she said. Instead of being in Washington DC attending the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump, Jayapal said she would be with her constituents attending a seminar on immigration. "My decision to be here in the district with my constituents who are truly terrified that they will no longer have a home in this city and country was not, at the time, a boycott of the inauguration...I believe my first responsibility is to listen to my constituents and to be with them, through the darkest of times," she said. "If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trumps response to one of our countrys great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis. With Donald Trumps tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott,? she said. Jayapal said she does understands that she and others are breaking from long-standing tradition of bipartisan attendance at the Presidential inauguration. However, these are not normal times and one cannot pretend it is so, she argued. "If we are worried about breaking from long-standing tradition, let us focus on the fact that when this President is sworn in on January 20, he will be in violation of the Constitution, the very document that he will swear to protect and defend. His disregard for the conflicts of interest he brings into this office, and his refusal to address those conflicts are the break from tradition on which we should focus," Jayapal said. PTI LKJ BSA --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, Jan 16 (PTI) Pakistans Defence Minister Khawaja Asif today warned India of a "befitting response" if it dared to carry out surgical strikes inside his country. Asif also claimed India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. "If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session. advertisement He was speaking on a motion moved by Senator Sehar Kamran regarding the situation arising out of the alleged Indian violations of the Line of Control and ceasefire on the Working Boundary, resulting in the loss of precious lives. "A befitting response would be given if India dared to carry out surgical strikes inside Pakistan," he said, adding Indias claims of surgical strikes were "baseless and false." He claimed that India was making failed attempts to link the Kashmir insurgency with cross border infiltration and terrorism, Radio Pakistan reported. The minister claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 on LoC and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He said 45 Pakistani civilians were killed and 138 injured in the violations. He said the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. The minister said the violations were effectively responded by the armed forces of the country. He said these violations were reported to United Nations Military Observer Group at the Line of Control and Working Boundaries to appraise the UN for investigations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also raised the issue at the diplomatic and bilateral levels, he added. He said that Pakistan would continue "extending political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris in their struggle for their right to self-determination." Earlier this month, Pakistans Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistans armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor had quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about so called surgical strikes and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces in September last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. advertisement Gen Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. PTI SH/ZH AKJ ZH --- ENDS --- People in TamilNadu have rallied together against state and central governments and are raising their voice against oppression of their tradition By Pramod Madhav: Defying ban on jallikattu, locals in Tamil Nadu conducted banned cock fight at Sembatti, near Coimbatore. People in Tamil Nadu have rallied together against state and central governments and are raising their voice against oppression of their tradition, especially jallikattu. At many areas near Madurai, Salem and Coimbatore, jallikattu and rekla race (bull cart) were conducted defying the Supreme Court ban. advertisement Banned cock fight was also conducted stating if there were any wrong measures with the traditional way, it should be rectified and regulated. Sembatti, a location famous for cock fight for centuries conducted the event in front of a large group of spectators, only as a form of protest and claimed that if the bans are not lifted soon, they will have to defy it to save their tradition. WATCH --- ENDS --- People of Kanjirangudi conducted jallikattu against the ban declaring that it is their traditional sport and it can't be banned. By Pramod Madhav: On the day of 'Kaanom Pongal', the last day of Pongal festival, jallikattu was conducted against the ban by Supreme Court at Kanjirangudi, Ramanathapuram. People of Kanjirangudi conducted jallikattu against the ban declaring that it is their traditional sport and it can't be banned. The bull specifically trained for 'Yerudhukattu', a form of sport where the bull would be tied to a rope allowing it to move inside a 15ft circumference was conducted under the orders of 'Yeruthu Kattu Sangam' leader, Adithan. advertisement Trained men, tried to wrangle with the bull for nearly an hour but no one was able to get near it. Also read: To defy jallikattu ban, cock fight conducted in Tamil Nadu Police reached the spot hearing the news and requested the crowd to stop the event as it is banned. Adithan while speaking on the matter, said that 'Yerudhukattu' was traditionally played at 112 villages around the place and due to the ban it did not happen for the past two years. He stated that "an immediate ordinance should be promulgated to facilitate conducting jallikattu or else they will play defying the ban." Also read: Jallikattu protests: Youths detained, black flags hoisted in Tamil Nadu --- ENDS --- Three AK-47 rifles and other arms and ammunition have also been recovered from the terrorists. By Ashraf Wani: All three militants, who were holed up in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district, were killed in an encounter with the security forces today. The terrorists killed are believed to be from the terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen and are local residents. According to ANI news agency, three AK -47 rifles and other arms and ammunition have also been recovered from the terrorists. advertisement HERE'S WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Security forces in Jammu and Kashmir were locked in a fierce encounter with Hizbul's district commander and his aides in Anantnag. The encounter broke out yesterday after terrorists opened fire at security personnel. Security forces had cordoned off Awoora village in Pahalgam on specific input about presence of militants. As security forces were laying cordon terrorists hiding in the village fired at security forces, which led to the gunfight. A police officer told India Today that acting on a specific information regarding the presence of three militants, Army's 3 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and Special Operations Group of police cordoned off Gujerbasti area of Awoora in Pahalgam- a famous health resort at around 4.30PM and started combing operation to track down the suspected militants. "As the forces were conducting the search operation, the hiding terrorists fired at them which was retaliated, triggering off an encounter," he said. Soon after the encounter broke out in the area, the additional reinforcement of para-commandos were rushed to prevent the militants from escape. Watch Video: Jammu and Kashmir: Security forces kill 3 Hizbul terrorists in encounter at Pahalgam ALSO READ | Terrorist killed in encounter in J-K's Bandipore district, operation over --- ENDS --- Rabiya had filed a petition against CBI investigation into daughter Jiah Khan's case, alleging that there were several anomalies in the probe of the murder that prompted her to ask for CCTV footage of Novotel building and details of injuries to prove her point. By Mustafa Shaikh: The Mumbai Sessions Court on Monday ordered the handing over of relevant call logs, CCTV footages and ligature reports in actress Jiah Khan's murder case to her mother Rabiya by January 28. Rabiya Khan had filed a petition against CBI investigation into the Jiah Khan case, alleging that there were several anomalies in the probe of the murder that prompted her to ask for CCTV footage of Novotel building and details of injuries to prove her point. advertisement Also read | Jiah Khan death: Sooraj Pancholi alleges Jiah's mother is obstructing fair trial ALL ABOUT THE JIAH KHAN MURDER CASE The case will next be heard in Bombay High Court on 31st January. Accused Suraj Pancholi has filed an intervention application, which was accepted by the High Court last time. Rabiya is learnt to have hidden information on Jiah having had a disturbed childhood and that she tried to commit suicide. Regarding the delay in trial of the case, Rabiya Khan said that the trial was on evidence and there was no evidence submitted by CBI in the chargesheet. "The dupatta with which suicide has been committed is not in the chargesheet. Details on injuries are missing. Either the CBI doesn't have these documents or they are hiding it. We are just trying to find answers to these questions which CBI has failed to investigate", Rabiya said. When Rabiya Khan had in her application sought the list of call logs, CCTV footages and ligature reports, a CBI officer who was not present in the court has given 20th January as the date for bringing these documents in. Suraj Pancholi's lawyer Prashant Patil said, "The court had asked for our opinion regarding documents being given to Rabiya Khan. We said that we don't have any objection to it, but we should also be provided with a copy." Rabiya added, "The sessions court has given the CBI officer a last chance to be present and hand over the materials sought by them or else the officer would have to file consequences." Also read | Sooraj Pancholi's family files contempt case against Jiah Khan's mother --- ENDS --- Pathak had joined the BJP in 2014 after resigning from the Vidhan Sabha. He had won the 2013 Vidhan Sabha election on Congress ticket. By Hemender Sharma: The Katni hawala scam worth Rs 500 crore, in which Madhya Pradesh Minister of State for small scale industries Sanjay Pathak is allegedly involved, has led to fissures in the ruling BJP with former minister and coordinator of Niti Shodh Vibhag Ajay Bishnoi demanding Pathak's immediate resignation. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has so far withstood internal party pressure, saying any action is possible only after a thorough inquiry. advertisement Talking to India Today over the phone from Jabalpur, Bishnoi said he had resigned when the income tax department had raided his brother's place. "I had resigned because aspersions were being cast in the media when my brother's place was raided by the income tax department. Advani ji had also resigned when an attempt to vilify him through the Jain diaries was made. Fingers are now being raised at Sanjay Pathak for his role in the alleged hawala scam that is damaging the party. In the wake of this development, Sanjay Pathak should immediately resign", he said. Congress workers holding protests against Sanjay Pathak in Bhopal. HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SANJAY PATHAK "For us in the BJP, the nation comes first, followed by the party and the self. If this is the motto for those who have served the party for a lifetime, why should it not be applicable for new entrants like Sanjay Pathak", he asked. Pathak had joined the BJP in 2014 after resigning from the Vidhan Sabha. He had won the 2013 Vidhan Sabha election on Congress ticket. Pathak is the richest MLA in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha with his declared assets touching Rs 141 crore. During the 2013 Vidhan Sabha polls, Pathak had declared assets amounting to Rs 121.32 crore. He presently has his businesses running in 12 countries and is involved in mining activities in Katni and Jabalpur. He also owns a chain of hotels. His father Satyendra Pathak was a minister in the Digvijaya Singh government. Meanwhile, the Congress has taken to the streets demanding Pathak's resignation and revocation of the transfer of former Katni SP Gaurav Tiwari. Through his meticulous investigation, Tiwari had unearthed the Rs 500 crore hawala scam in which many top BJP leaders were allegedly found involved. Tiwari was hurriedly transferred out of Katni in the first week of January as names of top BJP leaders started surfacing in the scam. The Congress today tried to stop a passenger train in Katni following which police had to resort to a mild cane charge. NSUI workers and Congress leaders, who were attempting to gherao the official residence of MP Minister for MSME Sanjay Pathak, were lathicharged by the police in Bhopal as they tried to storm the Chief Minister's house. Congress leaders, including NSUI National President Amrita Dhawan and MP Congress President Arun Yadav and NSUI state president Vipin Wankhede, were injured in the police lathi-charge. They were initially admitted to the ICU of the district hospital and Yadav was later shifted to a private medical facility. The Congress released a video showing police entering the premises of the PCC office while chasing NSUI workers. The injured leaders were taken to the district hospital and admitted at the ICU. Later, Yadav was moved to a private medical facility. There was talk that he might be airlifted to Delhi for treatment. Sanjay Pathak. (WITH INPUTS FROM RAHUL NORONHA) --- ENDS --- Her ex Shahid Kapoor and husband Saif Ali Khan battle for a common ladylove in Rangoon, and if Kareena Kapoor Khan was stuck in an elevator with them, she'd wonder why she wasn't the heroine of the film. By India Today Web Desk: Kareena Kapoor Khan shared the couch with BFF Sonam Kapoor on the latest episode of Koffee With Karan, and the episode was nothing short of fun. Kareena, who has previously made headlines with her remarks on the show, was her usual fireball self. Here are six of Bebo's spiciest revelations on Koffee With Karan Season 5. advertisement ALSO READ: Ex-flames Shahid and Kareena greet each other with a hug ALSO READ: Stuck with Deepika or Katrina in a lift? I'd rather kill myself, says Kareena On being stuck in an elevator with Shahid and Saif Shahid Kapoor is Kareena's ex-boyfriend, and Saif Ali Khan is her husband. You'd think Bebo would feel awkward about being in an elevator with them, right? Well, Kareena disagrees. She said, "It would be amazing. They are doing an amazing film together (Rangoon) and get along really well. I'd be like, 'Why wasn't I the heroine in Rangoon?'" On being stuck in an elevator with Deepika and Katrina It is no secret that Kareena is not exactly fond of cousin Ranbir Kapoor's exes Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif. On Neha Dhupia's podcast, Kareena had famously said that neither Deepika nor Katrina was a good girlfriend for Ranbir. She echoed a similar sentiment on this episode, where she was asked what she would do if stuck in an elevator with Deepika and Katrina, and she replied, "I'd kill myself." When she said male actors don't have a lot of brains In the rapid fire round, host Karan Johar asked Kareena to complete the sentence "Most male actors have..." The Jab We Met actor was quick to say, "A lot of money. Not sure about a lot of brains." Earlier in the episode, Kareena had gushed about hubby Saif, saying that he was the last actor in the current generation to be a combination of brain and brawn. On friend-turned-rival-turned-friend Priyanka Kareena and Priyanka had famously bonded during the making of Aitraaz, but things went downhill from there. On an earlier season of Koffee With Karan, Bebo had cattily remarked, "Where does Priyanka get her accent from?" However, all that is a thing of the past. Kareena couldn't stop praising Priyanka for representing Indian actors in the West. She said, "What Priyanka has done, I don't know if everyone has that kind of courage and dedication. I don't. Priyanka is extremely talented and when you see her giving interviews, she makes you feel like she has done India proud somewhere, because she conducts herself really well. You have to give that to her." Karan and Kareena's fashion critique on B-Towners' airport looks advertisement Kareena has been redefining maternity fashion, and Karan was curious to know if she had a separate wardrobe for airport looks. Their banter revealed that Kareena is a "pregnant stalker" who keeps tabs on who is wearing what, and often sends pictures of atrocious airport looks to her buddy. In fact, Bebo often criticises KJo's own airport looks! When she said her relationship with Ranbir has improved because of Saif Kareena revealed that Saif is extremely fond of Ranbir, because of which she is now closer to him. "In the last two-three years, as a family, we have grown very close," she said, giving Saif the credit for it. She also said that she has become "protective" of her younger brother now. ALSO WATCH: Saif and Kareena become parents to baby Taimur --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: Sonam Kapoor is known to speak whatever is on her mind, often leading to serious foot-in-mouth situations. Sonam's recent Koffee With Karan episode with her Veere Di Wedding co-star Kareena Kapoor Khan saw her being a little guarded, unlike her previous seasons where she stirred up a storm. However, she did have her moments and made a few revelations. advertisement ALSO READ: All of Sonam Kapoor's digs at Deepika Padukone, in one place On her Koffee With Deepika episode where she "assaulted" Ranbir Sonam and Deepika made headlines with their Koffee With Karan episode, where they made some not-so-nice remarks about Ranbir Kapoor. When host Karan Johar quizzed her about it, she said, "Honestly, I did not. If you go back to the episode, I think it was not me." When she said she did not know Deepika at all Sonam and Deepika's camaraderie on their Koffee With Karan episode was the talk of the town. The two bonded famously on the show, but since then, Sonam has not felt the same love for her. She has since taken several digs at the Bajirao Mastani actor, but when Karan asked her about their equation, her reply stunned all. Sonam said, "I really don't know her at all. The last proper interaction I had with her was on your couch, and that was years back. If someone asks me 'Between Priyanka and Deepika, who do you think is the better actor?', I think that they are both great actors, but I prefer Priyanka as an actor. That's my opinion, but that doesn't mean I don't like Deepika. I admire what she has done with her career, and she's doing very well. Honestly, I have too much going on in my life to be making statements about other people." Karisma wants Sonam to be her sister-in-law? When Sonam debuted with Ranbir in Saawariya, stories that the two were in a relationship were doing the rounds. Karan wanted to know if she would consider dating Ranbir, and Sonam flatly said, "Ranbir and I'd make better friends." She revealed that Ranbir's cousin Karisma Kapoor was very fond of her and would have liked if the two of them were together, but she didn't share the feeling. "I don't believe I would keep him happy," Sonam said. On her relationship with Anand Ahuja To use KJo's favourite word, there has been some "conjecture" that Sonam has been dating businessman Anand Ahuja. Karan prodded Sonam, without taking names, if she was dating a "business-boy from London." Sonam laughed, "I am always dating a businessman from London." She went on to say that she likes to keep her private life private and she will never talk about it. Unfairness of not getting the same money as John and Varun Sonam addressed the issue of pay gap in the film industry. She spoke about Dishoom stars John Abraham and Varun Dhawan getting paid more than her and said, "It's not fair. Why don't Bebo and I get the same money as John and Varun?" She reasoned that she can get as big an opening for her films as any of these boys, so it was only fair that she get paid as much. advertisement ALSO WATCH: Deepika, Sonam fight it out for Imran --- ENDS --- By Shweta Keshri: Sony TV's Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi is taking a 7-year leap and the viewers will get to see a change in story line with introduction of new characters on the show. Along with the new twists, the characters in the show will be revamped and get a makeover. We present to you five things to look out for in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi post leap. Aaliya Shah with Shaheer Sheikh advertisement 1. Sonakshi and Dev's daughter Suhana Bose (Aaliya Shah) will make you go aww! with her cuteness. Following a major argument, Sonakshi and Dev separate but Sonakshi will be expecting their first child. Sonakshi had to leave Delhi after her family home was sold to clear debts, as she had mortgaged it to return Dev's money. Will Suhana be the one to unite her parents and rekindle the love between them? Only time will tell. Erica's new look in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi 2. Sonakshi (Erica Fernandes) who used to be bubbly and chirpy will become all serious and career-driven. All that will matter to her will be her six-year-old daughter Suhana. Her long tresses are gone and she will be seen sporting specs. Her kurtis are gone and long skirts and tops have taken their place. Erica looks quite elegant and stylish in her new look. Shaheer in his new look in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi 3. Dev (Shaheer Sheikh) will turn into a philanderer. Earlier Dev used to have a sophisticated and classy look but post the leap he will be seen dressed in bomber jacket and riding a bike with girls as pillion rider. He will stay aloof from his family. Supriya Pilgaonkar as Ishwari in a still from Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi 4. Ishwari (Supriya Pilgaonkar) who is obsessed with her son will be left alone and go into depression. She will not speak to anyone in the house and will keep to herself. On the other hand Ishwari's daughter Neha will get married again post her divorce with Ranveer. Alka Mogha as Radharani in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Alka Mogha Alka Mogha as Radharani in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Alka Mogha 5. Radharani's (Alka Mogha) dream to rule Ishwari Niwas will turn into reality post the leap. The Gareeb ki beti will seen dressed in heavy jewellery and expensive saris and using her power over the entire Dixit household. Shaheer Sheikh in a new look in Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Jan 15 (PTI) Mahira Khans chemistry with superstar Shah Rukh Khan in "Raees" song "Zaalima" is being appreciated and the Pakistani actress said she felt shy after watching the track. The romantic number from the Rahul Dholakia-directed movie has been sung by Arijit Singh and Harshdeep Kaur. During a Twitter chat, a fan asked Mahira what was her first reaction when she watched "Zaalima", to which she replied, "I was feeling shy." advertisement The 32-year-old actress was all praise for her director of her debut Bollywood film. Calling her experience of working with Dholakia "amazing", she wrote, "@rahuldholakia helped me every step of the way." Mahira said she is currently working in Shoaib Mansoors film. "Raees", also starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, will release on January 25. PTI JCH JCH --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) A 38-year-old man, arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting several school girls, has been sent to judicial custody till January 29 by a Delhi court. Accused Sunil Rastogi, a tailor, was produced before a duty magistrate who sent him to judicial custody. According to a senior police officer, cops from several police stations, where separate cases have been registered against the accused, would approach court to seek his custody. advertisement Police claimed that Rastogi used to target minor girls while they would be returning home from school. He used to mislead them on the pretext that their father had sent some clothes or some other articles and then take them to an isolated place and rape them, it said. Police said the accused is a father of five children, including three girls who are being counselled to know whether he had also targetted them. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were lodged in New Ashok Nagar police station in east Delhi where complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9. Earlier, on December 13, 2016, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl. Police said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. CCTV footages from cameras installed near the places of incidents were obtained and some images of the accused were developed. During interrogation, Rastogi confessed he committed similar alleged offences in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), police claimed. It has been revealed from interrogation that many cases including under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and of theft and molestation were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. PTI SKV ARC --- ENDS --- "Okram Ibobi Singh-led government is not using forces provided by the Centre. They are put to barracks. If you can't deliver, resign. Go Ibobi, go. You can invite President's rule", Javadekar said. By Manogya Loiwal : Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar today launched a scathing attack on the Congress in Manipur and demanded the resignation of chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh, accusing him of failing to remove the economic blockade even after "more than adequate" central forces and resources had been provided by the Centre. Javadekar, who is also BJP's Manipur election in-charge, said "Ibobi government is not using forces provided by the Centre. They are put to barracks. If you can't deliver, resign. Go Ibobi, go. You can invite President's rule", Javadekar said during a press conference at the BJP head office today. He also accused the Congress government of playing a "divide and rule policy" for electoral gains while calling the BJP's plank one of unity and development. advertisement Also read | Manipur blockade: Suspected militants open fire on trucks near Imphal-Jiribam road, one dead "Ibobi Singh and his party are destroying Manipur. Blockades suit Ibobi's politics," Javadekar added. BLOCKADE ONLY BROUGHT SUFFERINGS Javadekar claimed that the blockade had only brought sufferings to the general public as it had triggered price rise, scarcity of essential commodities and as well as violence. The union minister said in addition to the existing 175 central paramilitary officers deployed in the state last month, the Centre had provided 30 extra paramilitary personnel for removing the blockade. He added that the Centre could not intervene directly as the blockade was the state's law and order issue. On increasing demand for initiation of tripartite talks by the Centre, the BJP leader said holding talks with the United Naga Council (UNC) was the sole responsibility of the Manipur government. Also read | Amid fears of President's rule, Manipur CM Ibobi Singh rushes to Delhi When the Centre tried to help by convening a tripartite talk in November, the Ibobi Singh government did not respond. This clearly shows that the state government is not cooperating with the Centre, he added. However, the Centre is ready to help the state government on the issue of blockade that has been continuing for more than two-and-a-half months now. WATCH VIDEO (WITH INPUTS FROM JIT NINGOMBA IN MANIPUR) --- ENDS --- At least four persons were killed including three security guards and 12 injured in a shooting at the BPM Music Festival in Mexico, organisers of the event said. By Indo-Asian News Service: At least four persons were killed, three of them security guards, and 12 injured in a shooting at the BPM Music Festival in Mexico, organisers of the event said. "The violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue," a statement by the festival organisers read. advertisement Police had confirmed reports that the shooting was perpetrated by a lone gunman outside the Blue Parrot nightclub at the tourist resort Playa del Carmen, Efe news reports. ALSO READ | 14 people shot dead, including 11 of a family shot in sleep in Mexico "We are overcome with grief over this senseless act of violence and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation," the organisers said. Social media users, who posted images of people running for cover, said a gunman opened fire at the club at around 3.00 am at the Blue Parrot nightclub. Cristina Torres, Mayor of the municipality of Solidaridad where Playa del Carmen is located, had earlier told reporters that five persons were killed. ALSO READ | Indian-American arrested in Mexico for shooting US diplomat Miguel Angel Pech Cen, the attorney general of the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, where Playa del Carmen is located, said three people had been arrested near the crime scene and ruled out the possibility of this being a terrorist attack. "It's not a terrorist attack. We don't know who was involved specifically. We don't know how many weapons," he said. He did not rule out the possibility that the shooting was related to a struggle among rival gangs for control of the local drug 'plaza'. ALSO READ | Orlando night club shooting: 20 shot dead, suspected gunman killed --- ENDS --- The armed forces are set to deliver a presentation to PM Narendra Modi on the creation of theatre commands. Each command would combine the resources of the Army, Navy and Air Force under one commander, who would be from either of three services. By Ajit Kumar Dubey: Signalling a major restructuring of the armed forces, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be given a detailed presentation by the armed forces on the creation of theatre commands in the country to bring in better coordination among the three armed forces. The presentation would be made by the chairman of the Chiefs of Staffs Committee and Navy's Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba during the Combined Commanders' Conference to be held at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradoon on January 21, sources told Mail Today here. advertisement A detailed report in this regard has already been prepared by the services with inputs from all stakeholders, the sources said. A 'theatre command' would mean that the resources of all three forces will be placed at the command of senior military commander. The move would be on the lines of how military commands operate in United States and China, which recently made the change too. Also read: India should worry about Xi Jinping's overhaul of the Chinese military Explaining how it would work, a source said that the country is divided into four to five major areas and the assets and personnel of the Army, Navy and Air Force are put under one officer who can belong to any of the three services. In the Indian context, the country can be divided into geographical theatres like southern peninsula, mountainous borders with Pakistan and China in the north, the deserts and plains with Pakistan and the central and eastern borders with China. The commands can be given to the respective services based on the terrain. For example, a Navy officer can be made in-charge of the southern theatre comprising the eastern and western seaboard with all naval, Army and Air Force assets under him as the fighting would be in the maritime zone, the sources said. PMO KEEN ON THE PROPOSAL "The Prime Minister's Office is very keen on the proposal which was initiated after the NDA government under Modi came to power and is considered very important for increasing jointness in the forces," the sources said. In his maiden meeting with commanders, Modi had expressed anguish at the lack of coordination among them and asked them to work towards more joint operations rather than remaining in silos. In 2015, after China re-structured its military commands, the Army was asked by the government to work on creation of theatre commands and work out its command and control structures based upon the threat perceptions. World's most powerful military power America also works on the basis of theatre commands but their theatre areas include several countries and sometimes continents while the Chinese recently divided their military into six theatre commands. In comparison with China, India has 17 single-service commands with seven each of Army and Air Force and three of the Navy. The commands operate with lot of inter-service rivalry. advertisement The CCC is also likely to review the functioning of nation's only tri-service operational command functioning in Andaman and Nicobar Command as it functions with a naval head and deputies from Air Force and Army. The CCC will also take up several other issues for reforms, including the creation of the post of a new General to be known as Permanent, Chairman Chiefs of Staffs Committee. Also read: PM Modi to be briefed about creating a new top post for armed forces Also read: Indian Army Day: Interesting facts on our defending wall --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Lahore, Jan 16 (PTI) A mother in Pakistan was today sentenced to death for burning alive her 18-year-old daughter after she eloped and got married without the familys consent, months after the Parliament passed a new law making the punishment for honour killing more stringent. The girl, Zeenat Rafiq, was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi in June 2016, a week after she eloped with a man, Hasan Khan, to marry him before a court here. advertisement Parveen had earlier confessed she had murdered her daughter for "bringing shame to the family". Police had suspected that Parveen was helped by her son in killing the girl. Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Azam Chaudhry today sentenced Parveen to death in the honour killing case, and sentenced Zeenats brother Anees to life in prison, the Dawn reported. It was revealed in court that Zeenats mother and brothers had first beaten her, then her mother threw kerosene on her and set her on fire. Parveen who appeared in court today accepted responsibility for Zeenats death. Zeenats husband, Hasan Khan last June had agreed to let his wife return to her home after her family promised, in the days before her murder, to organise a traditional wedding reception for the couple. He earlier told the media that Zeenat was not willing to go back to her parents home because she feared they would kill her. "But she agreed after her family gave assurances regarding her safety," he had said. After Zeenat was set on fire in a low-income neighbourhood of Lahore, none of her relatives sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husbands family to bury her charred remains in the dark in a graveyard near the city. Pakistans National Assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a stiff penalty for those convicted of so-called honor killings and closes a legal loophole that has permitted the families of those who commit honor killings to forgive the perpetrator. The new law mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honor killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer ? a common occurrence in these tragic crimes. PTI PMS AKJ PMS --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From M Zulqernain Lahore, Jan 16 (PTI) A mother in Pakistan was today sentenced to death for burning alive her 16-year-old daughter after she eloped and got married without the familys consent, months after the Parliament passed a new law making the punishment for honour killing more stringent. The girl, Zeenat Rafiq, was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi in June 2016, a week after she eloped with a man, Hasan Khan, and married him in a court here. advertisement Parveen had earlier confessed that she had murdered her daughter for "bringing shame to the family". Police had suspected that she was helped by her son and a son-in-law in killing the girl. Anti-Terrorism Court Lahore Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Ilyas sentenced Parveen to death and her son Anees to life imprisonment for killing Zeenat. The court, however, acquitted the son-in-law, Zafar. Both the convicts confessed in the court that they had first beaten up Zeenat and then her mother tied her to a bed and set her on fire after dousing her with kerosene. In her confessional statement, the mother said she killed her daughter for disgracing the family honour and had "no regret" in burning her alive. Zeenat had married Hasan, who was from her locality, on May 29 last year. Hasan was a Pashtun while Zeenat was a Punjabi which was said to be the main cause of her familys disapproval, forcing them to elope. Zeenats husband had agreed to let his wife return to her home after her family promised to organise a traditional wedding reception for the couple. He said that Zeenat was not willing to go back to her parents home because she feared they would kill her. "But she agreed after her family gave assurances regarding her safety," he said. He said that after two days, she called him and said that her family was angry and she was not feeling safe there. She was later killed. After Zeenat was set on fire in a low-income neighbourhood of Lahore, none of her relatives sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husbands family to bury her charred remains in the dark in a graveyard near the city. Pakistans National Assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a stiff penalty for those convicted of so-called honour killings and closes a legal loophole that has permitted the families of those who commit honour killings to forgive the perpetrator. The new law mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honour killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer ? a common occurrence in these tragic crimes. advertisement Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan often by their family members in the name of so-called honour. PTI MZ PMS AKJ PMS --- ENDS --- Akhilesh Yadav will get the Samajwadi Party symbol, the cycle, and the party name, said the Election Commission. By Ankit Tyagi, Sanjay Sharma: After days of drama and open spat, it's now official. Akhilesh Yadav gets the Samajwadi Party symbol, the cycle, and the party name. In an order ahead of the crucial seven-phase Uttar Pradesh election, the Election Commission today recognised the faction led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the Samajwadi Party and allotted it the 'cycle' symbol, dealing a huge blow to Mulayam Singh Yadav. advertisement The Election Commission's legal experts looked into precedents and judgments before issuing the order. Sources said the Election Commission wanted to issue an order that could stand the test of courts. The Election Commission order. As per the sources, Akhilesh Yadav met Mulayam Singh and took his blessings after EC decision. Soon after the verdict, Akhilesh loyalist Ramgopal Yadav thanked the Election Commission and said the party will release its list of candidates in the next two days. "I am hopeful that grand-alliance will happen but final decision rests with Akhilesh Yadav," said Ramgopal Yadav. Given the overwhelming support received by Akhilesh group, EC gave its decision: Kapil Sibal, Lawyer of Akhilesh Yadav pic.twitter.com/JbesBnnLb0 ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 The decision triggered wild celebrations among Akhilesh supporters in Lucknow even as the chief minister immediately headed to his father and party founder Mulayam Singh's house. The Akhilesh camp displayed its strength in numbers. ALSO READ: Congress in a better bargaining position if Akhilesh does not get 'cycle' from Election Commission Samajwadi Dangal: Will contest against Akhilesh if he does not relent, says father Mulayam Here is all you need to know: Both factions in the Samajwadi Party, one led by Mulayam Singh and the other by son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, had staked their claim over the party symbol. Both camps had claimed there is no split in the party. Previous precedents, said sources, show that the symbol has been frozen in case of a split within the parent party. The Mulayam faction had argued over the legality of the Samajwadi Party convention called by Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav on January 1. Party patriarch Mulayam Singh called the meeting "unconstitutional" and later asserted that he is still the president. The Akhilesh camp, on the other hand, claimed to enjoy the support of majority party legislators and hence told the Election Commission that it should be considered the real Samajwadi Party. An Election Commission official said: "The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use the 'cycle' symbol." After the EC verdict, a beaming Ram Gopal Yadav urged the people of Uttar Pradesh to vote Akhilesh Yadav back to power in the coming election. "This is a just decision," he said. "The Election Commission will get the blessings of crores of people of Uttar Pradesh," the Akhilesh loyalist said. The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh election begins February 11 and ends on March 8. Results will be counted on March 11. advertisement ALSO READ: In Samajwadi Pari-War for election symbol, cycle could be the biggest casualty Samajwadi fight for symbol: 'Walking stick' for Mulayam, 'Cycle-pump' for Akhilesh? Akhilesh Yadav bigger brand than 'Cycle', he will be PM one day: Ram Gopal ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- For the time, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has blamed his chief minister son Akhilesh Yadav for the split in the party. However, he ultimately held Ram Gopal Yadav as the real villain. Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and UP CM Akhilesh Yadav. SP leader Shivpal Yadav is also seen in this photograph. (Photo: PTI) By Kumar Abhishek: As the Election Commission pondered over the claim and counter-claim by the two factions of the Samajwadi Party for the poll symbol, party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav today blamed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for the split. Addressing his supporters in Lucknow, Mulayam Singh said, "I called Akhilesh three times. He came for a minute and left before I could start speaking." advertisement MULAYAM ADDRESSES SUPPORTERS: THINGS TO KNOW "I called Akhilesh several times, but he did not come. Jab Biwi Bachchon Ki Kasam Di To Milne Aaya Aur Ek Minute Milkar Chala Gaya," Mulayam Singh said. "My son is playing in someone's hands. He is acting at the behest of Ram Gopal Yadav. I appeal to you to extend your support to me," Mulayam Singh Yadav urged his partymen. Mulayam said, "The message has been conveyed the people that Akhilesh is anti-Muslim. There are less number of Muslim candidates in his list." "Akhilesh removed ministers without any reason. He is doing what Ram Gopal is asking him to do. Ram Gopal is leaving no stone unturned in order to destroy the party," Mulayam said. Mulayam Singh Yadav told his supporters in the Samajwadi Party, "We will accept whatever the Election Commission decides about the poll symbol." Several party workers raised slogans during his speech, shouting "Save Samajwadi Party". Mulayam had to admonish them to make them behave. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan Kathmandu, Jan 16 (PTI) Nepals Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat will arrive in India today on a three-day visit to participate in Indias flagship geo-political conference. Mahat will also hold talks with ministers and high-ranking Indian officials, besides attending the 2ndedition of the Raisina Dialogue which begins tomorrow under the theme of "Navigating Asias New Normal: Multilateralism with Multipolarity," Nepals Foreign Ministry said. advertisement Mahat is visiting at the invitation of Indias External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, it said. Following successful organisation of the first Dialogue in March last year, the Ministry of External Affairs in partnership with Observer Research Foundation is organising the 2nd Edition of Raisina Dialogue which will deliberate on strategic issues including new challenges and cyber security. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and address the opening session of the Dialogue, which is Indias flagship geo-political conference to be held annually and within a short span has emerged as a much-awaited global conference in the international calendar. More than 250 delegates from 65 countries are expected to take in the conference. The first edition was attended by about 40 countries with 120 foreign participants. PTI SBP MRJ --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) State-run hydro power producer NHPC today said its Teesta Low Dam Project-III (TLDP-III) of 132 MW in West Bengal will remain shut for eight days till January 23 for restoration work of GIS. "TLDP-III (4X33) 132 MW power station in West Bengal shall be under complete shutdown from January 16 to January 23, 2017 for restoration work of GIS (Line-I Bay)," NHPC Ltd informed BSE today. advertisement Teesta Low Dam-III project was entrusted to NHPC on November 15, 2000. The power station is a run of the river scheme with small pondage to harness the hydropower potential of river Teesta in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. The power station is designed to generate 594.07 million units annually in 90 per cent dependable year. The units I, II,III and IV were commissioned on January 28, January 16, February 24 and March 31, respectively in 2013. PTI KKS SBT MKJ --- ENDS --- There are question marks whether the new Trump administration, which takes over on January 20, may pursue the bid among other competing issues including with China. By Ananth Krishnan: China today voiced its displeasure at the United States and at the outgoing Barack Obama administration for suggesting Beijing was blocking India's Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) bid, saying the matter was not "a farewell gift" to be given by Washington. "I just want to point out that NSG membership is not some kind of farewell gift for countries to give to each other," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a press briefing, adding that she would not reiterate China's stand on the issue of non-NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) countries joining the elite group. Beijing has said that the group first needs to agree general criteria for all non-NPT countries before considering India's case. advertisement MUST READ: NSG entry: How China stonewalled India The US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia in the outgoing Obama administration, Nisha Biswal, said on Sunday that China was an "outlier" preventing India's entry. The Obama administration had hoped to push India's bid through before the end of its term. There are question marks whether the new Trump administration, which takes over on January 20, may pursue the bid among other competing issues including with China. 'MORE TIME NEEDED FOR CONSENSUS OVER MASOOD AZHAR' On Monday, Hua also defended China's move to essentially veto India's bid to sanction the Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar at the UN Security Council. Saying "I don't like the word block", Hua said the reason behind delaying the listing was "to allow more time for consultation and deliberation." "China raised the technical hold to give more space for deliberation and consultation," she said. "It is a regret that no consensus has been reached so far. We need time for deliberation and consultation. We need more time for deliberations so as to reach consensus and the committee will follow relevant procedure and rules of procedure. e will remain touch with relevant parties on this," she said. 'CHINA DIDN'T DONATE SHIPS TO PAK' On the Pakistani Navy this weekend inducting two Chinese vessels for security at the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, Hua said media reports suggesting China "donated" the ships were incorrect and that Pakistan had purchased the vessels. WATCH: India-China-Pakistan NSG triangle: Chink in Modi's armour? ALSO READ: China backs Pakistan after PM Modi's 'mothership of terrorism' comment China confirms mega-deal for 8 attack submarines with Pakistan --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Melbourne, Jan 16 (PTI) Online daters are most likely to contact people with the same level of education as them, but are less fussy about an intellectual match as they get older, according to a new study. The comprehensive study by researchers at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia analysed the online dating interactions of more than 41,000 Australians aged between 18-80. advertisement "Selecting a mate can be one of the largest psychological and economic decisions a person can make and has long been the subject of social science research across a range of disciplines, all of which acknowledge one phenomenon: positive assortative mating behaviour (homogamy)," said Stephen Whyte from QUT. Traditionally, humans look for certain characteristics and traits in a partner, including symmetry in areas such as: age, aesthetics, attractiveness, personality, culture, education, religion and race; however the internet has dramatically altered this process. "The internet has completely changed how people choose dating partners to find love. Our study is a step towards understanding how technology is impacting on mate choice decisions based on education," the researchers said. "Cyber dating permits multiple partner choices in real time, which allows for a significantly greater available choice of potential mates. This increased pool means greater opportunity for selection of partners with lower, similar or even higher levels of certain characteristics," they said. "This includes education, which is commonly used in human mating behaviour as a proxy for resources and future provision as it can represent economic advantages," they added. The study included people whose ages ranged from millennials to octogenarians, demonstrating that online dating can give people from all walks of life the opportunity to experience a new way of finding a relationship. Whyte said another interesting finding from the study was that there was a difference in the way in which men and women looked at education levels in potential partners and also how this changed depending on the life stage of the participants. "The more educated cohort tends to care less about matching the same level of education as they get older," said Whyte. "Older women in particular have a greater likelihood of contacting potential partners who are less educated than themselves but conversely, younger males fall into this category as well," Whyte added. The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. PTI NKS SAR SAR --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Jammu, Jan 16 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly witnessed noisy scenes today as the opposition members stormed the Well of the House accusing the PDP-BJP government of adopting double standard on the issue of compensation to those killed during unrest in the Valley last summer. As soon as the House met today, the opposition members led by National Conference MLA Ali Mohammad Sagar demanded the government must clear whether it will grant compensation of Rs five lakh each to the next of kin of those killed in the last years five month long unrest in the Valley. advertisement "Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had made this announcement of giving compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the people killed in the unrest but BJP which is part of the coalition is objecting to it," Sagar said. All the opposition members stormed into the Well of the House and raised slogans like Hamaray Sawalon ka Jawab Do (give answers to our questions) and Dohri policy nai chalay gi (Double policy will not work), as they continued to disrupt the House proceedings. With regard to demand for rehabilitation of families of those who lost their lives, last week Mehbooba had said in the Assembly, "They are our own children and we have to ensure their rehabilitation. We have kept an amount of Rs 5 lakh ex-gratia as compensation for the next of kin in case of deaths." "In any such extreme case, the government is committed to provide jobs to the next of kin to these families and the children who have lost their eyesight. Our government is ready to provide jobs to their family members," she said, adding that thosehaving permanent disability will get Rs 75,000. However, the coalition partner BJP in its executive meeting held yesterday passed a resolution that it would oppose any move of the state government which "encourage the anti-national elements and demoralize the nationalistic forces". NC MLA Devender Singh Rana said when Mehbooba made the announcement (of compensation), the Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh was sitting next to her and he did not say anything. He said Nirmal along with other BJP ministers had passed the resolution of "opposing the grant of compensation in their executive body meeting." The opposition members remained in the Well for 15-20 minutes as the Rana demanded resignation of the Deputy CM. "If you dont have coordination, the Deputy Chief Minister you must resign," he said. The pandemonium continued as the opposition members continued with their protests demanding "clarity on the issue from the government". Heated exchange of words were witnessed between NC and BJP members. PTI TSS AB RCJ --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, Jan 16 (PTI) Pakistan Senate today unanimously passed a resolution condemning Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent remarks in which he described Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism", calling it a "baseless" propaganda to divert international attention from "atrocities" in Kashmir. The resolution moved by Sehar Kamran, a lawmaker of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party appreciated the reaction of international community to this baseless propaganda by the Indian Prime Minister. advertisement It drew a parallel between Indias handling of the Kashmir issue and Israels stance of Palestine. The resolution said that the statement made by the Indian Premier was an effort to divert the attention of the international community from the Indian atrocities against the people of Kashmir, Radio Pakistan reported. Modi during the BRICS Summit in Goa in October had referred to Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism....linked to terror modules across the world". The resolution said that there will be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and "our resolve to fight against terrorism and contribute towards bringing peace and harmony in the world". Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif has said that Pakistan will continue political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for right to self-determination. The Minister said the India is making failed attempts to link the Kashmir freedom movement with cross border infiltration and terrorism. He said Indias this campaign has failed at the diplomatic fronts. Asif said India is also afraid of Pakistans success in fight against terrorism. He claimed Pakistans success has been recognised by the world and world bodies. He claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 violations on Line of Control and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He also claimed that 45 civilians were killed and 138 injured in these violations. He said the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. He said India also claimed to carry out surgical strikes but these were faked. He said if India tried to make any effort to carry out surgical strikes in future these will be responded with full force and they will forget to carry out even faked strikes in future. Speaking on the motion, the Senators strongly condemned the ceasefire violations by India on the Line of Control and Working Boundary. The members described the violations as "cowardice act by the Indian forces". They said that India is also involved in such violations with other neighbouring countries including Nepal and Bangladesh. They said that the "evil designs" of Indian government should be highlighted at all the international fora. PTI SH NSA AKJ NSA --- ENDS --- advertisement Pakistan's senate today passed a resolution to condemn Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement where he called Pakistan 'mother-ship of terrorism' without naming it. By Santosh Chaubey: Pakistan has done it again, with its senate and top political leadership bragging about their military might and how they would teach India a lesson if it tries to conduct another surgical strike. According to a Radio Pakistan report, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khwaja said "If India tries to carry out surgical strikes in future these will be responded with full force and they will forget to carry out even fake strikes in the future." advertisement Pakistan's senate today passed a resolution to condemn Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement where he called Pakistan 'mother-ship of terrorism' without naming it. During the BRICS Summit held in Goa in October 2016, Narendra Modi had said that "The most serious direct threat to our eco prosperity is terrorism; tragically, its mother-ship is a country in India's neighbourhood." Condemning Pakistan for using terror as state policy, Modi had said that, "This country shelters not just terrorists. It nurtures a mindset. A mindset that loudly proclaims that terrorism is justifiable for political gains." Also read: Pak analyst confirms India's surgical strikes, says Pakistan itself to blame Passing anti-India resolutions in Pakistan's senate today, defence minister, while terming India's surgical strike in September 2016 as fake, said that India violated the ceasefire over 300 times last year in which 45 Pakistani civilians lost their lives. WHAT IS HAPPENING He also said, "India was also involved in such violations with other neighbouring countries including Nepal and Bangladesh". The resolution said that the international community had rejected 'baseless propaganda' by India 'attributing terrorism to Pakistan' and 'the statement made by the Indian Premier was an effort to divert the attention of the international community from the Indian atrocities against the people of cccupied Kashmir'. Continuing Pakistan's Kashmir rant, Khawaja Asif said that "Pakistan will continue political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for right to self-determination". Khawaja Asif is speaking in a similar tone that he used to before India conducted surgical strikes. Also read: India's intended message conveyed to Islamabad through surgical strikes: Vikas Swarup Asif, after the surgical strike on the intervening night of September 28-29, was stuttering while accepting that there was an aggression by India and 'if India tries it again, Pakistan will give befitting reply' (and not that 'Pakistan will nuke and eliminate India), before toeing the line of Pakistan's Army. He also said, "India and Pakistan cannot take risk of a nuclear holocaust". Today's development in the Pakistani senate seems more of a response to the Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat's warning that, if needed, India will conduct surgical strikes again. --- ENDS --- advertisement According to a Radio Pakistan report, Bajwa called up Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani on Sunday to express solidarity with Afghanistan on its fight against terror and to condole the loss of lives in terror attacks. By Santosh Chaubey: When it comes to lying in plain sight, no one can match Pakistani politicians and military officials and the sham this time have come from none other than its army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. According to a Radio Pakistan report, Bajwa called up Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani on Sunday to express solidarity with Afghanistan on its fight against terror and to condole the loss of lives in terror attacks. Claiming Afghanistan and Pakistan being 'brotherly countries', 'he expressed sympathy with families of the victims and empathized on the tragic series of events that have befallen people of the both the countries over the last many years', the report said. advertisement The report quoting an official Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) release said that 'Bajwa emphasized that Pakistan had come a long way in its fight against terrorism of all hue and colour and had eliminated all safe havens in the process'. Now that is a claim that no one is going to buy including Afghanistan, a country that as recently as January 10 saw big terror attacks in Kabul, Helmand and Kandahar that killed dozens including the UAE Ambassador and four other UAE diplomats. Afghanistan blames Pakistan for continued terror attacks in the country and has raised the issue of Pakistan promoting terror in Afghanistan and harbouring terrorists in its backyard on every international platform. During the Heart of Asia Summit held at Amritsar in December, Ashraf Ghani had called for international intervention to check and stop cross-border terrorism from Pakistan. While shedding crocodile tears, claiming it is the biggest terror victim, Pakistan uses terror as state policy very conveniently, exporting terror to India and other parts of the world and providing safe havens to dreaded terrorists from across the world, be it Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and its other members or Taliban and its chief Mullah Omar or the Haqqani network or India's most wanted like Hafiz Saeed, Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim or even terrorists operating in China's Xinjiang region. It all-weather ally China is reportedly going to seal its Xinjiang border with Pakistan to control terrorism emanating from Pakistan. India, the biggest victim of Pakistan sponsored terror, has been voicing its demand to dismantle the terror infrastructure in Pakistan There are many launch-pads and at least 17 terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir that keep on feeding the terror machinery active in India. The SAARC Summit to be held in Pakistan in November was cancelled after other nations of the South Asian grouping had refused to join the Summit blaming Pakistan's continued use of terror as state policy. The US has always blamed Pakistan for fomenting terror in Afghanistan and has blamed it for giving safe havens to terror outfits like Taliban factions, Al Qaeda, LeT and the Haqqani network. James Mattis, US President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for his Defence Secretary, has warned Pakistan 'to expel or neutralise externally-focused militant groups that operate within its borders'. In October last year, in its first ever public warning, the US had said it will go alone in destroying terror networks operating from Pakistan if Pakistan couldn't do that and had named its all powerful spy agency ISI for actively colluding with the terror groups. advertisement Yet, Pakistan keeps on ranting that it has destroyed all terror safe havens and has no terror elements acting and spreading terror from its soil, as General Bajwa has done again. --- ENDS --- In an interview with India Today, Madhav said, "It's not a matter of winning or losing elections. The decision was taken in the interest of the country and the economy." By India Today Web Desk: Demonetisation was never an electoral or political decision, it was taken in the long-term interest of our economy, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav has said. In an interview with India Today, Madhav said, "It's not a matter of winning or losing elections. The decision was taken in the interest of the country and the economy." advertisement "Black money is the result of aberrations in the society and whoever is holding the same needs to be punished," he said. The BJP national general secretary firmly made it clear that there was no parallel economy running after demonetisation. BRING IN REFORMS IN POLITICAL FUNDING "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to all political parties that we have to bring in reforms in political funding," he added. When asked to comment on what were the BJP's expectations from the Uttar Pradesh elections, Madhav said his party was confident of winning the assembly elections in the state. Meanwhile, speaking on the issue of Kashmir unrest, he said, "In Kashmir, what we have is the problem of separatism, which is leading to violence, militancy and terrorism." WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Jammu, Jan 16 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said security was augmented in border areas and anti-infiltration grid strengthened with additional deployment of police force in border belt of the state. "Security was augmented in border areas and anti-infiltration grid strengthened. Police deployment was increased and adequate security provided in the border villages to ensure protection of property," she said in a written reply to the question of NC MLA Ali Mohmmad Sagar in Assembly. advertisement "Vehicles were fitted with sirens and public address system to make border population aware timely, in the event of exigency," she said, adding uninterrupted power supply was provided to border villages during the night hours. Bullet-proof bunkers and ambulances were kept at stand by at convenient locations for evacuation of persons in case of emergency, the CM said. "Police control room (PCR), Jammu, worked as a helpline to provide assistance and give correct information to the public," she said. Mehbooba said the majority of the people have returned to their homes in view of the harvesting seasons of kharif crops after improvement in the situation on the border. On the issue of the bunkers in border areas, she said a proposal for construction of as many as 20,125 community type bunkers at various places along the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LOC) in Jammu division stands has been submitted to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs at a cost of Rs 1,006.25 crore. "However, the Ministry of Home Affairs, has approved construction of 60 concrete community type bunkers at Rs five lakh per bunker, in the border block of district Jammu for an amount of Rs 300 lakh as Pilot Project. The construction work is in progress. Up to ending December, 2016, an amount of Rs 176.87 lakh has been spent," she said. During the recent incidents of cross-border firing, various measures were taken for the safety and convenience of the people residing in the border districts, Mehbooba said, adding the affected families were shifted to safer places temporarily in government and private accommodations where they were provided basic amenities like health care, drinking water, power, temporary toilet, sanitation, security. PTI AB DK KIS --- ENDS --- "For 52 years after the independence, the RSS did not have a tricolour at their headquarters in Nagpur. They used to salute the saffron flag, not the national flag," Rahul said at an election rally in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh. By India Today Web Desk: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today attacked the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), saying the BJP's ideological mentor had not hoisted the national flag at their headquarters for 52 years after India's independence in 1947. "For 52 years after the independence, the RSS did not have a tricolour at their headquarters in Nagpur. They used to salute the saffron flag, not the national flag," Rahul said at an election rally in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh. advertisement In 2002, the right-wing organisation had hoisted the national flag at Smruti Bhawan, which houses the memorials of the first two RSS chiefs, founder Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and Guru Golwalkar. The last time the national flag was hoisted there was on August 15, 1947 and on January 26, 1950 and stopped since then, RSS sources said. ON DEMONETISATION Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation, Rahul said the government has "murdered" the soul of an autonomous institution like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). "The Congress party made and strengthened the RBI so that there is a body which is not under government pressure since it takes economic decisions. But in a minute, the soul of this institution was murdered by Modi ji," Rahul said. ON REPLACING GANDHI IN KHADI CALENDAR On the controversial Khadi Gram Udyog calendars and diaries which for the first time carried Modi's pictures, and not Mahatma Gandhi's, the 46-year-old leader said, "Modi replaced the picture of the man who took three bullets for the nation." "A charkha is about the blood and toil of the khadi workers. On the one hand Modi ji takes photos with the charkha, on the other he works for 50 corporates the whole day," he said. WATCH: Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi: Sahara diaries an investigation called for? ALSO READ: Rahul Gandhi eyes 2019, says achche din that Modi promised will come once Congress voted to power Demonetisation is economic robbery: Rahul Gandhi in poll-bound Uttarakhand --- ENDS --- The Congress leader continued his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and even targeted the RSS, BJP's ideological mentor, during his speech. But what received a huge response from the crowd was his 'torn pocket' antics. By India Today Web Desk: The campaigning for Assembly elections in five states has started to gain momentum and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi seems to have taken the lead at the moment. Rahul was in Uttarakhand today where he addressed a rally in Rishikesh. The Congress leader continued his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and even targeted the RSS, BJP's ideological mentor, during his speech. But what received a huge response from the crowd was his 'torn pocket' antics. advertisement MUST READ: From India Today magazine - Modi's new challenger: Rahul Gandhi While slamming the Modi government over demonetisation, Rahul Gandhi stopped his speech mid-way and decided to show the torn pocket of his white kurta to the crowd. He walked towards the mic again, and said,"Mera kurta phata hua hai...lekin Modiji ka kurta kabhi phata hua nahi milta. Bade paisewalon ke saath unki photo milegi (See, I wear torn kurta. You'll never find Modiji wearing a torn kurta. He can only be spotted with the rich and powerful of the world.) "I am doing politics for the poor. Modiji's photo appears with the super rich," Rahul said. Rahul Gandhi showed his torn kurta to the crowd during an election rally in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. ON DEMONETISATION Taking on the Modi government over the November 8 decision of banning Rs 500, 1000 notes from circulation, Rahul Gandhi the prime minister has murdered an autonomous institution like Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with demonetisation. "The Congress party made strengthened RBI so that there is a body which is not under government's pressure as it takes economic decisions. The soul of this institution was murdered by Modiji with just one move," he said. MODI SHOULD DO TAPASYA Mocking Modi over his much reported yoga expertise, the Congress scion advised the prime minister to do a little 'tapasya'. "The BJP divides people but the Congress works for the unity of the society. Modiji thodi tapasya kijiye, thoda yoga kijiye...The world should see that our PM does yoga for which he is the brand ambassador," Rahul Gandhi said. ON RSS Rahul Gandhi said the BJP's ideological mentor had not hoisted the national flag at their headquarters for 52 years after India's independence in 1947. "For 52 years after the independence, the RSS did not have a tricolour at their headquarters in Nagpur. They used to salute the saffron flag, not the national flag," Rahul said in Rishikesh. In 2002, the right-wing organisation had hoisted the national flag at Smruti Bhawan, which houses the memorials of the first two RSS chiefs, founder Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and Guru Golwalkar. WATCH: Rahul Gandhi takes digs at PM Narendra Modi in Congress Convention ALSO READ: advertisement RSS didn't hoist national flag at their headquarters for 52 years: Rahul Gandhi Sidhuisms continue: BJP is Keikayi, Congress Kaushalya, people know who Manthara is --- ENDS --- Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani said that cows inhale and exhale oxygen. Twitter users won't spare people who make such comments. By India Today Web Desk: After the Dadri lynching incident, cow vigilantism has been on an all-time high. We know who to thank for this! Meanwhile, BJP politician and Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani, in an attempt to put the 'holy cow' on a pedestal, said that cow is the only animal that inhales as well as exhales oxygen. advertisement Cow be like While speaking at the Hingonia Goshala, during an event organised by the Akshay Patra foundation on Saturday, he said "Gai ekmatra prani hai jo oxygen grahan karta hai, aur oxygen hi chodta hai (the cow is the only animal that takes in oxygen and also releases oxygen)". "There is a need to understand the scientific significance of the cow and ensure that the message reaches all people", the minister went on to say. Let us make it clear. Cows don't exhale oxygen. In fact, a single cow, on an average, releases anywhere between 70 to 120 kilogram Methane per year. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is 23 times harmful than carbon dioxide. To give you a perspective, the 100-kg Methane a single cow releases in a year is equivalent to 2,300-kg carbon dioxide released per year and this is the amount of carbon dioxide generated by burning 1000 litres of petrol, says timeforchange.org. So it's even safe to say that cows pollute the environment more than cars. Twitterati, amused by the ignorance of a minister, trolled him left, right and centre. @guptar when the minister is ill , put him on a cow instead of a ventilator. https://t.co/ipAgVUN7uY Mini Nair (@minicnair) January 16, 2017 Following hon'ble Rajasthan education minister's statement, the government has ordered that inflight announcements be tweaked thus pic.twitter.com/ygBOUC3Hbt Colleen Braganza (@colleenbraganza) January 16, 2017 Don't know how @VasudevDevnani even cleared his matriculation let alone become the Education Minister of Rajasthan. https://t.co/bKZBXD6crQ AdityaVikram Godawat (@niennonno) January 16, 2017 And this 'worthy' is Rajasthan's education minister, no less! https://t.co/RTs4IcsF7X Sanjeev Verma (@sanjeevve) January 16, 2017 Rajasthan Education Minister inhales marijuana, exhales thoughts. https://t.co/lZVhNzEViJ Rohan (@mojorojo) January 16, 2017 The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, in a 2006 report, held livestock including cows responsible for large amounts of green house gas emissions from their digestive systems as well as manure decay. In the documentary 'Before the Flood', produced by Hollywood star and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, it is asserted that cattle releases methane gas while eating their feed and 10-12 per cent of greenhouse emissions in the United States of America can be traced to cattle farming. --- ENDS --- advertisement The arrest of the serial rapist was made possible after the 10-year-old girl managed to flee from the building where she was confined in by the alleged rapist. Sunil was arrested after a 10-year-old victim managed to escape from an isolated building where he had kept her. By Chayyanika Nigam: The arrest of a serial rapist by Delhi Police on Saturday has brought out some shocking facts about how a twisted mind works. Police said during interrogation Sunil Rastogi, the 38-year-old accused, revealed that he belongs to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and regularly took a train to Delhi or Ghaziabad to target schoolgirls. The man has lost count of the girls he has raped so far. advertisement The Saturday arrest was made possible after a 10-year-old girl managed to flee from the building where she was confined in by the alleged rapist and recounted the trail to police. The victim had been kept in an isolated building but managed to contact her parents, who then registered an FIR in New Ashok Nagar police station on January 10 to lodge a complaint. ANOTHER MINOR APPROACHES COPS Within few hours, another girl, aged nine, also approached the police station with a similar complaint. After getting their medical examinations done, their parents' statements were recorded and two separate cases had been lodged under relevant sections of IPC. When the 10-year-old victim was counselled, she said she remembered the streets through which the accused walked with her. She also told police that when she was returning home, the culprit came and gave her a cloth saying 'her father was calling her'. Then the duo walked together. A team was then formed under inspector CR Meena, SHO, New Ashok Nagar police station, and ACP (Kalyanpuri) Rahul Alwal to take up the investigation. MINOR GUIDES COPS TO THE ROUTE The counsellor along with the police team accompanied the girl to the routes taken by the accused. While walking on those the streets, the police team spotted a CCTV camera installed at a house. When the footage was checked, the girl was seen walking with the accused. He was also seen talking to her in a manner that they knew each other very well. While the investigation in these two cases were on, police came across another case lodged last month where another nine-year-old girl was raped in New Ashok Nagar with the same modus operandi. Police then took out print of the culprit's photo and checked with locals of the area. The accused's identity was established as Sunil Rastogi. Sunil was found to be a tailor in East Delhi's New Ashok Nagar in 2004. Based on a tip-off then police arrested him on Saturday, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (East District) Omvir Singh. Further investigation revealed that he is a resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. He lives with a handicapped wife, two sons and three daughters. In Rampur, he works as a tailor at SS Tailor Shop. advertisement TARGETED GIRLS AGED BETWEEN 7-10 After detailed interrogation, the accused told police that he used to target girls aged between seven and 10. Whenever he would find any minor girl going home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place, he added. In another shocking revelation, he confessed that to rape the minors he used to board a local morning train from Rampur to Ghaziabad. "In the morning hours, he used to target girls studying in schools in Ghaziabad. In case, he could not find his target, he would travel up to New Ashok Nagar (the places he was familiar to) and fool a minor girl saying 'her father is calling her' by handing over some clothes to her," a source close to investigation told Mail Today. The source further added that he used to take the girls to an isolated place, preferably to isolated buildings and rape them. Later, in the evening he used to return. For more than three years, he has been following this schedule. advertisement COPS COUNSELLING ACCUSED'S DAUGHTERS Meanwhile, police have not ruled out the possibility that he could have raped his three daughters as well. They are also trying to counsel Rastogi's own daughter. "On interrogation, Sunil Rastogi admitted he has committed the similar offences with many more girls in New Ashok Nagar, Ghaziabad and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand. It has also been revealed from the interrogation that many cases, including molestation, theft and cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad," said Singh. He also remained in jail in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, but was released on both occasions. ALSO READ | Maharashtra shocker: 3 arrested for gangrape, murder of 4-year-old girl Sub-inspector arrested over rape charges in Tumkur Delhi serial rapist confesses to killing over 30 children --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: Rishi Kapoor's candid confessions in his recently released autobiography Khullam Khulla: Uncensored are a treat to read. Among his stories of growing up, meeting his wife Neetu and tasting fame and money in Bollywood and beyond, Rishi's stories of his encounters with dreaded gangster Dawood Ibrahim are one of a kind. Dawood who has been a fugitive since 1993 is currently in the most wanted list of Interpol for his mammoth list of crimes. Dawood has inspired countless Indian crime films and characters modelled on him, including the 2013 film D-Day's Goldman which was played by Rishi Kapoor himself. advertisement ALSO READ: Mind your bloody business, is Rishi's message to Twitter trolls attacking Taimur ALSO WATCH: UAE government to act on Dawood Ibrahim after India sends confidential list Rishi, in his book, wrote of the two times he met Dawood. The first was in 1988, much before Dawood was on the run from Indian authorities. Rishi was in Dubai with his friend for an "Asha Bhosle-RD Burman night" and was spotted by Dawood's regular man at the airport, one of many who would be posted at and around airports to track "VIP movement". Dawood's hired guy then walked up to Rishi and offered him a phone saying, "Dawood sa'ab baat karenge (Dawood sa'ab would like to speak to you)." Dawood then invited Rishi to his house. Rishi and his friend were then picked up in a "gleaming Rolls Royce" and were driven around in circles so that they wouldn't be able to recognise the direction to Dawood's house. At his home, Dawood received Rishi Kapoor and his friend, and offered them tea and biscuits because he did not drink or serve alcohol. There, Dawood spoke of his exploits to Rishi and added that he had no regrets about them. Dawood also spoke of a murder he orchestrated in the Mumbai court, an incident which became the basis of a scene in the 1985 Sunny Deol-starrer Arjun. Before Rishi left the house, Dawood told him, "If you need anything at all, any money, anything, just feel free to ask me." However, the actor declined. The second time Rishi met Dawood was also in Dubai. This was the year 1989 and Rishi was shopping for shoes with his wife Neetu at a Lebanese store, where Dawood was also present, along with "eight or ten bodyguards" and "a mobile phone in his hand." This time too, Dawood offered to buy Rishi something but the actor said no again. Dawood then gave Rishi his mobile number but Rishi couldn't in return as there were no mobile phones in India in 1989. Rishi added in his autobiography that, "He (Dawood) was always extremely nice to me and showed me a lot of warmth," but then he added his confusion about Dawood's changed attitude towards India. advertisement "Everything changed soon after. I don't know what made him go after my country the way he did. I have had no interaction with him at all after that chance meeting at the shoe shop," wrote the 64-year-old actor. --- ENDS --- As many as ten state governments have not filed their status reports sought by the Supreme Court on implementation of road safety laws and rules. The apex court today responded by summoning the transport secretaries of all these state. Supreme Court has summoned the transport secretaries of ten states over road safety. By Anusha Soni, Ahmad Azeem: Hearing a public interest litigation on road safety, the Supreme Court came down heavily on the states for not taking the highest court 'seriously'. "Are we running a panchayat, where states are not serious," the Supreme Court asked. The apex court pulled up ten states for not filing the status report for implementation of Motor Vehicles Act for ensuring compliance of speed limits on roads. advertisement SUPREME COURT ON ROAD SAFETY: THINGS TO KNOW A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court seeking implementation of the Motor Vehicles Act in order to ensure compliance of speed limits by deploying speed governors on the roads. The apex court had sought responses from all the states but as many as ten states did not file the status report. These non-complying states are, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Tripura, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Angry at the approach of these states, the Supreme Court said, "Are we running a panchayat, where states are not serious? Why are you ridiculing the Supreme Court?" The apex court summoned the transport secretaries of all the erring states directing them to appear in person in the next hearing after four weeks. "Let the secretaries appear before the court, you will come to know what is Supreme Court," the apex court tersely observed. --- ENDS --- While a group of students has planned to assemble and hold a series of programmes on Tuesday to observe 'Shahadat Din' inside the university, the varsity authorities have clearly overruled the proposed protest. By Ashish Pandey: The Hyderabad University students' Joint Action committee and the administration is up the ante yet again on the first death anniversary of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, who was found hanging in his hostel room on January 17 last year. While the group of students has planned to assemble and hold a series of programmes on Tuesday to observe 'Shahadat Din' inside the university, the varsity authorities have clearly overruled the proposed protest. advertisement "It has come to the knowledge of the Dean Students' welfare (DSW) through various newspaper reports and posters that outsiders are being mobilised by the various students unions/bodies/associations/JAC for the demonstration to be held in the campus on January 17. In this connection, DSW would like to draw the attention of the various students' unions/bodies/associations/JAC on the prevailing ban on the campus on allowing outsiders," the Dean Students' Welfare said. ALSO READ | What did Rohith Vemula, PhD scholar who committed suicide, say before his death? To mark one year of Vemula's suicide, a section of students under the aegis of Joint Action Committee for Social Justice - UOH has planned a mass gathering inside the varsity campus. The gathering is slated to be attended by Rohith's mother Radhika Vemula, family of Najeeb Ahmed- the JNU student who has gone missing, Jaan Mohammed- brother of Mohammad Akhlaq who was allegedly lynched in September 2015 on suspicion that his family stored and ate beef at their house and a few Dalits who were allegedly thrashed by 'cow vigilantes' at Una in Gujarat last year. "We are planning a series of programmes under the banner of 'Justice for Rohith Vemula' and Vemula's portraits in all hostels will be garlanded and a remembrance rally will also be held," JAC members told India Today. Rohith Vemula's suicide had sparked massive protests against the then HRD minister Smriti Irani along with labour minister and Secunderabad MP Bandaru Dattatreya for having written a letter related to the matter. ALSO READ | Rohith Vemula suicide case: The new caste tinderbox --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Bhadohi (UP), Jan 16 (PTI) Police seized Rs 22 lakh in cash here during the ongoing checking campaign in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh to prevent use of money power to influence voters. Superintendent of Police DPN Pandey today said that Rs 20 lakh were recovered from a vehicle on Mirzapur road in Gopiganj police station area yesterday. advertisement Persons carrying the cash said the money had been collected at toll booth, but failed to furnish any documents to support their claim, he said. In a similar incident, Rs 1.96 lakh were recovered in Koirana police station area from two persons, who said the money belonged to a carpet company but they too could not present any document to prove it, the SP said. One person with a .32 bore pistol and magazine has also been nabbed in a separate incident in course of the ongoing drive against use of money and muscle power during elections, he said. Bhadohi district in eastern UP will go to polls on March 8 in the last phase of the staggered seven-phase Assembly elections that begin on February 11 in the state. PTI COR SAB SMI AYP --- ENDS --- By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: Maine Pyaar Kyon Kiya, Salaam-e-Ishq, God Tussi Great Ho, Nanhe Jaisalmer - these unremarkable movies from the Bollywood stable had one thing in common. It was not for nothing that prominent Rajasthan Congress leader Bina Kak, who held key portfolios in previous Gehlot governments, including Women and Child Development and Forest, got to play noticeable roles in these movies. advertisement In the late '90s, Salman Khan had begun to gain notoriety as Bollywood's bad boy. Meanwhile, in Jodhpur, a city known for its monuments and palaces, Salman Khan was fast becoming the talk of the town. His late night revelries, booze parties and rumoured expeditions were creating more than just a few ripples. Much to the chagrin of the local Bishnoi community, rumours of Salman Khan's alleged late night shooting expeditions were spreading like wildfire. The Bishnoi community has, over the years, remained steadfast in its commitment towards protecting wildlife. The chinkaras or the black bucks, beautiful but protected species, have for decades been worshipped and treated by them like their own. On the fateful night in 1998, Salman Khan allegedly went on a hunting expedition and killed two chinkaras in Bhawad. It is also alleged that the actor killed another one two days later at Ghoda farms. Two black bucks were also allegedly killed in Kankari during an expedition in which co-stars Saif Ali Khan, Neelam, Tabu and Sonali Bendre gave him company. The Bishnois have pursued these cases throughout. In local circles, it is believed that had it not been for the pursuance of the cases by the Bishnois, Salman would have easily managed to wriggle himself out. Also read: Salman Khan Arms act case: Jodhpur court to announce verdict on January 18 As legal troubles mounted for him, Salman Khan found solace in the corridors of Bina Kak, who claimed she found her long lost son in him. Often spotted at the official plush Civil Lines residence of Bina Kak, everyone who belonged to the power circles of Jaipur, had a fair idea about Kak and Salman's growing affinity. Salman's umpteen visits to Kak's residence were not hidden. Their families grew close to each other. Salman, his brothers Arbaaz and Sohail shook more than a leg at the weddings of Ankur Kak and Amrita Kak, Bina's son and daughter. Both sides made no bones about it as Kak even went to meet Salman when he was released from jail after his brief incarceration in 2006 in Jodhpur. For Bina, acting in big banner movies had been a dream unfulfilled since her young theatre days. And as her 'deep bond' with Salman Khan became stronger, plum roles began coming her way. Among several others, she played the mercurial mother to Salman Khan's on-screen persona in the movie - Maine Pyaar Kyon Kiya. And as it often happens, when things stay within a family, they really do stay within a family. Bina's daughter, Amrita Kak, got to sing more than a few songs in movies starring Salman Khan or being made by his producer friends in Bollywood. Some of them included 'Character Dheela Hai', 'Just Chill', 'Love Me Love Me', 'Dhinka Chika'. advertisement Also read: Mumbai BJP chief questions Salman Khan's appointment as brand ambassador to battle open defecation Tongues began lashing hinting that this growing bonhomie was the result of a mutually beneficial relationship. Evidently, Bina Kak was the Forest Minister, a ministry responsible for the protection of wildlife in Rajasthan. Salman Khan was an accused in the eyes of law. The Bishnoi community was baying for him. Her detractors allege it was during her tenure that the government went slow in the pursuance of Salman's cases. It is a charge that Bina Kak refutes. "By the time it came to our knowledge, it was already sub-judice. And how could anyone help? I was a Forest Minister, but much later. How could I help?", Kak told India Today. --- ENDS --- 9 $1,5 - 2022 -- () $1 541 . Mulayam Singh Yadav said he had been striving for unity in the party and "if Akhilesh does not agree, (I) will also contest against him" in the assembly election. By Indo-Asian News Service: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav today said he was prepared to contest against his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav if attempts to keep the party united fail. Mulayam Singh Yadav made the remarks during a visit to the party office in Lucknow where he interacted with party members including state SP chief Naresh Uttam. advertisement Uttam had been appointed state party chief by the faction led by Akhilesh Yadav. A party worker, who was present at the meeting, told IANS that Mulayam Singh Yadav said he had been striving for unity in the party and "if Akhilesh does not agree, (I) will also contest against him" in the Assembly election. ALSO READ: Samajwadi Party was founded when Akhilesh was two, won't split: Mulayam Singh Yadav With over 200 legislators backing him, Akhilesh now calling the shots in Samajwadi Party FIGHT FOR CYCLE Uttar Pradesh will go for seven-phased election from February 11 for 403 seats. The Election Commission is expected to give its verdict today on the demand of the Samajwadi Party factions headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav for the party symbol "cycle". Mulayam Singh is learnt to have told party members that he tried speaking to Akhilesh for rapprochement thrice but the latter did not respond properly. Mulayam Singh also said the Muslim community was "angry" as the Akhilesh government "had not worked for them" in the last five years. The party founder is learnt to have blamed Akhilesh for removal of some senior leaders from the party at the behest of Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav. ALSO READ: Mulayam blames Akhilesh for split, says I called CM 3 times but he didn't listen Rich kid problems: As Mulayam and Akhilesh fight for cycle, younger son spins a Lamborghini ALSO WATCH --- ENDS --- A month ago, quelling all rumours of his exit from Samajwadi Party, Aridaman Singh had said that would be with SP all his life. SP Agra city president Raisuddin said that Aridaman was unhappy since he had been removed from his ministerial portfolio by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. By Siraj Qureshi: While Mulayam Singh and son Akhilesh Yadav lock horns over Samajwadi Party's reins and cycle symbol, several senior party leaders are turning their loyalties away from SP ahead of Uttar Pradesh polls. Party's two senior leaders from Agra, former UP cabinet minister Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh and his wife Rani Pakshalika Singh have left Samajwadi Party and joined BJP. They walked out after being handed the tickets for Bah and Kheragarh respectively. advertisement Incidentally, their names were included in both Mulayam and Akihlesh Yadav's list of candidates. A month ago, quelling all rumours of his exit from Samajwadi Party, Aridaman Singh had said that would be with SP all his life. RAJA MAHENDRA ARIDAMAN SINGH'S POLITICAL RUN Aridaman Singh has had a successful run so far, with six wins out of the seven times he contested elections from different party tickets between 1989-2012. A minister in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, he had got 54.7 per cent votes in 2012 polls. Also read: Samajwadi Party was founded when Akhilesh was two, won't split: Mulayam Singh Yadav In 2007, Aridaman lost the election when he contested on BJP ticket to the BSP candidate Madhusudan Sharma. Although in 1996 and 2002, Aridaman won on a BJP ticket and in 1989, 1991 and 1993, he won on Janta Dal ticket. Even in the 2012 elections, he was the only SP candidate in Agra district to have scored a win. Consequently, he became the UP transport minister, his first cabinet portfolio. This decision has stirred quite a storm in party ranks as there had been a dispute over giving the Bah ticket. Also read: Samajwadi Dangal: Will contest against Akhilesh if he does not relent, says father Mulayam Also read: Samajwadi fight for symbol: 'Walking stick' for Mulayum, 'Cycle-pump' for Akhilesh? Another Samajwadi Party defector Jitendra Verma who too joined BJP is up in arms due to Aridaman and his wife's entry to the party, as it definitely diminishes his chances to winning. But according to reports, Raja Aridaman Singh is not interested in contesting elections from Bah and has proposed his wife's name for the same. SP Agra city president Raisuddin said that Aridaman was unhappy since he had been removed from his ministerial portfolio by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Also read: Muslims could rethink support for Samajwadi Party if it contests alone --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Kachuberia (WB), Jan 15 (PTI) At least six pilgrims died while returning from Ganga Sagar fair here today, which the officials initially said was a stampede but the state government later claimed it was not. District officials initially said two pilgrims died on the spot and three, including the woman in the hospital. The stampede occurred at around 6 pm when there was a huge rush of pilgrims to board vessels to reach Kolkata, the officials said, adding all of them were middle aged and are yet to be identified. advertisement A search has been launched by naval divers to find out anybody who might have fallen into Buriganga river during the stampede, the officials said. Later however, Sundarbans Development Minister Manturam Pakhira told PTI that six elderly women died after falling ill during a rush to board a vessel at a jetty in South 24 Parganas district while returning from the Ganga Sagar fair. The incident occurred when there was a mad rush of pilgrims to board vessels at jetty number 5 to reach Kolkata, he said. A few people fell unconscious while several took ill during the incident, he said, adding they were taken to a nearby temporary healthcare centre where six people, all elderly women, died. "These women were very old. Most of them were above 75 years of age and were very weak. They died natural death. Doctors said that they died of heart attack," Pakhira said. "The rush was because there would be no vessel for about eight hours due to low tide," he said. State ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Arup Biswas also denied that it was a stampede. After the initial reports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had even tweeted: "Saddened by the loss of lives caused by a stampede in West Bengal. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased." The PMO also tweeted: "PM approved ex-gratia from PMNRF, of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased & Rs. 50,000 for those injured in the stampede in WB." South 24 Parganas District Magistrate PB Salim said the state government would provide a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each of the deceased. He also denied that any stampede had taken place in Kachuberia as reported earlier. A total 16 lakh pilgrims took the holy dip in two days on the occasion of Makar Sankranti at Ganga Sagar. Salim said there were eight deaths at Ganga Sagar mela last year mainly because of cold weather condition which rose to nine this year - from January 12 till today. PTI SCH COR NN TIR AKK --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Jan 16 (PTI) DMK Working President M K Stalin today paid tributes to AIADMK founder and late Chief Minister M G Ramachandran on the eve of his birth centenary and greeted those who had "genuine affection" towards him. "I hail the memory of MGR (as Ramachandran is addressed) and extend my heartiest greetings to those who had genuine affection for him and never expected any favour from him," he said. advertisement Stalin recalled the friendship between his father, DMK president M Karunanidhi and MGR despite being poles apart in politics, saying the AIADMK founder would not allow his partymen to address the DMK chief by his name and that he would insist that he be addressed as Kalaignar. Earlier DMK governments had named a medical university and film city after MGR, Stalin said in a statement. He also recalled that MGR had presided over a DMK propaganda play in which he had acted and that the matinee idol had encouraged him then. MGR was originally a DMK member but parted ways with Karunanidhi following differences and founded AIADMK in 1972. PTI SA BN ARK --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: The self proclaimed god man Swami Om, who was thrown out of the Bigg Boss house, has filed a police complaint claiming that he was assaulted at news channels programme by the participating public and was also getting threatening calls from the underworld. Also read: Bigg Boss 10: Swami Om calls Salman Khan a traitor Swami Om has filed a written complaint with the Noida Police. "Friday evening, Om had participated in a program at a news channel. During the show, some public members objected to his comments and allegedly manhandled and assaulted him," said ASP Gaurav Grover. Swami Om was there to participate in a debate but during the show things took an ugly turn when few members from the audience objected to his sexist comments and got involved in a scuffle with the ousted Bigg Boss 10 contestant. " Swami Om has given a written complaint regarding the same. The complaint has been updated in general diary. He also alleged that before coming to the channel he had received threat calls from the underworld," added ASP Grover. Noida Police has asked the news channel to provide the CCTV footage to investigate and determine the facts. Swami Om has been in the news for his controversial statements since he has been evicted from Bigg Boss 10 following his inappropriate behaviour. (With inputs from PTI) --- ENDS --- advertisement By Press Trust of India: jailed in Saudi New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today asked Indian Embassy in Riyadh to keep her informed about the case of a 32-year-old man from Hyderabad being sentenced to one years imprisonment and 300 lashes by a Saudi court after being convicted in a robbery case. Swarajs direction came after the family of Mohammed Mansoor Hussain, a resident of Malakpet in Hyderabad who holds an MBA degree, reached out to her through Twitter and told her that they are very poor and cannot afford a lawyer for him. advertisement "Pl do not worry. Our Embassy is doing everything," Swaraj replied to the tweet. "Right. Pl keep me informed about this case," she told the Indian mission in Riyadh. As per reports, Hussain is lodged in Wadi Al Dawasir jail in Saudi Arabia. He had been working as a marketing auditor at Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al Qahtani and Sons Limited in Riyadh since 2013. Hussains family claimed on August 25 last year he had gone to a bank to deposit nearly one lakh Saudi Riyal when he was allegedly robbed by some miscreants. When he went to a police station to lodge a complaint on the advice of his boss, he was taken to custody. According to reports, he has been sentenced to one years imprisonment and 300 lashes. PTI PYK NSA --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: London, Jan 16 (PTI) Donald Trump has said that he has no plans to quit Twitter even after becoming US President this week, saying a "dishonest" media has forced him to continue tweeting to vent out his views. "I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the press ? so dishonestly ? that I can put out Twitter ? and its not 140, its now 280 ? I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out....," the President-elect told The Times newspaper. advertisement Trump, who will become the 45th US President on Friday told the paper that he does not intend to lay off Twitter once he is in the Oval Office of the White House and will keep his @realDonaldTrump account. Trump, who has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter, said that he had considered cutting down his Twitter use. But his reach has become so large that he feels the media are so unkind to him that he will continue to send out updates, he said. "@realDonaldTrump I think, Ill keep it," he said. "So Ive got 46 million people right now ? thats a lot, thats really a lot ? but 46 million ? including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that youre 46 million there, Id rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, its working....," he said. Trumps Twitter feed to conduct international diplomacy and attack on media and his rivals had become a source of concern and confusion since he won the election, with many of the posts that come from it changing stock markets and attacking his political enemies. Some had thought that he would give up the account when he became President or turn it over to his team, but he has promised not to. A handle exists for the President ? @POTUS, which is currently used by President Barack Obamas team ? but Trump will apparently use both accounts during his time in the White House. Chinese state media had recently condemned his obsession with Twitter, asking him to lay off from the social media platform. Trump has often departed from long-standing US policies and made several controversial comments about China on Twitter. "The obsession with Twitter diplomacy is undesirable," said a commentary by Chinas state-run Xinhua news agency had said after Trump made some anti-Beijing comments. PTI AKJ AKJ --- ENDS --- Excise department is keeping a close eye on influx of smuggled alcohol in UP ahead of polls as a complete ban could not be brought on alcohol smuggling from Haryana or UP. Cops say alcohol distribution plays big role in wooing voters ahead of elections, and smuggling escalates despite low-margin profit. Picture for representation By Shashank Shekhar: Despite significant slash in liquor prices in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2016, a complete ban could not be brought on alcohol smuggling from states like Haryana or UP, where the prices are still lower. Excise department is keeping a close eye on influx of smuggled alcohol in UP ahead of assembly elections as the election commission has already warned that politicians may stock and distribute it to woo voters. advertisement Excise department claims that smuggling of liquor went down after excise rate were cut down in UP and were rationalised, but still there is a margin of Rs150-300 on 750ml bottles. "Smugglers from Haryana and Delhi were not risking it due to lower margin but as the consumption tends increase during poll, illegal traders are trying to hide the illegal consignment with other goods to bring it in UP," senior officer of excise department said. ACUTE CASH CRUNCH AMONG POLITICIANS Even the police claim that after demonetisation there is an acute cash crunch among the politicians. A large sum of "unaccounted" money and donations - all in cash - was pumped in during the political rallies and campaigning. However, now everyone has limited cash. "With no money to distribute alcohol may play a major role to influence the voters," a DIG-rank officer told Mail Today. The lengthy and porous border that western UP shares with Haryana has proved to be a hotbed of liquor smuggling. Cops claim that despite lower profit margin as difference in alcohol prices are lesser, smugglers trying to find innovative ideas like creating a secret compartment in vehicle or packing the bottles in shoe box. Apart from roads, the dry Yamuna riverbed, farmland and forests provide ample scope and cover to the peddlers to transport their bounties undetected. UP excise department officials are on their toes in all the six districts of the state bordering Haryana, with most cases of illicit liquor being smuggled into UP are reported from along the Haryana border. OVER 16,000 LITRES SEIZED AFTER ENFORCEMENT OF MODEL CODE OF CONDUCT After model code of conduct was enforced, over 16,000 litres of illicit liquor has been seized already. Of the six districts of UP, bordering Haryana, the highest quantity of liquor has been seized from Gautam Budh Nagar (5,000 litres), followed by Saharanpur (3,368 litres), Baghpat (2,500 litres), Shamli (2,099 litres), Mathura (1,680 litres) and Aligarh (678 litres). There are multiple entry points from Haryana to UP. Gautam Budh Nagar alone has nearly 12 entry points and smuggling of liquor thus becomes easy. advertisement "To ensure that no smuggling of liquor takes place, six teams from the excise department are keeping a check in suspected areas of the district. With 60 officials working round the clock, 5,000 litres of illicit liquor has been seized so far. Smuggling of illegal liquor will increase once the candidates for all the political parties are announced," said Kuldeep Yadav, district excise officer and assistant excise commissioner, Gautam Budh Nagar. ALSO READ | Rs 6 lakh cash, 4,000 litres liquor seized in Mathura 422 bottles of illicit liquor seized --- ENDS --- "Talks are going on to have a Bihar-style grand alliance in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress and RLD combine may get at least 120-125 seats, while the rest of the seats will go to the Akhilesh-led Samajwadi Party", a Congress source said. By Supriya Bhardwaj: Shortly after Akhilesh Yadav wrested the Samajwadi Party symbol from his father, the Congress today said it is open to an alliance with the party and might ask for 100 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly election starting next month. Sources in the Congress said Akhilesh Yadav will lead the Bihar-style Grand Alliance to take on the BJP and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party in the seven-phase election between February 11 and March 8 in India's most populous state. advertisement "Talks are going on to have a Bihar-style grand alliance in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress and RLD combine may get at least 120-125 seats, while the rest of the seats will go to the Akhilesh-led Samajwadi Party (SP)," a Congress source said. Also read | Rahul to lend shoulder, support to Akhilesh if Samajwadi Party splits? The Election Commission today recognized the faction led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the Samajwadi Party and allotted it the 'cycle' symbol, dealing a huge blow to Mulayam Singh Yadav. The ruling Samajwadi Party formally split on January 1 when the Akhilesh faction ousted Mulayam Singh as its president, leading to a bitter two-week spat. KEY POINTS EMERGING FROM CONGRESS' BOARDROOM BRAINSTORMING ALLIANCE SESSION Congress is asking for seats ranging between 100 and 120. It will be an Akhilesh Yadav show. The secular front will be led by Akhilesh. Congress CM candidate in Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dixit will withdraw her name in coming days. She has already expressed an intention to do so in 'public interest'. Although reports are that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Dimple Yadav might be seen sharing stage, Congress sources claim that Priyanka most likely not campaign in other parts of UP apart from family bastion of Amethi-Rae Barelli. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh will share stage along with Jayant Chaudhary in a joint mega rally soon. Congress' UP poll campaign '27 Saal, UP Behal' will be tweaked. Senior Congress leader maintained, "Our basic target is to stop BJP and confine them below three figures. This is a semi final before 2019 general assembly." Both parties will campaign mould their poll campaign around 5 major points: Akhilesh's image, Development, Job creation, DeMonetisation impact and Farmer / soldiers welfare. Congress' UP campaign so far was 'Brahmin' centric. Party will now go all out to woo Dalit voters. They had launched a massive Dalit reach out plan. Now they will take Dalit campaign to next level. Communication strategies are also being worked upon. Campaign will now be focusing on alliance instead of individual parties. The alliance will have an impact of Opposition camp in Parliament too. Congress sources say with TMC and SP on their side will strengthen their position in Parliament too. WATCH VIDEO ; --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Washington, Jan 16 (PTI) Watching someone use new generation e-cigarettes or vape pens may stimulate the urge to smoke in young adults, even in those who have never smoked before, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Centre in the US found that young adult smokers exposed to the use of traditional cigarettes, first-generation e-cigarettes or second generation vape pens experienced an immediate, significant and lasting increase in the desire to smoke. advertisement This extended even to subjects who had never used the newer devices. "The new e-cigarettes, known as vape pens, are now larger and more powerful devices," said Andrea King, professor at the University of Chicago. "They have low resemblance to cigarettes, so some people were hoping they might not produce the same urge to smoke," said King. "But we found that they do stimulate the urge. Vape pens look different but they share too many salient features of the act of smoking - including inhalation, exhalation and hand-to-mouth behaviours," she said. "This makes them a potent trigger, encouraging people to smoke. Their impact is roughly equal to watching someone light up a cigarette. They made the young adults in our study want to smoke," she added. According to the survey, e-cigarette use is "strongly associated with the use of other tobacco products among youth and young adults, including combustible tobacco products." Researchers designed an experiment to test the vape pens effects on the urge to smoke in young adults, men and women aged 18 to 35, a highly susceptible group. The 108 subjects of the study were ranged from very light to pack-a-day smokers. On average, they smoked 8.7 cigarettes a day on six to seven days each week. More than 80 per cent had used e-cigarettes and almost 30 per cent had used one in the past month. Over an hour-long session the volunteers conversed with a member of the research team who pretended to be a fellow volunteer "randomly assigned" to consume different products as study tasks. During these interactions, the pretending volunteer smoked either a combustible cigarette or a vape pen. Both cues increased desire among research subjects for a cigarette or an e-cigarette. The level and duration of desire to smoke among volunteers was the same whether they observed their "colleague" smoking a cigarette or using a vape pen. The study was published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. PTI NKS MHN SAR MHN --- ENDS --- advertisement By Indo-Asian News Service: National Award-winning filmmaker Vetrimaaran on Monday came out in support of jallikattu saying that before asking for a ban on the traditional and ancient bull-taming sport, people should think about banning crackers on Diwali and immersing Lord Ganesh idols in water during Ganesh Chaturthi which disturbs the eco-system. "The main reason why PETA and others want to put a ban on this traditional practice (jallikattu) is that they say it's cruelty to animals," said Vetrimaaran. advertisement Vetrimaaran was in the capital on Monday for an event. "If this is the priority to stop this practice, then I think they are misinformed; as every year, because of India's biggest festival, not just one breed called bulls, but every living creature is killed and lost... and that's Diwali. If they are really concerned about the welfare of animals, then they should ban crackers. If they are really concerned about the eco-system, then they should know that every year so much of toxic material is dumped into the sea during Ganesh Chaturthi, so they should stop that," he added. ALSO READ: Kamal Haasan asks Tamils not to hurt Trisha over jallikattu ALSO READ: After Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth backs jallikattu Vetrimaaran went on to add that people are "just responding to what they see on some video clips, where someone is torturing the bulls". "If that happens, then that needs to be stopped, I don't deny that. But these are ethnic identities which go deeper into a person's psyche and when that is threatened and denied, it puts a lot of pressure on the whole community. It's not about one act, it's about the community," he said. "That's why so many youngsters, who didn't belong to any political party, gathered in Chennai and supported it... I feel this practice should continue," he added. In jallikattu, a bull-vaulter is expected to hang on to the bull's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The Supreme Court in May 2014 banned jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The court also held that bulls cannot be used as performing animals either for jallikattu events or for bullock-cart races in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. After that, people have been demanding that the central government should take necessary legal steps for the continued conduct of the popular sport. Quite recently, at the India Today Conclave South 2017, superstar Kamal Haasan also spoke out in favour of jallikattu. He said if people were bent on banning jallikattu, they should ban biryani too. advertisement Kamal Haasan's support for jallikattu was followed by superstar Rajinikanth saying, "Bring in whatever rules, but jallikattu must be held to keep up the traditions of our Tamil culture." ALSO WATCH: Kamal Haasan backs jallikattu, says the sport is not about harming bulls --- ENDS --- Vietnams leather sector expects more pressure in 2017 Vietnam Global political instability and strong competition from other Asian footwear exporting countries such as Bangladesh are said to have led Vietnam to a single-digit export growth for 2016, lower than expected. Vietnam's footwear sector is to report a growth of 8% in export revenue in full 2016, lower than the targeted 10% according to Vietnam Customs. It is expected the one-digit growth in 2016 will put more pressure on the leather sectors export plan in 2017 Phan Thi Thanh Xuan, General Secretary of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (Lefaso), told local media several small and medium sized enterprises in the leather and footwear sector saw a decline of 30-60% in orders in 2016 compared with the previous year. However, the expertise, technology and other investments brought forward by foreign-invested firms and joint-ventures mean Vietnam continues on a strong path for export growth. Vietnam ranks fourth among the world's top footwear manufacturers, behind China, India and Brazil, but is the third biggest exporter in term of revenue after China and Italy. A comprehensive five-page report on Vietnams leather sector, with an overview on the importance of foreign capital investment, the challenges of material shortage and sourcing, the development of the industry over the years as well as the rising numbers of tanneries establishing themselves in the country, can be found in the upcoming January/February 2017 print and digital App edition of International Leather Maker. Cargills innovations boost earnings Worldwide Cargill, one of the worlds biggest provider of food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services, has reported an 80% rise in earnings in the second quarter of fiscal 2017, thanks to structural improvements, strategic partnerships and a number of new products. Cargills adjusted earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 rose 80% to US$1.03 billion, compared with US$574 million in the corresponding period the previous year. For the first half ended November 30, 2016, earnings stood at US$1.86 billion, up 57% year-on-year. Net earnings for the quarter on a U.S. GAAP basis were US$986 million, down 29% from US$1.39 billion a year ago, when Cargill realised large gains from business divestitures, which are excluded from adjusted operating earnings. First-half net earnings were down 3% to US$1.84 billion for the same reason. Revenues were US$26.9 billion and $US54 billion for the quarter and half, respectively, each down 1% from the prior year. The Animal Nutrition & Protein segment was the largest contributor to adjusted operating earnings in the second quarter, delivering strong performance across its product lines. Thanksgiving holiday demand boosted whole-bird sales in the turkey business, while a more normalised cattle supply, optimised production, and healthy consumer demand contributed to a recovery in beef from last years low. Cargill also celebrated the openings of new innovation centres in Plymouth, Minnesota; Colaco, Chile; and Shanghai, China. The company now operates about 25 innovation centres and technology application facilities around the world. Also, Cargill and Calysta, a Menlo Park, California-based technology firm, announced plans to build a large gas fermentation facility in Memphis, Tennessee, to be operational in late 2018. It will use a proprietary process to make FeedKind protein, a family of sustainable feed ingredients for fish, livestock and pets. [Washington] was trying to subvert the Americans love of liberty and republicanism and turn the American government into something resembling the rotten British monarchy. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. "Three and a half months after the extract's appearance in France, the Federalist editor of the New York Minerva, Noah Webster, obtained a copy of the French newspaper from Epaphras Jones, a New York City merchant and ship owner who had recently returned from France. Webster arranged to have the extract and the Moniteur's subjoined paragraphs translated into English and printed in the 2 May issue of his newspaper. Subsequent mentions of it appeared in the Minerva on 3, 4, 6, 8, and 19 May. When Jones requested the return of his French newspaper, Webster made a copy for himself and had it certified by James Kent on 22 May. Webster also noted that Timothy Pickering, then secretary of state, sent to me for the original paper, and had the letter in the original with a translation, if I mistake not, published in the Gazette of the United States. After its publication there on 4 May, Pickering had his own copy prepared and certified by his chief clerk for his files (on 3 June). Pickering returned the newspaper to Webster. The extract in the Moniteur, of unclear lineage, had by then become the official version of Jefferson's letter, from which all American subsequent versions derived" [footnotes and citations omitted]. " a way of dealing with the immense power over public opinion that newspapers were developing in the 1790's. In fact, the American press had become the most important instrument of democracy in the modern world, and because the Federalists were fearful of too much democracy, they believed the press had to be restrained" (p. 250) [ but the Federalists lost political power forever by 1800 ]. In todays public discourse, nothing is more super-charged than social media, "WikiLeaks" and false news. We like to think about these issues as something new. However, if we discount the internet and digital context and look through a much longer historical lens, we see that the issue is really about platform, dating back to the advent of the printing press and the mass distribution of printed contents. In the Biblical words of Kohelet/Ecclesiastes , "there is nothing new under the sun". And at the end of the 18th century, this sun blazed no brighter than on the Mazzei letter affair, involving the later-to-be vice-president and thereafter president, Thomas Jefferson . At issue were two of the primary means of communication at the end of the 18th century, the letter and the newspaper, one a private matter and the other inherently public. The "Mazzei letter" affair shows what can happen when this separation between the private and public was breached.The political dynamics of the nascent American republic in the early 1790s (remember the U.S. Constitution had been ratified only in 1788) witnessed an ever-increasing split between Jefferson and the ruling Federalist party led by President George Washington and Alexander Hamilton , especially over relations with France and England. Jefferson was an ardent supporter of France, having been energized by the French Revolution. In 1794, John Jay was sent by President Washington to England to negotiate a treaty (the Jay Treaty ), which put an end to the dispute between those two countries.The treaty enraged Jefferson, to the extent that when, on April 24, 1796, he wrote a private letter to a former neighbor in the United States, Philip Mazzei, now living in Pisa, Jefferson could not resist adding several sentences about the political situation. He described the Washington presidency (and by extension, the Federalist party ) as [a]n Anglican, monarchial and aristocratical party. The distinguished American historian, Gordon Wood, summarizes the gist of Jeffersons dissatisfaction with Washington as follows (, p. 235) Jeffersons own words were much more graphicSo far, what we find is an instance where a person lets his political hair down in writing to a friend (and we should keep in mind the rich tradition of epistolary communication at that time). That should have been the end of it. But it was not. What happened was a series of translations, publications and reproductions of the political portions of the letter, spanning countries and exploiting the social media of that era, accompanied by claims of distortion and worse of the original text. According to Wood, Mazzei translated these portions of the letter into Italian for publication in a newspaper in Florence (but see below). From there, it found its way to a French version that was published in France. The French version was later translated into English for publication in the American press, shortly after Jefferson had begun to serve as the vice-president under the Federalist president, John Adams But it is not so certain that there ever was a published translation into Italian. The Editorial Note to the Papers of Thomas Jefferson concludes that [t]he Editors, however, have found no trace of an Italian publication , although Jefferson himself apparently believed so. At most, Mazzei may have translated the contents in Italian for an acquaintance in the diplomatic corps. The Editors suggest that Mazzei most likely copied the relevant contents in their original English and shared it with two friends, one of whom upbraided Mazzei for circulating the text without permission. Mazzeis motivations for making the copies and dispatching them are not clear. Also not clear is exactly who translated the contents into French (perhaps from the original English, perhaps from an Italian translation) and who forwarded it to the French newspaper, Le Moniteur Universel What then happened in the United States is particularly noteworthy, involving, as it did, translations into English from a translation into French from either an Italian translation or from the original English text. As the Editors write--American newspapers. pro and anti- Federalist, pro and anti-Republican, themselves published the contents in English (not based on the original English text, but from an English translation from a French, and perhaps even before then, an Italian version.) Sometimes this derived English text was accompanied by commentary, itself not infrequently expressed in the most scurrilous terms. As Wood describes, Federalist opponents of Jefferson read out the these portions on the floor of the Congressional House of Representatives, and one congressman then proclaimed:Claims were made about the accuracy of the English text and Jefferson defenders even challenged the attribution to Jefferson as the author of the text (which apparently he never denied). The controversy over the letter hounded Jefferson throughout the rest of his life (he died in 1826).With one ear attuned to the public discourse of our own moment, what do we make of the "Mazzei letter" affair? Once the letter left Jefferson's hands (presumably he did not make a copy), it was left to the whims of the social media of the day. The role of the newspapers was crucial. As Wood observes, all parties involved soughtThen, as now, IP seems to have played a minor role, if any. At least in the 1790's, one could point to the fact that the copyright laws were in their infancy (translations were in any event not yet protectable) as well as to the absence of protection for privacy and confidences. The dispute over the unauthorized publication of the private etchings of Prince Albert and the recognition of a right in confidences was still over 50 years away ( Prince Albert v. Strange ).Still the last word, as the first, belongs to"there is nothing new under the sun".By Neil Wilkof The letter read: Irans rulers have directly targeted US strategic interests, policies and principles, and those of our allies and friends in the Middle East. To restore American influence and credibility in the world, the United States needs a revised policy. The Iranian Government have continually spread lies about the Iranian Resistance in order to discredit them in the eyes of Western governments and indeed, for a while the West was convinced, but this could be the beginning of the end. The Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) were taken off the US terror list in 2012, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, thanks to their tireless work providing evidence of Irans secret nuclear programme and their human rights abuses. They were only put on that list in the first place, to curry favour with the mullahs, much like the nuclear deal was supposed to. Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told Fox News: I think whats being offered here is to say, Look, there is an opposition in Iran. Its a lot of different pieces, like all opposition movements [and] a lot of the groups dont get on well together, but lets be clear: There is an alternative to the ayatollahs. The Trump transition team has yet to respond to the letter and it is unclear whether he will meet with the Iranian Resistance, however, considering his opposition to the Iran deal, it may be in his best interests. Signatories on the letter include former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Sen. Joe Lieberman; and retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Bill Clinton. This news comes less than a week after Rafsanjani died of a heart attack on Sunday 8th January. Raisi was one of the leaders in Iran that held a position of power in Iran during the 1988 massacre in which around 30,000 (most of which were members of the Peoples Mojahedin of Iran PMOI / MEK) political prisoners were killed. He is also close to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khameneis approval will be needed for him to secure the position. Some have even said that he could eventually be Khameneis successor. At the minute Raisi is the custodian of a charity that is in charge of Astan Quds Razavi Irans holiest shrine. If he does become the leader of the Expediency Council he will be the second person that was on the Death Commission of the 1988 massacre to gain a high position in the administration of the Iranian regime. The current Justice Minister of Iran is Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi who was also on the Death Commission. Since Hassan Rouhani became president three years ago there have been more than 3,000 hangings. Twenty of these have taken place in 2017 alone. The Iranian people are severely repressed and the regime is cracking down on the people more than ever. The truth about the 1988 massacre came to light last August when an audio recording of the late Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeris son released an audio recording of his father telling the Death Commission that what they were doing would go down as one of the biggest crimes in history. And he was right it really is one of the most alarming crimes against humanity that has taken place in recent history. In 1988 a fatwa was issued by the Supreme Leader at that time Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He ordered the death of political prisoners. People were brought to a Sharia judge who asked each one if they were supporters of the Mojahedin. If the answer was yes they were sentenced to death by hanging. Justice Minister Pour-Mohammadi recently said that he was proud to have carried out Gods will. Surely on his arrival to the White House Donald Trump will ensure that this horrific crime will not go unpunished. Especially seeing that several leaders of the current administration in Iran were part of this. Iran appoints a war criminal and (one of the) worlds wanted men as its envoy in Iraq and demands closing the Saudi consulate in Erbil, Sabhan said on Twitter, adding, We didnt hear any Iraqi comment! True comprehensive sovereignty! Recently, Tehran appointed Brigadier Iraj Masjadi, an advisor to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force. Meanwhile, Iraqs Kurdistan Regional Government rejected statements by an Iranian Basdar Army official calling on the government of the Kurdistan region to close the Saudi consulate in Erbil, considering this demand as an interference in the internal affairs of Iraq and the Kurdistan region. The Kurdistan Regional Government said in a statement on Sunday, that the presence and composition of consulates and diplomatic missions of the countries in the Kurdistan region are subject to the laws in Iraq and the Kurdistan region, and that their activities are in this framework and within these laws and no one has the right to demand the closure of any consulate in the Kurdistan region. This is not the first statement issued by officials of the Iranian Basdar Army about the Kurdistan Regional Government, they explained, and is an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of Iraq and the Kurdistan region. Kurdistan Regional Government stressed that the Kurdistan region is always working to establish friendly relations with neighboring countries, and all the countries of the world, and and that they hope for Iran to take a serious stand towards these statements, and make sure that they do not recur. On January 16, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) published an article about Iraj Masjedi, Senior adviser to Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC terrorist Quds Force, who has recently been appointed as Iranian regimes ambassador in Iraq, and who said Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and Syria is the regimes frontline. IRGC Brigadier General Iraj Masjedi, who was speaking on the anniversary of the killing of another Pasdar (IRGC Revolutionary Guard) in Syria, said, Yesterday the frontline of our fighters was Abadan, Khorramshahr, Mehran and and now the frontline is Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and Syria, according to state-run Mehr news agency on January 13. In June 2016, he had said that fighting in Syria and Iran means defending Irans borders. Pasdar Masjedi is one of the most senior and oldest commanders of the terrorist Quds Quds Force, and his responsibility was mainly to facilitate the regimes attacks in Iraq, in which he has played the main role. In recent years, his mission was to prepare and provide mercenaries forces before dispatching them to Syria. Masjedi was the head of Ramadan Base and he was in charge of preparing plans for training Iraqi militias in September 2007. Commandment of Ramadan base has been and is the main position of Iranian regime in Iraq. Also the responsibility of Iraj Masjedi in Iraq, is to dispatch Iraqi militants to Syria. On a mid-June 2015 trip to Iraq, Pasdar Masjedi, during a meeting with the terrorist groups and militias affiliated to Iran regime, set a quota for each for each group to send troops to Syria before the start of Ramadan, and to dispatch 4 to 5 thousand Iraqi militants to Syria. This project was carried out after the regime suffered heavy human casualties and losses in Syria. In another NCRI article, on January 12, they wrote that when Iran regime announced Brigadier General Iraj Masjedi, adviser of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the terrorist Qods Force was appointed the new ambassador of the Iranian regime in Iraq, the state run website Asr-e Iran wrote, The Iranian regimes embassy in Baghdad, is one of the strategic positions abroad and is considered and its ambassador is of the utmost importance. Asr-e Iran added, Irans incumbent ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Danaifars six-year mission will end soon and he will be replaced by Masjedi. During Gen. James Mattis Senate hearings for his appointment as defense secretary last week, he alleged that the Obama administration didnt listen to his weekly warnings about Irans destabilizing role in Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq and elsewhere, during his tenure as Americas military commander in the Middle East. Obamas team, who were attempting to engage Iran, replaced the general. Dennis Ross, an Obama adviser, relates, It was a kind of culture clash. There was such a preoccupation in the White House with not doing things that would provoke Iran or be seen as provocative. Mattis was, by definition, inclined toward doing those things that would be seen as provocative. Recently, the Australian government released photos of thousands of weapons of Iranian origin, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers, seized in a raid last year off the Yemen coast. Greater quantities were impounded in multiple seizures by French, US and other vessels in 2016. These seizures represent only the tip of the iceberg. Conflict Armament Research released an extensive report in November, showing that impounded arms were primarily of Iranian origin. The report talked about a weapons pipeline extending from Iran to Somalia and Yemen; which involves the transfer, by dhow, of significant quantities of Iranian-manufactured weapons. 2,000 Kalashnikov-style rifles characteristic of Iranian manufacture were found in single dhow in March 2016. Iran is prohibited from exporting arms, under the international sanctions regime, but Tehran has flagrantly flouted it in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and Iranian shipments to Bahraini terrorists continue to be intercepted. Kevin Donegan, commander of the US Navys Fifth Fleet, stated that recent seizures were part of a larger effort to move weapons to the Houthis, by Iran. Intelligence experts are also concerned about the exploitation of the Yemen-Oman border for smuggling weapons. A US official told Reuters: We are aware of a recent increased frequency of weapons shipments supplied by Iran, which are reaching the Houthis via the Omani border. Senior Iranians bragged about these exploitations. A senior Iranian diplomat confirmed there had been a sharp surge in Irans help to the Houthis in Yemen since May 2016, including weapons, training and money. He told Reuters the objective was to escalate conflict with Saudi Arabia: The nuclear deal gave Iran an upper hand in its rivalry with Saudi Arabia, but it needs to be preserved. MP Alireza Zakani in 2015 bragged that Sanaa would be the fourth Arab capital to fall into Irans hands after Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad. He predicted that the Yemen revolution would extend into Saudi Arabia. Ali Akbar Velayati called for the Houthis to play the same role in Yemen as the Hezbollah did in Lebanon. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hussain Salami declared earlier this month, It is now time for the Islamic conquests. After the liberation of Aleppo, Bahrains hopes will be realized and Yemen will be happy with the defeat of the enemies of Islam. The Houthis were a minority group in the far northwest of Yemen with around 2,000 fighters, only capable of stirring up localized bouts of unrest until very recently, Alamuddin writes, During the 2011 disturbances, Hezbollahs Unit 3800 with support from Irans Al-Quds Force channelled funds and training to Houthi insurgents. The head of Unit 3800, Haj Khalil Harb, was later designated for US sanctions for his role in training and arming the Houthis. James Clapper, US National Intelligence Director said in 2014, Iran will continue to provide arms and other aid to Palestinian groups, rebels in Yemen, and Shiite militants in Bahrain to expand Iranian influence and to counter perceived foreign threats. The Washington Times reported: Iran has positioned thousands of loyal Iraqi Shiite militia fighters around Mosul with a strategic goal of creating long-lasting armies inside Iraq that can also deploy as an expeditionary force to Syria, Yemen and other contested regions. That they already had assets on the ground and intended to increase their presence in Yemen was confirmed by Senior Iranian military figures. IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammed Ali Falaki told hard-line Iranian media sources in August 2016, that Iran was working toward the formation of a Shiite liberation army whose commander is Qassem Soleimani One front of this army is in Syria, the other in Iraq, and another in Yemen. Faliki is a senior figure in the Syria-based Fatimiyoun Brigades, a mainly Afghan militia of 8,000-12,000 fighters recruited by Iran. After such proxies played a leading role in brutally subduing east Aleppo, there has been increasing discussion of these assets being redeployed elsewhere, writes Alamuddin, adding, While Iran looks to pivot troops away from Syria, it remains involved in a massive feat of social engineering, relocating thousands of Shiites to western Syria to fundamentally alter the demographic balance in the region between Damascus and the Lebanese border. The Guardian reported how far-reaching these measures are, with one source saying, Full sectarian segregation is at the heart of the Iranian project in Syria. They are looking for geographical zones that they can fully dominate and influence. Further, she says, These measures resemble similar strategies pursued by Iranian proxies in mixed areas of Iraq, where tens of thousands have been terrorized into exile and prevented from returning to their homes, in a transparent effort to alter the sectarian balance ahead of crucial provincial elections over the coming months. It took Israel decades for its settlements project to divide the West Bank into ungovernable cantons. These Iranian-engineered population shifts are happening before our eyes. Tehran must not be given carte blanche to do the same in Yemen, which is already facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Warehouses full of impounded Iranian weapons testify to the scale of Tehrans interference in Yemen. Iranian leaders have made it clear they intend to further their involvement by putting in militia making the locals dependent on their support, which what Iran did in Syria. Yemens tremendous strategic importance, its central position on the worlds shipping routes, and as the gateway between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, is important to Irans dominant position across the territory stretching through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. Irans foothold in Yemen would have catastrophic consequences for the regions geopolitical balance of power. Iranians are sick of their hard-line leadership, which is wasting billions exporting revolution overseas, leaving the nation impoverished. A Zogby poll shows how Iranian support for involvement in Syria plunged from 90 percent to 24 percent in just two years. Iranians want less ideology, theology and foreign meddling, and a regime that prioritizes their aspirations, Alamuddin writes. However, the figures being pushed by entities such as the IRGC to replace the ailing supreme leader such as Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Sadeq Larijani and Mohammed Taqi Mesbah Yazdi are even more hard-line and fanatical than Khamenei, writes Alamuddin. She says, We have spent too long covering our eyes and ears and pretending that Irans involvement in Yemen and elsewhere is exaggerated and insignificant. The facts speak for themselves. Pessimists would say it is too late to roll back Iranian hegemony in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. However, there remains a narrow window of opportunity for Yemen. Compelling Iran to recognize that there are consequences to its far-reaching meddling in Arab states must be made clear by the international community. When the people of Iran and the outside world speak together, calling for regime-change, meddling and war may eventually become suicidal for this regime. In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA; German Press Agency), he said he expects the Arab Summit in Jordan to state the same stance and policy. He dismissed the differences between the GCC countries, stressing that the GCC member states are united on overall issues. He called out Omans recent joining of the Saudi-led Islamic coalition, adding that the official declaration of the GCC union is just a matter of time. Steps and cooperation agreements between the GCC member states were cited by the Information Minister, which raised the size of the GCC bilateral trade exchange from $6 billion in 2003, to more than $140 billion at present, as an example. Al Romaihi, who is also Board of Trustees Chairman of Bahrain Institute for Political Development,said that Irans implication in regional instability is clear and undeniable. Bahraini security bodies success in exposing many spying and terror cells related to Iran and its internal and external military arms was pointed out by the Information Minister. He noted that other terror operations, including smuggling weapons and explosives, were also thwarted. He said, All those incidents were documented and court rulings were issued regarding them. He called on all to understand the basis of the problem, pointing to Irans policy of exporting revolution to the countries in the region, by interfering in their affairs, fanning sectarianism, providing support to their terror organizations, and waging defamatory and provocative campaigns by political and religious figures. [January 16, 2017] Cathay Pacific Selects Avionica for Second Generation e-Enablement System Cathay Pacific Airways has selected Avionica as the integrator and supplier for their e-Enabled, airborne global connectivity program. Starting in early 2017, Cathay Pacific's second generation e-Enabled system will be deployed across the Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon fleets, including the B777, B747, A320 and A330 aircraft types. In selecting Avionica, Cathay Pacific obtains extensive expertise in STC development and installation support for its e-Enablement solution. Avionica's e-Enablement hardware package provides Cathay Pacific a single, common set of hardware across Boeing (News - Alert) and Airbus fleets. "Avionica offers Cathay Pacific an integrated airborne hardware solution for e-enablement and full-time global connectivity. As part of their STC integration experience, Avionica's STC design data package is of among the highest quality that we have seen," said Rob Saunders, Head of Engineering Business Improvement and Lean at Cathay Pacific Airways. This selection marks an important milestone in the development of airline e-Enablement as Avionica continues its expansion into Asia's air transport market with its versatile global voice and data connectivity solutions. Accordingly, Cathay Pacific will achieve fleetwide deployment of an advanced e-Enablement program - a program that is at the heart of Cathay Pacific's efficiency enhancing initiatives. Avionica's solution available to Cathay Pacific includes: satLINK MAX Iridium (News - Alert) satellite communications system aviONS Onboard Network Server avCM 4G cellular device avSYNC QAR download satLINK MAX remains the industry's only 4-channel, FANS-1/A and ATC Voice Safety Service approved Iridium SATCOM system. The multitude of Iridium channels enables Cathay Pacific to maximize e-Enabled aircraft conectivity without restricting critical Voice and FANS-1/A safety services. aviONS provides an open-platform network solution supporting airline and third party e-Enablement systems. aviONS enhances airborne connectivity with global 4G Cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity. Cathay Pacific will tap aviONS' Wi-Fi connectivity for crew wireless applications, including efficient in-flight reporting of cabin discrepancy. To manage connectivity, Avionica's avSYNC global data transfer network is available to provide automated data transfer between aircraft and their operation center. As Cathay Pacific's e-Enabled aircraft focus is efficiency, avSYNC's ability to automate data synchronization of onboard applications would become a key component of its strategy. "We're excited to have been selected by Cathay Pacific in deploying the e-Enabled aircraft solution across their fleet of aircraft. We welcome Cathay to the family of customers that entrust their hardware, STC integration, and data management to us," said Avionica Vice President of Sales Anthony Rios. "Cathay is leading the charge in e-Enablement. With this selection, Avionica becomes the lead enabler to achieve that." About Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways is a Hong Kong-based airline offering scheduled passenger and cargo services to nearly 200 destinations in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe and Africa, using a fleet of more than 140 wide-body aircraft. The company is a member of the Swire group and is a public company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Cathay Dragon is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, and the airline also has a 60% stake in AHK Air Hong Kong Ltd, an all-cargo carrier operating regional express freight services. Cathay Pacific has made substantial investments to develop Hong Kong as one of the world's leading global transportation hubs. The airline is a founder member of the oneworld global alliance. About Avionica Headquartered in Miami for 25 years, Avionica is the world's leading aircraft data collection and data transmission manufacturer, designing and producing innovative, safety-qualified, state-of-the-art solutions that are revolutionizing air transportation. For more information, please visit www.avionica.com. Connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005523/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Charleston fire Firefighters responded to a fire alarm at 9:40 p.m. Friday to 670 18th St. The alarm was set off by burnt food. -- -- -- Firefighters were sent to the location of a fire alarm activation set off by burnt food at 2:51 a.m. Sunday at 1305 Fourth St. -- -- -- Firefighters conducted a carbon monoxide investigation at 3:45 a.m. Sunday at 23 Buchanan Court. Nothing was found. -- -- -- Firefighters responded to a fire call at 3:59 a.m. Sunday at 1005 Greek Court for burnt food. -- -- -- Bad batteries in a smoke detector set off a fire alarm at 151 Terrace Lane, Eastern Illinois University apartments, twice Sunday. Firefighters were called out at 9:26 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. -- -- -- A power line was down at 3:55 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of 13th Street and Adams Avenue. -- -- -- Firefighters conducted an odor investigation at 11:17 p.m. Sunday at 523 W. Grant Ave., Apt. 2. Nothing was found. -- -- -- At 2 p.m. Monday, firefighters responded to a fire call in the Stu's Bar parking lot. A recliner was on fire. (EAPRO-TCO-SocPol-NOB) Vacancy No. EAPRO/TCO-VA-2017/03 Job Level: NO-B Duty Station: Thailand Country Office, Bangkok Position No. : THL17003 Application Close: 26 January 2017 Contract Type: Fixed-Term Purpose of the Position Under supervision of Chief Social Policy, Accountable for effective engagement in social policy dialogue with the Government for programme development, advocating for increased public resource allocation and budgeting towards the social sector and sustainable decentralization of social services and local capacity building in support of the goal of universal coverage of essential social services and the creation of a protective environment for children. Conducts data collection and analysis to fill information gaps and to strengthen capacity for advocacy for childrens rights, and to support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the World Fit for Children (WFFC) agenda. Major Responsibilities 1. Social policy dialogue and programme development Provides professional assistance in UNICEFs engagement in social policy dialogue and development with the Government, maintains constructive dialogue and partnerships between international and local stakeholders to support the development of social policies and programmes contributing to the progressive realization of childrens rights and strengthening of implementation and monitoring mechanisms at all levels of society, and ensures that the services reach out in innovative, effective ways to those most vulnerable pockets of children and families that have been previously left out. Promotes the advocacy for juvenile justice reform, supports child rights-based reviews of national, provincial and local legislation, in close consultation with community-level structures and supports the health and education sectors and the social welfare system for children. 2. Monitoring state budget resources Monitors and updates current information on state budgeting and spending patterns for social programmes and decentralization status of social services on an on-going basis to support advocacy for greater public resources and budget allocation for social development, the prioritization of resource allocation for children, and universal coverage of essential services for children, to ensure that they reflect the best interest of children. 3. Sustainable decentralization and capacity building Where the national decentralization process is taking place, collaborates with the central and local authorities to assist in planning, policy discussion and service delivery closely responding to the needs of local communities. Provides on-going support in making decentralization sustainable through adequate local support while keeping decentralized services both accessible and effective. Collaborates with the central and local authorities to strengthen community-based capacity on quality data collection, analysis for policy development, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring of social policy and programmes. Provides professional assistance in the development programme plans of action for children at provincial and district/municipality levels; supports to strengthen coordination between sectors and between different levels of government structures for policy implementation. 4. Data collection, analysis and results-based approach Collects systematically qualitative data for the sound and up-to-date assessment of the situation of children and women to provide the base-lines for result-based decisions on interventions and evaluations. Provides technical support for the development of information systems for monitoring child rights indicators, with emphasis on community and child participation. Provides timely, regular data-driven analysis for effective prioritization, planning, and development; facilitates results-based management for planning, adjusting, and scaling-up specific social policy initiatives. Support maintenance of information system for monitoring gender/sex disaggregated data. Contributes to the analysis of the macroeconomic context of social policy programmes and its impact on social development, emerging issues and social policy concerns, as well as implications for children, and proposes and promotes appropriate responses in respect of such issues and concerns, including government resource allocation policies and the effect of social welfare policies on the rights of children. 5. Advocacy and communication Promotes and raises awareness on childrens rights with both the general public and with policy makers, effective information dissemination, mass media campaign, special events, and other means, to ensure local buy-in, commitment, and continued relevance of UNICEF programming. 6. Partnerships Contributes to the establishment and enhancement of effective partnerships with the Government, bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, civil society and local leaders, the private sector, and other UN agencies to support sustained and proactive commitment to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and to achieve global UN agendas such as the Millennium Development Goals and the World Fit for Children (WFFC) agenda. Identifies other critical partners, promotes awareness and builds capacity of partners, and actively facilitates effective collaboration within the UN family. 7. UNICEF Programme Management Supports and contributes to effective and efficient planning, management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the country programme. Ensures that the social planning project enhances policy dialogue, planning, supervision, technical advice, management, training, research and support; and that the monitoring and evaluation component strengthens monitoring and evaluation of the social sectors and provides support to sectoral and decentralized information systems. 1. Comments must not be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted. 2. Comments must not involve little more than name-calling and insulting remarks. 3. Comments must not be made by "anonymous" or "unknown". 4. Comments must not try to sneak in some free advertising for themselves (like spam). I invite anyone who wishes to comment on this blog to do so. I enjoy the comments, whether you agree with what I have said or not. But some people want to abuse the right to comment, and since this is my blog, I have decided to lay down the following rules. If your comment violates these rules, it will not be published. Heartland Big Brothers Big Sisters is pleased to announce the election of a new president and vice president of the agency's Board of Directors to lead the organization in 2017. AshLea Allberry will serve as board president. Allberry is the vice president of operations for Nanonation, Inc. Nanonation is a software product company, focusing on digital experiences within public spaces. Within her role, she manages software development, design and quality assurance teams. In addition, she focuses on utilization and other organizational initiatives. Outside of her career, Allberry is involved throughout the Lincoln community in a variety of capacities in addition to her service to Heartland Big Brothers Big Sisters. She is the co-founder of RISE Lincoln and 100s of Women Who Care Lincoln. She is also actively involved in Lincoln Rotary Club #14, Leadership Lincoln Executive Series, Lincoln's Young Professionals Group and is part of the Nebraska Council on Economic Education Board of Directors. Allberry received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She has recently returned to UNK in an adjunct faculty capacity. She is a certified tester foundation level (CTFL) through the American Software Testing Qualifications Board (ASTQB). She and her husband, Tate, have a young daughter, Kate, and enjoy spending time with her. Emily Motto has been elected as the board's vice president. Motto is an attorney with Baylor Evnen and a member of the firm's Litigation Practice Group. Ms. Motto handles all files in general litigation. Her experience in the court room includes both bench trials and jury trials. In addition to her career, she is on the Board of Directors for the Nebraska Defense Counsel Association, a member of the Lincoln Bar Association, Defense Research Institute and the Nebraska State Bar Association. She also received the 2016 Rising Star Award from the Nebraska Defense Counsel Association. Emily grew up in Davenport, Iowa, and is a graduate of the University of Iowa and Creighton University School of Law. Prior to joining Baylor Evnen, she practiced for two years in the area of insurance defense of property and liability matters. Heartland Big Brothers Big Sisters provides youth with caring and supportive Big Brother and Big Sister mentors. The agency helps youth to overcome obstacles and achieve academic and personal success. In addition, they offer specialized programs that focus on college and career readiness and expanded opportunities for learning and new experiences. The agency has set an ambitious goal for 2017 to pair 100 youth with a Big Brother or Big Sister. For more information please visit www.hbbbs.org or www.facebook.com/heartlandbbbs. The law firm of O'Neill Heinrich Damkroger Bergmeyer & Shultz, P.C., L.L.O. is pleased to announce that David Rasmussen has been named as a shareholder in the firm. Rasmussen has a general transactional practice assisting clients with business and commercial transactions, corporate law and securities compliance, real estate transactions, technology issues, business succession and estate planning issues. Rasmussen graduated with highest distinction from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in business administration-finance and received his law degree, with distinction, from the University of Nebraska, College of Law in 2004. O'Neill Heinrich Damkroger Bergmeyer & Shultz, P.C., L.L.O provides legal services in the areas of business law, estate planning, real estate, banking, government, labor relations, employment and commercial litigation Pop classical duo 2Cellos will play Pinewood Bowl on July 26. The concert by Croatian cellists Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser is the first show announced for Pinewood Bowl in 2017. The Pioneers Park amphitheater will hold eight to 10 shows from May through August or September. 2Cellos, which calls itself musics most electric and dynamic instrumental duo, first gained attention when its cello-only cover of Michael Jacksons Smooth Criminals on YouTube got millions of hits in 2010-11. Thats when the duo signed to Sony Masterworks and released its debut album, featuring cello covers of songs from U2, Kings of Leon and Nine Inch Nails. 2Cellos has released two more albums covering much of the pop/rock ground, doing their versions of songs by AC/DC, Coldplay, Iron Maiden and Mumford & Sons. On March 17, 2Cellos will release Score, an album of movie music the duo recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. Among the songs on the album are the themes from Titanic, The Godfather, Chariots of Fire, Love Story as well as HBOs hit Game of Thrones. The Lincoln show is the sixth stop on the duos Score tour. So the show is likely to lean heavily on those songs, which are more traditional fare than 2Cellos previous pop rock work. Sulic and Hauser, who have worked with Elton John as part of his touring band, also play classical pieces in their concerts. Tickets for the Pinewood Bowl concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. Tickets are $78, $58 and $38 and will be available at the Pinnacle Bank Arena ticket office, ticketmaster.com and by phone at 800-745-3000. 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 Sania Banks went to bed on Nov. 8, like the rest of her family, convinced Hillary Clinton would win the election. The 8-year-old Fredstrom third-grader woke up the next morning like the rest of the nation to a very different reality. She wasnt happy that Donald Trump was the president-elect, so she channeled those feelings into action. She picked up her pencil and started writing a letter to the current president because she admires him and decided maybe he needed to hear that. I didnt know if he would respond or not, but I wrote a letter for him to keep because hes leaving the White House and I really wanted him to hear my words. Because he was leaving, she reasoned, he might just enjoy a kind letter from the middle of the country. Dear Obama (large exclamation point, colored blue for effect), How do you feel about Donald Trump being president? Because when I woke up this morning for school and looked at my dads phone to see who got elected and saw the results I was so ANGRY! I wish you can be president forever! How do you feel about leaving the White House in January? Well I feel terribly sad! You are such a good role model. Sania emphasized her point with a sad face and a picture of a girl who looks very much like Sania crying. She goes on to tell the president about herself and her family, about her two younger brothers and her mom and dad, and she makes sure he understands how to pronounce her name (sah)-(Ni)-(ah) because lots of people get that wrong. Sania tells the president she loves dogs but doesnt have one because her brothers are allergic, and she ends her letter the way she started. I really wish you can stay at the White House and be president! Sanias mom, Kelsie Banks, a teacher at Culler Middle School, had left for work before Sania was awake the day after the election. By the time she got home, her daughter had written her letter and brought it downstairs to show her. They talked about the election both she and her husband are educators, so there have been lots of family discussions about such things. They debated whether to mail the letter and decided, why not? Neither really expected a response. But, on Tuesday the same day Obama gave his farewell speech in Chicago there was a large manila envelope in the Banks mailbox. Kelsie Banks found it and handed it to her daughter. Sania had no words. Inside the envelope was a typed and signed letter from the nations 44th president. President Obama thanked her for writing, said she inspired him and pointed out what an important part she and other young people will play in Americas future. Then he encouraged her to stay engaged and to keep speaking out in defense of others. One election does not change who we are as a people, but our future will be shaped by your generations ideas and willingness to dream big, and I encourage you to get involved in causes you care about because you have the ability to make a real and lasting difference. There were pictures of the Obama family, including the dogs, and a couple pictures of just the dogs. There was other stuff, too, some information on the White House, and on nutrition Sania figures that was from the First Lady. Sanias teacher asked her to share the response with the entire third grade. Sania was a bit nervous about that but it went OK. Sania, who loves gymnastics and writing and math and history, sees lots of possibilities for her future. Maybe shell be a doctor, or a teacher, or work at the airport like her mom who does that part-time job in addition to teaching. Maybe, she said, shell become a gymnast, or work in her favorite clothing store. The possibilities are endless and the letter from the president has inspired her to be a little kinder to others as she heads into that future, she said. She learned something else, too. You never know what will happen 'til you try, she said. Kelsie hopes the experience has taught her daughter another lesson: that little Sania Banks has a voice, and if she uses it, it will be heard. Your voice matters, said Sania's mom. What you have to say is important and sometimes you have to make yourself heard. Lincoln Public Schools canceled classes Tuesday, joining the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other schools in extending the holiday weekend for students. Lincoln Catholic schools, Lincoln Lutheran, Lincoln Christian, Parkview Christian and College View Academy also closed. Local school officials said concerns over slick streets in residential areas and ice-covered sidewalks prompted the decision to call off classes. Conditions are expected to improve rapidly Tuesday, with clearing skies and highs in the mid-30s. For college administrators, their decision to call off classes Tuesday was over concerns for students traveling back to campus after the holiday weekend. UNO and UNK followed UNL's lead. Nebraska Wesleyan University also canceled classes Tuesday, along with Union College in Lincoln. Southeast Community College's campuses in Lincoln, Beatrice and Milford will remain closed. Doane University, which operates campuses in Crete, Lincoln, Grand Island and Omaha, doesn't start classes for the spring semester until Thursday, a university spokesman said. The Monday holiday and heightened caution combined to minimize the wallop of a two-day ice storm, emergency officials said. I was pleased to see there were very few vehicles out on the road, Lancaster County Emergency Manager Jim Davidsaver said of his Monday commute. Schools, government offices and some banks already were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They were joined by a host of gyms, restaurants and other businesses that shuttered due to the weather. With slippery side streets and sidewalks still a concern, many schools -- including Lincoln Public Schools and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln -- will remain closed Tuesday. Around Lincoln people reported up to a quarter of an inch of ice accumulation, National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Mayes said. From Hastings, meteorologist Angela Pfannkuch said people near the Kansas border reported up to three-quarters of an inch of ice. That could have been a big problem, forecasters said, but we caught a break. "We've been lucky with this one where the winds are just about 10 miles per hour," Pfannkuch said. All of Fairbury was without power overnight Sunday, but electricity had been restored by Monday evening, Jefferson County Emergency Manager John McKee said. No major wrecks were reported in the area, he said. Fallen trees and limbs caused him the most concern. "I'm working on one of my trees that's almost shredded," he said. "My neighbor was out there earlier, he heard a crack, pop and then a tree hit his roof." Monday's relative calm on the streets was a credit to the de-icing efforts of road crews and a payoff from the advance storm warnings that packed grocery store parking lots well before the ice hit, Davidsaver said. Mayes agreed. I think the area did a great job of hunkering down, Mayes said. Police reported only 19 crashes on city streets by Monday evening, fewer than even last Monday when officers responded to 29. "(People are) really limiting their discretionary traveling, Davidsaver said. Twenty-seven people were treated at CHI St. Elizabeth for injuries after falling on ice from Sunday afternoon to late Monday morning. The emergency departments at Bryan East and Bryan West saw 15 injuries related to the slick conditions in a three-hour window Monday morning. Forecasters warned of a refreeze overnight that could make for slippery conditions Tuesday morning when most people head back to work. There will be some sun Tuesday, but most of the melting will occur Wednesday and Thursday, when highs climb into the mid-40s, Mayes said. 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 WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration's first Cabinet meeting should be an interesting affair. On issue after issue -- Russia, the border wall, the Iran nuclear deal, climate change, torture, NATO -- President-elect Donald Trump's nominees have diverged from his stated positions. So whose views will prevail? Could Trump's secretaries help save Trump from himself -- and the country from Trump? Will they offer a sobering dose of reality therapy for the reality TV president? There are strong arguments for either outcome. I am tending ever so cautiously -- clinging perhaps -- to the optimistic one. The official position of the Trump transition is no. "At the end of the day, each one of them is going to pursue a Trump agenda and a Trump vision," incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday. Spicer dismissed the nominees' divergence from Trump at their confirmation hearings as answers when "they're being asked their personal views here and there." Wait. A personal view is if you prefer opera to hip-hop. The nominees' testimony reflects their policy positions and assessments, in some cases deeply held convictions at the core of future responsibilities. So it is a significant expression of policy -- not a personal view -- when Defense secretary nominee James Mattis says about Russia and Vladimir Putin, "I'm all for engagement, but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to. And there's a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of areas where we're going to have to confront Russia." Or when CIA Director nominee Mike Pompeo, similarly, says, "Russia has reasserted itself aggressively, invading and occupying Ukraine, threatening Europe and doing nothing to aid in the destruction and defeat of ISIS." Contrast that with Trump, throughout the course of the campaign and as recently as the day before: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia. Russia can help us fight ISIS." Trump himself, in an early morning tweet Friday, purported to be just fine with his team of dissidents. "I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!" he wrote. Right. Everyone who's watched Trump over the last stretch knows how well he deals with what he perceives as challenges to his authority. The argument for Trump being tempered, to some extent, by some of his Cabinet (overall, certainly, this is no moderate bunch), is a bet on a combination of Trump's intellectual laziness and susceptibility to manipulation by deference and flattery. Trump has few deeply held policy views and seems disinclined, to put it mildly, to put in the work needed to prepare for the presidency, no less inhabit the office. He has never suffered the ordinary politician's political embarrassment over accusations of flip-flopping. As a result, he is attached to many of these stances by the thinnest of filaments. He arrived at them by gut, not intensive study. He is more inclined to delegate than to delve into a briefing book. So when approached in the right way, with deference rather than disdain, by a person he considers an ally rather than an enemy, he is susceptible to convincing. Thus Trump, who had proclaimed that "torture works," told The New York Times, after meeting with Mattis, that he was "surprised" and "impressed" by the retired Marine general's rejection of waterboarding, even as he noted, "I'm not saying it changed my mind." The strongest argument against this sunny outlook has to do with others in Trump's orbit, and closer to its center. For every Mattis and Pompeo, for every John Kelly (the retired Marine general tapped to head the Department of Homeland Security, who testified that a border wall with Mexico "in and of itself will not do the job'') and even Rex Tillerson (the former Exxon Mobil CEO nominated to be secretary of state, who testified that "the risk of climate change does exist") there will be, in the West Wing, a Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor and Michael Flynn as national security adviser. Their records suggest they will inflame Trump's worst instincts, not restrain them. Bannon and Flynn have been politically closer to Trump longer; they will be physically closer to him at the White House. Trump could continue to be swayed by the last person whispering in his ear. Or the stature, knowledge and experience at bureaucratic maneuvering of some Cabinet secretaries could, at least at times, avert bad decisions. How all this plays out will shape the course of the Trump presidency. Thank you to Jerry Spech of Wahoo for his Jan. 12 letter speaking out about the brutal killing of the pet deer in Kansas ("Warden's actions wrong"). When I read the article about it in the newspaper ("Kansas game wardens kill family's pet," Jan. 8), I felt physically sick. What is wrong with our society that we would order such an act of cruelty to both the animal and the people involved and somehow think that it was OK? Recently, a Journal Star reader questioned if Nebraska had ever used the death penalty to take the life of an innocent man ("Question on death penalty," Jan. 9). The answer is yes. In 1872, John Cameron was shot in the head and his body was left in a gully outside of Beatrice. Immediately, his missing traveling companion, William Jackson Marion, was suspected of the crime but it took Gage County's sheriff, Captain N. Herron, 10 years to find and arrest him. Marions trial was a local sensation. His mother-in-law was the lead witness for the prosecution and a local newspaper said her attitude toward Marion was "vindictive." Although the evidence was all circumstantial, many Beatrice citizens favored hanging. Marion was found guilty and the sentence was carried out in March 1887. Even as he stood on the gallows, Marion calmly and with great dignity again claimed his innocence. Four years later, John Cameron was discovered living in Kansas. The man found in the gully was never identified and no one was ever charged with the crime. Interestingly, Gage County is also the home of the Beatrice 6, a case that led to the incarceration of six innocent people who were subjected to questionable investigative techniques. Threatened with the death penalty, it was their so-called confessions that saved them. Gage County is now struggling to pay the $28.1 million for the wrongful convictions although the years wasted in prison and the lives impacted by the injustice can never be repaid ("$28M bill weighs heavy on farmers," Jan. 12). Janet Price, Lincoln Its proving unusually difficult to dislodge Nebraska Sen. Bill Kintner, who refuses to go away after it was found he used a state-issued computer in a cybersex incident. Perhaps someone could convince Kintner that he didnt go far enough and if he quit and pursued even more heinous illicit sexual activities, he stands a chance to greatly advance his political career. Then, he could even run for President. Tour de Nebraska will mark its 30th anniversary with a 275-mile bicycle tour through the Sandhills this summer. Up to 450 cyclists will leave St. Paul on June 21 with overnight stops planned in Loup City, Broken Bow and Ord. It's our 30th year, and we want to spend it someplace iconic to Nebraska," said Susan Larson Rodenburg, who organizes the tour with her husband, Rich. "We love the Nebraska Sandhills for the quiet roads, dramatic vistas, winding rivers, cowboy towns, ranches, cattle, horses, wildlife and friendly people. The circle tour will start and end in St. Paul, with riders heading to Loup City on June 21, to Broken Bow on June 22, to and from Ord on June 23-24, and returning to St. Paul on June 25. Tour de Nebraska arranges meals, rest stops, maps and itineraries, luggage/gear transfers, emergency support, daily fruit and water. Riders camp at city parks, or there are indoor camping options at high school gyms. Tent service and hot showers are available. We are excited to offer services that allow for pampered camping, Rodenburg said. The Rodenburgs help local communities along the route prepare for rest stops and overnight stays. We work closely with the local organizers so they can provide everything we need. Hosting Tour de Nebraska is a fun way to share their culture and bring new revenue to the area, she said. The $295 registration fee includes a T-shirt and a Saturday night awards dinner. Registration information is available at TourdeNebraska.com. After careful consideration the Youth Rally and March Planning Committee postponed all activities associated with their community event January 16 in Lincoln. This includes the Pre-Rally (Empowerment Program) to be held in the Ballroom of the Student Union of UNL; Unifying March through the streets of Downtown Lincoln; and Call to Action program at the State Capitol. "Our planning committee regrets that we will not be able to educate, inspire and entertain the community as we have done for 21 years on this day designated to honor the life and dreams of the late Rev. Dr. King, Jr. We did not take this decision lightly and weighed numerous factors including the best interest and safety of participants and attendees. The committee is hopeful the community realizes the teachings and practices of Dr. King Jr. should and can resonate year around not just on one day. Were confident that the community will come and support us Saturday, Jan. 21, said Micah Wilson, planning committee co-chair. The Nebraska Chapter of the United Nations Association will host a program from noon to 1 p.m. Monday (Jan. 23) at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, 84th and South streets, to discuss what the transition to the new UN Secretary General and a new U.S. President will mean for the United Nations and the United States in 2017. The discussion will be framed and moderated by David Forsythe, UNL professor emeritus and former UNA president. He will summarize how the founding and history of the UN has produced the many programs and actions that allow the world to make progress in health and development, to regulate global exchange and to provide humanitarian relief. The discussion will also speculate on how the incoming president and his choice of Governor Nikki Haley as UN ambassador will affect U.S. relations to the UN. The meeting is free to the public. At 11:30 a.m., lunch will be served at a cost of $7. For further information, call Bob Haller at (402) 730-0296 or mshortt@inebraska.com. RACINE COUNTY The challenge of providing dental care for low-income Racine-area residents remains ever-present, despite progress made in 2016. The area has at least two relatively new dental clinics that accept Medicaid: Familia Dental, which opened in late 2015 at 5201 Washington Ave., Racine, and iDental, which last year moved into the former Racine Dental Group building at 1320 S. Green Bay Road, Mount Pleasant. Ultimate Dental, 4915 Washington Ave. suite B, also accepts all types of insurance, including Medicaid. By all accounts, the clinics have helped fill a void when the Racine Community Health Center abruptly closed in 2015. But local officials also say more services are needed. Thats particularly true for people who cant afford dental insurance and for low-income residents who live on the countys west end, which has no clinics like iDental or Familia Dental. There still is a need across the county, said Alison Sergio, executive director of the Racine Health Care Network, 904 State St. We still continue to have a large group of people that need services. Were doing our best to meet the need, but its an uphill climb. Pilot program under way One of the biggest factors driving the struggle to provide dental care to low-income families is a low Medicaid reimbursement rate, said Hope Otto, Racine Countys director of human services. According to a 2015 analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, costs of dental procedures are generally two to four times higher than the Medicaid reimbursement rate, leaving many dentists unable to provide services to Medicaid patients. Racine County is part of a state pilot program, which began in October, that increases reimbursements to see if more dentists will accept Medicaid patients. Its unclear if that has had any impact yet. More so than trying to recruit more (dental clinics) to the area that have that niche, it would be better to increase the incentive to be able to provide the services of existing providers, Otto said. Otto also noted about 26,000 Racine County residents have Medicaid, a far bigger number than clinics like Familia Dental and iDental can likely serve. We would love to see more providers and more parity around dental care and Medicaid, she said. Otto and Sergio were also quick to praise the clinics that do accept Medicaid. Its fantastic to be able to have a resource now to provide people which we didnt have before, Otto said. They are really accommodating and they are serving as many people as they can. This story has been updated to include information on Ultimate Dental. RACINE The West Racine business group will hold a public forum, starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, to ask businesspeople and residents what they would like to see happen in that area. The open-house-style forum will be held at Wilsons Funeral Home, 1212 Lathrop Ave. Guide the future of West Racine and share your vision and ideas for our neighborhood, stated West Racine Business and Professional Association President Chris Chvilicek, funeral director and co-owner of Wilsons Funeral Home. In about the past 12 months, West Racine has suffered some business losses, including The Red Bell, 3201 Washington Ave.; and Fridays announcement that Nelsons Variety Store, 3223 Washington will close. Chvilicek said the forum is not a direct result of those closings, theyre related, because it all has to do with improving the neighborhood and retail corridor. We want to try to hear concerns, what would people like to see happen, and would they like to be involved? said Jill Boyd, part-owner of Refined Salvage & Pallet Design, 1137 Hayes Ave., and a board member of the West Racine business group. If we dont have people in the neighborhood concerned about whats going on within West Racine, it doesnt really bode well for the businesses, Boyd added. We want to create a strong bond between businesses and neighbors, Chvilicek said. One concern Boyd said she has is traffic on Washington Avenue presenting more of a danger than in the past. Five times, cars have gone into buildings between West Boulevard and Blaine Avenue over the summer, she said. This is not a walking community like it was. According to Boyd, one West Racine business loss continues to haunt the district. Most people are still mourning the loss of Piggly Wiggly in West Racine, formerly at 1101 Grove Ave., she maintained. It was thriving, she said about that store, which closed nearly 13 years ago, in spring 2004. Information will be presented about what the organization Main Street America calls the Main Street approach, Chvilicek said, and people who attend will be asked to place their comments on sticky notes. The board would then form a committee to address a particular concern. He said everyone with a stake in West Racine is welcome to attend, from retailers to renters. We want residents to feel just as involved as the board, he said. The forum will last about 90 minutes, Chvilicek said. We take seriously our safety, and that of our loved ones and our neighbors, on Wisconsins roads, and we should. Bad weather, high rates of speed and impaired or distracted driving can be deadly. But theres an even more prolific killer than traffic accidents in the Badger State: Heroin. According to a USA TODAY Network-Wisconsin report, heroins death toll rose for the ninth straight year in 2015, and the total of 281 deaths was triple the number killed by heroin in 2010. Meanwhile, the number of total opioid deaths which includes heroin and prescription opiates topped the number of Wisconsin traffic deaths for the third straight year. This is a Wisconsin public health emergency, and it will require action from the top to address and combat it. To his credit, Gov. Scott Walker has begun to take such action. Earlier this month, he called for a special session of the Legislature and issued executive orders aimed at implementing recommendations from a report on the crisis issued by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette. As Walker is inclined to do, he framed the issue in economic terms. If we get this right, we can get those men and women back in the workforce, he said in a Jan. 5 speech. Hes not wrong about that. Helping addicts fight and master their addiction will get them back on their feet, and back to work. Wed much rather have someone able to contribute to Wisconsins economy than in need of governmental assistance. Make no mistake: This is a statewide issue. One that affects, for example, both sides of Interstate 94 in Racine County and our urban-rural divide. Narcan, used by first responders to revive an overdose victim, was used in November on a Union Grove woman and on a woman in the Town of Dover. Heroin abuse is suspected in a December incident in a Caledonia grocery-store parking lot in which a village police officer was struck by a car. Heroin overdose deaths in Racine County rose from nine in 2013 to 19 in 2014 and 16 in 2015. Heroin is seen a street drug, but its become linked to prescription painkillers. The Department of Justice reports that four out of five heroin addicts start by abusing prescription painkillers and that 70 percent of people who are addicted to prescription opioids got their first pills not from a street dealer, but improperly from a family member or friend. In November, Thomas Macemon of Caledonia pleaded guilty to homicide charges in the Aug. 9, 2015, drugged-driving death of Sara Dresen, 13. A State Crime Lab report found that Macemon had Oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid, as well as a generic form of the sedative Xanax in his system at the time of the fatal incident. On the same day as his speech, Walker ordered the state Department of Health Servicesto apply for up to $7.6 million a year in federal funding to fight the drug, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin had pushed to get that anti-addiction money included in the broader federal law and wrote to Walker last month to urge him to make use of it in Wisconsin. Its especially pleasing to see our Republican governor and our Democratic U.S. senator on the same page. Baldwin correctly characterized this is a bipartisan issue requiring a bipartisan response. We welcome federal assistance in this area, but its Wisconsins state government that is in the best position to address this Wisconsin issue. Thats Gov. Walker and members of both parties in the Legislature. We commend the governor for taking a leadership role in dealing with this public health issue. The head of Wisconsins Department of Natural Resources says people have overreacted to the departments removal of language from its public website describing the scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change. In an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, DNR secretary Cathy Stepp said she believes there is substantial scientific disagreement on the cause of climate change, and that it doesnt matter if her view contradicts the vast majority of scientists in that field. It came to light last month that the department had replaced the webpage with one suggesting that the cause of climate change is uncertain. The scientists said the DNR was ignoring facts in a way that portrayed state government as anti-science. Rapid changes in climate are threatening public health, safety, and natural resources, they said. Failing to accurately inform the public about these threats and the opportunities to reduce them, violates the trust we place in our public institutions. On Friday, Stepp responded by saying the department continues to use the best science on how Wisconsins climate will change in coming decades as it makes decisions on the species of trees it plants and where it creates fishing access to cold-water trout streams. The website was changed in response to demands made by a writer for a newspaper in northern Wisconsin who claims the causes of climate change are unproven, Stepp confirmed. She said the website now reflects what the departments position has been since Gov. Scott Walker appointed her in 2011. While insisting that her personal view wasnt relevant, Stepp said she believes there is still a significant scientific debate about the cause of climate change. Ive read competing pieces so, yes, I would say there is debate out there, Stepp said. The cause of climate change isnt important to the DNR because its role is limited to adapting wildlife management methods to environmental changes and enforcing greenhouse gas standards set by others, Stepp said. In changing the website, the DNR eliminated six links to other sites on climate change. By retaining two links to related UW-Madison sites on the new webpage, the DNR demonstrated that it wasnt disavowing science, Stepp said. Walker has been vocal in opposing new federal regulations aimed at controlling greenhouse gases that cause climate change, saying the regulations would cost businesses too much. But Walker has skirted questions on the causes of climate change. A spokeswoman in 2015, however, said Walker didnt believe there had been measurable warming in the previous 15 or 20 years. The governors office didnt respond when asked if he accepts the scientific consensus on the cause of climate change and what should be done to address it. Walkers Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities that include coal-burning power plants, quietly removed its climate change page several months ago. The commission spokeswoman didnt respond to a request for information on what prompted the change. When asked on Wednesday in Milwaukee if the DNRs action went overboard, Walker told reporters: Well, I think from our standpoint, the Department of Natural Resources should be upholding the law and not creating new law or policy. ... Thats up to the people elected to do that. 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. Amendment must for resolving Tarai crisis, say Madhesi leaders Madhesi leaders have said that the constitution amendment bill should be revised further and amended if major parties want a meaningful resolution to the Madhes crisis. Cabinet expansion unlikely at the moment Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahals plans to expand the Cabinet to bring in the Bijaya Gachhadar-led Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktrantrik along with a few fringe parties, and to add a few ministers from the Rastriya Prajatantra Party including its chairman Kamal Thapa, is looking increasing unlikely by the day. Chitwan rhinos to be transferred to Bardia and Shuklaphanta As January, February and March are deemed suitable time for the transfer of the rhinos, the Chitwan National Park (CNP) is all set to translocate at least 10 one-horned rhinos to the Bardia National Park (BNP) and Shuklaphanta National Park within a month. Cooperation on shared waters Economic and human developments in most of the northern states of India, like Bihar, and their neighbour Nepal, have been lacklustre in recent decades. Crisis of confidence Political negotiations over the constitutional amendment and the electoral process seem to have hit another roadblock. Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years. Donald Trump says Merkel made 'catastrophic mistake' on migrants US President-elect Donald Trump has said German Chancellor Angela Merkel made "one very catastrophic mistake" by admitting more than 1m migrants. Dont invite conflict, UML warns govt The main opposition CPN-UML has warned the government not to invite a political confrontation by pressing ahead with the unconstitutional and anti-national charter amendment bill. Prez daughters wedding: Ex-king Shah among invitees Besides top leaders of major political parties, former king Gyanendra Shah has been invited to the wedding reception of Nisha Kusum Bhandari, the elder daughter of President Bidhya Devi Bhandari. Fire breaks out at Radio Narayani, transmission interrupted A fire broke out at the 'Radio Narayani', a community radio station based in Bharatpur of Chitwan. Fire engulfs warehouse in Bouddha A fire engulfed a scrape godown in Nagar Planning of Bouddha in Kathmandu on Monday evening. Foreign minister to attend Raisina Dialogue in Delhi Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat is due to arrive here on Monday to attend the second Raisina Dialogue, Indias flagship geo-political conference, Gold mules remanded to 7-day custody The Kathmandu District Court on Sunday remanded smugglers of 15kg gold and foreign currencies to seven-day custody for further investigation. Illegal hunting goes up as snow covers upper Bajhang Birds and animals that dwell in mountainous areas of Bajhang are being hunted down as the snow season makes them slow and easy to spot. Industry Ministry launches paperless documentation The Ministry of Industry on Sunday launched a paperless system in a bid to provide more efficient service to business firms registered with the Department of Industry. Longer the delay in spending available funds, harder it will be to secure new funds Last Wednesday, the government sacked Sushil Gyewali as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) after it found the two clarifications he furnished about delays in post-earthquake rebuilding works unsatisfactory. Mother admits murdering children by driving into Australian lake A mother has admitted killing three of her children by driving them into a lake in southern Australia. Nafea asks govt to facilitate migrants medical check-ups The Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (Nafea) has urged the government to facilitate in paying health check-up fees to the Gulf Approved Medical Centres Association (Gamca) without further delay, Nepal 107th WTO member to ratify Marrakesh protocol Nepal has become the 107th country to ratify the Protocol Amending the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO), with the Parliament giving its green signal on Friday. Official launch of Bachelor in Midwifery programme a milestone: UNFPA The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has hailed the official launch of the Bachelor in Midwifery programme in Nepal as an important milestone towards improving maternal and newborn health in the country. PAC to quiz communications minister, secretary, NTA boss The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Legislature Parliament has decided to summon communications minister and secretary, and the head of the telecom sector regulatory body to discuss the issue of prohibiting Ncell from introducing 4G service unless capital gains tax issue is resolved. Parliament panel sees breach of statute provision The Social Justice and Human Rights Committee of Parliament has accused the government of breaching the constitution by circumventing the constitutional provision to table the annual report of the National Human Rights Commission in Parliament for discussion. PM Dahal urges intl community to invest in Nepals hydropower, assures cent percent profit Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has appealed to the international community to invest in Nepals hydropower sector saying it has immense potential for development. Probe blames pilot stress Pilot stress has been cited as the probable reason for the crash of a Fishtail Air helicopter in Nuwakot Remittance to be used in development works: PM Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has pledged to utilise the money remitted by migrant workers in development works. Rhino calf killed in tiger attack A nine-month-old Rhino calf was killed by a tiger in Bardiya Babai Valley. SC denies stay order on govt-Dr KC pact The Supreme Court on Sunday denied a stay order on the agreement reached between the government and Dr Govinda KC, an orthopaedic surgeon and activist. Turkish cargo jet crash kills 37 in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish cargo plane flying from Hong Kong has crashed in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 37 people, most of them on the ground, officials say. Turkish MPs back new constitution boosting Erdogan's powers Turkey's parliament has given preliminary approval to a new constitution which will increase the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. WWE star Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka dies, aged 73 His lawyer said the wrestler died at his son-in-law's home in Florida surrounded by family and friends. By Doug Bandow In North Korea Kim Jong-un appears to rule supreme. There is no talk of collective leadership, competing coalitions, or personal limitations. Most of those at the political summit five years ago when his father died are gonedead, purged, or missing. Kim has done what many of us thought impossible: take and keep control in one of the world's most dangerous political snake pits. His father spent far less time preparing the way for Kim than his grandfather had for his father. And Pyongyang was filled with party apparatchiks, military officers, and skilled technocrats who had waited more than six decades to supersede the Kim dynasty. But the young Kim, recently believed to have turned 33, skillfully and sometimes brutally purged the various mentors and minders chosen by his father. And while elite dissatisfaction is evident from occasional high level defections, nothing suggests sufficient opposition to oust Kim or overthrow the system. His dress, hair style, and girth mimic his grandfather more than his father. And he may provee to be more successful than either of them. Kim Il-sung founded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but when he died his country was otherwise backward and headed toward crisis. Under Kim Jong-il state authority withered as the regime proved unable to feed its people. Kim Jong-un is pushing his "Byungjin" strategy, both economic development and nuclear weapons. Despite international opprobrium and sanctions, even by the DPRK's onetime allies, Beijing and Moscow, he appears to be succeeding. Missile and nuclear tests continue, suggesting that Pyongyang has made greater progress than foreign experts had expected. By some estimates he could have 50 to 100 nuclear weapons by 2020. The economy also is growing, perhaps by two or three percent a year. The base remains very low, almost nonexistent in many rural areas. Nevertheless, the turnaround is dramatic from the famine of only a couple decades ago. Which suggests that the Trump administration will find itself facing an ugly reality. First, a relatively secure Kim Jong-un in control of a reasonably stable North Korean state. Second, a slightly more prosperous North Korea able to give the nomenklatura enough material goods to maintain elite commitment to the regime and loyalty to the Kim dynasty. Third, a military capable of striking U.S. bases and eventually the American homeland, creating a genuine nuclear deterrent to Washington. What to do? More of the same is likely to deliver more of the same results. Not negotiating has not slowed DPRK military activities. But negotiations appeared to have little more effect. And today virtually no one believes that Pyongyang is inclined to voluntarily yield up its nuclear program, irrespective of the incentives offered. While sanctions could be further stiffened, without Chinese enforcement they will not cripple the regime or force it to change course. Moreover, in the unlikely event that Beijing agreed to something akin to "bone-crunching" penalties, Kim & Co. still might resist, with extraordinary hardship for average North Koreans and the potential of a catastrophic collapse with equally catastrophic consequences. The president-elect wants Beijing to solve the North Korea "problem." Unfortunately, he assumes the People's Republic of China has more influence than it does in Pyongyang. In any case, China has no incentive to promote regime change for America's benefit, which would risk a North Korean implosion and ultimately a reunited Korea allied with America hosting U.S. troops on the Chinese border. A deal would have to be struck, and that would require American and South Korean concessions. Military strikes remain an option but would be a wild gamble. The great achievement of America's military presence for the past six decades has been to prevent conflict from occurring. Necessary is a new approach. Propose negotiations, including bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang, over more limited issues, such as restrictions on nuclear activities and other confidence-building steps, and diplomatic recognition. Offer a benefits package that addresses the North's security as well as economic requirements. Develop a common front with the PRC against the North which serves both America's and China's interests. Prepare tougher targeted sanctions. And contemplate how to deal with a nuclear North Korea if the foregoing fails to halt Pyongyang's plans. North Korea is likely to pose one of the most difficult challenges for the Trump administration. Sloganeering won't prove nearly as useful as president as it did as presidential candidate. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of "Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World" and co-author of "The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea." South Korea's Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn on Monday called for continued efforts to induce North Korea's denuclearization through "across-the-board" pressure amid growing threats from the communist country. During a meeting of top security and diplomatic officials, Hwang also stressed the need for earnest efforts to strengthen policy coordination and cooperation with the incoming U.S. government slated to take office Friday. The meeting was held as the Seoul government seeks to squelch concerns that there could be a foreign policy vacuum in the wake of the parliamentary impeachment of President Park Geun-hye over a corruption scandal last month. "(We) have to continue efforts to induce North Korea's denuclearization by capitalizing on the current framework of across-the-board diplomatic pressure," Hwang said, noting instability on the Korean Peninsula continues to increase due to Pyongyang's growing nuclear and missile threats. "We have taken special steps (to deal with nuclear threats) based on the three pillars -- the U.N. Security Council (sanctions) resolutions, stand-alone sanctions of major countries and global pressure on the North," he added. Hwang also pointed to the possibility that the recalcitrant regime could engage in provocative acts or launch a "deceptive" campaign for dialogue in time for the swearing-in of the new administration in Washington. The acting president, in addition, directed top officials to continue close cooperation with the United Nations and major countries to address Pyongyang's human rights violations, saying the resolution of the issue is required to open the future of a unified Korea. The participants in the meeting included South Korea's ambassadors to the four major powers -- the United States, China, Japan and Russia. At the meeting, they were expected to discuss an array of security and diplomatic issues, including Pyongyang's continued military threats, escalating friction with Beijing over the planned deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system to the peninsula and a rekindled row over Tokyo's wartime sexual slavery. (Yonhap) BLACK RIVER FALLS Shirley A. Lunde, 82, of Black River Falls died Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, at her home, while under the care of Black River Memorial Hospice. Mass of Christian burial will be 11 a.m. Friday at St. Josephs Catholic Church, with burial to follow in Riverside Cemetery, both in Black River Falls. Visitation 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. to Mass Friday at the church. Buswell Funeral Home of Black River Fall is assisting the family. A West Salem man charged with killing his wife and trying to cover up the crime by staging a traffic crash will be tried for her death late th Saying he felt a little bit like Paul Revere, Dr. Robert Freedland told about 200 people at a health care rally Sunday in La Crosse, Im here to warn you that the Republicans are coming with a threat to America to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Freedland was one of several speakers at the gathering in Cameron Park, one of dozens of such assemblies across the United States Sunday on the Save Our Healthcare National Day of Action Democrats had called for in the run-up to president-elect Donald Trumps inauguration Friday. President Barack Obamas administration had experienced just a short time in which he was able to pass legislation despite Republican resistance, and the ACA came during that period, Freeland said. The ACA is such a strong piece of legislation that it was a major source of bringing the country out of a financial disaster, said Freedland, an ophthalmologist at Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare in La Crosse. Rebutting Republican claims that Obamacare would be a job-killer, Freedland said, It created jobs (in states) that accepted Medicaid expansion, unlike Wisconsin. Freedland also rejected Republican initiatives to radically reorder Social Security, arguing instead to shore it up. Even Donald Trump could get a few dollars more (in Social Security payments). He might even need it we dont know, he said in a reference to Trumps refusal to reveal his tax returns, as one of the ralliers hollered, He doesnt pay taxes. Another speaker, Robin Tschumper of La Crescent, Minn., told of her frustration with insurance after suffering a stroke in 2003. I was a very active 48-year-old with a healthy history, she said. But now I have pre-existing conditions that put her in a high-risk pool, with an annual premium of $12,000 and a $5,000 deductible. Despite the fact that the premium for her and her husband under the ACA is $1,000 a month, the laws premium tax credit brings that down to $200, said Tschumper, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where she taught therapeutic recreation. Paul Ryan wants to put us all into a high risk pool, she said, in light of Republican steps last week toward repealing and replacing Obamacare. Been there done that. It doesnt work. While the ACA might benefit from tweaking, its not broken, she said, adding the old saw, If it aint broke, dont fix it. Tschumper recalled that few students had health insurance when she taught at UW-L, Winona State University and other colleges, but Obamacare changed that with the stipulation that children be allowed to remain on their parents plans until the age of 26. I love Obamacare, she said, a mantra she repeated several times. State Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse, noted that creative and sustainable democracy is not a passive endeavor not an armchair sport and urged people to become involved in the fight to preserve Obamacare. Billings criticized the intent of Trump and other Republicans to repeal and replace the ACA, insisting that there is no apparent plan to replace it. We dont know what that plan is, and I dont think he does, either, Billings said. Billings listed some of several facets of Obamacare that have helped 20 million previously uninsured people obtain coverage, such as the inclusion of pre-existing conditions, coverage for children and the elimination of lifetime limits for catastrophic illnesses. It protects savings, it protects health and it saves lives, she said. Billings and other speakers also attacked Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, saying that would leave many without any source of health care. Planned Parenthood served 60,000 patients last year, 50,000 of whom were eligible for Medicaid, said Beth Hartung, former executive director of Options Health Clinic (now Essential Health Clinic) and president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Planned Parenthood keeps them healthy and strong financially and emotionally, Hartung said. Family planning clinics are an essential part of a health safety net that also includes Medicare and Medicaid, Hartung said. If you take one away, the others cant absorb the patients, she said. One of the rally participants, Gretchen Cook of La Crescent, who carried a large, upside-down American flag, explained that that is the accepted signal for distress, a state health care would experience if Obamacare were repealed. Cook said her late father, Robert, was a Marine and other family members have been or are in the service. Both sides of my family have fought in every war since the Revolutionary War, and I can fly it however I want, she said. Ive had to explain it to quite a few people. Cook noted an irony in her daughter-in-laws being from Russia. Her son was working three jobs but still did not have health insurance to cover her pregnancy so she had to go to Russia to have the baby, where the delivery was covered, she said. Russias health care did a very good job, Cook said, acknowledging, I dont know if it covers everybody that way she had a very good job. The former college professor, Tschumper, said, The bottom line is that Americans need access to health care. And that means everybody, no matter the color of their skin, their heritage or their immigration status. We are all just one accident or mosquito bite away from a health care crisis, she said. Viterbo University has a new recruitment leader. Michelle Kronfeld has been named Vice President for Enrollment Management at Viterbo University, and her first day will be Feb. 13. She was selected after a national search and will lead the universitys recruitment, retention and marketing efforts. Kronfeld is the director of graduate admissions and services at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. She has experience in traditional and graduate admissions, veteran recruitment and services, strategic enrollment planning, and digital marketing. Michelles collaborative nature and enthusiasm for private, Catholic, liberal arts education will serve us well as she integrates Viterbos enrollment management team, Viterbo President Glena Temple said. I know she will be a great asset to the university. One of the greatest leaders of 20th century America, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., challenged the United States to uphold the promise of the Declaration of Independence that all men be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. During his 13 years of service in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King held true to that American promise and espoused Christian nonviolent resistance to combat racism. The quiz below, from the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ohio, provides an opportunity for you to test your knowledge of Dr. King and the modern Civil Rights Movement as we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 16. 1. Who was the first advocate of nonviolent resistance in the modern Civil Rights Movement? A. Bayard Rustin B. Martin Luther King Jr. C. Bob Moses D. Rosa Parks 2. After which major civil rights victory did Dr. King rise as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement? A. Brown v. Board of Education B. Integration of Little Rock High School C. Montgomery Bus Boycott D. Civil Rights Act of 1964 3. Which civil rights organization did Martin Luther King Jr. help found and lead? A. NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) B. CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) C. SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) D. SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) 4. Whose criticism was Dr. King responding to in his Letter from Birmingham Jail? A. Birminghams businessmen B. Local religious leaders C. White, moderate liberals D. Black activists 5. Of the events below, at which one was Dr. King not present? A. Sit-in at a Woolworths counter in Greensboro, North Carolina B. The Childrens Crusade in Birmingham, Alabama C. The March on Washington D. March across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama 6. What do Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. have in common? A. Followers of the Nation of Islam B. Advocates of nonviolent resistance C. Belonged to the Communist Party D. Protested Americas involvement in the Vietnam War 7. Martin Luther King Jr. marched alongside which man in the March Against Fear when he coined the term Black Power!? A. Huey Newton B. Stokely Carmichael C. Bobby Seale D. Malcolm X 8. Where was Dr. King assassinated? A. Birmingham B. Atlanta C. Memphis D. Jackson 9. Which president signed the legislation establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday? A. Ronald Reagan B. Jimmy Carter C. Bill Clinton D. George H.W. Bush 10. Which other civil rights advocate also was slain in 1968? A. Robert Kennedy B. Malcolm X C. Medgar Evers D. Huey Newton Answers: 1-A, 2-C, 3-D, 4-B, 5-A, 6-D, 7-B, 8-C, 9-A, 10-A The best thing that happened to Donald Trump last week is that BuzzFeed published the raw Russia dossier about him. It cant be pleasant for anyone to see his name associated with prostitutes and a bizarre sex act in print the principle that all publicity is good publicity can be taken too far even for Donald Trump. But in the medias ongoing fight with Trump, BuzzFeeds incredible act of journalistic irresponsibility represented the press leading with its chin. Trump thrives off media hostility, and the more hostile and the less defensible the better. It allows him to portray himself as the victim of a stilted establishment. It fires up his supporters. It keeps the debate on terrain that is familiar and favorable to him whether or not he is being treated fairly and allows him to adopt his preferred posture as a counterpuncher. There are legitimate questions raised about how determined Trump has been to ignore evidence of Russias hacking operations prior to the election. BuzzFeed unintentionally did more to obscure and delegitimize these questions than Trump Tower could ever hope to. By publishing the uncorroborated dossier, BuzzFeed has associated the Russia issue with fantastical rumors and hearsay. Its decision to post the document has to be considered another chapter in the ongoing saga of the media and Democrats losing their collective minds. If the election had gone the other way, it is hard to see BuzzFeed publishing a 35-page document containing unverified, lurid allegations about President-elect Hillary Clinton that it didnt consider credible. This was an anti-Trump decision, pure and simple. It created a media firestorm, even though everyone should realize by now that media firestorms are Trumps thing. They have been literally since the day he got into the presidential race. They suck the oxygen away from everything except the transfixing melodrama surrounding Donald Trump. The question is always, How can he possibly escape this? And at the center of attention, vindicating his own honor and that of his supporters by proxy, he always does. The paradox of the Trump phenomenon is that he may be ripping up sundry political norms, yet he benefits when his opponents and adversaries do the same. When Marco Rubio descended to Trumps level in the primaries and mocked the size of his hands, it hurt Rubio most. The Democrats have done themselves no favors by implicitly refusing to accept the election results after browbeating Trump for months to accept the results in advance. And if the press is going to lower its standards in response to Trump, it will diminish and discredit itself more than the president-elect. For all that Trump complains about negative press coverage, he wants to be locked in a relationship of mutual antagonism with the media. It behooves those journalists who arent partisans and reflexive Trump haters to avoid getting caught up in this dynamic. If they genuinely want to be public-spirited checks on Trump, they shouldnt be more bitterly adversarial, but more responsible and fair. This means taking a deep breath and not treating every Trump tweet as a major news story. It means covering Trump more as a normal president rather than as a constant clear and present danger to the republic. It means going out of the way to focus on substance rather than the controversy of the hour (while Trump did a fine job shaming reporters at his news conference, he was notably weak on the details on how he wants to replace Obamacare). It means a dose of modesty about how the media has lost the publics trust, in part because of its bias and self-importance. None of this is a particularly tall order. Yet its unlikely to happen, even if it was encouraging that so many reporters opposed BuzzFeeds decision. The press and Trump will continue to be at war, although only one party to the hostilities truly knows what he is doing, and it shows. Department of Natural Resources secretary Cathy Stepp said she wasnt aware of Donald Trumps environmental stances last year when she campaigned for him at two political rallies in Wisconsin. Trump has claimed climate change is a Chinese hoax and he has called for dismantling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I hadnt heard him say things like that before, Stepp said. I will tell you why I did campaign for him is because my roots are in the private sector and I was excited to see the opportunity for the country to have a true businessman actually be able to make businessbased decisions for the government for the first time at the federal level. Gov. Scott Walker appointed Stepp in 2011 saying she could make the DNR friendlier to businesses. In an interview on Friday, Stepp said its unclear how the Trump administration will affect the DNR but shell be glad if it dials down strangling federal requirements that have been imposed on the DNR. The EPA is currently investigating whether to withdraw the DNRs authority to administer the federal Clean Water Act because of the states slow progress on fixing 75 deficiencies in water protections that were cited in 2011. EPA regional administrator Robert Kaplan visited the state twice last year to hear citizen complaints about water pollution in western Wisconsin and wells tainted by animal waste in Kewaunee County. The EPA has also pressed the DNR on its air pollution controls. Kaplan has held a political appointee position in the EPAs office in Chicago. Appointees are typically replaced after an election that hands the White House to a different political party. Stepp said she is committed to fixing any deficiencies cited by the federal government, although she said semantics have prevented the EPA from accepting some of the solutions the DNR has proposed. The state could work with polluters to find creative solutions to regulatory issues if the EPA bureaucracy stopped thwarting common sense and good practices, Stepp said. Trumps nominee as EPA administrator is Scott Pruitt, who has fought environmental regulation and denied climate science as Oklahoma attorney general. The president-elects choice for the Department of Interior, Ryan Zinke, has denied that the scientific consensus on climate change is settled, while his pick for the Department of Energy, Rick Perry, has repeatedly questioned it. Stepp said its too early to say how Trump will affect DNR operations. I havent heard too much yet, Stepp said Friday. There hasnt been much attention on the agencies we are most entwined with forest service, EPA, Interior. I havent seen too much about that so I think its premature. This week, President-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference in six months. Many of the questions addressed the unsubstantiated claims recently released by Buzzfeed concerning Trump's connections to Russia, and included accusations of fake news. On the Sunday morning political talk show Capital City Sunday, host Greg Neumann called the whole thing very bizarre. Katy Culver and Mike Wagner, journalism professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined Neumann to weigh in on how journalists should respond to Trump's behavior amidst historically low levels of trust in their industry. (On the campaign trail) he played news organizations like a fiddle and conducted an orchestra, said Culver, who is also the director for the Center of Journalism Ethics at UW. They have got to learn how their practices need to change in response to that. While the press conference had a different tone than previous presidential press events, Wagner said what transpired was in line with Trumps campaign trail behavior: Trump made big, boastful claims and was angry and aggressive towards reporters. I think it gave Americans who didnt watch his rallies on television a window into what those were like, Wagner said. Wagner cited Trumps history of verbally attacking journalists, who would sometimes need to be escorted out of campaign rallies. During the press conference, Trump refused to answer questions from CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, telling him the cable network is terrible and fake news. Acosta later said future White House press secretary Sean Spicer threatened to remove him from the event. The public shouldnt expect Trump to stop his trend of media attacks or to be particularly picky about who he attacks, Wagner said, noting that Trump has criticized the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and the Washington Post, only to later cooperate with those same organizations. Trump will go after anybody in the short-term, because his philosophy is, I need to win the round, and if I win every round, Ill win the fight, Wagner said. Neumann asked Wagner and Culver how journalists should respond to Trump. They pointed to specific questions, cooperative follow-up questions and transparency as helpful strategies. Culver said that when reporters ask multi-part questions, it allows Trump to use evasive tactics and only answer the questions of his choosing. Youve got to dial back and ask one question and one question only, Culver said. One specific question and follow-ups until you get an answer to that question. Culver said its helpful when reporters from competing news outlets follow up on the same question until an answer is given, noting that this happened at the recent conference. Wagner said this sends a signal to Trump that he cant simply pivot out of questions he doesnt want to answer. While he would love to see more of this, the competitive nature of news outlets makes this kind of cooperation rare, Wagner said. Journalists cant let Trump set the agenda, whether in person or online, Wagner said. Journalists need to reassert their role in deciding what it is that their audience needs to know, Wagner said, referencing many news stories that talk about Trumps tweets but dont verify the content of the tweets. Wagner is a proponent of an idea put forward by Jay Rosen, a media critic, to refer to Trumps tweets as presidential statements, and take a more critical approach to them. Neumann asked Culver and Wagner about historically low levels of trust in the national media. Culvers said one way to restore trust is to stop using the term the media, and but refer to specific news organizations. Lets be in the business of specificity, Culver said. Lets call a hoax a hoax, lets call a conspiracy theory a conspiracy theory, and lets call a 35-page dossier currently unverifiable. Its not fake news. Thats not the right term. Transparency on the part of individual journalists can also help build trust, Wagner said. He cited David A. Fahrenthold, a Washington Post reporter who has been clear about his methods when reporting on Trumps donation claims. It helps increase trust, not in the media, because theres not a the media, but in Fahrenthold and maybe in the Washington Post by extension, Wagner said. All of this points to the importance of serious journalism, Culver said. If you are a person who is courageous, who is willing to go after these stories, wow, Culver said. I cant imagine a more important time to be a journalist. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. Phil Hagen, Sioux Falls died Monday, Jan. 9, 2017, at Sanford Hospice Cottage in Sioux Falls. He was 89. Phillip E. Hagen was born Nov. 3, 1927, in New London, Minn., to Oden and Rena (Johnson) Hagen. He graduated from New London High School in 1945. Shortly thereafter in January 1946, he received his U.S. Army basic training at Shepard Field, Texas. He then studied for 10 weeks at weather observer school at Chanute Field, Ill. Phil served as a weather observer at an air field north of Tokyo, Japan, and then was discharged from service July 1, 1947. Phil entered pharmacy school at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1947, and graduated in the spring of 1951. He was united in marriage to Margie Hagen in Coon Valley, Dec. 23, 1950. In 1955, he purchased a pharmacy and gift shop in St. Paul. He operated the store with his wife until 1976. The couple moved to Hawaii in 1976, where in 1980, Phil earned a masters degree in public health and the University of Hawaii. Two years later, he purchased a pharmacy and gift shop in Zumbrota, Minn. He and Margie operated this business until 1990. Following their retirement in 1990, Phil and Margie moved to Grand Junction, Colo., where he volunteered as a van driver for the DAV and the VA Hospital. He also volunteered for several years delivering Meals-On-Wheels. They moved to Sioux Falls in 2004. Phil enjoyed card games and reading non-fiction. He maintained a particular interest in studying U.S. Presidents. In his younger years growing up in Minnesota, he enjoyed attending many local Minnesota Twins and Vikings games, and later liked watching the Twins and Vikings on television. Grateful for having shared his life are his wife, Margie Hagen, Sioux Falls; sisters, Eleanor Pettersen and her husband, George, Crosby, Minn., Rhoda Benjamin of Sioux Falls; two nieces; two nephews; six great-nieces and nephews; and three great-great-nieces. Memorial services will be held 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, at Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, 2208 W. La Quinta St., Sioux Falls. The family will be present following the memorial service to greet friends. Memorials may be directed to Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, The Banquet, or Habitat for Humanity. A rollover accident with injuries occurred on Co. Rd. SS near Hall Road in the town of Liberty, Jan. 14, at approximately 8:35 p.m. According to the Vernon County Sheriffs Department, the vehicle driven by Ashley M. Fish, 29, rural La Farge, and passenger Joshua A. Czap, 41, also of La Farge was westbound on Co. SS when Fish lost control of the vehicle. The vehicle fishtailed, crossing the centerline and overturned, coming to rest on the roof in a wooded area approximately 20 feet off of the road. Fish received minor injuries and refused medical treatment at the scene but was later evaluated at the hospital. Czap was transported by Viola EMS to Vernon Memorial Hospital with unknown injuries. Czap was later released from Vernon Memorial Hospital and taken into custody. Czap was booked into the Vernon County Detention Center on tentative charges of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine (greater than one ounce), felony bail jumping, as well as a probation violation. Fish was wearing her seat belt and it is unknown whether Czap was wearing his. Airbags were not deployed in the vehicle. Assisting the sheriffs department was the Viroqua Police Department, Wisconsin State Patrol, Viola Fire Department and Viola EMS. The incident remains under investigation by the sheriffs department. 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Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) China has criticized United States President-elect Donald Trump for suggesting that the one-China policy is negotiable. Trumps comments came in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday. In future talks with China, he told the newspaper, he believes that everything is under negotiation, including 'one-China. Under the one-China policy, China considers self-ruled Taiwan a part of Chinese territory. Most nations, including the U.S., have diplomatic relations only with the mainland. Chinese Nationalists fled to Taiwan and set up a government on the island after losing to communist forces in 1949 ending Chinas civil war. The United States accepted the one-China policy when it established diplomatic ties with China in 1979. The Chinese government does not have diplomatic relations with countries that have official ties with Taiwan. The United States still has strong unofficial relations with Taiwan, which has a democratic government. Chinas Foreign Ministry reacted sharply to Trumps comments on Monday. A ministry spokeswoman told reporters any attempt by the U.S. to reconsider the one-China policy would be self-defeating. Not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off, the spokeswoman said. She warned against any nation trying to use the policy to gain a better position in negotiations with China. The spokeswoman said this could harm the one-China policy. Such a move would also face strong opposition from the Chinese government, people and international community, she added. Reaction to Trumps comments also came in official media. The China Daily newspaper said any attempt to bargain over the issue of Taiwan would result in a period of fierce, damaging interactions. If Trump used the one-China policy as part of a negotiating plan, Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves, the China Daily wrote. Trumps comments on the policy took place weeks after his acceptance of a telephone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on December 2. It was the first time a U.S. president or president-elect has publicly spoken to a leader of Taiwan since Americas acceptance of the one-China policy in 1979. China watchers considered the call a sign of possible closer ties between Taiwan and Trumps administration. On Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff, said there were no plans to change the one-China policy. But he also said: Certainly that policy is on the table if China doesn't also come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and what's happening there." Preibus made the comments on the ABC news program This Week. Im Bryan Lynn. Bryan Lynn adapted this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from VOA News, the Associated Press and Reuters. Mario Ritter was the editor. We want to hear from you. 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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 GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here. Chinas sole aircraft carrier has returned home following a far-ranging three-week training mission during which its combat capabilities were closely scrutinized and speculation soared over what future role the flat-top will play amid Chinas growing military ambitions. The Defense Ministry said the 60,000-ton Liaoning sailed in to the eastern port of Qingdao on Friday along with its battle group that includes destroyers, frigates, a supply ship and anti-submarine craft. The ministry quoted the groups commander, Rear Adm. Chen Yueqi, as saying the drill simulated real combat as closely as possible and achieved all targets set for it.China commissioned the carrier in 2012 and declared it combat ready in November, shortly after which it launched its first live-fire exercises. The cruise that began on Christmas Day took it through the Miyako Strait, south of Okinawa, Japan, and then the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines as it entered the disputed South China Sea that China claims virtually in its entirety. It headed home through the Taiwan Strait in what was seen by many as a threatening message to the islands independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen. Taiwans Defense Ministry said it was closely monitoring the passage but that there was no cause for alarm. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has vowed never to renounce its threat to use force to recover what it considers lost territory. Japanese and Taiwanese surveillance aircraft and ships closely monitored the Liaoning along its journey, seen by some as a sign of how China plans to use it to demonstrate its willingness to back up its territorial claims with military muscle. The Liaoning originated in 1990 as the unfinished Varyag for the now-defunct Soviet fleet. Purchased as a shell by China in 1998, it was towed from the Black Sea to the northeastern Chinese port of Dalian where it underwent an extensive overhaul of its hull, radar, electronics and other systems. Designated first as an experimental and training platform, the Liaoning represents a new degree of sophistication in the Chinese armed forces that includes ballistic missile submarines and prototype stealth fighters. Its also considered a blueprint for future Chinese carriers built using entirely domestic technology, at least one of which has been under construction since 2015. Yet, analysts point out major limitations in both the carriers design and the Chinese navys ability to utilize its full capabilities. Considerably smaller than the 100,000-ton U.S. Nimitz-class carriers, it can carry just 24 fixed- wing aircraft compared to 55 for the American flat-tops, according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. While the Liaonings J-15 multirole fighters a Chinese version of the Russian Su-33 are highly capable, they lack the low-observable stealth technology of fifth-generation fighters such as the U.S. F-35C. CSIS also says the ships Soviet steam turbine power plant was badly designed and poorly maintained, probably limiting it to a typical speed of around 20 knots. That is far slower than the Nimitz-class 30 knots, meaning it would take longer to arrive at target and be less able to flee from threats. Its aircraft are also launched from a ski jump style deck rather than the powerful steam catapults that U.S. carriers use, requiring Chinas jets to use more fuel for takeoff and limiting them to smaller payloads. The Liaonings pilots and crew are also far less experienced than their American counterparts, although they benefit from lessons learned by the U.S. and others in the decades since carriers entered operation, CSIS said. Other analysts point out that the Liaoning doesnt appear yet able to launch and recover aircraft at night, a crucial ingredient for combat effectiveness. The CSIS study concludes that those shortcomings make the Liaoning unsuited for sustained, high-intensity combat operations, at least for now. That will likely restrict it to humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations, training and diplomatic missions and cruises in the South China Sea asserting Beijings territorial claims. Despite that, the Liaoning represents an important step in advancing Chinas ability to project naval power, the study said. Regardless of the Liaonings future abilities, the ship commands a degree of political utility as a tool of naval diplomacy through various operations, regional and global.Christopher Bodeen, Beijing, AP Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the mainland are currently facing difficulties and will face more in the near future, says Australian National University scholar Anita Chan, who has been studying the relations and development of NGOs in China, particularly in Guangdong province. Chan was speaking at the workshop Labor under Social Transformation and Globalization, which took place last week at the UMs Faculty of Social Sciences. The workshop was organized by the European Union Academic Program in Macau (EUAP-M) of the University of Macau (UM). According to Chan, these organizations, which have been operating for many years in China, will face many challenges, mostly due to a new law effective last week that bans foreign funding to such entities. As stated during the presentation of the paper, The Relationship Between Labor NGOs and Chinese Workers: From an Asymmetrical Relationship to Partnership, and beyond, China labor affairs have been historically connected to two major stakeholders: Hong Kong-based Labor NGOs and China-based NGOs, both of whom source support for their activities from outside the mainland. Money seems always to be the big issue, Chan said: It can be the binder that brings people together but also the motive to make them apart (through corruption). In her research, Chan claimed to have found several cases where worker support was poor or non-existent. Instead, several NGOs made minor interventions before or after strikes and other workers activities, in order to take credit for the activities when the workers by themselves and almost spontaneously organized such activities making use of communication technologies such as WeChat. While China now seems to be to cracking down on such organizations, Chan says that the outcome does not seem to be overly negative. This is because people seem to be less in need of such organizations to stage protests over their rights and are doing those by themselves, like what happened during a 2014 strike when 14,000 people got together to demand better work conditions. When questioned on the lack of a Trade Union Law, which failed to pass in the Legislative Assembly (AL) eight times, Chan commented: As far as I know, there is a Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM) that I assume is the official trade union controlled by China [] if the law [bill] allows freedom of association [] then a lot of workers will begin to organize their own trade unions and that is the main issue in China [too] as China only has one Trade Union the official one and even that was created many years ago back in 1949. Whether the law draft has passed or not, the important [thing] is what is on that draft regarding freedom of association. Chan expressed no doubts on whether such a law is required. Are the workers going out on the streets protesting against those [working conditions] individually? If yes, that obviously means that the existing Trade Unions are not doing their job, she said. I think its China that doesnt want to have the law I dont know enough about Macau politics to really say this, but its very likely. Regarding the reduction to only eight days of the period in which non-resident workers can remain in the territory after the cancellation of their work permits (blue cards), Chan remarked: Its a measure to bond the workers [even more] and to restrain their moves [freedom]. She added that she does not think that such measures will help at all, as non-resident workers are already constrained in many ways, including the high fees charged by labor recruitment agencies. During, the workshop, visiting assistant professor Jong Nowak from Hong K ong City University, as well as the UMs Professor Timothy Kerswell, addressed other issues such as recent events related to strikes and labor shifting activities in India and Brazil. In his closing summary, Australian National University Professor Jonathon Unger noted the need for balance where labor disputes and demands are concerned, particularly cases in China and Brazil. Companies could easily have replaced this workforce [unqualified workers] with machines in the production lines at least since the early 1990s, Unger said. They wont do it as long as the wages are kept [at] a low level. A ship moored at the port of Namibe, southern Angola, within the next few days will travel to Portugal carrying a shipment of 35.7 tonnes of mangoes produced at a farm in the municipality of Baia Farta, in Benguela province, said farmer Victorino Marques. The farmer told Angolan news agency Angop that exports of the fruit to the Portuguese market is the result of a partnership with a Portuguese company linked to international trade in horticultural products. The farm covers an area of 92 hectares and has a production of between 1,500 and 1,600 tons, said Marques, adding the project had started in 2010 and currently has 18 varieties of mango. In 2010 we planted 18,000 mango seedlings, in the second year we had the first harvest on a small scale and, from the third year, the target was the domestic market, the farmer explained that the shipment heading for Portugal is a surplus of production. In May 2016 Angola began exporting bananas to Portugal, a process that began with shipping fruit produced on the Bacelinho Agro-Industrial unit, located in Lobito. MDT/Macauhub L ocal health authorities revealed yesterday that the elderly woman who initially tested positive for avian influenza virus A (H7N9) late last week is no longer, or was never, infected. The revision to the 72-year-olds diagnosis was confirmed after the virus was not detected in her blood and urine samples during further examinations on Saturday. This already shows a recession of the virus, noted the Health Bureau (SSM) in a statement yesterday, implying that last weeks initial diagnosis had been correct. On Thursday, the SSM held a special press conference at the Conde de S. Januario Hospital, where SSM director Lei Chin Ion informed the public of the case. The woman was hospitalized after entering the territory on Tuesday. On Thursday, samples of her mucus tested positive for H7N9. The elderly lady was initially diagnosed with pneumonia but has a history of high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic diseases, said the SSM. The patient initially said that she had not had any recent contact with live birds, but later admitted that she raised chickens in Zhongshan and often went to markets that sold poultry. The authorities said the misinformation had resulted in the delayed diagnosis. The woman was immediately confined to an isolation ward. Health authorities are monitoring 81 other people with whom she had been in contact, 45 of whom had recently been in close contact with her. The remaining 36 had occasional contact with her. These people will be monitored for the next 10 days in line with health procedures in Guangdong Province, given medication, and must wear masks to prevent further or potential contamination. During the press conference, Lei stressed that this was the first imported case of the H7N9 strain, though there was a locally-contracted case last month, the patient of which has made a full recovery. According to the statement, the government initiated its emergency response procedures late last week to control the spread of the disease. Following the re-diagnosis, it remains unclear whether these procedures have now been lifted. Local authorities have also urged members of the public to remain vigilant and to take notice of advice. The head of the Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Lam Chong, said Macau should be prepared for the possibility of encountering more cases of avian influenza in the near future. Usually, February and March are peak seasons. The case has been reported to the Guangdong and Hong Kong authorities, which will continue to cooperate with health officials in the MSAR. All parties will remain in close contact with the World Health Organization in order to prepare contingency plans should suspected cases be detected elsewhere in the city. DB Boeing Co. won a USD22 billion deal from budget carrier SpiceJet Ltd., notching the plane makers largest-ever order from an Indian airline and strengthening its hold in a market dominated by Europes Airbus Group SE. The order includes 100 of Boeings 737 Max single-aisle jets and renegotiated terms for 55 previously ordered aircraft, SpiceJet said in a statement Friday. The airline also has options to purchase another 50 Boeing aircraft, including the 777 and 787 Dreamliner wide-bodies. The commitment, which was included in Boeings 2016 order tally, comes as the Chicago-based plane maker races to catch Airbus in narrow-body sales, the largest source of profit for the companies. The deal for the Max, which competes with Airbuss A320neo workhorse, also helps Boeing widen its footprint in the fast-growing South Asian market. Most of SpiceJets low-cost rivals fly the European companys aircraft. India is an important market both Airbus and Boeing cant ignore, said Shukor Yusof, founder of aviation consulting firm Endau Analytics. The SpiceJet order gives Boeing a lifeline. Theres a lot more to grow in India than other parts of Asia. Rapidly expanding Indian carriers will need 1,850 new planes valued at $265 billion in 20 years, according to a Boeing forecast. Single-aisle planes will make up the bulk of the new deliveries. The Asia-Pacific region, which is eclipsing North America as the worlds largest aircraft market, will need 15,130 new aircraft valued at $2.3 trillion in the next 20 years, as economic growth boosts middle-class travel, according to Boeing. That represents 38 percent of the global requirement. Fridays deal adds to the 348 jetliner sales garnered by the U.S. planemaker in India. SpiceJet, which is based in Gurgaon near New Delhi, and AirIndia Express are the only budget carriers to use Boeing aircraft in the country. SpiceJet shares climbed 2.5 percent to 65.50 rupees in Mumbai. Boeing rose less than 1 percent to $159.02 at 9:55 a.m. in New York. The airline placed firm orders for 100 737 Max 8 aircraft, with a cumulative list price of $11 billion, before the discounts that are customary for large customers. Bloomberg News reported on Jan. 6 that the carrier was close to signing a deal for at least 92 planes valued at $10.1 billion and that the total could rise based on negotiations for discounts and service contracts. We spent a considerable amount of time negotiating and finalizing the commercial terms, including maintenance of the aircraft, Chairman Ajay Singh said in an interview. It was important for us to get all the commercial terms right. Deliveries will begin in July 2018 and continue through 2024. The carrier and Boeing also discussed a proposed stretch of the largest Max, Singh told reporters. The so-called 10X, Boeings response to Airbuss fast-selling A321neo, would be available in 2020 and seat as many as 230 travelers. The order signals a resurgence for SpiceJet after it almost collapsed more than two years ago. The expansion also sets up sharpened competition against IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd., which has about 400 Airbus aircraft awaiting delivery. IndiGo dominates the worlds fastest-growing major aviation market, with a 42 percent share. SpiceJet has 13 percent. A representative for Airbus declined to comment. The worlds two biggest plane makers are vying to serve a crucial market with an emerging middle-class that is flying for the first time and where passenger traffic is growing at twice the pace of nearest rival China. While the growth is prompting India airlines to order planes, they also have to contend with airport infrastructure that hasnt kept pace. Limited landing and parking slots extend the time circling above airports such as Mumbai during peak hours, wasting fuel. Bloomberg At least 21 people drowned and a dozen others were missing after their overcrowded boat capsized in a river in eastern India, police said yesterday. Nearly 50 people were returning by boat after attending a Hindu religious festival in a village across the river near Patna, the state capital of Bihar, when it capsized on Saturday, said police officer Chandan Kushwaha. He said 13 people have been rescued and hospitalized. Thailand: Pilot killed as fighter jet crashes at air show A Thai air force pilot died when his fighter jet crashed at an air show Saturday during the countrys Childrens Day. Amateur video footage shows the JAS 39 Gripen jet maneuvering over the Hat Yai air base in southern Thailand when it suddenly lost altitude and crashed in a ball of fire away from spectators. The Ministry of Defense was investigating the cause of the crash. Deputy government spokesman Werachon Sukondhapatipakerachon said Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha expressed condolences to the pilots family. Childrens Day is usually observed with public outings at military bases. Writer Lu Yong had merely wanted to show support for a professor who had taken flak online for criticizing Mao Zedong, the founder of the communist state who died more than four decades ago. Yet minutes after raising a sign to defend Deng Xiangchaos right to free speech, Lu found himself surrounded by a group of Mao supporters who grappled at his face. Other companions were punched and kicked. Video taken hours later showed the Mao loyalists parading through the campus of eastern Chinas Jinan University with large banners while chanting Down with Deng Xiangchao, down with traitors. Within days, Deng was forced to retire and stripped of his Communist Party titles. State media justified his dismissal. Across China, a retrograde strain of populist nationalism is gaining strength as the ruling Communist Party intensifies its control over history and ideology. Those who question the partys interpretations find their careers and reputations threatened, while their persecutors receive tacit and sometimes outright support from the authorities. They are shutting down speech thats not aligned with the party, said Feng Chongyi, a China scholar at Sydneys University of Technology. Populism and the manipulation of working class anger, combined with nationalism and xenophobia are the classic signs of Chinese totalitarianism. The Chinese president and party leader, Xi Jinping, is largely seen as setting the tone for the newly conformist attitude. The son of a Mao confederate steeped in party lore, Xi set the tone shortly after taking power in 2012, with a major speech in which he said that the latter 30 years of Communist Party rule a period of economic and political reform should not be considered a repudiation of the first 30 years under Mao. More recently, authorities have warned against liberal Western values in the classroom, rounded up lawyers and civil society activists along with corrupt officials and promoted a cult of personality around Xi likened to that surrounding Mao. Earlier this week, the Education Ministry ordered that textbooks move the start of Chinas war against Japanese invaders six years back to 1931, calling it a 14-year war, apparently to broaden the scope of the struggle from which the party derives its legitimacy. Last year, a Beijing court found a writer guilty of libel after he challenged the veracity of a famous tale of Communist Party soldiers sacrificing themselves against the Japanese. Liberal editors of a respected history journal were ousted last year. Deng initially attracted critics ire in December when he mused online that millions of Chinese lives would have been saved had Mao died decades earlier a view not unusual among intellectual circles. Maos policies have been blamed for tens of millions of deaths through famine and political upheaval. Observers compare Dengs removal and similar incidents to the frenzied persecutions of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when street mobs and radical Red Guards unleashed by Mao harassed, humiliated, imprisoned and sometimes killed ideological opponents. Mao supporters, largely retired workers and military veterans, increasingly gather to praise the former leader in public. Online, Maoist communities lambast public intellectuals or party members who criticize Mao even in jest with the apparent assent of the authorities. Song Yongyi, a Cultural Revolution historian based in California, said he was concerned about a revived use of mass movements to suppress discourse and spread fear. These are the same tactics of using Red Guards to defend the government, Song said. Maoist blogger Lu Qi said pro- Mao actions have skyrocketed due to growing inequality and working-class frustration with capitalism. He praised Dengs ouster as democracy in action. Deng Xiangchaos speech clearly violated political correctness, Lu said. I believe everyone should bear responsibility for their own illegal speech. Another well-known Maoist blogger Zhang Hongliang praised the Jinan police for allowing the campus protest. This is probably the first time in 20 or 30 years that anti-riot police or armed police were not deployed against leftist protests and demonstrations, Zhang wrote. This is a sign that weve reached a turning point. Utopia, an online gathering place for Maoists and hard liners, this week celebrated the recent ousting of public figures for anti-Mao, anti-Xi, anti-party speech, among them Bi Fujian, a prominent TV host suspended by China Central Television after a video surfaced of him mocking Mao at a private event. Following Dengs removal, online Maoists quickly moved on in search of other targets. Spotting social media posts from a television producer in support of Deng, they complained and he was swiftly suspended from his job. In Jinan, which suffered some of the worst convulsions of the Cultural Revolution, the Maoist community is making its presence felt. Supporters gather in public parks to spread Maos teachings and denounce corruption sometimes attacking critics like Lu, the writer who sought to defend the professor. Even if Deng said something wrong, he should be held accountable according to the law, not be attacked this way, like during the Cultural Revolution, Lu said. As a writer, I cannot watch the basic freedom of speech disappear. Gerry Shih, Beijing, AP The Shah of Iran has fled the country following months of increasingly violent protests against his regime. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his wife, Empress Farah, left Tehran and flew to Aswan in Egypt. The couples three youngest children were flown to the United States yesterday. Official reports say the Shah has left for a vacation and medical treatment. In fact, he was asked to leave by the man he appointed prime minister earlier this month. Over the past few months, there have been an increasing number of violent clashes between security forces and anti-Shah demonstrators. Opposition to the Shah has become united behind the Muslim traditionalist movement led by Irans main spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, from exile in France. There have been calls for the Ayatollahs return and news of the Shahs departure was greeted with mass celebrations across Iran. British and United States ex-patriates living in Iran regarded as symbols of westernization have been the frequent target of attacks. Thousands have left the country. Martial law was declared in many cities on 8 September. But later that month, industrial action by thousands of Iranian workers culminated in a mass strike by employees in the oil industry. The strike sparked riots and rallies across the country in support of the Ayatollah. Western governments, like the US, UK and West Germany, have continued to express support for the Shah. The Shah appointed a new military government in early November. But it failed to stem the rising tide of support for the Ayatollah. Earlier this month he appointed a new prime minister, Dr Shapur Bahktiar. When, on 13 January, the Ayatollah declared a revolutionary Islamic council to replace what he called the illegal government of Iran, Dr Bahktiar persuaded the Shah it was time to leave. Courtesy of BBC In context The Shah never returned to Iran. He died in exile in Egypt in 1980. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran on 1 February after 14 years exile. He threw out Dr Bahktiars government on 11 February and, after a referendum, declared an Islamic Republic on 1 April. Khomeini guided his countrys revolutionary social, legal, and political development until his death in 1989. He presided over the country during the Iran/Iraq war, only reluctantly agreeing a ceasefire. He also issued a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Two decades later, liberals ushered in a period of transformation with their election victory in 2000 over the conservative elite. But reformist president Mohammad Khatami was at odds with hardliners, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and failed to make good on his promises. He was replaced by the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2005. President Bush declared Iran part of an axis of evil in 2002. Washington accused Tehran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons, although Iran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. Tehran resumed its uranium conversion process in 2005, provoking a diplomatic showdown with the international community. The trial of former Prosecutor-General Ho Chio Meng went through another session on Friday at the Court of Final Appeal. The former Chief of the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Lai Kin Ian, was present as a witness to provide his testimony regarding one of the accusations levelled against Ho. Ho stands accused of regularly taking individuals who were not employees of the Public Prosecution Office (MP) on trips to Europe, some of which included his wife and nephew with all expenses covered by the MP, under the guise of official visits. Prosecutors presented a note drafted by Lai, stating that Ho would visit Northern Europe. They questioned Lai whether this trip was reported to the Chief Executive (CE) before it happened. Lai claimed that he did overhear Ho calling the CE, but did not know exactly what Ho told the CE. He claimed that he had only a vague impression of the conversation rather than exact details. The prosecutors asked Lai whether a written report had been delivered to the CE to provide details of the trip. Lai said that in accordance with the regulations regarding the relationship between Ho and the CE, sometimes written reports would be provided but sometimes there would be only verbal reports. After Ho and the others had reviewed the initial budget for the trip, the final bill that travel agencies delivered to the MP exceeded the original budget. Other evidence provided by the MP showed that the people who eventually travelled to Europe were not part of Lais original plan. Lai was questioned about whether he knew who actually went to Northern Europe. However Lai claimed that he did not remember exactly who went on the trip, which took place in August. Regarding Hos premature departure for Europe before the beginning of the official visit, and his return to Macau after the conclusion of the official trip, Lai said that Portuguese prosecutors had occasionally visited Portugal during August and September. Moreover, given the approved vacation period, they had the option of going to Portugal prior to official visits and returning to Macau after their conclusion. Lai emphasized that the government had looked after Portuguese prosecutors quite a lot. Lai added that he has a few memories of Portuguese prosecutors accompanying Ho on trips to Europe. According to him, the MP had paid for the accommodation, food, and transportation of the Portuguese prosecutors, but the prosecutors relatives had paid for their own flight tickets. Hos lawyer, Leong Weng Pun, questioned Lai on whether there had been more trips where government officials visited places aside from those included in their official itineraries. Lai admitted that this had happened on occasion and that even the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, had made such visits. Lai recalled an official trip to Beijing with Tam, then the chief of CEs Office, which was followed by a trip to Fujian that was fully paid for by the government. Presiding judge Sam Hou Fai reminded Lai that all civil servants official outbound visits must be supported by the CE, a regulation of which Lai claimed to be unaware. As the morning session of the trial neared its conclusion, Ho clarified that the trip of which he stands accused had not been an official government trip. He went on to say that the city has travel regulations for certain main government officials. There was a report, Lai is a good chief, said Ho. If it is not a governmental event, there is no need for a written report. The prosecutors asked why the MP chose the Hotline Center to open the teachers resting room. Lai said that he had not visited the place since its renovation works were completed and added that Ho had told him not to visit the place unless strictly necessary. The prosecution then displayed a picture of the entire 16th floor of the building that the MP had rented. One directory indicated that one room on that floor belonged to the MP, while the rest of the rooms had no directories. At this point in the trial, Ho Chio Meng raised his hand and asked why a directory was needed if a room was not an independent department. The court took a two-hour recess before it resumed at 3 p.m. According to Sam Hou Fai, Lai was only supposed to be a witness for half a day, but was in court for two days. When the trial resumed in the afternoon, the prosecution called a Judiciary Police (PJ) officer, who had worked in the police force for more than ten years as a handwriting examiner. The prosecutors presented one manuscript seized from Hos former residence, which is believed to have been written by Ho. In the manuscript were some sentences that the prosecution believes are related to Hos shelf companies. The police officer answered several questions regarding the process he identified as a manuscript. Ho, at the end of the afternoon trial, said the writing could not be proven as his. The trial continues at 9.30 a.m. today. Donald Trump has often ridiculed global warming and promised to withdraw the U.S. from the global accord signed in Paris in 2015. Yet despite the change of political weather in Washington, the captains of business and finance gathered in Davos this week will spend a lot of time talking about climate change and how to make money from it. The World Economic Forum is devoting 15 sessions of its 2017 annual meeting to climate change, and nine more to clean energy the most ever on the issues. It reflects how much is at stake. For global business leaders, its not just a question of burnishing their green credentials, but about billions of dollars maybe even trillions in potential profits and losses. Insurers are starting to price-in more frequent flooding and droughts; energy giants are shaping their business for a world thats moving away from oil and coal; car makers are putting real money into electric vehicles; banks want to lend money for renewable electricity projects. The good thing is that the Paris agreement raised the bar for everyone, said Ben van Beurden, the head of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europes largest oil group. Everybody feels the obligation to act. Achieving the ambitions set out in Paris may require USD13.5 trillion of spending through to 2030, according International Energy Agency data that shows the scale of the opportunity for business. Only last year, clean energy investment stood at $287.5 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance indicate. The scale and scope of the investment flows on renewables shows its mainstream, said David Turk, head of climate change at the IEA in Paris and a former senior U.S. climate diplomat. With money-making opportunities rising, traditional climate change advocates Al Gore and Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan will mingle in panel discussions with executives such as HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Stuart Gulliver and Patrick Yu, president of Cofco Corp., the largest food company in China. They will discuss the nexus between the fight against global warming and business both how to stop climate change and how to profit from it. Climate change is material and central for many companies and their boards, said Dominic Waughray, head of public-private partnership at the World Economic Forum. Climate change is a core part of the growth agenda. Beyond the official program, a record 60 chief executive officers are expected to gather in a closed-door session to discuss the challenges of climate change, according to a person familiar with the event, who asked not to be named because the meeting isnt public. In the Alpine resorts congress center, the World Economic Forum has built an exhibition highlighting climate change, from rampant emissions to rising sea levels. Michael Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University who will help to explain the exhibit, said despite the arrival of Trump, the fight against global warming will continue. No matter what the U.S. president says, the progress on climate change can have many routes, he said. The U.S. can harm progress, but will not stop progress. In Novembers follow-up meeting to Paris, nearly 200 nations, including China and Saudi Arabia, vowed to step up their efforts to fight global warming, facing down concerns the new Trump administration will seek to derail policies aimed at curbing pollution. Leadership on climate change is proving to be remarkably resilient, said Christiana Figueres, the UNs former top climate change diplomat, who will be in Davos speaking on a panel alongside Patrick Pouyanne, boss of French oil giant Total SA, Oleg Deripaska, owner of worlds top aluminum producer United Co. Rusal, and Ignacio Sanchez Galan, head of renewables heavyweight Iberdrola SA. China, which for years sought to derail global efforts to tackle climate change, has flipped its role and is now lecturing the U.S. and Europe on the importance of the issue. Xi Jinping will be the first sitting Chinese president to attend Davos, after making green finance a key topic for Chinas presidency of the Group of 20 nations last year. In 2012, Trump claimed climate change was a Chinese hoax designed to damage the U.S. economy. Even though the president-elect has appeared to soften his stance a little, telling the New York Times last year he was open minded about the issue, his policy positions stand in stark contrast to China. Trumpss election platform pledged to reverse environmental regulations, increase coal production and pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris Agreement signed in 2015 to limit fossil-fuel emissions. Yet, more than 600 U.S. companies from DuPont Co. to Monsanto Co. have urged Trump to stay in the Paris accord. Its totally clear that companies see the writing on the wall, said Morgan of Greenpeace. If President-elect Trump doesnt want to go, there then he is going to be very out of step.Javier Blas and Jessica Shankleman, Bloomberg Japan and Indonesia yesterday affirmed a deepening of economic and political ties during a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is using a four-nation tour of Asia to underscore his governments role in countering Chinas assertiveness in the South China Sea. After meeting with Abe, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo said the increase in Japanese investment in Indonesia, Southeast Asias largest economy, has been very significant, more than doubling to USD4.5 billion in January-September of last year. He said the countries agreed that their defense and foreign ministers will meet in Indonesia this year under a new forum they established in 2015 to increase maritime cooperation. Jokowi said there were agreements on development of a deep-sea port and the Masela gas field in Indonesia, and for preliminary discussions of a Jakarta-Surabaya rail line. He did not give specifics. Abes trip is largely aimed at taking a leadership role in promoting regional cooperation to counter Beijing at a time of increased tension between China and the U.S. and uncertainty about the policies of the incoming Donald Trump administration. With the tour, Tokyo wants to send a message that its respect for a rules-based international system, in contrast to Chinas more aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, where it has vast territorial claims, makes it the best partner for Southeast Asian countries. The trip has included two of Americas main allies in the region, Australia and the Philippines, where Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes hostility to the U.S. has raised doubts about its commitment to the U.S. alliance that Japan is a crucial part of. Australia and Japan agreed to greater military cooperation, and in the Philippines, Abe pledged $8.7 billion in business opportunities and investment. Jokowi said that in his meeting with Abe, he asked for Japan to open access for Indonesian agricultural goods, improve access for Indonesian nurses to work in Japan, commence a review of the Indonesia-Japan economic partnership agreement this year, and grant national carrier Garuda rights for a Jakarta-Tokyo-Los Angeles route. After Indonesia, Abe will visit Vietnam, which the U.S. has cultivated stronger ties with as a part of President Barack Obamas pivot to Asia policy. Trump, however, has said he will scrap U.S. involvement in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which was a signature part of Obamas policy. AP A cargo plane crashed yesterday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 37 people, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Turkish Boeing 747 crashed just outside the Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the airport as well as those on the plane. Reports of the death toll yesterday ranged from 37 people according to emergency officials in the Central Asian nation, to 31 reported by the presidential press office which also said rescue teams had recovered parts of nine bodies. Fifteen people including six children have been hospitalized. Images from the scene showed the planes nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. Several dozen private houses cluster just outside the metal fence separating the cottages from the runway. Manas has been considerably expanded since the United States began to operate a military installation at the Manas airport, using it primarily for its operations in Afghanistan. American troops vacated the base and handed it over to the Kyrgyz military in 2014. I woke up because of a bright red light outside, Baktygul Kurbatova, who was slightly injured, told local television. I couldnt understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. I was so scared but I managed to cover my sons face with my hands so that debris would not fall on him. More than a thousand rescue workers were at the scene by late morning in the residential area where 15 houses were destroyed, Deputy Prime Minister Mukhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical. The planes flight recorders have not yet been found. The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to Istanbul-based cargo company ACT Airlines. It said in an emailed statement that the cause was unknown. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu yesterday called his Kyrgyz counterpart, Erlan Abdildaev, to offer Turkeys condolences, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. Leila Saralayeva, Bishkek, AP Chinas state media rebuffed a suggestion by President-elect Donald Trumps nominee for secretary of state that Beijing must be denied access to reclaimed reefs in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent China access to the islands will be foolish, the Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper wrote in an editorial. The English-language China Daily took a similar line: It is certainly no small matter for a man intended to be the U.S. diplomat in chief to display such undisguised animosity toward China. In his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Rex Tillerson compared Chinas actions in the South China Sea to those of Russia in Crimea, saying a failure to respond had allowed it to keep pushing the envelope in the waters. Were going to have to send China a clear signal that first the island-building stops and second your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed, Tillerson said. Should the former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief executives remarks reflect future U.S. policy, it would represent a fundamental shift toward a more confrontational response to Beijings claims to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea. In recent years, China has reclaimed thousands of acres of land and shooed away boats from other claimant states like the Philippines and Vietnam. Chinas official response was relatively mild, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang saying that like the U.S., China has the right within its own territory to carry out normal activities. The Peoples Daily newspaper last month argued for strategic composure, and urged policy makers to remain calm in response to criticisms from the Trump camp before he takes office. The U.S. has followed a long-held policy of not taking a position on the claims of any countries in the South China Sea while defending the freedom of navigation for vessels from all nations. Tillerson didnt say how the U.S. would stop China from building on the features, prevent it from accessing them or how it would treat other countries trying to access their land features in the waters. That raised speculation that he had spoken out of turn and that his comments didnt reflect a fully evolved policy position of the incoming Trump administration. Trumps nominee for defense secretary, retired General James Mattis, bolstered that interpretation at his own Senate hearing last week, in which he said that the State, Treasury and Defense departments should coordinate their South China Sea policies. Were going to have to integrate this, so that were not dealing with an incomplete or incoherent strategy, Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Even Chinas state media gave Tillerson the benefit of the doubt. It remains to be seen to what extent his views against China will translate into U.S. foreign policies, China Daily wrote. His remarks at the Wednesday hearing, sensational as they were, turned out to be of little reference value except for judging his personal orientations. David Tweed, Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he has ordered his troops to bomb extremists who flee with their captives in a bid to stop a wave of kidnappings at sea, calling the loss of civilian lives in such an attack collateral damage. Duterte has previously stated that he had told his Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts their forces can blast away as they pursue militants who abduct sailors in waters where the three countries converge and bring their kidnap victims to the southern Philippines. He said in a speech late Saturday that he had given the same orders to Filipino forces. He said he instructed the navy and the coast guard that if there are kidnappers and theyre trying to escape, bomb them all. They say hostages. Sorry, collateral damage, he said in a speech to business people in Davao, his southern hometown. He said such an approach would enable the government to get even with the ransom-seeking militants. You cant gain mileage for your wrongdoing, I will really have you blasted, he said. His advice to potential victims? So, really, dont allow yourselves to be kidnapped. Dutertes remarks reflect the alarm and desperation of the Philippines, along with Malaysia and Indonesia, in halting a series of ransom kidnappings primarily by Abu Sayyaf militants and their allies along a busy waterway for regional trade. On Saturday, ransom-seeking Abu Sayyaf gunmen freed a South Korean captain and his Filipino crewman who were abducted three months ago from their cargo ship. The gunmen handed skipper Park Chul- hong and Glenn Alindajao over to Moro National Liberation Front rebels, who turned them over to Philippine officials in southern Jolo town in predominantly Muslim Sulu province. The Moro rebels, who signed a 1996 peace deal with the government, have helped negotiate the release of several hostages of the smaller but more violent Abu Sayyaf, which is blacklisted by the U.S. as a terrorist organization for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. Dutertes adviser dealing with insurgents, Jesus Dureza, said he was not aware of any ransom being paid in exchange for the freedom of the sailors. At least 27 hostages, many of them foreign crewmen, remain in the hands of different Abu Sayyaf factions, he said. There have been persistent speculations, however, that most of the freed hostages have been ransomed off. Without a known foreign source of funds, the Abu Sayyaf has survived mostly on ransom kidnappings, extortion and other acts of banditry. A confidential Philippine government threat assessment report seen by The Associated Press last year said the militants pocketed at least 353 million pesos (USD7.3 million) from ransom kidnappings in the first six months of 2016. The militants have mostly targeted slow-moving tugboats in the busy sea bordering the southern Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Jim Gomez, Manila, AP Thailands military- ruled legislature on Friday approved constitutional changes desired by the newly enthroned king that would reserve more powers for him. One change made by the National Legislative Assembly allows King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun to decide whether or not to appoint a regent when he travels outside the country. Vajiralongkorn traveled frequently to Germany, where he maintains a residence, before becoming king in December. The constitution previously stated that if no regent was appointed, the head of the Privy Council the kings advisory body would become regent. The amendment effectively keeps royal power in the hands of the king or a trusted confidante when he is abroad. A second amendment makes it easier to implement the kings desired changes in a new constitution that was approved in a referendum last August. The government says the changes solely concern royal powers. Vajiralongkorns approval is needed for the new constitution to be implemented. Fridays changes were made to an interim constitution enacted in 2014 after the military ousted an elected government in a coup detat. It is unclear why Vajiralongkorn is seeking changes in the new constitution, but it suggests that he has not yet settled his relationship with the military. Vajiralongkorn took the throne on Dec. 2 following the death of his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Oct. 13. Privy Council head Prem Tinisulanonda, a former army chief and prime minister who was a close adviser to Bhumibol, served as regent during the month before Vajiralongkorn succeeded his father. Until Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha announced earlier this week that the king desired some changes, there was concern that the new constitution might have to be totally scrapped, because it was uncertain that the king would approve it by a Feb. 6 deadline. The deadline is extended under the new rules, which call for experts to write the new amendments, which will then be reviewed by the king. The changes raise anew the possibility that the government will not meet its avowed deadline to hold a general election by the end of this year. It has already let several previously declared deadlines slip. AP With vibrant colors and cheerful yells, the Sinulog Festival 2017 attracted a significant crowd yesterday at Friendship Square. The 17th edition of the festival this years theme was One Beat, One Dance, One Vision for Peace kicked off with a mass at St Lawrence Church. Organized by the Santo Nino de Cebu in Macau Association, the annual religious procession passed by Sai Van Lake bearing the image of St. Nino to honor the infant Jesus, and featured dance performances at the Friendship Square. According to organizing committee member Father Agustin Datu, the religious celebration was established in the region along with the growing presence and number of Filipino migrant workers. We decided to bring the celebration [to] Macau so Filipinos here can celebrate Santo Nino while they are here, he told the Times. So the purpose is to bring together Filipinos working here; not just for celebration but to remind them of their duty to preach and proclaim the Good News. Violetta Duran, president of Santo Nino de Cebu in Macau Association, said the yearly festival has been attracting an increasing number of Filipinos. While some regard it as the biggest Filipino event in Macau, Duran stressed that the celebration unites Filipino Catholics as they practice their culture in Macau. So many Filipinos watch this because its considered a big event for the Filipinos. We unite ourselves [in] this event [because] its a part of our religious practice, she told the Times. The organizing committee also commended the local government for its continuing support of the festival. This is already part of our religious practice and were proud that the government accepts and supports us, Duran added. The festival customarily takes place on the third Sunday in January, with over a hundred Filipinos joining the festivals dance competition. While dancing, participants shout petitions and thanksgivings to the Santo Nino such as Viva Pit Senor! Senor Santo Nino! This year six adult and two childrens groups participated in the competition. Winners received up to MOP8,000 in cash. One performer, Bestie, said this years festival performers devoted a significant amount of time to practicing and creating their costumes. The revelers the Times spoke with affirmed that this years participants had offered up more creative costumes and performances. The celebration, which originated in Cebu, begins nine days before the grand parade. The parade itself can last up to 12 hours, and involves a traditional Sinulog dance in which participants take two steps forward and one step back, swaying to the rhythm of the drums. The yearly fiesta began after the image of the Santo Nino was brought to Cebu and the Catholic faith was established in the region. ISRAEL-PALESTINE Sending a forceful message to Israel and the incoming Trump administration, more than 70 world diplomats gathered in Paris yesterday to say they want peace in the Mideast through establishing a Palestinian state. While the Palestinians welcomed yesterdays conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it rigged and cooked up to force Israel to accept conditions against its national interests. CHINA A highway pile-up in southern China on Saturday night resulted in the deaths of six people, while another 19 were injured, reported mainland media. The crash, which involved a total of 19 vehicles, began when a cement truck collided with the rear of a car on the Qinglian highway in Guangdong Province. INDONESIA-JAPAN Japan and Indonesia yesterday affirmed a deepening of economic and political ties during a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. After meeting with Abe, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo said the increase in Japanese investment in Indonesia has been very significant, doubling to USD4.5 billion in January-September of last year. PHILIPPINES President Rodrigo Duterte orders his troops to bomb extremists who flee with their captives in a bid to stop a wave of kidnappings at sea, calling the loss of civilian lives in such an attack collateral damage. KUWAIT A Germany-bound Eurowings passenger flight from Oman landed in Kuwait yesterday over a bomb threat but no explosives were found on board, authorities said. The state-run KUNA news agency of Kuwait said 299 passengers on board were evacuated over the incident and that the planes captain had requested an emergency landing in Kuwait City. IRAQ An Iraqi military spokesman said government troops have fully liberated the sprawling complex of Mosul University, a major step in the massive operation to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul. SERBIA is warning Kosovo it will defend every inch of its territory, including its former province where Serbs allegedly are under threat from Kosovo Albanians. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic issued the warning yesterday after a Serbian train, with signs Kosovo is Serbian, was halted before it entered Kosovo due to reports of a planned attack by ethnic Albanians. VIETNAM-JAPAN Japan will provide Vietnam new patrol vessels, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday on the last stop of his four-nation tour to boost his countrys trade and security engagements in Asia amid Chinas rising dominance. Vietnam already has six used patrol vessels provided by Japan and how many were in the fresh offer wasnt mentioned. The two leaders also called for the upholding of international law in resolving disputes in the South China Sea. PHILIPPINES A low-key diplomatic protest against China was filed by the Philippines after a U.S. think tank reported that Beijing appears to have installed anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons on its man-made islands in the strategically vital South China Sea. CAMBODIA has informed the United States that it is canceling an annual joint military exercise this year, even though planning for the event had already begun, officials from both countries said yesterday. Some analysts have tied the cancellation to Chinas influence in the region, which they believe will be exercised more vigorously after Donald Trump becomes U.S. president. KYRGYSTAN A cargo plane crashed in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 37 people on the ground and in the plane, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. IRAN The chief of the U.N. atomic agency says Iran has complied with a key commitment of its nuclear deal with six world powers by removing sensitive equipment from a strategic underground site. OMAN said yesterday it accepted 10 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. Omans Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had accepted the prisoners at Obamas request. POLAND-GERMANY The powerful leader of Polands ruling party says he will tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she visits the country next month that she has some responsibility for what he sees as the German medias critical and harmful opinion of Poland. BRITAIN After months of repeating the mantra that Brexit means Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to reveal details of Britains closely guarded plans for leaving the European Union in a speech later today. The currency hit a three-month low yesterday, a day before her address, on worries May will signal an economy-roiling clean break, known as hard Brexit. MERIDIAN John Brubaker of Knott Run Dairy in Buhl was honored with a five-year pin last month for their service on the Idaho Dairy Products Commissions board of directors, commission Chairman Tom Dorsey announced. Also receiving five-year pins were Kim Korn of Korn Dairy in Terreton and Greg Andersen, an Idaho Dairymens Association board member and dairy farmer who runs Seagull Bay Dairy in American Falls. The Idaho dairy farmers are nationally renowned for their industry leadership. Brubaker serves on the board of the United Dairy Industry Association, a federation of state and regional dairy farmer-funded promotion organizations that provide marketing programs that are developed and implemented in coordination with its members. Meanwhile, Korn was appointed to serve a three-year term on the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Formed in 1984 under the authority of the USDA, the board carries out coordinated promotion and research programs to help build demand and expand domestic and international markets for dairy products. United Dairymen of Idaho CEO Karianne Fallow said Gem State residents should applaud the dedication of the three dairy farmers, who also serve on her organizations board. Dairy is Idahos No. 1 ag sector, and were the third-largest dairy-producing state in the country, Fallow said. Along with their fellow board members, Kim, John and Greg work tirelessly on behalf of our dairy farm families to ensure demand remains strong for Idaho dairy foods across the country and around the globe. TWIN FALLS Parents: A new school year is still seven months away, but now is the time to act if you want your child to attend a charter school. Open enrollment for the 2017-18 school year is underway or begins soon at Xavier Charter School in Twin Falls, Heritage Academy in Jerome, North Valley Academy in Gooding and Syringa Mountain School in Hailey. Public charter schools are free and open to all children, and offer innovative programs. Parents of prospective students need to fill out an application for the school theyre interested in. Then, openings will be filled at random in April using a lottery system. The process is set by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. Everybody has an equal chance for being drawn in, Xavier administrator Gary Moon said. The lottery is 100 percent random. There are a few groups of prospective students who get priority, though, including children of school employees and siblings of current students. But its not a huge number, Moon said. Charter schools are limited on how many students they can accept whatever is written into their charters, said Deby Infanger, founder of North Valley Academy in Gooding. Its typically easier to get into a charter school during middle and high school, Infanger said. But you have an incoming kindergartner, its also a good time to consider it. The best time to get into a charter school is kindergarten because all those seats are new, Infanger said. The likelihood of getting in depends on the number of openings and length of a schools waiting list. At Xavier Charter School, there are 451 students on a waiting list for this school year. But at North Valley Academy, there is usually enough open slots to accommodate interested students. If they dont get in right away, they generally will sometime that year, Infanger said. Heres information about south-central Idahos four charter schools: Xavier Charter School, Twin Falls Open enrollment begins Feb. 1 and runs through March 31. A random lottery will be held April 17. Current students are guaranteed a seat next year. But parents must fill out a re-enrollment form. If your child is already on the waiting list, you must submit a new application in order to be considered for a seat next year. Its kind of an unfortunate thing, but its just the way the law is written, Moon said. A new waiting list is created every year. Moon said he wont have a sense of the number of openings until current students say whether theyre planning to return. But he expects waiting lists through ninth grade for next year. The lower grades, obviously, have the longest waiting lists, he said. Xavier, which opened in 2007, has 710 students in kindergarten through 12th grades. The school is known for its rigorous academics and high test scores. It uses a classical model of education and emphasizes music, theater, dance and visual arts. Students can also participate in extracurricular activities such as middle and high school cross country, academic decathlon, running club, robotics clubs and drum corps. Xavier provides school busing throughout Twin Falls in the same boundaries as the Twin Falls School District. Moon said he encourages families to apply if theyre interested. You can also call to set up a time to visit the school and sit in on classes. Heritage Academy, Jerome Open enrollment continues until 5 p.m. on April 7. A lottery will be held at 1 p.m. on April 8 at the school. Returning students will keep their spot, but must turn in paperwork saying they plan to return. Typically, we have the most openings in fourth and sixth grades, Superintendent Christine Ivie said. Thats when students are the mostly likely to transfer to Jerome School District campuses. Heritage Academy typically has the biggest waiting list in kindergarten. And for each grade level, there are usually 20 to 30 children on the waiting list. The exception: middle school, where theres rarely a waiting list. Heritage Academy, which opened in 2011, has about 180 students in kindergarten through eighth grades. Theres a maximum enrollment of 25 students per grade level. In addition to traditional curriculum, it uses a school-wide enrichment model developed by professors at the University of Connecticut. Each week, elementary school children participate in enrichment clusters. It allows for individualized education, Ivie said. Students choose from topics such as woodworking, music, business or science. They work on producing real-world products and services. Heritage Academy also offers full-day kindergarten, a free breakfast and lunch program and afternoon snack for all students, and school busing. Students also have the option of participating in Jerome Middle School sports. North Valley Academy, Gooding Open enrollment started Jan. 1 and continues through March 31. A lottery will be held April 1. Watch the schools website and Facebook page for an announcement about the specific time the lottery will be held. Current students at North Valley Academy dont need to fill out paperwork. We will assume that they will be back next year, unless they let us know, Infanger said. North Valley Academy, which opened in 2008, has about 275 students in kindergarten through 12th grades. The school focuses on creating patriotic and educated leaders. Offerings include full-day kindergarten and a string orchestra program. Theres a mastery-based education program for middle and high schoolers. It allows students to complete work at their own pace. If they master a subject, they can move on. In addition to Gooding bus stops, the school also offers pick-up and drop-off locations in Jerome, Wendell and near Hagerman. Were just trying to help the rural parents have a school choice option, Infanger said. Syringa Mountain School, Hailey Syringa Mountain School, which opened in 2014, serves students in kindergarten through sixth grades. The school hasnt decided on a schedule for open enrollment yet, but will make an announcement soon. The public Waldorf school has a nature-oriented approach that de-emphasizes technology, with the goal of developing students imaginations. Syringas music program includes teaching students how to play violin starting in third grade, and an orchestra for fifth and sixth-graders. Students at the school also sing, and play recorder and pentatonic flute. And lessons are offered in two foreign languages Spanish and Mandarin. Syringa also has a farm-to-school lunch program. 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 TWIN FALLS New City Councilman Christopher Reid will be sworn in at Tuesday evenings meeting. Reid is taking the place of Councilman Don Hall, who recently moved into his new role as a Twin Falls County commissioner. Hall will also be presented with a plaque at the meeting thanking him for his service. And, the Council plans to vote on confirming Gretchen Scott as the citys new human resources director. City Council meetings are generally held on Monday; however, this weeks is being held on Tuesday because Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The meeting is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 305 Third Ave. East. The agenda and related materials are available online at the citys website, tfid.org. BOISE Two bills to clarify some legal requirements for running for office were introduced Monday morning. The first would change the law to specify that a candidate for Legislature must be a registered voter in the legislative district for a year before running. While the Secretary of State office has interpreted the state Constitutions requirement that a candidate be an elector for a year as meaning a registered voter, the related Idaho statute isnt clear, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Tim Hurst told the House State Affairs Committee. The second gets rid of an old legal requirement imposing a five-day waiting period for elected officials who want to switch parties, instead allowing the change in registration to take effect immediately. Both bills were prompted by recent court cases, Hurst said. In the case of the first bill Caleb Hansen filed to run for a Boise legislative seat but was disqualified by the Secretary of States office because he had registered to vote in the district only a day before filing to run. The second bill was prompted by a court case in 2016 in Teton County, when incumbent Sheriff Tony Liford, who was elected in 2012 as a Democrat, filed as a Republican to run for re-election in 2016. The Teton County Clerk removed his name from the ballot because of the five-days rule, but a federal judge reversed the decision. The court said the five-day requirement conflicts with other statutes that allow a voters change in registration to take effect immediately, noting that it could allow someone to vote as a member of a particular party but not run for office as one. The Court cannot fathom how an individual can be recognized by the Clerk or Secretary of State as a Democrat for one purposes, and a Republican for another, at the same time, federal Magistrate Judge Candy Dale wrote in her ruling allowing Liford back on the ballot as a Republican. Hurst said that requirement was put in the law years ago, when most people other than officeholders didnt register with a political party. The committee voted without dissent or discussion to introduce both bills, paving the way for a full hearing later. Weight loss support TOPS Club (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), a nonprofit weight-loss support group, will meet weekly at several locations. The Twin Falls chapter will meet at 4:30 p.m. Monday at the Twin Falls Senior Center, 530 Shoshone St. W., 208-734-2641 or 208-734-5300. Other local chapters will meet at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday at 2025 S. Highway 81 in Malta, 208-645-2438; 9:15 a.m. Thursday at the Jerome Public Library, 100 First Ave. E., 208-324-6693; 9:30 a.m. Thursday at 410 E. Third St. in Rupert, 208-436-6037 or 208-679-3518; and at 5:30 p.m. Friday at 1800 J St. in Heyburn, 208-678-8706 or 208-678-2622. Yoga Morning Bliss Yoga, 9 a.m. Tuesdays and Saturdays at Magic Valley YMCA, 1751 Elizabeth Blvd. This practice focuses on stretching and strengthening the muscles with a strong focus on breath, body alignment and relaxation. Free to the community. 208-733-4384. Victims support Support group for victims of domestic violence, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday at the Mini-Cassia Shelter Haven of Hope, 323 First St., Rupert. Information: Rachel, 208-312-7021. Alzheimers support Alzheimers Association, Greater Idaho Chapters Caregiver Support Group meeting, 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Twin Falls Senior Center, 530 Shoshone St. W. The group meets on the third Wednesday every month. Information: Pattie Dennis, 208-734-4264 or 208-539-4290. Grief support Suicide Prevention Action Network of south-central Idaho will offer a free support group for anyone who has lost someone to a suicide. The group meets from 7 to 8 p.m. on the third Wednesdays at the Church of the Ascension, 371 Eastland Drive N. in Twin Falls., and is open to everyone. Information: Donna Stalley, 208-733-1462. Mental health support Mental Health Support Group will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays at a new location at 826 Eastland Drive in Twin Falls. The free support group is open to Magic Valley residents. Information: 208-539-7492. Grief support Visions of Hope meeting, 5 p.m. every Thursday at Hospice Visions, 1770 Park View Drive, Twin Falls. This grief support group is open to everyone in the community. Information: 208-735-0121. Asthma education Free asthma education class for patients and caregivers to assess and manage asthma will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday. The class is presented by St. Lukes Magic Valley and meets on the third Thursday of each month. Pre-registration is required. To register and for location of the class: 208-814-8765. Anxiety support Anxiety Support Group, 6 p.m. every Thursday at Magic Valley Fellowship Hall, 801 Second Ave. N., Twin Falls. Support for those who experience anxiety, panic attacks or depression. Learn about the signs, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and coping skills. Information: Cathy Shaddy, 208-410-2768. Grief support Grief Share meetings, 6:30 p.m. Thursdays, through Feb. 2, at Lighthouse Church, 960 Eastland Drive, Twin Falls. Anyone who has lost a loved one or friend is welcome to attend. A separate class for teens will be held at the same time. Participants can attend any session. Enter through the east doors at the rear of the main building. Information: 208-737-4667. Blood drives The American Red Cross has a severe winter blood shortage and is issuing an emergency call for blood and platelet donors to make a donation appointment to help meet the needs of patients. Blood donation opportunities are available from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls; and 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 50 E. 100 S., Jerome. To schedule an appointment to donate, use the free blood donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767. Completion of a RapidPass online health history questionnaire is encouraged. Yoga Hatha Yoga classes will be offered by College of Southern Idahos Community Education Center, 5 to 7 p.m. Mondays, Jan. 23 to Feb. 27 and March 6 to April 17, in CSIs Gym 231-A. The yoga postures include balance, strength, flexibility, and the ability to calm the mind, says a statement. The class is for all ages, those new to yoga or wanting to refresh the basics. Bring your own yoga mat, or one will be provided. Morgan Jeno is a certified Hatha Yoga instructor and a licensed massage therapist. Cost is $49 for each six-week session. Register: csi.edu/communityed, at the Community Education Center, or 208-732-6442. Seniors wellness The Twin Falls Senior Center will hold a presentation for senior citizens at 12:15 p.m. Monday, Jan. 23, at 530 Shoshone St. W. Connie Campbell of Syringe Place will talk about eating smart and moving more. Free; 208-734-5084. Dental sealants Delta Dental of Idaho will offer free dental sealants and fluoride varnish through its Grins on the Go program. Dental clinics will begin Tuesday, Jan. 24, for students in first and second grades at I.B. Perrine Elementary School in Twin Falls and Tuesday, Jan. 31, for students in seventh and eighth grades at Wendell Middle School. Dental sealants fill the deep grooves of a childs back teeth, and fluoride varnish helps protect the smooth surfaces of teeth. The clinics are on-site at schools serving low-income families as part of Delta Dental of Idahos community outreach efforts. A parent or guardian must sign a permission form and fill out a health history for a child to receive the free treatments. Permission forms are available at the schools. The Grins on the Go clinic doesnt bill Medicaid or private insurance. There is no cost associated with the program. Information: Delta Dental community outreach, 208-489-3541. CPR, infant safety Infant safety and cardiopulmonary resuscitation class, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, in Oak Rooms 2-4 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls. New parents, grandparents and caregivers learn CPR and what to do if an infant chokes. The class isnt a certification course. Free; no registration required. 208-814-0402. Joint replacement Free community education class on joint replacement (hip, knee or shoulder surgery), 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, at BridgeView Estates, 1828 Bridgeview Blvd., Twin Falls. Meet in the lobby. Topics: Preparing for surgery, recovery time, insurance coverage, care after surgery, discharge planning and long-term rehabilitation. Tours of the BridgeView rehabilitation facility are available. Pre-registration is required, Amy at 208-280-0047 or Sarah at 208-280-0045. Meditation Mindfulness and Meditation classes will be offered by the CSI Community Education Center, 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25 through March 15, in CSIs Taylor Building, room 276. Learn how to incorporate mindfulness meditation into a wellness routine, and also strengthen your mind, increase the ability to focus, and manage emotions, says a statement. Instructor Robin Lopez, a licensed clinical social worker, has a private practice and works as a mental health therapist. Bring a yoga mat and wear comfortable clothing. Cost is $89. Register: csi.edu/communityed, 208-732-6442, or at the Community Education Center. Healing The Perfect Path to Healing: Mind, Body, Soul, and Spirit course will be offered by the CSI Community Education Center, Jan. 26 through March 2, in CSIs Taylor Building, room 248. Choice of sessions: 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursdays or 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Speakers will include doctors and specialists from St. Lukes, chiropractic and acupuncture specialists, and physical advisers. Learn how to take control of your healing by combining modern medicine, ancient techniques, natural medicines, your spiritual side, nutrition, exercise, and coming together with others. Instructor Kathleen McKevitt is a stage-four breast cancer survivor, minister, writer, and a 10-year natural healing professional. Cost is $49. Register: csi.edu/communityed, 208-732-6442, or at the Community Education Center. Health fair A health fair will be held from 7 to 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at Holy Trinity Episcopal Parish Hall, 909 Maple St. in Buhl. Fasting for 12 hours is recommended. A basic cholesterol/triglyceride test is $9; a comprehensive metabolic profile of the blood, $8; PSA (prostate-specific antigen), $10; and TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone test), $10. Interpath Laboratory of Twin Falls will provide technicians to draw blood and will mail analysis results within one or two weeks. Information: 208-543-4995. CPR, first aid St. Lukes Magic Valley Education Department is offering a Heartsaver Pediatric CPR, First Aid and AED class, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at the Learning Center, 840 Meadows Suite 2, Twin Falls. The course provides training for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid and using an automated external defibrillator. Cost is $60. Pre-registration is required, 208-814-9050. To do for you is a listing of health-related activities, events and education. Submit information by noon Thursday for publication in the following Mondays edition to ramona@magicvalley.com. In 1965, fewer than 2 percent of eligible African-Americans living in Selma, Ala., were registered to vote. As we all know, this was the result of laws and policies whose purpose was to keep African-Americans out of the voting booth. It took decades of blood, sweat and tears to reverse this deeply embedded discrimination. Having lost my father to that struggle when I was still a small child, I cannot begin to express what it meant to see a black man take the presidential oath of office in 2008. What a difference eight years makes. While Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, fewer than 80,000 votes divided among Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan made Donald Trump the electoral college winner. In each of these states, Clinton saw a significant decline in minority vote totals of 10 percent or more. And in each of these statesalong with swing states North Carolina and Floridathat difference in turnout may be attributed to legislative efforts to make it harder to vote. In fact, a federal appeals court described North Carolinas lawmakers as targeting minority voters with almost surgical precision. While we cant know how those affected would have voted, we can agree that every citizen should have the unfettered opportunity to vote. Indeed, my concern is not how people vote, but simply that they vote. No one could have done more to call attention to the importance of maximum participation in the election than President Barack Obama. The president told an African-American audience that if you care about our legacy, realize everything we stand for is at stake. . . . I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. In his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama said: When any American, no matter where they live or what their party, are denied that right [to vote] because they cant afford to wait for fiveor six or seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. And he doubled down in his most recent State of the Union: Weve got to make it easier to vote, not harder. We need to modernize it for the way we live now. This is America: We want to make it easier for people to participate. Fortunately, President-elect Trump agrees. Throughout the campaign, he consistently reminded the electorate that the system is broken. Even more fortunately, it is indisputable that nonpartisan, common-sense solutions are available. In 2014, as the nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library, former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton endorsed my friend Andrew Youngs proposal that all citizens be able to obtain a photo ID card that would meet the voting requirements in every state. Following the event, Fox News host Bill OReilly voiced his support for the plan, saying they were doing the country a service and declaring, Lets get the pictures on the Social Security card, stop the nonsense and be a responsible country. As Young has said, The challenge with voter ID laws isnt the requirement to show ID, its that so many people lack ID. That is the problem that needs to be fixedand not just for voting. In todays world, you cant open a bank account without a photo IDand the only people happy about that are check cashers. All Trump has to do is direct the Social Security Administration to add a photo to the Social Security card of any citizen who needs it. Carter said if he were president he would sign that executive order in a New York minute. The likely cost of this moveabout $18 millionwould be virtually insignificant given the benefit of ensuring that every citizen has the opportunity to exercise his or her right to vote. Heres another simple act the new president can take. He can direct the State Department to waive the $55 passport card fee for low-income Americans. Passport cards with photos are readily available at more than 9,000 post offices, even if a person doesnt have any other form of photo ID. Either approach is within the presidents authority and would impose minimal costs to secure the most fundamental right for all Americansa right that most people consider priceless. Many people are concerned that our new president could undo much of what the outgoing president has achieved. But in the area of voting rights, I am the opposite of concerned; I am hopeful in recognition that there is an opportunity to build a better system. And because Trump surely knows that if you build a hotel, you have to fill the rooms, I hope he also agrees that when you build a democracy, as my father, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Sen. Everett Dirksen, R-Ill., did a generation ago, you have to fill the voting booths. Because at the end of the day, the right to vote is not a Republican right or a Democratic rightit is an American right. If Trump enables more Americans to exercise that right in future elections, he will be able to say that in no small measure he really did make America great again. Letter: Judge announces retirement Moments like this bring mixed emotions. While I am happily looking forward to retirement, there are many things I will miss greatly. Among them are the camaraderie and support of fellow judges, the incredible staff at the Blaine County Courthouse, and a very comfortable working relationship with members of the bar, and in particular, the members of the Blaine County bar. I hope that those things will continue to some degree in the future, though they will never be the same. On the other hand, I anticipate that I can overcome my expectant grief with the help of good friends and family and perhaps some hand tools a fly rod, ski poles, a paddle or oars and a shotgun. It has been a challenge and an honor and a great pleasure to be called judge, to endeavor to resolve human conflicts, to listen to bright and honorable people practice the art of persuasion, and to search for the right answer by sifting intellect and reason and public policy and hundreds of years of law. Ours is a good system. We are very lucky to have it. I have yet to speak with a juror that did not tell me that juror service was a good experience, and gave them faith in the system. I have also failed to meet anyone involved in the Idaho judicial system that is not hard-working, ethical, and dedicated to the pursuit of justice. While disagreements provide the very essence of trial work, I have found that in Idaho, and particularly in Blaine County, they are handled professionally and courteously. I am grateful and humbled to have been a part of the judicial system for so long and to have had such a wonderful opportunity to serve the citizens of Idaho. Iran offered to export its apples to the Philippines, the Agriculture Department said Monday. Iran Ambassador to the Philippines Mohammad Tanhaei recently met with Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol to discuss the request of the Iran government. Pinol said as a part of standard procedures, the Agriculture Department was finalizing the pest risk analysis of apple fruit samples from Iran. Im still waiting for the results, and if everything turns out okay, rest assured that [the document on] importation of apples is ready for signing, Pinol said. Pinol said he was hoping for possible ventures, noting Irans huge market for tropical fruits, particularly banana and pineapple. He asked the Tehran government to reduce the 24-percent tariff on Philippines bananas. ADVERTISEMENT He said the agency was willing to assist Iranian companies interested in business ventures. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Over 150 alumni of Citi Philippines came together recently to rekindle ties with colleagues and friends at the Rigodon Ballroom of Manila Peninsula. Citi Philippines CEO Aftab Ahmed led the country management team in welcoming guests, as well as the keynote speaker, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr. In his opening speech, Ahmed recognized the contributions of the men and women in the room, many of them now hold senior positions in financial services companies, as well as in other fields such as telecommunications, healthcare, and real estate among others. Ahmed said We view our annual alumni dinner as an important tradition as it allows us to continue to stay close to the ongoing achievements of those who were our colleagues in the past and are our friends today. In the Philippines, Citi is popularly referred to as the UniverCiti of Banking, having produced some of the best and brightest in the banking industry. It was at Citi where many key government officials and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of top corporations started their careers. ADVERTISEMENT Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr. and Citi Philippines CEO Aftab Ahmed flank Danny Ignacio and Hermie Pugeda (second and third from left), 2016s outstanding Citi alumni awardees for Network Development In his keynote remarks, Governor Tetangco graciously acknowledged that Citi has produced many top-notched bankers who have moved on to leadership positions in other banks and various industries, including his predecessor, the late Rafael Buenaventura who spent time at Citi early on in his career. Governor Tetangco joined Ahmed in awarding this years outstanding alumni, namely: Hermie Pugeda and Danny Ignacio for Network Development; Max Edralin Jr. for Community Development; and Teddy Montecillo for Leadership and Ingenuity. The Citi Distinguished Alumni award is given to former employees who have exhibited leadership skills, remarkable ingenuity, and outstanding community involvement. Since this global recognition program was introduced, the Philippines always had an awardee, but 2016 is a milestone year with four alumni receiving awards. Ignacio and Pugeda were recognized for being the founders of ROXIN or Reaching Out to X-Citibankers In Need. Together, the two organized events that raised close to P2 million in readily available relief funds, to aid their former colleagues who are in need of financial aid. To date, they have helped 28 alumni. Edralin was awarded for his community contributions throughout his career including during his stint as president of Operation Smile where many children with cleft palates received surgery at no cost. Montecillo is a well accomplished professional in the banking industry and served 31 years at Citi both in Manila and in New York. His multiple leadership appointments by Philippine Presidents and various directorship roles in government financial agencies make him a long-standing role model in the field of public service. Other distinguished alumni who graced the affair include former DTI Secretary and Monetary Board Member Peter Favila; Philippine Stock Exchange President Hans Sicat; Union Bank Chairman and CEO Tito Ortiz; MasterCard Country Head Poch Villa-Real and SM Investments Corp. Senior Vice President Marcelo C. Fernando Jr.. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said. The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. ADVERTISEMENT Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. Prisoners armed At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Drug gang war Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33. It was thought to be a backlash by the PCC's rivals for its violent expansion. The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade. Prisons there and throughout Brazil are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates. Overcrowding Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say. Brazil's inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade. The country's jails hold 622,000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed. Brazil has the world's fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report. Temer is under pressure over the issue. After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons. But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer. Brazil needs "medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression," sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo told AFP after the previous prison massacres. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. FORMER National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said Monday the Asean chairmanship will put President Rodrigo Duterte under the global microscope because of the rivalry among China, Russia and the United States. Golez said he had called on Duterte to handle the Asean chairmanship properly because of the dispute over the South China Sea dispute. This Asean summit will attract global attention and will put our President under a global microscope, Golez told the Tapatan sa Aristocrat forum. File photo It will be a boon to our country, it will generate additional investments and respect. The Philippines is this years chairman for the Asean Summit in November, which will be attended by leaders from the US, Russia, China, Australia, Japan and India. ADVERTISEMENT He said this years summit will have several geopolitical events in which different countries will discuss their interests. Russia is attending, India is there with its own agenda, Indonesia, and Australia is there, Golez said. And Australia just had a meeting with Japan about strengthening security relations. India is supplying Vietnam weapons and training. This is going to be a big show. Golez said Duterte was being followed by the international media. Every day he comes out in in the international news, he said. He said President-elect Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will also attend the summit. Tillerson last week said China should be barred from entering the disputed South China Sea. But the Philippines, the US long-time ally, efused to support Tillersons statement. . This must be handled very well by the President and his team because all eyes will be on him on how to deal with the dynamics of the Asean, Golez said. He said everybody would be pushing for their own agenda in the forum. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. THE Court of Appeals junked moves by the Marcos family to stop a Makati court from hearing the complaint filed by martial law victims seeking to enforce the final judgment of a US court awarding them $2 billion in damages. The CAs Special 13th Division through Associate Justice Ma. Luisa Quijano-Padilla denied the motion filed by the Marcoses seeking an extension to file a petition for certiorari to question the May 20, 2016 and Aug. 3, 2016 orders of Makati RTC Branch 134 Presiding Judge Elpidio Calis denying their motion to dismiss the complaint. In its resolution, the appellate court rejected the Marcos familys argument that they needed more time to file an appeal because of other urgent professional work, including the preparation for the petitions filed before the Supreme Court questioning the burial of the strongman Ferdinand Marcos. In ruling against the Marcoses, the appellate court noted that the Supreme Court en banc has amended the Rules of Court to delete the clause that allowed for an extension to file a petition for certiorari for compelling reasons. As it stands now, parties are only given an non-extendible 60-day period from notice of judgment or from notice of denial of their motion for reconsideration within which to file a petition for certiorari, the CA ruled. ADVERTISEMENT While the amendment did not prohibit the filing of a motion, the CA said it saw no reason to relax the rules in this case. The appellate court pointed out that the heavy workload of the petitioners counsel is often self-serving and as such, is hardly a compelling meritorious reason to deviate from the 60-day rule. Associate Justices Samuel Gaerlan and Jhosep Lopez concurred with the ruling. The case arose from the complaint filed by Priscilla Mijares, Loretta Ann Rosales, Hilda Narciso Sr., Mariani Dimaranan and Joel Lamangan in their behalf and on behalf of the class plaintiffs in US case, Class Action No. MDL 840. The US court on Feb. 3, 1995 rendered a final judgment awarding a total of $1.964 billion in damages to human rights victims during the Marcos administration, a decision that was affirmed by the US Court of Appeals on Dec. 17, 1996. However, under Rule 38 Section 48 of the Rules of Court, such a foreign judgment must be recognized and enforced in the Philippines through a case filed with Philippine courts. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. THE labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines on Monday urged the Labor department to go after private employers who do not remit their employees contributions to the Social Security Service. It called on President Rodrigo Duterte to revisit the 1.5-percent increase in contribution of SSS members so as not to add weight to their burden. The TUCP said the SSS must go aggressively after employer non-remittances, adding Non-remitting employers must be charged correspondinglythere must be swift action. Workers money that should have been invested to build up fund life is being used by employers and they are profiting from it. If properly remitted, the SSS fund life would have been enhanced, TUCP president Raymond Mendoza said. The labor group also said SSS could have and can still institute internal reforms to meet the pension increase so that the 1.5-percent contribution increase could be set aside. ADVERTISEMENT We thank the President that SSS pensioners will get some monthly income augmentation for their daily expenses like food and medicines. We feel that SSS management may not have laid out to the President the full range of reforms that could be done so as not to burden our workers anymore with additional contributions, Mendoza said. SSS must improve its collection efficiency and stop corruption in the system. What happened to those companies which deducted monthly contributions from their employees but did not remit them to the SSS? TUCP general secretary Arnel Dolendo also said. TUCP also called on the SSS to first trim down its bureaucracy and staff and rationalize the remunerations and benefits for SSS commissioners and top executives who receive fat salaries, bonuses and other perks. TUCP pointed out that a 1.5-percent increase in contributions would penalize the workers for asking an increase in pension for their old age for purchase of food and medicines basically, while those being appointed and those paid to run the system are living the high life. Let us put our retirees and workers first, it said. The P1,000 is a paltry sum and to require more contributions in the face of the horrendous 38-percent SSS collection efficiency rate is not the solution said Dolendo. Meanwhile, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III supported President Rodrigo Dutertes grant of SSS across-the-board pension increase, saying the additional amount was a much-deserved incentive for the two million pensioners most fruitful years in service. The labor chief said workers additional contribution to the SSS, which will fund the pension increase, should be considered as their long-term savings, and not an expense. A 1.5-percent increase in contribution will be implemented in May this year or 12.5 percent from the current 11 percent. In peso value, the additional total contribution will range from P15-P740, equally shared by employer and employee. We must bear in mind that an actively paying SSS member can avail [himself] of social benefits and loan privileges, Bello said. SSS is putting in place measures to ensure fund sustainability, including legal actions to reduce contribution delinquency, and executive intervention needed to improve collection. Bello gave assurances the DOLE would observe stricter implementation of the Labor Laws Compliance System, specifically on monitoring the establishments compliance with mandated social benefits, specifically SSS, PhilHealtn and Pag-Ibig payments and remittances. This is one way of safeguarding and protecting the rights of our workers. It is also the employers legal and moral responsibility to their employers, he said. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. WASHINGTONDonald Trump enters the White House embroiled in scandal, in a pitched battle with the intelligence services and news media, and facing a world on fire. Among the many challenges the president-elect will face after his inauguration on Friday, the most urgent may be to steady the ship. Even before being sworn in, he is facing a Congressional investigation into possible collusion between Russia and his election campaign. Fearing an asterisk is being painted next to his historic victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump has gone on the offensive. The incoming Republican leader has lashed out at sleazebag political operatives, the intelligence services whom he compared to Nazis and the media, reprising campaign tactics that played well with his base. ADVERTISEMENT But add to that serious allegations of nepotism, legal problems over his business interests, the ill-preparedness of some of his cabinet nominees and a fracas over health care reform that has left Republicans in disarray, and the picture gets even bleaker. The image of Teflon Don who as a candidate rode out scandal like no one else in modern political history is taking on water. Quite aside from the cost in time and energy of fighting on multiple fronts, the crises appear to be eroding his credibility, the base currency of any presidency. His approval rating stands at 44 percent, according to a Gallup poll the lowest level of support for any incoming president since the organization began doing the surveys in the Clinton era. In the corresponding period before his presidency, Barack Obama enjoyed an 83 percent rating. That unpopularity will make it much easier for allies to bolt. Republican lawmakers up for re-election or in moderate states and districts are unlikely to go to bat for a deeply unpopular president. Senator Marco Rubio a former Trump rival for the Republican presidential nomination is already openly raising the prospect he could oppose Trumps pick for secretary of state, oil executive Rex Tillerson. Republican governors are also balking at plans to repeal Obamacare, and all the time Trumps victory is being called into question. A massive Womens March on Washington is planned for Saturday, the day after his inauguration. With this kind of sentiment swirling, Trump may be the first president to enter the White House with a bunker mentality. Peppering the first 100 days of his administration with populist legislation and executive actions would help stem the bleeding as would avoiding unnecessary fights. To help him run the country, Trump has turned to a disparate group of family members, generals, billionaires and establishment Republicans few of whom have any White House experience. The CEO-turned-commander-in-chief sees his freewheeling style as an asset. It will have a massive impact on how his decisions are framed. A variety of opinions inside the White House can be constructive, or fuel turf wars and jockeying for influence that can split the house asunder. Will Trumps daughter Ivanka or her husband Jared Kushner be the last person in the room? Will it be conservatives like Vice President Mike Pence or hard-right ideologues like chief strategist Steve Bannon? Trump, like Obama, will take office at a time when rival regional powers are gaining more clout and are not afraid to use it. Preserving US primacy will be a full-time job. In Russia, Vladimir Putin may be the strongest leader since Leonid Brezhnev, as he aggressively tries to renegotiate the terms of the end of the Cold War. Putins effort to re-establish Moscows influence in Syria already hobbled the Obama administration. A similar Russian drive in Afghanistan, Libya or eastern Europe could pose serious problems for Trumps bid to smooth relations. Meanwhile, the president-elect has taken a more bellicose stance toward China, at just the time Beijing is feeling more assertive. Whereas Mao Zedong transformed Chinese society, and Deng Xiaoping made the country an economic power, current leader Xi Jinping wants to make China a diplomatic and military force. Trump and Xis rival ambitions dramatically raise the possibility that various disputes from Taiwan to currency rates to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea could become flashpoints. Few have been more perturbed by Trumps election than Americas traditional allies. Trump has questioned the value of both NATO calling it obsolete in an interview with the German tabloid Bild and The Times of London published Sunday and Washingtons treaty obligations to help secure allies in Asia, which underpin the global order. Trump has long believed the United States is being taken advantage of by its allies, said Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution. He would prefer that the United States not have to defend other nations, but, if it does, he wants to get paid as much as possible for it. So far, most including Britain and Japan have adopted a strategy of engagement, getting close to Trump in order to win his ear. Every president will endure surprise national security crises, but perhaps the biggest foreign crisis facing Trump is well known North Korea. The country has been working feverishly to fuse two lethal technologies, a ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States and a miniaturized nuclear device to be its apocalyptic payload. Trump has already painted that as a red line. North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It wont happen! he tweeted. Making sure of that will be far more difficult. Sanctions against North Korea have had limited impact and Trumps hostility to China would seem to forestall any help from Beijing in squeezing Pyongyang. He could turn to more dramatic responses, from disabling North Korean weapons systems by cyberattack, air strikes or invasion. Trump will hear siren calls to launch a preventive war, said Leon Sigal of the Social Science Research Council. But that would mean trusting US intelligence. For a president who, as a candidate, repeatedly criticized US military intervention abroad and was skeptical of alliances, Sigal said, that option might be particularly unpalatable. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Bad news is supposed to sell. But when speculative news trumps hard (but good) news, you have to wonder if some news organizations have not taken it upon themselves to see only the unflattering and to cast aside the uplifting in a strange attempt to peddle their wares. The bad news in question is a speech delivered by President Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City last Saturday, during which he said that if he wanted to, nothing could stop him from declaring Martial Law. His own personal preference aside, Duterte also qualified that he may reimpose military rule if the illegal drug menace gets virulent. Media should by now understand that Duterte was once again engaged in one of his usual anti-drug rantings. And also (and again), his threat to impose Martial Law was surrounded by so many qualifiers and conditions that no one in his right mind could reasonably conclude that he is well on his way to bringing back military rule. To read into Dutertes statement a declaration that Martial Law is in fact impending or inexorablesomething that again leads to the non-news territory of speculationis preposterous. But I will admit that if some other president not as passionate and insistent about ending the illegal drug trade had given that speech, it would be nothing short of earth-shaking. But were talking about Duterte here. And its not even the first time that he has gone off on a threatening rant to pursue his campaign against a situation that he really gets worked up over. ADVERTISEMENT And lets not even get into the fact that the imposition of Martial Law has always been an option for any Philippine president, as prescribed in the various constitutions that we have had and as it is enshrined in most constitutions governing democratic countries. If Martial Law were bad per se, the framers of our basic laws, going all the way back to the 1935 Charter, would not have written provisions allowing it. Even in the United States at present, Martial Law is being discussed as an option of the government in order to protect itself under the incoming administration of one Donald J. Trump. And the US government merely requires a clear and present danger to allow the unsheathing of this draconian option; current Philippine law requires the president to seek approval of Congress and to defend any such declaration before the Supreme Court. Martial Law is just not happening. And even if it were, I wouldnt bet on the people not supporting Duterte, if he does decide to declare it. * * * On the real news front, theres the Malacanang report during the same weekend just past quoting Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, to the effect that in a little over six months, the Duterte administration has secured P900 billion in grants and concessional loans from just two countries. There is just so much going for this story that it really pains me to see what little play it received, compared to the unreal Martial Law reports. The background, of course, is the deferment by the US-funded Millennium Challenge Corp. of its new aid package to the Philippines, supposedly because of concerns about human rights violations committed by the Duterte administration. For the five-year period of 2010-2015, MCC gave out around P21 billion to fund three major projects of the Aquino administration. The sky was supposed to have fallen then, especially after Duterte again went on the warpath against the US, saying that the Philippines didnt need any conditional American aid because other countries were offering the same (and a lot more) without telling us how to run our country. And besides, Duterte saidto much tongue-clacking and head-shaking from his criticsthat the Philippines can survive without anybodys handouts, thank you very much. Now, it turns out that from just China and Japan alone and in just six months, Dutertes government has already secured almost a trillion pesos in grants and aid collectively known as Official Development Assistance for the next five years. Thats a record, Dominguez said, for any Philippine government for any five-year period, not to mention a record for the first half-year of any government in the past. The China-Japan ODA packages are the same as the US Millennial Challenge grants, in that they are targeted to fund specific projects and will in all likelihood be implemented using studies, technology and even private contractors provided by the granting countries. The only difference being, as Duterte already pointed out, that both China and Japan are letting the Philippines deal with the illegal drug problem and other initiatives of the new government the way it wants to deal with them. But despite Dutertes hunch about foreign aid being proven corrector perhaps because of itthe Dominguez story was relegated to the inside pages of newspapers and given short shrift in the rudimentary and superficial business reports of broadcast news. And there are some in media who still profess that they cannot understand Dutertes animosity towards the Fourth Estate. Fair is fair. Except, of course, when youve decidedregardless of all evidence to the contraryto be relentlessly unfair. And if media doesnt get the message and get it pretty soon, bad news wont even sell anymore. It will just be bad news, repeated endlessly in the tiny, out-of-step echo chambers of unreasonable critics. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. We have particular reservations about an international conference intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them indeed which is taking place against the wishes of the Israelis and which is taking place just days before the transition to a new American President when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement. There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace. Thats why we have attended in an observer status and have not signed up to the communique. - UK's Statement Paris Peace Conference Spectacular Failure With No Visible Results For thus saith Hashem of hosts who sent me after glory unto the nations which spoiled you: Surely he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. Zechariah 2:12 (The Israel Bible) Pro-Israel demonstrators hold Israeli and French flags during a gathering in front of Israel embassy in Paris on Jan. 15, 2017. (Francois Mori / Associated Press) In what should have been an all-out Israel hate-fest with possibly disastrous consequences for the Jewish state, 70 nations gathered in Paris for a peace conference on Sunday but at the end of the day, the results were lackluster and failed to accomplish anything significant against Israel. The conference in Paris, set forward one year ago by former French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, was expected to have dire repercussions for Israel. Fabius envisioned it as a way of forcing Israel to accept the two-state solution. His original proposal called for France and the other nations at the conference to recognize a Palestinian state inside Israels borders if an agreement was not signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The present incarnation of the conference was markedly toned down by the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault. At a conference in Paris last June setting the parameters for Sundays conference, the threat of recognizing a Palestinian state was removed. Many feared Sundays conference would be an echo of the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, passed three weeks ago, declaring Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria, and the Temple Mount to be illegal. But the conference in Paris stopped short of placing the blame entirely on Israel, concluding instead with a plea for direct negotiations. Though the final declaration made reference to the UN resolution 2334, it amended the language of the resolution which declared Israeli settlements to be illegal. The Paris conference merely referred to the UN resolution which clearly condemned settlement activity. No mention was made of their legal status. Yuval Rotem, Director General of Israels Foreign Ministry, considered the conference to be a victory for behind-the-scenes Israeli diplomacy. The fact that the Paris conference has no follow-up is, from our perspective the most meaningful accomplishment, Rotem told Israel Radio Monday morning. Even though we did not attend the conference, we succeeded in getting across our position. Perhaps the most significant reason for Israel to breathe a sigh of relief was the specific point concerning Jerusalem. The UN resolution referred to East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory with Israels claim to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall having no legal validity. The Paris conference dialled that back considerably, warning against any acts that would prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final status issues, including, inter alia, on Jerusalem. This ambiguous statement was also intended as a subtle warning to US President elect Donald Trump, who promised American voters and the Israeli government that he would move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. The Paris Peace Summit, January 15, 2016, did not have the effect organizers had hoped. Britain's change of heart The Paris conference also saw at least one major player having a change of heart. Britain, which played a major role in advancing the UN resolution, attended the Paris conference as an observer, choosing not to sign the final statement. The British government released an official statement to the press, which read: We have particular reservations about an international conference intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them indeed which is taking place against the wishes of the Israelis and which is taking place just days before the transition to a new American President when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement. There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace. Thats why we have attended in an observer status and have not signed up to the communique. Indeed, Trumps impending inauguration loomed over the conference, dulling the anti-Israel edge. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at his cabinet meeting on Sunday, This conference is among the last twitches of yesterdays world. Tomorrows world will be different and it is very near. With four days left to Obamas presidency, Secretary of State John Kerry, who attended the Paris conference, promised Netanyahu that there would not be any follow-up action to the Paris conference and that Washington would oppose any further political action at the Security Council. Perhaps the most telling sign that the conference was not as anti-Israel as intended was PA President Mahmoud Abbas last-minute decision to cancel his meeting with French President Francois Hollande, scheduled for Sunday. French Authorities announced on Monday that no new date for the meeting has been scheduled. Source: Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz / BreakingIsraelNews Opposition Syrian rebel groups that met in Ankara, Turkey, over the weekend have decided to attend the peace talks slated to take place on January 23 in Kazakhstan. The talks spearheaded by Russia, Turkey and Iran are expected to pave the way towards ending the Syrian war but an official of the Free Syrian Army, under the condition of anonymity, said the factions will go and the first thing they will discuss will be the matter of the ceasefire and the violations by the regime. Last week, President Assad stated that there will be no limit to negotiations in Astana and the real Syrian opposition will discuss everything related to Syria. He added that the constitution which is very clear about the mechanism of the country would be used as basis to reach an agreement. Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group said the majority of the groups at the meeting in Turkey agreed to attend the talks in Kazakhstan while adding that matters related to aid deliveries and release of detainees would also be on the agenda. The delegation that will represent the coalition body of the Free Syrian Army is yet to be formed. Malahifji hinted that the delegates would be chosen in coordination with the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) based in Riyadh but it would differ from it because the Russians are focusing very much on the military factions. The HNC has a political and a military wing but it is unclear if it is invited to the talks. It is hoping that the talks will establish a phase of confidence through the implementation of Resolution 2254 of the UN Security Council and also pave the way for political talks in Geneva next month. HNC stresses its support to the military delegation and expresses hope that the meeting would reinforce the truce. The target of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce the total output by 1.2 million barrels per day is expected to be missed as a source within the oil cartel revealed that compliance (regarding the agreement to cut output) wont be 100%, it never is. Oil producing countries are hoping that reducing their daily output will help to increase prices. Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo of the oil cartel said he is confident that this historic and landmark decision will be implemented fully. The source stated that compliance with the agreement would be acceptable if is around 50% and good when it reaches 80%. Kuwaits oil minister fixed it at more than 60% based on the statements that have been provided by oil producing countries. Libya and Nigeria are exempted from the agreement while Iran is adamant that it has to reach its pre-sanctions level before it can consider output cuts. The low oil prices have affected most of the oil producing countries because their economies are heavily dependent on the sector. The situation, which has been ongoing for more than two years, has forced some of the countries to adopt austerity measures and embark on economic reforms as their foreign reserves dwindle. Top exporter Saudi Arabia and Kuwait said they had cut production by more than their commitment. Compliance with the commitment is voluntary because OPEC doesnt have the means to enforce the reduction of output. Kuwait said it is trying to lead by example as the head of the compliance monitor committee, its oil minister Dr. Ali Al-Omair, stated. There is a concern about Venezuela and Iraq not being committed to the cuts, said an industry source involved in the global cut talks, adding that Russia appeared to be complying with the deal. Oil prices have rose to around $56 a barrel as it continues to recover after hitting prices as low as $20. The appeal verdict of the High Administrative Court ruled on Monday that the two islands of Tiran and Sanafir are part of Egypt. Malek Adly, one of the lawyers that took the matter to court, hailed the ruling as a victory for Egypt although it could affect relations between Cairo and Riyadh. In April 2016, Egypt signed a deal transferring the two islands to Saudi Arabia but the accord was opposed by Egyptians who staged mass protest demonstrations. Cairo claimed that it was only a guardian of the two islands, which are part of the oil rich kingdoms territory. In the Courts ruling, the State was scolded for failing to provide evidence to back its claim much to the cheers of those in the court room and the jubilant crowd outside. President Sisi was accused of selling the islands to Saudi Arabia in exchange for the multi-billion aids and grants that his government has been receiving. The ruling is expected to strain further the ties between Cairo and Riyadh as tension over the issue increased following the rejection of the deal by a lower court in September. Lawyers Malek Adly and Khaked Ali have always argued that Egypts sovereignty over the islands dated back to a treaty in 1906, before Saudi Arabia was founded while the Sisi administration maintained that Egypt stationed its troops there at the Saudis request to help protect the islands in 1950. The uninhabited islands of Tiran and Sanafir are strategically located at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Only Egyptian troops and members of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), an international peacekeeping force overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, are on the islands. Morocco has been described as a major economic force in Sub-Saharan Africa in light of its large scale investments and growing political influence, writes Africa Renewal, a UN magazine, in its latest release. Slowly and steadily, Morocco has been establishing itself as a major economic force in sub-Saharan Africa, even as it eyes gaining readmission into the African Union (AU), which it left decades ago, says the magazine in an article dubbed, Morocco flexes muscles as it seeks AU reinstatement. The magazine highlights the growing investments led by Morocco in Africa in key sectors such as banking, telecommunications and insurance. Over the 10-year period starting in 2004, Moroccos trade with the rest of the continent grew by an annual average of 13% ($3.7 billion) in 2014, 42% of which was with sub-Saharan Africa, said the author of the article, Franck Kwuno. The article notes that Moroccos trade with Africa came to represent 6.4% of its overall trade during the same period. The author also sheds light on Moroccos growing direct investments in the continent, recalling that in 2015, the Kingdom invested $600 million, with Mali attracting most of these Moroccan FDIs, followed by Cote dIvoire, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Gabon. Over the decade ending in 2016, Moroccos investment in sub-Saharan Africa represented 85% of its overall foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks, underscores the UN magazine, recalling that a 2015 survey report by Ernst & Young, a global financial consultancy firm, had affirmed that Moroccans became a more prominent investor on the continent, initiating 13 intra-African investmentsits highest in over a decade. Most of the Moroccan investments in Africa were in the sectors of banking and telecommunications sectors, which accounted for 88% of its FDIs in 2013, says the magazine, which also mentions insurance as another sector attracting Moroccan companies, such as the Saham Insurance Group. The magazine also underscores the servicing of new roads towards sub-Saharan Africa by Moroccos flagship carrier, RAM, from 14 flights in 2007 to 32 in 2016. In this vein, the magazine recalled that as a sign of Moroccos political and humanitarian solidarity with Africa, RAM maintained its regular schedule to West Africa at the height of the Ebola epidemic two years ago, when all international air carriers, with the exception of Belgium-based SN Brussels, suspended flights to the affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone over contagion fears. The decision was based on humanitarian grounds, not commercialout of brotherly solidarity, the carrier had said at that time. In tandem with its investments and economic clout, Morocco has launched a diplomatic offensive, spearheaded by King Mohammed VI himself who toured several African countries. Such visits resulted in inking joint ventures, the most important of which was the agreement signed last December to launch a gas pipeline between Nigeria and Morocco through western Africa, and the one providing for building a fertilizers factory in Ethiopia. The Royal visits also gathered support for Moroccos return to the African Union. Last July, King Mohammed VI of Morocco informed African leaders attending the AU summit in Kigali, Rwanda, of his countrys wish to return to the fold, saying, Morocco should not remain outside its African institutional family, and it should regain its natural, rightful place within the AU, recalls the author of the article adding that two months later the kingdom formally submitted a request to re-join the continental body, thus starting a process that may lead to its readmission at the next AU summit scheduled in Addis Ababa by the end of current January. Morocco left the former Organization of African Unity (AUs predecessor) in 1984, to protest the seating of the pseudo-Sahrawi Republic (SADR), self-proclaimed by the Polisario Front, which claims the independence of the Sahara. Some 40 African countries have voiced support to Morocco in its application to rejoin the AU, representing more than the half of the votes (27) required for admission. Immediately after Morocco expressed its wish to return to the AU last July, a group of 28 pro-admission countries penned a letter to the AU requesting the suspension of SADRs membership until issues surrounding the legality of its existence are resolved by the United Nations Security Council, the magazine states. Error 404 Not Found You may have mis-typed the URL. Or the page has been removed. Actually, there is nothing to see here... Click on the links below to do something, Thanks! Take Me our of here @amysherman1 Broward Sheriff Scott Israel and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, will meet with law enforcement and aviation officials Tuesday afternoon to discuss airport security following the mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. The meeting at the Broward Sheriff's Office in Fort Lauderdale is not open to the public or press however officials will speak to the media after the meeting. Other participants in the security roundtable include Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief, airport director Mark Gale, airport security director Frank Capello and officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and federal agencies including the Transportation Security Administration. Broward County officials have made no long-term decisions about airport security changes. The county pays the Broward Sheriff's Office about $17 million a year to provide security at the airport. The money comes from fees paid by airlines and vendors and pays the cost for about 116 full-time employees. Israel and U.S. Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio have sought federal money to help cover the cost of responding to the shooting. BSO is in the process of compiling an estimate for what it spent related to the Jan. 6 shooting which shutdown the airport for several hours. Suspected gunman Esteban Santiago, who faces charges in the fatal shooting of five people and injuring six, will appear in court Tuesday morning. @amysherman1 Broward County's former Democratic chairman, Mitch Ceasar, is running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. In 2016, Ceasar ended his 20-year reign as chair of Broward, Florida's county with the highest number of registered Democrats. A lawyer from Plantation, Ceasar lost a Democratic primary for Broward Clerk of Courts in August. "We are living in a political climate where the new normal is abnormal," Ceasar said about his quest for one of five vice chair positions. "I want to be part of the solution -- I will have time to devote to rebuilding the party. This is not going to be some glory job -- no more White House Christmas parties, no more perks. It is going to be a very tough four years to rebuild." Ceasar said that he wants the party to focus on lower ballot races including state legislators who redraw state and Congressional district boundaries and he wants to use Florida Fair Districts amendment as a model. The New York Times reported that at a forum for the national officer candidates in Phoenix Saturday, Democrats disagreed about how to respond to Donald Trump: We can complain all day about every stupid tweet, but the bottom line is thats not going to change anything, Ceasar said. We have to have precision and be narrow in our scope. Ceasar is running for a male vice chair slot against three other men -- the number of males elected depends upon the gender ratio of those who win other positions. Ceasar is competing against New York state assemblyman Michael Blake, Adam Parkhomenko, co-founder of Ready for Hillary and served on Donna Brazile's DNC transition team and Rick Palacio, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party. The DNC's approximately 447 members will elect their new leadersduring meetings Feb. 23-26 in Atlanta. Ceasar said he has made no commitment to back any of the chair candidates including State Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota or Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Ceasar has served on the DNC's executive board for about 10 years but that ended Saturday when the Florida Democratic Party held its election for officers including representatives to the DNC. Ceasar was nominated for a DNC position, but did not win and couldn't attend since he was at the national forum in Phoenix. Ceasar said it isn't a requirement to be on the executive board to run for the vice chair position. The DNC members elected from Florida Saturday are Cynthia Busch, Terrie Rizzo, Nikki Barnes, Grace Carrington, Alma Gonzalez, Alan Clendenin, John Ramos, Ken Evans, Dwight Bullard and John Parker -- Photo by the Sun Sentinel Michael-in-Norfolk disclaims any and all responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, completeness, legality, reliability, operability, or availability of information or material displayed on this site and does not claim credit for any images or articles featured on this site, unless otherwise noted. All visual content is copyrighted to it's respectful owners. Information on this site may contain errors or inaccuracies, and Michael-in-Norfolk does not make warranty as to the correctness or reliability of the site's content. If you own rights to any of the images or articles, and do not wish them to appear on this site, please contact Michael-in-Norfolk via e-mail and they will be promptly removed. Michael-in-Norfolk contains links to other Internet sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience and are not endorsements of any products or services in such sites, and no information or content in such site has been endorsed or approved by this blog. MyStudentInNeed.org is a website that provides a private way for teachers and staff members of Missoula County Public Schools to ask for help for a student in need, and a way for the community to give back. If you would like to help, visit mystudentinneed.org/Missoula-MT. The number next to the school represents the current needs at that school. The needs can change every day. Click the school, find a need request and click the "Fulfill This Need" button. Complete the donor form and press the "Submit" button, or call 406-750-2542. A member of our team will contact you. The American Red Cross has a severe winter blood shortage and is issuing an emergency call for blood donors to make a donation appointment now and help save patient lives. Hectic holiday schedules, illness and severe weather that canceled more than 100 drives across the country contributed to 37,000 fewer donations than what was expected. Blood and platelet donations are critically needed in the coming days so that patients can continue to receive the lifesaving treatments they count on, said Sarah Fritz, account manager in the Lewis and Clark Blood Services Region. Just this month alone in our region, we lost over 300 units due to severe weather conditions. We encourage donors to invite a family member or friend to donate with them to help meet patient needs. Currently, donations are being distributed to hospitals faster than they are coming in. In an effort to increase accessibility to donors, the Red Cross is increasing the number of drives around the area these next couple months. And, with the support and generosity of sponsors, the Red Cross is providing added incentives as a special thank you for your donation. Wednesday, Jan. 18: St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St. Fellowship Hall. All presenting donors will be entered to win a free Red Cross T-shirt. St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 Brooks St. Fellowship Hall. All presenting donors will be entered to win a free Red Cross T-shirt. Monday, Jan. 23: The Loose Caboose, South Reserve St., is celebrating Cup of Kindness day by providing a free beverage ($3.50 value) to all participating donors. The Loose Caboose, South Reserve St., is celebrating Cup of Kindness day by providing a free beverage ($3.50 value) to all participating donors. Tuesday, Jan. 24: Good Food Store, 1600 S. Third St. W. Each donor will receive a coupon for a free smoothie at the Good Food Store Cafe. Good Food Store, 1600 S. Third St. W. Each donor will receive a coupon for a free smoothie at the Good Food Store Cafe. Tuesday, Jan. 24: The Missoula Public Library, 301 E. Main St. All donors will be entered to win a free library book bag stuffed full of books and goodies from the Missoula Public Library. The Missoula Public Library, 301 E. Main St. All donors will be entered to win a free library book bag stuffed full of books and goodies from the Missoula Public Library. Thursday, Jan. 26: U.S. Forest Service. The Bloodmobile will be outside USFS at Fort Missoula. All presenting donors will be entered to win a free T-shirt. U.S. Forest Service. The Bloodmobile will be outside USFS at Fort Missoula. All presenting donors will be entered to win a free T-shirt. Saturday, Jan. 28: Natural Grocers, 2530 S. Third St. W. Start the year out healthy! All participating donors will be treated to healthy snacks and receive free health information. Natural Grocers, 2530 S. Third St. W. Start the year out healthy! All participating donors will be treated to healthy snacks and receive free health information. Monday, Jan. 30, and Wednesday, Feb. 1: PEAK Health and Wellness. Join the team at the PEAK at their downtown location on Monday, or their Blue Mountain facility on Wednesday, and receive a coupon for a free drink at their Juice Bar. PEAK Health and Wellness. Join the team at the PEAK at their downtown location on Monday, or their Blue Mountain facility on Wednesday, and receive a coupon for a free drink at their Juice Bar. Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1: The Bicycle Hangar on Brooks Street. Visit the Bicycle Hangar as their awesome team works to knock out the need. All participating donors will be entered to win a Be Awesome T-shirt. To schedule an appointment, visit redcrossblood.org and enter your zip code for the location near you. *** NAMI Missoula offers a variety of support groups for individuals and families dealing with persistent mental health issues: "NAMI Crafts" and "NAMI Connection" are for adults living with mental illness, "Family Support" is for relatives, friends and caregivers of such individuals, and the weekly meeting at the Providence Center is open to all. For times, locations and further information, visit namimissoula.org or e-mail namimissoula@gmail.com. *** A Bear Bums Diaper Drive is being held to benefit the Missoula Food Bank. The drive is collecting diapers for ages infant to adult. Bins are located in the Community Medical Center main entrance Thursday through Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. For more information, call Claire Baigent, RN, 520-483-5357. On small ranch parcels and near wooded nooks, hidden cameras triggered by anything that moves are capturing images of the North's mightiest winged predators this winter in the Bitterroot. No one knows for certain what researchers will learn from the thousands of images of eagles swooping down to feed on carcasses strategically placed around the valley. But through the magic of the internet, people from both near and far will have a chance to take part in helping identify the golden and bald eagles that have stopped in for a bite on private lands scattered about the valley floor. This winters camera trapping operation in the Bitterroot Valley is being led by Rob Domenech, executive director of Missoula-based Raptor View Research Institute, and MPG Ranch ecologist Kate Stone. As of last week, the project had 12 cameras recording everything that has fed on deer carcasses from Lolo to Sula since December. The photographs theyve captured so far have been remarkable. In one, a bald eagle with its wings spread wide stares down a magpie resting on a rib cage bleached white against the snow. A second photo shows a group of crows watching intently as a bald eagle swoops down on a golden eagle standing atop a carcass. The photographs captured between December and March may add a puzzle piece or two to the understanding of how eagles make use of the winter habitat offered in the Bitterroot. We already know that eagles have an incredible fidelity to the Bitterroot Valley, Stone said. Golden eagles return here year after year to winter after breeding in the far northern reaches of Canada and the wilderness of Alaska. *** Since 2011, the two research organizations have been working together to capture and either band younger birds or place tiny GPS transmitters on older eagles that provide exact locations of the birds up to 12 times a day. Some of the birds that weve fitted with transmitters here in the Bitterroot have summered in the Brooks Range in Alaska, Domenech said. And then they come back down here to winter. The transmitters have been a great way to learn about how eagles use the mixed habitat here in the Bitterroot and to find important migration corridors. The solar-powered transmitters weigh between 45 and 90 grams and are about half the size of a pack of playing cards. They are designed so the eagles can pull them off whenever they choose. One eagle that researchers have nicknamed Wanderer for its frequent forays from the Bitterroot to Glacier and the Rocky Mountain Front has been packing a transmitter since 2013. That transmitter is still going strong, Domenech said. Since the transmitters are expensive, they are reserved for adult birds. The reason we target adults is because they are the tried and true survivors, he said. We know that they can make these long migrations because they have done it before. We know from band returns that eagles can live up into their mid-30s. I think they can live longer than that. I believe there are bald and golden eagles that are 40 years plus. *** While the conservation success story of bald eagles is well known, Domenech said there is a lot of evidence that golden eagles are in decline. No one is certain why thats occurring. Many are lost to vehicle collisions that happen when an eagle feeds on carrion too near a road. Some die from electrocution from power lines or from being shot. Changes in habitat can be a problem, too. In the Bitterroot, the presence of lead in blood samples taken from captured eagles has been a troubling trend. Of the 70 eagles that researchers have captured in the valley, 89 percent have had elevated levels of lead in their blood. The wintering birds here show really high levels of lead, Domenech said. We have to assume that they are getting that here in the valley. And eagles arent the only creatures being impacted. Both Stone and Domenech believe that eagles pick up most of the lead while feeding on gut piles left behind by hunters. Stone said a lead bullet can lose up to 20 percent of its mass after striking an animal. X-ray scans show elk and deer killed by a lead bullet are full of lead fragments. That means the hunter is consuming the lead and anyone in their family who eats the meat is consuming it, too, she said. Thats a conservation message that were trying to spread. There are private landowners and block area managers who dont want lead used on their property anymore. We have long accepted lead as poisonous in so many other uses, she said. Its a conservation message that people can actually do something about. Finding a way to impact global climate change might seem daunting, but everyone who hunts can do something about lead. *** By tracking the movement of eagles in the Bitterroot, Stone said the researchers have also learned just how important private lands in the valley are to the raptors. Many of the camera sites have been set up on land protected by conservation easements. This research really provides some solid data on how important those working lands are to wildlife, she said. Its been a way to open up dialogue with the ranching and farming community that is really valuable. The hope is that others interested in citizen science will find time to log on to zooniverse.org to help the two researchers sift through the thousands of photos captured this winter. The website allows anyone in the world to help tag animals in images, Stone said. Anyone can participate. They can look at our images and help us identify the birds that show up. If they see an eagle with a tag, they can let us know about that, too. So instead of me going through 5 million images which wouldnt be possible we can get some help from others, she said. Last night, I was tagging penguins. Anyone interested in learning more about the ongoing project can attend a talk and fundraiser from 5:30-8 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Stevensville Cafe. People can learn how they can participate and see how to process images there, she said. The researchers will also be set up at the MPG Lab on Missoulas First Friday in February. The lab is located in the Lambros Center at 1001 S. Higgins. Stone has also started a crowd sourced fundraising effort for the project: crowdrise.com/bitterroot-valley-winter-eagle-project/fundraiser/katestone3. The man taken into custody following the shooting deaths of two people near Lolo on Monday has been released but is cooperating in the investi Gov. Steve Bullock is the sole statewide officeholder to survive the historic drubbing the Democrats took in the November election. Its also worth noting that had it not been for a Libertarian candidate siphoning off Republican votes, he probably would have joined the other list of Demos in the lost category. But he did win, he continues his position at the head of the executive branch of government, and has a duty to lead in that office. Unfortunately, especially for those who voted for him, Bullock seems to be back to his old tricks of obfuscation, coyness and no comment on important issues now before the legislature. Simply put, thats not leadership. It doesnt take a long memory to recall Bullocks puzzling actions when former Montana Sen. Max Baucus was appointed as ambassador to China, leaving the seat vacant and to be filled by Bullocks appointee. Rather than deal in a straightforward manner with the issue, Bullock played coy with Montanans and the press, who were justifiably concerned about who would fill the Senate seat. Instead, Bullock said he would make his choice when there was a vacancy. The follow-up to that stance was the disastrous appointment of John Walsh, only announced when Baucus was walking out the Senate door. In a kind of political karmic payback, it was later revealed by the New York Times that Senator John Walsh of Montana took most of a 2007 final paper required for his masters degree from the United States Army War College from other sources without proper attribution. Mr. Walsh copies an entire page nearly word-for-word from a Harvard paper, and each of his six conclusions is copied from a document from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace without attribution. The revelation resulted in Walshs degree being rescinded and his name ground off the bronze plaque on which all Army College graduates are inscribed. But the consequences for Democrats were worse. After the public humiliation, Walsh was forced to withdraw from the election in August, leaving Democrats with only two months to field a candidate and, ultimately, ceding the Senate seat to Republican Steve Daines in the 2014 election. Had Bullock played it straight with Montanans, theres a high degree of likelihood that Walshs plagiarism would have been revealed, he would never have been appointed to the Senate seat, and perhaps another, more ethical, candidate would have retained the seat for Democrats. Comes now House Bill 202, sponsored by Republican Kirk Wagoner of Montana City, to protect state employees who blow the whistle on their agencies. Quoting from the bills language: Every public officer or employee has a right to speak to any legislator regarding state businessincluding alleged misconduct, fraud, waste, abuse, or other matters of public concern (and) every public employee has a right to do so without fear of reprisal. On its face that language not only reinforces the First Amendment right of free speech, it also makes absolutely good sense to make government not only more effective and efficient but also more open and honest. And remember, Bullock has lauded the transparency of his administration many times during his time in office. Yet, when asked by reporters for his position on the measure, Bullock declined to comment. Instead, Montanans got this lame excuse from Bullocks spokeswoman Marissa Perry: Because bills are not in their final form until they reach the governors desk, the governor does not comment on proposed legislation while it is still working its way through the legislature. Are Montanans really supposed to believe that the head of the executive branch is providing the leadership he lauds so regularly by having no comment on measures pending before the legislature? Are we then also to believe that whenever members of his administration testify before legislative committees, which they do every day the legislature is in session, that those are merely their personal opinions or that they dont reflect the positions of the Bullock administration? Having been severely burned by his intransigence and secrecy during the Walsh appointment, to say nothing of what Hillary Clintons untrustworthiness cost her and down-ticket Democrats, Governor Bullock should have learned a lesson about dealing openly and honestly with the press and the people. And since when do Democrats not strongly support free speech rights? Come on, Governor Bullock. Enough is enough. The press and the people deserve and expect leadership from their governors, not prevarication, especially on issues of statewide importance during a legislative session. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. We all agree, its time for us to use our collective voice to speak out against the blatant display of racism happening in western Montana. The apparent rise of this immoral white nationalist movement has made Montana a talking point in the countrys current discourse on race and it will not be tolerated. On Monday, we celebrate the life of Dr. King, who fought tirelessly for equal rights and inclusiveness for all Americans regardless the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. He dedicated his life to condemning hate and promoting progress and a peaceful society. Whether or not an armed white supremacist march happens in Whitefish on Martin Luther King Jr. Day or any other day we reject it and stand in unity against hate. The movement behind it and the hate it propagates impacts all citizens and communities in Montana. As members and friends of Montanas Native American tribes, we have all witnessed or experienced racism. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes its not. But the current movement of overt racism is especially disturbing because the movements epicenter is close to Blackfeet and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes reservations. The entire state of Montana is an area where American Indians have lived and traveled for thousands of years. This overt act of racism is especially threatening and represents a huge step backwards in the progress weve made in Montana. The Montana American Indian Caucus of State Legislators joins those leaders and everyday Montanans from across the political spectrum who have condemned this reprehensible spectacle. We need to take a moment to remind ourselves of who we are, embrace where we came from, and continue Dr. Kings work to set a positive example for our children, our neighbors, our state and our nation. This is everyones problem. I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more.Chief Joseph, Nez Pierce Amidst a storm of partisanship and controversy surrounding many of his cabinet appointments, President-elect Donald Trumps nomination of U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke to become secretary of Interior has been met with applause in some unlikely corners of the conservation community. There are good reasons for this: Zinke comes from a community in Montana, where I live, whose economy depends to a large extent on public lands, thanks to its proximity to Glacier National Park. He opposes the seizure of federal public lands by states and supports expanding the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that finances the acquisition of new public parks. Of course, we all should be glad that the department will likely be led by someone who values our national heritage, but thats a pretty low bar to cross. If all the Department of Interior had to do is protect iconic places like Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks, it wouldnt take much to manage. The Department does much more, so the challenges that await Zinke are much more difficult. Interior also oversees other public lands that are eligible for oil and gas development. Often, the same lands are sought-after destinations for hunting, fishing and camping. Outfitters, tourism businesses, and others in the outdoor industry rely on the opportunities those lands provide for their customers. Conflicts over how to use public lands are familiar to people who live in places like Moab, Utah, where Interior has made difficult decisions about balancing the outdoor economy with traditional resource extraction. Their solution has been planning reforms that put the oil and recreation industries on equal footing. There is nothing wrong with developing resources on public lands, but there is a problem when politicians try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace. As a candidate for Congress, Zinke took $345,136 from the oil and gas industry and called for expanded and expedited drilling on lands that belong to all Americans. That raises serious doubts about whether he will continue reforms that maintain a level playing field for everyone who uses public lands, particularly amidst vocal demands to roll them back from oil companies. The real test for the next secretary of the Interior will not be whether they protect places that define our national heritage. It will be whether they make sure lands that are open to multiple uses are managed in a way that is truly fair to everyone. That will mean the secretary cannot be afraid to tell the oil companies that backed his political career, No. Zinke has said that he grew up in the back yard of Glacier National Park. Right next to that back yard is the Badger Two-Medicine area, where Interior recently cancelled public lands oil and gas leases in response to calls from the Blackfeet people, who consider it to be part of their creation story. How Zinke responds to those kinds of calls will be the true measure of his success as secretary of Interior. For 40 years, economic neoliberals in both parties lived in a world of denial and indifference to the suffering of middle-class working people. Those painfully disenfranchised people with legitimate grievances just got conned by Donald Trump, a venomous charlatan (George Will). The discredited market ideology of neoliberalism (greed is good) is now on steroids with Trumps new corporate swamp. Falling for the false promises and lies of an authoritarian demagogue now makes long overdue political reform even more remote while increasing income inequality. When it comes to climate change, it is critical to finally grasp Trumps underestimated mental instability, incompetence and unpopularity. The Trump administration is in full-on climate denial, corrupt clients of the fossil fuel industry. Only one major political party in the world denies climate change: the extremist GOP. It's in charge of the most important political body in the world and long poised with a radical environmental agenda of their own ready to go. Climate denialism is now a dangerous pathology in which reality is ignored with an assault on knowledge from the worlds scientific community. Trump is scientifically illiterate, willfully ignorant and lacks even a basic understanding of science, both as a body of facts and as a method for understanding the world. Reality made intelligible by evidence-based, verifiable science and peer review is not a partisan issue to be selectively omitted from governmental policy. Our once great country is poised to be judged by history as the most consequential ecological criminal in history. Greg Jahn, Billings BILLINGS When Yellowstone National Parks aching cold and deep snow claims the lives of winter-weakened bison, predators like wolves are one of the beneficiaries. Wolves know the bison are going to die so they wait and scavenge a lot, said Doug Smith, Yellowstones Wolf Project leader. Yellowstone estimates on average that about nine out of every 100 bison die each winter. With the parks bison population now around 5,500 animals, that means roughly 500 bison could perish this winter. With adult bison ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, those carcasses will be a substantial source of protein for park predators and scavengers, especially top predators like wolves who in the winter dont have to compete with hibernating grizzly and black bears. Yellowstone is a pretty good place to be a wolf, Smith said. Studies in the parks Northern Region have estimated that wolf survival is due in large part to that reliable source of bison meat, composing as much as one-quarter to one-third of a wolfs scavenging activity. Without bison carcasses, Smith said the parks wolves may not have enough to eat in the winter. Aged couple Such a large source of food may be one reason the park contains the longest-known pair bond between two wolves ever recorded. Alpha male 712 will be 12 years old this March, an incredibly long life considering that on average Yellowstone wolves live only to age 5. Wolf 712s mate is a white female popular with photographers. Because shes never been captured and collared, Smith isnt sure how old the white wolf is, but shes been with her black mate for more than seven years. Wolves begin breeding at 2 or 3 years old, so the female is almost as old as 712. Its a cool story, Smith said. Theyre probably the most famous wolves in the park. The two lead the Canyon pack, which roams the area around the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Hayden Valley, north of Yellowstone Lake. This pack has been very comfortable near developed areas, exemplified by their use of a highway culvert to stash pups in 2008, denning near park headquarters in Mammoth Hot Springs in 2009, and regularly using roads as travel corridors during the winter months, according to the Yellowstone Wolf website. Given their familiarity with the park and its bison, Smith said the alpha pairs winter routine is likely to include checking places where bison are known to die in hopes of finding a large, already dead meal. I can guarantee you they are going to all of their old spots, he said. Darting Smith also goes to all of his old spots in the park in the winter when searching for wolves to dart from a helicopter. Darting wolves allows him to collect physical information and fit animals in almost every pack with GPS collars. So far this winter, though, cold and wind have kept his crew from helicoptering aloft. Thats bad news for information collection because the last two years were also poor for darting and collaring. Whats even more frustrating is that out of the 12 wolves the park did capture last winter, collars on five of them failed within a few months of deployment. Annually the park attempts to collar 15 to 20 wolves, with at least one collar in each pack. Twenty to 22 collared wolves is the long-term average, so Smith said 12 is disappointingly low. As a result, in two of the Northern Regions larger packs, one has no collar and the other contains only one wolf with a working collar. The problem with the lack of collars was demonstrated in November and December when much of the Junction Butte pack disappeared from the park and wandered into Montana. While there, three members of the pack were legally killed by hunters north of the park. Park researchers are trying to understand the impact that the hunting seasons in surrounding states have on park wolves. Another three park wolves from the 8 Mile pack were also shot this hunting season, Smith said. At last count, Yellowstone contained about 100 wolves in 10 packs, a population that has remained fairly stable since 2008. Lower wolf densities may be one reason that the parks wolves havent had an outbreak of disease for eight years, defying researchers predictions that distemper would strike every three to seven years. Wolves are coming into equilibrium with the environment, Smith said. HELENA A Helena legislator wants to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a proposal that drew both support and criticism Monday. Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, introduced House Bill 169 to the Business and Labor Committee. The increased minimum wage proposed by Dunwell would take effect January 2018. As is currently the case, the minimum would be raised by a cost of living adjustment each year after that. Montana's minimum wage is $8.15 an hour. Dunwell said it was appropriate to hold the bills hearing on Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King believed that fair pay for hard work is a human right, Dunwell said. A living wage in Montana is considered $14.40 for an individual, $19 for an individual with a child, and it goes on up from there. This is not near that, but its something. Twenty percent of Montanas workforce 96,000 Montanans earn between $8.15 and $10.10 an hour." Supporters Bills to increase the minimum wage have rarely left committee in recent sessions, where majority Republicans generally have opposed the minimum wage or increases to it as government interfering with a free market. Nonetheless, a handful of supporters presented testimony Monday. Montana Department of Labor and Industry Deputy Commissioner Galen Hollenbaugh said his agency supported the legislation as one way to attract new workers with stronger skills to the state as a significant number of Montana workers near retirement age. More than 6 percent of workers are older than 65 and nearly 100,000 more are between 55 and 64 years old, he said. Jules Shindel, an organizing director for Montana Women Vote and Montana Human Rights Network, emphasized that the people earning minimum wage today are different from those who did so decades ago. The idea that minimum-wage workers are just teenagers with weekend jobs or college students working over the summer is an enormous myth, she said. She cited some national figures: The average age of a minimum-wage worker is 35. More than half of the country's minimum-wage workers work full time. 27 percent are parents. She also offered some statewide numbers: More than half of Montana's minimum-wage workers are women. More than 8 out of 10 minimum-wage workers who receive tips (such as restaurant servers) are women. Supporters noted that full-time, minimum-wage work amounts to an annual income of less than $17,000 a year, or $1,400 a month. Most organizations and government assistance programs recommend spending no more than a third of income on housing, which would be about $460 at minimum wage. The average monthly rent in the state for a one-bedroom apartment is $601 and $759 for a two-bedroom, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. For most Americans, housing is the largest household expense, but for many Montanans the largest expense is actually transportation because of the distances to basic services and the needs for longer commutes to work. In rural areas with collapsed or sluggish economies, a single resident living at the national poverty line can spend as much as 72 percent of their income on transportation, as is the case in Sanders County, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A stressed-out worker facing crippling debt is probably more focused on personal problems than on their work, said John Ilgenfritz, a Helena resident who guided a job training program for years and had served on a 2009 state commission on community service. The raise is essential for their ability to be self sufficient. Dunwell further argued that putting more money in the pockets of Montanans working for the lowest wages will help grow the states economy. This is a local economic driver, she said. These are not people that will be investing in international hedge funds. Theyll be spending that money in Montana. Opponents Opponents of the bill said the effect would be the opposite: Businesses would have to increase prices, cut jobs or delay expansions to absorb the costs of increasing wages and the correlated increases in various taxes and insurance policies linked to wages. Those challenges would hit restaurants the hardest, said Brad Griffin, president of the Montana Retail Association, who also spoke on behalf of the restaurant association. $10.10 an hour would disrupt the business model for the vast majority of restaurants, he said, noting servers agreed to minimum wage because their tips boost their actual income. Montana Chamber of Commerce Government Relations Director Bridger Mahlum argued that a minimum wage increase is arbitrary and not tied to actual workforce improvements. Let the market set the wage rate, he said. Real wage growth comes from increased productivity, not legislation. David Herbst, director for Montana chapter of Americans for Prosperity, argued a minimum wage increase had redistributive, not additive effects on the economy, which do not lead to real growth. Riley Johnson, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, noted that the average member of his organization has three employees and makes less than $600,000 in gross sales each year. Johnson, who has lobbied at the capitol since 1965, said increasing the minimum wage now would not end the effort. Well have to face this issue again. Itll never stop, he said. If this was easy, Dunwell said. We wouldve done it a long time ago. Closing testimony During Monday's discussion, three committee members called out a speaker some thought had made a veiled threat against anyone who would support the bill. At the end of his testimony, Americans for Prosperity's Herbst had said his organization would be scoring against it. Asked to clarify by Vice Chair Amanda Curtis, he said votes on the bill would be used calculate legislator scorecards to educate folks about how people vote. Rep. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, D-Crow Agency, defended legislators duty to listen to testimony and discuss bills. We should not be placed under threat, she said. At the close of testimony, Chairman Rep. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, offered a reminder to keep proceedings civil. Were all here to hear testimony, to hear good bills presented. A lot of work has gone into them, he said. We need to be sure to caution ourselves not to attack anybody or give any threats to make the committee feel like they're threatened in any way. Mary Dorothy Podobnik passed away peacefully in her sleep Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, at the Rosetta House in Helena, Montana. She was 99 years old. Mary was born May 24, 1917, in Opportunity, Montana, a rural suburb of Anaconda, Montana to Adam and Dora Rodocay and was the youngest of seven children. Growing up on a small farm, Mary developed a strong work ethic that guided her through her life, and which she instilled in her children. She graduated from Anaconda High School in 1935 and attended Butte Business College. She first worked for attorneys, Walter Balkavatz and Thomas McLee for a year, and then went to work at the Washoe Grocery and Meat Market, from where she retired 25 years later. While at the Washoe, she became acquainted with many Anaconda families and could still remember their addresses 20 years after retiring. Mary was married to Bill Podobnik for 26 years until his death in 1965. She raised two children and lived in the same house for 63 years. Bill and Mary were very active in the B.P.O.E. (Elks Club), attending many conventions in Montana and a national convention in San Francisco. The Elks continued to be an important part of Marys social life after Bills death. They also vacationed, camped and fished throughout western Montana. Mary then met Dick Degnan who became her companion and good friend for 30 years. Together they enjoyed a summer cabin near Georgetown Lake and traveled often on senior citizen trips through the western U.S. Mary was a life-long member of St. Peters Catholic Parish and a member of the Anaconda Community Hospital Auxiliary where she served a term as president. She was also an active bridge player for 30 years until macro degeneration made playing too difficult. Mary always loved a party, whether entertaining a broad circle of friends at her home or dancing at the Elks Club. Mary was preceded in death by her husband, Bill Podobnik; her companion, Dick Degnan; parents, Adam and Dora; brothers, Joseph and Frank Chaverack, and Matt (Lavonne) Rodocay; sisters, Rose Rodocay, Katherine (Jasper) Elefald, Ann (Bill) Clancy; and almost all of the many friends she had made through her life. Mary is survived by her daughter, Claudia Cloninger in Helena; son, Bill (Wanda) Podobnik in Spokane, Washington; five grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; three great-great-grandchildren; and numerous nephews and nieces. Thank you to the doctors, and nurses on staff at St. Peters Hospital, the staff at the Apple Re Hab Unit. A very special thank you to the wonderful ladies at the Rosetta House in caring for our mother. You are all angels. Memorials may be made in Marys name to Hospice in either Helena or Anaconda. A celebration of Marys life will be held at a later time. Express condolences at www.mtstandard.com. When Jane Verhelst hit Butte two years ago, she hunted for an activity to get her out of the house. When I first moved here, I wanted to do something rather than just sit home and eat all day, said Verhelst, 78. I wanted to do something productive. Connections matter, especially when youre new to town. Her daughter-in-law Mary Verhelst works at St. James Healthcare, where she hooked Jane up with a local Butte Retired and Senior Volunteer Prayer shawl group. RSVP for short, the volunteer-centric nonprofit infiltrates in a good way Butte schools, nonprofits, and other entities that rely heavily on volunteers hard-earned life skills to fully function. Jane moved to Butte from Florida after her husband and daughter passed away. She was used to attending Detroit Tigers spring training games in Lakeland, but the heat and humidity took its toll. Shes now firmly ensconced with son Jim, Mary, and family in Butte, where she relishes the colder temps and her foray into the RSVP ranks. Joining the new prayer shawl group wasnt easy, but she took that first step. It was hard to walk in not knowing anybody, but they sure welcomed me in, she added. Likewise, RSVP volunteers contribute to the community in ways not always seen by the public. Coordinator Cathy Pomroy boasts 222 active volunteers now, plus another 30 to 40 who are semi-active, she said. NEW PROJECTS A new project her participants, age 55 and up, took on during the holiday season was the Mining City Christmas and Toys for Tots drives. At least 14 RSVP volunteers prepped gifts, processed paperwork, and stepped up to any open chores at partner Action Inc. headquarters. On top of at least 13 other traditional work stations such as making sandwiches for the homeless or working for the Butte Labor History Center, Butte Symphony Guild, Compassus Hospice and Palliative Care, Safe Space, and many other programs, the RSVP volunteers spend a lot of time in the schools. Even though shes looking for five more volunteers to mentor students in reading and math in the schools, Pomroy said her academic volunteers are going gangbusters. If I had another five school volunteers, I would meet the expectation of the grant, which is to have 25 percent of all my volunteers in the classroom, my primary focus. A former teacher with 32 years experience, Pomroy has bolstered the program from 18 school volunteers when she started two years ago to 52 now. Volunteers spread out to all Butte public schools, Butte Central Elementary, and the private Silver Bow Montessori School. Coming up next is Martin Luther King Day Read for Peace on Monday in the elementary schools one example of RSVPs strong partnership mission. Pomroy and crew team up with Montana Tech Campus Corps and FoodCorps at the National Center for Appropriate Technology to teach an activity and read aloud to students on that day. Noah Davis, 24, AmeriCorps team leader who works with Campus Corps, recruits Tech student-athletes to help RSVP volunteers read aloud to 1,200 students next week in 55 classrooms in five schools. Among the childrens books volunteers will read are Ive Seen the Promised Land for preschoolers up to My Brother Martin for sixth-graders. RSVP is really nice to work with around the community, said Davis, who also leads the charge on Mayors Day, or National Youth Service Day, on May 5. And being able to allocate our resources allows us to expand our project, have those connections, and get out to educate students. Keeping RSVP afloat overall is an $81,693 continuing federal grant stretched from March 31, 2017, to April 1, 2018. But Pomroy said a community match of $41,000 is required. Its going way better than it did last year, added Pomroy about fundraising. I need probably about another $8,000 from community donations. The local RSVP office is the only one in the state headquartered within a school district. Pomroys office is on the second floor of the Butte district administration office, 111 N. Montana St. SPECIAL BONDS Superintendent Judy Jonart said the RSVP volunteers are an integral part of the learning community and provide a culture that supports and values students. They fill in some gaps when classroom teachers are otherwise engaged with 25 or 30 other students. The bonds they establish with kids are special, Jonart added. We are so lucky to have them in our schools. RSVP has existed locally since 1999, when Michele Brennick directed it. I am fortunate because it is because of her hard work that Butte has a successful program, said Pomroy. I am just trying to keep it running in respect to Michele for all her years of establishing the program. Jonart has more words of praise for Pomroy, saying she has done a remarkable job. Her passion and dedication to education has helped in her ability to recruit and sustain a committed group of volunteers who are making a huge difference. She has really built a strong relationship with her volunteers. That bond is important. Jane Verhelst said Pomroy bends over backwards to help anybody and everybody. Shes really sinking her teeth into it and wants to get things done. Shes really a nice, nice lady. In the guest column Bison should be able to roam, not reduced (Jan. 4), the author argues that wildlife do not overgraze, only cows do. Further, the author demonstrates an apparent belief in the hypothesis of natural regulation or intra-specific competition; a hypothesis that an overwhelming amount of documentation demonstrates is not working in Yellowstone National Park. The change in plant community composition and production since the Agricultural Management Era (during which time wildlife numbers were reduced) ended in 1968 and the Natural Regulation Era began is dramatic. Northern Range production is about 60 percent of what it was in 1963, the time of the last intensive range inventory. Follow-up of YNP research biologist Douglas Houstons work in the early 1970s reflects a major change in plant community composition. Dominant and co-dominant native grasses have been reduced or eliminated. Recent field work documents production of range plants is less than 25 percent of potential. Well documented research by other scientists indicates the extent of quaking aspen, willow and black cottonwood is less than 10 percent of what it was during the early days of the park. A serious loss of habitat for a diverse community of wildlife. Livestock did not do it; wildlife did! The author argues that livestock (cows) severely impact riparian ecosystems, which they can if not properly managed. Livestock have not been present in YNP since the very early time and then in only small numbers and limited locations. He also argued: Elk, bison and other native ungulates are only concentrated at lower elevations in the park during winter months when plants are dormant. In addition, soils are frozen, so compaction and bank breakage are lessened. What the author fails to mention is that bison are remaining on low-elevation areas in YNP year-round. A great deal of what used to be winter range is now occupied by bison throughout the year. In addition, not all soils are frozen in winter time. Wetlands and other areas with associated high water tables, such as streambanks, are not always frozen. So, there is still potential for impacts by wildlife. A prime example is Rose Creek, which flows across the Lamar Valley and by the Lamar Ranger Station. It is totally devoid of the protective influence of willows. Streambanks are exposed, heavily trampled and sparsely covered with noxious weeds. Bison wallows intersect one another throughout a good portion of the Lamar Valley. So, in effect, the entire valley floor has been plowed, an unprecedented level of disturbance in any environment, studied by Canadian researchers, who have been documenting historical bison wallow density in different environments along the Rocky Mountains from Alberta to Wyoming. So much for the idea that wildlife grazing of low elevations is benign. The author creates the impression that wildlife utilizes the Northern Range uniformly. The reality is that, in winter, wildlife utilize the ridge crests, south and west facing slopes most heavily, where the snow blows off or is the thinnest or melts out most quickly. In YNP, those areas represented a significant departure from the potential natural plant community in 1963. Those areas, 43 percent of the Northern Range, are in poorer ecological condition today. How many sacrifice areas are acceptable? None. Surely any ecologist, not blinded by his faith in natural regulation, will recognize and understand the implications of too many grazing animals, initially elk and now primarily bison, on the Northern Range. Fundamental to a healthy wildlife population is a healthy range resource. Clearly, the park cannot support large numbers of bison. Letting them roam as wildlife outside the park has the potential to expand the problem. Most elk management areas in Montana are over target. How can adding bison to the range resource be justified if elk numbers are not being controlled? Obviously, there are other ramifications. Fortunately, Montana has regulations requiring that if bison are to be introduced as wildlife to the plains of Montana, that a determination be made to ensure there are adequate range resources to support them. -- Hal Hunter spent 30 years with the USDA National Resources Conservation Service as a soil scientist, forester and resource inventory leader; and 10 years as a resource management consultant. Peter Husby is a retired wildlife biologist with the USDA-NRCS. Joe Fidel is a retired USDA-NRCS range and resource conservationist. BILLINGS Eight men shuffled into a classroom to spend 90 minutes learning how to stop abusing women. The men settled into metal chairs around a long table. The groups instructor, Brice Brogan, began by asking each man to describe what landed them in the court-ordered program. He warns them to be truthful. I have the police reports, he said. If its not close, Im going to correct you. The men begin. One described burning his girlfriend on the neck. Another threatened his girlfriend with a gun during a fight when she said she was calling police. Another kicked in a door. One man held his pregnant girlfriend down by her neck in a fight about his drug use. He was clean at the time, he said. It was his third trip through the batterer intervention course. Treatment for many domestic crimes was mandated by the Montana Legislature in 2001, although there is no standard for the programs and not all the programs are available throughout the state. The treatments also are not always specific to the crime. Judges can replace domestic violence treatment with drug or alcohol treatment and anger management courses. Neither address the power and control issues of a violent partner. During 2014, Todd Michael Johnson beat four different women to the point of hospitalization. That string of beatings came after Johnson had four times been ordered by courts to complete anger management treatment. Prosecutors and legislators are unsure how successful 40 hours of treatment can be in reversing a lifetime of abusive behavior. Evaluating effectiveness Sen. Cynthia Wolken, D-Missoula, chairwoman of the bipartisan Commission on Sentencing, wants the programs to be better tracked. She introduced a bill this legislative session to direct the Montana Board of Crime Control to increase compliance monitoring, implement standards and evaluate the effectiveness of the courses. Mandating treatment only works if its available to everyone and is evidence-based, Wolken said. In Billings, Alternatives Inc. is a company that contracts with the state to provide community-based correctional programs and runs year-round batterer intervention courses for both men and women. There may be anywhere from five to eight classes going at once, with a limit of 12 members per classroom. The classes meet once a week for 90 minutes. Brogan, one of the course teachers, is a licensed counselor with Alternatives. He uses a power and control wheel to show the manipulation used in an abusive relationship. He tries to reverse some of the ingrained views men have about their partners. When men start Brogans program, they tend to minimize their role in an assault. They want to share the blame with their partner. Brogan does not allow excuses. I dont care what she does; you dont have to get another domestic violence charge, he said. When a partner hits back, it's retaliation, not self-defense, Brogan said. Treatment This was the first time going through treatment for 55-year-old Rickey Hemming. Hemming had multiple partner violence convictions dating back to the late-90s. His second partner assault came in 2003, when he was ordered to undergo chemical dependency treatment. Hemming teared up when he considered the 25 years he spent in prison for various crimes. When he looks back at the first time he was arrested, he said he would have liked to have gone through a program. By the time he was charged with his third felony partner or family member assault and a criminal possession of dangerous drugs, he had struggled with violence and addiction for nearly 40 years. District Judge Mary Jane Knisely recommended he go through the intense, nine-month Nexus drug treatment program and the mandatory 40 hours of batterers intervention treatment. Far as Im concerned, only judge ever did anything for me was Judge Knisely, Hemming said. Hemming completed Nexus and was released to Alpha House, a halfway house run through Alternatives, in order to undergo batterers treatment. He called the class a good refresher course." As Brogan listened to Hemmings account of his past, he interjected from time to time, and corrected some of Hemmings statements to make him more accountable. Hemming still has work to do, Brogan said. He had only taken about six weeks worth of classes. Brogan believes the men in his class do change. Students sometimes must go through the class several times to understand all the principles. Anyone could benefit from them, he said. There is no start or finish to a class, so the members are all at different stages of completion. Offenders can complete the course in 27 weeks and offenders not living at one of Alternatives' facilities pay $25 a class. Yellowstone County Judge Ingrid Gustafson runs the Yellowstone County Drug Court, which treats drug addicts according to individual needs. Learning the most effective rehabilitative responses to partner family member violence is somewhat still in its infancy, Gustafson said. After more than 30 years of study into effective drug courts, Gustafson said data shows putting an offender who is at low-risk to reoffend with an offender at a high risk to reoffend can damage the effectiveness of treatment. But, thats how domestic violence offenders are being treated in Montana. Case prosecution Yellowstone Chief Deputy County Attorney Juli Pierce is part of a team that is working on proposing legislation this year to make strangulation a stand-alone felony. This is a step toward identifying a severe case of abuse early on. Many of the victims Pierce interviews who report strangulation are willing to testify against their partners. Some recognize the extreme risk of being strangled. In 2007, Judi Wang from the Missoula City Attorneys Office was the driving force behind changing the aggravated assault language to allow for strangulation to be prosecuted as a felony. Until then, strangulation during a domestic assault was prosecuted the same as punching a victim and could only be prosecuted as a misdemeanor. During the same session, the Legislature removed the two-year mandatory minimum incarceration for aggravated assault. Prior to the aggravated assault language changing, the Yellowstone County Attorneys office prosecuted 26 aggravated assault cases between 2003 and 2007. During the next five years, the offices aggravated assault cases increased to 158. Strangulation was present in about 56 percent of those cases. Since 2013, the office has charged 161 aggravated assault cases, with about 66 percent related to a strangulation offense. Pierce is not certain about whether those numbers are attributable to an increase in violence, but does believe the increase can partly be attributed to an increase of recognition by both police and prosecutors about the seriousness of choking assaults. While treatment is not mandated for aggravated assault, Pierce includes it in many of the plea deals or release conditions. Pierce does not see as many of her strangulation offenders return to court. However, because of the way the aggravated assault law was written, victims must make very specific statements to allow prosecutors to move forward with a felony case, Billings City Attorney Ben Halverson said. Many cases of strangulation teeter on the line between felony and misdemeanor, Halverson said. "They have to say exactly what we need, but most of them dont know the language of our trade," Halverson said. At the end of 2014, about 44 states and the District of Columbia had enacted some form of a strangulation statute. Montana was not one of them. This will be the third time Pierce will go before the Legislature to advocate for laws to better address domestic violence. She was part of a team that proposed legislation in 2013 to make domestic violence convictions from other states count toward a persons total number of cases in Montana, making it easier to identify repeat offenders. Pierce was also part of a team that was unsuccessful in making it an additional misdemeanor if the domestic violence is committed in front of children. Evolving risk Many states have adopted separate strangulation laws after a study showed repeat strangulation increased a victims chance of being killed, said Neil Websdale, a professor of criminal justice at Northern Arizona University. Websdale is director of the National Domestic Violence Fatality Review Initiative. Strangulation cannot be the only factor in determining how risky a domestic violence situation is. Abuse occurring against a woman who is pregnant, using a weapon during abuse, and sexual assaults also increase the risk of death, Websdale said. Montana law does not require treatment courses address sexual abuse in violent partner relationships, although the treatment model used by Brogan does include a section on the difference between rape and consensual sex. The one-size-fits-all approach to punishment in domestic violence cases does not make sense, Websdale said. There is a difference between hitting someone and battering someone, Websdale said. There are cases of situational couple violence where both parties are involved in a fight, but there is no attempt to control the behavior of the other, Websdale said. Couples in these situations may benefit from counseling, but on the whole do not need to be involved in the criminal justice system, Websdale said. The cases that should concern courts are ones involving what Websdale called intimate terrorists. This category can be broken into two profiles. A dependent batterer is the profile that makes up the majority of men who abuse partners. These men often have low self-esteem and an intense fear of abandonment, Websdale said. They have a lot of pride in their masculinity and get angry when they feel they arent in charge of a situation. They do not exhibit these behaviors toward other men, Websdale said. But when they are with a woman, they feel they are entitled to take what they want. These men have a tendency to live isolated lives and have trouble establishing intimacy. However, a minority of batterers do not follow this mold, Websdale said. Batterers with anti-social personality disorders make up less than 20 percent of the batterer population. These are men who are not as jealous and do not need to control a partner the same way a dependent batterer does. These abusers opt for manipulation of pretty much everyone, Websdale said. Websdale is skeptical that dependent batterers can change their violent and controlling behavior without prolonged treatment. For the small percentage of anti-social batterers, Websdale said the only solution is prolonged incarceration. Looking forward Thomas Big Man, 32, just completed Brogans treatment class. Big Man has two previous felony PFMAs against an ex-girlfriend and against his mother. He watched his father abuse his mother for most of his life. When Big Man would try to protect his mother, he would turn into the target, he said. Big Man had a drug and alcohol addiction. After his second felony conviction for PFMA, he was sentenced to five years in prison. While he was in prison, his younger brother was convicted of PFMA. Big Man had committed his first misdemeanor PFMA when he was 18, against his brother. He looked up to everything I did, Big Man said. I felt like it was my fault. Big Man left prison after four years for a 60-day treatment course before going to Alpha House to complete his batterer intervention classes. When he leaves, he plans to move in with his new fiancee and her daughter. Treatment can help people who keep an open mind, Big Man said. Just before Christmas this year, Big Mans mother forgave him for his assault against her. During treatment, Big Man heard from victims who described how being abused had changed them. When Big Man thinks about his family and his future, violence is no longer an option, he said. If I ever hurt my fiancee or my daughter, it would destroy them, Big Man said. A proposed deal that would allow the Montana National Guard to relocate and perhaps expand its Butte operations to the countys industrial park west of town could get a final nod later this month. The board overseeing the countys Tax Increment Financing Industrial District (TIFID) gave its blessing to the plan Friday, and it should go before commissioners in less than two weeks. Under the proposed contract, the Montana Department of Military Affairs would pay the county just under $106,000 for 53 acres inside the sprawling area just south and west of the Interstate 15-90 interchange near Ramsay. The TIFID would provide a road and extend utilities for gas, electric power, sewer service, and water to the site. That would cost the TIFID $300,000 to $350,000, but it would be available to other potential businesses in the central part of the park. They might include new commercial development operations announced for Butte within the next two weeks, said TIFID Administrator Kristen Rosa. We have to take the steps to make all of this (area) more developable, she said. The Guard has had an armory at 600 Gilman Ave., just west of Stodden Park on the Flat, since 1961. It is one of the oldest National Guard buildings in the state, and the site is so small, guardsmen often practice drills in the parking lot and alley. Although the contract could be finalized this month, the new facility would not be constructed until 2022. But it would be an attractive, modern facility with plenty of nearby space for light training and could meet the Guards needs here for decades to come. It would normally be staffed by up to nine full-time personnel during the week with expanded use during the weekend in excess of 200 soldiers, the contract says. Rick Lamach, a master planner for the Department of Military Affairs, said the new location would allow the Guard to be more compatible with neighbors since they would be business and industrial operations. And it could pay off for the county in other ways, he said. When we come build this facility, it will actually increase the value of the land, Lamach said. When the Guard shuts down its current operations for the move, the county would be interested in buying its site for possible expansion of Stodden Park, officials said. DES MOINES Its an opportunity for which they waited two decades, but Iowa Republicans kept their agenda close to the vest after the Nov. 8 election that gave them complete lawmaking control. Only this week, when legislators returned to the Capitol for the start of the 2017 session, did we finally begin to get a glimpse of how the GOP plans to maximize its opportunity. Iowa Republicans have not wielded unfettered lawmaking control since 1997 and 1998, so one can be sure the GOP has a litany of bills theyre itching to run, knowing this time they wont be stalled by Democrats. But if Republicans did have a laundry list of legislation ready to air out this year, they kept it in the drawer, for the most part, in the weeks following the election. Leaders, in particular, were largely vague about their plans for the session. At a pre-session forum with reporters, hosted by The Associated Press, GOP leaders spoke mostly in platitudes like, Everything is on the table and Well have discussions about that. But the session began last week, and bills are being filed. Now, were getting an idea of what kind of topics Republicans hope to address and how they hope to tackle those issues. Some of the earliest pieces of legislation filed by Republicans include: Elimination of all state tax funding to womens health care clinics that perform abortions, such as Planned Parenthood. This one caught no one by surprise; Republicans have wanted for years to strip state funding to Planned Parenthood, even though such funding also comes with a federal match for womens health care services. More abortion-related bills, including one bill that would permit a woman who has had an abortion to take action against the physician who performed the procedure if the woman suffers emotional distress and the prohibition of the acquisition or use of fetal tissue from abortions for medical research or any other purpose. Multiple pieces of gun-related legislation, including implementation of a stand-your-ground law and a proposed amendment to the state Constitution to include the right to possess and use guns. An amendment to the state Constitution must be passed by consecutive two-year General Assemblies and then a statewide vote. Banning traffic enforcement cameras. The elimination of tenure at the states public universities. Sanctions for frivolous lawsuits. Legalizing more consumer-grade fireworks. Another proposed constitutional amendment, this one to reinforce the state law that requires legislators to spend no more than 99 percent of the state tax collections each budget year. So after weeks of waiting, were getting a sense of the priorities for this new GOP-led legislature. Not all of these legislative proposals will pass into law, but they have a much better chance under the Capitols new power structure. Still not addressed in bill form are a few more issues sure to be tackled by Republican legislators this year, chief among them collective bargaining. While no bills have been filed, Republicans have pledged to make changes to the way the state bargains with public employee unions over wages and benefits. Multiple possibilities have been floated implementing a statewide master contract for health insurance, allowing an arbitrator to choose a midpoint in negotiations, requiring unions to recertify annually but none has yet showed up in bill form. For that and other issues, well just have to wait a little longer. Busy, busy, busy Given their partys newfound authority at the Statehouse, two Republican lawmakers in particular have been busy introducing legislation to start the session. Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, filed 30 bills in the sessions first week. Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, filed 15 bills. Farewell without much farewell As he is set to become the next U.S. ambassador to China some time in the next few months, Gov. Terry Branstad last week delivered what likely will be his final Condition of the State address. Somewhat surprising about his speech was the minimal retrospective. In what will be one of the last times Branstad will speak to a large swath of Iowans, the governor spent only the last minute or two of his 31-minute address bidding farewell. Ive been so blessed to serve as your governor, leading the state I love, for 22 years, Branstad said as he began to close his address. I am confident Iowa will continue to move forward because Iowans care deeply about their neighbors, their communities and creating an even better future. Erin Murphy covers Iowa politics and state government for Lee newspapers. His email address is erin.murphy@lee.net. MUSCATINE, Iowa Jessica Blanchard, Central Middle School teacher, looked down at the colorful Monopoly-like cards in her hands. Some represented items she could pawn off for money, others represented Food Stamps and transportation cards. She looked up, her eyes traveling from station to station in the room, considering her options. She could go to her part time job at the supermarket table or she could go to school. Blanchard needed money and food, she knew, but she also needed to drop off her one-year-old babya stuffed dollat the daycare table. For the next hour, she would walk in the shoes of a single mom living in poverty. Im going to miss school, she decided, heading to her job at the grocery store table. The line at the table was already three-people deep. This will be the second week Blanchard skips school. I feel guilty for missing school, she said finally. Blanchard and other teachers at the Muscatine Community School District participated in a poverty simulation on Monday afternoon as part of Teachers Quality Day. The hour-long simulation was designed to showcase the day-to-day struggles of low-income families. The goal is to get a better understanding of poverty and what students and families in poverty are going through, said Dave Tometich of the districts Teacher Quality Committee, the group who organized the event. Participants in the simulation face challenges real families in poverty might face, including hunger, lack of time and stress. And in a district where a third of residents live below the poverty line and about half of children receive free and reduced lunch, teachers often interact with low-income families. Teachers divided into families, each playing a role: a child, a single parent or grandparent, among other roles. They received cards with details about their new family and envelopes with their possessions, money and transportation cards. With their limited time and money, family members work together to survive four weeks, each lasting 15 minutes. Scattered around the room were stations such as daycare, social services, jail, school and pawn shop and teachers milled about, trying to buy food, go to work and pay their bills. Aracey Martinez of the ISU Extension and outreach sat at the community action agency table, helping participants with their child-care costs and disability checks. My role in this is to do what our community action agencies do here in town and provide as much support as I can to people that need it, of course, just like in real life, theres limitation as to how much I have and how much I can give away, she said. Across the room sat Ellen Carey, teacher at Central Middle School. This is real world for a lot of our kids and families, she said. She had returned home from school with a note for her parents: Carey needed $2 for a school project and wondered if her family could spare that money. Its $2, but it could be a lot, she said. And students in that position, Carey said, would be consumed by worries about where they might get the money, making it hard for them to learn. This is all they would think about for the majority of the day, she said. Tometich said these takeaways are important for teachers in the district. Its truly trying to make a difference based on learning more as a staff, he said. MUSCATINE, Iowa Community members visited the Musser Public Library Saturday to add photos and memories to a time capsule, which will be placed in the library's new location at 408 E. Second St. Betty Collins, the children's librarian, said although the current library building at 304 Iowa Ave. has been in place since the 1970s, the library has existed at its current location since 1901 when the first building was built. "People have really fond memories of the library at this location," she said. Visitors could step into history by recreating photos from well-known Muscatine photographer Oscar Grossheim. The recreations will not only be added to the time capsule on a disk, but people were able to take home a copy. "So we're not only thinking about the present being the future past, but we're thinking about how wonderful it is that this library has so much from Muscatine's past in general," Collins said. Photos could also be taken in people's favorite spot in the library, or holding their favorite book. "We especially want people's thoughts about what's been important to them here and their memories," Collins said. "We also want to be able to see children holding up a book that has meant something to them because we fell like that will be something really fun to open in the future; to see what people liked reading at this time." Community members of any age were invited to participate, Collins said. "Because there are adults who grew up in this library or grew up in the 1901 library," she said. After the move to the new building, planned for later in 2017, Collins said the library plans to open the time capsule in five years. "Because children like this, five years from now is going to feel like 100 years...and that's because as fun as it is to do this, it'll be even more fun for children to see it in five years, and even for adults too," she said. Remembering time spent in the current library was also a time when staff members could reflect. "I can't wait to get into the new building in one sense, but in another sense I'm going to miss this one," Collins said. "And it's because of everything we've done here." Leni and Clay Marin said their family was glad to have a chance to participate in adding to the time capsule. "I think it's going to be cool, you know I don't know how long from now the capsule is going to be opened and for us to be a part of that is pretty exciting," Leni said. Their children, 8-year-old Cynthia and 6-year-old Jaydon, said they enjoyed the children's events at the library, although the time capsule event was becoming one of their favorites. Cynthia said she enjoyed her field trips to the library, and Jaydon said his favorite memory was "holding the fish," a large plush fish that was used as a prop in the recreation of one of the Grossheim photos. If community members were unable to visit the library on Saturday, Collins said all are welcome to drop off a letter or photo to be added to the time capsule. For more information call the Musser Public Library at 563-263-3065. MUSCATINE, IOWA Officials and volunteers from Muscatine County Habitat for Humanity took time off Sunday from building their 11th house to host the chapter's annual soup and sandwich lunch at Wesley United Methodist Church. The new house at 415 East Jackson in Wilton, a lot donated by Larry and Karen Marine, will be the home of Francisco and Ruth Honts and their two children, Francisco and Penelope. "We're excited," said Ruth Honts, who helped with the lunch, including making chili. "It's the first house for us, and we're looking forward to it." Both Ruth, who works at Menard's, and her husband, who does landscaping for Four Seasons, are putting sweat equity into the construction of their new home. "My husband goes almost every Saturday, and I go every other Saturday," she said. "It's going to be special," Francisco Honts added as he bussed tables Sunday. "I'm grateful. It's been so rough. I've lost a lot of things due to family troubles or just getting in trouble. It's like a new chapter in my life." Leroy Van Roekel, who lives just west of Wilton in a house he and his wife built around 10 years ago, is one of the construction coordinators. "I like the philosophies of Habitat for Humanity," he said. "I like the opportunity to help someone. We've been blessed ourselves, so I like to help someone else." Van Roekel, who helped with the lunch, has praise for Oak Tree Homes for helping with design and construction of the three bedroom house. "They've done a lot of the features to make the house more airtight and energy efficient," he said. "It's just a nice basic house. There's no garage, but there's room enough to add one." Chapter President Don Lampe, who also helped with the lunch, had praise for the estimated 75 to 100 volunteers who have been helping with construction. "It's been a great turnout," he said. "We've got lots of volunteers. Wilton community has had a great turnout, and Kent Corporation has provided a lot of workers." Lampe said April 1 is the target date to move the Honts family into their new home. DES MOINES State troopers, teachers, workers at correctional and mental health facilities, and other public employees across Iowa have various health insurance programs with their respective employers. For teachers, for example, the programs vary by district. Gov. Terry Branstad wants to do away with that system and establish one health insurance program for all public employees. Its commonly called a master contract, and its one of the changes Republicans, with their newfound control of the states lawmaking process, are proposing to how the states public employees bargain for their wages and benefits. But representatives of some of those public employees say such a one-size-fits-all approach would have an adverse effect on employees and employers alike. Branstad signaled his desire for a master health insurance contract shortly after the Nov. 8 election that resulted in Republican control of the governors office and the Iowa House and Senate for the first time in two decades. Not long after the votes were counted, his administration withheld health insurance proposals during collective bargaining sessions with the states public employee unions. Administration officials said state lawmakers may change the collective bargaining process this year, altering how health insurance plans are negotiated. Branstad said he thinks a streamlined master contract would provide savings for the states taxpayers and also help smaller public employers, such as school districts, better withstand health care costs. Branstad regularly cites the example of a small employer experiencing cost increases because of high health care costs for one employee with significant health care needs and compares a master contract to the states public employees retirement fund, which is standard for all. We can save a lot of money and provide quality insurance coverage for all the employees and do it in a way that both protects the health insurance and the coverage but at the same time reduces the cost dramatically at a time when we have some significant budget issues, Branstad said. If you can have one big master contract spread that risk ... that can be substantial savings (for smaller employers). But leaders of two organizations that represent tens of thousands of Iowa public employees say a master contract would have the opposite effect. They say removing the ability for employers to customize their health insurance contracts to their respective needs would be counter-productive. We bargain the total package, and then we sit down with our school board and then try to best figure out where we can divide that money up, said Tammy Wawro, president of the Iowa State Education Association, which negotiates more than 300 contracts statewide for teachers. Some districts have chosen to put that money in a good insurance plan ... others have said, Were going to put that in salaries. ... Its very different across the state. For example, Wawro said, Cedar Rapids schools have insurance plans with high premium costs, but the district attempts to make up for that by offering more in salary. The much smaller school district in Ogden, Wawro said, has a health insurance package with extensive coverage but sacrifices in salary. If you know youre going to have a good family (insurance) plan, thats something that brings people to a small community or a rural community, Wawro said. "Thats important to people." Danny Homan said the union over which he presides, which represents 40,000 Iowa public employees in law enforcement, corrections, mental health care and other fields, negotiates roughly 160 contracts. He said each contract is tailored to the health care coverage desired by the employees in that area and that customization would be eliminated by a statewide master contract, which he said would be devastating. Each and every one of those contracts has unique health insurance provisions that have been mutually agreed to by the employer and the union over a number of years of bargaining. There could be little quirks in there that are unique to that employer and that group of employees, Homan said. So now youre going to have to come up with a plan that addresses or just flat out ignores all those unique circumstances. Homan and Wawro said a statewide master contract also could harm local businesses because current contracts often stipulate the insurance be purchased through local companies. Homan also expressed concern that a master contract could include the state requiring public employees to contribute more to their health insurance plans, which Branstad has proposed in past collective bargaining negotiations but was rejected by an independent arbitrator. Homan said public employees often negotiate for lower out-of-pocket premiums at the expense of salary increases, and increasing premiums without a corresponding increase in salary would take money out of the employees pockets and thus the local economies. He also noted a statewide premium increase would disproportionately affect various public employees; for example, he said a $200-per-month premium increase would be felt more by a legal clerk than a county attorney. Iowa Rep. Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, said Democrats in the Iowa House plan to oppose Republicans efforts to change the states collective bargaining laws. But with their majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans do not need any Democrats approval to pass legislation, assuming at least 51 of 59 House Republicans and 26 of 29 Senate Republicans support any given proposal. The current collective bargaining system, we tried to expand it when we were in charge (from 2007 to 2010), and a number of Republican legislators said at that time that the current law was working well, Smith said. The current law is working well. And I want us to keep the current law. 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 [] They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and theyd say Oh thats interesting. And that would be the end of it. --Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels Happy Monday everyone! Hope youve been following along with my Thailand adventures over on Instagram! Today were heading to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. We had a slight change in our itinerary due to an unexpected monsoon hitting the southern region. So to avoid the rain, we are heading north! Well still be visiting Phuket but not until later this week for my actual birthday. All I wanted to do for my 30th birthday this coming Friday was to wake up on a beach and that we will do! Fingers crossed for meeting an elephant too! So while I gladly left the scarves and sweaters at home for this trip, today Im sharing one of my favorite neutral looks for winter. I wore a similar version of this outfit to grab a blogger brunch a few weeks ago and had to recreate it for the blog since it was WAY too cold to shoot that day. The combo of grey, tan and blush is quickly becoming a favorite. Madewell has been carrying several great blush pieces. I wish these pieces were around when I was beginning to find the perfect blush for my living room wall. I still to this day, regret the paint choice of pink for the wall. It was supposed to look like this sweater, or this coat, but turned out a little too baby pink for me. These pieces are truly blush and I love them. Wouldve 100% brought these to the paint department to match perfectly. Weekend project? Ha, no way. PS if you havent seen on social media, Cathy and I are hosting our second Workshop which will be held in DC on February 18th. Tickets are selling out fast and w eon,y have a handful left. If youd like to attend this fun workshop with a yummy brunch, head to this link to purchase your ticket! Photos by JNelly Jubilee has been running a series of ads on vernacular radio stations in a bid to mobilize Kenyans from their strongholds to register as voters. The propaganda pieces can be interpreted in many ways, but many Kenyans agree they are not helping to heal the nation. Take for instance this one that has been running on Kameme Fm, owned by the Kenyatta family. It cleverly uses at least 2 psychologically proven tricks to manipulate: Fear and pride. To seal the deal, religion is also thrown around. In the commercial, the narrator tells his audience of the untold calamities that would befall them if Jubilee were to lose to Cord. He says that the business environment would be completely shattered if Uhuru lost the election. The narrator also mentions two Bible verses, twisted to fit into the narrative he is selling. Obviously majority of those listening to vernacular broadcasts are super religious. He then concludes by telling the listeners that failure to leave business places to go register as a voter, and vote, would not leave them any richer or poorer. He states that theyve had 5 years of an Uhuru presidency to better their lives, and 2 days will not make a difference. This audio clip has been making a lot of noise on social media. People are already drawing comparisons to what was happening in 2007 just before the elections. While mobilizing people to register as voters is not a bad thing, the message passed along in this ad can be likened to that of preparation of war. Listen to the clip. The English translation is just below. Its not perfect. Our people!! What is ahead of us is very bad and hot. If we joke, our house will witness bad things (Insert a kikuyu proverb). In other areas, people are not buying or selling anything without displaying their ID and voters card. Yet here (in central), we are just reluctant. You cannot leave your business to go pick your voters card. (Insert sarcasm). [After the election] You will not even have a place to conduct that business. In this country we always want a good business environment, freedom to worship, having freedom of movement; but if we fail to cast our votes, and re-elect Uhuru and Ruto, I can tell without a shadow of a doubt, we will sing Psalms 137, which says, By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. If you are 18 years and above from Central province and youve not picked up your ID and voters card, you are an enemy of the state; similar to a gun without bullets or a lion without teeth. Be informed that this time round, we want to have a decisive victory, because last time we had a narrow escape. Let us stop being last-minute people. Saying that you cant briefly leave your business to register as a voter, or vote, Let me tell you frankly ndugu na dada yangu, you will look for a business to report to and fail to find any. This period that has been provided by the government, let us wake up as a house and fight for our independence, which we can only accomplish by voting. Because even Proverbs 18:18 says, Casting lots causes contentions to cease, And keeps the mighty apart. (NKJV) Translated to voting removes all doubt. Separating two people who are fighting (Cord and Jubilee) If the Bible says so, who are you to remain in your business, refuse to go queue and vote, refuse to leave your job yet you are not getting paid.. (Insert sarcasm). If youve not gotten richer in those 5 years Uhuru has been president, do you think you will get richer or poorer in those 2 days? Lets wake up early and pick up our voters card. Apparently, Kenyans who seek treatment in India die within a year according to Secretary-general of Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union Dr Ouma Oluga. Mr Oluga was speaking to The Nairobian amid the ongoing standoff between doctors and the government over pay. In the interview, Dr Oluga speaks about what it takes to be a doctor, devolution and health and why a pilot shouldnt earn more than a doctor. Doctors strikes lead to loss of lives. How does that make you feel? I feel very bad. Strikes by doctors however occur all over the world from the UK Israel, to Ghana and other countries. If society places doctors professionally high up the ladder, they should do the same with the doctors demands. It is unfortunate for doctors to be forced to strike. I hope I do not have to do it again. If you fell sick today, would you drive to a public hospital? Ive been admitted at Kijabe and Vihiga while working there. I would do it any day. That is why we have to make them better. The union wants medical interns to earn Sh600,000. Is that fair, considering senior government engineers and architects dont even earn half that amount? Just to correct you, it is Sh325,000, which is gross pay. There is nothing unfair about that. A newly qualified First Officer pilot will earn Sh370,000 after training for 18 months. A doctor trains for more than six years. Kenyans should stop comparing salaries, but instead compare productivity and value output. Interns have responsibility over life too. If doctors get the pay rise they are demanding and other health workers dont, wont that create disharmony at work? There is no disharmony, and there would be none. Pay is based on complexity of work, not working in a similar place. Compare the pay of various State officers. In any case, KMPDU has always negotiated for all other cadres, even drivers. We can help cadres like the Clinical Officers to craft something to engage their employer for improvement in their terms and working conditions. We are not in the habit of infighting. We congratulate nurses on their deal and we hope they are happy. I hope the government takes the same initiative with the doctors. Why did you want to be a doctor? I admired doctors from my early years in primary school and specifically my cousin, Dr Amos Otedo, now a physician gastroenterologist at Kisumu District Hospital. I admired how doctors interacted with people and how they carried themselves with decency and decorum. Do you have any regrets? None whatsoever. This has to be the best profession ever. I like its diversity and holistic approach to life. In medicine, one goes through all manner of emotions from joy, sadness, love to seeing other people from various walks of life go through the same roller-coaster that is life. It has taught me resilience and the belief that doctors can fit anywhere and do anything they desire in life. What does it take to qualify as a doctor through med school? Aptitude, endurance, resilience, and brilliance obviously. Anyone with some degree of endurance and a human heart, one willing to sacrifice seven years of their life to studying can be a doctor. But some students drop out. Why? Medical school is not for jokers. Anyone without those attributes I have listed will drop out. Someone lacking passion and a certain view of life, one who does not love human interaction would be best placed elsewhere. Which hospital did you practice right after graduation? What conditions did you find? I started at AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital for my internship and spent 18 months there. It was a good place to start as it taught me good work culture, compassion and discipline. It was an equally difficult environment to be in as one is out of touch with the world in a way, not forgetting the heavy workload for almost no pay. In brief, why are doctors on strike? Because we want better working terms and conditions for the doctors and better healthcare for wananchi. All these issues are captured in the Collective Bargaining Agreement whose implementation by the government we are seeking. What is the position of the union on devolution of health? Most health systems worldwide are decentralised, but it took them more than 40 years and that is how they succeeded. Look at Papua New Guinea, Malawi or NHS in the UK. Kenya hurried its devolution, doing it in the dark with no devolution policy and no health policy that looks at structural and administrative issues that would protect Kenyans right to highest attainable quality of health; and the rights of the healthcare professionals. Additionally, devolution has exposed Kenyans to political turbulence and instabilities; healthcare workers have become slaves of politicians. Where there are governor-MCA wars, health is affected in a fundamental way because things like supplies get affected. How do we make it work? Systems of management should be standardised through proper policy, and establishing a body that is both national and supra-county like a Health Service Commission. Why is the quality of healthcare in India better but more affordable than Kenya? It is actually worse! What is good with the Indian health system is marketing. Kenyans arriving from treatment in India die within a year. You are aware that we have lost doctors too. Companies that ferry patients to India wont tell you this because they sell hope. Those that come back well would have probably be treated here anyway. Perception is everything. The Indian private sector is doing well, but with government subsidies that will favour drug manufacturing or transport of patients, all in a bid to promote medical tourism. The government has to be involved to improve the health system and our Kenyan environment is more resilient than the Indian one for this. Why is it that politicians dont get treated in public hospitals? Because the international insurance they have on the taxpayers account affords them the luxury to not consume public social services like health. There should be a policy that requires public officers and their families to consume public services. Where did you school and how did you perform in KCSE and KCPE? I went to Okela Primary School in Rarieda and got 537 out 700 points before proceeding to Maranda High School where I scored an A. I graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Nairobi in 2010. Source: SDE Five men from Malaene village in Igembe Central were last Thursday abducted by a group of armed men, who brutally beat them before forcing them to relieve themselves and feed on the waste. The men were later abandoned near the Meru National Park with serious injuries. One of them men had to be hospitalized at Laare Maternity Health Center, whereas the other four were treated and discharged. According to one of the victims, identified as Josphat Mugira, he, his colleagues and boss were ambushed at around 8:00 pm by men armed with blunt objects on motorbikes as they were going home. They were then ordered to follow the abductors to Kiruyu village where the victims were forced to undress and thereafter beaten. The abductors accused the men of working closely with tycoons in the region to grab land. The kidnappers also squeezed their victims private parts before abandoning them, Citizen TV reports. The hospitalized victim, Gerald Kimathi, 37, had rib injuries that resulted in him coughing up blood. He also suffered internal injuries from chest trauma, and his private parts were bruised. Police are looking for the kidnappers. Ever since he met President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2014, Jaro Sojas life has been filled with good fortune, claims the Gor Mahia superfan. One of his many favorable outcomes since then is his newly finished home in South Gem, Siaya County. As a result, Jaro has extended his invitation for a housewarming party to the man he believes is behind his good fortune President Uhuru Kenyatta. Since meeting President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House Nairobi in November 2014 after Gor were crowned Kenya Premier League Champions , good fortune has been my portion. He opened a myriad opportunities for me. I believe it is God who sent me to meet and interact with the Head of State. Before I met the president, I didnt know I would have such a house. Now, everyone treats me with respect and is ready to assist me because of my closeness to the Head of State. I thank the president for changing my life from a mere Gor Mahia fan to someone with a decent life. Seemingly, he is a symbol of good luck, especially to me. I now take the opportunity to invite him to my Gem home for house-warming, and I will cook him kuku ya kienyeji. Ill appreciate if he takes notice of my request and give me a date, Soja said. As of July last year when Jaro married his longtime girlfriend, Emmer Owago, in a traditional ceremony, he lived in a mud house. Today, the two-bedroomed house is made of stone and has been painted with the colours of the Green Army Green and white. Check it out below. One would be mistaken to think it is a branch or headquarters of the Kenya Premier League team. Gentlemen and ladies(for the sake of gender equality) Miss World Kenya 2016 Evelyn Njambi is single. However, the beauty queen who just did Kenya proud in the global Miss World competition held in the capital Washington District of Columbia on December 20, is not looking. She spoke to eDaily about her personal life and modeling career. Describe your personality I dont know how to describe it; maybe it should be you describing my personality. I dont know, I dont know (laughs). Charming, charismatic, hospitable, smart and warm, I tell her. Thank you, thank you so much, she responds, breaking into a smile of pure appreciation. I am outgoing, yes I am outgoing. I remember I had already made friends on day two while at Miss World competition. All my friends and myself made it to top 20. We used to work so hard together and just keep cheering on each other, and of course there were some categories which I did not do so well like talent. I break in on her memory: Are you not talented? You come across as someone gifted. (Laughs). I am, you know I am. I can swim, but obviously at such a global competition they wont ask you to swim, you know. Talent category had stuff like gymnastics, singing and I tell you, people are talented out there! There is someone who has been doing gymnastics since they were four. You cant compare that with here (Kenya). And you know in Kenya, I think people realise their talents fully in or after high school; like you have time to invest in talent after high school. But you see in other countries, from the time you are little your talent is identified and nurtured. Nonetheless, I performed an African dance and it was good, but not that good. So, the other girls were really, really good at their talents; some were nice musicians, pianists and they were really amazing. Her reaction to winning Miss World Africa I dont even have words to describe. It was really, really emotional and overwhelming because I was overjoyed to have come this far for my country and also for my family. My family really backed me up, gave me so much support; they used to call me every day when I was at the Miss World competition. So being in top five was a plus and a really good sign for my family, who were so happy and also for my support staff and my passionate team of Ashleys and Miss World Kenya office, it was really, really nice to have done this for them. It was a success for every Kenyan, every African more so to those who voted for me; many thanks to them. Memories from Miss World competition I met so many beauty queens who were so passionate about championing amazing courses and purposes for their respective countries. It was really, really amazing. There was a point where communication between us, the contestants, was hindered due to language barrier. There are very many Spanish speaking nations; in fact I was really surprised. Our different mother and second languages posed a challenge to our communication but there are ladies who knew both languages, so it made it easier to communicate with each other. If I wanted to say something, lets say to Miss Honduras who only knew Spanish , Miss Mexico who speaks both English and Spanish would translate to either of us. Our schedule was fun. There was a time we were given a trip, we went to New York. We woke up at 4am, drove for four hours to New York; we went to the Statue of Liberty on a ferry, we were shown New York City. We also saw all the fashion lines. It was cool. After the trip, we returned to our normal schedule which used to be waking up at around 6am or 7am, and then rehearsals, rehearsals. Wed sleep sometimes at midnight, especially the last weeks. You know it is supposed to be a live show, so everything has to be perfect; so, wed sleep for four or five hours. It was crazy, but fun. That was the only opportunity we had to be around such a people. Key lessons from Miss World competition If people came together and used their voices to raise an awareness of the different problems that different countries face, instead of tearing people down, then the world would be a better place to live in. That is what I learnt. Of succeeding Roshanara Roshanara Ebrahim was decrowned as the Miss World Kenya 2016 after it emerged that she had taken nude photos of herself, breaching the terms to hold office as Miss World Kenya. She (Roshanara) has congratulated me on Facebook, which I really appreciate. And I wish her all the best in her endeavors because I am sure she is also doing well in her modeling. And whatever life has to give or bring to her, I wish her all the best andyeah, lets do this (smiles). Lesson learnt from Ms Roshanaras unfortunate dethronement There was a time I was asked how I separate my private life from public life. I said that: I live everyday as if no one is watching, or no one is looking. What I mean by that is whoever you are, even if you want to live for the moment and do crazy things to mark a phase in life, be careful about it because you might grow up to be the President, you might grow up to be Kenyas Attorney General and someone might just leak those videos and photos of you and it would be a shame for you to build so much and then just see it crushing. It is important to be careful about the people we interact with and the photos we take. You want to make memories? Fine. But make them in a sweet and nice way. Project as new Miss World Africa I am very passionate about girl child education. My main focus has been and would continue to be anti-FGM campaigns. I believe every girl should be able to take full advantage of the possibilities that the future has to offer them and that means that you give them a platform to reach for their dreams, and just be able to achieve whatever passion, whatever career that they want to do in life. That means if it comes to cultural beliefs that put us back, or set us aside, I think it is important to focus our efforts on what would build the girls and not destroy them. About her childhood I am the third born in a family of five siblings. I was born and raised in Parklands, Nairobi and then we moved to Ruiru, and that is how I became Miss Kiambu 2016 because my dad built his retirement home in Ruiru. I grew up watching a lot of The Princess Diaries (film) and Fairy Tale with Barbie So, I am a girly girl. I always wanted to have a tiara on my head, so I would wonder when that time would come. And every Christmas, I used to watch Miss World competition the finals; from the time I was seven or six. I really liked the whole aspect of pretty girls walking on a stage, on a runway, and they have crowns. But what just gave it in for me was when I had a beauty with a purpose, meaning you are not only just a beauty queen based on your beauty but based on the kind of course, the kind of reputable course you are championing in your country. That is what gave it in for me I was like: This is what I want to do; this is what I want to become. That is the power of a dream; and that is why I would want every girl to believe in their dream and achieve whatever that they want to achieve. I went to Hospital Hill Primary School in Parklands, and then later attended Pangani Girls High School (nicknamed Pango). Life in Pangani was so strict, I remember I used to complain every day, saying it was like prison there were no school functions By the time I was joining Pangani, there were so few functions that we would grace. It was all about reading, reading and reading! But it was fun. The elements of fearing God and discipline were instilled in me when I was a student at Pangani. When she began modeling I could not model when I was a student at Pangani. I only had a break to try modeling after clearing high school. So, when I was in Maseno University in my first year, I competed for Miss Maseno and I did not perform well at all, at all, at all. Maybe I was not ready. Of course I was little bit depressed but later on when Miss Kiambu auditions were announced, my brother told me about them and I was in Maseno all the way in Kisumu. So, he sent me bus fare then I traveled to Kiambu for the auditions and went back (to school). And then I became Miss Kiambu. For me I felt like my dreams had a meaning and my dreams were valid and at some point they would actually come true. I did not make it as Miss Maseno, but I made it as Miss Kiambu, then Miss Kenya, then Miss World Africa. At least people can borrow a leaf from that; that not every first attempt will come out as the niche for you or the breakthrough for you. Dont give up in your dream. Keep revising, keep practicing in whatever field that you are in and just believe that one day by you being yourself and passionate about whatever it is that you love doing , you would have a breakthrough at some point. It could be around the corner. So, dont give up. Mood in Maseno following her unmatched victory in Kiambu and later in Miss World competition I used to have a grudge with Maseno because my Miss Maseno mishap. I had the grudge for a year. Then when I became Miss Kiambu, I was like: You know what? People make mistakes; and maybe at that time I wasnt the best candidate either. So, I just let it go and I was like: You know what? It happened and someone else won and I am happy for them. Maybe my breakthrough was going to come just around the corner. So, when I became Miss World Kenya, I got turns of congratulatory messages from Maseno students; and I was like: This is so, so amazing! And what they did for me was create so much noise on social media when I was in the capital DC, and they even made a poster and I was like: Wow, just be true to where you come from; your roots, your background; and they were there for me a big shout out to Maseno University students, you are awesome. Advice to girls who have interest in modeling Be yourself. That is where your truest and sincerest treasure lies and that is the only time you have a hundred percent chance of winning. Sometimes, there could be a hair-do that is trending; maybe there is a look that youd want to pull off. If you look like others, no one would want to pick you. But if you stand out, embrace your unique self and are confident in who you are then I believe your breakthrough is around the corner. Yeah. Challenges shes faced in modeling career For modeling, one has to be very careful. I remember when Miss Maseno did not work out for me, I came to Nairobi and I wanted to join an agency and they were like: You need to give us KSh10, 000. I was only 19, where was I supposed to get that kind of money from? I was like, if modeling is not for me then let me just give it up. And again, issues of sponsors (older loaded men seeking to take advantage of young women) are there. What Id want every woman to know is that you dont have to depend on a man to get that car that you want, or that phone, or that bag. You can do that by yourself through hard work and setting goals, which you work toward achieving. Sadly, nowadays girls want an easy way out. Easy come, would easily go. What would you do thereafter? Have your principles and believe your dreams will make you independent and stand for yourself. Fashion sense I love nude colours for my bag, nails, make up. I believe make up should be there to enhance, not to replace a lot of features. My style is chic, simple; less is more. Nowadays less is more. Youd catch me dead wearing rugged jeans. Oh my God, rugged jeans, no! Relationship status I am not dating. I am very single and I am not looking for someone right now. I have a course and a focus, plus I cant really tell who is genuine to approach me right now; maybe someone would make advances at me because I am the current crown holder, and not because of who I am. If it is someone who is genuine, he will wait till I am ready to mingle, but right now no, thank you. Qualities of a man that she prioritises God fearing, taller than myself. I break in on her revelation, saying: Men taller than yourself are few. She responds almost immediately: Wewe shinda hapo (laughs). They are there, mine is chosen and I know he is walking somewhere and he is taller than me. Yes, yes. Id also want someone who is focused and has a drive, because the last thing I would want to do is push someone around to do something every day. He should have dreams which he is working toward achieving. Message to Kenyans ahead of 2017 general election We are one. At the end of the day when someone out there, for example in the US or the UK, meets a Kenyan who has flown into the countries, hed say: You are Kenyan. They wont say: What tribe are you? You meet your fellow Kenyan there, you become a family despite your ethnic orientation. What I am trying to tell everyone is that we are one. And if we used our different platforms to preach peace, then the country will develop. But if we keep on tearing down each other, then what will our small children grow up to be? Someone is watching, someone is always looking at what you are doing. So be a role model that a girl or a boy somewhere would look up to. Lets not throw rough words at each other, lets build this country together. SAN QUENTIN Authorities say a California death row inmate who killed a 9-year-old Oceanside boy has hanged himself in his cell. State corrections officials tell the San Diego Union-Tribune that Brandon Wilson was found dead Thursday at San Quentin State Prison. The 33-year-old was convicted of slitting the throat of Matthew Cecchi in an Oceanside Harbor restaurant in 1998. The Oroville boy was in town for a family reunion. Wilson, a drifter from Wisconsin, said he'd taken LSD and believed God had told him to kill people. He was captured two days later after stabbing a woman during a robbery in Hollywood. She survived. At his murder trial, Wilson told jurors he had no remorse and told them to recommend the death penalty or he would kill again. A total of 51 affordable housing units are planned for a vacant parcel located at 2951 Soscol Ave. north of La Homa Drive and near the Old Soscol Way split. In the fall of 2015, the city of Napa selected Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) to develop the affordable housing rental property. Representatives from SAHA recently submitted their proposed plans for the project with the city planning department. Called the Manzanita Family Apartments, the project is estimated to cost approximately $25 million. The three-story complex will have a selection of one-, two- and three-bedroom units and be managed by SAHA as well. Rents will depend on family size and average monthly income but will range from an estimated $425 to $920 for a one-bedroom, $490 to $1,080 for a two-bedroom and $550 to $1,230 for a three-bedroom. The need for affordable housing in Napa is great, said Lark Ferrell, housing manager for the city of Napa. Our vacancy rate is extremely low, said Ferrell. Its very hard for people to find housing. And due the demand, rents arent affordable to low income residents. Many people in our community cannot afford to live here, and families are often the most impacted. Ferrell recalled that when a new affordable housing complex, Oak Creek Terrace, opened on First Street, hundreds of people applied for 40 units. That just shows you theres just such a need, she said. Affordable housing is a huge challenge, said Aubra Levine, associate director of housing development at SAHA. This is a critical piece of the puzzle not just to help one person but to help the whole community. This particular project is a good fit for the Soscol Avenue parcel, which was not being used by the city, said Ferrell. Its a good site for housing, she said. Its close to grocery stores, pharmacies, schools. Its close to the hospital; its on the bus line. Its a good infill site. SAHA, based in Berkeley, is already working on another Napa County project a low-income senior housing complex in American Canyon. That project called Valley View is currently securing funding. While working on that project, representatives from SAHA became familiar with the needs for affordable housing in Napa. There is a really can-do attitude within the city leadership with regards to the need for affordable housing, said Levine. After reviewing the submitted proposals for the project, Ferrell said the city chose SAHA for several reasons. First, they have a very strong community involvement process. It was collaborative. It gave people the opportunities to give feedback, Ferrell said. A visit to another SAHA project in Sonoma County also reflected well on SAHAs capabilities. That impressed us, she said. It seemed like something we would be proud to have in our community. Levine said that SAHA has been working with residents and immediate neighbors to encourage feedback and comments about the project. At the initial meeting, folks were a little skeptical and rightly so, Levine said. Im glad they are looking out for their community. By the end of the process we were able to come together to better the design, she said. That included adjusting where trash receptacles would be placed, the size of the interior courtyard, more parking and other aesthetics. For example, instead of carports, the developers are hoping to use trees as an alternative approach. This wont be just an apartment building. SAHA will also coordinate resident activities that could include life skill and educational workshops, potlucks, town hall meetings and other events. It depends on the needs and wishes of residents, Levine said. The development will feature offices for property management and supportive services staff, and other amenities such as shared laundry, a community kitchen, protected bike storage and the courtyard equipped with outdoor seating and playground. Everything is geared towards allowing folks to live the fullest and most independent lives they can and develop a community that will support them in doing that, said Levine. Besides development support from the city and county, a good chunk of the $25 million will come from a mix of state programs and federal funds, including the low income housing tax credit program. A conventional mortgage will also be used. Were in it for the long term, said Levine. SAHA will own the complex for 55 years or longer, she said. We invest in materials and maintain the building for the long term. Were not trying to cut any corners. Ferrell said that the city currently has 1,607 affordable rental units. The entire county has a total of 2,212 units, not including seasonal farmworker centers. Fifty new affordable apartment units might seem like a drop in the bucket, but It makes a difference to those 50 families for sure, Ferrell said. For more information, prospective residents are encouraged to subscribe to a notification mailing list on the SAHA website, www.sahahomes.org/. Six months prior to project completion, an application period will open and residents will be chosen by lottery. Everyone has an equal shot, Levine said. The planning department is currently reviewing the project. After that, the project will be scheduled for a public hearing with the Planning Commission. The Commission will then make a recommendation to the City Council who will then hold their own hearing and take final action on the application. We hope to secure entitlements and submit our first competitive financing applications (for public funds) this Spring. Once entitlements are secured our focus will be to secure the remaining funds needed to begin construction in spring 2018, said Levine. The project could be completed in 2020. Levine explained the name of the complex. We found that the native manzanita tree seems to be widely appreciated in Napa Valley, with trails, wineries, and parks all showing appreciation through naming. Since 1997, Andy Schweiger, winemaker at the familys Schweiger Vineyards on Spring Mountain, has produced a fortified dessert wine and called it port. Come May, thats going to change. We have a legal right to produce it and call it port, Schweiger said. But his cork supplier, M.A. Silva, took Schweiger to Portugal in 2015 and he fell in love with the region and the passion of those who grow grapes on steep slopes and produce wines there. It didnt feel right to call our dessert wines port, he said, since Portugal is a protected place name, much like the Napa Valley is. An ongoing issue with the Napa Valley Vintners, the nonprofit trade association based in St. Helena, is protecting the Napa Valley name and the other regions in the world where wines are produced. Champagne, for example, is produced only in Champagne, France. If you produce a Champagne-style wine in the Napa Valley, as Schramsberg and Mumm do, its proper name is sparkling wine. Same with fortified dessert wines, they can be called Port only if they are produced in Portugal. And, by the same token, you can produce a Napa Valley wine and label it as such only with grapes grown in the Napa Valley. In late October, Portuguese wine industry leaders officially recognized four NVV members for voluntarily discontinuing the use of the term port for their fortified dessert wines. Inducted into the Confraria do Vinho do Porto were Boyd Family Vineyards, Freemark Abbey, Jessup Cellars and Schweiger Vineyards. The Confrarias mission is to communicate, promote and reinforce the worldwide reputation of Port wine. Boyd Family, Freemark Abbey, Jessup Cellars and Schweiger Vineyards personify the shared belief among the NVV and my colleagues in Porto that all winegrowing place names should be respected and protected, said Confraria Chancellor George Sandeman. We salute those esteemed Napa Valley winemakers. Schweiger said he decided to stop calling his dessert wines port about a year ago and after the current vintage of Schweiger ports are sold, they will be called another name. He asked his Wine Club members for suggestions, started a blog to start a conversation and got about 200 suggestions. Hes not releasing the names of either the red, cabernet sauvignon-based dessert wine or the unique chardonnay-based dessert wine, because hes still getting trademark approval for those names. The red dessert wine is a solera-style wine, with vintages from 1997 to 2016 mixed. The base wine stays in barrels and half of it is bottled each year for release. Schweiger said his white dessert wine is an experiment, made with 100 percent chardonnay grapes from Spring Mountain. It was picked the same time as the winerys other chardonnay grapes but halfway through fermentation, brandy was added, which stopped the fermentation and made it a fortified wine. Schweiger estimates he will make 70 cases, which will be released to Wine Club members in the fall. Another experiment is his 2009 cabernet sauvignon dessert wine, which is still in a barrel. He will bottle half of it in 2019 and release it the following year; and keep the other half for another 10 years, making it a 20-year, barrel aged, red dessert wine. At the other NVV wineries, Stan Boyd, owner and winemaker of Boyd Family Vineyards, said he is planning to call his fortified dessert wine Liberty or (Libertad) for freedom. He said the name relates to a poem recited while stomping port grapes. Of course, its pending TTB approval. Instead of port, Michael Maher, senior vice president and general counsel, said Freemark Abbey will be calling their wine Cask 86 Dessert Wine. Jessup Cellars Judd Wallenbrock, president and managing partner, said , The wine will be Tawny. But our real focus is on the proprietary name Infinite Recursion. In an email, he writes, I can explain that a bit it is a blend of multiple vintages much like a solera or balsamic vinegar or sourdough starter. A little bit of the mother barrel is in every bottling. Infinite recursion is what that experience is when you have two mirrors facing each other and it reflects to infinity back and forth. The 8th Reflection, (the first release made up of the first eight years) will be bottled in March and released in the fall. The wine is cab-based and he said, It will be in a very cool 500 ml bottle with a silk screened label. He adds it is expected to retail for $75. The NVV began working with Porto in 2005, with the signing of the Joint Declaration to Protect Wine Place and Origin. Other founding members of the Declaration include Champagne, Sherry, Willamette Valley, Ore., Walla Walla and Washington state. Today, the partnership features 20 famous wine regions, collaborating to promote the belief that place of origin is important to the production of quality wine. ANGWIN A forest can be a field of dreams to a mushroom lover. Each January, mushroom experts guide visitors in search of spore-bearing morsels through the pines and madrones surrounding this placid Upvalley village. Combing the sides of tree trunks and peeling away blankets of fallen leaves, the hikers search for chanterelles, matsutakes and other buried treasures for the dinner table while learning how to hunt with discretion and without trepidation. The Wild Mushroom Foray is a highlight of the Napa Truffle Festival, an annual four-day collection of dining, wine pairing, classes and cooking demonstrations devoted to the highly prized soil-bound delicacy. On Sunday morning, a busload of truffle lovers, other mushroom mavens and the merely curious arrived at the edge of the woods along Las Posadas Road along with their guide David Campbell, a writer and teacher on wild fungi, for one of the weekends two foraging tours. In a wry and unruffled voice, Campbell, the president of the Mycological Society of Marin County, led some 50 hikers through winding paths beside trees that promised a variety of edible finds if they knew where to look. The best quality mushrooms are usually hidden; the best porcini you dont see, he told hikers as they tramped over storm-soaked trails, bundled up in heavy coats after a near-freezing dawn. Bending to one knee, he lightly scuffed the leafy ground with his hand and turned up a porcini against a tree trunk and the fragments of another porcini three feet away, on a flat and nondescript spot few humans had thought to look, but where an animal already had. As a mushroom hunter I use other peoples bad habits not to mention animals to figure out whats going on. I see where a deer has half-eaten some porcini and left the rest. Thank you, Mr. Deer! Among the hikers were those like Hosanna Porath of Sacramento, who was getting her first up-close look at the potential dinner-plate dainties in their natural element. You can go to a lot of places that sell them, but you dont know if they really know what theyre doing, she said. As the mushroom hunters strolled from glade to glade, Campbell paused to point to the various trees oaks, madrones, pines, firs as guideposts toward different fungi, each species roots fostering its favored mushroom types in a web of symbiotic relationships. Las Posadas unusual blend of evergreen and deciduous trees, he said, translates to an equally diverse menu in the surrounding soil. Ten percent of mushrooms species are edible, and most of the remainder innocuous if unappetizing, but the foragers teacher encouraged them to play it safe if anything is uncertain about a fungus identity to avoid not only poisonous varieties but also those that could trigger an allergy in a select few. If you bite into a mushroom and it doesnt taste good, ask yourself: What the hell am I doing? quipped Campbell. We dont eat these things to satisfy hunger; we do it to satisfy our need to do something cool and eat a special food. Two hours later, the foragers had returned to their starting point, and a plank set over a couple of fallen logs became an improvised platter for stalks, caps and ear-shaped discoveries they had harvested with small knives and spades. These amounted to about a dozen types of mushroom fit to eat, though without some especially distinctive varieties like the button-size candy cap, which releases a sweet aroma remarkably like maple syrup. As the hiking party headed back to their cars for the trip home or to the tour bus for a wine-and-truffle lunch and cooking demonstration at the Davis Estates winery in Calistoga one new forager found the doing as fulfilling as the reward. As a girl in Massachusetts, I remember my dad going out, looking for mushrooms in the forest and then drying them, remembered Kathy Cameron, a Napan on her first foraging hike with her husband Richard. We love mushrooms, and this is a good way to see the country, look around, find places to hike and meet people. I just love being outdoors doing something like this, because foraging is such a cool concept. St. Helena Police announced the arrests of two men on felony allegations stemming from an attempted purchase at a local pharmacy. At 2:04 p.m. Saturday, Vasconi's Pharmacy at 1381 Main St. called police to report a fraudulent phoned-in drug prescription after learning it was made in the name of a nonexistent doctor, the department said in a press release. Four minutes later, the drugstore again called police to report the customer had arrived and that store staff would try to stall him, according to the statement. Officers arrived within two minutes as a man was fleeing Vasconi's on foot, and detained him and two other people outside, police said. The drugstore visitor, 30-year-old Nicholas Anthony Simat of San Leandro, was arrested and booked into the Napa County jail for investigation of drug possession, burglary and obtaining drugs with a false prescription, as well as obstructing police officers. Simat also was held on a Contra Costa County warrant. Also detained was Trinh Viet Ngo, 30, of El Sobrante, who police said alerted Simat to the officers' arrival with a text message. Ngo was booked into jail on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, obstruction and being an accessory to a felony, then was released, according to police. A third person was detained, but then released at the scene. ST. HELENA St. Helenas Richard Nagaoka has some unfinished feelings about Japanese internment that still haunt him: Specifically, his familys experience more than 75 years ago. I have some feelings of being self-conscious, he said, because the event was so shameful for Japanese Americans. He was speaking about the internment and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Though those events might seem quite distant to us today, Nagaoka says they are haunting him now because of the policies that President-elect Donald Trump has promulgated. The policies of the new administration sound very conservative, Nagaoka said, sitting in his home surrounded by favorite paintings. The language about registration of Muslim Americans sounds so familiar of Hitler and Im certain my folks had to go through that, too. Flash back to 1942: Nagaokas family owned a small farm in Lodi. His mother, Fumiko Nagaoka, had been born in Sacramento of Japanese parents; his father, Tahei Nagaoka, had emigrated from Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan and had lived in the United States for more than 20 years. Yet, despite the civil rights afforded to most Americans, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which declared that all people of Japanese ancestry were to be evicted from the West Coast. Despite their place of origin, birth or length of residency, Nagaokas family was ordered to assemble at a regional train station. They were only allowed to take what little luggage they could carry. Then they were herded onto railroad cars and relocated to an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. That is where Richard Nagaoka was born. Of course, the Nagaoka family was not alone. Official estimates peg the number of evicted Japanese Americans to have been as many as 120,000 people, forcibly relocated to one of 10 internment camps set up by the military. Sixty percent of those incarcerated had American citizenship, according to historians. The military ran the camps and staffed them with armed guards. Those interned were surrounded by barbed wire. According to a 1943 War Relocation Authority report, Japanese internees were housed in tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind. These camps would not closed until the war ended in 1945. Although Richard Nagaoka has no conscious memory of internment or incarceration, he said the shadow of incarceration haunted his family as he grew up. Asked if his mother or father ever talked about their experience, he said Never! It was a stigma that seemed to haunt us all, even when they returned to their property in Lodi. I have discussed it with Japanese Americans, but never with a local paper or Caucasians, he said. So its a little strenuous. And also in the back of my mind, even to this day, there is a stigma about reprisals for Japanese Americans because, of course, they were harassed and we heard stories about drive-by shootings at residences, and dynamiting ... A fear of what could happen. Fear was endemic during that period. The few family stories that Nagaoka did hear still have resonance. My sister has a story she was 8 when they boarded the train, he said. They were told to keep the shades pulled down and not to look out. Half-way through the trip there was a rumor going on the train that there are Native Americans riding on bareback right along-side the train, trying to look inside the train to see who was there. Im not sure if my sister was brave enough to take a peek because the other part is that most Japanese Americans had never seen an Indian. So I guess the country must have been in such hysteria and fear to take precautions like incarceration. Nagaokas father and mother were required to sign a loyalty oath in 1942 to avoid deportation, renouncing any allegiance to Imperial Japan. But this was a particularly problematic document for Nagaokas father because U.S. law prevented immigrants from Japan from obtaining U.S. citizenship. Signing the loyalty oath would leave him legally stateless. Nagaoka said his father was not permitted become naturalized until 1954. Yet still, Nagaoka acknowledges, the familys stigma of internment followed him through childhood back on the family farm in Lodi. When I was in grade school and high school in Lodi there was a lot of racial harassment or teasing, he said. For example every Pearl Harbor Day on Dec. 7. On that anniversary I didnt want to go to school. I was the only Asian in the school and my classmates would tease me all day long. He paused to reflect on this sense of exclusion. When youre the only member of a racial minority in a class and you are taunted, theres hardly any recourse for it, he said. Nothing violent ever happened to me. Yet, I think I had a very self-conscious feeling about some responsibility for the war, though of course I wasnt born then. I think the burden was placed on the whole Japanese American community. What made me think about talking is the recent elections have been so anxiety producing. Not for me, personally. But for Latinos and Muslim Americans. So they have to feel extremely vulnerable at this time. And the uncertainty certainly feels familiar to me: that fear in the gut about what the future holds. Yet Nagaokas own career was buoyed by the need to fit into the American society that had caused such hardship for his family. He said his family spoke only English in the home that there was an attempt to appear as American as possible. His sense of social isolation created by his familys experience became a framework of interior challenges. And when high school counselors discouraged him from applying to U.C. Davis, Nagaoka saw it as just one more challenge. He graduated from UC Davis with a degree in viticulture in 1965. Today he is a viticulture consultant in St. Helena, with emphasis on field research. Its the residue of discrimination that upsets him, he said. No Japanese Americans were ever prosecuted for disloyalty or spying, he said. What he said he fears for others is a kind of insidious post-traumatic stress disease that will haunt the future of those who may experience the discriminations of the current time. For instance, I saw the registration card that my father was required to carry, he said. And it had written on it Enemy Alien. Depending on whom you talk to, America has either just taken the first bite of the poison apple of dictatorship, or is embarking on a national improvement program so good that it could only be hatched by a group of very wealthy businessmen. Whatever your position, there should be one Cabinet nomination that has you reaching for a handful of ibuprofen: Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Of all possible choices, it is astonishing that the president-elect managed to find a person who might well be not just a poor choice, but a dangerous one. You might already have encountered some of his background tidbits, but in case you havent, what say we take a moment and scare the bejabbers out of ourselves? First, he is CEO of Exxon-Mobil, the company where he has spent his entire working life. He has no experience in statecraft or government service of any kind. None. Zip. Thats great. Since hes a blank slate, it will make him so much more uninhibited and freewheeling in dealing with delicate hot spots around the world. Just what we need: that seat-of-the-pants, amateur touch. Second, as the head of one of the three largest oil companies in the world, he is quite friendly with Vladimir Putin, and even received the Russian Friendship Medal in 2013, based presumably on his willingness to smile and make nice with one of the world most brutal dictators. Thats a plus. Our third point complicates things considerably. In 2011, Tillerson signed a huge deala joint venture with a Russian state-owned oil companyto open 10 drilling sites in the Russian arctic in exchange for Russian participation in Exxon profits elsewhere in the world. The difficulty arose in 2014, when Putin ordered the invasion of Crimea, and European/American sanctions imposed on Russia put the oil project on hold. Tillerson was, of course, incensed. How dare anyone allow some petty political squabble to interfere with his right to make cartloads of money? He remained outspoken in opposition to the sanctions. So will TillersonMr. International Oil Conglomeratebe able and willing to maintain the sanctions? Or will he be just a teensy bit tempted to green light all that juicy oil drilling? Maybe have a flute of Champagne with Vladimir and let bygones be bygones? A manly bear hug, perhaps. As secretary of state, he will naturally be able to divorce himself completely from his 40-odd years at Exxon. Easy as driving at 60 miles an hour and throwing it into reverse gear. Then theres point number 4. Tillerson owns about 1.8 million shares of Exxon stock that are not yet fully vested, so he cannot sell them as part of a blind trust that would distance him from Exxon. Even if he were motivated to divest himself, he has no way to effectively do so. He will have an Exxon tattoo on his forehead, wherever he goes. The deeply unsettling backdrop for all this is the weird bromance between Putin and the president-elect, not to mention the Russian-sponsored hacking of Democratic and Republican National Committee computer systems, confirmed by all 17 U.S. security agencies. So: do we really want to make overtures of cooperation to someone like Putin, the Darth Vader of planet Earth? It would be foolish for lots of reasons, but one good one is certainly that our NATO allies will rightfully freak out. Already Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania are being muscled by Russia in various ways, so how will they react as their major defense treaty partner makes nice with the neighborhood bully? All arguments touting engagement and re-setting the relationship look completely mad at this point. A relationship re-set requires that both sides be willing to reach out, making meaningful conciliatory moves; so lets review Russias recent cooperative efforts. In no particular order they are: bullying the Baltic states, invasion of Crimea, invasion of Eastern Ukraine, joining with Assad and Iran to devastate Syria, and hacking U.S. computer systems to destabilize our democracy. It might have escaped the president-elects no doubt keen sense of history, but Russia has little in common with us. It has never had a true representative government. It has no democratic traditions whatsoever, and Putins only goal for years has been to regain much of the former territory and glory of the old Soviet Union. Poking a stick in the eye of the United States is a clear part of that plan. Why pretend anything else? He is, recall, a genuine dictator, a thug who has ordered the murder of dozens of opponents and outspoken journalists in recent years. So is this the moment to send a smiling amateur diplomat from Texas to deal with a monster? A monster who knows what kind of Champagne he likes? NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller visited Lithuania on Thursday and Friday (12 and 13 January 2017) to participate in the high-level Snow Meeting, bringing together Lithuanian and international security experts. In the margins of the forum, Ambassador Gottemoeller met with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius and Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis. The Snow Meeting is an annual high-level discussion forum organised by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry to address challenges facing the Euro-Atlantic community. 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the Snow Meeting. This years discussions in Trakai, Lithuania will examine the decisions taken at the Warsaw Summit and closer NATO-EU cooperation. The sessions will be attended by senior security experts and government officials, including Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser and Georgian Foreign Minister Mikhail Janelidze. In her meetings with Foreign Minister Linkevicius and Defence Minister Karoblis, the Deputy Secretary General discussed the implementation of NATOs enhanced forward presence in the Baltic States and Poland. She also commended Lithuania for its decision to host a multinational NATO battalion in Rukla, as well as its commitment to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP by 2018. The contract was signed by Brigadier Jeffrey Curmi,Commander of the Armed Forces of Malta, and Gian Battista Corbetta, Head of Maintenance, Refitting Overhaul & Conversionof FincantierisNaval Services Business Unit. The upgrading activities, which provide for the overall of many of the ship board systems are aimed at improving the reaction capability of the unit. The works, which are estimated at 7 million Euro, are scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2017in Italy, in the Fincantieri shipyard of Muggiano (La Spezia), and will last about 6 months . Offshore Patrol Vessel P61 is over 53 meters long and was built and delivered by Fincantieris shipyard of Muggiano to the Armed Forces of Malta in 2005. It is a modified variant of the Diciotti Class Patrol Boat,built by Fincantieri for the Italian Coast Guard, however, upgraded and modified with a helicopter deck and stern ramp for launching a 7 metre RHIB. At the end of the refit, the vessel will be given a new lease of life with a significant extension to its operating life. 11:03 US President Barack Obama has said Donald Trump was a "change candidate" and cautioned people against underestimating the President-elect, even as he acknowledged that it has been an "unusual" transition. "He was a change candidate," Obama told CBS News in his final interview as the President of the United States. Asked if anyone can change Washington, Obama said, "I think the American people can change Washington." "But I think that it is not going to change, because somebody from high directs that change. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, are motivated by all kinds of issues," the 55-year-old outgoing President said. "They're sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing they're interested in is getting re-elected. And if they think that it's harder for them to get re-elected by cooperating with each other, then they won't cooperate," Obama said. Reflecting on the election campaign, the US President said Trump was clearly able to tap into a lot of grievances. "And he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how you'd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate," Obama said of the billionaire-turned-politician, who will be sworn-in on January 20. "What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone," he said, in an apparent reference to the series of tweets that Trump writes everyday, which very often are the main source of news. "And I think that there's a power in that. There's also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem," Obama noted. Obama also cautioned political pundits and others who are critical of Trump that they should not underestimate him. "First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge don't underestimate the guy, because he's going to be 45th president of the United States," he said. "The one thing I've said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that, as we go forward certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place," he said. 12:28 Aamir Khan reaches out to Zaira Wasim a day after she was allegedly trolled for meeting J-K CM Mehbooba Mufti. Aamir who plays Zaira's father in the blockbuster Dangal, posted on Facebook: I have read Zaira's statement, and I can understand and imagine what lead her to make that statement. Zaira, I want you to know that we are all with you. The beauty is that bright, young, talented, hardworking, respectful, caring and courageous kids like you are a role model for kids not only in India, but across the world. You certainly are a role model for me! May god bless you. Love. Aamir. P.S. : I appeal to everyone to now leave her alone and respect the fact that she is just a 16 yr old girl trying her best to deal with life. Zaira Wasim, the Kashmiri teen who shot to fame for her stellar role playing the young Geeta Phogat, was on Monday unwittingly caught up in controversy over her meeting with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in the backdrop of the unrest in the Valley. Zaira, 16, first posted an apology for "offending" and "unintentionally hurting" people after her meeting with Mehbooba kicked up a row and trolled online but later deleted the post. She then posted again, this time asking everyone not to blow the issue out of proportion but deleted this post too. Zaira, who played the younger version of wrestler Geeta Phogat in Dangal, took to Facebook and tendered an apology apparently over her meeting with the chief minister on Saturday that drew sharp reactions from the youth in the Valley because of the situation there during the last few months. She also played down her performance in Dangal, saying she was "not proud of" what she is doing. "This is an open confession/apology. I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met," the actress wrote on her Facebook page. Zaira said she wanted to apologise to "all those people who I have unintentionally hurt and I want them to know that I understand their sentiments behind it especially considering that what had happened over the past six months" -- apparently referring to the unrest in the Valley which left 86 people dead and thousands injured. "But I hope people can also understand there are certain circumstances that emerge which one cannot control and I hope people still remember that I'm a just a 16 year old girl and I hope you treat me accordingly. I'm sorry for what I did but it was not a deliberate decision and I really hope people can forgive me," she said. Zaira also played down her projection as a role model for the youth of Kashmir, saying she does not want anyone to follow in her footsteps. "There are few more things which are very important and I want to clear them as well. The first and foremost thing is that I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri Youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me as a role model. Zaira later removed her first post and came up with a new one, where she claimed that she has "not been forced into anything by anyone". She, however, deleted that too after sometime. IMAGE: Aamir Khan with Zaira Wasim (left) and Suhani Bhatnagar in Dangal The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] DUBAI: The UAE has launched its first "robot pharmacy" here where robots will dispense prescribed medication at the click of a button. The robot is one of the latest smart technologies adopted by the authority to meet the 2016-2021 strategy, which aims to achieve a happy and healthy society, said Humaid Al Qatami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of Dubai Health Authority. The robot, which can store up to 35,000 medicines and dispense around 12 prescriptions in less than a minute, will start serving customers from tomorrow, Saudi news agency WAM reported. The smart pharmacy was inaugurated in the presence of Ali Al Syed, Director of the Pharmaceutical Services Department; Ahmad Bin Kalban, CEO of Hospital Services Sector, and Alya Al Mazroui, CEO of Rashid Hospital. As the robot can dispense up to 12 prescriptions in less than a minute, it will significantly reduce a person's waiting time, Al Syed said. The dispensing process will be paper-free as the robot will store the prescription as soon as a doctor documents it electronically. Leveraging the robot for dispensing medication will also allow the pharmacist to focus on giving the customers right instructions on taking the medication, he added. Read Also: Your Smart Watch Can Flag Your Sickness Now Go Live On Facebook From Desktop Afghan senators asked President Ashraf Ghani to dissolve the High Peace Council (HPC) following the insensitive remarks uttered by former advisor Abdul Hakim Mujahid. The move comes after Mujahid said last week that the Taliban were angels of peace and the group is a sacred group, Tolo News reported. Mujahid was fired from his position as HPC advisor on Sunday. The senators on Sunday argued that the HPC has failed to make any major breakthrough in the peace process and has instead been a financial burden on the country. They also implied that irresponsible HPC members should be prosecuted. "We call on the supreme commander of the armed forces to dissolve the High Peace Council and instead use the money on the security forces," said senator Rana Tarin. "Today there are concerns in everyone's minds, including shopkeepers, the poor and laborers, about the situation in the country and they want to see what government will do to mitigate the scale of the problems," said Tarin. In Sunday's session, the upper house of Parliament or the Meshrano Jirga also discussed the overall security situation in the country and the recent spate of violence -- including the Taliban attacks in Helmand and Kabul and the bombing at the Kandahar guesthouse, Tolo News reported. More than 50 people were killed when two Taliban suicide bombers targeted a convoy of Afghan Parliament workers on January 10. Over 150 others were injured. Mujahid slammed the move by defending the Taliban. "Taliban is a sacred group who have fought against Russia and defeated them, then put an end to civil war and brought security to the country," Mujahid said. Mujahid's comments were widely criticised by Afghans. --IANS ksk/vt ( 293 Words) 2017-01-16-13:56:06 (IANS) Zeenat Rafiq, 18, of Lahore's Factory Area was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi more than a week after the girl reportedly eloped with Hasan Khan to marry him in a court in Lahore, Dawn reported. Parveen Bibi confessed she murdered her daughter for "bringing shame to the family". --IANS ahm/dg ( 92 Words) 2017-01-16-16:48:09 (IANS) Letstrack, UK based IoT startup, is now in collaboration with Anything Skool, an initiative of Liberty Innovation Outfits Limited, covering more than 500 schools for One Stop Safety and Security Solutions. Letstrack is a global real time instant messaging and tracking app for smart phones, tracking devices and browsers. With the association, Anything Skool will connect Letstrack to its schooling partners so that schools can take an initiative towards safety and security of their students. Letstrack will provide their tracking devices to the buses of the school which will help schools track their buses easily. Vivek Bansal, CEO of Liberty Innovative Outfits Limited and Director of Liberty Shoes, said, "We believe in one stop solution which is why we feel proud to be associated with Letstrack, a one stop solution expert in safety. With the advanced technology and ability to optimize the usage of all the features, Letstrack comes as a great deal to us in bringing everything under one roof." Vikram, Founder and CEO Letstrack said, "We are excited and proud to be associated with Liberty for their initiative Anything Skool. This is first step in the direction of a paradigm shift on how Schools can improve on safety, efficiency and productivity. Only through this step, Letstrack is expecting to cover and improve lives of over 1.5 million school students along with their Parents and the Schools they go to. This is just a tip of the Iceberg in the ocean of possibilities that this segment brings around. Leading from the front, intelligent solutions offered through personal and professional tracking are aimed at making everything around our children (read students) become safe, secure and most effortless as it can. Unearthing profitability from conventional and new avenues for institutions like schools and companies running school fleets is then a natural outcome." (ANI) Mumbai [India], Jan.16 (ANI-Businesswire India): ZingHR, the new age employee-centric cloud HCM Platform, announced on 6th January, 2017, that it was honored with CIO CHOICE 2017 Award in HR and Global Payroll Services for the SME category. CIO CHOICE celebrated its 5th Anniversary, the only independent ICT Vendor Recognition platform - Voice of CIOs in India. The marquee 5th Annual CIO CHOICE Recognition landmark event saw a gathering of 400+ CIOs and ICT Business Leaders. This exclusive Red Carpet Night, presented Honor and Recognitions in 52 categories, recognizing 28 distinct ICT Brands. The event focused on companies based or operating in India, and was by far the most competitive in its history this year as well, with the highest number of nominations and entry submissions to date with a distinguished CIO Advisory. More than 200 entries were received this year, from a wide array of public and private ICT Vendor companies, both Large as well as small and medium enterprises and from a variety of geographic regions in India. The Winners of CIO CHOICE 2017 were determined by an independent CIO voting survey from across the country on product performance, customer satisfaction and continued customer service. KPMG is the knowledge partner for CIO CHOICE 2017. "By being voted by CIOs, ZingHR has proven its expertise in specific technology areas, places them among the top percentile of enterprise ICT vendors in India" said Anoop Mathur President at Centre Of Recognition & Excellence. On receiving the award, Mr. Prasad Rajappan, Founder and CEO, ZingHR said, "It is truly rewarding to receive a recognition at such a grand platform, and having won the trust of CIOs across industries and geographies. ZingHR's capabilities in providing cloud based HRMS solutions for SMEs and large enterprises across geographies, and continuous innovation in technology has helped achieve this feat. What set us apart was our vision and endeavour to deliver real business value, going far beyond offering a mere HR processes automation tool. ZingHR leads the HR Tech space with innovations like Machine Learning for Recruitment, AI enabled Chatbot for Support, Mobile Onboarding, Aadhaar integrated e-KYC, Power BI for data visualization, Geo-fencing and geo-tagging, for the Mobile workforce." (ANI-Businesswire India) The lender was looking at expanding its footprint in central and western parts of India. "We have a plan to open 51 branches by March, 2017, of which 10-12 branches have already been opened. We plan to set up additional 200 branches in the next financial year," said bank's MD and CEO Pawan Bajaj. "We have a plan for more pan-India presence to improve our CD ratio," he said at a programme organised by Merchants' Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Bank's branch network stood at 2011 as on March 31, 2016. Bajaj said the bank saw huge deposit growth after demonetisation but its loan growth would be muted for this fiscal due to low credit offtake. "We are not finding the way to lend. So, we cannot expect to clock a business growth of 18-20 per cent this fiscal from October, 2016 lending figures are flat." --IANS bdc/ahm/dg ( 206 Words) 2017-01-16-20:48:08 (IANS) Stadler Rail Management AG is planning to set up a unit in Visakhapatnam, which is expected to create 3,000 jobs, an official statement said here on Monday. The company's top officials said this when a delegation from Andhra Pradesh led by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu met them in Zurich, on the first day of their six-day long visit to Switzerland. Stadler, which provides a comprehensive range of products in the commuter rail and railway segments, has presence in Kancharapara in West Bengal and is looking at Visakhapatnam to locate another unit especially to manufacture spares with aluminium, said the state government statement here. The delegation also met officials of Trittec company, which makes mosquito nets and meshes. The company evinced interest in setting up of a production unit in Andhra Pradesh. The company officials informed Naidu that they need 5,000 sq metres of land for setting up of the production unit through which 400 to 500 people would get employed. From the proposed unit, the company aims to export these meshes to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Gherzi Corporation, who are specialists in blood plasma fractionation, plans to make investment to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore in Andhra Pradesh, the statement said. Ratakonda energy systems, a clean energy provider, also plans to set up a 50 MW project in the state. The company has projects in solar power and information technology in Germany. Naidu met representatives of European Education and Research Council (EERC) of Germany which plan to integrate research in educational institutions with manufacturing in factories. The group specialises in the fields of aeronautical, automobile and mechanical engineering, and has interest in setting up automobile clusters. The Chief Minister informed the representatives that he is keen on bringing in the German technology to Andhra Pradesh, especially in the automobile sector. Naidu suggested that they could network with the Sri Venkateswara, Andhra and Nagarjuna Universities. The delegation also called on representatives of Baumgarte Company, a part of the EEARC group and specialists in producing energy from waste. --IANS ms/vd ( 351 Words) 2017-01-16-21:26:08 (IANS) Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Gandhi scion said the central bank was not given due importance while implementing demonetisation. Speaking at 'Vijay Sankalp' convention of party workers here in Rishikesh, Gandhi alleged: "The RBI governor got a letter a day before that PM Modi took the decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. The soul of the financial RBI, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was killed in a minute. Now, only one person will run the country." The employee unions of the RBI last week on Friday had expressed their deep concern over alleged interference by the central government in the affairs of the apex bank by appointing its officer to oversee chest currency operations in view of demonetisation. Referring to the recent controversy over the Khadi and Village Industries Commission's (KVIC) decision to replace Modi with Mahatma Gandhi on its calendars and diaries, the Congress leader said Modi wanted to run the country on his own by suppressing everyone's voice. "PM Modi does everything that happens nowadays. Next year, you will not find Lord Ram in Ramleela but Modi instead. Lord Ram will appear in Ramleela sporting Modi's mask. Such kind of Ramleela will happen across the country," the Congress Vice President said. "He (Modi) wants one-man rule in the country. He wants others to vanish, their voice to fall silent, and people should listen to his Mann Ki Baat only. However, one cannot govern this way," he added. He further alleged that Modi worked for industrialists. "A suit of Rs 15 lakh and spinning wheel -- there is a contradiction. Spinning wheel represents poor people, weaker section, which connect them with economic progress. On one hand, Modi clicks photo with a spinning wheel while on another, he works for top 50 industrialists," Gandhi said. "PM Modi always talks of the poor but have you seen him clicked with any poor, its only the rich and powerful who are seen by his side in frames," he told the gathering. He also took on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and said while brave soldiers of the Indian Army were sacrificing their lives, the RSS and BJP refuse to salute the tricolour. The Congress leader alleged that RSS had never unfurled national flag 'Tiranga' at its headquarter in Nagpur in 52 years "The BJP and the RSS still salute a 'bhagwa' (saffron) flag," he added. --IANS spk-md/pgh/dg ( 430 Words) 2017-01-16-21:34:09 (IANS) The TV sketch comedy returned from its winter holiday break on to poke fun at the recent news surrounding Trump and the recently released, unverified Russian reports that featured such claims as the 70-year-old businessman asking prostitutes to perform 'golden showers' and his first press conference in nearly half a year, reports hollywoodlife.com. In a supposed press conference, Baldwin's Trump stood at a podium and addressed the crowd saying, "Yes, this is real life, this is really happening." As it continued, Baldwin's Trump boasted about his upcoming inauguration and the acts performing. "Hold onto your tits and bits because we have got 3 Doors Down and the Rockette with the least amount of money in her savings," he announced. Also taking questions from the audience, who wanted to address the 'golden shower' claims, Baldwin's Trump said, "I am not talking about the pee pee. It wasn't as cool as it sounds." Despite his protestation, he continued with the urine innuendo. "I am going to bring back a thick stream of jobs. This country will be literally showered in jobs. I am a whiz at jobs," Baldwin's Trump said, before pointing to the crowd to see who was "in" for his plan. "You're in, you're in, you're in," he said, running the words together.(ANI) Anshuman Jha, who is busy with his next film "Mona Darling", a suspense thriller with a cyber crime set up, says he really wants "The Big Bang Theory" star Sheldon Cooper to watch the film. Anshuman plays the role of a sociopath in the film. For his character, he is seeking advice from actor Kunal Nayyar, who is married to Anshuman's cousin Neha Kapur. "I play a guy who is not comfortable with physical contact. He lives in the virtual world and perceives the world through a game created by him. My character draws from Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Sherlock' and Sheldon Cooper from 'The Big Bang Theory', so Kunal's inputs will be vital for me," Anshuman said in a statement. The "Chauranga" actor is also planning to fly down to the US to meet Nayyar, known for playing Rajesh Koothrappali in "The Big Bang Theory". "I'm flying down to US to show the final product to Kunal as his opinion also matters to me a lot. I really want Sheldon Cooper to watch my film. If that happens, it would be an honour for me and this film," he added. --IANS dc/rb/bg ( 205 Words) 2017-01-16-16:08:15 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday hit out at Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, saying that the latter is getting insecure as Prime Minister Narendra Modi isgarnering huge praise in Uttar Pradesh because of his demonetisation decision. "Mayawati does not know about what type of days are coming for BJP but she certainly knows that her bad days are coming soon. She is afraid of the rising popularity of Prime Minister Modi amongst people of Uttar Pradesh for his demonetisation decision," BJP leader Rahul Sinha told ANI. He said people have understood what Mayawati and her brother are doing and what they have done with the party funds. Sinha said the core voters of Mayawati are alleging that she has looted the money and Prime Minister Modi has snatched the black money from the corrupt persons. "Time will tell about the good or bad days but one thing is sure that BJP will emerge as the single largest party in UP and form the government there," he said. Mayawati on Sunday raked up the demonetisation drive and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should be ready to face its repercussion in the politically crucial state. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the BJP should be ready to face the consequences of their decision in the Uttar Pradesh polls as the move has rendered 90 percent of people cashless. "It's been over 50 days post demonetisation and yet the Prime Minister has not said how much black money has been recovered," she said. (ANI) The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday described the ban on Jallikattu as an assault on Tamil culture and tradition while asserting that the historic bull-taming sport could not be 'wiped out' easily. "The whole state of Tamil Nadu is agitating on this issue. There is overwhelming consciences on Jallikattu. People do not want any ban on it. Tamil people consider Jallikattu as part of their culture and tradition and any attempt to stop or ban Jallikkatu is taken as an assault on Tamil culture , identity and tradition," CPI leader D. Raja told ANI. Raja, further said that the matter of Jallikattu should be seen in a correct historic perspective. "It has a history and this cannot be wiped out, that is why there is huge agitation in support of Jallikattu and people are questioning the credibility of state and union government," Raja added. The people of Tamil Nadu yesterday urged the Supreme Court to pass the judgement on Jallikattu after a proper analysis. Meanwhile, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) also expressed disappointment over the apex court's ruling against Jallikattu. Protests over banning of Jallikattu dampened the festive spirit in Madurai. Anguished by the continuing ban on Jallikattu for the third year in a row, the people in some villages in Madurai district observed the festival as "Black Pongal." They hoisted black flags and held processions condemning PETA (an animal rights organisation) and demanded that the Centre take steps to conduct Jallikattu. Earlier on Thursday, the apex court rejected a plea seeking to allow Jallikattu played during the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu. An apex court bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and R. Banumathi told a group of lawyers, who requested for the verdict, that it is unfair to ask the bench to pass an order. The court had earlier in 2014 banned Jallikattu on grounds of animal cruelty. (ANI) Three Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) militants were killed in an encounter by security forces in a night-long operation in the south Kashmir district of Anantnag, official sources said. All the three militants, holed up in a house in village Awoora since last evening, have been killed, sources told UNI.MORE UNI BAS SV 0836 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1109061.Xml Despite fresh snowfall, the Karvan-e-Aman bus left for Kaman Post, the last Indian military post on this side of the border, to cross over to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The peace bus left Srinagar this morning and has reached the Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC), Uri, official sources told UNI. They said the exact number of those travelling in the cross-LoC bus, major Confidence Building Measure (CBM) between India and Pakistan, will be known only in the afternoon. The bus service continued its run despite unrest in Kashmir last year and tension on the LoC due to ceasefire violation. The cross-LoC bus service, started on April 7, 2005 despite opposition by militant organisations, has helped thousands of families, divided in 1947 due to partition, to meet each other after India and Pakistan agreed to allow travel of state subjects from both sides on travel permits instead of international passport. However, travel permit is issued to citizens from both sides of the LoC only after their names are cleared by intelligence agencies from India and Pakistan. UNI BAS SV 0939 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1109097.Xml According to report, more than 20 incidents of fights between civilians and BSF were reported in Tripura last year. However, the BSF was also able to detain a number of illegal Bangladeshi nationals and seized huge contraband worth more than Rs 10 crore at various bordering locations of the state. The repeated allegations against BSF jawans posted at the border along Tripura haunts the top administration of BSF. A number of allegations made against jawans deployed at the border for their involvement in smuggling rackets and cross border movement are being investigated by the top administration, said a senior official of BSF. "Civilians residing in the bordering villages of Sonamura, Kamalasagar, Belonia, Agartala and Kailashahar are regularly in tussle with BSF jawans whenever they are prevented from smuggling or any other cross border activities. But no where it is established that BSF is involved in such illegal activities" said the officer. MORE UNI BB AD1105 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-1109149.Xml Tribal politics in Tripura has shifted to a new height with the emergence of All Tripura Indigenous Regional Parties Forum (ATIRPF) by the three major opposition tribal parties of the state Indigenous Peoples Front of Twipra (IPFT), Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) and National Conference of Tripura (NCT) a year ahead of Assembly polls. Addressing the media here today, senior tribal leader and President of INPT Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhwal said that ATIRPF would work jointly for the protection of interest of the indigenous population of Tripura besides their individual political activities. As part of the beginning of ATRPF activities, the forum has convened dawn to dusk general strike in tribal areas of autonomous district council (ADC) on February 8 next demanding to revoke proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to be tabled in Lok Sabha in May this year, he said. Hrangkhwal, however, pointed out that Northeastern states have been suffering from illegal migrants from neighbouring countries for past many years and to ensure the vote bank of BJP in the religious line of Narendra Modi led government at the Centre has proposed the amendment in the Act. for conferring Indian citizenship to migrants who have entered India over the years illegally. The indigenous peoples of Northeast have had to suffer over decades due to strategically facilitating in various guises illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar and Nepal. The amendment would have a negative impact for indigenous people of the region and made imbalance in demography and usurping of their rights, he stated. "This will marginalise and dispossess the indigenous peoples of the region and the process of racial discrimination will accentuate in their home land. The provisions in the proposed Bill further violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination as well Articles 14 and 21 of Indian Constitution," Hrangkhwal said. He apprehended the Bill would inevitably cause unpreventable violent conflict in the region, which would also result in the loss of innocent lives. He added that Tripura is the worse victim of the illegal migration of Hindu Bangalee from Bangladesh since merger in 1949 that reduced aboriginal Tripuri to minority. As per 2011 census report Tripura is the only state in the entire country where the indigenous majority people (Tripuri) have been outnumbered by the illegal migrants from the neighbouring country, he said and demanded steps for identification of illegal migrants in Northeast and ensure their deportation. Although Hrangkhwal did not make any comment on pre-poll alliance and united fight against BJP and Left Front in Tripura in next Assembly poll, however, indicated that parties will move together to safeguard the interest of the tribals of the state. While INPT and NCT have long been opposing the demand of separate tribal land in Tripura by IPFT, the parties were demanding empowerment of ADC by direct funding. IPFT is also scheduled to hold demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to press for the demand. The BJP and other opposition parties have been rejecting the demand stating not feasible and as a result, none of these party joined in Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA). Tribal constituted more than 31 per cent of the population and as many as 20 Assembly seats are reserved for the tribal in 60-members Assembly in Tripura. The Left Front has been winning the election for last two terms by capturing all 20 seats taking the advantage of splitting tribal votes for opposition. But ATIRF has made an indication to re-capture the seats from left front in next election.UNI BB AD1126 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-1109161.Xml At least twenty nine pilgrims suffered serious injuries after a bus overturned near Telgara village in Kanker district last night. Those who sustained injuries were immediately rushed to the nearby hospital for medical aid. Out of which five are under critical condition. Further details are awaited. (ANI) The West Bengal government has decided to assist the willing transgender people to change their sex or sex reassignment surgery at its RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the city. Under this arrangement, the required surgery would be conducted freely on the people whose gender could not be determined from their childhood. "In case one is willing to become a girl, surgeries namely, facial feminisation, breast augmentation, voice feminisation, must be done. The candidates must undergo hormone replacement therapy," a published report today said. People aged between 17 and 25 and whose sex could not be determined will get the opportunity of availing the surgery if they desire to change their gender. Those having gender identity disorder will mostly be covered under this new scheme that the health department is going to launch. R G Kar Medical College and Hospital is the first state run hospital in the state where such surgery would be conducted. State health department has also planned to introduce the facility in the SSKM Hospital, the only state run super-specialty hospital in Bengal. It was learnt that initially, specialist doctors from the SSKM will provide assistance to RG Kar Hospital. If a person belonging to the third gender appeals to the state health department, a special review committee will examine the candidature and consider every aspect before allowing the applicant to undertake the sex-change surgery. The review committee will go through the candidature to check if the pre requisite criteria were met. Counseling would be given to those who will apply for sex change to prepare them mentally so that they can accept the sudden changes in their bodies. A nodal committee has been formed with representatives from various departments of the hospital which is examining various aspects of the new initiative. The health department has asked the RG Kar Hospital authorities to put in place the necessary infrastructure for the project. The state government will bear the entire cost of the project.UNI XC-PC AD1353 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-1109375.Xml Addressing the media here, Kumar urged the authorities to take more precautionary steps to ensure that a similar incident does not take place again. "All aspects of the mishap will be probed. This incident has immensely shocked me. I am myself monitoring the entire episode. A lot of people have been making comments, but they don't matter to me," he said. Expressing deep sorrow over the tragedy, Kumar had earlier announced an ex-gratia of Rs. four lakh and directed the concerned departments to speed up the rescue and relief operation. Nitish has asked the Health department and District Administrator to take quick and appropriate steps to help the injured. He has also directed the officials of the disaster management, police and district administrators to speed up operation and to look into the arrangement made by the organizers at the bank of the river Ganga. At least 24 people were killed after an overloaded boat carrying around 40 people capsized in the river Ganga near the NIT (National Institute of Technology) Ghat in the heart of the state capital on Saturday evening. (ANI) With the out-of-the-blue apology by 16-year-old Zaira Wasim, who played the critically acclaimed role of Geeta Phogat in Dangal sending shockwaves across the nation, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Monday came down heavily on Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who had earlier met the actress following which trolls broke out on the social media. Expressing how appalled he was at the development, Omar took to Twitter and stated that a 16-year-old shouldn't be forced to apologise and that too "allegedly for meeting @MehboobaMufti. What are we coming to!!!!!" Continuing his attack on Mufti, Omar further said that he has a problem with the Chief Minister trying to usurp other people's success to cover up her own failures. "But why punish/troll people she meets? These people succeed IN SPITE of the Govt not because of it so it's best to let them enjoy their success instead of trying to hijack it." the tweet added. In a surprising move earlier today, Wasim, issued a shocking public apology letter for hurting the sentiments of people via her Facebook and Twitter account, however, the reasons of the her actions remain unclear and speculations are rife. "I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met. I want to apologise to all those people who I've unintentionally hurt and want them to know that I understand their sentiments, especially considering what has happened (in Kashmir) over the past six months," she wrote in her letter. Wasim also appealed to the people to understand that sometime certain circumstances evolve which cannot be controlled by anyone and added 'whatever' she did was a not a deliberate decision. "I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me a role model. I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know, that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history," she said. However, the reason for the apology letter is not very clear, but it is speculated that Wasim, who posted this note after being trolled on social media for meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a couple of days ago and allegedly calling her as a part of her film's success. Wasim's post resulted in an outburst of reactions and speculations ranging from whether her account had been hacked, or whether she had received threats for meeting the Chief Minister. (ANI) iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) Ahead of the presidential inauguration this weekend, wireless carriers are bringing in the reinforcements as they expect to see a flood of smartphone activity in Washington, D.C. Mobile service providers, including Verizon, are bringing in their most advanced mobile cellular antennas, called RETs, or remote electrical tilt antennas. The high-powered COWs cells on wheels will help to boost the data capacity in the Washington, D.C. area by 400 percent or more. A million people or more are expected to pour into the nations capital for the inauguration Friday. ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Samsung India conducted the first season of its campus program Samsung E.D.G.E. with participation from the country's brightest minds at leading B-schools and engineering colleges. The program has been designed to engage with leading B-school and engineering talent across India with students getting an opportunity to interact with the leadership team at Samsung, work on real-world business problems and come up with their unique solutions. The team from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras emerged as the winner in the National Round of the program. The first runner up was the team from XLRI Jamshedpur while the second runner up was from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi. Twelve of the top teams that were winners from all zonal rounds competed at the grand finale of the Samsung E.D.G.E. program, which was held in Gurgaon on January 14, 2017. The winning team members received a prize of INR 3 lakh and a Gear S3 smartwatch each while the team that came second got a prize of INR 1.5 lakh. The third team received a prize of INR 75,000. Students from the top two teams were designated Samsung Campus Ambassadors and second year MBA students received a pre placement interview from Samsung. All 12 teams that reached the National Round also received vouchers worth INR 10,000. The winning team from IIT Madras presented a solution on leadership strategy in digital payments using a disruptive technology backbone built around Samsung's mobile payment service Samsung Pay that has been launched globally. Commenting on the successful culmination of the program, Udaiy Khanna, Vice President - Human Resources, Samsung India, said, "The response from students has been overwhelming and we are extremely happy with the success of the first season of the Samsung E.D.G.E. program. At Samsung, we always strive to encourage young minds and nurture the spirit of innovation among them." Launched in December 2016, Samsung E.D.G.E. is a first-of-its-kind campus program, to provide a platform that gives the country's brightest students at leading B-schools and engineering colleges an opportunity to get a head-start in their careers. Samsung E.D.G.E. comprised of three rounds. Three teams per campus were shortlisted for the Zonal Round in which all the teams closely worked on a case study and presented their unique solutions. A total of 45 teams from across 15 campuses were shortlisted for the Zonal Round in which the participants worked on different case studies and presented their unique solutions.(ANI) Haryana State Vigilance Bureau has caught Assistant Lineman Pawan Kumar posted at Nagpur village in Fatehabad district, red handed while accepting an illegal gratification of Rs 4,000 for not sending the electric meter to laboratory. A Bureau spokesman today said a case under sections 7 and 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against the accused at Bureau's Police Station Hisar. He was accepting bribe from Harbhajan Singh, a resident of same village. In another case, Bureau has caught Ajay, a Patwari at Halqa Kulasi in Jhajjar district red handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 3,500 from Narender, a resident of village Kulasi, in lieu of mutation of a piece of land which the complainant had purchased. A case under sections 7 and 13 of Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against the accused at Rohtak Police Station.UNI DB SW SNU 1556 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1109528.Xml The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked Punjab Congress Chief Capt Amarinder Singh to stop building castles in the air and concentrate first on setting his own house in order which is was on fire following haphazard distribution of tickets for the February 4 Assembly elections. In a statement here, SAD spokesman Manjinder Singh Sirsa said it was amusing to see Capt Singh boasting in terms of politically finishing his opponents, particularly Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, even before filing his nomination papers from any constituency in the state. It is clear that Capt Singh is just whistling in dark to keep up his courage in the face of discontentment, disarray and rebellion in the Congress party all over the state over selection of candidates. He should remember that he cannot defeat anyone just by declaring his intention to contest from a seat, least of all a five-time Chief Minister of Punjab and one of the tallest statesmen of India. Mr Sirsa said main purpose of Capt Singh to fight from Lambi is not to wage a serious challenge to a titan like Mr Badal but to help the AAP which has fielded a nonentity like Jarnail Singh under the secret understanding the two parties have struck. He should remember that Mr Badal has won four times in a row in Lambi since 1997. Has Capt Singh forgotten that when Mr Badal contested from two seats, Lambi and Qila Raipur, he won from both while Capt Singh when contested from two seats, Samana and Kharar, he lost his deposit in Kharar and managed a hollow victory at Samana by securing the forced withdrawal of other candidates, he added. Capt Singh is scared of facing the formidable challenge being posed by Akali candidate Gen JJ Singh (retd) in Patiala and is now running to Lambi, he said and added that the cadres of Akali Dal are just waiting for him to put in an appearance in Lambi to ensure that he meets his Waterloo there. UNI DB SW SNU 1702 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1109633.Xml Punjab Cabinet Minister Bikram Singh Majthia today appealed to the people to be aware of false and fake promises of state Congress Chief Captain Amarinder Singh and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal. He said the Captain backstabbed the people of Amritsar who sent him to the Lok Sabha and added that he did not even spend a penny for the welfare and development of his Lok Sabha constituency from his quota of grants as MP. Mr Majithia said on the other hand, Mr Kejriwal who is making false and fake promises with the people should list his achievements before the people as Chief Minister of Delhi where he has miserable failed and half of his MLAs are facing court trials in corruption, criminal and women molestation cases. The Minister appealed to the people not to fall in such false and unrealistic traps of promises which were being made by the Congress and AAP. He said that Punjabis should vote for development and strengthening communal harmony in the state. He said the AAP and the Congress were trying to create a rift through their hate speeches against various communities. Mr Majithia said on one side Captain was promising to give 60 lakh jobs to the youth and Mr Kejriwal, 25 lakh jobs whereas, they do not even know the actual figure of jobs in the state. He said that Captain during his tenure put a complete ban on job recruitment and Mr Kejriwal did not provide Government job to any youth during his two years tenure as Delhi Chief Minister.He further said that how such political opportunists can be trusted whose track record was worst and they were making such false promises for petty political gains. He said that the SAD-BJP Government on the hand provided around five lakh jobs to the youth purely on merit basis in a transparent way besides regularising contractual employees. Mr Majithia appealed to the people to vote for SAD-BJP alliance for the overall development and prosperity of the state. UNI DB RSA SNU 1643 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0292-1109645.Xml Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stating the soul of the financial institution was "murdered" within minutes after the decision to demonetise notes was announced. Addressing a rally in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh city, Rahul Gandhi said the Central bank was established to be independent from any political pressure, but the current dispensation had eroded this. "The Congress Party made and strengthened the RBI and ensured that such an institution does not bows down under government's pressure...But in a minute the soul of this institution, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was murdered by Modi Ji," he said. Rahul's reaction came in response after the employees of the RBI urged its Governor Urjit Patel to protect its autonomy by not allowing the Centre to not interfere in its functioning. In a letter, United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees said autonomy and image of the RBI has been "dented beyond repair" due to mismanagement and termed appointment of a senior finance ministry official as a "blatant encroachment" of its exclusive turf of currency management. "An image of efficiency and independence that the RBI assiduously built up over decades by the strenuous efforts of its staff and judicious policy making has gone into smithereens in no time. We feel extremely pained," the letter read. Following the furore the government clarified saying that it has in not infringed upon the autonomy of the RBI and that it "fully respects the independence and autonomy" of the central bank. "There has been a report in sections of the press that some unions have alleged infringement of the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India. It is categorically stated that the Government fully respects the independence and autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India," the clarification read. "Consultations between the Government and the RBI are undertaken on various matters of public importance wherever such consultation is mandated by law or has evolved as a practice, it added. (ANI) Fifteen people killed, four of them students, and 34 others injured in five separate car accidents in past 24 hours in West Bengal, police said today. Four students and a parent were fatally injured and seven other wounded critically when a Scorpio ran over them in front of Ganodamoyee Vidyalaya in South 24 Parganas' Bishnupur area this afternoon. The accident happened when the students after the school break werereturning home at Bakrahat Road near Thakurpukur. Irate mob ransacked the car and as the police arrived on the spot they pelted stones on them leading a pitch battle. A pilgrim was killed and 11 other injured when their chartered bus returning home to Bihar from pilgrimage at Gangasagar met an accident near Durgapur in Burdwan district this morning. Eight people were killed and 10 others injured when their pick up van colided with a truck in Nadia district last night. They were returning home from a picnic partyat Bethudohori forest. Six occupants were injured when their bus on Garia-Barasat route hit a divider near Kaikhali this morning. A rickshaw puller was killed when a motor cyclist hit him near Bally yesterday.UNI XC-PC AKM 1816 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-1109954.Xml Jammu and Kashmir Police rescued and provided food and shelter to tourists and other passengers who were stranded on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway which was closed due to heavy snowfall today. A police spokesman said here this evening that after heavy snowfall, the roads leading to hospitals and connecting the villages and towns were blocked at different places of the Kashmir Valley. The vehicular traffic, general public and patients were stuck on roads and hospitals, he said police swung into action and cleared roads leading to different hospitals, villages and towns in Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian, Awantipora, Budgam, Bandipora, Lolab Kupwara and Qazigund. The roads were cleared and the traffic was made through.In Qazigund, about 75 private as well as public vehicles were stranded at Jawahar Tunnel. After rescuing the passengers including the tourists, police arranged kehwa, meals and blankets for them. The road was cleared and the stranded traffic was allowed to move, he said.UNI BAS PY SNU 1821 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1109946.Xml Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said he was prepared to contest against his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav if attempts to keep the party united fail. "Akhilesh is being misled by Ram Gopal (Yadav). He is not even ready to listen to me. I invited him today (Monday) to discuss matters but he didn't come. If he doesn't listen to me, I will contest against him," Mulayam Singh said. His remarks came as later in the day the Election Commission allotted the party symbol of 'cycle' to the Akhilesh Yadav faction. Mulayam Singh made the remarks during a visit in the morning to the party office where he interacted with party members, including state Samajwadi Party chief Naresh Uttam, who was appointed state party chief by the faction led by Akhilesh Yadav. Mulayam Singh is learnt to have told party members that he tried to speak to Akhilesh for rapprochement thrice but the son did not respond properly. During the meeting, the 77-year-old former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh said the Muslim community was "angry" as the Akhilesh government "had not worked for them" in the last five years. "There is no Muslim name in the list issued by Akhilesh Yadav. Is this the way he wants to chalk out his political future," the patriarch said. "Muslims make our government but Akhilesh Yadav is not even a little worried about them," he said. Uttar Pradesh will go to assembly elections in seven phases from February 11 for 403 seats. Mulayam Singh appealed to party members to support him as "Akhilesh was not listening" to him. The party founder also blamed Akhilesh for removal of some senior leaders from the party "at the behest" of Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav. --IANS hindi-md-vv/rn/vt ( 312 Words) 2017-01-16-19:24:07 (IANS) PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) is a party in the petition against Tamil Nadu's bull taming sport Jallikattu, which was banned by the Supreme Court recently. "PETA, India for past 17 years had served the animals of this country based on the law, to call PETA an anti-national is cheap," Manilal Valliyate, Director of Veterinary Affairs, PETA India told IANS. PETA India in a statement also said that the Indian constitution calls for compassion for animals, adding, "to stand for kindness is patriotic, to stand for cruelty is un-Indian." "Article 51A(g) of the Constitution of India makes it the mandate of every Indian citizen to have compassion for animals," PETA said. Valliyate, who has personally witnessed Jallikattu events, said that the sport causes unnecessary pain to the people for amusement, which is against the law. He added that animals like bulls do not become aggressive unless instigated, and in Jallikattu bulls are often poked or hurt to get them agitated. According to PETA's fact sheet, since 2008, 43 people and at least 11 animals had died in Jallikattu, while over 5,000 people were injured. Earlier in the day, Stalin, Leader of Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, said the central government should ban non-governmental organisations (NGO) like PETA that function against Indian culture, tradition and also "as anti-national". --IANS kd/lok/bg ( 266 Words) 2017-01-16-20:26:07 (IANS) The Chembur police have registered a murder case against an unidentified person after a 34-year-old jeweller from Kerala was found dead inside a hotel room in Chembur. Preliminary investigations have revealed that the victim, identified as S Satish from Kerala, struggled before being hanged from the ceiling fan, said a police officer. According to police, Satish had arrived in Mumbai last week and checked into Hotel Kamla in eastern suburb of Chembur reportedly for a week. Last evening, the hotel staff suspected that something was wrong as the victim did not respond to several knocks on the door. Following which they informed police, who broke open the door and found the victim's body hanging from the ceiling fan. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where the doctors declared him dead. ''The initial post-mortem reports have revealed that the victim's wrist was slashed with a blade and he was later hanged. Satish's room was locked from outside, but the hotel owner told us that the lock did not belong to the hotel and was purchased from outside,'' said the investigating officer. ''His father Sukhdev runs a gold jewellery designing business in Kerala. Satish used to help him in hisbusiness and used to frequently visit Mumbai. On January 11, he left home to deliver gold jewellery in Mumbai,'' the officer said. ''We have collected the footage of a close circuit TV camera installed at the entrance of Kamla hotel and haverecorded statements of the hotel staff. Further, a case of murder has been registered and a detailed probe is underway,'' added the police officer.UNI AAA SS SW 2013 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1110087.Xml The Versova police has registered four different cases of cheating against unidentified fraudsters who allegedly posed as bank officials on the phone and duped as many Andheri residents of Rs two lakh in last 12 days. Four Andheri-based residents, including a senior citizen, were allegedly duped of Rs two lakh in last 12 days when they revealed their debit card details to men posing as bank officials. All the calls have been traced to Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Delhi and Jharkhand, police said and informed that they have registered cases in this regard and begun investigation. In an incident, one Rita Anil Motilal (60), was duped after a caller, claiming to be from her bank, asked her to reveal her debit card number and PIN. Within five minutes, she received an SMS alert that Rs 12,995 was debited from her account through an online retail transaction. Ms Motilal then reached the Versova police station and filed a First Information Report under section 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code and sections 66-B, 66-C, 66-D of the IT Act against the accused. According to sources in Versova police, in a similar incident, another Andheri resident, Mannubhai Kotilal Mewad, was duped of Rs 44,969. He too received a call asking him for his bank account details. The caller claimed that he was the bank manager. Just 10-15 minutes after the call, he received an SMS stating that Rs 49,969 was used from his account through online shopping done in Bihar. In two similar incidents, Harsh Vishnu Kathin (50) and Sadiya Sarfaraz Panwala (33) became victims of fake bank officials and lost Rs 88,880 and Rs 49,700 respectively. All four victims were targeted using a similar modus operandi. Senior police inspector from Versova police station Kiran Kale said, ''This is a gang who normally targets innocent people who easily reveal their bank and PIN cards to them. The fraudsters convinced the victims by saying their cards have been blocked and if they wanted to renew the cards, they would have to reveal the old card PIN numbers.''UNI AAA SS SB 2136 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1110319.Xml A joint team of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Railway Protection Force, Government Railway Police and forest department today seized two rare lizards and arrested two smugglers near Indo-Bangladesh border here. SSB Assistant Commandant Kumar Sunderam said here today two lizards, belonging to rare species of 'Tokay' were seized near Hanuman Temple following a tip off. He said lizards were concealed in soles of slippers of smugglers. Smugglers were identified as Sahar Ali and Hamidul Rehman, natives of Assam. Smugglers had made holes in slippers so that lizards could survive, he added.UNI XC DH BM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-1110490.Xml Former Union minister and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar today strongly hit out at the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for its demonetisation drive and claimed that the cooperative sector, which is the backbone of the Indian economy, has collapsed post demonetisation of old high value currency notes. Addressing a gathering after inauguration of a state-level 'Sahakar Parishad' organised by the Adarsha Apritam Media Group at Sant Tukaram Natyagruha here, he alleged that since demonetisation, the farmers were the worst affected as they could not get any benefits from cooperative and district banks where most of the farmers have their savings account due to the currency crunch. He said the farmers who play a vital role in growth of the country, had been ruined and were the worst affected as they did not get value for their produce in the market due to the cash crunch specially in rural pockets of the country. Mr Pawar further alleged that many small-scale industrialists and traders had to close their establishments and asked their employees not to come to work due to unavailability of funds since last two months. Lambasting the Narendra Modi-led government at Centre, the NCP chief said the BJP had promised to bring back black money into the country from abroad during pre-election campaigning and alleged that when it failed to fulfil its promise and the government took the decision of demonetisation. He said that the people of the country had given a mandate to BJP in good faith and for just cause but alleged the BJP has failed on all the fronts. The BJP took the decision of demonetisation because they had no option left to divert the attention of people, he claimed. Mr Pawar asked all the political parties to come together and resolve the issue of the currency brought on by the Modi government. Speaking on occasion, Minister of State and Shiv Sena MLA Arjun Khotkar lauded Mr Pawar's contribution to the cooperative sector in the state and said that the NCP chief had always fought for the causes of farmers and common people. On the occasion, state Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagade, Aurangabad MP Chandrakant Khaire and Ambadas Mankape Patil among other personalities from the cooperative sector were present.UNI VKB SS SB 2233 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1110502.Xml The accused, whose name was not disclosed, has been booked under sections 376(2)(I)(J)(N) and 506 of Indian Penal Code and also sections 5(J)(2)(L)(N)(P)6 and 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012, police said. The accused raped the teenage girl between April last year and January 14, this year, making her four months pregnant. When the victim resisted the sexual abuse by the accused, he threatened to evict her from the house and also to kill her, sources added.UNI XR SS SB 2316 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1110515.Xml He will also meet Minister of State for External Affairs General V.K. Singh on Tuesday at South Block and will later take part in the 2nd Edition of Raisina Dialogue organised at the Taj Palace here. The theme of the 2nd Edition of Raisina Dialogue, this year, is "The New Normal: Multilateralism with Multi-Polarity". The Dialogue is India's flagship geo-political conference to be held annually and within a short span has emerged as a much awaited global conference in the international calendar. (ANI) He left for Dubai on Sunday, where he would stay for a few days before proceeding to the United States, reports the Dawn. Zardari is also expected to undergo a medical check-up during his stay in the U.S. Surendar Valasai, the spokesman for the media cell at Bilawal House, confirmed that Zardari had left for the UAE, but expressed ignorance about his plans for visiting the U.S. Meanwhile, according to sources PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would also be leaving for the U.S. in the last week of this month. He would stay in the U.S. for about two weeks. He is expected to meet officials of the American administration as well as Congress members to exchange views on affairs of mutual interest, according to the sources. (ANI) "Allah has taken suo motu notice against Nawaz Sharif on Panama scandal," the Daily Times quoted Khan as saying while addressing a gathering. The PTI leader said that the Prime Minister's corruption was exposed in the Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. "Nawaz's counsel says the Sharif family purchased Mayfair apartments in 2006 but the BBC has revealed that the properties were purchased in 1990s," he added. "If Nawaz failed to prove London flats were owned by the Qatari prince in 1993 then he would leave and if he failed to prove Maryam was not the beneficial owner of London properties he would still have to leave," he said. Khan briefed the audience on the Panama case and conducted an informal audience poll asking attendees whether they believed the Sharif would be proven guilty in the case. He added that the entire country was fed up of 'Sharif rule' and that the PTI would attempt to shape Pakistan in light of the Islamic teachings. Terming the ongoing Panama case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children a 'war against corruption', Imran Khan said the country would soon be rid of the 'Sharif mafia'. (ANI) The local officials said that the incident took place in Haska Mina district after a group of ISIS militants stormed into a religious school in Deh Bala area, reports the Khaama Press. A official speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the 13 abducted teachers were taken to an unknown location. The terror group has, however, not commented regarding the report so far. This comes as the loyalists of the terror group torched at least 65 houses in Kot district which was once under its control. The latest movements by ISIS loyalist in Nangarhar come as the terror group received major blows during the counter-terrorism operations during the recent months. Both the Afghan and US forces conducted regular strikes against the loyalists of the terror group in this province. (ANI) Britain's Northern Ireland minister is set to call an early election in the province today, a week after the resignation of Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness effectively toppled its devolved government.McGuinness stood down in protest at First Minister Arlene Foster's handling of a controversial green-energy scheme, risking political paralysis in the region as Britain plans its exit from the European Union.Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire will be obliged to dissolve the assembly if McGuinness' Sinn Fein party, which has already begun picking election candidates, fails to name a replacement for him by a 2230 IST deadline."Sinn Fein will not be nominating for the position of deputy First Minister and the agreements mean that the people must now have their say," Sinn Fein minister Michelle O'Neill said in a statement yesterday.Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, once the political arm of the IRA, has governed with its pro-British rivals, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), for a decade. They were voted back into power as the two largest parties just eight months ago.McGuinness, who is to announce shortly whether he will lead Sinn Fein into the election after a break from some duties due to illness, has suggested the vote will be followed by lengthy renegotiations on the terms of the power-sharing government.Power-sharing formed a key part of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which ended three decades of violence between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and Protestant pro-British unionists wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom. Some 3,600 people were killed in those years.Northern Ireland is widely seen as the part of the UK most exposed to Brexit because of the prospect of checkpoints being reinstated on its land border with the Irish Republic. Attempts to rebuild power-sharing will likely begin just as British Prime Minister Theresa May begins exit talks with the EU.A failure to form a new ruling executive after the elections also risks the first suspension of the province's political institutions in 15 years and the return of its 1.8 million people to direct rule from London."What I'm focused on is that we maintain the institutions. This is really significant. To be absolutely straight ... I am not contemplating alternatives to devolved government in Northern Ireland," Brokenshire told the BBC yesterday. REUTERS AKC 0456 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1109023.Xml Afghanistan's High Peace Council (HPC) has slammed Pakistan for its controversial role in the Afghan peace process, saying Islamabad has been the key obstruction in the way of purposeful peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group. "The Taliban leadership live on that side of that border and operate under the control of Pakistani intelligence officials, this has made it difficult to establish direct contact with them," Tolo News quoted said HPC Advisor Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar as saying on Sunday. He said that the government must reach an outcome with Pakistan over peace talks with the Taliban. It is believed that no direct contact has happened between the government and the Taliban over the past two years. Meanwhile, Office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah has said that the Taliban leadership has never responded positively to the Afghan peace negotiation offer, adding that such a negative approach by the group will lead to its complete elimination. "They (Taliban ) rejected the call for peace and they must be eliminated," said deputy CEO spokesman Omid Maisam. According to the HPC, with the death of Taliban's founding leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, hopes for sealing a groundbreaking peace deal with the insurgency also vanished and since then, no direct talks between the two sides has taken place. But analysts argue that the HPC which facilitates the peace process between the sides is also split when it comes to the issue of peace with the Taliban, referring to recent remarks by Abdul Hakim Mujahid, an advisor to the High Peace Council in which he said that the Taliban were angels of peace and the group is a sacred group. The National Unity Government (NUG) under President Ashraf Ghani and his CEO Abdullah Abdullah held the first formal round of peace negotiation talks with the Taliban in 2015 in the Pakistani city of Murree with the participation of Chinese and American delegates. At Murreee, the two sides agreed to continue their negotiations for the political settlement of the conflict in the country. But following the death of Mullah Omar, bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan also soured. (ANI) A South Korean special prosecutor will seek an arrest warrant for Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee for charges including bribery over his role in a corruption scandal that could unseat President Park Geun-hye, his office said on Monday.The prosecutors have been looking into whether Samsung's support for a business and foundations backed by Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil, may have been connected to the National Pension Service's 2015 decision to support a controversial merger of two Samsung Group affiliatesREUTERS CJ RAI1112 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1109116.Xml An international peace conference held in Paris to kick-start the stalled peace talks between Israel and Palestine, concluded with a declaration that a two-state solution was the only path to peace for the two nations. The final declaration of the conference, attended by representatives of some 70 countries on Sunday, called for the two states to live side by side, with Israel adhering to its 1967 borders - ceding back the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it captured in the Six Day War, Sputnik reported on Monday. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the peace meeting and said that "the Paris conference has reaffirmed and reiterated all international legitimacy resolutions, including pillars of international law, rejecting any dictations, settlements and imposing realities on the ground, including Jerusalem." Abbas expressed thanks to the French President and government for hosting this conference and exerting all necessary efforts for its success, said a report by Xinhua news agency. However, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the peace meeting as "useless" and said that "the conference was being coordinated between the French and the Palestinians. Its goal was to try and force terms on Israel that conflict with our national needs," the Jewish leader said during his weekly cabinet meeting. Both Israel and Palestine did not participate in the conference. French President Franois Hollande told the gathering the conference was urgently needed, despite criticism. "The two-state solution is threatened and there is a need to preserve it. Now is not the moment to stop. The solution of two states is the only way forward and the only solution that will answer both sides' aspirations and legitimate rights," he said, according to reports. Speaking at a press conference after the event, Foreign Minister of France Jean-Marc Ayrault said the meeting was meant as a hand reaching out to both parties. (Israeli officials had condemned the event as a way of "putting all of Israel on trial.") "What we are working on and what we want to contribute to is that the parties take the path of dialogue and negotiation that no longer exists today. This is a dangerous and disturbing situation," Sputnik quoted Ayrault as saying. "There is no future of peace in this region of the world, if we do not reaffirm the necessity of two states, that is to say that besides the State of Israel, the State of Palestine exists. There is no other way. This is the position of France," he stated. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said the Paris peace conference statement came complementary to the latest UN resolution against settlements and constitutes another diplomatic achievement for Palestinians. Malki said the adopted statement reflects the international consensus rejecting the occupation. --IANS soni/bg ( 462 Words) 2017-01-16-13:52:08 (IANS) Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has said she won't attend the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20. Instead, the Seattle Representative would be taking part in other events in her area. Jayapal said in a statement on Sunday that she will remain in her Seattle district to "be with constituents who are immigrants and immigrant advocates to hear their stories and concerns, and discuss a plan of action moving forward", according to a report in the Stranger newspaper. "I was being specific about my duty as the Congresswoman for the 7th Congressional District to be right here in this district with constituents who are terrified about whether they're gonna have a place in this city or country, and to make a plan for how we go forward," Jayapal told her supporters during a rally at Westlake Park here. "I wanted to be with kids who don't know if their mom is gonna be there when they come home because of this President-elect's policies," she said. "...I wanted to be right here with the immigrant advocates who are going to make sure that we continue to stand up and fight". Jayapal is one of more than 20 House Democrats who will not attend the inauguration. The Democrats are boycotting the inauguration after Trump criticised US Representative and civil rights icon John Lewis, who said he doesn't see Trump as a "legitimate President". Jayapal tweeted her support of Lewis on Sunday after Trump shot back that Lewis is "all talk, talk, talk". "If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trump's response to one of our country's great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis," Jayapal said. "With Donald Trump's tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott," she said. --IANS soni/mr ( 343 Words) 2017-01-16-13:56:07 (IANS) Iraqi special forces pushed into a new district in Mosul near the Tigris river and battled Islamic State militants there today, bringing them closer to recapturing the east of the city.The clashes took place in the Shurta district, a Reuters correspondent near the frontlines in Mosul said. A spokesman for Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) said the militants were fighting back."We've begun breaching (the area) but there was an attack a few moments ago. By the end of the day we'll make some progress," spokesman Sabah al-Numan told Reuters.Shurta lies towards the eastern bank of the Tigris, which Iraqi forces say they will soon fully control. They have already taken areas of the river bank further south. Once the east bank is recaptured, they can begin attacks on western Mosul, which Islamic State still holds.Iraqi forces have seized most of eastern Mosul in a 3-month US-backed campaign to drive the militants out of the city, their last major Iraqi stronghold. The Tigris bisects Mosul from north to south.Fighting has intensified since the turn of the year as Iraqi forces launched a renewed push against the ultra-hardline militants. Troops had got bogged down in late November and December after entering the city as IS fighters fought back with car bombs and snipers, and hid among a civilian population of up to 1.5 million.The United Nations said a further 32,000 Mosul residents had fled the city in just over two weeks, bringing the total number of people made homeless in the campaign to retake Mosul to 161,000.A resident in western Mosul, reached by phone, said Islamic State fighters had stopped people living in the west from crossing the river to the east.Another resident said a number of Islamic State militants, including senior leaders in western Mosul, had left the city towards Tal Afar, a town towards the Syrian border.Shi'ite militias have advanced on IS-held Tal Afar, and linked up with Kurdish fighters nearby in November.The Mosul offensive, supported by US coalition air power, involves 100,000-strong combined forces of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Shi'ite militias. REUTERS PS AN1549 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109552.Xml It's fantasy to think other European countries will follow Britain in deciding to leave the European Union, a top European official said today, after US President-elect Donald Trump said he believed it would be the case.Asked about Trump's comments in an interview with the Times of London newspaper, European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the cost of Brexit would be "considerable" and that it would deter other countries to follow suit."I'm not worried, I think this idea that Brexit is going to be contagious is a fantasy, a bad fantasy," Moscovici told reporters in Paris."Brexit is not a great thing," he said and warned Trump that comments advocating a break-up of the European Union would not get the trans-Atlantic relationship off to the best start.Europe's best response until Trump's inauguration would be to remain in "wait-and-see" mode and watch the first steps of its new administration.But asked about Trump's comments on slapping tariffs on German carmakers such as BMW which sought to import cars to the US from plants in Mexico, Moscovici said:"We must be extremely vigilant, mobilised and, when the times comes, reactive, if a certain spirit is confirmed.""Europe must not be naive and Europe must be able to react," he said. REUTERS PS AN1735 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109765.Xml Spanish police arrested one of the Netherlands' most prominent corporate lawyers, Peter Wakkie, today morning at Madrid's international airport, a source close to the Spanish investigation told Reuters.A spokesman for Wakkie said he could not immediately comment.The arrest is part of an investigation into the insolvency of Russian-Spanish telecom firm ZED+, of which Wakkie is interim manager, the source said, confirming a story in Spanish news outlet El Confidencial.So far it is unclear what the charges against Wakkie are.REUTERS PS AS1739 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109821.Xml The Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest with China, its foreign minister said today, over Beijing's installation last year of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems on its manmade islands in the disputed South China Sea.The protest note was sent to the Chinese embassy in December, after confirmation of a report from the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies about a weapons buildup on seven artificial islands in the Spratlys.One of those islands is located within the Philippines' 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone.Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay told CNN Philippines it was important to raise concerns carefully, and not create a big row."I just want to assure the Filipino people that when we take action at engaging China in this dispute, we do not want to take such aggressive, provocative action that will not solve the problem," he said.China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about 5 trillion dollars worth of goods passes every year. An international arbitration ruling last year invalidated those claims.Speaking up about that has become a tricky issue for the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte turned its foreign policy upside down by seeking engagement and a new relationship with China. Until recently the Philippines had been one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing's maritime assertiveness."We cannot engage China in a war," Yasay added, but "when there are reports about the buildup of weapon systems in the area during our watch, we made sure that the interests and rights of the Philippines are properly protected."The Philippines this year chairs the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Yasay said last week he was confident a protracted code of conduct between the grouping and China could be finished by mid-year, after 15 years and limited progress.China's artificial islands became a hot issue last week when the US nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, told a Senate hearing that Beijing should be repelled from, and then denied access to, the controversial islets.Yasay last week suggested the Philippines would play no part in that, and said of the United States, "Let them do it".REUTERS PS BL1802 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109832.Xml Syrian rebel groups have decided to attend peace talks backed by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan in a bid to check Iranian influence over the war, rebel officials said today.Their decision is a boost for a Russian-led initiative aimed at ending the nearly six-year-old conflict.Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing the rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo.The United States, which led failed efforts to launch peace talks last year, has not been involved in the latest diplomacy.Assad has already said his government is ready to attend the talks. After winning ground with Russian and Iranian military support, he looks stronger than at any point in the war.The rebels took the decision at meetings underway in Ankara, and are now working to form a delegation that will be headed by Mohammad Alloush, the head of the political office of Jaish al-Islam rebel group, Alloush told Reuters. He said the rebels were going to Astana to "neutralise the criminal role" of Iran.Analysts believe the rebels have been under pressure from Turkey, one of their main sponsors, to attend. Earlier this month, they called off any talks on their participation in the Astana meeting over what they said were government violations of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey.Turkey's priorities in Syria appear to have shifted away from toppling Assad towards combating Kurdish groups and Islamic State in areas of northern Syria near its border. Its ties with Russia have also improved in recent months."The factions will go and the first thing they will discuss will be the matter of the ceasefire and the violations by the regime," said an official in a Free Syrian Army rebel group who declined to be identified because the rebel groups had yet to appoint a spokesman. "This will be a test for the Russians as the guarantor," he said.A second official, Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: "The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire - the humanitarian issues - aid deliveries, release of detainees."FIGHTING CONTINUESThe talks are scheduled for January 23 in Astana. Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday that Ankara and Moscow had decided to invite the United States to attend. A Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday.As with last year's peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey.Fighting has continued despite the ceasefire, notably near Damascus where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah are trying to recapture a rebel-held area where the capital's main water supply has been bombed out of service.The rebel groups that will attend the talks include FSA factions fighting in northern Syria, some of them the groups defeated in Aleppo. Alloush's faction, Jaish al-Islam, is one of the bigger rebel groups, with a strong presence in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus.The delegation will be different to one sent to peace talks in Geneva last year by the main opposition council, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. The HNC, which includes political and armed opposition groups, represented the opposition in peace talks last year.Alloush sits on the HNC, which said on Saturday that it had supported efforts towards the talks in Kazakhstan, and viewed the meeting as a preliminary step for resuming the next round of political negotiations in Geneva.Malahifji said the new delegation would be formed in coordination with the HNC, but it would differ from it because "the Russians are focusing very much on the military factions".Assad said his last week his government was ready to negotiate on "everything" in Kazakhstan, including his own position within the Syrian constitution. REUTERS PS BL1803 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109859.Xml As Iraqi forces fight to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State, an artist in nearby Erbil is chiseling at clay in a tiny, unheated studio to recreate historic Assyrian monuments destroyed by the group.Ninos Thabet, an 18-year-old Christian who studied art at Mosul University, is creating miniature replicas of statues the jihadists destroyed when they overran the 3,000-year-old Assyrian city of Nimrud, south of Mosul, 2-1/2 years ago.Once the capital of an empire stretching across the ancient Middle East, Nimrud is one of several historic sites that Islamic State looted and ransacked when they seized large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014.The statues included winged bulls with human faces, known as lamassu, and a bronze head of King Sargon of Akkad."Seeing the antiquities of your country, a civilisation that is thousands of years old, destroyed within minutes is very painful," he told Reuters during a visit to his studio. "It was difficult seeing such a setback to our culture and history."Islamic State, whose ultra-hardline doctrine deems pre-Islamic religious heritage idolatrous, released video footage last year showing its fighters bulldozing, drilling and blowing up murals and statues at Nimrud."I wanted to send a message to the world saying, 'We ... want to rebuild our civilisation and to continue to grow artistically'", said Thabet.Iraqi forces pushing through eastern Mosul took control over the weekend of Mosul University, once a premier institution in the Middle East that became a strategic site for the militants, as part of a three-month, U.S.-led offensive to recapture the entire city, Islamic State's last major stronghold in the country. Western Mosul remains under Islamic State control.Thabet fled with his family from the Christian town of Qaraqosh, east of Mosul, to the Kurdish capital Erbil when Islamic State took over. He says art brought him comfort while he was away from his home and friends.Since leaving his home, he has created more than 50 statues and figures. Some of them have been displayed in exhibits and museums, and others he sold to collectors.Iraqi troops pushed Islamic State from Nimrud in November, giving officials a clearer idea of the scale of the damage.During a visit days later, Reuters found shattered remains of intricate carvings lying broken in the dust. A ziggurat, or terraced pyramid, had been reduce to a pile of dirt, apparently flattened by bulldozers.Nimrud was excavated in the 19th century by British archaeologist Austen Layard. Fellow archaeologist Max Mallowan and his wife, crime writer Agatha Christie, worked at Nimrud in the 1950s. Christie's experiences in Iraq formed the background to several of her novels.REUTERS PS AN1810 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1109931.Xml US President-elect Donald Trump has said he loved Britain and that his mother was crazy about Queen Elizabeth II. Trump, in his first UK interview with former Justice Secretary Michael Gove for The Times, said on Sunday that his affection for the UK may be in no small part thanks to his Scottish mother Mary Anne MacLeod. MacLeod, who died 17 years ago, had left the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides at the age of 18 in 1930 to make her fortune in New York. The New York real-estate mogul's mother was obsessed with the royal family -- the Queen, in particular. "Any time the Queen was on television, an event, my mother would be watching. Crazy, right?" "She sort of had a flair, she loved the Queen, she loved anything -- she was so proud of the Queen. She loved the ceremonial and the beauty, because nobody does that like the English. And she had great respect for the Queen," said the incoming President, who is set to take office here on January 20. The President-elect also told the British daily that he was inviting Prime Minister Theresa May to visit him "right after" he gets into the White House, and that he was going to "work very hard" to get a trade deal done quickly between the US and the UK. Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron on Monday dismissed The Times interview with Trump as "a puff piece from a clearly admiring fan". "I don't know the shape of the Europe that Trump dreams of, but I know it frightens me," he said. --IANS py/vt ( 280 Words) 2017-01-16-20:26:06 (IANS) Abe visited the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam on his six-day trip that ended Monday, with maritime security high on his agenda. "Thanks to the joint efforts of China and relevant ASEAN members, the South China Sea situation is stabilising and getting back on the track of negotiation and consultation," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said here. "But the Japanese leader spared no effort in driving a wedge and playing up the regional tension, showing his ulterior motives and extremely unhealthy mindset," Hua said. She applauded Philippine's President Rodrigo Duterte's adherence to an independent foreign policy and developing friendly and cooperative relations with other countries based on equality and mutual respect. Hua said China supports the Philippine's rotating presidency for ASEAN in 2017 and will promote the building of ASEAN community and China-ASEAN ties. --IANS gsh/dg ( 181 Words) 2017-01-16-20:56:06 (IANS) Foreign ministers from NATO and European Union nations are concerned about comments on NATO that US President-elect Donald Trump made in a newspaper interview published today, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said."I've spoken today not only with EU foreign ministers but NATO foreign ministers as well and can report that the signals are that there's been no easing of tensions," Steinmeier told reporters when asked about Trump's interview with Bild newspaper and the Times of London.In the interview, Trump said he viewed NATO as obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks.REUTERS PY BL2125 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1110456.Xml Iran has complied with a deadline set by its landmark nuclear deal with world powers by removing hundreds of centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, from a site buried deep inside a mountain, the UN atomic agency said today.The deal reached between six powers and Iran in 2015 stated that no more enrichment would take place at the Fordow site near the holy city of Qom for 15 years, but that Iran could keep just over 1,000 centrifuges there for other uses.Monday's announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be welcome news to many diplomats who are wondering how US President-elect Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the deal, would handle any problems that might arise.The transfer of centrifuges and other equipment from Fordow to storage at another underground enrichment site at Natanz was completed within a deadline of one year from the day the deal was put in place, January 16 of last year, the IAEA said."Iran has removed excess centrifuges and infrastructure from the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant in line with its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," the IAEA said in a statement, using the deal's full name.The IAEA, which is policing the restrictions the deal placed on Iran's nuclear activities, verified on Sunday that the move had been completed, the statement added.With Trump's inauguration due on Friday, officials who follow Iran closely have said they are waiting to see what stance Trump takes on the deal, which also lifted international sanctions against the Islamic Republic.Trump has called the agreement, one of the Obama administration's flagship achievements, "the worst deal ever negotiated". He has, however, backed away from the assertion that he wants to "rip up" the deal, saying more recently that he would "police that contract so tough they (the Iranians) don't have a chance."That raises the question of how he would react if Iran continued to test the deal's boundaries. Twice since the pact was implemented in January Tehran has gone over a 130-tonne limit on its stock of heavy water, prompting limited criticism from the United States.Iran has also argued that the United States has failed to provide the full sanctions relief called for by the deal, a charge Washington denies. Tehran has, however, stopped short of triggering a dispute-resolution mechanism created by the deal.REUTERS PS GC2011 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1110271.Xml Israeli border police shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian youth during a clash with protesters in the occupied West Bank today, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.The violence erupted near the town of Bethlehem between a crowd of stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli troops."Hundreds of rioters hurled rocks at the security forces in the area," an Israeli military spokeswoman said. "Due to the extent of the violence, border police fired 0.22 calibre rounds towards a main violent instigator, resulting in his death."Israel has built scores of settlements in the West Bank, territory that Palestinians seek for an independent state. Most countries view the settlements as illegal. Israel disputes this. The last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.REUTERS PY BL2223 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-1110503.Xml SYDNEY, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese whaling ship has allegedly been caught operating illegally in Australian waters. The Nisshin Maru, a Japanese vessel, was caught in Australian waters between Tasmania and Antarctica with a dead whale on board by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) helicopter. The group released images taken by the helicopter of the vessel with a dead protected minke whale on board and two harpoon ships nearby. Josh Frydenberg, Australia's Environment Minister, said the Australian government was "deeply disappointed" that Japan had resumed whaling. In a statement issued on Monday Frydenberg said that Australia was "opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called 'scientific' whaling." "It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," he said. "We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation." Tony Burke, Frydenberg's Opposition counterpart, also issued a statement, criticizing the "slaughter under the guise of scientific research'." "Japanese whaling ships have been sighted with their harpoons uncovered in the Southern Ocean, where a moratorium on whaling in currently in effect," he said. "This is happening in areas Australia recognises as being protected." Jeff Hansen, a member of Sea Shepherd, said that crew on board the Nisshin Maru quickly covered the whale with a tarpaulin once they spotted the helicopter. "They're hit with an explosive harpoon that goes straight into their body, hooks come out and shrapnel is sent through their body, it's a terrible bloody death... these whales can take up to 30 or 40 minutes to die," Hansen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "A soon as the whaling fleet saw that Sea Shepherd on the scene, they were scrambling to cover up their illegal operations, they were covering up their harpoons "This is all happening deep in Australia's whale sanctuary off the Antarctic coast." The incident occurred as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Australia to meet with Australia's PM Malcolm Turnbull about the two nations' relationship. "It shows that even with the Japan Prime Minister on Australian soil, Japan is going about their bloody business ignoring the Australian Federal Court ruling, ignoring the wishes of the International Court of Justice," Hansen said. by Xinhua writers Chen Shilei, He Jing BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- As Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting Switzerland for an annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, the China-backed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) is in the limelight amid rising protectionism in the region and a gloomy forecast of global trade in 2017. A manifestation of China's steadfast effort to promote globalization, the FTAAP has been envisioned as a major instrument for realizing Asia-Pacific economic integration and is expected to serve as a role model for globalization by injecting vitality into the world economy and rekindling enthusiasm for free trade. The new trade bloc has been gaining steam especially after a collective study on the FTAAP was approved at the 2016 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Lima, the first substantial step toward its eventual realization. NEED FOR FTAAP 2016 was a tough year for global trade and economy. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has cut its projection for global trade growth from 2.8 percent to 1.7 percent in 2016 and revised down the forecast for 2017 to between 1.8 percent to 3.1 percent, from previously anticipated 3.6 percent. Similarly, overall global output growth is on a weakening trend. "With expected global GDP growth of 2.2 percent in 2016, this year would mark the slowest pace of trade and output growth since the financial crisis of 2009," the trade bloc said in a press release in September. Meanwhile, the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, who advocates the protection of the U.S. economy and vowed to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a trade agreement proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama -- on his first day in office, signifies that the ideology of de-globalization is gaining ground. While the United States may not be a key player in propelling free trade, countries in the Asia-Pacific still hold high expectations for free trade and economic integration, Dr. Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told Xinhua. "The responsibility to promote free trade in the region naturally falls on China, the second largest economy in the world," he said. "As the Asia-Pacific region is the world's busiest area on trade and economy, I think China's initiative (to build the FTAAP) will give certain enlightenment for countries in Europe, Africa or even the United States." The FTAAP process was launched at the 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing with the endorsement of a roadmap. A collective strategic study was conducted subsequently and the result was approved at the APEC meeting in Lima. By encompassing all 21 APEC economies through trade liberalization, the FTAAP, once established, will become the world's largest free trade zone, covering 57 percent of the global economy and nearly half of world trade. It has been hailed as "a strategic initiative critical for the long-term prosperity of the Asia-Pacific" by President Xi, who also called for a firm pursuit of the trade arrangement as an institutional mechanism for ensuring an open economy in the Asia-Pacific. "We need to actively guide globalization, promote equity and justice, and make globalization more resilient, inclusive and sustainable, so that people will get a fair share of its benefits and will see that they have a stake in it," Xi said while delivering a speech at the APEC CEO summit in Lima. WAYS TO ADVANCE FTAAP APEC members should push forward the FTAAP process in a "comprehensive and systemic way," according to Zhang Jun, director-general of the Department of International Economic Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry. "The process of FTAAP shall serve as a rebuff to anti-globalization and a toolkit to strengthen Asia-Pacific regional integration," he was quoted by the South China Morning Post newspaper as saying in November. "The FTAAP, being highly inclusive, can embrace economies at different levels of development and fully accommodate their development needs and comfortability, and once established, will deliver economic gains dwarfing any existing regional FTAs," Zhang said. It will also "chart the course of integrating various trade arrangements in the region, meeting the challenge of the fragmentation in regional cooperation, and furthering the regional economic integration in the Asia-Pacific," Zhang added. To bring together the 21 diverse economies of the Asia-Pacific under the same set of trade and investment rules, relevant parties are required to take time and be patient in future negotiations from the long-term perspective, Han Jae-jin, senior research fellow at the Hyundai Research Institute (HRO), said in a recent interview with Xinhua. "Bilateral and mega FTAs have something in common. Both require concessions over sensitive items and understanding of different situations. It takes time and needs long dialogue," Han said. Promoting the FTAAP on the basis of the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a very ideal plan as the TPP is in an impasse and the RCEP also faces big challenges due to different levels of development in its member countries, Wang Jiangyu, associate professor at Faculty of Law of National University of Singapore, told Xinhua. The RCEP is a free trade pact involving the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and six other countries -- China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. "China can promote the FTAAP in an orderly way on the basis of current free trade deals," Wang said. China can carry out bilateral free trade negotiations with countries willing to open their markets within the RCEP framework and upgrade existing bilateral free trade deals to promote the formation of the RCEP, he elaborated. Besides, to make the FTAAP a meaningful free trade zone in the Pacific Rim, leaders of China and the United States, the two key players in the region, need to "discuss the issue to create a meaningful starting point of the FTAAP," said Kim Young-Gui, research fellow at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Furthermore, along with world economic development and convergence, connectivity, in addition to trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, has become a key driver for regional economic integration. "Pushing for the FTAAP would be more effective if it goes together with the Belt and Road Initiative," said Han, the HRO researcher. The Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative proposed by China in 2013 to bring together countries in Asia, Europe and even Africa via overland and maritime networks. Since the initiative was launched in 2013, Chinese companies had built 52 economic and trade cooperation zones in the Belt and Road countries, generating 900 million U.S. dollars in tax revenues and nearly 70,000 jobs for these countries by July 2016. Enditem (Bao Xuelin in Singapore and Yoo Seungki in Seoul also contributed to the report.) Related: Commentary: Not to allow black swans to derail bullet train of globalization BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- The bullet train of globalization is now in need of proper refit to prevent possible breakdown to the detriment of global economic development, as it seems to have met with some major bumps and hitches since last year. Full story Commentary: Time to launch globalization 2.0 BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- With Britons voting to leave the European Union and Donald Trump elected as the next U.S. president, a rising tide of protectionism seems to be sweeping the West. SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Former head of South Korea's biggest opposition party beat former UN chief in recent presidential poll though the latter's return to his home country boosted hopes among conservative voters, a local survey showed on Monday. Moon Jae-in, former chief of the main opposition Minjoo Party, won an approval rating of 26.1 percent last week, according to a Realmeter survey of 2,526 voters from Monday to Friday. It was down 0.7 percentage points from a week ago, but support for Moon topped approval scores garnered by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon who returned to his home country, South Korea, last Thursday. Support for Ban rose 0.7 percentage points over the week to 22.2 percent as Ban has been seen as the best hope in the conservative camp, which fell with the presidential scandal emerging. Ban's daily approval scores gained from 23.3 percent on Thursday, the very day of his comeback, to 25.3 percent on Friday. It remains to be seen whether this upward trend will continue as the verification process of Ban as next leader was already launched. Lee Jae-myung, mayor of Seongnam city to the southeast of Seoul who is affiliated with the Minjoo Party, ranked third with a support rate of 11.7 percent. It was followed by Ahn Cheol-soo, former head of the minor opposition People's Party who garnered an approval rating of 7.0 percent last week. It was up 0.5 percentage points from the previous week. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The normalization of initial public offerings (IPOs) in China could help raise the financing efficiency of companies and direct more capital into the real economy, experts have said. Since an IPO suspension between July and November 2015, the country's securities regulator has progressively sought to normalize IPOs. In 2016, 227 companies went public, raising total funds of 147.6 billion yuan (21.42 billion U.S. dollars). Sun Yizheng, vice president of China Merchants Securities, said that most companies waiting for IPO approvals were excellent players in emerging industries, and their entry into the stock market would raise the quality and optimize the structure of listed companies. Sun said that IPO normalization would solve the accumulation of companies on the waiting list, and thus raise the efficiency of their financing through the stock market. As directing capital into the real economy was a basic function of the stock market, all qualified companies should enjoy the equal right of getting financing from the market, said Yang Jiongyang, president of Sichuan-based Huaxi Securities. Quickening the pace of IPOs and enhancing investigation of companies on the waiting list will be conducive to guiding more private funds to the real economy and promoting the country's economic restructuring, according to analysts. Kazakh herder Haymu trains an eagle with fresh meat in Qinghe County. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) URUMQI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Seventy-year-old Kazakh herder Haymu has just experienced his proudest moment of the year. He performed eagle hunting to over 10,000 visitors at an ice and snow festival on Jan. 10 in Qinghe County, in the northeast of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, along the Chinese border with Mongolia. Haymu and his eagle. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Haymu performed eagle hunting at an ice and snow festival. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Haymu, who hails from a small town called Qagan Gol, learned the craft much later than is usual -- when he was 40 -- from his uncle. "Golden eagles are precious. Not everyone can tame them. My uncle passed on his bird to me when he became too old for it," he said. Golden eagles are protected birds and falconry is banned in China. It took organizers of the ice festival a lot of hard work to give Haymu a platform. "People like the Kazakh tradition of eagle hunting. Some have accused me of animal abuse, but I treat each and every eagle like family. I think of them more often than I think of my grandsons," Haymu said. Haymu treats each and every eagle like family. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Haymu has had seven eagles over the past few years. The one he is currently training is only one year old. "I feed him well in the summer, to help him grow. When it's cold, however, he needs to be more active and train, so he can learn to follow my instructions," he said, adding that January is the best time to train eagles. The eagle, which lives in Haymu's yard, eats lamb meat and livers. Haymu rides a horse with his eagle. The 70-year-old man is still agile. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Haymu trains the young eagle in front of his home. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) When the sun rises high, Haymu dons his fox fur hat, sheepskin coat, and felt boots -- the traditional attire for a falconer. He trains the young eagle in front of his home. When the eagle lands steadily on his right arm, Haymu rewards it with fresh meat. He also trains the bird to follow a moving target. An assistant on horseback drags a fox hide through the snow, and the falcon sets off from the old man's right arm to find the target. Haymu trains the eagle to follow a moving target. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) The falcon only succeeded to do this four times in two hours, but Haymu was not discouraged. "A young eagle takes time to learn," he said. Haymu has to be tough when the young eagle becomes wayward, but he has never harmed his birds. "It bit me once. It was wearing a blinder and I was mimicking the sound of a hare. It flew down and jammed its beak into my palm," he said. Haymu trains an eagle at home. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) The birds are usually kept for around four years before they are released back into the wild so that they can mate. Haymu does not depend on falconry for a living, but he wants to see the tradition goes on. Tuokun and his eagle. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Haymu and his assistant ride with his eagle in the snow. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) In Qinghe, there are 40 eagle-hunters and 40 eagles, said Tuokun, head of the falconers' association. The average age of falconers is over 50, and both Haymu and Tuokun worry that they might be the last generation that keeps the art alive. "I have two sons, a driver and a businessman. Neither wants to learn. I am worried that when I die, falconry might die with me," said Tuokun, 60. Haymu, his wife and their grandchildren. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st L) are received by Swiss President Doris Leuthard (2nd R) and her husband Roland Hausin at the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a welcome ceremony held by all members of the Swiss Federal Council in Bern on Sunday. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) BERN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- As Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit to Switzerland on Sunday, the European nation hosted the Chinese guest of honor by presenting him with a full set of hospitality, a proof of Bern's high expectations for the trip and how much importance it attaches to bilateral ties. TWO WELCOME CEREMONIES At a ceremony held at the Federal Palace in the historical Old Town of Bern by the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council, Xi said he is looking forward to consolidating friendship and boosting cooperation between China and Switzerland. "My visit is aimed at consolidating our friendship, boosting our cooperation and promoting peace and development together with the Swiss side," he said. "I am looking forward to having talks with the Swiss side on deepening our pragmatic cooperation in various areas and enriching the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership," Xi added. During the trip, the president is also scheduled to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the ski resort of Davos, and visit the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the World Health Organization and the International Olympic Committee. Xi is going to deliver a keynote speech at the Davos meeting on Monday and another one at the UNOG the day after. Xi will be the first Chinese head of state to attend the WEF. "I hope to, through attending the WEF annual meeting and visiting the international organizations, gather consensus with all sides on maintaining world peace, promoting common development and settling major global issues under the current situation, thus delivering positive energies to the international community," the president said. At the welcome ceremony, Swiss President Doris Leuthard said her country is a trustworthy partner for China. She also said the Swiss side is willing to discuss cooperation with China in promoting the Belt and Road Initiative and strengthening communication and coordination within the UN and other multilateral organizations. The Swiss leader also extended festival greetings to Xi and the Chinese people on the upcoming traditional Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, which falls on Jan. 28 this year. The two heads of state are expected to hold official talks on Monday. Earlier on Sunday when the Chinese president's plane touched down at the Zurich airport, Leuthard, along with her husband Roland Hausin, held a red-carpet welcome ceremony for Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan. In a written speech upon arrival, the Chinese president briefly reviewed the friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two sides since they established diplomatic ties 67 years ago. "I hope that, through my visit, we can deepen the traditional friendship between our two peoples, expand our practical cooperation in various areas, enrich the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership, push the bilateral ties to a new high, and jointly make positive contributions to promoting world economic recovery," he said. TEA CHAT ON TRAIN Accompanied by Leuthard, Xi traveled to Bern by a special train of the Swiss government. The two leaders had a brief talk while enjoying tea on the way to the capital. While on the train, Xi hailed the China-Switzerland partnership as a paradigm of relations between countries of different sizes. The Chinese leader also appreciated the years of commitment by Leuthard to deepening bilateral cooperation in all areas. "During this visit, I would like to engage in in-depth talks with President Leuthard and other Swiss leaders, enrich our partnership, and boost our cooperation in all areas," Xi said. He added that China, sharing similar views with Switzerland on many international issues, wants to join the European nation to enhance their coordination in international affairs. Noting that China encourages more and more Chinese tourists to travel to Switzerland, Xi said China, which is to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, stands ready to promote cooperation with Switzerland on developing winter sports. For her part, Leuthard thanked Xi for choosing her country as the destination of his first state visit in 2017, saying the decision reflects the importance China attaches to Switzerland. Switzerland stands ready to push forward cooperation with China in various fields, said Leuthard. China is an influential country in the world, said Leuthard, adding that the international community looks forward to hearing Xi's exposition of China's policies at the WEF as the world is facing many uncertainties right now. During the chat, the two leaders also exchanged views on such issues as the Belt and Road Initiative and green development. They agreed to further boost the two countries' cooperation in science and technology, innovation, connectivity, infrastructure construction, clean energy and regional-level exchanges. China and Switzerland have enjoyed long-term exchanges and cooperation. In 1950, Switzerland became one of the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with the newly-founded People's Republic of China. At the start of this century, Switzerland was among the first European countries to recognize China's full market economy status. In recent years, Switzerland became the first continental European country to conclude and implement a free trade agreement with China. KATHMANDU, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Nepalese Minister for Foreign Affairs Prakash Sharan Mahat will be on a two-day visit to India from Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said here. Mahat will be participating in the second edition of the Raisina Dialogue to be jointly organized by the Ministry of External Affairs of India and Observer Research Foundation under the theme of "The New Normal: Multilateralism with Multi-Polarity" from Jan. 17-19. Besides attending the event, Mahat will hold meetings with Indian ministers and other high-ranking government officials during this two-day visit in the Indian Capital New Delhi, the ministry stated. Ministers, leading strategic thinkers, media personnel and leaders of business community from different countries will participate in the Raisina Dialogue, which is India's flagship geo-political conference to be held annually. MELBOURNE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's Duan Yingying has taken her first ever win at the Australian Open on Monday, dispatching Slovakian Rebecca Sramkova in straights sets 6-3, 6-4. "Before the match I watched the video of her playing, I expected that (it) would be a tough match," Duan told reporters post-match. "I am so happy that I made a breakhrough as this is the first time I won the first round in the Australian Open. It is just a beginning for me, and I think I can go more far (sic)." Duan took an early break in the first set off an unforced error from the Slovakian qualifier, however Sramkova managed to break back. Continued unforced errors from the world No.120, 17 in the first set that put down to nerves in her first main draw match, was her undoing. "I was shaking when I came on court," Sramkova told Xinhua. "It was so strange to play against her because it was really fast, a really good serve. I didn't expect to play like this." Duan began the second set as she finished the first, breaking Sramkova's serve in the first point to begin putting the nail in the coffin, though lapse in concentration opened the door for the Australian Open main draw rookie. Sramkova calmed her nerves, fighting back to level the set 2-2 in a bid to deflate Duan and send the match to a third, but the world No.82 showed her experience and remain calm. The final point of the match had saw Duan fight back from 15-40 down, taking two deuces to progress to round two. It's the first time Duan has won a match at the Australian Open since her first appearance in 2014, continuing her form in the back end of the 2016 season where she exited Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the second round. Duan will face world No.88, American Varvara Lepchenko in the second round. PARIS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Former French Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg of the Socialist Party won the second televised debate between seven candidates vying for the left nomination in the country presidential elections this year, a poll showed on Sunday. A week before a vote on who wins the left ticket for the presidential race, the survey by Elabe pollster published shortly after the debate showed 29 percent of those who said they would join in the vote found Montebourg more convincing. Montebourg is expected to challenge conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon and far-right National Front party leader Marine Le Pen in the race, the poll added. Montebourg, an advocate of "made in France," promised economic and ecological recovery as well as investment in education. He also promised "a strong presidency which defends French's interests." On the European level, he wants to reshape the single-currency bloc with a focus on tax cut and less austerity. "Nothing is impossible. Just decide to do it and it starts next Sunday," the former economy minister said, referring to the first round of the left primary contest scheduled for Jan. 22, and a second round a week later. Ex-premier Manuel Valls, who projected himself as the unifier of the divided left camp and is campaigning for a "strong republic, fair France," garnered 26 percent of the 1,053 sampled people. Compared with last week's uneventful face-off, the TV debate saw contenders quarrelling over how to handle the refugee crisis. "We must welcome asylum seekers in the long term. I am convinced that the French are more generous than their leaders," Vincent Peillon, ex-education minister said, lashing out at Valls who stressed that "unlimited welcome of refugees is not possible." The debate showed also differences on issues of cannabis use and whether France, the eurozone's second main powerhouse, needs to reduce dependence on nuclear energy. The seven contenders, however, agreed on the need to improve education and protect the country's secular values. Pollsters say the winner of the left primary has little chance of making it to the presidential run-off in May, given the ruling Socialists' unpopularity. Enditem BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A set of speeches made by President Xi Jinping when attending the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September last year have been published by the Foreign Languages Press. The publisher said Monday that the book was available both in Chinese and English. In the 17 speeches in the book, Xi expounded China's policies and proposals on global governance, and set out the country's wisdom and solutions for the world's economic recovery and development, outlining new prospects for global economic growth. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's annual Spring Festival travel rush, "Chunyun," is a daunting task for the country's transport system as hundreds of millions of Chinese people return home to spend time with their families. But where there are challenges there are solutions, and Chinese tech firms are setting out to make hundreds of millions of people's trips home more convenient. Chunyun started last Friday and will last for 40 days. A record 2.98 billion trips are expected during this period, making it the largest human migration on earth. Rail is one of the most popular transport choices as it is reliable and inexpensive. Up to 356 million trips are expected to be made via rail over the 40-day period, up 9.7 percent year on year. This means for a period the official online railway ticket booking website www.12306.cn will be one of world's busiest websites as millions of people try their luck to get a ticket. It is not an easy task and takes more than patience and luck, but many tech firms, especially online travel agencies such as Ctrip and Qunar, have rolled out special services to help buyers improve their odds of getting a ticket. The avalanche of clicks, together with ticket-buying services, poses a growing burden for the official website. However, no major glitches have been reported so far, thanks to the help of Alibaba, which uses its cloud computing technology to help deal with the flood of web traffic. The cloud computing platform can deal with up to 400,000 visits each second, according to Meng Liang, a senior engineer with Aliyun. Those driving home or taking buses can get real-time information on road traffic conditions and bad weather notices to help with their route-planning. The service is from search engine giant Baidu, which uses its sophisticated mapping service in partnership with the transport research institute under the Ministry of Public Security. For those who have difficulty getting rail, flight or bus tickets, ride-sharing platform Didi Chuxing is offering a new way home. Didi is asking for private car owners driving home this year to share vacant seats with those on similar routes, and they will use the data to match the demands of drivers and passengers. The hitchhiking service enabled 1.9 million ride-sharing trips during last year's Chunyun and is expected to grow by over 300 percent to 8.4 million this year. Didi hopes that in ten years about half of China's private car owners will share their vacant seats as more people accept the idea of sharing. "With the sharing economy and big data technology, together we can make our environment better and our trips easier and more fun," said Liu Qing, Didi's president. Kashmiri people carry the body of Adil Reshi, a militant belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit (HM), in village Hussainpora near Bijbehara town of Anantnag district, about 55 km south of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Jan. 16, 2017. Three militants belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit (HM) were killed in an overnight gunfight with Indian troops in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Monday. (Xinhua/Javed Dar) SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Three militants belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit (HM) were killed in an overnight gunfight with Indian troops in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Monday. The gunfight between militants and troops broke out Sunday evening at village Awoora-Pahalgam of Anantnag district, about 79 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "Three militants were gunned down during an overnight gunfight in Awoora village," a senior police official posted in Pahalgam told Xinhua. "The gunfight broke out after joint contingents of police and army cordoned off the area and zeroed on a house where three militants were present." Indian police and troopers according to officials have not suffered any damage in the stand-off. According to police officials, the operation was carried out following intelligence inputs suggesting presence of militants in the village. Locals said the exchange of gunfight started on Sunday evening and continued until Monday morning. "Throughout night we heard sound of firing and blasts in the village," Wasim Ahmad, a local resident said. Police officials claimed they have recovered three assault rifles from the gunfight site. The slain militants were identified as local cadres of HM, the region's indigenous militant outfit. Locals said the house from where militants were firing on army and police positions has been completely damaged by troops. Following the news of militants being holed up in the village, protests broke out in neighboring areas including Bijbehara town on Sunday evening. Reports said angry youth threw stones at government forces to and township came to standstill in protest. On Monday morning hundreds of people braving snowfall and chill assembled in Bijbehara and Srigufwara to march towards the native villages of three local militants and participate in their funeral prayers. Reports said people especially youth were shouting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans as they waited for police to handover bodies to them. Militant groups are engaged in guerilla war with Indian troops in the region since 1989. Gunfight between the two sides takes place intermittently. Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. WELLINGTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand is set to ban environmentally damaging plastic microbeads in personal care products, Environment Minister Nick Smith said Monday. The use of plastic microbeads in products like facial cleansers and toothpaste made no sense when biodegradable alternatives like apricot kernels and ground nuts products could achieve the same results, Smith said in a statement. "The problem with plastic microbeads is that they are too small to retrieve or recycle, they do not biodegrade, and that they are mistaken by marine life as food causing long-term damage to aquatic animals like fish and mussels," said Smith. About 100 varieties of personal care products in New Zealand contained plastic microbeads, pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters in diameter, most of them imported. They included products such as deodorant, shampoo, hair conditioner, shower gel, lipstick, hair coloring, shaving cream, sunscreen, insect repellent, anti-wrinkle cream, moisturizers, hair spray, facial masks, baby care products, eye shadow and mascara. It was estimated that more than 10,000 tons of plastic microbeads were used globally each year. The initiative was part of a global push to reduce the amount of plastic accumulating in the oceans, the proposed New Zealand ban paralleled similar initiatives in the United States, Britain, Canada, the European Union and Australia. "New Zealand is a small consumer of plastic microbead products by international comparison, but this initiative is important for maintaining New Zealand's good name in marine stewardship," said Smith. The proposed ban would take effect on July 1, 2018. Scientists welcomed the proposed ban, saying further steps were needed to prevent other forms of plastic contamination. "Microplastics are of concern as they are widespread in oceans and have been found in an increasing number of marine animals," Sally Gaw of the University of Canterbury Department of Chemistry said in a statement. "We need to re-evaluate our love affair with plastic, and get smarter about how and when we use plastic if we are to protect our oceans." "We are behind the rest of the world as many countries have already banned these products." Associate Professor Mary Sewell of Auckland University's School of Biological Sciences, said in a statement. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday night listed "thick skin" and "stamina" as important qualities for the top person in the White House to have, in an ironic reference to his successor Donald Trump who will be sworn in on Friday. "Thick skin helps" to get the complex presidential job done, Obama said in his final interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" aired Sunday night. He also recommended that a U.S. president has to be physically strong enough and must not get distracted by critics in government and the media. "Stamina. There is a greater physical element to this job than you would think, just being able to grind it out. And I think your ability to -- not just mentally and emotionally but physically be able to say, 'We got this. We're going to be okay,'" is important, said Obama. Throughout the 2016 election campaign, Trump was repeatedly painted as having "thin skin" and being reckless. At the time, then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton often warned that Trump's 'thin skin' would set off war or an economic crisis. During their first presidential TV debate in September, Trump and Clinton clashed in unusually personal terms. The former secretary of state slammed Trump's "racist lies" about Obama's birthplace, and Trump accused Clinton of lacking stamina to be president. In Sunday's interview, Obama also warned that people shouldn't underestimate Trump, saying the president-elect was able to tap into people's grievances. Though Trump was able to run an "improvisational campaign," "now he's in the process of building up an organization. And we'll have to see how that works. And it'll be a test, I think, for him and the people that he's designated to be able to execute on his vision," Obama said. Enditem HAVANA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese community in Cuba's capital Havana this weekend launched celebrations marking the arrival of the New Lunar Year, which falls on Jan. 28. Havana's Chinatown, one of the oldest in Latin America, on Saturday hosted the opening of an exhibit on the Chinese zodiac and 2017, the Year of the Rooster. It was the first of several events leading to what is also known as the Spring Festival observed by the Chinese people. Revelers gathered in the district's House of Chinese Arts and Traditions, which hosts conferences, book presentations and other cultural events, including the traditional dragon dance performed here by students of the Cuban School of Wushu. The exhibit features 15 large-scale paintings of the 12 signs of the zodiac, each represented by an animal, and other iconic images of the Chinese culture, such as the phoenix and the panda. Chen Xi, China's ambassador to Cuba, underscored the strong friendship between the governments and peoples of both countries. Amid the celebrations which will continue through Feb. 12, China and Cuba will also mark 170 years of Chinese presence in Cuba. The first Chinese arrived in Cuba in 1847, when the island was a Spanish colony, as hired hands to work on sugar plantations. Though many came to work and save in order to go back to China, their slave conditions made it virtually impossible for most of them to pay off their debts and return. The opening was sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Havana and the Casino Chung Wah, one of 13 community organizations active in Havana's Chinatown. These organizations were originally established along patronymic, religious or regional lines. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures during a news conference in New York, the United States, on Jan. 11, 2017. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump met the press Wednesday for the first news conference since the election. (Xinhua/Gary Hershorn) MEXICO CITY, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's hostile policies towards Mexico will have a negative impact on the United States itself, according to a leading political observer. Gustavo Vega, a professor at the Center for International Studies at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico, believes Trump's trade protectionism would harm U.S. economic interests that benefit from the integration of Mexican and U.S. businesses, especially in border states such as California. He added that 600,000 jobs in those states depend on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994 between Mexico, the United States and Canada. "It's very worrying. He doesn't realize he could create a truly serious situation," said Vega. He said what causes particular concern is Trump's lethal cocktail of corporate and immigration policies, which could lead to a decrease in manufacturing investment in Mexico and fewer jobs. Trump wants to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, to keep out illegal migrants. He also threatened to levy heavy taxes on companies that operate plants in Mexico but export to north of the border. Trump said last week that the United States will begin talks with Mexico on border wall immediately after he takes office on Jan. 20. The border which Trump threatened to clamp down has traditionally served as a safety valve releasing social unrest in Mexico as the unemployed migrate northward in search of jobs, noted Vega. One of Trump's demands has been to have Mexico pay for the proposed 3,200-km-long border wall, which experts estimate could cost some 26 billion U.S. dollars. U.S. automaker Ford announced earlier this month it was canceling plans for a new 1.6 billion U.S.-dollar plant in Mexico, though it claimed the decision was unrelated to Trump's new policies. "We could be negotiating agreements on legal migration, which is what they (Americans) want, but he is doing the exact opposite," Vega said. "I hope that U.S. companies located here can make him and congressmen understand that what he is doing is crazy," said Vega. In the past, conflicts in ties between the two interdependent nations have only backfired on both, he said. In the 1970s, he said, the cancellation of a proposed gas pipeline from Mexico to Texas, due to a disagreement over the price of gas, caused Mexico to angrily adopt protectionist measures that eventually led to its 1982 debt crisis. "We suffered because of a nationalist reaction, but so did the United States, because in the end immigration shot up," said Vega, who holds a doctorate degree from Yale University in the U.S. northeast. In regard to Trump's policies, Vega said, "I think the Mexican government is going to have to take retaliatory measures -- at some point say 'as of now we are no longer participating in security (cooperation)' or the like -- to make him realize the repercussions can be serious for them as well." "I would hope that they can make him understand that what he is doing goes against his own interests," said Vega. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China has mapped out a plan to improve the economy, standard of living and environmental conditions to a "new level" in its western regions by 2020, the country's top economic planner said Monday. The State Council has released the plan setting goals for the country's "go west" strategy for 2016-2020, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The government should complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in China's west by 2020, the NDRC cited the plan as saying. Specific targets include sustained and healthy economic development, stronger innovation, more progress in industrial upgrading and infrastructure construction, as well as better environment and public services. Major projects will be implemented to strengthen environmental protection, conserve energy and resources and improve disaster prevention and relief, according to the plan. Efforts will also be made to reduce poverty and promote the opening up of regions along the Belt and Road. The less-developed west presents difficulties for China's goals to eliminate poverty and achieve all-round moderate prosperity, but it also boasts huge potential for development, according to the NDRC. China launched its "go west" strategy in 2000 to boost the economic development of 12 western provincial-level regions -- Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Qinghai. Under the strategy, western regions enjoy support in infrastructure construction, foreign investment, environmental protection, education and staff retention. From 2011 to 2015, China invested 2.7 trillion yuan (392 billion U.S. dollars) in 127 key projects in the west, according to the NDRC. Altogether 12,000 km of railways and 215,000 km of highways were built in that period, while rural residents' access to safe drinking water and electricity was expanded. During the period, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in western regions rose 10.5 percent annually on average, while the net income of rural residents grew 11.2 percent annually, outpacing the national growth by 0.2 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively, according to the NDRC. MELBOURNE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Romanian star Simona Halep will be sidelined for some time, admitting she is suffering from tendinitis in her left knee after a shock first round exit at the Australian Open on Monday. American Shelby Rogers' aggressive game plan made quick work of the fourth seed in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 in just 75 minutes in their opening round clash, boosting her confidence knowing she can match it with the best under a tough draw. "I'm kind of used to that, playing the seeds and playing big matches right off the bat," the world No. 52 told reporters, adding she has always enjoyed playing on big courts with big crowds. "I have always loved that atmosphere. It's a little bit different playing on such a big court and then having different pressures coming from everywhere. I think I have matured a little bit and gotten used to that." Though bothered by the pain late in the first set, withdrawing from the match never entered Halep' s mind as "it's not in my inside (sic)" , the fourth-ranked told reporters, admitting Rogers "deserved to win" from her aggressive play and strong ball hitting. "She was stronger today than me," Halep said. The Romanian has been suffering from the injury since late last year, undergoing non-invasive treatment, while taking anti-inflammatory medication over the last couple of days, though she hasn't seen a doctor yet to determine if surgery is needed. "I need an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)... (and) probably need some time off to get it well," Halep said. "It's difficult to play with the pain, and the knees are dangerous, so I have to take care." It's the second first round exit for Halep at the Australian Open after being downed by an emotional Zhang Shuai in straight sets 6-4, 6-3 last year. Rogers will face home wild card Ashleigh Barty in round two. File Photo taken on Dec. 1, 2000 and provided by international environmental organization Greenpeace shows Greenpeace activists trying to stop whaling by Japanese in the Southern Ocean. (Xinhua/Cunningham) SYDNEY, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese whaling ship has allegedly been caught operating illegally in Australian waters. The Nisshin Maru, a Japanese vessel, was caught in Australian waters between Tasmania and Antarctica with a dead whale on board by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) helicopter. The group released images taken by the helicopter of the vessel with a dead protected minke whale on board and two harpoon ships nearby. Josh Frydenberg, Australia's Environment Minister, said the Australian government was "deeply disappointed" that Japan had resumed whaling. In a statement issued on Monday Frydenberg said that Australia was "opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called 'scientific' whaling." "It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," he said. "We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation." Tony Burke, Frydenberg's Opposition counterpart, also issued a statement, criticizing the "slaughter under the guise of scientific research'." "Japanese whaling ships have been sighted with their harpoons uncovered in the Southern Ocean, where a moratorium on whaling in currently in effect," he said. "This is happening in areas Australia recognises as being protected." Jeff Hansen, a member of Sea Shepherd, said that crew on board the Nisshin Maru quickly covered the whale with a tarpaulin once they spotted the helicopter. "They're hit with an explosive harpoon that goes straight into their body, hooks come out and shrapnel is sent through their body, it's a terrible bloody death... these whales can take up to 30 or 40 minutes to die," Hansen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "A soon as the whaling fleet saw that Sea Shepherd on the scene, they were scrambling to cover up their illegal operations, they were covering up their harpoons. "This is all happening deep in Australia's whale sanctuary off the Antarctic coast." The incident occurred as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Australia to meet with Australia's PM Malcolm Turnbull about the two nations' relationship. "It shows that even with the Japan Prime Minister on Australian soil, Japan is going about their bloody business ignoring the Australian Federal Court ruling, ignoring the wishes of the International Court of Justice," Hansen said. TOKYO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Japan, despite being the world's third largest economy, ranks 111 out of 140 countries when it comes to gender disparities, according to the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap Report. Experts on the matter maintain that while Japan has traditionally been a patriarchal society in which men have typically been the bread winners while their female counterparts have commonly been homemakers, the past three decades has seen a shift in such attitudes, with more women joining the workforce and holding senior positions as well as being represented in parliament. The shift, however, is far from representing the pace at which Japan needs to develop to escape its protracted economic malaise initially brought on by the "bubble years." Further headwinds include the pressing demographic predicament Japan is now facing which involves the simultaneous aging and shrinking population. In a recent report, the United Nations warned Japan that its population would shrink to 83 million by 2100, owing to the nation's declining birthrate. Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo, believes that in terms of government promises made to address the nation's gender disparities, much more needs to be done. "The basic reason (Japan lags behind other countries in gender equality in the world) is that there is still a huge gender pay gap between men and women in the economy. The other reason is the underrepresentation of women in politics," Miura said. "There is a huge pay gap between regular workers and non-regular workers in Japan. Currently 40 percent of workers are so-called non-regular workers, including part-time workers or dispatch workers. Those non-regular workers receive less job security and are paid less, and about 60 percent of women actually are non-regular workers," she said. One of the major reasons cited by Miura for women discontinuing work is due to a lack of daycare facilities, an issue which the government has purportedly addressed by the creation of additional facilities, but the numbers, locations and educational standards of many of these facilities have been deemed inadequate, inconvenient and sub-par. "Once women have their first child, two-thirds of women actually quit their jobs. If you quit a job, it is very difficult to find the next job," said Miura. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his UN speech in 2013, stressed the need for women's empowerment, but Japan has dropped 10 places in the Global Gender Gap Index since then. Abe's attempts to lead in gender parity have met with mixed reactions as past and present female members of his cabinet harbor some extremely archaic views on gender roles and equality. Abe pledged to raise the ratio of women in leadership positions in all fields to at least 30 percent by 2020, but the target has since been lowered to a meager 7 percent in the public sector and 15 percent in the private sector by his cabinet. Although the election of Yuriko Koike in 2016 as Tokyo's first female governor has given the society a strong female role model to look up to, women are still hugely underrepresented in business and politics. "Especially in terms of politics, people do not pay attention at all to women's underrepresentation. It is only recently that people started to know the fact that there is less than 10 percent (of females) in the Assembly," Miura said. She said all political parties should make a bigger commitment to gender equality and civil organizations should push for this, while the media should focus on comparing all parties with respect to the ratio of women in nominations, for example. Andy Murray of Great Britain reacts during the men's singles first-round match against Illya Marchenko of Ukraine at the Australian Open Tennis Championships in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 16, 2017. Andy Murray won 3-0. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai) MELBOURNE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Top seed Andy Murray claimed his first win as world number one in a Grand Slam with a 7-5, 7-6(5), 6-2 victory over Illya Marchenko of Ukraine in the opening round of the Australian Open here on Monday. The Briton, who took over the No.1 ranking from Serbian Novak Djokovic late last year, made some mistakes in the match against the Ukrainian, but eventually sealed it in three straight sets. Murray has lost four of the last six finals here, including the previous two, to six-time champion Novak Djokovic. He admits there's one thing he desperately wants to change. "I've never won here - I'm going to try to change that this year," he said. Two players who could potentially stand in his way are fifth-ranked Kei Nishikori of Japan and 10th-ranked Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. Both had first-round wins earlier in the day. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published Sunday that Britain's exit from the European Union will turn out to be "a great thing" and pledged to strike a swift trade deal with Britain. "I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing," Trump told The Times of London newspaper. "I'll tell you, the fact that your pound sterling has gone down? Great. Because business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the UK." Trump pledged to offer Britain a quick and fair trade deal with the United States within weeks of taking office, saying that "we're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides." The U.S. President-elect also predicted that other countries would follow Britain's lead in leaving the European Union. "I think people want ... their own identity, so if you ask me ... I believe others will leave," Trump said. Trump's comments came as British Prime Minister Theresa May is to give details on Tuesday about her plans for Britain's exit from the European Union. During the interview conducted in his office in New York, Trump described German Chancellor Angela Merkel's immigration policy as a "catastrophic mistake." "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," Trump said. Speaking about Washington's relations with Moscow, Trump signaled an openness to working with Russia. "Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," he said. DAMASCUS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Most rebel groups have agreed to attend upcoming negotiations with Syrian government representatives in Astana later this month, Saudi-funded Alarabiya TV reported on Monday. Conferring in Ankara, nine rebel groups agreed to take part in the Jan. 23 meeting in Astana, which was the result of a recent Turkish-Russian agreement, said the report. The most prominent rebel group to attend is the Jaish al-Islam, or the Islam Army, the main rebel power controlling key areas east of the capital Damascus. However, the report said, six other rebel groups mainly based in the northwestern province of Idlib, including Ahrar al-Sham, Suqur al-Sham, Failaq Rahman, and Jaish Idlib, have refused to take part. The report said that each rebel faction will send representatives, adding that the names have already been handed over to the Turkish side, which will be coordinating with the Russians. ISTANBUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish authorities are looking into possible financial motives behind a gunman's deadly attack on a nightclub in Istanbul, as some 150,000 U.S. dollars believed to belong to the militant were seized, local media reported on Monday. The money was found in an operation launched by the security forces at an apartment in the outlying district of Silivri on Jan. 5, the Hurriyet daily said, citing police sources. Police determined that the money could not be delivered to the attacker due to strict security measures enforced in the wake of the attack on Reina nightclub early on New Year's Day, in which 39 people were shot dead, the daily said. A manhunt is continuing as the gunman managed to escape following the shooting spree, for which the Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility. In light of the cash seizure, police believed that the militant launched the attack for financial gains rather than usual ideological reasons that are believed mostly behind IS assaults, the report said. The Turkish authorities are also looking into possible roles of secret services in the attack, according to the report. Turkish police have identified the attacker as Abdulgadir Masharipov, a man of Uzbek origin and is also known as Abu Muhammed Horasan. WELLINGTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The defense ministers of New Zealand and Singapore on Monday pledged to continue their military cooperation and to expand it into new areas. New Zealand Defense Minister Gerry Brownlee and his Singapore counterpart Dr Ng Eng Hen issued a joint statement after observing Exercise Thunder Warrior, an artillery live-fire exercise at the Waiouru Training Area, in the central North Island. The ministers also conducted the inaugural Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers Meeting. Both nations remained committed to the relationship and looked forward to further opportunities to strengthen defense cooperation, the ministers said in the statement. They agreed to initiate an annual formal ministerial meeting to conduct discussions "on issues of mutual concern." Brownlee affirmed New Zealand's continued commitment to the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) and ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus framework. The FPDA was established by the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore signed in 1971. MOGADISHU, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) said on Monday that it has launched investigations into civilian death and injuries on Sunday evening along Mogadishu-Afgoye road. According to local reports, at least ten people were killed and seven others injured when an armored vehicle belonging to AMISOM ran over a commuter bus in the outskirts of Mogadishu. The AU mission later confirmed that its convoy was involved in a road accident with a civilian vehicle along the Mogadishu-Afgoye road and pledged to provide details of the incident later. "AMISOM is investigating this unfortunate incident that may have resulted in casualties. Additional information will be supplied as soon as it is available," it said. The fatal incident took place at Alamada area, just outside Mogadishu, where the AMISOM convoy hit a minibus which was headed to the Somali capital from Afgoye district. Similar incidents involving AMISOM and civilians have been reported in the past in the Horn of Africa nation in the wake of increased attacks against AMISOM and Somali forces in the country. Wang Zhiqiang, general manager of the Afghan Branch of China Rail Shisiju Group Corporation, works in his office in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 15, 2017. Despite post-Taliban violence and conflict still occurring in Afghanistan, Chinese companies have been steadily accessing the war-torn country's markets to play an active role in its reconstruction. (Xinhua/Lu Shuqun) by Lu Shuqun and Jiang Chao KABUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Despite post-Taliban violence and conflict still occurring in Afghanistan, Chinese companies have been steadily accessing the war-torn country's markets to play an active role in its reconstruction. China Rail Shisiju Group Corporation joined the Afghan reconstruction process in 2002, shortly after the fall of the Taliban. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Wang Zhiqiang, an engineer and General Manager of its Afghan Branch who has been working here for almost 10 years, explained how the company moved beyond China and into the world. Afghanistan is the first country that the company has engaged with. The country is regarded as a cradle for senior overseas managers as almost all the leaders of its overseas branches have been working here in Afghanistan. Engineers of the China Rail Shisiju Group Corporation typically say, "If you can do a good job in Afghanistan, then you can do so anywhere." In 2005, the company stepped up its overseas business, launching an intensive training program for the would-be overseas professionals. Just a few months prior to this, one of its construction sites in Afghanistan was attacked, killing 11 Chinese workers. Yet Wang Zhiqiang was determined to commit himself to working overseas, despite the possibility of facing such perils. And so it was that in 2006, Wang was dispatched to India and ten months later, he was transferred to Afghanistan to take charge of a construction site. "The moment I arrived in Kabul, I went to the construction site directly because of an urgent need." Wang recalled. The project, a road to connect Maydan Shahr and Bamyan, was in Wardak province, which was accessible only by car. "Driving our car on the dilapidated road in the vast waste land, with helicopters hovering overhead, I felt a bit nervous, because my colleagues told me that one day when they were working, they saw one of our men driving a car hit by a roadside bomb, although luckily he made a narrow escape with his life." "We were also caught up in live exchanges between the U.S. army and the Taliban militants near our base. The U.S. snipers aimed at us so we immediately got out of car with our hands raised to show them we were Chinese engineers. That was a very dangerous moment as if we had driven further, we might have been shot." That was not the only danger. Wang added, "there was a time we were making concrete for a bridge and gunfire rang out just three or four kilometers away from us. If we stopped working then all our previous efforts and all the materials would have been wasted. We had to continue making the concrete amid the gunfire." Besides security challenges, Shisiju Group was in great need of local skillful workers. Localization is key for many companies to go global as it promotes domestic employment and enables the parent companies to send less homegrown workers and reduce risks. Shisiju Group, therefore, has gone to great lengths to train and build local teams. Now it has a stable and reliable local team with many employees having worked in the company for as many as 10 years. Najibullah Ali, a Kabul resident, has been working in the company since 2005 when he was only 17. "Fourteen years ago my father died and my salary was very low. When I joined the Shisiju Group, I learned a lot of new skills. First I worked as an interpreter, now I am a manager's assistant. My livelihood has improved dramatically and I've been able to get married, have three children and I own a house and a car." "The only way to have a better life is to work hard and be honest. I am grateful to this Chinese company. And Mr. Wang is very kind to us and has taught me a lot," said Ali. Here in Shisiju Group, many young Afghans grow to become skillful engineers or managers and in doing so change their own lives and make a contribution to their own country's reconstruction process. Some local workers even go on to start their own businesses and still maintain a good relationship with Shisiju Group and keep in touch with their former Chinese colleagues. To date, the multi-functional center in the Presidential Palace, which is also an important platform for multilateral diplomatic negotiations, the Science and Education Center, which doubles as a grand stage for cultural exchanges, the Republic Hospital, which provides healthcare for Afghans, are all former China-backed projects and built by China's Shisiju Group. The post-Taliban years have seen both ups-and-downs for Chinese companies. Some experienced a great financial loss and had to relocate. Some Chinese engineers and workers have been kidnapped and killed. It's difficult to operate businesses here for over a decade, both for the company and its staff. This year, however, Shisiju Group has won a new contract, the ninth contract since the company has landed in Afghanistan. "We will continue will continue to work here as by joining hands with the Afghan people," said Wang. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- From steam locomotive and diesel trains to electric locomotives and high-speed rail, Du Ronghua has seen China's train speeds soar from 60 to 300 km per hour. Du, 45, has been working as a train operator in the eastern city of Hangzhou since 1991. For him, nothing illustrates the rapid development of the country's railway system quite like "chunyun," the annual Chinese Spring Festival travel rush. Recalling chunyun during the era of diesel trains, Du said, "It was hard for the train to start when parked at the station, as flocks of passengers would rush to the train and some would even stand on the door steps when they were unable to squeeze inside." High speed rail has dramatically increased the capacity and efficiency of China's railways, and passengers now have a more comfortable experience, even amid the chunyun crowds, he said. China's high-speed railways have seen rapid expansion in recent years. The country boasts a high-speed rail network of more than 20,000 km, the world's largest. Du still remembers a time back in the 1990s when his steam train passed a tourist train. Several foreigners took out their cameras to take pictures of the old-fashioned train with curiosity. "I was so embarrassed at that moment," he said. Today he always feels proud seeing foreigners photograph China's high-speed trains. Over the past two decades, Du has had few opportunities to spend Spring Festival with his family. "Sometimes I felt a bit guilty about my family when looking at the fireworks outside the train windows," he said. "But it is my duty to take passengers to their destinations safely." For 59-year-old Wan Dongzhou, a water-supply worker at the train station in the eastern city of Nanjing, chunyun always tests his physical prowess. Wan has been doing this job for some 30 years, and he wears out a pair of shoes every two months. During chunyun, he and his fellow workers have to supply water to nearly 200 carriages of 50 trains daily. Although his office is only 500 meters from the parked trains, he must run to the trains after receiving each order. "The trains usually only stop for a few minutes, so we have to race against time to get our work done," said Wan. When the road is slippery from snow and rain in the winter, it is common for Wan and his colleagues to fall when running to the trains at night. Kan Zhaowei is a wheel repairer for the high speed trains in Nanjing. The trains should undergo wheel repair every 200,000 to 250,000 kilometers, he said. It takes at least 24 hours to finish repairing the wheels of an entire train, and the job requires much patience and concentration, he said. Gao Xiang, a high speed rail engineer in Nanjing, said that behind the smooth operation of each chunyun train there are many people working day and night. According to the Ministry of Transport, a record 2.98 billion trips will be made during this year's chunyun period between Jan. 13 and Feb. 21, up 2.2 percent from last year. Up to 356 million trips are expected to be made via railways during the annual migration, up 9.7 percent year on year, according to China Railway Corporation (CRC). Your daily briefing on China Xinhua Weibo Facebook Twitter Reddit Diigo Delicious Digg Linkedin MySpace Sina Weibo Kaixin Renren Q-zone Tencent Weibo Sohu Weibo NetEase Weibo Source: Xinhua | 2017-01-16 19:23:17 | Editor: huaxia Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan walk out of the plane after arrival in Zurich, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived here Sunday to pay a state visit to Switzerland and attend the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) Hi, here's what you need to know about China: BERN -- As Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit to Switzerland on Sunday, the European nation hosted the Chinese guest of honor by presenting him with a full set of hospitality, a proof of Bern's high expectations for the trip and how much importance it attaches to bilateral ties. "My visit is aimed at consolidating our friendship, boosting our cooperation and promoting peace and development together with the Swiss side," Xi said at a ceremony held at the Federal Palace in the historical Old Town of Bern by the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council. "I am looking forward to having talks with the Swiss side on deepening our pragmatic cooperation in various areas and enriching the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership," Xi added. http://xhne.ws/f5MrD - - - - BERN -- Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke highly of the China-Switzerland partnership here on Sunday, saying it has become a paradigm of relations between countries of different sizes. Accompanied by his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard, Xi made the remarks during a tea chat on a special train of the Swiss government running from Zurich to Bern, during his ongoing visit to the European country. As one of the first Western countries to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the People' s Republic of China, Switzerland has taken the lead in developing cooperation with China, recording a trove of "firsts" in this process, Xi said. http://xhne.ws/Vyquh - - - - NEW YORK -- The Chinese are not thrilled about their entanglement with the U.S. economy, any more than Donald Trump is, but like a quarreling couple, the two nations have kept dancing together out of mutual self-interest, said Farok Contractor, a distinguished professor at Rutgers Business School, in an article posted on his website Saturday. Trump alleges that the loss of U.S. jobs is "the greatest theft in the history of the world." This assertion is misleading and true only in very small part, said the research. Should a Trump administration actually carry out its threats to levy a 45 percent tariff on Chinese products, production is unlikely to return to the U.S. to any significant degree. Other nations such as India, Lesotho, and Bangladesh, will fill the breach. http://xhne.ws/bsmuT - - - - BEIJING -- China will quadruple its new energy vehicle annual output to 2 million by 2020, a cabinet minister said. Citing a government plan, Industry and Information Technology Minister Miao Wei said at a Beijing forum over the weekend that by 2025, at least one in every five cars sold in China will be a new energy model. In 2016, China produced 517,000 new energy vehicles. The country has been the world's top seller of such environment-friendly cars since 2015. The cumulative sale has exceeded 1 million, according to the ministry. http://xhne.ws/Ujy54 - - - - DUBAI -- Dubai's Multi Commodities Center (DMCC), the largest free zone in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is counting on rising UAE-China relations for further expansion. "The DMCC's collaboration and partnerships with international entities such as the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone further underpin the DMCC's drive to boost commodity trade along the West to the East corridor - connecting directly with China's Belt and Road initiative," Krysta Fox, Executive Director of DMCC Free Zone, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. "There are over 150 thriving Chinese businesses in the DMCC today including Hisense (a multi-national white goods and electronics manufacturer), Sinopec (China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation) and CSCEC (China State Construction Engineering Corporation)," Fox said. http://xhne.ws/fzB5i 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 KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese consortium led by China Railway Corporation (CRC), which has announced its intention to build the upcoming Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR), started its bidding efforts by holding an experience exhibition on Monday in Kuala Lumpur. The exhibition, held at KL Sentral station, a busy transportation hub in the capital city, will last three months. The Chinese exhibition includes a driver's cabin, where people can simulate driving the locomotive, some high-speed train models as well as some passenger seats, where people can use augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to immerse themselves in the trip on high-rail trains. Syed Hamid, chairman of the Land Public Transport Commission, said the exhibition is a good chance for the Malaysian public to feel how we should enter into the culture or the era of high-speed rail. He praised China for completing the building of a high-speed rail network traversing more than 20,000 kilometers. Yang Zhongmin, chairman of China Railway International Group Co. Ltd, a subsidiary under the CRC, said the event is not only to show the benefits ushered in by high-speed rail, but also to show to the Malaysian government and public that his team is capable of providing "the most advanced, the most mature and the safest solution for the HSR project linking Singapore and Malaysia." Yang noted that his team will start to make preparations for the bidding process soon, as the project is about to call for tenders early this year. Others in the Chinese consortium include China Railway Group Limited, CRRC Corporation, China Communications Construction Company Limited and China Railway Construction Corporation Limited. The governments of Malaysia and Singapore signed a legally-binding agreement last month on the HSR project, which will cut travel time between the two cities to 90 minutes once it run into operation by the end of 2026. Companies from China, Japan and Europe have long expressed interests in this project. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during a welcome ceremony held by all members of the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping's visit to Switzerland is expected to yield fruitful results and usher in a new era of innovative strategic partnership. The trip, Xi's first abroad this year and the first to the Alpine country by a Chinese president in the 21st century, will see the two states work out a new blueprint for the development of bilateral ties and sign cooperation deals covering politics, free trade, culture, customs, energy and sports. Amid flagging international trade and uncertainty for the global economic recovery, the visit has sent a strong message to the world that China and Switzerland are committed to protecting an open and inclusive global trade system, safeguarding world peace and stability, and promoting a fair and reasonable global governance system. Although China and Switzerland are different in social systems and development stages, bilateral ties have been characterized by a number of "firsts" over the past decades. Switzerland was among the first Western countries to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. After China began its reform and opening-up drives in late 1970s, Switzerland set up China's first industrial joint venture in 1980. It was the first European country to recognize China's complete market economy status, and the first continental European country to ink a free trade agreement with China. Switzerland was also among the first European countries to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a China-initiated multilateral institution aimed at providing financing for infrastructure improvement in Asia. Sino-Swiss relations have become a good example of peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation between countries of different social systems, development stages and sizes. In the political sphere, bilateral ties have been propelled forward by the exchange of high-level visits. Xi's visit came barely one year after then-President Johann Schneider-Ammann's state visit to China in April 2016, during which the two countries established an innovative strategic partnership. In addition, more than 20 dialogue and consultation mechanisms are running smoothly and have played an important role in strengthening coordination and cooperation at various levels. In the economic and trade sector, trade volume between the two countries reached 44.27 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, marking a 1.7-percent growth compared to 2014. China has become Switzerland's biggest trading partner in Asia while Switzerland is also China's major trading partner in Europe. Switzerland is one of most innovative countries in the world, ranking among the top in terms of the number of patents per capita, with scientific research personnel accounting for 12 out of 10,000 people. China, meanwhile, has decided to pursue an innovation-based development strategy by listing "innovation" as one of its five development concepts in its 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), which also include coordination, green development, opening up and sharing. "A stronger China-Switzerland economic relationship is helpful to China's ties with Europe," said Wang Yiwei, an international relations scholar from Renmin University of China. In the tourism and cultural field, over 1.36 million visits to Switzerland were made by Chinese tourists in 2015, and China has become the fourth biggest tourist source for Switzerland. There is also broad cooperation space in higher education and vocational training. It is reasonable to expect that innovative cooperation between China and Switzerland will play an exemplary role in China's relations with Europe and ultimately benefit the two peoples. JERUSALEM, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military said on Monday that it arrested 13 Hamas members in the West Bank overnight, including a lawmaker, amid a crackdown on the Islamist Palestinian group. In the raid, conducted jointly by the army and the Shin Bet security service, a vehicle, funds and "inciting" Hamas materials were also seized. A military spokesperson said in a statement that the men were arrested in connection with the operation of a Hamas headquarters. "During the past weeks, security forces uncovered a wide-scale base for Hamas activity in the Ramallah area," the statement said, adding that the base was "operated as Hamas' command in the area." Its activities included supporting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and their families, distributing "Hamas propaganda," and financing rallies, according to the Israeli security forces. "The command was funded directly by Hamas officials in Gaza and abroad and intended to bolster Hamas' regional support, establish terror cells and undermine the Palestinian Authority," the statement read. Hamas is a Gaza-based Palestinian organization that supports armed struggle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A wave of violence that lasted more than a year has claimed the lives of at least 235 Palestinians and 34 Israelis. HAVANA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A revealing description of the Chinese migration to the Americas is written in the book "Traces of the Chinese on this side of the Atlantic", which was presented here Sunday as part of the activities celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. At the Min Chih Tang society of Havana's Chinatown, dozens of people gathered to hear from the voices of the different authors of the new book, exploring peculiarities, characteristics and varied facets of the Chinese migration on this side of the world. Composed of 13 articles or essays, the book seeks to bring the reader closer to the influence of Chinese migration in Cuba and other countries. In particular, the text highlights the influence of the Chinese community in Mexico, as well as the contributions of Chinese migration in Cuba, introducing the Chinese culture, culinary and music to readers. "The most important thing about this book is that it offers a rich information of the Chinese presence in Cuba and other countries in the region," and "the support and contributions made by Chinese migration in our continent," Sergio Valdes, one of the authors in the book, told Xinhua. Not only writers from Cuba, but also prestigious scholars from universities in the United States contributed to the new book. "This is a very important book because it's a text that addresses an area of studies which was little written about," said Paul De Castro, another author and researcher at the University of California. "The Chinese presence in Cuba, although it is well known, has hardly been studied in depth so I think it is the beginning of a series of studies about the Chinese influence in Cuba," he said. Mercedes Crespo, another author, emphasized the different topics the book addresses, which allow readers to learn about the Chinese influence in the economic, social and even political development of the Cuba before the revolutionary triumph of 1959. The authors agreed that this publication will help Cuban people to understand the outstanding contributions of the Chinese immigrants to the island and could help start new studies on similar topics. "The importance of this book is to lighten up the interests of Cubans and Chinese descendants for new studies on the influence of Chinese migration to the island and other parts of Latin America," said Valdes. "Traces of China on this side of the Atlantic" was compiled by Cuban researcher Mitzi Espinosa who had the support of the Min Chih Tang Society of Havana's Chinatown. Cuba's Jose Marti publishing house edited the book. The book will be available to Cuban readers at the upcoming International Book Fair Cuba 2017. Also on Sunday, as part of the Spring Festival activities, a Chinese language children's contest was held, with kids demonstrating their language skills. Since Jan. 13, the Chinese community in Cuba launched activities to celebrate the Spring Festival of the Rooster Year which falls on Jan. 28. Many cultural functions will be organized throughout whole one month in Havana's Chinatown, such as art exhibitions, concerts and traditional Chinese dance shows. The year 2017 marks the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Chinese to Cuba, therefore their descendants, grouped in societies, have prepared multiple activities which will be extended throughout the year. PARIS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian-Israeli peace process should be advanced with a responsible, objective and fair attitude, instead of being complicated, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming said here. "We hope that the parties concerned will push Palestine and Israel towards peace with a responsible, objective and fair attitude, instead of complicating matters," Zhang told Xinhua on the sidelines of a Middle East peace conference held in Paris on Sunday. China strongly calls for the cessation of all acts of violence against civilians and the halting of expansion of settlements, and the parties concerned must abandon all radical acts which only aggravate contradictions, Zhang said. Zhang noted that over the past decades, China has always supported the Palestinian people's justice cause, and China also actively participates in the Middle East peace process. China has never been absent from the process since the Madrid Conference in 1991, Zhang said. In order to find a solution to the Palestine-Israel issue, he said, China has proposed a "two-wheel" effort -- pushing the peace process politically while promoting development in the economic field, with more investment offered to Palestine. Paris on Sunday hosted the international conference to seek ways to revive the stranded Middle East peace negotiations. The conference brought together representatives from about 70 countries, including the UN Security Council permanent members, key European countries and major Arab states. NEW DELHI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Police in India Monday claimed to have arrested a 38-year-old paedophile who has sexually assaulted over 500 minor girls in the past decade. "The suspect, identified as Sunil Rastogi, who is a tailor by profession was arrested by Delhi Police after he recently sexually assaulted a minor girl in the national capital," a senior police official, Omvir Bishnoi, told the media. The suspect, who hailed from the northern state of Uttarakhand, has confessed to sexually abusing over 500 minor girls between the ages of seven and 11 in the past 10 years, another official said. Rastogi, who used to target school-going girls, had a simple modus-operandi -- he would come from his home state to Delhi and prowl girls' schools in the afternoon. Rastogi would pick those school girls who would stray from their groups and say he was a friend of her father's who was sending clothes to the girls. The suspect, police said, would then gift a new set of clothes to his victim and then take her to a secluded spot before sexually assaulting them, and sometimes even raping them. He would then flee the city and most of the time, the victims' families would not complain to cops. "After interrogating him, we produced him in a city court in the morning, which has remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days," the police official said, adding that they would now investigate if the suspect had sexually assaulted his two daughters. India had some years back tightened the country's laws against sexual assaults following the fatal and brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student by six men on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012. KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified armed men shot dead a former resistance commander in the northern Afghan Kunduz province on Monday, police spokesman in the province Mahfozullah Akbari said. According to Akbari, unknown armed men opened fire on Majnon, a former anti-Taliban commander in Kunduz province in the morning rush hour, killing him on the spot and made their good escape. Efforts are underway to locate and arrest those involved in the killing, the spokesman added. In a similar incident, unidentified armed men riding a motorbike opened fire and killed a government official in the neighboring Baghlan province Monday morning. ISTANBUL, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish cargo airline said on Monday that it is still not clear what caused its cargo plane to crash near Kyrgyzstan's main airport earlier in the day. "The cause of the accident is unknown at this time and further details will be provided as they become available," said a message posted on the website of the Istanbul-based ACT Airlines, also known as MyCargo Airlines. Initial reports misidentified the ill-fated aircraft, which was flying from Hong Kong to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, as belonging to the Turkish Airlines. "Please kindly be informed that neither the aircraft nor the crew are the members of Turkish Airlines," the Turkish national flag carrier said in a statement. The cargo plane, a Boeing 747-400, crashed into a village near Bishkek's Manas International Airport when it tried to land in poor visibility, killing at least 37 people and destroying dozens of houses, press report said. RAMALLAH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian president's spokesperson said on Monday that the next major political battle for the Palestinians will be over Jerusalem. Nabil Abu Rudeinah, the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the issue of Jerusalem represents "a challenge to the Arab world and the international community, "which President Abbas has said is a red line." It is unacceptable "to bargain on it as part of a state with provisional borders, or through concessions that may endanger Palestinian and Arab national security," the spokesman said in a press statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA. "Recent Palestinian achievements have proved once again that Israel's policies have failed and are isolated and that the Palestinian cause is just," the statement said, referring to United Nations Security Council resolution 2334, which condemns Israel's settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. He called on the international community to "give priority" to confronting the threats that brought instability and chaos to the region. The spokesman's remarks came after statements by aides to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a priority. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in 1967, as the capital of their future state, while the Israelis insist that all of Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel. On Sunday, France hosted an international conference aimed at restarting peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Peace talks between the two sides have remained stalled since April 2014, when U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed after nine months of futile efforts. SUVA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A senior Chinese legislator on Monday called on countries in the Asia-Pacific to safeguard peace and security in the region at the 25th Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF) held in Fiji. Arken Imirbaki, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), said China is a staunch defender of peace in the Asia-Pacific as well as a steadfast promoter of the region's open economy. The Belt and Road Initiative, which reflects China's implementation of the idea of openness, mutual benefit, inclusiveness and common prosperity, has made a range of spearhead achievements, Arken Imirbaki said while delivering his speech at the forum. With the principle of collective discussion, collective contribution and sharing, China will keep promoting the Belt and Road Initiative, he said. China welcomes countries and international organizations in the region to join in the initiative to inject great momentum in developing the region's economy and improving people's livelihood, he said. On the sidelines of the forum, Arken Imirbaki met with Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Parliament Speaker Jiko Luveni separately, exchanging views on bilateral ties, legislature exchanges as well as international and regional issues of common concern. The 25th APPF, which carries the theme of parliamentary partnerships for peace and security and lasts five days, is attended by delegations from over 20 countries from the Asia-Pacific region. Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) CEO Ezra Chiloba (C) leads the Commission officials in addressing journalists on the scheduled voter registration process in Nairobi, Kenya on Jan. 15, 2017. Kenya's final kick-off of mass voter registration will target six million new voters, the electoral body said on Sunday. (Xinhua/John Okoyo) NAKURU, Kenya, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Kenya will hold the general election in August and female aspirants from minority tribes are prepared to fight huge obstacles to win coveted seats. The constitution encourages participation of women in politics regardless of their ethnicity, religion or class though recent history indicates chances of them securing victory is littered with uncertainties. Sarah Osasi, a grassroots leader from the indigenous Ogiek community is among thousands of women from marginalized communities who have declared interest in elective posts. She wants to join the County Assembly of Nakuru where she intends to articulate the plight of an estimated 40,000 members of the Ogiek community who live in Mau Forest. "The Ogiek community requires a visionary leader to advance their agenda and address challenges facing them like illiteracy and poverty," Osasi told Xinhua during an interview on Sunday. According to Osasi, her quest for elective post is facing huge bottlenecks such as limited campaign finance and cultural stereotypes. "It is even more challenging since I am a woman from a minority community. A man would automatically be a preferred choice based on cultural dictates," said Osasi. In the last decade, the Ogiek community has grappled with evictions from the Mau forest as the state steps up efforts to rehabilitate the vital water tower that had suffered immense degradation. However, Osasi believed she has the will to reclaim the land rights of her community and bring change to her people for they have lagged behind in poverty and illiteracy for many years. "We live in an area rich in tourism resources and we have had international tourists coming to see how we lived in the forest and learn about our culture. That's an opportunity to capitalize on and expose the community to the whole world and bring great change to the people," she told Xinhua. Osasi is lucky to have a supportive husband who has pledged to lend a hand as she campaign for a hotly contested ward representative post. In many Kenyan communities where conservatism is deeply rooted, conflicts arise at home when a woman expresses interest to vie for a political seat. Osasi's ambition to become an elected leader is informed by a childhood of struggles that inculcated ethos of hard work, resilience and empathy that are a boon to individuals seeking public office. "One major problem facing our community is landlessness. The Ogiek live like refugees in their own land. Our people are very poor as a result of evictions. They lost everything. I need to address this, "she said. She believed that having vocal leaders in key positions would emancipate the Ogiek community from underdevelopment. Kenya's Ogiek community has reached out to international arbitration bodies to advocate for recognition of their land rights. Osasi said that securing a seat in Nakuru County Assembly will provide her a platform to push for compensation of members of her community who have been displaced from their ancestral land. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's largest aluminum producer returned to profit last year as its bold downsizing helped relieve the burden from loss-making "zombie" subsidiaries. Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) raked in nearly 1.9 billion yuan (around 276 million U.S. dollars) in operating profits in 2016, the best performance since the 2008 global financial crisis, with its cash flow at 12 billion yuan. The gains were in sharp contrast with a loss of around 2.7 billion yuan in 2015. "The substantial improvement came as the results of solid reforms in the past two years," Chinalco spokesperson Nie Zhen said. In 2016, the state-owned enterprise (SOE) successfully dealt with 10 zombie subsidiaries, shut down 50 companies for consolidation, and set up an asset operation branch to eliminate inefficient assets and production capacity. Thanks to the measures, Chinalco saw a falling debt-to-asset ratio, growing net assets, and abundant cash flow. Weighed on by plunging aluminum prices, the world's second-largest producer suffered from continuous losses. Its listed subsidiary, in which Chinalco owns a controlling stake, reported its biggest-ever loss of 16.2 billion yuan in 2014. Chinalco said it will likely remain profitable in 2017, a year Nie described as "a critical period" of revival for the company. Nie added that more reform measures are in the pipeline. Chinalco is typical of the country's ongoing reorganization and consolidation of torpid SOEs. The government also pushed for mixed SOE ownership, encouraged M&As, and opened more industries to private capital. Liu Yunshan (2nd L), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, visits Wang Yongzhi in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 16, 2017. Liu Monday visited Chinese mathematician Wu Wenjun and missile and rocket expert Wang Yongzhi ahead of China's Lunar New Year. On behalf of General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and the CPC Central Committee, Liu extended Lunar New Year's greetings to them as well as to all scientific and technological workers. (Xinhua/Gao Jie) BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Liu Yunshan Monday visited Chinese mathematician Wu Wenjun and missile and rocket expert Wang Yongzhi ahead of China's Lunar New Year. On behalf of General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping and the CPC Central Committee, Liu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, extended Lunar New Year's greetings to them as well as to all scientific and technological workers. He called on the country's scientific and technological workers to carry on independent innovation with greater commitment. He also pledged reforms in the system regarding the development of the talent pool and a more favorable environment for innovations and creative work. Both Wu and Wang are among China's most-respected scientists who have received the country's top scientific and technological award. While visiting Wu's home, Liu asked Wu about his health and expressed respect for his contributions in the mechanization of mathematics. He also called on all scientific and technological workers to carry forward the patriotic spirit of the older generation of scientists. Wu suggested the government develop research in mathematics with greater confidence and enhance support for fundamental research and original innovations. When visiting Wang, Liu said the Party and the people will never forget the contributions of generations of aerospace researchers. Wang gave some suggestions on China's innovations in defense technologies and the fostering of young professionals. Both Wu and Wang expressed thanks for the care shown by Xi and the CPC Central Committee and praised the new achievements the Party and the country have made in recent years. They pledged to make further contributions to the country's scientific and technological progress. Egyptian children celebrate with a national flag defaced with the words "Tiran" and "Sanafir" after the Supreme Administrative Court upheld on January 16, 2017 a ruling voiding a government agreement to hand over the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia in a deal that had sparked protests in Egypt. (AFP photo) CAIRO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A top Egyptian court on Monday issued a final verdict that nullified the transfer of two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia, state TV reported. In the verdict, Egypt's High Administrative Court rejected government's appeal against a previous court ruling voiding a deal that hands over two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed. In April, Egypt's government signed an agreement to place both islands under Saudi Arabian sovereignty, saying that they had always belonged to the oil-rich Arab country and that Egypt had been merely administering them on behalf of the kingdom since the 1950s. The decision of transfer the two islands prompted outcry from many Egyptians and provoked protests. Meanwhile, the issue stirred tensions between Cairo and its strong oil-rich ally that has been one of the main financial backers of Egypt since the ouster of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Saudi recently halted fuel shipments to Egypt. In June, an Egyptian administrative court ruled that an Egyptian-Saudi border re-demarcation agreement was void, adding that the two islands should remain under Egyptian sovereignty. Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority, the body representing the government in legal cases, later filed and won a lawsuit in front of a court for urgent matters to stop the administrative court's verdict. By the end of December 2016, Egypt's cabinet referred the Egyptian-Saudi agreement to parliament. The cabinet asserted its approval of the deal and its referral to parliament was constitutional, though lawyers challenging the agreement in court saying the move was unconstitutional, as the court had not yet given a final verdict on the issue. Palestinian fishermen ride their boats as they go fishing at the seaport of Gaza City on Oct. 10, 2016. (Xinhua photo) JERUSALEM, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military said on Monday that it arrested 13 Hamas members in the West Bank overnight, including a lawmaker, amid a crackdown on the Islamist Palestinian group. In the raid, conducted jointly by the army and the Shin Bet security service, a vehicle, funds and "inciting" Hamas materials were also seized. A military spokesperson said in a statement that the men were arrested in connection with the operation of a Hamas headquarters. "During the past weeks, security forces uncovered a wide-scale base for Hamas activity in the Ramallah area," the statement said, adding that the base was "operated as Hamas' command in the area." Its activities included supporting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and their families, distributing "Hamas propaganda," and financing rallies, according to the Israeli security forces. "The command was funded directly by Hamas officials in Gaza and abroad and intended to bolster Hamas' regional support, establish terror cells and undermine the Palestinian Authority," the statement read. Hamas is a Gaza-based Palestinian organization that supports armed struggle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. A wave of violence that lasted more than a year has claimed the lives of at least 235 Palestinians and 34 Israelis. NAIROBI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday urged African nations to strengthen their national food safety systems in order to improve the health of its citizens. WHO Representative in Kenya Rudi Eggers told a regional food safety conference in Nairobi that while countries in the region are at various stages of strengthening their food safety system, much remains to be done. "The development of regulations and standards is a way of improving food safety and nutrition," Eggers said during the 22nd session of the CODEX Coordinating Committee for Africa. The five-day event brought delegates from over 40 African countries to review ways to enhance food safety in the region. According to a WHO study released in 2015, the African region has the highest burden of food-borne diseases with more than 91 million people falling ill and another 137,000 dying in 2015. Eggers said the strengthening of national food safety systems is a concern for the region as well as a priority for the WHO. He added that protecting human health in today's global food market is therefore an important challenge. "The strengthening of food safety systems should be supported by capacity building and education in order to contribute to a comprehensive framework to address public health issues as well as facilitate trade in healthy and safe food," he noted. JUBA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan said on Monday that it welcomed the U.S. lifting of some sanctions on its northern neighbor Sudan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Mawien Makol said in Juba that his government will benefit from a sanction-free Sudan. "Anything that is good for Sudan is good for us," Makol said. He also said that recent exchange visits by high profile delegations from the two former civil war foes, have helped build improved relations, with financial arrangement on oil and final work on border demarcation currently underway. "Of course, financial agreement on oil, final work on border demarcation is critical. We have been doing this (border demarcation) very nice, recently our foreign affairs minister visited Sudan and there is hope that another delegation will go to Khartoum soon," Makol said. Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, attends a nationwide conference on united front work in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese official Yu Zhengsheng on Monday urged united front departments to better serve the development of society and economy. A member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Yu said officials of CPC united front departments should resolutely safeguard the authority of the CPC Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core. At a nationwide conference on united front work, Yu told officials to implement the CPC Central Committee's policies concerning united front work, and consolidate wisdom and strength for the upcoming 19th National Congress of CPC. Yu, who is also chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, fully endorsed the united front work last year, stressing that the work should support social and economic development, and safeguard social harmony and stability. Yu called on united front work officials to provide businessmen from the non-public sector with confidence in development, and consolidate and develop social stability in Xinjiang and Tibet. Services and management for the ethnic migrant population should be done well, the official said. Yu also called for better platforms to utilize non-Communist figures. Sun Chunlan, head of the Department of the United Front Work of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the conference, saying the Internet could be used to assist united front work through innovative work measures and solutions, and strengthen the guidance of public opinions. SINGAPORE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two Singaporean ministers will attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said in a joint statement on Monday. The statement said Foreign Minister and Minister-In-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan will participate in sessions on Smart Nation Initiative, including the impact of new technologies on future jobs, enhanced education and training, autonomous mobility to improve public transport, and more responsive public services. Balakrishnan will also attend sessions involving government and business leaders from ASEAN to share the lessons learned from the ASEAN experience and the opportunities, challenges and priorities of ASEAN in the new global context. He will also take part in sessions on issues related to energy and regional security frameworks. According to the statement, Senior Minister of MTI Sim Ann will participate in sessions related to sustainable energy innovation and globalization. She will also represent Singapore at the Informal WTO Ministerial Gathering on the sidelines of the WEF. The WEF is a platform for leaders in government, industry and academia to share experiences and explore novel approaches to address evolving global challenges. MACAO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Macao has 307,020 registered voters by the end of 2016, who will vote in the election of its sixth Legislative Assembly in September, the special administrative region's voter registration book said on Monday. The last edition of voter registration book, issued by Macao's Public Administration and Civil Services Bureau, published the voter list and will receive public examination and error report for a period of 10 days. The book listed 307,020 voters, up 7.35 percent compared with the end of 2015. All legitimate voters can participate in the legislative election in September. Under Macao's law on voter registration, only permanent residents of Macao aged 18 and above have the right to vote. The fifth Legislative Assembly of Macao is composed of 33 seats including 14 directly-elected seats, 12 indirectly-elected seats, and seven others appointed by the SAR's chief executive. Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang (R, front) meets with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L, front) in Hanoi, Vietnam, Jan. 16, 2017.(Xinhua/VNA) HANOI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Japan vowed here Monday that the two countries will closely coordinate to make the upcoming visit of Japanese emperor and empress to the Southeast Asian nation in spring 2017 a success. The remarks were made at talks between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, who is visiting Vietnam on Monday and Tuesday. At a press conference after the talks, Phuc urged Japan to continue providing Vietnam with official development assistance (ODA) in the future, with focus on key large-scale infrastructure projects, personnel training and response to climate change. In hi-tech agricultural cooperation, Abe said that Japan has granted import license for Vietnamese red flesh dragon fruit, while Phuc told reporters that Vietnam also granted imported license for Japanese peach. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang has called for more efforts to expedite the renovation of rundown urban areas and dilapidated houses in 2017, a State Council statement said Monday. This year, China will start renovating 6 million substandard homes, the same as the target set for 2016, according to Li, who stressed that the work should be initiated as soon as possible. Renovation of rundown areas will provide low-income urban residents with affordable housing. The country spent 1.48 trillion yuan (around 210 billion U.S. dollars) on rebuilding dilapidated homes last year. The premier promised more financial support, saying the government would strive to improve the quality and safety of the buildings, and ensure construction of supporting facilities. Compared with 2016, faster progress must be made in meeting the 2017 target for renovating rundown areas, Chen Zhenggao, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said Monday at a meeting. "The target should be met in advance, and no delay will be accepted," Chen said. He also said the renovation efforts should be in line with city planning and meet the requirements of environmental recovery and city repairing projects. Chen added that all bank loans for the renovation were repaid on time in 2016. DAMASCUS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army forces killed 18 militants with the Islamic State (IS) group in an operation Monday in the countryside of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, which has been subject to intense attacks by the terror group for three days. State news agency SANA said a Saudi fighter was among those killed in the ambush that targeted one of the IS positions in the city of Mayadeen in the countryside of Deir al-Zour. It added that the military forces also destroyed weaponry the IS were using as well as vehicles. Meanwhile, pro-government al-Watan Online newspaper said the Syrian army on Monday foiled another wave of IS offensive for the third straight day. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitor group, said intense battles were raging on Monday between the IS militants and the Syrian forces in Deir al-Zour. It added that the terror group succeeded to advance in the vicinity of the Deir al-Zour airbase, the only port the government uses in and outside the city, as the IS group has besieged the government-controlled parts of Deir al-Zour since early 2015. The London-based watchdog group said the Syrian warplanes are heavily engaged in bombing the IS positions to prevent the progress of the group, which apparently aimed at stripping the government of its control over that oil-rich city, where 700,000 civilians are besieged by the terror group. It added that the IS offensive is the most violent since the terror group attacked areas in Deir al-Zour and besieged government-controlled areas in the city two years ago. The IS militants have been preparing for this new offensive since early this month, when they brought in tires and crude oil, in what the Observatory said was a preparation to make huge fire during their offensive. It's worth mentioning that the IS controls large swathes of the Deir al-Zour countryside, and its recent attempt is to storm the besieged government-controlled areas in the city. Deir al-Zour holds a significance for the IS as an oil-rich area near the Iraqi borders. SHENZHEN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Traffic police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen signed an agreement with Didi Chuxing, the country's largest on-demand mobility (ODM) company, on Monday to ensure the safety of passengers. According to the agreement, Didi will add a new function -- "share with traffic police" -- to its app. The function allows passengers to share their journeys with the city's traffic police. Meanwhile, Didi Chuxing will support police investigations into traffic accidents. Xia Xukun, with the city's traffic police bureau, said that Shenzhen traffic police will also cooperate with Didi and other companies to standardize the industry. The cooperation between the two sides will cover the promotion of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane to encourage car sharing and combat drunk driving, Xia said. China unveiled its nationwide regulations for ODM services in July 2016, granting them legal status. Concerns have been raised over safety and market disorder. The transport authorities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the four most developed cities in China, separately issued strict regulations for ODM services in October 2016. BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- China said on Monday that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attempted to drive a wedge between countries in the region by raising the South China Sea issue during his recent foreign trip. Abe visited the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam on his six-day trip that ended Monday, with maritime security high on his agenda. "Thanks to the joint efforts of China and relevant ASEAN members, the South China Sea situation is stabilizing and getting back on the track of negotiation and consultation," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing. "But the Japanese leader spared no effort in driving a wedge and playing up the regional tension, showing his ulterior motives and extremely unhealthy mindset," Hua said. She applauded Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's adherence to an independent foreign policy and developing friendly and cooperative relations with other countries based on equality and mutual respect. Hua said China supports the Philippine's rotating presidency for ASEAN in 2017 and will promote the building of ASEAN community and China-ASEAN ties. She said China is willing to work with ASEAN to focus on development and cooperation, properly handle differences, remain committed to maintaining the big picture of China-ASEAN relationship and contribute to regional peace, stability and prosperity. SHENZHEN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong and Macao deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) should resolutely safeguard national security and the rule of law in the special administrative regions, a senior NPC official said. Wang Chen, vice chairman and secretary general of the Standing Committee of the NPC, made the remarks Monday at a briefing in south China's Shenzhen, attended by NPC deputies from Hong Kong and Macao. At the briefing, held by the committee's general office, Wang urged unwaveringly, comprehensively and correctly implementing "one country, two systems" and the basic laws, and ensure the practice of "one country, two systems" always moves in the right direction. He called on the deputies to stand firm when it comes to "issues of right or wrong and major issues of principle." He also asked them to continuously help maintain stability and social harmony in the special administrative regions, give full support to their respective chief executives in governing according to law, and bolster economic development and improve people's lives. Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance briefed the Hong Kong and Macao deputies on the economic and social progress in 2016. MANAMA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Bahraini officials on Monday conveyed their strong rejection of the comments made by Iraqi vice president Nouri Al Maliki against the execution of three men. Foreign Ministry under-secretary for regional and GCC affairs, Ambassador Waheed Mubarak Sayyar summoned Iraqi Ambassador Dr Ahmed Nayef Rasheed Al Dulaimi over the issue. "Bahrain rejects any form of interference in its independent judiciary, calling for an immediate end of similar remarks which are an unacceptable interference in the affairs of the Kingdom and a violation of the charters of the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League," read the Bahrain News Agency statement. Ambassador Sayyar further highlighted Bahrain's role and GCC contributions and support towards securing stability in Iraq. Mr Maliki criticized in a statement the execution of the three men on Sunday, who are allegedly linked to the Daih village blast which killed three policemen in 2014. Ali Al Singace, 21, Sami Mushaima, 42, and Abbas Al Samee'a, 27, faced a firing squad on Sunday for their role in the deadliest attack against security forces in Bahrain since anti-government protests in 2011. The Iraqi vice president reportedly described the execution, "a heinous crime and an authoritarian act," adding that Iraqis "demand that Bahrain abandon its murder and displacement methods." Meanwhile, the National Institute for Human Rights (NIHR) said on Monday that the execution was in accordance with international standards. "The NIHR stresses that the final verdict by the Court of Cassation was taken after exhausting all judicial solutions with rational decisions in the presence of independent attorneys and in accordance with recognized international standards," stated Bahrain's rights watchdog. ANKARA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- One police officer was killed and three others wounded in an attack in southeastern province of Diyarbakir, Dogan News Agency reported on Monday. An explosive was detonated when a police vehicle was passing the area near Dicle University campus in Diyarbakir's historic Sur district. The attack happened on the same day that the district's first female police chief started her duty. The district was heavily damaged in armed clashes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party militants between December 2015 and March 2016. Leung Chun-ying, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, addresses the 10th Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, south China, Jan. 16, 2017. The forum, with the theme of "Asia: Driving Change, Innovation and Connectivity", kicked off on Monday. (Xinhua/Wang Shen) HONG KONG, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Financial and business leaders, policymakers and economists gathered at a forum in Hong Kong on Monday to discuss sustainable growth in Asia through boosting innovation and connectivity. The 10th Asian Financial Forum opened with the theme of "Asia: Driving Change, Innovation and Connectivity." In his opening remarks, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said Hong Kong has given full play to its strengths under the "one country, two systems" over the past two decades, and the arrangement will continue to sharpen Hong Kong's competitive edges in the future. The advantages brought by the "one country, two systems" principle has made Hong Kong the "super-connector" between the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world, he said, adding that such a role is especially solid in finance, one of Hong Kong's strengths, citing the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect launched last month as a perfect example. Echoing the forum's theme of innovation and connectivity, Leung said innovation and technology is high on the policy agenda of the government. "We established the Innovation and Technology Bureau some 14 months ago, and injected a massive 2.3 billion U.S. dollars to promote innovation and technology," he noted. Sponsored by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the two-day forum has become a signature annual event for financial leaders to discuss developments in Asian markets. HONG KONG, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ireland looks to be a gateway for China to enter the European market as Irish and Chinese companies have great potential to cooperate in the financial technology (Fintech) area, an Irish minister said on Monday. Ireland's Minister of State for Financial Services Eoghan Murphy is leading a business delegation to attend the 10th Asian Financial Forum, a two-day meeting centered on global financial service industry. His visit is focused on promoting Ireland as Hong Kong's preeminent partner in Europe in the area of financial services, including Fintech, payments and cyber security, Murphy told Xinhua. Ireland aims to bring its connectivity and experience into international financial services, and create links for Irish companies to partner with companies in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland to access each other's markets, he said. "Ireland has been a very successful gateway for particularly tech and financial companies coming into the European market," he said. "Fintech and payments are very strong areas where Irish and Chinese firms can find our future growth together." The Irish government has launched a new 5-year strategy in 2015 to further improve international financial service by providing 10,000 job opportunities mainly in the Fintech area. "I look forward to continuing to advance this goal in collaboration with our partners in China and across Asia," Murphy said. Regarding the Belt and Road Initiative, the minister said Ireland has been actively supporting China's efforts. "I think the Belt and Road Initiative is a very strong idea," Murphy said. "And everything that we are trying to do is consistent with what China has proposed." The Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, proposed by China in 2013, aim to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes. Ireland would be the only English-speaking country that will remain not only in the European Union, but also in the euro zone after Britain exists the EU, he said, adding Ireland's advantages in innovation and education can make the country a gateway for China to the European market. Furthermore, Ireland has been actively seeking a membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Murphy said his country has received "very positive" feedback. "we are quite happy that our application is being considered, and I think we can have some announcement later in this year," he said. Since opening on Jan. 16, 2016, the AIIB has welcomed 57 signatory countries and approved loans of 1.73 billion U.S. dollars to support nine infrastructure projects in seven countries. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (R) addresses a joint press conference with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (L) after their meeting in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, on Aug. 31, 2016. (Xinhua/Str) MEXICO CITY, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's hostile policies towards Mexico stand to negatively impact the United States as well, according to a leading political observer. Trump wants to build a wall along the border the U.S. shares with Mexico, to keep out illegal migrants, and is threatening to levy heavy taxes on companies that operate plants in Mexico, but export north of the border. Gustavo Vega, an academic, believes Trump's trade protectionism would harm U.S. economic interests that benefit from the integration of Mexican and U.S. businesses, especially in border states such as California, where 600,000 jobs depend on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994 between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. "It's very worrying. He doesn't realize he could create a truly serious situation," said Vega, a professor at the Center for International Studies at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico (Colmex). Of particular concern, he said, is Trump's lethal cocktail of corporate and immigration policies, which could lead to a decrease in manufacturing investment in Mexico, and fewer jobs, while simultaneously clamping down on the border, which has traditionally served as a safety valve releasing social unrest as the unemployed migrate northward in search of jobs. U.S. automaker Ford announced earlier this month it was cancelling plans for a new 1.6 billion U.S.-dollar plant in Mexico, though it claimed the decision was unrelated to Trump's new policies. "We could be negotiating agreements on legal migration, which is what they (Americans) want, but he is doing the exact opposite," Vega said, referring to Trump's unilateral decisions. "I hope that U.S. companies located here can make him and congressmen understand that what he is doing is crazy," said Vega. People take part in a demonstration against the visit of Donald Trump in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, on August 31, 2016.(Xinhua/Str) One of Trump's more outlandish demands has been to have Mexico pay for the proposed 3,200-km-long border wall, which experts estimate could cost some 26 billion U.S. dollars. In the past, conflicts in ties between the two interdependent nations have only backfired on both, he said. In the 1970s, he said, the cancellation of a proposed gas pipeline from Mexico to Texas, due to a disagreement over the price of gas, caused Mexico to angrily adopt protectionist measures that eventually led to its 1982 debt crisis. "We suffered because of a nationalist reaction, but so did the United States, because in the end immigration shot up," said Vega, who has a doctorate from Yale University in the U.S. northeast. In regard to Trump's policies, Vega said, "I think the Mexican government is going to have to take retaliatory measures -- at some point say 'as of now we are no longer participating in security (cooperation)' or the like -- to make him realize the repercussions can be serious for them as well." "I would hope that they can make him understand that what he is doing goes against his own interests," said Vega. BRUSSELS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Monday reaffirmed the bloc's commitment to the Iran nuclear deal, days after Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state claimed that he would recommend a "full review" of the landmark deal. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), came into its first anniversary of implementation on Monday. Praising the deal as a key pillar of a strengthened international non-proliferation agenda, Mogherini said in a statement that "one year after the beginning of the implementation period, it is clear that the JCPOA is working for all." "The rigorous implementation of commitments by all sides is the best way to continue to build trust, to strengthen the JCPOA and to overcome the hurdles that are part of all comprehensive and far-reaching deals," she added. Rex Tillerson, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, said in his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he would recommend a "full review" of the nuclear deal with Iran. The remarks prompted an angry response from Teheran. An Iranian diplomat on Friday said that his country would not allow any move to review the international nuclear deal, which has put an end to the disputes over Iran's decade-long nuclear issue. Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated". He also suggested that he would force Iran to return to the negotiating table or risk the accord being dismantled. Iran and six world powers, including Russia, China, U.S., Britain, France and Germany, reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July 2015 that put Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program. The deal set limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it would take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and it would also allow regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran. In return, the U.S. and the European Union suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions. ISLAMABAD, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Commander U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) General Joseph Votel and Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa pledged on Monday to support "inclusive reconciliation" in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The CENTCOM chief, who arrived in Pakistan for a visit, discussed matters of mutual professional interest with special focus on security situation in Afghanistan, the Pakistani army said in a statement. "Pakistan supports and looks forward to an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process," General Bajwa told the U.S. commander. With reference to recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and follow up rhetoric from certain factions implicating Pakistan, he said that blame game is detrimental to enduring peace and stability. "The army chief highlighted that Pakistan has undertaken operations against terrorists of all hue and colour and there are no safe havens inside Pakistan to be used against Afghanistan," said the statement. General Bajwa expressed his commitment to work in close coordination with Afghanistan and U.S.-ed Resolute Support Mission (RSM) for improved security environment in Pakistan-Afghan border region. In this regard, he emphasized requirement of Pakistan-Afghan bilateral border security and intelligence sharing mechanisms, statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations said. Bajwa also highlighted the importance of Pakistan accords to its relations with the U.S., particularly cooperation in counter-terrorism and regional stability. General Votel acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army's successes in fight against terrorism and continued efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region. He supported the views of the Pakistan Army chief on inclusive reconciliation in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The U.S. general laid a floral wreath at "Yadgar-e- Shuhada" (martyrs monument) to pay homage to martyrs of the anti-terror war. Artists of the Zhejiang Wu Opera Group of China, perform in the celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year in the National Theatre, in the city of San Jose, capital of Costa Rica, on Jan. 22, 2016. The Chinese Lunar Calendar gives an animal symbol to each year in a 12 year cycle. (Xinhua/Kent Gilbert) HAVANA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese community in Cuba's capital Havana this weekend launched celebrations marking the arrival of the New Lunar Year, which falls on Jan. 28. Havana's Chinatown, one of the oldest in Latin America, on Saturday hosted the opening of an exhibit on the Chinese zodiac and 2017, the Year of the Rooster. It was the first of several events leading to what is also known as the Spring Festival observed by the Chinese people. Revelers gathered in the district's House of Chinese Arts and Traditions, which hosts conferences, book presentations and other cultural events, including the traditional dragon dance performed here by students of the Cuban School of Wushu. The exhibit features 15 large-scale paintings of the 12 signs of the zodiac, each represented by an animal, and other iconic images of the Chinese culture, such as the phoenix and the panda. Chen Xi, China's ambassador to Cuba, underscored the strong friendship between the governments and peoples of both countries. Amid the celebrations which will continue through Feb. 12, China and Cuba will also mark 170 years of Chinese presence in Cuba. The first Chinese arrived in Cuba in 1847, when the island was a Spanish colony, as hired hands to work on sugar plantations. Though many came to work and save in order to go back to China, their slave conditions made it virtually impossible for most of them to pay off their debts and return. The opening was sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Havana and the Casino Chung Wah, one of 13 community organizations active in Havana's Chinatown. These organizations were originally established along patronymic, religious or regional lines. MANILA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Remittances from overseas Filipinos jumped by 18.4 percent year-on-year to 2.4 billion U.S. dollars in November 2016, the fastest growth since July 2008, the central bank said Monday. The November level personal remittances brought the cumulative money sent home from abroad for the period January-November 2016 to 26.9 billion U.S. dollars, 5.1 percent higher than a year ago level, Philippine central bank governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said. "The increase in personal remittances was driven largely by the 7.8-percent expansion in transfers from land-based workers with work contracts of one year or more to reach 20.9 billion U.S. dollars," he said. Personal remittances is the sum of personal transfers and compensation of employees. The top sources of cash remittances during the month were the United States, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. "Improving global economic conditions, particularly in the U.S., may have contributed to the overall growth in remittances," the central bank said. The Philippines is one of the world's largest recipients of remittances, with 2.4 million Filipinos working overseas in 2015. The money they send home accounted for nearly 10 percent of its GDP. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Democratic lawmakers, taking a page from Sen. Bernie Sanders' grassroots approach to campaigning, reached out beyond Washington D.C. Sunday with a series of rallies aimed at building public pressure to save the Affordable Care Act. A page on Sanders' website listed 41 different rallies Sunday around the country. Sanders appeared at a rally in Warren, Michigan, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts headlined one in Boston. Thousands braved frigid temperatures in Michigan to turn out for the rally outside in the parking lot of Macomb County Community College. The event was live-streamed on Sanders' Facebook account. This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, Sanders said at the rally, firing up the crowd despite the cold. Its time we got our priorities right. The Vermont independent called for a single-payer health care system, a proposal that he also made in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Our job today is to defend the Affordable Care Act," Sanders said Sunday. "Our job tomorrow is to create a Medicare-for-all single payer system. The crowd responded to the speech with chants of "Bern-ie, Bern-ie!" Among those attending was Lisa Bible, 45, of Bancroft, Michigan, who said Obamacare has been an answer to her and her husband's prayers. Bible said she suffers from an auto-immune disease and high cholesterol. She said she worries that if the health care law is repealed her family may get slammed with her medical bills. All across the country today, Dems are hosting #OurFirstStand rallies to #savehealthcare. Boston is ready to fight back. pic.twitter.com/trBFuajayb Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) January 15, 2017 Democrats' aggressive display of support for the Affordable Care Act, including in smaller states like Hawaii and Delaware, is an attempt to pressure Republicans into backing away from dismantling the legislation. Sanders' emergence as one of the loudest defenders of the law could be seen as a pragmatic shift for the self-described Democratic Socialist, who has often acknowledged problems with the law. On ABC News' This Week, Sanders warned Republicans against repealing Obamacare without anything to take its place. "The vast majority of the American people agree with me and many others," he said. "You don't simply repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement." Sanders' also left the door open to working across the aisle to improve the health care law. Nobody thinks that Obamacare is perfect. It has its problems, he said, but, Sensible people have got to work together. Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. VIENTIANE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Police of Laos' central Bolikhamxay province have arrested five men and confiscated cannabis bricks weighing more than 1.2 tons as well as two motorboats, local media reported on Monday. Upon a tip-off by villagers, the police arrested five local men while they were transporting over 1.2 tons of cannabis that was to be smuggled out of the country by boat, the state-run Vientiane Times quoted sources as saying. The detainees told police they had traded cannabis on two previous occasions and had received payment from foreign buyers. The year of 2016 saw police nationwide crack down on drug trafficking in a determined attempt to stamp out the growing trade. Last year, the Lao police busted 2,508 drug-related cases, and arrested 3,740 people including 558 women, according to the Drug Prevention and Control Department of Lao Ministry of Public Security. Among those arrested, there were 74 foreigners. More than 1,869 kg of amphetamine, 188 kg of heroin, 425 kg of cannabis and 144 kg of crystal methamphetamine were seized. The National Commission for Drug Control and Supervision said Laos has again become a significant producer of opium, while drug use, in particular the use of amphetamine-type substances (ATS) known as yabaa, appears to be on the rise. A book "Traces of the Chinese on this side of the Atlantic" was presented on January 15, 2017, in Havana, Cuba. (Xinhua/ Joaquin Hernandez) HAVANA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A revealing description of the Chinese migration to the Americas is written in the book "Traces of the Chinese on this side of the Atlantic", which was presented here Sunday as part of the activities celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year. At the Min Chih Tang society of Havana's Chinatown, dozens of people gathered to hear from the voices of the different authors of the new book, exploring peculiarities, characteristics and varied facets of the Chinese migration on this side of the world. Composed of 13 articles or essays, the book seeks to bring the reader closer to the influence of Chinese migration in Cuba and other countries. In particular, the text highlights the influence of the Chinese community in Mexico, as well as the contributions of Chinese migration in Cuba, introducing the Chinese culture, culinary and music to readers. "The most important thing about this book is that it offers a rich information of the Chinese presence in Cuba and other countries in the region," and "the support and contributions made by Chinese migration in our continent," Sergio Valdes, one of the authors in the book, told Xinhua. Not only writers from Cuba, but also prestigious scholars from universities in the United States contributed to the new book. "This is a very important book because it's a text that addresses an area of studies which was little written about," said Paul De Castro, another author and researcher at the University of California. "The Chinese presence in Cuba, although it is well known, has hardly been studied in depth so I think it is the beginning of a series of studies about the Chinese influence in Cuba," he said. A book "Traces of the Chinese on this side of the Atlantic" was presented on January 15, 2017, in Havana, Cuba. (Xinhua/ Joaquin Hernandez) Mercedes Crespo, another author, emphasized the different topics the book addresses, which allow readers to learn about the Chinese influence in the economic, social and even political development of the Cuba before the revolutionary triumph of 1959. The authors agreed that this publication will help Cuban people to understand the outstanding contributions of the Chinese immigrants to the island and could help start new studies on similar topics. "The importance of this book is to lighten up the interests of Cubans and Chinese descendants for new studies on the influence of Chinese migration to the island and other parts of Latin America," said Valdes. "Traces of China on this side of the Atlantic" was compiled by Cuban researcher Mitzi Espinosa who had the support of the Min Chih Tang Society of Havana's Chinatown. Cuba's Jose Marti publishing house edited the book. The book will be available to Cuban readers at the upcoming International Book Fair Cuba 2017. Also on Sunday, as part of the Spring Festival activities, a Chinese language children's contest was held, with kids demonstrating their language skills. Since Jan. 13, the Chinese community in Cuba launched activities to celebrate the Spring Festival of the Rooster Year which falls on Jan. 28. Many cultural functions will be organized throughout whole one month in Havana's Chinatown, such as art exhibitions, concerts and traditional Chinese dance shows. The year 2017 marks the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the first Chinese to Cuba, therefore their descendants, grouped in societies, have prepared multiple activities which will be extended throughout the year. VIENTIANE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Lao Prime Minister (PM) Thongloun Sisoulith on Monday urged the business and public sectors in Laos and Thailand to open their hearts and break down barriers for bilateral investment and cooperation. The remarks were made by Thongloun at the Lao-Thai Business Forum 2017 in the Lao capital of Vientiane with nearly 200 participants from the two countries, including businesspeople, officials from the Thai and Lao Chambers of Commerce and Industry and relevant ministries. Business mechanisms must be quick, timely and transparent. Investment proposals must be passed through only a single window and projects must be open to inspection, the state-run Vientiane Times quoted the prime minister as saying. Laos has potential in agriculture, especially livestock farming, fishery, and organic vegetable and rice cultivation, he added. There is now a high demand for Lao organic rice in the international market. In addition, there is strong potential for the generation of hydropower and growth of the tourism industry, Thongloun said. The PM said the government will continue to improve the investment environment by maintaining political security and continuous and balanced growth of the macro-economy. He especially urged the public and private sectors to seek investment. Thailand is Laos' main trading partner. Laos' major export products to Thailand are electricity, copper, vegetables, tobacco and minerals, while importing fuel, vehicles, electronic items and machinery. During the forum, participants discussed cooperation in logistics, agriculture, border and consumer goods trade, tourism and health, real estate, stock market and financial institutions, energy and raw materials, and natural resources. Delegates from Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and United States -- plus Germany), and the European Union attend a meeting of the Joint Commission under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iranian nuclear issue in Vienna, Austria, on July 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Qian Yi) BRUSSELS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Monday reaffirmed the bloc's commitment to the Iran nuclear deal, days after Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state claimed that he would recommend a "full review" of the landmark deal. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), came into its first anniversary of implementation on Monday. Praising the deal as a key pillar of a strengthened international non-proliferation agenda, Mogherini said in a statement that "one year after the beginning of the implementation period, it is clear that the JCPOA is working for all." "The rigorous implementation of commitments by all sides is the best way to continue to build trust, to strengthen the JCPOA and to overcome the hurdles that are part of all comprehensive and far-reaching deals," she added. Rex Tillerson, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, said in his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he would recommend a "full review" of the nuclear deal with Iran. The remarks prompted an angry response from Teheran. An Iranian diplomat on Friday said that his country would not allow any move to review the international nuclear deal, which has put an end to the disputes over Iran's decade-long nuclear issue. Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated". He also suggested that he would force Iran to return to the negotiating table or risk the accord being dismantled. Iran and six world powers, including Russia, China, U.S., Britain, France and Germany, reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July 2015 that put Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear program. The deal set limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it would take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and it would also allow regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran. In return, the U.S. and the European Union suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions. HONG KONG, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The year of 2017 will be better than you think, with Asia leading the way, international accounting firm Deloitte said on Monday. Despite protectionist rhetoric from the United States and gloomy forecasts from the IMF, three factors suggest global growth is about to "surprise on the upside," it said in the first edition of their Voice of Asia series. Chris Richardson, Deloitte Australia economist, explained that first, the global economy is finally normalizing after a decade of shocks, and a natural healing process is underpinning a more resilient recovery. Second, world trade is already lifting and the benefits of this are spilling into Asia, and third, Asia's mega-economies of India and China, are increasingly being powered by consumer booms, acting as a stabilizing force in their economies and for the region, he noted. Deloitte belives the global economy is stabilising. Following a series of shocks that began with the global financial crisis and then, in quick succession, the eurozone debt crisis and the geopolitical shocks in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, the global economy is finally normalizing, it said. Deloitte predicts that global growth could in fact accelerate in 2017, with leading indicators already pointing to a lift in world trade. Global growth will trigger an upsurge in trade which, in turn, will fuel stronger growth. Asia's major markets of China and India are also powering ahead and growth in most other countries in the region are strengthening, aided by a buoyant U.S. economy. The accounting firm believes trade is picking up. World trade volumes were damaged by successive crises and shocks in recent years, but leading indicators suggest volumes are ready to lift. Deloitte highlights that while U.S. President-elect Trump is still largely an unknown quantity, his influence on global trade may be overstated. Indicators point to Asian and global trade strengthening, despite the rise of nationalistic and protectionist voices globally. Deloitte China economist Xu Sitao said a new and optimistic generation is taking the lead in driving the direction of their economies: one that is technologically savvy, comfortable with the borderless consumerism of the global middle class, and yet imbued with the consumption-smoothing instincts of its parents and grandparents. The new generation of consumer in Asia will be a stabilizing force in their economies, meaning they are likely to play an anchor role for 2017, regardless of other developments, Xu said. by Abdul Haleem KABUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The director general of the High Office of Anti-Corruption, the Afghan government's counter-corruption body, has hailed China's war on corruption and is looking forward to China's sharing of valuable experience in fighting corruption in Afghanistan. "The Chinese government has been ardently fighting corruption and takes legal action against anyone, including ranking government and party officials, without exception," General Sayed Ghulam Hussain Fakhry told Xinhua in an interview. In addition to an ongoing insurgency, post-Taliban Afghanistan has been suffering from rampant corruption for more than a decade. "We have been fighting to eliminate corruption from society and I am hopeful the country will secure a better position in the report for the current year," the Afghan official stated. Meanwhile, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a non-governmental entity that monitors the government's fight against corruption, said in a report released in December 2016, that Afghans pay about 3 billion U.S. dollars in bribes annually. However, General Fakhry, the head of the anti-corruption body, rejected the report as groundless, saying, "paying bribes and greasing the hands of officials is a secret crime committed by two parties and thus it is difficult for others to understand." Nonetheless, the official admitted that the rate of embezzlement and administrative corruption in Afghanistan is considerably high and tackling it will take more time than expected. Eliminating corruption is a challenging task, the official said, adding that fighting corruption, even in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, has taken several decades to achieve. Established a decade ago to combat corruption in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the High Office of Anti-Corruption, which is also responsible for registering the movable and immovable assets of government officials, according to its chief, has experienced ups and downs since its formation. "With the injection of billions of U.S. dollars into Afghanistan over the past 15 years, corruption has expanded excessively in the country due to both Afghan and foreign entities," Fakhry told Xinhua. "Unchecked corruption has negatively affected the country's economic development, political stability, security and reconstruction process," he asserted. Describing the war on corruption as a "challenging job" Fakhry noted that the "protracted war, ongoing militancy, high rate of illiteracy, poverty and, above all, the presence and involvement of powerful figures have made it difficult for the government to fight corruption successfully." Very few officials have been prosecuted on charges of involvement in corruption, the official said, adding that Afghans want to see the bigwigs tried in court publicly. The official also said after a representative of the High Office for Anti-Corruption visited China recently for the first time, his report on China's war on corruption was "significant." "In my opinion, China's cooperation with Afghanistan in all fields including sharing its experience in fighting corruption and capacity building is vital for us and we welcome any cooperation in this regard," the head of the anti-corruption body concluded. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard meet with Swiss business leaders in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Xueren) BERN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said here on Monday that the Chinese and Swiss business circles share common interests in maintaining a free and open international economic order, and should work together for mutual benefits and against all kinds of trade protectionism. Accompanied by his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard, Xi made the remarks during a meeting with Swiss business leaders. He said the two countries have reaped a lot in their fruitful economic and trade cooperation since they established diplomatic relations 67 years ago. The Swiss entrepreneurs, famous for their innovative spirit and commitment to excellence, have always been ahead of the curve in the West's cooperation with China, hence receiving generous returns, Xi noted. Besides the two countries' free trade agreement that has propelled bilateral trade and investment, a number of new deals signed by the two sides during his ongoing visit forebode more chances for economic cooperation in the future, added Xi. The Chinese leader also briefed the Swiss side on the Chinese economy, saying he is confident about a stable growth of the world's second largest economy. China cannot secure its development without other parts of the world, and vice versa, Xi said, adding China is willing to boost global economic recovery and tap the potential for more cooperation with countries like Switzerland. He noted that the European nation, with its advanced technologies and managerial expertise in such areas as intelligent manufacturing, finance, insurance and energy, could become China's partner in innovation. Xi also suggested that as China is advancing the Belt and Road Initiative, the two sides could also seek to expand the markets, so as to enhance cooperation with third parties in infrastructure construction, finance and productivity promotion. He encouraged business circles of the two counties to work together for win-win results, and contribute to the development of China-Switzerland relations. For her part, Leuthard hailed Xi's decision to meet with Swiss business leaders in his intensive schedule during the visit, saying it highlights Xi's appreciation of bilateral economic and trade relations. China has become Switzerland's leading trading partner in Asia, she said, adding that her country, an advocate for open and free trade, wishes to work with China to facilitate the two sides' business cooperation. Leaders of Swiss businesses, such as Schindler, Roche, Nestle, UBS and ABB, said China has become an innovation center in a group of industries. The business leaders said they appreciate China's devotion in protecting intellectual property rights, and stand ready to increase their investments in China to expand high-tech cooperation with the Asian country. NAIROBI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has acquired 500 new vehicles to help fight insecurity in the country by enhancing mobility and welfare for security officers. President Uhuru Kenyatta who oversaw the delivery of the vehicles said Monday his government has also procured 25 mine-resistant armored personnel carriers that will be deployed in the coastal and northeast regions. "This sorry state of affairs meant that our police officers could not effectively execute their mandate of keeping this country safe and secure," Kenyatta said. He said one of the most glaring gaps in the security sector, when the Jubilee Government came into power, was the lack of transport that hampered the effectiveness of the police. The move to lease vehicles and aircraft is seen as a means of reducing spending on public sector transport where the various state agencies would buy and maintain their own fleet. The fresh leasing drive is part of a major security enhancement plan that will also see the hiring of 10,000 regular and administration police in the next fiscal year. A wave of insecurity has increased in the recent past, endangering public safety and denting the country's image as a tourist and investment destination. In 2013, the National Police Service had only 3,155 police vehicles nationwide and most of these vehicles were in a state of disrepair, an issue which forced Kenyatta to launch a new scheme to equip the forces with new vehicles. The Police have so far received 2,720 new vehicles under the national police vehicle leasing program and also procured 30 armored personnel carriers to improve police response and capability. Kenyatta said in 2013, the police had only one working helicopter and two fixed wing single engine planes but today they have three serviceable helicopters and the fleet is expected to expand to seven by July. He said investment in CCTV cameras and improved street lighting as well as better forensics is paying off. He also called on the police and all other agencies with relevant mandates to deal firmly with incitement as the country enters the electioneering period. by Abdul Haleem, Aria SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- "The Taliban's barbaric acts and the brutalities committed by the Islamic State (IS) have compelled me to fight back," Badam Gul, 40, told Xinhua, while toting an assault rifle. Both Taliban fighters and militants loyal to the IS, according to villagers and local officials, have committed indiscriminate crimes including killing and torching houses in parts of the Qushtapa district of the northern Jawzjan province. Jawzjan province, with Shiberghan as its capital, has been the scene of increasing insurgency over the past couple of years. With an AK-47 assault rifle slung over her shoulder and dressed in local attire, Gul recounted her experiences of the Taliban and the IS rebels torching scores of houses and murdering dozens of people both young and old in Jarmgar village, in the Qushtapa district, just three weeks ago. "Daesh (IS) rebels have brutally invaded us, they have indiscriminately killed dozens of villagers including elderly people and youngsters and didn't even spare the children," Gul exclaimed, adding that such barbaric acts have forced regular men and women, like herself, to take up arms and fight back against the onslaught in the Qushtapa district. The heinous crimes committed by the militants have been corroborated by Jawzjan's deputy police chief, Abdul Hafiz Khashi, who confirmed that the armed insurgents had set several houses on fire in the Qushtapa district. "Daesh insurgents have vandalized Jarmgar village and committed other odious crimes including killing innocent people and burning houses," Khashi told Xinhua recently. "The inhumane and barbaric crimes committed by Daesh and Taliban rebels have seen more than 100 women take up arms and resist the onslaught in the Qushtapa district," said Khashi. Expressing his support of the women standing up to the insurgency, Khashi said the government would back the villagers, including the women, to defend their villages against the attackers. Cases of women taking up arms against militants has rarely been reported in Afghanistan, and this is the first time that a group of women in significant numbers in Jawzjan province have fought back against the notorious renegades. Commandant Kaftar was the first female fighter who resisted the Taliban onslaught during the outfit's rule which ended in 2001. Reza Gul, a mother, was the second, and killed 25 Taliban insurgents in a seven-hour gun battle to exact revenge on the militants who killed her son in the western Farah province in 2014. However, the gunslinging women who are seeking government support to resist the anti-government factions have warned that overlooking their demands would only pave the way for the militants to commit more crimes. "We are looking for the government to support us and to equip us as soon as possible, otherwise the Daesh rebels will occupy more areas and kill more innocent people," another armed lady, Malaeka warned. Militants loyal to the IS, have also torched more than 60 residential houses in the Kot district in the eastern Nangarhar province over the past few days. Malaeka who claims to be the commander of this "all-female uprising" in the Qushtapa district stated, "My sole objective is to see the absolute elimination of Daesh and like-minded groups in my village, my country and the world." A Syrian man carries a child following a reported airstrike by government forces, in the Syrian town of Binnish, on the outskirts of Idlib, on January 12, 2017. (AFP/Xinhua) DAMASCUS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian army forces killed 18 militants with the Islamic State (IS) group in an operation Monday in the countryside of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, which has been subject to intense attacks by the terror group for three days. State news agency SANA said a Saudi fighter was among those killed in the ambush that targeted one of the IS positions in the city of Mayadeen in the countryside of Deir al-Zour. It added that the military forces also destroyed weaponry the IS were using as well as vehicles. Meanwhile, pro-government al-Watan Online newspaper said the Syrian army on Monday foiled another wave of IS offensive for the third straight day. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitor group, said intense battles were raging on Monday between the IS militants and the Syrian forces in Deir al-Zour. It added that the terror group succeeded to advance in the vicinity of the Deir al-Zour airbase, the only port the government uses in and outside the city, as the IS group has besieged the government-controlled parts of Deir al-Zour since early 2015. The London-based watchdog group said the Syrian warplanes are heavily engaged in bombing the IS positions to prevent the progress of the group, which apparently aimed at stripping the government of its control over that oil-rich city, where 700,000 civilians are besieged by the terror group. It added that the IS offensive is the most violent since the terror group attacked areas in Deir al-Zour and besieged government-controlled areas in the city two years ago. The IS militants have been preparing for this new offensive since early this month, when they brought in tires and crude oil, in what the Observatory said was a preparation to make huge fire during their offensive. It's worth mentioning that the IS controls large swathes of the Deir al-Zour countryside, and its recent attempt is to storm the besieged government-controlled areas in the city. Deir al-Zour holds a significance for the IS as an oil-rich area near the Iraqi borders. A member of the Iraqi special forces' Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) fires his machine gun as he holds a position inside Mosul's university on January 15, 2017, during an ongoing military operation against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists. (AFP/Xinhua) MOSUL, Iraq, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Monday continued heavy fighting against Islamic State (IS) militants and freed more neighborhoods from the extremist militants in the eastern side of the city of Mosul, the Iraqi military said. The Iraqi army soldiers backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft continued their clashes with IS militants in the northern front of the city and managed to free the neighborhoods of Kindi and Qairawan, leaving many IS militants killed and destroying four vehicles carrying heavy machine guns, a statement by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said. In the eastern front, the commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) retook control of the neighborhoods of al-Shurta and Majmoaa Thaqafiyah and raised the Iraqi flag over some of their buildings after fierce clashes with IS militants, destroying two car bombs and killing many of the extremist militants, the statement said. The elite CTS troops, backed by international aircraft, also freed the neighborhoods of Jammasa and Nabi Younus, including the shrine of Prophet Younus (Prophet Jonah), after defeating IS militants, the statement added. In 2014, the extremist militants bombed the shrine, which is revered in Islam as well as Christianity and Judaism. In the southern part of the eastern side of Mosul, the federal police and army soldiers continued clearing operations in the recently freed neighborhoods after the troops completely retook control of the southern part of the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which bisects the city, according to the statement. A source from the CTS forces told Xinhua by telephone that Monday's advance put the 3rd Bridge, which links the two banks of Mosul city, under the fire of the troops. So far, security forces are in control of three of Mosul's five bridges on the Tigris River, which all were partially destroyed. According to the military officers, the Iraqi forces have recaptured some 90 percent of the neighborhoods of the eastern side of Mosul. On Dec. 29, the CTS commandos, army troops and federal police launched the second phase of a major offensive to free the eastern bank of Mosul. Last month, battles in Mosul slowed down as extremist militants used civilians as human shields, resorted to suicide car bombs and made mortar and sniper attacks in stiff resistance. On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city. Since then, Iraqi security forces, backed by international coalition forces, have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the 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. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a news conference in New York, the United States, on Jan. 11, 2017. (Xinhua/Gary Hershorn) WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- About two dozen U.S. Democratic lawmakers have now said they will break with tradition by skipping U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Friday inauguration in protest. A count by CBS News put the number of Democrat congressmen who have announced the boycott to at least 24, while the New York Daily News reported that the number already reached 26, at least five of them from New York. House Representative Jerry Nadler from New York, joined the boycott plan on Monday. "I cannot go because of the president-elect's inflammatory comments, his racist campaign, his conflicts of interest, his refusal to disclose his taxes," Nadler said on CNN's "New Day." Over the weekend, Wisconsin Representative Mark Pocan announced his plan on social media, attacking Trump for "Twitter addiction." "Given the tone of the campaign, Rep. Velazquez didn't think it appropriate to attend the inauguration and made that decision weeks ago," the congresswoman's office told the Daily News Sunday. "She will spend her time elsewhere on events like the Women's March." The feud between Democrats and Trump has been fuelled by Trump's recent clash with Democratic lawmaker John Lewis, a well-known icon of the civil rights movement across the United States. Lewis said in an interview Friday that he does not consider Trump a "legitimate president" because of Russian interference in the election and will not attend the inauguration. Trump fired back on Twitter over the weekend, saying Lewis should "spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart." He then added that the Georgia Democrat is "all talk, talk, talk." Vice President-elect Mike Pence on Sunday rushed to defend Trump, calling Lewis' comments questioning Trump's presidency "deeply disappointing." "Donald Trump won this election fair and square," Pence told "Fox News Sunday." "Donald Trump has the right to defend himself." Nadler said Monday that he agrees with Lewis that Trump,"although legally elected, is not legitimate." LONDON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A snap election for the devolved Northern Ireland parliament was called Monday night in the latest twist to a major rift between the two main parties, the Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Power-sharing governance in the once troubled province of Britain collapsed after the assembly's deputy leader Martin McGuinness of the republican Sinn Fein party quit. His resignation a week ago meant that the assembly leader Arlene Foster of the DUP automatically lost her job. Hopes of a breakthrough to avoid an all-out election failed to materialize by a 5pm deadline local time, plunging the region into a period of potential turmoil and crisis. The Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, a member of the British government's cabinet, announced the election in Belfast. The people of Northern Ireland will vote for the 108 assembly members on March 2. Brokenshire said the assembly will be dissolved on Jan. 26 when temporary decision-making power will transfer to him as Northern Ireland Secretary. He said the timing of the election process will not affect Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union. She plans to start the exit process by the end of March. The row between Sinn Fein and DUP erupted over a controversial heating scheme which has overspent, with people in Northern Ireland facing having to pick up the cost estimated to be around 500 million pounds (611 million U.S. dollars). The row evolved into a breakdown in trust between the two political parties. Brokenshire said in Belfast as he announced the election "No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake." He encouraged the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll. "The government continues to stand firmly behind its commitment to our responsibilities to safeguard political stability in Northern Ireland," said Brokenshire. He also plans to make a statement Tuesday about the crisis in Northern Ireland to the House of Commons. Political observers in Northern Ireland have predicted a "brutal" campaign. The future shape of devolved power in Northern Ireland will now depend on how the 1.3 million people of the region vote on March 2. In the assembly elections last year the DUP won 38 seats, while Sinn Fein garnered 28. PRETORIA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ford South Africa said Monday that they are recalling their Kuga 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine vehicles for safety checks. In December 2015, a Kuga vehicle caught fire, trapped and killed a South African. About 48 Ford Kugas have caught fire in the country and 11 of them in this month. The CEO of Ford Motor Company Southern Africa Jeff Nemeth said they are not aware of any injuries caused by the Kuga's malfunctioning but are concerned about them catching fires. Engineers are working hard to establish the cause of the fires. Kugas are made in Spain and had their engines to be taken to the U.S. for investigations for the fires, he said, "We're now announcing a voluntary safety recall for the affected Ford 1.6. Our investigation has enabled us to narrow the number from the originally stated 6,300 to a total of 4,556 affected vehicles. We understand customers concerns and will reassure these concerns and will work with dealers to ensure each case is treated fair." Over 4,556 vehicles made between 2012 and 2014 are expected to be recalled for safety checks. Nemeth said Kuga users would be offered courtesy cars and R1,500 fee for tolls. South Africa's National Consumer Commission (NCC) said they are concerned about the number incidents involving the Kuga. NCC Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed said they met Ford official since December over the issue. He said, "A product poses any risk to our consumers does not have a place in our marketplace. ...It is for this reason that the NCC requested an urgent meeting last week to inform Ford of our decision to authorize a safety recall of the vehicle on terms that will be dictated by the NCC." "No brand is bigger than the law," Mohamed said. A new police vehicle is seen at Uhuru Park, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Jan. 16, 2017. Kenya has acquired 500 new vehicles to help fight insecurity in the country by enhancing mobility and welfare for security officers. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei) NAIROBI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Monday that the country's counter-terrorism strategy was paying off with reduced number of terror incidents being recorded in 2016. Kenyatta said only 16 people died last year as a result of the terror incidents staged by Somalia Islamist militants, Al-Shabaab, as compared to the 202 who died in 2015. "There has been significant progress in counter-terrorism arising from enhanced capacity. These emanated from terrorism and other forms of organized crime, which required innovative ways to tackle," Kenyatta said at a ceremony to receive 500 police vehicles meant to stabilize security in the country. The East African nation has experienced a spate of terrorist attacks since its troops entered Somalia in 2011 to flush out Al-Qaeda linked terrorist network, Al-Shabaab. The militants were responsible for a siege in Nairobi's upscale Westgate shopping mall in September 2013 where they killed 68 civilians. The year 2014 also marked an escalation of Al-Shabaab attacks in the coast and northeastern region where dozens of civilians lost their lives. Police statistics show some 45 incidents were reported in 2014 that left 70 people dead and 78 injured. In April 2015, the militants again raided Garissa University campus where they killed 147 students. "The year 2015 was particularly darkened by the Garissa University attack," he said, noting that the reduction in the incidents is attributed to combined efforts by security agencies in the country. According to a recent report from Kenya's security agencies, hundreds of youth have been intercepted on their way to Somalia to join Al-Shabaab since 2015. The report disclosed that in the last one year, 100 Kenyan youth have defected from Al-Shabaab and are gradually being integrated in the community. The Kenyan leader said they have invested heavily in the security services to ensure they work safely for the safety of Kenyans. He said a total of 260 million U.S. dollars has been invested in various police equipment and medical insurance scheme to address their needs since 2013. Crime incidents rose to 76,986 in 2016 as compared to 72,490 of 2015, 69,372 of 2014 and 71,832 of 2013. He said robbery cases dropped to 2,667 in 2016 as compared to the 3,551 in 2013 while theft of motor vehicles declined to 1,355 in 2016 as compared to the 1,631 of 2013. Kenyatta said reporting of crime incidents increased due to various issues hence the rise in terms of numbers, which included presence of police. He said crime reduced in Nairobi County due to various factors including the use of CCTV cameras at various places. He said robbery cases in Nairobi alone reduced to 295 in 2016 as compared to 436 of 2014 while theft of motor vehicles dropped to 195 last year as compared to 340 of 2014. Cases of mugging reduced to 992 in 2016 as compared to the 1,360 of 2014. The president said the government is constructing the first phase of 1,500 housing units for police and would be completed by end of this year. The second phase comprising of 4,800 units will be commenced later on, he said. It is not clear at what cost and who is constructing the units. The security officers say the East African nation is playing a pivotal role in ensuring that terrorism and other forms of criminal activities threatening the country's security were minimized if not eliminated. Al-Shabaab militants have vowed to attack Nairobi after the east African nation entered southern Somalia in 2011 to flush out the insurgents it blamed for kidnappings of tourists. Kenya has more than 4,000 troops in the 22,000-strong AU force in Somalia helping the UN-backed government battle Al-Shabaab, which is part of the Al-Qaeda allied terror network. Al-Shabaab has said it views the presence of Kenyan troops in southern Somalia as an act of war and has vowed an all-out war in Kenya, in protest against the military incursion "against our brothers in Somalia." HELSINKI, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Seven suspects were charged on Monday with human smuggling from Iraq to Finland, reported Finnish media. The trial began in the Oulu District Court of Finland. Six of the suspects were present in the court. According to the pre-trial investigation conducted by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, the gang was suspected of illegally arranging at least 87 Iraqis into Finland via Turkey and Greece during 2015. Police said the group charged 6,000 to 8,000 U.S. dollars per journey. Some of the suspects were also accused of other crimes, such as aggravated fraud. Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat said the seven suspects included six men and one woman aged between 30 to 40 years old, and all of them were of foreign origin. Three of the accused arrived in Finland as asylum seekers and have lived in the country for several years. Members of the gang have operated at least in Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Germany and Finland. In accordance with the Finnish law, aggravated facilitation of illegal entry may receive a sentence of between four months and six years in prison. The legal proceedings will last for six weeks, reported the daily. ARUSHA, Tanzania, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania plans to build the fifth international airport in Dodoma, the country's capital city, the prime minister said Monday. Kassim Majaliwa unveiled the plan when speaking at the official launch of the new route from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma for the national flag carrier -- Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL). The new route has been launched after the completion of the expansion of the small airport in Dodoma. The prime minister said that construction of the proposed airport is part of the fifth-phase government's mission of improving air transport in the east African nation. Majaliwa said that the new international airport will be built in Msalato area, located 14 km from Dodoma city and upon its completion will make Tanzania to have five international airports -- Julius Nyerere International Airport (Dar es Salaam), Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA), Songwe International Airport (Mbeya), and Mwanza International Airport. The current Dodoma airport facility can only accommodate small and mid-sized planes. He said the move is line with the Tanzania's move of shifting government offices from the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. "This will make Dodoma busy, hence the need for having international airport remain important," he said, adding that the new development will stimulate socio-economic development in the central Tanzania's regions. The new development comes at the time when Tanzanian government plans to have seven fleets including Boeing 787 Dreamliner by 2018. So far, Tanzanian government has acquired two Bombardier Q400 planes, which are now operated by national flag carrier. DUBLIN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ireland on Monday introduced a change to the blood donor deferral policy, according to a cabinet minister. This change will see the lifting of the lifetime ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men (MSM), Irish Health Minister Simon Harris said, adding that a man who last had sex with another man more than 12 months ago will now be able to donate blood if he meets the other blood donor selection criteria. In a statement, Harris also welcomed Monday's introduction of an additional deferral from blood donation of those with a history of specific notifiable sexually transmitted infections for five years from completion of treatment of that infection. This change in deferral policy relating to MSM follows detailed consideration of the issues involved over the past two years. This process included the hosting, by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), of an international symposium in April 2016, where experts from seven countries who had either changed, or were in the process of changing, their deferral policy from a lifetime ban for MSM as blood donors, presented their respective stances, research and the rationale behind their decisions. The change to a one-year deferral for MSM is supported by the most current scientific evidence available and brings Ireland into line with similar policies in the UK, Canada and elsewhere. In Ireland, only 3 percent of its eligible population are active blood donors, yet one in four people will require a blood transfusion at some time in their lives, the Irish minister said, urging all the eligible to consider donation. MOSCOW, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Washington is "initiating a new arms race" by deploying large-scale troops to Europe, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Monday. The U.S. military buildup in Europe has "a powerful potential for destroying the entire architecture of European security ... threatening to trigger long-term destructive consequences in the Euro-Atlantic region," she said in an online statement. Washington is trying to impose a confrontational model of relations reminiscent of the Cold War, Zakharova added. According to her, the United States transferred to Poland an armored brigade, consisting of about 4,000 troops and 2,500 combat hardware units, earlier this month. Starting in January, 300 U.S. marines will be deployed to a Norwegian base. In late March, a U.S. air brigade is expected to be deployed to Germany, and a battalion tactical group will be deployed to Poland in April. JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- With about two weeks left before the African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson elections, one of the five candidates believes she has what it takes to land the post. Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Botswana told Xinhua in an exclusive interview Monday that she has the expertise, qualifications and experience in both private and public sectors to serve as the next AUC Chairperson. Dr. Venson-Moitoi said she decided to seek election as the AUC chairperson so as to serve the continent. She said, "Africa cannot expect to be developed by anyone else but by her own people. This is not likely to happen if we do not offer ourselves for tasks that we may feel and know we have the capability to do." She said her campaign team has covered every region on the continent, canvassing for votes. Her team comprises of Botswana's former President Festus Mogae and other legislators who have been making some diplomatic offensive to ask other States to vote for her. Since July 2016 they have made 15 country visitations per month. She also said she have reached out to various friends of Southern African Development Community (SADC) in other blocs. Dr Venson-Moitoi said, "We obviously have the strong foundation of the total support of the SADC bloc, and that remains one of our biggest assets as a campaign team. We have commitment from many others across the remaining regions which are largely fluid in their support for the other candidates. All SADC Presidents are being reached to play a role since the candidature is regional and not limited to Botswana." She said SADC is the only region in Africa that has a single and endorsed candidate, which will give her an advantage. Under the outgoing AU Commission Chairperson, the continental bloc came up with Agenda 2063, an action plan to build a prosperous and united Africa by addressing various challenges. Botswana citizens believe the region deserves another change to consolidate what Dr. Dlamini-Zuma started in executing the Agenda 2063, Dr. Venson-Moitoi said, adding that she is an action-oriented person who believes in seeing action and less talk. She said, "My 40-year track record provides SADC and Africa with someone who has both private and public sector experience to deliver on Agenda 2063. I have the proven experience and nuanced insight to be able to make a most meaningful contribution and bring to the AU and its member states all that is required within this role." Dr. Venson-Moitoi said Africa needs a person of her caliber to take the continental's dreams to reality. The continent requires systems and processes to be aligned to the needs of the member states. Sharing her vision for the continent, she said, "The AU must be the hub that unifies our collective response to the global community. We need to be a single voice that is not divided by geography or any other aspect. It is through this unity that we shall have strength in numbers and be able to take our place at the world table. This is an era of collective action and we, as the people of Africa, need to work together to make a difference to ensure an integrated, peaceful, developed, and prosperous Africa." Basic statutory frameworks and constitutional guidelines are in place thanks to the work that the AU has achieved, she said. The general wishes of the continent are known and the fact that the continent now seeks peace has become common knowledge all over the world. Dr Venson-Moitoi believes that dialogue, mutual respect and compromise is the best way to resolve disagreements in the AU. On a parting shot she said, "I want to do this job simply because I know how to do it, I believe I have to give back to Africa, and I believe I can do so well. This is the Africa that has raised me, and that I am proud to call my home." The AUC Chairperson elections will be held between January 30-31, 2017 during the 28th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Other candidates are Agapito Mba Mokuy, Foreign Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Foreign Minister of Chad, Bathily Abdoulaye of Senegal, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for Central Africa, and Amina Mohammed, Kenya Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs. KHARTOUM, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A United States diplomat on Monday said his country's decision to ease sanctions on Sudan would go into effect as of Tuesday. "Decisions of President Barack Obama lifting the U.S. trade sanctions on Sudan are immediate and will technically go into effect as of Tuesday," Steven Koutsis, U.S. Embassy Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum, told reporters. He said the decision to ease the sanctions was based on the executive order by Obama, the general licence and the decision of the Department of Commerce. The U.S. diplomat further explained that the Sudanese government has become in partnership with America in the field of counter-terrorism. He noted that the American decision would enable Sudan to use its deposits in the U.S. banks and conclude contracts and investment projects in fields of oil and minerals, pointing out that the decisions would open the way for cooperation and promotion of ties between Khartoum and Washington. On Jan. 13, Obama issued a decision canceling two executive orders imposing economic sanctions on Sudan. The U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Sudan since 1997 and putting it on its list of countries sponsoring terrorism since 1993. Since then, Washington has been renewing its sanctions on Sudan due to the continuing war in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions besides a number of disputed issues with South Sudan, including the oil-rich area of Abyei. However, in February last year, the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it had decided to loosen the sanctions on Sudan via allowing exports of personal communications hardware and software including smart phones and laptops. It said the move aimed at helping the Sudanese citizens integrate into the global digital community. In October 2015, Washington also expressed readiness to cooperate with Sudan in the field of counter-terrorism and to work to prevent flow of terrorist groups and foreign fighters to Sudan and the areas of conflicts. TIRANA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Albanian opposition parties signed Monday a memorandum, in which they set five key conditions for the holding of June 18 general elections, local media reported. The Albanian opposition, led by the head of Democratic Party (DP) Lulzim Basha, came up with one stand on the issue. The the first of the five conditions listed in the memorandum is electronic voting, electronic ballot count and a biometric identification of voters, with a new system throughout the country. They highlighted that the electronic voting and counting were the key condition for holding free and fair elections. Other conditions also include a thorough implementation of the decriminalization law, lower campaign cost, stopping human resources of the public administration from being used for campaign and a quick access to the media, according to a DP press release. The memorandum is also expected to be signed by other parties, which are not part of the opposition coalition, the DP said in the press release. Responding to the requests made by the opposition, the head of the ruling Socialist Party parliamentary group Gramoz Ruci asked the opposition parties to address international institutions for this matter. U.S. army and German army soldiers attend the Saber Strike military exercise at Central pylon in Tapa, Estonia, on June 20, 2016. Saber Strike is an annual U.S.-led exercise of land and air forces. (Xinhua/Sergei Stepanov) MOSCOW, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Washington is "initiating a new arms race" by deploying large-scale troops to Europe, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Monday. The U.S. military buildup in Europe has "a powerful potential for destroying the entire architecture of European security ... threatening to trigger long-term destructive consequences in the Euro-Atlantic region," she said in an online statement. Washington is trying to impose a confrontational model of relations reminiscent of the Cold War, Zakharova added. According to her, the United States transferred to Poland an armored brigade, consisting of about 4,000 troops and 2,500 combat hardware units, earlier this month. Starting in January, 300 U.S. marines will be deployed to a Norwegian base. In late March, a U.S. air brigade is expected to be deployed to Germany, and a battalion tactical group will be deployed to Poland in April. RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua)-- Two prisoners were shot dead Monday by police after they had escaped from a prison in southern Brazil on Sunday, according to local sources. The government of the state of Parana said that an anonymous tip-off was received by police stating that four suspects were hiding in Quatro Barras, near the state city of Parana. Police officers attended the scene on Monday morning and a shoot-out began, in which two of the prisoners were killed while the other two managed to escape. On Sunday morning, 28 prisoners escaped from the Piraquara Penitentiary, near Curitiba, after blowing a hole in a wall with explosives. The statement from the Parana Secretariat of Public Security and Prison Administration said that no prisoners have yet been recaptured. This jail break in Parana adds to a difficult year so far for Brazilian prison authorities, since over 130 prisoners have died in gang battles so far in 2017. The latest such outbreak of violence took place on Saturday when 26 prisoners were killed in Natal, the capital of the northern state of Rio Grande do Norte. HAVANA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government has handed down fines against an American organization and a Canadian bank for violating the Cuban embargo, the island's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex) stated Monday. In a statement, Minrex said the U.S. Treasury Department had fined the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation (ARCPF) for coordinating trips by American citizens to Cuba. According to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the ARCPF facilitated trips by two groups to Cuba between August 2010 and September 2011, in open violation to the embargo's norms. Secondly, Canadian bank Toronto Dominion (TD) was fined 955,750 U.S. dollars, for having carried out transactions with a Cuban company between 2003 and 2011 through the U.S. financial system. These new sanctions, before the end of the mandate of the current U.S. government, show the persistence of the economic, commercial and financial blockade, and its extraterritorial scope, denounced Minrex. According to the ministry, since December, 2014 when Havana and Washington announced their intention to reestablish normal diplomatic ties, the U.S. government has fined 11 entities (seven American and four foreign) for a total value of over 2.843 million U.S. dollars. In order to fully normalize relations, Havana has insisted that the embargo must be lifted, the U.S.-occupied territory in Guantanamo must be returned, illegal transmissions to Cuba must end and actions aiming to subvert the Cuban government must end. While President Barack Obama has supported lifting the embargo, the Republican-held Congress has refused to do so. ANKARA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A constitutional referendum introducing a full presidential system is likely to be held in the beginning of April, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Kurtulmus said on Monday. "Following the approval of the parliament, the right thing is to hold a referendum in the shortest time," Kurtulmus said during the interview with local broadcaster channel A HABER. The Turkish parliament on Sunday concluded the first round of voting on all 18 articles of the constitutional amendment package which enlarges the powers of a president. The changes, in particular, include allowing a partisan president, so that the president does not have to break off the ties with his or her political party, while the presidential powers include passing bills and appointing ministers. The second round of voting on the constitutional reform package is scheduled for Jan. 18. According to the current roadmap of the parliamentary discussions, the referendum is very likely to be held on April 2, Daily Sabah reported. The constitutional amendments discussed in parliament is supported by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). If at least 330 of the 550 lawmakers approve the articles, the changes will be posed to the public in a referendum. Any article that remains below the 330 vote threshold in the second round will be left out of the package, regardless of the result of the first round. Proposed changes to the constitution require a simple majority (51 percent). The AKP has 316 seats and the MHP, which has 39 seats, will secure a referendum, state-run Anadolu Agency said. BRUSSELS, Jan.16 (Xinhua) -- Britain can't negotiate on trade deals with third parties as long as it's a member state of the European Union(EU), the bloc's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned on Monday. At a press conference after this year's first Foreign Affairs Council, Mogherini was asked by a reporter whether she would do anything special to cope with an upcoming Eurosceptic U.S. administration. "I think that the European Union will stick together. I am 100 percent convinced of this," she said. Stressing that Britain is still a member state seven months after the Brexit referendum, Mogherini said: "as long as a member state is a member state, there are no negotiations bilaterally on any trade agreement with third parties." "This is in the treaties and this is valid for all member states as long as they remain member states, until the very last day," she added. Foreign ministers of the 28-nation bloc gathered on Monday to discuss the developments in Syria and Middle East peace process, just days ahead of Donald Trump takes office as U.S President. In an interview with British daily The Times, Donald Trump said he will offer Britain a quick and fair trade deal with U.S. within weeks after taking office to help make Brexit a "great thing". Trump also predicted in the interview that other countries would follow Britain's lead in leaving the EU. In response, The chief spokesperson of European Commission Magaritis Schinas on Monday said "we had read the interview with interest", but he didn't elaborate. Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, however, on Monday slammed Trump's comments as a fantasy, Euractiv.com reported. UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- A UN envoy arrived in Yemen's port city of Aden for meetings with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and other senior officials in a bid to renew cessation of hostilities in Yemen, said a UN spokesperson on Monday. The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was to present Hadi with his latest peace proposals to renew cessation of hostilities and to address the country's dire humanitarian situation, according to UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq. The UN envoy's visit to Aden comes after a week of meetings with senior officials from the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar in Riyadh, Muscat and Doha. According to latest estimates, the UN said at least 10,000 people have been killed since a war broke out in 2015 between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition. The special envoy said the current political stalemate is causing death and destruction, and the only way to stop this is through the renewal of the cessation of hostilities followed by consultations to develop a comprehensive agreement. He also said a peace agreement, including a well articulated security plan and the formation of an inclusive government, is the only way to end the war in Yemen. DAMASCUS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The three-day offensive by the Islamic State (IS) on the government-controlled parts of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour is boding ill for the city, as the terror-designated group has succeeded to make important gains. The intense battles between the government forces and the IS militants are still raging in Deir al-Zour, coupled with tens of airstrikes targeting the advancing terrorists. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor group said Monday that the IS militants made important gains, capturing areas around the Deir al-Zour airbase, which enabled the group to cut the road between the base and the city, just a day after the militants captured the mountain overlooking the city. This progress is dangerous as the airbase is the only lifeline left for the city, which has been besieged by IS since early 2015. Cutting the road is not only cutting a lifeline but also divides the government-controlled parts of the city into two parts, eastern and western, which tightens the noose on over 500,000 civilians in the city. The IS main aim behind their broad offensive in Deir al-Zour was cutting the lifeline of the city, their next step is apparently attempting to capture the airbase, and in near future to storm the government-controlled parts of the city, if there was no surgical military operation to put an end to the marching IS terrorists. The Observatory, which says it relies on a network of activists on ground, said 28 government soldiers have been killed over the past three days, as well as 40 IS militants and 14 civilians. Meanwhile, a military source told Xinhua that the Syrian air force is continuing to carry out airstrikes on the IS positions in the vicinity of the airbase, south of Deir al-Zour, as well as the factories area and panorama area in its southwest. Opposition activists placed the number of airstrikes at 60. The Syrian state TV confirmed that IS cut the road between the airbase and the city, saying the Syrian forces have started a counter-offensive to restore the areas stormed by IS. Meanwhile, the governor of Deir al-Zour, Ibrahim Samra, told pro-government Sham FM that the losses of IS are estimated at 120 slain militants. Citing officials in the Health Department in Deir al-Zour, the report said that 25 civilians have been killed and 45 others wounded since the terror group launched its attack on the city three days ago. The health officials said there is a shortage in the medical staffers in Deir al-Zour. The report said huge bombings were heard overnight in the city, in what appeared to be Russian and Syrian airstrikes targeting IS. The Observatory said that the IS offensive is the most violent since the terror group attacked areas in Deir al-Zour and besieged government-controlled areas in the city two years ago. The IS militants have been preparing for this new offensive since early this month, when they brought in tires and crude oil, in what the Observatory said was a preparation to make huge fire during their offensive. It's worth mentioning that the IS controls large swathes of the Deir al-Zour countryside, and its recent attempt is to storm the besieged government-controlled areas in the city. Deir al-Zour holds a significance for the IS as an oil-rich area near the Iraqi borders. QUITO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) held their fourth day of talks on Monday, seeking to finalize an agreement to begin formal peace negotiations. The ELN wrote on Twitter that "today is the fourth day of meetings between the two delegations, government and ELN" without providing more details. Since Friday, the two sides have been holding exploratory meetings in the Ecuadorian city of Ibarra, 120 kilometers north of Quito. According to the ELN, the conversations have been held in a good environment and are seeking to set a date for the beginning of formal peace negotiations. The ELN, which took up arms in 1964 and has about 1,500 fighters, is the only active guerrilla group in Colombia, after the peace agreement signed between Bogota and the FARC in November. Ecuador, which neighbors Colombia, was chosen in October to welcome the public negotiations. At the time, Ecuador's Foreign Minister said that while the start and close of negotiations would happen in his country, other discussions would happen in Venezuela, Chile, Cuba, Norway and Brazil, all of which are guarantors of the potential peace process. People take pictures of a makeshift memorial set in front of the Reina nightclub on January 5, 2017 inIstanbul, four days after a gunman killed 39 people on New Year's night. (AFP/Xinhua) ISTANBUL, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Istanbul police on Monday night captured the gunman who launched a shooting spree at a nightclub in the city on New Year's Day, killing 39 people, local media reported. The gunman, who has been on the run for 17 days, was caught unharmed at the apartment of a friend in the district of Esenyurt in a police operation, the Hurriyet daily said. NTV said the friend is a Kyrgyz citizen. Police have identified the gunman as Abdulgadir Masharipov, a Uzbek national, who resisted during the police operation and was found with his 4-year-old son, NTV said. Masharipov will undergo a medical examination before being handed over to the counter-terrorism unit for investigation, the reports said. The militant stormed into Reina nightclub in central Istanbul soon after the New Year was in, shot dead 39 and injured 69 others in a 7-minute fire and managed to escape to his apartment and run away with his son. A total of 35 people have been detained over their suspected links to the attack, press reports said. U.S. President Barack Obama attends his final news conference of the year in the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, Dec. 16, 2016. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday night listed "thick skin" and "stamina" as important qualities for the top person in the White House to have, in an ironic reference to his successor Donald Trump who will be sworn in on Friday. "Thick skin helps" to get the complex presidential job done, Obama said in his final interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" aired Sunday night. He also recommended that a U.S. president has to be physically strong enough and must not get distracted by critics in government and the media. "Stamina. There is a greater physical element to this job than you would think, just being able to grind it out. And I think your ability to -- not just mentally and emotionally but physically be able to say, 'We got this. We're going to be okay,'" is important, said Obama. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures during a news conference in New York, the United States, on Jan. 11, 2017. (Xinhua/Gary Hershorn) Throughout the 2016 election campaign, Trump was repeatedly painted as having "thin skin" and being reckless. At the time, then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton often warned that Trump's 'thin skin' would set off war or an economic crisis. During their first presidential TV debate in September, Trump and Clinton clashed in unusually personal terms. The former secretary of state slammed Trump's "racist lies" about Obama's birthplace, and Trump accused Clinton of lacking stamina to be president. In Sunday's interview, Obama also warned that people shouldn't underestimate Trump, saying the president-elect was able to tap into people's grievances. Though Trump was able to run an "improvisational campaign," "now he's in the process of building up an organization. And we'll have to see how that works. And it'll be a test, I think, for him and the people that he's designated to be able to execute on his vision," Obama said. COPENHAGEN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Copenhagen Mayor Frank Jensen said on Monday it was a tough competition with other cities to attract talents from around the world, after the Danish capital city was ranked as the world's best city for attracting talents. Copenhagen is the best city in the world for attracting, maintaining and developing business talents, according to the Global Talent Competitive Index (GTCI), released on Mondy in Davos, Switzerland. The index, released by international graduate university Insead, put Copenhagen ahead of Zurich, Helsinki, San Francisco and Gothenburg in its first ever global cities ranking. "We are in tough competition with other cities to attract investment, businesses and talents," Jensen said in a press release. "I see it as a recognition of the many things we are doing to create an attractive city with high quality of life and good career opportunities," the mayor added. To be more attractive to talent and businesses, Copenhagen has launched growth cooperation Greater Copenhagen with 79 municipalities and three regions in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden. By doing so, Copenhagen has gone from 600,000 to four million people to create a critical mass to compete with other European growth cities such as Stockholm, Hamburg and Amsterdam. However, the new index, GTCI 2017, saw Denmark drop three spots to the eighth from last year's ranking of nations. Switzerland topped the rankings, followed by Singapore, Britain, the United States, Sweden, Australia, Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland and Norway. A keeper prepares milk formula for giant panda cub Jianjian in Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), south China, Jan. 11, 2017. Giant pandas Jianjian and Kangkang are twin cubs of Kaikai and Xinxin. The parents were chosen from Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China's Sichuan Province as a gift of the central government to Macao SAR. The family of four is expected to meet the public together during China's Spring Festival. (Xinhua/Cheong Kam Ka) KATHMANDU, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Nepal Airline Corporation (NAC), the national flag carrier of Nepal, said on Sunday that a four-member team departed for China to bring two of the four Chinese-made aircraft on order. As per an agreement signed between Nepal's flag carrier and Chinese supplier - AVIC International Holding - in December 2012, Nepal would acquire six Chinese aircraft, two in grants and four on loans. Of them, the NAC has already acquired one 56-seater MA60 and one 17-seater Y12e from the Chinese government, but it is yet to take delivery of three Y12e and one MA60 under the loan agreement. NAC Managing Director Sugat Ratna Kansakar told Xinhua that the team led by its director Poshak Gnawali departed for China to take delivery of the two planes. "The planes will arrive soon," he said, adding other two planes on order would also be brought in the next three to four months. The arrival of the new aircraft from China is expected to boost NAC's presence in domestic aviation market which had shrunk in recent years due to its depleting number of fleet. Earlier in October, Nepal's Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Ministry had instructed the NAC to take delivery of remaining planes as early as possible by sorting out any issue with the supplier. MADRID, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Spanish worker with the Red Cross, who was kidnapped in Afghanistan on Dec. 19 was freed on Sunday in the Kunduz and is "safe and sound," a regional government source confirmed to Spanish media. The unnamed aid worker was kidnapped in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province when he was travelling in a Red Cross convoy of two vehicles. Regional Red Cross delegate Monica Zanarelli commented at the time of the kidnap that the organization was "extremely worried" about the safety of their "colleague," and was doing "everything possible" to ensure a safe release with no conditions attached. The Afghan authorities have assured they are "following the appropriate protocols" for such cases. Kunduz province, bordering Tajikistan, has been one of scenes of heavy clashes over the past couple of months as Taliban has been trying to challenge the government forces in the once relatively peaceful region. Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images(BELGRADE, Serbia) -- Once applauded for its treatment of migrants and refugees, Serbia has recently become a frozen, forlorn purgatory. For those trapped on the Balkans route from the Mediterranean Sea to Germany, there's nowhere left to go. "Serbia risks becoming a dumping zone, a new Calais where people are stranded and stuck," Andrea Contenta, humanitarian affairs officer for Medecins Sans Frontiere (MSF) in Serbia told the Guardian newspaper, referring to the French encampment cleared by authorities last fall. "They choose to stay here in Belgrade, even if it's terrible," MSF press officer Gemma Gillie added. "They still have their freedom. If they do want to carry on their journey, which a lot of them do, they can. And so they're waiting here." #Serbia, many migrants with no need for international protection should be returned & others need adequate reception pic.twitter.com/PYvdfJ86Vf vincent cochetel (@cochetel) January 13, 2017 Some 2,000 people are living out of warehouses and empty train cars in Belgrade with no running water and no sanitation, the organization says. MSF runs a mobile clinic, treating about 100 people daily with coughs, colds, hypothermia and frostbite. The UN estimates about half of the people currently taking shelter in Belgrade are younger than 18 years old, and MSF says they see patients as young as 7 or 8 years old traveling with older siblings. With temperatures expected as low as -4 F this week, Save the Children warned that "the conditions here are very, very difficult, and with temperatures forecast to drop as low as -20 C today, the lives of children are at risk," said Valentina Bollenback from Save the Children, who is in Presevo, Serbia on the border with Macedonia. "The mothers I have met arriving here are distressed because they are unable to keep their babies warm and safe. We see children with early signs of hypothermia such as blue lips and hands, as well as high fevers and respiratory problems," she said. "Instead of focusing on closing their borders, Europes governments should be doing more to give people fleeing war a dignified and humane reception. It is - 10 degrees in #Belgrade #Serbia today. Imagine you have to face the cold in these conditions. pic.twitter.com/IflZqwNfBL MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) January 12, 2017 "Children are particularly prone to respiratory illnesses at a time like this. It's about saving lives, not about red tape and keeping to bureaucratic arrangements," UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe said on Friday. "I saw one man brought in who was unconscious from the cold," Tahir Bakhtiary, an MSF translator told the Sunday Times. "Something has to be done. There is nothing there. It could get a lot worse. People could die." And they are dying. Aid agencies say at least five asylum-seekers have died in Europe, and more could follow when temperatures plummet this week. "Saving lives is the most urgent priority right now," UNHCR spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly told reporters. "We are extremely worried about continued reports of push-backs in all countries along the Western Balkans. These practices are simply unacceptable and must be halted, as they place the lives of refugees and migrants at heightened risk and violate their most fundamental rights." We are deeply worried at the situation of refugees and migrants faced with harsh winter conditions across #Europe https://t.co/wYEeUB91bw pic.twitter.com/XCJg7eDTIH UNHCRNews (@RefugeesMedia) January 13, 2017 Speaking to Save the Children in Serbia, a man using the pseudonym Nasir, who fled the war in Syria five months ago with his wife and two small children, said they never expected this. "The boat journey was the hardest part. It was extremely cold, everything was wet and the babies were ill," he said. "Sometimes I fear for my children. We couldnt remain in Syria, but it doesn't get this cold there. We have never been this cold." English language graffiti pleading for help is scrawled across the walls in Belgrade. "No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark," reads one message, in an image snapped by the MSF press officer, Gemma Gillie. Other messages read: "We are helpless" and "Please don't forget about us." Graffiti at the #warehouse #Belgrade #Serbia ...couldn't have said it better myself. Everyone deserves dignity and to be treated as a person pic.twitter.com/jWb4fJWA90 Gem Gillie (@GemLouGillie) January 14, 2017 Of the more than 7,000 refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants currently in Serbia, most are in heated government shelters. But it's the nearly 2,000 that remain outside, unregistered, that has aid agencies terrified. An Iraqi refugee staying at one of the centers told UNHCR: The room is small, but I cannot be angry at Serbia because we did not get beaten up here. We were given a bed and warm meals." Copyright 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. New York Times trying to silence Breitbart, published hit piece littered with false allegations and made up facts After failing to push their preferred presidential contender, the corrupt Hillary Clinton, across the finish line Nov. 8, the discredited mainstream media is now attempting to destroy the new, alternative media that reported honestly and truthfully about her opponent, President-elect Donald J. Trump. As reported by Breitbart, the news site is now being targeted by The New York Times, in what seems like a naked attempt to deny the site revenues it needs to operate. In a pair of op-eds for a recent Times Sunday Review, the supposed paper of record attacked Breitbart and its founder, the late Andrew Breitbart, a diehard conservative, while encouraging the sites destruction in a direct appeal to advertisers, asking they withdraw all of their support. One of the pieces, How to Destroy the Business Model if Breitbart and Fake News, which is written by someone actually named Pagan Kennedy, encourages and celebrates the waning, failing effort of Twitter trolls who have attempted to target and intimidate companies whose advertisements appear with Brietbart News articles, via third-party platforms, the site noted. So in other words, its okay to publish far-Left, out-of-the-mainstream drivel, but gag opinions and facts that you find inconvenient. Got it. These would-be censors of the totalitarian left have decided that since they cannot defeat conservative views and arguments on the merits, they would prefer to eliminate them altogether, Breitbart says in response. Not so surprisingly, the Times editorial board, which is consistently to the left of Che Guevara, gave its approval to a nearly 2,000-word piece calling for tactics that would stifle Breitbarts voice, all while touting how the paper is some guardian of free speech and freedom of the press. Hypocrisy much, NYT? The Times article includes instructions on how to join in the anti-Breitbart effort, copied verbatim (Step 1 Step 2) from an anonymous activists Twitter page. And while Breitbart News is the biggest fish, the anonymous group makes it clear that it would like to broaden its campaign to take on a menagerie of bad actorsall defined by the group, of course, based on nothing more than political differences of opinion. It seems very important to the management of The New York Times, itself a major purveyor of fake news and journo-terrorism, that the failing, anti-constitutional and undemocratic effort to censor and shutter Breitbart be given new life, because they have permitted a number of embarrassing factual errors and omissions to be put in the article, undermining Pagan and the paper itself. Namely: Misidentifying Steven K. Bannon, hired by President-elect Donald J. Trump as a senior advisor, calling him a former editor when he was actually the companys Executive Chairman; Using the term neo-Nazi twice, without offering proof (which does not exist) that Breitbart News subscribes to neo-Nazi views (the site even has a Jerusalem Bureau and is one of the most pro-Israel on the web); Accusing the news site of using corporations to shield it from bullying and hate crimes (the Left uses the same language and playbook to smear everyone), again without offering any proof or examples; Misstating how Internet advertising actually works (the progressive companies appearing on the site are not paying Breitbart News). Breitbart then went on to provide several examples of when the Times manufactured stories (fake news) to smear conservatives and others who disagree with Left-wing ideology. In regards to hate, the Times has published no shortage of pieces from actual purveyors of hate, including terrorists and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the Lefts boogeyman now but who the Times gave a platform to in 2013. In a second piece, English travel writer Jonathan Raban concocts a ridiculously false narrative tying Trumps rise to another boogeyman of the Left, the Tea Party. That pieceThe Tea Party and the Art of the Mean Jokeis so brutally dishonest and incredibly stupid in its conclusions that only the tone-deaf editorial board at the Times would feed it to its like-minded sycophantic readership. The Left-wing medias attempt to destroy alternative voices is nothing new, but once upon a time it was much easier to do because there were so few competitive voices. Thats not the case anymorenot by a long shotand thats got the establishment press in a tizzy. So it is lashing out at its more honest and respected competitors, which means they are also lashing out at the massive segment of the American public that reads, trusts and respects the alternative press. That includes, of course, Breitbart News. Sources: AlternativeNews.com Censored.news TheNationalSentinel.com NaturalNews.com Breitbart.com Submit a correction >> Five Most Buzz-Making Smartphones Awaited in 2017 New Delhi, Mon, 16 Jan 2017 NI Wire The pace of the technology is most lucidly reflected through the smartphones which have silently slipped into the necessities of our lives. It is quite difficult to imagine life without phones and that too without the 'smart' ones. The markets are flooded with phones, most of them are decent and worth buying. Just when we thought we are buying the best phone available in the markets, another device comes and refutes our understanding, demolishing our pride. It is quite a tedious task to track myriads of devices due to get released, so we have prepared a list of some which are yet to come, still kept the consumers going gaga over them. Let us glance through some of them for a soothing tech-fantasy ride. Samsung Galaxy S8: After the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle, lot of negative attention has been drawn on Samsung handsets. Codenamed Project Dream, this model is pitched to be the one which can cleanse all the scars that smothered South Korean Majors reputation. A number of leaks and rumours have made some probable features public and those include wireless earphone, dual-edge curved display, with thinner bezel, ensuring greater screen to phone ratio. The built-in Al Assistant Bixby which is set to replace S-Voice Assistant is expectedly the biggest plus point for the phone. It is speculated that two variants of the model will come out, of which one will be measuring 6-inches. It is also said that there will be two options of Snapdragon 3.6 GHz 835 SoC and 4 GHz Exynos 8895 chipsets. On the imaging front, there are reports that the device would be loaded with a dual-camera setup towards the rear, while the front shooter would have auto-focus feature. All of these and other whispers will be verified when Samsung officially announces the phone in April 2017. iPhone 8: This overhyped upcoming handset in the series of the much worshipped brand, whose name can cause a stir among the gizmo lovers, is set to be a complete overhaul from its predecessors. Since Apple is celebrating its 10th anniversary of iPhone launch this year, it is rumoured that this phone is going to have some dreamy combo of high-tech features. From what is being circulated, it can be said that the extraordinary device shall comprise of OLED panel, advanced Wireless Charging support, a swifter A-11 processor, glass casing, Front camera and Touch ID fingerprint sensor integrated display, as well as, Iris scanner and much more. This phone would be launched alongside the upgraded successors of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in late September. It has also been told by some sources that about 10 prototypes of the iPhone 8 have been tested, which has raised the eagerness levels doubly. Samsung Galaxy X: Another phone by Samsung which is probably more awaited than Galaxy S8, because of a pioneer feature that it may have. The very capability we are talking about here is of being folded and by that if we are in no way referring to the flip technology. Yes, as per some patents leaked, the phone can be folded at different angles, as well as, in centre. Sources also reveal that the foldable device might have a screen of 4K resolution and Samsung Edge-like extension. Apart from this not much has been known about the specifications of the model. Like the Galaxy S8, the release of this phone has also been delayed, supposedly to lighten the effect of the S7 fiasco and the Choi-gate scandal in South Korea and may come out in Q3 or Q4 of this year. Google Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2: The first flagship model of Google Pixel had a lot of hopes attached to it for obvious reasons. However, the phone failed to bring contentment to the users due to its faulty hardware, buggy operating system and a very normal design. Nevertheless, the great display, battery life and imaging features of the phones and the brand name are enough to look forward to the next launch in the series with renewed spirit. Although there are no flying reports about the models, we are anticipating that improved versions of Pixel would make way in the coming year to provide a splendid experience. Microsoft Surface Phone: Microsoft may not have made their mark with the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, but as said by Satya Nadella, they are leaving no stone unturned in developing their Surface handset an ultimate smartphone. There has been quite much hearsay doing the rounds in respect of the roll out of the device this year. It is said that the phone will have a 5.7-inch screen powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and will also consist of grille speakers at the top and bottom along with 3.5mm headphone jack and USB Type-C port respectively. The handset running on Windows 10 would be embedded with a terrific camera, probably with Carl Zeiss label. The device would reportedly also render the Windows desktop experience. There Surface tech has already done a decent job with Surface Pro, Surface Book and it would be interesting to see how it fares in a small screen device. Moreover, given that the biggies of the smartphone industry like Google and Nexus are already in the race, it would be quite great amusement to watch if the Tech Major manages to shoot itself towards the top. BlackBerry 'Mercury' Teased and Leaked Ahead of its Official Launch New Delhi, Mon, 16 Jan 2017 NI Wire The roll out of BlackBerry's upcoming phone is about to take place shortly in CES 2017, but many of the mobile crazy consumers have already noted its externals. This was made possible by the official teasers that were released by Steve Cistulli via Twitter posts. Moreover, the Weibo showed a couple of leaked images with specs of the phone that gave out a little too much. The President of the TCL Communication in North America, Steve Cistulli had described the video snippet as impressively designed distinctly different in his first post. It didn't show much of the phone except the physical QWERTY keypad and the quintessential black tint. Teasing for the second time with one more look he posted another video which gave a better glimpse of the phone. It displayed the rounded corners of the pitch black metallic device. One can notice the curvaceous corners of the keypad buttons too in the snippet. Other noticeable features that can be peeked into through the rushes are - speaker grilles and USB type-C port (supposedly), volume as well as power button on the right side, the Android Navigation controls. While some reports indicate that the phone will be called Mercury', there are indication of it being named as 'Press' too. Mercury might also be the codename for the device as per some sources. The Weibo leaks, however, suggest that the new phone by the Canadian Multinational will be branded as DTEK70'. The post by China's popular microblogging site also listed some major specifications, such as, 4.6-inch touch-screen display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 32 GB storage, 3 GB RAM, 3400 mAh battery. In it earlier leak, Weibo had specified that 18-MP rear and 8-MP front snappers are embedded in the new model. The brand new BlackBerry phone is the last phone manufactured by the company before the manufacturing license is transferred to a third party. This was mentioned by CEO of BlackBerry John Chen in November last year. Share The global market for 4G LTE (News - Alert) devices should experience a compound annual growth rate of 13.1 percent between 2016 and 2024, according to a new study by Persistence Market Research. LTEs better battery backup, low network latency, and screen resolution are attracting customers to this newish cellular technology, the research firm says. The affordability and convenience of LTE data packages are also helping spur adoption, it adds. The report segments the 4G LTE device market by device type, distribution channel, pricing, and region. Globally, the single brand store distribution channel segment is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period as compared to the multi-brand store and online distribution channel segments, which are expected to witness relatively flat growth rates over the forecast period, according to Persistence Market Research. In terms of value, the low price range segment in the Asia Pacific 4G (LTE) devices market accounted for 37.6 percent share in 2015. The developing countries in this region showcase the huge potential for low-end 4G (LTE) smartphones and tablets due to the advancements in network infrastructure. Although weve been hearing a lot lately about 5G, the information above helps illustrate that as Mike Murphy, CTO for North America at Nokia (News - Alert) recently told me LTE still has quite a bit of gas left in the tank. Indeed, the cellular industry continues to introduce new and improved iterations for 4G. For example, in August Verizon (News - Alert) announced plans to roll out LTE Advanced across the U.S. LTE Advanced can refer to all sorts of improvements to LTE, and the only real common factor is that theyre all backwards-compatible with other LTE technology, explains Chris Mills in an Aug. 29 BGR story. In this case, it refers to combining multiple channels to send mobile data as quickly as possible. Verizon is claiming a 50 percent faster peak speed for its technology. Never send a cop to do a man's job We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. In its latest report on Algeria, Human Rights Watch called on Algerian authorities to intervene to end the confinement imposed on women in the Polisario-run camps in the region of Tindouf. HRW sheds light on the case of Sahrawi girls who lived and established legal residency in Spain and who were prevented from traveling back to Spain by the Polisario militias running the Tindouf camps in South Western Algeria. The Polisario was unwilling or incapable of ending these situations of illegal confinement of women, a form of domestic violence, deplores HRW in its World Report 2017. Algeria, despite its ultimate responsibility for protecting the human rights of all persons present on its territory, did not intervene to end their confinement, underscores the New York-based human rights watchdog. The same NGO denounced the retrogression of Algerian authorities on the issues of human rights, notably the freedom of expression. The report, published on HRW website, details the numerous restrictions imposed by Algerian authorities on free speech by resorting to criminal prosecutions in 2016 against bloggers, journalists, and media figures for peaceful speech. Algerian authorities use articles in the penal code criminalizing offending the president, insulting state officials or denigrating Islam to prosecute bloggers and journalists who are critical to the regime, said the international rights watchdog. Authorities in Algiers have also prosecuted labor activists who organized or called for peaceful demonstrations on charges such as unauthorized gathering, lamented HRW. Citing examples of abuse inflicted on Algerians for critical speech, HRW sheds light on the case of Slimane Bouhafs, a converted Christian, who was delivered a three-year jail sentence for a facebook post and Belkacem Khencha, a labor rights defender, who was sentenced to six months in prison for posting a video on Facebook criticizing the judiciary for sentences imposed on other rights activists. HRW also deplores the fate of Mohamed Tamalt, a freelance journalist with dual Algerian and British nationality who died on a hunger strike while in custody and who was prosecuted for a video he posted on Facebook featuring a poem deemed offensive to Algerias president. Head of the Libyan National Army aligned with the Eastern Government has reiterated his unwillingness to meet with UNSMIL Chief Martin Kobler arguing that the meeting will be pointless. Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar has reportedly declined an invitation for a meeting with Martin Kobler, the Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). To the invitation sent to him by the German and UN veteran diplomat, late December, Haftar replied it is a waste of time. Both men met in December 2015, on the eve of the signing of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in Morocco. Following the meeting, Kobler indicated that the Libya General threw his support behind the LPA. However Haftar later on lashed out at the agreement and refused to cooperate with the Government of National Accord (GNA) birthed from the LPA. The General aligned with east-based rival government and affiliate House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk refused to abide by the agreement arguing that members of the GNA were western puppets. Kobler has sought to accommodate Haftar to no avail. Last month, Moscow urged Kobler to consider involving the 73-year marshal in the settlement of the Libyan political crisis. Haftar stunned UNSMIL and the GNA in September last year when he took control of the countrys main oil terminals protected by pro-GNA forces. The move further threw the GNA into financial abyss. Prime Minister Faiez Serraj has been facing acute financial challenges to meet Libyans pressing needs. Haftar accuses the German diplomat, who had condemned the terminals seizure, of meddling into Libyan affairs. For him Kobler seeks to change the leadership of the Libyan National Army through the LPA. Maltese Foreign minister has warned that emboldening Libyas Khalifa Haftar will lead to a civil war and worsen the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. Haftar with his army is moving gradually, slowly from the east to the west and possibly, eventually linking up with his colleagues from the west, from Zintane, and advancing in a pincer movement on the region of Bani Walid, and Misrata, and Tripoli, George Vella told the press. He explained that the westward advance of Haftars forces would trigger a civil war and create more refugees. The Maltese official, whose country is assuming the EUs rotating presidency for the next six months, also voiced concerns over the support of Russia to Haftar and expressed fears of Moscows schemes to have a military presence in the Mediterranean. With about 450,000 inhabitants, Malta, a small island 345km off Libyan coasts, has one of the highest per capita refugee acceptance rates in the world, and its inhabitants are expecting the European bloc to share the refugee burden. In this regards, the EU, under the Maltese presidency, seeks to strike a deal with the UN recognized Libyan government in Tripoli, the GNA, on reducing the flow of migrants to Europe, as Libya has become the preferred route for asylum seekers seeking to join the EU by sea after closing the Western Balkan route. Africa Renewal, a magazine issued by the Africa Section of the UN department of public information, published an article detailing how Morocco gradually established itself as a major economic force in sub-Saharan Africa. Slowly and steadily, Morocco has been establishing itself as a major economic force in sub-Saharan Africa, even as it eyes gaining readmission into the African Union (AU), which it left decades ago, said the magazine in an article dubbed, Morocco flexes muscles as it seeks AU reinstatement. The article, signed by Franck Kwuno, sheds light on Moroccos African endeavor that combines political willingness with diplomatic action and tangible win-win economic projects. Over the 10-year period starting in 2004, Moroccos trade with the rest of the continent grew by an annual average of 13% ($3.7 billion) in 2014, 42% of which was with sub-Saharan Africa, writes Kwuno, adding that this rate represents just 6.4% of the kingdoms overall trade globally during the same period. Citing figures from the World Investment Report 2016, the magazine notes that Morocco has earmarked investments worth $600 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, notably in Mali, which got the lions share, followed by Cote dIvoire, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Gabon. Over the decade ending in 2016, Moroccos investment in sub-Saharan Africa represented 85% of its overall foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks, underscored the UN publication. Moroccos investments are mainly concentrated in the fields of banking and telecommunications sectors, which, in 2013, accounted for 88% of its FDIs, said the magazine, adding that insurance is another sector in which Moroccan companies, such as the Saham Insurance Group, are investing. The author also highlights the expansion of Moroccos flagship carrier, RAM, across the continent registering an increase in flights to African destination from 14 in 2007 to 32 in 2016. In tandem with its investments and economic clout, Morocco has launched a diplomatic offensive led by the King himself who toured several African countries. Such visits gathered support for Moroccos return to the African Union and resulted in inking joint ventures, the most important of which was the agreement to launch a gas pipeline between Nigeria and Morocco through western Africa, and the fertilizers factory in Ethiopia. Morocco withdrew from the predecessor of the AU, the Organization of African Unity, in 1984, on grounds of the biased decision of the organization. The OAU had actually violated neutrality in the Sahara conflict by admitting the Algeria-based separatist entity, SADR, as a full-fledged member. Since then Morocco has been conditioning its return to the pan-African body on the withdrawal of the Polisario membership and the respect of the UN-brokered political process to settle the Sahara issue. French daily, Le Figaro, recently published an analysis of Moroccos diplomatic offensive to regain its place within the African Union, highlighting the Kingdoms increasing political, economic and religious clout in the continent. Morocco is set on breaking away with the empty chair policy within Africas institutional family by applying for a return to the pan-African organization, the paper says, underscoring that this has launched a new momentum in Moroccos ties with several African countries known for their side-lining with the Algerian-backed Polisario separatists. The Moroccan diplomatic offensive included the appointment of Ambassadors in countries, such as South Africa, which together with Algeria form the backbone of Polisarios support in Africa, says the paper. Le Figaro, also highlights the increasing clout of Moroccos soft power in Africa which combines win-win economic projects with historical ties reflected in the spread of the Tijania Tariqa that boasts 35 million followers in west Africa and whose founder is buried in Fez. Citing several African officials and observers, le Figaro underscores Moroccos success in winning the hearts of Africans through investments based on a win-win approach. For us, it is high time Morocco joined the African Union, the paper quoted Rwandas foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, as saying. Morocco withdrew from the predecessor of the AU, the Organization of African Unity, in 1984, following the biased decision of the organization that violated the neutrality principle in the Sahara conflict by admitting the Algeria-based separatist entity, SADR, as a full-fledged member. Since then Morocco has been conditioning its return to the pan-African body on the withdrawal of the Polisario membership and the respect of the UN-brokered political process to settle the Sahara issue. Moroccos return to the African institutional family hinges on a simple majority vote by the member countries. So far, 39 countries, making more than the majority of the 54 African Union member states, have expressed support for Moroccos return. Year after year, the movement for the self-determination of the Kabylie region (known by its French acronym MAK) gains ground among the population of the restive towns and cities east of the capital Algiers. On January 12, hundreds responded to the MAK call by taking to the streets of the mountainous cities, such as Tizi Ouzzou and Bejaia, despite the heavy security measures deployed by the Algerian regime. The protests coincide with the celebrations of the new Amazigh (Berber) year on January 12. Brandishing the blue, red and yellow flag of their would-be independent Kabyle state, MAK supporters called for the self-determination of their region and chanted slogans denouncing the atrocities of the Algerian regime, local reports said. Hundreds more were prevented from joining the protests in Tizi ouzzou and Bejaia due to roadblocks set up by the Algerian police, which proceeded to arbitrary arrests of several MAK militants and sympathisers. In the beginning of January, Bejaia and its surrounding towns were hit by violent protests against the new appropriation bill, which introduces new taxes and austerity measures on the backdrop of the dwindling hydrocarbon revenues. The MAK invokes a series of grievances the Kabylie region witnessed after the independence of Algeria. They blame the Algerian regime for seeking to eradicate their linguistic and cultural particularities by imposing an arabization policy coupled with economic marginalization. The MAK was founded by Ferhat Mhenni, who leads a provisional Kabyle government in exile. The movement was born in 2001 following the bloody crackdown by Algerian authorities on protesters in the region leaving at least 160 dead in events that came to be called, Kabylies Black Spring. The movement identifies itself as a pacifist movement seeking autonomy from Algiers as a prelude to founding an independent Kabylie state. Representative John Lewis. Photo: Astrid Riecken/Getty Images For weeks the controversy surrounding Donald Trumps inauguration has mostly focused on the performers who refuse to participate, but now a sizable number of lawmakers are skipping the event too. After Trump spent the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend feuding with Representative John Lewis, a civil-rights icon, at least two dozen Democratic lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting the inauguration. Lewis started the feud in an interview released Friday, telling Meet the Press that he doesnt consider Trump a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, Lewis said. Lewis also said that he would be skipping the inauguration for the first time in his three-decade congressional career. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right, he said. Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to...... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017 mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017 Trumps attack drew a harsh backlash, particularly from African-Americans. Lewiss district includes most of Atlanta, and several metrics show the city is not in horrible shape. Some Democrats had already announced that they wouldnt attend Trumps inauguration, but the number increased significantly over the weekend, with many citing Lewis in their explanation. "All talk, no action." I stand with @repjohnlewis and I will not be attending the inauguration. pic.twitter.com/z8Q0wA9OPK Mark Takano (@RepMarkTakano) January 14, 2017 After reading classified Russian hacking doc & @realDonaldTrump offensive tweets to @repjohnlewis I will not be attending the Inauguration. pic.twitter.com/wrEeGfqjrZ Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) January 15, 2017 I will NOT attend the inauguration of @realDonaldTrump. When you insult @repjohnlewis, you insult America. Yvette D. Clarke (@RepYvetteClarke) January 14, 2017 When #Trump places his hand on the Bible & takes the Oath of Office, he will in that moment, be in violation of that oath & the Constitution pic.twitter.com/mZCQrTua4R Mark DeSaulnier (@RepDeSaulnier) January 14, 2017 I will not be attending inauguration of @realDonaldTrump but WILL participate in the @womensmarch on January 21st. https://t.co/tlqS26ulj7 Rep. Nydia Velazquez (@NydiaVelazquez) January 9, 2017 By the Daily News count, 26 Democratic representatives are boycotting Fridays inauguration. Lawmakers usually attend the inauguration, regardless of which party won, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are planning to be there. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that hell always stand by my friend, American hero John Lewis, but he did not respond to the Daily News when asked if that has any bearing on the inauguration. So far, no senators have joined the boycott. Photo: Steve Krizman/Twitter Constituents of Colorados sixth district, waiting to meet with Congressman Mike Coffman on Saturday. A Republican congressman from Colorado has gotten a taste of what the backlash to repealing the Affordable Care Act may be like. Representative Mike Coffman, who co-wrote an op-ed in the Denver Post championing the full repeal of Obamacare on Friday, was overwhelmed by constituents at his own constituent-event in the town of Aurora on Saturday, so much so that he ultimately opted to sneak out of the event early rather than face the as many as 100 disgruntled people still waiting to speak with him. Many of the constituents had come to the meeting to voice their concerns to Coffman over the likely repeal of the ACA. Because the congressman and his staff opted to meet with people in small groups, rather than all at once, scores were stuck waiting in the lobby of the Aurora Public Library, where Coffmans office had reserved a room for the meeting. According to local media reports, Coffman met constituents in groups of only four people, instead of everyone all at once using a town-hall-style meeting. His chief of staff later insisted that was by design, as the congressman has typically used the regularly scheduled meetings to meet individually with constituents. But whatever number of constituents Coffman was expecting, a lot more as many as 200 people showed up to meet with him in the community room his staff had reserved. While Coffmans staff say they met with 70 people before running out of time, many more seem to have been stranded in the library lobby, where they chanted and sang as they waited cell-phone cameras running and some gave interviews to a crew from 9NEWS Denver, who reported on the event. The resulting news segment is unlikely to make Coffmans highlight reel, particularly because they recorded him leaving the event, six minutes before its scheduled end, rushing to a running car through a side door, which local police had apparently blocked off with crime-scene tape. It was not a profile in political courage by any measure: While more than 100 people were waiting to meet with him, Mike Coffman sneaks out early from his own community event. #9News pic.twitter.com/NAZlXTKgQm Nelson Garcia (@9Storytellers) January 14, 2017 Coffmans staff says they only booked the room at the library for a typically-sufficient 90 minutes, and were frustrated they didnt have more time to meet with everyone. They invited those constituents who went unheard to attend future meetings, which Coffmans staff will book extra time for. Many constituents were nonetheless angry that the congressman didnt speak with everyone together once he realized how many people had come to the event. At the heart of the scathing 9NEWS segment, which you can watch in full here, was an emotional interview with a woman named Berthie Ruoff. Ruoff, who was unable to meet with Coffman, said she had come to express her fears that she would lose her insurance once Obamacare was repealed, noting that she had a preexisting condition, being a breast-cancer survivor, and that her spouse who had health insurance had passed away. Whats going to happen to me? she asks in the interview. What am I supposed to do? Republicans in the House and Senate have already begun moving to repeal the ACA, but while Trump and GOP lawmakers have insisted they will also replace the law, they dont seem to have actually figured out, or at least agreed, what to replace Obamacare with. Coffman represents an emerging swing district in Colorado, and he ran an ad in August vowing to stand up to Donald Trump should Trump be elected, then remarked after the election that I am excited about the next two years and look forward to working with the president. Though Coffmans run-in with constituents on Saturday was only one small event in one congressional district, and its not clear if similar popular backlash will strike other proponents of Obamacares repeal, its important to recall that the backlash to Obamacare originally took shape, and eventually became the Tea Party movement, when conservatives overwhelmed Democratic lawmakers at constituent town halls in 2009. That political wave helped deliver the House back into the hands of Republicans in 2010 and paved the way to the populist political movement that made Donald Trump a presidential nominee. Its not at all clear if progressive organizers will be able to duplicate that scale of success, should they want to and try to, but if President-elect Trump and the GOP repeal the ACA without an adequate replacement, or muck up an attempt at entitlement or tax reform, it might provide a populist spark for Democrats and their allies. that is really depressing Reply Thread Link Tv >>>>> movies Reply Thread Link Weren't a bunch of female TV characters killed off last year Reply Parent Thread Link if they were a lesbian then yes they were Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yes. Leads, recurring, guests, woc, white women, gay/bi, all the women and around the same time. It felt worse than usual. Reply Parent Thread Link Only if they were POC or gay. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link If it had been in the top 10 domestically, Moana probably would have been the best movie re: women talking. Reply Thread Link i understand what this is trying to show but also didn't, for example, wonder woman have more like a cameo than a proper role in bvs? Reply Thread Link Nah Lois was more prominent Reply Parent Thread Link yeah i get that but also they didn't want wonder woman to have more than a cameo to get fans excited for her upcoming solo movie. but then again, they simply just should have had more female characters in the film Reply Parent Thread Link i think Holly Hunter also had more lines than WW Reply Parent Thread Link and Martha Kent also had more lines than WW Reply Parent Thread Link there are way more statistics at the source breaking movies down, i was just trying to pick ones that seemed compelling (BvS). i didn't see BvS so i wasn't even really aware that lois had that big of a role? Reply Parent Thread Link The fact that Wonder Woman didn't have a bigger role is part of the problem. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link That surprised me too, but tbh it seems like because there were so many characters in Rogue One, the dialogue was pretty evenly split between most of the main group. It would help if there were ever more than one woman per Star Wars movie though lol, like come on Disney. Reply Parent Thread Link I'd be interested to see a breakdown of dialogue per character but still, they went with the cliche of an ensemble cast that features only one woman. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I really wasn't surprised. Every other character in that movie was male Reply Parent Thread Link For Rogue One, I'd be more interested to see it in a comparison of speaking roles for people of color vs. white people. Edited at 2017-01-16 01:06 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link That's why i will never stop watching animation. Reply Thread Link ... can you elaborate? I'm not sure I get ur point, do you mean there's more women in animation? Reply Parent Thread Link Lol by animation i meant animated movies sorry. I just feel like in general there are many more interesting and diverse female characters in animated movies than in live action ones. Reply Parent Thread Link I was also reading this on Variety "Women comprised just 7 percent of all directors working on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016, a decline of two percentage points from the level achieved in 2015 and in 1998." All of this is depressing as hell. Reply Thread Link So it's basically real life? This is so fucking depressing :( Reply Thread Link And yet some men still like to think we talk too much all the fucking time. Reply Thread Link I was going to ask about movies like Ghostbusters and Bad Moms, but neither were in the top 10. :( Reply Thread Link Batman spoke 6 times more often than Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman. this is a weird part to mention because ww had maybe 10 minutes of screentime while bats was a co-lead. Reply Thread Link Lois Lana was the glue that held together most of the shitty plot Reply Parent Thread Link Lois Lane had the most screentime of the women Reply Parent Thread Link Somewhat, Lois had a bigger role but it wasn't coleading. Reply Parent Thread Link lois had more lines+screentime. ww's screentime isnt that much of an issue either because of the plot of the movie. if it was a trinity movie and the result was the same then that would be a huge problem. Edited at 2017-01-16 12:16 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link Batwoman vs Wonder Woman should've been the movie. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Rogue One had females speaking account for 9% of total words in the movie. For a movie that was had a female lead.... damn. Reply Thread Link I'm hardly suprised since yeah one of the leads was female but that was literally it. 2 minor female characters spoke once in that movie. The rest of the cast was all men. Reply Parent Thread Link And tbh, it was great that it was all men of color, but couldn't we have women of color too??? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link mon mothma spoke more than once but i wish she'd had a bigger role than she did Reply Parent Thread Link The droid spoke more than her. Edited at 2017-01-16 12:29 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link lmao jyn was White Feminism, the Protag tho Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Well at least girls hopefully feel like they are seeing themselves in things like zootopia and finding dory but it is so depressing that the only time we even remotely get representation is as cartoon animals. Reply Thread Link It's the reason I've been such a cheerleader for Moana. It's rare I get to spend a movie see a young woman save not only herself but others. Edited at 2017-01-16 01:49 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link i doubt it re zootopia and finding dory. the thing with those movies is that they are all animals and many of them aren't really assigned much of a notable gender. dory, for instance, could just as well be a girl as a boy IMO. Reply Parent Thread Link Dory, fine because fish are a little different in that there is virtually zero difference in appearance, but the character design for zootopia is such that I disagree with that one and that message was about discrimination anyway so I especially hope that little girls watched it and felt inspired Reply Parent Thread Link But having a character where the gender wouldn't really matter and they make that character female is worthy in its own right, IMO. There are so many male characters you could say the same thing about and I'm like, "Would it really have killed you to make at one of them female?" So I'm HF Dory. Reply Parent Thread Link A new app developed in Oklahoma is looking to streamline communication between well pumpers and operators by eliminating the need for lengthy paperwork and prioritizing photo evidence as a key means of verification of work. Ushering in a new era The current system for recording measurements on well-to-well gauge tanks is rather old-school: it has pumpers note their daily progress on little slips of paper (yeah, we said paper) that are prone to being misplaced. The new app allows oil industry workers to enter their numbers in the apps database or send an image of their paper ticket to their higher-ups. According to the apps developer, Greg Archbald, GreaseBook is an app for oil and gas operators. It allows them to better utilize their single greatest asset: pumpers. With GreaseBook, operators can create measurable improvements to your pumpers' contributions while generating a powerful impact to your current and future cash flows. The app claims that the new process, which includes well history as well as run tickets that can now be accessed directly through the app, could save the equivalent of four days of work each month, and would allow pumpers to focus more on the wells under their purview. Why Grease? Grease books, according to Archbald, were physical books that operators would take to the field in order to record their numbers. After dipping a tape measure into the tanks, they would write in their levels, leaving their greasy imprints visible on the front and back covers of the book. Related: Five Energy Predictions For 2017 The fact that it sounds familiar to something like Facebook was totally unintentional, but it doesnt hurt, the founder told The Surge last year, adding that the apps title makes its function obvious to its primary users. The vast majority of the pumping market remains unaware of or unamused by the new app, since the United States hosts over one million wells, and the app has not yet taken hold. Approximately three-fourths of the pumping market is made up of designated strip wells, producing up to 15 barrels of oil or fewer per day. These wells could be equipped with telemetric sensors that auto-report output, but the high cost of the ever-ready devices keep companies from installing them. So employees are therefore tasked with driving around fields housing strip wells to collect the much-needed information. Related: What Is Holding Renewable Energy Back? Several firms have attempted to develop an online well management system prior to Greasebook that uses Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets or Palm Pilots (when those were still in) or other paper-based systems that required a dedicated employee to upload daily figures. These efforts began before the widespread distribution of smart handheld devices, after the release of the iPhone in 2008 and the further development of Android touchscreen mobile phones in the few months after. Archibald argues that the new app represents a middle ground between wholly automated telemetry and the antiquated paper strips. By providing iPads along with the software, the company acts as a one-stop shop, avoiding hardware compatibility issues. By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria may have cut their respective production below the levels they had promised in the OPEC deal, because all three are eager to show not only that they comply with the cuts, but also reduce supply more than pledged, according to JP Morgan Emerging Markets. Arguably these states were crucial to the negotiations that forged the deal last year and are keen to demonstrate not just compliance but production cuts that go beyond the agreed level, JP Morgan Emerging Markets said in research, as quoted by Azeri outlet Trend news agency. Saudi Arabia, in particular, has the fiscal capacity to cut output below the levels it had agreed with the cartel, the analysts said. Last week Saudi Arabias oil minister Khalid al-Falih said that the kingdom had cut production to below 10 million bpd, the lowest level in two years, and even lower than its commitment to reduce supply by 486,000 bpd to 10.058 million bpd. Kuwait, for its part, said 10 days ago that it had reduced oil production for January to around 2.707 million bpd, in line with the promised cuts. But its oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Sunday that the cuts could be even more: 146,000 bpd-148,000 bpd. Our part of the cut is 133,000. Today I was told that we dropped by 6,000 more, and we might drop to 146,000 to 148,000, the minister said on TV, as reported by Reuters. Algeria, whose production cut as per the deal is 50,000 bpd, would reduce January production by 60,000 bpd, and may even cut 65,000 bpd, according to Energy Minister Noureddine Boutarfa, as quoted by Bloomberg. Related: Canadas Oil Industry Goes On The Offensive The Saudis are OPECs biggest producer, while Kuwait and Algeria sit on a monitoring committee set up to supervise the implementation of the cuts. So its no surprise the three countries are trying to lead by example. The question is whether most of the other producers will comply. The Saudis, Kuwaitis and Algerians may cut more than pledged, in the meantime U.S. frackers are taking advantage of the situation. The chart below shows the 500,000 bpd production increase since OPEC announced the deal at the end of September. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: A Saturday missile attack by the Islamic State against the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zour was followed by an air strike by the Syrian military, the clash resulting in more than 30 dead. According to media, this was the biggest IS attack in Syria in the last few months. The Deir ez-Zour province is rich in oil and is of special importance for IS because it connects its last remaining stronghold in the country, Raqqa, to territories under its rule in neighboring Iraq. The terrorist group controls large parts of the province, and two years ago it had control over the city as well. According to reports, the targets of the IS attack were military posts in villages around the city of Deir ez-Zour. The Syrian military, for its part, hit a tank and three other IS vehicles. Some 20 of the casualties were IS members, media also say. Another battle against IS is being fought in the north of Syria around the city of al-Bab. The terrorists positions are under fire from, on the one hand, Turkish forces and Syrian rebel groups, and on the other, from the Syrian army and various militias from Iran and Iraq that are affiliated with the Assad government. Related: Where Will Oil Prices Go This Year? Regional news website Ara News notes that the Turkish forces and their allies have been bogged down in the area for over a month without much success. The battle is controversial because of the hostility between Ankara and Damascus. Turkey supports some of the rebel groups opposing the Assad government, which in turn is worried about any growing influence of Turkey in Syria. Whats more, Turkey has more than one target in the conflict: the countrys partner in the conflict, the U.S., recently told Ankara to focus its efforts on fighting IS, rather than the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey has a violent relationship with the Kurds, and according to media reports, has said it would attack the SDF after it takes control of al-Bab. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Meteorologist Paul Douglas writes about Minnesota weather daily, trying to go beyond the "highs" and "lows" of the weather story to discuss current trends and some of the how's and why's of meteorology. Rarely is our weather dull - every day is a new forecast challenge. Why is the weather doing what it's doing? Is climate change a real concern, and if so, how will my family be affected? Climate is flavoring all weather now, and I'll include links to timely stories that resonate with me. The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher, Several people at Santasi roundabout in Kumasi have lost their source of income after their shops were destroyed during a massive demolishing exercise on Thursday. Scores of shops and homes of people, mainly constructed with woods, were demolished during the exercise which was led by armed policemen. The affected people initially put up some level of resistance, but they were eventually overpowered by the policemen. Speaking with DAILY GUIDE, ASP Mohammed Yussif Tanko, the Ashanti Regional Police PRO, said the action was undertaken following a court order. He said the court ordered for the demolition exercise in January 2016, but the police delayed the exercise and rather engaged in talks with the squatters to vacate the place. According to him, the recalcitrant squatters seemed not ready to vacate the land, so the police had no other option than to help the bailiff to demolish the structures on Thursday. Delving deep into the case, ASP Tanko pointed out that the land in question is a government land which had been leased to a private person. The police PRO said the owner of the land went to the place only to meet scores of squatters, some whom were doing business there, with others living on it in constructed with wooden structures. The land owner, he added, went to court with his documents and secured an order to remove the squatters from the place so that he can develop the place. ASP Tanko said the police initially gave a human face to the issue by engaging the squatters to leave the place in peace. He disclosed that after a year, the squatters were still on the land so the police and the bailiff had no option than to eject the squatters from the place. Source: Daily Guide 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 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. ABC News(NEW YORK) -- President-elect Donald Trumps incoming chief of staff offered some hope that the new administration will abide by the Iran nuclear deal instead of tearing it up. Asked by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on This Week if the Iran agreement would continue under Trump, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said, It's yet to be seen how that is going to shape up." "We all know that President-elect Trump doesn't like the Iran deal, thinks it's a terrible document, thinks it will create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which it already is beginning to do, Priebus added. On the campaign trail, Trump vehemently criticized the Iran deal. He told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in May that "my number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran." He also later suggested that he would "renegotiate" the agreement. But Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, retired Gen. James Mattis, made a noteworthy departure from his boss's position during his Senate confirmation hearing last week, saying, I think it is an imperfect arms control agreement. It's not a friendship treaty. But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies. Priebus told Stephanopoulos he thinks the Iran deal "is on life support." I'm not here to declare one way or the other ultimately where this is going to go, Priebus said. In response to Mattis and Trump's different opinions, Priebus said the best way for the administration to decide on the Iran deal is through "a collective decision that is made, of course, with President-elect Trump having the primary say ... but all of those opinions will be in the room." U.S. allies, including a group of European Union foreign ministers, along with dozens of the nation's top scientists have urged Trump to keep the agreement. But nearly every Republican presidential candidate ran on destroying the deal, which remains unpopular among the president's elect's political party. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. There was a venerable State Police investigator around here years ago who used to refer to Vermont as the "catch and release state." "The cops catch 'em, and the courts release 'em," he would say. That was a criticism of the court system there, where it seemed at the time time that defendants didn't serve much time for serious offenses, then were released on furloughs and other programs to relieve jail overcrowding. That doesn't seem to be as true these days, but police on the Green Mountain side of the state line still seem to have different ways of doing things than their counterparts over here. The confounding disappearance of Vermont resident Jonathan Schaff after a night of drinking at a Granville bar seems to highlight some of the issues. (Here's an update article we published Sunday.) Schaff's cellphone being found in Vermont led to State Police there taking the lead in the case, and they concluded he fell in the Mettawee River, feet from where his phone was found. Three years later, it's clear that wasn't the case. Months of inactivity in the investigation led to a switch of lead investigators last year, and some renewed activity, such as re-interviews of witnesses and polygraph tests for some. Vermont State Police have said little about the case publicly since then. New York State Police and Granville Police would gladly turn up the heat on some of those believed to have been involved, from what I hear, if they weren't handcuffed by Vermont being the lead agency. And with witnesses from both sides of the border, interstate cooperation is needed. It is not shaping up as a shining example of law enforcement work, with so little known three years later. To release 'em, you have to catch 'em first. - Don Lehman Today we celebrate the birthday of one of America's great civil rights icons Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King fought tirelessly to secure the rights of black Americans during the 1960s and served as the inspiration for other movements, including the gay rights movement during the same decade. In his 2004 book Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, author David Carter looks at the "other" civil rights movement of the 1960s. Carter's book focuses broadly on the gay rights movement, but specifically on the now famous Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village. That bar became the scene of what would ultimately be the turning point in the gay rights movement the Stonewall riots. Through his interviews with bar-goers, activists and journalists of the time, Carter perfectly captures the adversity the gay community faced at that time, adversity which would ultimately boil over on June 28, 1969. During this time in American history, there were a variety of penalties for being gay. "Homosexual relations" were illegal, being gay constituted a dishonorable discharge from the military, laws required prohibited dressing in drag, and police officers would frequently harass people they suspected of being gay. The rhetoric and atmosphere surrounding gay life at the time was so bad that a few of those interviewed by Carter for the book had attempted or considered suicide. Even in Greenwich Village, the supposed Mecca of the gay rights movement, there were regular police beatings of gay people and crackdowns on gay bars. These bars, including the Stonewall Inn, were often run by the mafia, who would payoff the police to not crackdown on the bar. At that time, on average, 500 people per year were arrested for "crimes against nature," and an additional 3,000-5,000 for loitering. The crackdowns intensified as the World's Fair approached, and New York City officials vowed to "clean up" the streets. As the crackdowns on the bars continued to occur, the bar-goers eventually grew fed up and fought back. That's when the Stonewall Riots occurred. Police stormed the bar on June 28, 1969, and were met by a group of people not ready to be "hunted." The bar-goers fought back. Riots continued throughout the night, and by interviewing the witnesses, Carter is able to paint of vivid picture of the riots. While the bar was destroyed from the riots, it was open and ready the following night. Carter does a great job of developing the characters, who come from various political, religious, social and economic walks of life. A documentary was made based on the book and it tells many of the same stories, but lacks in character development. Carter's book serves as a reminder that there were multiple civil rights movements in the 1960s. QUEENSBURY Charles Lynn Stewart Bud, 92, passed away peacefully on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017 surrounded by his pastor and loved ones at Glens Falls Hospital. He was born on March 28, 1924 in Montpelier, Vermont. He was the son of the late Charles Garfield Stewart and the late Hattie May Gregory Stewart. Bud attended Northfield College in Northfield, Vermont and was drafted in the Army in 1942. He was honorably discharged in 1946 after serving in Europe during World War II. He married the love of his life, Beatrice Mae Clark on June 14, 1947. They had two children while residing in Montpelier, Vermont where he worked as a salesman at Montgomery Ward in the automotive department for 32 years. He was transferred to Glens Falls and later to the Queensbury store. The Stewart family spent their vacations camping in their tent trailer while visiting several states. He took early retirement in 1982. Bud and Bea enjoyed retirement and made good use of their travel trailer. They went to Cape Cod every October for many years. They joined the Good Sam RV Club and did lots of traveling around the country. They especially loved visiting their daughter and her family in Spring Lake, North Carolina. Bud was a Mason for over 60 years and a Shriner. He loved being a Keystone Cop at the Balloon Festival and the many parades to raise money for Shriner's Hospitals. He was proud of the many trips he made to the Shriner's Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts transporting children in need of medical attention. He was a member of the Christ Church United Methodist on Bay Street in Glens Falls and served as an usher and treasurer for several years. Bud was a people person and had many friends. He was famous for his sense of humor and his one liners. He was ready to help anyone any time. He enjoyed feeding the birds and squirrels in his yard, checking out the night sky, but most of all, he loved his family. He was overjoyed when his children and their families came for a visit. He was predeceased by his parents and his two brothers, Harlan and Vaughn. Bud is survived by his wife of 69 years, Beatrice of Queensbury; his daughter Brenda Allen of Spring Lake, North Carolina; his son David Stewart and his wife Christine of Queensbury; his grandchildren Michael Allen and his wife Melissa, Barbara Moore, Tracey Deskin and her husband David, all of North Carolina and Alyssa Smith and her husband Jason of South Carolina, Carrie Needham and her husband Mike, Chad Stewart and his wife Rebecca, Cody Stewart and his wife Molly, all of New York State and Shane Stewart and his wife Renee of Maryland. He is also survived by 17 great grandchildren and several nieces, nephews and cousins. Bud's family would like to thank his devoted caregivers, especially Mary, Ernie, Anne, Tina and Kristina. Calling hours will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at Regan Denny Stafford Funeral Home, 53 Quaker Rd., Queensbury with a funeral service to immediately follow at 3 p.m. at the funeral home. Interment will be at the convenience of the family. Bud's family suggest memorial donations in his name be made to the Shriner's Hospital, 516 Carew St., Springfield, MA 01104. To leave the family an online condolence, visit www.sbfuneralhome.com. WHITEHALL Will and Anthony Nunziata have been featured on Good Morning America and The Rachael Ray Show. The singing twin brothers have toured the country, performing from Cleveland to Colorado. In December, the New York City entertainers made their Carnegie Hall debut, headlining alongside Broadway stars and the New York Pops. And next month, they will take the stage at Whitehall High School. The people there are humble, hard-working, loving people, said Anthony Nunziata, who has visited the small Washington County town about a dozen times. Ive gotten to know them on a personal level. Nunziata and his brother, Will both attended Boston College, where they befriended Whitehall native Matthew Putorti, who took the Brooklyn-born brothers to his hometown to visit. Since then, the Nunziatas have become de facto members of the Putorti family. In fact, Putortis parents and family attended the Carnegie Hall show in December. Whitehall came to Carnegie Hall, Nunziata said, so I figured we have to bring Carnegie Hall to Whitehall. This will actually be the third time the singing duo has performed in Whitehall. The musical show offers a fresh take on Broadway, R&B and contemporary music as well as some original songs. The brothers have also performed at the Charles R. Wood Theater in Glens Falls. The proceeds of this show will benefit Whitehalls We Care Project, a charity started three years ago to raise money to help Whitehall teachers buy necessary items for low income students such as backpacks, school supplies, winter clothing and food. We just feel really fortunate they are able to do this for us, said Cheryl Putorti, the We Care Project chairperson. Nunziata lauded the We Care Project and the Putorti familys ability to recognize the needs of less fortunate students in the Whitehall community. That touched me, Nunziata said. Its such a beautiful thing that they do. While in Whitehall, the brothers will also spend a day at Whitehall High School interacting with the students and teaching a master class as part of their arts-in-education outreach program called Arts Matter! Wherever they perform, the Nunziatas try to make it a community event, either by meeting with local students or bringing school choirs on stage to perform with them. At Whitehall, the brothers will host a one-hour assembly with Whitehall, Granville and Fort Ann school students and will stay at the high school throughout the day to work with music and drama students. The music department is thrilled to have them, said Melissa Clark, Whitehalls band director and Drama Club adviser. It is not very often a high school has the opportunity to share musicians of their caliber with their students, Clark said. Our kids are looking forward to working with them both during the school day and during the assembly that they will present here on that Friday. Putorti said she has watched the Nunziatas career grow since they graduated from Boston College in 2006. The Putorti family has followed their careers and watched their venues grow bigger through the years. They are very charismatic, Putorti said, adding, Everybody just seems to be drawn in and really loves their performance. MOREAU A New Jersey man was charged with felony aggravated driving while intoxicated after he was found to be driving drunk with three kids in his vehicle during a Friday night traffic stop on the Northway, police said. Christopher D. Murphy, 45, of Sicklerville, New Jersey, was arrested after he was stopped for speeding in the northbound lanes of the highway near Exit 17 shortly before midnight, police records show. Authorities said he had three children under the age of 16 in the vehicle, which led to the felony aggravated DWI count. Murphy was arraigned in Moreau Town Court and released on his own recognizance. It was unclear to whom the children were released. Q: What is Dr. Martin Luther Kings most important legacy today? Right now, as President Obama leaves office it is important for us to be very aware and very cautiously optimistic about our next president. Dr. King said we need to be watchful and ready to respond with non-violence. LEONARD OATES Hudson Falls pastor His legacy is one of standing up for everyone justice, equal pay, equal rights. Be kind to each other. That was Dr. Kings message. MARY GOODEN Glens Falls retired The most important legacy in this day and age is that we have to look back at where we came from, not just on this one day, but 365 days a year. We need to be diligent. We are slipping. LEE BRAGG Glens Falls NAACP I think the most important thing is to just come together and recognize unity and that its a good thing. HOPE HUFFMAN Queensbury student That he spoke on equality, that all people are equal, from all walks of life and all religions. We need to remember that. ADRIENNE TALBOT Glens Falls accountant We have to remember his altruistic spirit and promoting people accepting people. SUSAN ROMAN Queensbury Catholic Charities Editors note: The question was asked at Sundays celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King in Glens Falls. Compiled by Bill Toscano Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East The Nana Addo-led government promised during its campaign ahead of the 2016 elections to reduce taxes if they were voted into power. But William Owusu Demetia said government has two options; it has to either find another item that has not previously been taxed to impose the taxes on or pursue defaulting tax payers to pay their taxes. By this the tax compliance could increase from about 50 to 70 percent. Speaking to Accra-based Citi FM, William Demetia said the Nana Addo administration risk financial dip if it does not device new ways of generating revenue after the tax cut. This will enable government get revenue from the additional twenty percent to compensate for a drop in the rate that they are proposing. Government has to be able to ensure that its revenue basket is not reduced; it has to be maintained or improved, he explained. READ ALSO: Number of Banks to increase Taxes such as the 17.5 percent VAT on financial services and domestic air tickets would be scrapped while others such as corporate income tax would be reduced from 25 to 20 percent. Also, the special import levy, 17.5 % VAT on imported medicines not produced in Ghana, 5% VAT on Real Estates are expected to be abolished under the NPP government. Meanwhile, the 17.5% VAT for small enterprises is expected to be reduced to 3% flat rate. While globalisation's detractors blame countries such as China and Mexico for stealing the factory jobs of the West, experts point to less obvious culprits which are harder to scapegoat and to overcome in an interconnected economy with complex supply chains. Since US manufacturing employment peaked in the late 1970s, according to Michael Hicks of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, "95 percent of job losses were due to productivity improvements including automation and computer technology, rather than trade". Indiana is one of the rust-belt states where Trump triumphed in November, and the president-elect has promised a punitive border tax against outsourcing companies as he bids to become "the greatest jobs producer that God ever created". But while the US economy is pumping out manufactured goods in record volumes, it is achieving that feat with 7.3 million fewer factory hands than in 1979, government figures show. Automation has transformed the productivity of manufacturing since industrial robots first started painting, cutting, welding and assembling in the 1960s. And experts point to more recent innovations such as artificial intelligence, management apps and 3D printing as new threats to shop-floor workers as well as to white-collar staff. 'Political theatre' Hicks -- who has known former Indiana governor Mike Pence, Trump's incoming vice president, for years -- dismissed recent announcements by Ford, Indiana air-conditioning brand Carrier and others as "political theatre". "The apparent change of heart of these American companies is due to the hard math of expected tax cuts and regulatory changes (under the Trump administration)," he told AFP in a phone interview, noting that under company projections, robots rather than wages will account for the bulk of planned investment that is being redirected from Mexico to the US. Vows to renegotiate trade pacts, or declare China a currency cheat, played well for Trump on the campaign trail but trends such as automation have already rendered much low-skilled US labour obsolete. The total output of US manufacturing rose more than 250 percent from 1980 to 2015, but its workforce slumped by roughly 40 percent in that time, according to analysis by the Brookings Institution in Washington. "These diverging lines -- which reflect the sector's improved productivity -- highlight a huge problem with Trump's promises to help workers by reshoring millions of manufacturing jobs," Brookings expert Mark Muro wrote in a blog post. "America is already producing a lot. And in any event, the return of more manufacturing won't bring back many jobs because the labour is increasingly being done by robots." Annual data from the International Federation of Robotics show an inexorable rise in the worldwide use of industrial robots. China is now the biggest market for them. 'Trade doesn't kill jobs' Even if jobs did return, Western consumers are likely to balk at paying the higher prices that companies would have to charge to reflect the higher input prices -- everything from wages to property leases and electricity tariffs -- of making those goods at home. Take television manufacturing. Had that stayed in America, experts say, each set would cost hundreds of dollars more than they do now on average, limiting their affordability. Households would have stuck with one TV in the living room, instead of several dotted around the home. "Trade doesn't kill jobs, it protects consumption," Hicks said, while also stressing that globalisation had created millions more jobs in Western nations' services and logistics sectors than it has destroyed in industry. So if those manufacturing jobs are gone forever -- and new developments such as machine learning and nanotechnology portend a "Fourth Industrial Revolution" -- what can be done to assure the future of workers in the developed world? Some ideas are in their policy infancy, such as a universal basic income, but others are well-known and perhaps more pressing than ever, including better education and re-training. Such discussions will inform the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, coming up in the same week that sees Trump inaugurated as the 45th US president on January 20. The Head of Policy Unit at the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), Dr. Ishmael Ackah explained that most of the agreements were reached at a period when the country was going through energy crisis and since some of the IPPs were not performing it was better to cancel their agreements. So we signed a contract with you three years ago when we were having these challenges and three years after when the situation is becoming a little stable you still not perform your part of the deal then it is better we either cancel it or convert it to a normal thermal plant agreement, he said. Normally under such agreements, we pay for high capacity charges and it so many with many emergency plants. Some of the IPPs, the agreement we signed was that we signed it more like an emergency plant agreements, he added. However, former Finance Minister Seth Terkper before he left office revealed that government has put a halt on signing new power agreement with independent companies. POTAG said Nana Addo must put a "team together as a matter urgency to deal with the challenges concerning our Conditions of Service as Teachers of Technical Universities." The General Secretary of POTAG, David Worwui-Brown addressing a press conference in Ho, he appealed to the President to address challenges associated with the transition process of the conversion of the technical universities. The Association has however called for a team to be put together as a matter of urgency to deal with challenges concerning their conditions of service as teachers of technical universities. Read also:Professor Amartey inducted as new Vice Chancellor of UPSA They also appealed for the timely payment of their book and research allowances for the 2016/2017 academic year, as well as the release of their "Tier 2" "pension contributions to their trustee. Below is the full statement issued by POTAG: POTAG PRESS STATEMENT We, the Teachers of the Technical Universities and Polytechnics (POTAG) wish to congratulate His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his Vice on assumption of office as President and Vice President of the Republic and assure them of our maximum cooperation. We also wish to congratulate Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh as the Minister of Education Designate, and equally assure him of a good working relationship when he assumes office after approval by Parliament. We wish to appeal to the President of the Republic and his team to expedite action in putting things in order for the smooth take off of his administration to enable them to: Read more: WAEC releases results of private WASSCE candidates We hope our concerns will be given timely and favourable attention. God bless our Homeland Ghana and make our Nation Great and Strong. Long Live Technical Education Read more: Nana Addo makes fun of plagiarism gaffe Keynote address will be delivered by the Country Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Dr Abebe Haile Gabriel. The three-day annual event, geared towards is dedicated to the agriculture sector and the use of ICT to advance the sector and improve the lot of farmers. The Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Education, Professor Michael Tagoe, said agriculture has been identified as one of the sectors, which spurs the country's development because of its direct bearing on industry. READ ALSO: Photo The Ghanaian based Gambian actress is never one to shy away from flashing too much flesh for the cameras as she shows off her incredible body in a skimpy bikini. READ ALSO: Ghana Music In a long Instagram post tagged along with her photos, she asked her followers to expect more daring bikini photos this year as she is ready to make money and have fun doing what she loves best. READ ALSO: Photo of The Day Read her post below, Please I'm not a "Role Model " .... I'm here to f*** ish up with my talent..... I am in an industry where you have to express yourself the best way you know how..... I'm here to make money and have fun doing what I was born to do. It's either you accept me and my craziness or move on and look for some other female to be your role model . In the account of the Paris robbery she described how she was bound and gagged and said one of the gang was wearing a jacket emblazoned with police insignia. The Journal du Dimanche said it had exclusive access to the handwritten report based on Kardashian's account, in which she said that the robbers seemed "inexperienced". The newspaper also said it had a transcript of a brief interview given to police after the masked men burst into Kardashian's luxury residence in October, taking jewellery worth nine million euros ($9.5 million). 'Old Omar and Blue Eyes' Investigators say the gang's key members were Aomar Ait Khedache and Didier Dubreucq, men in their 60s with long criminal pasts nicknamed "Old Omar" and "Blue Eyes". In the Journal du Dimanche report, for which the newspaper did not provide English quotes, Kardashian, 36, said she heard noises at the door after returning from dinner after midnight. Her bodyguard was absent, guarding her sister Kourtney at a nightclub. "I saw through the sliding door two people coming," Kardashian said in comments translated from the newspaper's French account, adding that one of the men was wearing "a jacket with 'police' written on it". "He asked me with a strong French accent where my ring was. It was on the bedside table. (But) I replied that I didn't know and then he pulled out a gun and I showed him the ring," she told police, adding it was worth four million dollars. Kardashian told police the men tied her up with plastic cables and adhesive tape "and they carried me to my bathroom" where they placed her in the bathtub. The gang also took a box containing jewellery including two Cartier diamond bracelets, a diamond-studded necklace, a yellow gold Rolex watch and a diamond-encrusted cross. The wife of Kanye West said after the gang had put her in the bathroom that she heard the men talking to each other in French and had the impression they were saying they should leave. Once they had fled, Kardashian managed to free herself -- she told police she could tell the men were "kind of inexperienced in the way they tied me up". 'Completely amateurish' The alleged mastermind, 60-year-old Khedache has been charged, along with nine others. Investigators have told AFP that he had gone on the run six years ago while on trial for drug trafficking offences. In September last year, an acquaintance gave him "a tipoff worth its weight in gold", according to one investigator -- that Kardashian and her entourage would be staying at a discreet apartment-hotel complex in Paris's chic Madeleine district to attend catwalk shows during fashion week. He recruited Dubreucq, 61, who had previous convictions for robbery and drugs. Khedache's lawyer Jean-Yves Lienard said the gang were "completely amateurish". His own client left traces of his DNA on the plastic cable and the tape they used to tie up Kardashian. Khedache "has admitted taking part in the robbery but has refused to speak about any accomplices and denies he was the mastermind", Lienard said. He told Lienard that the jewellery was passed to another party. Khedache was seen in the Belgian city of Antwerp, one of the world centres of the diamond industry, with another suspect, 64-year-old Marceau Baum-Gartner, a few days after the robbery. French police had placed other members of the gang under surveillance and spotted four of them meeting up at a Paris bar in December. The popular Kardashian detailed her ordeal in the hands of thieves less than two hours after thieves stole more than $10 million in jewellery in October 2016. It reads: "I heard a noise at the door, like, footsteps, and I shouted to ask who was there, but no one answered," the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star told police, "I called my bodyguard at 2:56 a.m. Then, beyond the sliding doors, I saw two people arrive with the gentleman from reception, and he was tied up. Both men were hooded, one had a ski mask and he had a cap and a jacket with 'police' on it. The second man had the same 'police' clothes but did not have any ski mask. ... It was the one with the ski mask who stayed with me." Recalling one of the burglars, Kardashian reportedly explained, "He had a strong French accent and asked me for my ring [in English]. He looked at what was on the bedside table. It was worth $4 million." The report said the man repeatedly asked the reality star to hand over her diamond engagement ring. "He took out a gun and I showed him the ring. He had gloves. He asked me where the jewels and the money were," she said. Adding, "And at that point, they tied me up and put plastic cables and scotch tape on my hands, and then taped my mouth and my legs." The robbers then took the mum-of-two to the bathroom, where they placed her in the bathtub inside her private residence at Hotel de Pourtales. Soon after, "they ran away," she explained. "During the theft, they had the hotel's mobile phone that did not stop ringing, and they spoke in French. I got the impression they were saying they had to leave." According to the report, Kardashian said the men seemed "a bit inexperienced" as she was able to successfully remove the tape from her hands and mouth. During the robbery, the men stole more than $10 million in jewellery, including diamond bracelets, earrings and a necklace with Kardashian's son Saint's name on it. He said the government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will announce the restoration of the allowances in their first budget in March. The NPP has assured thousands of nursing and teacher trainees across the country of the full restoration of their allowances. The party noted that with just GH20 billion in revenues (loans and taxes), and without the benefit of oil revenues, the NPP was able to pay nursing trainee and teacher trainee allowances during the Kufour administration. Read more: In reassuring the nursing students during the campaign season, Dr. Bawumia noted that in the very first budget of an Akufo-Addo government in 2017, "the restoration of nursing trainee and teacher allowances will be a line item in the budget. We shall restore your allowances in full. It will not be a propaganda restoration, but a full restoration of your allowances." Dr. Bawumia addressing a gathering at Fadama in Accra said government is committed and will not fail to fulfil its promise to restore the allowances. Read also: Trainee nurses welcome allowance restoration "We are very determined to restore our promise on the teacher trainee and nursing allowances. The teacher trainee and nursing allowance will come off after the first budget in March. In an interview with Kumasi-based Ultimate FM, Dr Donkor explained that her royal attire will make her recognisable when she reaches the other world where she is unknown. She further clarified that the queen mother cannot be dressed like any ordinary person considering her position and role before she died. Oh yes, remember she is a royal and also remember her office right, so she will be dressed to depict the status that befits her during the final burial rites, remember she is going on a journey and she has to be welcomed properly in the other world and so she must appear in a way that will commensurate with her status so that those people on the other side will recognise her and accord her the same dignity, Dr Donkor explained. She also mentioned that series of rituals will be conducted before the queen mother is buried. Traditionally, just like it is done when any royal dies, there are certain rites that take place, and so Nanahemaa has to also go through that rituals, and here they receive bathing items for her bath from all the royal in-laws. That was one of the important rites that was performed yesterday, is to cleanse, purify and prepare her for the next world that will be her last bath on this earth, she explained. READ ALSO: Kumasi residents warned to stay indoors She added that the traditional priests have been dancing amidst other ritual performances ensuring that there is law and order at the Palace. According to Truth and Accountable Governance (TAG), Madam Catherine Afeku as Minister designate of Tourism and Creative Arts is not the right person for the ministry. The group in a statement signed by its convener, Sirr Abdalah is alleging that the nominee is a fraudster and as such, should have her nomination revoked in order to save the integrity the presidents nominees. "Mrs Afeku and her husband, Mr Seth Afeku, were found guilty for defrauding an American couple on 19-10-2013 by an Accra High Court presided over by Her [Ladyship] Barbara Ackah-Yensu. The trial judge directed the MP for Evalue-Gwira constituency and her husband to pay an amount of $217,464 plus 50 per cent interest to the plaintiff, Patricia and Bill Gick." According to him, such a character should not be allowed to hold public office. "We also believe that Private Investors both Local and International will not have confidence and trust in the sector if an alleged fraudster is allowed to hold that office. H.E Akufo-Addo being a Lawyer and an anti-corruption campaigner, should have known better. We are calling on him to immediately revoke the appointment of Mrs Catherine Afeku as Minister of Tourism designate if he wants Ghanaians to believe in his willingness to fight corrupt officials," he said. Meanwhile, Sirr Abdalah in an interview on Accra FM said, "We want to make sure that our public servants are credible, without blemish, and are people who can protect our purse. This woman was declared a fraudster and so she should not be appointed as a minister. She has violated a court order and so should not be given any ministerial appointment." 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! This caused a conversational turmoil in Ghana with some calling on Nana Addo to sack the speech writers and a formal apology from the president for the mistake committed. However, speaking at a thanksgiving service at the Ridge Church in Accra, Nana Addo amused the congregation when he quoted from the Bible and reminded them that he has purged himself of any form of plagiarism. "I want to refer to the book of Lamentation 3: 25, 26: The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord," Nana Addo quoted from the Bible. He joked again saying, "end of the quote. I have had problems with quotes so that there is no more confusion." Read also: Nana Addo said thanked Ghanaians for giving him the mandate to rule Ghana. I am "so proud and deeply humbled" to lead Ghana, he added. Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Prof. Cephas Omenyo on his part praised Nana Addo over his commitment to protect the public purse. He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the partnership between his foundation and the millennium promise alliance. The former president said all that is being done currently is enshrined in the constitution and therefore if there was to be any change it must be from a review of the constitution. Those are constitutional and we are a country of laws. We talk of rule of law if there is something in there you do not like go back and seek the solution in the constitution. You want to reform it use the constitutional prescription for solution. Not until youve done it you shouldnt waste too much time. The former president who has been staying in the Cantonments residence ever since he was Vice president explained that he had asked for the residence to be allocated to him as his retirement home. Many argued that this will leave the current Vice President stranded a case ex-president Mahama denied. He said provisions had been made for Dr Bawumia to live in another official residence. However following the continuous backlash from the general public Former President John Mahama sent a letter to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo withdrawing his preference of his official bungalow as part of his retirement package. Sources close to Pulse.com.gh confirmed Mahama personally wrote to the Nana Addo to rescind his interest in the house at Cantonment. This was after a feud between the victim and Elizabeth Elijah, popularly known as Bose (the perpetrator). READ ALSO: Police officers arrested for robbing miners According to the Daily Graphic, Hawa narrated that she had gone to fetch water when the incident occurred at Abossey Okai Zongo Junction in Accra to fetch water. Hawa said they both exchanged insults and as the confrontation got nasty Elizabeth lifted the soup that was on fire and poured the contents on her. READ ALSO: Nana Afia Kobi to be buried with gold ornaments Hawa expressed shock that all those present at the time looked unconcerned. The police who confirmed this said she (Elizabeth) is in the cells and we are still in the process of preparing her for court, the source said. Ex-president Kufuor entreated the general public to trust that President Nana Addo knows will deliver on his promises he made during the campaign season. "I am very confident in his team. Look, the country has assigned him a job. We should give him the free hand to do the job for us. We didnt vote for nothing. We voted because we expect him to give solutions to us. And he says this is the way I can do the work. And you sit on the sidelines and say I wont allow you to use the method you can use to give us the solutions. Is that what we wantLets measure him by the way he works? Some of the new ministries include the Ministry for Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Ministry of Planning, Ministry for Business Development amongst others. However, President Nana Akufo-Addo clarified the idea behind his decision to create six new ministerial portfolios under his administration. He said the six portfolios that are coming out as new portfolios will be working under the umbrella of the Office of the President. They are not stand up ministries that are going to be [built]. They are all going to function as part of the Office of the President but the ministries involved would have their dedicated portfolios and you will find [their ] budget [under] the Office of the President. But former President Kufour argued that the President must be given the free hand to fix his team. So lets allow the President to fix his team and then lets measure him by the way he delivers the results not the numbers. Meanwhile Parliament has set a 26-member Appointments Committee to vet the nominees for various ministerial portfolios. According to him, looting of state funds and taking Ghanaians for granted must be tolerated in his government. Read more: Nana Addo makes fun of plagiarism gaffe Mr Amidu in a release said, "Your Excellency, these ordinary Ghanaians are not looking for appointments or positions in your Government neither do they care about the usual diplomatic political correctness of the international community in pretending that these citizens did not actively thwart the incumbents rigging machine that forced the acceptance of defeat and the symbolic arrangements for conceding defeat before the results were finally announced by the Electoral Commission. All that these ordinary and committed citizens care about is that you never repeat the mistakes of your immediate predecessors government which simply took Ghanaians for granted as undiscerning and looted them to pulp."Read the full release by Amidu: Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana! We travelled the same path as fellow travellers and citizens seeking free and fair elections at the 7th December 2016 Presidential and General elections when you were the Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). That auditions journey, by the will of the electorate, resulted in the potentiality for positive and lasting democratic change for our great country Ghana when you overwhelmingly won the elections for President. Ghanaians have since been waiting with bated breath for their votes to be reciprocated with the transformation of the potential into real, concrete, and above all positive changes as you assured the nation. At midnight on 6th January 2017 Parliament was convoked with a majority of members belonging to the NPP which sponsored your candidature for President. The next day, 7th January 2017 upon your taking the solemn oath of office and assuming office as a popularly elected President and Commander-in-Chief of our dear Republic in recent memory we, your fellow travellers parted company with you as citizen travellers to remain citizens only while you took your additional and rightful place as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Ghana for the next four years. In these coming four years, your fate for the success or failure of the management of the enterprise called Corporate Ghana is solely in your own and exclusive hands. Mr. President there is no gain saying that the experiences of the majority of Ghanaians in the immediate past few years have generated tremendous support and enthusiasm for your professed cause of action to save our dear country within the next four years. In whatever you do for the next four years, remember that unlike your predecessor whose mandate was based on a casting vote of the Supreme Court, you received the overwhelming vote of the entire nation in spite of deliberate attempts by the incumbent to rig the elections. Electoral Commission and cohort member, it does not now matter to us whether the margin between the winner and incumbent stood at 1.5 million when you succumbed and declared the results or at your revised figure of 984,570 votes as you caused to be published on Starrfm on 12th January 2017 Gambian style we the citizens thwarted the rigging machine, period! Your Excellency Mr. President, in this new presidential journey upon which you have embarked, remember at all times during your tenure that your massive victory and thrashing of the incumbent, and the majority parliamentary seats your political party gained was not the exclusive work of members of the political party that sponsored your candidature. Indeed, it was the collective work of millions of ordinary Ghanaians including some frustrated supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), our brothers and sisters in uniform, retired persons on the reserve list, and retired persons generally who had committed their lives to fighting the machinery which the incumbent had put in place to facilitate rigging the elections against the winning candidate. Your Excellency, these ordinary Ghanaians are not looking for appointments or positions in your Government neither do they care about the usual diplomatic political correctness of the international community in pretending that these citizens did not actively thwart the incumbents rigging machine that forced the acceptance of defeat and the symbolic arrangements for conceding defeat before the results were finally announced by the Electoral Commission. All that these ordinary and committed citizens care about is that you never repeat the mistakes of your immediate predecessors government which simply took Ghanaians for granted as undiscerning and looted them to pulp. ECOWAS and the other international political establishments did not commission Ghanaians to defend their own country and its democratic credentials. This is Ghana, and John Dramani Mahama and his cohorts could not have refused to concede defeat when the victory was so overwhelming let alone to have done what Yahaya Jammeh did in The Gambia. Thank God! The facts and social and political interactions from 7th December 2016 to the formal declaration of the results will forever be preserved in cyberspace to support the fact that there were active malicious attempts to rig the elections in Ghana by the incumbent and his cohorts. And no amount of reframing of the facts by any external bodies to give the appearance that John Mahama voluntarily conceded defeat to the winner can ever change what really happened. The prime credit for successfully managing last years elections goes first and foremost to the Supreme Court of Ghana for narrowing the windows for rigging and secondly to the vigilance of ordinary Ghanaians against that type of looting which must be acknowledged by the international community and not reframed. Your Excellency, I have read several written statements by fellow citizens showing the usual euphoria of victory in trying to deify you even before you can execute any of your promised developmental plans, adherence to the rule of law and good governance systems. Such unintended sycophancy is the greatest danger facing African leaders including Ghana with numerous examples of the halleluiah, halleluiah today and cries of crucify him, crucify him tomorrow. Remember always that governance as a human enterprise is susceptible to unforeseen natural contingencies that affect every human endeavor whatever ones good intentions and wishes. It works like applying quantum mechanics theory in social and political interactions. Mr. President, you have been in office for a week already and in the process of forming your Government. Ghanaians exhibit a great deal of good will for you to succeed as President. But make haste slowly and be fairly sure of each step you take. The John Mahama retirement residence and office saga nearly cost you well-meaning supporters both in your political party and amongst ordinary citizens of good will. The ordinary Ghanaian was quick to see that Mahama had with preconceived malice planned for years to take the Vice Presidents residence for himself as his life-long retirement home right after Professor Mills demise. Even the ordinary Ghanaian sitting in the Madina tro tro bus realized that Mahamas scheme of remaining in the Vice Presidents official residence instead of moving to the Presidential residence at the Flagg Staff House was part of his pre-meditated and internalized looting behavior of state assets. Mr. President, you need no reminder that an experience and eminent lawyer and statesman of your caliber ought to be wary when dealing with public purse looters of any hue. I thank God that like the monkey which says the mango at the tip of the branch of the tree top which he cannot reach and pluck smells badly, and therefore he does not want it, so too John Mahama with his tail between his legs seeing that Ghanaians were overwhelmingly against his looting of the official residence and office as his retirement award for life, has ingeniously made a face-saving by writing to withdraw his earlier letter of request with a curious copy to the King of Asante. Manasseh Azure Awunis beautiful article Manassehs Folder: of a greedy nation and a homeless president should be a must read for citizens seeking a fair analysis of the Bungalow No. 3 Prestige Link (residence) and Bungalow No. 6 on 3rd Avenue, Ridge (office) premeditated looting saga (see myjoyonline.com). Mr. President, your anti-corruption promise and agenda in my view was your winning manifesto item at the elections whose actualisation we are expecting you to implement without fear or favour, affection or ill will, no matter whose ass is gored. I agree entirely with former President Rawlings that it is the high anti-corruption moral ground you occupied over the NDC which made your victory a foregone conclusion. Many Ghanaians, like me, are not followers of your political party but I dare say that as long as you continue occupying that high moral ground and fight corruption in deeds you will succeed and your first four-year tenure will usher in the golden age of Ghana again. I also have no reason to doubt that as long as you always put Ghana First in your administration the present goodwill you enjoy will endure throughout your tenure. My humble observation from some of your recent pronouncements and acts as President, however, is that you appear to trust so many people without any reservations. In my experience, that has been the undoing of many an honest statesman. Duncan, King of Scotland, in Macbeth after describing Macbeth as: O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman! and declaring Great happiness! to the news of victory also said of his hitherto trusted Thane of Cawdor who had turned traitor and rebel that: Theres no art To find the minds construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust. But as fate had it Duncan immediately placed his unreserved trust in the valiant cousin and worthy gentleman, Macbeth, and that became his undoing. A word to the wise is enough or as some of us from northern Ghana playfully like putting it, a word to the wise is in the north. Mr. President, your fate for the next four years is entirely in your own hands. God helps those who help themselves. May God, Allah, help you Good luck! He said his late father, a retired justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, will be cringing in his grave over the corruption in the nation's judiciary. He said this in Lagos on Sunday, January 15, while speaking at the 13th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Memorial lecture and symposium with the theme, "Nigeria Anti-Corruption War: Whither The Legal Profession and The Judiciary?" "The masses are being corrupted by fear, my father, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, must be cringing in his grave because of what #he corruption in the nations judiciary. "Corruption has not just become our way of life in Nigeria, but has become our legal tandem. "The Nigerian people are being looted by all sides, religious leaders are not helping the people, they are continuously hypnotising my people with miracles, signs and wonders," he said. Oputa, who said corruption had reached an intolerable level, disclosed that he was currently involved in an activism project designed to tackle corruption and injustice in the country. He said: "I am involved in a street project titled, 'our mumu don do'; this is a project through which I believe the judiciary can be cleansed of by a movement led by the masses. "Lawyers have become contractors, judges have opened mega banks in their homes at their villages, justice in Nigeria comes at a price." Noting that not all members of the bar and bench are corrupt, he added: "Not all members of the judiciary and legal profession are bad, but current events have ridiculed the legacy left behind by my father and other legal icons. "The docility of the Nigerian populace has to be addressed with the emancipation of their minds because the humanity of Fawehinmi no longer exists in the country." Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Muhammad of Bichi Local Government Area of Kano State, was charged with unnatural offence, punishable under Section 284 of the Penal Code. Magistrate Muhammad Jibril, ordered the remand of the accused in prison custody andadjourned the case till Feb. 9, for mention. Earlier, the prosecutor, Asp. RufaI Inusa, told the court that Ado Muazu, Musa Nura and Mati Isa, all of Bichi Local Government Area, jointly reported the case at Bichi Police Division, on Nov. 5, 2016. He said that on the same date at about 5 p.m., the accused deceived and lured the complainants 11-year-old, 8-year-old, 11-year-old and 10-year-old sons. He lured them at the same address into his room on different occasions and forcefully had carnal knowledge of each of them through their anus. The victims were rushed to Bichi General Hospital for treatment. She walks into the open area to see a white man, probably English, smile at her with tobacco stained teeth. Mary knows, but she is not sure she can do what is being asked of her, what has been asked so many times before. Her madam puts her hands in this oyinbos cold hands and gestures towards the room. But Mary is tired, so she pulls her hand away and shakes her head... NO. Mary is a sex worker, and NO is not a part of that line of work. So her madam smiles and holds her hand again, but Mary pulls it back. The next time her madams hand comes up, it is a clenched fist that lands on Marys face. Then her torso, and her face again. She screams and tries to deflect the blows, but her tiny arms only flail as she falls to the ground. She hears footsteps, running, other workers come to see what is happening, but they stand there, no-one tries to help her. She tries to call out someones name but she cannot hear her own voice. She wills herself to stand, raise her arms, do something, anything but nothing is happening. By the time her madam regains her senses, and her temper dies down, Mary is dead, a lifeless heap of flesh and bones on the cold floor. However interesting it may seem, the story of the Nigerian sex worker does not begin here. Our very creative grandparents first called the sex worker Ashewo in the 1930s but it doesnt start there either. There is a reason why prostitution is called the worlds oldest profession. The sex worker is as old, perhaps older, than Nigeria herself but when the colonial government first tried to ban prostitutes in 1916 - they were not just around, they were everywhere. The European expatriates and young professionals of old Lagos had a massive appetite for Nigerian women, and the sex workers were willing to satisfy it, so they hung at every point they could find them - on street corners, in front of office buildings, cinemas, clubs, chain stores especially on Lagos Island. When Mary Efoghere died, the reaction from the public was one of pain, disgust and anger; naturally, the government stepped in. By 1946, the ashewos of Lagos were an endangered species. Then, in 1960, the English dusted their bags and left.Nigeria became an independent country. A new generation saw an opportunity to pick up where their mentors left the hustle. The conditions were right, so the Nigerian sex worker rose again. This time, their clients were different. Nigeria was a different country, more people could now afford to pay for a few minutes of mekwe. These sex workers realised that instead of chasing them around, they had to create places where those clients could find them. In the following years, brothels sprung up all over Nigeria. Weird MC sang about Allen Avenue in 1996, but she was 16 years late to the party. In many ways, Ikeja was the unofficial national headquarters of sex workers at the time, but the street corners that they loved were all over the country. They were the places where the girls stood at night, waiting patiently, hoping for the best. But more often than not, conversations went like this. *cars drives into dimly lit street* Baby, come over and check me out. I go do you well." How much? 700 naira No, its too expensive. Collect 400 naira. Comot here. Bastard. Na your mama dem go carry for 400 naira. This one is old and rude. Lets check young meat in front *car drives away* Because dark street corners are not for everyone and politicians like to have sex too, a new, higher level of sex workers emerged. They werethe call girlsorescorts - undergraduates and exotic women who went the extra mile to look better than their mates on the street. Their millionaire suitors, known as aristos were wealthy and much older men who lived in high-brow areas like Ikoyi and 1004 apartments. They were men who could afford the luxury lifestyle the girls desired. Lets take a step back. When the 70s welcomed the street hookers, they quickly filled up every space they could find. The escort was an upgrade, the guarantee that if they could become the object of the right persons desires, they could live the good life. A lot of things were happening at this time; the military was killing the economy and oil prices were falling, so more women were trying to make a living any way they could. The problem was, there could only be so many hookers in one place; so the most daring of the madams looked at their contacts in Europe, and decided it was time to expand the business. Going into 1990, the number of girls that travelled from Nigeria to Italy for a life of prostitution ran into the thousands. As of today, a dazzling 80% of women that travel from Nigeria to Italy through Libya end up as sex workers in Europe. But that is another story. Ours continues in Nigeria. The age of the aristo continued late into the early 2000s. In the eyes of the hooker, there were only two classes of Nigerians; on one hand, there was the upper-class people who could afford aristos. On the other, you had the regular folk who, because food is more important than 10 minutes of happiness, could only afford the brothels or night warriors of Allen Avenue. Then, one night,if you believe the stories, Abacha died at the hands of a prostitute. With democracy came freedom and a new class of people. They were young and comfortable, professionals, entertainers and internet fraudsters people with just enough newly-made wealth to enjoy few luxuries. They wanted to taste the things that escorts could do to a man, and the money was there, but it was not enough to compete with Alhaji for his Unilag babe. A new class of sex worker fondly called olosho emerged to serve that need. She is very similar to the aristo, usually educated to some level with an ability to almost blend into whatever location she finds herself in. The olosho is never a call away from anybody. The average guy is too proud to walk past Allen Avenue to pick up a girl, and for him, a brothel is not an option, but this hooker knows that if she lures your attention for long enough, you will realise that your next few minutes of pleasure are just a short conversation away. And just like that, she discovered how to solve the problem of her clients insecurities and shyness; by following them everywhere, and hiding in plain sight. You are friends with more oloshos than you know. In the following years, a new invention slowly became a part of our daily lives. Its name? The internet. When Facebook became a big deal in the late 2000s, Nigerians flocked there, buoyed by their smartphones and data plans, and the sex worker followed. For her, It was like opening a branch on the internet; all she had to do was create a vague profile with a pseudonym and a few pictures that could get blood rushing to a mans head. Soon enough, she would begin to receive messages. "Hey pretty. I think you look really good. Would you like to hang out? I can show you a really good time" 08065678321 Simple and straight-forward, right? No. A lot of the girls had friends and family that used Facebook; there was the chance that someone could always stumble on their profile and see things. So when Badoo came through, they knew they had to move. Badoo has never pretended to be something it is not. It is an app for meeting members of the opposite sex and the sex workers understood that from the onset. When they joined the site and shared pictures of body parts begging to be set free, the business was on the rise again. But a lot of this was happening. "Hey beautiful. How are you? No Reply. "You look like an angel, let me give you a place in the stars" No Reply. Hey, you look like you have a nice package, let me unwrap it for you No Reply. Badoo makes it very easy to discover new people, so the hookers found that they were getting too messages from guys trying to sweet-talk them into having sex for free. Tinder showed up later, a fancier version of Badoo with fewer options, but the case was the same. So they gave us the phrase that is an invitation and a disclaimer at the same damn time. 'Hookup(s) Only' What this means is simple; you can send messages until the end of the internet age, but unless youre ready to pay for nacks, your efforts will fade away like smoke. Swipe left, and right on your favourite dating app and its there; generic hooker name, breasts bursting out of bra, rear end in the air and, 'hookup(s) only'. Your favorite Instagram model is a call girl. Have you ever wondered why Instagram is full of models who have never seen a runway or had a professional photoshoot? Since social media and chatting became a thing, hookers have relied a lot on pictures. Instagram launched to give them a system that was built around pictures for the most part. I really dont know what we were expecting. The hookers joined the app in numbers and putmodel/PR expert on their profiles. The idea was, and still is simple; upload as many pictures of yourself in posh locations looking as sexually inviting as possible and soon, the right people will want a taste of what they see. Typically, in very little time, a lot of us followed them. A certain Instagram barbie even has more followers than some full-time musicians. Men are scum. While you followed her just to enjoy free shows, its actually going down in the DMs of the Instagram hooker. Her pretend-like-you-actually-have-money lifestyle tends to attract big fish, the kind of people who can pay for sex in obscene amounts of naira and dollars. Business boomed. But there was always going to be a new frontier, and in due time, it came. If there is a hierarchy of users on Snapchat, it will be something like this. Entertainers Snapchat Hoes Normal People, like you and I. Instead of just pictures, Snapchat invited the hooker to share short videos, and she embraced the opportunity with open legs. Nobody, not even Davido, posts snaps like a Snapchat hoe. Every day brings a new hotel room, a new car, vacation or party, a new opportunity to show you the only thing that matters; her body. Her videos are like teasers; you open your Snapchat to see a new story and tap on it. The text across the screen says "Bored as fuck" but this aunty is grinding all over the place. She makes a face at the camera and winks. The snap ends. The next snap loads, shes in the same place but theres music playing as she rolls her eyes. It takes you some time to notice that her bra strap has disappeared into thin air. By the fourth snap, the progression is almost complete. Shes singing along but you can only notice the blouse that is clinging on to her breasts for dear life. A little peek of lace panties here, a peek of the outline of her body, small bum-bum, just enough to have you wishing for the real thing. While the rest of Nigeria tries to fully understand Snapchat, she handles it like a professional. Even in the face of threats to her survival, the Nigerian sex worker has successfully evolved over time to match the needs of her clients and the reality of the times she lives in. From Allen Avenue to 10-second videos, she has followed you everywhere, because of one simple fact; men have always wanted to have sex. According to Niger Delta News, the man whose name was not disclosed, was attacked on his farmland in Emu Ebendo, in Ndokwa West Local Government Area of the state by the suspects who inflicted serious machete cuts on him, leaving him for dead. A resident of the community, Christian Onwugbolu, said the incident has caused serious tension in the area with the youths becoming restive and calling for blood just as the elders have been calming them down. Tribune reports that Mustapha, a married man, who committed the crime on January 6, 2017, at the Aremo area of Ibadan, the state capital, told the police that an evil spirit entered his body, making him defile the teenager. According to reports, the girl was hawking her oranges in the neighbourhood when Mustapha who is well known to the victim as he and his wife were her regular customers, called her to take the oranges to him. She took the oranges to his room not knowing that his wife was not inside but as the girl waited for Mustapha to pay for the oranges he bought, he pounced on and forcefully had carnal knowledge of her, breaking her hymen as she was still a virgin, resulting in heavy bleeding bruises. Narrating her ordeal, the victim said she struggled with Mustapha and screamed for help but nobody came to her rescue. When she got home, she reported the assault to her mother who rushed her to a police station to report the matter, leading to the arrest of the suspect. During interrogation at the Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) of the state command, the suspect reportedly admitted committing the offense but said it was an evil spirit that manipulated him. "It is true I raped the girl. She used to hawk oranges in my neighbourhood, and my wife and I used to patronize her. We also used to collect orange peels from her to use as a mosquito repellant. That day, she came as usual to sell oranges but I was repairing a faulty electric cable. My wife had gone to look for water that I would use to bath. The girl asked for water and I gave her. She expressed tiredness, saying that she would rest a little bit but I told her I was going back to the motor park to work. At a point, I didnt know the spirit that entered into me and made me to rape her in my room. When I forced my manhood into her, she screamed in pain and I withdrew immediately. I regretted my action when I saw her bleeding and started asking for forgiveness from God. I also pleaded with her to forgive me. I paid her the money for the oranges I bought and asked to go home. Two days after, two men came to my house and I was arrested." On this January evening, my friend and I were one of them, answering questions, and explaining why I was carrying a huge backpack. When we finally locate her flat in the labyrinth of a few thousand apartments, its evening already. The person were going to see is Bunmi. She went to school with my friend. When I asked him if he knew anyone who had lost a loved one in combat, she was his first thought, and she obliged. As we sit down to get talking, the power goes out. Perfect Nigerian situation for a very Nigerian conversation. I met my husband in Zaria at the Training School, Bunmi says, this was 2008. We were married in 2009, sharp sharp. Her husband was Victor, a soldier who spent most of his service years in Northern Nigeria. He didnt talk much. He wasnt around much either. So how did you cope with not having him around? Well, she sighs, Im a soldier too, so I understood. He came home a few months apart. Although there were times where he went on special missions. We dont get to see each other for up to a year. Special missions? Yes, he served in Liberia in 2010 and 2012. Do you remember the day it happened? I ask as carefully as I can. Tragic memories and lost Love are murky waters. It was in 2014, and I didnt find out the day he died, she continues, no one ever does. One of his colleagues just called to say your Oga done die o. Something in you always knows this type of call might come in one day. So did you get any more details? Details? No one gets details. They just send a message saying M.I.A, Missing In Action. This just basically means hes been declared dead. They dont even send the bodies home, they just bury them there. A lot of the time, their bodies are found in pieces. She pauses for a moment, and checks her phone. My friend got news that her husband died in Maiduguri a few days ago. Someone in his unit called to tell her. So she had to go to the office to ask. They told her the same thing; M.I.A. If youve watched Hollywood movies long enough, youve probably seen a waiting wife go to the door, open it, and meet two soldiers at attention, one with a folded flag in his hands. In Nigeria, what youll get most likely is a call from your late husbands colleague, whos talking over a very bad phone signal. There are no official statements. No explanations. No courtesy calls. Just the same M.I.A. The Barracks is filled with widows, she continues, I have a lot of friends here whose husbands never returned. This woman who just got news of her husband is pregnant. Her child will never meet daddy. What about entitlements? Ah, that one, she sighs. There are entitlements. If youre lucky and have people high up who can help you, you can get it in good time. If not, the wait is not very short. Does it ever cross your mind about how he must have died? Im a soldier too, she snorts, I know all the possible ways he might have died. It might have been a bomb, or a gun shot. But he most certainly didnt just drop dead. Ive made my peace with that. She went on. Just yesterday, another friend of mine in Borno called, and we talked about an ambush hed been in a few days ago. They walked into a Boko Haram trap. The gun battle lasted seven hours. Even though they killed many Boko Haram fighters, they lost three soldiers. She pauses again. Those three soldiers, their families probably dont know they are dead. They might not even know for another month or two. So when, say a wife doesnt hear from her husband for about a month, first she thinks they might be in some place with no network. Then she starts to grow worried, and when she goes to ask, she gets the M.I.A. For most people who dont live like this, where the difference between life and death is a connecting call, its very convenient for us to complain about soldiers not doing enough. Did he share personal experiences, I ask. Nothing out of the ordinary. Its most likely a bomb, or a gun battle, or something. The calls always ended with the dont forget to pray for us. Every time a call came, thered be that fear that this one might just be the last. How did your boys take it when he died? Well, they never really saw him around. The older one was 4 years old and the younger, 2. So they never really got a full grasp of it. They barely knew him, so there wasnt much to miss. Do you ever worry that theyll deploy you there? She laughs. She laughs hard. The day they deploy me there is the day I take off their uniform, the fire in her voice rises. Why would I want to fight in a war that I know nothing about? A war thats a business for some people. Shes talking faster now. Many of these politicians and even senior officers just use this war as a business. We hear stories. What stories? She looks back at her phone and is quiet for a moment. I take that as a back off sign. Look at this scenario, she starts to speak again, youre a soldier and Boko Haram approaches you. They are willing to offer you money you might never earn in the army, just for a little information. A few years ago, a soldier who used to live here gave Boko Haram intel. Their army unit was surrounded. Every soldier was killed, except one. At first, they thought he was kidnapped, but then they started investigating and saw some funny transactions in his bank accounts. He hasnt been found till this day. Did your husband ever try to abscond too? Its a heavy sigh. To be honest, she says, he tried. He had grown tired of the fighting and I understood. When he applied for a visa, he wasnt granted. Many others just run away. I know one in the UK, and another in Spain. Does the Army not notice? She laughs. Which army? They might not even officially notice for months, so these soldiers who abscond still end up receiving salaries for months. Most people, she says, join the army due to unemployment. You get a house in the barracks, you get a salary. Even she joined because she was tired of sitting at home during an ASUU strike. Most of her friends who went on to graduate are still unemployed. People need to go see the suffering of soldiers, she says. Go to Yaba Military Hospital, youll find soldiers with missing legs, or arms, or eyes. A whole lot of them. Nobody cares. I ask her if her husband complained about the treatment of soldiers. He did, she says, but she adds quickly that from what shes heard and seen, things are much better than they used to be. Are there women soldiers on the battlefront? Ah, there used be quite a number. But on more than one occasion, Boko Haram would kidnap them, rape them, and kill them. So they stopped sending them to the war front. There are now just a few. We talk about Boko Haram fighters. Its mostly boys, she says. They mostly look like they havent had proper food. The Al-Majiri boys are easy recruits. Just give them food or something. She talks about this time she was in Kaduna after training. She cooked some food and the next day, it got a little sour. When she offered it to an Al-Majiri boy, he not only accepted it, he helped her fetch water. We talk more on dead friends and mourning. She speaks with so much ease that you begin to understand how much shes learned to move on. I look at the photos hanging in her living room. Theres one with someone who appears to be her mum. Another frame has a photo of her sons. Another, just her. Do they ever ask of their daddy? Well, she smiles, they have someone they call daddy, but they know their true daddy is dead. She talks about possibly marrying the person shes currently seeing in the future. Shes not even thirty yet, and shes not only bright, she speaks with so much confidence. We talk about male superiors and colleagues offering to show her their dicks and keep her warm every now and then. She says it with so much ease that you know its as common as a good morning. The future is looking bright. Vacuums are filling up. The pain is long gone and forgotten as shes finding love again. Dakingari told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Birnin Kebbi that the treatment was 90 per cent successful and that most patients were affected following prolonged labour. He, however, said some others became affected after genital mutilation. He added that the centre offered treatment freely to patients from within and outside the country, stressing that we have patients from Benin and Niger Republics, as well as some states in the country. We have the best VVF treatment centre in the country; we offer free drugs and feeding to patients." The medical director said many women affected by the condition were from remote villages that lacked roads and functional healthcare facilities. He, however, noted that the centre had done series of awareness to educate the people about the ailment, especially among teenage girls giving birth for the first time. We embarked on community mobilisation awareness; the awareness included religious and traditional leaders. It has greatly helped in reducing new cases in the both the urban and rural communities. He said the centre was supported by USAID and Non-governmental Organisations (NGO). We received hospital equipment, theatre beds, surgical tools, family planning items and examination lamps from USAID as donation." The surgeon said the centre had assisted in the delivery of 37 women who were treated of fistula ailment. Because of the nature of their condition after undergoing treatment, we instruct them to come when their expected date of delivery is due in order to assist them to have smooth delivery, he said. Akande, who also the founding Interim Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), turns 78 on Monday, January 16. This congratulatory message is contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the president. Adesina said Buhari joined all members of the APC, friends and immediate family of the eminent leader in celebrating the birthday of Akande. The president noted with delight that Akande was one of the pillars of the opposition party that had successfully ensured a round victory and smooth transition to unseat an incumbent president in 2015. According to him, Akandes wisdom, sacrifices, patriotism and commitment to the unity and development of Nigeria will always be remembered by posterity. Buhari affirmed that Akandes present role in the APC as a strong, visionary leader, a reconciling voice, strategist and stabiliser had paid up substantially in the enormous challenge of healing the ruling party, and the country. The president extolled the passionate and relentless efforts of the statesman in ensuring the entrenchment democracy in Nigeria, and sustenance of the rule of law. He prayed that the almighty God would grant Chief Akande longer life, more strength and wisdom to continue serving the country he loves, and humanity. Two suicide bombers attacked the institution at about 6am killing 4 people and injuring 17 others. President Buhari blamed the attack on terrorist group, Boko Haram which he described as a godless group with no true understanding of Islam. I received the sad news of the terrorist attack on the University of Maiduguri this morning, the president said via Twitter. My heartfelt condolences go to the University Community, the families of the victims, and the Govt and people of Borno State. Boko Haram is a godless group; with no true understanding of Islam. Their actions are cowardly, and punishable before God and by our laws. Once again, my condolences to the families of the victims. And I wish the injured speedy & full recovery. Nigeria will triumph over terror! he added. The exercise was part of the success recorded by the states Dialogue/Amnesty programme. They gave up the weapons at a ceremony organised by a special committee led by the Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Mustapha Inuwa, in Kankara on Sunday. Receiving the weapons, Governor Aminu Masari, commended the committee, traditional rulers and members of the groups for the success being recorded by the programme. Masari urged them to now interact with members of their respective communities freely and also urged the people of the communities and security agencies to accept them back. He pledged to provide schools, clinics and other amenities for their resettlement. He said the reconciliation move was initiated to ensure peace and cordial relationship among the various groups in the area. The governor said the dialogue was prompted by the spate of clashes between farmers and herdsmen in parts of the state that resulted to loss of lives and property. ALSO READ: Police arrest 21 cattle rustlers, kidnappers in Niger He said government was planning to group their scattered settlements and provide them with grazing lands, dams and other amenities to further discourage conflicts among the two parties. In his address, Inuwa said his committee had recovered 28, 170 animals from the rustlers out of which 24, 567 had been handed over to their rightful owners. He said 3,014 animals had died while 90 remained unclaimed, adding that collection of weapons from the groups was a continuous exercise. A Lagos Federal High Court on Monday, gave the former Minister of Aviation's rep the ultimatum as his client is being tried for alleged money laundering. Fani-Kayode, who was also former Director of Media and Publicity, campaign committee of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, is being prosecuted alongside a former Minister of Finance, Nenandi Usman, and Danjuma Yusuf. They are charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on 17-count, bordering on alleged money laundering. All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. At the resumed hearing of the case on Monday, while Mr Nkereuwem Anana, announced appearance for the prosecution, Quakers announced appearance for Fani-Kayode. Quakers, who told the court that because he had just been briefed by his client, pleaded for time to properly study the case file before he could proceed with the case. He also sought leave to meet with the judge in chambers to confer on some issues but said the prosecutor could join in the meeting, adding that there was nothing secretive in the planned meeting. Quackers, thereafter, sought for adjournment of the case.However, Anana objected to Quakers request for adjournment, arguing that it was a ground design to delay trial in the case. Anana informed the court that the business of the day was for continuation of trial, adding that his witnesses were already in court. He said: This is a technical way of asking for an adjournment; I have seniors in this matter and so I dont think I am the proper person to come for any meeting in the chambers. I said earlier that we are ready to go on and I did not ask for any adjournment, so if there is a call for any meeting, I will not be a part of that meeting. He pleaded with the court to continue with the trial. However, the Counsel to the second accused, Mr Ferdinard Orbih (SAN), while lending voice to Quakers, prayer, urged the court to allow the new counsel ample time to study the case file. According to him, it is in line with the principle of fairness as enshrined in the constitution, especially in relation to criminal matters, to grant the prayers of Quakers. He stated that Quackers had just been briefed about the case. Orbih further said that the entire provisions of the administration of Criminal Justice Act, taken as a whole, could not supersede constitutional provisions on fair hearing. He reminded the court that the suit was a criminal one, adding that the goal of the court must be to attain justice in every respect. He, therefore, urged the court to give the application a favourable consideration. Orbih also drew the courts attention to two of his application seeking a release of the international passport of the second and for a more convenient venue for trial. Justice Muslim Hassan, in his ruling, said that he would grant an adjournment for one day to enable the new counsel study the case file before proceeding with trial. He recalled that the matter was earlier fixed for three days: Jan. 16, 17 and 19, but said that Jan.16 would be vacated to enable the new counsel get acquainted with the facts of the case. On the request to see the judge in chambers, Hassan said, On the request to meet the court in chambers, with respect to learned counsel, I cannot grant same. The judge, therefore, urged counsel to make a formal application and put forward his thoughts in writing. He adjourned the case to Jan. 17 for hearing. In the charge, the accused were alleged to have committed the offences between January and March 2015. In count one to seven, they were alleged to have unlawfully retained over N3.8 billion which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful act of stealing and corruption. In count eight to 14, the accused were also alleged to have unlawfully used over N970 million which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of an unlawful act of corruption. Meanwhile in count 15 to17, Fani-Kayode and one Olubode Oke, said to be at large, were alleged to have made cash payments of about N30 million. The cash payments, the prosecution added, were in excess of the amount allowed by law, without going through a financial institution. Fani-Kayode was also alleged to have made payments to one Paste Poster Co (PPC) of No. 125 Lewis St., Lagos, in excess of amounts allowed by law. On Monday, January 16, 2017, Atiku described the attack as a dangerous development. Atiku said in a statement released by his media office in Abuja on Monday that the attack was not just about a bomb exploding in a mosque but an attack on education in the North-East. He said that lack of education was one of the most alarming threats to security in the North-East, pointing out that most terrorists were people who never had the chance or ability to read the Koran for themselves. According to him, it is for this reason that they cannot interpret the tenets of Islam beyond the false teachings of their terrorist commanders. A sound education will provide our youth with the ability to analyse and make informed decisions. It is an opportunity that many young people in the North-East of Nigeria do not have at present, making it easy for false teachers to control them, the former vice president said. He stated that the attack at the university mosque was particularly worrisome, having come at a time when the terrorist group was clearly degraded. We cannot afford to be complacent now or in the future, he cautioned. He condoled with the families of the deceased, students and staff of the university over the loss of lives and prayed for quick recovery of the injured. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the twin-bomb attack occurred during the early morning prayers at the universitys mosque on Monday. Official from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and their Borno counterpart confirmed the death of a professor in the institution, a child and two bombers in the attack. Wuyep told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Monday in Jos, that a bill to that effect had been endorsed by the State Executive Council and would soon be submitted to the House of Assembly. In establishing the corporation, we shall engage private outfits in a partnership that will benefit government, the partners and the Plateau people, he explainedd. He disclosed that the corporation would be the operational arm, while the ministry would serve as an infrastructural regulatory agency, which would monitor the implementation of laid down policies and standards. He explained that the outfit would not limit its focus to electricity, which was just one form of energy. Plateau is blessed with three, out of the four major sources of renewable energy. The state has more than 20 hydro-points from where we can generate hydro-electricity. The state is a good shed for water that drain into various river basins and streams where we can easily generate electricity because it sits on a slope and that gives us natural kinetic energy with which we can generate electricity. Plateau is also the third highest solar radiation point in Nigeria after the North-East and North-West; this puts us at an advantage position to generate solar energy. Aliyu, who disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN) in Sokoto, said Arzika was kidnapped on Monday. Arzika was travelling to Isa town on Sokoto- Marnona- Isa road this morning when the suspected kidnappers struck. They were reportedly attacked by a group of armed men at Gidan Sala village and they took only Arzika into the Gundumi Forest. They were going to Isa town, headquarters of Isa Local Government Area, for the conduct of the statewide verification exercise of local government workers which commenced on Monday. "The details are scanty as at now, but you will hear the details later, the chairman said. But the spokesman of the State Police Command, Mr Elmustapha Sani, told NAN that the force had not been formally notified. We only heard about the incident unofficially. We have not received any report from either the Isa Police Division or Goronyo Division where the forest is located. The abductors reportedly invaded the school last Friday around 9pm and whisked away three pupils, two intending Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidates, and three other staff members. According to Punch, the kidnappers contacted the family of one of their victims, a matron, on Sunday, January 15, to make the demand. They were said to have called the matron's husband on the telephone and warned him not to involve the police in the negotiation. The report cited a source close to the matron's family to have said that the kidnapper asked the matron's husband to join force with the families of other victims to raise N100 million ransom. "The kidnappers called her (matrons) husband early this morning (Sunday) and demanded N100m for the release of all the victims. He has been warned not to play smart. They are insisting on the sum for now," the source said. "We are worried, but we have belief in God. We hope God will touch their heart to free all the victims. The police are also assuring us that they are on top of the situation." According to a police source, the kidnapper have also contacted the school regarding the ransom. ALSO READ: Police arrest 7 suspected kidnappers of ex-minister of Foreign Affairs But the school's spokesman, Cemal Yigit, dismissed the claims noting that management relies on the security agencies to secure the release of the victims. He said: "There is no update of such (negotiation). We are in collaboration with security officials. We are being guided by them and we are doing whatever they ask us to do. We are not acting on our own. "There are security officials everywhere around the school. We have security light. Everywhere is fixed with cameras. Every single step of those attackers is captured in the Closed Circuit Television. "Everything is being re-arranged and most probably we are going to make a deal with a serious security company. We have also learnt to increase the security measures from the governments side from now on. Our priority now is the safe return of everybody." It was gathered that many panicking parents stormed the school on Saturday to pick their children despite assurances by the security team of their safety. Last Saturday, a letter from the office of the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, found its way into the Pulse inbox. The intended recipient was Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, convener of the BBOG advocacy group. It was as lucid, tongue in cheek and straight to the point a letter as you'd expect from Mohammed. I should know. I spent all of 2014 reading Lai Mohammed's press releases which always arrived my inbox every other Sunday. At the time, Mohammed was the APC spokesperson. ALSO READ: Those press statements were always laced with jibes and jabs. The letter to Ezekwesili was classic Mohammed. "Let me congratulate you most sincerely for the continuing interest of your group, Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) in the fate of the Chibok girls, including those who have regained freedom and those who remain in captivity", Mohammed wrote. Other parts of the letter read as follows: "In recognition of your unwavering commitment to the freedom of the girls, you are invited to nominate three of the BBOG members to join you on a guided trip to the North-east on Monday, 16 January 2017". Mr. Mohammed further explained that the team to Sambisa Forest would first have a stopover in Yola to witness first-hand, the efforts being made to rescue the missing schoolgirls by the Nigerian Air force. "It is our belief that this trip will avail the BBOG the opportunity to witness and better understand the efforts being made by the Nigerian military to secure freedom for the abducted Chibok girls and all other victims of the Boko Haram terrorism". Moments after Pulse received the letter, a top ranking government official called our newsroom to say the BBOG group had rejected the offer and bluntly declined Mohammed's Sambisa invitation. Before you could say Sambisa, the online space had been suffused with this narrative. I hoped and prayed that the story was untrue. And it turned out a fib. Ezekwesili would confirm to Pulse a few minutes later that the BBOG group had accepted the invitation. The acceptance was however premised on the federal government meeting certain conditions. "However, before proceeding with further discussions on the proposed visit, we propose a pre-tour meeting to discuss pertinent issues that will help inform our decision to proceed", Ezekwesili's response to Mohammed, read. She added: "We believe that this prior meeting would help provide first-hand knowledge of, and answers to questions that our movement wishes to raise ahead of the guided visit. We propose that participants at the meeting be the to the President and the other officials of government indicated in your letter". BBOG also demanded for an apology. BBOG protested that its members had been tagged as "social advocacy terrorists" by a "certain group". According to the BBOG, that group was received by the Chief of Army Staff. "We demand therefore that ahead of the pre-tour, we have proposed herein, that the Chief of Army Staff retracts and apologizes for endorsing such slanderous attacks against our movement..." That proposal was subsequently shot down by the federal government in yet another letter. And in yet another letter, BBOG accepted to board the plane to Sambisa. And just as well. It was a weekend of letters and we are just relieved that it's finally over. Since 2014, Ezekwesili and her group have mounted a sustained advocacy for the rescue of the abducted schoolgirls. No other advocacy group in the history of this country has been this resilient, focused and dogged. If they weren't out there everyday, trust me, we all would have moved on. Last year, that resilience paid off when 24 of the abducted girls returned to their families. The group has always wanted to be briefed about what the government was doing to rescue all of the girls still in Boko Haram custody. Ezekwesili decried as much in an interview granted Pulse last year. Past meetings between government officials, President Muhammadu Buhari and the BBOG group, yielded little. This trip will afford the BBOG group that front-row seat they've always craved. If they had declined the government's invitation to embark on the trip alongside select journalists, their stock would have fallen and their advocacy dismissed as an attention-seeking stunt. I'm an admirer of Ezekwesili and all she stands for. She's wanted nothing else than to see all the girls reunite with their families. It's one cause she's told me she's signed up for with all of her heart. This isn't a game for her. It's not some publicity stunt. It's never been. As she flies above the vast swathe of parched land that is Sambisa Forest, Oby will realise that this was one more crucial step toward finding the girls. THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER Ogun students abductors demand N1.2b ransom After nearly 48 hours in captivity, the abductors of students and employees of the Nigeria Turkish International College (NTIC) have demanded a whopping N1.2 billion ransom for the victims to be released. Ex-soldiers allege funds misuse as government remembers fallen heroes Amid allegations of embezzlement of emblem funds and non-payment of pension arrears, the grand finale of the 2017 Armed Forces Remembrance Day was celebrated across the country yesterday. Comply with court order on El-Zakzaky, Amnesty tells FG The Federal Government must immediately comply with a High Court order and release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife from detention, Amnesty International has said. VANGUARD NEWSPAPER We ve restored Nigerias sanity, territorial integrity, says Buhari PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, Sunday, boasted that his administration has been able to restore Nigerias hitherto lost sanity and territorial integrity, hailing the countrys Armed Forces for making his dream possible. Dangote sets up truck assembly plant In Lagos AFRICAs richest man and foremost entrepreneur, Aliko Dangote, is setting up a $100 million vehicle assembly plant in Lagos, to tap the opportunity provided by the scarcity of forex and help tackle employment crisis in the country. Turkish college: Kidnappers demand N1.2bn ransom KIDNAPPERS of eight students and two members of staff of the Nigerian Turkish International College, NTIC, Isheri, Ogun State, have demanded N1.2 billion ransom for the release of the abducted persons. THE NATION NEWSPAPER Lagos plans to boost growth with environmental bill The Lagos State House of Assembly is set to pass a bill which will give direction to the states dream of becoming Africas greenest city. Buhari to troops: you have made Nigeria proud President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday told troops on national and international assignments that they have made the country proud. Fed Govt rejects BBOG conditions for joining Chibok Girls search mission The Federal Government has rejected the conditions given by the Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) group for joining a day search sorties for missing Chibok girls in Sambisa Forest. THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER Police, Ibadan youths clash over man caught with human head A stray bullet said to have been fired by a policeman killed one person in Olomi area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Sunday when mob after a man was allegedly caught by a vigilance group with a human head in the area. Confusion over Buharis $30bn loan request There is confusion over President Muhammadu Buharis $29.9bn loan request, which was rejected by the Senate on November 1, 2016. N458bn Lagos-Ibadan new rail project to begin Feb The workers, under the aegis of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), and Radio, Television, Theatre and Arts Workers Union (RATTAWU), called for the sack of Dr John Idumange at their emergency congress in Yenagoa. Their resolution was jointly signed by Mr Tonye Yemoleigha, the Chairman, Radio Bayelsa chapel of NUJ and Mr Pius Otit, the Chairman, Radio Bayelsa chapter of RATTAWU. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the moves by Idumange, who was appointed on Dec. 6, 2016, to re-position the station sparked off disagreement between members of the two unions and management. The unions said, Following series of actions by Idumange, who was appointed barely a month ago, it remained clear that he lacked direction and needed leadership dexterity to effect any meaningful change. The unions are deeply unhappy with the continuous arrest of members of staff by the police over alleged misconduct. This was even after a peace meeting presided over by the Chief of Staff, Government House, Mr Talford Ongolo, on Jan. 10 at the Government House, Yenagoa. This is a breach of the peace accord. At different times, the unions said they have requested that the general manager should reverse the appointment of junior staff over and above their superiors. The unions had equally sought audience with him to discuss pressing issues in order to resolve brewing industrial unrest and rising disharmony and disaffection among workers as a result of his actions. But, he tacitly declined. The workers expressed dismay that since assumption of office on Dec. 6, Idumange has yet to convene and preside over any management meeting to get proper briefing on issues before taking actions. In his reactions, Idumange dismissed the allegations, accusing the unions of being used to sabotage his efforts to reposition the station. The general manager told NAN that there was no going back on the verification exercise as it was authorised by the supervising Ministry of Information. He said that anyone who did not participate in the exercise would be declared a ghost worker. The exercise is not even my brainchild; in fact, my predecessor had compiled a list of over 200 workers for redeployment. Those who wish to continue working here should participate or risk losing their jobs. he warned. The general manager said that the senior officials affected by the ongoing reforms were using the unions to resist the reforms. Idumange explained that the exercise was targeted at ensuring that employees were placed in their fields of study, as well as to fish out those with fake certificates. There is nothing like industrial disharmony. This small radio station has 346 workers; employment and job placement have never followed due process. To correct those anomalies, we are commencing a certificate and staff verification which will last four days. Most of those with fake certificates are afraid and they are creating a semblance of unrest. They wrote to me to stop the exercise, but the Ministry of Information said the exercise must continue. Those ghost workers must be fished out and the payroll cleaned up. The wage bill of the station is N35 million monthly and it is not sustainable and my predecessor incurred a debt of N40 million. The unions are being instigated by the Heads of Department affected in the illegal recruitment, and those who came into that place through the back door. Lawan debunked insinuations that his emergence was a threat to the Deputy Senate Leader, Ike Ekweremadu on Monday, January 16, 2017. We are looking forward to working together in a brotherly way in the APC caucus and indeed, with senators in other political parties, Lawan said. Lawan said he would consolidate the unity and stability of All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus in the upper legislative chamber. Lawan stated this on Monday in Abuja when he visited the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun and members of the partys National Working Committee (NWC). According to him, my emergence was all about party supremacy expressed by members in the senate. The lawmaker, however, thanked God for his new role, which, he said, would address the party`s leadership crisis in the senate as well as unify its members. He said that with the APC united in the senate, it had no reason not to deliver its campaign promises to Nigerians. As much as the people were expecting more from the party, the leadership is already working to improve their lot. Now, we have a united APC caucus in the Senate and in the House of Representatives; we have no reason not to perform to the expectations of Nigerians within the constraints of our economy, he said. Lawan assured that the new structure in the partys positions in the National Assembly would transform into better productivity for the Federal Government and better living for Nigerians. Thanking his colleagues for nominating him as their leader, he promised efficient and effective service delivery through loyalty, commitment and dedication, while maintaining a perfect link between the chamber and the Presidency. ALSO READ: Ex-Gov says Lawan was elected to lead APC Senators Receiving the lawmaker, Odigie-Oyegun said that it was gratifying to see the party`s caucus in the senate united and ready to take full control of situations. He expressed optimism that Nigerians would begin now to experience real change as the APC-led government was poised to deliver true democracy dividends to the people. The lawmakers are Tony Nwulu and Uzoma Nkem-Abonta, both members of the House of Representatives. They made the comments while appearing on a live television programme in Abuja, according to Vanguard. Nkem-Abonta said that the lack of experience of most of President Buharis appointees has not in any way helped the economy grow the way it should grow. Take for example, the Minister of Power heading three engineering based ministries, Housing, Power and Works, what results do we expect from him? he asked. Nwulu, on his part, said: My colleague is just patronizing this government because depression has started even in my state. There are no two ways about it, you cant bring a carpenter to do the job of an engineer because the end result will be total failure. The comments were made by Enugu APC spokeswoman, Kate Offor after some senators urged Ekweremadu to defect to the APC or risk losing his position. Whatever is the position of the 1999 Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, we want him to remain in PDP. We wish to make it very clear that Ekweremadu is an unwanted guest in Enugu State APC. Let him stay and salvage the inferno festering in the PDP, she said. We dont want one party state. Most importantly, we dont want him to infest and transfer confusion into APC, his trademark in the PDP from the time of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani in 1999 till date. The truth is that Ekweremadu contributed in no small measure to the mess PDP found itself today, via unbridled impunity and unconscionable anti-internal democracy antics. We are witnesses of how his Machiavellian tactics eclipsed democratic aspirations and infringed on the growth of democracy in Nigeria. For instance, as former chief of staff and later secretary to state government, his fingers, he cannot exonerate himself from the lapses of that government, which brought it to disrepute. Indeed Ekweremadu set the high jump, Enugu State Governor, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Gburugburu) is facing in court today, all in a bid to feather his own political nest during the 2015 primary elections. He did same to ex-governor, Sullivan Chime, who spent four years in court, she added. ALSO READ: Nobody can remove me Deputy Senate President says Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday that part of the strategy had already been perfected, while the others were at advanced stages. Oyekanmi expressed optimism that with the strategy that the INEC Chairman and his management team were working on, the 2019 general elections would consolidate the successes recorded in 2016. Work has started; our ICT Department is bringing out a lot of innovations, because our Chairman has promised that the success that technology has enable us to record in 2015 will be consolidated. There is no time for experimentation as our chairman has always said. We are leveraging on the success to now take things beyond. And one of the innovations already introduced is simultaneous accreditation and voting, which saves a lot of time and has proved to be very successful. The Continuous Voters Registration will commence very soon. It will be possible for people to locate their cards (permanent Voter cards) and be able to retrieve them. Those, who are transferring from one place to the other will also to be able to do that online. A lot of structure are been put in place but at the right time Nigerians will hear what the preparations are. There are some that cannot be discussed because they are still in process. But let me tell you from the first day that the chairman took over office, efforts started towards 2019 general elections because it is a process and you have to do one after the other. We are not going to wait; that we not be a wise thing to do. As we move along we are inventing new strategies. Oyekanmi said that under Yakubus supervision, INEC had been able to discover ways of dealing with election challenges. Your digital subscription includes access to all content on our agricultural websites across the nation. Access unlimited content and the digital versions of our print editions - This Week's Paper. First, inspiring new speakers have been added to the lineup. They include Chris Cox, Product chief at Facebook; Nomusa June and Adedana Ashebir, everyone's "New favorite girl children" and hosts of the Afracanah Podcast; Noble Igwe, style blogger and founder of 360Nobs; Osagie Alonge, Editor-In-Chief and Managing Director at Pulse.ng; and Gbenga Sesan, Executive Director at Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN). Over 200 more speakers will be joining the lineup. The first round schedule has also been revealed. The sessions will cut across the tech, film, travel, music, governance, business, new media, and journalism fields. Over 75 sessions have been selected to shape the heart of the 2017 SMW Lagos Conference programming. You can view the schedule here. More programs have also been added to the 2017 SMW Lagos experiential lineup including Afro Beats & Eats Fest, a tasty mash-up with some of Africa's best foodies, music makers and techies on the web; #SHOPAFRICA Pop-up Market Place, where you can shop and mingle with the online fashion brands you follow, like and love; #OpenCampus, which welcomes students from local secondary schools and universities to experience the future of tech; African Women In Tech Day, and more. Other opportunities are also available for African professionals at 2017 SMW Lagos. Events range from parties to coding workshops - and everything in-between. Be sure to stay with Pulse Tech for all the latest updates on the 2017 SMW Lagos as well as coverage of the event itself. In an interview in Paris, the artist who memorably once nailed his scrotum to Red Square, said he fled Russia after he and his partner Oksana Shalygina were accused last month of sexual assault -- allegations he denies. The couple arrived in the French capital on Saturday with their two children. "We intend to seek asylum in France," said the 32-year-old artist, who was detained for questioning in December over the sexual assault claims. "If we had stayed in Russia, Oksana and I would have been sent to a camp for up to 10 years," he added. While best known for his 2013 Red Square performance entitled "Fixation", he has also sewn his lips together, wrapped himself in barbed wire, and chopped off part of his ear in his live acts. In November 2015, he doused the doors of the FSB security service headquarters in petrol and set them on fire, in a performance called "Threat". He spent seven months in jail awaiting trial for damaging the door but was eventually freed in June. Kigeli actually died in October at the age of 80 but his funeral was delayed by a court battle between his relatives, arguing over where he should be buried -- in the US or his place of birth. The religious ceremony took place outdoors in the grounds of the old King's Palace, now a modest museum, in Nyanza, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the capital Kigali, a local journalist told AFP. The Rwandan king's crown was placed on Kigeli's grey coffin while his family wore traditional "umushanana" dress. Dozens of local residents joined Kigeli's family and Rwanda's culture minister Julienne Uwacu to pay their respects. "He was a man who fought for Rwanda's independence," said 69-year-old farmer Anastaze Musonera. "Even in exile, he was a friend of Rwanda. He didn't criticise, he didn't tarnish Rwanda's image." Jean de Dieu Tuyinsize said he had learnt about Kigeli at school. "We're happy he's come home to be buried here in Rwanda," said the 27-year-old builder. The former monarch was buried on a hill near the tomb of his half-brother and predecessor Mutara III, who died in 1959. The monarchy was abolished in 1961, two years after Kigeli, born Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa, ascended to the throne. But by then he had already left the country after clashing with colonial power Belgium in 1960, having approached the United Nations for help in obtaining independence. He was exiled first to east Africa before eventually settling in the US. Kigeli had tried to come back to his homeland while still alive but failed to reach agreement with the country's government. At least 200 former members of M23, an ethnic Tutsi group defeated by the Congolese army three years ago, arrived from Uganda and took over a village in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP. Mende said the Congolese army was fighting two battalions installed in Ishasha village "who were supposed to be in Uganda under the responsibility of that country's authorities". "How could our Ugandan neighbours, with whom we are bound by very serious commitments, allow people who had been living in refugee camps to cross over -- armed -- into our territory?" he added. Kinshasa said a former army general, Sultani Makenga, was leading one of the battalions. No military spokesperson was available to confirm the clashes with M23. Omar Kavota, director of the Centre for the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights said Sunday that sources in Ishasha had confirmed the M23 presence there but said "there hasn't been fighting or clashes yet". An 'old trick' Congo's resource-rich eastern provinces have suffered years of brutal conflict, with neighbouring states backing rebel groups in a civil war against Kinshasa's authority, and roaming armed militia triggering the mass flight of terrorised civilians. After its November 2013 defeat at the hands of Congolese and UN forces, M23 agreed to a plan to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate its soldiers into DRC civilian life. But the return of the former rebels has stalled, with fewer than 200 of the 1,900 sheltering in Uganda and only 13 out of hundreds left in Rwanda coming back. During the civil war Congolese authorities denounced Rwanda and Uganda for allowing the rebel groups to use their territory as staging grounds for attacks. More recently, they have blamed the states for "bad faith" for allowing "criminals to circulate freely" instead of extraditing them to stand trial in DR Congo. Uganda Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem, reached by AFP in Kampala, strongly denied backing the M23 move across the border. "The fact that Uganda would arm or authorise M23 rebels to be based here (in Uganda) and destabilise the DRC is the fruit of their imagination. Why would Uganda arm the M23?" he said. Kinshasa's central government would do well to "focus on the problems of governing its own country", the minister added. Congo is in political limbo, as President Joseph Kabila has refused to step down after his second and final mandate ended in December. A New Year's Eve deal calls for the appointment of a new prime minister and a transitional body to pave the way to elections in December 2017 -- but not all opposition groups have signed on. A member of the country's political opposition coalition suggested the return of the M23 could be Kabila up to his "old tricks", fomenting unrest to detract from the political crisis in Kinshasa. The Mexican activist,Gustavo Castro, announced the suit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights through his lawyers, who said Honduras had acted unconstitutionally and in violation of Castro's human rights. Castro, an environmental activist, witnessed the March 2016 murder by two gunmen of Berta Caceres, a high-profile Honduran activist who led an indigenous association fighting the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Honduras. The Mexican, who was wounded in the attack, was held by Honduran officials when he tried to fly back to Mexico. He was taken to the Mexican embassy in the Honduran capital for weeks of questioning before being permitted to leave the country. A statement from police in the capital Bern said one protester had doused himself in flammable liquid but was stopped by security forces from setting himself alight before being taken into custody. Xi is in Switzerland for two days of bilateral talks before heading to Davos where he will become the first Chinese president to address the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of political, business and cultural elite. There were an estimated 400 people, including Tibetan exiles and Swiss supporters, at the protest that had been authorised by police, the ATS news agency reported. Some waved a banner saying "No Trade With Murderers" and demanded independence for Tibet, which Beijing says it "peacefully liberated" in 1951 and considers an inseparable part of China. Xi was due to address a state dinner later Sunday alongside Swiss President Doris Leuthard. Monday's talks will focus on topics including climate change and trade. China is Switzerland's biggest commercial partner in Asia. In 2013, the countries inked a free-trade pact that helped boost trade volumes to 31 billion Swiss francs ($30.7 billion, 28.8 billion euros) in 2015. But the centrepiece of Xi's visit will be his keynote address in Davos, where he is expected to preach the advent of a new world. Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th US president on the last day of the forum, a moment that many say will trigger fresh uncertainty about Washington's global leadership. Nye County Public Works Director Tom Bolling and his road crews have been quite busy over the last year, with a variety of repair, maintenance and improvement projects addressing an array of streets throughout the county. To keep the public and county officials apprised of what is happening, Bolling provided the Nye County Commission with an update on current and future projects during its Tuesday, Nov. 1 meeting. ROH-NEW JAPAN WAR OF THE WORLDS TOUR ON SALE NEXT WEEK Ring of Honor announced the following: Tickets go on sale next week for the annual War of the Worlds Tour. ROH and NJPW will make stops in Toronto, Dearborn, and Philly! The worldwide partnership between Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling has never been stronger and on the strength of this relationship, the stars of ROH and NJPW will do battle in the fourth annual War of the Worlds Tour! Dream matches will be contested and titles will be on the line when the War of the Worlds Tour heads to Toronto, Dearborn, and Philadelphia tickets go on sale Wednesday, January 18 for Ringside Members and Friday, January 20 for the general public. The Ted Reeve Arena will host the first leg on Sunday, May 7 before the tour heads to Dearborns Ford Community and Arts Center on Wednesday, May 10. The tour concludes on Sunday, May 14 at the historic 2300 Arena for an international television taping! Previous events have seen stars like IWGP Champion Kazhuchika Okada, Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito, Hirsohi Tanahashi, and more do battle with ROH stars like World Champion Adam Cole, Jay Lethal, Dalton Castle, and Bobby Fish. Matchmakers from both organizations have already begun to craft cards featuring the top stars ROHWrestling.com will be updated with the matches as they are signed! Previous War of the Worlds Tours have seen titles changed and first-time ever dream matches. With demand sky-high, these events will SELL OUT! Dont miss your opportunity to see the stars of ROH and NJPW in Toronto, Dearborn, and Philadelphia become a Ringside Member, set your calendar for Wednesday, January 18 at 10 AM, and dont get locked out! The best way to guarantee you are there live is to become an ROH Ringside Member. Ringside Membership gives you exclusive access to special ROH content as well as the chance to catch ROH TV online early! Plus, Ringside Members get discounts on ROH merchandise and access to exclusive pre-orders. Tickets for ROH and NJPWs War of the Worlds Tour and other events across the globe go on sale for Ringside Members days before they are made available to the general public. To become a Ringside Member today, click HERE! If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here! Hundreds of farmers and their families flocked to the 26th annual Quad-Cities Farm Equipment Show on Sunday at the QCCA Expo Center, Rock Island, to plan for the upcoming planting season and to catch up on the latest products offered by a building full of exhibitors. Among the veteran exhibitors at the show is Minnesota Pneumatic Products of Big Lake, Minnesota. The company's exhibit drew many onlookers with its array of hundreds of automotive tools. Sales representative Mike Ross said he personally has attended the show for 10 years, while the company has been represented there for 20 years. Over the past decade, equipment has become more digitized, he said Everythings computerized. Also, he said, many tools can be used on both tractors and automobiles. The tools are more intertwining, he said. Ross attends 40 shows annually (hell be at the Rod and Custom Show next weekend at the center), and is particularly impressed with the Expo Center volunteers. The volunteers that put on the show need a shout-out, he said. Theyre very helpful with move-in and tear-down anything you need. Another regular at the show, Schmidt Ag Services, a Becks dealer in DeWitt, Iowa, provides seed, chemicals, fertilizers, crop and hail insurance, helicopter aerial spraying and seed treatment applications. There are more and more people in the world every day, and less and less farm ground, said Mike Schmidt, of the family-owned company. We have to have tools that will make us grow a better crop. For example, among the products the company offers is Bt-corn, a genetically modified organism that has a trait within the seed that protects against pests. In the meantime, Al Hauschild, of Congerville, Illinois, chatted with visitors about the Fellowship of Christian Farmers International, a non-profit organization dedicated to building, maintaining and strengthening faith in God for farmers, ranchers, their families and rural communities through presenting Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. We help farmers in need, he said. He evangelizes with what he calls a simple solution: Were all sinners and we need Jesus Christ. (to find out more about the organization, visit www.fcfi.org). Hauschild said the organization dispatches teams of farmers and other people on mission projects that involve church buildings, well drilling, irrigation systems and distributing seeds and gospel tracts. Throughout the show, families, many with little ones in strollers, talked with representatives and chatted with each other. Among them were Angela and Steve Krause Jr. of Atkinson, Illinois, and their children Matthew, 5, Olivia, 4 and Wyatt, 20 months. The farm family attends the show to see whats new, Angela Krause said. We like to walk around and see the new farm equipment. Its nice to see everything in one place. And we get to catch up with a lot of people. SPRINGFIELD The first bill introduced in the Illinois Senate during the new session of the General Assembly that began Wednesday is reserved for a long-awaited overhaul of the way the state funds public schools. But a plan hasnt been unveiled yet because a commission that Gov. Bruce Rauner convened this summer is still working out specifics. With the commissions Feb. 1 deadline roughly two weeks away, a draft report issued last week shows there are several items on which lawmakers of both parties and both legislative chambers have yet to reach a consensus. Among those issues is how to define what constitutes adequate funding for each school district across the state. Despite the remaining work, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hopeful that an overhaul of Illinois education funding formula can be part of a grand bargain on the state budget and other issues. A bipartisan package of bills that includes tax increases, spending cuts, new casino licenses and a host of other issues has been introduced in the Senate, and committee hearings are expected to begin as soon as next week on some portions. The effort has the backing of both Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont. The most important piece of that package, to me, is school funding reform, state Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said Monday. Manar, whos been working on the issue since arriving in the Senate in 2013, said the commission has brought lawmakers from both parties and both legislative chambers together with Rauner administration officials for a productive conversation. I dont think weve unearthed an easier way to accomplish school funding reform in Illinois, he said. I think its as difficult today as it ever has been since we started this conversation. Previous reform efforts have faltered because of the political difficulties of passing legislation that would either shift money from wealthier school districts to poorer ones or result in a large increase in state spending. The issue often breaks down along both partisan and regional lines. Given those challenges, tying school funding to the larger discussion of a budget compromise could be essential to passing legislation, said state Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, who has been a leader for his caucus on the issue. If ever there was a time to address it, the time would be now in the context of us coming together in a bipartisan manner on all these other host of issues, Barickman said. This ones so difficult in any normal context that I think its critical to incorporate into this larger effort. The overall goal of funding reform is to direct more state money to school districts with the greatest need while also accounting for each districts individual characteristics, such as the number of special education students and students from low-income households. Illinois current system, which relies heavily on local property taxes, is among the worst in the nation at providing equitable funding for wealthy and poor school districts. Manar and Barickman are both optimistic that Senate can find a bipartisan approach to solving that problem. If I had to choose a word to describe the Democrats' nominating speeches for House Speaker Michael Madigan's re-election last week, it would be either "defensive" or perhaps "joyless." The speeches seemed directly aimed at Madigan's toughest critics and there are plenty of those out there. The nominators at times angrily justified their own votes for Madigan and their continued willingness to support him while under siege by a hostile kabillionaire governor and much of the state's media. They literally cannot go anywhere without being asked about why they continue to back Madigan. For the most part, these were speeches from an all too real bunker. Rep. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, told a touching story about how Madigan dotes on his grandchild, but began his speech with an anecdote about how he figured the child would get him in trouble by playing with a toy car in Madigan's office a clear acknowledgment of his leader's fearsome reputation. It was an attempt to humanize a man who has been turned into a cartoon caricature of an evil villain. But it was too little, too late. Beiser, by the way, was a Tier One campaign target last year who was repeatedly forced to distance himself from Madigan. His nominating speech was the clearest indication yet that he won't be running for re-election next year. Former Rep. John Bradley lost his House race last year partly because the Republicans aired an ad that used video from one of his own Madigan nominating speeches. Beiser's speech was likely not so much an act of courage in the face of overwhelming retribution, but a way to show his thanks to the top dog on his way out the door. While House Democrats repeatedly lashed out at the opposition to Madigan, Senate Democrats were heaping praise on Senate President John Cullerton for being, in the words of Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, "uniquely qualified at building bipartisan bridges because, above everything else, he has demonstrated a love for this state." Contrast that with the speech of Rep. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, which began with a story about how a friend warned him against seconding Madigan's nomination because the Republicans would bash him with tons of negative ads. The strong sense of political danger about the vote was a sentiment widely shared by Sims fellow Democratic House members. But in the end, the members did their grim best to power their way forward. Madigan began his own speech by asking for bipartisanship, but then defiantly refused yet again to participate in any "race to the bottom" with Gov. Bruce Rauner and appeared to dismiss out of hand any attempt to reform workers' compensation insurance, a key component of the compromise brewing in the Senate. Madigan's speech was nothing like Senate President Cullerton's, who mildly complained about the fact that the Senate is often ignored by reporters because "if there's no conflict there's no coverage." Cullerton talked about the advances he and Senate Republican Leader Radogno have made together. The two were elected to their leadership roles as the divisive end of the Rod Blagojevich era was coming to a tragic end. "We've seen some pretty bad times and we've gotten through them by working together," he said. "How about we just try governing for a little bit?" Cullerton gently asked near the end of his speech after saying the non-stop campaign-style messaging needs to stop. "That's what the people have sent us here to do." That same sentiment was expressed much more forcefully in the House, where Republican Leader Jim Durkin angrily demanded an end to the Democrats' "gotcha" games of holding endless roll calls purely designed to be used in campaign ads. Watching the two ceremonies was truly a study in contrasts. The Senate was brimming with hope that it can finally lead the way out of this horrific two-year impasse. The House, meanwhile, is still mired up to its collective neck in the stalemate with no clear way forward. And then there was the lone "Present" vote by Rep. Scott Drury, D-Highwood, who issued a long and rambling news release afterward predicting that he will likely face "repercussions" for his (mostly meaningless) act, and claiming that "Illinois is in a free-fall into the abyss." Despite his usual melodramatics and penchant for self-aggrandizement, Drury's statement was almost the perfect cap for a joyless and grim afternoon. It is clear, he wrote, that "a majority of the General Assembly is not ready for a new Speaker." That is very true. Last week, the House Democrats continued the age-old political practice of dancing with the one who brung them. But there were few smiles to be seen. SEATTLE | Amazon.com said it plans to add 100,000 full-time U.S. employees over the next 18 months, a move that comes amid pressure on the private sector by the incoming Trump administration to create jobs. Seattle-based Amazon said last week that by 2018 it plans to have more than 280,000 full-time U.S. employees, versus 180,000 at the end of 2016. The jobs cover a wide range of disciplines, from developers and engineers that work on cloud computing to warehouse operators that handle millions of packages. The company also highlighted its role as a platform for third-party providers that use its online site to sell wares and also create jobs, as well as a revenue generator for the contractors who sign up with the e-commerce giant to deliver packages. Marketplace, Amazon's online platform for third-party merchants, supports 300,000 jobs in the U.S., Amazon said. "Innovation is one of our guiding principles at Amazon, and it's created hundreds of thousands of American jobs. These jobs are not just in our Seattle headquarters or in Silicon Valley they're in our customer-service network, fulfillment centers and other facilities in local communities throughout the country," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO. "We plan to add another 100,000 new Amazonians across the company over the next 18 months as we open new fulfillment centers, and continue to invent in areas like cloud technology, machine learning and advanced logistics." A hiring binge by Amazon is nothing new: The company has grown dramatically since its foundation, adding 150,000 U.S. jobs since 2011. It is well on its way to becoming the second-largest employer among the Fortune 500, after archrival Wal-Mart. In Seattle, where it recently advertised more than 8,000 jobs, the company has transformed not only the labor market but the urban landscape. Amazon said Thursday it had more than 40,000 employees in Washington. But the announcement seems to fit within the context in which President-elect Donald Trump lambastes, often via Twitter, companies that take jobs out of the U.S. and praises those companies that create them. Earlier this week Trump met with Jack Ma, CEO of Amazon's China-based rival Alibaba. According to media reports, they discussed job creation in the U.S. In a news conference Wednesday, Trump who has previously argued with Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post vowed to be the biggest job producer "God ever created." Amazon's announcement contrasts with a big retrenchment among major retailers such as Macy's, which have seen their business buffeted by the growth of the Seattle retailer. The Republican-led Congress heard the American people loud and clear on Obamacare. The law is broken beyond repair, and Americans are looking for a better, more patient-centered approach. According to a recent poll, 80 percent of Americans want to see the law substantially changed or repealed and replaced entirely. In South Dakota alone, Ive heard from hundreds of people who have been negatively affected by Obamacare, and it is heart-wrenching to read some of their stories. One person in particular told me the premium for his familys health insurance spiked by 357 percent this year. Stories like this one are why South Dakotans are upset and why they feel let down by a political party in Washington that sold them a lemon of a health-care system. Obamacare was supposed to drive down costs, but premiums and deductibles have skyrocketed. It was supposed to increase choices, but some Americans have been relegated to a single option for coverage. Thats not choice, and its not affordable either. The law isnt working, and the sooner my Democrat colleagues accept that reality, the sooner we can move toward a health-care system that actually works for the American people. Democrats have been so focused on the number of people they claim have signed up for Obamacare that they forget about the millions of Americans who lost the coverage they had and liked before the president signed the bill in the first place. They also forget that when it comes to Obamacare, coverage and affordability arent exactly synonymous. The deductibles for some plans are so high that its hard to even call it coverage at all. Thats why Republicans have for years pledged that when we had majorities in both houses of Congress and a willing partner in the White House, we would repeal this failed law once and for all and replace it with common-sense reforms that put the American people first. Congress has already taken some important first steps that have laid the groundwork to fully and finally repeal and replace Obamacare, but theres more work ahead. Its important to know that when we send a repeal bill to President Trump, we wont be pulling the rug out from under the American people. Our plan will include a transition period to protect Americans with existing Obamacare coverage from being left high and dry. While were still determining how long that transition period should be, Republicans are unified in our goal to repeal Obamacare, which is why were using it as a starting point. When it comes to replacing Obamacare, youre not going to see Republicans roll out a massive government-knows-best bill that takes over the nations health care system. Democrats tried that with Obamacare, and it failed miserably. Republicans will work toward replacing Obamacare with step-by-step reforms that actually lower costs and increase access to care. Its what the American people deserve and have been asking for, and I hope Democrats join us in working toward this important goal as well. Vehicular homicide has hit south central South Dakota hard in recent years. Young lives were lost in cases when vehicular homicide charges were filed in crashes in rural Davison County, the city of Mitchell, Wagner and rural Charles Mix County recently, forcing families to say goodbye to loved ones as young as 9, 22, 25 and 46 years old. While some of those vehicular homicide charges were dismissed and others have yet to be tried by the courts, the current maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine is nowhere near enough for the loss of life incurred in these tragic events. With South Dakota's 2017 legislative session kicking off, we're hoping to finally see some changes made to deter this awful crime from occurring in the future. That's why we commend state Attorney General Marty Jackley for making another attempt to classify vehicular homicide as a violent crime. Jackley's bill, called Senate Bill 24, would force those convicted of vehicular homicide to serve at least half of their sentence before becoming eligible for parole, instead of the 30 percent mandated currently for nonviolent crimes. After Jackley announced his proposal, along with five other bills, the father of one vehicular homicide victim continued his call for more serious reform, and we agree something needs to be done. Gregg Spindler the father of Maegan Spindler, a 25-year-old who was one of two victims in a Charles Mix County crash in which Ronald Fischer was convicted of two counts of vehicular homicide told The Daily Republic last week he was cynical Jackley's bill would pass after it failed to emerge from a legislative conference committee last year. But we're hoping the 2017 Legislature, which includes several new faces, realizes the severity of this crime and the major impact it's had on our region and the families of vehicular homicide victims. With 22 vehicular homicide convictions since 2012 and six others facing charges, this is no small problem in South Dakota. Innocent lives have been lost, and now's the time for the South Dakota Legislature to establish a stronger deterrent for what should absolutely be deemed a violent crime. Denial to remove human rights group Memorial from foreign agents list appealed MOSCOW, January 16 (RAPSI) International human rights association Memorial has lodged an appeal with the Moscow City Court challenging a lower courts refusal to remove the organization from the foreign agents list, RIA Novosti reported Monday. On December 16, Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court upheld a decision declaring Memorial a foreign agent and thus dismissed the NGOs motion to be excluded from the list. During the hearings representatives of Memorial said that the Justice Ministry incorrectly interpreted some of articles, published on the NGOs website, as organizing political activity. They noted that Memorial is an international organization and cant be listed as foreign agent, according to the Constitutional Courts ruling. Representative of the Justice Ministry, in turn, claimed that Memorial is registered in Russia and is to follow Russian legislation. Memorial was declared foreign agent by the Justice Ministry on July 21, 2014. A federal law adopted in November 2012 requires that all NGOs engaged in political activity and receiving foreign funding register as foreign agents or face fines. In June 2013, the Justice Ministry was granted authority to classify NGOs as foreign agents at its own discretion and included a number of organizations in its register. In December, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow fined Memorial with 300,000 rubles (nearly $5,000), the NGO plans to appeal that ruling as well. The international historical, educational, human rights and charitable society Memorial was created to help rehabilitate the victims of Stalinist persecution campaigns. Memorial currently comprises 62 organizations from Russia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, France, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Ukraine. It also includes the Memorial Center, which monitors the human rights situation in the North Caucasus and is on the foreign agents register. Russian eccentric artist Pavlensky accused of sexual assault MOSCOW, January 16 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov) Russian eccentric performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky wrote on his Facebook page that he and his partner Oksana Shalygina had been accused of sexual assault against an actress from Teatr.doc theatre. According to Pavlensky, they were arrested on December 14 and then brought to the Investigative Committee for questioning on allegations of sexual violence. They were released after the interrogation. As Pavlensky said in an interview with the Ukrainian TV, the woman, who wrote a statement for the law enforcement agencies, was an initiator of meeting and communication with him and Shalygina. He denied the fact of sexual assault. Investigators are conducting check upon the actress application. Reportedly, Pavlensky and Shalygina have left Russia and are going to seek political asylum in France. Pavlensky is known for a number of controversial performances. In July 2012, he sewed up his mouth and stood at the Kazan Cathedral with a poster in support of Pussy Riot. In May 2013, Pavlensky lay down on the ground in front of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly naked with barbed wire around his body. In November 2013, also naked, Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the Red Square pavement near the Lenin Mausoleum. In October 2014, he staged an eccentric stunt on the roof of the Serbsky Mental Institution in Moscow by cutting off one of his earlobes. In February 2015, Pavlensky and his accomplices burned car tyres, waved Ukrainian flags and banged sheet metal with sticks in a show of solidarity with the anti-government protesters in Ukraine. The performance was held near the Church of the Savior on Blood in St. Petersburg. In June 2016, Pavlensky was found guilty of setting fire to the Moscow headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB). The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow imposed a 500,000 ruble ($7,900) fine on Pavlensky and ruled in favor of FSB, which demanded 481,000 rubles ($7,700) from the artist in a civil lawsuit. Russian court fines underage Islamized girl for extremism over Internet post MOSCOW, January 16 (RAPSI) A court in Essentuki town, Southern Russia, has fined an underage girl converted in Islam 50 thousand rubles (about $850) for Internet messages calling for sectarian discord, RIA Novosti reported Monday. The judge found the girl guilty of a crime the Russian Criminal Code formulates as incitement of hatred or enmity. The criminal case materials say that the schoolgirl, who converted to Islam, failing to clearly understand its articles of faith and encouraged by a video record implicitly calling for armed fight for Islamic beliefs has commented on this record on Internet. The messages the girl posted, according to the court, approved of these calls, whereas the defendant personally called for sectarian discord, the report says. The girl pleaded guilty and repented in the courtroom. Ukraine accuses Russia of violating two more international conventions MOSCOW, January 16 (RAPSI) Ukraines Foreign Ministry was tasked with filing an application with the International Court of Justice regarding alleged violations of two more international conventions by Russia, a statement published on the website of Ukrainian President reads on Monday. Russia is accused of violating the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Earlier, Ukraine accused Russia of breaching the Treaty on Friendship and the UN maritime United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. On December 30, it was reported that Ukraine is going to file with an international court a lawsuit over alleged violation of the Treaty on Friendship by Russia. In accordance with the so-called great treaty on friendship between two countries, the Russian Federation must respect Ukraines territorial integrity and inviolability of present boundaries, Pristayko said in an interview with Ukrinform news agency. Ukraine has prepared a lawsuit accusing Russia of failure to comply with the treaty, the agency reports. The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was signed in Kiev on May 31, 1997 and ratified by parties in 1998. The agreement is intended for strategic partnership between two countries based on principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, border inviolability, peaceful settlement of disputes, non-use of force or threat of force, including economic and other means of pressure. In August of 2016, Ukraines Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said that his country prepared an appellation to the UN International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over alleged violation of the UN maritime convention on the part of Russia. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister refused to provide details about the appellation to the UN Tribunal; however, as it has already been reported earlier, yet in July Ukraine protested against Russias sea exploration activities near the peninsula alleging they violated its exclusive economic zone. Flash back to the year 2000. George W. Bush became president of the United States with the help of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and a politically motivated, right-leaning Supreme Court. Later George W. Bush would do the worst thing any U.S. president could ever do: hed lie to start a war. President Obama followed President Bush. And even though Obama would arguably become the best U.S. president in fifty years, Republicans would see him as the worst, and do everything possible to demean and destroy his two terms. Why? The Republican politicians in office had one goal in mindpower. And they had no qualms about putting party before country to achieve their goal. As for Republican voters, there is a reason the GOP, Fox News, and fake news creators have targeted them. They are, perhaps, the biggest suckers to ever walk the planet. Not only can they be convinced to vote against their own interests, but they can also be convinced to believe practically any conspiracy theory put before them. Now that Donald Trump will soon take office, we can safely say that none of the Obama conspiracy theories came true. Here are just a few of the hundreds of conspiracy theories millions of Republicans believedand Montanans parroted on newspaper editorial pages throughout the state: President Obama was born in Kenya; he was a Muslim, secretly working to help other Muslims take over the country; he would replace U.S. law with Sharia Law; his wedding ring was emblazoned with There is no god except Allah; he would declare martial law to cancel elections and remain president beyond his two terms; he ordered the murders of Antonin Scalia and Andrew Breitbart; he faked Osama bin Ladens death; he would create death panels; he would open youth reeducation camps; he would order FEMA concentration camps; he was behind the Aurora movie theater shooting and numerous other mass murders on American soil; he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance; he was the Antichrist; he would come for your gold; he would come for your IRA; and he wouldmost certainlycome for your guns! The gun industry and the NRA, incidentally, would like to thank Republican voters for the more than 100 million guns they purchased during the Obama presidency. They will have no worries about limping through the Donald Trump presidency either. Since Trump is the king of conspiracy theories, theyll soon find another angle to get Republicans to continue increasing their weapons stockpile. Could there be a more embarrassing time to be a Republican voter? In electing Donald Trump, they will forever be known as the people who voted with the Ku Klux Klan and were the pawns of Vladimir Putin. They also sold out the possibility of anyone ever taking their claims of being Christian seriously again. Think about it. Donald Trump is exactly the self-serving, greedy, rich man that Jesus preached against in the Bible. And people like Donald Trump werent some fringe issue for Jesus either. They were a huuuge issue! Consequently, Republicans can no longer honestly declare that Republican values are Christian values. Instead their values are merely whatever is convenient. That being said, I hope Republicans enjoy their win. They certainly paid a high price for it. And if Trumps erratic, thin-skinned, and vindictive personality gets the United States into another war, they had better be first in line to volunteer for military service. The Trump-voting demographic is much older than the war-fighting demographic, but thats not an excuse. Neither are their bad knees, arthritic hips, or other age-induced maladies. Trump is the responsibility of those who voted for him. Never again can we have thousands of our brave young men and women dying because of an unnecessary war! As for those of us who voted against Trump? Our candidate might have lost, but at least we still have our dignityand Nov. 3, 2020 as a date to look forward to. Marty Essen, Victor Marty Essen is a college speaker and the eight-time award-winning author of two environmentally themed books, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents and Endangered Edens. His third book, a snarky politically themed novel, is in the works. His website is www.MartyEssen.com. He resides in Victor. HELENA Montana firefighters have again asked legislators to make it easier for them to secure workers' compensation coverage for job-caused lung diseases, a proposal that has failed several times in recent years despite being law in most states. Sen. Pat Connell of Hamilton argued last week that firefighters should not have to prove their cancer or other serious illness was caused by long-term hazardous exposures because mounting scientific evidence has clearly shown the connection. In part because the illnesses develop from long-term exposure rather than a single, identifiable incident such as a breaking a leg from falling through a floor many firefighters who seek coverage are denied. Instead, Senate Bill 72 would amend state law so coverage would be presumed unless the insurer can prove the illness was the result of something else. Connell is the first Republican in memory to carry the bill. I know what its like to suck smoke, he said, noting he fought forest fires and later was a director of the Corvallis Volunteer Fire Department. I know what my guys faced in going into buildings, risking their lives to protect Montana citizens and property. The measures first hearing drew numerous supporters and, for the first time, no opponents. This is the best bill regarding this issue Ive ever seen and Ive been up here since 1973, said Don Judge with the Montana Trial Lawyers Association, listing relatives who have fought fires. Firefighters, they take an awful risk to save us, to save our property, to save whatever it is thats important to us. They deserve this kind of protection. The Montana Fire Alliance, a coalition of firefighter organizations, supports the bill, which would cover both professionals and volunteers. We finally have a bill the entire fire service can get behind, said Leonard Lundby, the fire chief of Manchester Volunteer Fire Department and vice chairman of the Montana State Fire Chiefs Association. *** Supporters and a state health professional who testified Friday cited studies showing that firefighters are exposed to toxic chemicals even when wearing head-to-toe protective gear and masks, because of limitations in that equipment as building materials change or because they are exposed to particulates that accumulate on the exterior while in a fire. They also noted that lightweight construction techniques that have become increasingly popular for reducing costs do so by using synthetic materials that burn hotter than traditional ones and expose firefighters to new risks. Sen. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, wondered: Why are we picking firefighters and not other professions with known chemical exposures? In those professions, people have the ability to know exactly what types of chemicals theyre working around, Helena Firefighter of the Year Dave Maslowski said, noting chemical safety warnings that must be posted. In almost all work environments, chemicals can be stored properly and in the right container . Firefighters do not have the luxury of knowing what kind of environment we run into. Its completely out of our control. This is just a presumption. Not a promise and definitely not a guarantee, he said. If the firefighter is a smoker, they wont be covered. If they have a family history of lung disease, they wont be covered. If they were exposed somewhere else, they wont be covered. The bill also requires firefighters to have had a medical examination within 90 days of being hired to demonstrate they did not have a pre-existing condition. After leaving the fire service, firefighters could receive up to five years of coverage for an illness, an amount that is scaled based on the length of their employment. The sideboards on this bill are so high and so sturdy it limits exposure, Sen. Tom Facey, D-Missoula, said. *** Historically, lobbyists for insurance companies, towns and counties have opposed the bill, worried about increased costs. No national studies on the overall costs to insurers or about the number of claims that qualify for presumptive coverage have been completed, although insurance organizations have said generally that costs do increase, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which compiles policy research. The prevalence rate is pretty small, said Eric Strauss, the employment relations administrator at the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. In a 12-year period, 26 claims were denied, he said, noting they could not see details on why they had been turned down. We can assume some of them likely would be presumptive under this bill. In Montana, volunteer firefighters outnumber their professional counterparts. Lundby estimated about 4,000 of the states 7,000 volunteers have workers' compensation insurance. Williamson said Medicare claims for lung cancer average out to $60,000 for the first year of treatment and $116,000 for the final year of life. Connells bill proposes taking a portion of the states tax on fire insurance premiums, which currently flows into the general fund to be spent on anything, to create a new special fund that would pay for the care of firefighters receiving presumptive coverage. The bill would cap the fund at $1 million. Only enough collections to meet that cap would go to the fund to replenish anything spent the previous year. He does not expect the fund to ever be depleted in a single year. Denys Trussell is a living link to what we might call the heroic age of New Zealand poetry. In the decades after World War Two New Zealand was, as Allen Curnow said, a 'hard homeland' for poets. Instead of the grants and residencies that are today up for grabs, the state offered poets and artists of all kinds discouragement, and sometimes persecution.Poets like James K Baxter and ARD Fairburn responded to the strictures of their society with satire and polemic. They became public figures, as they lambasted the philistinism of their age.As a young man Denys Trussell befriended many of the important poets of the postwar era, and wrote a biography of ARD Fairburn. In his poems and his essays he channels the anger and energy of Fairburn and Baxter, and as the head of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors he does battle with the philistines of our era, who tend to use neo-liberal economics rather than religious dogma to justify their assaults on the arts.Today'squotes a polemic that Trussell has directed at Auckland Council, which is considering sacking fifty of the city's librarians. Trussell objects not just to the prospect of redundancies but to the way that Auckland's councillors think about libraries, books, and readers:You can find more of Trussell's polemic here America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance! Contacting Rensselaer Adventures To contact Rensselaer Adventures, send e-mail to rensselaeradventures at yahoo.com. (I put the @ in there originally, and of the first eight messages I received, four were the Nigerian scam and three told me I won a lottery I never entered. Maybe this change is already too late.) If you want to comment on any specific post, (adding information or correcting a mistake I made) please use the comment area that is available on each post. That way everyone will get to see what you think, not just me. I would love to hear from you if you have ideas of things I can write about. Even better, if you want to contribute something, I will consider it. I will not check this address every day, so be patient. (And I almost never check my messages on Facebook, so it you send something there, the odds are that I will not see it for weeks or months.) Also, I encourage and appreciate comments that are informative or entertaining. However, I delete comments that I think are offensive or inappropriate (which includes spam--I delete a lot of spam). Kathmandu, Nepal: Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), Sushil Gyewali has moved to the Supreme Court (SC), the apex court of the country challenging the governments decision to sack him from the post on Monday. Gyenwali has demanded a stay order against the government for sacking him. In the writ he has argued that the governments decision to remove him from the post illegal and with ill-intention. Alleging him of incompetent, the government had sacked Gyewali from the post on Wednesday and had appointed former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission Govinda Raj Pokharel in the post of NRA. In the writ, Gyenwali has named defendants to the Government of Nepal, The Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Cabinet, Prime Minister and newly appointed CEO Pokharel. With production work by the legendary Kent Stump of Wo Fat, "Careful What You Wish For," is the Lafayette, Louisiana-based quartets third official release overall after their 2011 EP debut Crow Sessions and its follow-up, their self-titled full length. White Light Cemeterys guitarist/vocalist Shea Bearden, bassist Tara Miller, guitarist Ryan Cletus Robin, and drummer Thomas Colley are the very embodiment of metallic Southern Rock circa 2017 and this fact is verified all throughout Careful What You Wish For. If youve never heard WLC, it is what would result if one mixed the best elements of Black Oak Arkansas with Pepper Keenan era Corrosion Of Conformity and added a splash of Black Stone Cherry for flavor. Now, who the hell wouldnt want to check that out I ask you? Limited vinyl limited to 80 copies. www.ripplemusic.bigcartel.com On sale now!!Limited vinyl limited to 80 copies. "White Light Cemetery have released the first great rock record of the year and only tease at what a formidable force they surely must be when witnessed live. Highly Recommended." -- Atom Heart Mutha. At long last!!! Finally available on vinyl and completely remastered by Chris Goosman, and never sounding better, Freedom Hawk's long out-of-print debut gets the full, grand re-release via Ripple! Coming to you on January 28th. Dawn Arises Edition: Gold/Black two tone swirl with White splatter limited to only 80 copies. Only 1 test press! Midnight Black and CD. "If Freedom Hawk were in search of the lost Black Sabbath riff, they've struck gold. Their debut CD, 'Sunlight' is so chock full of lumbering Sabbath-powered riffs and Blue Cheer-pinched guitar licks that it will put cracks in your walls once you press play! Freedom Hawk rock loud and proud and come HIGHLY RECOMMENDED." - The Atomic Chaser, THE DRP/All Access Magazine Eddie Peng and Deng Chao star in Duckweed, which is a vigilante comedy heading to theaters on January 28. A new trailer looks quite slick. That description comes via our editor Todd Brown, and it's justified by the mix of action, comedy and drama in the full trailer. Interestingly, the first trailer, released recently, presents the movie, accompanied by a melodramatic song, as a lush romance of some sort. Both trailers come courtesy of Hong Kong Cinema. More information comes from A Virtual Voyage, which says that the alternate English title is Ride the Winds Break the Waves. Here is their description of the film: Deng Chao plays a racing driver and his profession is not understood by his father (Eddie Peng). In order to prove himself, he meets a group of friends and experiences many ups and downs, finally coming to his own understanding. Zhao Li Ying plays his mother of course. You can watch both trailers below. Fresh from a year and a half tour of international festivals, French sci-fi short The Edge ("La lisiere") is now available online for a week from Monday, January 16, 2017. Don't miss out! Simon Sauliner's gorgeous film was shot in the Vosges forest region in France during the fall of 2013. Produced by Gravity Films, with cinematographer Thierry Pouget (The Assault) and Alex Cortes (Eden Log, Martyrs) composing the score, The Edge suggests good things to come for the new director. The Edge is Saulnier's second short and he is currently in pre-production on his first feature film Capture, produced by Logical Pictures with an eye towards a summer shoot. Synopsis: In a near future forest where anarchy reigns, we follow the journey of a young girl tracking down the thieves who took what she cares about most. The film's haunting soundtrack, composed by Alex Cortes, is also available to stream. Pro tip: remember to hit the closed captioning button for the English subs! "Prison Work Programs in a Model of Deterrence" | Main | UCLA Prison Law & Policy Program launches Prison Law JD, a new listserv for connecting new folks to prisoners' rights lawyers. January 16, 2017 Questioning a new term of supervised release after Prez Obama commutes a life sentence This new article at The Fix highlights an interesting legal issue that has arisen in the wake of Prez Obama's decision to commute a drug offenders life sentence. Here are the particulars (with a few edits for keeping the legal terminology accurate): When Jimmy Walden was granted clemency by President Obama, it was the happiest day of his life. Walden was locked up on May 19, 2008 and given a life sentence under federal sentencing guidelines for a very minor drug offense in Tennessee. On August 4, 2016, Walden received an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting his total trial sentence of imprisonment to expire on August 3, 2018. He was ecstatic, but then he got a letter from the court informing him that they wanted to impose a 10-year term of supervised release. The court hadnt deemed it necessary at the time due to Waldens life sentence, but since he was getting out, his judge now wanted to impose [supervised release], which in effect is another sentence. I was arrested in September 2007. My case was possession with attempt to distribute crack cocaine and marijuana, Walden tells The Fix from Federal Correctional Institution, Jesup in Georgia. They arrested me and wanted me to tell. I refused and went to trial. They found me not guilty of count one and guilty of counts two to five. They gave me life from enhancing me because of my priors. The two priors were for very small amounts of crack. Walden got caught with 1.3 grams the first time and .5 grams the second time. He was charged with possession with intent to sell. He was sentenced to probation in both cases. But the federal government used those two priors to trigger the career criminal statute and sentenced Walden to life. He was effectively doing life for around 50 grams of crack cocaine. Thats why Obama pardoned him, because he was serving a disproportionate sentence.... But at the same time he was getting congratulated on his presidential commutation, he received a disconcerting letter from the sentencing court saying that even though his judge omitted to sentence him to [supervised release] at his original sentencing, the judge now wanted to impose a term of supervised release on Walden once he was released. The judge went back and did a re-do, issuing an order that would amend a judgement that was final nine years ago. If Walden tried to get back in court on some issue and change his sentence, hed be time barred by the court but it seems the court can do as it pleases when it comes to drug war prisoners, while those unjustly incarcerated must follow the rules.... For some clarity on the matter, The Fix reached out to some clemency experts P.S. Ruckman Jr., a professor of political science who runs the Pardon Power blog, and Margaret Love, the former pardon attorney under former President Bill Clinton to get their opinions on the legalities involved with pardons and what the courts can or cant do in this situation. The president has the power to grant commutations of sentence, with or without conditions, Ruckman tells The Fix.... Presidents have commuted sentences on the condition that prisoners never drink again, that they live with their parents, that they leave D.C., that they join the army, that they leave the United States and never return, etc. In the past, prisoners have refused attached conditions and chosen to remain in prison. My understanding is that this was a conditional pardon. If 10 years [supervised release] was one of the conditions of clemency like attending the Bureau of Prisons Residential Drug Abuse Program was then Walden has to accept it as part of the clemency grant or stay in prison like Ruckman said. No one would do that, but if the 10 years supervised release wasnt a condition of the grant of clemency, then the court shouldnt have any right to impose it. That would be illegal. I understand that the presidents commutation order did not mention a term of supervised release, Margaret Love tells The Fix. In any case, the pardon power does not authorize the president to impose a new sentence (which is what a term of supervised release is). The court's power to amend the original judgment to impose a new sentence of supervised release at this point, or to impose any conditions on his release, seems highly doubtful. At this point the court has no power to impose a term of supervised release, effectively a new sentence.... Pursuant to Rule 36, the court sent notice to Walden that it intends to amend the Judgment and Commitment Order to correct the Court's omission of failing to impose mandatory terms of supervised release as required by the statute. The court intends to order that all terms of supervised release run concurrently for a net effective term of 10 years of supervised release. The court also intends to impose the Standards Conditions of Supervision that have been adopted by his Court. The court appointed a public defender and informed Walden that he could object to the imposition of the term of supervised release. I objected, Walden says. The point is I have remained in zero trouble inside prison. The president gave me clemency because he believed in me. The judge now wants to add 10 years supervised release onto my sentence after my sentence has been final for over nine years. This is a violation of due process. As an inmate I have no legal way to get back into court. They had their chance at sentencing. I disagree with this reasoning and I have filed a statement that I object to this addition with my attorney. This is an interesting situation. Many people seem interested in the outcome. It is illegal and should be brought to the public's attention. Even Waldens public defender wasnt sure about the legalities involved in this case, I am currently reaching out to defenders across the nation to see if they have input on whether this is permissible post-grant of clemency, she wrote him. Currently the public defender is in the process of making a supplement to the objections that Walden has. Plus other prisoners who received clemency grants from Obama have not received letters from their judge and court attempting to amend a judgment that is already final. Walden is ready to get on with his life without [supervised release] hovering over his head. I would like to drive trucks after getting my CDL license, Walden says. I thank God for another chance. I have this desire to drive trucks and see the country at the same time. Perhaps I will have a chance to speak to younger people and explain to them how unwise choices have consequences. I can stop youth from making the same mistakes I have. I am blessed that Obama came into office and helped me, or Id be just another number serving life behind bars. There may not always be a President Obama around to give people another chance. I will definitely take the opportunity to prove to people like the President-elect that some people are deserving of a second chance. I would certainly not want to mess up someone down the line from getting the same relief as me. The legal issue here strikes me as an interesting mix of functionalities and technicalities. There was, of course, no functional reason for the sentencing judge to impose any term of supervised release at initial sentencing when imposing an LWOP sentence. But now that a commutation has resulted in an offender getting released after serving less than a decade, there now is a functional reason for imposing at least some SR term (which would have been a required part of the sentence had the defendant been sentenced to less than LWOP). But, technically, I think there is a forceful argument that if the Prez did not include the addition of an SR term in his clemency grant, then it is improper for the original sentencing judge to now add that on to the defendant's original (now commuted) sentence. Notably, the White House clemency page reports that the "1,176 men and women" who have had their prison sentences commuted by Prez Obama includes "395 individuals who were serving life sentences." Thus there are literally hundreds of individuals who could have this kind of post-commutation issue arise (although I doubt all sentencing courts are going to be as proactive as the court that added 10 years of supervised release to Walden's sentence). January 16, 2017 at 11:20 AM | Permalink Comments I don't think the matter remotely debatable. The convict got what he got at sentencing--the criminal judgment did not include supervised release. President Obama's commutation reduced the effect of the criminal judgment, and there is no basis to conclude that the SR is required by law. This is an atrocious decision, and it's emblematic of a legal system that doesn't respect the strictures of law. Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 11:26:37 AM I agree with federalist though perhaps not for precisely the same reasons. The judge doesn't have the power. Once the judge sentenced the defendant and the judgement and sentence became final the judge loses all jurisdiction over the defendant at least to this subject matter. The defendant gets transferred to the executive branch and what the executive branch chooses to do with the prisoner-so long as it is within legal and constitutional bounds--is of no concern to the judiciary. In other words, I don't see this as a "rule of law" problem but a "separation of powers" problem. The court here seems to be under the mistaken notion that what is happening between the branches of government is some kind of sentencing "conversation". It's not. Posted by: Daniel | Jan 16, 2017 12:01:16 PM Many, maybe most, of the 395 individuals with life sentences who had their sentences commuted also had supervised release as part of their original sentencing. I know one first time nonviolent marijuana offender who has two life terms plus twenty who has ten years of supervised release. Actually 10 years of supervised release attached to a life sentence is not surprisingly ridiculous. Any sentencing construct that gives a sentence of two life terms plus twenty is already ripe for ridicule about the redundancy. Posted by: beth | Jan 16, 2017 12:30:02 PM It's a rule of law problem. First of all (and this goes to separation of powers), the judge should be treading extremely lightly. The President's pardon power is virtually plenary (Prez probably cannot pardon himself and cannot pardon for a bribe). Second, the basis of the action, correction of an error, simply does not obtain here. The original sentence was correct. And it certainly wasn't a "clerical" error. Third, POTUS based his decision on the sentence then at hand---adjusting the sentence after clemency was therefore improper. The arrogance of this action cannot be understated. It may well be that this guy "should" get supervised release. But one judge's opinion of "should" isn't the basis of law. Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 12:41:30 PM I appreciate the comments and it is an example of how conservative respect of basic principles can join with liberal concerns as well -- there is a lot of overlap on the basics in this country, even among all the disagreement. Both good and bad. Anyway, I looked it up and there was a condition imposed: "Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on August 3, 2018, conditioned upon enrollment in residential drug treatment." https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/08/03/president-obama-grants-commutations I gather "Prison sentence commuted to expire" has a set meaning & if it means you cannot impose further requirements ala the judge here, the case is rather straightforward. But, these things often are not. The article noted: "Waldens public defender wasnt sure about the legalities involved in this case, I am currently reaching out to defenders across the nation to see if they have input on whether this is permissible post-grant of clemency, she wrote him." But, the first comments are attractive. Posted by: Joe | Jan 16, 2017 12:58:22 PM Rule 36 does not apply to changed circumstances that would have necessitated a different outcome had those circumstances been present. Why doesn't that end the matter? Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 1:19:11 PM Doug, I am curious your legal analysis. Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 2:13:30 PM Isn't there a double jeopardy issue here as well? Posted by: Michael Levine | Jan 16, 2017 3:53:06 PM Mr. Levine may be correct: see United States v. DiFrancesco and progeny. Posted by: anon2 | Jan 16, 2017 4:11:05 PM Certaintly diesnt matter if he should of been placed on supervised release. His case was final, thats what its all about. Everything has to have an end. The inmate gas no chance to get it looked at and after 9 yrs the judge wants to midify the decision. Doesnt matter if he needs it, its just too bad for this judge whos life is ratcheting up sentences. Ratcheting up the sentence. The guy was a career offender and went to trial and got a life sentence. Good gravy, get your head out judge. Sounds to me that this judge and our very own famous ex federal judge Jack Camp should go to the slammer for 20 yrs. If they can railroad the public it should be good enough for them as well, thats the logic. Never give these positions immunity for having absolute power. Every yr take them back to Congress and other judges as well as circuit ones and explain the merits of ridiculous long sentences. Enough said. Main problem with the Federal system us once in, its very difficult to get out Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jan 16, 2017 5:10:51 PM Anon2 wrote: "Mr. Levine may be correct: see United States v. DiFrancesco and progeny." Nope. Although the Court of Appeals agreed with this line of thinking the Supreme Court reversed. What we have here is a modification of sentence without any specific legal provision authorizing it. The bull has bolted from the barn already as to what should have been done originally. When submitting a recommendation for a life sentence (almost always compelled by statute or advisory guideline with no legitimate mitigating circumstances), we include a provision of supervised release IF the defendant is released from custody. I would love to get hold of the actual order to see how it was justified. Posted by: USPO | Jan 16, 2017 5:24:58 PM @federalist I think the Rule 36 argument is going to be that the statute required a period of supervised release. That's the reason why it is not a "changed circumstance". My problem is that this logic puts the defendant in an impossible bind. After all, if the period of supervised release had been part of the original sentence then removing that condition is something that the Executive could have done as part of the clemency grant; however, since it was not part of the original sentence there was nothing there for the Executive to commute. So the only way the defendant could get his new sentence commuted is to get yet another clemency grant. This is game playing that, once again, in my view violates the separation of powers. The judicial branch could at any time thwart the president's pardon power by simply claiming that some clerical error had be made that it was correcting. In other words, in a conflict between the demands of a judicially created rule (36) and the Constitution the Constitution wins. Posted by: Daniel | Jan 16, 2017 6:55:32 PM I think the Rule 36 argument is going to be that the statute required a period of supervised release. That's the reason why it is not a "changed circumstance" Clemency is not contemplated by the statute--thus I think it tough to argue that this was required by statute. I am in agreement with the rest of your analysis Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 7:19:36 PM If the defendant's sentence has not expired why can't the district judge fix the error of failing to impose the statutorily required term of supervised release?Seems to me the judge is amending the J&C and fixing a mistake - instead violating Separation of Powers or Double Jeopardy. Posted by: ? | Jan 16, 2017 10:43:58 PM @ ? Where is the "error"? In order for there to be an error, there had to have been an error in the first place. Was there? Posted by: federalist | Jan 16, 2017 11:12:09 PM First, the J&C is final curtain for this Judge (who is unnamed and unshamed here, why?). Jurisdiction transfered - with custody - to the local District near the Hoosegow. DJ have no "second bite of the cherry" (and less without a Motion) and is out-of-bounce, in BOP lingo, and ultra vires, in Scalia lingo, plus a sad fool to further deconstruct those few reputational assets left for the US "justice" and mass-incarceration system. Probably he just wants to shine as "tough", enough to prompt Trump to usher him upwards soon even though SR is a costly government service that GOP would want to diminish. The BOP looses warehousing income for the "loss-removal" of Walden, who was a huge storage asset, and the DJ wants to compensate Probation for the loss. Banana Republic and Kangaroo Courts are here to stay. Posted by: Melanie L Lopez | Jan 17, 2017 4:04:55 AM @? The problem with the expiration argument is that it is foreclosed by the text of rule 36. Rule 36 says a clerical error can be fixed "at any time". It doesn't say "up until the J&C has expired" it says "at any time". In other words, for the purposes of Rule 36 an order NEVER expires. That's what the plain text of the rule says. It is the free ranging nature of Rule 36 that creates the constitutional problem. It simply cannot be true on the basis of a separation of powers that a judge can modify an order "at any time". And if that is true the question then becomes: consistent with the separation of powers, when does a judge's power to modify their own order terminate? I don't have a full answer to that question but it seems to me, for the reasons I outlined above, that one answer to that question is "after the judge's original order has been modified by an exercise of the Executive's pardon power." Posted by: Daniel | Jan 17, 2017 11:59:54 AM Here is rule 36 for reference https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_36 After giving any notice it considers appropriate, the court may at any time correct a clerical error in a judgment, order, or other part of the record, or correct an error in the record arising from oversight or omission. BTW, the commentary for the rule cites to http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/4/17/1562527/ but in fact that court in that case merely cited to some other cases without any additional analysis. Posted by: Daniel | Jan 17, 2017 12:09:24 PM How is this a "clerical error"? If the decision not to impose SR was deliberate (because of life sentence) then the Rule's condition isn't met. Doug? Posted by: federalist | Jan 17, 2017 4:49:25 PM I looked up the rule myself. The article is interesting but along with such things like not noting the string attached to the commutation, not explaining it a bit more is a lack. And, yeah, I would love to see the judge fully explain his application. No "clerical error" seems to be at issue here. Posted by: Joe | Jan 17, 2017 6:33:05 PM Post a comment The San Francisco Public Librarys Fine Forgiveness Period is waiving late fees right now on all overdue items returned before February 14, 2017. But nothing youll return will be as overdue as a 1906 volume returned to the Librarys Park Branch on Friday afternoon. Webb Johnson of Fairfield, California returned an outrageously overdue copy of a book (ironically titled Forty Minutes Late) that his great-grandmother had checked out perhaps as long ago as 1917, and was now more than 36,000 days overdue. Do not blame Ms. Phoebe Marsh Dickinson Webb for failing to return this book she checked out from the library in 1917. She died two weeks before the book was due. While this copy of Forty Minutes Late by Francis Hopkinson Smith appears to be legitimately 100 years overdue, these dates are approximations based on the extremely antiquated Date Due slips (seen above) on the books inside front cover. Before we checked out books using computers, the library staff would actually have these Date Due slips, said the SFPLs City Librarian Luis Herrera, making me feel incredibly old because I remember the days of due-date slips. As you can see, this was a very popular book. The last due date with an associated year stamped on the book is FEB 18 16 but it does have multiple other Due Dates stamped upon it. From these, we can surmise that the book was last checked out in either 1917 or 1918. Book returner Webb Johnson found the collection of short stories in a trunk of his great-grandmothers items, in astonishingly well-preserved condition. He has been aware since the 1990s that he had a very, very overdue book. Herb Caen had a contest when the new library was open for the oldest (overdue) book, Webb said, citing a Chronicle contest that Caen did indeed conduct in 1996. I was going to write him a letter and turn it in and win the contest, but I put it off too long. I guess its in the DNA. As we see from the books markings, it was checked out from Public Library No. 6 on Fillmore Street. That branch no longer exists. San Francisco libraries used to be named numerically back during the Woodrow Wilson administration when wed tie an onion to our belt because that was the style at the time. Image: Joe Kukura / SFist If youre a book nerd, a close examination of this book gives fascinating insights into how libraries used to work. If you really squint at the image above, youll see that the words S.F. PUBLIC are actually perforated into a page of the book, marking it as belonging to the library. Image: Joe Kukura / SFist We can also see that the library used to actually imprint their own call numbers and library logos directly onto the binding of the book, as opposed to the dust jacket and stickers used on library books today. The call number can be seen in gold foil print at the top of the binding, and the Public Library No. 6 logo is the circular mark at the bottom of the binding. Despite being a century overdue, this book would still only have a $10 fine because thats where the library caps overdue fees on an individual item. But right now, there are no fines through February 14 because of the amnesty program. We already have more than $56,000 worth of fines that have been waived and over 2,000 books that have been returned as a result of the amnesty program, Herrera said. Weve already exceeded the last time we had an amnesty program. Weve doubled that in just a week. Related: The Library Forgives You, 55K Patrons With Overdue Fines, During Amnesty Period Next Month Noor Zahi Salman, the 30-year-old widow of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, was arrested Monday morning at the home where she's been living with family in the Bay Area, and will be making her first appearance in federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday. As the New York Times reports, the extent of the charges against Salman have not been revealed, but a source tells the paper that she has at least been charged with obstruction of justice in connection with the June 12, 2016 mass shooting that claimed the lives of 49 people and injured 53 others. It is considered the worst mass shooting in US history. Prosecutors have been trying to determine ever since how much Salman knew of her husband's plans, and whether she aided and abetted them. And it looks as though the interview Salman gave to the Times in November was as much to clear her name in federal prosecutors' eyes as in the eyes of the public. In that interview, she and her own hired domestic abuse expert made the case for the fact that as an abused wife, she was simply trying to survive herself and protect her three-year-old son, and she was "unaware of everything" when it came to Mateen's intention to commit mass murder. That runs contrary to statements she gave to investigators shortly after the shooting, as CBS News reported, in which she allegedly said she tried to stop her husband from committing the attack. We know that in the hours after the attack took place, while Mateen was still barricaded inside club, he posted to Facebook and texted his wife to ask if she had seen the news. We also know that Mateen was in the vicinity of the nightclub for several hours that Saturday night before he finally stormed the entrance and began shooting and the implication has been that he could have been in contact with Salman then as well. Salman accompanied Mateen, along with their son, on trips to Disney World twice, in both April and June of last year, and investigators believe both trips happened so that Mateen could case the amusement park for a potential attack. Salman also admitted she had driven to Pulse nightclub with Mateen, and had driven him to purchase ammunition at a Walmart something she would later say in the Times interview was simply a routine errand because her husband carried a weapon as a security guard, went to a shooting range, and the ammunition was cheapest at Walmart. She says she knew her husband watched ISIS videos on YouTube and may have become radicalized over the year prior to the shooting, and investigators found many books on Islam in the apartment the couple shared in Fort Pierce, Florida. Salman submitted to hours of interviews, as well as a polygraph examination, following the attack, and the FBI has been cagey about what they've discovered since, or what they might ultimately charge her with. As we learned shortly after the tragedy, Salman grew up in the East Bay town of Rodeo where her family may still be residing, and she returned to live there after divorcing her first husband, staying until 2013, when she married Mateen. She returned again to live with family sometime after the shooting last year, and in December it came to light that she had filed a petition in Contra Costa County court to legally change the name of her son, who shares a last name with his father, and has his father's first name, Omar, as a middle name. She said in the November Times interview, "I just want people to know that I am human. I am a mother." Previously: Widow Of Orlando Nightclub Shooter Files Petition In East Bay Court To Change Son's Name Orlando Shooter's Wife Grew Up In The East Bay, May Face Charges As Many As 10,000 Attend Castro Rally, March To City Hall In Honor Of Orlando Shooting Victims One of just a couple of people who were hospitalized after escaping the Ghost Ship fire on December 2 in Oakland, 32-year-old Sam "Peaches" Maxwell is surviving proof of how deadly the conditions inside the warehouse were. Maxwell remains in critical care at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, and his parents tell KRON 4 that he only recently has come out of a medically induced coma and was able to tell his mother he loves her. And though he is in the burn unit, Maxwell reportedly avoided severe skin burns by crawling out of the building to safety. Maxwell suffered complications from severe smoke inhalation, though, which has been reported as the cause of death for the majority of the 36 individuals who died in the blaze, which spread from the first to the second story of an illegal live-work space and sometime music venue, trapping dozens while they were still conscious and unharmed. Several sent text messages to loved ones in the minutes before they succumbed, knowing they were going to die. Maxwell himself sent a text message to his mom saying, "Im alive Im out," but his mother Wendi Maxwell tells KRON 4, "I had no idea what he was talking about." She went on Twitter, she said, and saw "live footage of a warehouse with flames shooting up into the sky." When he arrived at the hospital on the morning of December 3, Maxwell was told he would only be there for three days, but clearly this was before doctors had assessed the severity of his injuries, which ultimately required the medically induced coma. Ever since his parents have been commuting to his bedside from Stockton, and his father William Maxwell says "Its terrible for a parent especially when theyve got him in this coma and hes lying there motionless with his eyes half open." Maxwell's family has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help them with what will be enormous medical and recovery expenses, and it has raised $5000 of its $50,000 goal so far. While potential lawsuits are still taking shape, likely implicating some combination of Oakland city officials, warehouse landlord Chor Ng, and Ghost Ship proprietor Derick "Ion" Almena, Maxwell's parents say it's hard to say who should be to blame. It's clear, though, that as one of the most injured survivors, Maxwell will be a major recipient of any cash rewards that come of these potential suits. All previous coverage of the Ghost Ship fire on SFist. Two thrown from open-air GoCar in crash on 24th Street and South Van Ness Ave. this afternoon: https://t.co/xQH5oA4xMK pic.twitter.com/7BFTYs3JU1 Mission Local (@MLNow) January 15, 2017 A couple piloting a notorious type of tourist conveyance allegedly ran a red light in a Mission District intersection Sunday, causing a collision that injured them both. A spokesperson with the San Francisco Police Department says that the crash happened at 1:41 p.m. Sunday, at the intersection of 24th Street and South Van Ness Avenue. According to the SFPD, two people were in "a three wheeled rental cart vehicle" headed south on Van Ness when they collided with a Toyota Corolla traveling east on 24th. Both passengers, a man and a woman according to Mission Local, were thrown from the vehicle, which the Chron confirms was a GoCar, one of those infamous visitor vehicles typically rented near Fisherman's Wharf. Police say that their injuries were not considered life-threatening, and they were transported to San Francisco General Hospital. The driver of the Toyota was not harmed in the crash, police say. Witnesses told both the Chron and Mission Local that the driver of the GoCar had ran a red light, with one saying that the driver "entered the intersection 'at full traffic speed,' clipping the [Toyota] on the left and ejecting both occupants from the vehicle." The light had been red for a couple of seconds. The GoCar hit the left front corner of the grey car and both passengers were thrown from the vehicle, one to either side of the GoCar, another said. GoCar users are required to wear helmets when they use the vehicles, but witnesses say that neither victim appeared to be wearing theirs immediately following the crash. According to a GoCar representative who spoke with the Chron, the vehicle was totaled in the collision. Police say that they do not consider drugs or alcohol to be a factor in the wreck, but that "the cause is still under investigation...this is an open and active investigation in the early stages." Related: Ask A San Francisco Native: Is It OK To Hate Tourists? "If you can dream it, you can do it," people frequently claim Walt Disney famously said. And when it comes to allegedly aspiring baby blood consumer and Trump-loving billionaire Peter Thiel, his newest dream might be to run the state of California after Jerry Brown's final term ends. Politico reports that the "diversity"-providing Facebook board member "is considering a 2018 bid for California governor, according to three Republicans familiar with his thinking." They say he has been "discussing a prospective bid with a small circle of advisers, including Rob Morrow, who has emerged as his political consigliere." Before you get as excited as I did, we're not talking about the star of Northern Exposure: This Rob Morrow is a one-time staffer at Thiel's Clarium Capital investment management and hedge fund company. According to Politico, "Thiel has conspicuously yet to rule out a bid and that those around him continue to discuss it," citing his recent insane interview with Maureen Dowd as a sign he's readying himself for the public eye. But just as Walt Disney didn't actually make that famous inspirational statement after all, Thiel's rumored run at Sacramento might be similarly poppycocked. Noting that "Those who have been in touch with the 49-year-old entrepreneur are skeptical that hell enter the race," Politico points out that in July of 2015 Thiel contributed over $56,000 to Gavin Newsoms 2018 campaign for the seat. Yes, the same Gavin Newsom who's vigorously opposed Thiel's President Elect bestie via the demagogue's platform of choice and who sent the donations his campaign got from Trump to immigration charities. (A call to the Newsom camp to see if he's kept Thiel's cash was not returned at publication time.) Needless to say, Thiel wouldn't need any donations for his rumored campaign, as he's worth $2.7 billion and, like previous wannabe CA gov and Meg Whitman, could self-fund. Of course, we all know how things ended for Whitman, with a crushing defeat at the hands of Jerry Brown. Would Thiel suffer a similar fate to his fellow tech billionaire Whitman? Perhaps she was just ahead of her time, as former Republican Governors Association executive director Phil Cox says that With Trump's victory, we're going to see even more nontraditional candidates with backgrounds in business, not politics enter the political arena. Then again, entering the arena and emerging triumphant are two very different things...and California might not be ready to be led by a guy who says, apparently sincerely, that "Mr. Trump seems fine." Previously: In Bizzaro Interview With Maureen Dowd, Peter Thiel Says Fake Wrestling Is Real And No One Cares About The Supreme Court Though Northern California saw some intense rain over the last couple of weeks, bringing rainfall totals for the month of January well above average for many cities and towns, these numbers are still nowhere near the torrents of rain that fell on the West Coast between December 1861 and January 1862, creating what was called The Great Flood of 1862. And much like those that have been hitting California this winter, the cause of the Great Flood was a relentless series of atmospheric rivers that dumped 24.63 inches of rain in San Francisco in the month of January and 66 inches in Los Angeles that year (four times the average), and flooded Sacramento so severely that it was widely called "Lake Sacramento" leading to a raising of the entire city eight to ten feet so that it could remain the state capital. The storms of December 1861 and January 1862 caused widespread flooding and damage from Canada down to Sonora, Mexico, and this was capped off with early snowmelt triggered by warmer temperatures in the Sierra and elsewhere. The rain started in Washington and Oregon earlier, in November, with warm temperatures triggering quick melting of snowpack in early December leading to Oregon City, south of Portland on the Willamette River, flooding beyond recognition, and several nearby towns Linn City, Orleans, and Champoeg, the site of the first provisional government in the state being completely destroyed and never rebuilt. For California, much like we've seen in recent weeks, it was not so much constant rainfall as high accumulation from several brief, distinct periods of heavy rain and this was not, in fact, an El Nino season either followed by the fast melting of accumulated snow. Most of the state's 500,000 inhabitants at that time lived in Northern California, which is where we have most of the records of the floods though one can imagine that the economic and human impact of such a flood would be exponentially greater today. At the time, one home in every eight was destroyed statewide. Bridges were washed away in Gold Country in the Sierra foothills, and drowning deaths were recorded daily along the Yuba and Feather rivers, with "an entire settlement of Chinese miners" drowned along the Yuba River according to Scientific American in a 2013 piece about the floods. And unlike the recent spate of rains, these atmospheric rivers hit the entire coast with equal vengeance over the course of 43 days. In less populated Anaheim, an inland sea was created by a flooded Santa Ana River that spread up to four miles wide in parts, was four feet deep, and lasted about a month before dissipating. Another inland sea that was as deep as 30 feet in some places was created in the Central Valley according to Scientific American, submerging newly installed telegraph polls that connected San Francisco to New York, temporarily disrupting all transcontinental communication. The water submerged farmlands, drowned people and livestock, and washed away homes and whole towns. In a letter dated January 31, 1862, William Brewer wrote to his brother on the East Coast: Thousands of farms are entirely under water cattle starving and drowning. All the roads in the middle of the state are impassable... The entire valley was a lake extending from the mountains on one side to the coast range hills on the other. Steamers ran back over the ranches fourteen miles from the river, carrying stock, etc, to the hills. Nearly every house and farm over this immense region is gone. America has never before seen such desolation by flood as this has been, and seldom has the Old World seen the like. As the American River Watershed Project explained, Native Americans who'd lived for centuries in the region "knew the Sacramento Valley as an inland sea when the rains came," and their "storytellers told of water filling the valley from the Coast Range to the Sierra." But newer settlers in the decade after the Gold Rush had mostly only known drought conditions, and as Scientific American explains it, "In 1861, farmers and ranchers were praying for rain after two exceptionally dry decades." Unfortunately, "their prayers were answered with a vengeance, [with] a series of monstrous Pacific storms," and the volume of rainfall is the biggest recorded before or since. The problem, though, is that such recordings weren't kept for the western United States much before the 1840s, which has led hydrology researchers like Dave Reynolds to have to argue the case for the Great Flood of 1862 being a 200-year flood event, since we really only have about 150 years of good records for California so far. At an "Extreme Precipitation Symposium" in 2012, Reynolds was recognized for his work in pushing for new structural standards for urban areas in the west based on such 200-year catastrophes, including stronger levees and the raising of dam heights. Sacramento's levees had the effect of trapping floodwater in the city in January 1862, leading to the levees needing to be busted open. The capital of California had to be temporarily relocated to San Francisco on January 23, 1862 as a result of the flood. Though nothing so severe has hit California in the 155 years since the Great Flood, there have periodically been similar atmospheric river events in December and January. In December 1955, a northern California storm brought huge amounts of rain in a 24-hour period, with Shasta County recording a record 15.34 inches in just one day, on December 20. On December 23, 1955, the Russian River reached a crest of 49.7 feet in Guerneville, the highest ever recorded there, and a broken levee along the Feather River on Christmas Eve flooded Yuba City, drowning 37 people. Meanwhile, a bit more rain is headed to NorCal the middle of this week, but it won't be of the same severity as what we saw the last two weeks. The point here, though, is that such events can always happen again, and too many years of drought conditions can leave us surprised when the big rains return. As Monterey-based National Weather Service forecaster Bob Benjamin tells the Chronicle, "I think people havent experienced this type of weather in so long that its appearing like a total anomaly Im not sure its quite the case. What we are seeing is closer to normal than weve experienced the last five to six years." Related: Storm Aftermath Update: San Anselmo Evacuated, Multiple Landslides, Guerneville Still Flooded By his own admission, Gianni Bozzacchi was a street kid who just got lucky. The Italian camera bug became the photographer to movie stars and other royalty in the dolce vita days of the 60s and 70s. He was the one taking pictures of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on their yachtand of Grace Kelly in her Monaco palace and even the Shah of Iran on his motorcycle. In his memoir, My Life in Focus, Bozzacchi chronicles a life that began on the hungry postwar streets of Rome; his existence was like the neo-realism of Bicycle Thief but his imagination was stimulated by Hollywood movies. His father worked as a photographer and exposed him to the dark room at an early age. Bozzacchi claims he was never certain he wanted to be a photographer and as if to fulfill his doubt, largely hung up his camera by the end of the 70s. Bozzacchi owes much of his success to winning the lottery of being born in the right place at the right moment. By the early 60s Rome became an international center of movie production and he drifted into filmmaking circles. He claims to have witnessed Sergio Leone teach Clint Eastwood how to scowl for the camera. He found work at the edge of the industry, first by retouching photos, then by shooting his own. Michelangelo Antonioni hired him to teach David Hemmings the body language of photographers for Blow Up. But his big break came when he was assigned to photograph Taylor and Burton while making The Comedians. As court photographer in their jet-setting entourage, doors opened. My Life in Focus is an endearing account from a man with a healthy attitude toward stardom, well aware, first hand, of the prison of fame. As a photographer, he allowed the light to capture the moment and balanced craft with art. I had to satisfy not only my subject but myself, he writes. My Life in Focus is published by University Press of Kentucky as part of its Classic Film series. HT: AG "A soul like his does not descend in every generation, it descends once in many generations" Rav Shlomo Yehudah Be'eri... [If you did not see Part 1 click here to watch ] What will happen in the final war of "Gog and Magog" at the End of Days? Who are ... Rabbi Aaron L Raskin [28 min video] After being isolated for two years from the pandemic, COVID-19, the year of Hakhel is like a breath of... Rabbi Efraim Palvanov Where did all the water for the Great Flood come from, and is it scientifically possible? Was Noahs Ark a simple wood... Current News The United States is concerned about threats from Iran against Saudi Arabia and will not hesitate to respond if necessary, a... With the arrival of January, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is in a House chamber that has even more Republicans than it did last year, following a November 2016 election that had bountiful results for the party. Things will get even better for Republicans on Friday, when Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president. At that point, Republicans will hold strong control of both federal legislative chambers and also the presidency. That gives a huge opportunity for Republicans to control public policy by pushing bills that fit their priorities for smaller government and tax code changes. Democratic President Barack Obama for the last eight years had a veto pen that could set aside Republican bills if he wished. King represents Iowa's 4th congressional district and has been busy since Jan. 3 in terms of introducing bills. King draws barbs from Democrats for his ineffectiveness in moving bills through the House. There are no guarantees his bills will advance this year, but certainly the issues of importance to King have a better chance of being addressed. Of course, at the top of his list is the repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act also often called ObamaCare. King also wants a physical barrier built at the Mexican border to reduce illegal immigration. As the 115th Congress convened on Jan. 3, King began by introducing four bills dealing with immigration policy. HR 144 is a bill that King says would end "birthright citizenship or the anchor baby agenda," as he says up to "750,000 babies are born in America each year that get automatic citizenship even though both parents are illegal." King in a release said his 'Birthright Citizenship Act of 2017 fixes it, clarifies the 14th Amendment and clarifies the Constitutional meaning of the clause, And subject to the jurisdiction thereof. President-elect Trump repeatedly called for this bill, and it should be a top priority in Congress." King introduced another bill on Jan. 6, then on Jan. 11 he introduced two bills dealing with health care. One of those, the Tax Free Health Insurance Act, would enact King's goal to "eliminate taxes on health insurance for those in the individual market." Also on Jan. 11, King introduced a bill that he sees as a way to reduce abortions. King introduced The Heartbeat Bill, which he said "would require physicians to detect the heartbeat and prohibit the abortion of a baby with a beating heart." That bill appears to pit a legislative approach with the power of the judicial branch. King contends the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion from more than 40 years ago is unconstitutional. King explained that bill in a release: Since Roe v. Wade was unconstitutionally decided in 1973, nearly 60 million innocent babies' lives have been ended by the abortion industry, all with a rubber stamp by the federal government. Human life, beginning at the moment of conception, is sacred in all of its forms and today, I introduced a bill that will protect the lives of voiceless innocents. "My legislation will require all physicians, before conducting an abortion, to detect the heartbeat of the unborn child. If a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected." SIOUX CITY Mondays ice storm caused scores of Siouxland business to put operations on freeze. From manufacturers to offices to retailers, countless employers closed for the day, rather than risk having their workers, suppliers and customers travel on potentially dangerous icy roads. Among the major employers that shut down their entire operations Monday were Bo Deans Baking Group and Wells Enterprises Inc. of Le Mars, Midwest Industries in Ida Grove, Interbake Foods in North Sioux City, and Palmer Candy Co. and the Sioux City Foundry. Others companies such as Interstate Powder Coatings and Knife River Corp. of Sioux City and advised employees to use caution when commuting to work, while Tyson Foods cancelled most of its shifts with the exception of its third shift at its Storm Lake, Iowa, pork plant and its shipping B shift at its beef plant in Dakota City, Nebraska. Numerous retailers also were closed as a precaution, including the Southern Hills Mall. A number of the indoor shopping center's anchors followed suit, including J.C. Penney, Scheels and Younkers. Some other businesses, such as local financial institutions, were already scheduled to be closed Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. For homebound residents looking to have food delivered, their options were more limited than usual. Pizza Ranch locations in Sergeant Bluff and Sioux City announced on Facebook they would not Monday in an effort to keep guests and employees safe. Shortly after noon, a worker at Papa Johns Pizza said the Sioux City location was still taking delivery orders. However, employees at Dominos Pizza and Pizza Hut indicated their delivery service would vary by weather conditions and neighborhoods. While inclement weather deterred many places from operating, there were still a few place open for business as usual. The Promenade Cinema 14 in downtown Sioux City was open had showings scheduled as late 10:10 p.m. Across town, the Carmike Southern Hills 12, located in Southern Hills Mall, was closed. The Ickey Nickel Bar & Grill at 4700 41st St. decided to take advantage of the opportunity to attract stir crazy customers and invited people to join them for for warm food and drinks in a Facebook, post which also included the rules to a winter storm drinking game. Ickey Nickel owner Mick Verzani said his business is open everyday and they were just treating today as they would any other day. You got to show up to work, he said. A little before 1 p.m. Monday, Verzani said business had been a little slower than it is on a typical day, but thinks if the weather doesnt progressively get worse more people may show up. Area hotels were filling in with stranded travelers, as well as some workers of employers that needed to remain in operation despite the icy weather. Kaylie Thorson, a front desk agent at the Hilton River Garden Inn, said in mid-afternoon that outside of a few cancellations, it had been a typical Monday for the riverfront hotel at 1132 Larsen Park Road. Thorson said she think there is a chance their walk-in business could increase later Monday as people get off of work and discover how risky the roads are. An employee at the Holiday Inn said the downtown Sioux City at 701 Gordon Drive said they had not seen an increase in check-ins due to the storm, but that a few people who were already staying there decided to extend their stay. Snow has stayed away for the most part this winter, but one thing that hasnt been lacking is the cold temperatures. While frostbite and cold toes can be a drag, its a perfect opportunity for some frosty recreation like ice fishing. But before you drill a hole and hunker down for the big catch, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources wants you to remember a few things so you dont become the one people are fishing for. Know your ice: First thing is first: Make sure your ice is stable and sturdy. The DNR recommends a minimum of four inches of clear blue ice. Drill a couple of test holes near shore and a few more as you venture out to test the thickness and quality of the ice. In their words: Ice conditions change constantly and its thickness can vary across the lake. Be especially careful on ice around submerged trees and emergent vegetation, this ice tends to be weaker. Keep warm and dry: If youre ice fishing, this may seem like a no brainer. DNR says to start with a base layer of moisture wicking material, then combine layers of natural and synthetic materials. Finish off with an outer layer that is wind and waterproof. And dont forget your extremities. In their words: Always cover your head and hands. Wear warm socks (preferably wool) and insulated waterproof boots. Bring a buddy along: This one is simple. Ice is dangerous, as is the frigid water beneath. First-timers or green ice fishers are encouraged to take someone with experience along. But experienced or not, always let someone know where you are. In their words: Never go ice fishing alone. Stay safe: Aside from the obvious steps of check for ice integrity and dress warm, the DNR has a couple more tips to maximize safety and make sure you stay dry and warm. Bring hand warmers, ice cleats for tracking, an ice pick to help crawl out of the water, a life jacket and more. As a volunteer, youll introduce girls to new experiences and help them unleash their inner G.I.R.L. (Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-Taker, Leader) to take the lead and change the world. Youll be their cheerleader, guide, and mentor, helping them develop crucial skills and confidence to launch them into a lifetime of leadership. United Way of Siouxland is looking for community minded people to help us improve people's lives by helping with our annual campaign and building a strong community. A man in Sioux City, Iowa living with ALS and his family are looking for volunteers to help with home maintenance, yard work and/or snow removal (in winter) on an as needed basis. Time Commitment: Varies and optional, post-acceptance and training, deliver Alzheimers Association community educational programs to public audiences, includes extensive training on Alzheimers and program delivery. Do you like working with teenagers and families? Do you enjoy learning about other cultures? Would you like to support international exchange students in navigating their experience in the USA? YFU USA is currently looking for volunteers in Sioux City IA interested in supporting our students and host families throughout their time together. You will serve as an unbiased advocate for the student, offering guidance and support through regular contact. With the assistance from the SHARE program, residents have the opportunity to purchase healthy and nutritious food at a substantially lower rate than at the grocery store. Volunteers serve one day a month(usually the last Saturday of the month) for 2-3 hours to sell, collect, assemble and deliver SHARE units. The Office of the State Long-Term Care- Ombudsman is seeking volunteers for its new Volunteer Ombudsman Program (VOP). The VOP wishes to place 1-2 volunteers in every nursing facility, residential care facility and elder group home in Iowa. The North Sioux City volunteer Fire Department is always on the lookout for good people ( men or women) wanting to serve our community. EF High School Exchange Year, the leader in High School exchange, is seeking internationally minded individuals to join a large network of International Exchange Coordinators (IECs). Our students come from 13 different countries, and are between the ages of 15-18 years old. All of our students are thoroughly screened in their home country, by our respective offices, and held to a standard of maturity and academic achievement. Volunteers perform a wide range of tasks, including: Mentoring students, families and schools; Encouraging potential American students to study abroad and families to host international students; Interviewing prospective students and host families; Planning and conducting orientations for students and families; Sharing information with the community about YFU programs and opportunities; Performing administrative activities. MINNEAPOLIS Mason McDeid struggled to catch a glimpse of the band Korn as they performed before tens of thousands of fans last summer at a music festival in Wisconsin. The 21-year-old Maple Grove man, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, was stuck in the back with his father when a fellow concertgoer noticed their dilemma and offered to help. He said, You guys follow me. Were going to make a hole, recalled Masons dad, Richard McDeid. We went by everybody. The crowd parted like the Red Sea. Mason glided past the mosh pit and saw people body surfing before eventually making his way to the front row. A security guard spotted Mason and got him even closer. Grabbing his wheelchair, the guard hoisted him above the railing, placing him directly in front of the stage. I looked up at Mason and he was just smiling, Richard McDeid said. As I was looking at him, I saw him on the Jumbotron. Korn was onstage, clapping. That was probably the coolest moment. That night was but one of many highlights shared by father and son on their epic quest to see 500 rock bands perform live in 2016. And though they didnt quite reach their goal (they saw 450 bands by years end), Mason and his dad accomplished much traveling across the country to see Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slipknot and more. Were definitely rock guys, Richard McDeid said. Music has been a source of joy and comfort for Mason since he was a small child. He was born with a severe form of cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects his mobility and speech. Mason cant walk or speak. But he sure can smile something he does a lot at concerts and any place where there are lots of people. A longtime patient at Gillette Childrens Specialty Healthcare, he has undergone more than 100 surgeries. We dont let that stop us, Masons dad said about his condition. It doesnt mean we cant do things. It just means that we do them differently. When Mason was little, he cried constantly. He was experiencing a lot of discomfort, his father said. Richard McDeid tried everything to calm down his son. He even played music from classical to New Age. Nothing worked. Finally, the frustrated father decided to play something he liked: Metallica. To his surprise, Mason liked it, too. He stopped crying and started to fall asleep. And with that, a metalhead was born. From that day forward, whenever Metallica was playing, Mason would start squealing excitedly, Richard McDeid said. As Mason grew older, he started to go to concerts with his dad. One year, they saw a couple hundred bands perform. So they decided to see if they could double that number in 2016. We look for impossible goals, Richard McDeid said. Getting out to see so many bands perform in so many different places has been difficult, at times. On the first lengthy road trip for Mason, there were a lot of logistics to figure out. Dad and son arrived at one hotel, and discovered theyd been put in a room with just one bed, Richard McDeid said. He gave his son the bed and slept on the floor. And not all concert venues had good access for people in wheelchairs. At the Warped tour, for instance, festival organizers gave wristbands to people with wheelchairs so they didnt have to fight the massive crowds to get inside, Richard McDeid said. At other places, they werent so lucky and waited in long lines for more than an hour. To celebrate his birthday last month, Mason and his dad trekked to the Fine Line Music Cafe in downtown Minneapolis on a frigid night to see the band Helmet. Once again, they ended up with the best seats in the house up front, near the stage. At the end of the concert, Helmets guitarist handed a smiling Mason a pick and a set list. They were the latest additions to his collection of band souvenirs, which fills an entire room. With the new year, Mason and his father have made a new resolution. Theyll continue seeing bands, but theyre raising the stakes. The goal for 2017: Take Mason to a large music festival in Europe. Crossing the ocean is something that neither father nor son has experienced, and theyre eager to see the wider world, no matter what kind of obstacles they face. We dont know how well get there, Richard McDeid said. But were going to make it happen. Like many of todays young people, 34-year-old Andy Sanchez wants to get married but is having a hard time finding somebody interested in a serious relationship. After living in Maryland and socializing in Washington, D.C., for the last seven years, he said, This is the easiest place Ive ever been to find somebody for the night, and the hardest place to find somebody for a week or a month or a year. I am getting married but its not something thats going to happen in the near term. I have to have a girlfriend first, said Sanchez, a computer security specialist who has also lived in California and Texas. In every state and Washington, D.C., the share of people between the ages of 20 and 34 who have never married has risen sharply since 2000, according to a Stateline analysis of census data. In cities where millennials flock for jobs, the situation can be extreme: 81 percent of young people are still single in Washington, D.C., up from 73 percent in 2000. In six states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont) more than 70 percent of young people are single. In 2000, no state had such a large share; Massachusetts and New York had the largest at 57 percent. At the other end of the scale, last year Utah was the only state where more than half the young people had been married at some point. In 2000, 39 states were in that category. Whether its a desire to establish their careers, the pressures of student loan debt, worries about financial instability born of memories of the Great Recession, or a yen to find themselves before partnering up, millennials are on track to remain single far longer than other generations. This is true despite evidence that they have as much interest in marriage as previous generations. Since the 1980s, surveys by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research have consistently shown that four out of five high school seniors expect to be married at some point in the future. Marriage is becoming less feasible for young people because of economic uncertainty, said Gary Lee, professor emeritus of sociology at Bowling Green State University, who wrote a book last year about the declining marriage rate. Its become more and more difficult for young adults to make a living, especially for less-educated men. This makes marriage a risky proposition, Lee said. Instead, people see staying single as a survival strategy that makes it easier to switch to a partner with better job prospects, he said. Young couples are living together without getting married at a higher rate. For the 20 to 34 age group, the share of households that include unmarried partners increased from 12 to 16 percent since 2000. But the share of married couples is declining faster than that, dropping from 45 to 37 percent of households during that time. Between 2007 and 2016, the share of 20- to 34-year-olds living with a partner, married or unmarried, has dropped from 49 to 43 percent, said Steven Ruggles, a demographer at the University of Minnesota who wrote a study of marriage and cohabitation among young couples last year. Increasingly, young adults are forgoing partners altogether, Ruggles said. Still unmarried As of 2015, the median age at first marriage for Massachusetts men was 31, tied with New York for the highest in the nation. Shane Dunn of Boston was 31 when he tied the knot last July. Dunn and his fiancee delayed their wedding plans for five years, as he established a career in education management in Boston and paid off student debt, and she finished business school in Chicago. When we met, in our mid-20s, neither one of us had wanted to rush into marriage, Dunn said. Marriage was always in my plans, but it took a long time for us to get set up with our careers. Coordinating our careers is very important to both of us. Its a big topic. In Massachusetts, 74 percent of young people had never been married as of last year, the highest of any state. It was 57 percent in 2000. More people in Massachusetts and New England have postponed marriage because women there are better-educated and more likely to work than in other states, said Susan Strate, a demographer at the University of Massachusetts. But young singles are increasingly common even in places such as Utah and Idaho, where the influence of the Mormon church encourages early marriage. In Utah, 48 percent of young people are still single, up from 37 percent in 2000. In Idaho, the percentage of young singles has increased from 35 to 53 percent. One reason is that more people who arent Mormons are moving to Utah, said Pam Perlich, a demographer at the University of Utah. But Mormons also feel pressure to get a better education and establish a career before marriage. In order to get that house and white picket fence, people now have to invest in more education, and to do that, they have to delay marriage. Thats as true for Mormons as anybody else, said Marie Cornwall, an emeritus sociology professor at Brigham Young University. For many millennials who graduated into the recession, a desire to build a solid educational and financial foundation trumped marriage plans. LaTisha Styles, a financial adviser who grew up in Atlanta, said she wanted to get married years ago, but after she graduated from college, in 2006, she went to graduate school to study finance, she then moved back into her parents home as she looked for a job. I wanted to get married in my early 20s but I had to put it on the back burner and work on my career, Styles said. Last year, at 33, she married and moved to Memphis where her husband found work in human resources. I really wanted to be in a two-income family, Styles said. In the past, marriage was about finding somebody to take care of you. I think millennials have started a new tradition that you need to have your own career. Marriage is more like a strategic alliance. DENISON, Iowa | An ice storm on Monday put the Crawford County Ice Company in a one-day deep freeze, so to speak. Arnie Poggensee, 72, who founded the small company in 1969, dismissed his four employees around 1 p.m. on Monday as rain fell upon the Crawford County seat. "My thermometer here is edging up to 27 degrees, but we do have rain falling and that might be melting some of the ice," Poggensee said. "We didn't have anyone go out today." The ice company, which makes and bags ice for distribution throughout a portion of western Iowa, kept its duties focused on bagging and maintenance early Monday. A coating of ice on area roads -- and the prospect of more coming during the afternoon hours -- kept Poggensee's trucks from venturing out. "If there were some local roads that were OK, and if someone had an emergency for ice, we might have gone out," Poggensee said. "Instead, we just did bagging and maintenance today. The employees took the afternoon off. I didn't want anyone out delivering if conditions were unsafe. We'll catch up on Tuesday." Denison is the county seat for Crawford County, one of the hardest hit Siouxland counties by Monday's ice storm. Nearby Carroll is forecast to receive .42 inches of ice by Tuesday. NORTH SIOUX CITY | Residential and industrial growth in two South Dakota communities is prompting them to work together to study their traffic infrastructure needs. North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes are splitting costs for a traffic study that will provide a comprehensive analysis of 29 intersections in the two communities. Community leadership expects the study will help them plan for future improvements and increase safety throughout the area. "It certainly directly ties into the growth that our community is seeing," said North Sioux City administrator Ted Cherry. "We just want to make sure that were doing what we need to do." Jeff Dooley, district manager of the Dakota Dunes Community Improvement District, said the partnership makes sense, since the neighboring metro communities have grown closer together over time. "As I started looking at how traffic flows, it occurred that our traffic flows through North Sioux and vice versa," he said. The study will be conducted by Omaha-based HDR Inc. and will examine traffic counts and community growth forecasts in order to make recommendations for future road projects. "We want to kind of look to the future and see what kind of traffic to expect, and what kind of improvements to make to deal with traffic flow," Dooley said. Areas of focus will include the roads in the interchange areas of exits 1, 2 and 4 along Interstate 29, as well as along Military Road at River Drive. Another main area of focus will be along Northshore Drive near the Dakota Valley school buildings. "We see a lot of traffic coming off of Exit 4 and Exit 2," Cherry said. "Making sure that were properly prepared to help with those traffic flows and making sure that traffic is moving in a responsible manner is the approach that North Sioux is taking." The nearly $79,000 project will be more than 80 percent funded by the South Dakota Department of Transportation, with Dakota Dunes and North Sioux City splitting the remaining $21,000 evenly. Dooley said the project will begin before school lets out for the summer, and he expects results by late fall of this year. 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. Model N, Inc. provides cloud revenue management solutions for life sciences and high-tech companies. The company offers Global Pricing Management, which minimizes price erosion of products; Global Tender Management that enhances revenue by enabling segmentation and targeting, optimal bid pricing, and post-award tracking; Provider Management, which minimizes rebate overpayments; Payer Management that minimizes revenue leakage and noncompliance of complex contracts; Government Pricing, which optimizes revenue, and reduces the risk of fines and other penalties; and Medicaid that enhances compliance with regulatory requirements and payments of rebate claims timely, as well as at correct rates for government medicaid programs. It also provides Deal Management, which increases deal conversion and pricing consistency; Deal Intelligence that controls price concessions and determines ideal prices; Channel Management, which provides manufacturers a view of inventory, as well as evaluate price protection and stock rotation, and matching available inventory to quotes; Market Development Fund Management that allows companies to streamline their MDF process and reduce revenue leakage; Rebates Management, which centralizes control of rebate programs; and Channel Data Management that automates the process of collection, cleansing, validation, and standardization of channel partner data, such as POS, inventory, and claims. In addition, the company offers implementation, managed, strategic, and customer support services. It primarily serves large and mid-sized organizations worldwide through its direct sales force. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. Juanita "Leone" Linkous, 83, of Bushwood, MD passed away on January 14, 2017 at her residence. Born on March 25, 1933 at home in Canaan Valley, WV she was the middle child of the late Dale and Martha Ault. She was the first of the girls to be delivered by a real doctor. Leone is preceded in death by her siblings: Eleanor Ruth Ault, Audrey Eileen Ault and Robert Ault. Leone's early schooling was a one room school house and she attended high school in Davis, WV. She graduated 2nd in her class. After graduation she moved to D.C. and worked for the Government. Soon thereafter she married Darrel Lantz. Darrel was killed in a car accident and Leone continued to work for the Government. She said she got her job due to doing a crossword puzzle as she waited to be interviewed. Her boss saw her, and he was a puzzle doer as well and the job was hers. Time passed and Leone met a young Air Force guy named Ron Linkous. They married and were blessed with a son Mike. Unfortunately, Mike passed all too soon due to a hit and run accident, he was 7 years old. Time passed and Leone and Ronnie moved to Brandywine, MD. When both of them retired they moved to be on the water in Bushwood, MD. This way she could have all the live crabs she wanted! The family will receive friends on Tuesday, January 17, 2017 from 5:00 PM-8:00 PM in the Mattingley-Gardiner Funeral Home. A Funeral Service will be conducted in the funeral home chapel at 7:00 PM with Pastor Ruth Dixon officiating. Interment will be held on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 11:00 AM in Bueana Chapel Cemetery Canaan Heights, WV. Arrangements by Mattingley-Gardiner Funeral Home. (AP) Providence police are introducing additional training to help officers interact with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Mayor Jorge Elorza and Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements say they're dedicated to creating LGBT-inclusive policies for members of the department as well as specific training curriculum for the next police academy. Related: Police Launch Safety Campaign for Pedestrians Clements says the goal is to help officers become more aware of issues facing the LGBT community in Providence. Elorza, a Democrat, says the training is a way to let the Providence community know the city supports it and is ready to respond to their needs. "Now, more than ever, it is important that every member of our community feels safe and protected," Elorza said in a statement. Jodi Glass is coordinator of the Rhode Island Commission on Prejudice and Bias. Glass says LGBT individuals are at greater risk of experiencing victimization and that data suggest hate crimes have risen since the November election. Glass said she helped bring together police and LGBT advocacy groups to talk about what steps could be taken to improve communication following the Pulse gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people and wounded dozens last June. The entire department is set to be trained within the next year. Sojourner House, a local domestic violence and sexual assault services provider, has experience helping train law enforcement and social service providers to better understand the needs of the LGBT community during the past few years. The group's Executive Director Vanessa Volz said the group is looking forward to working with police in Providence. President Obamas decision to end the wet foot, dry foot policy is not sitting well in Republican circles. In a news release, Vincent Foster, President of the Log Cabin Republicans of Miami, blasted the outgoing Presidents decision to repeal wet foot, dry foot. Obama is more concerned about his legacy and normalizing relations with an oppressive dictatorship than he is with protecting the lives of innocent people fleeing persecution and seeking basic human rights, said Vincent Foster, LCR Miami President. I find it repulsive that the outgoing President unilaterally made such a detrimental policy change just a week before he leaves office. While the wet foot, dry foot was far from perfect, completely repealing the law is a slap in the face to every hardworking Cuban-American, many of whom still have family in Cuba trying to join them here. The policy began in 1995 and allowed for Cubans fleeing the island to stay in the United States once they had touched American soil. If captured at sea, the migrants would be returned to Cuba. I guess hes (Obama) trying to be more equitable to the other Caribbean countries, said Andy Eddy, a member of the Broward Log Cabin Republicans. "I don't know who he's trying to please. I don't get a sense Cubans went wild for Trump. Maybe Obama was trying to mend fences and maybe it was time for it to come to an end." Eddy was less hostile to the policy change than Foster, who cast doubt on the sincerity of the new leader in Havana. Fidel might be dead, but the oppressive Castro Regime lives on, Foster said. We can trust the Cuban government just as much as we can trust the Iranian government. Dictators are not rational actors. Theyre sociopaths. During Obamas tenure, the U.S. and Cuba resumed diplomatic relations, ending an embargo that had been in place since 1961. The death of dictator Fidel Castro in November of last year prompted celebrations throughout Miami and gave exiles hope for reforms on the communist island. LCR Miami is hopeful that President-elect Donald J. Trump will overturn Obamas executive order and make logical change to the wet foot, dry foot policy that provides an opportunity to Cubans seeking freedom from persecution and benefits American foreign policy interests, Foster said. Eddy had a different take. "With Trump and his business skills he can muddle through this mess and figure it out," said Eddy. "There has to be a better way to evaluate people." Log Cabin Republicans is the nations largest Republican organization dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives and allies. The organization has chapters in Broward, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando. Algiers (Algeria), January 12, 2017 (SPS) - The decision of the European Union Court of Justice, whose verdict, issued on 21 December, indicates that the association and liberalization agreements between the EU and Morocco are not applicable to Western Sahara, is pressure to the Union and its members, a senior European diplomat in Brussels said, according to the Algerian daily El Moujahid. "The CJUE ruling is pressing for the EU and its Member States. We live in a state of law, and we must abide by every decision taken by justice, "Nicholas Westcott, Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa in the European External Action Service, said during an exchange of views with members of The Committee on Foreign Affairs in, the European Parliament. The Ambassador of Algeria in Brussels, Amar Belani, congratulated himself on the "clear" statements of the European diplomat, stating that the latter "are not suffering from any ambiguity" and "confirm the well-founded analysis we had made of the judgment of the CJUE of December 21, 2016 ". SPS 125/090/TRA Managua (Nicaragua), January 14, 2017 (SPS) - Nicaragua's President-elect, Daniel Ortega, reiterated the unconditional support and solidarity of the Nicaraguan government for the just Saharawi cause, during his meeting with President of the Saharawi National Council, Khatri Addouh. President Daniel Ortega stressed that "the Saharawi people have endured a long time as it struggles to complete its national sovereignty and get their civil and economic rights." The President of the National Council, accompanied by the Saharawi Ambassador to Nicaragua Sulaiman Al-Tayeb Hannan, handed a message from the President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, to Nicaraguan President-elect Daniel Ortega, congratulating him on his victory in the legislative elections, along with his deputy, Rosario Murillo. The Sahrawi delegation briefed the Nicaraguan president on the latest developments related to the national cause. The two parties vowed to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries in various fields. (SPS) 062/090/TRA Tantan (southern Morocco), January 15, 2017 (SPS) A Moroccan Court has issued unfair sentence in absentia against human rights activist and former Sahrawi political prisoner Hammadi Nassiri for six months and a fine of 500 dirhams, according the Ministry of the Occupied Territories and Community Abroad. The Sahrawi human rights activist had been subjected to verbal abuse, provocations and harassment during his return from Agadir by police checkpoint in the northern town of Tantan. The source added that the former Saharawi political prisoner had been tranformed from the occupied city of Smara to undergo surgery on his nose in Agadir, after he was violently attacked by the Moroccan forces, following his participation in a peaceful demonstration demanding the right of self-determination for the Saharawi people in the occupied city of Smara on April 17, 2015. (SPS) 062/090/TRA As part of Ontario Racings commitment to transparency and industry information sharing, Ontario Racing (OR) has collaborated with the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency (CPMA) to reconcile and provide a 10-year overview of Ontario related wagering -- specifically wagering by Ontario customers, and wagering on Ontario product. A positive indicator is that wagering has continued to recover since the April 1, 2014 inception of the Horse Racing Partnership Program, in large part due to the contributions of the Standardbred Alliance and Woodbine Thoroughbred. While there are many variables, including race dates, distribution channels and foreign exchange rates, it is clear that Ontario wagering is trending in a positive direction. OR has also tabulated the gross revenues generated from the Pari-Mutuel Tax Reduction program, which allocates funds to industry initiatives and programs based on Ontario customer wagering. The full dataset is available here as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. (with files from Ontario Racing) More migrants were killed crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in 2016 than ever before, according to the United Nations migration agency in the region. At least 363,348 people crossed the sea mostly to Italy and Greece but 5,079 additional people were either killed or are missing. But these numbers are expected to increase with the addition of fatalities from December. The probable addition of several hundred more fatalities recorded in 2016 only deepens the tragedy. Europes frustration with a seemingly endless cycle of migrant rescue followed by reports of shipwrecks and more drownings will continue unless Governments throughout the region find a way to manage migration comprehensively. Meanwhile, IOM today carried out its first aid training courses in Libya with rescuers involving migrant lifesaving operation in the Mediterranean Sea. The training, which is part of the Sea and Desert Migration Management for Libyan Authorities to Rescue Migrants (SEA DEMM), was funded by the European Union. Instead of doubling down on tactics that dont work, lets use this New Year to try something thats actually new. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter It's Election season and our editor's mailbox is overflowing. Who do your neighbors support? Read about it here. Melting ice and heavy rain Tuesday could lead to flooding throughout Southwest Washington and Northwest Oregon, the National Weather Service warned Monday. Cowlitz County will likely escape an ice storm, but a small amount of freezing rain could fall in the morning Tuesday, county officials said. The Weather Service has issued a flood watch over Cowlitz County and the region starting Tuesday morning and lasting through late Wednesday night. About 4 to 8 inches of rain could fall in some areas of the region, causing rivers to rise and possible urban flooding, especially in areas where snow and ice are blocking storm drains. Grays River in Wahkiakum County could be affected, according to the Weather Service, but no Cowlitz County rivers were of concern Monday. The Cowlitz County Department of Emergency Management said Monday that it expected 2.37 inches of rain over the county between Tuesday and Thursday, much less than originally anticipated. Cowlitz County looks like it will avoid the heaviest rains, which are expected to hit Northwest Washington, said Andy Bryant, hydrologist with the Weather Service. Its going to turn into a big mess for a couple days with the warmer temperatures and the snow melt and rain accumulating, Bryant said. The ground is still really cold so its going to be a messy transition as we melt that snow and warm up Tuesday and Wednesday. Kelso-Longview is on the edge of the winter storm watch that will bring freezing rain and cold air blowing from the Gorge to south of the Columbia River and in the Portland metro area, Bryant said. That means Cowlitz County is likely to avoid a possible ice storm that may hit the Portland-Vancouver area Tuesday. Commuters will have to battle with icy roads in the Portland area, which is expected to receive 0.5 to 0.8 inches of ice Tuesday, according the Cowlitz County Department of Emergency Management. Its possible Cowlitz County could also receive freezing rain, but much less. About 0.08 to 0.22 inches of freezing rain could hit Cowlitz County between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., according the Department of Emergency Management. tech2 News Staff Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds has announced the opening of a brand new studio in London. This studio will focus on the development of massively multiplayer online (MMO) mobile games. Its hard to believe that Angry Birds first made its debut eight years ago. Since then, the company has seen its fortunes rise and fall over time and its yet to release a new intellectual property (IP) thats as catchy as Angry Birds. The franchise itself has been on the wane for a long time now, but the recent The Angry Birds Movie was quite a success, netting Rovio around $350 million in revenue. The companys venture into the MMO space makes sense, especially when you consider that thats where all the money is. A quick glance at the top grossing titles on the App Store and Play Store throws up MMOs like Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Game of War and more. Rovio currently operates four studios, three in Finland and one in Stockholm. VentureBeat reports that Rovio is looking to hire 8 people next year, but will rely on a collaborative team of 20 members. The announcement will be made at PocketGamerConnects, London. Why London? Rovio sees London as the worlds cultural centre and has a deep respect in the citys breadth and depth of talent. tech2 News Staff Razers stolen triple monitor, Project Valerie laptops briefly popped up on a Chinese e-commerce portal for a whopping $21,700. The laptops were reported stolen soon after CES 2017. Razer co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan took to social media to express his disappointment, where he stated, At Razer, we play hard and we play fair. Our teams worked months on end to conceptualise and develop these units and we pride ourselves in pushing the envelope to deliver the latest and greatest. He called the thievery industrial espionage and cheating and offered a reward of $25,000 to anyone who could offer information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible. The laptops are a triple-screen prototype that Razer demoed at its booth at CES. The prototypes won multiple accolades from various publications, including ours, for its design and concept. The prototype boasted of three, 17-inch 4K displays of IGZO panel technology. The displays were also Nvidia G-Sync compatible. With a combined resolution of 11520x2160 to push, the laptop requires enormous processing power. To that end, Razer kitted the prototype with an Nvidia 1080 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, 32GB of RAM and an Intel i7 6700 CPU. The entire rig was cooled by a vapour chamber system and Razer hinted at a possible price tag of $6,000. Two prototypes were stolen on 8 January and yesterday, showed up on Chinese auction site TaoBao at an initial listing price of around $21,700, reports TweakTown. The listing has since been pulled down, but hopefully, authorities will be able to use the metadata from the listing to pin down the perpetrators. tech2 News Staff One of the founders of Android operating system, Andy Rubin, is working on a high end modular Android smartphone, which will be focussed on artificial intelligence. Rubin sold Android Inc to Google in 2005 and then was the chief of Android inside Google till 2013, before eventually leaving the company in 2014. Rubin has been working on his tech incubator called Playground Global, which is speculated to release an Android smartphone soon. Playground Global backs projects involving AI, robotics and augmented reality. According to a Bloomberg report, Rubin is working on creating a new company called Essential and serves as its CEO. This will have a 40-member team made of former Apple and Alphabet Inc employees, who will be working on consumer hardware such as smartphones, smart home accessories and more. Essential, will be a platform company that will tie up multiple devices together. The showstopper product is expected to be a high end smartphone, which will have an edge-to-edge bezel-less display. According to Bloomberg, Rubin discussed this smartphone with mobile carrier executives. Rubin has listed Essential with the US Patents and Trademark Office, with product such as smartphones, tablets, accessories and 'computer operating software for mobile phones' as some of the goods and services on offer. So it is not known if Rubin's upcoming smartphone will have Android or a complete new OS. Playground Global has investors including HP, Google and Foxconn among others. In fact, Foxconn is alleged to be talks to manufacture Rubin's upcoming smartphone which will be competing with Apple, Samsung and Google's Pixel at the high end of the market. According to people familiar with the matter quoted by Bloomberg, the smartphone Rubin is working on has a larger display size than the iPhone 7 Plus' 5.5-inch. But due to the bezel-less display, it has less of a footprint. The phone will also support pressure sensitive display, like the iPhone. Also, Rubin's team is working on an industrial design which has metal edges and a ceramic back, people aware with the developments said. Essential is also working on a proprietary connector, which will not only let you charge the device, but could be used for expanding the phone's future functionality. This would be done in the form of hardware accessories, or modules, which will add additional features to the phone. For instance, Rubin's engineers are working on a spherical camera module which can shoot high resolution 360 degree photographs. This high end phone is expected to be selling in the retail market by the middle of 2017. It would be priced around $649 (approx Rs 44,500). News of Rubin working on a venture to make a new smartphone started appearing online as far back as December 2015. Considering this is the founder of Android himself working on a new phone, consumers and competitors will be eagerly tracking the development of this phone. tech2 News Staff BSNL has partnered with Tata Communications to provide BSNL customers access to 44 million Wi-Fi hotspots globally. BSNL has deployed the Wi-Fi+ solution by Tata Communications, the first collaboration of this kind in India. BSNL consumers will be able to access the single largest Wi-Fi network in the world while travelling abroad. Anupam Shrivastava, chairman and managing director, BSNL says, "BSNL is the first among the Indian mobile operators to have taken this big step forward towards how mobile subscribers use Wi-Fi internationally. It removes the friction from accessing Wi-Fi and makes it simple to use Wi-Fi data. BSNL mobile subscribers can access Wi-Fi anywhere in the world without worrying about the bill shock when they get home and no longer have to limit their internet usage while abroad." Christopher Almeida, senior vice president, Service Provider Group at Tata Communications, said, "Wi-Fi+ changes how subscribers experience Wi-Fi and simplifies how they get connected to the internet and use their applications while travelling abroad. We are really proud of this partnership with BSNL and how it is delivering innovative mobile experiences to BSNL subscribers." Connectivity to any of the hotspots on the network is seamless. Users do not need to remember multiple passwords to access the internet. After a single sign up, the connection to Wi-Fi hotspots are established automatically, whenever a Wi-Fi hotspot from a partner is within range. The move is an effort reduce the cost borne by tourists when using data during international roaming. Users can contact their friends and family without having to use data plans which are expensive for international roaming. Closer back home, BSNL is in the process of testing high speed hotspots in over 1 lakh villages. The rollout of Wi-Fi hotspots is a measure to reduce the dependence of communications on the scarce spectrum. tech2 News Staff Facebook has introduced new tools to tackle the issue of fake news in Germany. There is a three pronged approach to the problem, empower users to report fake news, verify news sources with third party organisations, and make it difficult for spammers to benefit from sharing misinformation. Facebook has said that the features and tools will be coming to other countries soon. Users now have an option of reporting a post as a fake news story. External fact checkers can also mark a story as fake. Facebook has tied up with fact checking organisation Correctiv to investigate potential fake news stories. Spammers who try to benefit from pretending to be well known sources, can no longer spoof the identities of established sites. Facebook has committed to being more pro-active in the enforcement of existing content policies. Posts marked as fake news can still be shared, but a warning appears to readers that the truth content of the story is questionable. The warning message will link to a justification of why the story has been marked as fake, if it is flagged by a fact checking organisation. Posts flagged for fake news will be given less priority by Facebook, and will appear lower in the news feeds of users. Users can message the person who posted directly to alert them about the post, and get an option to block the person. Facebook has been sued in Germany by a Syrian refugee over malicious spread of misinformation. Anas Modamani, a teenager from Damascus who now works in Berlin clicked a selfie with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The image went viral with fake news stories appearing that Modamani was a terrorist. Fake news stories of Merkel have also spread on the social network. Germany will be holding a federal election towards the end of 2017, and Merkel is one of contestants. Facebook has been criticised for disseminating fake news stories that allegedly influenced the 2016 US presidential election. Facebook has denied the allegation. Facebook has recently launched the Facebook Journalism Project, an initiative to engage with the news industry. There are measures to disrupt the financial incentives for spammers. Facebook will also be offering journalists training for using the new tools and services on Facebook. Facebook is also collaborating with The News Literacy Project to increase awareness on how to consume news among readers. A series of public service announcements are being planned by Facebook and The News Literacy Project. hidden The likely after effects of Trump's ascendancy, Brexit and demonetisation woes are being taken into consideration as the Kerala government is set to unveil its new IT policy, said a top IT honcho who was part of its making. Of Kerala's Rs 10,000 crore annual software exports, 56 per cent was to the US followed by Britain. Hrishikesh Nair, CEO of Technopark, told IANS the new IT policy will address all the concerns which Kerala and India are going to face in the wake of the three major developments. "Trump's outlook with regard to visa, the after effects of Brexit and the demonetisation challenges just cannot be side-stepped as these are major challenges ahead for Kerala as it stands on the threshold of going forward in a big way," said Nair, a former Infosys official who has worked in Japan and the US for several years. Even though Kerala made a bright start in its foray into IT by opening the country's first IT park -- Technopark -- here in the late nineties, the head start could not be capitalised on as the present annual software exports from the state stand at around Rs 10,000 crore. Other south Indian states, all of whom are late entrants, are miles ahead of Kerala. Today, IT activities in Kerala are largely centred around Technopark which currently has 365 IT companies that provide direct employment to 60,000 people, and the Kochi Infopark campus that has 204 companies employing some 30,000 people. Elaborating on the future course of action, Nair said their immediate task was to see that the state was ready to welcome IT companies. "We have our own building that's ready for IT companies, then we have leased out land to IT companies who wish to build their own campus and then we have incubation centres basically meant for new start-ups," said Nair. The various models for space that are available for IT companies include 'warm shell' (the IT companies have to meet all the requirements according to their needs) plug and play, incubation for start-up, which includes from one seat to more and for those who wish to have their own premises an acre of land on a 99 year lease comes at a onetime payment. "The rates differ from place to place and are negotiable based on certain parameters," said Nair. According to him, they are concentrating on finishing all the buildings which are in various stages of construction. In around five years time new built-up space which would provide direct employment to one lakh IT professionals would be available at Technopark and Infopark campus. The Technocity coming up on 400 acres of land near Technopark, besides the Cyberpark at Kozhikode where 2.88 lakh sq ft space is ready for use, are the other key IT infrastructure which are expected to find mention in the new IT policy. IANS tech2 News Staff Microsoft has acquired Canadian AI startup Maluuba for an undisclosed sum. Maluubas acquisition will bolster the companys already strong capabilities in the fields of natural language processing and deep learning. As Microsoft explains in its blog, Maluubas vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans a vision exactly in line with ours. Microsoft has been hard at work building AI that can be deployed anywhere and by anyone. The company has already opened up its Cortana SDKs (software development kits) to the public and has released a number of tools that make the development of AI-based tools much easier. Mulaabas language processing abilities and getting onboard Yoshua Bengio, one of the worlds foremost experts in deep learning, is, as Microsoft believes, a major step forward in the democratisation of AI. In an example quoted by Microsoft, the company envisions a future where companies rely on AI assistants. If you were to, say, look for documents from the top tax-law experts, for example, AI will be able to sort through your database quickly and intelligently, giving you relevant results. Microsoft believes that the vision and methodology that went into the creation of Maluuba are very much in-line with what the company is doing with its own AI division, making Maluuba a great fit for Microsoft. Maluuba also had a lot to say on the matter, particularly on why even they believe that Microsoft is a great fit for the team. You can find the Maluuba teams perspective on the matter here. tech2 News Staff Nokia has been granted a patent for what appears to be a folding phone that can potentially be packed into something thats not unlike a cosmetic compact used by women. The display of the phone apparently opens up to its full length when the case is opened. When folded, the display curves rather than folds, making it a single unit. The internals of the phone havent been laid out in the patent application. Its also worth noting that the patent was awarded to Nokia Corporation rather than HMD Global, which actually owns the rights to the Nokia brand name. The reveal of Nokias folding phone patent comes just days after a similar patent application from Samsung. Samsungs design, however, uses a fold-out display rather than a fold-in one. This means that the display remains on the outside when the phone is folded. The same report revealed that LG was also working on foldable displays and that LGs foldable display technology was more advanced. Both LG and Samsung are expected to ship a 100,000 folding screen devices by year end. Despite the patent application, Nokia may never actually build or ship a folding a screen device, though. The company has only just started rebuilding its smartphone division with HMD Global and we dont see the company taking too much of a risk with designs any time soon. hidden South Koreas special prosecutor said on Sunday it will take into account the economic impact of whether to arrest Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee in connection with an influence-peddling investigation involving the president. The office also delayed by one day, until Monday, its decision on whether to seek the arrest of Lee, the third-generation leader of South Koreas largest conglomerate, or chaebol, citing the gravity of the case. The special prosecution had said it would make a decision on Lee by Sunday. But spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told reporters on Sunday investigators were deliberating all factors including the potential economic impact of the arrest of Jay Y. Lee. Prosecutors have been investigating whether Samsung provided 30 billion won ($25.46 million) to a business and foundations backed by President Park Geun-hyes friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for the national pension funds support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates. The Samsung chief denied bribery accusations during a parliamentary hearing in December. Taking into account the economic impact could prove beneficial to the 48-year-old Lee. The imposition of less severe punishment on erring business leaders to avoid negative economic consequences has precedent in South Korea. Law and principle are the most important metric, and after also considering various factors mentioned previously, we will decide by law and principle, the prosecution spokesman Lee said, referring to economic impact, without elaborating. A Samsung Group spokeswoman declined to comment. Samsungs Lee was questioned for 22 hours before leaving the special prosecutors office in Seoul on Friday morning as part of the investigation into a corruption scandal that has led to President Parks impeachment by parliament. Establishing a money-for-favor exchange between Samsung and Park or her surrogate is critical for the special prosecutors investigation, analysts say. Court Deliberating Park, the daughter of a military ruler, has denied wrongdoing, although she has apologized for exercising poor judgment. Her friend, Choi, who is in detention and facing her own trial, has also denied wrongdoing. The Constitutional Court is deciding whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment vote. If Park is forced to leave office, a presidential election would be held in 60 days. Among the expected contenders is former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The chiefs of South Korean chaebol have over the years had prison sentences shortened or forgiven, or received pardons, with the economic impact of imprisonment cited as a factor. Jay Y. Lees father Lee Kun-hee, who has been incapacitated since a 2014 heart attack, was handed a three-year suspended jail sentence in 2009 for tax evasion. He was later pardoned. Samsung has acknowledged making contributions to the two foundations as well as a consulting firm controlled by Choi but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries Inc. The worlds biggest maker of smartphones, memory chips and flat-screen televisions has delayed its annual executive promotions, which typically take place in early December, amid the scandal. The special prosecution also said it plans to indict early next week National Pension Service chief Moon Hyung-pyo, who was arrested in December after acknowledging he pressured the fund to approve the merger while he was health minister. Reuters tech2 News Staff A YouTube channel had recently published videos claiming to have had a hands-on experience with the Nokia 8 at CES 2017 this year. Qualcomm has now issued a statement insisting that the video was a fake. The video, uploaded by a YouTube channel called Total Tech, showed off a blue phone with a pretty massive camera bunk on the back. Another video that the channel published shows off two phones on a vibrating rig, demoing the capabilities of the in-built image stabilisation on the cameras. Total Tech claims that a Qualcomm staff member at CES told them that the devices were reference hardware manufactured by Nokia and Qualcomm to showcase the EIS 3.0, which will be introduced in the Snapdragon 835 chipset. Given that this information was gleaned from a Qualcomm booth, its understandable that Qualcomm is the one issuing a statement. In the statement sent to NokiaMob, Qualcomm says, "We do not disclose details of our reference design. We've seen a few stories rumouring what we demonstrated in our CES booth to be a Nokia device, those reports are not accurate, our 835 demos were on our own reference design devices which we use to demo our Snapdragon SoC's every year." Just because the phone is a reference design doesnt necessarily mean that were looking at the final product. However, if the device in question was indeed made by Nokia, weve at least seen a hint of what is to come at Nokias event at MWC event next month. Unlike the recently released Nokia 6, the Nokia 8 is expected to be a flagship device that will compete neck-and-neck with the likes of Samsung and Apple. The phone is expected to feature a Snapdragon 835 SoC, 6GB of RAM and 24MP rear camera. If the popularity of the Nokia 6 is anything to go by, the Nokia 8 is sure to be a winner at MWC. tech2 News Staff Unique Identification Authority of India has indicated that it will be rolling out Aadhaar Pay app for merchants in the coming weeks. The program has been running as a pilot project in fair-price shops in Andhra Pradesh, according to a report in The Economic Times. The app will be based on Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS) which is already being used by micro ATMs across the country. The application is being developed by UIDAI in collaboration with TCS, and is available to banks to integrate with their applications. IDFC is one of the first banks to release an application that allows customers to pay merchants through AEPS. The merchant needs to pay for a biometric scanner that costs Rs 2,000, and IDFC is directly sending a link to the application to the registered mobile number of the merchants. The application by IDFC is not available on the Android app store. The payments are authenticated through the biometric scanner. Shoppers do not need a plastic card, or a smartphone to make the transactions. An Aadhaar linked bank account, is however, a prerequisite for making the transactions. The limits on the transactions are left to the discretion of the banks. There are plans to eventually migrate the AEPS system to the BHIM system. UIDAI is ensuring security of the application with all the transmitted information having end to end encryption to prevent 'man in the middle attacks'. UIDAI has indicated that security for the platform is paramount, and that they will constantly be upgrading the security measures. The AEPS app for merchants faces a number of challenges. Biometric security is trivial to hack using low tech means. Users just have to take an imprint of the finger in wax, and use cheap glue to make a copy of the fingerprint to get past biometric security. Experts have also pointed out that biometric security is not infallible, and the marginal failure rate will affect a lot of people in a the large population of India. Fingerprint scanners for authentication of financial transactions has not found widespread acceptance even in mature markets. Finally, the large number of unbanked people in the remote and rural areas of India will not be able to use Aadhaar pay. Corning announced today that Amit Bansal has been appointed the companys new managing director for its operations in India. Bansal will be based in Gurugram, Haryana and spearhead the companys growth and operations while contributing to strategic planning for Corning in India. Thomas Appelt, President of Corning International Emerging Markets, said, Amit has been an integral part of the organization and has contributed to the companys growth in the country over the past several years. India is one of our priority markets and we aim to expand our business and deepen our business engagement in the core sector. Amit brings in immense experience and I am confident that he will drive companys growth plans for India. Bansal will drive synergy across the various commercial organizations to grow Cornings business in the country. Additionally, he will oversee Cornings manufacturing operations in the country, business development efforts with the science and technology organization, and pursue new global supply management opportunities. Bansal has also been appointed to the Corning Finolex Board of Directors. I am excited to be a part of Cornings journey in India and witness numerous growth avenues explored by the organization, Bansal said. Corning is an iconic global brand and the projected plans for growth in India seem very promising. I am committed to take the companys vision forward and utilize all of my skills to ensure an accelerated growth trajectory for the company across verticals. Bansal brings almost two decades of extensive business experience both internationally and in India. Before joining Corning, Bansal played a key role in leading various commercial, merger, and acquisition initiatives at Axygen, a California-based life science company acquired by Corning in 2009. Additionally, Bansal is a qualified chartered accountant and holds degrees in finance and accounting. @Technuter.com News Service Ericsson and Cisco Systems will transform and virtualize Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA)s networks for VHA to better prepare for new emerging services and to evolve its core network to increase the level of agility and programmability from network slicing. Through simplification of its network and infrastructure, VHA will benefit from having the tools to become more agile, innovative and more pro-active in the way services are brought to market, ultimately resulting in improved customer engagement experience alongside reductions in opex and capex spend. The deal represents the first major collaboration between Ericsson and Cisco on Telecom Cloud infrastructure. Kevin Millroy, VHA Chief Technology Officer, said, Ericsson and Cisco are our existing providers of core and routing functions making them good partners to move into a virtualized environment. This transformation allows us to introduce new applications to drive innovation and improve customer services and user experience. The new infrastructure opens the door to new business models and markets, such as Internet of Things for Vodafone we are excited about the future prospects this partnership offers. Rima Qureshi, Head of Region North America and responsible for the strategic partnership with Cisco at Ericsson said, This major transformation deal clearly demonstrates Ericssons global end-to-end transformation and operations capabilities as a trusted transformation partner. As the first collaboration between Ericsson and Cisco on Telecom Cloud infrastructure, it also shows how our global partnership is speeding digital transformation for customers across industries. As the Prime Integrator, Ericsson is taking responsibility for integration of the Ericsson and Cisco, not only building the infrastructure, but ensuring the delivery of an end-to-end operational system. Yvette Kanouff senior vice president, General Manager, Service Provider Business, Cisco, says: Cisco and Ericsson have been working with key strategic accounts around the globe to validate a telecom cloud infrastructure. This broad and significant engagement with VHA demonstrates how our two companies are utilizing our complementary assets to deliver technical and commercial innovation and systems integration leadership to the benefit of our customers. The joint architecture solution comprises of Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System and software components such as Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment, Ericsson Cloud Manager, Cloud SDN controller; together with Cisco WAN Automation Engine, Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), Cisco IP Network VNFs including IOS XR 9000v and Cloud Services Router 1000v, and both virtualized and physical security technologies such as the Adaptive Security Appliance and Cisco Firepower security gateway, along with services and support. This builds on VHAs selection, in 2014, of Ericsson to replace and upgrade VHAs complete core network, including virtual EPC and virtual IMS/ Voice over LTE. Ericsson and Cisco two industry leaders in the development and delivery of networking, mobility, and cloud formed a global business and technology partnership in November 2015 to create the networks of the future. The partnership offers customers the best of both companies: routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities. The next-generation strategic partnership will drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries. To date, over 250 active customer engagements have now started to turn into won deals. More than 60 deals, spread around the world, are in IP (routing and transport) and services. 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AFP, Frankfurt : The NATO alliance is an "obsolete" organisation, US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview published late on Sunday, complaining that the pact had "not bothered about terrorism". "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," Trump told the Monday editions of German tabloid Bild and the Times of London. While he said NATO remains "very important to me," he returned to a favourite campaign-trail complaint that some NATO allies weren't paying enough. "We're supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There's five countries that are paying what they're supposed to. Five. It's not much," he added. The US accounts for some 70 percent of spending by NATO nations. Immediately after Trump's election victory, the organisation's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg recalled that NATO had been at the heart of transatlantic security since its founding in 1949. Members of NATO are pledged to defend one another if attacked, with the self-defence clause invoked only once in history-after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. In 2014, leaders of the 22-nation alliance-originally founded in response to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe-agreed to return defence spending to their commitment of 2.0 percent of GDP in the wake of Russian intervention in Ukraine and upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa. Five days before his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, the billionaire populist let loose a torrent of controversial comments about European allies in interviews with British newspaper The Times and Germany's Bild. He extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under his predecessor Barack Obama over Moscow's involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. "Let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia," Trump said in remarks carried by The Times. The US president-elect suggested a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased, but gave no details. "Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Washington's European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. PATUAKHALI: A view-exchange meeting was held with BCS Sadharon Shikkha Samity and journalists of Patuakhali Press Club at the Club premises yesterday. CUB organizes seminar on 'Career in Law Campus Report : School of Law, Canadian University of Bangladesh (CUB) organized a seminar on 'Career in Law' on Saturday. Iqbal Mahmood, Chairman, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) was the chief guest in the event. Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, Founder and Chairman, Canadian University of Bangladesh conferred the vote of thanks at the event. Prof Dr William H Derrenger, Vice Chancellor, CUB inaugurated the seminar. Chief Guest Iqbal Mahmood said 'Law profession is a moral profession, law students should be morally aware. The important thing of the law profession is compliance with proper morality, in the light of experience gained the ability to discern the difference between social good and evil.' Prof Dr Atiur Rahman, Former Governor, Bangladesh Bank and Sheikh Kabir Hossain, Chairman, Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh (APUB) were the Guests of Honor on the occasion. Dr Uttam Kumar Das, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Program Officer, Social Dialogue and Industrial Relations (ILO) was the speaker at the seminar. Dr Syed Sharfaraj Hamid, Associate Prof and Head, School of Law convened the seminar. Prof Dr James Gomez, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Prof MA Arafat, Chief Advisor to the Board of Trustees of Canadian University of Bangladesh were also present at the event. The seminar was organized for Graduates of Law to understand and distinguish the different sectors within the legal profession and services in the job market. As the Bangladesh economy grows and evolves, so has the legal profession and it's timely that prospective career seekers in law receive the necessary industry updates. Canadian University of Bangladesh, School of Law is well placed to train future graduates aspiring to enter the legal profession given the university's legal networks at the national and international levels. Aspiring students of law, law graduates, guardians, advocates are welcome to make enquiries for the university's ongoing Spring Admission 2017. KICL appoints new CEO Business Desk : A.N.M. Fazlul Karim Munshi has joined as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Karnaphuli Insurance Co Ltd, said a press release. Prior to his joining to the post, he was the Addl. Managing Director and Head of Marketing of the same company. Fazlul Karim joined the company in 1987 and served in the capacity of different key position for last 30 years with honestly and integrity. Munshi completed his BSS (Hons) and MSS degree in Economics under Dhaka University. He attended Seminar and Training Course on Reinsurance and also various insurance affairs at home and abroad. He is the life member of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA) and Bangladesh Young Economist Association (BYEA). He comes from a respective Muslim family of "Bonkot Munshi Bari" under Debidwar Upazila of Comilla District. What does constitute a corruption case and where to submit? Dr. Md. Shamsul Arefin : Corruption has been a part of human societies since the oldest of times. Many centuries ago, Kautilya's writing identified forty types of embezzlement committed by public servants. In various ancient civilizations bribery was a serious problem among the Jews, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Greeks and the Romans etc. The formal institutional framework to fight corruption was initiated thorough a long evolution of system in Bangladesh. In the year of 1944, when the country was severely affected by famine, the Government of Bangal took a program of relief and ration distribution through the Food Department of the government. The corrupt practices were detected in the Food Department in the year of 1944. But during that time, no offices were meant for dealing corruption. To fight corruption officially the Enforcement Branch was formed in the Police Department in 1947 under the Prevention of Corruption Act -1947. As there was no investigating agency other than the police, certain offences were declared as offences of corruption and those were investigated by the Police Department until the establishment of the Bureau of Anti-Corruption in 1957 by an act of the same year. As the Police Department was overburdened with other criminal cases, Government felt the need to establish a separate agency to fight corruption. For that purpose, the Bureau of Anti-Corruption was established. After a long time, in the year of 2004, with the movement of political parties, media, civil society and development partners, the present independent Anti-Corruption Commission was established. Although initially, it could not make the desired impact, but immediately following its reconstitution in February 2007, the ACC began working with renewed dynamism. Main functions of the ACC are divided into two broad areas. One is enforcement of law for prosecution of corrupt practices and another is prevention of corruption through awakening people about the consequences of corruption and engaged awakened people against corruption. Corruption is operationally defined as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain- Transparency International. But there is no clear definition of corruption in the ACC act 2004. But there is a schedule attached with the act and the offences mentioned in the schedule are defined as offences of corruption to be dealt with the ACC only. Every year a large number of allegations ACC received, but a very few number of allegations are considered for taking cognizance because of most of them are not viewed as scheduled mentioned offences. For an example, number of complaints received in 2014 are 8709 out of which 632 complaints are found valid for actions. This happens, most probably, scheduled mentioned offices are not clearly known to the complainants. Thus the schedule mentioned offences are given here in a nutshell for a clear understanding of the readers. Taking bribe by government officials/ employees/ elected or nominated public representatives while discharging their duties; Accumulating wealth illegally by any government officials/ employees/ elected or nominated public representatives or even by any other person by his or her own or anonymously; Embezzling or damaging public money/ assets; Conducting business/ commerce by government officials/ employees without permission from the proper authority; Trying to save any convicted criminal intentionally from punishment by government officials/ employees; Money laundering (illegal financial transaction, transformation, hiding and helping to do such work) related to corruption and bribery ; Allegation of embezzlement of money/ assets by the employees in private -public sector; and Fraud, forgery and deception etc by a Public servant. In addition to that, under section 26 and 27 of the act, if the Commission is satisfied on the basis of its own information and after necessary investigation that any person is in possession or has obtained ownership of property not consistent with his legal sources of income or is in possession through dishonest means and the property is not consistent with the known sources of his/her income, then the ACC can ask that person to submit a statement of assets and liabilities before the Commission. Offences under sections 161-169, 217, 218, 409, 477A and sections 109, 120(B) and 511 of the Penal Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860) relating to gratifications, bribery, showing favor or disfavor in delivering public services, creating conflict of interest, knowingly disobeys any direction of the law, preparing public documents incorrectly, engaging in trade, purchasing or biding for certain property are considered as offices of corruption and are under the purview of the ACC Act, 2004. Anyone can submit his complaint directly addressed to the Chairman/ Commissioner, Anti-Corruption Commission, Head Office, 01 Segun Bagicha, Dhaka, respective Divisional Directors of Dhaka/ Chittagong/ Rajshahi/ Khulna/ Barisal/ Sylhet or Deputy Directors of Integrated District Office, Dhaka-1/ Dhaka-2/ Tangail/ Faridpur/ Mymensingh/ Chittagong-1/Chittagong-2/ Rangamati/ Comilla/ Noakhali/ Rajshahi/ Bogra/ Pabna/ Rangpur/ Dinajpur/ Khulna/ Kushtia/ Jessore/ Barisal/ Patuakhali/ Sylhet/ Habiganj. In addition to that there is a hotline 106 dedicated for intimating offences of corrupt practices. Under the section 17 clause (g) of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act, 2004, the Commission has been engaging citizens for prevention of corruption through its 493 constituted District Corruption Prevention Committees and the Upazila Corruption Prevention Committees throughout the country. Again in the educational institutions, it has established 20,885 Integrity Units among the students for promoting the values of honesty and integrity in order to prevent corruption. (Dr. Md. Shamsul Arefin is Director General (Additional Secretary), Anti Corruption Commission Bangladesh). Problems of foreign medical students need urgent solution AROUND 1,200 MBBS students of the University of Science and Technology Chittagong (USTC) face uncertainty, as Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC) has refused to register them for the University's Violation of Admission rules, as per a report of a local daily. The USTC, a private institution, admitted around 400 students each in the 25th, 26th and 27th batches whereas the rules permit it to admit around 100 in each batch, said sources at the USTC and the BMDC. Without registration with the BMDC, the 1,200 students, including around 600 from India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives, cannot do internship or become medical practitioner. The students have been demonstrating in the Port city over the last four days, demanding the authorities take steps to resolve the matter. Many of the foreign students have already contacted their Embassies concerned in Bangladesh. Health and Family Welfare Minister said the USTC did not follow the rules and that it was running at its own will. USTC Registrar said they got a letter from the government in 2015, which asked them to admit 75 students every year. But before that, there was no restriction on admission of students. Contacted Registrar of the BMDC, said they refused to register the students because the USTC violated the rules by admitting more students than permissible. Asked how 387 USTC students of the 24th batch got registered with the BMDC in 2012, he said it was done following intervention of the higher authorities. About this, the Health Minister said they did it on compassionate grounds. Of the 600 foreign students at the USTC medical faculty, around 300 are from India, about 250 from Sri Lanka, 30 from the Maldives and 10 from Bhutan. Many of the students from India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives told the media that they already contacted their Embassies in Bangladesh through emails, and the officials concerned told them that they were keeping a close watch on the matter. There is no hard and fast reason for BMDC to stick to its rule of 100 student admissions per medical college. It should immediately become apparent that the medical colleges can make more profits from foreign students than local ones so realistically there should not be a limit on the number of foreign students which it should be allowed to admit. The extra funds so acquired could be used to improve their infrastructure and provide more seats and financial aid for local students -- this is an area which would need proper supervision from the government, to ensure that the extra profits are not simply gobbled up by the owners. We dont have a very positive image in the international arena -- there is no reason why we should irk our neighbouring countries to ensure further negativity. A practical solution would be to scrap the rules regarding international student admission to ensure that such colleges have more funds to channel into infrastructure and funding for our local students. This makes more sense -- as the government should not be expected to cough up billions of takas to subsidise private medical colleges. This way we can help both ourselves and keep relations smooth with our neighbours -- surely a middle ground can be found somewhere. PBCP man killed in Pabna gunfight UNB, Pabna : An alleged member of outlawed Purba Bangla Communist Party (PBCP) was killed in a reported gunfight with members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in Haludghar village in Santhia upazila early Monday. The deceased was identified as Razzak, 40, an accused in several cases including for murder and robbery. Pabna RAB-12 camp commander Bina Rani Das said a team of RAB was going for a drive at the village early in the morning. As their vehicle approached a bridge at the village, the criminals opened fire at them prompting a retaliation that triggered a gunfight. Later, members of the elite force recovered the body of Razzak from the spot. They also recovered a pistol, several rounds of bullets and some sharp weapons from the spot. Police-hawkers clash: 50 injured DSCC Mayor firm to continue drive Law enforcers charge batons on the hawkers as they locked in clashes with them while protesting continuous eviction drive in Gulistan area on Monday. Staff Reporter : Hawkers and police on Monday locked into clashes over the eviction drive by the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) in Gulistan area leaving at least 50 people injured. A group of hawkers in the morning went to Nagar Bhaban to submit a memorandum to DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon to press home their 10-point demand. When they came to the Gulistan Intersection they found that the DSCC authorities were conducting eviction drives to remove the illegal structures from beside both sides of the street. The drive made them angry and they took to the street protesting the demolishing of their temporary footpath shops. They later marched to the Purana Paltan Intersection bringing out a procession. As police tried to disperse them the hawkers locked into clashes with them. Police went rough and charged batons when hawkers started pelting brick-bits on members of law enforcing agencies leading at least 50 injured. The police also demolished the illegal structures at Gulistan Market, Gulistan Trade Centre, Dhaka Trade Centre, Bangabandhu Underground Market and at the Bangabandhu Avenue footpath. Seven platoons of police were deployed to maintain security during the operation. Fifteen vehicles, including City Corporation bulldozers and pay-loaders were involved. The Jubo League activists also attempted to stop the demolition of the Ward-20 Jubo League Gulistan unit office, which was built on the footpath in front of the Gulistan Plaza Market. They were shouting slogans opposing Mayor Sayeed Khokon and the Dhaka South City Corporation. Bulldozers eventually demolished the fence on one side of the office. DSCC Executive Magistrate Khan Mohammad Nazmus Shoyeb said, "Our work is authorized. We have permission to demolish this structure." The operation also demolished a BRTC Volvo Bus counter on the Bangabandhu Avenue footpath. Meanwhile, the National Hawkers' Union surrounded the DSCC office around 10:00am on Monday to protest the eviction of hawkers without resettlement. A delegation from the union went to present a formal request to Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Sayeed Khokon around 12:45pm. Their outlined 10-point demand includes stopping evictions without resettlement, the national recognition of hawkers, a stop to extortion, an end to the persecution of hawkers, an official list of authorised and the provision of corresponding identification papers. After the meeting with the mayor, Hawkers' Union Councillor Sekendar Hayat said: "We have presented our opinions, but he appears determined to stick to his rigid stance." "We have said that if hawkers are to be evicted, they must be given space to work elsewhere. We requested the City Corporation to provide an authorised place for us. We have said that hawkers will take responsibility for ensuring the streets stay clean and that the footpath is un-congested. But he did not listen, so we will continue our protests." Meanwhile, after the meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh Hawkers' Federation Mayor Sayeed Khokon on Monday said, they are going to stick to their decision to keep hawkers of Gulistan area off the streets during office hours. "The drive will continue to ensure free streets for the public," he said. In their demands, they asked for government recognition of hawkers, extortion to be stopped and to bring an end to persecution of hawkers. "There is no question of giving the hawkers any chance in this regard. There are about 1.20 crore people residing in this city. Of them, 60 percent people walk to their destinations and there should be no obstruction in their way," Khokon said. The eviction drive will not even consider any government offices occupying the streets, the mayor added. The mayor, however, said measures would be taken to establish a holiday market for hawkers. Earlier on January 11, Dhaka South Mayor Sayeed Khokon announced the restriction on the hawkers of Dhaka South City Corporation prohibiting them to sit on city-roads and footpaths for business purpose during office-hours. The DSCC authorities started executing the decision since Sunday in Gulistan and its adjacent areas. Earlier on October 27, Dhaka South City Corporation evicted over 100 hawkers and demolished illegal structures on different roads in Gulistan area triggering serious protests from the evicted hawkers who also clashed with city corporation employees, police, and ruling Awami League-backed Bangladesh Chhatra League activists. HC concludes hearing on AG's holding office Staff Reporter : The High Court (HC) on Monday fixed January 23 for delivering the verdict on the writ petition filed challenging the legality of Advocate Mahbubey Alam holding the office of the Attorney General of Bangladesh. The HC bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Abu Taher Saifur Rahman passed the order after concluding the hearing on the writ petition. Petitioner Advocate Eunus Ali Akond, a Supreme Court Lawyer, himself took part in the hearing in favour of the application. Senior Advocate Prabir Niogi and A M Amin Uddin and Additional Attorney General Murad Reza stood for Advocate Mahbubey Alam. Advocate Eunus Ali Akond told reporters that hearing on the petition had been concluded. The court fixed January 23 for delivering the verdict. In the hearing Advocate Eunus Ali Akond said that the Chief Justice and the Attorney General could not run the office after crossing 67 years age. On November 10, Advocate Eunus Ali Akond filed the writ petition challenging the legality of Mahbubey Alam holding the AG office. The president appointed Attorney General Mahbubey Alam under Article 64(1) of the Constitution. According to this article the President shall appoint a person as AG who is qualified to be a SC judge, Eunus Ali Akond said in a legal notice which he issued on March 21. The age limit of SC judge is 67 years. Mahbubey Alam turned 67 years on February 17 last year and he cannot hold the office of attorney general any more, Eunus Ali Akond said in the petition. A national daily published a news item on Advocate Mahbubey Alam holding the office of the Attorney General. At this, Advocate Eunus Ali Akond filed a writ petition challenging the legality of Advocate Mahbubey Alam's holding of the office. The petitioner said in the petition that according to The Legal Remembrance's Manual-1960, the posts of the Attorneys are for two-year term. The President can terminate him before completing this term. But advocate Mahbubey Alam holding the post for long eight years violating the rule. On November 20, 2016 a judge of the High Court bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Mohammad Ullah felt embarrassed to hear the petition. Then the Chief Justice sent the petition to a new a bench. OIC to sit in KL on Jan 19 Staff Reporter : The Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold an extraordinary meeting in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, on 19 January, upon the request of the Government of Malaysia to discuss the situation of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. The meeting will discuss genuine steps that the OIC and the international community should take to urge the Myanmar government to allow delivery of humanitarian assistance to Rakhine State, address the root causes of the violence, and widen the scope of dialogue among the groups to ensure the return of the displaced Rohingya population to their homes in safety and dignity, the OIC in a statement said yesterday. The meeting will also discuss the situation of the more than 120,000 displaced and refugee Muslims within Myanmar. This upcoming Ministerial meeting is going to be held against the backdrop of ongoing concerns of the OIC General Secretariat for the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and the continuing violence as well as the stance of the Myanmar government on the situation in Rakhine State. The Islamic groups in New York, Geneva and Brussels had last month held emergency meetings to discuss the ongoing crisis facing the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. The aim was to identify necessary measures that can be taken as prelude to convening the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers scheduled for Kuala Lumpur. It should also be mentioned that the foreign ministers of the OIC Contact Group on Rohingya Muslims also held their meeting on the sideline of the Council of Foreign Ministers session held in Tashkent last October. The meeting called again on the Government of Myanmar to restore the citizenship of the Rohingya which had been revoked under the 1982 citizenship law. Rule of law established : Ministers Staff Reporter : The government's senior ministers yesterday said the verdict in the seven-murder case demonstrated the rule of law in the country and warned that none involved in crimes would be spared. Law Minister Anisul Huq said the judgment proves that there is rule of law in the country. "Country's people will be pleased by this verdict and the fear that was created by the heinous crime will go away. The state has done its duty of bringing the criminals to justice and ensuring their free and fair trial," he told at press briefing held at his secretariat office. Regarding the execution of the verdict, the law minister said when a trial court sentences someone to death, it sends the case documents to the High Court for approval within seven days. "If the High Court upholds the sentence, the convict can file appeal with the Appellate Division. The execution will take place only after completion of all these formalities," he said. Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said the verdict proves that people get justice under the rule of this government. "We hope that the higher court will uphold the judgment," he told journalists after attending a function in the city. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said the verdict in the seven-murder case demonstrated the rule of law in the country and warned that none involved in crimes would be spared. "The verdict in Narayanganj seven-murder case proved that the government would not spare anyone in case of crime," he told newsmen while giving his instant reaction to the verdict at his secretariat office. He said the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) would not be responsible for its some derailed personnel, who committed crimes, because it is an institution to curb crimes in the country. "This judgment has established the force further. The RAB also helped to conduct proper investigation of the killing." Replying to a query about the absconding convicts, Kamal said the law enforcers would bring them to justice. 30 inmates killed with 3 `beheaded` Independent : At least three inmates are reported to have been beheaded and more than 30 have been killed in a riot involving different gangs at a prison in the Brazilian city of Natal. Violence erupted at the Alcacuz Penitentiary in the north-east of the country after prisoners from one drug gang invaded a block occupied by a rival mob. The riot continued for around 14 hours before military police entered the prison and restored order. Officials had said they were waiting until dawn before attempting to put a stop to the riot because of reports some inmates were armed. Officials initially announced that at least ten prisoners have been killed but sources told the G1 news website the current death toll is closer to 25. Reuter's reports that the current death toll stands at 30. As many as 100 people are feared to have died but authorities will not be able to release a final figure until they have accessed all areas of the prison. Sources said the violence was part of an on-going battle between two drug gangs: the Crime Syndicate and First Command of the Capital. Some of the victims are reported to have been decapitated and mutilated. "We could see the heads ripped off", prison co-ordinator Zemilton Silva told Folha de Sao Paulo. As the riot continued, relatives waited outside the prison awaiting news of their loved ones. One inmate was reported to have escaped but has since been recaptured. There have been a number of riots in Brazilian prisons in recent weeks. At least 116 prisoners have been murdered in Brazil in 2017 and that death toll is expected to rise after the latest riot. Following the latest violence, Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil's Justice Minister, admitted the prison system had become "a barrel of gunpowder". In an interview with National Journal, he said: "The system has been overcrowded for a long time, and I repeat that there is no magic step to solve a chronic problem in Brazil," he said. "We have approximately 650,000 prisoners today, with a deficit of nearly 300,000. Obviously, this ends up making the system a barrel of gunpowder." The two-state solution must be implemented with or without Mr Trump It was a conference held in the midst of heightening tension and looming political apprehensions over one of the most sensitive manmade crisis ever - the Two State solution on Israel-Palestine conflict. However, the conference held at Paris last Sunday bringing some seventy countries under one platform is seemingly all set to send a strong warning to the US president - elect that - only a two-state solution can pragmatically solve the Israel-Palestinian crisis with a clear signal, if necessary, the EU will diverge from the US on Israel policy. But neither the Israelis, the Palestinians nor any representative of Mr. Trump were present at Sunday's meeting. The absence of all three major parties required to realise a peace deal is a clear indication of a gloomy future. On the contrary, if there were only these three parties without any other countries present in Paris, prospective peace, perhaps could be hoped. Despite Israeli objections to the conference, and disapproval from the Trump team we don't want to see the conference to be a mere symbolic show of support for the two-state solution, but in fact, a chance to set out practical incentives for peace. In a deeper sense the conference outcome should help in Palestinian capacity-building coupled with aiding the civil society to promote dialogue. Yet, fearing the incoming of a radical right wing US government hope for peace has not only becoming slimmer but drifting Israel away from a prospective path to peace. Mr. Trump's selection of his personal lawyer David Friedman as the next Ambassador to Israel has added even further fear to quash any positive outcome of the conference too. In the light of recent developments, the future of the Middle East peace process now seems uncertain to the extreme. This week, the Israeli premiere not only labelled the conference as 'rigged' but further added - support for Israel in the incoming Trump administration means the meeting has little significance. It isn't a mere foolhardy declaration of future US support but a clear intention to defy any future condition in the peace making process. We don't know what beholds for the future of Palestine, but we know, any attempt to legitimise the illegally occupied Palestinian territory and Jerusalem is likely to tempt more bloodshed. If this ominous happening takes place under American blessings then we are only to see another warmonger US President in the making. The international Paris Conference comes as support for the two-state solution which is fast waning domestically as well as internationally. The million dollar question, however, for how long will figurative summits and conferences take place in the name of brokering Israel-Palestine peace? If it is essentially the American position to be the determining factor to establish peace between the two then what's the need for arranging such expensive conferences in lavish cities inviting other countries to participate in them? It's time, that the seventy countries including the major EU powers comes to a decisive conclusion to end five decades of misery, deaths and destruction inflicted upon an innocent Muslim State with Mr. Trump on board. The UN resolutions affirm the illegality of settlements in West Bank, including East Jerusalem and against the backdrop of this truth the incoming US President should act in accordance to it, otherwise the value of such resolutions become nil. To end with, the solution of two states is the only way forward and the only solution that will answer both sides' aspirations and legitimate rights. If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs. Photo by Robin May Shopping local isnt important just during the holiday season; its vital year round to ensure locally owned and operated businesses remain open and thriving. Shopping local is good for retailers, and its good for the community. For every $100 spent at a local/ independent retailer, $45 stays in the community. At local restaurants, $65 stays in the community. In contrast, national chains recirculate $14 in the community. This recirculation of money can have a huge impact on the communitys economy. Retail and hospitality businesses provide jobs for about 49,000 people in the Lafayette MSA (Lafayette, Acadia, Iberia, St. Martin and Vermilion Parishes) making up nearly a quarter of the regions workforce. While employment in the mining sector has declined because of the energy downturn, retail employment has remained steady over the past two years. Our neighbors, families and friends own the businesses that are the foundation of our community. Studies show that local businesses donate to community causes at more than twice the rate of national chains. When we shop local, money stays in our community to support schools, safety, streets and jobs. As a business owner, I see the impact of locally spent money. Sales taxes build our roads, schools, police and fire departments, says Jack Emling, owner of The Interior Fabric Shoppe. I have donated to numerous charities, churches, schools and more. Shopping local allows us to stay in business and employ your friends and neighbors. Buying local supports the community in other ways. It encourages a strong creative and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the community. Local shopkeepers are often able to better meet the needs of their customers by carrying an array of specialty items that may not be found at larger chain stores. Buying from a locally owned business is good for the environment because it conserves energy and resources in the form of less fuel for transportation and less packaging. A suggested shopping philosophy is to shop locally owned businesses first; then, shop at national chains with a local presence; finally, shop online with a retailer who collects local sales tax. Many national online retailers do not collect local or state sales tax, thereby depriving the community of needed revenue for schools, roads and public safety. Shopping local can help prevent major losses in revenue for our community. In 2015, Amazon sold $755.7 million worth of retail goods statewide, which equates to $68.1 million in lost state and local sales taxes. That comes to about $40.63 for every household in Louisiana. Starting early this year, Amazon was set to begin collecting sales tax in Louisiana. Imagine the impact those funds can have on our community in 2017. We wont have final 2016 retail sales numbers until February, but its safe to say that shopping local, today and every day, will impact our community in positive ways safe roads, clear drainage, high-quality schools and rapid emergency response. It would be beneficial to everyone to heed the advice of Jack Emling, People need to support their local business, so we will continue to have a community. Gregg Gothreaux is president and CEO of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority. Save Each Tuesday afternoon, ABiz publishes its online newsletter, ABuzz. In case you missed the stories that attracted the most eyeballs last year, heres why so many readers paid attention. _ Each Tuesday afternoon, ABiz publishes its online newsletter, ABuzz. In case you missed the stories that attracted the most eyeballs last year, heres why so many readers paid attention._ Photo by Robin May 1. LUS QUIETLY CLOUDS SOLARS FUTURE (NOV. 2) This Nov. 2 column, a pickup from cleanergy.org, was by far the most read of 2016. It was penned by Lafayette resident Simon Mahan, the renewable energy manager for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. The gist of it was that a new fixed fee on Lafayette Utilities Systems solar power users, along with the phase-out of the states solar tax credits, meant homeowners who invested in solar panels might never see their systems pay for themselves. Within days of the post, LUS Director Terry Huval told ABiz he was going to ask members of the Lafayette City-Parish Council to repeal the ordinance that imposed the fees, saying opposition to the fees caused LUS a headache beyond the value of the issue. District 6 Councilman Bruce Conque, the chairman of the Lafayette Public Utility Authority, joined the repeal effort. And just like that, the fees were history. Photo by Robin May 2. LAWSUIT: STABIL DRILLS RUSSO, LEBLANC BILKED COMPANY FOR MILLIONS (APRIL 25) In April Stabil Drill parent company Superior Energy Services filed a civil suit in Texas against its subsidiarys former chief operating officer, Christopher Russo, and former chief financial officer, Martin LeBlanc, accusing the duo of masterminding an elaborate scheme to defraud the company. The 42-page petition lays out allegations of self-dealing and profiting from both sides of transactions dating back to 2008 and claims Russo, LeBlanc, Scott Kerstetter (all of Lafayette), Daniel Anthony (Texas) and Mike Sheffield (Oklahoma) enriched themselves to the tune of tens of millions of dollars at the expense of Stabil Drill and its related entities. Among the numerous corporate defendants named in the suit are Laguna Oil Tools, Renegade Performance Properties, Renegade Oil Tools and LeBlanc Real Estate Investments, all of Louisiana, and Quest Holdings, Triton Hardbanding Service and MSI Inspection Service, all of Oklahoma. The suit is ongoing, with a third amended petition filed as recent as December. Photo by Robin May 3. IS STONE ENERGY HEADED FOR BANKRUPTCY? (MAY 17) For months in early 2016, energy industry analysts and others who follow the sector closely had been predicting that falling oil prices could propel Lafayette based Stone Energy Corp. into bankruptcy. In May Stone itself began acknowledging that possibility, and in mid-December the Lafayette-based oil and gas producer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reporting $1.2 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in debts. The plan, filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, calls for Stone to remove $1.2 billion in the principal amount of outstanding debt off its books at the end of the case. Photo by Robin May 4. FUNEREAL FAMILY FEUD SPILLS INTO COURT (JULY 22) Morticians fight to the figurative death as a family-owned chain of funeral homes founded in New Iberia almost a half century ago is at the heart of an acrimonious battle among the children and grandchildren of the companys founders. The case reads like a prime time soap opera without a Who shot JR? cliffhanger: A co-founder of David Funeral Home, along with brother and his son, are pitted against another David brother and his children for control of the company; its brothers versus brother, cousin against cousins. In July, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal weighed in; the losing side awaits a re-hearing request and has vowed to take the fight all the way to the state Supreme Court if necessary. 5. BUS DRIVER WINS $75K FOR ROUTE FROM HELL (APRIL 28) In April the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal sided with a St. Martin Parish school bus driver and awarded him $75,000 for the mental anguish the driver suffered after being reassigned after more than 30 years of employment to the so-called route from hell. Gerald Castille started hauling St. Martin Parish students in 1977, paying his dues in the beginning by being assigned the Levee Route, which, according to the appeals court opinion, traversed long and dangerous gravel roads and was known for having difficult students and parents. A footnote in the 3rd Circuits opinion cites a former school system employee describing the Levee Route as the route from hell. Castille was later assigned the Portage Route and a combined Cypress Island/ Terrace Highway Route, which were also considered undesirable routes. Photo by Robin May 6. DEAL TO BRING FEDEX TO OLD EVD CLOSES (APRIL 11) In April Greg Saad of Saad Development Corp. out of Mobile, Ala., confirmed to ABiz that his company had purchased the old Evangeline Downs property on I-49 in Carencro for $11 million to develop a distribution center for FedEx Ground. He said Saad Developments total investment in the 40 acres of land, design, permitting and construction was estimated to be $29 million. Saad purchased the site to construct a 230,000-square-foot facility two buildings, including one small security structure that it is leasing to FedEx. The local project represents the largest FedEx Ground distribution facility along Interstate 10 between Houston, Texas, and Jacksonville, Fla. Saad used the front 20 acres, which once housed the race tracks grandstands, for the FedEx project. The northern acreage is for future development. Photo by Robin May 7. ATCHAFALAYA ANTICS ALIVE AND WELL (MARCH 16) Its a complicated mess, for sure, and has been a difficult story to cover. According to landman-turned-whistleblower Dan Collins, who remains actively involved in litigation with the state of Louisiana, over the course of the last decade, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources spent millions of taxpayer dollars in phony environmental projects that earned a small cabal of lawyers, landowners and oil and gas companies an enormous fortune. In the process, each of them allegedly violated scores of federal and state laws, deceived the public and likely harmed Louisianas already-imperiled and fragile marshlands and ecosystem. Photo by Robin May 8. ROCK N BOWL BUYS OLD WHITNEY BUILDING DOWNTOWN (DEC. 16) On Dec. 16 ABiz reported that Rock n Bowl had purchased the former Whitney Bank building and three days later followed up with more details from Johnny Blancher, CEO of Rock n Bowls parent company and son of founder John Blancher. The popular New Orleans-based bowling alley and live music venue, which almost relocated to Lafayette more than a decade ago thanks to an act of nature Hurricane Katrina is planning what sounds like the most ambitious project Downtown since the Acadiana Center for the Arts expansion seven years ago: 16 bowling lanes eight lanes each on either side of a stage and dance floor are planned for the parking lot fronting the building at the Lee-Jefferson intersection. The lanes will be within a cavernous space with a ceiling two stories high, allowing patrons in a second-floor ballroom to look down on the lanes and concert area. The building was purchased for $2.5 million and another approximately $1.5 million will go toward renovations. Its worth noting that this latest development means two popular New Orleans brands will anchor either end of Jefferson Street and Downtowns nightlife district: the Rock n Bowl on the south end and Dat Dog, a hot dog purveyor that is renovating the old Times of Acadiana building on the north end of Jefferson at Cypress Street adjacent to the underpass. 9. ACADIA GENERAL HOSPITAL REALIGNING SERVICES (APRIL 1) Its still a bit of a mystery as to why this April 1 story generated so much interest among ABiz readers. Acadia General Hospital, which is managed by Lafayette General Health, announced that it was shifting its focus away from delivering babies saying almost 70 percent of residents leave the parish to deliver at other facilities and toward more adult medical services in an effort to meet the needs of a faster-growing aging population. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Acadia Parish will see a 1.5 percent growth rate of women of childbearing age over the next five years contrasted against the 13.3 percent of adults who will turn 65. Because of low Medicaid reimbursement rates at AGH, the hospital said it would lose approximately $800,000 in 2016 just in its obstetrics service line, not to mention the $800,000 in capital expenditures needed for obstetrics equipment upgrades. Prenatal and antenatal care is still offered in Acadia Parish, and there are three health care facilities that deliver babies within about 20 miles from AGH: LGMC, American Legion Hospital in Jennings and Acadian Medical Center in Eunice. 10. WAYNE ELMORE STEPS IN AT KNIGHT OIL TOOLS (MAY 10) In May, amid what had become mounting speculation that a private equity firm had stepped in to purchase Knight Oil Tools massive debt at a discount, came confirmation from various sources that Lafayette businessman Wayne Elmore had stepped into a prominent role at the troubled oilfield services firm. The former banker/media executive did not return ABiz messages left on his voicemail at the companys Lafayette office, and our phone call earlier in the year was transferred to Jeff Elmore, Waynes son who is a local attorney. Its unclear what role either Elmore is playing at the company, though sources say the Elmore connection is likely tied to their relationship with Kelley Knight Sobiesk, one of the three sibling owners of Knight Oil Tools, along with their mother, Ann Knight. (Its unknown what, if any, ownership the Knights retain.) Wayne Elmore, who has no known experience in the oil services sector, spent most of his career as a top executive of Communications Corporation of America (or Comcorp), which was once a small-market radio and television station group co-owned by Tom Galloway. After emerging from bankruptcy in 2007, Comcorp sold all of its assets a few years ago. Read more about these topics at acadianabusiness.com, and click here sign up to receive your weekly ABuzz. AMONG OTHER BIG BUSINESS NEWS IN 2016: * In August, the Ethics Adjudicatory Board slapped Lafayette developer Greg Gachassin, the former chairman of the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority, with $1.6 million in penalties and fines, the largest in the states history. Ethics records show that the most substantial fine ever handed down before this case was for $650,000 in 2001 against attorneys involved in tobacco litigation. He is appealing. * At ABizs State of the Economy luncheon in June, Chris Meaux, the founder of Lake Charles-based Waitr Inc., confirmed plans to develop a 100-job technology operations center in Lafayette for his delivery app Waitr, which connects restaurants to diners through a smartphone menu and digital marketing platform for iPhone and Android users. * Just before years end, California-based Crown Bioscience Inc. confirmed plans to establish a pharmaceutical research and development facility at the New Iberia Research Center, a project the global drug discovery and development company says will enable it to advance treatments for cardiovascular and metabolic disease research. SaveSaveSave Paris, TX (75460) Today Variable clouds and windy with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. High near 75F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 80%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms, some strong during the evening, will give way to mainly clear skies after midnight. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. Low 42F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. When Mike Madigan was elected speaker of the House on Wednesday, he was set to become the longest serving house speaker in modern U.S. history. South Carolinas Solomon Blatt is the longest known House speaker in U.S. history, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. He served a total of 33 years in that position, from 1937 to 1946 and 1951 to 1973. This will be Madigans 17th term in the position. By 2019, when this term is up, his time in the role will have surpassed Blatt. Thats a lot of time. In fact, thats too much time. This is Exhibit A in the case for term limits. Imposing term limits for elected officials is a slippery slope, one with many difficult questions to answer. Who do you limit? Whats the right amount of time? How will it get done? Although were not in favor of limiting terms for legislators, the idea of limiting leaders Speaker of the House, Senate President, minority leaders is a good one. Those leaders arent put into that position by the voters. Theyre nominated by their fellow legislators. And, all too often, fear and politics come in to play. Look at what we have going here in Illinois: No budget, and the states finances are a mess. The people of the state want something done about it, and they spoke in November during the election. Changes were made. Yet, we still have the same leaders Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno. Nothing new there. That doesnt make any sense its not like theyre getting the job done right now. On the other side of the equation, limiting all other elected officials goes too far. If voters the people of Illinois want somebody as a representative or senator, then they should have that choice. Plus, the longer an elected official is in office, the more clout that official wields for his or her home district. And we in Southern Illinois know how far that can go, with storied political leaders including Ken Gray, who served in congress for 23 years, and Paul Simon, who was a congressman for a decade and a senator for 12 years. The power and experience that come with holding a seat in representative government can be truly important for the home team that applies at the state level, too. This week, the Illinois Senate started its term by unanimously approving a change to the chambers rules that going forward will limit the Senate president and minority leader to five two-year terms in those leadership roles. Now thats a good idea. Five terms is perfectly fair. If a leader cant get the job done in 10 years, its probably time for change, anyway. The House should follow suit for its speaker. Along the same lines, the legislative maps need work, too. In August, the divided Illinois Supreme Court narrowly ruled that a referendum seeking to change how Illinois draws political boundaries is unconstitutional. That meant it couldnt be on Novembers ballot. The ballot measure was challenged through a lawsuit brought by an attorney who has long represented top Democrats, including you guessed it Mike Madigan. Something is amiss here. District mapping should be done by a fair, nonpartisan party. Isnt that a cornerstone of democracy? Seeing Madigan start his 17th term as speaker is puzzling. The state is going nowhere, and its headed there fast. We need different ideas. We need more answers. Term limits on leaders would bring new blood, new ideas, to leadership positions. It would limit how much power Madigan and other leaders have gained. And it may make it more likely that a downstate representative or senator could hold leadership positions, more evenly distributing that clout around the state. Madigan has been in power for more than 30 years. Isnt that enough? CLEMSON A pair of Clemson University scientists has spent the past decade exploring the unique intricacies of a naturally engineered feeding tube that butterflies and other insects have been refining for 200 million years. Although the insects have a rather large head start, the scientists are doing their best to catch up by successively unveiling an array of discoveries that are shaping the way biologists, materials scientists and engineers understand the mechanisms of one of natures most multifarious body parts. This ever-increasing fount of knowledge is expected to eventually lead to manufactured devices that could revolutionize medical procedures and other yet-to-be-conceived applications. Since 2007, entomologist Peter Adler and engineer Kostya Kornev have blended their diverse skill sets to study the proboscises of butterflies, moths and other varieties of fluid-feeding insects that use these flexible mouthparts to acquire food from sources as diverse as nectar, soil, dung and carrion. Biologists once believed that the proboscis (pronounced pro-BOSS-ciss) was a simple tube that drew up liquids like a straw. But Adler, Kornev and their students and associates, including Clemson research specialist Charles Beard, have worked incessantly to reveal that the proboscis is an astonishingly complex marvel of nature, as proficient as it is diverse. Recent advancements in their research have further quickened the pace of their explorations. We have been able to show that the proboscis is actually many times more sophisticated than a straw, said Adler, a professor of entomology at Clemson University. Instead, it is a self-cleaning microfluidic system made up of two C-shaped fibers that unite to form a food canal that is laden with pores, sensors, internal muscles and other tissues. And depending on the species, it is often covered with shingles, spines or bumps. The proboscis is able to acquire sticky fluids that potentially contain bacteria, yet remain squeaky clean and uninfected in the process. How is this accomplished? The surface of this tiny tube contains a mosaic of hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic (water-repellant) properties that enable the insects to drink and self-clean almost simultaneously. This paradoxical juggling act is essential to their survival. The unconventional marriage of Adlers expertise in entomology and biology and Kornevs mastery of materials science and engineering has benefitted both parties and significantly enhanced the research. Adler has spent his career studying how living organisms adapt, behave and evolve in ways that engineers might not even consider. In complementary fashion, Kornev has the knowledge of materials science and physical principles and the know-how to operate highly sophisticated equipment not often employed by biologists. Every time we open a new door, we find five more doors behind it, said Kornev, a professor of materials science and engineering at Clemson. But our projects are driven by scientific curiosity and passion about both the engineering and biology. The proboscis is unique in the sense that it is fibrous and, at the same time, a sensor-driven delivery system for fluid intake. So looking at how these fibers are assembled is a big challenge that can help engineers design a variety of fluidic devices medical and otherwise that are tiny, flexible and durable. It is exciting to imagine what the future might hold, but for now we are doing our best just to learn as much as we can about the proboscis. The proboscis is attached to the insects head, where a pump helps power the slew of sponge-like mechanisms that draw up fluids. Many proboscises are less than an inch long, but some reach 14 inches, dwarfing the length of the insects entire body. However, all insect proboscises are miniature in terms of diameter about 15 times thicker than a human hair which makes them difficult to study without the use of sophisticated equipment, such as electron microscopes and micro-CT scanners. But Adler and Kornev routinely use this high-tech equipment both at Clemson and at a pair of national laboratories to examine proboscises in excruciatingly intimate detail. Because of this, their understanding of the proboscis places them at the top of the scientific community. We want to get to the heart and soul of how proboscises work, and weve recently come to understand a lot of the processes that occur at the micro- and nano-levels, said Adler, who first became fascinated with the workings and diversity of proboscises when he was a graduate student at Penn State in the 1970s. I would characterize our advances as quite significant because they provide new models for fluid uptake not just in butterflies and moths but in any insect that has sucking mouth parts, including insect pests that damage crops. There are more than one million known species of insects in the world and potentially as many as 10 million species overall, most of which have yet to be discovered. About 50 percent of all these species suck fluids, so the diversity is almost overwhelming. But this is how science works, added Kornev, who supervises materials science and engineering Ph.D students Luke Sande and Chengqi Zhang. Life is too short to cover everything. So what we do instead is take on the most challenging paradoxes that drive the development of the bigger picture. During their 10-year collaboration, the entomologist and the engineer have been assisted by several dozen scientists, research assistants, postdocs, graduate students and college and high school students at Adlers lab at the Cherry Farm Insectaries and at Kornevs lab at Sirrine Hall. Adler described them as ambassadors not just for Clemson University, but for science and nature. Once theyve spent time at Clemson, whether its for a single summer or several years, all these people then go out in the world and influence others in very positive and beneficial ways. One such ambassador is Matthew S. Lehnert, who joined Adler and Kornevs team in 2010 as a postdoctoral scholar after receiving his Ph.D at the University of Florida. Lehnert is now a research scientist and assistant professor at Kent State University at Stark in North Canton, Ohio, and he plans to devote most of his career to an ongoing study of the proboscis. Lehnert is a co-investigator along with Adler and Kornev of a three-year, $626,800 National Science Foundation grant that has just begun its final year. This grant is one of several that has fueled the projects since 2007. More grants are certain to come that will continue to give wings to the research. I think I was a bit naive when I started working at Clemson, thinking that the proboscis is a pretty simple thing. Now I know that it is a very complex device loaded with microstructures that all play different roles in the feeding process, said Lehnert, adding that his students at Kent State seem as passionate about the research as he is. Because of this cool collaboration between biologists and engineers, we know so much more than we did just two years ago. Its been exciting to constantly find new and unexpected things. It really is incredible what these proboscises are capable of doing, and the more we can learn about them, the more we will benefit down the road. The possibilities seem limitless. For the second time in 14 years, the federal government has changed public school guidelines, and South Carolina is working on a plan to implement them by the 2017-18 deadline. The Every Student Succeeds Act, which was signed into law in December 2015, is replacing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. The most positive thing about the new system is that its going to merge federal and state standards and testing into one, said Dr. Tim Newman, superintendent of Orangeburg Consolidated School District Four. In the past, there have been two separate systems, and students have received grades from each. This has been confusing to parents, Newman said. For the past year, he has been working with other superintendents across the state to develop their own recommendations implementing ESSA into the states system. They recently completed their plan and presented it to the S.C. Department of Education and the Education Oversight Committee. The state has until March to turn in a plan to the U.S. Department of Education for approval. Another positive about ESSA is that it allows states more flexibility in areas like funding and assessment and accountability, Newman said. For example, in the past, funds were designated for specific things and had to be used for only those things or the district/school would lose them. With the new legislation, there will be options for moving some of the funds around to more needed areas, Newman said. In addition, the NCLB required that all students in schools receiving Title I funds make adequate yearly progress on academic standards that were being raised every year or two. As such, all students were required to take annual assessments to determine if they met AYP. ESSA does away with AYP requirements and allows states to put caps on the hours students spend in testing. It also allows states to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative assessments. It still requires all students in grades 3-8 to take annual assessments in math and English language arts, but states are allowed flexibility in deciding when to give students assessments in science and social studies. The superintendents are suggesting a test every other year for the lower grades and one in high school, Newman said. The state will continue to use SC Ready to test lower school students in math and ELA and the SC PASS for science and social studies, he said. High school students continue to be required to take one test in the 11th grade to assess their mastery in all content areas, Newman said. Currently, South Carolina is using the ACT, a test designed to determine if students are college ready. He said he hopes the state decides to continue using it because both students and teachers need consistency. The test has been changed too often in the past, he said. But Newman said hes glad ESSA allows states to select criteria other than one standardized test to determine student success. I find it hard to pigeon hole a student with a test that is only geared for college, he said. I think weve got to give students other opportunities to show that theyre capable of going into the work force. But the state will use other tests such as WorkKeys and the test given by the armed services to gauge student career readiness and success, the superintendent said. Newman said hes not sure how good the new system will be in spite of the positive things about ESSA. Five groups of stakeholders across the state, including superintendents, have presented their recommendations, but the EOC and the Department of Education have to put together and approve the final plan, and hes waiting to see that plan, Newman said. He has some serious concerns about their decisions, particularly in the area of accountability, he said. Were speaking more from an every day in-the-trenches view of education, Newman said. From their perspective, they were wanting to put a grade on schools ... on districts. But assigning grades based on testing alone would be unfair to rural districts like those in Orangeburg, which have such a high level of poverty, according to Newman. Its a known fact that the higher the rate of poverty a district has, the lower its test scores are, he said. This would not give a true picture of the job that our teachers are doing and that our students are doing, Newman said. We agree there should be accountability ... and measurement, but it shouldnt be punitive. It should be a positive indicator of how schools can improve on a yearly basis. Assigning grades this way would punish poor, rural schools and their teachers, and superintendents are dead-set against it, especially superintendents in rural districts, Newman said. Were going to be on the short end of the stick, he said. We know we are always going to lose on that conversation. In addition, theyre looking at basing the grades on a bell curve, Newman said. That means that 70 percent of schools are going to score a C or below, he said. Only 10 percent will be able to make an A, regardless of how well they do. I just think that that tears the heart of folks that dedicate their lives to educating kids in places that are difficult to teach, Newman said. They shouldnt be penalized because they are choosing to help students in rural districts. If you put them on a bell curve, youre penalizing for trying help students that dont have as much. He said he also wants to see realistic expectations about the percentage of students achieving the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. South Carolinas plan currently bases standards on the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate and is calling for 90 percent of students to reach that goal by 2030. The Profile calls for students to be proficient in the following areas: world class knowledge in all academic areas; world class skills including creativity, critical thinking and communications and in life and career characteristics, which include integrity, self direction, global perspective, perseverance, work ethic and interpersonal skills. South Carolina receives some $270,000,000 federal funds annually, which support programs including accountability; assessments; basic programs; professional development for teachers and administration and programs for English learners and the homeless. While significant funding goes to help students with special needs, ESSA does a better job than NCLB in funding programs aimed at moving students at the cusp of being average up to being exceptional, Newman said. These students kind of got left out in NCLB, he said. Instead, it focused on bringing students who were below average up to average, Newman noted. The Times and Democrat was unable to reach Orangeburg Consolidated School Districts Three and Five for comment. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be disappointed in America in 2017. Yes, he would see the significance of America having elected and re-elected its first African-American president, but he would surely be distraught that there remain so many divisions among people based on race, color and creed. As much as many will write and talk about those divisions on this day, we will focus on another aspect of the King legacy that too often is lost in the broader issue of race. Commitment to others and community is an appropriate message on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, one that makes this Monday less a day for rest than one for work in the community. Harris Wofford, former CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, was a close friend and adviser of King, joining him in civil rights marches in the South. Wofford served as special assistant for civil rights for President John F. Kennedy. As U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Wofford co-sponsored the 1994 King Holiday and Service Act, which makes the King holiday a day of service. Twenty years ago, we first reported on Woffords call for a day on, not a day off. Following is a summary that echoes across time to 2017: There is irony in the way we celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King. Nothing would have frustrated him more than people supposedly honoring him by sitting at home watching TV or sleeping late. The King holiday should be a day on, not a day off. A day of action, not apathy. A day of responding to community needs, not a day of rest and recreation. Certainly we should celebrate and never forget the civil rights victories won, the mountain top reached, in that historic decade of nonviolent direct action. But Martin Luther King would want us to raise our sights to the work yet to be done. King would have considered it a scandal that we have tolerated another generation in which millions of young Americans fall into a vicious cycle of poverty, drugs, crime, prison and death. What would he have said, what would he have done, about the epidemic of crime and senseless youth violence spreading across our country. He would not have accepted our failings in education. King would have wanted his holiday to be a day of community service and interracial cooperation, a day reflecting his belief that everyone can be great because everyone can serve. A day that brings out the greatness in people, especially the young, by bringing them together to make a difference in their communities. National service is a powerful force for change, not just on the King holiday, but every day. The Americans involved in national service are leading the way to a better country, to safer streets, better schools, healthier children and a cleaner environment. Never has our country needed service more. Service is a proven strategy for getting things done, but its much more. As Americans look at each other across a racial divide, our nation is crying out for ways to bring people together. Service is that reconnection, that rediscovery of the bonds of friendship and community that tie us together as fellow citizens. Make a career of humanity, King said, and you will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in. He understood the true secret of service, that when you give, you gain, that it is better to serve than be served, more blessed to give than to receive. Paris conference just another attempt by Europeans to solve the 'Jewish Question'. That the Arab/Israeli conflict is the least important issue facing the world at the moment forget this too. The French had never been so efficient. Altogether more than 70,000 Jews living in France were handed over to the Gestapo throughout the war. Now the Jews have a home Israel. This is what irks them and here they come again to fix their Jewish Problem. This is a shame unforgivable and everlasting. The meeting took place on Sunday and yes, it wasnt put quite like that; they have it as a Paris Conference to solve the Israeli/Arab issue as if they really have Israels best interests at heart. This is baloney. All they care about is some new trick to divide Israel out of existence. The paperwork has already been done.So thats the story. They have nothing better to do than zoom in on six and a half million Jews at home in the Jewish State. That Obama is a part if this makes is doubly obnoxious.Trump will have to fix this and pronto.That these Jews live with nearly two million Arabs in the only democracy in the Middle East never mind.The Wannsee Conference comes to mind and if you dont know what happened there well talk about it some other time.Except that it was at Wannsee where Hitlers top lieutenants got together to discuss how best to TRANSPORT Europes entire Jewish Population.Why am I bringing up Wannsee when more to the point, for me personally at least, I should be bringing up Vel dHiv. This was a French indoor bicycle stadium that was used by the French as a way station, a first stop toward transport to the death camps.(Drancy was another and actually the first transport stop.)The history books have it as the Vel dHiv Roundup, or The Roundup of Paris, but my family needs no history book to know what happened.The Gestapo were delighted. They had asked for only about half that number.Our home was Toulouse. This was the Free Zone according to Vichy. Free Zone?Not at all, says Sarah. The Gestapo were all over the place. They were directing traffic on my way to school in German.One day youre a proper citizen of France surrounded by hospitable Christian neighbors. Next day youre a criminal.My sister covers it in her memoir Sarah and Abraham. I tell it in my memoir Escape From Mount Moriah.The film The Sorrow and the Pity documents Frances shame. Alain Delon tells it well in the movie drama Mr. Klein.So this is a big story and it is nothing new. It is simply happening again. Once again the nations are disturbed.So I have a personal say in this and I say Frances shame will endure longer than a meeting on Sunday. Hot off the press! SEALED UP: THE COURSE OF FATE: BOOK ONE by Steve Dunn Hanson is available now! Steve will be on a virtual book tour January 3 - March 31 and will be giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card PLUS an autographed copy of his book! Follow his tour, leave comments and share this page in social networks for extra entries! The Da Vinci Code unsettles. SEALED UP shakes to the core! UCLA anthropologist Nathan Hill, in a funk since his young wifes death, learns of staggering millennia-old chronicles sealed up somewhere in a Mesoamerica cliff. This bombshell rocks him out of his gloom, and he leads a clandestine expedition to uncover them. What are they? Who put them there? No one knows. But, self-absorbed televangelist Brother Luke, who funds the expedition, thinks he does. If hes right, his power-hunger will have off-the-charts gratification. Striking Audra Chang joins Nathan in his pursuit and brings her own shocking secret. As they struggle through a literal jungle of puzzles and dead ends, she finds herself falling in love with Nathan. Her secret, though, may make that a non-starter. When a shaman with a thirst for human sacrifice, and a murderous Mexican drug lord with a mysterious connection to Brother Luke emerge, the expedition appears doomed. Yet Nathan is convinced that fateor somethingdemands these inscrutable chronicles be unearthed. And if they are . . . what shattering disruption will they unleash? Intricately layered and remarkably researched, this enthralling suspense-driven and thought provoking tour de force begs a startling question: Could it happen? Book Excerpt: How much farther? Pauls shirt was soaked from sweat. Itzel looked at him and laughed. Just like Torrance, huh? Paul rolled his eyes. The cenote. Ichika pointed to a three-foot-wide path that was recently cut through the brush. They followed it as it turned to the left then sharply to the right. The sinkhole loomed in front of them. The water, a huge blue sapphire, sparkled 15 feet below. Thick emerald-green growth reached down the sinkholes sides, but where they were standing, the vegetation had been cleared all the way to the waters surface. Paul stood at the cenotes edge and stared down into the bowl. You slipped here, youd go all the way in. Itzel shuddered and pulled back; thoughts of her father overwhelming her. Was this what it was like where he fell? She trembled and turned away from the cenote. Lets leave. Paul looked at her and understood. He almost said something about his stupidity, but decided one foot in his mouth was enough. He motioned for Ichika to take them back the way they came. He put his arm around Itzel, and she leaned her head against him. Where are the ruins? Paul asked. Ichika didnt say anything, just pointed ahead. The brush and ferns that surrounded them were head high and prevented their seeing anything except along the trail. As they turned to go to where they first entered the path, Kishs men stood waiting. Ikan, Muluc, and Yochi had machetes, and Gukumatz held a tranquilizer gun. Paul and Itzel stopped. Ichika, her eyes fastened on the ground, kept going until she stood on the other side of the men. She turned back toward Itzel but wouldnt look at her. Whats going on? Paul demanded in Spanish as he stepped in front of Itzel. Gukumatz raised his gun and shot a dart into Pauls stomach. Paul flinched at the pain and looked down at his stomach. What the .... Paul yanked the dart out and threw it on the ground. A small circle of blood soaked through his shirt. He lunged at Gukumatz and swung his forearm around catching him on the bridge of his nose. Blood spurted from Gukumatzs nostrils as he fell to the ground; a gash flaring open on top of his nose. Ikan and Yochi dropped their machetes and jumped Paul. What are you doing? Itzel yelled in Lacandon. Where is Kish? Muluc grabbed her and threw his arm around her neck, holding her from behind. Dont you hurt her! Ichika screamed, as she advanced on him. Gukumatz stood up and wiped his nose with his sleeve; blood soaking through his shirt to his skin. His stare at Paul was chilling, and he swore at him in Spanish. Paul tried to get up to come at him. It was all the two men could do to keep him down even though his strength was ebbing. Gukumatz turned away from Paul and pulled a cartridge and a dart from the bag on his shoulder and loaded them into his gun. He walked to Itzel and shoved Ichika aside. He lowered the gun and shot the dart into Itzels stomach. She flinched at the pain and stared at Gukumatz. You pig! she spat. Within a few minutes Paul and Itzel were unconscious. Gukumatz pulled the GPS trackers from their belts, turned them off, and slammed them against a rock. He grunted as he picked up Itzel and slung her across his shoulder. The other three men lifted Paul. They headed to the platform ruins. The place of sacrifice. I've lived in places that grew me . . . from a small Idaho farm town, a run-down neighborhood in St. Louis, and a middle-class southern California community, to Sydney, Australia, and Bucharest, Romania. My experiences are as varied as the places I've lived. I have a hopper full of "reality" including being a volunteer jail chaplain and flying with a U.S. presidential candidate in his small plane when an engine conked out. And all of this is fodder for my writing. Sealed Up. My latest book is the action/adventure/suspense novel, GIVEAWAY DETAILS: Steve Dunn Hanson is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card PLUS an autographed copy of his book, Sealed Up! By entering the giveaway, you are confirming you are at least 18 years old. One winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter to receive both prizes. This giveaway ends midnight March 31. Winner will be contacted via email on April 1. Winner has 48 hours to reply. ENTER TO WIN! : Sealed Up: Steve Dunn Hanson: Independent: 402: Action/Adventure/SuspenseGood luck everyone! 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. Political and cultural commentary from the perspective of radical common sense. Opposition to the AMERICAN BIPOLARCHY and ideological fanaticism in all forms. Don't take our word for anything: figure it out for yourself. By Azernews By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijan, which is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the Czech Republic, is interested in development of cooperation in the energy sector. Azerbaijani Ambassador to Czech Republic, Farid Shafiyev said that currently the two countries are preparing a memorandum of understanding in the energy sector. "The signing of the memorandum will create new opportunities for the deepening of cooperation between the two countries," he told Trend. Earlier, the governments of the two states have proposed to sign a memorandum of understanding in the energy sphere between the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic. The document was planned to be sign during the forthcoming visit of Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Jan Mladek to Baku on January 17, however, due to the inconsistent provisions in the draft memorandum, experts continue to work on the document. The diplomat expressed hope that after completion of work over the project of the memorandum, it will be submitted for signing during the visit of Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev to Prague, which is scheduled for current year. Azerbaijani oil provides about a quarter of the annual consumption of the Czech Republic, therefore, Azerbaijan, by providing a significant contribution to the diversification of energy resources of this country emerged as an important strategic partner of the European country. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic amounted to $312.02 million in January-November 2016, and $214.17 million of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani goods to the Czech Republic, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Czech Republic mainly imports Azerbaijani oil, while industrial equipment and consumer goods are exported to Azerbaijan. The country is a reliable partner for Azerbaijan in several fields. The Czech Republic ranks 12th in the list of main importers of Azerbaijani goods. The share of the Czech Republic in the total export from Azerbaijan totaled 2.58 percent in January-November 2016. Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) announced a new winter campaign on popular tourist destinations. A discount of up to 20 percent will be applied while buying economy class "round-trip" air tickets in the period from January 15 to February 28, 2017 on the following directions when departing from / to Baku: London, Milan, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Tel Aviv, Dubai and New York. Departure period: January 16 - March 15, 2017. Air tickets can be booked on the website of the company www.azal.az, purchased at AZAL sales offices and official sales agencies. Points for the flight may be credited automatically in case AZAL Miles member unique number will be entered in the appropriate filed while purchasing online. Detailed information about AZAL Miles frequent-flyer program is available at: www.miles.azal.az Those who are not a member of the program yet, can be registered on the following link: http://ffj2.loyaltyplus.aero/j2loyalty/register.jsf?lang=en To purchase tickets and for more information, please contact: + (99412) 598-88-80; *8880 E-mail: [email protected] Questions regarding AZAL Miles frequent-flyer program can be sent to [email protected] or through the contact form on the website: www.azal.az. By Azernews By Nigar Abbasova A foundation stone for the long-awaited Azerbaijan-Iran pharma plant was laid in the Pirallahi Industrial Park on January 16. Project partners are "Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company" (Iran, 49%), "Azersun Holding" (26%) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (25%). The project will consist of 3 stages. In the first phase there will be production of pills and capsules, ampoule and vial - in the second stage and production of antibiotic drugs will be in third stage. The event was attended by Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev and Iranian Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Minister Ali Rabiei, Deputy Economy Minister Niyazi Safarov, Director General of Azersun Holding Savash Uzan and head of Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Nadjaf. Mustafayev said that the construction of the Caspian Pharmed will be completed in the third quarter 2018. Over $20 million will be invested in the new plant, where German and Italian equipment will be installed. Construction of the plant will take around a year and a half, while the plant will start producing 84 kinds of medicines in the third quarter of 2018. The major part of drugs is planned to be sold on Azerbaijans domestic market, while a certain part will be exported. The business plan envisages supplying drugs to Russia, Kazakhstan and Georgia, he said. Mustafayev went on to say that the drugs produced at the plant will meet the highest standards, as well as the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standard. Besides, since the plant will be built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, it will receive the same benefits as the residents of other industrial parks. The payback period of investments in the plant will amount to seven years and two months, and the internal rate of return will amount to 17.24 percent, which is quite a high indicator, he clarified. The minister added that 90 persons will work at the plant, and their minimum wage will be 700 manats ($ 367.9). Mustafayev went on saying that the construction of the third pharmaceutical plant will be launched in March 2017. The plant is expected to be constructed by a private investor, while Azerbaijan Investment Fund will possess a share in the enterprise. A number of pharmaceutical plants will be operational in the country within the next three years. We are taking weighty steps to provide pharmaceutical security in the country. Next years will mark a turning point in the sphere, he said. Rabii, in turn, said that the plant will export drugs worth up to $100 million a year, mentioning that with the lapse of time the country will bring import of medicines to nought. The Iranian side will invest some $11 million in the plant, while the total volume of investment is estimated at $20.6 million. Today, Azerbaijan produces only a minuscule share of the medicines that it consumes, while the overwhelming majority of pharmaceutical production is being imported. The import of drugs in 2016 increased by 20 percent compared to 2015. In 2016, some 80 percent of drugs were imported from Europe and other developed countries. The remainder of the imports came in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In late 2015, the government of the country announced that it will create own enterprises on manufacture of medicines to cease dependence on imports. In November 2016 construction of the first Hayat Pharm joint plant has already been launched. The Azerbaijani-Russian project will be built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park. Besides, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and some European countries also seek to take advantage and enter the promising pharmaceutical sector of Azerbaijan. A for further development of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, Rabii said that the countries will expand ties in industry, tourism, transport and other sectors. I would like to emphasize that Azerbaijan is not only our neighbor. We have a common culture, religion and our cooperation bears a strategic importance, the minister stressed. Moreover, Mustafayev said that the sides are also discussing t construction of a joint plant for production of agriculture equipment and busses, mentioning that the countries may discuss implementation of joint projects in other spheres. He said that the pharma plant became the second project jointly implemented with the Islamic Republic, reminding that the construction of the joint automotive plant was launched last year in Neftchala Industrial District. Iran Khodro, Irans giant carmaker and Azerbaijans Azeurocar will jointly manufacture Dena, Rana, Soren and Samand series within the project, which is estimated at $15 million. Capacity of the enterprise is expected to stand at 10,000 per year, while the outputting will be launched in May 2017. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $175 million in January-November 2016, with some $130.13 million accounting for import from Iran. A commemorative event dedicated to world-famous Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov was organized at Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles on January 13, 2017. Members of the Save a Heart Foundation of the world-renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of Los Angeles attended the event. Azerbaijans Consul General Nasimi Aghayev, addressing the event, informed the guests about the composers life and immortal works. Aghayev noted that with his music Amirov enriched not only the Azerbaijani music, but also made tremendous contributions to the world music earning much international recognition. The Consul General mentioned that at the invitation of the U.S. State Department an exclusive group of just four Soviet composers, led by Dmitri Shostakovich, travelled to the U.S. in 1959. Stressing the fact that one of these composers representing the entire Soviet classical music was Amirov, he said that this was illustrative of the importance attached to the great composers music. Aghayev mentioned that as part of the tour, the delegation also visited California. Noting that Amirovs music found much recognition and admiration in the U.S. as well, the Consul General said that his works were performed by symphonic orchestras of New York, Philadelphia and Houston under the leadership of Leopold Stokowski, one of the leading conductors of the 20th century. Aghayev also mentioned that the World Champion Ice Skater from the U.S. Michelle Kwan used Fikret Amirov's symphonic mugham "Gulustan Bayati-Shiraz" in her skating program "Taj Mahal" in 1997. Speaking afterwards, the president of the Save a Heart Foundation Dr Yzhar Charuzi and the member of the Foundation Esphir Blaugrund expressed appreciation for Amirovs music and thanked the Consulate General for the opportunity to get to know the whole richness of the Azerbaijani music and culture more and more though joint events. Then Amirovs 1001 Nights ballet was screened. The ballet was received by the audience with much applause and admiration. By Laman Ismayilova Baku will host the Month of Francophonie in April to celebrate French language and cultural diversity with a series of cultural events involving music, literature, film and history along with debates and contests. Famous writers, members of the international organization of French-speaking countries and other public figures will gather in Baku to inform about cultures of Francophone countries, Trend Life reported. All of the cultural creativity and diversity of francophone countries will be celebrated over a month of events. Besides, the French Gastronomy Week will be held in the capital city in mid-March. Overall, the days of French language and culture are annual spring event in Azerbaijan that brings French-speaking people together. The International Organisation of La Francophonie was created in 1970. Its mission is to embody the active solidarity between its 80 member states and governments (57 members and 23 observers), which together represent over one-third of the United Nations member states and account for a population of over 890 million people, including 220 million French speakers. By Trend Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will attend the meeting of Foreign Ministers Council of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to be held in Kuala Lumpur on January 19, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on January 16. Mammadyarov is expected to have bilateral meetings during the visit. New estimates show that just eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world and as growth benefits the richest, the rest of society especially the poorest suffers, says an Oxfam report. The very design of our economies and the principles of our economics have taken us to this extreme, unsustainable and unjust point, said the report titled "An economy for the 99%". "Our economy must stop excessively rewarding those at the top and start working for all people. Accountable and visionary governments, businesses that work in the interests of workers and producers, a valued environment, womens rights and a strong system of fair taxation, are central to this more human economy," said Oxfam, an international confederation of charitable organisations focused on the alleviation of global poverty. It is four years since the World Economic Forum in Davos identified rising economic inequality as a major threat to social stability and three years since the World Bank twinned its goal for ending poverty with the need for shared prosperity, it noted. Since then, and despite world leaders signing up to a global goal to reduce inequality, the gap between the rich and the rest has widened. This cannot continue, it said. The report highlighted that: Since 2015, the richest 1 per cent has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. Eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world. Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people. The incomes of the poorest 10 per cent of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1 per cent increased 182 times as much. A FTSE-100 CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 people in working in garment factories in Bangladesh. In the US, new research by economist Thomas Piketty shows that over the last 30 years the growth in the incomes of the bottom 50 per cent has been zero, whereas incomes of the top 1 per cent have grown 300 per cent. In Vietnam, the countrys richest man earns more in a day than the poorest person earns in 10 years. Left unchecked, growing inequality threatens to pull our societies apart. It increases crime and insecurity, and undermines the fight to end poverty. It leaves more people living in fear and fewer in hope, the report said. From Brexit to the success of Donald Trumps presidential campaign, a worrying rise in racism and the widespread disillusionment with mainstream politics, there are increasing signs that more and more people in rich countries are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo. Why would they, when experience suggests that what it delivers is wage stagnation, insecure jobs and a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots? The challenge is to build a positive alternative not one that increases divisions. The picture in poor countries is equally complex and no less concerning. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in recent decades, an achievement of which the world should be proud. Yet one in nine people still go to bed hungry. Had growth been pro-poor between 1990 and 2010, 700 million more people, most of them women, would not be living in poverty today, it said. Research finds that three-quarters of extreme poverty could in fact be eliminated now using existing resources, by increasing taxation and cutting down on military and other regressive spending. The World Bank is clear that without redoubling their efforts to tackle inequality, world leaders will miss their goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. It doesnt have to be this way. The popular responses to inequality do not have to increase divisions. An Economy for the 99 per cent looks at how large corporations and the super-rich are driving the inequality crisis and what can be done to change this. It considers the false assumptions that have led us down this path, and shows how we can create a fairer world based on a more human economy one in which people, not profit, are the bottom line and which prioritises the most vulnerable. THE CAUSES OF INEQUALITY There is no getting away from the fact that the biggest winners in our global economy are those at the top. Oxfams research has revealed that over the last 25 years, the top 1 per cent have gained more income than the bottom 50 per cent put together. Far from trickling down, income and wealth are being sucked upwards at an alarming rate. What is causing this? Corporations and super-rich individuals both play a key role. Big businesses did well in 2015/16: profits are high and the worlds 10 biggest corporations together have revenue greater than the government revenue of 180 countries combined. Squeezing workers and producers While many chief executives, who are often paid in shares, have seen their incomes skyrocket, wages for ordinary workers and producers have barely increased, and in some cases have got worse. The CEO of Indias top information firm earns 416 times the salary of a typical employee in his company. In the 1980s, cocoa farmers received 18 per cent of the value of a chocolate bar today they get just 6 per cent. Across the world, corporations are relentlessly squeezing down the costs of labour and ensuring that workers and producers in their supply chains get less and less of the economic pie. This increases inequality and suppresses demand. Dodging tax Corporations maximise profit in part by paying as little tax as possible. They do this by using tax havens or by making countries compete to provide tax breaks, exemptions and lower rates. Corporate tax rates are falling all over the world, and this together with widespread tax dodging ensures that many corporations are paying minimal tax. Apple allegedly paid 0.005% of tax on its European profits in 2014. Developing countries lose $100 billion every year to tax dodging. Countries lose billions more through providing tax holidays and exemptions. It is the poorest people who lose out the most, as they are most reliant on the public services that these forgone billions could have provided. Kenya is losing $1.1bn every year in tax exemptions for corporations, nearly twice its budget for health this in a country where women have a 1 in 40 chance of dying in childbirth. What is driving this behaviour by corporates? Two things: the focus on short-term returns to shareholders and the increase in crony capitalism. Together we need to create a new common sense, and turn things on their head to design an economy whose primary purpose is to benefit the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. The group that should benefit disproportionately from our economies are people in poverty, regardless of whether they are in Uganda or the United States. Humanity has incredible talent, huge wealth and infinite imagination. We need to put this to work to create a more human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few, it said. "A human economy would create fairer, better societies. It would ensure secure jobs paying decent wages. It would treat women and men equally. No one would live in fear of the cost of falling sick. Every child would have the chance to fulfil their potential. Our economy would thrive within the limits of our planet, and hand a better, more sustainable world to every new generation," the Oxfam report added. - TradeArabia News Service The UAE was the second largest FDI recipient in the West Asia region in 2015, after Turkey, according to the FDI report set to be released by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) at the upcoming Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) 2017 in Dubai. ADGM is pleased to be part of the AIM 2017 that brings together local and international industry leaders, policy makers, and the investment community to share best practices, discuss industry developments and establish new partnerships, said Richard Teng, chief executive officer of the Financial Services Regulatory Services of ADGM. FDI is a key contributor of UAEs economic and investment growth. As an international financial centre, ADGM works actively on efforts and initiatives that enhance UAEs and Abu Dhabis strength as an attractive financial and investment destination for local and international entities. Business and investors can tap on ADGMs open, conductive and well-regulated platform to connect with various growth sectors and further their business strategies. As an international financial centre, ADGM will continue to play an active role in collaborating and supporting efforts and initiatives that enhance Abu Dhabis strength as an attractive financial and investment destination for local and international entities, he added. The UAE has adopted measures to create a more favourable environment for foreign investors including the acquisition of properties by foreigners in several emirates. Abu Dhabi has built a diversified economy with more than US$1 trillion of investable assets under management. According to the FDI Report 2016, the global FDI were forecasted to decline by at least 5 per cent in 2016. The Middle East and Africa has generated $59.8 billion of outward capital investment. The UA boasts an environment that encourages foreign corporates to invest locally; low energy costs, the national vision to diversify the economy and the high purchasing power are some of the factors that attract international companies, commented Dawood Al Shezawi, CEO, AIMs Organising Committee. Hosting AIM, we are happy of the high quality of attendees and their contributions. The spot will be on emerging markets during the 3 days of the event, which will allow us to highlight the strength of these markets and their willingness to welcome new businessmen from abroad. The focus will also be on the competitiveness of national economies, added Al Shezawi. We are happy to have the Abu Dhabi Global Market as our supporter. This collaboration promises to unveil relevant data on the emirates experience with the foreign economical players, he concluded. TradeArabia News Service Meftech, the regions most prestigious financial technology exhibition upcoming in Abu Dhabi,UAE has announced a trio of global thought leaders as headline speakers. Chris Skinner, CEO of Balatro Ltd, Jim Marous, owner of the Digital Banking Report and JP Nicols, bank innovation consulting expert, three of the worlds leading lights on financial technologies, head an impressive cast of keynote speakers at the exhibition at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre on March 13 and 14. The stellar speaker line up is bolstered by the latest cutting-edge technology solutions that will be on display, which are disrupting the financial services industry across the globe. Over one thousand executive level delegates are expected at this years event - its largest ever. Board level guests from some of the leading banks in the region have already confirmed their attendance including FGB, ADIB, Qatar Islamic Bank and Bahrain Islamic Bank. Meftech has brought together more than 8,000 financial industry executives and over 1,000 technology providers to meet, network and do business since its inception. The delegates attending this years event are estimated to control 95 per cent of the $13billion spent on financial technology in the Middle East every year. Chris Fountain, managing director of organisers Turret Media, said: Meftech is the definitive platform where top decision-makers share insights with technology providers and collaborate to rethink financial services. Year after year, it attracts the financial industrys best and brightest minds, serving as a conduit for innovative ideas and thinking. The 2017 event is shaping up to be particularly special due to the calibre of our three headline presenters. Chris Skinner is a noted banking industry futurist, Jim Marous is one the most influential people in banking and JP Nicols is a top 5 fintech influencer, therefore we know executives from financial firms throughout the region will want to hear what they have to say. Building upon Meftechs rich pedigree of success, it will be expanded this year with a host of features including, a bespoke appointments-scheduling service enabling exhibitors to pre-arrange one-to-one meetings with hosted delegates and VIPs, on-site networking tools to maximise interaction between participants and a world class conference programme featuring a mix of keynote presentations, case studies and live demos. Some of the worlds most advanced financial technology solutions will also be exhibited at the event including blockchain technologies, machine learning, and cyber security tools with some of the biggest global players snapping up a chance to showcase products to the hugely influential audience. Speaking after the 2016 event Gopi Krishnan, CIO, Qatar Islamic Bank said: Meftech has been getting better every year and this year was the best yet, with the participation of so many organisations across the spectrum of fintech and great presentations from renowned speakers. TradeArabia News Service FM Expo Saudi 2017 got off to a great start yesterday (January 15), welcoming thousands of facilities management professionals to the dedicated industry event at the Jeddah Centre for Forums and Events. Inaugurated by Mazen bin Mohammed Battarjee, vice chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry, FM Expo Saudi 2017 is supported by headline sponsor Advanced Facilities Management and will run until tomorrow. Each day of the event is packed with exceptional networking opportunities and the chance to participate in free educational programmes. Days two and three will see the Middle East Facility Management Association (Mefma) host a series of certified CPD (continuing professional development) workshops designed to address some of the most critical challenges in the Saudi Arabian market. These workshops will provide practical insights and technical detail covering industry trends, tools, applications and technologies. Continuing professional development is a vital tool for industry professionals who want to stay on top of the fast moving developments in their sector, said Alexis Wheatley, event director for dmg events Middle East, Asia and Africa, organisers of FM Expo Saudi 2017. Thats why we believe the free-to-attend certified CPD workshops that weve worked with Mefma to create are so important to the success of our event. Visitors can also keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies on offer in Saudi Arabia through the many live demonstrations taking place on stand. Elaf International Trading (stand 1B80) is one of the companies set to showcase the capabilities of its core product ranges, having signed exclusive distributorships with the Italian manufacturer of professional cleaning machines Fimap, and Canadas maker of compact sweepers and vacuums, Madvac. FM Expo Saudi is co-located with Saudi Clean Expo and HVAC R Expo Saudi, with all three events running until January 17 at the Jeddah Centre for Forum & Events. The events, as well as their accompanying CPD workshops, are all free to attend, but visitors must register to do so. TradeArabia News Service The Saudi Food and Drug Authority has imposed a temporarily ban on imports of poultry meat, eggs, their products and equipment from provinces and districts in five countries due to outbreak of high virulent Avian Influenza. The Authority said in a statement, carried by Saudi Press Agency, that the ban on import included Bacs-Kiskun County in Hungary, Kherson province in Ukraine, Lubuskie province in Poland, Friesland County in the Netherlands and provinces of Tarn-et-Garonne and Aveyron in France, reported Wam, the official Emirates news agency. The business formerly known as Emerson Network Power has announced the appointment of Rob Johnson as CEO and officially commenced a campaign to rebrand the standalone company as Vertiv. Vertiv is a global provider of mission-critical infrastructure technologies for vital applications in data centres, communication networks, and commercial and industrial environments. The company, which is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio (US), has more than 20,000 employees and more than 25 manufacturing and assembly facilities worldwide. Platinum Equity acquired the business from Emerson in a transaction valued in excess of $4 billion. Emerson also retained a minority interest in the company. Johnson, most recently an operating partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, spent 10 years at American Power Conversion (APC), a leader in data center infrastructure. He was president and CEO of APC when the company was sold to Schneider Electric for $6.1 billion in 2007. While at APC he also served as general manager of the company's Availability Enhancement Group. Bryan Kelln, partner and president of portfolio operations at Platinum Equity, said Johnson's leadership skills and technical expertise make him a perfect fit to lead Vertiv. "Rob has a unique blend of industry knowledge, operational acumen and entrepreneurial spirit," said Kelln. "This is a transformational opportunity for the company and we believe Rob is the right leader to grow the business as we establish a culture focused on speed, innovation and customer service." In addition to his career at APC, Johnson has worked in executive positions at Consolidated Container Corporation, a provider of rigid plastic packaging solutions. In 1989, Johnson founded Systems Enhancement Corporation (SEC), a company that created innovative software and hardware solutions for the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) industry. He sold the company to APC in 1997. "Rob knows the technology inside out, especially in data center environments, and understands what customers need," added Kelln. "He knows what it takes as a CEO to inspire employees and lead a profitable, global enterprise. He's also an innovator who shares our vision for what Vertiv can become as a standalone business." Johnson said the transition to new ownership provides a unique opportunity for the company. "It's a fresh start for a business that already has so much going for it. I look forward to working with my new colleagues at Vertiv as we begin this transformational chapter in the company's history," said Johnson. "As an independent company, Vertiv will operate with great freedom to make business strategy and investment decisions, move more quickly like a startup, and focus on innovative solutions for our customers, including those in the growing cloud computing, mobile and IoT networks." Vertiv will build on the broad portfolio of product and service offerings for power, thermal and IT management capabilities it previously offered as Emerson Network Power, including its industry-leading flagship brands ASCO, Chloride, Liebert, NetSure and Trellis. Platinum Equity Partner Jacob Kotzubei said that Platinum Equity's M&A and operational resources, and the firm's strong relationship with Emerson, will benefit Vertiv in the short and long term. - TradeArabia News Service Gulf Industry Fair 2017, the GCCs industrial B2B showcase, breaks new ground by hosting two major forums that will highlight Bahrains key role as a conduit for industrialisation in the GCC. The Fair will host the India Business Partnership Summit on February 7 at 2 pm and the Bahrain Industrial Association (BIA) and GIF will present the GIF Dialogue: Future of Industry in the GCC at 10 am on February 8. The Northern Gulfs leading annual industrial expo takes place from February 7 to 9 at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre under the patronage of HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Prime Minister of Bahrain. The India Business Partnership Summit will be led by senior vice president of the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Anil Khaitan, who will bring a delegation of 30 businesses and entrepreneurs for the Gulf Industry Fair. The summit will explore potential investment opportunities between India, Bahrain and the GCC, with the intent to further trade relations. Bilateral trade between Bahrain and India is already worth more than $1 billion. The business summit brought to us by PHD will play a practical role in Bahrains plans towards attracting foreign companies to take advantages of the kingdoms strategic location for the Northern Gulf, said Jubran Abdulrahman, managing director of HCE, the organiser of the Fair. The PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industrys delegation of companies will also be exhibiting under the umbrella of GIFs Indian Pavilion. The companies, some of whom are new to the GCC market, include Indias leading industrial experts specialising in logistics, infrastructure, renewable energy, power and manufacturing. Among them are: Packraft Container India, Elektromag Devices, Maxmech Equipments, Swastik Furnaces, Green Planet Technologies and Satya Group. The GIF Dialogue: Future of Industry in the GCC on February 8 presents a roundtable discussion, for Bahrains industrial leaders to discuss policy and initiatives to encourage industrial development. Officials from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Majaal, PHD Chamber, Economic Development Board (EDB), National Academy for Professional Training and BIA will join together to discuss issues surrounding: Regulations to stimulate industrial development, Foreign Investment Opportunities, Industrial Facilities, Industrial Economic Outlook and Training for Industrial Needs. GIF will present a dialogue where the regions leading industrialists can address initiatives to improve industrial developments, added Abdulrahman. The Indian Summit and the GIF Dialogue will both be held at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre. Gulf Industry Fair 2017 is sponsored by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) and Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), in association with Noga. Majaal and Naffco will be supporting the Industrial Facilities and Fire and Safety sectors, respectively. Supporting organisations for GIF 2017 include AHK Saudi Arabia, Indias PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the German Saudi Arabian Liaison for Economic Affairs, the Saudi British Economic Offset Programme and Bahrain Industrial Association. Attendance to the events are free but require pre-registration as spaces are limited. To register for the summit and the dialogue, send details to Sarah Almoosa at [email protected] - TradeArabia News Service Microsoft recently hosted a leadership roundtable on the potential value returns digital transformation can bring to the financial services industry in partnership with the Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB). The event gathered leaders from banking and capital-markets to hear how they could accelerate their organisations digital-transformation journeys to meet the changing needs of customers, and capture new business opportunities. Representatives from Microsoft Middle East and Africa and the Microsoft Gulf leadership team were on hand to explain how the power of New IT could be harnessed in the financial sector. Also present were several Microsoft ISV (independent software-vendor) partners, each with their own specialist solutions designed to overcome current industry challenges, said the event organisers. Microsoft and its partners shared transformation stories from around the world, of FSI companies that had deployed solutions to empower financial agents with new information-driven paradigms. These deployments have led to a transformation of products; more effective, multi-channel customer engagement; and an optimisation of the client experience and back-office operations, they stated. In delivering the roundtables keynote address, James Morgan, the director for Financial Services, Microsoft Middle East and Africa, unveiled the results of several surveys on the changing expectations of customers within the financial sectors of various markets. In one study, only 31 per cent of customers thought their bank knew them, or their needs, sufficiently well. US-based research discovered that 40 per cent of Americans had not visited a brick-and-mortar branch in the previous six months. And a global report from Capgemini conducted across 16,000 customers in 32 countries reported that half of Gen-Y clients were planning to leave their bank within six months, with ease of use and service cited as the top reasons for doing so. The customer is in the drivers seat more than ever before, remarked Sherif Tawfik, the general manager, Microsoft Bahrain & Oman. Mobile services, multi-channel engagement and platform-based delivery are what customers especially millennials expect now from their bank. Digital transformation connects the customer, and their habits and needs, to the bank. It allows you to ask questions your customers have yet to even think of, and find answers ahead of time. Proactive service delivery is a proven driver of customer loyalty, he noted. Dr Waheed Al Qassim, the chief executive of BAB, said: "This event highlighted the latest trends in digital transformation around the world, and contributes to strengthen the banks and financial institutions in Bahrain to provide efficient customer services, accelerate entrepreneurship, and boost the financial and banking sector." "We find the case for FSI digital transformation to be compelling, and it is comforting to know that fintech companies are thinking about the issues we all face. We are honoured to collaborate with Microsoft in this event which is a platform for professionals from the industry to learn about make the best use of the new technologies and build better customer experiences for increased loyalty, generate new revenue while reducing costs, and manage risks better, faster, and cheaper," he added. Veripark, Miles Software, ODC Business Solutions and NEC Payments, also attended the event as Microsoft ISV partners specialising in FSI solutions. Each had its own solution dedicated to solving a particular problem within the financial services industry.-TradeArabia News Service Ebrahim K Kanoo, sole distributor of Toyota vehicles in the Bahrain, has announced the availability of the new 2017 Toyota Land Cruiser GXR 4.6L fitted with the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) kit. The enhancements which include superior off-road capabilities and a sportier front are the culmination of over five decades of Toyotas off-road expertise. Customers can order various TRD parts that enhance the vehicles exterior, interior and performance capabilities from Ebrahim K Kanoo. Exterior items include front and rear bumper garnish, a front grille and backdoor emblem, and an over-fender set. Interior items include a carbon interior panel set and a red push-start switch with TRDs logo. Performance items include 18-inch alloy wheels that provide proper weight offset and brake clearance, a high-response muffler with TRDs logo, and a skid plate to protect the vehicles lower body. Ebrahim K Kanoo senior manager of Toyota Marketing Ayman Shehadeh said: Off-road enthusiasts will absolutely love the new high-performance kit items. Each part has been engineered, tuned and tested by TRD to ensure the best off-road experience for drivers. It adds striking visual elements to your vehicle and makes for a much more thrilling time behind the wheel, especially if you enjoy desert driving. Offering an outstanding performance with a 4.6 Litre V8 Dual VVT-iengine and dynamic handling, the Land Cruiser is ideal for navigating city streets, cruising the fast lane or driving through the open desert.- TradeArabia News Service Global leaders in government and business are gathering for the official opening of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) in the UAE capital today (January 16). Taking place on the theme Practical steps towards a sustainable future, this years ADSW is expected to receive 38,000 attendees representing 175 countries, including five heads of state, more than 80 government ministers, and 880 exhibiting companies from 40 countries. Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, hosted by Masdar, is a global platform addressing the interconnected challenges and opportunities of sustainable development, renewable energy and water security. Held every January under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, the event is based on the key pillars of Policy, Leadership, Business, Academic Research, and Community Awareness. Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017 began with two key policy events: the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum on January 12 and13, held in partnership with the UAE Ministry of Energy, and the 5th General Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency, on January 14 and15. As part of the week, the 10th World Future Energy Summit (WFES) opens tomorrow at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec). WFES drives the business case for sustainability, and is now firmly established as a leading global platform for turning renewable energy goals into business opportunities. Held under the theme of Sustaining the Clean Energy Consensus; Empowering New Players, WFES 2017 will bring together the worlds leading technology providers, government delegations, innovators, and thought leaders. Tomorrows ADSW opening ceremony is immediately followed by the Awards Ceremony of the 9th edition of the Zayed Future Energy Prize. The afternoon programme is dedicated to Abu Dhabi Global Action Day, a high-level conference aimed at turning the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into practical and innovative solutions in policy, investment, technology and partnerships with a focus on the steps to be taken by both government and business. The opening ceremony, presidential keynotes and Global Action Day programme on January 16 will include five heads of state. Addressing delegates at the ceremony will be Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan. Also in attendance will be Horacio Cartes, President of Paraguay and Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka. Keynotes will also be given by Luis Guillermo Solis, President of Costa Rica; Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Prime Minister of Nepal; and Filip Vujanovic, President of Montenegro. Dr Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment (MoCCE), will open Global Action Day. Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, chief executive officer of Masdar, said: Having marked our 10th anniversary last year, we are proud to host ADSW as we embark on the next 10 years of our success in the UAE and international markets. ADSW 2017 is one of the first global platforms to debate the outcomes of COP22 in Marrakech, and to take further action to adopt renewable energy, clean technologies and sustainable development following the ratification of the Paris Agreement. It is also a gateway to the opportunities of the Middle East & North Africa, today one of the fastest growing and most cost-competitive markets for renewable energy and clean technology. Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week hosts the World Future Energy Summit, which this year marks its 10th anniversary, the 5th International Water Summit, and EcoWaste. More than half of the exhibiting companies are small and medium sized business (SMEs) from leading clean-tech nations including Germany, France, Japan, the United States and the UK, further illustrating the commercial dynamism and growing maturity of the sector. ADSW 2017 will shed light on the practical steps needed to unlock further expansion of the renewable energy and clean technologies sectors, and to deliver sustainable solutions in water and waste, added Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi of Masdar. - TradeArabia News Service Oman Shipping Company (OSC) today announced that its subsidiary, Oman Charter Company (OCC), has entered into a contract of affreightment (COA) agreement with Shell International Eastern Trading Company (Shell) for three years. The contract grants Shell access to the Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) operated by OCC for Crude oil cargo transportation requirements and provides OCC with the cargo base it needs to support its commercial operations. We are pleased to associate ourselves once again with Shell, said Tarik Al-Junaidi, chief executive officer of Oman Shipping Company. In addition to the 10 MR tankers that we have recently chartered to Shell, this COA demonstrates the ability of Oman Shipping Company and its subsidiaries to deliver top shipping solutions that meet the requirements of our esteemed clients. It is our endeavour to continuously provide our customers with reliable transportation services and to find mutual solutions that benefit both parties. Mike Muller, vice president for Trading and Supply Crude, Shell International Trading and Shipping Company, said: For more than 50 years, Shell in Oman has been committed to meeting the countrys growing energy demand in a socially and economically responsible manner. We look forward to strengthening this well-established relationship through this agreement with Oman Shipping Company (OSC). Shells unique trading capabilities allow us to support OCC in building their commercial operations, and our hope is that this will boost Omans position as a world player in the oil and gas industry. TradeArabia News Service The UAE is keen to diversify its energy resources and allocate a growing share to clean energy in order to ensure a secure future for the coming generations and promote economic growth, said His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, inaugurating the 2017 edition of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) today. The inauguration ceremony, at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec), was attended by the President of Kazakhstan, Noor Sultan Nursultan Nazarbayev; the President of Seychelles, Danny Faure; the President of Paraguay, Horacio Cartes; the President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovic; the President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis; and the Prime minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal; along with ministers, top officials and delegates from around the globe, said a Wam news agency report. Sheikh Mohamed stressed that the UAE, under the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, continues to consolidate its position in the energy sector to promote economic and social growth. He added that the fact that world leaders, decision-makers and experts have gathered in Abu Dhabi today to participate in the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, is proof that the UAE is making efforts and measures in the field of energy development and the water sector locally, regionally and globally, the report quoted. The country has become leader in discussions of the opportunities and challenges in this vital sector, he said, adding: "We look forward to that dialogue and debate in the coming days which will contribute towards building a secure and prosperous future for the present and future generations." Dr Sultan bin Ahmad Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of State, chairman of Masdar and CEO of the Adnoc Group, paid tribute in his welcome address to the five UAE diplomats whose lives were cut short while bringing humanitarian relief to the people of Afghanistan. He said that their sacrifice reminds us that the values that unite us are much stronger than any attempt to divide us. On that note, he requested everyone to join in a moment of silence in their honour. He went on to say that over the last decade, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week has become the premier destination for championing sustainability and driving tangible and real results. "These last 10 years have witnessed truly remarkable progress. Today, sustainability sits at the top of the global agenda and has brought together developed and developing nations around one common cause. More importantly, it has introduced a fresh perspective and new balanced to the energy landscape," he said. Dr Sultan said that in this new era, renewables and hydrocarbons enjoy a truly symbiotic relationship that is reshaping the economics of energy, adding that nowhere is this paradigm shift more true or relevant than here in this part of the world. "For over 75 years, our region has been the leader of the oil and gas industry. Today we are extending our reach to become the centre of gravity for all forms of energy." He said that while oil and gas remain critical drivers for the global economy for decades to come, we see even greater opportunities in leveraging the benefits of both new and traditional forms of energy by integrating them into a more creative and more productive commercial proposition. This belief lies at the core of the UAE's 2050 energy strategy and plan. He called the region as a 'sun rich' part of the world, saying that the more solar we deploy, the more available hydrocarbons we will have to drive higher value products and help meet global energy requirements. In fact, he explained, working collectively, renewables and natural gas have already begun to 'reset the carbon clock'. "For the first time in the industrial age, carbon emissions are leveling off and even starting to drop, this is an achievement of historic proportions, and with this integrated model driven by a compelling economic and commercial case, we will ultimately drive sustainable development and ensure energy security." "While some may see the world divided into new and traditional sources of energy, we believe that the absolute opposite is what is needed. We believe that both sectors must work hand in hand, leveraging the strength of all forms of energy to deliver greater possibilities and far reaching benefits. In doing so, we will lay a path that will lead us towards a sustainable future driven by a durable energy strategy and underpinned by lasting economic progress. So, let us step beyond the conventional, dare to do things differently and create a new energy strategy," he said. Hosted by Masdar, this year's ADSW theme is, Practical Steps Towards a Sustainable Future. The weeks anchor event, the World Future Energy Summit, WFES, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary with a strong focus on technology, innovation and finance. The event will host around 880 companies from 40 countries. More than 50 percent of exhibitors at the event are small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs, from leading clean tech nations including Germany, France, Japan, China, the USA and the UK, further illustrating the commercial dynamism and maturity of the sector. ADSW 2017 will see the return of important co-located events that promote a complete cycle of sustainability, including the 5th International Water Summit, supported by Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, ADWEA, and the 4th EcoWASTE Exhibition and Conference, held in partnership with Tadweer, The Centre of Waste Management in Abu Dhabi, said the Wam report. What will shopping be like in 10 years? No one knows all the details (thats exciting!), but one thing is for sure: it will be very different than it is today. History is clear about that. In the mid-19th century, most people in the US were shopping at small markets. They would tell the manager what they wanted, and then wait for the item to be retrieved from the back or from the supplier. After that came the urban department store, supermarkets, then strip malls and discount stores. Today, the pace of change is rapid. Ten years ago most customers were reading about the original iPhone, and wondering whether it would be useful. Now they expect to order something on their mobiles, have it delivered or pick it up in store often on the same day, in a few hours, or even in a few minutes. Its up to retailers to adapt to these changes and in some areas even lead the way or theyll fall behind and disappear. Heres what customers can expect their shopping experiences to be like 10 years from now: 1. Customer empowerment and even greater influence Customer satisfaction has always been the number one goal for retailers, and in the future, customers will be more empowered than ever to drive the change they want, as they get more control over their shopping experience. Technology the internet, mobile and analytics is being used to do anything and everything a customer doesnt want to. Customers want to explore. But they need to have easy access to items they choose to use all the time. The historic trade-off between price and service has been altered by technology and customers expect to save time and enjoy the experience while saving money. Theyll fulfil their everyday needs items like laundry detergent, paper, light bulbs, grocery staples and shampoo in the easiest way possible through a combination of stores, e-commerce, pick-up, delivery and supported by artificial intelligence. Customer desires think emerging fashion, fresh produce, and items theyve never seen before will still be fun to explore in stores as well as with technology (think virtual reality). Retailers that provide a truly unique, enjoyable experience and prepare their associates to provide excellent service will have the advantage. At Walmart we already see the value customers place on personalization and convenience, through our success with grocery pick-up and delivery in several markets around the world. With the growth of the internet of things, customers will enjoy an increasingly connected or smart shopping experience through a network of connections linking the physical and digital worlds into an ecosystem of devices, including vehicles, stores and software. The internet of things, drones, delivery robots, 3D-printing and self-driving cars will allow retailers to further automate and optimize supply chains too. Both sides of the equation demand and supply will change dramatically. In addition, customers will continue to demand transparency around pricing and the supply chain. Theyll have less time to research the products they buy but theyll care even more about how they are sourced. Theyll choose to shop with retailers who provide that transparency so they can feel good about the items they purchase. This will require retailers to work with manufacturers to source items responsibly and sustainably. Retailers who do this and share the information will further earn customers trust. 2. Ive seen what you have and I want it, too Customers all over the world now know, and can see, what people in other countries have, and they want access to it all. And they want it now. Chinese customers want access to Louis Vuitton bags from France and milk from Australia. Not long ago on a visit to Nigeria and Ghana, I asked one of our local store managers what his one wish would be. His answer: I want you to put a Walmart Supercenter like the ones you have in the US right here and let me run it. My customers and my family have seen what you have and we want it, too. We want those items at those prices. As Tom Friedman taught us, the world got flat and now its moving fast. The world needs inclusive growth provided in a sustainable manner. People are demanding it. 3. Shared value With all these changes, retailers will only survive if their business creates shared value that benefits shareholders and society. Social and environmental sustainability will be engineered into our systems, and that will strengthen the communities in which we operate, which will in turn appeal to customers. These changes, however, will require new levels of cooperation and collaboration between retailers and NGOs, governments and educational institutions. Basically, well design retail and other businesses so that all stakeholders (as many as possible) benefit: customers, associates/employees, shareholders, the communities we serve and those in the supply chain. At Walmart, weve already found that investments in training, education and wages for our associates have resulted in higher customer satisfaction. Our customers want our associates to have a great life and they want to see that reflected in their attitudes and the service they provide. When it comes to environmental sustainability, retailers and policy-makers face new challenges with the increase in packaging waste and emissions that comes with the growth of e-commerce. Shipping packages one at a time is not only wasteful and environmentally unsustainable, it isnt cost-effective. The demand for convenience will force retailers to come up with new ways to ship items in batches vs. one at a time that are better for business and the environment. While all these changes pose big challenges for retailers, they also represent unprecedented opportunities to innovate on behalf of customers and create new job opportunities for retail associates. I cant think of a more exciting time to be in retail, to be at the forefront of change and part of an industry that has the potential to provide a better life for millions around the world. Doug McMillon is president and CEO of US retail chain Walmart. This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. A land of endless possibilities is how the UAE likes being described and why not, as in a very short span the country has achieved global recognition for excellence in hospitality, logistics, airport management and now, clean energy, writes Frank Duggan, president, Asia, Middle East and Africa, ABB. The leaders of this country have not stopped looking to the future. The worlds seventh largest reserves of oil and gas are situated in this country, and we all know these will continue to be important for decades to come. Even so, there are concrete plans for a future beyond oil. The UAE is investing in some of the worlds largest solar power plants and is at the forefront of innovation in technologies such as high-efficiency solar-powered desalination. Further, as the hosts of the International Renewable Energy Agency and World Future Energy Summit, they are promoting best practices in policy, technology, and financing of renewable energy around the world. Work is progressing swiftly at the Mohammed bin Rashid (MBR) Solar Park, which will be the largest single-site solar park in the world when it opens later this year. Its expected to produce 5,000 megawatts of energy by 2030. The ABB substation at the solar park will be the first 400kV station in the UAE connected to integrate solar energy, facilitating reliable and efficient transmission of clean power. Dubai is also installing 100 electric vehicle charging stations across the city and building a new Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) headquarters, which promises to be an energy efficient prototype for smart buildings. Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, apart from developing renewable projects in the country is also investing in high-profile, utility-scale renewable energy projects internationally. These include Torresol Energy, a joint venture in Spain with SENER that operates 120 megawatts of concentrated solar power plants, and the London Array, a 650-megawatt offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary. ABB is pleased to share this vision to build a future thats smart, clean and sustainable. Here in the Middle East where we have been established since 1926 we are technology partners for landmark projects like the Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park, Burj Khalifa, Office of the Future, Dubai Metro to name a few. We look forward to witnessing the next wave of innovations at the WFES 2017 in Abu Dhabi, where ABB, as a global leader in connected devices, will also showcase products and technologies like our dual armed robot, YuMi, that reflect our pioneering technology spirit and expertise in the Internet of Things. Our IoT specialists will also discuss developments in this trend at a business breakfast session on January 17. One of the highlights at our exhibition stand will be a display of our electric vehicle (EV) charger. ABB is at the forefront of Internet-based charging infrastructure, supporting all EV charging standards. ABBs Internet-connected chargers enable fast global service and pro-active maintenance. The UAE is embracing sustainable transport by removing fuel subsidies and encouraging the use of electric and hybrid vehicles. The emirates of Ajman, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi have announced free parking for electric and eco-friendly cars, and Dubai has agreed to provide toll-free travel and special parking for electric cars. Dubai has also set a target for 10 per cent of its civic vehicle fleet to be electric by 2020. We hope to walk hand-in-hand with the UAE in transforming the country further into a modern yet sustainable economy. Tawasy Group, a leading UAE-based dining, catering and restaurant management firm, has revealed the opening of its first restaurant Tawasy Restaurant and Grill, in Dubai Festival City. The restaurant will serve authentic Arabic and Mediterranean cuisines, offering a unique eating out experience to diners, bringing a fresh dining concept to Dubais robust food and beverage (F&B) sector. In addition, the company plans to open 10 more restaurants in the UAE in the next four years and expand across the GCC through franchising programs. The launch of Tawasy Restaurant and Grill comes amid healthy growth in F&B outlets in the UAE in general and Dubai with consumers spending more on F&B. The move comes at an opportune time when the UAEs F&B industry is forecasted to grow by around 4 per cent annually to $13.2 billion in 2018, according to a recent report by Orient Planet Research. As Dubai gears up to host Expo 2020, which is expected to host over 25 million tourists covering a period of six months, the new dining outlet by Tawasy Group will cater to the expanding populations dining requirements. Rami Wardeh, CEO, Tawasy Group, said: The UAEs urban population is forecasted to grow to 7.9 million by 2020 at an average annual growth of 2.3 per cent in a decade with city dwellers, who eats out more often than others, accounting for 86.7 per cent of the countrys population. With such attractive numbers, opening a restaurant is a next step towards strengthening our position in the UAEs F&B industry. Moreover, F&B outlets are expected take over a fifth of the mall space in the next 10 years, establishing our presence in the dining segment is a strategic business move. Consumers in Dubai are very discerning and look out for new dining concepts to make their eating out experience unique and through our new outlet, we aim to address their demand. Tawasy Restaurant and Grill will carve for itself a niche by serving award-winning traditional homemade recipes from Arabian and Mediterranean regions, prepared in certified modern kitchen using only the freshest and carefully selected authentic ingredients. We aim to set a benchmark in not just the quality of our food but also through our excellent service, concluded Wardeh. Established in 2009, Tawasy Group is an experienced player in Dubais F&B market. It has emerged as a market leader in gourmet catering and home delivery segments and a Horeca food supplying specialist. Its popular Arabic grilled outlets - Mashawi2Go and Manqeesh2Go - are delivery and takeaway concepts while Tawasy Express is a catering service. - TradeArabia News Service A cargo jet crashed in a residential area near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 16 people, according to the Kyrgyz government. The body of one pilot has been recovered while 15 local people were killed when the Boeing 747 crashed on their homes, the healthcare ministry has claimed. Earlier reports claimed that it was a Turkish Airlines cargo plane. However, Turkish Airlines denied this and a statement said the cargo flight with TC-MCL registration number, operated by ACT Airlines, departed from Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) to Bishkek Manas International Airport (FRU) had an accident near Bishkek at around 01:40 UTC. Neither the aircraft nor the crew are members of Turkish Airlines, it said. Rescuers and firefighter, as well as Vice Prime Minister Mukhammetkaliy Abulgaziev, are at the scene, said the Kyrgyz government. - TradeArabia News Service Dubai-based Emirates airlines has announced that it will operate the first ever scheduled commercial Airbus A380 flight to South America when it upgrades its DubaiSao Paulo service on March 26, 2017. Replacing the existing Boeing 777-300ER used on this route, the A380 service will mark the airlines 10th year of operations in Brazil, which it began with daily flights between Dubai and Sao Paulo in October 2007. Back then, Emirates had already made history becoming the first airline to connect the Middle East and South America with a non-stop direct flight service. In 2012, Emirates expanded its presence in Brazil with the start of a daily service between Dubai and Rio de Janeiro. The Emirates A380 is an iconic aircraft that continues to excite our customers and set the benchmark for travel comfort in commercial flying. We look forward to offering the award-winning Emirates A380 experience to our customers and to continue contributing to the economic success of Brazil, said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, Commercial Operations, West. The switch to the A380 offers a total of 959 additional seats per week in each direction meeting a growing demand from travellers on the route and demonstrating our commitment to Brazil and to the South American region. "We made significant investments to upgrade the facilities at Sao Paulo International Airport in order to make it A380-compatible. We are very excited about Emirates' decision to deploy the first A380 in South America to our airport", said Gustavo Figueiredo, Sao Paulo Airport CEO. Sao Paulo will join more than 40 destinations on Emirates global network served by its highly popular A380 aircraft, including Narita (commencing March 26, 2016), Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The introduction of Emirates A380 service from Guarulhos International Airport, Sao Paulo, makes it possible for Brazilian travellers to fly only on A380s to their final destinations, particularly when to travelling to Asian cities, via Dubai. Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of Emirates, facilitates trade between Brazil and its global trade partners. In addition to the cargo capacity offered on the A380 to Sao Paulo, Emirates SkyCargo also operates a freighter twice a week from Viracopos carrying Brazilian exports to other global destinations. From March 26, EK261 will become an A380 flight, leaving Dubai every day at 08:35 and arriving in Sao Paulo at 16:30. The return flight, EK262, departs Sao Paulo at 01:25 and lands in Dubai at 22:55. Recently in October 2016, Emirates announced a codeshare and frequent flyer programme partnership with GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes allowing customers to purchase connecting flights on both airlines using one reservation, and a seamless ticketing, check-in, boarding and baggage check experience during the entire journey. Passengers booking flights from multiple destinations in Brazil with GOL, including Porte Alegre, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Brasilia, will now be able to connect in Sao Paulo and fly the Emirates A380 to many destinations worldwide. Emirates is the worlds largest operator of A380s, with 92 currently in its fleet and a further 50 on order. Since 2008, the airline has carried over 65 million passengers on its flagship aircraft. Emirates will deploy its three class A380 on the Sao Paulo route, offering a total of 491 seats, with 14 private suites in First Class, 76 lie flat seats in Business Class and 401 seats in spacious Economy Class cabin. The Emirates A380 is renowned for its First Class Private Suites and Shower Spas, as well as Onboard lounge for First and Business Class passengers to mingle whilst enjoying canapes and beverages prepared by the onboard bartender. Passengers in all classes can enjoy wi-fi to stay in touch with family and friends or Emirates multi-award winning ice Digital Widescreen with more than 2,600 channels of movies, TV programs, music and podcasts. Passengers travelling on the Emirates A380, will enjoy spacious cabins and experience a peaceful journey in the worlds quietest long-range jet. Emirates premium onboard experience is complemented by on-the-ground comfort with a network of 40 dedicated Emirates Lounges located within major airports around the globe - all designed with the same attention to detail and exceptional service. Emirates this year completed a $11 million refurbishment of its Business Class lounge at Concourse B in Dubai, which now includes a barista experience, a health hub with Voss water, and an exclusive Moet & Chandon champagne lounge. First and Business Class passengers can also travel to and from the airport via Emirates complimentary Chauffeur-drive service available in Sao Paulo, Dubai and many other airports across Emirates extensive network. Those travelling to Dubai will find many different activities to experience. The city offers everything a visitor could want, from shopping at some of the largest malls in the region to dining options which will spoil anyone for choice, a trip to Dubai is a must for families, friends and individuals. - TradeArabia News Service Flynas, Saudi Arabias leading low-cost carrier, has signed an agreement with Airbus for 60 A320neo family aircraft. In addition to the 60 aircraft, Flynas has converted 20 A320ceo from a previous order to A320neo bringing the airlines total firm order to 80 A320neo. The deliveries are scheduled to take place during 2018-2026. The agreement was announced today in Riyadh at a press conference attended by Ayed Al Jeaid, chairman, NAS Holding, Bander Al Mohanna, Chief Executive Officer, NAS Holding Group and Fouad Attar, managing director, Airbus Middle East. Flynas, an all Airbus operator, currently has 26 A320ceo in service. Launched in 2007, the airline has successfully operated over 260,000 flights and carried more than 30 million passengers in the last 10 years. Ayed Al Jeaid, chairman, NAS Holding Group said: Flynas has come a long way to establish itself as a highly reputed airline in Saudi Arabia. With the introduction of the new aircraft technology, we are confident of our ability to provide best services to our customers. We also look forward to being the first airline in the kingdom to be successfully listed on the Saudi Stock exchange, which will offer equity ownership to the public and be a part of a great journey. Bander Al Mohanna, chief executive officer, NAS Holding Group, said: We have operated exceptionally well with our existing Airbus A320 fleet, which has allowed us to maintain high performance standards in operations and passenger experience. We have an ambitious growth vision and the new A320neo order will further support our plans to be a leading low-cost carrier with the most advanced and efficient technology and will allow us to strengthen our offerings within and outside of Saudi Arabia. In 2016, Flynas set a new record by carrying 6.3 million passengers contributing to a 14 per cent year-on-year increase. The A320neo will provide Flynas unbeatable efficiency and comfort in both high-density domestic segments as well as thinner routes. The additional A320neo aircraft will continue to support Flynas growth plans as a leading low-cost carrier in Saudi Arabias fast-growing aviation sector, said John Leahy, chief operating officer - Customers, Airbus. Todays agreement further consolidates the aircrafts popularity that has been endorsed by operators worldwide. The aircraft will offer a unique combination of unbeatable economics, fuel and cost efficiency and outstanding passenger comfort. The A320neo Family is the worlds best-selling single aisle aircraft with more than 5,000 orders from 90 customers since its launch in 2010. It incorporates latest technologies including new generation engines and Sharklet wing tip devices, which together deliver more than 15 per cent in fuel savings from day one and 20 per cent by 2020 with further cabin innovations. The A320neo also offers significant environmental performance with nearly 50 per cent reduction in noise footprint compared to previous generation aircraft. - TradeArabia News Service Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Jumeirah Beach Residence has welcomed Samer Rafie as its new hotel manager. An Egyptian national, Rafie has more than two decades of hospitality experience within the GCC region, having worked in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. Prior to joining Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, he was with Fraser Suites Dubai for seven years, where he served as operations manager and was later promoted as executive assistant manager. He was also affiliated with various hotels in the emirate including City Seasons Dubai, Chelsea Tower Hotel Apartment, and Jood Palace Hotel Dubai. In his new role, Rafie will be in charge of the hotels daily operations. He will lead all departments in achieving high customer satisfaction ratings, and direct the hotels strategies to maintain healthy occupancy and revenue. Commenting on his appointment, he noted: I am delighted to join Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham JBR. I look forward to working with all the department heads and the associates in providing top notch service and high-quality accommodation for our guests. It is an exciting time for Dubais hospitality and tourism industry and we are optimistic for the year ahead, with the wave of developments and events that are happening in the city and the UAE. Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham JBRs current general manager, Samir Arora, will take on a new role as general manager of R Hotels new 254-key hotel and resort in Palm Jumeirah. - TradeArabia News Service Bringing in positivity and new destinations to travel to, 2017 is an important year for travellers and also the global tourism industry as the UN has declared it as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. Therefore, it brings a sense of deeper obligations and commitments to travel responsibly. To make things easy, travel provider HolidayME has released a list of travel resolutions for all holidaymakers to keep in mind this year: Travel more responsibly in 2017 - Travel the world with a deeper sense of obligation towards the local communities. Be sensitive to the local communities and ensure that you dont harm the already fragile nature. Opt for homestays, camps and eco-lodges - You have seen enough five-star luxury hotels. Time to shun them in 2017 and opt for more eco-friendly lodges and homestays with the local communities. This will foster a greater understanding of the local culture, traditions and an understanding of the human relationships with the precious nature. Try out new cuisines and local food - Stop gorging on the readymade burgers and fries on your trips and instead focus of the local delicacies. Sample local culinary recipes and learn about the flavours, ingredients, vegetables, fruits, spices and herbs that are in used. Have food in local restaurants and homestays instead of dining at fancy establishments. Read a great deal about your destination - Knowledge is essential for a conscientious and yet very rewarding travel experiences. Read travel books and research vividly about your destinations before travelling to get a broader view of a countrys culture, customs, traditions, food, geography, politics, history, economics and its aspirations. It helps in striking conversations and feeling more connected while you travel. Shun the usual flashy and touristy destinations - Enough of London and Paris! Enough of Eiffel Tower and The Colosseum. Instead, visit the off-beaten and less treaded places like Mongolia, Cuba, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Central Asia, etc. These countries are still in tourism infancy and lacks a striving tourism infrastructure. But thats the charm. Imagine camping under the stars or having the entire white sand beaches for yourself. Add experiences of a lifetime to travel repertoire - Instead of partying wild in Ibiza or spending holidays in flashy islands of Greece opt for unmatched and sensational travel experiences. Go on a wildlife safari tour in Africa or Antarctica expedition or trek the famous Himalayan circuits of Nepal. Enjoy a Northern Lights Show, camp in a desert in UAE or enjoy a horse/camel expedition in the wilderness of Mongolia. There is so much more to do in the world apart from sipping cocktails in Venice or dining in Michelin starred restaurants in Paris! Improve your travel photography, videography and writing - The modern trend of social media pictures sharing, especially in travel and tourism has gone up to an altogether level. Therefore, learn a great deal about photography tricks, experiment with your writing styles, try time-lapse videography or simply invest in new gears like drone cameras and good DSLRs and digi-cams. Learn more about the earths fragile nature - The commercialization of natural resources has led to a precarious balance on our planet. Deforestation is wiping out the forest cover while the rising water level due to global warming is now threatening islands countries like Maldives into oblivion. This year, make a conscious effort to understand the working of our planet by taking more nature tours like hiking in the Amazon rainforest, shrinking marshlands, widening deserts and submerging islands. Join the local conservation efforts and contribute in preserving the world. Spend thoughtfully while travelling - Buy souvenirs and handicrafts directly from the local communities instead of swanky shopping malls and hotel galleries. Eat at a home-run local establishment instead of hotel restaurants and opt for activities that are run by the locals instead of the large scale commercial establishment. This will help the communities that are heavily dependent on tourism money for sustenance like Nepal and Mongolia. Six Senses Zighy Bay resort in Oman has been ranked in The Gold List 2017: The 20 Best Hotels in the World, by Conde Nast Traveller magazine. Competing against hotels from across the globe, this stunning resort tucked away in the rugged, natural beauty of Omans mountains on the coast, has made the prestigious list thanks to the sharp trimmings the hotel has to offer. Speaking about the recognition, Aaron McGrath, general manager at Six Senses Zighy Bay said: It is fantastic news for all of us here at the resort! A marriage of natural beauty, exquisite high-end services and a passionate and dedicated team, has allowed us to be recognized by this esteemed publication and its list. We will strive to remain on the list for years to come. We would like to once again thank the expert panel of judges for their vote and we look forward to welcoming you all in 2017. - TradeArabia News Service China is expected to champion global free trade, sustainable growth and the international rule of law at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, says Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, former United Nations Deputy Secretary-General. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, former United Nations Deputy Secretary-General. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] He was speaking shortly before the announcement that President Xi Jinping will this month become the first Chinese president to attend the annual forum. Malloch-Brown, who is co-founder of the lobby group Business and Sustainable Development Commission told China Daily that Beijing's role in those important global issues was "an important demonstration of China's increasing leadership in the international space." The Commission, established at Davos in 2016, is launching a report at this year's forum urging businesses to incorporate social responsibility and sustainability into their development plans. Malloch-Brown says China has an opportunity to lead in many areas, including infrastructure investment, where his Commission's report identifies a potential annual deficit of $2-3 trillion over the next 15 years. China's advocacy for infrastructure investment along the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank can play a significant leadership role in filling that gap, he says. "Given the long term nature of infrastructure spending, it is really important to create public-private partnership models to mitigate risks for the private sector," he said. "What's striking about the AIIB is its ability to deploy lots of capital, especially by pulling capital from the private sector. On scale and ambition, many older generation multinational development banks can learn from it." AIIB generally invests in the initial stages of big infrastructure projects, allowing the private sector to carry less risks. Malloch-Brown says the AIIB's capital commitment is able to attract private sector money because its agenda is closely aligned with the Chinese government's emphasis on China becoming an important trading nation. "It offers the private sector long-term consistency and profitability," he said. China's significant presence at Davos this year comes at a time when the new US president Donald Trump will be absent, attending his inauguration. "As the US seems to step back from the global system, it makes room for others, and most prominent is China," said Malloch-Brown. "We see China is being more active in a range of global and regional issues." He said China's commitment to cutting carbon emissions and to sending more peacekeeping soldiers to support the UN's efforts were examples. Malloch-Brown believes China will take the opportunity at Davos to stress the importance of open global trade, international collaboration to encourage technology advancement, fulfilling climate change goals and encouraging investment in infrastructure. In addition, he sees rapidly globalizing Chinese businesses playing a big role in generating global growth. Along with its commitment to infrastructure investment and carbon reduction targets, China can make a big contribution to the UN sustainable development goals, he said. Sponsors of a bill that would penalize wind and solar generation used for Wyoming electricity argue that Senate File 71 would help the states struggling coal sector. Wyomings green-friendly neighbors, like Oregon and California, legislate against coal due to its high carbon dioxide emissions to the benefit of wind and solar. SF 71 uses that same tactic in reverse, explained the bills sponsor, Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs. We are just saying that in Wyoming if [other states] want to decrease [their] consumption of coal-fired electricity, we might want to increase ours with one of these six sources, he said. The bill allows for six types of electricity resources, including traditional fuels like coal and oil, and some rare types for Wyoming, like hydroelectric. Wind and solar are not on the approved list. If signed into law, SF 71 would then charge utility companies like Black Hills Energy or Rocky Mountain Power $10 per megawatt hour on electricity generated in the state for use by Wyoming customers. Companies would have until 2019 to be 100 percent compliant. However, the bill initiated a statewide grumble over how to best use Wyomings resources. Critics argue the bill would fail to relieve pressure on coal and instead would inhibit the diversification of Wyomings economy. Other lawmakers are unsure the bill can make it this session, when most lawmakers are prioritizing ways to address Wyomings budget shortfall. The sponsors and the bills opponents agree that Wyomings modest electricity demand cant make up for a decrease in coal-fired electricity use in multiple states. But supporters say it could offer some relief to the troubled coal sector. The cold war tactic to combat federal and state support for wind would make Wyomings stance clear, they say, and Wyoming stands with coal. Other voices Missing from the long list of SF 71s sponsors, most from coal-rich areas of the state, is Sen. Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette. The bill will not benefit coal, the conservative lawmaker from coal country said in an interview. Wyomings electricity demand is too small for SF 71s tactic to make a dent in the overall market, he said. Moreover, the bill raises questions, he said. After large utility companies like Rocky Mountain Power have spent millions of dollars and many years developing wind farms in Wyoming, it may be unfair to pass a law saying the company cant use that in the state anymore, he said. There are other concerns as well, Von Flatern said. The Wyoming Public Service Commission is responsible for guaranteeing the lowest possible cost to the consumer in the state. Hypothetically, wind could become the cheapest resource, and Wyomingites would be barred from that low-cost boon, he said. SF 71 may also complicate a decades-old federal law that requires utility companies to buy energy from small generators who otherwise would be left out of the market. In Wyoming, its mostly small wind farms that take advantage of the law, selling their energy to large utilities like Rocky Mountain Power, though RMP doesnt need the added energy. Its unclear exactly how the bill would impact this federal law, or the utilities that are forced to comply with it, said Mark Petrie, chief counsel for the Public Service Commission. ... so would this mean that by following a federal law state utilities are required to pay a Wyoming-specific penalty to follow the federal law? said Rob Godby, director of the Center for Energy Economics and Public Policey. It puts those utilities in a potentially tricky spot. House majority floor leader David Miller, R-Riverton took no issue with the bill, saying it would keep consumer costs low. Frankly at my house I want the electricity generated by coal, because thats the cheapest way to go, he said. I think that was the intent of the bill. Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, is listed as a co-sponsor of the bill. The Johnson County resident said he was named in error. He does not believe the bill can pass in the current session. No retreat The sponsors of SF 71 are adamant in their support. One of the bills sponsors, Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, debated the bills efficacy in a Facebook stream Wednesday. A commenter said coal had no future and asked why the senator didnt see wind as a chance to diversify Wyomings economy. Put the shoe on the other foot, Driskill responded. We have subsidized wind while regulating coal out of business, he said. This is not the American way. He went on to assert that forcing consumers toward clean power has led to commercial and residential bills going up. I will withdraw my support of the bill the same day that we remove the forced use of clean power portfolios nationwide, Driskill wrote. Hicks echoed that sentiment in an interview in Cheyenne. We cant do anything about the federal government other than to protest and litigate. But we certainly have the ability in Wyoming to pass electricity standards, he said. The bill is awaiting a committee designation in the Senate. Arno Rosenfeld contributed to this report from Cheyenne. Efforts to halt the implementation of federal rules on venting and flaring methane on public land failed Monday in a federal court in Casper. Opponents of the Bureau of Land Managements new flaring rule hoped the court would grant a preliminary injunction, which would keep the regulations from going into effect Tuesday. The judges decision applies to multiple requests for a preliminary injunction, from Wyoming, North Dakota and industry groups. Those groups each argued that the BLM overstepped its authority by developing the rules, which among other things require companies to increase inspections and use new technologies to reduced leaks of methane gas. Air quality issues, they argue, are addressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, advocates on environmental causes, like the Environmental Defense Fund, say the BLM did have a reason to enforce greater measures against wasted gas, as stewards of public resources. The reduction in emissions that impact air quality is a collateral bonus, they said. BLMs standards will help prevent the waste of valuable natural gas, and that will increase money that can be used for schools and important infrastructure while simultaneously helping to protect the health of communities living in close proximity to oil and gas development, said Peter Zalzal, lead attorney for EDF. The Western Energy Alliance, which brought the first lawsuit against the rule in November, will continue to fight the rule in the courts, its president said in a statement Monday. While were disappointed that we didnt convince the judge to stay the rule at this time, we remain confident that when he considers the full merits of the case he will agree this rule is unlawful federal overreach, said Kathleen Sgamma, Alliance president. The group maintains that air quality and emissions standards should be governed by states and the EPA. Though a setback for opponents, Mondays ruling may ultimately not matter. The flaring rule has been mentioned by congressional leaders as one of many recent regulations they intend to repeal. Have an event, trend or general energy happening youd like to see in the Energy Journal newsletter? Send it to Star-Tribune energy reporter Heather Richards at heather.richards@trib.com. Sign up for the newsletter at www.trib.com/energyjournal. This week in numbers Friday oil prices: West Texas Intermediate (WTI) $52.37, Brent (ICE) $55.59 Natural gas weekly averages: Henry Hub $3.3, Wyoming Pool $3.15, Opal $3.17 Federal coal program reviewed The Bureau of Land Management published a number of critiques of the federal coal program Thursday as well as recommendations to reform the way coal development is regulated on public lands. The fate of the coal study is uncertain as a new Congress, and new president, take over leadership in Washington, D.C. Does wind jack up utility bills? The falling cost of wind development has brought the small industry to the fore of conversation in the state. Many believe that wind has increased electricity bills for Wyomingites, but experts say it's more complicated than that. A first in Wyoming solar The planned Sweetwater Solar Project would be the first of its size in Wyoming, supplying 80 megawatts of electricity to the Wyoming grid. The facility would be on public land near Green River. EIA changes outlook on coal, if... The Energy Information Administration recently updated its forecast for coal, and there is some promising news for the Powder River Basin. If political and economic factors play out in Wyoming's favor, the coal sector could reach production highs in the next decade comparable to pre-bust levels. Bill proposed penalizing wind/solar Lawmakers want to mimic other states' green energy policies by instituting one in Wyoming -- except Senate File 71 would penalize use of wind and solar energy rather than encourage it. Wyoming industry bills to watch: TransWest moves along The TransWest Express, a transmission line that will carry wind power from the proposed Chokecherry Sierra Madre wind farm in southern Wyoming to California markets, was approved Friday by a division of the Department of Energy. The Bureau of Land Management issued a similar approval exactly one month before. As legislators began grappling with the immense and complicated schools budget shortfall, it became clear to Rep. David Northrup that many lawmakers werent entirely educated on education. So Northrup and Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, decided to hold a meeting Monday with an attorney who represented Wyoming in the last of a string of court cases that fundamentally changed how schools are funded in Wyoming. I asked (attorney Michael ODonnell) to come to the Capitol and do an informational meeting to tell us the pitfalls of where the cuts can and cant be made, said Northrup, a Powell Republican. He added that he woke in the middle of the night with the idea. He said he expects the majority of legislators, including all of the freshman lawmakers, to attend. The meeting is at 1 p.m. Monday in room L54. Its open to the public. Northrup and other lawmakers have no intention of being dragged back into court. In a series of court cases that began in mid-90s, the state Supreme Court ruled that Wyoming is constitutionally required to provide the best education possible, equitably, to all students, from Jackson to Laramie. Legislators then spent years creating an education funding model that would satisfy the court. They settled on what is called the evidence-based model, which every five years is recalibrated and guarantees each district a certain amount of money. Attendance is a primary factor in calculating those payments. Education in Wyoming is funded through more than 40 mills, and money is distributed to districts both locally and from the state. Mineral companies play a large role in filling the states education coffers because they pay 100 percent of their property values, Northrup said. Roughly 65 percent of tax revenue comes from minerals. So when the energy market started tilting downward two years ago, the drop hit education hard. Schools face a funding shortfall of $400 million annually in the next two-year budget cycle; that hole will widen to $1.8 billion by fiscal year 2022. Coal lease bonuses, which have funded more than $2 billion in school capital construction and maintenance this century, are drying up. Lawmakers have said addressing the crisis is the No. 1 priority of the Legislature this session. As legislators have discussed options and ideas to do that, Northrup said, its become clear that many arent fully aware of what can and cant be done to address the crisis. For instance, some have talked to him about halving the general fund, which is separate from the education account, and giving it to education, whose budget is close to the size of the general fund. You just cant do that, Northrup said. Lawmakers have already started filing and drafting bills where they can make cuts. One option is to increase class sizes; a bill filed by Rep. Michael Madden, R-Buffalo, would put 24 students in a classroom and save the state more than $100 million a year. Northrup is close to filing a less severe but similar bill that would phase in more more than $130 million in cuts through class-size increases over a three-year period. Other options that have been discussed include consolidating districts, which has received a lukewarm response; examining transportation and special education costs, as districts are now fully reimbursed by the state for every dollar they spend on both; stripping funding the Legislature has been adding to education; and increasing taxes, like the sales tax. House Speaker Steve Harshman, a Casper Republican, said hes optimistic the Legislature can solve the education funding problem this year. But he also said theres a possibility it wont be solved until a future year. That how governments operate, he said Friday morning. Thats part of it, but the other part of it is going back to this Monday meeting. Its not only getting the lawmakers in but its getting a huge public input on this. The will of the people will drive this. And this is is important we have to do it right. Star-Tribune staff writer Laura Hancock contributed to this report. EDGEMONT, S.D. An area where miners once dug for uranium to supply nuclear bombs may become a sanctuary in case nuclear bombs fall or some other disaster threatens humanity. California businessman Robert Vicinos company, Vivos, is offering 575 former military bunkers in southwestern South Dakota for lease as doomsday shelters. The price is $25,000 upfront and then $1,000 per year. The costs to outfit the empty bunkers will be borne by the tenants. Vicino said interest has been high since he began accepting inquiries in October. We have an abundance of reservations, but we dont put out specific numbers, Vicino said. Today alone, I think weve had 50 requests. The bunkers are remnants of the former Black Hills Ordnance Depot, which was operated as ammunitions storage and maintenance facility by the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1967. Its operation overlapped with a uranium-mining boom in the Edgemont area from the 1950s to the 1970s, when most of the uranium was used in Cold War nuclear weapons. The bunkers sprawl across an 18-square-mile plain about 10 miles southwest of Edgemont and are covered with earth, making them look a bit like igloos and inspiring the name Igloo for the short-lived community that was built to house the depots employees and their families. The bunker complex is now privately owned, and much of it is controlled by a South Dakota-based corporation, S&S Land and Cattle Co., which has a partner corporation called Fort Igloo Bunkers LLC. Officers of those corporations referred the Journals interview requests to Vicino, who said his company has obtained a lease agreement allowing it to sublet the bunkers. Besides the 575 bunkers being offered up by Vivos, roughly 225 more are controlled by other private owners and are not part of the project. The bunkers have been empty for decades while serving mostly as windbreaks for cattle that graze around them, but Vicino sees them as perfect places to endure the end times. His company already offers doomsday shelter communities in Indiana and Germany, according to the company website, and sells turnkey shelters for installation anywhere. At the Igloo site, each bunker is 13 feet tall at its highest interior point, and nearly 27 feet wide at the floor and either 60 or 80 feet long, which means the floor space ranges from about 1,600 to 2,100 square feet. Vicino calls the Igloo site Vivos xPoint and describes it as the largest survival community on Earth, with room for 5,000 inhabitants. The typical customer, he said, is likely to be concerned about electromagnetic pulse weapons that could wipe out the electrical grid, the outbreak of a third world war, catastrophic natural phenomena such as asteroid strikes, and other potential disasters. Customers are also likely to have modest financial resources, according to Vicino. Everybody thinks were catering to the elite, but were not, Vicino said. The elite have their own shelters that cost tens of millions of dollars each. Vicino said he was inspired to create doomsday shelters about 35 years ago. I had an inspiration, from God as far as Im concerned, that I needed to build underground shelters for thousands of people to survive something that was coming our way. Vicino said he was running a manufacturing company back then and did not act on the idea until decades later, when he was selling high-end villas to co-owners under arrangements described as fractional ownership. In 2007, he finally got serious about the idea. Now, at about 60 years of age, he is devoted full-time to providing what he calls life assurance against doomsday scenarios. For those who might accuse him of preying on and profiting from the apocalyptic fears of paranoid people, Vicino has a response. Were just providing a solution to people who are looking for it, he said. They can have better peace of mind knowing they have a solution if any of this happens. CHEYENNE Democrats make up just over 13 percent of Wyomings 90-seat Legislature. But leaders on both sides of the aisle insist the numerical difference isnt what counts. House Speaker Steve Harshman, R-Casper, said he interacts with Democratic legislators daily and that he served as speaker for House members, regardless of party affiliation. Nine Democrats serve in the House, with another three in the Senate. Ideology, he said, often takes a backseat to representing the people of Wyoming. The role of the minority is not like a Washington, D.C., thing, where were all staked out in different camps, Harshman said. Its all about Wyoming. In a speech to the Wyoming Senate at its opening session Tuesday, minority leader Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, gave a speech that served as a blueprint for the role of a minority that cant win with votes. Wyoming wins if the State Legislature, the Senate, the governor wins, and Wyoming loses if we lose, Rothfuss said. We know that here. Rothfuss said he was confident that his colleagues were more interested in collaborating to solve problems than scoring political points. Somehow weve managed, after all this time, to be above that type of thinking, he said. Senate President Eli Bebout, R-Riverton, who was first elected to the Wyoming House in 1986 as a Democrat, appeared to agree with Rothfuss. The minority party, although short in numbers, are long in ideas and dedication, Bebout said. Were looking forward to working with you. After the chamber stood to applaud Rothfuss, Bebout looked over at his colleague. Chris, I arranged a standing ovation for you, Bebout said to laughs. But while Rothfuss laid the groundwork for working with the Republicans, he also acknowledged that with only three Democratic senators, the chamber would lack a strong minority voice. Democrats have no representation on the Senates agriculture, corporations, labor and health, revenue and transportation committees. I want to apologize on behalf of the minority caucus for being so small this year, Rothfuss said. In a democracy, a one-party system is not the objective. But Harshman and Rothfuss both pointed out that even when Republicans have far more votes on major issues and sometimes control entire committees there is often no uniformity of thought. Its not just about Democrats versus Republicans, Rothfuss said. Its about small cities versus large cities, its about the east side of the state versus the west. The Republican party also divides between Tea Party-inspired conservatives who take a harder line on issues like spending and guns than their establishment counterparts and between libertarians who want to slash spending but dont prioritize issues like abortion and social conservatives who mirror more traditional Republican leaders nationwide. Not insignificant But for all of Rothfuss talk of the opposition helping offer ideas without ever hoping to win a vote, House minority leader Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, said that at least in the House, Democratic votes could make a difference in the 60-member chamber. We do have nine votes, Connolly said. And nine votes out of 31 needed to pass it are not insignificant. Connolly also agreed that the Democrats were less marginalized than their numbers might suggest. Wyoming is not like other states where the prevailing party has complete control, she said. In the House, Connolly said Democrats are represented on every committee and are active in suggesting revisions and amendments to approve legislation. She also said that the Democrats, as a party, put a premium on certain issues and will seek to make those opinions heard especially as tough budget conversations emerge as the session, which began Tuesday, progresses. Well talk about the most vulnerable of our population, Connolly said. Thats something the Democrats take very seriously. There are specific issues that have tended to break down along party lines in recent years. Democrats supported Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act and in general strongly oppose the transfer of federal land in Wyoming to state control. Democrats have more uniformly supported protections for LGBT Wyomingites than their Republican counterparts. But at the end of the day, Connolly wanted to be clear that no special status, good or bad, was accorded to legislators in the minority when it came to one of the core roles of members. We work on behalf of our constituents just like every other legislator, she said. The expectation here is that all of us, regardless of party, do that. Star-Tribune staff writer Laura Hancock contributed to this report. Due to a typographical error, a previous version of this article incorrectly stated the party affiliation of Rep. Cathy Connolly. She is a Democrat. CHEYENNE A Jackson rabbi wants the Wyoming Legislature to bar the state government from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. The effort is the latest salvo in the debate between those who attack Israel for its policies related to Palestinians and those defending the Jewish state. The issue has led to fierce controversy on college campuses across the United States and in legislatures in states like California and New York. But the boycott movement has gained little attention in the Cowboy State, which has some of the smallest Jewish and Muslim communities in the country two populations that are often involved in the politics surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its really important that we set precedent in a state where anti-Semitism is almost unheard of that our state is one that supports people of all backgrounds, affiliations and lifestyle choices, said Rabbi Zalman Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn, who is working to get the legislation passed, sees the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign, known as BDS, as a thinly veiled form of discrimination against Jews. The campaign calls for an economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel until the country ends its occupation of the West Bank and its military control over Gaza, ends its alleged discrimination against Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and allows an estimated 7 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants to resettle in Israel. Proponents say it is a way to put peaceful pressure on Israeli government and society while critics cite a variety of complaints about the boycott, including that it applies a double-standard to Israel and that the demands themselves are a non-starter because they would require the Israeli government to cede the Jewish majority in the state. Boycotting one country without looking at the realities on the ground in so many places around the world is delegitimizing one country, Mendelsohn said. Mendelsohn oversees Chabad Wyoming, an affiliate of an orthodox Jewish organization, in Jackson. At Mendelsohns request, Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne, sponsored a resolution that would ask state agencies to make note of whether a company was boycotting Israel or other World Trade Organization members when considering whether to enter into contracts, invest or award grants. House Joint Resolution 4 was referred to the Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee last Friday. Byrd said the resolution was important because it demonstrated opposition to discrimination against Jews and other minorities in Wyoming. This is primarily about the Jewish nation, the Jewish culture, but it really does extend fundamentally to everything else, Byrd said. Byrd said that the resolution was not meant to take a stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but rather to emphasize that the Wyoming state government would not endorse what he believed to be a discriminatory boycott. Coming from a group of people who are systematically discriminated against ... you would think that at this juncture in society people wouldnt need to be reminded of this, said Byrd, who is black. But trust me in our political culture and cultural climate people need to be reminded all the time. But Mendelsohn said that while he supports the spirit of Byrds resolution, he wants to see it in bill form. Unlike a resolution, a bill could become legally binding statute. He said that Sen. Leland Christensen, R-Alta, had agreed to sponsor a bill version of the resolution. Mendelsohn said that the effort to stake out a position in opposition to BDS had taken on renewed urgency following the anti-Semitic activity in Whitefish, Montana. Business owners in Whitefish with Jewish surnames have been targeted by white supremacists in recent weeks and plans, which appear to have been suspended, had been announced for neo-Nazis to march on the town. Its important that we take steps to prevent the BDS movement from gaining any ground in places where they dont currently have any ground like the state of Wyoming, Mendelsohn said. In New York on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump dismissed as crap the intelligence reports suggesting Russia has compromising information on him. Trump knows this because, as he tweeted, Russia called it A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION. And if Vladimir Putins government says something, it must be true. But whether or not Russia has such blackmail potential may be beside the point. Trump and his incoming administration are already doing exactly what Putin wants. As Trump was giving his first post-election news conference in Trump Tower, his nominee to be secretary of state was testifying in Washington and Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil chief, showed why he earned Putins Order of Friendship award. It was early in the nine-hour hearing when Tillerson said he might recommend revoking President Obamas actions punishing Russia for its cyberattack during the American election, which Tillerson acknowledged was probably approved by Putin. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) followed that with a blunt question: Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal? I would not use that term, the Russian Order of Friendship laureate replied. Rubio offered to help Tillerson reach that conclusion, describing his targeting of schools and markets in Syria that have killed thousands of civilians, and his earlier attacks on Chechnya, where he killed 300,000 civilians using cluster munitions and bombs that kill by asphyxiation. You are still not prepared to say that Vladimir Putin and his military ... have conducted war crimes? I would want to have much more information before reaching a conclusion, the nominee replied. Rubio went on to ask about the broadly held view that Putin has approved the killing of countless opponents, dissidents and journalists. I do not have sufficient information to make that claim, Tillerson replied. Do you think that was coincidental? Rubio pressed. Tillerson said these things happen to people who speak up for freedom, but he would need to know more. Rubio was angry. None of this is classified, Mr. Tillerson, he said. These people are dead. It was a big moment for the man Trump called Lil Marco. But its ominous that there arent more like him and John McCain speaking up now. Putin has managed to achieve in a few months of cyberwarfare what his Soviet predecessors failed to do in 45 years of the Cold War: creating a pliable American government, willing to overlook human rights abuses in the interest of commerce. Trump on Wednesday tweeted that the leaked intelligence report was one last shot at me and asked: Are we living in Nazi Germany? But his liaison with Russia feels more Eastern Bloc than Third Reich. Trump has a slate of pro-Russia advisers talking about a more conciliatory approach to Putin, and their statements have echoed Kremlin statements. Trump acknowledged that I think it was Russia that did the election hacking, but rather than regard it as an act of war, he praised the outcome: It shouldnt be done, he said, but look at what was learned from that hacking. Tillerson offered a few welcome departures from his would-be bosss positions: He embraced the Magnitsky law punishing human rights abuses and said Russias annexation of Crimea would not be recognized. He was more supportive of NATO than Trump has been. But Tillerson didnt mention the election hacking in his opening statement, and, in response to Rubio, he said he would have concerns with legislation imposing mandatory sanctions on those who commit cyberattacks on the United States. Other responses were equally unnerving. Tillerson told Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that he had not yet discussed Russia with Trump, and he asserted that to my knowledge, Exxon never directly lobbied against sanctions. Congressional lobbying records show Exxon lobbied on many Russia sanctions bills. Asked by Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) about how he would avoid being undermined as chief diplomat by the presidents quickly drafted, not vetted tweets on world affairs, Tillerson replied, I have his cellphone number. Well hope for the best there unless you have anything else to add, Young said. Tillerson didnt. The nominee didnt rule out the creation of a registry of Muslims. He declined to say that China is one of the worlds worst human rights violators. He wouldnt criticize drug raids in the Philippines that have killed 6,200. And he said he couldnt make a true determination whether Saudi Arabia violates human rights. It was grim to see a potential incoming American secretary of state avert his gaze from human rights abuses in Russia and across the globe. Rubio said it demoralizes billions of people. That cannot be who we are in the 21st century, Rubio told Tillerson. But apparently it already is. WASHINGTON The increase of Israeli settlements has gotten so substantial that it is inhibiting the possibility for an effective, contiguous Palestinian state, President Obama said Sunday, in his final interview as president. Speaking to CBS 60 Minutes, Obama dismissed the idea that there is a major rupture in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last months decision by the U.S. to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the U.S.) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, This is a problem, Obama said. It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States. The outgoing president reflected on his legacy and his biggest challenges during his eight years in office during the hourlong interview. A number of his policies from health care to his contentious relationship with Israel could be short-lived as President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th president later this week and vows to reverse some of those policies. Trump has been vocal about his disapproval of many of Obamas policies, often voicing his disagreement or engaging in disputes with the president on Twitter. Most recently, Trump lashed out over hypothetical comments Obama made that he would beat Trump if they ran against each other in a general election. Over the holidays, Trump accused Obama of throwing up inflammatory roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with total disdain. Obama acknowledged its been an unusual transition, adding, I suspect the president-elect would agree with that. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites and some headline that comes over their phone, the president said. Theres a power in that. Theres also a danger what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isnt the same as the process required to actually solve the problem. He warned people not to underestimate the guy and urged congressional Republicans and Trump supporters around the country to be sure that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions dont get eroded, because theres a reason theyre in place. Obama said there needs to be a focus on making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity. With that, he said hes been disturbed about intelligence reports over Russian hacking. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, youve seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government, he said. Youre not going to be able to make good decisions without building some relationship of trust between yourself and that community. Obama also reflected on his approach to the civil war in Syria, as it approaches its sixth year with hundreds of thousands dead. The president acknowledged that his red line declaration about the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assads government wasnt in his 2012 speech and that he didnt have to use those words. They later prompted harsh criticism, since the U.S. did not follow through on the threat. Sazerac Creole Kitchen & Cocktails in St. Philips Plaza will open at 8 a.m. Monday, Jan. 16, without owner Joshua Mussman. Mussman on Friday broke both legs after falling off a 12-foot ladder while repairing the roof of his family's new Indian restaurant. Sazerac cancelled its friends and family soft opening Saturday, but will still open as planned at 8 a.m. Monday, said Mussman's mother, Suzanne Kaiser, who owns the restaurants with her two sons Joshua and Aric Mussman. The restaurants are part of the family's Jam Culinary Concepts, which includes three other Tucson restaurants and a bar in Salt Lake City, Utah. Joshua Mussman, 32, underwent surgery at Banner University Medical Center and is expected to undergo two more surgeries to repair a compound fracture in his right leg and broken heel and toes in his left, Kaiser said. She said her son fell while repairing the roof at 4660 E. Camp Lowell Drive, the future home of Twisted Tandoor. Jam is teaming up with Twisted Tandoor owner Roop Singh on the Indian restaurant, set to open in March. Kaiser said her son landed on his feet. "Thank God he didn't land on his back or knees," she said Sunday from the hospital, where her son was still being treated. Amalour, the name of the previous St. Philip's Plaza restaurant at 4280 N. Campbell Ave., still graces the signs at Sazerac. Kaiser said workers were in the middle of painting and installing Sazerac's signs when her son fell and they had to turn their attention to Twisted Tandoor. Heavy rain Saturday and early Sunday put the kibosh on putting up the Sazerac signs, Kaiser said. Jam Culinary Concepts also owns two Vero Amore pizzerias at 2920 N. Swan Road and 12130 N. Dove Mountain Blvd. in Marana Oro Valley's Noble Hops Craft Beer + Fine Fare at 1335 W. Lambert Lane, and Tinwell bar in Salt Lake City. As far as we can tell, Paul Anka has not been to Tucson in, well, almost forever. After scouring the Arizona Daily Star digital archives the only mention we could find of Anka in our humble berg was way back in 1957 when he was on the lineup with Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and LaVern Baker doing a show before 3,000 screaming teens in the Catalina High School gym. We found that gem in a farewell story to longtime Star columnist Bonnie Henry, written by the late M. Scot Skinner when Henry retired in 2010. Anka was 16 in 1957 and years away from making his mark as one of the most successful pop artists of the 21st century, standing alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles. He's the only artist to have made Billboard's Top 100 charts in each of six consecutive decades a feat he should feel confident won't be broken any time soon. So just how do you make up for a lifetime in one night? Anka is about to let us know when he plays a show March 1 at Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Park Ave. We're expecting he'll hit the highlights of his nearly 60-year career he's 75 and he got his start as a young teen including Diana, Lonely Boy, Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Times of Your Life and Having My Baby. We also suspect he'll cover those hits he penned for other artists, most famously the Tom Jones hit "She's A Lady" and Sinatra's "My Way"; he wrote the English lyrics for that one, which turned out to be Sinatra's biggest hit. Anka was reportedly going to sing that at Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday, but 24 hours after confirming he'd be there, Anka pulled out to spend time with his young son. Donna Nordin just cant get out of the kitchen. Lucky us. Nordin, the co-owner/chef at the now-closed-but-fondly-remembered Cafe Terra Cotta, has been holding intimate cooking classes at a private home since the restaurant closed in 2011. The next series of classes starts Feb. 22 but only 10 students are allowed in each, so they fill up quickly. Nordin, who began her career as a cooking teacher in San Francisco in 1973, used to rely on Terra Cotta favorites for her classes. But she doesnt like repeating herself, so shes branched out. Some classic dishes, very French, I delve into the Italian end Ive become eclectic, said the Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef about what shell be teaching. And dont expect the latest food trends to show up on the menus in this series, either. There isnt anything really new, she says. Instead of trends right now pizza and burgers have been big ones over the last several years Things are being redone, or reinvented. Her cooking classes are demonstration style which means you wont get your hands dirty, but youll get to watch the food come together and, best of all, get to eat it. Nordins theory is that students have a narrow vision when its hands-on. If you can see every part of the menu done, you see everything, she says. And thats important to Nordin, who intends to have her students learn something new at each class. Its what guides her when she designs the menus. I have to choose my recipes to make sure I teach something, or help someone do something easier, she says. Her goal: That students go home and cook. Classes are $65, and include the meal. One class, with famed Chinese chef Joyce Jue, is $85. Nordin no longer holds the classes in her home; she has friends with suitable kitchens who host the two-hour classes. Most of those are in the Catalina Foothills area. Register at donnanordincooks.com for a class. The schedule, with classes starting at 10:30 a.m.: Feb. 22 and 25: Creme Dubarry (cauliflower soup), Paella Valencia, Pots de Creme Chocolat. March 1 and 4: Corn Fritters, Mint and Chile Sauce, Stuffed Pork Roulades (Ricotta and bell peppers), Chocolatissmo. March 15 and 18: Mushroom Cakes, Red Pepper Coulis and Avocado Pesto, Duck Breasts with Madeira Sauce, Blanc and Noir Cake. March 29 and April 1: Coulibacs (salmon in puff pastry), Cauliflower and Red Bell Medley, Lady Baltimore Layer Cake. April 5 and 15: Mediterranean Potato Tortilla, Leg of Lamb Provencal, Classic Tarte aux Fraises. April 19 and 22: Blackened Sweet Potato, Salsa Negra, Peanut Mole Sauteed Chicken, Pay de Aquacate (avocado cheesecake). April 29 with guest teacher Joyce Jue: Thai Lemongrass Coconut Chicken Soup, Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp, Red Curry Salmon, Green Beans and Thai Basil. May 3 and 6: Moroccan Spiced Short Ribs, Vegetable Couscous, Semolina-Coconut Cake with Rosewater and Candied Rose Petals. We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some January 16 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages. AAA Arizona is calling for Pima County's nominations for its 10th annual Crossing Guard of the Year. The organization invites students, parents, school staff and community members to nominate someone who they believe deserves to be named the Crossing Guard of the Year. AAA Arizona will also accept self nominations. Saguaro National Park's Tucson Mountain District will host two outdoor camps for youths in February. Participating youths will have a chance to explore the wilderness through a guided experience and learn how to set up tents, string up tarps and use a backpack stove. They will also be taught how to explore the outdoors safely. Some of the other activities include exploring the desert after dark and storytelling around the campfire. The two events are: Explorer Camp for youths aged 9 and 10 years old on Saturday, Feb. 4; Wilderness Camp for youths aged 11 to 14 years old from Feb. 23 to Feb. 25. Explore Camp costs $15 and Wilderness, $45. Fees must be received days by Feb. 1 for Explore and Feb. 17 for Wilderness. For more information, contact Chip Littlefield at 733-5157 or chip_littlefield@nps.gov. To register, visit http://www.nps.gov/sagu/planyourvisit/wilderness-exploration-camp.htm Saint Ambrose Catholic School, 300 S. Tucson Blvd., will host its event on Jan. 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Attendees will have a chance to meet with the school's teachers and learn about the program. The school serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade. St. Michael's School, at 602 N. Wilmot Road, will invite prospective families to its campus on Jan. 21 from 9 to 11 a.m. and again on Jan. 25 from 4 to 6 p.m. These events will be focused on students in kindergarten and first grade but anyone is welcome. St. Michael's is also a K-8 school. The company proposing to build the Rosemont Mine is raising the possibility of challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authority to regulate washes on the site if the Corps denies a permit to build the project. Federal jurisdiction over those washes hasnt been questioned since Rosemont Copper first announced its plans to build the $1.5 billion project a decade ago. The company, now owned by Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc., applied for a Clean Water Act permit for the project back in 2011 and announced its intention to apply in 2008. A Rosemont consultant, in fact, developed a preliminary version of a formal determination document showing which washes on the mine site would be covered by Clean Water Act oversight years ago. But the broader issue of federal control over development along mostly dry washes such as these has been subject of national legal disputes for years. Experts say Rosemonts fate could be affected by how those disputes play out in the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. In a Nov. 17 letter to the Corps, Patrick Merrin, a top Hudbay official, wrote, In our view, there is significant uncertainty as to whether the Corps has jurisdiction over the onsite drainages. In the event of an adverse final decision on our application, we anticipate that jurisdictional arguments will be a key element of our appeal ... . The Corps lower-level Los Angeles-based office has recommended denial of Rosemonts permit. A decision will be made by the agencys San Francisco-based South Pacific Division, which oversees the Los Angeles office. If that decision goes against Rosemont, the mining company legally can appeal to higher-level Corps officials who would make a final decision. The Star obtained Merrins letter last week under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, along with a letter from South Pacific Division Commander Col. Pete Helmlinger laying out some of the reason for the L.A. offices recommendation. Hudbay didnt respond to questions about this issue from the Star. The Rosemont permit application seeks permission to dredge and put fill material such as mine waste rock and tailings in several ephemeral washes, which carry water only during storms. The feds authority over many desert washes in the Tucson area has been clear since 2008, when the U.S. government declared the Santa Cruz River a legally navigable river even though most of it also runs only during storms. Under the Corps and EPAs interpretation of court rulings, dry washes that are significant tributaries to a navigable river are legally covered by Clean Water Act rules. That means permits are needed for anyone wishing to significantly alter or otherwise impact the washes. A highly controversial 2015 federal rule known as the Waters of the U.S. rule would have formally inscribed that practice onto the books. The phrase waters of the U.S. is used legally to describe rivers and washes that are covered by federal regulation. But shortly after the EPA and Corps adopted the rule, many states including Arizona successfully stalled it in court until full-blown arguments can be heard over whether its legally authorized by the Clean Water Act. Trump himself argued strongly against the Waters of the U.S. rule in his campaign as an example of federal overreach. He has called it extreme and unconstitutional and vows on his transition website to eliminate it. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trumps pick to run the EPA, is one of 30 attorneys general who has filed suit against the rule. He and other critics say it violates private property rights and expands federal authority. The EPA and environmentalists say the rule gives needed protection to clean water and washes that serve important biological functions and feed major rivers. OPINION: "While we may not always agree on the path to take, in our discussions its clear that we all want a similar result: excellence in education at TVUSD. To achieve this goal, we need to vote 'yes' on Prop 494," writes Thomas Trask, a candidate for the Tanque Verde Unified School Distr On art, music, books, movies, politics, life - sometimes with astrology thrown in. Help India! By Twocircles.net Staff Reporter Support TwoCircles A new report published by the India Committee of Netherlands (ICN) shows that various forms of modern slavery, including child slavery, are found in more than 90% of the spinning mills in South India. These spinning mills produce yarn for India, Bangladeshi and Chinese garment factories that produce for the Western market. The report, Fabric of Slavery, exposes the scale on which young girls and women the majority of which are Dalits- are enslaved by employers who withhold their wages or lock them up in company-controlled hostels. They work long hours, face sexual harassment and do not even earn the minimum wage. Gerard Oonk, director of ICN, said, We have raised the issue for five years now, but even to us the scale of this problem came as a shock. During the course of the report, researchers in South India spoke to workers of 743 spinning mills in Tamil Nadu, almost half of all the mills in the region. The majority of the women working in those mills were between 14 and 18 years old; 10 to 20% are younger than 14. Almost half of the researched mills have a so-called Sumangali Scheme where a significant part of workers wages is withheld until they have completed their contract. Sixty hours a week According to the report, more than half of the researched mills do not allow workers to leave the hostel after working hours. In all those mills, young women workers face intimidation, sexually coloured remarks and harassment, which they can hardly escape. Only 39 mills pay the legal minimum wage. In half of the spinning mills a standard working week means working 60 hours or more. Only 10 mills have trade union presence and no more than 33 mils have a workers committee where workers may be able to express grievances, said the report. The researchers also interviewed a number of workers, including an 18-year-old former worker, who injured herself while escaping from a mill by climbing a 3.5-metre high wall. I was promised that I could continue my studies, but instead was forced to work for 12 hours in a shift. Supervisors torture girls to extract work beyond their capacity, she told ICN. ICN, which works on forming social and political opinion and influencing, research, education, publicity, campaigning and public awareness (raising), has previously also looked into spinning mills that supply Western brands such as C&A, Gap, Marks and Spencer, Primark and Walmart. In Fabric of Slavery ICN did not look at specific supply chains, but it is safe to say that yarn from the mills covered in this research is used in supply chains of international garment brands. 30% of the yarn is directly used in south Indian factories producing for export, and at least 20% of the yarn is exported to garment factories in China and Bangladesh. So, while the label in a T-Shirt does not say Made in India, the yarn might be, the report added. Only 39 of the 743 mills pay the minimum wage, the report added, and only 37 out of 743 researched mills have a standard working timeframe of 48 hours a week, the report pointed out. Upscale successful initiatives The report added that while advocacy and action on Sumangali schemes by NGOs, unions and brands has contributed to reducing the incidence of such schemes, it has not tackled the issue of modern slavery in all its dimensions. Multiple factors contribute to this failing including poor enforcement of labour laws, the power of the industry, superficial audits by buying brands and lack of initiatives that increase a joint leverage of brands. A few mills, often under pressure from their Western buyers, have addressed labour concerns in cooperation with local organisations. To sustain and upscale those successful initiatives, brands and governments from importing countries should use their collective leverage to tackle this structural form of slavery in co-operation with the central and state governments, the industry and local trade unions and NGOs, the report added. Help India! By TCN News The Gymnasium Ground of Millat Nagar, Andheri played host to scholars from the Muslim community along with almost two thousand men and women from the western suburbs who had gathered there to seek guidance on how they could be better Muslims at the individual and the community level. This was the third of three public addresses organized by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Mumbai as part of the state-wide Social Reformation & Conservation of Shariyah Campaign this week. Support TwoCircles The program began with the recitation of a passage from the Quran enlisting the qualities of a true devout. Thereafter, Rashid Khan delivered his inaugural address wherein he emphasized upon the importance of rectifying the self before seeking faults with others. This should then naturally lead to a better family structure and a better society at large. The Chief Guest for the evening, Maulana Abu Zafar Hassaan Nadvi Azhari averred that selflessly living for others is the central idea of Islam and it is this virtue that makes a person trustworthy and honourable in society. The learned speaker sought to remind the audience the Prophetic qualities of speaking the truth, strengthening family ties, feeding people and shouldering their burdens. Islam has come to give, not to take said he. Maulana also reasoned that the law and wisdom handed over to Muslims cannot be conserved merely by safeguarding it in books and vaults, but by practically implementing it in our lives and thus discharging this responsibility due upon us. Maulana Shameem Akhtar Nadvi from the Palghar unit of Jamiat-ul-Ulema Hind expounded upon marital relations and the ways and means to resolve tensions therein in light of the Quran and the Sunnah. He touched upon questions like what are the qualities to be sought in a bride, what is expected of a married couple and what should the couple and their families do when there are marital discords between the two. Next to grace the lectern was Maulana Abdul Qawi Falahi who had come all the way from Aurangabad to discuss the burning issues plaguing the society today like saffronisation of education, the lure of the internet and restricting Islam to some specific rituals instead of treating it as a holistic way of life. He advised the audience to adopt a correct understanding of Islamic values and make it a habit to self-introspect. In his presidential address, the Secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Maulana Rafiq Qasmi encouraged the audience to make the Quran their guidebook. He did not mince his words when he said that Muslims have no right to accuse the establishment of interfering with their Personal Law when the Muslims are themselves guilty of violating it. Instead of petitioning the authorities to grant them concessions with their Shariyah, the Muslims should demonstrate to the world the beauty and fragrance Shariyah holds by inculcating its teachings in their lives and presenting it as an attractive example for others to follow. The Telugu film ''Shatamanam Bhavati" was released on January 14, 2017, in India. Satish Vegesna directs this Sharwanand starrer, and it has Anupama Parameshwaran as the lady lead. Prakash Raj and Jayasudha have played other crucial roles. Lauded to be a breezy family entertainer, the film is now showing all the signs of emerging as a sleeper hit even in the midst of competition posed by big films like "Khaidi No 150" and "Gautamiputra Satakarni". A heart touching story In the initial minutes of the movie, we can see two elderly couples living together in the Eastern Godawari. They have two sons and a daughter and are now settled abroad. Feeling a state of isolation, the couple decide to call their kids for a family reunion. Will the sons and daughter realise the love of their parents? The answer to this question forms the remaining part of the movie. Prakash Raj at his best As we all know, Prakash Raj is an excellent performer, and his acting is the spinal cord of this film. The actor enacted emotional scenes with perfection, and he was given adequate support by Jayasudha who plays the role of his wife. Sharwanand who performs the character of a typical village guy has done full justice to the role. Anupama Parameshwaran, in the role of an NRI beauty, was just okay, and in some scenes, she went little over the board. Audience review Satish Vegesna has directed the movie well. He has given a feel-good touch to this flick, and you will surely have a smile on your face while leaving the theatres. The audience who saw the first shows of the film are in full praise. Many said they watched this film over the other two big ones released Friday. Box-office collections Telugu film #ShatamanamBhavati shows 89.89% growth on Sat in USA... Fri $ 79,312, Sat $ 150,607. Total: $ 277,292 [ 1.89 cr]. @Rentrak taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) January 15, 2017 Due to the release of mega budget movies, most of the cinema halls in which "Shatamanam Bhavati" are witnessing an attendance ratio of just below 40 percent. But, as positive reviews started pouring, it earned Rs 3.04 Crore and Rs 4.15 gross from Nizam and Andhra while made 84.29 lacs from the US so far. Watch the trailer video Migrants on a boat thought to be travelling across the Mediterranean from Libya to italy have died with as many as 98 feared dead. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Saturday, as many as 110 people were on board the vessel. Migrant survivors reported as only four people so far So far, there are only four known survivors. Eight bodies were initially reported as recovered from the sea, but in an update, the James Town Sun indicated that 13 have now been found. CNN reported the incident and they cited IOM spokesperson Flavio Di Giacomo as saying the incident happened in harsh sea-going conditions. Second incident of large numbers of people from Libya in boat wreck in two months. This is the second incident involving large numbers of drowned refugees in just two months. In November, 100 people were reported missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean. That boat was also believed to have set sail from Libya. The Localit reported that in the November incident over 100 people went missing and Doctors Without Borders said that only 27 men in a complement of 130 people had survived. CNN reports indicate that in 2016, 380,000 refugees made it to Europe across the sea, but that as many as 5,079 people died or simply went missing. According to data by the UN Refugee Agency, most migrants that head for Italy set off out of Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. In their weekly report dated 13 January, 728 refugees and migrants arrived by sea in Italy the previous week. Initial survivors picked up by French warship Aljazeera covered the latest incident, and said that a French warship picked up the survivors. The final toll is not exact at this time, as search and rescue operations are still underway. The weather is bad and this hampers the operations. There are apparently a "Frontex jet and an Italian naval helicopter" also involved in the search and rescue operation, as well as the Italian Coastguard. Italy is hot destination for Libya refugees Italy has become a top destination for refugee migrants, so much so that the government there is trying to negotiate a return policy with some of the North African countries. The refugees sometimes spend their life savings to make the perilous 300km journey to Italy across the Mediterranean Sea. President-elect Donald trump, who will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States is in the news again, this time after having a meeting with prominent "Vote Leave" Campaigner Michael Gove. This is the Second interview with a UK politician, the first being that of Nigel Farage's before even meeting the UK Prime Minister Theresa May at a yet to be disclosed date. Admittedly, protocol on this is a little sketchy as the UK is in the middle of Brexit and the UK is having to rewrite the book on international relations, as it is going it alone after having been in the EEC since 1969. President-elect Trump doing it his own way This, however, is not the only transgression, if we can call it that. President Elect Trump has also made it clear that he will work on relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has acknowledged the existence of Taiwan, and publicly backed Israel after the Obama administration and the UN called for the end of occupation by Israel in occupied Palestine. Speculation is running rife in France of confirmed sightings of the Blue Marine Party (formally known as the Front Nationale, or FN) President, Marine Le Pen seen in Trump tower. Ms Le Pen has run into difficulty finding financial backing for her campaign for the French presidency to be held in early 2017, but after questioning, Marine Le Pen denied actually meeting President-elect Trump. Choppy political climate during Trump tenure All signs are pointing to a very choppy political climate during President-elect Trumps tenure as potus, but, if his accomplishments thus far in the transitional stage are anything to go by, he does seem to be enjoying some success, after major care manufactures Ford and Fiat-Chrysler announced that they would be investing into the US as opposed to their earlier announced plans to relocate fabrication facilities out of the US, coupled with a surprising surge on Wall Street. However, President-elect Trump is facing press hostility after his snubbing of CNN reporter Jim Acosta in his first press conference after the vote rigging allegations reported by the international broadcaster. Trump can almost count on not enjoying the same relationship President Obama enjoys with the political journalistic corps. In a world today that is seeing political upheaval taking place, president-elect Trump is going to have to play his cards wisely, but maybe his brackish and not so politically correct approach is what the world needs today: someone who will call a spade a spade, and point out the faults when they arise. In either case, President-elect Trump is here to stay, the people of the US have spoken and its going to be a very interesting 2017 thats for sure. Five people are reportedly dead and fifteen others injured after a shooting occurred on the final day of BPM music festival in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. The shots were fired outside of Blue Parrot nightclub in the early hours of the morning following a dispute inside the nightclub, revealed Quintana Roo State police director, Rodolfo Del Angel. Security personnel died trying to contain the dispute BPM released a statement that among the five deceased are three members of their security team. Before the shooting, the security team tried to contain a conflict, which started inside of the club when a reported 'lone gunman' started shooting. BPM added on their Facebook page, "We are overcome with grief over the senseless act of violence, and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation. The electronic dance festival attracts thousands The BPM Festival attracts thousand's of electronic music fans each year, and it is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. The festival was running from January 6th-January 15th. The party at Blue Parrot nightclub was a closing party for the festival with Glasgow-based DJ Jackmaster djing. Jackmaster took to Twitter at 3:02 AM saying, "Someone has come into the club in Playa Del Carmen and opened fire. 4-5 dead and many wounded..." Witnesses at the club stated that at first shot, they thought it was fireworks but when they realized that it was gunshots they began to hide behind tables and walls in the club. Witnesses outside of the club, described the scene as chaotic when the man started to shoot as everyone scrambled out of the area. There has been no official confirmation of the death toll. The shooting will affect tourism The Quintana Roo area has typically been less violent than other parts of Mexico, but this shooting could have an adverse impact on Mexico's tourist industry. Playa Del Carmen, in particular, attracts many foreign tourists annually with its vibrant nightlife. Due to its nightlife and party scene, the town has also been a hub for a local drug market. Every January, the United States of America celebrates "Martin Luther King Day" in honor of the civil rights leader. After Donald Trump sent out a message on Twitter about King, a flood of backlash followed on social media. Trump on MLK Ever since Donald Trump first announced his campaign for president, he's been hit with allegations of racism, and other forms of prejudice. While the billionaire real estate mogul vowed to be "great" for the African-American community, he was only able to receive around eight percent of the vote total in his win against Hillary Clinton. However, the amount of African-American support for Trump was higher than in previous years for Republican presidential candidates. In the days leading up to Martin Luther King Day, Trump lashed out at civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, who announced that he would refuse to attend the inauguration ceremony. After Trump went on multiple Twitter rants against the congressman, the president-elect also sent out a message in honor of King. As seen on Twitter on January 16, many social media users were not pleased. Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2017 "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for," Donald Trump wrote on Twitter early Monday morning, before adding, "Honor him for being the great man that he was!" In response, an onslaught of criticism followed, as Trump was quickly accused of hypocrisy. "Honor him by respecting John Lewis's 50 year record fight for human rights," Twitter user Tony Posnanski wrote. @realDonaldTrump Honor him by respecting John Lewis's 50 year record fight for human rights. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) January 16, 2017 I love this message, @realDonaldTrump, seriously. But what do you think MLK would say about your other tweets? - Founder, @TheOfficialPORP David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) January 16, 2017 "I love this message, @realDonaldTrump, seriously. But what do you think MLK would say about your other tweets?" author David G. McAfee wondered. "As you wish... we stand against the tyranny, injustice, and racism you represent, and which MLK worked his life to rid," another message read. "Will I be seeing you at the Museum of African American History today? Oh...no, cause you canceled that. Right," an additional comment noted. .@realDonaldTrump As you wish... we stand against the tyranny, injustice, and racism you represent, and which MLK worked his life to rid. Alex Young (@AlexYoung) January 16, 2017 Comedy Central writer Tim Duffy also chimed in, citing an article from The Huffington Post that showed Martin Luther King Jr's wife writing a letter of opposition to Jeff Sessions back in 1986, who was recently nominated by Donald Trump for Attorney General. Another Twitter user decided to reference a point in history, in a sharp attack on the former host of "The Apprentice." "When you were being sued for housing discrimination, @repjohnlewis was fighting for fair housing," Twitter user @KentuckyBlacc wrote. @realDonaldTrump When you were being sued for housing discrimination, @repjohnlewis was fighting for fair housing https://t.co/u5Fc2cVu6F Derek (@KentuckyBlacc) January 16, 2017 Next up Despite the backlash, Donald Trump is now just four days away from heading to Washington, D.C. to be sworn in as the next President of the United States. While Trump's tweets remain controversial, the president-elect announced he would not abandon his personal Twitter account, and will leave the POTUS social media page dormant. Sexual assault claims made by Katelyn Nicole Davis are being investigated by Georgia police after the 12-year-old girl was found hanging from a tree in the familys front yard in Cedartown, Georgia on December 30th. The young girl was pronounced dead after being rushed to the Polk Medical Center. Davis would have turned on February 20th. Cedartown is located 70 miles west of Atlanta. The entire clip of the horrific video lasted for approximately 42 minutes and was posted under ITZ Dolly, her username. For the first 21 minutes, Davis is seen setting the stage for her suicide and talking about her life. Around 21:24, Katelyn Davis bids the world goodbye and proceeds to hang herself, kicking the bucket she stood on. Following several minutes of silence, voices are heard calling out for the girl. Polk County Police Chief Kenny Dodd is asking the public to stop sharing the video. Dodd told Fox Atlanta News that local authorities and the family want the video taken down as it could be harmful to other children. They have contacted some sites who, in turn, asked if it was a law to remove it. Dodd admitted that by law they were not obligated to do so, but it was a matter of common decency. Chief Dodd added that it was a police officer from California who contacted Polk County authorities after happening upon the streaming. The chief said his department have been taking calls from as far as Great Britain requesting removal of the video. A tragic end to such a young life According to her blog, Katelyn Davis wrote that she was sexually abused by her stepfather. Using her nickname Dolly, the 12-year-old wrote an entry on December 27th: My heart, my soul, my feelings, my body She also alleged that someone had tried to rape her. While no arrests have been made so far, the police are now investigating Daviss claims of sexual abuse. Too many people are taking their own lives Whether a person is being bullied or abused physically, mentally, sexually or in dire straits, suicide seems like the only solution for far too many. It is not. There is a help. If you, or anyone you know is feeling depressed or contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The African National Congress (ANC) the ruling party in South Africa has vehemently condemned black leader Mmusi Maimane of the Democratic Alliance (DA) party for his visit to Israel this month. The ANC made widespread media statements in South Africa they are disturbed by the DA's visit to hold talks with the Israeli government. The ANC further said it's obviously true that the DA receives funding from Israel to protect their interests in South Africa. fostering unity A DA spokesperson told the local media their leader Mmusi Maimane was in Israel to foster unity between Israelis and Palestinians. But the Israeli media reported otherwise, saying the DA leader from South Africa was on a state visit to foster trade. Maimane met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyau for discussions, according to Israeli media last week .The DA receives regular funding from Israel for it's campaigning. Zionist funding Helen Zille one-time DA leader and presently the Western Cape premier where the DA rules told me earlier in an email she will not divulge the amount she regularly gets as funding from the Zionist council based in Canada. There are nine provinces in South Africa and the DA rules the Western Cape. They were voted into power by the predominantly coloured voters in the province. condemnation of Israel Leader of the International league of the workers, Ebrahim Muhamed based in Cape Town, South Africa said Israel is condemned by the world for crimes against humanity, yet the DA leader saw fit to visit the rogue state. Israel was created in 1948 after World War 2 through the British Balfour declaration which declared Israel a homeland for Jews. Since then there has never been peace in the region. Mmusi Maimane was accompanied from South Africa to Israel by Michael Bagraim,former chairperson and president of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. State visit It is believed the DA leader met with Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyau and wanted to meet with the leader of the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Maimane's spokesperson told the local media Abbass was unable to meet with him. Social media There is a social media frenzy in South Africa with hundreds of people saying they are perturbed at the official state visit to Israel by a South African political party leader. MaanySouth Africans consider Israel to be child-killers which was evident when hundreds of images were placed on Facebook and Twitter displaying the somewhat horrifying and disturbing pictures of children and even babies being brutally maimed and killed by Israeli bombs which rained on the Palestinians non-stop for weeks on end. The trip was supposed to be clandestine but the Israeli media was unable to resist the state visit by a South African statesman. South Africa is one of the world's richest countries due to its natural resources like gold, diamonds, platinum among other precious metals and stones. These resources are mostly in foreign hands while locals are suffering from malnutrition. The last population census in 2013 here stated the vast majority are living below the poverty line. Thousands South Africans protest regularly against Israel so much so that the Israeli embassy moved from Cape Town to Pretoria. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday, seems to be overshadowed in some southern states. Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi still celebrate the birthday of the famous Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the same day. When searching for the hours of public offices, for example a public library, over this holiday weekend in Arkansas, one may be met with a notice that says, "Monday: Robert E. Lee's Birthday -- hours may differ." It seems that both holidays are recognized by local governments, but one takes precedent over the other. State recognition of Robert E. Lee's birthday and MLK Jr. Day has been a sore topic for many years in the South. General Robert E. Lee Robert E. Lee was a Confederate General during the American Civil War from 1862-1865. He served as a distinguished officer in the United States Army for 32 years before joining his home state of Virginia after its secession from the Union. Lee is said to have been opposed to slavery even before the Civil War began. In a letter to wife, Mary Anna Lee, in 1856, he stated, "Slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country." His stance on the issue is up for debate, as he led many campaigns to capture Free Blacks during the Civil War to be enslaved in the South. In the same letter, he stated, "The painful discipline that they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race." Arkansas declared Lee's birthday an official holiday back in 1947. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Martin Luther King Jr. is widely known as one of the most popular Civil Right Activists of the 1960's. His assassination in 1968 left the Civil Rights Movement shaken. It took 15 years for the United States to officially recognize his birthday as a national holiday. A bill to recognize this holiday was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. It has since been a subject of extreme controversy. Most southern states already had Lee's birthday established as a holiday around the same time. Businesses did not want to give two holidays off of work this close together. This caused some states to make the decision to combine both birthdays into one day. The extreme opposing views of these two men have left many people confused about why their birthdays would be celebrated together. Many question why Lee's birthday is still being celebrated by any branch of the government, federal or local. With the recent removal of the Confederate flag from all government branches, whether or not Robert E. Lee's birthday will remain a state holiday in the years to come is up for debate. Noor Salman, wife of gunman Omar Mateen who carried out the deadly June 12th shooting in Orlando, Florida, was arrested by FBI agents in San Francisco today. Mateen was gunned down in a police shootout after he killed 49 people at Orlandos Pulse nightclub, leaving at least 68 people injured. Salman was taken into custody from her home outside San Francisco and faces two federal charges: aiding abetting in providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and obstruction of justice. She is expected to make her first court appearance on Tuesday in Oakland, California, and then she will be extradited to Tampa, Florida, where she was indicted. Noor Salman underwent hours being interviewed by investigators following her husband Omar Mateens murderous act. Salman told authorities that she knew about Mateens plans to carry out the attack at Pulse nightclub, but prosecutors continued to weigh charges against her since that time. Salman met Mateen, a security guard, online. The two married on September 29, 2011 in Contra Costa County, California. Life after unwanted attention in Central Florida Mateens widow moved several times since the horrendous mass killing, eventually leaving her Fort Pierce home to move back to her native California. She filed a petition in a California court to change the name of the 4-year-old child she shared with Omar Mateen so that he would not be identified as the son of a mass killer. In October, Salman told the New York Times that the attack left her feeling shattered and afraid, and that she often could not get out of bed. The United States unfortunate history of mass shootings Over the years, the U.S. has seen a disturbing amount of mass killings. The mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Omar Mateen is considered to be the nations deadliest terror attack since 9/11. Born in New York, Mateen had been interviewed by the FBI in 2013 and 2014, but was not deemed to be a threat. On the night of the Pulse shootings, Mateen called 911 to pledge his allegiance to ISIS. Around 2:00 a.m., he would strike fear and sadness into the hearts of Americans as he wiped out the lives of innocent people with an assault rifle and a pistol. Christina El Moussa and Gary Anderson may be dating. According to recent reports, the "Flip or Flop" star and mother of two has been linked to Anderson, who previously worked as the family's contractor. While the television personality recently returned to Instagram after taking some time off, she has chosen to keep her private life to herself and is instead focused on her children, including her 6-year-old daughter Taylor Reese and her 1-year-old son Brayden James. In addition to a recent Instagram photo of herself and Taylor, which was taken at Taylor's kindergarten class, Christina has appeared on Facebook, where she recently confirmed her children had gone to see Santa Claus. Why did Tarek and Christina split? Since announcing they had parted ways months ago, Christina and her husband have been faced with plenty of rumors in regard to why they chose to end their relationship. However, what is known is that the couple split in May and that same month, police were called to their Southern California home. Days ago, The Hollywood Gossip revealed that Gary Anderson had actually served as a witness during the alleged incident and said he spoke to police after it had occurred. According to Anderson, he saw Tarek bolt out of his home and head to a nearby hiking trail. Shortly thereafter, Anderson claimed, Christina emerged from the home shaking and crying and revealed Tarek had taken a gun. When did Christina's rumored romance with Gary Anderson begin? While Christina was not believed to have been involved romantically with Anderson at that time, the outlet claimed she was single just months later. Now, it is unclear if they are still dating -- or if they parted ways in recent months. Also unclear is Anderson's personal life. Although he has been tied to the El Moussas in a professional manner, no other details have been revealed. To see more of "Flip or Flop" couple Tarek and Christina El Moussa, tune in to new episodes of the HGTV house-flipping series on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. "Days Of Our Lives" is only on for four days this week. Friday the show will be pre-empted for the inauguration. The residents of Salem have no problems packing all the action into a shortened week. If you don't want to know what happens, don't continue to read. Spoilers follow! What is Deimos up to now? Chloe and Nicole overhear a sneaky Deimos as he is issuing a deadly threat to someone. Chloe already doesn't like him, but will Nicole try to overlook it and see the best in her fiance'? He is in a hurry to tie the knot and tries to persuade her to elope. He can't keep his dirty secrets forever! Brady contemplates the situation with Chloe and Holly. He finally confronts Chloe at the end of the week! This will be one of the cliffhangers for the long weekend for the cast of "Days of Our Lives". Eric is the new hero! Upon his release from prison, he rushes back to Salem and he manages to save Hope's life. He keeps her hidden from the police. While it looks like he is out to redeem himself, actor Greg Vaughn stated on Twitter that his return may be a bit darker than is expected. A turf war in the making! The shady business dealings only get worse when Ed and Dario realize that Deimos has their device. As it is coming to a war between Dario, Sonny, and Chad, both Gabi and Abigail figure out there is trouble. The two want to intervene and de-escalate the situation before it is too late. To complicate it even more, Chad is not happy that Dario is his wife's ally. Jennifer is very interested in JJ's dock investigation. He is upset, however, because his reporter Mom never should have looked at the documents he had from the police department! Jade and Joey move in with Ciara, Claire, and Theo. Valerie ends up helping Theo and Claire when they need tips on how to handle some bad publicity. Austin and Carrie are on Anna's heels as they worry that she will do something crazy and get in trouble again. In other trouble on the gang chasing Stefano, Steve gets shot! Kayla and Sonny plan a trip to reunite with Steve and Paul in Prague. Kate gives Eduardo the boot, but he wants her back! When "Saturday Night Live" returned over the weekend, it didn't come as a surprise that their cold open was devoted to Donald Trump. Following the broadcast, Trump and his transition team expressed outrage at the sketch-comedy show. Trump's team on "SNL" The theme of the most recent "Saturday Night Live" cold open revolved around Donald Trump and the press conference he hosted earlier this week. As with the press conference, Alec Baldwin, as Trump, mocked the president-elect for denying a CNN report that claimed Russia was using "compromising" information to blackmail him. The punch-line for the skit focused on the follow-up report by Buzzfeed, that reported unverified information about an alleged "golden shower" sex tape that involved the president-elect. The skit prompted Trump to respond the following day on Twitter, blasting the show and the cast. In addition, as reported by Mediaite on January 16, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was not happy with the show. Joining hosts Tamron Hall and Willie Geist on the "TODAY" show on NBC Monday morning was Sean Spicer. When asked his thoughts about the "Saturday Night Live" satirical press conference, Spicer referred to it as "disappointing." "It was not funny," Spicer said, labeling it as "mean-spirited." Spicer continued, explaining his view on why the show is no longer funny. Spicer Complains About Disappointing, Mean-Spirited SNL After Scathing Anti-Trump Sketch https://t.co/MzXeyFtBV4 pic.twitter.com/zTlKQVS8kF Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 16, 2017 "It's gone from being a show you could sit back and get a good laugh out of to being something that's frankly mean and bad television," Sean Spicer went on to say. Spicer's comments come less than 24 hours after Donald Trump lashed out at "SNL" and NBC during a rant on Twitter. "NBC News is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC," the president-elect tweeted, calling the show "Not funny," while describing the cast as "terrible." .@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017 Moving forward While Donald Trump and his transition team don't seem to be happy with the direction of "Saturday Night Live," the show has received rave reviews from critics. Alec Baldwin, who has played the title role of Trump for some time, announced that he would discontinue his impression if the president-elect would release his tax returns. As of press time, Trump has not responded to Baldwin's challenge. With Trump headed into the White House in less than a week, it's expected that "SNL" will have plenty of material to work with over the next four years. The 74th annual Golden Globes will likely be remembered as the night award-winning actress Meryl Streep made the Hollywood case against Donald Trump. After Trump responded in typical fashion to Streep, other celebrities came to her defense. Trump faces backlash Meryl Streep came on stage at the 2017 Golden Globes to accept the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award, but instead of speaking about her career, she took aim at Donald Trump. Without even mentioning his name, Streep gave a speech that lasted nearly six minutes in length, making sure to give a passionate take on why the billionaire real estate mogul should not have won the election. Trump's first response came during an early morning interview with The New York Times where he dismissed Streep's remarks, referring to her as a "Hillary lover." The next morning, Trump bashed the actress in a series of tweets, but received backlash from several celebrities, as seen on Twitter on January 9. Trump's response to Meryl Streep--childish, churlish, petulant--is exactly why most Americans fear his presidency. Emtoionally unqualified. Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 9, 2017 "Trump's response to Meryl Streep--childish, churlish, petulant--is exactly why most Americans fear his presidency," author Stephen King wrote on Twitter, before adding, "Emotionally unqualified." "Meryl Streep was eloquent tonight. We must never stop saying what needs to said," actor and director Rob Reiner added on his Twitter page, also noting, "We must never normalize an unstable lying infantile POTUS." Meryl Streep was eloquent tonight. We must never stop saying what needs to said. We must never normalize an unstable lying infantile POTUS. Rob Reiner (@robreiner) January 9, 2017 "A bigger man would own his mistake and apologize for mocking him. A better president would take criticism without name calling on Twitter," actor George Takei wrote. In a follow-up tweet, Takei continued to point out how Donald Trump mocked a disabled reporter, something Meryl Streep noted in her Golden Globes speech. "Donald, we all saw you mock that disabled reporter. You also mocked Marlee Matlin as 'retarded,' Takei noted, while also stating, "Just admit you're a bully--and a liar." A bigger man would own his mistake and apologize for mocking him. A better president would take criticism without name calling on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/bKTfW0OcnD George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 9, 2017 Donald, we all saw you mock that disabled reporter. You also mocked Marlee Matlin as "retarded." Just admit you're a bully--and a liar. pic.twitter.com/xaw98h7DnT George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 9, 2017 Rosie responds As part of her routine shots at the former host of "The Apprentice," actress and former talk show host, Rosie O'Donnell, was not shy about giving her thoughts on Trump's reaction to the Meryl Streep speech. "The worlds best actress spoke the truth about you - the world worst human and biggest liar," O'Donnell wrote, while adding the hashtags "#TheResistance" and "#uSUCK." @realDonaldTrump - the worlds best actress spoke the truth about you - the world worst human and biggest liar #TheResistance #uSUCK ROSIE (@Rosie) January 9, 2017 Trump's defense Donald Trump referred to Meryl Streep as "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood," and a "Hillary flunky." Streep, who has been nominated for over 400 awards over her illustrious career, appeared to hit a nerve with Trump. With just over a week until he is sworn into office, the battle between Trump and Hollywood doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. A hotel employee prepares for the opening ceremony of the first annual meeting of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing. [Photo/Agencies] One year after opening with 57 charter members, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank would still welcome the US to join its ranks, the bank's president Jin Liqun has said. "The door will remain open," Jin said in a television interview, when asked whether he expected the US to reconsider becoming a member. He said: "We maintain a consistent policy. The AIIB is a multilateral development institution." Approximately 30 economies are waiting to join, Jin said at the bank's headquarters in Beijing. The lender, with $100 billion of pledged capitalpart of China's push to expand the nation's economic benefits to others, backed nine projects in seven countries last year. Before it opened in January 2016, US President Barack Obama rejected joining, only to see several of its closest allies sign up. Now Beijing is preparing for the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, who's already straining ties before taking office on Jan 20. Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank President Jin Liqun. Jin, a former deputy finance minister who also has worked at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank on China's behalf, is still optimistic despite recent tensions. He said: "We can work very well together." He added that senior officials in the US government, including both Democrats and Republicans, have shared with him their praise for the new institution. He said: "I'm encouraged by the very positive comments on the AIIB." The AIIB got a boost last year when the UK, Germany, France and Italy became members. Other US allies such as Australia, South Korea and Canada also joined, leaving the US and Japan as the only nations to hold off joining. The AIIB's inaugural projects ranged from a slum upgrading project in Indonesia to a new pipeline linking gas fields in Azerbaijan to markets in southern Europe, via Turkey. The bank lent $1.73 billion in 2016, exceeding an earlier target of $1.2 billion. Jin said 75 percent of the bank's projects so far are proposed and co-financed with existing lenders, including the Washington-based World Bank, Manila-based ADB and London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while AIIB staff selected the remainder. The AIIB will continue to collaborate closely with those other multilateral lenders while beefing up its own capability and working to increase its disbursements, according to Jin. "The pipeline is getting bigger," and the bank's priority is to "have a better balance across the regions, countries and sectors," he said. Jin, one of the first postgraduate students to study English literature after China's cultural revolution (196676), is fluent in English and French and translated The House of Morgan, a book on the JP Morgan empire by US author Ron Chernow, into Chinese in 1996. He also served as supervisory chairman of the country's sovereign wealth fund. Now, he said, he's confident the country's economy will fare well during its transition to new drivers of growth. He said: "China is faced with a number of challenges, particularly restructuring the economy, moving from excessive dependence on external sectors to domestic consumption, and improving the efficiency of the Chinese economy, not aiming at simply the numbers of the growth." Factories and services activities capped a year of strengthening across several indicators. But under the hood, risks remain: Increasing pressure on the yuan, rising capital outflows and concern Trump may make good on threats of punitive measures against China's exports. Foreign reserves fell for a sixth month in December, bringing the 2016 drop to $320 billion. The government has recently announced new measures, including extra requirements for citizens converting yuan into foreign currencies. Jin said: "Some measure to address this issue in my view probably is necessary. I hope things would stabilize very soon, and panicking on part of investors would disappear." He said the global economic outlook this year is more positive than last year. "If you look at the short-term cyclical recovery, and long-term trend, these two factors seem to be doing pretty well," Jin said. "That would in my view favor infrastructure investment both in emerging market economies and in developed countries, which in turn will help sustain growth. It is gratifying to learn that even in the US, they would like to spend more money on infrastructure." Rice noodles with snails, a signature dish sold at street stalls in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, are being exported to the United States, a company said. A combination of Han, Miao and Dong cuisine, "luosifen" is made from pickled bamboo, dried turnip, fresh vegetables and peanuts, and served in a spicy noodle broth flavored with river-snails. In Liuzhou city, Guangxi, luosifen is usually sold from roadside stands or in night markets. On Jan 13, about 50,000 packets of such noodles, worth about 600,000 yuan (about $87,000), were shipped to the United States, said Jia Defa, manager of Liuzhou Luozhuangyuan Food Company Ltd. The popular local cuisine has entered international market long ago, but has never been officially exported due to standards compliance problems. With improved technology and quality control, companies in Liuzhou are now able to produce noodles compliant with international standards. Luozhuangyuan was cleared by the inspection and quarantine agency to export last year, and the recent shipment was the first to be exported to the United States and Canada with customs clearance. Listed as an intangible cultural heritage for Guangxi in 2008, the dish was featured in the hit foodie-travel show A Bite of China in 2012. According to Liuzhou government, there are more than 5,000 Luosifen noodle shops on Taobao, with 200,000 packets sold everyday. In 2016, sales of the noodles generated 1.5 billion yuan. Related: New Year's menu gets royal touch at McDonald's Quanjude uses QR codes to curb counterfeiting video video video video The Chinese President arrived in Switzerland on Sunday for a state visit and to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos. It is the first time a Chinese president has taken part in the Davos summit. He told dignitaries at a welcoming event at Zurich Airport that his visit was intended to create a positive impetus for the recovery of the world economy. China has a great opportunity to take the lead on advocating for globalization and greater openness at a time of uncertainty in the West, says Richard Graham, the British MP who is chairman of the All Party Parliamentary China Group. "The danger of 2017 is the world closes in on itself," he said. "The question is: What can be done to maintain globalization and retract protectionism? So, China's role is particularly important because of the size of its economy and her ambitions overseas." Graham spoke to China Daily ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which China's President Xi Jinping will attend. Xi led a forum of Asia Pacific leaders in Peru in November that vowed to fight protectionism, just days after Donald Trump won the US election after pledging to pull out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. Graham said China has a chance to spearhead growth through large umbrella projects, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, that will enhance trade and investment between Asia and Europe through infrastructure spending. "That benefits wide parts of the world, and influences economic expansion," said Graham. The UK can contribute valuable cultural understanding in parts of Africa and the Commonwealth and its expertise in project management, planning and design could also be useful in infrastructure projects, he explained. Graham said the countries discussed collaboration on such projects in Afghanistan, when Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi met Prime Minister Theresa May in London in December. The British government has announced it will invest up to $50 million in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, for a fund to help Belt and Road countries prepare infrastructure programs. This month saw another milestone reached with the launch of a new Chinese rail freight service along the Belt and Road route. Graham said China has shown increased international leadership due to its growing ambitions and confidence. Xi's attendance at Davos is "another symbolic step forward in China's presence on the global stage" which has "been accelerating considerably, partly as a result of the growth in confidence, continued economic success and very stable political situation, against a situation in the West where we've had a major financial crisis, from which many countries are still recovering". The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath have led some in the West to question the benefits of globalization, leading to support for protectionism. But in China, outward expansion and domestic market liberalization momentum are continuing, Graham said. He hopes the UK will welcome opportunities to "engage more and more with China" on such things as the UK China Free Trade Agreement suggested by British Chancellor Philip Hammond in July. BANGKOK - Thailand and Russia on Monday discussed boosting arms deals and cooperation in defense industry development, as the Russian envoy met with Thai chief of the Defense Forces Gen. Surapong Suwana-adth. Russian Ambassador to Thailand Kirill Barsky and the Thai defense chief discussed matters of common interests, including defense industry which could possibly be jointly developed in Thailand for use by the Thai armed forces, said an official attached to the Thai defense headquarters. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Deputy Prime Minister, also Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan visited Moscow last year to strengthen bilateral ties and strengthen arms deals and joint defense industry development, among other issues. During his visit, Prayut placed a purchase order for 10 Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters from Russia for a combined price of 86 million US dollars. The Russian helicopters will be deployed in addition to the army's fleet of US-built CH-47 Chinook utility helicopters. In another development, Thai air force chief ACM Jom Rungsawang described his JAS 39C Gripen jet fighters as "highly maneuverable and cost-effective". The air force bought a dozen JAS 39 Gripen fighters for a combined cost of about 11.7 billion US dollars and might probably buy four more in the future. On Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced it has ordered Michigan-based Flagstar Bank to pay $37.5 million over violations of mortgage servicing rules that went into effect at the beginning of the year. According to the CFPB, Flagstar harmed borrowers attempts to remain in their homes by failing to send notice when applications for foreclosure relief were not complete, denying loan modifications to eligible customers and taking too long to finalize approved mortgage modifications. This is the CFPBs first enforcement action under its new mortgage servicing rules that went into effect in January. Because of Flagstars illegal actions and unacceptable delays, struggling homeowners lost their opportunity to save their homes, said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The Bureau has been clear that mortgage servicers must follow our new servicing rules and treat homeowners fairly. Todays action signals a new era of enforcement to protect consumers against the cost of servicer runarounds. Flagstar Bank is a federal savings bank and servicer that administers foreclosure relief programs provided by loan holders. Servicers collect and apply mortgage payments, work out loan modifications and handle foreclosure. Consumers do not have the option to take their business to another company and are forced to stick with their servicer, Cordray stressed. The bureaus investigation found that from 2011 to 2014, Flagstar did not devote enough resources to administering loss mitigation programs for homeowners. In 2011, the bank had 13,000 active applications for loss mitigation, but just 25 full-time employees and an India-based third-party vendor assigned to reviews. During one period of the investigation, staff took up to 9 months to review a single application. The average wait time for a caller to the loss mitigation center was close to half an hour, and about half of callers gave up waiting. The bureau found that, due to the banks delays, required documents expired. Flagstaff frequently miscalculated borrower income, wrongfully denying modifications due to erroneously calculated income. While the new mortgage servicing rules require servicers to provide a specific reason for a mitigation application to be denied, Flagstaff policy was to state only that the application was not approved for loss mitigation options by the investor/owner of the loan, although its internal system did have a specific reason. The CFPB has ordered Flagstar to pay $27.5 million to about 6,500 consumers whose loans were serviced by Flagstar and subjected to illegal practices. A minimum of $20 million of this money will go toward nearly 2,000 foreclosure victims, who retain the right to take individual action after the settlement. The servicer must also pay a $10 million civil penalty to the CFPB Civil Penalty Fund. The Democratic National Committee is the latest to jump on the impeach Obama bandwagon with a new fundraising email it sent out to supporters. The email featured the single word impeachment in the subject line. In the email, which was sent to Obama for America supporters, it begs them to contribute to the DNCs 2014 campaign efforts to help retake the House of Representatives. It warns, This year, Republicans held their first committee hearing on impeaching President Obama. It then goes on to ask for a donation. A similar email featured quotes from Republicans such as Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas who have previously discussed the possibility that actions taken by Obama may have risen to the level of impeachment by committing high crimes and misdemeanors as outlined in the Constitution. Among the many actions taken by the president are the unilaterally rewriting of his own health care law to issue waivers and move deadlines that are clearly specified in law, as well as the suspension of provisions without congressional approval to change the clear language in the law. Another item mentioned includes Fast and Furious, where the federal government told gun dealers to allow large quantities of weapons to be sold to known drug dealers and members of the Mexican drug cartels. Following the sales, the government then used the sale of American weapons to cartel members to argue for stricter gun control. The government even went so far as to threaten prosecution to some dealers who sold the weapons, despite their being told to allow the sale to go through. Additionally, the IRSs targeting of conservative groups in an attempt to silence them from criticizing the president has been cited as another abuse of power. The IRS even went so far as to demand the content of prayers conducted by individuals in the organization. Congressional investigations revealed the targeting was known by the White House and that IRS officials even shared confidential information with outside agencies, a clear violation of federal law. The topic of impeachment has even been the subject of a detailed book on the idea, which was given to every member of Congress. The email said that, Republicans are actually excited about the idea. However, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, who is a candidate for governor of Colorado, said while he believes Obama has taken actions against the Constitution that clearly warrants impeachment, he does not believe it will ever happen because they do not want to go down in history as impeaching the first black president. Personally, I dont think they will do it, regardless of whether they have a duty to do so or not, because they dont want to rock the boat. At least six pilgrims died while returning from Ganga Sagar fair in Kachuberia, West Bengal, on Sunday, which the officials initially said was a stampede but the state government later claimed it was not. District officials initially said two pilgrims died on the spot and three, including the woman in the hospital. The incident occurred at around 6 pm when there was a huge rush of pilgrims to board vessels to reach Kolkata, the officials said, adding all of them were middle aged and are yet to be identified. A search has been launched by naval divers to find out anybody who might have fallen into Buriganga river during the incident, the officials said. Later however, Sundarbans Development Minister Manturam Pakhira said that six elderly women died after falling ill during a rush to board a vessel at a jetty in South 24 Parganas district while returning from the Ganga Sagar fair. The incident occurred when there was a mad rush of pilgrims to board vessels at jetty number 5 to reach Kolkata, he said. A few people fell unconscious while several took ill during the incident, he said, adding they were taken to a nearby temporary healthcare centre where six people, all elderly women, died. "These women were very old. Most of them were above 75 years of age and were very weak. They died natural death. Doctors said that they died of heart attack," Pakhira said. "The rush was because there would be no vessel for about eight hours due to low tide," he said. State ministers Subrata Mukherjee and Arup Biswas also denied that it was a stampede. After the initial reports, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted: 'Saddened by the loss of lives caused by a stampede in West Bengal. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased.' The Prime Minister's Office also tweeted: '(The) PM approved ex gratia from PMNRF, of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured in the stampede in WB.' South 24 Parganas' District Magistrate P B Salim said the state government would provide a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each of the deceased. He also denied that any stampede had taken place in Kachuberia as reported earlier. A total 16 lakh pilgrims took the holy dip in two days on the occasion of Makar Sankranti at Ganga Sagar. Salim said there were eight deaths at Ganga Sagar mela last year mainly because of cold weather condition which rose to nine this year -- from January 12 till Sunday. Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress national spokesperson Derek O'Brien denied the report of any stampede at Ganga Sagar. 'Setting record straight. District M has also clarified. Gangasagar Mela has ended peacefully. No stampede (sic),' he said in a tweet. IMAGE: Visuals from the spot right after the incident. Photograph: ANI 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. Hanoi (VNA) Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation arrived in Hanoi on January 15 afternoon, concluding their four-day official visit to China at the invitation of Chinese General Secretary and President Xi Jinping. During the visit, Party General Secretary Trong held talks with Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, and had meetings with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Yu Zhengsheng, and Secretary of the Party Central Committees Commission for Discipline Inspection Wang Qishan. The Vietnamese Party leader also attended a function celebrating the 67th anniversary of Vietnam-China diplomatic relations and the Lunar New Year 2017. The two sides signed 15 cooperation documents in various fields and issued a 10-point joint communique. Through the talks and meetings, the two sides informed each other of the situation in each country, exchanged opinions and reached consensus on deepening the relationship between the two Parties and countries in the new era. They also exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern. The two sides held that Vietnam and China are two neighbouring countries with long traditional friendship; both are socialist nations led by the Communist Party; and the sustainable development of each country and the friendship and good cooperation are of great importance to both nations. The two sides consented that the Vietnam-China traditional relationship nurtured by Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong and generations of leaders is a precious asset of the two Parties, States, and peoples and need to be inherited, preserved and promoted in the new situation. The two sides agreed to maintain and increase the traditional exchanges of Vietnam-China high-ranking visits and contact, and make the best of the coordination role of exchange and cooperation mechanisms between the two Parties and countries and deepen exchanges and cooperation in diplomacy, defence , security and law enforcement. The two sides agreed to further boost practical cooperation in economy, trade, agriculture, environment, science-technology and transport, and encourage Chinas major enterprises to invest in projects suitable with Vietnams demand and sustainable development. Vietnam recommended China to increase the import of highly competitive Vietnamese goods and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to invest and do business in China. The two sides highlighted the need to promote exchanges between the Vietnamese and Chinese people, especially young generations, to enhance their mutual understanding and friendship. The two sides also frankly and sincerely discussed sea-related issues and agreed to boost coordination and cooperation at multilateral frameworks, together preserving peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. VNA /VNP Some major SOEs will be equitised in this period, like the Viet Nam National Chemical Group, Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group and the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. Photo baodautu.vn By Thuy Anh The process of equitising State-owned enterprises, which has been slower than expected, is likely to get a boost after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently instructed Minister of Finance inh Tien Dung to take charge of the task and achieve a breakthrough. The fact that this is the first time that a prime mister has assigned such a mission to his finance minister indicates Phucs determination to both speed up the process and make specific organisations and individuals accountable. Speaking at a recent conference on budget finance, where the PM called for speeding up the equitisation process and State firms divestment from non-core businesses, he said he wants a smaller public sector and every SOE to be strong. To achieve a breakthrough, I urge the finance minister to act as the commander, taking the key responsibility in this battle and coming up with policies and mechanisms to achieve the goal. He also instructed the finance ministry to improve the legal framework for the capital and securities markets to international standards. The ministry has been taking the charge of working out recommendations and offering consultancy to the Government on equitisation related issues such as corporate valuation and sticking SOE equitisation to listing (the equitisation followed by listing) on the countrys stock exchanges. Speaking about the equitisation process in 2011 15, the Steering Committee on Corporate Renovation and Development said despite certain accomplishments, it has yet to reach the desired quality or quantity. In the past 15 years the number of SOEs has fallen from around 6,000 to over 700. Between 2011 and 2015 almost 600 SOEs were equitised, or 96 per cent of the targeted number. But a mere 8 per cent of the companies shares were sold to the public and the State still holds 92 per cent, and this has been blamed on the small size of the IPOs. The Government recently announced a change in strategy. Prime Ministers Decision 58/2016/Q-TTg issued last month fixes the rate of State ownership in individual firms that are to be equitised rather than the sector-wise rate the Government used to fix earlier. Attached to the decision is a list of 103 SOEs in which the Government will retain 100 percent stake and another 137 that will be equitised in 2016 20. Of the latter, the Government will keep a 65 per cent stake in four firms, 50-65 per cent stakes in 27 and less than 50 per cent in the remaining 106. Some major SOEs will be equitised in this period, like the Vietnam National Coal Mineral Industries Holding Corp., Vietnam National Chemical Group, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group, and the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. 6.6% GDP growth forecast Viet Nams GDP is expected to grow at 6.6 per cent this year following a drought-induced slowdown in 2016, according to Standard Chartered Banks Global Research Briefing. Strong manufacturing growth and increased construction activity are likely to remain the key growth drivers in 2017. The report expects the 2017 global GDP growth to remain unchanged at 1.5 per cent and be driven by emerging markets. The year 2017 is shaping up to be an exciting but volatile year. The potential reflation of the US economy is fuelling optimism, but we think this is overdone, as tightening financial conditions may stunt growth before fiscal stimulus takes root. Tighter conditions are also likely to unleash further volatility, leading to re-pricing of risk in many emerging markets, Marios Maratheftis, the banks chief economist, said. But the bank remains upbeat about the outlook for Viet Nam, which it believes is getting back on track after the drought. Most macro-economic indicators in Viet Nam have improved in recent months, and progress continues to be made in establishing appropriate macro-economic stability, Nirukt Sapru, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam, said. We believe Viet Nam will continue to be an attractive destination for investment. Chidu Narayanan, SCBs economist, Asia, said: We expect FDI inflows in Viet Nam to slow mildly in 2017 but still remain high, at close to US$10 billion. The country has benefited from its participation in regional trade pacts, which has helped to attract significant investment. We see minimal negative impact on Viet Nam from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) potentially not going through, as FDI in anticipation of the TPP had been front-loaded. The report expects Viet Nams exports to increase only moderately, capped by still-slow demand from markets such as the US and the EU. It also expects unchanged policy rates and a slight devaluation of the dong and neutral short- and medium-term foreign exchange weightings on the currency. More flexible legal framework needed to resolve bad debts State Bank of Vietnam Governor Le Minh Hung has said he wants greater involvement of foreign investors in the process of restructuring the countrys commercial banks and handling their bad debts. He agreed at a recent banking conference on the need for a new law to assist banks in the two tasks. Existing regulations however require strategic investors to be financial institutions with a charter capital of more than US$1 billion and total assets of $10 billion. Vo Tan Hoang Van, general director of Saigon Commercial Bank, said there is no need to restrict the participation to financial institutions. Non-financial players should also be considered since they would consult prestigious organisations and experts in the field on restructuring banks and improving the governance and risk management systems, he said. He also called for increasing foreign investors ownership cap in a credit institution from the current 30 per cent to 49 per cent or more. HSBC Vietnam CEO Pham Hong Hai said the Government should buy part of the bad debts, which would encourage foreign investors to follow suit. VIB general director Han Ngoc Vu said foreign debt buyers are discouraged since the law does not allow them to own the properties mortgaged for the loans they buy. He said foreign debt buyers should be allowed to set up a debt trading firm after the purchase of a mortgaged property, and the sellers should be authorised to manage the properties and sell them to repay the money to the debt trading firm. -- VNS HA NOI The Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Friday delivered documents to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) regarding the management of 877 formula milk products for children less than six years old. The Domestic Market Department under the MoIT will be responsible for managing the prices of these products. According to Decree No 149/N-CP dated November 11, 2016, enacted by the Government to supplement and revise some articles of Decree No 177/2013/N-CP, the management of milk prices for children less than six years old will be the responsibility of the MoIT in 2017. At present, the country has 877 registered formula products for children below six years old. Their registered and maximum prices are publicised on the portals of the MoF and local financial departments. Since June 2014, baby formulas have been placed on the list of subsidized products, with a cap on ceiling prices of 600 products, as a range of solutions, including price registration and announcements, had not been effective. The difference between retail and wholesale prices has not exceeded 15 per cent. Earlier, the MoIT refused to manage milk prices for children of less than six years old. However, Decree No 149/N-CP officially handed over the responsibility to the ministry. The MoIT said the Law on Prices stipulates that the MoF had chaired and co-operated with relevant ministries, agencies and provincial peoples committees to monitor factors building prices for goods and services under the price stabilisation list, including formula milk products for children less than six years old. This was the reason that the MoF should continue to manage the price, or co-operate with the Ministry of Health (MoH), to manage the products prices. The MoIT will continue to co-operate with MoF and MoH in implementing State management on market development and distribution systems, including formula milk and other supplementary dietary products for children less than six years old, it added. Based on the realities of the operation and management of milk prices in recent years, the Ministry of Finance recognized that the role of the Ministry of Industry and Trade was very important, from importing to trading milk in the market, because more than 70 per cent of powder milk supply sources in Vietnam were imported. On September 10th, 2015, the Ministry of Finance sent a report to the Government reviewing past rules and practices on the management of milk products for children under 6 years old, and the need to transfer the task of managing the price of milk products for children under 6 years old to the MoIT. VNS HA NOI Nearly 200 Vietnamese enterprises are participating in the component supply chain used by three Samsung plants in Viet Nam, including 20 tier-1 vendors and 178 tier-2 vendors. Also, Samsung plans to raise the number of level-1 suppliers in Viet Nam to 29 this year, said Han Myoungsup, President of Samsung Complex Viet Nam. Several local companies were able to join Samsungs production chain, showing that Viet Nams support industry could be developed if domestic firms know how to take advantage of the opportunities provided by large enterprises. Samsung Viet Nams management board last week visited and surveyed the two companies, An Lap Plastic Co Ltd in Ha Nois Long Bien District and Viet Hung Plastic Co Ltd in Hung Yen Province. It also worked directly with three other suppliers, including PTE Company, Minh Nguyen Company and Viet Hung Plastic Co Ltd in HCM City. This field survey is part of Samsungs programme to provide experts to help Vietnamese vendors improve their capacity to join Samsungs supply chain. Samsung Viet Nam has also recorded a significant breakthrough in raising the localisation rate of products, from 35 per cent in 2014 to 51 per cent in 2016. This is a great contribution that helps made-in-Viet Nam products become popular worldwide, Han said. Samsungs five-vendor visit is part of the supporting programme of Samsungs experts for Vietnamese businesses. Accordingly, Samsungs experienced experts from South Korea have directly assisted the five enterprises in the past three months to improve their production process to assure they meet Samsungs criteria. They are also five of 14 Vietnamese vendors who have received Samsungs direct assistance since September 2015. This supporting programme has also confirmed a strong commitment of Samsung, in response to a call by the Government of Viet Nam, which is increasing the localisation rate and the presence of Vietnamese enterprises in Samsungs component supply chain. I do hope that, through Samsungs supporting programme, Vietnamese enterprises could gain the knowledge and experience to enhance their capacities. Samsung believes that if a product can be localised, we will maximize its localised content," Han added. Hoang Anh Tuan, President of Viet Hung Plastic Company, said their turnover has seen rapid growth since they have been supplying packaging to Samsung. Last year, their sales to Samsung accounted for half of their total VN2 trillion (US$88.9 million) turnover. Our largest advantage from Samsungs supporting programme is the change in mindset. We commit to always learning and changing in order to apply experience from Samsung in the best way, Tuan added. Being suppliers to Samsung could be a quality measurement to help local firms easily participate into other value chains. We are also a packaging supplier to LG and Canon, he noted. He emphasised that joining the supply chain for Samsung has been transparent and open to all businesses. Those seek to participate in the chain without sufficient capacity would be immediately removed. Truong Quang Khoi, An Laps director, said they have opportunities to modernise their company after joining the Samsung production chain. We have received support from Samsung to upgrade our workshops, equipment and technology, as well as to learn effective management models, he added. Samsung Electronics is one of the largest foreign investors in Viet Nam, with three manufacturing plants in Bac Ninh (SEV), Thai Nguyen (SEVT) and HCM City (SEHC). With an export turnover of over $37 billion in 2016, Samsung Electronics in Viet Nam contributed 20 per cent to Viet Nams exports. This year, Samsung Electronics in Viet Nam has set a target of 7-10 per cent growth in export turnovers. Samsung aims to not only turn Viet Nam into the worlds smartphones and electronic appliance production base, but also create more opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises in the field of supporting industries to become involved in Samsungs global supply chain. VNS HA NOI The Ministry of Finance has proposed, in a draft law, to almost triple the environmental protection tax on oil and gas consumption from the current VN3,000 (US$0.13) to VN8,000 per litre. The draft will be submitted for approval to the Government in June and the National Assembly in October. The new draft law also added E5 bio-fuel and E10 ethanol blend fuel to include in the environmental protection taxes of VN2,700-7,200 and VN2,500-6.800 per litre, respectively, though the products are considered cleaner and environmentally friendly than others. In addition, the tax on aviation fuel was suggested to be increased from the current VN1,000-3,000 to VN3,000-6,000 per litre. The tax on diesel fuel is expected to increase from the current VN500-2,000 to VN1,500-4,000 per litre, while that of mazut would also go up to VN900-4,000 from VN300-2,000 per kilo. Plastic bags are also expected to see higher environmental taxes, rising from VN30,000-50,000 to VN40,000-80,000 per kilo, if the draft is approved. Earlier, Minister of Finance o Hoang Anh Tuan acknowledged that the sector would continue promoting the collection of environmental protection taxes. This year, the ministry would expand categories to be taxed. Tuan said if the current environmental protection tax on petroleum was increased over the ceiling level, the value of collections would be 10 to 20 times higher than the direct collection from non-agricultural land use. The ministry said the increased tax on some natural resources, and environmental protection on petroleum, had contributed to the domestic collection, thus easing difficulties for the State budget. Experts believed that the proposed increase in the environmental protection tax would also raise gasoline costs in the country. Vo Tri Thanh, deputy head of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said the Government should review the application of both special consumption taxes and environmental protection taxes, since the special consumption tax includes environmental fees. Meanwhile, economist Nguyen Minh Phong said a hike in the environmental protection tax had been a method for increasing the State budget through petroleum prices. However, whether the tax was spent on environmental protection should be clarified, as there has been no specific report on the issue. The necessary issue is how to use the collection effectively, transparently and following the current laws, Phong added. In 2014, a similar hike was imposed, raising taxes from VN1,000 to VN3,000, which the ministry referred to as a good way to stabilise the national budget. According to the current law on environmental protection taxes issued in 2012, products such as oil, gas, grease, coal, and plastic bags are subject to these types of tariffs. Statistics from the ministry also indicated that the environmental protection tax contributed from 1.5 to 4.1 per cent of the annual revenue of the national budget. VNS ONG NAI Officials are deeply concerned about the serious degradation of water quality in the ong Nai River basin. Their anxiety was conveyed at the recently held 10th meeting of the Environmental Protection Commission of the Low Catchment Basin of the ong Nai River. This rivers catchment area covers 11 provinces and cities, including ong Nai, Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Ba Ria Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Long An, ak Nong, Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan, Lam ong and HCM City. From a socio-economic development perspective, the basin covers a crucially important region in the country. The ong Nai River supplies water to almost 20 million people living in urban areas and industrial zones in the lower basin. However, the increasing demand for water has caused serious problems with the surface water in the lower basin, with very serious contamination in some areas, particularly provinces situated in the southern economic region. Huynh Anh Minh, Vice Chairman of the Binh Phuoc Peoples Committee, said his province has three distributaries of the ong Nai River the Be, Sai Gon and a Dang rivers. However, the water of all the three rivers are contaminated with effluents from production units, industrial parks, poultry farms, healthcare clinics and other establishments. Everyday, some 29,700 cubic metres of effluents are dumped in the river, but as of now, only 70 dumping sources have been identified. Referring to another problem that threatens the health of the nations river systems, Nguyen Toan Thang, Director of HCM City Department of Natural Resources and Environment said the city is facing a lot of pressure in its natural resources management as well as the task of protecting the environment of neighbouring provinces. In 2016, the citys functional agencies seized and fined 37 boats mining sand from the rivers. In addition, city authorities also fined 15 boats transporting sand without proper papers, he said. Bad to worse Since 2003, protecting water sources in the ong Nai basin has been identified as the responsibility of all provinces sharing them. Thirteen years later, little progress has been made in protecting the environment, meeting participants agreed. In fact, they admitted that the problem has worsened, with the environmental quality deteriorating. Annual reports from the Environmental Protection Commission have repeatedly said that the water in the ong Nai Basin is being seriously polluted by contamination of its tributaries. For example, HCM City dumps a huge volume of wastewater onto the ong Nai River basin everyday. Meanwhile, the water in the ong Nai River itself has been contaminated by water discharge from industrial production, households and solid waste from Binh Duong and other provinces. Worse still, the rivers water is also being contaminated by dioxin from the Bien Hoa airport. Participants agreed on the need for strong, co-ordinated efforts by all provinces sharing the ong Nai Basin resources to protect the environment. Senior officials from Long An Province said violators often dumped their waste into the river in areas adjacent to two provinces or localities. They knew that even if they were caught red-handed, it would not be easy for authorities to punish them because it needed time for two localities/provinces to sit together to work out the sanctions. VNS HA NOI A documentary series entitled Sac Mau Nhat Ban (Colours of Japan) which showcases the best of Japanese gastronomy will be aired on Vietnamese television from February 3. This is the second season of the show Colours of Japan. The first show was aired last year and aimed to highlight the natural beauty of Japan. The show is a joint production by Vietnam Television (VTV) and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) Television in documentary film making. The eight-episode series will provide audiences with a taste of Japan. It presents the gastronomy of Japan, and the ways to combine Japanese ingredients with Vietnamese cooking techniques to create new and delicious dishes. In the show, Vietnamese television presenter Danh Tung will help audiences discover the gastronomy across seven Japanese prefectures and their specialities. The prefectures of Niigata, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Kagoshima, Oita and Fukuoka will be explored with journeys to those regions. Following Tungs footsteps, audiences can also watch him cook, creating new and attractive dishes which are a combination of ingredients found in Japan and traditional Vietnamese cooking styles and spices. He will also follow Japanese farmers and fishermen to look for ingredients. The production team hopes to create a cultural exchange through the gastronomy of Viet Nam and Japan. In this new show, audiences can not only discover Japanese culture, but also meet with presenters of Japans TBS Television, Vietnamese restaurant owners in Japan and Vietnamese students studying in Japan. They share a lot of information about Japan as well as the life of Vietnamese people in Japan, said Akira Izumi, Head of Global Business Development of TBS Television said. Tung said that these have been unforgettable experiences in his life. It is an excellent opportunity for me to discover the diversity of Japanese gastronomy as well as the beautiful landscapes here. Ive never enjoyed another country as much as Japan, he said. The eight episodes of the show will be screened on VTV3 (VTVs Channel 3) starting from February 3, at 4pm on Fridays. Each episode lasts 30 minutes. They are part of a co-operation project between VTV and TBS to enhance mutual understanding between the people of Viet Nam and Japan. The two television groups have co-operated to produce series such as Nguoi Cong Su (The Partner) in 2013 and Khuc Hat Mat Troi (The Suns Song), as well as the Sasuke Viet Nam game show, which have also been shown on VTVs Channel 3. VNS HA NOI Seven writers, poets and a translator have won Viet Nam Literature Association Awards for the year 2016. The awards were presented last Saturday at the Viet Nam Literature Museum. The seven award-winning works included: a short story collection Lan Gio Chay Qua (Breeze Flowing By) by Le Minh Khue; a novel, Mua o (Red Rain) by Chu Lai; an anthology of poems entitled To Quoc Nhin Tu Bien (Homeland From the Sea) by Nguyen Viet Chien; and another entitled Vu Khuc Tay (Tay Dances) written in Vietnamese and the Tay ethnic minority language by poet Y Phuong. The other award winners were non-fiction works: Giot Nuoc Trong La Sen (Water Droplet in Lotus Leaf) by Khuat Binh Nguyen and Nu Quyen Luan o Phap va Tieu Thuyet Nu Viet Nam uong ai (Womens Rights Discussion in France and Contemporary Vietnamese Female Novelists) by Tran Huyen Sam; and Nguyen Chi Hoans translation of Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall. A total of 174 literary works were nominated for the award this year, including 66 poems, 78 works of prose, 19 reviews and 11 translations. The winning works provided different perspectives on contemporary issues in the country. The creativity of award winners has contributed to the diversity of modern Vietnamese literature, said poet and vice chairman of the Viet Nam Literature Association Nguyen Quang Thieu. While Nguyen Viet Chiens poems were themed around the seas and islands in the country, Y Phuong focused on traditional culture in a modern world, he said. Le Minh Khues work conveyed humane messages while Chu Lai wrote of war in his poems. Both works both touched on contemporary problems in the country. The works of the two poets, Y Phuong and Nguyen Viet Chien, covered different themes in different styles and deserved the award, said Chairman of Viet Nam Literature Association, poet Huu Thinh. Khues work Breeze Flowing By was perfect. offering a fresh perspective to her work and of history, Thinh said. The novel Red Rain by Chu Lai looks back at the war fought in Quang Tri Province through the eyes of a soldier in the post-war period. Therefore, the work relates the truths, but does not re-evaluate the war and, instead, demonstrates the price of war, apart from bringing together soldiers of both sides, said Thieu. He also said that this year, an award was given for the first time for a purely critical work, discussing the expression of womens rights in Viet Nams contemporary novels. This is one of the few works that focuses entirely on womens rights, he added. The jury highly valued the translation of Wolf Hall by Nguyen Chi Hoan. The novel suggests a new way of writing in the historical novel genre and presents interesting facts in world history, as well as the culture and customs of Europe during the Medieval period. All of these aspects were well-expressed in the Vietnamese language by Hoan, said Thieu. The Viet Nam Literature Association also admitted 29 new members, including writers, poets and translators from across Viet Nam and abroad. The authors admitted this year are those who have proven their talent and commitment through notable works, said poet Tran ang Khoa, the associations vice chairman. VNS PACIFIC ISLANDS One of the Pacifics last traditional navigators, or wave pilots, has died in Majuro, but not before passing many of his skills onto a younger generation of Marshall Islanders. For thousands of years, Pacific islanders have sailed between remote atolls without navigation aids such as maps and compasses, instead using wave motion and stars to guide them across vast distances. Captain Korent Joel, 68, was a master of the ancient techniques, which were recently highlighted in the animated Disney feature Moana. Joel was determined these skills would not die with him and worked with the non-profit organisation Waan Aelon in Majel (WAM -- Canoes of the Marshall Islands) to teach youngsters. He also collaborated with international researchers keen to document his uncanny abilities and see if they could find a scientific explanation for them. His knowledge was also featured in several publications, including the New York Times. "Theoretically, a wave-pilot, dropped blindfolded into a boat in Marshallese waters, could follow a set of seamarks -- waves of a particular shape -- alone to land," the Times reported. Because Joel was also a licensed ship captain, he understood both traditional and Western navigation, giving him the ability to communicate his knowledge to outsiders as well as Marshallese. Stories about his navigation skills abound. WAM director Alson Kelen was with Joel in a small yacht sailing between Kwajalein and Ujae atolls when they were hit by high winds which blew them off course. Joel woke from a sleep and immediately told the crew they were heading the wrong way, even though it was pitch dark and raining heavily with no stars visible. They followed his directions and were amazed when dawn broke a few hours later and Ujae came into view. Once when Kelen was lost and radioed Joel for advice, the veteran wayfinder told to him "feel it" and read the swells. Kelen said that navigators such as Joel were traditionally a vital part of the ocean-going society -- with knowledge about how to plant seeds, build canoes, organise the community and protect the reef. He said the knowledge Joel has passed on was helping inspire young Marshallese to become marine biologists, oceanographers and take up other marine-related skills. "Its amazing how much we lost... I hope what Captain Korent started with other navigators wont stop now," he said. "This is the blueprint not just for navigation, but for life in the Marshall Islands." Joel was buried on Saturday, two weeks after he died in the capital Majuro. AFP PASADENA, UNITED STATES Reese Witherspoon, fed up with Hollywood gender bias, is calling for an end to the practice of handing excellent actresses only "thankless roles." "Ive just had enough. Things have to change," Witherspoon said during a press event in Pasadena, California. "We have to start seeing women as they really are on film. We have to. And not just in movie theaters on a tiny budget." The new HBO series Big Little Lies, in which she stars alongside Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern, is directed by Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee. "We need to see real womens experience, whether it involves domestic violence, whether it involves sexual assault, whether it involves motherhood or romance or infidelity or divorce," said Witherspoon, 40. Hollywood is regularly faulted for failing to give substantial roles to women, especially those older than 35. In a 2016 report, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) warned that womens place in the American film industry was slipping. It said women were underrepresented, saw no employment gains in Hollywood compared to their male counterparts, and suffered losses in eight of 11 job arenas examined while struggling in the other three. The highly anticipated Big Little Lies, whose script based on Liane Moriartys eponymous novel was written by David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal and Goliath), marks Witherspoons first major role in a TV production. It airs starting on February 19. Witherspoon, winner of an Oscar for her role in Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, is also a producer. She has focused on films with women in the lead role, such as Gone Girl. She recalled having often been the only woman on set for years. "Its very rare to find five roles in one piece that wed all jump at a chance to play," agreed Kidman. AFP ZHEJIANG Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has urged leaders of Chinas Zhejiang Province to boost exchanges and co-operation with Vietnamese localities, making practical contributions to the development of Viet Nam-China relations. The Vietnamese Party leader spoke yesterday at a meeting with Xia Baolong, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee of Zhejiang, at the end of his January 12 to 15 visit to China. He congratulated the leaders and people of Zhejiang on their outstanding reform process, especially in pursuing a harmony of social and economic development, developing State-owned enterprises, protecting the environment, preserving and promoting cultural traditions, improving living conditions for local residents and accelerating international integration. Xia briefed the Vietnamese delegation about the provinces socio-economic achievements and major future directions, as well as its cooperative ties with Vietnamese ministries, sectors and localities. He stressed that economic, trade, tourism and educational co-operation between Zhejiang and Vietnamese localities are developing fruitfully, adding the provincial authorities are willing to facilitate these cooperative relations. Meeting with representatives of Chinese businesses in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province on the same day, Party General Secretary Trong underscored the important role that business-to-business co-operation plays in enhancing bilateral relations between Viet Nam and China. He said Viet Nam attaches great importance to its economic, trade and investment ties with China, and works to create favourable conditions for businesses of both countries to enhance co-operation. As an emerging market with a population of 92 million and an annual average growth rate of 6-7 per cent, Viet Nam is considered one of the most potential and attractive markets for foreign investment, he said. General Secretary Trong welcomed Chinese investment in Viet Nam, particularly in projects using advanced and environmentally friendly technologies, agriculture, high-tech industries, supporting industry, clean and renewable energy, and high-quality human resource development. Liang Liming, Vice Governor of Zhejiang, expressed his hope that the meeting with the Vietnamese Party leader will help increase partnerships among Chinese and Vietnamese enterprises and localities in high technology, logistics, agricultural production, processing and export, while enhancing friendship and exchanges between the two peoples, especially the youth. He told his guests that Zhejiang has enjoyed a long partnership with Viet Nams Thua Thien-Hue Province and other localities. As many as 26 Vietnamese companies have so far invested in Zhejiang, while Zhejiang firms have poured more than US$1.6 billion into more than 180 projects in Viet Nam, he said. Liang said that with the guidance of both governments and the implementation of market economy regulations, the co-operative ties between Chinese and Vietnamese businesses and localities will become more effective. Wrapping up his four-day visit to China, Party General Secretary Trong sent a message of thanks to Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping for the warm reception accorded to the high-ranking delegation. The head of the external relations commission of the Party Central Committee, Hoang Binh Quan, told reporters that 15 important documents were signed between the two sides to intensify cooperation in different areas. He also announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping accepted an invitation to visit Viet Nam and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in late 2017. Viet Nam and China issued a joint communique, which can be read on the website of Viet Nam News. VNS Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Photo phapluatplus.vn HA NOI Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will lead a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, from January 17 to 21, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The PM will attend the conference at the invitation of WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab, the foreign ministry said in an announcement on Friday. VNS HA NOI The nations main prosecuting agency, Supreme Peoples Procuracy, has announced it is indicting former National Assembly deputy Chau Thi Thu Nga for her role in a VN377 billion (US$16.6 million) real estate scam. Nga, Chairwoman of the Land and Housing Construction and Investment JSC (Housing Group), and eight other people, all from the same group, will be prosecuted on charges of fraudulent appropriation of assets, under Article 139 of the Penal Code. According to the indictment, the B5 Cau Dien project (North Tu Liem District, Ha Noi City) was within the land assigned by the state to the Ha Noi Import-Export Investment Construction and Development Single-Member Co., Ltd. (HAIC) for production and business activities. It was a resettlement housing project to serve urban traffic development of the capital city, not for commercial housing. However, Nga signed a partnership contract with Nguyen Van Tuan, HAIC Chairman, to co-invest in the B5 project. The two intended to convert the B5 land to apartment buildings and villas. The investigation found that the new plans for the project had not been granted a construction licence by the Ha Noi Peoples Committee, but the group lured unsuspecting buyers for commercial housing through false advertisements. Between 2009 and 2013, by showing unapproved drawings of the apartments, Nga and other accomplices signed some 752 capital contribution contracts, collecting VN377 billion from home buyers, with a promise to transfer usage rights for 752 apartments from 2nd to the 33rd floor in a residential complex. Nga returned some VN29 billion ($1.26 million) to buyers who withdrew from the project, but was unable to repay the remaining VN348 billion ($15.4 million) because it had already been spent. Following many complaints from buyers who had not seen any construction progress for the apartments theyd purchased, Nga was arrested and her house raided in January 2015 by police from the Ministry of Public Security. The same day, the National Assembly Standing Committee issued a resolution suspending the duties and rights of Nga as a parliamentary deputy. In a related development, National Assembly General Secretary Nguyen Hanh Phuc had said last September that immediate investigation was needed into allegations that Nga had bought her way into the National Assembly for $1.5 million, saying that it was truly shocking, if true. Prior to Ngas arrest, HAIC Chairman Tuan had been detained on charges of deliberately acting against the States regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences. VNS Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive in Viet Nam today for a two-day visit on the last leg of his first trip abroad in 2017. Photo AFP HA NOI Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive in Viet Nam today for a two-day visit on the last leg of his first trip abroad in 2017. Prime Minister Abe and his spouse are visiting Viet Nam at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc after touring three other Asia-Pacific countries - the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia. The visit reflects the extensive strategic partnership between the two countries and reaffirms Viet Nams view of Japan as a key partner in the long term. The two will work together to strengthen political trust and push for further co-operation in various fields, including economy, trade, investment, official development assistance (ODA), as well as agriculture, education, human resources together with adaptation to climate change, labour, national defence and security. VNS HCM CITY The Tan Son Nhat Airport Authority announced it will increase the number of night flights to meet high demand during Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday. ang Tuan Tu, director of the Tan Son Nhat Airport Authority, said the increase of night flights would ease the overload of jet parking space at night, because the airplanes would continuously depart and land so the number of airplanes in the parking area would not increase. The airport and carriers will deploy more staff to serve passengers 24 hours a day during peak days before Tet, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted him as saying. Nguyen Quy on, head of the HCM City long-range air traffic control centre of the Southern Airport Authority, said the centre also planned to increase its staff to be on duty at Tan Son Nhat airport during peak hours. According to the Tan Son Nhat authority, the number of passengers and flights before and after Tet 2017 will rise year-on-year 19.6 per cent. In particular, on January 24 and 25, the Tan Son Nhat airport will handle 776 flights and 112,745 passengers, an increase of 141 flights and 14,500 passengers compared to the same period last year. After Tet, the airport will serve 805 flights and 124,775 passengers per day. The authority forecast that the number of passengers would rise consistently from today (January 16). Tet falls in late January, but HCM City residents often begin flying back to their hometowns weeks before the holiday. -- VNS NGHE AN President Tran ai Quang yesterday presented over 100 Tet (Lunar New Year) gift packages to welfare policy beneficiaries, impoverished families and dioxin (Agent Orange) victims in Nam an District in the central province of Nghe An. President Quang spent time talking with local members of ethnic minority groups in Nam Giang and Nam Linh communes of Nam an District, extending his good wishes to them for the New Year. He praised the efforts by provincial authorities and charity donors to help the disadvantaged overcome difficulties and enjoy the upcoming Tet holidays. Having lauded the recent socio-economic achievements of Nghe An, Quang urged the province to harness its strengths and innovative spirit to thrive further, adding that it must ensure the provision of heath care and cultural and educational services for the ethnic minority groups. Nam an has 18 out of 23 communes recognised as new-style rural areas. It expects to become a new-style rural district in 2017. Front leader gives Tet gifts Meanwhile, the President of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, Nguyen Thien Nhan, visited and presented gifts to poor households and welfare policy beneficiaries in the northern mountainous province of Son La on January 14 and 15, ahead of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival. Talking with local residents in Chieng Co Commune, Nhan praised the coffee cultivation cooperative formed there, calling it a step in the right direction, and added that an irrigation system must be built to boost coffee output. The same day, the Front leader held a working session with the provincial Party Committee and VFF chapter to discuss the development of agricultural cooperatives in tandem with sustainable farm production and consumption. He spoke highly of the provinces strategic determination to shift to fruit cultivation and expand cooperative models, suggesting that Son La should seek high-quality seed suppliers and establish a cooperatives alliance responsible for supplying fertilisers and plant varieties. Nhan also asked the provincial agriculture and rural development sector to train a contingent of cooperative leaders, and described Son La as a promising destination to host a conference on building new-style cooperatives to be hosted by the VFF Central Committee. Speaking at the event, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee Hoang Van Chat said Son La Province currently has 261 cooperatives, including 30 involved in fruit tree growing and 16 others in vegetable cultivation; and 18 farm produce production and consumption chains. As many as 41 firms and cooperatives with 84 products have met Vietgap food safety standards. This year, one of Son Las priority tasks is to grow more fruit trees on sloping land areas, launching Vietgap production and consumption chains, and building brands for its products, Chat added. Also on January 14, Nhan attended a get-together of border guard officers, soldiers and residents in border areas of Moc Chau District. The organisers presented gifts to 300 poor households, 1,000 gift packages and 50 scholarships to needy students worth a total of more than VN500 million (US$21,700). Earlier, the Border Guard High Command coordinated with the Long Sap Border Station to hold cultural and sport events, folk games and glutinous rice cake wrapping competition in the lead up to Tet celebration. VNS HCM CITY The HCM City Oncology Hospital, the main cancer centre for treatment of patients from the southern region, has asked city authorities to speed up the construction of Oncology Hospital 2 in District 9 as patient overload has worsened. Construction of the Oncology Hospital 2 began last June and is expected to be completed by the end of 2017. The number of in-patients rose by 115 per cent compared to 2015 to reach 143,648. Last year, the hospital received more than 419,000 outpatients, an increase of 112 per cent compared to 2015, said Pham Xuan Dung, deputy director of the hospital. The 1,000-bed hospital will help reduce chronic patient overload at the current Oncology Hospital in Binh Thanh District. The hospital has taken various measures to ease severe overcrowding such as providing examination beginning at 5am, Dung said at a meeting held on Saturday to review the hospitals operations. As part of an effort to reduce patient overload, the hospital opened a satellite oncology department at District 2 Hospital and transferred technology to Can Tho Oncology Hospital and Khanh Hoa General Hospital. Patients from other cities and provinces accounted for 77 per cent. VNS HA NOI A set of norms will, for the first time, have to be followed for making and selling the countrys traditional fish sauce. The Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), in co-ordination with the Viet Nam High Quality Goods Enterprise Association, on Sunday declared the norms, which were compiled based on Government Decree 127, detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Standards and Technical Regulations, issued in 2007. As per the rules, traditional fish sauce must have the nitrogen amount of at least 15 degrees N (this is a standard measure that indicates the grams of nitrogen per liter of fish sauce, with a higher number indicating a higher quality), no preservatives, no pigments and artificial colouring, and its salt content must be 245gm to 290gm per litre of fish sauce. Also, the breeding period of the raw fish used to make the fish sauce must be at least nine months. The norms are aimed at helping customers distinguish between traditional and industrial fish sauce. Vu The Thanh, VASEPs quality expert, said the Government as well as businesses would inspect the quality of traditional fish sauce. VNS HA NOI Automobile drivers must set up bank accounts so that when they violate traffic regulations police can deduct the fine from their account directly. This was proposed by Colonel ao Thanh Hai, deputy director of the Ha Noi Police. The proposal was given during a conference of the Ha Noi Police to discuss setting up a plan for ensuring traffic safety this year, which was held at the end of last week. Colonel Hai added that since the city police supervised traffic safety via cameras, the traffic polices work had become easier and drivers awareness had improved. However, there were still several difficulties faced while imposing penalties, as some drivers did not have ownership certificates. Colonel Hai proposed that automobile drivers set up bank accounts with a mandatory amount. With the bank accounts, drivers awareness will be much better, as the money will directly be deducted from their account whenever they violate regulations, Hai said. VNS Namibian Youth embraces and makes NSFAF Online Registration a success Namibian students have completely embraced the new NSFAF Online Registration system that was launched on December 15th, 2016. As part of the IT Masterplan, NSFAF implemented new streamlined business processes and integrated numerous internal and external systems to optimize its entire operation. The entire new Applicants Intake 2017 process has signaled a new era of efficiency and stakeholder service for Namibia. The new Student Application Intake 2017 based on the Loan Grant, Application Management Information System (LGAMIS), has seen constant and continuous activity since December 15, 2016. With raving reviews from the student users and figures to match. This is great news, especially with the Grade 12 results having just come out and potential tertiary studies students wanting to check their eligibility for some form of NSFAF funding. In the first 24 hours the NSFAF Application Page was already used by 2.600 applicants. Some 66% accessed from computers, 30% from Smartphones and about 3% from Tablets. About 27% connected through MTC and 18% through Telecom Namibia plus several connections from abroad. On average NSFAF always have some 30 users on the Application System simultaneously, right from the start. When you dig deeper into the numbers and as this process has now been taken online, everything is measurable and quantifiable. The figures speak for themselves. NSFAF knows; The Number of Users on the Website, the Number of Facebook Engagements, the Number of Applications Received, the number of documents provided for example, and the number enquiries received, to only name a few things that are tracked to constantly and almost on a daily basis optimize the application. The organisation made the right move by engaging the Namibian youth online and through Facebook, as that is where they can be found. Namibian students know how to access, ask, request and use the information NSFAF has made available. Some powerful facts and figures since the launch on December 15, 2016: 340.000 People between 16 and 25 are active on Facebook in Namibia NSFAF has seen 46,000 individual website sessions for the online registration 25,000 Online Registration website visitors More than 26,500 Facebook users engaged on the NSFAF Facebook page. More than 5,500 users had checked their eligibility for NSFAF funding already Thomas Muller, Chief Information Officer of NSFAF said; The above figures shows that the Youth of Namibia is very active on the Internet. They are online and Facebook is their platform of choice on which to engage and source information. NSFAF has used this to its advantage and created the Eligibility Checker right in Facebook Messenger as a so called bot to check their Eligibility where they are and in the manner that they are used to." This has been a major operation for NSFAF and its staff. A team of 30 NSFAF-staff from all 14 regions in Namibia and all departments of NSFAF were actively involved in the Intake 2017. There were dedicated working groups such as the Regional Logistics and Resources, Campus Logistics and Resources, Awards Contracting & Customer Care, Marketing, Advertising and PR and IT Infrastructure and Devices. They all worked tirelessly to make the Online Application Process 2017 a success and available for those eager to study. This is an extraordinary result for all at NSFAF to be proud of and demonstrates that Namibia and its State Owned Enterprises can deliver high quality, instant and efficient services to their stakeholders if they dare take the technological leap that is required. This is how the Harambee Prosperity Plan and turning Namibia into a knowledge-based society that is efficient and there for its citizens can truly be achieved. Not satisfied with just having the Online Registration run itself, NSFAF has organized a roadshow to all 14 regions, visiting 119 locations while the Campus Logistics and Resource group organized NSFAF stands at 18 campuses throughout the country. NSFAF has never before reached such a broad audience even in the most remote and rural areas for any intake. No one is being left out. The IT, Infrastructure and Devices team created the needed IT architecture with almost 100 Laptops, Printers, Scanners, MTC and Telecom Namibia 3G and LTE Network access for the regional and campus teams and managed, that, despite all challenges, the hardware was delivered and perfectly setup with integrated remote support in time. In the spirit of Harambee, the marketing, advertising and PR team ran a large advertising campaign in relevant newspapers, numerous radio stations with clips in 9 local languages, TV interviews and social media campaigns to make every potential applicant aware of the NSFAF services and the Intake 2017. On Facebook alone, the NSFAF campaigns achieved 1.2 Million impressions in the target group of 16-30 year old male and female Namibians. The Awards, Contracting and Customer Care Team organized the necessary resources to validate the supporting documents and to assist applicants on the NSFAF Helpdesk by Phone and by eMail. The Online Registration application has been seamlessly integrated and built with so much underlying intelligence that the complexity of checking eligibility has become as simple as sending an SMS for any applicant. The eligibility checker is available by SMS, on Facebook Messenger and on the NSFAF website. At NSFAF, we have an ambitious roadmap for 2017 with enhancements and optimizations for the LGAMIS platform and other areas in the IT Masterplan just like the Payment Checker that was launched only this week. LGAMIS truly has become the backbone of the NSFAF operation. With this first success in place, the mission to make NSFAF the most efficient, effective and streamlined State Owned Enterprise in Namibia of which all NSFAF Team members can be proud of is well on its way. www.nsfaf.fund QUANG NINH Police in the northern province of Quang Ninh have warned that human trafficking in the province is becoming increasing complex. Le Anh Quan, head of Mong Cai Citys Criminal Police Division, said new forms of human trafficking, including the illegal trade of infants and newborn babies, as well as the trafficking of Cambodian nationals had occurred in the region. Individuals from both sides of the border area are involved in the trafficking of young children to China, focusing on disadvantaged women or those who are too old to get married. The police have faced a number of difficulties during the investigation, he said. One case involved a 27-year-old, who married a Chinese man and was mistreated by her husbands family. After fleeing from the husbands family, she returned to Viet Nam. Facing financial hardship, the woman decided to sell her baby and contacted a broker in HCM City. A Chinese couple has agreed to buy the child for 50,000 yuan. But police from Mong Cai City uncovered the incident as the woman attempted to cross the border, managing to prevent the trade taking place. Earlier, the city police had rescued a one-month-old girl who was being sold to buyers in China. Last year, several cases involving the trafficking of Cambodian women to China were also uncovered by police. Traffickers have taken advantage of the region as a transition point to transport people to the neighbouring country, Quan said. To prevent human trafficking, the police have coordinated with border guards to patrol hotspots and paths, he said, adding that even these measure do not go far enough. It is necessary to improve awareness among residents as well as strengthen education about the tricks and methods employed human traffickers, he said. VNS HA NOI With a passion for physics, a ong Nai-based group of students have invented an affordable robot-wheelchair, in a bid to ease the struggle disabled people have with movements and maneuverers, having been inspired by the wheelchair used by world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. The three students from ong Nai Technology University in ong Nai Province also demonstrated on stage how their robot can double as a bed for the user to lay or sleep on. The robot can also lift or lower the user, within a certain level, so a user can easily move from the robot chair to his bed without assistance. The chair is also outfitted with a robotic arm that can hold a water bottle or hand over clothing to users. The machine can either be manually controlled via a control panel or an app on a smartphone or tablet. This thoughtful creation has deservedly earned the first prize worth VN15 million (US$670) in the 2nd Viet Nam Maker Contest with Intel Galileo 2016 (VMIG), which came to an end last weekend. The contest was jointly held by the Centre for Viet Nam Youth Talents, Science and Technology (CYTAST) and Intel Viet Nam, under the auspices and guidance of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCM CYU), in a bid to promote the young generations creativity and spike their interests in science and technology which ultimately is expected to contribute to the development of a high-tech economy in the nation. The invention Supporting robot for people with infirmities and disabilities by ong Nai students. VNS Photo Trong Kien The contestants made full use of Intels Edison platform which, with the Intel Edison board at its core, aims at making it easier for hobbyists and inventors to develop consumer electronic devices, especially the Internet-of-Things devices, which is the current hot trend in the tech world. In the six months beginning in June 2016, the nation-wide contest drew some 110 ideas from 29 universities and academies. Of these, 42 teams each comprised of a maximum three students and one teacher for guidance were selected to enter the preliminary round, in which they had three months, with one Intel Edison board and VN2 million, to bring their ideas to reality. Sixteen best creations from 14 universities were eligible to enter the final round. The contestants inventions covered a wide range of fields, from education, health, agriculture, environment, transportation, and urban planning. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Secretary of the Central Committee of the HCM CYU, said he was impressed by the inventive spirits of the young contestants. Aside from the creativity and passion to pursue their dreams, from these creations the contestants have exhibited a sense of responsibility for the development of the country. Importantly, you have shown care and compassion for the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in society, he said. And thats a valuable quality because, after all, inventions have to be practical and bring benefits to society. The two second place prizes went to iGloves a product from HCM City University of Science team, which can convert sign languages into Vietnamese speech, and a heat-vision camera from the Ha Noi University of Science and Technology team, which detects and gives warnings via smartphones about people with abnormally elevated body temperatures which is often a tell-tale sign of sickness. Other notable products include a pesticide-spraying robot, back massager shirt, a system that monitors working conditions, such as temperature and air quality for workers in factories, a system to provide users with bus routes and other information, and is able to give warnings when theft is detected. VNS HCM CITY An increase in the number of resistant-TB cases has occurred in the southwestern region of Viet Nam, according to the head of the regions national TB prevention and control office. At a conference on TB prevention held last week in Can Tho, Dr Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan said that nearly 1,300 patients with resistant TB were diagnosed every year in the southwestern region, accounting for 25 per cent of the total number of resistant-TB patients in the country. The provinces of An Giang (220), ong Thap (150) and Kien Giang (130) have the highest number of resistant-TB cases in the southwestern region, while Ca Mau, Vinh Long, Can Tho, Tien Giang and Ben Tre provinces face a shortage of medicine and chemicals as well as funds. Between 2011 and 2015, the prevalence of patients with TB per 100,000 people in the region was 141, according to the Ministry of Health. The figure was 1.3 times higher than the national rate of 112. Nhan said besides the shortage of human resources, staff in charge of TB prevention and control in the region had received insufficient allowances (benefits beyond salary and bonuses). Dr Nguyen Viet Nhung, head of the countrys national TB prevention and control programme, said that TB prevention should be considered the task of the entire community. He said that more investment was needed for new technologies as well as medicine for treatment and prevention in order to reach the target of TB elimination. In the 2017-2020 project on active intervention in TB prevention in the southwestern region, the Can Tho TB and Lung Disease Hospital is expected to become the leading specialised centre in the region. The national TB programme aims to raise the rate of successful TB detection and treatment cases and reduce the number of resistant-TB cases from now to 2020. VNS NATAL, Brazil The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said Sunday. The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the states public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didnt they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. Prisoners armed At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazils biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the worlds most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Drug gang war Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33. It was thought to be a backlash by the PCCs rivals for its violent expansion. The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade. Prisons there and throughout Brazil are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates. Overcrowding Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say. Brazils inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade. The countrys jails hold 622,000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed. Brazil has the worlds fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report. Temer is under pressure over the issue. After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons. But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer. Brazil needs "medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression," sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo said after the previous prison massacres. AFP FRANKFURT AM MAIN President-elect Donald Trump, in remarks published on Sunday, described NATO as "obsolete" and suggested a deal with Russia that would reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions on Moscow. He also hailed Britains exit from the EU and backed a speedy trade deal with the UK, but condemned as "catastrophic" Chancellor Angela Merkels decision to open Germanys doors to a flood of refugees. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germanys biggest-selling daily. "Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said. "Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay." "I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." He added, though, "NATO is very important to me." On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States were not "reasonably reimbursed" for the costs of defending them. His comments caused consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russias annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. After Trumps victory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had been a bedrock of transatlantic security for "almost 70 years" and was especially needed at a time of new challenges. "This is no time to question the partnership between Europe and the United States," Stoltenberg said. Spending has been a common source of friction within the 28-nation alliance over recent years. The core military contributor to the alliance is the United States, which accounts for about 70 per cent of spending. In 2014, stung into action by Russias intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, NATO leaders agreed to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence. "The countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries," Trump said in Sundays interview. "Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much." Nuclear deal In other remarks carried by The Times, Trump suggested cutting a deal with Russia in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased. "They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," Trump said. "But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There were no details about the specific sanctions that Trump had in mind, or their range. Under Barack Obama, the US applied various sanctions against Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Washingtons European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. Great Brexit In other remarks, Trump said Brexit "is going to end up as a great thing" and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be "good for both sides." "Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. "Other countries will leave" the European Union in future, Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant uptick in migrants and refugees arriving. "If they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back," he said. Catastrophic Merkel move But he also criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants enter the country, insinuating that this posed a security risk. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," Trump said, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Merkel took flak at home after her open-door policy aimed at desperate Syrian refugees brought 890,000 asylum seekers to Europes biggest economy in 2015, contributing to the rise of an anti-migrant movement. But in 2016, that figure dropped back sharply, to 280,000 arrivals the government said last Wednesday. AFP DUBAI Bahrain on Sunday executed three men found guilty of killing three policemen, sparking violent protests and stoking tensions between the countrys Shiite majority and its Sunni rulers. The three Shiites faced the firing squad, six days after a court upheld their death sentences over a bomb attack in March 2014, the prosecutors office said. Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Al-Khalifa dynasty for more than two centuries, has a majority Shiite population which has long complained of marginalisation. It has been rocked by sporadic unrest since March 2011 when security forces brutally crushed an Arab Spring-inspired uprising. The executions triggered protests in Shiite villages. Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media. Pictures shared online by activists showed relatives of those executed weeping. Bahrain authorities do not permit international news agencies to cover events independently. The executions came a day after demonstrations broke out following rumours they were going to be put to death. The death sentences are the first in six years in the Gulf kingdom, according to London-based human rights group, Reprieve. "It is nothing short of an outrage and a disgraceful breach of international law that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions," Reprieve director Maya Foa said. Reprieve said the executions went ahead "despite serious concerns that their convictions were based on evidence obtained under torture". The European Union also condemned the sentences. "This case is a serious drawback given that Bahrain had suspended executions for... (several) years, and concerns have been expressed about possible violations of the right to a fair process for the three convicted," an EU statement said. Black day Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, head of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: "This is a black day in Bahrains history." Scores of men and women took to the streets on Saturday after the families of the three were summoned to meet them in prison, a measure that usually precedes the implementation of death sentences, witnesses said. "No, no to execution," the protesters chanted. Later on Saturday, a policeman was wounded when his patrol came under fire in the Shiite village of Bani Jamra, said the interior ministry. Authorities have said that the trio and fellow defendants belonged to the same clandestine group which has claimed several bomb attacks in Bahrain. The high court on Monday upheld the death sentences against the trio convicted in a bomb attack in March 2014, which killed three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates. The executed men have been named by activists as Sami Mushaima, 42, Ali al-Singace, 21, and Abbas al-Samea, 27. Seven other defendants received life terms. The Emirati officer was part of a Saudi-led Gulf force which rolled into Bahrain in March 2011 to help put down a month of Shiite-led protests. Bahrain is a strategic ally of the United States and home to the US Navys Fifth Fleet. AFP By Warren Fernandez* As you read this, thousands of business and government leaders will be making their way to Switzerland - by plane, road, rail, or even helicopter - for an annual meeting to discuss the worlds most pressing concerns. They will brave snow and frigid cold - forecasts are for temperatures to dip to minus 17 deg Ctomorrow - and a three-hour car ride from Zurich up to the small Alpine ski resort of Davos, for the conference organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Hundreds of aides, academics and journalists, myself included, will be there to join in and follow their discussions. When these leaders met last January, there was much talk about what the future might hold in the face of rapid and relentless technological change. Minds were focused on developments in robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and 3D printing, and many questions were raised about what these entail for businesses and their workers, indeed for the very nature of work, and leisure. Few, however, saw or spoke about the prospects of Brexit or the rise of Mr Donald Trump. Sure, there were a few tentative questions raised about these, which were more often than not laughed aside as long shots not to be taken too seriously. So Davos man - as this elite group is sometimes derisively called - will have much pondering to do. For while it was right that they focused their sights on the trends that will shape the future, how did they not see the icebergs lying more immediately ahead, which now impede the once-seemingly inexorable path forward to further economic integration and progress? While past discussions had focused on the economic and social disruptions to come, Davos delegates will now have to recognise that the future economy they had envisioned is unfolding in a range of sectors, much sooner than most imagined, and worse, a wider Disruption 2.0 is under way, amid major shocks to the underlying global operating system that the WEF has long championed. The consensus based on the virtues of globalisation, the benefits of immigration and gains from free trade is now under grave threat. Politicians have tapped into latent anxieties, alienation and anger felt by electorates in countries, from the United Kingdom to the United States and elsewhere. Their cries will reverberate around the Swiss Alps this week. Little wonder then that the WEF has made "responsive and responsible leadership" the theme for this years discussions. Its founder and executive chairman, Professor Klaus Schwab, who has a knack for crystallising the zeitgeist of the times, summed this up in an essay published last Wednesday. He wrote: "Leaders have to be responsive and responsible; they must understand that we are living in a world marked by uncertainty, volatility and deep transformational changes. Many people are living in precarious situations and searching for identity and meaning in a fast-changing world... "It is the daunting task of todays leaders to take the right decisions in a complex world that suffers from many legacy issues and emotional turmoil. There cannot just be a return to basics! There has to be a recognition that we are in unmapped territory, which places the status quo, and by extension leaders themselves, into question." The German-born, Geneva-based professor who presides over the WEF is a thoughtful man not given to hyperbole. His clarion call will ring louder in the face of recent developments, as well as several events playing out this week, as the Davos deliberations unfold. These include the keynote speech to be delivered on Tuesday at the Congress Centre by Chinese President Xi Jinping, making his Davos debut. Going by what his aides have been telling the media, he will make a pitch for "inclusive globalisation" and warn that populist pressures could lead to "war and poverty". He will assert China s readiness to play a bigger role on the world stage. His statements will be welcomed by those who have been calling on Beijing to step up and pitch in to support the rules-based system of international governance, not least when it is being challenged on so many fronts. But there will also be concerns at how China is doing so at a time when others, like the US and Britain , seem to be ceding leadership and influence, wittingly or otherwise. In a similar vein, anxieties also loom about Russia s increasingly assured and assertive President Vladimir Putin holding heightened sway in Europe, the Middle East and even Asia . And then there is the incoming President Trump, who will be sworn in on Friday. Globalisations chief advocates will watch with much irony, and not without trepidation, as one of their harshest critics takes the reins in the very country that has done the most to promote the present economic and political order from which they - and yes, we - have all gained. The Trump administration faces as many challenges as it poses. Questions remain over its alleged links to Russia and whether it will operate at its "kompromat" behest, as well as doubts about the sobriety of the Trump clans business dealings. Key Trump picks for the top jobs in economic, trade and foreign affairs have also spoken darkly about being at odds with China and Russia over trade and strategic issues. Add to this mix uncertainties over upcoming elections in Germany , France , and possibly Italy , not to mention Malaysia closer to home, and the propensity for political volatility mounts. Underlying these more immediate geopolitical developments, however, remain the deeper and more relentless concerns about rising income inequalities and unemployment in societies around the world. Like it or not, these will have to be dealt with - the WEF has flagged the need for faster and more inclusive economic growth - regardless of how the political events mentioned before play out. So, as Dr Olga Oliker, the director of the Russia and Eurasia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, summed up in the Financial Times last Thursday: "Were in a very strange space." How to make sense of these unusual times, when pollsters, pundits and politicians have all seemed to fail us so miserably in recent months? Delegates might do no worse than to turn to history and heed the wise words of Britain s wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, who once famously declared: "The farther backwards you look, the farther forwards you can see." After all, history reminds us that previous Russian regimes in the 1960s had similarly sought to influence American elections, while Singaporean officials, too, have been caught in compromising positions, such as when cypher officer Alan Wee Kheng Soon was jailed for 10 years in 1980 for passing sensitive information to a Moscow spy lady he had consorted with. So, in a curious way, we have been here before, and might draw some lessons from the past as we find our way forward. This is what a panel of eminent historians, including Professor Lawrence Freedman from Kings College London, Professor Margaret MacMillan of Oxford University, and Professor Patrick McCray from the University of California in Santa Barbara, among others, will attempt to do in a session titled Back To The Future: Lessons From The 20th Century For The 21st, which I will have the pleasure of moderating on Tuesday evening. In a column published recently, one of those who will also be on the panel, Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University s Stern School of Business, likened events of today to the troubling times in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote: "As in the 1930s, when protectionist and isolationist US policies hampered global economic growth and trade, and created the conditions for rising revisionist powers to start a world war, similar policy impulses could set the stage for new powers to challenge and undermine the American-led international order. An isolationist Trump administration may see the wide oceans to its east and west, and think that increasingly ambitious powers such as Russia , China and Iran pose no direct threat to the homeland. "But the US is still a global economic and financial power in a deeply interconnected world. If left unchecked, these countries will eventually be able to threaten core US economic and security interests - at home and abroad - especially if they expand their nuclear and cyber warfare capacities. The historical record is clear: Protectionism, isolationism, and America first policies are a recipe for economic and military disaster." So, amid the freezing cold, the Davos discussions this year will have to be infused with not just the usual heart-warming messages of hope in the face of long-term fears, but also a pressing sense of urgency to ponder and put right the many global fires that are raging or might yet be unleashed, if indeed the delegates who come to the WEF are to deliver on its lofty commitment to "improving the state of the world". The Straits Times/ANN Good morning, As we take time this week to honor and reflect on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I ask each of you to consider what you can do this semester to bring our campus closer to his vision of community. Our Beyond Boundaries initiative asks us to imagine the university we could become a generation into the future. We cannot make that leap without thinking boldly about whom we will serve and how we will prepare our students for a dynamic, diverse, and interconnected world. Through InclusiveVT, we are imagining that future for Virginia Tech, and we are engaging in the hard work it takes to put us on a trajectory toward that future. Over the past year, under the leadership of Menah Pratt-Clarke, weve taken significant steps, including the creation of diversity education programs for students and faculty, establishing scholarships for underrepresented students, and expanding our intercultural engagement center. We sought to facilitate difficult and meaningful conversations through #VTUnfinished, which featured an enlightening series of workshops with Lee Mun Wah. Were proud of our progress and our recognition by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as a Diversity Champion, and were excited to move forward. InclusiveVT will continue to be a priority at Virginia Tech in 2017 and beyond. Our weeklong celebration of Dr. King is an excellent opportunity for you to engage, perhaps for the first time, in meaningful conversations about race, justice, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives. Lets make this a great semester by listening and learning from each other, practicing empathy, and affirming our Principles of Community. In the spirit of Ut Prosim, Tim Sands President CEDAR FALLS The remaining founding member of Martin Bros. Distributing Co. has died. Glen A. Martin, who with his brother Roy C. Martin founded the regional food distributor on an initial investment of $100 in 1940, passed away Dec. 22 in Surprise, Ariz., at age 97. Roy Martin passed away in 2003. It was Glen Martin who loaned his brother Roy $100 to start a paper company Martin Paper Co. that sold paper good such as guest checks, straws and napkins to restaurants. They later signed a contract with General Foods in Chicago, which produced Maxwell House coffee and Jell-O gelatin products. Glen joined Roy and the name was changed to Martin Bros. Distributing. Asked if her father ever got his $100 back from his brother, Glens daughter, Chris Martin, said, I dont know. But I dont think it mattered! The business began at 2409 Iowa St. in the basement and garage of the brothers parents home. The garage was converted into a warehouse. Their father Ray, who was disabled, answered the phone, watched for trucks from the front porch and signed for deliveries. In 1942, Glen joined the U.S. Army and served in the Pacific during World War II. He was a first sergeant and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. He returned to the business in 1946. The company expanded to a Main Street warehouse in 1950 and to the Cedar Falls Industrial Park in 1969, expanding multiple times since then. The companys famous for its Here Comes Martin! and There Goes Martin! logos on the front and back of its delivery trucks. The firm employs multiple generations of several families including the Martins themselves. Glen Martin retired in the 1980s. Roy Martin retired in 2000 but remained chairman of the board. Chris Martin said her dad and uncle complemented each other. While Roy excelled at sales, Glen was mechanically inclined and a Mr. Fixit of sorts, helping clients install restaurant equipment and maintenance of company vehicles. Chris Martin said her dad was a boss with a heart. He was real compassionate, empathatic, understanding with people, she said. People would just open up with Dad. He was just a very kind person, fair, an ultimate gentleman, and well matched with his brother, who both made it a family business in every sense of the phrase. Private funeral services will be held for Glen Martin in Cedar Falls. CEDAR FALLS The Cedar Falls Community Foundation has received a bequest of $904,311 from the estate of Robert Eller to support study abroad scholarships. Eller died Feb. 20. Except for two years in Africa working on a government program, Eller spent the remainder of his professional career at the University of Northern Iowa where he was an education media specialist, working with as many as 20 student assistants at a time. The relationships he developed with his students and his experience in Africa motivated him to establish a scholarship fund to support study abroad. He established the Robert Eller Study Abroad Endowment with the Cedar Falls Community Foundation in 1994 to provide funds to support study abroad for undergraduate UNI students. The first student traveled to Australia in 2000 and, for the next 14 years, Eller personally funded the scholarships as his investment fund grew. In 2014, Eller decided the fund had grown adequately to begin granting scholarships from it, and in 2015 two $1,500 scholarships were awarded. Thirty-five students have had the opportunity to study abroad since 2000. Their destinations have included Australia, Spain, Ireland, Wales, Chile, France, Japan, Scotland, Greece, Budapest, England and New Zealand. With the recent bequest from Ellers estate, the Eller Study Abroad Fund has grown from a modest initial deposit to more than $1 million dollars, enabling substantially larger scholarships to be awarded in coming years. Applications for the scholarship are accepted by the UNI Study Abroad Center and reviewed by a committee composed of University of Northern Iowa emeritus faculty and Cedar Falls Community Foundation staff. Eller was born in Janesville, Wis., and grew up in southern Wisconsin where his father worked for the railroad. After attending Platteville State College (now the University of Wisconsin at Platteville), Eller followed an older brother to the University of Iowa where he attained his undergraduate and masters degrees in education. The Cedar Falls Community Foundation accepts and manages estate gifts and donations to fulfill donor wishes, assisting donors to achieve their charitable legacy. For more information about the Cedar Falls Community Foundation, go to www.cf-communityfoundation.org, call 243-9170 or email cfcf@cfu.net. WATERLOO Waterloo police are investigating two bodies found at George Wyth State Park as a possible murder-suicide. Authorities were called to the park at 7:30 a.m. Saturday after a man was found deceased by the lake, and further investigation found the body of a woman inside a parked car. Police reports identify the woman as 83-year-old Marilyn Margaret Miller of Waterloo, and she is listed as the victim in the report. A funeral home identified the man as her husband, Neil J. Miller, 86. The time of the deaths was not determined, but could have been as early as Friday. The couples Mercury Marquis has been impounded. Autopsies are tentatively scheduled for today at the Iowa State Medical Examers facility in Ankeny. Police reports indicate a shotgun was involved. WATERLOO After less than two weeks on work release, a Waterloo man serving time for a 2004 fatal shooting has disappeared. Again. Corrections official said Shawn Washington, 38, left the Waterloo Work Release Facility on a furlough and was placed on escape status Sunday after he allegedly failed to return. Washington had been on work release Jan. 3 after he was released from prison. Washington was serving a 45-year sentence on charges of intimidation with a dangerous weapon and ongoing criminal conduct in connection with an October 2004 gang-related shooting where he and others allegedly opened fire on a home on Harrison Street that was hosting an after-hours party. One person in the home, Thyana Parsons, was killed by a bullet fired by one of the other shooters, authorities said. Washington began serving his time in 2005 and was initially paroled in July 2012, but he was placed on work release months later following a drunken driving arrest. In April 2013, he was placed on escape status after failing to return to the facility. When he was located, he was returned to prison, ultimately being placed on work release earlier this month. He is described as an African-American male with brown hair and eyes, standing 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing 205 pounds. He has a scar on his face. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call Waterloo police at 291-4340 or the Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office at 291-2587. WATERLOO Gov. Terry Branstad is still in the dark about exactly when hell get a confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate to be considered as the nations next ambassador to China, but he expects he has at least another month as the states chief executive. In a normal year, that would mean the Republican governor would be packing his bags as lawmakers got into the nitty-gritty of the budget and policy work. But not this year. Theres a uniqueness about this year, Branstad said during an editorial board meeting with The Courier. Theyve got tough decisions to be made, especially up front here on the budget and collective bargaining changes. Because the state has to find a way to cut about $110 million from the current fiscal year, budget discussions already have started. Branstad said if the lawmakers want to make any changes to the current collective bargaining laws, they would have to do them by March 1 to impact the upcoming negotiations. He also hopes to see lawmakers follow the law and set the supplemental state aid, or allowable growth, for K12 schools in the first 30 days. So, that means the session could see more decision-making earlier in the year. My goal is to get the tough stuff done while Im still here, Branstad said, adding with laughter, So then, if they want to blame somebody, theyll have to blame a guy in China. He already is facing some heat over his choices on how to find the spending cuts. Branstad said he would not follow the former Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in making across-the-board cuts. He also has vowed to protect K12 education, Medicaid and property tax credits from cuts. But that has meant some areas will face larger impacts. A proposal currently receiving criticism is Branstads plan to cut about $34 million from higher education, including $25.6 million from the Iowa Board of Regents and its public universities. It wasnt easy, Branstad acknowledged of where to reduce spending, but added higher education has more flexibility and other sources of revenue to be able to better absorb the spending cuts. He also said he believed the changes to collective bargaining could result in savings for the regents institutions. Branstad has proposed changing collective bargaining in part by having public employees on one statewide health insurance contract rather than multiple contracts. Branstad said, however, he didnt believe a bill that would end tenure at the public universities would go anywhere. While adding a caveat that he would reserve judgment on the legislation or any similar proposals, Branstad said he believes it should be up to the Iowa Regents on how to structure tenure for professors. Iowa Regents President Bruce Rastetter has said he opposes the legislation. The lawmakers still will have to approve the funding decreases and have not specified whether they will follow Branstads suggestions. The Legislature convened Monday, Jan. 9, and will begin work again Tuesday. Im hopeful it can be a productive and successful session, and hopefully, Ill be here for a significant share of it, and then pass it off to the lieutenant governor to take over, Branstad said. Branstad said Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds is better vetted than most lieutenant governors in Iowas past including himself to take on the role of governor once he leaves for China. He said she also has the advantage of having previously served in local government. Weve really worked so closely together, I think itll be pretty seamless, Branstad said. Its hard for me to leave, because I love this job, and I love this state, but I think in this new position, I have an opportunity to do some real good for Iowa, too. Branstad, who was nominated to serve by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, said he anticipates a confirmation hearing at the end of February. If thats the case, he would anticipate moving in early March. He expects he may be able to come back to Iowa two to three times a year, with family visiting him during his tenure and his daughter possibly joining them in moving. Its going to be a whole new adventure, a big one, Branstad said. NEW HAMPTON Temple Grandin says having autism led her to where she is today a world-renowned expert on cattle handling. Im a visual thinker, she said. That leads her to focus on important things others might miss, such as, What are the animals looking at? Grandin said. Although cattle tend to prefer going from dark spaces into light ones, they balk at suddenly going into bright sunlight, according to Grandin, who has designed the facilities in which half the cattle in the United States are handled. Grandin, 69, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, was diagnosed with autism at a young age. She spoke to about 1,500 people in New Hampton last week. She said she wasnt bullied in elementary school because teachers explained to the other students she had a handicap that wasnt visible and advised them to explain social rules to her. However, things changed when she was in her teens. Grandin said her interests, which included art and horseback riding, helped her cope with the teasing and bullying. If it werent for art class, I wouldnt have gone anywhere, she said. Grandin said although she was terrible at algebra, which involves abstract concepts that are difficult for visual thinkers, she was able to graduate from college because she was able to take finite math to meet her mathematics requirement. She said over the years she has met a lot of talented diesel mechanics, welders and other skilled laborers, some of whom were on the autism spectrum. The skilled trades dont have enough people in them and its a job thats not going to be outsourced, Grandin said. Theres a place for both visual thinkers and mathematical thinkers, according to Grandin. She noted the creation of the iPhone required both. Half of the people working in Silicon Valley are on the autism spectrum, according to Grandin. She advised the students to do as many internships as they can, beginning when they are 16, so they are exposed to lots of different careers and can figure out what they like and what they dont. Build on your strengths, she said. Those who came to hear her afternoon speech included 600 students from 28 FFA chapters from as far away as Shenandoah in southwest Iowa. WAVERLY Das Versprechen (The Promise) will be the first film screened during Wartburg Colleges German-language film series, beginning Tuesday. The movie is one of four that will be shown as part of the Profiles in Courage series. All films, which will be screened with English subtitles, begin at 7:15 p.m. in Whitehouse Business Center Room 116. Students will introduce the films and lead discussions following the viewings. All screenings are free and open to the public. The films themes all tie into the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which Wartburg is celebrating with events throughout 2017. Das Versprechen is the story of Sophie and Konrad, who in 1961 plan an escape from the eastern side of a divided Germany into the west. Subsequent screenings will include Good bye, Lenin on Jan. 31, The Lives of Others on Feb. 7 and Jack on Feb. 21. These films contain scenes that may not be suitable for children. Additional information is available at www.wartburg.edu/german-film. WATERLOO Waterloo native and U.S. Air Force Col. Steven B. Parker was recently promoted to the rank of brigadier general in a ceremony at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia. Parkers nomination by President Barack Obama for promotion to general officer was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in December. Parker graduated from Central High School in 1982 and also attended the U.S. Air Force Academy, graduating in 1986. The pilot began his career flying the F-15 Eagle and has flown more than 3,600 hours in fighter and trainer aircraft throughout his career. Parker is the son of JoAnn Parker of Waterloo. In his current role, Parker commands the 94th Airlift Wing and also is the installation commander for Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The 94th Airlift Wing includes more than 2,500 personnel and is equipped with eight C-130-H3 aircraft that support joint service and multi-national airlift missions both in the United States and around the world. Prior to commanding the 94th Airlift Wing, he commanded the 914th Airlift Wing at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York. The Couriers Editorial Board on Friday had what will be, in all likelihood, its final meeting with Terry Branstad as governor of the state of Iowa. The governor was warm and effusive. Hes eager to become U.S. ambassador to China. At the same time, he has a state budget and agenda hes try to get off the launching pad until Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds takes the helm and succeeds him. His love for his current job is apparent. Though some would wish him good riddance, the people of Iowa have returned him time and again to Terrace Hill. He won every election. A succession of political rivals couldnt blow him out of there with dynamite. Many can take issue philosophically and in practice with his policies and have. And continue to do so. But we have seen over the years the governor is a man of character. We saw the best example of that when he campaigned to return to office in 2010, when he stood by one of the Cedar Valleys own former Lt. Gov Joy Corning of Cedar Falls. Branstad was, and is, pro life. Corning is pro choice. She also was a board member of One Iowa, a group supporting same-sex marriage, while Branstad signed the Defense of Marriage Act, later struck down by the Iowa Supreme Court a ruling The Courier has editorially supported in the past. A shadowy 527 political organization with ties to a former state Democratic official tried to insert itself into the Republican primary and exacerbate division by noting Branstad twice chose a pro-choice lieutenant governor, Corning. Similarly, certain Republican social conservatives took the former governor to task for welcoming Cornings support despite her position with One Iowa. In a meeting with the Courier editorial board, Branstad stuck to his guns and stood by Corning. Look, Im a social and fiscal conservative. But that doesnt mean you dont work with people, he told us. They want me to throw Joy Corning under the bus. Im not going to throw Joy Corning under the bus. We appreciated his support then and now. Corning had a long record of public service as a Cedar Falls school board president, Iowa state senator from this area and as lieutenant governor. We know her and her late husband Burtons contributions to the economic vitality and quality of life in the Cedar Valley. Also, nothing could have been more pro-life or pro-family than Cornings truly significant support of the Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa, or HAWK-I, health care program for underprivileged children. Branstad has taken similar child-friendly positions with his anti-bullying initiatives and promotion of multiple education initiatives, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. We know political opponents will pose counterpoints and other reasons to criticize Branstad, maybe even despise him in the heat of political battle. Issues and philosophy are one thing. Character is another. Terry Branstad showed us, in his support for Joy Corning and in so many other ways, he has character and integrity. We wish him well pending his Senate confirmation as ambassador to China, including safe travels, good health and every success as he represents our nation abroad. Recent public controversies regarding the Bakken oil pipeline and the proposed Rock Island Clean Line have created social and political unrest and economic uncertainty. The Iowa Legislature should take action in the best interests of all Iowans to reduce the controversies and ease the impacts for all concerned. The Legislature needs to enact a process that evaluates proposed facilities, especially linear ones such as pipelines, transmission lines and highways that have the potential of disrupting environmental, social and cultural resources. Alternatives to building the facility and alternatives to the design, construction and route need to be examined. Laying a straight edge on a map to decide the location of a linear facility without consideration of what it crosses is fraught with difficulties and must be avoided. The economic, environmental, historical, cultural and aesthetic impacts of each route must be evaluated. A public report should then be made available for public comment. The planners and engineers of facilities cannot be expected to know all the possible impacts without input from the broader public. The process that should be put in place must give authority to somebody other than the owners or planners of the facility. Some public body must be able to determine which credible alternative is followed. Building infrastructure is necessary to maintain our economy and to provide services, jobs and well being for the citizens of Iowa. We must have energy in our homes and fuels to operate tractors, automobiles, airplanes and such. Clean drinking water for everyone is an expected right of all citizens. Pipelines of several kinds, electrical transmission lines, highways and other types of facilities must be built and repaired in coming decades to continue a decent style of life in Iowa. Events would suggest public controversies might be a common feature of building infrastructure in the future. We stand on the threshold of a new energy landscape with wind and solar increasing their share of the supply, but we will still need conventional sources well into the future. If we do not build and repair infrastructure, dangerous conditions will arise and future technologies will be hampered. The question is how to build infrastructure that meets the needs of society without damaging environmental, cultural and personal resources that lead to confrontation. Objections to facilities often amount to not in my backyard or insisting upon impractical alternatives. Another objection to the DC transmission line is all the power will go to Illinois. Iowa is not an economic island. We sell our soybeans, corn and ethanol to customers outside of Iowa, and we buy our cars, lumber for our houses and nearly all of our food from outside the state. If we can generate wind power on Iowa farms and sell it to others, we become richer. Just as we need highways to transport corn, we need power lines to transport the electricity. In a meeting on the University of Northern Iowa campus some time ago to discuss issues regarding the proposed oil pipeline and the proposed electrical transmission line, no officials from either company were there to explain technical issues. The timidness of the companies left unanswered many technical questions and fostered rumors and misconceptions. The legal process Im suggesting the Legislature implement must make sure accurate and complete information is provided to the public in the description of the proposed facility. What I am suggesting here is something along the lines of environmental impact statements required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Many states have adopted similar requirements. It is time for Iowa to do the same. For a proposed facility to run over the legitimate concerns and values of the citizens such as we have recently seen in South Dakota with the Bakken oil pipeline and become the focus of a national protest is not in the best interests of all concerned. This is the result of poor policies. Everyone would benefit from a more equitable process for solving our infrastructure needs. The Iowa Legislature needs to take action in this area. Advertisement By The Associated Press Jan. 15, 2017 | WASHINGTON, DC By The Associated Press Jan. 15, 2017 | 03:46 PM | WASHINGTON, DC The Trump team is taking a hard line on the ethics official who's questioned the president-elect's potential conflicts of interest. Donald Trump aide Reince Priebus tells ABC's "This Week" that the independent watchdog "ought to be careful because that person is becoming extremely political." "That person" is Walter Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics. Shaub has said the only way Trump could avoid a conflict of interest would be to divest from his business and place his assets in a blind trust. Shaub has been summoned by the GOP chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, to answer questions about his comments. The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, says Trump's team and Republicans are "engaged in a blatant, coordinated attack" against Shaub for doing his job. 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thought they could achieve their purpose; so they weighed anchor and began to sail past Crete, close to the shore. But soon a violent wind, called the northeaster, rushed down from Crete. Since the ship was caught and could not be turned head-on into the wind, we gave way to it and were driven. By running under the lee of a small island called Cauda we were scarcely able to get the ships boat under control. After hoisting it up they took measures to undergird the ship; then, fearing that they would run on the Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and so were driven. We were being pounded by the storm so violently that on the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard, and on the third day with their own hands they threw the ships tackle overboard. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. Jan 16, 2017 | By Tess One of the most promising areas for 3D printing within healthcare is in the field of dentistry. That is, the technology is not only being used by renegade DIY orthodontists, but dentists all over the world have started integrating 3D printers and other 3D technologies into their practices. 3D printing, as it turns out, has proved extremely useful for such applications as making patient-specific bleaching trays, bite guards, and surgical guides, as well as manufacturing customized dental implants in a much more time-efficient manner. 64-year-old Israeli cancer patient receives 3D printed jaw implant Recently, a team of Israeli dentists met with dentists in the Philippines to discuss the establishment of a medical cooperation between Tel Aviv and Manilas top dental professionals. As part of the cooperation, Israels advanced dental 3D printing technologies would be expanded to the Southeast Asian country. Israel, which boasts one dentist per 1,400 people (according to the National Center for Biotech Information), is considered to be one of the worlds leaders in dentistry and dental technologies. In recent years, these technologies have come to include many 3D processes, including advanced 3D modeling and 3D printing. In addition, many Israeli dental offices practice implantology. In the case of AB Dental, an Israel-based dental company, they are able to provide dental implant tools to over 60 countries thanks to 3D technologies. AB Dental CEO, Ofra Bar-Shalom, explained that dentists from all over the world can request their services by sending in CT scans of their patients, which the company then use to carefully design 3D printable dental implants. Once the design process is complete, AB Dental sends a package back to the client, which includes a surgical guide, implants, prosthetics, tools, and even teeth. We believe we are bringing the future to the implant industry, which will change the implant process around the world and, soon, the technology will arrive in the Philippines, commented Bar-Shalom, who also went on to explain that these advancements are largely due to the ability to 3D model and 3D print in medical-grade titanium materials using laser sintering technology. One of the dental companys most successful implants is the U implant, which is already commonly used throughout Israel. The U implant is used in cases where a patients jaw has been broken or is boneless, whether from an accident, war injury, or disease. AB Dental has built a toolbox, with courses and training designed to help distributors all over the world increase their business and provide knowledge of the procedures to the dentist, allowing them to succeed with their efforts and attract more patients, Bar-Shalom said. Raz Bar David, AB Dentals marketing manager also mentioned that Israels dentists also helped a number of civilians who suffered from facial injuries in the Syrian conflict. Missing or damaged jaw or facial bones could be reconstructed using metal 3D printing technologies, he explained: The technology is growing so fast, we predict that it will achieve 100% application in the next 10 years. During their visit to the Philippines, 120 Israeli dentists visited Manila, Boracay, and Pangasinan, where they discussed and lectured on such topics as bone augmentation, bone implants, and 3D implants. The events also featured lectures by dental professionals from Portugal and the UK. According to Dr. Carlos C. Buendia, the president of the Philippine Dental Association, Israels dental professionals are seeking to establish a partnership with the Philippines. If the partnerships are established, it seems likely that 3D printing dental technologies will become further dispersed around the globe. Israeli Ambassador Effie Ben Matityau (center), AB Dental Technology CEO Ofra Bar Shalom (fourth from left), PDA President Dr. Carlos Buendia (sixth from left), AB Dental Marketing Manager Raz Bar David (fifth from right) Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Jan 16, 2017 | By Benedict German railway company Deutsche Bahn is planning to road-test Local Motors Olli minibus throughout 2017. A fleet of the 3D printed autonomous vehicles, which use AI software IBM Watson, could be introduced in either Berlin or the Bavarian municipality of Bad Birnbach. Terrifying as autonomous driving can seem, vehicles like Local Motors Olli, a self-driving bus built collaboratively by members of the online engineering community, represent the future of road transport. Local Motors took its 3D printed autonomous bus onto the roads of Washington DC last summer, and now it looks like Europe is getting in on the action too, with German railway company Deutsche Bahn currently working with Local Motors to bring the Olli minibus experience to either Berlin or Bad Birnbach, depending on approval. With space for up two twelve passengers and a reported top speed of 25mph, the Olli is smaller and slower than your average bus. But then again, those certainly arent the biggest differences between the autonomous 3D printed vehicle and your standard single-decker. Like all things futuristic, Olli is operated by an app, which travelers can download to set pick-up and drop-off destinations, track movement, and even pay fares. The bus is also electric, can talk to its passengers, and is of course fully self-driving, using overlapping sensors like radar, lidar, and cameras to see further ahead and react more quickly than a human. Deutsche Bahn, seeing potential in the Olli project, has taken one of the vehicles for testing in the Schoneberg district of Berlin, and plans to operate 50 of them in 2017. According to Deutsche Bahn, the fleet of autonomous 3D printed buses could be deployed in either Berlin or Bad Birnbach, on a stretch of road between the train station and a spa hotel. In five years, hundreds of autonomous vehicles will be traveling the streets of Berlin waiting to be called into service, said Damien Declercq, executive vice president of Local Motors. Although it plans to take its fleet of Local Motors buses onto public streets later this year, Deutsche Bahn has been testing the 3D printed vehicle at the Euref Campus, an innovation center for developing sustainable urban solutions. Hosting over 100 companies and 2,500 employees from a range of industries, the Euref Campus can now also claim to be one of the first sites using an Olli minibus. The vehicle, operated by Deutsche Bahn, serves up to 100 riders a day, Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 17:00, and gives the German railway company a chance to learn more about the autonomous vehicle before purchasing more. Local Motors, the company behind the Olli minibus, has also developed a number of high-profile 3D printed cars, including the Strati and LM3D. Posted in 3D Printing Technology Maybe you also like: Jan 16, 2017 | By Tess San Diego-based 3D printer manufacturer Robo 3D has announced a manufacturing agreement with Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry). The agreement effectively establishes a manufacturing partnership through which Foxconn will produce Robo 3Ds Robo R2 smart 3D printer. The Robo R2 3D printer, which launched alongside the Robo C2, was introduced in September 2016 through a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign, which was launched despite Robo 3Ds already established position within the 3D printer market, was an effort to give loyal clients and supporters an early deal for the 3D printers. As we saw, with over $300K raised, the crowdfunding was a big success. Now, with its new partnership with Foxconn, it seems as though Robo 3D is not just going to meet its Kickstarter backer orders for the R2, but will ramp up its production capacity in a big way. According to a source, the production tooling for the 3D printers has already begun, and Robo 3D has indicated that its initial production capacity will reach 10,000 units of the R2 3D printer a year. Consumers can expect to see the R2 hit the market in 2017s first quarter, likely around March. The Robo R2 smart 3D printer boasts a number of useful features, including an on-board camera, a heated print bed, and a smart-control enabled 5 color touch-screen. With a build size of 8 x 8x 10 (203 x 203 x 254 mm), the R2 is slightly larger than its C2 counterpart. Additional features include the ability for dual extrusion, an automatic self-leveling print bed, dual high-speed fans, filament run-out detection, and more. The new 3D printer is also paired with Robo 3Ds new Robo App, which gives users the ability to control and monitor the 3D printer from their phones. According to the company, The app lets you connect and print right from your mobile device, monitor the progress of every print in real time, manage multiple prints and printers at once, connect to cloud libraries and access thousands of 3D models, make in-app purchases (filaments, accessories, print kits and more) and get access to 24/7 support and helpful tutorials. Foxconn, for its part, once skeptical about 3D printing technologies, recently changed its tune, no longer able to deny the benefits of exploring additive manufacturing technologies. Not only has the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer partnered with Robo 3D, it has also collaborated with Zhuhai CTC Electronic, Chinas leading 3D printer manufacturer. In other news, Robo 3D recently debuted on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), and raised an impressive AUD $6 million through its IPO. Posted in 3D Printer Company Maybe you also like: by Richard King Ah, Finland! Land of saunas and heavy metal bands. Of unpronounceable nouns and the freedom to roam. Of Santa Clause and archipelagos. Of clean air, clean skin, and clean criminal records And, now, of the world's latest experiment in Universal Basic Income, which a whole array of public figures, from Elon Musk to Yanis Varoufakis, agrees is A Bloody Good Idea. As do I. But the fact that so many people are agreeing makes me wonder what is being agreed upon, and upon what basis the agreement has been reached. In particular: Why are right-libertarians and uberwealthy business types and even some conservatives pulling on the gloves and pads and going out to bat for an idea more usually associated with the material left? Can an idea that attracts support from Charles Murray and the American Enterprise Institute really have moral merit? I mean, can it? I think it can, but it's important to consider the very different assumptions that are being employed in the arguments over UBI, which, in case you've just returned from a two-year yoga and ice-fishing retreat in Ittoqqortoormiit, is a scheme whereby all citizens receive an unconditional flat-rate sum from the state or other public institution. It's important because those assumptions will shape not only what kind of UBI we may get (if we're lucky enough to get one at all) but also where such a scheme might lead in terms of other redistributive arrangements. If UBI is a means to an end, what end are we aiming at? Very different ones, obviously. I'll state, briefly, the business and conservative/right-libertarian cases for a UBI as I understand them, before outlining in a bit more detail the radical or leftwing case. I hope the latter, as well as being more persuasive, will also serve as a critique of the assumptions underlying the first two cases. First, the business case, which seems to me to combine the stirrings of an uneasy conscience with naked (or at least semiclad) self-interest. It's interesting to note that the loudest business voices raised in favour of a UBI belong to those driving, or working within, the fourth industrial revolution, in which digital technologies and automation are steering economic change. Sam Altman (Y Combinator), Chris Hughes (Facebook), and the abovementioned Musk (Tesla) are examples. No doubt this is partly because they are all fantastically hip and progressive down with the kids and all of that. But it is also because they recognise that as unemployment and precarity increase as a result of these massive changes in production, they may be faced, and faced quite soon, with a crisis of realisation i.e. an inability to turn their products and services into profit. (As workers fall out of the economy, so do consumers.) That many tech "products" can now be created for close to zero marginal cost adds another, quasi-moral dimension to these calls for a UBI, as does the fact that many of those products utilise state-funded innovations such as GPS and the worldwide web. Information wants to be free, in both senses of the word, so the big tech companies must either erect barriers to it through monopolisation and rent-seeking, or find ways to monetise the information collected on their users, or both. Either way, we get the shitty end of the stick, and my sense is that a lot of the interest in UBI now emanating from the business community and Silicon Valley forward thinkers, by definition is rooted in an awareness of the crisis of legitimacy that could soon befall info-capitalism if this situation remains unchecked. Which brings us, with a hop and a skip, to the conservative/right-libertarian case Weird as it may seem, both F. A. Hayek and Milton Freidman were supporters of UBI, which they saw as a way to reduce government bureaucracy and streamline the working of the market. Indeed it was Freidman who evolved the idea of the so-called negative income tax, a version of UBI (kinda) whereby citizens earning less than a certain amount are paid money by the state. In Friedman's view such a scheme would free citizens from the "perverse incentives" engendered through welfare in particular, the incentive not to work and this line of reasoning is very close to the one employed by contemporary libertarians of the Cato Institute variety, whose calls for UBI are invariably couched in recommendations that other benefits be seriously cut or done away with. Incidentally, Finland's pilot scheme contains an element of this thinking, too. Its UBI of around 560 a month will only be given to unemployed Finns 2000 of them, chosen at random and will replace existing benefits. Then again, it will remain in place even if recipients manage to find work (for which they're not obliged to look) and may soon be extended to low-income groups such as freelancers, small-scale entrepreneurs and part-time workers. It should be obvious that the business and the rightwing cases for a UBI or something similar have in common a desire to "save the system" or to make the system more "efficient" (where efficiency, of course, is defined in terms internal to the system itself). The radical case is not like that. That case derives from a different political tradition the tradition of Condorcet and Charles Fourier, of Thomas Paine and Bertrand Russell, all of whom advocated social insurance or a guaranteed basic endowment of some kind. At its heart is a very simple idea: the idea that the world is a common treasury and that a system in which wealth is created socially and appropriated privately is an affront to our species-dignity. I'll set out the argument as clearly as I can, taking a number of points in turn. 1. Poverty reduction The most urgent reason for adopting some form of UBI is that many people have no money, or have less of it than they need to live on, even if they're lucky enough to have a job. The kind of capitalism we've had for the last four decades has transferred risk from employers to workers, with the result that wages have stagnated across the West. Unionism has declined and insecurity has increased at the same time that inequality has grown. The coming wave of automation will likely exacerbate this situation. In their much-cited study The Future of Employment, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne suggest that 47% of jobs white-collar jobs as well as blue-collar ones are susceptible to automation in the near future. The process is already underway, with factory and warehouse workers, truckies, miners, checkout operators, telemarketers and many others losing out to computers and robots. Nor is there any reason to think that the megatrends of automation, customisation and Big Data will create a stratum of skilled employment thick enough to compensate for the millions of people who will lose their jobs, or fail to find them, in the new economy. As Paul Krugman has argued, the notion that increasing information technology means more jobs for people who work in information technology is a non sequitur: the nature of that technology means that any routine task is in the firing line. (Cleaners, who have to follow explicit instructions, may well turn out to have more job security than people who write legal contracts.) The US Department of Labor has stated that 65% of primary school-aged children will end up in jobs that haven't yet been invented, which is one of the reasons educational institutions now talk about transferable skills and "job clusters". But this assumes there will be jobs when those children reach working age. That assumption is looking shakier by the day. Though no panacea, a UBI would help address this situation. It would give people the chance to (re)train or "upskill" and increase their bargaining power in the workplace. It would also make it easier to move between jobs (assuming there are jobs to move between), to relocate, or simply take time out. It would help cover basic necessities and relieve the burden of insecurity. 2. Challenging the myth of fecklessness Many of the arguments against UBI are predicated on a certain idea a deeply conservative idea of enterprise and thrift. A version of the "just-world hypothesis", this idea is that the rich are rich as a result of their own endeavour and talent and that society's poor only have themselves to blame: they are a prey to improvidence and dependency, and a UBI would only encourage fecklessness. Though rarely stated in such bald terms, this assumption is deeply embedded in our politics, coloured as it is by a thoroughgoing emphasis on personal responsibility for what (for the left) are public ills. But the evidence does not support it. As the economist Professor Guy Standing has argued, on the basis of UBI trials in India, Namibia and other countries, there is no evidence that UBI discourages work and plenty of evidence that it reduces poverty, with all the attendant benefits that entails in terms of health and happiness. Similarly, research by MIT found "no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work". There are numerous other examples one could cite. Suffice it to say that such evidence as we have is a problem for the UBI naysayers, and that the assumptions on which they base their objections assumptions, to reiterate, that run deep in our politics may end up on the mat. Good. 3. Our natural inheritance It is now impossible to live for free. Debt, hyper-consumerism and monetisation mean that human beings exist in a market whether they want to or not. It follows that those born into wealth, or are able through luck and/or effort to acquire it, are at a huge advantage to the rest of society, not least because, as Pikketty has shown, wealth grows faster than the overall economy. UBI does not redress this imbalance, but it does at least begin to address it. Even for the radical originators of universal basic income this point was of fundamental importance. For them such schemes were a form of reimbursement for the loss of what Paine called our "natural inheritance". Left critics of UBI are right to say that it does not entail a fundamental transfer of property rights, and that a broader program of anti-trust legislation, financial regulation and so on is needed to address socioeconomic injustice. But a UBI offers reparation a social dividend in a privatised world. Here's Standing: Thomas Paine, a leading light in the American and French Revolutions, argued that the wealth of society is the result of collective efforts over generations and that everybody should receive an equal social dividend as a right of citizenship. Jump forward to the 21st century, and rentier income is increasingly flowing to property owners, many of whom have done little work to gain it. Universal basic income is a revolutionary solution without a blood-soaked revolution. Looked at in this way, UBI forms a break with the kind of welfare thinking that makes a fetish of the "deserving" poor and condemns the rest to life below the breadline. In my view, UBI should be viewed as remuneration, not security a conception to which unconditionality and universality are central. Yes, everyone should get UBI, even the rich folks mentioned above, even Donald fricken Trump. (They'll have to pay much more in tax, so don't panic.) Birthright cannot be means tested. 4. The place of work Modern politicians often talk as if the point of an economy is to create jobs. It isn't, any more than the point of a human body is to create droplets of sweat or calluses on your thumbs. The point of an economy is to create wealth, and computerisation and automation mean that we now exist in a world where wealth can be created more easily and more quickly than it was in the past. Accordingly, the radical case for UBI does not regard it, necessarily, as a way to help people back into paid work, but as a way to help them subsist outside the wage system. This is enormously important psychologically and philosophically as we move towards a situation in which the limits of growth become more and more apparent. One doesn't need to be committed to the anti-work tradition represented by Paul Lafarge or Bertrand Russell to appreciate that advanced societies are in transition to a new kind of society in which paid work is bound to play a less significant role. As Paul Mason has argued in Postcapitalism, blowing the dust off some arguments associated with Andre Gorz, there can be no more utopias based on work. From information goods to 3D printing, we are evolving a whole range technologies that are implicitly post-capitalist. The future is here, as William Gibson has said; it just isn't evenly distributed. That doesn't mean to say, of course, that human beings will cease to be productive. I think they'll grow more productive, not less, and that, slowly, we'll evolve a distinction between the kind of labour necessary to maintain human beings in comfort on the one hand and creative, non-algorithmic work on the other. It goes without saying that basic income also recognises implicitly the fundamental contribution made to society by unwaged primary care-givers, a sector Mason fully expects to expand as paid work diminishes and people reconnect with their communities. UBI is a step towards that end. 5. Liberty and equality For Bertrand Russell a guaranteed income had the potential to marry two radical traditions: anarchism and socialism. I'd put it slightly differently and say that a UBI brings together two values often held to be in conflict: liberty and equality. Put simply, UBI increases both. It gives everyone the means to subsist, extending dignity to the poor and the marginalised; and it does so with the minimum of interference. As such it has the potential to transform the relationship between the individual, the economy, and the state. Well, that's it the leftwing case (as I take it) for a UBI. Patchy, no doubt, but an honest try. Anyone wanting further information on UBI and the various trials conducted in its name is invited to visit the website of the Basic Income Earth Network, which as well as doing excellent work itself is invariably across the latest developments. Or you can watch this lecture by Standing, or this one by Varoufakis. I'm off to Finland. Nahdaan myohemmin! * Visit me at The Bloody Crossroads. by Holly A. Case Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) The first and last time I saw Zygmunt Bauman was in October 2011. The Polish sociologist had come to Jena where he was one of the star participants, along with the Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller, at a workshop on "Approaches to Postmodernity from the East." As the organizers of the conference repeatedly emphasized, Bauman and Heller did not merely write about modern European history, they were modern European history. They were invited to reflect on their mid-century experiencesof the Holocaust, Stalinism, dissidencein light of what they (we) know now. The conceit seemed straightforward enough, but as the German historian Reinhart Koselleck wrote, "modernity only became recognizable as a new time once expectations distanced themselves ever more from all previous experiences." In other words, nothing ever turns out like you expect. Although at the time I had not read Bauman's work, the particular tragicomic trajectory of the workshop left a deep impression on me. I reported on it at length to a German acquaintance in a series of emails, and even wrote a poem about Bauman's role. (Historians are not, in general, renowned for their poetry; it will soon become clear why.) When I saw the announcement of Bauman's death last week, it brought to mind that October five years ago. The following are excerpts from my letters (translated from the mediocre German) and the poem, along with passages from Bauman's own writings. The "exchange" that emerges is meant not as an in memoriam, but as a sign of life and a continuation of thought, an attempt to follow his example. ** October 21, 2011: At the moment there's a workshop here in which Agnes Heller and Zygmunt Bauman are participating. There's a lot of talk about democracyhow it's actually always threatened by people and parties who want to do away with it, either entirely or in part, and who also sometimes come to power democratically (as in Germany in 1933, or in Hungary now). And one must simply live with this danger. Bauman and Heller say that democracy is therefore the best that we can expect. On the one hand, as a political being, one must forever exist in fear and apprehension, which can easily lead to cynicism. One could start to think that it makes no sense to support democracy as such, because it always contains the seed of its own destruction. But it is precisely these thoughts that should arouse fear and distress insofar as they show why fear and despair should not drive politics. And there we are back at Hitler again "Liberal democracy, in other words, aspires to square one of the most notorious of the notoriously unsquarable circlesto preserve the liberty to act of, simultaneously, the state, individuals and their associations, while making the liberty of each a condition of the freedom of the others." (Bauman, In Search of Politics, p. 155) October 22, 2011: Today I've seen something extraordinary. It was the last day of this conference I wrote to you about. The two intellectuals, Bauman and Heller, were somehow separated from all the other participants and audience members, firstly because they are 86 and 82 years old respectively, and both have hearing trouble. Almost none of the many questions they were asked received an answer; maybe they didn't even hear the questions, and so spoke about something else entirely. Secondly, people were always trying to ask them questionsfor example about the relationship between their life-experiences and their thoughtthat didn't seem to interest them. Bauman in particular simply didn't want to answer those questions. Meanwhile there were ever more determined attempts to insist that they speak about such things. Twice today Bauman tried to break through by explaining why he had no answer to biographical questions (about the Holocaust and Stalinism and dissidence and emigration, etc.). The first time he said that it's not his task to do so because he can't be objective. He spoke instead about ideas; social structures, forms of statecraft, resistance, democracy,sometimes he made some attempt, for the sake of the organizers, to say a word or two about his own experiencesabout his father, for example, whom he had watched being ordered by a German soldier during the war to clean the street with only his handsbut almost nobody heard it, because he very nearly mumbled and always had some kind of problem with the microphone. Sometimes he absentmindedly stroked the microphone so that all one could hear was a loud scratching sound. The audience giggled as he talked on. Then the organizers put a headset on him, but it kept slipping off, and as he tried to put it back in place it came to hang from one of his gigantic ears and bobbed along with his head movements in an incredibly comical way. More giggling and whispering. And when he had his second break-through moment, at the very end, he said that he didn't want to talk about himself and could not understand why people were so keen on that. He had, he said, made many notes in preparation for this workshop, and had something to say, but hadn't as yet managed to get it out. He said he finds his own life history a deadly bore and wants to hear nothing about itthen he spoke again about his ideas, although no one had asked about them. "The distinctive feature of the stories told in our times is that they articulate individual lives in a way that excludes or suppresses (prevents from articulation) the possibility of tracking down the links connecting individual fate to the ways and means by which society as a whole operates; more to the point, it precludes the questioning of such ways and means by relegating them to the unexamined background of individual life pursuits and casting them as brute facts' which the story-tellers can neither challenge nor negotiate, whether singly, severally or collectively." (Bauman, The Individualized Society, p. 9) But the organizers meant no harm by any of this; they're very nice and only wanted the best. Really. But as I saw the way Bauman resisted, still striving to think something as a living scholar, again and again, but wasn't taken seriously in that striving Those gathered saw a life before them and wanted to grasp it in its entirety. But one can only grasp a life in its entirety when that life is over. Bauman was still alive, and therefore he was not the one we wanted to analyze and understand. "And there is no good solution to the dilemma, because it is precisely the fact of having risen above nature that opens our finitude to scrutiny and makes it visible, unforgettable and painfulSince we are not allowed to forget our nature, we can (and must) go on challenging it." (Bauman, The Individualized Society, p. 1) Later by chance I came across him on the street near my apartment, alone, smoking a pipe. I approached him with a question. Earlier he had spoken of how he had gone to witness the Occupy protests in Spain. He said the young people who were demonstrating had no idea against what or whom they were fighting, and therefore also didn't know by what means they should fight and where the enemy is. One can't change the banking system with feelings. Everything will be forgotten once the feelings have subsided. I asked him: How should they then go about it if not in the way they are now? He said he didn't know and is pessimistic, that he'd seen so many hopes run aground in his 86 years, and doesn't really believe anymore that anything can change. But without hope we'll do nothing, I said. One should never give up hope, he said, even when it changes nothing. Then he excused himself and walked on. "Indeed, there seems to be little the individuals, singly or severally, can do to fight back, let alone defeat, the threats to the security of their social standing or to the certainty of their future prospects. The exact locations of those threats are elusive and difficult to chart; such locations as can be eventually guessed stay as a rule far beyond the reach of real or imagined individual powers. Attempts to find them, if undertaken at all, lead more often than not to a resigned or despaired conclusion of the there is nothing I can do about it' type." (Bauman, In Search of Politics, p. 48) October 22, 2011 (draft, unsent): Zygmunt Bauman in Jena Oct. 22, 2011 Here, a rare exotic bird That trails into A turtleneck; A brain atop an Absorbent ring Of bunching cotton. There's a corpse in there Somewhere And we mean to pluck it out With question picks And provocation pliers; But the head just floats On its cotton ring, Until the day When the picks insist And the pliers reapply, Intent on answers To a bloated why. But the headset with The microphone Has fallen, and, in Pushing it back, It's turned around And upside-down And hanging from an Enormous ear To bob, and there Is just the sound Of the microphone on The cotton ring: Is he answering? Another microphone Appears, Placed in his paper hands, But all we hear Is the disappointing Sound Of continuous thinking As the head Resists the invitation To preen For the obituary And how we want To be able, too, And feel as you, To throw it all On a single wager, To believe as one In the truest win, To know in advance And together, Loving and feeling Everything, And not knowing How it all must end. But we know better (And so do you) How wrong you were How right we have become Born into rightness Laying therefore Only half-wagers Of reasonable sums, Knowing, too, That tomorrow always, But always comes, And is never quite What you or I would Precisely have or like. And so we reserve And save what we have, Parcel out the One big dream We all get at the start In modest change, Breaking it up, And above all Down, Hedging our bets To increase our chances Of a modest win To see us through To a fitting end. And there are you, Facelet on a ring, Above it all And with nothing left To gamble on Or gamble with. You know at least How not to die When the picks would pick And the pliers ply And the green-hued Youngsters will Have their why. Oh, why won't you, Bobbing head, Come out of there: Stop playing live When we know Damn well You must be dead. For no one could Survive the breaking Of beautiful things As you seem to have. So come, Old Man, And breathe your last And use that breath To comfort us For all those things That you have lost That we have Never had. "Also the immortality of the individuals qua individuals has now been collectivizedit feeds itself on the death of the individual." (Bauman, Postmodernity and its Discontents, p. 162) October 26, 2011: In the meantime I've been thinking some more about Bauman. I'm trying to understand why the organizers kept wanting to talk and ask about the biographies of the two thinkers. Maybe it was because those of us who were born after the Second World War have experienced relatively little in comparison to these people, andalthough it may sound strangeit may be that we feel a kind of experience-envy with respect to those who consciously went through all of that. We might also have a belief-envy, because that generation believed so strongly in certain things in a way we never could. We've known from birth that a strong belief like that is a kind of insanity and therefore fear it. "It is common nowadays to deplore the growing nihilism and cynicism of contemporary men and women, the short-sightedness or absence of their life-projects, the mundaneness and selfishness of their desires, their inclination to slice life into episodes, each to be squeezed to the last drop with concern for the consequences. All these charges have ample evidence to support them. What most moral preachers fulminating against moral decadence fail to mention, though, is that the reprehensible tendency they condemn draws its strength from the fact of being a rational response to the world in which one is compelled to treat the future as a threat, rather than as shelter or promised land." (Bauman, In Search of Politics, p. 173) Our lives have not only been relatively peaceful, but also marked by a less variable political sensibility, which is to say that we've never had such great hopes, and also no such great disappointments as Bauman and Heller's generation (and here I'm speaking mainly of intellectuals and educated people, old leftists). In terms of a shift in worldview, 1968 in the West was nothing compared to 1936-1938 (Spain), 1939-1945, and 1956 (Hungary). That's why we want to know what it was like back then, when people still believed and felt and experienced things. Our reality is always lukewarmit can't be burning, boiling hot, and it's no longer a matter of life and death, just a matter of being or not being wealthy, or of being somewhat-left or somewhat-right. Our pain is only ever private when compared to Bauman's; as a community we feel little or nothing at all. Even sympathy is everywhere and nowhere, always out of phase, like a correspondence. One tries to express something, to make oneself understood, but then writes a letter about the harvest that is read by someone who is only on the cusp of planting seeds. "we may have earned ourselves a world without wrinkles, but also without landscape, history, and purpose." (Bauman, Postmodernity and its Discontents, p. 162) We've gotten very deep into autumn here. I can't see anything anymore. I wake up in darkness and come back home in darkness. I'm neither depressed nor euphoric. So don't write me a fantastic letter, because in my present state of mind I won't be able to appreciate it. "The tighter are the shutters, the easier it is to miss the sunrise. Besides, the sun may not keep forever from setting on the most powerful empires, but it most certainly never sets on the human planet." (Bauman, In Search of Politics, p. 202) Haight Street, like a great record, invokes a by-gone era of great musicians, daring artwork, and high, um, fidelity. That's why out of the list of San Francisco's best record stores, many of the greats are just blocks from each other down Haight Street. So grab an eco-friendly bag, hop on the 71, and prepare yourself for an afternoon of musical nostalgia on this do-it-yourself walking tour: Amoeba Records Located a few steps East of Golden Gate Park, Amoeba Records is the world's largest independent record store. A large staff and a help desk await to guide you through the 24,000 square feet housed inside of a former bowling alley. Start by touring the perimeter of the showroom to admire the collectible records hanging from every wall, then explore the clearly marked rows for every conceivable genre (they even have a Christmas section year around), at prices ranging from brand new to bargain bin. // 1855 Haight St, amoeba.com Rasputin Music (1672 Haight) This Bay Area independent staple lacks in size but Rasputin makes up for it with an intimate staff ready with an answer or to place a special order. Use their size to your advantagewhile this shop is some times passed over for other record stores nearby, you can enjoy smaller crowds and less combed through bins to hunt for an overlooked gem, especially if you're digging on Record Store Day. // 1672 Haight St, rasputinmusic.com/haight Recycled Records Rare and vintage vinyl isn't cheap, but neither is the cost of an eBay bidding war over that Kevin Ayers' record that ships from Japan. Recycled Records is everything a classic record store should be with tightly packed bins full of reasonably priced classics and oddities from every era. The staff is quick to help you navigate their maze of genresGospel is knee level, back centerbut once you're in the right place, their combination of selection and value is sure to make the stop worth your while. // 1377 Haight, recycled-records.com Break: The Pork Store and Buena Vista Park Before the six block walk to the next record shop, fuel up at The Pork Store Cafe, serving diner-style brunch, sandwiches and burgers until 3:30 everyday. Don't let the store name fool you. From pancakes to biscuits with mushroom gravy, The Pork Store has something for every record store crawler. // 1451 Haight St, porkstorecafe.com Once you're back on the street, take a time out and walk around Buena Vista Park. From it's untamed, zig-zagging trails to random appearances from off-leash furry friends. Buena Vista Park is packed with surprises, including a drainage ditch lined with gravestones and flashes of the city skyline peeking through its wooded peak. // Buena Vista & Haight Street Jack's Record Cellar On the other side of Divisadero, Like stepping back in time" doesn't begin to describe this treasure chest lurking just off Haight on Scott Street. A San Francisco institution since 1951, Jack's Record Cellar features records stacked in boxes or rows so tight that you need to keep an eye out not to get cornered. Despite all this, this beloved record shop embodies the magic of The Haight with it's old school staff and nostalgic knickknacks from music's golden age. // 254 Scott, facebook.com/pages/Jacks-Record-Cellar... Groove Merchant Records Aficionados will rejoice in Groove Merchants' no filler cannon of rare grooves. Every bin is a museum exhibit of music history, specializing in soul, funk, jazz, and world. Cool Chris and company are a set of encyclopedias waiting to be opened, even if the question is, What is the name of the jam you're playing?" Though packed with appropriately priced one-of-a-kind records, vinyl hunters on a budget shouldn't pass on this placecheck our their Awesome albums for $5" bin tucked within this one-of-a-kind location. // 687 Haight St, facebook.com/groovemerchantrecords Vinyl Dreams If nostalgia isn't in your record rotation, head to the future of music at this mecca of house, disco, and electronica. The owner is a DJ and ready to recommend the latest EPs to add your mix or play some tracks to hot wire your electronic enthusiasm in this intimate, organized shop. // 593 Haight, vinyldreams.storenvy.com Rooky Ricardo's Records Practiced in the art of soul and funk 45s, Dick Vivian is the master of this soul record shrine. Tell him what you like and let his insights unfold at one of their many listening stations or if time is of the essence, grab one of his mix CDs. From turntable repair to dance lessons, there are plenty of reasons to stop by this 28-year-old San Francisco institution. // 448 Haight, rookyricardos.com Our website uses cookies which are necessary for running the website and for providing the services you request. We would also like to set the following optional cookies on your device. You can change these settings any time later by clicking "Change cookie settings" at the bottom of any page. For more information, please read our Cookie Information. Please select the optional cookies we can set on your device: How to watch, what to know about South Dakota State at Northern Iowa Prospect Hill Tin Drilling 2017 Adelaide, Jan 16, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Havilah Resources Limited ( ASX:HAV ) plans to sequentially develop its portfolio of gold, copper, iron, cobalt, tin and other mineral resources in South Australia. Our vision is to become a new mining force, delivering value to our shareholders, partners and the community. Highlights: - Prospect Hill is a very promising tin exploration project in South Australia. - Drilling is planned on two new high grade tin prospects in the first quarter of 2017. - The objective is to outline a sufficiently large resource that will justify development. Havilah Resources Limited ("Havilah" or "Company") with its joint venture partners, consultant geologists Messrs Brewer and Teale, plans to commence a program of exploration drilling on several high grade tin targets at Prospect Hill in the northern Flinders Ranges during the first quarter of 2017. A budget of approximately $350,000 is planned, of which $90,000 will be funded by the South Australian government under a PACE (Program for Accelerated Exploration) grant. The balance of funding will come from Portia mining cash flow, consistent with one of Havilah's stated strategic objectives for 2017 to make new discoveries that are material to Havilah. The drilling program has been approved by the Department of State Development (DSD) and an aboriginal heritage survey has cleared all areas for drilling. Prospect Hill is the only significant tin resource in South Australia and is one of the most promising early stage tin projects in Australia. Havilah previously announced the discovery of the high grade Fly Hill tin lode with outcrop samples grading up to 34% tin (refer to ASX announcement 12 December 2014). In a sequel, Messrs Brewer and Teale describe yet another high grade tin discovery at Black Rock and sporadic high grades at Petermorra in a recent presentation given to the South Australian Exploration and Mining Conference, which can be viewed on the following link: http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/Z0F02S0A Like the Fly Hill discovery, Black Rock has exceedingly high grades of tin in outcrop (up to 58% tin) and was not identified by the early Cornish prospectors. The tin mineralisation at Black Rock can be traced discontinuously for 400 m towards the east, but is difficult to visually identify for tin grades less than 20%. Reverse circulation drilling is planned to test each of the new prospects discovered, namely Fly Hill, Black Rock and Petermorra in order to determine the dimensions and depth persistence of tin mineralisation in each case (see map below for prospect locations). In addition, further drilling will be carried out at the South Ridge lode where Havilah's October 2007 drilling campaign returned several encouraging tin intersections with associated copper, zinc, lead and silver mineralisation over a strike length of more than 400 m (refer to results cited in ASX quarterly report 29 November 2007) including: 2.5 m (true width) of 4.85% tin in drillhole PHRC03 6.8 m (true width) of 0.98% tin in drillhole PHRC04 The South Ridge lode has an Inferred Resource estimate of 172,000 tonnes of 1.15% to 90 m depth. The target objective for the current drilling program is a resource of 1 million tonnes of economic grade tin ore, most likely spread over several prospects, which will justify the construction of a central processing facility. Preliminary metallurgical test work on three composite RC drill chip samples from Havilah's earlier drilling programme by Burnie Research Laboratory confirmed that the tin, which is mostly present as free cassiterite grains, can be effectively recovered by gravity methods. For example, for a high grade composite (4.8% tin) 84% of the tin reported to a 48% tin concentrate, while for the low grade composite (0.5% tin) 79% of the tin was recovered into an 8.5% tin concentrate (along with abundant sulphide minerals and garnet). Subject to the results of the current drilling, further metallurgical test work on drill core will be undertaken to determine the optimum tin recovery parameters. This work would also investigate parallel recovery of associated sulphide minerals that contain appreciable copper, lead, zinc and silver. Havilah Managing Director, Dr Chris Giles, commented: "It is remarkable that our partners were able to discover more high grade tin outcrops at Black Rock and Petermorra, after their earlier discovery of Fly Hill. "With tin prices once again approaching historical highs (currently at about US $21,000 per tonne), it is an opportune time to be undertaking a concerted drilling program to establish a threshold level of economically exploitable tin resources. "If these exceptionally high tin grades at Fly Hill and Black Rock can be replicated in the drilling it would not take many drillholes to put together a significant tonnage of tin at each of these prospects. "The tin occurs as generally coarse cassiterite grains, which points to comparatively simple gravity processing" he said. About the Prospect Hill JV Havilah has a joint venture with Messrs Brewer and Teale on EL 5891 (45 square km) and may earn an 85% interest in the tenement by completing a feasibility study, having already earned a 65% interest through past exploration expenditure. Thereafter Messrs Brewer and Teale may contribute their 15% share of development costs or revert to a net smelter royalty. Havilah also owns 100% of EL 5463 (30 square km) that adjoins EL 5891 immediately to the south and covers comparable age rocks. To view the full release, please visit: http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/V880KP6K About Havilah Resources Ltd Havilah Resources Ltd (ASX:HAV) is a debt free South Australian gold producer having recently financed and developed its first gold mine at Portia in north-eastern South Australia. It plans to follow on with three copper-gold-cobalt mining developments at North Portia, Kalkaroo and Mutooroo, which are underpinned by a JORC resources mineral inventory of over 1.4 million tonnes of copper, 3.6 million ounces of gold, and 18,000 tonnes of cobalt. Alleges Ashok Chavan to Hyderabad based party and says that Congress will go solo in Mumbai for contesting BMC polls. Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan launched a scathing attack on All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and said that it has been offered a contract by the BJP to contest election in Mumbai and other regions of Maharashtra. Chavan said that AIMIM is likely to play spoilsport in the Municipal Corporation elections by splitting secular votes which may damage Congress partys electoral prospects. He said, AIMIM is playing into the hand of BJP and has decided to field candidates in Muslim dominated areas of the city which may cause harm to Congress. On one hand, BJP is planning to consolidate Hindu votes while secular votes will be split between Congress and AIMIM. AIMIM has been trying to expand its foothold across the country after it had won few seats in Maharashtra. It also had contested the Bihar assembly polls to help BJPs cause which backfired. The BJP and AIMIM are two sides of the same coin, added Chavan. Congress has been paying price for sidelining Muslim voters and they have now started shifting loyalties towards AIMIM. In the past to AIMIM has received flak for helping BJP while contesting elections. When asked whether Congress will have a pre-poll alliance with NCP for contesting the BMC polls Chavan replied, We have already announced the names of 45 candidates for contesting the BMC election so we are not keen to have an alliance with NCP in the city. Even party activists want us to go solo in civic body polls. However in other areas, we may have alliance with NCP if the local leaders have no objections against it. We will have tie-up with like- minded parties. In the 2014 Maharashtra assembly polls, AIMIM managed to win 0.9 per cent of the total votes polled while fielding only 24 candidates in the 288 member state assembly, an average of over 20,000 votes per constituency it contested. The party also finished second on three seats while coming third in another eight seats. Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam said, As per the recommendations made by prominent leaders, we have decided to contest the BMC polls independently. We will contest all the 227 seats and our list is expected within a week. Meanwhile Chavan, will lead a protest in Mumbai outside RBI office to protest against demonetisation campaign and loss of autonomy of the institution on January 18. Leader of Opposition in legislative Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, will participate in protests to be held at Nagpur, informed Chavan. [dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter Arnab Goswamis resignation from Times Now, another senior journalist Barkha Dutt has resigned as a Consulting Editor of NDTV. According to reports, she is likely to start her own venture. She is one of the best journalists, surrounded by many controversies from her marriage to the affiliation to Kashmir, everything was hullabaloo. She is one of the journalists who are being trolled the most on social media. Its very saddening to see the hatred for her by some section of the particular society. Fearless and ethical journalism has to be at the forefront of the fight against hatred, misinformation and lies. Nowadays, journalists are attacked by political parties supporters. Since 2014, media is coined with various terms and there is hardly any freedom allowed for press. However, journalists like Barkha Dutt, Ravish Kumar or Arnab Goswami have chosen to raise their voices than doing the slavery journalism. She is one of the superb journalists, but things specifically relating to Kashmir and the Radia aspect which make people hesitate to congratulate her. She was very skilled at presenting what she wanted to present. In Radia issue, she was caught red handed though nothing was illegally done by her. There is no doubt that she is a presenter and conducts good interviews. NDTV greatly benefited from her immense contribution over the years. She was the face of the channel. Dutt rose to prominence in journalism for her fearless coverage of Kargil war in 1999. She later became the face of NDTVs programme We The People. She has won many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, Indias fourth highest civilian honour. However, her stint with NDTV was also blemished by controversy as she figured in the polemics. The right wing trolls, spewed their venom on her but she stood firm, never faltered and never compromised in what she believed in. Dutt was born in New Delhi to S.P. Dutt, an Air India official, and Prabha Dutt, who was a well-known journalist with the Hindustan Times. Dutt credits her journalistic skills to her mother, a pioneer among women journalists in India. Her younger sister, Bahar Dutt, is also a television journalist working for Network18 group. Dutt graduated from St. Stephens College, Delhi with a degree in English literature. She received a Masters in Mass Communications from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She started her journalism career with NDTV and later rose to head the English news wing of the organisation. She also obtained a Masters degree in journalism from Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Journalism, New York assisted by an Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation scholarship. While covering the events of 2002 Gujarat violence, Dutt identified attackers and victims of a riot as Hindus and Muslims on television, flouting the guidelines of the Press Council of India. Varadarajan wrote that it was improper on part of Barkha Dutt to recognise a politically mobilised mob as Hindus. In the 2012 book, Corruption Free India: Fight to Finish, Yasir Hussain described Dutt as a controversial and a pro Sonia Gandhi journalist. Britta Ohm wrote in 2011 that Dutt has attracted substantial criticism over the past few years for her various aspects of her reporting. Ohm wrote that Dutt is criticised for secular shrillness, betraying the cause of Kashmiri Pandits, over-the-top nationalism in the reporting of Kargil conflict, and for soft-pedalling Hindutva. Dutt was also criticised for her coverage of 2008 Mumbai attacks, during which she reported from Taj Palace Hotel and The Oberoi Trident. She was blamed for sensationalising the events, putting lives at risk and causing deaths by identifying on live television where the hotel guests might be located. Writing for the New York Times, Lydia Polgreen wrote that critics viewed Dutt and some other reporters as extremely theatrical and melodramatic in their coverage of the 2008 attacks. In November 2010, the magazines OPEN and Outlook published transcripts of some telephone conversations between Niira Radia with some senior journalists, politicians, and corporates. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) announced that they had 5,851 recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radias attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale. Dutts conversations with Radia were reported and the former became the face of the tapes scandal. On 30 November 2010, Dutt defended herself before a jury of her peers in a televised program on NDTV. Dutt apologised over the issue saying it was an error of judgement on her part, but said that she had not indulged in any wrongdoing. Magazine editor Hartosh Singh Bal said that Dutts role in the Radia Tapes exposed the institutional malaise of the organization of which she was a part proximity of NDTV and Tehelka are concerned, their closeness to the Congress is no secret. Dutts role in the Radia Tapes did not seem to point to an individual act but an institutional malaise. A long journey with NDTV has come to a halt after her exit from there. A lady who is an institution in herself may have definite plans ahead; I wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Inputs from various agencies (Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com) China on Monday said admission of non-NPT signatories in NSG cannot be a farewell gift for countries to give to each other, a day after the outgoing Obama administration asserted that Beijing was an outlier in the efforts to make India a member of the elite nuclear club. Regarding Indias application to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), regarding non-NPT countries admission to the NSG, we have made our position clear before so I will not repeat it, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here, reacting to remarks by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal, on the issue. Clearly there is one outlier that needs to be addressed and that is China, Biswal had said on Indias NSG membership bid. I just want to point out that NSG membership shall not be some kind of (a) farewell gift for countries to give to each other, Hua said, taking a dig at the Obama administration. China has been blocking Indias membership bid for the 48-member grouping despite backing from majority members on the grounds that India is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). China is advocating a two-step approach for admission of countries who have not signed the NPT. As per the new stand announced by Beijing, it first wants to find a solution that is applicable to the admission of all non-NPT countries followed by discussions on admitting specific nations. Besides India, China is also interacting with Pakistan on the issue as Islamabad, too, applied for NSG membership after India. On the issue of Chinas technical hold on Indias application to get Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar banned by the UN, Hua took an exception to the criticism that Beijing had blocked the UN ban on him. Answering a question about French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayraults comments calling for decisive action against Pakistan-based terror groups like LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen which are targeting India, Hua said, I dont like the word block. As we have explained our position before, on this question, the 1267 Committee needs to base its decision on solid evidence, follow relevant resolutions and rules of procedure and make a decision based on consensus. The technical hold China proposed is to allow more time for consultation and deliberation, she said. Asked whether China will re-think over this issue this year if India files a fresh application as the previous one lapsed due to two technical holds by Beijing, Hua said, China raised the technical hold to give more space for deliberation and consultation. Little girls begging for help amused Sunil Rastogi, Delhi Police said about the alleged serial rapist arrested in the capital on Saturday. Emboldened by the fact that the families of the victims did not approach the police, Rastogi allegedly thought he could get away with anything. The accused paedophile, is a tailor by profession. The accused, who wore the same set of clothes a red jacket (which he considered lucky), used to come from Uttar Pradeshs Rampur district to Delhi by train and look for lone minor girls, kidnap and take them to under-construction buildings or isolated locations, rape them and then flee the city. The rapist nearly targeted eight hundred children over the last 13 years not only in Delhi but even in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. According to Delhi Police, the paedophile Rastogi, claimed to have attempted assault on more than 2,500 minors. Sunil Rastogi was arrested on Saturday on the basis of tip off, DCP(East) Omvir Singh said. The accused told police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place, he added. During interrogation, he confessed he committed the alleged offences and also revealed he committed similar offences with other girls in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), said the officer. Following the arrest of serial rapist Sunil Rastogi, accused of assaulting and raping minor girls, the womens rights activists on Monday demanded strict punishment and immediate hanging of the culprit. Former Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Barkha Shukla, while appreciating the effort made to nab the culprit said he should be hanged. Cases of rapes have been increasing in the national capital. This man getting arrested is a big achievement. Now that he has confessed his crime, he should be given strictest of the punishment. Immediate hearing should be done and he should be hanged, Shukla said. Meanwhile, another women activist Abha Singh slammed the local police for their failure and expressed shock over repetition of such incidents, that too also in the national capital. Its a very shocking and scary situation that a serial rapist rapes and sexually assaults minor girls for more than years. What worrying is that in spite of such a strict law, such cases are happening, that too in the capital. That is a clear intelligence failure of the local police which could not find out that such a serial rapist was living in vicinity. What was surprising was that the police was caught sleeping, Singh said. Meanwhile, a special investigations team has been set up that will look for other minor victims who have been targetted by Rastogi in the past since the police suspect that most some his crimes went unreported. The Bombay High Court suggested to the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to set up public address systems to inform people of the situation during floods and other disasters. A division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni was of the opinion that during floods, the public gets stuck at one place and people are not aware of what is the situation in other places. There should be some public address systems across the city to inform people of what the situation is at different places in the city. This will help people to plan accordingly and not venture out, it said. The court observed that during floods and other disasters, the FM radio channels also continue playing songs instead of giving out information. The bench was hearing a PIL filed by advocate Atal Bihari Dubey, seeking a second doppler radar system to be set up in the city and other measures to ensure people do not suffer due to floods during monsoon. The court was informed by BMC and the state government that a site has been identified and sanctioned in suburban Goregaon to set up a doppler radar. It then noted that apart from doppler radars, several other steps should also be taken. Chennai has doppler systems and public announcements but still it witnessed floodsmay be because of its geographical position. Even you (the Maharashtra government and BMC) should take necessary steps on how to handle floods and other disasters, it said. Web Toolbar by Wibiya Date: 04 January, 2016. Place: not mentioned. The time has come, the Apocalypse has arrived, some researchers suggest. According to them, in 2017, the sadly famous Planet X will hit the Earth, destroying it. In an article published on 04 January on British online news site Express.co.uk, researcher and writer David Meade expressed that an entire different solar system is on a collision course with our own. The centre of this alleged solar system is, in fact, Planet X. Mr Meade affirmed that this planets (which is actually a star) gravitational pull will cause widespread destruction here on Earth that will ultimately lead to the end of humanity. The author of the book Planet X The 2017 Arrival is of the opinion that the devastating Planet X will bring with it seven orbiting bodies, including Nibiru, which has been mentioned several times by ufologists. In his opinion, this solar system has not yet been detected due to the angle that it is approaching Earth. This system is, of course, not aligned with our solar systems ecliptic, but is coming to us from an oblique angle and towards our South Pole, he affirmed. This makes observations difficult, unless youre flying at a high altitude over South America with an excellent camera, he added. He believes that the celestial body will come from our south and will keep on moving towards north. As it intertwines and approaches it, will come from our south and loop all the way to the extreme north, the researcher stated. Then, come back south again as it exits our orbital path, he added. According to him, a spate of seismic activity this year, especially across the Ring of Fire in locations such as New Zealand, Chile and Japan, is due to the approaching star system and its intense gravitational pull. Earthquakes have dramatically increased both in number and intensity, he commented. Storm systems are multiplying both in type, intensity and size, he conceded. Sinkholes and cracks are appearing in the earths crust. Heatwaves are getting stronger and are lasting longer. Finally, he criticised the lack of information about this situation. He says governments have hidden information in order not to cause chaos and confusion. The public is being kept in the dark deliberately to avoid panic. Draw your own conclusions For further information: http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/748762/Planet-X-end-of-the-world-2017-apocalypse-nibiru?utm_source=traffic.outbrain&utm_medium=traffic.outbrain&utm_term=traffic.outbrain&utm_content=traffic.outbrain&utm_campaign=traffic.outbrain Overwhelming evidence that Planet X will DESTROY Earth in 2017 IF YOU thought 2016 was a bad year, 2017 could herald the apocalypse as the much speculated Planet X is set to arrive, according to conspiracy theorists. Paranormal researchers have been investigating the possibility of Planet X for several years now, and some believe that it is now travelling towards Earth. Research scientist David Meade claims that an entire different solar system is on a collision course with our own and that Planet X, which the conspiracy theorist believes is actually a star, and its gravitational pull will cause widespread destruction here on Earth that will ultimately lead to the end of humanity. Mr Meade, an author who wrote the book Planet X The 2017 Arrival, believes that the devastating Planet X will bring with it seven orbiting bodies, including Nibiru, a large, blue planet. The conspiracy theorist believes that the star system is difficult to spot because of the angle that it is approaching Earth. Mr Meade wrote in a piece for Planet X News: This system is, of course, not aligned with our solar systems ecliptic, but is coming to us from an oblique angle and toward our South Pole. This makes observations difficult, unless youre flying at a high altitude over South America with an excellent camera. As it intertwines and approaches it, will come from our south and loop all the way to the extreme north, then come back south again as it exits our orbital path. He adds that the evidence is overwhelming. A spate of seismic activity this year, especially across the Ring of Fire in locations such as New Zealand, Chile and Japan, is due to the approaching star system and its intense gravitational pull, while the author also claims that it is wreaking havoc on many other aspects of the planet. Mr Meade concludes: Earthquakes have dramatically increased both in number and intensity. The public is being kept in the dark deliberately to avoid panic. Storm systems are multiplying both in type, intensity and size. Sinkholes and cracks are appearing in the earths crust. Heatwaves are getting stronger and are lasting longer. Eventually, all of these factors will build to a point where life on Earth, or the planet itself, is wiped out. Web Toolbar by Wibiya Date: 12 November, 2016. Place: Krum, State of Texas, United States. In the last months, the number of reports of UFO and/or alien sightings has exponentially increased in the United States. This phenomenon includes sightings of orbs of lights hovering above cities, military jets chasing unknown crafts, strange beings abducting people, among others. The following case corresponds to this group of incredible events. According to an anonymous report published on 22 December on famous UFO specialised website MUFON.com, on the night of 11 November, a small, grey being entered a house in the small city of Krum, in the State of Texas, United States. According to the witness, the alleged extraterrestrial visitor was in the kitchen. I woke up to a noise in my kitchen and I looked out my door, the unnamed man said, and saw what was like a sort of small, grey dude with black eyes, but not too big head, he continued. The Texan citizen also added that the being didn't have a nose but he said he identified his facial features very well. The witness affirmed that, after observing the entity for a while, it looked back at him and then he felt paralysed by fear. He [the alleged alien] was standing there, but I walked into the kitchen and just stared at him, he said. He looked back at me in the eyes, almost like he could read my mind, because he seemed too get angry with me, the unknown man explained. He also expressed: I looked at his eyes and felt like I was tazered [shocked and paralysed]. Finally, the Texas resident commented that, after this encounter, he fell asleep and, when he woke up, the sun had already come up. I woke up in my bed and it was day time and I felt groggy, he stated. However, he also remarked that this was not the first time he had seen an unexplainable phenomenon. Me and a buddy had seen a UFO a few months before that, so you can understand my concerns, he commented. Draw your own conclusions For further information: https://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/report_handler.pl?req=view_long_desc&id=81098&rnd= Long Description of Sighting Report I woke up to a noise in my kitchen and I looked out my door and seen what was like a sorta small grey dude with black eyes but not too big of a head he didn't have a nose but I reamber his facial features very well ....but he was standing there but I walked into the kitchen and just stared at him and he looked back at me in the eyes almost like he could read my mind cus he seemed too get angry with me and I looked at his eyes and felt like I was tazered....then I woke up in my bed and it was day time and I felt graugy. ....but me and a buddy had seen a ufo a few months before that ....so you can understand my concerns. ... Death is one of the few things you are guaranteed to find in Venezuela, notes photojournalist Alejandro Cegarra, who was born in Caracas and lives their now, creating a portrait of the crumbling country. In a powerful essay at the Washington Post, Cegarra writes that violence permeates everyday life Aiken, SC (29801) Today Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 62F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 62F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Following the tragic crash, ACT Airlines, which operates as myCargo, has issued a statement naming the crew members that lost their lives and giving more details of about the incident that saw a freighter crash into a village close to Manas Airport, resulting in 37 people losing their lives. The ACT Airlines statement reads: The TC-MCL registered, Boeing 747-400 typed aircraft owned by our company, was on route from Hong Kong to Bishkek when it crashed over Kyrgyz airspace approaching Bishkek-Manas Airport on January 16, 2017 at 1:20 GMT time (4:20 am Turkish time). We are very sorry to announce that captain Ibrahim Gurcan Diranci, co-Pilot Kazim Ondul, load master Melih Aslan and flight technician Ihsan Koca passed away in this sad incident. Due to the fact that the aircraft crashed into the edge of a residential area, 33 civil people passed away along [with] our four crew members, according to the first information we received. We want to express our deepest thoughts and condolences to the families of our crew members and the Kyrgyz people. There is no clear and confirmed information about the reasons for the incident yet. Our Company has commissioned two captain pilots at Manas Airport to investigate the accident together with authorities. Furthermore, our technic staff is on their way to the site. Also the investigation has started by both, Kyrgyz and Turkish Ministries of Transport and Communication and the General Directorate of Civil Aviation. We are in constant contact with the Ministry of Transport and general directorate of Civil Aviation, Turkish Embassy in Bishkek-Kyrgyzstan, Airport Authority and Kyrgyzstan Civil Aviation Authority. Clear and confirmed information about the accident will be shared with the public when available. The flight with the cargo from Hong Kong to Bishkek-Istanbul was airborne as planned, after all the checks were carried out, and was on her way approaching Bishkek Airport without encountering any setback or problems during the flight. The crew rested for 69 hours in Hong Kong before the related flight and checked out for the flight to complete the six-hour flight from Hong Kong to Bishkek. The airplane was lifted with a planned total of 85,618 kg "general cargo" load safely. There are no faults recorded in the technical log book of the aircraft. The crashed aircraft is a B747-400 freighter, manufactured in 2003 and with a cargo capacity of 116.462 kg. As of December 10, 2015, she was in the fleet of ACT Airlines. Maintenance of the related aircraft was carried on in timely manner and according to the aviation standards like the other aircrafts in our fleet. Our team which we lost were experienced and specialised flight crew that has carried out their professions with great success for many years. Captain Ibrahim Gurcan Diranci and First Officer Kazm Ondul are ex-military pilots who have represented Turkish Air Force for many years abroad. Our Captain has a total of 10,821 flight hours of which 833 hours are on B744. Our First Officer has a total of 5910 flight hours of which 1771 hours are on B744. Our Load Master Melih Aslan from the flight crew has been working in our company since 2007 with vocational training and competence of total of 14 years of load master experience. Our flight technician Ihsan Koca has served as a technician in the Turkish Air Forces for many years and has been serving in our company since 2006. January 16, 2017 CAIRO The Egyptian government has embarked on a national project aimed at creating Nile crocodile farms and terrariums. Al-Monitor received a copy of the program memorandum that the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, which is affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Environment, prepared and sent to parliament in December 2016. According to the memorandum, the construction phase is set to begin some time in 2017, the trial production of terrarium crocodiles and leather products in 2019, and the commercial production and export in 2020. During the fifth conference of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which was held in Doha in 2010, the government succeeded in passing a proposal to move the indigo crocodile population in the Egyptian environments from the first appendix which prohibits hunting to the second appendix of the CITES convention in 2010. According to the government memorandum titled Nile Crocodile in Egypt, the number of crocodiles found in Lake Nasser, in southern Egypt, exceeds 30,000. The memorandum referred to Article B of the CITES convention, which allows hunting and economically managing crocodiles away from their environment, thus facilitating their artificial cultivation, the commercial promotion of a share of the second and third generations, and the dedication of another share for scientific research purposes. The Egyptian parliament had raised in November the issue of the proliferation of crocodiles in Lake Nasser without their being exploited. Several briefing requests were made in this regard amid an increase in the number of ferocious crocodiles in the lake. It all started with a briefing request about crocodiles submitted by Kamal Abdul Hamid, a member of parliament for the National Progressive Unionist Party, in February 2016. Subsequently in December, 76 briefing requests were submitted by the parliament to the government to inquire about crocodiles. This raised the ire of the Egyptians who complained about the fact that crocodiles threaten the fishery in the lake. In this context, parliamentarian Mohammed Rashwan, a briefing request submitter, told Al-Monitor, "Despite the lifting of the ban on the exploitation of the Nile crocodiles in Egypt by placing it in the CITES convention Appendix B in 2010, the decision was made without Cairo being granted an export quota similar to [the one given to] several African countries. This is because Egypt lacks experience as far as the breeding and multiplication of this endangered species is concerned. He pointed out that this government project would allow Egypt to prove its ability to multiply the number of crocodiles, open the door to investment in this species and be allocated an export quota of the second generation. Egyptian Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy revealed at a meeting of the parliaments Committee on Energy and the Environment, attended by Al-Monitor Nov. 28, that there are still obstacles to the project given the lack of a current legislative umbrella allowing any investment in crocodiles. I have a lot of ideas to economically manage reserves, as is the case in Zambia and the United Arab Emirates, and this can help us make a profit to cover the natural reserves management cost, Fahmy said. He pointed out that he submitted a new draft law to the Egyptian prime minister, who will submit it to the parliament. The draft law tackles the protection of nature, the creation of a reserve management economic body in Egypt and the tightening of sanctions in case of infringements. He said that he had asked environment ministers in Zambia and South Africa to provide him with their expertise in the field of crocodile investment so that Egypt could benefit from it and the ministers were very responsive. The Nile crocodile leather is the most expensive in the world, he said. The Egyptian government chose the area adjacent to Lake Nasser in Aswan, southern Egypt, as a location for the crocodile terrarium project. This area is close to the Nubian community in Wadi Khawr, the village of Karkar and the airport in Aswan, and this will help create job opportunities for the Nubians, Fahmy noted. This will also help create crocodile farming and export investments, which would bring in foreign currency. The price of a small crocodile amounts to up to $400, he said. According to the government memorandum, the project consists of four executive phases. The first is the construction phase in 2017, which specializes in the technical, environmental and legal dimensions. The second phase will be carried out in 2018 and will introduce crocodiles of varying sizes to breeding centers to collect eggs and breed young crocodiles. This phase will also witness tourist activities at the project location by exhibiting crocodiles. The third phase will begin in 2019 with a trial production of terrarium crocodiles and products, which include leather and meat. The fourth phase will begin in 2020 and will promote the different generations of terrarium crocodiles and produce large crocodile eggs. The Nubian village of West Suhail in southern Egypt relies on the Nile crocodiles to attract tourists, despite a hunting ban in Lake Nasser. In this context, former police Maj. Gen. Reda Yaacoub, one of the villagers, said in an interview with Al-Monitor that most of the village residents are trained from an early age to hunt small crocodiles. There are families in the village that keep crocodiles inside their homes and get rid of them when they grow up by throwing them in Lake Nasser or sometimes in the Nile in order to avoid danger, he said. The African indigo crocodile can be found in 41 countries in Africa, including Egypt, and currently 250,000 to 500,000 crocodiles live in natural habitats, especially in East Africa, particularly Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia, the memorandum read. Hunting operations in African countries have increased since 1940 given the price of this crocodile leather, while the other parts of the crocodile are used for various therapeutic purposes, as per the memorandum. In a telephone interview with Al-Monitor, Mohamed Abdel Majid, who belongs to one of the most famous families in West Suhail, said, We keep watching the eggs laid by crocodiles until the young ones hatch. We then throw out the net before they get into the Nile waters and we keep them in our homes. Crocodiles in West Suhail are merely used for exhibition purposes; tourists can see them in glass basins while young people and visitors can take pictures of them, Abdel Majid added. He confirmed that some crocodiles are mummified and that the village residents do not like to slaughter crocodiles to exploit their skin or meat, and most of them throw the crocodiles in the Nile River as soon as they grow up given their ferocity and the amount of fish they need to eat. January 16, 2017 Given that former president and Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was one of the most influential politicians in Iran, and most importantly, one of the main supporters of President Hassan Rouhani, there have been many discussions about the impact of his death on Iranian politics. At the domestic level, the cornerstone of the debate is the future of Iranian moderate and Reformist forces after their loss of a reliable backer especially ahead of the May presidential elections. But this is not the only concern. The death of Rafsanjani has also sparked questions about the future path of Irans foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Rafsanjani commanded respect throughout the region, especially in many of the Persian Gulf Arab nations. This was apparent in the reactions of Arab leaders to his death, several of whom sent warm condolences and appreciated his positive role in improving relations between Iran and its neighbors. In fact, Rafsanjanis positive reputation in the region developed under the years of his presidency (1989-1997), when he made great efforts to reach a detente with the Arab world, while playing an active role in addressing the problems facing Arab and Muslim countries. Furthermore, he was successful in bringing about what could be described as rapprochement with Saudi Arabia. Indeed, he always remained an advocate of Tehran-Riyadh cooperation to solve regional problems. These considerations have caused some observers to speculate that Rafsanjanis death could strike a further blow to Irans already deteriorated relations with some of its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia. However, a deeper analysis of the core logic of such an argument makes it evident that it is based on a false analogy between two completely different eras. When Rafsanjani became president in 1989, Iran was in a very bad state caused by eight years of war with Iraq. The devastation caused by Saddam Husseins invasion and its subsequent negative impact on Irans economy left the new president with no choice but to concentrate on the reconstruction and economic revival of the country. To achieve these objectives, it was necessary to have stable relations with neighboring countries, refrain from inflaming points of regional rivalry and adopt a more cooperative regional policy. This overall trend meant Iran had to devise a more inward policy agenda, with economic considerations at the very top. The Iranian approach at that time proved to be functional, and Rafsanjani was named by his supporters as the Hero of Reconstruction. However, many things have since changed, and these changes are reflected in Irans current regional policies. Irans postwar economic revival directly impacted its level of influence and widened its scope of maneuvering in the region. In fact, even during Rafsanjanis presidency, Iran maintained alliances with national and subnational actors, from the Syrian government to Lebanons Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine. At the same time, the Islamic Republic found itself in an ever-more hostile environment. On the one hand, it became surrounded by the US military, especially after the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. On the other hand, it faced Western-backed regional rivals who attempted to increase their regional influence at Irans expense. Furthermore, through the past decade or so, Iran was persistently facing Israeli threats of military attack over its disputed nuclear program. On a theoretical level, realist-minded international relations scholars argue that the most important concern of all states is survival, and this primary concern drives them to maximize their security by attempting to increase their power. In a volatile region like the Middle East, which is greatly divided into lines of conflicting interests between both regional and transregional powers, the realist approach is particularly applicable. Realist logic posits that a state starts to define certain interests abroad when it increases its power, or in other words, it begins to widen the scope of its external influence. Hence, either in the form of shaping alliances or establishing so-called zones of influence, the overall broader trend seen in states with increasing power is the development of a more assertive foreign policy. In these circumstances, the core of a states foreign policy approach is well beyond the reach and impact of any one individual or even an administration and persists through time. Looking at the Middle East today, it is clear that the level of influence that Iran enjoys is unprecedented in the past three decades. Irans cooperation with Russia, a transregional power, to save its ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been quite successful, and Syria is now heading toward a political solution that, at the very least, observes Irans core interests. In Iraq, the collapse of Saddam Husseins regime by the US-led military coalition has been followed by the establishment of a Shiite-led government that has enjoyed close relations with Tehran for the past decade. In Lebanon, an extended crisis over the presidency was recently resolved in a way that has been widely interpreted as a victory for Iran over its main regional rival, Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, Yemen and Bahrain, two traditional zones of Saudi influence, are now seeing the rise of Shiite groups sympathetic to Iran. With such a change in regional equations compared with the 1990s, it will not be an easy task for a lone Iranian politician to singlehandedly improve relations with Saudi Arabia. If anything, given that Riyadh did not bother to send a condolence message over Rafsanjanis death, it seems that Saudi Arabia is well aware of Irans current foreign policy approach and the new regional dynamics that drive it. As such, while Rafsanjani played a great personal role in bringing about Arab-Iranian detente, the success of those efforts was due to the specific situation and priorities of postwar Iran. Given the very different domestic and international contexts Iran faces today, the relevance of Rafsanjani whether in life or in death in potentially forging a different Saudi-Iranian relationship should not be overstated. January 13, 2017 SULAIMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan When Yusuf Mohammed Sadiq took up the position of speaker of the Kurdish parliament at the age of 36, the political circles in Iraq, and in particular the Kurdish ones, were shocked, as having a young man in this senior position was an unexpected development. However, almost 1 years after his accession to office, he remains unable to reach the parliament building in Erbil province after he was intercepted on Oct. 12, 2015, by a military group affiliated with President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Massoud Barzani. Sadiq is affiliated with the Movement for Change, headed by Nawshirwan Mustafa, who founded the movement with a group of his comrades and a number of independents after he resigned from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by former President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, almost a decade ago. Thus, this bloc became one of the three main parties in the KRG as well as the federal parliament. The text of an interview with Sadiq follows: Al-Monitor: Over a year after the incident preventing you from entering Erbil, why has the parliament not resumed its sessions? Does this period count as part of your mandate as speaker or not? Sadiq: The parliament is yet to be reactivated due to the absence of any agreement between the political parties on the issue of the KRG presidency, after Barzanis extended mandate ended on Aug. 19, 2015. The majority of the parliament had the intention of amending the KRG presidency law in a way that would lead to electing a new president from the parliament. However, the Kurdistan Democratic Party [KDP] and its leader, Barzani, were not pleased with this so they prevented me from entering Erbil, to disrupt the parliament so the issue of the KRG presidency would not be resolved and a new president would not be elected. On April 29, 2014, I was elected speaker of the KRG parliament and the legal duration of our electoral mandate ends on Oct. 6, 2017, and of course this period is included in the parliaments mandate. Al-Monitor: Your movement the Movement for Change [Gorran] does not want Barzani to remain in power, but for the moment he is still the president of the KRG and he is said to be the strongest; and his opponents are unable to oust him. Why so? Why has Barzani remained in office? Sadiq: I do not speak on behalf of the Movement of Change since I am parliament speaker now, but no one has tried to oust Barazani even though his mandate ended in 2013. He has refused to let go of his position and his mandate was extended for two additional years. The fact that political parties can influence the armed forces leads them being used to settle political disputes in the KRG. In addition, Barzanis presidency is now illegal. According to the extension law issued in 2013, his mandate could be extended up to two unrenewable years. This extension happened following the approval of the PUK and the KDP in the last parliamentary session. No political party in the KRG nominated anyone to run against Barzani for the presidency. However, there were independent candidates but no political party supported them. There was no intention to oust him, but his legal mandate has ended and he should comply with the law. Al-Monitor: In light of unpublicized political crises in the KRG, do you think a new civil war could break out or a division between its provinces could occur? Sadiq: Barzani's party took over Erbil in the KRG as its capital, and this is why government institutions in Erbil are under this partys control. There is a possibility for the political conflict to turn into an armed conflict, because some political parties have influence over some of the armed forces in the KRG, which they sometimes use to attack opponents or competitors. This happened to me when a large group of armed men prevented me from entering Erbil. If I were to do the same and get an armed force of my own, there would have been a fight. But I refused to take this path and get an armed group to clear the way for me to force myself into Erbil. The conflict is between two parties, namely the KDP led by Barzani and the PUK led by Talabani both of whom have considerable influence within the Kurdish armed forces, which can lead to an armed fight. Al-Monitor: Do you think that the Kurdish peshmerga forces serve the ruling families or the ruling family, or are they serving the Kurdish people as a whole? Are there any issues within these forces in terms of people or parties trying to impose their influence? Sadiq: The peshmerga forces serve everyone and are dedicated to all the Kurdish people. These forces defended valiantly all the components of the Kurdistan Region, even in the disputed areas. They are funded with the states general budget. However, there are some political and partisan agendas pushing for serving partisan and personal interests through the peshmerga, to the dismay of the forces. Al-Monitor: It is the dream of every Kurd to see an independent Iraqi Kurdistan and to declare an independent Kurdish state. Does the Movement for Change believe the time is ripe to establish a Kurdish state, or do you prefer to remain part of Iraq? Are the calls by other Kurdish parties at this time carefully studied or mere reactions? Sadiq: It is the dream of every Kurd to have an independent state like any other nationalities such as the Persians, Arabs and Turks. A state, however, is built and not declared. There has to be political and institutional infrastructure; then come the negotiations with the federal government to declare the state. There are many complications at the domestic level, as there are no institutions or a good economic situation. It has been six months since the employees in the Kurdistan Region received their salaries. This is not to mention the international complexities that need a dialogue to resolve differences in Iraq. Al-Monitor: Will we see the birth of a young political Kurdish generation, which would take the reins from the old generation, or will the latter keep holding sway? Sadiq: I consider myself to be one of the young generation, and I believe my appointment as president of the Kurdistan Region is a very important step. However, until now, there have been many hardships in the way for young people to have access to important positions of power and to maintain them. Al-Monitor: How do you assess the relations between the KDP with Turkey? Do you find them in favor of the Kurdistan Region, unlike the statements of some of the Movement for Change leaders, who argue these relations only serve personal interests? Sadiq: We are seeking to establish friendly relations with neighboring countries. However, building special ties with any of the regional countries at the expense of another or other component or political party in the region would lead to the division of the Kurdish position. It is not in the best interest of the Kurdistan Region or Iraq to involve the regional conflict. It is also not in the best interest to have different positions vis-a-vis the international and regional crises, as this would lead to sectarian and nationalist rifts, which could lead in turn to a disaster. Thus, the relations should be held with the official authorities, provided that they are balanced and not to be dragged into a regional conflict. Al-Monitor: There is a project for establishing an oil line between the Kurdistan Region and Iran to export the regions oil to world markets. How do you think this would affect the political situation in Iraqi Kurdistan in light of the divided views and position of Kurdish parties toward Irans policies? Sadiq: It is wrong to rely on oil and gas as a source to finance the budget, given that the oil prices are fluctuating. It is also wrong to have the Kurdistan Region as the states sole importer or channel for oil. There is a need to diversify exports and to move away from relying on one single state to this effect. It is in the best interest of Iraqi Kurdistan to hold good relations with Iran and Turkey as well Iraq in the field of energy, as we have seen the region fail when it was exporting oil through Turkey alone. Al-Monitor: Will Sulaimaniyah city, where the PUK and Movement for Change are based, become the capital of a new Kurdistan Region? Will Erbil remain the only capital of the Iraqi Kurds? Sadiq: It would be a mistake to divide the Kurdistan Region into two parts. We need to try to have a unified region. Yet in fact the region is divided into two authorities and administrations. The best proof is what happened to me; I was prevented from entering Erbil, which proves that there are two authorities. Al-Monitor: What is the corruption level in the Kurdistan Region? Does it have an impact on the economy? Are there any solutions? Sadiq: There is a lot of corruption in government institutions within the Kurdistan Region. Between 2004 and 2013, the federal government allocated $107 billion to the Kurdistan Region, in addition to local revenues, such as taxes and customs income, and amounts coming from oil contracts, which account for almost $7 billion. Yet they were not very beneficial to the Kurdish citizen. The Kurdish debt currently exceeds $20 billion, in the absence of strategic projects. Corruption is rampant in Kurdistan. Had the wasted funds been [well] used, the Kurdish economic situation would be much better now. I receive reports from members of parliament indicating that some oil wells in the region were exclusive to influential people who sell the oil as if they own it. January 13, 2017 Lebanon has been spared from the terrorism violence that has struck other neighboring countries of Syria over the past few weeks. And while the arrest of terrorist cells recently shows that the country is by no means immune to the terrorist danger, a number of factors indicate that Lebanon could be relatively more secure than Syrias other bordering countries that have recently fallen victim. The recent escalation in terror attacks that hit Syrias neighboring countries began in Jordan on Dec. 18 when terrorists killed 10 people in the province of Karak, with the Islamic State (IS) later claiming responsibility. A day later, on Dec. 19, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was shot dead by a Turkish police officer who was apparently enraged by the victory of the Syrian army and its allies in Aleppo. Turkey fell victim again in the horrific New Years Eve attack in Istanbul, which led to the deaths of 39 people, and which was apparently carried out on the orders of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Meanwhile, Iraq has been plagued by a series of bombings over the past weeks and days that have killed dozens of people. The latest bombing took place on Jan. 8 near a public market in eastern Baghdad and left at least 13 people dead. The bloodshed that has engulfed Syrias neighbors has sparked fears in Lebanon that it will be next. Earlier this month, on Jan. 3, the Lebanese army announced that it had arrested a terrorist cell made up of 11 members, in the northern city of Tripoli. According to a Lebanese army statement, the cell was linked to fugitive Chadi el-Moulawy, who is accused of being a leader in the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra (now called Jabhat Fatah al-Sham). The army statement said that Moulawy had instructed the cell to carry out attacks on Lebanese civilians as well as current and former military personnel. Moulawy, who still remains at large, is wanted for his involvement in a twin suicide bombing operation that struck Tripoli in early 2015, which targeted a crowded cafe and killed nine people and wounded over 30 others. He was charged with forming a terrorist group. Despite these developments, however, Lebanon could be in a more favorable situation to thwart the terrorist threat compared to other countries that share a border with Syria. One important factor is that the Lebanese-Syrian border areas are relatively more secure than the Syrian border areas with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. The only areas in which terrorists still have a presence on the Lebanese-Syrian border are those that extend from the outskirts of the villages of Arsal and Ras Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, across to the Syrian city of Qarah, which is located between the Qalamoun Mountains and the eastern Lebanese mountain range. In the early years of the Syrian crisis, terrorist groups had control of much larger border areas, including strategic Syrian border cities such as Qusair and Yabrud. Lebanese movement Hezbollah, however, played a pivotal role in expelling the extremists from these towns. According to retired Lebanese army Gen. Elias Farhat, Hezbollahs intervention in these border regions prevented a terrorist invasion of Lebanese territories. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Farhat said, Hezbollah launched an offensive against the terrorists from Syrian territory, and had it not done so, the terrorists would have invaded Lebanese territories just like they did in Ninevah and Anbar in Iraq. Lebanon has also ended the political polarization on which terrorist movements thrive. The country finally elected Michel Aoun as president on Oct. 31 after 2 years of a presidential vacuum due to divisions between rival factions. After his election, Aoun, who is a member of the March 8 alliance which also includes Hezbollah and the Amal movement led by parliament Speaker Nabih Berri named rival March 14 leader Saad Hariri as prime minister to lead a national unity Cabinet. This newfound political unity is bound to further strengthen national support for the Lebanese army against any terrorist danger, not to mention further enhance the cooperation between the various branches of Lebanons security and intelligence services, which are also seen as politically affiliated with either the March 8 or March 14 alliance. But there are also factors related to the Lebanese Sunni community that, coupled with the domestic political consensus, make the country less vulnerable to the terrorist danger. Lebanon does have a Salafist presence in cities like Tripoli and elsewhere, but according to a Lebanese expert on extremist groups who asked not be identified, Lebanese Salafists suffer from a lack of unity that make them less of a danger than one might assume. You have some Lebanese Salafists who are loyal to Saudi Arabia and others who are loyal to Qatar, and still others who are loyal to Turkey, he said. There is no unified Salafist bloc in Lebanon. He added that because the different Lebanese Salafist groups rely on financial support from competing regional states, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, this leads to competing agendas between Lebanese Salafists instead of unity among them. Another important element related to the Sunni community in Lebanon is that there is no significant popular base for the Muslim Brotherhood movement, contrary to the situation in Turkey and Jordan. The importance of this lies in the fact that members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have shown a tendency to be sympathetic and even supportive of extremist groups that have carried out atrocities in Syria and elsewhere. The Turkish assassin of the Russian ambassador to Ankara was heard shouting what has been described as "Muslim Brotherhood slogans" after carrying out the murder. In June 2013, senior religious Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has millions of followers from the Muslim Brotherhood popular base and is described as the Brotherhoods spiritual leader, called on Sunni Muslims to go to Syria and help those fighting the Syrian government, claiming that Iran and Hezbollah wanted to exterminate the Sunnis in Syria. According to Ahmad Moussali, a professor of Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut, Framing the conflict in these sectarian terms has mobilized many followers of the Muslim Brotherhood and led them to support extremist groups, as they view the conflict in Syria as one between the Sunnis and the infidels. Also, Lebanon does not have any significant Sunni tribal presence, unlike Iraq. The Lebanese expert on extremist groups said in this regard that Sunni tribes like those in Iraq have a history of playing the role of contractors with extremist groups. At the same time, however, this expert warns there are many in the Lebanese Sunni community who suffer from what he called a sense of victimhood, making it impossible to completely rule out the danger of terrorist bombings occurring in the country. Sunnis in northern regions like Tripoli as well as in the western Bekaa Valley region whether rightly or wrongly perceive themselves as victims [due to the growing power of Hezbollah and its allies], he said. He added that as long as this sense of victimhood exists, there will always be the possibility of a terrorist bombing happening here or there in Lebanon. He attributed this sense of victimhood to the political and media rhetoric used by Hezbollahs domestic rivals since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, which sought to portray Hezbollah as a growing Shiite power that was taking away the power of the Sunnis. Meanwhile, social activities and development projects have been launched in Tripoli with the aim of tackling the grievances and poverty that contribute to radicalization. The Lebanese government, for its part, launched a security plan for Tripoli in April 2014, which saw the deployment of around 1,800 Lebanese army and security personnel, and this plan continues to be in place. January 13, 2017 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Al-Monitor met with Jamil Mezher, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's political bureau, at his office in Gaza City. Among the several Palestinian issues he discussed in the interview were the decline of Arab and Palestinian leftism at the expense of the advancement of Islamist movements, the most efficient Palestinian tools to resist Israel, the obstruction of the Palestinian internal reconciliation and general elections since 2006 and the current situation, problems and stances of the PLO toward ongoing Arab armed conflicts. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the largest Palestinian leftist party, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, while ensuring the Palestinian right of return to the land they escaped in 1948 under UN General Assembly Resolution 194 that was adopted as interim solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The PFLP, however, has not abandoned the strategic solution to this conflict, which is based on the principle of establishing a Palestinian state on all Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, for all its citizens, without distinction of any kind, Mezher said. The text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: The PFLP was established in 1967 and is an old organization compared to Islamist movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet the political influence of Palestinian and Arab leftism has declined in the Arab world, while that of Islamist groups has increased. Why? Mezher: There are objective reasons behind the decline of international, Arab and Palestinian leftism, which led to the increased expansion of Islamist movements in the Arab region. Most importantly among these is the socialist systems collapse, which started with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This reflected negatively on the strength and presence of leftism in Palestine and the entire world. Another reason is US support for moderate Muslim countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the face of radical Islam. This has also contributed to the predominance of Islamist movements over left-wing currents in the Arab countries. Nevertheless, I think that the PFLP still has a presence as a central power in Palestine, and is still committed to the Palestinian constants and rights. Its popularity and influence surpass all Palestinian leftist forces. Al-Monitor: There are two groups of Palestinian factions struggling to run the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is Fatah, which believes that negotiations and diplomacy are the best option to end it, and there is Hamas and the Islamist factions, which perceive that armed resistance is the best option to end it. Where are you between these two, and which option is the most appropriate at the current stage? Mezher: The peaceful negotiations achieved nothing over the past 23 years, in light of the US bias toward Israeli policies. Also, the armed resistance alone has not succeeded in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, we are calling for the formation of a unified resistance front that would develop a unified national strategy with all forms of resistance, including the diplomatic, legal, political, armed and popular resistance. This would be through a political confrontation with Israel in international institutions and a legal confrontation in international courts, as well as intensified efforts to boycott Israel at the political, economic and academic levels. This is added to countering the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land through popular resistance and defying the Israeli military attacks on our people through armed resistance. This is all important in the struggle, and we support all forms of struggle. But how to determine the tool of confrontation with Israel? This should take place through the unified resistance front that we are calling for, and which would be tasked with the management of the resistance and struggle tools and tactics, in a way that would serve the Palestinian people. For this reason, we call for determining the resistance tools with a national unified decision, not a decision by a particular party. Al-Monitor: What about the failed Palestinian reconciliation dialogue between Fatah and Hamas? Do you think that reconciliation cannot be achieved through bilateral talks? In case reconciliation is not achieved, what are the alternatives? Mezher: The Fatah-Hamas bilateral talks are based on quotas and sharing of power and interests and will not lead to a serious and radical solution. These talks gave each party the right to object to whatever does not serve its interests and desires. Thus, they consist of unfruitful meetings. We call for a comprehensive national dialogue that includes all Palestinian factions, and not bilateral meetings. This would be a real guarantee to reach a serious agreement ending the split and restoring unity to serve the Palestinian peoples interests, not those of a particular side. In this context, we recently received along with the rest of the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah a Russian invitation for a reconciliation meeting in Moscow between all factions. The meeting is scheduled to be held Jan. 15-17, but we are not optimistic that it will lead to concrete results, and we believe that it will not be much different from the previous reconciliation meetings, because there is still a lack of genuine will by Hamas and Fatah to end the division. Despite all that, we assert that there is no alternative for the Palestinian reconciliation and for the agreement on a common national vision and denominators to restore national unity. The failure to reach reconciliation means more slips, more divisions and fragmentation and further deterioration of the internal political and economic situation. This will also mean more daily life crises, such as the worsening electricity crisis, which we believe is a political issue. Al-Monitor: Since 2006, the Palestinian people have not voted in any unified democratic elections and the attempt to hold local council elections on Oct. 8, 2016, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank failed. What is the importance of holding legislative, local council and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories? Why have elections not been held since that time? How does the ongoing election freeze affect the Palestinian people? Mezher: Elections are important and necessary for the renewal of the Palestinian political system and to pump new blood into the Palestinian leadership. Elections are also part of the understandings of the 2011 Cairo Agreement and would end the current division by allowing the people to choose their representatives, presidents and leaders. This, however, has not been applied or implemented due to disagreements by both parties to the internal conflict. We expected the local council elections to pave the way for other elections, but unfortunately they were disrupted by internal disputes. The problem is that any party to the division can easily thwart and disrupt any national and democratic elections and prevent the Palestinians from exercising their democratic rights. The dispute between the two parties is depriving the Palestinians of their chance to renew their political system. The continued election freeze is a manifestation of the bitter division at all levels. It also entrenches the dominance and monopoly of each party over the geographical section it controls, [leaving] Hamas as the de facto government in Gaza and Fatah ruling single-handedly in the West Bank. Al-Monitor: What is your position on the PLO, which Hamas calls for reforming? What do you think are the measures and procedures necessary to reform the PLO? Mezher: The PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It is the Palestinian people's struggle tool. But we have some reservations about this organization, mainly the fact that it is plagued with corruption and monopolized by the Fatah movement, unilaterally controlling the Palestinian national decision. We call for reforming the PLO by holding elections for its national council, central council and executive committee in order to develop the organization to represent the Palestinian peoples political powers at home and abroad. This should all be done on a national partnership basis. Al-Monitor: Fatah's seventh general conference, which was held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 4, stressed the need for holding a new session for the PLOs national council within the next three months. What is your take on this and what is your position vis-a-vis the national council meeting? Mezher: The meeting of the PLOs national council does not only concern Fatah but is rather a Palestinian national issue. Therefore, we call for convening this council to elect a new council and discuss the PLOs political program. This is a matter of paramount importance that should not be delayed. Should this step go forward, it would be a significant stride on the path of reforming the PLO. The national council is required to agree on a new political program for the PLO and to abolish the current one, which is based on giving priority to negotiations with Israel. This program has not led to any positive outcomes, as we mentioned earlier. The new political program ought to serve as a unified national strategy, aiming to isolate the State of Israel internationally and to call for convening an international conference vested with full competencies to implement the international resolutions in favor of the Palestinians that have been issued over years of conflict. Such resolutions include the condemnation of settlements, most recently UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlements, calling upon Israel to stop them immediately in the occupied Palestinian territories of 1967. These should be the pillars of the new political program of the PLO to make a breakthrough in the Palestinian situation. January 15, 2017 ANKARA, Turkey Child care is the biggest challenge for working mothers, but the Turkish government has found an easy solution: pay grandmothers to look after the children. Turkish law requires workplaces, both public and private, to provide child care facilities for their employees, but most establishments do not comply with the rules to avoid additional costs. Instead of fulfilling their responsibilities, they prefer to pay fines. The governing Justice and Development Party has been closely concerned with family affairs. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led a campaign for Turks to have at least three children, while the government has introduced incentives for marrying early, including while still at university, and gold-coin awards for each newborn baby. In 2015, the government launched a European Union-funded child care support program in three pilot provinces, under which working women with children ages 0-2 receive 416 euros ($441) per month provided they employ a socially insured nanny. The program, expanded to Ankara and Istanbul provinces in November, aims to boost female employment, both by keeping the mother at work and ensuring the labor rights of nannies. One eligibility condition for the program is that the caretaker is not a grandmother of the child. In Turkey, grandmothers traditionally volunteer to look after the children of their sons or daughters, and the practice is widespread in all social segments. The government has now announced a plan to pay salaries to those grandmothers as part of a program called National Mobilization in Working Life. The project is scheduled to kick off in February in two provinces Bursa and Izmir and cover 1,000 families initially. After a six-month monitoring and evaluation period, it will be expanded to other provinces with an ultimate target of covering 500,000 grandmothers. For nonworking or retired grandmothers, whose pensions range mostly between 1,000 and 1,800 Turkish liras ($250-$450), the project means an opportunity to earn additional income while taking care of grandchildren at home. When the plan was first announced in early January, grandmothers were truly excited, expecting a salary similar to the 416 euros (1,664 Turkish liras) in the EU-funded nanny program. But Labor and Social Security Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu soon cooled the excitement, announcing that the program would cover the children only of women who work part-time, to allow them to shift to full-time jobs and hence earn more. In an interview with CNN Turk, the minister said the grandmothers would receive about 400 Turkish liras (99 euros or $105) per month. Then the project came under fire for promoting home care for young children by older people rather than in an environment among peers in nurseries and kindergartens. Burcin Demirkan Baytar, a Turkish child psychologist and family consultant, writes on her personal blog that a grandmother cannot keep up with the energy of a child. If home care is the preferred option, she advises that an experienced nanny who is at least 25 take care of the child under the supervision of the grandmother. In a Jan. 6 statement, the Womens Labor and Employment Initiative (KEIG), a platform of civic groups working to empower women, sharply criticized the governments plan, saying it reflected a cost-cutting economic mentality whereby the state attempts to get rid of a duty it is supposed to perform and place it on the shoulders of women. Citing statistics by the Ministry of National Education, the statement said the number of public nurseries had fallen from 497 in 2007-2008 to 56 in 2015-2016, stressing that child care had been left almost entirely to the private sector and the family. And because private nurseries are quite expensive and often of low quality, child care duties are met largely by women in the family, it said. When put in the context of problems such as female poverty, female labors concentration in low-paid, insecure jobs and the poor accessibility of child care and education services, this policy speaks of opportunism, the statement said. In KEIGs view, the government not only flouts its duty to provide child care facilities as a public service but, with its latest plan, discriminates against working mothers who need them most those who lack elder relatives for child care. This approach precludes both the opportunity for a more independent life for women, who, after a certain age have lighter burdens, and the understanding of early childhood education and care as a public service that needs to be provided institutionally, it said. In sum, the support offered to families raising children the future of the nation should be thoroughly analyzed before being put into practice. Experts stress that the education and care children receive in their first three years bear directly on their future. Sadly, uneducated, low-income grandmothers have already started to compete for the care of grandchildren. For working parents, any relief from the prospect of state support could be now superseded by family crises in which the grandmother assumes the care of the child. January 15, 2017 This is the third in a series of stories from Al-Monitor correspondent Fehim Tastekin, who has been traveling in Syria. ALEPPO, Syria As I was walking around the fortress of Aleppo last week, some officials were hoisting the Syrian flag. They insisted that I photograph it. One soldier saluted while others raised the flag. Next to a nearby staircase, a giant poster of President Bashar al-Assad was firmly planted. It was like a conquest celebration. There are some people who compare the battle of Aleppo to that of Stalingrad, which helped change the course of World War II. Of course it is not on the same scale as Stalingrad, but in Syria, the retaking of Aleppo marked the turning point in the war, ending the bloody revolution backed by the Gulf-Western alliance. In a way, the high cost of Aleppo's liberation brings to mind the costly victory of King Pyrrhus of Epirus over Macedonia and Rome. The human and material costs of the Syrian war, which destroyed the historic parts of Aleppo and its eastern suburbs, are extremely high. Whether the battle will be recorded in history as a Pyrrhic victory will depend on whether the Damascus regime and people of Aleppo will be able to reconstruct their beloved city. One factory owner said that if security is assured, he will have his plant running again in one month. Almost everyone Al-Monitor spoke to said, Yes, we have been destroyed, but we will rise and rebuild. Is that wishful thinking? Not really. Those familiar with Aleppo know its people as industrious, productive and determined. Aleppans have valued the historical artifacts around them as the basis of their wealth and prestige for centuries. But to reconstruct some of those treasures will be very difficult if not impossible. Reconstruction of residential areas simultaneously with historic treasures requires a phenomenally comprehensive and expensive effort. Syrian officials are preparing for reconstruction but havent yet shared their plans with the public. There will be separate plans for historical areas and residential districts. According to Mamun Abdulkerim, Syria's director of antiquities and museums, officials are in touch with UNESCO and the Aga Khan Foundation for assistance. I was surprised to hear they have already started training programs in Beirut for those who will be working to restore historic monuments. Abdulkerim was candid in estimating how much of the damaged antiquities they can restore: I cant offer a rosy assessment that all is well. No, it is a disaster. More than 1,500 historic structures were damaged. He said 70% of the historic bazaar is damaged and 30-40% of it is beyond repair. Some can be repaired even if only a small part of them remains standing. "Aleppo is on the World Heritage list. You cannot act arbitrarily or do what you want. We need billions of dollars for Aleppo because the damage is beyond your imagination," he said. There is talk of building a new city in East Aleppo for those who lost their dwellings. There are even rumors of China undertaking such a venture. Asked who will be doing the lions share of the reconstruction, an official said, Naturally, it will be done by our friends who did not abandon us during the war. I dont think there will be a role for Turkey. People will mutiny against such a decision. Given the extensive and countrywide destruction, reconstruction will take considerable time. It is not known yet how much of the work Syria itself can pay for. But no doubt successful reconstruction will help preserve the country's legacy. There are a few advantages for Syria. Contrary to persistent popular analysis from abroad, the country is not divided. Despite sectarian campaigns and clashes by jihadis financed with money they received from the Gulf, Syrians did not split along sectarian lines. There was no sectarian divide between the Syrian army and the people, as some said. When you carefully observe the internal dynamics, you can see it was not a war between Alawites and Sunnis or Christians and Muslims. Only in Homs, when the clashes began, did systematic attacks by Sunnis against Alawites, Shiites and Christians trigger a sectarian divide, but that was short-lived. Aleppo is the best example that this was not a sectarian war. At least six Sunni religious notables were killed in Aleppo because they rejected an armed uprising. Sunni religious figures were constantly under threat for not joining the war. The most annoying question you can ask soldiers on the Aleppo front is whether they are Sunni or Alawite. Nothing angers Syrians as much as this question. As far as I could see, Assad is more popular today than before. Of course, this popularity doesnt cover his entire regime. According to bureaucrats, politicians and citizens Al-Monitor spoke with in Aleppo and Damascus, the system is mired in bribery and corruption and cannot survive for long. People will want to see some of the ruling officials punished. The country has paid an extraordinary price for the war and will not tolerate those profiting from cronyism, nepotism, corruption and abuse. An Aleppo University professor who requested anonymity spoke of the war's influence on politics. I oppose the regime, but I have to admit Assad managed the crisis well. At the moment, we have no alternative to him. If there were an election today, he would get more than 70% of the vote. Of course, my criticism of the regime hasn't changed. People put their criticisms on the back burner temporarily because they realized the country was about to disintegrate. It wasnt the right time to settle scores with the regime. But when the war is finally finished, people will want drastic changes. The government is aware of this mood and is trying to change some things. Be assured, nothing will be the same as before," he said. An academic who joined our discussion said, Many heads will roll. [There is] no other way. As the regime has been given some period of grace by its opponents, there is no serious debate on Assads presidency and his legitimacy. What we have is the foreign-supported opposition holding Assad responsible for the bloodshed, and then those identified as legitimate internal opposition seeing Assad as the guarantor of the country's integrity. Where do Iran and Hezbollah stand? Syria will definitely insist that its allies in the war play major roles in its reconstruction. Nobody challenges the role Russia will play. But it is not the same for Iran, the other major ally. It's not hard to detect resentment among the people and even government officials of Iran's interventionist attitude. Many Syrians even prefer an alliance with Russia because they believe Moscow is not interfering in their domestic affairs. Moreover, Al-Monitor was told that Iranians' overbearing, superior attitude especially annoys the Syrian army. A veteran Syrian journalist told me Iran's assistance won't result in Iranian influence on Syrian politics. "You have to understand the political structure in Syria. Syrias alliances don't allow [for] influence on the country. Assad is balancing Iran with Russians and vice versa. If Iran presses too hard, he cites Russian reservations. If Russia presses too hard, Assad then refers to Iranian objections." Curiously, Syrians' unease with Iranians doesn't apply to Iran-supported, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which hails from the same cultural basin as Syrians. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is no less prestigious in Syria than Assad. In Damascus, Homs and elsewhere even in Aleppo, with its prominent Sunni identity you will see Nasrallah posters all over, and there is widespread affection for him among Christians. In the government offices I visited, all I saw were joint photos of Nasrallah and Assad. Some shops even have Nasrallahs portrait painted on the shutters. Street vendors sell lapel pins, cigarette lighters and wallets with photos of Assad and Nasrallah. I didnt see a single photograph of Iranian leaders. You see Iranians on the front lines but not in city centers. In short, people distinguish between Hezbollah and Iran. Sue Bell Cobb was elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2006 in a campaign that emphasized her decades as a judge and featured catchy commercials with the gospel tune "This Little Light of Mine." It was one of the last times a Democrat won a statewide race in Alabama. Republicans since 2013 have held a lock on all statewide offices. Now ten years later, Cobb is considering making a run again -- this time for governor. Cobb said she is getting encouraged to run by supporters, but has not made a decision. But she said she believes it is time for a change in the political landscape. "People are sick and tired of politicians who care only about the next election and not the next generation," Cobb said. Cobb is not the only Democrat eyeing 2018. Saying they refuse to cede the state without a fight to the GOP, a number of prominent Democrats -- including former congressman Parker Griffith, who unsuccessfully challenged Bentley in 2014 -- are weighing runs in 2018. While Republicans dominate state politics, scandals and troubles enveloped Republicans at the heads of all three branches of state government in 2016. Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard-- a former party chair and architect of the 2010 GOP takeover of the Legislature -- was removed from office after being convicted of felony ethics charges. Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended from the bench after a judicial discipline panel found he urged probate judges to defy the federal courts on gay marriage. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley was politically wounded and faced an impeachment push after revelations regarding his relationship with a former staffer. "I think the people of Alabama are discouraged by the Mike Hubbard, Roy Moore, Robert Bentley tactics," said outgoing House Minority Leader Craig Ford, D-Gadsden. Ford is also considering a run in 2018. "Just because someone has Republican by their name doesn't automatically make them a good person or a good leader," Cobb said. Cobb, who endorsed Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general, criticized what she called a "toxic partisanship" in politics. Cobb, who resigned from her post in 2011 before her term was complete, said the state has substantial problems, including in education and the loss of rural hospitals. "We need someone who is going to support public education, give our teachers what they need," Cobb said. The deeply red state has not been kind to Democrats in recent elections, a fact not lost on the potential candidates. Trump won Alabama with more than 62 percent of the vote. It is nearing two decades since a Democrat won the governor's office. The late Lucy Baxley, the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama, lost re-election to the Public Service Commission in 2012. Griffith's underfunded campaign against Bentley in 2014 captured just 36 percent of the vote. Griffith, an oncologist, a former state senator and congressman who briefly switched to the GOP, said he "probably" will run in 2018. "We are 46th or 47th in education. We are pulling up last in health care results... The middle class is melting away," Griffith said. Griffith said to win, he thinks a Democrat would have to put together a grassroots coalition that includes young voters "who want to stay in Alabama and see it at least try to reach its potential." "Maybe that's possible. Maybe it's not. The polling says it's not, but the polling said Hillary was going to win," Griffith said. Google has apologized for displaying "Robert E. Lee's Birthday" instead of "Martin Luther King Day" in some business listings in three states including Alabama that recognize the confederate Civil War general's birthday as a holiday. Google's holiday hours feature states that "Robert E. Lee's Birthday might affect these hours" when one searches for businesses in those three states: Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. (Screenshot) Oddly, the two men weren't even born on the same day of the month; Lee was born on Jan. 19, 1807, while King was born on Jan. 15, 1929. A Google spokesperson explained that the tech giant is working to fix the situation in a statement emailed to AL.com Monday afternoon. "The holiday hours feature lets people know when a business could be closed or its hours could be different due to a holiday," the statement said. "Unfortunately, in the three states where Robert E Lee's birthday is recognized as well, the feature is not surfacing Martin Luther King Day as it should be. We apologize for any offense this may have caused. Our teams are working to fix this issue as quickly as possible." MLK Day is a federal holiday, and the idea that the world's largest search engine would recognize a confederate general's birthday over King's has drawn criticism as being anything from simply strange to outright offensive and dismissive of the civil rights icon's legacy: @Google Robert Lee's Birthday in mississippi instead of Martin L King day?? Two Cents (@My2centsyall) January 16, 2017 So either @google or @goldencorral acknowledge today as Robert Lee Birthday and not MLK day. pic.twitter.com/BhnZTMTPGO BriChalla (@Brit_Holmes89) January 16, 2017 Alabama is one of just three states that currently celebrates King and Lee's legacies as official holidays. Alabama state code states that both men's birthdays should be celebrated on "the third Monday in January." The 31st annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Unity Breakfast brought hundreds of Birmingham political leaders, civil rights advocates and ordinary citizens of all stripes together Monday morning to celebrate King's life, preserve his legacy and reiterate the importance of protecting the gains of the civil rights movement. In those ways, the event was typical of many that have come before it. But the 2017 breakfast comes at a defining point in American history as President Barack Obama is four days away from handing the White House over to Donald Trump. That political context was a central theme of Monday's gathering of well over 1,000 people at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center. Pride and a strong sense of accomplishment permeated much of the proceedings, as speakers paid tribute to the accomplishments of the nation's first black president. They expressed particular gratitude for his designating the Birmingham Civil Rights District a National Monument last week in one of his last acts as sitting president. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Birmingham Democrat, had long pushed for the designation, and she thanked Obama for the "honor that we all cherish" in her greeting at the beginning of the fete. "How about our president, Barack Obama? He has really honored the city of Birmingham," she said, later concluding her remarks with a call for unity. "Let us go forth united and recommit to Dr. Martin Luther King's dream." 'Eternal vigilance' But many speakers could not refrain from giving voice to the deep strain of foreboding and uncertainty felt by many Americans, especially those who belong to racial minorities, as Inauguration Day draws near. Going back to his early days as a New York City landlord, Trump has repeatedly attracted racial controversy and been accused of outright racism over the course of his life and career. In 1973, the U.S. Justice Department sued his company for discriminating against black potential tenants. In 1989 he took out alarmist full-page newspaper ads calling for strong measures to reduce crime and alluding to the "Central Park 5," a group of young black men who were infamously accused of violently raping a woman, a crime of which they were exonerated years later. More recently, he has called for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it. He also nominated U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama - who has been at the center of a series of racial controversies over the years - for U.S. attorney general. And in recent days Trump has engaged in a high-profile battle with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, the widely beloved civil rights icon who was badly beaten during the March on Selma when he was 25 years old, calling him "all talk." This background figured high in the minds of many who spoke at Monday's breakfast. "I greet you on behalf of Americans who are frustrated, concerned and afraid about the upcoming transition of power," state Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, said. "Would you do your homework so you are prepared when Putin comes to town?" Birmingham Civil Rights Institute co-founder Odessa Woolfolk asked the crowd, half-joking, adding later, "We know eternal vigilance is necessary." And keynote speaker J. Mason Davis II, a black veteran lawyer in Birmingham who has represented plaintiffs in numerous civil rights cases dating back to the 1960s, spoke out against Trump proposals including the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the expulsion of millions of undocumented immigrants. 'They did this thing' But the event was also a chance to take stock of all that the civil rights movement did for Birmingham and the United States as a whole. After Davis graduated from Talladega College in 1956, Alabama incentivized him and other black intellectuals of his generation to leave their state if they wanted to further their educations. As such, the state paid the difference between the cost of tuition at the law schools of the University of Alabama and the State University of New York at Buffalo so that he could attend the latter, from which he graduated in 1959. Still he returned to Birmingham after getting his J.D. in New York, and dedicated much of his life to racial justice and community service. As such, his words Monday morning carried added weight. "I'll leave you with this: be vigilant, be cautious, be wide-awake. Learn your history. Learn where you came from. Remember: your grandparents, they did this thing," he said before Bishop Calvin Woods, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference President, delivered the prayer and benediction and the crowd sang "We Shall Overcome" together." Though the breakfast touched on many topics, the dominant one was the message of honoring and remembering the many sacrifices that paved the way for the myriad opportunities now open to black Alabamians from Birmingham to Mobile. "We had to go through these things in order for you to be sitting in this audience together," Davis said. A Vestavia Hills man was one of two people killed early Sunday in a two-vehicle Macon County crash. The accident happened about 4:50 a.m. on Interstate 85 near Shorter. Alabama State Troopers Sunday night identified one of the victims as 65-year-old James Patrick Owens of Vestavia Hills. The second victim has not yet been identified. Cpl. Jesse Thornton said Owens was the driver of a 2008 Cadillac DTS that was involved in a head-on with a 2008 Dodge Charger before the Cadillac left the roadway. The Charger caught fire. Both victims were pronounced dead on the scene. The crash closed I-85 southbound for about four hours. The accident remains under investigation, and no other information is being released at this time. Conakry, Guinea Through the night sky thick smoke permeated the air, but witnesses saw no flames as they drove through Koule, a small town on the outskirts of NZerekore which is around 600km from Guineas capital, Conakry. The region was the site of an attack on July 14, members of the Guerze community lynched a young Konianke man accused of stealing gas from a petrol station. The Konianke people are primarily Muslims, and the Guerzes are people who come from the surrounding forests, and are generally Christian or animists. The young mans boss, a car mechanic, heard about the killing, and decided to take matters into his own hands, gathering members of the Konianke community and attacking the petrol station. There has been tension between the two communities before, and lynchings and setting people on fire for alleged crimes, is common in this part of Guinea. However, in this case, the scale of the violence after the lynching took everyone by surprise. News of the fighting in Koule spread quickly to nearby NZerekore, Guineas second largest city. Gangs from both the Konianke and Guerze communities came out onto the streets. They were armed with machetes, sticks, knives and some with weapons. Petrol stations were burnt down; churches, and mosques were set on fire. People from both ethnic groups were savagely hacked to death, some were beheaded, and others were shot dead. Guineas Government says at least 100 people were killed. By the time an Al Jazeera team reached NZerekore, all the bodies had been moved off the streets. Journalists were not allowed into the morgue at the main hospital, or permitted to speak to those injured on the wards. However, one man who did not want to be named told Al Jazeera that there were some people including children still missing. A grieving family Mhawa and Makura are both sitting on a carpet in a courtyard surrounded by their children. There is an empty vacant look in their eyes and both women begin to weep as they tell their story. At least 100 people were killed in clashes in the countrys second largest city, NZerekore [Nazanine Moshiri/Al Jazeera] They were both married to Soumaoro Mamadi, a Muslim from the Konianke tribe. They watched helplessly as their husband was dragged away from the gates of their house and men used machetes to hack him to death. His body was taken away by the military; and they dont know where and if it has been buried. They blame the Guerze Christian community. There have been small-scale clashes between the two religions particularly in the past few years. This family says it is confused about why two tribes and religions turned on each other in such a brutal way. We want justice we want those responsible for crime to be judged. Mhawa the eldest wife tells me. But we also want peace. We cant go on cutting and killing each other. The root causes of violence Government spokesman Albert Demanata Camara blames what happened in NZerekore on what he calls a history of violence in this part of Guinea. There has been conflict there; there are many weapons and tension. Even some fighters from that war are now in NZerekore. Camara is referring to a history of tension that spilled over into Guinea during Liberias civil war, which ended in 2003. Liberias border is only 80km from NZerekore. The Konianke viewed as new arrivals in the region are Muslims considered to be close to Liberias Mandingo ethnic community. [There by - history of violence in this part of Guinea. There has been conflict there; there are many weapons and tension.] During the Liberian conflict, rebels fighting then-president Charles Taylor drew much of their support from the Mandingo community. The Guerze, in contrast, were generally considered to be supporters of those forces loyal to Taylor. However, Ronaldi Benvenue a young studious looking man insists there is a religious element to the tension in NZerekore. We have had problems here since 1991. They were political at the beginning now they are religious. The Muslims want to impose their religion on us. Benvenue said poverty is also a problem but it is more about the Muslims who are trying to build mosques and convert everyone. Politics in turmoil The opposition in Guinea has its own views about the causes of the violence. It points the finger of blame squarely at President Alpha Conde, who came to power in 2010. Cellou Dalein Diallo is one of the main opposition figures in the country; he finished second to Alpha Conde in that election.People have no confidence in the security forces in the administration in the justice system so they have tendency to take justice into their own hands, Diallo said. There were violent scenes in Conakry in May, when opposition groups came out to the streets to demand parliamentary elections, more than 50 people were killed, and 350 people wounded. The elections, initially planned for 2011, were postponed several times because of a dispute between the opposition and the government over preparations for the vote. The Government says elections will happen in September, and insists that the violence in NZerekore has nothing to do with the political situation in Conakry. The Government has sent in the military and we did see soldiers outside churches, mosques and patrolling some street corners. However, it admits there is not much it can do with its limited resources. We do not have means to secure all of Guinea not just NZerekore. Camara says. We have been under an arms embargo since the Coup of 2008. We are putting in place a new army police and gendarmerie, but we are not able deal with all the situations as they arise at the same time. Guineas mineral wealth Guineas government does not want the recent spate of violence to impact on the mineral trade. There is too much at stake in Guinea to keep investors away for long, this lush mountainous country has some of the largest untapped deposits of iron ore in the world. Moreover, it is the worlds largest exporters of bauxite, which is used to make aluminum, and Guinea also has deposits of gold and diamonds. President Alpha Conde recently hired an international law firm DLA Piper to help renegotiate several mining contracts with companies including Rio Tinto and Vale. These deals were made under a previous regime, and many Guineans feel bitter that the country is not benefitting from these huge multi-billion dollar contracts. Guinea development Guinea ranks 178 out of 185 countries in terms of development. Half the population can not read and write, and that is no surprise as half the population also lives on less than a dollar a day, so they can not afford to pay for the books and transport to send their children to school. Electricity and running water is also a luxury, Conakry, for example, is split into two zones. One area of the city will get power from 7pm-midnight one day, and then nothing the next day, and vice versa. In NZerekore the power situation is even worse some areas will not have electricity for days. During exam times students are often seen huddling together under the fluorescent lights of petrol stations, just so they can revise. NZerekore representatives from both ethnic groups have signed a government brokered peace deal. The Guinean authorities have also announced a judicial investigation into the massacres. The Mamadi family, are staying at home, as they are concerned that violence could flare up again at any time. There is shame and anger in NZerekore about what happened. People now have a choice; there can be reconciliation and peace, or perhaps more violence, which will impact on the whole region. In the rundown Pedion Areos Park, older men walk slowly by young asylum seekers before agreeing on a price for sex. Athens, Greece Mahmoud looks out over the chaotic mess of rooftops and aerials and towards the neglected park he now calls home. Hes wearing a red hoodie, blue jeans and a black cap. Everything suggests he is a typical 20-year-old, apart perhaps from the jagged scar on his brow. I am ashamed about what I do for money, but I will tell you, he says. The Afghan asylum seeker clasps his hands tightly in front of him as he speaks. I didnt know anyone when I arrived in Athens, he begins. Life was very difficult and it still is. I dont have a home so I sleep every night in a park nearby. I had only two options when I arrived one was to become a thief or a drug dealer, Mahmoud explains. But I am not that kind of person. The other option was to stay in the park and have sex with older men, or anyone that asked for it for five or 10 euros [around $5 and $10] . His only shelter is a cheap tent that he shares with an Iranian asylum seeker. Perched on the concrete roof of a small maintenance building hidden among the trees of Pedion Areos Park, it offers little protection from the cold. A bag of oranges provides breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mahmoud says the money he makes selling sex only covers the cost of his daily food. He cannot afford to save anything. He speaks regretfully about his work but sees no way out. This is my only source of money now, he says. Ive made a mistake, and now Im deep in this s***. But Mahmoud isnt alone. Pedion Areos Park has become a hub of illegal male prostitution, sometimes involving refugees as young as 15. Greece has strict laws regulating prostitution. Sex workers must register, be aged over 18, legal residents in Greece and work in a licensed brothel. Despite this, illegal street prostitutes, who are often migrants and refugees, are estimated to outnumber licensed prostitutes by 20 to one. Licensed sex workers have fortnightly sexual health checks and access to free treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Unlicensed street sex workers, like Mahmoud, do not. READ MORE: Male prostitution on the rise in Lebanon Shopping for sex While the majority of Athens sex workers are female, Pedion Areos has long been a hot spot for male sex work. The park, although grand and sprawling, has, like its inhabitants, been largely ignored. The large statue of King Constantine I that stands at its entrance has been covered with graffiti. Used condoms and tissues litter the ground. Those familiar with the park say that the majority of the sex workers there are Albanian, Bulgarian and Romanian. Neno, a Bulgarian Roma, arrived in Athens eight years ago and has been a sex worker in the park ever since. He says he doesnt particularly mind the work, but that it doesnt pay well. A lot of people hate this job, they dont want to be here, he says. For me, its OK. I dont have a problem with it. Just the money isnt good. Neno isnt homeless. He lives in a small town to the southeast of Athens which is popular with tourists, and takes the bus into the capital each weekday. The bus stops directly outside the park. At the weekends, he makes a little extra money playing guitar in tavernas along the coast. For Neno, being a sex worker is a job like any other. For Mahmoud and the parks other homeless residents, it is a desperate attempt to survive. They spend their mornings waiting and warming themselves by fires started in steel cans, into which they put anything that will burn, often producing a choking smoke. The Greek guys [clients] dont come in the day because they think they might get caught, Mahmoud explains. They wait until later to come to the park, when theyll be safer. Business begins in the late afternoon as the winter sun starts to set and the few dog-walkers and runners leave the park. Their busiest time is from dusk until midnight, when the majority of those in the park are sex workers or their clients. As the light in the park fades, middle-aged men walk slowly past benches on which young men and boys sit, as though perusing shop windows. By now, a different demographic has arrived: unaccompanied minors, refugees who have been orphaned, are travelling alone or have been separated from their family during the journey, and see the park as a place to make money. The main issue is that they have no money, either for their daily lives or to pay for a smuggler, explains Kenneth Hansen, the programme manager at Faros, an NGO that runs a shelter for unaccompanied minors close to the park. Some of them have told [us] that they have sex with men in order to do other things, to have money to go and buy a new phone, he says. One boy told us he had sex with two men and got five euros [$5] so he could buy cigarettes One guy told us he had sex with a man so he could pay to have sex with a woman. The clients are always Greek, explains Mahmoud. Most are in their 60s, but some can be as young as 30; others as old as 90. You see men of all ages [buying sex], he says. Some are young men and some look like they might die the next day. Some of the sex workers are clearly on familiar terms with the clients, laughing and chatting openly with the ones they recognise. Others, often the younger ones, sit awkwardly, saying little. Usually the men see me in the park, they come closer to me then ask me, Where are you from?' says Mahmoud. Ive learned a bit of Greek so I understand and we speak a bit. Then they sit down next to me and thats how it starts. Once a price has been agreed, they move somewhere more private but that usually just means going behind a bush a few metres away. The clients Costas is 46 and has good job at a logistics company. Most evenings after work, he goes home to his apartment in a suburb of Athens, where he lives alone. But three or four evenings a month he changes his clothes and drives to the park to look for sex. His routine has been the same for 10 years, he explains. Its easy to find sex here, he says. I normally stay for about an hour before I find someone to go with. He is familiar with two or three of the sex workers at the park whom he knows by name and sees regularly. Five euros is the going rate, he says, regardless of nationality. Costas insists that he never has sex with refugees or anyone under the age of 18. That would be wrong, he says. But he does acknowledge that he cant be sure about the age or nationality of those he does have sex with. Only his closest friends know about his visits to the park, he says. Yiorgos says he is 52 but he looks much older. He lives an hour away but comes to visit a friend who lives near the park three times a week. They go for coffee and, on his way home, Yiorgos walks through the park, looking for sex workers. [The sex workers] are 17, 18, 20, 30, 50, it depends, he says. The day before, there was one that was 16, small, he adds, before looking around nervously. They should be 18, he admits. A sex worker in their 20s could have sex five times a night, earning up to 50 euros, he explains. He doesnt believe that what he does is wrong. If I steal, its a problem. But I dont steal. Neither do I fight . If I fight or steal, yes, the police will come. But if not, they dont come. What could they tell me? All they can do is ask me why I am sitting here. Is it wrong? he says. Prices vary, explains Tassos Smetopoulos, a volunteer who organises a weekly food donation in the park. In Pedion Areos, it starts from five euros [$5] and goes to 200 [$213], he says. Some of [the clients] say to the boys, OK, you can come to my apartment, to have a little party. Some friends of mine will be there too. You can stay the night. Something like this can go up to 200 euros [$213]. It depends on what theyre asking and what the boys accept. In search of a better life Shortly after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Mahmoud, who was then five, left his native Herat with his family. My father went first before us and then the rest of our family followed him, he says. Everybody in Afghanistan then who wanted to seek a good life usually went to Iran, so thats what we chose to do. In Iran, his family lived on the margins, unable to find legal work once their temporary residence permit, which they couldnt afford to renew, had expired. After five years of schooling, Mahmoud started working to support his family. I tell them Athens is a good city, with nice people, but really it's like someone has injected this city with filth by Mahmoud, asylum seeker At 15, he left Iran ahead of his family to search for work opportunities in Turkey. I stayed for five years in Turkey working on a construction site, trying to earn some money and to organise my trip to Greece, he says. But so far, he hasnt found the greater opportunities he had hoped for in Europe. If I find any way at all, I want to go to Germany because I know some people there. Maybe I could find a good job, he says. I would leave as soon as possible if I just found the road and some money to get there. Ive tried many times to go [illegally] to Italy from Patra, hiding under a truck, but it never worked, he adds. He says hes tried the official, legal routes for asylum in Greece, which would enable him to live and work legally in the country. Ive tried to claim asylum but I cant. Its very hard. Many times Ive been to [the asylum office] but I never get a meeting. They always say I have to wait. Using a mobile phone borrowed from a friend, Mahmoud speaks to his family in Iran at least twice a week. He gives them updates on his journey but never tells them the truth about his life in Athens. I tell them Athens is a good city, with nice people, but really, its like someone has injected this city with filth, he says. READ MORE: Going undercover as a sex worker It is going on in front of our eyes and no one is doing anything Mahmoud says there are no pimps operating in the park and that it is only the asylum seekers desperate situation that forces them into sex work. But Hansen believes that not enough is being done to investigate whether anyone is behind it. Many [young refugees] are involved in sex for money, he says. But whether they do it for survival sex, or just to get an allowance, or if it is more organised, this we dont entirely know and its an area the authorities dont really want to touch. Its taking place so obviously. You can just go to the park and solicit a 15-year-old It is going on in front of our eyes and no one is really doing anything. In November, Greek police told CNN that they had not had any reports of unaccompanied minors involved in the sex trade in [Pedion Areos or Victoria Square], but said they were aware of the problem and working to address it. The office of the Prosecutor for Juveniles, which is responsible for unaccompanied minors in Greece, told Al Jazeera that it had begun an investigation in December into the issue but that the investigation was ongoing. They declined to answer any further questions about it. Mahmoud says that uniformed police officers sometimes patrol the park, but that evading them has been easy so far. When the police come, if they come, we just go into the bushes and hide and they dont know we are there. * The names of sex workers and clients have been changed to protect their identity Refugees and migrants living in overcrowded camps in Greece as Europe prepares to return newly arrived asylum seekers. Refugees, the Greek government and non-governmental organisations have expressed concern about Germanys decision to return asylum seekers to Greece in mid-March. The German interior ministry announced on Thursday that it would return newly arrived asylum seekers to Greece effectively suspending a five-year ban on such returns in accordance with the Dublin Regulation protocol. Under the Dublin rules, asylum seekers must be returned to the first European Union member country they entered. However, Germany has for the past five years refrained from carrying out such transfers owing to the increasingly poor humanitarian conditions refugees and migrants endure in Greece. The decision came just a month after the European Commission recommended that member countries return refugees and migrants who first entered the EU in Greece back to that country. Abdulazez Dukhan, an 18-year-old who arrived in Greece nearly a year ago after fleeing Homs in Syria, said sending asylum seekers back to Greece will lead to a sorry situation. Dukhan is among the estimated 62,000 refugees and migrants who are currently stranded in mainland Greece and its islands owing to a wave of border closures across Europe that followed an agreement between the EU and Turkey in March 2016. He came to Athens two weeks ago after living in a camp in northern Greeces Thessaloniki for several months. Here its really difficult. Ive been visiting many camps, he told Al Jazeera. There are so many people in squats [in Athens] also, in abandoned buildings and schools. The camps dont want to take any more people. Dukhan, who runs Through Refugee Eyes, a photography-driven social media project to raise awareness about the plight of refugees, said the relocation programme for asylum seekers has moved at a snails pace. The people waiting for [relocation] interviews dont have anything. Theres no work, you cant do anything. Greek Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas has criticised the EUs plans, arguing that the current legal framework is unable to respond to the historic migration flows and leaves the burden to the member states that migrants first arrive in. Speaking in December, Frans Timmermans, the European Commissions deputy head, argued that the returns will help to bring back Europes asylum system to its normal state. This will provide further disincentives against irregular entry and secondary movements, and is an important step for the return to a normally functioning system, he said. Nonsensical idea Elinor Raikes, regional representative for the Europe response at the International Rescue Committee, described the plan as a rather premature and nonsensical idea. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Raikes described the conditions in many Greek camps as substandard and dangerous. We are obviously very concerned by this announcement that EU leaders will start sending back asylum seekers to first countries of entry like Greece and Italy. In recent weeks, winter weather has gripped the region and left thousands of refugees and migrants particularly those living in tents and irregular housing exposed to the elements. Raikes said: The extreme weather of the last week has exposed even more of the shortcomings of the EUs response and the response of countries in the Balkans. READ MORE: 2016 The year the world stopped caring about refugees She added that Greek authorities should look for a better solution to accommodate the tens of thousands of refugees and migrants who are already in the country. Camps should be a short-term humanitarian intervention. As of December, the EU had relocated only 5 percent of refugees and migrants who registered for the programme in Greece and Italy. The union intends to relocate the entire 160,000 people by September. Last month, Greeces Mouzalas claimed that no refugees or migrants were living in tents or without heating, aside from around 100 people in the Athens-area Elliniko camp. Mouzalas reiterated his claim on January 5, saying that there are no refugees or migrants living in the cold any more with the exception of roughly 140 tents in Athens and the Vayiohori camp near Thessaloniki. Not a safe place for refugees Yet, in a joint statement published last week, dozens of solidarity networks and NGOs denounced the living conditions in Greeces refugee camps, pointing out that several camps lack heating, electricity and hot water. The statement urged all parties to oppose any plans by the European Commission and European governments to resume planned Dublin returns to Greece, arguing that survival in Greece cannot be guaranteed for the refugees in light of the inadequate living conditions. Separately, Human Rights Watch urged the EU not to move forward with the returns. Salam Aldeen, the Danish-Iraqi founder of the Team Humanity organisation, said asylum seekers who passed through Greece have already been through the hell of living here. READ MORE: Stranded and sick, refugees endure harsh Serbian winter Greece is not a safe place to live for refugees. I have seen people in incredibly freezing conditions. I have seen children with diseases, he told Al Jazeera. They dont have a future in Greece. Milena Zajovic, a Zagreb-based spokesperson for the Are You Syrious refugee solidarity group, accused Europe of playing ping pong with refugees and migrants. She argued that European border closures that followed the EU-Turkey deal in March 2016, along with pushbacks on borders across the Balkans, have led to more desperate people using smugglers and other dangerous means to reach Western Europe. For those stuck in Greece, degrading conditions in camps, a lack of money, little access to humanitarian goods and an ostensible increase in far-right attacks have created a web of daily complications at a time when hope that the borders will reopen shrinks yet more. Our volunteers work with people who are losing their limbs to frostbite and resorting to prostitution in order to provide for their families, because Greek officials and international players such as UNHCR dont seem to have the capacity to properly take care of over 60,000 people stranded in Greece, Zajovic told Al Jazeera. Follow Anealla Safdar on Twitter: @Anealla Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_ Should the Iran nuclear deal fall apart, the consequences for the Middle East region would be unfathomable, according to a new report from the International Crisis Group. The report, coming on the eve on Donald Trumps inauguration, urges the US president-elect to preserve and strengthen the landmark agreement, rather than tear it up as he has threatened to do. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which took effect one year ago, Iran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment programme in return for sanctions relief a pact derided by Trump as the worst deal ever negotiated. Any attempt by the Trump administration to undercut the deal in the hope of fixing it is likely to backfire Moreover, by destabilising the JCPOA, the new administration could usher in what it says it seeks to prevent: greater Iranian assertiveness, more regional instability and lower odds of resolving the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen places where Iran is part of the problem and thus ought to be part of the solution, states the International Crisis Groups report, released on Monday. OPINION: What will Trump do with the Iran nuclear deal? The report, which provides a status update on the first year of the JCPOAs implementation, notes that ongoing enmity between the United States and Iran has left the agreement vulnerable. Since January 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency has verified on six occasions that Iran was complying with its JCPOA obligations, the International Crisis Group found. But the report also acknowledges the bumpy road of implementation over the past year, including several minor technical violations by Iran, subsequently remedied, and problems with sanctions relief. The relaxation of sanctions by the US, the European Union and the United Nations has allowed Iran to regain oil market share, with oil production and exports rebounding to pre-sanction levels of 3.85 million barrels a day. The country has also absorbed more than $11bn in foreign direct investment, the highest level in two decades but Iran still lacks normal international banking ties, hampering its reintegration into the global economy, the report notes. The threat of sanctions snapback, if the agreement falls apart, along with the possibility of new sanctions, continues to hang heavy amid concerns over Irans regional ambitions and its ballistic missile tests. The agreements collapse appears neither imminent nor inevitable. What seems more likely is its gradual erosion under the new US administration that could, deliberately or by neglect, undermine it, Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. Vaez noted that the deals destabilisation could increase regional tensions and push Iran to double down on policies it presents as essential to its national security, [such as] the ballistic missile programme and forward defence policy of bolstering regional partners and proxies in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. Despite Trumps bluster, the Iranian government has pointed out that the nuclear deal is non-negotiable and that no country would be allowed to affect its implementation. To imagine a stronger pact can be built on its ruins is a chimera, as destroying it even if gradually would also destroy the hint of trust that led the parties to compromise. by International Crisis Group report The International Crisis Groups report, which suggests that the best path forward could be a mutually beneficial renegotiation of certain aspects of the deal, calls on Washington to give the treasury department more resources to roll back sanctions, while urging Iran to stop using nuclear or regional brinkmanship as leverage. One option could be to strengthen some of the JCPOAs nuclear provisions in return for rolling back the US primary embargo, the report notes. Other members of the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) should discourage Iran from overreacting to a possible change in US tone, but also clearly tell Washington that if it unjustifiably walks away from the accord, it will do so alone, the report adds. [The deals] unravelling now would have unfathomable consequences for the region, non-proliferation and multilateral diplomacy. To imagine a stronger pact can be built on its ruins is a chimera, as destroying it even if gradually would also destroy the hint of trust that led the parties to compromise, the report says. INSIDE STORY: Has the Iran nuclear deal changed anything? Massoumeh Torfeh, a research associate at the London School of Economics specialising in Iran, told Al Jazeera that while it remains unclear how Trump may proceed, his vow to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership has highlighted his disdain for multilateral deals. Although national security experts have asked Trump to walk back his hostility towards the Iran deal, he would have to be seen to be taking some action amid pressure from Israel, Torfeh noted: So he would probably strike a new unilateral deal with Iran that would include carrots and sticks, extending the period in which Iran would not be allowed to enrich uranium. For that to be acceptable, the carrots would have to be substantial. Failing that, Trump should steer clear of the deal entirely in the run-up to Irans presidential election this spring, which will pose a test for the countrys moderate government, she added. The hardliners in Iran would welcome any excuse to scrap the nuclear deal and, through that, undermine President Hassan Rouhanis chances for a second term, Torfeh said. They have already threatened that their plans for a return to nuclear enrichment are ready to be put to the parliament for approval. Follow Megan on Twitter: @megan_otoole Chhattisgarh, India Around 250km from Raipur, the capital of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, are some villages where small, often dilapidated mud homes, their walls painted in shades of blue, line broken roads. Most of the people who live here are Dalits the least privileged in the Indian caste system. Dhani Ram Sonwani is a 60-year-old farmer who lives in the village of Charpora. The underprivliged castes in the caste system were oppressed by the privileged castes, which made their lives hell, he explains as he sits outside his run-down home. We were called names such as chamar and achhoot [untouchables]. Our ancestors were treated worse than animals and werent even allowed to enter temples. It is this last point that explains the tattoos on Sonwanis face and body. They are the name of the Hindu god Ram, and many other older residents of his village and the neighbouring ones have similar markings. They are followers of Ramnami Samaj, a religious movement founded in the 1890s by a Dalit Ram devotee called Parshu Ram Bhardwaj, who was denied entry to a temple in one of these villages in Chhattisgarh. Who needs a temple when we have the name of god written on us? says Sonwani. God is everywhere and not just in temples. There is a temple near our village and no one from our community has ever entered that temple, Sonwani adds. We have no idea which gods idol is housed in that temple. He says that Dalits are not discriminated against to the same extent that they were before but that there is still a long way to go until the inequalities of the caste system are eradicated. The tradition no longer takes place but, in the past, members of the community were typically tattooed after marriage, which would usually take place some time between the ages of 11 and 14. Because the process could be extremely painful, the tattoos which were usually administered by women using an ink made from soot and water would be done at intervals. Seventy-five-year-old Samund Bai lives in the village of Baday Sipat and remembers being tattooed shortly after she married at the age of 13. My husband had tattooed his entire body and asked me to get the name of Ram tattooed on my face as it was part of our culture and religion, she recalls. The pain that came with it was a nightmare. I could not eat or drink for six months. Younger followers of Ramnami Samaj are no longer tattooed, with many believing that they hold them back by revealing their caste in a country where Vibhishan Patray, the president of the Jan Jagran Samiti (Peoples Awakening Society) NGO, says caste-based discrimination is still prevalent in many parts. Samund Bai remembers attempting to visit a temple with her husband during the 1980s and being turned away because their tattoos gave away their caste. It was heartbreaking when the priest of the temple refused to let us in, she says. It was then that we decided we will not tattoo our children, even though they follow the Ramnami movement. Kyrgyzstan has recently commemorated the fourth anniversary of the violence that shook the countrys south in the summer of 2010, resulting in hundreds dead, thousands injured, thousands of properties burnt to the ground and the displacement of 400,000 people, including 100,000 refugees in neighbouring Uzbekistan. For the occasion, Kyrgyzstans Grand Mufti Maksatbek Hajji Toktomushev invited all clerics around the country to focus their sermons on reconciliation and social harmony. While the mayhem was seemingly sparked by a brawl between a group of Kyrgyz and Uzbek youth at a casino in the southern city of Osh, at its core lay deeper contradictions within the countrys polity. First, there is the competition over power and resources between the northern Kyrgyz elites in the capital Bishkek and their southern counterparts, mostly originating from the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad. Second, the diffused poverty in the south, especially acute in the countryside, and the perception of wealth inequality between communities, lends itself to easy political manipulation. Third, the under-representation of minorities at all levels of the states political and security apparatuses has created much tension. And finally, the widespread corruption plaguing the countrys institutions and politicians notorious links to the criminal underworld also played a role in the violence. Unfortunately, few of these circumstances have been mitigated or changed, so the potential for conflict in Kyrgyzstan remains. Provoking violence Following the April 2010 revolution that unseated former president of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev, himself a southerner, the northern Kyrgyz elites enrolled the Uzbek community to reassert formal control in the south of the country, which was slipping away from their grip due to opposition to the newly installed Interim Government (IG) in Bishkek. In the words of a former legal adviser to the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), without the Uzbeks, there is no way that the IG could have expelled the Bakiyevs from Jalal-Abad. In exchange, the Uzbek elites were promised a bigger role in the countrys political life for them and their community, as well as the possibility to run their businesses free of fear from illegal takeovers in the local jargon, raiding by corrupt cronies of the former regime. For their part, the southern Kyrgyz elites mobilised the poor and uneducated southern Kyrgyz mainly youth from the countryside against the Uzbek community, in order to revert the effects of the April revolution and regain a foothold on the national political arena. The Kyrgyz populace rallied behind nationalist propaganda depicting Uzbeks as a disloyal minority, or even as a foreign diaspora element in Kyrgyzstan, as well as accusing them of owning a far bigger share of the countrys wealth than their numbers justified. It thus happened that an intra-elite fight turned into inter-communal violence on a massive scale. The pervasive corruption beleaguering all institutions in Kyrgyzstan further undermined the states response to violence, as did the chronic under-representation of Uzbeks at all levels of the political and security apparatus. There is evidence suggesting that police and army elements did not do enough to prevent attacks on Uzbeks or even participated in intimidating the Uzbek community. Organised crime joined forces with the southern Kyrgyz elites to keep the formal loyalty of the central government in Bishkek, at a time when the consolidation of the Uzbek population and the fact that it was turning into an active political force in the south of Kyrgyzstan was considered a threat to their interests. As Osh city is one of the major drug hubs in Central Asia for Afghan heroin on its way to Europe and the Russian Federation, those interests have been estimated to be worth billions of dollars. Despite both communities incurring loss in blood and treasure in the four days of rioting, once the dust settled, it quickly became clear that the Uzbeks had borne the brunt of the violence, which locals prefer to call the war. Thorny issues Four years on, however, the structural contradictions at the root of the violence elite competition over power- and resource-sharing; poverty and perceived wealth inequality; minority under-representation in state institutions; pervasive corruption remain largely unaddressed. On the contrary, the Uzbek community has been singled out as the culprit. In the aftermath of June 2010, police conducted sweep operations in Uzbek neighbourhoods and villages, where excessive use of force led to serious injuries and even casualties. Moreover, the countrys judiciary marred by corruption and hardly independent from the political elite has targeted the Uzbeks wholesale for the violence. As of December 2010, 79 percent of investigations which resulted in criminal charges were against Uzbek individuals. The surge in Kyrgyz nationalism that followed the events has significantly shrunk the space for reconciliation. Keenly aware of the growing gap between the countrys communities, president Almazbek Atambayev has spearheaded a broad initiative in consultation with all political forces as well as civil society, which culminated in the April 2013 Concept on strengthening national unity and inter-ethnic relations in the Kyrgyz Republic. While the Concept attempts to cater to nationalist sentiments with the recognition of the Kyrgyz people as the countrys unifying core, it simultaneously appeals to all of Kyrgyzstans constituencies by envisioning unity in diversity in a state where the new generation of citizens will be multilingual, educated and open to innovations and contacts. However, the Concept falls short of providing any concrete actions on minority rights for the Uzbek community in the aftermath of the June 2010 violence. More ominously, the overall failure so far to bring those responsible for the events to justice bodes ill for the countrys future. This gives space to some groups within the elites to use again the same tactics of violence in order to score political points, for instance during the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, due to take place in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In the words of one close observer: It is not just about getting away with murder, it is actually about gaining from it. Likewise, the prevailing atmosphere of impunity decimates trust in the institutions of the state, alienating even further a significant segment of the countrys population. Kyrgyzstans elites may choose to continue ignoring the dire need for justice and reforms, but they do so at their own and the countrys peril. After six years of major foreign policy effort, it is clear Obama failed in his Pivot to Asia. [B]y almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started, declared US president Barack Hussein Obama in his emotional farewell speech. After all, we remain the wealthiest, most powerful, and most respected nation on Earth. The outgoing president wasted no time to highlight his signature achievements, from preventing a global economic depression and the collapse of American car industry, to overseeing decent economic recovery and marriage equality to the establishment of the foundations of a truly universal healthcare system. On foreign policy, he highlighted his administrations broadly successful efforts to open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Irans nuclear weapons programme without firing a shot, take out the mastermind of 9/11 [Osama bin Laden]. After all, unconditional dialogue, economic engagement, and judicious use of force stood at the centre of the Obama doctrine. Without a doubt, his signature foreign policy initiative was the Pivot to Asia (P2A) strategy, a systematic and gradual effort at decoupling American power from the troubled regions of the Near East towards the bustling and booming economies of the Asia-Pacific region. But six years into the P2A policy, the US remains bogged down in the Middle East, confronts an ever more assertive China, and is suffering an unprecedented setback in relations with key allies in Asia, such as the Philippines. Charming the enemies As the worlds fastest-growing region the Asia Pacific is critical to achieving my highest priority, and thats creating jobs and opportunity for the American people, Obama declared in a high-profile speech before the Parliament of Australia, which officially commenced his P2A policy. [T]he United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with our allies and friends. Obama promised to underwrite regional prosperity and peace by expanding economic and diplomatic engagement with friends and rivals, while stepping up military commitment to troubled allies in the region. OPINION: Trump era heightens Asia-Pacifics tripwires He regularly attended the regional multilateral fora, such as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia summits, appointed a permanent ambassador to the ASEAN, invited Indonesia to the newly formed G20 elite club, and held an intimate summit with both China and Southeast Asian nations at Sunnylands ranch in California. As the first US Pacific president, he visited Asian states, which were also his first official overseas destinations, more than any of his predecessors. True to his inaugural promise to extend a hand, if [enemies] are willing to unclench [their] fist, Obama oversaw successful normalisation of ties with Communist Vietnam and the military government in Myanmar, while stepping up engagement with Laos and Cambodia. Dealing with the Dragon Obamas conciliatory rhetoric and diplomatic outreach broadly explains the revival in American global soft power. Under his administration, the US saw a considerable uptick in its approval ratings, with almost seven out of 10 people in the world expressing a favourable view of the US, compared to only five in 10 during the George W Bush administration. The number wascloser to nine out of 10 in places such as the Philippines. Yet, Obama largely failed to win over friends in Beijing, which began to more aggressively to challenge American hegemony in Asia. To be fair, the two superpowers made commendable steps towards a consensus on key international concerns, such as climate change and the North Korean nuclear threat. But they ended up on a collision course in the South and East China Seas, where Beijing is re-asserting long-dormant territorial and maritime claims. To the consternation of American allies, however, the Obama administration largely failed to prevent China from dominating contested land features and natural resources in adjacent waters. In fact, Obama largely stood aside as the Asian powerhouse built massive artificial islands and military structures across the South China Sea. More recently, China even dared to seize an American drone within Philippine waters, in violation of international law, while deploying advanced weapons system to its artificial islands. American naval hegemony in Asia has come under question like never before. Obamas key economic initiative, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which aimed at containing Chinas economic preponderance, has miserably floundered, with Trump promising to nix it on his first day of office. With no major economic carrot on the table, the US under Obama has struggled to turn the tide in the region, as regional states become increasingly dependent on Chinese capital, technology and markets. Prickly allies Meanwhile, disagreements over human rights issues saw a rapid deterioration of bilateral ties between Washington and its two Southeast Asian treaty allies, Thailand (under a military government) and the Philippines, which have gravitated towards China. Amid his scorched earth war on drugs, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to sever military cooperation with the US, unless the latter ends its criticism of his human rights record. On multiple occasions, the tough-talking Filipino leader even cussed at top American leaders, including Obama himself. In fact, Manila has begun to cancel joint military exercises and maritime patrols with its sole treaty ally. Meanwhile, the Duterte administration has moved ahead with negotiating military agreements with China and Russia. Perturbed by American criticism of its human rights record, the Thai military regime has also moved closer to the Chinese orbit. All of a sudden, the US can no longer take its regional allies loyalty for granted. Obama started with a vision of a revitalised American strategic position in Asia, but largely failed to put substance to his soaring rhetoric. If anything, his successors, particularly Donald Trump, will confront a more assertive China, more prickly and independent-minded allies, and continued threat of all-out war in flashpoints, such as the South China Sea. Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs and author of Asias New Battlefield: The USA, China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. The online war against the abducted four bloggers and an activist in Pakistan continues. During the last few days, notifications of people in my phone contact list joining the encrypted mobile chat app, Signal, have kept popping up every few hours. These are journalists, rights activists, minority community members of different faiths, and some are politicians and even a police officer or two. It has also been over a week since the story of the disappearance of first of the four bloggers surfaced on Pakistani social media platforms and then the press and stirred fear among many. Between January 4 and 7, four bloggers and a Karachi-based activist have gone missing from Islamabad and Punjab. Hence, 2017 started on a claustrophobic note in Pakistan, where unknown hands have gone for the throat of free expression. The battlefront of this fight for reclaiming shrinking space for the freedom to speak up is on social media. While the recent online aggression of the religious nationalists against the kidnapped bloggers is unprecedented in scale, this is not the first time the hate-filled internet jihadis are unleashed against progressives, seculars and the left. Online attacks on dissidents Dissent or critique of state policy is not only not tolerated but snubbed in a way that an example is set for others. It has been happening to outspoken voices against religious conservatism, states appeasement of clergy or the military establishment for years. Since the increase of internet consumption in the last 10 years, the space allowed to the religious supremacists in the offline world has been handed to them in cyberspace, too. A pattern exists of hate-filled online activity against activists and journalists whose lives either ended or changed after violent attacks. In the missing bloggers case, the online harassment is the continuation of the oppression of their forced disappearances. Since the disappearances, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages with satirical commentary on religion and political issues, allegedly affiliated with the missing bloggers, were deactivated. The most controversial of the deactivated pages was taken over by the self-proclaimed Elite cyber force of Pakistan, which claimed it had removed all blasphemous material from it. A pro-Pakistani military page with over seven million followers called Pakistan Defence framed the critical writing of the disappeared bloggers as blasphemy by an atheist secular group. This is not the first time this page has incited violence against people supposedly harming national security. Pakistan Cyber Force, a Facebook page with over 400,000 likes, in addition to posting against the bloggers, has accused them of taking funds from the Indian intelligence agency. It is an established propaganda move to blame dissent on Indian funding. MAPPED: Journalists killed in Pakistan over 24 years A stream of tweets, Facebook posts and YouTube videos are asking for blasphemy cases to be filed against the missing bloggers. Queries of the key hashtags and terms used by the pro-state and conservative religious users show thousands of tweets calling for physical attacks on the disappeared. Twitter accounts that are leading the hashtag wars have one thing in common: They are critical of different political parties, but love the Pakistani military and religious conservatism. Facebook pages continuously posting against the missing bloggers and their supporters have a different set of hashtags in Urdu which equate being secular with atheism. On Twitter, there is a surge in tweets in Urdu with terms like Gustakh-e-Rasool, (person who commits blasphemy towards the Prophet), liberal (referred to anyone who is a moderate) and secular. Tweets with hashtags created against the bloggers are also over a thousand in number. As of now, three Barelvi and Deobandi religious groups with sectarian agendas have tweeted and put up Facebook posts against the missing bloggers, calling for their blasphemy trials and executions. Smearing dissent The demonisation of secular voices goes beyond attacks on the bloggers. For example, accounts and pages that are tweeting against bloggers in the name of religion also posted against leading journalist Cyril Almeida when he was put on the Exit Control List for reporting a story critical of the military in 2016 and broadcast journalist Hamid Mir in 2014, when he survived an assassination attempt and accused Pakistans primary intelligence agency of responsibility. Attacks have been levied by ultra-conservative voices on traditional media, too. One-anti secular TV talk show host, in particular, waged his war against secular bloggers and online journalists for months. He has drawn comparisons between Pakistani and Bangladeshi bloggers, has labelled a very small group of secular online writers, including the missing activists, and other progressives blasphemous and implied their views are a threat to national interest. It is assumed by some in the ultra-conservative part of society that there is an atheist, secular social media movement against Islam and Pakistan, just because tough questions are asked. The abduction of the bloggers has spread an overwhelming sense of fear and paranoia among digital media users from different professions. And the cluelessness of the governments response to the disappearance of the bloggers does not help the deterioration of free speech. Rabia Mehmood is an independent journalist and researcher based out of Pakistan, with interest in religious persecution, gender and human rights. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Protests erupt after the firing squad execution of three Shia men accused of 2014 deadly bombing. Bahrain officials said a city hall was set ablaze during a night of clashes between police and protesters, following the execution of three men convicted of a deadly bombing targeting police. Bahrains interior ministry said on Monday that the fire at the Northern City Hall appeared intentional. It said firefighters were able to contain it. READ MORE: Bahrain executes three over police killings Hundreds protested on Sunday over the execution by firing squad of three Shia men accused of the 2014 bombing that killed two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer. Abbas al-Samea, 27, Sami Mushaima, 42, and Ali al-Singace, 21, were executed a week after a court upheld their death sentences over the 2014 attack, the prosecution said in a statement carried by the official BNA state news agency on Sunday. Opponents of Bahrains Sunni-ruled kingdom saw the mens charges as politically motivated and alleged that the men were tortured. Seven other defendants received life terms. Some youths threw gasoline bombs and clashed with police into the night on Sunday. Police fired tear gas and birdshot. Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres and threw firebombs, and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media. The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of the village of Sanabis chanting slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses. Dark day for Bahrain Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabis, the hometown of the three executed men, but were blocked by security forces. Sanabis was the closest Shia village to the former Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shia-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011. Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shia villages, according to other witnesses who said police opened fire with buckshot to disperse demonstrators, wounding several. Bahrains authorities do not permit international news agencies, including Al Jazeera, to cover events independently. The executions were criticised by international rights groups as well as Britain and the European Union. In a post on social media, Human Rights Watchs Nicholas McGeehan called the executions unjust and inflammatory. Public, unequivocal condemnation imperative to prevent Bahrain killing more young men, he wrote. Amnesty International said the executions were carried out after an unfair trial and despite claims from the men that they were tortured in custody, and condemned them as a dark day for human rights. Bahrain denies practising torture. Bahrains majority Shia population has for decades accused their rulers of discrimination in matters of jobs, housing and political say. Explosion targets armoured vehicle carrying riot police in Kurdish-majority province, killing at least four officers. At least four police officers have been killed and two others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey, according to the local governors office. The blast on Monday occurred in the Sur neighbourhood of Diyarbakir province, where the Turkish army launched an intensive campaign last year against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). An attack was carried out when explosives detonated as an armoured vehicle carrying our riot police was passing by, the governors office said in a statement. The toll of four police killed raised a previous figure of three dead. READ MORE: Turkeys war on the PKK The state-run Anadolu news agency said the wounded were being treated in Dicle Universitys Medical Faculty Hospital, which is located close to the site of the blast. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The governors office called it an atrocious terror attack, pledging that Turkey would continue to fight against terror with determination. Turkey has been hit by a series of bombings over the past few years, including five in Istanbul. Dozens of attacks blamed on the PKK and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) groups took hundreds of lives. President Michel Temer says he is following developments after fresh outbreak of violence at overcrowded facility. At least 30 inmates were killed in a prison riot in Brazils northeastern region that broke out late on Saturday, a person with direct knowledge of the situation said. The person, who requested anonymity because forensic work is under way, said the number of casualties could rise. About a dozen inmates in the Alcacuz prison located in the state of Rio Grande do Norte have been taken to nearby hospitals, the person said. The riot began around 5pm local time (17:00 GMT) in Alcacuz, and continued until 7am (09:00 GMT), when police officers took control of the prison. Officials said they waited until dawn before entering the prisons after they gained control of the situation. This way we guaranteed a calm intervention, a pacific intervention without resistance from the inmates, state security chief, Caio Cesar Bezerra, told local media. President Michel Temer said on Twitter that he had been following the situation. Alcacuz, like many of the countrys prisons, is overcrowded. The prison holds 1,000 inmates in a facility built for just prisoners. Violence is common in overcrowded prisons and 40 percent of inmates have yet to be sentenced. The outbreak of violence at Brazils prisons began January 1, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. That riot, which lasted for 17 hours in the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Complex in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, saw bodies butchered, decapitated and burned after clashes between rival drug gangs. Authorities say at least eight dead in Naqb, about 70km from Kharga city, in New Valley province in the Western Desert. At least eight police officers have been killed and three wounded in an attack on a security checkpoint in Egypts New Valley province in the Western Desert, according to the interior ministry. The attack on Monday occurred at around 8:15pm local time (18:15 GMT) in Naqb checkpoint, about 70km away from Kharga city, state television said. Two of the assailants were killed and the remaining attackers were being pursued, according to the ministry. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. READ MORE: Sinai residents accuse state of extrajudicial killings Attacks on Egyptian security forces are common in the Sinai Peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip, where a local branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group operates. Incidents in the Western Desert are rarer, although 22 soldiers were killed in an attack near the Farafra oasis. northwest of Kharga. in July 2014. In September 2015, eight Mexican tourists and four Egyptians accompanying them were killed near the Bahariya oasis, further north, when security forces mistook them for armed rebels they were seeking in the area. Hollande says no need for outside advice but Merkel vows to work with US president-elect after contentious interview. Germany and France have led a sharp European response to President-elect Donald Trumps remarks that NATO is obsolete and more countries would leave the European Union after Britain. In an interview with two European newspapers, Trump launched several broadsides at Europe and criticised Chancellor Angela Merkels catastrophic decision to open Germanys borders to Syrian refugees. With fears growing in Europe over Trumps commitment to the transatlantic alliance and signs he will pivot towards Russia, Merkel gave warning on Monday that the continent now had to take responsibility for itself. READ MORE: Trump Cut Russia sanctions for nuclear-arms deal We Europeans have our fate in our own hands, Merkel said in Berlin, when asked about Trumps criticisms, adding that she will work towards getting the EU to strengthen the economy and fight terrorism. She said: Im personally going to wait until the American president takes office, and then we will naturally work with him on all levels. President of France, Francois Hollandes response to Trumps intervention was more blunt, insisting that the EU has no need for outside advice on its affairs. Criticism of NATO Trumps latest remarks have, in particular, caused further concern among Eastern European NATO countries nervous about Russia, following President Vladimir Putins annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine. I said a long time ago that NATO had problems, Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germanys biggest-selling daily, on Friday. Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, he said, referring to its Cold War, post-World War II origins. Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay. On the campaign trail, too, Trump had said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the US was not reasonably reimbursed for the costs of defending them a common source of friction in the US-led 28-nation alliance. Even so, the comments came as a bit of a surprise since his choice for defence secretary, James Mattis, stressed his support for the alliance in his US congressional confirmation hearings last week. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, said Europe was stunned by Trumps remarks on NATO, just five days before his inauguration as president. The interview statements of the American president-elect caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation, Steinmeier said as he went from a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to talks with EU counterparts. Trumps views contradict those of Mattis, Steinmeier said. His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault said the best response to such an interview was simple: Europeans uniting. Stoltenberg was absolutely confident in Trumps commitment to NATO, the alliance chiefs spokesperson said. Courageous Merkel Nevertheless, criticism of Trumps comments came from the US. John Kerry, the outgoing secretary of state, said on Monday that Trump had been wrong to criticise courageous Merkel. Trump, however, further extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by sanctions under Obamas outgoing administration over its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for suspected cyber attacks to influence the US election. Lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia, Trump said, suggesting in vague terms a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Russia eased. In another comment that alarmed the Europeans, Trump refused to say that he trusted Merkel more than Putin, for whom he has often expressed admiration. Well, I start off trusting both but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all, he said. Trump also directly criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit migrants and refugees, insinuating that this posed a security risk following a wave of attacks in Europe claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from, Trump said, adding he had great respect for Merkel. Car makers warned Trump further threatened punitive 35 percent tariffs on German car manufacturers such as BMW, if they build cars in Mexico and not the US. In other remarks, Trump said Brexit is going to end up as a great thing, and he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain which would be good for both sides. Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly, said Trump, confirming he will meet Theresa May, UK prime minister, soon after his inauguration on Friday. The British pound took a hit Monday after Britain said it might undercut the EU economically, if it cannot obtain both single market access and immigration controls, with British media warning of a hard Brexit. Other countries will leave the EU in future, Trump predicted, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a surge in arrivals of migrants and refugees fleeing wars in Syria and elsewhere. Federica Mogherini, EU high representative, however, said it was absolutely clear that Britain could not start any trade talks with the US until it leaves the bloc. Frances President Francois Hollande says the European Union does not need advice from outsiders. European Union member nations have reacted with surprise and defiance to comments by President-elect Donald Trump, who has said in an interview that he believes NATO is obsolete and that more member states will leave the 28-nation EU. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germanys foreign minister, speaking on Monday before a meeting of EU foreign ministers, said Trumps view on NATO and criticism that allied members were not paying their fair share has caused astonishment. His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault said the best response to such an interview was simple: Europeans uniting. Francois Hollande, the French president, reacted by saying the EU bloc did not need to be told what to do by outsiders. Europe will be ready to pursue transatlantic cooperation, but it will based on its interests and values, Hollande said before awarding Frances highest honour to outgoing US ambassador Jane Hartley. It does not need outside advice to tell it what to do. Interactive: Is Eastern Europe entering a new Cold War? Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel said Trumps positions have been long known but added: I think we Europeans have our fate in our own hands. Im personally going to wait until the American president takes office, and then we will naturally work with him on all levels. Though Trump had made similar comments during his tempestuous election campaign, a repetition of the same points still came as a bit of a surprise since his choice for defence secretary, James Mattis, stressed his support for the alliance in his US congressional confirmation hearings last week. Trumps views, in an interview with German daily Bild and The Times of London, contradict Mattis, Steinmeier said. Trump indicated he was indifferent to whether the EU stays together or not, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which encouraged British people to vote to remain in the EU in the June referendum. I believe others will leave I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think, Trump said in the interview. The British exit from the EU would end up being a great thing, he said. Boris Johnson, Britains foreign secretary, said its very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast. Trump was less kind to German industry officials, saying car manufacturers including BMW could face tariffs of up to 35 percent if they set up plants in Mexico instead of in the US and try to export the cars to the US. READ MORE: Trump Cut sanctions on Russia for nuclear-arms deal Such tariffs would make the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive, Sigmar Gabriel, Germanys economy minister, told Bild. Gabriel suggested Europeans exhibit more self-confidence in dealing with Trump. Were not weak and inferior, he said. BMW said Monday that the company would stick to its plans to produce cars in Mexico. The production is aimed at the world market, BMW said, according to the German news agency DPA. Therefore, the plant in Mexico will complement the production plants in Germany and China. Man suspected of killing 39 people in Reina nightclub captured in apartment in Esenyurt district, say Turkish media. A man suspected of killing 39 people in a New Years Day attack on a popular Istanbul nightclub has been caught by police, according to Turkish news media. The alleged gunman, identified as Abdulgadir Masharipov, was captured in an apartment in Istanbuls Esenyurt district during a massive police operation late on Monday, security sources told state-run Anadolu Agency. READ MORE: Istanbul nightclub attack aims to create chaos, says Erdogan Four other people, including a man of Kyrgyz origin and three women, were reportedly arrested with Masharipov. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Reina nightclub, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Al Jazeeras Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said dozens of people had previously been arrested in connection to the attack. We know that [Masharipov] is an Uzbek citizen, she said. When his wife was [previously] arrested, she said she had no clue, no information, that her husband was an ISIL sympathiser. Early on January 1, the assailant stormed the popular venue on the Bosphorus and sprayed 120 bullets at partygoers celebrating the start of 2017. Of the 39 dead, 27 were foreigners, including citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco. At least 69 people were wounded in the attack. Transfer is part of a push by outgoing President Obama to shrink the prisons inmate population before leaving office. Oman has accepted 10 inmates from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in advance of President Barack Obama leaving office, the countrys foreign ministry announced. There was no immediate word from the US defence department about the transfer. Oman on Monday said it accepted the prisoners at Obamas request. It did not name the prisoners. To meet a request by the US government to assist in settling the issue of the detainees at Guantanamo, out of consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 people released from that prison arrived in the Sultanate of Oman for a temporary residency, a foreign ministry statement said. Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the US military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obamas presidency. It was part of an effort by Obama to shrink the prison since he could not close it. President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open, but to load it up with some bad dudes. Violence erupts after a raid by Israeli security forces in a village south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead by the Israeli army during a confrontation in the occupied West Bank, according to officials. The violence erupted on Monday when Israeli forces raided the village of Tuqu, south of Bethlehem. Four other Palestinians were wounded in the clashes. In a statement, the Palestinian health ministry confirmed the killing of a man but did not give his name or age. Sources from the village of Tuqu where the incident took place told AFP news agency that the victim was a 17-year-old who had been shot in the chest. The Israeli military said they shot the man during what they described as a violent riot in which rocks were being hurled at them. According to the Israeli rights group BTselem, more than half a million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law. Since October 2015, 249 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP count. Most of the Palestinians killed were accused by Israel of carrying out a knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: Who speaks for Palestine? Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with the Israeli occupation, settlement building in the West Bank, stalled peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have helped feed the unrest. Hundreds living in poor conditions refuse to go into official camps amid deportations from European countries. Hundreds of refugees living in poor conditions in the Serbian capital are refusing to go into official camps, fearing it will lead to their deportation. For Akbar, injured and threatened by the Afghan Taliban, who claims to have had his nose broken by the police in Croatia and his arm broken by the police in Bulgaria, deportation is a constant worry. They have deported many people from Bulgaria, he said. We are scared. If they deport us to there, Bulgaria will deport us back to Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis have been deported en masse from countries in Europe. In Serbia, hundreds were rounded up and moved back to the border with Macedonia. READ MORE: Concern over EU plans to send refugees back to Greece At the same time, the Serbian government has told charities and other help groups that they cannot operate in the refugee camps. The United Nations has condemned European countries for what it is calling a policy of pushback. Hans Friedrich Soder of UNs refugee agency, UNHCR, said: It is not in line with the international and European law. It should not happen, especially in this winter conditions, because it puts the refugees at heightened risk of being harmed by the cold weather. The Serbian government said it will deport the refugees. However, other countries, including Germany, have done, so trust is in short supply. Lee Jae-yong had denied allegations of bribery involving embattled President Park Geun-hye and her personal adviser. South Korean prosecutors are seeking the arrest of Samsung Group heir Lee Jae-yong over allegations of bribery involving President Park Geun-hye. In a statement on Monday, prosecutors investigating the scandal said they asked a Seoul court to issue an arrest warrant for Lee, the son of the Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee. Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Seoul, said charges against Lee include bribery, embezzlement and perjury. READ MORE: Samsung office raided in South Korea corruption probe The spokesman [of the prosecution] said the economic impact of all this is important, but justice is more important, our correspondent reported. That is a sign that there is a recognition of just how big an entity Samsung is, its revenues worth about a fifth of South Koreas GDP. So obviously they weigh this very carefully before deciding to move ahead and seek the arrest of such a vital part of South Koreas economy. The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that a court will hold a hearing on Wednesday to review the arrest warrant. Samsung, South Koreas largest business group, has acknowledged making contributions to two foundations as well as a consulting firm linked to Choi Soon-sil, a close confidante of the embattled South Korean leader who is also facing corruption charges. At a December parliament hearing, Lee denied that the company paid bribes to pave the way for a merger in 2015. Samsung made the biggest contributions of $16.8m to Chois foundations. Samsung is separately accused of funnelling millions of dollars to Choi to bankroll her daughters equestrian training in Germany. Prosecutors said the donations were made in exchange for government favours, allegations that Lee and Choi have denied. President Park could become South Koreas first democratically elected leader to leave office early after parliament voted in December to impeach her over the corruption scandal, a decision that must be approved or overturned by the Constitutional Court. At least four killed and 15 wounded when a suicide bomber believed to be a teenage girl detonated herself in Maiduguri. At least four people were killed and 15 others injured in a suicide bomb attack on a university campus in northeast Nigeria, police said. The blast happened on Monday at a mosque in the staff quarters area of the University of Maiduguri, and is thought to have been carried out by a teenage girl, a local resident and a lecturer told AFP news agency. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion will likely fall on the armed group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly used young women and girls as human bombs. Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from the Nigerian capital Abuja, said the violence was likely the outcome of Boko Haram losing ground in its strongest hideout, the Sambisa Forest, in the northeast of the country, which is now under military control. The leader of the Boko Haram group faction, Abubakar Shekau, called on all his supporters to hit the Nigerian population as hard as possible through bombs, guns and even slash-and-burn, he said. READ MORE: Nigeria marks 1,000 days since Chibok girls abduction Borno police spokesman Victor Isuku said that before the blast at the mosque, police on patrol shot a girl aged about 12, as she tried to get into the university at about 04:15 GMT. The IED [improvised explosive device] strapped to her body exploded, killing her instantly, he said in a statement. Shortly after that, a second explosion occurred in a mosque inside the university. Four persons, including a professor and the second suicide bomber, died, while 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to UMTH [University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital]. One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said he heard two explosions as he was leaving the mosque in his neighbourhood. I rushed to the university, which is not far from my house. On entering, I saw the mosque in a mess. Three people lay dead, including a young girl, whose body was badly mutilated, he said. Thirteen other worshippers were injured. A university lecturer who lives on site confirmed the residents account. Disruptions Filibus Yamta Mshelia, from the registrars office at the university, said examinations scheduled for Monday had been postponed to a later date because of the attack. Examinations set for Tuesday will take place as planned, he added in a letter to staff and students. We urge all students to remain calm and vigilant, he wrote. Access to the university campus has been strictly controlled, with checkpoints and searches at the gates which until now had prevented a direct attack. But the site, on one of the main thoroughfares leading into and out of the city, is vast and most areas are badly lit. Students also said security has been relaxed in recent months and some of the soldiers who manned the campus gates have been withdrawn. At least 20,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram conflict since it began in 2009 and more than 2.6 million others made homeless. Nigeria maintains the armed rebellion is in its final stages. Last month, the government said it had flushed out Boko Haram fighters from their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital. Yet there has been no let-up in attacks both on troops and civilians. On January 8, at least five soldiers were killed when rebels attacked a base in Buni Yadi, in neighbouring Yobe state. The following day, suicide bombers killed three in Maiduguri. Delegation of opposition factions to attend peace talks but others, including Ahrar al-Sham, plan to stay away. Some armed Syrian opposition groups have decided to attend peace talks with the government next week in Kazakhstans capital, Astana, according to rebel officials. The discussions, scheduled for January 23, intend to build on a nationwide ceasefire that has largely held despite escalating violence across several battlefronts in recent days. Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam group, said on Monday he would head the rebel delegation to the meeting. He said the rebels were going to the talks to neutralise the criminal role of Iran in Syrias conflict. All the rebel groups are going [to Astana]. Everyone has agreed, Alloush told AFP news agency. Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes. The rebel factions decision to send a delegation to the Astana talks came after five days of negotiations in Turkeys capital, Ankara. The High Negotiations Committee, Syrias main opposition bloc, had also said previously that it would extend its support to an anti-government military delegation attending the talks. But Shaam Network, an opposition news website, reported on Monday that a number of other rebel groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, one of the main fighting forces on the ground, had decided to stay away from the upcoming talks. At this point in time, six years into this war, the different brigades still cannot speak with one voice when it comes to Syria, Al Jazeeras Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Nizip refugee camp in Turkey, said. OPINION: Whitewashing Assad and his allies must be challenged President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has already said his government is ready to attend the Astana meeting and discuss everything. The participating factions said on Monday the talks will only focus on reinforcing the current truce and look at humanitarian issues; a possible political solution to the crisis will not be on the agenda. Zakaria Malahifji, of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire [and] the humanitarian issues aid deliveries, release of detainees. The Astana meeting is organised by Russia and Turkey two countries that have backed opposing sides of Syrias conflict for years, but have worked closely in recent weeks to end the bloodshed. An official in a Free Syrian Army rebel group that agreed to participate in the talks told Reuters news agency on Monday the meeting would be a test for the Russians as the guarantor. He declined to be identified because the rebel groups had yet to appoint a spokesman. If the Astana meetings are successful, they could bode well for the fate of fresh UN-hosted negotiations on the conflict next month in Switzerlands Geneva. Several rounds of peace talks held by the UN have failed to produce a political solution to the conflict. We know the Astana talks are not going to be easy, said Al Jazeeras Dekker. Many of these groups did not want to attend them at all certainly the political opposition, which has always said the talks need to be seen as a stepping stone for the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva. Diplomatic efforts The truce, which began in Syria on December 30, to pave the way for the new peace talks, excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which changed its name from al-Nusra Front after breaking ties with al-Qaeda last year. Russia, Assads most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing the rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo. Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkeys foreign minister, said on Saturday that Turkey and Russia had decided to invite the US to attend the Astana meeting. READ MORE: Civilian deaths reported in shelling near Syrias Damascus However, a Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday. As with last years peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey. Syria has been engulfed by violence since widespread protests in March 2011 calling for Assads removal. More than 310,000 people have been killed and over half the population has been forced to flee. Incoming US president says weapons should be reduced, weeks after joining Putin in call for nuclear expansion. Donald Trump, the US president-elect, has told a British newspaper that he will offer to end sanctions against Russia in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with the Kremlin. In an interview with The Times of London published late on Monday, Trump said he wanted nuclear weapons arsenals of the worlds two biggest nuclear powers the United States and Russia to be reduced very substantially. They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it, Trump was quoted by the newspaper as saying. However, on December 22 Trump tweeted that the US must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until the world comes to its senses regarding nukes. Around the same time, Russian leader Vladimir Putin also called for the strengthening of strategic nuclear forces. READ MORE: Dear Donald Trump A letter from Russia In Mondays interview, Trump said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance formed to counter the military power of the former USSR, has become obsolete. NATO has not been taking care of terror, he said. Trump also criticised Russia for its intervention in the Syrian war, describing it as a very bad thing that had led to a terrible humanitarian situation. The interview was conducted by Michael Gove, a Conservative Party member and prominent Brexit campaigner who is known to be close to Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News. In Moscow, members of parliament gave a mixed reaction to Trumps statement on the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the upper house of parliaments international affairs committee, was cited by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying getting the sanctions annulled was not a goal in itself and not worth making security concessions. But another Russian senator, Oleg Morozov, was quoted by the same agency as saying that Moscow would be ready to discuss the issue of nuclear cuts, something he said Russia itself favoured. Russian connection News of Trumps plan came as the outgoing US intelligence chief said that Trump lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the US. Director of Central Intelligence John Brennans message on national television came five days before Trump becomes the nations 45th president, amid lingering questions about Russias role in the 2016 election. Now that hes going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, hes going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that US and national security interests are protected, Brennan said on Fox News, warning that the president-elects impulsiveness could be dangerous. Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests, Brennan said. Questions about Trumps relationship with Russia have dominated the days leading up to his inauguration. Retired General Michael Flynn, who is set to become Trumps national security adviser, has been in frequent contact with Russias ambassador to the US in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for the alleged election hacking, a senior US official said. After initially denying the contact took place, Trumps team publicly acknowledged the conversations on Sunday. The conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new US sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats, said Mike Pence, the incoming vice president, also in an appearance on Fox News. The contact, as Obama imposed sanctions, raised questions about whether Trumps team discussed or even helped shape Russias response. Vladimir Putin, Russias president, unexpectedly did not retaliate against the US for the sanctions or the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, a decision Trump quickly praised. Great move on delay (by V. Putin) I always knew he was very smart! Trump tweeted. Trump has repeatedly called for a better relationship between the US and Putins government. I think he has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road, Brennan said. Early election to be be held on March 2 following the collapse of the regions power-sharing government. Northern Ireland will hold a snap vote on March 2 to elect a new assembly following the collapse of the regions power-sharing government, Britain has announced. The elections were triggered as a Monday deadline passed for Catholic socialists, Sinn Fein, who refused to fill their top post in the two-party government, denouncing their Democratic Unionist partners as corrupt and bigoted. James Brokenshire, Britains secretary of state for Northern Ireland, said he had no power to compel the opposite sides in Northern Irelands nearly decade-old government coalition to keep working together as the territorys 1998 peace accord intended. No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake, said Brokenshire. He said the assembly would dissolve on January 26 and urged its feuding parties to mend fences. We need to ensure that this election is conducted in such a way that does not divide that seeks to bring people back together, he said. We are obviously concerned about the impact of a divisive election campaign. Sour relations Northern Irelands power-sharing executive and assembly were formed after a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland and allowed border checkpoints to be dismantled. In 2007, a government led jointly by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein came to power and, until recently, had governed the region with few blow-ups. The political crisis began when Martin McGuinness, a veteran Sinn Fein politician, resigned as deputy first minister last week over his power-sharing partners handling of a controversial energy scheme that could cost the province hundreds of millions of pounds. Al Jazeeras Neave Barker, reporting from Belfast, said the British government had no choice but to call the early elections. Under the protocol of the power-sharing agreement when one of the two leaders of the coalition resigns, the other one automatically has to go also, he said. He also said the reason of the dispute seemed to be deeper than the disagreement over the energy scheme. Over the last few months, the relationship between the rival leaders has really soured, he said. This seems to be more about the way they have felt about working together. The political crisis is overshadowing the bigger issue the province is facing following Britains decision to leave the European Union, Barker said. Northern Ireland is widely seen as the part of the UK most exposed to Brexit as it could upend trade and the free movement of people across its land border with the Irish Republic Overall, 52 percent of the UK voted in favour of leaving the EU in Junes referendum, but 56 percent of those voting in Northern Ireland backed remaining. Theresa May, British prime minister, has said she plans to launch the EU exit procedure by the end of March. At least 25 dead after Malian Dogon farmers clash with nomadic Fulani herders over use of pasture lands. At least 25 people have been killed after clashes erupted between Dogon farmers and nomadic Fulani herders along the Mali-Burkina Faso border, authorities in Burkina have said. The fighting, which began on Tuesday, took place near Sari, a Malian town about 15km from the border with Burkina Faso, Khalil Bara, governor of Burkina Fasos northern region, said on state radio on Thursday. Bara said the dispute originated from an agreement between the two west African nations, which allows Burkina herders to take their livestock to camps in Mali where there was available green pastured land. During the rule of former Malian president Amadou Toumani Toure, Fulani herders were allowed into Mali through special corridors. But the Dogons have complained that the livestock has often damaged their crops. The Dogons, who have always opposed the opening of these corridors, taking advantage of the crisis in Mali, have decided to solve the problem by attacking Fulani settlements, Bara said, adding that most of the deaths were Fulanis. The governor said more than 1,000 people, mostly herders, had fled back into villages in Burkina Faso. The clashes between the two communities competing for water and land has led to an influx of refugees into Burkina Faso. We have started receiving hundreds of refugees from Sari, Abdoul Ouarma, a correspondent with the state AIB news agency in the northwestern town of Titao near the Malian border. The Malian government was not immediately available for comment. Washington to pay $63m annually to lease base which houses conventional and special forces, as well as aerial drones. The United States has secured a ten-year lease for a key military base in Djibouti that it relies on to launch counter-terrorism missions, including drone strikes, in Yemen and the Horn of Africa. US President Barack Obama and his Djibouti counterpart Ismail Omar Guelleh announced the renewed lease on Camp Lemonnier on Monday as they met at the White House, pledging to counter al-Qaeda and al-Shabab fighters in the region. Under the agreement, the Washington would pay $63m annually for a ten-year lease, with an option to extend the arrangement for another decade, administration officials said. The new deal represents a major increase in rent, as the US reportedly pays $38m a year under the current lease. Camp Lemonnier is extraordinarily important to our work throughout the Horn of Africa but also throughout the region. We very much appreciate the hospitality that Djiboutians provide, Obama said. Overall, this is a critical facility that we maintain in Djibouti, we could not do it without the presidents co-operation, were grateful for him agreeing for a long-term presence there. Djibouti, a tiny nation of less than one million people, has become essential to US operations in Africa and the Middle East. Camp Lemonnier houses conventional forces, as well as special forces and aerial drones flown over Yemen and Somalia. Strategic partnership Guelleh said his East African country and the US were linked in a strategic partnership to deal with the fight against terrorism, piracy and human trafficking in our region. Obama also promised more US assistance and equipment for Djiboutis forces, including for troops deploying to the African Union mission in Somalia. More US development aid for Djiboutis economy, including help improving the countrys electricity network, was also pledged. After al-Qaedas attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001, the US presence has steadily increased. US officials, anxious to maintain a low-profile for its military in Africa, tend to disclose few details about operations at the base. The Pentagon reportedly has informed Congress of plans for a dramatic expansion of its facilities in Djibouti, proposing more than $1bn in construction projects. Oxfam report says eight of the worlds richest men have as much wealth as 50 percent of global poor. The gap between the poor and the super rich is growing. The worlds eight richest people have the same wealth as the poorest half of the entire world. Thats according to a new report by Oxfam, which describes this trend as obscene, unfair and grotesque. The eight men are mostly American, including Microsofts Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett and Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg. Oxfam warns this economic inequality threatens to pull societies apart and undermine democracy. Its report says people have lost trust in their governments and are no longer willing to accept the status quo. The anti-poverty organisation suggests that may help explain Donald Trumps victory in the US presidential election. And the UKs vote to leave the European Union. So what needs to be done to reduce wealth inequality? Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests: Deborah Hardoon Deputy head of research at Oxfam Aly Khan Satchu CEO of Rich Markets and an emerging-markets economist Ben Southwood Head of Research at Adam Smith Institute The case against Assange is as political as it is legal; where does it go from here? Plus, Kenyas election influencers. Some 10,500 people in northern Central African Republic (CAR) have received emergency food supplies from international medical organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Since 22 December, teams have distributed nearly 100 tons of food in seven locations where displaced people are sheltering in the areas of Kabo, Gbazara and Moyenne Sido. Most fled their homes in []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... English News China, Switzerland to cement economic ties Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 As world's second largest economy, world's largest trading nation in goods as well as a major foreign investor, China is slated to create stronger market demand, bring more investment, provide abundant products and provide more cooperation opportunities for global economy. By Ren Yan and Wang Yuan from Peoples Daily The Swiss community has reached a consensus that thanks to Chinese President Xi Jinpings state visit, its economic and trade cooperation with China will be upgraded to a new high on the basis of the previous abundant fruits. Switzerland has been a pioneer in conducting economic and trade cooperation with China. After it recognized China's market economy status in 2007, the nation inked a free trade agreement (FTA) with China in July 2013, which was the first FTA pact inked between China and a developed European country and also one of the most fruitful and most comprehensive free trade pacts that China has signed in recent years. So far, Switzerland has grown into Chinas important partner in Europe, while China is Switzerland's biggest trade partner in Asia. Despite the sluggish global economy and trade in recent years, the bilateral trade has secured a stable growth. Data released by the Swiss customs indicated that the bilateral import and export amounted to $25.42 billion from January to September in 2016, up 9.4 percent year on year. The rise of bilateral trade benefits from the dividend of the FTA, Chinese Ambassador to Switzerland Geng Wenbing told the Peoples Daily, adding that the FTA has significantly bolstered bilateral trade and investment since it came into effect in 2014. Both China and Switzerland have reaped reciprocal harvests from the free trade pact. Thanks to the tax-cut policies, Switzerland has canceled taxes on all Chinese industrial products and called off or cut tariffs on most Chinese agricultural products. Both nations accomplished remarkable fruits in financial cooperation, including the banking field, which is Switzerlands biggest pillar industry. The central banks of both countries signed cooperation agreements to boost local currency swap, strengthen cooperation in renminbi business, and build yuan clearing banks in Switzerland. China Construction Banks Zurich branch, which was established in 2016, is the first China-funded bank in Switzerland. Experts believed that such a cooperation momentum largely benefits from the stable growth of the Chinese economy. In 2016, China contributed more than 30 percent to world economy, acting as ballast to world's economic growth. As world's second largest economy, world's largest trading nation in goods as well as a major foreign investor, China is slated to create stronger market demand, bring more investment, provide abundant products and provide more cooperation opportunities for global economy. Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz, chief executive of the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, told the Peoples Daily that China showcased a marvelous development capability after joining the World Trade Organization. The world has high expections toward China after President Xi put forward the "Belt and Road initiative, he said, adding that that China will bring en-route countries win-win development with such an innovative mechanism. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News China to highlight global engagement at Davos Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 In recent years, China and the West have frictions from time to time. Some believe China has become arrogant. However, China's core interests remain in its geographically adjacent regions and where China's political stability lies. In addition, China has never interfered in the internal affairs of any small Western country. Source: People's Daily and Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping is paying a state visit to Switzerland from Sunday to Wednesday and will attend the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos. He is also expected to visit the UN headquarters in Geneva, the World Health Organization and the International Olympic Committee. This is the first time that a Chinese head of state will attend the Davos forum, which has raised people's eyebrows around the world, attracting a great deal of media coverage. The importance of China's engagement with the world has become more and more prominent. Now China is the world's second-largest economy. The outside world cares about China's future trajectory, what China's downward economic trend means and whether the new round of economic reforms can succeed. Given that globalization is facing multifaceted challenges, what China's attitude is and whether it can offer new impetus to economic globalization is the focus of attention. China's political system and the way society functions differ from that of the West, which makes it a bit difficult for both sides to understand each other. The Davos forum provides the global economic sphere with an attractive opportunity to get closer to the top Chinese leadership. But the outside world needs to form a basic and impartial understanding of China if it is to acknowledge the significance of Xi's trip and Xi's speech at the forum. China is a diligent and low-profile power and its rise is attributed to Chinese people's hard work. The Chinese economy has great potential, because China still lags behind Western countries and the whole of society would like to strive to better their lives. Moreover, Chinese people are willing to share prosperity with those in other parts of the world. China does not want to challenge the US, nor is it inclined to overturn the existing international order. China is willing to contribute to free trade and globalization. But if the US, under Donald Trump's leadership, retreats from globalization, China is not able to, or does not aim to, lead the world into globalization and confront the US together with some countries. Rather, China can be the most vigorous force in the powerful trend of globalization. In recent years, China and the West have frictions from time to time. Some believe China has become arrogant. However, China's core interests remain in its geographically adjacent regions and where China's political stability lies. In addition, China has never interfered in the internal affairs of any small Western country. China has borne the most criticism from the West in terms of the South China Sea disputes. But China built infrastructure on islands that it controls. In the past 30 years, China has not waged a war. Is this a country that forcefully changes the global rules? In this changing international landscape, China is a partner of all countries and a constructive power in maintaining the well-being of all mankind. The Chinese leadership has placed high importance and respect to the Davos forum, and this is the epitome of Beijing's attitude toward the world. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News China to uphold openness of global economy at Davos Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 As deglobalization seems to be gaining more support in the US and Europe, China hopes to raise a different voice. For Beijing, the question is not whether we need globalization, but how to make globalization more inclusive. By Zhao Minghao Source: People's Daily and Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on January 17, which shows China's support for globalization and multilateralism. As deglobalization seems to be gaining more support in the US and Europe, China hopes to raise a different voice. For Beijing, the question is not whether we need globalization, but how to make globalization more inclusive. The WEF was founded in 1971, and Davos has become a symbol for globalization. As early as 1979 when China just started its reform and opening-up policies, it dispatched representatives to the forum, which marked China's endeavor to integrate into the international system. Thirty-eight years later, as China becomes the second largest economy in the world, the country's top leader's first attendance at the forum has a significant symbolic meaning. There is no denying that globalization is suffering a setback. International trade and investment are weakening. According to statistics of the World Bank, the proportion of global trade value in GDP dropped from the approximately 52 percent in 2008 to about 45 percent in 2015. The demands of developed economies for imported products have reduced and emerging markets are caught in the economic plights. Globalization now lacks powerful momentum. In addition, the refugee crisis in Europe is becoming even more severe. Free movement of people, which was once a goal of globalization, now comes under serious suspicion. The political forces which supported exclusivism and racism have gained momentum in France, Germany and Austria. US President-elect Donald Trump believes in "America first" rather than "globalism." He has successfully stopped the Ford Motor Company's plan to invest $1.6 billion to build factories in Mexico. Moreover, global governance institutions are unable to adapt to the changing reality. The United Nations has been widely criticized, and the importance of the World Trade Organization is being challenged. Trump's passive attitude toward climate change makes people worry whether the Paris Agreement would be upheld if the US refuses to play its part. Obviously, the world economy will never be saved by protectionism. International trade, cross-border investment and increased mobility of people are the preconditions for economic growth. Globalization has provided momentum for the progress of human society in the past decades, including a reduction of 660 million in China's poverty-stricken population. Globalization has promoted the establishment of market-oriented economy and technology transfer in many countries, and greatly heightened the connectedness of the world. Of course, we cannot deny the double-edged effect of globalization. Believing that their jobs have been stolen, angry blue-collar American workers accuse immigrants for taking away the social benefits that they could have been able to enjoy. The theme of this year's WEF is "Responsive and responsible leadership." It has attracted worldwide attention whether China will exert its leadership over global affairs. For China, trade protectionism must be firmly opposed, and it is crucial to maintain the openness of the world economy. Global connectivity in infrastructure should be promoted, which is also the primary goal of the Belt and Road Initiative. Moreover, both developing and developed countries need to push forward structural reforms and create jobs through innovative industries. If globalization in the past few decades is believed to be focusing on "growth," globalization 2.0 should deal with the politics of "distribution" and reduce economic and social inequality. International institutions such as the IMF also need to be further reformed, and new international organizations should be established to boost global investment. Apparently, as China goes global, its participation in and support for globalization is also on the rise. According to a report released by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies and the New York-based Rhodium Group, China's overseas investment increased 30 percent on average annually from 2005 to 2015. According to a People's Daily Online article, China's outbound direct investment in 2016 could be more than $170 billion. Furthermore, China will host an international cooperation summit on the Belt and Road Initiative in May, and a summit for leaders from BRICS countries in September in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province. The remarks that President Xi will make at Davos are carefully choreographed. They will predict major upcoming changes in China's global diplomacy. (The author is a research fellow at the Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.) Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) Minister of Communications Ms Faith Muthambi will, on Monday the16th of January 2017, grant full bursaries to two Vuwani learners who achieved top marks in last years matric examinations. The minister will also visit 17 schools in the area to hand over bicycles to learners. Most schools in the Vuwani area were forcefully shut down []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... English News Switzerland-China pragmatic cooperation to embrace new chapter: Swiss President Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 Leuthard also told the Peoples Daily that during Xis Swiss visit, both countries will ink agreements on cultural cooperation and designate 2017 as a bilateral tourism year. Switzerland also expects more tourists from China after it simplifies visa procedures, and hopes to cooperate with China on winter tourism. By Ren Yan, Wang Yuan from Peoples Daily Switzerland-China pragmatic cooperation will be ushered into a new chapter, Swiss President Doris Leuthard said when commenting on Chinese President Xi Jinpings upcoming state visit to her country. Xis trip verifies that China and Switzerland are good partners with increasingly close collaboration and a deepened mutual trust, Leuthard told the Peoples Daily in an interview, adding that she feels honored to witness Xis forthcoming visit. Leuthard lauded the substantial progress in Switzerland-China ties, saying that a host of fruits have been yielded since the two sides established diplomatic ties in 1950. The strategic innovative partnership established by both nations in 2016 not only moves bilateral ties up the ladder, but demonstrates their confidence in bilateral cooperation, the president illustrated. According to her statement, the sustained mutual trust between Berne and Beijing can be attributed to their mutual respect as well as equal-footed dialogues based on a cooperation spirit featuring innovation and win-win outcomes. Despite rising trade and investment protectionism and increasing trade barriers around the world, Switzerland and China share a consensus on deepening global free trade, Leuthard stressed. She elaborated that the Switzerland-China free trade agreement, which went into effect in 2014, has significantly boosted two-way trade, bilateral investment and created more new jobs for both countries. But the collaboration could still be better, the president admitted, adding that both sides will discuss on an all-round upgrade to the current free trade agreement during Xis stay in her country. Leuthard said that innovation cooperation represents a highlight in the Switzerland-China relationship, and that both countries are willing to cement their cooperation in innovation so that they can move to the higher-end of the value chain. The president also hailed Chinas energy and climate undertakings, an agenda that has a bearing on the future for the whole world, explaining that China made important commitments at the UN Climate Change Conference held in Paris and contributed a lot to the final ratification of the Paris accord. Switzerland and China can share expertise and work together in the research of clean energy, she added. Leuthard also told the Peoples Daily that during Xis Swiss visit, both countries will ink agreements on cultural cooperation and designate 2017 as a bilateral tourism year. Switzerland also expects more tourists from China after it simplifies visa procedures, and hopes to cooperate with China on winter tourism. Xi will deliver a speech at the Davos Forum, and I am eager to learn about his interpretation on Chinas contribution to stabilizing the global economy, Leuthard underlined. She indicated that in light of the turbulent international landscape, Chinas voice on the multilateral stage will showcase its capability in global governance and its role as a stabilizer of the world economy. China, as a major country, is exerting more influence on international and regional affairs, and Switzerland is ready to play a propelling role in this process, the president pledged at last. During Xis state visit to Switzerland from Sunday to Wednesday, he will attend the 47th World Economic Forum annual meeting, and visit the United Nations Office at Geneva and the World Health Organization, as well as the International Olympics Committee headquarters in Lausanne. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News Xi kicks off Switzerland visit Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 Swiss media published an article by Xi on Friday to help Swiss people better understand the concept of "a community of common destiny." At the beginning of the article, Xi cited the well-known Swiss poet and Nobel laureate Carl Spitteler as saying that there is no greater happiness than having friends who share the same outlook and destiny. By Yang Sheng Source: People's Daily and Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Zurich on Sunday at the start of his visit to Switzerland, during which he will attend the Davos World Economic Forum for the first time and visit international organizations. Xi is expected to speak of China's vision for the world economy at Davos and expound on the idea of "a community of common destiny" in his visit to the United Nations office in Geneva. He is expected to project China as a leader of a globalized and open world economy amid the rise of populist politicians in the West, including US President-elect Donald Trump who threatens to impose protectionist tariffs and build a wall across the US-Mexican border. Swiss media published an article by Xi on Friday to help Swiss people better understand the concept of "a community of common destiny." At the beginning of the article, Xi cited the well-known Swiss poet and Nobel laureate Carl Spitteler as saying that there is no greater happiness than having friends who share the same outlook and destiny. According to the Xinhua News Agency, since Xi first proposed the concept of a "community of common destiny" in late 2012, it has gone on to shape China's approach to global governance, giving rise to proposals and measures to support growth for all. Xi has also come up with a new security concept that is designed to pool efforts to build universal, sustainable and comprehensive security. "The community of common destiny is a concept created by China. Although the West and the UN also had similar mottos, the community of common destiny is a greater and broader concept. Apart from environmental protection, it also covers the economy, politics, diplomacy and security," said Wang Yiwei, Director of the Institute of International Affairs and the Center for EU Studies at the Renmin University of China. "When people from the West hear 'destiny' they might imagine that it is a religious concept so we've considered replacing 'destiny' with 'future.' Some Europeans don't even believe that China will share the future with them, because they believe China's future is getting better and better by absorbing strength from globalization, but their future is not very optimistic due to the negative impact of globalization," Wang said. They would like to hear more specifics, so Xi's speech on Wednesday is highly significant and will draw attention from the world, Wang said. New globalization It is painfully true that the world is now struggling with a slow and weak economic recovery and a debate over globalization, as anti-globalization sentiments increase in the West, especially in the US and a few European countries, said Pang Zhongying, director of the Center for the Study of Global Governance at Renmin University. The core of the community of common destiny is interdependence between countries, he said. At this stage of globalization, most countries cannot survive without cooperation and trade with the outside world, but currently Trump is emphasizing his "America First" policy and accuses China and Mexico of stealing US jobs. "Many right-wingers in the West, just like Trump, are mistaken in their belief that China took all the benefits from globalization and is making the West suffer," Pang said. Pang described the idea of "the community of common destiny" as the "soul of the new globalization." China has contributed a lot to global economic growth and the West also benefits from it; the problem is that the elites took the benefits and did not share them with the grass roots, Pang added. "Anti-globalization will not only harm China but also everyone else, and the problem we have now is the inequality within our societies, which means only a few elites and developed states took the majority of the benefit and didn't share equally to the grass roots and developing states. We need to reform rather than overthrow globalization as a whole," Pang noted. The way-out is the One Belt and One Road initiative, Wang said, which will make more developing countries and those stuck in the lower classes have new opportunities to share China's growth, so China can make the international community support and understand China's rise and the concept of the community of common destiny. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News Xis common destiny for mankind enlightens world: Peoples Daily Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 China has reaped the harvests of building a community of shared destiny among its neighbors and in the region by seeking to maximize the common interests of all stakeholders through a gradual approach, the article emphasized. Source: People's Daily The concept of building a community of common destiny for mankind, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the UN summit in 2015, is a solution China is offering to the world in light of interlinked global destiny, the Peoples Daily said in a commentary published on Sunday. The article comes ahead of Xis visit to Switzerland, during which he will be elaborating on his concept at a speech at the UN Office at Geneva. In the article, The concept of a community of common destiny for mankind illuminates future, the Peoples Daily discussed the origin, implications, development and significance of the concept. The concept of community of common destiny, which is rooted in Chinas traditional culture, also forms the foundation of Chinas diplomatic philosophy, the commentary said. In todays world where the interests and destiny of each country are intertwined, China, by proposing to build a new type of international relations based on win-win cooperation and to create a community of common destiny for mankind, presents the globe a prescription with oriental wisdom after it analyzed the pulse of times and historic trajectory, the paper explained. Xi has expounded on the concept on several domestic and international occasions since 2012, hoping to influence the world on Chinas views on the future of human civilization. China has reaped the harvests of building a community of shared destiny among its neighbors and in the region by seeking to maximize the common interests of all stakeholders through a gradual approach, the article emphasized. The international community praised such accomplishments as a reflection of Chinas strong sense of responsibility in helping the world through its own development, it added. When he addressed the UNs 70th anniversary in September 2015, Xi expounded on how to build a community of common destiny for mankind through his five-point proposal. According to the article, building a partnership in which countries treat each other as equals, engage in consultations and show mutual understanding serves as the main pathway to realize the goal. A security architecture involving and shared by nations based on fairness and justice serves as the key, while an open, innovative and inclusive development outlook that benefits all is a basic principle that must be followed. Whats more, the increasing inter-civilization exchanges with a respect for differences will help tighten the communitys bond, while an ecosystem that puts nature and green development first will ensure a more sustained community. The article said that it believes Chinas efforts can enlighten the world when building a community of common destiny for mankind. It shows that China, by sharing its experiences on state governance with the rest of the world, has driven societys progress with its own development. Over the past 30-plus years since China launched its reform and opening-up policies, the country has grown into the worlds second largest economy and lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty, which took the developed world hundreds of years to accomplish. Last years G20 Hangzhou Summit also generated more fruits, the paper added, saying that foreign media and scholars attributed all successes to Chinas globalized vision while formulating development and reform policies. China, at the same time, injects new impetus to the global governance principle of shared growth through discussion and collaboration by providing the world with constructive initiatives, the paper said, citing the Belt and Road initiative, APEC meeting and G20 Summit as examples. More than 100 countries and international bodies have been involved in the Belt and Road initiative since it was put forward in 2013, the article explained, adding that about 30 countries have signed agreements with China to jointly build the initiative, and more than 20 countries along the routes have entered into industrial cooperation with China. In addition, the Beijing-hosted APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting contributed to a more open, prosperous and integrated regional economy by playing a pioneering role in building the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific and advancing negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. China also contributed to the adoption of the landmark Global Trade Growth Strategy by the G20 Hangzhou Summit, reduction of trade costs as well as coordination on trade and investment policies. As a series of Chinese solutions are now propelling the reform of the global governance system, China is shouldering its responsibility as a major country in global governance, the paper concluded. (Peoples Daily) Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) English News Xi to inject confidence into global business community at Davos Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Janvier 2017 Xi's presence in Davos shows China's strong and firm support to economic globalization, Jin Canrong, associate dean of the Department of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. "It delivers a message to WEF that China treats WEF as a very influential and important platform for international economic affairs," Jin said. By Yang Sheng Source: People's Daily and Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the first head of state of China to attend Davos economic forum, will discuss the latest developments in the Chinese economy and introduce a more inclusive plan on globalization during the forum. Xi will attend the 47th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 17. It will be the first time a Chinese president will attend the summit, an influential political and economic gathering. Several Chinese premiers have attended the forum since 1992. Xi's presence in Davos shows China's strong and firm support to economic globalization, Jin Canrong, associate dean of the Department of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. "It delivers a message to WEF that China treats WEF as a very influential and important platform for international economic affairs," Jin said. Most countries can't survive without globalization, so when the biggest economy has an anti-globalization president-elect, the world will surely turn their eyes to China, the second largest economy, Jin said. "China opposes trade protectionism, and supports solutions to trade disputes with an open and inclusive attitude and a reciprocal spirit," said China's Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong at an earlier press briefing. The president will help all parties have in-depth understanding of China's economic situation and prospects, as well as China's experience and views on economic development, Li said. Li added that China expects Xi's Davos trip to identify the deeper causes of sluggish world economic growth and find a solution, as well as reinforce confidence in global economic development. Xi will deliver a speech at the opening ceremony of WEF, and hold discussions with WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab and guests from business, media and the academe. At last year's APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Peru, Xi already delivered a strong message in support of free trade and globalization when US president-elect Donald Trump announced he would scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). "So after the world heard China's message, the international community expects China to introduce a more detailed plan in support of free trade and globalization, especially as protectionism and an anti-globalization gains support in the West, Jin said. Xi's mission in Davos is to "reduce uncertainties" by injecting confidence and solidarity into the international business community, Chen Xulong, an expert at the China Institute of International Studies, said. WEF is a symbol of economic globalization, but the recent globalization guided by neo-liberalism and Western norms has encountered serious problems and challenges, even in the most developed parts of the West, like the US and Europe, Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for International Studies at Renmin University of China. "In 2017, Europe will face many important events, such as France's presidential election and Germany's general election, and the anti-globalization group's power is rising among key EU states," Wang said. Xi will also express his gratitude to Switzerland and bring confidence and encouragement to the European countries. Talks with Trump advisers Xi will hold his first state visit to Switzerland from January 15 to 18, at the invitation of the country's Federal Council. While there, he will hold talks with Swiss Confederation President Doris Leuthard. The two heads of state will witness the signing of several cooperation deals covering politics, free trade, culture, customs, energy and sports, according to Li. Switzerland was the first European country to sign a Free Trade Agreement with China and to recognize China's market economy status. President Xi will also go to Geneva and Lausanne, where he will visit the United Nations office in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters, and the International Olympic Committee headquarters. Li said Xi will deliver a speech on establishing a "community of shared destiny" at the Palace of Nations and meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, their first meeting since the latter took office on January 1. With regard to whether Xi will meet with the US delegation on the sidelines of the summit, Li said the Chinese side maintains a smooth communication channel with Trump's team and does not rule out the possibility, according to Xinhua News Agency. "The Chinese side is willing to contact various parties to arrange some meetings, as long as there is willingness and a convenient time," Li said. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China enhances efforts to promote biodiversity conservation China stress its commitment to push ahead peace and development for humanity at 20th CPC National Congress CPC's governance experience is worth learning from Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) Pew and the media have a history of spinning Pew polls to attack people of faith. One study by Pew falsely implied that atheists have more religious knowledge than do religious people. Another appeared to show that Americans are abandoning belief in God by combining people who believe in God but who aren't part of an organized religion with atheists and agnostics. Pew calls this hodgepodge group "nones," apparently to imply that they are lacking in faith, but the reality is that only a small part of this group actually lacks a belief in God which a close reading of the Pew reports shows that even Pew agrees with. Pew raises that old canard again in claiming that Americans have gotten less religious under Obama. The reality is that while the percentages of atheists and agnostics have stayed low, many religious people are saying they're not affiliated with a particular faith. Basically, the "nones" are an example, in large part, of people either rejecting formal church structures or people for whom religion is not a major part of their lives, not people who deny the existence of God. Pew apparently tries to inflate the number of truly non-religious people in America by writing: When it comes to the nation's religious identity, the biggest trend during Obama's presidency is the rise of those who claim no religion at all. Those who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is "nothing in particular," now make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. adult population, up from 16% in 2007. When it comes to the nation's religious identity, the biggest trend during Obama's presidency is the rise of those who claim no religion at all. Those who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is "nothing in particular," now make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. adult population, up from 16% in 2007. Yet Pew has to admit, without highly publicizing it, that 89% of Americans believe in God and only 3.1% say God does not exist, while a further 4% say they don't know. Essentially, by adding people not affiliated with a particular denomination and those who don't think religion is an important part of their lives to the 3.1% of Americans who reject God, Pew seems to be trying to convince us that religion in America is rapidly dying. After all, it would be pretty earth-shaking if 25% of Americans no longer believed in God. Clearly, if people were really rejecting God in great numbers, one would expect to see a far greater growth in the number of atheists. Yet atheists are a minuscule portion of the American population. This is a standard liberal tactic of using fake news to convince people they don't agree with conservatives and Christians, for example that hardly anyone is like them, and everyone is like the liberals. By attempting to make it embarrassing to admit being Christian, liberals are trying to drive religions other than their own materialistic hedonism out of the public square. Just as liberals try to silence the voices pointing out the racism of Democrat policies by labeling all who don't toe the liberal line racists, they use Pew's results to make it uncool to profess one's faith. Of course, that tends to distort poll results, just as the polls missed the support for Trump because people didn't want to publicly admit supporting him. While Obama did work hard to persecute religious people during his eight years in office, there is no data to support any massive change in American's traditional deep-seated religious beliefs. People of faith are not dodos, nor are they on the verge of extinction. After all, Pew admits that 71% of Americans are Christians hardly a minority. To be fair, Pew's most extreme claims appear in their titles, and a close reading of the actual material reveals a number of hedging comments. But given that it's the headlines that drive the narrative in many cases, the reality is that Pew certainly appears to be distorting the implications of its polls in a manner designed to normalize the liberal narrative and ostracize those who reject the bicoastal elites' beliefs. Pew's spinning is probably the result of its staff being trapped in the east-coast elite liberal bubble rather than any deliberate intent to mislead, just as the Washington Post's failure to cover a pro-life march in D.C., which featured hundreds of thousands of protesters, wasn't because of deliberate bias, but because no one on the Post's editorial team is pro-life, and none of them even knew anyone who is pro-life. Because no one in the Post's bubble knew that the massive protest was going to occur, the Post didn't even know there was anything to cover until after the march had occurred. Irrespective of the cause, however, the key take away is that one should never trust any conclusions that Pew puts forth on any topic. You need to dig down into the details to see what their data really says to ensure that you aren't getting fake news. You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter. Critics often make for strange bedfellows. Louis Farrakhan and Cornell West are examples. Both argue that Barack Obama was not ready for prime time. For Farrakhan, Obama failed on race and social issues. For West, the 44th president was a sell-out to a capitalist establishment. Overall, both say the Obamas didn't do much for blacks in particular and social justice in general. For brothers like Farrakhan and West, the last eight years were a wasted opportunity. Buyer's remorse may be the new "hope and change." There will be a black president one day maybe not for decades, thanks to the outgoing regime. Obama had little time for pragmatism and too much to do with special pleading; identity politics; and feckless, if not sanguinary, foreign policy. Be it race or religion, Obama's tragic flaw was policy marked by timidity and moral ambiguity both underwritten by the belief that he could be a racial, religious, or policy shape-shifter as the occasion demanded. Having parents on both sides of racial and religious divides allowed Obama to play race and religious cards often, yet seldom well. As team Obama heads for the exits, the race joker is again in play. White working-class Americans and any flavor of Russians are the new bogymen for bad losers, right and left, across the land. In the twilight of a checkered political career, Obama's only claim to legacy might be "first black," a dubious attribute that can never be more than a half-truth. Half- truths might be a fitting coda to an era that may go down in history as a tipping point, a juncture where "fake news" became the real news. Factual ambiguity is now viral and that cultural meme is a precedent that Obama owns. Image via Fox News. As a young hipster in exclusive white schools, he was "Barry," not Barack Hussein. As a Chicago politician, Obama self-identified as a black man, although that identity was more expedient than real. As a presidential candidate, Obama often ignored his African and Muslim antecedents while celebrating his heroic American white grandparents. In mid-career, with a media assist, he jettisoned the "Hussein" moniker. Clearly, it wasn't politically expedient to self-identify as black and Muslim, even in Farrakhan's Chicago. Barack's father was an unfortunate stereotype, a deadbeat dad who abandoned his son and fled to a life of substance abuse in Africa. Obama's mother seemed to be a white flower child with a taste for exotic, if not constant, mates. Ultimately, Obama spent his formative years in the custody of white privilege and grandparents in Hawaii. To this day, the black and Muslim sides of family Obama languish in Kenyan and Indonesian poverty and obscurity. In the main, the president's personal career path was consistent snowflake: prep school, Ivy League college, prestigious law school, and then politics. At the curb level, Barack Obama probably cared as much about black culture in America as does Chris Matthews. After 20 January, the Obamas plan to remain in Washington so that their daughter can remain in a pricey, majority-white private secondary school. Self-segregating public schools in Washington, D.C. are a function of entrenched double standards among elite black liberals like the Obamas. Arguably, the District of Columbia has the worst public schools in America. Withal, you could argue that the "great black hope" was neither. In life and theater, the last act is often like the first bookends, if you will. The Obama Bookends Obama leaves the Oval Office as did the Clintons, trashing the White House. Since the election, both families have done their level best to poison domestic and foreign policy wells. First, there is challenging the legitimacy of the 2016 election at home and then blaming the Trump victory on white fright or Russian meddling abroad. Sour grapes do not capture the stench of such 11th-hour hypocrisy. And "sore loser" does not begin to describe the perfidy of American intelligence collaboration in the partisan challenges to the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Eight years of Obama torpor had nothing to do with the Clinton defeat? If the Kremlin hacked the DNC attempt to hijack the Democrat primaries, such enterprise is a tribute to an efficient FSB or GRU. Worse still, if there was a hack, and subsequent desinformatsiya campaign in America, any Kremlin scam is a testament to the manifest incompetence of the DNC and General Clapper's bloated American intelligence megaplex. The truth about the intelligence profession today is alarming. The grand illusion in Congress about 16 U.S. intelligence agencies is the belief that spending is somehow related to performance. Since 9/11, the business of the I.C. is clearly business, not efficiency, effectiveness, or improved national security. The intelligence community took sides in the recent election because it anticipated a Clinton win. Trump is a clear threat to business as usual at DOD and a clear threat to an obese and out-of-control intelligence behemoth. When the media speaks of weaponized cyber-attacks, the American sponsored "Stuxnet" assault on Iran's nuclear infrastructure is seldom mentioned. U.S. intelligence fired the first salvo of the 21st-century internet wars as early as January 2010. Any hack of the DNC is small potatoes compared to the Obama-Clapper idiocy of playing nuclear chicken in a dicey neighborhood like the Levant. Bottom line: A Shia bomb is still waiting in the wings. Beginning with the Sunni attack on Manhattan, intelligence community funding has been inversely proportionate to national security performance. Indeed, regime change chickens have now come home to roost inside the Beltway. Opposition to Trump in D.C. is now flirting with sedition. The latest "Russian" hysteria has all the earmarks of xenophobia, vindictive remorse, or political vendetta. General Clapper's empire bet on Obama and the Clintons. Trump won in spite of Washington fixers. Real change is a bitter pill for losers and elites alike. The best revenge is often blowback. Barack Obama and Jim Clapper have managed to turn Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and Edward Snowden into global cyber-heroes. Clapper and his agency vassals might now displace both Benedict Arnold and Rube Goldberg on the partisan political walk of shame. If Russian intelligence is more effective than American intelligence, Putin might indeed take a bow, but surely Donald Trump is not the culprit, nor the beneficiary. Obama leaves the Oval Office as he entered, festooned with garlands from sycophants. The president got the Nobel "Peace" Prize at the start of his run when he had done nothing. Now he gets the "Defense" Distinguished Service Medal after accomplishing little. Both awards are bookends for wishful thinking. Eight years of Obama were neither distinguished nor a service. Obama probably killed, with Islamic allies, more Muslims than Charles Martel. Mister Obama also leaves his successor at least five hot wars in the ummah and one cold war in Europe. No fair analyst can possibly argue that America and the world are better, or safer, places after the Obama years. Nearly a decade ago, Obama ran on a theme of "hope and change" as if he had a program for either. Recent events in Chicago are a microcosm of domestic failure on both counts. We could start with the Black Lives Matter hustle, a coalition of greedy lawyers, hip-hop, rap, and anti-cop punk activists. Apologists might argue that Chicago is not Obama's problem, but if urban punk pathology is a national problem, then that buck stops on Obama's desk. Chicago is Obama country his nascent political constituency, if you will. The Windy City is a burg where lives do not matter, especially black lives. Chicago is the murder capital of America, a city where victims are usually black, and perps are almost always black, too. In any given year, nearly five thousand of Mr. Obama's Illinois constituents will be maimed by criminals and a fifth of those usually end up dead. Black mayhem is routine in every American city, most of which are one-party towns like Chicago and Washington, D.C., hostages to a smug and complacent Democratic Party. Chronic, now generational, violence in the United States is a phenomenon of the urban American Left. Obama and his Party own that demographic. The Chicago four. The most recent racial atrocity in Chicago featured four punks who kidnapped a mentally challenged white man for two days of racial abuse and ritual torture. The ordeal was live-streamed on YouTube. The only difference between this incident and everyday city mayhem is that this victim was white. Social pathology in places like Chicago is of a piece with Islamic necrosis abroad, a product of indulgence. Tolerating aberrant behavior anywhere makes more of it possible everywhere. Culture is behavior. Behavior is culture. Maybe it is too early to suggest that Barack Hussein Obama is America's first affirmative action president. Buyer's remorse is the ugly side of affirmative action. If facts and performance matter, Obama had eight years of golden opportunity to address domestic and foreign policy civility. Alas, he did little or nothing on both accounts. Both landscapes now are literally littered with body bags and the human detritus of civic incontinence. Barack Obama was never varsity material. Indeed, he doubled down on failure. Obama never used his bully pulpit to demand a better moral standard for his core urban constituency at home or those perfidious Muslim "partners" he sought to appease abroad. Obama's tenure is not without merit. He looks good in a suit. Just ask CNN or MSNBC. He seems to have a nice family, too. And Barack's rap is nonpareil. Indeed, Obama sounds like a park bench preacher. He's arrogant enough to tell a crowd to go to hell, and most marks would get in line for the trip. The Obama aura for folks who work for a living; however, people in flyover country is something very different. If you ask about Obama in Deer Lick, the response would be "all hat, no cowboy." The black vote in America may continue to be a "blue wall," a racial monolith or maybe now with Keith Ellison, just another round of domestic jihad. Yet for the rest of America, any future appeals to melanin as an asset, religion as an excuse, or affirmative action as a remedy may be dead letters. Team Obama out! Let the requiems begin. G. Murphy Donovan writes about the politics of national security. The global warming narrative is straightforward. Carbon dioxide, (CO2), released by burning coal, oil and natural gas, is increasing in the atmosphere. The increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the globe to warm. The warming will create numerous bad effects. Therefore, we must reduce the emissions of CO2 by switching to green energy such as windmills, solar power and crops that can be burned for energy. The global warming idea has caught on, at least in left-leaning circles. Millions of people believe that global warming is solid science. If you doubt the global warming idea, you will be accused of not believing in science. According to the promoters of global warming, doubters are like the people who put Galileo on trial, or the people who think the Earth is flat. The global warming narrative consists of assertions, supposedly based on science, and proposed actions that will avert the (purported) disaster. The narrative is very fragile and is susceptible to collapse if the assertions or proposed actions are faulty. There are a lot of faults in the narrative. For example, the alternative energy proposed is too expensive by an order of magnitude. Carbon dioxide increase could be stopped by switching coal electricity to nuclear electricity because it is only necessary to reduce CO2 emissions by about half, because the other half of the CO2 emitted disappears into the ocean. (See this.) But, most of the global warmers hate nuclear, so nuclear is not on the menu. The global warming program to reduce CO2 emissions and change the worlds energy sources is a political impossibility because China and India are not going to participate beyond selling windmills to us and to the Europeans. China burns 4 times as much coal as we do. Then, it is not clear that warming is a bad thing. It might be very beneficial. Some of the supposed bad effects, such as the oceans rising and flooding the coasts, are so silly as to be not deserving of refutation. It is well-established that adding CO2 to the atmosphere helps agriculture, because plants grow better, with less water, in an atmosphere with enhanced CO2. The most vulnerable item in the global warming narrative is the assertion that CO2 is going to cause substantial warming. It is not unreasonable to expect CO2 to create warming. The real question is how much. The high priests of global warming, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, say that doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will raise the average global temperature by 3 degrees Celsius or 5+ degrees Fahrenheit. The scientific basis for this claim is extremely shaky. The claim is based solely on computer models of the Earths atmosphere. A perspective on the climate models from a prominent scientist, Kevin Trenberth, who is allied with the global warmers, can be seen here. He says there is a lot wrong with the models and the IPCC is not actually making predictions with the models. The climate models include many approximations and assumptions that are not necessarily well grounded in atmospheric physics. As a result, there are many adjustable parameters the value of which must be set by a tuning process. The tuning is accomplished by running the models against the past, adjusting the parameters to make the model output agree with the known past climate. The past climate is also not well known in many respects, so estimating is used, and different modelers have different past climate estimates. The great danger is that the model may be tuned to agree with the past but then fail to predict the future. This can happen if the model is based on faulty assumptions, but that there is enough spare adjusting capacity inherent in the parameters so that the model can be forced to agree with the past even though the model is faulty. The situation with the climate models used by the IPCC is that they cannot be made to even agree with the past climate. The illustration below is from the 2013 report of the IPCC (AR5: 10.3.1.1.2 ). It plots the climate temperature observations against the averaged output of the various models used by the IPCC. There are two areas of serious disagreement illustrated by added annotation. From 1910 to 1940 the Earth warmed strongly, but the models do not generate a match to that warming. The other area of disagreement is the period starting in 1998 when global warming stopped, called the Hiatus or the Pause. The models project global warming continuing, not stopping in 1998. The climate models attribute the strong warming trend from 1975 to 1998, the late 20th century warming, to the influence of CO2 (and minor greenhouse gases). However, the very similar warming from 1910 to 1940, the early 20th century warming, cannot be blamed on CO2 because in that less industrialized time there was not enough increase in CO2 to account for more than a tiny part of that warming. Although there are plenty of theories, the cause of the early 20th century warming is unknown. Some modelers incorporate speculative theories to try to make their models better match observations. But, the average of the models still cannot fit to the early 20th century warming. The obvious important question is how do we know the late 20th century warming was caused by CO2 and not by the same unknown force that caused the early 20th century warming? The inability to explain the early 20th century warming, and the real probability that the late 20th century warming may be forced by factors other than CO2, constitute a smoking gun type of evidence, casting doubt on the predictions of global warming forced by CO2. Doubt concerning the viability of the climate models is further reinforced by the lack of warming during the last 18 years, the Hiatus. What other forces may be driving the Earths climate? Exchange of heat with the oceans can potentially have a large effect on climate. Vast quantities of cold, salty water sink to the bottom of the ocean in the polar regions. That sinking water tends to warm the Earth because cold water is removed from the surface environment. However cold water is upwelling to the surface in various places. That cools the Earth. In the short term the sinking and up welling are not necessarily in balance, resulting in net storage or net emission of cold water from the subsurface ocean. The promoters of global warming try to use ocean heat storage to explain model failure. The ocean can explain any failure of the models. But, that is speculation because there are not good observations of the interchange of heat between the atmosphere and the oceans. The ocean influence cuts both ways, explaining away the model failures, or else providing an alternative, non-CO2, explanation for the warming and cooling of the Earth. The sun may have an effect on the Earths climate not acknowledged by the models. It is known the sun has various cycles, the 11-year sunspot cycle being most prominent. It is known that an exceptionally cold period from 1645 to 1715, the Maunder Minimum, was accompanied by the near absence of sunspots. But good measurements of the sun only began in the satellite era, so we have a lack of knowledge concerning the effect of the sun. The Danish physicist, Henrik Svensmark, has a pretty good theory suggesting that cycles in the strength of the suns magnetic field modulate the arrival of cosmic rays to the Earth and the cosmic rays provide nuclei for the formation of cloud droplets. Clouds affect climate. The pacific decadal oscillation changes the temperature of parts of the Pacific Ocean about every 30 years. It was only discovered in the 1990s by a biologist investigating variation in the Alaska salmon catch. That and a similar oscillation in the Atlantic are probably driven by ocean circulation and may drive climate. There may be, and probably are, forces driving climate that are yet to be discovered. As one professor said, to err is human, but to really foul up you need a computer. Norman Rogers writes often about environmental issues. He has a website. Over the next few days, we will read a lot of articles about President Obama. We will hear from his supporters that he saved us from a Great Depression, and his critics will say he messed up everything in the Middle East. We may also read that he leaves office with high approval ratings. In fact, the RCP average is 54%, a very good number. We probably won't hear a lot about the state of the Democratic Party. Looking back, President Obama's real legacy is that he devastated the party after all the hope of 2008. This is from Deroy Murdock: Behold the tremendous power that Democrats have frittered away from January 2009 through the aftermath of Election Day thanks to Obama and his ideas: Democrats surrendered the White House to political neophyte Donald J. Trump. U.S. Senate seats slipped from 55 to 46, down 16 percent. U.S. House seats fell from 256 to 194, down 24 percent. Democrats ran the Senate and House in 2009. Next year, they will control neither. Governorships slid from 28 to 16, down 43 percent. State legislatures (both chambers) plunged from 27 to 14, down 48 percent Trifectas (states with Democrat governors and both legislative chambers) cratered from 17 to 6, down 65 percent. These numbers only tell part of the story. His real legacy is that it will be very difficult for any future Democrat to propose a government solution to anything. My guess is that we will now enter an era where most of the solutions to these problems will come from governors and state legislatures. We will look to the states rather than the federal government. This is partially because most Americans are now living in a state where a successful GOP governor is delivering results, from Texas to Florida to Michigan. Also, President Obama's weakness overseas has convinced most Americans that the U.S. must lead, not just watch events. Our choice is not between doing nothing and sending 500,000 troops. Our real option is to lead and behave like the superpower President Obama did not realize that he was governing. We wish President Obama a happy retirement. I hope he is ready to see how much of his legacy turned out to be very different from what his followers predicted eight years ago this week. P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. Chicago has become the icon of bloody violence on its streets, but corruption also is part of its misery, undeniably the responsibility of its ruling party, the Democrats. It has a long history. Like New York City, Chicago is and has been run by liberal Democrats for decades. Of New Yorks 51 city council seats, all but three are currently held by Democrats. Not to be outdone, Chicagos city council has 50 seats with but one Republican and forty-nine Democrats. But Chicagos city government is known for much more than just its one-sidedness. From Mayor Richard J. Daleys well known rackets of yesteryear to former U.S House representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (who just last year completed his prison sentence after having pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges including fraud, conspiracy, wire fraud, criminal forfeiture, and more), the list of Democrats committing and getting caught committing fraud, taking bribes, running scams, and other malfeasance while in office is very long. And now the latest. Last week a fifteen-count indictment was handed down for Chicago alderman Willie Cochran. Included in the allegations are charges of wire fraud, federal program bribery, extortion, and of soliciting a $3,000 bribe from a liquor store owner seeking to sell his store. Seems his buyer would need a liquor license (imagine that) in order to complete the sale, and, well, guess where those come from. If convicted on all counts, he faces 280 years in jail. But not to worry, Alderman, I bet you can find a liberal judge wholl reduce that to 150. Cochran, 64, served 26 years with the Chicago Police Department and retired from the CPD in 2003. He ran as a Democrat for alderman in 2007. The woman who previously held his office, Arenda Troutman, was under indictment for bribery at the time he ran against her! She lost the election to Cochran and subsequently spent four years in jail following her conviction. Cochran has pleaded not guilty to the charges and appears poised to battle it out in court. As reported by Gazette.com, according to Illinois corruption researchers Dick Simpson and Thomas Gradel, more than 30 Chicago aldermen have been convicted of crimes since 1973, most of them on bribery and extortion charges. More than 1,000 public officials and businessmen in Illinois have been convicted of public corruption since 1970, including imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But corruption among politicians on Chicago's premier lawmaking body has been particularly persistent, the researchers wrote in an anti-corruption report. Blagojevich is still in federal prison as you read this, serving a 14-year sentence. In an odd bit of irony, Blago is hopeful that the man whose Senate seat he got caught trying to sell Barack Obama will commute his sentence, as hes currently doing for a record number of prison inmates. One might be wondering, are Chicago aldermen volunteers or underpaid to the point where working some side deals might be necessary to make ends meet? Chicago aldermens salaries range from a current low of $104,928 (Brendan Reilly, D 42nd District) to a high of $117,333 (17 earn this wage.) The median household income for Chicago today? About $63,000. In summary, in our third most populated city, there is total and complete liberal Democrat rule. The results? Sky-high taxation, toll booths on every major freeway but roads still full of potholes, out-of-control gun violence and other violent crimes, abysmal black unemployment rates (nearly half of young black men neither working nor in school), highest home foreclosure rate of any major U.S. city and this is mostly the good news. And downtown you have elected officials running scams and rackets, taking bribes, and using money earmarked for children for their own personal benefit. That, friends, is the Chicago way. European nations are warning that once the weather warms this spring, an "unprecedented" wave of economic migrants will attempt to cross the Mediterranean to reach the shores of Europe. Nearly a million refugees made the crossing in 2015, inundating Germany, Austria, and many other European countries. Most of those refugees were from Syria and Iraq war-torn nations with tens of thousands trying to escape the violence. This time, most of the refugees will be from Africa Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Mali, and Chad, among others. While there is violence in several of those countries, the primary reason people want to make the dangerous crossing is economic opportunity. Daily Caller: More than 180,000 attempted to reach Italy by sea in 2016. More than 5,000 died during the journey, but authorities expect the trend to continue. A majority are considered economic migrants with slim chances of getting asylum. Malta, a tiny nation in the Mediterranean, holds the European Unions presidency this spring and it wants the union to act sooner rather than later. Come next spring, the number of people crossing over the Mediterranean will reach record levels, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told The Associated Press Sunday. The choice is trying to do something now, or meeting urgently in April, May and try to do a deal then. The migrant crisis that broke out in 2015 primarily stemmed from Syria and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people in North Africa are also pursuing a better life as economies have crippled in recent years. Egypt is the country with which one could come to some sort of agreement, Maltese Foreign Minister George Vella told AP. There is stability to a certain extent, and they are interested because even they themselves have got their own problem with migration. As Editor Lifson reported yesterday, EU nations have quietly approached Australia for ideas on how to deal with the influx of unwanted visitors. Australia's policies have been condemned by most EU countries, but they apparently are not above seeking advice. The deal struck earlier this year between the EU and Turkey has worked fairly well in reducing the number of migrants transiting through Turkey to western Europe. But there are other routes the migrants can take that would cause enormous problems. Italy would be the first alternate destination, and the Italians are ill equipped to handle the massive invasion expected. Plus the trip to Italy from North Africa is far longer and more dangerous, which could lead to a big increase in migrant deaths. There really is no good option for the EU in this crisis. They either have to be realistic about this mass movement of humans from poor to rich countries and place severe restrictions on entry or continue with what Donald Trump calls "catastrophic" policies of open-door migration. Donald Trump told the London Times in an interview that he is willing to entertain the idea of swapping the removal of sanctions on Russia imposed after their annexation of Crimea for a nuclear arms reduction treaty. He also called NATO "obsolete" for its failure to address the problem of terrorism and called Brexit "a great thing." Reuters: But Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday as the 45th U.S. president, raised the prospect of the first big nuclear arms control agreement with Moscow since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. "They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia," the Republican president-elect was quoted as saying by The Times. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit." The United States and Russia are by far the world's biggest nuclear powers. The United States has 1,367 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic missiles and bombers, and Russia has 1,796 such deployed warheads, according to the latest published assessment by the U.S. State Department. Under the 2010 New START treaty, Russia and the United States agreed to limit the number of long-range, strategic nuclear weapons they can deploy. Trump has said he will seek to improve relations with Moscow despite criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States and other Western powers imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. Asked whether he would trust German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Putin more, Trump said: "Well, I start off trusting both --but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all." Many of Trump's foreign policy positions had been talked about during the campaign, including his view that NATO is obsolete. But this is his first hint of how he might approach negotiating with Vladimir Putin. In the interview with The Times, Trump was also critical of Russia's intervention in Syria's civil war which, along with the help of Iran, has tilted the conflict in President Bashar al-Assad's favor. "I think it's a very rough thing," Trump said of Russian intervention in Syria. "Aleppo has been such a terrible humanitarian situation." The war has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and aided the rise of the Islamic State militant group. On NATO, Trump repeated his view that the military alliance was obsolete but said it was still very important for him. "I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete," Trump told The Times, referring to comments he made during his presidential election campaign. "Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." Trump said many NATO member states were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection. A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump said. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much." The idea that Trump is a tool of Russia, as hinted at by Democrats, is a product of the hysteria generated by Trump's victory. It's irrational to believe such nonsense, but that won't stop Trump's opponents from trying to make the ridiculous sound reasonable. But at the same time, the idea that Putin would trade sanctions relief for a nuclear arms reduction is a non-starter. The sanctions aren't bitting the Russian economy as much as they could have. They are mostly aimed at individuals in Putin's inner circle, with restrictions on foreign bank accounts and travel. And why should Putin look to reduce nuclear arms when he's spending billions to modernize them? Unless Trump is ready to give away the store and allow Russia's modernization while curbing efforts by the U.S. to improve our own arsenal, Putin probably won't bite. Trump may be trying to light a fire under NATO by calling it "obsolete." NATO is alliance in search of a reason for being, and getting NATO members to think about the future of the alliance can only be a good thing. Trump has put Europe on notice that they have a brand new negotiating partner who is taking an entirely different approach to transatlantic relations from his predecessor's. As a child, my image of the government was formed by old newsreels from the 1940s and 50s in which government officials were all stately gentlemen acting in the best interests of the nation. As I grew older, that image became increasingly tarnished with every passing year. By this time, that image has degenerated into one of a government run in large part by kleptocrats, liars, and outright hucksters. I believe that Hillary Clinton was among the worst of them, and had she won, I am convinced that the republic would soon have ceased to exist. If that opinion sounds hyperbolic, it is shared with greater minds than mine. For example, Lou Dobbs, in a televised interview, opined that Trumps election had rescued the nation from disaster. The saga continues, however, as we find that the inhabitants of the swamp are in what one commentator referred to as an existential struggle. Their jobs are at risk. Indeed, in some cases, the very agencies that employ them may soon be drastically reduced in size or even abolished entirely. I forget who said it, but a bureaucrat would never risk his life for anything except his job. When their jobs are threatened, bureaucrats go nuclear. That explains a lot of the anti-Trump fanaticism we are seeing now. This, then, is what Donald J. Trump is up against: a bureaucratic machine that fully intends to catch him in its cogs and grind him to political death. Its denizens will stop at nothing, because for them, to lose this battle is worse than death; it is to be exposed as the irrelevant, purposeless creatures they have become. One prime exemplar of this phenomenon is Walter Shaub, Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics. Throughout the first four years of his five-year tenure, Shaub never found any reason, not one, to investigate the vast array of scandals involving Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch, and Barbara Boxer, among many others. Now that Trump is preparing to be inaugurated, however, Shaub has suddenly developed a keen and penetrating interest in a non-issue: that of Trumps conflicts of interest, which, according to law, never apply to a sitting president. He is exempt from them. Shaub is unimpressed with such laws. According to a Fox News report, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, stated that Mr. Shaub has taken a very aggressive stance on issues hes never [before] looked at. Hes raised a bunch of eyebrows. As was so aptly said by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, if you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy wont. Another disappointing example of corrupt officials scurrying for their jobs is found in the top-level bureaucracy of the Central Intelligence Agency. Of them, author Tim Weiner wrote, To the CIA, everyones an outsider. In a government of unaccountable officials, the CIA (along with its sister intelligence agencies) is likely the least accountable of all, for the very essence of its existence is secrecy. It has been called a shadow government, with its own agenda and its own carefully concealed budget. Trump has crossed them, and their knives will be out to protect both their agendas and budgets. For Trump, getting nominated was an uphill battle, and getting elected was a seemingly hopeless war. His greatest challenge of all will be not merely to govern a nation, but to conquer a massive bureaucracy in full and open rebellion against him and against the American people. Michelle Obama's choice of clothes has had an enormous impact on American and the world, the New York Times tells us. Consider that for five and a half years there was a blog chronicling Mrs. Obamas wardrobe choices, arguably the first devoted to the clothes of a political figure, and that when Mr. Obama wore a tan suit to a news conference it practically broke the internet (ditto when he eschewed a tie). Consider that Mrs. Obamas effect on fashion brands was the subject of a study by a New York University professor in the Harvard Business Review entitled How This First Lady Moves Markets. Especially in her husbands second term, Mrs. Obama used her leverage and visibility not only to raise the profile of a host of local designers (the biggest struggle for a young designer, Mr. Wu said, is attention; she solved that), but also as argument against isolationism and in support of allies across the world. It was not happenstance that she wore a Gucci gown to the Kennedy Center Honors the same day Italy went to the polls to vote on a referendum widely viewed as a verdict on Matteo Renzi, the countrys now former reformist prime minister. He lost that referendum. Do you think Mrs. Obama picked the wrong dress? Just look at the dresses above. The first shows screaming bright colors that one might find in children's clothes. The second shows how three completely different patterns white dots, solid blue, and black dots clash terribly, like three diseases fighting each other in one body. The third shows how wearing large black dots jumbled together with yellow bars and green machetes makes wearing contemporary art a bad idea. Above we have blood red roses clashing with black and white to produce a cacophony of visual screams. In the middle we have an outfit made for Count Dracula's wife that accentuates Mrs. Obama's hips and thighs for that "second trimester" look. And on the upper right, we have a classic Tic Tac Toe board with sloppy black lines to accentuate the hideousness of the outfit. Questions for discussion: 1) Which do you think was Mrs. Obama's worst outfit? 2) Mrs. Obama wore expensive clothes. She didn't find a cure for cancer, beat ISIS, or balance the budget or secure the border. Yet she is being treated like a great hero. With Mrs. Obama gone, whom will the media have left to worship? Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com. The Mauthausen concentration camp, situated about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was the hub of one of the largest labor camp complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe, with a central camp near the village of Mauthausen, and nearly one hundred other subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. Among these Mauthausen had the most brutal detention conditions. It was classified Grade III, where the most incorrigible political enemies of the Reich were sent to be exterminated, often through exhaustion by grueling forced labor. The SS called Mauthausen Knochenmuhle, or the bone grinder. The camp was located on the edge of a granite quarry where camp inmates were sent to work. Indeed, the site for the camp was chosen because of the quarrys close proximity to Linz, a city Hitler planned to rebuild with grandiose buildings as envisioned by Albert Speer. The Stairs of Death at Mauthausen concentration camp, then and now. Several times throughout the day, prisoners were forced to carry blocks of stone, often weighing as much as 50 kilograms, up the 186 stairs of the so called "Stairs of Death". Often, exhausted prisoners would collapse and drop their load on top of those following, creating a horrific domino effect with prisoners falling onto the next, and so on, all the way down the stairs. The heavy stones would crush their limbs and bodies. People died on these stairs every day. Sometimes, the SS guards would force the exhausted prisoners to race up the stairs carrying blocks of stone. Those who survived the ordeal would then be placed in a line-up at the edge of a cliff, the SS called "The Parachutists Wall". At gun-point each prisoner would have the option of being shot or pushing the prisoner in front of him off the cliff. Some prisoners, unable to bear the tortures of the camp, would willfully jump off the cliff. Such suicides were frequent. Today, the "Stairs of Death" form part of the guided tours at the Mauthausen Memorial. The stairs have been redone and straightened so that tourists can easily climb up and down them, but at that time they were tilted and slippery. From the accounts of Christian Bernadac, a French resistance fighter who was imprisoned at Mauthausen, and later wrote a book titled The 186 Steps, Those who visit the Mauthausen quarry today, don't see the same thing, for since then, the steps have been redone - a real stairway, cemented, and regular. At that time, they were simply cut with a pick into the clay and rock, held in place by logs, unequal in height and tread, and therefore extremely difficult, not only for climbing but also for the descent. Stones rolled under our wooden-soled sandals, and we were forced to keep moving at a very rapid pace. The work consisted of carrying up a stone of considerable size and weight, along the 186 steps, after which there was still a considerable distance to cover. The man who chose a stone found to be too small was out of luck. And all of this went on at the rate of eight to ten trips per day. The pace was infernal, without a second's rest. The Mauthausen quarry is now overgrown with trees and bushes. Much of the camp site is also covered by residential areas built after the war. There is a museum now and a visitor center. Photo credit: Ramon Cutanda Lopez/Flickr Photo credit: Sonya Brunt/Panoramio Photo credit: Martin/Flickr Photo credit: damian entwistle/Flickr Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia SS officers climbing the "Stairs of Death", April 1941. Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia View of the Wiener Graben quarry and stone "stairs of death" (Todesstiege) at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Prisoners at forced labor in the Wiener Graben quarry at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Photo credit: German Federal Archive/Wikimedia Sources: Wikipedia / scrapbookpages.com / www.wien.gv.at Angry Birds maker Rovio announced the opening of a new London studio thats meant to expand the companys portfolio to new original franchises. The London branch will focus on developing massive multiplayer online (MMO) games and is already working on one such title based on an original IP, Rovio revealed on Monday. Antti Viitanen, Rovios Senior Vice President of Studios, labeled London as the most logical place for a new branch of the company, adding how the capital of the United Kingdom attracts a wide variety of talent. Viitanen also said the opening of this new division marks another step in Rovios long-term strategy of increasing its profitability. Rovio London is already operational and will employ around 20 people by 2019. The company is currently advertising three positions at its new London branch which is looking for a technical director and a game developer, as well as an art director. Rovio London is headed by one Mark Sorrell who revealed that the firm will mostly focus on mobile platforms. While Sorrell didnt confirm the upcoming MMO developed by Rovio London will launch on Android, his comment certainly seems indicative of that. The head of the studio also admitted that mobile MMOs arent without competition, but stated that the market still isnt completely saturated, which is why he believes Rovio London can make a profit. The company will focus on developing games for a massive audience and isnt interested in making niche products, Sorrell told Reuters. This target audience suggests Rovio London will develop free-to-play mobile games with in-app purchases and related monetization methods, something Rovio is already experienced with. Rovio London is the companys fifth in-house studio as the firms network already includes three Finnish studios and another Swedish branch. The makers of Angry Birds have experienced diminishing profits in recent years, which is why theyve started focusing on diversifying their portfolio and making their revenue stream less reliant on Angry Birds, a franchise that seemingly passed its peak popularity some time ago. Rovio is now hoping to release new hit mobile games that it can turn into franchises and license them for additional profit, but the company has yet to achieve major success on that front. ASUS is looking to ship about 35-40 million smartphones each year, by the year 2020. Thats just a few years away, and the company is going to need to grow pretty substantially to meet that goal. Considering the company shipped 20 million units in 2016. That effectively means that they need to double the amount they are shipping. Its not impossible for ASUS, but it does mean that theyll need to put in some extra work. At CES 2017, the company unveiled two new ZenFone smartphones, the ZenFone 3 Zoom which is being added to the existing ZenFone 3 lineup, and adds in a pretty large camera that has optical zoom capabilities. The other was the ZenFone AR, which is the first smartphone to bring Tango and Daydream into a single smartphone also the first smartphone to have 8GB of RAM. The Taiwanese manufacturer is set to unveil the ZenFone 4 in the second quarter of the year, according to their CEO Jerry Shen. The company has put out some great smartphones, but have had trouble grabbing a decent size of the market in the US. ASUS is a much larger manufacturer in Asia than in the Americas. Thats something they are looking to change, especially since users are already buying their other products, like their Gaming PCs, Chromebooks and other PCs. In 2016, ASUS did see a rather large uptick in market share, seeing 5% increase globally, and increases in individual markets hitting double digits. Its not impossible for ASUS to hit this target of 35-40 million units shipped per year, especially since they are giving themselves a few years to get there, but they will need to work harder in key markets like the US, China and India, which are the three largest markets right now. The company is already working hard in China, having just released the ZenFone Pegasus 3S in that country, with a rather large battery. In the US, ASUS needs to make a bigger name for themselves, and possibly work on getting their smartphones sold through the carriers instead of just being available unlocked. Either way, itll be great to see how far ASUS has come, by the time 2020 hits. If you opt to purchase the Galaxy S7 Edge in the United Kingdom, youll get a free Gear Fit 2. Samsung recently announced this special promotion thats running until February 28th and rewards all consumers who buy the Galaxy S7 Edge from one of many participating retailers in the country. Once you make your online or physical purchase, you have to register it on Samsungs website linked below. A registered purchase allows you to file a request for a free Gear Fit 2. The consumer electronics manufacturer said that all eligible customers will receive an email confirming their request within 30 days of making it, after which the Gear Fit 2 will be shipped to them in the shortest possible period. People with a mainland address will likely receive their wearable a day after getting the confirmation email, while everyone else can expect the shipment to arrive in two to four days following a successful claim. This offer is seemingly only valid for buyers of the Galaxy S7 Edge and not the regular Galaxy S7. Seeing how this smartphone is almost a year old now, Samsung is likely offering a free Gear Fit 2 with it to help UK retailers clear their old stock. Recent reports suggest the Galaxy S8 will be hitting the market at some point in April and most retailers are preparing for the launch of Samsungs upcoming flagship by doing everything they can to reduce their Galaxy S7 Edge inventories. Due to that, consumers in the UK can possibly stumble on a Galaxy S7 Edge that a retailer has already bundled with some accessory like the Gear VR and subsequently request a free Gear Fit 2 from Samsung. The wearable itself has mostly been positively received by both consumers and reviewers, most of whom were pleased with all of the improvements Samsung made on the original Gear Fit fitness tracker which launched in 2014. It remains to be seen whether Samsung will offer a similar incentive for buying the Galaxy S7 Edge in other European countries, as well. Regarding the Galaxy S8, the companys next flagship Android device will supposedly be unveiled at a special event in New York City scheduled for April 18th. Those of you that own the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 or the Galaxy S6 Edge, will definitely want to pick up a Gear VR. Its a virtual reality headset which allows you to play games in virtual reality, but also allow you to watch 360-degree video, like that 360-degree video The White House put out last week, allowing you to tour the Presidents home. This particular unit will work with all flagship Samsung devices released after the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge (including those two as well). Typically this headset would cost you around $99, but right now Amazon is offering it up for about $54.99 which is a pretty impressive price point. Its not quite the lowest weve seen for this model, but it is fairly close. Unfortunately, it wont work with most Android devices, but if you do own a supported Samsung device, its definitely worth checking out. Especially with Oculus adding more and more content to the Gear VR for users to take advantage of. You can pick up the Samsung Gear VR using the link down below. This is the international version, which there shouldnt be much of a difference between this and the US version. Delivery drones may soon no longer be a thing of the future, as Drone Delivery Canada (DDC) is set to begin testing its drones with customers in the first quarter of 2017. Similar tests are already happening in Europe and this is not the first run of similar tests in the Americas. DDC is expanding its tests which currently include the Waterloo region to Foremost Alberta. The addition of the Foremost region will give the company 700 square nautical miles, about 927 square miles, of restricted airspace up to 18,000 feet above sea level to test within. The announcement that DDC had reached the formal agreement with Transport Canada was made via the companys press release page on January 10th of this year. It marks the first formal agreement of this type to be made between Transport Canada the governing agency for transportation regulation and policy in Canada and any drone delivery company. Importantly, the tests being conducted at Foremost are intended to advance DDC along the path to becoming certified with compliant operator status. The status is required if the company wants to meet its goals for bringing the platform to a range of areas across Canada, including the difficult to reach northern regions. Moreover, it is an opportunity to truly test the drone delivery platform that DDC has built under more real-world circumstances. The tests themselves are to include testing of the companys beyond visual line of sight capabilities. This covers the ability of the delivery drones to operate primarily using guidance satellites and possibly other methods of guidance since the drones will be mostly on their own once they leave the line of sight of the launch area. Such capabilities are a requirement for the up-and-coming drone delivery industry since line-of-sight can not be guaranteed under all circumstances. Tests with existing DDC customers will begin during Q1 of 2017. The mayor of Foremost, Ken Kultgen, has also voiced his excitement. Kultgen has said that he is delighted that Drone Delivery Canada will be testing at the Foremost UAS Range. Kultgen went on to express that the tests are an integral part of bringing the innovative technology to all Canadians. If the tests go well, the company hopes to have expanded the commercial roll out of its drone delivery logistics platform. DDC currently offers warehouse to warehouse services and warehouse to consumer services and that continued roll out has been scheduled to begin between late 2017 and early 2018. According to some new user agent profiles that have recently appeared online, Sony may be preparing to launch the G3112 and the G3221, two new smartphones equipped with MediaTeks Helio P20 processor. For the last few years, Sonys smartphone division has largely skipped CES in favor of unveiling smartphones at the annual MWC trade show in Barcelona and 2017 will seemingly be no different. New user profiles reveal that the G3112 and the G3221 are featuring displays boasting a 720p and a 1080p resolution, respectively. Furthermore, both smartphones are listed as being powered by MediaTeks octa-core Helio P20 processor. This is not the first time that smartphones with these codenames have leaked, though the latest user agent profiles do not line up with previous rumors surrounding the devices. Initially, the Sony G3112 was listed as featuring a 1080p resolution which the latest report downgrades to 720p. Additionally, the higher-end Sony G3221 was previously rumored to feature an impressive 4K display, but the user agent profile that can be seen below suggests that the device will sport a 1080p display. One final difference is the processor fueling the two phones. Previous rumors pointed towards the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, though the devices are now listed as being powered by the MediaTek Helio P20. MediaTeks processors have historically been cheaper than Qualcomms offerings, so the CPU change mentioned above could have been made in a cost-cutting effort. Likewise, the significant reduction in display resolution hints at the fact that the G3112 and the G3221 may no longer be aimed at the high-end market and could instead be launched as successors to the Sony Xperia XA and the Xperia X. With these two devices being unveiled last year at MWC, an announcement of their respective successors at this years trade show in Barcelona would not be an odd move. Furthermore, the fact that the companys current flagship the Xperia XZ was released in late September means its less likely Sony will be looking to launch an updated flagship smartphone in the coming months. In any case, with MWC just over a month away, it wont be too long before Sony unveils its latest smartphone lineup. More leaks surrounding these devices are likely to follow in the meantime. South Korean smartphone manufacturer, LG, has promised that its new 2017 flagship LG G6 smartphone will be safe from overheating. The company has explained that it has adopted a new technology and has been carrying out tougher tests than mandated by American and European safety legislation. These remarks appear to be directed at potential customers wary of a new battery technology being introduced into a smartphone in the fiery wake of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, whereby the device had a battery safety issue and was first recalled and replaced, then subsequently recalled and customers were refunded because Samsung was unable to fix the issue. Lee Seok-jong from LG Electronics mobile communication operation group explained: We will significantly improve the safety and quality of our new flagship smartphones as more consumers seek safe smartphones. Although LG did not divulge what, exactly, the new technology is that it will be using, the company did highlight that it would be introducing heat pipes into the LG G6. We have seen several other handset manufacturers, most notably Samsung, use heat pipe technology to keep chipsets and other internal smartphone components cool. The technology, which has been widely used in laptops and even desktop computers, typically uses a sealed copper tube containing a liquid that expands into steam and dissipates elsewhere on the device; as the liquid is converted into steam, it absorbs a significant amount of heat, which is removed from the source and dissipated elsewhere. LG state that heat pipe technology can reduce temperatures by 6% to 10%, plus the design of the LG G6 smartphone keeps those components that produce heat as far separated from one another as possible. This typically means the application processor, modem, charger circuits and battery. On the subject of safety tests, LG are conducting a heat tolerance test said to be 15% hotter than the minimum requirements, or 150 degrees Fahrenheit. LG also highlighted that the device is undergoing a new, more complex accelerated life test, which means that the device is being subjected to harsh treatment including being dropped, exposed to high voltages and similar, thus simulating a lifetime of wear and tear. LG appear to be taking the issue of device safety very seriously, and well they might as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will have scared a number of customers, who will be looking for the reassurance. Lets not forget that LGs 2016 flagship, the LG G5, failed to ignite the sales charts as customers sought the Samsung Galaxy S7. Right now, a number of smartphone manufacturers and carriers are looking to bring the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 7.0 (Nougat), to their devices. OUKITEL is no different and is planning to release Android Nougat to several of their smartphones over the next few months. One of those which is guaranteed to receive the update is the OUKITEL U15S. This is one of OUKITELs latest smartphones and the update to Nougat will see it running on the latest version of Android. However, OUKITEL has explained that the update might not become available as an over-the-air (OTA) update. Due to the size and nature of the changes involved, OUKITEL might opt to release the update as an optional and manual update, rather than sending out the OTA to all devices. Which does mean that those who want to get the update will have to look out for the update going live across OUKITELs site, social media channels and so on. Once live, the U15S owner will be able to manually push the update to their device using their computer. In terms of when, it is expected that the Android 7.0 (Nougat) update will become available for the OUKITEL U15S sometime in March. For those new to the OUKITEL U15S, this is one of those smartphones which looks to offer a very good level of specs, within a metal unibody design, at an affordable price. In terms of the numbers, the OUKITEL U15S comes equipped with a 5.5-inch FHD display. Inside, this is a smartphone which comes packing 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and is powered by a MediaTek MT6750T octa-core processor. While cameras on offer include a 16-megapixel rear camera, along with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. This is a smartphone that is priced at $159.99, although it is currently available through a flash sale for only $119.99, a saving of $40 off its normal price. However, the option to buy the OUKITEL U15S at the lowered $119.99 price will only be available until Jan. 23. After which, the OUKITEL U15S will likely return to its normal $159.99 price. You can find out more or pick one up though the link below. Japanese security researchers have conducted work that illustrates how fingerprints, and other biometric data, may be stolen from photographs. The work stems from researchers considering how the Japanese trend of showing the peace sign, combined with higher and higher resolution cameras, could result in a hacker gaining fingerprint data. The work has been headed up by Professor Isao Echizu from the National Institute of Informatics, which has been developing an anti-fingerprint theft technology. Furthermore, in addition to having fingerprints potentially stolen, Professor Echizu explained that other biometric data was at risk, including faces and irises. Android gained the ability to potentially unlock when recognizing a face with the release of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and some devices are now gaining the ability to recognize an iris. The researchers discovered that images taken from as far away as three meters are readable, which of course means that selfies typically taken significantly closer are more vulnerable. However, the problem appears to be less that cameras can capture sufficient biometric data and more than there are now many more cameras capable of capturing this data, and many more ways for people to share selfies. However, it is not all bad news: in order for a camera to be able to capture enough information for our fingerprint to be used, conditions need to be right. This means that the fingerprint needs to be in focus with good, strong lighting. Although smartphone cameras have traditionally struggled with fine detail, we are seeing smartphones shipping with better and better cameras. This includes advanced hardware, such as dual lens arrangements, sophisticated focus systems and more sensitive sensors, combined with improvements in image processing software: todays devices are better at coping with a variety of less than ideal lighting conditions. 2016s cameras were progressively better than older generations and manufacturers continue to develop mobile photography abilities. For the wary the National Institute of Informatics is developing a transparent film that contains titanium oxide, which can be attached to fingers in order to hide prints without interfering with fingerprint sensors. It is unclear how useful this technology will be in day to day life, but it might appeal to the more cautious or the more vulnerable to being hacked. For everybody else, it might be sensible to consider how often to show the peace sign or to perhaps disguise or blur out fingerprints. The Galaxy S8 is expected to sport an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, according to latest reports coming out of South Korea. The same source claims that the front-facing shooter will come with an autofocus actuator, a module that automatically identifies optimal focal distance for any given subject. The decision to integrate this component into the secondary camera of the Galaxy S8 is a novel concept from Samsung as it is something thats generally found exclusively in rear-facing smartphone cameras. Samsung allegedly decided to use an encoder type autofocus actuator which differs from the VCM (Voice Coil Motor) technology that is comparatively more common, but also somewhat bulkier. While the Seoul-based tech giant didnt comment on this report, the new selfie camera featured by the Galaxy S8 is said to be able to focus more clearly on subjects that are located at a distance. However, online chatter seems to suggest that the encoder AF technology will allow camera modules to be slimmer by placing them on the side of a lens. For comparison, the VCM technology places coils in the center of an accompanying lens, which is often the reason for unseemly camera bumps seen in premium smartphones and tablets. Regarding the rear-facing primary camera featured by the Galaxy S8, early rumors had suggested a dual-sensor module, but recent reports have claimed otherwise. Meanwhile, the official launch date of the Galaxy S8 continues to be a contentious issue. Most tipsters and media outlets now seem to believe that it will happen at some point in mid-April, with the most recent rumors suggesting that the device will be available for purchase from April 15. Some of the key hardware specs of Samsungs upcoming Android smartphone have also been heavily debated over the past few weeks. According to most reports, the Galaxy S8 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC and the Samsung-made Exynos 8895 in some regions. While all of this sounds fairly exciting, its still important to remember that this information mostly comes from unverified rumors, so it will be interesting to see how much of it holds up in the end. More information is expected to surface in the coming weeks. Xiaomi has just confirmed that the Redmi Note 4 is coming to India. The company has shared an official image for the Redmi Note 4s launch in India through their Twitter account, and this is more of a straightforward confirmation that the Redmi Note 4 is coming, rather than a teaser image. The company has also confirmed that the phone will launch in India on January 19th, so those of you who are interested in the device, and live in India, it might be a good idea to get ready for the said date. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 was first launched on the companys official site and Amazon India, while other retailers got access to the device later on. Well, it seems like things could be somewhat different when it comes to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, as Flipkart teased that the device will be exclusively available (as far as retailers are concerned) from them, which is quite interesting. The phone will also be available for purchase directly from Mi.com, though that was to be expected. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was originally announced by Xiaomi in China back in August last year, and this is the companys mid-ranger which is quite powerful, and yet quite affordable at the same time. Now, the Indian variant of the phone will be almost identical to the Chinese one, though there is one significant difference, the Indian variant will ship with a Snapdragon SoC instead of MediaTeks Helio X20 which comes with the Chinese version of the device. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 features a 5.5-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) display, along with 2GB / 3GB of RAM and 16GB / 64GB of expandable native storage. The Indian variant of the device will be fueled by an unknown Snapdragon SoC, but you can expect to see one of Qualcomms mid-range SoCs here. The device features a 13-megapixel shooter on its back, while a 5-megapixel snapper can be found on its front side. The 4,100mAh battery is also a part of the Redmi Note 4 package, and the fingerprint scanner is placed on the back of this metal-clad smartphone. Android 6.0 Marshmallow comes pre-installed on the Redmi Note 4, and on top of it, you get Xiaomis MIUI 8 OS. The Chinese variant of the Redmi Note 4 comes with two SIM card slots, and you can expect the same to be the case with the Indian variant as well. Advertisement Buy the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (ANSA) - Brussels, January 16 - The European Commission on Monday will send a letter to Italy asking for the government to undertake precise commitments to correct its accounts by February 1, the date of the publication of new economic forecasts, sources said. Confirming reports by La Repubblica, the sources said Italy will be asked to reduce a 'gap' in its structural deficit by 0.2% of GDP, therefore less that the 0.3% highlighted in the Commission's opinion in Italy's 2017 budget in December. Economy ministry sources said Monday that a letter from the European Commission demanding budget corrections "has not yet arrived". The sources added that in recent days there has been "contact with the Commission to evaluate the opportune steps to avoid the opening of an infringement procedure and, at the same time, prevent the risk of restrictive budget interventions compromising the return to growth of the Italian economy, which started in 2014 but is still weak". (ANSA) - Milan, January 16 - Luigi Messina, 53, has confessed to murdering his wife Sunday in Milan, investigators said Monday. Police said Messina at around 4:00 am Monday admitted to killing his wife after lengthy questioning during which many contradictions had emerged from his version of events. Rosanna Belvisi, 50, on Sunday afternoon was found dead with her throat slashed at the couple's Milan apartment, in Via Coronelli, in the city's Lorenteggio district. Messina, a former security guard, initially told investigators that he was out for a walk and found his wife dead when he went back home. The couple's 25-year-old daughter was on holiday in Switzerland with her boyfriend. Belvisi had formerly worked as a superintendent at the apartment building where the couple lived and was now working for social security agency INPS. Police chief Lorenzo Bucossi said that a few months ago Belvisi had discovered that her husband cheated on her and had a three-year-old son with another woman. Bucossi said Messina confessed to police that "the pair yesterday fought for the umpteenth time" and the man stabbed his wife right after they had returned from a month-long holiday on the island of Pantelleria. Messina in his confession also accused his wife of "spending too much time on social networks", the police official also said. The murder is the conclusion of at least 20 years of domestic abuse, Bucossi told reporters. According to police records, Belvisi was stabbed in the back in 1995 while she was at home. Messina also claimed at the time that he was out for a walk and that he discovered his injured wife when he returned home. In November last year, police also responded twice to domestic violence calls at the couple's home. "He al used to hit her with a broomstick", Bucossi said. Messina told police where he had hidden the knife he used to kill his wife while his blood-stained clothes were found earlier in a bin. Right after the murder, Messina reportedly tried to build an alibi by walking around the neighborhood for a while so that neighbors could see him, investigators said. Belvisi was killed just three days after another woman, 55-year-old Tiziana Pavani, was murdered at home in Milan, in the Baggio neighborhood. A 32-year-old friend, Luca Raimondo Marcarelli, has confessed to killing her. Italy has seen a wave of murderous violence against women, dubbed 'femicide' by the media, in recent years. (ANSA) - Berlin, January 16 - A German transport ministry spokesperson said Monday the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) models that Germany wants the EU to ensure a recall of over alleged emissions violations are the Fiat 500, the Doblo and the Jeep-Renegade. German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt called for FCA recalls at the weekend after authorities in the United States last week accused FCA of emissions breaches. FCA has denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for European Industry Commissioner Lucia Caudet said Monday that the EU executive was waiting for Italy to give answers about Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) emissions. "We have repeatedly asked Italy to present us with convincing responses as soon as possible," the spokesperson said, commenting non the process of mediation between Italy and Germany over the Fiat 500X's compatibility with European car-emission legislation. "Time is running out because we want to conclude the discussions on the Fiat's conformity shortly". The European Commission could take action, including the opening of an infringement procedure, if Italy fails to give a response as part of the mediation process with Germany over the Fiat 500X's emissions, EU sources said Monday. The European Commission is trying to set a date for a meeting with the two sides early in February because it intends to wrap up the dossier within weeks, the sources said. (ANSA) - Brussels, January 16 - The European Commission on Monday will send a letter to Italy asking for the government to undertake precise commitments to correct its accounts by February 1, the date of the publication of new economic forecasts, sources said. Confirming reports by La Repubblica, the sources said Italy will be asked to reduce a 'gap' in its structural deficit by 0.2% of GDP, therefore less that the 0.3% highlighted in the Commission's opinion in Italy's 2017 budget in December. Economy ministry sources said Monday that a letter from the European Commission demanding budget corrections "has not yet arrived". The sources added that in recent days there has been "contact with the Commission to evaluate the opportune steps to avoid the opening of an infringement procedure and, at the same time, prevent the risk of restrictive budget interventions compromising the return to growth of the Italian economy, which started in 2014 but is still weak". Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Monday that Rome was not willing to adopt growth-curtailing budget measures when asked about reports the EU wanted corrective measures worth around three billion euros. "We are in the middle of work between the competent economy ministry offices and the Commission, but there is still no letter," Alfano said. "We are certainly not willing to pass a budget that compresses or depresses growth, which is the essential good we are focusing all our attention on". The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Monday that it has cut its growth forecasts for Italy for 2017 and 2018. It expects Italy's GDP to rise 0.7% this year, down 0.2 of a percentage point with respect to its October estimate. It sees growth of 0.8% in 2018, down 0.3 of a point on the previous forecast. The IMF gave the figures as it updated its World Economic Outlook. It said the Italian economy grew by 0.9% in 2016. International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Maurice Obstfeld on Monday called on Italy to do more for its troubled bank sector. "More can be done," Obstfeld said. "There is space for action". Obstfeld said that an important reform to encourage consolidation and tackle the issue of non-performing loans has been approved and "now must be applied". Obstfeld also praised the structural reforms passed by the government of ex-premier Matteo Renzi as "very important". He also said that much remains to be done in Italy, stressing that the approved reforms need to be applied. Renzi quit as premier last month after his flagship Constitutional reform was rejected in a referendum. Premier Paolo Gentiloni's current executive is mostly made up of former members of Renzi's cabinet. Migrants: Slovenia, 86% in favor of harsh control measures According to poll. New law would enable to reject asylum seekers (ANSAmed) - LJUBLJANA, JANUARY 16 - The great majority of Slovenians, or 86% of those polled, according to a recent survey, backs the government's intention of boosting measures to control the border in case of a new wave of migrants along the Balkan route, similar to the one registered a year ago. The controversial legislation proposed would enable Slovenia, in case of a new migrant crisis, to reject migrants at the border, including asylum seekers. A reported 22% of Slovenians interviewed for the poll published by newspaper Delo on Monday were in favor. The draft law also provides for the immediate deportation of people caught in illegal crossings. Some 47% said they believed criticism of the measures expressed by human rights groups and the Council of Europe were unjustified. The Slovenian Parliament will start examining the legislation next week. (ANSAmed). BELGRADE - Serbia's migrant holding centres have sufficient room to host all migrants in the country, but part of them refuse accommodation, with a warm bed, food, bathrooms and medical assistance, Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia's labour and social affairs minister, said on Monday. Vulin is in charge of the migrant emergency since the start of the crisis along the Balkan route in the fall of 2015. In statements to public broadcaster Rts, Vulin stressed the position of the Belgrade government against the use of force in transferring to migrant centres the 2,000 migrants and refugees who - in spite of the intense cold - continue to camp out in squares and abandoned depots around the bus station of the capital in hopes of crossing the border into the EU. They risk getting sick due to the sub-freezing temperatures, especially at night. Vulin said efforts are underway to try to convince them to accept the accommodation. ''There is enough room at reception centres for all those who arrive in Serbia'', said the minister, indirectly rejecting criticism from those hinting that Serbian authorities have shown scarce interest in providing adequate accommodation for migrants in Serbia. Over the past few days, Belgrade authorities disdainfully rejected similarities drawn by some international media outlets between the crowds of migrants freezing as they wait for food in Belgrade with photos of Stalingrad in 1943, when during World War Two German prisoners were waiting for food in the Russian freezing winter. They said that migrants don't want to go to centres because they fear they will be registered and sent back home. They prefer to stay out and continue to hope they will be allowed to continue their travels towards northern Europe (almost always counting on smugglers in exchange for money), authorities said. The Serbian commissioner for the assistance of refugees has repeatedly called on migrants who live around Belgrade's station to move to heated centres, where part of the roughly 7,000 migrants and refugees in Serbia are living. So far, according to the agency's spokesman Ivan Miskovic, only 400 have accepted. NGOs and humanitarian organizations, mainly UNHCR and Doctors Without Borders, are helping those living in dire conditions outside, providing them with blankets, clothes and winter shoes, as well as food and medicines. Many private citizens are also helping out with food and clothes. 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. The image was taken by the Open University C3D2 instruments wide field camera on 3rd December 2016 over the Arkhangelsk Oblast region, on the North West coast of Russia, marking a step forward in demonstrated UK nanosatellite capability. The image was captured under twilight conditions at dawn, showing the coastline to the top of the image, and a brief winter sunrise over the arctic region with a deep red-brown hue. Through the cloud cover there is evidence of hills and snow on mountains and mist in the river valleys. The object in the foreground is the Oxford Space Systems Ltd AstroTube Boom payload, also carried on board the spacecraft. AlSat Nano is a joint nanosatellite mission between the UK Space Agency and Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) as part of an on-going initiative to enhance collaboration. The UK Space Agency has funded the design, build and verification of the spacecraft at Surrey Space Centre (SSC), University of Surrey, as a hands-on learning exercise for Algerian postgrad students to demonstrate the practical elements of low cost space technology. ASAL has provided the launch, and operations are being undertaken in Algeria by ASAL operators trained at SSC. Prof Guglielmo Aglietti, Director of Surrey Space Centre, said: AlSat Nano has been an exciting project for the Surrey Space Centre to be leading. Educational and research elements, and the technology knowledge transfer with the Algerian Space Agency were key parts of this project. Additionally, the development of this nanosatellite platform has been a great opportunity to work with UK payload providers, who are demonstrating some exciting new technologies. AlSat Nano is Algerias first CubeSat mission and is globally showcasing the capability of UK technology in partnership with industry and academia. With a spacecraft the size of a shoebox yet featuring all the core subsystems of much larger satellites, the programme demonstrates how CubeSats can be assembled quickly and launched at a fraction of the cost. This will help Algeria strengthen its domestic space technology capability by giving their scientists and engineers first-hand experience of spacecraft operations. Dr Abdewahab Chikouche, Director of Space Programmes at Algerian Space Agency, said: The Alsat-1N project is a concrete example of the success of our cooperation with UKSA. This project, very enriching from the scientific and technological point of view, allowed ASAL engineers to progress in the integration and testing of nanosatellites and acquire autonomy in its operation. This project will enable Algerian researchers and academics to strengthen national capabilities in advanced space technology. The AlSat Nano mission hosts and has demonstrated three payloads, showcasing innovative technologies from UK suppliers: C3D2 imager from Open University, AstroTube Boom from Oxford Space Systems and Thin Film Solar Cell from Swansea University. Dr Ben Taylor, the SSC AlSat Nano Project Lead, said: The Alsat Nano mission has been a great opportunity to work with a diverse and committed team across the UK and Algeria. The spacecraft carries some exciting new technologies which are already returning some great results and we are looking forward to further results as the mission continues. The mission builds on the success of the flight services division at Surrey Space Centre, who are involved with a range of on-going spacecraft missions including CubeSats and larger scale missions. A major on-going project is RemoveDebris, a 15.2M mission led by Surrey, aiming to be one of the worlds first demonstrations of space junk removal when it launches later this year. The Emirates A380 is an iconic aircraft that continues to excite our customers and set the benchmark for travel comfort in commercial flying. We look forward to offering the award-winning Emirates A380 experience to our customers and to continue contributing to the economic success of Brazil, said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, commercial operations, west. The switch to the A380 offers a total of 959 additional seats per week in each direction meeting a growing demand from travellers on the route and demonstrating our commitment to Brazil and to the South American region. "We made significant investments to upgrade the facilities at GRU Airport Sao Paulo International Airport in order to make it A380-compatible. We are very excited about Emirates' decision to deploy the first A380 in South America to our airport", said Gustavo Figueiredo, GRU Airport CEO. The B737-300 was positioned from Vilnius to Tunis Carthage International Airport on Friday, January 13. Configured in an all-freight layout, the twenty-nine year-old aircraft is powered by CFM56-3B2 motors. It will shortly be joined by B737-300 which is currently at Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen undergoing pre-delivery maintenance checks. Climate change over the past two decades has caused a drastic drop in rainfall, leading to prolonged dry spells in the kingdom, according to a recent study by the countrys water ministry. The available water resources in Jordan offer 800-900 million cubic metres of water annually, which is enough for about three million people. But, as Jordans population continues to expand, it now has more than 10 million water users. This year, Jordans 10 major dams were left at just 59% capacity after the wet season. It has been predicted that Jordan will witness a 15-60% decrease in precipitation and a 1-4C increase in temperatures over the next few years, according to the 2013-2020 Jordan climate change policy. There will be a corresponding impact on the countrys natural ecosystems, river basins, watersheds and biodiversity. Artificial rain-making is, thus, of great interest to Jordan, though early experiments conducted between 1989 and 1995 were unsatisfactory. More recently, on March 23 this year, Jordan and Thailand signed a memorandum of understanding allowing Jordan to benefit from Thailands rain-making experience. Thailands current rain-making technology was developed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1969, and relies on introducing chemicals in cloudy areas to seed the clouds in a way that then promotes precipitation. Two basic groups of chemicals are used depending on whether a cloud is cold or warm. These chemicals are generally environmentally friendly materials, including calcium chloride, compressed carbon dioxide dry ice, silver iodide, salt powder and a compound of urea and ammonium nitrate. The Jordan Meteorological Department (JMD) sent a team of six meteorologists, a pilot and an engineer from the Royal Jordanian Air Force, to participate in artificial rain-making operations in Thailand and to learn the techniques used. In March, the JMD carried out an initial rain-making experiment over the catchment area of the King Talal Dam, in northern Jordan and, after the visit to Thailand, conducted another rain-making attempt in August 2016. What can only be described as the ultimate man cave, Inhouse Brand Architects has converted the unused lounge area of a Cape Town residence into an industrial-inspired dream pad for the familys lucky teenage boy and his friends. Taking into account the youngsters various interests such as skating, surfing and socialising, the Inhouse team aimed to create a trendy, multifunctional space. The project was steered by Creative Director Aidan Hart, and senior designer Jenine Bruce, who chose a modern industrial aesthetic for this youthful interior. Polished concrete flooring encompasses the entire room and sets the foundation for the interior scheme. More notably, a fully functional concrete skate bowl plays a major part in the design. This impressive structure was no easy feat. Initially, the bowl was supposed to be built in a stepped down recess, but after realizing that the structure would be too unstable to support the weight of the framework, Inhouse had to come up with an alternative solution. During a six-week process, a revised plan was put into action. An entire floor level was removed; timber fins were crafted in the newfound space to create the frame; flexible plywood and polystyrene were incorporated to shape the backing; sand and rubble were used to fill the level that was taken out; and finally, cement was poured into the structure to solidify the bowl shape. Although the process took longer than initially planned, the end result is a deeper and more functional skate bowl - one that will most certainly keep the teen and his friends entertained for hours! To embellish this remarkable feature, emerging South African street artist, Jack Fox, applied his signature illustrations to the walls surrounding the bowl. The celebrated artist worked without a set design and completed the impromptu artwork in a twelve-hour, non-stop operation. Another striking design feature comes in the form of a grandiose, curved timber wave that cascades from the ceiling down to the floor to create an extraordinary zone for watching movies. This wave is crafted out of steel fins that are clad with timber and lit up with three LED strips. It is kitted out with surround sound to produce a genuine movie theatre experience. The bar area comes equipped with a stylish black Smeg fridge and cleverly positioned surfboard rack, which is not only a functional feature but also displays the seventeen-year-olds most prized possession. The bar itself, which measures four and a half metres, is fashioned from ground and polished concrete, perfectly matching the flooring. Clad with timber, the bar exudes a robust masculinity. Next to the bar and adjacent the timber wave is comfortable booth seating. Framed with timber and upholstered in inviting shades of indigo, this nook provides an enticing chill spot. Industrial track lighting is installed throughout the space. Soft LEDs are embedded overhead in both the booth seating area and the timber wave, to create ambient lighting. Lastly, steel cage pendant lights are suspended over the bar and contribute to the rooms urban-like aesthetic. As if all these feature design elements werent enough, the room is scattered with essential man cave gear: a pool table, vintage Spider-Man pinball machine, Punch Bag and pull-up bar. Whether this teen and his friends are showing off their latest skate moves, absorbed in a movie or beating the highest game score, this urban man cave is the ultimate hang-out spot and we bet theyll never want to leave YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Turkish columnist of Cumhuriyet newspaper Aydn Engin published an article entitled Garo Paylan is Hrant Dink about the murder of famous Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and lawmaker Garo Paylan who today continues Dinks work in Turkey. Armenpress presents parts of the article. Already 10 years have passed since His murder. 10 years have passed from the time when the Prime Minister, currently the President, coming to His home, gave a promise saying: We will not allow this crime to be lost in Ankaras dark labyrinths. However, the provocateurs, those fondling the faces of murderers, those throwing bloody stones on the way of His death, those who knew about the crime but didnt prevent it, those who close eyes are still living under the security of dark labyrinths. You killed Him. You believed that by killing one of the bravest sons of this country, you will manage to eliminate the strong voice and brave heart coming from Him. But you were wrong. Your brain, blinded with racist-nationalist prejudices, was unable to consider this. You couldnt understand that by His murder thousands, tens of thousands will be born from Him. You couldnt and didnt understand that after the crime hundreds of thousands will meet in the place of His murder and will shout: We all are Hrant Dink. You couldnt understand Him even when He was alive. On the day of adoption of the law on The denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide is a crime in the French Parliament in 1998, he said: I will go to Paris and standing on a rock at the Concorde square I will shout: In 1915 genocide was not committed against Armenians in Anatolia. The French state will hold one of my hands and will take me. Then, I will return to Ankara, and will again shout standing on a rock: Genocide was committed against Armenians in 1915 in Anatolia. The state will hold the other hand and will take me. But I will not refuse to say what I know. We can face with the fact of genocide by discussing and speaking about it, rather than by laws. Did you remember? Did you feel ashamed? Today He lives in the voices, speeches, consciousness and actions of young Armenians bearing His flag. One of them is Garo Paylan, member of the Peoples Democratic Party. Dont you understand? Garo Paylan is Hrant Dink. You killed Hrant, what are you going to do with Garo, Garos? YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Recently the students of Armath engineering club-laboratory of Akhuryan high school after Nikol Aghbalyan in Shirak province of Armenia hosted the project representatives from Ucom and Union of the Information Technology Enterprises (UITE), reports Armenpress. During the tour the students of Armath demonstrated everything they have learnt throughout an entire year. The children became skilled in creating games, doing animation, performing mathematical calculations with the help of Scratch and K-Turtle programs, also in object modelling and printing with the help of three-dimensional printer. Here we not only program games, but also create robots, which may become applicable both in army and at home, student Albert Hovhannisyan said. Every time the Armath engineering labs students tell in a conversation what types of robots they are going to create, I feel proud Ill be living in Armenia of their vision. Our greatest wealth are these children, who quite often suggest more interesting and innovative technological solutions as compared to the older generation, Hayk Yesayan, director general at Ucom, said. The number of the laboratory attendees is regularly increasing. Children enjoy learning programming and robotics basics, and after getting the three-dimensional printer they are delighted to do the design and printing of objects used in everyday life. I believe, that 60% of the current attendees will choose the metier of an engineer, the head of the robotics laboratory Shushanik Poghosyan said. According to the Memorandum of Cooperation signed between the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) and Ucom, the latter invests to open around 70 more engineering club-laboratories named Armath in 9 provinces of Armenia. The project aims to promote the technological education in all schools of the Armenian communities, to assist pupils in their early interest emergence in modern high technology, to promote the development of engineering mindset from early ages and to prepare competent students. The project enables practical support for the integration of qualified IT-specialists into the Armenian and world markets, the exchange of the experience between them, and the attraction of large-scale investments into the IT-industry. It is noteworthy, that the software and assembly drawings of the labs-developed equipment are open to public. The computer programs and systems are armenianized to the extension possible, while during the project implementation for the acquisition of the equipment and software, the priority is given to the local producers, the bright example of which serve the high-quality three-dimensional (3D) printers, mini-computers, robotics kits and other devices produced in Armenia. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. 350 diplomats of the Turkish foreign ministry have been dismissed after the failed coup attempt, Diken reports. In response to the Republican Peoples Partys inquiry, the foreign ministry said 350 diplomats and 58 other staff members have been suspended in the period of July 15- November 7. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Around 60 ISIS linked militants and their accomplices have been arrested in Chechnya during special operations by local law enforcement agencies, Interfax reports citing a federal law enforcement source. Four militants have been killed during the special operation in Chechnya, and another 60 have been arrested, the source said. The entire criminal network linked with IS has been uncovered, the source announced. YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Garo Paylan, Armenian lawmaker of Turkeys Parliament, member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party, appealed to the Constitutional Court of Turkey over hindering his speech at the parliament and being excluded from three sessions by the parliament speaker, Agos reports. During the discussions of the constitutional changes proposal in Turkeys parliament on January 13, Paylan talked about the Armenian Genocide which angered the ruling and opposition party members. He was required to refuse using the word genocide. However, he opposed to it, which was followed by a decision to exclude him from three sessions, and his words were removed from the parliamentary minutes. In his application, Paylan called what has happened with him as a violation of his parliamentary immunity and restriction of freedom of speech. The Armenian lawmaker also appeals to Turkeys parliament demanding to refuse from a decision that contradicts to the parliaments rules of procedure. YEREVAN, 16 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. The CSTO secretariat has commented on numerous media reports on the organization and noted that the reports are rather not objective in nature and sometimes false. Specifically, as mentioned in CSTO spokesman Vladimir Zaynetdinovs statement, media have drawn great attention to the December 29, 2016 incident on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Earlier the CSTO secretariat issued a clarification of the content of Bordyuzhas comments, where attention was drawn on the fact that the Secretary General of the organization has expressed serious concern and special alarm that the incident occurred on the border of a CSTO member state. In terms of the issue of the NK conflict settlement, we have to note that the stance of CSTO is reflected in the announcement of the heads of states of member states, which was adopted during the October 14, 2016 Yerevan sitting of the Collective Security Council. The secretariat is consistently and steadily following that stance in its work, the statement said. At the same time we find it unacceptable to link Bordyuzhas resignation with the December 29 incidents comment, because his responsibilities as Secretary General expired on December 31, 2016 in accordance with the decision of heads of states, which was adopted in the December 2015 Moscow sitting of the Collective Security Council, the document reads. Regarding the appointment of a new Secretary General the organization is guided by the same decision of the Collective Security Council and agreements of heads of states, which were adopted during the Moscow sitting of December 2015, which specifically state: Appoint the Secretary General with a three-year term, at the presentation of CSTO foreign ministers council, from the number of member state citizens, on a rotation basis, in accordance to their names in the Russian alphabet. The CSTO secretariat has no information regarding any changes in the decision or the agreements, the statement says. It also mentions that the CSTO secretariat intends to continue productive cooperation with mass media and urges to objectively cover events regarding the activities of the CSTO. Top of page The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission Launch: Currently planned for December 2022 Currently planned for Mission status: In development An international mission The SWOT mission, scheduled to launch in 2022 , will provide us with new and detailed information on one of the most important resources we share water. Led by NASA and the French space agency ( CNES ), SWOT will survey 90% of the Earth's surface water, observe the fine details of the ocean's surface topography, and measure how lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans are changing over time. By using innovative technology, SWOT will measure ocean features with 10 times the resolution of current technologies. These precise measurements will provide the scientific community with a better understanding of the dynamics of the world's oceans and terrestrial surface water, allowing them to address important global issues like climate change and improve our management of water as a strategic resource. 2017-01-16 - This animation shows the SWOT mission satellite collecting precise water measurements. (Credits: NASA, JPL -Caltech) Canada's contribution Canada's participation in this mission brings significant benefits: it builds on the strength and expertise of our industry and its economic growth; it also represents an important gain in scientific knowledge. Technology The Canadian Space Agency ( CSA ) accepted NASA's invitation to participate in the SWOT mission by providing a key component of the radar instrument a set of extended interaction klystrons ( EIKs ). This is a modest contribution to this major US $1.2 B investment but nevertheless crucial, as the EIKs will generate and amplify the microwave pulses needed by the main instrument. Communications & Power Industries Canada Inc. ( CPI ) is world-renowned for its expertise in building this sophisticated device, as no other firms have a proven record of building and flying EIKs . Text version The infographic shows the Earth from space, with the SWOT mission satellite in the foreground. There is an arrow pointing at the spot on the satellite where Canada's contribution to the mission, a high-tech-device, is installed. There is a picture of the device on the infographic. This device will be used to collect precise water measurements. The data collected will contribute to improving ocean circulation models, weather and climate predictions, and water management. Credit: CSA Science Through this partnership, Canadian scientists will obtain early access to software tools required to understand SWOT data as it becomes available after satellite launch. SWOT data could lead to improvements in many water-related services in Canada, including weather predictions and flood warning systems. The SWOT Canadian science team, led by Environment and Climate Change Canada ( ECCC ) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada ( DFO ), will be working towards mission objectives and desired outcomes within two main areas of research, hydrology and oceanography, to enhance our understanding of water cycle across the country. Hydrology Mission objectives and desired outcomes for hydrology research Mission objectives Desired outcomes to measure the height and slope of fresh water bodies; to calculate the rate of water gained or lost in lakes, reservoirs and wetlands; to evaluate discharge variations in rivers. to improve our estimation of surface water availability; to understand important water-related hazards such as floods; to gain knowledge on the global water cycle. Oceanography Mission objectives and desired outcomes for cceanography research Mission objectives Desired outcomes to obtain precise measurements of ocean elevation features; to measure small- and medium-scale features of the ocean's surface such as waves, eddies and fronts. to better understand ocean circulation, which transports half of the heat and carbon from the upper to the deep ocean, a critical process linked to global climate change; to help predict the strength of a hurricane based on heat storage in the upper ocean; to improve ocean circulation models leading to better prediction of weather and climate as well as variations in ocean currents important for navigation, fisheries and offshore commercial operations. Benefits to Canadians The information received will greatly improve the delivery of services related to key national priorities, such as marine safety and security, water management, responsible resource development, environmental monitoring, canadian fisheries, marine transportation and sustainable development in the North. For example: Marine safety and security Example: Support the Canadian Coast Guard's search and rescue operations at sea by providing better information on currents to more accurately forecast the positions of drifting objects, ice and icebergs. Water management Example: Canada is surrounded by three oceans and covered with millions of lakes and rivers, of which only 2500 (or less than 5% by some estimates) are actually monitored by ECCC for level and flow. SWOT will provide complete coverage of most lakes and rivers up to four times every three weeks, including northern Canada, where very few measurements are currently available. This first global inventory of Canadian waters will serve to improve our water management and assist in prediction of floods and drought. Responsible resource development Example: Measurements provided by SWOT will benefit user communities such as structural designers who use hydrometric data to optimize the design of various types of structures such as bridges, culverts, pipeline crossings, dams, reservoirs, hydroelectric plants, dykes and other water-related industrial structures. Environmental monitoring Example: Support the management of ecological disasters such as oil spills and/or other potential contaminants by providing precise forecasts of the dissemination of contaminants. Canadian fisheries Example: Support Canadian fisheries' activities by monitoring the patterns of commercial species migrations to provide fishermen with accurate predictability of fish locations using highly precise information on ocean eddies in zones of high productivity. Marine transportation Example: Provide optimized shipping routes based on accurate knowledge of marine currents. These optimized shipping routes have demonstrated up to 8% savings on time and fuel for crossing the Atlantic, which represents a significant efficiency improvement for marine operators. Sustainable development in the North Example: SWOT's high-valued data will assist decision makers in the development of new infrastructure in the North. One of the by-products of SWOT is the measurement of sea-ice thickness, which will facilitate maritime traffic in icy waters. Information provided to the government on water quality and quantity will support biodiversity and habitat assessments, as well as environmental prediction activities. Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 The Airborne Surface Water and Ocean Topography (AirSWOT) radar instrument flies on NASA's B-200 aircraft. (Credit: ECCC ) The PeaceAthabasca Delta in northern Alberta, viewed from above. (Credit: ECCC ) Sebastien Langlois (University of Sherbrooke) uses sophisticated instruments to measure water levels in northern Alberta's PeaceAthabasca Delta to calibrate and validate data acquired by AirSWOT flights. (Credit: ECCC ) Sebastien Langlois (University of Sherbrooke) uses sophisticated instruments to measure water levels in northern Alberta's PeaceAthabasca Delta to calibrate and validate data acquired by AirSWOT flights. (Credit: ECCC ) Mark Russel (Environment and Climate Change Canada) uses sophisticated instruments to measure water levels in northern Alberta's PeaceAthabasca Delta to calibrate and validate data acquired by AirSWOT flights. (Credit: ECCC ) AirSWOT : data calibration and validation AirSWOT (Airborne Surface Water and Ocean Topography) is a calibration, validation and science support instrument for the SWOT mission. It flies on NASA's B-200 aircraft to collect observations that will help the science community prepare for the mission. It will also be used to validate data from the SWOT satellite once it is in space. AirSWOT Campaign 2017 The AirSWOT campaign includes ground-based observations and flights. It allows Canadian and US scientists to collect data on lakes, wetlands and rivers in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. It is part of NASA's Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), which flies a suite of scientific instruments over northwest Canada and Alaska to support fieldwork for hundreds of researchers. 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(3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (7) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 13 (2) Sep 11 (1) Sep 06 (2) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (1) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (2) Aug 28 (1) Aug 23 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 17 (1) Aug 16 (2) Aug 14 (1) Aug 10 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 02 (2) Jul 25 (1) Feb 14 (1) By Mike Vinkenborg On December 30, 2016 Singapore and India agreed on amending their Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) for capital gain income. With the new agreement, which will implemented on April 1, 2017, India aims to tackle investments coming into the country through shell companies and prevent tax avoidance. This follows the agreements reached by India and Mauritius in May 2016 and India and Cyprus in November that year, when they similarly amended their respective DTAAs by implementing a Limitation of Benefits (LOB) clause. The India-Singapore DTAA, last amended in 2005, had the provision that any changes in the Mauritius treaty would automatically apply to the Singapore DTAA. All three DTAA amendments will come into effect on April 1, 2017. Singapore-India relations Singapore and India have historically maintained good relations. Approximately 250,000 Singaporeans are of Indian descent, amounting to 7.4 percent of its population. When India announced its Look East policy in 1992, Singapore was one of the first countries to establish deeper ties with the country, recognizing its potential as a regional power. Hereafter, Singapore has been a pioneer in integrating India with the ASEAN region, which was further strengthened in 2005 when the two countries signed the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). Five years after, the entire ASEAN region followed suit when the ASEAN-India CECA was brought into effect. Consequently, economic ties between the two countries are at high levels and today, Singapore is one of Indias largest trade partners. Bilateral trade in the 2015/2016 fiscal year (running from April to March) amounted to an estimated US$15 billion. And largely due to the DTAA, FDI flowing from Singapore to India amounted to US$50.6 billion from April 2000 to December 2016, reaching a high of US$13.7 billion in 2015/2016. RELATED: International Tax Planning Services from Dezan Shira & Associates It will be interesting to see how the DTAA amendments will influence these numbers in the future. Mauritius and Singapore have been the main providers of FDI to India since 2000. In the same 2000-2016 period, FDI inflows from Mauritius amounted to US$95.9 billion, nearly double the amount of Singapores US$50.6 billion. With the amendment of both treaties and the India-Cyprus treaty, however, it will become harder for shell companies to benefit from preferential tax treatment in any of the three island states. Implications of amendments Similarly to the amendments to the Mauritius and Cyprus DTAAs, the India-Singapore treaty will implement a LOB clause as of April 1, 2017. This clause has the intention of curbing black money laundering. In particular, it aims to prevent tax-avoidance attempts known as round-tripping, where money would leave India to one of the treaty partners and returns back to India labeled as foreign investments, thereby benefiting from preferential tax treatment. In the amended treaty, any company classified as a shell or conduit company shall not be entitled to the DTAA benefits. In the law, a shell or conduit company is defined as any legal entity falling within the definition of resident with negligible or nil business operations or with no real and continuous business activities carried out in that Contracting State. Conversely, a company is not classified as a shell or conduit company and is thus entitled to DTAA benefits if: It is listed on a recognized stock exchange of the Contracting State; or Its annual expenditure on operations is at least S$200,000 in Singapore, or INR 5,000,000 in India. To provide certainty to investors, all shares acquired before April 1, 2017 will be grandfathered and not subject to capital gain income tax irrespective of the sell date. From April 1, 2017, a two-year transition period starts during which capital gains on shares will be taxed in the source country at half the normal tax rate. After that, from April 1, 2019 onwards, all companies identified as a shell or conduit company will be subject to the full tax rate in the source country, currently standing at 15 percent in India. Looking forward The amendment of Indias capital gain tax treaties is part of the countrys larger battle against black money laundering. Other measures include the recently signed Joint Declaration with Switzerland, allowing for automatic exchange of information between the countries. As a result, as of September 2019 the Indian government will be able to receive financial information of accounts held by Indians in Switzerland from 2018 onwards. The other well-known measure is the replacement of INR 500 and INR 1,000 currency notes with the newly introduced INR 500 and INR 2,000 notes to battle corruption. RELATED: Q&A: Using Singapore as a Regional Hub for Managing ASEAN Operations For international investors, the treaty amendments indicate that they may have to look at different investment models. Analysts frequently point to the Netherlands as an alternative. Given the preferential corporate tax environment in the country and its treaty with India, the Dutch route is hinted as the preferential one. For now, the Dutch and Indian governments have indicated that they will leave the existing treaty unchanged. However, this could turn out to be temporary as it is possible that India may be looking to adopt uniform taxes for all investors in the future, thereby taxing all investments equally irrespective of the destination. For Singapore, it remains to be seen how these changes will affect its relations with India in the future. As the Mauritius-India DTAA was without any LOB clauses before the coming amendment, whereas the DTAA with Singapore already had a less stringent LOB provision, the relative advantage of Singapore to Mauritius has actually increased. As such, it already overtook Mauritius as the largest FDI provider in the 2015/2016 fiscal year as investors anticipated the treaty amendments. Looking forward, it can be expected that India will level the playing field for all countries altogether and thus eliminate the relative advantage of all countries with treaties still in place. In that case, the stable relationship between Singapore and India might turn out to be fruitful for future cooperation. With many Indian investors in Singapore and vice versa, it is likely that Singapore will remain one of the main providers of FDI to India. Furthermore, Singapores economic stability, strategic location, and role within the ASEAN region can help to maintain its status as a stopover for investments into India. In any case, in order to define the optimal entry strategy for India, foreign investors are advised to keep a close eye on developments in the years to come. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email asean@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. An Introduction to Tax Treaties Throughout Asia In this issue of Asia Briefing Magazine, we take a look at the various types of trade and tax treaties that exist between Asian nations. These include bilateral investment treaties, double tax treaties and free trade agreements all of which directly affect businesses operating in Asia. Managing ASEAN Expansion from Singapore In this issue of ASEAN Briefing Magazine, we look at the benefits of using Singapore a hub for the management of regional operations throughout ASEAN. We firstly focus on the position of Singapore relative to its competitors, such as the Netherlands and Hong Kong. We then provide step-by-step instructions on corporate establishment, and provide expert insight on maximizing returns through the reduction respective tax burdens. The 2016/17 ASEAN Tax Comparator In this issue of ASEAN Briefing, we examine regional taxation in ASEAN through a comparison of corporate, indirect, and withholdings taxation. We further present an overview of the compliance environments found across the region and analyze ASEANs tax environment in the context of the time and documentation required in each country. January 13, 2017 When 2016 was drawing to a close, Moscow surprisingly agreed to divide Syrian warring factions into good and bad guys and to recognize the idea of the moderate opposition. On Jan. 10, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced the preparation of talks between the Syrian government and the armed opposition in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, on Jan. 23. The rebels are seriously preparing for the talks. On Jan. 11, Astana hosted a meeting between Syrias opposition figures and the nonmilitary opposition to find common ground for the upcoming negotiations. Previously, they accepted the terms of a deal to cease hostilities and confirmed their commitment to United Nations Resolution 2254 (2015) endorsing a road map for Syrias peace process. Moscows road to the recognition of large opposition movements, including Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, as negotiating partners was long and tortuous. In April 2016, at the UN, Russia insisted on blacklisting Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham. Now Russia consents to the talks with them. When the Russian Ministry of Defense published the list of seven opposition factions Dec. 29, it raised many eyebrows among domestic and foreign experts. There have been very few Russian articles and commentaries expounding on this key step by the countrys military and political establishment and on the very selection criteria. Yet Russias move requires explanation, as something extraordinary has happened. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in October 2015 that the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and the moderate opposition in general, remained a phantom grouping with nothing to brag about. Since the very onset of Russia's military operation, Russias Ministry of Defense added its usual strong flavor of anti-Americanism to reports about the elimination of alleged Islamic State (IS) militants in Latakia and Idlib and the inexplicable destruction of Liwa al-Haqqs headquarters in Raqqa province in Syria. Russias Foreign Ministry was insistent on establishing contact with the opposition in Syria. Unsurprisingly, it was Jaish al-Islam rather than IS and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) that officially declared war on Russia. In this context, President Vladimir Putins statement that Russia was supporting FSA units providing them with air cover, arms and ammunition in joint operations with Syrian troops against Islamist militants came as a bolt from the blue in December 2015. Still, subsequent comments of Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, head of the Main Operative Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, about the countrys support of the FSA's combating IS failed to clarify the situation. Some Russian experts supposed that Russian airstrikes had backed Liwaa Soqour al-Raqqa. Talal Salu, the spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed the airstrikes, but denied any cooperation. On Dec. 25, 2015, Russian airstrikes killed Zahran Alloush, the head of Jaish al-Islam, near Damascus and neutralized several field commanders of Ahrar al-Sham. The opposition regarded the bombings as an attack on the outcome of the expanded meeting in Riyadh that had been held Dec. 8-10, which was convened to set the stage for talks in Geneva and included Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, among others. The Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham militant groups, which took part in the Geneva talks, openly read from the same script as IS and clearly demonstrated that they were on the same page, Lavrov said in April. However, Moscow started to alter its stance to some extent in the spring of 2016, when Russian special services reportedly offered assistance through Syrian intelligence to FSA rebel forces in exchange for cooperation and coordination to counter IS. Subsequently, Russia mended fences with Turkey and approved Operation Euphrates Shield, albeit behind the scenes. In the summer, Ankara started to deploy troops in the buffer zone, including the units of Fatah Halab, the alliance of Syrian rebel factions. It eventually allowed the restoration of government control over eastern Aleppo, forcing the opposition to retreat to Idlib. These episodes can be defined as the turning points in Russias attitude toward Syrias armed opposition. The public statements of the foreign minister first pointed to Moscows changing rhetoric in early October as Lavrov mentioned possible joint law enforcement bodies in Aleppo, which would include government law enforcement bodies, the police and the armed opposition groups, on condition that the latter distance themselves from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. In early December, Lavrov publicly confirmed the Turkey-facilitated talks with the Syrian armed opposition. The groups that do not throw their full support behind the Astana talks will be treated as forces that are undermining political conflict resolution and siding with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham as their foxhole buddy. However, despite Turkish pressure, the Syrian opposition doubts the willingness of Bashar al-Assads regime to compromise. It also lacks certainty that Moscow has persuaded Damascus and Tehran to abandon their efforts to reach Idlib and to send forces to fight IS in the center and in the east of the country. The regime has repeatedly issued public statements that every inch of the land must be freed. However, these statements seem to ignore the developments in Syria over the last six years, including crippled governance, the apparent inability of the central government to control the periphery, the loss of trust among most Sunni citizens and the elimination of a network of agents and informants that somewhat stabilized the system before the war. The moderate opposition, therefore, is concerned about a possible offensive of the Iranian and Syrian governmental forces in Idlib as soon as it engages in fierce combat against fundamentalist factions. In this scenario, Damascus and Tehran might deftly use divisions among moderate opposition groups likely to occur in a restructuring after their distancing themselves from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. A comprehensive cease-fire will allow moderate opposition factions, which do not feel the need to join the ranks of the radical opposition and form a united front against Assad, to upgrade militarily and politically and distance themselves from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. On Dec. 28, 10 FSA factions (roughly 18,000 soldiers) announced the first real step toward their full integration. At the same time, complex processes are taking place within Ahrar al-Sham. On Dec. 10, the establishment of Jaish al-Ahrar, a new faction within the opposition movement, was proclaimed. The move indicates that Ahrar al-Sham has split into two parts: the one backed by Turkey leaning toward the FSA and the one gravitating toward Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. This could show that rejecting the formula Moscows terrorist is Washington's freedom fighter is a step in the right direction. In general, Moscows maneuvers in the Syrian swamp seem to reveal its desire to act as a mediator managing the conflict rather than just be a party that, among other things, sustains losses. Hence, it appears to result in the Kremlin's willingness to negotiate with various opposition factions in northwestern Syria. Arun Jaitley said that implementation of GST from July 1 is "more realistic" than from April 1 as proposed earlier. New Delhi: The roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which will be one of the biggest tax reforms seen by the country since independence, has been deferred to July 1 from the proposed April 1. The Centre and the states on Monday reached a consensus on most of the controversial issues including dual control and taxation in the high seas making way for the GST roll out in the country. Finance minister Arun Jaitley said, after the GST Council meeting, that implementation of GST from July 1 is "more realistic" than from April 1 as proposed earlier. During the ninth meeting of the GST Council a consensus was reached on how tax payers will be split for audit. As per the agreement the states will have the power to assess and administer 90 per cent of the tax payers with less than Rs 1.5 crore annual turnover while the remaining would be controlled by the Centre. However, intelligence based enforcement power will be with both the Centre and states. For tax-payers with more than Rs 1.5 crore turnover, the states and the Centre will control and administer them in a 50:50 ratio. Mr Jaitley said each assessee will be assessed by only one authority. The states would also have the powers to levy tax on economic activity within 12 nautical miles of territorial waters even though such rights constitutionally vest with the Centre. The power of audit of tax-payers and taxation in the high seas was holding up a consensus on GST. Mr Jaitley said the power to levy and collect Integrated-GST, a tax on inter-state movement of goods and services, will lie with the Centre but by special provisions in law, the states will also be cross-empowered. The Council will now meet on February 18 to approve the drafts of the IGST law and other supporting legislations needed for subsuming central and state levies like excise duty and service tax and VAT. Meanwhile, West Bengals Amit Mitra said he dissented at the meeting as his state government wanted 100 per cent of the tax payers up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover to be with the states. He termed 90 per cent of the assessees being with states as a victory to protect small traders. Word is that Jackie has some great marketing strategies in place for his upcoming flick. Hollywood star and martial arts exponent Jackie Chan has been in the news for his impending visit to India for his upcoming movie, Kung Fu Yoga. Now, word is that Jackie has some great marketing strategies in place for his upcoming flick. If sources are to be believed, Mr Chan will be in India on January 23, and will leave no stone unturned to ensure his multi city visits in the country are a hit. Jackie, along with Sonu Sood, will be visiting various cities in India for promotions. Jackie has a huge fan following here, so he will make the best of his visit to India. The makers have planned some unique marketing strategies for the movie in India, especially, the source said. Besides promotions, Jackie has planned to have some fun times with his co-stars. Reportedly, Amyra Dastur will be treating him with Parsi food, on his trip here. The PM Modi-led selection committee will meet on Monday to decide on the name of next CBI director. A Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee will meet on Monday to decide on the name of next Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director. (Photo: Official website) New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may get its first woman chief on Monday, with Archana Ramasundaram, a woman IPS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, in contention for the post. Archana Ramasundaram could be named the CBI chief in a bargain move, after Gujarat officer RK Asthana's appointment as the temporary head of CBI became controversial. Asthana's appointment as the interim chief of the CBI has been challenged in the Supreme Court as after the enactment of the Lokpal Act, the director of the agency has to be appointed by the collegium of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee and the Leader of the Opposition. A Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee will meet on Monday to decide on the name of next Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director. Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India JS Khehar will also attend the meeting. The meeting of the selection committee is expected to finalise the name to head the premier investigating agency of the country. Home ministry gives the paramilitary force more time on jawans charges. New Delhi: The Union home ministry has given two more days to the BSF for submitting its detailed final report on constable Tej Bahadur Yadavs allegations that poor quality food was being served to personnel. Sources said the ministry was not satisfied with the interim report given by the security force a few days ago, and has sought more details and clarifications on the same. The BSF had given its interim report, but has now sought two more days to give a final report on the complaint of poor quality food to jawans posted along the Indo-Pak border, a senior home ministry official said. BSF director Gen. K.K. Sharma had met Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on Monday and discussed with him various issues concerning the force including the video posted on social media by constable Yadav which had triggered a huge controversy. In its interim report, the BSF had mentioned that no security personnel deployed along the border had ever complained about the quality of food and that there was no shortage of rations at any of the forward posts. The ministry has sent out a terse message to all para-military forces that there can be no compromise on the welfare of personnel as well as their working conditions, particularly the quality of food being served to them. The ministry had also clarified that no indiscipline would be tolerated among the jawans and anyone having complaint must utilise the existing grievance redressal mechanism rather than going public or using social media to highlight the problems. The Prime Ministers Office, which had also sought a report from the home ministry on the issue, has already been informed by the latter that there was no substance in the complaint and also reiterated that there was no widespread discontent among the constabulary in para-military forces over the quality of food being served to them. In the video posted on social media, constable Yadav had also alleged that while the government procures essential items and ration for them, senior officers sell them off illegally in the open market and the personnel have to suffer. The video had led to considerable outrage as it also showed the poor quality of food which was being served to jawans posted along the Line of Control. The post of the CBI director is lying vacant for over one month following Anil Sinhas retirement on December 2. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led three-member panel met on Monday to decide on the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). However, there was no official word from the government as to what transpired during the meeting. Meanwhile, sources said, Delhi Police commissioner Alok Verma has emerged as the front runner for the post of top cop. The post of the CBI director is lying vacant for over one month following Anil Sinhas retirement on December 2. Currently, Rakesh Asthana, a Gujarat-cadre IPS officer of 1984-batch, is holding additional charge of the CBI director. Mr Asthanas appointment as the CBI interim chief has already been challenged in the Supreme Court. After the enactment of the Lok Pal Act meant to give more teeth to the CBI the director of the agency has to be appointed by a collegium of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee and the Leader of the Opposition. The government has already prepared a list of senior IPS officials (all from 1979 batch to 1982) of the country for the coveted post, they added. Several names are doing the rounds for the post of director CBI. As per the existing norm, the Centre has to appoint the CBI chief on the recommendation of the collegium only. According to the Supreme Court guidelines, officials having experience in anti-corruption or the CBI from the senior most four batches of IPS cadre will be empanelled, following which a screening of three officers would be sent to the collegium, sources said. Among other prominent names, which could make the cut as the CBI director, director general of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Archana Ramasundram (1980-batch IPS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre), director general of Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), M.C. Borwankar, Krishna Chaudhary, director general of the ITBP, special secretary in the home ministry RK Dutta (1981 batch Karnataka Cadre), director general of police (Maharashtra), Satish Mathur (1981 batch IPS) and Aruna Bahuguna (1979 batch IPS officer of Telangana cadre). The accused is a permanent resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. New Delhi: A 38-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting schoolgirls by trapping them by saying that he has been sent by their parents for giving them some items or others in east Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area, police said on Monday. Sunil Rastogi was arrested on Sunday on the basis of a tip-off, DCP(East) Omvir Singh said, and has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days on a Delhi court order. "The accused told police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place," he added. The accused works as a tailor and is married with five children, including three girls, said another officer, adding that his daughters are being counselled to know whether he had also targeted them. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station wherein complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9, said the officer. The accused allegedly took them on the stairs of a building and fled when they raised an alarm, he said. Earlier, on December 13 also, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl, said the officer. He said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. "In all the three cases, victims were minors in the age group of 9-10 and it was also revealed that the accused first misled the minors by telling them that their father had given some clothes or articles for them and then he took them to isolated place where he allegedly tried to sexually assault them," said the officer. A team under inspector CR Meena, SHO, New Ashok Nagar police station, and ACP (Kalyanpuri) Rahul Alwal took up the investigation. CCTV footages from cameras installed near the places of incidents were obtained and some images of the accused were developed, said Singh. During interrogation, he confessed he committed the alleged offences and also revealed he committed similar offences with other girls in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), said the officer. According to the DCP (east), OS Bishnoi, the accused has told them he tried to sexually assault 600 girls, The Indian Express reported. It has also been revealed from interrogation that many cases including under NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) and of theft and molestation were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. Rastogi is a permanent resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. "He resides in Rudrapur now. He studied up to fifth standard at government school in his village. He is being interrogated regarding other offences committed by him at different places," added the officer. According to police report, the 14-year-old victim also said, she was taken to the guest house multiple times to Shillong: Days after Meghalaya MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang was arrested for his involvement in a sex racket, a guest-house owned by the Home Minister of the state, HDR Lyngdoh, is under investigation by the police in the case. A minor girl was allegedly assaulted at the guest house called Marvelene's Inn, which is owned by the Lyngdoh's son, Nathaniel Osbert Rymbai. The police have already made several arrests in the case, including an employee of the guest house. According to police report, the 14-year-old victim also said, she was taken to the guest house Marvelene's Inn multiple times to "serve clients". We have arrested nine people, and are looking for at least two more who are absconding. Those arrested include an employee of Marvelenes Inn, and we are examining whether the owner and management of the inn were involved in the racket, Shillong City SP Vivek Syiem told The Indian Express. Kentely Tangsang, a 66-year-old man was arrested last Tuesday for his alleged involvement in the sex racket case and seven others were taken into custody. The arrests were made following a FIR lodged by a 14-year-old girl, who accused Dorphang of assaulting her twice - once at Marvelenes Inn, and the other time, at a resort. Home Minister Lyngdoh declined from commenting on the matter, citing his absence from Shillong. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has also come across public pressure, with protestors taking to the street, asking to drop Lyngdoh so that "appropriate action" can be taken against him. SP patriarch Mulayam had hit out at son Akhilesh, stating that he would fight against the UP CM if he does not listen to him. Lucknow: Dealing a severe blow to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Election Commission today gave the symbol 'Bicycle' to the faction headed by Akhilesh Yadav, recognising it as the Samajwadi Party that came as a major boost to the Chief Minister ahead of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. A mere look at the figures of supporting MLAs, MLCs and MPs, National Executive members and National Convention delegates "will evidently demonstrate that Shri Akhilesh Yadav enjoys overwhelming majority support, both among the organisational and legislative wing of the party", the EC said in its order that was reserved on Friday. The verdict by the three-member Election Commission headed by Nasim Zaidi came on the eve of the filing of nominations when parties will have to give the requisite forms authorising use of symbol to contest the elections. The EC had reserved the order on January 13 after hearing both the sides for over five hours. The order set off jubilation in the Chief Minister's camp with hordes of supporters marching to his residence and breaking into celebrations, bursting fire crackers and dancing to the beat of drums. Welcoming the decision, SP General Secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, Akhilesh's uncle and the main strategist of his group, expressed the hope that a grand secular alliance will be formed to fight the elections, an apparent reference to a tie-up with Congress and some other outfits. "As a logical consequence of the above finding and applying the test of majority approved by the Supreme Court in the case of Sadiq Ali and consistently applied by the Commission thereafter in all cases of disputes in recognised political parties arising before it from time to time for determination in terms of para 15 of the Symbols Order, the Commission hereby answers the issue number 2 by holding that the group led by Shri Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol 'Bicycle' for the purposes of Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment Order, 1968)," the EC said in its 46-page order. The Commission noted that Akhilesh's faction had filed the affidavits of 205 of the 228 MLAs, 56 out of 68 MLCs, 15 out of 24 MPs, 28 out of 46 National Executive members and 4400 out of 5731 National Convention delegates which accounted for total delegates of 4716 out of 5731. The order said Mulayam Singh's side did not file any affidavit of MPs or MLAs or any delegates claiming allegiance to it with the SP supremo maintaining that there was no split in the party needing determination of a dispute. In the last Lok Sabha polls in 2014, it won only 5 seats. All winning candidates belonged to Mulayam's family. West Bengal Socialist Party of Kiranmoy Nanda merged with SP, which has two MLAs in Bihar and one each in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Nanda had presided over the December 1 convention which anointed Akhilesh as new Samajwadi Party president in place of Mulayam. There was simmering discontent within the ruling family ever since Akhilesh became the Chief Minister. Mulayam's younger brother Shivpal was not in favour of Akhilesh as Chief Minister. When the battle lines were drawn and last gasp efforts began for control over the party, the SP got clearly divided into two camps with one led by Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav, Mulayam's cousin, and the other by the Yadav chieftain himself. Mulayam had the backing of Shivpal and friend Amar Singh, often described as an "outsider" and blamed for the rift in the family. Akhilesh had fired his uncle Shivpal twice from the cabinet and it was seen by many as a direct challenge to his father, who steadily showed preference for his younger brother over son. The battle in the family took a decisive turn when Akhilesh released a parallel list of 235 candidates for the state assembly polls. Mulayam and Shivpal had already released a list of 325 candidates in the absence of Akhilesh which did not go down well with the Chief Minister who wanted a decisive say in selecting the nominees. Simmering tension in the state's ruling party erupted into a full-fledged war on December 30, 2016, when Mulayam expelled Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav from the party for six years on grounds of indiscipline but reinstated them within 24 hours after a meeting of 200 of the party?s 229 MLAs at the Chief Minister's residence. At the SP National Convention on January 1 called by Ram Gopal, Akhilesh Yadav was declared the national president of Samajwadi Party. Naresh Chandra Uttam was named chief of SP's state unit by Akhilesh replacing Shivpal. In the mean time, Mulayam expelled Ramgopal again for six years for the third time in six months. Those expelled for attending the convention included vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda and state general secretary Naresh Agarwal, a Rajya Sabha MP. As the tussle for controlling the party organisation continued, both the factions knocked the Election Commission's door claiming to be the "real" Samajwadi Party and seeking the 'bicycle' symbol. In its today's order, the EC said, "The commission hereby answers the issue by holding that the group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol bicycle for the purposes of the Election symbols (Reservation and Allotment) order 1968," formally ending Mulayam's control over the party he founded. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated Akhilesh Yadav for getting Samajwadi Party's 'bicycle' symbol for contesting the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. "Congratulations @yadavakhilesh for getting SP symbol. You deserve it," Banerjee said in a tweet. Modi impinging upon autonomy of institutions like RBI, says Rahul Gandhi. Rishikesh: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of impinging upon the autonomy of institutions like the RBI, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today said the Central Bank's Governor was informed of his decision on demonetisation just a day before the move. "RBI was created as an institution which would work independently free from all political pressure. However, a letter was shot off to the RBI Governor (Urjit Patel) just a day before demonetisation, saying that Modi ji had taken a decision to withdraw the 500 and 1000 rupee notes from circulation," Rahul said at a rally here. Charging the Prime Minister with taking his autocratic style of functioning too far, he said Modi was out to impose his face on everything. Citing the recent Khadi and Village Industries Commission Diary controversy as an instance where Mahatma Gandhi's face was replaced by that of Modi, he said if things go on like this the day was not far when Ramlilas will be staged with actors wearing Modi's mask instead of that of Lord Ram. "If things go on like this you would find even Ramlila actors wearing the mask of Modi from next year instead of that of Lord Ram. Modi ji wants the rule of one person. He wants his voice to drown out all other voices," Rahul said. Alleging that Modi's professed commitment to Khadi was fake, he said 15 lakh suit and Charkha could not go together. The Congress Vice President said Charkha stood for promotion of cottage and handicrafts industries and is Modi's commitment to Khadi was real then he would not have worked 'day in and day out' for 50 chosen industrialists. Pointing out that Modi was often seen in photos posing with the rich, Rahul said it was an indication that farmers and the poor did not figure in his scheme of things. He said Modi was imposing himself on the nation by adopting a policy of listening to none. "His approach is to do what he wants at any cost come what may. He changes the land acquisition laws to suit the purposes of industrialists. He can even snatch the lands of farmers without taking them into confidence and distribute them among his industrialist friends," Rahul added. Assembly elections in Uttarakhand will be held on February 15 in a single phase for the 70 seats. The Congress Vice President accused the Prime Minister of ruling by creating fear in the minds of people and said he was pitting religions and castes against each other. "There is no need to fear anything. It is a country of lions," Rahul said, adding that the Congress party's ideology is fearlessness. He urged his party workers to take the message of fearlessness, religious amity and development to the masses in poll-bound Uttarakhand. Claiming that the Congress stood for the national flag, Rahul said 15,000 Congress workers had laid down their lives to uphold the national flag. He described his party as the one which has fought for the country's independence and said working for Congress meant working for the national flag. Attacking BJP's ideological parent RSS, Rahul alleged it had not unfurled the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur for 52 years. RSS should be asked why it did not do so, the Congress Vice President said, adding that the saffron outfit had "no respect" for the national flag. Asking Modi to show the same urgency in the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) which he had displayed in imposition of demonetisation, Rahul said ex-servicemen were still protesting at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi. "If demonetisation can be done in a minute, OROP too can be implemented in a minute," he said. Rahul also demanded a green bonus for Uttarakhand in recognition of its contribution to environment conservation. The SP supremo also slammed Ramgopal Yadav, accusing him of 'destroying' the party. Lucknow: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday stunned party workers by declaring he would fight against son Akhilesh Yadav if he did not shed his "negative approach" towards the Muslims, in an apparent effort to keep the community glued to him after a split. With the party he founded 25 years ago in a quandary following the revolt by his Chief Minister son and a split in the Muslim votes appearing a foregone conclusion, Mulayam, in a bid to get the backing of the community, which has stood solidly behind him for years, minced no words in accusing Akhilesh of nurturing a "negative approach" towards them. The hard-hitting remarks by the 77-year-old leader came when he addressed party workers at the SP headquarters here amid the battle for supremacy in the state's ruling party, just a day before filing of nominations starts for 73 seats in western UP having considerable presence of Muslims. Apparently resigned to admitting the split in the party, Mulayam said he was "helpless" in preventing it but made it clear he would move court if the Election Commission's decision on party's name and election symbol 'bicycle' went against him. "I always advocated the interest of Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as state's Director General of Police (DGP), Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It sent out an anti-Muslim message," he alleged. The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a "negative approach" towards Muslims and that he was playing into the hands of Ramgopal Yadav, who was working "on directions of BJP". "Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ramgopal. If he does not listen, I will fight against him," he said, adding Ramgopal has been giving instructions to Akhilesh from Delhi over phone. Mulayam's cousin and Rajya Sabha MP Ramgopal Yadav has stood by Akhilesh in the fight for control over the party. "I will live for Muslims and die for them. If it comes to Muslims' interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh)", he said. Mulayam currently represents Azamgarh in the Lok Sabha. "Don't you know how I took a stand to prevent demolition of Babri Masjid? We were in crisis then too," Mulayam told a crowd of party workers, most of them Muslims. Mulayam had earned the sobriquet of "Mullah" after the police firing on 'Karsevaks' (Hindu volunteers) in Ayodhya to protect the Babri mosque. "I have made a lot of sacrifices to build the party. He (Akhilesh) is not adhering to me and sacked a number of ministers including a woman. Senior ministers were sacked without any reasons," Mulayam said. "What can I do when my son has turned against me by playing into hands of Ramgopal Yadav?" he asked SP workers. "Look my son has gone against me. I could never imagine that Akhilesh will ever do this to me," he lamented. Naresh Uttam, who was appointed state party chief by Akhilesh, replacing Shivpal, Mulayam's younger brother, was present during the address. Interestingly, outside the office of SP president, a new name plate of 'Akhilesh Yadav, National President' was put up below his father's name plate 'Mulayam Singh Yadav, National President'. Earlier, Mulayam visited brother Shivpal's residence before addressing the SP workers at the party office. This was the first time since the family feud erupted that Mulayam came to the party office without Shivpal. The meeting was out of bounds for media and some workers also claimed that Mulayam used 'Shahjahan and Aurangzeb' analogy to refer to his ouster as SP president by Akhilesh. Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for "not understanding things". The state goes to the polls in seven phases beginning February 11 and analysts say the factional fight will hurt the SP. Navjot Singh Sidhu is now set to contest from Amritsar (East) Assembly constituency. DPCC President Ajay Maken presents the party scarf to Navjot Singh Sidhu as he is welcomed at a press conference a day after his joining the Congress party at AICC headquarters in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Crickter-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who joined the Congress on Sunday after months of talks, said Monday that his battle was for the redemption of Punjab. After quitting BJP, and failed negotiations with the AAP, Mr Sidhu said joining the Congress party was like ghar wapsi (homecoming), and that he was a born Congressman. Mr Sidhu is now set to contest from Amritsar (East) Assembly constituency. Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh will contest from both the constituencies of Lambi and Patiala. He opened his innings with the Congress by launching a blistering attack on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leadership. In his inimitable style, he said, Bhaag baaba Badal bhaag, kursi khaali kar, Punjab ki janta aati hai (run away Badal, people of Punjab are coming) Mr Sidhu also did not spare his former outfit BJP. Referring to remarks that BJP was like his mother, whom he betrayed, Mr Sidhu quoted from the Ramayana. Without mentioning BJP, he said, Kaikeyi was also a mother, who banished her son to the forest for 14 years. He also referred one BJP leader as Manthara, the humpbacked maid in the Ramayana, who convinced queen Kaikeyi that the throne belonged to her son, Bharata, and that her stepson, the crown-prince Lord Rama, should be exiled from the kingdom. Mr Sidhu declined to idenfity his Manthara. Mr Sidhu Congress was like Kaushalya, who gave birth to Lord Rama. On whether he would stake claim to the CMs post if the Congress came to power, Mr Sidhu, It is premature to talk about the issue. Rahul Gandhi accused the PM of impinging upon the autonomy of vital institutions like the RBI. New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in poll-bound Uttarakhand on Monday, but his campaign to retain power in the hill state suffered a jolt on the same day when party veteran Yashpal Arya joined the BJP. Mr Arya, former Congress president in Uttarakhand, joined the saffron fold with his son Sanjiv Arya, and they would contest from Bajpur and Nainital, respectively. Former Congress legislator Kedar Singh Rawat also joined the BJP. Addressing an election rally in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, which goes to polls on February 14, Mr Gandhi charged the PM with trying to impose his face on everything. Citing a recent Khadi and Village Industries Commission diary controversy as an instance where Mahatma Gandhis face was replaced by that of PM Modi, he said if things went on like this, the day was not far when Ramlilas would be staged with actors wearing PM Modis mask instead of Lord Rams. Modiji wants the rule of one person. He wants his voice to drown out all other voices, he said. Mr Gandhi accused the PM of impinging upon the autonomy of vital institutions like the RBI. He said, RBI was created as an institution which would work independently, free from all political pressures. However, a letter was shot off to the RBI governor (Urjit Patel) just a day before demonetisation, saying that Modiji had taken a decision to withdraw the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from circulation. Mr Gandhi also showed his torn kurta pocket to a cheering crowd and said, Mera kurta phata hua hai...lekin Modiji ka kurta kabhi phata hua nahi milta. Bade paisewalon ke saath unki photo milegi (See, my kurta pocket is torn, but youll never find Modiji wearing a torn kurta. He can only be spotted with the rich and powerful). Alleging that Mr Modis professed commitment to khadi was fake, he said a R15 lakh suit and charkha could not go together. Mr Gandhi said that charkha stood for promotion of cottage and handicraft industries, and that if Mr Modis commitment to khadi was real, he would not have worked day in and day out for 50 chosen industrialists. Attacking BJPs ideological parent RSS, Mr Gandhi alleged that it had not unfurled the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur for 52 years. RSS should be asked why it did not do so, he asked, adding that the saffron outfit had no respect for the national flag. Congress turncoats picked in hill state, two ministers dropped in Punjab. BJP president Amit Shah welcomes former Congress leader (second from left) Yashpal Arya to the party in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday announced its first list of candidates for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections. While the UP list, with 149 names was mostly dominated by Thakurs, Gujjars and Jats, the Uttarakhand list with 64 names saw most of the Congress turncoats being fielded. Yashpal Arya, who joined BJP from Congress on Monday itself, with his son Sanjiv, were given tickets from Bajpur and Nainital, respectively. Among the prominent names who appeared in the UP list included former state BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai from Meerut, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma from Mathura, and former chief minister and Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singhs grandson Sandeep Singh from Atrauli. The party also announced the remaining six names for the Punjab elections. BJP has dropped two ministers in the Punjab government from the list. In Uttarakhand, most of the nine Congress rebels who voted against chief minister Harish Rawats government, leading to a Constitutioal crisis last year, have been fielded. Of the nine, former CM Vijay Bahugunas son Saurabh has been fielded from his current Assembly constituency, Sitarganj. Satpal Maharaj, who joined BJP ahead of the last Lok Sabha elections, has been fielded from Chaubatakhal. His wife Amrita Rawat, one of the nine Congress rebels, is unlikely to get a ticket. Shooter and former BJP leader Jaspal Ranas father, Narayan Singh Rana, has been fielded from Dhanaulti. Another Congress leader, who joined BJP Monday, Kedar Singh Rawat, has been given a ticket from Yumonotri. In the hill state, where polling for the 70-member Assembly will be held on February 15, the BJP has renominated its state president Ajay Bhat from Ranikhet and given ticket to former chief minister and MP B.C. Khanduris daughter Ritu from Yamkeshwar. Releasing the list, BJPs central election committee (CEC) secretary J.P. Nadda said it has accommodated various sections of society. The CEC met Sunday night to finalise the candidates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the CECs Sunday meeting. Another meeting will be held on Tuesday to announce the names of more candidates. The names in the UP list are from those constituency which will go to the polls in the first and second phases. The seven-phase polls for the 403 seats will take place on February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8. BJP has retained sitting MLAs, including Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, both accused in the Muzaffarnagar riot cases. The party withheld announcement of its candidates for some seats, including Sahibabad and Noida two seats from where Union home minister Rajnath Singhs son Pankaj Singhs name has been doing the rounds. Former Congress leader Avtar Singh Badhana has been fielded from Meerapur. Of the six remaining names from Punjab, which were announced Monday, two ministers Madan Mohan Mittal and Chuni Lal Bhagat, who is also the partys state legislative leader, have been dropped. Both are ministers in the SAD-BJP government in Punjab. The BJP will be contesting on 23 out of the total 117 Assembly seats. The BJP nominated Parmindra Sharma from Anandpur Sahib, currently held by Mr Mittal. Mohindra Bhagat, son of MLA Chuni Lal Bhagat, will be partys candidate from Jalandhar West. However, two other ministers Anil Joshi and Manoranjan Kalia have been renominated from Amritsar North and Jalandhar Central, respectively. Akhilesh Yadav, 43, now officially replaces Mulayam Singh Yadav, 77, as the national president of the party. New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav scored a major political victory over his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, with the Election Commission on Monday allotting the partys bicycle symbol to him, and recognising his faction as the real Samajwadi Party. Akhilesh Yadav, 43, now officially replaces Mulayam Singh Yadav, 77, as the national president of the party. The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use the name and its reserved symbol bicycle for the purposes of the election symbol, the EC said in its 42-page order. The shift of power from the old to the new was swift, but respectful. Minutes after the EC order, a shiny, new nameplate announcing Akhilesh Yadav, National President was nailed at the SP office in Lucknow, below the nameplate carrying Mulayam Singh Yadavs name and his designation, Rashtriya Adhyaksh. The Mulayam faction has threatened to move court against the ECs decision. Ram Gopal Yadav, Akhileshs uncle, close aide and the architect of the political coup, flushed with triumph, said that the EC took the right decision as they (the Mulayam camp) did not have any supporting documents to claim symbol and party name. The chief minister is very happy, he added. Ram Gopal Yadav, whom Mulayam Singh Yadav had branded as the villain of the piece, said that a fresh official list of candidates would be finalised by Wednesday for the first two phases, and a grand alliance will be formed to fight elections. Uttar Pradesh is to vote in a seven-phase election for its 403 seats starting February 11. The Election Commissions decision dealt a severe blow not merely to the SP patriarch, but also dashed the BJPs hope of splitting the Muslim-Yadav vote. With the secular grand alliance comprising SP, Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal, JD(U) and other smaller parties now becoming a reality, Akhilesh Yadav could have an edge in the UP elections. Majority of the 20 per cent Muslim vote and the Yadav votebank in the state could now consolidate in favour of Akhilesh Yadav and the grand alliance. And the RLDs presence in the alliance guarantees a major chunk of Jat votes from western UP, which had tilted towards the BJP during the last Lok Sabha polls. In this high-stake election, the BJP was hoping that the Muslim vote would split between the SP, the BSP and the Congress, and the Yadavs between the Mulayam and Akhilesh factions. Akhilesh Yadavs victory could also have an adverse impact on BSP supremo Mayawatis attempts to return to power in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress described the ECs decision as judicious and congratulated Akhilesh Yadav on being allotted the cycle symbol. As soon as EC announced its decision around 6.30 Monday evening, celebrations broke out in Lucknow and across Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds of youths carrying SP flags and Akhilesh Yadavs cutouts poured out on the streets raising slogans, Akhilesh Yadav zindabad. Earlier in the day, sensing that the poll panels decision could go against him, the angry father huffed, puffed and even threatened to contest against his son if need be. Nervous that his title of messiah of the Muslims was slipping away, Mulayam Singh Yadav, in a bid to brand Akhilesh as anti-Muslim, claimed that the candidate list submitted to him by his son did not have a single Muslim name. Ram Gopal Yadav later made it clear that a fresh list of candidates, being drawn up by the party, will have a good number of Muslim candidates. While a defeated Mulayam threatened to go to court against the EC decision, his close aide Amar Singh, who had emerged as the epicentre of the family feud in SP, was in London. His departure for London a day before the ECs order was being viewed by some political observers as the proverbial rat deserting a sinking ship. For Mulayam Singh Yadav, the poll panels decision could well mean the beginning of his political sunset. After scoring a hard-fought political victory, Akhilesh Yadav went to meet his father in Lucknow and later tweeted, Cycle chalti jayegi, aage badhti jayegi. The median survival rate for heart transplant is only 10 years. Singapore: Southeast Asia's first heart transplant patient and one of the world's longest surviving cases has died, his family said today, more than 31 years after his operation. Singaporean Seah Chiang Nee, a former newspaper editor, died aged 76 in a local hospital on Saturday, his wife Patricia Wong told AFP. He was hospitalised in July. Seah underwent heart transplant surgery on October 12, 1985 in Sydney, when doctors removed his organ in a five-and-a-half hour operation and replaced it with that of a 17-year-old boy who had just died. "Based on his record he should be one of the longest-surviving in the world," said Kenneth Ng, a cardiologist at the Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital in Singapore. "The median survival rate for heart transplant is only 10 years... so it is definitely on the high end." The world's longest surviving heart transplant patient was a Briton named John McCafferty, who died at age 73 last year, 33 years after the transplant, according to British media reports. In an interview with AFP in 2005, 20 years after the operation, Seah said he would have been content to live for four or five years after the transplant. He said he had never imagined he would be able to welcome the new millennium. "Twenty years is a long, long time and I'm already very grateful," he said then. The group had even taken a professional camera on rent and were clicking pictures with train appearing in the background. New Delhi: In a horrific turn to a 'fun photoshoot', two teenagers were killed after they were hit by a moving train while taking pictures on the railway tracks near Akshardham Temple flyover in the national capital, police said today. The incident occurred on the evening of January 14 when Shubham Saini (15) and Yash Chandelia (15) along with five of their friends had gone to the railway tracks to have a 'fun photoshoot', police said. The group had even taken a professional camera on rent for the photoshoot and were clicking pictures with train appearing in the background, they added. Suddenly, they saw trains coming from New Delhi and Anand Vihar on the up and down railway lines. While five of their friends managed to save themselves, Yash and Shubham, who had gone to the tracks for the first time, got confused and were hit by the train coming from New Delhi, said an officer. Their friends, Rohit Kumar (16), Tushar Anshul Yadav (15), Bhaveet Tomar (13), Rohit Singh (10) and Aman (14), lay down between the railway tracks to save themselves in the nick of time, he said. Yash's mother, Kamlesh Devi, has not been able to come to terms with the death of her only son, police said. On January 14, her son had left their house in east Delhi's Pratap Nagar area of Mayur Vihar a little before 12 noon for his tuition classes. Yash's family said they never knew that he liked clicking pictures and had even left his cellphone at home on the fateful day. "On January 14, he had gone to his tuition classes for a test that ended by 2 PM. He left from there with his friends around 2.30 PM. Usually, his classes were between 7.30 PM-9.30 PM but they had a test that day," said his uncle Ravi. His uncle said Yash was doing quite well in his studies and his teachers at Aster Public School always praised him. Yash wanted to either join police or the armed forces and had no interest in modelling or clicking pictures, his uncle said. "He was studying in Class X and was quite studious. He used to take tuition classes for Maths and Science subjects at a tuition centre located a kilometre away from our house," his uncle said. He never had fascination for clicking pictures or riding a motorcycle. "We have a DSLR camera at home and if he had any such plans, he would have taken the camera from home itself. It was his first visit to the railway tracks. "We have heard that the five students, who had a narrow escape, used to go to the tracks to click pictures. We haven't yet spoken to those children and their parents," said Ravi. He said even for Shubham, it was for the first time, that he had gone there. Shubham's family has gone to Himachal Pradesh for his last rites. Shubham and Yash used to go to the same tuition centre. While Shubham had been studying at the tuition centre for the last six months, Yash had been studying there for a year. Even their tuition teacher claimed that he had not seen them clicking pictures in the classrooms. Yash's father Rajesh works in Hyundai while his mother is a homemaker. Yash also has a younger sister Akanksha, aged 14. Former Delhi Commission for Women chief Barkha Shukla, while appreciating the effort made to nab the culprit said he should be hanged. New Delhi: Following the arrest of serial rapist Sunil Rastogi, accused of assaulting and raping minor girls, the women's rights activists on Monday demanded strict punishment and immediate hanging of the culprit. Former Delhi Commission for Women ( DCW) chief Barkha Shukla, while appreciating the effort made to nab the culprit said he should be hanged. "Cases of rapes have been increasing in the national capital. This man getting arrested is a big achievement. Now that he has confessed his crime, he should be given strictest of the punishment. Immediate hearing should be done and he should be hanged," Shukla said. Meanwhile, another women activist Abha Singh slammed the local police for their failure and expressed shock over repetition of such incidents, that too also in the national capital. "It's a very shocking and scary situation that a serial rapist rapes and sexually assaults minor girls for more than years. What worrying is that in spite of such a strict law, such cases are happening, that too in the capital. That is a clear intelligence failure of the local police which could not find out that such a serial rapist was living in vicinity. What was surprising was that the police was caught sleeping," Singh said. A 38-year-old serial rapist was arrested from Delhi's New Ashok Nagar for targeting minors girls aged between seven and eleven years on Sunday. The accused Sunil Rastogi, who wore the same set of clothes - a 'red jacket' (which he considered lucky), used to come from Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Delhi by train and look for lone minor girls, kidnap and take them to under-construction buildings or isolated locations, rape them and then flee the city. The rapist targeted nearly five hundred children over the last 13 years not only in Delhi but even in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Tiwari thanked the L-G for giving his consent on the delimitation of municipal wards. New Delhi: Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari met lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal on Monday in connection with the delimitation of municipal wards in the national capital. Mr Tiwari also demanded the AAP government to bring in public domain the final draft on delimitation else the party will be forced to hold demonstration in public interest. Mr Tiwari thanked the L-G for giving his consent on the delimitation of municipal wards. The Delhi government was sitting over the matter of delimitation with an apparent intent to delay the municipal elections and it was the sustained public campaign of Delhi BJP, including by Opposition leader in the Delhi Assembly VIjender Gupta, which forced the Kejriwal government to forward the concerned file to the L-G, said Mr Tiwari. Mr Tiwari said that the Kejriwal government is still delaying putting in public domain the details of structure of the new notified wards. Keeping in view the short time left for municipal elections, the AAP government should have notified details for public and political parties immediately after the L-Gs approval but it is still keeping it in pending, alleged Mr Tiwari. District police officials did not elaborate on the incident but said they are looking into the matter. "The CISF commander had requested local police for help but there was no response from the police," Supriyo alleged. (Photo: PTI) activists of the Trinamool Congress while he on an official visit to a thermal power station here but he escaped unhurt. Supriyo, the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, told PTI that his convoy was attacked by alleged TMC activists when he was on an official visit to Durgapur Steel Thermal Power station in his Asansol constituency during the day. "As my car was entering the venue, TMC activists shouted slogans and pelted my car with stones. They tried to break my car," he said. Supriyo alleged there was no response from the local police though a CISF senior official had informed them after seeing the "huge gathering of aggressive TMC supporters at the gate". "The CISF commander had requested local police for help but there was no response from the police," Supriyo alleged. District police officials did not elaborate on the incident but said they are looking into the matter. On January 4, over 100 Trinamool Congress workers had staged a protest outside the house of Supriyo in Kolkata demanding his arrest in the Rose Valley chit fund scam. In a speech in Nagpur last week, M G Vaidya had reiterated his stand on the division of Maharashtra into four states. Mumbai: In a jibe at RSS ideologue M G Vaidya over his remarks on dividing Maharashtra into four smaller states, the Shiv Sena today said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should consider him for the state's top honour 'Maharashtra Bhushan.' "By asking for smaller states to be carved out of Maharashtra, he is only putting forth his view, which everybody has a right to do in a democracy. Many a times some people's love for Pakistan also keeps sprouting now and then," an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana' said. "Vaidya should be invited to Mumbai and lauded for his views. Maharashtra Chief Minister should consider honouring this person, who has such great views, with a Maharashtra Bhushan award," the Sena said. The Sena's comment slamming Vaidya, a former spokesperson of the RSS, comes in the backdrop of his speech in Nagpur last week, where he had reiterated his stand on the division of Maharashtra into four states. "I am a pro-Vidarbha person and a separate Vidarbha should be carved out. Any state should not have a population of more than three crore. There should not be any need for protest for small states," Vaidya had said. Vaidya had often advocated division of Maharashtra into Vidarbha, Marathwada including Khandesh, Konkan, and western Maharashtra and the official language of all these states would remain Marathi. He had also suggested constitution a state reorganisation commission and each state should have restricted population. The Sena, however, has vehemently opposed the idea of division of Maharashtra. The petitioner is married to an Indian and had children here. Mumbai: The Bombay high court has granted interim relief to Asif Karadia, who was born in Karachi but has been living in India since last two years. The high court allowed Asif to stay in India till a decision on his application for Indian citizenship is finalised and asked the central government to look into his application within twelve weeks. Terming the case as unique, the high court said that the application should be viewed in light of the fact that the petitioner is married to an Indian and had children in the country. The division bench of the high court was hearing the petition, which sought relief in the backdrop of the Indian government refusing to issue long-term visa to Asif. The government had also warned that it will issuse Leave India Notice to Asif. The father-son duo had filed the petition, seeking expedition of Asifs application for Indian citizenship and block any bid to deport him while his application is pending. Asif was born to Abbas and Zaibunnisa Karadia in Pakistans Karachi in 1964. His name was mentioned in his mothers Pakistani passport as there was no system of issuing passports to infants at that time. After the India-Pakistan war, Zaibunnisa returned to India with Asif in 1967. Zaibunnisa applied for citizenship in 1972. However, Karadias did not apply for citizenship for Asif as a result of which in 2012 when Asif applied for a passport he was denied the same on the grounds that he was born in Karachi. On the recommendations of the authorities he applied for long term visa and was issued the same till 2015. While arguing on behalf of the Karadias, advocate Sujoy Kantawala informed the court that Asif was eligible for citizenship as per the Citizenship Act and also pleaded to the court to take cognisance of his situation on humane grounds, as he had nowhere to go and wanted to live and die in only India. The rape case is being probed by the Waliv police, which suspect Lopez, a retired bank official, fled to the USA. The survivor told The Asian Age, Lopez would send his wife out on some pretext or the other and then forced himself on me. (Representational image) Mumbai: The parents of a 13-year-old rape survivor from Vasai village, who delivered a baby recently, have decided to stop her from going to school or venturing out of the house, fearing social stigma, thus hampering her dreams of becoming a school teacher. The girl delivered the baby, who has already been adopted by someone, at Nair Hospital recently, while the girl was discharged from the hospital on Friday. While talking to The Asian Age, the girl said, I want to become a teacher. Now, I am not supposed to talk with anyone and I am not going to school. She added, I just came back from the hospital so Im resting. My parents are supportive and taking good care of me. Stating that people were taunting his sister for no reason, the survivors brother told The Asian Age, We stay in an interior part of the state. Here, society does not have an open mind, so how do we send her out? Already people in our vicinity have started speaking ill about her. We also want my sister to pursue her education, but we fear people will harass her in school. My sister didnt even know what had happened to her. According to a source, the survivor was allegedly raped multiple times last May by 72-year-old Martin Lopez, a Vasai resident, who fled the country in October 2015 on suspicions that her family would report the crime to the police. The survivors mother worked at Lopezs house. The survivor was unconscious the first time she was raped as Lopez had allegedly spiked her drink. He later raped her repeatedly while issuing threats that he would harm her family if she resisted, according to the police. By the time her family realised she was expecting, it was too late to terminate the pregnancy, as it could have endangered the girls life. The rape case is being probed by the Waliv police, which suspect Lopez, a retired bank official, fled to the USA. The survivor told The Asian Age, Lopez would send his wife out on some pretext or the other and then forced himself on me. Tomorrow is the court date and we are finding it difficult to get justice, as Lopez is absconding, said the survivors brother. Court directs CBI after Rabia asked where is ligature and whether it is evidence. Mumbai: A city-based special court on Monday, acting on a request of Rabia Khan the mother of late actress Jiah Khan asked the investigating officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to provide copies of certain documents and CCTV footage to her as well as to the defence lawyer. The CBI has probed the case involving the death of Jiah, whose body was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her Juhu house in 2013, and held that she had committed suicide. Rabias lawyer, Swapnil Ambure, made an application before judge S.K.S. Razvi requesting her to direct the investigating officer to provide copy of call logs of Jiahs mobile phone, status of ligature (the dupatta from which her body was found hanging) and CCTV footage of Hotel Novotel in Juhu. The judge directed the investigating officer to provide these things to Rabia after the defence did not take any objection on it. Rabia has sought to know where is the ligature and whether it is part of the evidence or not. The CCTV footage of the hotel was sought because actor Suraj Pancholi, who is facing trial for driving Jiah to commit suicide, was present when she allegedly hanged herself. Though there is no provision in the law under which the complainant can address the court directly and seek such things, we do not want the trial to be delayed further and hence we did not take any objection, said advocate Prashant Pati, Pancholis defence lawyer. Initially the Juhu police was investigating this matter and in its chargesheet it said it was a case of suicide and booked Pancholi for abetment. Unsatisfied with this, Jiahs mother filed an appeal in the high court seeking a probe into the death by the CBI. The high court allowed her application and transferred the probe to CBI, which in its chargesheet upheld the theory and said Jiah had hanged herself in her residential flat and Suraj was responsible for her extreme step. Rabia was not satisfied with this too and hence filed another appeal in the high court seeking an investigation into Jiahs death by a special investigating team (SIT) and this application is pending before the court and it is expected to be heard on January 31. Hayden and Arana sat in on meetings, met with library staff and roamed the many halls of the library. Daliyah Arana, from Gainesville, Georgia, became the first-ever librarian for the day at the US Library of Congress on January 11. (Photo: LibnofCongress) Washington: A four-year-old girl who has read more than 1,000 books has become the librarian for a day at the worlds largest library in the US. Daliyah Arana, who is from Gainesville, Georgia, joined Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden who made history in 2016 when she became the first female and the first African-American to hold the position. Arana became the first-ever librarian for the day at the US Library of Congress on January 11, the ABC reported. Hayden and Arana sat in on meetings, met with library staff and roamed the many halls of the library. Arana also suggested the library to add whiteboards to the walls so children could practice their writing, which library officials said they were considering. Hayden tweeted photos of herself and Arana, saying, It was fun to have 4-year-old Daliyah Marie Arana of Gainesville, GA as Librarian For The Day. Shes already read more than a 1,000 books. Arana read her first book, a picture book called Anns Big Muffin, on her own at the age of two years and 11 months. Around that time, her mother Haleema signed Arana up for the 1,000 Books Before KindergartenProgramme a programme that promotes reading for young kids - to keep track of just how many books her daughter managed to finish. Haleema decided to write to the Library of Congress to tell them about her daughters book-reading brilliance. They responded by inviting the entire family down to the library, and let Arana act as a librarian for the day. She just kept saying how the Library of Congress is her most favourite, favourite, favourite library in the whole wide world, Haleema said. The Library of Congress now plans to invite other young book-lovers as Librarians For The Day in the future. Barack Hussein Obama will leave the Oval Office at age 55 with his popularity near his all-time high, much like Ronald Reagan in 1989. Washington: After winning the White House with a call to embrace "the audacity of hope," Barack Obama knows his place in the history books will be measured against the outsized hopes his 2008 election sparked in the United States and abroad. Beyond his wide smile, his legendary Hawaiian sense of calm and his drama-free style of governing, what will be remembered from the Democrat's extraordinary path to power and his two terms as the 44th US president? Will the son of an absent Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, who split his childhood years between the Aloha State and Indonesia, be lauded for bringing down unemployment, the raid that killed Obama bin Laden, or reforming the health care system? Will he be praised for revitalizing relations with Cuba or pushing through a global climate agreement? Whatever the historians write, Obama, America's first black president can certainly claim some bona fide successes. But one dream got lost along the way: that of national reconciliation. Years of stalemate with an intractable Republican-led Congress and Donald Trump's shock election win which he did not see coming at the end of an unprecedentedly aggressive campaign have revealed a deeply divided country. Political divisions are to be expected, with Republicans and Democrats refusing to work together to the point of sometimes paralyzing government. But racial fault lines also came to the fore during Obama's presidency, and with an unexpected force. Careful not to be seen as a "president for black Americans," Obama paradoxically may have been the wrong leader to move the needle on the race issue. That reality is a bitter pill to swallow for a man who said, in the 2004 speech that put him on the political map, that there is "not a liberal America and a conservative America, there's the United States of America." "There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America," he said. "There's the United States of America." But Obama, criticized by some as too much of a policy wonk and sometimes professorial, may not have taken the pulse of Trump's America a mainly white, working middle class terrified by the whirlwind effects of economic globalization. Still popular With his temples a bit grayer now, Barack Hussein Obama will leave the Oval Office at age 55 with his popularity near his all-time high, much like Ronald Reagan in 1989. A relative political novice when he ran for president in 2008, promising to transform the United States under his optimistic banner of "Yes we can," Obama entered the White House in 2009, and the learning curve was steep. Just 47 at the time, four years older than John F. Kennedy, he freely admits he initially underestimated the difficulty of doing business in Washington. He could only shake his head at how Republicans systematically blocked his every move, even if he himself also lacked a certain sense of flexibility in his dealings with Capitol Hill. Confronted with economic and financial chaos upon his arrival in office, with huge sectors of industry at the edge of an abyss, he managed to push through an $800 billion stimulus package. Then, after an epic battle on Capitol Hill, Obama saw his signature health care reform plan which became known as "Obamacare" become law. Some 20 million Americans now have health insurance who did not before thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has pledged to repeal and replace. Syria casts a shadow Obama leaves behind a mixed record on the foreign policy front. The surprise Nobel Peace Prize he won in 2009 proved in some ways to be a poisoned chalice. The Nobel committee lauded his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" after less than eight months in office. But in accepting the award, Obama acknowledged his accomplishments were "slight" compared to those of the "giants of history" who preceded him. However, the onetime senator from Illinois can certainly claim to have made a clean break with the Bush years. He presided over the withdrawal of the vast majority of US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan (from 180,000 to 15,000) and banned waterboarding and other post-9/11 "enhanced interrogation techniques" now widely seen as torture. By bringing Iran Saudi Arabia's Shiite rival back into the international fold with a nuclear deal, and by showing that America had other priorities than the Middle East, notably in Asia and Africa, Obama tried to shuffle the deck. But his prudence and passivity in the face of chaos in war-wracked Syria, which has led to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, leaves a shadow over his tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. While rejecting his critics, Obama has admitted he was somewhat powerless. "It haunts me constantly," he told Vanity Fair magazine last year. "I do ask myself: 'Was there something that we hadn't thought of? Was there some move that is beyond what was being presented to me that maybe a Churchill could have seen, or an Eisenhower might have figured out?'" Highs and lows On certain issues, such as climate change, Obama, a constitutional law expert learned how to adapt. From the immense disappointment of the failed Copenhagen summit in 2009, he figured out that no global action would occur without Washington and Beijing working together. The Paris accord reached in late 2015 came together in large part thanks to their cooperation. On other issues, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Obama clearly failed. Two days after taking office, he signed a decree aimed at shutting down the US prison in Cuba within a year. Eight years later, although it holds far fewer inmates, the detention center is still there. History zigzags A talented orator, Obama will also be remembered for a handful of powerfully delivered speeches. In Charleston, where nine black parishioners were gunned down by a white supremacist during a Bible study session, Obama offered a rousing eulogy and then began singing "Amazing Grace." The thousands of mourners joined in. In Athens, he recognized how "democracy, like all human institutions, is imperfect. It can be slow; it can be frustrating; it can be hard; it can be messy." In Chicago, where he cut his political teeth, he tried in his farewell speech this month to channel the energy of those who elected him in November 2008. "I'm asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change but in yours," he said to cheers and some tears. Conscious that much of his legacy could be picked apart by his successor, Obama has maintained his fierce optimism his political calling card, mocked by some and hailed by others until the very end. After Trump's victory, he called on the country to accept that "sometimes, history zigzags" and move forward. It's useless, he said, to "get into a fetal position." Key allies Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Baloch nationalist parties are denying support to their senior partner. Islamabad: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is struggling to even get its allies nod on an extension to the military courts amid the oppositions strong resistance. Key allies Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazal) and Baloch nationalist parties are denying support to their senior partner. Sources in the government said that after his close aides failed him, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a meeting with JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and requested him to support the government on the extension of military courts in the country for a certain period to keep the momentum of the ongoing military operation Zarb-e-Azb but failed to convince him. These sources said that JUI-F leadership had not extended support to the 21st Constitutional Amendment which had paved the way for one-time establishment of the military courts for a period of two years. The minister also claimed that India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. Islamabad: Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday warned India of severe consequences in case of a surgical strike on his country. The minister also claimed that India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. "If India conducts a surgical strike, such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session, according to media. Earlier this month, Pakistan's Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor had quoted General Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that General Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat about 'so called surgical strikes' and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targeting terrorists and destroying their training camps, in September last year. General Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. General Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. Grabbing an M-16 rifle the then 26-year-old chased down the guerilla and shot him dead, saving his crew from a counterattack. US secretary of state John Kerry with Vo Ban Tam, 70, who was a member of the former Viet Cong and who took part in the attack on Mr Kerrys Swift Boat on February 28, 1969, while on a tour of the region in the Mekong River Delta. (Photo: AFP) Ca Mau: Viet Cong veteran Vo Ban Tam remembers the first time he crossed paths with John Kerry on the banks on the Bay Hap river, a day that ended in bloodshed. Almost a half-century later, the now 70-year-old Mekong Delta shrimp farmer locked eyes with the US secretary of state on Saturday and they warmly grasped hands in mutual respect. Mr Kerry returned to the Vietnam waterway at the end of a visit to the Communist nation, less than a week before he was to leave office, searching for the spot where he won a Silver Star for bravery as a young US Navy Lieutenant. On February 28, 1969, as the skipper of Swift Boat PCF-94, Mr Kerry was patrolling when Mr Vo Ban Tams unit launched an ambush. The plan, the Vietnamese guerilla told his former adversary on Saturday, was to use rifle and grenade fire to lure the heavily-armed American craft into range of a shoulder-held rocket launcher. This tactic had paid off for the Viet Cong in the past but on this day Mr Kerry made a dramatic decision, deliberately beaching his boat then storming ashore to pursue the operator. Grabbing an M-16 rifle the then 26-year-old chased down the guerilla and shot him dead, saving his crew from a counterattack. Vo Ban Tam remembered the dead man, 24-year-old Ba Thanh, as a respected member of the Viet Congs main force in Ca Mau province, trained to use the prized launcher. He was a good soldier, he recalled, speaking through an interpreter on the banks of same river, shortly after Mr Kerry re-visited the scene of the ambush for the first time. Mr Kerry had never before learned the name of the man he shot. During his unsuccessful 2004 White House campaign, opponents tarnished his war record by claiming he killed a teenager. But US officials preparing for Mr Kerrys visit tracked down Mr Vo Ban Tam and his account confirmed Mr Kerrys memory that his slain adversary was an adult. Mr Vo Ban Tam admitted that thanks to Kerry's action the Viet Cong had not been victorious that day. But he recalled proudly how his comrades often had the upper hand. We were guerrillas, we were never there where you were shooting, he boasted, telling Mr Kerry they could hear his boat coming that day a kilometre off. Well, Im glad were both alive, Mr Kerry said. Mr Kerry returned from Vietnam later in 1969. Despite holding Silver and Bronze stars for valour and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action, he became a prominent anti-war activist. The tall, young, erudite Yale graduate stood out among veterans and his devastating testimony before a Senate committee in 1971 sealed his celebrity. He forecast that Washingtons search-and-destroy missions and brutal pacification measures would fail to overcome the Vietnamese determination to resist foreign occupation. On behalf of his own American comrades in arms, he famously demanded: How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? Mr Kerry went on to become a senator, a presidential candidate and finally Secretary of State and he never forgot Vietnam. Earlier, the US president-elect told media that the long-standing policy was up for negotiation, in his latest comment on the issue. Beijing: China is running out of patience with Donald Trump's stance on Taiwan, state media said Monday, and will "take the gloves off" if he keeps challenging the One China policy. The US president-elect told media over the weekend that the long-standing policy was up for negotiation, in his latest comment on the issue. Trump had already irked China by accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen after he won the presidential election, upending decades of diplomatic precedent in which the US avoided direct public communication with the island's leader. The foreign ministry, for the second time in two days, warned Trump on Monday the One China policy was non-negotiable. Anyone who tries to use it as a bargaining chip will be met with "common opposition" and will ultimately "shoot oneself in the foot", foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing. The China Daily said in an editorial earlier Monday that Trump "will seldom be given the benefit of the doubt twice, because doing the same thing for a third time shows intent". The Taiwan issue is a "Pandora's box of lethal potential", it added. While the president-elect had been given the benefit of the doubt so far, it said, if he is "determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves." Trump has threatened to get tough with what he sees as unfair Chinese trade practises and suggested that the One China policy could become a bargaining chip in this. "Everything is under negotiation, including One China," he told the Journal in the interview published Friday. Beijing considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province to be brought back within its fold, by force if necessary, and the United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. China first warned Trump on the issue last month after he said he did not see why Washington must "be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade". But he has less leverage than he might think, warned the Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid thought to have close ties to hawkish elements of the ruling Communist Party. China will "mercilessly combat those who advocate Taiwan's independence", it said in an editorial Monday. If Trump chooses to use the island as a bargaining chip, it added, it "may be sacrificed as a result of this despicable strategy". Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen made two stops in the US this month while in transit to diplomatic allies in Central America, despite Beijing's objections. On her return to the island Sunday she said its "new direction" of diplomacy was clear. "We must all continue to work to let Taiwan be seen, to let Taiwan make its contribution to the world." What if Adolf Hitler did not commit suicide at his Berlin bunker, as we have all been told, but instead flew to Argentina after the collapse of the Third Reich? According to a report in Daily Mail, this is not just another conspiracy theory. Recent investigations for a television show by former CIA operative Bob Baer and Tim Kennedy, who were involved in capturing Al Qaeda leaders Osama Bin Laden and Abu al-Zarqawi, has opened up the possibility for an alternative version of history. After browsing through 14,000 declassified documents, the duo discovered that one document sourced from British intelligence claimed that just a day before Hitler took his own life, i.e. on April 29, 1945, he was flown out of Berlin by Luftwaffe pilot Captain Peter Baumgart. Also, investigators unearthed an earlier unknown fifth exit from Hitlers bunker, which lead to a space large enough to be a makeshift runway. Another document claimed that an SS officer had spotted Hitler in Denmark, before changing planes to his destination, according to the report. Evidence of a military-style compound in Argentina where Hitler may have stayed, was also discovered in the investigation. Adding to the drama, the only bodily remains of the Fuhrer, which have been accepted as authentic by historians, is a piece of his lower jaw possessed by the Russians. For Baer, only this could solve the conspiracy theories around the dictators death. But Russia has not released the piece of jaw for forensic study yet. The bodies of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun were swathed in blankets, placed in a bomb crater and set on fire, just outside the bunker, according to the Russian Army. After the remains were dug by Russian forensics, fragments of his skull and jaw were retrieved. The skull piece was dismissed as evidence in 2009, leaving the jaw shard as the only piece of evidence. According to the report, the corpse was interred in Magdeburg, East Germany where it remained after Stalins death in 1953. It also stated that Russias main security agency, KGB dug up the ashes in 1970 and scattered it in a river. Observing that there are no credible first-hand witnesses alive who saw the dictator, Baer claimed the jaw piece is the key to puzzle. 'If we want to conclude this story, I would get the lower jaw, Baer was quoted as saying. There are also conspiracy theories that Hitler was living with his girlfriend until in South America in 1984 with pictures of an elderly man, allegedly Hitler, surfacing on the internet. Khan said that PMs corruption was exposed in Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. Dera Ghazi Khan: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's regime is going to end soon as his corruption has been exposed by the Panama Paper leaks. "Allah has taken suo motu notice against Nawaz Sharif on Panama scandal," the Daily Times quoted Khan as saying while addressing a gathering. The PTI leader said that the Prime Minister's corruption was exposed in the Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. "Nawaz's counsel says the Sharif family purchased Mayfair apartments in 2006 but the BBC has revealed that the properties were purchased in 1990s," he added. "If Nawaz failed to prove London flats were owned by the Qatari prince in 1993 then he would leave and if he failed to prove Maryam was not the beneficial owner of London properties he would still have to leave," he said. Khan briefed the audience on the Panama case and conducted an informal audience poll asking attendees whether they believed the Sharif would be proven guilty in the case. He added that the entire country was fed up of 'Sharif rule' and that the PTI would attempt to shape Pakistan in light of the Islamic teachings. Terming the ongoing Panama case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children a 'war against corruption', Imran Khan said the country would soon be rid of the 'Sharif mafia'. by Loula Lahham This is the third attack against minority Copts since the start of the year. Bassam Safouat Zaki was originally from Asyut. His murder follows that of a couple in Monufia and that of man who was attacked in broad daylight in Alexandria by a man shouting Allah Akbar". Cairo (AsiaNews) In the past two weeks, several Copts have been murdered in Egypt. Even before the dust settled over the murder of a Coptic merchant in Alexandria (220 km north of Cairo) on 3 January, Egyptian security forces found the body of a Coptic doctor killed last Friday at his home, stabbed in the throat. Dr Bassam Safouat Zaki was general surgeon in Asyut (370 km south of Cairo). Initial findings indicate that he was stabbed in the neck, chest and back and bled to death through his mouth, nose and ears. A few days earlier, on 5 January, security forces discovered the bodies of a Coptic couple, Gamal Sami Guirguis and Nadia Amin Guirguis, stabbed to death in their home as they slept, in Monufia Governorate, northern Egypt, about 85 km from the Egyptian capital. Following the investigation, local law enforcement arrested some suspects but did not announce the reasons for the double murder. Two days earlier, an Alexandria merchant had his throat cut by an alleged Islamist in the middle of the street in front of passers-by and residents of his neighbourhood. As he stabbed Youssef Lamaei, the attacker shouted Allah Akbar". During his interrogation, he said "I told him several times not to sell the alcohol, but he did not listen to me". These three attacks come only a month after the suicide bomber blew himself up on 11 December against the Church of SS Peter and Paul (El-Botroseya), which is located next to see of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Cairo. Some 29 people were killed, and dozens wounded. "Every time I go out, I am afraid of being the next victim, said Adel Ishak, a 30-year-old accountant who knew three of the victims of the December attack. Still, In the end, I am able to overcome this feeling of fear and I go to church, " said the father of one speaking to AsiaNews. by Santosh Digal Naba Kishore Patra is a catechist in the diocese of Balasore. Born and raised in a Hindu family, he married a Catholic woman, who introduced him to the Christian faith. Vincentian priests and nuns nurtured the seed of his faith. Now he wants "to work hard for the mission". Balasore (AsiaNews) "I am proud of my faith in Jesus Christ and I am grateful to my wife for encouraging me to accept the Catholic faith, said Naba Kishore Patra, a retired soldier who spoke to AsiaNews. A member of St Pauls Parish in of Hatigarh, diocese of Balasore (Odisha), Naba was born into a Hindu family. He converted to Christianity after he got married. After retirement, he decided to dedicate his life to the parish, where he serves as a catechist. Naba, 60, is the last of five children. He and his four older brothers Harilal, Motilal, Jarilal and Sukhlal were raised as Hindu. His name means "new." He is sure that "God had a plan that inspired my parents to give me that name." After high school, he joined the military. Later, his family arranged his marriage to Shantilata, a Catholic woman who had been adopted by the late Mgr Jacob Vadakkaveetil CM, the former bishop of the diocese. For him, the "greatest blessing was marrying a Catholic woman, who instilled in me the faith. Afterwards, priests and nuns nurtured that seed and today I am proud to be a catechist." Naba converted to Christianity thanks to his wife, and with the spiritual support of priests of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity (the male and female societies of apostolic life founded by Saint Vincent de Paul). He served in the military for 26 years, going from private to junior commissioner officer. For him, "All this happened thanks to God's blessing. In 2001 he left the forces and decided to follow God's "call to work for evangelisation". After training for a semester for four consecutive years (12 months in total), "I became a full-time catechist. This period allowed me to be well trained, and provided me with the qualities needed to bring the word of God to different places and among different people." His "rules" of missionary work are: "Dedication to prayer and devotion, availability to serve, ability to forgive and sacrifice for the good of others, read the Bible every day, build good relations between Christians and believers of other religions, have the courage to live a Christian life, attend Mass every day, and live in simplicity and humility." "Christ is in me, he is my pride," Naba noted. For this reason, his advice to other catechists is "to work hard for the mission. If we have faith in God, he will bless our missionary work." It had left Hong Kong bound for Istanbul. The cause of the disaster seem to be the weather. The plane crashed into about 15 houses, killing entire families, some caught in their sleep. The Kyrgyz president has interrupted a trip to China to return immediately to the capital. Bishkek (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A Turkish plane this morning crashed into some houses near the airport of the Kyrgyz capital killing at least 32 people, including six children. The ACT Airlines plane had left Hong Kong at 3.12 (where he was registered as a Turkish Airlines flight TK6491) and was headed for Istanbul. At 7:40 (local time) the plane, a 14 year old Boeing 747, had to make a stop-over at the Manas airport (near Bishkek), but crashed into a group of houses in the village of Datcha-Suu. Witnesses said the plane exploded burning several houses. A spokesman for the Ministry for Emergencies, Mukhammed Svarov, , said that the disaster was due to "bad weather." The weather this morning in Bishkek was characterized by temperatures of - 11 C and dense fog. According to news on social networks, the plane crashed into about 15 houses, killing entire families, some still caught in their sleep. All flights into Bishkek have been canceled and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaiev has interrupted a trip to China to return immediately to the capital. by Wang Zhicheng In prison, he was forced to take daily medicine "against the high blood pressure" (which he has never had). Long periods spent locked in a narrow iron cage. The testimony of his sister-in-law Wang Qiaoling and thanks his wife Bi Liping: "Expose the crimes of the Tianjin police. Show them to the light of day". The magazine "China Change" demands an international investigation into abuses against Human Rights lawyers (many of them are Christians). Beijing (AsiaNews) - Li Chunfu, a Human Rights lawyer arrested during the so-called "709 incident" and released on January 12 awaiting trial, after 18 months in prison is showing signs of schizophrenia. This has been established by the doctors Huilongguan Hospital, where he was hospitalized on 14 January. During his captivity he was subjected to severe torture and treated like a mental case and forced to take drugs that has ruined his mind. For different periods he was forced to live in a a metal cage one meter by two. Chunfu Li, 45, is the younger brother of Li Heping, a Christian lawyer, who was also arrested along with 300 other human rights defenders. The editors of the magazine "China Change" are calling on the international community to insist on an investigation of the abuses which all these lawyers suffer. Meanwhile, the wife of Li Heping, Wang Qiaoling, who is fighting for her husbands release, is also following the situation of the brother in law and holds a record of what has happened. Here is the story of Li Chunfus visit to the Beijing hospital on 14 December (published yesterday by "China Change"). Yesterday on the fourth floor of the Huilongguan Hospital () in Beijing, sitting outside the examination ward, Bi Liping (), the wife of rights lawyer Li Chunfu (), received a phone call from Officer Yang of the Tongzhou District, Jiaowang Village police station. My sister-in-law is always calm and soft-spoken but this time she roared into the phone. Officer Yang, Ive been cooperating with you people for 18 months now. You told me not to speak out, not to work with my sister-in-law, and Ive followed what you said. But now look what has happened to Chunfu! His mind is shattered! Just what did you people do to him?! What did you do?! Were not through with this! Sitting outside the clinic, Chunfus eyes would fix on whoever he was looking at, and he had trouble communicating with people smoothly. At one point he blurted out to the lawyer friends with us: By the first six months of residential surveillance Id already gone mad. I was shouting and screaming. I felt a cold sweat when I heard those words come from Chunfus mouth all of a sudden. I didnt question him further. I just fixed my gaze on him, not daring to think or speak. He continued: On January 5 they took me out of the detention center. They didnt go through any procedures. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs! They did everything to me. But I didnt do anything illegal; all I did was, once, stand outside the public security bureau in the Northeast with a placard demanding my right to see my client. They wanted me to write a confession, but I wouldnt do it no matter what. I knew that if I did it they would capture it on camera behind me, and my brother Li Heping and other lawyers would all be harmed! He paused for a moment, then added: Dont tell anyone this. A lot of people will be hurt. These are Chunfus exact words, and Im not sure everyone understands what he means. Later that evening, Liping saw that Chunfus nerves had calmed down a bit, and she took him by the hand and asked him gently: Have you not had medicine for a few days? Chunfu hesitated for a moment, then responded: They gave me medicine every day. I havent had any the last few days. Its unbearable Chunfu did not have high blood pressure, and yesterday at the hospital the doctors said that his blood pressure was normal. But in the detention center the doctor forced him to take medicine every day, saying it was for his high blood pressure. And the hypertension medication began the first day he was arrested. Liping and I couldnt hold back anymore tears welled up. This morning we took Chunfu out for a walk. He asked in fright: Will the police take away our whole family? Family members of the 709 lawyers, Wang Qiaoling (, wife of Li Heping [], brother to Li Chunfu) Li Wenzu (, wife of Wang Quanzhang []) Bi Liping (wife of Li Chunfu) January 15, 2017 Addendum: A letter of thanks from Bi Liping I want to thank all our friends! I also want to tell all family members of the 709 rights defense lawyers: dont be kind and silent like me, or youll end up in the same situation Im in. Stand up, expose the crimes of the Tianjin police. Show them to the light of day! I thank everyone again for their care. Your concern and love has given us the energy to persevere through this. Bi Liping, wife of 709 lawyer Li Chunfu January 15, 2017 Over 70 countries, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Arab League attended the meeting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas absent. The final communique result of long negotiations between the parties. No direct reference to unresolved issues, including the status of Jerusalem and the US embassy move. Paris (AsiaNews / Agencies) - An appeal to Israel and Palestine to renew their "commitment" to a peace agreement in the Middle East "in view of the two states" solution and an invitation to both countries to "avoid" unilateral actions, they can "affect" the outcome of negotiations. With attention to three particular elements: borders, the status of Jerusalem and the issue concerning refugees. This is, in summary, the contents of the final communique issued at the end of the international conference on peace in the Middle East, which was held yesterday in Paris, France, on the initiative of President Francois Hollande. The meeting was attended by leaders of over 70 countries, including the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the leaders of the Arab League. At the conclusion of those present, except for the United Kingdom, signed the joint statement. London expressed "strong reservations" about a peace conference organized a few days from the change in US leadership [the oath of Donald Trump is scheduled on January 20] and at which, among other things, the stakeholders were not even present. Indeed the absence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen from the Parisian meeting stood out. The final document of the Conference was the subject of lengthy negotiations between the parties. In the end the line of not addressing the details of the problems prevailed, instead referring only to the outstanding issues and guidelines to address and resolve them. In particular, there were no direct references to the construction of new settlements by Israel in the Palestinian territory. Another central issue that was not addressed was the decision of neo US President Trump to transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. A move that has met the appreciation of the leaders of Israel and sparked strong protests among Palestinians. On the eve of the conference (an initiative appreciated by the Palestinians), Netanyahu spoke of a "useless" meeting agreed by Palestinian and French "trying to impose conditions that are irreconcilable with the national interests on Israel." He spoke of a meeting that "reflects the last gasps of yesterdays world," and tomorrow "will have another look." A reference, not too veiled, to the change of leadership in Washington. For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the international meeting in Paris, which "reaffirms the principles of law and international resolutions" for the birth of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as capital. The conference in the French capital comes at a time of high tensions between Israel and Palestine, which has repeatedly resulted in serious incidents of violence sparked by last months UN resolution - approved by the outgoing US administration - which denounced the expansion of settlements activities promoted by Israel. A second vote is scheduled for this week, to be followed by a referendum for final approval. The ruling party obtained the required three fifths needed thanks to the support of a far-right party. Kurdish MPs boycotted the vote. In recent days, MPs clashed in parliament. Ankara (AsiaNews/Agencies) Turkey's parliament has given preliminary approval to a new constitution which will increase the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A second round of voting is scheduled for later this week. If the proposal is approved, a referendum will follow to sanction the new charter. Critics, including human rights groups and international organisations, claim it amounts to a power grab by Mr Erdogan. Conversely, the latter claims the changed system will be like that of France and the United States. The new constitution will allow the president to appoint and dismiss ministers. It abolished the post of prime minister, but there will be at least one vice president. The bill's final articles were passed late on Sunday, with the governing AK Party (AKP) gaining the three-fifths majority it needed. To secure it, the AKP relied on the support of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, the fourth largest in the legislature. However, the debates over the constitution changes were heated. Last week, a fight broke out in parliament after the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi, AKP) clashed with members of the Republican's People Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), the biggest opposition party, which opposes the changes. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) boycotted the vote altogether. Several of its MPs have been jailed on charges of supporting Kurdish militants, considered terrorists by the government. Turkey has been in a state of emergency since a failed coup in July 2016. Thousands of intellectuals, dissidents, government officials, members of the armed forces, journalists, and ordinary citizens have been detained. The status was extended after a series of attacks on the country, including a mass shooting in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Eve. Mr Erdogan, 62, came to power in 2002, a year after the AKP's formation. He spent 11 years as Turkey's prime minister before becoming, in 2014, the country's first directly-elected president a supposedly ceremonial role that he has used to extend his power through the ongoing constitutional reform. by Uri Avnery The great Israeli leader and pacifist gives his thoughts a few hours before the Paris Conference. By tolerating Hamas and treating Abbas as an enemy, the Israeli government hinders real peace negotiations. Peoples conferences should be held to overcome the most difficult aspects of future Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) Twenty-four hours before the opening of the Middle East peace conference in Paris, Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery points to the only viable path to a peace agreement: a two-states solution. He believes that that an independent Palestinian state can only emerge through collaboration between the forces of peace on both sides. With this in mind, he proposes the establishment of monthly grassroots conferences to address various aspects of future coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Only an agreement can avert the risk of a perpetual civil war. Courtesy of Gush Shalom. The Arab taxi driver who brought me to Ramallah had no trouble with the Israeli border posts. He just evaded them. Saves a lot of trouble. I was invited by Mahmood Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority (as well as of the PLO and the Fatah movement) to take part in joint Palestinian-Israeli consultations in advance of the international conference in Paris. Since Binyamin Netanyahu has refused to take part in the Paris event side by side with Mahmood Abbas, the Ramallah meeting was to demonstrate that a large part of Israeli society does support the French initiative. SIMPLE AS it sounds, the Ramallah meeting was not simple at all. Before the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, such meetings were almost routine. Since our groundbreaking first meeting in Beirut in 1982, during the Israeli blockade, Arafat met many Israelis. Arafat had almost absolute moral authority, and even his home-grown rivals accepted his judgment. Since, after our first meeting, he decided that Israeli-Palestinian meetings served the cause of Palestinian-Israeli peace, he encouraged many such events. After his murder, the opposite trend gained the upper hand. Palestinian extremists held that any meetings with Israelis, whoever they might be, served "normalization" a terrible, terrible bogeyman. Abbas has now put an end to this nonsense. Like me, he believes that Palestinian statehood and independence can come about only through a joint struggle of the peace forces on both sides, with the help of international forces. In this spirit, he invited us to Ramallah, since Palestinians are not normally allowed into Israeli territory. He seated me next to him on the stage, and so the meeting started. MAHMOOD ABBAS or "Abu Mazen"', as he is generally known was gracious enough to mention that he and I have been friends for 34 years since we first met in Tunis, soon after the PLO had left Beirut and moved there. Through a number of years, when my friends and I came to Tunis, the same procedure was followed: first we met with Abu Mazen, who was in charge of Israeli affairs, and drew up plans for joint action. Then we all moved to Arafat's office. Arafat, who had an almost uncanny capacity for making quick decisions, would decide within minutes "yes" or 'no". There could hardly be two more different characters than Abu-Amar (Arafat) and Abu-Mazen. Arafat was a "warm" type. He embraced and kissed his visitors in the old Arab style a kiss on each cheek for ordinary visitors, three kisses for preferred ones. After five minutes, you felt as if you had known him all your life. Mahmood Abbas is a much more reserved person. He embraces and kisses too, but it does not come quite as naturally as with Arafat. He is more withdrawn. He looks more like a high-school principal. I have a lot of respect for Mahmood Abbas. He needs tremendous courage to do his job the leader of a people under brutal military occupation, compelled to cooperate with the occupation in some matters, endeavoring to resist in others. The aim of his people is to endure and survive. He is good at that. When I complimented him on his courage, he laughed and said that it was more courageous of me to enter Beirut during the siege of 1982. Thanks. The Israeli government succeeded, even before Netanyahu, in splitting the Palestinians in the country into two. By the simple device of refusing to honor their solemn pledge under Oslo to create four "safe passages" between The West Bank and Gaza, they made a split almost inevitable. Now, while officially treating the moderate Abbas as a friend and the extremist Hamas in Gaza as an enemy, our government behaves exactly the other way. Hamas is tolerated, Abbas is considered an enemy. That seems perverse but is really quite logical: Abbas can sway public opinion throughout the world in favor of a Palestinian state, Hamas cannot. AFTER THE Ramallah meeting, in a private session, I submitted to Abbas a plan for consideration. It is based on the appreciation that Netanyahu will never agree to real peace negotiations, since these will lead inevitably to the Two-State Solution, tut-tut-tut. I propose to convene a "Popular Peace Conference", which will meet, say, once a month inside the country. In each session, the conference will deal with one of the paragraphs of the future peace agreement, such as the final location of the borders, the character of the borders (open?), Jerusalem, Gaza, water resources, security arrangements, refugees, and so on. An equal number of experts and activists from each side will deliberate, put everything on the table and thrash it all out. If agreement can be reached, wonderful. If not, the proposals of both sides will be clearly defined and the item left for later. In the end, after, say, half a year, the final "popular peace agreement" will be published, even with defined disagreements, for the guidance of the peace movements on both sides. Deliberations on the disagreements will continue until agreement is found. Abbas listened attentively, as is his wont, and in the end I promised to send him a written memorandum. I just did so, after consulting with some of my colleagues, like Adam Keller, the Gush Shalom spokesman. Mahmood Abbas is now preparing to attend the Paris conference, the official aim of which is to mobilize the world for the Two-State Solution. SOMETIMES I WONDER how I do not get infected with megalomania. (Some of my friends believe that this cannot happen to me, since I already am a megalomaniac.) A few weeks after the end of the 1948 war, a tiny group of young people in the new State of Israel met in Haifa to debate a path to peace based on what is now called the Two-State solution. One was a Jew (me), one a Muslim and one a Druze. I, just released from hospital, was still wearing my army uniform. The group was completely ignored by everybody. No takers. Some ten years later, when I was already a member of the Knesset (as, by the way, were the other two), I went abroad to see who could be convinced. I wandered around Washington DC, met with important people in the White House, the State Department and the UN delegations in New York. On the way home I was received in the Foreign Offices in London, Paris and Berlin. No takers, anywhere. A Palestinian state? Nonsense. Israel must deal with Egypt, Jordan et al. I made many dozens of speeches about this proposal in the Knesset. Some powers started to take it up. The first was the Soviet Union, though rather late, under Leonid Brezhnev (1969). Others followed. Today there is no one around who believes in anything but the Two-State Solution. Even Netanyahu pretends to believe in it, if only the Palestinians would become Jews or emigrate to Greenland. Yes, I know that I didn't do it. History did it. But I might be excused for feeling just a tiny little bit of pride. Or a mini-megalomania. THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION is neither good nor bad. It is the only. The only solution there is. I know that there are a number of good, even admirable people who believe in the so-called One-State Solution. I would ask them to consider the details: what it would look like, how it would actually function, the army, the police, the economy, the parliament. Apartheid? Perpetual civil war? No. Since 1948 everything has changed, but nothing has changed. Sorry, the Two-State Solution is still the only game in town. Oxfam Says A Handful Of Super-Billionaires Control More Wealth Than Half The World Trending News: The Worlds Income Inequality Is Even Crazier Than You Think Long Story Short The net worth of the worlds wealthiest eight billionaires exceeds that of the worlds poorest half, according to a report by the British charity Oxfam. Long Story As the worlds elite gather for their annual international gabfest in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, Oxfams timely report is a good reminder that global wealth is dangerously concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable and filthy rich few. In An Economy for the 99%, Oxfam points out that the eight richest people on the planet, with a combined worth of $426 billion, control the same amount of money as the poorest people on the planet. Thats over 3.5 billion people. Oxfam says the very design of our economies and the principles of our economics have taken us to this extreme, unsustainable and unjust point, and that despite statements from the World Bank and the World Economic Forum paying lip service to fighting income inequality, the situation has only become more extreme. Left unchecked, growing inequality threatens to pull our societies apart, the report continues. It increases crime and insecurity, and undermines the fight to end poverty. It leaves more people living in fear and fewer in hope. The report links Brexit, Donald Trumps electoral victory, and rises in racism and xenophobia in the developed world on frustrations resulting from income stagnation, lack of jobs and greater inequality. Oxfam says that we should applaud the fact that hundreds of millions of people have risen out of poverty in recent decades, but notes also that hundreds of millions more remain extremely poor: one in nine people, it states, still goes to bed hungry. Three-quarters of extreme poverty could be eliminated using existing resources, increasing taxation on the wealthy and reducing military expenditures and other regressive spending, says the charity. For the record, here are the eight billionaires, their estimated net worth, and the source of their wealth: Bill Gates ($75 billion, Microsoft); Amancio Ortega ($67 billion, Zara); Warren Buffett ($60.8 billion, Berkshire Hathaway); Carlos Slim Helu ($50 billion, Telecom); Jeff Bezos ($45.2 billion, Amazon); Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6 billion, Facebook); Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion, Oracle); and Michael Bloomberg ($40 billion, Bloomberg LP). Own The Conversation Ask The Big Question Can we rely on billionaires to agree to redistribute some of their wealth more equitably? Drop This Fact Not all billionaires earned their money the hard way (by earning it). According to Oxfam, of the 1,800 or so billionaires today, one-third inherited their billions, while the wealth of 43% percent was the result of one form of cronyism or another. Its a fact of life for most blackjack players that some hands will leave them feeling a little squeamish. FTAs are helping Aussie fruit and veg producers, IBISWorld Free trade agreements (FTAs) secured by Australia with China, Japan and South Korea in 2014 and 2015 are benefiting Australian fruit and vegetable producers according to new data analysed and published by IBISWorld. Analysing the impact of the FTAs, Senior Industry Analyst at IBISWorld, Sam Johnson, said although many tariffs will remain for some years yet, Australian farmers have been busy creating important supply links with wholesalers and retailers across China, Japan and South Korea. Australian fruit and vegetable exports to Asia, particularly to countries that have FTAs with Australia, will continue to enjoy healthy growth over the next five years and well into the future as Australia positions itself as a major food supplier for increasingly wealthy Asian consumers, Johnson said. Citrus, banana and almond growers in for a win Citrus, banana and other fruit growers have welcomed the FTAs, with revenue from exports growing at an annualised 19.9 per cent over the five years through 2016-17. Exports in the Citrus, Banana and Other Fruit Growing industry will generate AUD $689.6 million in the current financial year, said Johnson. Australian almonds have performed particularly well, outpacing robust export growth across the overall industry. While FTAs have contributed to this success, almond growers have enjoyed larger harvests due to significant planting in 2006 and 2007. Water shortages that adversely affected Californian growers, the worlds largest supplier of almonds, also pushed global prices upwards over 2015 and 2016, added Johnson. Asia after Aussie veggies Outdoor vegetable growers have also benefitted from the FTAs, with revenue from exports increasing at an annualised 8.9 per cent over the five years through 2016-17. According to IBISWorld, exports of outdoor vegetables will generate AUD $303.7 million in 2016-17, said Johnson. Asparagus exports to South Korea have driven some growth over the last five years, rising in value by 123 per cent between 2014 and 2015. Other vegetables that have been successful in China, Japan and South Korea under the FTAs include lettuces, broccoli and broccolini, beans, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, celery and peas, added Johnson. The total value of Australian vegetable exports to China alone increased from AUD $570,000 in 2014-15 to AUD $17.2 million in the following year. FTAs not good for everyone While the FTAs are largely positive for Australian producers, the story is less positive in some areas, Johnson said. Avocado growers have yet to benefit from falling tariffs on their produce. Despite tariffs on Australian avocados entering China set to fall from 25 per cent to 0 per cent from January 2019 onward, Australian avocado growers have yet to secure access to Chinese markets, he stated. A lack of quarantine market access protocol means that growers will have to prove that quarantine risks are manageable and import processes can be safely implemented. Meanwhile, Mexican and Chilean avocados have already secured access to China, which could limit the growth potential for domestic growers once exports to China commence, stated Johnson. Related articles Lamb Australia Day ad embraces diversity but vegetarians still unhappy Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has released its Australia Day lamb advertisement for 2017 with this years commercial focused around celebrating diversity. The ad begins with a group of indigenous Australias preparing for a BBQ on the beach but they are quickly interrupted when the First Fleet comes ashore. Soon after, people from different ethnic and cultural groups appear ready for a party. A variety of Australian celebrities make an appearance in the ad including Cathy Freeman, Wendell Sailor, Adam Gilchrist, Poh Ling Yeow, Rhys Nicholson, and of course Sam Kekovich, who features each year as a humorous spokesperson. The advertisement was created by The Monkeys creative agency and was directed by Paul Middletich. Group Marketing Manager at MLA, Andrew Howie, said as a brand lamb stands for unity. Australia is the greatest country on earth and lamb is the nations favourite meat. Hence we have brought those two things together to prove we should be able to celebrate this great country every day of the year, he said. The ad follows 2016s MLA Australia Day lamb ad which appeared in 2016s top 10 most complained about ads to the Australian Advertising Standards Board. Although all complaints were dismissed by the Board, numerous complaints were made saying the ad was offensive to indigenous Australians, vegans and depicted violence. Meat alternatives group takes on ad At the same time MLAs 2017 Australia Day ad was released, a company selling plant-based meat alternatives have launched its own online video asking that Australians not equate Australias national holiday with the eating meat. Featuring comedian Dave Hughes, the Alternative Meat Co video sees him tell Australians to consider sometimes eating vegetarian instead of meat. In a nod to MLAs Australia Day lamb ads, Dave Hughes finishes the ad by saying Sorry Sam in reference to Sam Kekovich who always appears in the MLA ads. Dean Epps, General Manager at Life Health Foods Australia, the creators of the Alternative Meat Co, said its ad does not aim to convince people they should be vegetarian. As Hughsey correctly references, it doesnt need to moo to be true blue, Epps said. Our country has some of the most diverse foods in the world available, so why not throw something Vego on the barbie this Australia Day, he stated. Sam Kekovich also promoting pet food this Australia Day While Sam Kekovich only makes a brief appearance in the 2017 Australia Day lamb ad, he is playing a bigger role in an advertising campaign for Mars Advance pet food, encouraging Australians to buy lamb based pet food for their dogs on Australia Day. In reference to the first Australia Day lamb ad Kekovich featured in, he addresses the nations dogs, asking them to make sure their owners only buy Advance lamb pet food for Australia Day. Australia Day falls on Thursday 26 January 2017. It is the official National Day of Australia and is held on the anniversary of the landing of the British First Fleet at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. Related articles Two top firms have advised on EMR Capital's acquisition of MMG Limited's Golden Grove mine in Western Australia.Allen & Overy was the legal adviser of EMR Capital while Clayton Utz acted for MMG Limited.MMG entered into a conditional share sale agreement with EMR Golden Grove Holdings Pty Ltd, an entity owned and managed by Melbourne-based EMR Capital.The US$210 million deal for the sale of the copper-zinc-lead-precious metals mine is expected to close next month, subject to customary approvals.Allen & Overy has been a long-time advisor of EMR, as noted by the firm's Perth managing partner and global head of mining Geoff Simpson.The MMG acquisition follows EMRs acquisition of the Martabe gold and silver mine in Indonesia and its acquisition of the Capricorn Copper mine in Queensland, both of which Allen & Overy has advised on, he said.The acquisition is further proof of a recovery in deal confidence in the mining sector after years of stagnation.Meanwhile, Clayton Utz corporate partner Brett Cohen leads the firm's team on the transaction. He is assisted by senior associate Armin Fazely and lawyers Kaley Ohariw and Milana Sarenac.The core transaction team has been supported by specialist teams from Clayton Utz including tax, environment, native title and employment.We are pleased to have been given the opportunity to provide strategic advice and support to this longstanding client of Clayton Utz, working alongside MMG and its financial adviser Goldman Sachs to execute the sale agreement for this transaction in a compressed timeframe over the 2016 Christmas holiday break, said Cohen.Last November, EMR raised $1.1 billion mostly from American investors for a new fund in Australia. In early December, the firm was rumored to be looking at the Golden Grove mine which was being sold through Goldman Sachs. The outlook for this years deals shows some signs of optimism, a new report from Baker McKenzie says.The global law firm sees a return of optimism this year, albeit cautious, while M&A activity will be largely unchanged from 2016, maybe slightly down. The second half of the year is likely to see an uptick in deals in readiness for a stronger 2018.Uncertainty surrounding the new US president and Brexit are two key challenges facing the deals market this year with Bakers global chair saying that increased transactions comes with a caveat: we need a benign Trump on trade and a soft-ish Brexit.Chinas economy and low commodity prices were exacerbated by US and UK political change, resulting in a weak year for deals. IPOs were also lower last year but are predicted to rebound this year and for the following two years with tech and healthcare showing particular strength.Transatlantic law firm Mishcon de Reya has entered the legal technology space with the launch of an innovation fund for startups.The MDR LAB incubator program will help firms work within the legal sector to enhance the development of their products. Several firms will be invited to Mishcons offices later this year to work alongside lawyers for ten weeks to gain valuable industry insight.The law firm is keen to work with tech firms developing litigation, transactional law and business of law startups in particular.The program has been launched in conjunction with innovation and specialist investors L Mark.Simmons & Simmons has boosted its Asia Pacific litigation team with the relocation of highly regarded partner Marc Thorley from London to Hong Kong.Thorley will focus on financial markets litigation, investigations and contentious regulatory, but will also work with the firms regional corporate litigation team. BP and Woolworths have lawyered up for the review of their $1.8 billion deal. Corrs Chambers Westgarth and Clayton Utz have been given the mandate by BP and Woolworths respectively to prepare for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions review of their deal, a report from the AFRs Street Talk reveals.Last month, Woolworths confirmed that it planned to sell its petrol station chain to BP for $1.8 billion to refocus on its core supermarket business.Street Talk notes that Corrs has been beavering away in the background for some months in preparation for the examination, while Woolworths is said to have Clayton Utz lawyers in its corner.BP will be acquiring 527 Woolworths fuel outlets which are currently supplied by Caltex Australia. It will also be acquiring 16 development sites.The british oil giant has more than 1,350 petrol stations across Australia with 350 being company-owned and 1,000 BP-branded but are independently-owned.According to Credit Suisse data cited by Street Talk, BP will have about 1,927 sites if the acquisition goes through. Rival Caltex has 1,900 while Shell and Coles Express have 980 and 692, respectively.The sale comes after Woolworths took a $1.8 billion impairment charge for its failed entry into the hardware business. By Matthew Hole, Senior Research Fellow, Plasma Research Laboratory, Australian National University IPP, Matthias Otte In a world struggling to kick its addiction to fossil fuels and feed its growing appetite for energy, theres one technology in development that almost sounds too good to be true: nuclear fusion. If it works, fusion power offers vast amounts of clean energy with a near limitless fuel source and virtually zero carbon emissions. Thats if it works. But there are teams of researchers around the world and billions of dollars being spent on making sure it does. In February last year a new chapter of fusion energy research commenced with the formal opening of Wendelstein 7-X. This is an experimental 1 billion (A$1.4bn) fusion reactor built in Greifswald, Germany, to test a reactor design called a stellarator. It is planned that by around 2021 it will be able to operate for up to 30 minutes duration, which would be a record for a fusion reactor. This is an important step en-route to demonstrating an essential feature of a future fusion power plant: continuous operation. But the W-7X isnt the only fusion game in town. In southern France ITER is being built, a $US20 billion (A$26.7bn) experimental fusion reactor that uses a different design called a tokamak. However, even though the W-7X and ITER employ different designs, the two projects complement each other, and innovations in one are likely to translate to an eventual working nuclear fusion power plant. Twists and turns Fusion energy seeks to replicate the reaction that powers our Sun, where two very light atoms, such as hydrogen or helium, are fused together. The resulting fused atom ends up slightly lighter than the original two atoms, and the difference in mass is converted to energy according to Einsteins formula E=mc. CCFE The difficulty comes in encouraging the two atoms to fuse, which requires them to be heated to millions of degrees Celsius. Containing such a superheated fuel is no easy feat, so its turned into a hot ionised gas a plasma which can be contained within a magnetic field so it doesnt actually touch the inside of the reactor. What makes the W-7X particularly interesting is its stellarator design. It comprises a vacuum chamber embedded in a magnetic bottle created by a system of 70 superconducting magnet coils. These produce a powerful magnetic field for confining the hot plasma. Stellarators and tokamaks are both types of toroidal (doughnut-shaped) magnetic confinement devices that are being investigated for fusion power. In these experiments a strong toroidal (or ring) magnetic field creates a magnetic bottle to confine the plasma. However, in order for the plasma to have good confinement in the doughnut-shaped chamber, the magnetic field needs to have a twist. In a tokamak, such as in the ITER reactor, a large current flows in the plasma to generate the required twisted path. However, the large current can drive kink instabilities, which can cause the plasma to become disrupted. If the plasma is disrupted, the reactor needs to be flooded with gas to quench the plasma and prevent it from damaging the experiment. IPP In a stellarator, the twist in the magnetic field is obtained by twisting the entire machine itself. This removes the large toroidal current, and makes the plasma intrinsically more stable. The cost comes in the engineering complexity of the field coils and reduced confinement, meaning the plasma is less easily contained within the magnetic bubble. Come together While the W7-X and ITER use different approaches, most of the underlying technology is identical. They are both toroidal superconducting machines, and both use external heating systems such as radio frequency and neutral beam injection to heat the plasma, and much of the plasma diagnostic technology is in common. In a power plant, heavy isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) fuse to form helium along with an energetic neutron. While the helium is contained within the plasma, the neutron is has a neutral electric charge, and shoots off into the blanket surrounding the plasma. This heats it up, which in turn drives a steam turbine that generates electricity. A common feature across fusion power is the need to develop materials that can withstand the high heat and fast neutrons generated by the fusion reaction. Regardless of design, the first wall of a fusion reactor has to withstand a massive bombardment from high energy particles throughout its lifetime. At this stage, its too early to tell whether the tokamak design used by ITER or the stellarator used by W-7X will be better suited for a commercial fusion power plant. But the commencement of research operation of W-7X will not only help decide which technology might be best to pursue, but will contribute valuable knowledge to any future fusion experiments, and perhaps one day a true energy revolution. Matthew Hole receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian National University. Matthew is also the inaugural Chair of the Australian ITER Forum, a consortium of over 180 scientists and engineers in support of an Australian engagement in ITER, a member of the IAEA International Fusion Research Council, and Vice Chair of the Division of Plasma Physics of the Association of Asia Pacific Physics Societies. Originally published in The Conversation. Maruti Ignis price and complete variant break-up Maruti Ignis prices start at Rs 4.59 lakh; here's a complete variant-wise break-up. 2,53,492 Views Follow us on The Maruti Ignis has just been launched in India. It is the most affordable model under the automakers premium Nexa dealership chain and is available in four variants Sigma, Delta, Zeta, Alpha like other Nexa models and makes use of Marutis tried and tested 83hp, 1.2-litre petrol and 75hp, 1.3-litre diesel engines. The car can also be booked online on the Maruti Nexa website. Most dealers are quoting a waiting period of roughly four weeks for the hatchback after its launch, depending on the variant. Read our Maruti Ignis review Maruti Ignis petrol prices (ex-showroom, Delhi) Sigma M/T - Rs 4.59 lakh Rs 4.59 lakh Delta M/T - Rs 5.19 lakh Rs 5.19 lakh Delta AMT - Rs 5.74 lakh Rs 5.74 lakh Zeta M/T - Rs 5.75 lakh Rs 5.75 lakh Zeta AMT - Rs 6.30 lakh Rs 6.30 lakh Alpha M/T - Rs 6.69 lakh Maruti Ignis diesel prices (ex-showroom, Delhi) Delta M/T - Rs 6.39 lakh Rs 6.39 lakh Delta AMT - Rs 6.94 lakh Rs 6.94 lakh Zeta M/T - Rs 6.91 lakh Rs 6.91 lakh Zeta AMT - Rs 7.46 lakh Rs 7.46 lakh Alpha M/T - Rs 7.80 lakh Here is a look at the equipment available across the trim levels Maruti Ignis Sigma (Petrol manual only) Air conditioner and heater 12V power outlet Tilt adjust steering Front power windows with driver side auto down Dual airbags ABS with EBD ISOFIX child seat anchors Speed sensing door locks Driver seatbelt reminder 15-inch steel wheels Maruti Ignis Delta (Manual and AMT) Turn indicators on wing mirrors Dual-tone dashboard Tachometer 2-DIN Audio system with USB and Bluetooth connectivity Two speakers Steering-mounted controls Keyless entry Electric adjust wing mirrors Split-folding rear seat Rear power windows Security alarm Maruti Ignis Zeta (Manual and AMT) Fog lamps 15-inch alloy wheels Four speakers and two tweeters Keyless go Electric folding wing mirrors Rear parking sensors Rear defogger and wiper Maruti Ignis Alpha (Manual only) LED projector headlamps with DRLs Puddle lamps SmartPlay infotainment system with remote app Auto climate control Drivers seat height adjust Reverse camera Maruti Ignis Engine details As mentioned above, the Ignis is powered by Marutis tried and tested 1.2-litre petrol and 1.3-litre diesel engines. The petrol motor develops 83hp and 113Nm of torque and will be paired to a five-speed manual gearbox as standard with an AMT gearbox option also being available. The diesel develops 75hp and a meatier 190Nm of torque is offered with the same gearbox options as the petrol. Maruti claims ARAI fuel efficiency figures of 20.89kpl and 26.80kpl for the petrol and diesel engines respectively. Interestingly, the base Sigma will only be available with a petrol engine. The AMT gearbox option is only available on the mid-level Delta and Zeta trims. Maruti Ignis competition check The Ignis faces direct competition from the Mahindra KUV100, while other indirect competitors include cross hatchbacks such as the Mahindra KUV100, Fiat Avventura and the Hyundai i20 Active The Levante came into this world as result of increasing demand for luxury SUVs, but at the end of the day, its still an Italian car. Hence, the Levante is not immune to safety recalls. To that effect, certain units of the U.S.-spec 2017 Maserati Levante S are affected by a software glitch According to the NHTSA , the number of potentially affected vehicles is 1,515. Maserati North America explains that the engine software may cause the [8-speed automatic] transmission to shift to neutral. In some cases, the engine may shut down when the vehicle speed is approximately 2 mph. Maserati opened an investigation in October 2016 as a result of one complaint affecting a China-spec Levante S. From October to November 2016, in-house tests were performed on developmental vehicles at the Stabilimento Mirafiori factory, concluding that the claimed phenomena is indeed a problem.From November to December 2016, Maserati worked on a solution to fix the glitchy software. More to the point, a software re-flash will remedy the problem. This being a safety recall , the re-flash of the engine control module will be performed at no cost whatsoever to the owner.Owners of U.S.-spec 2017 Maserati Levante S are recommended to contact any authorized dealer to arrange the recall action to be performed. As per the automaker, the operation shouldnt take more than an hour to complete.Introduced last year with much pomp and circumstance, the 2017 Maserati Levante starts from $72,600 in the United States. The Levante S, which packs a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 with 424 horsepower and 428 lb-ft to its name, starts from $83,800. The Levante S can hit 60 mph in 5 seconds dead. Theres no mistake here, the world has a Michelin Guide, and it is entirely related to the tire manufacturer. In this article, we go through the story of this book of recommendations, which are now split into restaurants and travel suggestions.Yes, they have an app, but you cannot find everything there. That is because Michelin spends a small fortune on editing its renowned guide, and they prefer to sell it to recover some of their expenses. However, the French company is kind enough to offer a travel suggestion website, and a free app.Evidently, you can find two paid apps published by Michelin in the App Store, and they are also legitimate. The latter two address the two parts of the Michelin Guide, which we will detail in their respective paragraphs that you will find below.But first, we must explain where this whole Michelin Guide started, and whats the deal with it. Most of you have probably heard about it at some point in your lives, but the history of the tire-named guide is more complicated than you might think.Back in 1900, the Michelin brothers released the inaugural edition of the Michelin Guide. It was called Guide Michelin, and it was offered with every tire purchase at the time. The said guide was also present at the year's World Fair, and about 35,000 examples were printed for the event.Andre and Edouard Michelin offered the guide free of charge, and it was a tool for motorists and tourists alike. It featured information about garages, mechanics, fuel depots (the equivalent of a service station today), and restaurants. Thanks to cleverly-designed icons that were understandable for people that did not speak French, it was also a tool for foreigners.This was a great promotional tool for Michelin, with the bonus of being useful to any driver of the day. From that maiden edition, the Michelin Guide grew into an institution, which is renowned on a global scale for the excellence behind its recommendations.If you are a chef or a restaurant owner, the Michelin Guide could mean life and death. It can be the difference between bankruptcy and having your place fully booked for months in advance. The latter case involves a level of excellence that's hard to reach and even tougher to maintain. Back in the day, restaurants worth visiting were included in the guide. That was it, and people were happy with the situation.The year 1926 introduced stars in the Michelin Guide, which changed everything. Seven years later, a three-star system was implemented, and it is still used today. A one-star restaurant meant that it was worth the visit if you were in the area, and a two-star establishment was described as being worth a detour just to eat there.Meanwhile, a three-star restaurant was described as being good enough to command a trip there as the sole purpose of the journey. We do not know how important it was to a chef back then, or how difficult was it to get one or more stars, but we know that chefs treasure Michelin stars today.They have become so important that people have killed themselves over the potential of losing Michelin stars. Curiously, the chefs that killed themselves had three Michelin stars, which remains the highest distinction in the Red Guide, and their deaths happened before the years release of the guide rouge. In other words, the pressure of the possibility of losing their maximum rating has been blamed as the main reason that made those chefs commit suicide.The Michelin Guide has two parts that complement each other, but are independent. The Red Guide was the first to appear, and it is focused on restaurants. However, it is pretty strict, and some countries do not have a red guide issued for them. That does not imply that there are no good restaurants in the nation, but it means that the number of establishments worthy of the distinction is not high enough to justify a guide.The recommendations found in the Red Guide from Michelin are made using a legion of inspectors, which visit outstanding restaurants without mentioning their official quality. Instead, they operate like mystery shoppers, and get to wine and dine on company dime to see if a restaurant is worthy of getting a Michelin star.Once an establishment gets one, it will be visited periodically by other inspectors, who will ensure that it deserves to keep the distinction. If things have progressed, it may get more stars in the next edition of the Red Guide.The Green Guide from Michelin is focused on tourism, and it helps tourists plan trips by including must-see points of interest, along with details regarding accommodation, shops, and restaurants. The latter were good enough to include in a guide, but not ready yet for the Red Guide. Michelin is kind enough to make a weekend edition of its Green Guide, which is meant for trips that are shorter than four days.If you enjoy traveling abroad while you are on vacation, instead of enjoying spare time in your city, then you should get a Michelin Guide. If your country (or the one you are visiting) has a Red Guide and you are an enthusiast of fine dining, you should experience, at least once in a lifetime, the experience of a Michelin-star restaurant. Just remember that it might not be cheap, so prepare a proper budget for the dining experience.The Green Guide from Michelin offers a selection of addresses for all budgets, which means that you should consult this book of recommendations for your future visits. From personal experience, we can tell you that an establishment that is in the Michelin Guide, even the green one, will offer an excellent experience when dining is concerned.Michelin also offers maps, a road and tourist atlas for various countries, and other yearly publications that are designed for drivers that like to travel. Evidently, you can stray from the Michelin Guide and still get a great experience, and a well-rated restaurant on Trip Advisor (or whatever website/app of this kind you prefer) will provide a suitable dining experience without the risk of food poisoning or poor service.Before you check restaurant reviews online, keep in mind that people have different opinions on some topics, especially cuisine and service, so it is always better to listen to the recommendations of specialists.You might not agree with food critics, but if several visit a restaurant and advise others to visit, theres something noteworthy to be experienced. President-elect Donald Trump hits headlines today warning BMW of a 35 percent border tax to be imposed on any car built in their new plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The automaker's latest state-of-the-art plant will produce the next-generation 3-series sedan beginning 2019 and intends to market the rear-wheel-drive vehicles worldwide. In an interview with Bild, a German newspaper, President-elect Donald Trump warned German carmaker BMW that the United States will put into effect a 35 percent border tax for cars manufactured in the company's new plant in Mexico and exported to the US. Excerpts of Trump's comments were translated into German and released last Sunday, according to HuffingtonPost. The report indicated that Trump noted that it would be "much better" for BMW to build its new automotive factory in the United States. This news comes on the heels of Trump criticizing automakers GM and Toyota Motor as regards imported vehicles. Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2017 General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017 However, as CNBC reported earlier this month, BMW has remained "committed" to the new Mexico plant. In fact, BMW intends to build as many as 150,000 models, including the 3-series. The cars will be sold globally. BMW also said that it plans to build a number of plants across the world as its capacity increases. While construction of the Mexico facility is still ongoing, the 3-series will still be built in Germany. Meanwhile, the South African plant of the German automaker will instead switch to making the X3 crossover once the factory in Mexico opens. Mexico has become the car capital of North America. It's growing market has attracted automakers, mainly due to cheap labor rates, liberal trade agreements and its a well-educated workforce. The country has become the growth market for BMW and is home to several plants operated by various automakers. In other automotive news, Ford Motor recently announced that the production of its $1.6 billion plant in Mexico would be canceled, but the reason behind this is not due to Trump's comments. The market demand was down, so they decided to cancel any plans in Mexico. BMW's Mexico plant will be the next addition to the 3-series production facilities in China and Germany. The largest of BMW's plant in the United States is located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Sun n Fun will have an international flavor again this year as the French air force demonstration team the Patrouille de France has confirmed it will perform at the fly-in, which runs from April 4-7. The Blue Angels are also performing at Lakeland. For the past two years, the Breitling Jet Team has performed at SNF. It will actually be the French teams second U.S. stop. The colorful squad will start its North American tour at the Melbourne Air and Space Show on April 1-2. After SNF, the troupe heads to an airshow at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 8. No further U.S. dates have been announced but the team will appear at Wings Over Gatineau, just outside Ottawa, Ontario, on April 30 and there will likely be shows in the U.S. in the interim. This is the first time in 31 years that the French team has appeared in North America. The full formation of the team is eight Dassault Dornier Alpha Jets, which theyve used since 1981. The Patrouille de France is the worlds oldest military air demonstration team and was formed in 1931 using Stampe biplanes. The last time the team was in the U.S. was in 1986 where it marked the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty with a flypast. Theyre celebrating their U.S. dates with new livery that is emblematic of the Stars and Stripes. While we were preparing to shut down at a tie down spot at Henderson Airport, Las Vegas, ground control was directing a taxiing Piper. Ground: Cherokee Nxxxx, say your destination. Cherokee:Uhh, were not sure where were going. Were just following the van in front of us (the follow-me van). Ground (chuckling):I mean when you depart the airport. Cherokee: Oh, well be returning to Long Beach in about an hour. Ground: Roger. Dan Jay (Saturday, January 14) Haykakan Zhamanak speculates that when Karen Karapetian agreed to become prime minister late last year he did not know that he will not be legally allowed to retain that post after recent amendments to Armenias constitution take effect in April 2018. One of those amendments stipulates that parliament deputies and government members have to have resided in Armenia for the past four years. Karapetian lived and worked in Russia from 2011-2016. The paper says Serzh Sarkisian almost certainly knew about this constitutional provision when he offered Karapetian the post of prime minister. It is probably with this calculation that he invited Karen Karapetian to Armenia, it claims, adding that Sarkisian intends to become prime minister in 2018. Zhamanak claims, meanwhile, that Sarkisian wants to make Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian prime minister from April 2017 to April 2018. This is why, it says, Sargsian will top the list of the ruling HHKs candidates for the April 2 parliamentary elections. The paper too says that Serzh Sarkisian wants to become prime minister after completing his second presidential term. Aravot cites rumors that the chairwoman of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), Naira Zohrabian, will run for parliament not only on a party-list basis but also in a constituency in Yerevans Malatia-Sebastia district. The constituency has long been the stronghold of Samvel Aleksanian, an influential tycoon affiliated with the HHK. Asked to comment on this speculation, Zohrabian says: I will answer all questions only after Gagik Tsarukians statement on his return to politics. As regards Malatia-Sebastia, indeed, it is possible that I will run in that community. Hraparak says that it is still not clear just how Raffi Hovannisians opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party will participate in the upcoming elections. The paper says that the partys senior members are waiting for Hovannisian to return from the United States and make a final decision on Zharangutyuns electoral strategy. But he may again extend his stay in the U.S., it says. Hayots Ashkhar quotes Paruyr Hayrikian, a veteran politician, as saying that his Self-Determination Union party is negotiating with circles close to former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian on the possibility of entering into an electoral alliance with them. Hayrikian claims that such a bloc would be able to win as much as 75-80 percent of the vote. (Artur Papian) Opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian gave indications on Monday that he is ready, in principle, to join forces with two former government ministers for challenging the Armenian authorities in the upcoming parliamentary elections. We are holding consultations with everyone and will publicize our decision in the coming days, Hovannisian said, commenting on his Zharangutyun (Heritage) partys participation in the April 2 vote. We are ready to cooperate with all those forces that are committed to the freedom of Armenias citizens, constitutional rights and our countrys sovereignty, he told reporters. Zharangutyuns deputy chairman, Armen Martirosian, did not exclude on Friday that the party may enter into an electoral alliance comprising former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian. Hovannisian also did not rule out such a possibility. There are politicians with whom I agree and with whom I have had very big differences, he said, listing Ohanian among them. People who offended me and represented the regime when I was denied [Armenia] citizenship, he went on, in an apparent reference to Oskanian. But politics is a changing art and trade, and the people are now demanding change, even after the rigged [constitutional] referendum, added the U.S.-born politician who had served as Armenias first foreign minister. One prominent member of Zharangutyuns governing board, Zaruhi Postanjian, has publicly spoken out against teaming up with Oskanian and Ohanian.She has said that both men were involved in former President Robert Kocharians deadly post-election crackdown in 2008 on opposition protesters. When asked about Postanjians objections, Hovannisian said: Everyone was to blame [for the 2008 bloodshed] -- all presidents, the armed forces, those who opened fire on innocent citizens and policemen. The Zharangutyun leader also downplayed his past allegation that Ohanian committed a state crime by ordering Armenian soldiers to vote for President Serzh Sarkisians controversial constitutional changes in the December 2015 referendum. He urged the media to differentiate between those who order vote falsifications and those who are forced to carry out them. Hovannisian also declared: I think that Seyran Ohanian has very important government experience and has something to give our country. He may also become a leader in the future. But nobody should be immune to investigation. Oskanian said last month he met with Hovannisian and Ohanian recently to discuss the possibility of their cooperation. The former defense minister was sacked in October as part of a government reshuffle initiated by Sarkisian. He said in December that he will actively participate in the parliamentary elections in a bid to bring about political and economic changes in Armenia. 16 January 2017 11:18 (UTC+04:00) The Armenian armed units shattered ceasefire with Azerbaijan a total of 42 times throughout the day using 60, 82, 120-mm mortar launchers over the past 24 hours, Azerbaijan`s Defense Ministry reported on January 16. The Armenian armed forces, stationed in Armenia`s Aygepar and Chinari villages and nameless hills in Berd district subjected to fire the positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces located in Aghbulag, Alibayli and Kokhanabi villages in Tovuz district. The ceasefire was also violated in Garaqashli village in Aghdam district, Kuropatkino village in Khojavand district, Horadiz and Garakhanbayli villages in Fuzuli district as well as nameless hills in Goranboy, Tartar, Khojavand, Goygol and Fuzuli districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day. While the OSCE Minsk Group acts as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, it failed to make any move to achieve a breakthrough in the peace process so far. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 15:09 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov The government of Armenia, which does its utmost to hamper the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, now tries to silence every Armenian, who voices support to peace efforts of Baku. The Platform was established on December 6, 2016, to contribute to the peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Several Armenian human rights activists visited Baku to participate in a peacekeeping conference. Right after that, those people became persecuted in their homeland Armenia. For instance, a young Armenian writer Lusine Nersisian was temporarily arrested in Nagorno-Karabakh right after her interview in Azerbaijani mass media where she had expressed her support for the peaceful initiative. Relatives of civil society activist, Armen Virabyan, who requested political asylum in Azerbaijan, were subjected to persecution in Yerevan. Social activist from Yerevan, Tamella Arzumanyan and writer from the U.S. Anna Paitian, as well as their relatives, were also subjected to persecution and pressure. However, the Armenian government did not succeed in its desire to quiet the Armenians, who want establishment of a peace between the two neighboring countries, as more and more Armenians support the Platform. Armenian artist Henrik Khachatryan, who currently lives in the U.S., announced that proponents of peace from both sides must stay in constant communication. Talking to Azvision on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform, the artist voiced support to the platform saying that the start of the process deserves ovations. Khachatryan further added that he is familiar and agrees with the position of the Platform member, Armenian human rights activist Vahe Avetyan, who had repeatedly said that Armenia ignores international law and it must respect the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The artist also shared his views on the current Armenian government. In 1996, Serzh Sargsyan was one of the direct agents of Levon Ter-Petrosyan [first President of Armenia], who managed to retain control over corrupt government with the help of rigged elections. He is also the successor of Kocharyan [second President], who inflicted a crushing blow to the sovereignty of Armenia, he added. Khachatryan said that he is against the criminal government of the oligarchs in Armenia, which dominates in the country in the last 25 years. He named Sargsyan one of the most active thieves of power and an ordinary criminal. The artist believes if to bring him to impartial and fair trial, he will get life imprisonment at a minimum. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 12:04 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Wallet One international payments system has launched its eWallet solution in Azerbaijan via a franchising model, making the multi-currency digital payments service available through both a mobile app and web interface. Customers in Azerbaijan will be able to refill the balance by means of eManat payment terminals and bank cards in online regime, as well as in banks, a source in the market of e-payment services told Trend. The system is used to implement financial operations through the Internet, while the services available in the system include payment for goods and services, money transfers and others. The franchising scheme allows to connect not only to global acquiring (financial institutions processing credit or debit card payments) but also to a local one, as well as local payment systems (communication, communal services, and others). The app is available in IOS and Android supported mobile devices. Digital wallet applications provide a more convenient transaction processing method for customers, giving businesses that employ this technology a competitive edge in the market. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 14:30 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova The first meeting with potential investors interested in Baku Free Trade Zone (FTZ) will be held in February 2017. A source in the financial market told Trend that the meeting will be held abroad, however exact date and place of the meeting have not yet been disclosed. The source added that the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development Bank's private sector arm, will act as an organizer of the meeting. This will be the first meeting on the attraction of potential investors to the FTZ. The meeting is a result of a MoU signed between the Baku International Sea Trade Port and the ICD in December 2016 within the first International Investment Conference. The main objective of the MoU is to study a potential capacity of the port and FTZ in Alat settlement, as well as the opportunities to attract private sector to the process of creating the FTZ. The ICD became the second international organization, attracted to FTZ for consultations. The Azerbaijani government and the group of companies DP World (Dubai Port World one of the world's largest port operators) earlier signed an agreement to provide consulting services for the establishment of the FTZ. Applications from investors wishing to work in FTZ will be accepted starting from March 2017. The FTZ is expected to become operational in the first half of 2017. Measures on the creation of 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 was inked by a presidential decree on March 17, 2016. The FTZ envisages the development of transportation and logistics industry, the pharmaceutical cluster, common database of oil supply facilities, as well as the areas of manufacturing, packaging, labeling and consolidation. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 13:52 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Azerbaijan, which is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the Czech Republic, is interested in development of cooperation in the energy sector. Azerbaijani Ambassador to Czech Republic, Farid Shafiyev said that currently the two countries are preparing a memorandum of understanding in the energy sector. "The signing of the memorandum will create new opportunities for the deepening of cooperation between the two countries," he told Trend. Earlier, the governments of the two states have proposed to sign a memorandum of understanding in the energy sphere between the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic. The document was planned to be sign during the forthcoming visit of Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Jan Mladek to Baku on January 17, however, due to the inconsistent provisions in the draft memorandum, experts continue to work on the document. The diplomat expressed hope that after completion of work over the project of the memorandum, it will be submitted for signing during the visit of Azerbaijani Energy Minister Natig Aliyev to Prague, which is scheduled for current year. Azerbaijani oil provides about a quarter of the annual consumption of the Czech Republic, therefore, Azerbaijan, by providing a significant contribution to the diversification of energy resources of this country emerged as an important strategic partner of the European country. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic amounted to $312.02 million in January-November 2016, and $214.17 million of which accounted for the export of Azerbaijani goods to the Czech Republic, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Czech Republic mainly imports Azerbaijani oil, while industrial equipment and consumer goods are exported to Azerbaijan. The country is a reliable partner for Azerbaijan in several fields. The Czech Republic ranks 12th in the list of main importers of Azerbaijani goods. The share of the Czech Republic in the total export from Azerbaijan totaled 2.58 percent in January-November 2016. -- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 13:20 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Azerbaijans State Committee on Property Issues will hold another auction for privatization of state objects and enterprises on February 14. The auction will put on sale 71 state properties, including 20 joint stock companies, six small enterprises and facilities, 34 non-residential areas and 11 vehicles. The six small enterprises are located in Khachmaz, Jalilabad, Oguz, Masalli and Shamakhi regions. Meanwhile, the greater part of the non-residential areas are located in Baku. The most expensive of them is an area located in the Bakikhanov village of the capitals Sabunchu district. Its starting price is set at $60,200. The joint stock companies set for privatization operate in the areas of construction, industry, agriculture, transport and other sectors. Azinterservis, Azermetalinvest and others are among these companies. The third stage of privatization in Azerbaijan started in the framework of the presidential decree dated May 19, 2016. Under the decree, the acceleration of the state property privatization process has been defined as an important direction of the economic policy. The portal for privatization privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country. The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as improve the business environment of Azerbaijan. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 16:39 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova A foundation stone for the long-awaited Azerbaijan-Iran pharma plant was laid in the Pirallahi Industrial Park on January 16. Project partners are "Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company" (Iran, 49%), "Azersun Holding" (26%) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (25%). The project will consist of 3 stages. In the first phase there will be production of pills and capsules, ampoule and vial - in the second stage and production of antibiotic drugs will be in third stage. The event was attended by Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev and Iranian Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Minister Ali Rabiei, Deputy Economy Minister Niyazi Safarov, Director General of Azersun Holding Savash Uzan and head of Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Nadjaf. Mustafayev said that the construction of the Caspian Pharmed will be completed in the third quarter 2018. Over $20 million will be invested in the new plant, where German and Italian equipment will be installed. Construction of the plant will take around a year and a half, while the plant will start producing 84 kinds of medicines in the third quarter of 2018. The major part of drugs is planned to be sold on Azerbaijans domestic market, while a certain part will be exported. The business plan envisages supplying drugs to Russia, Kazakhstan and Georgia, he said. Mustafayev went on to say that the drugs produced at the plant will meet the highest standards, as well as the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standard. Besides, since the plant will be built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, it will receive the same benefits as the residents of other industrial parks. The payback period of investments in the plant will amount to seven years and two months, and the internal rate of return will amount to 17.24 percent, which is quite a high indicator, he clarified. The minister added that 90 persons will work at the plant, and their minimum wage will be 700 manats ($ 367.9). Mustafayev went on saying that the construction of the third pharmaceutical plant will be launched in March 2017. The plant is expected to be constructed by a private investor, while Azerbaijan Investment Fund will possess a share in the enterprise. A number of pharmaceutical plants will be operational in the country within the next three years. We are taking weighty steps to provide pharmaceutical security in the country. Next years will mark a turning point in the sphere, he said. Rabii, in turn, said that the plant will export drugs worth up to $100 million a year, mentioning that with the lapse of time the country will bring import of medicines to nought. The Iranian side will invest some $11 million in the plant, while the total volume of investment is estimated at $20.6 million. Today, Azerbaijan produces only a minuscule share of the medicines that it consumes, while the overwhelming majority of pharmaceutical production is being imported. The import of drugs in 2016 increased by 20 percent compared to 2015. In 2016, some 80 percent of drugs were imported from Europe and other developed countries. The remainder of the imports came in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. In late 2015, the government of the country announced that it will create own enterprises on manufacture of medicines to cease dependence on imports. In November 2016 construction of the first Hayat Pharm joint plant has already been launched. The Azerbaijani-Russian project will be built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park. Besides, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and some European countries also seek to take advantage and enter the promising pharmaceutical sector of Azerbaijan. A for further development of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, Rabii said that the countries will expand ties in industry, tourism, transport and other sectors. I would like to emphasize that Azerbaijan is not only our neighbor. We have a common culture, religion and our cooperation bears a strategic importance, the minister stressed. Moreover, Mustafayev said that the sides are also discussing t construction of a joint plant for production of agriculture equipment and busses, mentioning that the countries may discuss implementation of joint projects in other spheres. He said that the pharma plant became the second project jointly implemented with the Islamic Republic, reminding that the construction of the joint automotive plant was launched last year in Neftchala Industrial District. Iran Khodro, Irans giant carmaker and Azerbaijans Azeurocar will jointly manufacture Dena, Rana, Soren and Samand series within the project, which is estimated at $15 million. Capacity of the enterprise is expected to stand at 10,000 per year, while the outputting will be launched in May 2017. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Iran amounted to $175 million in January-November 2016, with some $130.13 million accounting for import from Iran. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 15:24 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) takes steps to up the authorized capital after the change in the management. The banks authorized capital will be increased by 600 million manats up to 1,241 billion manats through the new share issue, registered by the Financial Market Supervisory Authority. This capital increase is our next step towards successful recovery of the IBA, said Khalid Ahadov, chairman of the IBA Board. He added, that the Bank will continue reforms aimed at strengthening its capital base. The shortcomings in the management, investment and loan policy of the IBA in recent years, as well as financing of less efficient, risky investment projects worsened the bank's financial state, caused increase in the share of distressed assets and reduced its liquidity. In July 2015, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the measures for rehabilitation related to the preparations for privatizing the state-owned shares of the IBA. To overcome the current situation, restore the bank's financial position and ensure its sustainability, the distressed assets of the bank were transferred to the state-owned Aqrarkredit CJSC non-banking credit organization. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 15:06 (UTC+04:00) By Trend The average weighted rate of the Azerbaijani manat against the US dollar was set at 1.8045 AZN/USD during a currency auction held on January 16 by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) with the participation of the countrys state oil fund SOFAZ, said the CBA. Under the 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. The auctions are held in the format of the unilateral sale of currency. Auctions will be held three times in a week. Meanwhile, the CBA will determine in advance the monthly volume of currency put up for the auction. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 16:26 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Uzbekistan, the country with a huge export potential, plans to export production worth $10.8 billion in 2017. Newly-elected Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that the export by small businesses and private entrepreneurs through UzTadbirkorExport and Uzsanoatexport, as well as a fund under the National Bank is estimated to reach not less than $1.5 billion. Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, he said that all members of the government should spare no effort to realize agreements inked during International Industrial Fairs in Tashkent and abroad in 2016. Successful implementation of the agreements is expected to provide export volumes worth $7.7 billion. The head of state mentioned that one of the main objectives on increasing export volumes is a growth in supplies of fruit and vegetables. We should actively seek new markets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries. Our diplomatic missions operating abroad should also join the work in this direction, he stressed. The country produces more than 17 million tons of fruit and vegetables per year, while some 4 million tons of the output is being exported. The volume of fruit and vegetable products manufactured in the country allow providing the needs of the population and delivering high quality products to foreign markets. The country is in top ten exporter countries of apricots, plums, grapes, nuts, cabbage and other fruits and vegetables in the world. Also, the country is among 14 countries that have received awards for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the area of food security by the Food and Agriculture Organization. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 17:53 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Azerbaijan imported 917,600 tons of grain from Russia in the second half of 2016, Russia's Federal Center for evaluation of safety and quality of grain and products of its processing declared on January 16. The share of Azerbaijan in Russias overall index of the grain exports amounted to 3.8 percent, thereby making Azerbaijan the fifth in the list of Russian grain importers. In general, Russia exported 20.8 million tons of grains during the last six months of 2016. A total of 16.32 million tons of them made up the export of wheat. Most products were exported to Turkey 3.61 million tons (15 percent of total grains exports). Next positions were taken by Egypt (3.44 million tons/14.3 percent), Bangladesh (1.63 million tons/6.8 percent) and Iran (1,08 million tons/4.5 percent). The State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan reported that the country produced 2.84 million tons of grain in January-November 2016, which made up 1.97 percent more than the indicator of the same period in 2015. An average of 29.5 hundredweight were collected per hectare. In general, Azerbaijan satisfies its demand for grains by 70-80 percent through domestic production. The remaining demand is met through imports, mainly from Russia and Kazakhstan. Russia remains one of Azerbaijans main foreign trade partners. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia totaled $739.8 million in January-May 2016, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee. Some 170 agreements, with 50 being in the sphere of economy have been so far concluded between the two countries. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 10:53 (UTC+04:00) A commemorative event dedicated to world-famous Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov was organized at Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles on January 13, 2017. Members of the Save a Heart Foundation of the world-renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of Los Angeles attended the event. Azerbaijans Consul General Nasimi Aghayev, addressing the event, informed the guests about the composers life and immortal works. Aghayev noted that with his music Amirov enriched not only the Azerbaijani music, but also made tremendous contributions to the world music earning much international recognition. The Consul General mentioned that at the invitation of the U.S. State Department an exclusive group of just four Soviet composers, led by Dmitri Shostakovich, travelled to the U.S. in 1959. Stressing the fact that one of these composers representing the entire Soviet classical music was Amirov, he said that this was illustrative of the importance attached to the great composers music. Aghayev mentioned that as part of the tour, the delegation also visited California. Noting that Amirovs music found much recognition and admiration in the U.S. as well, the Consul General said that his works were performed by symphonic orchestras of New York, Philadelphia and Houston under the leadership of Leopold Stokowski, one of the leading conductors of the 20th century. Aghayev also mentioned that the World Champion Ice Skater from the U.S. Michelle Kwan used Fikret Amirov's symphonic mugham "Gulustan Bayati-Shiraz" in her skating program "Taj Mahal" in 1997. Speaking afterwards, the president of the Save a Heart Foundation Dr Yzhar Charuzi and the member of the Foundation Esphir Blaugrund expressed appreciation for Amirovs music and thanked the Consulate General for the opportunity to get to know the whole richness of the Azerbaijani music and culture more and more though joint events. Then Amirovs 1001 Nights ballet was screened. The ballet was received by the audience with much applause and admiration. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 13:00 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova Baku will host the Month of Francophonie in April to celebrate French language and cultural diversity with a series of cultural events involving music, literature, film and history along with debates and contests. Famous writers, members of the international organization of French-speaking countries and other public figures will gather in Baku to inform about cultures of Francophone countries, Trend Life reported. All of the cultural creativity and diversity of francophone countries will be celebrated over a month of events. Besides, the French Gastronomy Week will be held in the capital city in mid-March. Overall, the days of French language and culture are annual spring event in Azerbaijan that brings French-speaking people together. The International Organisation of La Francophonie was created in 1970. Its mission is to embody the active solidarity between its 80 member states and governments (57 members and 23 observers), which together represent over one-third of the United Nations member states and account for a population of over 890 million people, including 220 million French speakers. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 10:23 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov The fake arguments of the Armenian historians that the Armenians are natives of Nagorno-Karabakh have always resented serious historians. There are numerous facts from Russian sources that Armenians were brought in the west Azerbaijani lands only in the 19th century. Back in Soviet times, the Armenian historians invented fake research works about the history of Caucasus. Meanwhile, this area of history somehow remained out of sight of Azerbaijani historians. Taking advantage of this, the Armenians tried to present these territories as Armenian through falsifying the historical realities of individual regions of Azerbaijan. Armenian historians showed excessive zeal in these attempts. They went so far that shamelessly distorted the political map of the Caucasus region, created stories that do not correspond to historical reality, made up fictional maps and spread them around the world. And now Armenians continue insisting on their unfounded claims. In this context, the study of the historical geography of Azerbaijan as a whole and of its individual regions is very important. If to carefully consider the facts given in the works of Russian military historians, it becomes clear that the Armenians do not know their history or they are just unable to digest the facts that are contrary to the nationalist picture of Armenian historians. Some Armenian historians without any evidence say about the alleged residence of Armenians in the Azerbaijani lands for centuries. They in particular mention historical Azerbaijani lands of Nakhchivan, Irevan and Karabakh. However, Azerbaijani, as well as Russian historians, exposed this unscientific reasoning through referring to existing historical documents. They clearly show that the settlement of Armenians in the regions of Nakhchivan, Irevan and Karabakh was related to the Turkmenchay Treaty signed in 1828 between Russia and Iran. As the Russian historian of that time Sergey Glinka noted, it hadnt even been three months from the date of signing of the treaty, when the Russian Empire resettled 40,000 Armenians in the newly conquered Nakhchivan, Irevan and Karabakh khanates. The initiator of this resettlement was an ethnic Armenian Christopher Lazarev. He made up and presented to the Russian government the project of resettling Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan. In the project, he introduced the idea of "reestablishing the Armenian Kingdom" within the Russian Empire. This idea served as a pretext for the ruling circles of Russia to form a Christian region on the borders with Iran and Turkey. In March 1828, Lazarev's project was presented to the Emperor Nicholas I. The territories of the Azerbaijan khanates of Nakhchivan, Irevan, Shaki and Shamakhi were mentioned as the ancient Armenian areas in this infamous project. Emperor Nicholas I was primarily interested in strengthening the border line with Turkey and Iran, which were Muslim countries. That's why he abolished the Nakhchivan and Irevan khanates by a special decree of March 21, 1828, and established artificial "Armenian province" in those areas. This region existed until 1850, and then it was transformed to Erivan governorate. Nakhchivan region was also included into it. Thus, as a result of migration to the aforesaid territories, the Armenian population in Caucasus increased significantly. Moreover, the Imperial Russia decided to settle the migrant Armenians in those areas where the Armenians were a clear minority. For example, 50,739 Armenian families were resettled in Irevan and Daralayaz regions where only 58 Armenian families lived previously. Nakhchivan region, where only 100 Armenian families lived, was settled with 941 new families. Overall, after the conclusion of the Turkmanchay Treaty, the Armenian population increased by 4 times. Since then, Armenians inexplicably consider the territory of todays Armenia as the ancient Armenian land. Moreover, they constantly make claims to the territories of countries neighboring Armenia. However, Armenia's biggest claims are concentrated on Azerbaijan. Not satisfied with living in Azerbaijans historical west lands, Armenians for over two decades occupy the Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan. This makes up a fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory. Despite the constant calls of the international society to leave the Azerbaijani lands, including four UN Security Council resolutions, Armenia rejects withdrawing of its armed forces from Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent regions. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 14:50 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Azerbaijani MP has stated that Armenias criticism of Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland for his appeal on the immediate return of Azerbaijani servicemans body is inhuman thinking. A biased opinion and criticism, which was voiced by Chairman of the Armenian Parliaments Standing Committee on European Integration, Naira Zohrabyan, over Jaglands call is far from human thinking, said Rovshan Rzayev, member of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Rzayev said that the Armenian side always acts under such positions and all the activities of the Armenian delegation to PACE are aimed at the continuation of the occupation policy. They are trying to direct the opinion of international community to a different direction with a view to conceal their occupation policy, including the Khojaly genocide and other cases of bloodshed, repeatedly committed against the Azerbaijani people, he added. The MP stressed that by voicing such a biased and contrary to international principles appeals of a provocative nature, the Armenian side tries to evade from meetings with the Azerbaijani side. The PACE established a Subcommittee on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but due to the fact that the Armenian side unilaterally refuses the meeting, the Subcommittee failed to carry out activities so far, Rzayev said. The MP reminded that Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told the PACE that the Subcommittee was created in vain and that Armenia does not want it, and it will not work. For these reasons, the Subcommittee cannot act, said Rzayev. A reconnaissance group of the Armenian Armed Forces attempted to violate the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border on December 29, 2016. The Armenian group found itself in the ambush of the Azerbaijani army while violating the borders and suffered heavy losses. During the fighting, Azerbaijani serviceman Chingiz Gurbanov went missing. Later, it was clarified that he was killed by the Armenian Armed Forces and his body remained on the territory controlled by the Armenian Armed Forces. The Azerbaijani side officially appealed to the Azerbaijani representation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), OSCE Minsk Group, as well as the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk in order to return the body. Despite this, the body of Azerbaijani soldier has still not been returned. Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal, but they have not been enforced to this day. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 17:57 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Negotiations are underway on return of the body of Azerbaijani soldier Chingiz Gurbanov, who was killed 18 days ago during the fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. However, the talks have been inconclusive so far, said Ilaha Huseynova, head of Communication Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Azerbaijan Delegation. "In any case, the ICRC is ready to carry out its role of neutral intermediary," she added. A reconnaissance group of the Armenian Armed Forces attempted to violate the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border on December 29, 2016. The Armenian group found itself in the ambush of the Azerbaijani army while violating the borders and suffered heavy losses. During the fighting, Azerbaijani serviceman Chingiz Gurbanov went missing. Later, it was clarified that he was killed by the Armenian Armed Forces and his body remained on the territory controlled by the Armenian armed forces. To receive back the dead body of the Azerbaijani soldier, Azerbaijans Defense Ministry officially appealed to the Azerbaijani representation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), OSCE Minsk Group, as well as to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. Despite numerous insistent appeals of international structures regarding the return of Chingiz Gurbanovs body, the Armenian government still keeps the dead body. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 12:25 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova The Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms & Communications (IITKL) and Microsoft Azerbaijan signed the Memorandum of Cooperation. The document signed by Executive director IITKM Vusal Gasimov and Head of Microsoft Azerbaijan Sarkhan Hashimov, Azertac reported. The Memorandum is focused on the formation of single information database about goods produced in Azerbaijan, according to IITKL reports. Moreover, the parties will conduct joint research in the application of information and communication technologies in the national economy, prepare the development program, cooperate in making the proposals for the promotion of e-commerce in Azerbaijan, joint assessment, monitoring and analysis in the sphere of information technologies. Gasimov emphasized that integrated database of products made in Azerbaijan used Azure platform of Microsoft. We start cooperation to contribute to the Strategic Road Map on the development of telecommunications and information technologies. Therefore, the signing memorandum is an important step in this direction, he added. The strategic road maps approved in early December 2016 cover almost all sectors of the economy, including, development of the oil and gas industry, the manufacture and processing of agricultural products, the manufacture of small and medium entrepreneurship-level consumer goods, development of heavy industry and machinery, tourism, logistics and trade, vocational education and training, financial services, communication and information technologies and utilities. The Road Map for development of information and communication technologies is expected to contribute to improvement of profitability of ICT companies. The document provides for widespread use of ICT in business structures, so that they can further expand their activities and increase profitability Earlier the Center presented its Internet portal azexport.az, creates to provide information about products of Azerbaijani origin and becoming the beneficial platform for their sales in foreign and domestic markets. Azexport.az, integrating with the most popular electronic trading networks of Azerbaijan makes the products available to potential buyers from anywhere in the world. The portal offers fast and secure payment to VISA, Master Card and American Express cards owners. Regularly updated, easy-to-use, affordable, safe, fast and convenient portal makes the national brand "Made in Azerbaijan" closer to everybody. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 15:49 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will attend a meeting of Foreign Ministers Council of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)., to be held in Kuala Lumpur on January 19. Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend that Mammadyarov is expected to have bilateral meetings during the visit. Azerbaijan joined the organization in 1991 and was the fisrt country in the CIS to apeal for the OIC membership. The OIC was founded at the conference of heads of Muslim countries in Rabat September 25, 1969 to ensure Islamic solidarity in social, economic and political spheres. Being one of the influential institutions in the world for the number of members OIC brings together 57 countries with a population of about 1.5 billion people. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 17:18 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli The Romanian National Culture Day, dedicated to the 167th anniversary of Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu, was solemnly marked in Baku on January 16. The commemoration event was organized in front of the monument to beloved Romanian composer George Enescu in Baku. Romanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Dan Inacu, addressing the event, emphasized the strong cultural ties between the two countries. The diplomat said that culture is a bridge that connects people around the world. The envoy, talking to reporters, said that relations between Azerbaijan and Romania continue to develop in friendly vein. He voiced a hope that the political and economic relations between the two countries will further strengthen. Mihai Eminescu is considered one of the most famous and influential Romanian poets. His romantic inspirations led to poetry which reinterpreted traditional narratives of the mythological, fabled and metaphysical. Eminescu's poems have been translated in over 60 languages. His life, work and poetry strongly influenced the Romanian culture and his poems are widely studied in Romanian public schools. Azerbaijan is a strategic partner for Romania and the relations between two countries are strongly developing in all fields. Romania has been the second country in the world which recognized independence of Azerbaijan. Cultural links between Romania and Azerbaijan are flourishing and they serve as a strong fundament for closer interaction. Romania traditionally participates in several international festivals organized in Baku, including Francophonie Week, EuroVillage Festival, European Film Festival and others. - Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 17:18 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova The World Bank and Azerbaijan signed a loan agreement on Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline project (TANAP) on January 16. The project will transport natural gas from the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to and across Turkey, and further to Europe, aiming to diversify Azerbaijan's gas export markets and improve the security of the energy supply in Turkey and South Eastern Europe. The agreement was undersigned by WB Regional Director for the South Caucasus Mercy Tembon and head of Southern Gas Corridor Company Afghan Isayev, while guarantee agreement was undersigned by Finance Minister Samir Sharifov. Tembon, addressing the ceremony, said that the agreement culminates many months of the hard work of teams from the World Bank Group and Azerbaijan. We strongly believe that this project will bring many benefits to the people of Azerbaijan by improving the country's regional trade and competitiveness, and expanding its exports, she said. The Bank earlier approved a $400 million loan for Turkey and a $400 million loan for Azerbaijan for the implementation of the TANAP project. Total cost of the TANAP project is estimated at $8.5 billion. The recipients of funding are the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) Closed Joint Stock Company with the guarantee of Azerbaijan and the Boru Hatlar Ile Petrol Tasma Anonim Sirketi (BOTAS) with the guarantee of Turkey. The project contributes to achieving the strategic objectives of the Bank's partnership with Azerbaijan, in particular, supporting stronger economic competitiveness, by integrating Azerbaijan with regional and European energy markets, strengthening its connectivity and transit role, and increasing its exports. Turkey will get gas in 2018 and after completing the construction of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), gas will be delivered to Europe in early 2020. The overall objective of the project is to diversify Azerbaijans gas export markets and improve energy security in Turkey and South East Europe. The length of TANAP is 1,800 kilometers with the initial capacity standing at 16 billion cubic meters. The construction work within the project is currently on track. So far, some 55 percent of operations have already been completed. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 10:20 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Lawmakers on Sunday adopted article 17 of a new constitutional reform package that regulates parliamentary and presidential elections, Anadolu reported. A total of 484 of 550 deputies participated the secret ballot session on Sunday evening at Parliaments General Assembly. The changes were approved by a total of 342 votes. The motion was rejected by 135 MPs, three voted blank, two were invalid and two abstained. According to the Article 17, the parliamentary and the presidential election will be held in Nov. 3, 2019. Until the next election day, current deputies and president will remain in office. One last amendment is slated to be voted on in the coming hours. Lawmakers have so far passed regulations that define and lay out parliaments responsibilities -- one of the most discussed items -- and the regulation of criminal liabilities for the president and top officials, as well as structural reforms to the nations highest judicial body. Constitutional reform and the change to a presidential system has been on the political agenda since Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former prime minister and Justice and Development (AK) Party leader, was elected president in August 2014. This marked the first time a Turkish president had been directly chosen by popular vote. On December 30, a constitutional committee of deputies from the ruling AK Party and the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted a proposed bill to parliament for ratification. Turkey's largest opposition party, the Republican Peoples Party (CHP), and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) remain opposed to the proposed changes. If it passes parliament by 330 of 550 deputies, it will be voted on in a national referendum. If it obtains the support of 367 lawmakers, it can pass into law without referendum although Erdogan has said he would push for a referendum even if the draft is approved by the two-third majority. Proposed changes to the constitution require a simple majority (51 percent). The AK Party has 316 seats and Erdogan hopes the support of the MHP, which has 39 seats, will secure a referendum. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 11:39 (UTC+04:00) By Trend Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates signed a number of documents within the talks of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in expanded format on January 15, the presidential press-service reported. Nursultan Nazarbayev is on official visit to Abu Dhabi. In particular the two governments signed an agreement on mutual provision of land for free use in Astana and Abu Dhabi for the needs of the Kazakhstan Embassy in the UAE and the UAE Embassy in Kazakhstan. Moreover the parties signed a protocol to amend the Agreement between two governments on mutual visa-free regime for diplomatic passports holders. Kazakhstans Religious Affairs and Civil Society Ministry and the General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments of the UAE signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Moreover a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation was signed between "ASTANA EXPO 2017" and "EXPO DUBAI 2020" Bureau and between the regional authorities of Mangistau region and UAE DP World FZE company. Foreign Ministries of the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on establishing a joint commission on consular issues; Kazakhstans Investment and Development Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UAE Economy Ministry on tourism cooperation; and Kazakhstans Investment and Development Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE Federal Agency for Land and Water Transport on international road transportation of passengers and cargo. Within the meeting Nursultan Nazarbayev the Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed the issues of bilateral cooperation in trade, economic, investment, energy, cultural and humanitarian spheres and topical international issues. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 13:52 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva A Sunday Times report claiming that a meeting has been planned between US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Iceland is 100 percent false, said Trumps incoming press secretary and director of communications. Moscow also denied Western Media reports on the preparation of this meeting. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti that this issue is not negotiated at the moment. The Sunday Times reported about the upcoming meeting between two leaders on Sunday night. the newspaper urged that the newly appointed U.S. president is going to make his first visit most likely to Iceland, and moreover there he will have a meeting with Putin. Meanwhile Trumps team has informed British officials of plans for a summit with the Russian president in Reykjavik. In addition, The Sunday Times wrote that the plans were discussed at the Russian Embassy in London and Moscow intends to agree to hold the summit. The newspaper also reported that Trump intends to begin work on the preparation of an agreement with Russia on nuclear arms limitation and a reset of bilateral relations. Venue of the summit has been apparently chosen by analogy as it evokes memories of the historic meeting taken place 30 years ago between the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan. At that time, in Reykjavik, they have taken an important step towards ending the Cold War and laid the foundations for strategic arms reductions. The first one to deny this information was the spokesperson for Trump, who called the article 100 percent false. In turn, the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom in comments for RIA Novosti named The Sunday Times posts "nonsense" and "an attempt by the Britons to undermine Donald Trumps presidency." In addition, in its microblog on Twitter the Embassy reacted to the published "sensation" with the question: "Fake news as the new mainstream? Embassy of the Russian Federation in Iceland also told RIA Novosti that they had no information about a possible meeting in Reykjavik. Iceland said it was not aware of such a plan but showed willingness to host a summit to help improve relations between Washington and Moscow. "If officials in Washington DC make a formal request for the Icelandic government to organize a summit in Reykjavik we will look at it positively and make this our input to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, remember the summit at Hofdi house in 1986," Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson said. The discussion of The Sunday Times post concluded by Dmitry Peskov claiming that "for the moment there has been no discussion about a meeting". --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 18:04 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday expressed the hope that administration representatives of the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will accept the invitation to participate in the peace talks on Syria in Kazakh capital Astana, RIA Novosti reported. Speaking to reporters after a Mideast peace conference in Paris, Kerry said he supports the meeting that Russia, Turkey and Iran are co-sponsoring in Kazakhstan and that it would be good for the U.S. to be part of it. My hope is the next administration will decide to go, he said. I think it would be good for them to go. It is reported that the meeting will be held in the Kazakh capital on 23 January and the next round of talks in Geneva on 8 February. He expressed his hope that the meeting will make progress and lead to a resumption of the Geneva peace talks on Syria. Geneva talks are aimed at producing a transitional government and an eventual election in Syria. Last Saturday Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Russia and Turkey have decided to invite the United States for talks on Syria in Astana. The presidents of Russia and Turkey agreed to continue the process of peace talks with the conflicting Syrian parties on a new site earlier. According to the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, the meeting could complement to the process of Geneva talks. As previously reported, on the basis of latest consultations in Ankara 27 armed groups signed a document with the terms of the formation of the general delegation that will travel to Kazakhstan. Among the signatories - "Adzhnad al-Sham", "The Syrian front", "Free Army Idlib", "Jaish al-Islam", "Fastakim" and "Provisional Government". The document contains a number of conditions under which the opposition will form a single delegation to the talks in Astana. One of the conditions is the 10-day ceasefire in southern Damascus, SAR starting from 13 January, under international supervision. Most factions have decided to come to negotiations in Astana. The talks will concern the ceasefire, humanitarian issues, humanitarian assistance, and release of prisoners, said a representative of the association Fastakim Zakaria Malahifdzhi who is now in Turkey. The forming delegation will be different from the one that was presented at the talks in Geneva last year. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 17:44 (UTC+04:00) By Kamila Aliyeva Turkmenistan has launched preparations to elect its next president for the upcoming seven years. The Central Elections Commission (CEC) has registered national observers from the presidential candidates who from now on will monitor the electoral process The CEC said on Monday that it issued certificates for observers to monitor the presidential polls scheduled for February 12, 2017. Total amount of registered observers is 3,223. As many as 610 rep[resent the Democratic Party, 336 - the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs 407 - the Agrarian Party, 687 - trade unions, 279 - Women's Union, 509 - Youth Organization, 321 - citizens' initiatives, 74 - representatives of the candidates for the post of President of Turkmenistan. Observers have the right to attend meetings of election committees, and be there while sealing of the ballot boxes at polling stations before voting process, during voting, while counting of votes, as well as during the determination of the election results by polling station and counting of the overall results. For the first time three political parties will participate in the presidential election campaign, which have already decided on the candidates. The Democratic Party nominated the current head of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, State Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs - the chairman of the Commercial Bank "Rysgal" Begmyrat Atalyeva, the Agrarian Party - Chairman of the Mary velayat (region) Committee Durdygylycha Orazov. Six citizens' initiatives were formed during the election campaign. Candidates nominated from them are Maksat Annanepesov, vice-president of the State Association of food industry, Jumanazar Annan's deputy governor f the Mary velayat (region), Durdyyev Ramadan, director of the Seydi oil refinery, Meretdurdy Gurbanov, deputy governor of Dashoguz province, Serdar Dzhelilov, Head of the Department of Economy and Development of Akhal province, Suleymannepes Nurnepesov, General Director of "Garabogazsulfat". According to the Electoral Code, a candidate that can be nominated for the President of Turkmenistan should be a citizen, born in Turkmenistan, not younger than 40 years, who knows the state language, and who was living and working permanently in the country in the last 15 years. The current president of Turkmenistan, 59-year-old Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov headed the country since 2007, in 2012 he was re-elected for a new term. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 16:43 (UTC+04:00) Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has today signed a decree "On declaring January 17, 2017 a day of mourning in the Kyrgyz Republic over the victims of the crash of cargo plane Boeing 747, the Kyrgyz President's press office reported. The cargo plane Boeing 747 of Turkish airlines crashed on Monday at 7.18 am in the village of Dacha-Suu in Chui oblast of Kyrgyzstan Sokuluk destroying 15 houses. As a result of the crash, according to recent data, 15 houses destroyed, 35 people killed, including adults and children from the village and members of the crew. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 16 January 2017 15:02 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) announced a new winter campaign on popular tourist destinations. A discount of up to 20 percent will be applied while buying economy class "round-trip" air tickets in the period from January 15 to February 28, 2017 on the following directions when departing from / to Baku: London, Milan, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Tel Aviv, Dubai and New York. Departure period: January 16 - March 15, 2017. Air tickets can be booked on the website of the company www.azal.az, purchased at AZAL sales offices and official sales agencies. Points for the flight may be credited automatically in case AZAL Miles member unique number will be entered in the appropriate filed while purchasing online. Detailed information about AZAL Miles frequent-flyer program is available at: www.miles.azal.az Those who are not a member of the program yet, can be registered on the following link: http://ffj2.loyaltyplus.aero/j2loyalty/register.jsf?lang=en To purchase tickets and for more information, please contact: + (99412) 598-88-80; *8880 E-mail: [email protected] Questions regarding AZAL Miles frequent-flyer program can be sent to [email protected] or through the contact form on the website: www.azal.az. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The Top 5 Things to Know About Estate Planning PLEASE NOTE! Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate! All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited! (One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!) Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. We had such a great response from our feature on former Bath nightclubs that we've dug out some more photos, courtesy of Bath in Time. And even though it's been many decades since we danced at the clubs including Tiffany's, Chemies and Nero's the memories are just as strong as ever. One reader left us a message on Facebook asking: "Do you remember Tiffany's chicken in a basket?" Other readers told us they'd met their partners at clubs in Bath, while others just remembered them as the best nights of their life. In 1982 one reader said he'd go to Chemies every weekend, followed by a long walk back Southdown with a chicken kebab. And he said he'd do it all again if he had the chance. There was lots of love on Facebook for Tiffany's on Monday nights and it seems the club was a hit with student nurses. And even though we didn't earn loads of money back then it seems we didn't need much. Thanks to the reader who told us she'd go out with "Fifteen quid and taxi home and still had money over. 18 birthday cake and a bottle of cheap plonk at Chemies. They were really good times for a night out." Others remembered some not so great events: "Got my head kicked in in Chemies and met my first wife in the Island Club how could I forget?" We also spoke to Simon Power, who many readers will remember as he DJ-ed at three former Bath spots, Moles, Acacia Avenue and the Island Club. His kudos as a Capital Radio DJ soon saw him DJing at three Bath clubs after simply going in and asking. And, back then, he earned 30 a night. The now 58-year-old is still involved in music and produces music for adverts shown worldwide. He believes the picture of him is from Moles re-opening night in the 80s following a refurbishment . "It was an amazing time," he said. "I got the Monday night slot at Moles because the other DJ there wasn't very well. "I took over from him and I played things like Talking Heads, Was Not Was and The Cure. "Monday nights tended to be more commercial but there was also more indie stuff included like Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine."And African music like Hugh Masekela and Manu Dibango. "They were real floor fillers. "I also played early hip hop and Chicago house before it became really popular. "I remember Derek Pierce from Derek's Mutant Disco, Neal 'Doog' Slateford from those days Doog was in DNA and came up with the Suzanne Vega remix Tom's Diner at Moles. "You would get away with playing Prince at Moles songs like 1999 and Kiss his early stuff, that was really good. "We also played lots of album tracks rather than actual bands and they used to go down really well. "Acacia Avenue was next to Il Bottelino's and was a very commercial night club. "They (Acacia Avenue and The Island Club) were pulling clubs really at Moles people really just went down to dance. "People got off with each other of course but it was more about the music. "There were had sofas at the back (in Acacia Avenue) and people would disappear there at the end of the night. "My job was to get people dancing from 10.30-12.30 and after that the music would change (to slower records). "After that they'd start disappearing to the sofas at the back my job was done by 12.30 really. "Acacia Avenue had a well about 30 ft deep with Perspex over it and neon lights down it it was its unique selling point. "My nights were really busy - Wednesday at The Island Club was the most packed night of the week it was absolutely rammed to the rafters. "We didn't have door staff as such just people who had come along saying they wanted to be bouncers. "The music was great everyone was there to dance. "My favourite was The Island Club because it was like a family atmosphere we had to be family really because it was so edgy "Because it was run by Roger Spurrell (a former Bath Rugby player) one the New Zealand All Blacks came and did a Haka on the dance floor. "It was such a brilliant time." Other readers told us about other clubs McWilliam's next to Iceland near the bus station. Also Players, The Regency and the Beau Nash Club. *If you have any pictures from Bath nightclubs or comments that you're happy to share please email samantha.walker@localworld.co.uk This story was last updated on: 9:23 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. Besides patrolling the streets of Orlando, preventing crime and helping young people, Lt. Debra Clayton also left a mark on her church family. Clayton attended Winning Souls for the Kingdom in Auburndale since 2015 Bishop Jeffery Bradley: Clayton a born leader Church will name its youth center in Clayton's honor Clayton, promoted from Master Sergeant to Lieutenant posthumously by Orlando Police Chief John Mina during her funeral Saturday, began attending services at Winning Souls for the Kingdom in downtown Auburndale two years ago, according to her pastor, Apostle Lizelle Bradley. She was very faithful, driving from Orlando to here on Mondays for our women ministry, Bradley recalled. She came with her husband on Sundays too, when her work schedule didnt conflict, according to Bradley. We have lost someone, God, that has been dear to us, God," Bradley said during worship service on Sunday. "For the short time that you let us borrow her, we thank you." Bradley's husband, Bishop Jeffery Bradley, called Clayton a born leader, someone who would get things done. As the couple was building their new church, he said she approached him about making sure the church was secure. He said she offered the church leaders some training on the Stand Your Ground Law and how to deal with an armed intruder. She was taking them through the proper procedures and everything, and I think it was very wonderful because the people were able to interact with her and know what to expect if something would happen, Bishop Bradley said. The Bradleys were in Orlando on vacation the day Clayton was killed. We woke up Monday morning to that. And it was devastating, Apostle Bradley said. We were praying that on her way to the hospital that they would be able to revive her. Now the couple is saying a different prayer. They hope the man accused of shooting and killing her, Markeith Loyd, is arrested peacefully or turns himself in. Were praying that when hes caught, that it will be a smooth transaction, Apostle Bradley said. I know you may say thats hard to believe, but I believe God can do anything. We dont want to see anyone else lose their life. I just ask that everybody pray that you know that hes caught and that things are done in proper and decent order and not in anger, because that wasnt Debra, she said. The church has decided to name its youth center in her honor. The congregation has started a building fund, and hopes to have the youth center built by the end of the year. For more information, contact the church secretary Akisia Quinn at (863) 595-6151 or (863) 440-2382. A Pasco County woman is now recovering after being shot in the head Monday morning. Pasco woman shot in head while sleeping 50-year-old is in serious, but non-life threatening condition Woman was shot in her home at a Lacoochee trailer park The Pasco County Sheriff's Office said Teresa Thomas, 50, was sleeping at a home at a Lacoochee trailer park when she was struck in the head with a bullet by an unknown gunman. Deputies were called out to the area around 2:41 a.m. Monday, January 16. Deputies believe the shooter was outside the home. Officials said this is the same trailer park where a man was shot in the head last week, but do not believe the two incidents are related. Thomas was transported to a local hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, officials said. She has since been released and is recovering. Officials said Thomas and her boyfriend live in Perry, Florida, not at the home where she was shot. According to the report, their are no significant leads on a suspect at this time. Anyone with information is asked to call the Pasco Sheriff's Office Crime Tips line at 1-800-706-2488. It was wet and cold in Southeast Texas on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1989, the first year Orange County recognized the national holiday created by Congress in 1983. The Orange County Commissioners approved the county holiday at their first meeting of the year with one of the five commissioners dissenting. "I think it was something long overdue," said Commissioner Joe Ware of Orange, the first black commissioner elected, according to Enterprise archives. But when the holiday rolled around the third Monday of January 1989, the local NAACP president criticized the dearth of white Orange residents who participated in the march. Just one white resident, a city department head, marched, and few attended the speeches held in front of City Hall. "It ought to be salt and pepper out there," said Velma Jeter, president of the Orange chapter of the NAACP, to a crowd of about 200, according to the archives. Local NAACP officer James Zay Roberts said Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be celebrated by blacks and whites and "anybody who believes in freedom, justice and liberty." "This is not a black holiday. This is a holiday in honor of a good man" who stood for all people, said Ware at the Orange holiday celebration. Several people wore caps or sweatshirts with "I Have a Dream, Keep the Dream Alive" printed on them. Others carried homemade signs, and one child held a large red balloon with "Happy Birthday" printed on it with King's name in handmade letters. In Beaumont, residents heralded the holiday with the beginning of the third of four construction phases of the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. The parkway project, celebrated with the theme "Making inroads to unity," recognized King's work and contributions to society, said the Rev. R.D. Carrington, chairman of the MLK Parkway Commission, according to Enterprise archives. The third phase connected North and South Jefferson County with its six lanes and was scheduled for completion in 1992. The parkway cost about $50 million and created roughly 500 jobs during its development, according to the archives. At the third annual MLK celebration in Beaumont, about 150 attended the hour-long celebration. Then-Mayor Maury Meyers and Jefferson County Commissioner Ed Moore led the parade alongside the Rev. Rayfield Walker of West Tabernacle, the Rev. David Robinson of Douglas Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the Rev. Dwight Bernard of the St. Paul Baptist Church in China. Port Arthur Lincoln High School senior Darian Hill re-enacted King's "I Have a Dream" speech during the rally, earning him "an emotional ovation from the crowd," according to the archives. King's oldest son, Martin Luther King III, spoke in Dallas on the 1989 holiday celebrating his father's life. He encouraged the city to overhaul its public housing system and urged residents to improve its race relations. Martin Luther King Jr. was born Jan. 15, 1929, and was assassinated April 4, 1968, at age 39 on the balcony of a Memphis, Tenn., motel. The first official national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day was in 1986. Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly Enterprise feature that examines regional history. BCrum@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/broocrum This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SOUTHEAST TEXAS TALES The location of Beaumont's Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway was no one's first choice. It wasn't even the second or third. Black residents began campaigning for a street dedicated to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the early 1980s. The request divided the city, as some white residents marched in protest and signed petitions to oust then-mayor Bill Neild, according to Enterprise stories from the time. In 1982, council members decided to rename Fourth Street in King's honor, but some business owners weren't having it. "Many proprietors complained about having to change stationery, letterheads and invoices at a cost of thousands of dollars," according to a 2003 story on the parkway's history. They gathered enough signatures in a petition drive to force an election in August 1983. GUISEPPE BARRANCO Voters rejected the name change. The scenario played out with the same result when the second choice - Washington Boulevard - was put before voters. Residents who voted against the name change said they wanted to keep the tribute to President George Washington, the 2003 story said. The third choice was College Street. "This time, city council members were split over the name change," the 2003 story said. "In a 4-3 vote, the council voted against it." Those who voted against the change said the two-lane College Street had too many potholes and was not a fitting tribute to King. Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor In 1985, three years after the first push for a street named in King's honor, Beaumont residents settled on the then non-existent Spur 380. "Spur 380 was dedicated to King at 10 a.m. on Oct. 12, 1985," according to the 2003 story. Nine months before the dedication of the 8-mile parkway, Beaumont celebrated its first Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an official city holiday, a full year before the first national MLK Day was observed, according to Enterprise archives. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill creating the national holiday on Nov. 2, 1983, but it was not observed until January 1986. Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor "Efforts to make the civil rights movement leader's birthday a national holiday began only days after his assassination when Congressmen John Conyers, D-Detroit, introduced the first bill," according to a 2013 Enterprise story. "But even as Washington dragged its feet in paying tribute to King's contributions over the next 15 years, Beaumont celebrated the day." The Enterprise covered the first formal MLK birthday celebration in Beaumont in 1982. "Beginning today, Beaumonters will remember King, the slain civil rights leader, in a special birthday celebration," the 1982 story said. The event was to include a "candlelight march at Lamar University, a teen variety show at the L.L. Melton YMCA and a gospel musical concert at a Port Arthur, all culminating in a 'birthday party' on Jan. 15." The late congressman Jack Brooks spoke at the event, reportedly attended by more than 4,000 people. "Martin Luther King was truly a man of vision," Brooks said. "His dream lives on in the hearts of all Americans." The annual celebration grew and was held at various locations in subsequent years, "including the Jefferson County Courthouse and Riverfront Park," according to the 2013 story. "In 1996, a 'walk-a-thon' was held, starting at Babe Zaharias Park. It followed the recently completed Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway to the Montagne Center," the story said. The first formal Beaumont parade was held in 1998, traveling down MLK Parkway, according to the archives. "By the next year, an estimated 15,000 people thronged the streets on parade day," the 2013 story said. The parade has continued in the years since, drawing thousands this past Saturday as it followed MLK Parkway around the Lamar Institute of Technology campus and on to Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School on Avenue A. Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly feature that revisits regional history. More than half a year after Omar Mateen massacred 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, his widow was arrested in the Bay Area and accused of assisting in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, officials said. Federal agents raided Noor Zahi Salmans home in Rodeo early Monday, arresting the 30-year-old on charges of aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, and obstruction of justice in connection with the June 12 shooting rampage, the FBI and law enforcement officials in Orlando said. Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months, and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served in this act of terror that has affected our community so deeply, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement. FBI agents took Salman into custody at her familys four-bedroom home on Donald Drive, where she grew up with her sisters and mother who emigrated from the Palestinian territories. Salman married Mateen her second husband in a small ceremony officiated by a Berkeley imam in Hercules in 2011. The two later had a child and moved to Fort Pierce, Fla., an Atlantic coast town more than 100 miles south of Orlando, where Mateen worked as a private security guard. The FBI began investigating Mateen in May 2013 after he told co-workers he had family connections to al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Authorities took him off a terrorist watch list in March 2014 after the investigation ended without charges. In an interview with the New York Times, Salman said that six months after their wedding, she became a target of a flood of physical abuse by her husband. Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night, her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement Monday. Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person. In the days after the rampage, federal investigators began extensively questioning Salman. She had told investigators that she had driven her husband to the nightclub at some point leading up the attack, and was with him when he bought ammunition two days before the shooting spree, according to several reports citing anonymous senior law enforcement officials. The woman reportedly told authorities during the interviews that she urged her 29-year-old husband to not commit the massacre. But around last call at the crowded gay nightclub that was hosting a Latin night, a heavily armed Mateen stormed the building, unleashing a torrent of gunfire that left 49 dead and 53 injured. Mateen died in a shootout with police after a nearly 3-hour standoff at the club, during which officials said he declared allegiance to the Islamic State. You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq, Mateen said in a 911 call from the nightclub during the shooting spree. They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there? At one point during the standoff, Mateen sent his wife a text message, asking if she had seen the news of the attack, the New York Times reported. When she replied that she had not, Mateen responded in his final message to his wife, I love you babe, Salman told the paper. President Obama had characterized the attack as an example of homegrown extremism, where an assailant is inspired and radicalized, often by materials found online. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in an interview on MSNBC Monday that investigators are continuing to examine what led to the massacre. We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooters life to determine not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved, is there any other accountability that needs to be had here in this case, she said. The violence shocked many, particularly members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities around the country and world that were beginning a series of summer of Pride celebrations. In San Francisco, LGBT community members left memorials for the victims, while others devoted a large part of the summer of Pride celebrations to the victims of the attack. I hope todays news provides some comfort to the families who are mourning their loved one, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement. Attorney Keith Altman, who represents families of some of the victims, said the length of time it took to arrest Salman did not bother him. If it takes them some time to get it right, get it right, he said. This is high profile and the last thing you want to do is get it wrong. Salman is scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Oakland at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday before the case moves to U.S. District Court in Florida, where the charges will be filed. It was not immediately clear who was given custody of her child. Those at the Rodeo home where Salman was arrested Monday morning refused to answer reporters questions. She doesnt want to talk to nobody, an unidentified woman said, referring to Salmans mother, before she closed the door and left the house several hours later. Neighbor Glauber Franchi, 38, said he heard several cars pull up to the home of Salmans family and car doors slamming about 7:30 a.m., but he didnt see the woman being arrested. The dogs started barking, Franchi said. I knew something was going on, but it didnt seem like anything major. ... This is a quiet neighborhood, so you usually dont have that many cars. Franchi and several other neighbors were unaware that Salman was staying at the house. They said they hadnt seen her come or go since the shooting. Its got to be tough on the mom, Franchi said. Theyre a quiet family. Very private. To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Blue Monday is supposedly the most depressing day of the calendar year Mental health charities have slammed so-called "Blue Monday", branding the day as merely a "yearly PR event". The third Monday of January, Blue Monday is supposedly the most depressing day of the calendar year. It is often accompanied by advertising campaigns and sales, giving consumers deals to beat the January blues. But mental health campaigners have said this belittles people who suffer from mental health problems. Mind spokesman Stephen Buckley said: "Blue Monday contributes to damaging misconceptions about depression and trivialises an illness that can be life threatening. "There is no credible evidence to suggest that one day in particular can increase the risk of people feeling depressed." The Mental Health Foundation called the day a "yearly PR event and primarily a device to promote and sell things, often tenuously linked, to improve our well-being". They criticised "the idea that depression can somehow be calculated by formula". Food chain Pizza Hut claims to have made a "mood-boosting pizza", while Gourmet Burger Kitchen will give away free lunches to the first 50 customers that visit each restaurant. The Centre for Mental Health said the campaign could have positives. Spokesman Andy Bell said: "Although Blue Monday can seem a little bit like it's belittling mental health problems to some people, I think it's also an opportunity to talk about what depression is... so that when someone is experiencing it, or a friend or relative or colleague is showing the signs of depression, we know what to do." Nia Charpentier, from Rethink Mental Illness, said mental health problems will affect one in four people every year. She said: "The media attention around Blue Monday certainly helps to raise awareness of depression and is an opportunity to encourage people to check in with a friend or relative who you think may be struggling with their mental health. "However, it's important to keep in mind the bigger picture. "Whilst aspects attributed to Blue Monday, such as financial worries, or changes in the weather may affect our mental well-being, mental health problems, including depression, can affect anyone, at any time of the year." Director of the NIRC, Aodhan Connolly: "It is encouraging to see that for the second month in a row Northern Ireland has led the UK in footfall growth" Norther Ireland's high streets and shopping centres saw massive growth in the run-up to Christmas - outpacing the UK as a whole which suffered a small drop. But an industry body says the current political crisis "casts a shadow" over the positive figures and that the "Northern Ireland consumer cannot afford for political instability to continue". Northern Ireland saw footfall grow by 4.6% across the high street, retail parks and shopping centres, according to December figures from the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC) and Springboard. Overall, UK footfall fell by 0.2% in December. And while retail is on the up here, there are concerns in the industry about Northern Ireland's political crisis, according to Aodhan Connolly, director of the NIRC. "It is encouraging to see that for the second month in a row Northern Ireland has led the UK in footfall growth and that this sparkling growth has been across the board in retail parks, shopping centres and, of significant importance, on our high streets. "This shows that retailers listened to what consumers wanted, and consumers voted with their feet and their hard earned money. Currently we have no programme for government, nor do we have a budget. What the retail industry needs now is not only certainty but a strategic partnership to deliver, jobs, growth, investment and exports. "With other administrations in the UK beginning to consider a more coherent approach towards their domestic retail industry we need the Northern Ireland government to do likewise. "Otherwise we are looking at falling behind our neighbours both to the east and the south." He said the message is "simple...our industry and the Northern Ireland consumer cannot afford for political instability to continue". Northern Ireland's high streets saw a 1.5% upsurge in footfall in December. But the largest levels of growth happened at shopping centre, with a 6.7% boost. Mark Larsson, investment analyst with wealth management firm Johnston Campbell, said: "This is positive news for the retail sector and comes after many UK high street leaders reported good news for the Christmas period. Northern Ireland has benefited from a large influx of both tourists and southern consumers on the back of the fall in sterling over the second half of 2016." The Government is backing a recruitment campaign by Southern's owners, Govia Thameslink Railway, believing it will end the reliance on overtime Plans to recruit a pool of 200 "trainee" drivers to help improve services on Southern Railway have sparked a fresh row. The Government is backing a recruitment campaign by Southern's owners, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), believing it will end the reliance on overtime. Members of the drivers' union Aslef are banning overtime in a dispute over driver-only trains, which is leading to services being cancelled or delayed every day. A Department of Transport source said the Government will work with GTR to boost recruitment and train hundreds of drivers to cut the need for overtime. The company will launch an advertising campaign on Monday. The source said: "GTR has already embarked on the UK's largest ever driver training programme as part of its objective to maintain a pool of 200 trainee drivers." Southern are urging people who want to work part time as drivers to apply, said the source. More flexible working could open up careers to people from "all parts of society". The reliance on overtime has to stop, the Government believes. Mick Whelan, general secretary of Aslef, said Southern had never employed enough drivers to fulfil its franchise commitments. "That's why the company is cancelling so many trains, after eroding the goodwill of its drivers, who are no longer working overtime. "It is currently cancelling 25% of its services on non-strike days, because of our overtime ban. "So it would need to recruit 300 more train drivers just to deliver the service it promised to deliver when it won its franchise. "As for its plan to recruit a new pool of 200 trainees, I suspect, on cost, and retention of knowledge, it would be a nonsense. "I see the hand of Chris Grayling (Transport Secretary) here, who wants a headline on a quiet Sunday, rather than a sensible plan to resolve the problem at the heart of this industrial dispute. "And I wonder which trade union these new drivers would join? "No one has to be a member of a trade union, but 96% of the train drivers in England, Scotland and Wales choose to belong to Aslef, so I look forward to these new drivers joining our trade union." A GTR spokesman said: "The campaign is a continuation of what is the UK's largest recruitment campaign of train drivers ever undertaken to meet our ongoing objective to maintain a pool of 200 trainee drivers across the franchise. "This helps us bring in new fleets of trains across Thameslink and Great Northern and reduce to a minimum our dependence on rest day working so that we can deliver a more consistent service for our passengers." Aslef members on Southern staged three strikes last week and are set to walk out for three more days later this month. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union are also embroiled in a dispute with Southern and will strike again later in January. Sherlock actor Andrew Scott has revealed fans quizzed him on a daily basis over a possible return as Jim Moriarty Sherlock actor Andrew Scott has revealed fans quizzed him on a daily basis over a possible return as Jim Moriarty to the hit BBC drama. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, locked horns with Moriarty for the show's first two series before the super-villain supposedly killed himself in The Reichenbach Fall. He returned to the show in Sunday night's series four finale as part of a flashback sequence. Speaking at a screening of the episode alongside several of the show's stars and co-creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, Scott said he had "spent the last six months under wraps". Asked how often fans quizzed him over his mooted return to the show, the 40-year-old said: "I'd say every day." The concluding episode saw Moriarty team up with Sherlock's secret sister Eurus, played by Sian Brooke, before he died. The pair enticed the detective, Martin Freeman's Dr John Watson and Mycroft Holmes (Gatiss) into a series of games. A final twist was also revealed as Sherlock's long-referenced dog, Redbeard, was discovered to be a fourth Holmes sibling who had been killed by Eurus. Gatiss said the plot twist had originally been a joke that had turned into a "monstrous" storyline. "I remember being in Beryl's (executive producer Beryl Vertue) flat talking about something else and I said 'what if Redbeard is not a dog'. "Redbeard began as a joke, it was a little reference to the fact that Sherlock thought his pet dog had gone to live on a farm. "Sometimes you plant the seed and it grows into a monstrous thing," he added. The future of the show is in doubt following the episode, with Moffat saying "we're not planning it to be (the final), but it might be". He added: "We could end it there. We couldn't have ended it on any of the previous series because they always ended in walloping great cliffhangers, usually by Andrew." Meanwhile Gatiss added that the show had deliberately been left open to any follow-ups. He said: "I think what's actually happened is we have now done the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson that we have always known became those men. "The reason we leave it at Rathbone Place is that actually if we do come back, and we would love to come back, we could absolutely very easily start it off with a knock on the door and Sherlock saying to John 'do you want to come out to play'." Channel 4 will air the first television ad live from inside the human body as it shows a colonoscopy Look away now - Channel 4 will be broadcasting the world's first TV advert live from inside the human body. The broadcaster has teamed up with Cancer Research UK to air a live colonoscopy - the removal of bowel polyps - later this month. While most polyps do not develop into cancer, some do, and removing them can help prevent bowel cancer developing. The 90-second advert is part of Cancer Research UK's Right Now campaign, showing the reality of day-to-day life for those affected by cancer. Patient Philip McSparron is having the colonoscopy after tests were performed as part of routine bowel cancer screening. He said he hoped that undergoing the procedure on live TV would show that it is not something to be scared of. He said: "My brother's bowel cancer was caught early in 2010 and since then, I've been careful to go for screening. "By allowing my colonoscopy to be shown live, I hope to show that it's a simple procedure, not something to be frightened of. "Hopefully people will be interested in seeing the live footage and it will encourage them to be more willing to talk about cancer and think about taking up regular screening when offered." The procedure will be performed and filmed at Cardiff and Vale University hospital by Doctor Sunil Dolwani. He will be telling viewers what they are looking at and wants to show how the procedure can save lives. Ed Aspel, executive director of fundraising and marketing at Cancer Research UK, said: "Broadcasting Philip's colonoscopy live gives us the opportunity to show one of the many people across the UK who is benefiting from procedures that wouldn't be possible without research. "We want viewers to join us to experience the unique insight of seeing live inside the human body, and witness a procedure that can actually prevent cancer from developing. "It's our ambition to speed up progress so that within the next 20 years, three in four people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years. "At Cancer Research UK, we rely on people's generosity as we don't receive any government funding for our life-saving research. "We hope our live advert will show the impact research has made so far, and inspire people to see how their support can enable continued work to beat cancer." Entitled Live From The Inside, t he 90-second advert airs on January 18 a t around 3.25pm. Northern Ireland actress Susan Lynch, who has shared the screen with the likes of Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Ewan McGregor, has said her proudest moment was receiving a doctorate from the University of Ulster five years ago. The 45-year-old, who hails from Corrinshego outside Newry, attended the establishment, now called the Ulster University, in 2011, where she was awarded a doctorate of arts. Speaking about the event to the Sunday Express, she said: "I had just had my baby, I was 40, so I was really moved by it. I was very proud. The things that will always stick - it's not the glory and the red carpets - it's the creative stuff." Susan, who was pictured looking fabulous alongside her interview in the magazine, has a list of television and film credits to her name, not least her award-winning part as author James Joyce's wife in the film Nora. The 44-year-old is CEO of the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast. She lives in Belfast with her partner, Gordon Hewitt. They have one son, Jack (3). Best moment Meeting Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale at the beginning of last year. She was here to launch a festival about women in the arts, and that was a real high point for me. I read her autobiography 10 years ago and was hugely inspired by this woman doing it the rock 'n' roll way. Getting to meet her was fantastic. Best song That's a very difficult question for someone who works in the music industry... it changes on a regular basis. Currently I love listening to Rebel Rebel by David Bowie as it's pure rock 'n' roll and has an iconic beginning. I've been listening to a lot of Bowie recently as it was the first anniversary of his death earlier this month. All his songs are amazing. My best way to relax While I love getting out to gigs and festivals, one of my favourite ways to chill out is at home watching a good movie with a couple of drinks and a cheeseboard. That makes me as happy as anything. My best job Where I am now - it's been an amazing journey. I was the first paid member of staff alongside Stuart Bailie, who was the first CEO here. It was just the pair of us from day one, so I feel very connected and close to this place. It's great to be in the driving seat now. My best advice It's not what people say, it's what people do that matters. My partner, Gordon, told me that and I think he's right. Actions are a demonstration that someone is committed to something, rather than just paying lip service to it. My best movie While I'm a fan of all Steven Spielberg's films - from Close Encounters to ET - I really love The Shining. The cinematography, acting, music and suspense are all fantastic. A documentary about the hidden meanings in the film makes it all the more fascinating. My best gift A good friend gave me a little poem called Don't Quit by an anonymous writer - she picked it up at a card show and it was credit card-sized, so you could keep it inside your wallet. She gave it to me when we were both just out of college and still struggling to find our paths in the world. It's still in my purse, although quite battered. My best achievement My son, Jack. He's three-and-a-half, and I can't believe I gave birth to such a gorgeous, funny, intelligent wee boy. We love him to bits. My best buy A little Sony stereo I bought in 2001 - it's been a staple device in my home for the past 16 years. Every house I've moved to, it has come with me and has played all my music. It even has a tape player on it, so I can play my old cassettes, and it sounds as good as ever. My best book For fiction I love Steven King, but the standout book for me is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. He's famous for having written The Kite Runner, but this book is all about women in Afghanistan. It's a heart-breaking story and I read it in one sitting. Strabane man Stephen Brown is helping people overcome a multitude of fears by literally walking across hot coals. The 39-year-old, who is a master firewalker instructor and founder of Firewalking International, explains firewalking is the act of walking across red-hot embers in your bare feet. And he claims it's not as crazy as it sounds. In our minds, walking across a bed of hot coals burning at temperatures over 600C is dangerous and something that perhaps shouldn't be done, but making a decision that is frightening, and following through with it, is exhilarating. That's why firewalking is becoming ever more popular with individuals and businesses aiming to improve morale. Stephen says: "My background is in adventure sports. I worked in that industry for 18 years and owned several businesses, then I discovered firewalking. "I first fire-walked about eight years ago, in Belfast. I thought it would be a challenge and I loved it. I can remember, as clear as day, walking across the fire three times that night. It was really empowering." After the experience, though, he wanted to find out more. "I subsequently took a course, qualified as an instructor and launched my own business, Firewalking Ireland," he says. "As time progressed, however, I realised that I had the scope to do more work abroad, and there are now several brands operating under Firewalking International. It's growing all the time." Firewalking has actually been around for thousands of years, with early Indian references dating back as far as 1200 BC. It has historically been used as a healing ceremony, religious ritual and a rite of passage, but these days it provides an opportunity to address fears, focus the mind, boost confidence and develop individuals and teams. Firewalking International runs charity and corporate events around Europe and further afield, attracting many. Stephen says: "I have had people of all ages and backgrounds attend my firewalks, the youngest being eight and the oldest 78. "When those who come to us are standing there, facing the fire, it is their opportunity to become aware of what is going on around them and within them, and it's wonderful to watch the transformation that occurs when they take the plunge." Stephen recalls the dramatic impact the experience has had on him: "A year or so ago, I received an email from a lady who attended one of our firewalks with her sister, who was due to undergo major surgery a few days later. The email went on to say her sister felt at ease about going into hospital and was dealing with her fears in a positive way, all because she had been brave enough to try something different, something courageous. "More recently, we were running a 40-foot firewalk, when one of the participants, an office worker who had just completed her walk, came running over to me and gave me a big hug. 'I am so proud of myself,' she said. It was a beautiful moment and I have no doubt that feeling will never leave her." And for those of us still nervous at the thought, Stephen adds: "I honestly believe that firewalking is for everyone. I love seeing people challenging themselves, moving out of their comfort zones, having fun and developing as individuals or team members. It's great to share in their experience." We talk to two people who braved the firewalking challenge. I was prepared to walk over hot coals to beat my illness ... now I feel like I can take on the world Armagh-born Amy Kavanagh (25) is a single customer service and admin officer now living in Monaghan. She attended Stephens course in Belfast. I suffer from anxiety and depression, as a lot of people Im sure can relate to. After years of letting my fears run my life, I was stuck in a rut. I eventually came to the conclusion that I would have to stand up and face them. I couldnt hide from them any longer. I would have to do something to challenge myself. Firewalking had always been on my bucket list as something I wished to experience one day. It seemed exciting and scary, but in some way beautiful and after watching a fire performer busking once, I started to look at it as something that I might be able to do myself. I Googled it a few days later and came across the Firewalking International website. Stephen explained that it was all about self-empowerment, and you could tell that he truly wanted to help people. I took a course and havent looked back. The first time I walked across those burning coals was definitely intimidating. There were lots of deep breaths, lots of trying to focus and centre myself. There might have been a false start or two striding up to the fire only to take a sharp turn back to safety. I remember my first step onto the coals. Even though I knew it would be hot, it surprised me that it actually was! When I got to the end, my feet back on the grass, this pure, unbridled giddiness overtook me. Standing looking at the burning coals and realising that I had done it, I was elated. The sense of achievement was just overwhelming. Its an immense emotional and physical challenge, the idea of putting your foot on to burning coals, but in the training we learned to build and prepare the fire, and that process was brilliantly grounding. People who suffer from anxiety can sometimes feel that their fear is irrational. That is how I felt. The fear and anxiety present in my life seemed like a colossal wall between me and the rest of the world, between me and the life I wanted to live, and I just wanted to break through it. I longed to be free of those negative beliefs that held me back, and to live instead with joy. Firewalking presented a very real and rational fear the fear of being burned, of harming yourself but it felt so bold and daring to take something like that on, and in the event it filled me with confidence and self-belief. I hope to start organising firewalks in the future. On a personal level, it helped me a lot, and I would like to share that with others. At my work, I have had varied positions, from sales to accounting, but after learning firewalking I suddenly feel that my future is wide open. My family are hugely supportive. They think its great that I am doing things that I love, things that Im learning from and are a little bit different. My grandfather, though, is highly amused by the whole firewalking thing. Gosh, he said, Id never do something like that. Each to their own, but I would highly recommend it. Assembly members have hit out after Theresa May indicated she would set out her stall for a 'hard' Brexit in a major speech tomorrow. It comes as the Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire prepares to announce a fresh Assembly election today. The Prime Minister has been accused of preparing to trigger a full-scale "trade war" with the European Union amid reports she is ready to pull the UK out of the single market. In a ratcheting-up of the government's rhetoric, Chancellor Philip Hammond also signalled that ministers could slash corporation tax rates if British exporters were faced with new tariff barriers outside the EU. Downing Street would not be drawn on reports Theresa May would announce plans for a "clean Brexit" - withdrawing from the single market and the European customs union in order to regain control of immigration and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. However, The Sunday Telegraph quoted a government source as saying: "She's gone for the full works. People will know when she said 'Brexit means Brexit', she really meant it." The Brexit timetable means the split from Europe could be triggered while the parties in Stormont are deep in post-election talks and with no First or Deputy First Ministers. Mr Brokenshire said he would represent Northern Ireland in Brexit talks instead. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood warned that it could be illegal for the government to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit in the absence of functioning institutions here. The Foyle MLA said: "Until the imminent verdict of the Supreme Court in London, there remains a major question mark over the legality of that statement. "Mr Brokenshire has no right to speak on behalf of anyone in Northern Ireland - including on Brexit." Alliance deputy leader and Brexit spokesperson Stephen Farry warned that "a hard Brexit would have serious and particular political and economic consequences for Northern Ireland". "Not only are these risks being played down and indeed ignored by the UK government, but the greatest dangers to the viability of this region are coming at a time of massive political instability and dysfunctionality in government hampering any effective response," the North Down Assemblyman added. James Brokenshire arrives at a London studio for his interview with Andrew Marr. Photo: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire An Assembly election that many of Northern Ireland's political parties don't want is due to be called today at 5pm by the Secretary of State, James Brokenshire. He is expected to announce that the election, which will cost 5m, will be held in around six weeks' time - with February 23 or March 2 the most likely dates. Local political parties, that never expected to be preparing for a second Stormont poll in the space of 10 months, are now drafting new campaign literature and some have already begun electioneering. Arlene Foster - along with DUP chairman Lord Morrow and other MLAs - attended an event in Brookeborough Orange Hall in Fermanagh on Saturday night. Sinn Fein held a selection convention in the Felons Club in west Belfast yesterday with the party choosing Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' as its election anthem. The SDLP began canvassing in the south of the city, while Alliance teams hit the streets of South and East Belfast, Lagan Valley, East Antrim and North Down at the weekend. Sinn Fein has already chosen its candidates for many of the 18 constituencies. A fascinating battle will take place in West Belfast, where the party's four MLAs - Pat Sheehan, Alex Maskey, Fra McCann and Orlaithi Flynn - seem set to go head-to-head with two People Before Profit (PBP) candidates. Gerry Carroll's poll-topping performance has encouraged the party to have a running-mate join him on the ballot paper. That move is likely to be announced following a PBP election meeting tonight. The party is also expected to declare that it's contesting all four Belfast constituencies for the first time, in what it calls a "once in a lifetime election". The current Assembly is meeting for what is anticipated to be its final session today to debate DUP proposals on capping Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments and on mitigating the 'bedroom tax'. Mairtin O Muilleoir yesterday predicted that Sinn Fein would have "a very good election". He said: "The republican electorate is up for the challenge. "People are looking for an opportunity to say they have zero tolerance when it comes to corruption, zero tolerance to bigotry, and that they want respect and equality. "That is what will be on Sinn Fein's ballot paper." The Finance Minister demanded that the DUP's Simon Hamilton publish the names of RHI beneficiaries now. "If the Economy Minister wants to build confidence in the solution he's bringing forward, then he should publish those names. We have a right to know who benefited from this scheme. "I said (before) that I would be honest with the public about the RHI debacle and the proposal coming forward. "It's important to say now it is not a zero cost solution. "It is an interim solution. "I have said we won't endorse it if it doesn't stack up financially and legally, and if it doesn't go after those who have abused the system." Alliance leader Naomi Long said last night: "Our party isn't to blame for the snap election called as a result of the DUP's and Sinn Fein's mess. "But, unlike some, we are not running scared of an election. "We will be facing the people confident - and offering the electorate an alternative to the secrecy, corruption and cronyism that they are sick of at Stormont." SDLP MLA Claire Hanna said: "The SDLP team in South Belfast at the weekend found many people frustrated that an election is being called. They have no confidence that it will solve anything. "However, while some are switched off, others are saying that they're more motivated to vote now than they have been in years." TUV leader Jim Allister said that we were at a seminal point in our history. "Those who have chosen to believe the lie that Sinn Fein wants to make Northern Ireland work, have had a rude awakening over the past few days," he said. "Sinn Fein will be seeking further concessions after the election, when there is nothing more for unionists to give." The Secretary of State must call a fresh election if the DUP and Sinn Fein can't reach agreement by the 5pm deadline today - exactly a week after Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister. Mr Brokenshire stressed yesterday that he was not considering alternatives to devolution. Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, he wouldn't be drawn on the prospect of direct rule or joint authority with Dublin, but he said: "I'm not contemplating any alternatives to devolved government in Northern Ireland. My responsibility is to see that we are working with each of the parties to ensure that we are not looking at greater division." He expressed concern that an election campaign would be "divisive" and increase the "distance between the parties". And he stressed that there were only three weeks after an election for an Executive to be formed. He added: "What I'm focused on is that we maintain the institutions. It's important that we are working together to see that people are focused on the great opportunities for Northern Ireland." Army experts at the scene where a suspect device was left in the Brians Well Road area of west Belfast on Sunday A bomb recovered in west Belfast after a two day security operation could have killed, police have said. The alert began at 6pm on Saturday after a report that a suspicious object had been left in the Brians Well Road area of Dunmurry. There was significant disruption as the Brians Well Road was closed. The road remained closed until yesterday evening when police confirmed that the device had been examined by Army experts who "declared it to be a viable explosive device". It is believed that those who left the deadly device had been targeting members of the PSNI Auto Crime Team. Chief Superintendent Chris Noble said: "I believe it was designed to kill or seriously injure officers serving the local community in west Belfast, but it was also left in a position where there is every possibility that it could have killed or maimed members of the public. "Those who left this device have shown callous disregard for the safety of the local community and the police officers serving this community. We are extremely fortunate that no one was killed or seriously injured." As Army experts dealt with the device, one republican website complained of "Crown forces" allegedly "swamping" west Belfast. A child who was critically injured when he was knocked down by a car in Co Down was last night described as being in a stable condition A child who was critically injured when he was knocked down by a car in Co Down was last night described as being in a stable condition. The five-year-old was rushed to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children after the collision in Magheralin last Thursday evening. He was initially fighting for his life, but a spokeswoman for the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust said he was now in a stable condition. Meanwhile, police have re-issued their appeal for information about the incident. The accident happened in the afternoon of January 12. A spokesman for the PSNI said: "Police investigating the vehicle road traffic collision in Malcolmson Park in Magheralin on Thursday afternoon continue to appeal for witnesses. "Just after 4.45pm, police received a report that a five-year-old boy had been involved in a collision with a blue Vauxhall Vectra." Anyone with any information about the crash can contact officers at Lurgan police station. Speaker Robin Newton during the RHI debate in the Assembly. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Sinn Fein has described the DUP's use of the Petition of Concern to save Stormont Speaker Robin Newton from a vote of no confidence as "insulting". Sinn Fein tabled the motion over how the DUP MLA handled a recalled Assembly session to debate the Renewable Heating Incentive before Christmas. Mr Newton has also been forced to defend himself against conflict of interest accusations in regard to his handling of Assembly exchanges on a controversial charity in his east Belfast constituency. However, ahead of Monday's Assembly debate, the DUP lodged a Petition of Concern on the matter, effectively vetoing the motion as the result of the vote must attract cross-community support. Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy described the move as "insulting". He said: "The RHI scandal and the DUPs handling of it has been marked by arrogance and contempt for the political institutions and the general public. They have tried to absolve DUP members and ministers from any responsibility for this scandal. It has been more about protecting the reputation of ministers not about transparency and accountability. Today the DUP have invoked the Petition of Concern to protect the DUP Speaker. It is clear that the Speaker has lost the confidence of the majority of MLAs. The Petition of Concern was brought in to protect the rights of minorities. It is insulting that the DUP are using the Petition of Concern to cover the back of one of their own the Speaker. The DUPs decision to use the POC today to frustrate a debate on the Speaker is final proof, if proof were needed, that the DUP are corrupting the institutions in their own interests and against the wishes of the general public. More: Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has described Arlene Foster as a "backwards person" as he said the Stormont crisis is not an "orange and green issue". Stormont's institutions collapsed on Monday as Sinn Fein confirmed it will not nominate a deputy First Minister meaning a snap election in late February or early March is on the cards. It comes as Martin McGuinness resigned from the post last Monday over the DUP's handling of the Renewable Heating Incentive scandal. Speaking to RTE's Today Show with Sean O'Rourke Mr Adams said the impasse was "not an orange and green issue". He said: "We are the party of dialogue, but there has to be a basis for such talks. Martin and I were agreed, you can only be involved in those sorts of talks if there was a reasonable possibility that they would succeed. "When governments fall out and there is very good reason for this government to fall out, then we move into elections." He added: "This isn't an orange and green issue. Unionists people are as outraged at the possibility that half a billion pounds of their money gone astray as anybody else. "That has to be sorted in the first instance. "And then the issues that we are all familiar with, the rights of Irish speakers, the rights of minorities, the bill of rights - all of that has to be dealt with. Mr Adams said the RHI scandal was the "tipping point" but that all these issues must be dealt with. He said: "The DUP are bound to know, that the lack of even good manners the lack of respect, the way they deal with issues are all elements which brought us to this point. "The big reason for the tipping point was the RHI scandal and how they dealt with it. "I would like to think they would be sorted out or Arlene Foster will never be First Minister ever again." Mr Adams slammed Mrs Foster as "backwards" as he spoke on the issue of equality which in November 2014 he said was the Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy to "break these b*****ds". He said: "Because she has not in the period that she was in that post, picked up on the example se,t despite all the difficulties, of her two predecessors. "Martin McGuinness and whatever anybody thinks of Sinn Fein, everybody knows Martin broke his back to try and make this work. "On a personal level I think Arlene is very good and well mannered and well humoured. "But she is not the leader of Unionism, she is the leader in the office of first and deputy First Minister, a co-equal office of all the people of the north." When asked if Sinn Fein had "walked off the pitch" during the crisis - Mr Adams denied this saying that Mr McGuinness, who has suffered ill health, was travelling to Stormont for proceedings from his sick bed. "No we haven't. We haven't walked off the pitch at all," Mr Adams said. He added: "Martin McGuinness is travelling from his sickbed to Stormont this morning to be part of whatever emerges in the course of the day's business there. "I'm making my way to Dublin now. Our Oirechtas team is meeting before the Dail resumes tomorrow morning. "So far from walking off the pitch, Sinn Fein is playing right across the pitch and we're playing on behalf of the people on our opponent's side of the field." Video grab taken from the Northern Ireland Assembly of Michelle O'Neill speaking during an Assembly Plenary Session at Stormont in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday January 16, 2017. See PA story ULSTER RHI. Photo credit should read: PA Wire Video grab taken from the Northern Ireland Assembly of Speaker Robin Newton during an Assembly Plenary Session at Stormont in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday January 16, 2017. See PA story ULSTER RHI. Photo credit should read: PA Wire Video grab taken from the Northern Ireland Assembly of Robin Newton speaking during an Assembly Plenary Session at Stormont in Belfast. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday January 16, 2017. See PA story ULSTER RHI. Photo credit should read: PA Wire Arlene Foster and the DUP Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Naomi Long and the Alliance Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Arlene Foster and the DUP Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Arlene Foster and the DUP Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Martin McGuinness leaving the Great Hall following an Assembly Plenary Session at Stormont in Belfast where Sinn Fein declined to re-nominate a Stormont deputy first minister in a move set to collapse the powersharing executive in Belfast and trigger a snap election.. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday January 16, 2017. See PA story ULSTER RHI. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire Arlene Foster and the DUP Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Jonathan Bell in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Pacemaker Press 15/01/2017 Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness arrives at Storming on Monday morning. The secretary of state is set to call Assembly elections later if Sinn Fein fails to nominate a deputy first minister to replace Martin McGuinness. He quit when DUP leader Arlene Foster refused to stand aside as first minister while a botched energy scheme was investigated. Because they hold a joint office, the resignation automatically put the DUP leader out of her job. Elections must be called if the positions are vacant for seven days. Pic Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster and the DUP Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Mike Nesbitt and the Ulster Unionist Party in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster in the Great Hall of Stormont on 16th January 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph) Former Deputy Northern Ireland First Minister Martin McGuinness walks through the Great Hall at Stormont after failing to nominate a candidate for the role of Deputy First Minister on January 16, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Mitigation measures to prevent Northern Ireland homes being hit with the so-called bedroom tax have been passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly. In the first main debate of the day - after Sinn Fein triggered the collapse of the devolved institutions by not nominating a deputy First Minister - MLAs were told 34,000 claimants had been "terrified" when the DUP indicated last week it could not bring the regulations forward. The claim came from the SDLP Nichola Mallon. She said: "There are some issues which are too important to play politics with. Is it any wonder people don't have faith in politics here?" Alliance leader Naomi Long said her party would support the regulations with significant reservations because they have not had the usual Assembly scrutiny. Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt urged MLAs to "maintain a tone" in the assembly that "would be well received by the public". He asks what direction the DUP and Sinn Fein are steering Northern Ireland in, given that there is "no budget". He adds: "Where are they taking the vulnerable of Northern Ireland?" Following an oral vote emergency legislation was passed by the Assembly. Earlier Speaker Robin Newton reminded Communities Minister Paul Givan that Monday was not the "last day of the Assembly" as business was scheduled for Tuesday. Should The Executive Office remain vacant by the close of business on Monday, the institutions will be dissolved by the end of the week after James Brokenshire calls an election. The Stormont crisis is headline news here - but not so much elsewhere in the UK. Northern Ireland stands on the brink of its second election within less than a year following a major political crisis that threatens devolution. But outside the province, the issue is not having much impact. Brexit was the biggest story for most UK papers, while others focused on the crisis in the health service, Donald Trump and even a former Spice Girl. Only the Sunday Times devoted part of its front page to the situation in Northern Ireland, with a column headlined 'Sinn Fein won't rush candidate selection' - second only to a story on Trump's plan for a summit with Vladimir Putin in Reykjavik. This was followed by a generous page 11 story headlined 'Up in Smoke', in which commentator Newton Emerson asked whether Sinn Fein and the DUP could still save Stormont. The paper also featured a comment piece by Justine McCarthy titled 'DUP clings to old values while rest of the north looks only to the future'. "The mistake Arlene Foster has made is assuming nothing has changed; that conservatism and unionism continue to go hand in hand," McCarthy wrote. The Sun on Sunday, meanwhile, led with a scoop on Victoria Beckham's attempt to block the Spice Girls reunion tour. A tiny article on page four about a petition being launched calling for a public inquiry into the 'cash for ash' scandal completed its coverage of Northern Ireland. But that was still more column inches than in the Sunday Mirror and the Mail on Sunday where it wasn't deemed newsworthy at all. Not even the Irish Daily Mail covered the story, and nor did The Sunday Express. The Guardian, however, carried a Brexit-related Northern Ireland story online titled: "Brexit border 'would make sitting ducks of Northern Ireland police'." Media commentator Malachi O'Doherty described the downplaying of the story as "bad judgment" by the national media. But he added: "They have heard us cry wolf so often, they don't really believe there is a crisis - but this time there is. "We're entitled to believe collapse of devolution would be a story - if devolution was about to collapse in Wales or Scotland it would be. "But I think we have sickened people by wailing about our woes, as there is a crisis practically every year." A scheme aimed at making it easier to see a GP and cutting the workload of overstretched doctors has come under fire. File image A scheme aimed at making it easier to see a GP and cutting the workload of overstretched doctors has come under fire. The AskmyGP scheme is being introduced at GP surgeries around Northern Ireland - but concerns have been raised about patient safety after it was implemented at a practice in Portadown. Dr Philip Lusty, a GP at the Co Armagh town's Riverside Group Practice, has said he has witnessed a "miracle" following the introduction of the AskmyGP scheme and that "everyone" is happy with the new service. Under the AskmyGP scheme, patients contact their surgery on the day they require an appointment. Within an hour they should receive a call back from a GP, who will discuss the medical complaint with the patient and assess how best to treat them. In many cases they may be able to deal with the problem over the phone, resulting in a reduction in unnecessary GP appointments and the rate of patients who fail to turn up for one. Dr Lusty has written a glowing account of the new scheme, which was published on Facebook. He said it has reduced angry confrontations between patients and reception staff when there are no appointments available for three weeks, while GPs are now able to take toilet and lunch breaks. But in response, some critics have complained of lengthy waits for callbacks from doctors and said they are entitled to see a GP if they feel an appointment is necessary. Others said they did not want to discuss personal medical problems with reception staff who they said are not medically trained or qualified to triage patients. However, one of Northern Ireland's top doctors has spoken out in defence of the AskmyGP scheme. Dr Tom Black, chair of the British Medical Association's Northern Ireland GP committee, said: "We introduced AskmyGP nine months ago at the practice where I work and there were complaints during the first two weeks while everyone got used to it, but now all the patients love it." Dr Black said no patient should have to discuss confidential medical information with receptionists and the average time for callbacks at the practice where he works is now 18 minutes. Stormont plans to claw back some of the 490m overspend by the controversial Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme are flawed, according to the body that represents 100 renewable heating businesses. Northern Ireland politicians are today scheduled to debate proposals to recoup the massive costs associated with the RHI scheme. However, the Renewable Heat Association (RHA) for Northern Ireland has branded them "discriminatory" and said they will adversely affect future inward investment to Northern Ireland. The organisation also said costly legal action is likely if the legislation is approved by MLAs. It is the latest twist in the controversy which has seen the Deputy First Minister resign, plunging Northern Ireland into a fresh political crisis. Economy Minister Simon Hamilton has produced amending legislation which would reduce tariffs paid to about 1,800 people who got into the scheme before November 2015. MLAs are due to vote on the matter today. However, Michael Doran, the chairman of RHA (NI), has sent a letter to MLAs warning them of what he believes will be the consequences of voting in favour of the plans. He said many business owners have invested significant amounts of money - in many cases more than 1m - into the local economy by investing in the RHI technology. He also said much of that investment has been in the form of loans which they will be unable to renegotiate. "The RHA calls for audits, both technical and business, for all installations," said Mr Doran. "If any boiler operator is found to be acting fraudulently they should be removed from the scheme, prosecuted and monies which have been claimed illegally should be returned. We also recommend that an economic assessment of the cost of the scheme which assesses the socio-economic and environmental benefits to Northern Ireland should take place. "If the proposed course of action is carried out, following a vote in the Assembly, it may well result in a further drain on the public purse, as a result of having to make reparation for illegal amendments to the contracts." Mr Doran referred to a previous legal challenge of a decision to rescind payments by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in England, which was subsequently overturned. "The draft legislation is flawed, and is likely to be challenged in court due, among other reasons, to the lack of consultation and an unlawful interference with accrued or vested rights," said Mr Doran. "It is being driven by a political agenda." However, an expert in contract law from Queen's University, Belfast, has said amendments passed by legislation could be legal. "There would be no difficulty at all if they could prove people were extracting payments from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry (Deti) without actually complying with the scheme," said Dr David Capper, reader of law. "It's where the Assembly tries to take away people's vested rights that they have a problem. They can do so, provided they act proportionately." Alliance leader Naomi Long has urged Speaker Robin Newton to quit after he blocked the release of advice he received before refusing to allow an Assembly question about Charter NI. Mr Newton faces a motion of no confidence at Stormont today after he allowed DUP First Minister Arlene Foster to make an Assembly statement about the 'cash for ash' scandal without the agreement of Martin McGuinness. But the DUP Speaker has also been in the firing line over how he dealt with issues surrounding Charter NI, a charity headed by alleged UDA leader Dee Stitt. Mr Newton had refused to allow an urgent oral question relating to Executive funding of Charter NI prior to Christmas. This came after he had already apologised for having not declared an interest in Charter NI, and said he would take no more decisions relating to the group. A media outlet asked for information that would help understand some of his recent decisions. Some was released, but Mr Newton personally blocked the rest. Mrs Long said: "For the Speaker to take such a decision, particularly the day before a vote of no confidence in his position, leaves me absolutely dumbfounded." The parochial house which is attached to one of the most picturesque cathedrals in Northern Ireland is set to be given historical listing. The dwelling at St Peter's Cathedral in west Belfast has been recommended by the Department of Communities for B1 listing, just one category below the top tier A, which is reserved for some of the most special constructions in the country. The building at St Peter's Square, just off the lower Falls Road, has been described in the listing notes as a four storey L-shaped ashular parochial house. Construction started in 1867, one year after the main cathedral was completed. The site - which is now surrounded by densely packed housing - was given to the bishop in 1858 for the construction of a church by the Belfast baker, flour merchant and philanthropist Bernard Hughes. John O'Neill completed the work on the cathedral when the original architect, Father Jeremiah McAuley, left Belfast to complete his ecclesiastical training. The parochial house has been added to since the original design, with a two storey entrance portion and small extensions to the rear. However, much of the original historic fabric and fine detailing survives throughout, such as the steep slated gables with corbelled eaves and original joinery and cornicing internally. The parochial house and cathedral are observed in the listing notes as the "most significant group of historic buildings in the immediate and wider area, with the twin spires of the cathedral visible across much of the city". Belfast city councillors who sit on the council's planning committee are set to discuss the recommendation for listing at a meeting tomorrow evening. The minutes for the meeting include a recommendation that the committee, in recognition of the heritage value, supports the proposed listing by the Department for Communities. This second survey of all of Northern Ireland's building stock is currently under way to update and improve on the first list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest, which began in 1974. The PSNI cordoned off the road and called in the helicopter for searches during the bomb incident A bomb left on the side of a road in Northern Ireland was designed to kill police officers, it has been claimed. The explosive was found in the Brians Well Road area in west Belfast on Saturday after a tip-off that a suspicious object had been left in the area. The Police Service of Northern Ireland cordoned off the road and called in the helicopter for overhead searches, and bomb disposal teams were deployed in the two-day operation in the Poleglass/Dunmurry area. The bomb was made safe at the scene and taken away for further forensic examination. Chief Superintendent Chris Noble said local PSNI officers were the target but that civilians could have been killed or maimed. "We are relieved to have taken this explosive device out of circulation," he said. "I believe it was designed to kill or seriously injure officers serving the local community in west Belfast, but it was also left in a position where there is every possibility that it could have killed or maimed members of the public. "Those who left this device have shown callous disregard for the safety of the local community and the police officers serving this community. "We are extremely fortunate that no one was killed or seriously injured." Chief Supt Noble thanked local people for their patience and understanding during the course of the operation. "Our primary aim has been community safety. We are committed to doing this by working with the community. "The security operation caused significant disruption to the people of the area, but was required in order to keep people safe," he said. Chief Supt Noble said those behind the incident were criminals. "Secondly, it is important to condemn those criminals who caused this upset. "The overwhelming number of people in the community do not want this type of activity and we as a police service will continue to work to bring those responsible before the courts," he said. "The blame for this incident lies squarely on the reckless individuals who placed this device." The security operation began on Saturday evening with officers on the street until Sunday evening. "These officers have worked hard to keep people safe during the security operation. "However, these same officers could have been better used in meeting areas of community concern - arresting drug dealers, drink drivers or working with victims of domestic abuse, for example," the officer said. The PSNI appealed for anyone with information on those who may be responsible to come forward. Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire speaking in Stormont House, Belfast where he called a snap Stormont Assembly election for March 2. Niall Carson/PA Wire Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire has called fresh Assembly elections, which will take place on Thursday March 2. It comes after Sinn Fein collapsed the power-sharing institutions when they refused to nominate a deputy First Minister to replace Martin McGuinness, who resigned last Monday over the DUP's handling of the Renewable Heating Incentive scandal. Sinn Fein said they would not "tolerate the arrogance and disrespect of the DUP". Elections must be called if the positions at the top of the power-sharing executive remain vacant for seven days. The Assembly had until 5pm to come up with a solution to the impasse. I am now obliged, under relevant legislation, to propose a date for the next Northern Ireland Assembly election, Mr Brokenshire said on Monday evening. The last sitting day of the Assembly will take place on January 25 and the Assembly will be dissolved on January 26. Mr Brokenshire urged political parties to remain open to dialogue. "No-one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake, Mr Brokenshire said. While it is inevitable that debate during an election period will be intense I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll." "This is essential to the operation of devolved government and this means all must remain open to dialogue. "The Government continues to stand firmly behind its commitment to the Belfast Agreement and its successes and our responsibilities to safeguard political stability here in Northern Ireland. "We will continue to do all that we can to find a way forward to secure the continuation of devolved government." Mr Brokenshire said he would make a further statement in Parliament on Tuesday. Earlier, DUP leader Arlene Foster, who accepted her party's nomination as first minister, said the electorate did not want or need an election. She accused Sinn Fein of triggering a poll because they did not like the outcome of last May's vote. "They have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland's future and stability and which suits nobody but themselves," she said. Mr McGuinness's move was precipitated by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal - a botched eco-scheme set to cost Stormont 490 million - but the row has also reignited a range of other disputes dividing the DUP/Sinn Fein-led coalition. Police at the scene of a shooting in the Norglen Parade area of west Belfast last week The son of a couple shot in their home in the Turf Lodge area of west Belfast has been warned by police of a threat against him. According to Sinn Fein MLA Pat Sheehan, officers visited the young man on Saturday, just days after his parents were shot in a paramilitary-style attack. "He wasn't told what group issued this threat, what group is behind it, but obviously the whole family are very concerned, especially given what happened the other night," Mr Sheehan explained. His parents, who are aged in their 50s, were targeted on Thursday evening when three masked gunmen entered their home at Norglen Parade and shot them both in the legs. It is believed they were caught up in the attack while trying to protect their son. Mr Sheehan said the family had suffered "horrendously" over recent days and condemned those behind the shooting. "Those responsible have nothing to offer this community and I call on them to lift the threat immediately and get off the back of the people of Turf Lodge," he said. The couple's injuries have been described as serious but not life-threatening. Following the brutal attack, the PSNI insisted that it is the only police force in west Belfast. Chief Inspector Norman Haslett said the masked and armed men took "law and order into their own hands" when they shot the couple in their home at 6.15pm last Thursday. He described those responsible as having "no moral compass whatsoever" and said "the community don't want them". "People have taken law and order into their own hands and assumed the role of judge and jury and have passed the sentence. "There is one police service in west Belfast and that is the Police Service of Northern Ireland," he added. SDLP Councillor Tim Attwood visited the couple's son on Friday and has told the Belfast Telegraph of the shock following the attack. "The parents are obviously still recovering. Their son is badly shaken as a result of the incident and the neighbours are pretty shocked by it too. "I spoke to their son on Friday afternoon to express my sympathy as his parents were recovering in hospital. Hopefully they make a full recovery," he said. Mr Attwood added that the attack is only the latest in a string of violence that has shocked the community. "There have been a number of violent incidents in the area over the last few months, including the discovery of a viable device this weekend, but unfortunately there has also been a number of punishment attacks," he said. There is no suggestion that they are linked. The Belfast City councillor condemned those behind the shooting, calling them "callous and reckless". He added: "There are some reactionary people out there who should allow the police and the justice system to deal with any criminality and they should get off the backs of their community. "There are some reckless and callous people out there who are putting the whole community at risk and it's unacceptable. They need to support the police." PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press People comfort each other during the memorial service at the site of the Teebane massacre in Co Tyrone ahead of next week's 25th anniversary of the killings. Eight men died and six others were injured when the IRA exploded a roadside bomb on 17 January 1992. Those caught up in the attack were all construction workers traveling in a van on their way home from Omagh. Photo by Peter Morrison/Press Eye. General View of a memorial service at the site of the Teebane massacre in Co Tyrone ahead of next week's 25th anniversary of the killings. Eight men died and six others were injured when the IRA exploded a roadside bomb on 17 January 1992. Those caught up in the attack were all construction workers traveling in a van on their way home from Omagh. Photo by Peter Morrison/Press Eye. PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 Family of Nigel McKee during A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Flowers at the memorial site of the Teebane massacre in Co Tyrone ahead of next week's 25th anniversary of the killings. Eight men died and six others were injured when the IRA exploded a roadside bomb on 17 January 1992. Those caught up in the attack were all construction workers traveling in a van on their way home from Omagh. Photo by Peter Morrison/Press Eye. PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 Rev Willie McCrea during A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 Rev Willie McCrea during A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press PACEMAKER BELFAST 15/01/2017 A memorial service is held for the 25th Anniversary of the Teebane bombing outside Cooktown in Co Tyrone on Sunday. Eight Protestant workmen died in January 1992 when the IRA blew up their minibus at Teebane crossroads, on the road between Omagh and Cookstown. Another six were injured. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press General View of a memorial service at the site of the Teebane massacre in Co Tyrone ahead of next week's 25th anniversary of the killings. Eight men died and six others were injured when the IRA exploded a roadside bomb on 17 January 1992. Those caught up in the attack were all construction workers traveling in a van on their way home from Omagh. Photo by Peter Morrison/Press Eye. Teebane bomb 25 years on: A memorial service has taken place in memory of the eight killed [photos] Close Tomorrow will mark the 25th anniversary of the Teebane massacre - in which eight men lost their lives and another six were injured. Those caught up in the IRA roadside bomb on January 17, 1992 were construction workers travelling in a minibus on their way home from work at an Army base in Omagh. Yesterday, a memorial service was held at the site of the Co Tyrone atrocity for which no-one has been convicted. Relatives of those who died laid flowers and left messages at the memorial that now stands at the scene. Kenny Donaldson of the South East Fermanagh Foundation, which supports victims of terrorism, said it was "a brutal sectarian atrocity". He said: "The Teebane massacre was committed by fanatics who stole the lives of hardworking men. "They were murdered because others decided that their lives were expendable, that they were opponents to their fascist ideology. "The thoughts and prayers of our organisation and the community should and must be with all those involved. However, that's not enough in itself. "A new desire must exist within the political, criminal justice and civic spheres to practically support those impacted, whether that be in responding to justice, truth and accountability requirements for those impacted, or the provision of necessary practical supports to ensure that those bereaved and injured are provided for as they battle daily living." Theresa May and Enda Kenny have called for the snap election in Northern Ireland to be conducted in a 'respectful' manner Theresa May and Enda Kenny have urged a "respectful" election campaign in Northern Ireland after a snap poll was triggered by the collapse of the power-sharing executive. Both leaders spoke by telephone after Secretary of State James Brokenshire confirmed the region will go to the ballot box on March 2 amid a deepening political crisis. The Taoiseach's spokesman said the pair discussed the bitter fall-out and regretted that the DUP and Sinn Fein had been unable to reach agreement. "They both expressed the hope that the election campaign would be respectful, noting that following the election the Northern Ireland parties would once again have to engage on the various challenges they face," he said. "The Taoiseach and Prime Minister repeated their desire to see the institutions established under the Good Friday Agreement operating effectively, and in particular to have a fully-functioning Executive in place as soon as possible." Speculation has been mounting of a rancorous election campaign in the weeks ahead given the widening divergence between the two main parties at Stormont. If a new power-sharing administration cannot be formed after the March elections, the region faces the prospect of yet another election or even direct rule being reimposed from Westminster. Mrs May and Mr Kenny also spoke about the Prime Minister's much-anticipated speech to be delivered on Tuesday, which is expected to set out Britain's Brexit plan. The Taoiseach reiterated a number of key concerns for Ireland during the conversation, focusing on economic and trading relationships, the common travel area and the peace process, including concerns about the border. A leading religious figure has called on Northern Ireland's politicians to work in partnership. Right Reverend Dr Frank Sellar, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, said the current Stormont crisis is a time when people must be clear about the values they want to base their society and institutions on. "For both to function well, there must be integrity, a commitment to openness, generosity of spirit and co-operation for the common good," he said. "These values - and personal and collective demonstrations of goodwill and empathy - are also important and are at the heart of what it means to love our neighbour, as our Lord Jesus commanded." Dr Sellar said it was also important to show personal and collective demonstrations of goodwill and empathy. "No institution is perfect and as imperfect people in an imperfect world, we all fail at times to embrace values that promote respect, encourage and build others up," he said. "With an election on the horizon and what are likely to be very difficult negotiations that follow, I call on all involved to show a willingness to listen carefully to each other, to honour and value one another and to work constructively in partnership. "The drawing of too many 'lines in the sand' will only thwart progress on resolving the pressing issues that we face as a society. Northern Ireland's political institutions are the fruit of difficult and committed negotiation and I give thanks for all those who have worked so hard over the past 18 years and beyond. We have come a long way, but still have far to go. "It will be my prayer in the next number of days and weeks that our political leaders will receive abundant grace and wisdom, so that a vision for the common good will emerge." Jonathan Bell claims he was told he would not be allowed reduced the tariffs on the botched Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme because two DUP special advisers "have extensive interests in the poultry industry". Mr Bell, who succeeded Arlene Foster as minister at the Stormont department that set up the RHI scheme, made his claims on Monday evening under Assembly privilege. He said: "The very first piece of information given to me in a ministerial office, by DUP party officer appointed special adviser Timonthy Cairns, was that you will not be allowed to reduce the tariff on this scheme because Timothy Johnston, special adviser to the then First Minister, and John Robinson, at that time director of communications to the DUP and now the special adviser to the economy minister, had such extensive interests in the poultry industry. "'Minister, this is not being allowed on your agenda. I have the information Mr Speaker, I have kept the records in many, many formats. This party has suspended me for telling the truth." Mr Bell also claimed that an instruction was sent out by DUP special advisers to stop him from being called to give evidence to the Public Accounts Committee about the scheme. The advisers named by Mr Bell, Timothy Johnston and John Robinson, denied the allegations. The DUP said in a statement: "Following unsubstantiated allegations made by Jonathan Bell in the Assembly chamber under the cover of Privilege we wish to point out that: "Timothy Johnston has no interests whatsoever in the poultry industry and does not benefit or have any family members who applied to or benefit from RHI "John Robinson has no personal interest in the poultry industry. His family home farm have chicken houses but are not part of the RHI scheme and never have been recipients or applicants. "These are outrageous, untrue and unfounded allegations are nothing short of mud-slinging." Mr Bell and senior DUP figures, including leader Arlene Foster, are at odds about the chain of events that led to cost controls being introduced into the widely over-budget scheme and its ultimate closure. The Strangford MLA made his claims during an Assembly debate at which economy minister Simon Hamilton faced growing pressure to publish the names of the beneficiaries of the scheme. As Mr Hamilton presented a draft plan to cut the costs of the scheme, he was met with demands from MLAs to disclose details of those in receipt of payments. Call for RHI beneficiaries to be named Former Finance Minister Mairtin O'Muilleoir said: "The names of the beneficiaries should be published now. "There are many questions hanging over this scheme in relation to people milking and scamming this system." He added that Mr Hamilton's proposal "slows the runaway train that is RHI but it doesn't stop the debacle." "The lack of honesty in dealing with the public has been disrespectful and shameful," said Mr O'Muilleoir. Ulster Unionist Steve Aiken told the Assembly that the Department for the Economy did not publish a list of beneficiaries on Friday after the threat of injunction. He added that the RHI scheme is causing a "burden of 85,000 a day" on the Northern Ireland budget and that the scheme "has become a veritable bonfire of DUP vanities". The SDLP's Claire Hanna demanded to know what legal advice the Department for the Economy received when the decision was taken to withhold the names. Alliance MLA Stephen Farry added: "The public interest lies in that transparency." Earlier, Mr Hamilton said his proposal to cut the cost of the RHI scheme was the only opportunity available. Windfall tax The Green Party suggested a Windfall Tax as a solution to the spiralling RHI scheme costs. Steven Agnew MLA said: "Simon Hamiltons amendment proposal amounts to blatant electioneering. It is an attempt to save face ahead of the imminent Assembly election. "Clare Bailey MLA and I are against the proposal because we consider that it will amount to a further waste of public funds with legal challenges likely. "A Windfall Tax returns the RHI scheme to what was intended originally an incentive to move toward renewable energy, not a get rich quick scheme for a connected clique. "The Windfall Tax proposal is credible, it is a longer term solution and most importantly we believe it to be legally sound. "Similar taxes have been implemented successfully elsewhere, including in the UK and a number of EU countries. The North Down MLA added: "The Economy Ministers proposal is a waste of time, typical of the waste that has characterised this DUP/Sinn Fein Executive." It was originally envisaged that the Treasury would foot the bill for the RHI scheme, but the costs spiralled well beyond London's financial commitment. The total RHI spend in Northern Ireland is estimated at over 1 billion over the next 20 years. The Treasury is set to cover 660 million of that, with Stormont landed with the remaining 490 million. Former deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness resigned after DUP leader Arlene Foster refused to step aside while the RHI scheme - which she established in 2012 as enterprise minister - is investigated. Gardai said a teenager was found dead in a house on the south side of Cork on Monday morning A 16-year-old boy has been found dead in his home following a suspected drugs overdose. Gardai said the teenager was discovered in the house in the Deermount area of Deer Park on the south side of Cork city shortly after 10.30am on Monday. A doctor and an ambulance were called to the home, but the 16-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. Gardai said the incident is being treated as a sudden death and a local coroner has been notified. The teenager's body was taken to Cork University Hospital for a post mortem to determine the cause of death while the house was examined by forensic experts. Gardai in the Bridewell station in Cork are investigating and it is understood one line of inquiry is that the boy may have taken drugs in the hours before his death. An inquest is taking place into the death of Lance Corporal James Brynin A British soldier will not face prosecution over the death of a comrade on an Afghan battlefield four years ago, an inquest has heard. The inquest into Lance Corporal James Brynin's death was halted after six days of evidence last year amid fears the fatality, which was initially suspected to have been caused by "friendly fire", may have been a homicide. L/Cpl Brynin, 22, who was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, was shot dead on an operation in central Helmand Province on October 15 2013. He was part of a troop carrying out intelligence work on the Taliban in the area of Kakaran, north east of Lashkar Gah. Despite receiving immediate medical attention, L/Cpl Brynin, known as Jay, died at the scene. At the resumed inquest in Arundel, West Sussex senior coroner Penelope Schofield said Lance Corporal of Horse Mark Kelly will not be charged by the service authorities over his death due to "insufficient evidence of a homicide offence". Relatives of L/Cpl Brynin were informed of the decision on November 30 last year, Ms Schofield added. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hayward, the commanding officer (CO) of the Household Cavalry Regiment, choked back tears as he spoke about the "profound effect" the fatal shooting had had on L/Cpl of Horse Kelly. He recalled a meeting he had with L/Cpl of Horse Kelly during which he broke down in tears. Lt Col Hayward said: "He is a fairly experienced soldier and I said, 'How are you coping?' And he said, 'Fine'. "And then I asked him to pause. I told him that today was the first day of the rest of his life when he would have to live with the knowledge he had killed one of his fellow soldiers, and then he broke down." L/Cpl of Horse Kelly had possibly been "in denial" about the events and had put on a "brave face" up until his acceptance of what had happened, Lt Col Hayward added. Lt Col Hayward, who became CO of the regiment after the death of L/Cpl Brynin, said L/Cpl of Horse Kelly had undergone and passed mandated training and additional training since the fatality, and now exhibits "more care and rigour". "Having spoken to him and seen the change in him, I would consider him now amongst the safest soldiers in the Army," Lt Col Hayward said. "Like a lot of us, we tend to learn a lot from our mistakes rather than get it right all the time." No concerns were raised about L/Cpl of Horse Kelly during his training. And there had been "external validation" of L/Cpl of Horse Kelly's training since the death "so that it wasn't just about us marking our own homework", he said. L/Cpl Brynin's mother Sharon left the courtroom as Lt Col Hayward added such "blue-on-blue" incidents were a "risk of the profession". Asked by Ms Schofield what he would like to say to L/Cpl Brynin's family, Lt Col Hayward said: "Nothing I can say can bring back your son." Lt Col Hayward said he would be happy for L/Cpl of Horse Kelly to be deployed again. He added: "I have never been surprised by a good soldier on operation not being good." The family of L/Cpl Brynin only found out he was killed by friendly fire three months after he was fatally shot, the inquest also heard. Colonel Timothy Simpson, based at British Army HQ in Andover, Hampshire, said the first indication the death was caused by friendly fire was following the post-mortem examination. He said the post-mortem identified the calibre of round - Nato 556 - used in the shooting, indicating the fatal shot may have been fired by one of their soldiers. Col Simpson said there was no single document outlining the lessons the Army has learned from the death, and a decision on whether to launch a service inquiry has not been made. "There have been a number of steps taken to identify the lessons subsequent to it becoming apparent it was a blue on blue," said Col Simpson. "As for whether there is a single document to learn about this incident, no there isn't." The coroner is expected to deliver her conclusion on Tuesday following final submissions by representatives for the Ministry of Defence and L/Cpl Brynin. Rolf Harris preyed on a blind, disabled woman like a "hawk pouncing on his prey", leaving her "completely and utterly trapped", a woman has claimed in court. Disabled since her premature birth, the complainant was totally blind and had to walk with sticks when she was allegedly groped by Harris at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in 1977, Southwark Crown Court heard. The woman, not at the time an in-patient at the hospital, recalled feeling hot air from Harris's nostrils and his beard tickling the back of her neck after he approached "from absolutely nowhere". The alleged victim said she knew straight away it was Harris who had entered the room from his "unmistakeable voice". She said she thought Harris may have climaxed during the episode, where she remembered him crouching down behind her and leaning his full weight against the chair she was sitting on. She told the court: "He was obviously getting very sexually aroused because he was pushing against the chair and after several minutes he reached a climax and there was a great exhalation of air as he felt better, as it were." Asked by defence lawyer Stephen Vullo if she was claiming the TV presenter had ejaculated in her presence, she said: "I did not have the opportunity of seeing his trousers, nor would I wish to, but I can only tell you of the sounds he was making and the noises and the pressure he was putting on my chair." At one point he tried to justify his behaviour saying "I'm just a touchy-feely sort of bloke", later adding: "Don't be like that, I'm only being friendly" when she asked him to stop, she said in a pre-recorded interview from July 2014. The complainant, who has two full-time carers, went on: "What annoyed me was that I just could not escape, and being blind I couldn't always tell where he was. "I was completely and utterly trapped." Wearing a black suit and black and white tie Harris, who appeared by video-link, is serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims. He maintains his innocence, prosecutor Jonathan Rees said, and has pleaded not guilty to a further seven counts of indecent assault and one alternative charge of sexual assault. Each of the new alleged victims contacted the police or the NSPCC in the wake of the publicity surrounding the first trial, the prosecutor said. She continued: "One (complainant) later described him as an octopus. "I thought 'that's exactly what it felt like with his arms and fingers spread as far as he could spread them'. Her voice breaking, she continued: "The way he took advantage over someone that was totally blind, virtually stuck in terms of mobility ... it's absolutely appalling. In my opinion it's as degrading as it gets." She went on: "No-one has ever behaved like that to me in my life and I have to say even my husband, at his most passionate times, never covered my body in a way that he has done. "Rolf Harris doesn't ask permission he just grovels." While being cross-examined from a wheelchair with her carer by her side, the witness recalled Harris teaching her how to play his didgeridoo in the 13x9ft room after the alleged assault. Mr Vullo asked her if she would agree the pair had what sounded like a "very happy" exchange following the alleged incident and she replied: "It may seem like that but I can assure you it was not the case." "Nobody had any idea that Rolf Harris was this kind of man. We all thought he was Mr Nice Guy," she went on as Harris cradled his head. Asked by Mr Vullo why she had not come forward until the publicity of the first trial she said: "I was just so amazed because Rolf Harris was somebody I had grown up with and we loved it. He was part of our culture and I used to love listening to him on the television." The complainant said she did not report the incident or call the police that day because she did not think anybody would believe her allegations against "an extremely popular man". She said when Harris was referred to as a "predator" in his first trial she recalled he had acted similarly with her. She said of the encounter: "It was like a hawk pouncing on his prey and that is what he did to me." "I thought I was the only one but he did it to so many and that's what hurt me so much," she continued. Raising her voice she said: "He only has himself to blame and what I wish he would do is apologise to all his victims, me being one of them." She admitted having a difficult financial situation but denied she was making the allegations in the hope of getting some of Harris's money. The case was adjourned until 10am on Tuesday. The slump followed reports that Theresa May was heading for a 'hard Brexit' The pound slumped to its lowest point for more than three months after reports that Theresa May is heading for a "hard Brexit". Before making a slight recovery on Monday, Sterling fell to below 1.20 dollars - its lowest point since October's "flash crash". The drop comes ahead of the Prime Minister's announcement on Tuesday regarding her approach to Brexit negotiations. Various Sunday newspapers said Mrs May was heading towards a departure from the single market. Sterling's slump in the Asian markets also came after Chancellor Philip Hammond suggested ministers could slash corporation tax rates if Briton was frozen out of the single market. Mr Hammond told a German newspaper that the Government would do "whatever we have to" to ensure UK businesses would stay competitive. Downing Street would not be drawn on reports Mrs May would announce plans to withdraw from the single market and the European customs union during her speech at London's Lancaster House . But The Sunday Telegraph quoted a government source as saying: "She's gone for the full works. People will know when she said 'Brexit means Brexit', she really meant it." Theresa May's official spokeswoman made clear the Prime Minister backs the Chancellor's comments to German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag, in which he indicated the UK wants to remain " in the mainstream of European economic and social thinking" but was ready to "change our economic model" if it was denied access to the single market. The comment was widely interpreted that the UK could adopt a Singapore-style low-tax approach to attract business if it was frozen out of the single market. The PM's spokeswoman said: "She shares the view that the Chancellor set out that we want to remain in the mainstream of a recognisable European-style taxation system, but if we are forced to do something different because we can't get the right deal, then we stand ready to do so." She added: "It is in the UK and EU's best interests to do the right deal, a deal that benefits us all." Less than a third of voters trust the Government's so-called "Three Brexiteers" to "do what is right" regarding Brexit, a poll suggests. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (26%), Brexit Secretary David Davis (24%) and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox (20%) trailed Prime Minister Theresa May in the trust ratings, although she also lacked majority support and attracted 36% of support among respondents. In a separate question, Mrs May's trust rating following the EU referendum was 35% compared to 23% for Jeremy Corbyn - with the Labour leader having scored 28% in 2016 - while Mr Johnson dropped from 43% in 2014 to 24% in 2017. Addressing institutions , 18% of respondents said they trust political parties in general to "do what is right" compared to 19% for political leaders, 27% for the European Union, 55% for the British people and 88% for family. When asked which party would they trust to "do what is right", voters put the Conservatives top on 28% - a drop from 38% in 2016. Labour were second with 25% (down six) followed by the Liberal Democrats with 20% (down three), Ukip on 19% (no change), Green Party on 27% (down two), SNP on 22% (down three) and Plaid Cymru on 16% (no change). The survey states 87% of those respondents who voted Leave and 88% who voted Remain are sure of their decision six months after June's referendum. Support for a second referendum sits at 22% among the general population, the poll adds. The figures emerged in the annual Trust Barometer survey conducted by public relations firm Edelman. Ed Williams, chief executive of Edelman UK, said: "If we thought 2016 was bad, 2017 could be far worse. "The virus that has understandably destroyed trust among those who feel let down by the system has now obviously spread. "Even those who got richer after the financial crisis exhibit declining trust in the key pillars of society - politicians, business leaders, NGOs and the media." :: Edelman said it used more than 33,000 responses from 28 countries between October 13 and November 16 for its Trust Barometer, including about 1,150 UK residents. It also carried out research with another 1,500 UK residents between December 23 and January 7. The Istanbul nightclub attack on New Year's Eve was carried out professionally and an intelligence organisation was involved, Turkey's deputy prime minister has said. "It appears the Reina [nightclub] attack is not just a terrorist organisation's act, but there was also an intelligence organisation involved. It was an extremely planned and organised act," Norman Kurtulmus said during an interview with broadcaster A Haber on Monday. The deadly assault in which a gunman shot a police officer and security guard before entering the upmarket nightclub to spray New Year's Eve partygoers with bullets was claimed by Isis. Thirty-nine people were killed and 70 injured in the attack which served as revenge for Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war, the group claimed. Dozens of people across Turkey have been arrested and questioned in connection to the assault in the last two weeks. Police say they know the identity of the alleged attacker - who remains at large - but have not released his name. The authorities previously said that they believe the gunman acted alone, but may have belonged to a cell or had help in planning. The suspect is thought to be of ethnic Uighur origin, from a central Asian country. The Uighur are a largely Muslim Turkic-speaking minority from far Western China, with a significant diaspora community in Turkey. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Relatives mourn at the coffin of Ayhan Arik, one of the 39 victims Getty Images Relatives of the dead mourn at their funerals AFP/Getty Images People carry the coffin of 23-year-old victim Yunus Gormek AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Relatives mourn at the coffin of Ayhan Arik, one of the 39 victims Overnight on Sunday two Chinese nationals were arrested in relation to the attack, police said. The daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr has encouraged Americans to fight for his vision of love and justice "no matter who is in the White House". Her call came as civil rights leaders and activists gathered at sites across the US to celebrate the legacy of Mr King. Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her father's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, four days before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. She spoke hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, is scheduled to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. While Bernice King did not offer a detailed critique of Mr Trump, who remains unpopular among black Americans, she said the nation still has a choice between "chaos and community", the same dichotomy her father wrote and preached about. "At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go," she said. But, she added "we still have to find a way to create" what her father called "the beloved community". Mr Trump won fewer than one out of 10 votes from black Americans in November, and that lack of popularity was on display on Monday beyond Bernice King's remarks. Without naming Mr Trump, Ebenezer's pastor, Raphael Warnock, blasted the president-elect for his weekend social media attacks on civil rights leader John Lewis and the Georgia congressman's Atlanta-based district that includes Ebenezer. Mr Lewis angered Mr Trump when he told NBC's Meet the Press that he views Mr Trump as an "illegitimate president" because, he said, Russian hackers damaged the prospects of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Mr Trump retorted on Twitter that Mr Lewis is "all talk" and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart" and "crime infested". "Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history," Mr Warnock said from his pulpit, drawing a standing ovation. As a young man, Mr Lewis was arrested many times and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Mr Warnock called him "the hero of Bloody Sunday and the conscience of the Congress". AP A sea lion hitches a ride on a US Coast Guard boat crew off the coast of Newport Beach. (US Coast Guard/AP) A young sea lion was so happy to be rescued after getting hooked by fishing gear off Southern California, it jumped into a Coast Guard boat. The Coast Guard said a Los Angeles-area crew on patrol pulled the sea lion free on Saturday near Newport Harbour. Officials say after a little persuasion, the sea lion hopped aboard the boat and posed for photos. The animal was handed to a crew from the Pacific Marine Mammal Centre, which brought the sea lion to its rescue facility. It will be rehabilitated and eventually released back into the wild. AP Six suspected criminals were shot by police Six suspected members of a criminal gang have died in a shootout with Jamaican police near the tourist zone of Montego Bay, officials said. Police said in a statement that police returned fire when they were met with gunshots as they tried to stop a car at a highway checkpoint on Saturday night in the town of Adelphi, about 10 miles east of central Montego Bay. Authorities say one officer was wounded and six suspects killed. They blame the gang for several murders around Montego Bay. As peace conferences go, this was the most miserable of all. Pathetic, hopeless, hapless, woebegone, dead before its time. Trump sent nobody, Netanyahu called it the last twitches of the world of yesterday, the autocratic Mahmoud Abbas didnt bother to turn up and Theresa Mays secretary of state for buffoonery only sent a clutch of underlings. John Kerry, who said two years ago that peace between Israelis and Palestinians had at the most 18 months to succeed or its over, announced lamely that the gathering of 70 nations in Paris had moved the ball forward whatever that means. So what was it all for? No doubt Francois Hollande an emperor with no clothes if ever there was one wished to restore Frances place among the nations while the EU nations and the Arabs wanted to twitch one final time if only to clear the decks for failure and avoid all blame. Two-state solution? Jerusalem as a capital? Occupation? Land theft? Refugees? We gave it one last go. Cant say we didnt warn you. Dont blame us, guv. Even the Russians only sent their Paris ambassador to the peace conference. But what did they all expect? That Trumps new ambassadorial stooge to Israel would choose to stay in Tel Aviv? That Benjamin Netanyahu, the Coloniser and Settler-in-Chief, would make no more territorial demands? That the Palestinians, losing acres by the day to Israeli land theft but saddled with a leader whose legitimacy depends on Israel rather than them, would restart negotiations with their occupiers? And so it came to pass that the great and the good in Paris spoke thus: thou shalt not prejudge the outcome of negotiations by taking unilateral steps. And this, announced a French spokesman, was a subliminal message to Trump. Ye Gods! Trump doesnt receive subliminal messages. He sends tweets. Stay strong Israel. How do you answer that? But maybe the lads and lasses in Paris got the message. Not once did they utter the word occupation, let alone apartheid. Why, they didnt even mention the little matter of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. This would be inappropriate, quoth the mighty Kerry. And this was supposed to be a strong message to the Prime Minister of Israel (clearly Trump) and the President of the United States (obviously Netanyahu) that the two-state solution really was the only game in town. And so the Palestinian tragedy continues its slide down the domestic news schedules to Israels delight sandwiched somewhere between hospital trolley deaths and academy awards, but way behind Trump and Putin, Russia in the Middle East, Isis, Brexit, European migrants and global warming. The worlds biggest volcano is bubbling away in Palestine but one of the worlds largest icebergs is about to break off from the Antarctic. Guess which gets the bigger headline? What has got into our leaders? Theresa Mays charlatans are worried that the Paris conference may harden Palestinian positions may harden the Palestinians, for heavens sake while Australia continues to view Obamas first veto on a UN anti-settlement resolution as deeply unsettling. It seems that Malcolm Turnbull finds it unsettling to discuss Israeli settlements while everyone else finds the settlements unsettling. So which is worse: Turnbulls pusillanimity or May sucking up to the Kremlins top spy-to-be in the White House? No British Mandate in Palestine for her. Seriously though, what was it all about? Anyone whos visited the West Bank these past few years, looked at the Jewish colonies built on stolen Arab land, witnessed the occupation and the filth of Gaza and observed its brutal Hamas militia leaders and realised that Netanyahu will soon be the most left-wing member of his increasingly racist government knows very well that the two-state solution vanished long ago. Why, did we really think it would survive the political surgery of our beloved former Middle East panjandrum, Tony Blair? As he would say if he was honest, the whole charade is absolutely and completely over. And the rest of the Arabs? Oh lordy, lordy. We embrace the head-choppers of the Gulf, the dictator of Egypt and the rebels of Syria. We sell weapons to the Saudis to bomb the Yemenis which may harden the Yemeni position quite a lot and send money to Lebanon to keep the Syrian refugees in situ because their further presence among us would be deeply unsettling. We loved the rebels of Aleppo and hate the rebels of Mosul and any comparison between them would no doubt be highly inappropriate. Now thats a subliminal message if ever there was one. Its called moving the ball forward. Join a nation of rebel girls and feminists to remind the incoming administration that women's rights are human rights this Saturday, Jan. 21 , at the Women's March on Washington Albuquerque Rally on Civic Plaza . In addition to protesting the inauguration of a man (and political party) who wholly represents everything terrible about America and the elite 1 percent, the gathering will address how to take positive and peaceful action to exercise our constitutional rights, and protect women's rights, communities and families across the nation regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, sexual identity, gender expression, economic status, age or disability. The rally will begin at 11am and go until 2pm . All are welcome. As Yoko Ono sang, Freedom, O freedom, thats what we fight for. And yes, my dear sisters, we must learn to fight. (Megan Reneau) Join the many unique cultural groups across New Mexico in an inclusive dialogue to become more educated about how to take positive and peaceful action to exercise your constitutional rights. Gather on January 21 at Civic Plaza for the Women's March on Washington in Albuquerque Rally. This is an inclusive event, open to ANYONE who supports women's rights. Mission Statement: The rally is to show solidarity across the nation and at home for the DC March, which highlights that women's rights are human rights. The mission of the rally is foremost to join the many unique cultural groups across New Mexico in an inclusive dialogue and to become more educated about how we can take positive and peaceful action to exercise our constitutional rights. It's an act to uplift our spirits, to broaden awareness, and proclaim "we will protect each other's civil rights, our communities, our families and our planet." En Espanol: (Translation: Diana Galarza & Juan Carlos Vera) Este congreso es una demostracion de solidaridad, no solo en nuestro hogar en el DC March, sino a traves de toda la nacion con un mensaje contundente que LOS DERECHOS DE LAS MUJERES TAMBIEN SON DERECHOS HUMANOS. TODO con el proposito de promover, proteger y defender los derechos de la mujer. La mision es convocar a los diversos grupos culturales de Nuevo Mejico en un intercambio de dialogo con el proposito de desarrollar estrategias educadas y pacificas donde podamos resaltar nuestros derechos constitucionales. Sera un acto enriquecedor, para elevar nuestros espiritus, ampliar la conciencia y proclamar firmemente que "protegeremos los derechos civiles de los demas, de nuestras comunidades, de nuestras familias y nuestro planeta". UPDATE 12/5: Our group is pleased to announce that we have been given approval and city sponsorship to use Civic Plaza for the Women's March on Washington Albuquerque Rally! The location has been reserved for our use and we are moving forward with rally preparations. We look forward to seeing you all at Civic Plaza on January 21 from 11:00AM-2:00PM! UPDATE 12/3: We are so glad to see the positive response to the Albuquerque event so far! Please read the following information before posting comments; we are very busy planning this event and would like to avoid responding to duplicate questions. To save time and avoid confusion, repetitive or off-topic comments will not be approved. UPDATE 12/22: We are so pleased and excited to be partnering with the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice to put on the Albuquerque Rally in solidarity with the Women's March on Washington! http://abqpeaceandjustice.org/ Here are some FAQs: Q: What is the plan? Where will this rally be held and at what time? A. We will be holding the rally at Albuquerque Civic Plaza from 11:00AM-2:00PM on Saturday, January 21. We are a group of 19 local women collaborating to ensure this is a safe, successful, well-executed event, and we will communicate our plans on this event page as they develop further. Q: Do you need volunteers? A: Please email abqwonet@gmail.com and our volunteer coordinator will be in touch with you regarding ways to get involved. Q: Can I contribute financially? A: Please visit our GoFundMe page www.gofundme.com/womensmarchabq - funds raised will be applied to the costs associated with coordinating the rally. Q: Why are there events planned in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque? A: The coordinators from both cities met up in mid-November to discuss how to make this rally available to anyone who wants to participate. We recognized that there are many people from all over the state who are interested in participating, and concluded that there would be enough interest to hold more than one rally. We welcome people from all over New Mexico to join in on either rally and we fully support the Santa Fe event, as well as the national March. Please feel free to join us at either event (we ask for you to only RSVP to the event you intend to attend). The Santa Fe page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/events/734455440040072/?ti=icl Q: I live in New Mexico, but I am interested in attending the March in D.C. Where can I connect with other locals who are planning to attend the national event? A: Please visit the state page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/220341795062534/?ti=icl You have to hand it to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness for tenacity and a remarkable ability to cling to power. My friend and comrade for almost 45 years, is how Adams described McGuinness last week, which suggests they bonded in July 1972, when with other IRA representatives they met Secretary of State Willie Whitelaw. The occasion was a disastrous meeting in London which foundered on the IRA insistence that the British announce their intention of leaving Northern Ireland in the near future, regardless of the wishes of its inhabitants. Despite the busy work of the Sinn Fein rewriters of history, it was a united Ireland that preoccupied the IRA delegation. The civil rights movement had already achieved most of its demands, which in any case were of little interest to the IRA, which was set on revolution, not reform. Its only comparatively recently that they began to claim that it was parity of esteem that they were fighting for as they try desperately to cover up the truth that the IRA they ran lost its bloody war against the British state and ultimately had to settle for taking the Queens shilling in a province that was still part of the United Kingdom. Whitelaw was the first ever Secretary of State. James Brokenshire is the 19th, and like all his predecessors, he will have had to give a great deal of thought to those two men, who until McGuinness was stricken, were the great survivors. The United Kingdom is on its fifth prime minister since 1972, the Republic of Ireland on its ninth Taoiseach and the Ulster Unionist Party on its seventh leader. The DUP, however, is only on its third. Adams has been president of Sinn Fein since 1983, but hed have to clock up another few years in order to beat Ian Paisleys record of 37 years as leader. It was John Hume who in the late 1980s foolishly began the process of opening the corridors of power at home and abroad to Sinn Fein, who soon became blase. Over the years, in addition to their innate hardness, their experience has made them often contemptuous of democratic political leaders. Tony Blair, whom they knew best, was given the nickname Naive idiot. By the 1990s, when he met Bill Clinton, his first American president, Gerry Adams bragged of sitting in the Oval Office, lecturing him about foreign policy. Then there were the special envoys dispatched by Washington to knock recalcitrant heads together. From 1995 to 2007, George Mitchell, Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss endured endless negotiations about issues of little importance in the great scheme of things. Since the deal was done between the DUP and Sinn Fein, there were others, but they were essentially decorative. All this recognition went to the heads of republicans, particularly Adams, whose vanity is such a prominent aspect of his personality. Hes crashed the Executive not because he gives a damn about wasted public money Sinn Fein had no interest in accountability until Spotlight and Stephen Nolan did their work but to placate the grassroots who have come to realise that the reign of Adams and McGuinness gave them neither a united Ireland nor rich pickings. Adams is now desperate for attention once again from Dublin, London and internationally, but it isnt and wont be forthcoming. Dublin, London and the EU are focused on Brexit, think of Northern Ireland mainly in that context, and are impatient with their squabbles. They will go through the motions, the right things will be said about dialogue and moderation, the Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan will have the odd meeting, the assiduous Brokenshire will do his job and try to limit the damage. But essentially, the two governments will pay little attention. Theresa Mays main interest in the province is in the nine DUP MPs, on whom she may have to depend if there are tricky votes on Brexit. And Enda Kenny will be anxious, like the Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, that it be made clear that Gerry Adams (whom they loathe) bears much of the blame for the collapse of the Assembly. As for Washington? It couldnt care less. The glory days are over, guys. Another day of crisis at Stormont brings more political machinations which underline the air of uncertainty and apprehension that hangs like a cloud over Northern Ireland Another day of crisis at Stormont brings more political machinations which underline the air of uncertainty and apprehension that hangs like a cloud over Northern Ireland. It seems that the voters will be saddled with another election, which nobody wants and which will be unlikely to solve the deadlock in the short term. Whatever they say publicly, many party members privately do not want an election which may cost between 5m and 9m. That is a huge amount of money, and Sinn Fein in particular has been contesting elections in the Irish Republic. Apart from money, and the fact that fewer MLAs will be returned, there are leadership issues as well. Arlene Foster's political leadership remains on the line, and her future will be determined by the way in which this continuing crisis is played out. On the Sinn Fein side, Martin McGuinness is clearly suffering from a serious illness, and people are asking if he can continue to operate in the cauldron of Stormont politics in the same way he did previously. If not, Sinn Fein will need to provide someone to follow the lead given by Mr McGuinness, who has acted at Stormont with authority, as well as holding influence over republicans who continue to doubt the political process. Though the current downward path began with the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme and the "cash for ash" scandal, this election is about much more than that. The DUP will be worried as to how the RHI debacle will play with their voters, as well as the politically clumsy decision by the Communities Minister Paul Givan to axe the 50,000 funding for the Liofa Irish language bursary scheme, and then to re-instate it. Questions are also being asked by the DUP's political opponents about the impartiality of the community hall grants scheme, which has risen from an estimated 500,000 to 1.9m. Already Mrs Foster has predicted that an election will be "brutal", and there is every reason to believe that it will be fought on sectarian lines, inflaming passions and fuelling divisions. Church leaders have rightly emphasised the need to listen to others, and the Presbyterian Moderator, the Right Reverend Dr Frank Sellar, has set the tone. He has firmly stated that: "At times like these, we must be clear about the values on which we want our society and institutions to be based." Sadly, for many people, the realities of the Troubles remain, whether for the Teebane relatives who gathered at a cold roadside yesterday to remember those murdered in a massacre 20 years ago, or the couple who were shot in their home in west Belfast last Thursday evening. To emphasise the continuing state of lawlessness, Professor Liam Kennedy has called for a Punishment Attack Commissioner. How shocking is the fact that we should be even considering that option in 2017? Thus far, the politicians are doing most of the talking, but the voters will have their say in the near future, if a solution does not appear almost by magic. How many people really believe the political parrot-cry that an election is in the best interests of Northern Ireland? Once again, we find ourselves looking to the political class for leadership, cool heads and shrewd judgment, and yet again we find them all sadly wanting. The people of Northern Ireland on all sides deserve much better than this. My old Sunday School teacher was wont to ask us if Jesus had returned to earth, would we have been embarrassed at what he found us doing, or would we have been filled with joy at the return of the Saviour? I would ask those 'born-again' MLAs in the DUP the very same question. How on earth can so-called evangelical Christians have, at best, sat silent, or, at worst, sought to justify Arlene Foster's belligerence, smug arrogance and complete lack of humility, while wildly lashing out at all and sundry in her attempt to spread the blame for a monumental blunder in the department under her watch? The claims of misogyny and those pink glasses on a guinea pig summed up her complete and utter contempt for the electorate and confirmed just how detached she and her party are from all those decent and genuine citizens from all shades of political opinion who form the very significant majority of people in Northern Ireland. It was in Acts 11:26 that Jesus's followers were first called Christians, because their behaviour and standards were Christ-like. Would the behaviour of the 'Christian' DUP MLAs indicate that their chief care is to shape their lives by Christ's precepts and example? Arlene Foster may have many Christian virtues, but, if so, she has managed to keep them very well hidden, apart from one - that of resignation. The DUP has inadvertently invented a new political weapon called the Arlene Improvised Missile - it doesn't work and can't be fired. Having spawned the Arlene factor, DUP MLAs appear willing to discredit their own Christian standing in order to defend the indefensible. Shame on them. UTTERLY DISILLUSIONED Claudy, Co Londonderry As Martin McGuinness tendered his resignation as Deputy First Minister last Monday afternoon, one might have been forgiven for assuming that the looming election campaign would be litigated predominately on the basis of the First Minister's alleged fiscal negligence. However, that would be to dismiss the very real possibility that any election might instead more closely resemble a vote of confidence in Theresa May's Brexit strategy. Most immediately, the prospect of Assembly elections in the coming weeks has interesting implications for the Prime Minister's plan to trigger Article 50 by the end of March. While Theresa May may not have anticipated the ensuing legal battles from interested parties across the political and geographical spectrum, High Court defeat nor the subsequent Supreme Court appeal, the government's ill-advised decision to so vigorously defend its right to the use of prerogative powers in unilaterally determining when Article 50 should be triggered, in addition to the setting of a seemingly arbitrary hard deadline for doing so, increasingly appears to have been a strategic error. While the Supreme Court continues to deliberate over the relative merits of the arguments put before it during December's hearing, a determination that the Assembly must be consulted by the government prior to triggering Article 50 would, at the very least, render the end of March deadline virtually impossible. In all likelihood, such a finding would delay the government's plans - irrespective of the current crisis engulfing the Northern Irish political landscape. However, the prospect of an election presents an interesting dynamic not entirely dissimilar to that which we have witnessed in recent parliamentary by-elections in Whitney and Richmond Park. In Richmond Park, in particular, as the incumbent MP, Zac Goldsmith, discovered to his cost, attempting to frame the debate in your own narrow terms often proves impossible when caught up in the maelstrom of what Harold MacMillan once described as "events". The by-election campaign in Richmond commenced ostensibly as a protest vehicle against the approval of a third runway at Heathrow. However, his closest challenger, the Liberal Democrat candidate, had long held the same view, which quickly rendered this particular debate pointless. Recognising as much, the Liberal Democrats quickly seized upon the passions aroused locally by Brexit as a key differentiator between the candidates. Goldsmith quickly lost control of the narrative. Unable to respond, the ex-Conservative could not withstand a swing against him of almost 25,000 votes and suffered a crushing loss. For Richmond Park, now read Northern Ireland. While the circumstances giving rise to the election will likely dominate initial proceedings, the First Minister's statement last Monday evening is, perhaps, indicative of the DUP's strategy to pivot from this specific issue toward broader, more traditional unionist themes. Further statements, or pledges, aimed at neutralising the fall-out from "cash for ash" will no doubt be forthcoming, after which it is hard to imagine any party wishing to dwell too long on a scandal which might raise awkward questions concerning their own economic and fiscal competence. Might this vacuum be filled by concerns surrounding Brexit? As I have written for this paper previously, the impact of Brexit, relative to the remainder of the UK, is likely to disproportionately affect Northern Ireland. From a purely constitutional perspective, the Good Friday Agreement was drafted and agreed on the basis of continuing membership of the European Union. As such, withdrawal from the EU would tend to undermine not only the Northern Irish political framework, but perhaps even the basis upon which many of the rights and obligations created by that document are conferred upon the institutions and people of Northern Ireland. More tangibly, the likely imposition of passport, or customs, controls along the Irish border, any material reduction in sectoral subsidies, the likely departure from the European Union's commons standard and regulatory framework, and the possibility of the imposition of tariffs lend themselves to an inescapable conclusion: any form of "hard" Brexit is likely to be a bad Brexit for Northern Ireland. An election will give parties across the spectrum an opportunity to reopen the Brexit debate. They will be speaking to a captive audience and one which was largely supportive of staying in the European Union. Again, the analogies with Richmond Park, which voted in favour of Remain, are interesting. Characterising the election as a proxy referendum on the government's Brexit strategy is likely to prove a fruitful endeavour, particularly for the SDLP, Alliance and independents. Might we see the same kind of swings against pro-Brexit candidates that we have seen in England? If so, what does the Prime Minister do when faced with a new Assembly comprised of a substantial body of MLAs who have campaigned and won upon an anti-Brexit platform; MLAs who could now, irrespective of the Supreme Court decision, plausibly claim to have a refreshed and incontrovertible mandate to oppose Brexit? How does the Prime Minister then politically, perhaps even morally, impose a hard Brexit upon a recalcitrant electorate who, when provided with time to reflect and finding no new money for the health service, no replacement of crucial agricultural subsidies, no guarantee of continued single market membership and the likely re-imposition of border controls, firmly and unequivocally rejected the entire proposition? At Prime Minister's Questions last Wednesday, Theresa May, in response to a question from the SNP's Angus Robertson, seemed to suggest that a solution could be found. By liaising with the residual executive functions which will remain in place during the pre-electoral purdah period, May claimed that any requirement to consult the Northern Ireland Assembly on Brexit might be satisfied. Some have even suggested that the re-imposition of Home Rule would allow the government to effectively rubber-stamp their own strategy on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. Either option would likely prove politically toxic and lend further credence to the increasingly widely held view that the government pays little regard to the concerns of Northern Ireland. And so we wait for the judgment of the Supreme Court and, absent a last-minute volte-face from Sinn Fein by 5pm today, the upcoming Assembly elections. That the Prime Minister may find herself knocked off course by either is a predicament entirely of her own making. Stumbling into one constitutional crisis of your own making might be considered unfortunate; two seems like carelessness. Ciaran McGonagle is a London- based financial services lawyer and commentator. He blogs at www.ciaranmcgonagle.com Police at the scene of a shooting in the Norglen Parade area of west Belfast last week I haven't met anyone who welcomes the prospect of an Assembly election, still less one that is likely to be 'brutal'. As voters, we did the biz less than a year ago. The signs are that this empty election campaign will simply entrench deeply-held prejudices within the nationalist and unionist communities. Yet there is one issue that could confer some meaning on what will otherwise be a predictable and largely destructive season of hot-air ballooning. Before coming to that, I want to recall two conversations from the last week. On the Monday I spoke to a man who has become a friend in the last year or so. He was attacked by a paramilitary gang in January of last year. Armed and hooded, in boiler suits (fashionable in some circles), the members of the gang were in the business of extortion for the 'cause'. Mark (not his real name) told me that he was suffering flashbacks and nightmares. He was depressed. In one sense I was surprised. I had met him just before Christmas and he was in good form. Only later did I realise that this was the first anniversary of the beating he had received almost exactly a year earlier. The likelihood is these memories of the terrifying assault will be triggered from time to time, possibly for the rest of his life. On Tuesday, I was with colleagues from Children of the Troubles, a human rights group that campaigns against paramilitary terror. We were meeting with three senior officers from the PSNI. All three deal regularly with so-called paramilitary 'punishment' beatings and shootings. The three women officers were passionate in their concern for victims, committed to investigating cases where prosecutions might prove possible, but the conclusion was bleak. The probability of a successful prosecution is slight. We knew this, of course. The barriers are formidable. The perpetrators are sometimes known but most victims won't talk to the police. Neither will a parent, family member or friend sign a witness statement, even if they have some relevant information. Why would they? It would be worse next time, when the men in hoods came back. There have been well in excess of 6,000 recorded cases of paramilitary-style attacks on civilians, including children, since the start of the Troubles. In research I hope to publish later this year, I estimate the true extent to be more than 10,000. In the context of a small society, this is an appalling catalogue of abuse, mutilation and torture. In virtually all cases these were instances of green-on-green and orange-on-orange violence, perpetrated by the 'defenders of the community'. Last week, in what I think is unique among the 10,000 or so attacks, three armed men invaded the privacy of a house in the Turf Lodge area of west Belfast, and shot in the legs a middle-aged couple, Marie and Peter Dorian. If it proves to be the case that the couple were shielding their son, then they are heroes of the struggle against paramilitary child abusers. Less than a month ago, as a pre-Christmas gift from paramilitary-land, a sixteen-year-old Belfast boy was shot for alleged anti-social behaviour. What of his future prospects in terms of education and training - now badly disrupted - or of future employment, not to mention the physical and emotional scars he will carry? Here's a question to occupy the intelligence of the lords of vigilante justice. Might not the terrorisation and mutilation of a defenceless child - pumping bullets at close range into his limbs - be a form of 'anti-social behaviour'? It will be interesting to see how many political parties give priority to tackling paramilitarism in their manifestos. It is astonishing how long we have been sleepwalking in the company of some of the most bizarre personalities and sadistic individuals in our midst. It is astonishing that we accept as almost normal that young men should turn up for shooting by appointment down an alleyway or on a piece of waste ground. It is astonishing that we forget so easily the long-term depression, alcohol or drug abuse that afflicts victims of the 'punishment' culture. Nowhere else in Western Europe would this be tolerated. Moreover, this damages Northern Ireland's reputation as a 'cool' place to visit and one in which multinational companies might safely invest. Outsiders are unlikely to find attractive a society in which Islamist-style practices of 'punishment' are prevalent. The stakes are high, for all of us. Children of the Troubles is proposing two courses of action. The first is that all political parties make fighting paramilitarism a priority, during the election and, more importantly, when the next government is formed. We know the 'cash-for ash' scandal is a grave one; it will be sorted out; no one died (and self-incineration seems unlikely). Gun law, which is what we have in many disadvantaged neighbourhoods, is a far more insidious threat to our way of life. The second is that Belfast City Council, as the largest and most prestigious council, appoint two community workers to lead the fight against paramilitarism at local level. Later on, other councils such as Derry might follow suit. This is so vital, it needs elaboration. From the GAA to the Orange Order, the unpalatable fact is that there is a degree of 'community' support for vigilante-style attacks in some local communities, particularly in disadvantaged areas. In view of the problems facing police in securing convictions, changing those values and attitudes is the long-term solution. That means many people in public life and many agencies have a role. The policing role is a distinctive one, but is only part of the picture. Those with responsibility, it seems to me, include local politicians and political activists, community workers, women's groups, schools, media, voluntary organisations such as the GAA, the Orange Order and (maybe) community restorative justice schemes, human rights organisations, probation services, the Children's Commission, clergymen and clergywomen, youth workers and indeed any individuals and groups with roles in the local community. Let's face it, paramilitarism is a deeply-ingrained community and societal problem, as are racism, sectarianism, child abuse, and violence against women. If we have funds for traffic wardens, noise-abatement officers, and a host of other useful officials, then surely we have funds to educate and help mobilise civic organisations to fight murder and mutilation in one of Europe's finest cities. My own proposal is that we have a lyric-writing competition that celebrates the heroic exploits of hooded men, who against fearsome odds, cleanse our society of undesirables. It could be an annual event, provisionally titled the 'Kneecappers Ball'. The winning entry could be set to the tune of 'Bring in the Clowns'. Perhaps Tim McGarry and the Hole in the Wall Gang would do the honours. As for dress for the grand gala night, formal wear should be optional, but boilersuits preferred. Hoods obligatory of course, but iron bars and cudgels might be left at reception. If the coming election is to be known for anything other than sour jibes, it must be given a meaning that transcends communal rivalries. That should be a convergence of political thinking that gives priority to challenging gun law, and its residues, in working-class communities. This could be the defining moment when Northern Ireland faces up to the unacceptable face of vigilante 'justice' and its related activities. It would also answer the heart-felt plea of Kate Carroll, the widow of the first PSNI officer to be murdered in the line of duty. As she told the Belfast Telegraph, she wanted fulfilled her husband's 'dream of a better Northern Ireland.' Amen to that. How much did Arlene Foster really know about the Renewal Heating Incentive scheme during her time as minister in charge of energy? Since the top civil servant in her department, David Sterling, has admitted having little knowledge of how the RHI scheme was administered, it follows that Foster was most likely in the dark. Time after time, opportunities were missed to review and alter the scheme and probably avoid the scandal which has surfaced. The very first chance of doing so came when Foster launched the consultants' original report for public consultation and invited responses, including on the issue of tariffs. A total of 75 responses were received but, mysteriously, only five were shown to the consultants who admit now they made the first mistake of proposing that the tariff for biomass boilers should not be tiered as it was in the scheme in Great Britain. It seems that no-one, but no-one - including the Stormont all-party energy committee - queried the lack of tiered tariff or the fact that RHI had no cap on the amount boilers could burn in a year. Foster's RHI scheme was part of a UK-wide renewable energy policy. Her ministerial counterpart in London seems to have been more directly involved in proposing tariff refinements and cost-control changes. The two schemes operated in parallel. Knowledge of ministerial statements and reviews was shared from London, and presumably reached the desks of energy officials in Foster's department. The next opportunity to think again about RHI costs came swiftly, with the launch of the non-domestic scheme when incentives were extended to domestic households. Foster wrote forewords for the schemes, accompanied by her photograph, and extolled the virtues of renewal energy as part of a European Union campaign to reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Unlike the cross-channel scheme, no changes were proposed here, budgetary controls were not in place, nor did any review of the original tariffs occur until too late. Why that didn't happen has still not been properly explained. "I accept that a review did not take place in my time," admitted David Sterling, permanent secretary at the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Investment (DETI) until July 2014. "I accept that the business case quite clearly said a review would take place in early 2014. I cannot satisfactorily explain why it did not take place." Was Arlene Foster aware that a review should have been arranged? Sterling told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that officials sent her a note advising that a review would take place in May 2014, and another note in the autumn saying the review would now occur at the end of the year. "The purpose of the two submissions was to alert the minister on progress with RHI. It is normal practice to alert the minister on progress on significant initiatives," said Sterling. "I cannot satisfactorily explain why the review did not take place during the time I was there." Had it done, it would have painted a dismal picture of the non-domestic RHI scheme at that time. When Sterling left Foster's department in July 2014, barely 200 applications had been received. Nobody was ringing any alarm bells. The original business case proposed a monitoring committee which Sterling said had not existed. If Sterling was not kept informed adequately, then Foster probably sat in her ministerial office oblivious to it all. Sterling told the PAC: "Application of the control system was deficient. I take responsibility for that." The two critical factors that gave rise to the RHI loss were the initial tariff design and the failure to conduct reviews. In a nutshell, what went wrong? First, the flawed tariff. Second, no cost or progress reviews. Third, whatever the warning signals from OFGEN, the energy body charged with monitoring applicants and their usage, no concerns were raised at the top level. Sterling says he had no inkling of the trouble looming. That being the case, then presumably he was unable to brief Arlene Foster. And finally, there was the failure to act on a whistleblower's warnings in 2013. Foster says she referred the whistleblower to her officials, heard nothing further and left it at that. In mitigation of Foster and Sterling, they faced a number of major energy issues. Fuel prices in Northern Ireland were soaring - nearly 20% in electricity tariffs, 9% for gas in the Belfast area. The absence of the North-South inter-connector was costing consumers 20m a year in tariffs, and piping gas to west Ulster was a priority. RHI was the least of the worries. "I am not trying to absolve myself," said Sterling. "I am saying that at the time I was more actively in issues beyond the RHI scheme." So what was the chain of command on RHI from Foster's office? She would have relied on her permanent secretary David Sterling, who in turn had two deputies, one of whom was in charge of the policy unit, under which was the energy division, headed by a grade 5 level civil servant. For new initiatives, Stormont departments deployed a project management process, known as PRINCE. In the case of RHI, it was never in place. Nor was there a "BF" - bring forward - register of concerns which could be examined. As far back as 2012, the RHI business case committee had identified at least nine risks, including the danger that the incentive tariff could be either too high or too low. Also, the scheme could be open to fraud or have an inadequate budget in the years ahead. Because there was no PRINCE monitoring or proper risk register, issues of concern did not reach the permanent secretary's notice, according to his evidence. If Arlene Foster was relying on him to keep her informed on RHI, then she might have learnt little or nothing. That said, as the minister who championed the renewable energy scheme, she might have been expected to inquire of her officials as to its progress or otherwise. While Foster's ministerial counterpart at Westminster was introducing changes and restrictions to the RHI scheme in Britain, nothing happened at Stormont. Her department would have been in regular contact with London, from where statements and letters were emerging setting out tariff reviews and cost restrictions to ensure affordability of the British scheme. No one at Stormont appears to have taken any notice of this advice and activity. Foster, herself, might have inquired even informally of her officials as to how the scheme was going and if there were any problems. To date there is no record of her having done so, nor has she given any detail of meetings or contacts which she might have had, either with the energy team or with counterparts in London. Given the importance of RHI in the wider UK energy strategy, and the fact that renewable energy was uncharted territory, it would be surprising if the minister did not take a keen interest in how it was progressing. Did she note what was happening across the water in the statements of her Whitehall counterpart? Did she inquire of any of the businesses she visited whether her renewable energy scheme was attractive to them or not? Did she wonder and consider asking any questions as to why only 11m out of a budget of 25m had been spent? The London Treasury sent an email in 2011 saying that the expenditure on RHI was restricted to 3% of the UK budget, in proportion to the size of the population here. Anything spent over that figure would be for Stormont to find from its own coffers, and any under-spend would be returned to London. The issue of who picked up the tab for RHI was crucial, but again the Treasury advice did not register at Stormont until the bills started to mount in 2015. In January 2014, RHI was eventually reviewed but ,though there were early indications of misuse from the limited monitoring of OFGEN, these issues were not acted upon. In his defence, David Sterling told the PAC committee he could not be expected to be on top of everything. He had depended on others to keep him informed but appears to have been let down in so far as he was left unaware of issues of concern. Sterling refused in his evidence to apportion blame on others in the energy section, who numbered from 29 to 38 between 2010 and 2014. "The voices of the people who were working on this project need to be heard. They have to be able to give their side of the story. I will reserve judgment after that." When David Sterling left the department in July 2014, RHI had only 219 applicants. Arlene Foster remained as Energy Minister for another 10 months. Not until March 2015 would the danger signals really register in her department. By then, it was too late. She transferred in May 2015 to become Finance Minister. By the time, Foster had entered the First Minister's office, a year ago, the blue touch paper was already alight and Stormont was set to implode. While the senior figures around Foster in her DETI department up to 2015 have given evidence, others below them have yet to be heard. The civil service is conducting its own "fact-finding" exercise, as any company would do in the face of serious allegations of mismanagement and incompetence. As for the former First Minister, Arlene Foster, she may reflect that when the full facts are known, she may be more at fault for how she reacted when the story broke rather than for what she actually did, or didn't do, as the minister, who handled the poisoned chalice of RHI. DUP MLA Paul Givan is at the centre of a new funding row over 1.9million given out in a community hall grants scheme. As the political fallout at Stormont continues and we head towards an election, another political controversy has emerged. Sunday Life has obtained the document listing the 90 groups set to benefit from the 1.9m scheme and can today reveal the list of organisations who have benefited from the grant. The list includes 35 loyal order lodges and bands including 25,000 to Brookeborough LOL in Fermanagh as well as a range of other cultural, religious and sporting groups. The funding was initially earmarked for 500,000. On Friday, Mr Givan said the programme was hugely oversubscribed with more than 850 applications received by his department. The latest row looks set to destroy any faint hopes of the DUP and Sinn Fein reaching an agreement before tomorrows 5pm deadline to avoid an election. The parties are at a stalemate over the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) debacle with DUP leader Arlene Foster refusing Sinn Feins demand to stand aside without prejudice pending an inquiry into the botched scheme which she launched as Enterprise Minister. West Belfast MLA Alex Maskey said of Mr Givans 1.9m payout list: This looks like yet another example of blatant discrimination and the DUPs contempt for the wider public. There was mounting concern about why Paul Givans community hall grants scheme had soared from half a million pounds to almost two millions pounds. Clearly these public funds have been significantly directed at one section of the community. This is a flagrant abuse of public money and this ministers contempt for the public knows no bounds. Read More Last week Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams described Mr Givan as an ignoramus after it emerged that he had cut Liofa Irish language bursary funds by 50,000 a year which enabled more than 100 people a year to attend summer classes in the Donegal Gaeltacht. Mr Givan reversed the Liofa funding decision days later after Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy First Minister bringing the Assembly to the point of collapse. Last night Maskey claimed: Public money should be used responsibly to address need rather than attempt to buy support in the wake of the RHI scandal. This only further undermines public confidence in the political institutions and the people must now be allowed to have their say on the DUPs arrogance. But Mr Givan has stated that a robust, transparent and accountable assessment process was followed. SDLP leader Colm Eastwood said his party had concerns from the time that this fund was opened. It seemed, at that stage, that the criteria meant that GAA clubs could not apply, he said. We were worried that the minister was trying to look after one community rather than the whole community. Only a couple of GAA clubs Erins Own GAC Cargin and Clonduff GAC are included in the list of groups which have benefited. Among the groups celebrating last week were Kilcooley Womens Centre in Bangor and Tildarg Orange Hall in Ballyclare both posted photos on social media thanking Paul Givan (left) for their 25,000 bursaries. Meanwhile, the DUP and Sinn Fein have until 5pm tomorrow to save the Assembly. But last night a Sinn Fein official said the party was on an election footing and there was no hope of a deal. If an agreement is not reached between the two parties to end the political stand-off created by the fallout from the RHI scandal then the Secretary of State James Brokenshire will be forced to call an election with a likely date being March 2. Mrs Foster is due to be renominated as First Minister when the Assembly sits tomorrow. If Sinn Fein do not nominate an MLA for deputy First Minister then the Assembly will be dissolved and an election called. However, an election is not guaranteed to end the crisis and if the two parties cannot come to an agreement after a vote Mr Brokenshire indicated he could keep calling elections until the deadlock is resolved. A plan to limit the cost of the Renewable Heat Incentive has been drafted by Economy Minister Simon Hamilton and is due to go before the Assembly for approval tomorrow. Its estimated that the total cost of the scheme to the Executives budget will be 490 million over the next 20 years. If the proposed changes to the RHI scheme are voted through it will introduce a tiered payment system from April 1 this year but the new regulations will only be in place for one year. The new legislation will also cap payments to RHI users at 400,000 kW hours beyond which they will not receive any payment, in line with how the scheme operates in GB. Last night TUV leader Jim Allister told Sunday Life he would vote in favour of the changes to the scheme but branded it a face saving exercise by the under fire DUP. Mr Allister, who is a QC, also said it was likely the proposed changes would be challenged in court as a breach of contract between the government and RHI users. Its pretty chancy I would have thought, he said. Will Jackson and his robots, pictured in Penryn, Cornwall, at Engineered Arts Ltd. Picture By Jim Wileman Robothespian will be making an appearance at the Dublin Tech Summit. The life-sized humanoid robot designed for human interaction is fully interactive, multilingual, and user-friendly Dublin Tech Summit has announced its conference, keynotes, panel discussions and full lineup that will take place at The CCD, Dublin on February 15 & 16, 2017. The two-day event is an opportunity for members of the tech community to experience a breadth of topics and acquire first-hand knowledge from experts and entertaining speakers at the forefront of creative industries, innovation and business. The schedule, complete with conference dates and times is now available at dublintechsummit.com. The conference will welcome 10,000 members of the tech community to the CCD. Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and DTS Keynote speaker, Gary Vaynerchuk built anticipation ahead of his appearance saying "[DTS] will likely be the only time I'll be in Ireland this year. I have a ton to talk about in 2017 Tech, the rest of the conference is going to be phenomenal." Joining Gary amongst the world-class lineup, is Robothespian. The life sized humanoid robot designed for human interaction is fully interactive, multilingual, and user-friendly. He will join a panel on Rise of the Robots and will also attend DTS offering individual insights and expertise to attendees. I am so proud to have such an incredible team to work with. Its a small team, but we have all worked tirelessly to ensure that we created a conference that Dublin will be proud of. "To see it all come together now is truly breathtaking said Noelle OReilly, CEO. Weve brought together thought-leaders to speak on the biggest trends in technology across the board: consumer data, cyber security, artificial intelligence, technological advances in medicine, digital currency, the crossroads of fashion and technology. Every person and business is affected by technology and innovationwe wanted to acknowledge that with our lineup. Expand Expand Previous Next Close Dublin Tech Summit CEO Noelle O'Reilly Dublin Tech Summit CEO Noelle O'Reilly / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dublin Tech Summit CEO Noelle O'Reilly Seven stages With a focus on fostering lasting relationships and cultivating an intimate experience for each participant, the two-day conference will feature seven stages: Prism (Creativity) Business & Marketing Internet of Things FinTech MedTech Fashion Innovation Featured Sessions Empowered Users Equals More Money For Publishers - Till Faida, CEO, Adblock Plus The cost for free online content is advertising but as users fight publishers with ad blocking technology the industry needs a new approach to connect with consumers. The Acceptable Ads initiative encourages the ad industry to pursue less intrusive ad forms, thus having a positive impact on the Internet as a whole. Till Faidas company is at the forefront of the debate, he will share Adblock Pluss perspective. Tech Development In The Arts - Jimmy Chamberlin, Co-founder & Drummer, The Smashing Pumpkins, CEO at Blue J Strategies and Matthew Luhn, Story Veteran, Pixar The arts have always been a sector that has valued tradition. With developments in other areas progressing at unimaginable rates the worlds of art, music, film and theatre can no longer ignore the digital age and the impact it is having on the future of creativity. These two creative heavyweights will unite on stage to explore whats next. Why The Next Big Thing In Tech Is Disrupting Sex - Cindy Gallop, CEO IfWeRanTheWorld & MakeLoveNotPorn The tech world welcomes innovation and disruption in every area of our lives - except one. Cindy Gallop, founder & CEO of social sex platform MakeLoveNotPorn, will talk about why sextech is the next trillion dollar industry, how it can deliver the most profound social benefit of any area of tech, and why she is raising the world's first and only sextech fund, AllTheSky Holdings. Read More Open Source Eating The Software World And The Digital Transformation Necessary To Market IT - Meagen Eisenberg, CMO, MongoDB Meagen will discuss how open source has become a common phrase throughout the tech world in the past few years but that does not imply that it is fully understood. Open source projects require a specific business model to be sustainable to become part of the digital transformation which is impacting the way software is marketed and sold. The Trillion Dollar Smart City Opportunity - Jonathan Reichental, CIO, City of Palo Alto Jonathan introduced a range of programmes that have revolutionised the way citizens interact with local authorities in Palo Alto. He will discuss how there is a multi-trillion dollar global opportunity for technologists and entrepreneurs to reinvent our cities for the 21st Century and we can all be a part of it. The Future Of Money - Louise Phelan, Vice President of Global Operations, PayPal As VP at of one of the largest fintech companies in the world, Louise will discuss how the move to mobile is one of the latest major global trends in the ever changing technology industry. This development has required an enormous amount of innovation and further advancements will be required as it shapes the future of money. Female Leaders Breaking Down Antiquated Barriers A panel of female leaders in their fields will explore females challenging traditional norms. Are empowered women in business finally being recognised? As women's lives become more balanced and their presence more common, are they finally receiving the recognition they fully deserve? Panelists - Kerrie Finch, Founder & CEO, FinchFactor (Moderator), Anne Ravanona, Founder & CEO, Global Invest Her, Colette Ballou, CEO, Ballou PR, Delphine Remy-Boutang, Founder & CEO, The Bureau, & Charlotte Fereday, Programmes Manager, Code First: Girls. A Customer-Centric Approach To Success - Maria Martinez, President, Global Customer Success, Salesforce In a world where everything and everyone is connected, companies strive to build more meaningful customer relationships at every interaction. New disruptive technologies and rising customer expectations are redefining the vendor/customer paradigm. In this keynote, Maria Martinez, President of Global Customer Success at Salesforce, will address her company's path to becoming a customer company and Forbes magazine's "Innovator of the Decade." She will discuss Salesforce's 17-year evolution in the cloud and how it works to earn customer satisfaction by transforming their businesses in entirely new ways. Utilising The Power of Big Data Big data has big benefits but with increased privacy control and cybersecurity companies could face big problems. Leaders at AliExpress, Corvil, and Yahoo! UK will discuss and debate how they have leveraged big data power and used it to increase visibility and revenue. Panelists - Dongbai Guo, CTO, AliExpress, Donal Byrne, CEO, Corvil, James Kretchmar, CTO EMEA, Akamai The Power Of Now - Bruce Daisley, EMEA Vice President, Twitter In the age of acceleration, delivering an effective message has never been more difficult. To garner the most visibility possible you first need to ensure that the content you create is both efficacious and astute. Given Twitter was built on the power of immediacy, Bruce will share insights into how people can be reached. The conference schedule is now live and available at dublintechsummit.com. Attendees can also download the DTS app which enables them to network with their peers, view the conference programme schedule, companies and startups who will be present at the event. The app also provides those attending with key information as well as an interactive map of the conference. Speaking on the app that went live last week, Noelle OReilly, DTS CEO said, Seeing the positive reaction amongst attendees connecting and interacting on the DTS app has been a huge motivator for the entire team. Our aim is to make this event something special. DTS is committed to ensuring attendees have the best opportunity to build and foster professional connections. The event is an essential destination for global professionals and will feature conference programming, demos, exhibitions, a StartUp competition and a variety of networking opportunities. Limited tickets remain and those wishing to attend can secure their place at dublintechsummit.com/#attend. A leader of an Islamic State Malay-speaking fighting unit in Syria and two other Malaysians were killed Saturday in a government airstrike in Raqqah, Syria, Malaysian counter-terrorism unit chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told BenarNews. Zainuri Kamaruddin, 50, leader of Katibah Nusantara (KN), appeared in a Malay-language IS propaganda video circulated last year where Indonesian and Malaysian passports were burned. The 15-minute, 48-second video showed Southeast Asian children being drilled on extremist ideology, trained to use weapons and incited into burning what appear to be Indonesian and Malaysian passports, in an act of renouncing their citizenship. At the end of the video, Zainuri leads the passport burning and threatens that the group will send its soldiers back to the Malay Archipelago to eradicate non-believers. Ayob said Zainuri declared war on the Malaysian government in the video. Zainuri, who was better known as Abu Talhah, was a former leader of Kumpulan Mujahiddin Malaysia (KMM), who trained in Afghanistan and was jailed in Malaysia for 10 years for possession of firearms, according to Ayob. He went to Syria in April 2014 and joined another rebel group, Ajnad al-Sham, before linking up with IS. Zainuri was involved in recruiting people to join the IS group in Syria through Facebook and have also made travel arrangements for them, he said. A counter-terror analyst said the airstrike will hurt the militant group. The death of Zainuri Kamaruddin, also known as Abu Talhah, is a great loss to KN group, because Zainuri is a high-ranking member, well experienced in tactical and ideological methods, and is a highly motivated individual, analyst Ahmad El-Muhammady told BenarNews. But, it doesnt mean its threat to Southeast Asia is diminishing. There are a number of others who are willing to take up the struggle forward. Two others killed Ayob identified the other Malaysians killed as Ahmad Asyraf Arbee Ahmad Jamal Arbee, also known as Abu Luqman Al Malizi, 31, and Sazrizal Mohd Sofian Thayalan, also known as Abu Badar Al Malizi, 27. Both went to Syria in November 2014. Sazrizal, Ayob said, headed to Syria with his wife without the knowledge of their families and was among those appeared in Zainuris video. Before heading for Syria, Sazrizal and his wife and some of their friends were working as fruit pickers in Australia to raise funds to go there, he said. Among their friends was Mohamad Amirul Ahmad Rahim, a 26-year-old Malaysian who died when he drove a truck full of explosives, killing 21 others in a suicide attack in Raqqah last year. Ayob said the death of the three men have brought the number of Malaysians killed to 30 of 95 who have being identified as being linked to IS in Syria. Nine killed themselves in suicide bombings, Ayob told BenarNews in a year-end interview. KN, the Malay Archipelago unit of IS, groups fighters from the Malay-speaking region of Malaysia and Indonesia including Southern Philippines. The unit could become a fighting force in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, according to a 2014 report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, a Jakarta-based think-tank. From my standpoint, and information i am privy to, KN was and is working hard to recruit Malaysians to act on their behalf, analyst Ahmad said. In my opinion, we can destroy KN once and for all, if all KN members in Syria are eliminated. It is not impossible. But, it is a difficult operation. Malaysian authorities have arrested 264 IS suspects since 2013, 66 have since been freed, according to figures Ayob presented recently. ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. 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Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten. Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen. Von: TANIT KOCH BILD: Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the President of the United States on Friday. Given all the knowledge you have about Facebook users and the data about them - did you see Trump's electoral success coming? Sheryl Sandberg: That's not what we do. But all over the world people get elected and talk to citizens more directly thanks to social media. Does is annoy you at all that Donald Trump circulates his statements through Twitter instead of Facebook? Sandberg: (laughs jovially) You know, of course we want everyone to use Facebook as much as possible. If you look at election campaigns globally they all rely on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. Lesen Sie auch A number of campaign experts claim that they wonthe election for Trump with the help of Facebook. Were voters steered in their behaviour? Sandberg: I think you will find that some companies used this claim for public relations purposes. We offer the same advertising targeting to everyone politicians, parties, or the cafe around the corner. The same applied to the Trump campaign. You once said that new technologies should contribute to a more open and more closely-connected world. What we are currently witnessing is that people usesocial networks for anti-social behaviour Sandberg: Look, we want people to use Facebook to sharewhat is important to them. For this purpose, we have strongcommunity standards, and we will continue to enforce them. It is mistaken to think that there's something one campaign can do and the other cant. Every politician can send an ad to men, women, registered voters in the US, or people living in a certain electoral district. This is possible without the politician receiving personal information. It's all anonymous. Auch interessant Lets say that Alternative fur Deutschland wants you to send campaign adverts to xenophobic voters and Sandberg: Thats not possible with us. There is no category xenophobic target groups in Facebook. what if the Green party wants to addressvegetarians? Sandberg: That level of detail is just not there. Our targeting is transparent and based on demography, place of residence, age, and interests which could include cooking. Allegedly the Trump campaign targeted black women traditionally Hillarys voting group -, and not with pro-Trump, but with anti-Hillary ads to make them stay at home on election day. Sandberg: This kind of targeting is not available in Germany. AfD has more Facebook followers than SPD and CDU combined. Will Facebook decide the German federal election? Sandberg: No. We, and this is really important, build technology that enables people to share. We do not write articles. We don't editorialise on articles. Despite fake news, despite hate speech? Sandberg: I think we all agree on the goals. People don't want to see hoaxes on Facebook and we don't want to show them and we dont want people to earn money with them. The question is then: how with 1.79 billion monthly users? What we are very clear on: We don't want to be the arbiters of the truth. And I don't think anybody wants us to. So we have to cooperate with third parties who are experts for instance in the recently announced Facebook Journalism Project. Saying we can't do this ourselves doesn't mean we don't want to take responsibility. We do take responsibility. Top politicians are already demanding stronger laws so you will crack down on hate speech more rigorously. Does that impress you? Sandberg: We comply with the German law. When we are being informed about illegal contents, we delete them. However, below this threshold, it is a social challenge that can only be solved jointly by companies, politicians, and civil society. We continuously improve our measures, and in Germany we cooperate, for instance, with well-respected organizations such as the German Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media FSM or Jugendschutz.net. Lesen Sie auch You recently opened a Digital Learning Space in Berlin. Why is it so important to you that you wanted to be there yourself? Sandberg: Technology is a great challenge. It creates a great amount of good, but also great amount of change which leads to some uncertainty. About jobs. About immigration. We want to take responsibility and start in one of our most important markets. Germany is important to us. And a big market in the centre of Europe. We have 29 million users here per month, including over a million small and medium-sized businesses. In the field of technology? Sandberg: Among others, but mainly in traditional industries that are using technology to find customers. Technology changes business models. However, it must not be the case that only those are benefitting who build the technology. So we want to invest in Germany. With initiatives such as Digital Durchstarten, we have already reached 11,000 small and medium-sized businesses. With the Digital Learning Space, we are now creating our first physical learning school. For people who really need it. The elderly. Children. Female refugees, in particular, who are disconnected from many things. I hope that Germany will be a role-model for what we can soon do it in other places, as well. In Germany, Facebook is currently mainly associated with buzzwords such as fake news, filter bubbles, and echo chambers. Sandberg: Here is what we know about filter bubbles and echo chambers. We know that, in sociology language, there are strong ties and your weak ties. You have strong ties with 5-6 people you are very close to - your mom, spouse, children,your best friend. Facebook doesnt change your relationship with these people, because you usually know where they are,what they are doing, and how they feel about things. WhatFacebook does enable you to do, however, is keep in touch with your weak ties, because it increases the number of people you hear from. It increases your exposure to altering points of view, not decreases it. Moreover, networks are not really based on political points of view, but on where you grew up,where you work, where you went to school Lesen Sie auch So you would not consider yourself to be in a filter bubble? Sandberg: We do not believe that Facebook creates filter bubbles, and we have the research to prove it. However, the media landscape has changed. There used to be a smaller number of publications that also expressed more mainstream points of view. If you look at the landscape now, there are more media that are, I think, more disparate, expressing stronger points of view than what my parents had the chance to read. This only proves: Facebook and digital media let you have more exposure to points of view, not less. You are saying hoaxes, not fake news. Sandberg: I just think hoax is a clearer word. A hoax is something that is clearly fake. And we are talking about things that are blatantly untrue. It just seems like a more descriptive word. And also fake news gets thrown around in different ways. It sometimes seems as if Facebook can't get it right.Either you delete the wrong posts the iconographic photo from the Vietnam War, Terror of war, for instance. Or you do not swiftly delete the posts that should be like a fake quote by Renate Kunast Sandberg: Certainly our goal is to get the implementation right and do it quickly. The volume is huge, but that doesn't change our responsibility. We apologized for deleting the photo with the girl from the Vietnam War. You can understand what happened Your filter detected the photo of a naked child and categorized it as child pornography. Sandberg: Yes, exactly. That stuff comes down immediately, without review, because the fight against child pornography is so important. Unfortunately, this example was the wrong one,but I think the world thinks it's good we take that so seriously. Lesen Sie auch Sahar Speaks : Female journalists battle to have their voices heard A special training supports female local reporters in Afghanistan in getting their part of the story out. Would you support the analogy that Facebook is like the printing press - a neutral machine where wonderful poetry was printed, but also Hitler's Mein Kampf. Sandberg: Pretty extreme analogy. But look every technology that's ever been created can be used for different things and can be abused Sandberg: and certainly you can see posts from your friends that you really love, and posts that you really dislike. Do people try to post hate on Facebook? Yes. Do we try and take it down? Absolutely. But I think most of what you see on Facebook is a tremendous amount of good. Facebook and social media give individuals a voice in a way they never had before. What are you currently working on to increase that good? Sandberg: Better access through artificial intelligence. For the blind, for instance. Facebook reads to them the photo that a friend posted: Here's my friend Mark standing next to his wife. We want to keep refining that to let people with all kinds of disabilities make use of Facebook and recognize what their friends have posted for them. Some people claim that Facebook is doomed,because young people don't want to use social network where they will meet their parents. How about you? Sandberg: My children are 9 and 11 and they'd like to be and they are not allowed, because they are not 13. They'd really like to be on Instagram and Facebook and they are particularly annoyed that their mom works there and they can't. (laughs) I can't set the wrong example against our own policy. PS: Sind Sie bei Facebook? Werden Sie Fan von BILD.de-Politik! Grunenthal announced the introduction of its new womens health products plant today. Grunenthal invested USD 14.5 million to build the 1,150 m 2 hormone plant, which is the companys center of excellence for hormone production and the most modern in Latin America. The new facility will initially deliver high quality womens health products to the Chilean market and after the pending approval of the relevant authorities (INVIMA/ANVISA/COFEPRIS) it will also provide products for other Latin American markets, including the biggest of the region: Brazil and Mexico. With this investment Grunenthal will improve the access of more than 168 million Latin American women to high quality health products. The President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, and Grunenthals CEO, Gabriel Baertschi, attended the opening ceremony in Penalolen, proving the importance of the event for both Grunenthal and Chile. "These are the kind of investments that we need in our country, investments that generate employment, that diversify our productivity matrix, that give us greater competitiveness and that allow us to improve our markets, said President Michelle Bachelet. She added that these are the kinds of decisions that we need and are an example that other local companies should follow. We are happy to contribute to the enhancement of well-being and health of the people in this region. Our constant investment into the continent serves our ambition to improve the situation of 660 million lives in Latin America through our competences in the field of Pain, Gynecology and diseases of the Central Nervous System, Gabriel Baertschi, CEO of the Grunenthal Group, said. Latin America has a high importance for Grunenthals strategy, identifying the region as the most important growth pillar for the coming years to ensure sustainable investment in research and development. Chile plays a major role as Grunenthals stepping stone to Latin America. The affiliate is the fifth largest of the 32 Grunenthal affiliates and the biggest one outside Europe. Founded in 1979 it grew through constant investment, peaking with the acquisition of the laboratories Andromaco in 2013 for USD 364 million, making Grunenthal one of the three biggest pharmaceutical companies on the Chilean market. The new hormone plant contributes to the development of Grunenthals business in the region, as it will enable the company to serve primarily the main markets of Chile, Mexico and Brazil, but also other Latin American markets. The facility is expected to triple the production quantities by delivering about six million additional commercial units monthly in a five-year term. Among the products are high quality contraceptive pills and hormone replacement therapies (pills and hormone gels). The contraceptives also help to reduce the pain related to the premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Hormone replacement therapies mainly support cardiovascular and bone health of menopausal women. Grunenthal is a pioneer in the field of vaginal rings. Partnering with the Pan-American Health Organization Grunenthal will make this new technology available, which can either be used to improve womens fertility or to prevent pregnancies. In addition to the production of Grunenthals own products, the new plant in Chile will also be used as a site for contract manufacturing, which complements the five existing production plants throughout Europe and Latin America. The new facility in Chile was built following strict security regulations stipulated by the relevant regulatory authorities and national health agencies. It will produce hormones for customers beginning in 2017. 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 A new partnership between the United Nations rural poverty agency and officials in Mauritania could boost finances and nutrition for nearly 300,000 farmers in the southern part of the country. Image by 123RF It will reduce the country's dependence on food imports, create jobs and increase the incomes of rural households, especially women and youth, said Philippe Remy, the country programme manager for Mauritania at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in a news release announcing the initiative, for which the agency is providing $21 million. The agreement for the Inclusive Value Chain Development Project (PRODEFI), which was signed in Rome by Michel Mordasini, vice-president of IFAD and Mariem Aouffa, Ambassador of Mauritania to Italy and Permanent Representative to Rome-based United Nations agencies, will cost a total of $45.2 million. It will reduce the country's dependence on food imports, create jobs and increase the incomes of rural households, especially women and youth The first phase will focus on horticulture, poultry farming, goat milk and non-timber forest products; the second phase could include fishing and new income generating crops or activities. If successful, the agreement would assist 285,600 farmers in six regions of the country which currently imports 60% of its staple foods. The agreement will also address issues of climate change through solar energy, and promote sustainable management techniques for natural resources. The Gauteng Department of Health has warned community members not to fall victim to scammers who are fraudulently inviting people to apply for nursing, porting and general vacancies at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital. There is an advertisement circulating, which claims to come from the human resources coordinator at the hospital. When people call the contacts on the advert, they are asked to deposit R2,000 in exchange for employment. We want to state firmly that vacancies in the public service are not for sale, said the department. The department advertises vacancies through trustworthy platforms such as Gauteng Online portal, Department of Public Service website and newspapers. Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu has condemned those who exploit peoples desperation for employment. We plead with community members not pay money for jobs at any of our facilities. Anyone approached for job in exchange for money should report that to the police, she said. Multinational food processing and retailing company Associated British Foods swallowed SA's biggest sugar industry player, Illovo, in May last year. The move by the British group (which, as it happens, owns cheap 'n chic Primark) was part of a scramble for Sub-Saharan African agricultural assets. Crookes Brothers, another JSElisted player now stands out as another highly attractive potential target. Freeimages9 via pixabay The stage for an eventual acquisition of Crookes could already be set thanks to the involvement of African agriculture-focused UK private equity firm SilverStreet Capital as the key shareholder through its Silverlands (SA) Plantations investment vehicle. As with all private equity firms, SilverStreet will exit at some point. SilverStreet's involvement began in 2013 when it acquired Rand Merchant Bank's 33.1% stake in Crookes. SilverStreet followed this in June 2015 when it upped its stake to 45% through a R215m claw-back issue of new ordinary shares. The issue was pitched at R80/share, a premium of over 30% to Crookes' then share price. SilverStreet clearly sees solid growth potential. Crookes aims to deliver it, targeting 15%/year headline EPS (HEPS) growth over rolling five-year periods. "We are fairly confident we can achieve this," says Crookes MD Guy Clarke. Diversification strategy and new projects Underpinning his confidence is a diversification strategy whereby a steady stream of new projects will kick in over the short to medium term. The strategy calls for R500m investment in new projects between 2014 and 2018. Diversification has already radically reduced Crookes' dependence on sugar cane, which had been its mainstay since its founding in 1913. Highlighting this, in the group's year to March 2016 sugar cane produced in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Swaziland and Zambia accounted for 41% of operating profit, just ahead of the 39% contribution from its 700ha Western Cape deciduous fruit operations. Bananas from Crookes' Mpumalanga plantation were another big contributor, accounting for 18% of operating profit. It is a contribution that is set to rise. Under development in a R117m joint venture with Silverlands Mozambique is a 300ha banana plantation in southern Mozambique. The project promises higher yields and lower costs compared with SA production, says Clarke. The first 40ha of banana trees will be planted in February with the first crop likely in as little as 18 months. Crookes has gone it alone on another project in Mozambique: a 300ha macadamia nut tree plantation. Under development since 2012, the first crop will be harvested in March with full plantation maturity and the first positive cash flow expected in 2021. With macadamia nut prices hovering around record highs, prospects are good. But, cautions Clarke, as with all agricultural commodities, prices are prone to high volatility. Crookes to capitalise on its property holdings Taking diversification another step forward, Crookes is capitalising on its vast property holdings through a new venture, Renishaw Hills, an upmarket retirement village on KZN's south coast. "We plan to sell 550 units over the next five to seven years," says Clarke. "They will take up 20ha of 260ha-280ha suitable for development. We envisage full development to take 2030 years." Riding agricultural commodity price volatility SilverStreet's confidence in Crookes is paying off. In Crookes' year to March 2016, HEPS jumped 37% followed - despite a 19.5% rise in issued shares - by a 27% rise in the six months to September. The big interim results kicker came from sugar cane, where operating profit jumped 169% to R134m. The division rode high on a 12.5% rise in the SA sugar reference price in February and another 15% rise in July. Another strong boost came from a 50% rise in world sugar prices, which lifted export prices to almost the same level as SA's normally far higher reference price. Also turning in robust growth were bananas, where a drought-driven 48% rise in SA prices lifted operating profit 168% to R26.6m. It was not all good news from Crookes. Hammering home the risks inherent in agricultural commodities and the wisdom of diversification, a fall in deciduous fruit prices sent this division's operating profit crashing to a R24.8m loss. Trading on a 15.5 p:e, Crookes appears fully priced. However, for small-cap investors prepared to ride agricultural commodity price volatility, it is a share worth consideration on price weakness. Source: Financial Mail Luxury goods company issues upbeat trading update on first sales spike since August 2015 period as global jewellery demand rises. A pedestrian walks past a Cartier store, operated by Richemont, as it stands illuminated at night in Shanghai, China. Picture: Bloomberg It was a great festive season for Richemont as the luxury goods company surprised markets with an upbeat trading update for the quarter ended December, which sent the companys share price soaring as much as 7.85% in intraday trade on the JSE. Richemont said on Thursday sales had increased by 5% at constant exchange rates in the period under review, with most regions showing growth driven by jewellery sales. Forecasts had been for flat growth for the company. This is the first time the Geneva-based group has recorded growth in sales since the five months ended August 31 2015. "The Christmas quarter was clearly ahead of expectations and especially the strong growth in Jewellery Maison is a very positive development, as this segment is by far the largest earnings contributor," analysts at Vontobel said. Measured at actual exchange rates, Richemonts fastest-growing region in the December quarter was Japan, where sales grew 11% to 313m. Sales in its largest region, Asia-Pacific, were up 9% to 1.13bn, and in the Americas, sales rose by 9% to 559m, boosted by the reopening of the Cartier Mansion in New York. "In Europe, sales increased by 3% in the third quarter, in contrast with the 17% decline registered in the first six months of the year. This improvement was primarily driven by robust local sales and tourist purchases in the UK," said Richemont. "Growth in sales in the Asia Pacific region reflected strong performances in mainland China and Korea, mitigated by continued declines in Hong Kong and Macau." The results were particularly exciting for the market as there had been serious concerns about the health of the sector. Luxury brand companies across Europe have been struggling for the past year or so, hit by terror attacks in key shopping spots as well as the general slowdown in the world economy. The trend has been particularly pronounced in Switzerland, where companies face the added difficulty of the strong Swiss franc. Watch sales, which make up about half of Richemonts revenue, started to decline in 2014 when political protests in Hong Kong put an end to mainland Chinese shopping sprees. Islamist attacks in Paris in November 2015 dealt another blow, also hitting the generally more buoyant jewellery segment. Richemont owns well-known luxury brands, including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Giampiero Bodino and MontBlanc Vontobel analysts said the fourth-quarter results were also likely to be positive, benefiting from a more favourable comparison. Of the four Bloomberg analysts who rate the share, one has it as a buy, one as a sell and two as a hold. In the past year the share price has declinedby 5.61%. Richemonts share price closed 6.02% higher at R102.89. Greg Mason took on the reigns as regional lead for sub-Saharan Africa at Effective Measure on 3 January. With two weeks in the role under his belt, I checked in to find out his plans over the coming months as well as a few digital and programmatic trends to expect from 2017. Greg Mason A decade of experience in digital marketing means you were there from its early days and have seen it stand on its own two feet. Thats exactly what Greg Mason has done, having dabbled in display, search, mobile and social media marketing over the last nine years, with stints at MSN, BBC, CBS Interactive, Sky News, Sky Sports, Daily Mail, Times Live, Career Junction and various other leading local publishers. Most recently he worked at AddSuite after his own online ad sales house Mason Media's merger with the Ole Media Group, where he grew and managed the premium and programmatic sales across their bouquet of websites. Thats why he summarises his skills on LinkedIn as follows: I have a deep understanding of the digital marketing eco system and understand the intricate roles publishers, ad sales houses and agencies play in working with leading brands to deliver holistic and successful digital marketing campaigns. Hes thus well suited to his role as regional lead: sub-Saharan Africa at Effective Measure, which is the IAB SA's official audience measurement partner that helps advertisers and publishers understand and engage emerging market audiences with its focus on audience measurement, consumer insights and audience data. Understand and engage with your audience, or else Speaking of his new role, Mason says hes most looking forward to now being in a very strong position to directly influence and grow the digital advertising landscape in South Africa. On the importance of Effective Measure for digital publishers, he explains: As it stands currently, advertising is paramount to any digital publisher commercialising their publication. In order to do this successfully, advertisers and publishers need to work closely together to send the right message to the right person at the right time and if possible in the right mind-set as well. This can only be done with intelligent data and Effective Measure is one of the global leaders in online audience measurement. This data adds extensive value for the publisher to be able to effectively commercialise their publication with digital advertising. One way to make use of this is through Effective Measures new Dashboard 2.0. Its designed to make audience data more accessible as well as more powerful and help your business as a result through a process of reflection and projection. This is a direct result of having made the dashboards interface user-friendly and easy to use, whilst also adding new features that empower customers to use data in their businesses. Mason says the most outstanding thing about the new dashboard is how it challenges customers to be creative with data and to use it to take everything from campaign planning to competitor analysis to the next level, all as simple or sophisticated as youd like. Good news: The personal touch still trumps complete automation Broadening the scope to the digital and programmatic trends we can look forward to from 2017, Mason says programmatic media buying will continue to grow aggressively, with more agencies and advertisers allocating a bigger percentage of their budget to programmatic buys, and anywhere upwards of 20% to 25% of digital display budgets being allocated to programmatic media buys. With this increase in programmatic media buys, Mason says savvy advertisers and buyers will naturally progress onto the next step of programmatic, which is data. More and more agencies and brands will make the shift to buy their digital display on an audience-centric model rather than a site-centric model. This means theyll be less concerned with what site their ad is showing on but rather that their ad is showing to an accurately profiled person who matched their target audience. Further to that, Mason says more publishers will begin to package and sell their audiences through trusted data management platforms. But theres a caveat: Despite programmatic media buying being the new buzz, Mason says publishers and advertisers alike will quickly realise that programmatic media buying cannot all be done with the click of a button behind a computer. They will learn that face-to-face dealings and account management are key. He concludes, Now that the scale of operations can be so much larger and happen so much faster with programmatic, it is more important than ever to work very closely with your suppliers, partners and clients to ensure each campaign runs smoothly and is optimised in real-time to achieve the results you are looking for. Take that as both guidance and warning for the year ahead. You can follow Effective Measure and @GregMasonSA on Twitter, visit their website for more and connect with Mason on LinkedIn. Global research by Sage highlights that only 17% of small businesses feel represented by politicians in their country's decision making. The data has been published in the run up to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) where politicians and big business will gather in Davos to debate the global economic picture. Stephen Kelly, CEO of Sage Sage CEO Stephen Kelly has lamented the absence of small business issues from the agenda, and called for greater representation, given that in most economies entrepreneurs, or business builders, creates two thirds of all jobs. Clearly the role of government in helping navigate uncertain economic and political times will be key. Almost half (46%) singled out export opportunities, and grants as being the most important thing that government can do. The second most important was improvements to the political stability (45%). Creating a stable regulatory environment ranked third (38%). In order to give business builders a platform to connect with policy makers, Sage is launching its Forum for Business Builders. The Forum brings entrepreneurs from around the world insights, events and policy-forming partnerships to give them a powerful collective voice that can be heard on the world stage. Heroes of the economy Sage CEO Stephen Kelly, said: Only too often when the worlds policy makers discuss the global economic picture, small businesses are excluded from the discussion. This is most evident with the annual World Economic Forum in Davos where small businesses arent an item on the agenda. Worse still, 60% dont even know the event is taking place. Its crazy when you consider that small businesses create two thirds of all the jobs in most economies, and represent over 98% of all businesses." Kelly continues Business builders are the heroes of the economy. They toil away long after the rest of us have gone home, making personal sacrifices to grow their businesses, to support their families and build their communities. Policy makers and big business must wake up to the fact that these heroes need to be supported and given a voice, if we are to ensure the future health and prosperity of the worlds economy. SA's small business resilience Anton van Heerden, managing director and executive vice-president, Africa & Middle East at Sage, states: South Africas small businesses are resilient and it is heartening to see how determined our entrepreneurs are to get to the top. They hold the key to creating jobs, reducing inequality and creating a more thriving South Africa. He continues: It is promising to see that the South African government is putting the small and medium business sector at the centre of its economic policies. By listening to small business owners and supporting them with a stable political environment and the right policies, government has the opportunity to turbo-charge South Africas growth. With Davos taking place and South Africas annual Budget Speech not far away; wed be interested to learn what is important for our countrys small businesses. In a world where only the voices of the biggest are heard, we will always fight to hear the voice of the entrepreneur, concludes van Heerden. The Forum is open to all small businesses and will be refreshed regularly with diverse content and insights from guest contributors and advisors. The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) CEO Ishmael Sunga will join global leaders in Davos-Klosters in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum's (WEF) 47th annual meeting taking place from 17-20 January 2017, in order to promote African agriculture. This year's annual meeting will focus on Responsive and Responsible Leadership". SACAU will participate in discussions on agriculture and Sunga will present in a public session on Envisioning a Food Secure Future. Sunga will address, among others, how to design and leverage technology for smallholder farmers, identifying priorities in advancing Africas agriculture agenda through multi-stakeholder collaboration and the new vision for agriculture. Revolutionising food production Emerging technology innovations have the potential to revolutionise the way food is produced, packaged, distributed and consumed. It is important then that we look at opportunities not just for commercial farming but also for smallholder farmers, said Sunga. Smallholder farmers produce as much as 80% of the food consumed in some parts of the developing world, yet they make up a majority of the worlds undernourished population, he noted. We must proactively seek out the best technologies for smallholder farmers if we want to connect them to new resources that can help them navigate the myriad of challenges the face each day, said Sunga. Ensuring smallholder farmers aren't left behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution SACAU recognises the importance of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the potential it has to transform and further enhance the state of agriculture for both smallholder and large-scale farmers. It is our duty to ensure smallholder farmers are not left behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said Sunga. We must, therefore, ensure that there is a strong digital infrastructure for smallholder farmers to access tools which empower them to make their own decisions about their farms and businesses, he added. About 3,000 people - including leaders from politics, business and civil society - are expected to converge in Davos to examine how can leaders be responsive to the genuine frustration of people left behind by globalised market capitalism in a responsible way that offers workable, fair and sustainable solutions, said Sunga. The meeting will focus on four key leadership challenges for 2017: strengthening global collaboration, revitalising economic growth, reforming capitalism and preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution a huge leap powered by the digital age, which is transforming the way people live and work. It will do this through a programme where more than half of the 400 sessions focuses on social inclusion and development. Sungas view on five innovations that will transform the lives of smallholder farmers can be seen on here. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) says it is launching an appeal with immediate effect following the judgment handed down by the Thohoyandou High Court in Limpopo on Saturday, 14 January 2017. Umalusi instructed the department to withhold the matric results of learners at New Era College pending an investigation by the Hawks and the department's own internal processes. New Era is an independent school owned by Tinyiko Elphas Khosa, the accused in the matter involving the leaking of Maths Paper 2 in Giyani. Learners at this privately owned school took the department and Umalusi to court demanding the release of their results. The department on Sunday expressed disappointment over the judgment and said it is launching an appeal in the interest of protecting quality education and the integrity of its examination system. It said the effects of the judgment are that the DBE and the Limpopo Education Department are forced to release the results of the implicated learners from New Era College in Malamulele. We are gravely concerned about court decisions which undermine our efforts to provide quality education to learners. The public can be assured that we will do everything in our power and within the ambit of our Constitution and laws to protect quality education and the integrity of our examination system. We are extremely disappointed because there's evidence indicating that there was wrongdoing and a person was arrested on the matter. There's also evidence that shows learners had access to the examination question paper before it was written. This judgment is compromising our examinations and as a result, we will advise the province and Umalusi to appeal. The department said the judgement has the potential of sending the wrong message that pupils can cheat in the exams and then go to court to force the department to hand over their results, even though they might be guilty. We appreciate the work done by the Hawks thus far and we are confident that their investigation will help us root out the corruption that has the risk of tarnishing the credibility of the examination. It must be clear that those who cheat in examinations will be dealt with harshly. The department said it will explore all possibilities to protect the integrity, image and profile of the National Senior Certificate (NSC). The department and its stakeholders will also review the policies and regulations that govern the management of irregularities in order to strengthen the examination system. According to Charl and Adel Louw, principals of the Chas Everitt International franchise on the Atlantic Seaboard, it's been a bumper holiday season for the owners of rental homes on the Riviera of Cape Town the ribbon of prime coastal property that stretches from the V&A Waterfront on the north shore of Table Mountain all the way down the west side of the Cape Peninsula to Hout Bay. Daily rentals of R5000 to R6000 for a two- to three-bedroom apartment in Bantry Bay or Clifton are easily obtained, while a spacious eight-bedroom multi-level villa with every conceivable mod-con and panoramic views that we have on our books achieves as much as R150,000 a day in season. Capitalising on the holiday season These rocketing rentals are being driven by high demand from both foreigners and locals seeking to spend their downtime in South Africas tourist capital, confirms Colleen Ricketts, rental specialist at Chas Everitt International Atlantic Seaboard. Unsurprisingly, most landlords want to capitalise on the holiday season, making their properties available for short-term tenancies at daily rates from the beginning of December to the end of February, and, thereafter, renting them out on a nine or 10-month winter lease. This ensures maximum profitability for the property owner, but of course also makes things difficult for those seeking long-term leases in the suburbs most coveted by holidaymakers: Camps Bay, Clifton, Bantry Bay, Bakoven, Fresnaye and Llandudno. And when annual leases can be found, they usually come at a premium. For example, a renovated three-bedroom freestanding home in Camps Bay (not necessarily with views) will fetch between R35,000 and R45,000 a month on a 12-month lease, while a three-bedroom sectional title property situated on or above Victoria Road in Clifton will go for R55,000 to R65,000 a month, with rates and levies on top of that, she says. Drop down into the elite coastal enclave of Llandudno and rentals rise even further. High-end properties in this suburb can command over R100,000 per month, although these are predominantly corporate lets, says Janene Loxton, rental specialist at Chas Everitt International Hout Bay. Rentals up in Hout Bay Around the headland, in the predominantly residential community of Hout Bay, rentals have increased by up to 25% over the past 18 months, she notes. While we have no difficulty securing tenants for short lets over the holiday season, the greater demand in Hout Bay is definitely for long-term leases, she says, adding that new listings can attract up to 30 enquiries within the first 24 hours and, if correctly priced, will be let within a day or two. With the entry-level price for a three-bedroom home in Hout Bay currently at around R3m, first-time buyers struggle to gain a foothold on the property ladder and are compelled to rent instead, Loxton explains. Also, the steady stream of Joburg semigrants, who favour the suburb for its good schools (which include the International School), relaxed lifestyle and proximity to the city, has created a severe shortage of rental stock, thus driving up prices even further. She says Hout Bay landlords are currently making a handsome return on their property investments. A R1,995m apartment will achieve a monthly rental of up to R20,000, a R3m home can fetch R30,000 a month, and a R6m house at least R45,000 a month. Her advice for buy-to-let investors seeking to profit along the Atlantic Seaboard: The sum of the parts remains greater than the whole. For maximum returns, rather buy two smaller properties than a single large one. There's been something fundamental missing in this last decade of hotel management: the unflashy, workaholic general managers, those who started their careers waiting tables, scrubbing kitchen counters and floors, climbing the ladder, slowly learning all of the necessary skills to eventually become the general manager. Katarzyna Bialasiewicz via 123RF I grew up with this generation of lads and lasses, regarding them as true hoteliers. You would find them having a drink with a guest or welcoming a tour group, having a coffee with the PCO at the breakfast session, or even better, spoiling their entire team with a sampling of the latest menu. In the past, the reputation of South African hotel general managers (and chefs) was so highly celebrated that they were quickly snapped up by international hotels and hotel groups, many moving to Dubai and Europe. Albeit a testament to the quality of our training in those days, this trend of moving away created a skills drain, resulting in a new generation of general managers who rose too quickly, skipped a few training steps, were over-promoted and found themselves at the helm of a hotel in a heartbeat as opposed to a lifetime, easily recognisable (when they emerge from behind their computer screen): young and sexy, well-dressed, flashy, living large, hotel bosses. At BON Hotels, weve decided to screen our GMs more thoroughly again. We are on a hunt-down for those old school grizzly GMs. While as we value the potential in our youth, too many shortcomings of these new-age general managers can be attributed to quick and easy promotions. Ive encountered one too many young general managers who cannot calculate their Average Daily Rate (ADR) and Revenue Per Available Room (REVPAR). Yes, I understand that there are new burdens on todays general managers and administration demands have increased, but that should never be at the expense of a hoteliers ultimate judge the guest. Consider the last time you were a guest at a hotel. Did you meet the general manager? Did you even notice him walking around? I am reminded of wise words of one of my seniors during my training years: If your guests are around, you should be around. Hotel management is not a 9 to 5 career, not in the least! General managers must be on the hotel floor during peak times: breakfast, check out, check in and dinner. An old-school hotelier wouldnt dream of clocking in at 9, filling his day with meetings, submerging himself in admin and packing up his desk at 5 to hit the gym. Surely, hotel wannabees know that they are signing up for a demanding lifestyle career? Excellent hotel managers are those who are building amazing relationships with hotel guests, having a drink at the bar with loyal customers, making certain their staff are well cared for, and in return, their hotels are thriving. Yes, they may cost the hotel a bit more due to years of experience, but at BON Hotels, we bet our bottom dollar that the return on investment will be worth it. SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft announced on Friday a deal to buy Maluuba, a Montreal startup focused on making machines able to think the way people do... albertus engbers via 123RF Bringing on board Maluuba co-founders Kaheer Suleman and Sam Pasupalak, along with their team from the startup, was intended to accelerate Microsoft's "ability to develop software so computers can read, write and converse naturally," the company said. Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition. "Maluuba's vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans a vision exactly in line with ours," Microsoft artificial intelligence and research group executive vice president Harry Shum said in a blog post. "I'm incredibly excited about the scenarios that this acquisition could make possible in conversational AI." Tech giants Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft are all vying to develop the most sophisticated connected assistant working to give software the ability to understand what people say and even anticipate desires or needs. Amazon virtual assistant Alexa was a star at the Consumer Electronics Show gadget gala last week in Las Vegas. Amazon and Alexa face fierce competition. At CES, computer chipmaker Nvidia said it would use Google Assistant for its interactive streaming devices. Microsoft's Cortana will power a voice-assistant speaker for kids and families being introduced by Mattel, and will also be in Renault-Nissan's connected car hub. Samsung's smart refrigerator, which acts as a connected hub with a voice activation system unveiled at CES uses the South Korean giant's Tizen operating system. Many smart devices for the home also integrate with Apple Home Kit, which uses the iPhone maker's artificial intelligence and voice assistant Siri. At CES, Chinese giant Baidu showcased its own virtual assistant 'Little Fish' which will debut in China this year. Source: AFP During an event in New Delhi, Boeing and SpiceJet committed to an order of up to 205 airplanes. The order, booked at the end of 2016, includes 100 new 737 MAX 8s, SpiceJet's current order for 42 MAXs, 13 additional 737 MAXs which were previously attributed to an unidentified customer on Boeing's Orders & Deliveries website, as well as purchase rights for 50 additional airplanes. "The Boeing 737 class of aircraft has been the backbone of our fleet since SpiceJet began, with its high reliability, low operation economies and comfort," said Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet. "With the next generation of 737 and the 737 MAX we are sure that we can be competitive and grow profitably." SpiceJet, an all-Boeing jet operator, placed its first order with Boeing in 2005 for Next-Generation (NG) 737s and currently operates 32 737 NGs in its fleet. "We are honored to build upon more than a decade of partnership with SpiceJet with their commitment of up to 205 airplanes," said Ray Conner, vice chairman, The Boeing Company. "The economics of the 737 MAXs will allow SpiceJet to profitably open new markets, expand connectively within India and beyond, and offer their customers a superior passenger experience." The 737 MAX incorporates the latest technology, CFM International LEAP-1B engines, Advanced Technology winglets and other improvements to deliver the highest efficiency, reliability and passenger comfort in the single-aisle market. The new airplane will deliver 20 percent lower fuel use than the first Next-Generation 737s and the lowest operating costs in its class 8 percent per seat less than its nearest competitor. DETROIT: The auto industry's push into electric vehicles is turning an important corner in 2017 with the arrival of longer-range, battery-powered cars at more accessible prices. Chevrolet Bolt EV Manufacturers and investors clearly are buying into an electric boom near-term, pouring billions of dollars into the development of new battery technologies and announcing new lines of alternative drivetrain vehicles. But it remains to be seen if the interest of US consumers justifies the increasing competition for a small sliver of the market. This year could see as many as 20 new and updated electric cars models on US showroom floors, Kevin Riddell of the research company LMC Automotive told AFP. With worldwide pre-orders of nearly 400,000 units, Tesla expects to release its new Model 3 later this year, priced far below the company's higher-end models at $35,000. The all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV, with a range of 380 kilometers on a charge, comes in under $30,000 - after a federal tax rebate - and already is on the market in two states with a nationwide roll-out expected in the spring. And yet, like a giant doing a high dive into a bucket of water, the auto industry is racing to capture a market that, in the United States at least, is minuscule and not expected to explode anytime soon. "It seems like they're always adding new competitors in the market and they're not dropping out at nearly the same rate," said Riddell said. In a year when American consumers bought a record 17.6 million SUVs, light trucks and internal combustion cars, the share of electric vehicles may in fact have dropped, he said. "We expect 2016 to close at 2.8 percent," said Riddell, which would be a tenth of a point lower than 2015. After excluding hybrid electrics which use some gasoline, such as the long-established Toyota Prius, US sales are even smaller. In the first 10 months of 2016, battery-electric vehicles represented only 0.43 percent of cars sold in the United States, Ivan Drury, a senior analyst at Edmunds.com, said. A survey this month by consulting firm McKinsey, indicates interest in electric vehicles among car buyers in polluted, power-hungry China has tripled interest since 2011. But in the United States, while 96 percent of consumers are aware of electrics, only about four percent ever buy one. A major reason auto makers produce electrics is to comply with government regulations: 10 US states have adopted California's standard requiring companies with annual sales of more than 60,000 units to ensure 14 percent of those vehicles meet zero-emissions requirements, according to McKinsey. This has led to the phenomenon dismissively referred to as "compliance cars", electrics marketed often at a loss merely to meet legal requirements, and often only in parts of the United States where such sales are required. But there are reasons to expect a turn around. Darin Gesse, the General Motors product manager for the Chevrolet Bolt EV, said the new car was squarely aimed at the broader American market. "This is not a compliance car. It was designed for the entire nation, all 50 states," he told AFP in an interview. The vehicle's extended range - it beats the Nissan Leaf by more than 160 kilometres on a single charge - and low price could create a "tipping point" for the consumer, he said. Daily commuters who charge the vehicles at home overnight may almost entirely eliminate the need to go out of their way to find charging stations. "You treat it like a cell phone," he said. "I get out of the car in the morning, I'm not really concerned about charging." Chris Theodore, a former Ford executive who served as one of the judges who named the Bolt EV Motor Trend's 2017 Car of the Year, told AFP the Bolt was a "breakthrough" for the non-luxury market, with "excellent" performance. "Really the Bolt is the only pure electric vehicle out there that you can drive like a normal automobile," he said. Auto analysts say the tipping point Gesse refers to could happen as consumers learn of the advantages of lower-cost, higher range electrics - meaning manufacturers cannot risk being left behind. Jack Nerad, executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book, said another factor is helping the market. "There is also the desire never to be caught out. Develop something in case the market catches fire," he said. Source: AFP Ford was warned for at least a year that its Kuga SUV had potentially deadly problems but appears not to have acted on the alarm bells. At least 47 Kugas have caught alight and one person has died after his car burst into flames. Francis Dean via 123RF An investigation by The Times has established that Ford SA was warned of the problems last January following an investigator's probe into two Kuga fires. Insurance companies also confirmed that they had alerted the company to issues relating to the Kuga going back as far as 2014. Ford issued an alert to Kuga owners only in December after the National Consumer Commission summoned it following our reports about the burning vehicles and about the death of Reshall Jimmy. Jimmy died when his Kuga caught fire in December 2015. Ford and the consumer commission are due to make a "major announcement" today. Speculation is that it will involve a recall of the model, one of which caught fire as recently as Saturday. E-mails seen by The Times show that fire investigator Larry Jenkinson, hired by Discovery Insure, raised the alarm with the insurance company after he investigated two Kuga fires in January last year. Jenkinson believed the fires were similar to fires in a similar model in the US and Europe, following which Ford ordered a mass recall of the vehicle. But Ford's news operations director, John Gardiner, said the recalled vehicles are not the same as the ones imported into South Africa. Ford did not respond to questions asking what it had done when alerted to the problems. It was Jenkinson's report into a fire which destroyed Pretoria mother Zane Verhoef's Kuga that caught the attention of Discovery Insure's claims specialist, Shawn Muller. Verhoef was rescued from her burning car after her daughter, Tinique, 11, stopped another motorist. Verhoef had managed to get Tinique out of the car, but was trapped when her feet got stuck underneath the car's pedals. Verhoef's fire occurred a month after Jimmy's car caught alight. Jenkinson's report concludes that the fire had been at the back and lower extremities of the engine compartment of Verhoef's Kuga. "The fire is considered to have occurred on the superheated surfaces of the exhaust manifold, the turbocharger and the catalytic converter. The combustible media that was ignited is engine oil and oil vapours that have leaked from the engine in or around the engine's turbocharger and/or the cylinder head," his report said. "The nature of the oil leakage condition is entirely consistent with other problems apparently caused through localised engine overheating conditions that have already been identified by Ford USA and Europe and recall campaigns have already been introduced to attend to the problem." Jenkinson said he could find no other reasons for the fire. The Times has learnt that, after receiving Jenkinson's report, Muller contacted Ford five times between January and February to alert them to the findings. Verhoef's husband, Bertie, who was given Jenkinson's report, e-mailed it to Ford's Phineas Papo, but no response was forthcoming. "When Ford stopped communicating, Discovery told us they would handle the matter. They said the report was in our favour and they would take Ford on." The Times has seen several e-mails, in which Jenkinson's report is attached, sent in August by Discovery to Ford, in which the insurer questions the lack of responses to its queries and the concerns of its clients. Discovery confirmed that it had attempted to liaise with Ford SA on fire-related claims from 2016. Ford had acknowledged receipt of its e-mails. Discovery, which has dealt with three Kuga fire claims, declined to answer if Ford had provided it with a detailed response. Robyn Farrell, CEO of Telesure's short-term insurance division that includes Dial Direct which had insured Jimmy's Kuga said it had rejected two Kuga fire claims, one of which was Jimmy's. "Those two claims were rejected as the fire was found to be caused by a mechanical fault; a standard exclusion on vehicle policies." Telesure said it had 775 of the 1.6 litre Kugas in question on its books. Farrell said Telesure had contacted Ford SA after every one of the claims and advised its customers to do the same. The company didn't say how or whether Ford had responded. Between 2014 and 2016 insurer Santam processed five Kuga claims and settled all of them. Santam spokesman Donald Kau said: "Ford SA was made aware of those claims." Hollard spokesman Warwick Bloom said the insurer had handled two such claims in the past year. Bloom said if a manufacturer's defect is to blame, it could potentially institute recovery action against Ford. He said in one of the cases the client had opted to pursue "a recovery" directly against Ford. The SA Insurance Association said it was concerned with the "phenomenon in which multiple Kugas were damaged by fire". "It's come to our notice that a similar model has been recalled by the manufacturer in the US. We trust the manufacturer in South Africa will follow suit and a proper investigation will be done to confirm the cause of the fire damage to so many vehicles so the problem can be addressed appropriately." Ford's Gardiner said it was in contact with insurance companies, "but it would be inappropriate for us to discuss the dialogue with them at this time". He said recalls in the US related to 2013-model 1.6 litre Escapes built in Louisville, Kentucky. [Kugas are known as Escapes in the US.] "It did not relate to Escape vehicles built elsewhere in the world, or to the Ford Kuga models built in Europe, including those exported to South Africa. Our decisions [on recalls] are driven by the data available. When the data indicates a safety recall is needed, we move quickly on behalf of our customers. "Our investigation in South Africa is not complete, but we have agreed with the National Consumer Commission that we will keep it and Kuga customers updated on our progress and will report back to it at the end of February." Gardiner said investigations into the Kuga fires in South Africa have led Ford to discover that the fires may be a result of engine overheating. He said customers with these vehicles should take their cars to a Ford dealer where the coolant systems can be checked. Source: The Times MOMBASA, KENYA: Kenya has received six locomotives from China, which will run on a China-funded standard gauge railway (SGR) due to start trial operation in June. Image Source: New China - Kenyan Minister for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia (C) and the Managing Director of the Kenya Railways Corporation Atanas Maina (R, front) attend the reception ceremony of the first batch of locomotives for the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Mombasa. Photo: Sun Ruibo/Xinhua A ceremony was held on Wednesday at a port station in the coastal city of Mombasa, where the locomotives docked on Monday. Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, James Macharia, and Chinese envoys attended the ceremony to receive the locomotives manufactured by the China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC). In his opening remarks, Macharia said the delivery of the first batch of locomotives marked a major milestone "in the journey to complete the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR project." The 472 km railway links Mombasa to the capital Nairobi and will extend to the country's western border. China finances 90 percent of the project. Construction work is being carried out by the China Road and Bridge Corporation. Kenya has sourced 56 locomotives from the CRCC to ferry passengers and goods on the railway line. "The locomotives are very modern and will give us quality service. Kenyans will be happy for the service they will provide," Macharia told reporters. Four of the six vehicles are DF8B diesel locomotives. The DF8B is the main traction locomotive model of the Chinese railway system, with 3,100 kilowatts of power and a maximum speed of 100 km/h. The other two are DF7G shunting locomotives with 1550 kilowatts of power, which will be used for marshaling and dispatching locomotives and rolling stock within stations. The Mombasa-Nairobi railway is expected to begin trial operation in June and to officially open by the beginning of 2018. Kenya anticipates a boost to socio-economic growth upon the launch of the line -- the first phase of the China-funded SGR project in the country. Macharia said that besides revolutionising transport, the modern railway would position Kenya as a trade and manufacturing hub. "This project will accelerate economic development of our country," he said, adding that railway development would underpin Kenya's quest for attaining industrial transformation. The managing director of the Kenya Railways Corporation, Atanas Maina, said the trial operation of the railway in June would stimulate economic growth and help attract foreign direct investments in Kenya. The second batch of locomotives, including DF11 passenger locomotives, is due to arrive at Mombasa port by the end of January. The China-funded railway line in Kenya is expected to eventually extend to other East African nations. Xinhua ENGIE has signed a partnership with ANER, the National Renewable Energies Agency in Senegal, to accelerate the development of renewable energies in the country. ENGIE signs an agreement for the development of renewable energies in Senegal. The first part of this agreement involves the development of solar energy for individuals in multi-occupancy or individual housing. The aim is to study the initial deployment of these solutions to 11,000 households in the city of Dakar and its suburbs. The main focus will be on photovoltaic solar panels for the production of electricity and solar water-heaters for the production of hot water. Together, ANER and ENGIE will look into financing solutions for this equipment to facilitate their deployment to clients. Balancing the Senegalese electrical system As part of this agreement, ENGIE is also committing to market energy performance contracts (EPC) to industrial operators and the tertiary sector in large urban communities in Senegal. The goal is to reduce sites energy consumption and help to balance the Senegalese electrical system. In Senegal, ENGIE will adapt the concept of EPC that it has used in all its industrial client and large tertiary markets around the world for many years. The final part of this agreement involves ENGIEs participation in an industrial cluster to promote renewable energies, particularly by professional training actions and strengthening the local industrial network. Solving the energy supply problems Said Isabelle Kocher, ENGIE CEO: ENGIE is aiming to use its technical experience and financial capacity to support Senegals energy policy, in close partnership with local stakeholders. The agreement we have signed today reflects our desire to be a major stakeholder in renewable energies and services in Africa and to solve the huge energy supply problems found on the continent. In Senegal, ENGIE has been selected for the Dakar TER project in partnership with Thales for the design and production of infrastructures and systems, with a contract amounting to 225m. The group is also involved in the Senergy project, a 30MW photovoltaic power station in the town of Santiou Mekhe, scheduled for commissioning in 2017. Cape Town planners have been sent back to the drawing board in a five-year battle over the "intrusive" addition of four floors to a city centre building. Judge Ashley Binns-Ward, in a Cape Town High Court judgment on Friday, 13 January, was scathing about the decision by the council's former head of building development management, Peter Henshall-Howard, to give the go-ahead for development of the Oracle, in Buitenkant Street. The body corporate of the neighbouring building, Four Seasons, successfully applied for a judicial review of the council decision after obtaining an interdict to halt work in 2012. In his review ruling, Binns-Ward ordered the council to reconsider the planning application by the Oracle's owners, the Simcha Trust, and to ensure that neither Henshall-Howard nor the council employee who drew up the report recommending approval were involved. The Four Seasons body corporate complained that the Oracle extension - which has remained incomplete - had the effect of turning eighth-floor balconies into courtyards "confined between towering walls". For apartments on the ninth and tenth floors, it meant their view was replaced by a blank wall 3m from their windows. Binns-Ward, who inspected the site before hearing the case, said the case was not about the loss of a view or about the appearance of the Oracle building. Instead, it was about something "so exceptionally intrusive and objectionable that it would not reasonably have been foreseen" by anyone buying a Four Seasons flat. Henshall-Howard had displayed a "fundamentally misguided belief that [the law] allows an uncoordinated and potentially disharmonious approach" to planning applications, he said. Although Henshall-Howard has since retired, he still does ad hoc work for the council. "It is desirable ... that someone without his preconceived opinion should decide the matter," said Binns-Ward, who awarded costs against the council. Source: The Times Cameroonian authorities should immediately reverse a decision to suspend independent broadcaster Radio Hot Cocoa 94 FM's permission to operate and allow the station to resume broadcasting immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Government officials in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon's Northwest Region, sealed the station's office, its manager told CPJ. Image by 123RF The regional governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, ordered Radio Hot Cocoa to suspend all activities until further notice, accusing it of inciting civil disobedience in a call-in show discussing a teachers' strike in the region, station manager Gideon Taka told CPJ. Residents of predominantly Anglophone regions of Cameroon bordering Nigeria have in recent months staged street demonstrations, strikes, and sit-ins to protest what they say is the Francophone central government's marginalisation of their regions. The station proclaimed a "news blackout" on its Facebook page yesterday. "The suspension of Radio Hot Cocoa is part of an ongoing effort to stifle coverage of the grievances of English-speaking Cameroonians," said CPJ West Africa representative Peter Nkanga. "Authorities should allow the radio station to resume operations immediately and should cease censoring the news." "Right now there is no access to my office, the studio and control room," Taka, the station's manager, told CPJ. "They sealed them off." The Ministry of Communications in December wrote to private radio and TV stations to "stop all roundtable discussions... concerning the current political atmosphere" in English-speaking regions of Cameroon. French and English are the official languages of the country, but predominantly Francophone regions are home to the majority of the population. At least four people were killed after police forcibly dispersed a December 8 demonstration in Bamenda, according to press reports and Amnesty International. The suspension of Radio Hot Cocoa is the latest in a series of attempts to stifle reporting and commentary on the political crisis. Last month authorities suspended dozens of newspapers and broadcasters' permission to operate; permanently banned three newspapers from publishing and their publishers from practicing journalism; and sanctioned dozens more journalists, CPJ reported at the time. This statement was originally published at: cpj.org. During the press conference held in the evening on the last day of the discussion, Pado Saw Eh Kalu Say from the Karen National Union (KNU), who led the political sector, said: The Karen representatives held a three-day discussion to discuss [the draft policy] at the national level and set down basic policies for the political sector. Eight points have been discussed by all representatives. According to Pado Saw Eh Kalu Say, the eight-point draft policy covers issues on sovereignty, equality, self-determination, federal union, protection of ethnic minorities rights, democracy, gender equality, secular politics, and multi-party democracy. The representatives have also discussed and set down basic policies for drafting the state constitution. Mann Htain Win Sein, a representative of the Karen National Party (KNP), told the press that they have selected the federal system that can conform to the countrys situation and ensure equal rights and self-determination to all ethnic races when drafting the federal system for Burma. Countries that practice federal system have drafted it after looking at their own political situations and people. There is no fixed method. There are eight main races and 195 ethnic tribes in Burma. So, we need to set down and practice a federal system everyone can agree on in order to receive equal rights, he explained. Karen representatives from eight states and regions in Burma, Karen armed organizations, Karen political parties, and Karen social organizations attended the three-day Karen National Political Dialogue on Political Sector. Major Saw Sein Win from the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army - Klohtoobaw Karen Organization (DKBA-KKO), Nan Khin Thet Mar Win from a civil society organization, and Pado Saw Eh Kalu Say from the KNU led the press conference. The Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) instructed respective ethnic races to discuss politics, economic, social, and land and natural resources sectors for the national-level political dialogue. Karen representatives have been discussing the draft policies for these sectors at Zwegabin Hall from 19 December, 2016 to 13 January, 2017. The working committee will finalize all the draft policies and submit it for approval to the national-level political dialogue for respective ethnic races, which will be held at Thiri Hpa-an Hotel from 18 to 20 January. Translated by Thida Linn The circumstances surrounding the death of the young woman, Nan Pawt Eh Mwee, 22, (also know as) Nan Htay Htay Oo have left many in the Karen migrant communities unconvinced of official explanations. On January 11, the family members and other concern friends have forwarded the case to the Lawyers Council of Thailand for investigation. Earlier reports said that Nan Pawt Eh Mwee had not been to work since December 31st, 2016. It was another three days, on January 3, before her employer went to the womans apartment room to check on her and found her body. Reports on the Myanmar-Thailand Friendship Channel said that the initial findings by Thai local police indicated that Nan Pawt Eh Mwee had hung herself. The reports said that her body was then taken to hospital for further examination and an autopsy, but until now no results have been made available. The report also claimed that local police said that CCTV footage from the apartment would not be available for two months. Social media reports sparked further controversy after the body of Nan Pawt Eh Mwee was cremated on January 7, 2017 before any concrete results being announced from the forensic investigation. Sources within the Bangkok Karen migrant community claim that they have been denied a viewing of Nan Pawt Eh Mwee body at the hospital and at the Temple despite repeated requests by funeral attendees to take a last look at the body before the cremation. Nan Moe Si Si Toe, a Karen working on Nan Pawt Eh Mwee case, spoke to Karen News. Starting from the time when her body was found, taken to hospital and taken to temple and to the cremation, no [outside] witness has seen the body. The person responsible at the crematory said that viewing of the body had been forbidden by officials from the Ministry of Health. The another crematory official said that Nan Pawt Eh Mwees coffin came with an official letter from the police station that it was to remain closed. Nan Moe Si Si Toe claimed that a sister of Nan Pawt Eh Mwee, who attended the funeral service also refused for the coffin to be opened when requested by the crowd who wanted to take a last look at the body. Nan Moe Si Si Toe said that she is trying to collect evidence from the hospital and from the police station in order to open an investigation. Close friends of Nan Pawt Eh Mwee are unconvinced that the strong, determined and hard-working young woman they knew would took her own life under any circumstances. Nan Pawt Eh Mwee, originally from Kler Htor village, Naung Bo area in Hlaingbwe Township Karen State was active in the migrant workers community and attended training organized by the Bangkok based Oversea Karen Refugees Social Organization (OKRSO) and took part in many Karen cultural and religious activities. Myanmar and Ukraine have diplomatic relations starting from 1999, and this year is the 18-year anniversary between two countries. Andrii Beshta, Ambassador-designate of Ukraine to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar said that from historical perspective, 18 years was a very short period, but opening the honorary consulate was of great importance to contribute to the development, diplomatic relations, economics and culture between two countries. Ukraine and Myanmar always enjoy friendly relations, he added, We want to develop further. Though nowthere is only one honorary consulate of Ukraine in Myanmar, Beshta said, Its not the matter of numbers. Its the matter of quality. Aung Hlaing Oo, Honorary Consul of Ukraine to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar also attended the opening ceremony of Honorary Consulate of Ukraine. Aung Hlaing Oo said that his main job was to promote cultural, economic and technical cooperation between the two countries. He also mentioned to develop a product system, such as exporting Myanmar agriculture products to Ukraine and Ukraines green nuts can import to Myanmar. Kyaw Zeya said that compared with most countries in Europe, 18-year diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Myanmar still had a long way to go. Distance between the two countries can be one challenge, Zeya said, But challenges can be interpreted as opportunities. The ambassador Andrii Beshta also said that the challenge is how much time and energy both countries could invest into trying to use opportunities. Mr. Andrii Beshta was appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, with residence in Bangkok. Beshta is also the ambassador of Ukraine to the Kingdom of Thailand. He said that not every country could open embassies in every other country, so its a normal practice to be an ambassador in several countries. There were many guests and ambassadors of other countries attending the opening ceremony of Honorary Consulate of Ukraine in No. 29, Seven Mile Hills in Yangon. According to Sai Win Aung, an aid worker who is assisting the displaced persons in northern Shan States Hsipaw Township, the families are unwilling to chance going back due to the uncertain conflict situation. Although they [the Burmese army and TNLA] are not engaged in hostilities at this very moment, the situation is still very tense, he told Shan Herald. The villagers are worried that if they go back and the clashes resume, they will be caught in the middle and unable to get out. He added: The villagers are also afraid of a new wave of conscription and tax collection in the area [by the TNLA]. According to Nang San San Aye, an MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) representing Hsipaw Township Constituency No 2, local community leaders have gathered to discuss ways to resolve the problem. As the villagers are unable to go home, we are now discussing ways to help them, she said. We are also examining the possibility of expanding the village where they are sheltering or creating a new village for them, and we are checking to make sure it can be done in accordance with the law. On January 5, Shan Herald reported that since the beginning of January some 1,300 civilians from Mantong Township have fled their homes. They are currently sheltering at six camps in Namtu Township. Civilians in the townships of Namsan, Namtu, Mantong, Kyaukme and Kutkhai have been regularly displaced since November 20 last year due to fighting between government troops and the newly proclaimed Northern Alliance, which comprises the Arakan Army (AA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the TNLA. By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) History of Newar People from the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, says that, Woman is never widowed, can divorce man by placing Areca (Betel) Nut under his pillow. Newar or Newah (/nwr/) are community of primarily Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman ethnicities following Hinduism and Buddhism with Nepal Bhasa as their common language. Their rich history dates back to more than 5000 years and are mentioned in Chronology of Nepal Kings. Genealogy of nepal kings is recorded in a chronicle called Gopalarajavamsavali. During the region of 7th Kirati King Jitedasti, Gautama Buddha visited the Nepal Valley along with his disciples (19th century BCE). This community had a unique tradition of getting girls married twice before she choses a man to live with. After growing up, she can pick any man to live with and if she decides to leave him (there is no official divorce), she places Areca (Betel) nut under his pillow before he wakes up and leaves his place. Man, when he wakes up, discovers the nut and understands that she left him for good. He has no rights to follow her or question her decision. If they had children, woman can leave them with the man for him to raise them. Woman had freedom to find another man of her choice and live with him. This tradition existed for thousands of years, but now has changed. For the first time, girls of pre-adolescent age are married to the bael fruit (wood apple), which is a symbol of the god Vishnu, ensuring that the girl becomes and remains fertile. It is believed that if the girls husband dies later in her life, she is not considered a widow because she is married to Vishnu, and so already has a husband that is believed to be still alive. This is known as Ihi or Ehee or Bel Bibaha (Bael Marriage). In this Ihee, girl is married to a golden statue of lord Vishnu known as Suvarna Kumar and Bel fruit is given as its witness. As bael fruit (wood apple) has a peculiar quality of not getting rotten and remaining fresh for many days, it is sometimes considered as Dibya Purush (divine male) or incarnation of the god. This ceremony lasts for two days. All the rituals of a Hindu marriage are performed in this ceremony. As they are done here, these ceremonies are not necessary when the girl choses to marry a man after growing up. A second marriage, known as the Bahra ceremony or Sun marriage, is done before a girls first menstruation, which starts with a seclusion in a dark room for twelve days. It is called Bahra tayegu or bahra chuyegu, where in Nepal Bhasa bahra means a cave and teyegu or chuyegu mean to put, thus Bahra tayegu is the ceremony where newari girls are put in a cave for 12 days. For the first 11 days the girl is kept in darkens away from sun light and any male contact. This is done to symbolize the purification of the girl before her marriage to the sun god on the 12th day. Final day is marked with a bhwe (a traditional party) and celebrations. This ceremony is conducted before the first menstruation and usually done at age of either 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 years. Bahra ceremony marks the turning of girl to a fertile woman. In newar community the girls are married thrice; first to the never decaying bael fruit, second to the eternal sun and finally to a man. Thus even in a case of untimely death of her husband the woman is never widowed preventing her from the tortures of the society. The tradition of woman divorcing a man by leaving a betel nut under his pillow might have changed, but the concept that a Newar woman never becomes widow, still exists. Brahma Vivaah and Gandharva Vivaah were followed by Newar people. Compared to the regressive society of today, where only Man can divorce a woman in few communities, Newars were much more progressive and their women enjoyed equal or better status than their men. A representational photo. KARACHI (PTI): China has handed over two ships to the Pakistan Navy to safeguard the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a move likely to raise alarm in India. China handed over the two ships to the Pakistan Navy on Saturday for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Dawn News reported on Sunday. The Gwadar port in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has been developed under CPEC linking western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The ships -- named after two rivers Hingol and Basol near Gwadar -- were received by Commander of the Pakistan Fleet Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. A ceremony was held in Gwadar where Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts. Director General of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency Rear Admiral Jamil Akhter, Commander West Commodore Mohammad Waris and top naval and civilian officials were present on the occasion. "The Chinese ships have become part of the Pakistan Navy from today," Vice Admiral Hussaini said, adding that the navy would become stronger with the induction of the ships. He termed the induction of the Chinese ships into the Pakistan Navy as a "historic moment" and said the ships would be deployed for the security of the Gwadar port and the sea route of the CPEC. The Chinese government will provide two more ships to Pakistan Navy which have been named Dasht and Zhob after two districts in Balochistan. China is extending help and cooperation to Pakistan for security along the CPEC's land and sea routes. Pakistan has already raised a new division of the army to ensure security along the CPEC route and in and around the Gwadar port. Security of Gwadar city has been handed over to the army's new division raised during the tenure of former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif. In the past, China has shied away from saying that it plans to deploy its naval ships in Gwadar, a move which could raise alarm in the US and India. China has not only rebuilt the Gwadar port but also has its operational control. It is also building a network of roads and railways to link up its remote western region to Gwadar for easier access to the Arabian Sea. The revamped Gwadar port became operational in November last year after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and EU. The Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat reviewing the Army Day Parade, in New Delhi on January 15, 2017. A PIB photo. NEW DELHI (PTI): Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat has promised tough position against terrorism and warned Pakistan that any ceasefire violation on the Line of Control (LoC) would be responded befittingly with "force". Gen Rawat, who said India wants peace on the frontiers with Pakistan as well as China, said, "Our efforts to restore peace on the border must not be viewed as our weakness" as "While being always ready, our policy is to take action at any place and any time." He said, "I understand that our competitors" are aware of the strengths of the Indian armed forces. "Despite Pakistan's continuous support to proxy war against India, we want peace on the Line of Control," he said on Sunday addressing officers and jawans of the force at Parade Ground here on the occasion of Army Day. "However, We will not hesitate from giving a fitting reply in case of any ceasefire violation," said Gen Rawat, who took over as head of the 12 lakh-strong force only 15 days back. He said "ceasefire violations or untoward incidents propagated by Pakistan will be responded to by force" by the Indian army. "I repeat, we will give a befitting reply to any action on LC or the border," the army chief said. His warning to Pakistan came two days after he made it clear that more surgical strikes cannot be ruled out as India has the "right to retaliate" if Pakistan does not react positively to offers of peace. On the terror menace, he said the situation on this front had "become very sensitive recently but due to brave action of the armed forces on the ground, we were able to improve on the situation." He hailed the commendable job being done by the soldiers to stop the cross-border infiltration. "On the northern front, India wants peace with China. Both sides are adopting confidence building measures (CBMs) so that tension on the border can be reduced. Despite transgressions on LAC, the armies on both sides have improved on mutual coordination," said Gen Rawat. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Cadets young and old gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary of 82 Brandon Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron on Saturday. After an afternoon of speeches and a parade of young cadets showing off their drill and marching skills at the Brandon Armoury, current cadets and alumni met for a traditional military mess dinner a formal dinner hosted for special occasions. The rows of tables, decorated with centrepieces sprouting paper planes in different shades of blue, were buzzing with young cadets in uniform and former cadets catching up with their comrades. Erin DeBooy/The Brandon Sun Current cadets and alumni enjoy a traditional military mess-style dinner at the Victoria Inn on Saturday night to celebrate the 75th anniversary of 82 Brandon Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. The evening was also a celebration of brotherhood and sisterhood, says the squadrons commanding officer, Capt. Dan Fontaine. We have military guests and community guests, the mayor will join us this evening with his wife, and a number of alumni and people who have been involved with the sponsorship over the last 75 years, said Capt. Dan Fontaine, commanding officer of 82 Brandon Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. There are guests here from a number of generations we have two gentleman here who were cadets in the 40s, and then there will be a pocket of cadets who were friends in the 60s, the 70s and the 80s throughout the evening youll see those groups sort of gaggle together and tell the old air cadet war stories, as I like to call them. It should be an interesting evening. The evening was more than just a celebration of the 75th anniversary, but also of brotherhood and sisterhood, Fontaine said, adding that he was enjoying seeing some old friends. If you ask many of the people what legacy has been left on them by being an air cadet, its the camaraderie, buddies of lifelong friendship., Fontaine said. We have a strong legacy built of cadets going on to help the continuation of the program. The cadet program doesnt only benefit the young cadets that join, but also the community, Fontaine said. It takes a community to raise a child, and to raise young men and women who understand citizenship and leadership. The cadet program does that, Fontaine said. Tonight, this is a culmination of those people who joined the cadet program when they were 12 or 13 years old and they grew up and went on to be leaders in their community. edebooy@brandonsun.com Twitter: @erindebooy Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The largest indoor agriculture show in Canada is expanding. For the first time, this weeks Manitoba Ag Days, which runs for three days beginning Tuesday, will occupy the entire show floor at the Keystone Centre. It comes at a fitting time as the exhibition commemorates 40 years of bringing the agriculture industry together. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Big Roy, a 40-year-old large Versatile 1080 tractor prototype sits in the Westoba Agricultural Centre of Excellence on Saturday as preparations for Manitoba Ag Days continue. The prototype never entered production and Big Roy was recently restored at the Manitoba Agriculture Museum in Austin. Back when she joined the board in 2008, Ag Days general manager Kristen Phillips said organizers have wanted space at the Brandon Curling Club. I swear they only asked me to be on the board because I was a curler, Phillips said with a chuckle. Its been over a decade of communicating and talking and working with the curling club, and I think they viewed it as a real opportunity, being our 40th anniversary. Thanks to nearly 20,000 square feet of additional real estate, the enlarged show will boast more than 550 exhibitors 62 more than last year within its 540,000 sq.-ft. facility. Even with nearly 10 acres of space, Ag Days is still turning exhibitors away from its free event expected to draw as many as 50,000 visitors. Sixty-two exhibitors were on the waiting list when registration closed last December, and about 40 more have inquired about space since. If the Keystone doubled in size, wed be able to fill it, Phillips said. Until then, the annual show, which is endearingly described as where the ag year begins, will gladly make do with its space. No doubt, the show has come a long way from a one-room weed fair. I dont think you can ask those who started on the board back in the 70s, if they ever thought it would grow to what it is today, said Ag Days media co-ordinator Andrea Guthrie. Its the first ag show of its size of the year and a way to kind of kick things off for the industry here in Manitoba. To mark 40 years, exhibitors and visitors are encouraged to dig up any ag nostalgia theyve hoarded. Prizes will be awarded throughout the show. The farm show is also sharing its 40th birthday with Big Roy, the commonly known moniker for the iconic Versatile 1080 tractor. Its immense size and radical design drew attention, but the prototype never entered production. Parked at the Manitoba Agriculture Museum in Austin, the tractor was recently restored and will be on display at Ag Days. In some ways, Big Roy was ahead of its time. Manitoba Ag Days Terry OReilly, host of CBC Radios Under the Influence, is the keynote speaker for this years Manitoba Ag Days. OReilly will speak on advertising and how the agriculture industry must promote itself to ensure producers work is touted. You think about the technology were at today, in 1978 they had a TV monitor in the cab of this tractor, Phillips said, referencing that a screen was necessary because drivers couldnt fully see the back of the tractor. The next major invention, recalled 40 years down the road, may indeed debut at this weeks inventors showcase. This year, 17 new inventions and 17 products new to the market will be shown off at Ag Days. Another popular component to the show is the more than 60 industry speakers holding court on a range of agriculture-related matters. The keynote speaker is Terry OReilly, host of CBC Radios Under the Influence. Hell speak on advertising and how the agriculture industry must promote itself to ensure producers work is touted. Phillips said its a message farmers can benefit from. We need to have a larger voice and we need to speak out about how well we raise our animals, and how much we care about our soil and the health of all things around us, she said. We need to be agvocates for our own industry. OReilly will speak Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. at FCC Theatre. Phillips is also looking forward to the speech from Curtis Weber, who, at the age of 17, was electrocuted while working on a farm and beat the odds by surviving. Weber, who will speak at the MNP Theatre Tuesday at 11:15 a.m., hopes to inspire people, especially youth, to be safe on the farm, Phillips explained. We now have that 20-year-old generation thats getting into the farm, those 20-year-olds really need to hear this message that its OK to say no and its OK to ask questions. Though all speeches focus on agriculture, anyone would likely take valuable messages away from the speakers, Phillips explained. Honestly, if I could I would just sit in the theatre for all three days, because I think theres not a speaker there that I would not want to hear. In addition to the speaking series, inventions and exhibitors, the show will again launch with a kickoff breakfast the at Great Western Roadhouse at Canad Inns on Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. A minimum $5 donation will benefit the Agriculture in the Classroom program. Manitoba Ag Days Angela Santiago, who built the Little Potato Company from a bathtub full of creamers into a North American success story, is also among the speakers taking part in the free speaking series. The Canadian Agriculture Safety Association will launch its grain safety initiative at Ag Days. Three Alberta girls died in 2015 when they suffocated while playing in a truck of canola. Over the three-day show, Phillips recommends browsing the interactive map on agdays.com/map to maximize the time visitors spend on the show floor. ifroese@brandonsun.com Twitter: @ianfroese A sampling of speakers There is not enough time to hear from the 60-plus industry experts who will share wisdom on agriculture during Manitoba Ag Days. Here are just a few of the key speakers taking part in the free speaking series at the Keystone Centre: Terry OReilly (Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., FCC Theatre): The CBC Radio host will speak on the compelling story every industry must have. In the world of food and farming, smart messaging helps connect the public to farmers. Knowing how to tell a marketing story can help communicate intangible elements like trust, confidence and value. Angela Santiago (Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., FCC Theatre): Santiago built The Little Potato Company from, quite literally, a bathtub full of freshly washed creamers delivered to local farmers markets by car to store listings across Canada and in all 50 states in the U.S. Drew Lerner (Thursday at 11 a.m., FCC Theatre): The senior agricultural meteorologist will discuss whether weather extremes will persist on the Prairies. He will also provide a review of current soil conditions. Thomas Mielke (Tuesday at 11 a.m., FCC Theatre): A leading oilseed crop analyst, the executive director of ISTA Mielke GmbH in Hamburg, Germany better known as Oil World will present a forecast on the canola market. Source: Manitoba Ag Days Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A Brandon mother is hoping to raise awareness on a womans right to breastfeed after a bad experience nursing in a local grocery store. New mom Katelyn Stenhouse-Price went grocery shopping at Real Canadian Superstore on Friday, trying to regain some normalcy and routine with her three-week old daughter, Aurora. During the outing, Aurora got hungry. Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun Katelyn Stenhouse-Price holds her three-week-old daughter Aurora in her home on Sixth Street on Saturday afternoon. Stenhouse-Price was recently asked to move to the bathroom while breastfeeding in Real Canadian Superstore. Shes not on a schedule yet, so she just eats whenever she gets hungry, so that makes it a little bit more difficult, especially when Im out and about, Stenhouse-Price said. Stenhouse-Price said she looked around for a chair or a bench out of the way where she could sit and breastfeed, but there were no options, so she sat down on the floor by the entrance of the bathroom. I just sat in the corner, kind of off to the side and out of the way, Stenhouse-Price said. I was inside the entrance hallway, so no one could really see me. Two women leaving the washroom showed concern that she was forced to sit on the floor to nurse, Stenhouse-Price said, adding that she believes one may have gone up to customer service to request a chair for her a good deed seemingly misinterpreted by a staff member. One of the (employees) came up and told me that I had to go in the bathroom to feed her, Stenhouse-Price said. I didnt want to go feed her in the bathroom, so I told her I was OK where I was. She kept insisting I needed to go into the bathroom in a stall to feed her she was quite rude about it. After telling the employee again that she was fine to stay where she was, the employee got upset and told Stenhouse-Price she was going to go get the store manager, she said. It made me feel quite uncomfortable I felt OK until (the employee) started asking me to move, and then I started feeling bad for just feeding my daughter, Stenhouse-Price said. People started lookingno one even knew that I was there until she came up and kind of made a bit of a scene about it. Stenhouse-Price said she went up to customer service after she was done nursing to speak to the manager, who was very apologetic about the situation and told her she was free to breastfeed where ever she needed to. The Brandon Sun contacted Superstores manager in Brandon. But he was unable to comment, and directed any inquiries to Loblaws head office. A Superstore spokesperson could not be reached for comment over the weekend. But a representative did respond to Stenhouse-Prices comment on its Facebook page, expressing most sincere apologies. We work hard to provide our colleagues with the appropriate training and support to ensure they deliver the type of experience customers expect from us, the post said. This has been reviewed with our management team and theyll be taking the appropriate actions to prevent situations like this from happening again. Stenhouse-Price said she has nothing against Superstore and is happy with the response that was provided, adding that she would like to see the store, as well as others, have more options available for nursing moms. I want to raise awareness that its a natural thing to do. (Mothers) shouldnt be shamed for doing it, and thats how I felt was ashamed, Stenhouse-Price said. According to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, nursing mothers have the right to breastfeed their child in a public place, including stores and shopping malls. Those who provide services to the public should have a clean, comfortable and somewhat private areas available for nursing mothers to breastfeed, if requested. Stenhouse-Price said she would have felt better if the employee had offered a more comfortable place to nurse rather than insisting she go into the bathroom, and hopes that her experience can create understanding or serve as a reminder of womens human rights. I wish more stores would know and make a better effort to support the rights of nursing moms. Stenhouse-Price said. edebooy@brandonsun.com Twitter: @erindebooy Already have an account? Log in here Police arrested a 19-year-old Brandon man for assault after being flagged down on the street by the victim. 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 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. HALIFAX Should medicine be ageist? A young trainee doctor recently proposed to me that it should. Health care is overstretched, she argued. We cant do everything for everyone, so why spend money on old people, who have little chance of benefit? For her, ageism is not all that bad in fact, its a practical response to limited resources. Im unpersuaded. Ageism is not benign. We fail older people when we treat them, as typically we do, in ways that are at odds with how ageing works. Ageism masks our need to do better. The challenge is the complexity of ageing. With age, almost all diseases become more common. Health care has become pretty good at assembling teams that specialize in specific problems, creating focused, subspecialized care. And patients do best when their single illness, no matter how complicated and no matter what their age, is their main problem. Subspecialized care may work very well for them. But as we age, were more likely to have more than one illness and to take more than one medication. And as we age, the illnesses that we have are more likely to restrict how we live not just outright disability, but in our moving more slowly or taking care in where we walk, or what we wear or where we go. Not everyone of the same age has the same number of health problems. Those with the most health problems are frail. And when theyre frail, they do worse. Often, those with frailty do worse because health care remains focused on single illness. Our success with a single-illness approach has biased us to think that this is the approach we should always take. When frail people show up with all their health and social problems, we see them as illegitimate or unsuited for what we do. So would the young doctor be right if instead of restricting care in old people, she simply opted for restricting care for frail people? Should frailism be the new ageism? For health care, such a notion would be self-defeating. If frail patients are unsuited to the care that doctors provide, we must provide more suitable care. Frail older adults consume a lot of care. Far better that those of us in the health system treat them as our very best customers. That would improve care for everyone. No one admitted to hospital benefits from poor sleep, but (mostly) we get away with it in our fitter patients. Not so in the frail, in whom it leads to worse outcomes: longer stays, more confusion, more medications, more falls and a higher death rate. No one benefits from being immobilized too long. No one benefits from not having medications reviewed, or from poor nutrition, or inadequate pain control, or getting admitted when care at home would be better or in not clearly discussing goals of care. Just because the health system mostly gets away with it in fitter patients is no reason to forego change. Changing routines to improve care will benefit everyone. But it wont happen if we see frailty as an acceptable form of ageism. We need to invest in better care and in better understanding how to design, test and implement it. As important as subspecialties are, by definition each subspecialty group benefits a small fraction of people. The skills required to provide expert general care, particularly for frail older adults, have been less celebrated. Compared to disease research, ageing and frailty are barely on the funding radar screen. In any guise, ageism can be insidious. We dont have to go far to find it. I find it in myself when Im in a long line. Its not the science of how movement becomes slow that saves me then its realizing that slowness is not a moral failing, much less one directed at my busyness. What we do in our health system now fails older people who might benefit if we provided better care. In that way, it fails us all. Attitudes must change. Medicine should not be ageist. It shouldnt even be frailest. We must work to provide better care for frail older adults, especially when they are ill. Kenneth Rockwood is a geriatrician in Halifax and a researcher with Canadian Frailty Network, a notforprofit organization dedicated to improving care for older Canadians living with frailty. Troy Media Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Its the bylaw! Please be respectful to your neighbours and not push your snow on to the city street. It becomes hard-packed snow, which all your neighbours have to drive over. It also violates the city bylaws. As per the City of Brandon Traffic By-law No. 5463, clause 10.8 states: It shall be an offense for any person to remove from any private property, public property, street, boulevard, or sidewalk any snow or ice and deposit same on any street, boulevard, or sidewalk in such a manner that could create a hazardous condition for either vehicular or pedestrian traffic. No work on a paid work vacation? Now I am really getting peeved off. Our Premier Brian Pallister is taking an eight-week paid working vacation at his tax-free villa in Costa Rica and he had just stated he is not taking any electronic devices such as a laptop to do any work! Perhaps there is not any room left on the little beach table for a laptop or a cellphone because of all the little drinks with the umbrellas in them! Think how many mouths birthday money could feed I read in The Brandon Sun lately that the government is going to spend $210 million on Canadas 150th birthday. I, myself, would rather see the money donated to the soup kitchens across Canada to feed a lot of hungry people. I think that would be money well spent. This is the government you elected! This government must think we are three straws short of a bale. First of all, Mr. Premier is taking off two months of the year and going to Costa Rica. I will take a weekend off and go to Winnipeg. Then he says is not going to do anything to health care, but he has already cut one health-care location over on St. Marys Road in Winnipeg. Thanks, people for nothing you voted for him and now we are all going to suffer! And you cant do anything for four years. So put that in your pipe and smoke it! Now doesnt that just say it all? Stats Canada has announced that Canada has gained 54,000 full-time jobs and in the first time in many years we have a trade surplus all in a little over a year of turfing Stephen Harpers Conservatives. And here we go again Again the same judge gives the same thing house arrest. And this is serious this time. This is terrorism and you give him house arrest? You have to just wake up and get these kids off the streets. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Donald Trump has been called a misogynist, a racist and a bully. Now we can add science denialist to the list. Thats what Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, called the president-elect on Tuesday after word broke that he had met with leading vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, who once called the use of vaccines a holocaust, claims he was asked by Trump to oversee a presidential panel to review vaccine safety and science. A spokesman for Trump said he was exploring the possibility of forming a committee on autism, which Trump has suggested can be caused by vaccines. Whatever the committees exact mandate, Kennedy is exactly the wrong person to head it. Putting a vaccine skeptic, particularly one whose family name still carries such cachet, at the head of a high-profile scientific committee would be dangerous for public health in the U.S. and beyond. The fact is vaccines save millions of lives each year. All the evidence suggests theyre safe. But skeptics continue to cite a study promoted in 1998 by disgraced former British doctor Andrew Wakefield that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine can cause autism. His theory has been repeatedly debunked by physicians, researchers and the World Health Organization, among others. Still, these discredited ideas continue to be promoted by celebrity crackpots and other proponents of the so-called anti-vaxxer movement. The result is that more and more parents are deciding their children shouldnt get vaccines, threatening the revival of once-common childhood killers. That puts not only their childrens health in serious peril, but also that of people for whom vaccines arent an option, including patients with cancer, impaired immune systems and other vulnerabilities. It shouldnt be any surprise that Trump is flirting with this dangerous direction. Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines doesnt feel good, he tweeted in March 2014. AUTISM. Many such cases! But now that he is president-elect, Trump must listen to the experts. Vaccines are the most significant medical innovation of our time, Drs. Fernando Stein and Karen Remley of the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement on Tuesday. It would be profoundly irresponsible for the Trump administration to contribute to the erosion of this progress by giving official credence to pseudoscience. The more parents delay vaccination, the more outbreaks of easily preventable, deadly diseases we will see and not just in the U.S. Contagion, whether of misinformation or disease, knows no borders. Toronto Star Firefighters have rescued a cow from a swimming pool outside a home in Oklahoma City. Emergency responders arrived after the home-owner reported hearing some sort of "snorting" coming from the pool area. They discovered a hole in the swimming pool's liner and the animal trapped in the water. Oklahoma City Fire Department Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson said firefighters used their pumps to remove about five feet of water from the pool so the cow would not experience hypothermia. Crews then brought in a tow truck to hoist the nearly 1,500-pound animal from the pool and to safety. Mr Fulkerson said the cow appeared to be uninjured after its ordeal. Ryanair has got a reputation for being a tough cookie, but this customer service agent has taken things to a whole new level. Ryanair customer Jordan Joshua Lewis had an unfortunate encounter with an acerbic tongued Ryanair agent who seems to have been having a bad day. Jordan had an issue with some mysterious charges that appeared when he changed his seat to get some extra legroom. Instead of an upgrade of 7 bringing his seat cost to a total of 15, his seat randomly went up to 40. Unimpressed with the price hike, Jordan contacted Ryanair to query the price. Unfortunately for Jordan, he was put through to a rather unhelpful agent who was nonplussed by his conundrum. According to the DailyEdge.ie who were in contact with the shafted Ryanair customer, Jordan was so shocked by the reaction of the agent that he simply replied 'That's sassy. and closed down the conversation window. Well, it's not like he was going to get any resolution and this agent seemed ready for a bitter verbal battle that could result in some serious ego wounds. Best to walk away while you still can The Coast Guard have carried out two offshore operations to evacuate fishermen from two different vessels. The Waterford-based helicopter R117 was sent to help a fishermen who suffered an onboard injury. A man is due in court this afternoon over a stabbing in County Offaly yesterday. The 21-year-old is facing charges after another man in his 20s was found seriously hurt in a housing estate in Birr. He was taken to hospital where he condition is described as critical. A man arrested close to the scene will appear in the CCJ in Dublin at 2pm. Four options have been unveiled by the Education Minister to tackle the so-called baptism barrier which allows publicly funded schools to refuse places to children based on religion. Richard Bruton says it is unfair for children to be denied entry because they are not subscribed to a particular faith or for parents to feel pressured into baptising a child to get a place. One of the four options is to impose an outright ban on schools using religion as a factor in admissions. But that rule would also allow religious schools to require parents or pupils to indicate support or respect for its ethos. Some 96% of the primary schools in Ireland have a Christian religious patronage and nine out of 10 have a Catholic ethos. Mr Bruton said the public could also have their say on three other admissions options over the next three months. One is a catchment area approach. Religious schools will be stopped from giving preference to children of a certain religion who do not live locally. Another is to introduce a "nearest school rule" with religious schools allowed to give preference to a child of a particular religion only if it is the nearest school of that particular religion. The final option is a quota. A religious school could give preference to children of its own religion for a proportion of its places. The remaining places would be allocated based on other criteria such as proximity to the school or a lottery. Mr Bruton said significantly fewer than 90% of young families in Ireland were religious. "I believe it is unfair that, under the current system, a non-religious child can be refused entry to the local school, because preference is given to a religious child living some distance away," he said. "I believe it is unfair that, under the current system, some parents who might not otherwise do so feel pressure to baptise their children because they feel it gives them more chance of getting into their local school. "I believe we must address these unfairnesses." Mr Bruton warned that there was no easy fix and that there was a risk of unintended consequences if admission policies were reformed. "We should live and let live, and aim for the greatest good for the greatest number," he said. Mr Bruton said minority religions could be affected, including the Protestant, Jewish, Islamic and other communities, who might wish to run schools in accordance with their ethos and admit children from their communities. He said it could lead to postcode lotteries, which would create pronounced divergence in the quality of a school in a more advantaged or disadvantaged area. Mr Bruton also said there were risks that reform would breach the Constitution and that technical and administrative difficulties could hit how the country's 4,000 schools were run. Theresa May and Enda Kenny have urged a "respectful" election campaign in Northern Ireland after a snap poll was triggered by the collapse of the power-sharing executive. Both leaders spoke by telephone after Secretary of State James Brokenshire confirmed the region will go to the ballot box on March 2 amid a deepening political crisis. The Taoiseach's spokesman said the pair discussed the bitter fall-out and regretted that the DUP and Sinn Fein had been unable to reach agreement. "They both expressed the hope that the election campaign would be respectful, noting that following the election the Northern Ireland parties would once again have to engage on the various challenges they face," he said. "The Taoiseach and Prime Minister repeated their desire to see the institutions established under the Good Friday Agreement operating effectively, and in particular to have a fully-functioning Executive in place as soon as possible." Speculation has been mounting of a rancorous election campaign in the weeks ahead given the widening divergence between the two main parties at Stormont. If a new power-sharing administration cannot be formed after the March elections, the region faces the prospect of yet another election or even direct rule being reimposed from Westminster. Mrs May and Mr Kenny also spoke about the Prime Minister's much-anticipated speech to be delivered on Tuesday, which is expected to set out Britain's Brexit plan. The Taoiseach reiterated a number of key concerns for Ireland during the conversation, focusing on economic and trading relationships, the common travel area and the peace process, including concerns about the border. By David Raleigh The HSE has been warned by fire authorities in Limerick, that it could face legal proceedings if University Hospital Limerick continues to breach its own fire safety risk assessment threshold of having more than 44 patients in its Emergency Department at any on time. Michael Ryan, Chief Fire Officer for the Limerick region, told a monthly meeting of metropolitan city and county councillors, Monday, that the hospital had exceeded its own patient safety threshold targets at the A+E unit. The HSE said the Assistant Chief Fire Officer for Limerick inspected the A+E on October 23, 2016, and "expressed concerns about levels of overcrowding in the ED". The only fire safety concern raised by the fire authority is regarding the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys in the ED. The hospital is not suspected of being in breach of any other fire regulations. It said the ED was "extremely busy" at the time "with attendances of approximately 162 patients". It added it has "long acknowledged the emergency department at UHL..is not fit-for-purpose". A new state-of-the-art emergency department is due to open in May. Since last October the fire service and UHL have been jointly monitoring the situation, the council meeting heard. "Forty-four is the what the maximum number of (patients) should be in the A+E. Enforcement action is always an option and it's an issue we have raised with the management team," Mr Ryan said. "That's what we have told them; that we may have to take enforcement action if things don't improve." Mr Ryan revealed, as the ED was constructed prior to the 1990 Building Control Regulation Act it did not need a fire safety certificate. However, the hospital must adhere, like all other premises, to the Fire Services Act 1981, which requires premises owners to take "all reasonable measures to guard against the outbreak of fire", as well as ensuring "as far as is reasonably practicable the safety of persons on the premises in the event of an outbreak of fire." The Act further states that anyone found guilty of being in contravention of the Act "shall be liable on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding 10,000 or, at the discretion of the court, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or to both the fine and the imprisonment." Mr Ryan added: "At the moment we are getting good cooperation from the (hospital) management team; we are monitoring it on an ongoing basis; we have regular management team meetings with them, and the focus is good up to the present time." In response, the hospital stated: "UL Hospitals Group is engaging with the Fire Authority in Limerick on the management of patients within the emergency department. "Every effort is being made to ensure compliance with the recommendations of the Fire Authority in this regard and this is continuously monitored." "Regular fire safety training is provided to management and staff at UL Hospitals Group, including staff in the ED." "UL Hospitals Group takes all matters of safety with the utmost seriousness and this includes having a robust fire safety management system in place for all of UHL, including the ED." Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire is expected to face calls to name the date for the second Stormont election in eight months. With Sinn Fein refusing to nominate a deputy first minister to replace Martin McGuinness, a snap election in late February or early March is on the cards - just as the British Government is preparing to trigger Brexit. Mr McGuinness's move was precipitated by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal - a botched eco-scheme set to cost Stormont 490m - but the row has also reignited a range of other disputes dividing the DUP/Sinn Fein-led coalition. The reappointment process is one of a number of elements of the political crisis due to be raised in the Assembly chamber on Monday. Emergency proposals aimed at reducing the RHI overspend will be tabled by DUP Economy minister Simon Hamilton while Sinn Fein will also table motion of no confidence in DUP Speaker Robin Newton. Mr Newton has been under political pressure over his handling of a recalled Assembly session to debate RHI before Christmas. He has also been forced to defend himself against conflict of interest accusations in regard to his handling of Assembly exchanges on a controversial charity in his east Belfast constituency. The devolution meltdown has cast a shadow of uncertainty over a series of big ticket Stormont Executive plans. One of those is a payment scheme for households losing out under the UK Government's so-called "bedroom tax" and, also on Monday, DUP Communities minister Paul Givan will by-pass the Executive to ask for direct Assembly approval for the support measure. Mr McGuinness's resignation automatically removed DUP leader Arlene Foster from her position as first minister - as executive structures dictate one cannot govern without the other. If the DUP and Sinn Fein are returned as the largest parties after an election, the likelihood of an immediate return to powersharing is slim. But Mr Brokenshire said no alternatives to powersharing were being contemplated, including direct rule or joint authority between London and Dublin. Sinn Fein has accused the DUP of "arrogance and disrespect" in office and insisted republicans will only enter another executive if its long-term coalition partners give way on a series of "equality issues", such as the Irish language and gay rights. The DUP, for its part, has made clear it will not deliver a "republican agenda" and said the very structures of mandatory coalition powersharing need to be reviewed before another executive is formed. Update 3pm: A short time ago, two others were sentenced in relation to charges arising from the investigation into Dale Creightons death. Aisling Burke, a 20-year-old single mother with an address at Beechpark in Collinstown, Co. Westmeath was jailed for one year for violent disorder. 26-year-old James Reid of Glen Aoibhinn, Gorey, Co. Wexford received a fully suspended sentence after admitting having a knife on the footbridge. Earlier: Five men have been jailed for their roles in a "vicious and sustained attack" that led to the death of a young man on a footbridge in Dublin. Dale Creighton died in hospital on January 2, 2014, a day after being chased and beaten on suspicion of stealing a mobile phone. Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy said his life was "brutally ended" by a group of average young people who decided to take the law into their own hands. Seven people originally went on trial for his murder, but the charges were dropped after the pleas to lesser offences were accepted by the DPP. 23-year-old Ross Callery of Gortlum Cottages, Brittas, Co. Dublin has been jailed for six years after pleading guilty to manslaughter. 26-year-old Graham Palmer of Park Ave, Portarlington , Co. Laois was jailed for five years after admitting the same offence. David Burke, aged 28, of Beechpark in Collinstown, County Meath has been jailed for seven-and-a-half years after also admitting manslaughter, while 27-year-old Gerard Stevens of Grosvenor Square, Rathmines, in Dublin got three years for the same offence. Jason Beresford, aged 23, of Castledermot, Co. Kildare was jailed for six years for his role in the manslaughter. David Burkes sister Aisling of Beechpark, Collinstown, Co Westmeath, pleaded guilty to violent disorder at the bridge that New Years morning. James Reid of Glen Aoibhinn in Gorey, Co Wexford, pleaded guilty to possession of a knife, which had a blade or was sharply pointed. They will be sentenced this afternoon. The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is being called on not to present the incoming US President Donald Trump with a bowl of shamrock this St Patrick's Day. People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett says it would send a powerful message, to the Trump administration and the global community, if Enda Kenny broke the tradition. Driver who killed woman and injured her baby in 'micro-sleep' awaits outcome of appeal A man who killed a young mother and seriously injured her 15-week-old child when he hit them with his car while in a micro-sleep has moved to appeal his two year prison sentence. Dublin man Anthony Handley, aged 64, of Whitethorn Grove, Artane, had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving causing the death of Olivia Dunne, aged 31, and serious bodily harm to Eabha Dunne in Balbriggan on January 17, 2014. Gardai believe Handley drifted off momentarily before his off-road SUV veered from the road and hit the two victims. He had no alcohol or drugs in his system. Sentencing Handley to two years imprisonment on May 10, 2016, Judge Patrick McCartan said he was a good man with a blameless record but he should have been alert to the fact that he was becoming tired behind the wheel. He said he was imposing the two year sentence to send out the clear message to the community that fatigue must be a phenomenon in the minds of all drivers. He also banned Handley from driving for ten years. Opening an appeal against sentence today, Handley's barrister, Ken Fogarty SC, said the sentencing judge placed significant emphasis on the Road Safety Authority's campaign on driver fatigue. But the only evidence, in so far as it was evidence, was an indication by Handley that he had felt something of that nature fifteen minutes beforehand, Mr Fogarty said. That indicator, from a man who said he had no knowledge of the incident, should not have allowed the other investigative functions of the State to fall by the wayside. Mr Fogarty said people plead guilty for a variety of reasons and the events which gave rise to the incident were still being talked about. Counsel said Handley had lead a completely blameless life and never had any problems with the gardai. He was the main carer for his estranged wife who Handley had stayed with, Mr Fogarty said. Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Roisin Lacey SC, said Handley's guilty plea was accepted on the basis that there had been warning signs even though he was not able now to recollect. Ms Lacey said there was no evidence of a stroke and the incident did not involve an unexpected medical episode. There was evidence of definite sleep deprivation. She said Handley had had just four hours sleep the night before. He had been to the gym that morning for a spinning class which, Ms Lacey said, are not for the feint hearted. Ms Lacey said that since the RSA campaign, road users have been highly cautioned about driver fatigue. In response, Mr Fogarty said there was no evidence of advertence on Handley's part of what was about to happen. Reserving judgment, Mr Justice George Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Alan Mahon and Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court hoped to deliver its decision as soon as possible. Education Minister Richard Bruton is due to announce plans this morning to legislate on the controversial school admissions system. Under the so-called 'baptism barrier', many children cannot access religious primary schools unless they have been baptised in a Christian faith. New research by the campaign group EQUATE shows that almost one in four parents of children of school-going age would not have baptised their child if they did not need it to gain entry to their local school. EQUATE Executive Director Michael Barron says there is growing momentum across Irish society to remove the baptism barrier. He said: "We've heard from parents who actually regret baptising their children against their beliefs solely on the basis of getting their children into a school. "And we've heard last year from the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin who said he really did not believe in the practice of children being baptised in order to gain entry into their local school, and neither do we. "I think there is widespread agreement that baptising a child to get into a school is really not a practice that anybody can support in a modern democracy." More than 95% of the 3,300 primary schools are under control of a religious patron, but almost 90% are Catholic. Over a third of couples who are getting married are choosing to do so in a non-religious ceremony, and all the evidence points to a population in which very significantly fewer than 90% of young families are religious, Mr Bruton said. At a seminar on the issue, he will single out the practice of some religious schools giving preference to children of their own faith who live a distance away over those of a different faith, or none, living close to the school. Mr Bruton will set out four possible approaches in relation to primary schools: - Banning religious schools from giving preference to children of their own religion from outside the catchment area, ahead of non-religious children who live inside the catchment. - Allowing religious schools give preference to a child of their own religion only where it is the childs nearest school of that faith. - Allowing preference be given to a child of the schools religion for a set proportion of places, with remaining places allocated using other admissions criteria like distance from school. - The fourth option he will set out is to introduce an outright ban on religion being used as a factor in admissions. Within such an approach, he will say, religious schools could have capacity to require parents or students indicate support or respect for the school ethos. Mr Bruton highlights pitfalls and unintended consequences, particularly the ability of Islamic, Jewish, Protestant or other minority faiths to run schools in accordance with their ethos and admit children from their communities. With only 45 days until Ed Sheerans new album, Divide hits our devices we are looking for any reason to distract ourselves. And keeping within the theme of the full-on Irish album, weve found just the thing. Thirty inmates were killed in a Brazilian prison during a fight between rival gangs. Most of the inmates were beheaded, while some were burned alive. Security forces stormed Alcacuz Prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police in Bahrain have been executed by firing squad. The executions of the Shiite men drew swift criticism from human rights groups and sparked outrage among opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges as politically motivated. Activists allege that testimony used against the condemned men was obtained through torture. Bahrain's public prosecution said the death sentences were carried out by firing squad early on Sunday. The executions were the first in the US-allied nation since 2010 and followed a spike in protests in solidarity with the convicted men. Abbas al-Samea, Sami Mushaima and Ali al-Singace were found guilty in 215 of killing two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer deployed to bolster the country's security forces in a 2014 bomb attack. Their death sentences were upheld by a Bahraini court last Monday. Government forces crushed the 2011 uprising with help from allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but the country continues to face low-level unrest led by a majority Shiite population that feels marginalised by the Sunni monarchy. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets on Saturday in solidarity with the condemned men as rumours spread that their executions were imminent. . Nicholas McGeehan, a researcher who monitors Bahrain for Human Rights Watch, called the executions inflammatory and unjust. He urged the kingdom's allies to "publicly and unequivocally condemn these killings". Protests and clashes continued on Sunday despite a heavy presence of riot police deployed in predominantly Shiite areas. One police officer was injured when several people shot at a police patrol in Bani Jamra, west of the capital Manama, the Interior Ministry said. Al-Samea and Mushaima alleged they were subjected to electric shocks, beatings, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation and sexual assault while in custody, Amnesty International reported in 2015. Al-Singace's mother says her son was also tortured, according to British rights group Reprieve. "It is nothing short of an outrage - and a disgraceful breach of international law - that Bahrain has gone ahead with these executions," Reprieve director Maya Foa said. "The death sentences handed to Ali, Sami and Abbas were based on 'confessions' extracted through torture, and the trial an utter sham." Bahrain's last execution was of a Bangladeshi man in 2010. A number of death sentences have been issued since then. A man has been shot in a targeted attack near a primary school in Scotland. Worried parents began arriving at St George's Primary School in the Penilee area of Glasgow as reports of the shooting emerged. Police said a 35-year-old was shot and is being treated in hospital, where his condition is described as stable. The incident happened just after 9am. Police Scotland firearms officers attended and extensive inquiries are under way. Chief Inspector Simon Jeacocke said: "This is a highly unusual incident and understandably parents, staff, pupils and people in the local community are all very alarmed by this. "We do believe it was a targeted attack but nonetheless this took place near to a local primary school at the start of the school day, when the area was busy with parents dropping off their children. "Although it would appear that there was an intended victim, anyone could have been injured as a result, putting young children and innocent people at risk. "The pupils are now safe at school and additional police patrols are in the area to provide extra reassurance over the next couple of days. Please do not hesitate to approach my officers if you are concerned at all. "Detectives are carrying out inquiries to establish the full circumstances of the incident and are keen to appeal to anyone who may have seen the incident or who had been in the area at the time to contact police on 101 with any information. "Alternatively call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, where anonymity can be maintained." A large police presence remains outside the school. Local councillor Alistair Watson said: "There was a gun discharged shortly after 9am this morning. "Parents are worried about the safety of their children and the kids are the number one priority, to make sure they are safe. "Penilee is a good area with lots of very good people here. "I have to commend the police for their operation. They have been very on the ball with this incident." Donald Trump hailed Nigel Farage as a "great guy" during his interview with Michael Gove for The Times in England. The president-elect mentioned Farage - who he referred to as "our Nigel" - spontaneously after being asked how much he was looking forward to meeting Theresa May. Oman says it has accepted 10 inmates from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of Barack Obama leaving office. The Foreign Ministry made the announcement on Monday, saying it accepted the prisoners at the US president's request. Police in Scotland have launched an investigation after a shooting near a primary school in Glasgow. The incident happened near St George's Primary School, Penilee, just after 9am. Three police officers have been killed and three others wounded by a roadside bomb in a pre-dominantly Kurdish city in south-east Turkey, according to reports. The explosion occurred near Dicle University in the Sur district of Diyarbakir province, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. Thousands have rallied across America to attack Republican efforts to repeal Barack Obama's health care law. In Michigan, people braved freezing temperatures to hear former US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders add his voice to the protest. "This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world," Vermont senator Mr Sanders told protesters, who included trade unionists. "It is time we got our national priorities right." The rally, in a car park at Macomb Community College in the Detroit suburb of Warren, was one of dozens of staged by Democrats across the US to highlight opposition to the move to scrap the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Lisa Bible, 55, of Bancroft, Michigan, who has an autoimmune disease and high cholesterol, said the existing law had been an answer to her and her husband's prayers, but feared that if it was repealed her family may get stuck with her medical bills. "I'm going to get really sick and my life will be at risk," said the online antiques dealer. US president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to overturn and replace the Affordable Care Act and majority Republicans in Congress have begun began the process of repealing it using a budget manoeuvre that requires a bare majority in the Senate. The law has delivered health coverage to about 20 million people but is saddled with problems such as rapidly-rising premiums and large co-payments. Britt Waligorski, 31, a health care administrator for a dental practice, said she did not get health insurance through work but had been covered through the health law for three years. While the premiums have gone up, she said she was concerned that services for women would be taken away if it was repealed. "It's done a lot for women for their annual check-ups, for mammograms - women's health in general," she said. "If this gets repealed we're going to go back to the old days when that's not covered." At a rally in San Francisco, Silvia Pena, a 45-year-old nanny, said she had never held insurance until she enrolled in the Affordable Care Act six years ago. "I don't have health issues but you can need insurance any time," she said. "We should all have access to health services." About 2,000 people cheered and held rainbow and American flags and signs that read "Don't Make America Sick Again" and "Health Care For All" at the rally. Patients who survived cancer, strokes and other health difficulties are sharing stories on how they benefited from the mandated health insurance. In Los Angeles, organisers of the rally outside the LA County/USC Medical Centre warned that a repeal of the law without a replacement would throw the state's health care system into chaos and strip coverage from five million Californians. Rallies in other cities in support of the health law also were well attended. Police estimated about 600 people turned up in Portland, Maine, and hundreds also attended events in Newark, New Jersey, Johnston, Rhode Island, Richmond, Virginia and Boston. The health law has provided subsidies and Medicaid coverage for millions who do not get insurance at work. It has required insurers to cover certain services such as family planning and people who are already ill, and has placed limits on the amount that the sick and elderly can be billed for health care. Republicans want to end the fines that enforce the requirement that many individuals buy coverage and that larger companies provide it to workers, but face internal disagreements on how to pay for any replacement and how to protect consumers and insurers during a long phase-in of an alternative. AP The government has only just managed to reach an agreement that could see resumption in supply of paracetamol... BUDAPEST: The US embassy in Hungary said on Thursday that comments in the Hungarian right-wing press that two local... LAGOS: More than 600 people are now known to have perished in the worst floods in a decade in Nigeria, according to... PARIS: People with monkeypox can spread the virus up to four days before symptoms appear, with more than half of... TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday accused the United States of seeking to gain concessions in nuclear talks aimed at... One of two alleged robbers left a sledgehammer with his name written on it in black permanent marker at the scene of his alleged crime, documents tendered in court say. Daniel Ronald Po'oi and Manoa Satala Chevalier allegedly broke into the Hawker home about 5am on September 26. Both appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court separately on Monday and have pleaded not guilty to the alleged crimes. Documents tendered in court for Chevalier's bail app last October say Po'oi, who had a sledgehammer, and Chevalier, who was holding a single bladed pocket knife, stood over a man who was asleep on a couch in the flat. "Don't worry, we won't hit you. We just want the money and drugs," Po'oi allegedly said to the victim when he woke. Exhausted firefighters at Canberra Airport are being forced to sleep on the toilet floor as they battle fatigue between 18 hour shifts. Pictures obtained by Fairfax Media show the cramped conditions at their airport station, with staff sleeping in the women's toilets, on the floor next to a noisy printer and in the gym area surrounded by weights. Exhausted firefighters are sleeping on the floor in an office next to a noisy printer. In a letter to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester, the United Firefighters Union described the "unacceptable" conditions. "Currently there are no proper rest or recline facilities at the [Aviation Rescue Fire Fighting Service] station at the Canberra airport," branch secretary Henry Lawrence wrote in a letter seen by Fairfax Media. ACT Policing is seeking witnesses to an attempted aggravated robbery at the tobacco store on the corner of London Circuit earlier this month. Police say a man armed with a knife entered the store on Bailey's Corner and threatened a staff member, demanding money from the cash register, about 4.45pm on Tuesday, January 3, . The staff member yelled out and the offender allegedly ran away towards London Circuit. The culprit is described as being in his mid 20s, caucasian and about 155 centimetres tall. Police say he was wearing a white hooded jumper with a black hood. Police urge anyone who may have witnessed the incident or have information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or at https://act.crimestoppers.com.au and quote reference number 6054875. Information can be provided anonymously. A chief financial officer has been fined $2000 and ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid community work for skipping jury duty, narrowly avoiding jail time. Powerwrap Ltd's Sean Slattery told the deputy juries commissioner by phone that he would not attend jury duty on October 12, 2016, citing work commitments, after he was refused a deferral. Sean Slattery has to complete 80 hours of community service for missing jury duty. Mr Slattery told the court last week that he had a number of meetings scheduled that day in preparation for an initial public offering for the company. The maximum penalty for failing to comply with a summons for jury service is three months' imprisonment or a more than $4000 fine. Online fashion house Showpo is suing one of its former graphic designers and fledgling online retailer Black Swallow for reputational damage and loss of sales alleging the woman stole the entire customer database and passed it on to her new employer. In documents filed with the Federal Court, Showpo claims 24-year-old Melissa Aroutunian exported its 306,000-strong customer database before she left the company in September last year and passed it on to Black Swallow, which it claims then used the list to market itself as an affiliate of Showpo, using similar branding. Black Swallow has strongly denied the allegations. Showpo, which is on track to book $25 million in revenue for 2016 and was founded in 2010 by entrepreneur Jane Lu, is an online retailing business selling fast and affordable fashion. Black Swallow, which launched 15 months ago, is a similar e-commerce business. Investors are calling on Woolworths to give customers reasons to shop there again, as Australia's number one supermarket chain surprises investors with news it has appointed a Tesco veteran from the UK as its managing director of supermarkets. In a long-awaited appointment, Claire Peters, who started as a graduate at Tesco and currently serves as its chief operating officer in Thailand, will step into the key role in July. Shareholders claim Woolworths breached the Corporations Act over a surprise profit downgrade in 2015. Ms Peters is the first woman to hold the role of managing director, Woolworths Supermarkets, and will report to Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci. Mr Banducci has held the supermarkets boss role since the former Woolworths director of supermarkets and petrol, Tjeerd Jegen, left Woolworths almost two years ago. Neither expenses controversies managed to end the news silly season. Among this year's pointless entries were an insufferable saga about one TV talking head telling another to get changed, and an astonishing revelation that an accountant in Sydney is getting divorced. If only Peter Dutton had been the one to buy yet another investment property for his portfolio on a work trip. Instead, he merely committed the politically survivable indulgence of charging taxpayers $3929 for an extravagant meal in Washington, DC. Yes, with Ley gone, the Turnbull ministry is considerably diminished, as is her pay. A capable minister was removed from a government in dire need of capable ministers, gone despite others being far more deserving of relegation to the backbench. How reassuring was the Sussan Ley expenses fracas, an underwhelming tizz over a minor infraction. It was as if there are still rules to be obeyed in a world seemingly determined to break all of them. Caught in an expenses scandal, Sussan Ley was forced to stand down. Credit:Mark Jesser But as vapid as those stories were, the reassurance of the Ley departure was real. She was forced to quit for breaking a basic rule of Australian politics, that politicians shouldn't take liberties with public money. Her resignation demonstrates that those fundamental rules still apply, at least in Australia, and that even in the absence of a federal anti-corruption body, any hint of unjustified use of public funds for personal benefit, even modest and seemingly within the rules, is still considered intolerable. Sadly, this silly season also reminded us, if any reminder were needed, that Australians continue to tolerate the imposition of indefinite detention on those fleeing persecution who have committed no crime. And it established that the government will tolerate praise, even Centrelink firstly wrongly demanding repayment from thousands of the most vulnerable Australians, then freezing its response when people rightly complained. But the fact that a cabinet minister did some personal investing on a work-funded trip and had to resign because of it shows that there remain in Australia rules that politicians cannot both break and hope to stay in the job. You can't say the same thing in the US, where on Friday power is handed to an embarrassing buffoon determined to be entirely unembarrassed about ignoring sensible political conventions, established diplomatic norms, or the law. The uncertainty of the world in the Era of Big Orange is almost overwhelming in its scale: just how bad will be the looming catastrophe of the Trump presidency? Will it merely inflict four years of humiliation on the US, strip vulnerable people of basic health care, and flood the place with guns making it too dangerous to visit, or will he take the rest of the world down with his compatriots, of whom far more voted for the other candidate? When the email lobbed in, what surprised me was not the violence of the language, but the fact that its author was Australian. Barack Obama, the man wrote, deserved to be killed with piano wire. Why would an Australian be driven to such rage by an American president? Attached was a list of allegations that have circulated through online fever swamps ever since Obama took office, updated to reflect his pending departure. Illustration: John Shakespeare America, it said, was the proverbial frog in the pot. Americans had not noticed as Obama had incrementally prepared it for Islam. He had banned Bibles in schools, pork in prisons and prayer rugs were "everywhere". He had facilitated the rise of ISIS and scrapped nuclear weapons, stripped ammo from the gun shops and withdrawn American aircraft carriers to leave them vulnerable in port. This sort of nonsense has marked the Obama era. The claim about the aircraft carriers first circulated in 2012, when Donald Trump was dabbling in politics by championing the myth that Obama was not an American. That year, Dinesh D'Souza crafted a quasi-intellectual veil for a broader assault from the right, theorising that Obama was determined to destroy America to win the post-mortem approval of the father who abandoned him. Or something. Statistics show social media has overtaken traditional news platforms as people's preferred source of information and news - 62% of United States adults and 52% Australians get their news from social media. In January 2016, 44% of United States adults learnt about the presidential election from social media. Posts which have shown high engagement and interactivity are those which are policy-focussed and issue-based, but personal connection has also proven a good strategy to connect with voters. Prime ministers like Australia's Malcolm Turnbull and Canada's Justin Trudeau regularly post family pictures and references to their wives. Turnbull's Christmas post in 2016 was one of his most-liked posts with 14,000 reactions. Conversely, social media has been host to attacks against rival candidates. On June 10, 2016, Donald Trump tweeted "Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obamabut nobody else does!" Hillary Clinton responded to Trump's antics by tweeting "Delete your account." Social media guidelines for candidates In Australia, there aren't any aside from legal requirements which apply to all social media users. In the absence of a dedicated social media policy/guide for candidates, one school of thought calls for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to write one. Legislation stipulates a three-day media blackout on all TV and radio broadcasts, which restricts political advertising. This does not apply to social media. The nuances of social media interaction are vastly different over other forms of media. In New Zealand there are strict social media guidelines. In Australia and in the absence of official guidelines, advisers including myself are suggesting that candidates do the following: Grow your supporter base on social media and regularly interact with them. Posts on social media must be creative, interesting, informative and usually with some call to action. Don't just post textual information but enrich it with pictures, graphics and videos to appeal to a variety of voters and to engage with them effectively. Sometimes discussion on social media posts can be negative and it is important to stop when it is becoming unproductive. Don't feed the trolls. Social media posts containing electoral matter must be authorised. Paid, sponsored or promoted posts should be treated as an electoral advertisement and an authorisation statement should be included. Finally, candidates are being told to check with their party to ensure social media posts are compliant with any internal guidelines that might exist. The benefits of social media for election candidates Social media has become important to any election strategy. Posts are a connection to candidates' personal world, the way they think, their agendas, and what they're doing. They allow the public to pass judgement, good or bad. There are also cost benefits. Social media allows candidates to reach 1000 people for as little as a few dollars. Broadcast and print rates vary, but can be more than 10 times the amount. How candidates use social media data All major political parties are pulling data from candidates' social media pages. They analyse key trends such as interactivity with voters, gender, age groups, popularity and political preferences. Popularity of a candidate's posts can be gauged by looking at likes, shares and retweets. Replies to a candidate's post can shed light on whether an issue needs attention, and can be a valuable insight into public sentiment. It is also helpful when fighting smear campaigns, and in the most successful cases, helps voters warm to candidates. The drawbacks Trish Thompson will tell you she's a very lucky woman. A pain in her side sent her to Liverpool Hospital one night in June. Doctors diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer. They caught it early, and they could cut it out. Pancreatic cancer is dwarfed by the awareness campaigns of other cancers with high incidence rates, but the oft-forgotten condition has the poorest survival rate of them all, with less than seven per cent of patients still alive five years after diagnosis. The low number of cases and the large proportion of inoperable tumours mean many NSW hospitals have little experience performing pancreatectomies. Pauline Hanson's chief of staff James Ashby says reports he's planning to contest a seat for One Nation at the next Queensland election are purely speculative. Former One Nation president Ian Nelson has told The Australian that Mr Ashby's ambition to run at the state poll is an "open secret in the party". One Nation chief of staff James Ashby. Credit:Andrew Meares On Monday, AAP asked Mr Ashby if he would rule out running in the Sunshine Coast seat of Kawana, or any other seat in Queensland, to which he replied: "It's pure speculation." Mr Nelson has been waging a bitter public campaign against Mr Ashby since quitting as party president. Parts of the CBD will remain closed to the public for years on end as construction of the Melbourne's Metro Tunnel kicks off this week and continues well into the next decade. For the first time on Monday, sections of Franklin and A'Beckett streets were closed as early works, including tree removal, began at the site of the new CBD North Station. The closures could remain in place for up to five years. "The exact timing we are working through at the moment with the tender process," Melbourne Metro Rail Authority chief executive Evan Tattersall said. Police investigating a series of "no frills" burglaries in Melbourne's CBD over the past year have made an arrest. Investigators have charged a 29-year-old Lalor man with 113 charges relating to burglary and theft. A man armed with a knife has threatened a female postal worker in Kingston at lunch time on Monday. Credit:Marina Neil/Fairfax Media It is alleged the burglar used a crowbar and brute force to crack open safes in shops across the city. The man was interviewed by police and arrested in Southbank on Monday. The Crooked Squire in Midland. Credit:Liz Sheehan The cost of a regular coffee is around $4.33 which means along with Brisbane, we still pay more for a cuppa than most of our caffeine-addicted countrymen and women. And a number of Perth baristas have warned bean geeks that the coffee war is nothing more than a cold one, as cafes couldn't sustain selling coffee so cheap. But Ms Contessi didn't care if she got roasted for selling coffee for $3 because she believed a coffee "revolution" needed to start somewhere. "We are not dropping our high quality, our beans are sourced from South America and supplied by Australian bean roasters Will & Co and we have the best baristas preparing the perfect cup," she said. "If we had a 'coffee off' our coffee would win hands down. "I recently had breakfast at a new northern beach restaurant and it cost $6.25 for a mug of flat white. The worst part was the menu didn't tell you how much over the normal cup size it costs for a larger coffee." "Perhaps this will be the beginning of a coffee revolution in Perth." But according to veteran barista Garrett Walsh, java junkies need to think again if they believe a cup d'etat is on the horizon. Puck owner Garrett Walsh says there will be a cease fire on the coffee war in Perth. Credit:Brendan Foster The owner of Puck in Palmyra claims selling coffee for $3 is simply not viable for a cafe to stay afloat. "If you take GST away and work back you're not making money," he told WAtoday. "So it does not really mean value to the customer because if done properly you would not sell it for $3. "At the moment Perth has way too many cafes - people just hopping on the band wagon thinking coffee is the answer. The hospitality stalwart, who was one of the first people in Australia to import what has been dubbed the "Ferrari" of coffee machines, the Slayer Espresso, said $4.50 was the right price to pay for cup. "If you look at the stages of getting coffee to the cup from the farmer to GST, wages, insurance, super, rent, outgoings, food costs and equipment, I think $4.50 (standard price) is not bad value," he said. Ironically, according to the cost of living website Numbeo, the price of a coffee (it only looks at the price of a standard cappuccino) in Perth is $4.53. Brisbane is the next expensive at $4.33, followed by Adelaide, $4.08, Melbourne $3.89 and Sydney $3.78. Remarkably, you can still get a cappuccino in Tasmania for $2.50, which is 81 per cent cheaper than Perth. So once you look at price of cuppa around Australia, you can see why Perth coffee lovers for years have bemoaned the exorbitant cost of coffee. And despite economist predicting the price of coffee would drop when the boom busted, it never eventuated. Georgia Barbera, who runs the Third-Wheel Cafe in South Fremantle with her partner Tom Radford, gives a fascinating insight into wanting to sell cheaper coffee versus the reality of the costs involved. Georgia Barbera,from the Third-Wheel Cafe in South Fremantle. Credit:Brendan Foster "When we opened we wanted to offer up a great product at an affordable price," she said. "But we would lose so many shots here and there and you realise it's just not affordable. "You have a lot of costs that go into it and it wasn't sustainable for us at $3.50. "I think as far as Perth goes, we are pretty standard and maybe even a little bit on the cheaper side, " Ms Barbera said, who sells a small coffee for $3.80. Peter Parsons, owner of Higher Grounds in East Perth, said he couldn't sell his coffee for $3. Peter Parsons from Higher Grounds says he couldn't sell coffee for $3. Credit:Brendan Foster "Theirs might be cheaper, but theirs is not better," he boasted. "I walked through Fremantle recently and can't believe how many cafes there are and while it's awesome, it's a bubble and it's not sustainable. "I could either use worse milk, as we source our milk from a small dairy down south and we try to use environmentally friendly products, so everything we use is recyclable and biodegradable. "We pay extra for every cup and every lid because we don't want to leave a massive pile of waste. "We believe what we sell is worth the price." Mr Parsons said most coffee drinkers were "acclimatised" to paying extra for a cuppa even if they didn't know why. "Our current blends come from Brazil, Guatemala and El Salvador, which are not exactly economic powerhouses," he said. A man has died after jumping off cliffs at Blackwall Reach near Point Walter in Perth's southern suburbs on Sunday. The man, believed to be in his 30s, leaped off the 10 metre high cliffs into the Swan River about 4pm and was unconscious when he surfaced. He was dragged to the shore by other swimmers who tried to resuscitate him before being rushed to Fiona Stanley Hospital by ambulance. Revelers dive for cover at the popular Mexican holiday spot. Credit:Marcos A Vazquez Nathan Hannah, a friend of Trent and also a finance broker from Perth, said he had already left the party when he saw his friends running. "[They] told me that a gunman had rocked up," he told WAtoday. Trent Cray works as a finance broker in Perth. Credit:Trent Cray, Facebook "I ran down the street trying to find the rest of the boys and there was a stampede of people everywhere. Mr Hannah said his friend Jhana Green helped people who were gunned down by the shooter "My friend helped a guy that was shot in the eye, I don't think he made it unfortunately. Perth man Nathan Hannah said he saw his friends running, saying there was a shooting. Credit:Nathan Hannah, Facebook "But there were three security guards shot dead at the front from when the gunman had entered. In a conversation on social media Mr Green told concerned friends he put his singlet on a man's gunshot wound. 'Bullets were flying over my head' Melbourne man Charlie Cohen described how he narrowly avoided being shot at the beachside nightclub, saying he could see and hear bullets flying over his head. He said a man standing next to him was shot in the arm "I dived into the girls' bathroom face down, I was just completely flat on the floor," Mr Cohen told Fairfax Media from Mexico on Tuesday. "Bullets were actually flying over my head. I swear, I could see them and hear them flying past me. Mr Cohen also saw another man lying unconscious nearby, bleeding from his neck. "He was on the podium at the time in the club. He was unconscious and I think his girlfriend was trying to do CPR on him. I don't know how that went." Shooting sparks stampede A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said "we are aware of reports of Australians in the area." "If you have any concerns for the welfare of family and friends in the region, you should attempt to contact them directly." Quintana Roo State Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech told a press conference that two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian were killed. A woman died in the stampede to exit the club. Mr Pech said the incident began when an armed person entered the Blue Parrot nightclub during the closing of the festival. Another person tried to stop the person, sparking a gunfight that drew in security staff. Four people were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the incident. The BPM organisers said three members of their security team were killed in the shooting, which it said was perpetrated by a lone shooter. There was no official confirmation of the death toll, and a Quintana Roo state government spokesperson said there would be a press conference later on Monday. "We are overcome with grief over this senseless act of violence and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation," BPM said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. Australian DJ Danny Chien, better known as Wax Motif, wrote on Twitter that he watched the incident unfold. "It happened right in front of us. Still can't believe it was real," he said. "We all jumped the fence to get out and saw at least 4 bodies down on the escape." Panic caught on video In one video filmed by a witness, a man shouts "gun, he's got a gun" as a group of people begin to run down a street. Further videos show police arriving on the scene and blocking off a short street that leads to the club. Upbeat electronic music continues to play as medical teams wheel injured revellers into waiting ambulances on stretchers. Numerous photos and videos published by local media show injured revellers bleeding profusely as they are helped by friends. As dawn broke in Playa Del Carmen, heavily-armed police guarded the scene, which was blocked off by police tape. The BPM festival, which was entering its 10th year, has grown to be one of the most important electronic music events in the world, with top DJs flying in every January to play the clubs of Playa del Carmen along Mexico's Caribbean coast. At least five people, including four foreigners, have been killed and 15 wounded after a shooter opened fire at a nightclub in Mexico's Playa del Carmen resort during the BPM electronic music festival. Hundreds of people packed the Blue Parrot club in the resort town of Playa Del Carmen early on Monday morning, local time, when shots rang out. Footage on social media showed dozens of people fleeing from the club, some carrying injured friends as they ran down the street. Quintana Roo State Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech told a press conference that two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian were killed. A woman died in the stampede to exit the club. Mr Pech said the incident began when an armed person entered the Blue Parrot nightclub at 3am Monday local time, during the closing of the festival. Another person tried to stop the person, sparking a gunfight that drew in security staff. Jakarta: About 5000 members of the Islam Defenders' Front (FPI) turned up outside Indonesian police headquarters on Monday morning, to demand the removal of West Java's police chief. But if the group, once considered fringe radicals, have become increasingly vocal, it is their leader, firebrand cleric Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, who some fear may have become too powerful for the police to touch. Widely known as Habib Rizieq, he is being investigated over multiple reports of alleged blasphemy and slander, including his outlandish claim that the 100,000 rupiah note contains an image of the hammer and sickle, which is illegal in Indonesia. A daughter of Indonesia's first president Sukarno has also reported him for allegedly insulting the state ideology, Pancasila, which carries a maximum sentence of five years' jail. The man who killed 39 people in a shooting at an Istanbul nightclub in the early hours of New Year's Day has been caught by police, local media reports. Hurriyet newspaper reported that the attacker, named in local reports as Abdulkadir Masharipov, was caught in Esenyurt, Istanbul. The man, who media quoted police as saying had operated under the cover name Abu Muhammed Horasani, was caught in a hideout with his four-year-old son, Hurriyet said. The reports could not immediately be confirmed. Horasani was described as being of Uzbek origin by the Haberturk website, which said he was caught at a housing complex in Esenyurt district, on the European side of the city. Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Sign up to our daily newsletter for the latest local and breaking news in Bristol. A young mum from Bristol has died suddenly after an accidental fall in the street. Simone Jarvis, 27, fell outside a house in Hampton Road, Redland on Saturday morning and was taken to hospital. Police confirmed the mother of one died from her injuries the following day. There has been an outpouring of support for Simone's family and friends on social media sites including Facebook. Hundreds of messages of support have been sent to Kallam Lester - Simone's brother and other members of the Jarvis family. Lauren French said: "Sorry for your loss Kal stay strong thought are with you and your family." We're testing a new site: This content is coming soon Another friend Regan Phillips said: "This is so, so horrible I was only speaking to her at the school on Friday. It is absolutely mad, stay strong all of you and we are all thinking of you all." And another friend Philip Drake added: "Life is so cruel bro, try keep that chin up and stay strong for your family they need you to be strong for them give my love to your family." A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: "We can confirm that a 27-year-old woman has sadly died following a fall outside a residential address on Hampton Road, Bristol. "The incident took place on Saturday and the woman was taken to hospital where she died yesterday. "We are carrying out enquiries on behalf of the coroner's office. This is not being treated as suspicious." Latest News Mortgage stress hits Australian households Learn seven ways to ease the interest rate burden, says broker New investor strengthens Invoice Finance Group Partnership will provide funding, new products for SMEs While the NSW government has flagged an overhaul of the states planning system to tackle the housing shortage, one solution has been unfortunately overlooked: the removal of stamp duty.Managing director of Laing+Simmons and president-elect of the Real Estate Institute of NSW (REINSW) said that if the government was serious about tackling housing affordability, it should start by considering how to reduce or get rid of stamp duty.The fact is that the huge cost of stamp duty in NSW is the biggest barrier to the purchase of real estate. It stifles transaction activity, puts increased pressure on prices and encourages people not to move, fuelling the supply shortage, she said.For many people, stamp duty makes it impossible for them to afford to move. But the impacts of this tax for which consumers receive no service in return run much deeper down the supply chain.Until the government addressed this key barrier, it could not justifiably claim that it was supporting first home buyers, Pilkington said.By eliminating stamp duty, NSW would see an influx of properties come to market, she added. This would put a downward pressure on prices and significantly improve affordability.Previously, the NSW government has ruled out stamp duty reform, saying it depends too heavily on revenue garnered from the tax. However, Pilkington pointed to Western Australia and the Northern Territory which had brought in more revenue through the increased transaction volumes resulting from reduced stamp duty.The consequences of this lack of action were now coming back to haunt the NSW government, she said.The government is expecting reduced surpluses in years to come. Action on stamp duty has the potential to reverse the trend, open up new supply and improve affordability. Teams familiar with another meeting again in 1st weekend of playoffs football 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... 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... Where Andy Kim, Bob Healey stand on abortion, inflation and more The USA TODAY Network New Jersey asked Andy Kim and Bob Healey where they stand on key issues in the midterms. Here's what they said. Agricultural input are expecting better prospects two quarters ahead due to a jump in demand from farmers on an increase in acreage this year. A better than expected climate following an almost evenly spread monsoon rainfall suited rabi sowing after two years of drought. 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. on Monday said it was confident that the Union governments penalty on producing natural gas from ONGCs share of natural gas in the Krishna-Godavari basin is not sustainable. Amid revenue losses on account of the government's demonetisation move, and competitive pressures intensified by extension of free services by Reliance Jio, older telecocompanies seem to have been forced to provide incentives to get merchants to opt for digital payment applications. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Sunday asked e-tailer to refrain from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons and warned the American e-commerce giant that "indifference will be at your own peril". "Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet. "Remain committed to economic reforms, ease of doing business & open trade. Sometimes get touchy when our icons are involved," he said in a separate tweet. In a third tweet, however, he added: "Comment on was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it." The Secretary's comments came days after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received a complaint about doormats portraying the Indian flag being listed for sale on Amazon's Canada website. Two days after Amazon's Canada portal removed the article with doormats depicting the Indian flag after India objected to it, the online company, on its US portal, put up another article of slippers with Mahatma Gandhi's image on it. This provoked the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to say on Saturday that the company should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments. "As a follow-up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to that while providing a platform for third-party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments," said MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup. Amazon describes the products as 'Gandhi flip flops' as a pair of "foam rubber flip flops". It costs $16.99, or about Rs 1,200. Soon after India threatened it won't grant visas to any Amazon official if the company did not withdraw the Indian flag-themed doormat from its Canadian platform, the e-commerce website removed the article from the online marketplace, a media report said on Thursday. "Amazon must tender the unconditional apology. They must withdraw all products insulting our national flag immediately," Swaraj had said in a tweet. Flipkart-owned said it had not received any official complaint from either ICICI Bank or the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) before the bank arbitrarily blocked all transactions made through the app starting Friday. In a statement on Sunday, ICICI Bank had alleged that it had blocked all Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions made through due to security concerns and that the app was indulging in restrictive practices. On Monday Sameer Nigam, chief executive officer of PhonePe, hit back alleging the bank had never voiced its concerns, despite the service being in use for over two months. Our UPI payments integration has been live on Flipkart, Myntra and a couple of smaller merchant websites since October 2016. So, ICICI had more than two months to inform YES Bank, NPCI or us, if they felt our solutions did not meet the UPI guidelines, Nigam wrote in an open letter. Either they felt our integration was okay until now, or they felt we were being restrictive but decided to sit on this fact till now, for reasons known only to them. PhonePe, which claims to have followed all of the security guidelines laid out by NPCI for a UPI-enabled app, says the block by ICICI Bank since Friday has led to over 20,000 failed transactions amounting to more than Rs 5 crore in value. Moreover, the companys attempts to get a response have fallen on deaf ears. No one is telling us what the exact issues are, yet ICICI Bank claims the block will stay until the concerns are resolved, added Nigam. This is not the first time a bank has restricted its customers to utilise the service of new-age payment services by blocking transactions. Paytm, the countrys largest digital wallet which has over 150 million users, was blocked by Indias largest public sector bank State Bank of India, where customers could no longer recharge their wallets using Internet banking features. Were just here to build really cool digital payment solutions which will solve consumer payment problems, and work with the banking system of the country to further the cause of making digital payments widely accepted in India. For now, it is my sincere hope that ICICI Bank will reverse this block and work towards find a lasting solution, Nigam wrote in tasking ICICI to unblock its platform. NPCI built the UPI platform to allow seamless transactions on smartphones from any two bank accounts, be it between individuals or an individual with a merchant or vice versa. Private Equity, Venture Capital investments in the auto component industry are at a six-year low of $38 million in 2016, a steep decline from $144 million in four deals during 2015. is planning to invest a sum of Rs. 30,000 crore into Reliance Jio Infocomm to further its development and improve its signal strength. The company in its board meeting held earlier on Friday decided to invest another Rs. 30,000 crore into its telecom unit and sell 600 crore preference shares to raise the amount. These preference shares will be sold through a rights issue and will be nine percent non-cumulative optionally convertible (OCPS) available at Rs. 50 each including a premium of Rs. 40. RIL had already invested Rs. 1.71 lakh crore while setting up its telecom venture Jio Infocomm. Ever since its launch on September 5, 2016, Jio has amassed more than 70 million users, owing to its free voice calls and data plans. The subscriber addition rate is said to be one of the highest, thereby, raising Rs. 30,000 crore last year and rights issue in two tranches in January and September. The telecom major, however, has been suffering from lack of network coverage and call drop, which it now looks to overcome with the new investment. The company's board has forwarded a statement in this regard to the National Stock Exchange. RIL is also expected to launch Jio's VoLTE feature phones with prices staring at Rs 999. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das today asked to desist from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons, cautioning it that "indifference will be at your own peril". "Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet. In another tweet however he added: "Comment on was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it." Last week, after a strong protest by India over selling doormats depicting Indian flag, the e-retail giant removed the offensive article from its Canadian website. A spokesman for Amazon based at its headquarters in Seattle had told The Washington Post that the doormat was no longer for sale on its website. After the Indian flag incident, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had received several complaints of Amazon selling flip-flops with Mahatma Gandhi's image. Amazon,better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 Some Twitter users have tagged Swaraj in their tweets complaining that the beach sandals with Gandhi's image were being sold on the Amazon US site. When asked, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup did not specifically mention the issue, saying, "As a follow up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments. The sun is the centre of the universe as we know but in a parallel universe it could well be the cow that powers the whole system. In the solar system, the cow provides the world with dairy products, leather and much else but in the parallel universe, cow provides us dairy products, medicines and now - it has been revealed - oxygen too. Sticking to its stand, China on Monday said India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) cannot be a "farewell gift" to the outgoing US President Barack Obama. The reaction by China, which has been consistently opposing India's membership to the elite club, came after US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal described China as an "outlier" in the process of letting India join the nuclear trade bloc. "Regarding India's application to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, regarding non-NPT countries admission to the NSG, we have made our position clear before so I will not repeat it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said here at a media briefing. "I just want to point out that membership shall not be some kind of farewell gift for countries to give to each other," Hua said, referring to Obama who will be succeeded by Donald J. Trump on Friday. The US administration, under Obama, has strongly backed India's membership in the 48-member NSG, which regulates global nuclear trade. China, a close friend of Pakistan, has opposed India's entry into the grouping, which has been an irritant in Sino-India ties. Beijing objects to New Delhi's inclusion in the bloc, citing India's non-signatory status to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It argues if New Delhi can be allowed an exception why not its "all-weather ally" Pakistan. On China blocking India's bid to have Pakistani militant Masood Azhar declared as an international terrorist by the UN, Hua cited the need for "solid evidence" and "consensus". She said: "As we have explained our position before, on this question, the 1267 Committee needs to base its decision on solid evidence, follow relevant resolutions and rules of procedure and make a decision based on consensus." "The technical hold China proposed is to allow more time for consultation and deliberation," she said. China repeatedly put a "technical hold" on India's resolution for a ban on Azhar in 2016. India says Azhar is the mastermind of the January 2016 terror attack on the Pathankot air base in Punjab. Asked if Beijing would back India's resolution against Azhar this year, Hua said: "It is a regret that no consensus has been reached so far. We need more consensus and more time for deliberation so as to reach a consensus." When Dattatreya Hosabale and Manmohan Vaidya were asked to speak at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival, beginning Wednesday, the invites sparked a buzz in literary and political circles. The idea of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) seniors occupying the dais at an event largely seen as one dominated by Left-liberal opinion-moulders seemed anathema to many. The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre and over an appeal alleging the instant messaging service did not ensure the privacy of its users and seeking regulations to protect personal information. The likely after effects of Trump's ascendancy, Brexit and woes are being taken into consideration as the Kerala government is set to unveil its new IT policy, said a top IT honcho who was part of its making. Of Kerala's Rs 10,000 crore annual software exports, 56 per cent was to the US followed by Britain. Hrishikesh Nair, CEO of Technopark, told IANS the new IT policy will address all the concerns which Kerala and India are going to face in the wake of the three major developments. "Trump's outlook with regard to visa, the after effects of Brexit and the challenges just cannot be side-stepped as these are major challenges ahead for Kerala as it stands on the threshold of going forward in a big way," said Nair, a former Infosys official who has worked in Japan and the US for several years. Even though Kerala made a bright start in its foray into IT by opening the country's first IT park -- Technopark -- here in the late nineties, the head start could not be capitalised on as the present annual software exports from the state stand at around Rs 10,000 crore. Other south Indian states, all of whom are late entrants, are miles ahead of Kerala. Today, IT activities in Kerala are largely centred around Technopark which currently has 365 IT companies that provide direct employment to 60,000 people, and the Kochi Infopark campus that has 204 companies employing some 30,000 people. Elaborating on the future course of action, Nair said their immediate task was to see that the state was ready to welcome IT companies. "We have our own building that's ready for IT companies, then we have leased out land to IT companies who wish to build their own campus and then we have incubation centres basically meant for new start-ups," said Nair. The various models for space that are available for IT companies include 'warm shell' (the IT companies have to meet all the requirements according to their needs) plug and play, incubation for start-up, which includes from one seat to more and for those who wish to have their own premises an acre of land on a 99 year lease comes at a onetime payment. "The rates differ from place to place and are negotiable based on certain parameters," said Nair. According to him, they are concentrating on finishing all the buildings which are in various stages of construction. In around five years time new built-up space which would provide direct employment to one lakh IT professionals would be available at Technopark and Infopark campus. The Technocity coming up on 400 acres of land near Technopark, besides the Cyberpark at Kozhikode where 2.88 lakh sq ft space is ready for use, are the other key IT infrastructure which are expected to find mention in the new IT policy. India is still reeling from the effects of the policy that was announced on November 8, 2016. With 95 percent of all transactions still dependent on bank notes, the replacement of the demonetised notes was slow to meet demands. The tech boom helped India to grow as Asias third largest economy, but the cash crunch is affecting the tech sector. Many electronic services like Uber and Amazon India are cash-dependent. The Income Tax department Monday said it has unearthed a black money racket of over Rs 1,550 crore and a maze of shell firms and entities, perpetrated by entry operators and hawala dealers in the wake of demonetisation. An analysis report prepared by the department, also accessed by PTI, said this particular black money generation modus operandi is led by a group of hawala dealers in the national capital who illegally routed funds worth Rs 930 crore post-November 8. In another case in Delhi, the taxman detected entry operators trying to launder Rs 200 crore stash funds using 80 accounts. "Similarly, in a bank branch in Noida, investigations are on into deposits in more than 100 bank accounts that were used to laundering more than Rs 200 crore," the report said. The tax department's action on such entry operators or hawala dealers in cities like Kolkata, Gurgaon, Charkhi Dadri and Chitradurga in Karnataka led the taxman unearthing laundering of cash to the tune of Rs 200 crore. A case in Bihar's Gaya was similarly detected, the report said, where a person was allegedly trying to laundering Rs 13 crore of a Delhi-based entity. The taxman put freeze orders on two bank accounts used for this purpose in Gaya, it said. They added that the total amount involved in these prominent cases is over Rs 1,550 crore even as many more cases are still in the probe process. "The modus operandi followed is the same across the country. Cash is deposited in bank accounts of paper companies or accounts fraudulently and immediately transferred through RTGS to other similar fraudulent accounts. "After transferring the money through multiple layers, it is withdrawn from the bank system as cash, demand drafts or converted into bullion. No trail of the actual beneficiary is seemingly left," it added. The report said, however, with the funds coming into the banking system, the department could detect these cases easily based on the risk-based analysis done by the I-T in such cases. "Once the money is in the banking system, the department is now probing its colour, whether black or white," a senior official said. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel (pictured) will face questions on and its aftermath when he appears before the Parliaments standing committee on finance on Wednesday. Further relaxing the rules for cash withdrawal from automated teller machines (ATMs), the Reserve Bank on Monday raised the cap from Rs 4,500 a day to Rs 10,000 for each card, but within the existing weekly limit of Rs 24,000 per week, with immediate effect. At noon, cars sped along the Bhiwandi-Wada road in Thane district, north of Indias commercial capital, past Shree Swami Samarth, a 100-square-foot shop selling cold drinks, fried snacks, pots and general provisions. Inside the three-walled pile of asbestos sheets, bricks and iron, 62-year-old Ambika Kumbhar, the stores owner, sat next to a plastic cash box, alert, watching the trucks and cars hurtle by, hoping they would stop, as often as they once did. About a year ago, Kumbhars family, with savings of less than Rs 4,000, cobbled together this shop, sized slightly larger than two ping-pong tables, off Maharashtra state highway 35. The Kumbhars are traditionally potters, set on the lowest rung of the Maharashtrian Hindu caste order. When they worked with clay, fired it in brick kilns moulding bricks and pots, on good days, the family of seven earned between Rs 150 and Rs 200. Employee unions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday sent a statement to Governor Urjit Patel, protesting governments move to send a joint secretary to the central bank to coordinate cash operations, which was "impinging on autonomy as well as operational jurisdiction. Will Finance Minister grace the Bengal Global Business Summit, slated for later this week? The outcome of Mondays Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting might answer this. Sources in the Union finance ministry indicated a decision on his participation at the state government's annual investor meet was yet to be taken. "A final call would be after tomorrow's GST Council meet," said an official. "Such important decisions cannot be based on GST meetings. Mondays meeting will be the ninth. It is unlikely that the finance minister would link the two issues." The GST Council will be meeting for the ninth time on Monday. They'd try to resolve the impasse on control of assessees having an annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore under the proposed regime. The issue, among many others, has been holding up the GST's launch, the target date for which is still April. The state government, however, appeared to be sure of Jaitley's presence at the summit, as of Saturday, as the agency handling it, had issued a release to be published in the "engagement column" on January 20, saying that the Finance Minister would grace the occasion along with Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. The summit will be inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee. The matter, however, was recalled on Sunday. The matter sent to the media for publishing in the engagement column mentioning some names of the dignitaries cannot be confirmed at this moment. Hence, it should not be published at this moment. "We shall confirm the names of the dignitaries who actually grace the occasion later for publishing," read the mail. Last year, central government ministers had come in strength. Jaitley, his coal and power counterpart, Piyush Goyal; minister of road transport, highways and shipping, Nitin Gadkari; and railways minister Suresh Prabhu were present. Jaitley was invited much ahead of the November 8 demonetisation, which has been heavily criticised by state Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She has led a delegation of opposition party leaders to Rashtrapati Bhavan, held rallies in Delhi with city Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and in Uttar Pradesh with tacit support of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The other recent flashpoint with the ruling party at the Centre is the arrest of two of her MPs, Tapas Pal and Sudip Bandyopadhyay, by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the Rose Valley scam. And, on Saturday, Jay Prakash Majumdar, state Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president, was arrested here on a charge of cheating job seekers. However, Banerjee and Jaitley could still share the dais on Friday, for the sake of business. Dr Jitendra Singh discusses tourism promotion plans for Shillong The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh discussed here today the tourism promotion plans for Shillong and other surrounding areas of Northeast with a group of professionals led by Member of Parliament from Tura, Meghalaya, Shri Conrad K. Sangma. The Minister was given an audio-visual presentation about the roadmap conceived for placing Shillong as a tourist attraction on global platform and thereby also promoting the entire region through a similar strategy. The presentation highlighted the various options and itineraries with focus on a 3-day holiday capsule incorporating cultural activities, meditation centres, music workshops, experience of food cuisines and trekking options. Dr Jitendra Singh said there is no second opinion about the fact that Shillong has not received the kind of tourism attention as it deserves. This, he said, is an irony considering the fact that Shillong is the original capital of Northeast right from the days of British Empire to the post-Independence era of undivided Assam State. However, he said, the Central Government has done its best to fast-track and make up for the undone initiatives of the past. Dr Jitendra Singh also disclosed that, with a view to make the Shillong Airport fully functional with wider utility, the Ministry of DoNER has offered to fund the budget required for extension of the air-strip. At the same time, he said, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has also been approached to extend the facility at the airport and at the same time, increase the number of chopper / helicopter flights. Some of the music groups from Meghalaya can also be made part of the tourism bonanza capsule, he said. Dr Jitendra Singh also referred to the practice of "home-stay" tourism which has caught up in a big way in Shillong and surrounding areas, and said, this is a practice which is worth emulating by other tourist destinations of the country as well. India Evolving as a Global Hub in Defence Manufacturing Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar visited DRDOs Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex during his visit to Hyderabad today. He visited the integration centre at Research Centre Imarat (RCI) and reviewed ongoing missile technologies and related Programmes. Dr S. Christopher, Secretary, DD&D and Chairman DRDO alongwith Dr G. Satheesh Reddy, SA to RM and Director General, Missiles and Strategic Systems briefed the Defence Minister on various technological developments. Shri Parrikar congratulated all DRDO scientists for the recent successful missions including Smart Anti Airfield Weapon, Long Range Ballistic Missiles Agni V& Agni IV, Guided Pinaka and Astra. He complimented the Missile Complex for indigenizing various technology products and strengthening the defence industrial base in the country. The Defence Minister said, There is lot of knowledge and infrastructure base with the DRDO and the same needs to be tapped by the MSME and private industries, which in turn will lead towards the establishment of a self-reliant defence industrial ecosystem in our country. Today, the industries are significantly contributing in the realization of various defence products with the know-how provided by the DRDO and few of them have even graduated as lead integrators. The partnership between the DRDO and industries is transforming our country into a global defence manufacturing hub. This synergy has provided the much needed thrust for exporting our defence products globally. We are taking necessary initiatives in this direction and I am sure that our state-of-the-art Missiles and Weapon systems will garner the much needed interest in the global markets and generate foreign exchange. Shri Parrikar added, I admire the initiatives taken by the DRDO in signing MoUs with various Universities in diversified research areas and these initiatives need to be further strengthened by frequent interactions for realization of futuristic technological products. NW/NAo/DM/RAJ J P Nadda inaugurates the National Workshop on Life and Fire Safety in Healthcare Facilities in India We have to aim to ensure zero tolerance with regard to risk of fire: J P Nadda We have to aim to ensure zero tolerance with regard to risk of fire. With this aim in the focus, we have to align all our efforts and converge to achieve this goal. This was stated by Shri J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare while inaugurating a National Workshop on Life and Fire Safety in Healthcare Facilities in India, here today. The workshop wasjointly organized by Ministry of Health and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi with active participation of School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Delhi Fire Services, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), New Delhi and Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), Roorkee. The main objective of the workshop was to sensitize the hospital administrators and engineering heads about important issues related to life and fire safety in healthcare buildings. Speaking at the function, ShriNadda said that sensitization towards fire safety is key to preventing any untoward incident in hospitals. The dos and donts must be understood first and should be strictly followed. We must also make sure that it goes down to every level, ShriNadda added. The Health Minister further said that doctors and engineering staff should be fully aware of their role towards fire and life safety. Our nurses and doctors are the first responders in such an eventuality. In fact, doctors and nurses would provide the guidance and support if patients are to be moved and where they have to be moved considering the condition of patients, ShriNadda stated. Laying stress on having safe evacuation during emergencies,ShriNadda said that it has been noticed that corridors, staircases are not properly maintained to provide safe egress, sometimes emergency doors are locked even when patients are in a position to move out. This is fundamental but often ignored, due to security reasons. Hospital administrations should resolve this problem in consultation with security experts. Please ensure that access and egress is not compromisedand proper fire escape routes and measures are in place especially in operation theatres and ICUs so that patients inside these rooms can be evacuated properly during emergencies, ShriNadda elaborated. US President-elect has called for a deal with Russia that would "very substantially" reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions against Moscow, in an interview published by The Times. "They have sanctions on Russia -- let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that's part of it," Trump said. "But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Beijing, one of the most polluted cities of the world, will spend $2.6 billion to curb deadly air pollution. The city of about nearly 22 million has been grappling with suffocating smog for years thanks to unbridled industrialisation in and around the capital city. will spend 18.2 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) to fight air pollution in 2017, officials were quoted by Xinhua news agency. This year, will replace coal with clean energy for 700 villages and phase out 300,000 high-polluting old vehicles. It will close or upgrade 2,570 polluting factories, said acting mayor Cai Qi Cai said will take tougher measures to improve the city's air quality in 2017. Acts of excessively or secretly discharging pollutants will be severely punished, Cai added. Beijing will also set up environment police thie year. The environment police squad can detain suspects in serious environment-related cases, the official told municipal lawmakers. The environment police will work with the city's environmental protection authorities to crack down on violations in environmental protection, Fang Li, head of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau. --IANS gsh/dg The Justice Departments inspector general said Thursday that he would open a broad investigation into how the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, handled the case over Hillary Clintons emails, including his decision to discuss it at a news conference and to disclose 11 days before the election that he had new information that could lead him to reopen it. When entered office, the hopes that he raised in his own country were exceeded only by the hopes he raised abroad. Mr. Obama tapped into those hopes with his inspirational rhetoric about a transformational presidency, and his promises were scarcely less dramatic. America would be steered back on track, working with other countries to meet the challenges of what he often called an interdependent world, from terrorism and poverty to financial crisis and global warming. As the old aphorism says, its difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. Assessing the legacy of will be easier in a few decades when we can see the long-term consequences of his presidential decisions and initiatives. The sprawling investigation into President Park Geun-hye of South Korea took a dramatic turn on Monday with word that the de facto head of Samsung, one of the worlds largest conglomerates, faces arrest on charges that he tried to bribe the president. The global economy is in better shape than it's been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased. OPEC is unlikely to deliver fully on its target to cut production despite Saudi Arabia saying it had trimmed more than it had committed to, OPEC delegates say, but compliance of 80 per cent would be good and as low as 50 per cent acceptable. The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Central Government to file a report regarding the status of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar had fixed the next date of the hearing on February 20. A Delhi Court had on December 21 last year granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in connection with 1984 anti-Sikh riots case on the condition that he would cooperate with the investigation agency and not leave country without permission. The Delhi High Court had earlier on November 4 last year rejected Kumar's plea to change the judge hearing the case. Kumar's case was transferred to the Patiala House Court by the High Court, which directed the district judge to video record the proceedings. Kumar has been accused of instigating a mob for killing two Sikhs - Sohan Singh and his son Avtar Singh - in Delhi's Janakpuri area on November 1, 1984. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A large number of Bangladesh bound banned contraband bottles were seized by the Border Security Force (BSF) near Agartala during a joint operation along with customs department. Acting on information by source of N. P. Singh, DC (G) BSF Gokulnagar, the joint operation was planned by BSF troops of 195 Battalion of BOP Nischintpur and G Officials of BSF Sector Gokulnagar along with DPF Custom Agartala. A truck bearing No. NL 02 Q 0411 near Amatali on Amtali-Khayerpur by-pass road was stopped by the BSF troops yesterday for search operation. During search by joint team around 29,700 quantity of Phensedyle and Eskul Cough Syrup having market value of about Rs. 28 lakh was seized along with onion which was brought in truck to conceal contraband drug consignment. The owner and driver of the truck Haradhan Pawanbashi Datta (47 years) resident of Nagpur, Maharashtra was apprehended along with three mobile phones and 04 SIMs. Later it was learned that above consignment was loaded from somewhere at Indore, Madhya Pradesh a week ago and was supposed to be delivered at Maharajganj Bazar at Agartala. Few days back, a godown was raided jointly by BSF and police in Indranagar area Agartala, on information of secret source of BSF, from where large quantity of Phensedyle was seized and owner of godown Apu Chakraborty involved in illegal Phensedyle business was also arrested. Phensedyle and other cough syrup having codeine phosphate are smuggled to Bangladesh through unfenced border areas of Tripura. Demand of Phensedyle and other such cough syrups is high in Bangladesh as the cough syrups are used for intoxication. The intelligence branch of BSF Gokulnagar is actively keeping close watch on such vehicles carrying contraband items on NH-44 through their well built intelligence network. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation decision has hit the Indo-Bangladesh trade fair in Siliguri, Darjeeling. The eight-day long trade fair, organized by Bangladesh Export bureau permitted-Wren Business globally, showcased mainly garments, electronics, food items, melamine, sarees and world famous Ilish fish. However, the Bangladeshi traders were not happy with their business. "Few customers are coming to this fair, but limited buying is being done. Last year, within the first three days we managed to earn good profit, but this time the condition of the business has become worst," said Ahsan Kabir, organiser of the fair. However, Kabir further hailed the demonetisation move and said: "The decision which has been taken by the Prime Minister is appreciable. Bangladesh government should take this kind of decision to control the black money. The crisis is for short period of time." A customer said that the quality of the products in the trade fair was good but he didn't have enough money to buy them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Goods and Service Tax (GST) council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Monday met to break the deadlock over who gets to administer the GST and managed to achieve consensus on the 'dual control' or 'cross empowerment' issue, deferring the deadline for its roll-out to July 1. Jaitley interacted with the media after the meeting between the states and the Centre said that July 1 appears to be the 'most realistic date' to roll out the tax regime and further enumerated the key points that were discussed. He also said that the council will again meet on February 18. "The entire taxation base will be shared between the assessment and machinery of the Centre and the states. Among the assesses with a turnover of Rs. 1.5 crore or less, 90 percent will be assessed by the states and 10 percent by the administrative machinery of the Centre. Those with a turnover of more than Rs. 1.5 crore will be assessed on the ratio of 50:50 by the states and the Centre," Jaitley said. "There will be intelligence-based enforcement and powers will vest both in scrutiny and audit. The power to levy and collect the Integrated GST (IGST) is with the Central Government, but by a special provision in law the states will also be cross empowered in the same manner of the raio mentioned earlier," he added. Thereafter, Jaitley came to the issues that were discussed. He said, "In the exercise of IGST, there were contentious issues between conflicting states with regard to place etc.... As far as the area of 12 Nautical Miles into the territorial waters is concerned, it's a part of the Union Government Territory. But as per a convention, the states will be empowered to collect taxes on any economic activity in this territory. This decision has been taken after wide consultation. It was debated, improved upon, and finally agreed upon." Jaitley also spoke about West Bengal Finance Minister, Amit Mitra who was the only minister to disagree with the division of power. "All the ministers present agreed to the proposal except the West Bengal Minister whose dissent was confined to the issue that the 90:10 ratio should become 100:0. On all other proposals, he also agreed," Jaitley told the media. The Union Minister then detailed on the timeline of the tax regime. "The agreement today will have to be incorporated with legislations. This will gave impact on the IGST law, the Compensation Law, the State GST (SGST), and the Central GST (CGST). Once those drafts are approved, they will go to the respective legislative bodies for approval. Simultaneously, after they are free from the preparations of this draft, the officials, who are lending technical support, will start working on the fitment of the rates into the various slabs," he said. "This exercise will, in all probability, take us to the month of March. The ministers and council then assessed the realistic date when these can take place. There was a broad view that July 1 appears to be the most realistic. Since it's a transactional tax, it can be introduced at any time. Also, the ministers felt that the industry and traders will have to be given adequate time. And once the rates are decided, the system of GST will have to be modified accordingly. So, our next meeting will be on February 18," he added. The Budget on February 1 was expected not to include excise duties and service tax as the government was hopeful of rolling out GST from April 1, 2017. The constitutional amendment containing the GST was passed in August, 2016. GST is expected to transform India into a single market by subsuming indirect taxes levied by the Centre and states, including excise duty, VAT, and service tax among others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Coming down heavily on ex-party man Navjot Singh Sidhu for castigating the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-led Punjab Government, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Monday said that the former should be ashamed for joining hands with a party which wrecked genocide on the Sikh community. Harsimrat Badal told ANI it is baffling to see Sidhu switch sides with the grand old party. "Sidhu ji, who calls himself a proud Sikh, is bowing in front of a party which attacked the golden temple, he should be ashamed of himself. Congratulations to Sidhu sahab who calls it 'ghar wapasi' to go to a party that wrecked genocide on the Sikh community," said Harsimrat Badal. "It is amazing to see that how Sidhu Sahab, who used to mock Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh has now joined hands with the Congress. He is a selfish man. He is doing all this to satisfy his selfish political motives. Some people have their feet in three boats, sometimes BJP, Congress and why not go ahead a little into Pakistan," she added. Further taking on Sidhu and Congress for alleging that Punjab's youth is affected by drugs, Harsimrat Badal called it an attempt to defame the state. "The youth of Punjab is not in to drugs. Rahul Gandhi, who is accusing the youth of Punjab of being involved in drugs, might be taking drugs himself. The people of Punjab should see and beware of such parties who are defaming our children," she said. Sidhu earlier in the day trained guns at the SAD and stated that the government, which was by the people, has now become a government for a family. Sidhu, who joined the grand old party yesterday, lambasted Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal's government for ruining the state and said that his mission is redemption of Punjab. "This is not my personal fight. This fight is for existence and respect of Punjab which is our pride. This fight is for redemption of Punjab. We must think that how did food bowl of India went bankrupt," Sidhu said. "A government, which was by the people, is now a government for the family. I will expose Badals. I am a soldier ready to fight for Punjab. Akalis were a good group. Now, it's just about a family," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Afghanistan's High Peace Council (HPC) has slammed Pakistan for its controversial role in the Afghan peace process, saying Islamabad has been the key obstruction in the way of purposeful peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group. "The Taliban leadership live on that side of that border and operate under the control of Pakistani intelligence officials, this has made it difficult to establish direct contact with them," Tolo News quoted said HPC Advisor Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar as saying on Sunday. He said that the government must reach an outcome with Pakistan over peace talks with the Taliban. It is believed that no direct contact has happened between the government and the Taliban over the past two years. Meanwhile, Office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah has said that the Taliban leadership has never responded positively to the Afghan peace negotiation offer, adding that such a negative approach by the group will lead to its complete elimination. "They (Taliban ) rejected the call for peace and they must be eliminated," said deputy CEO spokesman Omid Maisam. According to the HPC, with the death of Taliban's founding leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, hopes for sealing a groundbreaking peace deal with the insurgency also vanished and since then, no direct talks between the two sides has taken place. But analysts argue that the HPC which facilitates the peace process between the sides is also split when it comes to the issue of peace with the Taliban, referring to recent remarks by Abdul Hakim Mujahid, an advisor to the High Peace Council in which he said that the Taliban were angels of peace and the group is a sacred group. The National Unity Government (NUG) under President Ashraf Ghani and his CEO Abdullah Abdullah held the first formal round of peace negotiation talks with the Taliban in 2015 in the Pakistani city of Murree with the participation of Chinese and American delegates. At Murreee, the two sides agreed to continue their negotiations for the political settlement of the conflict in the country. But following the death of Mullah Omar, bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan also soured. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 13 seminary teachers were abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. The local officials said that the incident took place in Haska Mina district after a group of ISIS militants stormed into a religious school in Deh Bala area, reports the Khaama Press. A official speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the 13 abducted teachers were taken to an unknown location. The terror group has, however, not commented regarding the report so far. This comes as the loyalists of the terror group torched at least 65 houses in Kot district which was once under its control. The latest movements by ISIS loyalist in Nangarhar come as the terror group received major blows during the counter-terrorism operations during the recent months. Both the Afghan and US forces conducted regular strikes against the loyalists of the terror group in this province. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Monday described the ban on Jallikattu as an assault on Tamil culture and tradition while asserting that the historic bull-taming sport could not be 'wiped out' easily. "The whole state of Tamil Nadu is agitating on this issue. There is overwhelming consciences on Jallikattu. People do not want any ban on it. Tamil people consider Jallikattu as part of their culture and tradition and any attempt to stop or ban Jallikkatu is taken as an assault on Tamil culture , identity and tradition," CPI leader D. Raja told ANI. Raja, further said that the matter of Jallikattu should be seen in a correct historic perspective. "It has a history and this cannot be wiped out, that is why there is huge agitation in support of Jallikattu and people are questioning the credibility of state and union government," Raja added. The people of Tamil Nadu yesterday urged the Supreme Court to pass the judgement on Jallikattu after a proper analysis. Meanwhile, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) also expressed disappointment over the apex court's ruling against Jallikattu. Protests over banning of Jallikattu dampened the festive spirit in Madurai. Anguished by the continuing ban on Jallikattu for the third year in a row, the people in some villages in Madurai district observed the festival as "Black Pongal." They hoisted black flags and held processions condemning PETA (an animal rights organisation) and demanded that the Centre take steps to conduct Jallikattu. Earlier on Thursday, the apex court rejected a plea seeking to allow Jallikattu played during the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu. An apex court bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and R. Banumathi told a group of lawyers, who requested for the verdict, that it is unfair to ask the bench to pass an order. The court had earlier in 2014 banned Jallikattu on grounds of animal cruelty. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) staff member who was abducted last year in Kunduz province, has been released. Juan Carlos, was abducted on December 19 while traveling from the ICRC office in Kunduz to the office in Mazar-i-Sharif. He had been traveling with three other colleagues at the time but only he was kidnapped, reports the Tolo News. ICRC thanked all authorities and the communities who played a role in facilitating their colleague's release. However, it did not comment on the identity of the abductors, their motives or the details of the release due to security reasons. ICRC has provided medical care, and supported water and sanitation services for 30 years in Afghanistan and acts as a neutral intermediary to enable humanitarian work to take place throughout the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Letstrack, UK based IoT startup, is now in collaboration with Anything Skool, an initiative of Liberty Innovation Outfits Limited, covering more than 500 schools for One Stop Safety and Security Solutions. Letstrack is a global real time instant messaging and tracking app for smart phones, tracking devices and browsers. With the association, Anything Skool will connect Letstrack to its schooling partners so that schools can take an initiative towards safety and security of their students. Letstrack will provide their tracking devices to the buses of the school which will help schools track their buses easily. Vivek Bansal, CEO of Liberty Innovative Outfits Limited and Director of Liberty Shoes, said, "We believe in one stop solution which is why we feel proud to be associated with Letstrack, a one stop solution expert in safety. With the advanced technology and ability to optimize the usage of all the features, Letstrack comes as a great deal to us in bringing everything under one roof." Vikram, Founder and CEO Letstrack said, "We are excited and proud to be associated with Liberty for their initiative Anything Skool. This is first step in the direction of a paradigm shift on how Schools can improve on safety, efficiency and productivity. Only through this step, Letstrack is expecting to cover and improve lives of over 1.5 million school students along with their Parents and the Schools they go to. This is just a tip of the Iceberg in the ocean of possibilities that this segment brings around. Leading from the front, intelligent solutions offered through personal and professional tracking are aimed at making everything around our children (read students) become safe, secure and most effortless as it can. Unearthing profitability from conventional and new avenues for institutions like schools and companies running school fleets is then a natural outcome. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday hit out at Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, saying that the latter is getting insecure as Prime Minister Narendra Modi isgarnering huge praise in Uttar Pradesh because of his demonetisation decision. "Mayawati does not know about what type of days are coming for BJP but she certainly knows that her bad days are coming soon. She is afraid of the rising popularity of Prime Minister Modi amongst people of Uttar Pradesh for his demonetisation decision," BJP leader Rahul Sinha told ANI. He said people have understood what Mayawati and her brother are doing and what they have done with the party funds. Sinha said the core voters of Mayawati are alleging that she has looted the money and Prime Minister Modi has snatched the black money from the corrupt persons. "Time will tell about the good or bad days but one thing is sure that BJP will emerge as the single largest party in UP and form the government there," he said. Mayawati on Sunday raked up the demonetisation drive and said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should be ready to face its repercussion in the politically crucial state. The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the BJP should be ready to face the consequences of their decision in the Uttar Pradesh polls as the move has rendered 90 percent of people cashless. "It's been over 50 days post demonetisation and yet the Prime Minister has not said how much black money has been recovered," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday said that the in-house tussle in the Samajwadi Party (SP) would not divert all minority and Yadav votes to the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP). NCP leader Majid Memon told ANI, "Mayawati has been optimistic in giving a tough fight to the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) but fetching all minority and Yadav votes towards BSP due to the Samajwadi Party(SP) fiasco is unlikely to happen." Taking a jibe at BJP's 'achhe din' slogan, Memon added that people have lost hope in the saffron party and their false claims. "As far as BJP is concerned the slogan of 'acche din' has been totally discredited and people no more believe BJP ever since it came to power in Centre," he added. Memon added that BJP is certain to lose the Uttar Pradesh election battle which would bring 'burey din' for them. BSP Supremo Mayawati on Sunday said that BJP-led government should be ready to face the consequences of the demonitisation drive in upcoming UP election. "It's been over 50 days post demonetisation and yet the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not said how much black money has been recovered post November 8 decision," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid the hustle and bustle of upcoming polls in five states, 'Fakkad baba' from Uttar Pradesh's Mathura is all set to contest the election for the 16th time. He began contesting election, both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, in 1976. However, what makes this 'baba' -a news is his prediction that he would win the election when he contests it for the 20th time. Following a prophecy by his guru, Shankaracharya Nischalananda Saraswati of the Jagannath Puri peeth that he would win the 20th election he contested, the baba is now preparing to file his nomination papers for the 16th time. "All politicians are liars. Only ascetics like me can ensure honesty in public life and development for the people," he said. The 73-year-old, who lives in a night shelter, aims to change the face of Uttar Pradesh politics, which he thinks is corrupt and based on cash. "Unlike politicians who forget their voters after being elected, I will ensure development of the city and its residents," he added Baba claims that he will get defeated not only in this poll but also for the next threee simultaneous polls. Fakkad baba alias Ramayani Baba has been contesting polls since 1976. Baba has no guilt for his continuous defeats. When asked about the leaders of the state, he said that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is a competent leader as he has contributed a lot for the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Nepal Foreign Minister Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat will arrive today in India on a two-day official visit. He will also meet Minister of State for External Affairs General V.K. Singh on Tuesday at South Block and will later take part in the 2nd Edition of Raisina Dialogue organised at the Taj Palace here. The theme of the 2nd Edition of Raisina Dialogue, this year, is "The New Normal: Multilateralism with Multi-Polarity". The Dialogue is India's flagship geo-political conference to be held annually and within a short span has emerged as a much awaited global conference in the international calendar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa has suggested a robust border management mechanism and intelligence cooperation with Afghanistan to put an end to movement of terrorists across the border. General Bajwa held a telephone conversation with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday to condole the loss of lives in recent terror attacks in the country. He expressed sympathy with families of the victims and empathized on the tragic series of events that have befallen people of both the countries over the last many years. General Bajwa reiterated Islamabad's cooperation with Afghan Government and people to eliminate the scourge of terrorism which is affecting peace and stability of the whole region. He emphasized that Pakistan has come a long way in its fight against terrorism and has eliminated all safe havens in the process. The Army Chief said that the elements inimical to peace in the region are strengthened by the blame game and urged both nations to focus on capitalizing upon the gains of successful Zarb-e-Azb in Pakistan. President Ghani thanked General Bajwa for his sentiments and reiterated that both nations must work together for peace and stability in the region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Olympian wrestler Geeta Phogat on Monday came out in support of actress Zaira Wasim, who essayed her character in the Bollywood blockbuster flick Dangal, asserting that the Kashmiri starlet must learn to ignore those trying to bring her down and continue to remain focused in her work. The 16-year-old actress today, issued an out-of-the-blue apology through her Facebook, Twitter account for hurting people's sentiments, resulting in a spree of reactions and speculations, as the reason for the apology remained unclear. Dubbing the incident as "unfortunate", Phogat expressed concerns, saying, "I want to convey to her that she doesn't need to worry about anything and there is no need to apologise to anyone. Even we, who come from a humble background, had to undergo such difficulties and were finally able to reach what we desired. So she needs to move forward and must ignore such things," Phogat told ANI. Resonating similar views, Geeta's younger sister Babita Phogat who is also an international-level wrestler asked Zaira to continue with her work and not get disturbed by such trolls. "I want to say to Zaira that there is no need to fear anyone, every citizen is with you. You are doing a tremendous work and keep doing such work," she said. Earlier today, shock and confusion ensued after Wasim released an apology letter on social media for 'unintentionally hurting' those who were 'offended' by her 'recent actions or by the people she recently met'. "I want them to know that I understand their sentiments, especially considering what has happened (in Kashmir) over the past six months," she said. Wasim also appealed to the people to understand that sometime certain circumstances evolve which cannot be controlled by anyone and added 'whatever' she did was not a deliberate decision. "I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me a role model. I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know, that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history," she said. However, she again issued another note clarifying that the she had not been forced into apologizing and requested everyone not to blow the matter out of proportion. "I have no idea why this has become such a big issue. I just wanted to make sure that I did not hurt anyone's feelings and all of a sudden it has been turned into news. Again and again I am telling people that I have not been forced into anything by anyone," she said in her letter on Facebook and Twitter. She further said that her earlier post was not meant against anyone, adding she was making sure that no one gets hurt by what she is doing. "From media to everyone else, please don't blow this out of proportion. Neither was I forced nor am I against anyone," she said. Though the reason for her apology is not very clear, however it is being speculated that Wasim posted this note after being trolled on social media for meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a couple of days ago and purportedly crediting her for her film's success. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi led selection committee will meet today to decide on the name of next Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director. Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar will also attend the meeting. The meeting of the selection committee is expected to finalise the name to head the premier investigating agency of the country. Currently Rakesh Asthana, a Gujarat-cadre IPS officer of 1984-batch, is holding the additional charge of the director CBI. Asthana's appointment as the interim chief of the CBI has been challenged in the Supreme Court as after the enactment of the Lokpal Act, the director of the agency has to be appointed by the collegium of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee and the Leader of the Opposition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stating the soul of the financial institution was "murdered" within minutes after the decision to demonetise notes was announced. Addressing a rally in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh city, Rahul Gandhi said the Central bank was established to be independent from any political pressure, but the current dispensation had eroded this. "The Congress Party made and strengthened the RBI and ensured that such an institution does not bows down under government's pressure...But in a minute the soul of this institution, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was murdered by Modi Ji," he said. Rahul's reaction came in response after the employees of the RBI urged its Governor Urjit Patel to protect its autonomy by not allowing the Centre to not interfere in its functioning. In a letter, United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees said autonomy and image of the RBI has been "dented beyond repair" due to mismanagement and termed appointment of a senior finance ministry official as a "blatant encroachment" of its exclusive turf of currency management. "An image of efficiency and independence that the RBI assiduously built up over decades by the strenuous efforts of its staff and judicious policy making has gone into smithereens in no time. We feel extremely pained," the letter read. Following the furore the government clarified saying that it has in not infringed upon the autonomy of the RBI and that it "fully respects the independence and autonomy" of the central bank. "There has been a report in sections of the press that some unions have alleged infringement of the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India. It is categorically stated that the Government fully respects the independence and autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India," the clarification read. "Consultations between the Government and the RBI are undertaken on various matters of public importance wherever such consultation is mandated by law or has evolved as a practice, it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Human Rights Minister Kamran Michael has said that the promotion and protection of minorities is the top most priority of the government, adding that the bright future for the country can only be ensured by providing justice to the oppressed sector of society. He was addressing the gathering of minority community and employees of the PIA here in Karachi on Sunday. While appreciating the role of minorities in the socio-economic development of the country, Michael said that the Pakistanis imbued with the spirit of brotherhood and national cohesion are equal partners in taking the country on the path of development, prosperity and well being. He urged the community to refresh their commitment to maintain unity and cohesion at every level and work for the overall betterment of the nation. Michael said that it is the time to promote interfaith harmony and strengthening national unity irrespective of the religion, cast or creed for standing united as one nation. "We need to pledge ourselves to stand together for the development of our country adding that Pakistan is a country where there are no compartments of minorities or majorities," he said. Michael said that the human rights of minorities are constitutionally secured and their services in every walk of life for making overall national development possible are a precious part to national accomplishments. The Minister said that steps have been taken for the socio economic uplift of people of various religions as non-Muslims communities are important partners in struggle for ensuring prosperous future. He said programmatic measures have been taken by the incumbent government for the promotion and protection of rights of children, women and minorities. Later, a delegation of minority community and employees of PIA also called on the minister and apprised him about the problems and issues which they are faced with. They also appreciated the endeavours of the government for the protection and promotion of the rights of minorities. Michael assured them of taking further necessary action to protect their rights on priority. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the plea filed by December 16 gangrape convicts Mukesh, Akshay, Pawan and Vinay, challenging the Delhi High court order which had sentenced the four convicts to the gallows after keeping in view the fact that it was a rarest of the rare case. The appeal, which is being heard by the Apex Court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra, is at the fag end in the case. Earlier, the apex court had declined the request by two amici curiae - senior counsel Raju Ramachandran and Sanjay R Hegde to withdraw from assisting the court in hearing of appeals by the convicts in the gang rape case. Asking both to continue assisting the court in hearing of the appeals by the four accused convicted and sentenced to death, the three judge bench comprising of justices Dipak Misra, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan said: "We can appreciate the anguish expressed by the learned amici curiae". Six people gang-raped a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus and thrashed her and her male friend. They then violently raped and attacked her, and threw both of them from the moving bus on Dec 16. The woman succumbed to her injuries in a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012. The incident led to large scale protests across the country, forcing the government of the day to make strict and punitive laws related to harassment of women. One of the accused, Ram Singh hanged himself in prison, while another man, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted in August and will serve the maximum sentence of three years in a reform home. Meanwhile, on December 3, amicus curiae Sanjay Hegde questioned the evidence produced by the prosecution in the gang-rape case, and came out with certain points putting a question on the merit of evidence. According to Hegde, one of the convicts, Mukesh, was not with the prime culprit Ram Singh when the offence was committed, since their mobile locations were found to be different on that night. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday held the separatists responsible for the shocking apology letter posted by Zaira Wasim, the Kashmiri starlet who gained fame for her role as a young Geeta Phogat on Dangal, while asserting that they had threatened her life under whose duress she made the apology. "This is the tragedy of the moment. Now that she has received praise from across the nation and the state, some people having sympathy with Pakistan and with the separatists have threatened her life. It is a very unfortunate moment that on Twitter she posted her apology letter," said BJP leader Ravinder Raina. Raina further assured that adequate security will be provided to Wasim adding that no anti- elements will be allowed to act against her. "Instead of appreciating her role they (separatist) have threatened her life and this is a very tragic moment for all the youth in Jammu and Kashmir, and is an eye-opener to see who is with them and who is not," he said. After issuing a shocking public apology letter for "hurting sentiments" of people, Dangal's Zaira Wasim who played a young Geeta Phogat took to social media yet again to issue another note, clarifying that the she had not been forced into apologising and requested everyone not to blow the matter out of proportion. "I have no idea why this has become such a big issue. I just wanted to make sure that I did not hurt anyone's feelings and all of a sudden it has been turned into news. Again and again I am telling people that I have not been forced into anything by anyone," she said in her letter on Facebook and Twitter. She further said that her earlier post was not meant against anyone and that she was making sure that no one gets hurt by what she is doing. "From media to everyone else, please don't blow this out of proportion. Neither was I forced nor am I against anyone," she said. Earlier, Wasim issued an out-of-the-blue public apology letter for hurting the sentiments of people via her Facebook and Twitter account, however, the reasons of the her actions remain unclear and speculations are rife. "I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met. I want to apologise to all those people who I've unintentionally hurt and want them to know that I understand their sentiments, especially considering what has happened (in Kashmir) over the past six months," she wrote in her letter. Wasim also appealed to the people to understand that sometime certain circumstances evolve which cannot be controlled by anyone and added 'whatever' she did was not a deliberate decision. "I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me a role model. I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know, that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history," she said. However, the reason for the apology letter is not very clear, but it is speculated that Wasim, who posted this note after being trolled on social media for meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti a couple of days ago and allegedly calling her as a part of her film's success. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 38-year-old serial rapist was arrested from Delhi's New Ashok Nagar for targeting minors girls aged between seven and eleven years on Sunday. The accused Sunil Rastogi, who wore the same set of clothes - a 'red jacket' (which is considered lucky), used to come from Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Delhi by train and look for lone minor girls, kidnap and take them to under-construction buildings or isolated locations, rape them and then flee the city. The rapist nearly targeted five hundred children over the last 13 years not only in Delhi but even in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. According to police, three cases of child rape and molestation under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station on January 10 and 13. Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Omvir Singh told the media that the accused is a clear case of paedophile, who is a tailor by profession and is married with children. "The accused told police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place," he said. "During interrogation, he confessed he committed the alleged offences and also revealed he committed similar offences with other girls in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand)," he added. Singh said a team was formed to identify the man after another complaint was received on December 13. Police scanned the CCTV footage of the area where Rastogi had raped the girls. Police were able to identify him but his face was not clearly visible. They spoke to the vendors and some of the victims and got a sketch made. They went door to door with the sketch. Finally, the accused was nabbed yesterday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's regime is going to end soon as his corruption has been exposed by the Panama Paper leaks. "Allah has taken suo motu notice against Nawaz Sharif on Panama scandal," the Daily Times quoted Khan as saying while addressing a gathering. The PTI leader said that the Prime Minister's corruption was exposed in the Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. "Nawaz's counsel says the Sharif family purchased Mayfair apartments in 2006 but the BBC has revealed that the properties were purchased in 1990s," he added. "If Nawaz failed to prove London flats were owned by the Qatari prince in 1993 then he would leave and if he failed to prove Maryam was not the beneficial owner of London properties he would still have to leave," he said. Khan briefed the audience on the Panama case and conducted an informal audience poll asking attendees whether they believed the Sharif would be proven guilty in the case. He added that the entire country was fed up of 'Sharif rule' and that the PTI would attempt to shape Pakistan in light of the Islamic teachings. Terming the ongoing Panama case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children a 'war against corruption', Imran Khan said the country would soon be rid of the 'Sharif mafia'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will participate in the Economic Forum (WEF)'s Annual Meeting at Davos in Switzerland. The meeting will be held from 17 to 20 January, 2017. The Prime Minister will hold a number of bilateral meetings with heads of states and governments, as well as with business leaders. Among others, Sharif will also meet the new United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, as well as the Swiss President Doris Leuthard at Davos. Sharif will address a large group of about 60 top business leaders on "Investing in Pakistan: The New Reality". The Prime Minister will also have a meeting with a group of business leaders, where he will share the dramatic economic changes taking place in Pakistan and the immense investment and trade opportunities that are opening up in the country. A record 3,000 participants will attend the WEF Annual Meeting 2017. The theme for the 2017 WEF Annual Meeting is "Responsive and Responsible Leadership". The Economic Forum annual meeting provides an unparalleled platform to discuss wide ranging economic and political issues. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Anil Kapoor showered a load praise and appreciation on daughter Sonam Kapoor, who was awarded 'Filmfare Best Actor (Female) Critics' Choice' last night for her performance in 'Neerja'. The 60-year-old veteran actor took to social media to post a lovely black and white picture of young Sonam, dressed in a white frock. "So proud of you," the father captioned the Instagram post. ".not just for the award, but also for your choices & decisions... You know who you are & you've never backed down from a challenge and that's amazing to watch as a father and actor... Congratulations beta...," the '24' actor wrote. Other members of the '31-year-old star's family also took to their social media handles to congratulate the stylish actor. The 'Khoobsurat' actress played the role of Pan Am flight attendant late Neerja Bhanot in the Ram Madhvani directed film, which is adapted from true life event of the flight hijacking in 1986. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission of India on Monday entitled Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav the Samajwadi Party 'cycle' symbol, giving a major shot in the arm for the Akhilesh camp ahead of the assembly polls. "The Commission hereby announces that the group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol 'Bicycle' for the purposes of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968," the order read. Reacting to the developments, Akhilesh's aid and uncle Ram Gopal Yadav applauded the Election Commission for handing out a just and fair order. "I would like to laud the Election Commission for giving a just order and the Commission will also be blessed by the people of Uttar Pradesh. I would like to congratulate all the Samajwadi Party workers and ask them to work and make Akhilesh the Chief Minister again," he told the media here. Responding to a poser about the possible 'Mahaghatbandhan' ahead of assembly polls, Ramgopal said, "I am hopeful that Mahaghatbandhan will take place, but the final decision rests with Akhilesh." There have been various attempts to hold parleys within the Akhilesh and Mulayam camp, but the meet has always remained inconclusive. According to sources, Mulayam told Akhilesh to step down from the post saying that he would remain to be the party's face for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. But, Akhilesh refused the offer saying that he would pass on the baton once the elections are over. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ongoing political tussle between Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav escalated to a new level with the Samajwadi Party president alleging that the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister is against the Muslims. Extremely upset with the ongoing friction in the Samajwadi Party, Mulayam alleged that his son was always against the appointment of a Muslim Director General of Police (DGP) in Uttar Pradesh. "Akhilesh attempted to wipe out the Muslims. It was on my urge that three constables from the Muslim community were appointed in the police force," said Mulayam while addressing the party workers in Lucknow. Mulayam, in a fit of anger, also alleged that his son was acting at the behest of his uncle Ram Gopal Yadav. "My son does not listen to me. He works on the instructions of Ram Gopal," he said. Expressing disappointment over the ongoing tussle in the Samajwadi Party, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also said that he attempted to bring his son on board several times but added that the latter never listened to his views. "I am trying my best to save the party and cycle. And if he (Akhilesh) doesn't listen then I will fight against him," he said. Mulayam further said that he would abide by whatever decision the Election Commission takes. The Election Commission is likely to give an interim order today regarding the Samajwadi Party factions i.e. of Mulayam and the other of Akhilesh, staking claims over the party symbol 'cycle.' The three-member poll body, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, earlier on Friday heard the arguments put forward by the two factions. The political tussle began when Akhilesh was announced as the Samajwadi Party's president at a convention convened by Ram Gopal on January 1. At the same convention, Mulayam was made the party patron. This is when the matter reached the Election Commission's office, with Mulayam conveying that he continues to be the party president and that the party symbol should remain with his faction. In response to this, Akhilesh's faction also approached the Election Commission claiming that the majority rested with their faction and so his group was entitled to get the symbol. Former solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, appearing for Mulayam, argued the contention of any split in the party and stressed that the symbol should remain with the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Countering Parasaran's arguments, Kapil Sibal appearing from Akhilesh's side said that if the former's argument was to be accepted then there was no need of hearing at all. He further said that the party had split vertically and that majority was with Akhilesh. As per sources, the Commission is likely to come out with an interim order freezing the symbol, owing to less time left for the elections. In this case, the two sides would be allowed to pick up symbols from the free available symbols in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Monday alleged that protest organised against Jallikattu has been inspired from abroad and he intends to take the case to CBI in terms of funding of the animal rights organisations. "As the Tamil Nadu government has successfully suppressed any revolt against the Supreme Court and any indignity caused to the Supreme Court. The next step we should take is to investigate these NGOs like PETA and others and find out what is their source and why are they doing this. I am have strong feeling that this has been inspired from abroad and I intend to collect the information and ask the CBI to investigate into their financing," he said. Supporting the claim of hosting Jallikattu, Swamy said that he has given a written submission of 23 pages and is waiting for the judgement of the apex court over the issue. Swamy took on the protestors of Jallikattu and said: "This is a democratic country and we have to abide by the Constitution and all these LTTE types and anti people, who want separate Tamil Nadu are the ones who are creating all these problems." The people of Tamil Nadu yesterday urged the Supreme Court to pass a judgement on Jallikattu after a proper analysis. Protests over banning of Jallikattu dampened the festive spirit in Madurai. Anguished by the continuing ban on Jallikattu for the third year in a row, the people in some villages in Madurai district observed the festival as "Black Pongal." They hoisted black flags and held processions condemning PETA (an animal rights organisation) and demanded that the Centre take steps to conduct Jallikattu. Earlier on Thursday, the apex court rejected a plea seeking to allow Jallikattu played during the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadu. An apex court bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and R. Banumathi told a group of lawyers, who requested for the verdict, that it is unfair to ask the bench to pass an order. The court had earlier in 2014 banned Jallikattu on grounds of animal cruelty. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Women activists across the nation on Monday lashed out at the Beed incident where a school teacher sexually abused girl students. Activist, Brinda Adige said, "The fact that the school has simply suspended the teacher just goes to show that even schools and institutions do not take sexual assault on children seriously. Most institutions want to brush this off under the carpet. This particular teacher has been abusing children and nobody in the school has ever got information about it." She added that there is a big responsibility that the school and the management will have to take. They should also be booked under the Protection of Children form Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) as well as this person. Simple suspension is not enough. He needs to be jailed and the case has to go stringently and strongly against him. Another activist Shamina Shafiq said that schools, where children come to gain knowledge, where parents save their income for their children's education, in such educational institutions their sexual abuse has to be interrogated by the government. Necessary actions have to be implemented in order to curb such incidents in future and if the government is unable to help in this matter then God knows how the society will survive. A few years back in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, a similar incident came into light where a teacher was sexually abusing the children. Till date there is no report on what action has been taken against that teacher which is very unfortunate, Shafiq added. A male teacher at government-aided residential school in Maharashtra's Beed district was on Monday booked by the police for allegedly forcing girl students to take bathe in the open and making sexual advances towards them at night. The sexual abuse had been going on for past five months, but came to light only a few days ago when one of the victims took the courageous step of writing a letter to an advocacy group - Lek Ladki Abhiyan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hindustan Copper rose 1.17% to Rs 69 at 14:10 IST on BSE after the company said its board approved increasing borrowing limit of the firm to Rs 550 crore from Rs 250 crore earlier. The announcement was made during trading hours today, 16 January 2017. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 72.91 points, or 0.27%, to 27,310.97. On the BSE, so far 3.48 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with average daily volumes of 3.02 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 69.25 and a low of Rs 67.95 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 73.60 on 22 August 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 42.30 on 19 February 2016. The stock had outperformed the market over the past 30 days till 13 January 2017, rising 15.20% compared with the 2.71% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 16.78% as against Sensex's 1.57% decline. The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 462.61 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5. The board of directors of Hindustan Copper (HCL) approved proposal for increasing borrowing from the consortium banks/other banks by way of overdraft or cash credit, working capital demand loan, bill discounting, other working capital arrangements from existing Rs 250 crore to Rs 550 crore. Hindustan Copper's net profit fell 8.6% to Rs 6.77 crore on 20.1% decline in net sales to Rs 161.85 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Hindustan Copper (HCL) is a vertically integrated copper producing company encompassing mining, beneficiation, smelting, refining and casting of refined copper metal. The Government of India holds 82.948% stake in Hindustan Copper (as per shareholding pattern as on 31 December 2016). Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A financing agreement for IDA credit of US$ 48 million (equivalent) for the 'Nagaland Health Project' was signed with the World Bank here today. The Financing Agreement was signed by Mr. Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of Government of India and Mrs. Genevieve Connors, Acting Country Director, World Bank (India) on behalf of the World Bank. A Project Agreement was also signed by Dr. L. Watikala, Principal Director, Directorate of Health & Family Welfare, Government of Nagaland and Ms. Genevieve Connors, Acting Country Director, World Bank. The Objectives of the project are to improve health services and increase their utilization by communities in targeted locations in Nagaland. Communities in targeted locations will benefit from project activities at the community and health facility levels while the population of the state as a whole will benefit from improvements in higher-level facilities as well as system-wide investments. The project will directly benefit about 600,000 people. It will support and complement existing systems and mechanisms involving communities under the National Health Mission. The closing date of Nagaland health Project is 31st March, 2023. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For delivery of B2C services of citizen service delivery initiatives of Gujarat state government Ram Info has signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with eGram Society of Gujarat State in the 'Vibrant Gujarat' event held on 12 January 2017. This MOU is for delivery of B2C services as part of the citizen service delivery initiatives implemented by the state government. The Company intends to integrate more than fifty B2C services initially, with the existing eGram model, covering more than 1400 eGram centres currently delivering various citizen services across the state of Gujarat, with plans to expand to about a hundred B2C services by 31 March 2017. These services include insurance, money transfer, ticket booking, wallet loading, tax filing, pan card, ecommerce and other services like bill payments and recharges. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Refining margins in Asia, is expected to stay at $5.0-$5.5 per barrel through 2017, says Moody's in its latest edition of Asia Oil and Gas Quarterly. Moody's Investors Service has released its latest edition of Asia Oil and Gas Quarterly, a quarterly publication that examines the major credit trends in the oil and gas industry across Asia, through recently published Moody's reports. "We expect that refining margins will show volatility in 2017, driven by bloated supply and the lagged effect of crude-price fluctuations on petroleum-product prices," says Rachel Chua, a Moody's Analyst. Moody's believes that low profitability levels will force small-scale, low-complexity refiners with higher costs of production to reduce output. Moody's newsletter also says that firmer oil prices in 2017 and continued cost reductions will support the earnings of Asian integrated and upstream players. At the same time, capital spending levels should rise, and upstream acquisitions in 2017 should increase, based on the growth ambitions of Asian players. Moody's says that given the prolonged oversupply of oil globally, compounded by very high inventory levels, a rebalancing of the oil markets will likely occur in late 2017 at the earliest. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sical Logistics rose 3.44% to Rs 224 at 10:22 IST on BSE after the company said it received a letter of award for a contract worth Rs 304.92 crore for excavation of overburden at Northern Coal Fields, Madhya Pradesh. The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 13 January 2017. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 30.05 points, or 0.11%, to 27,268.11. On the BSE, so far 21,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with average daily volumes of 16,035 shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 234 and a low of Rs 222 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 256 on 1 November 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 119 on 12 February 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past 30 days till 13 January 2017, rising 2.48% compared with the 2.71% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 22.48% as against Sensex's 1.57% decline. The small-cap company has equity capital of Rs 55.60 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Sical Logistics said it received letter of award for excavation of overburden at Jhingurdah OCP of Northern Coal Fields at Madhya Pradesh. The contract has to be performed over a period of 4 years at a value of Rs 304.92 crore. On a consolidated basis, net profit of Sical Logistics rose 113.94% to Rs 7.06 crore on 3.02% rise in net sales to Rs 198.12 crore in Q2 September 2016 over Q2 September 2015. Sical Logistics is an integrated logistics solutions provider. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Consolidates its portfolio by migration of Gold Plus network into Tanishq network Titan Company announced that the Company had launched its second jewellery brand Gold Plus in 2005 for small-town South India, to better cater to the needs of the more traditional requirements of those customers. Since then, Gold Plus had grown to about 30 stores in size. In the last decade, customers in the larger cities of South India have evolved in their tastes and aspirations and Titan's main jewellery brand Tanishq has kept pace with them. Given that evolution of the customers and Tanishq as well as the need to focus all energies and resources in today's circumstances, Titan Company has decided to consolidate its portfolio by migrating the Gold Plus network to become part of the Tanishq network. With this, Titan Company is confident that India's most desirable and profitable jewellery brand, Tanishq, will get even more desirable for customers and attractive to investors. 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 28 people were killed on Monday when a Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed into a residential area close to the airport in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. The crash involved a Boeing 747 cargo plane, which plunged into a residential area close to the airport, destroying at least 15 houses, Efe news reported. At least eight people have also been injured and taken to hospitals in the capital, said Health Minister Talantbek Batyraliyev. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 37 people were killed when a cargo plane belonging to Turkish MyCargo Airlines crashed in a residential neighbourhood near Kyrgyzstans capital Bishkek, according to the emergency ministry. Initially, reports said the aircraft was of Turkish Airlines but it denied it in a statement saying : "A cargo flight with TC-MCL registration number, operated by ACT Airlines, departed from Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) to Bishkek Manas International Airport (FRU) and had an accident near Bishkek... Neither the aircraft nor the crew are members of Turkish Airlines." Among those killed were four crew members and one of the pilots, Kyrgyz Health Ministry spokeswoman Elena Bayalinova said. The plane was enroute from Hong Kong to Istanbul, Sputnik News Agency reported. It crashed in the village of Dacha-Suu, near the capital city's Manas airport, destroying at least 32 homes. Eight people were hospitalised, including six children. Firefighters are at the scene, the ministry added, as cited by TASS. All flights to and from Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport have been suspended until further notice, RT News reported. Kyrgyz Prime Minsiter Sooronbay Jeenbekov has arrived at the crash site, the government's press service confirmed. Bishkek resident Zumriyat Rezahanova told RT News that her cousin's house was the first to be hit by the plane. "Her house was the first. The roof was blown away," said Rezahanova, adding that the local residents heard a strong boom, and those who were in the house thought it was an earthquake. --IANS ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa that those who recently launched attacks in Afghanistan "lived, were recruited and operated freely in Pakistan and no action was taken against them", a Presidential Palace statement said on Monday. Ghani's allegations came during a phone call with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa, who telephoned the Afghan President on Sunday to condemn recent attacks in the country. General Bajwa offered intelligence cooperation and border management to stop illegal cross-border movement, the army said. The offer came following attacks in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand in which at least 60 people, including five UAE diplomats, were killed. Taliban claimed the attacks in Kabul and Helmand and denied involvement in the Kandahar attack, which they blamed on the internal power struggle between officials in Kandahar. "In his telephonic talk, President Ghani vowed to take revenge from the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks and said his country is ready to ensure security of his country," a statement from Ghani's office said. "He again described terrorism and extremism as a serious threat for the region and the world and said that lack of determination to fight against the common threat could pose dangers to Pakistan itself and the region," the statement added. President Ghani said he wants "serious talks" to discuss Kabul's future relationship with Pakistan. --IANS ahm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission on Monday recognized the faction led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the Samajwadi Party and allotted it the 'cycle' symbol, dealing a huge blow to Mulayam Singh Yadav. The decision, less than a month before the staggered Uttar Pradesh assembly election starts on February 11, was first announced by Akhilesh confidant Ram Gopal Yadav. A beaming Ram Gopal Yadav, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, urged the people of Uttar Pradesh to vote Akhilesh Yadav back to power in the coming election. "This is a just decision," he told the media. "The Election Commission will get the blessings of crores of people of Uttar Pradesh." The decision triggered wild celebrations among Akhilesh supporters in Lucknow, where the Chief Minister immediately headed to the house of his father and party founder Mulayam Singh. The Samajwadi Party formally split on January 1 when the Akhilesh faction ousted Mulayam Singh as its President. Both factions then petitioned the Election Commission to allot it the 'cycle' symbol. After some two weeks of bitter fighting, the poll panel -- which heard both versions for hours on Friday -- on Monday voted in favour of Akhilesh Yadav. Mulayam Singh, who has lost the support of the majority in the party, had been desperate to hold on to the symbol which he picked long ago. An Election Commission official said: "The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use the 'cycle' symbol." --IANS am-mak/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All five Indian American lawmakers have been nominated to key Congressional panels, the media here reported. All five are Democrats, as are the bulk of Indian-Americans. US Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, elected to the House of Representatives from Seattle, will serve on the House Judiciary Committee, helping to oversee the federal-court system and law-enforcement agencies, said a report in the Seattle Times. Jayapal said she looks forward to working on immigration reform, criminal-justice reform, reproductive rights and voting rights. "I'm proud to have led efforts for some of the most progressive immigration policies in the nation," Jayapal said in a statement. "In the 115th Congress, I pledge to fight for our progressive values, and block the Trump administration's plans to deport vulnerable undocumented immigrants, create a Muslim registry and violate our civil rights and civil liberties." Congressman Ro Khanna was appointed to two key committees - Budget and Armed Services, reported daily Mercury News. He represents the 17th District of California, which covers the Silicon Valley communities of Cupertino, Fremont, Newark, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. Indian American Raja Krishnamoorthi, who was sworn in as a Member of the US House of Representatives earlier this month, would be serving on two influential committees. In addition to being the voice of Illinois' Eighth Congressional District, the Democrat will serve on the House Education and Workforce Committee, as well as the House Democratic Policy and Steering Committee, indiawest.com reported. "These committee assignments will give my constituents a voice to make sure I can stand up for working families every day by focusing on job creation and affordable higher education," said Krishnamoorthi. Congressman Ami Bera was renominated to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Science, Space and Technology Committee. He is the senior most among all Indian American lawmakers in the House of Representatives and is also co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, said a report. Kamala Harris, first Indian American to serve in the US Senate, will serve on four influential committees - the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; the Select Committee on Intelligence; the Committee on Environment & Public Works; and the Committee on the Budget. Harris said that her committee assignments in the US Senate will be "key battlegrounds in the future of our country", the Los Angeles Times reported. "At a time when so many Californians and Americans are uncertain about our future, I will aggressively fight for our families and the ideals of our nation," Harris said. 2016 was a bumper year for the Indian-American community, with a record haul of four in the House of Representatives, and their first seat in the Senate. --IANS soni/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh is also contesting from Lambi constituency to help Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal win, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Monday. Amarinder Singh had "stabbed the people of Punjab in the back" by saying he would contest from Lambi besides his own traditional seat Patiala, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said in a video message. Lambi is Badal's traditional constituency. Kejriwal said there had been a "deal" between Amarinder Singh and Badal and so the Congress leader had announced his candidature from Lambi so as to cut anti-Akali votes and thus help Badal win. The AAP has fielded Jarnail Singh, a former Delhi legislator, from Lambi. Kejriwal demanded to know why Amarinder Singh was contesting from two assembly seats and why he was challenging Badal directly now when he had never done so in any election until now. "Once everyone realized that Jarnail Singh's campaign was going great, Badal requested Amarinder Singh to contest from Lambi too so that the anti-Akali votes get divided," the AAP leader said. Calling the Amarinder Singh-Badal fight a "friendly match", he said: "Jarnail Singh will win no matter what in Lambi... And you will be ousted in such a manner that you will remember for the rest of your life." The February 4 Punjab election has become a three-way race involving the ruling Akali Dal-BJP coalition, the main opposition Congress party and the AAP, a first-time contestant. --IANS mr/py (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australian Senator Pauline Hanson, an ardent supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump throughout his campaign, has rejected an invitation to attend his inauguration, to which Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has not been invited, a media report said. Turnbull confirmed on Monday that unlike Hanson, he had not received an invitation to the event, Xinhua news agency reported. "I am very busy here as you can see as Prime Minister of this country looking after the interests of hard working Australian families," Turnbull told reporters when asked about the inauguration. Meanwhile, the Queensland senator who consistently made her support of Trump known throughout his successful campaign, turned down the invitation. Hanson said although the invitation was a "fantastic opportunity", but her "duties to the people of Queensland and Australia come first." The far-right leader of the One Nation party, toasted Trump's victory on the steps of Australia's parliament building, back in November. "I can see in Donald Trump a lot of me and what I stand for in Australia. I think it's great," Hanson said at the time. Turnbull recently committed to greater partnerships with the US, but his pro-TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) stance was in direct contrast to the incoming US President. Trump has vowed to put an end to the free trade agreement upon being sworn in. The US Presidential inauguration will be held on January 20, in Washington. --IANS in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Bangladeshi court on Monday sentenced 26 persons to death in a sensational seven-murder case in Narayanganj area of the country in 2014. Those given the death penalty included former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain who was extradited from Kolkata, and former Bangladesh Army Lt Col Tarek Sayeed for abducting and killing seven persons in April 2014, Dhaka Tribune reported. At least nine others have been given various jail terms. The bodies of those killed, including that of former city Councillor Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, were found floating in a river several days later. The court said all the 35 persons, of whom 19 were from the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), were guilty of the murders. Twelve of the convicts are absconding. The families of the victims said they were satisfied with the verdict. "We want the verdict to be implemented as soon as possible and hope the high court upholds it," Nazrul's wife Selina Islam Beauty told the media. Chandan's daughter Sushmita Sarkar said: "We want quick execution." Counsel Shakhawat Hossain, who represented Chandan's family, said he was happy with the verdict, but wanted all the 35 to get the death penalty. However, the defence counsel said they will challenge the verdict in the high court. According to Law Minister Anisul Huq, the verdict indicates that criminals, irrespective of their identity, will not be spared. Huq welcomed the verdict and dubbed it a "proper" one. "The people will be satisfied with it." Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal lauded the RAB for playing "a responsible role" in the investigation. --IANS py/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Monday condoled the loss of lives of pilgrims in West Bengal's Sagar Island during their return from the Gangasagar Mela. "Hon'ble Governor expressed his heartfelt condolences over the loss of lives of pilgrims in the Sagar Islands in South 24 Parganas," said a message from the Governor's office. The Governor also wished a speedy recovery to the injured. According to state Sundarbans Development Minister Manturam Pakhira, six pilgrims, all women, died due to suffocation during a mad rush by people to board a vessel at Kachuberia on their way home from Gangasagar fair after taking a holy dip on Sunday. --IANS mgr/ssp/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said action would be taken against officials found guilty of dereliction of duty in connection with the boat tragedy that claimed 24 lives. "I have ordered an inquiry into the boat tragedy...,it is already going on," Nitish Kumar told the media after holding his weekly Lok Samvad programme here. He said that the inquiry was being conducted from all angles. According to the information received by him so far, Nitish Kumar said that it appeared that there were lapses at three levels that led to the tragedy. "The government will not spare officials responsible for it," Nitish Kumar said. Admitting that the boats were operating in violation of rules, the Janata Dal (United) leader also said that from now on the concerned department would keep a close watch on the boats operating on the Ganga river. The opposition has blamed official negligence for the tragedy on Saturday. According to eyewitnesses, the boat that capsized was overcrowded and was returning from a kite flying festival that was organised by the state tourism department as part of Makar Sankranti, a harvest festival. --IANS ik/in/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rome, Jan 16 (IANS/AKI) A Brazilian was taken to hospital with a fractured pelvis after he fell four metres from security railings at Rome's ancient Colosseum monument on Monday. The 31-year-old man was warded at the San Giovanni hospital after his fall and was not in critical condition, doctors said. He and a second Brazilian who also fell from the railings onto the ground below face charges of trespassing at the 2,000 year-old Colosseum. --IANS/AKI mr/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Celta Vigo managed to snatch three important points as they defeated Alaves in the dying minutes at La Liga here. The Galician team edged past Alaves 1-0 at the Balaidos stadium in round 18 of the Spanish competition on Sunday, reports Efe. Serbian defender Nemanja Radoja scored the match's decisive goal in the 89th minute, shortly before the referee blew the whistle. Despite being one man down for 46 minutes after Moroccan defender Zouhair Feddal was sent off for being booked twice, hosts Celta only managed to score late in the tie. Celta Vigo currently holds the eighth position in the league's standings with 27 points, while Alaves remains 12th with 22 points. --IANS gau/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China will not shy away from taking "off the gloves", if the US wants to use Taiwan as a "bargaining chip", a Chinese daily warned on Monday. An editorial in state-run China Daily called Taiwan a "Pandora's box" which had "the lethal potential to upend" Sino-US ties. The hard-hitting article came in the wake of US President-elect D. Donald Trump's recent interview to a newspaper in which the former real-estate mogul said America need not consider Taiwan as an integral part of China. "Taiwan has been off limits in China-US diplomacy thanks to the understanding that it is a Pandora's box of lethal potential, and that opening it may upend the hard-earned, firmly held fundamentals governing the relationship." "If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves." Taiwan, a self-ruled island, is claimed by China. The US, since 1979, has acceded to the 'One China' policy and refrained from diplomatic ties with Taiwan. US-China ties have come under severe strain after Trump made incendiary remarks against the second-largest economy of the world. Besides Taiwan, Trump has aggressively challenged Beijing's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea. So much so that US Secretary of State-elect Rex Tillerson threatened to bar China from the islands in the contested waters. The paper said China chose not to slam the US when Trump received the phone call from Taiwan President Tsai-Ing Wen. Instead, the Chinese Foreign Minister termed the call a "petty trick" by Taipei, the paper said. It said Beijing showed patience even when Trump told a news channel that the US would not "be bound by the One China policy". "Beijing simply reiterated that acknowledgment of One China is fundamental, and non-negotiable, for healthy ties." However, the paper said that Trump's reiterating the same point in another newspaper interview cannot be a repeated mistake. "To many, that was a mistake Trump made twice." "Yet when Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday 'everything is under negotiation including one China,' reinforcing the impression that he intends to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip, Beijing did not go beyond what it had already said." "Such a measured response can only come from a genuine, sincere wish that the less-than-desirable, yet by-and-large manageable, big picture of China-US relations will not be derailed before Trump even enters office." "It would be a blessing for both parties, and indeed for the world, if such goodwill could be appreciated and reciprocated. But that seems unlikely." "It seems wishful thinking to assume Trump and his team's remarks on Taiwan have been based on bluster or miscalculation. On the contrary, it appears the next administration is intending to use the one-China policy as its trump card." "It would be good if after his inauguration Trump can demonstrate more statesmanship. But Beijing should not count on his raising the stakes being a pre-inauguration bluff, and instead be prepared for him to continue backing this bet. "It may be costly. But it will prove a worthy price to pay to make the next US president aware of the special sensitivity, and serious consequences of his Taiwan game." --IANS gsh/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese media on Monday warned the US for challenging Beijing's "One China Policy," with a leading daily threatening to take "off the gloves" if Washington used Taiwan as a "bargaining chip". An editorial in state-run China Daily called Taiwan a "Pandora's box" which had "the lethal potential to upend" Sino-US ties. Another newspaper, Global Times, said Beijing would combat "mercilessly" with the backers of Taiwan's independence. The hard-hitting articles came in the wake of US President-elect Donald Trump's recent interview to a newspaper in which the former real-estate mogul said America need not consider Taiwan as an integral part of China. "Taiwan has been off limits in China-US diplomacy thanks to the understanding that it is a Pandora's box of lethal potential, and that opening it may upend the hard-earned, firmly held fundamentals governing the relationship," China Daily said. "If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves," the leading daily added. Taiwan, a self-ruled island, is claimed by China. The US, since 1979, has acceded to the 'One China' policy and refrained from diplomatic ties with Taiwan. US-China ties have come under severe strain after Trump made incendiary remarks against the second-largest economy of the world. Besides Taiwan, Trump has aggressively challenged Beijing's sovereignty over the disputed South China Sea. So much so that US Secretary of State-elect Rex Tillerson threatened to bar China from the islands in the contested waters. The paper said China chose not to slam the US when Trump received a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. Instead, the Chinese Foreign Minister termed the call a "petty trick" by Taipei, the paper said. It said Beijing showed patience even when Trump told a news channel that the US would not "be bound by the One China policy". "Beijing simply reiterated that acknowledgment of One China is fundamental, and non-negotiable, for healthy ties." However, the paper said that Trump's reiterating the same point in another newspaper interview cannot be a repeated mistake. "To many, that was a mistake Trump made twice." "Yet when Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday 'everything is under negotiation including one China', reinforcing the impression that he intends to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip, Beijing did not go beyond what it had already said." "Such a measured response can only come from a genuine, sincere wish that the less-than-desirable, yet by-and-large manageable, big picture of China-US relations will not be derailed before Trump even enters office." "It would be a blessing for both parties, and indeed for the world, if such goodwill could be appreciated and reciprocated. But that seems unlikely." "It seems wishful thinking to assume Trump and his team's remarks on Taiwan have been based on bluster or miscalculation. On the contrary, it appears the next administration is intending to use the one-China policy as its trump card." "It would be good if after his inauguration Trump can demonstrate more statesmanship. But Beijing should not count on his raising the stakes being a pre-inauguration bluff, and instead be prepared for him to continue backing this bet. "It may be costly. But it will prove a worthy price to pay to make the next US president aware of the special sensitivity, and serious consequences of his Taiwan game." Another newspaper, Global Times, seconded China Daily's viewpoint. "The Chinese mainland will be prompted to speed up Taiwan reunification and mercilessly combat those who advocate Taiwan's independence," it said in an editorial. --IANS gsh/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after three tribal-based political parties in Tripura came together and called for a 12-hour shutdown to oppose the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, the ruling CPI-M on Monday termed the move a "separatist action". "The CPI-M is also opposed to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, and supports the Indira-Mujib pact which determined March 24, 1971, as cut off date to detect illegal infiltration into India from Bangladesh," CPI-M central Committee member Bijan Dhar told reporters on Monday. Dhar, accompanied by another Communist Party of India-Marxist Central Committee member Gautam Das, said there is no justification to calling a shutdown on the issue. "The strike was called as a pretext for formation of alliance to destabilise developmental and welfare schemes undertaken for the development of tribals," said Dhar, also the state Secretary of CPI-M. "The three tribal-based parties are unhappy that peace has been established in the state and the decades old terrorism has been tamed in Tripura," he added. The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and the National Conference of Tripura (NCT) on Sunday evening announced the formation of the All Tripura Indigenous Regional Parties Forum (ATIRPF) to oppose the bill introduced by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The parties also called a 12-hour shutdown on February 8 in the jurisdiction of Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) to oppose the proposed bill that aims to recognise the illegal immigrants from across the border. The TTAADC was formed in 1987 under Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to protect and safeguard the political, economic and cultural interests of the tribals. The politically important council constitutes two third of Tripura's 10,491 sq. km area. "If the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, is passed in Parliament, the indigenous people in Tripura and other northeastern states would be affected," ATIRPF convenor Narendra Chandra Debbarma told reporters on Sunday evening. "Bangladeshi migrants through this proposed law would be settled in eastern and northeastern India depriving the original people of the region of basic rights," the tribal leader said. Tribals play a crucial role in Tripura as one-third of the 60 assembly seats in the state are reserved for the tribals and one out of two Lok Sabha seats is reserved for the tribals. The IPFT has been agitating for the creation of a separate state, carved out by upgrading the TTAADC area. Both the INPT and IPFT have been demanding more power to TTAADC, introduction of inner-line permit in Tripura to protect the tribals, recognition of tribal language Kokborok in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution and reservation of 50 per cent seats for the tribals in the 60-member Tripura Assembly. --IANS sc/lok/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kashmiri actress Zaira Wasim of "Dangal" fame on Monday posted on social media an apology for meeting J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti -- an action for which she had been subjected to vicious trolling -- but later withdrew the apologia after receiving unstinted support from well-wishers including Bollywood celebrities and leading politicians. After receiving accolade from the film industry and elsewhere for her work in "Dangal", the 16-year-old met Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday, who enquired about her education and interest in other creative fields like acting. However, the Srinagar-based Zaira was trolled on social media when photos from the meeting emerged. Without saying what she was sorry for, the actress took to social media on Monday to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris and posted that she does not want anyone to follow her footsteps or even consider her as a role model. But politicians like former J&K CM Omar Abdullah and film celebrities Javed Akhtar, Anupam Kher and Vivek Agnihotri came out in her support, lashing out at those who trolled her, questioning her 'azadi' (freedom) in the country. Abdullah posted: "A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise and that too allegedly for meeting Mehbooba Mufti. What are we coming to! I've a problem with Mehbooba Mufti trying to usurp other peoples success to cover up her own failures but why punish/troll people she meets?" Akhtar wondered whether Zaira had 'azadi' to do as she wished and tweeted: "Those who shout 'azadi' from the roof tops don't give an iota of azadi to others. Poor Zaira Waseem had to apologise for her success. Shame!" Anupam, too, expressed his support for the young actress, calling her his role model and posted: "Dear Zaira Wasim, your apology letter is sad but full of courage. It exposes the cowardice of people who made you write it. But you are my role model." Agnihotri also shared instances from his past and lashed out at individuals for not taking a stand in support of Zaira. Later, however, Zaira deleted the apology and posted a clarification -- but this, too, the actress took down later. The now-deleted clarification read: "Regarding my last post, I have no idea why this has become such a big issue. I just wanted to make sure that I did not hurt anyone's feelings and all of a sudden it has been turned into national news. Again and again I am telling people that I have not been forced into anything by anyone. "This post was not meant against anyone, just wanted to make sure that people were not hurt by what I was doing. From media to everyone else, please don't blow this out of proportion. Neither was I forced nor am I against anyone. Hopefully this post just stops this once and for all." Zaira rose to fame as young Geeta Phogat in the Aamir Khan blockbuster "Dangal" which has been lauded by the audiences for its powerful portrayal of the story of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who, much to the disapproval of his wife and his whole village, trained his daughters Geeta and Babita to wrestle. --IANS ks/sug/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China's Duan Yingying took her first win at the Australian Open on Monday, dispatching Slovakian Rebecca Sramkova 6-3, 6-4. "Before the match I watched the video of her playing, I expected that (it) would be a tough match," Duan told reporters, reports Xinhua news agency. "I am so happy that I made a breakhrough as this is the first time I won the first round in the Australian Open. It is just a beginning for me." Duan took an early break in the first set off an unforced error from the Slovakian qualifier. But Sramkova managed to break back. Continued unforced errors from the world No 120, 17 in the first set that put down to nerves in her first main draw match, was her undoing. "I was shaking when I came on court," Sramkova told Xinhua. "It was so strange to play against her because it was really fast, a really good serve. I didn't expect to play like this." Duan began the second set as she finished the first, breaking Sramkova's serve in the first point to begin putting the nail in the coffin, though lapse in concentration opened the door for the Australian Open main draw rookie. Sramkova calmed her nerves, fighting back to level the set 2-2 in a bid to deflate Duan and send the match to a third, but the world No 82 showed her experience and remain calm. The final point of the match saw Duan fight back from 15-40 down, taking two deuces to progress to round two. It's the first time Duan has won a match at the Australian Open since her first appearance in 2014, continuing her form in the back end of the 2016 season where she exited Wimbledon and the US Open in the second round. Duan will face world No 88, American Varvara Lepchenko in the second round. --IANS ajb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission on Monday issued notice to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for violating the model code of conduct by "deliberately and intentionally" instigating the public to take bribe for voting in Goa assembly elections. The poll panel has asked Kejriwal for a response by January 19, failing which action could be taken against him. In his all the four speeches at various rallies in Goa last weekend, Kejriwal had said that people should not just accept Rs 5,000, but demand Rs 10,000 from politicians keen on offering money, but vote for his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "If the Congress or BJP people offer money, don't say no to it. It is our own money, at least you are getting some of it back... But when it comes to pressing the EVM button, vote for AAP," he had said. The Commission said it has received a complaint from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging that Kejriwal on January 8 in Goa "deliberately and intentionally instigated the public to take bribe for voting and has thereby abetted the offence of bribery during the electoral process by making the statement". The notice issued by Secretary to the Election Commission Sumit Mukherjee read: "The Commission is prima-facie of the opinion that by making the aforesaid statement, you (Arvind Kejriwal) have violated the model code of conduct. "Therefore you are called upon to explain by 1 p.m. on January 19 as to why action should not be taken against you for violation of the Model Code of Conduct." According to the guidelines of model code of conduct, political parties and candidates need to avoid scrupulously all activities which are corrupt practices and offence under the election law. Goa goes to polls on February 4. --IANS am-mak-maya/nir/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sanitation employees of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on Monday called off their 12 day-long strike over non-payment of salaries. The development came after a meeting of the protesting municipal employees with EDMC Commissioner Mohanjeet Singh. "Salaries have been credited into our bank accounts and the EDMC commissioner also assured us of considering our other pending demands so we have decided to call off the strike," MCD Swachhta Karamchari Union President Sanjay Gehloth said. He added: "All the employees will return to work from tomorrow and the sanitation work along with lifting of the garbage will be done on a war footing." The EDMC employees went on strike on January 5 over non-payment of their salaries as they did not get the payment for over two months. The agitating employees have also been demanding the regularisation of sanitation employees who were appointed till 2013. Last week, the Delhi government had released Rs 119 crore to EDMC for payment of the salaries of the employees. --IANS am/pgh/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Monday reaffirmed the bloc's commitment to the Iran nuclear deal, days after Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of State claimed that he would recommend a "full review" of the landmark deal. The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), came into its first anniversary of implementation on Monday. Praising the deal as a key pillar of a strengthened international non-proliferation agenda, Mogherini said in a statement that "one year after the beginning of the implementation period, it is clear that the JCPOA is working for all." "The rigorous implementation of commitments by all sides is the best way to continue to build trust, to strengthen the JCPOA and to overcome the hurdles that are part of all comprehensive and far-reaching deals," she added. Rex Tillerson, US President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state, said in his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he would recommend a "full review" of the nuclear deal with Iran. The remarks prompted an angry response from Tehran. An Iranian diplomat on Friday said that his country would not allow any move to review the international nuclear deal, which has put an end to the disputes over Iran's decade-long nuclear issue. Donald Trump repeatedly criticized the Iran nuclear deal, calling it "the worst deal ever negotiated". He also suggested that he would force Iran to return to the negotiating table or risk the accord being dismantled. Iran and six world powers, including Russia, China, US, Britain, France and Germany, reached an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue in July 2015 that put Iran on the path of sanctions relief but more strict limits on its nuclear programme. The deal set limits on Iran's nuclear activities as it would take Tehran at least one year to produce enough fissile materials for producing a nuclear weapon, and it would also allow regular inspections of the facilities inside Iran. In return, the US and the European Union suspend nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran, with the lifting of all past UN Security Council sanction resolutions. --IANS ahm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) To combat the spread of fake news, Facebook is introducing new tools in Germany that would enable users to flag potentially false stories. According to a report in BBC on Sunday, the flagged stories will then be passed to third-party fact-checkers and if found to be unreliable, they will be marked in users' news feeds as "disputed". Since its announcement of features against fake news spread, this move is a first such major expansion by Facebook. "Last month we announced measures to tackle the challenge of fake news on Facebook," Facebook was quoted as saying in a German-language statement. Facebook has been widely criticised for its alleged role in spreading fake news that favoured the win of President-elect Donald Trump in the US-elections. "German government officials have expressed concern that misinformation on the internet could influence the country's parliamentary election this year," the report noted. In Germany, Facebook has been warned against the spread of fake news and asked to respect the country's defamation laws. Recently, Buzzfeed found that Facebook pages had published fake stories about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seeking re-election. Facebook users in Germany will now be able to select 'It's a fake news story' as an option when reporting another user's post. "They can then mark the post as fake news, let the other user know they think it is fake, or block that user. Facebook will send potentially fake stories to Correctiv, a German non-profit body of investigative journalists, to check the facts," the report added. To verify news on its platform, Facebook is already testing the system with some fact-checkers in the US. --IANS qd/sm/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Panorama Film Festival, which was inaugurated here on Monday evening, will pay special homage to late veteran actor Om Puri by screening five of his iconic films. "Ardh Satya", "Mirch Masala", "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro", "Sadgati" and "Dharavi" are among the titles which will be screened every day at 6 p.m. from January 17-21 as part of the festival. This is being done to commemorate the journey of his life as an actor. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore inaugurated the festival, and paid a tribute to Om Puri who died in Mumbai on January 6. Rathore narrated how when he spoke to a filmmaker about the actor, he was told that even when Om Puri had started out, he was very committed. "This filmmaker told me that he didn't eat food to play the role of a beggar for a small project -- he was so committed. It is a life lesson for everyone that commitment to one's work is very important," Rathore said. He also urged the public to watch the movies being shown at the gala, which is a public screening of all the films which were part of the 47th International Film Festival of India's Indian Panorama category. The film fest started on Monday and will conclude on January 27. Movie buffs can watch as many as 26 feature films and 21 non-feature titles at the fest, which is being held at the Siri Fort Auditorium II here and is organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals. The festival opened with Manipuri documentary film "Ima Sabitri", directed by Bobo Khuraijam and Hindi feature film "Pinky Beauty Parlour", directed by Akshay Singh. During the festival, some of the popular film titles to be played will include "Sairat", "Sultan", "Natsamrat", "Bajirao Mastani", "Airlift" and "Baahubali". The entry to the screenings is free and on first come first serve basis. --IANS rb/sug/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The art of storytelling through movies has undergone a change with time and technology, making it a simpler and democratic process, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said here on Monday. "The lines between commercial and art cinema are getting blurred. Filmmaking was once an expensive medium and a lot of funding had to be gathered. But today, some films are being made in very small budgets, the equipments needed have reduced and it has become easier. "With the kind of mobile phones that have come in the market, you can even make a film on that. In one way, filmmaking is becoming a simpler and democratic process," Rathore said at the inauguration of the Indian Panorama Film Festival here. He also spoke about the changes in content. "At one point, all films emphasised on values... That has also changed. Filmmakers now talk about how they showcase what is happening in the society. A lot of films being made today are based on reality... Sometime ago, Hollywood was making these kind of films on real life heroes. "Now they are being made in India too and it's no surprise that they are doing so well," said Rathore, who even paid a tribute to late actor Om Puri. The Indian Panorama Film Festival, which began on Monday, gives movie buffs here a chance to watch those films which were part of the 47th International Film Festival of India's Indian Panorama category. Rathore said the movies featured in the section always have an emotional appeal for a wide audience as they can relate them with their own culture, region and language. The gala, happening at the Siri Fort Auditorium Complex, will conclude on January 27. Movie buffs can watch as many as 26 feature films and 21 non-feature titles at the fest, which is organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals. --IANS rb/vd (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rome, Jan 16 (IANS/AKI) Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Monday held a meeting with Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, less than a week after he had emergency heart surgery block to unblock an artery. Gentiloni was discharged from Rome's Policlinico Gemelli hospital on Saturday after his angioplasty procedure and chaired a cabinet meeting in Rome the same day. Hospital doctors said Tuesday's operation had been a complete success and Gentiloni tweeted on Wednesday that he felt "very well". The 62-year-old premier was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday after he complained of discomfort on his return to Rome from an official visit to Paris. --IANS/AKI mr/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Berlin has mounted a staunch defence of its policies after US President-elect Donald Trump criticised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her stance during the refugee crisis and threatened a 35 per cent tariff on BMW cars imported into the US, the Guardian reported. "The increase in the number of people fleeing the Middle East to seek asylum in Europe had partially been a result of US-led wars destabilising the region," said Germany's Deputy Chancellor and Minister for the Economy Sigmar Gabriel on Monday in response to Trump's comments on Merkel's refugee crisis stance. Trump had said that Merkel had made an "utterly catastrophic mistake by letting all illegal migrants into the country". "There is a link between America's flawed interventionist policy, especially the Iraq war, and the refugee crisis, that's why my advice would be that we shouldn't tell each other what we have done right or wrong, but that we look into establishing peace in that region and do everything to make sure people can find a home there again," Gabriel said. Gabriel, leader of the centre-left Social Democratic party, was quoted by the Guardian as telling German daily Bild on Monday that a tax on German imports would lead to a "bad awakening" among US carmakers. "I believe BMW's biggest factory is already in the US, in Spartanburg (South Carolina)... The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren't being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35 per cent tariff," he said. "I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and, above all, more expensive. I would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump," he said. In an interview with Bild and the Times, the US President-elect had indicated that he would aim to realign the "out of balance" car trade between Germany and the US. "If you go down Fifth Avenue everyone has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isn't that the case," he said. "How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all... it's a one-way street." Asked what Trump could do to make sure German customers bought more American cars, Gabriel said: "Build better cars." Gabriel, who is expected to run as the centre-left candidate against Angela Merkel at Germany's federal elections in September, said Trump's election should encourage Europeans to stand up for themselves. --IANS soni/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Yami Gautam, who is sharing screen space with superstar Hrithik Roshan in the forthcoming film "Kaabil", said he is one of the most hardworking and selfless actors she has ever worked with. Talking about her experience of working with Hrithik, Yami told IANS here: "He (Hrithik) is such a selfless actor. We actors always work hard for our good performance, but he is concerned about the whole scene, including the performance of his co-actors, dancers and everyone. "There were scenes where he would give a retake even though he was perfect, but I wanted to improvise something. He is an actor and works for the totality of the scene." According to Yami, Hrithik -- who is known for his good looks and larger than life personality -- is otherwise a very humble person. "Whether it is on set or off the camera, he never made you feel that he is a star. He is a happy-go-lucky person and on set, he is an actor. That's why I call him a truly inspirational personality," Yami said. After doing films in Punjabi, Kannada and Telugu film industries, Yami made her debut in Bollywod with Shoojit Sircar's "Vicky Donor" opposite Ayushmann Khurrana in 2012, and has since featured in films like "Total Siyapaa", "Badlapur", "Junooniyat" and "Sanam Re". "My career is a journey for me, and any journey is incomplete without struggle. We all should face some failures in life and learn from them. We should accept it and move on. I am proud of it," she said. The actress thanks her parents for helping her to be grounded. "They helped me to learn that like success, failure also comes and I should learn to accept it." Directed by Sanjay Gupta, "Kaabil" is releasing on January 25. --IANS aru/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Aggarwal on Monday said that he supported his party forming an alliance with the Congress for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Speaking to news channel Times Now, Aggarwal expressed happiness that the party faction led by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav got the 'cycle' symbol, and said that "I am in favour of poll alliance with the Congress. "This is to be decided by the Chief Minister and I also support it," he said. Aggarwal said that in a country like India when a son progresses, the father feels proud. "I would request Netaji (Mulayam Singh) to bless his son," he said, adding that "BJP agents" created problems for the party. --IANS sk/lok/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Missile frigate INS Betwa, which tipped over while undocking on December 5 last year, is likely to be set upright in another two months as the Indian Navy on Monday signed a contract with a marine salvage firm for 'righting' the boat. According to sources, the contract was signed on Monday with Resolve Marine, which is also the firm that salvaged submarine Sindhurakshak which suffered an explosion and sank on August 14, 2013 killing 18 crew members. Sources said the cost of getting the boat upright will be less than Rs 20 crore, and is likely to take around two months. "The work will be done in a fast-track manner. It will take around four weeks to mobilise the resources, and another four weeks for righting the boat," a navy official said. Once the boat is uprighted, it will be handed over to the Indian Navy for further repairs and rectifications. The 3,800 tonne Brahmaputra-Class frigate was undergoing a refit at the dry dock and slipped while it was being undocked, killing two naval personnel and injuring 14 others. Water has already been drained out of the dock where it toppled over. --IANS ao/lok/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Japan and the US on Monday signed an agreement to limit legal protection for American civilians working at US military bases in Japan. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on Monday signed the supplementary accord of the Status of Forces Agreement, public broadcaster NHK reported. The agreement gives the US primary jurisdiction over civilian employees who are accused of crimes while on duty. Under the supplementary accord, the definition of civilian worker is restricted to eight categories. It includes people hired to operate military vessels, Red Cross Society workers, and other providers of health and welfare services to the military. The accord also introduces qualification criteria for employees of companies that have contracts with the military. It will effectively reduce the number of those workers covered by the accord to people who perform jobs that are essential for military missions and who have advanced skills and knowledge. The revision follows a case last year in which authorities indicted a civilian base worker for killing a 20-year-old Japanese woman in Okinawa Prefecture. Kishida said he expects the accord will boost US military supervision of civilian workers and help prevent crimes. The revision took immediate effect. --IANS ksk/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Japanese whaling boat was allegedly caught operating illegally in Australian waters, officials said on Monday. The Nisshin Maru was caught between Tasmania and Antarctica with a dead whale on board by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) helicopter, Xinhua news agency reported. The group released images taken by the helicopter of the vessel with a dead protected minke whale on board and two harpoon ships nearby. Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said the Australian government was "deeply disappointed" that Japan had resumed whaling. In a statement issued on Monday Frydenberg said that Australia was "opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called 'scientific' whaling". "It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," he said. "We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation." Jeff Hansen, a member of Sea Shepherd, said that crew on board the Nisshin Maru quickly covered the whale with a tarpaulin once they spotted the helicopter. "They're hit with an explosive harpoon that goes straight into their body, hooks come out and shrapnel is sent through their body, it's a terrible bloody death... these whales can take up to 30 or 40 minutes to die," Hansen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "A soon as the whaling fleet saw that Sea Shepherd on the scene, they were scrambling to cover up their illegal operations, they were covering up their harpoons." --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar and Bollywood director Vivek Agnihotri expressed their disappointment with individuals for trolling Kashmiri actress Zaira Wasim for meeting state Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, and they even questioned the ideology of 'azadi' (freedom) in India. After receiving accolades from the film industry and elsewhere for her performance in "Dangal", the 16-year-old met Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday, who enquired about her education and interest in other creative fields like acting. However, the Srinagar-based Zaira was trolled on social media when photos from the meeting emerged. She took to social media on Monday to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris. Akhtar and Agnihotri came forward to express their anger on social media about the same. Akhtar tweeted: "Those who shout 'azadi' from the roof tops don't give an iota of azadi to others. Poor Zaira Waseem had to apologise for her success. Shame!" Agnihotri also shared instances from his past and lashed out at individuals for not taking a stand for Zaira. "Last year, I was shooting with Yami Gautam and other Kashmiri girls in the valley, they came armed to kill those girls. This is the reality of Kashmir," Agnihotri posted. He added: "I haven't seen Barkha Dutt and other liberals ever raise voice against the suppression of Kashmiri girls who aren't allowed to work. So much talent in Kashmir but suppressed by separatist or terrorists. Why didn't any feminist ever raise voice?" A Twitter user questioned Agnihotri about why Bollywood celebrities did not say anything and support Zaira. Agnihotri responded: "When I raised this issue after being almost killed by such men, no one spoke up. People who shoot in Kashmir also don't raise the issue. Sad." --IANS ks/sug/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A police officer was arrested for allegedly raping a mentally challenged woman in Karnataka's Tumakuru town, officials said on Monday. "The accused, Assistant Sub-Inspector Umesh, 54, has been suspended and arrested after the victim's mother filed a complaint on Sunday evening," Tumakuru Superintendent of Police (SP) Isha Pant told IANS. The jeep driver, Ishwarappa, 32, was also arrested for abetting the crime. "The two accused will be produced on Monday in a local court for judicial custody and interrogation to complete the investigation soon for filing the charge-sheet," said Pant. The incident occurred on Saturday night around 11 p.m. when the 30-year-old victim was alone on the deserted road and Umesh spotted her while patrolling on a motorbike with a Home Guard. On the pretext of escorting the victim to her home, Umesh sent away the guard to the police station and asked Ishwarappa to help him take her home. "On the way to the victim's home, Umesh allegedly sexually assaulted her," Pant recalled. "Though the victim was married, she had been staying at her mother's house as she was mentally unsound and often ventured out even at odd hours to walk around." --IANS fb/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's former Principal Secretary has blamed former Lt Governor Najeeb Jung for his arrest for alleged corruption. Using polite language, Rajendra Kumar said in a blog post that it was Jung who was responsible for his arrest by the CBI on July 4, 2016 and his 23 days in custody. "You spoke to a senior officer of CBI and sought his help to educate me," Kumar wrote, repeatedly using words like 'education' and 'reform' as a synonym for interrogation and harassment. "He (CBI officer) was not wise and he politely excused himself. After sometime he retired. "But your desire to help and reform me continued. You later met a top officer of (Home Ministry) and a top officer of CBI and stressed upon them the urgent national interest issue of helping and educating me. "You have extraordinary oratory skills and they got convinced. Then my education started. "People visited my house and my office and I was called many times to the country's premier educational and transformational institution. Umpteen number of other people were also called for that education. Some were given special lessons," Kumar said. "With your kindness and consistent follow-up, I was admitted to full boarding of that premier institution for a few days and I was also admitted full-time to another world class correctional institution for some time. "But I could not be educated. Some people are born dumb. I admit I am one of them. "All along your concern in my education forced you to keep in touch with the educators of all levels at these two educational institutions. You tried your best," Kumar said. A 1989 batch IAS officer, Kumar was accused of abusing his official position in awarding Delhi government contracts to private firms during 2007-14 when the Congress ruled Delhi. He has denied the charges. Earlier this month, Kumar sought voluntary retirement from service and alleged that the CBI pressured him to implicate Kejriwal in his alleged wrongdoing. Kumar said Jung, shortly after becoming the Lt Governor, sought the personal file of a then Vice Chancellor of a Delhi government university. "After you saw the file, you called me again and asked me to find out the misconducts of that Vice Chancellor. I ... concluded there were none. You were unhappy. "I later found out that this Vice Chancellor has been forced to proceed on long leave. He could join back only a few days before his retirement." Kumar said Jung -- who quit in December -- falsely accused him of being pro-AAP and awarded him "my first show-cause notice in my career for reaching five minutes late to one of your meetings". Kumar said: "You narrated stories of your attempts to educate me to many other persons of my fraternity and assured them of similar special sessions like mine if they remained dumb like me. "They were not blessed enough to get your very special attention, which you bestowed on me." --IANS mr/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The budget session of the Jharkhand assembly beginning from Tuesday is likely to be stormy as the opposition parties are gearing up to raise several issues like land acts amendments and mining leases. The winter session of the state assembly was washed away by protests over the move of Chief Minister Raghubar Das's government to amend two land acts -- Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act (CNT) and Santhal Pargana Act (SPT). The amendments were passed by voice vote without discussion amid ruccus during the assembly session despite stiff resistance from opposition parties. The amendments to both the acts now facilitate use of agriculture land for non-agricultural purposes, including infrastructre. The budget session is set to start from January 17, and the main opposition parties have made it clear that they would not leave the two land act amendments untouched in the session. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) terms it "a closed chapter" but opposition is not in a mood to let the issue die. "The issue of amendments to CNT and SPT acts is not over. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) will not backtrack from the issue. Besides, there are other issues which will be raised during the budget session," JMM Executive President Hemant Soren told reporters. "The worsening law and order situation, false claim of making panchayats cashless are issues which will be raised as well," the former Chief Minister who is Leader of opposition in the assembly added. The Congress too has said that it will raise the issues of the land act amendments as well as the renewal of mining leases. "The demonetisation impact, law and order situation and other issues will also be raised," Jharkhand Congress President and legislator Sukhdev Bhagat told the reporters. According to BJP legislator Radha Krishna Kishore, the issue of CNT and SPT acts' amendments is over. He said: "The amendments were passed during winter session and they have been sent to the central government for clearance. The opposition should cooperate in running the budget session and should not repeat what happened in two last sessions of the assembly." --IANS ns/sm/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rome, Jan 16 (IANS/AKI) The world's largest glasses maker Luxottica has agreed to a 46 billion euro merger with rival French eye wear firm Essilor to create a global colossus with revenues of more than 15 billion euros, the firms said on Monday. Luxottica and Essilor shares jumped on the news of a combined company that will make both frames and lenses employing 140,000 employees with sales in more than 150 countries. Luxottica's 81-year-old founder and executive chairman Leonardo Del Vecchio said he had realised a "dream" with the tie-up with Essilor. "With this agreement my dream to create a major global player in the eyewear industry, fully integrated and excellent in all its parts, comes true. "Finally ... two products which are naturally complementary - namely frames and lenses - will be designed, manufactured and distributed under the same roof," Del Vecchio said. One of Europe's largest cross-border mergers, the deal merges Italian eyewear designer Luxottica, which owns Ray-Ban and Oakley, with Essilor, the world's leading manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses. "By joining forces today, these two international players can now accelerate their global expansion to the benefit of customers, employees and shareholders as well as the industry as a whole," said Essilor's chairman and CEO Hubert Sagnieres. Under the deal, Luxottica's main shareholder Delfin will be be the largest stakeholder in the new eyewear giant to be called EssilorLuxottica, Luxottica and Essilor said in a joint statement. The deal will also help to offer a succession plan for Del Vecchio, an issue that weighed on the firm's share price, which has dropped 14 percent in the past year. An orphan who became Italy's richest man, he founded Luxottica in 1961 and drove its growth through a series of acquisitions. Since 2014 he has boosted investments to expand the company's retail network and increased its lens manufacturing business. --IANS/AKI mr/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of people on Monday took to the streets in Madurai's Alanganallur town in Tamil Nadu protesting a ban against Jallikattu, the ancient and popular bull-taming sport. The protestors including men and women, have assembled in the town well known for conducting Jallikattu. A large contingent of police personnel have been deployed at the venue to prevent any untoward incidents. In Jallikattu, a bull vaulter is expected to hang on to the bull's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The Supreme Court in May 2014 banned the conduct of Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The court also held that bulls cannot be used as performing animals either for Jallikattu events or for bullock cart races in the Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. Ever since the ban order people have been demanding the central government take necessary legal steps to conduct the sport. --IANS vj/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thousands of people on Monday took to the streets in Madurai's Alanganallur town in Tamil Nadu protesting a ban against Jallikattu, the ancient and popular bull-taming sport that marks the Makar Sankranthi celebrations. The protesters, including both men and women, have assembled in the town well known for conducting Jallikattu. A large contingent of police personnel has been deployed in the town to prevent any violent incidents. Meanwhile, Jallikattu was held defying then Supreme Court's ban on it in Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu. In some places, rekla or bullock-cart races were held. However, as Jallikattu was not allowed to be held, people hoisted black flags on their homes and shops remained closed at Alanganallur. This time the sport was held in places traditionally not associated with Jallikattu so as to avoid the police preventing it. Speaking to reporters here, Union Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan said the event should not be seen as defying the Supreme Court order but as an expression of people's feelings. He said organisations like PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) will submit the pictures taken on Monday to the Supreme Court and demand a ban on it. Radharkrishnan felt that the apex court should not take into consideration such pictures as it is just a protest and nothing more. In Jallikattu, a bull vaulter is expected to hang on to the bull's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The Supreme Court in May 2014 banned the conduct of Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The court also held that bulls cannot be used as performing animals either for Jallikattu events or for bullock-cart races in the Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. Ever since the ban order, people have been demanding that the central government take necessary legal steps to allow conduct of the sport. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on January 9 urged the central government to promulgate an ordinance enabling the conduct of Jallikattu/bull-taming sport during the Pongal festival. But that did not happen, and led to protest demonstrations at several places across Tamil Nadu, culminating in a massive protest at Alanganallur. --IANS vj/sm/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the next of kin of each of the six women who died in a stampede in West Bengal. "Saddened by the loss of lives caused by stampede in West Bengal. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased," Modi said. He announced Rs 50,000 for those injured in the stampede. Six pilgrims suffocated to death during a mad rush to board a vessel from the crowded jetty on their way home from the Gangasagar fair on Sunday after taking the holy dip. --IANS rs/ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Natalie Portman says she is "not interested" in watching movies without women in strong roles. The "Black Swan" star is disappointed that there is a lack of movies in Hollywood that feature women in leading roles. As an audience member, she finds it is "really hard" to watch any films which don't feature many women, reports femalefirst.co.uk. "I don't have a problem with that point of view because it is a totally legitimate point of view - I'm glad to get insight into how straight white male minds work. It's just that we're not having other points of view," Portman told Culture magazine. "As a female audience member, it's really hard for me to watch these movies where women don't exist. There are so many movies where it's literally 20 men and no female character, or there's a female character who's, like, the wife on the phone. I'm kind of not interested in watching it," she added. However, the 35-year-old appreciates that "desire is the language of cinema" and because of the uneven ratio of men to women filmmakers, it causes an imbalance of the stories shared. "It's hard because desire is the language of cinema. And because it's been so male-dominated, the story of cinema is male desire and a female object of desire. "I don't necessarily have a problem with that, it's just that we don't have the counter, we don't have the expression of female desire. We become the object of desire, not the subject of desire. Women have been made to feel guilty or bad for desiring food, or sex, or power," Portman said. --IANS ks/rb (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Navy chief Sunil Lanba on Monday visited the National Cadet Corps (NCC) Camp here and reviewed a 'Guard of Honour' presented by the cadets in the run-up to Republic Day. Admiral Lanba reviewed the ceremony presented by the cadets drawn from all the three wings of NCC -- Army, Navy and Air Force, followed by a band display. "The Chief of Naval Staff also inspected the well laid out flag areas prepared by the NCC cadets from all the 17 NCC Directorates depicting various social awareness themes," NCC said in a statement. Speaking on the occasion, Lanba praised NCC as an organisation which is "single-mindedly engaged in grooming nation's future leaders and empowering them to don the mantle of country's leadership as well as excel in all walks of life". The Navy chief also encouraged the NCC Cadets to join the armed forces and serve the country. -- IANS vn/sm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai: There are about 12 million to 14 million kirana shops -- family-run corner-shops/mom-and-pop or convenience stores selling groceries and other products -- across India (according to a 2015 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, with India Retail Forum), and they are vulnerable to losses from 'notebandi -- as demonetisation is called colloquially. A population, roughly speaking, equivalent to that of France or Thailand, depends on these stores for a living. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an address to the nation six days after the original notebandi announcement, requested 50 days (up to December 30, 2016) to restore normalcy. On days 54 and 55, IndiaSpend visited 24 mom-and-pop shops in Mumbai and semi-urban, peri-urban and rural areas north to it, to assess notebandi's impact on small retail stores. We found that across Palghar, Thane and Mumbai districts of the Mumbai metropolitan region: * Nearly 80 per cent of all respondents reported losses between 50 per cent and 60 per cent or greater. * Less than 38 per cent of all stores -- predominantly located in urban areas -- have adapted to point-of-sale (PoS) machines or mobile-wallets, while kirana shops in rural parts still depend only on cash. * Half of those we surveyed supported notebandi, while a greater proportion (58 per cent) continues to view Modi favourably. The retail trade has been one of India's economic and employment bright spots, and Mumbai is its hub. The Mumbai metropolitan region is home to 18.3 million people, the world's sixth largest urban agglomeration, according to a 2016 Demographia World Urban Areas report. These 18.3 million make up no more than 1.5 per cent of India's 1.2 billion people, but they account for almost a third (29 per cent) of India's retail spending, followed by the National Capital Region (25 per cent) and Bengaluru (15 per cent), according to a 2015 report by international property consultants Knight Frank with the Retailers Association of India. India's retail market is presently over $600 billion. Expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 5.8 per cent, it is regarded as the "world's fastest growing major developing retail market", ranking 15 on the Global Retail Development Index, in a 2015 A.T. Kearney report. The retail sector employs 8 per cent, or 35 million Indians and is the country's third largest source of employment after agriculture and construction, with deep penetration into rural India, said a 2013 Planning Commission report. It contributes to about 15 per cent of the gross domestic product and unorganised kirana stores comprise 94 per cent of the industry. Food and groceries occupy more than half the sector, according to a 2014 Deloitte study. The Mumbai metropolitan region also has the highest potential for modern retail in India, with its reach predicted to increase to 50 per cent (presently 13.5 per cent) of the population by 2036, particularly for daily-needs supermarkets, Knight Frank said. "Business is now slowly recovering" was the conclusion of 60 per cent of respondents in Mumbai district and its peripheral areas of Ghodbunder and Mira-Bhayander of Thane district. As many as 75 per cent of respondents in the semi-urban and peri-urban areas between Virar and Vasai in Palghar district said there was no significant improvement. Kirana shops we visited in the rural areas of Thane and Palghar districts said business had fallen after notebandi and has been sluggish ever since. Store-owners across the board identified tendering change to customers for the new Rs 2,000 notes as their primary hurdle post-notebandi. With no other means to do business, all shopkeepers said they were still extending credit lines to regular customers, affecting their own ability to tide over the initial distress caused by notebandi. Going cashless: Urban kirana shops reluctant; rural ones clueless Responding to the government's call to go cashless, in urban and semi-urban areas, 8 per cent of shopkeepers admitted to accepting cheques, only from regular customers. Nearly 17 per cent said they now used PoS machines in their stores, while 21 per cent said they had or will apply to banks for the device. Of the 20 per cent of stores that have opened mobile-wallets, all reported that customers were reluctant to use them. In rural Thane and Palghar, IndiaSpend found that none of the kirana store owners surveyed owned or intended to own a PoS device or mobile wallet. In 50 per cent of the interviews, respondents had never heard of these cashless modes. After being told how these worked, kirana owners dismissed the technology. Among all store owners interviewed, we found nearly 60 per cent shared the same view: That either their stores were too small and the purchases made of too little value for mobile wallets and PoS machines, or their customers, like the store-owners, were not educated enough to go cashless-or both. All 24 respondents further admitted that while, over the past few years, mom-and-pop stores were already losing significant business to modern retail shops, such as supermarket chains, the trend has accelerated since notebandi. Indicative of the flip-flops in policy post-demonetisation, the Reserve Bank of India issued 74 notifications in 50 days according to a December 2016 report in The Indian Express. Does organised retail going cashless? By 2020, India's retail market is expected to more than double its current size to reach $1.3 trillion, according to the 2015 A.T. Kearney report. Organised retail means trading activities that are undertaken by licensed retailers who pay taxes, whether sales tax, income tax, VAT, and now, the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Unorganised retailing, on the other hand, refers to the traditional formats of low-cost retailing -- for example, the family-run kirana store, paan/beedi shops, convenience stores, hand cart and pavement vendors, who do not issue any or proper receipts for transactions and do not pay taxes. A mainstay of India's retail trade for centuries, these small shops are more sources of livelihood and a refuge for the educated unemployed and underemployed, said a 2014 research paper from Pondicherry University. They are rarely larger than 500 sq ft, their costs are low and margins slender, they pay few taxes and know their customers, said the study. The GST could change this, said a financial-inclusion expert, requesting anonymity, from an international private foundation, which also funds an Indian digital-inclusion programme, if the supply chain is encouraged to do away with informal receipts. "So, a retailer can accept cash payments despite being organised," said this expert. "The mode of payment accepted by a retailer has nothing to do with the retailer being unorganised or organised." Despite losses, majority still support Modi & notebandi Traditionally, small traders and family-run kirana stores form a core vote-bank for Mod''s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although notebandi has brought adversity, half the shopkeepers we surveyed across urban, semi-urban and rural areas expressed their support for demonetisation. They believed their hardship was a by-product of""punishing the guilty ric"", a sacrifice for the good for the nation. (In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Alison Saldanha is an assistant editor. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)--IANS/IndiaSpend alison/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Outgoing US President Barack Obama in an interview to CBS on "60 Minutes" programme said that he doesn't think Donald Trump's "improvisational" campaign style will work well at the White House level, and warned Americans to not "underestimate the guy". Obama, in his final interview as the US President, said on Sunday that he told Trump, and would advise Republicans in Congress and voters, "just to make sure that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place." "It had been an 'unusual' transition," said Obama, adding, "I suspect the President-elect would agree with that". Obama said that Trump is in the process of building up an organisation that will support his presidency. "We'll have to see how that works," Obama told "60 Minutes" Steve Kroft. "It will be a test, I think, for him and the people he's designated to be able to execute on his vision." "We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites... There's a power in that. There's also a danger -- what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem," Obama said. The outgoing President said "thick skin" and "stamina" are important qualities to have when serving as the Commander-in-Chief, adding that he believes he is the same person today as he was at the beginning of his tenure. Obama said "thick skin helps" in getting the complex presidential job done. He also recommended that a US President has to be physically strong enough and must not get distracted by critics in the government and the media. "I think your ability to -- not just mentally and emotionally but physically be able to say, 'We got this. We're going to be okay'," is important, said Obama. Obama also said that he is proud that his basic character and outlook did not change during his tenure. "...People who are closest to me will tell you that -- the guy who came here is the same guy who's leaving," he said of himself. Obama also said he had been "disturbed" about intelligence reports over Russia hacking the US election. "I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the US government," Obama said. "I think that's something new, and I think it's a measure of how the partisan divide has gotten so severe that people forget that we're on the same team," he said. Reflecting on his own presidency, Obama said while he was effective "in shaping public opinion" around his two successful presidential bids, he "lost the PR battle" in building support around some of his administration's policy initiatives. "There were big stretches, while governing, where even though we were doing the right thing, we weren't able to mobilize public opinion firmly enough behind us to weaken the resolve of the Republicans to stop opposing us or to cooperate with us," Obama said. --IANS soni/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ten prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba have been released and will "temporarily reside" in Oman, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday. Oman received them at the request of the US government, The Times of Oman quoted a senior official as saying. The official said the prisoners were pardoned considering their humanitarian conditions and by the directives of Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said. In 2016 Oman accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen while in 2015 it took in another six. --IANS ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Pakistan Senate on Monday unanimously passed a resolution that condemns Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for attributing terrorism to Pakistan at various international forums, including the BRICS Summit held in Goa last year. The resolution was moved by Pakistan Peoples Party member Sehar Kamran, who appreciated the international community for its reaction to "this baseless propaganda by the Indian Prime Minister," Radio Pakistan reported. Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the BRICS forum in October to keep up his attack on Pakistan. He described it as the "mother ship" of terrorism that posed a direct threat to the "eco prosperity" of the South Asian region. "Tragically, its (terrorism) mother ship is a country in India's neighbourhood," Modi said. The resolution said: "The statement made by the Indian PM was an effort to divert the attention of the International Community from the its atrocities against the people of Occupied Kashmir." The Pakistan Senate resolution reiterated that there will be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and resolved to fight against terrorism and contribute towards bringing peace and harmony in the world. Speaking in the upper house of Pakistan's Parliament, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan will continue political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for right to self-determination. The minister said India was making "failed attempts to link the Kashmir freedom movement with cross-border infiltration and terrorism". He said India's campaign has failed at the diplomatic fronts. Asif said India was also afraid of Pakistan's success in the fight against terrorism, which has been recognised by the world and international organisations. --IANS ahm/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday said the country's armed forces would respond with full force if India tried to carry out any surgical strikes inside Pakistan. This comes days after Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat said that "surgical strikes in Pakistan can not be ruled out". Khawaja Asif, in a fiery speech, said: "If India dared to carry out surgical strikes inside Pakistan, a befitting response would be meted out." He also said that India's past claims of surgical strikes were found to be "baseless and false". Asif claimed that the Kashmiri struggle for freedom, India's internal political compulsion, and its avoidance of composite dialogue were among the reasons behind its ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and International Border. He informed the Senate that India had carried out 330 ceasefire violations -- 290 along the LoC and 40 along the IB -- until December 2016, in which 45 civilians were killed and 138 others injured. The frequency of violations had declined after December, he said. Asif told the Senate that the violations had been reported to the UN Military Observers Group and the UN had been apprised for the purpose of investigations. --IANS ahm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Joseph Votel and Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday pledged to support "inclusive reconciliation" in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The CENTCOM chief, who arrived in Pakistan for a visit, discussed matters of mutual professional interest with special focus on security situation in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army said in a statement. "Pakistan supports and looks forward to an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process," General Bajwa told the US commander. With reference to recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and follow up rhetoric from certain factions implicating Pakistan, he said that blame game was detrimental to enduring peace and stability. "The army chief highlighted that Pakistan has undertaken operations against terrorists of all hue and colour and there are no safe havens inside Pakistan to be used against Afghanistan," said the statement. The Pakistani General was referring to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's statement that stated: "Those who recently launched attacks in Afghanistan lived, were recruited and operated freely in Pakistan and no action was taken against them." General Bajwa expressed his commitment to work in close coordination with Afghanistan and US's Resolute Support Mission for improved security environment in Pakistan-Afghan border region. In this regard, he emphasised requirement of Pakistan-Afghan bilateral border security and intelligence sharing mechanisms, statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations said. Bajwa also highlighted the importance of Pakistan accords to its relations with the US, particularly cooperation in counter- and regional stability. General Votel acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army's successes in fight against and continued efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region. He supported the views of the Pakistan Army chief on inclusive reconciliation in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The US General laid a floral wreath at "Yadgar-e-Shuhada" (martyrs monument) to pay homage to martyrs of the anti-terror war. --IANS ahm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Fire Minister Sovan Chatterjee on Monday described the tweets by the Prime Minister's Office on the accidental death of six women in West Bengal's Gangasagar as "unfortunate". Chatterjee, also the Kolkata Mayor, said such comments by the PMO "go against the federal structure". "There were no incidents of stampede in Gangasagar yesterday (Sunday). PMO's tweet mentioning the stampede is very unfortunate and it goes against the federal structure," Chatterjee said. The Trinamool Congress leader also said a responsible entity like the central government or the PMO should comment on a state issue only after seeking a proper report from the state government. "We don't have any information about any central government representatives being present at the accident spot," he said. "If the central government or the PMO had any queries about the incident they should have sought the proper report from the state government. Commenting without the proper knowledge of what has happened is unfortunate and illegitimate," he added. Six pilgrims, all women, died due to suffocation during a mad rush by people to board a vessel at Kachuberia on their way home from Gangasagar fair after taking a holy dip on Sunday. In a series of tweets on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his grief for the loss of lives caused by the "stampede" in Gangasagar and announced Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund. "Saddened by the loss of lives caused by a stampede in West Bengal.approved ex-gratia from PMNRF, of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured in the stampede in West Bengal," he said. --IANS mgr/ssp/pgh/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Raees" makers will be releasing its original sound track separately in the music album. The film's director Rahul Dholakia says the source of inspiration was the "Sholay" album. "I was a kid when 'Sholay' released, but I do remember listening to Gabbar's theme and the iconic dialogues on radio. So, when the idea came up about the original sound track (OST) I was most excited," Dholakia said in a statement. He added: "We have some killer themes and extremely punchy dialogues - imagine the combination of both! That would be really cool as no one has done it before, and we have the substance so why not?" The makers decided on coming out with OST when the trailer of the film had a complete commercial touch with a foot tapping background score. Set against the backdrop of the prohibition in Gujarat, "Raees" touches upon the way the alcohol industry crumbled and several illegal activities followed. Its trailer gives a glimpse of the story backed by heavy duty action sequences, and many thrilling moments. In the film, superstar Shah Rukh Khan essays the title role of Raees, a bootlegger. It also marks Pakistani actress Mahira Khan's foray into Bollywood. Also starring Nawazzuddin Siddiqui, it is slated to release on January 25. --IANS sug/ks/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress Vice President on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Gandhi scion said the central bank was not given due importance while implementing demonetisation. Speaking at 'Vijay Sankalp' convention of party workers here in Rishikesh, Gandhi alleged: "The RBI governor got a letter a day before that PM Modi took the decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. The soul of the financial RBI, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was killed in a minute. Now, only one person will run the country." The employee unions of the RBI last week on Friday had expressed their deep concern over alleged interference by the central government in the affairs of the apex bank by appointing its officer to oversee chest currency operations in view of demonetisation. Referring to the recent controversy over the Khadi and Village Industries Commission's (KVIC) decision to replace Modi with Mahatma Gandhi on its calendars and diaries, the Congress leader said Modi wanted to run the country on his own by suppressing everyone's voice. "PM Modi does everything that happens nowadays. Next year, you will not find Lord Ram in Ramleela but Modi instead. Lord Ram will appear in Ramleela sporting Modi's mask. Such kind of Ramleela will happen across the country," the Congress Vice President said. "He (Modi) wants one-man rule in the country. He wants others to vanish, their voice to fall silent, and people should listen to his Mann Ki Baat only. However, one cannot govern this way," he added. He further alleged that Modi worked for industrialists. "A suit of Rs 15 lakh and spinning wheel -- there is a contradiction. Spinning wheel represents poor people, weaker section, which connect them with economic progress. On one hand, Modi clicks photo with a spinning wheel while on another, he works for top 50 industrialists," Gandhi said. "PM Modi always talks of the poor but have you seen him clicked with any poor, its only the rich and powerful who are seen by his side in frames," he told the gathering. He also took on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and said while brave soldiers of the Indian Army were sacrificing their lives, the RSS and BJP refuse to salute the tricolour. The Congress leader alleged that RSS had never unfurled flag 'Tiranga' at its headquarter in Nagpur in 52 years "The BJP and the RSS still salute a 'bhagwa' (saffron) flag," he added. Former leader of South Korea's biggest opposition party beat former UN chief in a recent presidential poll though the latter's return to his home country boosted hopes among conservative voters, a local survey showed on Monday. Moon Jae-in, former chief of Minjoo Party, won an approval rating of 26.1 per cent last week, according to a Realmeter survey of 2,526 voters conducted from January 9 to 13, Xinhua news agency reported. It was down 0.7 percentage points from a week ago, but support for Moon topped approval scores garnered by former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who returned to his home country, South Korea, last week. Support for Ban rose 0.7 percentage points over the week to 22.2 per cent as Ban has been seen as the best hope in the conservative camp, which fell with the presidential scandal emerging. Ban's daily approval scores gained from 23.3 per cent on Thursday, the very day of his comeback, to 25.3 per cent on Friday. It remains to be seen whether this upward trend will continue as the verification process of Ban as next leader was already launched. Lee Jae-myung, mayor of Seongnam city to the southeast of Seoul who is affiliated with the Minjoo Party, ranked third with a support rate of 11.7 percent. It was followed by Ahn Cheol-soo, former head of the minor opposition People's Party who garnered an approval rating of 7.0 per cent last week. It was up 0.5 percentage points from the previous week. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Korea's state-run pension fund chief was indicted on Monday, a special prosecutor's team said, in a widening probe into an influence-peddling scandal that has led to President Park Geun-hye's impeachment. Moon Hyung-pyo, chief of the National Pension Service (NPS), has been charged for abuse of power for allegedly pressuring the state fund to back a major merger deal between Samsung subsidiaries on behalf of the presidential office when he was Health Minister in 2015, Yonhap News Agency reported. Moon, who served as the minister from December 2013 to August 2015, became the first suspect to be indicted by the special investigation team looking into the scandal. He was formally arrested last month. There have been suspicions that the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae pressured the state fund -- which held an 11.6 per cent stake in Samsung C&T Corp. and a 5 per cent stake in Cheil Industries Inc. -- to support the conglomerate in return for favours Samsung gave to Choi Soon-sil, the president's close friend. Lee Kyu-chul, the team's spokesman, earlier said Moon, who had denied exerting influence in the pension fund's decision at a parliamentary hearing, reversed his statement during the interrogation. He was also charged with perjury. Investigators are now looking into whether President Park was directly involved in the process, which they think could constitute bribery. --IANS ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AThe Supreme Court on Monday allowed a Mumbai-based woman with 24-week-old-foetus to undergo medical termination of pregnancy as its continuation could endanger her life. Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L. Nageswara Rao allowed the termination after a board of seven doctors said there was no chance of the foetus with an undeveloped skull surviving outside the uterus. The medical board which examined the 22-year-old woman at Mumbai's KEM Hospital also said that allowing the pregnancy to complete its full course could "gravely endanger" the mother's life. The court permitted the termination of pregnancy taking into account the facts of the case and also that allowing the pregnancy take its full course may endanger the life of the woman. The court on Monday said that medical termination of pregnancy would be performed by the same team of seven doctors. The order said that hospital would keep full record of the procedure followed while terminating the pregnancy. While permitting the termination of pregnancy, the court also noted that decision to abort had the consent of the husband. Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, a pregnancy could be terminated in the normal course if it is upto 12 weeks. But pregnancy between 12 to 20 weeks can be terminated if in the opinion of two doctors the continuation of the pregnancy would involve a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or of grave injury physical or mental health. --IANS pk/vd (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 Supreme Court on Monday sought a comprehensive status report on the probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases being investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT). The SIT, set up in February 2015, is probing the cases that were earlier closed for lack of sufficient evidence. A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice R. Banumathi sought the report as petitioner S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon told the court that the SIT had utterly failed in carrying out the probe. The petitioner is a member of the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee. Khalon has sought direction to the authorities concerned that no further extension be given to the SIT and it should complete its probe by February 11, 2017. The central government earlier told the court that it has identified 22 cases out of a total 218 cases for further investigation. The court has adjourned the matter for February 20. After formation, the SIT was given six months' time to fulfil its mandate. On August 12, 2015, it was given an extension of one year. The petitioner has contended that due to shoddy investigation, inordinate delay in recording statements coupled with lack of will, justice had been denied to 3,000 victims of 1984 riots. In Delhi alone, 2,733 people were killed in the riots triggered by the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards. --IANS pk/nir/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After some private schools reportedly refused admission to children living in the neighbourhood, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday said the schools were allotted land "practically free of cost" with some conditions and they should abide by them. "In 298 out of the 450 schools operating on government land, strict conditions were set related to fee, admission and education for the poor," Sisodia wrote on his blog. "While directing Directorate of Education (DoE) of the Delhi government, the Supreme Court in its April 2014 judgment clearly said the Education Director should ensure within three months that the conditions in the allotment letter are followed," he added. Sisodia said that while the government was to formulate guidelines for nursery admissions within three months of the judgment, but it didn't happen till recently. "Whatever may be the reason behind that (the delay), but now that the government has decided to issue guidelines as per that Supreme Court's order, the 298 schools should follow them," he added. Some school bodies and some parents challenged the DoE's recent circulars that laid down the guidelines for nursery admission for the 2017-18 session. The notifications have made "distance" the primary criteria for tiny tots' admissions. --IANS vv/lok/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A serial rapist now in custody may have targeted more than 50 victims although he claims he didn't rape all, police said on Monday. While eight cases have been confirmed, the police fear many cases may have remained unreported. "We are still investigating and are waiting for the victims' parents to come forward to file complaints," Deputy Commissioner of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi told IANS. "We were told by the accused, Sunil Rastogi, that he managed to rape only 20 per cent of the total number of victims he attacked. We suspect that he may have attempted to rape 50 minor girls or more," Bishnoi said. The 38-year-old tailor hails from Uttar Pradesh and allegedly raped a minor girl and molested two others -- aged between nine and 10 years -- in New Ashok Nagar in east Delhi last week. He was arrested on Saturday night. Rastogi confessed to sexually molesting a number of minor girls in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand besides New Ashok Nagar in the national capital. Several cases of molestation, theft and drug abuse were registered against him in various police stations, the officer added. According to the police, three cases of child rape and molestation under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) were registered at the New Ashok Nagar police station on January 10 and 13. Rastogi, a desperate paedophile, used to lure the minors claiming their father had sent him to give them clothes and articles. He would then take his victims to isolated corners where he tried to rape them. He also targeted students from government girl schools. After raping them, he threatened them with dire consequences if they disclosed the assault to their parents, the police added. After each attack, Rastogi would return to Uttar Pradesh to evade arrest. A brain mapping and narco analysis test would be conducted after Rastogi's medical test, the officer said. --IANS sp/in/mr/rn (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A serial rapist arrested here has admitted to targeting more than 50 girls in Delhi alone, but the police on Monday said they had verified only seven cases. A tailor, Sunil Rastogi, 38, who hails from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, confessed to police that he had been preying on girls since 2004 - when he was just 26 years old. Rastogi first admitted to raping at least 13 girls but later claimed he had targeted over 50 but could not rape all of them, a police official who did not want to be identified told IANS. Sounding callous, Rastogi - a father of five including two girls - said he randomly scouted for victims. He told police he would travel to Delhi at least twice a month to satisfy his lust. The man was arrested from Kalyanpuri, a thickly populated area in east Delhi, on Saturday, police said. The officer added that Rastogi was making claims that could not be verified immediately. "How many girls he victimised will be clear once we complete his questioning and verify his claims," Deputy Commissioner of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi told IANS. Rastogi came to Delhi in 1990 with his family but left in 2004. He lives in Rampur. Police suspect the number of his victims could be more as Rastogi also had cases registered against him in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. "We had sought details of paedophiles lodged within the last one year in seven jails in Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The reports confirmed his involvement in seven cases. Four of the seven cases were reported from Delhi, one from Haldwani in Uttarakhand and two from Uttar Pradesh," the officer said. "We are still verifying his statements by visiting the locations where he committed the crime." Investigators said if Rastogi came to Delhi twice a month in the past 13 years and molested even one girl during every visit, he may have assaulted over 300 girls. However, he has confessed to victimising over 50 minors, the official said. "We were told by Rastogi that he managed to rape only 20 per cent of the victims." Rastogi allegedly raped a minor girl and molested two others -- aged between nine and 10 years -- in New Ashok Nagar in east Delhi last week. He confessed to sexually molesting a number of minor girls in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Rudrapur in Uttarakhand besides New Ashok Nagar. Several cases of molestation, theft and drug abuse were registered against him in Delhi. According to police, three cases of child rape and molestation under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) were registered at the New Ashok Nagar police station on January 10 and 13. He allegedly threatened the victims with dire consequences and blackmailed them to prevent them from approaching the police. He would prowl near schools in Delhi when it shut for the day and would follow a group for a short distance and then pick a child who would stray from the others. Rastogi used to lure the minors claiming their father had sent him to give them clothes and other articles. He would then take his victim to an isolated spot where he would try to rape them. If he succeeded, Rastogi threatened the girls with death if they disclosed the assault to their parents. After each attack, he would return to Uttar Pradesh to evade arrest and he would return again to Delhi after a gap to hunt for new victims. --IANS sp-rak/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran actor Liam Neeson, who is gearing up for his film "Silence", says that the film which is based upon an eponymous 1966 novel, is very relevant to today's time as some things are "actually occurring in the world". "Silence" is a historical drama directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks and Scorsese. The plot follows two 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel from Portugal to Japan to locate their missing mentor and spread Catholicism. "Working with Marty is a joy and an education in creative filmmaking. But one of the most exciting things about this story that appeals to me is its relevance. Some of the very things described in the novel and the screenplay in great detail are actually occurring in the world today," Neeson said in a statement from the movie makers. The film also stars Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano and Ciaran Hinds. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, "Silence" will release in India on February 16. --IANS ks/rb/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Aligarh district in-charge of the Samajwadi Party Ashok Yadav, in a letter to the Election Commission, on Monday urged it to ask Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh not to indulge in political activities and leave Aligarh. In the letter, addressed to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, Yadav said Kalyan Singh has been camping in Aligarh for the past four days and "indulging in political activities, which is not proper". "I have written a letter to the Election Commission. Kalyan Singh is the Governor of Rajasthan and it's not proper for him to campaign for the BJP," the Samajwadi Party leader told IANS. "He (Kalyan Singh) should either be a Governor or a BJP leader. If he wants to participate in electioneering, he should quit his post first," he said. --IANS sk/nir/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who is currently busy promoting his forthcoming film "Raees", says his conversations with his three-year-old son AbRam are the "most enlightening" for him. Shah Rukh on Monday morning shared a photograph of himself along with AbRam. In the black and white image, the toddler can be seen with his back towards the camera and the "Dilwale" star's hand is seen holding his son. "My conversations with my three and something baby are the most enlightening. The rest is just talk," tweeted the 51-year-old star, who also has son Aryan and daughter Suhana with his wife Gauri. Set against the backdrop of the prohibition in Gujarat, "Raees" touches upon the way alcohol industry crumbled and several illegal activities cropped up. In the film, Shah Rukh essays the title role of Raees, a bootlegger. Also starring Nawazzuddin Siddiqui and Pakistani actress Mahira Khan it is slated to release on January 25. --IANS dc/rb/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) TiE Global, one of the world's largest not-for-profit organisations, has launched the 'All-India Road Show on Women's Economic Empowerment through Entrepreneurship (AIRSWEEE)' to encourage entrepreneurship as a career option for women in small cities. The AIRSWEEE has received funding from the US Mission in India of the US Department of State. The programme's objective is to unlock value creation amongst aspiring young women in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India by empowering them with greater understanding of entrepreneurship, TiE Global said in a statement on Monday. This is a three-day workshop on entrepreneurship which will help the participants in understanding the finer nuances of sales and marketing, go-to market strategy, operations and processes, human resources and finance. A total number of 25 participants will be allowed in each AIRSWEEE workshop to be held in Warangal, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Nagpur and Durgapur that features in-person mentoring by US-based experts who will travel to India and mentoring by India-based experts. Five participants selected from each workshop group will then receive an additional six months of mentoring from the US and India-based mentors through video conferencing, said Seema Chaturvedi Chairperson for AIRSWEEE and Managing Director, Accelerator group LLC. Women entrepreneurs from all over the country are invited to utilise this opportunity. A women entrepreneur can choose any city to participate. Registration for the programme is free and the application form for the programme is available at www.women.tie.org and the deadline for registration is January 27, 2017. Participants from all over the country can apply for this programme though the programme will be conducted only at five locations. --IANS ms/lok/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Babul Supriyo on Monday accused Trinamool Congress activists of attacking his carcade and trying to damage his car during his visit to Durgapur Steel Thermal Power station (DSTPS). The power station is in Supriyo's constituency in West Bengal's Asansol. "During a regular visit to DSTPS, Durgapur, aggressive TMC goons stone pelting and trying to break my car as usual," Supriyo tweeted later on the day. The Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries also charged the local police with remaining inactive despite requests from CISF assistant commander present in the convoy. "Mr. Verma, Asst. Commander, CISF, has been requesting local police from the morning but has received no help so far," he told Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah in a tweet. He also raised questions about the law and order situation in the state comparing it to violence-torn Syria. "Am I in Syria? it is 5.45 in the evening. Deserted streets with CISF on both sides. Such a shame and I was on a Official DSTPS Visit," he added. --IANS mgr/ssp/pgh/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on Monday requested the central government for Rs 39,565 crore assistance towards drought relief and an immediate release of Rs 1,000 crore. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, text of which was released to the media here, the Chief Minister said all the districts in the state are affected by drought due to insufficient rainfall during monsoon this year and non-release of Cauvery river water by neighbourig Karnataka. "The government has to provide relief to the farmers for the damages caused to the crops due to the failure of the monsoon and to ensure drinking water supply through various temporary measures, which have to be undertaken up to tackle the water scarcity across the state," Panneerselvam told Modi. According to Panneerselvam, adequate fodder availability needs to be maintained to protect cattle and employment generation programmes have to be taken up on war footing. "For the above purposes, I request that a sum of Rs 39,565 crore may be sanctioned from the National Disaster Response Fund," Panneerselvam said. "In view of the urgency, I request you to kindly depute a team from the government to study the extensive damages caused to agriculture crops and to take stock of the drinking water scarcity in the state," he added. Panneerselvam said the state received only 168.3 mm of rainfall during monsoon against a normal rainfall of 440.4 mm. Stressing that the state government is suffering from insufficient funds in its State Disaster Response Fund, Panneerselvam requested release of Rs 1,000 crore from National Disaster Response Fund to take up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures. --IANS vj/pgh/vt (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Turkish Parliament approved the last two of a total of 18 articles in the controversial reform constitution, designed to create an executive Presidential governance system in the country. After a week of debate, the ruling Justice and Development Party managed to achieve, with the help of the nationalist opposition MHP movement, the necessary 60 per cent majority -- 330 of the 550 legislators -- to approve the changes, Efe news reports. Starting on Wednesday (January 18), lawmakers will debate the constitutional changes once again and will submit them to a general vote, and if they achieve the necessary majority, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be able to convene a referendum, which would be held between March 26 and April 16 to allow the citizenry to vote on the matter. Erdogan and his supporters say Turkey needs an executive presidency to ensure that the country does not backslide into weak coalition governments, but the political opposition believes that the constitutional reform to expand the president's powers will lead to authoritarianism. The Republican People's Party and the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party, the second and third largest political groupings in Parliament, vehemently rejected the changes. The second reading of the amendments will begin on Wednesday and the government's plan is to adopt six articles per day so that by Saturday, Jan. 21, the final vote on the amended constitution can be held. If approved, the changes would also enable the President to name and fire Vice Presidents, ministers and top-level officials, and he would also be able to return bills to Parliament to be reconsidered or redrafted or to send them to the Constitutional Court to be annulled. Besides this, the President would also be able to name 12 of the high court's 15 justices and would be able to continue belonging to and leading a political party. --IANS vgu/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The disruption in water supply here may continue for a couple of more days until ammonia levels at three of the major Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) fall to permissible limits, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) said on Monday. The DJB stopped water supply to a large part of the national capital on Sunday night after it found an excessive rise in ammonia levels at Wazirabad, Chandrawal and Okhla WTPs. "Due to the rise of ammonia to 3.8 parts per million (ppm) in the Yamuna river, we had to stop the water supply. Such rise was excessive and could not be treated at the plants. The permissible limit of ammonia in water fit to drink is 0.5 ppm," an official from Delhi Jal Board told IANS. The affected localities are situated in New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) area, North Delhi, North West Delhi, Central Delhi and part of West and South Delhi. Some of these localities are: Chandni Chowk, Jama Masjid, Civil Lines, Subhash Park, Mukherjee Nagar, Shakti Nagar, Adarsh Nagar, Model Town, Jahangir Puri, Wazirpur Industrial area, Punjabi Bagh, Lajpat Nagar and Kalkaji, among others. "The water supply has resumed in a few localities at low pressure. We will try to normalise the supply by Tuesday, but in all likelihood it is going to become regular by day after tomorrow only (Wednesday)," the official added. Water Tankers will be available on demand at phone number 1916, the DJB said in a statement. --IANS vn/sm/dg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said he was prepared to contest against his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav if attempts to keep the party united fail. "Akhilesh is being misled by Ram Gopal (Yadav). He is not even ready to listen to me. I invited him today (Monday) to discuss matters but he didn't come. If he doesn't listen to me, I will contest against him," Mulayam Singh said. His remarks came as later in the day the Election Commission allotted the party symbol of 'cycle' to the Akhilesh Yadav faction. Mulayam Singh made the remarks during a visit in the morning to the party office where he interacted with party members, including state Samajwadi Party chief Naresh Uttam, who was appointed state party chief by the faction led by Akhilesh Yadav. Mulayam Singh is learnt to have told party members that he tried to speak to Akhilesh for rapprochement thrice but the son did not respond properly. During the meeting, the 77-year-old former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh said the Muslim community was "angry" as the Akhilesh government "had not worked for them" in the last five years. "There is no Muslim name in the list issued by Akhilesh Yadav. Is this the way he wants to chalk out his political future," the patriarch said. "Muslims make our government but Akhilesh Yadav is not even a little worried about them," he said. Uttar Pradesh will go to assembly elections in seven phases from February 11 for 403 seats. Mulayam Singh appealed to party members to support him as "Akhilesh was not listening" to him. The party founder also blamed Akhilesh for removal of some senior leaders from the party "at the behest" of Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav. --IANS hindi-md-vv/rn/vt (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.) Congress party's chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday said that she will withdraw from CM candidature, if asked to. Her statements come just when Congress leader and UP incharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad announced that Congress and SP will fight together in UP. "Talks are on about SP-Congress alliance, it will benefit UP. I will do what high command decides,' Sheila Dikshit said. "If I am asked to step down then I will do it... there can't be two chief ministerial candidates," Dikshit added. Congress Party on Monday had said that they will not back off from forming an alliance with the SP if it reaps benefit for the people of Uttar Pradesh. After Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was allotted the 'Bicycle' symbol by the Election Commission on Monday, Congress leader Sheila Dikshit congratulated him. It is good that the Election Commission has taken a decision on the issue," she said. Nominations for the first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh start in few days, but the Samajwadi Party is yet to finalise candidates. Elections will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh starting February 11, and nominations for the first phase begin on January 17. Votes will be counted on March 11. Kashmiri actress Zaira Wasim, who has been receiving accolades for her performance in "Dangal", has deleted her open letter in which she apologised for "unintentionally hurting" people after her meeting with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, from her social media accounts. The 16-year-old had met Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday. Several photographs of her with Mufti had gone viral, for which Zaira was trolled on social media. On Monday, the actress took to Instagram and Facebook to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris. Without saying what she was sorry for, the actor wrote in her "open confession/apology" that she does not want anyone to follow in her footsteps or even consider her as a role model. "I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history." Hinting that the apology may have to do with her recent meeting with the CM, the post stated: "I know many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or people I have recently met... "...I understand the sentiments behind it especially considering what had happened over the past 6 months." The post is not visible on her social accounts now. --IANS ks/sug/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former President and Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has left for Dubai from where he will fly to Washington to attend the inauguration ceremony of US president-elect Donald Trump. He left for Dubai on Sunday evening after returning to Pakistan last month following 18 months in a self-imposed exile, Dawn news reported. Besides attending the swearing-in ceremony, Zardari will undergo a medical check-up during his stay in the US. According to a report in the Daily Times, Trump had invited the former President for his inauguration which will take place on Saturday. Zardari would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include former Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders and ministers. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Your organisation might reject the (LTA) claim, if you had travelled on official holidays, like on a weekend, from this year. The Income- (I-T) Act says the employee needs to be on leave to be in any other place in India. Organisations those go strictly by the wordings of the I-T Act allow employees to claim LTA only if they had applied for leaves, says Alok Agrawal, senior director, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. The salaried class are likely to come under more scrutiny from employers this year. And, all perks like LTA, house rent allowance and interest paid on home loans will come under this heightened scrutiny. The government has made employers responsible for verifying whether the claims filed are according to the law. Earlier, companies went only by self-declaration of employees. The regulations were changed to counter the Supreme Courts ruling that employers are under no statutory obligation to collect bills and details to prove the employees have utilised the amounts obtained against claims on travel and related expenses, according to experts. They say the proofs required to claim a deduction could be more stringent now. Employees will also need to submit claims using a prescribed form (12BB). While most other deductions are straightforward and well-defined, LTA regulations can get complex, depending on how you reached the destination and with whom you travelled. Single claim for multiple flights: A person can claim LTA only for the travel. Other expenses such as sightseeing and hotel stay are not eligible. For air travel, only economy class fares are considered. The ticket price needs to be equal to or lower than those of the government carrier. If you go by train, you can claim expenses for any class, be it air-conditioned first class, second class or sleeper. In both cases, however, you should have opted for the shortest route to reach the destination. If you are travelling from Delhi to Goa, you should opt for a direct flight or a direct train journey. If you take a connecting flight, the rates should be lower than a direct one. What happens when you are visiting a place where you need to take multiple flights, say if you are going from Mumbai to Leh or Delhi to Port Blair? Explains Vaibhav Sankla, director at H&R Block: The exemption is limited to the amount spent on travel to the farthest point from the origin by the shortest route. One can, however, claim LTA for travel from one place to another. The individual can, therefore, claim LTA for connecting flights if there are no direct ones available. But, if your vacation involves going to multiple places, you can claim LTA for one trip only. For a travel from Delhi to Jaipur, Jodhpur Udaipur and back, you can get a deduction on travel from Delhi to Jaipur or for the return. Only for public transport: The government also has regulations on the mode of transport if you have to take more than one to reach the destination. Say, you travelled from Bengaluru to Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, and had to travel by road to get to the destination after a flight. In such a case, an individual can claim LTA only if he had taken recognised public transport a government bus. You can claim taxi fares as part of LTA only if theres no bus service available to reach the destination. You will need to check the distance travelled by taxi and can only claim the first class rail fare applicable for that distance. Fellow travellers matter: The use of family members tickets when claiming LTA can be tricky. You can include spouse and children, even those not dependant. But, its limited to two children if they are born after October 1, 1998. This could also be a stepchild or an adopted one, says Archit Gupta, chief executive and founder of ClearTax.com. It means, if you have three children who were born before October 1998, you can claim for all of them, but only for two born after the date. If you have twins or triplets, the department counts them as one unit, says Gupta. He also points out exemption can be claimed for parents and siblings only if they are dependent. Daughter-in-law, grandparents or grandchildren cannot be part of an LTA claim. Carry over, if not claimed: If an employee has not availed of LTA for one or two permitted journeys in a particular block of four years, then he or she is entitled to carry one journey over to the next block. In such a situation, the exemption will be available for three trips in the next block. To make use of this benefit, you need to travel in the first calendar year of the next block. LTA is the only exemption one needs to claim in a calendar year. The rest are based on the financial year, says Agrawal. The block applicable for the current period is calendar years 2014-2017. The previous block was calendar years 2010-2013. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav won the war for the Samajwadi Partys poll symbol, the bicycle after the Election Commission settled the dispute in his favour, rejecting the claims of party patriarch Mulayam Singh. The Bharatiya Janata Party will rely on dynasts and turncoats in Uttarakhand, and on its Hindutva champions, legislators who had been booked for their alleged role in Muzaffarnagar communal riots of 2013, in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP today announced 64 candidates in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, and 149 candidates for the seats going to polls in phase 1 and 2 of UP assembly polls. The Election Commission finally took a call on Monday on the ownership of the cycle, delivering a major blow to Mulayam Singh Yadav by giving the poll symbol to his estranged son Akhilesh Yadav's faction. A political storm raged over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's picture spinning the charkha appearing on the cover pages of the KVIC calendar and diary, instead of the iconic picture of Mahatma Gandhi weaving Khadi on a simple charkha wearing his trademark loin-cloth. Some 90 Punjabis of Indian-origin from Canada will fly to Punjab to campaign for Aam Admi Party (AAP) in 16 of the state's largest constituencies for the assembly elections on February 4. They will arrive in Punjab on January 19. "I want to be a part of real change," Surinder Mavi, a 31-year-old Brampton resident who helped in organising the plane load of "election volunteers" was quoted as saying by Toronto Star. Mavi said the Toronto area volunteers were part of a campaign that will see thousands of Indian expatriates arrive in Dehli in Punjab to help in the elections, it reported. Mavi's political awakening began with his arrival in Canada eight years ago, when he realised bribes were unnecessary and basic rules, like stopping at red lights, were respected. For the election, Mavi will ride an campaign bus that will rally support in 16 of Punjab's largest constituencies. He had joined the Canadian branch of AAP, which had burst onto the Indian political scene two years ago with a platform of ending the culture of "bribe-taking," the daily reported. The key platform issues in campaign will be AAP's proposals to fight widespread drug abuse among the youth and programmes to give farmers more money for their crops. Azad Kaushik, Canadian president of the Overseas Friends of BJP, admitted to "an anti-incumbency factor" in Punjab. But he told the Star over phone from Delhi, where he was visiting, that the BJP's economic record would keep its coalition with Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in power in Punjab. Kaushik also accused AAP of having "failed miserably" in Delhi, which it governs. "Polls in the last several months have indicated widely different results. But all show the AAP having a significant impact (in Punjab)," it reported. The Punjab elections is likely to witness a three-way fight between SAD-BJP, Congress and AAP in all 117 seats. Around 2 crore people are expected to take part in the 11,292 km long human chain being organised in support of prohibition on January 21 across Bihar, a top state government official said today. Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said two crore people would form the chain for 45 minutes from 12:15 PM to 1 PM on January 21 at a stretch of 11,292 km across the state. As around 2000 people would make a one km long chain, so two crore people would form a 11,000 km long human chain, he said on how the figure of 2 crore was arrived at. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would also form part of human-chain at Gandhi Maidan in Patna, Singh told reporters here. "We will make a map of Bihar with people taking part in the programme and Chief Minister will be in it. In the middle of the map, the word 'Bihar' would be written with cloth. There will also be a bottle with a cross (X) mark, so as to enable better images through satellite," Singh said giving detailed plan of the programme. The entire event of organising human-chain across the state, for which Rs 10 crore was sanctioned, would be captured through five satellite and videography would be carried out in all the districts with the help of drones and videographers on the helicopters, Singh said. Of the five satellites, two satellites will be of ISRO while the other three will be of foreign countries. Four helicopters will be utilised for videography. He said that the government's wants to create a human chain in support of prohibition and not create any record. Of the 11,292 km, 3007 km would comprise of national and state highways and traffic would not be allowed in those roads between 10:15 to 3 PM, DGP P K Thakur said. Only the vehicles of administration, media and ambulance would be allowed. Children studying above standard V, people from social organisations, NGOs and political parties would participate in the event but parties cannot take flags or banners. The three best performing districts of the human chain event would be awarded by the Chief Minister, he said. Thakur said adding that adequate police force would be deployed for the purpose, the DGP said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 12 people were inured today when a group of lawyers and municipality workers clashed with each other over possession of a disputed property here. The incident took place at Anoopshahr Tehsil, about 40 kms from here. Police said that 12 people from both sides were injured in the fight between advocates and Municipal Board employees. According to SDM Anoopshahr Bhirpal Singh, the clashes began when advocates were trying to take possession of the disputed land on which a litigation was pending between Municipal Board Anoopshahr and allotees of land-shopkeepers in the Allahabad High Court. Action has been taken under relevant provisions of law and the disputed land has been seized by the police, he said. The officer said that the situation at Anoopshahr was under control. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China today said it has sold two naval ships to Pakistan to protect the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying the sale of vessels was part of "normal" military and trade cooperation. "I have learnt that some reports said China has donated these vessels. This is not correct," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here while replying to a question that Beijing has gifted two vessels to Pakistan. "The report mentioned surveillance ships. It is a normal military trade cooperation with the two countries and complies with the international commitments of the two countries," Hua said. "So I want clarify that it is not donation but it is military trade cooperation. Pakistani side bought these two ships from China," she said. China yesterday handed over the two ships to the Pakistan Navy for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Gwadar port in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has been developed under CPEC linking western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. A ceremony was held in Gwadar where Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts. In the past, China has shied away from saying that it plans to deploy its naval ships in Gwadar, a move which could raise alarm in the US and India. China has not only rebuilt the Gwadar port but also has its operational control. It is also building a network of roads and railways to link up its remote western region to Gwadar for easier access to the Arabian Sea. The revamped Gwadar port became operational in November last year after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and EU. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials have said. The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a conference yesterday. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could -- even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light yesterday to storm the site with armoured vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead -- many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disembowelled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three members of rival student's unions were injured today in clashes with Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) activists over filing of nominations for elections in three colleges in north Bengal. An ABVP supporter sustained injuries by a sharp weapon in the clash with TMCP members at Falakata college in Alipurduar district, police said. The ABVP has alleged that TMCP members attacked them to prevent them from filing nominations for the college union election scheduled on January 20. When contacted, TMCP denied its involvement and blamed ABVP instead. In another incident in Darjeeling district, the police said, two students from SFI were injured in a clash with TMCP in Siliguri College allegedly over submission of nomination papers for the college's union election also on January 20. In this case also the TMCP said it was not involved and no one has been arrested. In a third clash between SFI and TMCP at Naxalbari college also in the district police burst three teargas shells to control the situation arising out of another clash between the two sides. However, none was injured in this incident, police said. The SFI has alleged that TMCP members attacked them while its supporters were filing nominations for the college union election, TMCP denied any involvement in this incident too and said it was the other union which had attacked it. The injured were rushed to hospital for treatment, police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The air traffic to and fro Srinagar International Airport was affected due to snowfall and five flights were cancelled in the morning. "While 10 flights operated, five were cancelled due to inclement weather," Director, Airport Authority of India (AAI), Srinagar Airport, Sharad Kumar told PTI here. Kumar said five morning flights could not land at the airport which was covered with snow and had to be cancelled. As the weather improved in the afternoon, air traffic resumed at the airport, he said. The Kashmir Valley, including Srinagar, witnessed snowfall which started late last night and continued intermittently during the first half of the day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court here today awarded rigorous imprisonment of 10 years to seven dacoits for attacking a police party in the district. The session court convicted Jagan, Pan Singh, Keshav, Janak, Banwari, Patiram and Halke Gujar in the case, assistant public prosecutor Shailendra Singh Mathuria said. Jagan Gurjar along with others had attacked a police party on January 20, 2008. The case was registered with Bar police station. There were a total of eight dacoits who attacked the police party and seven of them were awarded the imprisonment, while one is absconding. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Afghanistan, Pakistan, and not India were on top of the priority list for the Obama Administration in South Asia, but the Indo-US relationship under the outgoing president is ending on a "high note", according to a former Indian-American White House official. "It (India-US relationship) is ending on a high note," Anish Goel, the former Senior Director for South Asia at the National Security Council, White House, told PTI. In this position, Goel was one of the key players in the India-US relationship in the first two years of the Obama Administration that saw the first state visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2009 and the historic visit of President Barack Obama to India a year later. Goel, a senior South Asia Fellow at the New America Foundation, a top US think-tank, said the relationship between India and the US has gone through some peaks and valleys. "It started out very strong and then I think everyone knows in the middle years in 2011, 2012 and 2013 it was really short of a low point in the relationship. At that point you had administration officials on both sides openly criticising each other," said Goel, who headed the India desk at the White House in his first two years of the Obama presidency. "You had cases being filed in WTO, India blocking things that was a priority for the US and on top of things you had (Devyani) Khobragade episode, which really exposed short of a tenuous relationship. So that was the point when everybody wondered if the relationship could cover or this is really going to be how the two countries interacted," he noted. "But it is ending on a high note. The relationship has really recovered since that time. The flurry of activities in the last two years is great. Both sides deserve credit. The Obama Administration was ready to move forward," Goel said. After Modi became the Prime Minister, the relationship has seen an upward trajectory, he said. "And I think, Prime Minister Modi deserves enormous amount of credit for putting the relationship back on track. He could have taken a very very different approach and he could have said that this is a country that denied me entry for 10 years and we have been at loggerheads for the past three years, and that this relationship is not that important for me and I am going to keep a different track," Goel said. "But he did not. He put aside all of that in the background and said it is important for India to have a string relationship with the United States. I think, he moved forward in this regard," Goel said, giving credit for the revival of the relationship to Prime Minister Modi. Responding to a question on Obama's vision on India when he occupied the White House, Goel recollected that he wanted to continue the strong relationship. "One of the successes of the Bush Administration had been building a strong strategic partnership with India and President Obama wanted to continue that. He might not have been quite enthusiastic as President Bush was but he certainly wanted to keep the relationship going," he said. (Reopens FGN 9) "I think that is obvious by the fact that the first state visit was by Prime Minister Singh. It was a very conscious signal, a warming to a very strong relationship with India, demonstrates that the Obama Administration was going to do things little bit differently and that a country like India was very important to the United States. That was the broad direction that was given," Goel said. At the same time, Goel observed that India certainly was not a top priority for Obama when it came to South Asia. "On South Asia, I do not think India was the top priority. Afghanistan was. That's not a secret," he said. "I think, coming into office President Obama one of his campaign promise was to really take on the fight in Afghanistan and finish the war that President Bush started. So that was the top priority in South Asia. The Administration was very strongly tied to Pakistan for the efforts in Afghanistan. You saw the structures that they created," Goel said. "They created the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP). They created the Af-Pak Director inside the White House. They created Af-Pak Information Centre in the Department of Defence. So the entire infrastructure of the government switched to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was the top priority in South Asia. India to my view was secondary in terms of importance," he said. Afghanistan was so important for President Obama that everything was seen through that prism, Goel asserted. "He campaigned on a pledge to add 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan so that the mission can really be finished. But when he came into the office he ended up adding more than 30,000 troops. I think it was 100,000 troops. So committing that level of resources and attempting to start a real strategic partnership with Pakistan, demonstrates the priority that the Administration placed on those two countries," he said, adding that in 2009 and 2010 the Administration rolled out a red carpet for Pakistan. "When (the then Pak Army Chief) Gen (Ashfaq Pervez) Kayani came to Washington, he received top high level meetings. There was a real concerted effort to get the Pakistanis to act in our interest out of the believe that the answer to Afghanistan ran through Islamabad, ran through Rawalpindi, actually to be more precise. I think that was the mindset," he said. "President Obama knew that Afghanistan would be some part of his legacy...Good or bad. If he was going to bring it to some kind of satisfactory conclusion it would be part of his legacy and if it was not then...He was going to have owned the Afghan war. Because it was he who was committing to so many troops to Afghanistan. I think the Administration did everything it could in the first two years to turn the war in Afghanistan," Goel said. BJP's Lok Sabha by-poll candidate Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina today said that the special economic zone and the agro-based industry in Amritsar will revive the economy in the border district of Tarn Taran. He said he has already spoken to Union Finance Minister and if voted to be the MP, he would press for the small and large scale industry to be set up through the central initiative for generation of employment opportunities. Chhina, who was on the move to address various election meetings in Amritsar (west), Amritsar (east), Amritsar (central) and Amritsar (north) constituencies said that being the border state, Amritsar has its own peculiar challenges and underlined the importance of central grants in changing the fate of the people in the region. "We need large and small industrial complexes. I will press the NDA government in centre to set up the special economic zone at a suitable place to provide incentives to industry", said Chhina. He continued his tirades against the ex-MPs from the region Navjot Singh Sidhu and Capt Amarinder Singh, blaming them for the "neglect" of the constituency. "One that they were MPs when the governments in Centre were from different parties. Secondly they both failed to raise the voice of the people in the parliament and were busy in their own self-gratifying political moves. "They failed to attend to the grievances of the people and did not bring any major project of development", said Chhina. The tourism industry, he said, is the potential sector of growth for the city of Amritsar. "We need to put in efforts to strengthen rail, air and road network and re-furnish the locations of public attractions for tourism," he said. He said the pilgrims constitute major portion of the visitors to this holy city and they need to be tapped by providing best of the facilities for their boarding and lodging. He also promised the voters of liberal central grants for the poor and downtrodden under Swachh Bharat schemes, Prime Minister Rozgar and Sadak Yojna. He said his priority would be making the city of Amritsar as hub of modern education on the lines of Bangluru, Pune, Ahmadabad and Mohali so that the students need not to go to distant places. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 22-year-old easyJet air hostess in the UK has been sacked for gross misconduct and theft as she failed to ask for a receipt from the manager in the flight after eating a bacon sandwich costing 4.50 pounds meant for customers. Shannon Gleeson, ate the baguette because she had a nut allergy and had not been able to find safe food to eat while working abroad, an employment tribunal heard. But she was sacked from the company for gross misconduct and theft after failing to ask her manager if the food had been paid for, the metro.Co.Uk reported. A tribunal at Cambridge Magistrates Court last week was told that Gleeson had breached company policy by not asking for a receipt. The panel heard she may have been wrongly dismissed because easyJet's policy placed no obligation on the consumer to see a receipt if food was given to them. "I am not a thief and that was what I was labelled as," Gleeson said. The matter was settled by the company out of court for an undisclosed sum on January 11 after it was heard there was no way of recording missing stock from a flight. EasyJet launched an investigation following the sandwich incident, which happened on a flight from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on January 3, 2015. A fellow crew member told the company she had seen Gleeson and the cabin manager eating a bacon baguette and croque monsieur meant for customers in the galley. Gleeson, who had been employed by the company for three years, was later called in to a meeting about the investigation. She apologised for the incident and offered to pay the 4.50 pounds fee but was sacked alongside the cabin manager. Introducing the case on January 10, employment Judge Michael Ord said: "The actual incident is not in dispute. Gleeson ate a bacon baguette and she had not paid for it. That is the extent of the mistake." He added: "You have actually got to show some loss for there to be a theft. I see no evidence that anything was paid for or not paid for." The hearing was told the Luton-based company had no way of recording missing stock from a flight and that there was no 'black and white' policy in place for food given to staff. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Budget airline Air India Express (AIE) today launched daily flights connecting Thiruvanathapuram and Kozhikode in north Kerala, fulfilling a long pending demand. This is the first time AIE is connecting the two cities on a daily basis. The operations commenced with AIE CEO K Shyamsundar flagging off the inaugural flight 737-800 from here to Kozhikode this morning, carrying 53 passengers. The flight left at 0700 hrs and reached Kozhikode by 0755 hrs. The flight then left for Doha, AIE sources said. On the return journey, the flight will leave Kozhikode by 2245 hrs and reach here by 2340 hrs, sources said. They added 164 fliers have been booked for the return journey on the flight which has a capacity to accommodate 186 passengers. Air India Express is offering an introductory fare of Rs 2,400 for the flight, an AIE statement said. This much awaited link between Thiruvanathapuram, the capital city, and Malabar is a boon not only for domestic passengers but also offers onward connectivity to several Gulf destinations. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Airbus is expected to deliver its first A330 aircraft from its delivery centre in north China's Tianjin in September this year the site will reach stable production capacity by 2019, said Airbus China today. "The cabin of the A330 is more complicated than the single-aisle aircraft due to the massive workload and difficulty," said Francois Mery,COO with Airbus Commercial Aircraft China, adding that the completion and delivery center will be responsible for cabin installation, painting and flight tests of the A330. On March 2, 2016, construction on the Airbus China A330 completion and delivery center started in Tianjin, where A330 aircraft will be completed and delivered to Chinese clients. It is Airbus' first completion and delivery center for wide-body aircraft outside Europe. The first A330 aircraft is expected to be delivered from the centre in 2017, state-run Xinhua agency reported. According to Airbus China, by 2019, the Airbus China site will reach stable production capacity, completing and delivering two A330 wide-body aircraft per month. To date, the centre has recruited 160 staff, about sixty percent of its total hiring plan. Airbus delivered 153 aircraft to Chinese operators in 2016, its seventh consecutive year of more than 100 deliveries. The deliveries included 141 aircraft in its single-aisle A320 family and 12 of its A330 family. According to Airbus China, there are 1,383 Airbus aircraft in service in Chinese mainland, about half of the total civil aircraft with more than 100 seats on the Chinese mainland. A joint venture between Airbus and Chinese partners in Tianjin has delivered more than 300 A320 aircraft since it went into operation in 2008. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Supporters of the UP Chief Minister today put up a nameplate at Samajwadi Party headquarters that read "Akhilesh Yadav, Party President", moments after Mulayam Singh Yadav stunned partymen by declaring he would fight against his son if he did not shed his "negative approach" towards Muslims. Hardly had the 77-year-old SP patriarch left the party headquarters in Lucknow after addressing workers, the brand new nameplate appeared strategically positioned directly under Maulayam's nameplate which mentions him as "Party President". The full-blown crisis in the ruling party recently reached a flash point when Akhilesh was anointed SP chief in place of his father at the party's national convention, which was dubbed as "illegal and unconstitutional" by Mulayam. The brand new nameplate of Akhilesh appeared to be an angry retort to Mulayam's comment that he was ready to cross swords with him. The father-son duo had met last week but key differences mainly on the post of party president persisted. Akhilesh has been insisting on keeping the top post for three months apprehending that Mulayam's close confidants -- his younger brother Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh -- will queer SP's electoral pitch. The chief minister accuses the two of instigating his father against him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Spain's Nicolas Almagro strongly denied suggestions of a money-grab after he lasted just 23 minutes at the Australian Open before retiring today. Almagro threw in the towel with a calf injury at 4-0 down in the first set against France's Jeremy Chardy, but walked away with a Aus $50,000 ($37,400) cheque as a first-round loser. Australian doubles legend Todd Woodbridge, a TV commentator, ignited a debate when he said: "Questions to be asked. Did (Almagro) just turn up to take money?" But according to the Melbourne Herald Sun, Almagro later insisted: "I went to court because I think I can play. I was top 10, I have more than 10 million dollars. I'm not going to play for $50,000. It is not the reason." He added: "I was trying to play during the week. It was tough. I did an MRI (scan) and the result wasn't good. That's it. I couldn't play. I felt the problem again on court and I had to retire. "I considered (withdrawing) but I was practising, I didn't feel it during the week. I decided to play today. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AAP's national convener Arvind Kejriwal today alleged that Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh is contesting polls from Lambi not to defeat Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal but to help him win the seat. "The captain (Amarinder Singh) is fighting from Lambi to help Parkash Singh Badal win the seat and not to defeat him. Basically, he is not fighting against Badal but (doing so) to cut anti-Badal votes." Describing Amarinder's move as "back stabbing" Punjab's people and "shameful", he said, "When there is so much anger against Badals in Punjab, the captain shook hands with them. He has betrayed and back stabbed people of the state." The Delhi Chief Minister alleged that a deal had been struck between Amarinder and Badal under a "tacit understanding". "Some persons who are very close to the captain met me today and told me that a deal has been struck between him and Badal," Kejriwal said in a video message. "(Parkash Singh) Badal has requested the captain to fight polls from Lambi to cut anti-Badal votes," he alleged. Kejriwal claimed that Badal will be defeat in his seat by AAP's Lambi candidate Jarnail Singh. Earlier, Amarinder had said he had sought the Congress high command's permission to fight the Februray 4 Punjab Assembly polls Badal's constituency of Lambi to ensure the "total defeat" of the Akali leadership. "The captain is saying he is contesting polls against the injustice caused by Badals and this is why has chosen to fight from Lambi. I ask him that despite being in politics for 35 years, why he did not engage the Badals directly." "If you wanted to contest then why you did not announce this two months back? You made announcement (to contest from Lambi) just 10 days before polls," he said. Kejriwal said if Amarinder really wanted to defeat Badal then he should have stuck to Lambi and not decide to fight polls from a second constituency, Patiala (Urban). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 40 day long annual 'yatra' to the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in South Kashmir Himalayas will commence on June 29, the shrine board said today. This year's yatra will be shorter by eight days against last years 48 days. "To safeguard the safety and security of pilgrims, the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) has decided that the yatra will start on June 29 and conclude on Shravan Purnima (Raksha Bandhan) on August 7," an official spokesman said here. Jammu and Kashmir Governor and chairman of SASB N N Vohra presided over the 32nd meeting of the shrine board held in New Delhi today. The Board has directed its CEO to arrange a special puja at Chandanwari on Jyesth Purnima on June 9 to invoke blessings of Lord Shiva for safety of pilgrims It said pilgrims will be allowed to register date-wise and route-wise for this year's yatra considering the existing tracks and available infrastructure can handle 7,500 yatris, each day. The CEO has taken steps for registration of pilgrims through 433 bank branches and has put out advertisements to advise those coming to the shrine to get their compulsory health certificates. Advanced registration for the journey will start on March 1, the spokesman said, adding the CEO will take steps to ensure uninterrupted telecom connectivity in the yatra area. The Board has asked all pilgrims to take precautions for the harsh climate and terrain on the route to the shrine. It has reviewed the 2017 Yatra Action Plan, including arrangements for medical care, installation of railings and of garbage in a scientific manner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Amy Sedaris is set to star in TruTV scripted comedy series. The series, which does not yet have a formal logline, has been described as featuring Sedaris and a mashup of hospitality, variety and talk-show formats, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Every episode of the series will revolve around a traditional theme, such as fish, wood or grieving and will combine Sedaris' humor and talents as a crafter, chef, baker and hostess. "I've been doing this show in my head for years. It will be terrific to get it on TV so I can free up some wiggle room up in my skull," Sedaris said. The show joins a lineup that also includes "Impractical Jokers," "Adam Ruins Everything," "Fameless" and scripted comedy "Those Who Can't". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Civil Aviation Ministry has warned airline companies of punitive action in case they are found to be appointing directors without requisite security approval. The latest directive from the Ministry comes against the backdrop of instances where airline companies have been found violating norms by appointing directors on their boards without getting prior security nod from the government. In an order, the Ministry has said that "punitive action" would be taken against the company concerned in case of violations. All airlines are advised not to appoint directors on their board without prior security clearance from this Ministry, the order, dated January 13, said. "In the recent past, instances have come to the notice of this Ministry where airline companies have appointed directors in their board without obtaining security clearance from the Ministry," it said. However, details about such violations were not disclosed. As per Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR), a new director or chairman should not be appointed unless the security clearance is obtained from the Home Ministry through the Civil Aviation Ministry. This is applicable for scheduled as well as non-scheduled airline operators. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australia has returned to India three antiquities, including two stone statues, which were illegally exported out of the country in the recent past, the Ministry of External Affairs today said. The granite stone image of Pratyangira from Tamil Nadu, marble stele showing devotees of Buddha from Andhra Pradesh and red stand stone image of Buddha from Mathura region were handed over to the Ministry of Culture and reached India on December 7. The objects were in possession of National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra. The return was under process in consultation with Indian High Commission in the Australian capital, MEA officials today said. "A team of of archaeologists from the the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) visited NGA on September 12-13, 2015 to examine the objects. "Later on three objects were handed over to the Ministry of Culture by NGA, Canberra in a repatriation ceremony held on September 19, 2016 at NGA, Canberra," the MEA said in a statement. The objects are currently kept at the Central Antiquities Collection at Purana Qila in New Delhi, it said. "The Ministry of Culture has decided to showcase these three objects at the National Museum, New Delhi. One of these three objects, the Pratyangira image is a case property of Idol Wing of Tamil Nadu Police and it would be handed over to them after a temporary display at the National Museum," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, serving life sentence in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case, today withdrew his bail application from the Gujarat High Court. Currently lodged at Sabarmati Central Jail here, Bajrangi decided to drop the bail application being heard by the division bench of justices Harsha Devani and A S Supehia. In his bail application, Bajrangi had cited his deteriorating health condition, including "blindness and deafness in one ear" as the reason. In its earlier hearing, the high court had asked the jail authorities to provide details about how he was leading his life in jail following his blindness. It had also asked whether Bajrangi had an attendant to help him carry out his daily activities. Today, the SIT submitted before the court that there are several people leading a regular life despite losing their eyesight. It also said Bajrangi was being provided with an attendant to take him to dispensaries and for other activities. However, the high court directed the jail authorities to depute a regular attendant for him to help him carry out his daily activities, which the jail officials agreed to provide. In August 2012, a special court had sentenced Bajrangi to life imprisonment till death in the Naroda Patiya massacre case, in which 97 people, mostly of minority community were killed. The same court had sentenced former minister Maya Kodnani to 28 years jail. The division bench is also hearing a petition moved by 31 convicts, including Kodnani, in Naroda Patiya massacre case, challenging SIT court order, which had sentenced all of them to life imprisonment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bahraini authorities ordered an independent newspaper to stop publishing online today and said a city hall was set ablaze during clashes between opposition protesters and police. The suspension of Al-Wasat's online operations followed a spike in anti-government protests led by the country's Shiite majority that began Saturday. The demonstrations accelerated after three men convicted of a deadly bombing targeting police were put to death yesterday. Opposition activists allege that the condemned men were tortured and see their executions, the first since 2010, as inflammatory and politically motivated. Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority issued an edict barring Al-Wasat from publishing online this evening and said the ban would remain in place until further notice. The ban did not appear to affect the print edition of the paper. It said it acted "due to repeated publication of material inciting division in the community, jeopardising national unity and disrupting public peace", according to a brief statement carried on the official Bahrain Agency. The paper's editor in chief, Mansoor al-Jamri, suggested the decision had taken the paper by surprise. "We're trying to get information from the authorities on their points of concern," he said. Al-Wasat is widely seen as the only independent newspaper in Bahrain. It has been ordered to shut twice since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising against the Sunni-led government erupted in 2011. Bahrain's Interior Ministry said the blaze at the Northern City Hall appeared intentional and was contained by firefighters. Hundreds protested yesterday over the three Shiite men put to death by firing squad over the 2014 bombing that killed two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer. Some youth threw gasoline bombs and clashed with police into the night. Police fired tear gas and birdshot. Bahrain hosts the US Navy's 5th Fleet and an under-construction British naval base. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Twenty six people, including a former city councillor extradited from India and three senior officers from Bangladesh's elite security force, were today sentenced to death for brutal murders of seven persons in Narayanganj in 2014. "They (26 convicts) shall be hanged by neck until they are dead," said Narayanganj's District and Sessions Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain as the convicts were brought to the dock under heavy security vigil. Former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain and former Bangladesh Army Lt Col Tarek Sayeed are among the 26 persons given the death penalty for the 2014 Narayanganj multiple murders. Sayeed, the son-in-law of a cabinet minister of the government, was the senior-most of the three officers who were serving as the Rapid Action Battilion (RAB) commander in Narayanganj during the murders. The two others were an army major and a navy lieutenant commander, Arif Hossain and MM Rana, who were serving under his command in the elite crime busting unit. Twenty three accused who were given death were sentenced in absentia. Nine others have been given various terms in prison. The court of Narayanganj's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict. Hossain was extradited from India. He had fled the country to evade the trial. He was the mastermind of the murder of seven persons. West Bengal police arrested Hossain shortly after he fled the country. Border Security Force men handed Hossain over to Border Guard Bangladesh on November 12, 2015 after he was freed from a jail in West Bengal on a court order. Hossain allegedly bribed several officers of RAB, which is mainly commanded by army officers on deputation, for carrying out the murders. Both Islam and Hossain belonged to the ruling Awami League. The verdict was delivered nearly a year after the court indicted 35 people, including 25 RAB personnel. Hossain had earlier planned to murder of fellow councilor alone over the dominance of parts of the port town. But, they said, the derailed RAB men also kidnapped and killed the lawyer fearing that he might have speculated the plot. The victims were administered lethal injections inside a vehicle and the bodies were thrown to the river after getting their stomach slit. The other victims were the two drivers of the councilor and the lawyer who were driving their cars at the time of their near simultaneous abduction and the associates of the assassinated councilor who were accompanying him during the kidnapping. The convicts were whisked away from the courtroom as the verdict was delivered to await subsequent procedures in jail but under the Bangladesh law their death penalties must be endorsed by the High Court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Twenty six people, including a former city councillor extradited from India, were today sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court for brutal murders of seven persons in Narayanganj in 2014. Former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain and former Bangladesh Army Lt Col Tarek Sayeed are among the 26 persons given the death penalty for the 2014 Narayanganj multiple murders. Nine others have been given various terms in prison. The court of Narayanganj's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict in the murders of seven men, including Narayanganj City Councillor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, who were abducted from Dhaka-Narayanganj link road in April 2014, bdnews reported. Their bodies were found floating in the Shitalakkhya River several days later. Hossain was extradited from India. He had fled the country to evade the trial. He is believed to be the mastermind of the murder of seven persons including a fellow councilor and a lawyer. West Bengal police arrested Hossain shortly after he fled the country. Border Security Force men handed Hossain over to Border Guard Bangladesh on November 12, 2015 after he was freed from a jail in West Bengal on a court order. Hossain allegedly bribed several officers of Rapid Action Battilion (RAB), which is mainly commanded by army officers on deputation, for carrying out the murders. Subsequent investigations disclosed that 23 RAB personnel, including a Lt Col and two navy officers, were involved in abduction and killing of the seven persons. The slain councillor's family claimed that Hossain had paid 60 million Taka to senior officers of the local RAB unit to carry out the murders. Both Islam and Hossain belonged to the ruling Awami League. After the investigation, which took almost a year, police pressed charges against Nur Hossain, three senior officers of the Narayanganj-based RAB battalion and 31 others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore today asked the Chandigarh Traffic Police to be tough with the law breaking youngsters who drive vehicles in a careless manner. The Union territory Administrator expressed concern over the rise in the cases of accidents in which mostly teenagers were involved because of the drunken and carelessly driving, said an official release here. Badnore was addressing the people on the culmination of 28th National Road Safety Week. He asked the driving License Issuing Authority to minutely check and verify the antecedents before issuing the licenses especially to the youth. The Governor also asked the Chandigarh Police not to "succumb to pressure" from anybody, including the senior officers, as far as going after the law breakers are concerned. The Administrator also released the Calendar-2017 of the Chandigarh Traffic Police and presented the awards to the officers who have performed exceptionally well during the Road Safety Week. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Laxmikant Vajpayee, grandson of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and the party's national secretary Shrikant Sharma are among the 149 candidates whose names the BJP announced today for the state assembly polls. Most of the seats will go to the polls in the first two phases on February 11 and 15. Vajpayee has been fielded from Meerut, from where he is the sitting MLA, Singh's grandson Sandeep Singh and Sharma will make their maiden entry in electoral fray from Atrauli and Mathura respectively. Releasing the list, the party's Central Election Committee's Secretary J P Nadda said it has accommodated various sections of society. The CEC had met last night to finalise candidates. It has retained sitting MLAs, including Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, both accused in Muzaffarnagar riot cases, dismissed as a conspiracy by them, in the list. However, mystery remained over the fate of Union Home Minister and UP heavyweight Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh whose name did not figure in the list. BJP has withheld announcement of its candidates for some seats, including Sahibabad and Noida-- two seats from where Pankaj Singh's name has been doing the rounds. Seven-phase polls for the 403 seats are taking place in UP on February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8. The party's CEC will meet again tomorrow to announce names of more candidates. While it is buoyant about its prospects in a state where it has been out of power since 2002 and has seen the arrival of sitting MLAs and leaders from various rival parties into its fold, there is speculation that Swami Prasad Maurya, a top BSP leader who had joined the saffron party months back, is unhappy with the leadership over its choice of probable candidates. The party has been pulling out all stops to capture power in UP, which in terms of political implications is more important than all other four poll-bound states combined. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bharatiya Janata Party is ready to forge an alliance with the Shiv Sena if the party is allotted 105 seats for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, a senior party leader said on Monday. The first meeting for negotiating the seat sharing formula between the Sena and BJP was held on Monday at the residence of BJP state chief Raosaheb Danve at Nariman Point in Mumbai. The BJP leader, without revealing Sena's proposal, said cognisance of the proposal was taken and the talks then shifted towards providing transparent administration to Mumbai. "Negotiations have begun from a 50:50 formula for seat sharing. Thereon, negotiations would proceed to arrive at a seat sharing formula taking into account the BJP's assessment that it can comfortably win at least 80 seats," the BJP leader said, adding the next round of meetings will take place on Wednesday. "We will not stretch the negotiations too far and will adjust with the Sena as our central leadership has given us a nod to go ahead with the alliance if given 105 seats," the BJP leader said. The BJP source further said if the party has to share seats from their own allotted quota to its Mahayuti allies like the Republican Party of India (Athawale) group, they will ask RPI (A) candidates to contest on BJP's symbol. At the meeting, the Sena deputed its seasoned strategists Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai, ex-MLC Ravindra Mirlekar and MLC Anil Parab. The BJP deputed Housing minister Prakash Mehta, School Education minister Vinod Tawde and Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar, its seasoned Mumbai hands to do the hard-bargaining with the Sena. Going by the composition of the two negotiating teams, Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has hand-picked MLC Anil Parab who is well versed with electoral laws and is entrusted with the party affairs in western and eastern suburbs of Mumbai. Mirlekar is an trusted old guard of the Sena, well versed in administration of not just the party in south Mumbai, but also that of the BMC. But the linchpin of them all is MP Desai who is well versed in electoral mathematics and credited to be Sena's master strategist and negotiator. Senior leaders of Shiv Sena and BJP today held joint parleys here to discuss an alliance for the ensuing civic elections. "The talks, held tonight, were preliminary in nature. Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will discuss the issue further in a day or two," Sena MP Anil Desai told PTI. With barely 35 days left for the election of corporators for BMC, the country's richest civic body, there is no word yet on an alliance between the bickering allies in the state government. In the 2012 civic election, the Sena contested 158 seats and won 75, whereas the BJP contested 69 and won 32 seats. However, in the 2014 Assembly election, the BJP emerged as the number one party in Mumbai. Of 36 seats, the BJP won 15 seats, while the Sena won 14 seats. This, and the recent results of municipal council polls have led BJP leaders to demand more seats than last time, if an alliance were to happen. Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar last week said his party is 'positive' about an alliance with ally Shiv Sena, ahead of the upcoming local bodies polls, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. "We are positive on the issue of an alliance with Shiv Sena," Shelar had said after discussing the alliance issue with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' at the latter's official residence 'Varsha' in south Mumbai. Ten municipal corporations including Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nagpur, 25 Zilla Parishads and 283 Panchayat Samitis are scheduled to go to polls next month. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP today said it would demand more autonomy to the tribals of Tripura and authority for the present Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), which constitute two-third of the state territory. "We want to form a tribal Council within TTAADC area as the tribals of the state can enjoy more autonomy and safeguard and protect their political and economic rights," Central observer and state in-charge of BJP Sunil Deodhar said today. "We feel that the present district council cannot fulfill the aspirations of the tribals. It should be given more authority," he added. When asked if the tribal council would be in line with the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) in Assam, he said, BJP's central tribal wing and state committee in Tripura were working on it. "Our state committee and central tribal wing are researching on the issue and very soon we would announce the form of autonomy in the state," he told PTI. When his attention was drawn about formation of All Tripura Indigenous Regional Parties Forum (ATIRPF) with all non-left tribal parties, Deodhar said his party welcomed the formation of the forum. "This is an anti-left tribal forum and ours is an anti- left national party which wants to oust CPI-M from the helm of affairs. We wanted to unite all non-left tribal parties to give boost to our movement to oust CPI-M, but with they (tribal parties) themselves taking the initiative to forge unity, we welcome this move," Deodhar said. The forum has opposed the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 introduced by BJP and yesterday announced to support a 12-hour strike in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) on February 8 called by Indigenous Political Forum of Tripura (IPFT) , a constituent of the forum. Three tribal parties - Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), National Council of Tripura (NCT) and IPFT - have formed the forum. "Before we forge a formal alliance with the forum, (we) would discuss many issues and sort out the problems," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NCP chief Sharad Pawar today said Union Government could not unearth black money after the recall of high currency notes on November 8, as "such money is outside the country." "Earlier, it appeared that the demonetisation decision is good but black money has not been unearthed. The key reason behind it is that black money is outside the country." Pawar told reporters at Aurangabad. "More than 60 days have passed after the announcement of demonetisation but disturbed economy is not yet back on track. Rural areas and cooperative banks and societies are worst hit due to the decision," Pawar alleged. "Some 50 per cent small industries are directly affected because of the decision of demonetisation, whereas 35 per cent jobs are affected, said the former union agriculture minister. "Programmes like MNREGA offering jobs in rural areas used to employ 30 lakh people. Today, the number has increased to 53 lakh, because people are not getting jobs elsewhere," Pawar said. On approach of the Union Government towards cooperative societies, Pawar said, "The outlook of the government towards these institutes is biased. I will personally pursue the matter with them for streamlining economy of cooperative banks and credit societies." "Cooperative sector needs support of the government. This sector is known for helping small businesses and common man. The decision of note scrapping has hit hard the same section of the society largely linked with the cooperative movement," Pawar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thanks to the brave act of a Police Constable, around 20 people were saved today after a fire broke out in a residential building in Masab Tank area here. Constable Bheem Rao, attached to Humayun Nagar Police Station, was on duty in a lane near the building when he was alerted by locals who saw smoke and flames coming out of a flat on the first floor of the five-storey structure. "He rushed into the building and helped around 20 people, including women, children and elderly persons, safely come down to the ground floor," Humayun Nagar SHO S Ravinder told PTI. No one was injured in the apartment fire though some household articles were gutted, he said. The SHO said the fire was reported at around 11.30 am and extinguished in about 30 minutes. Citing preliminary investigation, the police officer said electrical short-circuit caused the blaze. Telangana Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao praised the brave act of the Constable and tweeted "Great Job Bheem Rao Garu.@TelanganaDGP should recognise his brave act." Some of the rescued residents appreciated Bheem Rao's efforts and said "He helped in a big way and saved many lives." "We are thankful to him. Apart from getting the people down on the ground floor, Bheem Rao also brought out LPG cylinders from the building to prevent an explosion," an elderly man said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Authorities in Bahrain said today a municipal building was set ablaze as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three Shiites convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police. Tensions in the Sunni-ruled kingdom have been on the rise since the three men were executed by firing squad yesterday, a move that drew international condemnation. The Shiite majority in Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Al-Khalifa dynasty for more than two centuries, has long complained of marginalisation. The country had been rocked by sporadic unrest since 2011. A municipal building was torched overnight Monday in Shamalia, in the Shiite area of Aali, south of the capital Manama, the interior ministry said, without explicitly linking the incident to the executions. "According to initial reports, the fire was intentional," the ministry said on Twitter, adding that it had been brought under control. Protests broke out yesterday after the executions, reportedly the first carried out in Bahrain in six years. Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres and threw firebombs, and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media. The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of the village of Sanabis chanting slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses. Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabis, the hometown of the three executed men, but were blocked by security forces. Sanabis was the closest Shiite village to the former Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shiite-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011. Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shiite villages, according to other witnesses who said police opened fire with buckshot to disperse demonstrators, wounding several. Bahrain's authorities do not permit international agencies to cover events independently. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cambodia has informed the United States that it is canceling an annual joint military exercise this year, even though planning for the event had already begun. Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Chhum Socheath said Monday the Angkor Sentinel exercise had to be postponed because Cambodian forces would be unable to fully participate as a result of two important events: local elections in June and a six-month campaign to eradicate drug-related crime. US Embassy spokesman Jay Raman confirmed in an e-mail that the exercises for 2017 and 2018 have been canceled. He said military exchanges and training programs are not affected. Southeast Asian nations, even traditional allies of the United States such as the Philippines, have recently drawn closer to China as Beijing flexes its diplomatic and military muscle in the region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A British court has sentenced a woman carer for the elderly people to two years and four months in jail for stealing more than 170,000 pounds from a vulnerable 95-year-old pensioner. Nazneen Chattun cashed 71 cheques and obtained power of attorney which gave her control of the old age pensioner's bank accounts. Chattun, 55, of Hounslow, was convicted of three counts of theft totalling 171,455 pounds between June and August 2013, the Evening Standard reported. At Isleworth crown court she was sentenced to two years and four months in prison, the paper said. The pensioner, from Isleworth, gave evidence during the trial of Chattun, who was being paid by Hounslow council to care for her at home. Social services became involved after the woman was taken to West Middlesex Hospital casualty department in February 2012. They discovered she had been neglecting herself and living in sub-standard conditions. There was no heating in the house, it leaked and she was not eating properly. Mauritius-born Chattun gave more than 8,000 pounds of the pensioner's money to her children. Police were able to seize 130,000 pounds held in Chattun's bank account, the paper said. Recorder Edward Jenkins said: "You came to realise quickly she was to be an excellent source of money for your needs and you started to steal from her for a sustained period. You acted in breach of trust of your employers and the trust society has placed in you as a carer. "You needed to take further steps to control her money and you got power of attorney over her financial affairs, showing a level of persistence and considerable sophistication." During the trial the pensioner gave evidence via video link, but answered: "I don't know," and "I can't remember," to most of the questions. "She (Chattun) used to do a bit of shopping sometimes if I ever wanted any bread or whatever and sit and talk. I didn't take much notice," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A cargo plane crashed today in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 37 people, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Turkish Boeing 747 crashed just outside the Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the airport as well as those on the plane. Reports of the death toll today ranged from 37 people according to emergency officials in the Central Asian nation, to 31 reported by the presidential press office which also said rescue teams had recovered parts of nine bodies. Fifteen people including six children have been hospitalised. Images from the scene showed the plane's nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. Several dozen private houses cluster just outside the metal fence separating the cottages from the runway. Manas has been considerably expanded since the United States began to operate a military installation at the Manas airport, using it primarily for its operations in Afghanistan. American troops vacated the base and handed it over to the Kyrgyz military in 2014. "I woke up because of a bright red light outside," Baktygul Kurbatova, who was slightly injured, told local television. "I couldn't understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. I was so scared but I managed to cover my son's face with my hands so that debris would not fall on him." More than a thousand rescue workers were at the scene by late morning in the residential area where 15 houses were destroyed, Deputy Prime Minister Mukhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical. The plane's flight recorders have not yet been found. The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to Istanbul-based cargo company ACT Airlines. It said in an emailed statement that the cause was unknown. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday called his Kyrgyz counterpart, Erlan Abdildaev, to offer Turkey's condolences, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hospitality major Carlson Rezidor Group is aiming to open eight more hotels under the Radisson Blu brand by the end of 2020, as part of its expansion plans across the country. The company currently has 34 operational Radisson Blu Hotels in India. "We are planning to open 8 more Radisson Blu hotels in India by 2020. They will be in Dehradun, Kolkata, Raipur, Mumbai, Tanmarg, Srinagar and Nasik," Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group South Asia Chief Executive Officer Raj Rana told PTI. He was speaking at the inauguration of Radisson Blu in Faridabad today. The hotel has 124 rooms and apart from other facilities has a Grand Ballroom which can accommodate up to 1,000 guests. On being asked the business model the hospitality chain follows, Rana said: "To broaden our business base, we prefer pursuing management contracts but are selectively open to franchising. To drive business, we continue to invest in technology and service innovations." The strategy is to expand into state capitals and in secondary and tertiary cities with good connectivity, he added. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group currently has over 1,400 hotels in operation and under development with more than 220,000 rooms and a footprint spanning 115 countries and territories. The Carlson Rezidor portfolio includes global brands such as Quorvus Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson Red, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson and Country Inns & Suites By Carlson. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Police today told a special court that it was challenging in Delhi High Court the order asking whether it needed to arrest a private bank official, who is in custody in a case of demonetisation fraud lodged by the Enforcement Directorate, in a separate case. The prosecutor and investigating officer of the case made the submission while seeking time to file a report on the court's query. Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry granted time to the police and listed the matter for filing of report on February 1. During the hearing, prosecutor Balbir Singh and ACP Balwant Singh, the IO in the case, submitted that the court's January 12 order was being challenged in the high court and they needed time to file the report. The court had earlier sought a report from police on a plea of 32-year-old Vineet Gupta, suspended branch manager of Axis Bank's Kashmere Gate branch here and currently in judicial custody, seeking to surrender in a related case lodged by the police. Gupta, whose application has been kept pending, had sought that the court should issue production warrant for his appearance before it from jail, saying he wanted to surrender in the cheating case lodged by police to show his bonafide. He had claimed he had not committed any offence and had nothing to do with the case lodged by police which has added provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act against him as no case of cheating and criminal conspiracy was made out. "The accused is not a public servant within the purview of the Prevention of Corruption Act," the application said. The prosecutor had opposed the plea saying it was not maintainable as the accused was already in judicial custody in the case lodged by ED and hence the issue of surrendering to the Police does not arise at this stage. ED had lodged a criminal complaint against two bankers and others based on a Delhi Police FIR after three persons were intercepted with Rs 3.7 crore in old currency notes a few days ago in front of the bank's Kashmere Gate branch. Gupta, Rajeev Singh Kushwaha, suspected to be the mastermind behind floating of shell companies, and 33-year-old Shobit Sinha, suspended manager (operations) in the bank, are lodged in judicial custody till January 23 for alleged irregularities relating to conversion of demonetised currency and supply of new notes. ED has claimed the probe has found that Rs 39 crore in cash was in question and several companies were involved in the case. It had alleged that a gold brick worth Rs 39 lakh had been recovered from Sinha, while another is yet to be found, which were agreed to be taken as commission. It had claimed that Kushwaha "used the identity documents of various persons to form shell companies" through which cash deposits of Rs 39 crore were made between November 10 and November 22 in "close connivance" with the two bank managers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese Archaeologists have shed new light on the design and origin of a centuries-old Buddha statue recovered from the country's east Jiangxi Province. The statue which emerged from water of a reservoir was originally spotted by local villagers and is 3.8 meters tall and carved into a cliff face, archaeologists said. The base of a hall was also found under the water, indicating that a temple existed there, they said. The head of the Buddha was spotted at Hongmen Reservoir in Nancheng County in the city of Fuzhou late last year when a hydropower gate renovation project lowered water levels in the reservoir by more than 10 meters, state-run Xinhua agency reported. Judging from the head's design, the statue was carved during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), said Xu Changqing, head of the provincial research institute of archaeology. The mission which began earlier this month was carried out by the underwater cultural relic protection centre under the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and Jiangxi Provincial Research Institute of Archaeology. A path was found to the north of the statue, and an inscription with 30 characters was found to the south, according to Li Bin, a researcher with State Administration of Cultural Heritage. In front of the statue is the foundation of the hall, covering some 165 square meters, Li said. Head of Hongmen Township government Guan Zhiyong said the Buddha statue was built at the intersection of two rivers where boats easily overturned due to the rapid flow. "According to folk tale, the ancient people built the statue to pray for safety," Guan said. According to county records, the reservoir is located on the ruins of the ancient Xiaoshi Township, an important trade center and hub for water transportation between Jiangxi and Fujian provinces. "The ruins of Xiaoshi town were not exposed by the lowered water levels, but the underwater team also explored the town," said Jin Huilin, curator of the museum of Nancheng County. Huilin said there was not yet a cultural relic protection department in the county when the reservoir was built, as the county museum was not established until 1983. "There was also a lack of mature technology to protect cultural relics, and the statue could not be removed," he said. Experts said the statue was well-preserved as the water prevented it from weathering and destruction by humans. Some historical heritage sites were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Archaeologists said they will conduct research to prepare for the protection of the reservoir's underwater relics. "The water levels of the reservoir will rise when the spring flood arrives around March, and the head of the Buddha statue will be submerged again," said Shan Keke, official with the water authority of Nancheng. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-owned CIL is looking at appointing a merchant banker to assist it in acquiring assets overseas so as to enhance the nation's energy security. The government is making efforts to reduce India's dependence on the import of fossil fuel. Coal India Ltd (CIL) intends to acquire coal mines overseas with a view to importing the produce to India and enhancing the energy security of the nation, an official said. "To accomplish this mission, CIL has embarked upon the process of empanelment of internationally reputed merchant banker/investment banker for rendering assistance in acquiring coal assets abroad," the official said. CIL, world's largest coal miner which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, is eyeing one billion tonnes of output by 2020. The company had earlier said that it did not find Mozambique suitable for mining and surrendered the lease, seeking an alternate location from the government. Coal India's board had earlier approved signing of a pact with African Exploration Mining & Finance Corporation SOC Ltd (AEMFC), owned by the South African government, for acquisition of coal mines in that country. "The CIL board has accorded approval to the proposal for execution of MoU between CIL and African Exploration Mining & Finance Corporation, SOC Ltd, an entity owned by the government of South Africa for identification, acquisition, exploration, development and operation of coal assets in South Africa," the PSU had earlier said in a report. The PSU is eyeing 598.60 million tonne coal production in the current fiscal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today linked the revocation of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to improvement in law and order situation and success of security forces in ending terrorism in the state. "The success of the security forces depends upon when we will start revoking Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). "It also depends upon when we stomp out terrorism fully and slowly and steadily decrease the footprints of security forces. It will not be our success first, it will be the success of the security forces," she said in her address to Legislative Council here today. Mehbooba went on to add, "If we can control infiltration and militancy in the state, then we can start revoking AFSPA. Time is nearing by when this will start happening. This has been agreed in the Agenda of Alliance (between ruling coalition partners PDP and BJP)." She said it has been agreed in the Working Group that whenever the security situation becomes conducive, the laws applicable with regard to security will be automatically revoked, she said. "When the elections take place and democracy is put in place, footprints of the security apparatus automatically gets downgraded. See when the militancy started in 1990s, how many camps were there which you did not see in 2002 and today they are not there. Decreasing the footprints of security forces is in the Agenda of Alliance of our government," she said. Emphasising the need for dialogue, Mehbooba said her late father and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had believed that the problem of Jammu and Kashmir is "a war of idea". "You cannot put an idea into jail. You cannot kill an idea. You need to deal with idea. You need to deal with idea with another idea. "If some people say they have to go for freedom or with Pakistan, we tell them that there is huge accommodation in the Constitutions of Jammu and Kashmir and India which can fulfill the dream of freedom within its ambit," she said. "We need to open up more roads between the two sides of Kashmir," she said. Noting that China is building economic corridor in PoK, she said "we also need to take a call to build such a corridor via Kashmir, Jammu or Ladakh. That is why we are batting for holding dialogue and we believe that dialogue is the only way and we need to create an atmosphere for this. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) American beverages major Coca-Cola Co may set up a plant in Sri Lanka to feed demands in India, which has the highest demand of the firm's products in South Asia, the Sri Lankan finance ministry today said. Coca-Cola's interest was expressed by the Asia Pacific chiefs of the Company when they met the Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake here over the weekend, it said in a statement. "They pointed out that Sri Lanka could be developed into a production hub to re-export their products to India. India has the highest demand for Coca Cola products in the South Asian region." The Atlanta-based firm's products include Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Thums Up and Limca, juices and juice-based drinks like Minute Maid and Maaza, packaged water, as well as Kinley soda. The non-alcoholic beverages market in India is said to be around USD 5 billion, according to the data available on the website of Indian Beverage Association, which is formed by firms with direct and allied interests in the non-alcoholic beverage industry. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The opposition Congress and NCP in Maharashtra have joined hands to contest the Legislative Council elections in five Graduates and Teachers constituencies scheduled on February 3. State Congress chief Ashok Chavan told reporters here today that his party will contest the graduate constituencies of Amravati and Nashik and the teachers constituency of Nagpur, while NCP will contest the Aurangabad teachers seat. The party has decided to give Konkan teachers seat from its quota to Peasants and Workers Party (PWP). Chavan said during a meeting with party leaders of the state today, they will discuss and formulate strategy for the 26 zilla parishad and 10 municipal corporation polls, also slated next month. Congress Mumbai unit president Sanjay Nirupam has conveyed his stand regarding alliance with NCP which will be discussed in the party leaders' meeting, he said. Chavan accused the ruling allies Shiv Sena and BJP of portraying a misleading picture of friction between them. "Infact, they are one," he claimed. A notification for these biennial elections was issued on January 10. Last date of filing papers is tomorrow and scrutiny will be held on January 18. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is January 20. Polling will take place from 8 AM to 4 PM on February 3. Counting of votes will be held on February 6. The members who retired from the five constituencies on December 5 last year are - NCP's Vikram Kale (Aurangabad division- teachers), BJP's Minister of State for Home and Urban Development Ranjit Patil (Amravati division- graduates), Congress's Sudhir Tambe (Nashik division- graduates), and Independents Nago Pundalik Ganar (Nagpur division- teachers) and Ramnath Mote (Konkan division- teachers). The biennial elections to these five constituencies could not take place within the prescribed time due to the order of Supreme Court on January 12 last year directing for preparation of electoral rolls for all graduate and teachers constituencies afresh before elections. The Congress had earlier declared Sanjay Khodke for Amravati graduates constituency and retained the name of Sudhir Tambe for Nashik graduates seat. BJP has retained the candidature of Ranjit Patil for Amravati graduates seat, Satish Patki for Aurangabad teachers and is supporting sitting MLC Nago Ganar for Nagpur teachers and Venunath Kadu for Konkan teachers seats. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress today demanded the resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel over the apex bank's "loss of autonomy" and said the party will gherao RBI offices in Mumbai, Nagpur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad on January 18 over the issue of demonetisation. Maharashtra Congress president and former state Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan, will lead the protest in Mumbai, while the Leader of Opposition in legislative Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, will participate in Nagpur. Former Maharashtra Chief Ministers Prithviraj Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde will take part in the protests in Bangalore and Ahmedabad respectively, it was decided at a party meeting here today. "Similarly, the party has also planned to hold a state-level convention in Mumbai on January 29 over the issue of demonetisation," former union Home minister and senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde said here today. Ashok Chavan, who was also present at the press conference, demanded Urjit Patel's resignation. "The RBI has lost its autonomous status under the Narendra Modi government...Demonetisation was a one man decision. Therefore, we demand the resignation of Urjit Patel," Shinde alleged. "Even today, citizens cannot withdraw cash from the bank accounts," he claimed, adding that the Congress was with the citizens, who are facing hardships due to the note ban," he added. The two leaders were talking to reporters after a meeting of the state-level committee formed to hold protests over the demonetisation issue. Chavan alleged that the Centre's interference in the functioning of RBI has increased. Responding to questions on the possibility of alliance between Congress and NCP for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, he said the tie-up cannot materialise since the Mumbai unit of the party is against it and the NCP has already announced a list of 45 candidates. Chavan also alleged that the MIM has got a "contract" from BJP to contest the civic polls. "If there is a proposal for alliance with NCP from the district Congress units, approval would be given for it," Chavan added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today received praise from Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for his "personal attention and his government's generous assistance" for the successful conduct of Kalachakra Puja. In a letter written to Kumar on January 15, the Dalai Lama said: "I am writing to convey my deep gratitude to you and to your government for the personal attention and generous assistance in providing the necessary infrastructure and facilities for the two-week Kalachakra empowerment." "The organisational support, including the extensive and thorough security arrangements, contributed to the efficient and smooth running of this large event," the noble laureate said in his letter. The 34th Kalachakra Puja, a major event of the Buddhists, went on from January 2 to January 14 at Bodh Gaya under the supervision of the Dalai Lama. The Bihar CM had attended the concluding function of the Puja at Bodh Gaya on January 14 and was blessed by the Tibetan theologist effusively. "The pilgrims have also been most appreciative of your generosity and hospitality. The celebration of Kalachakra in Bodh Gaya, the most sacred place of the Buddhists has been a tremendous success," the Dalai Lama wrote. "The officials from your various departments have devoted a great deal of time and effort to ensuring the success of this Kalachakra empowerment, which I understand was attended by over 1.75 lakh people from 92 countries," he said. The revered Buddhist spiritual leader sadi: "It's heartening that the overall maintenance of the temple area (in Bodh Gaya) has greatly improved over the years. "I wish you good health and continued success in providing the kind and able leadership to people of Bihar that will ensure their prosperity and happiness." While speaking at the start of the Kalachakra Puja, the Dalai Lama had praised Kumar for initiating liquor ban. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kashmiri girl Zaira Wasim, who played the younger version of Indian wrestler Geeta Phogat in Aamir Khan-led Bollywood blockbuster "Dangal", today apologised for "offending" and "unintentionally hurting" people after her meeting with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti kicked up a row. Zaira took to social media and tendered an apology apparently over her meeting with the chief minister on Saturday, which drew sharp reactions from the youth in the valley because of the situation here during the last few months. She also played down her performance in "Dangal", saying she was "not proud of" what she is doing. "This is an open confession/apology. I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met," the 16-year-old actress wrote on her Facebook page. Wasim said she wanted to apologise to "all those people who I have unintentionally hurt and I want them to know that I understand their sentiments behind it especially considering that what had happened over the past six months" - apparently referring to the unrest in the valley which left 86 people dead and thousands injured. "But I hope people can also understand there are certain circumstances that emerge which one cannot control and I hope people still remember that I'm a just a 16 year old girl and I hope you treat me accordingly. I'm sorry for what I did but it was not a deliberate decision and I really hope people can forgive me," she said. Zaira also played down her projection as a role model for the youth of Kashmir, saying she does not want anyone to follow in her footsteps. "There are few more things which are very important and I want to clear them as well. The first and foremost thing is that I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri Youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me as a role model. "I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the Youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history," she said. "To even consider me as a role model would be disgracing them and their disgrace would be OUR DISGRACE! I do not wish to start an argument here, this was a just a mere confession from my end which I really wanted people to know. May Allah bless us and guide us," she said. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah said Wasim should not be forced to apologise. "A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise & that too allegedly for meeting @MehboobaMufti. What are we coming to!!!!!," he tweeted. "I've a problem with @MehboobaMufti trying to usurp other peoples success to cover up her own failures but why punish/troll people she meets?," he added. Reacting to her post, filmmaker Ashoke Pandit said, "This is exactly what happened with the girls band Pragaash few months back and we saw what happeed to them. They had to pack up and they stopped singing. I see nor reason why this child had to come out and issue the statement. She must have been targetted, must have ben threatened." Geeta Phogat also backed Wasim, saying she need not apologise or worry as she has not done anything wrong. "I just want to say that Zaira shouldn't apologise. She didn't do anything wrong. Just like we have made our country proud by winning medals, she has done the same thing by playing my younger version in the movie. She did a lot of hardwork for that role and she played it really well. "I've met her so many times during shoot, she is a very simple girl... I want to say to her family that don't be afraid about anything and just don't worry. We all are with them. The entire country stands with them. She is equally deserving like us and we all respect her from the bottom of our hearts," Geeta said. Northern Ireland was today headed for snap elections within weeks as its worst political crisis in years raised fears of an end to hard-won stability while impacting upcoming Brexit negotiations. The nationalist Sinn Fein party passed up its last chance to nominate a new deputy first minister to the power-sharing executive to replace Martin McGuinness, meaning elections are all but certain. McGuinness resigned last week in protest over a botched green heating scheme following weeks of tensions with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which supports British rule of the province. The government's Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire is now expected to call elections -- the second in 10 months -- to be held within six weeks. "Sinn Fein have indicated that they're not intending to put a replacement forward. The clear indications are that we are moving towards an election," Brokenshire told the BBC yesterday. The crisis over a green energy scheme instigated by Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP, when she was economy minister has been simmering for months. She has repeatedly refused to step aside temporarily to allow an investigation into a scheme which could cost Northern Ireland taxpayers up to 490 million pounds (USD 592 million, 558 million euros) and McGuinness last week quit his position, accusing Foster of "deep-seated arrogance". Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive and assembly were formed under the 1998 Belfast Agreement that effectively ended three decades of political violence in Northern Ireland. The sectarian voting patterns that have always characterised elections in the province's deeply divided society could remain intact in the next vote, bringing little prospect of an end to the political stalemate. If the two biggest parties are returned as expected but the deadlock remains, then a second election could be called if there is failure to form an executive within three weeks of the vote. The other option would be direct rule of Northern Ireland from the British parliament in London. The last period of direct rule ended in 2007. In the Brexit referendum, 56 per cent in Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU compared to a national result of 52 per cent in favour of leaving. The DUP was the only one of the main political parties that voted to leave the bloc. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she plans to launch the EU exit procedure by the end of March at the latest, which could coincide with elections and subsequent negotiations to form a government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Sheila Dikshit today congratulated Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on the Election Commission allotting the 'Bicycle' symbol to his faction of the Samajwadi Party amid indication that talks were on between the two parties for an alliance for the upcoming polls. "I congratulate Akhilesh Yadav on getting the party symbol. It is good that the Election Commission has taken a decision on the issue," she said. Asked about Congress' possible alliance with Akhilesh-led Samajwadi Party, she refused to give a direct reply but indicated that talks were underway between the two sides. "I will not say anything at this point. The party will take a call on the issue. Let's see what happens. It will not be proper to say anything till something happens," Dikshit, Congress' chief ministerial face in Uttar Pradesh, told PTI. Sources said talks for a possible alliance between Congress and the faction-led by Akhilesh were on as both sides were keen for it. Earlier this month, Dikshit had said in case of an alliance, Akhilesh was likely to be the face of the campaign and that she would like to step aside. In a major boost to Akhilesh, the EC recognised the faction headed by him as the SP and alloted the reserved symbol 'Bicycle' to it for contesting the coming Assembly elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) East Delhi sanitation workers who were protesting non-payment of salaries today completely called off their 11-day-long strike. This was the last batch of workers who had continued their strike despite another section ending the protest on January 9 upon receiving salaries for the last two months. The sanitation workers decided to return to their jobs after a meeting between MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union and EDMC officials, including Commissioner Mohanjeet Singh. Over 17,000 sanitation workers of East Delhi Municipal Corporation had gone on strike from January 5 demanding payment of pending salaries and arrears among others. President of the Union Sanjay Gehlot said a number of demands, including reinstatement of removed employees, promotion for educated workers, regularisation of those engaged since 2013 and jobs on compassionate grounds, were made at the meeting. "The Commissioner accepted our demands and issued orders in this regard," he said. Gehlot said he has appealed to sanitation employees to resume work and ensure cleanliness in East Delhi. He, however, said a large number of employees from all the three MCDs will gather at Raj Ghat on February 7 and stage a demonstration against the Delhi government for "withholding" funds meant for the civic body. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a setback to Egyptian government, a top court today rejected its decision to hand over two strategically located Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, in a deal that had outraged many Egyptians and triggered protests. High Administrative Court also ruled that the two Red Sea islands Tiran and Sanafir will continue under Egypt's sovereignty. The court verdict is final and cannot be appealed. In its verdict, which was aired on the Egyptian TV, the court said that "Egyptian army has never been an army of occupation" and that the government did not provide sufficient documents that supports its decision. Last year, the court ruled that Egyptian-Saudi border demarcation agreement which aimed at transferring two Egyptian Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia is void and that the two islands, which have been under Egypt's control for over 60 years, should remain under Egyptian sovereignty. The court's decision was appealed by the government. Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority - the body representing the government in legal cases - has appealed in June the court verdict that voided a decision by the government to place two islands in the Red Sea under Saudi Arabia's sovereignty. On April 7, an Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to transfer the two islands Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia during the visit by Saudi King Salman to Cairo. Although, the Egyptian government described the agreement as "an important achievement that will make the two countries benefit economically", many activists rallied to protest against the government's deal. The protesters, in different parts of the country, organised marches against the deal and accused the government of selling the islands in return for Saudi investments. The police used tear gas to disperse the anti-government rallies and many protesters were arrested as street protests are banned without prior permission from police according to a controversial protest law issued in 2013. Egyptian lawyers Khaled Ali and Ali Ayoub had filed a lawsuit to the Egyptian Administrative Court at the State Council against the deal. Their report included that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Al had wrongfully waived Egyptian sovereignty rights over the two islands. The islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba control the narrow shipping lanes running north to the Red Sea port cities of Eilat and Aqaba, in Israel and Jordan. The fate of the two islands has been at the heart of friction between Riyadh and Cairo over a string of regional issues, including Syria and Yemen. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A group of terrorists attacked a security checkpoint at Al-Naqb in southwestern Egypt's New Valley Governorate, 70 km from Kharga city, killing eight police officials and injuring three others. The attack took place last night in which two of the attackers were killed during the gunbattle between security forces and the terrorists, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The forces have launched a hunt for the remaining attackers who managed to escape after the attack, it said. No terror group has claimed responsibility of the attack so far. Egypt has witnessed many violent attacks by militants in the last few years and since the January 2011 revolution that toppled the ex-president Hosni Mubarak. The attacks targeting police and military increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by military following massive protests against his rule. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) European Union nations reacted with surprise and defiance today to comments made by President-elect Donald Trump, who said in an interview that NATO was "obsolete" and hinted that more member states would leave the 28-nation EU. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, speaking ahead of an EU foreign ministers meeting, said Trump's view on NATO and criticism that allied members weren't paying their fair share has "caused astonishment." His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault added that the best response to such an interview was simple Europeans uniting together. Even though Trump had make similar comments during his tempestuous election campaign, a repeat of the same points still hit Europe hard and still came as a bit of a surprise, since his choice for defense secretary, General James Mattis, has stressed his support for the alliance in his US congressional confirmation hearings last week. Steinmeier said Trump's views in an interview with German daily Bild and The Times of London "are contradictory to statement of" Mattis. Beyond NATO, Trump indicated he was indifferent to whether the EU stays together or not, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which encouraged Great Britain to remain in the EU last year before the UK voted in June to leave. Ayrault said "the best way to defend Europe and it is at Trump's invitation is to say united, together as a bloc." Britain decided to leave the EU in a vote in June. In the interview, Trump said "I believe others will leave ... I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think." Trump predicted that Brexit the British exit from the EU would "end up being a great thing" and said he was already looking forward to bilateral relations with Britain. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it's "very good that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast." Trump was less kind to German industry officials, saying their car manufacturers including BMW could face tariffs of up to 35 per cent if they set up plants in Mexico instead of in the US and try to export cars to the US from there. Such tariffs would make "the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive," Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's economy minister, told Bild. Gabriel suggested Europeans exhibit more self confidence in dealing with Trump. "We're not weak and inferior," he noted. Responding to Trump's complaint that German automakers don't behave fairly because a lot of German cars are seen in the US but few American cars are bought in Germany, Gabriel suggested the solution might be that "the US needs to build better cars." BMW said Monday that the company would stick to its plans to produce cars in Mexico. "The production is aimed at the world market," BMW said, according to the German agency dpa. "Therefore the plant in Mexico will complement ... The production plants in Germany and China. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini today advised the incoming Donald Trump administration against moving the US embassy to Jerusalem as she "worried" about a possible worldwide popular backlash. Mogherini said the European Union delegation will keep its embassy in Tel Aviv and continue to respect UN resolutions opposing Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. "I believe that it is very important for us all to refrain from unilateral actions, especially those that have serious consequences in large sectors of public opinion in large parts of the world," Mogherini told a press conference when asked about Trump's stated plans. In a break with previous administrations, US President-elect Trump has pledged to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. Mogherini said at first she could not answer a hypothetical question when Trump does not actually enter office until Friday and no decision has been taken yet on moving the embassy. But she added: "For sure I'm worried that large parts of public opinion in parts of the world that are quite significant -- the Arab world but also Africa, Asia and parts of Europe -- could have in reaction of a move that for sure would not be in line with...The international consensus." She cited the consensus embodied in UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980 which opposed Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem as part of its undivided capital. Israel captured east Jerusalem during the 1967 war and later annexed it -- in a move not recognised by the international community -- declaring all of the city its unified capital. "When it comes to Jerusalem, the European Union will continue to respect the international consensus embodied in UN Security Council resolution 478 of 1980," the former Italian foreign minister said. "We will for sure not move our delegation that is in Tel Aviv," she said. Mogherini also described the weekend Middle East peace conference in Paris as "useful" for reconfirming international support for a two-state solution, even if neither the Israelis or Palestinians attended. The Palestinians welcomed the gathering for calling for the end to the Israeli occupation, but Israel dismissed it as "futile" and warned it would hamper the prospects of peace. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Angela Merkel led a sharp European response to US President-elect Donald Trump today after he branded the NATO alliance "obsolete" and criticised the German chancellor's open-door refugee policy. In a hard-hitting interview with two European newspapers, Trump unleashed a volley of verbal attacks on Europe, hailing Britain's decision to leave the European Union and saying more countries were going to quit the bloc. With fears growing in Europe over Trump's commitment to the transatlantic alliance and over signs he will pivot towards Russia, Merkel warned that the continent now had to take responsibility for itself. "We Europeans have our fate in our own hands," Merkel told reporters in Berlin when asked about Trump's criticisms, adding that she will work towards getting the EU to strengthen the economy and fight terrorism. Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Europe was stunned by Trump's remarks on NATO, just five days ahead of the billionaire businessman's inauguration as president. "The interview statements of the American president-elect...Caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation," Steinmeier said as he went from a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to talks with EU counterparts. France's top diplomat Jean-Marc Ayrault said "the best response" to Trump's comments was "the unity of Europeans". Trump's latest remarks have in particular caused further consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily, on Friday. "Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said, referring to its Cold War, post-World War II origins. "Number two, the countries aren't paying what they're supposed to pay." On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States was not "reasonably reimbursed" for the costs of defending them -- a common source of friction in the US-led 28-nation alliance. NATO chief Stoltenberg reiterated that he had full confidence in the US commitment to Europe. "He is absolutely confident that the incoming US administration will remain committed to NATO," spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. Trump further extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under President Barack Obama over Moscow's involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for suspected cyber attacks to influence the US election. "Let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia," Trump said, suggesting in vague terms a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor has opened up about the colourful life of his father, filmmaker Raj Kapoor in his soon-to-be released autobiography, saying he loved his cinema, booze, and his leading ladies. Titled, "Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored", the tell-all book sees the 'Bobby' actor talking about his father's affairs with co-actors and his passion for films, besides capturing the evolution of their father-son relationship. Rishi practically begins the book talking about his father's affair with yesteryears' actor Nargis Dutt, who together, he writes, continue to be widely acknowledged as the most iconic pair onscreen. "My father, Raj Kapoor, was twenty-eight years old and had already been hailed as the 'showman of Hindi cinema' four years before. "He was also a man in love - at the time, unfortunately, with someone other than my mother. His girlfriend was the leading lady of some of his biggest hits of the time, including Aag (1948), Barsaat (1949) and Awara (1951)." Rishi writes that Nargis was Raj Kapoor's "in-house heroine" and was understandably immortalised in the RK Studios emblem. The 64-year-old actor has also shed light on the relationship his father shared with co-star Vyajanthimala, who had denied having an affair with the actor. He writes, "I remember moving into the Natraj Hotel on Marine Drive with my mom during the time Papa was involved with Vyjayanthimala. "From the hotel, we shifted for two months into an apartment in Chitrakoot. My father had bought the apartment for Mom and us. He did all he could to woo her back, but my mother wouldn't give in until he had ended that chapter of his life." He remembers getting "livid" when Vyjayanthimala claimed that his father had "manufactured the romance because of his hunger for publicity". "She had no right to distort facts just because he was no longer around to defend the truth...But I can say with absolute certainty that if Papa had been alive, she wouldn't have denied the affair so blatantly or called him publicity hungry," Rishi writes in the book. In a cheek-in-tongue observation, the "Karz" actor also reveals his father's fascination for a particular brand of whisky, which he refused to share. "My father loved his cinema, his booze, his leading ladies and his work. But for a man legendary for his hospitality, he was very possessive of his whisky. "When we started drinking together, for him it was always Johnny Walker Black Label bought in London, while we were served locally procured whisky," he writes, adding that "heaps of unopened Black Label bottles stashed away in his cupboards" were recovered after Raj Kapoor passed away. Much like his own relationship with son Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi too shared a bond with his father that was one of reverence. He says that it evolved from being driven by fear to one laden with "an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing". "When I finally got over the fear of my father, it was replaced by an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing, especially after I had the opportunity to work closely with him. "For me, Raj Kapoor was both father and guru, the person who taught me everything I know about my craft. I worked with him in three movies the most for any actor after Nargis-ji," he writes in the book. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) - A shooting erupted during an electronic music festival at a Mexican beach resort early today, leaving at least five people dead, including one in a stampede as revelers fled in panic. Fifteen people were injured after at least one gunman opened fire and two others -- apparently security guards -- shot back before dawn inside the Blue Parrot nightclub during the BPM festival in Playa del Carmen, said Quintana Roo state attorney general Miguel Angel Pech. Four of the victims were men, including two from Canada, one from Italy and another from Colombia, Pech said at a conference. Organisers said three of the victims were part of the security team. The state government said in a statement the four men died from gunfire while a woman died in the stampede. Four people were detained and authorities are investigating if they were connected to the shooting, Pech said. State public security chief Rodolfo del Angel told Milenio television that the shooting may be linked to "a fight between people over a problem that took place inside" the club, but Pech said the investigation was ongoing. The shooting sowed terror in a part of Mexico that has been largely spared from the drug violence afflicting other parts of the country. "We suddenly had to jump over the metal security barriers because they were shooting. It was horrible. We were very scared," Eric Alvarez, a 40-year-old Mexican DJ, told AFP outside the club, which has a blue parrot painted on the facade. "A lot of people were panicking," said Alvarez, who lost his prosthetic teeth while fleeing. Playa del Carmen is 68 kilometres south of Cancun, a Caribbean region known as the Mayan Riviera, which is very popular among American and European tourists. An editor for London-based music magazine Mixmag who was in the backstage area of Blue Parrot said at least four or five shots were fired at around 2:45 (0745 GMT) or 3 am. "People started running because there's an exit in the back. We stopped and hid behind a cement wall, then crawled under a metal table," Valerie Lee, Mixmag's US digital editor, was quoted as saying by the magazine. "Security guards at first didn't think it was shots and kept claiming it was fireworks, saying everything was OK. Then people kept running and said they saw a gun. We kept hiding until they opened the back gate and we ran outside," Lee said. Lee wrote on Twitter that the music was still playing five minutes after the shots were heard. The music, she said, was "super loud, likely those inside didn't even hear". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gambia's president has said that he has filed an injunction to restrict president-elect Adama Barrow from taking office Thursday and to bar other parties from swearing the opposition coalition leader in, telling Gambians they must wait for a Supreme Court hearing before he considers stepping down after more than 22 years in power. President Yahya Jammeh yesterday addressed the small West African nation as Senegal said it was hosting Barrow until his Jan. 19 inauguration. Jammeh said that date marking the end of his mandate is "not carved in stone." "I have confirmed that we have filed an application for an injunction to restrict Mr. Adama Barrow from being sworn in as well as restricting the chief justice and any other parties from swearing in Mr. Adama Barrow until the application is decided by the Supreme Court of Gambia. And until then, the status quo remains," Jammeh said. The 51-year-old leader called the chairwoman of the West African bloc, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, during his state TV broadcast. While on the phone, he confirmed that he filed the injunction and requested that the Economic Community of West African States, known as ECOWAS, help facilitate Supreme Court judges. The bloc has been mediating the political crisis in Gambia. "The only peaceful resolution of this impasse is through the courts," he told the Liberian leader. Sirleaf said that "we are going to work on this right away," and she encouraged Jammeh to confirm that he wants peace and will follow the constitution. "Gambia needs peace, and ECOWAS wants peace," she said. Jammeh, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1994, had conceded after losing in the Dec. 1 election. A week later, he rejected the vote, saying there were irregularities. He and his party filed a petition calling for a new vote, and he appointed judges to the Supreme Court, which had not sat for over a year. The Nigerian and Sierra Leone judges he appointed, however, have said they cannot sit until May. ECOWAS leaders attempting to mediate the political crisis met with Jammeh and Barrow in Gambia on Friday, but said no deal was reached. Barrow was then invited to meet with African leaders at the France-Africa summit in Mali on Saturday. The West African regional bloc has said if Jammeh does not cede power it will consider military intervention and has already prepared a standby force led by Senegal, which almost completely surrounds Gambia. A Nigerian army memo has also ordered officers to prepare a battalion of 800 troops for the possible military intervention, should Jammeh not step down. The African Union has announced it will cease to recognise Jammeh as Gambia's legitimate leader as of Jan. 19, when his mandate expires, and warns of "serious consequences" if his actions lead to the loss of lives. Jammeh criticised the AU's decision in his yesterday address, saying it hadn't been approved by member states. Gambia's political uncertainty has recently sent several thousand people, mostly women and children in buses, fleeing the country of about 1.9 million people across border to Senegal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's spy agency ISI recruits university students, people from public service commissions and retired army officials to carry out various operations, German historian Hein Kiessling said today. Kiessling, who spent around 13 years in Pakistan during which he studied structure and work of ISI, claimed the Pakistani intelligence agency is one of the best in Asia and had a staff strength of around 3,500 in 2004 when RAW's strength was around 7,000. He was speaking at the Observer Research Foundation after release of his book "Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan". He said the book is an updated version of his previous volume on work of ISI and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) published in German in 2011. Kiessling, who spent nine of the 13 years in Islamabad, gives the readers a peep into the history of the ISI and inside look into the workings and machinations of the intelligence agency. "The book spans the period from 1948, the period of establishing of the agency (ISI) to 2015. This work is based on my observations and experiences and I have used historical method. There were several factors which led me into doing this book," he said. "While researching the book, I met several top officials who had been associated with ISI, from DG-rank to others, and one thing I found out was that the archiving of information, about it, was not done properly... Also, in 2004, ISI had 3,500 staff," he said. Kiessling also claimed that a former top official of the ISI had told him that "9/11 was an inside job" but he refused to give credence to it. "I am not in favour of conspiracy theories. There have been many conspiracy theories around the September 11 attack in the US. So, this was another one... Lot of people also still think that US astronauts never landed on the moon and it was staged in a desert. So, let's not get into conspiracy theories," he said. The author also said that on the Kashmir issue, "From the beginning I was very careful on this subject." Later in response to a question on composition of staff, Kiessling said, "In (Pakistan) Army, majority are Punjabis... As per ISI, in last few years, it has been taking a lot of civilians, from defence and strategic studies department at universities, public service commissions. 10-15 per cent of them are recruited from the retired army personnel." The author says his contacts for researching the book were senior retired army officers. On another question on the strength and weakness of ISI, he said, "It is one of the best intelligence agencies, 'second to none' they call themselves too. But, their weakness, if you ask me is that they do not take into account what is happening around the world." Vikram Sood, former head of RAW, in the opening remarks said, "ISI has often been dubbed as 'State within a state' or 'Secret Godfather' or Invisible government' akin to CIA." "I personally feel that like the DGMOs, the chiefs of RAW and ISI should meet to work out a sensible solution," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Friday warned US President-elect Donald Trump not to slap punitive tariffs on imports from carmakers like BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. "The American car industry will be worse, weaker and more expensive" if Trump were to levy a 35-percent tax on German cars, Gabriel told mass-market newspaper Bild. He added it would also hurt US carmakers if components were subject to higher duties. More German cars could be seen on the streets of New York than US cars on German streets, the Republican election victor had complained in an interview released yesterday. Gabriel responded that "the US will have to build better cars" if they want to change that. "It doesn't help to make weaker, you don't yourself get stronger by doing that," he added. Trump singled out Munich-based luxury carmaker BMW in his interview with the Times of London and Germany's Bild, saying the firm would face the swingeing tariffs if it continued construction of a planned factory in Mexico, rather than the US. A BMW spokesman told AFP on Monday that construction at its factory in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, is "continuing as planned and expected to be finished in 2019". Series 3 cars to be built at the plant "are planned to serve the global market", and not just the US, he said. "We are a net exporter from the USA," he went on, pointing to the firm's largest factory worldwide in Spartanburg, South Carolina. That facility produced more than 400,000 vehicles in 2016 and directly or indirectly supports almost 70,000 jobs, the spokesman added. "The US isn't just an important export market for German carmakers, but also an important production site which delivers to the world market," Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, said in a statement. More than half the vehicles German firms produce in the US are then exported to third countries, he went on. "Erecting tariffs or other barriers to trade would be a self-inflicted wound for the US in the long term" if other countries responded in kind, Wissmann said. Gabriel told Bild that he expected Trump to change after being sworn in as president on Friday, when he will "realise how diverse the economic links" between the US and are. "My only advice is not to get agitated," he said of Germany's future dealings with the US under the president-elect. "Not only we Germans, but we Europeans as a whole, we aren't somehow outmatched by him. We ourselves have something to bring to the table. Congress MLA from Borsad Assembly seat in Anand district, Amit Chavda allegedly received a threat call from a person claiming to be gangster Ravi Pujari, who is believed to be in Australia, police said. Chavda was visiting his relative Mahesh Solanki on January 14 when he received a call on his mobile phone from an Australian number, a Borsad police station official said. "The man who called up MLA Chavda identified himself as Ravi Pujari from Australia, and asked him whether Pragnesh Patel (Independent municipal councillor) who was shot at a few days back has died or not. Chavda said he does not know and cut off the line," the official said. "After some time, he again received a call, this time from an Indian number, and the person on the other side told Chavda that he will meet Patel's fate," he said. Chavda returned to Borsad yesterday and filed an FIR late last night against unknown persons and the one who identified himself as Ravi Pujari. Police lodged the FIR under IPC section 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), and transferred the case to Gandhinagar's sector 1 police station which launched an investigation into the matter. Pragnesh Patel, an Independent councillor from Borsad municipality, was shot at by unidentified assailants in Borsad town a few days back and is being treated at a hospital in Vadodara. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hamas said today it had agreed to release those arrested in connection with protests over severe electricity shortages that prompted an outpouring of anger in the Gaza Strip in recent days. The interior ministry in Gaza, run by Islamist movement Hamas, said in a statement the decision was made after a meeting between security chiefs and political movements in the Palestinian enclave. It did not say how many people were being released, but rights activists said it involved dozens of people. A series of protests were held in the Gaza Strip in recent days, including one on Thursday when thousands in northern Gaza walked to the local headquarters of the electricity company. Security forces dispersed the protesters violently, with shots fired in the air and a number of journalists beaten up. A prominent comedian was also detained on Wednesday after he posted on social media a call for Hamas to give up power. The Gaza Strip had been left with around four hours of electricity per day recently as winter temperatures drove a spike in demand. Gaza's electricity authority said today it was returning to providing power in eight-hour intervals after Qatar pledged USD 12 million toward resolving the problem. The strip's sole electricity plant has seen fuel shortages in a dispute over unpaid bills and taxes with the Palestinian Authority, based in the occupied West Bank and dominated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party. The Palestinian Authority handles fuel purchases from Israel since the Israeli authorities do not deal directly with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organisation. The PA then requires Hamas to reimburse it for bills and taxes, but Gaza's electricity authority faces cash shortages because nearly 70 per cent of households do not pay their bills, either because of poverty or lack of collection, the UN estimates. The power plant, which has also been previously bombed by Israel, already functioned below capacity even before the recent crisis. Israel's decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip further complicates the situation. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. Besides their one power plant, Gaza's two million people also rely on electricity imports from Israel and Egypt. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Patidar leader Hardik Patel will return to Gujarat tomorrow after spending six months outside the state and address a "massive" rally of the Patel community in Sabarkantha district. The firebrand leader, who is facing sedition charges, was released on bail by the Gujarat High Court on July 15 last year on the condition that he will stay outside the state for six months, starting July 17. He had been staying in Udaipur in Rajasthan since then. Hardik's close aide Dinesh Bambhaniya said he will receive a grand welcome on entering Gujarat from Ratanpur border. He said Hardik is scheduled to address a "massive" rally planned by the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti in Himmatnagar and expected to be attended by more than 1 lakh people. PAAS has described it as "the start of the second round of the Patel quota agitation". In August 2015, Hardik had addressed a massive rally at GMDC ground demanding inclusion of the community in the OBC category for quota benefits. "This rally in Himmatnagar is GMDC part two. Hardik will take up the reservation issue. He will also demand justice for those killed in police firing during the violence after GMDC rally. This rally will reignite the quota agitation in Gujarat," Bambhaniya said. At around 2 PM, Hardik will reach Gandhinagar to seek blessings of former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel. In the evening, he will leave for Pune to take part in "Bharatiya Chhatra Sansad". Hardik's return is being monitored carefully by political parties as well as the administration as the state goes to polls later this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Government would establish a State Level Internal Security University at Haryana Police Complex at Madhuban in Karnal district. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has, accorded in-principle approval for this project, an official release said here today. Former Vice-Chancellor, Sardar Patel University of Police (Security and Criminal Justice), Jodhpur, Rajasthan, M L Kumawat, delivered a presentation in this regard in a meeting held with the Chief Minister recently, the release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 2500 on the Administrator (pension funds) of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation, for making an employee run from pillar to post unnecessarily and directed that the cost be paid to the creche account of the woman advocates association of Madurai. Justice S.Vydhyanathan of the Court's Madurai Bench, disposing of a petition filed by J Ramaraj, said the cost should be paid within two weeks. The judge pointed out that already the labour court had directed the General Manager, TNSTC, Virudhunagar, to reinstate the employee with continuity of service and without back wages. The High Court also had upheld the order of the labour court. Once the award was made with continuity of service, the management should have deposited the employer's contribution to the trust together with interest. The judge rejected the contention that the petitioner was reinstated in service on September 23,2015 and subsequently, retired on April 30,2016 and as the petitioner had not completed sufficient years of service and there was no contribution by the employer to the P.F. Account,he could not get pensionary benefits. Once there is an award of reinstatement with continuity of service, the entire period of service from 1993 to 2016 will have to be taken into account, except for back wages from the date of dismissal till date of award,the judge said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special court was today informed that the Delhi High Court's order on appointment of special public prosecutor (SPP) in the Rs 100 crore transport scam case, has been challenged before the Supreme Court. Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry put up the matter for January 24 after the court was told by the SPP, appointed by the Lieutenant Governor, that the case is listed before the apex court on January 18. "Advocate Sanjay Kumar Gupta, SPP appointed by the LG, submits that August 4, 2016 order of the Delhi High Court was challenged before the Supreme Court and has been listed for January 18. At request, the matter is adjourned for January 24," the judge said. The special court is scheduled to hear fresh arguments on the appointment of SPP in the Rs 100 crore transport scam case in Delhi. The High Court's August 4, 2016 order on the powers of Delhi government and the Lieutenant Governor had set aside the special court's earlier order turning down Delhi government's notification appointing an SPP in the case. While advocate Sanjay Kumar Gupta was appointed SPP by former LG Najeeb Jung in 2015, advocate B S Joon was notified for the post by the AAP government. However, the special court had in September 2015 observed that the LG-appointed SPP would conduct proceedings in the matter, which was challenged by the Delhi government before the high court. The AAP government had on August 31 last year moved the Supreme Court challenging the High Court ruling that the national capital was a union territory (UT) and the Lieutenant Governor (LG) its administrative head. The high court had held that the LG has to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers while exercising the power to appoint an SPP for any case. It had set aside the trial court's September 7, 2015 order and directed the special judge to pass an appropriate order afresh. The ruling assumes significance as various criminal matters, including the transport scam, in the high court and trial courts have witnessed heated arguments between the prosecutors appointed by the Delhi government and the LG, as to who would represent the state or the police. The Anti Corruption Branch of Delhi Government had on September 3, 2015, filed its charge sheet in the court naming nine persons, including two IAS officers, as accused in the transport scam case. The court is yet to take cognisance of the charge sheet. The charge sheet was filed for offences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the IPC, including sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi High Court today commenced hearing on the appeal of Mahmood Farooqui, co-director of Bollywood film 'Peepli Live', against his conviction and seven-year jail term for raping a US researcher, with his counsel claiming no such incident had taken place. During arguments before Justice S P Garg, Farooqui's lawyer denied the allegation of rape levelled by the woman and said "no such incident took place on that day". Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the convict, referred to messages exchanged between his client and the woman before the lodging of the case and contended that the two were in a "relationship" since January 2015. "In a relationship when people are attracted to each other, things do happen. But it does not mean its rape," Sibal said, adding that the "woman's version is also contradictory to the documentary evidence". This argument was opposed by Delhi Police's additional standing counsel Richa Kapoor who said the rape took place and the trial court had given reasons while convicting and sentencing 45-year-old Farooqui. A trial court had on August 4 last year sent him to jail for seven years, observing that he had taken advantage of the situation when the victim was alone in his house. The court, which on July 30, 2016, had held Farooqui guilty of raping the American woman in 2015 at his house in a drunken state, had also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him. The police had onJune 19, 2015, lodged the FIR against Farooqui on the woman's complaint after which he was arrested. On July 29, 2015 the police had filed its charge sheet against Farooqui alleging he had raped the research scholar from Columbia University at his Sukhdev Vihar house in South Delhi on March 28, 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) today said that its board has approved the proposal to increase borrowing from the consortium banks/other banks from existing Rs 250 crore to Rs 550 crore. The approval was given in a board meeting held today. "Board of directors of (HCL)...Has approved proposal for increase in borrowing from the consortium banks/ other banks by way of overdraft or cash credit, working capital demand loan, bill discounting, other working capital arrangements from existing Rs 250 crore to Rs 550 crore," Hindustan Copper said in a filing to BSE. The company markets copper cathodes, copper wire bar, continuous cast copper rod and by-products, such as anode slime, copper sulphate and sulphuric acid. More than 90 per cent of the sales revenue is from cathode and continuous cast copper rods, according to HCL website. HCL's mines and plants are spread across four operating units, one each in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hong Kong's tough former deputy leader Carrie Lam, widely seen as China's favourite in an upcoming election for the top post, pledged today to end the divided city's "heartache" as she announced her candidacy. Lam was deputy to the unpopular current chief executive Leung Chun-ying until she resigned to contest the poll, but is a less disliked figure. Leung is vilified by the city's pro-democracy camp as a puppet of Beijing squeezing the semi-autonomous city's freedoms. Hong Kong has become sharply polarised during his four-year term, which has been marked by anti-Beijing protests. Speaking for the first time to confirm her candidacy for the leadership vote in March, Lam was repeatedly asked if she would be another version of Leung, as some critics fear. She said she would try to build consensus and "restore faith and hope". "In recent years, some situations have emerged in Hong Kong that have made people very concerned and worried, sometimes even caused heartache," Lam, 59, told reporters. "Like many of you I am worried about the discontent," she added, saying her supporters believed she had the ability to "resolve Hong Kong's deep contradictions". But Lam, who spent 36 years in government, stopped short of acknowledging the discord between pro-Beijing and pro-democracy supporters, saying the public was more concerned about income inequality and sky-high housing costs. "While democracy is something we should go for, we have to take a very pragmatic stance on whether we have the right environment for us to revive the discussion on another political reform in Hong Kong," she said. Also poised to announce his candidacy is former finance secretary John Tsang. Opinion polls show him and Lam well ahead in opinion polls, with two other candidates trailing far behind. But the public will not vote for the next leader following the rejection of political reforms put forward by Beijing. The next leader will instead be chosen by a committee of 1,200 mainly pro-Beijing representatives. Lam had presented the reform package, seen by critics as fake democracy, which triggered mass street protests in Hong Kong in late 2014. The plan offered the public its first chance to vote for the city's leader but said all candidates must be approved by a loyalist committee. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim has been cleared of any serious injury after he was felled by a bouncer on the final morning of the first Test in Wellington today. A team spokesman said Mushfiqur had an X-ray in hospital and there was no evidence of significant harm from the Tim Southee delivery. There had been anxious moments as Mushiqur lay prone on the pitch for several minutes after sustaining a blow to the back of the head. He was tended to by medical staff from both teams before an ambulance arrived in the middle and he was taken him to hospital. With Mushfiqur unable to continue having reached 13, the Bangladesh second innings ended at 160-9 leaving New Zealand a 217-run target to win. Short-pitched deliveries have been a feature of the Test with New Zealand batsman Mitchell Santner taking a fierce blow to the head from Taskin Ahmed in the first innings while Neil Wagner was hit three times by Kamrul Islam drawing blood from his chin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Multilateral lending agency and India on Monday signed a financing agreement for IDA credit of $48 million (equivalent) for the 'Nagaland Health Project'. "The objectives of the project are to improve health services and increase their utilisation by communities in targeted locations in Nagaland," the Finance Ministry said in a statement. Communities in targeted locations will benefit from project activities at the community and health facility levels while the population of the state as a whole will benefit from improvements in higher-level facilities as well as system-wide investments, it added. According to the statement, the project will directly benefit about 600,000 people. "It will support and complement existing systems and mechanisms involving communities under the National Health Mission," it said. The closing date of Nagaland health Project is March 31, 2023. The agreement was signed by Economic Affairs Joint Secretary Raj Kumar and (India) Acting Country Director Genevieve Connors. Faring better than last year, India has emerged as the most trusted nation in terms of its institutions by general population even as there has been a "global implosion of trust" worldwide, says a survey. The Indian government is also the second most trusted after neighbouring China, according to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer released today ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meet here. This year's barometer showed the largest-ever drop in trust across the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs. The conclusions are based on an online survey of more than 33,000 respondents conducted during October 13 - November 16, 2016. Among the 28 nations, India has emerged as the most trusted nation in terms of institutions with 72 per cent of the respondents from general population feeling so. The country is followed by Indonesia (69 per cent), China (67 per cent), Singapore and UAE (both at 60 per cent). In 2016, India was the third most trusted after China and UAE. According to public relations major Edelman, trust has declined in 21 out of 28 countries -- "the broadest declines since beginning general population tracking in 2012". Globally, the trust level decreased to 47 per cent this year from 50 per cent in 2016. The barometer "reveals global implosion of trust," Edelman said. In terms of trust in government, China tops the league with 76 per cent trusting the country's government followed by India with 75 per cent respondents feeling so. The figure is 75 per cent of UAE also and is followed by Indonesia (71 per cent) and Singapore (69 per cent). Out of the 28 countries, there was distrust in government in 75 per cent of the nations. "Trust in media (43 percent) fell precipitously and is at all-time lows in 17 countries, while trust levels in government (41 percent) dropped in 14 markets and is the least trusted institution in half of the 28 countries surveyed. "The credibility of leaders also is in peril: CEO credibility dropped 12 points globally to an all-time low of 37 per cent, plummeting in every country studied, while government leaders (29 percent) remain least credible," the report said. As many as 53 per cent of respondents believe that the current overall system has failed them as it is unfair and offers little hope for the future whereas only 15 per cent believe it is working. "Even the elites have a lack of faith in the system, with 48 per cent of the top quartile in income, 49 per cent of the college-educated and a majority of the well-informed (51 per cent) saying the system has failed," the report said. Edelman President and CEO Richard Edelman said the implications of global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging and that it began with the Great Recession of 2008. "...But like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalisation and technological change have further weakened people's trust in global institutions. "The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites," Edelman noted. As per the report, the cycle of distrust is magnified by the emergence of a media echo chamber that reinforces personal beliefs while shutting out opposing points of view. "Respondents favour search engines (59 per cent) over human editors (41 per cent) and are nearly four times more likely to ignore information that supports a position they do not believe in," it said. The participants included 1,150 general population aged 18 years and over, 500 informed public respondents in the US and China. There were 200 informed public respondents in all other countries across 28 markets. According to the report, the informed publics met various criteria such as their age was 25-64 years, college-educated and household income in the top quartile for their age in their country. Besides, these people read or watch business/ media at least several times a week as well as follow public policy issues in the at least several times a week. China today said admission of non- NPT signatories in NSG cannot be a "farewell gift" for countries to give to each other, a day after the outgoing Obama administration asserted that Beijing was an "outlier" in the efforts to make India a member of the elite nuclear club. "Regarding India's application to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), regarding non-NPT countries admission to the NSG, we have made our position clear before so I will not repeat it," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here, reacting to remarks by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal, on the issue. "Clearly there is one outlier that needs to be addressed and that is China," Biswal had said on India's bid. "I just want to point out that shall not be some kind of (a) farewell gift for countries to give to each other," Hua said, taking a dig at the Obama administration. China has been blocking India's membership bid for the 48- member grouping despite backing from majority members on the grounds that India is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). China is advocating a two-step approach for admission of countries who have not signed the NPT. As per the new stand announced by Beijing, it first wants to find a solution that is applicable to the admission of all non-NPT countries followed by discussions on admitting specific nations. Besides India, China is also interacting with Pakistan on the issue as Islamabad too applied for after India. On the issue of China's technical hold on India's application to get Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar banned by the UN, Hua took an exception to the criticism that Beijing had blocked the UN ban on him. Answering a question about French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's comments calling for "decisive action" against Pakistan-based terror groups like LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen which are "targeting" India, Hua said, "I don't like the word block." "As we have explained our position before, on this question, the 1267 Committee needs to base its decision on solid evidence, follow relevant resolutions and rules of procedure and make a decision based on consensus. The technical hold China proposed is to allow more time for consultation and deliberation," she said. Asked whether China will re-think over this issue this year if India files a fresh application as the previous one lapsed due to two technical holds by Beijing, Hua said, "China raised the technical hold to give more space for deliberation and consultation". "It is a regret that no consensus has been reached so far. We need more consensus and more time for deliberation so as to reach a consensus," Hua said "We need more time for deliberations so as to reach a consensus and the committee will follow relevant resolutions and rules of procedure. We will remain in touch with relevant parties on this," she said. India has taken up with Bahrain at a high level the issue of non-payment of salary to Indian workers, one of whom died during a protest against the employer, the External Affairs Ministry said today. "M/s G. P. Zachariadis Overseas Ltd., a construction company which employs nearly 1,500 Indian workers has been faced with severe financial hardship. This has resulted in non-payment of salary/dues to workers employed by the company. On 3rd January 2017, nearly 350 workers at a site went on strike due to non-payment of salary for nearly two months. "After intervention of the Mission in association with the Labour Ministry, the company paid the pending salaries on 4th January, 2017," ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. The company again failed to pay the next salary, which was due on 12th January 2017, he said, adding the Mission had immediately taken up the matter with the Ministry of Labour, which had called the company management for a joint meeting the same day. "On 15th January, nearly 200 workers of the company started a protest due to non-payment of their salary. The company had approached the Bahraini Police authorities to intervene in the matter. "During the protest, one of the workers Narayanan Pitchai, an Indian national, fainted and this happened when the police authorities reached the site. He was taken to hospital, where he was declared brought dead," he added. The police authorities have confirmed to the Embassy that since it was a peaceful protest, no police action was taken against them, the Spokesperson said. Several workers on protest have also conveyed to the Embassy officials that no action was taken by the police authorities on the protesters, he added. "The Embassy has taken up the matter at a high level. Bahraini authorities have expressed regret over the incident and have assured that safety and well-being of all workers, including Indian nationals, remains their first priority. They have also conveyed that they would do their best on this matter," Swarup said. Yesterday, Swarup had also tweeted that "following up on labour issues in the Gulf. MoS @Gen_VKSingh visits Manama, holds talks with Ministers of Labour & Interior of Bahrain. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-American Congresswoman from Seattle, Pramila Jayapal, has announced that she won't attend Donald Trump's inauguration this week, saying the President-elect's "language and actions" undermine America's democracy and its history. "I did not undertake the decision lightly," Jayapal said in a statement yesterday. So far two dozen US lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting Trump's inauguration. "I had hoped in the days following the election that we would see a President-elect who broke from his campaign rhetoric and worked to unite the American people. Instead, we have seen this President-elect continue to use language and take actions that demean our history and our heroes, and undermine our democracy," she said. The only lawmaker to oppose Trump's presidential victory confirmation during the joint session of the Congress early this month, Jayapal alleged that his Cabinet appointments underscore the grave threat to the country that his presidency represents. "Appointments of people such as Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Andrew Pudzer threaten the very fabric of our country and the institutions that these men and women will lead. The continued promises to create a Muslim registry, to repeal DACA, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and punish women for abortions, fly in the face of our 7th District values," she said. Instead of being in Washington DC attending the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump, Jayapal said she would be with her constituents attending a seminar on immigration. "My decision to be here in the district with my constituents who are truly terrified that they will no longer have a home in this city and country was not, at the time, a boycott of the inauguration...I believe my first responsibility is to listen to my constituents and to be with them, through the darkest of times," she said. "If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trump's response to one of our country's great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis. With Donald Trump's tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott," she said. Jayapal said she does understands that she and others are breaking from long-standing tradition of bipartisan attendance at the Presidential inauguration. However, these are not normal times and one cannot pretend it is so, she argued. "If we are worried about breaking from long-standing tradition, let us focus on the fact that when this President is sworn in on January 20, he will be in violation of the Constitution, the very document that he will swear to protect and defend. His disregard for the conflicts of interest he brings into this office, and his refusal to address those conflicts are the break from tradition on which we should focus," Jayapal said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-American Balaji S Srinivasan, a successful Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and CEO of a bitcoin startup, is under consideration for Trump Administration's pick to lead the Federal Drug Administration after he met the US President-elect. Balaji Srinivasan met Trump at the Trump Towers in New York on Thursday. No official announcement has been made yet. But the incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that Balaji is under consideration for the position of heading Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the all-important federal agency for drug and pharma industry. "Srinivasan along with Jim O'Neill, managing director of Mithril Capital Management are being considered for positions in the FDA," Spicer told reporters. Spicer said Srinivasan currently serves as the CEO and cofounder of 21.Co and is a partner in Andreessen Horowitz. "He has won FDA approval as a genomics entrepreneurial," he said. "I am broadly interested in new technology, with a particular focus on "real world" applications where digital bits interface with physical atoms and substantive problems, such as quantified self (healthcare), MOOCs/edtech (education), Bitcoin (finance), drones, and 3D printing," Srinivasan wrote on his LinkedIn profile. He has also been a lecturer at Departments of Statistics, and Computer Science at the prestigious Stanford University. He is currently teaching Stanford's Bitcoin Engineering course at bitcoin.Stanford and the Startup Engineering MOOC at coursera.Org/course/startup. On his website, Balaji describes himself as a computer scientist, investor, entrepreneur, and academic. He holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford. He was the CTO and co-founder ofCounsyl, a genomicsstartup that began in aStanford dorm roomand now tests four per cent ofall US births. After ten years in genomics and five years at Counsyl,hestepped back from an executive role in November 2012 to work on other areas of technology. Media reports said Srinivasan is closely associated with Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal. He was among the few Silicon Valley leaders to have supported Trump in his presidential campaign. Srinivasan's parents are from Chennai, who came to the US in early 70s. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All five Indian-American lawmakers, the highest in the history of the US Congress, have been nominated to influential Congressional panels. Congressman Ro Khanna representing Silicon Valley has been nominated to the powerful House Budget Committee, while Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, elected to the House of Representatives from Seattle, would serve on yet another powerful House Judiciary Committee. Raja Krishnamoorthi, representing Chicago's west and northwest suburbs, will serve on the House Education and Workforce Committee, along with the powerful House Democratic Policy and Steering Committee. Three-term Congressman Ami Bera, who is the senior most among all Indian American lawmakers in the House of Representatives, has been renominated to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Bera is also co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to have been elected to the US Senate, has been made member of four powerful Senate Committees. These are Committee on Budget, Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Environment and Public Works and Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "These four committees will be key battlegrounds in the fight for the future of our country. At a time when so many Californians and Americans are uncertain about our future, I will aggressively fight for our families and the ideals of our nation," Harris said in a statement. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif today warned India of severe consequences in case of a surgical strike on his country. The minister also claimed that India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. "If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session, according to Geo TV. Earlier this month, Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor had quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about 'so called surgical strikes' and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces in September last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. Gen Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. (REOPENS FES 39) Zakaria said the Pakistani armed forces have always given a "befitting response to Indian aggression". Besides lodging protests, Foreign Office has been regularly briefing the diplomatic community in Islamabad including P5 countries, OIC Ambassadors, and Representatives of other countries on the situation created by India that threatens peace in the region, he said. "However, the role of UNMOGIP (UN Military Observer Group in Indian and Pakistan) is crucial. We call upon the UNMOGIP, which has the mandate to monitor the ceasefire violations at LoC and Working Boundary, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions, to play its role," he said. "Pakistan has always extended full cooperation to UNMOGIP. On the contrary, India constantly violates the UN Resolutions by not cooperating with UNMOGIP," he said. An Iranian man accused of helping to embezzle billions of dollars while the country evaded international oil sanctions has been arrested after a lengthy international manhunt, media reported today. Alireza Zibahalat Monfared, 43, is accused of involvement in Iran's biggest-ever corruption scandal, working alongside tycoon Babak Zanjani who was sentenced to death last year for pocketing USD 2.8 billion while helping the country bypass sanctions. The head of Iran's international police department, Masoud Rezvani, told Mizan Online that Monfared had been extradited via Havana and Moscow before arriving in Tehran yesterday. Monfared had various passports and had managed to escape extradition at least once when he was briefly detained in Malaysia, Rezvani added, without giving further details. Unconfirmed reports said he had finally been arrested in Dominica, according to the state-run Iran Daily newspaper. "He had close contacts with the main individuals in the great oil embezzlement file and was handed to the judiciary," Rezvani said. Before his trial, Zanjani would regularly boast in media interviews of his wealth and skills in finding ways round global banking sanctions to ensure Iran continued to receive money for international oil sales, saying he acted at all times with the support of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Zanjani's lawyer, Rasoul Kouhpayehzadeh, welcomed Monfared's arrest, saying it would prove his client's innocence. Monfared's "interrogation and trial will shed light on many issues and unsolved puzzles," Kouhpayehzadeh said, according to Iran Daily. "My client had no role in the trade of oil consignments. (Monfared) played an important role in the sale operations... In fact, he did the oil operations." Zanjani was arrested in 2013, three months after President Hassan Rouhani took office pledging a crackdown on corruption, that has shown limited results. Yesterday, officials announced the arrest of a suspect accused of stealing 20,000 billion rial (USD 500 million) in loans designed for manufacturing projects. In 2014, Iran hanged businessman Mahafarid Amir Khosravi for masterminding a USD 2.6 billion banking scam, while one of the main suspects, Bank Melli's former chief Mahmoud Reza Khavari, fled to Canada. of Monfared's arrest comes on the first anniversary of the lifting of sanctions against Iran following an agreement with world powers over its nuclear programme. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Israeli minister said today the Palestinians had no way to block incoming US President Donald Trump from moving his country's embassy to Jerusalem. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said such a move would have consequences as it was a "red line" whose crossing would ruin hopes for a two-state solution. But regional cooperation minister Tzachi Hanegbi, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, said the Palestinians were powerless to stop it. "What can they do? What can they do?," he said in a briefing to reporters in Jerusalem. "There are not going to be any consequences." Trump -- who takes office Friday -- has pledged to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. That is bitterly opposed by Palestinians, who see it as a destructive and unilateral action, as the status of the city is contested. They demand Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel proclaims the entire city as its capital. The United States and most UN member states do not recognise Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish state, and the city's status is one of the thorniest issues of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yesterday French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned the move would have "extremely serious consequences." Among the threats Abbas has made is that his government could reverse its recognition of Israel, but Hanegbi said that would be suicidal. Others have suggested it could lead a new Palestinian intifada -- or violent uprising. "This is not a threat. This is shooting themselves in the head," Hanegbi said in English. "I don't think Abu Mazen has an interest to open an intifada, I don't think the Palestinians would like another intifada," he added, referring to Abbas by his Arabic nickname. He said he did not expect a "domino effect," and that most other countries would keep their embassies in Tel Aviv. "It is a decision reflecting the special relationship between Israel and the United States. It is not going to be a domino effect. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Barack Obama has said the pace of Israeli settlements in the Middle East has "gotten so substantial" that it has become harder to imagine an "effective Palestinian state", as he defended US' decision to abstain from voting at the UN Security Council against Israel. Obama said the increase in settlement building will have "long-term consequences" for peace and security in the region. "We are reaching a tipping where the pace of settlements, during the course of my presidency has gotten so substantial that it's getting harder and harder to imagine an effective, contiguous Palestinian state," Obama told CBS yesterday. "I think it would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States, because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, 'This is a problem.' And we've said it - look, it's not as if we haven't been saying it from Day One," he said. "We've been saying it for eight years now. It's just that nothing seemed to get a lot of attention," Obama said, responding to questions on the recent US abstention from a UN Security Council vote on Israel. He asserted that the US' decision to abstain from the vote last month did not cause a "major rupture" in the bilateral ties. "I don't think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel. If you're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahugot fired up, he's been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency, around the Iran deal and around our consistent objection to settlements. So that part of it wasn't new. And despite all the noise and hullabaloo - military cooperation, intelligence cooperation, all of that has continued," he said. "We have defended them consistently in every imaginable way. But I also believe that both for our national interests and Israel's national interests that allowing an ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that could get worse and worse over time is a problem. And that settlements contribute. They're not the sole reason for it, but they're a contributing factor to the inability to solve that problem," Obama said. In his final interview, Obama also defended his use of "red line" word against Syria's use of chemical weapons. "I've got to tell you, though, I don't regret at all saying that if I saw Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria," he said. "I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something different about chemical weapons. And, regardless of how it ended up playing, I think - in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons," Obama said. "And the reason he got rid of them is because - well, look If 90 per cent or 95 per cent of those - chemical stockpiles were eliminated, that's a lot of chemical weapons that are not right now in the hands of ISIL or Nusra or, for that matter, the regime," Obama said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Stating that over Rs 500 crore given to the Jammu and Kashmir Bank was not a "bailout package" but a capital, the state government today said that there will be no breach of the autonomy of the bank. "Whatever credibility I have in this House and elsewhere, I would like to assure you that there shall be no breach of the autonomy of the J&K Bank. The Rs 580 crore should not be seen as a bailout but a necessity, a capital has been provided (to the bank)," state Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu said while replying to the budget debate in the Legislative Assembly. He said in the past five years the bank has given a dividend of Rs 502 crore to the state government and the government has now infused the capital in the bank as it was under stress. "People talk about the bailout of the J&K Bank, about autonomy. The RBI has regulatory norm which govern the public or the private banks. If you go by the banking classification, then J&K Bank is a private bank, it is not a public sector bank. It's a private bank headed by the J&K government. We are the only state government to have a bank", Drabu said. He said the norm of RBI say that the bank should have a regulatory deposit of 13 per cent capital adequacy. "In the last 4-5 years, NPAs were created which resulted in the decrease of the capital adequacy of J&K Bank and it could have happened that the RBI could stop the lending operations so it was necessary to infuse capital to the bank," the finance minister said. He said the bank has accurate NPAs of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 crore which were created in the last one quarter. "If we see the lending pattern in the country in the last year, the Government of India earmarked Rs 2.5 lakh crore for banks which included the State Bank of India. It is not unusual for governments to give money to the banks. I said in my speech that there was a governance failure, but I would like to say that banking is out of state legislature," he said. He said the J&K Bank belongs to the state and as the Chairman of the bank for five years he was treated very well. "I was given full autonomy to function, I worked under three governments and all three governments gave me enormous support," he said. While welcoming the broader consensus reached in the house regarding various reform initiatives in budget 2017-18, Drabu said it marks the beginning of a progressive trend with the members in agreement that there has to be a tangible roadmap for the economic development of the state. He said the government is aiming at streamlining the expenditure under the current budget with systematic spending initiatives, adding that the reforms introduced in the budget are first steps towards bringing economic stability in the state. "The government has benefited from the exhaustive discussions on the budget proposals and various valid points have been made by the members during the debate," Drabu said. He said the contribution of the members would come handy in the successful implementation of the reforms and initiatives proposed in the budget. Responding to the points raised by the legislators, Drabu said the first budget presented by this government focused on macro-budgetary matters wherein the fiscal strategy was outlined. In the second one, attention was paid to distributive issues pertaining to allocative efficiency. He said present budget focuses on the micro-budgetary reforms, operations of government programmes and executing agencies. "This budget is devoted to improving the operational efficiency of spending. "We may have political and ideological differences but during the discussion on the budget all the parties came together with their progressive inputs aimed at development and growth of the state," he said. He said that such discussions are essential for successful implementation of economic reforms and policies in the state, and it strengthens the basics of constructive dialogue and debate. Drabu said that the funds allocated under this budget will be released on time and all the formalities will be done in a time-bound manner. Enumerating the main proposals of the budget, Drabu said an effort has been made to streamline and speed up spending of government resources for which a time-frame has been set for release of funds. He said 50 per cent of funds under the Revenue and Capex budget will be released to various departments by February 10, 2017 for expenditure to be made from April 1, adding that it will have great impact on efficient and effective utilisation of funds. For the first time, a legislative approval will be sought for the release of said funds. To overcome the difficulties and shortcomings of current process of budgeting, releasing, and distributing the budget within the government authorities and booking the expenditure against the budget, this budget proposed computerised budgeting system known as 'Budget Estimation, Allocation and Monitoring System' (BEAMS). In next few years, complete change can be witnessed in the whole budget system, he said. The Finance Minister said the proposal to move away from the old system of Treasuries to Pay and Accounts Offices (PAO) will also help in removing delays and plug leakages in the system. Speaking about the security cover to crops against damages from natural disasters including hail, floods and drought, Drabu said the government has formulated a comprehensive insurance scheme for nine crops for which the provision of Rs 75 crore in the budget has been made for the purpose of premium subsidy. Similarly, assets of public importance, government buildings and vehicles will be provided insurance cover. Creating a social security system for all the registered construction workers in the state is a major initiative for the welfare of the working class, which will also push financial inclusion and the DBT system, he said. Drabu added that by providing insurance cover to these workers, the government will be covering almost 15 lakh families under the scheme. The Finance Minister said that the Public Enterprise Reforms proposed in the budget are necessary for their growth and stability. "This budget has initiated the financial re-engineering of the PSUs which had been promised by this government," he said. Speaking on the issue of GST, he said that the government is working out the modalities regarding implementation of the new regime in GST Council meetings. "We will look in which form we accept it in our state," he said and added that GST is beneficial for everyone and Jammu and Kashmir will examine it closely so that it gets the best out of it. Drabu said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, as the chairman of GST Council, has taken a cooperative federalist approach towards financial governance and has actively involved and taken inputs from the state Finance Ministers during the financial policy formulation processes and pre-Union Budget discussions. Responding to the issue of waiving off the KCC loan, the Finance Minister said that payment of first tranche has been made to 74,265 identified borrowers. "By March 31 this year, Rs 250 crore allocated for KCC loan waiver will be distributed to cooperative banks, J&K Grameen Bank and other banks," he said. Responding to the issue of regularisation of the casual workers of various categories, Drabu said the process will start in the course of the next financial year and the government is committed to address this social issue on priority. With regards to the issue of pay anomalies, he said the government will undertake extensive review to address this concern. Addressing the issues raised by the legislators regarding lack of attention paid to Ladakh region, he announced Rs 2 crore each for Leh and Kargil to clear its past liabilities besides making provisions to include local crops like barley and apricot under the Crop Insurance Schemes. Consulate General of Japan Masayuki Taga today called on Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das here and said his country is keen to invest in the mineral rich state. Jharkhand has much potential and companies from Japan are interested to join the development programmes, an official release quoted Taga as saying. Das informed Taga that Jharkhand is developing fast with a transparent and decision-making government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Feeling jealous about the attention your romantic partner giving to someone else may increase your desire for eye-catching products - such as a bright coloured coat - even if it has a risk of public embarrassment, a new study has claimed. Researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore were eager to investigate whether the feelings of jealously motivated consumers to buy things that were more likely to recapture the attention of their partners. They conducted a series of five different experiments and the results showed that feelings of jealousy increase the desire for eye-catching products - such as a bright coloured coat instead of a dull-coloured one or a T-shirt with a big logo design versus a low-key design. "We believe that this effect is not just restricted to jealousy in romantic relationships," said Xun Huang, professor at NTU. "Children can be jealous of a sibling's relationship with their parents or workers might be jealous of a colleague's close relationship with a supervisor," Huang said. Researchers also found that the desire for eye-grabbing products disappeared when there was little chance that the product would be noticed by others in public. Participants who were experiencing feelings of jealously in one experiment were more likely to buy a noticeable gold lamp for their office, a public place. However if they were buying a lamp for their bedroom, interest in a gold lamp versus a plain grey one was equal. The researchers were surprised to discover that the desire to recapture someone's attention with eye-catching products even outweighed the risk of public embarrassment. In one experiment, participants were asked to imagine that they had been invited to a party. One group had been invited to a costume party organised by friends and the other group had been invited to a formal welcoming party for new staff members at their company. Then they were asked to choose whether they had prefer to wear an ordinary pair of sunglasses to the party or a unique and eye-catching pair. The researchers found that participants who were experiencing feelings of jealously opted to wear the eye-catching sunglasses to both types of parties, even though they could garner negative attention for this at a formal work party. The study appears in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 23-year-old woman suffered burn injuries on her face allegedly after a spurned man flung acid on her for refusing his proposal to marry her in Navsari town today, police said. The accused, identified as Shahnawaz Khalifa (25), has been arrested. Police said the accused was her friend. The incident occurred when Sheetal Patel was passing by Navsari ST bus depot when Khalifa allegedly walked near her and threw inflammable liquid, leaving her with burn injuries on face, a police official said. Patel was rushed to a government hospital, where her condition is stated to be stable. According to police, Khalifa was angry with Patel, who lived in a neighbouring village in Chikhli taluka of the district, since she turned down his offer to marry her. Police said Khalifa had intimidated Patel of dire consequences, including defacing her with acid and posting her morphed pictures on social media. "Both the accused and the victim were friends. However, the accused was pressing her for marriage and threatened her with dire consequence after she rejected his proposal. We have arrested the accused. The girl has sustained minor injuries," said Navsari Deputy SP V J Jadeja. Khalifa has been booked under various sections of IPC, including 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous means), 506 (criminal intimidation) along with the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act as the girl belongs to a tribal community. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court today extended till January 31 the judicial custody of Inugbam Sanatombi Devi, a member of Manipur's proscribed Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), arrested along with its chief Khoirom Ranjit here last week. Additional Session Judge Reetesh Singh extended Devi's custody in Tihar jail while allowing a police plea in that regard. The court had on January 14 sent Devi to judicial custody after the police said she was not required for further custodial probe. The police had also said that it might seek her fresh custody in the coming days if they needed to confront her with some other KCP members, who have been apprehended in Manipur and are being brought to Delhi. Devi and KCP chief Ranjit were arrested on January 12 from East Delhi's Mayur Vihar area. Ranjit is in police custody till January 19 as the court had on January 12 allowed the agency's plea after it claimed that he was to be taken to Manipur for investigation. The Special Cell of Delhi Police had claimed that the accused had shifted the terror outfits base to Delhi and were planning to carry out terror strikes here. It had told the court that one laptop, eight mobile phones, four pen drives and 49 sim cards were recovered from their possession. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kaanum Pongal, the last day of the Pongal festivities, in which people visit their near and dear ones, was celebrated in Tamil Nadu with great enthusiasm. Nearly 15,000 police personnel have been posted in vital junctions here to prevent occurrence of any untoward incident. A large number of people thronged important places including the Marina beach, temples and churches on the occasion of Kaanum Pongal, police said. Stating that temporary police control rooms and ambulances have been kept ready, police said 10 All Terrain Vehicles (ATV) were kept on stand-by. The police have warned public not to venture into the sea on the occasion, a police release said, adding enough security arrangements have been made in various places like amusement parks and shopping malls. Some of the prominent places across Tamil Nadu where people throng in large numbers on this occasion have also come under thick security cover, the release said. Pongal festivities take place for four days, the first day being 'Bhogi', when people burn their old clothes, mats and other items. Second day is the main Pongal festival on the first day of the Tamil month 'Thai'. The third day is celebrated as 'Mattu Pongal' when bulls and cows are bathed and their horns painted. The animals are worshipped as they play an important role in farms. The harvest festival culminates with 'Kaanum Pongal', the last day of festivities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that President-elect had been wrong to criticise "courageous" German leader Angela Merkel, calling his remarks "inappropriate". "I thought, frankly, it was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United States to be stepping into the of other countries in a quite direct manner," Kerry told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. As civil rights leaders and activists gather at sites across the country to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr, the slain civil rights leader's daughter is encouraging Americans to fight for his vision of love and justice "no matter who is in the White House". Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her father's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta four days before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. She spoke hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, is scheduled to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. While Bernice King did not offer a detailed critique of Trump, who remains unpopular among black Americans, she said the nation still has a choice between "chaos and community", the same dichotomy her father wrote and preached about. "At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go," Bernice King said. But, she added "we still have to find a way to create" what her father called "the beloved community". Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 votes from black Americans in November, and that lack of popularity was on display today beyond Bernice King's remarks. Without naming Trump, Ebenezer's pastor Raphael Warnock blasted the president-elect for his weekend social media attacks on civil rights icon John Lewis and the Georgia congressman's Atlanta-based district that includes Ebenezer. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he views Trump as an "illegitimate president" because, he said, Russian hackers damaged the prospects of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump retorted on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart" and "crime infested". "Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history," Warnock said today from his pulpit, drawing a standing ovation. As a young man, Lewis was arrested many times and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Warnock called him "the hero of Bloody Sunday and the conscience of the Congress". Warnock then rattled off some of what makes up Lewis's district, including "the world's busiest airport", Coca-Cola's world headquarters, the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. "It's all right to write in 140 characters," Warnock said. "Just make sure you don't' think in 140 characters." Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed piled on, quoting Trump 10 years ago when he was in Lewis's district to open a Trump Tower project that would later fail. Trump, recalled the mayor, said Atlanta was doing "a great job" and he was "glad to be here". "I don't know what changed," Reed said, drawing a second standing ovation at the mention of Lewis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed into a village near Kyrgyzstan's main airport today, killing 32 people and destroying homes after attempting to land in thick fog, authorities said. The majority of the dead were from the village of Dacha-Suu where the cargo plane hit at around 7:30 am local time, a spokesman for the country's emergency services, Muhammed Svarov, told AFP. The total number of dead "could be bigger" Svarov said, adding that authorities had launched a huge search and rescue operation. "Major work is underway," Svarov said. "The damage to infrastructure in the village is significant." An AFP correspondent said smoke was still thick in the area at 1130 IST and small fires burned in different parts of the village, but emergency services had nearly extinguished them. Zumriyat Rezakhanova, a resident of Dacha-Suu said the plane fell "right on the homes" where residents were sleeping. "My sister's home is badly damaged. Luckily she and her family survived," Rezakhanova told AFP. At least four pilots on the flight, which was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, were among the dead, the emergency services ministry said, with one pilot's body yet to be found. Around 43 houses were damaged by the crash, according to the emergency services ministry. "The plane crashed into the houses, it killed entire families," one eyewitness told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There's nothing left of the houses, people were killed with their whole family, their children. Many people were sleeping." The country's Manas airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening at the earliest, airport authorities said. Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was heading a specially-appointed government commission to investigate the circumstances of the crash. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev cancelled his visit to China to return to Bishkek, according to Kyrgyz media. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka's Election Commission today warned against continuous delay in holding local body elections in the country, saying it will force people to lose faith in democracy. "It is no good to delay elections, people will lose faith in democracy," Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya told reporters. The elections for over 300 local councils were due in 2015, but they were postponed to devise a new electoral system. The government wants to change the current proportional representation system to a mixed system of first past the post and proportional representation in the proposed system. The delay, however, has been attributed to the work in redesigning the electoral boundaries by a delimitation committee. The previous Mahinda Rajapaksa administration was accused of carrying out delimitation to suit the needs of certain individuals. The report of the committee has been delayed and the Joint Opposition has accused both partners in the ruling coalition for delaying the elections for political reasons. Deshapriya said there was no attempt to delay the election for political purposes and the delay was due to the delimitation work needing more time. He said the election would not be possible before May this year as the Election Commission would want time to look at the new council wards after de-limitatation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court's order to ban all liquor shops on national and state highways across the country and licenses of existing shops not be renewed after March 31, has prompted a unique demand for diversion of routes of highways that pass through some towns and villages. The Supreme Court had on December 15, 2016, ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and made it clear that licenses of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 this year. The offices of the national highway division of state Public Works Department as well as National Highway Authorities of India, have been getting such demands from the villages which are likely to be 'affected' by the court order. "The liquor shops are there since a long time and their business is set with dedicated customers and demand. Suddenly the SC decision has come. "This will not just be revenue loss but a change in local market as not all customers of the shops go on state or national highway and drive recklessly. It is a pressure tactic by the villagers opposing the decision," said a senior PWD officer, who has been dealing with villagers for construction of national and state highways across the state. A copy of such demand, passed as a village resolution, is with PTI. "Some resolutions have cited excuses like traffic congestion, village safety or some religious fair getting affected. But the real reason is ban on liquor shops,"he said. "Before the SC took the decision, rest of the things (like traffic congestions, safety issues) were happening from time to time, still there was no objection. Some of the village representatives admitted privately that liquor shop ban has created pressure on them to come up with the demand for diversion of state/ national highway," the officer said. Around 15,000 bars and liquor shops in Maharashtra are likely to be closed with the implementation of the SC order. A delegation of hotel and restaurant operators across the state has also sought intervention of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the matter. State PWD minister Chandrakant Patil told PTI that there have been some demands from villagers for diverting the state or national highways. "I have been informed about such demands and I have asked the officers to prepare a proper report of the demands. I am on a state tour and will look into it once I return to Mumbai," Patil said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 38-year-old man, arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting several school girls, has been sent to judicial custody till January 29 by a Delhi court. Accused Sunil Rastogi, a tailor, was produced before a duty magistrate who sent him to judicial custody. According to a senior police officer, cops from several police stations, where separate cases have been registered against the accused, would approach court to seek his custody. Police claimed that Rastogi used to target minor girls while they would be returning home from school. He used to mislead them on the pretext that their father had sent some clothes or some other articles and then take them to an isolated place and rape them, it said. Police said the accused is a father of five children, including three girls who are being counselled to know whether he had also targetted them. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were lodged in New Ashok Nagar police station in east Delhi where complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9. Earlier, on December 13, 2016, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl. Police said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. CCTV footages from cameras installed near the places of incidents were obtained and some images of the accused were developed. During interrogation, Rastogi confessed he committed similar alleged offences in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), police claimed. It has been revealed from interrogation that many cases including under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and of theft and molestation were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Scientists have discovered a group of microbes, named after Marvel characters Thor, Odin and Heimdall, that may explain how complex cellular life on the Earth emerged from simpler microbial ancestors billions of years ago. Life on our planet can be divided into three major groups. Two of these groups are represented by tiny microbes, the Bacteria and the Archaea. The third group of organisms comprises all visible life, such as humans, animals and fungi - known as eukaryotes. While the cells of bacteria and archaea are small and simple, eukaryotes are made up of large and complex cells. The origin of these complex cell types has long been a mystery to the scientific community, but now researchers led by Uppsala University in Sweden have identified a group of microorganisms that provides a unique insight into the evolutionary transition from simple to complex cells. It is known that eukaryotes at some point shared a common ancestor with archaea. It was also clear that symbiosis - a process involving an intimate collaboration between two cell types - played an important role in this process. Most scientists share the view that a symbiosis in which an archaeal host cell took up a bacterium ultimately gave rise to eukaryotes. Yet, whether this symbiosis was the cause or rather the consequence of the evolution of complex cells remained an open question. Researchers discovered of a new group of Archaea, the Asgard archaea, which reveal important details on how eukaryotic cells evolved their complexity. "By using new methods to obtain genome data from microbes that cannot be grown in the laboratory, we identified a new archaeal group that is related to the host cell from which eukaryotic cells evolved," said Thijs Ettema at Uppsala University. In an earlier study, researchers described genomic data for 'Loki', an archaeon living in the ocean floor that represented the closest living micro-organism of complex cellular life. In the current study, which corroborates these previous findings, several new Loki-related archaea are described. "These organisms are our closest microbial relatives, and we know next to nothing about them. Current methods allow us to take a first genetic sneak peek," said Ettema. "Our findings are based on analysis of genetic material that was directly obtained from the environment. We have actually never seen these cells," said Jimmy Saw, researcher at Uppsala University. "We named these new archaea Thor, Odin and Heimdall after the Norse gods, and together with Loki, they form the Asgard archaea," said Eva Fernandez-Caceres from Uppsala University. "These new groups are found in various environments all over the world, and not only in the deep sea, as Loki. So far they are most abundant in sediments," said Fernandez-Caceres. The study provides strong evidence that eukaryotes evolved from a lineage that was related to these Asgard archaea. The study was published in the journal Nature. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing crisis in the sugar sector, Mauritius today signed a pact with India -- the world's second biggest producer of the sweetener, to gain expertise and support for diversifying the sugar business, especially of cooperative mills in the island nation. The sugar sector in Mauritius is in trouble on rates falling sharply amid fears that it would lose the big export market after 30 years if the EU scraps its quota for the 2017-18 season. The MoU was signed between Mauritius Business and Cooperative Minister Soomilduth Bholah and India's Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh here today. It enables two countries to collaborate not only in the sugar sector but also in other agro-based industries, fisheries and dairy sector. "We will lose export market if the EU agreement comes to an end this year. Sugar prices have fallen significantly. Farmers are not getting enough returns and they are demotivated to grow sugarcane," the Mauritius Minister told media after the meeting. In fact, sugarcane lands are left barren and the island country needs to "modernise" the sugar sector and go for diversification in order to protect farmers, he said. Under the MoU the island nation seeks to get India's expertise and technology know-how for capacity building and training to revive cooperative sugar mills, which comprises 39 per cent of the sugar industry, Bholah said. Mauritius produces 4,00,000 tonnes of sugar per annum. Besides sugar sector, the Mauritius government wants to modernise its dairy sector and reduce its dependence on import of milk and milk products. "Cows in our country are reared in backyard. The foot and mouth disease has affected the sector badly. Over 90 per cent of milk and milk products are imported. We want to modernise and we are seeking support from cooperative dairy sector from India," he said. According to sources, the Mauritian Minister is planning to meet Mother Dairy officials as well as dairy cooperative in Maharashtra and looking for tie-ups with Indian universities for training and education in dairy sector. Talking about the MoU, India's Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K Pattanayak said, "Mauritius wants capacity building, training and education with regard to cooperatives working in sugar, dairy and other agri-based sectors. The MoU aims to work in these areas." The MoU is for five years and modalities will be worked out soon, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Inverted tax structure in pharma, chemicals and petrochemicals industry needs to be rectified in the upcoming Budget, Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar said. Pharma, as well as the chemicals industry, have been demanding lowering of import duties on raw materials to make the domestic industry more competitive. When asked about his Ministry's Budget wish list, Kumar said: "The proposal is that inverted taxes for both pharma and chemicals and petrochemicals industries should be rectified." Under inverted tax structure, duties on finished goods are lower than the import duty on raw materials. Last September, medical devices industry had demanded the government to rationalise tax structure to ensure that the import duty on raw materials is kept lower, or hike the customs duty on finished products. Kumar had earlier said that the government has raised the import duty on finished products gradually to 11-12 per cent. Besides simplification of inverted tax structure, the Minister has pitched for special banking arrangement for the fertiliser sector, which is reeling under the huge subsidy arrears to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore. "I have already written to Finance Minister to allow special banking arrangement for Rs 20,000 crore to clear old dues. I had a meeting with FM on this issue. I am hopeful this will be approved," he said. The Minister pointed out that the fertiliser industry is facing some liquidity issue as it has sold soil-nutrients to farmers on 100 per cent credit post-demonetisation. Kumar said the country's growth and employment generation would get a boost if fertiliser subsidy arrear gets cleared and more funds are allocated for institutes like CIPET. "If backlog of fertiliser industry is cleared and money is allocated for Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), medical devices, then the GDP growth rate and employment generation will be more," he added. For the 2016-17 financial year, the government has allocated Rs 70,000 crore for fertiliser subsidy, Rs 211 crore for Department of pharmaceuticals and Rs 202 crore to the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals. A senior AIADMK leader today ruffled feathers in the ruling dispensation with his outburst against relatives of party General Secretary V K Sasikala, drawing the ire of some ministers who slammed him for his remarks. Former Minister KP Munusamy, who was dropped by late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa from her cabinet in 2014, also hailed her successor O Panneerselvam, lauding him for being "accessible." Munusamy trained his guns at Sasikala's brother V K Divakaran for his reported remarks that his family had contributed to the strengthening of the party since its founding by the late M G Ramachandran. Munusamy contested Divakaran's remarks that Sasikala's husband Natarajan played a key role in unifying the different factions of AIADMK post Ramachandran's death and said it was the party founder's wife, Janaki, who had asked Jayalalithaa to lead AIADMK in her husband's absence. "Today they are speaking as if they reclaimed the AIADMK symbol (Two Leaves) though it was Janaki who wrote to Election Commission in this regard," he claimed while talking to reporters at Krishnagiri. Divakaran's statement had 'hurt' the feelings of party workers and he should express regret for it, Munusamy said. Senior AIADMK Ministers were quick to lash out at their former colleague, with Food Minister R Kamaraj alleging that Munusamy was never loyal to the high command. "He was never loyal to the high command. He is part of the efforts to break the party," he charged. Handlooms Minister OS Manian said Munusamy's remarks amounted to affecting the party's discipline and said they were wrong and "condemnable." Law Minister C Ve Shanmugam charged Munusamy with trying to make such statements "for some benefit." "Amma (Jayalalithaa) gave him minister post but he could not ensure AIADMK's win in the (2014) Lok Sabha polls (at Dharmapuri)," he said. Munusamy, who was Minister for Municipal Administration after AIADMK captured power in 2011 before holding Labour portfolio later, was considered to be powerful till 2014 when he fell out of favour with Jayalalithaa when the party lost the Dharmapuri seat in the Parliamentary polls. Besides being removed from her cabinet, Munusamy was also sacked as the party's Krishnagiri district secretary. He was also removed from the party's disciplinary committee, an elite league which had only three other members, including Panneerslevam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Miami-set indie film "Moonlight" was the big winner at the 42nd annual Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, scooping best film, best director for Barry Jenkins and best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali. The movie also won James Laxton the cinematography award at the ceremony which took place in a ballroom at Century City's InterContinental Hotel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Isabelle Huppert won the best actress award for "Elle", while best actor honour was given to Adam Driver for "Paterson". Best supporting actress winner Lily Gladstone and Ali gave emotional acceptance speeches. "Monnlight" director Barry Jenkins spoke about the importance of "representation". The lifetime achievement award was bestowed on legendary 82-year-old actress Shirley MacLaine, who collected it from her "Bernie" co-star Jack Black. The best animated film winner was "Your Name" and best foreign film was "The Handmaiden". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madhya Pradesh Government has decided to shut 58 liquor shops located within five kilometers from the banks of river Narmada. "State cabinet has given the nod to shut 58 shops located within five kilometers from the banks of river Narmada. These shops are located across 12 districts of the state," MP Public Relations Minister Narottam Mishra told journalists after the cabinet meeting today. "Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had earlier made an announcement in this regard during the ongoing 'Namami Devi Narmade - Sewa Yatra.' These shops will not be auctioned for next financial year," he added. The state cabinet also approved the liquor policy for financial year 2017-18 today. Shops to be shut include Dindori (two shops), Mandla (6), Jabalpur (3), Narsinghpur (7), Raisen (3), Hoshangabad (12), Sehore (7), Harda (2), Dewas (2), Khandwa (4), Dhar (4) and Khargone (6). In addition, 1427 liquor shops located on national highways and state highways would also be shifted following the apex court's order in this regard, he added. On December 15 last year, the Supreme Court had ordered to shut all the liquor shops within 500-meters of national and state highways, setting the deadline of April 1, 2017 for its implementation. "State's excise department has identified 1427 shops coming under the purview of SC directives. These shops will be shifted to other places, beyond 500-meters of such highways," the minister added. In addition, 572 other liquor shops would also be shifted in compliance with the court's orders, the minister informed. Asked whether the government is heading for a 'complete prohibition' in the state, Mishra replied "Chief Minister's intent seems to be leading in that direction." "No new liquor shop will be opened in the state in year 2017-18," he added. The minister said new liquor policy also suggested seeking breathe analysers from companies running breweries. Mishra informed that a provision for suspending the driving license for six months, if caught in a drunken driving case for the first time, has been made in new liquor policy. "Those caught in drunken driving for second time would be penalised with the suspension of driving license for two years. If caught for the third time, the transport department would be told to cancel the license," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav today said he would contest against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the assembly elections if he does not "listen" to him, seeking to wield the stick after the chief ministership carrot failed to make his rebellious son fall in line. With chances of a rapprochement between the two warring factions in the party receding with each passing day, Mulayam accused Akhilesh of having a "negative approach" towards Muslims, a loyal vote bank of the Samajwadi Party for years. "Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ramgopal (Yadav). If he does not listen, I will fight against him," Mulayam, a Lok Sabha member from Azamgarh, told party workers. Ram Gopal, a member of the Rajya Sabha and Mulayam's cousin, has sided with Akhilesh in his fight for control over the party. The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a "negative approach" towards Muslims and that he was playing into the hands of Ramgopal Yadav, who was working "on directions of BJP". "I will live for Muslims and die for them. When it comes to Muslims' interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh)", he said. "I have always stood for protecting the interest of the Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as the state's Director General of Police (DGP), Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It sent an anti-Muslim message," Mulayam said. The Samajwadi Party supremo said he had made many sacrifices to build the party and Akhilesh sacked several ministers including a woman without valid reasons. Mulayam had sprung a surprise earlier this month when he said Akhilesh will be the chief minister if party retained power after the assembly elections, extending an olive branch to his recalcitrant son. However, Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav, a key stretegist of the party, have steadfastly rejected the overture. Akhilesh reportedly demanded that he be allowed to continue to lead the party for the next three months, a demand that was rejected by Mulayam. Amid reports that the Akhilesh camp enjoyed support of a majority of party delegates, MPs and legislators, Mulayam indicated he may move the court if the party's name and election symbol was allotted to the rival camp by the Election Commission. Mulayam said it was upto the EC to decide on it but the fight will "reach the court". Earlier in the day, Mulayam reached the residence of his younger brother and state SP president Shivpal Yadav. Interestingly, he also called Naresh Uttam, who has been appointed party state president by Akhilesh, and he was present during Mulayam's address to partymen. Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for "not understanding things". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) M Natarajan, husband of AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala, tonight accused "some sections" in the BJP of trying to split the AIADMK and get the state government dismissed. "They are trying to break the AIADMK and dismiss our government. They are trying to besmirch our government. There are also attempts to saffronise Tamil Nadu but they will not succeed. I will tour the entire state and tear their mask," he said. "We will not allow such conspiracies to succeed...I will face the challenge squarely...I am willing to come anywhere single-handedly, to Gujarat, to UP, anywhere," he said while addressing the valedictory session of the three-day 'Thamizhar Kalai Ilakkiya Pongal Thiruvizha' (Tamil art and literary Pongal festival) here. The remarks of Natarajan are significant because he is said to wield considerable influence in the AIADMK, particularly after the demise of J Jayalalithaa, and his allegation against the BJP comes against the souring relations between the two parties. Later when asked by reporters about the attempts to divide the party and dismiss the government, Natarajan said definitely attempts were on at the behest of S Gurumurthy, the RSS ideologue. Significantly, Gurumurthy, who has taken over as Editor of Thuglaq magazine after the demise of founder-editor Cho S Ramaswamy, had made veiled remarks at the annual readers' interaction on Saturday in Chennai that while one party was already under the control of a family (apparent reference to DMK), another party was going into the control of a family (AIADMK). Natarajan dared Gurumurthy to come out "in the open" and oppose them and "not hide behind". He also questioned the security being given to Gurumurthy who held no position in the government. He said while they support Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there were others who were creating problem for the AIADMK. Natarajan said when powerful forces were acting against Jayalalithaa after MGR's death, it was he and his family who had protected her like a shield. "There were just four or five of us who protected her...For 36 years since then, my wife Sasikala was bearing her on her shoulders," Natarajan said delving on the hard sacrifices that he and his family had made to protect Jayalalithaa and thereby preserve the AIADMK from the designs of the rival DMK. He said unnecessary controversies and questions were being raised over Jayalalithaa's treatment in the hospital. Her entire treatment has been recorded. She was with a clear mind while in the hospital, he claimed. Complimenting Chief Minister O Panneerselvam of giving able administration, Natarajan said it was his personal opinion that he should continue as CM. "But then, this is my personal opinion. He has been elected as the leader by the party legislators; so it is up to them and the other party seniors to decide on these issues," he added. Natarajan said any attempt to divide the Tamil society on the basis of caste and communal factors would never succeed. The AIADMK would ensure that an egalitarian society continued in the Dravidian state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NATO today reiterated its confidence in the US security commitment to Europe, despite US President-elect Donald Trump sparking fresh uproar by saying the alliance was obsolete. Asked to comment on Trump's remarks, a NATO spokesman made no direct response but referred to a statement by head Jens Stoltenberg on December 6 at an alliance foreign ministers meeting. On that occasion, Stoltenberg had said: "I'm absolutely confident that the United States will maintain its strong commitment to NATO, to the trans-Atlantic bond and to the security guarantees for Europe. "I am confident, both because he (Trump) has said so to many European leaders, and he also told me the same as such, when we had a phone call some weeks ago." Stoltenberg also asserted that a strong NATO was of crucial importance not only to the European allies but also to the United States. He recalled that the only time NATO's article 5 collective defence provision had been invoked was after the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States. In interviews with top newspapers yesterday, Trump condemned NATO as out of date, raised doubts about the European Union's future after Britain leaves the bloc and spoke warmly about Russian President Vladimir Putin. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-run hydro power producer NHPC today said its Teesta Low Dam Project-III (TLDP-III) of 132 MW in West Bengal will remain shut for eight days till January 23 for restoration work of GIS. "TLDP-III (4X33) 132 MW power station in West Bengal shall be under complete shutdown from January 16 to January 23, 2017 for restoration work of GIS (Line-I Bay)," NHPC Ltd informed BSE today. Teesta Low Dam-III project was entrusted to NHPC on November 15, 2000. The power station is a run of the river scheme with small pondage to harness the hydropower potential of river Teesta in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. The power station is designed to generate 594.07 million units annually in 90 per cent dependable year. The units I, II,III and IV were commissioned on January 28, January 16, February 24 and March 31, respectively in 2013. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today indicated that start-ups may get additional tax benefits in the forthcoming budget, to be unveiled on February 1. The ministry has already suggested the finance ministry to consider raising tax holiday for start-ups to 7 years from the current 3 years to encourage budding entrepreneurs. Sitharaman said tax and tax-related matters always come from start-ups as "it makes tangible difference to a start-up, and in that some work has happened, more to be happening. Let's see what this budget is going to offer". She said that all the suggestions of the entrepreneurs have been compiled by the ministry and given to the finance ministry. Asked about raising the tax holiday for 7 years, she said: "That suggestion also we have given to the finance ministry. We have to wait." Tax related (benefits) will have to come only through the budget, she said, adding that suggestions with regard to exempting start-ups from MAT (minimum alternate tax) have also been forwarded. Further she said the government is committed to removing legislative hurdles, if any, being faced by them. The Centre is also involving local authorities, including states, to help the budding entrepreneurs in terms of local taxes among others. The minister also asked DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek to organise a meeting with RBI, SIDBI, banks and VCs to deliberate on funding related issues. Sitharaman was speaking at the first anniversary of Start Up India here. Speaking on the occasion, Abhishek said the start-ups need more support in terms of taxation and infrastructure. "We need to do more for them and we are working with the finance ministry (on tax related matters)," he said, adding that state governments too should extend full support to promote the units in the country. There has been no change in the conditions in University of Hyderabad (UoH) since research scholar Rohith Vemula committed suicide a year ago, Opposition Congress in Telangana alleged today. Addressing a meeting here organised by the SC cell of Telangana Congress, party's State unit President N Uttam Kumar Reddy claimed no action has been taken against those allegedly responsible for creating circumstances that forced Vemula to end his life on January 17 last year. Alleging the BJP-led NDA Government is "anti-Dalit", Reddy claimed UoH Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao Podile "was not only retained (after the suicide of Vemula), but given an award by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself" during the Indian Science Congress at Tirupati early this month. "This was an open challenge to all those who supported the movement against discrimination of Dalit students in HCU (or UoH) and other universities. "No action has been taken against the Union Ministers and officials who were named as accused in a case under SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act registered after Vemula's suicide," the Congress leader said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Claiming some pilgrims at Gangasagar died due to natural causes and not in a stampede, a West Bengal minister today said the PMO coming up with a tweet in this regard without confirming with the state government is "against the federal structure of the country". "It is against the decorum and established protocol in the federal structure that the PMO tweeted about the death of pilgrims without confirming with the state administration that whether any stampede had really taken place," state Fire and Environment minister Sovan Chattopadhyay told reporters here. "The PMO should have confirmed with the state government before coming up with any statement," he said. Chattopadhyay, who is also the Mayor of Kolkata, said five ministers including him were ensuring proper facilities like food, shelter and transport for around 16 lakh pilgrims who took the holy dip at Sagar Island at the confluence of the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal. At least six pilgrims died while returning from Gangasagar fair yesterday, which the officials initially said was a stampede, but the state government later claimed it was not. According to a state minister, six elderly women died after falling ill while rushing to board a vessel to cross the Muri Ganga river to reach the mainland in South 24 Parganas district. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last evening tweeted: "Saddened by the loss of lives caused by a stampede in West Bengal. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased (sic)." The PMO had tweeted: "PM approved ex-gratia from PMNRF of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased & Rs 50,000 for those injured in the stampede in WB (sic). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The non-Left tribal parties in Tripura have formed All Tripura Indigenous Regional Parties Forum (ATIRPF) to oppose the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 introduced by BJP led NDA Government. "Three indigenous political parties have formed the forum to safeguard and protect the interests of the tribals in the state who form one third of the population. We are of the clear opinion that the bill is detrimental to the interest of the indigenous people," the Convener of the forum, N C Debbarma, who is the President of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) told reporters yesterday. "After a prolonged discussion among tribal based anti-left parties, the leaders have decided to join hands for spearheading a united movement for the cause of indigenous people," President of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl said. Stating that the forum would organize peaceful movement on the issues concerning tribals, Debbarma said, the central government has planned to provide citizenship status to the foreign people, which is against the interest of the tribals. "States like Assam and Tripura are facing trouble due to infiltration of foreign nationals. If the bill is passed in the Lok Sabha, lakhs of foreign people will get citizenship status which could be a serious threat to indigenous people," he added. Animesh Debbarma, the joint convener of the forum and President of National Council of Tripura (NCT), said the forum would extend all out support to the 12-hour strike on February 8 in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomus District Council (TTAADC) called by INPT. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh's new capital city Amaravati might take the shape of a glorified film set and live up to its sobriquet 'Bhramaravati' (an illusionary or mythical city) as Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is now enlisting the services of yet another movie director to help design Amaravati. The Chief Minister has already chosen to go with foreign architects to design the core of Amaravati. But now besides 'Bahubali' helmer S S Rajamouli, another filmmaker Jagarlamudi Krish and art director Anand Sai will also be asked to chip in with his concept for the city. The state government conducted an international competition seeking designs for the capital in 2015 and picked Japan's Maki and Associates' "models" in March last. Subsequently, Maki was dumped and last month Foster and Partners of Britain was appointed as Master Architect. Top Indian architect Hafiz Contractor is partnering with Foster in designing two "iconic structures" -- the High Court and the Legislature Complex -- apart from the master plan for the 900-acre core capital area. In the meantime, the Chief Minister seemed to have been fascinated by the sets of film 'Bahubali' and himself spoke to director Rajamouli to help design Amaravati. While the AP Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) accordingly approached Rajamouli, the Chief Minister has now directed it to consult Krish and Sai for necessary "inputs". Sai worked as an art director for many popular Telugu films like Indra, Badrinath, Yamadonga and is now serving the Telangana government on its ambitious Yadadri temple town project. Krish, who made many popular films in Telugu, has just released a "historical" movie on Satavahana ruler Goutami Putra Satakarni. The movie stars Nandamuri Balakrishna, Chandrababu's brother-in-law and TDP MLA, and the Chief Minister watched the film on January 12. Ostensibly impressed by the grandeur of the film that supposedly depicts the history of Amaravati, the CM has asked the CRDA to contact Krish and Sai. "The CM has asked us to contact Krish, so we will take inputs and suggestions from him and also Sai," Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana said. "These people (Rajamouli and Krish) already studied a lot of history (for their films). So the CM wanted us to contact them and take inputs. He also wanted us to identify if there is someone else with knowledge of history," Narayana said. Meanwhile, Foster and Partners -- who already held one round of talks with the Bahubali director on the design aspects -- is expected to submit a "rough draft" design of Amaravati to the CRDA on January 25. Foster is charging Rs 67 crore for the design work. To its credit, London-based Foster has designed iconic structures like the 50 UN Plaza, Singapore Supreme Court, Imperial War Museum (UK), Century Tower (Japan), the Ireo City (Gurugram), Cyber Port (China), Bloomberg headquarters (UK), The Index (UAE), International Airport (Kuwait), to name a few. Responding to remarks by Donald Trump, China's Foreign Ministry today said the country's "one- principle" regarding Taiwan is not negotiable and any attempt to reconsider the issue would be self-defeating. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that anyone attempting to use Taiwan's status in a negotiation would be "smashing their feet by lifting a rock." "Not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. "Whoever attempts to harm the one- principle out of any motive or uses the principle as a bargaining chip will definitely be facing broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the community," Hua said. Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that "everything is under negotiation, including 'one .'" It was the latest sign that Trump could shake up the US-China relationship, particularly regarding Taiwan, which China considers a core national interest. The one-China principle holds that Taiwan is part of China and the Communist government in Beijing is China's sole legitimate government. The US acknowledged that stance when it formalized diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, but continues to maintain robust unofficial ties with Taiwan. Washington also provides weaponry to the self-governing island democracy to help it guard against China's threat to use force to end their division dating from a civil war in 1949. Trump has repeatedly threatened to upend that status quo since winning the November election. Also today, the Chinese nationalist tabloid Global Times published an editorial blasting Trump's strategy and saying China would have a strong response to any reconsideration of Washington's long-standing "one-China policy." "In the past, Trump infuriated us, but now we find him risible," said the tabloid, which is published by the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's newspaper. "With a skyrocketing ascent in his political life, he has been stunningly confident in his ostensible knowledge of the job, though he speaks like a rookie." The English-language China Daily ran an editorial Monday accusing Trump of "playing with fire." "If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves," the newspaper said. China was already angered by Trump's December 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader in nearly four decades. Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult. Pakistan today condemned Indian security forces for killing three militants in south Kashmir, terming the encounter a "continued act of state terrorism" and urged the UNHCR and the international community to intervene. The Foreign Office said Pakistan condemns "systematic and brutal killing of Kashmiris" by Indian forces and urges UNHR organisations across the globe and the international community "to act to stop bloodshed of Kashmiris by India". "As a continued act of state terrorism, India is blatantly committing crimes against humanity in (Kashmir)," it alleged. Indian security forces in an overnight operation killed three militants in south Kashmir's Anantnag district. An army official said the militants fired upon them during a search operation yesterday and they retaliated killing the militants. It claimed hundreds of Kashmiris have been killed since the unrest began in Kashmir after the death of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8 last year. It further claimed the constant "terrorist activities of the RSS and its affiliates" in Kashmir with the state's backing ... Are highly deplorable and call for accountability of the perpetrators." The statement urged the international community to take steps to ensure independent investigations in Kashmir "without further delay. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's top diplomat Sartaj Aziz today sought a "spirit of mutual trust" between Pakistan and Afghanistan to jointly tackle the "common enemy" of terrorism, a week after Taliban bombings killed 50 people in the restive country. "The scourge of terrorism is affecting peace of the entire region. It is a common enemy that can only be effectively countered through coordinated efforts carried out in a spirit of mutual trust," the Pakistan Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs said after visiting the Afghan embassy here to sign a condolence book opened by the Afghan mission. His statement also comes a week after reports said Afghan officials were mulling to create a "safe zone" for Taliban insurgents - who have escalated their deadly winter campaign - in a bid to wean them away from sanctuaries inside Pakistan. Pakistan, seen by many Afghans as the biggest obstacle to lasting peace, has long been accused of playing a "double game" in Afghanistan. After years of official denial, a top Pakistani official last year admitted for the first time that the Taliban enjoys safe haven inside his country, which Islamabad uses as a "lever" to pressure the militant group into talks with Kabul. On January 10, three terrorist attacks in Kabul, Kandahar and Helmand killed around 50 people. The attacks shattered a relative lull in violence in the war-torn country. Aziz said Pakistan condemns the "heinous acts of terrorism in strongest terms, (and) we reiterate our cooperation to the government and people of Afghanistan in fighting this menace." He extended sympathies to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks, including the personnel of UAE Embassy in Afghanistan, and prayed for early recovery of the injured. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Senate today unanimously passed a resolution condemning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent remarks in which he described Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism", calling it a "baseless" propaganda to divert international attention from "atrocities" in Kashmir. The resolution moved by Sehar Kamran, a lawmaker of the opposition Pakistan People's Party appreciated the reaction of international community to this baseless propaganda by the Indian Prime Minister. It drew a parallel between India's handling of the Kashmir issue and Israel's stance of Palestine. The resolution said that the statement made by the Indian Premier was an effort to divert the attention of the international community from the Indian atrocities against the people of Kashmir, Radio Pakistan reported. Modi during the BRICS Summit in Goa in October had referred to Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism....Linked to terror modules across the world". The resolution said that there will be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and "our resolve to fight against terrorism and contribute towards bringing peace and harmony in the world". Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif has said that Pakistan will continue political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for right to self-determination. The Minister said the India is making failed attempts to link the Kashmir freedom movement with cross border infiltration and terrorism. He said India's this campaign has failed at the diplomatic fronts. Asif said India is also afraid of Pakistan's success in fight against terrorism. He claimed Pakistan's success has been recognised by the world and world bodies. He claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 violations on Line of Control and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He also claimed that 45 civilians were killed and 138 injured in these violations. He said the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. He said India also claimed to carry out surgical strikes but these were faked. He said if India tried to make any effort to carry out surgical strikes in future these will be responded with full force and they will forget to carry out even faked strikes in future. Speaking on the motion, the Senators strongly condemned the ceasefire violations by India on the Line of Control and Working Boundary. The members described the violations as "cowardice act by the Indian forces". They said that India is also involved in such violations with other neighbouring countries including Nepal and Bangladesh. They said that the "evil designs" of Indian government should be highlighted at all the international fora. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Palestinian was shot dead during clashes with the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank today, the Palestinian health ministry said. The man died during clashes south of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, the ministry said in a statement, without giving his name or age. Sources from the village of Tuqu where the incident took place named the victim as Qusai al-Amour, 17, saying he had been shot in the chest. The Israeli army said the shooting occurred during a "violent riot" in which "rioters hurled rocks" at security forces. "Due to the extent of violence, border police fired 0.22-calibre rounds towards the main violence instigator, resulting in his death," an army spokeswoman said. Since October 2015, 249 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence, according to an AFP count. Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities, with others killed during protests, in clashes or air raids on Gaza. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation today assured Bombay High Court that "utmost care and precaution" has been taken to provide a healthy and conducive environment to the seven Humboldt penguins, brought here from South Korea last year. The penguins are presently kept in a quarantined area in the civic body-run Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo at Byculla in south Mumbai. Out of the eight penguins brought here in July 2016 from South Korea, one died in the zoo within three months. A division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni was hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocate Advait Sethna, seeking a direction to the civic body to send the penguins back as they were not being take good care of here and that they are an endangered species which need a certain kind of environment. Sethna sought interim direction to BMC not to display the penguins to public, pending hearing of the petition. The BMC today filed an affidavit in response to the PIL and said the area where the penguins would be kept for public display was still being constructed and until then, the penguins would remain in quarantine where only veterinary doctors and a keeper were allowed to go. "We have taken utmost care and precaution for providing a healthy and conducive environment for the management of the Humboldt penguins and therefore, there is no question of sending them back. In fact, the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan and Zoo is the only zoo in India which has the facilities to exhibit these penguins," said the affidavit filed by zoo director Sanjay Tripathi. "The Humboldt penguins are being looked after by experienced professional veterinary doctors. Temperature and humidity in the quarantine area is being continuously monitored by municipal engineers. The penguins are fed with special fish procured just for them (penguins)," it said. The affidavit further said the quarantine area and its vicinity is kept clean and pest control is done once a week. It said the air temperature in the exhibit area, where the penguins would be kept for display later, will be maintained between 12 to 16 deg Centigrade and the pool water temperature would be 11 to 16 deg. "The said exhibit area is under construction and in its final stage. Only after it is complete the seven penguins would be shifted there for public display," it said. The corporation also clarified that one of the penguins which died within three months of it being brought to India was because of the presence of a type of bacteria in its body and not due to any other reason. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Director of Tamil movie, "Visaaranai," Vetrimaaran today criticised PETA of being "misinformed" on affairs of Jallikattu. Speaking at an art show here the director said PETA is just considering some video clips without taking into account the background. "It is a fact that there are unhealthy practises in the sport followed by few people, however, banning it entirely instead of regulating it, is not a well-informed move. It looks like there is a different motive behind the movie other than 'cruelty towards animals'," said Vetrimaaran. The four time National film award-winner said, there are bigger effects because of bursting crackers and immersing idols of Ganesh in water bodies. "If PETA is really concerned about animals it should also recommend to forbid bursting crackers during Diwali and immersion of idols made of plaster of Paris during Ganesh Chathurthi celebrations," he said. The director was in the national capital to attend an art show on "Remains of Ayodhya" by Kota Neelima. Vetrimaaran also took a dig at milk from hybrid bulls for causing diabetes. He said in the last 30 years diabetes has spurted for which consumption of milk from hybrid cows is one of the major reasons. "Milk from India's native cows doesn't cause diabetes. It is for this reason and to encourage owners of the breed to continue taming of the bull Jallikattu has been practised since ages," said Vetrimaaran. He revealed a movie on Jallikattu is in the pipeline. The Supreme Court on Jan 12 rejected a plea urging it to pass judgment on bull taming sport Jallikattu. A bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and R Banumathi told a group of lawyers, who requested for the verdict, that it is unfair to ask the bench to pass an order. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The has filed a low-key diplomatic protest with China after a US think tank reported that Beijing appears to have installed anti-aircraft and anti- missile weapons on its man-made islands in the strategically vital South China Sea, the country's top diplomat said on Monday. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said the diplomatic communication was issued after the report came out last month. The Center for Strategic and Studies report said anti-aircraft guns and weapons systems designed to guard against missile attacks appear to have been placed on all seven of China's newly created islands. Yasay told CNN that Manila had responded, but did so quietly. "We have taken action on that, we have issued a note verbale," he said, referring to a diplomatic communication that is issued in the third person and is not signed. It is considered less formal than a letter of protest. He did not say when it was issued, adding it was a matter that he did not want to discuss. "I just want to assure the Filipino people that when we take action at engaging China in this dispute, we do not want to take such aggressive, provocative action that will not solve the problem," he said. "We cannot engage China in a war." Nevertheless, he said, "when there are reports about the build-up of weapon systems in the area, during our watch we made sure that the interests and rights of the are properly protected." Beijing says the artificial islands are intended to boost maritime safety in the region while downplaying their military utility. They also buttress China's claim to ownership of practically the entire South China Sea. Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei also claim territory in the waterway, through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade passes each year. After China took control of disputed Scarborough Shoal in 2012 and blocked Filipinos from the rich fishing area, then President Benigno Aquino III brought his country's territorial disputes with Beijing to arbitration. China ignored the Philippine case and refused to recognise the outcome, which was heavily in favour of the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte, who succeeded Aquino in June, has taken steps to mend the strained relations with China. He also has taken an antagonistic stance toward outgoing President Barack Obama's administration after the US leader criticised his deadly crackdown on drugs. The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to file a "comprehensive report" on the status of investigation conducted by a special investigation team (SIT) into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases, on a plea seeking a court-supervised probe. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and R Banumathi fixed the issue for further hearing on February 20 and asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Pinki Anand to also apprise it about the steps taken in the matter within four weeks. During the brief hearing, the ASG told the bench that the work of the SIT was "in progress". However, the counsel appearing for petitioner S Gurlad Singh Kahlon argued that extension of tenure to the SIT was given earlier and its term is going to expire on February 17. The counsel said the charge sheets should have been filed after due investigation in these matters but nothing has been done till date. The Centre, in its counter affidavit filed earlier, had said there has been a "considerable progress" in the SIT probe and 218 cases were at various stage of scrutiny and a "decision has been taken for re-investigation in respect of 22 cases". However, the petitioner had opposed the contentions in his rejoinder and claimed that neither has the probe been completed by the SIT in any of these cases, nor any charge sheets have been filed. Kahlon, a member of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, had sought the apex court's directions for setting up of the SIT to ensure speedy justice to riots victims. He had also sought a direction to the Ministry of Home Affairs to complete the task within six months and give reports on the progress of investigation in all criminal cases relating to the massacre from time to time till the filing of charge sheets. The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to file a status report on the SIT probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot in Delhi. The petitioner has said the SIT was formed by the government on February 12, 2015 for fresh probe into the 1984 riot cases and got an extension for a year. However, there was inordinate delay in prosecution of the cases and further delay would prejudice trial, he had pleaded. The Home Ministry had set up a three-member SIT for re- investigation of the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases, mainly in Delhi and other states. It was to look into all serious criminal cases relating to the riots, examine evidence and even reopen cases and file charge sheets in concerned courts. The SIT is headed by Pramod Asthana, an IPS officer of 1986 batch, and has Rakesh Kapoor, a retired district and sessions judge, and Kumar Gyanesh, Additional Deputy Commissioner in Delhi Police, as its members. Anti-Sikh riot that broke out after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had claimed 2,733 lives in Delhi alone. President Pranab Mukherjee will be inaugurating this year's Bengal Global Business Summit during his three-day visit to the state starting on January 18. On Wednesday, Mukherjee is schedule to inaugurate the Exhibition Hall and the 100th year celebrations of Jhalda Satyabhama Vidyapith in Purulia, state secretariat officials said today. Next morning, the President will be inaugurating the 28th Datan Gramin Mela and attend the 35th Anniversary of Aajkal, a vernacular daily, at its office here in the city. On January 20, Mukherjee is scheduled to participate in a series of functions starting with the inauguration of the state government's business summit at Milan Mela ground, the official said. In the evening, the President will inaugurate the Bicentenary celebrations of Hindu School and will also be present at the Bicentennial Celebration of Presidency University, he said. Before leaving for New Delhi, Mukherjee will be inaugurating the 1st Annual ArtsAcre Arts Fair and visit the Arts Acre Museum in New Town, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said the synergy between private industry and the state-owned Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) will help the country in enhancing exports of defence products. "The partnership between DRDO and industries is transforming our country into a global defence manufacturing hub. This synergy has provided the much needed thrust for exporting defence products globally," Parrikar said after visiting DRDO's Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Missile Complex during his visit to the city. "We are taking necessary initiatives in this direction and I am sure that our state-of-the-art Missiles and Weapon systems will garner the much needed interest in the global markets and generate foreign exchange," a release quoting the Defence Minister said. Parrikar visited the integration centre at Research Centre Imarat (RCI) and reviewed ongoing missile technologies and related programmes. He congratulated all DRDO scientists for the recent successful missions. The Minister complimented the scientists at Missile Complex for indigenising various technology products and strengthening the defence industrial base in the country. "There is lot of knowledge and infrastructure base with the DRDO and the same needs to be tapped by the MSME and private industries, which in turn will lead towards the establishment of a self-reliant defence industrial ecosystem in our country," said Parrikar. "Today, the industries are significantly contributing in the realisation of various defence products with the know-how provided by the DRDO and few of them have even graduated as lead integrators," he further said. Parrikar admired the initiatives taken by the DRDO in signing MoUs with various Universities in diversified research areas and these initiatives need to be further strengthened by frequent interactions for realisation of futuristic technological products. S Christopher, Chairman DRDO along with Dr G Satheesh Reddy, Director General, Missiles and Strategic Systems briefed the Defence Minister on various technological developments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Qatar has said it will "swiftly" pay USD 12 million to the Palestinian Authority to solve crippling electricity shortages in Gaza, state media in the Gulf state reported. Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, made the pledge after meeting senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh in Doha yesterday. "HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani directed to swiftly pay QR 43.8 million to solve the problem of electricity in the Gaza Strip," reported the Qatar Agency (QNA). "His Highness also directed that an international cooperation should be undertaken to study the problem of electricity in the Strip and make proposals to swiftly solve it." Gaza has been crippled by electricity shortages in recent weeks, leaving the territory with at best four hours of power a day. The power cuts have prompted demonstrations and last week thousands of people in northern Gaza converged on the local headquarters of the electricity company run by Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled the Strip since 2007. But the company said Sunday that the first tranche of USD 4 million from Qatar had arrived and arrangements were being made for the delivery of the fuel starting today. It is unclear how the funds reached Gaza, which is run by the Islamist movement Hamas, the rival of the Fatah faction that controls the Palestinian Authority. A government statement carried by QNA said Qatar would pay the equivalent to USD 4 million "per month for three months to solve the problem of electricity in the Strip". It cited a Qatari envoy to Gaza, Mohammed al-Emmadi, as saying that the "amounts would be transferred immediately and urgently to the Palestinian Authority to resolve this problem facing the residents of Gaza". "Qatar will work with the Palestinian government and international parties concerned to fully resolve it," it said, without elaborating. Qatar has long pledged aid for Gaza, including a reported payment of $1 billion following the war there in 2014. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal lives in Doha as a "dear guest" of the Qatari government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Oi Media, a SaaS marketplace platform, has raised undisclosed amount in a seed round from early stage VC fund, Quarizon. The startup connects media sellers and buyers to discover, plan and transact in a transparent, accountable and efficient environment. Alok Kumar Goel, Principal Advisor at Quarizon will join the board and provide strategic mentorship to the startup, a statement said. * * * * Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund invests in Direct Create * Jaipur-based Rajasthan Venture Capital Fund (RVCF) has invested in Direct Create, an online and offline platform that brings together makers, designers and buyers of handicrafts and other traditional items. Direct Create aims to digitise the process of creation of handicrafts and other traditional items by enabling digital connection and collaboration between artisans, designers and buyers. It is developing a holistic platform with omni channel strategy for enabling collaboration and reaching out to customers and is aimed to be present on both mobile, web and physical retail, it said in a statement. "The Indian handicrafts industry is fragmented, with more than 7 million regional artisans and more than 67,000 exporters/export houses promoting regional art and craftsmanship in the domestic and global markets," Direct Create founder Rajeev Lunkad said. The Direct Create platform operates at the confluence of tradition and technology and creates new avenues for commerce, creativity and innovations that can define a new future for the traditional crafts of Rajasthan and other parts of India, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An olive tea manufacturing plant is soon going to come up in Bassi village near here as the Rajasthan government has signed a pact with a city-based private partner. We have signed an agreement with a private partner to manufacture olive tea. The plant will soon be operational in Bassi village near Jaipur, Principal Secretary (Agriculture and Horticulture), Neelkamal Darbari told PTI. Director (Agriculture) Ambrish Kumar said that the MoU has been signed for next five years and if it is profitable the state government will take 10 per cent of the earned revenue. Elaborating further about the project, Chief Operating Officer of Rajasthan Olive Cultivation Limited, Yogesh Kumar Verma said that parts of three farms including in Jhunjhunu, Jaipur and Jalore have been given to the partner firm for collecting olive leaves. Seventy five per cent of the farm will be with the partner and 25 per cent will be used by the state government for research and development activities. The small-scale plant will initially produce nearly 50kg tea on daily basis. The firm has hired tea tasters as well. Under the MoU, the partner company will maintain the farms and manage its expenses, Verma added. Though olive team market is in nascent stages in India, its international demand is soaring due to its health benefits and its anti-oxidant rich nature. Verma said that olive tea is 3 per cent healthier than the normal green tea. An international brand sells one sachet of olive tea at Rs 28 and its box at Rs 508, he added. Apart from producing olive tea, the state government is also looking forward to extract oleic acid from olive leaves, which is a major component of most of the medicines used for treating heart ailments. Most of the medicines used in treat heart diseases have oleic acid as one of the components. "If we are able to extract it, it will open further avenues in pharmaceutical sector," Verma said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rare variety of lizards valued at about Rs 1.5 crore in the international market was today seized from two smugglers in Kisanganj district. In a coordinated action, a joint team of SSB, RPF, GRP and Forest department personnel caught two smugglers with the rare species of lizards known as 'Tokyo' which they were supposed to hand over to a contact near Hanuman temple in Kisanganj. SSB Deputy Commandant Kumar Sundaram said the smugglers who hail from Assam came to Kisanganj with the lizards hidden in a box of slipper by Kamakhya Express train. A hole was created in the box for the lizards to breath and they were fed with moths from time to time during the journey, the SSB Deputy Commandant said. He said that the seized lizards have been handed over to forest department. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Joining the debate on Reserve Bank's autonomy, former Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said the special status of the central bank should be preserved. "RBI is special and that specialness should be retained. It is better to have complete transparency...It is good idea to change regulation... The autonomy of Reserve Bank is extremely important and whatever is done in future, in my view, should be consistent with that objective," Ahluwalia said in an interview to CNBC-TV18. "The whole idea of having central bank and also monetary committee is anchored on the notion that an independent central bank professionally run taking long term view of monetary and financial side is something that contributes to people's belief that economy is going to be well run. We cannot afford to lose that," he added. Earlier, the issue of RBI's autonomy was raised by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and former governors Y V Reddy and Bimal Jalan. RBI union too expressed concerns over dilution of central bank's autonomy over the way demonetisation issue has been handled by the Finance Ministry. The ministry, however, had said that the government respects the autonomy and independence of the Reserve Bank. On filling six-seven vacancies on RBI board, he said, "That should be the highest priority. In a way it is the simplest thing to fix. The quality of people we appoint on the board will give the signal, how serious we are about it. It is the easiest thing to correct." Elaborating further, he said, "RBI is not just another regulator. I think RBI is special because it is not just responsible for monetary policy but it should be actually responsible along with Finance Ministry for overall financial stability." He was of the view that it would be much better to accord special status to RBI and let it be examined by some Parliamentary Committee in open public hearing. Asked about any legislation for maintaining autonomy of the RBI, Ahluwalia said, "If you need legislation for that there is nothing wrong in that. I think you should be clear about what do you want. It can be done with or without legislation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Reserve Bank has cancelled registration certificate of one Mumbai-based NBFC Nupoor Capitals Pvt Ltd. "RBI has cancelled the certificate of registration of Nupoor Capitals Private Limited," RBI said in a release. While, Aeonian Investments Company (Mumbai) has surrendered the certificate of registration granted to it by the RBI, it said further. "As such, the above companies cannot transact the business of a Non-Banking Financial Institution," said the release further. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Supreme Court today restrained a man, whose nine petitions on a single issue were earlier dismissed, from filing the tenth plea on the same matter, saying he could do so only by enclosing a demand draft of Rs 50,000 along with it. A bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said the issue raised by the petitioner has already been "fully adjudicated upon" by the court earlier and there was "no justifiation" in entertaining another plea. "While dismissing the petition, we restrain the petitioner from filing any other petition in this court on the same cause. In case he wishes to file any petition, he shall have the liberty to do so and it would be subject to him enclosing a DD of Rs 50,000 along with the plea. If the plea will not be entertained by the court, the amount will be forfeited," the bench said. The apex court observed that the petitioner, Bal Ram Bali, has not disputed that he had filed nine petitions earlier on the same issue which have been dismissed. "In the situation, we would have imposed exemplary cost but during the course of the hearing, we have observed the demeanour of the petitioner. We are of the view that petitioner is an innocent individual and is pursuing a cause which is close to his heart. We refrain from imposing cost. The instant petition is dismissed," the bench said. Bali had questioned the Supreme Court's 1958 verdict in a matter relating to ban on slaughter of animals of species of bovine cattle. The apex court had then dealt with the constitutional validity of Bihar Preservation and Improvement of Animals Act 1955, UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act 1955 and CP and Berar Animal Preservation Act, 1949. Initially, the bench ordered that if the petitioner wanted to file another petition on the same issue, he would have to enclose a demand draft of Rs 25,000 along with the plea. The petitioner, however, said this is not a correct order. To this, the bench increased the amount of demand draft to Rs 50,000. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a jibe at RSS ideologue M G Vaidya over his remarks on dividing Maharashtra into four smaller states, the Shiv Sena today said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should consider him for the state's top honour 'Maharashtra Bhushan.' "By asking for smaller states to be carved out of Maharashtra, he is only putting forth his view, which everybody has a right to do in a democracy. Many a times some people's love for Pakistan also keeps sprouting now and then," an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana' said. "Vaidya should be invited to Mumbai and lauded for his views. Maharashtra Chief Minister should consider honouring this person, who has such great views, with a Maharashtra Bhushan award," the Sena said. The Sena's comment slamming Vaidya, a former spokesperson of the RSS, comes in the backdrop of his speech in Nagpur last week, where he had reiterated his stand on the division of Maharashtra into four states. "I am a pro-Vidarbha person and a separate Vidarbha should be carved out. Any state should not have a population of more than three crore. There should not be any need for protest for small states," Vaidya had said. Vaidya had often advocated division of Maharashtra into Vidarbha, Marathwada including Khandesh, Konkan, and western Maharashtra and the official language of all these states would remain Marathi. He had also also suggested constitution a state reorganisation commission and each state should have restricted population. The Sena, however, has vehemently opposed the idea of division of Maharashtra. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court today suggested to the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to set up public address systems to inform people of the situation during floods and other disasters. A division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice G S Kulkarni was of the opinion that during floods, the public gets stuck at one place and people are not aware of what is the situation in other places. "There should be some public address systems across the city to inform people of what the situation is at different places in the city. This will help people to plan accordingly and not venture out," it said. The court observed that during floods and other disasters, the FM radio channels also continue playing songs instead of giving out information. The bench was hearing a PIL filed by advocate Atal Bihari Dubey, seeking a second doppler radar system to be set up in the city and other measures to ensure people do not suffer due to floods during monsoon. The court was informed by BMC and the state government that a site has been identified and sanctioned in suburban Goregaon to set up a doppler radar. It then noted that apart from doppler radars, several other steps should also be taken. "Chennai has doppler systems and public announcements but still it witnessed floods...May be because of its geographical position. Even you (the Maharashtra government and BMC) should take necessary steps on how to handle floods and other disasters," it said. The bench said that authorities can take help of local channels to send messages to public during such disasters. It asked the state government and BMC to consider these suggestions and inform the court on the next hearing about what steps they propose to take. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven persons, six of them school students, died after they were hit by a speeding SUV near Rashakunja area within the limits of Bishnupur police station in South 24 Parganas district today, the police said. A Thakurpukur-bound SUV was coming from Bankrahaat at very high speed and when it reached the busy Rashakunja intersection it rammed into a group of students, they said. The accident took place when the students of both Rashakunja High School for Boys and Girls came out of their respective campuses after classes, police said, the driver of the SUV did not slow down even after seeing them on the narrow road. "Three girls died on the spot after they were flung in a road side ditch from the impact of the speeding SUV. Two boys, a girl and a woman succumbed to injuries at a local hospital. The students were all within the age group of 10 to 15 years. Six others who were injured in the accident were later taken to M R Bangur Hospital for treatment," Additional Superintendent of Police (West) Chandra Sekhor Bardhan said. Agitated local residents of Rashakunja got hold of the SUV and damaged it badly. The driver, however, managed to escape. A police team from Bishnupur met with tough resistance from angry residents, who attacked them with bamboo sticks and pelted stones, when they reached the spot. "Seven police personnel were injured in the scuffle. Later on a large police contingent reached the spot and brought the situation under control. A search is for the driver," Bardhan added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gunshots have been fired outside the campus of a primary school in Glasgow in the United Kingdom and armed police officers were investigating the incident. Officers were called to St George's RC Primary School on Muirdyke Road but they said there was no risk to children. A police helicopter has also been sent out as a major probe is launched into the incident. "Around 9.05am on Monday, police received a report of a firearm being discharged on Muirdyke Road in Penilee. Extensive inquiries are under way to establish the full circumstances of the incident. Additional patrols have been put in place," said a Police Scotland spokesperson. "Police officers are at the school and there is no threat to children or staff at the school," he added. Glasgow City Council also confirmed that "all pupils and staff are safe" after the incident, which occurred outside the school grounds. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia today slammed private schools running on DDA land for moving court against the new guidelines on nursery admissions saying the government had formed the new rules in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling of 2004. The Deputy Chief Minister also hit out at the previous government for not formulating the guidelines for nursery admissions within three months of the apex court ruling then. "Ideally following Supreme Court's ruling in 2004 the guidelines for nursery admissions in 298 schools running on DDA land should have been formulated within three months. But it did not happen for whatever reason," Sisodia said in his blog. "Now that our government has followed the court ruling and formulated the guidelines, these schools should follow them but they have decided to challenge a Supreme Court judgement before the High Court," he added. Delhi Government had last month directed 298 private schools running on DDA land to hold the admission process till new guidelines are announced. After keeping the admissions process on hold for over a week, the Delhi government announced a fresh set of norms making the distance of the school from the applicant's residence a major criterion while considering them for admission. Two groups representing private unaided schools decided to move court challenging a condition in the letter allotting DDA land to them under which admissions have been restricted to the institutions' locality. While the Court pulled up the AAP dispensation for coming out with nursery admission norms at the "eleventh hour" leading to "chaos, confusion and wastage of valuable judicial time", it directed the parents to fill up the application forms of various schools based on the criteria set by them as well as the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Ram Sene leader Pramod Muthalik and his associates have been banned from entering poll-bound Goa for 60 days beginning tomorrow as authorities fear "serious law and order problems" if they are allowed to enter the state during the period. Stating that election code of conduct has already been in place, the administration said in its order, "If Muthalik or any of its (Sene's) associates are not prevented from taking entry in the State of Goa, then the same could lead to serious law and order problem and the aggressive statements of Muthalik will certainly affect peace, harmony and will create fear in the minds of public and tourists." Goa will go to polls to elect 40-member House on February 4. The order cited a report from Superintendent of Police, North Goa, stating that entry of associations/members of Sri Ram Sene and its leader Muthalik is to be prohibited as their aggressive statements and comments could hurt the feeling of certain groups and create possibility of violence and serious law and order problems. "This could adversely affect peace, harmony and create fear in the minds of the public and tourists," as per the order. In 2009, the Ram Sene men had allegedly attacked a pub in Mangalore, where women were beaten up. Muthalik had defended the attack saying that girls going to pub was against Indian culture. Following the attack, the BJP government of Karnataka banned him from entering Mangalore. In response, he campaigned against BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, calling it "corrupt and anti-Hindu". In 2014, Muthalik joined the BJP's Karnataka state unit, only to be forced out within hours after protests from other members. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh today wrote a letter to the Centre demanding a CBI inquiry into the killing of Srinu Naidu, husband of a TMC councillor, in Kharagpur last week. "Our party president Dilip Ghosh has written a letter to the Centre demanding a CBI inquiry into the killing of Srinu Naidu. We want the truth to come out. The TMC government is trying to play politics over it," a senior BJP leader said. Ghosh's decision to demand a CBI inquiry comes in the backdrop of TMC general secretary Subrata Bakshi urging the police to look into the role of Ghosh in the incident. Ghosh is the MLA from Kharagpur. "These are baseless allegations. The state has turned into a safe haven for criminals under the TMC. The BJP has got nothing to do with it (the murder)," Ghosh had earlier said. The Trinamool Congress has pointed fingers at Ghosh following his comments a few months back that whoever clashed with him "will have to bite dust". Two TMC activists, including Naidu, were killed on January 11 while three others were seriously injured when unidentified miscreants opened fire at them inside the party office at Kharagpur in West Midnapore district. Eight persons have been arrested in connection with the killing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A war of words broke out between DMK Working President MK Stalin and PETA over the Jallikattu issue, with the leader dubbing the animal rights NGO as "anti-national" and the group calling the criticism "cheap and ineffective." People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has come under severe criticism from pro-Jallikattu groups for its strident opposition to the bull-taming sport associated with the Pongal harvest festivities. Targeting PETA, which has been in the forefront of anti- Jallikattu protests, Stalin, also Tamil Nadu Opposition leader, said such "international NGOs did not realise the diversity of India and aspects of its heritage," and charged them with working with "ulterior motives." "Centre should immediately ban the international NGO PETA which is against our culture and is anti-national," he said. He also favoured replacing Animal Welfare Board of India with a different body with more Tamil representation in it. Hitting back, PETA said Stalin's criticism was "cheap and ineffective" and that supporting "cruelty" is "un-Indian." "To target an animal protection NGO which is not a law- making body, but rather a law-abiding body, is cheap and ineffective as it can have no bearing whatsoever on the central government laws that prohibit cruelty to bulls," Manilal Valliyate, Director of Veterinary Affairs, PETA India, said. "To stand for kindness is patriotic, to stand for cruelty is un-Indian. PETA India serves animals in respect of our country's Constitutional mandate, its laws and its Supreme Court," Valliyate said in a statement. Stalin demanded that the Centre should not allow PETA to function anymore and urged the Union Government to come out with court-approved mechanism for the conduct of the bull- taming sport in future. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jammu and Kashmir government today said the Northern Railway has taken up the survey for a new railway line to connect the border district of Poonch with rest of the country. Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Abdul Haq on behalf of the Minister in-charge Planning and Development department informed the Legislative Assembly that efforts are being made to collate Poonch with rest of the country through a railway line. The Northern Railway has taken up the survey regarding construction of new BG lines from Jammu to Poonch via Akhnoor and Rajouri, Haq informed. The Minister was replying to a question raised by Shah Mohammad Tantray in this regard. The Minister said the state government has taken up the matter with the Union Railway Minister and pursued it with the Ministry concerned for expediting the process of survey and starting the work as early as possible. Raja Manzoor raised supplementary question and urged the Government to approach the Union Railway Ministry for extending the railway line from Baramulla to Kupwara. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four soldiers were killed and three wounded in a suspected Al-Qaeda attack on a checkpoint in southern Yemen, a security official said today. "Terrorist elements on Sunday evening attacked... soldiers at a checkpoint" in the town of Loder in Abyan province, the official told AFP, requesting anonymity. "The exchange of fire lasted half an hour, killing four soldiers and wounding three along with an undetermined number of dead and wounded among the attackers," he said. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is seen by Washington as the jihadist network's most dangerous franchise. It and the rival Islamic State group have exploited a power vacuum created by fighting between the government and Shiite Huthi rebels to expand their presence in Yemen, especially in the south. Al-Qaeda fighters were driven out of towns and cities in Abyan province in September by government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition, fleeing to hard-to-reach areas. But its fighters remain active around Loder, the official said. "They continue to represent a threat to the law enforcement agencies," he said. AQAP claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the town last week that seriously wounded a senior security official and killed one of his guards, a security source said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today asked Indian Embassy in Riyadh to keep her informed about the case of a 32-year-old man from Hyderabad being sentenced to one year's imprisonment and 300 lashes by a Saudi court after being convicted in a robbery case. Swaraj's direction came after the family of Mohammed Mansoor Hussain, a resident of Malakpet in Hyderabad who holds an MBA degree, reached out to her through Twitter and told her that they are very poor and cannot afford a lawyer for him. "Pl do not worry. Our Embassy is doing everything," Swaraj replied to the tweet. "Right. Pl keep me informed about this case," she told the Indian mission in Riyadh. As per reports, Hussain is lodged in Wadi Al Dawasir jail in Saudi Arabia. He had been working as a marketing auditor at Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al Qahtani and Sons Limited in Riyadh since 2013. Hussains family claimed on August 25 last year he had gone to a bank to deposit nearly one lakh Saudi Riyal when he was allegedly robbed by some miscreants. When he went to a police station to lodge a complaint on the advice of his boss, he was taken to custody. According to reports, he has been sentenced to one years imprisonment and 300 lashes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Syrian rebel groups will attend talks in the Kazakh capital next week aimed at bringing an end to the country's nearly six-year war, rebel officials said today. "All the rebel groups are going. Everyone has agreed," said Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group. "Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes," Alloush said. Ahmad al-Othman from the Sultan Murad faction also told AFP that "the rebel groups have decided to go to the talks". The meetings in Astana are hosted by regime backer Russia and rebel supporter Turkey, who are working closely to find an end to the Syrian conflict although they have backed opposing sides. The talks are set to begin on January 23. Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was "optimistic" about the talks and would be "ready for reconciliation with (rebels) on the condition that they lay down their arms", according to the French lawmakers with whom he met. US president-elect Donald Trump's transition team has been invited to take part, but has not yet officially responded. The talks are expected to build on a nationwide truce that began on December 30 and initially saw a drop in violence across many of Syria's battlefronts. The ceasefire excludes the Islamic State jihadist group and its rival, the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after breaking ties with Al-Qaeda last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Noamundi Iron Mine (NIM) of OMQ (ore, mines & quarries) division of Tata Steel today announced that it has executed a pilot launch of drone application in mine monitoring (DAMM). With this, NIM has become the first mine in the country to introduce drone in mine monitoring, a statement issued here said. "We have initiated mining surveillance system using space technology along with a mobile app. This will help in stopping illegal mining, monitoring mining plan, production, dispatch and royalty payment. We requested Tata Steel to demonstrate it in Noamundi iron mine," Secretary, Ministry of Mines Balvinder Kumar said. Drone technology is one of the emerging technologies in the digital world. It has immense scope, where large area monitoring and exploration activities are involved. The technology provides access to areas, which are difficult and unsafe to humans, the statement said. This technology also provides scope in mining applications categorically towards mining surveillance, mines survey, geotech investigation, forestry survey, dump management, pit development and mine reclamation. "Tata Steel has embarked on the digital journey to leverage benefits of the latest changes in this field. We are trying to keep pace with the global trends of digitalisation in mining industry and this is a step towards that. This technology of mine monitoring through drone will help us address adequately any bottleneck on the ground with responsive mine administration," Rajeev Singhal, Vice President (Raw Materials), Tata Steel said. Pankaj Satija, General Manager (OMQ), Tata Steel said, "This is one of the initiatives towards being digital. It will be useful for mine monitoring, environment monitoring, lease boundary inspection, reclamation and rehabilitation also." The objective of this application at Noamundi is surveillance of mining area, lease boundary inspection, inspection of safety zone, counting vegetation in reclaimed area and quarry and dump profiling for volume calculations. This trial of DAMM at NIM is being conducted by Skylark Drones, a Bengaluru-based firm. Skylark Drones specialises in drone application in various industries. OMQ Division aims to work smarter and use innovations like autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things (IoT), big data, analytics, remote control centers, predictive maintenance with prime focus on safety. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam Governor has extended the term of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) for a period of six months with effect from January 13 or till the date of the first sitting after completion of fresh polls to the KAAC to be conducted by the Assam State Election Commission, whichever is earlier. The term of the present Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council has expired on January 13 on completion of its five year term, said a government release here today. The State Election Commission has said it would not be practicable to hold the elections to Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council before January 13 due to unavoidable circumstances arising out of publication of the Electoral Roll on December 12, 2016, the release said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to give the mostdetailed insight yet into her government's approach to the forthcoming negotiations with Brussels on the UK's exit from the European Union in her much-anticipated speech tomorrow. The speech at Lancaster House in London tomorrow morning will address senior British officials working on Brexit and representatives and diplomats from around the world. A representative from the Indian High Commission in Londonis expected to be among the audience of the speech. The High Commission indicated that either High Commissioner Y K Sinhaor the Deputy High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik are likely to attend the select gathering. May is expected to confirm her intention to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to trigger formal negotiations to leave the 28-nation bloc by the end of March and is also likely to emphasise her government's enthusiasm for pressing ahead with negotiating trade deals with countries like India. "She will be setting out more on our approach to Brexit, as part of preparing for the negotiations, and in line with our approach of global Britain and continuing to be an outward-looking nation,"a Downing Street spokesperson said. The Pound Sterling stumbled today to its lowest level in the last three months ahead of the speech. Itfell more than 1 per cent to below USD 1.20, before recovering slightly. The pound also sank to a two-month low against the Euro, falling to 1.13 Euros before edging up again. May is widely expected to signal a so-called "hard" Brexit, which would involve Britain's exit from the EU single market and customs union unless the country can regain control over immigration into the UK from EU countries. Among excerpts of the speech circulating in the UK media, May is expected to say: "One of the reasons that Britain's democracy has been such a success for so many years is that the strength of our identity as one nation, the respect we show to one another as fellow citizens, and the importance we attach to our institutions means that when a vote has been held we all respect the result. "The victors have the responsibility to act magnanimously. The losers have the responsibility to respect the legitimacy of the result. And the country comes together." Downing Street has described the reports of a "hard" Brexit as "speculation" but a tough approach seems to be echoed across the UK Cabinet with UK Chancellor Philip Hammond warning that the UK could slash business taxes if it is denied access to European markets after Brexit. In an interview with the 'German Welt am Sonntag' newspaper, Hammond said: "If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term. "In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say, too bad, we've been wounded. We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged." Tomorrow's speech is expected to clearly set out Britain's negotiating priorities in advance of the Supreme Court ruling on the requirement for Parliamentary approval of Article 50 notification, expected before the end of the month. Over the weekend, the House of Commons Brexit Select Committee, chaired by Labour MP Hilary Benn, called for the UK government to publish a formal white paper setting out its priorities for when talks begin. "Saturday Night Live" paid a sweet tribute to Carrie Fisher with the help of Tina Fey. The "SNL" and "30 Rock" alum made a surprise appearance during Felicity Jones' monologue in the form of a hologram, donning a headscarf a la Fisher's Princess Leia from the first "Star Wars" film, reported Ace Showbiz. "Oh my God, Tina Fey!" Jones exclaimed. "You're in a headscarf. Are you a Star Wars princess?" she asked. Fey replied, "No, I just bought this at Eileen Fisher, they have amazing deals after the holidays." Jones asked again, "Why are you a hologram? Are you like Tupac?" Fey answered, "In so many ways, yes. Except the Dr. Dre that I'm friends with is my podiatrist." In another highlight from the latest "SNL" episode, Jones spoofed "The Bachelor" in a sketch titled "Beard Hunk". Beck Bennett played the titular Beard Hunk, who was having conversations with several women vying for his heart. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States and Paraguay recently negotiated the Trade and Investment Framework Agreeement, establishing a platform for the two countries to discuss a range of bilateral economic issues. The United States and Paraguay on Friday entered an agreement to strengthen their trade and investment ties. The Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) was recently negotiated by officials of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Paraguays Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and establishes a platform for the countries to discuss a range of bilateral economic issues, such as market access, intellectual property rights protection, and cooperation in the World Trade Organization and other multilateral forums. The TIFA supersedes the Agreement Establishing the United States Paraguay Bilateral Council on Trade and Investment signed on Sept. 26, 2003. Paraguay was a founding member of the World Trade Organization, the first country in South America to ratify the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, and has long been a good trading partner of the United States, said outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in a statement. Todays agreement provides a vehicle for strengthening U.S.-Paraguayan trade and investment relations and promoting increased economic opportunities for both countries. According to the USTR, two-way trade in goods between the United States and Paraguay reached $1.7 billion in 2015, an increase of nearly 70 percent from 2005. The United States had a goods trade surplus of $1.4 billion with Paraguay in 2015. Drought-hit on Monday urged the Centre to sanction Rs 39,565 crore from the Disaster Response Fund towards mitigation measures, with Chief Minister O Panneerselvam seeking Rs 1,000 crore urgently as the state government does not have sufficient funds to meet the challenge. Panneerselvam also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to depute a Central team "to study the extensive damage caused to agriculture crops and to take stock of the drinking water scarcity in the state". A detailed memorandum on the drought situation in the state, besides a letter from Panneerselvam to the Prime Minister, was handed over at the PMO in New Delhi by Relief Commissioner and Commissioner of Revenue Administration K Satyagopal and Revenue Secretary B Chandra Mohan. In his letter, copy of which was released here, Panneerselvam said experienced a 62% deficient northeast monsoon, following the 20% deficiency in south-west monsoon. All 32 districts in the state had received rainfall which was "scanty or deficient and the range is from 35% to 81%," he said, adding, the state has already been declared drought-hit. The drought situation was "exacerbated" by 'non-release' of water by Karnataka according to the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal's final order. The upper riparian state had released only 66 tmcft as against total quantum of 179 TMC feet of water due between June 1 and December 31, 2016, he said. As a result, he said, storage in Mettur Dam, the main reservoir which serves the Cauvery Delta, was "grossly insufficient" to save even a single paddy crop in the state's Cauvery Basin. Panneerselvam said the government had to provide relief to farmers for damage caused to crops due to failure of the monsoon and to ensure drinking water supply through various temporary measures to tackle the water scarcity in the state. "Moreover, adequate fodder availability needs to be maintained to protect cattle and the small ruminant population. Employment generation programmes have to be taken up on a war-footing to ensure that livelihood of agricultural labourers is protected. For the above purposes, I request that a sum of Rs 39,565 crore may be sanctioned from the Disaster Response Fund," Panneerselvam said. The state government was not having sufficient funds following expenditure post December 2015 floods and last month's Cyclone Vardah, he said. "The funds available with the state government in the State Disaster Response Fund are not sufficient to meet the situation. The state is in urgent need of assistance from NDRF to take up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures in the state," he said. "Hence, I request you to urgently sanction the release of an on account payment of Rs 1,000 crore from NDRF to the Government of to enable taking up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures to mitigate the drought situation," he said in the letter to Modi. The Chief Minister said he had reviewed the situation and ordered a detailed assessment of the drought situation by Ministers, District Collectors and officials. Following inspection, 13,305 of 16,682 Revenue villages in the state have been identified as drought-affected. The situation was likely to worsen in the coming months as the North-East monsoon has come to an end and further rains are not part of the normal pattern, he said. Due to the failure of the South-West and North-East monsoons in 2016-17, storage position in all the water bodies was at a 'critical level,' Panneerselvam said. "As against the total storage capacity of 198.384 TMC ft. in 15 major irrigation reservoirs in the state, the water available as on 31.12.2016 is only 25.742 TMC ft," he said. The combined storage in four drinking water reservoirs catering to the state capital, Chennai was "only 1.966 TMC ft. as on 31.12.2016 as compared to 10.339 TMC ft. At the same time in 2015," he added. Donald Trump has said that he has no plans to quit Twitter even after becoming US President this week, saying a "dishonest" media has forced him to continue tweeting to vent out his views. "I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press - so dishonestly - that I can put out Twitter - and it's not 140, it's now 280 - I can go bing bing bing . . . And they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out....," the President-elect told The Times newspaper. Trump, who will become the 45th US President on Friday told the paper that he does not intend to lay off Twitter once he is in the Oval Office of the White House and will keep his @realDonaldTrump account. Trump, who has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter, said that he had considered cutting down his Twitter use. But his reach has become so large that he feels the media are so unkind to him that he will continue to send out updates, he said. "@realDonaldTrump I think, I'll keep it," he said. "So I've got 46 million people right now - that's a lot, that's really a lot - but 46 million - including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you're 46 million there, I'd rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it's working....," he said. Trump's Twitter feed to conduct international diplomacy and attack on media and his rivals had become a source of concern and confusion since he won the election, with many of the posts that come from it changing stock markets and attacking his political enemies. Some had thought that he would give up the account when he became President or turn it over to his team, but he has promised not to. A handle exists for the President - @POTUS, which is currently used by President Barack Obama's team - but Trump will apparently use both accounts during his time in the White House. Chinese state media had recently condemned his obsession with Twitter, asking him to lay off from the social media platform. Trump has often departed from long-standing US policies and made several controversial comments about China on Twitter. "The obsession with 'Twitter diplomacy' is undesirable," said a commentary by China's state-run Xinhua agency had said after Trump made some anti-Beijing comments. (Reopens FGN36) "It is a commonly accepted that diplomacy is not a child's game -- and even less is it business dealing. As former United States Secretary of State [Madeleine] Albright said, Twitter should not be a tool for foreign policy," the commentary had said. He's also used Twitter to accuse China of keeping its currency artificially low, of military posturing in the South China Sea and to announce that he'd spoken directly with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen -- upending a long-standing US policy. Trump had suggested that China was not doing enough to rein in its nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea. He had also used Twitter to accuse China of keeping its currency artificially low, of military posturing in the South China Sea and to announce that he had spoken directly with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen -- upending a long-standing US policy on Taiwan, which Beijing claims is part of its territory. Private equity inflows into the country's real estate sector surged 62 per cent to Rs 38,000 crore, during 2016, largely helped by Parliament's clearance of two significant legislations -- Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill and GST, says a report. Funds amounting to Rs 23,500 crore were pumped into realty by PE investors in 2015, as per the latest data compiled by global real estate services major JLL India. The Rs 38,000 crore inflows is the second highest-level for a year since 2007. Interestingly, PE investments worth Rs 21,000 crore alone were pumped in the second half of 2016. This is 121 per cent more than PE investments recorded in the same period year-ago. "The performance was due to increased confidence shown by investors post the Parliament's passage of RERA [Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Bill] and GST (goods and services tax)," JLL India managing director (Capital Markets) Shobhit Agarwal said. Further, the report said that out of the entire PE amount in 2016, Rs 13,500 crore was investment via pure equity while the rest was through different structures of debt. "Even in terms of pure equity, 2016 saw an impressive increase of 29 per cent (year-on-year)," Agarwal added. Agarwal noted that owing to an improvement in India's rankings on different indices and a pro-active government keen on improving these further, the country is bound to attract more equity investment going forward. "Economic and political stability, liberalisation of the FDI policy by prime minister Narendra Modi's government and the resultant improvement in the investor community's sentiment are some of the factors working in Indian real estate's favour," Agarwal said. "This year may even turn out to be slightly better than 2016 - despite Brexit and the outcome of US presidential elections - thanks to a strengthening and modernising economy and India's growing reputation as an attractive investment destination," he added. Real Estate bill seeks to protect the interests of the large number of aspiring house buyers while at the same time enhancing the credibility of construction industry by promoting transparency, accountability and efficiency in execution of projects. Meanwhile, GST will replace a jumble of levies to create one of the world's biggest single market. A single tax will make it easier to do business in the world's seventh-largest economy as also help combat evasion, boost revenue for the government. With State Assembly polls round the corner, voters in Goa tourism trade especially on the coastal belt up North are expecting some real solutions to problems plaguing their industry. "The issues here are of basic infrastructure. While state government brags of building bridges and constructing highways across Goa the beach belt of Sinquerim-Candolim-Calangute-Baga upto Morjim and Ashwem up North is congested," Sadanand Malik, who owns a restaurant in the busy lane of Candolim told PTI. The business community in this tourism hotbed is looking forward to quick redressal of their grievances. Malik says during last five years, some of the issues were settled but much remains to be done. "The state government set up a garbage treatment plant that takes care of the waste generated in this belt. It is a big respite," he said referring to the state-of-the-art plant that has been constructed at Saligao treating more than 100 metric tonnes of garbage daily. "But issues like proper roads, cleanliness on beaches, proper toilets and changing rooms on beaches, prostitution in this area and narcotics trade still remains untouched. They plague tourism industry in a big way," he said. Local BJP MLA Michael Lobo had gone on hunger strike in his own constituency three years back to get rid of prostitution and drugs from this place. But few police raids later, the issue skipped media attention and both these things continued to flourish here. "There are so many things to be done on the infrastructure front here. You can't change the face of the area overnight when it was neglected for decades," Lobo said admitting that lot needs to be done here. While Sinquerim to Baga belt remains to be lucky as far garbage processing is concerned, the treatment of the waste generated on the beaches across the 105 kilometre long coastline still remains an issue. "There is no waste collection in South Goa's beaches and shoreline up North Goa. Government needs to work out a solution for that too like the one worked out for Calangute belt," Cruz Cardoso, President, Goa Shack Owners Welfare Society said. He said the new government should look at problems faced by shack owners, which are getting worsened with every passing year. "We need proper tourism policy and a shack policy. Traditional shack owners should be allowed to do business. Many of them were left out in the latest policy," Cardoso said. "During 2012 elections, BJP had promised us a 21-year-old long shack policy," he said. Beach shacks are integral part of the tourism trade. People who are dependent on tourism in South Goa are worried after the government pushed for Greenfield airport at Mopa. The contract of constructing Mopa airport has been already given and the first phase would be completed by 2019. "Tourism stakeholders in South Goa want that existing Dabolim airport should continue. The closure of the airport at Dabolim will spell doom for the trade in South Goa," Lyndon Monteiro, General Secretary, Goa Vikas Party said. Monteiro, former Officer on Special Duty to State Tourism minister, said that provision of toilets and changing rooms on beaches is one of the major election issues. "Those who will provide these facilities will win heart of the voters," he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a "catastrophic mistake" in allowing undocumented migrants to enter the country, US President-elect Donald Trump has said in an interview with The Times of London and Germany's Bild. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from," Trump said, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Some 890,000 migrants, many of them fleeing war in Syria, entered Germany in 2015 after Merkel opened her country's doors in response to massive pressure on countries along the so-called "Balkan route" into western Europe. The mass arrivals prompted an initial mass outpouring of support, but fear about the consequences has also driven anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany to between 10 and 15 percent in polls. One MP deserted Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union this weekend over her refugee policy, as the Chancellor tees up a re-election bid later this year. While he allowed that Merkel was a "fantastic leader," the Republican said that Germany had "got a clear impression" of the consequences of her policy from a deadly December 19 terrorist attack in Berlin in which a hijacked truck was used to mow down Christmas market patrons, killing 12. Berlin suspect Anis Amri, a Tunisian national, entered Europe via Italy in 2011 and served a four-year prison sentence there before allegedly carrying out the attack. Trump also argued that the mass arrivals in 2015 were "the last drop that made the barrel overflow" in convincing British voters to back leaving the European Union in a June 24 referendum. Pro-Leave campaigners warned in the wake of the crisis that refugees would flood into the UK, producing a poster showing a crowd of Middle Eastern men under the words "Breaking Point". "Other countries will leave" the European Union in future, Trump prophesied. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President-elect Donald Trump has hailed Brexit as a "great thing", saying the UK was "smart" to have voted to leave the European Union and forecast that other countries would follow Britain's lead to leave the bloc. In his first British interview with 'The Times' newspaper, the billionaire-businessman-turned-politician also promised that a trade deal between the US and UK will be signed "very quickly" under his presidency. "I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing," Trump said yesterday on Britain's referendum vote in June last year to leave the 28-member bloc. Trump was interviewed for The Times by former UK justice secretary Michael Gove, a writer and MP from Britain's ruling Conservative Party who was a leading figure in the anti-EU campaign. "People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity, but I do think if they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees then you wouldn't have a Brexit...I believe others will leave. I do think keeping it (EU) together is not going to be as easy as a lot of people think," he said. Asked specifically about a potential US-UK trade deal, he said: "Absolutely, very quickly. I am a big fan of the UK, we are gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides. "I will be meeting with (British Prime Minister Theresa May)...She's requesting a meeting and we'll have a meeting right after I get into the White House and...We're going to get something done very quickly." Outgoing US President Barack Obama had said in April last year that the UK would be "at the back of the queue" if it quit the EU. Trump dismissed that statement, saying: "Obama said, 'They'll go to the back of the line,' and then he had to retract his statement." Gove, a prominent Leave campaigner during last year's referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, is also a columnist for the 'Times'. His questions covered a wide range of questions around US-UK ties in a post-Brexit era as well as wider international issues. Trump blamed the decision of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to welcome refugees fleeing war in the Middle East, for jeopardising the stability of Europe. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," he said. In the simultaneous interview with German newspaper 'Bild', Trump said he might contemplate tightening restrictions on Europeans wanting to travel to the US. "I mean, we're talking here about parts of Europe, parts of the world and parts of Europe, where we have problems, where they come in and cause problems. I don't want to have these problems," he said. In his characteristic style, Trump made a series of provocative comments about foreign policy, reiterating that he could do a deal with Russia that would result in sanctions being lifted and described the NATO military alliance as "obsolete". "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two the countries aren't paying what they're supposed to pay. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. It's obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror," he said. Trump also made a reference to his Scottish-born mother's admiration for the UK and its monarch as a sign of the kind of relationship he wants with Britain under his presidency. "She was so proud of the Queen. She loved the ceremony and the beauty, because nobody does that like the English, and she had great respect for the Queen and liked her. Any time the Queen was on television, for an event, my mother would be watching," he said. He also revealed that May had written to him just after Christmas with a gift of a copy of Winston Churchill's address to the American people shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which marked America's entry into World War II. In the letter, the British Prime Minister told Trump that she hoped the sentiment of "unity and fraternal association" between the two countries was "just as true today as it has ever been". US President-elect Donald Trump has hailed Brexit as "a great thing" and backed a speedy trade agreement with Britain, in an interview with The Times newspaper. He also forecast that other countries would follow Britain's lead in voting to leave the European Union. "Brexit is going to end up being a great thing," Trump on yesterday said of Britain's referendum vote last June to leave the European Union. The president-elect said a trade deal with Britain would be "good for both sides". "Absolutely, very quickly. I'm a big fan of the UK, we're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. His enthusiasm for a bilateral deal will be welcomed by the British government, which in recent months has been searching for possible trade partners following its planned departure from the EU. Trump also said Brexit would likely be followed by others in the 28-country bloc deciding to leave. "I think people want . . . Their own identity, so if you ask me ... I believe others will leave," Trump said, following Britain's June vote to leave the EU. The president-elect blamed the referendum result on an influx of refugees to Europe, which saw more than a million people arrive during 2015. "If they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... Entails, I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camel's back," he said. Trump campaigned on an anti-immigration platform during the presidential race, promising voters he would build a war on the Mexico border to stop people entering the US illegally. Focusing on refugees in Europe, Trump said their arrival could lead to the break-up of the EU. "I do think keeping it (the EU) together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think," he said. "And I think this, if refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe... I think it's gonna be very hard to keep it together because people are angry about it." Trump was interviewed for The Times by Michael Gove, a writer and MP from Britain's ruling Conservative Party who was a leading figure in the anti-EU campaign. The president-elect has previously allied himself with another leading Brexit campaigner, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party who flew to the US to support Trump during his election bid. Farage was the first British politician to meet with Trump following the November election, a move which prompted frustration within the British government which has long since clashed with anti-establishment Farage. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The NATO alliance is an "obsolete" organisation, US President-elect Donald Trump has said in an interview, complaining that the pact had "not bothered about terrorism". "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," Trump told the today's editions of German tabloid Bild and the Times of London. While he said NATO remains "very important to me," he returned to a favourite campaign-trail complaint that some NATO allies weren't paying enough. "We're supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There's five countries that are paying what they're supposed to. Five. It's not much," he added. The US accounts for some 70 per cent of spending by NATO nations. Immediately after Trump's election victory, the organisation's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg recalled that NATO had been at the heart of transatlantic security since its founding in 1949. Members of NATO are pledged to defend one another if attacked, with the self-defence clause invoked only once in history -- after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. In 2014, leaders of the 22-nation alliance -- originally founded in response to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe -- agreed to return defence spending to their commitment of 2.0 per cent of GDP in the wake of Russian intervention in Ukraine and upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Donald Trump appeared to suggest that outgoing CIA Director John Brennan may have been behind the publication of an unverified intelligence dossier connecting the president-elect to Russia. "Was this the leaker of Fake ," Trump said at the end of two tweets in which he attacked Brennan for being critical of him in an interview to Fox earlier yesterday. In his interview, the outgoing CIA Director slammed Trump for equating the actions of intelligence community with that of Nazi Germany, describing it as "outrageous". "What I find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly," Brennan told Fox . Brennan was responding to questions on a tweet by the President-elect after media reports about an alleged intelligence community document which claimed that the Russian intelligence agencies have compromised Trump's personal and financial information. "I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out be so false and fake out. I think it's a disgrace, and I say that and I say that, and that something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do," Trump had said after the document was published. Retweeting a Fox News headline, Trump wrote: "@FoxNews 'Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand.' Oh really, couldn't do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Barack Obama has said was a "change candidate" and cautioned people against underestimating the President-elect, even as he acknowledged that it has been an "unusual" transition. "He was a change candidate," Obama told CBS News in his final interview as the President of the United States. Asked if anyone can change Washington, Obama said, "I think the American people can change Washington." "But I think that it is not going to change, because somebody from high directs that change. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, are motivated by all kinds of issues," the 55-year-old outgoing President said. "They're sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing they're interested in is getting re-elected. And if they think that it's harder for them to get re-elected by cooperating with each other, then they won't cooperate," Obama said. Reflecting on the election campaign, the US President said Trump was clearly able to tap into a lot of grievances. "And he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how you'd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate," Obama said of the billionaire-turned-politician, who will be sworn-in on January 20. "What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone," he said, in an apparent reference to the series of tweets that Trump writes everyday, which very often are the main source of news. "And I think that there's a power in that. There's also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem," Obama noted. Obama also cautioned political pundits and who are critical of Trump that they should not underestimate him. "First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge don't underestimate the guy, because he's going to be 45th president of the United States," he said. "The one thing I've said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that, as we go forward certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place," he said. Responding to a question, Obama acknowledged that this is an "unusual" transition. Describing Trump as an unconventional candidate, Obama said he does not think there is anybody who has run a campaign like this successfully in modern history. "Not that I can think of. And, as a consequence because he didn't have the support of many of the establishment in his own party, because he ran sort of an improvisational campaign --," he said. However, Obama said he does not think that Trump can run an improvisational presidency. 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 two-day Winter Session of Delhi Assembly will begin tomorrow where several issues, like the functioning of MCD, will be raised by the ruling AAP MLAs, while the opposition will seek the corner government for not inviting the Lt Governor to address the House. Speaker Ram Niwas Goel slammed Opposition leader Vijender Gupta over the issue of invitation to the L-G claiming the BJP leader deliberately wants to stoke controversy. Though the government will not introduce any new Bill during the Winter Session, AAP MLAs are expected to raise local issues under Section 280 on floor of the House. They are also likely to raise the issue of sanitation workers' strike due to non-payment of their salaries, demonetisation and other matters. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who today returned to Delhi after campaigning in poll-bound Punjab, may also attend the House proceeding. "The Business Advisory Committee of Delhi Assembly has called a meeting tomorrow before the commencement of the House proceeding. In the meeting, the final agenda will be decided," a senior official said, adding no new Bill will be tabled. The AAP legislators are generally seen on a collision course against the Centre during every sitting of the House over matters of jurisdiction and also the functioning of the BJP-ruled civic bodies. Meanwhile, Opposition leader in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta claimed that by not inviting the L-G to address the Delhi Legislative Assembly tomorrow the AAP government is "dishonouring" his office. "Section 19 (1) of the Delhi Legislative Assembly Rules stipulates that at the commencement of the first Session of each year, the L-G shall address the House. This rule is being honoured since the formation of the Delhi Assembly. But the present government has chosen to circumvent the rules," Gupta said in a statement. Hitting out at the Opposition leader, Goel said, "Gupta wants to stoke controversy on every issue. This is not a new Session. This is just the next part of the ongoing session. In Budget session, we will definitely invite the L-G to address the House." The fifth part of the Assembly's fourth session was held on November 15 last year where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had levelled serious allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The "emergency" session, convened to discuss demonetisation, had witnessed acrimonious scenes where Gupta was marshalled out. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Students at one of UK's leading universitieshave claimed that black and ethnic minority (BME) students are being negatively affected by "racial exclusion" and "discrimination". The Student Union at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, well-known as among the few European institutions dedicated to the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, said in a report that "white tutors" were unlikely to empathise with problems faced by BME students. "The research found that BME students' confidence, motivation and engagement are often negatively affected by racial exclusion and discrimination in the learning and teaching environment at SOAS," the Degrees of Racism report said. "Non-white students were comparatively less likely than their peers to be able to access the advantages of cultural familiarity with their tutor. Some felt it unrealistic to expect their white tutors to be able to empathise with their problems, especially those who had experienced racial abuse in comparable settings in the past," it said. The report quoted students' experiences to highlight the issue of exclusion. One BME student is quoted as telling researchers: "Both of my tutors are white men. How can I have a rapport and feel comfortable talking to a 60-year-old white man?". The report recommends setting targets to appoint more BME staff and publishing data on attainment gaps annually on the SOAS website. A spokesperson for SOAS said: "The report provides insight into the views of a range of SOAS students and has contributed to the ongoing discussions about how to make our curriculum more academically robust and relevant." "While the recommendations and conclusions do not necessarily reflect the view of the whole SOAS community they have helped to spark productive debate. We value the contributions of all our staff and students to these conversations," he said. "We want to make sure that the higher education experience is a positive one for students from all backgrounds," he added. SOAS added that it has commissioned its own report, with the University of East London, to look in more detail at the attainment gap between students from varying backgrounds. The SOAS Student Union had sparked controversy last week by calling for famous Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle to be replaced by philosophers from Asia or Africa. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Expenditure on remote and rural telecom infrastructure projects from the USO fund is estimated to be at least Rs 11,500 crore in the next financial year, surpassing this fiscal's estimated spends of Rs 7,500 crore, Telecom Secretary JS Deepak said today. "Next year, we hope that with the BharatNet phase II coming, there will be further requirement of funds... So this contention that the USOF expenditure is less than it should be, will no longer remain after next year," Deepak told PTI. Noting that last year the expenditure from the Universal Service Obligation Fund was about Rs 3,000 crore, he said, "this year, we are hopeful that it will increase 2.5 times to Rs 7,500 crore because of the fast pace of BharatNet". The speed of laying ducts and fibre under the BharatNet project - currently in its first phase - has accelerated eight fold to 400 kms a day from 50 Km a day. "This has resulted in an increase in expenditure," he said. The ongoing Rs 18,000 crore BharatNet phase I seeks to provide broadband connectivity to 100,000 gram panchayats by March this year, and the next phase is expected to begin from mid-2017 running all the way up to September 2018. Phase II will seek to connect 150,000 gram panchayats at an estimated cost of Rs 27,000 crore, and for the first time, through a public-private partnership. Telecom Commission has given its approval to the second phase of the BharatNet project and the proposal is expected to be sent to the Cabinet by March-end. Besides this, Department of Telecom has taken several measures for expansion of services in rural and remote areas, including chalking out a comprehensive telecom development plan for the North-East as well as setting up of mobile towers in the Left Wing Extremism affected states. Under USOF, the government charges a cess, Universal Access Levy, from telecom licensees to fund setting up of telecom infrastructure in all uncovered rural and remote areas of the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A stage seems to have set for confrontation between students of University of Hyderabad and its authorities over organisation of "Shahadat Din" tomorrow in memory of dalit scholar Rohit Vemula whose alleged suicide last year had raised a political firestorm. Clarifying that no permission was given to students who are planning to hold a series of programmes, the varsity authorities today clamped restrictions on the movement of outsiders on the campus. A section of students under the aegis of Joint Action Committee for Social Justice - UOH has said they would gather at 'Rohit Stupa' to remember his legacy and take a vow that fight will go on against casteism and communalism. The mass gathering, to be organised on the campus, is slated to be attended by Rohit's mother Radhika Vemula, family of Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student who has been missing, Jaan Mohammed, brother of Mohammad Akhlaq who was lynched in September 2015 on suspicion that his family stored and ate beef at their house, a few dalits who were thrashed by 'cow vigilantes' at Una in Gujarat last year. Vemula was found hanging in a hostel room on the UoH campus on January 17, 2016, sparking a huge controversy and political tug-of-war. "The University cannot be used as a platform for outsiders to participate in the activities called by insiders or outsiders when there was no permission," stated a circular issued by UoH Registrar P S Singh. It warned of appropriate disciplinary action against those who violate the directions. "Announcements were made through media and wall posters that some activities are being taken up on January 17 at University of Hyderabad campus. University has not issued any permission to such activities," it said. Singh said the cooperation of entire varsity community is needed for maintaining peace and tranquil academic atmosphere. University authorities had last year issued a notification banning entry of outsiders, political parties, media and social/student groups. The JAC members, who are planning a series of programmes under the banner of 'Justice for Rohit Vemula', said his portraits in all hostels will be garlanded and a remembrance rally will also be held tomorrow. UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor- 1 Prof Vipin Srivastava told PTI, "they (JAC) have not sought any permission from University officials..If they go ahead with their programmes it will be unofficial." Asked if the varsity authorities had sought for enhancing security, Srivastava said "We will monitor the situation and act accordingly." The Dean of Students' Welfare of UoH also advised all the students unions, forums, associations, JAC on the campus not to involve directly or indirectly in inviting or entertaining outsiders and cited prevailing ban on the campus on allowing outsiders into the campus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indo-US diplomatic crisis that erupted in 2013 with the arrest of woman diplomat Devyani Khobragade was not only a "low point" in ties but both sides learnt "very important lessons" from it, a top official of the outgoing Obama administration has said. "The diplomatic crisis that unfolded within weeks of my coming in, surely was a test for both countries. I think, not only it was a low point but more importantly it was a learning moment for both countries. We drew very very important lessons on both sides from that," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI. Sharing some of these lessons, Biswal said first lesson learnt was that one cannot allow for or afford for complacency to creep in to a relationship, which is as important for the US-India relationship. "It requires constant attention to issues large and small. Two, you can't allow small issues to fester or go unattended. Three, you have to operate in each other countries in a way that is consistent with and in accordance with the legal and regulatory acts of that country," she said. Khobragade, a 1999-batch IFS officer was arrested on December 12, 2013, in theUS when she was India's Deputy Consul-General in New Yorkon visa fraudcharges andfor allegedly providing false declarations in a visa application for her maid. She later was released on a USD 250,000 bond. She left the US after getting full diplomatic immunity. The incident had triggered a diplomatic row between the US and India. "What we are trying to do is to make sure that we are in compliance and two that if a problem arises that we act quickly to engage our counterparts and work through to resolve. Because when those communication streams breakdown and when we are not acting aggressively to manage these issues that's when you leave room for the crisis to escalate and to take on different order of magnitude," Biswal noted. Biswal said there would always be issues that would come up between the two countries. "India is an extraordinarily complex country, complex not only in terms of its diversity and its society, but also complex in terms of the legal structures that govern India between the central government, the state government, its all different legal environment," Biswal said. The US is similarly an extraordinarily complex society with its own national and state laws with different layers of law enforcement and layers of states and local courts and so the actions that can be brought forth by in a locality, in a municipality by a state are not necessarily within the control of the central government, she said. "But what is within our control and what is within the control of Ministry of External Affairs in India is the ability to work through and work together to resolve those issues and to address those issues in a way that is transparent and that builds confidence and that's where we are today and that's what we learned lessons from that crisis and from that low point," Biswal said. "I am hopeful that we will not find ourselves in that situation again because of the lessons that we have learned. I think, what we learned that we need each other, that we value this relationship too much to allow it to deteriorate," she asserted. "The crisis forced the two countries to say, wait a minute, we do not want to go down this pathway with India. Or for India to say we do not want to go down with America this pathway. We need each other, we want each other to be strong partners, we got to rebuild it and that's where Foreign Secretary Jaishankar when he came in as Ambassador was quite forceful about that," she said. Telecom major Vodafone today announced the launch of its Vodafone SuperNet 4G service here. The service was launched by sporting legend Milkha Singh here. Starting with Chandigarh today, the Punjab capital, the SuperNet 4G will shortly be rolled out across major towns and cities of the state by March 2017, Vodafone India Operations Director Arvind Vohra said on the occasion. He said the SuperNet 4G will enable customers to access internet via mobile with speeds across a range of smart devices including Mi-Fi and dongles. Vodafone 4G services can be readily accessed from 4G enabled handsets offered by leading smartphone manufacturers and available across the country, he said. The Vodafone's SuperNet 4G launch in Punjab follows the successful rollout of services in Kerala, Karnataka, Kolkata, Delhi and NCR, Mumbai, Haryana, UP (east), Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Assam and North East, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and UP (west) circles, he said. With launches planned in several other prominent locations across the country, Vodafone SuperNet 4G coverage will be available in 2,400 towns by March 2017. The 17 Circles where Vodafone is offering 4G service, contribute over 90 per cent of Vodafone India's data revenues, it was informed on the occasion. Vohra said out of a network of 10,000 plus Vodafone exclusive stores in the country, more than 220 are in Punjab. With aggressive plans being offered by different operators these days, Vohra told reporters, "We believe tariff will never be a long term differentiator. Long term differentiator will be really superior customer experience, consitently superior customer relevant propositions, which is where Vodafone SuperNet 4G comes. Having said that, we have also come out with lot of exciting offers on the 4G launch". To a question, Vohra said, "we are consistently investing in our networks to make sure that we come out with superior customer experience..Today's 4G launch is also a step in that direction. It is not just about a 4G launch, but it is about bringing a complete repertoire of 4G propositions that the customers can leverage." Speaking on the occasion, Rajat Avasthi, Business Head-Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, Vodafone India, said, "Punjab is a key market for Vodafone India and as a committed telecom service provider, our almost 5.2 million customers have a lot to look forward to. To cater to the growing volumes of customer usage increasing need for speed, the company invested over Rs 2250 crore in the state till date to expand, modernize and build a more technology and energy efficient network". "Beginning with Chandigarh and Mohali, we will soon expand our Vodafone SuperNet 4G services across the entire state of Punjab in a phased manner," he said. "With SuperNet 4G, customers will experience a significant enhancement in their mobile internet experience with faster download/upload of videos and music, seamless video chats and will also enjoy greater ease in using their favourite apps, Avasthi said. "Vodafone's customers in Punjab have a bonanza of special benefits to enjoy the SuperNet 4G experience seamlessly. These include free upgrade to 4G for customers along with high-speed 4G SIM, 2GB data free with every 4G SIM upgrade. Besides, two hour free 4G services daily for 30 days, to all prepaid customers with 4G handset and 4G Sim, array of data packs and 4G international roaming in 35 plus countries with many more countries to be launched in the near future. (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 his heartfelt condolences over the loss of lives of pilgrims in the Sagar Islands in South 24 Parganas. In a message from Raj Bhawan here, Tripathi conveyed his sympathies to the bereaved families of the deceased. The Governor also wished speedy recovery to the injured, it said. At least six pilgrims died while returning from Ganga Sagar fair yesterday that the officials initially said was a stampede, but the state government later claimed it was not. The state announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of each of the deceased. The Prime Minister has also approved ex gratia from the PMNRF of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased and Rs 50,000 for those injured in the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NCP will choose Akhilesh Yadav's "original Samajwadi Party" over his father Mulayam Singh, as it seeks to be a part of the proposed grand alliance in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. NCP General Secretary Tariq Anwar said the "good image" of UP Chief Minister will greatly help the proposed grand alliance to defeat the BJP. "The image of Akhilesh Yadav will greatly help the grand alliance. People have accepted him as the face of the party," Anwar said. "The priority at this time is the formation of a grand alliance between the Samajwadi Party, Congress, the Janta Dal United and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) to defeat the BJP. "NCP would like to be a part of it. If we stop the communal forces in a state like Uttar Pradesh, then it will send a strong message across the country. When asked, whom will the NCP back as the battle between father and son in the Samajwadi Party rages on, Anwar said, "Since 80 per cent of law makers are with Akhilesh, his is the real Samajwadi Party. We will go with him." The NCP has a lone MLA Fateh Bahadur in the 403-member UP Legislative Assembly. "We are aware of our strength and we will seek to be a part of the alliance according to that. At many places, our candidates stood second or third. So, we may look for 20-25 seats," Anwar said. Interestingly, in 2015, the NCP had walked out of the grand alliance in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had "unilaterally" announced seat sharing among the constituents of the grand alliance without even consulting the NCP. When asked about the alliance between the Congress and NCP in Goa, Anwar said no agreement has been reached in the coastal state yet, which will go to polls on February 4. He also hinted that the prospects of alliance between the Congress and NCP in up-coming civic polls in Maharashtra, including the one for the coveted Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) also seemed bleak. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pointing out that 'chitta' (drugs) has killed thousands of young people in Punjab, PCC chief Amarinder Singh today asserted that all those responsible for the menace would be brought to book, even if they are the Badals or Majithia. Yesterday, Singh had said that if elected to power, he would not shy away from "hanging" those guilty of sacrilege and drug mafia even if it is the "Badals themselves", evoking a sharp reaction from the ruling party which said the Punjab Congress chief had gone "berserk". At a public rally here today, he said he had to keep his date with the region, from where his "sister" Rajinder Kaur Bhattal is contesting. Without mincing words he asked the gathering, "babe (chief minister Parkash Singh Badal) nu kuttan, ya na kuttan?" (should I or shouldn't I thrash Baba?). He said now that he had the permission of the gathering, he would have to beat Badal square and hard in Lambi seat, which he had chosen as his 'karambhoomi'. Citing Maqboolpura in Amritsar as an example of the devastation wreaked by drugs, leaving only widows and children in the entire village, he said that all those responsible for the menace would be brought to book. They will all be dealt within four weeks of the next Congress government taking over the state. Describing the Akali Dal as a "mafia party", he promised to take away all the buses currently under Badals' control and give them away to the unemployed youth of the state. Referring to the incidents of religious sacrilege in the state, he promised to take appropriate action against anyone found guilty, even if it is Badals. He said the BJP-SAD government had failed to do anything for the farmers and his party was committed to waive off their loans and rescue them from the devastation. He said that the Congress manifesto, which had the seal of approval of former Prime Minister and "world-renowned economist" Manmohan Singh, had addressed the problem of the farmers in much detail. He expressed concern over the alleged lawlessness in the state, observing that the DGP himself had admitted to 52 armed gangs being on the loose. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid the battle for supremacy in UP's ruling family, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday accused Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of having a negative approach towards Muslims and said he will fight against his son if he does not heed to his advice. With the Election Commission set to take a call on which SP faction will retain the cycle symbol, Mulayam said that it was up to the EC to decide on it but the fight will "reach the court". Addressing party workers at the SP headquarters here, Mulayam trained his guns on his son. "I always advocated interest of Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as state's Director General of Police (DGP), Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It gave an anti-Muslim message," he alleged. The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a "negative approach" towards Muslims and that he was playing in the hands of Ramgopal Yadav, who was working "on directions of BJP". "Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ramgopal. If he does not listen, I will fight against him," he said. "I will live for Muslims and die for them also. If it come to Muslims' interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh)", he said. Mulayam said, "I have made a lot of sacrifices to make the party. He (Akhilesh) is not adhering to me and sacked a number of ministers including a woman. Senior ministers were sacked without any reasons". Earlier, Mulayam reached brother Shivpal's residence and later the party office and addressed the workers. Interestingly, he also called Naresh Uttam, who has been made party state president by Akhilesh, to the meeting. Mulayam said he was trying his level best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for not understanding things. As'ad's Bio As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today attached assets worth around Rs 20 crore in connection with its probe into money laundering charges against former Noida chief engineer Yadav Singh. The agency said it has issued orders for freezing of assets under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and properties of three construction companies and a firm allegedly owned by Singh's wife have been attached. "The total value of seized assets is around Rs 19.42 crore," it said. The ED had slapped money laundering charges in two separate cases against Singh in 2015, based on an FIR by the CBI. The CBI has also filed a charge sheet in this case. After an Allahabad High Court order, the CBI had registered two cases against Singh and his family members for alleged corruption and amassing assets disproportionate to known sources of income. Singh's case came to the fore after the Income Tax department first carried out searches against him and others on tax evasion charges. A scrutiny of ITRs and other connecting records have reportedly revealed that during the period 2009-2014, the total likely savings of the family of the then Chief Engineer was approximately Rs 1.70 crore, whereas they were in possession of immovable property worth around Rs 3.60 crore, CBI had said. "Besides, approximately Rs 10 crore was allegedly recovered from one of his associates which reportedly belonged to the then Chief Engineer," the CBI had said. An attachment of assets order under PMLA is aimed to deprive the accused from taking benefits from their ill-gotten wealth and it can be challenged before the Adjudicating Authority of the said Act within 180 days by the aggrieved party. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 20-year-old youth was arrested from West Bengal, days after he allegedly duped a local by fraudulently transferring Rs 47,500 from his account by posing as a bank official, police said today. The accused, identified as Binod Mandal alias Manoj, is a native of Karon village in Deogarh district of Jharkhand. Police have found a special team as Mandal has revealed that scores of people in his village are involved in tricking unsuspecting account holders utilising the same modus operandi. According to the police, Mandal called up the victim, a car driver, over his phone on December 1 last year and introduced himself as manager of SBH Debit Cards Division and informed him that his card was being blocked for updating Aadhar details in the wake of demonetisation. "He asked the victim to provide Aadhar card number, ATM card number, its date of expiry and CVV number and that he will send a confirmation code to his registered mobile number. "Believing the fraudster to be a bank officer, the victim shared his debit card details and OTP with the accused after which the accused made several fraudulent transfers to various e-wallets and carried out online transactions," said Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M Bhagwat. After the victim called up Mandal over deduction of amounts, the accused told him that due to upgradation of his debit card he received such messages and all money will be reverted to his bank account. The victim realised that he was cheated to the tune of Rs 47,500 after he visited his bank, following which he lodged a complaint with Cyber Crime wing of Rachakonda Commissionerate, who registered a case. During the probe, it was found the victim's card details and OTPs were misused by fraudsters for diverting money to various e-wallets. Subsequently, they transferred such funds from e-wallets to various bank accounts or for mobile/DTH recharges, the senior police officer said. "On contacting one of the end-users of such service, Mandal was identified and a police team lured him to Asansol railway station for making a bigger deal where he was apprehended on January 12 and brought to Hyderabad on transit remand," Bhagwat said. He said Mandal has admitted to presence of hundreds of people in his village and surrounding areas, who make calls to bank account holders to obtain their card details and OTPs and transfer money to various accounts and e-wallets. On revelations made by the accused, a special team has been dispatched to probe further, the Commissioner added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's former President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US on January 20, according to media reports. Zardari, co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was invited to the January 20 ceremony by the US government which he accepted. He will leave for the US on January 17, the Daily Times reported. Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late last month after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include ex-Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders. It is also said that he would proceed to France from the US. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is expected to join him in the US on January 25 after the PPP's Lahore-Faisalabad rally, which is scheduled to be held on January 19. Besides US-Pakistan ties, issues related to Pakistan-India relations, Afghan policy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will also come under discussion during one-on-one meetings with the US authorities, including the Congressmen and senators. Zardari, who is currently in Dubai, is expected to undergo a medical examination while in the US. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's new nationwide sales tax is now expected to be rolled out from July after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday managed to break a three-month long deadlock on who would administer the tax. The long-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) was earlier proposed to come into effect from April 1. Its timeline, however, was disrupted by the deadlock on how to collect the new tax that would have federal and state elements. The new levy is hailed as India's biggest tax overhaul since independence in 1947, and is expected to transform Asia's third largest economy into a single market for the first time. After a meeting with state officials in New Delhi, Jaitley said that July 1 was a "more realistic" date for the GST launch as companies needed ample time to switch over to the new tax. "Since it's a transactional tax, it can be introduced any time," Jaitley told reporters. Under the agreed arrangement, state and federal tax officials would audit and administer businesses with annual turnover of up to 15 million rupees ($220,000), with 90 percent of them coming under the purview of local states and the remainder under federal authorities. Businesses above the 15 million rupees threshold would be controlled by state and federal in a 50/50 ratio. Jaitley also conceded some taxation powers over inter-state and sea trade - which come under federal jurisdiction - in response to demands from some states to levy and collect tax. A council of federal and regional authorities will next meet on Feb. 18 to finalise four legislations, setting out the operational details of the new tax. ($1 = 68.1037 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; Editing by Dominic Evans) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Ju-min Park and Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's special prosecutor on Monday sought a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group, the country's largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of President Park Geun-hye. Investigators had grilled Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee for 22 straight hours last week as a suspect in a corruption scandal, which last month led to parliament impeaching Park. The special prosecutor's office accused Lee of paying bribes totalling 43 billion won ($36.42 million) to organisations linked to Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is at the centre of the scandal, in order to secure the 2015 merger of two affiliates and cement his control of the family business. The 48-year-old Lee, who became the de facto head of the Samsung Group after his father, Lee Kun-hee, was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014, was also accused of embezzlement and perjury, according to the prosecution's application for an arrest warrant. "The special prosecutors' office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the country's economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence," special prosecution spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told a media briefing. Prosecutors have evidence showing that Park and Choi shared profits made through bribery payments, he said, without elaborating. Lee is due to appear on Wednesday morning at the Seoul central district court, which will decide whether to grant the arrest warrant. Samsung, whose companies generate $230 billion in revenue, equivalent to about 17 percent of South Korea's economy, rejected the accusation that Lee paid bribes. "It is difficult to understand the special prosecutors' decision," it said in an emailed statement. Prosecutors have been looking into whether Samsung's support for foundations and a company backed by Choi was linked to the National Pension Service's 2015 decision to support a controversial $8 billion merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc. Samsung has acknowledged providing funds to the institutions but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger. "It is especially hard to accept the special prosecutor's assertion that there was improper request for a favour related to the merger or succession of control," it said on Monday. NPS chairman Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted on Monday on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony. Last month he acknowledged ordering the world's third-largest pension fund to support the merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries in 2015 while heading the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. The special prosecutor's office said in its indictment of Moon that Park, through her aides, ordered Moon to ensure the merger of the two Samsung companies succeeded. Park, 64, remains in office but has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to make her the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Park has denied wrongdoing but admitted to carelessness in her relationship with Choi, a friend for four decades. Choi, in jail as she undergoes criminal trial and also denies wrongdoing. SHARES HIT Prosecutors opted not to seek the arrest of three other Samsung executives they had questioned, including Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung, a group veteran who is seen as Jay Y. Lee's mentor and a likely caretaker head of the conglomerate in the event Lee is arrested. Shares in flagship Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest maker of smartphones, flat-screen TVs and memory chips, ended 2.14 percent lower, underperforming the 0.61 percent drop in the broader market. Investors say that while key Samsung businesses are run by professional CEOs and would not be hurt on an operational basis if Lee is arrested, his absence would slow bigger-picture decision-making. The Korea Employers Federation, a business lobby, said arresting Lee would undermine confidence both in Samsung and the country's economy, Asia's fourth-largest, and called the special prosecutor's probe "very regrettable." South Korea has seen numerous corporate scandals over the years. Jay Y. Lee's father Lee Kun-hee was himself handed a three-year suspended jail sentence in 2009 for tax evasion. He was later pardoned. Public opinion has in recent years grown less tolerant of leniency extended to the heads of conglomerates, or chaebols, for the sake of the economy. POLITICAL CRISIS South Korea has been gripped by political crisis for months, with Park impeached in December. If the impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, an election would be held in two months, with former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expected to be a candidate. Choi, in detention and on trial on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud, again denied wrongdoing on Monday in an appearance at the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial. She also denied having any prior knowledge of the Samsung Group's controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. "Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place," Choi told the court. (Additional reporting by Christine Kim, Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Writing by Nick Macfie and Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Ju-min Park and Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's special prosecutor's office said on Monday it was seeking a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group, the country's largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of President Park Geun-hye. Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was questioned for 22 straight hours last week as investigators probed a corruption scandal that resulted in parliament impeaching Park last month. The special prosecutor's office accused Lee of paying bribes totalling 43 billion won ($36.42 million) Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is the woman at the centre of scandal. Lee was also accused of embezzlement and perjury in the prosecution's application for an arrest warrant. Seoul's central district court said a hearing will be held at 10:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Wednesday to decide whether to approve the warrant. Samsung did not have an immediate comment. "The special prosecutor's office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the country's economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence," Lee Kyu-chul, a spokesman for the office, told a media briefing. Prosecutors have been looking into whether Samsung's support for a business and foundations backed by Park's friend Choi may have been connected to the National Pension Service's 2015 decision to support a controversial $8 billion merger of two Samsung Group affiliates. NPS chairman Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted on Monday on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony. Park remains in office but has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to make her the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Moon was arrested in December after acknowledging ordering the world's third-largest pension fund to support the $8 billion merger in 2015 while he was head of the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. Samsung has acknowledged providing funds to the three institutions but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger. Choi is accused of colluding with Park to pressure big businesses, including Samsung, to contribute to non-profit foundations backing the president's initiatives. Choi, in detention and on trial on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud, again denied wrongdoing on Monday in an appearance at the Constitutional Court. She also denied having any prior knowledge of the Samsung Group's controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. "Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place," Choi told the court. South Korea has been gripped by political crisis for months, with Park impeached in December. Park has also denied wrongdoing, though admitted carelessness in her relationship with Choi. If the impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, an election would be held in two months, with former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expected to be a candidate. Shares in group flagship Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of smartphones, flatscreen TVs and memory chips, extended losses on Monday afternoon and were down 2.3 percent. (Additional reporting by Christine Kim and Joyce Lee; Writing by Nick Macfie and Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Monday broke a deadlock over issues of administrative control over assessees and broadly agreed to roll out the from July 1, instead of the earlier deadline of April 1. For financial companies such as those offering mobile wallets or payment gateways, the benefits of demonetisation come at a heavy price. To be precise, $50-100 million (Rs 340-680 crore). Media-fuelled moral panics can increase the lawbreaking behaviour of targeted groups. This phenomenon was originally thought to arise through further isolation of these groups. But in the age of and online self-promotion, where lawbreakers can upload footage of their illicit exploits for kudos, being the subject of a moral panic may be a source of pride and an inducement to offend. The government is weighing the pros and cons of the proposal, which could be a tweaked form of the earlier banking cash transaction tax under the United Progressive Alliance government, under which tax will be levied on cash withdrawals above a certain ceiling from bank accounts, a government official familiar with deliberations on this matter said. Commercial Feature is a Business Standard Digital Marketing Initiative. The Editorial/Content team at Business Standard has not contributed to writing or editing these articles. For further information, please write to assist@bsmail.in A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd investigation into what caused some Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire has concluded that the battery was the main reason, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. The world's biggest smartphone maker is seeking to put behind it one of the biggest product safety failures in tech history as it prepares to launch the Galaxy S8, one of its flagship phones, sometime in the first half of this year. Investors and analysts say it is critical for Samsung to provide a convincing and detailed explanation about what went wrong with the Note 7 and how it will prevent such problems from recurring if it is to regain consumer trust. "They've got to make sure they come clean and they've got to reassure buyers as to why this won't happen again," said Bryan Ma, Singapore-based analyst for researcher IDC. The results of the investigation will likely be announced on Jan. 23, a day before it announces detailed fourth-quarter earnings results, said the person, who was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter and declined to be identified. Koh Dong-jin, head of Samsung's mobile business, will likely announce the results as well as new measures the firm is taking to prevent similar problems in future devices, the person said. A Samsung spokesman declined to comment. Samsung initially announced a recall of some 2.5 million Note 7 phones in September and identified the cause of the fire as a manufacturing process problem at one of its suppliers, later identified as affiliate Samsung SDI Co Ltd. But new Note 7s with what Samsung said were safe batteries from a different supplier continued to catch fire, forcing the company to permanently halt sales of the device and dealing a 6.1 trillion won ($5.2 billion) blow to Samsung's operating profit over three quarters. "To me it'd be surprising if they said it was a supplier issue," IDC's Ma said, adding he suspects Samsung may not have given enough room for the battery inside the phone. The company in October said it will examine all aspects of the phone, including hardware design and software, and would hire third-party firms as part of its probe. The source told Reuters on Monday that Samsung was able to replicate the fires during its investigation and that the cause for the fires could not be explained by hardware design or software-related matters. While prospects for its smartphone business this year remain a major question mark for Samsung, profits are expected to rise sharply on the back of rising memory chip prices and growing sales of organic light-emitting diode screens for smartphones.A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd investigation into what caused some Galaxy Note 7 smartphones to catch fire has concluded that the battery was the main reason, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday. The world's biggest smartphone maker is seeking to put behind it one of the biggest product safety failures in tech history as it prepares to launch the Galaxy S8, one of its flagship phones, sometime in the first half of this year. Investors and analysts say it is critical for Samsung to provide a convincing and detailed explanation about what went wrong with the Note 7 and how it will prevent such problems from recurring if it is to regain consumer trust. "They've got to make sure they come clean and they've got to reassure buyers as to why this won't happen again," said Bryan Ma, Singapore-based analyst for researcher IDC. The results of the investigation will likely be announced on Jan. 23, a day before it announces detailed fourth-quarter earnings results, said the person, who was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter and declined to be identified. Koh Dong-jin, head of Samsung's mobile business, will likely announce the results as well as new measures the firm is taking to prevent similar problems in future devices, the person said. A Samsung spokesman declined to comment. Samsung initially announced a recall of some 2.5 million Note 7 phones in September and identified the cause of the fire as a manufacturing process problem at one of its suppliers, later identified as affiliate Samsung SDI Co Ltd. But new Note 7s with what Samsung said were safe batteries from a different supplier continued to catch fire, forcing the company to permanently halt sales of the device and dealing a 6.1 trillion won ($5.2 billion) blow to Samsung's operating profit over three quarters. "To me it'd be surprising if they said it was a supplier issue," IDC's Ma said, adding he suspects Samsung may not have given enough room for the battery inside the phone. The company in October said it will examine all aspects of the phone, including hardware design and software, and would hire third-party firms as part of its probe. The source told Reuters on Monday that Samsung was able to replicate the fires during its investigation and that the cause for the fires could not be explained by hardware design or software-related matters. While prospects for its smartphone business this year remain a major question mark for Samsung, profits are expected to rise sharply on the back of rising memory chip prices and growing sales of organic light-emitting diode screens for smartphones. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Sunday asked Amazon to desist from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons, cautioning it that "indifference will be at your own peril". "Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet. In another tweet however he added: "Comment on Amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it." Last week, after a strong protest by India over Amazon selling doormats depicting Indian flag, the e-retail giant removed the offensive article from its Canadian website. A spokesman for Amazon based at its headquarters in Seattle had told The Washington Post that the doormat was no longer for sale on its website. After the Indian flag incident, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had received several complaints of Amazon selling flip-flops with Mahatma Gandhi's image. Some Twitter users have tagged Swaraj in their tweets complaining that the beach sandals with Gandhi's image were being sold on the Amazon US site. When asked, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup did not specifically mention the issue, saying, "As a follow up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments." The Delhi government will launch a food surveillance programme starting Monday to determine quality and hygiene of the fare served in restaurants and fast food chains across the city. The drive will cover major food hubs as well as sale of packaged food items like chips and juices. In the first phase, target areas to be covered under surveillance will be Connaught Place, Karol Bagh, Chandni Chowk, Khan Market, Lajpat Nagar and a few others, sources in the department said. The purpose of the programme is to ensure that eateries are conforming to conditions laid out in the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. "It will have a great preventive effect in the food market regarding unsafe and unhealthy food all across the national Capital, including leading food chains here," said Dr Mrinalini Darswal, food commissioner,department of food safety. According to Darswal, this is one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken so far and the department has tied up with nine private laboratories with 'microbiological' trial facilities. Microbiological tests can detect pathogens and spoilage organisms in food which a normal chemical test facility cannot scrutinise. Earlier, the department was conducting only chemical testing due to shortage of staff and food inspectors. "We have started our microbiological food testing labs which can detect bacteria, fungus and virus inside a food item. The officials can also write their comments in reports on the kitchen hygiene of these food eateries, besides sample tests," Darswal said. The commissioner said food officials will pick thousands of food samples everyday from the market irrespective of the size and brand of an outlet. "The officials from private labs will pick up surveillance samples (for preliminary testing) and if these food samples fails at in the initial testing then the government food inspectors will pick legal samples for prosecution purpose," she said. Food fix Food officials said the programme was planned after they received complaints from consumers against popular food chains operating in the city. The officials said the raids will include cooperatives such as Mother Dairy, transnational food chains like McDonald's or Pizza Hut, and domestic businesses like Haldiram or Bikanerwala. "Our sole aim is to ensure hygiene and standard quality served to the people by these eateries," said Darswal. Reacting to the programme on food safety, spokesperson for Domino's Pizza said they have always "maintained highest quality standards" and strictly adhere to all policies applicable on the food business. "We always look for areas for continuous improvement in our operations, supply chain and storage. As a practice, in case of a customer complaint, we closely investigate the matter and immediately take necessary measures," the spokesperson said. Queries to other popular city food chains like KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds did not elicit any response. The food and drug department of Delhi carries out surprise inspections and raids of food establishments and draws samples of food articles that can be potentially adulterated, substandard or misbranded. However, in the programme beginning Monday the scale will be wider, said officials. As per the official process, when the department receives a complaint about an adulterated food item, a report is filed and marked to the designated district officer, after which the officer collects samples. The samples are sent for testing where the food analyst supervises the work and sends the reports back to the department concerned. Officials said the programme is part of a larger initiative to spruce up food safety standards in the Capital. "A proposal has been sent to the Central government for commissioning more food laboratories and revamping the existing ones. The Centre has agreed to fund for state-ofart food laboratories," officials at food department said. ALSO READ: Confusion at restaurants as customers say NO to service charge The FSSAI recently trained at least 23,000 street vendors all across Delhi for food hygiene. "This was done under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and all the street vendors have been registered, trained food hygiene and provided with a certificate," officials said. Feeling jealous about the attention your romantic partner giving to someone else may increase your desire for eye-catching products - such as a bright coloured coat - even if it has a risk of public embarrassment, a new study has claimed. Researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore were eager to investigate whether the feelings of jealously motivated consumers to buy things that were more likely to recapture the attention of their partners. They conducted a series of five different experiments and the results showed that feelings of jealousy increase the desire for eye-catching products - such as a bright coloured coat instead of a dull-coloured one or a T-shirt with a big logo design versus a low-key design. "We believe that this effect is not just restricted to jealousy in romantic relationships," said Xun Huang, professor at NTU. "Children can be jealous of a sibling's relationship with their parents or workers might be jealous of a colleague's close relationship with a supervisor," Huang said. Researchers also found that the desire for eye-grabbing products disappeared when there was little chance that the product would be noticed by others in public. Participants who were experiencing feelings of jealously in one experiment were more likely to buy a noticeable gold lamp for their office, a public place. However if they were buying a lamp for their bedroom, interest in a gold lamp versus a plain grey one was equal. The researchers were surprised to discover that the desire to recapture someone's attention with eye-catching products even outweighed the risk of public embarrassment. Food and Drink Industry Ireland (FDII), the Ibec group, today said the increased likelihood of a hard and disruptive Brexit and a fracture of the single market demands a series of exceptions from EU state aid rules for the Irish agri-food and drink sector. In a new report, which set outs the case for exceptional support, FDII called on the Government and the European Commission to put in place a comprehensive package to protect viable businesses and jobs during a potentially fraught Brexit process. The report proposes that state aid support should be targeted across three distinct areas - Enterprise stabilisation, Investment in competitiveness and Diversification. To justify the exemptions under existing European legislation, the report sets out the unique position and exposure of the food and drink industry. The report highlights: Irish food and drink exports are more exposed to the UK than any other European sector across a large number of categories; typically four to six times more exposed than the average EU country. The extensive regional footprint of the food and drink sector, including regions which are economically disadvantaged relative to the EU average, means it is directly linked to the performance of the whole economy. Food and drink manufacturing accounts for half of direct expenditure by the entire manufacturing sector in the Irish economy (payroll, Irish materials and Irish services). The sector provides the exclusive outlet for much of farmer/SME produce, providing extensive added value and is thus crucially important to farm incomes. Commenting on the research, FDII Director Paul Kelly said, "The Irish agri-food and drink sector is uniquely exposed. There is a compelling case for exceptional state aid support to minimise the economic fallout and job losses. Already the currency squeeze is putting intense strain on exporters." He added, "This pressure is likely to intensify as the challenges and economic costs of a hard Brexit crystalise. The hardening of EU and UK negotiating positions mean we must plan for a very difficult Brexit process and the high possibility of a divisive outcome." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us It was announced yesterday that OBrien Fine Foods, one of Irelands leading producers of cooked meats and breakfast products including the Brady Family and Rudds brands, is to acquire Faughan Foods, the cooked meats division of Hogans Farm. The deal will allow OBrien Fine Foods to develop its offering in the white meat market in Ireland, delivering on the firms ambition to grow the company. Operating from two dedicated facilities in Timahoe, Co Kildare and Birr, Co Offaly, OBrien Fine Foods currently supplies branded and own label meat products to all major multiples, discounters and convenience groups in Ireland. The company employs over 395 people in Ireland. Operating from Rathcairn, in Co. Meath, Faughan Foods has been in business for 25 years and employs over 80 people. The cooked meats division of Hogans Farm, produce a range of own label cooked meats for the Irish and UK retailers, as well as under the Hogans Farm brand. Hogans Farm will continue to supply fresh turkey to FaughanFoods as part of the deal while the day-to-day operations at Faughan Foods will continue to be led by Lisa Rowntree and Diarmuid Connell, supported by the OBrien Fine Foods team. Commenting yesterday, Managing Director of OBrien Fine Foods, John OBrien said, "As a leading producer of cooked meats in Ireland, it is our aim to continue to grow and develop our offering. Todays announcement of this acquisition is an important step in the process, allowing us to build a strong presence in the white meat market in 2017." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Credit rating agency S&P raised its credit ratings for Irish banks last Friday afternoon. AIBs credit rating was raised to investment grade, increasing from BB+ to BBB-. Bank of Irelands was raised from BBB- to BBB. PTSBs credit rating was raised to BB, previously BB-. The outlook for the three banks was noted as stable. S&P note that the ratings actions reflect the decreasing economic risks for Irish banks, with the sustained recovery in property priceshelping to reduce the negative impact of previous imbalances. Furthermore, S&P state that that the Irish economy is now in an expansionary phase, from the previous correction phase. Elsewhere, Fitch affirmed Irelands credit rating at A, with a stable outlook. According to Goodbody Stockbrokers, "The S&P ratings upgrades are another positive development for Irish banks credit pricing. AIBs upgrade to investment grade is of particularly note, with any potential 2017 IPO another possible credit positive event for the banks debt pricing." They added, "We continue to like Irish banks ATI and Tier 2 debt, given continued improving asset quality trends, the supportive macroeconomic backdrop, the gap versus their SREP levels and the likely modest MREL issuance requirements." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us New research released today by FEXCO and delivered in partnership with the Worlds largest jobs site, Indeed has found that job seeker interest in fintech as a career has increased dramatically in the past six months in Ireland. In 2016, searches for jobs in fintech increased by 85% worldwide, a trend reflected in the Irish market with an increase of 90% in the past six months. While on the employer side, Ireland ranks second in demand for cyber security professionals, as measured by open roles versus searches, with Israel top of the list and the UK in third. With this in mind, FEXCO has today launched Cantillon 2017, Irelands only one-day, financial technology discussion forum. MCd by Miriam OCallaghan, the conference aims to draw attention to the challenges and opportunities for Irish companies, both start-up and established, in the area of fintech as well furthering the discussion around attracting the necessary talent to support this growing sector. Cantillon 2017, coordinated by IT Tralee, takes place on Thursday, 30th March in Tralee, Co. Kerry (birthplace of pioneering economist and event namesake Richard Cantillon). The event welcomes industry experts from companies including Indeed, SAP, VoxPro, Dell, EMC, Grant Thornton and FEXCO to lead discussion on the 3 key areas of - Digital Financial Technologies, Cyber Security and Digital Building Blocks. Speaking ahead of the conference, CEO of FEXCO Corporate Payments, Ruth McCarthy said, "Its clear both through the research we have carried out with Indeed and anecdotally from our day-to-day business experience that fintech presents a significant opportunity for the Irish economy now more so than ever." She added, "The Brexit referendum result means that Ireland will be the only English speaking country remaining within the EU and we have the additional advantage of being part of the Euro zone. With over 80% of all fintech investment coming from the USA, this is a unique advantage we cannot squander." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us run75441 | January 15, 2017 8:56 pm In Colorado, on Saturday, Republican Rep. Mike Coffman held an event for his constituents at a a public library in Aurora, Colorado. At least 150 constituents showed up, most of them hoping to ask Coffman about his recent vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his plans for a replacement. But only about 70 people got to meet with Coffman: Despite booking a large room with ample space, Coffman allowed in only four constituents at once for five minutes at a time. When the crowd grew restless, police put up crime scene tape and Coffman snuck out the back doorsix minutes before the event was scheduled to end. Coffman co-authored a Denver Post op-ed on Friday urging the full and immediate repeal of the ACA. About 419,000 Coloradans have gained health care coverage since the enactment of the law, and many of them stand to lose their insurance if it is repealed. Yet Coffman has not proposed a clear replacement for the law, an issue constituents hoped to ask him about on Saturday. I am potentially going to lose my health insurance, Berthie Ruoff told NBC 9 while she waited to meet with her representative. Ive had a preexisting condition. Ive had breast cancer. Whats going to happen to me? My spouse who had health insurance passed away. What do I do? You know, what am I supposed to do? But neither Ruoff nor many other constituents who stand to lose coverage had an opportunity meet with Coffman. When it grew clear that Coffman would refuse to meet with a majority of those at the event, the crowd channeled its agitation into patriotic songs: This show of unity, however, did not impress Coffman. Indeed, it appears to have scared him: Rather than address the crowd, Coffman had police officers secretly escort him out of the back door before the event was set to conclude. A few people noticed Coffman sneaking out and attempted to address him. Next time, one woman pleaded, please be sure you hear all your constituents! Coffman ignored them, hopped into a waiting car, and drove away. Have a good afternoon! yelled another exasperated woman. GOP Rep. Sneaks Out of Townhall Meeting, Mark Joseph Stern, Slate, January 15, 2016 The Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Growth Fund and Infinity Capital have led a 3m investment in Corlytics, a Dublin based world leader in regulatory risk intelligence. This investment of 1.65m by Kernel Capital brings its total investment in the firm to 1.9m. The investment also includes 750k from Infinity Capital and 500k from private investors. Kernel Capital is an independent manager of the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Venture Funds, comprising of 210m / 165m of funds raised through six separate venture capital funds in the years 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2015. These Funds are supported by Bank of Ireland, Invest NI, Enterprise Ireland, University of Limerick Foundation, NUI Galway Foundation and New York State Common Retirement Fund. Corlytics aids financially regulated firms, regulators and their professional advisers in uncovering and predicting avoidable compliance and operational risk within the financial markets. Their proprietary data and real-time technology empowers their clients to predict, benchmark and perform analytics on costly regulatory breaches. The company has a global team operating from Dublin, London, Boston & New York and is a combination of legal and regulatory experts, proven securities, risk practitioners, data scientists and technologists. Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Kernel Capital, Ger Goold said, "Corlytics' solution is central to today's global regulatory risk environment. We look forward to continuing to support CEO, John Byrne and the team as they build on their significant market success to date and continue to scale internationally." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 programme officially opens today for nominations. The theme of this years programme is Leading through Change and all sectors and businesses of all sizes are invited to submit their nominations up until the 22 February. The 24 finalists for 2017 will be announced on 27 April. This is the 20th year of the programme which operates in more than 60 countries worldwide. The awards programme is divided into three categories - Emerging, Industry and International - with 8 finalists chosen per category. The 24 finalists will be selected by an independent panel of judges, comprised of former EOY winners and chaired by Anne Heraty of CPL Resources plc. The finalists will engage in a strategic growth programme over a 10 month period which includes a week-long CEO Retreat to San Francisco. As part of this international retreat, this years 24 finalists will join a group of over 120 entrepreneurs, all previous finalists and winners of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year programme where they will meet CEOs and entrepreneurs from some of the worlds biggest multinational companies. Entrepreneurs will also gain exclusive access to a prestigious community of over 450 peers known as the EOY Alumni. To date, 55% of our EOY community have conducted business with one another - demonstrating the advantage of being part of this supportive and prolific professional network. The programme will also include executive education sessions, a peer-to-peer mentoring forum Entrepreneurs Anonymous and filming for our TV series and annual Gala Awards Dinner, profile in the Irish Times and Newstalk. An award is presented for each category, and an overall winner is announced as the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in October. That person will go on to represent Ireland at the World Entrepreneur Of The Year awards in Monte Carlo in June Partner at EY, Kevin McLoughlin said, "I am delighted to launch the 2017 EOY programme, which I am incredibly proud to say is in its 20th year. The benefits of participation extend far beyond winning the award in October. The successful finalists will gain national and international exposure, gaining media profile across TV, radio, print and online." He added, "They will also connect with our exclusive network of over 450 of Irelands top entrepreneurs and get an opportunity to go on our renowned international CEO Retreat which is designed to help Irish entrepreneurs transform their thinking and vision through executive education and hearing from some of the worlds leading CEOs." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Britain's decision to leave the European Union would have a bigger effect on the United Kingdom than the rest of Europe, as political and economic uncertainties grow around the world, the head of the euro zone bailout fund said on Monday. Brexit is among a series of events, including elections this year in Netherlands, France and Germany, that has increased uncertainties, Klaus Regling, managing director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), said in a speech in Hong Kong. "The rise of populism, not only in Europe but also in the United States, questions the post war economic order that has brought unprecedented prosperity and reduction in poverty," Regling said at the Asia Financial Forum. "As an economist I'm worried at the future of world trade, cross border cooperation, and the role of international institutions." Still, he said the economic situation in Europe has been improving, with unemployment declining and economies including Spain and Ireland expanding. "Brexit is a disruptive event though I believe it's a bigger problem... for the UK than the rest of Europe. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Abu Zar al-Burmi was one of the most prominent Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) muftis and a close associate of the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda. Despite pledging loyalty to the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2015, he has recently renounced his support of ISIS and is preaching under the banner of the Imam Bukhari Brigade (IBB), which is a Syria-based IMU offshoot that is loyal to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The case of Abu Zar shows how, since the rise of ISIS in 2014, al-Qaeda has defended its stake in Central Asian jihadism. BACKGROUND: Abu Zar first entered the jihadist scene in Pakistan as a replacement of Qari Zafar, who was the head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and died in a U.S. drone strike in Waziristan in 2010. Zafar had been wanted by the U.S. government for his role in the bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in 2006. Abu Zar has said he was introduced into jihadist networks in 2006 when he was working as a teacher at an Islamic school in Karachi. One of his students was Qari Hussain Ahmad Mehsud, who was the cousin of late Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, and was killed in the same drone strike that eliminated Qari Zafar in 2010. After that drone strike, Abu Zar retreated to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where he came in contact with IMU fighters. Although Abu Zar never precisely filled Qari Zafars shoes in Lashkar-e-Janghvi, he did become the IMUs leading mufti and featured prominently in IMU, Pakistani-Taliban and the Uighur-led Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) videos and traveled throughout Pakistan giving sermons to tribal members. Abu Zar often lashed out against China for its alleged support of Pakistans crackdown on the Lal Masjid in 2007 and Myanmar for its policies towards the Muslim Rohingya ethnic group. Abu Zar also publicly supported the Pakistani Talibans attempted assassination of Malala Yousufzai and encouraged tribal leaders to accept Uzbek and other foreign fighters. Indeed, one of the mysteries in Abu Zars background is how he learned to speak fluent Uzbek, despite no record of him living in Uzbekistan. He is only known to be of Rohingya-Burmese descent and Pakistani nationality and thus a native Urdu speaker. Nonetheless, Abu Zars language ability in Uzbek elevated him quickly to a prominent role within the IMU, as he was an interlocutor between the IMU and its Urdu-speaking Pakistan hosts in the tribal areas. Moreover, as a muhajir, or migrant, by ancestry, Abu Zar could legitimately represent other migrants from Central Asia. The key transition for Abu Zar was in 2015 when IMU leader Usman Ghazi and he pledged allegiance to ISIS and abandoned their longstanding allegiance to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Four reasons likely explain Abu Zars embrace of ISIS: first, he knew Mullah Omar died in 2013 (before the Taliban announced Mullah Omars death in August 2015) and thus could not continue to be loyal to a dead person, especially when Abubakar al-Baghdadi presented himself as an alternative; second, from his hideout in Pakistans tribal areas he was fooled by ISIS propaganda and believed the Caliphate was as large as ISIS claimed; third, he was inclined to support the idea of the Caliphate, which neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban planned on claiming in the near-term; and, fourth, he may have been influenced by former Lashkar-e-Janghvi comrades who merged with the Khorasan Province, by which ISIS refers to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. Abu Zar became silent for more than a year after the Taliban claimed in July 2015 to have killed Usman Ghazi and dozens of IMU members for betraying the Taliban. Only in October 2016 did Abu Zar emerge in two videos of the IBB explaining why he was wrong to have supported ISIS, two videos with the TIP, and a videos promoted by a newly announced Rohingya jihadist group in Myanmar. IMPLICATIONS: Before the Syrian civil war, all Central Asian jihadist groups, such as the IMU and TIP and others such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), were under the umbrella of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. After the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011 and ISIS emerged as a competing alternative to al-Qaeda three years later, the thousands of Central Asian jihadists who streamed into Syria as well as their brethren back in Afghanistan and Pakistan had to decide between al-Qaeda and ISIS. The TIP moved almost all of its resources to Syria and became further enmeshed with al-Qaeda in Syria. The IJU stayed in northern Afghanistan with the Taliban. Some remaining fighters of Jund al-Khilafah shifted to Syria and joined ISIS. Central Asians, and especially Tajiks, who traveled to Syria independent of any of the main groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 2014 tended to join ISIS. The IMU is perhaps the most complicated scenario because the IBB and another Uzbek-led militant group, Tavhid va Jihad Brigade (TJB), formed in Syria in 2013 and were originally linked to the IMU by funding and fighter networks. But they quickly became estranged from the IMU due to the vast geographic space between them. The IBB and TJB, like the TIP, became enmeshed with al-Qaeda in Syria and maintained loyalty to the Taliban. The IMU back in Afghanistan and Pakistan faced funding and recruitment shortages because of the flow fighters to Syria and in 2015 Usman Ghazi ultimately decided to join ISIS possibly because the IMU received some funding from ISIS in return for Ghazis loyalty. The Taliban is, however, still the primary militant group in Afghanistan, which knew where Ghazi was located and was able to destroy the IMU as retaliation for Ghazis betrayal. Rather than punish Abu Zar in the same way as Ghazi, however, the Taliban seems to be adopting the tactic to publicly show his rehabilitation by renouncing ISIS and now being part of IBB. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) even included Abu Zars apologies for supporting ISIS in its newsletter after Abu Zars two videos with IBB in October 2016. Rehabilitating Abu Zar serves the interests of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as it sends a message to other ISIS members that if they join forces with al-Qaeda after ISIS downfall in Mosul, Iraq (and later Raqqa, Syria) they can still rejoin al-Qaeda and continue the jihad. Moreover, al-Qaeda is trying to elevate its al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) branch and Abu Zars Rohingya heritage will be a boost. If the Taliban continues to take territory in northern Afghanistan, it will enable IBB through its newly announced Khorasan Branch to relocate some resources back to Afghanistan, especially if the combined Russian-Iranian-Syrian assault in northwestern Syria makes survival there untenable for the IBB. CONCLUSIONS: The Taliban and al-Qaeda made a smart move by bringing Abu Zar back into their fold. In addition to him, other Central Asian jihadist veterans are still with al-Qaeda, such as Abdul Haq al-Turkistani of the TIP, who was believed to have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan in 2010 until he resurfaced in TIP videos in 2016, including one in which he condemned ISIS. Al-Qaeda wants to create long-term bases for its jihad in Syria and Afghanistan and its roots are now deep in both countries. Central Asian jihadist groups now also have two hubs in Syria and Afghanistan, with IBBs promotion of a Khorasan Branch and Abu Zar as a charismatic religious profile in that region. IBB and TIP, which also maintains an Afghanistan Branch, will likely be able to sustain a presence in Afghanistan in case they and al-Qaeda are expelled from Syria. These Central Asian jihadist groups will likely be able to transfer fighters and funding between Syria and Afghanistan based on their needs and the needs of al-Qaeda more broadly. This means that Central Asian countries may have had a short counter-terrorism respite while fighters flowed to a seemingly far away Syria, but in the long-run Central Asians in al-Qaeda-aligned groups such as IBB as well as those Central Asians still in ISIS will pose a threat to Central Asia. AUTHORS BIO: Jacob Zenn is a Fellow of Eurasian and African Affairs at The Jamestown Foundation. Image source: Silk Road Reporters, accessed on January 10, 2017 Olivia Ruiz: "I have a duty to remember" Published on January 16, 2017 Story by Matthieu Amare Translation by: Mike Slaski en fr es pl it de From La femme chocolat to her latest album, A nos Corps-Aimants, Olivia Ruiz has designed her own multifaceted silhoutte, capable of picking up and then discarding styles and entire genres at will. But there is one influence which does seem to stick around: her Spanish origins, and the story of her immigrant family. cafebabel: Throughout your artistic career, you've often referenced your childhood as a Spanish immigrant. How much does it define you as an individual? Olivia Ruiz: When you grow up surrounded by people who are constantly uprooting, you feel something quite unexplainable. I often assosciate this sensation with a quest for legitimacy that may not be my own. I get the impression that when you come from a line of migrants, you feel you are illegitimate everywhere and have more to prove than anyone else. It's surely that which gave me this more combative and hard-working side than others. cafebabel: Did you feel difference to people your age? Olivia Ruiz: I was more aware of the need to work a lot. But that was a personal step. I have never felt like I'm fighting a battle against society. When you are white and you have a French name (her real name is Olivia Blanc), you know no form of rejection. cafebabel: Your grandparents were exiled from Spain under Franco, and you've said that you "carry the weight of family exile on your shoulders..." Olivia Ruiz: Yes, but I do it in relation to people that I love and not in relation to what it brings to my own life. My grandparents helped raised me and I realise that their life would have been totally different if they had been welcomed when they arrived in France. I have a duty to remember that. cafebabel: How did they tell you their story? Olivia Ruiz: In bits and pieces. One of my cousins dove deep into the family history and later told us what really happened. But even today, when I speak to my 87 year-old grandmother of her childhood and of leaving Spain, she bursts into tears. It's a raw wound for her, like it happened yesterday. Her departure from the country, her arrival in France to join her sick sister... What stays with me is the heartbreak. In general, they didn't leave as a family unit; the children left one by one, tearing themselves from the family cocoon. Olivia Ruiz - A nos corps aimants cafebabel: All this has insprired your stage play - Volver - which tells the story of a young exiled woman. How did the writing of the show come together? Oliva Ruiz : We weaved together stories from songs from my first four albums that Jean-Claud Galotta (the show's choreographer) had chosen. For example, he selected "Les vieux amoureux", which tells the story of an old couple so terrefied of dying seperately that they decicde to commit suicide together. I had to find a transition to make it work. So I wrote that Franco had put a price on their heads; rather than risk capture and dying alone they decided to commit suicide together. I was inspired by the story of one of my great aunts, who really did have a price put on her head by the regime because she was director of the republican youth bureau. Then, in the show, the exiled girl gets pregnant. I think if I had not been expecting a child at the moment of writing, I would never have put that. But Volver is inspired by the story of grandparents in so far as the character stands in total denial of his roots. One of my grandfathers always told me: "I'm not Spanish." He was so mortified when he arrived, and he spent his whole life denying his origins. He took refuge in the idea of being a true Frenchman. Even though she had two Spanish parents, my mother doesn't speak Spanish because her father made a total break with the culture. It's very inspiring. cafebabel: It must have been hard, too. Did it hurt to write the show ? Olivia Ruiz: No, on the contrary - I felt I had to write it. cafebabel: Today, what view do you hold on the migration crisis in Europe ? Olivia Ruiz: I'm very proud at times. My brother is a psychologist who works with young isolated migrants, and when I see him working I say to myself: "She is beautiful, my France." He gets lots of funding to house these people so that they can finish their studies. We don't leave minors in a situation of precarity, no matter their origin. On the other hand, the lack of welcome makes me super pessimistic. We are made to believe that we are country in crisis, but that will never justify not welcoming 50,000 people. We've been pelted with the rhetoric of "hordes of migrants at the gates." First it's false, and secondly the wellbeing of France doesn't rest on the reception (or lack thereof) of a few tens of thousands of people. cafebabel: Are you conscious of a civic or political initiative which could serve as an answer to the problem? Olivia Ruiz: It might seem strange to steal an idea from the old dictatorships, but we could always open up empty buildings. Paris, for example, is full of them. I live in a beautiful part of the 18th arrondissement, and on my street there are entire buildings which are only lived in for one week of the year. cafebabel: What's your first reaction in face of that? Olivia Ruiz: The sadness and guilt of facing my powerlessness. cafebabel: An artist, how do you translate this feeling ? Olivia Ruiz: By writing Volver. The play ends with an text which reads: "500,000 were dead after the Spanish Civil War. History repeats itself and makes the same mistakes..." Perhaps people leave the room thinking more of this little sentence than of the performance. It was instinctive, I didn't think. It had to be there and it is. --- "A nos corps aimants" is available now. Story by Matthieu Amare Je viens du sud de la France. J'aime les traditions. Mon pere a ete traumatise par Seville 82 contre les Allemands au foot. J'ai du mal avec les Anglais au rugby. J'adore le jambon-beurre. Je n'ai jamais fait Erasmus. Autant vous dire que c'etait mal barre. Et pourtant, je suis redacteur en chef du meilleur magazine sur l'Europe du monde. Translated from Olivia Ruiz : Je suis porteuse d'un devoir de memoire 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. 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The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ... What to Note About Dr Terry Dubrows Qualifications, TV Works and Marriage to Heather Kent In the realm of people that we expect to see regularly on our screens, medical doctors are closer to the bottom of the list. Aside from the fact that their work has little correlation with TV, they are presumably too busy to pursue life as TV personalities. Yet, a few of them have usurped this ... Jessica Goch Bio: 5 Things You Didnt Know About Ninjas Wife Jessica Goch is the Schofield-born American Social Media Influencer who has worked as a model but is now better known as a host and interviewer of prominent Electronic sports celebrities at popular gaming events/tournaments. The screen queen also serves as the manager of her famous husband Ninja aka Tyler Blevins whose exploits on Twitch and Fortnite has ... CNNs Chris Cuomo Biography Wife, Family & Net worth Chris Cuomo needs no elaborate introduction as he has starred graced many prominent Television cable networks and his voice has been heard through acknowledged radio shows. He is a television journalist and Lawyer who has previously worked for ABC News as Chief law and justice correspondent as well as a co-anchor on 20/20. If you still ... Neil deGrasse Tyson Family, Religion & Net Worth Neil deGrasse Tyson is a distinguished American astrophysicist and author who has been able to achieve so much after falling in love with astronomy at the age of 9. He has since attended and become an alumnus of prestigious universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, and also recorded numerous achievements in his field of ... Is Simon Cowell Gay? Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend and Why is He Famous? Simon Cowell is a well-known talent show judge, TV producer, entrepreneur and one of the most popular TV personalities that Britain has ever produced. In conjunction with his company, Syco, Cowell is the brain behind hugely successful talent hunt shows such as The X-Factor UK, The X-Factor US, Britains Got Talent, Americas Got Talent and ... Everything To Know About Joanna Gaines Life With Chip Gaines, Their Business Pursuits and Kids Joanna Gaines and her husband Chip Gaines became celebrities after their television show Fixer Upper began airing back in 2013. The show which was about home renovation and decoration ran for about 6 seasons with a total of 79 episodes before the couple bade farewell to it in April 2018. Apart from their appearances on ... Who Is Larry The Cable Guy? What To Know About His Wife And Net Worth Larry the Cable Guy is a self-professed country kid renowned for his trademark Southern accent and sensational catchphrase Git-R-Done! The famous comedian who talks about anything under the sun has gone on to become one of the most memorable characters in comedy history. Join us in unearthing lesser-known facts about the former on-air-personality, standup comedy superstar, movie ... Who Is Patrick Starr, What Is His Net Worth and Gender? The make-up industry over the years has grown to become a billion dollar industry not just because there are probably more women wearing make-up but because a whole lot of men, especially the young ones, have become bold enough to wear it unlike before. A few of these men, like Patrick Starr, have even gone ... How Did Chris Jansing Become a Senior Correspondent at MSNBC and Who Is Her Husband? An award-winning American television news reporter and journalist, Chris Jansing has succeeded in carving a spectacular niche for herself in the field of TV journalism. Outstanding for not just her excellence in journalism, Chris is also cherished for her incredibly gorgeous looks post 60! 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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 ... 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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 CAMEROUN :: Southern Cameroons Crisis: La Republiques hit men are already in action An intelligence source has revealed that General Ivo Yenwo has been relieved of command as head of the presidential security. The source also hinted that all senior Anglophone army officers who had control of military hardware in mechanized divisions in Yaounde have also been removed from their positions of authority. The Biya anti Anglophone stance seen by many as unprecedented has reportedly gotten the backing of French multinationals such as Bollore Group and ELF that have been extremely nervous of the possibility that the lucrative part of Cameroun may soon break away in these unfolding West Cameroon crises. Cameroon Intelligence Report is yet to confirm the correctness of this developing trend. However, a document recently sent to us via email from Yaounde, noted that the French were already planning a Cameroon after Biya and were deeply concerned with the power structure of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. The email stated that Biya gave the French some kind of assurance that he was going to resolve the Anglophone problem. But events are seemingly getting out of his control even with the French Advisors encamped in Yaounde. In the said document, Biya angrily promised that his government was going to apply force to maintain the unity of the country if the Anglophone lawyers and teachers failed to reach an agreement. Already, the Yaounde regime has started with guerilla tactics burning the car in an attempt on the life of the Secretary General of the Consortium, Dr. Neba Fontem. The attack has been blamed on Minister Atanga Njie and the Mayor of Buea, Ekema Patrick by people within the Dr. Neba Fontem entourage. We gathered that the French Oil Company, ELF has sent its Deputy and Security Directors to join President Biyas think tank group on the Anglophone crisis in Yaounde. Elf will lose billions of Euros if the Bakassi Oil fields in Southern Cameroons were no longer under the control of La Republique. The Cameroonian dictator was planning to invoke emergency measures in the countrys constitution to suspend the constitution and make public decrees that will ban protest by teachers unions, lawyers, doctors union, civil society, and political parties. He was cautioned not to take that line by a tribal secret service that is aware of his deteriorating health situation and divisions within the army and the political bureau of the ruling CPDM party. Correspondingly, the French are now in control of the security apparatus of the nation and are slowly but surely pushing the Beti and Boulou army generals to stage a coup, suspend the constitution and ban all labor union and political activities for several years. The French understanding is that this move will effectively halt the Anglophone demands for secession. We are told that the Francophone army generals will replace all the regional governors and SDOs and France will lobby the European Union to recognize the military junta. CAMEROUN :: Cameroon: Goodbye Fru Ndi, Welcome Wirba Joseph By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai Ni John Fru Ndi has finally twisted SDF policy into an odd shaped pretzel of contradictions, telling an undercover news reporter that the appointment of a Francophone as the partys Secretary General was a political strategy while informing Southern Cameroonians that the marginalization of Anglophones by La Republique du Cameroun is a violation of basic human rights and the constitution that was adopted in 1961. To be sure, the most pressing challenge that Ni John Fru Ndi faces at the moment, however, is the threat to his partys existence and his own identity as a political figure. Fru Ndi has finally revealed himself as a celebrated bribe taker from La Republique and by extrapolation, the French. The SDF Chairman was quick to hold protest rallies in Bamenda and Buea observing that the SDF stand firmly with the Anglophone leaders and the Southern Cameroons people in ensuring that West Cameroonians gain back their legal, educational and political systems. But some few days later Fru Ndi who had never allowed anyone from East Cameroon to run the secretariat of the so-called main opposition party in Cameroon appointed a Francophone to be the SDFs new Secretary General. When reminded of the timing of the appointment and that (He) Fru Ndi orchestrated a boycott of French products, Fru Ndi shied away and insulted the journalist. The recent Fru Ndi telephone conversation has finally betrayed the unprecedented, but fledgling supply of huge financial resources by a cadre of President Biya agents in the political, diplomatic and military sectors of the country to the SDF leadership. So, West Cameroonians are now fully aware that Chairman Ni John Fru Ndis peaceful march in Bamenda and Buea were teleguided from Etoudi with the ill-disguised aim to continue to exert enormous pressure on Anglophones to concede to La Republiques terms. It is abundantly clear that the current Southern Cameroons crisis is a non-partisan uprising, properly managed by a group of respectable Anglophone scholars experienced in international relations and diplomacy. Yet, Fru Ndi and Justice Ayah Paul have been struggling to make the Southern Cameroons revolution their own and have been pushing the members of the Consortium into a corner where the new generation of Anglophone leaders must accept a bad deal for the Southern Cameroons people. The concession of appointing a Francophone as Secretary General of the SDF and Paul Ayahs vicious attack on the Consortium are happening because of the growing influence of blood money on the old generation of Southern Cameroons leaders. Biya has used Fru Ndi to put more pressure on the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium and its very clear the Anglophone leaders have been able to stand up to the pressure. Fru Ndis SDF Southern Cameroons policy is racked with incoherence and hypocrisy. Its very interesting, that as you go around meeting the older generation of Anglophone political elites, you see a double standard. In other words, what men like Fru Ndi, Ayah Paul and Chief Tabetando are saying is that self-determination is a must for citizens in La Republique du Cameroun and for Southern Cameroons, self-determination does not apply. Fru Ndi is the leader of the powerful independent lobby that drives La Republiques activities in Southern Cameroons. But the new Anglophone nationalism has put an end to Fru Ndis political career. The Chairman should hand over to Hon. Wirba now. Our understanding is that the SDF MP has the charisma to drive the party into the new emerging West Cameroon political structure as will be defined by the Consortium. Good bye Fru Ndi, welcome Wirba. | BY Ricki Green | Adelaide-based full service marketing and communications agency KWP! has officially opened its doors in Darwin. The agency is dedicated to delivering ideas that are impossible to ignore and brands that are impossible to forget. Says John Baker (right), managing director, KWP!: After a successful 25 years of working with clients in Adelaide it is time for KWP! to branch out and expand our work. Darwin has always been the most obvious place for us to open given its similarities with Adelaide, especially its strong sense of community. We have a proud history in Darwin having worked on the rebrand for Charles Darwin University and marketing initiatives for Power and Water. KWP! successfully merges ideas with new media channels and production capabilities. Management, creative, production, strategy, digital, interactive, retail, social and media are all part of the agencys skill set. Based on Mitchell Street, KWP! Darwin has recently begun working with Menzies School of Health Research and the Agency is excited to develop new relationships with other local businesses. Says Baker: Good advertising agencies and good communications agencies build businesses thats their job. KWP! is involved with and has helped build some iconic businesses in South Australia, including Coopers and the South Australian Tourism Commission which have achieved much success, not just locally, but nationally and overseas. KWP! Darwin business director Kaia Hammond (above, left) can see the same potential in Darwin and is keen to work with businesses of all sizes. Says Hammond: Were looking to develop partnerships with small and large businesses across a number of different industries and in range of capacities. | BY Ricki Green | Sitback has appointed former Konica Minolta head of digital Marc van den Berg to the newly created role of new business director. Reporting into CEO Chris McHugh, van den Bergs core focus will be to drive new business and growth for the agency, leveraging Sitbacks strong user experience and development capabilities. Says Paul Armstrong, founding partner, Sitback: Marc is a very important hire for Sitback, and we are delighted to have him on board. Marc will be key to helping us grow our strategic user experience and technology capabilities, whilst strengthening our business relationships and client base. Marcs digital and international agency experience are second to none, and we are thrilled to have him on board. At Konica Minolta van den Berg was responsible for growing the companys Australian digital practise, whilst also playing a key role in the businesses broader global transformation strategy. Prior to that van den Berg was group operations director at M&C Saatchi Sydney running its operations and digital agency MAKE. For the previous three years van den Berg he was group delivery director at Ogilvy & Mather in London running delivery operations across the UK group. | BY Ricki Green | Melbourne creative agency Yoke has joined forces with General Assembly for another instalment of its hands-on design event series A Brief Night, taking place at General Assembly in the CBD on Thursday, March 2. This time around the event will see participants taking on a UX-focused design brief. Forget your ideals, here you wont have months, weeks or even days to research, revise and revisit your design work. There is no room for pondering, no gaps for mulling over. Instead you will experience the realities of operating within the demands and deadlines of a fast-paced studio, working on the type of projects the industry might throw at you when youre in the workplace. Participants on the night will all be presented with the same solo UX design brief. The countdown then starts and you have 90 minutes to respond in the best way you see fit: sketches, diagrams, mapping, wire frames, prototype designs or something totally different. As in the real world, the brief may not be perfect, and youll need to be on your guard for any extra curricular requirements. During the 90 minutes, help, advice and direction will be made available to those that need the assistance. When the time runs out, the designing stops. Each participant will then present their work to a larger group and get a chance to hear how theyve done with a few beers in hand. Open to students, grads and aspiring digital designers, developers and UX folks. | BY Lynchy | Francis Wee has signed on as Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Singapore, effective immediately. Wee officially joins the Singapore office following a stint working on a project basis. Previously Wee (pictured left) was Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Shanghai from 2012-2014. Wee has nearly three decades of experience in advertising in Asia. Since launching his career as a junior art director at McCann-Erickson/Singapore in 1983, he has won countless regional and international awards including Cannes Lions, Clios and One Show awards. As Creative Director for Saatchi & Saatchi/Singapore, Wees 1993 Anti Drink Drive TV commercial took the world by storm, sweeping every Gold award from around the globe, including the most prestigious D&AD Black Pencil. After working as Executive Creative Director of BBDO/Singapore from 2002-2006, Wee founded creative boutique agency Religion in Singapore in 2007, his last project before joining Ogilvy Shanghai in January 2012. Reporting to Eugene Cheong, Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific and Singapore, the two will work together to drive Ogilvy Singapores creative agenda to produce work that makes brands matter and that has both local impact and global influence. It is with the greatest pleasure and no small measure of pride that we announce Francis appointment as Executive Creative Director. What sets Francis apart from other creatives is a passion that borders at times on the nuclear. And he is still the one and only recipient of the impossible-to-win, dont-even-think-about-it, uber-prestigious D&AD Black Pencil. And its a win that is neither lucky nor freaky; Francis has a track record of doing astonishing work. The guy is a veritable machine! We are truly lucky to have such an enormous talent as a colleague. Apart from his ECD role, we will tap on him to be the Group Head of Art, as I firmly believe that an idea aint great if it doesnt look great, said O&Ms Eugene Cheong. Wee said: The thing that really drives me to go to work every morning? The smell of possibility in the office. The team here is very talented so Im looking forward to seeing what we can produce together. It feels good to be back. | BY Lynchy | Buy and sell online marketplace, Mudah.my, recently launched two light-hearted online TVCs to encourage Malaysians to de-clutter ahead of Chinese New Year. The campaign theme, #HoEeKi, which means Let It Go in Hokkien, was derived from the creative insight of how Chinese people are known to hoard household items and clothes as there is little motivation and avenue for them to let go of the items. And so, the campaign aims to get people to sell their unused items on Mudah.my. The videos were conceptualized by Isobar Malaysia, which recently won a rebranding campaign pitch to help Mudah.my identify and lock down a brand proposition. The videos are currently running on Mudah.mys Facebook and YouTube pages, Spotify (audio) and Redbox. The first video (Gym) went live in Facebook on 15 December 2016 and currently has more than 2.3 million views, with over 2.6K shares. The second video (Ah Ma) went live on 20 December 2016, and so far, it has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, with over 6.2K shares. Overall both videos have collectively garnered more than 11.5K reactions while comments from viewers are also very encouraging (see screengrabs further below). Meanwhile, on Mudah.mys YouTube channel, both Gym and Ah Ma collectively have more than 1.7 million views. (as of 16 Jan 2016) Andrew Pinto, Head of Marketing, Mudah.my, explains: Mudah.my already has a very strong following amongst Malay consumers in Malaysia and we wanted to tap on the Chinese New Year festivities to broaden our appeal with the Chinese consumers as well. We are very happy with the end product as it has enabled us to engage and connect with more consumers in Malaysia and in turn helping them connect with more buyers and sellers across the country. Credits Isobar Malaysia Executive Creative Director Liew Sanyen Group Account Director Jean Tang Account Manager Sharon Hew Production Sotong Potong Studio Sdn Bhd Scriptwriter Liew Sanyen, Wong Chin Wei, Gary Hor Mudah.my Head of Marketing Andrew Pinto "I was a bit shocked when I first saw it," Abbott says, "because there are five opera overtures ... but when I look at the way that he's constructed the program it makes perfect sense. They're really well known overtures, including The Barber of Seville and William Tell, that contain fabulous tunes really good showpieces for the orchestra. The way that Nick's slotted the Guitar Trek pieces in between these overtures and the other operatic excerpts has made a lovely program a perfect program for this sort of outdoor setting. Econet Wireless, which owns African wholesale and enterprise operator Liquid Telecom, said information communication technology minister Supa Mandiwanzira was giving false and misleading information about the rates. Econet is owned by Zimbabwe businessman Strive Masiyiwa. The government took over VimpelComs Telecel in November 2016 after trying to raise the agreed $40 million for over a year. The countrys only other mobile operator, NetOne, is also state-owned, and the government wants all operators to share infrastructure. This latest dispute started when the regulator, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), tried to enforce a decision to raise mobile data rates. The move was seen by some as a way of clamping down on the use of social media in opposition to Robert Mugabes government, but others said higher rates were needed in order to pay for investment in infrastructure. Econet Wireless followed Potrazs rules and last week raised data rates 25-fold, a move that was accompanied by widespread protests. Econet insisted it was complying with the regulators decisions, but later rolled back the price rises, and condemned Mandiwanzira for saying that it was his action that led to the rethink about prices. Mandiwanzira said on Twitter that he had been out of the country since 26 December and would look at the issue when he came back to Zimbabwe on 30 January. On return to work, I will get to the bottom of it, he said. However on Friday he issued a statement condemning operators shockingly high rates and said they were showing gluttonous corporate greed. Reuters reported Mandiwanzira saying that the new prices had been proposed to the regulator by mobile phone companies. Econet said, according to Zimbabwe media, that Mandiwanziras statement about the rates was false and misleading, adding: Up to the time we did the roll back, no such reversal (as later announced by Mandiwanzira) had been communicated to us. The company added, according to Zimbabwe News: We view this as a farce and a set up intended by the minister and our competitors who are under the ministers control to portray the new director general of Potraz in bad light and to portray Econet Wireless as gluttonous and insensitive to the public. The company continued: We urge the government of Zimbabwe to move decisively against the capture of this all-important industry by an individual who has such inconsistencies and duplicity. Since his appointment to this ministry he has behaved as if he is the minister of the government-owned entities alone and has been relentlessly attacking us without just cause. 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 ... 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 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. In order to encourage the enrolment of female students into IIT and break the gender gap in the campus, a panel formed by Joint Admission Board (JAB) has suggested reservation for girl students. It is learnt that the committee has suggested creation of up to 20 per cent supernumerary seats for girls from the total number of seats. The recommendations made by the committee will be discussed in the meeting of the joint admission board (JAB) for a final conclusion. Here, it will be decided if the reservation will come in effect from this year or from the next. The concern has been raised after the decline in the number of girl students entering IITs. The JAB has set up a sub-committee under the chairmanship of professor Timothy Gonsalves to find ways to rectify the situation in the institutes. However, this will not affect the quality of students who join or number of seats for male candidates as only candidates who have already qualified in JEE-Advanced will be considered. Also, this move will help the IITs achieve the 1 lakh target by 2020. In a bid to retain the current students and encourage other students to take up research and complete their higher studies, IIT is also planning to introduce an executive M.Tech course especially for working professionals. This idea was discussed during the 155th meeting of IIT directors hosted by IIT-Kanpur in December 2016. The project is now being worked out by a committee has been formed comprising three IIT directors: Bombay, Hyderabad and Roorkee to work out the details of the project. The proposal will then be sent to the IIT council, the highest decision making body of the IITs, which is chaired by the HRD minister. Executive MTech Course on Cards for IIT: Working Professionals to be Benefited STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 16, ARTSAKHPRESS: The Minsk Police on December 15, 2016 detained Lapshin who lives in Moscow and writes a popular Russian-language travel blog. He is wanted in Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in April 2011, October 2012, and June 2016, and for criticizing Azerbaijani policies on his blog. Azerbaijan included him in the list of wanted people. The CPJs statement says Azerbaijan and Belarus have close diplomatic relations. Recently a representative of Belarus's prosecutor-general's office said it was studying Azerbaijan's extradition request. Aleksandr Lapshin should not be jailed for expressing his opinions or traveling to a disputed region. We call on Belarussian authorities to release the travel blogger without condition and allow him to return home, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. An Israeli consular official met the blogger on January 12. The blogger's wife, Yekaterina Kopilova, told Haaretz that the diplomat told her that Lapshin was "in poor mental health," "depressed," and under pressure from Belarussian officials to agree to voluntary extradition. The CPJ recalls that Azerbaijan has declared 180 journalists personae non grata--meaning they cannot enter the country for visiting Nagorno Karabakh. Overall, the Azerbaijani MFAs this list, last updated on December 7, 2016, includes 623 names. All those readers and commentators who had railed against the state of politics in Papua New Guinea suddenly went silent, even the anonymous and the vitriolic shut up. Even though anonymity was offered the response was disappointing. The general idea was to provide information for voters in the elections that were then due. SEVERAL years ago a few of the pundits on PNG Attitude toyed with the idea of compiling a dossier of corrupt politicians in Papua New Guinea and invited readers to contribute. This said a lot about Papua New Guinean politics. Firstly, it was apparent that a feeling of fear was pervasive, either from potential litigation or, more alarmingly, the possibility of physical retribution. Secondly, it demonstrated that, despite what they said, the voters of Papua New Guinea lacked conviction and were not prepared to stand up for their rights. It will be interesting to see whether these attitudes still hold sway in 2017. I suspect they will. Collecting dirt on politicians in Papua New Guinea is relatively easy, they are not the brightest peas in the pod when it comes to covering up their nefarious activities. In many cases they actually parade their venality. It is a useful rule of thumb that any politician with a thick neck and grossly distended belly driving a big black Land Cruiser is probably corrupt. This point is subjective but points to another problem in identifying corrupt politicians who should not be re-elected. This problem relates to the state of public commentary in Papua New Guinea, particularly on social media. Bar a few notable exceptions, social media cannot be trusted to be accurate let alone unbiased. Its sources thrive on gossip and innuendo rather than serious investigative endeavour. Papua New Guinea invented fake news long before it became mainstream during the US elections. While social media can be reckless, mainstream media, print and electronic, can be accused of laziness. They publish government and other press releases verbatim with no questions asked. There are a few smart politicians who are good at hiding their corrupt activities. This has become apparent recently in Australia where hitherto highly regarded politicians have been exposed with their noses in the trough alongside their less sharp mates. There is every reason to suspect that this is the case in Papua New Guinea too. Who then to trust? Who should you support in the 2017 elections? Should you be doing what we are doing in Australia and electing some of the crazies from the fringes? It is a difficult call, but there are a few pointers. The first is fairly obvious. Anyone in the current ONeill-Dion government should indisputably left out. They may not be taking kickbacks or bribes or selling their peoples future from under them but by supporting a government that is patently corrupt, dishonest, uncaring and inept they are demonstrating a low level of integrity. Re-electing them again is simply inviting more of the same and is too big a risk. It is also stupid. But you also have to be careful of those on the opposition benches too. Just because they oppose the government doesnt mean they are squeaky clean. Some of them are just biding their time for a bigger slice of the cake. If there is even a hint of wrong-doing and compromise in their past, they too are risky propositions. On current assessments and taking the above into account, it would seem that the whole swamp will need draining. The best parliament in Papua New Guinea after 2017 might just comprise half a dozen members. Papua New Guinea has a reputation for dumping a large proportion of its serving members of parliament at each election, around one-half. It is a kind of aberration of the Einstein theory of lunacy, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. This time around it would be nice to see 98% of them dumped and a completely new lot, wisely chosen, installed. But were not holding our breath. In a way Im glad that our early idea for a name and shame dossier didnt eventuate. There is no way we would have been able to find a dossier big enough. As for sweeping up the dirt, they dont make wheelbarrows that big either. While Alfa Romeo is chasing global volume sales with the Stelvio crossover, it doesnt intend on disregarding its small cars, despite reducing demand for such vehicles. As we speak, the Italian company is developing the next-generation Giuletta and while it hasnt confirmed it, a company official has said its technically possible for the compact model to be underpinned by a shortened version of the Giulias platform. This means that theres a chance the Giulietta could be rear-wheel drive as standard and may receive an all-wheel drive option down the road, just like the Giulia. Beyond its new underpinnings, it is inevitable that the future Giulietta will adopt a thoroughly refreshed design, inevitably inspired by the Giulia and Stelvio. As depicted in these renderings from Indav Design, that could mean the inclusion of a rounder front fascia with sportier headlights than the outgoing hatchback as well as prominent creases along the bonnet. The entire shape of the roof could also closely resemble the Stelvio and in these images, supports thin horizontal taillights, a small spoiler and a blacked-out diffuser. All told, it looks seriously impressive and if the rear-wheel drive platform spawns a high-performance variant, could give the Focus RS a run for its money. PHOTO GALLERY Valtteri Bottas is now officially a Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver, joining Lewis Hamilton in a bid to defend the teams Constructors title. The 27-year old Finnish driver, has spent his past four F1 seasons with Williams, making 77 starts and finishing on the podium a total of nine times. Sometimes in life, unexpected circumstances provide interesting opportunities. Nicos decision in December was a big surprise certainly a challenging situation for the team to handle. But weathering the storm makes you more resilient and we see this as another opportunity for the team to grow, said Toto Wolff, before adding that Bottas is sure to be a great fit for the team. The former Williams driver said that hes very excited and that its definitely another dream come true, to race in another team with such great history especially in the recent years, which have been so impressive. Im really proud to become a part of that and grateful to everyone at Mercedes for trusting my skills and giving me this opportunity. This new opportunity will involve having to figure out how best to exploit this years aerodynamic regulations, which are expected to reset the entire field and give fans some uncertainty regarding the team that will eventually emerge on top. We have confidence in Valtteris ability and its one of the reasons that he is the driver we set our sights on this winter, continued Wolff. The next weeks will be busy as we work to build relationships so Valtteri understands the team and the car. But thats an exciting challenge that will bring us fresh energy and a new dynamic between the drivers. And, of course, were working hard to give Lewis and Valtteri the car they need to do the job. Aside from Bottas joining Mercedes, todays major F1 announcements also include Pascal Wehrlein signing with Sauber, Felipe Massa returning to Williams and Nico Rosberg accepting an ambassadorial role with Mercedes. PHOTO GALLERY Photo: Wayne Moore You may not like how many tax dollars the City of Kelowna takes, but you can be buoyed by the fact those taking it are the best-of-the-best. For a 15th straight year, the city's financial department was presented with the Distinguished Budget Preparation Award. The award is presented each year by the Government Finance Officers Association, a non-profit organization that serves more than 18,000 government finance professionals throughout North America and recognizes excellence in financial reporting. The award recognizes governments that prepare budget documents of the very highest quality that reflect both the guidelines established by the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting and the GFOAs best practices on budgeting. "Fifteen years is a remarkable feat," said Mayor Colin Basran. "I want to thank you for making something that for a lot of people, I will admit myself included, can be quite complicated and making it in such a way that we are able to understand it." Basran acknowledged 2016 was not an easy year for staff with a federal audit which was very taxing on resources. Photo: The Canadian Press The outgoing CIA director charged on Sunday that Donald Trump lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States, delivering a public lecture to the president-elect that further highlighted the bitter state of Trump's relations with American intelligence agencies. John Brennan's pointed message on national television came just five days before Trump becomes the nation's 45th president amid lingering questions about Russia's role in the 2016 election even as the focus shifts to the challenges of governing. "Now that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that U.S. and national security interests are protected," Brennan said on "Fox News Sunday," warning that the president-elect's impulsivity could be dangerous. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests," Brennan declared. Trump, who has unleashed a series of aggressive tweets against the U.S. intelligence community and his political rivals in recent weeks, did not respond to Brennan's criticism. The president-elect remained behind closed doors in his Manhattan high rise Sunday as his team worked to answer questions about his plans at home and abroad once he's sworn into office on Friday. Among Trump's immediate challenges: the United States' complicated relationship with Russia, crafting an affordable health care alternative that doesn't strip coverage from millions of Americans, and growing questions about the legitimacy of his presidency. Civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis of Georgia is among several Democrats in Congress who vowed to skip Trump's inauguration, charging that Russian interference in the 2016 election delegitimizes his presidency. "There will be many more members who join us in this decision," Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., wrote Saturday on his Facebook page. Trump's lieutenants pushed back hard Sunday in a round of television interviews. "I think it's incredibly disappointing and I think it's irresponsible for people like himself to question the legitimacy of the next United States president," incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said of Lewis on ABC's "This Week," insisting that Republicans did not question the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's victory eight years ago. Vice-President-elect Mike Pence said on "Fox News Sunday" that he hopes Lewis will change his mind and attend. Priebus later acknowledged that conservatives led by Trump himself spent years questioning Obama's eligibility to serve as president, suggesting he was not born in the United States. Trump has done little to encourage unity in recent days, instead inflaming tensions with his critics through a series of tweets. The incoming president tweeted Saturday that Lewis should pay more attention to his "crime ridden" Atlanta-area district, adding that the civil rights leader was "all talk." Lewis suffered a fractured skull when he led a march in Selma, Alabama, more than a half century ago and has devoted his life to civil rights. Questions about Trump's relationship with Russia have dominated the days leading up to his inauguration. Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is set to become Trump's national security adviser, has been in frequent contact with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for the alleged election hacking, a senior U.S. official said. After initially denying the contact took place, Trump's team publicly acknowledged the conversations on Sunday. "The conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats," said Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, also in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Repeated contacts just as Obama imposed sanctions would raise questions about whether Trump's team discussed or even helped shape Russia's response. Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly did not retaliate against the U.S. for the sanctions or the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, a decision Trump quickly praised. Trump has repeatedly called for a better relationship between the U.S. and Putin's government. Photo: The Canadian Press FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, former professional wrestler Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka leaves Lehigh County Courthouse in Allentown, Pa. A lawyer representing Snuka said family members told him that Snuka died Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017, at his son-in-lawAos home near Pompano Beach in Florida. Snuka, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996, was 73. (Michael Kubel/The Morning Call via AP, File) PHILADELPHIA - Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, a former professional wrestler who earlier this month was found not competent to stand trial in the 1983 death of his girlfriend, has died. He was 73. A lawyer representing Snuka said family members told him that Snuka died Sunday afternoon at his son-in-law's home near Pompano Beach, Florida. A Lehigh County judge on Jan. 3 dismissed the murder case against the retired WWE star in the death of Nancy Argentino, whose body was found in their Whitehall Township hotel room. Prosecutors allege she was beaten. Snuka maintained she died from a fall. Snuka was a native of Fiji who previously lived in New Jersey. He was known on the wrestling circuit for diving from the ropes. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996. Photo: The Canadian Press Bahrain on Sunday carried out its first executions since an Arab Spring uprising rocked the country in 2011, putting to death three men found guilty of a deadly bomb attack on police. The executions of the Shiite men drew swift condemnation from human rights groups and sparked intense protests by opponents of the Sunni-ruled government, who see the charges as politically motivated. Activists allege that testimony used against the condemned men was obtained through torture. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in several predominantly Shiite communities to protest the executions. The rallies at times turned violent as youth hurled projectiles and petrol bombs while police responded with birdshot and tear gas, witnesses said. The sound of gunfire could be heard into the night. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Bahrain's public prosecution said the death sentences were carried out by firing squad. Photos shared by activists purporting to show the bodies of the men showed a tight grouping of multiple gunshot wounds to the heart. The executions were the first in the U.S.-allied nation since 2010 and followed a spike in protests in solidarity with the convicted men. Abbas al-Samea, Sami Mushaima and Ali al-Singace were found guilty in 2015 of killing two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer deployed to bolster the country's security forces in a bomb attack the previous year. A court upheld their death sentences last Monday. Bahrain is a tiny island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the waters around the Arabian Peninsula and is the naval counterweight to nearby Shiite powerhouse Iran. Government forces crushed the 2011 uprising with help from allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but the country continues to face low-level unrest led by a majority Shiite population that feels marginalized by the Sunni monarchy. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets Saturday in solidarity with the condemned men as rumours spread that their executions were imminent. Nicholas McGeehan, a researcher who monitors Bahrain for Human Rights Watch, called the executions inflammatory and unjust as he urged the kingdom's allies to "publicly and unequivocally condemn these killings." Amnesty International deputy director Samah Hadid called the executions "a deeply regressive step." Protests and clashes continued Sunday despite a heavy presence of riot police deployed in predominantly Shiite areas. Witnesses said shops were shuttered in Daih, where the 2014 bombing happened. Garbage bins were seen overturned and set alight in the streets. One police officer was wounded when several people shot at a police patrol in Bani Jamra, west of the capital Manama, the Interior Ministry said. The Ashtar Brigade, a Shiite militant group that claimed the 2014 police attack and a number of other bombings in Bahrain, took responsibility for the attack on the police officer on social media. Photo: Vancouver Police Department The Vancouver Police Department is looking for the public's help to find an elderly man who went missing Sunday morning. Sandy Bull, 81, who was last seen in the area of Prince Albert Street and East 37th Avenue at 7 a.m., has dementia and may appear confused, according to VPD. Bull is described as an aboriginal man, five feet nine inches tall, 145 pounds, with a slim build and salt and pepper grey hair. He was last seen wearing a black sweater, black pyjama pants and black runners without laces. Anyone who has seen Bull is asked to call 9-1-1 immediately and stay with him until officers arrive. The city of Auburn and town of Owasco will receive more than $2 million to upgrade drinking water treatment systems, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. The funding, according to Cuomo's office, will be used for the "design, engineering and construction of upgrades to the drinking water systems." Both municipalities receive water from Owasco Lake. The lake is a drinking water source for nearly 50,000 people in the Auburn area. "Clean drinking water is a critical component of building healthy communities and this administration is working hard to address emerging threats that place it in jeopardy," Cuomo said in a statement. "This funding will play a critical role in helping address the contamination issues facing the central New York communities that draw their drinking water from Owasco Lake." Owasco Lake water quality issues have existed for years, but there was heightened concern last fall when cyanotoxins from blue-green algae blooms were detected in Auburn and Owasco's drinking water supply. Lake to lab: Researchers test toxin treatment methods on Owasco Lake water With snow and ice on the brain, harmful algal blooms seem a distant problem for a warmer time. Cuomo's office said the state Department of Health worked with local agencies to ensure the toxins didn't exceed the health advisory levels established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The levels of the toxin reached as high as 0.22 micrograms per liter shy of the advisory levels of 0.3 micrograms per liter set by the EPA. Once temperatures cooled, the toxins were no longer at detectable levels. But local officials worry that the toxins could return next summer and pose public health problems for those who depend on Owasco Lake for drinking water. Researchers are now testing methods for treating toxins in Auburn and Owasco's drinking water supply. A portion of the funding announced by the state Monday includes $150,000 to support the studies. An additional $2 million will be used to implement treatment strategies and make upgrades. Cayuga County Legislature Chairman Keith Batman said the contamination found last fall poses a "real threat" to Auburn and Owasco. "With this funding secured, Cayuga County residents can now be assured that there is a clear path forward," Batman said. "We thank Governor Cuomo for his leadership in addressing this problem head on and always working tirelessly to protect the health of communities throughout New York state." The funding announced by Cuomo is separate from a $2 billion fund he proposed in his State of the State that would support clean water infrastructure improvements throughout New York. The proposal will likely be included in his executive budget proposal due Tuesday. The state previously awarded $600,000 for Owasco Lake watershed projects in 2015. The funding wasn't allocated until last fall after the blue-green algae toxins were detected in drinking water supplies. Cuomo's office touted the grant and other water quality efforts, including the launch of the Finger Lakes Water Hub that provides staff to study algal bloom and focus on Owasco Lake watershed projects and other watersheds in the region. State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said protecting water quality in the region is a top priority. "We look forward to working with all partners through the Finger Lakes Water Hub to take the lessons we learn in Owasco Lake and advance the necessary water quality improvements throughout the entire Finger Lakes watershed," Seggos said. Photo: Contributed Its practically painless to convert those old Works files to Word. And we had plenty of reader feedback on passwords. Give me the old things in a new way Recently, I set up a brand-new computer with Windows 10 on it, transferred the customers files over from the old computer, and installed Microsoft Office. I clicked on a document expecting it to open in Word 2016. Well, just heck. The old computer was so old that all the documents had a .wps extension, which means they had been created in Microsoft Works. Back in the day, Works was less expensive than Office, having a stripped-down feature set. Some computer manufacturers included Works at no (or minimal) cost on computers. The program finally came to the end of its life in 2006, but apparently, there are people out there still using it on older computers. Thats fine until you get a new computer and a modern version of Microsoft Office. I have read that Office 2016 includes a built-in converter for those files. I have yet to find it. The good news, though, is that you can convert those old files to a modern format so Word 2016 (or 2013, or 2010, or 2007) can read them. The safest and easiest way to do that, especially if you have a lot of files, is the Microsoft Works 6-9 Converter. As the title suggests, it will convert documents created in Works 6, 7, 8, and 9 to a format modern versions of Word use. Download the converter (decline the extra programs), follow the instructions on that page to install it, and then double-click on any of your .wps files. Wait, what? You get a message that says Windows cant open this file. Dont worry. Click on Select a program from a list of installed programs In the Open with box, select Microsoft Word Place a check in the Always use this program box Click OK Now, when you double-click any of your old .wps files, theyll open in Word. But wait, theres more. You want to Save as a Word document when you close the file, and you want to use the Word (.docx) version in the future. Once you know the conversion for a document was successful and you have the new version you can archive or delete the old .wps file to keep things up to date and tidy. How do you keep track of your passwords? Last week, I asked you to share your password tracking system, and you sent some great suggestions. In addition to the programs I mentioned in that column, Neil suggested Keeper. Keeper promises simple, elegant password management across all your devices, and offers different pricing plans for individuals, families, and businesses. Keeper offers a 30-day free trial. Some of you record your passwords in address books or in books made for recording passwords. Bob writes: Most of the office supply stores sell a small password book by At A Glance, order by part number: 80-500. It is about 3.5 X 6 inches and has an alphabetical format. It used to be a phone/address format but they have updated it to this password iteration. Heres a link to that site. Several people wrote about using Excel spreadsheets. Some of those people password protect the spreadsheet; others wanted to know how to do that! To put a password on any Excel spreadsheet: Open the workbook in Excel Click on File | Info | Protect Workbook | Encrypt with password Enter the password you want to set WRITE DOWN THE PASSWORD Click OK (Youll see that now a password is required.) Save the file! From now on, youll be prompted to enter the password. Several readers pointed out that their spouses and/or executors know the password. Excellent! A faithful reader shared his system for setting and remembering passwords: Pick a permanent word, example KElowNA Add spaces to get: _____KEl__owNA__ Add permanent symbols: #@___KEl^%owNA*& Put first three letters of the site you are signing into in the remaining three blanks Thus for Telus, you get #@telKEl^%owNA* and Amazon, #@amaKEl^%owNA*&, etc. Viola: an easy to remember framework that is individual to each site, that is a totally nonsense word. Thank you to everyone who took the time to write, including the gentleman who suspected I was using social engineering to try to crack his passwords. Im not. Whatever your method, please keep track of your passwords. This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet. Photo: The Canadian Press PBS is waiting, but not quietly, to see what the Trump administration's impact on public broadcasting and its federal funding may be, PBS chief executive Paula Kerger said. "It's too early to tell. But there's been no red flag," Kerger said in an interview Sunday. Given that change always presents uncertainty, she said, and "in this case, more uncertainty," PBS and its member stations are conducting a vigorous effort to remind lawmakers about public television's value. "We're spending time talking to as many people as we can but particularly legislators, both sides of the aisle, Senate and House making sure they understand the role we play in civil discourse" and in providing meaningful programming, Kerger told a TV critics' meeting. "Stay tuned," she added. The effort coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act that created what Kerger called "the best public-private partnership." "For about $1.35 a citizen a year, we provide an extraordinary service," she said. Federal money represents 15 per cent of public TV stations' funding overall, with the rest provided by private and corporate donors, PBS said. Most of that approximately $400 million is divided annually among 1,500-plus locally owned-and-operated TV and radio stations nationwide. Individual TV stations' reliance on federal funds varies widely for those in Alaska, for instance, the money represents as much as 50 per cent of their budgets, Kerger said. Government support for public broadcasting periodically comes under scrutiny. Many Republicans vowed to eliminate subsidies in 1995, but the effort fizzled. In 2005, Republicans controlling the House tried to cut subsidies for PBS, National Public Radio and hundreds of public radio and TV stations by $100 million, igniting an outcry from fans of "Sesame Street" and other defenders of public broadcasting. That bid failed, as did the most recent effort in 2011. Kerger said a "rigorous reassessment" of how federal dollars are spent is always legitimate, with lawmakers taking into account what their constituents think about PBS' value. She called children's programming the most "powerful argument" for public broadcasting, especially with half of American children lacking access to preschool. Photo: Contributed UPDATE 9:00 a.m. Police say that the girl was found and is in good health. UPDATE: 8:10 a.m. Police say that a 15-year-old, Alyssa Langille has been found safe. The Amber alert was issued early Monday. Police said witnesses had reported seeing two men force the girl into a grey Honda Odyssey minivan early Sunday afternoon and then drive off. Police have issued an Amber Alert for a teenage girl they say was abducted Sunday afternoon in Mississauga, Ont. The victim is identified as Alyssa Langille, 15. Peel Regional police say a witness reported seeing two men force the girl into a mini-van early Sunday afternoon and then drive off. Langille is described as white, 5 feet 2 inches tall, with shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a grey sweater, grey sweatpants, and black and red "Air Jordan" running shoes. One suspect is described as South Asian, about 24 years old, 6-feet-2 inches tall with a thin build. He was wearing an orange coloured turban, grey sweater with cut off sleeves and a green shirt underneath The second suspect is described only as a South Asian male with black hair. The suspect's vehicle is described as a silver or grey mini-van. The vehicle was last seen travelling southbound on Saint Barbara Blvd in Mississauga at 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 15. Anyone with information is urged to call 911 or Peel Regional Police Service. Photo: Twitter UPDATE: 6:55 a.m. A Turkish cargo plane crashed Monday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Boeing 747 crashed at 7:40 a.m. local time while approaching Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek, in this Central Asian nation. Footage from the scene showed the plane's nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. A dozen body bags were laid out in the yard of one home. A car parked nearby was mangled in the crash, and a refrigerator lay open. The bodies of 15 victims, including five children, all of them Kyrgyz citizens, had been identified by Monday evening, the Kyrgyz government said on its website. Another 15 people, including six children, were hospitalized in the disaster, according to the health ministry. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 out of the 43 houses in the village had been destroyed. Several dozen homes were near the fence surrounding the runway. The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to the Istanbul-based cargo company ACT Airlines, which said the dead included the plane's four Turkish crew members: two pilots, a freight expert and a flight technician. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Emergency Situations Minister Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical. One of the plane's two flight recorders was recovered at the scene, according to the Kyrgyz prime minister's office. ORIGINAL: 6 a.m. A cargo jet has crashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan, killing all on board as well as 28 people on the ground. The MyCargo Airlines Boeing 747-400 freighter was flying from Hong Kong to Bishkek when it performed a low-altitude "go-around" at Manas Airport in Bishkek. The flight was on final approach when it went around, but did not climb out to safety. It impacted terrain about 1,100 meters past the runway, crashing through houses in the nearby village, according to aviation website aeroinside.com. All four crew on board and 28 people on the ground were killed. Eight people on the ground received injuries and were taken to hospitals. Boeing has a technical team on standby to assist in the investigation. Both Boeing and Turkish Airlines,which operates MyCargo, offered condolences to the families of the dead. Kyrgyzstan's prime minister stated the Interstate Aviation Committee is investigating the crash. The aircraft was about to land for a fuel stop on its way to Istanbul and was cleared to land by air traffic control. Emergency services reports the aircraft destroyed 30 houses when it impacted the village, with debris spread over an area of 1,000 metres. Photo: Twitter The leader of the Parti Quebecois says he would quickly adopt a "Buy Quebecois Act" if he were to become premier. Jean-Francois Lisee says the act would be inspired by the idea of a Buy American law in the United States and would stimulate Quebec's economy by encouraging the purchase of local products. He made the proposal during a speech at the party's national council meeting in Quebec City. Later Sunday afternoon Lisee told reporters he doesn't believe prioritizing local purchases would conflict with free trade agreements. His vision, laid out in a 75-page platform proposal rolled out Saturday, states that a PQ government would favour Quebec-made products, particularly when it comes to public bids. The proposals in the document will be debated and amended if needed in the coming months before being adopted as the party's official program in September. In a 40-minute closing speech dedicated exclusively to economic nationalism, Lisee said the province would favour "a Quebecois buying policy, of Quebecois content, wherever possible." He also promised to be a strong leader willing to "show some muscle" in his dealings with both Ottawa and the United States if he manages to unseat the governing Liberals in the next election. "(The United States) in the last years and this is accelerating is more affirmative in defending its interests, and if we stay with our arms crossed, it's us who will suffer," Lisee said when asked if a rising U.S. protectionist sentiment threatens Quebec exports. Photo: The Canadian Press The increase of Israeli settlements has "gotten so substantial" that it is inhibiting the possibility for an "effective, contiguous Palestinian state," President Barack Obama said Sunday, in his final interview as president. Speaking to CBS' "60 Minutes," Obama dismissed the idea that there is a "major rupture" in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last month's decision by the U.S. to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. "Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the U.S.) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, 'This is a problem,'" Obama said. "It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States." The outgoing president reflected on his legacy and his biggest challenges during his eight years in office during the hourlong interview. A number of his policies from health care to his contentious relationship with Israel could be short-lived as President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th president later this week and vows to reverse some of those policies. Trump has been vocal about his disapproval of many of Obama's policies, often voicing his disagreement or engaging in public disputes with the president on Twitter. Most recently, Trump lashed out over hypothetical comments Obama made that he would beat Trump if they ran against each other in a general election. Over the holidays, Trump accused Obama of throwing up "inflammatory" roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with "total disdain." Obama acknowledged it's been an "unusual" transition, adding, "I suspect the president-elect would agree with that." "We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites and some headline that comes over their phone," the president said. "There's a power in that. There's also a danger what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem." He warned people not to "underestimate the guy" and urged congressional Republicans and Trump supporters around the country to be sure "that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place." Obama said there needs to be a focus on "making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity." Photo: The Canadian Press Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. Most are American, with one European and one Mexican in the mix. Several have pledged to give it all to charity. The eight tycoons' net worth, as calculated by Forbes magazine, was cited Monday by anti-poverty activists Oxfam in a report highlighting income inequality. As the world's business and political elite gathers in the Swiss town of Davos this week, here's a look at who these billionaires are. Bill Gates: $75 billion The man whose name is a byword for billionaire. He co-founded Microsoft in the mid-70s, growing it into the world's biggest software company and helping to make computers a household item. He quit as CEO in 2000 and pledged to devote his fortune to his philanthropic activities in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has gradually reduced his ownership in Microsoft to less than 3 per cent, with the bulk of his wealth in a private firm. Amancio Ortega: $67 billion The richest person in Europe, Ortega opened the first Zara fashion shop in 1975. Now, the chain, part of Ortega's Inditex group, has 7,000 shops globally. Its boom in popularity is largely due to a low cost model that competes with the likes of H&M. As Zara and Inditex grew in size, Ortega held on to a majority stake of 59 per cent in the company, which has a market value of over 97 billion euros ($102 billion). Warren Buffett: $60.8 billion The Oracle of Omaha, as he's known for the way his every investment decision is followed by thousands. He began investing as a teenager in the '40s and gradually grew his firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett, 86, is notoriously frugal personally and favours investing in companies with proven business models over new industries, such as in technology. He's said he will give away the bulk of his wealth to philanthropy and since 2006 has been donating blocks of Berkshire stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Carlos Slim Helu: $50 billion The Mexican tycoon owes his fortune to a major ownership in America Movil, a telecommunications multinational worth $42 billion. He personally owns about 7 per cent in the company while his broader family retains a 37 per cent stake. He was ranked as the richest person three years ago, but saw his net worth hit by a downturn in Latin American economies. President-elect Donald Trump's threats to scrap free trade deals and build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border have also hurt shares in his business interests. Forbes estimates his net worth dropped $5 billion in the four days after Trump's election. Jeff Bezos: $45.2 billion The founder and CEO of Amazon.com helped revolutionize the retail industry by popularizing online shopping. What was initially an online book shop now sells pretty much anything. Bezos has reached beyond Amazon, in which he holds a 17 per cent stake, to try his hand in other industries. He's bought the Washington Post and set up an aerospace company, Blue Origin, that aims to make space accessible to tourists and paying customers. Mark Zuckerberg: $44.6 billion Founded Facebook in 2004 while a college student to connect Harvard students. The company went on to become popular globally and listed its shares publicly in 2012, making Zuckerberg, now 32, a multibillionaire. He's managed to make Facebook profitable where rivals like Twitter have lagged, and expanded it with targeted acquisitions. He and his wife have pledged to sell 99 per cent of their holdings in Facebook over 400 million shares, worth about $50 billion to support philanthropic causes. Larry Ellison: $43.6 billion As a young programmer in the '70s, his first big client was the CIA. The name of the project was "Oracle." In 1977, Ellison and associates used the name of that product for their company, which creates software that helps manage databases and has since become an industry standard. Ellison has recently focused more on cloud computing, in which data is stored and managed across a network of computers. His fortune comes from the 27 per cent stake he still owns in Oracle, currently worth $160 billion. Michael Bloomberg: $40 billion Created the eponymous financial information provider in 1981 after getting laid off from an investment bank. Bloomberg made it a lucrative business in particular by selling data terminals to financial services firms. The multi-screen terminals became essential tools in the industry, incorporating real-time market information with a news service. Bloomberg, who reportedly retains an 88 per cent stake in the privately held company, turned to politics in 2001, becoming mayor of New York City for three terms. Photo: Contributed The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, anti-poverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. It's urging leaders to do more than pay lip-service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last year's election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britain's vote to leave the European Union. "It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the meeting in Davos. "Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy." The same report a year earlier said that the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. However, Oxfam has revised that figure down to eight following new information gathered by Swiss bank Credit Suisse. Oxfam used Forbes' billionaires list that was last published in March 2016 to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion. The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex, financier Warren Buffett, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. They include higher taxes on wealth and income to ensure a more level playing field and to fund investments in public services and jobs, greater co-operation among governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich don't dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfam's policy adviser, urged billionaires to "do the right thing," and to do "what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes." The ability of the rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called "Panama Papers," a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. "We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary," Lawson told The Associated Press. "That's crazy." Photo: Miami Dade Corrections A home-invasion robbery by four intruders that ended with a suspect shot and killed led to charges against the homeowner. But not for the death. The Miami Herald reports police say Michael Mora is in trouble for what was found inside: a marijuana growhouse with about 202 pounds of weed. The 37-year-old Mora faces no charges for the shooting death of South Miami-Dade resident, 25-year-old Lhosdanny Brena Colarte. For now, Mora's charged only with growing marijuana and trafficking marijuana. Mora has served two Florida prison terms, one for robbery with a deadly weapon. So possession of a firearm as a convicted felon might result to further charges in Saturday's deadly shooting. Photo: The Canadian Press She may not be working in the White House, but that doesn't mean Ivanka Trump is staying out of politics. Although she has said she will have no official role in her father's administration, Ivanka Trump has been quietly laying the groundwork for an effort that could make her perhaps the best-connected policy advocate in Washington. Trump, who has made clear she wants to push for policies benefiting women and girls, last week sought the advice of a group of female executives and media stars in New York City. And transition aides have reached out to congressional staff on childcare policies, an area she has urged President-elect Donald Trump to prioritize. In a Facebook post detailing her next moves, Ivanka Trump thanked people who had reached out on such issues and added that she is determining the "most impactful and appropriate ways for me to serve our country." It is not clear if Trump will establish herself independently or if she will eventually enter the White House. But operating from the outside may take her into uncharted territory, as there are few recent examples of a first family member without a White House office advocating for policies. The closest model is the first lady, who has an office in the East Wing. For now, the businesswoman has said only that she is stepping away from executive roles at the Trump Organization and her lifestyle brand and is moving her family to Washington so that her husband Jared Kushner can take a job as a senior adviser. She has also stressed that she wants to focus on settling her three young children in a new home. But Ivanka Trump is also thinking beyond that. On Thursday, she attended a dinner with female executives at the home of her friend Wendi Deng, ex-wife of media executive Rubert Murdoch. The dinner was put together by Dina Powell, a Goldman Sachs partner who is joining the Trump administration as an assistant to the president and senior counsellor for economic initiatives. Powell has been advising Ivanka Trump and is expected to continue working closely with her. Other guests included MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski, model Christy Turlington Burns, former White House press secretary Dana Perino, Xerox Chairperson Ursula Burns, Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert, Glamour Editor-in-Chief Cynthia Leive and Time Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs. Another attendee, Pattie Sellers, executive director of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summits, wrote on Fortune.com that Ivanka Trump "explained that she wanted to learn from the efforts of leaders in their fields." Also there was Sheila Marcelo, founder of www.care.com, a website that connects families with caregivers, said an attendee who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a private dinner. Marcelo spoke about the high cost of caregiving both for children and adult family members. The attendee said the group also discussed the Trump transition team's recent outreach to the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee staff about Trump's child care proposals. Asked about news reports about the outreach, Ivanka Trump noted that these were priorities for the president-elect, the source said. A Trump Transition spokesperson declined to comment on the event. An attorney at a New York City law firm has been nominated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to serve on the state's highest court, the state Court of Appeals. Rowan D. Wilson has been chosen by Cuomo, a Democrat, to fill the vacancy left by Judge Eugene Pigott, who retired last year. The deadline to nominate a candidate for associate judge was Sunday. The governor's office said the nomination was sent to the state Senate, which must confirm Court of Appeals appointees, late Sunday. Wilson, 56, has worked for the last 30 years at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a New York City-based firm. He's now a litigation partner and leads the firm's pro bono work. Cuomo nominated Wilson after receiving recommendations from the Commission on Judicial Nomination, which is tasked with reviewing candidates for state Court of Appeals seats. "The New York State Court of Appeals embodies the highest values of government service, and I am confident Rowan Wilson will continue to articulate and uphold the principles of law and fairness that embody the best of New York," Cuomo said in a statement. Wilson earned a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University in 1981. Three years later, he earned a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School. He served for two years as a law clerk for James R. Browning, the former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Cravath, Swaine & Moore hired him in 1986 and he became a partner in 1992. In addition to his professional work, Wilson has served as chairman of the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem since 1996. The organization offers legal services to residents of upper Manhattan. He's also a board member of Wide Horizons for Children, a group focusing on the security of orphaned and vulnerable children. "I am both humbled and honored to be nominated by Governor Cuomo to serve as an associate judge on the state's highest court," Wilson said. "My entire career has been dedicated to the pursuit of justice and there is no better place to continue those efforts than on the New York State Court of Appeals." If Wilson is confirmed by the state Senate, there would be at least two African American judges for the first time in the Court of Appeals' history. Associate Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam is currently the lone African American on the court. She was appointed by Cuomo and confirmed in 2013. Wilson, who lives in Nassau County with his wife and three daughters, would be the first Long Island resident to serve on the Court of Appeals in more than two decades. Wilson's confirmation would ensure that every Court of Appeals judge is a Cuomo appointee. The governor, who's in his second term, has appointed the six existing members of the court, including Chief Judge Janet DiFiore. Once confirmed, associate Court of Appeals judges serve 14-year terms. Photo: The Canadian Press Suggestions by President-elect Donald Trump that sanctions against Russia could be lifted in exchange for a nuclear arms cut attracted a frosty reception in Moscow on Monday. In an interview with the Times of London published on Sunday, Trump indicated that he could end sanctions imposed on Russia in the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. Russia isn't so anxious to get the sanctions lifted that it is prepared to "sacrifice something, especially in what concerns security," said Konstantin Kosachev, the Kremlin-connected chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament. Kosachev also told the RIA Novosti news agency that Trump's comments to the Times should be treated with caution because it wasn't an official statement, since Trump hasn't assumed office yet. Washington, along with the European Union, has imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Russia and travel bans for individuals following Moscow's annexation of Crimea and interference in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The latest round of U.S. sanctions came at the end of December. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, sounded similarly cautious with reporters in Moscow later in the day. "Let's wait until he assumes office before we give assessment to any initiatives," Peskov said. He added that Russia never raises the issue of sanctions in talks with its foreign counterparts and doesn't intend to do so because it's not up to Moscow to scrap them. Photo: Contributed Niagara regional police are advising residents to be alert after discovering Advil capsules in a container of ice cream. Police say they got wind of the issue on Saturday after being called to a home in St. Catharines, Ont. They say a resident opened a sealed container of Iceberg French Vanilla ice cream and began serving it to family members before discovering about eight pills in the container. Police later identified the pills as Advil brand ibuprofen gel capsules. No one ingested the pills found inside the ice cream. Police say they are investigating the incident. Photo: The Canadian Press UPDATE: 12:20 p.m. Two Canadians were among at least five people killed Monday in a shooting attack at an electronic music festival in Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, Mexican authorities said. And Canadian government officials added that at least two other Canadians were wounded in the deadly incident at a popular night club. The attorney general of Quintana Roo state said three of the dead were part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival. Miguel Angel Pech said the shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m. at the Blue Parrot nightclub, one of the BPM Festival's venues in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. Pech said a lone gunman apparently tried to enter the nightclub, but was denied access because he had a gun. The gunman began to exchange fire with another person inside, he said, and festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire. Pech said it was not a terrorist attack and that three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. "We know of another shooting incident that occurred near the nightclub, but we are investigating whether that is related" to the nightclub shootings," Pech said. He said 20 bullet casings from three different pistols had been found at the scene, and said it was unclear if the security detail had been armed or fired any of the weapons. The government of the township that includes Playa de Carmen referred in a statement to "attackers who fired shots," but did not provide further details. The shooting apparently caused a rush of people heading for the exits at the beach-side club, and the lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. Pech said 15 people were injured, included one Mexican woman who was seriously injured. He said eight of the injured including two U.S. citizens and one Canadian had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. He said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of "a disagreement between people inside" the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. The BPM Festival posted a statement saying four people had been killed and 12 injured in an attack that involved "a lone shooter." BPM wrote that "the violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue." Playa del Carmen has largely been spared the violence that has hit other parts of Mexico. Global Affairs Canada said it was able to confirm at least one Canadian fatality and was looking to verify the report about the second death. "Consular officials in Playa Del Carmen and Mexico City are in ongoing contact with local authorities as they continue to address this tragic incident, and are providing consular assistance to Canadian citizens affected by the incident, including two who have been injured," spokeswoman Jocelyn Sweet said in an email. Photo: Contributed Another day-long jobs fair is being held in Merritt as the Nicola Valley city tries to find work for about 200 unemployed workers. Merritt Mayor Neil Menard says he is impressed with his community's response to help the workers. They lost their jobs when Tolko closed its sawmill in the city just before Christmas. Menard says he "can't say anything nice about Tolko," but praises the work of a transition team seeking available positions for the employees. Businesses attending Monday's jobs fair include Kinder Morgan, the Douglas Lake Cattle Company and several trades organizations and post-secondary institutions. Tolko announced last September that a lack of timber would force it to shut down its Merritt-area mill by the end of 2016. Photo: Google Maps A Toronto senior who used his cane to kill a fellow long-term care home resident more than three years ago has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Peter Brooks, 76, was found guilty last month of second-degree murder in the death of 72-year-old Jocelyn Dickson. He was also charged with the attempted murder of another fellow resident, 91-year-old Lourdes Missier, but was found not guilty on that charge. Brooks testified that a spirit in a dream had told him to "beat the crap" out of the two women and insisted he didn't actually intend to harm anyone. His trial heard that late one night in March 2013, Brooks used his cane to attack Dickson and Missier in their beds at the Wexford Residence in Toronto's east end. Brooks' defence lawyer had urged jurors to find the elderly man not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder, arguing that Brooks has dementia and was unable to appreciate the nature of his actions. But the Crown argued Brooks was not delusional and knew his actions were not only legally wrong, but morally wrong as well. (CP24) Photo: The Canadian Press Douglas Garland A murder trial has heard that a couple and their young grandson were violently snatched in the night and taken to a rural property where they were killed and their bodies burned. The Crown told the jury that DNA evidence from Alvin and Kathy Liknes and five-year-old Nathan O'Brien including a small piece of burned flesh was found on the accused's farm north of Calgary. Douglas Garland faces three charges of first-degree murder. "The three individuals were violently removed from their beds and taken to the Garland farm and killed," prosecutor Vicki Faulkner said Monday in the Crown's opening statement. "Their bodies (were) burned in a large burn barrel, with only tiny fragments of their bodies left for police to discover." Faulkner said Garland was acting on a years-long petty grudge against Alvin Liknes over a pump patent and had been meticulously planning the killings. She said Garland did Internet searches to keep tabs on the couple and took action "that took the form of obsessive and methodical planning" as they were about to move away. The boy was an unintended victim, Faulkner said. The couple and their grandson vanished from the couple's Calgary home in June 2014. Nathan had been at an impromptu sleepover with his grandparents after they held an estate sale before moving to a community just outside Edmonton and then Mexico. When his mother, Jennifer O'Brien, arrived to pick him up the next morning, no one was home. "The house was covered in blood, blood spattered on the walls and in thick pools in the carpet," Faulkner told the jury. "She walked through the house looking for her parents, looking for Nathan. "She saw more blood. She saw sheets missing from beds. She did not see her parents. She did not see Nathan. "They were gone and all that was left was blood." Investigators combed through several properties surrounding the area near Airdrie, north of Calgary, where Garland lived before he was arrested and charged. Garland had connections to the family. He had past business dealings with Alvin Liknes and Garland's sister was in a common-law relationship with Liknes's son. An 11-man, three-woman jury is hearing the evidence. It's expected that there will be between 50 and 60 Crown witnesses called in the trial, which is scheduled for five weeks. Photo: The Canadian Press Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is the least popular big city mayor in Canada. That, according to a new poll by Mainstreet Research. Robertson's approval rating is just 50 per cent, compared to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson's 79 per cent. But he's still hanging on to a slight edge in support, with 45 per cent of the survey respondents disapproving of the job Robertson is doing and five per cent undecided. In 2009, one year after Robertson was elected, his approval rating was 70 per cent. But at least he's not the least-liked mayor in the entire country, only in major cities. The lowest approval rating in Canada was for Matt Brown, mayor of London, Ont. Brown was caught having an affair with his deputy mayor last year. Brown's disapproval rating was 58 per cent. with files from CTV Vancouver Photo: Contributed - Rosalinda's Filipino Kitchen The cause of a small fire that broke out Sunday afternoon at Rosalindas Filipino Kitchen in Vernon has been determined to be an electrical short that happened at the base of a smart meter. Initial estimates peg the amount of damage to be around $25,000 but that number could climb higher. The restaurant was open at the time of the incident, but there were no injuries and the blaze was quickly attacked by the quick thinking owner with the help of a nearby fire extinguisher. The restaurant is expected to re-open in a few weeks. With January being National Radon Action Month, the Cayuga County Health Department encourages area residents to test their home for the cancer-causing gas. Cayuga County has been determined by the EPA and the state Department of Health to be a high-risk radon county. The department has free radon test kits available for a limited time. The kits can be picked up at the county department, 8 Dill St., Auburn, as well as Aurora, Fair Haven, Hazard, Port Byron, Powers, Seymour, Springport and Weedsport libraries. Those who discover elevated radon levels can discuss them with the department, as well as the steps needed to correct them. Those who have not tested their homes are at risk of living with high radon concentrations, which is the No. 1 cause of lung cancer among nonsmokers. For more information, call the department at (315) 253-1405. I made (mankind) just and right, sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. John Milton, "Paradise Lost" I will always remember the inauguration of Barack Obama. My wife and I sat my 6-month old son down to watch it with us, knowing that he had no understanding of the monumental event that was unfolding. I sat and looked over his little curious face and explained to him that we were watching the first African-American president take office. My son, of course, had no clue what was happening. At that age, our children have a wonderful and beautiful lack of understanding regarding race. In that speech Obama outlined his vision for the future of the country. Some of the things he set out to do he accomplished, some things never came to pass, and others were implemented imperfectly as the result of compromise. Such is the measure of most presidencies. In his inaugural address Obama acknowledged that the timing of his election was a moment that will define a generation. He was referring to the overwhelmingly young demographic that voted for him. I was 28 at the time, and could still presume to be a part of that moment. My son has never known a world without a black president, and the implications of that may be incalculable. Obama spoke of the price and the promise of citizenship. By this he meant the sacrifice of service that is demanded by our system through citizen participation in the process. Given events that took place in the years after, this would prove darkly prophetic. The failure of the young to vote for Clinton as they did Obama was a major part of her loss. Fast forward to the farewell address given in Chicago last week. President Obama again referenced the duty and obligation Americans have to participate in our system. The hallmark of Obamas speeches is his constant reflection back onto the American public. It may be argued that he acted independently at times, although within his legal right to do so. Yet, at least rhetorically, Obama maintained that the ultimate solution to Americas problems lay with her citizens. This, of course, comes with the implication that Americas ultimate doom also is in the same hands. Whether one thinks Obama was a good president or not, his constant refrain that Americas fate lay in the actions of the citizenry cannot be denied. Kennedy knew this when he delivered his famous inaugural speech. The same theme can be found across the truest American discourse, and beyond. This belief traces its way back to the foundations of our faith, as we were given the right to choose our destiny by nature and God. Turning again to Milton, we overhear God explaining humanity, They trespass, authors to themselves in all, both what they judge and what they choose; for so I formed them free, and free they must remain, till they enthrall themselves. Guangzhou-based automobile juggernaut GAC Group sold a total of 1.65 million automobiles in 2016, representing total year-on-year growth of 26.96%. Despite the strong overall annual performance, GAC Groups sales for the month of December alone were below par, adding up to only 168,597 units. To put that figure into perspective, GAC Group sold 4% more vehicles the previous month and 8% more in December of last year. Based on this performance, Morgan Stanleys ranking for GAC Group this year did not change. Guangqi Honda remained the Groups most successful operation, with its 2016 sales totaling 638,791 units, up 10.12% year-on-year and surpassing its sales target for the year. However the JVs sales for the month of December fell 28% year-on-year, with only 99,598 units sold. Guangqi Honda explained that since they fulfilled their annual sales target so early this year, many dealerships chose to hide their sales figures to pad out future performance reports. Sales of the Honda Accord in December totaled 12,824 units, marking the seventh consecutive month that the model ranked as Chinas best-selling Japanese premium sedan. The marketing release of a new hybrid version of the Accord means that Honda will also have access to a whole new market for this popular model. Annual sales of the Honda Vezel SUV (pictured above) had already exceeded the 150,000 mark in November of last year, while sales of the Honda Fit were also very strong. However, the all new Avancier midsize SUV, which was released in late last September, has yet to make a major splash in the market. Guangqi Honda has plans to release a new turbocharged 1.5L version which can help keep the models price more competitive. Guangqi Hondas sales goal for 2017 is set at 690,000 units, representing an increase of around 9% from last year. Fellow JV GAC Toyota sold a total of 32,665 vehicles in December, down 8.71% year-on-year. However, GAC Toyota, like Guangqi Honda, achieved positive year-on-year sales growth in its annual sales, with its total 2016 sales volume of 421,800 units representing year-on-year growth of 4.64%. The Highlander, Camry, Levin and Yaris L remain the JVs most popular models. To further boost sales performance, GAC Toyota has plans to further diversify its product line by finishing construction on its third vehicle assembly line and introduction of new models like the CH-R compact SUV. GAC Chrysler Fiat, despite being a relatively new venture, has been impressing many in the industry with its strong performance. The three Jeep models all released by the young JV in the span of one year have managed to help it achieve a total of 146,439 sales, representing astounding year-on-year growth of 270.84%. Among them the Jeep Cherokee (pictured above) has been especially successful, with its monthly sales constantly above the 10,000 units level. However, sales of the Jeep Renegade and Jeep Compass have yet to reach the same levels. With competition in the SUV market growing especially fierce as more and more new models are being introduced, GAC Chrysler Fiat requires intense vigilance to ensure that all of its products perform strongly. Despite getting off to a sluggish start in 2016, GAC Mitsubishi managed to make a nice recovery with the release of the domestically produced Outlander (pictured above). The JVs sales in December grew 29.93%, while its total 2016 sales volume of 55,888 was on par with 2015 sales figures. Although GAC Motors sales in 2016 grew 90%, it had to make major adjustments to its own brand model strategy. Only the Trumpchi brand, which sold a total of 372,034 units over the course of the year, performed strongly. Its Gonow brand was cancelled, while the Hangzhou site was redesigned into a production site for Trumpchi vehicles. At least the Trumpchi brand has been living up to expectations, with the GS4 being one of the most popular SUV models in the country, while the GS8 shows that it possesses remarkable potential, especially with the growing importance of foreign markets in the Middle East and Africa. However, the Trumpchi brand does risk overreliance on specific segments and insufficient diversification, with 92.5% of its sales volume coming from SUV sales, and nearly 90% of that from just the GS4 alone, according to figures collected by iAuto. Furthermore, GAC has provided major subsidies and other benefits for the GS4, GA6 and GA3S, which Morgan Stanley pointed out have influenced overall returns. Obviously, an overreliance on SUV models is not something limited to just the Trumpchi brand, but something pervasive through all of GACs own brand operations. Beginning in October, SUV sales overtook sedan sales to become GACs most popular vehicle type. The gap between SUV sales and sales of other GAC vehicle types only grew over the following months. GACs 2016 production and sales volumes of SUVs grew 95.6% and 88.2% year-on-year, respectively. Among them, demand for the Toyota Highlander, Trumpchi GS4 and Trumpchi GS8 still outpace supply. Editor's note: This show is sold out. Current news headlines decrying espionage and Russian collusion read like pages ripped from a pre-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller. Meanwhile, one Los Angeles-based writer with a penchant for cuisine and culture has waded into the social consequences stemming from the Presidential Election. But first, to pair with that side of biting commentary, Tess Rafferty recommends a heavy Petite Sirah ahead of her Flagstaff performance. Theyre a teeth-stainer,she said with a laugh. I find you can only drink them in rainy, cold weather. And that drink, too, might help soften anxieties some have been experiencing since November, and to prepare for An Evening with Tess Rafferty. Rafferty appears at the Coconino Center for the Arts Tuesday, Jan. 17 courtesy of Together We Will Northern Arizona. This all-ages event starts with a reception from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tickets, $25, will not be sold at the door. To purchase them, visit FlagArtsCouncil.org and see TWWNAZ on Facebook. Rafferty has been known among the coterie of Hollywood writers since her seven-year stretch at E! News Networks The Soup. Afterward, she craved something new and published a 2012 culinary memoir, Recipes for Disaster, filled with group-favorite foods and her worst dinner party moments. But after the election, Rafferty typed a lengthy Facebook post surrounding her blunt opinion of supporters on the winning side. Her honesty caught the attention of her friend, director Steve Cohen, who suggested the pair put those words on film. To date, Aftermath 2016 has garnered tens of millions of views on YouTube and beyond, and has touched the wounded hearts of many who found a commonality in Raffertys unabashed soliloquy. When I encounter some kind of hate, whether its flat-out misogyny or racism or anti-Semitism, I do like to share it with people because I feel like we need to know, she expressed, noting the video aimed at those she felt needed to plainly hear what the president-elect represents. I dont want us to think its isolated. Lori Staudinger, too, felt her prescience regarding the divisive undulating social current and how to reconnect. As the Executive Director of TWWNAZ, a pending 501(c)4 non-profit formerly known as Pantsuit Nation, Staudinger has been organizing listening parties of political speeches and the upcoming Flagstaff-based Womens March on Washington. Raffertys performance will be the organizations first major event, with proceeds benefitting local groups aiding LGBTQIA and immigrants. Tess put into words the way a lot of us were feeling at the time about the election, Staudinger said, noting the groups vice president, Stacy Pinkston, reached out to Rafferty through her manager. She told her about the amazing grassroots activism taking place in Flagstaff and asked if Tess would ever like to come here. After confirmation, the mad planning started, Staudinger added. Rafferty, who is donating her time here in Flagstaff, noted one of her greatest personal accomplishments was impacting viewers in such a way. That really impressed me because I know mostly creative people who are writers or actors or directors, who do things where they can express themselves and you forget that not everybody excels in that and are looking for people who can do it for them as sort of a cathartic experience, she explained. And though the comedians heavy on humor, shes humbled to have touched people on an unexpected level though shed rather no one have needed it. Still, she will perform for her first time in Arizona as a means to help to the best of her witty abilities and for a cause benefitting people who will feel the ripples of the next four years the deepest. Staudinger explained her hope is TWWNAZ will serve as an important voice of the opposition. We will work tirelessly to stand up for women, LGBTQIA individuals, immigrants and the environment, she continued. We will put up a vigorous resistance to efforts to curtail rights for these groups and against legislation that threatens these groups. Going forward, Staudinger said northern Arizona can expect a broad impact as the organization works for these groups, and hosts additional events along with weekly calls-to-action, announced on their Facebook page. Rafferty, too, offered her advice for keeping up in this climate: creating change by staying realistic and acknowledging personal strengths. And in the way she channels her work for a purpose, the evening will follow the format of her live essay readings at L.A. venues: compounding politics with other pieces. As she explores in her writing a greater lack of control over the world, she offsets it with small gestures that can have tremendous benefit well beyond her and hopes the same for others. Rafferty added, More random acts of kindness in 2017, for all of us. Sunday, Jan. 15 Holiday Star Fest: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Lowell Observatory, 1400 W. Mars Hill Road. 774-3358. Admission fees apply. lowell.edu. Jelly Bread: 7 p.m. The Orpheum Theater, 15 W. Aspen Ave. Over a few short years of touring, Jelly Bread has risen from Reno/Lake Tahoe area favorites into a powerhouse quintet with a high-energy calling card that delivers a high-energy, chameleonic playlist all over the United States. 556-1580. $9. orpheumflagstaff.com. Archaeology Walk: 1-3 p.m. Red Rock State Park, 4050 Red Rock Loop Road, Sedona. The hike will identify various archaeological features and interpret them into the wider context of important regional Sinagua sites. An elevation gain of some 250 feet, along easy trails. Bring water and wear suitable footwear. Included with park entrance fees. 282-6907. azstateparks.com/Parks/RERO/index.html. Winter Walk (snowshoe option): 1 p.m. Start location: East end of Butler Avenue, about a mile east of Foxglenn Park. About three total miles we'll explore the forest at the end of that road. Free. Monday, Jan. 16 MLK Day 2017: 4:45-6:30 p.m. Firecreek Coffee Company, 22 E. Route 66. Live music, guest speakers, Civil Rights Movement memorabilia, open mic and more. School is Out and Kids are Free: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Lowell Observatory, 1400 W. Mars Hill Road. Special family-friendly, astronomy-themed programs and activities. Minors must be accompanied by an adult. Admission fees apply to adults 18 and over. 774-3358. lowell.edu. Winter Walk (snowshoe option): 1 p.m. Start location: Pulliam Airport parking lot at the east end farthest from the terminal. About three total miles we'll explore the areas around the runways to see what's landing and taking off. Free. Blood Drive: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. City of Flagstaff Aquaplex, 1702 N. Fourth St. Hosted by the NAU Civic Service Institute and the City of Flagstaff Recreation Dept. Give blood and receive a voucher for a free pizza slice and soft drink, donated by Fratelli Pizza. Donors also receive Rewards Points for movie tickets, gift cards to Amazon, Target and more. 877-827-4376. unitedbloodservicesaz.org. Gamblers Anonymous: Noon-1. Episcopal Church Of The Epiphany, 423 N. Beaver St. A fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from a gambling problem. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop gambling. Back door and down to church basement. 774-2911. gaphoenix.org/. Tuesday, Jan. 17 An Evening With Tess Rafferty: 6:30-8:30 p.m. Coconino Center for the Arts, 2300 N. Fort Valley Road. Join Together We Will Northern Arizona (formerly Pantsuit Nation Northern Arizona) to welcome Tess Rafferty for an evening of laughter and inspiration. All proceeds from the event will be donated to local groups working in the area of of women's rights, LGTBQ+ rights, undocumented rights, and environmental protection. A reception with a cash bar and live music will take place before Tess takes the stage. $25 (advance sales only; no tickets will be sold at the door). tessraffertyflagstaff.brownpapertickets.com. Regional Plan Amendment Public Hearing: 6-9 p.m. Flagstaff City Hall, 211 W. Aspen AVe. The City Council is taking up the last issue in amending Chapter 3 of the Regional Plan, which describes major and minor plan amendment categories and procedures. The discussion at this meeting will focused on changes between Urban, Suburban and Rural area types. CAL Film Series: "The General": 7-8:30 p.m. NAU Cline Library, 1001 S. Knoles Dr. "The General" (1926) directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman. Starring Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender. 67 minutes. Not Rated. Buster Keaton's finest work as a Civil War train engineer forced to be a hero when Union soldiers steal both loves of his life: his fiancee and his train. 523-9312. nau.edu/cal/events/cal-film-series/. Juniper House Readings: 7-9 p.m. Root Public House, 101 S. San Francisco. New local literature series featuring readers sharing work never before read or performed live. Free. 774-1402. Archaeology: Exciting tomb and buried monument discoveries in Belize: 7-9 p.m. The Peaks, 3150 N. Winding Brook. Jaime Awe, NAU Professor of Anthropology and specialist in the ancient Maya, will share the results of excavations of tombs and buried monuments at Xunantunich Belize at the monthly program meeting of the Northern Arizona Chapter of the Arizona Archaeology Society. 853-4597. facebook.com/NorthernArizonaArchaeologySociety/. January Locals' Night: 3-7 p.m. Historic downtown Flagstaff. There will be a variety of things for you to enjoy downtown. Check flagdba.com for details. 853-6869. Improv4Life: 1:30-3 p.m. Flagstaff Senior Meadows, 1351 N. Pine Cliff Dr. Come spend time with us every Tuesday playing theater games in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Benefits mind, body and spirit. No experience necessary. 415-519-0883. Military Officers Association (MOAA): 12:30-1:30 p.m. Sizzler Restaurant, 3540 E. Route 66. Active duty, retired, National Guard, Reserve and former commissioned and warrant officers from all uniformed services and their guests are invited to the lunch meeting. Order from the menu. New Chapter Officers and Directors for 2017 will be installed. The guest speaker will be Col(R) John Zink, USAF, who will give a presentation about the F-117 Stealth Fighter. 607-5196. Rotary Club of Flagstaff: Noon-1. High Country Conference Center, 201 W. Butler Ave. A group of community leaders and business professionals who use our skills to make the world a better place. 853-1406. Flagstaff S-Anon Family Group: 5:30-6:30 p.m. A 12-step fellowship for the family members and friends of sex addicts. Call 255-4343 or email serenityflagstaff@hotmail.com for more information. Crafty Corner: 3:30-4:30 p.m. East Flagstaff Community Library, 3000 N. Fourth St. Express your creativity in the Crafty Corner. Ages 5-13 welcome. 213-2348.flagstaffpubliclibrary.org/. Coconino County Supervisors Meeting: Coconino County Administration Building, 219 E. Cherry Ave. Meetings held the first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. and the third Tuesday at 6 p.m. Agenda available at coconino.az.gov. 679-7144. Life After Loss Due to Suicide Support Group: 6-8 p.m. Northland Hospice and Palliative Care (dba) Vista Hospice, 452 N. Switzer Canyon Dr., suite A. Our counselors are here to help to you. Free. Participants should call 779-1227 for additional information before attending. vistahospice.org. Walk Through Winter: 9 a.m. Thorpe Park Adult Center. About three total miles of walking in and around the surrounding area. 714-0504. I am a political essayist, cultural critic, educator, and host of the podcast known as "The Chauncey DeVega Show" I have been a guest on the BBC, National Public Radio, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Sirius XM's Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground. I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV. I am a contributing writer for Salon and Alternet. My writing has also been featured by Newsweek, The New York Daily News, Raw Story, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos. My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Raw Story, The Washington Spectator, Media Matters, The Gothamist, Fader, XOJane, The National Memo, The Root, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, The Lost Angeles Blade as well as online magazines and publications such as Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much. NEW YORK When the National Retail Federation's annual industry trade show kicked off Sunday, jobs was the first topic on the table. Not job cuts, despite recent reports of major retailers closing dozens of stores. Instead, the focus was on how to find and keep workers, providing them with the right skills in a changing retail environment. Advertisement "We know how exciting these retail jobs are. We just have to make sure everyone else does," Kip Tindell, co-founder and chairman of The Container Store and the trade group's chairman, said at the expo and convention, which has brought thousands in the retail industry to New York this week. To help recruit employees and slow high turnover in entry-level retail jobs, the National Retail Federation Foundation announced a new retail training and credential program, called RISE Up. The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership was one of the organizations that tested the curriculum over an 18-month development period. Advertisement So far, 21 companies have expressed support for the program, most assisting with funding or helping develop the curriculum. Entry-level retail jobs are changing as more brick-and-mortar stores become increasingly intertwined with online sales. At Crate and Barrel, sales associates have iPads they can use to show customers items the company sells but doesn't stock in every location, Chief Operating Officer Michael Relich said. Retailers like Lowe's have taken it a step further with augmented and virtual reality applications that let customers see what the new kitchen they're designing might look like before building it, or see what an outfit might look like without visiting the fitting room. Not only does blending online and offline sales match the way customers shop, it keeps different divisions from battling each other, he said. Relich, who used to work at Guess, said efforts to get the apparel stores to help customers order out-of-stock items online didn't take off until executives began giving the stores credit for those online sales. Entry-level jobs aren't the only place retailers struggle to find employees. "Two years ago, we didn't have a team focused only on data analytics, but now we do," said Macy's chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren. People with the kinds of technical skills retailers are now looking for might not see the retail industry as a first choice. Lundgren said Macy's has chosen to work closely with a handful of colleges where it tries to interest students in the challenges they could tackle. Advertisement lzumbach@chicagotribune.com Twitter @laurenzumbach Woodrow and Edith Wilson, in an image from the book, "Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson." (Regnery History) Donald Trump is many things but he is not a woman, and for that reason alone some people will be unhappy when he officially becomes the 45th president of the United States on Friday. Many of those people are young girls, not old enough to vote yet and mostly unaware of the specifics of immigration reform, environmental regulations or the national debt. For them, the prospect of a woman president was once very appealing. Advertisement Still, many millions of girls don't care and millions of women did vote for Trump, and they will be happy Friday. Others, seeking some small amount of solace, need look no further than local author William Hazelgrove, who will tell you, "We have already had a woman president." MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR Advertisement A prolific writer and charming guy, he tells that story compellingly in his latest book, "Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson" (2016, Regnery Publishing). Her "presidency" began in early October 1919, after her husband, the duly elected 28th president, Woodrow Wilson (who served from 1913-21), suffered a severe stroke that, Hazelgrove writes, "left him paralyzed on his left side and barely able to speak." The president's attending physician, a Dr. Francis Dercum, told Edith that any sort of stress would likely kill her husband, and so she stepped up to the presidential plate, handling for the next two years of his second term all affairs of state and signing her husband's name to all manner of correspondence and legislation even though, as Hazelgrove relates, she had had "only two years of formal schooling and the penmanship of a child." This was no power grab. She simply wanted to keep her husband alive. Edith Bolling had been born in small-town Virginia, where "she desperately wanted out of her hardscrabble life," says Hazelgrove. So she married an older jewelry store owner named Galt, and they had a child. But the baby died and then the husband died. The jewelry store was deep in debt, but she worked to bring it to solvency. Later, she was strolling down a Washington, D.C., sidewalk when she was spotted by Wilson, driving by in a limousine. A meeting took place, a date was arranged and that was that. They were married in October 1915. "Wilson was terribly lonely, having just lost his first wife," says Hazelgrove. "He is now seen as an austere guy, a cold and aloof academic. But he was not. He was actually a bit of a sensualist. He wrote long letters to his first wife and exhibited an almost playful romantic sense with Edith, who was 15 years his junior." She was no wallflower, "a progressive in many ways," says Hazelgrove. Before meeting Wilson she had purchased for herself an electric automobile and becoming the first woman to be issued a driver's license in the District of Columbia and she was ever interested in his work. "Even before their wedding, Wilson used to share with her letters of state and top-secret codes," says Hazelgrove. "Power can be an aphrodisiac, but theirs was really a great love story. They were soul mates." Advertisement Hazelgrove, who lives here, is the author of more than a dozen books, mostly novels and some nonfiction books, among them "Rocket Man," "The Pitcher," "Real Santa" and the forthcoming "Gangsters and Nymphs: Al Capone and the World's Fair of 1933." He was for a time the Ernest Hemingway Writer-in-Residence, working in the attic of Hemingway's birthplace in Oak Park. His website is www.williamhazelgrove.com. This book was born when he was reading "Wilson," the acclaimed 2013 biography by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer A. Scott Berg, in which he came upon the line "Edith Wilson was almost the president." Hazelgrove, who has a master's degree in history, asked himself, "Why would a conservative Wilsonian historian say such a thing?" And then he started researching and discovered what he considers "one of the great hidden stories of American politics." But how was it able to be hidden, especially at the time it was happening? "There was no radio, no TV, and the press was not the press we know today," says Hazelgrove. In addition, Vice President Thomas Marshall was no go-getter. A former governor of Indiana and recovering alcoholic, he wasn't even told about Wilson's stroke for more than three weeks and is now best remembered not for any sort of diplomatic triumphs but rather for uttering this sentence: "What America needs is a good five cent cigar." Advertisement So, the wife did the administrative presidential chores, World War I ended and Wilson was succeeded in office by Warren G. Harding. "One of the great ironies is that at the time the women's suffrage movement was fighting for the right to vote and some women were chaining themselves to the White House gates. Edith, who didn't admire the movement at all, was inside the White House running the government." Women got the right to vote with in 1920. Woodrow Wilson died in 1924. Edith would outlive him by nearly four decades, all that while "determined to keep his legacy intact, while diminishing her role," says Hazelgrove. She was accorded respect, though, being invited to the White House by every man who succeeded her husband in office. She was especially fond of JFK, who had included her husband in his book "Profiles in Courage." She, a profile in courage herself if few realized it, died Dec. 28, 1961, her late husband's birthday. They are buried next to one another in a crypt in St. James Chapel in the Washington National Cathedral in D.C. So if you happen to be in town for the inauguration Friday, think about dropping by to pay your respects ... rkogan@chicagotribune.com RELATED STORIES: Advertisement New book details South Side family's story of murder, heartache and -- eventually -- justice Are Division Street bars landmarks? New book keeps memories of 'American Bandstand' alive 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) Don't knock Ari Emanuel for his tight relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, filmmaker Peter Berg says. The brother of Mayor Rahm Emanuel is using his influence to bend Trump's ear about progressive causes, Berg told The Hollywood Reporter. Advertisement "I heard a phone call between Ari and Trump where Ari talked about climate change and wanted Trump to understand that climate change is real," the director of movies including "Hancock" and "Deepwater Horizon" told the trade rag. "And thank God Trump will listen to him and take those calls. Advertisement "Obviously, Ari's pretty public about his (liberal) politics. But he's going to accept the fact that (Trump) won, and he's going to do everything he can to have a relationship with the guy and see if he can't influence him a bit, so I think it's a great thing." As a Hollywood superagent, Ari Emanuel once represented Trump. He was among the first wave of high-profile contacts and one of the only liberals to meet with the former reality TV star immediately following Trump's presidential election victory in November a situation that created a little awkwardness for his older brother Rahm. The mayor, who met with Trump in December to warn that he will not compromise over immigrants rights, has refused to discuss his brother's relationship with the president-elect. But Berg said Ari Emanuel's pragmatic approach to Trump makes sense. "Trump's the president of the United States," he said. "You can ignore it or pretend like it's not happening or scream and yell. You might as well reach out to him." kjanssen@chicagotribune.com Twitter @kimjnews The final years of the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan are invariably described as a living hell. When the extraordinary ornamentalist and poet of the skyscraper died in 1924, he was "without work, penniless [and] surviving on the largesse of a few devoted friends," biographer Robert Twombly wrote in 1986. It is a grim picture, portraying an architectural titan laid low by changing architectural fashions, financial woes and failing health. While a dying Sullivan worked on his autobiography and drawings that documented his vital approach to architectural ornament, he was buffeted by forces beyond his control Advertisement A small and touching exhibition at Chicago's Cliff Dwellers Club paints a more affirmative portrait: Sullivan, though struggling, persists to the end and invests maximum creative energy in the few tiny projects that come his way. With help from friends and colleagues, he conquers the challenges of despair and alcoholism. He dies with dignity, not as someone to be pitied. Is the first version too hard? Is the second version too soft? Advertisement A definitive answer matters less than what the new show delivers: An intimate portrait of Sullivan and his final creative works. Among them: Seven alluring pieces of architectural terra cotta that were buried in the ground next to the Sullivan-designed Krause Music Store at 4611 N. Lincoln Ave. and discovered decades later when the store was turned into a gallery. It should come as no surprise that the show, titled "Louis Sullivan's Coda," takes a sympathetic view of Sullivan, who rose to acclaim with the mixed-use Auditorium Building of 1889, soared to greater aesthetic heights with ornament-enlivened skyscrapers like Buffalo's Guaranty Building, then found himself on the outside looking in and without major commissions as the Beaux-Arts and then Art Deco swept his vigorous, distinctly American work aside. The show's curator, Tim Samuelson, who serves as Chicago's official cultural historian, has long championed Sullivan's work and ranks as one of its most sensitive interpreters. Here, Samuelson brings us the genuine article, like the Mission-style oak desk at which Sullivan wrote his autobiography. On the desk, the curator displays a pack of Home Run cigarettes, an inexpensive brand that Sullivan chain-smoked to energize his writing. The architect also got by with human help, which sometimes came in the form of friends and former business associates who offered money without making it seem like charity. The Cliff Dwellers, a club for Midwestern artists that once called Orchestra Hall home and is now housed atop the Borg-Warner Building at 200 S. Michigan Ave., provided Sullivan with a place to write his autobiography. Club member William Gateshead of the American Terra Cotta and Ceramic Co., which furnished the terra cotta for numerous Sullivan structuresasked the architect to design the company's Christmas card in 1922 and 1923. A former Sullivan draftsman, William Presto, asked his old boss to design the Krause Music Store facade. The small but powerfully decorated building was completed in 1922. Laid out on a ledge along windows that provide a panoramic view of the lakefront, the seven terra cotta blocks from the Krause store form a fascinating vignette. When Cliff Dweller Scott Elliott bought the building to turn into a home for his architecture and decorative arts gallery, the text accompanying the show relates, a caretaker told him about extra ornamental terra cotta blocks buried in back of the building. Seven pieces were uncovered. Why were they buried? "Research revealed that some had been produced in error, and others may have been rejected because of mismatched finishes," the text says. It is hard for the visitor to see such flaws. The pieces are beautiful. Advertisement The show delivers another discovery: A series of decorative sheet metal pads that Sullivan designed for the American Stove Board Co. These relics from the days of free-standing potbelly stoves kept floors from being singed by falling embers. A row of them, displaying touches of Sullivan's geometric design without its fine-grained detail, is mounted on a wall. Samuelson speculates that Sullivan got the job to design the stove boards with the aid of his former chief draftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright designed a Prairie Style house in Highland Park for Ward Willits, an official of the stove board concern. To be sure, the show can be taken to task for what it leaves out. We do not hear, for example, about Sullivan's desperate letters to Frank Lloyd Wright, begging for money. Nevertheless, the exhibition is moving and illuminating. My lone complaint is that it's only open to Cliff Dwellers members and their guests. It deserves an open-to-the-public run somewhere else in town, even if another venue would lack the authenticity that derives from recalling Sullivan's final days in the home of the club that helped him when he was most in need. bkamin@chicagotribune.com Twitter @BlairKamin Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, is chairman of the council's Progressive Caucus, which sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, asking her to launch a federal review of the city Law Department's federal civil rights litigation division. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune) As the U.S. Justice Department asks Chicago to address deep flaws in police officers' use of force, a group of aldermen is accusing Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Law Department of enabling the misconduct and is asking federal authorities to investigate. The City Council's Progressive Caucus sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week, asking her to launch a federal review of the Law Department's federal civil rights litigation division, which has been sanctioned eight times during Emanuel's tenure for withholding possible evidence in police misconduct lawsuits, which it defends. Advertisement "It looks as if the cover-up extends not only to leadership of the Police Department but to the corporation counsel and our lawyers as well," Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, said in an interview. "I don't want that to happen." Lynch was in Chicago on Friday to deliver the report, a document that blistered the Chicago Police Department for years of poor training of officers who all too often use excessive force, most often against the city's minority residents. The city then routinely fails to adequately investigate problem officers and punish them, the U.S. Department of Justice report said, creating a culture where abuse is tolerated and trust in the department is severely damaged. Advertisement The 11-member caucus lashed out at the Law Department in a letter for its role in the erosion of the public's faith in both the police and the local justice system, calling on Emanuel to address a pattern of problems with how city lawyers handle potential evidence in police-related lawsuits. The request comes a week after a federal judge sanctioned the city for failing to turn over records involving the fatal police shooting of a 20-year-old man in 2012. In her sharply worded ruling, U.S. Judge Joan Gottschall faulted the city for acting in "bad faith" and blasted a "cavalier attitude" toward discovery, the legal process that allows the two sides in a lawsuit to uncover relevant facts through the exchange of documents, taking depositions and other disclosures. When the process breaks down, plaintiffs can find themselves at a disadvantage, their lawyers uncertain they are working with all of the evidence. Such failures also can prevent the public from fully understanding the circumstances surrounding alleged police misconduct incidents because most of the facts stay hidden until and unless they're aired in court. "We rely on the Law Department all the time to lay out the truth, and we don't get it," said Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, chairman of the progressive caucus. "There's a pattern of obfuscation and there's a pattern of concealment that runs up through the Law Department and the mayor's office." The caucus called on the Law Department to "clean house," which Waguespack said would mean the departure of Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton, whom Emanuel appointed to be the city's top lawyer in May 2011. Patton and Waguespack have clashed over several issues in recent years, including police reform, parking meter contracts and the city's initial efforts to conceal the video of a white police officer shooting and killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The McDonald video's release -- and the furious reaction to it -- prompted the Department of Justice to investigate the Police Department's policies and practices. The review, however, did not extend to the Law Department, though the 164-page report faulted the Law Department for its practice of keeping details of settlements in police misconduct lawsuits from the public. "The City's limited release of information regarding settlements further contributes to public distrust and the perception that the City wishes to keep officer misconduct concealed from public scrutiny," the federal report states. A Law Department spokesman disputed the Justice Department's finding on the department. Advertisement "The Law Department is completely open and transparent with all settlement documents, including settlements of cases that allege police misconduct," spokesman Bill McCaffrey wrote in an email. "Any suggestion otherwise is incorrect and not supported by the facts." Waguespack said the Law Department's leadership bears much of the responsibility for problems. "I think he should resign," Waguespack said of Patton. "But the mayor doesn't tell people to resign until it's politically unfeasible for him." Emanuel has said the sanctions are "unacceptable" and plaintiffs "deserve better," but that the Law Department has instituted reforms to ensure they won't be repeated. He also issued a statement staunchly defending Patton late Friday. "Few people in this administration have worked harder to implement transformational change in our police accountability systems than Steve Patton," Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins wrote in an email. "From helping to draft the police accountability ordinance and recruiting national experts on police training, to implementing significant reforms within the law department and providing guidance on all legal issues, Steve continues to play a key leadership role in the progress of our city." Gottschall's ruling marked the city's third sanction by a federal judge in a police misconduct lawsuit in six months, and the eighth since Emanuel took office in 2011. It also renewed questions about how the Law Department handles potential evidence in such cases, which are often high-profile, controversial and potentially costly for taxpayers. Advertisement "We recognize the seriousness of these sanctions," the caucus wrote in the letter, dated Jan. 10, "and they are directly related to the reforms your office will be recommending." A Tribune investigation last year that analyzed nearly 450 cases alleging police misconduct since Emanuel took office found that a federal judge had to order the city to turn over potential evidence in nearly 1 of every 5 cases. The issue came to a head in January 2016, when a federal judge sanctioned one city lawyer for intentionally concealing evidence and another for failing to make a reasonable effort to locate key records in a lawsuit stemming from the fatal 2011 police shooting of Darius Pinex. The judge took the rare step of tossing out a jury verdict in favor of the city and ordering a new trial. In the days following the ruling, Emanuel tapped former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb to lead a review of the Law Department's handling of police misconduct cases. Webb found no pattern of intentional misconduct among city attorneys, but he also recommended more than 50 reforms to address problems in the office. Patton instituted those reforms, along with several other measures he made immediately after the Pinex ruling. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > The city settled the case with Pinex's family last month for $2.37 million and agreed to pay an additional $1 million to the plaintiff's attorneys in the case. Advertisement Federal judges also have fined the city more than $350,000 for discovery violations in other police misconduct cases over the past six years. The penalties and the Pinex settlement were paid with taxpayer dollars, which the progressive caucus says makes Law Department reforms even more urgent. "We need to know what the Emanuel administration plans to do to address this before taxpayers get hit with even more lawsuits," Sawyer said. sstclair@chicagotribune.com jcoen@chicagotribune.com Twitter @stacystclair Twitter @jeffcoen President Barack Obama walks under an umbrella with senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and White House deputy chief of staff Anita Decker Breckenridge on the South Lawn upon return to the White House on May 18, 2015. (MANDEL NGAN / AFP-Getty) WASHINGTON Outgoing President Barack Obama has lined up a new office and is starting to build a staff as he gets ready to join an exclusive club as the fifth living former president. For months, Obama has made small talk about his future plans, typically describing a trip to the beach and a drink served in a coconut. Advertisement "What he's focusing (on) right now is taking his wife on a lovely vacation much-earned vacation and spending some time with (his wife Michelle) and beginning the hard work of standing up the Obama Center," Valerie Jarrett, a top aide, said last week. Obama will be the first former president to remain in Washington since Woodrow Wilson in 1921. The Obamas plan to stay in the capital until daughter Sasha, 15, finishes high school in 2019. Advertisement Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 42 U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama and his family wife Michelle, Sasha, 3, and Malia, 6 watch election results from their room Nov. 2, 2004, at the Hyatt Regency. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) He'll have a new office in the building that houses the World Wildlife Federation, not far from the White House and also near the Obamas' future home in the tony Kalorama neighborhood. A five-year lease has been signed, the Government Services Administration said. He also has hired a chief of staff to help him launch his post-presidential endeavors. He didn't have to look far, choosing Kenilworth native Anita Decker Breckenridge, 38, an aide since he was a state legislator in 2003 exploring a U.S. Senate run. Jarrett and White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Obama will work to ensure Americans have access to affordable health care, tackle the issue of gerrymandering and speak out on behalf of so-called Dreamers, who are the offspring of unauthorized immigrants brought here as children. He plans to be a mentor for the next generation of Democratic leaders while keeping open a line of communication with his Republican successor, Donald Trump, Jarrett said. He also figures to be busy preparing for the 2021 opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park. After Friday's inauguration, Barack and Michelle Obama are to leave the Capitol by helicopter for a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, said Navy Commander Jonathan Blyth, a spokesman for the joint task force overseeing the military's participation in Trump's inauguration. The Obamas will board Air Force One, but the plane's call sign will be re-designated since he will no longer be commander in chief, Blyth said. Jarrett wouldn't say where the Obamas are bound. It's expected that both Barack and Michelle Obama will write memoirs. The All American Speakers Bureau, a booking agency, already lists both the president and first lady on its web site as available for speaking gigs. The other living presidents George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all took divergent paths after leaving office. Advertisement Carter wrote books, monitored elections overseas, fought disease in Africa, volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and kept up his ministry. The elder Bush partnered with Bill Clinton on humanitarian causes, such as Hurricane Katrina relief. The younger Bush, who has kept a lower profile, took to painting. Clinton hit the lecture circuit, raised money for his family's foundation and campaigned for his wife's two unsuccessful White House runs. James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said many doors will open for the 55-year-old ex-president. "He's young, he's healthy, he's smart, he's charismatic and he wants to improve our democracy and help the world, so there's a variety of things that he can do," said Thurber, who lives not far from Obama's future home. At Obama's side will be Breckenridge, a graduate of New Trier High School who once interned for Sen. Dick Durbin and worked for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Now White House deputy chief of staff, Breckenridge has been a key player in the transition to the next administration since early 2016. In an interview, she said she has committed to her future job for a year but may stay for six years. She said more will emerge by the end of this year about the causes Obama's Chicago-based foundation will take up. "The beauty, maybe for lack of a better word, of becoming a former president is he's going to take some time to figure out" what's next, she said. "He can't do it all, right?" Advertisement Tina Tchen, who worked for eight years in the White House, mostly as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, said last week the toughest part of the job has been managing the many requests for the first lady's time. The deluge of invitations is not likely to let up after the Obamas leave the White House, said Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush and is now an executive-in-residence at the center Thurber leads at American University. "There will be plenty of invitations coming in asking her (Michelle Obama) to support a cause or attend an event or lend her name," she said. "A lot of that interest in her imprimatur still exists." Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Tchen in February will give a speech in London. She said during the spring she'll return to Chicago, where she had been a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm, and begin a job hunt. Michelle Obama's top crusades will live through their non-profit partners, Tchen said. The key initiatives were "Let's Move," "Joining Forces," "Reach Higher" and "Let Girls Learn." McBride, who has worked for three Republican presidents, knows the final days in the White House are exhilarating and bittersweet. Photos come down. Badges and phones are turned in. Close-knit aides disperse. Former aides to George W. Bush have helped smooth the Obamas' move out of the White House just as they eased their arrival in 2009, Breckenridge said. Advertisement "The fraternity gets quite small, quite fast, of folks that have ever taken a president outside of the White House and set them back up into normal life," she said. kskiba@chicagotribune.com Twitter @KatherineSkiba An SUV sought in connection with a fatal hit-and-run on Monday in the Englewood neighborhood has been found, but police did not immediately release information on whether the driver of the vehicle has been located. Shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday, a 21-year-old pedestrian was crossing at 69th Street and Wentworth Avenue when she was struck by a white, four-door SUV that kept going, police said. Advertisement The vehicle continued south on Wentworth. It was thought to be a 2014-2016 Mercedes GLK 350 with front-end damage on the passenger side, police said in an alert issued Saturday. The SUV has been located, police said in an updated alert sent Sunday evening. Police News Affairs did not immediately have information on whether the driver had been taken into custody or where the vehicle was found. The victim was identified as Shadara Sabria Muhammad, of the 9400 block of South Harvard Avenue, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Muhammad was pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m. Tuesday, according to the office. Advertisement A Wednesday autopsy was pending further studies and did not list a cause or manner for her death. Anyone with information about the incident or vehicle is asked to contact the Chicago Police Major Accident Investigation Unit at 312-745-4521. An off-duty Chicago police sergeant shot and wounded a person while returning fire at a car on the Northwest Side Sunday evening, authorities said. It was the second shooting by a Chicago police officer in less than 20 hours. Early Sunday, an on-duty officer fatally shot a man suspected of being involved in a shooting that wounded three people on the West Side, according to authorities. The off-duty sergeant was with a group of friends near the intersection of Wilson and Kedzie avenues just after 7:30 p.m., police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said at the scene. The sergeant and others in the group got into a confrontation with people in a dark-colored sedan, he said. The car pulled into the drive-thru of a nearby McDonald's and drove back around, and its occupants started arguing again with the sergeant and others. "One of the occupants in the vehicle brandished a gun and opened fire at the sergeant and his companions, prompting the sergeant to draw his weapon and return fire at the armed offender," the Police Department said in a statement. Advertisement Neither the sergeant nor anyone in his group were hurt, police said. Shortly afterward, a person with a gunshot wound to the head showed up at Swedish Covenant Hospital about 10 blocks away. The wound was not considered life-threatening, police said. Advertisement A weapon was recovered from the parking lot of the hospital and it had been fired, Guglielmi said. Investigators determined the wounded person had been involved in the confrontation, police said. A law enforcement source said the altercation may have involved mistaken identity. A man who works in a store nearby said he saw someone in a hooded sweatshirt fire five shots into a maroon SUV before running into the parking lot of a nearby McDonald's. A woman who lives on the second floor of an apartment building next to the McDonald's said she heard gunshots and, through her blinds, saw a man leaning over an SUV and firing at another car. More than a dozen police and detectives converged on the scene, a commercial strip that includes the McDonald's, a Subway sandwich shop, a Starbucks and some apartments. A McDonald's supervisor came to the scene to hand surveillance video over to police. Detectives were collecting other video and interviewing apartment residents who live nearby. The sergeant, who works in the 19th District, will be placed on administrative duty for 30 days, per department policy. Check back for updates. Chicago Tribune's Megan Crepeau contributed. The Rev. C. T. Vivian, a prominent civil rights activist who worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at St. Sabina's MLK Day Mass on Jan. 15, 2016. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune) (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune) Sitting in the front row of St. Sabina Catholic Church, Angelia Kinard gazed over at a framed black and white portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. resting near the altar. "It brings back a lot of memories," she said. "I was in Chicago when he was killed. It was devastating. It was heartbreaking." Advertisement Kinard, 74, a Bedford Park resident, was one of hundreds of people to attend a special service at the Auburn-Gresham church Sunday on what would have been King's 88th birthday. "Being here for Martin Luther King's birthday feels so warm," she said. "It makes you think about what he went through, and what we're going through is nothing compared to him. But God is going to help us overcome all of this." Advertisement The Rev. Cordy Tindell "C. T." Vivian, a veteran civil rights activist, spoke during the celebration to honor his friend and colleague whom he affectionately referred to as "Martin." "It was a mean and cruel world how else do you express it? And then came Martin King," Vivian said. "He forced the most powerful nation in the world to say no when it wanted to say yes and yes when it wanted to say no." Vivian, 92, participated in the Freedom Rides and sit-ins of the civil rights movement and started groups that fought for equality. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in August 2013. "We found that if you love, you win," he said. The Rev. Michael Pfleger addressed the crowd and championed Vivian as a hero who "truly helped change the nation." "Dr. Vivian, at 92 years old, is still out here, still in the action, pushing us closer to freedom every single day," Pfleger said. Pfleger also delivered a scathing criticism of Donald Trump, saying that the president-elect denounced civil rights activist and Georgia congressman John Lewis on Twitter on Saturday. Trump's comments came in response to Lewis' assertion in an interview Friday that he did not see Trump as a "legitimate" president because of Russian involvement in the defeat of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > "To call John Lewis, a person of all talk and no action you ought to be ashamed, Donald Trump," Pfleger said. Advertisement Lewis was beaten by police and nearly lost his life during protests in the long struggle for civil rights. Kinard, who said she also encountered racism growing up in the 1960s, said it was "heartwarming" to hear Vivian speak about his experiences. "As a black woman, I have endured a lot of the things that they were talking about. But today, I was uplifted," Kinard said. "Black or white, purple or pink the whole point is that we need to be more together and help each other in life to get along." Greg Zanis, a carpenter whose more than 750 crosses dedicated to Chicago's 2016 homicide victims were carried down Michigan Avenue on New Year's Eve, was awarded a plaque during the service. He said he is working on more crosses to honor victims in 2017. nmoreno@tribpub.com Twitter @nereidamorenos President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Barack Obama's signature health care law with the goal of "insurance for everybody," while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid. Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with The Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his party's congressional majorities. Advertisement Trump's plan is likely to face questions from the right, following years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans. In addition to his replacement plan for the ACA, also known as Obamacare, Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices and demand that they negotiate directly with Medicaid and Medicare. Advertisement "They're politically protected, but not anymore," he said of pharmaceutical companies. The objectives of broadening access to insurance and lowering health care costs have always been in conflict, and it remains unclear how the plan that the incoming administration is designing -- or ones that will emerge on Capitol Hill -- would address that tension. In general, congressional GOP plans to replace Obamacare have tended to try to constrain costs by reducing government requirements, such as the medical services that must be provided under health plans sold through the law's marketplaces and through states' Medicaid programs. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other Republicans have been talking lately about providing "universal access" to health insurance, instead of universal insurance coverage. Trump said he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly and in unison in the coming weeks on other priorities as well, including enacting sweeping tax cuts and beginning the building of a wall along the Mexican border. Trump warned Republicans that if the party splinters or slows his agenda, he is ready to use the power of the presidency -- and Twitter -- to usher his legislation to passage. "The Congress can't get cold feet because the people will not let that happen," Trump said during the interview with The Post. Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obama's health care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details -- "lower numbers, much lower deductibles" -- he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky. "It's very much formulated down to the final strokes. We haven't put it in quite yet but we're going to be doing it soon," Trump said. He noted that he is waiting for his nominee for secretary of health and human services, Rep. Tom Price. R-Ga., to be confirmed. That confirmation rests with the Senate Finance Committee, which has not yet scheduled a hearing. Advertisement Trump's declaration that his replacement plan is ready comes after many Republicans -- moderates and conservatives -- expressed anxiety last week about the party's lack of a formal proposal as they held votes on repealing the law. Once his plan is made public, Trump said, he is confident that it could get enough votes to pass in both chambers. He declined to discuss how he would court wary Democrats. So far, Republicans have used budget reconciliation -- where only a majority is needed -- on the initial steps to repeal the health care law. Removing or replacing other parts of the law is likely to require 60 votes to overcome Democratic filibusters. The GOP has a 52-to-48 edge in the Senate. The plan that Trump is preparing will come after the House has taken more than 60 votes in recent years to kill all or parts of the ACA to kill to adopt more conservative health care policies, which tend to rely more heavily on the private sector. Republican leaders have said that they will not strand people who have gained insurance under the ACA without coverage. But it remains unclear from either Trump's comments in the interview or recent remarks by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill how exactly they intend to accomplish that. "I think we will get approval. I won't tell you how, but we will get approval. You see what's happened in the House in recent weeks," Trump said, referencing his tweet during a House Republican move to gut their independent ethics office, which along with widespread constituent outrage was cited by some members as a reason the gambit failed. Advertisement As he has developed a replacement package, Trump said he has paid attention to critics who say that repealing Obamacare would put coverage at risk for more than 20 million Americans covered under the law's insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. "We're going to have insurance for everybody," Trump said. "There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us." People covered under the law "can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better." For conservative Republicans dubious about his pledge to ensure coverage for millions, Trump pointed to several interviews he gave during the campaign in which he promised to "not have people dying on the street." "It's not going to be their plan," he said of people covered under the current law. "It'll be another plan. But they'll be beautifully covered. I don't want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people," he said Saturday. Trump did not say how his program overlaps with the comprehensive plan authored by House Republicans. Earlier this year, Price suggested that a Trump presidency would advance the House GOP's health care agenda. Advertisement When asked in the interview whether he intends to cut benefits for Medicare as part of his plan, Trump said "no," a position that was reiterated Sunday on ABC by Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff. He did not elaborate on that view or how it would affect his proposal. He expressed that view throughout the campaign. Timing could be difficult as Trump puts an emphasis on speed. Obama's law took more than 14 months of debate and hundreds of hearings. To urge lawmakers on, Trump plans to attend a congressional Republican retreat in Philadelphia this month. Moving ahead, Trump said that lowering drug prices is central to reducing health care costs nationally -- and that he will make it a priority as he uses his bully pulpit to shape policy. When asked how exactly he would force drug manufacturers to comply, Trump said that part of his approach would be public pressure "just like on the airplane," a nod to his tweets about Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet, which Trump said was too costly. Trump waved away the suggestion that such activity could lead to market volatility on Wall Street. "Stock drops and America goes up," he said. "I don't care. I want to do it right or not at all." He added that drug companies "should produce" more products in the United States. The question of whether the government should start negotiating how much it pays drug-makers for older Americans on Medicare has long been a partisan dispute, ever since the 2003 law that created Medicare drug benefits prohibited such negotiations. Advertisement Trump's goal, however, with respect to Medicaid, the insurance for low-income Americans run jointly by the federal government and states is uncertain. Under what is known as a Medicaid "best price" rule, pharmaceutical companies already are required to sell drugs to Medicaid as the lowest price they negotiate with any other buyer. On his plan for tax cuts, Trump said that "we're getting very close" to putting together legislation. His advisers and Ryan met last week and have been working from his campaign's plan and from congressional proposals to slash current rates. "It'll probably be 15 to 20 percent for corporations. For individuals, probably lower. Great middle-class tax cuts," Trump said. On corporate tax rates, "We may negotiate a little, but we want to bring them down and get as close to 15 percent as we can so we can see a mushrooming of jobs moving back." Trump said he would not relent on his push for increasing taxes on U.S. companies that manufacture abroad -- and insisted that the upcoming tax cuts should be enough reason for companies to produce within the United States. "If companies think they're going to make their cars or other products overseas and sell them back into the United States, they're going to pay a 35 percent tax," he said. Advertisement Briefly touching on immigration, Trump said that building a border wall and curbing illegal immigration remain at the top of his to-do list and that he is spending significant time looking at ways to begin projects, both with Congress and through executive action. He did not disclose what was to come on those fronts. In this photo released by the Kremlin Press service via Sputnik agency, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an undated recording of his annual televised New Year's message in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia. (Mikhail Klimentyev, AP) Every country suffers from corruption, but not every country is a kleptocracy. Kleptocracy, or "rule by thieves," arises when a country's elite begin to systematically steal from public funds on a vast scale. They do so by undermining democracy and the legal system, gaining control over vital economic assets (usually the banking and natural-resource sectors), and ultimately amassing unimaginable wealth. As political science professor Karen Dawisha recently put it, kleptocrats manage to nationalize risk while privatizing profits. Examples are as diverse as Russia's oligarchs under President Vladimir Putin, China's sprawling Communist Party and South Sudan's violently failed state. Could the United States join these ranks? To answer that question, we need to dispel some common myths. 1. Kleptocracies exist mostly in the developing world. Advertisement The word "kleptocracy" often conjures Cold War imagery of despotic tyrants in poor, faraway places. And it is true that many of the world's most corrupt countries are in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But a kleptocracy is no longer a corrupt political system in a few poor nations: It is a sophisticated global network whose members include world leaders and powerful business people. Kleptocrats send money around the world with the click of a button, aided by unscrupulous professionals with the expertise to launder it through anonymous offshore companies and secure it in luxury assets in the West. According to the International Monetary Fund, as much as 5 percent of the world's gross domestic product is laundered money, and only 1 percent of it is ever spotted. Illicit cross-border financial flows have been estimated at $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion per year. A 2012 study put the total private wealth held offshore at up to $32 trillion and suggested that, since the 1970s, elites from 139 low-to-middle-income countries had parked as much as $9.3 trillion in offshore accounts. Advertisement Some of the money is hidden right here. As the driving force behind global economic reform for the past three decades, the United States has played an important role in the rise of the globalized kleptocrat. America has become one of the leading secrecy jurisdictions. Delaware, South Dakota, Wyoming and other states do not require disclosure of corporate ownership, meaning that kleptocrats aren't parking their assets just in exotic locations like the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands anymore. U.S. real estate then provides an attractive conduit for securing and legitimizing the laundered funds. A New York Times investigation revealed that, of the properties purchased for more than $5 million in Manhattan in 2014, more than half were bought by anonymous companies that disguised the buyers' identities. 2. Kleptocracies are strong. Today, some of the most powerful countries in the world are kleptocracies. Russia, for example, currently seems to be dictating global affairs. China, another classic, is the second-largest economy in the world. Kleptocracy doesn't necessarily make governments weak. But the skewed priorities of greedy autocratic rulers and the looting of resources that should be used for public services mean that the countries are much weaker than they should be. Russia, for instance, can't afford to honor its obligations to impoverished pensioners, but there is apparently plenty of money available for Putin's former judo partner to build a bridge to occupied Crimea and for a new Kremlin propaganda channel in France. A 2016 report showed that developing countries collectively had lost $16.3 trillion to illicit leakages since 1980. While their people struggled, starved and died, exported corruption effectively made these governments net creditors to the world economy. In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that people begin to see government as a criminal racket instead of a legitimate provider of public services. In extreme cases where elites have given up any pretense of government, this includes security: It is no coincidence that the world's most corrupt countries are also the most internally divided and violent. In the long run, then, kleptocracy doesn't just weaken governments. It destroys them. 3. The United States is already a kleptocracy. "We're living in a kleptocracy," Salon claimed in 2015. "America robs from its poor while its infrastructure crumbles." It's not the only one who thinks so. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 75 percent of Americans believed corruption to be widespread in their government, a sentiment Donald Trump capitalized on with his promise to "drain the swamp." Advertisement Few would argue that corruption doesn't exist in the United States, but fewer seriously believe that it is the sole purpose of their government. Unlike the average Russian, Americans haven't watched their president's friends loot 5 percent of GDP in the past decade. Unlike a quarter of Ukrainians, the average American hasn't had to pay a bribe to get officials to do their jobs. And unlike the Chinese, Americans don't feel impelled to send trillions of dollars overseas illegally. The United States has strong constitutional safeguards that guarantee democratic participation, free speech and, most important, rule of law. Prosecutors wield a robust set of mechanisms to address official corruption when it does occur. The United States is far from perfect, but despite the uproar on alternative and social media, it is not a kleptocracy. 4. American institutions will shield us from kleptocracy. In the wake of Trump's election, major news outlets ran pieces on what U.S. institutions could do to protect the country from collapse. Vox told readers, "It's now on America's institutions and the Republican Party to check Donald Trump." Slate argued that professional bureaucrats could slow Trump's progress. Writing in The New York Times, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt reassured that "no democracy as rich or as established as America's ever has" collapsed (though they said there's reason to worry). Unfortunately, key political, financial and cultural institutions have yet to be fire-walled against new methods of interference and infiltration by bad actors. In Washington, well-remunerated firms exploit weaknesses in foreign-lobbying laws to advance the interests of violent kleptocracies on Capitol Hill (the Kremlin is currently hiring for $30 million to $50 million per year). In the financial world, major U.S. banks are routinely implicated in money laundering scandals and fined huge sums. Even Hollywood is not immune: "The Wolf of Wall Street" was allegedly produced partly with cash stolen from Malaysia's 1MDB development fund. We are making some progress. The Justice Department's Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative has frozen $2.8 billion in 28 cases since 2010. In July, the Treasury Department announced geographic targeting orders that make it impossible to complete anonymous all-cash purchases of high-value real estate in New York, Miami and four other key jurisdictions. And through the Magnitsky Act and other sanctions, the U.S. government has made life so difficult for some kleptocrats that relief is consistently cited as a major Kremlin priority. At the moment, the United States is simultaneously the world's leading enabler and opponent of kleptocracy. Advertisement 5. Donald Trump is setting himself up to rule as a kleptocrat. Alarm bells on this subject began ringing soon after Trump was elected. The Washington Post's Plum Line blog warned of "the coming Trump kleptocracy." New York magazine wrote that "Trump's kleptocracy is so astounding it already feels like old news." There are reasons for concern. Trump's personality-based populism, his refusal to release his tax returns or place his assets in a blind trust, the prominent roles played by his family during the transition, financial ties between some members of his inner circle and Russia and his own stance toward the Kremlin have all raised questions about how he intends to conduct himself in office. On the other hand, Trump campaigned on the principle that his enormous personal wealth would insulate him from financial temptations, which made sense to the millions of Americans who voted for him to "drain the swamp." Ultimately, only Trump knows what his plans are for the highest office. But U.S. constitutional safeguards and institutions are significantly more robust than those in countries where corruption has taken over. If Trump really wants to establish a kleptocracy, there are easier countries in which to do it. Washington Post Natalie Duffy and Nate Sibley are researchers at Hudson Institute's Kleptocracy Initiative. The last Martin Luther King Jr. Day before America's first black president handed power over to Donald Trump was always going to be awkward. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, determined just how awkward it would be when he told Chuck Todd of "Meet the Press" that he did not see Trump as a "legitimate president." No one needs a refresher on how Donald Trump responded, with an insult to the city of Atlanta, but some might have missed the pushback in mainstream and conservative media. Byron York, the Washington Examiner's chief political correspondent, saw a "dilemma" emerging for Democrats who could not agree with Lewis, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, calling the "not legitimate" charge "nonproductive," White House chief of staff Denis McDonough calling Trump "freely elected" and Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vermont, calling the insult "just words." Advertisement York's analysis: "For some Democrats, the illegitimacy charge would move them a bit too close to a kind of birtherism that they spent years denouncing. (Remember that Republican leaders stayed away from birtherism, although some GOP members of Congress embraced, or at least flirted, with it.) Advertisement "So it's possible, perhaps likely, that the Trump illegitimacy charge will remain confined to the leftmost reaches of the Democratic Party, just as birtherism was confined to the rightmost reaches of the GOP." Did you notice something in that parenthetical? I'll repeat it: "Republican leaders stayed away from birtherism, although some GOP members of Congress embraced, or at least flirted, with it." You can probably name a very prominent Republican who did embrace the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and thus ineligible to be president. He will be taking the oath of office this Friday, and then President Obama will hand him the White House keys. It's true that few Democrats will embrace Lewis's insult of Trump. It's just as true that media gatekeepers will define it as out of line, and fringy, to say that Trump is not a legitimate president. But Lewis's line is exactly the sort of thing that distracted and enraged Democrats, and the same media gatekeepers, when it was directed against Obama. I'm not making an equivalence between the racist birther conspiracy and the "legitimate" jab - I'm just saying that many Democrats, Lewis included, appeared to learn from 2016 that explosive rhetoric that drives the other party to distraction is its own reward. After reporting last week on the Democrats who wanted to ditch the "high ground" and take on Trump, I've taken to calling this the New Rudeness. It's an inevitable byproduct of Trump's victory, and of the failed campaign Hillary Clinton ran against him. But it's also a product of Republican opposition to Obama. In 2009, as a reporter at the late and lamented Washington Independent, I closely covered the Democrats and outside groups who were rumbled by the angry opposition of the tea party. In early 2009, after Rush Limbaugh told listeners that he hoped Obama "failed" - at the bottom of the Great Recession - Democrats and reporters for outlets like ThinkProgress called out Republicans who would not denounce Limbaugh. The effect: Some bruised feelings for Republicans, but much more mainstreaming of Limbaugh's point. Months later, the tea party had perhaps its biggest legislative victory when it disrupted the normally staid town hall meetings that members of Congress held over the long August recess. Democrats, at first, thought that the story of these raucous events could become their noisiness - that swing voters would not want to identify with the sorts of people who accused congressmen of trying to kill them with rationing. Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called the protests "astroturf," hoping that the organizing role played by well-funded tea party groups would discredit them. They were wrong, and it was especially ironic that the San Francisco-based Pelosi was so wrong. Conservatives in 2009 were using tactics that they believed had been perfected by the left. They cited Saul Alinsky's rules - find a target, freeze it and polarize it, as well as drown it with ridicule. What does this have to do with Lewis's remarks? It has more to do with their "controversial" nature. From 2009 through the Trump campaign, it was easy to find "serious" or "reasonable" conservatives who would denounce the voter anger they saw on the right. Clinton's campaign practically turned the practice into dogma. It made a long bet that voters would be repulsed by Trump, and built an ad strategy and an outreach strategy around that theory. Advertisement The campaign had a point, or thought it did. In focus groups, voters were repulsed by Trump's insults of non-white voters and women. Black voters were repulsed by his birtherism - and indeed, Trump eventually walked it back, though without apologizing to Obama. The Clinton campaign piled onto the airwaves in swing states with ads that showed women glumly listening to Trump talking about their bodies and children becoming pie-eyed as Trump cursed. More importantly, plenty of Republicans seemed to agree with the strategy. Glenn Beck himself, the icon of the early tea party movement, spent the weeks before the election on an apology tour and hinted to Vice News that he might vote for Clinton. None of this mattered. It turned out that Trump could beat Clinton even with voters who disliked both of them, because voters came to see the attacks on his rhetoric as a distraction. Democrats had been baited - every day they spent asking why Republicans would not denounce the latest Trump insult was a day they did not spend talking about their policies or record. In other words, Trump's rudeness, like the tea party's disruptions, were effective because they were outside political norms and couldn't be defended. It did not matter whether individual Republicans went on TV or held Capitol Hill hallway conversations to criticize them. Voters could not have cared less about the norms. It didn't matter how many "Republicans divided" stories they read. Anyone who walked past merch tables with "Trump That B---h" and "Hillary Sucks, but Not Like Monica" shirts knew this. Democrats were wasting money on polling and focus groups when they could have just noticed how people talked about politics, and politicians, on Facebook. Will rudeness hold the same benefits for Democrats as it did for Republicans? In electoral terms, maybe not. Although Trump is the least popular president-elect in popular memory, the seats Democrats need to win in 2018 are in more Trump-friendly turf than the country at large. You'll see Democrats in purple or red districts refuse to agree that Trump is "illegitimate," or refuse to make a "golden showers" joke. Plenty of Trump-mockery can be dismissed as empty choir-preaching, like how John Oliver's "eviscerations" of Trump go viral only with people who hate Trump already. But this is how we live now. Trump, who will soon be etched in history books alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, has not given up his habit of Twitter-fighting with people who are mean to him. Democrats have figured out that a #ThisIsNotNormal hashtag is not the way to respond. Their antidote is the New Rudeness. David Weigel is a national political correspondent for The Washington Post covering the 2016 election and ideological movements. Gutless. How else is the Illinois General Assembly to be described when it allowed Michael Madigan to remain in control of the General Assembly? A vote for Madigan is an endorsement of how Illinois has been doing business for the past three decades. Gutless. What else explains our state's inability to perform at a level that does not make us the laughing stock of the U.S.? Advertisement Gutless. A vote for Madigan is a vote to continue putting the weakest of our population schoolchildren, impoverished mothers and toddlers, our aging mothers and fathers, the handicapped in harm's way. Gutless. What is more basic to the job description of a politician than to responsibly handle our tax money? What is more basic than creating a fiscally sound budget? Advertisement Gutless. Who doesn't understand that compromise is essential to our way of life? Unfortunately, the pols aren't the only ones to wear the label of gutless. Illinois people, myself included, must wear this label for not attending meetings, writing letters, or making phone calls that would put an end to this nonsense of Illinois as derelict. Write your first letter today. Find out when the next town meeting of your Illinois senator and representative is held. Attend it. Stand up and make it clear that we want the madness to end. Let's all stop being gutless. Thomas Nance, Prophetstown (Scott Stantis) Related stories: Speaker Madigan public servant, not prom king Same as ever: Madigan re-elected House speaker with only one holdout Arlington Heights Police are looking for a man who exposed himself to two South Middle School students walking home from school. According to Arlington Heights Police Sgt. Stephanie Mack, two girls, ages 13 and 14, were walking southbound on Mitchell Avenue just two blocks from South Middle School, 400 S. Highland Ave., on Friday when a man driving a car described as a purple Honda with a gray interior drove past the girls then parked at the intersection of Mitchell Avenue and Fairview Street. Advertisement "As the girls were crossing at Fairview, he blocked their path and stopped in front of them," Mack said. "He was still in the car, sitting, and as they were walking past the car, they looked in and saw him ... He never said anything and didn't approach them." The girls ran to the home of the one of the girls and a parent called and reported the incident to police at 2:55 p.m., authorities said. Advertisement Mack said the man, described as being a white man in his 20s wearing a gray T-shirt, never got out of the car. She said authorities do not believe that the incident was related to any other recent crimes. "It seemed like a complete random act," Mack said. "We've had no other calls." South Middle School Principal Piper Boston notified parents of the incident by email just before 6 p.m. Friday night and warned them of precautions they should take with their children. "This situation brings to light the importance of taking the time to talk with your children about stranger danger and immediately reporting any incident to an adult and the police, similar to these students," Boston said in her email. "It is recommended that kids walk in pairs or small groups whenever possible." She included a resource link for parents wishing to warn their children. "Make sure your kids don't walk home alone," Mack added, "and call 911 if you see anything suspicious." Elizabeth Owens-Schiele is a freelance reporter. Montgomery police are investigating a Friday night shooting on the far west side of the village, authorities said. Police were dispatched at 9:44 p.m. Friday to a report of shots fired in the area of Jericho and Orchard roads. The first arriving officers located a vehicle north of Jericho on Orchard that had been involved in a single vehicle crash, according to a police statement issued Sunday afternoon. Advertisement Police said the vehicle had been struck by multiple gunshots and one man sustained a gunshot wound. The man, whose identity has not been released, was transported by ambulance to Presence Mercy Medical Center in Aurora. He was airlifted to Loyola Medical Center in critical condition. Montgomery police were assisted by Aurora, Oswego and Yorkville police departments as well as the Kane and Kendall County sheriff's offices. Advertisement Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Montgomery Police Department Investigations Division at (630) 897-8707 Ext. 9058 or the Aurora Area Crime Stoppers at (630) 892-1000. Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for the Beacon-News. Quick-acting employees at a St. Charles manufacturing building alerted authorities to a fire and got out of the business with no injuries, according to a news release from St. Charles Fire Chief Joe Schelstreet. Firefighters were dispatched at 7:39 a.m. Monday to a report of insulation burning on the roof of Pyramid Manufacturing on the 3800 block of Illinois Avenue, according to the news release. Advertisement Within four minutes, fire crews were on the scene, where they found a fire burning on the roof surrounding an industrial vent stack, according to fire officials. Firefighters got to the roof and put the fire out in about 20 minutes, fire officials said. Advertisement Employees at the manufacturing building had noticed the fire, activated a manual pull station and called 911 to give further information, according to fire officials. Fire officials said the cause of the fire was accidental, and attributed it to combustibles being too close to heat. The estimated loss is $7,000. The Pyramid Manufacturing Corp. is a precision sheet metal fabricator, according to the city's business directory. Geneva, Batavia and West Chicago fire departments assisted St. Charles at the fire, according to the news release. hleone@tribpub.com Twitter @hannahmleone Hinsdale Central's senior Eamon McMahon of Clarendon Hills along with Katie Morris of Hinsdale volunteer with Feed My Starving Children in February 2016. (Steve Johnston / Chicago Tribune) Some teachers in Hinsdale High School District 86 had their own homework this summer, reworking American politics and AP government classes to incorporate new state civics requirements. "Teachers spent this past summer making those changes, this year implementing those changes, and plan this summer to modify them again for next year's requirement," said Billson Rasavongxay, chairman of the Hinsdale Central social studies department. Advertisement Under the new state law, students throughout Illinois are required to take two years of social studies, including a semester of civics. The goal is to "help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives," the legislation states. Advertisement The law specifies that the course should include "the discussion of current and controversial issues, service learning and simulations of the democratic process." The law also requires a service learning component, something that was already included in requirements at Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park, but something new to District 86 and Lyons Township High School District 204. "The state has not been very precise as to what service means," said Scott Eggerding, director of curriculum and instruction at Lyons Township High School. "We're still trying to figure that out." Matt Guritz, social studies department chairman at Hinsdale South High School, said no set number of hours is specified. However, the activity should reflect the student's choice and interest. Some examples include working with a charity, attending any level of local government, tutoring, or participating in a service club or voter registration drives, Guritz said. Hinsdale Central is providing a list of local organizations that have connections with the school and have reached out to help with the volunteer and service learning aspect of the course. "This past semester, we took a bus of students to Lewis University to help with a food drive," Rasavongxay said. Central activities director Sally Philip may help with a schoolwide project. District 86 plans to offer the course in summer, but it would be more difficult to complete service hours during the compressed time frame of the summer session. Advertisement "We also are still deciding how to handle students with significant job or family responsibilities," Guritz said. "We want them to experience civic engagement, but not in a way that causes family hardship." Therese Hawkins, Nazareth Academy's director of curriculum and instruction, said the law allows schools to determine how to incorporate civics education into their current curricula in a way that best meets the needs of their students. Nazareth plans to incorporate the requirements into various classes such as world history, contemporary world issues and Gospel service. "All students, from freshmen through seniors, will be engaged in those courses and in civics-focused activities," Hawkins said. "Our contemporary world issues teachers are already working on incorporating even more lessons that engage students in lively discussions of political issues to help them further develop their critical thinking skills." How civics will be added to other classes is being worked out, she said. About 60 percent of high schools in Illinois require a civics or government course, according to Shawn Healy, a civics scholar at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, but it's not clear to what extent those classes include the elements of the new law, an article in the Chicago Tribune reported in 2015. Another 27 percent of high schools have elective classes in the subject area. The rest don't have a civics course, he said. Nationwide, students perform poorly on civics exams, according to federal data. Fewer than a quarter of 12th-graders performed at or above the proficient level on the 2010 civics exam, called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Advertisement The test was given to a sample of fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders around the country. The eighth-graders fared worst, with just 22 percent scoring at least proficient. The fourth-graders did best, with 27 percent at or above proficient. Adults also have gaps in civics knowledge. For example, a 2010 Pew Research Center poll found that only 59 percent of respondents could name the vice president (Joe Biden) in an open-ended question. The McCormick Foundation and other nonprofit, business and civic groups have pledged to contribute at least $1 million annually for three years for teacher training in civics across the state. Hawkins is pleased to see the new requirement. "I think it's important for students to understand democratic processes and to have a sense that democracies require informed participation," she said. "So, yes, I like the idea of civics education." Diane Rado of the Chicago Tribune contributed to this report. Advertisement kfornek@pioneerlocal.com Twitter @kfdoings Five people have announced their intent to run as The Citizens for Change Party against incumbent Franklin Park officials up for re-election in April. Cynthia Guerrero is running for village president, and Michael A. LaCassa is running for village clerk. Christopher Litwin, Diego DiMarco and Frank Houswerth are running for village trustee, according to candidate nomination petitions filed on Dec. 15. Advertisement According to state filings, Guerrero the chair of The Citizens for Change Party and also the chair of the Leyden Township Leadership Fund committee, which describes its goal as supporting Hispanic Candidates in Leyden Township. Litwin unsuccessfully ran for village trustee in 2015. His candidacy was derailed after former Trustee Randall Petersen successfully objected to the signature sheets circulated to nominate him and two other candidates who were running for public office at the time. Petersen, the village's former police chief, was originally elected trustee in 2011. In 2015, he retired from the village board, and current Trustee James Caporusso ran unopposed to fill the open seat. Advertisement DiMarco previously ran for village trustee in 2011 as a member of the Franklin Park Independent Tea Party and lost, according to Cook County election records. Ahead of this year's April 4 election, Robert Godlewski has filed candidacy objections to all five challengers. In 2014, Godlewski and Petersen successfully filed objections to a term limits referendum question submitted in 2015 by Ken Zurek. On Jan. 10, the village's electoral board met to set the rules for how the election board was going to move forward with the public hearings on objections to the nomination papers for the five candidates and their lawyers, said Village Clerk Thompson. The next public meeting of the village's electoral board focused on the five candidates' nomination paperwork was scheduled for Jan. 18, Thompson said. In addition to candidates running for office, the village will also have three referendum questions on the April 4 ballot. The first of the three questions asks whether residents would want to "allocate video gaming taxes received from the state of Illinois to the police and fire pensions." The second referendum question approved by trustees will ask whether "the village of Franklin Park shall establish a voluntary property acquisition program with grant funds for the purchase of residential properties in the floodway." And the third referendum question will ask whether the village "shall demolish the former police station to create additional Metra commuter parking." Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Choir students from Doane University sing as they move onto the stage at a choir concert with Lake Zurich High School students in Lake Zurich. (Tim Carroll / Pioneer Press) About 100 choir members from both Lake Zurich High School and Doane University in Nebraska recently joined forces for a concert in Lake Zurich. "Everything went very well," said Nick Juknelis, director of vocal music for Lake Zurich High School. "It was good for our students to sing with a college group." Advertisement The two choirs put on the show in front of about 200 people Jan. 13 at the Performing Arts Center at Lake Zurich High School. Many area residents attended and some of them even provided housing to Doane students, who spent the night in Lake Zurich after the show, organizers said. Advertisement Choir Director Nick Juknelis directs the Lake Zurich High School Choir at a concert with Doane University students from Nebraska. (Tim Carroll / Pioneer Press) "It went really well," said senior Melanie McGrath, a member of the Lake Zurich High School Concert Choir. "It was a cool experience to sing with a collegiate choir versus just a high school choir." The event was arranged between Juknelis and Kurt Runestad, director of the Doane Choir, who attended graduate school with Juknelis at the University of Iowa, Juknelis said. "Our suburban high school is larger than their college, so it was a unique experience for both parties," he said. During rehearsal, dinner and the show, Lake Zurich students were able to interact and share stories with the college students, McGrath said. The experience helped McGrath decide that she wants to join a college choir one day, she said. "We got to see how a university choir bonds," McGrath said. "It kind of inspired me to join a college choir. It showed me how it would go." Phil Rockrohr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. In a resolution sent to Springfield, Lake Zurich officials are asking state lawmakers to grant the village automatic appropriation of critical funds." (Lee V. Gaines photo / Chicago Tribune) As uncertainty continues to build over state finances, Lake Zurich officials are asking state lawmakers to grant the village automatic appropriation of "critical funds" without waiting for approval of a new state budget. In the past, lawmakers in Springfield have delayed the release of critical state funds that Lake Zurich officials often rely on to bankroll local services, according to a resolution trustees approved in December. Automatic appropriation of those funds would help alleviate the issue, said Village President Tom Poynton. Advertisement "I don't know of a fairer way," Poynton said. "The money was collected quickly enough. Timely disbursement of funds legally due to municipalities seems reasonably fair to me." So far, state officials have yet to respond to the resolution Lake Zurich officials recently sent to Springfield, he said. Advertisement State Sen. Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, and Rep. Nick Sauer, R-Lake Barrington, did not return multiple requests for comment regarding the resolution. The Illinois Municipal League, which provides legal advocacy to local governments, recommended the resolution as part of its annual legislative agenda, Kyle Kordell, assistant to the village manager, said in a memo last month to village trustees. Unpredictability in the state budget process has created delays as long as five months before the release of revenues that Lake Zurich officials depend on, he said. Automatic appropriation of Motor Fuel Tax funds, video and casino gaming revenues, use tax funds, and 911 revenue would help Lake Zurich better manage its budget, Kordell said, noting how the money often accumulates in special state funds awaiting appropriation. "As we learned during the 2015 fiscal year, the annual appropriation requirement that currently exists can prevent these funds from being distributed, despite the fact that they are non-general revenue funds and do not affect state government budgets," Kordell said. Illinois Municipal League Executive Director Brad Cole could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts. IML Legislative Director Joe McCoy also did not return a request for comment. As a non-home rule community, Lake Zurich needs to collect revenues in a timely manner, Poynton said. "Any delay in receipt of funds from these state-controlled, limited-revenue sources that are due to us could result in a reduction of important services to our residents," he said. "We budget for the timely receipt of the funds that are due to us to help us provide the high quality of resident services that we provide." Advertisement Businesses and other agencies that work with Lake Zurich also expect to be paid in a timely manner, Poynton said. "We deal in good faith with vendors that we contract with that we will pay them," he said. "Delays in receipt of funds put those payments in jeopardy." The resolution is intended simply to tell state officials that Lake Zurich officials expect to receive the state funding that it is due to them, said trustee Jeff Halen. "A lot of our budget is based upon, for example, sales tax revenue and MFT revenue," Halen said. "It is critical, so we can make sure we do what we need to do on a timely basis that we get the funds from the state in a timely manner." Trustee Greg Weider said an automatic appropriation authority would allow Lake Zurich officials access to important funds without the delays that have been caused by the budget impasse in Springfield. "The Village of Lake Zurich has limited revenue sources, as a non- home rule community, and delay of these funds can have a negative impact on the village's budget, the services we provide to our residents and our obligations to our vendors," Weider said. Advertisement Phil Rockrohr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Former Chicago Bears cornerback Charles Tillman encouraged a group of more than 200 to use their position in life to serve others during Advocate Christ Medical Center's annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration on Monday. Speaking to a crowd that included doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, high school students and volunteers, Tillman shared stories of how others helped him throughout his life to bring him to where he is today. One example included a high school teacher who was from Jamaica. After every class, she would tell him "Charles, you've got to do good man," or "Charles, you've got to want to want better for yourself," Tillman recalled. Advertisement "I'm so thankful for teachers like that," Tillman said. "They helped build me into the guy you see now. I'm nothing without the values and lessons they taught me." Tillman also shared the story of his daughter, who at 3 months old was rushed to the hospital with heart failure. His daughter eventually received a heart transplant, and Tillman said it was his faith that helped get him through those agonizing months. Advertisement In the years after the transplant, Tillman and his wife started the Charles Tillman Cornerstone Foundation to help families and children in need. "That's my calling," Tillman said. "That's all of our calling helping and serving others." Tillman also referred to an open letter to Chicago he penned earlier this month. In the letter, Tillman urged Chicagoans to "love a little bit more." Tillman said he is saddened by the violence that has plagued the city. "We're so much more than that," he said. "Loving each other a little bit more ... it will go a long way," he said. Advocate Christ Medical Center President and CEO Ken Lukhard said he planned to adopt the two main themes of Tillman's talk using your position to serve others not for status and to love a little bit more for 2017. "Martin Luther King loved it and taught it," Lukhard said. The hospital has hosted the annual celebration for the last 26 years to honor King and his life's mission. The event is open to hospital employees and the public. Advertisement "It was awesome," said Marie Matthews, who works in the hospital's cancer registry department. "I'm going to steal his quote 'Use your position to be a servant.'" Tillman met with fans and distributed copies of his book, "The Middle School Rules of Charles Tillman." Tillman said he hoped he was able to honor King's memory through his work and Monday's event. Tillman also took time to respond to questions after the event. When asked about president-elect Donald Trump, Tillman said that while he wasn't "too political," he hopes Trump succeeds. "I still want him to succeed, because if he succeeds, we all succeed," Tillman said. The event also featured a multicultural luncheon featuring foods brought in by hospital employees and donated by area restaurants. Alicia Fabbre is a freelance writer for the Daily Southtown. After a lifetime of watching her godsister battle Down syndrome, Kamri Smith took a special interest this year in changing how her peers view those with disabilities. "Nobody really understands how deep" it runs, said Smith, 16, who assisted junior Carly Gubitz, 17 with one presentation on ableism -- or discrimination against folks with disabilities -- at Merrillville High School on Monday. Advertisement For nearly a decade, the school's student diversity group STAND has hosted an annual day of workshops on Martin Luther King Day where students across Northwest Indiana discuss how to address modern-day social justice issues. Each year, STAND members choose, research topics and lead discussions. In the past, that has ranged from interracial dating, racial profiling, bullying, standards of beauty, and transgender issues, said school diversity coordinator Danny Lackey. Advertisement This year, 50 students from Merrillville, Crown Point, Chesterton, East Chicago and Andrean joined STAND members to discuss topics facing people with disabilities, and issues surrounding violence, discrimination and standards of beauty. "I think that our niche is that when we do these workshops, (they) are researched by teenagers for teenagers," Lackey said. "So, I think they resonate differently." A broader range of discussion was meant to emphasize King's wider activism outside of civil rights, he said. Putting the responsibility to conceive and conduct workshops into their hands would inspire students to think about how they can actively continue his legacy. "Young folks have a difficult time relating to that, because they weren't brought up in that era," Lackey said. "In order to help make what Dr. King represented relevant to young people, you've got to be able to tie it into how what he did impacts who they are today." Smith and Gubitz's presentation included information on multiple forms of disabilities, and an activity on what their audience would do when confronted with uncomfortable classroom situations. They also played a YouTube video of a TEDtalk with the late Australian activist, journalist and comedian Stella Young who urged her audience to consider folks with disabilities as more than potential inspiration stories. Part of working toward social change means being mindful of small, everyday interactions -- even just watching unintended language like use of the "R-word" toward anyone that might have a disability, Smith told one group. "It doesn't make you a bad person, you just don't know what you're projecting," Smith told one group. "I've done it before, I'm not going to lie. But now, when I'm thinking about it, I try not to do it." Advertisement mcolias@post-trib.com Twitter: @meredithcolias River Forest school and village officials expressed thanks to firefighters who helped clean up the Roosevelt Middle School gym following a water pipe break Jan. 7. (River Forest District 90 / Handout) When River Forest firefighters responded to a fire alarm activation at Roosevelt Middle School on Jan. 7, they were not sure what to expect. Upon arriving to the school building, they found no smoke or fire, but a passerby told firefighters that water was "pouring" out of a door on the east side of the building. Advertisement "We found what looked like a broken sprinkler in the vestibule," River Forest Fire Lt. John Rose said. "It was filling the vestibule and the adjacent gym with water. We were able to shut off the water flow to the pipe." With school maintenance workers on their way, the firefighters began using wet/dry vacuums they found inside the school in an attempt to clean up the gym floor. Advertisement "Part of our job is minimizing property damage," Rose said. "Water and wood don't always go well together. We needed to get that water off that floor to avoid it from buckling up." When a maintenance worker showed up, the firefighters stuck around to assist him in cleaning up the rest of the water. "He was by himself and initially wasn't able to get any more help," Rose said. "When he did reach someone, they were one and-a-half, two hours out. We decided to hang out and give him a hand to help him clean the water off the floor." Rose, along with firefighters Adam Hills, Brian Nolan, Adan Viera and Steve Fischer, remained on-call, but they rotated between the school and fire station for several hours until the job was done. "We kept ourselves in-service, but we hung out until the floor was completely dried up," Rose said. The good deed did not go unnoticed as both the River Forest Village Board and River Forest School District 90 Board both expressed appreciation for the extra effort of the firefighters. "[The break] caused about half an inch of water over the lion's share of our beautiful wood floor gym," District 90 Superintendent Ed Condon said. "If you walk in that gym today, you would never have known there were hundreds of gallons of water on that floor. That could have been very damaging." While no investigation will be done, Rose said the likely cause of the break was the freezing temperatures and lack of heat in the vestibule area of the school. Advertisement When Roosevelt Middle School students returned from winter break on Jan. 9, officials said the kids would have had no idea just how much water had covered their gym floor just two days earlier. "They really did an exemplary job ensuring there was no substantial damage to the facility," District 90 Board President Ralph Martire said. "We have nothing but appreciation for the fine work they provided." sschering@pioneerlocal.com Twitter: @steveschering Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen looks ahead to 2017 where he said he sees potential for planning and economic development. (Mike Isaacs / Pioneer Press) Unlike the beginning of some years in Skokie, 2017 strikes Mayor George Van Dusen as "deceptively quiet," he said. "The first couple years of the last term we had some tumult," Van Dusen recalled. Advertisement In this election year, the Caucus Party incumbents including the mayor, all trustees and the village clerk are running unopposed in April. Van Dusen, 73, was first appointed to the Skokie Village Board in 1999 after serving as trustee and seeks his fourth elected term in April. Advertisement Looking back at the start of his current administration, Van Dusen points to the controversy regarding beekeeping regulations in Skokie and the 10 days the village had to adopt an assault weapons ban among other issues. "For the most part, we've just gone about our business," he said. "Most of the challenges have been created by what isn't going on in Springfield." But that doesn't mean the village hasn't been active especially when it comes to economic development, according to the mayor. The end of the recession, he said, has "unleashed" some successful development activity. "There's been tremendous economic development the last couple years," said Van Dusen. "In each of the last three years, we've exceeded 5,000 building permits. That's a record." Several new commercial developments are expected to open this year starting with Skokie's first Culver's restaurant next week in the 9400 block of Skokie Boulevard. In the last quarter of the year, Van Dusen said, a new Target store could be ready to open at the southwest corner of Dempster Street and Bronx Avenue in the village's West Dempster Street Corridor. The store is expected to occupy 33,000 square-feet on property the village purchased that was once home to a dilapidated shopping center, according to village data on the development project. Nearby is another village-owned property slated for an auto parts store. "We were patient with these properties and that paid off," the mayor said. Van Dusen said he is hoping patience also pays off for the former restaurant site at Oakton Street and Lincoln Avenue in downtown, which the village also owns. He had predicted 2016 would be the year in which development plans would be announced there, but that didn't happen.. Advertisement "We came close," he said, adding that plans for a promising mixed-use development ultimately fell through. The mayor said there continues to be interest in the site. A new three-retailer center is being built in the 9300 block of Skokie Boulevard, Van Dusen said. The site had been home to one hotel or another for more than 50 years. The village's two shopping centers and surrounding areas have also been active, according to the mayor. Westfield Old Orchard on the north is scheduled to open revamped luxury movie theaters in the fall, he said. Two small shopping areas have recently opened near Village Crossing along Touhy Avenue on the south. A popular bar-be-que restaurant is scheduled for a 2017 opening there in the 5200 block of Touhy, he said. Development challenges still remain, Van Dusen admitted, including filling vacancies along a stretch of Skokie Boulevard near downtown. Negotiations over the sale of the Illinois Science + Technology Park in downtown Skokie continue, he said. The park now has more than 1,500 employees, according to the mayor. Owner Forest City Enterprises announced more than a year ago it was selling the biotech park, which sits on 28 acres of property that once housed a pharmaceutical company. The open campus has a handful of buildings occupied by various science and medical companies. Forest City officials originally said they expected the park to fill more quickly with more buildings being constructed based on demand, but the recession slowed down that demand, they said. A sixth building on the site was slated for construction with the help of a state grant that never came through because of the fiscal crisis in Springfield, Van Dusen said. Advertisement The mayor said he believes there are companies that would occupy that building, but only a shell sits on the site because of insufficient funds to complete it, Van Dusen said. He said he is hopeful the completion of the building could be part of a new buyer's plans. The village now wholly owns The North Shore Center For the Performing Arts, which will likely see upgrades in the future, he said. Skokie is in the 26th year of a property tax freeze for the village portion of taxes, and that pattern is likely to continue, Van Dusen said. The village's solid commercial base has allowed for the annual freeze, while other taxing bodies need property tax revenue, he said. "The other units the schools, the park district, the library are not excessive in their property tax levies," he said. "What we need is school finance reform." A couple years ago, an independent study of Skokie police operations inspired a plan to increase patrol officers and overall staffing of the Skokie Police Department. Since then, new officers were hired and Skokie introduced a new mobile police station. The idea, Van Dusen said, was to bring more police presence into neighborhoods. Advertisement These actions came after some residents raised concerns following some high-profile crimes. However, statistics have shown that Skokie crime is not on the rise, Van Dusen said. Although the mayor has not yet seen crime numbers for 2016, he said, he expects rates of incidents to remain relatively unchanged. In recent years, Skokie has undergone a lot of transition at the top changes in its village manager and assistant village manager, some trustees and other positions. Van Dusen said 2017, however, begins with Skokie having reached "a nice stable area" after "seamless" changes. "I think in this next year, we're going to see a lot of planning," he said. "I want to take a look at East Dempster Street and Skokie Boulevard and East Oakton Street. There are some things we'll look at to try to help those areas." misaacs@pioneerlocal.com @SKReview_Mike Plans for a four-story 48-feet tall self-storage facility in the 5800 block of Howard Street were recently recommended by the Skokie Plan Commission. "The current use of the site being redeveloped is an unused parking lot," according to the written application for site plan approval. "The proposed use of the site will be a self-service storage facility with interior storage units." Advertisement The facility would be built in a neighborhood that includes light industry, office assembly, warehouses and similar uses, according to Skokie planners. Plans call for office and sales space on the first floor as well as multiple floors of storage units. The official petitioner for the project is contract purchaser Scannell Properties on behalf of Berman-Lapetina Enterprises LLC, but the facility would be operated by Extra Space Storage, officials said. Advertisement Extra Space Storage bills itself as "the second largest operator of self storage facilities in the United States." According to the company's website, Extra Space was founded in 1977 and now has properties in 38 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. "We own or operate over 1,400 stores, comprising approximately 910,000 units and 103 million square feet of rentable space," the website states. According to architect Michael Carney of Reitan Architects, 26 of the units along the west and north facades of the building would have exterior access, and the building would include elevators to reach upper floors. "On the exterior of the building, we're looking at working with Extra Space Storage as the tenant for the building so we've designed our elevation in their color scheme," Carney said. That color scheme includes a muted green based on development plans displayed at the plan commission hearing. The plan commission Jan. 5 recommended a series of other necessary measures associated with the project including an amendment in the zoning code that allows for the height of the building in light industry and industry zoning districts; a property zoning change from office assembly industry to light industry; and subdividing 14 lots into one lot to accommodate the project. These three measures, along with the site plan and a special use permit to operate a self storage facility, will go before the Skokie Village Board for final approval, said plan commission Chairman Paul Luke. A sixth measure associated with the project regarding parking for the project was approved by the plan commission, which has final say. The parking determination does not need village board support, Luke said. Plans for parking call for 12 outside spaces, although those associated with the project said that many spaces are hardly ever used at one time. Advertisement Still, Niles Township High School District 219 Asst. Supt. Eric Trimberger raised a concern about the potential for overflow parking occupying the district's nearby administrative building parking lot. "We certainly welcome a commercial tax base that helps both the village and the school district with sales tax revenue that this facility would generate," he said. "The district's only concern about this development is the number of parking spots." Trimberger said the district may have to add parking signs to the district lot because of limited space available there. Skokie Planning Supervisor Steve Marciani said, however, that storage facilities in the village have not had high parking demands. He also said the layout of the facility and its entrances do not make the School District 219 lot a convenient place to park. "Staff is very comfortable with the 12," he said, adding that that number is even higher than what was originally discussed. misaacs@pioneerlocal.com Advertisement @SKReview_Mike Western Springs has approved a settlement with a police sergeant who claimed he was fired because he had a disability. The village Jan. 12 approved a $450,000 settlement with Sgt. Mark Battista, a 24-year veteran of the Police Department who was terminated in 2014 and reinstated in 2015 after an arbitrator ruled in his favor. Advertisement Battista was diagnosed with sleep apnea, shift work disorder and circadian rhythm disorder in 2012, shortly after he began working rotating shifts, including 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. In October 2013, Battista's doctor told him it was no longer safe for him to work after 11 p.m. after the sergeant nearly dozed off at the wheel of his squad car and almost struck a resident, according to Battista's federal lawsuit. Western Springs officials approved the settlement without discussion during a special Village Board meeting that lasted less than five minutes, and took place just three days after swearing in a new police chief. Advertisement Village President William Rodeghier said the action needed to be taken in a separate meeting to comply with the Freedom of Information Act because the settlement was not listed as an action item on the board's agenda for its Jan. 9 meeting. The board came to an agreement on the settlement in executive session at that meeting, Rodeghier said. "It's the right thing to do," Rodeghier said. "I hope (the settlement) puts this behind us and we can move forward. It is the fair and responsible thing for us to do." The federal arbitrator ruled that the village failed to notify and discipline Battista for what police brass said was improper conduct during a year of trying to reach an accommodation with his work schedule. At the same time, the police sergeant was given "a glowing performance evaluation and 'outstanding' rating" during a performance review during that time, his lawsuit stated. Village attorney Mike Jurusic said the settlement includes a couple years of back pay and attorney's fees. Jurusic said the village agreed to the settlement rather than go a jury trial in the case. "There are no guarantees when you go to a jury trial," Jurusic said. Patrick Walsh, attorney for Battista, could not be reached for comment on the settlement. Battista's lawsuit had sought at least $600,000 from the village, alleging that the village discriminated against him, failed to respond expeditiously to his request for accommodation and retaliated against the police sergeant. Advertisement The suit also contended that village manager Patrick Higgins defamed Battista's character. Battista said his reputation suffered after Higgins issued a news release claiming Battista manipulated the department and spearheaded the police rank-and-file's vote of "no confidence" in former Police Chief Pam Church, who left the department Dec. 31. Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press With the scope and penalties of Chinas social credit system being further clarified in 2021, legal and regulatory compliance has become more important than... China will quadruple its new energy vehicle annual output to 2 million by 2020, a cabinet minister said. Citing a government plan, Industry and Information Technology Minister Miao Wei said at a Beijing forum over the weekend that by 2025, at least one in every five cars sold in China will be a new energy model. In 2016, China produced 517,000 new energy vehicles. The country has been the world's top seller of such environment-friendly cars since 2015. The cumulative sale has exceeded 1 million, according to the ministry. New energy vehicles include battery electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and fuel-cell cars. In 2016, top Chinese electric carmakers BYD, Geely, and BAIC sold their models in more than 30 countries and regions around the world. Miao said the government will continue to improve policies, boost research and development, invest in charging infrastructure construction, and promote international cooperation to help the sector grow. In terms of charging infrastructure, China built over 100,000 public charging poles in 2016, ten times the figure in 2015. A comprehensive charging grid has taken shape in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. China witnessed a boom of electric vehicle investment in the past few years largely thanks to government's incentives. Instead of maintaining a universal incentive system, Miao said, subsidies will vary and favor best performing carmakers before this financial assistance program ends in 2020. By then, a points-based system will be set up to guide the production of new energy vehicles. You are here: Home China has mapped out a plan to improve the economy, standard of living and environmental conditions to a "new level" in its western regions by 2020, the country's top economic planner said Monday. The State Council has released the plan setting goals for the country's "go west" strategy for 2016-2020, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The government should complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in China's west by 2020, the NDRC cited the plan as saying. Specific targets include sustained and healthy economic development, stronger innovation, more progress in industrial upgrading and infrastructure construction, as well as better environment and public services. Major projects will be implemented to strengthen environmental protection, conserve energy and resources and improve disaster prevention and relief, according to the plan. Efforts will also be made to reduce poverty and promote the opening up of regions along the Belt and Road. The less-developed west presents difficulties for China's goals to eliminate poverty and achieve all-round moderate prosperity, but it also boasts huge potential for development, according to the NDRC. China launched its "go west" strategy in 2000 to boost the economic development of 12 western provincial-level regions -- Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Qinghai. Under the strategy, western regions enjoy support in infrastructure construction, foreign investment, environmental protection, education and staff retention. From 2011 to 2015, China invested 2.7 trillion yuan (392 billion U.S. dollars) in 127 key projects in the west, according to the NDRC. Altogether 12,000 km of railways and 215,000 km of highways were built in that period, while rural residents' access to safe drinking water and electricity was expanded. During the period, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in western regions rose 10.5 percent annually on average, while the net income of rural residents grew 11.2 percent annually, outpacing the national growth by 0.2 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively, according to the NDRC. You are here: Home Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (back, C) presides over a symposium to solicit opinions from experts and entrepreneurs on the draft of an annual government work report in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 13, 2017. Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli attended the symposium. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng) Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has held a symposium to solicit opinions from experts and entrepreneurs on the draft of an annual government work report. Experts and entrepreneurs shared their views and made suggestions on the government's work at the symposium held Friday, according to a statement issued Sunday. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli attended the symposium. The participants offered suggestions on a wide range of areas, including deepened reforms of the financial and taxation systems, boosting employment, and defusing financial risks, it said. They also proposed creating a sound environment for the development of the real economy, speeding up supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector, supporting technology for strategic emerging industries, and encouraging scientific and technological innovation. Li exchanged ideas with the group and tallied last year's achievements in boosting employment, upgrading the economic structure and improving people's livelihood. The premier said China's economy will face greater pressure and difficulties this year, citing the uncertainties and complexities of the international political structure and challenges to economic rules. He added that the country will keep its economy running smoothly while continuously improving the quality and efficiency of economic growth. The country will adhere to seeking progress while maintaining stability in general, implement the five development concepts of innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing, and promote supply-side structural reform, the premier said. Li called for efforts to improve prediction and precision in macro economic control and take effective measures to tackle deep-seated issues and potential risks. The economic performance should be kept within a reasonable range and the good momentum of improving performance amid stability should be consolidated, he said. Li said the government will create a sound environment for enterprises, comprehensively deepen reform and continue to streamline administrative approvals and delegate power to lower levels. The premier said the government will also hold down spending to facilitate tax cuts for enterprises. The government will close down out-dated production facilities, employ more positive employment policies and support new industries and business modes that are capable of boosting employment, Li said, adding that the government will also push forward the upgrade of traditional industries and accelerate the development of advanced manufacturing. Li also urged efforts to improve people's livelihood and reduce smoggy days. The health authority in Beijing is studying the long-term impact of smog on people's health, including the widespread concern that smog could be a cause of lung cancer. An expert shows smog particles collected from facial masks, Jan 3, 2017. [Photo/ Chinanews.com] Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning (BMCHFP) has begun to study the issue, reported the Beijing News on Sunday. The report said that current studies have confirmed that inhaling smog may lead to some acute diseases in people's respiratory systems. Long-term contact with pollutants in the air could cause chronic inflammation, hypo immunity and allergies. But the exact relationship of smog and lung cancer is not clear at the moment. "It will take a decade or longer to collect data before the researchers can make clear the relationship between smog and people having a certain kind of disease," said Fang Laiying, director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning. Based on previous studies on smog, the BMCHFP recently issued a common-sense list about protective measures against smog, together with the Beijing Center for Diseases Control and Prevention. On smoggy days, the BMCHFP, first of all, advises people to stay indoors. It added that people should use masks that are tight to the face. But it also said that the wearing of masks is not fit for pregnant women, the elderly and those with chronic disease, as it will add to breathing resistance. Fang Laiying added that BMCHFP will make more efforts in studying effective measures that citizens can take to protect themselves from smog that has been a frequent issue in many Chinese cities in recent years. You are here: Home China has handled more than 5 million legal assistance cases since 2013, providing legal advice to more than 28 million people, according to the Ministry of Justice on Sunday. Stations offering legal service have been established in more than 2,000 detention houses, the ministry said. "The ministry has made efforts to provide convenient legal assistance service to the public and stipulated a guideline to improve the service network," said Minister of Justice Wu Aiying. In 2017, the ministry will urge lawyers to perform their criminal defense duties in accordance with the law and maintain the legitimate rights of citizens facing difficulties, Wu added. Two ancient swords discovered at an old house in Chongqing Municipality may be Ba state Liuye swords (willow leaf-shaped swords) that date back more than 2,000 years to the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), according to antiques experts. A ancient sword is discovered at an old house in Chongqing Municipality. (Photo/Chongqing Morning News) Peng Bo, a villager in the city's Yongchuan District, discovered the swords under a stone cabinet as he was beginning renovations on the house. "The two swords were among a lot of iron farm tools and bowls," Peng said, adding that the swords were covered in a light-green rust when he found them. The swords are 55 centimeters in length and weigh 500 grams each. The body of the swords is bluish green in color, with some dark grey in the middle. Tiger-like totems appear on the bodies of the swords. The house is more than 100 years old, Peng said. "My grandfather lived in this house. But I have not heard about the ancient swords before," Peng said. He guessed that one of his ancestors found the swords while doing farm work and brought them home. Local experts believe the swords could be Ba state Liuye swords, a unique sword from Southwest China's Sichuan Province and Chongqing. Most of the swords were about 40 centimeters in length because the smelting technology during the Warring States Period was undeveloped. The value of each sword could be about 50,000 yuan ($7,247) today. Wang Changwen, a researcher with the local cultural relics administration, said he could not judge the swords until he had seen them. Ba state Liuye swords had previously been discovered in Zhutuo town in Chongqing, but were seldom seen in Yongchuan, Wang said, adding that cultural relics should be handed in to the relevant departments according to law. The logo of the World Economic Forum. [File photo] Xi Jinping is the first Chinese president to speak at the Davos World Economic Forum. This visit has attracted even greater international media attention than the normally high levels of interest in a trip by China's leader. As the Financial Times chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman put it, "The big star of this year's forum is certain to be Xi Jinping." The reason for this is well understood. China's unequivocal support for open economies and globalization is now clearly in contrast to the protectionism embraced by U.S. President-elect Trump and that was manifested on a smaller scale in the U.K. Brexit referendum. In terms of declared positions on globalisation, a definitive turning point has already been made. Every U.S. president since World War II has at least verbally committed to free trade and globalisation. Trump explicitly broke with this historical U.S. position with threats to impose a 35 percent tariff on Mexico, a 45 percent tariff on China, to impose a U.S. "border tax", to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), by his pressure for U.S. companies not to invest in Mexico despite it being a NAFTA partner and by his clear overall policy statements. In parallel, while the reality of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was not a move for freer trade - being in reality an anti-China bloc - nevertheless its unilateral abandonment by Trump made the U.S. appear an unreliable negotiating partner. Whatever happens in the future, there can never again be 100 percent certainty that the U.S. remains committed to globalisation. This fundamental pillar on which the post-World War II global order was built is no longer solid. It is widely understood that of the world's two largest economies, only China remains unequivocally committed to globalisation. This directly and powerfully affects other countries in addition to China - hence the wide international interest in Xi Jinping's Davos visit. Other countries well understand, both factually and theoretically, the decisive importance of the international trade and globalisation. Factually, numerous studies demonstrate the positive correlation of an economy's international openness and its development speed. Growing internationalisation by almost all countries was a decisive trend during the long period of relative global international economic stability and growth after World War II - a marked contrast to 1929-39 global economic fragmentation, marked by the infamous U.S. Smoot-Hawley protectionist tariff, which led to the greatest economic crisis in modern history. Clear theoretical understanding of economic openness's advantages has existed for over two hundred years. The first sentence of the founding work of modern economics, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, is, "The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour have been the effect of the division of labour." But division of labour in a modern economy has reached a point where it is necessarily international in scale. International supply chains, which alone ensure the cost efficiency of modern production, flow from the reality that different countries have different advantages in different parts of production. Attempts to create self-contained national economies necessarily make economies less efficient. Therefore, every strategy of "import substitution" or attempt to create an efficient national self-contained economy necessarily fails. U.S. protectionism's negative effects, with its inevitable international reciprocal retaliation, would hit even the U.S., the world's largest economy - increasing prices of imported goods for consumers and costs for U.S. producers while restricting export markets. Even for the U.S., three quarters of the world market in economic terms and 95 percent of the world's customers in population terms lie outside its borders. A protectionist U.S. economy cannot match the advantages of orientation to a global economy. But for Germany, 95 percent of its potential market is outside its borders, for Brazil 97 percent, for Australia 98 percent, for Thailand over 99 percent. Protectionism would be more damaging for them than the U.S. Such countries therefore applaud Xi Jinping's unequivocal defence of globalisation - not because of deference to China, but out of national self-interest because globalisation really is "win-win." Sometimes in the media there is loose talk of a "rise of protectionism and populism." But this imprecise expression conceals a precise reality. In some European countries, there certainly is an increase in support for protectionist populist parties - for example, in France Marine Le Pen's National Front or the Alternative in Germany. But these are minority parties who are not in power and who in most cases have no realistic prospect whatsoever of forming governments. Only in the Anglo-Saxon economies have protectionist forces actually come to office or been able to determine government policy. The overwhelming majority of countries, including traditionally firm U.S. allies such as Germany or Australia, have expressed opposition to Trump's protectionist policies. When Germany's Chancellor Merkel recently said, "We see protectionist tendencies," she was naturally discreet enough not to mention the U.S. But most people were well aware that the U.S. was included in the countries she was speaking of. A large majority of other countries listening will strongly agree either publicly or silently with Xi Jinping's clear statements in support of open economies and globalisation at Davos. Maintaining an internationally open economy is vital not only for governments but for the world's population. Globalisation has brought immense benefits to the majority of the world's people, strongly confirming economic theory. Certainly, socialist countries were most able to take advantage of globalisation's benefits. The world's four fastest growing economies in the last 30 years have been socialist - China, Laos and Vietnam, together with a Cambodia whose economic policies are decisively influenced by China. China experienced the world's most rapid rise in living standards. Eighty-three percent of the people in the world lifted out of internationally defined poverty were in China, and a further 2 percent were in Vietnam - only 15 percent were in capitalist countries. But while socialist countries made the most efficient use of globalisation, other countries also strongly benefitted. India under Modi has consciously moved closer to China's economic model, and India is now the world's other major rapidly growing economy. Several African countries, basing themselves on globalisation, have achieved growth rates of 6-8 percent a year. Certainly the political crisis in the Anglo-Saxon countries, which has produced support for the protectionist dead ends, was created by a failure to improve their population's living standards. U.S. median household incomes are lower than 16 years ago, U.S. inequality has soared. In the U.K., real incomes in the last eight years experienced their most prolonged decline for a century. But this was not inherent in globalisation, as demonstrated by the dramatic improvements achieved by most countries, but a result of the specifically neo-liberal paths launched by Reagan and Thatcher. It is for this reason, not globalisation, that a protectionist political dead end has become strongest in the Anglo-Saxon economies. China's support of globalisation, symbolised in Xi Jinping's Davos visit, corresponds to China's national self-interest. But it also corresponds to the national self-interest of other countries and peoples. Mutual self-interest is the firmest of all foundations for cooperation. It is for this reason Xi Jinping's visit to Davos has attracted such intense international interest. John Ross is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/johnross.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Flash French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault welcomes US Secretary of State John Kerry as he arrives for the Mideast peaceconference in Paris, France, January 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) France on Sunday held an international meeting to seek ways to revive the stranded Middle East peace negotiations and to push for the implementation of a two-state solution to restore security in the region after decades of conflict. The Middle East Peace Conference held here brought together representatives from about 70 countries, including the UN Security Council permanent members, key European countries and major Arab states. However, neither Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are represented in the meeting. Israelis called the meeting a "rigged conference" aiming to adopt additional anti-Israel stances. French President Francois Hollande addressed the gathering, saying the two-state solution is being threatened by multiple factors including Israeli settlements and increasing mistrust between the two sides. He stressed that the solution of two states is still the objective of the international community for the future. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who chairs the Paris gathering, also urged for a resumption of the peace talks at the opening speech. "Peace cannot be found in hate. The aim of the conference is precisely to allow a resumption of dialogue," Ayrault said. France affirmed that the meeting wouldn't impose conditions on the two rival camps to reach a lasting a peace accord. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to move U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem also was mentioned here on Sunday. As uncertainty clouding the new U.S. administration's handling of the Middle East conflict, Hollande called on everyone to understand that "nothing can be improvised, or disrupted." Despite international community objection, Trump pledged to relocate U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been for more than six decades, to Jerusalem, a flashpoint in the long conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. On the sidelines of the conference, Ayrault called Trump's move a "provocation" and warned about "extremely serious consequences." "When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a clear-cut, unilateral position on this issue. You have to try to create the conditions for peace," he said. The last round of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinian authorities broke down in April 2014 after the two sides failed to resolve their deep disputes on issues, such as Israeli settlements, Palestinian state borders and security. Flash Beijing has warned US president-elect that the one-China principle is not subject to negotiation, and observers said Donald Trump is miscalculating if he wants to use it for leverage. A week before taking office, Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that "Everything is under negotiation including one China." In response, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement on Saturday, "The one-China principle, which is the political foundation of the China-US relations, is nonnegotiable." "The government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing China," Lu said. "That is the fact acknowledged by the international community, and no one can change it." "We urge relevant parties in the US to fully recognize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan question, approach Taiwan-related issues with prudence, and honor the commitment made by all previous US administrations of both parties on adhering to the one-China policy and the principles of the three joint communiques," it said. The three China-US joint communiques were issued between 1972 and 1982 to guide China-US relations. Teng Jianqun, research director at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said it was necessary for the ministry to make timely comments on what he said was Trump's radical rhetoric aimed to test how China would respond. "It is totally unacceptable to China for Trump to treat China-US relations as a business for transactions," Teng said. He suggested the government respond strongly to any such remark and also remain coolheaded in formulating related policies. Dong Chunling, a researcher on US studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that the one-China principle is common sense, the cornerstone and bottom line for relations between China and the US. "Trump is miscalculating if he wants to use this as a bargaining chip," he said. Such remarks have raised hurdles for Sino-US relations, and increased the likelihood of friction between the two sides, Dong said. Shi Yinhong, director of the Center of US Studies of Renmin University of China, said he believed the one-China principle is not only nonnegotiable such provocations could trigger serious countermeasures from China. If, after inauguration, Trump continues to attack or disavows the one-China principle, there could be no cooperation between Beijing and Washington, Shi said. Beijing could respond by taking severe diplomatic moves, including recalling its ambassador and degrading the diplomatic relationship, Shi added. But Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Associated Press on Sunday, "Trump has not taken office yet, so he is an ordinary person now." Flash Iraqi forces on Sunday continued fighting the Islamic State (IS) group on the eastern side of the city of Mosul and retook control of two neighborhoods, as the troops are pushing towards the eastern bank of Tigris River in the northern part of the city, the Iraqi military said. On the northern front, the army soldiers, backed by the U.S.-led coalition aircraft, freed the neighborhood of al-Kafaat Second and raised the Iraqi flags on some of its buildings after intense fighting with IS militants, killing many of them and destroying two car bombs, the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement. The latest advance on the front brought the troops closer to the site of the former presidential palaces on the bank of the Tigris, which are considered part of the main IS redoubts in eastern Mosul, the statement said. On the eastern front, the commandos of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) recaptured the neighborhood of Andulos after defeating the IS pockets in the adjacent sprawling complex of Mosul University, the statement said, adding that the troops killed many militants and destroyed two booby-trapped cars. Recapturing Andulos has made Iraqi troops at the edge of Mosul's Park on the eastern bank of the Tigris, where one of Mosul's five bridges is located. "The battle in the Park will be easier for the CTS troops, as there are no residential buildings, then the use of heavy weapons and airstrikes will be more possible," Captain Haider Ali from CTS forces told Xinhua by telephone. "The recapture of the Park will make the troops in control of the 3rd Bridge which links the two banks of Mosul city," Haider said. So far, security forces are in control of three of Mosul's five bridges on the Tigris River, which bisects the city. On Saturday, Lieutenant General Abdul Amir Yarallah from the JOC said in a statement that the federal police and army soldiers completely had retaken control of the southern part of the eastern side of Mosul. He said that the advance troops, which started from southeastern Mosul, have fulfilled their mission and are carrying out clearing operations in the freed areas to defuse booby traps and chase residual IS militants. According to the JOC officers, the Iraqi forces have recaptured some 90 percent of the neighborhoods of the eastern side of Mosul. On Dec. 29, the CTS commandos, army troops and federal police launched the second phase of a major offensive to free the eastern bank of Mosul. Last month, battles in Mosul slowed down as extremist militants used civilians as human shields, resorted to suicide car bombs and made mortar and sniper attacks in stiff resistance. On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city. Since then, Iraqi security forces, backed by international coalition forces, have inched to the eastern fringes of Mosul and made progress on other routes around the 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. You are here: Home Flash Sudan's Council of Ministers decided Sunday to extend a cease-fire between the government army and all rebels for six more months. The decision came at an extraordinary meeting chaired by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. On Dec. 31, 2016, al-Bashir announced an extension of the cease-fire for one month in all conflict areas in Sudan, including Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. Since 2011, the Sudanese government has been fighting the rebels from Sudan People's Liberation Movement/northern sector in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, despite 10 rounds of peace talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. You are here: Home Flash Unidentified armed men shot dead a former resistance commander in the northern Afghan Kunduz province on Monday, police spokesman in the province Mahfozullah Akbari said. According to Akbari, unknown armed men opened fire on Majnon, a former anti-Taliban commander in Kunduz province in the morning rush hour, killing him on the spot and made their good escape. Efforts are underway to locate and arrest those involved in the killing, the spokesman added. In a similar incident, unidentified armed men riding a motorbike opened fire and killed a government official in the neighboring Baghlan province Monday morning. A clerk counts yuan bank notes and US dollar bills at a branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Huaibei, East China's Anhui province. [Photo/IC] BEIJING - China's foreign exchange regulator on Friday issued a stern statement on its official microblog, dismissing media reports about tightened regulation over capital outflows. In the brief statement, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) condemned the false media reports, saying they misled public opinion and disrupted the normal order of the foreign exchange market. Some reports said earlier this month that China had adopted new measures to tighten regulation over capital outflows and asked lenders to keep such measures secret. SAFE reiterated in the statement that foreign exchange regulators have long been committed to facilitating trade and investment, while cracking down on any violations. SAFE also urged commercial lenders to lead market players to properly use foreign exchange funds to maintain the market's stability. Despite continued drops in China's foreign exchange reserves, the reserves are still abundant for the country to fend off external risks, the central bank said Monday. Forex reserves fell for the sixth straight month to about $3.01 trillion last month, down from $3.05 trillion in November and $3.12 trillion. SAFE said last month that China's cross-border capital flow has remained stable with no surges in foreign exchange purchases. Employees collect memorabilia in the form of digital images at MYbank's launch in June 25, 2015. [Photo by Long Wei/China Daily] Ten years ago, Peng Jindong, then 21, set up a small e-store called Mmaicco to sell street-dance wear on Taobao, China's largest online marketplace operated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Peng was based in Zhengzhou, Henan province, then. Little did he realize that financial innovation, brought about by the liberalization of financial services and the advent of new Chinese private sector banks in offline and online channels, would help him to expand his business to men's and women's clothing. Peng's business expansion in subsequent years was a result of online shopping giant Alibaba's 2010 decision to offer easy loans to merchants on Taobao. As one of the first group of traders who received loans, he borrowed 5,000 yuan ($719) with sales orders for collateral. Later, he relocated to Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, rented a 140-square-meter apartment and hired a few hands to run the business. Again, it was Alibaba's loan that made it possible. This time round, the loan was much bigger: 100,000 yuan. And when Ant Financial, an Alibaba subsidiary, launched an online private bank called MYbank in 2015, Peng received a credit quota of 1 million yuan from it. Based on his previous record, he did not have to pledge anything or offer any collateral to MYbank. That emboldened him to become ambitious. He wanted to launch his own clothing brand, outgrowing the sales-only phase of his business. So he spoke to a loan officer of MYbank about a possible bigger loan. MYbank assessed risks using big data analysis and decided to increase his credit limit to 2 million yuan. That helped Peng to contract a small clothing factory, hire five fashion designers and more than 10 employees. He also rented a 1,000-square-meter office and a warehouse of the same size in Hangzhou. "Our company is still very small. But just like Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, I also want to run a business for 102 years," he said. He could have added: "And do a lot of things". For, he owns a clothing brand already and will open an offline store next. Peng's success is as much a tribute to his can-do spirit as it is a shining example of MYbank's effectiveness in China's liberalized banking industry. As an online bank (with no offline branches), it relies on internet technologies like big data and cloud computing to make lending decisions, and assess and manage risks. It has positioned itself as a specialist in all things smallthat is, its deposits, loans and customers (mainly self-owned businesses, farmers and startups founded by college students in rural areas) are all small. By November-end, MYbank had served more than 2 million micro and small enterprises, lending each 15,000 yuan on average. Its loan balance was 25.4 billion yuan, up 243 percent from the beginning of last year. Starting from June 2016, it also offered micro and small business owners a free online product that analyzes financial data of their business thoroughly. This means, they no longer have to make rough calculations of their profits or losses. Currently, 500,000 micro and small enterprises are benefitting from the product. That's a contrast to the past. This change in China's financial services sector began with the launch of a trial program in 2014 to set up the first five private banks, including MYbank. The China Banking Regulatory Commission has gradually accelerated approvals for the establishment of such banks. As of Jan 10, the CBRC has approved 17 private banks. Seven of them have opened for business already. Among the new kids on the banking block are Beijing's Zhongguancun Bank, named after the area where it is located, also known as China's "Silicon Valley"; and Jiangsu Suning Bank Co Ltd, jointly founded by electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd and a few other companies, in Jiangsu province. At a news conference on Dec 8, Ling Gan, director of the CBRC's City Commercial Banks Supervision Department, said the regulator will continue to push forward the orderly establishment of private banks, as long as the applications for banking licenses meet regulatory requirements and the founders are well prepared. "The first five private banks tried to innovate their models of development and bolster weak spots in the traditional financial sector. They are trying to provide more targeted and more convenient financial services to communities, startup companies, as well as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises," Ling had said. The CBRC requires private banks to choose a clear market positioning and make different business strategies from existing banks', based on regional economic factors and their shareholders' resources. The big idea is to modernize the banking system. So, the first five private banks have been reaching out to micro and small businesses or individuals in relatively low-income groups that were neglected by traditional banks. Some of the new banks played to their strengths in e-commerce, social networking or big data, while others exploited their geographical and local policy advantages. For instance, WeBank, an online bank founded by internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, launched personal loans ranging from 500 yuan to 300,000 yuan, without asking for any collateral or guarantee. In addition to the consumer credit report provided by China's central bank, WeBank said it mines some information from social networking patterns and online transactions of loan applicants through online multipurpose apps WeChat and QQ, which belong to the Tencent stable. At November-end, WeBank's small consumer-loans served more than 60 million people in 549 cities in China, most of whom were not clients of traditional banks. WeBank data found that 65 percent of the borrowers were aged 25 to 35; 75 percent of them were male; and the top five industries where they worked were manufacturing, technology, trading, public services and financial services. WeBank's total collateral-free small consumer-loans exceeded 160 billion yuan, with bad loans less than 1 percent, lower than the 1.81 percent average of commercial banks. It is not as if private banks are making runaway progress as regulatory prudence in China tends to be conservative, said Wu Qing, director of the comprehensive research office of the Research Institute of Finance under the Development Research Center of the State Council. "Relying on their unique advantages, some private banks such as WeBank and MYbank will possibly turn their potential into actual strengths. The regulator is looking forward to financial innovation from them, but it doesn't want them to disrupt the existing financial order. That's a mixed stance, which is the reason behind the insignificant progress of these banks so far," Wu said. He called for the regulator to give more freedom to private banks. For example, leading founders of each bank should be allowed to hold a higher stake, which is currently capped at 30 percent, he said. A more open equity structure will let the banks give full play to the advantages of their major shareholders, he said. Zhu Tao, president of Shanghai Huarui Bank. Shanghai Huarui Bank, the first private bank in the city, is speeding up its lending to high-tech startups, said one of its senior executives. "We aim to be a leading lender to Chinese firms engaged in innovative science and technology," said Zhu Tao, president of SHRB. "We will increase cooperation agreements with venture capital firms and cultivate startup clients for lending." Usually, startups are unable to offer any substantial collateral to obtain loans from banks. So, SHRB will accept stock options in lieu of collateral to cover potential risks. Zhu said SHRB has extended financial assistance to help expand 178 firms engaged in innovative science and technology. It also offered loans to 30 firms. So far, SHRB has accumulated stock options worth about 40 million yuan ($5.7 million). SHRB's startup clients are mainly in the fields of information technology, applied sciences, technology, modern services and advanced manufacturing. It has also cooperated with 30 Chinese venture capital firms. "We pay attention to management of risk in loans and have developed a system to track progress of our clients," said Zhu. Zhu said SHRB has immense confidence in the future of Chinese high-tech startups and would like to grow with them. Ling Gan, director of the department of supervision of city-based commercial banks, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said private banks should take advantage of local economic factors and innovative collateral in the form of stocks options to be different from traditional banks. Ling said for its part, the CBRC will also strive to be innovative in its regulatory oversight and encourage private banks to develop businesses in a novel way. In April last year, SHRB became one of the 10 pilot banks to help startup firms secure easy finance. Established in 2015, SHRB is one of the first five private banks in China. By November-end, its assets were worth more than 30 billion yuan and loans extended were worth 11.5 bilion yuan. Importantly, there were no non-performing loans. According to Zero2IPO, there were 7,859 venture capital and private equity investments in the January-November period of 2016. Seoul, South Korea resident Cho Yong-moon, 75, spends nine hours a day, five days a week using his free pass on the city subway to shuttle parcels back and forth between clothing and jewelry stores. With pension payments falling short of living costs for many of the elderly, he's among a growing number of senior citizens seen trekking in and out of metro stations in the South Korean capital carrying boxes for "silver service" courier businesses. "This job isn't easy, especially when I'm walking up the subway stairs carrying heavy stuff," said Cho, who earns about 500,000 won ($430) a month, which is about half of what he and his wife need to live on. "There are limited seats for the elderly in the Seoul subways and I often have to stand for hours." South Korea's national pension wasn't established until 1988 and Cho only contributed enough into the system to now get 600,000 won per month. His predicament underscores the demographic challenges faced by the nation as the economic growth rate declines and the society ages. It's also a lesson for other countries, including its bigger neighbor China, where pension offerings vary greatly among industries and many of provincial funds are currently in deficit. "The challenges are magnified for north Asia due to the sheer speed and scale of the demographic change sweeping across the region," said Donghyun Park, principal economist at the Asia Development Bank in Manila. "The demographic bonus which contributed substantially to the region's growth in the past has already turned into a demographic tax." Park sees rising poverty among the elderly as potentially the biggest socio-economic risk to the region. Because seniority and pay at South Korean companies are typically based on age, many workers get pushed out in their mid-to-late 50s before they have saved enough to retire. Multi-generational families in which the elderly live with their children and grandchildren are also in decline, leaving millions of seniors without an adequate safety net. South Korea has the worst elderly poverty rate of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD estimated that true age at which South Koreans withdraw from the labor force was 73 for men and 71 for women in 2014. "Companies need to change their culture of raising compensation based on seniority, which is one reason why they are reluctant to hold on to elderly workers," said Shin Kwan-ho, a professor of economics at Korea University in Seoul. "The elderly are healthier now and seniors can also help make up for the decline in the young working-age population." Yet job options for the seniors trying to start over in the job market are limited, and some are pushed from the top of the wage scale to the bottom. Free travel on the metro, an entitlement for people who are 65 and over, is a key edge for many in the employment market. The Seoul metropolitan government's Golden Job center, which helps the elderly brush up on their skills, focuses training for roles such as couriers, parking lot attendants, apartment janitors and librarians. H.M. Cho, a 63-year-old who worked for 25 years at some of South Korea's biggest conglomerates, was among those taking courses at Golden Job earlier this month. He's looking to broaden his skills in case he loses the job he got as an intern at a small machinery supplier. Cho said he got the intern position after offering to work for 25 percent less than the 2 million won monthly salary advertised by the company. About 44 percent of people aged 55-79 are recipients of public or private pensions, according to the statistics office. The average monthly payment is 510,000 won, with some people who contributed into private schemes receiving a lot more while about half of recipients getting less than 250,000 won, government data show. Silver services have also popped up across Japan, where about a third of the population is over 60 and the government is gradually raising the age for eligibility for pensions to 65. Some of the elderly in Japan also keep working out of necessity, but the poverty rate for seniors is far lower than in South Korea, and many work part time to supplement pensions or simply to keep active. About 19 percent of China's population will be over 60 by 2020, and almost 39 percent by 2050, Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin said last year. While China has some time to prepare, there is much to be done. A survey of middle-in-come households in South Korea found that most estimate their living costs after retirement will be more than double what they expect to receive from the national pension. The survey last month by NH Investment & Securities Co, which polled 1,025 households, found that 96 percent of respondents intend to continue working after official retirement to supplement public and private pension income. That means a future with a lot more seniors shuffling through Seoul's subways carrying packages for silver services. Cho Won-dae, a 84, who's been at it for a decade, said his advice to others is: "Forget about what your past job was. It's better to make some money, no matter how little." Bloomberg VIENTIANE - China has agreed to purchase 20,000 metric tons of organic rice a year from Laos, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith told local authorities in the southern Champassak province. Laos will need to deliver 20,000 tons of genuine organic rice to China and the shipment must not contain non-organic rice, Thongloun was quoted by the state-run Vientiane Times on Sunday. About 4,000 tons of sticky rice and non-glutinous rice had already been delivered to China following an earlier agreement to export 8,000 tons of Lao rice to China. China has approved an increase from 8,000 tons to 20,000 tons, said the newspaper. The exported rice to China is being grown in Savannakhet province and Champassak province's Khong district. According to Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in October, only the IDP Rice Mill in Savannakhet province was able to produce quality rice meeting the standard required by Chinese buyers. There are many rice mills in Laos but their product is of low quality. Based on a nationwide survey, only the IDP Rice Mill has been able to meet the Chinese standards. China's Xuanye (Lao) Co Ltd was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission to be sole exporter of Lao rice to China with quota of 8,000 tons. More than 778,000 hectares of wet season rice and over 126,600 hectares of dry season rice are grown annually in Laos. However, about 226,000 hectares of rice fields in flatland areas are totally dependent on rainfall because irrigation channels have not yet been built in those areas. Since 2000, Laos has exported over 300,000 tons of rice annually to Vietnam, Thailand, China and other countries. Laos is expected to produce about 5 million tons of rice by 2020 to ensure food security in the country. In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, Laos' rice production reached 4.12 million tons and is predicted to increase to 4.35 million tons in the 2016-2017 fiscal year. BEIJING - China has mapped out a plan to improve the economy, standard of living and environmental conditions to a "new level" in its western regions by 2020, the country's top economic planner said Monday. The State Council has released the plan setting goals for the country's "go west" strategy for 2016-2020, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The government should complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in China's west by 2020, the NDRC cited the plan as saying. Specific targets include sustained and healthy economic development, stronger innovation, more progress in industrial upgrading and infrastructure construction, as well as better environment and public services. Major projects will be implemented to strengthen environmental protection, conserve energy and resources and improve disaster prevention and relief, according to the plan. Efforts will also be made to reduce poverty and promote the opening up of regions along the Belt and Road. The less-developed west presents difficulties for China's goals to eliminate poverty and achieve all-round moderate prosperity, but it also boasts huge potential for development, according to the NDRC. China launched its "go west" strategy in 2000 to boost the economic development of 12 western provincial-level regions -- Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Qinghai. Under the strategy, western regions enjoy support in infrastructure construction, foreign investment, environmental protection, education and staff retention. From 2011 to 2015, China invested 2.7 trillion yuan ($392 billion) in 127 key projects in the west, according to the NDRC. Altogether 12,000 km of railways and 215,000 km of highways were built in that period, while rural residents' access to safe drinking water and electricity was expanded. During the period, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in western regions rose 10.5 percent annually on average, while the net income of rural residents grew 11.2 percent annually, outpacing the national growth by 0.2 percentage points and 1 percentage point respectively, according to the NDRC. The famous GE clock on the exterior of the General Electric Building is pictured in Midtown Manhattan in New York, on October 18, 2015. [Photo/IC] US consultancy company Interbrand released the top 100 best global brands for 2016, crowning Apple Inc with the top spot. The company said on its website that only truly global brands that have successfully transcended geographic and cultural boundaries can be included on the list of Best Global Brands. Huawei and Lenovo are the only Chinese brands that have earned seats on the list, ranking 72nd and 99th respectively. Let's take a look at the top 10 best global brands. No 10 GE President Xi Jinping will send a strong signal against rising global protectionism when he joins his Swiss counterpart, Doris Leuthard, to announce a decision to scale up the nations' free trade agreement, a top envoy has said. Geng Wenbing, the Chinese ambassador to Switzerland [Photo/China Daily] Geng Wenbing, the Chinese ambassador to Switzerland, said increased action to facilitate two-way trade and investment will be top of Xi's agenda during his four-day visit, which started Sunday. "During the visit, both sides will actively explore upgrading their FTA," he said, adding that the countries will also announce measures to boost cultural exchanges, tourism and financial cooperation. On Tuesday, Xi will deliver the keynote speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is also scheduled to visit the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne and the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, and speak at a high-level conference at the United Nations Office in Geneva. Geng said China and Switzerland are determined to set an example on free trade for the European Union and other global players to follow, paving the way for faster global economic growth. The countries' FTA, which has waived most tariffs on goods, became effective in July 2014. Talks began in 2011, and the two sides sealed the deal in July 2013. While talks with Norway are ongoing, Iceland is the only other European country that has entered into such an agreement with China. The EU has said it wants to conclude a bilateral investment agreement with China before starting free trade talks, although some of its member states are eager to clinch such a deal with China. Geng said more countries have shown interest in free trade talks, mainly because Switzerland has benefited from a partnership that has seen its exports grow. Figures from the Swiss government indicate overall exports slowed in October and November, while the export volume to China maintained double-digit year-on-year growth over the same period. Exports to China rose by 24.1 percent year-on-year in October and 11.5 percent in November. "Such rosy results have led more countries to become interested in free trade talks, and even some have asked me for the agreement text sealed by China and Switzerland," Geng said. "I'm sure every country that enters such a trade arrangement with China will become a winner." He said China has been restructuring its investment-led economy toward consumption and innovation, creating many import opportunities. In December, the EU, the United States and Japan, the leading global economies, refused to fulfill a promise made 15 years ago when China joined the World Trade Organization to recognize China as an equal trading partner. Switzerland, however, joined dozens of WTO members in recognizing China's market economy status back in 2007. Apart from efforts to boost their trade partnership, Geng said the Chinese and Swiss leaders will also upgrade their political relationship. Switzerland was the first Western country to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1950. In April, Johann Schneider-Ammann, the former president of the Swiss Confederation, visited China. "Within less than a year, President Xi is returning a state visit. In addition, he is only visiting Switzerland during this tour, which indicates how much importance China has attached to the bilateral relationship," Geng added. Men dressed as Chlaeuse, traditional figures that scare away evil spirits, carry round bells and cowbells as they walk on a snow-covered road in Urnaesch, Switzerland, on Friday. Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters For business leaders, it's a question about billions of dollars - maybe even trillions - in potential profits and losses Donald Trump has often ridiculed global warming and promised to withdraw the United States from the global accord signed in Paris in 2015. Yet despite the change of political weather in Washington, the captains of business and finance gathered in Davos this week will spend a lot of time talking about climate change - and how to make money from it. The World Economic Forum is devoting 15 sessions of its 2017 annual meeting to climate change, and nine more to clean energy - the most ever on the issues. It reflects how much is at stake. For global business leaders, it's not just a question of burnishing their green credentials, but about billions of dollars - maybe even trillions - in potential profits and losses. Insurers are starting to price-in more frequent flooding and droughts; energy giants are shaping their business for a world that's moving away from oil and coal; carmakers are putting real money into electric vehicles; banks want to lend money for renewable electricity projects. "The good thing is that the Paris agreement raised the bar for everyone," said Ben van Beurden, the head of Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's largest oil group. "Everybody feels the obligation to act." Achieving the ambitions set out in Paris may require $13.5 trillion of spending through to 2030, according to International Energy Agency data that shows the scale of the opportunity for business. Only last year, clean energy investment stood at $287.5 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance indicate. "The scale and scope of the investment flows on renewables shows it's mainstream," said David Turk, head of climate change at the IEA in Paris and a former senior US climate diplomat. The chairman of Codelco, the world's largest copper company, vowed that his company won't be pressured into changing policies by an explosion on Friday at his home in Santiago that left him with minor injuries. Oscar Landerretche, who was released from the hospital on Saturday, condemned what he called a "very violent, cowardly attack on my family and myself", Radio Cooperativa reported. He declined to speculate on who might be responsible, but added that "if anyone thinks that because of something like this, the board of Codelco, its senior executives, or myself are going to act any differently than we have been, ... they are profoundly mistaken", according to a recording of his remarks on Radio Cooperativa's website. A little-known group calling itself Individualists with Wild Tendencies, claimed responsibility for what it called "an indiscriminate eco-extremist attack" undertaken as payback for environmental damage caused by Codelco's mining activity. The bombing has shaken a country where attacks on company executives or politicians are extremely rare, and where the murder rate is the second-lowest in the Americas, after Canada. "All my support goes to Oscar Landerretche and his wife, Patricia Medrano," said President Michelle Bachelet, who appointed him to the board in 2014. "My most profound rejection to the attack he suffered." Landerretche's daughter and maid were also treated for damage to their hearing, Deputy Interior Minister Mahmud Aleuy told reporters. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained economist "received" the explosive device at his residence in the Chilean capital, the state-owned mining company said. Security stepped up The device was delivered by a woman and had a return address of the Universidad de Chile, said Landerretche's father, according to Radio Bio Bio. Aleuy declined to comment on the details of the explosion. Police immediately stepped up security at the homes of other government officials and authorities, Bio Bio reported. "This is serious", Aleuy said. "We will support the prosecutor in his investigation in any way possible." Codelo said it "drastically condemns these types of events that will be investigated by the law to clarify the circumstances and identify those responsible". The mining giant has been enmeshed in a series of disputes with indigenous communities over a planned $18 billion expansion of its mining operations through 2020. Before being named to the board of state-owned Codelco, Landerretche, 44, taught economics at the University of Chile in Santiago. He is a syndicated newspaper columnist and was chief policy adviser to former president Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle in his unsuccessful 2009 re-election campaign. A judicial investigation into diesel emissions testing in France could widen beyond Renault after tests showed other carmakers had exceeded the authorized levels, the French environment minister said on Sunday, without elaborating. Shares in Renault fell more than 4 percent to their lowest level in around a month on Friday after a source at the Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched a judicial probe into possible cheating on exhaust emissions at the French carmaker. Volkswagen's admission that some of its diesel vehicles were fitted with software designed to hide the true level of emissions they produced has highlighted that most cars spew out far greater amounts of health-threatening nitrogen oxide in everyday driving conditions than in laboratory tests. "A number of anomalies were noted on Renault vehicles. The controls performed far exceeded the permissible standards. This is also the case for other carmakers to a different extent. So there could be other investigations," Environment Minister Segolene Royal said in an interview with French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche. "It is a matter of justice and I do not interfere." Renault said it respected all laws concerning exhaust emissions, adding that its vehicles did not have software enabling them to cheat on emissions standards. In addition to Volkswagen, Renault is the only carmaker so far to be referred for possible criminal investigation in France over suspected breaches of emissions rules. "I have no reason to think Renault cheated like Volkswagen," Royal said. Volkswagen this week agreed to pay $4.3 billion in a settlement with US regulators. British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday she will announce details of her Brexit plans this week. John Stillwell / Reuters British Prime Minister Theresa May will target a clean divorce from the EU when she sets out her Brexit plans in a major speech this week, newspapers reported on Sunday. In Tuesday's address, she will call for the United Kingdom to unite and get behind Brexit, pleading for an end to the "insults" and rancor between Leavers and Remainers, her Downing Street office said. But newspapers said she would be laying out the path toward a "hard Brexit" - a strategy likely to infuriate embittered Remain voters even more. May will spark two years of Brexit negotiations when she triggers the Article 50 departure process by the end of March. She has been under pressure to reveal her strategy for the talks that will set out the future relationship between the UK and the European Union. Downing Street would not be drawn on matching reports in several newspapers that she was targeting a "hard Brexit" - pulling of the single market, the European customs union and the European Court of Justice, in order to regain control of immigration from the EU. 'Triple blast' The Sunday Times said May would announce that London is seeking a "clean and hard Brexit", citing the above points. "May's triple Brexit blast" was how The Sun put it, saying May will "show she means business by announcing a triple whammy departure from the EU". The Sunday Telegraph quoted a government source as saying: "She's gone for the full works. People will know when she said 'Brexit means Brexit', she really meant it." Downing Street would only say the speech would call on the nation to "set aside old divisions, and unite to make a success of Brexit". While the June referendum on UK's EU membership split the country - the Leave campaign won with a 52 percent majority - most Britons share a vision of a future Britain that is "secure, prosperous, outward-looking and tolerant", said Downing Street. "Setting out the government's plan for the Brexit negotiations, the PM will highlight the importance of building on common goals - such as protecting and enhancing workers' rights - and focusing on a positive vision of Britain outside the EU." May has revealed little so far on her negotiating position, but has been clear she wants control over immigration from EU countries - a major issue in the referendum. May - who gave lukewarm backing to the Remain campaign - was to call on all sides to respect the referendum outcome. "Now we need to put an end to the division and the language associated with it - Leaver and Remainer and all the accompanying insults - and unite to make a success of Brexit and build a truly global Britain," May was to say. From the rivers criss-crossing Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean ports of Greece and France, everyone is hunting for energy supplies. Blizzards, gale force winds, arctic temperatures and river ice thicker than a house has left the stewards of the European energy business frenzied. Prices of natural gas, primarily a heating fuel, has soared to the highest in more than two years. Blackouts across Eastern Europe caused electricity rates to spike to record levels. It's chaotic, but yet familiar. While energy grid operators, producers and traders prepare for winter's chill every year, they tend to rely on meteorological forecasts that sometimes turn out to be dead wrong. So when a winter that's expected to be mild develops into an extended deep freeze, a mad dash to meet demand ensues. "Those who became sure that such a cold spell was unlikely given the overall trend in global warming are like those who get drowned in a stream that averages 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) deep," said Zach Allen, president of Pan Eurasian Enterprises, an industry consultant in Rhode Island. "The Black Swan is your constant companion." Coldest in five years January will be one of Europe's coldest months of the past five years and the chill will linger for at least another two weeks, according to Giacomo Masato, a meteorologist at energy broker Marex Spectron Group in London. "The more you go inland, the more likely it will be that even maximum temperatures will be around zero," Masato said. "That's cold." For Europe's natural gas traders, this winter was supposed to be boring, with a glut damping any potential for wild price swings. Norway and Russia exported at record levels, while the increasingly global liquefied natural gas trade gave utilities a cushion. By September, prices from gas to power were still near six-year lows. But gas ended the year with its biggest bull run in a decade as Centrica delayed the return of the United Kingdom's biggest gas store by more than two months after the start of the heating season. Long-term reserves in the region's biggest gas market are now only about half of normal. As the world's power brokers gather in Davos, Switzerland, this week, they'll need to wrap up warm as a low pressure system is forecast to send temperatures to below -20 C. The country may get its lowest seasonal average in a decade, with a mean of -8 C across the country. France will be six to eight degrees Celsius below normal by the end of next week and the grid may implement measures to reduce power demand from Tuesday. Power demand was forecast just shy of its 2012 record on Thursday. Electricite de France SA was granted a two-week a delay on safety checks for the Tricastin-2 nuclear reactor in France because of the freeze and has asked for a reprieve on another reactor. Employees work at the factory of Anteel in Liaoning province. [Photo by Huang Xiandong/For China Daily] Editor's Note: China's top leaders wrapped up the three-day Central Economic Work Conference on Dec 16. At the tone-setting meeting, policy-makers mapped out policy stances for the country's economic development in 2017. China Daily analyzes the tasks and challenges China will face in 2017, to provide an insight into how the world's second-largest economy will tackle the thorny restructuring and reform challenges. China will enact stricter rules for trimming steel overcapacity in 2017 after making significant progress in 2016, according to experts. Li Xinchuang, president of the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, said: "Although steel prices in 2016 rebounded by a large margin and last year's capacity reduction goal was reached two months ahead of the deadline, the profitability in the industry has not been restored." Capacity reduction goal for 201645 million metric tonswas reached in October. Large and medium-sized steel smelters achieved 28.7 billion yuan ($4.15 billion) profits in the first 10 months of the year, compared with a loss of 38.5 billion yuan in the same period in 2015, according to the China Iron and Steel Association. However, approximately 27 percent steel companies are still running at a loss. The return on sales has only exceeded 1 percent, far below the average industrial return on sales in the country, according to Li. What makes the matter even more challenging is that the estimated demand in 2017 is 660 million tons, down by 1.5 percent year-on-year, according to the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute. The short-term goal of capacity reduction is to cut crude steel capacity by 15 percent, or a reduction of 27 million tons, within three years starting from 2016, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Li Bing, chief of the commission's corporate reform office, said the overall reduction of capacity would be completed by the companies making their own reductions. Xu Shaoshi, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that cutting excess production capacity will be a priority for the commission's work in 2017. The commission made a statement in December after its annual work conference that it will continue to push supply-side reform, including cutting overcapacity, destocking, deleveraging, reducing corporate costs and shoring up weak links in the economy. The central government has taken more measures to deter the act of bringing outdated capacity back on stream. In December, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council penalized two steel companies in Jiangsu and Hebei provinces for producing substandard steel and building factories that had yet to be approved. Two deputy governors of the two provinces have been held accountable and 138 people involved in the cases were punished. Chen Kexin, chief analyst of the Lange Steel Information Research Center, said that the capacity reduction goal in 2017 is going to be higher than 2016. At the same time, there will be more challenges. "Overcapacity is estimated to be 100 to 200 million tons. This excess is seriously polluting the environment and churning out low quality steel. In 2017, there will be stricter administrative and environmental standards," he said. According to Changjiang Securities Co Ltd, the goal of capacity shedding may increase by more than 10 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, the merger of Baosteel and Wuhan Iron & Steel group has set industry along the path of wider reorganization. The landmark merger in December has created China Baowu Steel Groupthe world's second largest steelmaker by annual output. The new steel entity is estimated to have total assets worth 730 billion yuan. Xu Xiangchun, chief analyst of mystee.com, said that the biggest effect of the merger would be on competition. "Scattered and disorderly competition will be changed. It always used to be the case that in the steel industry the north was more powerful than the south. The merger is changing the situation. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan enjoy tea and conversation with Swiss President Doris Leuthard and her husband Roland Hausin in a special train on their way to Bern, capital of Switzerland, Jan 15, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] The China-Switzerland relationship has become a paradigm of relations between countries of different sizes, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday during his state visit to the country. Xi made the remarks during a tea chat with his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard on a special train of the Swiss government running from Zurich to Bern. Xi is on a four-day trip to Switzerland until Wednesday, during which he will pay a state visit to Switzerland, attend the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) and visit some Geneva-based international organizations. As one of the first Western countries to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, Switzerland has taken the lead in developing cooperation with China, recording a trove of "firsts" in this process, Xi said. He cited Switzerland's lead on the continental Europe to sign and implement a free trade agreement with China, and join the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In 2016, Switzerland became the first and only country to set up a strategic partnership with China featuring innovation. "During this visit, I would like to engage in in-depth talks with President Leuthard and other Swiss leaders, to enrich our partnership, and boost our cooperation in all areas," Xi said. He added that China, sharing similar views with Switzerland on many international issues, wishes to work with the European nation to enhance their coordination in international affairs. Noting that China encourages more and more Chinese tourists to travel to Switzerland, Xi said China, which is to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, stands ready to promote cooperation with Switzerland on developing winter sports. Leuthard thanked Xi for choosing her country as the destination of his first state visit in 2017, saying the decision represents the importance China has attached to Switzerland. Switzerland stands ready to push forward cooperation with China on various fields, said Leuthard. China is an influential country in the world, said Leuthard, adding that the international community looks forward to hearing Xi's exposition of China's policies at the WEF as the world is facing many uncertainties right now, said the Swiss leader. Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the WEF annual meeting on Tuesday to share the views of the world's second largest economy on charting the course for globalization. During the chat, the two leaders also exchanged views on such issues as Belt and Road Initiative and green development. They agreed to propel the two countries' cooperation in science and technology, innovation, connectivity, infrastructure construction, clean energy and regional-level exchanges. video video video The Chinese President arrived in Switzerland on Sunday for a state visit and to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos. It is the first time a Chinese president has taken part in the Davos summit. He told dignitaries at a welcoming event at Zurich Airport that his visit was intended to create a positive impetus for the recovery of the world economy. Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at a welcome ceremony held at the Federal Palace in the Swiss capital of Bern, Jan 15, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] President Xi Jinping, welcomed by the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council on Sunday, said that he is looking forward to consolidating friendship and boosting cooperation between China and Switzerland. "My visit is aimed at consolidating our friendship, boosting our cooperation and promoting peace and development together with the Swiss side," the president told the seven Swiss Federal Councilors at the welcome ceremony held at the Federal Palace in the historical Old Town of Bern. Xi arrived in the Swiss financial hub of Zurich Sunday noon to pay a four-day state visit to the Alpine country, the first by a Chinese president in the 21st century. Before traveling by train to the capital city of Bern, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were greeted by Swiss President Doris Leuthard and her husband Roland Hausin at the airport in Zurich. The two heads of state had a brief talk during the journey. "I am looking forward to having talks with the Swiss side on deepening our practical cooperation in various areas and enriching the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership," Xi said. During his Switzerland trip, the president is also scheduled to attend the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the ski resort of Davos, and to visit the headquarters of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the World Health Organization in Geneva and the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne. Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Davos meeting on Tuesday and another one at the UNOG the next day. The president will be the first Chinese head of state to attend the Davos meeting. "I hope to, through attending the WEF annual meeting and visiting the international organizations, gather consensus with all sides on maintaining world peace, promoting common development and settling major global issues under the current situation, thus delivering positive energies to the international community," Xi said. Speaking at the welcome ceremony, Leuthard said Switzerland is a trustworthy partner for China. She lauded the bilateral relations as being full of life, noting that the relations had reached the highest level in history last year when the two countries established an innovative strategic partnership. Stressing that Xi's visit will deepen the bilateral relations, Leuthard said the Swiss side is willing to discuss cooperation with the Chinese side in promoting China's Belt and Road Initiative and other areas, and strengthening communication and coordination within the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. A Davos logo is seen before the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 15, 2017. [Photo/Agencies] As the first Chinese president to attend the World Economic Forum's annual forum in Davos, Xi Jinping may be pleased to learn that his government has been ranked as the most trusted in the world. The annual Edelman Trust Barometer finds the Chinese government had a 76 percent approval rating among those questioned last year. The figure was a stark contrast to other governments performance in the survey, released on Monday, ahead of the Jan 17-20 Davos meeting. Trust in governments fell in 14 of the countries surveyed to 41 percent. The high approval rating of Xis government looks even more exceptional against the backdrop of rising distrust in governments, companies, and the media across the globe last year. The presidential elections in the United States and Brexit referendum in Britain rocked political establishments and scandals hit businesses. "There's a sense that the system is broken," Richard Edelman, head of the communications marketing firm that commissioned the research, told Reuters. "The most shocking statistic of this whole study is that half the people who are high-income, college-educated and well-informed also believe the system doesn't work." The 3,000 business, political and academic leaders meeting in the Swiss Alps this week find themselves increasingly out of step with many voters and populist leaders around the world who distrust elites. The media are now trusted by only 43 percent of people, with confidence in news outlets down particularly sharply after a year in which "post-truth" become the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year. Trust in business was slightly higher, at 52 percent, but it too has declined amid scandals, including Volkswagen's rigged diesel emission tests and Samsung Electronics' fire-prone smartphones. The credibility of chief executives has fallen in every country surveyed, reaching a low of 18 percent in Japan, while the German figure was 28 percent and the US 38 percent. The annual survey, which has been running since 2001, gauged the views of 33,000 people in 28 countries from Oct 13 to Nov 16 last year. By An Baijie in Bern | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-01-16 20:28 Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard meet the press after the two sides signed ten cooperative documents to boost cooperation in Bern, Switzerland, on Jan 16, 2017. [Photo by Xu Jingxing/chinadaily.com.cn] China and Switzerland have agreed to upgrade their free trade agreement with the two countries agreeing to cooperate more on clean energy, sports, customs and intellectual property. President Xi Jinping and his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard signed 10 cooperative documents on Monday during Xi's state visit to Switzerland. The China-Switzerland FTA, which has waived most tariffs on goods, came into effect in July 2014. Switzerland is the first continental European country to negotiate and implement a free trade agreement with China. China and Switzerland have similar views opposing trade protectionism, Xi said. He added that economic globalization is an exorable trend, calling on the two countries to provide more confidence and "positive energy" to the global economy. "The China-Switzerland relationship has become a model for the cooperation between two countries with different social systems, development period and size of homeland," Xi said. Leuthard spoke highly of China's promotion of free trade, saying that free trade is "of vital importance for an open economy like Switzerland". Bilateral trade has increased significantly since the implementation of the FTA in 2014, she said, adding that there is still much potential for further growth. The two countries also agreed during the talks to lift several technological barriers and streamline customs procedures, she said. China has played a responsible role in facing global challenges, she added. Leuthard said she was glad to receive the invitation from Xi to attend the Belt and Road international cooperation summit to be held in Beijing in May. Hans Boller-Wu, vice-president of the Swiss-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and his wife Amy Wu are seen in this file photo. [Photo by Xie Songxin/chinadaily.com.cn] So far we have argued that only intensified cooperation promises sustainable solutions for the bigger problems of the world, and we have referred to the millennium old Chinese "Book of Political Documents" (Shang-shu) where the "compatibility of all peoples" has been claimed. In the old Chinese political thinking coexistence precedes existence, obviously true for individuals as well as for nation-states, and consequently, from this viewpoint, the new world concept would require that global leaders behave as such by transcending their national borders in their concern for the wellbeing of both their own people and the peoples of the world. Making the world great not again, but for the first time therefore means building a global community of common destiny in which the aspirations of the peoples for peace and prosperity are met through joint efforts of all nations, especially the big ones. It might be of interest to note here that in a completely different field, namely the one of medicine, the traditional Chinese thinking assumes that the parts of the human body represent the whole, and that the whole precedes the parts. The ear for instance has representations, clearly defined areas, of the liver, the lung, the heart etc. Of course, these assumptions by the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are approximations, somewhat raw, but they anticipate, as we will see, modern perceptions quite well. "Opposites are complementary and form a unity". This wisdom is shared by both antique Greek and Chinese philosophers with the latter teaching it in the form of Yin and Yang in TCM to this day. Outstanding personalities such as Heraclitus, Parmenides and Laozi stand for similar concepts emphasizing an indivisible dynamic relationship of parts and the whole. But while the Chinese civilization basically remained on this path, Western thinking moved away over centuries only to find itself in a fragmented world, not only in thinking but also in real terms until the epochal discoveries of Einstein's relativity theory and Heisenberg's quantum physics reversed the movement again. Today, old Greeks and Chinese agree with modern physics that fragmentation is no longer an adequate description of reality and has to be overcome. Eminent physicists like Niels Bohr and David Bohm bring it to the point: "It will be ultimately misleading and indeed wrong to suppose, for example, that each human being is an independent actuality who interacts with other human beings and with nature. Rather, all these are projections of a single totality" (Bohm). Or "The opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth" (Bohr). Let's welcome these new partners in thinking: Europe is a profound truth, America is a profound truth, India is a profound truth, and Russia is a profound truth and China as well. Together all of them and all others form a unity, but they have to recognize and work on it. The author is Director of the Boller-Wu foundation in Switzerland. President Xi Jinping and Swiss President Doris Leuthard address the media in Bern, Switzerland, on Monday. XU JINGXING / CHINA DAILY After 'fruitful' talks, Xi says two sides will work together to maintain open and inclusive global trade China and Switzerland agreed on Monday to upgrade their free trade agreement, amid both countries' calls for opposition to protectionism, during President Xi Jinping's state visit. Witnessed by Xi and Swiss President Doris Leuthard, the two sides signed 10 documents to boost cooperation in areas including free trade, clean energy, sports, customs and intellectual property. Describing the talks with Leuthard as "fruitful", Xi told reporters after the signing ceremony that China and Switzerland will make joint efforts to maintain an open and inclusive global trade system. The China-Switzerland FTA, which waived most tariffs on goods, became effective in July 2014. Talks began in 2011, and the two sides sealed the deal in July 2013. Switzerland is the first continental European country to conclude and implement a free trade agreement with China. China and Switzerland hold similar views on opposition to trade protectionism, Xi said, adding that economic globalization is an inexorable trend. He also called on the two countries to provide more confidence and "positive energy" to the global economy. "The China-Switzerland relationship has become a model for the cooperation between two countries with different social systems, development stages and size of homelands," Xi said. Leuthard spoke highly of China's promotion of free trade, saying free trade is "of vital importance for an open economy like Switzerland". Bilateral trade has increased remarkably since implementation of the two countries' free trade agreement in 2014, she said, adding that there is still much potential for further trade growth. The two countries also agreed during the talks to lift technological barriers and streamline customs procedures, she said, adding that China has played a responsible role in facing global challenges. Xi will make a speech at the opening ceremony of the Davos World Economic Forum on Tuesday. Leuthard said she was glad to receive the invitation from Xi to attend an international summit on the Belt and Road Initiative in May in Beijing. Alain Gaschen, minister and deputy head of mission at the Swiss embassy in China, said that Chinese entrepreneurs are increasingly showing interest in developing their business in Switzerland. "We are among the top 20 economies to have a free trade agreement with China. We welcome Chinese investments," he said. He Maochun, director of the Research Center for Economic Diplomacy Studies at the Tsinghua University Institute of International Studies, said the China-Switzerland relationship, highlighted by the FTA and the two countries' innovative strategic partnership, is an example of China-Europe cooperation. "Switzerland has the craftsman spirit in precise instruments, advanced machine tools and clocks and watches, which is quite supplementary to China. China's huge market and Switzerland's techniques could lay a good foundation for a closer economic and diplomatic relationship between the two countries," he said. Huang Ping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China and Switzerland have potential for innovative cooperation in several areas, such as manufacturing, immigration management, anti-terrorism and healthcare. "China could seek solutions for the problems it faces now through cooperation with Switzerland," he said. Statistics from the Swiss government show that in 2015, the country saw a 33 percent increase in the number of hotel bookings by Chinese tourists. China has become the fourth-largest source of tourists for Switzerland, behind only Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. The two countries established an innovative strategic partnership during then-Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann's state visit to China in April. Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn German premium carmaker Audi reports sales growth of 3.7 percent in 2016 after zero growth in 2015. [Photo by Cu Meng/For China Daily] Audi retained its top position in China's premium car segment last year, but the good days might be over soon as its arch rivals are catch up fast and tough negotiations with its rebellious dealers are pending. The German brand sold 589,000 cars to Chinese people in 2016, about 70,000 cars more than BMW and 110,000 cars more than Mercedes-Benz, but its pace of growth is much slower. Audi saw its 2016 sales edge 3.7 percent year-on-year, after zero growth in the year before, while all other players in the segment were marching at double or even triple-digit speed. BMW and Mercedes-Benz, its nearest rivals, grew at a rate two times faster and six times faster than Audi, respectively, and have shown signs of potentially rapid growth in the coming years with their rich product plans. BMW has made public its plan to launch 14 new models in China. Even more menacing a problem is from within Audi itself. The giant hit the headlines in late 2016 when a picture went viral online of its signing a memorandum with SAIC Motor to build a new joint venture and a separate sales network in China. The move angered existing dealers in the country and triggered weeks of infighting last year as they worried about shrinking sales and profit loss due to increased competition from a separate sales network. Although the dealers were temporarily calmed after Audi told FAW-Volkswagen, which has been localizing Audi models, to negotiate with them, Audi insisted that the sales talk with SAIC Motor will resume before the end of March. Time is running out and a person close to the matter said dealers are now selecting representatives for the forthcoming talk, during which they may demand compensation, claiming that the automaker has set unrealistic sales targets and misled them into building more outlets. Audi now has a sales network of 457 authorized dealers in more than 190 Chinese cities, already the largest of all premium carmakers in the country, with dozens more planned. Xiao Zhengsan, secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said: "Audi dealers have been experiencing hard times over the past two to three years and that building a new sales network will make their struggle even harder." Despite the compromise between Audi and its existing dealers, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, told shareholders that "it is no big deal, there will be little change to SAIC-Audi cooperation". Audi China confirmed to China Daily that the talks on production are not interrupted. The China unit of Volkswagen Group, Audi's parent company, believes the move would involve no risks but bring many opportunities, saying the new joint venture will become a new source of revenue for Audi. A Beijing-based analyst who demanded anonymity said if Audi's ultimate goal is to improve sales and profit in China, building a new joint venture will not open a new source of wealth, but rather a Pandora's box. He said FAW-Volkswagen will have a capacity of 1 million Audi cars by 2020, which is already a little too much considering its current sales, so building cars with SAIC means Audi has to invest a lot of money for unnecessary capacity. "Undoubtedly, the investment would finally translate into price tags of models and make them less competitive," said the analyst. "More importantly, building a new joint venture and a separate network will not make Audi cars more competitive, but it means Audi will have to tread carefully to balance relations with the two partners." Volkswagen AG has made a similar mistake before. In late 2013, it authorized SAIC Volkswagen to sell imported Volkswagen cars in the hopes of boosting their sales in China. Unfortunately, the plan soon backfired. Although the number of dealers doubled, the sales in 2014 were 1,000 units less than the year before due to their disruptive competition. A China Economic Net report said that, in order to boost sales, SAIC Volkswagen promised that if its dealers would sell one imported Touareg, they would be allowed to take in five more popular and profitable Tiguan models. The promise prompted dealers to undersell Touaregs and disrupted Volkswagen's pricing system, forcing the original dealers of imported models to lose money. At the dealers' behest, Volkswagen stopped the move in early 2015. And a similar move has handed Mazda another bitter byproduct. The Japanese automaker had intended to increase its presence in the world's largest market by collaborating with two automakers but it found that bothFAW Mazda and Changan Mazdaare more inclined to focus on sales than brand building. If Audi suffers a similar outcome, it could find that the result is even deadlier to its premium brand than it was to Mazda's volume brand. As Chinese media report, the first Audi-SAIC model may make its debut at the Shanghai auto show in April this year. It will undoubtedly be a big day for the two sides, but chances are that the move will hand its rivals an advertant, but much appreciated, boost. The US Environmental Protection Agency has alleged that Fiat Chrysler put software in Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 models that allows them to exceed pollution limits. [Photo by Jing Wei/For China Daily] Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV was accused of violating pollution laws with 104,000 diesel vehicles, sending its shares plunging on the prospect the automaker may follow Volkswagen AG in facing billions of dollars in fines. The United States Environmental Protection Agency alleged Fiat Chrysler put software in Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 models that allows them to exceed pollution limits. The EPA stopped short of calling the software a "defeat device" but said the carmaker failed to disclose their use. Fiat Chrysler said it meets all applicable regulatory requirements and will work with President-elect Donald Trump's administration to contest the allegations. Fiat Chrysler becomes the second automaker in less than three years the EPA has accused of violating the law by using software to pass laboratory emissions tests. Volkswagen, which admitted to using defeat devices in September 2015, agreed on Wednesday to pay a $4.3 billion fine, boosting the cost of the scandal to about 20.5 billion euros ($21.9 billion). Fiat Chrysler's case is "completely different" from Volkswagen's, the company's chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne said on Thursday. He called the timing of the EPA's notice of a violation "very strange" and said the Italian-American automaker rescued by the Obama administration in 2009 had discussed emissions with the EPA for more than a year. "I am really ticked off," Marchionne said. Fiat Chrysler's alleged violations could result in fines of as much as $44,539 per vehicle, Cynthia Giles, the EPA's enforcement chief, said on Thursday. The total potential penalty could be as much as $4.6 billion, based on the cost per vehicle and the number of 2014 through 2016 model year SUVs and trucks. When the EPA first revealed Volkswagen's wrongdoing in September 2015, the company faced punishment of up to $18 billion. "Our meetings with Fiat Chrysler to date have not produced a viable explanation" for the software, Giles said. "This is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act." New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office will investigate the EPA's claims against Fiat Chrysler, saying in a statement that he was "deeply troubled" and would work with state and federal partners. Fiat Chrysler plans to work with the Trump administration to "present its case and resolve this matter fairly and equitably," the automaker said in a statement. Enhanced testing The EPA said it discovered Fiat Chrysler's allegedly illegal software while conducting enhanced testing of other diesel vehicles in the wake of Volkswagen's scandal. The agency said it's now up to Fiat Chrysler to demonstrate the software was not a defeat device. "Chrysler's alleged misbehaviorrigging its trucks, VW-like, to increase pollution of our lungs and lying about itis appalling," Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, said in an emailed statement. The EPA's violation notice said Fiat Chrysler's diesel engine system had eight control devices changing the emissions of the vehicles under certain conditions that the company didn't disclose. Not all such systems are cheat devices like Volkswagen used, according to John German, senior fellow at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a Washington-based non-profit that conducts technical and scientific analysis. The ICCT played a central role in exposing Volkswagen's cheat devices. The government allows control devices, but they can't be used to change emissions to meet testing requirements and they must be disclosed, German said. "The EPA is still investigating whether these are cheat devices," he said. "VW got hit hard because they lied, covered it up and didn't have a fix." Marchionne said he presumes the US Justice Department is also investigating the company. Fiat Chrysler's software wasn't used to bypass emissions tests or operate differently during evaluations than in real-world use, he said, calling such allegations "absolute nonsense." "This software doesn't look for anything," he said. "It just runs." Bloomberg The city of Zhangzhou, Fujian province, is planning to build the world's largest experimental zone for autonomous driving. The project, which was signed on Dec 15 in Beijing, will be constructed in a 56-square-km zone in the city's economic and technological development area to enable testing of autonomous cars in a city-level lab road network with complete traffic signs. It will also cover a 600,000-square-meter closed testing ground and a two-million-square-meter open experimental field. Ding Yong, head of the development area, said the China Merchants Group, Frontt Capital and the CRI Intelligent Auto Research Institute have decided to set up an initial fund of 10 billion yuan for the project. The timeframe of the plan as a whole is yet to be announced, but Wang Lejing, head of Frontt Capital, said the testing ground is expected to be open by the end of the year. Mcity will offer technological suggestions to the project. Mcity is a test facility for evaluating the capabilities of connected and automated vehicles and systems built by the University of Michigan and the Michigan Department of Transportation. Autonomous driving is believed to be one of the most important three pillars of the auto industry in the future, with many carmakers and suppliers, including Volvo, BMW and Delphi, having shown their latest technologies and plans in this regard. Improved safety and transport efficiency are major driving forces of autonomous driving. Statistics from the United States National High Way Traffic Safety Administration show that 35,200 people died in traffic accidents in the US in 2015, most of which suggested human error. Britains biggest crisp brand Walkers has rolled out a new premium Mediterranean range that is cooked in 100% Spanish olive oil. Available in two flavours - Lightly Salted and Cracked Mixed Pepper - the new range will launch in early February to major retailers with an RRP of 1.99 (140g) sharing bag and a 1.89 six-pack at 25g. Unique in the category, cracked mixed pepper uses four different types of peppercorns, which are cracked and sprinkled on to the crisps. Andy Hawkswell, marketing manager at PepsiCo, said the new range was created to embody the essence of the Mediterranean. The use of olive oil in the cooking process is particularly innovative. Symbolic of the Mediterranean, olive oil has gained real traction in the UK in recent years, he said. Our research has shown that Walkers Mediterranean will have real appeal to shoppers looking for a simple, natural, tasty snack and, with its premium credentials, it offers a strong sales opportunity for retailers. The new range, which will be supported by a TV campaign, is based on the Artesanas line, which is well-known in Spain under the Lays banner, and was introduced to France last year. An industry report that highlighted 30 leading Chinese companies who have most successfully established a presence in overseas markets was recently unveiled in Beijing. BrandZ Top 30 Chinese Global Brand Builders was published by WPP and Kantar Millward Brown in collaboration with Google. Brands across nine product categories are ranked based on their Brand Power Scores in seven developed markets, including France, Germany, Spain, the UK, the US, Australia and Japan. Lenovo Group Co Ltd ranks first among the companies as the most powerful Chinese export brand with a Brand Power score of 1,682. According to the creators of the report, three ingredients comprise Brand Power: Meaningful (meeting functional and emotional needs in relevant ways), Different (being distinctive or trend setting), and Salient (coming easily to mind in a buying situation). Each brand's Meaningful and Different scores were computed based on Google Survey answers. Salience was computed based on both the survey answers and the brand's indexed search volume. "China used to have the reputation for being a country for producing mass manufacturing budget products, achieving a huge success in penetrating across the world," said Scott Beaumont, president of Google Greater China. "But it is changing increasingly quickly. These brands are pioneers in breaking through the ceiling and redefining the ways that people think about China and the ways that people think about Chinese brands." "The brands on the list stand for qualities, innovation and customer service, in a way that would become comprehensible even five or 10 years ago," he said. "The study shows that the movement of ideas and product leadership has expanded globally, with consumers increasingly looking to China as a potential source for the newest and most innovative products and brands," David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP said. "This is the opportune time for Chinese brands to expand abroad, despite the many obstacles," he added. According to the report, one challenge facing Chinese brands is that international consumers are generally less aware of and less likely to consider purchasing a Chinese brand than a local or globally recognized one. The research also shows that the consumers in France, Germany and Spain are more aware of and likely to consider Chinese brands than consumers in Japan, Britain or America. Let's take a look at the top ten companies listed in the report. No 10 Hisense, Brand Power score 482 Despite tough talk by President-elect Donald Trump about a possible trade war, Chinese investors are hungry for US biotech and they have money to spend. In the latest purchase following a record 2016 for Chinese healthcare takeovers, Nanjing-based Sanpower Group Co said it would buy a cancer treatment business from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc for $820 million. Sanpower's interest is far from unique. Chinese venture capitalists and individual investors are looking as well. Last Sunday morning, in a hotel ballroom a short hop from the San Francisco airport, about 250 jet-lagged potential dealmakers and American biotech executives could be heard chatting in Mandarin and English. They were attending a get-together hosted by boutique investment firm CTIC Capital, hoping to forge alliances before the start of the industry's biggest annual gathering, the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, at the Westin St Francis in San Francisco. China has a "huge pile of money" and a lot of new venture capital firms, but a limited number of homegrown drug startups to invest in, said Kevin Chen, a partner at the China Fund of Menlo Park, California-based Sequoia Capital. The fund, which spends about a quarter of its $3 billion under management on health care, last year started founding US-based startups with Chinese ties, helping bridge the gap for investors. US investors are beginning to notice. The JP Morgan conference has an entire track dedicated to China-based healthcare companies at the conference. And last year, Chinese firms announced or completed about $8 billion in cross-border acquisitions, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. "The gate is open and it won't be closed again," said Lan Huang, chief executive officer of BeyondSpring Pharmaceuticals Inc, a maker of cancer drugs with headquarters in New York and offices in Dalian, China. Her company, which plans to go public, has been meeting with investors from both countries. The conference comes at a pivotal moment for the two nations. Trump's rhetoric against China has some investors worrying about a cooling effect on business. He has promised tariffs on Chinese goods, and China has said it's prepared to step up its scrutiny of US companies. Jennifer Hu, a partner at China-based Qiming Ventures Partners, said: "If there's no clear sign that it's safe to invest in the US and that innovation will import to China, that's going to hurt investors. They could go to Australia or Canada for that innovation instead." Qiming, which spends about 40 percent of its $2.7 billion in funds on healthcare, is currently raising money for its first fund to be dedicated to US health investments. Up to now, Qiming had focused its investments on Chinese companies. Bloomberg BEIJING - China's central authority has issued a guideline on mobile internet service management, calling for more efforts to develop the sector in a healthy and orderly manner. The guideline calls for increasing the use of mobile internet service in sectors including transport, tourism, education ,medical service, and public security, to better serve the public. It says that mobile internet service could play a big role in poverty relief, as it provides an efficient means to connect these regions with the outside world. The guideline, issued by the general offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, also urges cultivating an orderly environment for development of mobile internet service. "With the rapid evolvement of internet technology, threats and risks posed by mobile internet service are prominent and must be addressed," according to the guideline. China will resolutely crack down on criminal activities such as instigating overthrowing state power and inciting religious extremism through mobile internet service, it says, adding that promoting ethnic separatist ideology and instigating violence and terrors will also be targeted. In addition, more efforts will be made to investigate and punish those involved in defamation, telecom fraud, infringement and illegal sale of personal information, it says. It urges regulating the order of competition and optimizing the environment for the development of the mobile internet service to unleash energy for innovation and market potential. It urges preventing and eliminating risks caused by the development of mobile internet service to ensure security of network data, technology and apps. It says that market access rules of mobile internet service should be perfected and the upgrade of information infrastructure should be accelerated, urging efforts to make breakthroughs on core technologies. The guideline urges making more efforts to strengthen intellectual property protection and boost international exchange and cooperation in this sector. Premier Li Keqiang has pledged to implement more precise macroeconomic measures to tackle potential risks. Li spoke on Friday to economists, corporate management and governmental officials at a State Council meeting that solicited suggestions for the annual Government Work Report in March, according to a statement on Sunday. "2016 saw a stabilized economy with positive factors that helped to boost growth, but we must recognize upcoming challenges such as an unpredictable international market," Li said. The premier said this year will see geographic risks, challenges to global economic rules and changing international politics impose uncertainties amid an increasingly complicated international setting. The government will continue to cut public expenditure to further relieve tax burden for enterprises and implement more proactive employment policies to boost market vitality and ensure incomes, Li added. The State Council, China's Cabinet, will carry out inspections on tax reduction, which will spur local governments to decrease charges levied on enterprises, the premier said. Gao Peiyong, director of the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested the tax reform be deepened to further reduce taxes and charges levied on enterprises. In addition, Li said the government will further streamline administrative processes and reduce institutional costs to cultivate a more inviting business environment. Meanwhile, new technologies and economies will be integrated with traditional industries, with Li and the central government continuing to promote the national strategies of Made in China 2025which aims to upgrade the country's manufacturing sectorinnovation and entrepreneurship, as well as employment opportunities. At the meeting, economists shared their opinions on employment, tax burdens and financial risks, while managers offered their proposals on the manufacturing sector, Chinese companies going global and new economies such as the sharing economy to boost integration of the service sector with traditional manufacturing. Last year, China's economy faced downward pressure, with two of its most important drivers, exports and private investment, hitting a stage of decline or slowing growth. However, Xu Shaoshi, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said last week that China's GDP growth in 2016 was estimated to be 6.7 percent year-on-year, falling within the range set by the central government. Huang Qunhui, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the CASS, said industrial upgrading will strengthen China's economic competitiveness and help address pollution issues. Li also called for stringent measures to tackle key public concerns such as smog. He vowed to improve prevention and control of smog by employing more experts and scientists to research causes and components of air pollution as well as potential solutions as part of efforts to improve people's welfare. China's Long March series carrier rockets. [Photo/Xinhua] Landspace Technology Corporation, a private aerospace company based in Beijing, said it has secured a contract with Gomspace, a Danish company, to launch a series of satellites. It is the first time for a private Chinese company to provide satellite launching services to the international market, the company said Saturday. According to the contract, Landspace will use its Landspace-1 rocket to put Gomspace's satellites into orbit in 2018. Landspace CEO Zhang Changwu said his company could not have won recognition from the overseas client without decades of efforts by Chinese workers in the aerospace industry, which has been developing for 60 years. The total value of the global aerospace market could hit 485 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, according to market estimates, with the market value in China alone reaching 800 billion yuan ($116 billion dollars) during the 2016-2020 period. Sun Jiadong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the aerospace industry matters not only for space exploration, but also for economic and social development. The civil aerospace industry has great potential and will grow very quickly, Sun said. A form of hazard pay to compensate workers whose job demands that they remain outdoors during bouts of smog has been suggested again by members of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. They also proposed that "haze" be listed among occupational disease risk factors. Yang Ying, vice-president of Xi'an Writers Association and a member of the committee, made the proposal to the committee's ongoing session, which opened over the weekend in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province. "I made the same proposal with another 36 members in last year's meeting and decided to make it again in this year's meeting," she said. The proposal states that the local government should pay a special allowance to outdoor workers such as street cleaners, traffic policemen and construction workers when smog hits the city in order to compensate them for any negative health effects they might experience. In recent years, Shaanxi has been badly affected by air pollution, especially cities in the central part of the province. Since the beginning of this winter, smog has increased sharply and a pollution red alert was declared for the first time. In addition to the city's emergency response measures, government departments should also raise smog protection up their agenda, Yang said. Shaanxi provincial department of human resources and social security, and the provincial federation of trade unions said that they had received Yang's proposal last year and a feasibility study on the subject is ongoing. Northwest China's Shaanxi province plans to lift 885,000 people out of poverty this year, according to the chief provincial official. Hu Heping, governor of Shaanxi, laid out the plan in a work report that was submitted to the deputies of the sixth session of the 12th Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress, which opened on Sunday in Xi'an, the provincial capital. It said the government would work to help a further 13 poverty-stricken counties this year. By the end of last year, Shaanxi had 48 impoverished counties with 1.58 million people living on less than the national rural poverty standard of 2,300 yuan ($330) per year. The governor said in his work report that a number of measures would be implemented to fulfill the poverty-fighting target, including the building of 213,000 houses for the resettlement of impoverished farmers and the promotion of industries that could provide jobs. Hu said that last year, about 1.3 million people and two counties had been lifted out of poverty in Shaanxi. Between 2014 and the end of December, the number of poverty-stricken people in the province decreased from 3.5 million to 1.58 million. Shaanxi province plans to model the development of its free trade zone on the one in Shanghai, according to its top official. Hu Heping, governor of the province, said that Shaanxi would build on the experiences of Shanghai and highlight institutional innovation in the creation of its own free trade zone. He made the remarks in a work report that was delivered to the opening meeting of the sixth session of the 12th Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress on Sunday. Shaanxi won approval from the central government for its free trade zone on Aug 31, along with Liaoning, Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Zhejiang provinces and Chongqing municipality. "We will make full use of the great opportunities presented by the construction of the China (Shaanxi) Free Trade Zone and the Belt and Road Initiative to speed up the creation of a new level of reform and opening-up through the innovation of institutional mechanisms, in order to foster a new competitive advantage, and to further deepen and widen integration into the global supply system," Hu said. The province is known as the starting point for the ancient Silk Road trade network that linked China with Central Asia and Europe starting more than 2,000 years ago. Given the advantages of its location, Shaanxi has striven to play a leading role in the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping in September 2013. A block train service to Central Asia named Chang'an began operating in 2013 and in the years since three additional block trains have been put into service from Xi'an, the provincial capital, to Moscow, Warsaw and Hamburg. The province has also built industrial parks in cooperation with Kazakhstan, Russia and South Korea, and established an airfreight route from Xi'an to Amsterdam. "Shaanxi now has 42 international passenger air routes linking it to the outside world. In addition, Thailand, South Korea, Cambodia and Malaysia have set up consulates in Xi'an and 13 countries, including the United Kingdom, have set up visa centers there," Hu said. Henan province in Central China said over the weekend that it would ban all fireworks and firecrackers, effective Saturday. A notice released by the province's environmental protection authority said the ban aims to cope with the "adverse effect of severe air pollution in winter". Local governments at lower levels have been urged to release regulations banning fireworks and firecrackers and establish accountability mechanisms to make sure the ban is strictly implemented. The notice did not say whether the ban was temporary or permanent. Chen Runer, governor of Henan, said that the government would focus on the prevention and control of environmental pollution this year and make sure that concentrations of particle pollution decrease steadily. The number of days with good air quality is expected to be more than 200 in 2017, according to the provincial government work report. Tao Ye, director of the provincial environmental protection department's air pollution prevention and control section, said that when fireworks are set off, a large amount of soot is released and PM 2.5 (airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micros in diameter that are hazardous to health) levels can reach 500 micrograms per cubic meter instantly. A ban on fireworks in Henan's cities was first put forward in 2015, according to Yang Jing, a member of the Henan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He said that although industrial pollution and car exhaust emissions are among the main causes of smog, banning fireworks will increase environmental awareness. "More and more people wear a mask outside on hazy days, including me. Protecting the air is the responsibility of all people," Yang said. Zhang Chaoxiang, another member of the CPPCC Henan committee, said he was born in a village where setting off fireworks was an important part of Lunar New Year celebrations. "The Spring Festival atmosphere is closely connected with the memory of setting off fireworks," he said. "We still have a long way to go to deal with the causes of smog." Wang Xin, 36, a villager in Wangzhai township in Ruzhou, Henan province, said Spring Festival would not be the same without fireworks, but the ban would be worth it if it resulted in clearer skies. Two people ride on a motorcycle on Jan 2, 2017, in Weifang, East China's Shandong province. The provincial weather station issued orange alerts for fog and smog that has led to visibility of less than 200 meters in 11 cities in the provincen. [Photo/IC] The government will devote more efforts in 2017 to implement the new assessment mechanism of local officials that focuses more on environment than economic growth, said the top economic planner. Under the new measures, officials' performance will be judged based on various environment-related indicators, including resources utilization, environment quality, ecological protection, green lifestyle and public satisfaction, said Zhao Chenxin, spokesperson of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a news conference on Thursday. This is the first time that environment protection carries more weight than economic development in auditing officials' performance since 1949, when People's Republic of China was established. In the "Green Development Index System", which is a part of the mechanism released last December, economic growth category carries a weight value of 9.2 percent, less than half of the value of other environment categories such as resources utilization and environment quality. Specifically, the level of PM 2.5 is weighted 2.75 percent while the weight for growth rate of per capita GDP is only 1.83 percent. The indicators and systems are designed to guide and push local Party committees and governments to take people's well-being as the starting point and ultimate goal, to promote the construction of ecological civilization and improve environment," Zhao said. Officials will receive an assessment annually and a general examination every five years. Huang Langhui, former senior official of the National Bureau of Statistics, said in a report by 21st Century Business Herald, that this marks a major change in China's development mode. "The strong public reaction towards worsened air quality shows that the environment pollution has become an issue related to people's safety and social stability. The whole society has reached an agreement that the economic growth achieved based on polluted environment is meaningless," Huang said. However, Hu Chi, a researcher of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, said in a report by China Business News that it is no easy task to implement the new standards. "The concept of 'Green GDP' was once raised by the United Nations and China before. However, when it comes to implementation, it is difficult to collect statistics and set indicators. Therefore, most of the countries in the world still adhere to GDP in officials' assessment," Hu said. "The auditing should be started in the National Bureau of Statistics and gradually promoted to local governments. It is still in the initial period when the weight of environment is increased and has not reached the standard of 'Green GDP'," Hu said. So far China has seen several massive smog days since the winter began, which drew the attention of public and resulted in huge loss in the country's economic and social development. The national observatory said Sunday that a new bout of smog will hit northern and central China from Sunday night to Tuesday. The smog, which will hit Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi, is expected to last until a cold front comes to the rescue around Thursday. Greggs Delivered, the new delivery service from the food-to-go retailer, is being trialled in London from today (Monday 16 January). The delivery service has been trialled across Newcastle city centre, but has now extended to selected Greggs stores in Cheapside and Eastcheap. Raymond Reynolds, retail director at Greggs, said the business was extremely excited to offer delivery of a selection of our great-tasting, freshly prepared food directly to our customers in the two stores in London. The service delivers to offices and homes free of charge, and offers a range of freshly prepared sandwiches, salads, sweet treats, snacks, cold drinks and savouries. To order, customers need to visit the Greggs website and select their location. Orders require a minimum spend of 20 and must be placed before 5pm for next-day delivery between 10am and 12pm. The delivery radius between the two new London stores is just 0.4 miles, with further trial locations planned throughout 2017. Greggs is due to announce its fourth-quarter trading update tomorrow (17 January). A senior World Health Organization official has suggested that Chinese governments shoulder more responsibility in helping poor people combat the negative effects of smog. Air purifiers that help to clean dangerous particulate matter during badly polluted days should be accessible to more people, Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO China Representative, said in an interview with China Daily. At present, many air purifiers cost hundreds or thousands of dollars each and contain filters that are also costly to replace. Even face masks, which help to reduce the amount of particulate matters that the wearer breathes in, cost at least 20 yuan ($2.9) and last for no more than a week in heavy smog. Those on a reasonable income may be able to afford such costs, Schwartlander said, but governments should look into how the poor can get equal protection. He suggested the government subsidize the purchase of air filters for impoverished households. Previous WHO estimates have said that 3 million people die globally every year from outdoor air pollution, many of them in China. The Chinese government has launched nationwide investigations to study the long term health affects of air pollution. An online network of hospitals is turning the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region into an attractive destination for medical tourists from Central Asia, health officials said. The system, launched in the summer, allows patients seeking treatment overseas to consult Chinese doctors for free and book other services, such as flights, airport pickups, accommodation and even city tours. Anar, 37, spent two weeks receiving treatment for migraines and dizziness in her native Almaty, Kazakhstan, before she used the network to connect with the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University in Urumqi. Doctors advised her to travel to China for treatment, which she did in September last year. "The ailment had been troubling me for a long time and there were simply no signs of improvement," she said. "Here (in Urumqi) it only took a week to recover." Anar said the standard of care and medical equipment in Urumqi is better than in her home country. Doctors in Kazakhstan had diagnosed a problem with her cerebral blood flow, but their treatment proved unsuccessful. In Urumqi, medics used drugs to reduce muscle tension, which stopped her migraines, she said. The network is the latest effort by health authorities in Urumqi to boost the lure of the region to tourists through improved medical services. The Xinjiang People's Hospital has handled nearly 6,000 cases involving patients from Central Asian countries since the start of 2015, of which 305 trips have resulted in the hospitalization of a patient. Liu Weiming, an official with the Urumqi health commission, said the platform, which employs the latest internet technology, is designed to be an open and free platform. The platform, developed by the health commission and Shanghai-based Winning Health Technology Group Co, has so far connected 19 hospitals in Urumqi, 17 hospitals in Kyrgyzstan, two in Georgia and seven in Kazakhstan. The authorities are aiming to promote the platform to another 40 medical institutes in Xinjiang next year and sign up 100 more hospitals in cities across Central Asia. Mokhamat, a surgeon at the Xinjiang People's Hospital, which has a partnership with a hospital in Kyrgyzstan, said doctors from the hospital send patients' information to China before their consultation to ensure a smooth process. "The consultation process is totally free, and we also make sure the treatment fee is the same for both Chinese and foreign patients," Mokhamat said. One problem is that insurers in Central Asia do not cover the costs of traveling to China for medical treatment, which may put some potential patients off, according to Du Peng, a doctor at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University. "Many patients want to receive professional treatment in China, but insurance has proved a major challenge," Du said, adding that patients in Central Asian nations generally enjoy free healthcare services. Liu said the authorities are working with government departments to solve issues involving medical insurance and visas, since most people now travel as tourists. Contact the writers at xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn People wear masks at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing on Monday after the city issued a yellow alert for air pollution. [Photo/China Daily] Capital's yellow alert for haze expected to last until Thursday Beijing plans to establish an environmental police force by the end of March, amid tightened controls on air pollution, the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said after the capital and other northern cities are engulfed by a new bout of smog. The smog descended on Sunday across northern and central regions, including Beijing and Tianjin as well as the provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Henan, with the pollution due to worsen, reaching hazardous levels on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Li Jianjun, director of the environmental pre-warning department at China National Environmental Monitoring Center. The smog will begin to disperse on Thursday as winds arrive, Li added. Beijing issued a yellow alert effective on Monday, while 14 other cities, including Shijiazhuang in Hebei province, issued red alerts based on a statement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. In order to reduce air pollution, the capital has set an ambitious target of cutting average PM2.5 concentration levels to 60 micrograms per cubic meter, a 17 percent reduction compared with the average level in 2016, which was 73. The term PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less that is hazardous to health. In addition to strong measures to cut emissions of pollutants, the capital's planned environmental police force will focus on reducing environmental crimes. "By the end of the first quarter, the new police team will be set up," said Fang Li, head of the bureau, adding that the new team will be a branch of the public security police. "The police's compulsory measures, including detention, will deter polluters, while cooperation between environmental and public security departments will improve efficiency in dealing with environmental pollution cases," Fang said. Guan Ping, chief scientist at Peking University's Institute of Oil and Gas, said the environmental police force is needed as a matter of urgency to deal with violations effectively. Guan said that research into environmental pollution uncovered the illegal trade of low-quality coal between shops and households. "Without law enforcement, such violations are hard to stop," he said, adding that the environmental police force should possess professional knowledge to make law enforcement more efficient. Many provinces, such as Hebei and Guangdong, have already set up environmental police forces to strengthen the implementation of laws and regulations on environmental pollution. Contact the writers at zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn President Xi Jinping's visit to Switzerland this week is expected to deepen the countries' unique partnership, particularly in innovation, according to a senior Swiss diplomat. Alain Gaschen, minister and deputy head of mission at the Swiss embassy in Beijing, said the priority of China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) is innovation, to create an economy that is more sustainable, and that Switzerland has a lot to offer in this area. "Swiss products are competitive because of innovation and high quality. We have companies with high technology, with much added value that can contribute to China's high-end economy," he said on Wednesday. A judicial investigation into diesel emissions testing in France could widen beyond Renault after tests showed other carmakers had exceeded the authorized levels, the French environment minister said on Sunday, without elaborating. Shares in Renault fell more than 4 percent to their lowest level in around a month on Friday after a source at the Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched a judicial probe into possible cheating on exhaust emissions at the French carmaker. Volkswagen's admission that some of its diesel vehicles were fitted with software designed to hide the true level of emissions they produced has highlighted that most cars spew out far greater amounts of health-threatening nitrogen oxide in everyday driving conditions than in laboratory tests. A senior US strategist said China and the United States should avoid a "comprehensive confrontation, ... while reducing their differences". Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, made the remarks on Saturday at a seminar hosted by Pangoal Institution, a Beijing-based think tank, while adding that "the possibility of improved relations between the two sides exists". It is possible that China-US relations will improve under US president-elect Donald Trump, although a delicate period of nine or 10 months might lie ahead, said Pillsbury, who advises Trump on China policy. Jiang Jianguo (center), director of the State Council Information Office of China and University of Zurich professor Wolfgang Behr (second from left) attend the launch ceremony of the first Chinese Books Center, Jan 11, 2017. [Photo/Chinanews.com] The first Chinese Books Center in Switzerland was opened at the University of Zurich on Jan 11. The center was built to make Chinese books more accessible to readers in Switzerland and help local people discover more about Chinese culture and developments. State Council Information Office of China director Jiang Jianguo and University of Zurich professor Wolfgang Behr attended the launch ceremony along with officials and representatives from both countries. On behalf of the Chinese government, Jiang donated 817 books about China in four languages, which included many rare books, literature classics, and non-fiction books on Chinese martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, and ethnic cultures. "We hope the center could boost the communication and cooperation on culture and publication between China and Switzerland," Jiang said. The Chinese Books Center is a project initiated by the China International Publishing Group in 2015. At present, it has branches in Europe, South America, South Asia and Southeast Asia. About another 50 centers are planned to be built in five years. Gongs and drums reverberate as a boat carrying the groom arrives at the dock at Youbu ancient town in Lanxi city, East China's Zhejiang province on Jan 15, 2017. The groom must go first to his bride's home and escort her to the wedding. [Photo/VCG] Workers walk past solar panels and wind turbines (rear) at a newly-built power plant in Hami, Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, China, September 17, 2015. [Photo/Agencies] The Asia-Pacific region has reached a turning point in its energy trajectory. The energy solutions that have fuelled growth in the region over the past decades are no longer compatible with the sustainable development aspirations of the region's nations. In transitioning to a new era of sustainable energy, policymakers across the region face complex decisions. Supplies must be secure and affordable, and must fill the energy access gap which leaves half a billion people across the region without access to electricity. Mitigating the local impacts of energy generation and use, however, will be vital to resolving problems such as air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that aggravate climate change. Solutions exist, but only through regional cooperation and integration can the Asia-Pacific transition to sustainable energy in time to meet the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Countries have committed to moving toward a more diverse and low-carbon energy mix through the 2030 Agenda and the Paris climate change agreement. However, fossil fuels remain a major part of the regional energy mix, accounting for up three quarters of electricity generation. Unless the region's countries work together to accelerate the incorporation of sustainable energy into their strategies, business-as-usual approaches will see a continuation of fossil fuel use and its associated impacts. If the countries that enjoy surpluses, such as hydropower and natural gas, trade these resources with those that suffer from energy shortages through new cross-border power grids, it can open up enormous opportunities for both economic growth and decarbonization. The energy technology renaissance already underway in some countries is playing a vital role in the transition. New technologies are reducing the cost of clean energy and renewable power. Smart grids and electric vehicles are rapidly gaining market share. Since 2010, the cost of solar power generation has declined by 58 percent, with the cost of wind power down by one-third. The International Renewable Energy Agency projects cost reductions of 59 percent in solar power and 12 percent in wind power within 10 years, edging below fossil fuel electricity costs in most Asia-Pacific countries. Advances in long-distance power transmission technologies enable the linking of renewable energy resource-rich areas such as the Gobi Desert, Central Asia and Far Eastern Russia, with distant population centers. Asia-Pacific has emerged as an engine for clean energy, both as a manufacturing center for renewable energy and as the leading region for deployment, with $160 billion invested in renewables in 2015. Energy storage technologies for vehicles and power applications have also leapt ahead, offering flexibility in power usage and balancing variable electricity generation from renewables. But despite these encouraging developments, the success of the energy transition will require sustained commitment at national and regional levels through better policies, incentives and allocation of investments. Regional cooperation, through sharing of policy experiences, building capacity and mobilizing finance can play a significant role in helping countries to implement their own energy sector reforms and capture the many co-benefits. The importance of regional energy cooperation is evident in the transboundary nature of many prominent energy challengesimproving regional energy security, managing air pollution and establishing cross-border energy infrastructure. And long-term regional dialogue is required to further develop these complex and infrastructure-intensive initiatives. Connecting countries, finding regional solutions and promoting regional standards and guidelines has been at the core of the work of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the past 70 years. We recognize the need for regional energy cooperation, and with the support of our member states established an intergovernmental Committee on Energy that will meet for the first time in Bangkok from Jan 17 to 19. Through the committee, countries will help to map out key energy solutions for the region such as accelerating uptake of renewables and energy efficiency, establishing cross-border energy connectivity, promoting regional approaches to energy security, and providing modern energy access throughout the region to ensure a sustainable energy future for all. Through regional cooperation and integration, I am confident that Asia-Pacific countries can transform their energy trajectories to better serve their people, the region and the planet. The author is an under-secretary-general of the United Nations and the executive secretary of ESCAP. A man walks at the main entrance of the congress center where the World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland, in this file photo taken on Jan 18, 2016. [Photo/IC] When President Xi Jinping addresses the world's business and financial elites on Tuesday, he will have an opportunity to demonstrate China's commitment to globalization. In light of the worrying, uncertain and often contradictory messages emanating from Trump Towers in recent weeks, political and business leaders attending Davos will ask each other just what US president-elect Donald Trump means for global political, economic, security and trade policies. Trump's questioning of the existing multilateral economic system places a special responsibility on China and the EU. Both share a steadfast commitment to the centrality of the United Nations system, maintaining free trade, upholding the Paris climate change agreement and tackling regional security issues such as the Iran nuclear deal. Trump is on record questioning the value of free trade, and has said he will drop the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. He has also threatened China with new tariffs contrary to World Trade Organization rules. He has scoffed at the UN and international institutions in general. He has said that he is not convinced of the evidence about climate change. He has also said that he intends to tear up the Iran agreement and reverse the recent United States opening to Cuba. On all these issues, Beijing and Brussels have more in common with each other than with the incoming US administration. It is important that Chinese and the EU leaders make common cause to save the multilateral system from opposing forces in the US. One cannot expect too much on the bilateral front in 2017 with both China and the EU preoccupied with internal issues. An additional priority is steering the Chinese economy to a soft landing after the heady years of double-digit growth. For the EU, it is awaiting the outcome of elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands, and especially how the populist parties such as the Front National will perform in France. Migration remains a priority issue and the problems surrounding Brexit are just beginning. But there are ongoing opportunities for the EU and China to deepen their relations this year. For example, there are the negotiations for a bilateral investment agreement which would provide increased market access and legal certainty for business. There is also huge potential for cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative (the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road) as China seeks to support transport, energy and infrastructure projects linking Asia and Europe. The EU has expressed its willingness to engage with the Belt and Road Initiative and the two sides are now discussing concrete proposals for joint support. Both sides can leverage the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to support much needed development projects through Asia. They could also work together to help the Association of Southeast Asian Nations achieve its economic integration plans. Another important area for cooperation is Africa where there is considerable potential for the EU and China to cooperate in conflict prevention and peacekeeping. China is displaying a greater readiness to become involved in UN peacekeeping missions and is planning a standby force of 8,000 troops. The EU is the main supporter of the African Union and its peacekeeping activities. The two sides are already working together off the coast of Africa in anti-piracy maritime operations. A EU-China summit is scheduled for the summer but there will also be a number of meetings at the ministerial and senior-official levels to prepare the ground and discuss opportunities for cooperation in new areas. In a fast-changing and uncertain world, the EU and China are two much needed pillars to support the multilateral system. The author is the director of the EU-Asia Centre. Premier Foods has unveiled two new McDougalls pancake mixes ahead of Shrove Tuesday. The McDougalls Classic and American Pancake mixes will be available in packs of 192g at 1.00 and can be purchased in the run-up to and beyond Pancake Day on 28 February 2017. The Classic Pancake Mix can deliver up to 12 thin crepe-styled pancakes, while the American Pancake Mix is designed to help retailers capitalise on growing demand for US-style food in the UK. With Pancake Day worth 10.5m (IRI Grocery Outlets, 1 w/e 13 February 2016), Grace Liljemark, brand director of desserts and home baking at Premier Foods, said it is the biggest sales week in the baking calendar. It also brings a huge spike in online recipe searches, she added. People dont necessarily have the time or knowhow to make up good-quality batter mixes, she said. Premier Foods recently announced it will launch the first-ever McDougalls Wholesaler Baking Team of the Year competition. US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, US, January 11, 2017. [Photo/Agencies] When it comes to tolerance, it is our tradition to display a big heart. That is why one can normally get away with making the same mistake twice, as one will be given the benefit of the doubt. But one will seldom be given the benefit of the doubt twice, because doing the same wrong for a third time shows intent. When United States president-elect Donald Trump broke his country's longstanding diplomatic protocol and answered a "congratulatory call" from Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, the Chinese foreign minister merely responded by calling it a "petty trick" by Taipei. When, just nine days later, Trump told Fox News Sunday the US would not "be bound by the one-China policy", Beijing simply reiterated that acknowledgment of one China is fundamental, and non-negotiable, for healthy ties. To many, that was a mistake Trump made twice. Yet when Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday "Everything is under negotiation including one China," reinforcing the impression that he intends to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip, Beijing did not go beyond what it had already said. Such a measured response can only come from a genuine, sincere wish that the less-than-desirable, yet by-and-large manageable, big picture of China-US relations will not be derailed before Trump even enters office. It would be a blessing for both parties, and indeed for the world, if such goodwill could be appreciated and reciprocated. But that seems unlikely. It seems wishful thinking to assume Trump and his team's remarks on Taiwan have been based on bluster or miscalculation. On the contrary, it appears the next administration is intending to use the one-China policy as its trump card. Taiwan has been off limits in China-US diplomacy thanks to the understanding that it is a Pandora's box of lethal potential, and that opening it may upend the hard-earned, firmly held fundamentals governing the relationship. If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves. It would be good if after his inauguration Trump can demonstrate more statesmanship. But Beijing should not count on his raising the stakes being a pre-inauguration bluff, and instead be prepared for him to continue backing this bet. It may be costly. But it will prove a worthy price to pay to make the next US president aware of the special sensitivity, and serious consequences of his Taiwan game. File photo shows Pit 2 of China's ancient terra cotta warriors in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi province. [chinanews.cn] XI'AN CITY, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, is famous for its terra cotta warriors. However, some local companies make replicas of the terra cotta excavation sites and charge tourists high prices to visit them. A recent media report on this practice aroused nationwide attention, prompting Wang Yongkang, Party chief of Xi'an, to apologize to tourists and the local authorities to close some of the fake sites. Gmw.cn comments: It may seem that the local authorities are rather "efficient" in dealing with tourists' complaints. However, false terra cotta sites have existed for years and tourists have issued hundreds of complaints against them, yet the local authorities did not do anything until a report aroused nationwide attention. Therefore, it is more accurate to say the local authorities acted because of the media pressure, not of their own accord. More importantly, whether such replicas are legal is the issue in question. Since such sites have operating licenses from the local government, they are legal. But it is illegal for them to cheat tourists by pretending to be a genuine terra cotta warrior site. There is no problem for them to duplicating the terra cotta warriors but they have to inform tourists they are replicas. Worse, according to reports, there is a whole chain of cheating in Xi'an. For example, there are fake bus lines that carry tourists to the false sites, fake tourist guides that cheat them, fake taxi drivers who mislead them, even fake policemen. Which official allowed such a chain to survive? Who is responsible? Analysts say one possibility is the local authorities obtain interests from the various links in this chain. The chaotic tourism market in Xi'an won't be regulated with one campaign-like law enforcement only. It won't turn better until the interests chains between the cheaters and the local officials are cut, and officials are held accountable for their tolerance of illegal deeds. That's a lesson for Xi'an, as well as for other tourism cities. Police officers make a list of bank cards seized in a telecommunication fraud case in Xuchang, Henan province, in January. NIU YUAN/CHINA DAILY The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has released a document stressing the importance of strengthening personal information protection. Strengthening the law to better protect people's personal information online is a much needed step given that China has the world's largest population of internet users and the fastest-growing internet economy. It is now common for people to receive a variety of junk cell phone messages or business promotion calls, which do not inevitably cause serious consequences, but are symptomatic of personal information being misused. And the media reported last year that 300 yuan ($43.50) could buy the information of 50,000 infants born in almost all major hospitals in Shenzhen. All this highlights the urgent need for people's personal information to be better protected. The widespread leaking and selling of personal information is not a result of only a few lawbreakers and behind it there exist a huge chain of illegal gains. For the protection of personal information, the punishments extended to those who only lie at one end of the "profit chain" are not enough, and those at the other end need to be caught and punished. Compared with commercial agencies, government departments master more citizens' personal information. So, in the country's strengthened efforts to protect personal information safety, government departments should play an exemplary role and any government employees who leak personal information, either intentional or out of negligence, should be held accountable. It is expected that after the top legislature's document calling for efforts in this regard, more supportive policies and regulations will be introduced to strengthen citizens' information safety protection. --SZNEWS.COM Workers from TBEA Shenyang Transformer Group Co assemble equipment in a plant in Shenyang, Liaoning province. [Photo by Zhang Wenkui/For China Daily] First the so-called experts said China will never be a developed and advanced country. Then they said China's reforms will not work, that China's growth was a bubble. Then came the claim that China will always remain the world's factory, etc, etc, etc. At every turn and at every stage these "old China hands" have been proven wrong, but that hasn't stopped them from making dire predictions. Now they are betting against the revival of the Northeast. Well, it looks like the "rust belt" is going to shame them again. It's no secret that the industrial heartland of the country has been going through a tough time for some years. While some of the problems are due to its own shortcomings, others were caused by events that were out of its control, such as the global slowdown. But what many have either failed to notice or deliberately ignored is the change that has been taking place in the Northeast, especially in Liaoning province. Take for instance the Shenyang Machine Tool Company in the province capital. In an effort to push innovation and target high-end sector, it launched the world's first integrated smart machine toolmaker, i5M8. This out-of-the-box thinking showed that Chinese firms also were capable of producing numerical controlled machine tools. That was just a start. Now fully automated lathes and machines produce the precision tools for advanced industries. Another example of government working together with multinationals to attract global talent and expertise to the province is the BMW plant in the capital. It's the biggest research and development center of the auto giant outside Germany. Then there's Dalian, the financial, shipping and logistics center for Northeast Asia. The southernmost city of Northeast China is also a major tourist destination. All these signs show that the manufacturing hub of the country is determined to deliver the goods. But can it pull it off? Two cities hold the clue. In the United States, steel and electronics industries were the main growth engine of Pittsburg until both sectors were forced to undergo massive restructuring in the 1980s. In the United Kingdom, Manchester was processing 65 percent of world's cotton in 1913 before it was hit by the Great Depression and other structural problems. Although Liaoning is neither Pittsburg nor Manchester, it is - just like those two cities used to be - heavily dependent on big factories. It's the large State-owned enterprises that are still the major employers and drivers of the economy. But the ground is shifting. Where once workers had job security, good salary and perks, now jobs are fewer, salary has fallen and most perks have disappeared. The province, like rest of Northeast, witnessed unprecedented growth for decades until the global market slump left its main industries steel and coal - reeling. What made matters worse was the inability to keep pace with the changing times. So instead of introducing automation and targeting the mid- and high-end sectors, the factories kept producing goods that offered low returns. But if Pittsburg and Manchester were able to transform their economies from steel and cotton to technology and knowledge hubs then there's no reason to doubt why Liaoning cannot achieve the same results. The province can put its economy back on track if it is able to reduce its dependence on State-owned enterprises, encourage more private companies by offering them favorable policies, and provide better environment to both domestic and foreign talent. This is not to say that it would be an easy process. There could be a rise in unemployment, but a large part of the workforce could be absorbed by private companies. The entry of private firms could also go a long way in halting the brain drain. But the most crucial point is that a long-term view is needed. Whether it is automation, retraining staff or changing people's mind-set, it all needs time and patience. Liaoning should use this opportunity to scale down industries that are well past their age, clean up the environment and offer better facilities both to retain as well as to attract new workers, and open the doors wider to private enterprises. If the region's inhabitants can survive the brutally cold winter then they certainly have the perseverance and strength to turn their fortunes around. Give it time and Liaoning will bounce back. The author is a senior editor with China Daily website. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan enjoy tea and conversation with Swiss President Doris Leuthard and her husband Roland Hausin in a special train on their way to Bern, capital of Switzerland, Jan 15, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua] During his visit to Switzerland from Sunday to Wednesday, President Xi Jinping will attend the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos and deliver a speech at the United Nations main office in Geneva. The Davos meeting, usually attended by China's premier and vice-president, will witness for the first time a keynote address by China's head of state. Xi is expected to explicitly explain his views on the global economic landscape and China's solutions to global problems at the gathering. Xi's trip, the first state visit by a Chinese leader this year, comes at a time of uncertainties amid rising anti-globalization, protectionism, isolationism and populism even in economies such as the United States and the European Union that have for decades advocated free trade. The election of Donald Trump as US president and the rise of anti-establishment forces in Germany and France, the EU's heartland, do not bode well for the already wobbly global economic growth. In sharp contrast to the gloomy prospects of the world economy and international relations, Beijing remains committed to globalization. And Xi's presence at the Davos meeting is a reflection of China's determination to press ahead with the multilateral economic system. His presence at Davos also highlights the fact that China is willing and has the capability to set globalization on a more synergistic, inclusive course. In May, China will hold a high-level international cooperation forum on the Belt and Road Initiative that focuses on global recovery, re-balancing, renovation and reconnection in response to rising concerns over global governance. Proposed in 2013 and unlike traditional globalization backed by tariff reduction, the Belt and Road Initiative (the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road) is aimed at improving connectivity between regions and boosting global growth, through infrastructure construction among other things. The Belt and Road Initiative, which focuses on Eurasian infrastructure and better land and sea connectivity, is expected to elevate 3 billion more people to the middle class by 2050 and help increase global trade by $2.5 trillion in the next decade. The initiative has good reasons to achieve its targets, because every $1 increase in infrastructure investment in developing economies can raise their imports by $0.7, half of which comes from developed countries, as Justin Yifu Lin, former vice-president of World Bank, has said. In other words, the West, too, can benefit from the increase in exports as the Belt and Belt Initiative stimulates global infrastructure investment. Xi's visit to Switzerland will also witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative between China and the World Health Organization in Geneva, giving fresh impetus to the Beijing-proposed project. Cooperative deals with similar focus have been signed between China and the UN, boosting the international support for the initiative's security and long-term development. For example, the UN resolution on Afghanistan passed two months ago specifically extended the world body's support for the Belt and Road Initiative, and encouraged all member states to take part in it to restore the war-torn country's economy. That the Belt and Road Initiative is gaining wider support reflects Xi's foresight that it will promote deeper and more balanced regional cooperation, and allow more people, especially in the South, to enjoy the dividends of economic growth. With China remaining a trustworthy engine of global growth, the countries along the initiative's routes can expect better benefits from China's renewed endorsement of globalization. The author is a professor at Renmin University of China and a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. A man walks at the main entrance of the congress center where the World Economic Forum takes place in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan 18, 2016. [Photo/IC] This week, policymakers, business leaders and top academics are gathering for the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At this year's meeting, under the umbrella of "responsive and responsible leadership", participants will debate rising income inequality, economic anxiety, growing protectionism and the increasing opposition to globalization and the openness that has been a major engine of growth in the past decades, but which has also left large groups of people behind. The meeting takes place against a backdrop of elevated economic uncertainty fueled by policy incertitude in the wake of political changes in 2016 and this year's elections in Germany, France, and other countries, the economies of which together account for some 30 percent of global GDP. In its recent Global Economic Prospects 2017, the World Bank estimates that global growth slowed in 2016 to a post-crisis low of 2.3 percent, as global trade stalled, investment slowed, and policy uncertainty spiked. A moderate recovery is projected for 2017, with global growth forecast to increase to 2.7 percent, mainly driven by emerging markets and developing economies, in particular the large commodity exporters such as Russia and Brazil. China, with a projected growth rate of 6.5 percent for 2017, is set to remain one of the engines of global growth in 2017. Although its growth is projected to further moderate 6.3 percent in 2018-19, reflecting soft external demand, uncertainty about global trade prospects, and slower private investment. Macroeconomic policies are expected to continue supporting activity to help smooth the adjustment of output in overcapacity sectors. Policy support is likely to come increasingly from the fiscal side, as government action to reduce the risks of rising leverage take hold. Rebalancing from industry to services, and from investment to consumption, is expected to moderate, as the continued fiscal stimulus supports industry and the lower wage growth of recent months is being reflected in slower consumption growth. Global growth may yet surprise on the upside, especially if a fiscal stimulus in the United States were to ensue, but downside risks associated with policy uncertainty, protectionist pressures, and the risk of financial market disruptions dominate global prospects. Policy uncertainty could further slow investment. Investment growth in emerging markets and developing economies has slowed sharply since 2010. This slowdown has been most pronounced in the largest emerging markets and commodity-exporting countries, but has now spread to the majority of these economies. Slowing investment growth reflects a range of obstacles holding back investment: terms-of-trade shocks, slowing foreign direct investment inflows, private debt burdens and rising political risk. Sluggish investment today sets back future growth by slowing capital accumulation and productivity growth. Therefore, the cyclical and structural policies to boost investment growth agreed at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, last year remain highly relevant today. Rising protectionist sentiments could undermine the growth in tradean engine of growth in the past that has been sputtering in recent years. Global trade growth in 2016 recorded its weakest performance since the global financial crisis. The structural forces at work are of concern, and they include a slower pace of global value chain integration and increasing trade liberalization headwinds. Maturing global value chains also contributed to lower trade generated for each increase in global GDP. This trend, which had already been observed prior to the global financial crisis, has intensified in recent years. Among major advanced economies, the slowdown in global value chain participation is particularly visible in the United States and Japan. Among the emerging markets and developing economies, China's more mature domestic intermediate production has also contributed in lowering trade intensity of growth. At the same time, most emerging markets and developing economies still have large untapped potential to move up the value chain, by shifting to more complex and higher domestic value-added products, but only if the global trade environment allows for it. New trade restrictions reached a post-crisis high in 2016. In an environment of weak global trade, stagnant real income gains in major advanced economies, and marked currency movements between major reserve currencies, protectionism has been slowly rising. For example, in 2016, G20 countries have taken more trade-restrictive measures than trade-facilitating ones. Anti-dumping measures, countervailing duties, and safeguards have been the most commonly used instruments in advanced economies, while emerging markets and developing economies have used a broader set of restrictive measures, including import tariffs and export taxes. Without violating current agreements, World Trade Organization members could triple import tariffs, which would lead to a 10 percent drop in world trade, and large welfare losses for the world. Undoing existing trade agreements amid increased protectionism would greatly exacerbate those welfare losses. Davos is an opportunity to discuss how to turn the tide that is rising against globalization and trade, and China, which is represented at the highest levels of government, can play an important role. China has not only been a major beneficiary of openness and globalization in the past three decades, but in recent years has played a leading role in international trade and development, and a growing role in the global institutions that underpin these. There is much that countries themselves can do to ensure that gains from trade are better shared, and to strengthen support for openness and tradeincluding improving social safety nets, more investment in people, and active labor market policies that help those working in declining industries to move to more productive occupations. At this point in time, more is needed. Perhaps most important is strong leadership to sustain the international economic system that has benefited the world so much in the past, and to adapt it to current needs and realities. China is among the few countries that is in a position to provide such leadership in today's world. The author is the World Bank country director for China. French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault addresses delegates at the opening of the Mideast peace conference in Paris, January 15, 2017. Around 70 countries and international organisations are making a new push for a two-state solution in the Middle East at the conference in Paris. [Photo/Agencies] PARIS - France on Sunday held an international meeting to seek ways to revive the stranded Middle East peace negotiations and to push for the implementation of a two-state solution to restore security in the region after decades of conflict. The Middle East Peace Conference held here brought together representatives from about 70 countries, including the UN Security Council permanent members, key European countries and major Arab states. However, neither Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are represented in the meeting. Israelis called the meeting a "rigged conference" aiming to adopt additional anti-Israel stances. French President Francois Hollande addressed the gathering, saying the two-state solution is being threatened by multiple factors including Israeli settlements and increasing mistrust between the two sides. He stressed that the solution of two states is still the objective of the international community for the future. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who chairs the Paris gathering, also urged for a resumption of the peace talks at the opening speech. "Peace cannot be found in hate. The aim of the conference is precisely to allow a resumption of dialogue," Ayrault said. France affirmed that the meeting wouldn't impose conditions on the two rival camps to reach a lasting a peace accord. US President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to move US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem also was mentioned here on Sunday. As uncertainty clouding the new US administration's handling of the Middle East conflict, Hollande called on everyone to understand that "nothing can be improvised, or disrupted." Despite international community objection, Trump pledged to relocate US embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been for more than six decades, to Jerusalem, a flashpoint in the long conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. On the sidelines of the conference, Ayrault called Trump's move a "provocation" and warned about "extremely serious consequences." "When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a clear-cut, unilateral position on this issue. You have to try to create the conditions for peace," he said. The last round of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinian authorities broke down in April 2014 after the two sides failed to resolve their deep disputes on issues, such as Israeli settlements, Palestinian state borders and security. US President-elect Donald Trump stand-in, US Army Sergeant Major Greg Lowery, left, and Melania Trump stand-in, Army Specialist Sara Corry, right, participate in the dress rehearsal for the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, 15 January 2017. Donald Trump will be sworn-in as the 45th President of the United States during an Inauguration ceremony on the West Front of the US Capitol, 20 January 2017. [Photo/IC] Authorities attend a wounded inmate inside a prision in Natal, northeast of Brazil, January 15, 2017. [Photo/IC] RIO DE JANEIRO - At least 32 prisoners are dead, several decapitated, and some 28 are on the lam following two separate incidents at Brazilian prisons, authorities reported on Sunday. In the latest incident, two prisoners were killed after a group of inmates blasted their way through a wall early Sunday at the Piraquara State Penitentiary in Curitiba, capital of south Parana state. The breakout occurred after a riot was presumably started to distract guards, the state prison management agency Depen said. Following the explosion, prison wardens opened fire on the escapees, killing two. Much of the recent violence within Brazil's prisons has been attributed to overcrowding, but the Depen said the facility designed to hold 647 inmates was holding 628. After-dawn on Sunday, members of a "militarized police" anti-riot unit took control of the Alcacuz State Penitentiary in Nisa Floresta, a city in northern Rio Grande do Norte state, after a riot Saturday left potentially as many as 30 inmates dead, the G1 news website reported. "The number of dead from the riot ... could surpass 30," G1 said, citing police sources. The state's largest penitentiary, located some 30 km from the state capital Natal, was built to house 620 inmates, but holds 1,150. However, in a statement, the state Secretariat of Public Security (Sesed) said the riot was "the outcome of a dispute between rival gangs." In video footage making the rounds online of inside the prison, several decapitated bodies can be seen in the yard. Already since the start of the year, more than 100 inmates have been killed in prison clashes, mainly at facilities in Brazil's poorer northern states, such as Amazonas and Roraima. A handout photo made available by activist group Sea Shepherd allegedly shows a dead Antarctic mink whale onboard the Japanese vessel Nisshin Maru in Antarctic waters in the Australian Whale Sanctury, January 15, 2017. [Photo/IC] SYDNEY - A Japanese whaling ship has allegedly been caught operating illegally in Australian waters. The Nisshin Maru, a Japanese vessel, was caught in Australian waters between Tasmania and Antarctica with a dead whale on board by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) helicopter. The group released images taken by the helicopter of the vessel with a dead protected minke whale on board and two harpoon ships nearby. Josh Frydenberg, Australia's Environment Minister, said the Australian government was "deeply disappointed" that Japan had resumed whaling. In a statement issued on Monday Frydenberg said that Australia was "opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called 'scientific' whaling." "It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," he said. "We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation." Tony Burke, Frydenberg's Opposition counterpart, also issued a statement, criticizing the "slaughter under the guise of scientific research'." "Japanese whaling ships have been sighted with their harpoons uncovered in the Southern Ocean, where a moratorium on whaling in currently in effect," he said. "This is happening in areas Australia recognises as being protected." Jeff Hansen, a member of Sea Shepherd, said that crew on board the Nisshin Maru quickly covered the whale with a tarpaulin once they spotted the helicopter. "They're hit with an explosive harpoon that goes straight into their body, hooks come out and shrapnel is sent through their body, it's a terrible bloody death... these whales can take up to 30 or 40 minutes to die," Hansen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "A soon as the whaling fleet saw that Sea Shepherd on the scene, they were scrambling to cover up their illegal operations, they were covering up their harpoons "This is all happening deep in Australia's whale sanctuary off the Antarctic coast." The incident occurred as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Australia to meet with Australia's PM Malcolm Turnbull about the two nations' relationship. "It shows that even with the Japan Prime Minister on Australian soil, Japan is going about their bloody business ignoring the Australian Federal Court ruling, ignoring the wishes of the International Court of Justice," Hansen said. Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email sunnews@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes SEOUL - Former head of South Korea's biggest opposition party beat former UN chief in recent presidential poll though the latter's return to his home country boosted hopes among conservative voters, a local survey showed on Monday. Moon Jae-in, former chief of the main opposition Minjoo Party, won an approval rating of 26.1 percent last week, according to a Realmeter survey of 2,526 voters from Monday to Friday. It was down 0.7 percentage points from a week ago, but support for Moon topped approval scores garnered by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon who returned to his home country, South Korea, last Thursday. Support for Ban rose 0.7 percentage points over the week to 22.2 percent as Ban has been seen as the best hope in the conservative camp, which fell with the presidential scandal emerging. Ban's daily approval scores gained from 23.3 percent on Thursday, the very day of his comeback, to 25.3 percent on Friday. It remains to be seen whether this upward trend will continue as the verification process of Ban as next leader was already launched. Lee Jae-myung, mayor of Seongnam city to the southeast of Seoul who is affiliated with the Minjoo Party, ranked third with a support rate of 11.7 percent. It was followed by Ahn Cheol-soo, former head of the minor opposition People's Party who garnered an approval rating of 7.0 percent last week. It was up 0.5 percentage points from the previous week. A colony of more than 250 000 King Penguins gather together to enjoy a beach day despite the snow and temperatures plunging well below freezing in South Georgia, Jan 11, 2017. The photo was captured by retired engineer Ofer Agiv during an 18 day trip to Antarctica. [Photo/VCG] Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Electronics Vice President, center, is summoned by South Korea's Special Prosecutor's Office in Seoul, Jan 12, 2017. [Photo/IC] SEOUL - South Korean independent counsel team investigating a scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye sought an arrest warrant for the heir apparent of Samsung Group, the country's largest family-run conglomerate. The team said in a text message on Monday that it had sought an arrest warrant for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for criminal counts, including bribery charge. Whether the Samsung heir will be detained for his alleged involvement in the scandal, which resulted in President Park's impeachment, is scheduled to be determined by a court on Wednesday. Samsung is suspected of having provided financial assistance to President Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil and Chio's daughter in return for getting support from the national pension fund in the merger in July 2015 of two Samsung affiliates. The merger to create a de-facto holding company was extremely crucial to the heir apparent to inherit the overall management control from his ailing father Lee Kun-hee who has been hospitalized for over two and a half years. The national pension fund voted for the merger despite strong opposition from foreign shareholders and outside advisory groups for an unfair exchange ratio. President Park and Vice Chairman Lee met face-to-face around the time of the merger. Samsung made the biggest donations among scores of conglomerates to two Choi-controlled foundations. It also bought a horse Choi's daughter, while providing financial assistance to Choi's daughter for her equestrian training. Vice Chairman Lee was also charged with giving a false testimony during the Dec 6 parliamentary hearing on the presidential scandal as he denied his involvement in the scandal, according to local media reports. SEOUL - Former South Korean Health and Welfare Minister Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted Monday for his alleged pressure on the national pension fund to approve the merger of two Samsung affiliates under the order of President Park Geun-hye. Moon, now chairman of the National Pension Service (NPS), served as the health and welfare minister when the Samsung merger occurred in July 2015. Moon, who has been detained, was charged with forcing the NPS to vote for the 2015 merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries to create a de-facto holding company of Samsung Group, the country's largest family-run conglomerate. According to an independent counsel team probing the scandal involving the impeached president, President Park ordered Moon through her secretaries in June 2015 to help Samsung succeed in the merger. Under the president's order, Moon pressured the national pension fund into approving the merger despite strong opposition from foreign shareholders and outside advisory groups for an unfair exchange ratio. The NPS was the biggest shareholder of Samsung C&T at the time. The special prosecutors' team requested an arrest warrant for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for bribery, perjury and embezzlement charges. The warrant's validity will be determined on Wednesday. ABUJA - Two suicide bombers attacked the University of Maiduguri located in the capital of Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno early Monday, killing at least five people and injured more than 15, local police said. Borno State police chief Damian Chukwu said that a seven-year old boy detonated his improvised explosive device at a mosque located inside the Senior Staff Quarters in the university premises. The explosive device of the first suicide attacker went off when he was gunned down by a mobile police officer on duty who sighted him while trying to scale the fence at one of the gates of the university, he said. Satomi Ahmed, a coordinator of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, said a professor who was director of veterinary at the university was among the five people killed in the attack. Four students were also killed, he said, adding rescue operation was still ongoing at the university premises. Terror group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million people since the current insurgency started in 2009, is believed to be responsible for the suicide attacks. Nigeria has made considerable gain on the Boko Haram front, with its security forces operating in the restive region dislodging the Boko Haram fighters from the Sambisa Forest, their last enclave in the country. CAIRO - A top Egyptian court on Monday issued a final verdict that nullified the transfer of two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia, state TV reported. In the verdict, Egypt's High Administrative Court rejected the government's appeal against a previous court ruling voiding a deal that hands over the two islands to Riyadh. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed. In April, the Egyptian government signed an agreement to place both islands under Saudi sovereignty, saying that they had always belonged to the oil-rich Arab country and that Egypt had been merely administering them on behalf of the kingdom since the 1950s. The decision to transfer the two islands prompted an outcry among Egyptians and provoked protests. The uncertainty also stirred tension between Cairo and Riyadh, one of the main financial backers of Egypt since the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Saudi Arabia recently halted fuel shipments to Egypt. In June, an Egyptian administrative court ruled the Egyptian-Saudi border re-demarcation agreement as void, demanding that the two islands remain under Egyptian sovereignty. Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority, the body representing the government in legal cases, later filed and won a lawsuit before a court for urgent matters to stop the administrative court's verdict. ISTANBUL - A Turkish cargo airline said on Monday that it is still not clear what caused its cargo plane to crash near Kyrgyzstan's main airport earlier in the day. "The cause of the accident is unknown at this time and further details will be provided as they become available," said a message posted on the website of the Istanbul-based ACT Airlines, also known as MyCargo Airlines. Initial reports misidentified the ill-fated aircraft, which was flying from Hong Kong to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, as belonging to the Turkish Airlines. "Please kindly be informed that neither the aircraft nor the crew are the members of Turkish Airlines," the Turkish national flag carrier said in a statement. The cargo plane, a Boeing 747-400, crashed into a village near Bishkek's Manas International Airport when it tried to land in poor visibility, killing at least 37 people and destroying dozens of houses, press report said. RAMALLAH - The Palestinian president's spokesperson said on Monday that the next major political battle for the Palestinians will be over Jerusalem. Nabil Abu Rudeinah, the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the issue of Jerusalem represents "a challenge to the Arab world and the international community, "which President Abbas has said is a red line." It is unacceptable "to bargain on it as part of a state with provisional borders, or through concessions that may endanger Palestinian and Arab national security," the spokesman said in a press statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA. "Recent Palestinian achievements have proved once again that Israel's policies have failed and are isolated and that the Palestinian cause is just," the statement said, referring to United Nations Security Council resolution 2334, which condemns Israel's settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. He called on the international community to "give priority" to confronting the threats that brought instability and chaos to the region. The spokesman's remarks came after statements by aides to US President-elect Donald Trump that moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a priority. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in 1967, as the capital of their future state, while the Israelis insist that all of Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel. On Sunday, France hosted an international conference aimed at restarting peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Peace talks between the two sides have remained stalled since April 2014, when US-sponsored negotiations collapsed after nine months of futile efforts. BURCHARD -- USDA Rural Development announced recently that the Village of Burchard, Nebraska is the recipient of $346,000 through a water loan and grant to make water improvements. The Village of Burchard is very appreciative of USDA Rural Developments financial assistance that will help out our small town, said Board Member Matthew McHenry, Village of Burchard. We look forward to the start of the project. Rural Development funds will help the Village of Burchard to improve its water system, said USDA Rural Development Community Programs Specialist Luann Brown. Currently, the village has abandoned service lines that are nearly 80 years old. When there is a water leak, the village has to shut off the water to the entire town, where more than 20% water loss occurs. Additionally, the water tower needs repairing and repainting and water meters needs to be installed. The Water & Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program provides funding for clean and reliable drinking water systems, sanitary sewage disposal, sanitary solid waste disposal, and storm water drainage to households and businesses in eligible rural areas. The $87,000 loan is for 40 years at a 1.375 rate of interest. Casting a vote on behalf of the people of Nebraskas Third District is a great privilege. Much of the work to dig deeper into legislative issues and prepare bills for votes on the House floor takes place in committees. Since 2011, I have had the opportunity to serve on the House Ways and Means Committee, which puts me on the front lines of the debate on how to create jobs, promote economic growth, and impact tax policy. My priority in Congress has always been to secure greater opportunity for Nebraskans. I am honored to be taking on a new role as chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources, which has jurisdiction over a wide range of anti-poverty, welfare, and social services programs, as well as foster care and adoption. The Subcommittee will examine our countrys anti-poverty programs to ensure the end goal is helping people meet their potential through independence and productivity. Rewarding work and addressing reverse incentives in these programs is crucial to helping Americans escape poverty. I look forward to leading our efforts to demand positive results which break the cycle of government dependency and empower people with greater freedom and economic opportunity. This new role also provides another avenue for Nebraska producers to help shape Americas agriculture policy. The Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee works closely with the House Agriculture Committee on issues related to the Farm Bill, namely the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). We must look carefully at the programs effectiveness, ensuring it is focused on those in need while enabling our agriculture producers to provide more Americans with nutritious food. As we begin work on the next Farm Bill, I look forward to many conversations with producers throughout the Third District to seek their input and expertise. I will also be collaborating with Nebraskas new Second District Representative Don Bacon in his role on the House Agriculture Committee. Additionally, I will continue working on the Ways and Means Committee to open new markets for Nebraska agriculture producers, simplify our tax code, and pursue patient-centered health care reforms. Under a unified government, I am optimistic we can come together on these issues and overhaul our regulatory system to provide needed relief. I have also been selected to join the Committee on House Administration for the 115th Congress. The focus of the Committee is to make government work for the people through its oversight of the Houses daily operations as well as federal elections. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve on this important panel to ensure efficient and responsible operations in the House and help preserve the integrity of our election system. We have an exciting and productive year ahead, and I hope you will keep in touch with me as we tackle a full slate of issues in Congress. If you have not joined my e-newsletter list to receive regular updates, I encourage you to sign up on my website at AdrianSmith.house.gov/Newsletter. Thank you for sharing your ideas, stories, and questions to help me better represent you. (Photo : Getty Images) Canada's seafood market has experienced a boost after China lowered its tariffs. Advertisement China has lowered tariffs on seafood, giving a fillip to Canadian industry. The lower tariffs became applicable from Jan. 1 this year to a wide variety of marine products. The new tariff was announced by the Ministry of Commerce through its document titled "MFN Provisional Tariff Schedule for Imported Commodities." The new tariffs are applicable to countries that are not yet benefiting from other preferential rates. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Canada is one of the countries that is set to get a boost from lowered rates. Nova Scotia is among the top seafood exporting provinces in Canada, exporting nearly $218 million worth of marine products as of October last year. Krista Higdon, a spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, said "China is looking for high-quality products and Nova Scotia is looking forward to continuing to provide that." The new tariffs are applicable to 17 marine products, which include frozen halibut, albacore, and crab. Canada has exported $634 million of seafood to China by October 2016. China has also reduced tariff on northern shrimp or Pandalus borealis. The product is now charged at 2 percent rate, down from the previous 5 percent. The tariffs for other products have also been reduced significantly. China has burgeoning seafood market and Canada has played an important role in fulfilling the requirements of this market. In 2015, China imported $171 million worth of frozen crabs under HS code 03061490, out of which $90 million worth of imports came from Canada. Advertisement Tagschina, Canada, Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Photo : Getty Images) China and Vietnam have taken pledge to mutually settle their differences on South China Sea dispute. This is according to a joint statement issued after meeting between Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong and Chinese president Xi Jingping. Advertisement China and Vietnam have vowed to mutually manage their territorial differences in South China Sea and maintain peace in the disputed maritime territory, according to a joint statement issued on Saturday. The joint statement was issued after Vietnam's visiting leader Nguyen Phu Trong met with China's President Xi Jingping in Beijing. Nguyen, who is a communist party chief, arrived at China's national capital on Thursday to hold discussions with Chinese leaders on several bilateral issues. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The statement released by Chinese state media, Xinhua, said that Beijing and Hanoi have agreed to "manage well their maritime difference, avoid actions that complicate the situation and escalate tensions, and safeguard the peace and stability of the South China Sea." The joint statement also said that both nations have agreed to implement the Declaration on the Conduct (DOC) on South China Sea and will make efforts to reach consensus on Code of Conduct (COC) on the basis of this declaration. Xi, during the talks, also reportedly urged both nations to increase communication and build higher mutual trust for settlement of all disputes including the contagious maritime issue. Nguyen is the first high profile leader from Hanoi to visit China, after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc paid a visit in September last year. During the landmark visit, Xi had urged Vietnam's leader that both nation must strive to resolve the South China Sea dispute through mutual talks. Vietnam is one of the many claimants in South China Sea dispute, which China entirely claims as its own. The last year's historic ruling by international arbitration court has hardly made any impact on Beijing's stance on the maritime dispute. The ruling had termed China's historical claim over the maritime territory as "illegal." Advertisement Tagschina, China and Vietnam, South China Sea, Vietnam (Photo : Getty Images) The two leaders will continue working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Donald Trump has vowed to get rid of. Advertisement Japan and Australia have agreed to strengthen their military ties in a bid to ensure regional stability and strong trade links. Speaking after their meeting on Saturday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull, the two leaders spoke of their desire to have "enhanced coordination" on pressing issues such as the South China Sea conflict and the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "Our meeting has reinforced that the Japan and Australia relationship is truly a very special strategic partnership," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said, adding that Australia is invested in Japan's success, the same way Japan is invested in Australia's. Abe said that both countries were keen for strong cooperation with Donald Trump's incoming United States administration. Abe, however, added that Japan and Australia will also continue working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Donald Trump has vowed to get rid of. The two leaders expressed their optimism that the deal will be signed by the end of the year. In the seventh sets of discussions held between Abe and Turnbull, the leaders focused on trade and regional security. The talks coincided with the second anniversary of the Japan-Australia economic partnership agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, more than 97 percent of Australian products are imported into Japan duty-free. A further round of tariff cuts will come into effect on April 1 and are expected to help the Australian beef, tuna, natural honey, oats, and wine sectors. The two leaders also agreed to a revised acquisition and cross-servicing deal. Under the deal, the Australian defense force will supply the Japanese army with ammunition for the first time. Abe departed Australia on Sunday to continue with a six-day diplomatic tour that will see him visit the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Advertisement TagsAustralia, Japan, TPP (Photo : Getty Images) CIA Director John Brennan said spontaneity was not in the interests of national security. Advertisement Outgoing CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday cautioned incoming President Donald Trump against loosening sanctions on Russia. In a stern message to Trump, Brennan also warned the President-elect to watch what he says. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Brennan castigated Trump for comparing US intelligence practices to Nazi Germany. Trump's controversial comments revealed the mistrust between him and the intelligence community that he is on the verge of assuming control over. In a media interview on Sunday, Brennan questioned the perception created by the world if Trump broadcasts that he does not have confidence in his own country's intelligence community. "What I do find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that," Brennan said. Brenna's comments come in the wake of a week in which Trump and intelligence agency chiefs have pointed fingers at each other over an unsubstantiated report that Russia has compromising information on the President-elect. The unverified information was summarized in a US intelligence report that was presented to President Barack Obama and Trump. The report concluded that Russia tried to swing the outcome of the Nov. 8 election in Trump's favor, by using hack attacks and other means. Trump went on the attack using his Twitter account, accusing US intelligence agencies of leaking the compromising information. US intelligence chiefs denied the accusation, saying that it was their responsibility to inform Trump that the allegations were in circulation. Brennan warned that Trump is yet to fully understand Russia's actions. "Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road that I think he needs to be very, very careful about moving down," Brennan said. On Friday, Trump suggested that he might abolish the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration. Advertisement Tagsdonald trump, Russia, john brennan (Photo : Getty Images) Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has warned that moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could scupper hopes for the "two-state solution." Advertisement Representatives of nations at a Paris conference that aimed to kick starting peace talks between Israel and Palestine have warned both sides against taking unilateral action. In a statement, the delegates affirmed their commitment to the two-state solution. They also avoided criticizing US President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion that the US move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Palestinians have welcomed the conference, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed it, terming it as 'rigged'. Israel and Palestine were not called to attend the day-long summit, which was attended by 70 nations; however, both were invited to hear the meeting's conclusions. The decision not to invite the two parties led the United Kingdom, which decided to attend in "an observer status," to question the effectiveness of the conference in helping solve the conflict. In a statement, the UK Foreign Office said it had "particular reservations" about a conference "intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them." The UK also expressed concern about the timing of the event, just days before Trump is inaugurated as US President, and Israel's opposition to the conference. The summit comes at a time of increased tensions in the region. There are fears that Trump's plan to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could serve to stoke them further. Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue of the entire conflict. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel claims the entire city as its capital. On Saturday, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abass warned that such a move could "bury the hopes for a two-state solution." Advertisement TagsIsrael, Palestine, IsraeliPalestinian conflict Tax relief is key to growing Nebraska. We have to become more competitive in order to grow the number of people in our state and opportunities for more and better paying jobs. While this might seem like common sense, not everyone shares this view. The new legislative session has begun and the lobbyists and special interests have returned to the State Capitol. Some are suggesting the state should raise taxes, even though I have presented balanced budgets that restrain spending without tax increases. Throughout the session, I will be working with State Senators to protect you, the taxpayer, and I will work with the Legislature to fight against proposals to raise your taxes. I encourage you to follow the debate on taxes at the State Capitol closely, because your voice will be critical in building support for tax relief and stopping tax increases. Some advocates for tax relief will tout plans that actually raise taxes on one group of people to give to another. Be forewarned: talk about finding "revenues" and "new resources" and "rebalancing is simply code for raising taxes! This week, I proposed a tax plan in my State of the State address to provide substantial property and income tax relief to Nebraskans. When I am traveling the state, Nebraskans make it very clear that they are tired of the government taking their money. My plan controls the rate of growth in property valuations for tax purposes and puts more money back into your pocketsit does not simply shifts taxes around. The first part of my tax plan changes the way we value ag land for taxation purposes with the Agricultural Valuation Fairness Act sponsored by Ag Committee Chair Lydia Brasch. Under this bill, the method for assessing property value is changed from a market-based system to an income-potential assessment. Income potential is a much fairer measure, and will slow the growth of ag land valuation increases. If this system were in place for 2017, it would reduce ag land valuations by about $2.2 billion. Income potential based property tax assessment for ag land is used in North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. This method is standard across similar states with ag-based economies. It is why many Nebraska ag producers have suggested it to me. If the bill passes, the state would transition to the new system beginning in 2019 to give local taxing entities and county assessors plenty of time to prepare. The second part of my plan provides income tax relief. Did you know its been 20 years since middle class Nebraskans saw an income tax rate cut? Income tax rate reductions should not be a once-in-generation event! High income taxes not only burden our families, but they also make our state less competitive. Only one of our bordering states has higher income tax rates than Nebraskathats Iowa. Wyoming and South Dakota have no income tax, and Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri all have lower rates. Im also partnering with Revenue Chairman Jim Smith to to take the top income tax rate down roughly one-tenth of one percent per year, starting in 2020, as long as the states revenue growth exceeds 3.5 percent. In effect, we will have a trigger when we hit 3.5 percent growth to take that income tax rate from 6.84 percent down a little each year until its under six percent. If our revenue doesnt grow fast enough, the tax rate doesnt come down. This mechanism will protect taxpayers, and ensure the state doesnt face a budget crisis. As the session progresses, I will work with senators on these plans, and to provide tax relief for you. Passing tax relief will not be easy, and we will need your help and support to make it a reality. Some will try to say that passing tax relief this session shouldnt happen because state revenues have slowed. However, we can still pass responsible tax relief the Nebraska way. The budgets I have proposed put the state on solid fiscal footing, preparing the way for tax relief, which will help spur growth. If you want to see property or income tax relief happen this session, I encourage you to register your support with your State Senator. Your voice as a taxpayer matters in this discussion. You can find their information by visiting www.NebraskaLegislature.gov. As always, you can contact my office at pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or 402-471-2244. (Photo : Getty Images) The outgoing Obama administration described China as an outlier for blocking India's candidature in the coveted Nuclear Supplier Group last year. Advertisement The outgoing Obama administration has signalled out China for stopping India's entry in the coveted Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) last year, summing up the communist giant's hindering approach with a critical word "outlier." "Clearly there is one outlier that needs to be addressed and that is China," Nisha Desai Biswal, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told India's state news agency. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Without mincing any words, Biswal accused Beijing of advocating a two-step "non-discriminatory" approach against admission of non-NPT (Nuclear Proliferation Treaty) members in the NSG. She said that the next U.S administration has now the responsibility to address and work on China's reservation against India's application. Biswal once again reiterated that U.S President Barack Obama unequivocally believes that New Delhi completely meets the criteria for NSG membership. She, however, did not assure that whether the upcoming Trump administration would continue with the same supportive stance. Donald Trump will officially take the baton from Obama on Jan. 20, the day when he will be sworn as the 45th president of United States. Trump has been out rightly critical about China since his campaigning days. In fact, the republican leader has sharpened his attack against the Asian communist country since his stunning election victory last year. However, Trump has so far remained silent on China's hindering role in India's NSG bid, restricting most of his rhetoric attack on issues like Taiwan and South China Sea. China officially cites India being a "non-NPT signatory" as a reason for blocking New Delhi's candidature in the 48-member elite nuclear group. However, Beijing's hardened stance is widely perceived to be due to the pressure levelled by Pakistan, whose NSG candidature is being vociferously supported by China. China was apparently one of the few members that voted against India's application to join the elite nuclear club. The veto decision soon boiled into full fledge diplomatic controversy, with Modi government accusing Beijing of playing the role of a spoilsport in its NSG bid. Advertisement TagsBarack Obama, NSG, India NSG, Nuclear Supplier Group, China NSG, China and India (Photo : Getty Images) Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed into a local village of Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 32 people so far. Advertisement At least 32 people have been reported dead after a Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed in Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport on Monday, officials said. Most of the victims are residents of the village of Dacha-Suu, Sokuluk District. As of 10:21 a.m. (local time), First Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said that the accident damaged at least 15 buildings and killed four crew members, including the pilot, and 28 local residents, the Akipress noted. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The Boeing 747 cargo plane, which departed from Hong Kong, was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, about 25km (15 miles) from the capital city Bishkek, en route to Istanbul. The crash took place at around 7:30 a.m. local time (01:30 GMT). BBC noted that although the cause of the accident has not been confirmed yet, investigations are considering the area's poor visibility, noting that the fog was thick at that time. Images of the alleged crash site that made round across social media showed fire and smoke rising from the debris of the damaged establishments. The crash site area spans 335 meters and 75 meters. Advertisement Tagsplane crash, Kyrgyzstan plane crash, Turkish airline cargo crash, Turkish airline update, Manas airport (Photo : Getty Images) President Xi said he hoped to enhance cooperation with Switzerland during his four-day state visit. Advertisement Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in Switzerland on Sunday for his first four-day official state visit to the Alpine country, vowing to nurture close friendship and boost cooperation between the two nations. The president and his wife, Peng Liyuan, were welcomed by Swiss president Doris Leuthard and her husband, Roland Hausin, at the Zurich airport before proceeding to the capital city of Bern by train. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement According to the China state-run news agency, Xinhua, the welcome ceremony was hosted by the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council held at the Federal Palace in Bern. Friendship and Cooperation In a short speech during the ceremony, Xi said that he was looking forward to forging close friendship as well as enhancing cooperation with Switzerland. "My visit is aimed at consolidating our friendship, boosting our cooperation and promoting peace and development together with the Swiss side," the Chinese president said during the welcome ceremony. "I am looking forward to having talks with the Swiss side on deepening our practical cooperation in various areas and enriching the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership," he added. Open Arms Xinhua said that Xi's visit was the first by a Chinese president in this century and Switzerland welcomed it "with open arms." During his four-day visit, Xi is expected to attend the 2017 annual World Economic Forum meeting, a gathering of global leaders and the business elite, at the ski resorts of Davos. This will also be the first time a Chinese president will grace the affair. Xi is also scheduled to visit the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva as well as the World Health Organization offices. Xi will be addressing the Davos World Economic Forum meeting on Jan. 17. He is also expected to grace an affair at the UN offices in Geneva. "I hope to, through attending the WEF annual meeting and visiting the international organizations, gather consensus with all sides on maintaining world peace, promoting common development and settling major global issues under the current situation, thus delivering positive energies to the international community," the president said. Advertisement TagsDavos World Economic Forum, Switzerland, President Xi Jinping, First Lady Peng Liyuan, Swiss President Doris Leuthard, Swiss Federal Council, United Nations headquarters, World Health Organization, Xi's four-day state visit, china (Photo : Getty Images) Cyclists wearing masks ride along a road in heavy smog on December 23, 2015 in Zhengzhou, China. Advertisement The Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning (BMCHFP) has conducted a study to determine the potential relationship of smog and lung cancer, according to the Beijing News on Sunday. Recent studies revealed that smog inhalation could cause acute respiratory diseases to people. And long-term exposure may result to chronic inflammation, hypo immunity, and allergies, the People's Daily China noted. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "It will take a decade or longer to collect data before the researchers can make clear the relationship between smog and people having a certain kind of disease," Fang Laiying, Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning's director, said. Yibada also noted other researchers' study on the relationship between lung cancer and smog. Sahba Maani, a Pulmonary and Intensive Care expert at Beijing United Family Hospital and Clinice, said, "There have been numerous studies showing that the risk of air pollution is even greater than we once thought." He further noted a study published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2013 that reviewed more than a thousand scientific studies from five various continents. The report revealed that "air pollution and particulate matter were both linked to lung cancer and should be classified as carcinogenic." However, the BMCHFP's study does not conclude yet that long-term smog exposure could cause lung cancer. Air pollution is a big problem in China that it is being dubbed as "airpocalypse." It has killed an estimated 1.6 million people in China every year, accounting for 17 percent of all deaths in the country. "The intense rise in lung cancer [in China]... is ultimately related to smog," Dr. Zhao Xiaogang, deputy chief of thoracic surgery at the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital of Tongji University, said. Zhao authored a poem that has gone viral across Chinese social media networks that acknowledges the link between smog and lung cancer. Meanwhile, the commission, in cooperation with the Beijing Center for Diseases Control, issued a list of precautionary measures against smog. It advised people to stay indoors and wear face-tight masks, although masks are not advised to pregnant women and old people as this can cause breathing resistance. Advertisement Tagsair pollution, smog, China Air Pollution, China smog, Lung Cancer (Photo : AMTI) Anti-aircraft emplacements on Johnson Reef (boxes show location of weapons). Advertisement Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte continues trying to outdo Cambodian president Hun Sen as China's most servile running dog in Asia by having is administration issue a practically useless "note verable" objecting to China's deployment of anti-aircraft weapons on the man-made islands it built on the South China Sea. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Duterte's underling, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Perfecto Yasay, explained the shameful Philippine action by saying Duterte feared a stronger response such as a note of protest might trigger a war with China. "I just want to assure the Filipino people that when we take action at engaging China in this dispute, we do not want to take such aggressive, provocative action that will not solve the problem," he said. "We cannot engage China in a war." Yasay also noted that "when there are reports about the build-up of weapon systems in the area, during our watch we made sure that the interests and rights of the Philippines are properly protected." The note verbale was delivered "quietly," apparently so as not to irritate the Chinese. Yasay did not reveal the contents of the note. A note verbale is a diplomatic communication prepared in the third person and unsigned. The Philippines' note verbale came a month after China admitted to deploying short-range air defense weapons, including anti-aircraft artillery, in the disputed Spratly Islands claiming it has the legitimate right to do so. "As for necessary military facilities, they are primarily for defense and self-protection, and this is proper and legitimate," said a statement from China's Ministry of Defense on Dec. 14, 2016. "For instance, if someone was at the door of your home, cocky and swaggering, how could it be that you wouldn't prepare a slingshot?" The ministry said weapons and military systems on the islands are reasonable. It repeated China's claim its construction on the islands is mainly for civilian purposes. China's admission came shortly after a number of incriminating satellite photos showed new weapons being deployed on Subi Reef and other Chinese controlled reefs. It was further proof that China's true aim is to turn the islands it seized in the South China Sea into military bases and not as civilian outposts, as has been claimed by some military analysts. The building of more capable anti-air "point defense systems" was spotted on Gaven, Hughes, Johnson, and Cuarteron Reefs, among others. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington two days ago released the images of the new fortifications through its Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI). The images showed "large antiaircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems," aimed at engaging cruise missiles. AMTI said China appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities by deploying "large anti-aircraft guns" of an unknown type and probably close-in weapons systems (CIWS) at each of its outposts in the Spratlys. It said the reinforcement "show that Beijing is serious about defense of its artificial islands in case of an armed contingency in the South China Sea. "Among other things, they would be the last line of defense against cruise missiles launched by the United States or others" against air bases that on the islands. Advertisement TagsPhilippines, Rodrigo Duterte, china, South China Sea, Perfecto Yasay, note verable, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (Photo : Oxfam) The filthiest rich. Advertisement One of capitalism's most hateful obscenities is the rich can only get richer at the expense of the poor, and a recent survey by Oxfam reveals a new and unimaginable degree of income inequality in which the world's eight richest persons own as much money as half the world's population of seven billion. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement This massive accumulation of wealth by a few is defeating the fight to end global poverty. A just released report by Oxfam shows that eight billionaires are as rich as the 3.6 billion people that make up the poorest half of the world's population. The report, "An Economy for the 99 percent," reveals the massive inequality gap between rich and poor is far, far greater than has been feared. Founded in England in 1942, Oxfam is an international confederation of charitable organizations focused on the alleviation of global poverty. "In 2015 the world's richest one percent retained their share of global wealth and still own more than the other 99 percent combined. This concentration of wealth at the top is holding back the fight to end global poverty," said the report. The eight billionaires mentioned in the report are: *Warren Buffett *Bill Gates *Amancio Ortega *Carlos Slim *Jeff Bezos *Mark Zuckerberg *Larry Ellison *Michael Bloomberg Except for Ortega and Slim, all the other billionaires are Americans. Ortega is a Spaniard and Slim, a Mexican. The report also lashes out at companies as the main perpetrator of the global inequity crisis by saying companies are too focused on delivering ever-higher returns to wealthy owners and top executives at the expense of their employees and the public at large. "Companies are structured to dodge taxes; drive down workers' wages and squeeze producers instead of fairly contributing to an economy that benefits everyone," said the report. The rise of populism and general anti-establishment sentiment has also been attributed to the feeling of rising inequality and the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of few. "Inequality and a feeling among many people of being excluded from the benefits of global growth have also been cited as driving political upheaval from Brexit to the elections of Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump in the Philippines and US." The report calls for a more "human economy" where markets are better managed in order to ensure no one is left out or denied basic rights. This, Oxfam recommends, can be done by improving cooperation between governments to prevent tax dodging that costs poor countries at least $100 billion a year. Advertisement TagsOxfam, billionaires, income inequality, An Economy for the 99 percent (Photo : VKS) Russian S-400 missile defense system. Advertisement Russia is making loud noises in the media about the recent deployment of its S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile (SAM) defense system in the Crimea, which it unlawfully seized from Ukraine in 2014, while glossing over the fact it doesn't have the money to produce enough systems to deter NATO and the U.S. in the event of an eastern European War. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Russian propaganda claims the S-400 will allow Moscow to keep Crimea safe from attack while also threatening airspace deep inside Ukraine should the Russia choose to do so. The S-400 is a linchpin of Russia's anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy in the Crimea. Russian official propaganda media said a ceremony was held at the antiaircraft missile regiment of the 4th Air Force and Air Defense Army of the Southern Military District on Jan. 14 in which the command post and the S-400 Triumf battalion became operational. It explained the basic S-400 system can engage targets at ranges of more than 155 miles at altitudes up to 90,000 feet. The S-400 can track 300 targets simultaneously and engage 36 at any one time. A grim estimate made by Russian military analysts and commentators, however, said Russia faces a SAM shortage that will prevent Russia from defeating a massive NATO attack in the next 10 years. Russia has sought to camouflage the scandalous weakness in its air defenses by over hyping in the media its newest S-400 and S-500 SAM systems to instill fear out of proportion to the grim reality. The share of "modern" SAMs and radars in the inventory of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), which is responsible for the Russia's air defenses, is 45 percent, admitted General-Lieutenant Viktor Gumennyy, Deputy VKS Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Air and Missile Defense. Russia's modern SAM systems refer to the operational S-300 and S-400 and the long-delayed S-500. The S-500 has yet to be completed, while its S-400 predecessor can launch the older 48N6 and 9M96 missiles. Only seven air defense divisions have been supplied with the S-400 since 2007, with another 49 waiting to receive them. The S-300 is over 20 years old. Advertisement TagsRussia, S-400 Triumf, NATO, Crimea, Ukraine, General-Lieutenant Viktor Gumennyy (Photo : Getty Images) President Rodrigo Duterte said that it his duty to protect the Filipino people, adding that he sees the declaration of martial law as an important objective, and thus, he will not hesitate to do it. Advertisement Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatened on Saturday to declare martial law to the country should he deem it necessary to continue with his government's bloody war against illegal drugs. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement In a speech to a group of businessmen in his hometown in Davao, Duterte said that it his duty to protect the Filipino people, adding that he sees the declaration of martial law as an important objective, and thus, he will not hesitate to do it. "I do not care about the Supreme Court. No one can stop me. The right to preserve one's life and my nation... transcends everything else, even the limitations," Duterte said. Duterte also said that he will ignore a provision in the country's constitution, which limits martial law periods to 60 days, and only in response to an invasion or rebellion. The rule limiting period of martial law was added into the country's constitution after the ouster of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who imposed the martial law status between 1972 and 1981. Duterte has vowed to stamp out the use and trade of illegal drugs in the Philippines, in an effort to stop the country to what he described as a narco-state. His government's war on illegal drugs has led to an estimated 5,700 deaths in the last six months. His security forces have also been accused of being involved in extra-judicial killings. Meanwhile, approximately one million alleged drug dealers and users have surrendered to the police to avoid getting caught in the violent crackdown. Ties between the Philippines and the United States have also suffered due to Duterte's illegal drugs campaign. The United States has suspended aid to the country. As a result, Duterte denounced his country's ties to the United States and is seeking closer ties with China and Russia. Earlier last week, Duterte had courted controversy once again after saying that he had ordered troops to fire on militants responsible for a wave of kidnappings, even if such an action could potentially cause hostage fatalities. Advertisement TagsPhilippines, Rodrigo Duterte, illegal drugs (Photo : Getty Images) Feinstein expects the ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the election to be "full and robust." Advertisement California Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Saturday that she believes that Russia tried to interfere in the Nov. 8 Presidential election and that their efforts ultimately altered its outcome. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Speaking during a TV interview, Feinstein, who is also on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that she had been astonished at what has been a two-year "Russian effort to spear-fish, to hack, to provide disinformation, propaganda wherever it really could." "And I think this has been a very sophisticated effort," Feinstein added. On Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced that it will investigate the involvement of Russian actors in the US election, including any intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns. When asked if the Senate Intelligence Committee would probe any specific allegations that Donald Trump's campaign team was in contact with Russian agents, Feinstein said that she was not in a position to answer the question, as the issue is yet to be discussed. Feinstein said that she was hopeful that the investigation into Russia's interference in the election would be "full and robust," but if it is not, she and Senator Mark Warner, who is the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, will call for an independent panel to investigate the issue. "I'm certainly not gonna leave this in limbo, because this is the future of America, it's the future of democracy," Feinstein promised, adding that the United States has got huge problems if it cannot carry out an election without disinformation being pumped into it by another country. Feinstein also voiced her belief that the FBI's announcement in late October that it had found new emails related to the investigations on Hillary Clinton's private email server "did have an impact" on the election's outcome. Clinton's advisors said that their internal polling showed them winning the election prior to the announcement by FBI Director James Comey. However, Feinstein was not willing to call for Comey's resignation, saying that decision would come when everybody learns much more about what drove his decision. Advertisement TagsUS, Russia, Senate Intelligence Committee (Photo : Nicolas Asouri - Pool/Getty Images) On the trade front, Xi and Trump agreed upon a 100-day plan to settle all their trade disputes. Advertisement China and Switzerland have strengthened their bilateral ties further, as they signed an expansion to their existing free trade agreement (FTA). The FTA between the Asian giant and European country, which was originally signed in July 2014, is expected to bring about upgrades with the signing of 10 new cooperation documents. It is worth noting that Switzerland is the first European country to sign an FTA with China. This has waived certain tariffs on most goods. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement According to China Daily, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Swiss leader Doris Leuthard have agreed to give more emphasis on clean energy, sports, customs and intellectual property in their expanded FTA. The two leaders signed the upgraded FTA between China and Switzerland on Monday following the state visit of the former to the latter's country. "The China-Switzerland relationship has become a model for the cooperation between two countries with different social systems, development period and size of homeland," Xi said. With this move towards "economic globalization," the Chinese leader noted that "positive energy" from both countries is important. Meanwhile, Leuthard said the free trade is "of vital importance for an open economy like Switzerland." She also commended China for having played an important role in addressing global concerns. In the meantime, Global Times reported that Xi particularly extended appreciation to the Swiss government's support in building the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Belt and Road Initiative. Amid this, China is reportedly ready to discuss possible cooperation with Switzerland more than what the FTA has highlighted. It was revealed that the country would like their ties to include infrastructure construction, insurance and other interventions that support the Belt and Road Initiative. Advertisement TagsChina Switzerland FTA, China Switzerland Free Trade Agreement, China Belt and Road Initiative Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia passed away on Sunday, Jan. 15 after battling cancer. I am confident through my belief in God that my husband is now resting in a better place. Although, his transition leaves a void for those of us who loved him dearly, we can celebrate and be happy for him, knowing hes at peace," said Longs widow, Vanessa Long. Although beloved by many, Long was also a controversial figure, according to Raw Story. He was accused of having sex with four minors. He settled lawsuits from these allegations in 2011, but many maintain that Long was acquitted too easily. On Twitter, some responded to Longs death by calling him a child mosester and others said they hoped his death will allow more debates to take place about sexual abuse in the church. Others expressed sorrow for Longs family and said they were praying for the family and church congregation. Long is survived by his wife and four children. He revealed last year that he was battling an aggressive form of cancer. He was 63 when he died. Publication date: January 16, 2017 A Texas lawmaker has proposed a bill that would ban all abortions in the state except for cases in which the life of the mother is in danger. The bill comes in the wake of a number of other recent pro-life measures; perhaps most notably the recent 20-week ban on abortion signed into law in Ohio in December and a similar bill adopted in Kentucky just this past week. The Texas bill, introduced by Representative Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) would go even further. A living human child, from the moment of fertilization upon the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum is entitled to the same rights, powers, and privileges as are secured or granted by the laws of this state to any other human child, part of the bill reads, according to ChristianNews.net. When you read and see how abortions are performed, and how they end the life of an innocent child, it amazes me that we allow that, Tinderholdt told the Star-Telegram. When we look back over history and we see the cultures that took the lives of children, people are appalled by that. People are going to do that with America, too, and look back one day and say they cant believe we allowed this. Abortion activist groups have pushed back against the proposed law, claiming that it is unfair and even cruel to women. Pro-life activists, however, say that the bill is necessary to protect these innocent lives. Its a child. Its a human being. God creates these children in his image. How could anyone want to destroy that? asked Tinderholdt. Nearly 60 million babies have been aborted in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in 1973. In Texas in 2013 alone, 63,168 abortions were performed. Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com Publication date: January 16, 2017 "We must keep God in the forefront. Let us be Christian in all our actions." So spoke the newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which had just been organized to lead a bus boycott to protest segregated seating in the city buses. The president, and new pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist, went on to say that blacks must not hate their white opponents. "Love is one of the pinnacle parts of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice, and justice is really love in calculation." And so began his public role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The movement produced scores of men and women who risked their lives to secure a more just and inclusive society, but the name Martin Luther King, Jr., stands out among them all. As historian Mark Noll put it, "He was beyond question the most important Christian voice in the most important social protest movement after World War II." He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929 as Michael King, but in 1935 his father changed both of their names to Martin Luther to honor the German Protestant Reformer. The precocious Martin skipped two grades, and by age 15, had passed the entrance exam to the predominantly black Morehouse College. There King felt drawn into pastoral ministry: "My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something," he said. "On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity." From Morehouse he moved on to Crozer Theological Seminary (Chester, Pennsylvania) and Boston University, both predominantly white and liberal, where he studied Euro-American philosophers and theologians. King was especially taken with social gospel champion Walter Rauschenbusch, ... For years, Latasha Morrison attended a predominantly African American church in Atlanta that intersected with both black and white communities, including those affiliated with Rick Warren and John Maxwell. I noticed that wasnt true for all churches, said Morrison. A lot of churches stay in their racial bubble. When Morrison left her church, she left with a plan. My strategy was to be a pioneer for reconciliation within the white church, she said. So I strategically applied for jobs at white churches. The transition from her Atlanta church to an Austin congregation (she now works at Gateway Church) was tough for Morrison, but she found her stride after she connected with IF:Gathering founder Jennie Allen, who invited her to share her vision at the IF conference in 2014. Morrisons mission was to enable racial reconciliation within local churches and develop resources for Christians who want to build cross-racial relationships. Since then, Be the Bridge has exploded in size and now serves the local church by providing curricula and other tools that encourage bridge builders to [foster and develop] vision, skills, and heart for racial unity. I see glimmers of hope, Morrison says of the white evangelical climate today. Even if they dont get it completely. People are at least trying to lean into the conversation and acknowledge that there is an issue. Morrison recently spoke with CT about why white Christians and Christians of color cant leave when it gets uncomfortable, why the Be the Bridge vision has resonated with so many people, and why the church is the best place for racial reconciliation to flourish. ... 1 home World Catholic archbishop says Islam on the rise in Europe due to lax migrant policies, atheism, weak church A prominent Roman Catholic archbishop warned that it won't be long before Italy and the rest of Europe become predominantly Muslim, owing to atheism and lax migrant policies, which he described as stupid. Speaking to Italian Catholic journal La Fede Quotidiana, as reported by several news outlets, Italian Archbishop, Monsignor Carlo Liberati, stated, "In 10 years we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity. Italy and Europe live in a pagan and atheist way, they make laws that go against God and they have traditions that are proper of paganism." The archbishop lamented that such "moral and religious decadence," coupled with a weak Catholic church and low attendance in seminaries, allow Islam to flourish. Liberati also lambasted Italy's migrant policy, saying that the country is very welcoming and helpful of foreigners but tend to neglect the needs of the locals, especially the less fortunate. He added that he finds little motivation in helping the migrants, saying, "What is the point of so many migrants that instead of thanking for the food we give them, they just throw it, spend hours with their cell phones and even organise riots?" The archbishop even called out the Catholic church for donating money to migrants, describing the act as "morally harmful" as it encourages migrants to depend on aid instead of working hard. "I think sometimes this creates a beggars' network." According to Pew Research, the Muslim share of the population in Europe has steadily grown over the past few years, from four percent in 1990 to six percent in 2010. The firm estimates this figure to inch up to eight percent by 2030. In actual numbers, the growth is more glaring. According to official Italian statistics, as reported by Mail Online, there were only 2,000 Muslims in Italy in the 1970s. This shot up to more than two million at the end of 2015. 6 Religious Leaders Will Pray At Trump's Inauguration. What Should They Say? Six people have been chosen to pray at Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony on Friday, only one of them female. Saying that each of them is a political rather than a spiritual pick isn't to denigrate them, it's just a statement of fact: it's what incoming presidents do. Franklin Graham is no admirer of Trump's lifestyle, but he reserved his real venom for Hilary Clinton and undertook his Decision America tour to promote values associated with Trump's evangelical supporters. Paula White is a long-time fan. Rabbi Marvin Hier symbolises Trump's outspoken support for Israel, Samuel Rodriguez his outreach to Hispanic Americans and Cardinal Timothy Dolan his gratitude to Catholics who voted for him because of his claimed pro-life position. Bishop Wayne T Jackson will be on the podium for his help in mobilising black Christians to vote Trump. Not all of these people are out-and-out Trumpists Dolan, for instance, has had hard things to say about Trump's attitude to immigrants and immigration. But when they take to the platform on Friday they will face an extraordinary challenge. They will pray that is, they will talk to God but they will also speak to the nation. Their words will say something about what their hopes are for Trump, for America and for the world, and every one of them will be analysed for bias, error and hubris. So here's some unsolicited advice about what they should and shouldn't say. 1. Don't use this opportunity to settle scores. If you thank God, however guardedly, for the glorious new dawn that's breaking over America, you're implicitly rubbishing the previous eight years and everyone will know it. 2. Don't use it to lay out your own manifesto. You may feel passionately about pro-life issues, for instance, but this prayer is not your time to plug them, no matter how coded your words might be. 3. Don't oversell the opportunities for the future. Trump might be able to do some good things, but this is a change of government, not the New Jerusalem. 4. Do pray for Trump: for wisdom, integrity, patience and all the other virtues he'll need. There are huge question marks over whether he has any of these qualities, so all the more need for prayer. 5. Do pray for America, and for the world. Pray for peace, reconciliation and justice. 6. Do pray that people will listen to each other rather than lobbing verbal hand grenades from opposing trenches. Liberals, you have something to learn from people who feel it's not their America any more. Conservatives, for God's sake listen to scientists about climate change. 7. Remember: you are talking to the nation, but first and foremost you are talking to God, and each of us will give an account of ourselves to him (Romans 14:12). Pray after prayer, with deep humility and a sense of great responsibility: "For we will all stand before God's judgment seat" (14:10). Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Accused Attackers Of Christian Grandmother Stripped Naked By Muslim Mob Walk Free A Muslim mob accused of stripping a Christian grandmother naked and parading her in the streets in Egypt have had the case against them dropped, reports say. According to the Associated Press, prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to convict the accused. The incident occurred in May 2016, when 70-year-old Souad Thabet alleged to be the mother of a man who was romantically involved with a Muslim woman was stripped naked by a group of 300 Muslims and paraded through the streets of her village in Minya province. Her lawyer, Eihab Ramzy, told AP that the decision to drop the case is "a calamity". "The preliminary investigation heard testimonies supporting her [the victim's] account from family members and policemen at the scene," he said, adding that local authorities had asked the victim and her family to make peace with their Muslim neighbours. Thabet told a US-based Christian TV station that she and her family have faced further threats from Muslim extremists and cannot return home. "The government is allowing the oppressors to walk free on the streets," she said. "This is our village that we were born and raised in... How can we be the victims and not be able to return to our village and homes?" Egypt has an estimated population of nine million Christians. Mostly Orthodox Copts, they account for about 10 per cent of Egypt's population, which is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Tensions between Christians and Muslims have intensified since the Arab Spring of 2011. Last year saw a string of attacks against Christians, including the burning of 15 Christian homes and a Christian-run kindergarten in Minya, and the murder on 30 June of Rafael Moussa, a Coptic Orthodox priest of the church of St. George. In December, ISIS claimed at attack on a Coptic Cathedral in Cairo that killed 27 people and on Christmas day a Coptic Christian couple were found stabbed to death in their beds. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the time denounced the attack against Thabet, and has pledged to unite Egypt during his time in power. "What is happening in Egypt is unacceptable and must never happen again... anyone who made a mistake no matter how many they are, will be held accountable," he said. However, sectarian violence often erupts on the back of rumours about inter-faith romances or suspicions that Christians are building churches without the required official permission. Homes are burned, crops are razed, churches are attacked and, occasionally, Copts are forced to leave their villages, say human rights groups and residents of the Minya, which is home to Egypt's largest Christian community. Additional reporting by Reuters. Archbishop Of Canterbury To Express Remorse Over Reformation Violence The Archbishop of Canterbury will express his regrets over violence that occurred during the Reformation this week. Most Rev Justin Welby will express his remorse in a joint statement with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Lambeth Palace confirmed. He is expected to call for repentance over the conflict between Churches as the new Protestant movement separated from mainstream Roman Catholicism in the 16th century. The historic split began in 1517 when Martin Luther, a rebel German monk, nailed his 95 theses to the cathedral door in his town of Wittenburg. The symbolic event triggered a gradual rupture and led to the formation of various Protestant factions. Centuries of violence between Protestant and Catholic countries followed with rulers who adhered to one Church frequently executing proponents of the other. Welby's intervention will look to heal divisions and comes a month before the General Synod, the Church of England's Parliament, will hold a debate marking the 500th anniversary of Luther's 95 theses. "People often look to the past so they don't make the same mistakes again and can move on," a spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury said according to the Mail on Sunday. It is part of a wider move to promote reconciliation and peace between Protestant and Catholics. Welby has publicly sought to build relations with his UK equivalent, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. The pair have taken part in the prayer and evangelism initiative 'Thy Kingdom Come' for Pentecost and have done a Facebook Live video together sharing their common goals. Welby has also met Pope Francis three times since he was enthroned in 2013. Efforts at reconciliation in the UK mark a wider trend towards "ecumenical friendliness". Ahead of the 500th anniversary Catholic bishops in Germany released a report praising Martin Luther and addressing key disputes between Catholics and Lutherans. Bishop Gerhard Feige said the "Catholic Church may recognise today what was important in the Reformation namely, that sacred Scripture is the centre and standard for all Christian life." Given that this was one of the main disputes at stake during the schism, this was a major olive branch from the Catholic bishops. He also said: "Connected with this is Martin Luther's fundamental insight that God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the people is proclaimed in the Gospel that Jesus Christ is the centre of Scripture and the only mediator." But not everyone is so eager to bridge the divide. A document released in October and signed by 50 leading evangelical pastors and theologians gives a "statement of evangelical convictions" ahead of the anniversary. "The issues that gave birth to the Reformation 500 years ago are still very much alive in the 21st century for the whole Church," a statement read. "While we welcome all opportunities to clarify them, evangelicals affirm, with the Reformers, the foundational convictions that our final authority is the Bible and that we are saved through faith alone." Among the signatories are John Stevens, national director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge, Wayne Grudem, Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary and Tim Chester, pastor of Grace Church. Christian Arrested for Reading the Bible Is Set Free in California Court, Says 'Justice Still Prevails' Reading the Bible aloud in a public space in front of people is not a crime. This was made clear by a U.S. federal court, which ruled in favour of a Christian man who was arrested for reading the Bible in front of a government office in California, CBN News reported. Mark Mackey was arrested in February 2011 by California Highway Patrol Officer Darren Meyer while he was reading the Bible aloud in front of a group of people outside the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office in the city of Hemet. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thus overturned a lower court ruling that granted summary judgment in favour of Meyer, according to Christian News. Brett Coronado, the assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel in Hemet, said Mackey's activity was part of the church's evangelism ministry, which includes Bible reading in public and distribution of gospel tracts to passersby. In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with Meyer's account of the incident, noting that the officer's "version of events is completely belied by video and audio footage which does not reveal any confrontation whatsoever and merely shows Mackey reading the Bible aloud, somewhat apart from people standing in line." Mackey welcomed the court ruling, saying, "Justice still prevails. I am excited that our country is going in the right direction." His lawyer, Robert Tyler, said the decision "renews my hope in the justice system." "An innocent man exercising his religious liberty and free speech was criminally prosecuted based on erroneous claims put forth by a false and deceitful police report," he said. Meyer earlier testified that he arrested Mackey for obstructing and intimidating a "captive audience" of people waiting to transact business with the DMV. The officer claimed that Mackey was "yelling at the people waiting in line" and that there was "obvious verbal confrontation between the group of men and the people standing in line." Following his arrest, Mackey was criminally prosecuted in California state court. He then filed a case against Meyer, alleging unlawful arrest in violation of the 4th Amendment, as well as false arrest under state law. Disgraced Minister Paul Flowers Sacked By Methodist Church Paul Flowers, who resigned as Co-operative Bank chairman amid claims about his use of expenses at the bank and was also caught using drugs and entertaining male escorts, has been sacked as a minister by the Methodist Church. In a statement today, the Methodist Church said: "Following the conclusion of our disciplinary process, Paul Flowers has been removed from the list of ministers of the Methodist Church." The Church added: "We call on the Methodist people to pray for Mr Flowers and for those whom he served." Flowers, 66, nick-named the "Crystal Methodist", has claimed it was the stress of the job that led him to look online for male escorts. He was suspended by the Methodist church in November 2013 and also the Labour Party after he was caught in a tabloid sting. He was fined 400 in the Leeds court and ordered to pay 125 costs after admitting possession of Class A drugs. Later, he also admitted "seriously impairing the mission, witness or integrity of the Church" after a subsequent feature appeared in a Sunday newspaper of him taking class A drugs and entertaining male escorts at a hot tub party in his house in Salford, Greater Manchester. "You had nights when you had been battling through the issues of the day, then the senior officers had to entertain the troops in the evening and I was bloody well worn out. That was part of the job, but you were knackered. And like many thousands of other people judges, lawyers, journalists, people of all professions and none I sought intimacy among escorts," he said at the time. He could not put a figure on the number of escorts he had used but it was more than 20. He has also said he has never in fact taken crystal meth and that he was traumatised when he was raped by another student while studying theology in the 1970s. Donald Trump's Supreme Court Choice: Questions Over Possible Nominee Who Backed Transgender Rights Donald Trump's possible nominee for the much-contested Supreme Court position has supported transgender rights, raising fears the President-elect is rowing back on his promise to choose a conservative. Judge William Pryor backed a revolutionary opinion in 2011 that anti-transgender discrimination qualifies as sex discrimination and so was forbidden under the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. Although he did not write the ruling, he supported it wholeheartedly suggesting he would also back the pro-transgender side in the debate over the use of public bathrooms. Pryor also backed the suspension of Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing to remove his monument to the Ten Commandments. Moore was barred from office after he "willfully and publicly" defied an order from a federal judge to take the display down. Pryor initially backed Moore's right to have the monument but after the nine-member federal court issued its unanimous ruling against Moore, Pryor said that ruling had to be obeyed. "At the end of the day, when the courts resolve those controversies, we respect their decision," he said. "That does not mean that we always agree with their decision." The Alabama attorney is widely thought to be a likely candidate for Trump's nominee to replace the late Justice Scalia, who died in February 2016 leaving the 9th and deciding place in the finely balanced Supreme Court empty. Trump's promise to pack the Court with arch conservatives is hailed as a key reason he won mass support among Christians with exit polls suggesting he was supported by 82 per cent of self-described evangelicals. The revelation of Pryor's past support for trans-rights prompted an alert from the conservative Christian grouping, the Personhood Alliance, to all its member organisations to raise the alarm. "Not only did Judge Pryor personally prosecute Alabama Judge Roy Moore over his display of the Ten Commandments as Attorney Genera of Alabama" said Daniel Becker, founder and President of Personhood Alliance, "but once he became a federal appeals judge, he issued rulings extending special rights to transgender people while refusing to recognize the religious liberty rights of Christians." Trump said he would name his nominee for the Supreme Court within two weeks of his inauguration on Friday, prompting a sense of urgency among conservative evangelicals. "Judge Pryor is no Scalia, and is manifestly unfit to succeed him," said Gualberto Garcia Jones, National Policy Director of Personhood Alliance. "With his track record, we cannot risk having him on the court as we await the Supreme Court to deliberate on the cases considering the rights of children to be protected in their school bathrooms." Five Evangelistic Ideas That Might Actually Work If we're honest, many of us are terrified of evangelism. The thought that our attempts to share our faith might come across as awkward, ham-fisted or even offensive is usually enough to keep most of us fairly covert about our God when we're around non-Christians. We tell ourselves we're being respectful of other beliefs in a tolerant and pluralistic culture. But deep down, it's often because we don't like looking like a weirdo. Yet while we're all a bit awkward about it, most of us do want to share our faith with others; both because it's obedient to Jesus' Great Commission, and because actually, we do believe Christianity is Good News which will make other people's lives better. The challenge is finding straightforward ways of doing it. It's fairly easy to come up with a list of terrible evangelistic approaches which seldom hit the target (look out for that follow-up article tomorrow!), but what we're really crying out for is a few ideas which feel natural. Here are five things I've personally attempted, which didn't end in an awkward silence or an ugly argument. Writing a letter In an age of email and other instant communication, the art of letter-writing is sadly diminished, if not lost. However, the flip-side to this is that while most of us scan over our emails, we tend to take a hand-written letter really seriously, if only because it's so unusual. If you receive a letter from someone, you instinctively know they've taken time and care over writing and posting it to you, and so naturally you're more interested in and potentially receptive to the contents. So, if you're looking for a way to share your faith with a friend, writing them a letter about it becomes quite a powerful tool. Because you've given them time to consider and chew over what you've written, you'll also disarm any natural knee-jerk reactions which can happen in more instant communication. 'Try before you buy' If we're not careful, we can trap ourselves in a very linear model of how people become Christians. You hear the message, you decide to believe it, you respond to it, and then you begin to live as a Christian. Yet while that's often the way people embark on a life of faith, it's not the only configuration of those steps. Another possibility is to invite someone into exploring the practices of the Christian faith, before committing to believing in Jesus; essentially as Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it willingly suspending their disbelief. They don't have to believe all the doctrines of the Christian faith in order to try praying, mediating or even reading the Bible. Actor Andrew Garfield recently demonstrated the virtue of this by exploring Ignatian Spirituality while preparing to play a Catholic priest on film. Despite previously professing no faith, he has subsequently spoken of "falling in love with Jesus," through the process of practising the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. The story suggests that we don't have to ask people for an intellectual decision in the first instance; instead we can invite them to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8); to experience God first. Inviting someone to church... wisely Granted, it's a pretty obvious idea, but while not all of us have fallen out of the habit of occasionally asking our friends and neighbours if they'd like to join us at church, we don't always practise immense discernment around when to invite them. Some good examples include 'seeker-friendly' events, carol services and others around the festivals of Christmas and Easter, and weeks when you know your most engaging preacher is due to speak. Bad choices include those weeks in the school holidays where the staff team is stretched beyond capacity, and most devastating of all, 'giving Sunday.' More non-rocket-science around this idea: consider who your friend is and what kind of service they might enjoy or respond to; which worship style or speaker might they best connect them. As a rule, your elderly neighbour may not be entirely blessed by the youth group's Hip Hop takeover night. Have dinner with other normal Christians One of the best forms of evangelism is helping people to find out that Christians are (within reason) fairly normal, and much like them. While you're almost certainly demonstrating this to your non-Christian friends, a great way to amplify that experience is to invite them to dinner or another social event alongside some other normal members of your church. This must involve genuine hospitality and friendship, rather than feeling like a contrived pincer-movement; if you set up the latter you'll more than likely convince your friends that you're part of a cult. But good food, friendship and conversation about real life naturally helps people to see the attraction of being part of a church, and can help them to safely consider the claims of the faith that underpins it. You could decide to invite the best evangelists you know to this, thus really deferring the act of evangelism elsewhere, but personally I think you should trust in your own ability to build genuine relationships, and God's ability to work through you. Offer prayer Alright, this one is pretty scary. Asking a complete stranger if they'd like you to pray for them opens you up to a wide range of possible reactions (including mild violence), while asking the same to a friend risks awkwardness and rejection. Yet if we really believe that we're walking around with access to unlimited divine power, aren't we crazy not to try to exercise it now and again, especially when we come across people who are struggling? The Vineyard movement in the UK has seen particular success with this approach to reaching unchurched people, often simply asking people in the city streets if there's anything they'd like prayer for. It doesn't even need to involve grabbing people in the manner of a chugger; a friend of mine, a pastor in Pennsylvania, regularly works from a coffee shop in his town with a little cardboard 'Free Prayer' sign on the table in front of him. He's interrupted every day by people who wonder if that might be helpful to them; his tiny step of social embarrassment bringing rich and regular rewards. When it comes to our friends, surely if they know we're Christians they'd expect us to pray for them; asking if they'd like that naturally helps them to consider what they really think about what you believe. The Evangelical Alliance in the UK have created a free website specifically designed to help Christians to share their faith; it's packed with plenty more ideas. Check it out: www.greatcommission.co.uk Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders. 'God Is In Control': Sister Of Jakarta Governor Accused Of Blasphemy God will use the case of the Christian governor in Jakarta accused of insulting the Qur'an to witness to other Christians, his sister has said. Fifi Leity Indra, sister of Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama who is known as Ahok said according to CBN News: "He [Ahok] understands that he may receive persecution because of what he believes. He also believes that God is going to use this as a showcase to make people have more strong belief that in everything God is in control." She insisted that the accusations Ahok had blasphemed were untrue. The governor allegedly insulted the Qur'an while he was campaigning ahead of elections in February for the governorship of Jakarta, which is the capital of the world's largest Muslim-majority nation. Ahok is ethnic Chinese and the first Christian in nearly 50 years to govern Jakarta. In a speech to fishermen in September, he reportedly cited a verse from the Qur'an that warns Muslims against taking Christians and Jews as allies. He is said to have added that due to Indonesia's transition to democracy in 1999, it was perfectly acceptable for Muslim voters to choose a Christian in the election for governor in February. Ahok has denied the charges, saying that his comments were aimed at politicians "incorrectly" using the Koranic verse against him. Blasphemy convictions in Indonesia almost always result in conviction, and the law has been criticised by Amnesty International for hurting freedom of expression and for targeting religious minorities. Indonesia technically guarantees freedom of religion in its constitution but in reality only six religions are recognised and tough blasphemy laws control debate and target minorities. Christians represent less than 10 per cent of the 250 million population. Sundays interfaith service at First English Lutheran Church celebrating the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took a peek at some of the civil rights movements less heralded heroes. The service, organized by Not In Our Town Billings and attended by nearly 100 people, featured dancing, drumming, singing and speeches to honor one of the nations great orators, whose birthday America celebrates Monday. One of those unsung heroes was Claudette Colvin, arrested for not relinquishing her seat on a bus to a white rider nine months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Colvins story following her arrest she would later be vindicated included her memory of Parks trying wedding dresses on Colvin, a high school student, while Parks would alter the dresses. She also recalled meeting King, briefly, while serving him a dish of ice cream, and Parks mother serving Colvin Ritz crackers with peanut butter spread on top. King called her a brave young lady. Mine was a cry for justice, Colvin said, and a loud one. I kept thinking, Why dont the adults around here say something? You just have to take a stand and say, This is not right, and I did. Bayard Rustin, an advocate for civil rights, including gay rights, was another of the unsung heroes celebrated Sunday. It was Rustin who introduced King to the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. We need in every community, Rustin once said, a group of evangelical troublemakers. Abena Lane, president of the Black Student Union at Montana State University Billings, choreographed what she described as a welcoming dance for diplomats and community members. Three drummers accompanied the three dancers. Keynote speakers included Pastor Melvin Terry of All Nations Christian Fellowship. We are one today, Terry said more than once, imploring those in attendance to eradicate the pestilence of bigotry and hatred by practicing the art of conflict resolution and the act of inclusion. We shall not be silent, Terry said, because we are one. Sonia Davis, co-founder of the Billings chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, called on the mostly-white crowd to, in the words of the Black Lives Matter movement, defect from white supremacy. We are here to honor legacies, but the struggle and fight continues, she said. Among her organizations values: We call people in, not out, she said. We work with white people already in motion, and we tap into our mutual interests. We cant rebuild the world we want alone, she said. Sometimes we are afraid to bring in new people, but we need them to enable the work to grow. Welcoming people in even at the risk of being messy is what we are called to do. It is important, said Marty Elizabeth Ortiz, president of Not In Our Town, to recognize our own privilege and to have our conversations with love, not hate. The crowd concluded the event by singing We Shall Overcome. Pendant Similar To That Worn By Anne Frank Unearthed In Nazi Concentration Camp A pendant similar to one owned by Holocaust victim Anne Frank has been unearthed at the site of the former German Nazi extermination camp, Sobibor, which was in occupied Poland. The pendant bears a date, the words "Mazal Tov" in Hebrew and the city "Frankfurt A.M.". It is similar to only one other known to exist that belonged to Anne Frank, whose diary of her time in hiding in Amsterdam is read the world over. It has been found along wth jewellery and other items in a part of the camp where victims were forced to undress and have their heads shaved. This part of the camp was named "Pathway to Heaven", the path along which Jewish victims were forced to tread to the gas chambers. The personal items were found in the foundations of a building and are thought to have fallen through the floorboards. They were found by Polish archaeologist Wojciech Mazurek and Yoram Haimi, an archaeologist from the Israel Antiquities Authority, along with their Dutch associate, Ivar Schute. The dig has been in place since 2007. It is part of an international project to build a new museum and memorial at Sobibor, in coordination with Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research. The other items included a Star of David necklace, a woman's watch and a metal charm covered in glass with an etching of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. On the reverse side of the charm is the inscription of the essential Jewish prayer "Shema." Also found was a unique pendant, probably belonging to a child from Frankfurt who was born on July 3, 1929, which bears the words "Mazal Tov" written in Hebrew on one side and on the other side the Hebrew letter "" (God's name) as well as three Stars of David. The pendant is believed to have belonged to someone called Karoline Cohn. Dr Joel Zissenwein, Director of the Deportations Database Project, found that Cohn, born on July 3, 1929, was deported from Frankfurt to Minsk on November 11, 1941. It is not known if Cohn survived the harsh conditions in the Minsk ghetto. In September 1943, the ghetto was liquidated and the 2,000 Jewish prisoners interned there were deported to the death camp. Both Anne Frank and Karoline Cohn were born in Frankfurt, suggesting a possible connection between them. Researchers are currently trying to locate relatives of the two families to further explore this avenue. Professor Havi Dreifuss, Head of the Center for the Research on the Holocaust in Poland at Yad Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust Research, said: "These recent findings from the excavations at Sobibor constitute an important contribution to the documentation and commemoration of the Holocaust, and help us to better understand what happened at Sobibor, both in terms of the camp's function and also from the point of view of the victims." Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yoram Haimi said: "In spite of attempts by the Nazis and their collaborators to erase traces of their crimes, as well as the effects of forestation and time, we enhance our understanding of the history previously known to us only through survivor testimonies. In this way, we ensure that the memory of the people killed there will never be forgotten. "This pendant demonstrates once again the importance of archaeological research of former Nazi death camp sites. The moving story of Karoline Cohn is symbolic of the shared fate of the Jews murdered in the camp. It is important to tell the story, so that we never forget." In another moving story, television's Antiques Roadshow last night revealed of a long lost ring that belonged to a brave Scot who died in Auschwitz. Jane Haining's jewellery was analysed by expert John Benjamin for a special episode of the iconic BBC One flagship programme to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January. He shared with her two nieces, Deirdre McDowell and Jane McIvor, his view on the ring, recently returned to the Church of Scotland offices in Edinburgh. Haining was arrested by the Nazis in 1944 for looking after Jewish girls at the Kirk-run Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary. She repeatedly refused orders from the Church to return home after the Second World War broke out because "her" girls needed her in days of "darkness". For four years Haining, who grew up in Dunscore near Dumfries, protected the pupils from the emerging threat of the Final Solution. She was betrayed by the school cook's son-in-law whom she caught stealing scarce food. Pope Francis Has Done 'Close To Nothing' To Tackle Sex Abuse - Vatican Journalist Pope Francis has done almost nothing to tackle child sex abuse in the Church, the high profile Vatican journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi has alleged in an explosive new book. The Italian's last book Avarizia (Greed) alleged deep corruption within the Catholic Church and led to him standing trial in front of a Vatican court for illegally obtaining confidential documents. His latest work, Lussuria (Lust), will be released in Italian on Thursday and claims Pope Francis has done "close to nothing" to stop sex abuse by priests around the world. Fittipaldi says 1,200 claims of abuse against young boys and girls have been highlighted to the Vatican since the start of Francis' papacy three years ago. In around 20 of the abuse cases alleged to have happened in Italy, priests have been convicted without facing any Church action, Fittipaldi writes. "The principle message of the book the problem is that the phenomenon of paedophilia is not being fought with sufficient force," he told the Guardian. "Across the world, the church continues to protect the privacy of the paedophiles and also the cardinals [who protect them]." He added: "Francis is not directly defending the paedophiles, but he did close to nothing to contrast the phenomenon of paedophilia." The Italian writer looks at the case of Cardinal George Pell in his book as well the case of Mauro Inzoli, a priest defrocked by Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict but allowed to return to the clergy with conditions under Pope Francis. "In all the Catholic countries, in Italy, Spain, South America, the sexual crimes of the priests are hard to tell. There is a kind of auto-censoring, on the part of journalists and victims because of the shame and because the culture of the church is very strong," said Fittipaldi. Speaking of his trial after his last book, for which he was acquitted, he told the Guardian "It was ironic to be there, during the trial. I was thinking that many priests and bishops and cardinal were involved in sexual abuse and the Vatican does nothing. They preferred going after journalists." Russian Influence In Syria Grows, Patriarch Kirill Invited To Visit The head of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), Patriarch Kirill, has been invited to visit Syria by Muslim religious leaders and the religious affairs ministry there. If a visit does take place, Kirill is expected to visit Maalula, a Christian village where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken. The Mufti of Moscow, Albir Krganov, told Interfax he had been told the visit would be "important for the support to the Christians". Krganov said an initiative to create an inter-faith Syria support foundation under the aegis of the Russian Public Chamber, a consulative body created by President Vladimir Putin, was also under discussion. "We are currently considering a consolidated collection of humanitarian aid for Syria through civil society efforts and representatives of the traditional religions," he said. The ROC, which is increasingly dominant in the Orthodox world, has donated funds to the Syria-based Patriarchate of Antioch to help with humanitarian relief because of the conflict. Russian support has been crucial to the survival of the Assad regime, which has relied heavily on its military aid in its campaign against rebel forces. Russia's President Vladimir Putin sees the regime as vital to its interests in the region, not least because Russia's only Mediterranean naval base, at Tartus, is leased from Syria. T D Jakes tells Christians to pray for Eddie Long case When somebody asked T D Jakes why he had not yet said anything publicly about the Eddie Long scandal, the prominent megachurch pastor gave a simple answer. I said theres nothing to say, Jakes told his congregation on Sunday. You cant make great decisions with poor information. Until you can separate facts from conjecture, there is nothing to say." Four young men filed separate lawsuits against Long last week, accusing him of using his position of authority to coerce them into sexual relationships when they were teenage members of his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia. "Defendant Long has a pattern and practice of singling out a select group of young male church members and using his authority as Bishop over them to ultimately bring them to a point of engaging in a sexual relationship," allege each of the suits, filed by lawyer Brenda Joy Bernstein. Each of the lawsuits then went on to describe the personal allegations of each plaintiff, including overnight encounters and specific sexual acts that were performed when they were 17 and 18, above the age of consent. Since news of the lawsuits broke out, Long's spokesman, Art Franklin, has told the media that the pastor "categorically and adamantly denies these allegations". He further told CNN that the lawsuits are "a shakedown for money by men with some serious credibility issues". The men "are not innocent victims" and they have known "the wrong side of the law", Franklin said. One of the men had been charged with breaking into Long's office in June to steal items, such as jewellery. "There are a lot of things that are out there being said, and before rushing into any judgment on Bishop Long in this court of public opinion, which is taking place right now, I really do hope that you would look at these guys who are throwing mud and just consider the source," Franklin said. On Sunday, as Long was giving his first public response on the matter before his 25,000-large congregation, Jakes of the Potters House in Dallas similarly advised his 30,000-large flock to hold your peace and just keep praying for New Birth and for "everybody who is adversely affected." When all this is over, one thing is for sure somebody, if not everybody in it, is going to need the blood [of Jesus Christ], Jakes exclaimed. So were just standing in the corner with a blood bucket. And whoever needs some, can get some. I dont know about you, but before sprinkling some on anybody else, I want to put a little bit of this on myself, the popular preacher added. In the meantime, Jakes said "Christians should just pray and know that once everything is said and done, God will give the victory. Nobody knows whats going to come out of this, but we know at the end of the day that God is in control, he said. As a sister church, we stand in prayer for the New Birth family. 'We're In This With You': Iraqi Muslim Rebuilds Crucifix Desecrated By ISIS Hundreds of churches and ancient Christian sites across Iraq and Syria have been desecrated by ISIS, but Muslims in the region are reaching out to their Christian neighbours amid the violence. In a church in Mosul, one Muslim has rebuilt a cross after the building was destroyed by jihadis. "Inside this church that ISIS has just come in and completely destroyed, here inside Mosul city limits, we found this cross that our friend Marwan helped fashion out of these two pieces of metal," said Jeremy Courtney, co-founder and executive director of the Preemptive Love Coalition (PLC), a "faith-orientated" charity working in Iraq. Speaking in a video posted to the charity's Instagram, Courtney added: "Marwan is a Muslim. But when Marwan came into this church he couldn't accept the fact that these other guys who claimed to be Muslims were rampaging through this place, destroying the signs and the icons of his Christian friends, his Christian compatriots, his Christian neighbours. "And so our Muslim friend Marwan helps fashion this cross together just to say... [to] his Christian neighbours and [on behalf of] his Muslim neighbours, his Muslim faith: 'We're in this with you. This cross stands for something. This cross belongs here in our country. This cross belongs here among our friends.'" Here in #Mosul, in a church destroyed by #ISIS, our friend Marwan fashioned a cross out of two pieces of metal. . Marwan is a Muslim. . He wanted to send his Christian neighbors a message: you belong. #loveanyway #mosul #iraq A video posted by Preemptive Love Coalition (@preemptivelove) on Jan 15, 2017 at 1:59pm PST PLC has been working in Iraq for more than a decade, and since the uprising of Islamic State in 2014 has provided life-saving emergency support to thousands of people fleeing the violence. A team has also been to serve suspected ISIS militants under its mandate to "Love anyway", regardless of religion or creed. As the campaign to eradicate ISIS has ramped up in the last few months, videos and images have begun to emerge of Iraqi Christian leaders returning to their churches after having had to flee. Photographs sent to Christian Today of the Mart Shmony Syriac Orthodox Church in Bartella, just nine miles from Mosul, showed church officials beginning the clean up effort after the building was desecrated by militants. The church is charred from being set alight, and inside church pews were overturned, and hymn books and Bibles torn apart and thrown on the floor. According to the Telegraph's Josie Ensor, graffiti scrawled on the walls of the church read: "Our God is higher than the cross". But though church leaders have pledged to return, many Christians are reportedly still too afraid and some have said they may never again live in what was once the heartland of Middle Eastern Christanity. In 2003, there were around 1.5 million Christians in Iraq, but there are now believed to be around just 200,000. Who is Eddie Long? Pioneering leader of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia Bishop Eddie Long devoted his life to serving God, but it hasn't been an easy road. Now, his name is making waves again after new images surfaced showing dramatic weight loss, which has led some to assume that Long is very sick. Born as Eddie Lee Long, Long is the pioneering leader of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in DeKalb County, Georgia. He is described as a "revolutionary mind changer" as he was able to grow his church from having 300 church members in 1987 to 25,000 members to date. The New Birth Missionary Baptist Church further described: "Bishop Long is highly regarded for his vision, boldness, and unapologetic courage to walk in the supernatural. As a pastor, he is well respected and loved for his passion to bring souls into the body of Christ and join them to a local church body, and for preaching and teaching messages that change mindsets and encourage hearts." However, along with Pastor Long's popularity came controversial lawsuits, the first one was in 2005 when he was accused of using money for personal use from his church. The Senate investigated the case but in the end, Pastor Long was found not guilty. In 2010, he was accused of coercing three people, namely Maurice Robinson, Anthony Flagg and Jamal Parris, to have sexual relationships with him. The lawsuits were settled out of court. Now, his recent appearances have garnered huge attention due to his dramatic weight loss. In his Facebook video, he said that he has turned vegan and points to eating raw vegetables as the reason for losing weight and becoming healthy. Despite that explanation, many still believe that Long is sick and that his illness is the cause of his dramatic weight transformation. Why The Cathedral Quran Reading Deserved Its Rebuke As Anglican rebukes go, it was a storm force four gale kind of one. The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (the Scottish equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury) wrote on Saturday that: "The decisions which have led to the situation in St Mary's Cathedral are a matter for the Provost and the Cathedral community but the Scottish Episcopal Church is deeply distressed at the widespread offence which has been caused." Trust me in Anglican circles where the major synodical debates tend to be over which kind of quiche to serve afterwards, that's a pretty stinging rebuke. A previous vicar here in Canterbury wrote a book in which one chapter was called 'The Cult of Nice' which pretty well summed up the conflict-averse Anglican Church, both north and south of Hadrian's Wall. Bishop David Chillingworth's naming and shaming of Kelvin Holdsworth, the Provost of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, was about as harsh as it gets. What brought us to this point? It all began just over a week ago when on January 6 St Mary's Cathedral held a service to mark the day. The Feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the arrival of the Magi, the wise men (oh, the irony) but it is much more than that. The Magi are Gentiles, non-Jews, and their acknowledgement that Jesus was the Son of God represents an 'Epiphany', a revelation to the whole world of who Jesus is. This isn't just a Jewish prophet, not just a special little baby this child is the Saviour of the World, God Incarnate, the one who is to be worshipped (Gold), the only good High Priest (Frankincense) and the sacrifice for our sins (Myrrh). Into this heady mix Kelvin Holdsworth brought the spice of a reading from the Quran. A Muslim law student stood up and recited verses from Surah 19 Mary. They told the birth narrative of Jesus from an Islamic perspective, as the miracle super-baby who can speak even though he's a few days old. Well, controversial stuff and it led to some online criticism, including from the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali who knows a thing or two about inter-faith dialogue. And that might have been it, except that I decided to get some people with slightly more fluent classical Arabic than I have to have a careful listen to what was being recited using the handy video of the whole thing that had been put online. And you know what? When you listen to it you hear that as well as the section of Surah 19 printed out in the service sheet, Madinah Javed then goes onto recite the next three verses which explicitly deny the Sonship of Jesus and proclaim that he is not to be worshipped. The Magi would have been confused. So I wrote about it on Ian Paul's blog. And then the BBC wrote about it. And then all hell broke loose. The only seeming centre of peace in all this was the tight-lipped Provost of Glasgow Cathedral who when questioned refused to answer. To be fair to him, apparently he was being subsumed by a tidal-wave of abuse, though I suspect when one filters through the correspondence, the blog comments and the Facebook posts, only a tiny portion were actually anything near a hate crime. Most of us simply wanted to know the answer to one simple theological and liturgical question "Is it appropriate for a passage from the Quran that explicitly denies the divinity of Jesus to be read out in an Anglican church on the Feast Day that explicitly recognises that crucial fact?" And it was the one question Holdsworth was unwilling to answer, so unwilling that he closed off comments on his blog and, after inviting bloggers to inquire, shut up the lines of communication when this point was raised. Which is interesting given that in his first apologia for the events he said: "No one amongst the several Church of England folk and the single Scottish Episopal priest who originally wrote about this online and triggered the deluge of abuse that we have received bothered to contact us to check the context of what happened," which gives you the impression that Kelvin was more than happy to sit down and speak to us or other press hacks if we'd bothered to ask. Tell that to the legion of journalists, including one from Christian Today, who did ask the Provost for an interview and got told where to go. Perhaps we're all just bigots? "Is it because this is in a cathedral run by a gay man? Is it because the recitation was given by a young woman?" Yes, that's why those of us who write serious news and analysis pieces went overboard on these two issues, making an absolute meal of the sexuality of the Provost and the sex of the cantor. Except we didn't. In fact we explicitly took the emphasis away from the sex of the cantor (and indeed tried to avoid any criticism of her per se) and certainly didn't even mention whether Holdsworth was gay, straight or somewhere in the rainbow inbetween. The key issue was always the appropriateness of a blatant denial of Jesus' divinity in a service geared around affirming it. Even after the rebuke from the Primus of Scotland, the Provost still wasn't accepting he'd done anything wrong. Yesterday he preached: "Our aim and the aim of all involved was to bring God's people together and learn from one another something that did, beneath the waves of the storm, happen, and continues to happen." This was the explanation of why he allowed a denial of Jesus' divinity to be proclaimed in his Cathedral. It's all about inter-faith learning and unity. Well here's the thing, there are plenty of ways to do that in a cathedral without abusing Christian worship. As Kelvin was setting pen to paper and as Scotland was digesting the Primus' rebuke of him (a rebuke that the Provost basically ignored), Gloucester Cathedral was engaging in a multi-faith education day. This included an example of the Islamic call to prayer, but crucially that was not undertaken during a service and there was no sense of obligation to listen to it it happened while the participants moved around the cathedral engaging with other forms of spirituality as part of an academic engagement with those cultures. Dean Stephen Lake got it absolutely right, unlike the Provost of Glasgow. If you want to educate people as to what Islam thinks about the Virgin Birth, don't do it a context which is meant to be about what the Bible says in contrast. And so we come to the final apologia for Kelvin Holdsworth's mistake, again from his sermon yesterday: "Nobody at that service that night could be in any doubt that we proclaimed the divinity of Christ and preached the Gospel of God's love." Well yes, you possibly did recite the Nicene Creed at some point after its key verses were repudiated, but saying that makes the heresy before it OK is like saying that if you deliver a devastating uppercut to a stranger walking down the street, handing him a plaster afterwards makes it OK. This story hasn't gone away despite the best efforts of the Provost to say nothing, to say he'll say something and then say nothing, to ignore his boss, to ignore the sensible, cogent, important theological questions that even the head of the Episcopal Church of Scotland accepts are perfectly valid. In ministry, or indeed any position of responsibility, the sooner you learn the lesson that it's better when you're caught red-handed to admit a mistake and ask for forgiveness than to try and defend an indefensible corner, the better. The longer the Provost goes on blaming everyone but himself, the deeper the hole that he is digging is going to get. When last Thursday the esteemed Queen's Chaplain (and a man who knows a thing or two about Islam) Canon Gavin Ashenden called on Holdsworth to resign I thought he was asking a bit too much of the beleaguered Provost. Now four days later, with Holdsworth to all intents and purposes spitting in the face of the Primus by refusing to accept the offence he has caused (as Chillingworth clearly states), and instead the Provost accusing the accusers, one wonders how much longer this farce can go on. Rev Peter Ould is a Church of England priest based in Canterbury. He blogs at www.peter-ould.net. The ghosts showed up early at Don Henley's Sunday night performance at the Smart Financial Centre in Sugar Land. Henley opened with s sublime "Seven Bridges Road," written by Steve Young, a brilliant troubadour who penned some of the best country-ish songs of the '70s. Young died last year, and Glenn Frey's spirit is never far away at a Henley show. Henley's old Eagles collaborator died a year ago Wednesday, shutting down future Eagles endeavors, with or without the presence of ice in Hell. MORE HOUSTON SHOWS: An updated look at Houston's 2017 concert lineup I anticipated a show heavy on the new "Cass County," the countriest record of Henley's career with its title referencing his east Texas roots. Instead, Henley chose a more celebratory tone for his show that generously touched on all parts of his nearly 50-year career. "Three for you one for me,"' he said dealing Eagles tunes like "Witchy Woman" and "One of These Nights," while making room for "Shangri La." "Cass County" is an autumnal album with numerous references to the passage of time. It also bristles with defiance: "Though nostalgia is fine, I respectfully decline to spend my future living in the past," goes one lyric. Henley mined the past Sunday but only partially to nostalgic effect. His more pointed commentary songs -- "Dirty Laundry," "The Boys of Summer," "The End of the Innocence" -- have a frustrating resonance decades later, which he recognizes. Even the Eagles crowd pleasers bear different weight years later, especially in light of Frey's death. Several Eagles standards were written by these two birds of a feather despite hailing from Texas and Michigan. A testament to Los Angeles' facilitation of reinvention these two came to define a specific strain of rootsy California pop. That's a particularly American sort of success story. The struggles over band identity that did the band in also speak to our culture, then as well as now. And the irony of breaking up after releasing an album called "The Long Run." So one could call the tone of Henley's show nostalgic, though reflective may be the better word. He just released his first album in 15 years, and he doesn't tour often. He's seen collaborators fade away, including the one with whom he achieved cultural ubiquity. Kenny Rogers, the guy who took Henley's pre-Eagles band to Los Angeles, is on a farewell tour. All of this time and movement and change is baked into "Cass County." But live the 69-year-old Henley kept the mood less funereal. There's no reason to think this tour is his last go-round. But then again a year ago nobody really anticipated Frey shuffling away. So when he could, Henley last night looked to dig into the past to comment on the present. He struck an admirable balance that scratched nostalgic itches for some of those in the crowd without letting itching and scratching define the performance. The venue also bears mention, as Henley's show was the first real concert at the Smart Financial Centre, one night after Jerry Seinfeld did two nights of comedy. The venue boasted gorgeous sound, rich whether nine voices on seven bridges or four guitars two keys bass and drums with five piece brass. Not long before Carolyn Sevier moved to Billings a decade ago, she stood on a hill in South Billings with some of the founders of the 54-acre Montana Audubon Center. They were painting a vision of what had been done and what it could be, she said, sitting in her office at the center that had not yet been built back then. I was captivated by that mission. Now, as its new director, Sevier is pleased to carry on the mission of the nonprofit organization that seeks to help people of all ages connect with and learn about nature. She officially took over the post Jan. 2. Sevier replaces Jonathan Lutz, who served as the director for 11 months before stepping down in November. She was appointed interim director at that time. It was Lutzs choice to leave and his parting was amicable, Sevier said, after he decided the center was not the place he needed to be. She praised his time as director in stabilizing the center after the uncertainty from previous leadership transitions. The director of the program before Lutz, Darcie Howard, resigned in June 2015 and later sued, claiming she was forced out of her position. That lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in May 2016, and an interim director took over until Lutz was hired. Formerly, Sevier worked as the centers education coordinator, for which she had been hired at the same time as Lutz. She has been at the center now for a year. Sevier graduated from Carroll College in 2003 with degrees in environmental science and English. She was hired as program director for the Rim Country Land Institute in Clancy, to create a nature education program near Molt, and she moved to Billings in 2007. When the land institute closed, Sevier remained. From 2011 to 2016, she served as president of the Montana Environmental Education Association where she she advocated for nature and environmental education across the state. Now, as she takes over the reins as director at the Montana Audubon Center, her first goal is to increase its visibility. I think theres a lot of potential for growth, but that potential wont be realized until more people know what we do, Sevier said. The focus over the last 10 years has been on building strong programming, quality instruction and mentoring of kids, she said. Three programs help with that: Audubon Naturalists in the Schools, the longest-running and best-attended program, in which elementary students participate in a yearlong field trip program. Students get up to 19 hours of contact time with center staff, most of it outdoors. During the 2016-17 school year, that includes 49 classrooms, a 44 percent increase over the year before, of students from School District 2 and other area schools. Fledglings Nature Preschool, one of the first nature preschools in Montana, where preschoolers spend more than 80 percent of their time outside learning by exploring. Audubon Adventures Summer Camp, offering half- and full-day camps for youth ages 4 to 14. There are also home-based school classes and afterschool programs. Overall, between 3,000 and 4,000 people a year come here for programs, Sevier said. The two biggest community partners in the center are the Yellowstone River Parks Association and the Yellowstone Audubon Society. When they joined together to build the center nearly 10 years ago, it was intended to be field classroom space and a wet lab. That use of the building will continue, Sevier said. But shes working with one of the staff on creating an interpretive space, including a mural, to engage visitors. Shed also like to expand adult and public programming. That, combined with the enthusiasm of supporters who keep the center going, will help the Montana Audubon Center to move forward. As Sevier talked about the work of the center, childrens excited voices could be heard in a nearby classroom and outside. About 60 preschool and elementary students were at the center on Friday, learning about their surroundings. Sevier talked about another recent cold-weather birding hike taken by a group of fourth-graders. One staff member noticed something unusual hanging from a tree. The birders pulled out binoculars to get a better look, then walked over to the tree where they saw a dead goose hanging from a limb. An eagle had killed the bird, then left its remains hanging in the tree. It was one way, she said, the kids got to see nature in action. Later, when Sevier emailed a teacher to make sure the kids were OK after being outside on such a cold day, Sevier was pleased with the response. "She wrote back, 'the kids are fine, everybody had a great time. They'll remember this,'" Sevier said. "How many kids get to spend a whole day outside in the middle of winter?" This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Country legend Willie Nelson has reportedly written a diss track of sorts aimed at President-elect Donald Trump and the 2016 election process. Nelson, who turns 84 years old in April, has been vocal of his wariness of Trump in the past, calling him a hustler in late 2015 as Trumps campaign began to heat up with TV crews following him around the country. "But I don't have anything personally against Donald. I think he's a great hustler. And as a brother hustler, I wish him well," Nelson told CNN. He even said hed smoke marijuana with Trump, citing his policy of being open to smoking with anyone. SPLIFF CITY: Willie Nelson wants Loretta Lynn to try pot again The question remains if Trump would ever sit down for smoke session with the red-headed stranger. Trump has said in the past hes never touched drug or drink. Nelson voiced support for both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election season but he never made any firm endorsements. The new song penned by Nelson is titled Delete and Fast-Forward, and it reflects his view of the election and the next four years to come, according to Rolling Stone. "Delete and fast-forward, my friend/ The elections are over and nobody wins/ But don't worry too much, you'll go crazy again/ Delete and fast forward, my friend, go Nelsons lyrics. It sounds, obviously, like Nelson would rather just flash through the next four years. WILLIES COMING: RodeoHouston: Willie Nelson, Fifth Harmony, Sam Hunt, Blink-182 In March 2016 Nelson said that the election was the funniest thing he had ever seen. Ive seen the circus a few times, but this beats any circus Ive ever seen, Nelson told KSAT-TV in San Antonio. The song will be on a new album titled Gods Problem Child slated for release in April around the time he turns 84. Another song is reportedly titled Still Not Dead and its aimed at those who spread hoaxes of his death. The album should be his 69th solo studio album and his 15th release since 2010. Rolling Stone asked him if hes about ready to hang up the touring hat. After every tour, I think about it, and after a while of not working, I'm ready to play," he said. "I think I enjoy playing music more than I enjoy not playing music. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A nightlife and culture website based in Seoul, South Korea recently reached out to a handful of barbecue joints in the United States for a very special project. The aim of Digitalsoju TV and hosts Asian Boss was to show North Korean exiles who had left the country for a better life in South Korea the ins and outs of American barbecue. We make videos about life in Seoul including the growing international food scene, which still hasn't hit puberty, the company says on its YouTube site. Koreans are finally starting to appreciate authentic foods from other countries and the landscape of the food scene is really changing. YUM: Taste the barbecue Houston is famous for Seeing how Koreans react to new things they've never tried before is part of the fun. We want to set the bar higher for people here so they no longer settle for the bastardized versions, they add. Other videos produced by Digitalsoju included real Mexican food, various American pizzas, and root beer floats. In early January they put out a video of South Koreans trying American barbecue for the first time and it hit 1 million views in just five days. Included on the menu for the barbecue novices was sauce from Texas own Rudys Country Store and Bar-B-Q and other barbecue places from around the U.S. A place called Sweet Oak in South Korea was enlisted to cook for the North Koreans. Its pitmaster is South Korean restaurateur and Guam native Gus Flores, a man who learned from barbecue greats from around the world. Flores also included sides like cole slaw, fries, beans, and corn pudding. Sauce from Alabamas LawLers Barbecue, 12 Bones in North Carolina, and Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City were all on the menu. According to the producers they were not able to secure any sauces from Memphis barbecue joints and Salt Lick and Franklin Barbecue from here in Texas declined to help. The producers stress that had it not been for the help from Rudy's brass, the Lone State Star would have not been represented in the video. One of the owners of 12 Bones, Angela King, is a Korean-American whose father escaped from North Korea when he was 11 years old. Her family made the trip to Seoul to participate in the project. You can seen the video in full below: The video proves the craving for the taste of smoked meat is rather universal. It's fun to see the reactions to basic Texas things from people who have never had the pleasure of traditional brisket, beef ribs, and sausage. North Korea is a place where only the privileged can regularly eat meat, and forks were seen as crude American tools. One exile said meat choices in North Korea range from dog, rabbit, chicken, and pork. Eating beef is enough to get you executed, one man said, in part because of the amount of work that one of the animals can do. EAT TEXAS: Best places to eat on a Texas road trip A few of the exiles asked why the bottle of Rudys sauce was so much bigger than the rest of those gathered. Thats when they learned that everything, including our barbecue sauce bottles, is bigger in Texas. One of the North Koreans said she preferred brisket sans sauce, which made her an honorary Texan. Rudys was founded just north of San Antonio at first as a gas station, garage, and grocery store. In 1989 the owners began selling barbecue and the concept quickly caught on. There are now locations all across Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado. The video isnt just a celebration of American barbecue, but also of freedom, with the North Koreans explaining in their own words how much food means to those in countries where meat is scarce. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Elsa, a 2-year-old golden retriever and full-time employee at Texas Children's Hospital, likes to sleep on the job. "She loves to take naps with kids," said Sarah Herbek, a child life specialist at the hospital and Elsa's full-time handler. "Her favorite thing is to cuddle in their beds, and they love it, too." A trained professional, Elsa has been a full-time fixture at the hospital since Oct. 3, funded with a donation from a family. She's the only full-time hospital therapy animal in the Houston area that Texas Children's is aware of, Herbek said, although a number of facilities receive regular visits from volunteer groups whose members bring their pets to see patients. STUDENTS NEED LOVE TOO: Dogs calm Baylor med students before exams The advantage of being a full-time staffer is that Elsa can follow patients throughout their entire stay, Herbek said. One patient has been receiving regular visits from Elsa since her second week on the job, Herbek said. Once a patient requests a visit from Elsa, Herbek prioritizes the visit based upon the patient's need, Herbeck said. Typically, the dog visits a patient twice a week, although in the case of one girl who was in renal failure and responsive only when Elsa was around, the dog spent 30 to 60 minutes at her bedsidwe in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit every day during the last two weeks of the child's life. Not only has the dog helped ease the physical and emotional pain of young patients, she has had an impact on everyone she meets, Herbek said. "Her presence has changed the culture of the hospital," she said. "She's had such a positive effect on patients and families, and staff turns into big kids when they see her and get huge smiles on their faces. She's created more of a community within the hospital." The Greater Houston Black Chamber of Commerce will launch a Buy Black directory of black-owned small businesses Tuesday in an effort to boost sales for its members. According to the chamber, the African-American community has a buying power of $1.1 trillion. A dollar typically circulates for six hours in the black community but only 2 cents of every dollar is spent at black-owned businesses, the organization said. Rapper Common throws support behind Lina Hidalgo The Democratic incumbent has also garnered support from actors Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jane Fonda. Selena Gomez revisits her Texas neighborhood in documentary Gomez is shown spending time with a childhood friend in her hometown. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Law enforcement personnel of San Jacinto County were honored and sworn in on Jan. 9 by Sheriff Greg Capers in preparation for a new year in law enforcement. Capers, dozens of law enforcement officers and their families gathered at the Elections Administration Office where Capers welcomed everyone to their first annual awards ceremony program. "All of my employees are very much appreciated," said Capers. "They work hard to provide the law enforcement services needed by our citizens. While I want to recognize and thank all of my personnel for their dedication and hard work, I felt it necessary to provide an example of what some of my employees have brought to San Jacinto County." The awards ceremony began with Capers awarding Best Patrol Deputy to Deputy Jason Snipes. Snipes has been serving San Jacinto County since April of 2014. "Deputy Snipes is a team player," said Capers. "He reports to work routinely ahead of his duty hours and is always ready to take on the activities of the patrol bureau." Capers also describes Snipes as an excellent problem solver capable of making just, moral and legal decisions. The next award went to John Wheeler for Reserve Deputy of the Year. Wheeler joined the sheriff's office in July 2015 as a reserve deputy sheriff, bringing with him 30 years of law enforcement experience. "Donating almost 1,000 hours of service in 2016, Deputy Wheeler has worked as a transportation deputy, bailiff and has worked many other assignments to assist our operations," Capers said. According to Capers, Wheeler exemplifies service through his actions and commitment to the law enforcement community. Lt. Rosa Bass received the award for Detention Bureau Supervisor of the Year. She has served San Jacinto County since December 2012 and is currently the assistant jail administrator. "Regulations and laws change regularly in the detention world," said Capers. "Lt. Bass is responsible for staying on top of these issues." Capers says Bass is also responsible for a complete revamp of the Sheriff's Office's classification process, updating the detention center's policy manual and other tasks. The Detective of the Year award went to Sgt. Amy McCorkle who entered the office in August 2014 as a jailer. "In early 2015 Sgt. McCorkle was promoted to Detective Sgt. And assigned to the detective bureau of the sheriff's office," said Capers. Capers further stated that McCorkle brings with her abilities equivalent to a seasoned detective. "With minimal training, she was able to tackle investigative cases and bring them to a successful conclusion rather quickly," he said. The next award was the Patrol Sgt. Of the Year, which went to Sgt. Stephen Countz who has served law enforcement in San Jacinto County since Feb. 2015 as a day shift patrol supervisor and training supervisor, though Capers says Countz's services goes much further than these positions. "Through his many years of experience, he has been able to help direct his personnel towards better production within our community oriented policing model," said Capers. "His vast knowledge of state law and departmental policy and procedure allow him to move forward on situations involving our public and to do so without placing their needs in jeopardy." Corporal Lisa Jones received the Detention Bureau Jailer of the Year award. She has served San Jacinto County since September 2014 where she worked her way up the ranks to be a shift supervisor. "Rising through the ranks to her current position has allowed her to develop a very keen understanding of what it takes to be a jailer," said Capers. "Her dedication to her troops is to ensure they have the finest training available. Corporal Jones takes this task head on and without the prompting of her own supervisors." The award for Dispatcher of the Year was awarded to Jason Ayers, who began serving the county in May 2014 as a jailer. Ayers transferred to the communications bureau a year later and created a new field training program for dispatchers. "This program was formally adopted and now is used to help train new dispatchers," said Capers. "The program follows the dispatchers throughout their career in dispatch as an update and reminder of the duties necessary to perform at their highest ability." Capers awarded three Sheriff's Award for Excellence to three individuals. Two were not present while Captain Harley Lovings received his from Capers. Lovings joined the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office in 2013 and was appointed as the administrator of the detention bureau. He has 30 years of corrections and administrative experience. "Through his innovative ideas and management style he has been successful in operating our jail as an advanced inmate housing facility that not only saves tax dollars but creates a line of income for the county by housing inmates from several other counties and agencies in our region," said Capers. "In addition to his duties to the jail, Captain Lovings is in charge of infrastructure management for the sheriff's office." Capers also took a moment to thank a group of San Jacinto County law enforcement officers that assisted the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations in apprehending fugitive Jose Rendon. Officers involved in the arrest include Corporal Caroline Renfro, Michael Sims, David Tubby, Jason Ayers, Regina Crawford, Meagan McDougal, Sgt. Brian Cosme, Michael Voytko, Joshua James and Chief Deputy Joe Schultea. The event concluded with Capers swearing in all of the law enforcement personnel present at the ceremony before concluding with some kind words. "I love each and every one of y'all," said Capers. "I hope the best of y'all." Capers also thanked the family members present for their support of their loved ones in law enforcement. "They couldn't do the job they do without family and peer support," he said. The dispute between the new live music venue White Oak Music Hall and its Near Northside neighbors has not reached any final resolution. But the venue -- which boasts two indoors stages and a controversial outdoor stage -- just booked its first outdoor lawn show of 2017. The popular Texas roots rock ensemble the Randy Rogers Band is scheduled to play the lawn at White Oak Music Hall on May 20. Chef Kiran Verma has been working since April, when she closed her longtime restaurant on Westheimer, to prepare for the opening of her grand new home at 2925 Richmond. Everything's bigger: kitchen, staff, seating (the new restaurant can accommodate 175 guests instead of about 100 in the original Kiran's). Everything's grander, too, even from the moment diners enter: they must pass through a giant golden door of hammered brass with metal pull handles that suggest florid letters of the Hindi alphabet. Those gilt portals will swing open to the public on Wednesday, Jan. 18, the official debut of Kiran's on the ground floor of the new mixed-use development Levy Park. "I'm nervous. I'm excited. I have the jitters," said chef Verma about the prospect of the first restaurant she's opened designed for her from the ground up. "I've literally have been working on this for nine months. I could have had a baby in that time. A big baby." FIRST LOOK: Local Foods opens downtown location This particular bundle of joy has brought an even bigger smile to Verma's face. She's thrilled about Gensler's architecture and design a plush, modern expanse of glass and warm wood interspersed with panels of mother of pearl etched in filigree design and shot through with pops of burnt orange and gold. And she's beaming with pride over a kitchen staff that she said is helping her realize new paths for her menu of modern Indian invested with classic technique and flavor. In the kitchen she's aided by chef Arun Kakkar, who was chef at her first restaurant Ashiana, who moved from Cananda to join forces with her at the new Kiran's. She also hired two new executive sous chefs, Edgar Hernandez, formerly of Peska, and Dominick Lee, whose resume includes work with John Besh and Brennan restaurants in New Orleans. Kiran's very much remains a fine dining restaurant. But the larger kitchen and the addition of daily lunch and afternoon tea service (as well as a new bar menu) have allowed her to stretch her repertoire. At dinner there's a new entree featuring Indian spiced duck confit that has been blasted crisp in the tandoor oven and then plated with citrus-fig relish and apricot biryani. Likewise, Gulf snapper gets a hot flash in the tandoor and is then topped with crab and wild mushrooms and served with red quinoa. The dinner menu offers Indian street food starters such as pappadum and house-made chutneys; pani poori puffs filled with potato, garbanzo beans and pomegranates; lentil dumplings with yogurt, mint and tamarind chutney; and various kebabs, samosas and pakoras. Classic Indian dishes abound: chicken tikka masala; butter chicken; lamb rogan josh; seafood curry; chicken or lamb korma; chicken or lamb vindaloo; and bison kofta (tandoori meantballs in a curry sauce). In the searing tandoori ovens she cooks Texas quail; Cornish hen in a tamarind and honey glaze; black bass with charred poblano peppers served in a coconut broth; rack of lamb; and Maine lobster tail. Biyani dishes, naan, and a slew of vegetarian side dishes complete the dinner menu. For lunch she's offering various curry dishes served with saffron basmati rice; tandoori meats and vegetables in roti wraps; egg dishes; and a new bison burger with fennel and mint chutney and onion jam on a brioche bun served with chaat masala fries. The cocktail and wine programs have been greatly expanded. The wine program has been put together by Dr. Jagdish Sharma, a family friend who also curated the original Kiran's wine list. "I'm really excited about the wine. He's truly put a lot of love in it," said Verma standing in her new wine room within the restaurant that will feature 20 private wine lockers for customers. At the bar there's a new emphasis on single malt scotch, American whiskey, and Japanese whiskey. And a new cocktail list capitalizes on kitchen flavors and spices with drinks that include green cardamom syrup, chai, tamarind syrup, garam masala syrup, and other Indian spices. Kiran's fetching new bar area -- with generous seating at the bar as well as a communal bar table means there's also a bar bites menu: Kingfisher beer batter-fried calamari with vindaloo aioli; kale and spinach chips with tamarind chutney; lamb or chicken hot dogs with spicy tomato chutney; vindaloo meatballs; stuffed naans; vegetarian pakoras; and sliders served with chaat masala fries. And Verma plans to offer her special afternoon tea service weekdays; and on Weekends for groups of eight or more by reservation. Kiran's, 2925 Richmond, 713-960-8472; kiranshouston.com. The restaurant will be open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch; 5 to 10 p.m. for dinner; Friday and Saturday from 5 to 11 p.m.; closed on Sunday. Afternoon tea is served Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Not this company. Houston-based IJR Capital Investments ended up on the sinking side of a trademark lawsuit over a proposed restaurant with the same name as a famous fictional greasy spoon featured in the popular kids' show "SpongeBob SquarePants." The nautical mess started after IJR applied to trademark Krusty Krab restaurant in 2014, with locations slated to open in Kemah and Los Angeles. But the Krusty Krab has long been a staple of Bikini Bottom lore, a place where the beloved porous, yellow title character and his bitter buddy Squidward hung out in more than 200 episodes. Viacom International - which owns Nickelodeon - took issue with the encroaching crustacean-inspired culinary offering but, as it turned out, the media conglomerate hadn't specifically trademarked Krusty Krab. Nonetheless, in 2015, Viacom sent IJR a cease-and-desist letter. But the maritime-minded investment group refused to stop using its controversial name, disputing Viacom's allegation of possible "consumer confusion," according to court papers. In response, Viacom launched a lawsuit in January 2016, splashing IJR with nine claims including, trademark infringement, false designation, unfair competition and refusal of recognition. Eventually, Viacom moved for summary judgment on eight of those claims and, on Wednesday, a federal judge found IJR in violation of trademark infringement in a ruling that included at least one tongue-in-cheek "SpongeBob" reference in a footnote. "On the balance, the court finds that Viacom has presented compelling evidence that there is a likelihood of confusion between Viacom's and IJR's marks," U.S. District Court Judge Gray H. Miller wrote in his decision, citing the similarly distinctive spelling of the fictional and would-be real establishments. "In response to IJR counsel's remarks at the hearing that IJR's spelling of 'The Krusty Krab' is because Ks are prettier than Cs, the court believes that Cs can be as aesthetically pleasing as Ks," Miller added in a footnote. In another footnote, the judge observed that SpongeBob's reaction to parts of the decision not favorable to Viacom might be, "Aw, tartar sauce!" The judge did not rule in Viacom's favor on the dilution, false designation, unfair competition and refusal of registration claims. IJR didn't respond to a request for comment, but they may still be a little salty about the suit's outcome. Nearly 53 years after Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of nonviolent efforts to secure civil rights for Americans, those rights still stir controversy. The United States has made progress. The segregation of restaurants, motels, buses and public schools that King marched against is now illegal. The Civil Rights Act can be used to protect Americans from discrimination that still rears its ugly head. For example, on Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Chicago announced a court-enforced agreement to reform the citys police policies and practices. A yearlong Justice Department civil rights investigation found that the police department has violated the constitutional rights of residents for years, permitting racial bias against blacks, using excessive force and killing people who didn't pose a threat, according to the Associated Press. On Thursday, the U.S. DOJ and the city of Baltimore approved an agreement to improve policing. An investigation of the Baltimore Police Department was prompted by years of complaints that exploded in violence after the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a black man who was fatally injured while in police custody. Protecting Montanans Civil rights concerns hit close to home for Montanans, where complaints of discrimination, threats and slurs against minority groups have increased substantially since Trumps election on Nov. 8. The majority of complaints are centered in Whitefish, which is the part-time home of Richard Spencer, a rising star in among white supremacists who prefer to call themselves the alt-right. The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had asked its followers to troll storm Whitefish residents whom it identified as Jewish. The website posted photos and contact information on these Montanans. Andrew Anglin, who runs The Daily Stormer, last month called for an armed march in Whitefish today, then last week posted that the march was postponed. Anglin named the event the James Earl Ray Extravaganza, referring to the prison escapee who was convicted of shooting Martin Luther King Jr. to death in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn. United against hate Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Attorney General Tim Fox and our entire congressional delegation Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke have condemned the threats and intimidation directed at our Jewish neighbors and their friends. On todays Opinion page members of the Montana Legislature Native American Caucus add their voices in solidarity against hate and discrimination. On Thursday, President Barack Obama designated three new national monuments that were significant locations in the 1960s civil rights movement. The designation raises questions about how these monuments in Alabama and South Carolina will be funded when the National Park Service doesnt have enough money to take care of long-established parks and monuments. But Americans really do need to remember what happened in those turbulent years. These new national monuments provide a place for reflection on how far weve come and how far we still have to go to achieve true equality for all, said Stephanie K. Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The civil rights movement was, as Meeks said, a seminal turning point in American history. Protection of civil rights remains integral to our ongoing quest to form a more perfect union. If you are off work or out of school today, please take a few minutes to read about Kings life. If today is a regular workday, know that you are protected by laws that wouldnt exist without the courage and conviction of civil rights marchers, such as King. When the bodies of three teenagers were found in July 1982 near Lake Waco, chills ran through Central Texas. Kids were kept inside, Lake Waco was off limits to teens and many wondered who could have done it. Eventually four people were convicted in the deaths of Jill Montgomery, Raylene Rice and Kenneth Franks. GRUESOME CRIME: Looking back at the 'Candy Man' 42 years later Now, the last of the four defendants in a case that sparked years of litigation and multiple blogs has died. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said 57-year-old Anthony Melendez passed away Friday, Jan. 13, 2017, in a prison hospice at the Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony, near Palestine. Prison spokesman Jason Clark told the Waco Tribune that privacy laws prevented him from releasing the cause of death. Melendez was serving two life prison terms after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in the case and testifying against David Wayne Spence at his trial in Bryan. LOST: Man searches Houston streets for missing brother Spence was executed in 1997. Melendezs brother, Gilbert, who also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two life prison terms, died in prison in 1998 of HIV complications. The fourth defendant, Muneer Deeb, also was sentenced to death after a trial in Cleburne. His conviction was later overturned and he was acquitted at a 1993 retrial in Fort Worth. He died from cancer six years after being released. LETHAL INJECTION: Texas carries out first execution of 2017 Prosecutors said Deeb hired Spence to kill a teenager named Gayle Kelley so he could collect on a life insurance policy he had on her. Spence botched the job, mistaking Montgomery for Kelley, prosecutors said. Montgomery, 17, was at Koehne Park at Lake Waco with her friends Rice, 17, and Franks, 18. The bodies of the teens, who were stabbed a total of 47 times, were dumped at Lake Wacos Speegleville Park. >>>Click through the gallery to see details about cold cases for which investigators are still searching for clues. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A Tennessee lawmaker on Thursday proposed a new bill that would ban food stamp recipients from buying junk food. Republican Sheila Butt says those on public assistance shouldn't be allowed to purchase foods high in calories and fat but low in nutritional value, like ice cream, cookies and candy. GOOD EATS: The healthiest and tastiest restaurants in Houston "When you're receiving taxpayer dollars, it's not money that you've have earned. It's money that other people have earned and is redistributed to you. Strings come along with that," Butt said in a statement on her website."At the end of the day, if you're on public assistance, you shouldn't be using taxpayer dollars to consume junk food that leads to additional health problems and more taxpayer assistance to address those problems." (Story continues below.) The controversial measure would include steep fines for those who violate the law. First-time offenders would have to pay $1,000 and those with three or more offenses in five years would be fined $5,000. Butt compares consuming these kinds of foods to other harmful vices. "We don't allow people to buy alcohol and cigarettes with welfare dollars, why should we allow people to buy junk food that leads to just as many health problems as the aforementioned?" Linda Williams, the president and CEO of the RISE Foundation in Memphis, told the Tennessean this sort of behavior shouldn't be regulated at the government level. She believes the bigger problem relates to a lack of information made available to families. IS IT WORTH IT? 13 health foods that aren't worth the terrible taste "It's not really a legislative issue; it's an educational issue," she said. Dr. Manny Sethi, the co-founder of nonprofit Healthy Tennessee, which aims to encourage preventative healthcare, agrees. "You can pass laws all day long that you want, but until people understand that they shouldn't eat three pints of ice cream a day (things won't change)," he told that outlet. "I don't think Capitol Hill telling people what they can eat is the right thing." A Sinaloa Cartel member was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Wednesday for participating in the kidnapping, killing and mutilation of a man who lost a 670-pound marijuana delivery to authorities. Francisco Javier Pulido, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country on Oct. 26. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate For two decades, Bush's Chicken has been an alternative to KFC or Popeyes for fried-chicken lovers in Waco. With a just-opened location in Deer Park and plans to open in Pasadena early this year, the chain has 75 franchise locations in Texas, according to Jake Smith, Bush's manager/director of social media. The Deer Park location at 8055 Spencer Highway, which opened Dec. 15, and the under-construction Pasadena restaurant just a mile down the street occur as Bush's expands into the Houston area and into Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado and Louisiana. "We're trying to get from the outside and work our way in," Smith said of the company's move into Houston. "Starting with the Deer Park, Baytown and Pasadena locations, Bush's will work its way into inner-city Houston communities," Smith said. "We want to make sure we don't leave any parts of Houston out." Bush's also has two restaurants in Fort Bend County, at 6127 Texas 6 South in Missouri City and at 5400 Ave. I in Rosenberg. In Deer Park, Pasadena and Baytown, Smith said the family owned company recognized an audience it felt it could serve, citing the proximity to the petrochemical industry. "There is a lot of working class over here, and they need something quick, easy and accessible," he said. The Bush's story began in 1972, in a Church's Chicken kitchen in Waco. Company patriarch Keith Bush worked his way up from dishwasher to area manager and eventually opened his own restaurant, Golden Fried Chicken, which eventually became Bush's. The chain was officially launched in 1996. "We really try to up our customer-service game - that's the big deal," Smith said. "The Bush's model is unique in the fact that we will come out to you and we want you to see the hands that are going to prepare your food, and that's something we try to bring extra to the table that we don't think anybody else does." Wenscell Prati, store manager of the Deer Park location, said that Bush's is a return to a more traditional dine-in experience. "What excited me about Bush's is the fact that it's a new franchise that is coming into the market and the quality of the product is, I think, superior to other places, who I think have gotten away from the customer-service aspect of it, and that's what we're trying to bring back," he said. With 30 years of experience in the fast-food industry, Prati has watched how the fast-food culture can create an assembly-line product. "At a lot of those places, you follow the monkey bars until you get to the counter to order and then find some place to stand while they call a number. There's no personality to it," he said. "That's a large part of what we try not to do. We're still quick-service or fast-food or however you want to phrase it, but it doesn't mean you have to be impersonal about it." The menu, available for dine-in or drive-through includes no-frills staples like tea, bone-in fried chicken, chicken tenders and sides as well as fried livers and gizzards by the bucket. According to Smith, the livers and gizzards - something most fried chicken chains do not offer - are as popular as the tenders. "That was the second thing that excited me about this place," Prati said. The Deer Park restaurant is the first corporate store for the chain. Many more locations, franchise and corporate, are planned for the Houston market. "In the last two years, we have really seen a huge influx of people wanting to be part of the business, wanting to become franchisees and partners with us," Smith said. "It's been catching a lot of momentum." Smith added that the chain emphasizes community partnerships through catering orders, promotions and other projects. "We always make sure we take care of our schools, churches, first-responders, military to make sure they know we appreciate them," he said. The Pasadena location is scheduled to open in February. For more information on the Bush's Chicken, visit www.bushschicken.com A set of ethical guidelines adopted by Montgomery County Commissioners Court in April won't satisfy the grant requirements of the Texas Department of Transportation, delaying several applications from the District Attorney's Office, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and Precinct 4 Constable's Office until a more thorough policy is in place. Assistant County Attorney Amy Dunham said the deadline for the pending grant applications is Jan. 20, but TxDOT extended that deadline to Feb. 7. The county, she said, must adopt a policy before those agencies can submit applications. Commissioners asked the County Attorney's Office to draft an ethics policy to meet the grant's guidelines, which include training, record keeping of the training and any additional hours. Commissioners will revisit the issue at their Jan. 24 meeting. However, District Attorney Brett Ligon urged the court to go further with ethics reform across the county. "Let's push bigger on this," Ligon said. "Let's go beyond the basics on this." Ligon said the requirements are new and are not specific to just Montgomery County. According to information from TxDOT, Title 43 of the Texas Administrative Code requires specific state and federal fund recipients to adopt and enforce an internal ethics and compliance program. TxDOT can require "written evidence" of the county's ethics and compliance program. Among the minimum requirements are ensuring high-level personnel are responsible for oversight of the plan; ensuring discretionary authority is not given to individuals who have a propensity to engage in illegal activities; communicating the plan to employees, including the governing board, using a monitoring or an audit system to ensure the plan is followed and enforced with appropriate disciplinary mechanisms. "To me, this is an opportunity for the commissioners to reach for the stars," Ligon said. "Instead of just the minimum requirements let's have some real ethics reform. Why can't Montgomery County lead the state and nation in ethics compliance." Last April, three years after the grand jury pushed for an ethics policy, commissioners adopted an ethics code for elected officials and high-ranking employees. But the 13-point policy doesn't impose any new restrictions on county leaders or establish a way to implement and enforce the ethical standards. "The County Attorney's Office has several draft policies that have been successful in other counties," Ligon said. "They will compile them together to make Montgomery County policy." As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. We all agree, its time for us to use our collective voice to speak out against the blatant display of racism happening in western Montana. The apparent rise of this immoral white nationalist movement has made Montana a talking point in the countrys current discourse on race and it will not be tolerated. Today, we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who fought tirelessly for equal rights and inclusiveness for all Americans regardless the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. He dedicated his life to condemning hate and promoting progress and a peaceful society. Whether or not an armed white supremacist march happens in Whitefish on Martin Luther King Jr. Day or any other day we reject it and stand in unity against hate. The movement behind it and the hate it propagates impacts all citizens and communities in Montana. As members and friends of Montanas Native American tribes, we have all witnessed or experienced racism. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes its not. But the current movement of overt racism is especially disturbing because the movements epicenter is close to Blackfeet and Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes' reservations. The entire state of Montana is an area where American Indians have lived and traveled for thousands of years. This overt act of racism is especially threatening and represents a huge step backwards in the progress weve made in Montana. The Montana American Indian Caucus of State Legislators joins those leaders and everyday Montanans from across the political spectrum who have condemned this reprehensible spectacle. We need to take a moment to remind ourselves of who we are, embrace where we came from, and continue Dr. Kings work to set a positive example for our children, our neighbors, our state and our nation. This is everyones problem. As Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce said: I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. About a third of the members in Montana's largest private health insurance company can no longer get their prescriptions covered at one of the world's largest pharmacy chains. Since Jan. 1, CVS pharmacies haven't been included in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana's standard pharmacy network after price reimbursement negotiations for certain drugs failed in 2016. "Our main priority is the affordability of care for our members," said John Doran, BCBS spokesman. "We are trying to do everything possible to minimize charges, and to do that we have to get competitive reimbursement rates. CVS requested additional higher reimbursement rates for generic prescriptions compared to other pharmacies we work with." The standard BCBS coverage network, which is administered by Prime Therapeutics, includes fully insured groups, small groups and individual retail markets, but not all self-funded commercial groups. Mike DeAngelis, senior director of corporate communications for CVS Health, noted in a statement emailed to the Gazette that the decision by BCBS doesn't affect all of the insurance company's members, only plans for smaller groups or plans that were enrolled in through the Health Insurance Marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act. "It was not our desire or decision to be excluded from this preferred pharmacy network," he said. The decision does not include all BCBS members insured through self-funded plans, which allow individual companies to choose some of the networks in which they participate. However, not all of those members may be able to use CVS, depending on their company plan. CVS operates more than 9,600 pharmacy locations in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Brazil, including 16 scattered throughout eight Montana cities. According to BCBS, about 100,000 of its members in Montana have filled at least one prescription at a CVS location over the years. The decision means that, using 2016 enrollment numbers, 27,000 fully-insured members in group plans of 51 people or more, 40,000 members in small group plans and 54,000 people purchasing individual plans won't be able to fill prescriptions at CVS using BCBS insurance. Within that group, 15,600 members actually filled prescriptions at CVS pharmacies in 2016, according to Blue Cross figures. There are about 300,000 total members served by BCBS Montana. Doran said that the insurance company analyzes all of its provider networks on a regular basis and that the pharmacy company's request for generic drug reimbursement rates was simply higher than other pharmacies. That led to BCBS' decision to not renew the contract with CVS, effectively removing it from its pharmacy network. DeAngelis said that, in addition to the commercial self-funded plans CVS still accepts BCBS Montana Medicare Part D plans and will help others figure out if they're covered as well. "If a CVS Pharmacy patient is unsure whether their BCBS coverage is still accepted by our 16 pharmacies in Montana, they can bring their prescription to their local CVS and we will assist them," he said. Members do still have access to more than 55,000 in-network pharmacies nationwide, including ones at chains such as Walgreens, Walmart, Albertsons, Osco Drug, Safeway, Shopko and Costco, as well as a number of independent pharmacies. The insurance company began notifying its members of the change in November, and sent additional letters to anyone who filled a prescription at CVS in the last months of 2016. "There are so many options in Montana that do fill these generic prescriptions at a better price, that we feel there are still plenty of options for our customers," Doran said. HELENA A Helena legislator wants to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, a proposal that drew both support and criticism Monday. Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, introduced House Bill 169 to the Business and Labor Committee. The increased minimum wage proposed by Dunwell would take effect January 2018. As is currently the case, the minimum would be raised by a cost of living adjustment each year after that. Montana's minimum wage is $8.15 an hour. Dunwell said it was appropriate to hold the bills hearing on Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King believed that fair pay for hard work is a human right, Dunwell said. A living wage in Montana is considered $14.40 for an individual, $19 for an individual with a child, and it goes on up from there. This is not near that, but its something. Twenty percent of Montanas workforce 96,000 Montanans earn between $8.15 and $10.10 an hour." Supporters Bills to increase the minimum wage have rarely left committee in recent sessions, where majority Republicans generally have opposed the minimum wage or increases to it as government interfering with a free market. Nonetheless, a handful of supporters presented testimony Monday. Montana Department of Labor and Industry Deputy Commissioner Galen Hollenbaugh said his agency supported the legislation as one way to attract new workers with stronger skills to the state, as a significant number of Montana workers near retirement age. More than 6 percent of workers are older than 65 and nearly 100,000 more are between 55 and 64 years old, he said. Jules Shindel, an organizing director for Montana Women Vote and Montana Human Rights Network, emphasized that the people earning minimum wage today are different from those who did so decades ago. The idea that minimum-wage workers are just teenagers with weekend jobs or college students working over the summer is an enormous myth, she said. She cited some national figures: The average age of a minimum-wage worker is 35. More than half of the country's minimum-wage workers work full time. 27 percent are parents. She also offered some statewide numbers: More than half of Montana's minimum-wage workers are women. More than 8 out of 10 minimum-wage workers who receive tips (such as restaurant servers) are women. Supporters noted that full-time, minimum-wage work amounts to an annual income of less than $17,000 a year, or $1,400 a month. Most organizations and government assistance programs recommend spending no more than a third of income on housing, which would be about $460 at minimum wage. The average monthly rent in the state for a one-bedroom apartment is $601 and $759 for a two-bedroom, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. For most Americans, housing is the largest household expense, but for many Montanans the largest expense is actually transportation because of the distances to basic services and the needs for longer commutes to work. In rural areas with collapsed or sluggish economies, a single resident living at the national poverty line can spend as much as 72 percent of their income on transportation, as is the case in Sanders County, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A stressed-out worker facing crippling debt is probably more focused on personal problems than on their work, said John Ilgenfritz, a Helena resident who guided a job training program for years and had served on a 2009 state commission on community service. The raise is essential for their ability to be self sufficient. Dunwell further argued that putting more money in the pockets of Montanans working for the lowest wages will help grow the states economy. This is a local economic driver, she said. These are not people that will be investing in international hedge funds. Theyll be spending that money in Montana. Opponents Opponents of the bill said the effect would be the opposite: Businesses would have to increase prices, cut jobs or delay expansions to absorb the costs of increasing wages and the correlated increases in various taxes and insurance policies linked to wages. Those challenges would hit restaurants the hardest, said Brad Griffin, president of the Montana Retail Association, who also spoke on behalf of the restaurant association. $10.10 an hour would disrupt the business model for the vast majority of restaurants, he said, noting servers agreed to minimum wage because their tips boost their actual income. Montana Chamber of Commerce Government Relations Director Bridger Mahlum argued that a minimum wage increase is arbitrary and not tied to actual workforce improvements. Let the market set the wage rate, he said. Real wage growth comes from increased productivity, not legislation. David Herbst, director for Montana chapter of Americans for Prosperity, argued a minimum wage increase had redistributive, not additive effects on the economy, which do not lead to real growth. Riley Johnson, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, noted that the average member of his organization has three employees and makes less than $600,000 in gross sales each year. Johnson, who has lobbied at the capitol since 1965, said increasing the minimum wage now would not end the effort. Well have to face this issue again. Itll never stop, he said. If this was easy, said Dunwell, the lawmaker sponsoring the legislation, we wouldve done it a long time ago. Closing testimony During Monday's discussion, three committee members called out a speaker who some thought had made a veiled threat against anyone who would support the bill. At the end of his testimony, Americans for Prosperity's Herbst had said his organization would be scoring against it. Asked to clarify by Vice Chair Amanda Curtis, he said votes on the bill would be used to calculate legislator scorecards to educate folks about how people vote. Rep. Sharon Stewart-Peregoy, D-Crow Agency, defended legislators duty to listen to testimony and discuss bills. We should not be placed under threat, she said. At the close of testimony, Chairman Rep. Mark Noland, R-Bigfork, offered a reminder to keep proceedings civil. Were all here to hear testimony, to hear good bills presented. A lot of work has gone into them, he said. We need to be sure to caution ourselves not to attack anybody or give any threats to make the committee feel like they're threatened in any way. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Three men were found shot Sunday night along streets in northwest Houston. The gunfire erupted about 9:30 p.m. in the 7500 block of Long Point, said Lt. Larry Larry Crowson of the Houston Police Department. Crowson said one of the men was found wounding along a side street just south of Long Point while the other two wounded men were found together along a side street just north of Long Point. A bullet riddled car with blood inside was found near the two victims lying together. Crowson said the men were all rushed to a nearby hospital. Details of their wounds and conditions were not released but Crowson said the men are all expected to survive. Investigators are trying to determine what sparked the gunfire and if the shootings are related. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Firefighters battled a blaze early Monday morning at an apartment complex in northwest Houston. The one-alarm fire broke out about 5:40 a.m. on Wirt Road near Amelia, according to the Houston Fire Department. No information was available about possible injuries or what sparked the flames. More details will be reported when they are released. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate President Barack Obama has made a splash declaring some federal lands in the west national monuments, making them off-limits to development. Now, a push is on to have a West Texas range declared a national monument as one of Obama's final acts in the White House. Preserving the Castner Range and Franklin Mountains Wilderness, which are just northeast of El Paso near Fort Bliss military installation, is the focus of a long-running effort by conservationists. DRIVING PASSION: For professor, Texas state, national parks are labor of love U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, has asked Obama to declare the area a national monument before he leaves office on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017. So far, more than 35,000 people have signed a petition to preserve the mountains, which were once used as a firing range by soldiers at Fort Bliss. Obama set off a firestorm of criticism in December when he declared Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada. Local politicians were upset Obama acted by presidential order and didn't allow state officials to have the final say. ANCIENT HISTORY: Big Bend National Park holds clues to area's long-ago past Will Castner Range National Monument become a reality? O'Rourke told The El Paso Times that having the 7,000 acres declared a national monument before Obama leaves office seems unlikely, But, O'Rourke said, senior officials have told him they are likely to set in motion a process that would be very difficult to be undone. In politics, especially as a president heads out the door, anything is possible. >>>Click through the above gallery to see photos from the Castner Range as well as photos from Big Bend National Park in West Texas. A Columbus Police officer has returned to duty following the apparent suicide of a woman during a traffic stop. Officer Kelly Mason returned to work Jan. 7. Mason has been with the department for about one year, according to Columbus Police Chief Jacob Ward. Montana Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation continues to investigate the incident. Columbus Police made an internal decision to allow Mason to return to work after consulting with DCI investigators, said Eric Sell, DOJ spokesman. "The investigation is still open but it is common in that the officers will go back to work while the investigation is completed," Sell said. At about 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 31 Mason pulled over Jamie D. Porter, 48, of Belfry. Porter refused to exit the vehicle and died of a self-inflicted gunshot at the scene. Because Porter was pulled over, the incident was considered an in-custody death and is investigated by an outside agency. Park County Coroner Al Jenkins is scheduled to conduct a separate investigation. 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. CHEYENNE A new bill would bar anyone on federal terrorism watch lists from buying guns in Wyoming. We need to do something about people who are going to attack us getting weapons to do it, said co-sponsor Sen. James Anderson, R-Casper. Anderson said he heard a presentation on the issue at a legislative committee meeting last year and asked for a bill to be drafted. Seventy-one percent of Americans believe that banning gun sales to people on the federal no-fly watch list would be at least somewhat effective at preventing terrorism, according to a June poll by Gallup. Senate File 75 would add people on the FBIs Terror Screening Database -- which includes the no-fly list -- to the list of people who are not eligible to possess guns in Wyoming. Democrats in the U.S. Senate have unsuccessfully pushed several times to pass federal legislation barring people on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms. The efforts, which were repeatedly defeated, were intended to pressure Republican senators who oppose any form of gun control. But if the measure placed conservatives in a difficult political position, it included a further wrinkle. Because there is little judicial oversight of the various terror watch lists included in the FBI database, several liberal and civil liberties groups -- who are already often opposed to the lists -- were concerned about taking away the constitutional right to bear arms from American citizens without due process. Anderson indicated he was ambivalent about that issue. I don't happen to believe that the military and the police state would make those many mistakes, Anderson said of who ends up on the terror watch list. But he also acknowledged that taking away the Second Amendment rights of people who have not been convicted of any wrongdoing in court could be a problem. I dont agree that anybody who's on the terror watch list, on the no fly list, should have those kind of rights, Anderson said. The problem is some of these guys are not convicted of anything, so thats kind of a problem when you start talking about somebody whos not convicted and pulling his rights. Anderson said that his bill may not be ready for prime time and might not be come up for a vote this session. But he said that keeping potential terrorists from purchasing firearms was a serious issue and that he hoped the bill would lead to discussion at the Legislature. We need to do something about this nationwide, Anderson said. But maybe it isnt state-by-state. 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. Ridge View to keep on sharing The Galva-Holstein and Schaller-Crestland School Districts have reached a tentative agreement that will likely reflect Schaller-Crestlands consolidation to a single... Pipeline company sought to limit required safeguards for soil Navigator CO2 Ventures wanted to reduce its obligations to sample and restore topsoil for the construction of its proposed carbon... Legislative leadership is pushing a bill they say would suspend, but not halt, enacting parts of a ballot measure approved by voters to allow medical marijuana in North Dakota. Supporters of last years measure were not pleased by the proposed delay and let lawmakers sitting on the Human Services Committee for both legislative chambers know it during a joint meeting Monday morning in the state Capitol. We are asking you to hear our voices, Galesburg resident Sheri Paulson told the committees in the Pioneer Room. Paulson told lawmakers she takes nine medications for multiple sclerosis. She said theres a stigma that goes with medical marijuana and she has waited for the passage of Measure 5 because she wants to be able to take it legally. You want to shut us down, Paulson tearfully told lawmakers. We are not doing this to get high. We want you to understand us. Senate Bill 2154 would suspend having the North Dakota Department of Health from issuing applications for medical marijuana dispensaries and the receiving of applications as well as issuing certificates of registration. The suspension would last through July 31 or until the Legislature passes a full medical marijuana regulations bill this session, whichever comes first. Measure 5, also known as the North Dakota Compassionate Care Act, passed in November with the support of nearly 64 percent of voters. SB2154 prime sponsor Sen. Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson, said the delay is necessary to make sure the state is on solid ground to provide a program that works. Its simply to do it right, Wardner said. The new law allows for people to have up to 3 ounces of medical marijuana for treatment of up to nearly a dozen medical conditions. Facilities for medical marijuana distribution would be licensed by the state Health Department and operated by nonprofit organizations. Those more than 40 miles from a licensed facility would be able to grow up to eight marijuana plants after providing notification to law enforcement as long as theyre grown in an enclosed facility. Wardner said the main medical marijuana bill is expected to be filed by Monday, the deadline for senators to introduce bills. The health department was charged with setting up the rules, Wardner said. Theyre scrambling." In no way does SB2154 circumvent the peoples vote, according to Wardner, who said it provides the Health Department cover as it finalizes its work on what will be in the comprehensive bill. Senate Human Services Committee Chairwoman Judy Lee, R-West Fargo, said she understood the rationale behind SB2154. Some things you just cant do overnight, Lee said. House Human Services Committee Chairman Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, agreed, pointing out that some other states that have implemented marijuana programs have taken 18 months to three years to get things completely hashed out. Thats still a pretty aggressive timeline, Weisz said of the SB2154 deadline. Anita Morgan of Fargo, a member of the North Dakota Compassionate Care Act measure committee, said the legislation of other states should be a useful guide and she didnt see why it may need to take so long to address concerns in North Dakota. Morgan used the example of there already being a large amount of evidence for the correct dosage for treatment of some medical conditions readily available. We need not reinvent the wheel, Morgan said. Among the possibilities being considered for inclusion in the bill are finding ways, such as fees, to offset the cost of overseeing the program, safety precautions for children and capping the amount allowed for users at less than 3 ounces. A cost estimate the department released to Legislative Management last fall put the cost for the 2017-19 biennium for implementation at about $7.35 million and up to 32 full-time staff. Department estimates also put the impact on the Bureau of Criminal Investigation per biennium at nearly $2.8 million with a need for 15 additional full-time staff. The most important statement in the Justice Departments damning report on the Chicago Police Department has nothing to do with police behavior. Released on Friday, the report found the Chicago police guilty of a pattern or practice of unconstitutional force. But it turns out that the Justice Department has no standard for what constitutes a pattern or practice (the phrase comes from a 1994 federal statute) of unconstitutional police conduct. Statistical evidence is not required for a pattern or practice finding, the DOJ lawyers announce, citing unrelated court precedent. Nor is there a specific number of incidents required to constitute a pattern or practice, they proclaim. Having cleared themselves of any obligation to provide a specific number of [unconstitutional] incidents or a statistical benchmark for evaluating them, the DOJ attorneys proceed to ignore any further obligation of transparency. The reader never learns how many incidents of allegedly unconstitutional behavior the Justice Department found, nor how those incidents compare with the universe of police-civilian contacts conducted by the Chicago Police Department. No clue is provided regarding why the DOJ lawyers concluded that the alleged abuses reached the mysterious threshold for constituting a pattern or practice. Instead, the report uses waffle words like several, often, or many as a substitute for actual quantification. This vacuum of information hasnt stopped the mainstream media from trumpeting the report as yet another expose of abusive, racist policing. Excessive force is rife in chicago, u.s. review finds, read the headline on the New York Timess front-page story, which went on to note that the excessive force was chiefly aimed at African-Americans and Latinos. The report does disclose that the DOJ attorneys reviewed 425 incidents of less-than-lethal force between January 2011 and April 2016. But what proportion of total force incidents those 425 events represent or how many of those 425 incidents the federal lawyers found unconstitutional isnt revealed. As to how many stops and arrests were made over that same time period that didnt involve the use of force, the reader can only guess. We also learn that the federal civil rights team identified 203 officer-involved shootings between January 1, 2011, and March 21, 2016. How many of those were bad shootings? Fifteen? One hundred? The reader is left in the dark. The massive New York Police Department averaged 48 shootings a year from 2005 to 2015. The per-capita rate of officer shootings in the NYPD is therefore much lower than in the Chicago Police Department, which is about a third the size. But Chicagos crime rate is much higher than New Yorks; CPD officers confront many more armed and resisting suspects. It would have been useful to know how the ratio of officer-involved shootings to criminal shootings in Chicago compares to other cities. We dont even learn how many of those 203 officer-involved shootings in Chicago were lethal. The absence of any quantified evidence for DOJs judgment of systemic abuse is all the more significant, since it was only yesterday that Chicago law enforcement was the darling of the left-wing academic establishment. In 2010, the New York City Bar Association held a forum on the New York Police Department, during which Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan and Yale University law professor Tracey Meares both touted the Chicago department as a model that the big, bad NYPD should emulate. (I participated on that bar panel as well.) Meares and her Yale colleague Tom Tyler have used the Chicago Police Department as a laboratory for their concept of procedural justice and legitimacy. The Obama administrations Task Force on 21st Century Policing incorporated the procedural justice idea from Chicago into its May 2015 report; the Justice Department distributes the Chicago procedural justice curriculum to other departments, according to Time magazine. John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor David Kennedy worked with Chicago on his theory of violence reduction. Garry McCarthy, who was superintendent of the Chicago Police Department during the period covered by the DOJs report, presented himself as a reform commander focused on community relations, and he was received as such by academia and the media. The Chicago PDs extensive collaboration with academic researchers was the hot topic during a November 2015 conference of the American Society of Criminology, reports Time. Were all those academics wrong? If the Chicago PD was so awash in civil rights violations, why didnt these liberal professors notice? Or did the Justice Department start out with a foreordained conclusion regarding the racist CPD and produce a report to confirm it? DOJs investigation began in December 2015, after the release of a video showing the unjustified police shooting of Laquan McDonald in October 2014. By then, the Black Lives Matter movement was in full gear nationally; anti-cop riots had torn apart Ferguson and Baltimore and would continue to spread mayhem over the next year. The chance that under such circumstances, DOJ wouldnt continue its own pattern of denouncing police departments for racism based on flimsy evidence was slight. The attorneys didnt even bother to interview McCarthy for their report. The lack of any transparent methodology is the most damning aspect of the DOJ analysis, but its racial accusations are the most dangerous. The federal attorneys have the gall to recycle the calumny from the community that the CPD does not genuinely care about the murders of young black men and women, and [does] too little to investigate and resolve those homicides, in the words of the report. Such a claim is a travesty. Scores of detectives work around the clock to try to bring gang thugs to justice, only to encounter a wall of silence from victims and witnesses. It is the members of the community who do too little to resolve the homicides. After a five-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy were shot on July 4, 2016, in West Englewood, a funeral director urged local residents to start cooperating with the police, reported DNAInfo. When our grandsons and nephews do the shooting, we run into the house and lock the door. Its time to stand up and say This will not be accepted, Devry Graham told an assembled group of neighbors. Alderman Raymond Lopez agreed that the no-snitch ethic had to end. In every community weve seen bullets hit community members. We know who these offenders are, but we as a community need to step it up and say that we will work with the police to get these situations rectified, Lopez said. When gang members executed nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee after luring him into an alley with the promise of candy in November 2015, his gangbanger father refused to help the police solve the murder. I spoke with the detectives who relentlessly tracked the interstate escape of the assassins and finally cracked the case; their passion and outrage were evident. The federal investigators appear oblivious to the profound disorder and predation in gang-infested neighborhoods. After echoing the charge that the CPD doesnt try hard enough to solve crimes in black neighborhoods, the report implies that assertive officers who seek out crime in between their radio assignments are over-aggressive. The civil rights attorneys are clearly alarmed that promotion to specialized gang units depends on aggression, hustle, and effort, in the words of a sergeant. The attorneys question the use of arrests as one measure of productivityhaving just repeated the lie that the department doesnt care about clearing cases. The federal investigators are scandalized by a suggestion during a Compstat crime-analysis meeting that car stops be increased to quell a spate of drive-by shootings. There was no discussion, primly respond the Washington attorneys, about . . . the negative impact [the tactic] could have on police-community relations. The impact of drive-by shootings on the community is not addressed. It wouldnt be a Justice Department civil rights report without a spurious population benchmark to measure allegedly biased policing. The Chicago report notes portentously that blacks were the subjects of 76 percent of force incidents between 2011 and early 2016, while whites were only 8 percent of force subjects, though blacks and whites are each about a third of Chicagos population. Ergo, biased policing. Here is the data that you will never find in any Justice Department civil rights report. In 2014, a thoroughly representative year, blacks made up 79 percent of all known non-fatal shooting suspects in Chicago, 85 percent of all known robbery suspects, and 77 percent of all known murder suspects, according to police department records. Whites were 1 percent of known non-fatal shooting suspects in 2014, 2.5 percent of known robbery suspects, and 5 percent of known murder suspects, the latter category being composed almost exclusively of domestic violence incidents. Whites are virtually absent from the population of violent street criminals, which is the population against which police force is most likely to be used. There is no evidence, in other words, that the use of force is racially biased. The DOJ report argues at length that the only way to ensure necessary reforms of this blackguard department is via a court-enforced consent decree backed up by an independent monitoring team . . . of policing and other experts. The Obama administration is clearly nervous that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump will be less enthusiastic about saddling financially struggling police departments with tens of millions of dollars in compliance costs in the service of statistically innumerate consent decrees. Simply paying a federal monitor and his team will likely cost Chicago taxpayers dearly. The LAPD spent about $40 million trying to comply with its consent decree in its first year in 2000 and $50 million a year for several years thereafter, for a total of about $300 million over 12 years, estimated Los Angeless chief legislative analyst in 2015. One of the first things that the Trump Justice Department should do is figure out how to lighten the burden of existing consent decrees on law enforcement agencies; next, it should decide whether to pull the plug on those decrees that have not yet been finalized, as in Chicago. Simply compiling the paperwork demanded by the Justice Department investigators required the full-time labor of a Chicago sergeant and five officers. Much more manpower would have to be ripped away from crime-fighting in order to feed the insatiable appetite of a federal monitor for endless reports. And what would the federal monitor use as his benchmark for constitutional policing anyway, since DOJ never revealed its standard for finding the CPD a constitutional reprobate? The report does suggest some necessary reforms, but these were no-brainers, already well-known to the department. All those changes would be impeded, not helped, by a consent decree, since they all require more officers and more funding, both of which would be diverted to consent-decree compliance. The department is deficient in supervisors. The ratio of sergeants to officersabout one to 14should be almost twice that. No sergeant showed up to the Laquan McDonald incident before McDonald was killed, though the incident was clearly already serious enough to require supervision. And though the officers following McDonald had called for a Taser, one never arrived. The DOJ report is correct that officers need more tactical training and more training in communication and de-escalation skills. In-service training for officers already on the job should be mandatory, as the report recommends. But if there were ready money for such improvements, they would have been implemented years ago. The videos taken by officer body cameras, once such cameras become universal, will cost a fortune to store, posing another financial challenge to the department. Commanders and supervisors also need more training. Previous superintendents decimated the higher reaches of the CPD, leaving a command structure light on management experience. Younger officers and supervisors lack mentors. This isnt a problem that compliance paper-pushing will solve. Chicago is the countrys most shocking example of what I have called the Ferguson effect: the phenomenon of police officers in high-crime areas backing off of proactive policing, resulting in the emboldening of criminals. With investigatory stops down 82 percent through most of 2016 compared with 2015, there were over 3,400 shootings in Chicago last year. One person was shot every two hours on average. The police shot just over 25 people, or 0.6 percent of all total shootings. The DOJ report is silent about that ratio. The biggest challenge facing the CPD today is how to encourage officers to reengage with criminal suspects. The DOJ report is silent about that matter as well. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel has said that he intends to sign a consent decree putting the CPD under federal management; Emanuel undoubtedly calculates that aligning himself with the expiring Obama Justice Department serves his future political career. If current CPD superintendent Eddie Johnson isnt willing to oppose this costly and unnecessary burden, the best hope for the thousands of law-abiding residents of Chicagos high-crime areas is a change in both tone and policy from the White House. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images BNM anunta concurs pentru postul vacant de expert coordonator (durata determinata) responsabil de control pe teren si din oficiu a sistemelor de plati In March 2015, El Faro, the El Salvador-based online magazine, published a detailed investigation of a massacre that took place in the village of Santa Cruz in 1981, at the height of the countrys civil war. The El Faro report, based on research carried out by the University of Washington, directly implicated retired General Sigifredo Ochoa Perez, then a member of the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly. Even though Ochoa Perez was quoted extensively in the story, he demanded that El Faro publish his detailed response. Ochoa Perezs letter, which appeared six weeks after the original story, did not substantively challenge the facts. But it did provide an opportunity for Ochoa Perez to express his indignation and defend his honor. One could say that Ochoa Perez was exercising his right to reply, or derecho a replica in Spanish. The right to reply can be a simple correction, but it can also be a detailed rebuttal. We feel we have an obligation not just to report the news, but also to show our readers what is good journalism, what is good practice, explained El Faro Editor Jose Luis Sanz. We always prefer dialogue. As a press freedom advocate who defends the rights of journalists working in repressive and dangerous societies, Ive long been skeptical of the right to reply. Where it exists in law it is often abused by politicians and other powerful figures who seek to compel the media to publish angry rants and fatuous denials. A recent Mexican legal ruling would have granted politicians the right not only to correct errors but to counter bias or prejudice. Fortunately, it was rejected by the countrys Supreme Court. But recently, Ive begun to rethink my position. This is because I believe that offering aggrieved individuals the opportunity to publish detailed rebuttals can reduce the risk of legal action or even violence in places where journalists are under threat. Even in the United States, such rebuttals can encourage debate and engagement and provide a safety valve in circumstances that might otherwise lead to litigation. While common in Europe and Latin America and affirmed in international law, the right to reply is not universally accepted. The most sweeping articulation is Article 14 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which declares that [a]nyone injured by inaccurate or offensive statementshas the right to reply or to make a correction using the same communications outlet. However, there is no right to reply in the United States. In a 1974 decision, the US Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, concluding that forcing a newspaper to publish something against its will violated the First Amendment and represented an intrusion into the function of editors. Part of my resistance to the right to reply is precisely this rights-based framing. I dont see it as a right at all, and I certainly dont think governments should play editor. Instead, I think quality media should voluntarily offer what I would call an opportunity for rebuttal. By rebuttal, I mean a detailed response to a published article, linked to the original piece. In some cases, the rebuttal would amplify and expand comments included in the story. In extraordinary circumstances, the subject of a story could be given an opportunity to offer a response even after having declined to do so pre-publication. Sign up for CJR 's daily email The key is that the entire process must be voluntary and not mandated by law. For example, Alejandro Paez Varela, editor and co-founder of the Mexico City-based news website Sin Embargo, says he fights efforts by politicians who use the courts to compel the publication of responses but is flexible and accommodating when arrangements are made through negotiations. Sin Embargo regularly publishes responses to its articles that take a contrary view or generate debate. I believe in the right to reply, says Paez Verela. We dont own the truth. We are not superman and we do not have X-ray vision that allow us to see everything. In the United States, people aggrieved by media coverage can request a correction or send a letter to the editor. They might be able to place an op-ed. But they are almost never granted the opportunity to offer a detailed rebuttal. Why not? Many editors cite a lack of space, but this has become an antiquated concept in the digital age. As media rights attorney Charles Glasser notes, you cant fill up the internet. In more than a dozen years as Global Media Counsel for Bloomberg, Glasser says he was often able to defuse conflict and potentially head off litigation simply by letting those angered by critical coverage have their say. As an example, Glasser cites the case of a reporter who left out technical elements in his description of a companys complicated marketing plan, giving the mistaken impression that it could be a pyramid scheme. Glasser said in an email that while Bloomberg could have won a threatened libel suit, it served the readers interest and the interests of all parties to simply add an update where the company added some points to explain the marketing plan. Its a win-win. The reader gets more information, we arent forced to spend money in legal defense and the company we wrote about feels they were treated fairly. David McCraw, assistant general counsel for The New York Times, notes that authors whose books are unfavorably reviewed are sometimes provided an opportunity to offer their own perspective. But when it comes to news coverage, the process is considerably more difficult. For example, after banker-philanthropists Herb and Marion Sandler raised objections to a highly critical 2008 investigative story in the Times, they entered into protracted and difficult negotiations with the newspaper, as recounted in a 2010 CJR story. In January 2009, the Times published three corrections. Three months later, the Sandlers posted to their Web site a 22-page letter outlining their grievances, to which then Executive Editor Bill Keller responded. That arduous and costly process might have been avoided if the Times had had an official rebuttal policy. How might this work in practical terms? A news organization could designate a specific editorit could be a standards editor, public editor, or letters editorto handle requests for rebuttals. As with letters, the news organization would exercise its own discretion and judgment in choosing what to publish and what not to publish. Rebuttals would need to be informative and well written and in general would provide an alternative analysis of the facts or present relevant information not included in the original piece. They would be subject to editing and legal review, and would need to conform to length requirements. And they would be published only online. Because of these requirements, rebuttals would be rareI could imagine a major media organization publishing perhaps a handful each year. And because of the need for editorial and legal oversight, rebuttals might not be a realistic option for a small or struggling outlet. Editors might argue that aggrieved individuals could publish their own version on a blog or social media platform, but of course the response takes on a different connotation when published in the original outlet and linked back to the story. Publishing a rebuttal would also demonstrate a commitment to fairness that could enhance media credibility at a time when its in short supply. As a legal concept, I continue to believe the right to reply is unworkable. There is no need to involve governments in the process. But the concept of a right to reply does address a legitimate issue, which is that is aggrieved individuals often feel they have no opportunity to respond to damaging media coverage once it has been published. By providing a process through which this can be achieved, US media outlets can do the right thing while protecting their own interests. More importantly, they can provide a roadmap for media organizations working in perilous circumstances around the world. Carlos Dada, a reporter for El Faro and also its founder, puts it this way: We consider journalistic accuracy a basic protection tool. El Faro only publishes detailed responses when they have merit and after an extensive internal debate. If we have made a mistake, falsely accused or misrepresented someone, we will do all we can to correct it. It is of course an ethical obligation, but it also helps to make it clear that we dont have agendas against anyone or any group. Its not a personal matter, but rather of public interest. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Joel Simon is a fellow at Tow Center for Digital Journalism. His next book is The Infodemic: How Censorship Made the World Sicker and Less Free co-authored with Robert Mahoney. Akron strip club shooting suspects.jpg Akron police are searching for two men in connection with a Sunday shooting at Clutch Gentlemen's Club on South Arlington Street. Two men suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting, police said. (Evan MacDonald, cleveland.com) AKRON, Ohio -- Detectives released surveillance photos of two men sought in connection with a Sunday shooting that wounded two others at an Akron strip club. Two men were involved in an altercation with two victims just after 3 a.m. at Clutch Gentlemen's Club on South Arlington Street. One of the men fired several shots at the victims, police said. The shots hit a 33-year-old Canton man in the abdomen and leg and a 33-year-old Detroit man in the leg, police said. Paramedics took both victims to Summa Akron City Hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Detectives said the two men pictured in the surveillance photos were involved in an altercation with the victims just before the shooting. Anyone with information is being asked to contact the Akron Police Department at 330-375- 2490. If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Monday's crime and courts comments section. North-Hill-Exchange-House.jpg Akron's new Exchange House, a project of the Better Block Foundation, which won a 2015 Knight Cities Challenge grant, will host an open house in February. Scott Read, Better Block's Akron project manager, is developing programming that will serve North Hill's refugee population as well as other Akron-area groups. (Jennifer Conn, cleveland.com) AKRON, Ohio - Akron's new Exchange House will open its doors in February, bringing an international hostel to the city's North Hill neighborhood, while providing a gathering place for refugees and immigrants. The Exchange House is a project of the Better Block Foundation, which won $155,000 in funding through a 2015 Knight Foundation Knight Cities Challenge. The Knight's Cities Challenge offers $5 million for the best ideas that help attract and retain talent, increase economic opportunity and promote civic engagement in Knight's 28 communities. Celebrating an international community Better Block's idea sprung from North Hill's international roots. For more than a century, Italian, Polish, German and Irish immigrants have settled in the neighborhood, creating a rich, diverse culture and establishing North Hill as the city's international hub. Today, refugees settle in North Hill because the International Institute of Akron headquartered there works with the federal government to provide support for immigrants and refugees. In the past several years, the majority of refugees have been from Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal. Now, refugees from the Congo and other parts of the world are making North Hill their home. Tapping the entrepreneurial potential Better Block's idea was to turn a foreclosed, vacant North Hill home into an AirBnB hostel and cultural hub. The Exchange House is designed to tap the entrepreneurial potential of the neighborhood's growing Bhutanese population. The second-floor hostel will generate revenue, which will support programs on the ground floor. "This is a vision that's evolving; there's no blueprint," said Better Block's local project manager, Scott Read, an Akron native. "We're hoping this space will remain a kind of canvas." The Exchange House timeline: July 2015 - Meetings began with August 2015 - The team began cataloging potential foreclosed homes October 2015 - The house at 760 Elma Street was purchased for $28,000 November 2015 - Cleveland-based architect January 2016 - February 2016 - March 2016 - January 2017 - Interior design work begins February 2017 - Exchange House to host open house Showcasing what could be Another aspect of Better Block's vision for the Exchange House is to show what can happen in declining neighborhoods when diverse groups work together. Like many inner-city neighborhoods around the Rust Belt, North Hill was hard hit in the Great Recession, leaving many homes vacant. Officials hope the Exchange House serves as an example of how a community can come together to bring vibrancy, and a sense of community, back to such areas. "This shows you can take a house like this and turn it around," said Better Block Managing Director Krista Nightengale. "It can be part of what pulls a neighborhood together." All the while construction was taking place, Read was bringing local groups to see the work and discuss programming and meeting space opportunities. Here's who's interested. Leadership Akron AxessPointe Community Health Centers The Akron chapter of Officials plan to host events for local artists and retail vendors who lack storefronts to showcase their goods on a rotating basis. So far, a lot of diversity has been involved with the Exchange House, from the construction team to groups interested in programming, Read said. "Whether or not these folks would have ever crossed paths I don't know, but we have had so many people donating their time and efforts, I can't wait to see what it all turns out to be," he said. edgewater-park-pier.JPG A spring sunset at Edgewater Park in Cleveland. (Rich Exner, cleveland.com file) CLEVELAND, Ohio - The U.S. Census Bureau last month released new estimates on a range of topics - from income and poverty to ancestry and schooling - for every place in the country. Cleveland.com/datacentral published an eight-part series highlighting some of the statistics for each Ohio city. Below are the links. Statistics for villages were not included because of high margins of error from the survey for smaller places. CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland artists are making their voices heard on the weekend of the inauguration. Counter-programming spanning theater, live music and fine arts is set to take place in reaction to Friday's inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States. This includes several nationwide initiatives, such as the Ghostlight Project, Design as Protest: A National Day of Action and Potters in Protest. Other shows feature local artists raising money for initiatives including Planned Parenthood, LGBT Cleveland Community Center, the Refugee Response and more. Thursday, Jan. 19 The Ghostlight Project - Akron's New World Performance Lab will take part in the national "Ghostlight Project." The theater initiative gathers members from Broadway to community theaters to congregate at 5:30 p.m. in each time zone across the country on the eve of the inauguration and make a pledge to stand for and protect the values of inclusion. The event is inspired by the tradition of leaving a "ghost light" on in a darkened theater. New World Performance Lab, 220 South Balch St., 5 - 6:30 p.m., Free, More information Friday, Jan. 20 Rock Against Trump: A Planned Parenthood Benefit - Venerable Cleveland punk club Now That's Class will host bands on both their main stage and downstairs "Club Atlantis" space with all proceeds donated to Planned Parenthood. Punk acts Lacerate, Deche, Shagg and Basement Boys will play upstairs, while DJs ADAB and Kiernan Laveaux will spin for the dance party downstairs. Now That's Class, 11213 Detroit Ave, 6 - 11 p.m., admission is $5 to each show, More information Our Ovaries Aren't Over it: A Planned Parenthood Benefit Show - This concert features performances by local favorites Punch Drunk Tagalogs and The Village Bicycle. It's free but all donations will be given to Planned Parenthood. Adele Rose beauty products will also have a merchandise table selling bath salts, body scrubs, healing salves, lip balm, body butter and more with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the organization. The 5 O'Clock Lounge, 11904 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 9 p.m., Free with donations accepted, More information Push Back 2017 - This show at Mahall's in Lakewood will have performances by eight of Cleveland's well known and up-and-coming talent on both the main and basement stage. Proceeds from the show will benefit The Refugee Response, LGBT Cleveland Community Center and Preterm Cleveland Ohio. The full lineup includes Signals Midwest, Mourning a BLKstar, Vacula, Heart & Lung, Toma Doe (pictured), Bummed Out, the House of Wills and Leonard Baum. Friday, Jan. 20, 6 p.m. - midnight, Mahall's, $8 minimum donation, More information Design as Protest - Cleveland will host a gathering as part of Design as Protest: A National Day of Action. The initiative aims to bring together artists, activists, designers and members of the community to explore ways design can address issues of injustice. AIA Cleveland, 2059 East 14th St., 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., More information Rise Up Against Hate at Good Goat Gallery - Lakewood's Good Goat Gallery will host an art show featuring works by Scott Radke, Kirsten Stingle and more. Proceeds from sale of the works will go to the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and Small Kindness, which helps children and mothers of natural disasters, wars and poverty. The show runs through Feb. 10. The Good Goat Gallery, 17012 Madison Ave., Lakewood, Opening reception on Jan. 20, 6 - 10 p.m., More information Womantra and more at the Happy Dog - Women rule the night at this show at Gordon Square's Happy Dog. Local riot grrrl-inspired group Womantra headlines. Ouster, the duo of Des Arae Petersen and Matt Meinke, along with Early Girl fronted by Angelisa Crognale also play. Happy Dog, 5801 Detroit Ave., 8 - 11 p.m., $5, More information Inauguration Day Read-In - Loganberry Books will hold a peaceful "read-in," which invites community members to come to the store, congregate and read with their neighbors. Loganberry Books, 13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., More information Saturday, Jan. 21 Potters in Protest - Cleveland will be part of the national "Potters in Protest" movement, raising money locally for Cleveland Climate Action Fund. Ceramicists donate bowls and restaurants donate soup to host an event luncheon with a take-home bowl. There will be a gallery opening the night before to showcase the donations. Potters in Protest Gallery opening, Friday, Jan. 20, 7 - 9 p.m. Free Potters in Protest Luncheon, Saturday, Jan. 21, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m., $25 Both held at The Green House, 20150 Lakeshore Blvd., Euclid, More information Cloud Nothings_Jesse Lirola.jpg Cloud Nothings, founded by Westlake native Dylan Baldi, officially release the band's fifth studio album "Life Without Sound'' on Friday, Jan. 27. But before then, Northeast Ohio fans can hear it with a CD release gig at Beachland Ballroom on Thursday, Jan. 26. From left are Chris Brown, Baldi, TJ Duke, Jayson Gerycz. (Jesse Lirola) PREVIEW Cloud Nothings When : 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26. Where: Beachland Ballroom, 15711 Waterloo Road in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood. Openers: Mist, the Cowboy. Tickets: $15 in advance, $18 day of show, at the box office, online at and by phone at 216-383-1124. CLEVELAND, Ohio - Boredom. Dylan Baldi and his band Cloud Nothings owe it all to boredom. "I grew up in Westlake,'' said Baldi in a call to his Cleveland home - which is NOT in Westlake. "Particularly as a kid, there just isn't that much to do in Westlake, so I spent a lot of time in my room listening to music alone.'' Contrary to what it may seem, that turned out to be time well spent. The band - which really began with Baldi writing, singing, playing and recording all the parts and has morphed into a full-fledged group - releases a fourth studio album, "Life Without Sound'' with a show at Beachland Ballroom on Thursday, Jan. 26. "I liked going to shows and I wanted to play the Grog Shop, wanted to play at Beachland - that was my goal for a while,'' he said. "Life Without Sound'' is the fourth studio release for Cleveand-based Cloud Nothings. Now, seven years into a career that shows no signs of slowing and every sign of expanding, he's still excited at the prospect of playing the Beachland. But after that much time playing tours throughout North America and Europe, he's gotten just a teensy bit more jaded. "The only difference [about playing Europe] is you don't know what people are saying a lot of the time,'' Baldi said, chuckling. "It's funny to be in a place where you know people don't speak your language. There's a lot more pointing and gesturing than in America.'' But that's about it as far as differences. "The shows are similar,'' he said. "You can still play the crappy clubs outside of beautiful Paris, France, that you can play in Cleveland, Ohio. But sometimes, you get more bread in Italy backstage behind a show than you get if you play in Fargo, North Dakota.'' The good news is that those crappy bars - and the scrappy ones, like Beachland - will get to see and hear Cloud Nothings, and especially the group's new album. "Life Without Sound'' is a wonderful progression from its predecessor, the critically acclaimed - and rightfully so - "Here and Nowhere Else.'' "I guess the first stuff I ever did - technically it's the same,'' he said. "I have the same general manner of doing things where I'll sort of just sit at my computer with my guitar and headphones on, and layer pieces and parts until I have something that sounds good, and then work on it from there.'' The difference in the albums really has two roots at its core: One, that the band was able to take a year to write and refine "Life Without Sound'' rather than being pressed to turn around a new in a tight time frame, and two, it's truly a band thing now. He and band mates drummer Jayson Gerycz and bassist T.J. Duke worked together to put a shine on such songs as "Up to the Surface,'' "Things Are Right With You'' and "Modern Act.'' "It definitely feels more collaborative now than it has at any point in the past,'' Baldi said. "We did a lot of rehearsing in a practice room on [West] 96th [Street] and Madison [Avenue]. I would come in with an idea for a song, run through it a couple of times. "From there, we would talk about it and try to mutate things, and it really turned out pretty different from how it started,'' Baldi said. "It would be something that I wouldn't have gotten to on my own.'' That's a newfound maturity for him, he admitted. The kid who liked to sit alone in his room has realized that there's not just safety in numbers, but wisdom. "It's rare when one person can do everything,'' Baldi said. And considerably less boring. Parma police Parma police arrested an off-duty Cleveland police officer on suspicion of rape and felonious assault. (File photo) PARMA, Ohio -- An off-duty Cleveland police officer was arrested Saturday in connection with the pistol-whipping and sexual assault of his girlfriend, police said. The officer, who has not been named by Parma or Cleveland police, is being held in the Parma City Jail and is expected to face charges of rape, felonious assault and domestic violence, Parma police Capt. Kevin Riley said. The 51-year-old officer is accused of pointing a gun at the 42-year-old woman and pistol-whipping her at a house on State Road, according to a Parma police report. He fired two shots while holding the gun next to the woman, but the shots did not hit her, police said. The officer is also accused of sexually assaulting the woman during the attack, police said. Cleveland police spokesman Det. Reginald Lanton said the department is aware of the arrest and that the officer will be placed on unpaid leave while the case is ongoing, since it involves felony charges. The day before the attack, the officer caught the woman with another man at their home, according to police reports. A family member called police early Saturday to see if they could check on her after not being able to get in touch with her, police reports say. The family member told police the two had a "volatile relationship," according to police reports. Parma police went to the home on State Road and found it in "in disarray," police said. They woman had suffered "severe" facial injuries, Riley said. The woman told police that she was sleeping when the officer attacked her. The officer pistol-whipped her and punched her several times, she told police. The woman received treatment at MetroHealth. North Royalton police later arrested the man at gunpoint at a bar on Royalton Road, police reports say. He was brought back to Parma, where was booked into the jail. Riley said more charges are expected to be filed and that detectives are gathering more evidence while they put together the case. The officer's name will be released on Tuesday, Riley said. To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page. public square.JPG Clevelanders unable to travel to Washington, D.C. this weekend for the Women's March on Washington can show support for the cause Saturday in Public Square. (Thomas Ondrey) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Clevelanders unable to travel to Washington, D.C. this weekend for the Women's March on Washington can show support for the cause Saturday in Public Square. The Women's March on Cleveland, a grassroots rally inspired by the larger march in Washington D.C., runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. More than 1,000 people so far said on Facebook that they plan to attend. The national event began as a post-election protest to follow Donald Trump's inauguration. Its mission is to highlight the importance of women's rights, after an election cycle filled with controversial comments. It has grown to inspire gatherings in several countries and in most states, including Ohio. More than 3,000 people marched in Columbus on Sunday, and a similar march in Cincinnati is planned for Saturday. The Cleveland event is non-partisan, and was organized by two Case Western University graduate students, Claudia Pasmatsiou, 25, and Laura Johnson, 28. The event will begin at 10 a.m. with appearances by guest speakers. The march will start at 11 a.m. and move along Ontario Street. The march then will turn on Lakeside Avenue to pass Cleveland City Hall and Willard Park. Finally, the march will loop back to Public Square, traveling down East 9th Street to Superior Avenue. Watch a video from the Columbus march below: Dae Shawn Simmons and Jerome Thomas.jpg Dae Shawn Simmons, left, and Jerome Thomas. (Amherst police) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two men accused in a Cleveland carjacking were arrested the following morning after a police chase in Amherst. Jerome Thomas Jr., 20, and Dae Shawn Simmons, 19, are charged with aggravated robbery in a Wednesday carjacking on Puritas Avenue near East 140th Street, according to court records. Amherst officers spotted both men and a 17-year-old boy Thursday morning in the stolen car. All three were taken into custody after a short pursuit that ended in a crash, police said. Thomas, Simmons and the 17-year-old boy are also charged with receiving stolen property and obstruction in the Amherst incident. Thomas and Simmons are accused of using a shotgun to steal a 47-year-old woman's Kia Optima late Wednesday on Cleveland's West Side, according to court records. A man approached the woman as she left her father's apartment. He told her to "drop the purse and keys or I'll shoot you," according to a police report. The 47-year-old victim said the carjacking happened about 11 p.m. Wednesday after she left her father's apartment on Puritas Avenue near West 140th Street, according to a police report. The woman responded "shoot me," the report says. Two more people then approached her from behind. One was toting a pump-action shotgun, which he pumped once before he held the shotgun to the woman's face, the report says. The woman dropped her purse and keys. The robbers hopped into her Kia and drove off, the report says. Amherst officers spotted the stolen Kia about 8:30 a.m. the next morning outside a Day's Inn on North Leavett Road at about 8:30 a.m., police said. The officers chased the Kia until it crashed into an embankment on Ohio 2 near the Interstate 90 split, police said. Two men and a teen ran from the Kia. Officers quickly arrested Simmons and later found Thomas and the teen hiding in a camper, police said. To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Three Cleveland Police officers are facing administrative charges in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Officer Timothy Loehmann, who fired the deadly shot, is not charged for any of his actions on the day of the shooting, but for lying on his Cleveland police application. He's accused of not disclosing the circumstances of his departure from the Independence police force, that he had an emotional breakdown on a gun range and the department found him emotionally unfit to be a police officer. His partner Frank Garmback is charged with driving too close to Tamir, who he thought was an armed suspect. He also didn't tell the dispatcher when he arrived at the scene. A third officer, William Cunningham, who was working off-duty as security at the Cudell Recreation Center at the time of the shooting, was charged for not having permission for that job and lying to investigators. Tamir's mother, Samaria, called the result of the year-long internal investigation "disappointing and disheartening." She said Loehmann and Garmback should be fired. The grand jury declined to bring charges against either officer back in 2015. The November 2014 shooting sparked a local and national outrage around the same time as other high-profile police shootings. Loehmann, Garmback and Cunningham will face disciplinary hearings at end of the month. They face possible suspension or dismissal. If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section. Suresh, CMU Faculty to Help Shape Global Agenda at World Economic Forum January 16, 2017 Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh and five CMU faculty and researchers will be among global leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Jan. 17-20. The theme of this year's meeting is "Responsive and Responsible Leadership." The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which has been the theme in the past, continues to drive convergence of technologies that blur the lines between physical, digital and biological systems. "Carnegie Mellon University plays a very important role in connecting technology with the human condition," Suresh said. "I'm delighted to participate with my CMU colleagues in this year's World Economic Forum. The wonderful work that takes place at CMU can thus be part and parcel of the conversation in Davos and help shape policies and practices that will emerge from these conversations." Among this year's sessions is the "CMU Ideas Lab: Reimagining the Human Body with Carnegie Mellon University," which will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 17. Suresh will introduce three CMU faculty members to discuss how new technologies will converge with everyday human existence. Panelists are: Adam Feinberg, associate professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering; Steve Collins, associate professor of mechanical engineering and robotics; and Justine Cassell, professor and associate dean of Technology Strategy and Impact in the School of Computer Science. Mariette DiChristina, editor-in-chief of Scientific American, will facilitate the session. Suresh, who co-chairs the WEF's Future Council on Production, also will participate in a public session on the Future of Production. CMU will also be represented during the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) annual meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 18, where Suresh will be presenting on a panel. President and Mrs. Mary Suresh will host a reception for CMU alumni and friends at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at Schneiders Davos Cafe-Restaurant, Promenade 68, CH7270 Davos Platz. Illah Nourbakhsh, professor of robotics and director of the CREATE Lab at the Robotics Institute, and Randy Sargent, senior systems scientist and commercialization specialist, will present a continuation of their Earth Time-Lapse research with new data images focusing on urban fragility, nutritional deficiency forecasts due to climate change, violence over time, displaced person movements, tropical diseases and other data sets. Cassell's Socially-Aware Robot Assistant (SARA), will be the only interactive demonstration in the forum's main hall. "SARA is a virtual personal assistant who is going to help attendees find sessions that match their interests and find people who will be interesting and helpful for them to meet," Cassell said. "The importance of the research that I'm doing is to ensure that in this increasingly technological age we maintain a focus on those aspects of humanity that are most important to us. That we ensure that we don't lose the social bonds between people and the relationships that we build with one another, which after all are what make us human," she said. World Economic Forum sessions can be streamed online throughout the annual meeting. Join the conversation on social media using #WEF, and follow CMU faculty's experience on Twitter. Carnegie Mellon is one of only 25 universities in the world, 12 from the U.S., that have been invited to join GULF. CMU has been a member since 2011. Business members of the forum include the top 1,000 companies from around the world. CMU also played a central role at the 2016 WEF meeting, which featured Suresh and eight faculty members. watch now Backers of the "Nicaragua Grand Canal" talk about a vibrant commercial waterway that will reshape commercial shipping, reap a windfall for investors and haul one of the hemisphere's poorest nations out of poverty. But the project's detractorsand they are manyare having a hard time understanding what, exactly, those pro-canal people are talking about. And they also question whether it's being driven by commercial interests, or Chinese geopolitics. About a year from the scheduled completion of a $5.2 billion Panama Canal extension that will let the existing waterway accommodate bigger ships, a Chinese consortium and the Managua government have said that they began work on a Nicaragua canal. Read More Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment (HKND) claims that it will complete the megaproject in 2019. (A project "groundbreaking" cited by media reports in December was actually just the start of an access road to let through heavy equipment.) The Nicaragua Grand Canal is projected to cost $50 billion, and HKND says it will be able to accommodate ships of up to 23,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs, a measure equal to 20 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet of cargo). That compares with the 13,000 TEUs that the Panama Canal will be able to accommodate after its expansion. Thousands of demonstrators march against the 173-mile Interoceanic Grand Canal that they say will negatively impact the environment, communities and Nicaraguan sovereignty, in Managua, Nicaragua, December 10, 2014. Sandra Cuffe | Anadolu Agenc | Getty Images But the 173-mile Nicaragua canal project has generated criticism and skepticism, and lots of it. Industry experts question the level of demand for a second canal, its potential as a going business concern and the possible environmental impact in what is geologically unstable terrain. Many even doubt that the project will go much further than its paper proposal. "The vision is very significant, but the reality is, a lot of people, including myself, are very skeptical that this will happen," said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, a group that promotes democracy and free trade. "There have been over 70 attempts to build a canal in Nicaragua, but it hasn't happened." Read MoreDoubts deepen over Chinese-backed Nicaragua canal Farnsworth cited Nicaragua's geological instability, including active volcanos and earthquakes, as one reason the Nicaraguan canal was never built in the first place. In 1902, Panama beat out Nicaragua for the American-built canal route, when the U.S. Senate voted for the smaller, more southerly nation by a mere eight votes. The canal played an important role in the recent U.S. West Coast ports strike, which forced some vessels to use the Panama route to get their goods to the East Coast. Meanwhile, Nicaraguan farmers opposing the canal construction have organized protestssome of which have become violentbecause it would expropriate their lands. Activists have also voiced loud concerns over the canal's environmental impact, pointing out that it would require the dredging of Lake Nicaragua, the largest freshwater lake in Central America and a critical water source. The shipping industry is bleeding. The current volume is not conducive for this type of investment. Jean-Paul Rodrigue Hofstra University Like Farnsworth, a large number of experts who spoke to CNBC have more questions than answers about the project, but they all agree on one thing: There's not enough demand to justify a second canal so close to the Panama Canal. "I sincerely believe we don't need another canal. I don't think there's enough ship traffic to warrant the construction of another canal," said Bruce Carlton, president and CEO of the National Industrial Transportation League, a shipping industry advocacy group. Nicaragua refutes that argument. Telemaco Talavera, official spokesperson for the Nicaragua Grand Canal project, said that there will be demand from world shippers for their very largest vessels, which even the improved Panama Canal won't be able to accommodate. Read MoreCrime on the high seas: The world's most pirated waters "The Triple-E type of ships won't be able to go through the Panama Canal, but Nicaragua will permit the passage of these ships," Talavera told CNBC, in an interview which like several for this story is translated from Spanish. "There will be a need for world shippers to reduce time, costs and pollution, and that will be an opportunity for Nicaragua and the rest of the region." The Triple-E that Talavera refers to is a 1,312-foot ship, the largest ship by length that is operated by Maersk, the world's largest container-shipping company by capacity. But even Maersk cast doubt on the need for a Nicaragua canal. "It's not something we have a demand for, and we're not able, at this point, to tell whether we will use it," said Michael Storgaard, senior press officer at Maersk. "It may be so heavily priced that we may not use it. We don't know anything right now." Moreover, most ports in the United States won't be able to accommodate the larger ships that the Nicaragua canal is hoping to target, said Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a transportation expert at Hofstra University. He added that it would require a hugely expensive investment for U.S. ports to gear up for those types of ships. "The shipping industry is bleeding," Rodrigue said. "The current volume is not conducive for this type of investment." The shipping industry took a hit during the financial crisis when many economies' growth stalled and trade volume decline. watch now Hong Kong-based HKND, which won the canal project on a no-bid basis and was granted a 50-year, renewable concession to run it, is betting on an industry comeback: "China should be expected to again accelerate its own economic growth in the coming decades, while many other countries will re-establish more respectable growth rates than those experienced in recent years," the group says on its website. But even a comeback in demand on a global basis doesn't warrant another canal in Central America, critics say. Any given waterway's future traffic volume is a bet that depends on economic trends on literally a global scale. "General demand may grow at a moderate rate, but not necessarily in the canal route, and not necessarily in the product category that would make the route profitable in terms of tolls," said Rodolfo Sabonge, a former marketing and development executive of the Panama Canal Authority, who was in charge of analyzing demand projections for the expansion project. Read More Sabonge pointed out, for example, that Brazil has seen huge economic growth in Latin America, but anything that ships to or from a point south of Recife, depends on the Cape of Good Hope as its route to or from the Pacific. The Panama Canal expansion began in 2007, adding a third set of locks and doubling its waterway capacity. The current locks allow the passage of up to 5,000 TEUs, but after the expansion is completed, the canal will be able to handle the passage of ships with up to 13,000 TEUs. "We didn't decide the size of the new locks arbitrarily. We decided them based on a study of demand, and we chose the lock size that made sense for the next 15 years," he said of the Panama's Canal's expansion. The 'why' for Managua Nicaragua's motivation for the canal is obvious. The Central American country is the second-poorest country in the Americas, after Haiti, with 42.5 percent of its population living in poverty (2009). The project would generate 50,000 jobs during its construction phase, and another 200,000 jobs once it is in operation. Panama, a prosperous economy, with an economic growth rate of 8.4 percent, is in many ways a reflection of what Nicaragua could have been. Read MoreWhen West Coast docks will catch up: Port boss "This will help the country to move forward socially and economically. It will be a development process that will help us get rid of our main enemypoverty," said Francisco Lopez, vice chancellor at the Universidad Central de Nicaragua. The development plans include the building of roads, two portsone in the Pacific and another one in the Caribbeanan airport, a free trade zone and a tourism complex with hotels. HKND has approval to build some of the other elements even if it doesn't build the canal itself. Is Beijing behind it? The motivation for HKND is less clear, and the company did not respond to CNBC's repeated requests for comment. Given the project's expected costs of operation, the tolls in the much larger Nicaragua Grand Canal would have to be considerably higher than the tolls in the Panama Canal in order for investors to benefit from the project. Read MorePort slowdown costing small businesses time and trust The canal would need to generate an annual income of about $5 billion, explained Sabonge. But the Panama Canal, with a transit of 13,482 ships, carrying 327 million tons, generates annual revenue of only about $2 billion, according to 2014 figures. Naturally, the lack of an apparent financial feasibility has raised questions about whether the Nicaragua Grand Canal is a commercial project for HKNDor a geopolitical project for the Chinese government. "If an investor doesn't see that there's a viable option, or demand out there to make a profit, they wouldn't make an investment. That leaves the question of maybe it's coming from the government," said Chang Qian Guan, a professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. If there are geopolitical interests behind the building of the canal, and the investment returns do not matter, and nothing has to be repaid, then the Panama Canal would be severely affected. Rodolfo Sabonge formerly of Panama Canal Authority U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has pledged to provide "insurance to everybody" under his plan to replace President Barack Obama's health-care law, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Trump's plan is nearing completion although the president-elect declined to provide specific details, the newspaper reported. In an interview with the newspaper, Trump also promised to force pharmaceutical companies to directly negotiate drug prices with the government for Medicare and Medicaid. You can read The Washington Post article here. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. watch now In the world of "big box" retail, there arguably are few bigger "boxes" than home goods behemoth IKEA. For consumers who live in an apartment, or just graduated from school, chances are they've probably assembled something from a large flat box that came from a massive IKEA store. While some major retailers are shuttering physical stores and shifting to a digital strategy, the Swedish-based global giant explained to CNBC's "On the Money" recently it is still growing in both areas. "We're expanding our e-commerce business, but we are also building more brick-and-mortar," IKEA's U.S. President Lars Petersson told CNBC in an interview. "It's very important to be accessible," Petersson said. Getting customers in the store enables them to experience furniture and other items "in a three-dimensional way," the executive added. Being a global company, we are very much for a liberal trade policy, because that helps also the customers to better prices and better quality Lars Petersson US president, IKEA A new IKEA store under construction in Florida. The furniture giant said Monday that after the three deaths of three children it is no longer selling its "Malm" series products. Christina Mendenhall | Bloomberg | Getty Images The furniture retailer saw nearly $38 billion in total salesa 7 percent year over year jumpin fiscal year 2016. Worldwide, IKEA has 380 stores in 48 countries, and 43 of those are in the U.S.and remain wildly popular with Americans in spite of high profile furniture recalls last year. Yet Petersson told CNBC there's more work for IKEA to do. "We are still small on the American market," Petersson said, adding that there are "still, many people we are not reaching here in the U.S." IKEA's touchstone is easy to assemble furniture, which helps them maintain what Petersson called "a very broad customer base. We are really obsessed by people's life at home regardless of the size or the income of the people living there." He added: "We see everything from people living in extreme small spaces in inner cities to the suburbs coming to IKEA." IKEA began in Sweden in 1943, but the first U.S. store opened in 1985, in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. The retailer is expanding at a rapid clip to other key areas. "We are already close to the coasts, and we are moving into the center," Petersson said, citing stores that have broken ground in the heartland, such as Kansas City and St. Louis. New locations are on tap for Columbus, Indianapolis and Jacksonville. The Lone Star state is also on IKEA's radar, Petersson said, adding that Texas is where the retailer is "underrepresented[and] we are working really hard to get more opportunities there." Today, the global company is the world's largest furniture retailer. That may change if the incoming White House administration realizes President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to tighten U.S. free trade. "Being a global company, we are very much for a liberal trade policy, because that helps also the customers to better prices and better quality," Petersson said. Still, IKEA produces a large slice of its goods here in the U.S. It has about 9,500 products, a fourth of which and Petersson said is made domestically. "And we would like continue to expand that production" in ways that shorten transportation needs and help the environment, he added. IKEA employs about 13,000 workers in the U.S. and this year implemented a more generous parental leave policy. The retailer will give workers with one-to-three years' experience up to three months paid leave. Those with three or more years are eligible for four months leave to care for a new child. Those benefits have more in common with Silicon Valley or tech companies, not retailers. "We are trying to create a better everyday life for the many people, and that includes our employees," Petersson said, calling the new policy "a good investment for us in the future." The company expects "lower staff turnover [and] we will have coworkers who feel better who won't need to switch jobs just because they're welcoming a new member to their family," he added. SELFRIDGE The temperature had warmed up to about 20 degrees below zero before Ernie and Beverly Fischers annual bison sale began Jan. 7. Despite the bone-chilling cold, buyers werent too numbed to raise their hands and bid, showing the continued strength of the bison market. The sale moved through about 400 head in less than an hour, the small crowd walking pen to pen, their breath coming out in steady puffs of fog as they looked over the frost-covered animals. Auctioneer Greg Ryken, of Yankton, S.D., warned he wouldnt be begging for bids: Were not going to stand around all afternoon. But the buyers, many who drove hundreds of miles to attend one of the countrys larger bison sales, were ready to buy. The first pen, 19 head of 300- to 350-pound mixed heifer and bull calves, sold in about a minute for $900 a head. Given the scarcity of bison breeders, those in the industry are used to hitting the road. Brad Beavers, of Jefferson, S.D., missed the Fischers sale last year to attend one in Kansas. They arent like cattle, said Ryan Hastings of Britton, S.D. You cant get them just anywhere. Beavers said the bison market has been going up for the past 10 years, with more consumer demand for meat than producers can supply. Its hard to get new producers into raising bison, Beavers explained. The bigger, stronger animals require heavier corralling and working facilities than cattle, and few cattlemen have been willing to switch, he said. Bison also grow slower than cattle, meaning more outputs up front with a longer wait time for profits. Beavers said bison are processed at 22 to 28 months old, so a spring calf bought now will take about 14 more months to finish. Hastings and Jay Melius, of Faulkton, S.D., were at the sale in search of bred heifers, which they said had been selling recently in excess of $3,000 a head. Melius has a cow-calf operation. He sends his calves to Hastings, who has a bison feedlot. From there, they go to a bison slaughter facility in Rush, Colo. Beavers also sends his calves to Rush. The Fischers were pleased with the results of the sale. Everybody went home happy, Beverly Fischer said. The market was tremendous today, Ryken said. He noted the crowd was smaller than at the Fischers sale last year, which featured about 800 head, but there were enough buyers to keep things moving. We had enough people to support the animals we had, Beverly Fischer said. No protesters Though the buyers didnt think twice about braving the cold, one group that didnt show up was protesters. The Fischers have subleased land on Cannonball Ranch, which has been at the center of the controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline. Protesters, fueled by misinformation and misperception, made threats to come to the sale, either to buy bison or to protest. Despite rumors and talk, Beverly Fischer said few of the bison sold Jan. 7 had ever been at Cannonball Ranch. The Fischers, tired of cut fences and stress on their animals, sold out their interests in animals located at the ranch. Additionally, she explained, the bison in their herd and in virtually every other herd in the nation are domesticated. They were never wild animals, she said. The online conversation regarding the sale propelled the Fischers to move it from Cannonball Ranch to their home place in Selfridge and to request special security. The North Dakota Highway Patrol had several squad cars stationed north of Selfridge, and the Sioux County Sheriffs Department had a car at the entrance to the Fischer farmstead. Buyers and spectators had to register and get wristbands at the gate. In the end, the sale was uneventful. But the Fischers still are recovering from a summer and fall where they had to deal with a new batch of stresses. Beverly Fischer, who is Native American, sees the side of the protesters who worry about the possible long-term repercussions from the planned oil pipeline. But she hasnt been happy with some of the events that occurred. That activity has been detrimental to the health of our herd, to our health level and to our stress level, she said. The Fischers have subleased U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land for haying, including land on which one of the main protest camps is located. That means they may have lost their hay land for the foreseeable future. In my eyes, that land has been destroyed for future years, Beverly Fischer said. The Fischers, neither for nor against the pipeline, hope protesters will respect the people living and working in the vicinity. Whether youre for or against the pipeline, were all here for a better tomorrow, Ernie Fischer said. Lee Jae-Yong, vice chairman of Samsung arrives at the office of the independent counsel on January 12, 2017 in Seoul, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun | Getty Images South Korea's special prosecutor said on Sunday it will take into account the economic impact of whether to arrest Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee in connection with an influence-peddling investigation involving the president. The office also delayed by one day, until Monday, its decision on whether to seek the arrest of Lee, the third-generation leader of South Korea's largest conglomerate, or chaebol, citing the gravity of the case. The special prosecution had said it would make a decision on Lee by Sunday. But spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told reporters on Sunday investigators were deliberating all factors including the potential economic impact of the arrest of Jay Y. Lee. Prosecutors have been investigating whether Samsung provided 30 billion won ($25.46 million) to a business and foundations backed by President Park Geun-hye's friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for the national pension fund's support for a 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates. The Samsung chief denied bribery accusations during a parliamentary hearing in December. watch now Taking into account the economic impact could prove beneficial to the 48-year-old Lee. The imposition of less severe punishment on erring business leaders to avoid negative economic consequences has precedent in South Korea. "Law and principle are the most important metric, and after also considering various factors mentioned previously, we will decide by law and principle," the prosecution spokesman Lee said, referring to economic impact, without elaborating. A Samsung Group spokeswoman declined to comment. Samsung's Lee was questioned for 22 hours before leaving the special prosecutors' office in Seoul on Friday morning as part of the investigation into a corruption scandal that has led to President Park's impeachment by parliament. Establishing a money-for-favor exchange between Samsung and Park or her surrogate is critical for the special prosecutor's investigation, analysts say. Court deliberating Park, the daughter of a military ruler, has denied wrongdoing, although she has apologized for exercising poor judgment. Her friend, Choi, who is in detention and facing her own trial, has also denied wrongdoing. The Constitutional Court is deciding whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment vote. If Park is forced to leave office, a presidential election would be held in 60 days. Among the expected contenders is former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The chiefs of South Korean chaebol have over the years had prison sentences shortened or forgiven, or received pardons, with the economic impact of imprisonment cited as a factor. watch now Italian borrowing costs rose in early trade on Monday after DBRS cut Italy's credit rating, warning that the country's government has not taken a "systemic approach" to its banking crisis. DBRS cut Italy's sovereign credit rating to BBB (high) from A (low) after market close on Friday in a move that will mean Italy's banks must pay more to borrow money from the European Central Bank when they use the country's bonds as collateral. Speaking to CNBC later Monday, Fergus McCormick, Co-Head of Sovereign Ratings and Chief Economist at DBRS said the move was a long term view and the discomfort began to grow in August last year. "Unlike Ireland and unlike Spain, Italy has not taken a systemic approach to solving its problem," McCormick told CNBC. McCormick added that Italy's banking sector was a victim of low economic growth as well as political uncertainty and therefore it was hard to see if the Italian banking system is at its lowest point. Italy's 10-year government bond yield rose 3 basis points to 1.93 percent, while shorter-dated bonds were about 2 bps higher on the day. Most other euro zone bond yields fell in early trade, although Portuguese and Spanish yields rose in step with Italian peers. Turbulence and turmoil in the health care industry will only prove to be temporary in spite of the uncertainties in the U.S., according to Royal Philips ' chief executive. Frans Van Houten, chief executive of the medical equipment and technology firm, described the current situation in the U.S. health care industry as "uncertain" however he remained confident the negative sentiment surrounding health care stocks would be reversed in time. "I am sure that whatever turmoil and turbulence there is, (it) is a temporary matter and that as the dust settles, this thrust for innovation to make people healthier and the world more sustainable is still going to go on," van Houten told CNBC on Monday in Davos, Switzerland when asked about Trump's influence on the health care industry. watch now Policymakers must reconsider their priorities and put significant improvements to people's living standards at the heart of their economic policies, according to the findings of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Inclusive and Development Report 2017. The latest WEF report stressed that the way a country measures economic growth must be re-imagined. Rather than simply addressing levels of gross domestic product (GDP), policymakers must reconnect with its increasingly frustrated citizens and consider a wider breadth of economic tools. "The world is basically in loud agreement that inclusive growth is the way to go but it has been much more aspiration than action frankly for the last couple of years," Richard Samans, member of the managing board at the World Economic Forum told CNBC on Monday. "(Economic) growth is essential, it is absolutely critical but you can borrow a business analogy here, growth is like the top line. You need top line growth as a business would but the bottom line measure of success for society (in terms) of how well their economy is performing is (an) improvement of living standards," Samans added. 'Iron law of capitalism' watch now Samans lamented the stance many leading economies choose to take by putting too much emphasis on exports and GDP levels rather than quality of life improvements for a nation's population. He agreed that Germany, which runs the world's largest trade surplus of $300 billion, was a typical example of this argument in practice. The WEF's Inclusive and Development Report 2017, co-written by Samans, concluded that several countries are severely under-performing or remain relatively underdeveloped in terms of understanding and then acting upon its population's concerns. Rising inequality is described as a largely internal challenge as opposed to an "iron law of capitalism" and could be rectified if prioritized by policymakers. Donald Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated as President of the U.S. on Friday and Samans argued that election promises made by Trump to heavily invest on infrastructure as well as childcare benefits are "positive elements" which could boost the country's economic performance. "On the other hand there (are) some proposals being discussed on the environmental side and also in terms of tax reform that, if not structured properly, could provide a short term boost if you will but long term (it could) not be as beneficial for inclusive prosperity," Samans concluded. It was "difficult" to predict what state Britain will be in once it has left the European Union, the chief executive of the world's largest staffing firm told CNBC. But, no matter what the model would be like, the U.K. government should continue allowing "brain circulation". "What is very important is to guarantee the brain circulation," Alain Dehaze, chief executive officer at Adecco Group told CNBC "One of the strengths of the U.K. is its ability to attract very highly talented people from all over the places, but also their ability to send English people outside. So they're very brain circulation-oriented and I do hope even with Brexit they will keep this asset they have," Dehaze added, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to outline her plans for the U.K.'s departure from the EU. She has been under pressure from businesses and trade unions to guarantee the rights of EU citizens working in the U.K. as soon as possible. She will then travel on to Davos to speak Thursday. JAMESTOWN -- Women are underrepresented in elected offices across the United States, and North Dakota is no exception, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. About 19 percent of North Dakota House members and 18 percent of state senators are women. In the North Dakota Legislature, there are 26 female lawmakers -- 10 Democrats and 16 Republicans. Out of the 47 legislative districts in the state, 25 have no women in the Senate or House, 19 have one female legislator, two have two female lawmakers, and only District 21 in Fargo has three female legislators. District 35 in Bismarck and District 25 in the Wahpeton area have two female lawmakers. Sen. Erin Oban, D-Bismarck, was elected in November 2014 and represents District 35. Oban said she would always advocate for having more women run and serve in office because women are half of the population in the state, and they bring a different perspective, Oban said. More balance in anything makes for deeper discussions and better decisions, Oban said. The number of women in the South Dakota Legislature is similar to North Dakotas. About 21 percent of South Dakota House members and 17 percent of senators are women, according to CAWP. Montana is one of the top 10 states with the most female lawmakers with women making up 28 percent of Montana House members and 26 percent of senators. In 2016, Colorado topped the nation with women making up 42 percent of state legislators, and Mississippi was at the bottom with women making up 13.2 percent of legislators. The percentage of women in state legislatures has grown from 4.5 percent in 1971 to 24.4 percent in 2016, according to CAWP. However, the centers data shows that growth has slowed since the 1990s, and the percentage has stayed between 23 and 25 percent for the last 10 years. According to the American University School of Public Affairs report Girls Just Wanna Not Run: The Gender Gap in Young Americans Political Ambition, when women run for office, they are just as likely as men to win, but fewer women than men are running for office. Representation in District 12 The districts have moved around since statehood, so its hard to say how many female representatives and senators the Stutsman County area has had, said Kylah Aull, North Dakota Legislative Council library and records manager. The first female lawmaker from Jamestown to serve in the state legislature was Mary McGinnis, who served as a House member for what was then District 23 during the 20th Legislative Assembly in 1927, according to the Journal of the House for that year. Former Rep. Jessica Haak, a Democrat from Jamestown who served from 2013 to 2016, is the only female representative or senator District 12 has had since at least 1997. Legislative assembly members prior to 1997 are not listed on the North Dakota Legislative Branch website. Overall, it seemed pretty fair, Haak said of her time in the Legislature. There were times when I had to validate that I was elected to represent the people because I was qualified and they felt I could serve them, not because I was a young, pretty woman. Haak said she was often the only woman in many conference committees, which she participated in a lot because she was a more moderate Democrat. She sometimes had to turn on her mic and start talking rather than wait to be called, Haak said. I was not going to let a voice for Jamestown not be heard because I was a Democrat and a woman, Haak said. During Haaks first term in the Legislature in 2013, there were 37 Democrats out of 141 total representatives. This year, there are 22 Democrats, making up about 15.6 percent of the Legislature. Sen. John Grabinger, D-Jamestown, said he is disappointed that there arent more women in the Legislature. Grabinger said he has been fortunate to work with some of the best female representatives and is honored to be the assistant to Senate Minority Leader Joan Heckaman, D-New Rockford. I encourage anybody, if they have a desire to serve the public, to get involved, Grabinger said. This year is not only Heckamans first term as Senate minority leader, but also the first term a woman has been the majority or minority leader in the state Legislature. Heckaman is one of three women in leadership positions in the Legislature. Rep. Kathy Hogan, D-Fargo, is the House assistant minority leader and Sen. Carolyn Nelson, D-Fargo, is the Senate minority caucus leader. Its encouraging to know women are recognized for leadership among the Democratic-NPL, Heckaman said. Businesses could create up to 380 million jobs and unlock $12 trillion in economic opportunities by 2030 if they adopt more sustainable development models, a new report from the Business & Sustainable Development Commission said. In a news release on Monday, the Commission said that the report, Better Business, Better World, recognized that "the last few decades" had seen many millions of people taken out of poverty. It also recognized, however, that the same period had seen unequal growth, increasing job insecurity and debt, and "ever greater environmental risks." The Commission was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2016, with its core mission resting on making a strong argument for "why business leaders should seize upon sustainable development as the greatest opportunity of a lifetime." Commissioners include the Alibaba Group's Jack Ma, Aviva CEO Mark Wilson and Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. "This report is a call to action to business leaders," Mark Malloch-Brown, chair of the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, said in a statement. "We are on the edge and business as usual will drive more political opposition and land us with an economy that simply doesn't work for enough people," Malloch-Brown added. "We have to switch tracks to a business model that works for a new kind of inclusive growth." Malloch-Brown went on to state that the report showed that there was a "compelling incentive for why the latter isn't just good for the environment and society; it makes good business sense." The core of the report focused on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, described by the United Nations as a "universal call" to put an end to poverty, protect the planet and create an environment where people enjoy both peace and prosperity. These goals offered the private sector a growth strategy that had the potential to both open up market opportunities and create a "sustainable and inclusive planet" the Commission said. "At a time when our economic model is pushing the limits of our planetary boundaries and condemning many to a future without hope, the Sustainable Development Goals offer us a way out," Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and a commissioner, said. "Many are now realizing the enormous opportunities that exist for enlightened businesses willing to stand up and address these urgent challenges," Polman added. "But every day that passes is another lost opportunity for action. We must react quickly, decisively and collectively to ensure a fairer and more prosperous world for all." An billboard ad that can detect when someone is smoking and coughs at them has been unveiled in a busy area of Stockholm. The digital ad can not only sense cigarette smoke, but can tell when someone is actually smoking by detecting the glow when they light up. It uses similar technology to that found outside some hospitals and gas stations, according to a spokesperson from agency Akestam Holst, which is behind the campaign. In the ad for Swedish drugstore Apotek Hjartat, a man starts coughing once the technology senses that someone is smoking nearby. Then the line "New year, new resolutions" appears, followed by a selection of smoking cessation products. Apotek Hjartat which literally translated means "pharmacy heart"- wants to help consumers live a healthier life, according to its marketing director Fredrik Kullberg. He gave the agency the opportunity to think freely about how to promote stopping smoking, a popular new year's resolution. "We have a strategy to make communications that touches people and are always thinking about how to make the communication worth talking about," Kullberg told CNBC.com by phone. "It's one of the most cost-efficient campaigns I've ever made," he added, given the attention the billboard has generated. The media and production costs came to around 30,000 euros ($31,815) for the advert itself and it ran at a site on one busy Stockholm street. While it's too early to see the campaign's impact on product sales, Kullberg said the campaign had gone viral. An online video shows passersby being surprised by the ad when they smoke near it, which has been viewed nearly 600,000 times across Apotek Hjartat's Facebook and YouTube pages. "Using technology but meeting with real life and using the digital displays in innovative ways, going forward it's really exciting," Kullberg added. Apotek Hjartat has previously run a similar digital ad on a train station for a new line of hair products. As trains arrived at the station, a woman's hair appeared to blow in the wind generated, reacting to motion sensors in the billboard. President-elect Donald Trump's economic advisory panel will take a key role in "educating" him on a wide range of industrial and business issues, Mark Weinberger, chairman and chief executive officer of professional services firm EY, told CNBC. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Weinberger said that he and the 15 other members of the President's Strategic Policy Forum would aim to ensure the President-elect has a broad understanding of all business areas as he moves forward with his efforts to bring jobs back to the U.S. "I think everyone's hopeful that we'll have a voice in educating him on things that we see in the workplace, about jobs, about the disruption that's going on, talk about issues such as income inequality, as well as what will be necessary to create more jobs and improve the economy," Weinberger said. Rescue teams are seen at the crash site of Turkish cargo jet near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport . A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 30 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said. According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to land in poor visibility at 7:31 a.m. (0131 GMT). The doomed plane damaged 15 buildings in the village, said Mukhammed Svarov, head of crisis management center at the emergencies ministry, adding that at least 30 people had been killed. Kyrgyzstan's transport ministry said there were five people on board. It identified the plane as a Turkish Airlines Boeing 747-400, but the company said it belonged to another Turkish firm, ACT Airlines. "Our condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives in the tragic incident involving an ACT Airlines aircraft in Kyrgyzstan," Turkish Airlines said on its Twitter account. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. "Who wants to have access to the internal market needs to accept the rules of the internal market and one of the rules is the freedom of movement," he said. However, the British government has to be aware that it needs to compromise Jens Spahn, Germany's deputy finance minister told CNBC on Monday. The U.K. need not cut its trade and economic ties with the European Union if it seeks a deal that's somewhere between the current single market and the World Trade Organization rules, a German minister told CNBC. "So if migration is an issue and I totally understand that then it's going to be hard to have access to the internal market." The U.K.'s prime minister, Theresa May, is due to outline her Brexit priorities at a speech on Tuesday. Expectations are that she will seek to control the number of people entering the country -- even if that means restricting the access that U.K. businesses have to the European common market. According to Spahn, the EU and the UK need to work on a new relationship that is something between "what we have today and just WTO (World Trade Organization) rules." If the UK opts for breaking away from the EU completely, business from both sides will still be able to trade, however this will have to be under WTO rules which implicates higher costs. Spahn is confident that a deal between the UK and the EU will be achieved, but the British government needs to be open. "But of course the more access you want, the more trade you want, the less rules you want for cross border trade, the more you need to be open for compromise," Spahn, who works with the German finance minister Wolfgang Schuable, told CNBC. He downplayed comments from President-elect Donald Trump that Germany's migration policy, a key issue for the upcoming federal election, was a "catastrophic mistake." "Of course it was not," Spahn said, but the debate isn't something "new for us." The EU has seen an unprecedented influx of migrants, some of them escaping conflicts in the Middle East. At the peak of the migration crisis, the German chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not close her borders a controversial policy amid rising support for populist views in the largest euro economy. "Of course you can debate how quickly we were at the European Union to secure our European border, that's actually what it has to be about," Spahn suggested. As markets worry about the prospect of a 'hard Brexit' ahead of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's speech on Tuesday, a key official in the country's Treasury has called for calm. "We won't have a hard or soft Brexit, we'll get the possible Brexit," Simon Kirby, economic secretary to the UK Treasury, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Monday. "It's important to note that that the best possible Brexit will not only be good for the UK, but also for Europe and the rest of the world." A 'hard Brexit' could see the country leave the European Union's (EU) single market and customs union, further complicating immigration and trade with the rest of the EU. In her speech, May is expected to call for unity in common goals, such as workers' rights, as well as urge an end to divisive language, Reuters reported, citing an official Downing Street statement. Kirby continued to say that his county would be building on global ties, particularly Hong Kong and across Asia. Fintech, green finance, Islamic finance, as well as currency products involving the and China's yuan were among the sectors Kirby named when discussing potential partnerships in Asia. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. The U.S. must not lose its connection with the world, the head of Swiss chemicals giant, Syngenta, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday. "The U.S. needs to make sure that the country stays very engaged in the global scene," asserted Erik Fyrwald, chief executive officer (CEO) of Syngenta. "Global trade is the engine of the global economy and it needs to continue to develop and grow so that the U.S. and the rest of the world can continue to grow," he continued. Responding to questions regarding the commitment of the incoming administration under President-elect Donald Trump to the role of the U.S. in a globalized world, Fyrwald pointed to supportive elements among Trump's closest advisers. "Donald Trump has named some outstanding people to his cabinet that feel the same way," he noted. The track record of President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration gives us good cause for hope, the chief of the Russia's sovereign wealth fund has told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "We very much appreciate the professionalism of the new Trump administration," Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said. "We are very impressed with his comments about Russia. We are very realistic that it's going to be a difficult road ahead but we believe it is in the national interest of the U.S. and the world for Russia and the U.S. to have good relations, to have areas where we can work together," he expounded. Clarifying that he was speaking about the broader cabinet and not merely the President-elect, Dmitriev singled out the incoming Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, as particularly suited for his role. ROME, N.Y. Rome Memorial Hospital announced it has named Allan Chrysler director of emergency management and security. Chrysler has served as the hospitals disaster preparedness coordinator since 2007 and is a graduate of the Federal Emergency Management Agencys Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP) program. In his new role, Chrysler will oversee security throughout the hospital, including updating current security policies and procedures. Allans extensive training and experience in preparing organizations to respond to all types of emergency situations from natural disasters to life-threatening security incidents makes him a natural fit for this position, David Jabs, VP of support services at Rome Memorial Hospital, said in a news release. His expertise will be invaluable as we continue to review our existing security plans and update them to meet todays changing world. Chrysler stresses the importance of anticipating potential problems and planning a response in advance. We live in an ever-changing world with complex problems and the real possibility of threats from a number of sources, he said in the release. The key to a successful security plan is very similar to a successful disaster preparedness plan, in that it takes planning, foresight and the ability to put the right people in the right places to diffuse a situation as quickly as possible. He acknowledges that planning for every scenario is impossible Unfortunately, planning can only take you so far, but through a thorough examination of our facility, we can identify our strengths and opportunities to make us as prepared as we can be, he added. Before joining Rome Memorial Hospital in 2007, Chrysler was a member of the New York State Department of Health Bureau of Emergency Medical Services. He has served as an emergency medical technician, paramedic, and emergency services administrator. Chrysler is also an instructor for the New York State Office of Emergency Management. He is also a certified health emergency professional (or CHEP), a certified emergency disaster professional (or CEDP), and certified hospital emergency coordinator. Chrysler has a bachelors degree in emergency management and public health from Empire State College and an associate degree in emergency medical services from Mohawk Valley Community College, according to his LinkedIn page. Contact The Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com UTICA, N.Y. Five Hamilton College students, who are interested in health careers, recently spent time shadowing physicians in the St. Elizabeth Medical Center family-medicine residency program. The students participated in the 12th consecutive year of the program entitled A Week in the Life of a Family Medicine Resident, Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) said in a news release. The students were Michael Carducci, Aaron Oh, Sofia Rachad, Alyson Skelly and Abigail Tulchinsky. About the program The students days began at 7 a.m. with a morning meeting, during which residents and medical students gathered for presentations on a variety of medical conditions and case studies. From 8 a.m. until late afternoon, the students shadowed residents in family medicine, internal medicine, surgery, cardiology, obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN), and pediatrics. The shadowing took place at the St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Faxton St. Lukes Healthcare campuses of MVHS, Central New York Cardiology, or one of several MVHS medical offices nearby. MVHS is an affiliation of Faxton St. Lukes Healthcare and St. Elizabeth Medical Center (SEMC), both of Utica. The two organizations teamed up in March 2014. Residency is a critical three-to-seven-year period during which recent medical-school graduates continue their medical education under the guidance of faculty physicians to prepare them to practice on their own. Students watched as physicians saw patients ranging from babies to geriatric patients in the family-medicine offices, according to MVHS. The residency program is an important tool for recruiting family-medicine physicians to the area, Dr. Mark Warfel, director of the family-medicine residency program, said in the release. Historically, 50 percent of the programs graduates have stayed to work in the upstate New York region to practice, adding to the primary care work force, said Warfel. Our collaboration with Hamilton College is valuable at this time of physician shortages. Leslie Bell, director of health-professions advising at Hamilton College, added, The program is extremely beneficial to Hamilton students interested in medicine because it enables them to see first-hand what the daily work of a physician in family medicine entails; to observe the doctor-patient relationship; and to learn first-hand from residents about an aspect of medical education (residency) with which they are largely unfamiliar. The extended shadowing time frame enables participants to confirm their career decision by providing them with a more realistic understanding of the healthcare profession. Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com The Times of India says that a tech specialist in Bangalore has solved the filthy money problem, using silver to kill microbes. The Times of India says that a tech specialist in Bangalore has solved the filthy money problem. Rejani Krishnankutty, a medical nanotechnology worker, will discuss with the Indian government a proposal to put a microbiocidal silver nanoparticle coating on bank notes to disinfect them. She said that she found silver nanoparticle coating acted successfully against several disease causing micro-organisms like Staphylococcus aureus, E coli and pseudomonas which infect notes. Due to its anti-microbial properties, since ages silver has been used to make jewelry, water storage vessels and medicinal applications to heal wounds. Now, it has another use. She added that silver behaves differently as nanoparticles than it does in bulk, and, when it broken down as such, it becomes even more efficient and effective against at least 12 species of micro-organisms. The practicality of the proposal was not addressed, although one reader commented that the same results could be achieved by exposure to ultraviolet light. Connect with Coin World: Sign up for our free eNewsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter This Switzerland 1-rappen coin features a 1925/24 strong-over-weak overdate. The field surrounding the later date is no higher than elsewhere on the coin. The following is the Collectors' Clearinghouse column from the Jan. 23, 2017, issue of Coin World: An overdate occurs when a date (or part of a date) is punched into a finished working die that already has an older date (usually that of the previous year). Kevin Flynn (in a personal communication) estimates that there are around 200 domestic overdates, most dating from before 1850. In many cases, overdates appear to represent expedient measures taken to address a shortage of dies or to avoid the labor required to fabricate new dies. Overdates must be distinguished from Class III doubled dies, an unrelated die variety that can also generate overlapping, mismatched dates. Among domestic coins, the conditions necessary for the production of overdates ended in 1909, when the final Indian Head cents were struck. This was the last issue in which the date was punched into each working die by hand. Connect with Coin World: Sign up for our free eNewsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter After that, the date was incorporated into the master hub or the master die. Mismatched, overlapping dates later than 1909 represent Class III doubled dies. One of the best-known examples is the 1942/1941 Winged Liberty Head dime. Winged Liberty Head dime: The Winged Liberty Head dime popularly though erroneously known as the "Mercury dime" for Liberty's resemblance to the fleet-footed Roman messenger god is considered by many the most attractive U.S. 10-cent coin. How much are Winged Liberty Head dimes worth? In various other countries, the practice of punching the date into each working die continued into the late 20th century. In many domestic overdates (especially the later ones), the earlier date appears thinner and smaller than the later date. This pattern also applies to foreign overdates, such as the 1925/1924 Switzerland 1-rappen coin and the 1900/1890 Peru half dinero shown here. The attenuated older date could theoretically result from a light application of each number punch (or multi-element logo punch). This is because, in most punches, the working end of each raised number defines a numeral that is smaller and thinner than the one defined by its broader base. That said, its difficult to come up with any scenario in which a mint worker would choose to tap a shallow date into the die face. Most traditional explanations instead see the attenuated under-date as being caused by intentional abrasion of that area of the die face. As one grinds away the metal surrounding the recessed date, you eventually reach the level at which the numbers are at their smallest and thinnest. After that, a new date can be punched in. The problem with this explanation is that such a grinding operation should create a depression in the die face that would show up on the coin as a bulge. But no such elevation is ever seen. A more extensive zone of abrasion would produce a larger, more gradual, and less obvious rise in the field, but would also result in loss and attenuation of adjacent design elements. This is also something we dont see. So there must be another explanation. I sent an open-ended inquiry to several die variety experts, and they presented several working hypotheses that might solve this riddle. No single hypothesis is applicable to all issues, nor would any one explanation necessarily apply to all overdates within an issue. The Cherrypickers Guide to Rare Die Varieties of United States Coins (sixth edition) lists five strong-over-weak 1883/2 Shield 5-cent coin overdates. In addressing these coins, Bernus Turner suggests that the entire face of the working die was ground down to such an extent that only a trace of the original date was left. The nearly-featureless die was then annealed (heat-softened) and rehubbed with the Shield design. After that the later date was punched in over the earlier one. He further suggests that the abraded die face was left slightly convex in order to make hubbing easier and avoid radial bulging of the die neck. In his opinion, these efforts were primarily undertaken to salvage worn, damaged, and slightly cracked working dies. Since none of the Shield 5-cent coin overdates are associated with a doubled die, this implies that the working hub was placed perfectly over the remnants of the original design during the later hubbing. Kevin Flynn analyzed the four strong-over-weak overdates known for the Seated Liberty half dime (The Authoritative Reference on Liberty Seated Half Dimes, 2014). These overdates are restricted to the years 1848 and 1849, and in every case the final digit was punched over a 6. Flynn believes that, in each case, an 1846-dated working die was ground down (leaving a remnant of the 6) and then rehubbed with the same design (sans date). The later date was then punched in by hand. More than 25 strong-over-weak 1880/1879 overdates are known for the Morgan dollar, with the Philadelphia Mint and all three other Mint facilities represented. In his recent reference book, The Top Morgan Dollar Die Varieties (2015): Flynn asks, Was the original date only struck lightly into the working die? Did die steel displaced from the new date being punched into the working die get pushed into the incused space of the original digit? Was the face of the working die ground down to remove the remnants of the digit? Was the incused space of the original digits filled with die steel? Was the metal surrounding the original digit heated in a manner to force it to flow into the incused space of the original digit? Morgan dollar: For decades the Morgan dollar has ranked at the top U.S. coin collectors' favorite coins. Why is the Morgan dollar so popular? There are many reasons, including: large size, attractive designs, numerous varieties, historical significance. How much are Morgan dollars worth? After an exhaustive analysis, Flynn rejects all these scenarios and concludes that the vast majority of these overdates are actually Class III doubled dies. He argues that an incomplete first hubbing with an 1879-dated working hub (one that left the peripheral details like the date weak and incomplete) was finished up with a final hubbing using an 1880-dated working hub. MoDOT prefers flyover ramps at 70 and 63 Following public and stakeholder meetings, MoDOT is moving ahead with its preferred idea of a flyover at the 70/63 connector. With the ubiquity of cloud technology and the availability of modern systems administration tools that allow anyone from developers to administrative assistants to procure and provision servers and services, it's tempting to think that the role of the system administrator, or sysadmin, is obsolete. The sysadmin role isn't dying off, however. It's simply evolving along with the rest of the technology industry and becoming less focused on hardware and infrastructure and more on services delivery -- a shift away from being seen as a cost center in an organization to an innovation engine. And that's great news for IT pros looking to further their careers. [ Related story: 10 hottest tech skills for 2017 ] CIO Staff Constantly evolving The constant evolution has kept Nick Bush engaged and fulfilled in his role as a sysadmin, a career that began back in his high school days. "My friends and I were sort of the stereotype: We joined the A/V club and worked in the computer lab for the school district. I worked for the district as a computer tech during summers, too, and then after I graduated, I went to DeVry University expecting to focus on computer engineering," Bush says. Once at DeVry, though, Bush quickly realized engineering wasn't for him and changed to information systems. Even then, his skills were in such high demand that he left DeVry for roles in systems support and, later, as a "technology engineer" -- or, a one-man IT shop -- for the school district from which he'd graduated. "I couldn't see myself sitting at a computer writing code for 40 hours a week . that just wasn't for me. And even working in systems support and going to school wasn't doing it for me; when the school district offered me the technology engineer job, I knew that was where I wanted to be. It was me and another person handling around 200 teachers, 2200 students over six different buildings -- that was a great challenge," Bush says. Nick Bush He held various roles with that school district for the next ten years before moving to network administrator positions for smaller organizations; one that held federal government contracts and another global retail corporation where, for the first time, he was part of a team of IT professionals. When that company went through downsizing and laid off a number of IT folks, Bush found himself unemployed for the first time in his life. "I was unemployed for the longest I'd ever been in my life: three weeks. That just speaks to how important these roles and responsibilities are that, even without a college degree, the experience I'd had and the skills I'd acquired meant I wasn't stuck. Back then, and even now, job descriptions will say, 'four-year degree or equivalent experience,' and you're interviewing with business folks and hiring managers who don't know much about the technical side. Even when they do, you're more likely to get questions about how you handled certain problems with technology stacks or solutions that come from experience rather than on my formal education," he says. He was quickly hired by Meadowbrook Insurance Group, where he now holds the title of systems administrator, level 2. The company is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, and currently operates about thirty offices nationwide; Bush works out of the Columbus, Ohio, office, where he supports around 200 users and manages many of the 80 physical and more than 200 virtual servers. [ Related story: Coworking tips to increase your productivity and privacy ] Focus on experience That emphasis on skills and experience rather than formal education isn't unique to sysadmins or the IT industry, says Jason Hand, DevOps evangelist and incident and alerting specialist with collaborative incident management software company VictorOps. As sysadmin roles evolve, the education system hasn't kept pace, and so having that real-world experience is even more critical to a candidate's success, he says. "In my experience, even nowadays, having that formal education, even having certifications doesn't help you as much as it used to, because so much of the success in the role can go back to cultural fit and experience. If we hire you, we'll send you to training and make sure you know what tools we're using, but what we're looking for is whether or not you have a growth mindset; do you know agile, Lean, DevOps? Are you focused on continuous improvement, and delivering great service? Do you have great communication skills? These are much more valuable than knowing you spent six months mastering one topic," Hand says. Like Bush, a significant number of sysadmins have no formal training, according to a survey from IT infrastructure monitoring software company Paessler, which asked 650 sysadmins from 49 countries about their education, responsibilities and their everyday work, and a significant number have no formal training but instead have learned on the job. According to the survey, approximately 41 percent of respondents have an academic degree, while approximately 36 percent have vocational training and approximately 24 percent learned on the job. "Even with formal training, learning on the job is a critical part of being a sysadmin. University training generally doesn't cover sysadmin tasks; vocational training would, but it would also be out-of-date quickly. So, in the end, all sysadmins are learning on the job, regardless of the training they had before. IT changes so fast that formal training of any kind becomes out of date quickly, so vendor training and vendor certifications fill the gap," says Kimberley Parsons Trommler, product evangelist, Paessler AG. If you are going to get a formal degree with the intention of becoming a sysadmin or similar role, the best bet is to focus on the same areas of study as someone in DevOps would, since that's how sysadmin roles are evolving, says VictorOps' Jason Hand. Robert Scott, director for the center for Engineering Diversity and Outreach and Special counsel to the Dean at University of Michigan, says currently courses that inform DevOps as a discipline span three of the university's colleges; the College of Engineering, the School of Information and the Ross School of Business. "A lot of academic settings still don't see DevOps as being integrated. They're like many companies in that they're still looking at development and operations as siloed from each other -- and the operations part is where many systems administrators in the past would focus. This is something both industry and academia have to reconcile and catch up with DevOps in the real world, as sysadmin roles evolve," Scott says. For now, however, courses in computer science and engineering as well as the design and deployment of infrastructure, software, algorithms and tools are important from the technical side. A study of how to manage and maintain structured and unstructured data is important from the information systems side, and a solid knowledge of business fundamentals, strategy, business process development and analytics would be a great foundation for someone looking to get into these areas Scott says. "I believe that to be good in these roles, you'd need at least five years of experience, sure. But to truly be an expert, you'd need an in-depth knowledge and understanding of all these areas, which could take at least ten years," he says. As the evolution toward DevOps continues, soft skills will become an increasingly important part of a successful sysadmin or DevOps career, says Hand. "This evolving role is a lot more collaborative, a lot more focused on empathy and emotional IQ when you're dealing with your users. You literally will not be able to say, 'That's not my problem' anymore, because the whole company owns these services and solutions, so we're all responsible for them," he says. There are some specific hard skills that can be helpful, too, says Hand; tools like Puppet and Chef that help automate infrastructure and services management, containers like Docker, cloud solutions like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and virtualization technologies are all critical components of a sysadmin's job, Hand says. So, next time someone tells you that the role of the sysadmin is dead, take it with a huge grain of salt -- because while the role is certainly evolving, it's not going anyway any time soon, Bush says. "This is a role that is so necessary in every company that uses IT. There still needs to be people to manage and maintain networks, to help spin up and configure infrastructure, to serve customers and to innovate. There may well be fewer of us, sure, but that just makes us even more valuable," he says. Related Video This story, "Career Roadmap: Systems admin role isnt dead " was originally published by CIO . Its been known for years that anyone can find out your phone number if you gave it to Facebook and didnt lock down your privacy settings, but a security researcher has claimed there is a way to find phone numbers which are not set to public on Facebook accounts. Belgian security researcher Inti De Ceukelaire said he discovered he could exploit Facebook in order to get hold of cell phone numbers which are not supposed to be publicly visible. [To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page.] Please keep in mind that most of this news required using translations to read it in English and that can mangle quotes. De Ceukelaire said he was able to identify the mobile phone numbers of top politicians and Flemish celebrities through their Facebook profile. This involved numbers associated with that profile, but normally not visible publicly. To prove his point, he pulled up the phone number of Belgiums Interior Minister Jan Jambon via his Facebook profile and then did the same thing for other politicians and celebrities. For clarity, I could find out his number on his account not vice versa," he said according to a Google-translated version. The following translation is even more confusing. Roughly, I think you get the number 20 percent of the Flemish people can find that way. Of all the people who have their mobile number linked to their profile goes to the 80 percent. That likely didn't clear up any already murky understanding of the problem. He warned Facebook twice about the security issue, saying he will go public with it if Facebook doesnt make changes. But to Facebooks way of thinking, this is not a flaw but a feature. Facebook directed him to documentation about how to control who can search for you via your phone number or email address. Yet De Ceukelaire claims it is a serious privacy leak, being that phone numbers which are not set to be displayed by the public can be found. De Ceukelaire has already reported the problem to the police and is giving Facebook another chance to fix the problem before he goes public. He tweeted Facebooks response after he reported the security flaw. Lead Stories, which currently has the only English version of this story, reported, According to Facebook it would take too many tries to find out any useful information by abusing the search function and they are already countering this by rate limiting the number of requests users can make. It would take months to try all phone numbers according to Facebook. De Ceukelaire says his actual method only takes 30 minutes for a single account. The problem of being able to look up a person on Facebook via reverse phone number search was pointed out back in 2012. It didnt matter if the phone number was set to be visible by only me, and the only way to prevent it was by tweaking the privacy settings. Facebook made some changes, so that only a limited number of reverse lookups could come from a specific IP address; that happened after a security researcher looked up thousands of random phone numbers and harvested the strangers information. Yet a few years later, Tech Insider suggested using Facebook instead of Google when searching to identify unknown callers and texters. Even if the privacy settings are locked down, there is a chance of phone numbers being listed in really old and accessible posts. Without De Ceukelaire releasing the details of how he exploited Facebook to pull off this privacy leak, it is unclear if it is a new method. This is not the first-time Facebook has blown him off when he reported a security flaw. Facebook gave him the same feature not flaw reply before, since De Ceukelaire is the same guy who explained that links sent privately through Messenger can be read by anyone. By anyone, he meant any Facebook developers or anyone making the right API call could then spy on private links shared via Facebook Messenger. De Ceukelaire went public with that information in June 2016 after Facebook security told him it was a publicly-documented and intentional behavior. Later however, after the issue gained some unfavorable press, Facebook decided to fix the problem. At any rate, you should check your privacy settings on Facebook to see if you have your phone number listed and if you allow Everyone, Friends of friends or just Friends to look you up via the phone number or email address that you handed over to Facebook. If De Ceukelaire goes public with his method, then it would be best to see what he advises to keep your phone number private. Heather Leavitt has had limited contact with her children during her incarcerations. She says her 17-year-old has yet to come visit her in prison. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff Heather Leavitt, who has two daughters, said during an interview at the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown last month that she wishes children of incarcerated parents faced less of a social stigma. More than 5 percent of the states children have an incarcerated parent. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff Related stories Heather Leavitt hopes to one day look in the mirror and recognize the woman staring back. The woman she once knew is hardly recognizable through the many chips and cracks in the glass, each signifying a moment of a life shattered by addiction. Leavitt is hopeful that when she is released from the womens prison in Goffstown in March, shell continue to pick up the pieces and start anew, with the promise of a more fulfilling and happier time ahead. She also prays that her daughters, ages 8 and 17, will be part of that journey with her. Her road to recovery hasnt been straightforward; its included setbacks and relapses. She often questions whether the support shell need upon her release from prison will be there this time around. The 41-year-old mother was most recently convicted of identity fraud in Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, and served just over a year in prison before she was paroled in December 2015. Upon her release, she spent time at a transitional home in Manchester and earned a living as a waitress. She was out for about nine months before returning to prison on a parole violation for drug use this past September. She went back on parole Nov. 28, but returned to prison the following day on a second violation. She is nervous, once again, to step beyond the prisons walls in less than two months, but she said she is committed to staying the course and righting past wrongs. Its super-important that people realize that they are more than their inmate ID number, and that no matter how many times we come back here, were still alive and that means we still have hope, Leavitt, of Manchester, said during an interview at the prison the week between Christmas and New Years. Leavitt said she counts her blessings each night before bed. She hasnt lost faith that her torn relationship with her oldest daughter will heal and that shell get to reunite with her youngest daughter on the outside. Both girls are living with their respective fathers while Leavitt is incarcerated for violating the conditions of her parole. They have never visited their mom during her stays in prison, but they have seen her during periods of release. The 17-year-old, a high school senior, has not visited by choice; while Leavitt continues to have limited contact with her 8-year-old as a consequence of what she called a negative co-parenting situation. When Leavitt was imprisoned in fall 2014, her oldest daughter was angry and initially refused to communicate with her mom. The teenager was embarrassed and scared; Leavitt said the girl feared loving her and then losing her not just to prison but to drugs. Through parenting classes offered by the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, Leavitt learned the best way she could respond was with patience and support. She better understands today that the teenager had a right to be angry, discouraged and afraid. Like so many other children of incarcerated parents, she never did anything wrong. Her mother did. She definitely has expectations of me, and I didnt always meet them, but those expectations came from a place of love and they came because I wasnt always an absent mom. They came because we have a bond that hurts her when there is a crack in it, she said. Leavitt still carries the guilt and shame of her mistakes. For her daughters, she fights to recover from the addiction to drugs and alcohol that landed her in a Goffstown prison cell more than once. She dreams of a better life for them, one that teaches them self-worth, respect and strength in the face of adversity. I grew up in a family where I blamed myself for a lot of the addiction problems, she said. So, I think its super-important to just let the children know that its not their fault, and the reasoning behind it is not because theyre not beautiful and theyre not the most amazing things youve ever done. Just weeks into her initial incarceration, Leavitt reached out to a case counselor at the prisons Family Connections Center, hopeful that the staff and other mothers would help her cope. She had lost her sense of direction and her parental identity. When I came in here, I wasnt sure I could call myself a mother, and they allowed me the opportunity to see that just wasnt true, she said through tears. That gave me the strength to recognize that no matter how I was feeling, my children still needed me. One of the centers goals is to foster strong family relationships between incarcerated parents and their children who are left behind. In many cases thats easier said than done. Some relationships can take a long time to mend. Others never recover. Leavitt still wants to be a stable presence in her daughters lives, even though she has been physically absent at times. If she doesnt hear from her girls, she still reaches out to them in letters and handmade greeting cards that focus on the positives in their lives. She also talks to her 17-year-old by phone and records books to CD for her youngest child. Not seeing her children while in prison is difficult, but Leavitt said she respects her teenagers decision not to cross that barrier. For her to not come in here and to not see me in here, makes it less real for her and, in that way, less harsh. Leavitt said she wishes children of incarcerated parents could be freed of that social shame, as theyre not alone in their situation. Unfortunately, a mother or fathers crime can stigmatize an entire family, she said. In the midst of a drug crisis marked by record deaths and the ugly consequences of addiction, its hard to find stories of hope, recovery and success, she said. To remove the stigma, peoples attitudes have to change, including those in the criminal justice system, where she said treatment should be a greater priority. You need people to reach into their own family and say, That very well could be my daughter, and what can we do to fix it? instead of pushing it aside like dirty laundry. Leavitt challenged those on the outside to look beyond the prison uniform and labels. She said mothers have it more difficult than fathers, because an incarcerated mother is viewed as failing her children if she steps outside her caretaker role. The difference in our lives could be a matter of five minutes with someone elses, she said. I think the people who arent touched by the chain-link fence and the wire, they dont take the time to think about how easy it could be for them to be on the other side. (Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.) Number 10, Downing Street. January 15, 2017, late evening. Prime Ministers study. Present: Theresa May, Prime Minister. Nick Timothy, Co-Chief of Staff. Katie Perrior, Director of Communications. Timothy: Prime Minister, Donald Trumps given his first interview to a British paper. Its tomorrows Times. The journalist isMichael Gove. May (long pause): I see. Timothy: Two main points of substance. On Brexit, Trump says that were gonna work very hard to get [a trade deal] done quickly and done properly. On NATO, Gove doesnt seem to have asked him whether the Trump presidency will honour Americas commitments under Article 5. He does say that NATO is very important to him. (Pause.) If the interview is any guide, Trumps hostility to the EU was sparked by difficulties he encountered when seeking to expand a property he owns in Ireland. May (pause): Right. Timothy: Its a joint interview with Bild. I dont think the Germans will like it. Trump says: You look at the European Union and its Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany. Thats why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out. Well, hes got a point there. May: Anything about Steele? Timothy: Yes, he says that guy is somebody that you should look at. Katie Perrior: That Gove should interview? Timothy: No, Trump seems to mean that we should look at the Government, that is. He says that when I just heard [the allegations] I ripped up the matIf I did that in a hotel itd be the biggest thing. Theyd have me on the front page of the New York Post, right? And the other thing, I cant even, I dont even want to shake hands with people now I hear about this stuff. Perrior (to May): If shaking hands upsets him, you could always nod when you meet. You know, gravely Japanese-style. May: Anything else? Timothy: Yes. He seems to have shown Gove your letter. May: What? Timothy: Your letter. You know, you wrote saying that you hoped that he would manage to find some time to pause and spend time with your family over the holiday season, and sending him Churchills Christmas Address to the American people of 1941. May: He showed my letter to Michael? Timothy: Well, he quotes Trump as saying I will be meeting with [Theresa May] in fact if you want you can see the letter, wherever the letter is, she just sent it. And the top part of the letter is shown in the Times. I suppose Gove must have taken a photo or a copy. Trump says that you are requesting a meeting and well have a meeting right after I get into the White House andwere gonna get something done very quickly. May: Right. Anything else? Timothy: Yes. Gove claims that Trump may cut off ties with Merkel. Despite all of Mr Trumps expressions of admiration for Mr Putin and Mrs Merkel, he revealed that he was prepared to cut ties with both: Well, I start off trusting both but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all. He says her immigration policy is a catastrophic mistake. May: Well, at least he doesnt say that hell cut ties with me. Timothy: No, and he doesnt repeat his call for Farage to be our Ambassador to Washington, either. Though he does ask How is our Nigel doing? and says hes a great guy. May: We must be thankful for small mercies. Sounds helpful on the whole. (Pause.) Did Michael give the Whips notice of this, by the way? Perrior: I spoke to him earlier: he said that hed (studies notes) had a word in advance with Cronus. May: What? Perrior: Cronus, Prime Minister. The Chief Whips pet tarantula. Timothy: You might want to see Gove, Prime Minister. Have him in for a cup of coffee. Gove says that they chatted, on and off the record, for an hour in his corner office in Trump Tower, surrounded by mementoes of his past successes, commercial and political. Theyre bound to have had a separate chatpolitician to politician. Might be worthing seeing what Gove has to say. (Coughs.) Presumably the fact that you, er, dispensed with his services had been drawn to Trumps attentions. May: It had occurred to me. One last point. Timothy: Yes? May: Well, I meanits a newspaper interview. Its a scoop. And its the Times not the Telegraph. Someone we all know has missed out. Katie, would you mind getting the Foreign Secretary on the line? Dr Gerard Lyons is the Chief Economic Advisor to Policy Exchange and has co-authored Clean Brexit with Daily Telegraph economics commentator Liam Halligan. The UK should leave the single market and the customs union and be prepared to trade under the most favoured nation status of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These are some of the clear messages from a report I have just written with the leading economics commentator Liam Halligan and published with Policy Exchange. The report is endorsed by Lord Lawson and Lord Owen, giving cross-party support to the idea of a Clean Brexit. A key part of our analysis is the opportunity presented by Britains future as an independent member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is likely that we will hear a lot more mention of this global body as membership of it becomes central to our post-Brexit life. The WTO operates a system of trade rules, and provides a Geneva-based forum in which governments negotiate trade agreements and settle trade disputes. It is central to global trade, with 164 countries as members and another 22 in the process of joining. The UK is currently represented at the WTO as part of the EU. As we point out in our report, once we leave the EU we can regain our independent WTO seat. During the referendum campaign Robert Azevedo, Director of the WTO, warned that in such circumstances the UK would face tortuous negotiations with WTO members, as effectively we would have to accede to membership. Following the referendum result, though, Azevedo changed his tone, acknowledging that the UK would remain a member in our own right. The question, then, is on what terms, and what this would mean? Each WTO member has its own tariff schedules that determine the basis of its trade. WTO rules allow us to trade freely and seek free trade agreements (FTAs) with like-minded countries across the world. The UK intends to be at the forefront of a free trade agenda and, as we already trade extensively outside the EU, is starting from a strong position. One worry often expressed is that the UK would not be able to operate as a member of the WTO without its own schedules, and that all other WTO members would have to agree to them. But as long as no other country is worse off than now (with us as an EU member), they cannot complain about our new schedules. And any complaints need not interrupt our trading relationships these are commonplace at the WTO. The EU has had 97 dispute cases as complainant, 83 as respondent and 159 as a third party, so we should not unduly worry about them, even though we do not intend to trigger them. In formal terms, our schedules must maintain a general level of reciprocal and mutually advantageous concessions not less favourable. This means we cannot be more protectionist than the EU is now. That is unlikely anyway. The EUs Common External Tariffs increase the price of non-EU imports significantly some estimates suggest that food is 17 per cent more expensive than it would be outside the single market. Agriculture is a particularly sensitive area where we must ensure tariff rate quotas do not cause such a problem that other countries feel worse off, but where there are also huge opportunities. The other principle is that members of the WTO can agree to accord Most-Favoured Nation status to each other, and can then be charged the normal non-discriminatory tariff on imports. The exceptions to this include when you are in a customs union or do a trade deal with a country, in which case you can treat each other better. Some countries that trade freely under WTO rules may have specific bilateral arrangements in place to facilitate trade in some sectors. All this reinforces the importance of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) like quotas and, outside the EU, Britain will be well-placed to play a leading role in NTB reduction, key for future trade in services. Once we are outside the customs union and operating under WTO rules, we will need to invest more in our port facilities and our customs staff. Some worry it will take days to clear customs outside the EU. This risk is misplaced. Increasingly, customs and its related processes are electronic and thus scalable, able to handle larger volumes. The average dwell time of consignments of non-EU goods entering via French ports, for instance, is less than six minutes. The US and Canada are not in a customs union, yet more goods cross the US/Canadian border each year than do the EUs external border with no delays. Providing we get the bodies that check standards for the EU market accredited here in the UK before we leave, the vast majority of UK-EU customs clearance once we are outside can be done electronically, as happens within the North American Free Trade Area. Trading under WTO rules, then, while the most straightforward option, still requires preparations: retaking our WTO seat and setting tariff schedules, while enhancing the physical and technical infrastructure enabling UK customs checks. The Government also needs to put in place transitional arrangements for specific sectors like agriculture, and ensure that we maintain uniform regulatory standards and conform with technical standards agreed in existing agreements. But once those processes are in place and once we resume our WTO seat, there are huge opportunities for the UK. Leaving the customs union will allow us to position ourselves to increase trade flows with the rest of the world and we hope that the Prime Minister will outline tomorrow that it will be relatively easy and beneficial for the UK to trade under WTO rules. Megaport announced a new route connecting Hong Kong to Los Angeles and a secondary path from Singapore to Hong Kong to meet high customer demand. As with all Megaport enabled infrastructure, consumption will be based on cloud computing models, including month-to-month services. The connectivity provides enterprise customers with access trans-pacific capacity via Megaports global Software Defined Network, enabling customers to link services including cloud connections, Point to Points, and remote peering between Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.S., without requiring a physical presence in all locations. Customers can directly connect to Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft Azure, and more cloud service providers through Megaport partnerships. This link represents a great step forward for Megaport from a growth standpoint as we not only are enabling a secondary path between Singapore to Hong Kong to keep up with demand, but are also linking two of our key markets, said Denver Maddux, CEO, Megaport. Through this new route, we are able to bring together Megaports backbone in Asia and our terrestrial network in North America, therein providing a more immersive network and a richer fabric through the increased number of customers, partners, and providers on the combined footprint. In January, Megaport enabled transatlantic capacity for customers through a partnership with Aqua Comms Limited, the owner/operator of AE Connect, a 13TB undersea cable connecting New York, Dublin, and London. http://www.megaport.com What does the future of Internet Exchange points look like? Software will bring new capabilities. SUBSCRIBE Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates straight in your inbox. IROQUOIS, Ontario Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry (SD&G) Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers with the assistance of SD&G OPP Crime Unit members continue an investigation into a reported armed robbery at a business in the Village of Iroquois, South Dundas Township. On January 13, 2017 at approximately 10:55pm, officers, with the assistance of OPP Emergency Response Team (ERT) and OPP K-9 members responded to a report of an armed robbery at a business (Macs Milk) on Plaza Drive in the Village of Iroquois, South Dundas Township. Investigation indicated that an adult male and female entered the store when the male brandished a suspected firearm at a female employee. No injuries resulted. The suspects fled west of the location with a quantity of cash, lottery tickets and cigarettes. A silver Volkswagen vehicle is possibly involved. They are described as follows; Male: white, approximately 25 years, 55, slim build wearing a black toque and black t-shirt with a logo. Female: white, approximately 25 years, 53, heavy build, brown hair wearing a dark hat and bandana. Close According to the World Health Organization, in 2015, 10.4 million contracted tuberculosis and 1.8 million died from the disease. These alarming statistics coupled with the rise of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis are concerning health professionals. In the latest update regarding tuberculosis, scientists have found success in clinical trials for a possible new vaccine against multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Currently, the vaccine used for tuberculosis (TB) was first used in 1921. Although the medication was able to treat TB, its side effects included the cause of TB for immunocompromised people. Adding the problem of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis to the mix, scientists are tackling the growing concern for a new vaccine to fight TB. Bio-researchers from New Zealand have come up with a TB vaccine using so-called biobeads. These biobeads are natural polyesters that non-TB bacteria assemble into tiny spheres. The bio-researchers engineered these biobeads to carry antigens from a TB bacterium and are introduced to the immune system. By introducing the biobeads to the immune system, the bio-researchers hope to induce cell-mediated immune responses. The team conducted their research regarding the effectivity of biobeads as TB vaccines in TB-infected mice. The researchers used biobeads assembled by E. Coli bacteria attached with TB antigens. They observed that along with the TB antigens, the E. coli-assembled biobeads also produced E. coli proteins on the surface of the biobeads. The researchers, whose study is published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, hypothesized that if they use >mycobacteria<, tuberculosis-causing bacteria, to assemble biobeads, the surface would possible contain mycobacteria antigens and other antigens against TB. These then would potentially induce protective immunity and boost the immune response to the vaccine. In order to prevent vaccine-caused tuberculosis, the bio-researchers used another strain of mycobacteria, M. smegmatis, to assemble the biobeads. M. smegmatis is a bacterium that would not cause tuberculosis but can produce antigens that will fight TB. A new cloning technique was developed to replicate enzymes responsible to the assembly of biobeads in mycobacteria. According to Dr. Alex Heiser, principal investigator of the study, the mycobacteria biobeads injected in TB-infected mice was able to successfully kill and break the TB bacteria and purified the biobeads from TB. The use of the biobeads is more natural, biodegradable, and safer compared to other TB vaccines and drugs. With the success of the mycobacteria biobeads, the researchers are looking into the improvement of the biobeads as a possible new vaccine against multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Further studies are needed to improve the production and purification of the biobeads as vaccines. Using biobeads would also be cost-effective and highly-safe to use. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Close According to a 2015 survey, more than 90,000 college students in the US are suffering from depression. More and more college students are reported to be depressed and are seeking help from campus health services. However, as the number of depressed college students increases, there are fewer sources that provide primary care for the students. With this alarming issue, researchers from Michigan State University are looking into the use of mobile technology in combating depression in college students. They are developing an app called iSee, which combines the uses of mobile technology and wearable technology to identify and treat mental illnesses like depression. According to the researchers, once the iSee program is deployed, college students are required to wear a smart watch and carry a smartphone at all times. These mobile devices are equipped with GPS sensors that monitor where the college students are, a light sensor to monitor light levels around the students, and an accelerometer to monitor physical activities of the student. Frequency and interaction of the college students with their smartphones are also monitored. Data collected from these mobile devices help indicate the mental well-being of the student. Constant monitoring and analysis of the date by a computer program also helps identify the severity of the mental illness of the college students. It also helps to accurately and completely diagnose the mental state of the students that cannot be observed by clinicians or are inaccurately shared by the students themselves. The use of mobile technology in combating depression would reach more college students who are currently suffering depression or do not know they are depressed. In addition, with the recent cuts in budget affecting campus health services, overworked professional care providers would be able to monitor students whenever and wherever. In addition, due to the constant monitoring of the students, the program used to analyze their data can give appropriate in-moment therapies. These in-moment therapies give students reminders or suggestions to possible activities that will get them out of their funk. The researchers are highly positive that with the use of mobile technology and the eventual success of iSee, college students would become healthier and stay healthy throughout their duration in college. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Close In the advent of technological advancement, especially in the field of medicine, diagnoses have become easier and faster. Now, wearable sensors can help diagnose Lyme disease, before it's too late. In a study published in the journal PLOS Biology, scientists at Stanford University developed a wearable sensor that can detect if a person is falling ill, simply by monitoring one's vital signs. One of the diseases that can be detected by this smart watch is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection caused by infected black-legged ticks. The smart watch gave a Stanford University professor an early warning that he was getting sick before he ever felt any symptoms of Lyme disease, KQED reports. Michael Snyder, a geneticist, never had the characteristic bulls-eye rash but the smart watch had charted the changes in his heart rate and oxygen rash. Later, he developed a fever, hinting a possible infection. Snyder and his colleagues are now starting to find out and tracking the everyday lives of about 60 volunteers wearing the sensors that monitor not just their activities but also their general health. "The information collected could aid your physician, although we can expect some initial challenges in how to integrate the data into clinical practice," said Snyder as reported by Science Daily. This sensory could pave the way to the early diagnosis of disease and to implement the needed treatment options before it could get worse. How Serious Is Lyme Disease? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme disease is caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which is usually transmitted to humans through the bite of infected black-legged ticks. Symptoms of this infection include a headache, fatigue, fever and a characteristic skin rash called erythema migrans. If this disease is not detected right away and left untreated, the infection could spread to the joints, heart and nervous system. One of the complications of this bacterial infection is Lyme carditis. When the bacteria enters the tissues of the heart and can interfere with the normal movement of electrical signs from the heart's chambers. As a result, this could lead to a condition called "heart block", which can be mild, moderate or severe. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Close Sunbed users have 32 percent increase risk of getting diagnosed with melanoma compared to non-users, a new study reveals. Melanoma is considered as the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Since 2014, incidence of rate of melanoma has never been higher. In Norway, there are 2,000 cases of the skin cancer every year, while Ireland has 900 new cases. Around 10,130 Americans die due to melanoma every year. UV-emitting tanning devices, like sunbeds, are classified as carcinogenic to humans in 2009 by World Health Organization. However, they are still popular among young women in western countries. The study, conducted by University of Oslo, Faculty of Medicine, followed 141,000 Norwegian women in their sunbed usage for 14 years in average. In addition to their findings that 32 percent have increased risk, women who use the tanning device before the age of 30 were diagnosed to have melanoma two years earlier than the rest. Health experts consider the result of the study significant as modern sunbeds emit six times more UVA and twice UVB than the sun. The association of sunbed and melanoma remained significant even after controlling age, ambient UV of residence, birth-cohort, hair and skin color. Cumulative number of sunburns and sunbathing vacations were also considered. Ireland considers it illegal for 18 years old and below to use a sunbed. The Sunbeds Regulation Act 2010 does not allow minors to use a sunbed at the business premises like beauty salons, leisure facility, gyms and hotels. Owners of sunbed business are not even allowed to offer usage of sunbed to this young age group. They are also not allowed to go inside the premises unless they work as employees. Melanoma is almost always curable when diagnosed and treated early. Warning signs of melanoma are asymmetry of mole, uneven border, variety of colors, larger diameter and other changes in the mole such as bleeding, itching and crusting. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Close Tuberculosis is still an epidemic that affects many countries across the globe. Now, a team of scientists is working on a new TB vaccine that has shown promise in mice. If it succeeds, it will be the first new TB vaccine in a century to battle drug-resistance. With the rise of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis over the past years, treating the disease has become more difficult. A successful vaccine could benefit many people especially those living in low-and-middle-income countries, especially that the disease incurs a large annual death toll today. The researches, who published the study in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, developed the vaccine that uses "biobeads" to place antigens from the tuberculosis bacterium into the body's own immune system. Biobeads, which are natural polyesters that non-tuberculosis bacteria, like Escherichia coli, assemble into tiny spheres. The team has been able to engineer the biobeads to show antigens from tuberculosis bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis or Mycobacterium bovis. In a previous study, the researchers found that mycobacterial antigens displayed on the biobeads could trigger a cell-mediated immune response in mice. New TB Vaccine Shows Promise The researchers observed that along with the tuberculosis antigens, E. coli proteins were attached to the surfaces of the biobeads. "From these observations, we developed the hypothesis that these proteins could also function as antigens," Axel Heiser, Senior Scientist, AgResearch Ltd., said in a press release by the American Society for Microbiology. "If produced in Mycobacteria instead of E. coli, such biobeads should carry mycobacterial antigens on their surface, including many as yet undiscovered antigens which would have the potential to induce protective immunity," he added. However, unlike E.coli, Mycobacteria lack the enzymes needed to make biobeads. Hence, the team developed new cloning techniques that enabled expression of the enzymes in M. smegmatis, a type of mycobacterium that do not cause the infection. Using this bacteria would prevent the vaccine causing a TB infection. When the researchers used the biobeads to vaccinate mice, they found cell-mediated immunity with the potential to be protected against TB. This new vaccine, if successful, could pave the way for protection against the potent pathogen. At present, the vaccine available for TB, Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), was created in 1921 and may cause infection in people with immunodeficiency. In 2015, about 10.4 million people contracted TB and 1.8 million people died across the globe. Nearly half a million of the new cases diagnosed were multi-drug resistant. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare A lot has happened since my last blog post more than seven months ago. In the fall I made several trips - in October to Wyoming for the annual meeting of ... 3 years ago The Port of Galveston announced that it prevailed in an appeal decided by the U. S. Federal Maritime Commission. Private parking lot operators must now pay for shuttle bus access to the port and taxis must have an annual permit to perform port drop offs and pickups as port parking revenue continues to come into focus for most North American U.S. homeports. The appeal followed a lawsuit filed against the Port by three private parking lot operators - Santa Fe Discount Cruise Parking, known as "EZ Cruise," Lighthouse Parking, and 81st Dolphin Parking. The private parking lot companies brought a law suit against the Port of Galveston and an affiliate, the Galveston Port Facilities Corporation (or GPFC), contesting fees charged to drop off and pick up cruise passengers and luggage at the Galveston Island Cruise Terminals, according to a statement. The case was filed with the United States Federal Maritime Commission in Washington, D.C., which has jurisdiction over claims asserted under the Federal Shipping Act of 1984. In a December 2015 Initial Decision, Chief Administrative Law Judge Clay C. Guthridge ruled that all of the claims asserted by these private parking lots were unsubstantiated and unsupported by the evidence presented. Judge Guthridge dismissed all of their claims "with prejudice" - which means that they may not be brought up again. The private parking lot companies appealed that ruling to the full Commission. In a unanimous decision issued on January 13, 2017, the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission affirmed Judge Guthridge's rulings in full. With these rulings in hand, the Port of Galveston and GPFC will file a motion to recover attorneys fees incurred in this matter, along with a motion to disburse money held in a Federal District Court Registry while the litigation was pending, under an Interim Order previously entered. The Port will also ask to terminate that Order so that these companies will pay access fees directly to the Port on a monthly basis, as others paying the fees are currently required to do. The Port of Galveston and GPFC were represented by a team of attorneys from McLeod, Alexander, and Powel & Apffel, led by Tony Brown, with significant assistance from Port staff. Today Americans observe a U.S. federal holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around the time of Kings birthday, January 15. Here are five facts you should know about MLK: 1. Kings literary and rhetorical masterpiece was his 1963 open letter The Negro Is Your Brother, better known as the Letter From Birmingham Jail. The letter, written while King was being held for a protest in the city, was a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen titled A Call for Unity. An editor at the New York Times Magazine, Harvey Shapiro, asked King to write his letter for publication in the Magazine, though the Times chose not to publish it. 2. In 1964, King became the second African American and the third black man to win the Nobel Peace Prize. 3. A decade before he was assassinated, King was nearly stabbed to death in Harlem when a mentally ill African-American woman who believed he was conspiring against her with communists, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. He underwent emergency surgery, and remained hospitalized for several weeks but made a full recovery. The doctor who performed the operation said, Had Dr. King sneezed or coughed the weapon would have penetrated the aorta. . . . He was just a sneeze away from death 4. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by the #277 man on the FBIs Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 1967, James Earl Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery. After being convicted for the murder of King Ray was sentenced to 99 years in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. In 1977, Ray became the #351 on the FBIs Most Wanted Fugitives list after he and six other convicts escaped from the prison. He was recaptured three days later and given another year in prison, bringing his sentence to 100 years. 5. The campaign for a federal holiday in Kings honor began soon after his assassination in 1968, but Martin Luther King, Jr. Day did not become a U.S federal holiday until Ronald Reagan begrudgingly signed the holiday into law in 1983. (Reagan was concerned that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive.) Only two other persons have U.S. national holidays honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus. Today is the observance of the birthday of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and schools, courts and most government offices are closed. Metro North Railroad is running trains on its Saturday schedule today, with off-peak fares in effect all day. For a complete timetable, click here. Kings actual birthday was on Sunday, but federal law designates the Monday closest to the actual date for the observance of most holidays, including this one. King spent the summer of 1944, when he was 15, working on a Simsbury tobacco farm to earn money for his family. His experiences in Connecticut, contrasted with the restrictive South where he lived in Atlanta, made a lasting impression on him, according to ConnecticutHistory.org For more on Kings life and his significant impact on race relations and civil rights in America, go here. The University of Bridgeport is holding A Day of Service today in honor of King. Students will meet at the Cox Student Center lobby and be assigned to community service projects throughout the city and on campus. Here are some events happening around Fairfield County, as compiled by the website Mommy Poppins. In Greenwich, the Bruce Museum will host a Family Day celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with activities and African-American history programs. In Norwalk, Stepping Stones will offer a Peace Doves workshop, allowing participants to make paper doves using their own handprints. There will also be a screening of Kings I Have A Dream speech in Washington, D.C. The Fairfield Museum and History Center invites children to bring a photo or image of their heroes to contribute to a portrait of people whove made a difference. The event for children aged 3 to 13 begins at 11 a.m. BRIDGEPORT Seven years after police said Eric Brown wounded a Shelton man outside a barbershop during a robbery, he faces sentencing for manslaughter in the victims death. On Friday, the 28-year-old Brown pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin to first-degree manslaughter with a firearm and first-degree robbery. Brown faces a 10-year prison term when he is sentenced March 31. On Dec. 30, 2009, Dan Rauso, 27, had just finished getting a haircut at an East Main Street barbershop. He walked out of the shop to be confronted by Brown and Tyrone Grant, one of whom pointed a gun at Rauso and demanded his money, police said. During the confrontation, police said Rauso was shot once behind his right hip. By the time Rauso was rushed to surgery at Bridgeport Hospital, police said he had lost a significant amount of blood. Although Rauso survived the gunshot wound, he was left a quadriplegic. Senior Assistant States Attorney Colleen Zingaro said Rausos health continued to decline, and he died on Dec. 9, 2015. The autopsy showed he died as a result of complications from the shooting, Zingaro said. Charges were then updated against Brown, who police said they believe was the shooter. Brown pleaded guilty as his trial was set to begin before a six-member jury. Police arrested the 28-year-old Grant in June 2013, and Brown in December 2014. Both men were charged with first-degree assault and robbery. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate HARTFORD Two veteran law enforcement officers who endured threats and intimidation in the workplace were presented with leadership awards Monday in memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During a 31st annual ceremony that included music, singing and calls for unity by some of Connecticuts top elected officials, retired Sgt. JoeAnn Meekins of the Bridgeport Police Department, and Bobby Ramos, whose 28 years of service in the Stratford Police Department led to increased minority hirings, were given the annual Let Freedom Ring awards by the states Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission. Meekins, wife of retired Bridgeport Police Officer Ted Meekins, was already a 20-year veteran of the department when in 2008, a hangman-style noose was discovered under her police cruiser. In response, the General Assembly approved a law that year that made such attempts at intimidation a crime. Meekins thanked Bridgeport Police Chief Armando Perez, who attended the event, for his support. And she recalled that Kings civil rights campaign, which began more than 50 years ago, helped changed the country. When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke the words I have a dream, he opened a dialogue encouraging us to live in harmony with one another, Meekins said. His vision was a powerful one and he followed that vision with dedication and faith. Ramos, a community activist and charity fundraiser, founded the Stratford Guardians minority police group and led the public effort to further integrate the town Police Department, which led to physical threats against him. On Monday, he placed a photo of his parents in front of him at the podium. My mother always told me to make sure people knew I was the most-decorated cop in Stratford history, said Ramos, who attended elementary school with Perez said. Its not about ego, but from a mothers perspective, she said You let people know, because it shows that I raised you right. The nearly two-hour ceremony, attended by about 150 in the north lobby of the Capitol, included praise of President Barack Obamas legacy, as well as the annual tolling of the replica of the Liberty Bell in the nearby south lobby. The third award recipient was Patricia J. Wrice, a human services and community organizer in Hartford. Elected officials recalled Kings nonviolent message and his ability to bring people together. King was shot dead by an assassin on April 4, 1968. He was so much more than a speech, I have a dream, Ramos said. He was so much more than a face on a stamp. He was a real man. He was a radical brother who had an opinion, who spoke truth to power. kdixon@ctpost.com; Twitter: @KenDixonCT This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When federal justice officials in Connecticut saw a sharp increase in overdose deaths in late 2015, they knew they needed to be more aggressive. There was a dramatic increase, and we felt like we needed a better strategy to deal with this, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Spector, deputy chief of the Justice Departments Violent Crimes and Narcotics Unit. We started putting out calls to see who could help us, and everyone stepped up very quickly. People felt strongly about wanting to help. The task force he put together in January 2016 joins federal, state and local authorities in tracking down the drug dealers responsible for overdose deaths in the state. Since the launch one year ago, more than 50 dealers have been arrested. If you sold drugs two years ago to someone who died, you probably wouldnt have found yourself in federal court, Spector said. But now you can expect to get charged with a federal felony, and the judges are taking these cases very seriously. Danbury States Attorney Stephen Sedensky welcomed the work of the task force. We have high hopes for the program for holding people accountable for these deaths, Sedensky said. Final figures for 2016 are incomplete, but the state Medical Examiners Office projected in September that nearly 900 people would die of overdoses before the year ended, well over twice the 357 overdose deaths reported in 2012. In the past, Spector said, overdose deaths were often treated as medical calls by emergency responders, rather than as crimes from which evidence needed to be collected. We worked with the state attorneys in Connecticut to put together a protocol of how these scenes should be handled, and distributed that protocol to all of the local police departments in the state, Spector said. Its made a huge difference for us making sure the evidence is preserved. Among the accused dealers arrested by the task force are several in the Danbury area, including Bethel resident Paul Mignani, who police say provided heroin to two local women who died after overdoses. According to court documents, Mignani sold depressants, opioids and amphetamines to a drug-dependent 25-year-old before her death in mid-December. Earlier in the year, a 54-year-old woman had succumbed to a fatal mix of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine that police say Mignani provided. Mignani faces up to 20 years in prison on federal drug charges in the two cases. He also faces state charges. Task force investigators collect a range of evidence in overdose cases, from drugs left at the scene to the contents of the victims cellphone. Sometimes the work requires special expertise. The task force has found an invaluable resource, for example, in Monroe Police Detective Michael Chaves, an expert at unlocking phones and extracting potential evidence. Chaves, who studied computer engineering before becoming a police officer, said he knew early on the importance digital devices would have in investigations. He immersed himself in digital forensics and became one of the few officers in the state with the software and equipment needed to do the work. I can typically crack a phone within 30 to 90 minutes, Chaves said. It helps the task force to act more quickly, and I believe its paying dividends. While the enforcement arm of the task force is busy taking drug dealers off the streets, others work on treatment and prevention programs. Often witnesses and other people we come across while investigating these crimes are addicts themselves, and we try to get them the treatment they need, Spector said. Many times its the lower-level defendants themselves. Task force members also view themselves as educators. They visit high schools throughout the state, showing a documentary film about opiate addiction, Chasing the Dragon, which was created by the FBI and DEA. Theyve already spoken to more than 5,000 students, Spector said. Often we look for people in that community who have been impacted by drug use, Spector said. Its sad, but we usually dont have any problems finding people. Our goal is to visit every high school in the state by the end of the year. Its a bold goal, but something has to be done, he said. dperrefort@newstimes.com BRIDGEPORT Martin Luther King Jr. Day has always been a day of hope and a time to remember the struggles of the civil rights era. But as Americans come together to celebrate, an undercurrent of fear is evident. Many civil rights leaders in the state said they fear President-elect Donald Trump will retreat from enforcement of civil rights laws, and worry he has garnered the support of some who seem indifferent or hostile to black Americans. As hopeful, optimistic, persevering and all-suffering as we, the black community are, we too, just as most Americans of all ethnicities, tremble at the instability and uncertainty inherent in the coming days, said Carolyn Vermont, a former chairwoman of the Bridgeport chapter of the NAACP. The Cabinet appointments, congressional hearings and the chaotic press conference leave us all dumbfounded and troubled to our core at the disastrous maelstrom gathering before our very eyes. Another local activist agreed. This election showed us that you can underestimate the power of white supremacists in this country, said Craig Kelly, who, like Vermont, led the Bridgeport NAACP chapter years ago. Now white people, even if they dont agree with that group, still benefit from it just by virtue of who they are. So its important that they speak out against it. Kelly was a member of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and helped out with its free breakfast program. With Donald Trump and his attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions, were going back in time, Kelly said. We need to come together and move forward to stop this train wreck. More Information MLK Day events Bridgeport: Mount Aery Baptist Church, 73 Frank Street, will host the 39th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Black Pride service, which this year will feature Shakeema North of the historic Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. The event, which begins at 8:30 a.m., will feature the Mount Aery Praise Team and the Supreme Beauties Dance Team. Bridgeport: The 32nd annual Commemorative March and Memorial Service will step off at noon at the corner of Stratford Avenue and Balwin Street on the East End. The march will proceed east on Stratford Avenue and turn south onto Logan Street. It will end at the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church where the Rev. Frederick "Jerry" Streets will speak after a free lunch. The speech will begin at about 1 p.m. New Haven: The Peabody Museum of Natural History is planning a series of activities and performances Monday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his efforts to ensure environmental and social justice among all people. Performances are scheduled to take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday. Hartford: The Wadsworth Atheneum on Monday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. will present its Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Day: "What's Your Story?" This event will have family-friendly music by the Funky Dawgz Brass Band and students from the Charter Oak Cultural Center, hands-on art activities and a theatrical performance about the Underground Railroad. In partnership with The Amistad Center for Art & Culture. Free. King's speeches in Bridgeport: March 1961, University of Bridgeport June 1961, University of Bridgeport January 1962, Central High School March 1964, Klein Memorial Auditorium March 1966, Klein Memorial Auditorium See More Collapse Remembering King Many in the region remember or were part of the civil rights movement King helped lead. The Rev. Frederick Jerry Streets said he remembers as a teenager hearing King speak at the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. Streets said if King had lived he would have built a larger coalition around poverty. Im a part of the last generation to have lived under legal segregation. But the de facto segregation is still with us. Streets used to be the pastor at Mount Aery Baptist Church on Frank Street, where a well-attended event celebration of Martin Luther Kings birthday, now in its 39th year, will take place beginning at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Sonny Gardner, 66, of Bridgeport, who was in the trenches of the civil rights movement, said that inner-city schoolchildren could be in for a rude awakening. To many of them in the younger grades, (outgoing President Barack Obama) was the only president theyve ever known, he said. And theyve always seen the president in a positive light. But now, well have Trump and with that, theyll likely hear some not-so-nice things about the White House from their parents and other adults. Possible silver lining Beverly Carswell, at attorney who served as chairwoman of the Bridgeport chapter of the NAACP in the early 1980s, said some good might come from a Trump administration. The civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s was a great time to be alive. There was so much positive energy then, she said. We lost a lot of that, but maybe with Trump, well get it back. She recalled that her stepfather had been a driver for Malcolm X, and drove him the University of Bridgeport when he spoke there on Nov. 21, 1963, a day before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Donald Trump has come to power because a lot of people believe that blacks are lesser than us, Kelly said. But youre going down the slippery slope there we cant forget that the Holocaust came out of the same thought process. Once you dehumanize a group of people, you can do whatever you want to them. Indeed, despite the possible silver lining Carswell spoke of, some still have strong concerns about the future of race relations in this country. That includes Trumbull Democratic Town Committee Chairman Tom Kelly, who was a protester at Trumps Aug. 13 rally at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. While at that event, he said, he saw four people holding a sign that read Diversity = White Genocide. Many others were seen holding Confederate battle flags. I never thought that in Fairfield, just five minutes from where I live, that I would see a sign like that. It reminds me that this is something that we cant let rest, Kelly said. Staff writer Aaron Johnson contributed to this story. jburgeson@ctpost.com Thomas Jefferson wanted what he considered to be his three greatest achievements to be listed on his tombstone. The inscription, as he stipulated, reads Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. Today we celebrate the 231th anniversary of one of those great creations: the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Each year, the President declares January 16th to be Religious Freedom Day, and calls upon Americans to observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship. One way to honor the day is to reflect on these ten quotes about religious liberty that were expressed by some of our countrys greatest leaders: James Madison, essay on Property: Conscience is the most sacred of all property. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17: The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men: There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage. John Adams, Letter to Benjamin Rush: Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion. James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance: Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only be reason and convection, not by force or violence. The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man: and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Miller I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. John Leland, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable Every man must give an account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in that way that he can best reconcile to his conscience . . . . It would be sinful for a man to surrender that to man which is to be kept sacred for God. George Washington, Letter to Benedict Arnold While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the conscience of others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable. Ronald Reagan, Remarks at Conference on Religious Liberty When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself. Ronald Reagan, Address to Alabama State Legislature The cult leader, convicted of sexually assaulting girls among his followers, was reportedly attacked in the Rush City prison.Minneapolis Star TribuneBy Paul Walsh Star TribuneJANUARY 15, 2017The attorney for Victor Barnard, the religious cult figure serving a long sentence for sexually molesting girls who were among his followers, said Sunday that state prison officials have refused to reveal details about his client reportedly being assaulted in prison.David Risk said he was contacted by a member of the news media and told that Barnard, 55, was assaulted recently in prison in Rush City.Risk said he reached the state Department of Corrections' emergency contact for Barnard and other corrections officials and learned little."Officially, they tell me there is an investigation pending," Risk said. "They said they can't tell me anything about it in regards to Victor and the incident."Risk said prison officials wouldn't even say whether the investigation is criminal in nature.The attorney said he's had no contact with Barnard since the incident occurred.A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections confirmed Sunday that an assault occurred and is being investigated, but she declined to say it involved Barnard.The news about Barnard being assaulted was reported Friday by KMSP-TV, Channel 9. It said the assault last Sunday on Barnard was violent enough to put him in a hospital intensive care unit but was not considered life-threatening.Barnard, who had pleaded guilty to two counts of felony sexual assault involving young girls while he led the cloistered River Road Fellowship community in east-central Minnesota, was sentenced in late October to 30 years in prison.While the allegations involving Barnard surfaced years ago, charges weren't filed until the spring of 2014. Authorities caught up with Barnard nearly a year later, when he was found in Brazil. He was extradited to the United States in June 2016.Barnard left Pine County in the late 2000s amid rumors of sexual impropriety and financial bankruptcy. His group splintered and he and dozens of others moved to Washington state, where they set up businesses.After charges were filed, he landed on the U.S. Marshals Service's most-wanted list, and authorities tracked him to a beachside resort town in Brazil. Still Standing: Four the Moments legacy honoured at Nova Scotia Music Week When a quartet of Halifax women began singing together a cappella in the name of social justice in 1982, there was little in the way of a music industry at play in Atlantic Canada. And even if there had been, its likely that Four the Moment would ... County-specific poll may foretell whether Pa. is going blue or red My overwhelming priority since becoming an MP has been to fight for the interests of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent a wonderful city with a rich and proud history. 'I am proud to represent Stoke-on-Trent and optimistic about the future of this great city. So wrote Tristram Hunt in December 2015. My overwhelming priority since becoming an MP has been to fight for the interests of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent a wonderful city with a rich and proud history. 'I am proud to represent Stoke-on-Trent and optimistic about the future of this great city. So wrote Tristram Hunt in December 2015 Now hes quit as MP for the Potteries to take the job of running the V&A Museum with a salary of around 145,000. What price hypocrisy? ...................................................................................................................................... One-time Trotskyite Tariq Ali has written a new biography. He describes his subject as a misunderstood leader and says his book raises important questions related to political representation and the popular institutions necessary to challenge capitalism today. Not a portrait of Jeremy Corbyn, but of another man who Ali says was a most exemplary leader the Soviet despot Lenin. QUOTE OF THE WEEK Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth (pictured) on the NHS crisis: I know the film La La Land did well at the Golden Globes I didnt realise that the Secretary of State for Health [Jeremy Hunt] was living there. Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth on the NHS crisis: I know the film La La Land did well at the Golden Globes I didnt realise that the Secretary of State for Health [Jeremy Hunt] was living there. ...................................................................................................................................... In The Guardian newspaper the house journal of public sector fat-cats there was an advertisement last week which made me wonder if the crisis-hit NHS is spending its budget entirely wisely. Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust is looking for an assistant director of equality and diversity on a salary of up to 57,640. Is this really a priority when the trust ended the last financial year with a deficit of around 20 million? Whats more, the advertised post which pays 31,000 more than the UK average wage is part-time! The strike that shamed Khan Mayor of London Sadiq Khan during the annual London Government Dinner, at The Mansion House, London Shortly before he was elected London Mayor last May, Sadiq Khan said: What Id do is roll up my sleeves and make sure that Im talking to everyone who runs public transport to make sure there are zero days of strikes. Last week, there was a crippling 24-hour strike on the London Underground (used daily by up to 4.8 million people) followed by yet more walk-outs by transport unions on Southern Rail (affecting 300,000 passengers). Sad proof of the Mayors glib and hollow promises. ...................................................................................................................................... Martin McGuinness quit as Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland citing public outrage about the squandering of public money on an energy conservation scheme. Is this the same McGuinness who, as a Sinn Fein MP, racked up more than 100,000 in taxpayer-funded parliamentary expenses despite never taking his seat in Westminster because he refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen? Jo Tutchener-Sharp, 40, was a fashion and beauty PR before launching childrens clothing and interiors line Scamp & Dude Jo Tutchener-Sharp, 40, was a fashion and beauty PR before launching childrens clothing and interiors line Scamp & Dude. She lives in London with husband Rob and their sons, Sonny and Jude. If this time last year, someone had said to me You will nearly die of a brain haemorrhage, I wouldnt have believed I could cope. A busy working mother of two children, aged three and one, I first went to my GP after a spasm in my face. I told him I felt as though my head was about to explode, and he said: You are dangerously stressed. One evening, my right eye would barely open. The GP sent me to hospital, but I didnt believe it was anything serious. When the doctor said: Weve found a lump on your brain, all I could think was: I cant die, my children need me. I was terrified. Id had a brain haemorrhage and needed a six-hour operation. Waking up in intensive care afterwards was the most amazing feeling. The only thing I can compare it to is when I first met my children. It was in hospital that I had my light bulb moment. I worried about how my children were coping without me. Separation anxiety is hard on kids, and I wished there was something that could make being apart easier for them. So I decided to design a collection of clothing and interiors to provide children with a sense of security when they needed it most. Id had a brain haemorrhage and needed a six-hour operation Our slogan is A superhero has my back, which reminds kids someone is watching over them at all times. At the heart of the collection are two animal-shaped cuddly cushions, designed to sit on the childs bed and watch over them while they sleep. They are Superhero Sleep Buddies with a pocket where you can put a photo of the loved one they miss. For every Sleep Buddy sold, we donate one to a vulnerable child in the UK. Facing death has given me an overwhelming desire to do something with purpose. We delivered 200 Superhero Sleep Buddies to kids at Great Ormond Street Hospital on Christmas Eve, and the response from parents was amazing. Seven-year-old Hayley Brown was left with just a single eyelash after undergoing aggressive chemotherapy before that too, fell out. But now, theyre growing back. Hayley, from Melbourne, was diagnosed with cancer in June last year after doctors found a 5cm tumour growing inside her nose. In November, her father Andrew Brown shared a heartbreaking picture of the little girls last remaining lash after months of invasive treatment. That one last eyelash has been hanging on, on its own, for a few weeks now, the father-of-four captioned the photo, which was quickly shared worldwide. Last one: In November, Mr Brown shared this heartbreaking picture of Hayley's last eyelash They're back! On Saturday, Hayley's father shared pictures that show her lashes are back Three weeks later, that last lash fell out. But just before Christmas, her family received some positive news: her tumour had gone. Mr Brown shared two X-rays side by side one taken in June and the other in December on Facebook to show the tumour had vanished. And he took to Facebook again on Saturday to share yet more good news - those famous eyelashes are back! In a post on his blog, Mr Brown recalled the difficulties his family have endured since Hayleys diagnosis in June. He recalled the word cancer seemed to have no effect on his young daughter. Coming along: Hayley's tumour vanished last month and now her eyelashes are growing back Gone: Hayley (right, with her sister) has been told her tumour is gone after undergoing six months of aggressive chemotherapy Happy: The seven-year-old is pictured before undergoing aggressive chemotherapy At the sound of her hair going, her long, usually scruffy, dark chocolate coloured hair, Hayley burst into tears, he wrote. She made us promise that we would tell the doctors that the hair stayed. Which we did, knowing that it was pointless. He added: I promised her that when her hair went, so would mine. Less than two weeks later, huge clumps of his daughters hair were falling out. On October 3, Hayley began complaining of sore eyes. That was when her parents noticed a few of her eyelashes were missing. Progress: The picture on the right shows Hayley's tumour in June and left, an X-ray from Wednesday show it is gone Relieved: Father-of-four Andrew Brown shared the good news in a Facebook post We noticed a few eyelashes missing, then a few more. Her eyebrows were going too, Mr Brown wrote. Then there was one eyelash left, one solitary eyelash. After three weeks, this one eyelash was still there. That last one clung on before falling out in December. But then on January 9, he noticed they were growing back. THEYRE BAAAAAAAACK!!!!!! YAY! Sob, yay, you beauty, sob, sob, hooray! he wrote. Best present ever: Hayley is pictured with her sister on an outing together at Christmas Home for Christmas: Hayley is pictured with her mother Leia, father Andrew and her sister Having fun: Seven-year-old Hayley Brown, of Melbourne, is pictured playing with toys Doctors had said Hayley needed eight months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to shrink the tumour. But six months later, an X-ray revealed her tumour had gone. 'I'm still not sure how I feel about yesterday as I still haven't come to grips with the fact that this journey even started,' Mr Brown told Daily Mail Australia shortly after receiving the good news. He added: 'I do know that the treatment she was on is now finished and her poor little body can now begin to repair itself. Recovery: Hayley (above, before losing her eyelashes) was diagnosed with cancer in June Support: Comedian Andrew Brown has been taking part in fundraisers in his daughter's name 'Hopefully she will start eating soon as the ulcers in her mouth should start to go.' On December 30, Hayley started a 12-month maintenance treatment program, which involves gentler chemotherapy which shouldn't require overnight stays in hospital. 'I believe that (apart from those days) she will be fine for school, her hair will come back including her now world famous eyelashes,' he added. To help Mr Brown and his wife Leia with the costs linked to regular hospital visits, including fuel, parking, medicine, rent and bills, their friend Andrea Huggins set up a MyCause page for Hayley. Help: Friend Andrea Huggins set up a MyCause page to help the Brown family with costs Fundraising: On the MyCause page, she wrote: 'This is a time when the family needs its parents most and they may be unable to work' Recovery: Hayley recently began a 12-month maintenance treatment program Following Davina McCall, Jamie Oliver and Stephen Fry, television hypnotist Paul McKenna has become the latest celebrity to try and persuade people to eat less sugar. However, the 53-year-old, who's written a new book on avoiding the demon sweet stuff, received short shrift from This Morning viewers today, after he appeared on the programme to help three volunteers cut down their sugar intake. Those tuning into what host Philip Schofield called an 'anti-sugar crusade' were less than impressed by McKenna's take on the hot topic, with some accusing him of cashing in on the latest food advice. Scroll down for video The television hypnotist appeared on This Morning today to help three viewers kick their sugar habits - but some accused him of simply jumping on the 'anti-sugar bandwagon 'He's talking garbage': McKenna was mocked for 'nannying' grown adults with his advice on sugar; his latest book offers mind techniques for helping people ditch the sweet stuff (Pictured with This Morning hosts ) Criticism: Some viewers took to Twitter to criticise McKenna's appearance on This Morning @Jread123 suggested the self-help guru might be looking to profit on healthcare professionals' warnings about sugar, which is said to cost the NHS some 14million a year on treating people with diabetes. He wrote: '#ThisMorning Paul McKenna resurfaces after years being invisible, is he skint or trying to flog us a book, DVD or new TV show?' @ollie_olly agreed, writing: 'Paul McKenna = Con artist #ThisMorning' And there was equally damning praise from @ashlienicolee who penned: 'Paul McKenna chats some right garbage #thismorning.' @Gemma_90 also resented the nannying tone of the television hypnotist, saying: 'SoPaul McKenna says: "We let people drink and smoke" - don't think it's your job to let me, I'm an adult!' Mind programming: McKenna's new book claims to reprogramme the mind so that sugar addiction is curbed The star appeared on the show to promote his new book Get Control of Sugar Now!, which uses mind exercises to help people give up sugar. Working with three This Morning volunteers with self-confessed sugary diets, the hypnotist revealed he'd got all three of them to reduce their sugar intake by some 80 per cent. Working with three This Morning volunteers with self-confessed sugary diets, the hypnotist revealed he'd got all three of them to reduce their sugar intake by some 80 per cent He told show hosts Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield: 'I offer mind programming - all of our decisions take place in the mind. I can help re-programme it.' He said he'd enabled the three volunteers to learn how to 'take it or leave it' when it came to sugar consumption. ...but many viewers accused him of simply cashing in on the latest food craze In an interview with The Times this weekend, McKenna revealed that using a 'spreadsheet of destiny' to find the perfect wife has left him a 'very happy man', months after he married girlfriend Kate Davey. After a chequered love life, including romances with GMTV presenter Penny Smith and former business manager Clare Staple - who took him to court for 'erratic behaviour', McKenna's unorthodox formula for love seems to be working remarkably well. The 53-year-old who is said to be worth in excess of 40million says he turned to Microsoft Excel after a friend pointed out that he dated lots of beautiful women but didnt really like them. The hypnotist famously admitted that he consulted the 'spreadsheet of destiny' in order to find a perfect love match. The star says that he felt a little like a 'pervy boss' after he made his move following the revelation...but that he's now a happily married man He says he felt 'a bit guilty' at first about the way he used computer technology to see what had possibly been under his nose for nearly 20 years - the length of time that Davey, 44, worked for him as his personal assistant. Despite feeling like a 'pervy boss', the spreadsheet trick seems to have worked a treat and, for now, he's put his days of carousing high-profile girlfriends firmly behind him. McKenna reveals it feels 'fantastic' to be a married man, adding: '...I'm not just a married man. I'm a happily married man.' The interview also saw the self-help guru, who lived in LA until last year, allude to the fact that his work can rely on him being scrupulous. Love match: McKenna and Davey were wed last year; he describes his relationship as 'fantastic' A turbulent love life: McKenna with former flame Clare Staples, who eventually settled out of court with the self-help guru after accusing him of being addicted to 'cocaine, alcohol, various prescription pills' Right, McKenna also dated former GMTV presenter Penny Smith Last year, McKenna was reported to have advised Ukip's Brexit campaign backer Aaron Banks with his social media campaign. Banks is a friend of the multi-millionaire Ukip backer who gave a 5.6 million donation to the Leave.EU campaign. McKenna was asked to look at the rough edits of campaign's anti-EU videos for social media and provide advice on how to strengthen the message. While not commenting directly on the advice he offered to the campaign, particularly to the edits made to the Brexit group's videos, he does now admit that his work often revolves around his ability to 'arrange truths in an order that suits me, in order to help someone.' McKenna advised the Brexit campaign Leave.EU, supported by his good friend Aaron Banks (pictured left with Nigel Farage) during last year's referendum He says that his work often revolves around 'manipulation' but thinks the word gets a bad press: 'You manipulate paint on a canvas to make it beautiful...That's what I do. I arrange truths in an order that suits me, in order to help someone.' At the time, a spokesman for McKenna said: 'He is friendly with Arron Banks and Banks showed him a few rough cuts of promotional videos they were considering using in their campaign. [Paul] was quite intrigued by the new style of political campaigning, which he thought was influenced heavily by American politics.' As one of the world's most revered style icons, the Duchess of Cambridge has the power to send sales soaring. And it seems that Kate, 35, has worked her magic on Reiss and Hobbs - two of her favourite high street retailers - after Christmas sales soared. Indeed, both fashion labels, which mother-of-two Kate has been seen wearing in recent weeks, posted a rise in sales this December. Both Hobbs and Reiss have posted a lift in sales, could it be thanks to the Duchess of Cambridge? (seen wearing a 120 coat from Hobbs at church on Christmas Day) As The Telegraph reports, Reiss, which is now valued at 230m, recorded a 19.7pc lift in sales, whilst Hobbs posted a 14.3pc sales rise in the run-up to New Year. Both high street stores followed in the footsteps of stalwarts like M&S and Debenhams, who posted a 2.3pc and 3.5pc rise in sales respectively. Hobbs was founded in Hampstead in 1981 by husband and wife team Yoram and Marilyn Anselm. The couple retired to France in 2002 when Hobbs was bought out by its management, before being snapped up by 3i in 2004. Reiss, which is now valued at 230m, recorded a 19.7pc lift in sales, whilst Hobbs posted a 14.3pc sales rise in the run-up to New Year (Kate is seen wearing a 120 shirt by Reiss) Kate stayed loyal to Hobbs even when pregnant. She is pictured on 11 March while visiting art gallery in Margate, Kent, the Duchess wore a 169 dalmation printcoat dress from the high street label Hobbs It now has 140 stores across the UK and Ireland, and has become popular with the Duchess of Cambridge and her sister Pippa Middleton. However it has experienced a turbulent few years. Current chief executive Meg Lustman, the former Warehouse boss, was brought in to lead a turnaround in July 2014. It came after chairman Phil Wrigley, who also joined in January 2014 from New Look, launched a strategic review. Hobbs made a 1.4m profit on a turnover of 104.4m in the year to January 2016. Reiss, meanwhile, was run by its founder, David Reiss, who grew the brand from his fathers gentlemans outfitters to a renowned fashion label, until last year. In April last year, Reiss sold a majority stake to private equity firm Warburg Pincus. A mother who found black mould in her son's Sophie the Giraffe teething toy has warned other parents to be careful when letting their children chew on the best-selling toy. Dana Chianese, a pediatric dentist from New Jersey, said she was shocked to discover the inside of the rubber toy - often favoured by the offspring of A-list celebrities - covered in black mould. A 'musty' smell alerted Chianese to the problem and she decided to cut open the toy to find the source of the unpleasant aroma - only to be horrified at what she saw. Scroll down for video Dana Chianese, a pediatric dentist from New Jersey, posted shocking images of her son's teething toy after cutting it open when she'd noticed it smelt strange The dentist told Good Housekeeping that she regularly recommends the product for teething children but couldn't believe that mould had been growing in a toy that is designed to be chewed upon. She said: 'I decided to cut into Sophie out of curiosity and discovered a science experiment living inside. Smelly, ugly mold living in my infant's favorite chew toy!' The toy has been a favourite with parents - and gift buyers - for generations and is made of 100 per cent natural latex from the Hevea tree, making it ideal for children to bite on to ease the pain of teeth coming through. Like a dog's toy, it has an airhole in the bottom of the toy to let children squeeze it. The toy has regularly been seen being used by celebrities, with Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom's son Flynn a fan when he was younger. Other celebrity Sophie converts include Kate Hudson, Maggie Gyllenhaal Nicole Richie, Isla Fisher and Amy Adams. Created by French company Vulli, it was first brought to the market in 1961 and is often recommended by health professionals for its easy-to-grasp shape. Another user, Stephanie Oprea, last year posted similar images of mould growing inside her child's Sophie the Giraffe. The 14 toy has long since been the perfect gift for parents of middle-class newborns and enjoys a firm celebrity following Another owner of the giraffe, Stephanie Oprea, last year issued a similar warning against the toy after finding the inside of her daughter's one covered in growths On an Amazon review, she wrote: 'Beware! If you have a drooly baby, moisture will get in the hole and you'll end up with mold! We've had ours for two years and the entire inside is coated with black mold! Elsewhere, another owner of the toy, thought to be from the US, posted a similar review after she chopped off the legs of the toy to stop her daughter pushing them too far into her mouth. She wrote: 'I thought we'd be smart and cut the legs, so they weren't so long. Well, when we chopped the legs, it revealed a lot of mold growing inside!! Needless to say, Sophie is now residing at her new home at the dump. Another mother, thought to be from the US, posted the above after having a similar experience 'Just a little heads up to other moms who have this toy. Sorry my photography isn't great, but you can clearly see the mold.' A spokesperson for Vulli told Femail that the cleaning instructions for the toy must be 'carefully respected.' They said: 'Its important to know that Sophie la girafe [the toy's French name] is composed of 100% natural rubber, so the cleaning instructions have to be carefully respected. 'As indicated on the packaging and in an explanatory leaflet inside the packaging, we recommend to clean the surface of Sophie la girafe with a damp cloth. It should not be immersed in the water nor rinsed off, to prevent water from getting inside, as she may become damaged. 'We thus would like to emphasize on the fact that is it important, while cleaning the product, that no water gets inside the whole.' The company said it had not received complaints about similar incidents but that it would take them 'very seriously' adding 'For the past 55 years, we have always strived to exceed security standards and all of our products comply with the most stringent global standards.' Cilla Black's son has praised the work of sculptors for capturing his mother's 'joy' in a bronze statue of the star unveiled in Liverpool today. Robert Willis revealed that his mother would be 'forever young' thanks to the statue's youthful features - including her nose as it was post-cosmetic surgery. Unveiling the statue, Robert said Cilla 'never really appreciated getting old but now she will be forever young'. Scroll down for video A bronze statue of the late Cilla Black was unveiled outside the Cavern Club in Liverpool today Despite success as a singer in her early career, Cilla cemented her position as a household name fronting Saturday night shows like Blind Date and Surprise Surprise. Placed in Cilla's beloved Liverpool, in the original spot where the famous Cavern Club was, the statue was commissioned by her three sons Robert, Ben, and Jack who donated the statue to the city in memory of their mum. Robert added: 'It's based on a sixties design, the dress is chequered and it enabled us to put little stories like photos and lyrics hidden in there for people to check out. 'I'm just incredibly relieved that it turned out as well as it did. We are so happy with it and I hope people enjoy it. Her three sons Ben, Robert and Jack (pictured left to right) were there to celebrate and Robert revealed that her nose was modeled on her nose post surgery Cilla had a nose job at the age of 25 and says it was '500 well spent'. Pictured: Cilla before and after nose surgery (right) 'And they did get the legs right, she had great legs! And also the nose - it's the post nose job nose which she would have insisted on!' Cilla Black admitted that she had had a nose job at the age of 25 revealing in an Interview with the Mail that 'it was 500 well spent'. With her daring fashion choices, the TV star often made a feature of her famously shapely legs and in 2008, at the age of 65, she strutted her pins at a charity runway wearing a pair of shorts and black tights as part of a glamorous Cabaret-style outfit. This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby went live to scenes at Liverpool today for the exclusive unveiling of the new Cilla Black statue. As well as her physical features Robert says that the sculptors had captured the cheerful essence of his late mother. Robert added that he was impressed that artists Emma Rodgers and Andy Edwards had captured her 'joy' Speaking to the ITV hosts he continued: 'It brings a smile because they've caught the joy. 'We were asked by the Mayor if we wanted to do something, some sort of memorial, and he suggested a statue and we thought that would be very fitting for her. 'Also, [we thought] if we commissioned it and donated it to the City, it would be a small gesture of gratitude to the wonderful people of this great city and how they responded after our mother died.' Revealing how his mother would have responded to the statue, Robert said, 'She would've burst out laughing and have been thrilled and delighted. The statue sees Cilla wearing a sixties style checked dress not dissimilar to the one she is seen wearing here The checks on the dress are decorated with additional details that illustrate the star's life 'She would have loved being young she was very youthful, in her attitude and in the way she lived her life and she would have loved being captured at a time when she was young and everything was happening for her.' The ceremony also marked the 60th birthday of the nightclub where The Beatles played in their early years. Robert told onlookers: 'We were overwhelmed by the incredible support after our mother died from the country but also, and especially, from the people of this great city. 'It was incredibly comforting and it moved us deeply and gave us hope at a time when we didn't have much hope. 'It was something that none of us will ever forget.' On the base of the statue below her feet the plaque reads 'You're my world Cilla Black, Made in Liverpool' Dozens of the well wishers turned out this morning to witness the statue's unveiling He said the local-made sculpture was not only a memorial to his mother but donating it to Liverpool was 'a small gesture of gratitude and thanks to the people of this wonderful city'. He continued: 'What would our mother think of it? I think she would be incredibly proud. She would be flattered. She would have been incredibly honoured.' Miss Black died of a stroke on August 1 2015 after falling and hitting her head at her Spanish villa. She was sunbathing when she lost her balance, fell, and hit her head, which knocked her unconscious. The fall knocked her unconscious and she subsequently died of a stroke. Her family said she did not suffer. A mother-of-two was forced to drive almost 300 miles a day to see her critically ill son in hospital because there were no beds closer to home. Karen Meikle, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, travelled twice a day to see her son Alex, seven, after he was admitted to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh because there was no room at the nearby Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow. The 30-year-old said she had 'no other option' but to make the four-hour round-trip to see her son, who needed specialist care after falling ill with an infection. Critical: Karen Meikle, left, from Paisley, Renfrewshire, travelled twice a day to see her son Alex, seven, right, after he was admitted to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh 'Alex was fighting for his life,' she said. 'Any parent would do the same.' Alex, who has cerebral palsy and other medical conditions that limit his life expectancy, was initially admitted to the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley on January 3. He was diagnosed with adenovirus, which can lead to severe illnesses in children with a weakened immune system. The following day Ms Meikle was told Alex needed specialist care that was not available at the hospital. 'He needed ventilators and he was really struggling to breathe,' she said. Doctors had hoped to transfer Alex to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, less than 20 minutes away, but were told there was no space. Instead he was sent in an ambulance to the Edinburgh hospital, nearly two hours' drive away. Hospital: Alex, who has cerebral palsy and other medical conditions that limit his life expectancy, was initially admitted to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley on January 3 Ms Meikle was forced to hire a car for 320 a week so that she could split her time between the hospital and caring for her other son Josh, nine, in Paisley. She said: 'I would wake up and take my son to breakfast club. I left breakfast club at 8.30am to make the two-hour drive to Edinburgh. 'Doctors did rounds between 10am and 11am and so I wasn't in with him until after 11. Then I had to leave again at 1pm to get my wee boy [Josh] from school.' Determined to keep Josh in a routine, Ms Meikle then waited for her former partner to return from work and make sure he had dinner before driving back to the hospital. 'I got there at 8pm or 9pm and would spend a couple of hours with Alex. But when they told me he had taken a bad turn, I would stay until 3am or 4am. Specialist care: Doctors had hoped to transfer Alex to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow but instead he was sent to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, pictured 'Then I had an hour or two of sleep before I had to be back up with my other son.' After nearly two weeks in Edinburgh, Alex was transferred back to the Paisley hospital on Friday because another child needed his intensive care bed. Ms Meikle praised the medical team at the RAH but said they needed to be trained to handle cases like Alex's so children don't need to be moved. 'Why bypass a local hospital when there are beds?,' she asked. According to the Daily Record, the RAH ward where Alex was first treated is facing closure. If this happens, thousands of other families could find themselves facing similarly lengthy journeys to visit their children in hospital. Ms Meikle added: 'How can they accommodate thousands of children from Paisley if they didn't even have room for my son?' A spokesman for Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board told the Daily Record paediatric intensive care services were managed jointly by the childrens hospitals in Glasgow and Edinburgh. He said: 'It is standard practice for both hospitals to decide where a patient is to be admitted. This decision depends on activity levels in each unit as well as the type of referral. 'At the time of this referral, it was agreed by consultants that the child should be admitted to Edinburgh.' MailOnline has contacted NHS Scotland for comment. Tess Holliday spent the weekend in Canada with her baby boy Bowie, and the size 22 model couldn't resist snapping a precious selfie with her seven-month-old son. The 31-year-old took to Instagram on Sunday to share a snapshot of herself holding Bowie on her hip as they posed for a photo together in Toronto. 'Being cute is [really] serious business,' she captioned the image, which sees her wearing a Nike crop top and black leggings. Mamma's boy: Tess Holliday took to Instagram on Sunday to share a photo of herself posed with her seven-month-old son Bowie Take that: A few days earlier, the 31-year-old struck a pose in purple lace lingerie Some commenters noted that Bowie is the spitting image of her, while others believe the little boy looks just like his dad, Tess' longtime partner Nick Holliday. Meanwhile, a woman named Andrea pointed out that Bowie definitely inherited his mother's modeling skills. 'This lil guy so has that model face down... You guys look fabulous,' she wrote. Tess kicked off the weekend on Friday by sharing a stunning photo herself posed in racy mesh and lace lingerie. Role model: The size 22 star is an advocate for the plus-size community as well as embracing one's body Making memories: Tess and Bowie posed for this adorable snapshot while visiting Pioneertown, California, this month The snapshot sees Tess looking over her shoulders, giving the camera a glimpse of her derriere. The model's auburn hair is done in glamorous waves, and she is sporting brown, smoky eye make-up and a bold red lip during the shoot. When she shared the image, the body positivity activist said that it is a reminder to her critics that she isn't going anywhere. 'When they try & steal your shine & you gotta remind them that it was never up for the taking,' she captioned the photo. Glamorous: 'When you aren't sleeping because of a teething baby and you gotta remind yourself that you still got it,' Tess wrote when she posted this photo earlier this month Looking glamorous: Tess often posts selfies for her 1.4 million Instagram followers to see Tess is a major advocate for the plus-size community as well as embracing one's body, but even she has her moments of self-doubt and insecurity. Last month, the mother-of-two uploaded two selfies in her underwear, sharing an honest message about adjusting to her new figure. 'Each day feels like a battle to learn how to love my body postpartum,' she said. 'It's been 6 months, & my stomach is lower, my breasts are a different shape, new stretch marks & I feel like a stranger in my body more than ever.' Though she's long been able to accept herself at any size, she's having a hard time these days. Baring it all: Tess shared two underwear selfies on Instagram right before the new year Truth: She also posted an honest message about her struggles to accept her body after having her second baby in June Bonding: Tess' husband Nick recently shared this photo of himself with their son Bowie under the shower 'I wasn't anticipating this at all,' she explained. 'I'm not used to looking in the mirror & feeling like I don't recognize myself, but sadly that's my reality some days.' She added that she debated whether or not she should share this post, but she is tired of the pressure put on new moms to 'lose the baby weight'. 'I was fat before, I carried a healthy baby, & guess what, still fat... & THATS OKAY,' she wrote. I have no New Years resolution to lose weight, but only to work on learning my new body & loving & nurturing it. 'Not a day goes by that Nick doesn't tell me how beautiful I am, but it's not our partners job to lift our spirits, we have to be our own cheerleaders. So that's what I will do, take it day by day. It's a journey, not a race.. & a beautiful one at that.' There may be a group of New York protesters who are more than eager for Ivanka Trump to move to Washington, D.C., but that didn't stop the future First Daughter from putting her best foot forward on Monday morning. The 35-year-old looked calm, cool, and collected as she stepped out of her Park Avenue apartment and headed to work, flashing a very small smile for the photographers who were outside her door. Ivanka donned a $325 black wool coat from her eponymous line over a floral dress, and she kept her legs bare, topping off her outfit with a pair of black stilettos. Dressed to the nines: Ivanka Trump looked stunning as she kicked off her work week on Monday morning Always elegant: The 35-year-old donned a $325 black wool coat and heels as she stepped out of her Park Avenue apartment Although she tends to wear her hair up during the work week, Ivanka had her long blond hair down, in loose waves around her shoulders. Ivanka spent the weekend relaxing at her country home in New Jersey, and she took to Instagram to share photos of her roaring fire place and her five-year-old daughter Arabella's bedroom, which is fit for a princess or a First Granddaughter. However, while Ivanka was enjoying time with her family, the Halt Action Group, the Anti-Trump activists behind the Dear Ivanka Instagram page, have recently announced their plans to stage a protest outside her home on Monday evening, dubbing the event 'Help Ivanka Move'. Going all out: Ivanka had her long blonde hair in loose waves around her shoulders and glamorous eye make-up on Perfect space: Ivanka Trump shared photos of her daughter Arabella's room (left) and the fire place (right) at her country home in New Jersey over the weekend The Halt Action Group have put out a call online for protesters to come to the event with cardboard boxes bearing messages for Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and, of course, her father. In posters promoting the protest, boxes are shown bearing phrases such as 'abortion rights', 'freedom of speech' and 'nuclear regulation'. 'The boxes represent freedoms that people are fearful of losing,' the group explained in a press release. Critics: Anti-Trump activists behind the Dear Ivanka Instagram account have planned a demonstration outside her and her husband Jared Kushner's home on Monday Protests: Photos promoting the event feature cardboard boxes bearing messages for Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and, of course, her father Donald In the buff: Ivanka donned a beige wool coat and nude pumps as she headed to work on Friday morning The Dear Ivanka Instagram page was created in late 2016, and has earned more than 18,000 followers by posting glamorous photos of Ivanka and her family along with thought-provoking captions about people's fears regarding a Trump presidency. At the end of the week, Ivanka's father Donald will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, and she and her family are planning a move to Washington, D.C. during his time in office. Ivanka's 35-year-old husband is taking on the role of senior adviser for the President-elect, and there is a strong belief that she will be most visible First Daughter in American history. Doting mom: Last week Ivanka was also photographed taking her three-year-old son Joseph on a school run First Family: Ivanka's father Donald will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on Friday. She is pictured with her dad and her brothers Eric (far left) and Donald Jr. (far right) Happy family: Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner has been named the President-elect's senior adviser. They are pictured with their children in Hawaii over the holidays The businesswoman recently stepped down from her role as Executive Vice President of Development and Acquisitions at the Trump Organization after 11 years with the company. She also sold off all her common stock and resigned from her director position at her fashion line. These moves seem to suggest that Ivanka will be performing many of the duties assigned to the First Lady in the White House when her father takes office. A new mother has been hailed an inspiration after she was photographed breastfeeding in her wedding dress. Anecia Wright specifically chose a dress that would make it easy to nurse her four-month-old-son Jayce on her wedding day. The 22-year-old from Jacksonville, North Carolina, said she 'couldn't imagine' getting married without her son and that breastfeeding is part of her identity. Praise: Anecia Wright, 22, pictured, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, was hailed an inspiration after being photographed breastfeeding on her big day Accessible: The new mother, pictured left with her four-month-old-son Jayce and right with husband Jeron, 24, specifically chose a wedding dress that would make it easy to nurse The first-time-mother, who works part-time at a hair salon, shared a photograph of herself feeding online where it attracted the attention of tens of thousands. Anecia, whose husband Jeron, 24, is a US soldier, said she hoped to help normalize breastfeeding - especially among black women - by sharing the photograph. She told Daily Mail Online: 'I decided to nurse Jayce on my wedding day because nursing is a part of me and all my friends and family know that, so even though my wedding day is [a] big deal it's no reason why I wouldn't nurse on my big day. 'Also before committing to my dress I sat in the dressing room and made sure my breast would be easily accessible and that's when I knew this was my dress. 'Jayce is a part of me and my husband and we couldn't imagine not having our baby boy present on our big day.' She shared the picture on the Black Women Do Breastfeed Facebook page where it has attracted nearly 30,000 likes. 'Breastfeeding as a black woman is a huge deal. In the old days black women were forced to nurse their masters children. Family wedding: The hair salon worker, pictured pregnant, said she 'couldn't imagine' getting married without her son Impact: Anecia shared a photograph of herself nursing online where it has attracted the attention of tens of thousands 'So because of this reason a lot of older black women consider breastfeeding a disgrace. So many black woken are stuck in this idea and this concept,' she said. Anecia said breastfeeding felt especially important to her after coming up against a number of obstacles during pregnancy and after Jayce's birth. She broke her foot when she was 27 weeks pregnant which meant she struggled to get around and had to have an emergency C-section after her son's umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. After his birth he latched 'immediately' but at just a few days old started losing weight. 'They told me my son had to be hospitalized because my milk didn't fully come in. 'Those words crushed my whole entire world. My heart shattered. I had been starving my son this whole time,' she said. But after briefly using formula and getting advice from a lactation consultant Anecia was able to successfully feed her son. Motivation: She said she hoped to help normalize breastfeeding - especially among black women - by sharing the photograph Response: Anecia said she has been shocked by some of the negative reactions she has received to the photograph but that they are 'worth' it for the positive impact it has had She added: 'God answered my prayers and me and my son have been going hard ever since.' Anecia said she has been shocked by the negative reactions she has received to the photograph but that they are 'worth' it for the positive impact it has had. 'I love reading the positive comments or mothers who said I inspired them to keep nursing or moms who said that I am inspiration. 'That to me, makes me feel like it was worth me sharing my photo. My goal was to inspire other moms and to simply get the message out that breastfeeding is normal,' she said. Among the positive comments Anecia has received on Facebook was from George Jillian Mumford who said it helped keep her 'motivated'. 'I love this, so beautiful. My daughter is the same age. Keeps me motivated to keep breastfeeding,' she said. Fellow Facebook user Jennie Leigh said: 'I love seeing women encouraging other women- you go girl!' Bernella Harris added: 'I love it I never was a shame of feeling mine I am so proud of you they make the best and healthy babies even when they are grown up.' A 44-year-old cancer patient claims cannabis oil helped to reduce the size of a hole in his cheek caused by the disease. The unnamed man was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2013 and underwent treatment to remove the deadly cells. Despite initially working, the disease returned three years later and had even eroded a hole in his cheek. But after using cannabis oil directly on his wound, it helped stop it from expanding and even shrank it by around 5 per cent, it is reported. While each of his four daily doses also helped to give him around two hours of pain relief, according to a case report. Using cannabis oil directly on his wound, it helped to stop the hole in his cheek - caused by oral cancer - from expanding and shrank it by around 5 per cent Published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, it explains how the patient visited a palliative-care clinic in Toronto in 2016. Diagnosed with oral cancer in 2013, he initially underwent surgery to remove part of the tumour. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy was also used to help shrink the cancer - but it returned shortly after, LiveScience reports. But after it had returned he had decided he would no longer seek further treatment to treat the disease. While each of his four daily doses also helped to give him around two hours of pain relief from the cancer, according to a case report (stock) Complaining of pain, he was given opiod-based medications. However, these proved to be unsuccessful. DOES CANNABIS OIL WORK? Cannabis oil is made up of THC and CBD - the two primary ingredients in the plant. It can either be orally ingested, vapourised or applied directly to the skin. CBD is considered a medicine by the UK's regulatory body, the MHRA, after it was found to have a 'restoring, correcting or modifying' effect when given to humans. While THC - which is responsible for the high - was found to help relieve pain in patients in a study by University of California researchers in 2012. Dr Kat Arney, from Cancer Research UK, previously said: 'We know that cannabinoids can have a range of different effects on cancer cells grown in the lab and animal tumours. 'But at the moment there isn't good evidence from clinical trials to prove that they can safely and effectively treat cancer in patients.' Advertisement Causing him to become drowsy, the main then asked Dr Vincent Maida, who helps to run the end-of-life unit at the University of Toronto for medical marijuana to alleviate his discomfort. Using it in his vapourised form, he was forced to stop inhaling it when the disease created a hole in his cheek. Seeking pain relief, the man then asked for a prescription to use medical cannabis oil. Applying it directly to his wound, it was found to relieve his pain and helped to shrink the hole. However, his condition deteriorated and he was admitted to hospital before passing away three weeks later. Cannabis oil is made up of both cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the two main extracts from the plant. Despite the latter often being overlooked in terms of its health benefits, the former is deemed a medicine in the UK. In October, the regulatory body found CBD had a 'restoring, correcting or modifying' effect on physiological functions when administered to humans. But the Class B drug itself was not recognised as having any benefits and is still illegal to possess. Unprecedented numbers of US soldiers have sustained life-changing genital or urinary tract injuries during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a new report found. Between October 2001 and August 2013, 1,367 male US service members sustained one or more genitourinary (GU) injuries. The majority of injuries involved the external genitalia including the scrotum, testes, penis and urethra. The number of cases was described as 'unprecedented' as the injuries can impair several abilities including: having sex, fathering children and urinating normally. The majority of wounded service members - almost 94 percent - were 35 or younger 'during their peak years of sexual development and reproductive potential,' the report said. Over 1,300 US male service members received one or more genitourinary injuries during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a report found. Scrotum injuries were the most likely to occur but testicle injuries were the most severe The most common injury was to the scrotum (the pouch of skin containing the testicles) with 760 service members - or 55.6 percent - experiencing injury there. However the most severe injuries were testicular. Out of 451 testicle injuries, 146 service members lost one or both testes. Because of the scrotum's location, it is more susceptible to injury. Rarely, the scrotum can develop severe and rapidly progressive infections such as gangrene. Injury to the testes can destroy the capacity for sex hormones (mainly testosterone) or sperm production. If both testes are injured, testosterone replacement may be necessary. If only one is injured, the remaining testis usually produces as much testosterone as the body needs. Reconstructive genital implants have just started, but a groundbreaking new procedure could give hope to maimed soldiers, more than 60 of whom are waiting for penis transplants. Thomas Manning, 64, whose penis was amputated due to cancer, was the first American to receive a penis transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital last May. The highly experimental, 15-hour long procedure was a success, and now Johns Hopkins University will soon perform their first penis transplant on a wounded US soldier this year. In 2015, the US Department of Defense created the TOUGH (Trauma Outcomes and Urogenital Health) project to study the epidemiology and long-term outcomes of GU injury among servicemen wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. While both male and female veterans with GU injuries are being studied as a part of TOUGH, women, who are less likely to suffer these types of injuries, will be the subject of a later paper to be released this year. The study found that the majority of GU injuries occurred during combat and were primarily caused by explosive mechanisms. Service members with GU injuries often suffered other trauma including leg amputations and traumatic brain injuries. Lead investigator Dr Steven Hudak, a lieutenant and colonel from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, told Daily Mail Online: 'GU trauma is a devastating injury that has become really common with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'That's not to say that it didn't occur in previous wars such as Vietnam but our medical care has improved, so mortality rates have fallen. 'With previous wars like Vietnam, these severe GU injuries were perhaps seen but the people who suffered them didn't survive.' The rise in GU injuries compared to previous wars has been attributed to body armor that protects the chest and stomach but not the external genitalia, according to the report. In 2010, the UK's Ministry of Defense introduced pelvic protection for troops in Afghanistan to help mitigate the effects of IED blasts, which has since spread to the US. Another reason given was soldiers being forced to patrol on foot because of Afghanistan's rugged terrain, and therefore exposing the groin area should a bomb planted in the ground explode. Almost 94 percent of the soldiers injured were 35 or younger and at 'their peak years of sexual development and reproductive potential,' the report said Despite the number of serious GU injuries, they make up just 0.14 percent of all injuries suffered during the two wars. Over 970,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veteran disability claims have been registered with the VA, according to the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs. Between 2001 and 2014, the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center has diagnosed 284,713 traumatic brain injuries, most occurring in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the more than 50,000 American troops wounded in action, 2.6 percent have suffered a major limb amputation, the majority due to an improvised explosive device. While the researchers would like to study the long-term impact of GU injuries, Dr Hudak said continued investment is needed into GU injury prevention as well as both physical and psychological rehabilitation. Dr Hudak said: 'We want to see if service members have endured long-term impacts and, if so, how can they be cared for. 'When you care for any patient, as a physician or a surgeon, it's inspirational to see them endure any hardship and thrive. 'As a group, this population of men who have suffered these injuries have shown personal courage and rehabilitation, which has been inspirational to witness.' Techno music helps test tube babies grow, a staggering new study has found. Scientists at Altravita IVF clinic in Moscow played A State of Trance by DJ Armin van Buuren on a loop for 24 hours a day next to 758 eggs in a petri dish. Another 758 eggs were left in silence. By the end of the experiment, the number of viable embryos in the techno room had increased by more than a fifth. While the other eggs also grew, they were far less likely to develop to a stage where they could be implanted for a successful pregnancy. Experts have hailed the findings, first reported by The Times, as groundbreaking. Scientists at Altravita IVF clinic in Moscow played A State of Trance by DJ Armin van Buuren on a loop for 24 hours a day next to 758 eggs in a petri dish. They eggs grew by more than a fifth Dagan Wells, a University of Oxford professor who has studied human embryos for more than 20 years, said it is likely the music - known for its repetitive beats - helps to replicate the naturally dynamic environment an egg would naturally develop in. 'It's something about the beats that makes it a bit more like the natural environment,' Wells told Daily Mail Online. 'Usually, embryos are in a dynamic environment with sounds and the mother's organs and fluid moving. 'That means when the embryos secrete harmful chemicals, this environment helps to move them away, rather than leaving them sitting there. 'In an artificial environment, these chemicals have nowhere to go. 'But these findings show beats could help to keep things moving.' The study, presented at the Fertility 2017 conference in Edinburgh earlier this month, is only the second study to explore music and embryo growth. Two years ago, a Spanish study tested various types of music playing next to a petri dish - from Metallica to Madonna. So far, the theories have yet to be applied in a practical setting. But Wells insists it is far more than a fun musical experiment. 'It's a fun piece of research but it seems to be telling us something really useful about how embryos grow,' he told Daily Mail Online. 'In the last 30 years, the way we grow embryos has changed quite a lot - we've got very good at keeping them at the right temperature, and getting the right chemicals. 'But nothing has really addressed the natural environment in which embryos normally grow.' The Excise Department is keeping a close eye on influx of smuggled alcohol in UP ahead of assembly elections as the election commission has already warned that politicians may stock and distribute it to woo voters. The department claims that smuggling of liquor went down after excise rate was cut in UP, but still there is a profit margin of around Rs 150-300 on 750ml bottles. 'Smugglers from Haryana and Delhi were not risking it due to lower margin but as the consumption tends increase during poll, illegal traders are trying to hide the illegal consignment with other goods to bring it in UP,' senior officer of excise department said. The Excise Department is keeping a close eye on influx of smuggled alcohol in UP ahead of assembly elections as the election commission has already warned that politicians may use it to woo voters Even the police claim that after demonetisation there is an acute cash crunch among the politicians. A large sum of 'unaccounted' money and donations - all in cash - was pumped in during the political rallies and campaigning. However, now everyone has limited cash. 'Alcohol may play a major role to influence the voters,' a DIG-rank officer told Mail Today. The lengthy and porous border that western UP shares with Haryana has proved to be a hotbed for liquor smuggling. Cops claim that despite lower profit margins (as the difference in alcohol prices are now less) smugglers are using increasingly innovative methods like creating a secret compartment in vehicle, or packing the bottles in shoe box. Apart from roads, the dry Yamuna riverbed, farmland and forests provide ample cover to the peddlers to transport their bounties undetected. UP excise department officials are on high alert in all the six districts of the state bordering Haryana, with most cases of illicit liquor being smuggled into UP being reported from along the Haryana border. After model code of conduct was enforced, over 16,000 litres of illicit liquor has been seized already. Of the six districts of UP, bordering Haryana, the highest quantity of liquor has been seized from Gautambudh Nagar (5,000 litres), followed by Saharanpur (3,368 litres), Baghpat (2,500 litres), Shamli (2,099 litres), Mathura (1,680 litres) and Aligarh (678 litres). There are multiple entry points from Haryana to UP. Gautambudh Nagar alone has nearly 12 entry points and smuggling of liquor thus becomes easy. 'To ensure that no smuggling of liquor takes place, six teams from the excise department are keeping a check in suspected areas of the district. With 60 officials working round the clock, 5,000 litres of illicit liquor has been seized so far. Smuggling of illegal liquor will increase once the candidates for all the political parties are announced,' said Kuldeep Yadav, district excise officer and assistant excise commissioner, Gautambudh Nagar. Signalling a major restructuring of the armed forces, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be given a detailed presentation by the armed forces on the creation of 'theatre commands' in the country to bring in better coordination among the three armed forces. The presentation would be made by the chairman of the Chiefs of Staffs Committee and Navy's Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba during the Combined Commanders' Conference to be held at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradoon on January 21, sources told Mail Today here. A detailed report in this regard has already been prepared by the services with inputs from all stakeholders, the sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be given a detailed presentation by the armed forces on the creation of 'theatre commands' in the country to bring in better coordination among the three armed forces A 'theatre command' would mean that the resources of all three forces will be placed at the command of senior military commander. The move mirrors how military commands operate in United States and China, which recently made the change too. Explaining how it would work, a source said that the country is divided into four to five major areas and the assets and personnel of the Army, Navy and Air Force are put under one officer who can belong to any of the three services. In the Indian context, the country can be divided into geographical theatres like southern peninsula, mountainous borders with Pakistan and China in the north, the deserts and plains with Pakistan and the central and eastern borders with China. The commands can be given to the respective services based on the terrain. For example, a Navy officer can be made in-charge of the southern theatre comprising the eastern and western seaboard with all naval, Army and Air Force assets under him as the fighting would be in the maritime zone, the sources said. 'The Prime Minister's Office is very keen on the proposal which was initiated after the NDA government under Modi came to power and is considered very important for increasing jointness (sic) in the forces,' the sources said. In his maiden meeting with commanders, Modi had expressed anguish at the lack of coordination among them and asked them to work towards more joint operations rather than remaining in silos. In his maiden meeting with commanders, Modi had expressed anguish at the lack of coordination among them and asked them to work towards more joint operations rather than remaining in silos In 2015, after China re-structured its military commands, the Army was asked by the government to work on creation of theatre commands and work out its command and control structures based upon the threat perceptions. World's most powerful military power America also works on the basis of theatre commands but their theatre areas include several countries and sometimes continents while the Chinese recently divided their military into six theatre commands. In comparison with China, India has 17 single-service commands with seven each of Army and Air Force and three of the Navy. The commands operate with lot of inter-service rivalry. The CCC is also likely to review the functioning of nation's only tri-service operational command functioning in Andaman and Nicobar Command as it functions with a naval head and deputies from Air Force and Army. The CCC will also take up several other issues for reforms, including the creation of the post of a new General to be known as Permanent, Chairman Chiefs of Staffs Committee. Growing market share in a growing market is an ideal scenario for most if not all -- companies. Many fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) categories, however, are highly mature and growth is hard to find, especially in developed markets. Volume demand for most FMCG products is near saturation and value-led growth faces pressure from branded competitors as well as private label. In such saturated markets, companies look to the competitive landscape to support growth. This two-part blog series introduces three main steps and five strategic directions businesses could take to find or re-discover growth opportunities in the competitive landscape. The second part of the series focuses on applying these steps into an actionable strategy using business intelligence data. Searching for growth in plateauing markets In a simplified form, a companys revenue growth can come from several sources: Growing market size: either as a result of product innovation that carves out new categories and unlocks new consumer needs in the process; or momentum drove growth where market size is growing because of industry or consumer trends, such as higher disposable incomes and/or population growth that results in higher demand. Market share gain: winning market share from competitors through actions such as pricing, marketing and product innovation. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A): can boost market share or re-position the company in terms of geography/category exposure. The first option is ideal, but the majority of FMCG categories, such as packaged food, are hard to re-invent and as a result market growth has plateaued. For example, the beauty and personal care category has averaged a modest 2.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in current retail value terms over 2010-2015 in developed markets -- placing it among the top performers. Home care grew by 1.1% over the same time period. Many categories that were strong in the past, such as cola carbonates and breakfast cereals are in decline or flat, forcing companies to rethink their growth strategies. Figure 1: Growth becomes harder to find Note: Average annual category growth in developed countries, selected categories, 2010-2015 CAGR % value growth, fixed exchange rates Source: Euromonitor International In some markets, using mergers and acquisitions to enter, protect and increase market share in existing categories becomes as important as growing overall market size. The second and third approaches also place greater importance on competitive intelligence departments as they track and respond to industry and competitor moves, in addition to adapting to consumer preferences such as trends in packaging, retailing, price positioning, eco-awareness and ingredients/flavours. A typical growth industry such as technology may be able to ignore country-level trends and focus instead on aggressive innovation and a strong product with a strategy thats more global in nature. However, saturated markets require a higher degree of fine tuning and fit searching at the country/category level. The visual above illustrates the variability between countries in terms of growth. For example, breakfast cereals is a flat category, growing only 0.2% annually in developed countries. However, this masks many outliers such as Japan, where the market has nearly doubled during 2010-2015, or the US where the market has declined by 6% over the same period in current value terms. Planning M&A or new product development to reposition countries/categories in such an environment becomes very important to future company growth. Using Euromonitor Internationals steps and directions below, your company can learn how to use market research data to find growth opportunities. Identify top competitive pairs by measuring market overlap First, the prerequisite for any competitive analysis is to create a shortlist of competitors. Market research is most valuable during this stage. The more information you have on your competitors sales by country and category, the better picture you will have on whether competitors are playing in similar markets or if you are missing out on growth markets. When identifying competitors, we should consider companies present in the same country/category combinations as the local company. For example, if two companies sell ice cream in the United Kingdom, they are directly competing for consumer spending on ice cream. Moreover, if a consumer decides to switch from one companys brand to another, this would have a direct impact on both companies revenues. Euromonitor International has developed a tool to measure and objectively calculate market overlap by scanning across all possible country and category combinations available on its Passport market intelligence database. In Figure 2, you can see the top 10 direct competitors for Coca-Cola Co, Unilever Group and Nestle SA listed by US$ market overlap value. Its worth noting not only names of competitors, but also the exact market overlap value. For example, for Coca-Cola, its competition with PepsiCo in value terms is as important as the competition with the next nine competitors combined. Figure 2: Top 10 competitors and market overlap value for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Unilever Source: Euromonitor International (Competitor Analytics) You could also add potential and indirect competitors to the picture. Potential competitors are companies with no direct market overlap because they are present in different geographies, but could become direct competitors in the future. Indirect competitors, conversely, are companies that are in the same geography but compete in a different but not too distant category from a consumer standpoint. For example, tea and coffee, or cinema and theatre could be viewed as indirect competitors because consumers see both categories as substitutes for another. Examine each competitive pair in detail - and assess competitive footprints After identifying competitors, examine each competitor side by side in a matrix form. For example, see the chart with Henkel AG and Procter & Gamble below, with their categories listed vertically and countries horizontally. The colour shading refers to market share, the darker colour the larger the market share, with numbers indicating which position the company has (one denoting the category leader). In addition, the dark grey squares indicate gaps in a companys portfolio. For example, Henkel has many gaps in the UK, Sweden and Denmark where Procter & Gamble is strong. Finally, lighter grey squares highlight where none of the companies are present (e.g. automatic dishwashing in France). Figure 3: Competitive footprints great way to identify white spaces or opportunities This exercise should be completed for all major competitive pairs to better understand your respective product positioning, strength/weaknesses and gaps between competitors. Classify the opportunities Now that we have the competitive footprint of the company, we can classify strategic expansion opportunities into several areas and apply a recommended action for each: Key markets nurture and protect Key categories bring products to more countries. Is an acquisition possible? Key countries -- more focus on new products, look for new category niches White spaces fill the white spaces Experiment in uncharted territories Figure 4: Competitive footprint and recommended strategic directions Lets walk through each of the five opportunities and associated action points. 1. Key markets nurture and protect: A companys portfolio can be clustered into markets that generate the majority of its revenues. Euromonitor suggests taking a figure of 50-60% as a benchmark to identify its core markets. This should encompass the core competencies of the company, which models the fit of other markets. Protecting and prioritising these markets could serve as a stable base for future revenue growth and balance out more risky ventures in other categories and/or countries. A company may also look to further expand market share with acquisition where possible without breaking anti-trust rules in these markets. However, a greater share of effort should be on product development and innovation to retain consumers and protect from possible competitor moves. 2. Key categories bring products to more countries: When it comes to boosting international presence, companies usually expand in their strongest categories first. For a highly diversified multinational company, however, it may not be easy to distinguish core categories. In this case, Euromonitor suggests using a combination of the following three metrics: % of the company total retail sales, the number of countries present and average market share. Figure 5 has an example of Unilever Group and its global retail value sales: Figure 5: Identifying Unilevers key categories % of company total retail sales Number of countries present (max=85) Average market share in a category % Ice Cream 15.5% 61 30.0% Hair Care 11.3% 85 13.1% Laundry Detergents 10.3% 62 27.5% Bath and Shower 9.0% 85 20.4% Sauces, Dressings and Condiments 7.9% 73 12.0% Deodorants 7.9% 85 30.2% Black Tea 4.3% 75 27.2% Source: Euromonitor International Please note that 85 is the maximum number of countries possible as this is the extent of Euromonitors company coverage. While ice cream, hair care and laundry detergents account for the majority of Unilevers retail value sales, the categories are not as geographically expansive as deodorants or bath & shower or hair care. This suggests that deodorants and bath & shower, with brands such as Dove Axe/Lynx, are the true core categories for Unilever and that the company has many gaps in their ice cream and laundry businesses. These gaps could be a good target for strategic expansion in other regions. Cultural and regulatory challenges can still impede this expansion, as consumers in other markets may not have the same brand awareness or loyalty to a companys products. Acquisitions can help overcome such barriers. For example, Mars acquisition of Iams line of pet care from Procter & Gamble has significantly strengthened its presence in North America and Japan, which were regional weaknesses in Mars portfolio with Mars adding over 5% market share in both markets after the acquisition. 3. Key countries - more focus on new products, look for new category niches: A similar statement can be made for countries as well as categories. For historical reasons, most companies are usually strong in their home markets. Henkel is strong in Germany, Procter & Gamble in North America, and LG Group and Samsung in South Korea. In the home markets, companies have established marketing and supply networks and in-turn, can consider brand immersion or enter new categories to further their presence. For instance, Samsung and LG Group are extensively present in their home markets, with products ranging from smartphones in consumer electronics and washing machines to even jeans in the apparel category. Home markets are where new product development is crucial. If new products are successful, then said concepts can be rolled out elsewhere. A good example is Tide PODS, a multi-chamber tablet form detergent Procter & Gamble launched in the US in 2011. According to the company, PODS are the biggest innovation in laundry in the last 25 years. Even though tablet form detergents have historically failed to establish themselves in the US, P&G still chose to launch its biggest innovation in its home market. Established marketing presence and retailer relationships in home markets can help push riskier but potentially bigger prize innovations. 4. White spaces - fill the white spaces: These are gaps in a companys core country/category presence. Examples of Henkels white spaces are in Facial Care Italy (within key markets), Bath and Shower UK (within key categories), Laundry Aids Turkey (within key countries). For one reason or another, Henkel has no presence in these markets, even though it is generally present across these country/category dimensions elsewhere. Henkel may consider moving to one of these markets to increase their presence. In some cases, there can be specific agreements for non-presence, such as Danones absence from Indias USD1 billion yoghurt market. Danones strongest category is yoghurt but because of its historical agreement with Britannia Biscuits, the company does not launch products in India in exchange for a joint venture. In theory, white spaces should be easy to fill since a company already has a presence in the country, and also has brands in this category in other markets as well. 5. Uncharted territories - country/category experiments: For companies organized along market commonality lines, it is rather uncommon to have significant outliers. However, either as a result of an acquisition or a specific country-level strategy, a company may enter a market where it is not normally present. For example, Danone has market share in the fresh milk category in Russia and Morocco, despite its general strategy to stay out of consumer fresh milk in most markets. Such categories could be seen as uncharted territory that hold potential to reposition the company in the future or reinvent the business model. They could also provide the possibility to divest if they do not seem to work. Complimentary fit as an expansion strategy in mature markets This framework helps companies think about competition methodically when seeking growth opportunities. After identifying and mapping out competitors, you can analyse where exactly competition takes place and if there are opportunities for brand extension or acquisition that could supplement your companys portfolio. The strategies suggested here align with the complimentary fit philosophy. Increasingly, Recently, this philosophy has become the main motivation for acquisitions in FMCG. Procter & Gamble, for example, has decided to focus on its core categories, which resulted in the spin-off of many brands in pet care, beauty and its Duracell batteries division. The brands that didnt work for P&G aligned well for Coty. In turn, Coty purchased those brands. Having the right data and framework in place could help map the perfect fit and find growth opportunities. Choosing a strategy for expansion also depends on shareholders risk tolerance and expectations. The data could be further supplemented with more traditional metrics, such as market size growth projections, category fragmentation, retailer distribution and consumer trends to better inform companys strategy. A more granular breakdown of categories into segments could be useful when targeting brand level opportunities, e.g. we could further split laundry detergents into economy/premium or liquid/tablets/powder. Euromonitor International can help. To learn more about our tools used to track and measure the competitive landscape, watch this video and request a demonstration today. The Government was well within its rights to appoint Lt Gen Bipin Rawat as the Chief of Army Staff. Even in Pakistan, where the army actually runs the show, the prerogative of appointing the chief rests in the hands of the civilian government. This is how it should be. But the appointment left a bad taste in the mouths of many after the remarks of Lt Gen Pravin Bakshi surfaced. New Army Chief General Bipin Rawat after a guard of honour at South Block in New Delhi Taken in conjunction with the controversies that rocked the nation when General VK Singh was Army chief, they are not a good sign for the health of one of the world's largest armies. Controversies This should not be seen as a critique of General Rawat; he does not lack anything in comparison to those who he superseded. But the remarks of Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi, the Eastern Army commander who was superseded, are somewhat shocking. According to media reports, in a New Year video broadcast to the 3,00,000 men in his command, Bakshi said 'there has been a malicious campaign to smear my name, a very deeply rooted conspiracy' carried out against him by 'men in the shadows.' According to reports, in recent months, anonymous complaints were filed to the defence minister against the General, alleging irregularities in procurements in his command. General Bipin Rawat paying homage at Amar Jawan Jyoti, India Gate, in New Delhi These were investigated by the Controller General of Defence Accounts and found to be untrue. The general said he was not resigning so that he could expose these shadow men who, as his remarks implied were from within his own command. The country has had to face controversy over Army chiefs in the past decade and some have found themselves in deep controversy. Outgoing chief Dalbir Singh had a discipline and vigilance ban slapped on him by General VK Singh, allegedly aimed at preventing from becoming the chief. Likewise, Singh, now a minister in the current government, sought to extend his tenure so as to allegedly prevent Bikram Singh from becoming the chief. A lot of this came out in the open last August, when Dalbir Singh, the then serving chief formally accused his predecessor General VK Singh of trying to stall his promotion 'with mala fide intent.' In an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, he said that as chief, V K Singh tried to 'victimise him' with the aim of 'denying promotion.' Grievance Behind these charges lay an even murkier story relating to the deaths of three informants allegedly by military intelligence officials, one of whom was reportedly close to another former chief JJ Singh who it has been alleged wanted to manipulate the line of succession to deny VK Singh his turn to be chief. The controversies over the appointment of the chiefs are only the tip of the iceberg of grouses, complaints and grievances that afflict the military. The government has created Armed Forces Tribunals to take away the pressure of promotion-related complaints from the courts and provide a channel to air grievances. The appointment left a bad taste in the mouths of many after the remarks of Lt Gen Pravin Bakshi surfaced But this does not take away the fact that unfortunately, a culture of malice, deliberate manipulation of rules and regulations to promote favourites and undermine the chances of others exists. You can create systems and rules and grievance redressal processes, but what is needed is a restoration of the ethical culture which the forces used to be so proud of. The politicians have, by and large, stayed away from the issues relating to promotion after the disaster of the 1962 war. But the same cannot be said of the MOD bureaucracy or the national security bureaucracy who believe that they are the true custodians of national interest and can and do get involved. Indian army soldiers from the Sikh regiment take part in India's 59th Republic Day parade in New Delhi Discretion In every system, democratic or otherwise, politicians have the discretion of making high-level appointments. This is necessary to underline the principle of civil control of the military. In the Indian system, there is a tendency to misuse discretion and deep selection, which is actually desirable. It is for this reason that previous governments decided to appoint the senior-most officer as the COAS unless there was something clearly negative against him. In the case of Bakshi and Lt Gen P M Hariz, there was nothing in their career that required them to be superseded. The government of the day must have the ability to make a choice. However, it would be helpful if that choice was made transparently and the government does not take recourse to false claims, as they did by saying Gen Rawat was chosen because of his counter-insurgency experience. CI is a subsidiary part of the Army's job. Its real job is to fight external enemies. Perceptions matter a great deal in managing men. For this reason, the government must not only be just, but appear to be so. The writer is a Contributing Editor, Mail Today, and fellow at the Observer Research Foundation A mentally challenged woman was allegedly raped by a police officer who offered her a lift after seeing her walking along a deserted stretch of road. The police officer has been arrested following the alleged incident in southern Karnataka on Sunday evening, an officer said on Monday. He is accused of raping the 30-year-old woman in a moving vehicle. India has been shamed in the past by headline-grabbing levels of sexual assault against women, notably in December 2012 when a student was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi 'The accused ASI (assistant sub inspector) has been suspended and arrested after the victim's mother filed a complaint on Sunday evening,' police superintendent Isha Pant told reporters. The driver of the vehicle has also been arrested for abetting the alleged crime and attempting to hide evidence. The incident took place during a Hindu harvest festival. 'As it was a festive weekend, movement of public or vehicles was much less when the incident occurred,' Pant said. The high-speed railway line linking London to the Channel Tunnel could be put up for sale with a 3.6 billion price tag. Its owners, Canadian pension giants Borealis and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, are understood to be mulling a sale just six years after paying 2.1 billion for a 30-year contract to run the line used by Eurostar and Southern services. The 68-mile HS1 route from London to Folkestone, which opened a decade ago and cost 6.2 billion to build, made 180 million profit last year. HS1 is the 67-mile stretch of railway linking London to the Channel tunnel It paid its owners 55 million of dividends in 2015 and 200 million the year before. The owners are said to have appointed Bank of America Merrill Lynch as an adviser. Canadian funds have long been major investors in British infrastructure. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board which looks after savings for all of the countrys workers has 1.4bn in Britains stock market, including stakes in infrastructure companies such as housebuilder Barratt Developments and telecoms giant BT. It also part-owns major shopping destinations across the country. Specs appeal: Actress Sophie Turner wears a classic pair of Ray-Ban aviators The company behind Ray-Ban sunglasses is to merge with French lens maker Essilor in a tie-up worth 40billion. Italian group Luxottica, which also owns Oakley and Sunglasses Hut, and Essilor are expected to rake in revenues of 13billion as a combined entity. The newly created group hopes to generate cost savings of up to 527million off the back of the deal. Leonardo Del Vecchio, Luxottica's billionaire founder, will be the majority shareholder of the group, with his holding company owning between 31 per cent and 38 per cent. He said: 'With this agreement, my dream to create a major global player in the eye-wear industry, fully integrated and excellent in all its parts, comes finally true. 'Finally, after 50 years, two products which are naturally complementary, namely frames and lenses, will be designed, manufactured and distributed under the same roof.' Del Vecchio will also be chief executive and executive chairman of the merged company, which will be listed in Paris. Tenants saw the cost of renting rise by just 1.6 per cent last year, the smallest increase in seven years, new figures suggest. An increase in the number of homes to let coming onto the market saw the growth in rental costs halve compared to a year earlier, with London actually recording a drop. Rents for new lets rose by 1.6 per cent across Britain in the year to December to an average of 927 per month, half the 3.1 per cent growth seen in 2015, according to the latest lettings index by Countrywide. This was also the slowest annual increase since 2009, when rents had increased by 0.9 per cent. Rents: The pace of growth eased last year, but it will pick up again in 2017, Countriwide said The estate agent forecast rental prices would pick up again this year as landlords are expected to buy fewer properties after a rise in stamp duty introduced last April and looming cuts to tax breaks. Johnny Morris, research director at Countrywide, said: Rental growth will likely increase in 2017. Squeezed yields, fewer tax breaks and higher stamp duty rates are likely to deter landlords from expanding their portfolios. Fewer homes on the market will leave tenants with less choice and negotiating power. However, diminished demand from buy-to-let landlords could lead to lower prices for renters looking to take their first step on to the property ladder. In London tenants were looking to pay 37 less than in 2015, with the average rent having fallen by 2.9 per cent to 1,246 in December, according to Countrywide. Central London saw a near double-digit fall as rental costs in this area fell by 9.4 per cent compared to around 2,381. Separate lettings data also pointed to a fall in rent prices in the capital. London saw stock levels of homes for rent increase by a quarter in the last three months of 2016 as home owners opted to rent rather than sell in the current softer market, according to LCP, a specialist residential property adviser focusing on prime central London. It said rental prices for smaller and cheaper properties rose by 3 per cent, but for luxury apartments they fell by 6 to 8 per cent. Meanwhile estate agent Rightmove pointed to a 4.4 per cent fall in rent prices in the capital. Rental prices: They declined only in London, the South West and Scotland last year Naomi Heaton, chief executive of London Central Portfolio, said that the lettings market had seen the same fragmentation of the sales market last year. She added: Demonstrating a market dynamic which was conspicuous during the credit crunch, the uncertain economic outlook has resulted in tighter tenant budgets, putting a downward pressure on rents in the luxury rental sector. This has been compounded by increased numbers of properties to rent as owners defer sales in a softer market. In contrast, the mainstream market has continued to put in a positive performance, being far more accessible to the wider tenant pool. Most of the other regions, however, continued to see the cost of renting increase for tenants, albeit at a slower pace. London homes: Rental prices in the capital have fallen last year Countrywide said rents in the East of England rose by 8.1 per cent to just over 1,000, while they hit 1,200 in the South East, having risen by 7.3 per cent in the year to December. Scotland and the South West were the only other two regions after London to have recorded a fall in rent prices, down by the same 3.1 per cent. Rightmove, however, found that prices rose in every region except for London and forecast them to rise by a higher 4 per cent this year in the rest of Britain, excluding the capital. Sam Mitchell, Rightmoves head of lettings, said: This year will be one of caution for buy-to-let investors due to tighter lending criteria and increased stamp duty. We definitely wont see the spike in Q1 purchases that we saw last year as landlords rushed to buy before last Aprils new stamp duty deadline. If the tax changes being phased in from this April lead to even fewer buy-to-let purchases and some landlords deciding to sell, then a tightening of supply in some areas will lead to increasing rents. Nearly one in three Britons is worried their job is at risk, according to research from technology firm CEB. It claims the public perception of job opportunities in the UK cooled over the last quarter of 2016, with 30 per cent of workers fearing Brexit will have a negative impact on their careers. Brian Kropp, HR practice leader at CEB, said the unpredictability of Brexit negotiations and the perceived slowdown in business is 'weighing heavy on the workforce and causing a breakdown in trust and confidence'. Concerns: Millions are worried about losing their job - but there are things you can do to protect yourself should it happen to you 'Understandably, employees are nervous about their future and their career prospects,' he said. Meanwhile figures from the Office for National Statistics show that although the unemployment rate is at a record low some companies are shedding jobs. Employment fell slightly by 6,000 in October to 31.76 million, its first drop in a year, knocking the overall employment rate down from its record high of 74.5 per cent, to 74.4 per cent. The prospect of losing your job is not a pleasant one, particularly when prices are starting to rise. And preparing for it financially might seem beyond most people's already stretched budgets - putting aside enough each month to cushion such a blow is easier said than done. But there are steps you can take to protect your income and family should you lose your job. Work out your redundancy pay There are two types of redundancy pay you could be entitled to - statutory or contractual. If you find yourself in this position, ask your employer which you're in line for so you know what your basic income will be when you receive redundancy. You can also use our redundancy pay calculator. Statutory redundancy pay is paid by the government if youve worked for your employer for two years or more. What you get will depend on your salary and your length of service, and is given to you tax-free. Contractual redundancy pay is paid by your employer. Their redundancy policy should be explained in the staff handbook, intranet or contract. Tax will be deducted automatically for amounts over 30,000. Prime Minister Theresa May has promised that Britain will trigger Article 50 in under four months' time Check your contract for your notice period If you've been employed for under two years then you should be given at least one weeks notice. If youve been employed for two years or more you should get one week for every year of employment, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. You may also get a contractual notice which could be longer. Look at your monthly outgoings Have a look at how much money you spend each month on essentials and if youve got any other upcoming expenses that you need to cover. If youre entitled to redundancy pay, check to see how long this will help to meet these costs until you find work again. Review your final payslip Your final payment will include your final wage, redundancy pay and potentially holiday pay. You may also receive pay in lieu if you dont work your full notice. If you think youve been underpaid, contact your employer to correct it. Have you got insurance policies? If youve taken out an income protection or mortgage protection policy for example, check the terms and conditions. You may be able to make a claim. A Brexit job casualty? Sir Ivan Rogers (right, pictured with Chancellor Philip Hammond) quit unexpectedly amid accusations of 'muddled thinking' around Brexit Do a benefits check While youre job hunting, see if youre entitled to any benefits, such as Housing Benefit or Jobseekers Allowance. Citizens Advices benefit checker can help. Check if you can make any savings You may be able to cut the costs of your bills - you could save an average of 300 on your energy bill by changing tariffs or suppliers if you haven't for some time. Check whether you could save money here. Many mortgage lenders will also allow you to take a temporary payment holiday if you contact them early to discuss your options - some will even let you skip a few payments to give you a bit of breathing room while you find your feet again. It's important to speak to them as early as possible so they can decide how best they may be able to help you. If youre struggling to pay the bills there are several charities that offer help with managing debt problems. Both StepChange and Citizens Advice are a good place to start and can help with the best ways to save money, prioritise any bills and debts you have, and help you negotiate with any companies you owe money to create more affordable repayment plans. Tracey Moss, employment expert at Citizens Advice, said: 'If youre facing redundancy, its important to assess your financial situation so you can plan for the coming months. 'Work out what your redundancy pay will be and look at how much you spend each month on essential bills - like your rent or mortgage, gas and electricity bills. 'That way youll know how long your redundancy pay will tide you over if you dont have savings to fall back on. You can also look for other sources of income while youre job hunting, whether thats using an insurance policy that youve taken out or checking for any benefits you can claim. 'If youve worked out what income youll have and youre concerned that you wont be able to pay your bills, seek advice as soon as possible.' If you aren't already facing redundancy but want peace of mind... Tom Conner, director of protection insurance firm Drewberry, says that during the last recession redundancy insurance became an extremely popular policy as workers tried to mitigate the financial risks of losing their job. 'Unfortunately, many people didnt start looking for this cover until their company had already announced redundancies, at which point it is too late to take out cover with most providers,' he warns. 'If you know there is a real possibility of being made redundant then great care is needed when looking for unemployment plans.' With some insurers a company announcement of redundancies in the press is enough to make you ineligible, whereas with other providers you would need to have received a formal letter stating that your job is at risk. 'If there are rumours of redundancies at your place of work and you are at all unsure if you would be eligible, speak to an adviser who can confirm the eligibility criteria with each insurer to see if its still possible to take out cover,' advises Conner. 'Even better still, if youre worried about redundancy take out cover before it gets to that stage.' Many people are wary of policies such as this, fearing that they won't pay out if a claim has to be made. But this isn't true in the vast majority of cases. In 2015, for example, insurer LV= paid out 100 per cent of all unemployment claims submitted. And most insurers' payout rates are now in the high 90s. Justin Harper, from LV=, said: 'Its not surprising that many people are worried about how the decision to leave the EU could impact on their employment prospects. Undoubtedly these are uncertain times, with several seismic changes at home and around the world this year. 'Those who are concerned about their job security should ensure they are aware of all the options that could provide support if the worst were to happen.' Research from the insurer has found that a third of UK parents would have to rely on welfare and State benefits if the main breadwinner in their household couldnt work, while one in five would have to borrow money from friends or family. A further 3.2 million couples in the UK rely on both incomes to make ends meet each month. Fashion house Burberry is set to reveal a sales rise thanks to surging demand for luxury goods after the fall in the pound. The chain is hugely popular with rich Chinese buyers and has been aggressively expanding in Asia, which accounts for a quarter of sales. Far Eastern luxury spending suffered early last year as concerns grew for Chinas economy, hurting high-end clothes firms. Soaring: Wealthy Chinese tourists are lured by expensive brands like Burberry Burberrys sales were flat in the six months to September 30, while profit dropped 4 per cent to 146.2million. But the business said the post-Brexit drop in sterling could give it a 125million boost to annual earnings. Tourists embarked on a spending spree after the Brexit vote in June, splashing out 1.8billion in July alone as the exchange rate move essentially gave foreign buyers a massive price cut. And research by Deloitte in October suggested that designer goods were cheaper in Britain than anywhere else on the planet. The currency changes are also good news for Burberrys overseas sales, as the profits it earns abroad are now worth more when translated back into pounds. Popular: Burberry has collaborated with pop star Kris Wu The firm has sought to boost the brands popularity in its Asian operation through a partnership with Chinese pop star Kris Wu, which Barclays analysts claimed had been a success. Burberrys third-quarter trading update on Wednesday could also spark fresh discussion about plans to widen its handbag range. It launched the new 16,000 Bridle collection last year to better compete with rivals such as Hermes and Louis Vuitton. Publisher shakeup Newspaper publisher Johnson Press could face a board room shake-up if an activist investor gets its way. Hedge fund Crystal Amber, the largest shareholder with an 18.6 per cent stake, is said to have called a meeting to discuss replacing chief executive Ashley Highfield. JP, which publishes the i and The Yorkshire Post, is sitting on millions of pounds of debt and shares have fallen 55.9 per cent this year. Ashley Highfield chief executive of Johnston Press (picture), the regional newspaper group which publishes the i and The Yorkshire Post Bookie profits Betfreds billionaire boss Fred Done has pocketed a 10.2m dividend from the bookie, accounts show. Around 10.8bn was gambled with the firm in the year to September 25 and it made a 32.4m profit, up from an 88.2m loss in the previous 12 months. The firm has 1,358 shops and a pools betting operation called the Tote. Burger investment Former BBC boss Greg Dykes investment fund has reportedly ploughed 2.2m into fledgling burger chain Hubbox. Provenance Investment Partners, which is backed by Dyke and ex-Diageo head Paul Walsh, handed over the cash to help with expansion. Hubbox was set up in 2003 by restaurateur Richard Boon in St Ives, Cornwall, with a view to serving American-style food, sourced from local farmers and bakers The deal is thought to have valued Hubbox an American-style chain which uses meat from local farms and was founded in Cornwall at 5m. Accounting probe Outsourcing giant Mitie has ordered a probe of its accounts amid fears the move could hit profits. Chief executive Phil Bentley is said to have called in external auditors at the company, which posted two profit warnings in two months last year. Analysts have previously raised fears that Mities aggressive accounting practices made understanding its books more difficult. Deal plea Controversial Australian finance firm Macquarie is facing a last-ditch challenge to its bid for the Governments Green Investment Bank. The company called the Vampire Kangaroo for its asset-stripping reputation is seeking to buy the eco-friendly lender in a 3.8bn deal. But rival Sustainable Investment Management has pleaded for energy minister Nick Hurd to reject the offer, saying its plan was the best alternative and would protect the organisation. The City is gearing up for its largest stock market float in five years with the 11bn listing of warehouse giant Logicor. The commercial landlord, which owns 600 premises across Europe, was set up by private equity giant Blackstone four years ago, and counts Amazon among its major customers. It is reportedly considering an initial public offering in the first six months of the year, in a major boost for Britain. Logicor, which counts Amazon among its customers is valued at around 11bn Its a feather in the cap for London because, lets face it, this could have listed anywhere, said Laith Khalaf, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. The London Stock Exchange is one of the worlds leading exchanges but its pleasing to see companies are still willing to list here particularly with the uncertainty around Brexit. Logicor is aiming to go public on the Citys stock exchange some time during the first six months of this year If it goes ahead, the floatation of Logicor the largest owner of distribution properties in Europe will be Britains biggest since mining giant Glencore joined the stock exchange with a 36 billion valuation in 2011. A private sale is thought to be another option on the table. The plans, which have not been officially confirmed, could trigger a bumper payday for bankers at Goldman Sachs. It is said to be advising Blackstone on the deal and is likely to earn hundreds of millions of pounds in fees if it goes ahead. Real estate firm Eastdil Secured is also thought to be involved in the listing. The Logicor deal will vie for the title of this years biggest float with mobile phone business O2, which is preparing to list with a valuation of around 10 billion. O2 is hoping to sell shares to millions of ordinary investors in the first major retail offering since the Royal Mail flotation three years ago. O2 are among the companies advancing with flotation plans in 2017 BGL Group, owner of the price comparison site Compare The Market, is also set to go public, with a price tag of 2billion. It suggests 2017 could be better for listings than last year, when several were ditched due to market volatility. Tech firm Misys and budget fitness chain Pure Gym were among the firms that backed off as stocks swung wildly in the wake of Donald Trumps US presidential victory and the Brexit vote. Analysts said Logicor was likely to be a compelling offer for investors due to the rise of internet sales. With the dominance of Amazon and others such as online clothing firm Asos, more and more retail goods are shipped directly to customers from giant warehouses. Blackstone declined to comment. British woman, 36, killed after being hit by strong wave on Dominican Republic beach is named as a teacher day before she was due to fly home Sian Marshall-Plewes reportedly drowned while swimming at 4am She became separated from him after being hit by a 'strong wave' Drowned: English teacher Sian Marshall-Plewes from Lincoln A popular British teacher has died while swimming in the sea on holiday in the Dominican Republic. Sian Louise Marshall-Plewes, 36, from Lincoln, drowned in the luxury holiday resort during the early hours of Saturday morning. She was an English teacher at the Priory City of Lincoln Academy, in Skellingthorpe Road. Ms Marshall-Plewes drowned at 4am while swimming with 20-year-old Jose Manuel Cordero, close to the popular Sosua Beach. She became separated from him after being hit by a 'strong wave', inhaled water and then passed out. Ms Marshall-Plewes had been staying at an apartment in Calle Llibre for a week. She was due to fly back to England on Sunday. It comes seven years after Sian's husband, Mark, died suddenly, aged 30. It is understood he died at the couple's home. Tributes have already begun flooding in for Ms Marshall-Plewes. Former student Danielle Jenkinson, 19, said: 'She was more of a friend and a mother figure than a teacher. 'As pupils we could go to her about anything and everything. That could include any problems outside of school. 'She was the most amazing person and a brilliant teacher. The beach at Sosua, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, where drowned British holidaymaker Sian Marshall-Plewes washed up after she was reportedly carried away by a wave after going for a late-night swim 'She had a fish bowl in her classroom at school and we used to feed the fish every time we started class. 'I will always remember her and everyone will miss her.' Other pupils and staff today described her as a very popular teacher. Pauline Mountcastle, who works at the school three miles south of Lincoln city centre, said: 'Such sad news.we will miss you.rip to a lovely lady xxxxx.' Kaisha Mellars said: 'Sleep tight beautiful, you will be missed by all of us at school. Amazing woman. R.I.P x' Karla Noble said: 'Sleep tight miss you were the best teacher at school you will be missed by us all rip x.' Well-loved: Sian-Marshall Plewes's pupils paid tribute to her as a wonderful teacher Savannah Purdy said: 'So sad! Going to miss her loads, rest in peace Miss Marshall. Sleep tight up there xxxx.' A former student of the Lincoln teacher added: 'She was a loved English teacher by all. 'Its such a shame this woman drowned while on holiday. My thoughts are with her family and friends.' This afternoon there was no answer at Sian's new build home in the south of the city close to the school where she worked. But one neighbour said: 'Sian told me she was planning to pack her bags and go over there for good. This map shows the location of Sousa Beach, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic 'This is a real tragedy especially if she was about to start a new life.' In a statement, an FCO spokesman said: 'We can confirm the death of a British national, Sian Louise Marshall-Plewes, in the Dominican Republic on August 3. MS Power employees and Our Daily Bread.JPG Mississippi Power employees Ryanne Smith and Kysha Blake are seen with a volunteer from Our Daily Bread in Pascagoula serving hot meals to the community. (Tyler Carter/tcarter@al.com) PASCAGOULA, Miss. - On a day designated for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man who preached service and equality for all no matter your walk of life, Mississippi Power employees took their designated holiday to serve the community at Our Daily Bread. An atmosphere filled with music, food and conversation spurred a spirit of thankfulness and appreciation from all in attendance. Before food was served, Mary Meldren, executive director for Our Daily Bread, gave thanks for everyone in attendance and proceeded to pray over the food. While only eight Mississippi Power employees were expected to show, more than 20 came to serve those in need. Cedrick Hurd, Jackson County area manager for the company, said that Monday's activity was not only a way to pay tribute to King, but to also show what the company is all about. "From our perspective, this is just another day on instead of another day off," Hurd said. "This is our opportunity to pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and what he stood for. So we have volunteers here donating their time and energy to give back to our community." Mississippi Power employees are seen smiling and serving food at Our Daily Bread in Pascagoula. (Tyler Carter/tcarter@al.com) According to Corporate Communications Specialist Jeff Shepard, Mississippi Power has been serving at Our Daily Bread for about five years, with employees throughout the entire state participating in community service efforts in their communities. Hurd said he felt a call to be at Our Daily Bread because he is a native Pascagoulan. "For me, I grew up here so personally, it is very important to me to give back to the community," Hurd said. "This community gave me so much while growing up here and so for me and my family, it is an opportunity for me to be a leader and to show my kids what giving back to the community is all about and how good it feels." For Meldren, Monday wasn't simply about King, but more so about the lessons he taught and how people around the country can learn from the message King was attempting to convey before his assassination. "On this day, it's not just about a celebratory movement by a man who changed our nation, it is about making our country realize because of this man's efforts before he was murdered, he achieved a lot," Meldren said. "I'm more impressed with what he was about and that was equality for everyone. I firmly believe if he were still alive today, I have no doubt in my heart our country would be in an even better place." "We have people here today, black and white, who came out to serve people today to show that we are as one," Meldren said. "That is what Dr. King preached and that is what is on display here at Our Daily Bread today." Dominican Republic defends allowing group dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits to march in Carnival parade The ministry of culture claims the outfits were part of the parade commemorating historical events Officials said the Dominican Republic is a 'free country' and groups in the parade are free to choose their themes Tweets from the ministry later said the outfits were intended to be critical of the KKK in the U.S. Several participants in the Carnival parade in the Dominican Republic marched wearing Ku Klux Klan outfits - and the island nation's Ministry of Culture has come out in defense of the outfits following an outpouring of criticism. The culture ministry is tasked with approving groups that are permitted to march in the annual parade, so when a group showed up wearing Klan outfits - which represent hate, fear and oppression against African Americans in the Southern United States - people expressed their outrage. In a series of post on Twitter on Monday, the ministry defended the group's attire by explaining that it was for a portion of the parade dedicated to commemorating historical events. Hate: The Ku Klux Klan represents a dark, painful episode in U.S. history. KKK imagery is widely regarded as offensive (File photo) 'Every group is free to choose their themes, whether using elements of the Dominican identity or universal culture in their costumes,' the ministry tweeted. Another tweet noted that the Dominican Republic is a 'free country' where people are at liberty 'to express their creativity.' The controversy was first reported by El Caribe. In a followup statement, the ministry claimed that the costumes were intended to be critical of the KKK in the U.S., which has a history of violence against blacks, and still exists - albeit in a much smaller capacity than in the past - today. Not everyone was convinced, and many took to social media to voice their disdain. 'If the point was to demonstrate the obscurantism of a historical period, the message didnt come through!' write Twitter user Nieves Peguero. The Latino Rebels blog caught wind of the story after it gained traction in the Dominican media on Monday. The bloggers were equally outraged. Disgrace: The KKK still exists in the U.S. today, although in much smaller, isolated, powerless sects (file photo) 'If the KKK procession was meant to be humorous or satirical, it obviously failed,' Iris Estrada wrote, as initially reported by the Huffington Post. The Dominican Republic is no stranger to controversial racial issues. Last year, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that eliminated the birthright citizenship to be applied retroactively. This ultimately jeopardized the immigration statuses of thousands of Haitian immigrants and their Dominican-born children, the majority of which are black. According to the Huffington Post, human rights groups estimate that the ruling could strip more than 200,000 people of their citizenship. North Dakota State Rep. Keith Kempenich (above) authored a bill that would exempt motorists who 'unintentionally kill or injure' a protester on a highway from legal action An oil-friendly Republican lawmaker in North Dakota smarting over a recent protest which stopped the building of a controversial pipeline on land considered sacred by Native Americans now wants to make it legal for a driver to run over protesters blocking traffic. A state representative has introduced a bill that would provide an exemption for a motorist who unintentionally injures or kills a pedestrian who is blocking traffic on a public highway, the Bismarck Tribune reported on Wednesday. 'It's shifting the burden of proof from the motor vehicle driver to the pedestrian,' said the bill's author, Rep. Keith Kempenich. Kempenich acknowledged that the bill is in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters who last month clogged roadways and staged demonstrations. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters won a stunning victory last month after the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not grant an easement that would permit the construction of an oil pipeline half a mile south of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The tribe argued that the $3.8bllion pipeline's route under Lake Oahe would have threatened its sources of water. The company constructing the pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, denounced the decision. It had previously said it was unwilling to reroute the project. 'A driver of a motor vehicle who negligently causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway may not be held liable for any damages,' the bill reads. 'A driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway is not guilty of an offense.' The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters (above) won a stunning victory last month after the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not grant an easement that would permit the construction of an oil pipeline half a mile south of a reservation Kempenich said that roadways should not be used as staging points for protests and rallies. 'They're not there for the protesters,' he said Kempenich. 'They're intentionally putting themselves in danger.' He said he was sponsoring the driver exemption after his 72-year-old mother-in-law was blocked by protesters waving signs on a roadway. Kempenich is also pushing legislation that would require the state attorney general to sue the federal government to help cover costs for policing a protest. The proposed pieces of legislation is one of a series of measures being introduced by the Republican-dominated legislature in North Dakota in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline episode. Other bills seek to restrict face coverings at protests to requiring the state to sue the federal government as a means of recouping millions in policing costs. The tribe argued that the $3.8bllion pipeline's route under Lake Oahe would have threatened its sources of water Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson and the state GOP chairman, said the measures are motivated by residents' frustration with the ongoing protests in the southern part of the state, which at one point in the summer saw a thousands-strong encampment opposing the four-state pipeline. 'When people are having their lives disrupted, you're going to see things move up here,' said Armstrong, an oil company executive and a former defense attorney. 'It's very difficult to write "protest laws". We need to make sure there is reasonable application of the law in all circumstances, whether protest-related or not.' Faced with protest-weary constituents, lawmakers have put forth several bills in the young biennial session and more may be coming. Among them are: making it a crime for adults to wear masks in most cases similar to one that lasted for nearly 50 years that was aimed at the Ku Klux Klan and exempting a driver from liability if they unintentionally injure or kill a pedestrian obstructing traffic on a public road or highway. Another, now-withdrawn measure would have had the state try to claim land and valuable mineral rights in the pipeline's path under the Missouri River as reimbursement for state law enforcement costs. But there are dissenters over the bills, including Democratic state Rep. Marvin Nelson of Rolla. No Democrats have introduced protest-related measures, and the GOP has a supermajority, though it's common for chambers to disagree on key bills. 'Knee-jerk legislation often is poor legislation,' said Nelson, a failed 2016 gubernatorial candidate and one of the few North Dakota lawmakers who has visited the encampment near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a protest organizer, said she had not seen the proposed legislation but called it a 'process of people not communicating.' 'I have never seen so many people frightened in all my life,' she said of the lawmakers. 'My recommendation for the legislature would be to pray harder. I think people are living on rumor and gossip more than they do the truth.' Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, like his GOP predecessor and most in the Legislature, have been sympathetic to pipeline builders and to law enforcement and residents affected by the protests. Burgum said in his state of the state address earlier this month that the Standing Rock Sioux tribe raised 'legitimate issues' but 'those have been hijacked by those with alternative agendas.' He said criminal activity will not be tolerated. 'To those North Dakotans personally affected by this ongoing dispute, we hear your concerns,' Burgum said. 'Be assured that maintaining the rule of law in our state remains our priority.' Already, the Dakota Access protests have cost the state more than $22million and there have been nearly 600 arrests in the region since August. Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner of Dickinson said he still has some concerns about whether any protest-related legislation could spur lawsuits or add to the state's prison population that's soared due to crime accompanying the rise in oil production. President-elect Donald Trump 'speaks like a rookie,' China's state-run media said Monday, describing his suggested use of America's position on Taiwan as a bargaining chip as 'despicable.' The nationalist tabloid Global Times published an editorial blasting Trump's strategy and saying China would have a strong response to any reconsideration of the 'one China' policy. Since recognizing Beijing in 1979, Washington has maintained only unofficial ties with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers its territory a status quo that Trump has repeatedly threatened to upend since winning the November election. President-elect Donald Trump 'speaks like a rookie,' China's state-run media said Monday 'In the past, Trump infuriated us, but now we find him risible,' said the newspaper, which is published by the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece. 'With a skyrocketing ascent in his political life, he has been stunningly confident in his ostensible knowledge of the job, though he speaks like a rookie.' It's not the first time the paper has used the same language towards Trump, and previously referred to him as a 'diplomatic rookie' in December of 2016 following his conversation with Taiwanese president Tsai-Ing wen. Chinese media previously referred to Trump as a 'diplomatic rookie' in December of 2016 following his conversation with Taiwanese president Tsai-Ing wen The English-language China Daily ran an editorial Monday accusing Trump of 'playing with fire.' 'If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves,' the newspaper said. Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that 'everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.' It was the latest sign that Trump could shake up the U.S.-China relationship, particularly on Taiwan, which China considers a core national interest. China's president Xi Jinping is currently in Switzerland, as his country's media suggests that Trump's position on Taiwan is 'despicable' China's Foreign Ministry responded with a statement Sunday saying the 'one China' policy was 'non-negotiable.' 'The government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing China,' spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement. 'That is the fact acknowledged by the international community and no one can change it.' China was already angered by Trump's December 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader in nearly four decades. China was already angered by Trump's December 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader in nearly four decades Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult. Chinese political observers said Sunday that they expect Beijing's response to change once Trump is inaugurated next week. 'Trump has not taken office yet, so he is an ordinary person now,' said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. 'Therefore, there's no need for China to take his remarks seriously or further respond to what he said.' Trump then said in a television interview that he didn't feel 'bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.' U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, left, spoke to members of the media as comedian and television host Steve Harvey stands in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Friday On Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff, said that 'there are no plans to change the one-China policy.' 'But certainly that policy is on the table if China doesn't also come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and what's happening there,' Priebus said on ABC's 'This Week.' After attacking China repeatedly during his campaign, Trump has continued to disparage China on his Twitter account over its military buildup in disputed areas of the South China Sea, allegedly manipulating its currency to put American companies at a disadvantage, and not doing enough to curb North Korea's nuclear program. Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult - Trump has said he doesn't feel 'bound' to a 'one-China' policy He has also announced that a new White House trade council will be led by economist Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of Chinese economic policy who wrote a book titled 'Death By China.' Trump told the Journal that he would not label China a currency manipulator as soon as he takes office, though he repeated his contention that China is manipulating the yuan. President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to 'blast' Islamist militants who have been on a kidnap-for-ransom spree in the Philippines, even if hostages would also be killed. He said: 'They say "What about the hostage?" Sorry, collateral damage. Then if they are blasted everyday, that (kidnappings) would stop...So better not get yourselves kidnapped.' The Abu Sayyaf, a loose network of Muslim militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from al-Qaeda, preys on the waters of the southern Philippines and has earned millions of dollars from kidnappings-for-ransom. It beheaded two Canadian hostages last year after demands for millions of dollars were not met. Rodrigo Duterte won elections in May 2016 on a pledge to wipe out illegal drugs, promising to stop Philippines becoming a 'narco state' Duterte has also threatened to impose martial rule on the Philippines in an attempt to win his brutal war on drug dealers. The 71-year-old said of the country's drugs problem: 'If I wanted to, and it deteriorates into something really very virulent, I will declare martial law if I wanted to. No one will be able to stop me.' Duterte won elections in May last year on a pledge to wipe out illegal drugs, promising an unprecedented crackdown to stop the Philippines from becoming a 'narco-state'. The crackdown has left at least 5,700 people dead in just over six months, raising concerns of a breakdown in the rule of law with security forces and vigilantes carrying out extrajudicial killings. There are even fears innocent people have been killed by their enemies, masked by the violence of the drugs war. Manila's longtime ally, the United States, has led international criticism of the killings, with outgoing President Barack Obama urging Duterte to prosecute his war 'the right way'. But Duterte, a former state prosecutor and Mayor of Davao, said the aim of his campaign was 'to preserve the Filipino people and the youth of this land'. He has reacted furiously to the criticism and vowed to continue his war until illegal drugs are eradicated. Duterte has raised the prospect of imposing martial law previously. But his comments at the weekend were the most direct threat. Martial rule would allow Duterte to use the military to enforce civilian law and detain people at length without charging them. The Philippines last endured martial law during the 20-year rule of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was accused of plundering billions of dollars from state coffers and overseeing widespread human rights abuses. The anti-drugs crackdown has left at least 5,700 people dead in just over six months, with vigilantes suspected of joining in the killing of drug dealers Marcos declared martial law in 1972, invoking the threats of crime and a communist insurgency, and only lifted it in 1981. He was finally ousted in 1986, when millions took to the streets in a 'People Power' revolt. A new constitution drawn up in 1987 in an effort to avoid another dictatorship specified no president could rule more than a single six-year term. It also said the president could impose martial rule for a maximum of 60 days and only to stop an invasion or a rebellion. Parliament can revoke the measure within 48 hours while the Supreme Court can review its legality. But Duterte, speaking to local businessmen in his home town of Davao in the south of the Philippines, warned he could ignore the 60-day limit. Show most cats a swimming pool and theyll run a mile. Charlie on the other hand is so keen on water hes happy to dive in and paddle in his buoyancy vest for 45 minutes at a time. However, there is method in his feline madness he is trying to shed pounds after ballooning to double the weight he should be. The 11-year-old British shorthair was adopted by the Eyres family as a companion to Rosalyn, 84, after her husband died. Purrfect workout: Charlie in his buoyancy vest is put through an exercise regime that most cats would howl at. He loves to swim and can complete 12 lengths in 45 minutes Watch my stroke: Charlie's hind legs require gentle support from hydrotherapist Tracey Allen The 11-year-old British shorthair was adopted by Robyn Eyres and her family as a companion to Rosalyn, 84, after her husband died Robyn was told that Charlie needed to slim down to between seven and nine pounds after he piled on weight nearly a year ago But the familys efforts failed after he developed a taste for the slimming food that they bought for him and he chose to lounge around at home under the furniture Miss Eyres then took the cat to the nearby K9 Splash Hydrotherapy centre, usually only used by dogs, after the vet suggested it. He is seen here drying off after a swim But when Mrs Eyres granddaughter Robyn, 30, took him to the vet in Plymouth, she discovered the familys new pet was obese. She was told that Charlie needed to slim down to between seven and nine pounds after he piled on weight nearly a year ago. But the familys efforts failed after he developed a taste for the slimming food that they bought for him and he chose to lounge around at home under the furniture. Miss Eyres then took the cat to the nearby K9 Splash Hydrotherapy centre, usually only used by dogs, after the vet suggested it. To her surprise Charlie took to the water with ease and can now complete 12 lengths in 45 minutes with breaks to make sure his heart rate doesnt rise too high. He is particularly strong on his front paws so a hydrotherapist supports his hind legs. Now he has managed to shed four of the seven pounds he needs to lose. Charlie the cat taking a rest before going for a swim at the Plymouth hydrotherapy pool To her surprise Charlie took to the water with ease and can now complete 12 lengths in 45 minutes with breaks to make sure his heart rate doesnt rise too high Rosaline Eyres with Charlie, who is the first cat to use Plymouthis hydrotherapy pool to lose weight It is thought most cats dont like water because wet fur can weigh them down But it may simply be that theyve never experienced it before, and cats can be quite nervous Miss Eyres, a support worker, said: Usually if a cat was in water it would scramble around to get out, but not Charlie. He does a sort of doggy paddle. She added: The change in Charlie is really quite clear as well hes a lot more confident around the house and doesnt lie around nearly as much as he used to. It is thought most cats dont like water because wet fur can weigh them down. But it may simply be that theyve never experienced it before, and cats can be quite nervous. Sydney's often invisible homeless population are now living within an arm's reach of the city's most powerful office. The number of people sleeping rough in the NSW capital is at an all-time high, and people with nowhere else to go are spread around the city. They camp in parks, under awnings outside buildings, and even in the shadow of NSW Premier Mike Baird's conference room, Fairfax reported. Homelessness is at an all-time high in NSW, with people now sleeping rough in the shadow of NSW Premier Mike Baird's office (circled) Mr Baird announced he would be spending $188 million on homeless services this year According to the City of Sydney's biannual street count , 486 homeless people were sleeping rough last summer. That number dropped slightly to 384 last winter, however these figures combined still mean the number of those on the streets are at an all-time high. In Martin Place, a group of men and women have set up camp beneath a new development billed as 'Sydney's most prestigious new address'. Lanz Priestley, who runs a dinner service for the homeless, set up the area as a safe space for women after hearing of a number of assaults in the lead up to Christmas. Pictured is the building which houses NSW Premier Mike Baird's Sydney office The last census revealed that 486 homeless people were sleeping rough last summer Mr Baird announced he would be spending $188 million on homeless services this year, admitting it was still a huge issue in NSW. 'Despite our efforts, it is strikingly apparent that many people are homeless and sleeping rough on the streets of Sydney and around our state,' Mr Baird told Fairfax. 'It is clear there is still more to do and we are continuing to work with the City of Sydney council to ensure everything possible is being done to help those in need.' Nicodemo Scarfo, the infamous mob boss of the Philadelphia crime family during the 1980s, has died at the age of 87. Scarfo, better known as 'Little Nicky', had been serving a 55-year prison sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, at the time of his death, NBC 10 reported. His attorney, Norris E. Gelman believes Scarfo died of cancer, but is not sure of what type. Philadelphia mobster, Nicodemo 'Little Nicky' Scarfo, died on Friday in while serving his prison sentence at the age of 87. Pictured: an FBI photo of Scarfo walking with associates Scarfo had been sentenced to 55 years in prison after he was convicted on murder, extortion and other charges in 1987. Pictured on the left is Little Nicky leaving a court hearing in Trenton, New Jersey in 1973 The notorious gangster was known to be one of the most ruthless organized crime bosses of his time. Scarfo was a member of the American Mafia and eventually rose to power when he took over the Philadelphia Crime family after the death of Sicilian-American mobster Angelo Bruno in 1981. During his criminal career, he was involved in organized crime activities such as drug trafficking, loansharking, and gambling. Scarfo was known to carry out his illegal business operations and order hits on people in the public eye to cultivate fear. In 1987, six years after becoming a leader in the mafia, Scarfo was arrested and later convicted on extortion and conspiracy charges after he had attempted to extort $1million from real estate developer Willard Rouse. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. The mob boss (pictured lower right in an Atlantic City court in 1986) was found guilty on 32 counts including nine murders, four attempted murders, illegal gambling, drug dealing, extortion, and loan-sharking While serving his sentence, the Philly mobster and 16 of his associates were also charged with murder and tried under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). Nicky Scarfo Jr, (pictured walking to court in 1989) son of the reputed crime boss, was sentenced to 30 years in 2011 for racketeering Scarfo was found guilty on 32 counts including nine murders, four attempted murders, illegal gambling, drug dealing, extortion, and loan-sharking and was sentenced to 55 years in prison. The Philly mobster was described as perhaps the most violent crime bosses as he was known for being 'remorseless' and ruthless. According to his associates, Scarfo enjoyed the lifestyle as an American gangster and admired infamous crime boss, Al Capone. Scarfo was born in Brooklyn in 1929, but grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and had spent his time as a soldier in South Jersey and Philadelphia. He had three sons, Christopher Scarfo, Mark Scarfo, and Nicky Scarfo Jr. Mark Scarfo attempted suicide at the age of 17, but survive and remained a vegetable until he died in 2014. Nicky Scarfo Jr., 52, became involved in organized crime while in his 20s and was alleged to be working with the Lucchese crime family. In 2011, Scarfo Jr. was convicted of racketeering and other charges and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Russia has welcomed Donald Trump's comments that NATO was 'obsolete' and Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today: 'NATO is indeed a vestige of the past and we agree with that.' In a hard-hitting interview at the weekend the US President-elect said: 'I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. 'Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two, the countries aren't paying what they're supposed to pay.' Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov (pictured, left) said he agreed with US President-elect Donald Trump (right) that NATO was 'obsolete' and a 'vestige of the past' WHAT IS NATO? The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 and is based in Brussels. It was initially designed to bring together countries who felt under threat from the Soviet Union and the communist Warsaw Pact countries The original members were Britain, US, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Portugal Turkey, Greece and West Germany joined in the 1950s and Spain in 1982 But after fall of communism, Poland and most other Eastern European countries joined NATO, leading to mounting annoyance of Moscow NATO also has a 'crisis management' and global policing role and 18,000 military personnel are currently engaged in NATO missions around the world, including Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Mediterranean Advertisement Trump's latest remarks have in particular caused further consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and involvement in Ukraine in support of ethnic Russian rebels. Mr Peskov, whose words usually mirror Mr Putin's thoughts, was reported in Rferl.org as saying about NATO: 'Considering that it is focused on confrontation and its entire structure is devoted to the ideals of confrontation, then, of course, this can hardly be called a modern structure meeting the ideas of stability, sustainable development, and security.' During the election campaign Trump frequently said the US needs to be 'reasonably reimbursed' for the costs of defending NATO's 27 other members. At the weekend Trump also hinted he wanted a deal with Russia over nuclear missiles which could lead to the lifting of some or all economic sanctions. The United States currently has 1,367 deployed nuclear warheads and Russia 1,796 and Trump said he wanted those numbers 'reduced substantially'. 'Let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia,' Trump said. Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Europe was stunned by Trump's remarks on NATO. 'The interview statements of the American President-elect...caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation,' he said as he went from a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to talks with EU counterparts. NATO AFP (AFP) Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed resignation to Trump's lack of interest in Europe, saying: 'We Europeans have our fate in our own hands.' France's top diplomat Jean-Marc Ayrault said 'the best response' to Trump's comments was 'the unity of Europeans'. Mr Stoltenberg's spokesman, Oana Lungescu, said: 'He is absolutely confident that the incoming US administration will remain committed to NATO.' Underscoring the Obama administration's very different stance, US Vice-President Joe Biden made a farewell trip to Ukraine today to show support for the country, which has been virtually at war with Russia since the spring of 2014. US soldiers (pictured, right) arrived in Zagan, Poland, last week and paraded along their Polish counterparts (left) ahead of a NATO deployment A bill that would legalise voluntary euthanasia in New South Wales could go before parliament before the end of the year. A cross-party working group is drafting legislation which it hopes will be introduced to state Parliament later in 2017. MPs from major parties would have a conscience vote on the bill,The Sydney Morning Herald reported. New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said he was personally opposed to assisted suicide and would vote against it Against - NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley (left) and for - Nationals MLC Trevor Khan (right) NSW Premier Mike Baird and Labor Opposition Leader Luke Foley have already said they are personally opposed to the idea of assisted suicide. 'While I fully acknowledge the sincerity of those who support change, and the terrible pain that is suffered by many terminally ill people and their carers, I myself will not support any change to the law,' Mr Baird told the Herald. Mr Foley said: 'I worry about the message it sends to a society where some old and frail people feel that they are too much of a burden on their loved ones, that they have to end it all'. The working group, which includes members of the Greens, Nationals, Labor, Liberals as well as an independent MP, has said reform was necessary. Specifics of the proposed bill have not been revealed, but it is believed the provisions to would only apply to people with a terminal illness, and would exclude anyone younger than 18. Euthanasia would require two doctors to agree and the subject to be capable. Shadow sports minister Lynda Voltz (left) and Greens MLC Mehreen Faruqi are members of the working group Even if passed, the changes face significant hurdles. The Australian Medical Association Position Statement on Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide 2016 states: '... Doctors should not be involved in interventions that have as their primary intention the ending of a person's life'. However, the statement acknowledges that 'laws in relation to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are ultimately a matter for society and government. Liberal MP Lee Evans is also a member of the NSW Parliamentary Working Group on Assisted Dying 'If governments decide that laws should be changed to allow for the practice of euthanasia and/or physician assisted suicide, the medical profession must be involved in the development of relevant legislation, regulations and guidelines.' Those guidelines would need to protect doctors acting within the law, vulnerable patients, doctors and patients who did not want to participate and the functioning of the health system as a whole. The draft legislation is expected to be released for public consultation as early as February. The NSW Parliamentary Working Group on Assisted Dying was formed in 2015 and the bill itself was announced in April 2016. A policeman has been caught on camera appearing to throw a motorcyclist's licence on the ground, just days after footage emerged of the same officer refusing to let a 'speeding' driver see his radar. Footage shared exclusively with Daily Mail Australia shows the New South Wales Police officer repeatedly refuse to give his name to biker Gurkan Topal. The cop, who gives his name only as 'Raptor 13', is later seen dropping Mr Topal's licence on the floor in front of him - an act the motorcyclist claims was deliberate. A policeman has been caught on camera appearing to throw a motorcyclist's licence on the ground Father-of-two Mr Topal, 32, was pulled over in Parramatta, Sydney, on November 28 after the police officer spotted an alleged defect with his helmet. The biker said it was clear from the outset that the cop was not going to treat him with respect. Mr Topal told Daily Mail Australia that he offered to pull into a quieter road than the busy intersection he was stopped on, but was quickly admonished by the police officer. 'He got out and said, "When I tell you to pull over you pull over now",' Mr Topal said. 'I asked him to treat me properly, to treat me like a normal person. He disrespected me.' Mr Topal, who works in online marketing, claimed the officer grabbed his helmet out of his hands to see if it was defective. Mr Topal received a $1,083 fine in the post and nine points on his licence for a defective helmet, air filter and licence plate following the police stop Mr Topal said he tried to grab the helmet back, leading to the pair pushing each other and the policeman returning to his car to call in back-up. The motorcyclist says the officer seized the helmet as evidence and says it still has not been returned, but admits that he now realises it may have been defective. Mr Topal started filming the incident on his mobile phone, with his footage showing the policeman confronting him, alongside four other officers he called in as back-up. The video shows him and the officer arguing and the policeman failing to provide his name despite Mr Topal asking for it six times. He eventually goes to gives the motorcyclist's licence back, but drops it onto the ground in front of Mr Topal instead of handing it to him. 'He flicked my licence onto the floor,' Mr Topal said. 'He threw it on the floor. He said sorry. 'He should talk to me like a normal person, treat me with respect and not talk to me like I'm an animal. I wouldn't mind if he'd pulled me over and said [the helmet] was unsafe, but he had no respect.' The video shows Mr Topal and the officer arguing and the policeman failing to provide his name despite Mr Topal asking for it six times The heated stand-off ended with the police leaving and Mr Topal having his motorbike towed home. He later received a $1,083 fine in the post and nine points on his licence for a defective helmet, air filter and licence plate. Mr Topal said he plans to appeal at least part of that fine in court. 'New South Wales taxpayers are paying this guy's wage to pull over a guy with a defective helmet,' the motorcyclist said. On Wednesday, the same officer was filmed refusing to let a driver see his speed gun reading after pulling him over for allegedly breaking the limit. Zia Yilda, 24, was on his way to work in Smithfield, Sydney, on Wednesday morning when he was pulled over and accused of driving at 83km/h. Mr Yilda claimed he was driving at least 20km/h slower than that and filmed the officer as he failed to show him the reading six times. The same police officer was caught on camera refusing to let a driver see his speed gun reading after pulling him over for allegedly breaking the limit Zia Yilda, 24, was on his way to work in Smithfield, Sydney, on Wednesday morning when he was pulled over and accused of driving at 83km/h He also declined to give his name and number twice and proceeded to search the man's BMW 330 convertible and accuse it of being 'defective' for having a wobbly passenger seat and a faulty grille. Mr Yilda branded the officer's conduct 'pretty ridiculous'. Calling him a 'jobsworth', the driver told Daily Mail Australia: 'He said, "look, you're doing 83". 'Then he came back and started picking on everything. I tried to be calm and as patient as I could as I thought this film might be useful in court at a later date. 'I asked for his name and number a couple of times but he refused. He was ignoring me.' The motorist is yet to receive a fine for his alleged speeding on Wednesday, but says he will contest it in court if he does. New South Wales Police declined to comment on either incident. Under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, police officers in New South Wales are required to state their name when stopping or searching vehicles. It is not clear whether the officer was legally required to reveal the speed gun reading on Wednesday. 15384533_1200923436642749_4742107974913013081_o.jpg Escatawpa's 3 Doors Down is among the artists who will perform during the Donald Trump inauguration. (3 Doors Down photo) JACKSON, Mississippi -- Gov. Phil Bryant's going. So's the Tupelo High School marching band and Mississippi Gulf Coast rockers 3 Doors Down. Those are among the Mississippians who will be attending or taking part in inaugural festivities for incoming President Donald Trump. Bryant spokesman Clay Chandler confirmed Friday that the Republican governor, a Trump campaign surrogate, would attend the inauguration. State Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, and Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, will also be part of a Mississippi delegation. Chandler says the state Republican Party is coordinating a larger group. 3 Doors Down, founded in Escatawpa, was announced Friday as a performer at a "welcome celebration" at the Lincoln Memorial. The Tupelo band says it reached its $110,000 fundraising goal to pay for 150 band members to travel to Washington D.C., and march in the inaugural parade. An influential group of MPs is to consider laws to encourage new fathers to stay at home to look after their babies. They believe that ensuring that fathers and mothers share the upbringing of babies and young children is the only way to get rid of the gender pay gap. The new inquiry launched by the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, led by Tory MP Maria Miller, has been attacked by critics who claim that politicians should stop interfering in family life. MPs believe that ensuring that fathers and mothers share the upbringing of babies and young children is the only way to get rid of the gender pay gap It follows the failure of the Shared Parental Leave scheme, a pet project of former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, to attract interest from more than a handful of the working fathers to whom it offered the opportunity to share childrearing with mothers. Mrs Millers increasingly controversial committee which last year recommended that everyone over the age of 16 should have an automatic right to change their legal sex has not set out whether it wants laws that would put pressure on men to take parental leave, and on employers to ensure they did so, or whether it will offer them new opportunities on the lines of Mr Cleggs scheme. It comes as a report published today (mon) warns that the UK risks creating a fatherhood penalty as men jettison their careers for less demanding roles which allow them to spend more time with their children. Tory MP Maria Miller said yesterday: Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children' The 2017 Modern Families Index found that many fathers now face the same barriers to their career progression that mothers have faced for decades simply because they are parents. The select committee, led by former Cabinet Minister Maria Miller, will consider what policy or legislative changes would be most effective in supporting fathers to fulfil their caring responsibilities? It will also examine whether there are social or attitudinal barriers to fathers in the workplace which need to be challenged. Mrs Miller, who resigned as Culture Secretary in 2014 following an expenses scandal, said the committee was asking whether fathers are being failed in the workplace. She has insisted that clearly more needs to be done. Mrs Miller said yesterday: Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children. Our report on the gender pay gap found that investing in policies that support men to share childcare equally, and allow women to continue working, will reap financial benefits as well as reducing the gender pay gap. Supporting parents in the workplace is a priority for the Government. Yet it admits that its flagship Shared Parental Leave policy is likely to have a very low take-up rate. But Laura Perrins, co-editor of the Conservative Home website, said it was clear that what the committee ultimately wants to do is to introduce yet more regulation into employment. Laura Perrins, pictured with her son Matthew, said Mrs Miller 'should leave the social engineering alone' She said: This is likely to reduce employment opportunities and squeeze pay even further, which will be detrimental to already squeezed family income. Maria Miller should leave the social engineering alone, and let families get on with caring and providing for their children, and leave businesses to get on with providing employment. The 2017 Modern Families Index surveyed 2,750 parents across the UK who are in paid employment - with equal numbers among the sexes. It found that almost half of working fathers (47 per cent) want to downshift to a less stressful job because of difficulty reconciling professional and home life. Just over a third (38 per cent) admit they would be willing to take a pay cut to achieve a better work-life balance. These aspirations are more pronounced among younger fathers, with 46 per cent prepared to see their wages reduced in return for more parity with home life. Fifty-three per cent of millennial fathers also want to downshift to a less stressful job, according to the research carried out by work-life charity, Working Families, and Bright Horizons, a provider of early years care. Overall, seven out of ten fathers (69 per cent) and eight out of ten mothers would assess their childcare needs before taking a new job or promotion. Researchers said this indicated that both genders now feel they might have to downgrade their careers in order to care for their families. However, fathers are less comfortable about asking for formal flexible working arrangements as they fear a request signals a lack of commitment to their job. They are also more likely to lie or bend the truth to their employer about their family responsibilities 44 per cent compared to 37 per cent of mothers. The report concludes: More women are in paid employment than before and at the same time fathers want to be more involved with their childrens lives. But rather than bringing about a change in working practices, these trends seem to have left working fathers facing the same conundrums that working mothers have faced for decades. A mother has pleaded guilty to murdering three of her children and trying to kill a fourth by driving into a Melbourne lake. Akon Guode, 37, on Monday pleaded guilty to murdering her one-year-old son and four-year-old twins, a boy and girl, and attempting to murder her six-year-old daughter in 2015. Guode's three children died after she drove her car into a Wyndham Vale lake on April 8, 2015. Scroll down for video Akon Guode (left) has pleaded guilty to murdering three of her children and trying to kill a fourth. Here she is pictured at their funeral One-year-old Bol, four-year-old Hanger, and four-year-old Maudit, who died when their mother drove into a lake The mother-of-seven's plea in the Victorian Supreme Court came at a mention hearing before she was due to stand trial. When the charges were read to her, through the help of an interpreter, the only words she said were 'guilty' to each charge and she showed little emotion. None of her family was present and detectives who investigated the children's deaths did not comment as they left court. In July 2016, police released a statement that alleged Guode had spoken about killing herself and her children the day of the murders, the ABC reported. It was also reported that a court had heard she owed large debts. The court was told Guode had sent almost $100,000 to family in South Sudan from when she moved to Australia in 2008, according to the ABC. A 4WD is removed from Lake Gladman, Melbourne on April 9, 2015 after Guode drove it into the lake Earlier in June of 2016, a court heard a 000 call from the moment Guode drove into the lake. A witness could be heard in a recording saying: 'I saw them just drive full bolt into the water'. After the bodies of her children were pulled from the lake, the mother blamed a dizzy spell for causing her to lose control of the car. But an investigator said the car was deliberately driven into the water. Several police re-enactments showed the car could not have drifted off the roadway, as Guode claimed. The re-enactments also demonstrated a driver would need to turn the steering wheel three times to get into the water. A coffin with the bodies of one of the three children during a funeral service on April 18, 2015 Several passers-by and witnesses recalled hearing the car's engine's revving after it had landed in the water. A key witness also testified that Guode believed witchcraft had caused the crash. Guode had told the woman she thought she was under a 'spell' when she drove into Lake Gladman. The woman said Guode believed her lover's wife may have used a witch doctor against her. The witness gave evidence she overheard Guode say she would 'rather take her own life and that of the kids' than see them live with her lover, Joseph Manyang, and his wife. During Guode's committal hearing Mr Manyang said he believed it was an accident and continued to visit Guode in prison. He said she was a good mother who loved all her children. Guode will return to court on January 31. WHO IS AKON GUODE? * She comes to Australia as refugee in 2006 with her three oldest children to escape war-torn Sudan where her first husband died. * She stays with her dead husband's cousin, Joseph Manyang and his wife and children. * Guode and Manyang start an affair in 2008 and have a daughter, Alual in 2009. * Guode gives birth to twins Hanger and her brother Madit in 2010, Manyang leaves his wife. * Guode also has another son, Bol, with Manyang. HOW HER CHILDREN DIED: * On April 8, 2015, the mother-of-seven drives her 4WD into a Melbourne lake, with four of her children inside. * Her one-year-old son, Bol, and the four-year-old twins die. * Six-year-old daughter Alual is hospitalised but survives. ARREST: * Guode is questioned by police and released without charge. * She tells family members she felt dizzy before the crash. * Community rallies behind her and her family to help pay for funerals. * Guode is interviewed again in August, charged with three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and taken into custody. POLICE CASE: * Police say CCTV footage shows Guode drive past Lake Gladman five times before her car plunges into the water. * They allege Guode's car appears to make three distinct steering moves before entering the water without braking. * Prosecutors allege she drove 'full bolt' into lake. * Court hears that at the time, Guode was being chased by debt collectors. * On the day of the murders, a rumour circulated that due to community pressure, the children's father, Joseph Manyang, was leaving the Guode home and moving back with his wife. COMMITTAL: * Guode breaks down during several emotional court hearings and begs for bail. * Joseph Manyang says he does not believe she could harm their children. * Court hears she suffered depression-like symptoms in the years before the deaths and struggled to cope with a community backlash over her affair with Mr Manyang. * Key witness who allegedly heard Guode admit to causing the deaths fails to appear to give evidence, telling a police officer she'd be 'gotten rid of' if she testified. * Court hears Guode believe witchcraft caused the crash and that she was under a 'spell' when she drove into the lake. HEADING FOR TRIAL: * Guode enters a plea of not guilty in August to the charges and is committed for trial, to take place in late January. * Avoids trial with guilty pleas on Monday to the infanticide of Bol, the murders of Hanger and Madit, and attempted murder of Alual. Advertisement A nanny has been arrested after a horrifying video shows the woman burning a two-year-old boy with a hot curling iron because the young child needed to be 'disciplined'. Nosipho Nxumalo, 21, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child on Thursday after her employer called Nassau County police due to burn marks on her son's body. The mother, Angela Persaud of Baldwin in Long Island, New York, reviewed nanny cam footage and was 'disgusted' to watch Nxumalo, of Harlem, 'burn' her son, Xander, with a hot curling iron. A Harlem nanny was arrested on Thursday after she is caught on camera allegedly burning a two-year-old with a hot curling iron Nosipho Nxumalo, of Harlem (left), had only been working for a family for two months before she was arrested for the treatment of Xander (left) Persaud told NBC New York: 'After she burns him several times, you see her -- you could tell she was telling him, "See that's what happens when you don't listen," and then she hugs him. 'She's playing these warped mind games with my child, and it's the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed in my life.' Persaud noticed the burns while she was bathing Xander and he pulled away in pain after she noticed redness on his hands. Two-year-old Xander told his mother that Nxumalo had touched him with a hot iron. The child's mother, Angela Persaud, noticed the burns while she was bathing Xander. He pulled away in pain after she noticed redness on his hands. Pictured: Xander's hand with a faint red mark on it The incident occurred at Persaud's home in Baldwin, an area of Long Island, New York (left). Burn marks are presumed to have been caused by this curling iron (right) The video shows Nxumalo testing the temperature of a red curling iron against her hand, before touching the hot rod to little Xander's hands and legs The nanny from Harlem told police she was only trying to discipline her charge. She said to police: 'The child wouldn't listen. I wanted to discipline him using the iron so I burned him.' The video shows Nxumalo testing the temperature of a red curling iron against her hand, before touching the hot rod to little Xander's hands and legs. She told police: 'It was a long week and I was tired. The child wouldn't listen. I wanted to discipline him using the iron so I burned him.' Nxumalo pleaded not guilty in court to charges of second degree assault, criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree and endangering the welfare of a child. Persaud said: 'She's playing these warped mind games with my child, and it's the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed in my life'. She is urging other mothers to verify who is watching their child The nanny had only been employed by the family for two months and was hired after being referred to a local agency, Moms Helper Inc. Persaud is now warning other mothers of dangers that come with hiring an unknown or unchecked nanny. She told WGNTV: 'You can't just trust that an agency is going to do the right thing by you.' A woman has died of meningococcal meningitis just three days after a man's death was reportedly caused by the same bacterial disease 18 miles away in Northern California. Laura Robson, 53, was found sitting upright, dead, on the back of a San Francisco Muni bus. Preliminary autopsy results suggest her death was due to meningococcal meningitis. Her brother, David Robson, said that Laura recently had shoulder surgery at Marin General Hospital. The facility is just two miles from the SoulCycle studio where more than 200 people were told to seek medical attention last week after Sevin Philips died of the same disease shortly after exercising there. Laura Robson, 53, was found sitting upright, dead, on the back of a San Francisco Muni bus. Preliminary autopsy results suggest her death was due to meningococcal meningitis Although doctor's have yet to do a full autopsy, they've said that preliminary results suggest that the highly infectious disease was the cause of Laura Robson's death on Tuesday, according to NBC Bay Area. Laura's brother, David Robson, said he and his five-year-old son have been examined and given antibiotics as a precaution. He said that his sister recently been complaining of a severe headache, but otherwise showed no symptoms of the disease. Laura Robson, center, recently had shoulder surgery at Marin General Hospital, just two miles from the SoulCycle studio that more than 200 people were encouraged to seek medical attention after man who frequently exercised there died of meningitis last week Last week, more than 200 people in nearby Larkspur, California were told to seek medical attention after an avid spinner died at a SoulCycle studio in the town. Marriage and family therapist Sevin Philips, 48, of San Rafael, California, passed away unexpectedly on January 7 after he was infected with meningococcal meningitis. The father-of-one visited the trendy spinning studio in Larkspur, California, a few days before his death, according to KRON4. Philips contracted meningococcal meningitis, a rare disease that causes membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord to become inflamed Sevin Philips, of San Rafael, died of meningococcal meningitis last week, and more than 200 riders at SoulCycle Marin were encouraged to seek medical attention. Laura Robson was found dead on a bus in San Francisco of likely the same bacterial disease Health officials are now investigating, and notified nearly 200 riders on Friday that they were at risk of contracting the infection as a result. Dr Matt Willis, public health officer for Marin County told SF Gate that Philips' death was an 'isolated incident'. SoulCycle employees were also advised to do a 'deep clean' of their fitness suites in a bid to eradicate any risks. But the company - which is popular with A-list celebrities - insisted he was not infected during a class. The father-of-one and licensed family and marriage therapist visited the Marin location in Larkspur, California, pictured here Staff members gave the studio 'a deep clean' to get rid of any trace of the deadly disease. SoulCyle said it was 'confident' in employees to 'deliver a clean and safe environment' Philips contracted meningococcal meningitis, a rare disease that causes membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord to become inflamed. Sevin Philips, 48, contracted meningococcal meningitis and died on January 7. He had visited SoulCycle a few days before he died, sparking health officals to notify nearly 200 people who could have been exposed to the bacteria His death was reported to the health department on Tuesday. If symptoms of the deadly bacterial infection aren't caught in time, patients can die in just a few hours. It is believed that Philips contracted the infection sometime in the first week of the new year. SoulCycle released a statement adamantly defending the cleanliness of their studios. It reads: 'While the rider did not contract the infection at our studio, we have nonetheless been in constant communication with the Department of Health which has emphasized that there is no evidence of any health risk to our riders.' Staff members were left to conduct a 'deep cleaning' of the studio. The statement continued: 'Were incredibly confident in our team and our processes to deliver a clean and safe environment. We use cleaning products that are specifically designed for sterilizing our studios, bikes, and towels to stop the spread of any illnesses.' Although the catching the disease from another person is rare, it is spread much like the flu - through close contact with someone who is infected. DailyMail.com has reached out to SoulCyle for comment. A 19-year-old survived a car crash by clinging onto a tree for 12 hours in a freezing creek after her best friend died in the wreckage. Natalie Griffin was in the passenger seat with her best friend Jenna Santos behind the wheel when the car hydroplaned off the embankment of Highway 101 and crashed into Outlet Creek in Mendocino County, California on Wednesday night. Water quickly rushed into the car, and the two tried to kick the windshield out when Griffin noticed a broken rear window and told Santos to follow her on the way out. She emerged with no sign of her best friend and endured another 12 hours in a winter storm before she swam across the fast-flowing creek to get help. Natalie Griffin (right) survived a car crash by clinging onto a tree for 12 hours in a freezing creek after her best friend Jenna Santos (left) died in the wreckage Santos (pictured left and right) was driving home from Humboldt County to Castro Valley in California when the car hydroplaned, flipped several times and crashed in a creek The two college students had spent a few days hiking and visiting friends in Humboldt County, where Santos went to school, when they embarked on their journey 300 miles south. They were about halfway home to Castro Valley when the 2004 Toyota Corolla hydroplaned off the highway around 7.30pm on Wednesday. The car flipped several times before crashing into the fast-flowing creek below, according to the California Highway Patrol. As water began filling the car, the two friends tried desperately to kick the windshield out. The situation was growing increasingly desperate when Griffin noticed they could escape through a broken rear window. She told Santos to follow her lead, but Griffin emerged from the water with Santos nowhere to be found, the survivor's cousin Monica Keyser told theEast Bay Times. As water began filling the car, the two friends worked together to try to kick the windshield out. Griffin (left) told her friend to follow her out a broken rear window, but Santos (right) never made it out Griffin, described by her cousin as a 'runner and yogi' who also practices meditation, managed to stay calm during the ensuing ordeal, Keyser said. She grabbed onto a partially submerged tree about 100 yards from shore and held onto the branches above the flowing water for 12 hours, Keyser said. She used her jacket to shield herself from the wind and rain and did stretches to keep herself warm as temperatures fell to 28 degrees Fahrenheit, Keyser said. She stayed awake throughout the night and tried to scream at cars as they passed overhead, Keyser said. Griffin eventually started hallucinating and heard her best friend telling her she would be okay, Keyser said. When day broke, Griffin swam across the creek and climbed a hill full of thorny bushes in order to make her way back to the highway. A driver realized she was soaking wet and had only one shoe, and managed to call her mother before she collapsed at around 8.19am Thursday. Griffin was taken to the Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital, where she was treated with hypothermia before she was released later that day. She told authorities where to recover her best friend's body, and a member of the Little Lake Volunteer Fire Department's water rescue team found the submerged Corolla with Santos inside. Griffin's mother Midge Griffin (right, with her daughter) expressed her condolences to Santos' family, and celebrated her daughter's 'courage, strength, and the remarkable wit' Griffins' cousin Monica Keyser also set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Santos' funeral expenses. She posted this photo of her holding Griffins' hand after the crash Griffin's mother Midge Griffin, wrote on Facebook: 'Our hearts ache for Jenna.' But she celebrated her daughter's incredible survival story, and credited the 19-year-old for 'finding the courage, strength, and the remarkable wit to find a way to live!' She also wrote: 'Natalie is scratched, bruised, and stitched up. There are many moments of sadness for her reliving the horrific accident and losing beautiful Jenna.' Keyser, who set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Santos' funeral expenses, said: 'Thank you god for giving my sweet beautiful cousin the strength to survive. 'My heart has been so heavy today knowing her best friend Jenna is now watching over her.... But I know that it was with Jenna's strength and comfort that Nat was able to make it to the road this morning and for that we are all so very thankful. When day broke, Griffin swam across the creek and climbed a hill full of thorny bushes in order to make her way back to the highway (file photo) to flag down a passing driver for help ' There is no doubt that the days, weeks, and months to come will bring so many emotions for her and all of us. 'But for now we are just very thankful and our hearts are with Jenna and her family. 'Natalie is home and with her family who are supporting and caring for her during this difficult time.' Santos was a cheerleader at Castro Valley High School before she graduated in 2015 and went on to attend Humboldt State University, where she hoped to become a psychiatrist. A mother-daughter cocaine-dealing duo and cross-dressing thieves who robbed U.S. servicemen form part of a fascinating series of police mug shots from Sydney's criminal underworld from the 1920s to the 1940s. The collection of black and white mugshots from the NSW Police Forensic Archive feature an array of criminal characters, including Ada McGuinness who was once described as 'the most evil woman in Sydney'. McGuinness and her daughter Hazel McGuinness were arrested and booked into the central police station in July 1929 and convicted on charges of possessing cocaine and selling it from their terrace home in the then rough inner city suburb of Darlinghurst. Scroll down for video A series of captivating police mug shots have given an inside glimpse to Sydney's criminal underworld from the 1920s to the 1940s, including the city's 'most evil woman' Ada McGuinness (pictured) Cross-dressers Neville McQuade, 18 (left) and Lewis Keith, 19, (right) were believed to have been scamming gay American servicemen during WWII One of the exhibition's most captivating images is of Herbet Ellis, who was a well-known 'break and enter man' (pictured) McGuinness was described as evil by a witness at the time and police noted she was one of the most active cocaine dealers in the inner city. Hazel appears to show some remorse as she poses for her mug shot while wearing a tattered fur coat. 'Cops said she never had a chance, being brought up by a prostitute, counterfeiting, drug dealing mother,' Sydney Living Museum guest curator Peter Doyle said about the images published in his book 'City of Shadows'. Another colourful duo featured are Neville McQuade, 18 and Lewis Keith, 19, who are pictured dressed in ladies clothing out the front of the North Sydney Police Station in June 1942. The pair were charged with being idle and disorderly and were found to have American money and a military uniform in their possession. McGuinness and her daughter Hazel (pictured) were one of the largest cocaine drug dealers in Darlinghurst in the 1920s and were eventually arrested and convicted Alfred Ladewig (pictured), otherwise known as Tiny, was a trickster and pickpocketer who would travel from Brisbane through Sydney and down to Melbourne to make money It was common at the time for scammers to lure gay American servicemen stationed in Australia for World War II to rob them, Mr Doyle said. 'One would go on a date while the other robs the flat,' he said. McQuade spoke about his desire to be a female impersonator to a newspaper at the time of his arrest. Many of the pictures featured in 'City of Shadows', which is also a permanent exhibition at the Justice and Police Museum, have a different composition than traditional mug shots and show glimpses of the subject's personality. One of the exhibition's most captivating images is of Herbet Ellis, who was a well-known 'break and enter man' and 'safe breaker'. He appears sitting down with his arms folded over each other while wearing a suit, hat and a smug smile. Alfred Ladewig, otherwise known as Tiny, was a trickster and pickpocketer who would travel from Brisbane through Sydney and down to Melbourne to make money. He was arrested in Sydney in the early 1920s for charges against him in Brisbane. The photograph was taken before he was extradited to Queensland and shows him from the side, sitting on a bench with his hands in his pockets. 'This photo is unlike any mug shot I've ever seen,' Mr Doyle said. 'It's poignantly composed.' De Gracy (left) and Edward Dalton (right) were arrested in the early 1920s and were referred to as magsmen, or confidence tricksters, by police Mug shot of B. Smith, Gertrude Thompson and Vera McDonald in 1928 after a home known to criminals was raided by police William Stanley Moore was an opium dealer and wharf labourer and was arrested in May 1925 (pictured) Another photo shows two men sitting next to each other with their arms folded as they stare into the camera. De Gracy and Edward Dalton were arrested in the early 1920s and were referred to as magsmen, or confidence tricksters, by police. De Gracy's piercing light eyes shine with palpable hostility in the photograph, Mr Doyle said. 'De Gracy comes from a family of crooks and descendants have contacted us and the family first came over in the convict era,' he said. 'There are plenty of very fine, good people from that family but there was a criminal element.' Theresa May has become the first Prime Minister to pose for American Vogue after snubbing the British version where David Camerons sister-in-law works. Mrs May, 60, secretly posed for the celebrated photographer Annie Leibovitz in a fashion shoot at Chequers last week for the magazines April edition. While Margaret Thatcher was in British Vogue several times, this is the first time a PM will appear in the US version. Cover girl? A Mail suggestion of how Mrs May could appear in Vogue Mrs May, known for her high-end wardrobe choices, has long been a fan of Vogue, and said when she appeared on Radio 4s Desert Island Discs that a lifetime subscription to the magazine would be her luxury item. But her choice of the US title over the UK edition has raised a few eyebrows. The deputy editor of the British edition is Emily Sheffield, the younger sister of Samantha Cameron. When Mrs May took power after Brexit, Miss Sheffield spoke angrily about how she deplored the casual denigration of the achievements of Mr Camerons Government by the new regime. She also delivered a stark warning to Mrs May in an article for The Spectator, writing: They will come for you, I am afraid one day, Prime Minister, like they did for Thatcher, Blair and Brown. The PMs photoshoot will be in the issue which goes on sale in March, when Mrs May is expected to travel to Washington for her first meeting with Donald Trump. Her appearance is said to be part of a charm offensive as she prepares to deal with the new US president. British-born American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who was appointed a dame in the New Years Honours List, is said to have worked on the secret project for some time. A Downing Street spokesman said the decision to pose for Miss Leibovitz was taken before Mr Trumps victory because Mrs May was a lifelong fan of the magazine. He added that Miss Wintours honour was proposed by the Foreign Office. But a source told the Mail on Sunday: The Vogue shoot will form a central part of Operation Trump. Theresa knows she needs to raise her profile in the US and Anna Wintour was only too keen to help. Miss Leibovitz began her photography career with Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s. In 1980 she captured the last official image of John Lennon, hours before he was shot dead in New York. The 67-year-old photographer, who earns up to 150,000 a day, has also taken pictures of the Queen. Mrs May joins Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly who previously had the honour of appearing in the American edition of Vogue. She has twice been photographed for the pages of British Vogue, in 1996 and 2003. Don't carp. It's a great message for women by Libby Purves Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Lady Gaga, Marilyn Monroe... and Theresa May. Yes, believe it or not, our Prime Minister has joined the glamorous, gorgeous, glorious ranks of US Vogue stars. Pictures from her secret modelling session at Chequers will grace the pages of the worlds most influential fashion bibles April edition. Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Lady Gaga,(pictured) Marilyn Monroe... and Theresa May. Yes, believe it or not, our Prime Minister has joined the glamorous, gorgeous, glorious ranks of US Vogue stars Of course, the pious headshakers have been quick to point out how inappropriate this all is given that Mrs May is currently very busy with difficult Brexit negotiations, a crisis in the NHS, and relations with a volatile American presidency. How dare she pose for superstar photographer Annie Leibovitz? She may have good legs and a smart line in pencil skirts, colour-blocked coat-dresses, leopard-print heels and leather trousers, but surely a 60-year-old Prime Ministers spare time should be spent more soberly? Why is she not hunched over red boxes, wearing a non-iron knitted two-piece from the Frumpwear Department at D H Evans? But thats just spoilsport stuff. These detractors have entirely missed the fact that this is good news, not bad. It is Anna Wintours American edition which captured Mrs May, and right now, it does no harm to transatlantic relations for our PM to shine out impressively from every US newsstand. She is being talked of as a possible cover girl which would be a piece of magazine history even Mrs Thatcher never got on the cover of the fashionistas bible, just a few pictures inside the British version with neat blue suits and pussycat bows. But, most of all, I love the message it delivers to women. You see, there are two kinds of women. The first kind is the high-maintenance dresser, groomed to a hair and deeply concerned with matters such as timeless shapes, artful sexiness or how neatly a jacket skims your backside. If youre one of these women, its good to be reminded that these things can also interest a high-achieving holder of great offices of State, a key figure on the world stage. In other words, that intelligent women can be interested in fashion too. Theresas Vogue appearance tells all of us (and Instagram-obsessed teenagers in particular) that working on your look and caring about lipstick shades neednt stop you also studying, getting ahead, expressing authority and achieving power. Just because youre a hotshot lawyer or CEO doesnt mean you have to be dull or frumpy. You can be if you like, but its not compulsory. A bit of frivolous dash and style can combine with a laser-sharp mind and an iron will. As one writer wrote of Michelle Obama, the mantra of full female selfhood is Wear what you like! Marilyn Monroe also appeared on the front of the US edition of Vogue And theres another message too, for the second kind of woman the women like me. We daughters of dungaree-wearing, bra-burning 60s and 70s feminism grew up with the idea that it is actually classier, more intellectual and bohemian, to be a bit dishevelled. Live in jeans, grab any passing ethnic smock, ignore trends, let your hair fly all over the place like Shirley Williams. Do this and it sends the message that your mind is on higher things, above all that nonsense. Thus people will take you seriously as an academic, campaigner, author or whatever. Fine. Wear what you like, ladies. Its cold here, so I address you from inside a knee-length sweater, ancient leggings and novelty hedgehog slippers. And if I feel like going out like that, I damn well will. But women like me need reminding, as much as our fashionista sisters do, that being chic neednt make you some kind of idiot clothes-horse or exhibitionist Kardashian. Thoughtful, decisive women need not be dishevelled frumps. They need not scorn dressing up to be taken seriously. Fashion is a decorative, harmless hobby, whether youre the Prime Minister or a pop star. Personally, I would be just as happy with a scruffy PM as long as she knew her stuff. But since weve got a fashion star lets enjoy it! The increase of Israeli settlements has 'gotten so substantial' that it is inhibiting the possibility for an 'effective, contiguous Palestinian state,' President Barack Obama said Sunday, in his final interview as president. Speaking to CBS' 60 Minutes, Obama dismissed the idea that there is a 'major rupture' in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last month's decision by the U.S. to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. 'Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the U.S.) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, 'This is a problem,' Obama said. 'It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States.' Speaking to Steve Kroft of CBS' 60 Minutes, Obama dismissed the idea that there is a 'major rupture' in the relationship between the United States and Israel But Obama said that the increase of Israeli settlements has 'gotten so substantial' it is inhibiting the possibility for an 'effective, contiguous Palestinian state' Israel for decades has pursued a policy of building Jewish settlements on territory it captured in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most countries view the settlements as an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing a biblical, historical and political connection to the land, as well as security interests. Washington considers the settlement activity illegitimate. The Obama administration clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in late December after the US broke with a longstanding approach of diplomatically shielding Israel. The US abstained on a UN Security Council resolution that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank criminal in nature. It passed with 14 countries in favor and none against. In response, Netanyahu accused the Obama administration of not just abandoning its customary U.N veto, but authoring the resolution. The United States broke with a longstanding approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and abstained (center, Samantha Power) on a United Nations Security Council resolution that passed with 14 countries in favor and none against on December 23, 2016 But Secretary of State John Kerry said: 'The United States did in fact vote in accordance with our values, just as previous administrations have done. 'The vote in the United Nations was about preserving the two-state solution. That's what we were standing up for.' Donald Trump, however, tweeted his support for Israel, encouraging them to 'stay strong,' saying January 20, inauguration day, 'is fast approaching!' Trump and the outgoing Obama administration are now entirely at odds over Israel, with the president-elect accusing the lame-duck White House of 'disdain and neglect' for the country. Donald Trump, however, tweeted his support for Israel, encouraging them to 'stay strong,' saying January 20, inauguration day, 'is fast approaching!' Trump and the outgoing Obama administration are now entirely at odds over Israel, with the president-elect accusing the lame-duck White House of 'disdain and neglect' for the country The outgoing president also reflected on his legacy, and said he does not regret his speech drawing a 'red line' over Syria's use of chemical weapons - a phrase critics say symbolizes the US failure to act over the country's conflict. Obama ad-libbed the phrase, saying 'a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.' During the hour-long interview on Sunday, Obama said: 'I don't regret at all saying that if I saw (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons on his people that that would change my assessments in terms of what we were or were not willing to do in Syria.' Challenged by his interviewer Steve Kroft that 'you didn't say that... you said -- you drew the red line,' Obama declined to say whether he would take it back. 'I would have, I think, I think, made a bigger mistake if I had said, "Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn't really change my calculus.'' 'I think it was important for me as president of the United States to send a message that in fact there is something different about chemical weapons,' he added. 'And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons.' In 2013, the Syrian military used chemical weapons in an attack against rebel-controlled areas of Damascus, killing nearly 1,500 civilians, including more than 400 children. Wrenching video showing people foaming at the mouth and suffering other effects of an apparent chemical attack caused outrage around the world. It appeared the US was preparing for imminent air strikes against the Syrian government, until Washington agreed to a last-minute, Moscow-brokered deal to send Syrian chemical weapons to Russia. In 2013, the Syrian military used chemical weapons in an attack against rebel-controlled areas of Damascus, killing nearly 1,500 civilians. It appeared the US was preparing for imminent air strikes until Washington agreed to a deal to send Syrian chemical weapons to Russia Critics derided Obama for drawing the 'red line' and failing to act on the ultimatum. Russia launched its own air strikes in Syria, which have shored up Assad and killed many civilians while emboldening Moscow to ratchet up its confrontation with Washington. Obama also took the opportunity during the 60 Minutes interview to stress the need for 'making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity.' With that, he said he's been 'disturbed' about intelligence reports over Russia hacking the U.S. election. 'I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government,' he said. Silicon Roundabout was hailed by David Cameron as Britains answer to Silicon Valley It was hailed by David Cameron as Britains answer to Silicon Valley a place where technology entrepreneurs could thrive. But six years after Silicon Roundabout was launched, it is starting to lose its allure. Official figures show a dramatic slowdown in the number of new businesses starting up in Tech City the area of East London which includes Old Street. The number of new openings fell by 70 percent, from 10,280 in 2015 to 3,070 last year, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed. And they have fallen even more sharply since 2014, when 15,620 new businesses opened. According to experts, rents in the area have become so expensive, fledgling businesses are now forced to look elsewhere. Colin Jones, partner at the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, which obtained the figures from HMRC, said: Silicon Roundabout has fallen off the top spot in terms of new business creation, it is a victim of its own success. The Silicon Roundabout area gained popularity with internet companies originally due to its historically low rents. Now that rents have soared, the area has lost its competitive advantage. The slump in new start-ups has knocked TechCity off its perch as one of the most attractive places in the UK for entrepreneurs to set up. It was the UKs fastest growing area for new businesses in 2013 and 2014, but dropped six places last year, so that it is now behind Warrington and Londons Leicester Square. The revelation will be an embarrassing blow for the Government, which tried to turn TechCity into a hub for new start-ups and entrepreneurs. The Government launched the scheme in late 2010, in a bid to turn the East London district into one of the worlds great technology centres. Official figures show a dramatic slowdown in the number of new businesses starting up in Tech City the area of East London which includes Old Street (pictured, Old Street roundabout) Former Prime Minister David Cameron was frustrated by claims that Britain did not have the conditions needed to produce companies like Google or Facebook. But it is not just entrepreneurs who are now opting to put their roots down elsewhere. Meanwhile, many of the major technology businesses that Mr Cameron wanted to emulate have decided to shun the TechCity district. Google is building its London headquarters near Kings Cross, and Facebook is setting up in Fitzrovia the area just north of Londons Oxford Street and west of Tottenham Court Road. Amazon is a notable exception, however, opening a new headquarters in Shoreditch. Gerard Grech, chief executive of TechCityUK - the quango which runs TechCity in London and a number of other tech hubs by the same name - said: Anybody trying to build a negative argument about the relative performance of a single postcode in East London is seriously missing the point and in danger of talking down one of this countrys great global strengths. Tech is spreading to many parts of the capital and other UK cities. Outside of Silicon Valley, the UK - and London in particular - plays host to one of the biggest tech scenes on the planet. We continue to dominate tech innovation in Europe, streets ahead of Berlin, Paris and Stockholm and for good reason. Tech City UK has been, is, and will continue to play a lead role in that growth. According to experts, rents in the area have become so expensive, fledgling businesses are now forced to look elsewhere (pictured, the Alphabeta building) The dramatic slowdown in new business launches is not the first sign of trouble TechCity has shown. Businesses in the area have also been hampered by slow broadband speeds, MPs have claimed in the past. In some areas, it was so slow that local firms said they had trouble sending simple emails. News of the slump is likely to reignite claims that TechCity should never have launched in London in the first place. Initially the Government planned to develop TechCity in Cambridge, which already had a thriving technology industry with firms like the microchip maker ARM Holdings. However, it opted for London at the very last minute. Experts put the success of Silicon Valley down to the fact it has so many investors looking for firms to pour money into, and a ready supply of talent from world-class universities. German politicians have reacted with fury after Donald Trump lashed out at Angela Merkel's 'catastrophic' open-door migration policy and threatened to slap tariffs on imported cars. Foreign minister Walter Steinmeier said he was 'astonished' by the attack from the president elect - who also dismissed the NATO military alliance as 'obselete' and predicted that the EU could disintegrate. Meanwhile, Berlin's finance minister responded to a warning that punitive levies could be placed on BMWs by stating bluntly: 'The US needs to build better cars.' In comments that triggered panic in Brussels, Mr Trump said that he fully understood why Britain had voted for Brexit and he thought others could follow suit. Mr Trump said Mrs Merkel (pictured giving a press conference in Berlin today) had made a 'catastrophic mistake' by allowing one million migrants into her country Angela Merkel has been lambasted over Germany's open-door migration policy by US President-elect Donald Trump He said: 'I do believe this, if [EU countries] hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it entails, I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit. It probably could have worked out but this was the final straw, this was the final straw that broke the camel's back. 'I think people want their own identity, so if you ask me I believe others will leave.' Mr Trump was also far less warm about Mrs Merkel than he has been about Theresa May. He said that he had 'great respect' for the German leader. But, in a withering attack, he told The Times and German newspaper Bild: 'I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from. 'And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake.' Mr Trump added that he though the entire EU had become a 'vehicle' for Germany. He also suggested that NATO had become 'obselete' and complained that only a handful of states were paying their fair share towards the alliance. Mrs Merkel gave the intervention a cool response, insisting she would wait to see what Mr Trump did when he officially entered the White House and would 'work with him on all levels'. But she insisted that 'we Europeans have our fate in our own hands'. Mrs Merkel also rejected the criticism of her open-door migration policy, saying Mr Trump had conflated two separate issues. 'I would clearly separate (terrorism) from the existence of refugees in relation to the Syrian civil war. The Syrian civil war has been far longer, the majority of Syrians left their country because of the civil war, because of the fight against Assad or the oppression by (Bashar) Assad,' she said. Attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels today, Mr Steinmeier said: 'The interview statements of the American president-elect... caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation.' Mr Gabriel said US tariffs on German cars would make 'the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive'. Mrs Merkel said she would wait to see how Mr Trump behaved when he actually becomes President of the US He said the solution to the trade imbalance identified by Mr Trump was that 'the US needs to build better cars'. 'We're not weak and inferior,' he told Bild. BMW said it would press ahead with plans for a factory in Mexico despite the Trump threat. Meanwhile, the outgoing director of the CIA yesterday warned Mr Trump to watch his mouth especially when talking about Vladimir Putin. Criticising the president-elect's regular posts on Twitter, John Brennan told Mr Trump to stop 'talking and tweeting' and said being so off the cuff was bad for national security. Germanys economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said the country did not have to act weak and inferior to the US. Echoing claims from the car industry, he said the introduction of tariffs would make the American auto industry worse, weaker and more expensive. Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said Mr Trump was wrong to criticise courageous Mrs Merkel, adding: It was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United States to be stepping into the politics of other countries in a quite direct manner. Other European leaders rushed to rubbish Mr Trumps comments as fantasy, claiming he was trying to glorify cracks in European politics. Pierre Moscovici, European economics commissioner, said: Having a [US] administration that hopes for the dismantling of Europe is simply not possible. Im not worried this idea that Brexit is going to be contagious is a fantasy a bad fantasy. Mr Trump said last week that he was not opposed to lifting sanctions if Russia was 'really helping us' (pictured, Russian president Vladimir Putin) Appearing on Fox News Sunday a show that Mr Trump often watches Mr Brennan said: 'Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests and so therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound.' Mr Trump said last week that he was not opposed to lifting sanctions if Russia was 'really helping us'. He also said that, once he has been sworn in, meeting the Russian president was 'absolutely fine with me'. Mr Brennan called for Mr Trump to be 'very, very careful' about cosying up to Russia and said 'the world is watching' what he says. He said: 'I think [Mr Trump] has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road. 'Now that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that US and national security interests are protected.' At a press conference last week Mr Trump, whose inauguration is on Friday, had likened his treatment by the intelligence agencies to being in Nazi Germany. But Mr Brennan said the comparison was 'outrageous'. He said: 'The world is watching now what Trump says and listening very carefully. If he doesn't have confidence in the intelligence community, what signal does that send to our partners and allies, as well as our adversaries? It's more than just about Mr Trump.' It was claimed that Mr Trump was planning a summit with Mr Putin for his first foreign trip as president. Mr Trump's spokesman Sean Spicer dismissed the claim as '100 per cent false'. At 102, she's enjoying life to the fullest (Third-Party-Submitted) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- At 102 years-young, Mattie Gullo is still a savvy, stylish super-senior in every sense of the word -- and to this day she continues to live a rich, fulfilling life. The birthday gal celebrated her magnificent milestone with family and friends on Jan. 12 in the community room in Park Lane at Seaview, the senior complex she called home for the last six years. Her motto: Do everything in moderation. "I lived a clean life," she says, adding that her mother gave her instructions on how to cook and how to go shopping back when she was a youngster of just 8 years old -- "especially since my mother had to go to work," she points out. Still independent, Mattie notes: "I lead a normal life, I eat everything and the way I was brought up I can't change. I'm still a good eater. I cook myself and my food is delivered from my telephone order." BTW: Her favorite cuisine is Italian -- and a little vino with pals is not out of the question. MORE ABOUT MATTIE Born in Lower Manhattan, she recounts that when she was a "Sweet 16," her family relocated to the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, where she enjoyed "Stoop Ball" and hopscotch. The birthday celebrant confides she remembers well the dress she wore to her first school dance. Although Mattie worked as a tailor, her favorite job was at Bankers Trust on Wall Street, the historic American banking organization that merged with Alex, Brown & Sons before being acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1998. In order to land the job, she was required to pass a challenging test. She did well and began her tenure at Banker's Trust soon after. Mattie goes on to explain that she hails from rather a small family. Her brothers were born in Italy (brother Michael is "most influential person"), and she's proud to reveal that she once visited the "old country" all by herself. Sadly, Mattie is the only surviving sibling. The avid reader has traveled to Italy and Canada, adores loves musicals and Italian productions. But Mattie explains her happiest moment in life was when she got engaged and married all in one year! After she married Vincenzo Gullo, who's now deceased, Mattie retired from the work force. She says the best part about retiring and aging is being able to travel and go to Broadway plays with her friends. And Mattie would like to be remembered as a good person who lived a simple, happy life! Happy birthday, Mattie! CELEBRATIONS: JAN. 17 Happy birthday Tuesday to Tony Palumbo, Jim King, Bob DeSantis Jr., Mary Jane Carr, Linda Marone, Kathy Motola, Joanne Mahoney, Joseph Thompson and Taylor Riccardi . Happy wedding anniversary Tuesday to Elizabeth and Robert McDonald. A hospital is chasing a 350,000 bill racked up by a Nigerian mother who flew to Britain to give birth to twins. The shocking figure exposes the scale of abuse of the crumbling NHS by health tourists. The woman, who has not been identified, had a caesarean section at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital. She had been transferred there from another hospital because of pregnancy complications. Her twins then spent two months in intensive care. The Government has been accused repeatedly of failing to clamp down on health tourism, which is thought to cost up to 280million a year. Patients face fewer checks on eligibility for free treatment than in other countries. The bill comes to light at a time when the NHS is in the grip of an unprecedented winter crisis, itself blamed on lack of funds. With doctors saying conditions in A&E are the worst they have seen: The woman, who has not been identified, had a caesarean section at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital - It emerged that hospitals have started taking the unprecedented step of cancelling cancer operations; - A poll suggested 78 per cent of voters would like the aid budget used to help the NHS; - Theresa May was accused of 'scapegoating' GPs in a row over surgery hours; - Nearly half the hospitals in England declared major alerts through overcrowding; - Doctors warned the worst may still be to come as flu cases increase. WHAT 350K COULD PAY FOR - Running costs of an eight-bed ward for six months, excluding drugs and medical care - 3,500 hospital outpatient appointments - Giving five cancer patients cutting-edge immunotherapy drugs for a year - The salary of 15 registered nurses for a year - 70 hip replacements - 437 cataract operations - One intensive care bed for 230 days - Paying a senior consultant specialist for three years - A fully kitted out ambulance - Employing five salaried GPs for a year - Training one junior doctor, including taking a five-year medical degree Advertisement The case at Luton was uncovered through a series of freedom of information requests sent by the Mail to all hospitals in England. A spokesman confirmed the hospital was owed 348,683 by the Nigerian mother who gave birth to twins in 2015. The woman had been transferred from another hospital nearby due to complications during the pregnancy and the babies spent two months on the paediatric intensive care unit. Luton is one of just three paediatric intensive care units in the East of England, and the trust said it could not refuse treatment 'if there was a danger to life'. The responses from 90 hospitals revealed that 13,077 overseas patients were treated in the UK in 2015-16, including 3,066 mothers who flew in to have their babies. These women were responsible for some of the highest debts and a significant number are understood to have come from Nigeria. Imperial College Hospitals in West London said it was chasing a 319,895 bill for a woman who gave birth to triplets. Staff at the trust have since disclosed that this autumn they looked after a 43-year-old Nigerian woman who gave birth to quads. She went into premature labour on the flight to London and one of the babies died. The costs of caring for the surviving three infants have passed 100,000 and staff predict a final bill of half a million pounds. Doctors are faced with a dilemma over eligibility because they are obliged to provide immediate medical care regardless of a patient's nationality or whether they can pay. Experts say our hospitals are being targeted, in particular by wealthy Nigerian mothers-to-be. In 2011 Bimbo Ayelabola, 38, cost the NHS 145,000 after giving birth to five babies Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: 'The NHS is in a critical state due to lack of resources, so any abuse from health tourism should be stopped. The sums of money are astonishing. Most patients would be concerned about the vast sums of money not being reclaimed and the potential for this money to be spent on frontline services and staff which could improve the quality of care and the time in which people receive care.' Professor Meirion Thomas, a cancer surgeon who formerly worked at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, said: 'These massive debts are staggering and should be investigated by NHS fraud officers. Patients don't arrive at specialist hospitals with serious illnesses by chance. It is likely there are facilitators and accomplices who enable this fraud. They may be friends or relatives or even health professionals.' Tory MP Peter Bone said: 'This has been a longstanding problem and it costs millions a year. We need the Health Service to implement a system whereby the person going in for treatment has a right to have it or has the means to pay.' HAVEN'T WE FALLEN FOR THIS BEFORE? It is not the first time a Nigerian woman has racked up a huge bill on NHS maternity wards. In 2011 Bimbo Ayelabola, 38, cost the NHS 145,000 after giving birth to five babies. She had come to Britain on a visitor's visa soon after discovering she was pregnant in 2010. The two boys and three girls were delivered by caesarean at Homerton Hospital, East London, and needed neonatal care for several weeks. Miss Ayelabola has since returned to her home city of Lagos, where she is a make-up artist. She drives a 17,000 car and her five children attend an expensive private school. In 2015 she told the Daily Mail she had never been sent a bill by the NHS. She added: 'If (health tourism) is a problem, you should talk to the NHS. I have never received my bill. If I had it, I would pay it.' Advertisement Andrew Bridgen, another Tory MP, said: 'Those who are not eligible for free healthcare must pay. If we don't address this issue it will only grow. 'There appears to be huge reluctance amongst clinicians not to charge people for free healthcare. We cannot afford to fund an international health service.' One Nigerian, Bimbo Ayelabola, racked up a bill of 145,000 in giving birth to quintuplets in Homerton Hospital, East London, in 2011, and has not paid the money back. Nigerian women and their husbands swap tips on how to give birth in NHS hospitals in an online discussion forum called Nairaland. Although many claim they intend to pay the full costs, they may not be able to do so if the birth is complex. A spokesman for Luton and Dunstable Hospitals said of its case: 'This patient was an overseas visitor and was referred to us by another hospital because of complications with her twin pregnancy. 'As an NHS Trust we cannot refuse to treat a patient, wherever they are from, if there is a danger to life. In this case two unborn babies required immediate care. 'They were delivered safely but spent two months in our Neonatal Intensive Care and High Dependency units. This is the reason for the high cost and we are currently pursuing the patient for payment.' Ian Eardley of the Royal College of Surgeons said the NHS was under tremendous pressure. 'More and more patients are going to A&E and there is more difficulty in getting patients home it's not something we are comfortable with,' he added. A Connecticut politician was arrested for sexual assault after he 'jokingly' gave a 'little pinch' to a woman's groin. Republican Christopher von Keyserling, 71, was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault for grabbing a Greenwich, Connecticut, town worker's genital area on Wednesday. The incident took place on December 8, 2016, after a heated political discussion, in which he told the unidentified 57-year-old woman that he 'loved' not having to be 'politically correct' anymore. Von Keyserling, who has served on the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting board since 1985, called the woman a 'lazy, bloodsucking union employee', reported the Westport Daily Voice. Politician Christopher von Keyserling was charged with fourth degree sexual assault for grabbing a Greenwich, Connecticut, town worker's genital area on Wednesday Prior to the alleged groping, the two were in a discussion about the changing nature of politics. The woman remarked 'it was a new world politically' and von Keyserling had to educate his fellow politicians of the town board, the arrest warrant said. He allegedly replied: 'I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct.' The prominent local politician then followed the town employee into a co-worker's office and when she walked by him to leave, he allegedly pinched her in the groin. In anger, she threatened to punch von Keyserling if he ever touched her inappropriately again, the warrant said. The woman said he 'looked back with a really evil look in his eyes and said, 'it would be your word against mine and nobody will believe you,' according to the warrant. However, a surveillance camera captured the interaction that was consistent with the victim's sequence of events. Von Keyserling ,71, was arrested at Greenwich Town Hall (pictured) on Wednesday. He characterized the interaction as a 'playful gesture' that was a 'joke' The woman took her case to police on December 16, 2016, after hearing of similar stories from other women about the politician, the report said. Von Keyserling and his lawyer characterized the 'little pinch' as a 'playful gesture' that was taken as a 'misunderstanding'. His lawyer, Phil Russell, said the exchange was 'jocular' and his client would be pleading not guilty, according to the Greenwich Time. He said to the paper: 'There was a playful gesture, in front of witnesses. It was too trivial to be considered anything of significance. 'To call it a sexual assault is not based in reality.' Families yesterday spoke of their fury at being ordered to evacuate their homes ahead of a storm surge which failed to materialise. Thousands of residents along the east coast were warned of a perilous combination of high tides and fierce winds. But as the widespread flooding predicted by forecasters never arrived, those returning to their properties derided the evacuation order as a load of rubbish. Soldiers were drafted in to help warn thousands of residents along the east coast of a perilous combination of high tides and fierce winds Some described the emergency measures on Friday night which included help from the Army as nothing but a fuss. Rest centres intended to accommodate flood-stricken families went virtually unused as the vast majority of residents defied official advice by staying at home. Instead of the sight of gigantic swells battering coastal defences, homeowners along Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were greeted by calm waves on an almost millpond-calm sea on Saturday. Conditions along the coast were calm yesterday as Met Office forecasters predicted a period of mild weather across the UK into next week. The Environment Agency said it had correctly predicted high tides and strong winds, but they had not peaked at the same time. Experts had feared the deadly combination would deliver a 9ft storm surge. Some 7,000 homes were part of an evacuation plan for Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, Jaywick, Mistley and West Mersea in Essex, and along the Suffolk coast. Some described the emergency measures on Friday night which included help from the Army as nothing but a fuss However many residents ignored the advice and the busiest evacuation centre in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, saw just 230 visitors. Despite a full evacuation plan in West Mersea, no one attended its emergency centre. There had been 17 severe danger to life flood warnings in place. Alison McGuire, who stayed at home, said: I did not think it would come... I thought to myself, what is all the fuss about? Brenda Smith, 71, from Jaywick, said the warnings were a load of rubbish, adding: I did not think anything would happen. Katrina Russell, who was staying with her mother in Jaywick, said similar warnings had been given before and nothing came of it. She added: I think 99 per cent of people stayed. I only know one person that did leave and thats because they have children. Inspector Mark Hilson briefs soldiers supporting local authorities in Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast where 3,000 residents were urged to leave their homes or move upstairs However Charles Osborne, 52, of Great Yarmouth said: I guess it was a lot of panicking but you cant be too careful. Soldiers were also drafted in to reassure residents along the coast of Lincolnshire including the resort of Skegness. Essexs deputy chief constable Matthew Horne said the evacuation plan was the right thing to do and insisted that the decision was based on science and expert advice. The Environment Agency said previous surges had brought devastating flooding. Alex Burkill, a forecaster with the Met Office, added: While impacts were less than they could have been, it couldnt have taken much more for there to have been a greater impact. A woman and her ex-lover have been charged with multiple felonies after they allegedly staged a break-in at the home she shared with her husband - because she was unhappy with her marriage, police say. Mehwish Memon, 30, and Syed Hassan, 38, are accused of tying Memon's husband to a chair and beating him with a stick at the married couple's home in a suburban Chicago nieghborhood. They also reportedly shot dead a dog, and then put it in Memon's husband's car. Cops say they also planted marijuana and drugs in the vehicle to make him look guilty. Mehwish Memon, left, and Syed Hassan, right, are accused of staging a home invasion in which Memon's husband was tied to a chair and beaten with a stick at the married couple's home Cook County Police responded to a report of a home invasion at the 9400 Block of Bay Colony Drive in Des Plaines, Illinois around 11:30pm on December 30, 2016. Investigators were told that a man in a black ski mask had entered the home, punched Memon in the face, tied her husband to a chair, bound him with packaging tape and beat him with a stick. They later determined that Hassan, of the 2800 block of South King Drive in Chicago, was the masked assailant - and that Memon had planned the attack with him. Cook County sheriff's spokeswoman Sophia Ansar said: 'She was not happy in her marriage, that appears to be the motive in the investigation.' Cook County Police responded to a report of a home invasion at the 9400 Block of Bay Colony Drive in Des Plaines, Illinois around 11:30pm on December 30, 2016 The two have were arrested and charged on Tuesday with home invasion, aggravated unlawful restraint and filing a false police report. They were also charged in connection to an earlier incident in Skokie, Illinois in which Hassan 'shot dead a dog and placed it in Memon's husband's car, along with a gun and marijuana'. Memon 'gave her ex-lover a key to the vehicle' so he could carry out the crime. For that, they were additionally charged with aggravated cruelty to an animal and possession of marijuana. Earlier records show that the two conspired to file a false domestic battery complaint against Memon's husband on December 16, but she dropped the charge. However, Hassan still slashed the tires of her husband's car before she did so. At a hearing at the Skokie Courthouse on Thursday, Memon's bail was set at $200,000 and Hassan's was set at $400,000. Thomas Markle Jr, 50, was arrested on gun charges in Grants Pass, Oregon on Thursday night after an argument with his girlfriend spiraled out of control Meghan Markle's older brother Thomas Markle Jr is 'going through a rough time' and is 'sad and sorry' following a drunken altercation that led to his arrest. The 50-year-old - whose half-sister Meghan has been dating Prince Harry for several months - was arrested late on Thursday at the home he shares with his girlfriend of two months, Darlene Blount, in Grants Pass, Oregon. He was booked on one felony count of unlawful use of a dangerous weapon and two misdemeanors - menacing and pointing a firearm at another person. Thomas Jr's younger brother Bobby Lucero, 35, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that his sibling is going through a tough time and is sorry for what happened. 'He's not good at the moment - he's just laying low,' said Lucero. 'He's going through a pretty rough time right now and he is sad about what happened and sorry. 'Things really aren't great for him right now.' Prince Harry's girlfriend Meghan Markle, who is 15 years younger than Thomas Jr, is the product of Thomas Sr's second marriage to yoga teacher Doria Ragland, 60 The alleged victim is believed to be Markle's girlfriend of two months, Darlene Blount, 36, a former hotel manager (pictured) Together: Meghan with Thomas Jr as a baby. He said in a recent interview that he hopes Prince Harry 'takes care of and loves' his sister Lucero is Thomas Jr's half-sibling and the youngest child of Roslyn Markle, 71 the former wife of Meghan's father Thomas Sr, 72, and the mother of his two eldest children. Roslyn and Thomas Sr's other daughter is Samantha Grant, 52, a former actress and scriptwriter who now lives in Florida with her boyfriend Mark Phillips, 58. Meghan, who is 15 years younger than Thomas Jr, is the product of Thomas Sr's second marriage to yoga teacher Doria Ragland, 60. Thomas Jr, a window fitter, was arrested by Grants Pass police at 11pm on Thursday night after an argument with Blount spiraled out of control. An official police log of the incident, which spelled Meghan's brother's name incorrectly, stated: 'Markel and Blount got into an argument. 'In his drunken state Markel grabbed a gun and pressed it to Blount's head in an attempt to get her to leave.' It added that Blount rang the police after locking herself in the bathroom for safety. Following his arrest, Thomas Jr called his former wife Tracy Dooley, 51, and asked her to put up his $1,500 bond before being released at 10am on Friday morning. Thomas Jr is yet to emerge from his Grants Pass home and the gray-painted property was shuttered and quiet when DailyMail.com visited earlier today. Blount, who has not ended her relationship with Thomas Jr according to Lucero, briefly returned to the house to collect her pick-up truck but refused to comment when approached by this website. She is thought to be staying with her parents Clyde, 66, and Claudia, 59, on a remote farm approximately five miles from the home she shares with Thomas Jr. Thomas Markle Jr was arrested on Thursday at the home he shares with his girlfriend of two months, Darlene Blount, in Grants Pass, Oregon. He is yet to emerge from his home following the incident Thomas Markle Jr, Meghan Markle's half brother, was booked on one felony count of unlawful use of a dangerous weapon and two misdemeanors menacing and pointing a firearm at another person following the incident on Thursday night He was charged with menacing, pointing a firearm at another person, and unlawful use of a weapon, according to public police records Meghan's burgeoning relationship with Harry has already been described as 'serious' Yesterday, Thomas Jr's ex-wife told the Mail on Sunday that she hoped Meghan, who is understood to have been dating Prince Harry since May 2016, would not be left 'embarrassed' by the incident. 'I don't want this to be embarrassing for Meghan. Tom has had a little fame and publicity since Meghan started dating Prince Harry,' said Tracy who has two sons, Tyler, 27, and Thomas III, 25, both also of Grants Pass, with Thomas Jr. 'He wants what's best for her. They used to be very close but there has been some separation over the years. The last thing he would want to do is to hurt her.' Speaking to the Sun, Thomas Jr's son Tyler said the 50-year-old has now vowed to seek help for his drinking and wants to 'apologize for everything'. 'He knows it is an embarrassment to Meghan and the family,' said Tyler, 27. 'He is very sorry and is apologizing to everyone. He just needs some time to heal and reflect on life. But he wants to apologize for everything. 'He is in the spotlight now and everyone gets to see his flaws. Due to being inebriated, his emotions got the better of him and he got into an argument with his girlfriend. He's not like this normally. 'I also want to apologise on behalf of my dad. Unfortunately my father has a problem with alcohol. He is now in recovery.' He also passed on a brief statement from his father that read: 'I am incredibly sorry for my actions and I'm especially sorry to everyone affected by my drinking. I am seeking help and I promise I will be the best person I can be going forward. Thank you for understanding.' Following his arrest, Thomas Jr called his former wife Tracy Dooley, 51, - pictured with their sons Thomas Dooley Markle (left) and Tyler Dooley Markle (right) - and asked her to put up his $1,500 bond before being released at 10am on Friday morning Meghan has visited the Prince in London at least twice and stayed at Kensington Palace. The pair are expected to go skiing next month Prince Harry first met Meghan's father 'about six months ago in Toronto', Thomas Jr has revealed previously The relationship between Harry, 32, and Meghan, 35, is thought to be serious with the pair celebrating New Year's Eve together on a romantic holiday to Norway. They are also believed to be planning a further trip - this time to the upmarket ski resort of Verbier, in Switzerland - in February. Earlier this month, Thomas Jr told DailyMail.com that his sister is 'very much in love' with the royal and said he hopes to meet the Prince one day. He also said, in an exclusive interview with this website, that the couple are 'extremely happy together' and revealed that his father, a former lighting director, has met Harry. 'They're extremely happy together, they look great together and she's done good', Thomas Jr told DailyMail.com. 'She's very much in love and she's obviously happy because if she wasn't happy, she wouldn't be there. 'So she is happy and [the relationship is] taking off, which is good, and I wish them all the best. I couldn't be happier for her.' He added: 'I think it is wonderful. As long as he takes care of and loves Meg, he doesn't have to do anything else although I would like to shake his hand and meet him.' Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took Japan's leader to one of Sydney's most popular whale-watching destinations at the weekend - as pictures emerged of a dead minke whale bloodying the deck of a Japanese factory ship. Mr Turnbull and Japan's premier, Shinzo Abe, went for a breakfast 'walk and talk' at the city's South Head on Saturday morning. Tourism websites describe the scenic location as 'fantastic' for whale-watching. The Liberal leader copped a barrage of snarky tweets asking whether the pair were watching for whales, while other users shared recently released pictures of a dead whale. 'How about those whales he's killing in an Australian sanctuary?' one user asked. Malcolm Turnbull and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe are pictured walking and talking together at South Head - a 'fantastic' whale-watching destination - at the weekend The Sea Shepherd activist group released pictures of a dead minke on the back of Japan's Nisshin Maru factory ship on Sunday The Sea Shepherd group - which has harassed Japanese harpoon ships for more than a decade - released pictures of the minke on the back of the Nisshin Maru vessel on Sunday. It is the first dead whale to be documented since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) forced Japan suspend its whaling program in southern waters in 2014, said Sea Shepherd. In some of the group's pictures, the dead creature was covered up with a tarpaulin. 'The fact that the Japanese crew went to cover up their harpoons and the dead minke whale on deck just shows that they know what they're doing is wrong,' the captain of Sea Shepherd's MY Steve Irwin, Wyanda Lublink, said in a statement. The slayed whale is the first to be documented since the International Court of Justice forced Japan to suspend its whaling program in southern waters, said Sea Shepherd In some pictures, the majestic sea creature was seen covered up with a tarpaulin and rope Japan is a signatory to the International Whaling Commission's moratorium on whaling in force since 1986. But it exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for the purposes of 'scientific research'. Australia's Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said in a statement his government was 'deeply disappointed' Japan had returned to whaling in the Southern Ocean this summer. 'We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling and promote whale conservation,' he added. Sea Shepherd accused workers on board the vessel of covering up a harpoon (above) In 2014 the United Nations' ICJ ordered Tokyo to end the Antarctic hunt, saying it found permits issued by Japan were 'not for purposes of scientific research'. Japan cancelled its 2014-15 hunt after the ruling, but restarted it the following year under a new programme with a two-thirds cut in the target catch number -- saying the fresh plan was genuinely scientific. Tokyo claims it is trying to prove the whale population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting. But the meat from what it calls scientific research often ends up on dinner tables. No one was available for comment at Japan's Fisheries Agency. Amanda Spielman dismissed the notion that youngsters in English schools are made to sit too many exams Ofsted's new chief inspector has clashed with parents and teaching unions by claiming its a myth that pupils are over-tested. Amanda Spielman dismissed the notion that youngsters in English schools are made to sit too many exams. Speaking in her first week as head of education watchdog, Ofsted, Ms Spielman pointed out that pupils in this country are tested no more than their counterparts around the world. She told the Times Educational Supplement: I think theres a bit of a myth around that we have a massively over-tested set of students. The former chair of the exams regulator, Ofqual, pointed to research into international testing comparisons carried out by the exam board, Cambridge Assessment. She said this seemed to conclude that, actually, it adds up to much the same amount of testing as in most other systems. When asked about testing in schools, she told the TES: If youd been interviewing me a few weeks ago, with an Ofqual hat on, Id be a lot more forthcoming than Im probably going to be today, with an Ofsted hat on, because I dont think we have a particular Ofsted view. Ms Spielman went on to say she did not think that English pupils were over-tested, before adding: But clearly theres been an enormous amount of change, and there have been some kinds of teething problems, and theres the whole new GCSES and new A-levels. Its a tough time for schools and colleges, with so much change going through the system, and thats something that, clearly, in inspections weve got to be aware of. Her comments yesterday provoked an angry reaction from teaching unions and family groups. Speaking in her first week as head of education watchdog, Ofsted, Ms Spielman pointed out that pupils in this country are tested no more than their counterparts around the world Rosamund McNeil head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said: Teachers are deeply worried about schools becoming exam factories. Its happening as a result of the ways in which schools are ranked using tests, in a narrow range of subjects, which dont show what they are claimed to show. She added: The system is designed to generate numbers for Government rather than meaningful information to help parents get involved in their childrens learning. Government has created a system where teachers must teach children how to prepare to pass tests, rather than how to learn, and often this reduces childrens motivation to learn, and their self-esteem. Margaret Morrissey, of the family pressure group, Parents Outloud, said: I don t normally agree with the teaching unions but I do feel we have got to a point where teaching at the moment is no longer as important as testing, testing, testing. Some children who are really quite bright and do very well, respond badly to a test situation, so the more pressure we put on them, the more were not getting the true picture. By continually exposing children to tests, were teaching them to take tests, not to learn. Last years SATs tests in primary schools were hit with controversy, with 11-year-olds left in tears after taking one of the hardest reading tests teachers said they had ever seen. Staff reported even bright pupils could not finish the Key Stage Two test and warned it was a demoralising experience. Ofsted's new chief inspector has clashed with parents and teaching unions by claiming its a myth that pupils are over-tested Meanwhile a spelling test was leaked online by a rogue marker in an act of sabotage. Answers to the Key Stage Two grammar, punctuation and spelling test appeared on a password-protected website for an exam board for several hours. The tougher Key Stage One tests for seven-year-olds also caused a furore. A spelling test due to be taken by hundreds of thousands of youngsters across the country was scrapped after it was accidentally released online. Thousands of parents also kept their children off lessons in protest at the tests, which they claimed were too difficult and age inappropriate. Dog and cat lovers are demanding tougher sentences for those convicted of acts of cruelty against animals after it emerged the country has among the lowest jail terms in Europe. Pet owners found guilty of abusing animals in England and Wales face a maximum sentence of six months. By comparison, offenders face jail terms of up to five years in Ireland, three years in Germany and two years in France. Only Belgium has a lower maximum sentence of three months. Graham Williams, 60, was jailed after he fed his 11-year-old German Shepherd, Yarna, aspirin and paracetamol to try and kill it, before beating it to death with a shovel Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Kate Parminter will today ask in the Lords whether the government plans to increase penalties for animal welfare offences. The peer wants to see the maximum jail term raised to five years, a move backed by the Dogs Trust and RSPCA. She said: We are a nation of animal lovers and have some of the best animal welfare legislation in the world, but are lagging behind on sentencing. Many of these cases involve extreme and premeditated cruelty. The Government must toughen up sentences to ensure the punishment fits the crime. Recent cases include Graham Williams, 60, from Birkhenhead who in November was jailed after he fed his 11-year-old German Shepherd, Yarna, aspirin and paracetamol to try and kill it, before beating it to death with a shovel. The judge at Wirral Magistrates Court complained that he was only allowed to give him four months after he received a discount for pleading guilty. Hesaid he would have imposed a longer sentence had the law allowed. A Dogs Trust spokesperson said: 'We feel strongly that the woefully inadequate penalties available for cruelty cases for conviction under the Animal Welfare Act only serve to protect those capable of such horrific crimes. 'More needs to be done to ensure that cruelty convictions are a deterrent. We continue to urge the government to take actions to protect all animals by making changes that will allow the most serious cases of animal cruelty to be heard in the Crown Court and receive a sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment.' A post mortem revealed Yana had suffered multiple blunt force trauma injuries to the head Jeremy Cooper, chief executive of the RSPCA, said: We would like to see sentences for the worst animal cruelty and neglect in England and Wales raised in line with those in Northern Ireland where the maximum sentence is five years in prison. Day in day out our inspectors deal with animals who have been scalded with boiling water, stabbed, shot, poisoned or forced to fight to the death. Its absolutely heartbreaking and often the maximum sentence allowed does not seem to do justice for what they have suffered. According to our research, the public also back us in wanting to see harsher penalties for those who commit the most appalling violence or severe neglect to animals and we also hear magistrates in court frustrated that their hands are tied when passing sentence on those who have committed serious and sickening offences against animals. Donald Trump has lashed out at outgoing CIA chief John Brennan, and questioned whether he was responsible for leaking the Russian dossier. Brennan had earlier told the president-elect to watch what he says, suggesting he doesn't understand the threats posed by Moscow. But Trump fired back on Twitter on Sunday night. He wrote: 'Was this the leaker of Fake News?' The jab was a reference to a recent intelligence briefing that raised questions about Trump's connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Scroll down for video John Brennan said on Fox News Sunday that Donald Trump's 'talking and tweeting' is not in the nation's interest and the president-elect lacks a full understanding of the threat Russia poses The CIA director said in an interview on Sunday morning on Fox News that Trump lacks 'full appreciation and understanding' of the implications of lifting sanctions on Russia. Trump acknowledged Brennan's criticism and tweeted that he 'couldn't do much worse' as president. '"Outoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia Threat. Does not fully understand." Oh really, couldn't do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?' Trump tweeted. Brennan unleashed on Trump in a scathing interview on Fox News Sunday - a show the president-elect routinely watches. 'I think he has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road,' Brennan said. 'Now that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that U.S. and national security interests are protected.' Donald Trump has lashed out at outgoing CIA chief John Brennan hinting he may have been behind the leaking of a Russian dossier Brennan had earlier ripped into Trump on Fox News warning him to watch what he says and suggesting the president-elect doesn't understand the threats posed by Russia Trump's transition team has not yet commented. The extraordinary televised lecture to the incoming president highlighted the bitter state of Trump's relationship with the American intelligence community just days before he is inaugurated as the nation's 45th president. Trump has repeatedly shrugged off intelligence that's convinced Republicans and Democrats that Russia tried to help him win election. He's publicly called for a better relationship between the U.S. and President Vladimir Putin's government, and suggested in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday that he'd consider easing sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama as payback for the alleged election hacking. Trump also has suggested that the intelligence community is out to get him including by the leak of a document containing potentially damaging, but unverified, financial and personal information on Trump. Trump has likened the situation to 'Nazi Germany.' Brennan on Sunday called that comparison 'outrageous' and said the intelligence community wanted the president-elect to know that the document was circulating among some news outlets. But an array of revelations has shed more light on the Trump-Putin relationship. Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is set to become Trump's national security adviser, and Russia's ambassador to the U.S. have been in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for the alleged election hacking, a senior U.S. official says. After initially denying that Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak spoke Dec. 29, a Trump official said late Friday that the transition team was aware of one call on the day the Obama administration imposed the sanctions. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, also in an appearance on 'Fox News Sunday,' denied that Flynn and Kislyak discussed anything relating to the sanctions. Pence said he talked to Flynn about this on Saturday. 'The conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats.' Repeated contacts just as Obama imposed sanctions would raise questions about whether Trump's team discussed or even helped shape Russia's response. Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly did not retaliate against the U.S. for the sanctions or the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, a decision Trump quickly praised. Pence on Sunday also denied that anyone from the Trump campaign contacted Russian officials before the election. Brennan on Sunday roundly denounced Trump's approach to Russia and other national security threats, suggesting the president-elect has much to understand before he can make informed decisions on such matters. Trump's impulsivity could be dangerous, Brennan suggested. 'Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests,' Brennan said, saying twice that the matter is 'more than being about him.' 'I think Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road that he needs to be very, very careful about moving down.' There are costs to casting doubts on the credibility of the national intelligence community, Brennan added. 'The world is watching now what Trump says and listening very carefully. If he doesn't have confidence in the intelligence community, what signal does that send to our partners and allies as well as our adversaries?' Brennan said. A chef has dished out a hilarious 'sick note' on social media after the horse he part-owns won a $250,000 race. Gaslight restaurant owner Blake Pendlebury decided to take the day off after Irish Constabulary finished first in a devastating two-length win at the Magic Millions Cup on the Gold Coast on Saturday. In an honest Facebook post, Mr Pendlebury said he would not be opening his Tamborine Mountain pizza, pasta and burger joint that evening. 'I am at the Magic Millions and a horse that I have a share in has just won a big race and I have had a few drinks and cannot make it back into work,' he wrote. Gaslight restaurant owner Blake Pendlebury (pictured) decided to take the day off the horse he part-owns won a $250,000 race The chef posted a hilarious 'sick note' on Facebook after the horse he part-owns Irish Constabulary (pictured) finished first in a devastating two-length win at the Magic Millions Cup 'I also do not have adequate backup in the culinary department and do not want to disappoint all of my regular, loyal customers with food that does not have my personal approval. 'I realise this is highly unprofessional and I have not taken the decision lightly.' The 42-year-old Queensland chef ensured his customers that he would reopen his diner the following day. 'Rest assured that Gaslight will be open tomorrow for business as usual and I hope you will continue to support us in the future,' he said. 'Once again I apologise and have a great day, even though it cant be made greater by eating at Gaslight.' He told his diners in an honest Facebook post that he would not be opening his Tamborine Mountain pizza and pasta takeaway shop shortly after the race The store owner was congratulated for his win, with many praising him for the 'best sick note' The horse he part-owns won the $250,000 prize money at the Gold Coast race on Saturday (pictured of the event) But despite the win, Mr Pendlebury told Daily Mail Australia he would only get a five per cent slice of the prize money. 'I now wish I had a 50 per cent share in the horse,' he said as he laughed. 'I don't know much about horses but he looked alright so I thought I'd jump on it. The jockey and trainer get their cut and I think we'll get around $7,000- $8,000. 'I'll probably spend the money on fixing up the store and paying back mum and buying a beer for a friend who helped set the place up.' The chef was met with congratulations from his diners, with one calling it the 'best sick note' He said the atmosphere was 'surreal' when his horse won the race. 'Watching the race from the grand stand was unbelievable,' he said. Mr Pendlebury said it was his first time taking a sick day off at his diner, which was opened in October last year. 'I have been working between 80 to 90 hours a week since opening,' he said. 'I don't have anyone here I could trust to work without me being there and I didn't want to open for the sake of opening so I decided to write a Facebook post. 'A few people told me it was one of the best sick notes they've ever seen.' There has been tremendous emphasis on increasing diversity in the tech world African American representation has been quite low, so has Hispanic and female participation. The reward however, if you make it to the very top can be quite good. A recent CNNMoney report highlights a handful of top female earners in tech and various other industries and the results are fascinating. Its really great news. Oracle CEO Safra Catz occupies the No. 1 position. According to CNNMoney, she collects total pay of $41 million. That includes $971,000 in cash compensation and about $40 million in stock and options, according to the report. Marissa Mayer, the top executive at troubled Yahoo!, comes in second on the CNNMoney list. Her total pay comes in around $36 million, according to CNNMoney. That includes $1.5 million in cash compensation and $34.4 million in stocks and options. Ruth Porat is third on the list. The Alphabet CFO collects $31 million annually. About $6 million of that is in the form of cash compensation. The rest is from stocks and options. The woman in tech on the list who ranked last 19th out of 20 was Bridget van Kralingen, Senior VP of IBM Global Business Services who earns about $15 million in stock and direct compensation. There is another way to look at successful women in tech Forbes rates women by power. According to the article: For the fifth consecutive year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has been named the most powerful woman in technology on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, placing at No. 7 on the list overall. With a personal fortune of $1.4 billion, Sandberg is powerful not only as a billionaire and top executive at the worlds fifth most valuable brand, but also as a voice for female empowerment in the workplace and shared responsibilities at home. After Sandberg, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki (No. 8 overall) took the No. 2 spot in tech followed in quick succession by HP CEO Meg Whitman (No. 9), IBM CEO Virginia Ginni Rometty (No. 11), Apple Senior VP Angela Ahrendts (No. 15), Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz (No. 20), Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat (No. 27) and Ursula Burns (No. 34), the CEO of Xerox since 2009. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer (No. 55), down the list 33 spots, is currently overseeing a sale of the embattled tech pioneers core business amid falling traffic and ad revenue. The tech category extends beyond the U.S. borders. Chinas Lucy Peng No. 35) is a cofounder of Alibaba and CEO of affiliate Ant Financial Services Group. She is followed by Hong Kong billionaire-chair of Lens Technology Zhou Qunfei (No.61), Solina Chau (No. 81), cofounder of Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures and Jenny Lee (No. 100), managing partner of Singapores GGV Capital. To learn more about tech trends related to the workplace, and to share your own story and potentially win an award for your pioneering work related to tech culture, check out the TMC Tech Culture Awards. We will be reviewing candidates for the Tech Culture Award, the Tech Diversity Award, and the Social Responsibility Award. For more information visit: http://techculture.tmcnet.com. Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart showed off her much slimmer figure at a Queensland race day on Monday as it was announced she is one of two people who own more than the poorest 20 percent of the country's population. Ms Rinehart attended the Magic Millions Race Day at the Gold Coast Turf Club on Monday with thousands of punters. The 62-year-old lost about 40 percent of her weight for her daughter Ginia's marriage to Simon Robinson last year and appears to have continued to shed kilograms. Scroll down for video Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart, 62, (pictured) showed off her much slimmer figure at Magic Millions Race Day on the Gold Coast on Monday with thousands of punters The 62-year-old lost about 40 percent of her weight for her daughter Ginia's marriage to Simon Robinson last year and appears to have continued to shed kilograms (pictured in 2011) It comes as research revealed Ms Rinehart and Meriton property boss Harry Triguboff (pictured), the country's two richest people, have more money than the poorest 20 percent of the population Research revealed this week Ms Rinehart and Meriton property boss Harry Triguboff, Australia's two richest people, have a combined wealth of $21.5 billion more than the country's bottom 20 percent. They are among the wealthiest one percent of Australians, who together own more than the bottom 70 percent, an Oxfam report said. The statistics, published in a global report titled An Economy for the 99 percent, come as the world's political and business leaders gather for the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Oxfam Australia chief executive Dr Helen Szoke says the margin between the nation's rich and poor mirrors a worldwide trend. 'The scale of the global wealth inequality crisis is much, much greater than we had feared,' Dr Szoke said on Monday. Ms Rinehart (pictured) and Mr Triguboff have a combined wealth of $21.5 billion Ms Rinehart with Gold Coast photographer Regina King at the Magic Millions VIP marquee Ms Rinehart's former property in Sydney's exclusive Mosman suburb Globally, the richest eight people - including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - own as much as the poorest half of the world's population, or about 3.6 billion people. 'Collectively, the world's richest eight men have a net wealth of $A568 billion,' Dr Szoke said. 'Such an extreme divide between the rich and the rest risks plunging future generations into political instability, undermining our democratic institutions and creating economic upheaval.' Mr Triguboff (pictured) is the chief executive officer of Meriton Pty A new Meriton apartment complex under construction in inner Sydney in April Despite the world's wealthiest often being the most generous, Dr Szoke said having so much wealth in the hands of just eight people 'highlights how broken our economic system really is'. She called for the federal government to introduce tougher laws that force large Australia-based multinational companies to publicly report incomes, employees, profits earned and taxes paid in every country of operation. Dr Szoke said ending the 'extreme concentration of wealth' in Australia was particularly important given the Centrelink debt recovery crackdown affecting some of the most vulnerable people in the country. Daily Mail Australia contacted Ms Rinehart for comment. Rest in peace: Dozens of mourners gathered to pay their respects to Michael Chamberlain, who died last week to leukemia complications aged 72 Michael Chamberlain - who fought a bitter, decades-long battle to prove his baby daughter Azaria was snatched from his car during an Uluru camping trip - was still looking for closure before he died. Mr Chamberlain's defence lawyer and friend, Stuart Tipple, says there were two things on the 72-year-old's mind when he spoke to him the day before he died in hospital of leukemia complications last Monday. 'He did want an apology from the Northern Territory and it still hasn't been received,' Mr Tipple said outside Avondale College Church in Cooranbong near Lake Macquarie, NSW, ahead of Mr Chamberlain's memorial service on Monday. 'The other thing he really had his heart set on was being able to place a plaque at (Ayers) rock,' Mr Tipple said. Mr Chamberlain and his former wife Lindy made headlines around the world in 1980 when their nine-week-old daughter Azaria was taken from a tent during a family holiday at Uluru. The young couple were ultimately charged and then exonerated over Azaria's death, sparking one of the most polarising and long-running legal sagas in Australian history. Scroll down for video In mourning: Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (pictured) is seen being escorted into the memorial service for her former husband Michael in Cooranbong, north of Sydney Ms Chamberlain-Creighton and her former partner Michael were subjected to enormous scrutiny and speculation in the 1980s, after claiming Azaria was killed by a dingo Aiden Chamberlain - the son of Lindy and Michael - was among the dozens of mourners to gather at Avondale College Church on Monday The order of service featured pictures of Michael Chamberlain with his family and motor vehicles Dozens of mourners gathered at the service at Cooranbong, near Lake Macquarie north of Sydney. The stage is pictured being set before the service Wooden logs and a motorbike - symbols of the outdoors Mr Chamberlain loved - were featured at the service A Holden Torana - similar to the one Azaria was taken from - appeared at Michael Chamberlain's memorial service Lindy shielded her face with dark sunglasses and bowed her head respectfully as she arrived at her former partner's memorial service. She and their three other children - Aidan, Reagan and Kahlia - were among dozens of mourners to gather for the service. Mr Chamberlain's second wife Ingrid and their daughter Zahra were also at the ceremony but aren't expected to speak. The family laid Mr Chamberlain to rest at a private funeral last week, Mr Tipple said, adding that he was still in shock over the death. A motorbike, symbols of Mr Chamberlain's love of the outdoors such as wooden logs and a chainsaw, as well as a picture of Uluru were placed inside the church for Monday's service. Michael Chamberlain went on to forge a successful career as a writer and academic after Azaria's death. The former Seventh-day Adventist pastor also become a carer for Ingrid in recent years after she suffered a debilitating stroke in 2011. While Azaria's death had defined much of Michael Chamberlain's life, he was leaving behind a legacy as a passionate fighter for justice, Mr Tipple said. 'I'm amazed at how he was able to maintain his dignity and how he still saw the good in the world and the good in people,' he said. THE LINDY CHAMBERLAIN CASE: OVER THE YEARS August 17, 1980 Lindy Chamberlain discovered her daughter Azaria missing from their family tent during a camping trip at Uluru in the Northern Territory. December 1980 An initial inquest supported Lindy and Michael Chamberlain's claims their daughter was taken by a dingo. December 1981 A second inquest was ordered after the Supreme Court quashed the initial inquest's findings. September 1982 Lindy was charged with Azaria's murder and Michael was charged with being an accessory after the fact. October 29, 1982 The couple was found guilty of their respective charges. Lindy was sentenced to life in prison and Michael received a suspended sentence. Early 1986 The jacket Azaria was wearing when she was killed was found by authorities in a dingo lair after a British tourist fell to his death in the same area. 1986 The Northern Territory government ordered Lindy to be released from prison. 1988 Lindy and Michael were acquitted of Azaria's death by the Supreme Court and their convictions were overturned. The couple received a $1.3million pay-out for their wrongful imprisonment. 1991 Lindy and Michael divorced. 1995 A third inquest into the infant's death was held and returned an open verdict. 2012 A fourth inquest was held and the coroner ruled that a dingo did in fact take Azaria from the family's campsite. Michael said that he and his ex-wife had no contact. Advertisement Michael and Lindy Chamberlain hold a photograph of their baby daughter, Azaria Chamberlain, on the steps of the Alice Springs Courthouse following an inquest in 1980 Michael and Lindy Chamberlain are pictured together in an undated filed photo MIchael and Lindy were subjected to enormous scrutiny and speculation after claiming their daughter was killed by a dingo in August 1980. Ms Chamberlain-Creighton spent more than three years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted for the infant's death in 1982. Michael was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to baby Azaria's murder and was handed a suspended sentence. The pair were exonerated by a royal commission in 1987. But their marriage became troubled and the couple divorced in 1991. Ms Chamberlain-Creighton rushed to be with her children after Michael's death to leukemia complications last week. Asking for privacy, she said her partner's death was 'unexpected', she was 'deeply grieving' and needed some space. 'I am on my way today to support and be with our children,' she said in a statement. A young man was stabbed four times at a home owned by the University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor during a house party while he was on vacation. Fabrice Emile, 20, sustained life-threatening injuries when he was stabbed four times at a large party held at Chancellor J. Keith Motley's home in Stoughton, Massachusetts, on Sunday. Emile, who was first identified by The Enterprise News, is a family friend of Motley, who was away from his home during the party. Fabrice Emile, 20, sustained life-threatening injuries when he was stabbed four times at a large party held at the home of University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor in Stoughton, Massachusetts Emile's parents told the news outlet their son was in stable condition and police said he was expected to survive. Motley has been the chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 2007 and said in a statement he was 'very concerned' about the health of the injured man. He was on vacation with his wife in Jamaica, the Boston Globe reported. The 20-year-old's friends were trying to take Emile to a hospital when they flagged down a rescue service vehicle. He was taken to Boston Medical Center where he was treated for his serious injuries. Police are investigating but have not said whether they have any suspects in connection with the stabbing. Emile is reported to be a family friend of Chancellor J. Keith Motley (left), who was away from his home during the party The stabbing occurred early morning on Sunday at the Chancellor's home (pictured). Motley has been the chancellor at the university since 2007 and said in a statement he was 'very concerned' about the health of the injured man Emile graduated from Stoughton High School in 2016. Motley said in a statement: 'I have learned about an incident that occurred at my residence last night and am very concerned about it as well as the health of the young man who was injured. 'I was travelling and not home at the time, but I am returning as quickly as possible so that I can fully understand what happened and respond accordingly. 'I will have more to say at that time.' A seven-year-old boy has died after he became trapped under the quad bike following a horrific crash. The boy was riding the bike with a nine-year-old family friend on a Barellan property on Irvin Road in the NSW Riverina on Sunday afternoon when tragedy struck. Police said they were told the pair took a turn on the Kanga 110cc quad bike when they fell off in front of horrified family and friends. A seven-year-old boy has died after he fell off the Kanga 110cc quad bike (pictured of a file photo similar to the bike he was riding on) The boy was riding the bike with a nine-year-old friend on a Barellan property on Irvin Road The younger boy was pinned under the machine while his friend, who was a pillion passenger, miraculously escaped without injury. The youngster was rushed to Griffith Hospital before being airlifted to Canberra Hospital where he later died. Chief Inspector John Wadsworth from Griffith police said the boy's family had saw the incident unfold. The seven-year-old boy was airlifted to Canberra Hospital where he later died 'The family were watching as it happened on the boys family property. They are obviously extremely distraught by this tragedy,' Insp Wadsworth said. 'It was an extremely traumatic scene. Family members were trying to help the young fella' and everyone was doing their best to save his life.' Officers from Griffith Local Area Command have established a crime scene as the bike was seized for forensic examination. A report will be prepared for the information of the coroner. South Korean prosecutors want to arrest the head of Samsung Group over claims he paid $36million in bribes to the country's disgraced president. Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was questioned for nearly 24 hours last week as investigators looked into a multi-million dollar bribery scandal surrounding impeached President Park Geun-hye. South Korean special prosecutors will seek an arrest warrant for Lee, 48, on charges of bribery that the company gave donations to non-profit foundations in exchange for government favors. He also faces allegations of embezzlement and of lying under oath during a parliamentary hearing in addition to offering bribes. Scroll down for video South Korean prosecutors asked for the Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee (left) to be arrested for bribery, on Monday. The request is in connection with a political scandal that has seen President Park Geun-Hye (right) impeached Jay Y. Lee was interrogating for 22 straight hours over his role in bribes that Samsung made in exchange for political favors. Samsung is suspected of giving $36million to Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil while seeking the government's help with Lee's leadership succession Samsung is suspected of giving $36million to Park's friend, Choi Soon-sil while seeking the government's help with a leadership succession within the company to Lee from his father, who has been hospitalized for over two years. Prosecutors have also been looking into whether Samsung's support for a business and foundations backed by Choi Soon-sil, may have been connected to the National Pension Service's 2015 decision to support a $8billion merger of two Samsung Group affiliates. The arrest warrant must be approved by a court, an official at Seoul central district court said. The date of the hearing has still to be confirmed, but it is likely to be Wednesday, the official said. He was questioned for 22 hours in regards to these bribery and embezzlement allegations by special prosecutors in central Seoul, last week on Thursday. Samsung did not have an immediate comment. NPS chairman Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony on Monday, while Choi appeared before the Constitutional Court, denying wrongdoing. Park remains in office but has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to make her the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Choi Soon-sil (center) is a longtime friend of South Korea's disgraced president. She is at the center of a massive corruption scandal involving the President Park Geun-Hye and Samsung Choi is accused of colluding with Park to pressure big businesses, including Samsung, to contribute to non-profit foundations backing the president's initiatives Moon was arrested in December after acknowledging ordering the world's third-largest pension fund to support the $8 billion merger in 2015 while he was head of the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. Samsung has acknowledged providing funds to the three institutions but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger. Choi is accused of colluding with Park to pressure big businesses, including Samsung, to contribute to non-profit foundations backing the president's initiatives. Choi, in detention and on trial on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud, again denied wrongdoing on Monday. Samsung is accused of giving donations to non-profit foundations operated by Choi in exchange for government favors She said she had access to a former presidential aide's email address which had Blue House (presidential office) documents, but that she only looked at Park's speeches for "emotional expression". Choi described Park as "a person without ulterior motives" who "does not allow people to take private interest or take private interest herself". South Korea has been gripped by political crisis for months, with Park impeached in December. Park has also denied wrongdoing, though admitted carelessness in her relationship with Choi. If the impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, an election would be held in two months, with former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expected to be a candidate. Former opposition party leader Moon Jae-in maintained his lead in an opinion poll for presidential favorites, while Ban tightened the gap in second place, a Realmeter survey commissioned by the Maeil Business Newspaper showed on Monday. The special prosecutors' office had said it would make a decision on Samsung's Lee on Sunday, but needed more time to deliberate all factors, including the potential economic impact. The drama doesn't seem to have put off investors. South Korea rang in the new year with Asia's first sovereign bond, pricing the $1 billion, 10-year issue well below the initially indicated yield as global investors rushed to buy. The won and shares fell on Monday, but domestic politics weren't seen as a major factor. The bad batch of ecstasy that caused 20 people to be taken to hospital over the weekend is believed to have caused three fatal overdoses with one teenager still in critical condition. The potentially lethal batch of drugs triggered five people to overdose at nightclub Revolver and other revellers from the Chapel Street precinct to be taken to hospital over the weekend in Melbourne, according to The Herald Sun. French waiter Sebastien Vergara-Giambelluco appeared in court charged with trafficking and possession of MDMA as police alleged in court they could link him to one non-fatal incident, according to the publication. Scroll down for video About 20 people overdosed after taking MDMA in the Chapel Street (pictured) entertainment precinct Police allege the 30-year-old Frenchman sold the drugs to a woman who then passed on the MDMA to a friend who overdosed, the publication reports. The court heard a 30-year-old man who died in Elwood on Friday night may have taken drugs from a toxic batch. While a 17-year-old boy also may have taken the toxic drugs after he was rushed to The Alfred hospital where he remains in a critical but stable condition. Popular nightclub Revolver, where five people overdosed, released a warning claiming the drug was 'very dangerous' and could cause violent reactions, hallucinations and may result in death, according to 7 News. Despite police opposing bail, the judge said the evidence linking Mr Vergara-Giambelluco to the non-fatal overdose was 'tenuous' and he was granted bail, according to The Herald Sun. He was arrested by police at 4am on Sunday. About 20 people overdosed after taking MDMA in the Chapel Street precinct over the weekend, police say. The dodgy drugs may have led to 20 overdoses during the weekend (stock image) Among the overdoses was a 17-year-old boy who remains in The Alfred Hospital in a serious condition. It's also being investigated whether the same batch of drugs is linked to the death of a 30-year-old Elwood man who overdosed on MDMA on Friday night. Police say it will take some time before they know if it was the ecstasy's potency or something it was cut with that caused the overdoses. Police are waiting on drug testing and a toxicology report to see if the same drug is responsible. There is always a risk whenever someone chooses to take drugs... but clearly this risk is particularly heightened at the moment Detective Senior Sergeant David Newman Detective Senior Sergeant David Newman said people should be aware of the current risk and think twice about taking these drugs. 'There is always a risk whenever someone chooses to take drugs on a night out but clearly this risk is particularly heightened at the moment with what we've seen this weekend. 'Drugs such as MDMA are dangerous and manufactured by criminals with absolutely no regard for the safety of the people who take them. 'It's important that people realise they're putting themselves in danger of not just hospitalisation, but permanent disability or even death by consuming these drugs. 'We want people to come and have a fun and safe night out, and the last thing police want to be doing is knocking on your family's door because a tragedy has happened.' Sean Slattery (pictured), chief financial officer for Powerwrap in Melbourne, was fined $2,000 and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service A Melbourne executive has avoided jail for skipping jury duty because he had to work on his company's initial public offering. Powerwrap chief financial officer Sean Slattery was ordered on Monday to complete 80 hours of unpaid community service and fined $2,000 for failing to attend jury service in 2016. 'I'm satisfied Mr Slattery now understands the full gravity of his actions in refusing to attend for jury service,' Victorian Supreme Court Justice John Forrest said. Justice Forrest said a term of imprisonment for Slattery was appropriate, but imposed a community corrections order given the CFO's good character and lack of criminal record. Failure to attend jury service carries penalties of up to three months of imprisonment or a fine of more than $4,000. Justice Forrest said a monetary fine would not be adequate punishment for Slattery. 'Mr Slattery ... was prepared to 'take a punt' on the imposition of a fine,' he said. Mr Slattery admitted he failed to attend jury service because he was required to meet with potential investors on October 12 in preparation for Powerwrap's upcoming IPO on the same day he was due to attend court (stock image) The CFO admitted he failed to attend jury service because he was required to meet with potential investors on October 12 in preparation for Powerwrap's upcoming IPO on the same day he was due to attend court. Slattery had applied for a deferral of jury service, but this was knocked back by the Juries Commissioner because he had already been granted a deferral in May. 'The mere fact that Mr Slattery had a pressing work commitment does not provide an adequate basis for him refusing to attend,' Justice Forrest said in his written reasons. 'It was unreasonable for Mr Slattery to put the commercial interests of his company ahead of the serious obligation on his part to perform jury service.' Slattery had applied for a deferral of jury service, but this was knocked back by the Juries Commissioner because he had already been granted a deferral in May (stock image) Justice Forrest said a message needs to be sent to the community about the importance of jury service in a democratic society. He said it was something 'which cannot be ignored or dismissed at a whim or as the result of a conscious election to put oneself above the law'. In pre-sentencing submissions, counsel for Slattery, David Galbally QC, had argued the CFO shouldn't be jailed because media coverage about his case is sufficient deterrence. The Juries Commissioner did not make any submissions about what type of penalty Slattery should receive. The CFO has 14 days to pay his $2,000 fine. Chainsaws, carpets and high heels are among some of the 'unhelpful' items that the Australian Red Cross reports to have received during donation drives. The donations have been collected after major world disasters such as Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu in 2015 and Fiji's 2016 Cyclone Winston. The items are often left in storage and can go uncollected for years - leaving the local government having to fork out for storage costs. The Australian Red Cross has pleaded for cash donations saying that it is used more effectively then items of clothing or food Once collected many items use by dates are expired and often have to simply thrown out. Joanna Pradela, the Australian Council for International Development's (ACFID) head of policy and advocacy suggests that people donate cash instead. Ms Pradela praised the generosity of Australians but said it could be better directed after the tropical island nations also received items such as woolen jumpers, heavy blankets and handbags. The organisation has said that items can sometimes sit in storage containers or warehouses for long periods as it has to be sorted Chainsaws (lefta) and carpets (right) are among some of the 'unhelpful' items that the Australian Red Cross reports to have received during donation drives The tropical island nations also received items such as woolen jumpers, heavy blankets, handbags (left) and high heels (right) after recent disasters 'So when you factor in shipping fees, storage, warehousing and distribution costs, it's likely that the costs are far exceeding the value of these goods,' Ms Pradela told the ABC. Steve Ray, the Australian Red Cross disaster and crisis response manager backed up Ms Pradela saying that cash was most effective tool in helping after disasters. 'When people give cash, aid agencies can help in the most effective way whether by providing tarpaulins in bulk or giving families cash to buy what they need from local markets,' Mr Ray said. Advertisement One of the two pilots in the Kyrgyzstan plane disaster that killed 37 was seen clambering out of the wreckage and walking around moments after the crash - only to die after being taken to hospital, it has been revealed. The Boeing 747, which was attempting to make a refuelling stop on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul, crash-landed in heavy fog just outside Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek, and ploughed through up to 60 buildings. Officials have now revealed that one of the pilots, who they have not named, was seen looking dazed as he 'walked around the crash site'. Muhammetkaly Abulgaziev, a vice premier of Kyrgyzstanm said the pilot 'managed to climb out of the debris by himself'. The impact of the crash killed 17 people on board and at least 15 living next to the airport - including 12 children and an entire family. Officials fear the death toll could rise. This morning, authorities in the Central Asian county said 'pilot error' caused the crash. Dramatic pictures show the wreckage of the ACT Airlines plane among the ruins of the village. There were reports this morning that looters had already descended on the scene with one man arrested for stealing two kettles from the wreckage, and hiding them under his coat. Scroll down for video Aerial photos show the scale of the devastation caused by the jet after it crashed down near Manas airport this morning A Turkish cargo plane has crashed into a village killing 37 people after 'missing the runway' at Kyrgyzstan's main international airport The Boeing 747 crash-landed in heavy fog just outside Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek and ploughed through 43 buildings A desperate search operation was underway this morning as pictures emerged of rescuers carrying bodies from the crash site One of the two pilots in the Kyrgyzstan plane disaster that killed 37 was seen clambering out of the wreckage and walking around moments after the crash - only to die after being taken to hospital, it has been revealed Officials have now revealed that one of the pilots, who they have not named, was seen looking dazed as he 'walked around the crash site'. Rescuers are pictured at the scene The cargo plane, which was attempting to make a refuelling stop on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul, crash-landed in heavy fog just outside Manas airport, south of the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek One of the pilots was named as Ibrahim Gurcan Diranci (left) formerly a military airman in Turkey, while the second pilot in today's crash was named as Kazim Ondul (right) One nine year old boy had left early for school in a neighbouring village and ran back to his home to find his entire family killed, it has been reported. The haunting remains of the huge aircraft lay broken in the village, some on top of smashed and burning homes. Rescue workers have already recovered the body of one pilot and 15 local people whose houses were in the Boeing 747 jet's crash area, the healthcare ministry said. This morning, the pilot was named as Ibrahim Gurcan Diranci formerly a military airman in Turkey who had previously been involved in an emergency landing of an ACT Airlines aircraft at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2010, when he was second pilot. When rescuers arrived, they found the nose of the giant cargo plane coming out of the side of a house in the village Rescue workers have recovered the body of one pilot and 15 local people whose houses were in the Boeing 747 jet's crash area, the healthcare ministry said Pictures show a wheel from the giant aircraft after it crashed through houses killing a number of villagers near Manas airport Rescue workers wore gas masks as they picked through the wreckage in the aftermath of the crash this morning Emergency crews have started the gruesome task of sifting through the crumpled remains of the plane and the ruins of buildings the aircraft crushed Buildings were still on fire when rescuers reached the scene this morning. At least 37 people were killed in the disaster A firefighter searches through the mangled remains of the aircraft after it crashed down near the Manas airport runway This was blamed on a landing gear fault caused by poor maintenance. The second pilot in today's crash was named as Kazim Ondul. According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas on its way to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to make a second attempt to land in poor visibility at 7.30am (1.30am GMT), it has been reported. The doomed plane ploughed for a few hundred yards through the village, shattering into pieces and damaging dozens of buildings. The majority of the dead were from the village of Dacha-Suu, a spokesman for the country's emergency services, Muhammed Svarov, said. Carnage: Houses were reduced to piles of rubble when the plane crashed down and ploughed hundreds of yards through a village Rescuers are continuing the grim task of removing bodies from the scene of the devastating plane crash this morning Dramatic video shows how buildings and plane wreckage were still on fire when rescuers descended on the scene after the crash this morning Rescuers are still searching the scene amid fears the death toll from the disaster could rise. Pictures shows how buildings and cars were destroyed Up to 43 homes were crushed by the jet as it ploughed along the ground for 'hundreds of yards', destroying houses and wiping out entire families sleeping inside One nine year old boy had left early for school in a neighbouring village and ran back to his home to find his entire family killed, it has been reported But the death toll could yet rise Svarov said, adding that authorities had launched a huge search and rescue operation. 'Major work is underway,' Svarov said. 'The damage to infrastructure in the village is significant.' Eyewitnesses said smoke was still thick in the area this morning and small fires burned in different parts of the village, but emergency services had nearly extinguished them. Zumriyat Rezakhanova, a resident of Dacha-Suu said the plane fell 'right on the homes' where residents were sleeping. 'My sister's home is badly damaged. Luckily she and her family survived,' Rezakhanova said. Injured victim Baktygul Kubatova said: 'The house was collapsing on us and I was worrying about my children, that they could die. We were sleeping at home as usual. I woke up after I saw something red in the window. Eyewitnesses said smoke was still thick in the area this morning and small fires burned in different parts of the village, but emergency services had nearly extinguished them Eyewitnesses said smoke was still thick in the area this morning and small fires burned in different parts of the village, but emergency services had nearly extinguished them At least four pilots on the flight, which was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, were among the dead, the emergency services ministry said, with one pilot's body yet to be found More than a thousand rescue workers were at the scene by late morning in the residential area where dozens of houses have been destroyed Distressing footage from the scene shows a grieving woman being comforted by others. There are reports entire families were killed in the disaster 'I had no time to realise what happened. Then it turned out that the ceiling and the walls of the house was crashing. With fear, I covered my son with my hand to protect him from the ruins. We could not move and I started crying for help to get out of there. 'The house was collapsing over and over again. My child was crying. 'The neighbours came to help. My daughter received injuries, as she was sleeping near the window, while me and my son were sleeping on the floor. As soon as we got out of the house, we immediately ran to the neighbours to wait for my brother there. 'But all other houses were on fire, all of them were destroyed, everything was damaged as if it was an earthquake. Thank God that we were just injured and stayed alive.' The country's Manas airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening at the earliest, airport authorities said. Rescuers and police examine the scene of the crash near Manas airport. Turkish cargo operator ACT Airlines said the jet was theirs Over 40 firefighters and nine firefighting trucks are operating at the crash site. A government commission has been set up to examine the causes of the tragedy Around 43 houses were damaged by the crash, according to the emergency services ministry, but others put the number at 60 Wreckage, including landing gear and wheels (pictured), was found over a one hectare crash site, according to officials Up to a thousand rescue workers were called to the scene this morning while police reported that looters had tried to take advantage of the chaos Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical At least four pilots on the flight, which was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, were among the dead, the emergency services ministry said, with one pilot's body yet to be found. Around 43 houses were damaged by the crash, according to the emergency services ministry, but others put the number at 60. 'The plane crashed into the houses, it killed entire families,' one eyewitness told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'There's nothing left of the houses, people were killed with their whole family, their children. Many people were sleeping.' The country's Manas airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening at the earliest, airport authorities said. Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was heading a specially-appointed government commission to investigate the circumstances of the crash. The Turkish Boeing 747 crashed just outside the Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the airport as well as those on the plane Sniffer dogs were called in as rescuers launched a desperate bid top find survivors after the plane crash this morning Aftermath: A national day of mourning for the crash victims is to be announced by the Krygyzstan authorities, it has emerged The plane left a trail of destruction after it tore through houses a few hundred yards from the airport where it was trying to land Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev cancelled his visit to China to return to Bishkek, according to Kyrgyz media. Turkish cargo operator ACT Airlines said: 'Our TC-MCL signed plane, flying on January 16 from Hong Kong to Bishkek, crashed on landing at Bishkek at the end of the runway for an unknown reason. 'More information will be disclosed concerning our four-person team when we get clear information.' Bishkek transport official Marat Amankulovso said: 'The cargo jet was approaching the runway from the east. 'At the landing it didn't come down on the runway, flew over it, its fuselage touched the fence and after that it crashed. It is hard to say whether the fog affected the situation. Bishkek transport official Marat Amankulovso said the cargo jet was approaching the runway from the east when it crashed Investigation: The plane's fuselage was believed to have touched a fence before it crashed down into the village Rescue teams are seen are seen at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport outside Bishkek Dramatic pictures at the scene show the plan upside down after crashing through dozens of buildings in the village Images from the scene showed the nose of the plane stuck inside a brick house and large fragments of debris scattered around Pictures have emerged in local media purportedly showing the plane that crashed down in Kyrgyzstan this morning 'We are told that all the standards were met, and that planes were landing in the same conditions earlier.' Over 40 firefighters and nine firefighting trucks are operating at the crash site. A government commission has been set up to examine the causes of the tragedy. Wreckage is spread across an area of one hectare. A national day of mourning for the crash victims is to be announced by the Krygyzstan authorities. 'In light of the plane crash that left over 30 people dead, Kyrgyzstan will announce the national day of mourning. President of the Kyrgyz Republic Almazbek Atambayev will sign the corresponding decree,' said the presidential press service . Until 2014, the US military operated a military installation at Manas airport, using it primarily for its operations in Afghanistan. A Muslim Imam charged with marrying a child bride to a 34-year-old man has been sacked from his position at a Melbourne mosque. The girl aged less than 16 was allegedly raped by her groom the day after Ibrahim Omerdic, 62, officiated the wedding on September 29 last year. The Islamic Council of Victoria and the Bosnian Islamic Society of Noble Park said he was stood down after his arrest in November an dismissed completely on Monday. Ibrahim Omerdic, 62, is charged with marrying a child bride, who was allegedly raped the next day, to a 34-year-old man and was on Monday sacked from his position at a mosque The Islamic Council of Victoria and the Bosnian Islamic Society of Noble Park said he was stood down after his arrest in November an dismissed completely on Monday 'A new Imam has been appointed. Omerdic is no longer the Imam of the Noble Park Mosque and has no role with the Society,' the statement said. They said Omerdics marriage celebrant license had also been revoked. When he appeared via videolink in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday he broke down in tears throughout the hearing, more than once, the Herald Sun reported. He will remain behind bars until his next appearance on February 3, charged with conduct that caused a minor to enter into a forced marriage. The underage girl was also in court and watched on as the man she was allegedly forced to marry was remanded in custody. A DVD of the ceremony being conducted at a Melbourne mosque may form part of the evidence, the court was told. Omerdics sacking comes after the Victorian Board of Imams condemned marriages that were illegal in Australia. Omerdic was the imam of the Bosnian mosque in the Melbourne suburb of Noble Park (pictured) and his Muslim marriage celebrant licence was also revoked As Australian Muslims we are required to observe and respect the laws of Australia,' it said in a statement last week. The Islamic Council of Victoria also condemned underage marriages, despite saying it was acceptable in some cultures. 'It is true that marriage at a younger age is permitted in other countries and cultures, but this is not a justification for marriage below the legal age or child marriages here in Australia,' it said last week. An Adelaide family's vacation was ruined after it was discovered their rental cabin was infested with thousands of ants. Father-of-three Adam Lyttle said his son complained he heard a 'ghost' making noises from behind the cabin walls - but the family soon realised the creepy sounds were actually made by a horde of ants. But after complaining about the insect problem, Mr Lyttle said staff at the Crystal Brook Tourist Park near Melbourne berated him and publicly shamed his son. 'My wife and I were quite shocked at their response,' Mr Lyttle, 33, told Daily Mail Australia. An Adelaide family's vacation was ruined after it was discovered their rental cabin was infested with thousands of ants Father-of-three Adam Lyttle said his son complained he heard a 'ghost' making noises from behind the cabin walls - but the family realised the creepy sounds were actually made by ants After complaining about the insect problem, Mr Lyttle said staff at the Crystal Brook Tourist Park near Melbourne berated him and publicly shamed his son Adam Lyttle, pictured with his wife and sons, aged six and four, said the family paid $1,200 for a week in the ant-infested cabin In response to a negative review posted to Facebook by Mr Lyttle, park staff wrote that ants 'can be an issue from time to time as it can be anywhere in Australia.' 'Your complaint came in at lunchtime on day 5 of you staying in this cabin, I spoke with the Assistant Managers and they informed me that they did in fact come to the cabin and lay down some ant sand and ant traps and tidy up the mess,' the response continued. Crystal Brook Tourist Park staff then went on to mention that one of Mr Lyttle's children had wet the bed. 'It's shocking, that's not an appropriate way to respond in a comment to a review,' Mr Lyttle said. 'My son complained that he could hear crawling noises in the walls at night. He couldn't sleep, he held his hands against his ears so tight that the impact made his ears red,' Mr Lyttle said In response to a negative review posted to Facebook by Mr Lyttle, park staff wrote that ants 'can be an issue from time to time as it can be anywhere in Australia.' 'They publicly shamed my kids for wetting the bed - it wasn't something we'd [publicly] disclosed,' he said. Mr Lyttle and his wife discovered the ant problem after one of their children complained of unsettling noises in the cabin. 'My son complained that he could hear crawling noises in the walls at night. He couldn't sleep, he was holding his hands against his ears so tight that the impact made his ears red,' Mr Lyttle said. 'He was the first one to notice it. He said there were "ghosts" in the walls.' 'I didn't know what to make of it, but on the fifth day I noticed a small ant problem. I used ant spray, and then literally thousands of ants came out of the wall.' 'It was quite terrifying,' said Mr Lyttle. He said staff were rude to him when he complained. 'The manager told us to "Sweep it up ourselves,"' Mr Lyttle said. He said he had not received compensation for his family's $1,200 stay in the cabin, nor an apology. He said his family had stayed at the holiday park before without problems. Crystal Brook Tourist Park management did not respond to a request for comment. 'I didn't know what to make of it, but on the fifth day I noticed a small ant problem. I used ant spray, and then literally thousands of ants came out of the wall,' said Mr Lyttle Oman has confirmed that ten Guantanamo prisoners are being transferred to the country as President Obama continues his last-ditch effort to empty the controversial camp. The jail on the US military airbase in Cuba opened in 2002 to hold prisoners captured during the invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, and at its peak held 680 detainees. When Obama took office in 2009, he pledged to close the camp after reports of mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge. Oman has confirmed that ten Guantanamo prisoners are being transferred to the country as President Obama continues his last-ditch effort to empty the controversial camp, pictured But with just days left until he leaves the White House, Obama is trying to empty the prison after Congress opposed his plan to shut the facility. And today, Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Oman News Agency that it had accepted 10 prisoners at Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners or their nationalities and neither Omani officials nor those in the US military or Defense Department would immediately comment on the transfer. The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted ten Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. When Obama took office in 2009, he pledged to close the camp but has been blocked from doing so by Congress Meanwhile, Oman's neighbor Saudi Arabia has also taken four prisoners and the United Arab Emirates took 15 prisoners in the largest single transfer during Obama's administration, last August. Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. The jail on the US military airbase in Cuba opened in 2002 to hold prisoners captured during the invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and at its peak held 680 detainees The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan There were 242 prisoners in Guantanamo when Obama took office in 2009 and now just 55 remain. Obama was unable to close the camp because of Congressional opposition to holding any of the men in the United States. That ultimately became a ban on transferring them to US soil for any reason, including trial, making the failure to close the detention center part of his legacy. The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. However, President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but 'load it up with some bad dudes'. An embattled police officer has been filmed pushing a woman in front of her teenage son - on the same day a video emerged of him appearing to throw a driver's licence on the ground. The officer, who refers to himself as 'Senior Constable Murphy, Strike Force Raptor', was filmed pushing the woman back after she attempted to film his name badge on her phone. Her video, taken outside her home in Molong, New South Wales, shows the cop reacting as she pushes her camera phone under his nose. An embattled police officer has been filmed pushing a woman back in front of her teenage son 'Get back away from my face,' the police officer says as he pushes her on the shoulder. The push came as the woman tried to stop the police officers from talking to her 16-year-old son without an adult present on November 15 last year. Two policemen asked her to step off the road but she did not want to leave her teenage boy alone with the officers. 'I'm his mother he's underage,' the woman says. After stepping off the road, she added: 'I need to be there while he's being questioned.' The woman, who spoke to Daily Mail Australia on condition of anonymity, said: 'As I got closer, officer Murphy from Raptor pushed me and told me to get out of his face. 'I was very scared and shaking and crying after this episode. This has caused my son a lot of distress.' The officer, who refers to himself as 'Senior Constable Murphy, Strike Force Raptor', was filmed pushing the woman back after she attempted to film his name badge on her phone The push came as the woman tried to stop the police officers from talking to her 16-year-old son without an adult present on November 15 last year Daily Mail Australia has contacted New South Wales Police for comment. Another video of the police officer emerged today, showing him appearing to throw a motorcyclist's licence on the ground. Footage shared exclusively with Daily Mail Australia shows the New South Wales Police officer repeatedly refuse to give his name to biker Gurkan Topal. The cop, who gives his name only as 'Raptor 13', is later seen dropping Mr Topal's licence on the floor in front of him. Father-of-two Mr Topal, 32, was pulled over in Parramatta, Sydney, on November 28 after the police officer spotted an alleged defect with his helmet. The heated stand-off ended with the police leaving and Mr Topal having his motorbike towed home. He later received a $1,083 fine in the post and nine points on his licence for a defective helmet, air filter and licence plate. Mr Topal said he plans to appeal at least part of that fine in court. The same policeman was caught on camera appearing to throw a motorcyclist's licence on the ground On Wednesday, the same officer was filmed refusing to let a driver see his speed gun reading after pulling him over for allegedly breaking the limit. Zia Yilda, 24, was on his way to work in Smithfield, Sydney, on Wednesday morning when he was pulled over and accused of driving at 83km/h. Mr Yilda claimed he was driving at least 20km/h slower than that and filmed the officer as he failed to show him the reading six times. Footage also showed the officer declining to give his name and number twice. The cop then searched the man's BMW 330 convertible before accusing it of being 'defective' for having a wobbly passenger seat and a faulty grille. Tracey Spicer has thrown her support behind Talitha Cummins over claims the Channel 7 television presenter was sacked while on maternity leave. Cummins is taking an unfair dismissal complaint to the Fair Work Commission after losing her job as Weekend Sunrise newsreader after she gave birth to her son, Oliver. Former newsreader Tracey Spicer said her 'heart went out to Talitha', but the women of Australia are behind her, she told News.com.au. Scroll down for video Weekend Sunrise newsreader Talitha Cummins claims she lost her job while allegedly on maternity leave Spicer's contract with Network Ten was terminated weeks after she returned from maternity leave for the birth of her second child, Grace (Spicer and her daughter Grace are pictured) Spicer's contract with Network Ten was terminated weeks after she returned from maternity leave for the birth of her second child, Grace. She said the industry remained a 'boys' club', and said women are backing Cummins. 'Stay strong, hold your course, and reach out for help when you need it. If more women take action over this kind of behaviour which, I should add, is illegal the less likely employers will be to discriminate,' Spicer told News.com.au. 'Talitha, the women of Australia are behind you.' Former newsreader Tracey Spicer said the media remained a 'boys' club' 'Talitha, the women of Australia are behind you,' former newsreader Tracey Spicer said Spicer alleged Network 10 had also tried to move her aside after the birth of her first child, Taj, and was returned to her position. Her contract was cancelled after she returned from the birth of her second child. Spicer reportedly reached an undisclosed settlement with Network 10, rumoured to be $250,000. Cummins, 36, had just given birth to her first son, Oliver, when Seven News heavyweight Craig McPherson dealt her the devastating blow. Cummins, 36, had just given birth to her first son, Oliver, when Seven News heavyweight Craig McPherson dealt her the devastating blow It is alleged a human resources staffer for Seven believed Cummins had gone on regular leave, despite her co-stars bidding her farewell with a baby cake on air An unnamed source has told publication Cummins was left 'dumbfounded by the whole thing' She has lost the role to US correspondent Angela Cox, according to Daily Telegraph. Cummins reportedly received the call about her dismissal on the same day promotions began for her tale of alcoholism on ABC's Australian Story. The Gold Coast born newsreader was expecting to return to her role next month, but was offered a temporary role she was unable to take due to motherly commitments. An unnamed source has told publication Cummins was left 'dumbfounded by the whole thing' which was a 'massive slap in the face'. It is alleged a human resources staffer for Seven believed Cummins had gone on regular leave, despite her co-stars bidding her farewell with a baby cake on air. Cummins is pictured with her husband Ben Lucas after the birth of their son, Oliver The Gold Coast born newsreader was expecting to return to her role next month The daughter of Martin Luther King has marked her late father's birthday by posting a touching online tribute saying 'Happy birthday day, I miss you!' Reverend Bernice King tweeted a picture of her up close to the memorial to her father in West Potomac Park in Washington DC. In the moving snap, she can be seen placing her hand on the statue's nose while laying her forehead against the memorial. The Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, has posted a picture online of her alongside her father's memorial to mark MLK Day She then posted the tribute to her father and signed off the post with the hashtag #MLK She then posted the tribute to her father - who would have turned 88 yesterday - and signed off the post with the hashtag #MLK. The post comes as people across America mark the federal holiday of Martin Luther King Day today, with millions of people enjoying a day off from work. It became a national holiday in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan and has been observed on the Monday closest to King's birthday ever since. Bernice was born in Atlanta in August 1963, just months after her civil rights leader father gave his iconic 'I Have A Dream' speech in August 1963. Bernice was born in Atlanta in August 1963, just mere months after her civil rights leader father gave his iconic I Have A Dream speech in August 1963. She is pictured marking the 50th anniversary of the speech in 2013 She is King's youngest child with his wife Coretta Scott King, who also had another daughter Yolanda and sons Martin and Dexter. However, just a week after her fifth birthday, her father was shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. And for many Americans, Bernice will always been known as the sad little girl in a dress and pigtails cuddling her mother at her father's funeral. Bernice King is the youngest child of Martin Luther King, left, and his wife Coretta Scott King. She is pictured right greeting her father after he was released from Georgia State Prison For many Americans, Bernice will always been known as the sad little girl in a dress and pigtails, far right, cuddling her mother at her father's funeral As she became an adult, she shied away from the spotlight more than her brothers and sister and became ordained in the Ebenezer Baptist Church. However, in 2006 she gave the eulogy at her mother's funeral and alsogave a major speech in at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to mark the 50th anniversary of her father's I Have a Dream address. She is now the CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia which is described as a living memorial to Martin Luther King featuring family photos and artifacts. The children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King (from left) Martin Luther King III, Dexter King, the late Yolanda King and Bernice King stand next to a crypt dedicated to their parents in Atlanta in 2006 Convicted mass murderer Robert Xie will likely face life behind bars after mercilessly bludgeoning five of his wife's relatives to death in their Sydney family home. As he awaits sentencing for the horrific crimes, fuelled by humiliation at his 'inferior' status in his wife's extended family, compelling evidence shown to the jury during his six-month trial murder trial has been released to the public for the very first time. Grisly crime scene photos taken inside the Lin home in Epping show walls and door handles splattered with blood, footprints in the carpet and a crucial blood stain that was found in Xie's garage after the murders with DNA of four of the victims. Chilling audio played to the jury documents the moment Xie's wife Kathy Lin called triple-zero after discovering the bodies, while CCTV footage shows Xie cutting up shoeboxes at his home after footprints were found at the crime scene in Sydney's north. Scroll down for video Bloodied mobile phone charger: Grisly crime scene photos taken inside the Lin family home have been released after Robert Xie was found guilty of murdering five of his wife's relatives The carpet from the main bedroom was treated with chemicals, revealing clear sneaker footprints which prosecutors claimed were consistent with the shoes Xie wore Horrific splatters of blood on the wall in the children's bedroom. Investigators believe the two children were awake and moving when they were beaten to death by Xie Ms Lin hysterically pleaded with her husband to stay with her after finding out her brother's family had been beaten to death, but he left to pick up her parents before the ambulance or police arrived. 'I am more scared than you,' Ms Lin can be heard saying to Xie in the full triple-zero call released on Monday. 'I need someone to come quick because I think....I think someone killed my brother, sister, someone killed my brother's family,' she told the operator. Amidst outbursts of Chinese, hyperventilating and unintelligible sentences, Ms Lin eventually describes the horrific sight that met her inside the home. 'I saw the... sister-in-law's body and I saw the sister-in-law's sister's body and I saw the two cousins nephew ... two my brother's sons body down up there. I didn't see my brother.' The crucial blood stain 91: This blood stain was found in Xie's garage ten months after the murders. It contained four of his five victim's DNA Cold-blooded killer: Xie, 53, was found guilty in the NSW Supreme Court last week of murdering his brother-in-law Min 'Norman' Lin and four family members Blood was smeared on the bedroom door handles of the home in Epping, north of Sydney Xie, a former medical specialist, became emotional as he described comforting his wife after discovering her brother and his family's dead bodies during an early police interview Pictured is a blood-stained doorknob at the entrance to Irene Lin's room. She was killed with a hammer-like object by Xie as she lay in her bed The first police images from the Lin home in Epping show the violent murders that took place within the bedrooms under the cover of night on July 18, 2009. Images show the dark chemicals used to bring out the footprints of sneakers that were consistent with the shoes Xie wore, according to prosecutors. A key piece of evidence was a blood spot that was found in Xie's garage and labelled by police as 'stain 91'. It contained four of his five victim's DNA. Also crucial to the case was surveillance footage of Xie in his home cutting up shoeboxes, after shoeprints were found at the crime scene. Pictured is a small bed shaped as a racing car in Min and Lily's room. Their murdered son Terry, 9, would sleep there when he had trouble in his own room Like every other house: A view inside the living room and study of the Lin family home on the day of the murders In recorded interviews Xie told police he watched TV the night of the murders and had a bath about 2am and went to bed. He said he and his wife Kathy went to the Lin house the following morning and he was 'shocked' to find the bodies. He said he had 'no idea' who was responsible for murdering Mr Lin's family, and described his brother-in-law - Kathy's brother - as a friend. But the jury found otherwise, and convicted Xie 11-to-one in his fourth trial. The Lin family's sandals were scattered at the base of a staircase leading to the second floor Like every other house: A view inside the living room and study of the Lin family home on the day of the murders Xie, 53, was found guilty in the NSW Supreme Court last week of murdering his brother-in-law Min 'Norman' Lin and four family members after a six-month trial. Cutting electricity to the house, Xie crept inside and used a hammer-like object to inflict horrific head injuries on his newsagent brother-in-law, Min Lin, 45, and his wife, Lily, 43, as they lay in their bed. He did the same to Lily's sister, Irene, 39, in the next room. Blood splatters revealed a furious struggle took place in the third bedroom occupied by Xie's nephews, but Henry, 12, and Terry, 9, still suffered the same shocking fate. Xie is expected to face a sentence hearing next month. VICTIMS: Min Lin, 45, and Lily Lin, 43 were killed after being bludgeoned with a 'hammer-like object' by Robert Xie A furious struggle took place in the bedroom of his young nephews Terry (left) and Henry (right) - but both were killed by their sinister uncle Irene was the fifth member of the family to suffer a horrendous fate at Xie's hands, the jury found President Obama's presidency may be almost over, but he has no plans to slow down in his retirement. For Barack, there's a presidential library to build, hundreds of millions of dollars to raise, causes to champion and a book to write. And don't forget that long-promised vacation with his wife. His next chapter starts Friday when he becomes an ex-president. He'll be freer to speak his mind, set his own schedule and make some money. Scroll down for video President Obama's presidency may be almost over, but he has no plans to slow down in his retirement (pictured on January 10) Already, Obama is looking ahead to the book he wants to write, and has had talks with Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel about arrangements that could include lucrative speaking gigs. Barack and Michelle are expected to make millions from the speaking circuit. Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, combined to earn more than $153 million in paid speeches between and 2005, averaging $210,795 for each address. While George Bush earned between $100,000 to $175,000 per appearance. But Obama, a hugely popular president, is expected to command far more than that. At 55, Obama will be a relatively young ex-president, with plenty of time for a second act. He's ruled out running another campaign for political office so has his wife but he has pledged to stay active in the national conversation. With President-elect Donald Trump headed to the White House, Democrats are eager for Obama to play the role of shadow-president, offering direction to those Americans who feel they lost their political compass the day Trump was elected. Obama has said he has plenty of ideas for how his party can revive itself, but after eight years as president, his role will be to offer guidance, not to micromanage. For Barack Obama (pictured as Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a ceremony on January 12) there's a presidential library to build, hundreds of millions of dollars to raise, causes to champion and a book to write - and potential speaking deals with Ari Emmanuel (right) 'I think it's appropriate for me to give advice, because I need some sleep,' Obama told NPR last month. 'And I've promised Michelle a nice vacation. My girls are getting old enough now where I'm clinging to those very last moments before they are out of the house.' They are reportedly due to set off for Palm Springs at 2.45pm, just hours after the inauguration, according to TMZ. Obama is expected to keep a low profile for the first few months after Trump's swearing-in. Following some relaxation time with his wife and daughters in an unnamed location, the family will return to Washington, where they've rented a mansion in Kalorama, DC's most elegant neighborhoods, so 15-year-old Sasha Obama can finish out high school at the Sidwell Friends School. The Obamas are leasing the house from Bill Clinton's former press secretary Joe Lockhart and his wife Giovanna Gray, who works for Glamour magazine. Obama has repeatedly praised George. W. Bush for giving him room to operate without having the ex-president publicly second-guess him at every turn. Still, Obama has reserved the right to speak out against Trump if he pursues policies the president finds particularly odious, such as a ban on Muslim immigration or mass deportation of children brought to the U.S. illegally. Immediate plans: The Obamas plan to take a vacation once his term is over. Previous popular spots for the First Family have included Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts (Barack, Michelle and Malia biking on vacation in 2014) 'The party is in bad state and there are no clear, obvious voices for Democrats yet,' said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. 'If there's anyone who could stand up to a President Trump, it's going to be former President Obama.' Obama may re-emerge in a more public way around the time he releases his book probably sometime next year and goes on a promotional tour. Obama's chief White House speechwriter, Cody Keenan, is expected to stay with his boss to help him craft the sequel to Obama's two previous best-sellers. Though Obama has yet to fully settle his plans, four individuals familiar with Obama's thinking said over the last year that he's discussed post-presidency arrangements with Emanuel, a leading talent executive. One of Emanuel's brothers is Obama's former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It's unclear whether Obama will sign with Ari Emanuel. But the discussions suggest Obama has been looking to Hollywood for inspiration about ways to engage creatively and on multiple fronts, such as digital media and television. Emanuel didn't respond to a request for comment. Obama is expected to make more than $20 million for his post-presidential book (pictured are his previous bestsellers, The Audacity of Hope, left, and Dreams from My Father, right) Whatever direction he chooses, Obama will not be pressed financially. He can expect to fetch an advance of more than $20 million for his book, said Keith Urbahn, a literary agent at Javelin DC who's handled best-sellers for top political figures. 'Half of the country still looks at him as their leader,' Urbahn said. 'From a publishing perspective, he will probably end up with the highest advance of any ex-president in history.' It won't be long until Obama and his wife start raising money for the Barack Obama Foundation, which is developing his presidential library and center in Chicago. The price tag is expected to approach half a billion dollars. The Obamas will have to hire personnel in the coming months as they engage more heavily in designing the center. While it will be several years before the library is up and running, the foundation has left open the possibility it might start some programming sooner. Former White House aide Amy Brundage, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said it would use 2017 to 'build upon the work that has begun' to create a center that inspires people to take on big challenges. Following some relaxation time with his wife and daughters in an unnamed location, the family will return to Washington, where they've rented a mansion (pictured) in Kalorama Obama also plans to stay involved in his My Brother's Keeper initiative, recently renamed the 'Task Force on Improving the Lives of Boys and Young Men of Color and Underserved Youth.' He is also teaming up with former Attorney General Eric Holder on the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new initiative to improve Democrats' hand when political districts are redrawn in 2020. The hub of Obama's activity will be his personal office, to be housed in the World Wildlife Fund headquarters not far from his rented home. For the first six months, he'll also have a government-funded office overseeing his transition to ex-president. Meanwhile, Michelle has said she just wants to enjoy the freedom to shop at Target, she also hinted at continuing her work to promote women's education. Michelle Obama, who launched the Let Girls Learn initiative, told the crowd at the United State of Women summit: 'I am so excited to continue working on this issue not just for the next seven months as First Lady, but for the rest of my life. 'And its going to be good work, because there are a lot of good partners in this room. And I am so looking forward to really diving in,' she added. Together, they are expected to sign book contacts wroth a combined $20 million to $45 million. Following Donald Trump's election win, Barack Obama also hinted at his future in a conference call with Organizing for Action, a group that works to further his agenda. He said: 'Im going to be constrained with what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen. But thats not so far off. A UFO hunter has called for a scientific inquiry into a mysterious black object filmed flying over the Bristol channel. Gary Heseltine, editor of UFO Truth magazine, says the National Police Air Service (NPAS) who filmed the footage have failed to provide enough information about the UFO, which was spotted in September at around 1,000 feet. NPAS St Athan, in South Wales, filmed the UFO for seven minutes on September 24 last year but only posted a short 1.15 minute clip on Twitter. The video shows a round black object moving across the night sky. A round black object was spotted flying across the night sky on September 24 last year Mr Heseltine says he has submitted Freedom of Information requests to find out more. The police said it 'was pitch black' at the time and the object was filmed with the helicopter's infra-red cameras. Mr Heseltine, a retired Detective Constable with the British Transport Police, told The Mirror: 'What I can say is that in my opinion the police have not been as open and transparent as they could have been. 'I believe this British case is a major UFO event and should be the subject of a scientific enquiry.' The UFO was filmed by the infra-red cameras on the NPAS helicopter flying over the Bristol channel The police said it 'was pitch black' at the time and they doubt the object was a balloon or a lantern NPAS St Athan ruled out a suggestion that it could be a balloon or a lantern. 'Only slight problem is the amount of heat and it was travelling into wind?,' they said on Twitter. 'We really don't know but doubt it was a lantern as it was going into the wind,' they added. When other UFO hunters asked for information about the object's size, NPAS said: 'Really difficult to judge the size but we filmed it for just over 7 minutes as we were coming back into land.' An Amazon employee has been sacked for leaving a note for a Jewish customer which read: 'Greetings from Uncle Adolf'. The worker left the anti-Semitic note inside a parcel which contained a toy that the woman had ordered for her niece. It is believed the culprit knew the woman was Jewish because of her surname. The employee has now been sacked and police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. An Amazon employee has been sacked for leaving a note for a Jewish customer which read: 'Greetings from Uncle Adolf' (pictured) The woman, who is in her 30s but did not want to be named, said she was so upset by what happened that she had to take two days off work. Her outraged friend Liran Meydat, from north London, has now spoken out about the incident, claiming Amazon failed to take it seriously until he shamed the company on social media. The 39-year-old said his friend 'freaked out' when she discovered the note. 'When she told us about the note she was shaking - she's a very gentle and humble lady,' Mr Meydat said. 'She does a lot for charity - both Jewish and non-Jewish - and helps all members of the community, that's why she took it very badly. 'British Jews feel scared to speak out. I'm an Israeli and have lived here for a few years so I don't feel scared. 'When I heard what had happened it made me think about my grandfather who showed me the number on his arms from the Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland. He lost all his family there.' The woman's friend Liran Meydat (pictured), from north London, claims Amazon failed to take it seriously until he shamed the company on social media Mr Meydat said the note was found within the Amazon packaging but not within the product. He added: 'I believe the UK is one of the best countries world-wide for Jews. This country has done more for Jews in the two world wars [than anyone else]. 'We have a historical debt to the UK, I don't think it's an anti-Semitic country. I know it's only a small minority who think like that.' Within 20 minutes of reporting the incident to the police, Mr Meydat said officers arrived at the woman's house and took the toy, packaging and note away for forensic testing. He added: 'The Met took it very seriously, we're very happy about how they've handled it. 'The only exception is Amazon. We contacted them on the same day and didn't hear anything back. 'I've now given them hell over it and they are now saying they want to wait for the results to come back from the police.' A Board of Deputies of British Jews spokesman said: 'Receiving this cruel anti-Semitic comment in an anonymous note must have been very distressing for the woman concerned. 'We hope the perpetrator can be identified and punished.' An Amazon spokesman said: 'We take this incident seriously and have apologised to the customer. We have investigated the matter and dismissed the individual involved.' A Met Police spokesman added: 'Police were called to an address on 22 December 2016 to reports of an offence of malicious communications. 'Officers attended and spoke to the female victim, aged in her 30s, who reported receiving an anti-Semitic note inside a package she ordered. 'This is being treated as a hate crime. No arrests have been made. Inquiries continue.' If California is so blue, then why is it so solidly red when it comes to funding public education? Californians voted two-to-one for Hillary Clinton, and voted to extend a state tax on the states wealthiest residents until 2030. After the election, our legislative leaders Anthony Redon and Kevin de Leon issued a joint statement bemoaning that, Americans expressed their views on a pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California, and affirming that we, wont be dragged back into the past. Im so proud to live in a state that bravely stands up and defends its citizens, no matter their religion, immigration status, or gender identity. However, as a parent of public school boys, an education advocate, and a transplant from New Jersey (ranked 2nd out of 50), Im shocked that the legislative leadership year-after-year fails the 6-million children who attend California schools While we invest heavily in healthcare and environmental protection, our schools from the elementary to the university levelare constantly forced to do more with less. Hampered by the limitations of Proposition 13, Californias K - 12 system now ranks 46 out of 50 states in cost-adjusted per pupil spending, less than perennially red states like Indiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. In the same 2016 study that ranked New Jersey second in the nation, California was ranked the 9th worst public education system with below average reading and math scores, a high dropout rate, and worst-in-the-nation pupil-to-teacher ratio. Wisconsina state that went for Trump and has reelected union-buster Scott Walker three timeswas ranked in the top five. Its true that Californias schools face a number of challenges, including a diverse student body with many nonnative English speakers, poverty, a teacher shortage, and the troubled legacy of No Child Left Behind. No single solution will solve every problem our students face, but lack of funding is the number one barrier keeping our school districts from improving. As the New York Times reported recently, increased funding in schools districts can effect incredible changes, including improving academic outcomes, lowering dropout rates, and increasing students earnings as adults. One study cited in the article found that, for poor children, a 10 percent increase in per-pupil spending each year of elementary and secondary school was associated with [student] wages [after graduation] that were nearly 10 percent higher, a drop in the incidence of adult poverty and roughly six additional months of schooling. This election, Californians showed they are willing and able to support tax increases - especially when the funds go to schools. Yet our state funding for public education remains woefully low and fluctuates wildly, hurting our already vulnerable students. The Golden State is home to incredibly talented and committed academic researchers, educators, administrators, and advocates. The new local control funding formulas and local control accountability plans empower parents as never before, but California parents, unlike almost every other parent in blue states, have to constantly fundraise to cover basics like gym, art, or music, because the state falls short. As we prepare to face off against Donald Trump and his nominee for U.S. education secretary, Betsy DeVosa woman famous for defunding public schoolsCalifornias legislative leadership must have the courage to untangle the Proposition 13 mess and the subsequent band-aid proposition fixes. Lets rise to our full measure as the heart of a morally sound progressive America and make our California schools a paradigm for what public education in this country can and should be. Pat Reilly is a strategist and founder of PR & Company, a communications firm that works with changemakers in the public, private and philanthropic sectors. Amazon has been forced to withdraw a pair of flip flops bearing Gandhi's face from sale on its website, after the product sparked outrage in India. The row comes days after the company apologised for selling doormats bearing the Indian flag. Gandhi is widely revered in India as the 'Father of the Nation', after he led the country to independence from British rule, inspiring movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The Indian embassy in Washington intervened after the sandals provoked feelings of anger throughout India, and told the Amazon US to respect its citizens' sensibilities, a foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying. 'As a follow up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments,' Vikas Swarup said, NDTV reported. Amazon has been forced to withdraw a pair of flip flops bearing Gandhi's face from sale The Indian government's Secretary of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das was among those to criticising the online retail giant on social media. He politician told Amazon its 'indifference to Indian symbols' would be 'at your own peril'. He later said that he had been writing as a citizen, and was not threatening government action against the company, stressing that he remained committed to free trade. Last week India's foreign minister demanded an apology from Amazon for selling doormats depicting the Indian flag on the online shopping giant's Canadian website. Gandhi is widely revered in India as the 'Father of the Nation' External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj warned on Twitter that she could deny Indian visas to Amazon employees if the company did not apologize and 'withdraw all products insulting our national flag immediately.' 'If this is not done forthwith, we will not grant an Indian visa to any Amazon official. We will also rescind the visas issued earlier,' Swaraj tweeted. In India, desecration of the flag is punishable with fines and even imprisonment. Amazon India vice-president Amit Agarwal apologised to Ms Swaraj in writing, saying that the doormats had been offered by a third-party seller and there had been no intention to offend. Mr Agarwal said in a statement that the firm was 'committed to respecting Indian laws and customs'. In the summer Amazon was caught up in a similar controversy relating sales of doormats depicting Hindu gods. Last year, the retailer also removed a third-party line of 'door and dog mats' featuring the Arabic word for God - Allah - after complaints from Muslim shoppers, including a British politician, Birimingham councillor Mariam Khan. Amazon has not commented on the row over the Gandhi flip flops, but the product was withdrawn from the retailer's US site on Sunday. Amazon is in still competition with Flipkart, India's biggest online retailer, over market share. Advertisement Families of the Tunisia beach massacre victims today watched a chilling reconstruction video which showed the terrorist's deadly two-mile journey around the resort where he murdered 30 British tourists. Relatives had gathered for the first day of the inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice in London which began on Monday morning. They were shown computer-generated imagery of the popular beach in the coastal resort of Port El Kantaoui on June 26, 2015. Those inside the court saw the incredibly detailed footage which showed where each holidaymaker was brutally killed. The inquest was shown satellite images which were the result of 3D scans in more than 300 locations around the resort Raymond and Angela Fisher, from Leicester, were killed after terrorist Seifeddine Rezgui went on a rampage in June 2015 This image shows the path of terror the gunman made - killing David Thompson, James and Ann McQuire along the way The red line and arrow shows the two-mile route the gunman made as he murdered 30 British tourists on a beach in 2015 Two more victims were gunned down after Rezgui made his way to the indoor pool which was inside the hotel near the beach Victim Lisa Burbidge was killed next to a desk and chair after the gunman made his way to the first floor administration office The inquest also heard Tunisian security officers could have saved lives by ending the massacre which killed 30 Britons died sooner - but they deliberately wasted time getting to the hotel. The hearing was told that a local investigation into the tragedy criticised some police for stalling as they made their way to the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Sousse. Rezgui 'systematically' gunned down the innocent holidaymakers on the hotel's beach before going into the grounds and the building and killing more, the inquest heard. Chilling reconstruction footage - which lasted 21 minutes and 38 seconds - was played to the court and showed Rezgui's movements and the exact route he took on the day. The names and pictures of the tragic victims popped up on the screen as the detailed video continued. The images were the result of 3D scans in more than 300 locations around the resorts, which is popular with tourists and holidaymakers. Families were able to see the path he took, which saw him leave the the beach and into the hotel where he continued to gun down innocent victims. His route was illustrated by the use of a red arrow and the 'point-of-view' footage showed what Rezgui would have seen. It ended with the gunman making his way past some shops just yards from the beach - before he was shot and killed. Samantha Leek QC, counsel to the inquest, said a report by Tunisian Judge Akremi had identified failings by local units which could have ended the slaughter before more police arrived and shot Rezgui dead. She told a courtroom packed with relatives that an unnamed interior minister had told the judge some Tunisian security officers nearby had consciously slowed down their arrival. Ms Leek said: 'He said the units that should have intervened in the events deliberately and unjustifiably slowed down to delay their arrival at the hotel. CHILLING RECONSTRUCTION VIDEO SHOWS THE TWO-MILE ROUTE KILLER TOOK TO MURDER 30 BRITONS The 21 minute and 38 second reconstruction video was played at the inquest in London today. 0 - 1.08 min: The video footage shows the beach and highlights where the tragic British holidaymakers were sat before being killed by Seifeddine Rezgui 1.09 min: An aerial picture showed the gunman's crazed two-mile journey from the beach and through the nearby hotel, illustrated by a red arrow 1.45 min: The video continued and CGI showed the gunman's route as he approached the hotel. He walked over the grass, went past trees and made his way towards the building. Chillingly, victims continued to pop up with their name and picture. He then went past the outdoor pool and walked up some steps - killing more innocent Brits 3.52 min: He eventually makes his way in the hotel 4.06 min: Another victim was killed just as the gunman entered the hotel 4.16 min: The first real CCTV image showing Rezgui inside the building appeared on the video, which was played to the families of the tragic victims on Monday 5.20 min: The video continued to show the route the killer took as he strolled through the hotel 6 min: Rezgui made his way to an indoor pool inside the hotel. It appears he was looking for more potential victims - before killing another holidaymaker 6.36 min: Three more people who were standing by the pool were then gunned down as the killer continued his attack 7.23 min: Another victim was also gunned down next to a desk and chair 8.05 min: The video then showed the path Rezgui took so he could make his way to the first floor administration office - again, illustrated by a red arrow 10.40 min: Two more innocent people were gunned down after the killer made his way up the stairs to the first floor 10.58 min: Another victim was killed when he turned left into one of the rooms 11.15 min: He then decided to leave the building and headed back towards the beach 14.10 min: On his way to the beach, one more victim was killed outside the hotel 14.17 min: Just seconds later another man was gunned down and killed 16.00 min: He then made his way back to the outside pool 17.20 min: After walking past the pool, he quickly made his way back to the beach 18.03 min: More victims appeared on the screen after they had been shot by the killer. He then walked past a number of boats and watersports equipment before turning around 19.04 min - 21.38 min: He then began the last part of his journey - walking past another hotel and some shops - before he was killed Advertisement Mark Stocker (second right) arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. His parents John and Janet were killed in the tragedy Tunisia beach attack survivor Owen Richards was photogpraphed arriving at the court in London ahead of the inquests The inquests into the deaths of the Britons (pictured) killed in the Tunisia beach massacre, in June 2015, began today at the Royal Courts of Justice in London 'They had the ability to put an end to the attack before the police arrived but wasted a considerable amount of time in getting to the hotel.' Ms Leek said: 'On June 26 2015, 38 tourists became the victims of a terrorist attack at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Sousse, Tunisia. 'On that day a gunman entered the hotel from the beach, carrying an automatic weapon and a number of explosives. 'He systematically took the lives of 38 people who had travelled to Tunisia for enjoyment ... and relaxation.' Family members of victims of the Tunisia terror attack arrive for the first day of an inquest into the deaths of 30 Britons in the Tunisia terror attack at Royal Courts of Justice Mark Stocker (left) arrives for the start of the inquest into the death of 30 British citizens at a holiday resort near Sousse in Tunisia Families of the tragic British victims were seen arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on Monday morning Ms Leek added that an armed guard on the beach opened fire on Rezgui, who responded by throwing a grenade at him. The guard then fell to the ground 'seemingly unconscious', she added, leaving a local speedboat driver, named as AI, to pick his gun up and attempt to confront Rezgui. However he was unable to work the weapon. She said Rezgui was thought to have acted alone on the beach - albeit with an accomplice in a van nearby - and AI brandishing the gun may have sparked reports at the time of a second gunman involved in the shooting. A total of 38 people were killed when gunman Seifeddine Rezgui went on a rampage in the coastal resort of Port El Kantaoui near Sousse on June 26, 2015 In a harrowing 25 minute episode, Rezgui (pictured) - who hid his AK-47 assault rifle concealed in a parasol - began shooting at sunbathers on the beach before working his way through the pool and lobby of the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, killing as he went He was eventually shot after the rampage in Sousse, Tunisia, on June 26, 2015. He killed 30 British tourists who were on holiday The lead-up to the full inquest saw the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. When Ms Leek referred to the possibility of asking witnesses questions that relate to 'sensitive security material', Coroner Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said: 'I am very keen to avoid any in-camera hearings.' Detective Superintendent Mark Gower, from the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism unit, was the first witness called. Mr Gower said that while they could not be absolutely certain about his exact route, this was their best assessment given the evidence in Tunisia CCTV footage and from witness accounts. In the hotel reception area, he let off grenades, killing one of his youngest victims, Carly Lovett, who was just 24 A map was shown which pointed out the locations of eight CCTV cameras. Mr Gower said a number of requests were made to Tunisian authorities for CCTV but it was only material from these cameras that was made available. He said: 'We know there were other cameras... whether they were genuine or dummy cameras we don't know.' The inquest was shown CCTV of a white van dropping the gunman off. He gets out and walks off, carrying a large item. The van then drives off. Rezgui - who was high on cocaine at the time - was shot dead by police after carrying out the attack, for which terror group claimed responsibility The inquests are being presided over by judge and coroner Nicholas Loraine-Smith and are expected to last around seven weeks. A minute's silence was held at the start, after the names of the victims were read out. Families' battles for justice have been intensified by a lengthy and truncated legal process, which had seen the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. During a previous hearing Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 families, said it was their view that a 'full and fearless' investigation would be required to remain in keeping with the principle of 'open justice'. He also said many families feared the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may have failed in its responsibilities to thousands of British tourists. He said the families were also potentially concerned about the FCO 'having cosy chats' with travel companies interested in running profitable businesses 'in light of FCO then current advice that there was a high risk of terrorist activity, including in tourist areas'. Some of the families of those caught in the Sousse attack said they had been assured by tour operator Thomson it was safe to travel to Tunisia after the Bardo attack. A total of 38 people were killed when gunman Seifeddine Rezgui went on a rampage in the coastal resort of Port El Kantaoui near Sousse on June 26, 2015. In a harrowing 25 minute episode, Rezgui - who hid his AK-47 assault rifle concealed in a parasol - began shooting at sunbathers on the beach before working his way through the pool and lobby of the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, killing as he went. In the hotel reception area, he let off grenades, killing one of his youngest victims, Carly Lovett, who was just 24. The 23-year-old also claimed the lives of three victims from one Midlands family - Joel Richards, 19, his uncle Adrian Evans, 44, and his grandfather Patrick, 78. Rezgui - who was high on cocaine at the time - was shot dead by police after carrying out the attack, for which terror group claimed responsibility. After his death, police said he could have killed many more. An unexploded bomb was found on his person - with the detonator just inches away from his body. Rezgui's family say he was brainwashed while studying for a master's degree in Kairouan, 35 miles inland from Sousse. The families argue the FCO's travel advice on the heightened terrorism risk should have been mentioned on TUI's website Families of 16 of the victims have since claimed that travel giant TUI Group ignored security warnings and put the victims at risk through 'unhappy and unfair' practices. They say the company ignored security warnings from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offered steep discounts to sell packages despite being aware of security concerns in Tunisia, and discouraged cancellations with a policy that meant holidaymakers may not get all of their money back. The families argue the FCO's travel advice on the heightened terrorism risk issued after 22 people were killed in an attack on the Bardo National Museum in the capital of Tunis the previous March should have been mentioned on TUI's website, in its brochures and on its booking forms. Families of 16 of the victims have since claimed that travel giant TUI Group ignored security warnings and put the victims at risk through 'unhappy and unfair' practices Pictured is Theresa May laying flowers at the scene of the Tunisian beach tragedy The inquests, expected to last around seven weeks, will look at security measures at the beach and the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel Their battles for justice have been intensified by a lengthy and truncated legal process, which had seen the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. During a previous hearing Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 families, said it was their view that a 'full and fearless' investigation would be required to remain in keeping with the principle of 'open justice'. TUI's lawyer has rejected claims about the company's pricing strategies and that it was obliged to share FCO travel advice on its website or in its literature. The inquests, expected to last around seven weeks, will look at security measures at the beach and the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel. It was also look at the emergency response to the attack, the background and preparations of Rezgui and any accomplices, and the adequacy of the travel advice offered by the FCO and tour operators. The hearing, which is taking place in front of Judge Loraine-Smith, continues. At least five people - including two Canadians, an Italian, a Mexican and a Colombian - are dead after a shooting in a Mexican nightclub on the final night of the BPM music festival. Miguel Angel Pech, the attorney general of Quintana Roo state, said the shooting occurred about 2.30am on Monday at the Blue Parrot nightclub, one of the BPM Festival's venues in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. Three of the victims have been named as: Canadian-based security guard Kirk Wilson, Rafael Antonio Penalosa Vega, 28, of Mexico and Daniel Pessina from Italy, according to reports from theSemanario Playa News. Pech said a lone gunman apparently entered the nightclub and began to exchange fire with another person inside. Festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire. Pech said it was not any kind of terrorist attack. But the shooting apparently caused a rush of people heading for the exits at the beach-side club, and the lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. The identity of the woman who died in the stampede is yet known but she is thought to be a foreigner, aged between 25 and 30. The other victim, who was also working on security alongside Wilson, is described as being between 30 and 35, from Colombia. At least five people - including two Canadians, an Italian, a Mexican and a Colombian - are dead after a shooting in a Mexican nightclub on the final night of the BPM music festival (aramedics attend an injured woman at the Blue Parrot nightclub) At least 15 people were injured (one pictured above) in the incident, which occurred at a closing party for the BPM music festival Emergency responders investigated the scene following the shooting. Video captured at the scene also showed a man helping a group of people huddled together (right) Stunned revelers react after a shooting at the outdoor venue Blue Parrot nightclub in the Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, Mexico Pech said 15 people were injured, one seriously. He said five of the injured had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. He said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. Former event promoter Neil Forester, and a friend of one of the victims, told CBC News that Wilson, who was wearing his black security uniform, was planning to be in Mexico for about two weeks while working as security for the festival. 'He was the friendliest the nicest guy,' Forester said. 'He always put other people in front of himself.' Meanwhile, Pessina, of Milan, had lived in Mexico for several years, where he had opened an Italian pizzeria. He had learned his trade in the family restaurant in Miland's San Siro district and picked up many traditional Italian recipes from his grandmother. Friends on social media described him as being a lover of travel and, although he had been abroad for several years, had never been forgotten at home. He was found shot in the abdomen and swiftly identified by his ID. Vega, was admitted alive to the hospital, but died of his injuries after he was shot twice in the head. Three of the victims have been named as: Canadian-based security guard Kirk Wilson (right), Rafael Antonio Penalosa Vega, 28, of Mexico and Daniel Pessina (left) from Italy Pessina, of Milan, (with his wife) had lived in Mexico for several years, where he had opened an Italian pizzeria London-based promoter Elrow was hosting a closing 'This Is The End' party at the Blue Parrot when the shooting occurred, and it is believed that many attendees at the event were British and American tourists. Tourists at the scene have revealed the chaos that ensued during the shooting, and how many initially believed that they heard fireworks or music - not gunshots. Local news reports suggest that the incident is connected to ongoing drug cartel wars in the area, and the gunman is believed to still be at large. Three BPM security guards were killed during the attack, festival officials revealed. One of the victims is believed to be a Canadian festival organizer, local media reported. Three of the dead are foreigners, said Torres, mayor of the municipality of Solidaridad, which includes the popular beach resort. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of 'a disagreement between people inside' the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. Gruesome photos from Blue Parrot in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, show the aftermath of a shooting that left up to eight people dead on Monday night Chaos ensued following the shooting, causing a stampede inside the venue which resulted in several injuries The BPM organizers said three members of their security team were killed in the shooting, which it said was perpetrated by a lone shooter. Pictured above, emergency responders investigate the scene A man with bandages wrapped around both his arms sits in an emergency vehicle after receiving treatment People wait outside a club where a shooting took place in Playa del Carmen early Monday morning Officials arrived on scene in the early morning to investigate the shooting and treat victims The streets of Playa del Carmen were packed with tourists and festival attendees after the shooting early Monday morning A Forensic Medical Service van is parked outside a nightclub in Playa del Carmen following the shooting 'For the moment we have indications that one person opened fire,' Mayor Torres added. She said the shooting appeared to have taken place inside the club, causing people to flee in panic. Other witnesses said it happened outside the club. Hector Escardo Steck, from Los Angeles, California, told MailOnline that the club was full when the gunman attacked. He said: 'It was awful, the club was completely full and at around 2am we heard ten successive gunshots and people immediately hit the floor. Just after that the music stopped and everyone started running in a panic. 'There is a tall fence between the club and the beach and everyone started trying to climb over that. A lot of people got hurt in the attempt top club over, because people were panicking and trying to get away. It was terrifying. 'I was at the back of the club, so I didn't see anyone get shot, but 20 minutes later in the streets I saw a lot of dead bodies being guarded by police officers. People were running everywhere, jumping, punching, running. 'The party had been going since noon, and everyone in the club was either drunk or on drugs, and there was a lot of confusion. 'In Playa del Carmen you see drugs in quantities that you have never seen before, and everyone is drugged up so it was a very confusing experience that no one was expecting. People were very angry and confused, but mainly angry.' As daylight broke in Playa del Carmen on Monday, police investigators were still at the scene Of those injured, some were hurt during the stampede as people ran from the night club Police guard the entrance of the Blue Parrot nightclub in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, later Monday morning Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of 'a disagreement between people inside' the nightclub. Pictured above, police guard the exit of the Blue Parrot nightclub Blue Parrot was one of several venues hosting events as part of the BPM festival, which brings together more than 150 of the world's top DJs and musical acts. Pictured above, a tourist takes photos of the Blue Parrot nightclub Tourists at the scene have revealed the chaos that ensued during the shooting, and how many initially believed that they heard fireworks or music - not gunshots Mexican police were investigating the scene of the shooting into the late morning on Monday Shoes and debris remained on the beach in Playa del Carmen following Monday's shooting An editor for the London-based music magazine Mixmag who was in the backstage area of the Blue Parrot said at least four or five shots were fired at around 2.45 or 3am, indicating that it happened in front of the club. 'People started running because there's an exit in the back. We stopped and hid behind a cement wall, then crawled under a metal table,' Valerie Lee, Mixmag's US digital editor, was quoted as saying by the magazine. 'Security guards at first didn't think it was shots and kept claiming it was fireworks, saying everything was OK. Then people kept running and said they saw a gun. We kept hiding until they opened the back gate and we ran outside,' Lee said. Lee wrote on Twitter that the music was still playing five minutes after the shots were heard. The music, she said, was 'super loud, likely those inside didn't even hear.' She said friends outside the entrance were just six meters (20 feet) from the shooter. 'Bodies on the ground. Didn't seem like shooters tried to enter the party,' Lee wrote. 'Police took over 10 minutes to arrive. Victims likely include tourists/party goers, poss (possibly) a security guard.' Joe Serock, from San Diego, California, said he has never experienced the kind of panic which unfolded after a man opened fire in the Blue Parrot. 'I heard three or four gunshots, but they didn't sound real to me,' said Joe, 28, who was at a beach party next to the nightclub when the shooting started. People ducked for cover in the venue as security scanned the area following the shooting As many as eight people are dead following the incident, which took place on the final night of the BPM electronic music festival People were seen running from the club following the shooting, which reportedly left as many as eight people dead He told MailOnline: 'All of a sudden people were scrambling over the fence and onto the beach. They just started sprinting away from the place so we did too. 'My friend saw someone bleeding really badly and not moving in the back alley next to the club. 'I had no idea where some of my friends were until we got back to the hotel and messaged them. We were waiting an hour for our other friend to message me, which was pretty scary.' Joe, a professional gambler who has been going to the BPM festival with his friends for the last few years, said the attack will not put him off returning again. Charlene Grant, from London, was also at the Blue Parrot. She recounted to Dazed how she escaped: 'We were partying and thought the gunshots were firecrackers at first, then everyone went down like a sea and shots were being fired. Scottish DJ Jackmaster issued a warning on Twitter saying, 'Stay in your f*****g hotels' following the shooting 'People were in sheer panic and terror as (we) didn't know if it was indiscriminate shooting or terrorists. 'After about 10-15 mins of laying on the ground we tried to escape over a fence, but it was too high. Eventually we were shuttled out and ran for our lives. (I) saw dead bodies on the ground and people covered in blood. It could have been me or my friends.' American-born William Rogers, who lives in Mexico City and was in Playa del Carmen for the festival ran to a nearby club to take cover during the shooting. He told The Mirror that he and others stayed inside the club Mandala 'for around 30 or 45 minutes' until the area was cleared and security let them leave. 'The festival is probably 80 per cent tourists and you could see it was not only cartel people who had been injured. It's so sad and the worst example of the reality in Mexico,' he said of the shooting. Reveler George de Menezes told The Independent that he and his friends were just two meters from the gunman when the shooting occurred. He said: 'No one took it seriously, but I knew straight away that it was a gun and dropped to the floor, then everyone dropped with me. 'The music stopped and so did the shots, so we got up and one man was down on the floor and looked dead, and another man had been shot but was trying to stay on his feet.' De Menezes said that people in the club tried to escape by running to the beach, but shots kept being fired. Pictured above, a woman helps a man and woman at the scene following the shooting on Monday Mexican police have confirmed the mass shooting but have not given motive for the gunfire. It is believed that the incident is connected to ongoing drug cartel wars in the area. Pictured above, a woman is helped by officials after the shooting Among the dead is believed to be the Blue Parrot's security guard. Police have not reported any arrests It is unknown how many people were injured during the shooting, which happened early Monday morning 'Finally got out from there and got up to the Main Street and there was another man dead on the street, so everyone started running for their lives,' he said. The reveler said that he and friends heard more shots when they finally got back to their hotel. Los Angeles resident Jake Lubelski wrote on Facebook that he was 20 feet away from the gunman when the shooting took place. CRIME IN PLAYA DEL CARMEN Playa del Carmen is in the Mexico state of Quintana Roo, approximately 40 miles south of the popular resort destination Cancun. The town, which sits on Mexico's Caribbean coast, was founded in 1937. It is a popular tourist destination and has been host to several PGA golf tournaments. In Quintana Roo, however, crime is rapidly increasing, especially in the non-tourist areas in Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Between 2014 and 2015, there was a 40 per cent increase in homicides and a 43 per cent increase in violent robberies. The state is ranked fifth nationally in reported cases of extortion, according to OSAC. A recent study also ranked Cancun as the Mexican city with the highest levels of human Trafficking activity for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Advertisement 'I was standing outside of a club on an insanely crowded street when it happened; I was maybe 20 feet away from the shooter,' he wrote. 'As soon as I heard gun shots, everyone started bolting and we nearly got trampled by the frantic herds of people. 'As soon as I turned around the corner and got a look at the scene, I saw a man lying on the floor in his own blood. it could have been me.' A worker at CostaMed hospital in Playa del Carmen told NBC News that a man and a woman were admitted to the hospital at 3.39am local time. He said that the man was in 'grave' condition while the woman was in stable condition. A second shooting was reported at the club The Jungle, where another BPM closing party featuring John Acquaviva, Stacey Pullen and David Berrie was taking place. Videos on Instagram show people running through the streets of Playa Del Carmen following the shooting. Images shared on social media showed people cowering or running down the street. Scottish DJ Jackmaster issued a warning on Twitter saying, 'Stay in your f*****g hotels' following the shooting. The DJ, whose real name is Jack Revill, tweeted about the incident just after 3am local time. 'Someone has come into the club in Playa Del Carmen and opened fire. 4-5 dead and many wounded. Stay in ur f****n hotel if you're here at BPM,' he wrote. 'Apparently now more shots fired at another club in the area.' Officials have not released a statement on the incident, but confirmed the mass shooting to local media Officials carried victims out of the area on stretchers following the shooting on Monday At least two victims were taken to CostaMed hospital in Playa del Carmen for treatment. A worker said one was in 'grave' condition while another was stable The UK Foreign Office released a statement following the shooting. 'We are seeking information from emergency services in Mexico, following reports of a shooting in Playa del Carmen,' a Foreign Office spokesman said. Neither US nor Canadian officials could immediately confirm if any of their citizens were among the victims in the shooting. BPM Festival has said that all closing parties have been shut down as police start their investigation into the shootings. 'After alleged reports of shots fired this morning at Blue Parrot, all BPM parties are shut down while police investigations are underway,' the festival said in a statement. Festival officials encouraged people to stay inside. The BPM Festival, which ran between January 6 and 15, was celebrating its ten-year anniversary this year. Following the incident, the festival released a statement confirming at least four people had died. The statement said: 'It is with great sadness to share that police have confirmed reports of a lone shooter outside the Blue Parrot nightclub in Playa Del Carmen earlier today, which resulted in four fatalities and 15 injured. 'The violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue. Medical officials were seen outside the nightclub following Monday's early morning shooting While it is unknown how many people were injured in the shooting, several people were taken to the hosptital Events at the Blue Parrot Club (pictured in daylight) were part of the annual BPM Festival, which closed on Sunday night 'The BPM Festival has been working closely with the local authorities (Seguridad Publica / Policia Turistica) throughout the festival to ensure public safety and security for all visitors. 'We are overcome with grief over this senseless act of violence and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims and their families and all those affected by these tragic events.' Playa Del Carmen is a popular resort town on Mexico's Caribbean coast located about 40 miles south Cancun. The town was founded in 1937 and has been host to several PGA golf tournaments. The BPM festival has grown to be one of the most important electronic music events in the world, with top DJs flying in every January to play the clubs of Playa del Carmen along Mexico's Caribbean coast. Quintana Roo and the surrounding Yucatan peninsula have traditionally been less violent than other parts of Mexico, with relatively low murder rates. However, with many foreign tourists and a vibrant night life scene, there has long been an important local drug market in and around Playa Del Carmen. In recent years, Mexico's Caribbean coast has drawn DJs and fans of electronic music to the beautiful, balmy region during the frigid European and North American winters. Joe Biden has urged the international community to stand up to Russian aggression as he visits Ukraine on his last official overseas trip. The outgoing US Vice President chose Ukraine as the destination for his last official visit to a foreign government to reflect the special focus the country has received under the Obama administration. During a speech alongside Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, he also urged the incoming Trump administration to be a strong supporter and partner of Ukraine. Scroll down for video US Vice President has visited the Ukrainian capital Kiev in what is his last official overseas trip 'You're fighting both the cancer of corruption ... and the unrelenting aggression of the Kremlin,' he said. 'The international community must continue to stand as one against Russian coercion and aggression.' Biden, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction by his boss last week, has been the front man for American policy towards Ukraine, visiting Kiev five times since the change in power. He maintains such regular telephone contact with Ukrainian officials that he has joked he talks to them more than his wife. Biden, pictured with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has urged the international community to stand up to Russian aggression as he visits Ukraine on his last official overseas trip Biden has been the front man for U.S. policy towards Ukraine, visiting Kiev five times since the change in power His comments come as an interview with President-elect Donald Trump published today suggest he is looking to cut a deal with Russia over Ukraine's head. He mooted ending sanctions on Moscow in exchange for a deal on cutting nuclear weapons. Under President Obama, the United States has invested heavily in helping Ukraine make a success of a 2013-2014 uprising which forced a Kremlin-backed leader to flee and installed the pro-Western opposition in power. Its support for Ukraine, which has included the economic sanctions against Russia linked to the annexation of Crimea and a separatist conflict, has contributed to a deterioration in US-Russian relations to their worst since the Cold War. President-elect Donald Trump, left, suggested in an interview he is looking to cut a deal with Vladimir Putin and Russia over Ukraine's head However, in an interview published today, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, struck a cautiously positive tone on the prospects for collaboration with Washington after a period of icy relations under Barack Obama. He told the government-controlled daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta: 'If Donald Trump's administration is interested we will be ready to resume full-format consultations with our American partners through the Russian Federation's Security Council.' However, Patrushev added that he did not expect rapid improvements or a swift lifting of sanctions he said the West had deliberately imposed to 'hold Russia back' because the two sides were starting from such a low base. On Monday the Kremlin said it would wait until Trump takes office on Friday before commenting on any proposals. The Palace of Westminster could be closed for good unless MPs and peers agree to evacuate for repairs, a former minister has warned. Chris Bryant said 18 weeks had passed since a report on the dilapidated state of the House of Parliament but a vote on implementing it has now been delayed further. The detailed study found billions of pounds of work was needed to save the building, most of which is Victorian but which still uses 1950s power and water systems. Labour MP Chris Bryant, pictured in the bowels of the Palace of Westminster, warned MPs must face up to the need to invest in the repairs of the Houses of Parliament The exterior stone work of the palace, pictured, is crumbling while under the skin of the building its internal services such as water and power are decades out of date A committee urged MPs to agree to a 3.5billion, six year full evacuation of all people on the Parliamentary estate as the quickest and most cost effective plan. But a partial 'decant' where MPs sit in the House of Lords while the Commons is renovated is also a possibility and rebels have warned this is their preferred option. Mr Bryant, who chaired a joint committee on the project, today said: 'That is what happened in the 19th century after the fire of 1834. IN NUMBERS: PALACE OF WESTMINSTER REPAIRS Estimated cost of repairs if both houses of parliament move temporally to other sites: 3.5 billion over four to six years. Estimated cost of repairs if work is done while MPs and Lords remain on site: 5.7 billion over 32 years. Rooms in the palace: 1,180. Staircases: 126. Windows: 4,000. Levels: 7. Hawks patrolling the palace skies: 2 - Angel, aged 11, and his younger brother, Dennison, 7. Length of basement corridors: 1.25 miles. Length of above ground corridors: 1.9 miles. Length of building: 984.25 feet. Miles of cabling: 252. Fire detection devices: 6,969. Advertisement 'But it was a terrible mistake. 'The project ran vastly over budget and took decades longer than intended as MPs and peers complained about the noise and nuisance and constantly attempted to change the specification.' The Labour MP urged his colleagues not to 'duck' the expensive but essential decision to preserve the World Heritage Site before catastrophic damage occurred. A vote was expected before Christmas and was then pencilled in for next week - but this has also been delayed. Writing in The Times, Mr Bryant said it was simply not practical for MPs to work out of the Lords while peers moved into the 'Royal Gallery' behind the second chamber. This was the approach adopted after World War II when the Commons was bombed. But Mr Bryant said: 'Daily attendance in both houses in the war rarely reached more than a few dozen, there was no Prime Ministers Questions session and because there was a national government of all parties, divisions were rare. 'Things are very different today. Work is constantly ongoing to maintain the building while it is in use but a joint committee of MPs and peers has recommended a full evacuation to allow work to be carried out properly Gas pipes and cables run throughout the building but many are unidentified or do not work properly after decades of neglect 'The Commons chamber has enough seating on the floor of the house for about 427, or two thirds of MPs, but the Lords has many fewer seats between the throne and the bar of the house. 'It is difficult to see how it could accommodate more than half of MPs and the galleries are similarly far too small.' The Labour MP said the practicalities of the work also made staying in one wing of the palace difficult. He said: 'The chambers do not function independently from the rest of the building. 'The palace has one drain, one high pressure steam heating system, and one set of high voltage electricity wires and gas pipes. 'All of them serve the chambers and all of them have to be taken out and replaced.' A six year evacuation could allow for the work on the palace to be carried out for an estimated 3.5billion, the joint committee said The electrical systems in many parts of the palace have not been upgraded since the 1950s Mr Bryant added: 'Since most MPs offices and all the committee rooms will be at the other, northern, end of the parliamentary estate (in Portcullis House and in Norman Shaw North and South) 650 MPs would have to parade down the narrow pavement alongside the palace for votes at well-publicised times every day. 'That is obviously a security risk.' Among the opponents of a full evacuation is Tory Sir Edward Leigh. He branded proposals to build a temporary Commons chamber in Richmond House - currently home to the Department of Health on Whitehall - 'dotty'. Treasury Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie has announced a further inquiry into the need for the work questioning whether 'huge expenditure and over such a short timeframe is necessary'. A teenager was rushed to hospital in Zimbabwe when he attempted to circumcise himself using a MACHETE after his friends mocked his penis. The teen attempted the DIY circumcision using the nearest sharp object he could find after his friends told him he would not get a girlfriend because he still had his foreskin in tact. The boy was rushed to St Lukes Mission Hospital in the countrys Lupane District, where he spent two days recovering from the botched procedure. Staff at the clinic also carried out the circumcision operation that the boy had attempted on himself. The boy was rushed to St Lukes Mission Hospital in the countrys Lupane District A doctor said he did not understand why the boy had tried to circumcise himself as healthcare workers would have visited his house to perform the routine op. Dr Nyasha Masuka, medical director of Matabeleland North Province, told news website My Zimbabwe: 'It seems the other boys were laughing at him for not being circumcised so he used a machete to circumcise himself and he injured himself in the process.' 'He was rushed to St Lukes Hospital where the health staff circumcised him.' Dr George Mature, medical officer for Lupane district, said other patients at the hospital were 'shocked' that the boy had had the courage to take the weapon to his own penis. The teen attempted the DIY circumcision using the nearest sharp object he could find He said: 'The patients who were admitted with him were wondering how he managed to do it. 'The good thing is that he wounded the outer layer of foreskin. So we had to keep him at the hospital to monitor him as he had used a clinically inappropriate tool so we were worried that it could have caused an infection.' In Islam, boys are normally circumcised while in primary school in what is seen as a rite of passage. The incident comes less than a month after a 10-year-old boy had the tip of his penis chopped off after a routine circumcision operation went horribly wrong. The parliamentary authorities banned a new BBC drama from filming a sex scene on the estate, actress Emily Watson has revealed. The star said the cast of Apple Tree Yard were 'banished' from shooting a raunchy encounter. The Palace of Westminster opened its doors to commercial filming several years ago despite complaints from some MPs that the historic building was being turned into a theme park. Actress Emily Watson said the cast of Apple Tree Yard were 'banished' from shooting a raunchy encounter on the Commons estate Productions including the movie Suffragette, starring Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan, have paid up to 10,000 a day to use the backdrop. Although TV cameras have been recording Commons proceedings for more than a decade, prior to 2013 any filming connected to 'advertising, fundraising or for commercial purposes' was banned. Dramas supposedly set in Westminster were shot elsewhere, with Manchester Town Hall doubling as Parliament's neo-gothic corridors and meeting rooms. In the 2011 film The Iron Lady, which saw Meryl Streep win an Oscar for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, the Commons chamber was actually a 5,000 sq ft replica. The imitation chamber first used in Granada TV's 1986 adaptation of Jeffrey Archer's First Among Equals has been sold on eBay for more than 123,000. However, despite the more broadminded approach to filming in recent years, it seems the parliamentary authorities have drawn the line at sex scenes. Suffragette was the first movie to shoot scenes on the parliamentary estate In new BBC drama the Apple Yard, Watson plays a high-flying geneticist who embarks on a passionate affair with a stranger she meets at the Houses of Parliament. The story sees the characters get up close and personal in the crypt under the Commons. But Watson told the Sunday Telegraph they had to film the encounter elsewhere - and suggested the House authorities had been too prudish. 'We were banished. Because as it turns out you can blow up James Bond on Westminster Bridge but no sex, please!' she said. A spokesman for the Parliamentary authorities said: 'Parliament is proud to support a number of commercial filming projects which help to offset the costs of running Parliament and offer new ways to bring our iconic buildings to a wider audience. 'All requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and seek to balance access for cameras with the need to minimise disruption to Parliament's core work.' An 18-year-old woman was gang raped after having consensual sex with a boy in the toilet of a pizza place, prosecutors allege. Three teenage boys were let out on bail after an appearance in Parramatta Children's Court on Monday. The boy with whom the victim was said to have had consensual sex allegedly told her 'the others want to have sex with you,' before she was assaulted by the two other teens and a 38-year-old man. Two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old were granted bail on the strict conditions that they report daily to police, not communicate with each other or the alleged victim, nor leave their homes without their parents, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Three teenage boys were granted bail after being charged with the alleged gang rape of a woman in the toilet of a pizza place. They appeared in Parramatta Children's Court on Monday They are accused along with the 38-year-old, Ricardo Audish, of repeatedly sexually assaulting the woman in the toilets of a restaurant in Sydney's Lugarno suburb in October. Audish, the 15-year-old and one of the 17-year-olds were charged with aggravated sexual assault in company and deprive liberty; the other 17-year-old was charged with being an accessory before and after the fact. The teens had no criminal history, Parramatta Children's Court heard, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Magistrate Terry Murphy said the charges were serious, but that certain aspects of the prosecution's case were weak. 'I'm of the view that strict bail conditions can protect the victim and ensure the integrity of the investigation,' Mr Murphy said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Although the teens were forbidden to leave their homes, the 15-year-old, who is a refugee from Iraq who arrived in Australia last year, was allowed to travel to and from a school where he is taking English classes. Audish, an Elizabeth Hills resident, was in custody and is due to appear in court in March. British armed forces helped free more than two million people from ISIS rule last year, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has revealed British armed forces helped free more than two million people from ISIS rule last year, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has revealed. He said 'substantial progress' had been made in driving the terror group out of Iraq. It helped US-led coalition forces free increasing numbers of citizens who have become trapped under ISIS control over the last five years. Mosul, the last ISIS stronghold in Iraq, is expected to fall to Iraqi forces this year. In Syria, Sir Michael, who is briefing MPs privately on the progress of operations against ISIS, said US-backed militias of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were closing around the ISIS capital of Raqqa. In the course of last year it is estimated almost 25,000 ISIS fighters have been killed and that the group now controls less than 10 per cent of Iraqi territory. As ISIS - also referred to as Daesh - has become increasingly disorganised, officials said its fighters were resorting to ever more desperate tactics, including hiding in hospitals and burning alive people who they caught trying to flee. The RAF is continuing to carry out operations in support of ground forces on both fronts. In 2016 the Ministry of Defence said British warplanes and drones conducted almost 1,200 strikes in the most intense and sustained pace of operations since the Gulf War 25 years earlier. Sir Michael said: 'In the last year, over two million people have been freed from Daesh rule by Iraqi and moderate Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by coalition air power. 'Britain is stepping up in the fight against Daesh: the Army has helped train over 32,000 Iraqi forces and in a controlled and precise manner the RAF are taking out Daesh and working hard to minimise casualties in a very difficult dense urban environment. 'Working with allies we will keep momentum, push Daesh out of Mosul, encircle Raqqa and eventually end Daesh's reign of terror.' In Syria, Sir Michael, who is briefing MPs privately on the progress of operations against ISIS, said US-backed militias of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were closing around the ISIS capital of Raqqa. Pictured, militants of ISIS hold up their weapons and wave its flags on their vehicles outside the city Ghost hunter Andrew Alexander said the ghost of an English baron gave him a 'medieval-style beard' in a photo at a cast in North Yorkshire A ghost hunter claims the spirit of one of William the Conqueror's favourite barons haunted them during the investigation of a castle - giving him a medieval-style beard in an eerie photo. Andrew Alexander, 47, was investigating 14th century Spofforth Castle in North Yorkshire along with ghost hunting pals when colleague Julie Cockroft took a photo of him. But the team were stunned to find that despite being clean shaven that morning, Mr Alexander appeared to have a full, grey, pointed beard in the spooky snap. The father-of-three believes the beard to be similar to that of William de Percy, a Norman nobleman who arrived in Britain shortly after the conquest of 1066 and is thought to have built the manor house that was the foundations for the castle. Mediums have since told him the beard is a manifestation of Percy taking the use of Mr Alexander's face to show he is there, guarding the castle still, hundreds of years later. Mr Alexander, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, said: 'After getting the image of me with the beard, we looked up the original owner of the castle who built it. 'I was shocked to see he had a small beard like this one. I was pretty amazed when I realised this. 'People reckon it's a manifestation trying to use my face to show he is there. 'I was shocked when I saw [the picture] as I was completely clean shaven. I always am after being in the army - I have never had a beard that big.' Mr Alexander has revisited Spofforth Castle multiple times since the photo was captured in January 2016 with Shane Corbett. Mr Alexander was investigating the presence of spirits at Spofforth Castle, pictured, in North Yorkshire He runs investigation agency GSI Paranormal West Yorks with partner Shane Corbett, with the duo using microphones and cameras to look around the castle Mr Alexander, pictured, believes the beard to be similar to that of William de Percy, a Norman nobleman who arrived in Britain shortly after the conquest of 1066 and is thought to have built the manor house that was the foundations for the castle The duo, who run GSI Paranormal West Yorks together, claims to have witnessed a dark figure there on numerous occasions, who they call The Guard. However the image of the baron's beard remains unexplained. Mr Alexander said: 'I had been stood in the corner of the castle while we were doing an EVP [electronic voice phenomena] session when Julie took the picture. 'The funny thing is that the EVP had nothing on it particularly special at the time - though we did her something outside the castle. We heard a murmuring from someone. 'It's a very active place. It's a great place to investigate so we go back regularly. 'I'm not a medium and I'm not sensitive in that way. I felt nothing at all and didn't get scared - though I did feel the pressure drop in the room. Mr Alexander and Mr Corbett said the castle is 'very active' with spirits and that they 'regularly go back to investigate' They also claim to have seen a spirit they call 'The Guard' who still looks after the castle, pictured, today 'I just want to put it out there to see what people think. I don't mind people rubbishing it - that's fine. But I welcome people to come and experience it themselves. 'I don't know if I'm brave or foolish - I don't know. But I was in the forces so I have witnessed a few things. 'I don't have any other explanations [for the picture]. Some say it could be a hand across my face but I don't think so, so no explanation really. Most think it's Percy. 'It's pretty odd, but [ghost hunting] is very addictive and this spurs me on to capture more. It's amazing as you get chills and wonder how that's possible. 'I would feel proud if I had caught something that goes some way to proving the afterlife but there are much more professional people out there who are doing that.' The picture was taken by Mr Alexander's, right, colleague Julie Cockroft, left, who said there is 'so much that goes unexplained' at the castle Ms Cockroft, 55, who runs Equinox Paranormal in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said: 'A sceptic will say it's the camera or shadows or some stubble that has suddenly shown up. 'It's a very strange place, very usual. Every time I visit it's a different atmosphere. So much goes on there that can't be explained.' William de Percy built a fortified manor in the 11th century, before Henry Percy transformed it into a castle in 1309. Spofforth Castle was reduced to ruins during the English Civil War of 1642-6. One story tells of a phantom missing her lower torso who throws herself from the top of the tower. "We leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." These were the last words Eugene Cernan said upon leaving the surface of our moon, at the end of Apollo 17. Cernan (shown below at the beginning of EVA 3) was the last man to walk on the moon. He died Monday, Jan. 16, surrounded by his family. From the NASA remembrance: Cernan, a Captain in the U.S. Navy, left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon. He also holds the distinction of being the second American to walk in space and the last human to leave his footprints on the lunar surface. He was one of 14 astronauts selected by NASA in October 1963. He piloted the Gemini 9 mission with Commander Thomas P. Stafford on a three-day flight in June 1966. Cernan logged more than two hours outside the orbiting capsule. In May 1969, he was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, the first comprehensive lunar-orbital qualification and verification test of the lunar lander. The mission confirmed the performance, stability, and reliability of the Apollo command, service and lunar modules. The mission included a descent to within eight nautical miles of the moon's surface. In a 2007 interview for NASA's oral histories, Cernan said, "I keep telling Neil Armstrong that we painted that white line in the sky all the way to the Moon down to 47,000 feet so he wouldn't get lost, and all he had to do was land. Made it sort of easy for him." Cernan concluded his historic space exploration career as commander of the last human mission to the moon in December 1972. En route to the moon, the crew captured an iconic photo of the home planet, with an entire hemisphere fully illuminated a "whole Earth" view showing Africa, the Arabian peninsula and the south polar ice cap. The hugely popular photo was referred to by some as the "Blue Marble," a title in use for an ongoing series of NASA Earth imagery. Bernie Sanders has claimed that FBI director James Comey should quit, calling his investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails 'unacceptable'. The Vermont senator went up against Clinton to become the Democratic presidential candidate, but narrowly lost out. As Clinton battled Trump for the presidency, the FBI launched an inquiry into private emails she sent during her time as Secretary of State but was later cleared. Bernie Sanders, who has claimed that FBI director James Comey should quit calling his investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails 'unacceptable' But Sanders says he and several other Democrats are still angry about how Comey handled the probe into her emails, including one investigation that was opened just days before the election. Calling the probe outrageous, in an interview with ABC's This Week, the senator said: 'I think he should take a hard look at what he has done, and it would not be a bad thing for the American people if he did step down.' And although he refused to say that the probe cost Clinton the presidency, he added: 'Clearly his behavior during the campaign and what he said in the week or two before the election was unacceptable.' Sanders says he and several other Democrats are still angry about how James Comey, pictured, handled the probe into Hillary Clinton's emails Sanders 'comments come as Comey has also refused to say whether the FBI is investigating possible links between President-elect Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. Meanwhile the Justice Department's internal watchdog has announced it is reviewing the FBI and its director. But Trump's incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus has said the President-elect has full confidence in Comey. He has described him as 'extremely competent' and says there are no plans to cut short his term as FBI director. However, Vice President-elect Mike Pence dodged a question on whether Trump rated Comey. He told Fox News: 'You'll have to ask him about that. I know it's been a subject of some commentary of this last week.' Comey has been under fire since an initial probe into Clinton's emails was dropped and it was announced she would not face any criminal charges. The FBI is refusing to investigate possible links between President-elect Donald Trump's campaign and Russia However, he was criticized for using a press conference to make the annoucement, where he branded the Democratic candidate and her aides as 'extremely careless'. In late October, just weeks before the presidential election, he announced he was to re-open the investigation after new emails linked to Clinton's aide Huma Abedin were found on a laptop belonging to her estranged husband Anthony Weiner. News of the re-opened probe was made public after Comey wrote to members of Congress to inform them of the new investigation. However, just three days before the election, he once again cleared Clinton - but many Democrats say it was too late. An Israeli rabbi has predicted the arrival of the Messiah, claiming the formation of a new star confirms a biblical prophecy. Astronomers in Michigan, in the US, believe the collision of two distant stars will create a massive 'Boom star' visible from Earth by 2022. But Rabbi Yosef Berger, of King Davids Tomb in Mount Zion, Jerusalem, believes the supernova explosion is evidence an ancient messianic prophecy is coming true. An Israeli rabbi has predicted the arrival of the Messiah, claiming the formation of a new star confirms a biblical prophecy. (file picture) According to Breaking Israel News, Berger cited 12th century Rabbi Moses ben Maimon - known as Ramban - when making his claim. 'The Rambam brings this verse about a star appearing as proof that the Messiah will come one day,' Berger told the website. 'The Zohar [the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought] states explicitly that the Messianic process will be accompanied by several stars appearing. 'The Zohar goes into great depth, describing how many stars, and which colours they will be.' Berger points to a Biblical verse coinciding with Jewish literature found in Numbers 24:17. The extract says: 'I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; there shall step forth a star out of Yakov, and a scepter shall rise out of Yisrael, and shall smite through the corners of Moab, and break down all the sons of Seth.' Rabbi Yosef Berger, of King Davids Tomb in Mount Zion, Jerusalem, believes the supernova is evidence an ancient messianic prophecy is coming true (file picture) Last week it was reported that o ur night sky could be set to include a new star in 2022, if the predictions of a group of astronomers turn out to be correct. A professor who has been studying a binary star system, two stars orbiting each other, claims they will soon start to merge together to create what he has dubbed 'Boom star'. The stars will end their lives in an explosion, known as a supernova, he said. This will be will make them ten thousand times brighter than they already are - producing one of the brightest stars visible in our sky. Supernovas are intense explosions caused at the end of the lifetime of huge stars, or when two stars merge together. They can be seen from Earth from millions of light years away, but they are unpredictable. Historically they have can only been studied if telescopes happened to be pointing in their direction, and by astronomers looking back at archives of the stars' observations, after the event. Professor Larry Molnar (pictured) from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claims to have predicted the light will be visible from Earth by 2022 Professor Larry Molnar from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claims to have predicted one in advance, for the first time. He says the event will take place around 2022, give or take a year. The star will be visible as part of the constellation Cygnus, and will add a star to the recognisable Northern Cross star pattern. 'It's a one-in-a-million chance that you can predict an explosion,' said Professor Molnar, about his bold prediction. 'It's never been done before.' Professor Molnar's exploration into the star known as KIC 9832227 began back in 2013. He was attending an astronomy conference when fellow astronomer Karen Kinemuchi presented her study of the brightness changes of the star, which asked whether the star was one star pulsing, or flashing, or whether it was two stars orbiting each other. Professor Molnar and colleagues will be observing KIC 9832227 in the next year over the full range of wavelengths: using the Very Large Array, the Infrared Telescope Facility, and the XMM-Newton spacecraft to study the star's radio, infrared and X-ray emission, respectively. 'If Larry's prediction is correct, his project will demonstrate for the first time that astronomers can catch certain binary stars in the act of dying, and that they can track the last few years of a stellar death spiral up to the point of final, dramatic explosion,' said Matt Walhout, dean for research and scholarship at Calvin College. 'The project is significant not only because of the scientific results, but also because it is likely to capture the imagination of people on the street,' said Walhout. 'If the prediction is correct, then for the first time in history, parents will be able to point to a dark spot in the sky and say, 'Watch, kids, there's a star hiding in there, but soon it's going to light up.' A fashion boss is suing British Airways after claiming its staff refused to let her board a flight with two 'therapy dogs'. Sharon Kao says one of the airline's employees screamed at her in a busy airport terminal in Paris and accused her of lying about her disability. Ms Kao, who was travelling with her Maltese puppies Opus and Ace, said the supervisor refused to accept medical documentation for the dogs. The fashion executive, who has previously worked for brands such as Burberry and Estee Lauder, says the dogs calm her on flights and provide 'emotional support'. They were travelling with OpenSkies, which is an airline owned by British Airways and based in Paris. Sharon Kao (pictured) says one of the airline's employees screamed at her in a busy airport terminal in Paris and accused her of lying about her disability According to federal-court lawsuit filed in New York, USA, Ms Kao is seeking an unspecified sum following the 'humiliating' confrontation in 2015. Ms Kao and her husband Brendan Mahoney, who share a 2 million apartment in Manhattan, were travelling business class when they were stopped from boarding. The pair were allowed to travel with the dogs on a inbound flight to Paris after showing British Airways staff the same doctor's note, reported The New York Post. In the letter, Dr Jeremy Stoepker says that Ms Kao has 'deep anxiety' and 'a panic disorder, especially while travelling'. Ms Kao and husband Brendan Mahoney (pictured together), who share a 2 million apartment in Manhattan, were travelling business class when they were stopped from boarding When trying to board the flight back home, she showed the same letter to a supervisor who 'proceeded to scream [at her] in front of her husband'. When Ms Kao attempted to show the staff member tried to read out British Airway's policy on disabilities, she was allegedly told: 'I don't care what it says. 'I am in charge and I decide if you can fly on my airline.' The lawsuit says that Ms Kao then started to have trouble breathing and asked for medical attention. After she handed her pets over to her husband while she was treated by paramedics, it's claimed the supervisor added: 'See, I knew you did not need the dogs.' As a result of the incident, Ms Kao claims to suffer from 'mental anguish, severe emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life and other emotional damages.' A spokesperson for OpenSkies, a transatlantic airline owned by British Airways, said: 'We do not comment on litigation.' Prya Boodhoo enjoyed a lavish lifestyle from a 'boiler-room' style scam A party-loving con-artist scammed more than 2million from vulnerable pensioners while working for a firm of barristers. Under the noses of the lawyers, Prya Boodhoo, 31, used 'boiler-room' tactics to sell fraudulent carbon credit shares to her elderly victims. She used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle, dining in the best restaurants and attending events such as Ladies' Day at Chester Races. Police estimate victims paid her and others connected to her more than 2.2million in less than a year. They say around 147 victims bought the Certified Emission Reduction carbon credits from her company, Greentrade, as an investment hoping to turn a profit. The victims, the majority of them pensioners, would send cheques and payments to a maildrop facility which were then banked by the firm. Boodhoo, 31, who worked at the prestigious Kings Chambers in Manchester, was a regular on the Cheshire and Manchester social scene. She was arrested after police swooped on dozens of fraudsters operating boiler room businesses selling fake shares. One of the victims, a woman in her late 70s, lost her life savings after she invested 23,000 in carbon credits. But although Boodhoo was caught red-handed she may never face criminal charges because the trail of deception may involve several foreign countries and would be too costly to investigate. Instead she has been banned from being a director of a firm for nine years after it was revealed her company had received almost 450,000 between June 2012 and January 2013. She may never face criminal charges because investigation involves several other countries During that time she paid out a total of 360,000 to firm employees thought to be family members. Boodhoo, along with her mother, brother and sister, was targeted by Operation Rico aimed at stamping out the scam. The joint action by the City of London Police and the Insolvency Service led to the force's biggest ever deployment overseas when around 110 British fraudsters were arrested, the majority of whom were located in Spain. She used to work at King's Chambers, Manchester A spokesman for the Insolvency Service said: 'Greentrade used misleading sales techniques in order to induce members of the public to purchase Certified Emission Reduction carbon credits ('CERs') as an investment product 'Boodhoo opened a bank account in Greentrade's name as its sole director, claiming to have immediately passed complete control of that bank account to a third party who was in control of the company.' He said: 'Information obtained from the City of London Police suggests that 147 investors have paid a collective amount of 2.2m in relation to CERs, either directly to Greentrade, or to associated entities as instructed by Greentrade.' A couple who made 1million from cocaine blew 40,000 on a wedding while claiming benefits have been ordered to repay just 14,000. Carl and Donna Honey-Jones from Swansea used their drug dealing empire to fund a lavish lifestyle of holidays to Dubai, the Maldives, Florida and Mexico. The couple also bought luxury cars with personalised numberplates and spent 40,000 on the wedding - with a horse and carriage - while still claiming benefits. Wrongdoing: Carl (left) and Donna Honey-Jones (right) from Swansea used their drug dealing empire to fund a lavish lifestyle of holidays to Dubai, the Maldives, Florida and Mexico Special celebration: The Honey-Jones couple spent 40,000 on a wedding - with a horse and carriage - while still claiming benefits Bundles of cash: The drug network was dismantled after officers executed search warrants at 11 addresses across Swansea in 2014 - and tens of thousands of pounds of cash was found Jetset lifetyle: The pair lived a lavish lifestyle - jetting off on trips to the Maldives, Florida and Dubai. Above, they are pictured at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai They were sentenced in 2015 along with other gang members and have now been ordered to pay back 13,818 of their ill-gotten gains in front of Judge Paul Thomas. The judge told Carl: 'You were the dealer principal and in your case it financed an extravagant lifestyle of foreign holidays, a lavish wedding and luxury cars. 'The sums involved were in the seven figures and you were at the very top of that conspiracy. Although it was was lucrative, the operation that you led was inept.' A proceeds of crime hearing at Swansea Crown Court heard Carl had benefited 1.1million from the drugs ring - but the only available funds he has now 9,680. Vehicle: The couple bought luxury cars with personalised numberplates - including this Audi Unique: The personalised numberplate H009 NEY was bought by the Honey-Jones couple Cash seized by police: Cocaine with a potential street value of up to 750,000 and almost 60,000 cash was seized in a police operation into the drug network His wife was said to have benefited to the tune of 39,000 - she now has 3,958 to her name. Court orders were made to confiscate the available cash from the couple. Carl, 33, whose operation was billed 'amateurish' by the judge, was the head of the gang which trafficked large quantities of cocaine from Liverpool for sale in Swansea. He is serving a nine-year term for conspiracy to supply drugs and money laundering. Donna, 34, was given 21 months suspended for two years and was ordered to do 300 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to money laundering. Carl, pictured with Donna on their wedding day, is serving a nine-year term for conspiracy to supply drugs and money laundering Donna, 34, was given 21 months suspended for two years and was ordered to do 300 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to money laundering At their wedding: Court orders were made to confiscate the available cash from the couple Name cards: The couple's wedding in 2013 came two years before their sentencing in 2015 The drug network was dismantled after officers executed search warrants at 11 addresses across Swansea in November 2014. Cocaine with a potential street value of up to 750,000 and almost 60,000 cash was seized in the operation - along with expensive jewellery, cars and quad bikes. Ian Wright, who prosecuted in the original cases, said at the time that the Honey-Jones couple had been 'living the high-life' on the profits from the cocaine trade. He said they had an expensively decorated house, foreign holidays, cars with personalised plates, foreign holidays and other evidence of 'luxury living'. A pilot is being treated in hospital for burns after being blasted in the face with fire from a faulty hot air balloon near Dubai. The Dutch pilot was flown to hospital by helicopter, where he was still being treated tonight. Five tourists who suffered burns to their hands were also taken to hospital but discharged the same day. Officials from Balloon Adventures Emirates said a 'technical malfunction' caused the balloon's burner to misfire just after the balloon landed. Officials from Balloon Adventures Emirates said a 'technical malfunction' caused the balloon's burner to misfire just after the balloon landed Firm partner Adam McEwan said: 'The poor guy did unfortunately get a face full of flash. 'After landing there was a technical malfunction with the burner. Instead of switching off, it flashed in the direction of the pilot. 'It was actually at the conclusion of the flight. He stood up to say to everyone: "That is it, congratulations, start to exit the balloon" and that is when it happened. 'He stood up and it misfired and unfortunately hit him.' Mr McEwan said the balloon was already on the ground at the end of the flight on Saturday, contrary to earlier reports that it crashed. But he said the Dutchman, who has not been named, got the full force of the burner as he was standing in the cockpit at the time. He added: 'The burner does not stay on, it just gets a flash but obviously the balloon is quite big.' Mr McEwan said the pilot had acted heroically by ensuring his passengers - including four Chinese tourists and one Swiss national - got out of the balloon first, despite suffering burns to the face and smoke inhalation. He said: 'From what we have heard from other people on site, instinct kicked in and it was actually quite heroic. 'He took a flame to the face but made sure everyone was out and safe.' Two tourists died in 2010 when a hot air balloon operated by the same company crashed in the UAE desert during an emergency landing in high winds. The balloon's gondola, complete with a pilot, crew member and 12 passengers on board, was dragged through the desert for 300 metres. The victims who died were thrown from the gondola while the crew member was seriously injured in the incident. It emerged after the crash that Balloon Adventures Emirates co-partner Peter Kollar was twice convicted of breaching safety standards while running a similar company in New Zealand, including one incident in 1995 in which three tourists died. He said in an interview with The National at the time that he had never hidden his background, adding: 'It's completely irrelevant.' Officials from the General Civil Aviation Authority will be launching an investigation into the latest incident, although it could take them six months to report back. Mr McEwan said the balloon company would be carrying out its own inquiries, adding he had 'no idea' why the balloon misfired. The five injured passengers, who were still on board when the balloon misfired, suffered burns to their hands. They were helped out of the balloon by ground crew and taken to Al Qassimi hospital in Sharjah, the emirate neighbouring Dubai. The balloon flight took off early on Saturday from Margham in the desert outside Dubai and landed in Al Madam, 60km from the city, despite high winds battering Dubai on the day. Mr McEwan said: 'It was five knots when we went up. 'You can barely feel that on your face. It is a very different weather system [in the desert] to Dubai. 'We avoid the biggest weather systems and cancel once or twice a month.' He added the pilot's injuries were not life-threatening, adding it was not clear when he would be released from hospital. Hot air balloon rides being carried out in in Kissimmee, Florida, US Tests are being carried out to see if the smoke he inhaled has damaged his lungs. Mr McEwan said: 'We are just concerned there is no lung infection. 'He is one of the most experienced balloon pilots in the world and has done about 2,500 flights. 'An awful technical malfunction occurred but the only thing he was talking about was concern for the guests and making sure that everyone was okay, which they were. 'It is unfortunate for the pilot but everyone walked home and slept in their beds that night.' Theresa May now holds the cards in her negotiations with Brussels after Donald Trump offered her a 'quick' post-Brexit trade deal, Michael Gove said today. The former education minister, who interviewed the President-elect on Friday, said the billionaire is 'enthusiastic' about Brexit and 'emotionally and financially invested' in the process. Trump promised a trade agreement between the two countries 'very quickly' - making a mockery of President Obama's threat that, if the country voted for Brexit, we would be at the 'back of the queue'. Mr Gove said the offer of a US trade deal would strengthen Mrs May's hand in the Brexit negotiations with Brussels. 'The EU until now has been assumed to have a better hand to play, but the Prime Minister we now see has actually cards in her hand, including from candidate Trump, which will enable her, I think, to secure a better deal,' Mr Gove said. The President-elect plans to invite Theresa May to the White House, during an interview with former cabinet minister Michael Gove (pictured together) Donald Trump gave Theresa May a huge boost today when he said he was eager to do a trade deal with the UK as quickly as possible Today Downing Street has hailed Donald Trump's pledge to do a 'great' free trade deal with Britain - but made clear nothing can be sealed until after we formally leave the EU. Theresa May is due to make a crucial speech outlining her Brexit blueprint tomorrow But the tycoon's intervention is a huge boost to Mrs Mays ahead of her major speech on Brexit tomorrow. The Prime Minister's spokeswoman said the president-elect's enthusiasm showed the 'opportunities' of cutting ties with Brussels. But she played down the idea that an agreement could be in place within months, saying the UK would 'respect its obligations' while it remains a member of the bloc. Mr Gove said Mr Trump wanted a trade deal in place ready to sign as soon as the UK left the EU. 'I think the president-elect wants to have something signature-ready at the earliest possible opportunity,' he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. 'He stressed that he believed the European Union would potentially break up in the future and that other countries would leave. So in a sense he is both emotionally and financially invested in it.' Brexit campaign leader Mr Gove said Mr Trump should be viewed as a businessman and his offer of a trade deal was a 'sincere wish'. He told ITV's Good Morning Britain that Mr Trump wants a 'win-win deal' and some of his colourful campaign statements could be attributed to his background as a 'marketeer'. 'Everything that he says is in capital letters and in glowing gold, but then he also, when he gets into the room, looks at the spreadsheet and tries to get the best possible outcome for both sides,' Mr Gove said. Business approach: The former education minister told ITV's Good Morning Britain that Mr Trump wants a 'win-win deal' and some of his colourful campaign statements could be attributed to his background as a 'marketeer' The former education secretary said that before the interview at Trump Tower he had the impression of the US president-elect as a 'big, bombastic personality'. 'When you actually meet him, yes he is an electric figure - charismatic - but also he is warmer ... close up than you would imagine,' he said. Gove confronted over 'assassination' of Boris and asked: 'What's it like being called a backstabber?' Piers Morgan cornered Michael Gove over his decision to sink Boris Johnson's leadership campaign after the Brexit vote. MailOnline's US Editor-at-Large said: ''To many you were the steely-eyed assassin who stabbed Boris Johnson in the back'. He then asked: 'Have you enjoyed being described as the nastiest guy in politics and the biggest treacherous backstabber?' Mr Gove, who is paid 150,000-a-year by The Times on top of his 74,962 MP's salary, was on Good Morning Britain promoting his interview with Donald Trump. He said: 'No. But ultimately people throw all sorts of insults at you but your friends know the real you.' Mr Gove admitted that he still speaks to Boris and David Cameron after the internal rows over Brexit. He said: 'I'm not going to get into who I talk to at what time', adding he regretted 'all sorts of stuff' but would not be drawn further. Advertisement Despite his 'aggressive' persona on Twitter 'in person he has honeyed words for almost everyone'. Mr Trump was 'enthusiastic' about Brexit, Mr Gove added. 'He stressed that he believed the European Union would potentially break up in the future and that other countries would leave. So in a sense he is both emotionally and financially invested in it.' He said the offer of a US trade deal would strengthen Mrs May's hand in the Brexit negotiations with Brussels. 'The EU until now has been assumed to have a better hand to play, but the Prime Minister we now see has actually cards in her hand, including from candidate Trump, which will enable her, I think, to secure a better deal,' Mr Gove said. The Prime Minister had so far done an 'exemplary job', according to Mr Gove, who said he had a private conversation with Mrs May before Christmas. He said leaving the single market and customs union would be the 'logical consequence' of the EU referendum result and suggested that Mrs May should confirm that in her major Brexit speech on Tuesday. Mr Gove described Mr Trump's conversational style as being like a river in spate, adding: 'You throw pebbles into it and sometimes there are eddies and currents and from that you can read what it is that he wants.' Mr Gove said he believed Mr Trump was an 'admirer' of Mrs May and wanted a swift and comprehensive trade deal with the UK. The president-elect feels a sense of 'ownership' of Brexit and wants to see it succeed, because he was one of the first international political figures to support it, said the former cabinet minister. Mr Gove told BBC1's Breakfast: 'It's clear from what he says is that he is an admirer of the Prime Minister, is keen to see her as quickly as possible, and wants to have the strongest possible relationship between Britain and America, and I think - provided that relationship is conducted in a businesslike way - that can only be a good thing.' Trump made revelations about Brexit, German chancellor Angela Merkel's (right) immigration policy and a UK trade deal, during an interview with ex-cabinet minister Michael Gove (left today) The incoming commander-in-chief spoke in glowing terms of his 'love' for the UK and revealed Mrs May would be coming to visit him 'right after' he gets into the White House. Asked about the intervention, the PM's spokeswoman said: 'We welcome the commitment from the president elect to engage with the Uk on this to work together to agree a deal quickly. 'That highlights the opportunities of leaving the EU.' But she added that only 'scoping' discussions could be held before the end of the Article 50 process, and there were a 'lot of issues to cover' . 'We have also been clear that we will respect our obligations while we remain in the EU,' she said. 'We cannot enter and sign a free trade agreement while we remain in the EU. 'We will have scoping to look at what some of the areas may be ... but we will continue to respect while we remain a member of the EU. 'We will be having scoping discussions to look at the areas where we can benefit most. 'There will be a lot of issues to cover with this.' Chancellor Philip Hammond warned yesterday that the Government will come out fighting with tax cuts if the EU tries to 'wound' Britain during negotiations. In a tough stance backed by Number 10, the Chancellor said the UK may be forced to change its economic model if it is locked out of the single market post-Brexit. Setting out her blueprint for global Britain, the Prime Minister will stress her determination to strike tariff-free trade deals with the EU that replicate the best aspects of our current arrangements but without the free movement of workers. But her spokeswoman echoed the threat from Mr Hammond in the briefing to journalists today. 'We want to remain in the mainstream of recognised, European-style tax systems. But if we are forced to do something different, then we stand ready to do so,' she said. Turkish police released an image of the nightclub attack suspect - but there are now claims an 'intelligence' group was involved The New Year's Eve nightclub attack in Turkey that claimed 39 lives was orchestrated by an 'intelligence organisation', the country's deputy Prime Minister has claimed. ISIS had already claimed one of its gunmen carried out the mass-shooting at the upmarket Reina nightclub in Istanbul in revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. But Turkish deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said today: 'It appears the Reina attack is not just a terrorist organisation's act, but there was also an intelligence organisation involved. It was an extremely planned and organised act.' It is not yet clear which intelligence organisation he believed was involved. His comments come after Turkey has arrested two Chinese nationals of Uighur origin in connection with the slaughter. The suspects, named as Omar Asim and Abuliezi Abuduhamiti, were arrested on charges of 'being members of a terrorist organisation', of 'purchasing unlicensed firearms' and 'being accomplices to the murder of 39 people', state-run Anadolu Agency cited a prosecutor as saying. A witness in the central Anatolian city of Konya had reportedly seen Asim with the Reina nightclub attacker, the agency said late on Friday. The gunman remains at large despite a massive manhunt. ISIS had already claimed one of its gunmen carried out the mass-shooting at the upmarket Reina nightclub in Istanbul in revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria Officials said last week the attacker was likely a Turkic Uighur, with authorities reportedly looking into the possible existence of a cell, including other jihadists from Central Asia. Uighurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims from the restive Xinjiang region of far-western China. The killer, reportedly known by the code name Ebu Muhammed Horasani, slipped into the night after mowing down 39 revellers at the Reina nightclub just 75 minutes into 2017. Of the 39 killed in the glamourous nightclub on the shores of the Bosphorus, 27 were foreigners including citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq and Morocco At least 35 people have been detained so far in connection with the attack, according to Anadolu. Of the 39 killed in the glamourous nightclub on the shores of the Bosphorus, 27 were foreigners including citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq and Morocco. ISIS claimed the nightclub massacre, the first time it has ever clearly claimed a major attack in Turkey despite being blamed for several strikes including the Istanbul airport bombings. A nurse battling a secret cocaine habit set up a drugs racket of her own using prescription-only medication she looted from NHS hospital wards. Amie Heller, 30, was jailed for three years and eight months after stealing a range of painkiller tablets so she could deal to friends who had been complaining of various problems. The mother-of-one - who complained of feeling 'undervalued' due to her 'extreme shifts, on busy short staffed wards' - plundered the drugs over a period of a month while working at the Royal Blackburn Hospital in Lancashire. She was caught after NHS bosses got an anonymous tip off that she was taking drugs from the hospital and carried out stock checks whilst Heller continued working unaware the net was closing in on her. Amie Heller, 30, pictured, was jailed after admitting stealing prescription medication from hospitals and supplying it to her friends Heller, left and right, had a secret cocaine habit which she funded by selling on the stolen drugs The mother-of-one, pictured, was caught after bosses at Royal Blackburn Hospital were tipped off about her thefts and found discrepancies in medication stocks Investigators found differences between what had been requested from the pharmacy and what had been administered on the wards. Police were called and arrested Heller at the hospital itself as she was about to start a shift. She confessed to having an illicit haul of the sleeping tablet zopiclone which had been stolen from the hospital and also a cache of cocaine in her jewellery box. Police raided her home in Ribchester, near Preston, Lancashire, and found nine snap bags of cocaine, with a street value of 360. One box of prescription medication was also seized - with the labels removed so they could not be linked to the hospital. Officers also examined Heller's iPhone which had texts about the supply of cocaine and prescription medicines - including messages from friends with various ailments asking the nurse if she could get medication for them. It emerged one of Heller's main contacts on the local drugs scene was Jake Lloyd-Haydock - referred to on her phone as 'Jakey work' - who would supply her with cocaine so she could deal it to her friends. Police found nine bags of cocaine, worth around 360 on the street, after raiding Heller's house. She is pictured left and right, in a mugshot Heller, pictured, now faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council In return she would get the drug at reduced rate as part of 'payment in kind.' Police searched Lloyd-Haydock's home and found three ecstasy tablets and 1,000 in cash. At Preston Crown Court, Heller was jailed for three years and eight months after she pleaded guilty to theft by employee between July 1 - July 31, 2015, and four charges of supplying Class B and Class drugs from the hospital namely zopiclone, tramadol, dihydrocodeine and codeine. She also admitted supplying cocaine between December 2014 and July 31 2015 and was ordered to pay 120 surcharges. She now faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Lloyd-Haydock, 26, admitted supplying cocaine and was jailed for two and a half years. Both face a Proceeds of Crime hearing in May during which it is expected they will have to pay back the profits from their crimes. Passing sentence Judge Robert Altham told Heller: 'You need to understand medical professionals stealing drugs from hospitals cannot be tolerated. 'It strikes at the very heart of the business of health care - something you were there to promote. 'You were responsible for diverting drugs that needed to be dished out in a regulated way for people's health and safety and you were putting them into an unregulated distribution. 'You have abused a position of trust to steal drugs from people who were genuinely ill. 'You need to understand that dealing in drugs is a catastrophic trade for those who are customers. It causes crime, child neglect and misery throughout society.' Heller, left and right, claimed in court to have not made any money from the thefts and had only 'passed them on to friends' The court heard Heller, pictured, would deal cocaine for friend Jake Lloyd-Haydock, who she would receive cheaper cocaine from as a 'payment in kind' Preston Crown Court heard Heller, pictured, has now retrained as a beauty therapist The arrests in July 2015 took place two years after Heller became a nurse having earlier attained a 2:1 nursing degree at the University of Central Lancashire. During her course she worked as a care assistant and also in a sandwich bar to help fund her studies. In court, Heller, who has since re-trained as a beauty therapist, claimed she had never made any money from the thefts of the hospital medication and insisted she had only passed them on to friends. She said she merely a 'go-between' for Lloyd-Haydock and his stash of cocaine. Her lawyer Philip Barnes said: 'She had been dealing with the breakdown of her parent's relationship and her own relationship came to an end too. 'She also had a medical worry of her own and was required to give evidence at a coroner's inquiry for the first time over the death of a patient which placed her under a great deal of strain. 'Because of all this she was medicated for depression and stress and at around about the same time she started to use cocaine socially. 'It became apparent to her that people who use one type of drug are often open to taking others and she allowed herself to be used in the supply of those drugs too.' Lloyd-Haydock claimed he had been selling cocaine to fund his own habit. His lawyer Kimberley Obrusik said: 'This is something that all his friends and family are shocked by. He is very ashamed of himself and has shown genuine remorse.' On her LinkedIn page Heller said she was studying Beauty Therapy at Blackburn College. Heller worked as a nurse at Royal Blackburn Hospital, pictured, which she looted for painkillers Police arrested Heller at the hospital, pictured, as she was about to start a shift On her profile she said: 'I have been working as a nurse since I finished my degree in September 2013. I have however decided that I want to work within the beauty industry. 'I am looking at completing an aesthetics course but to provide these treatments on a flexible self employed basis. 'The environment within the beauty industry is exciting, ever changing and glamorous. 'I like to empower women and make people feel good about themselves. Beauty roles don't feel like a chore to me. 'I believe you should enjoy the work you do. It's a big part of your life. 'Work shouldn't be dreaded as is how I felt when I was working extreme shifts, on busy short staffed wards where I felt undervalued. I'm excited at starting a new career. 'It's never too late to learn new things and take new directions in life. Which is something I'm embracing with deep enthusiasm and with a great passion for the industry.' The mother of a serial killer who stabbed three men to death has told how her daughter turned from a happy young girl into a criminal monster. Joanna Dennehy is one of only three women to have been handed a 'whole life' sentence, alongside Moors murderer Myra Hindley and House of Horrors serial killer Rose West. Dennehy murdered Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, Kevin Lee, 48, and John Chapman, 56, before dumping their bodies in ditches near Peterborough in March 2013. Speaking for the first time since their daughter's conviction, her parents Kathleen and Kevin spoken for the first time of their disgust at her crimes. Serial killer Joanna Dennehy poses with a decorative dagger while on the run for murder Her mother Kathleen has spoken about her daughter's horrific crimes for the first time Her mother told of her disbelief that her sweet daughter (left) grew into a vicious killer (right) Her mother said she cannot believe the little girl she brought up could have gone on to commit the killings. Remembering her daughter when she was younger, she said: 'She liked to go to the playground, she was just a happy girl. 'She was very sensitive. If she stood on a worm or something she would be really upset if it died she used to take them to bed with her. So she was a loving girl. 'She was polite to everybody. Teachers always said that she was a nice girl.' But Dennehy then began missing school, drinking, taking drugs and seeing an older man. Her mother added: 'We just wanted her to finish and have some kind of education, and a decent life but she didn't want to know, and neither did he. It just escalated from that.' Her father Kevin said: 'Everybody says your child has a bad period of time, is unruly, so we just thought well that's it she's going to leave home at 15 come back at 18 or 20.' The parents now say they want nothing to do with their daughter and will not see her. Lukasz Slaboszewski (left) was lured to Dennehy's maisonette by suggestive texts, then stabbed through the heart. John Chapman (right) was stabbed to death by Dennehy Her landlord and lover Kevin Lee, 49, was stabbed to death by Dennehy on March 29, 2013 Dennehy, who covered her body in self-harming scars, is pictured dancing on a balcony Police issued this photograph of the knife Dennehy used in her three murders Her mother said: 'For me, she doesn't exist any more because she's destroyed people. I would never want anything to do with her because she's not my Jo. 'The girl that killed those people is not my daughter. My daughter's that nice 14-year-old that never came home.' Dennehy tried to kill two more men in a random act of violence following her three murders. She later pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. After she was arrested, Dennehy told a psychiatrist she had started killing to 'see how it would feel, to see if I was as cold as I thought I was...then it just got more-ish.' Dennehy, was handed the 'life means life' sentence at the Old Bailey in February 2014. The judge branded her a 'cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative' serial killer. The brand new series of Crimes That Shook Britain continues on Sunday 22 January at 9pm, exclusively on CI. In 1969 The Rolling Stones hired the Hells Angels to help out at a free concert at the Altamont Speedway near Oakland, California. The Stones paid the Angels by giving the $500 worth of beer. One of the Hells Angels ended up killing an 18-year-old man. From Wikipedia: Meredith Curly Hunter, Jr. (October 24, 1951 December 6, 1969) was an 18-year-old African-American man who was killed at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. During the performance by The Rolling Stones, Hunter approached the stage, and was violently driven off by members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who had been contracted to serve as security guards. He subsequently returned to the stage area, drew a revolver, and was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro. In the above video, Stones drummer Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger listen to Hells Angel leader Sonny Barger give his side of the story. And in this video, Mick Jagger reviews a film of the killing: Northern Ireland's politicians were warned not to destroy the Good Friday agreement tonight as they fight out a snap election called for March 2. James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland Secretary, was obligated to trigger the poll at 5pm a week after Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister in the power-sharing executive. He said nobody should 'underestimate the challenge' faced in the province and said the election must be fought with a view to all sides striking a deal when the results are in. Sinn Fein refused to replace Mr McGuinness before a seven day deadline expired tonight, leaving the devolved government led by DUP leader Arlene Foster in tatters. Former first minister Mrs Foster earlier struck a defiant note, blaming Sinn Fein for collapsing the government after she refused to resign over a botched renewable energy scheme. The Northern Ireland peace deal requires both unionists and republicans to share power in an executive and it cannot function if one side walks out. Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire warned about the scale of the challenge facing the province tonght. Mr Brokenshire warned: 'No one should underestimate the challenge to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland or what is at stake. 'While it is inevitable debate during an election period will be intense, I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll. 'This is essential to the operation of devolved government and this means all must remain open to dialogue. 'The Government continues to stand firmly behind its commitment to the Belfast Agreement (The Good Friday Agreement) and its successors and our responsibilities to safeguard political stability here in Northern Ireland.' Northern Ireland's ministers will continue in a caretaker capacity until the elections end but if the impasse is not resolved, direct rule from London could be reimposed for the first time in a decade. There will be a three week window after the March 2 elections for the two sides to strike a new political arrangement. Northern Ireland has not been ruled directly from London since 2007 after a deal for the current version of power sharing was struck after years of dispute. Political crises have been a regular feature of Ulster politics but the situation has not descended into such acrimony for a decade. The current row is over a botched renewable energy scheme Mrs Foster set up as an energy minister that cost 490million. Sinn Fein said she should have quit as First Minister over the scandal. DUP leader Arlene Foster, pictured in the Stormont assembly building today, blamed Sinn Fein for forcing elections on Northern Ireland as a snap poll appeared inevitable after the worst outbreak of political discord in a decade Mrs Foster said earlier: 'Now more than ever, Northern Ireland needs stable government. 'We as a party have done all that we can to maintain government in the Northern Ireland assembly so that the real issues like health, education and Brexit are addressed. 'But instead of trying to work with us, as we have done so many times in the past with Sinn Fein, they have chosen to pursue political self interest. 'They did not like the election result last May and therefore they are looking to have another go.' Mrs Foster said Sinn Fein had 'forced' a poll on Northern Ireland that 'suits nobody'. She vowed: 'We want to see devolution working and we will seek a mandate for the strongest possible unionist voice after the elections, whether it is in a restored assembly or in to fresh political negotiations.' Sinn Fein chief Martin McGuinness, pictured arriving at Stormont today, exploded a political row by quitting as deputy first minister last Monday Mrs Foster said Northern Ireland faced having no working assembly during the triggering of Article 50 by Theresa May and the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Mrs Foster said an inquiry would resolve the issues over the energy scheme without a need for an election. At a meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Sinn Fein MLA Michelle O'Neill said her part would not back down. She said: 'The DUP have treated these institutions and sections of the community with contempt and arrogance.' She added: 'Today Sinn Fein will not re-nominate for the position of deputy first minister.' Ms O'Neill said Sinn Fein would only return to government if there was 'real and meaningful change'. Mrs Foster told the Assembly she had agreed to be renominated as first minister. Speaker Robin Newton said both ministers needed to be in post for their office to function. 'Those requirements have not been met and the office of the first minister and deputy first minister must remain vacant,' he said. Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, pictured on yesterday's Andrew Marr programme, ordered snap elections tonight Prime Minister Theresa May phoned both Mrs Foster and Mr McGuinness earlier today in a last-ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the devolved administration. The Prime Minister's official spokeswoman said Mrs May wanted to make sure Northern Ireland has 'a voice' in the run-up to the start of EU withdrawal talks - expected to be triggered by the end of March with the invocation of Article 50 of the European Union treaties. Mrs May's spokeswoman told a regular Westminster media briefing: 'She spoke to both Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness to encourage them to use what time was left today to try to find a resolution to the situation in Northern Ireland, outlining the importance of finding a way forward - particularly in the context of wanting to make sure that Northern Ireland has a voice in the UK's exit from the European Union as we approach the critical period before triggering Article 50.' The spokeswoman said the Government hoped to continue with planned meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee - which brings together ministers and officials from the UK Government and the devolved administrations - to discuss Brexit, even if Stormont is plunged into elections. The next scheduled meeting of a JMC sub-committee is due to take place on Thursday. Sinn Fein has accused the DUP of 'arrogance and disrespect' in office and insisted republicans will only enter another executive if its long-term coalition partners give way on a series of 'equality issues', such as the Irish language and gay rights. At least half of the 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees coming to Australia will be settled in a trouble-prone area of southwest Sydney with high unemployment and drug use. Cabramatta became the heroin capital of Australia during the 1990s, as the children of Vietnamese refugees turned to crime. Now Fairfield City Council will be home to half of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees coming to Australia, 40 years after Vietnamese boat people first moved there. Iraqis are already the largest group of new migrants in the area, and are set to entrench their dominance in some of Sydney's poorest suburbs. Cabramatta in west Sydney will be home to half of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees coming to Australia, 40 years after Vietnamese boat people first moved there Thousands of asylum seekers are getting on boats to escape the conflict in Iraq and Syria (Migrants landing on the Greek island of Lesbos in October 2015 pictured) The area is home to more than 200,000 people, mainly from non-English speaking backgrounds. Iraqi-born residents make up more than a third of the recent arrivals, which is more than 10 times the Sydney average of three per cent. They are even more numerous than the Vietnamese, who make up about a quarter of Fairfield City Council's new residents. The council, which last year settled 3000 humanitarian arrivals from Syria and Iraq, has been told it will be doing so again in 2017, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Newly-arrived Syrian refugees walk into Turkey in September 2014, a year before Australia announced it would be settling 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees Vietnamese refugees at Sydney airport in December 1977, in the years after the fall of Saigon Vietnamese asylum seekers from the nation's south arrived in Darwin in December 1977 That means it will be settling 6,000 refugees, or half of the 12,000 Syrians and Iraqis coming to Australia to escape war and Islamic State terrorism. The Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils said local governments needed more information on refugees coming to the area. 'In the past, councils have received very limited information on incoming refugees,' the group's president Stephen Bali told Fairfax Media. Fairfield has settled 75 per cent of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees moving to western Sydney. The area, more than 30 kilometres from central Sydney, is considered to contain some of the world's most ethnically-diverse suburbs Fairfield City Council was home to 4,312 recently-arrived migrants from Iraq in the 2011 Census The area already has an unemployment rate of 9.1 per cent, which is significantly higher than the national average of 5.6 per cent. Fairfield City Council was home to 4,312 recently-arrived migrants from Iraq in the 2011 Census but their numbers are expected to grow when data from the 2016 Census is released. There were only 204 recent arrivals from Syria but those numbers are likely to multiple. The area, more than 30 kilometres from central Sydney, is considered to contain some of the world's most ethnically-diverse suburbs. It's also had its fair share of crime. Asylum seekers fight at a stretched processing camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in October 2015 Vietnamese refugee Phuong Ngo (pictured right) is serving a life sentence for ordering the assassination of Labor MP John Newman in 1994 Former councillor Phuong Ngo, a Vietnamese refugee, is serving a life sentence for ordering the killing of New South Wales Labor MP John Newman in 1994, which was considered to be Australia's first political assassination. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton last year insisted the Australian government had done extensive background checks on the Syrian and Iraqi refugees coming to Australia. Former prime minister Tony Abbott announced in September 2015 that Australia would take 12,000 humanitarian refugees from Syria and Iraq, shortly before Malcolm Turnbull took his job. Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs Zed Seselja confirmed locations had been chosen across Australia to settle the Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Ivanka Trump attended a dinner last Thursday with a group of female leaders to discuss women's economic empowerment, suggesting that she will be focusing her energies on these issues after she moves to Washington DC this week. The dinner was held at the $34m penthouse apartment of her close friend Wendi Deng, and among the invitees who turned up to give Ivanka advice were Tory Burch, Mika Brzezinski, Tina Brown, Christy Turlington Burns, and former White House press secretary Dana Perino. Pattie Sellers, the executive director of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit, was another guest at the dinner, and wrote about the evening for Fortune. 'Trump explained that she wanted to learn from the efforts of leaders in their fields,' said Sellers. 'We talked about entrepreneurship, equal pay, paid leave, and a lot about where the Donald Trump Administration may have the most opportunity: education.' Scroll down for video Private party: Ivanka Trump attended a dinner last Thursday at the $34m penthouse apartment of her good friend Wendi Deng (Ivanka and Deng above in 2015) VIP: Among those in attendance were Tory Burch (left), Mika Brzezinski, Tina Brown, Christy Turlington Burns (right), and former White House press secretary Dana Perino Also on hand Thursday night was Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell, who the Trump team announced earlier that same day would be joining the administration in a senior role focused on entrepreneurship, economic growth and the empowerment of women. It is expected that Ivanka will now be working closely with Powell once her father is in the White House. Powell put the dinner together on Thursday, and was in charge of coming up with the guest list for the event. Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, Time managing editor Nancy Gibbs, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert, and Xerox chairman Ursula Burns also attended the event. The group was not entirely female either, with Ford Foundation president Darren Walker and National Urban League CEO Marc Morial on hand as well for the invite-only dinner. Ivanka has yet to officially reveal what her plans are once her father takes office, but did say last Wednesday that her first priority once she moved would be to settle her family into their new residence while her husband Jared Kushner begins his new job as a senior advisor to her father, for which he will not be paid. She has already busied herself working behind the scenes by phoning members of Congress in an attempt to rally support for childcare proposals. including tax-free childcare accounts and childcare deductions for families making under $500,000 a year. Ivanka reportedly told the women at the dinner on Thursday that this effort was a priority for her father once he enters office later this week. Great minds: Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive, Time managing editor Nancy Gibbs (above with Ivanka in October), IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert, and Xerox chairman Ursula Burns also attended the event Recap: 'We talked about entrepreneurship, equal pay, paid leave, and a lot about where the Donald Trump Administration may have the most opportunity: education,' said guest Pattie Sellers (above with Ivanka in 2015) Trump's oldest daughter also confirmed last Wednesday that she had stepped down from her senior position at the Trump Organization and put her eponymous fashion brand in the hands of the chief brand officer for the company, Abigail Klem. The decision of the married mother-of-three to step down from her jobs seemed to confirm the long-held belief that she will be performing some of the duties which are normally assigned to the first lady while her father is in office. She will certainly be the most visible first daughter that has ever been in the White House, and a source close to the family tells DailyMail.com that she is taking that role 'very seriously' at this time. 'She want to be respectful,' added the source. There have been numerous indications over the past few weeks that Ivanka would be taking a role in the White House. The most notable of these was the news earlier this month that the family would be moving into a $5.5million home in the District's Kalorama neighborhood. One week later, Trump announced that Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner would be joining his staff as a senior advisor. It is unclear however if the couple bought the six-bedroom residence or will just be renting the home, which was sold just before the holidays to an unknown buyer. The Trump-Kushners will now be just two blocks away from the home of Barack and Michelle Obama, who are moving to the neighborhood after next week so that their younger daughter Sasha can finish high school in the city. New digs: Ivanka will be moving into a $5.5million home (above) in Washington DC's Kalorama neighborhood this week Unpaid job: Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner (aboive with Mike Pence last month) will begin work as an advisor to Trump on Friday The Trump Organization meanwhile will be run by her two oldest brothers, Donald Jr. and Eric. Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric were the only three members of the family who were present on Wednesday for their father's first press conference, during which he revealed his plans for the future of the company once he starts work in the Oval Office. Trump's lawyer Sheri Dillon stated that the president-elect would be putting control of the multi-billion dollar business in the hands of his two sons and longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg. What Dillon described as the 'wall that we are building between President-elect Trump and the Trump Organization' was later criticized by the Director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. 'I need to talk about ethics today because the plan the President-elect has announced doesn't meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every President in the past four decades has met,' said Walter M. Shaub Jr. 'My hope is that, if the Office of Government Ethics can provide some constructive feedback on his plan, he may choose to make adjustments that will resolve his conflicts of interest.' Dozens of people gatecrashed a house party after details were posted on Facebook and police were forced to rush to the address when it got out of hand. Officers came to the aid of the host to remove the unwanted visitors on Saturday night at the house in Crumpsall, near Manchester. There was damage to the house and nearby cars after the 16-year-old's party spiralled out of control. Officers rushed to the address near Manchester when a 16-year-old's party got out of hand after details of the event were posted on Facebook It led police to issue an official warning against posting details of parties on social media, reports the Manchester Evening News. On the Greater Manchester Police North page, officers said: 'If you're having a party invite your friends, family, neighbours and maybe your co-workers. But don't advertise it on Facebook or social media! 'Tonight your local police officers attended a party. 'There was no pass the parcel, no dancing or drinks for our team. 'We had to deal with a very large number of people who turned up to a party advertised on Facebook. DO YOU KNOW WHOSE PARTY IT WAS? Email james.r.dunn@mailonline.co.uk or call 0203 615 1524 Advertisement 'There were neighbours who ended up with damaged cars too. 'While we like parties we would rather be protecting our residents in North Manchester instead of moving large crowds out of the area. 'Please think before you post.' On Twitter, officers on the GMP City Centre account added: 'Couple of city patrols sent across to Crumpsall where 16 yr old's house party got advertised on FB with predictable results. 'City patrols have now left it with their colleagues from North Manchester who have dispersed the gate crashers.' A healthy young mother suffered catastrophic blood loss as she fed her newborn baby for the first time and died hours later because of ' failures, inadequate diagnosis and treatment' by doctors, a coroner ruled today. Frances Cappuccini, 30, died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, shortly after giving birth to her second son, Giacomo, by Caesearean section. The school teacher, nicknamed 'Mrs Coffee' by pupils because of her surname, suffered heavy bleeding, went into cardiac arrest and died at 4.20pm on October 9 2012. Coroner Roger Hatch has delivered a damning assessment of the unacceptable hospital failures she suffered before her death. Today Mr Cappuccini was in court with Frances' parents at the end of the 10-day inquest and said in a statement: 'Failures of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and those employed by the Trust cost Frankie her life. Nothing can heal that pain'. She was cradling her newborn who was feeding for the first time when she felt a 'gush of blood' caused by a piece of placenta left behind after the c-section and lost four pints of blood almost half the amount in her body. Frances never woke from emergency surgery to stop the bleeding having told her husband Tom: 'I love you - if anything happens just make sure you look after the boys.' Tragedy: Frances Cappuccini, 30, died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, shortly after giving birth to her son, Giacomo, by Caesearean section Much loved: The teacher never woke from emergency surgery to stop the bleeding having told her husband Tom (right today): 'I love you - if anything happens just make sure you look after the boys' Heartbroken: Frances' family leaving the inquest today after saying in a statement: 'At least today, after over four years, the truth is acknowledged Speaking on behalf of the family solicitor Kate Rohde said today: 'Frankie was a wonderful wife, mother, daughter and sister. She was bubbly, intelligent, beautiful, loving and much loved. 'At least today, after over four years, the truth is acknowledged.' Mrs Cappuccini was left waiting for potentially life saving drugs and a doctor probably removed her ventilation tube before she was able to breathe unaided, the inquest heard. In January 2015 Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was cleared of corporate manslaughter for her death and charges of gross negligence were dropped against anaesthetist Errol Cornish. Dr Nadeem Azeez fled the country but charges against him were later dropped. But four and half years after her death senior coroner Roger Hatch today ruled her death was the result of hospital failures following a two-week hearing at Gravesend Old Town Hall. He said: 'As a result of my findings I propose to record that the death of Frances Cappuccini was a result of failures and inadequate diagnosis and treatment of her at Tunbridge Wells Hospital on October 8 and 9 2012.' He said expert evidence revealed she was likely suffering from sepsis and kidney injury from when she first arrived at hospital on October 8 - something which doctors consistently failed to diagnose or treat. Primary school teacher Frances Cappuccini (left) died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital, Kent, in 2012. Dr Errol Cornish (pictured leaving court, right), a consultant anaesthetist, was cleared of gross negligence manslaughter The inquest heard how Mrs Cappuccini had booked a Caesarean after a traumatic birth with her first son Luca - then aged four. Doctor shouldn't have been left unsupervised, coroner says Dr Nadeem Azeez (pictured), who fled to Lahore, had probably taken the ventilation tube out before Mrs Cappuccini was able to breathe unaided Coroner Roger Hatch cited a 'failure with extubating' after surgery and a subsequent delay in re-intubating by anaesthetist Dr Nadeem Azeez as a factor which led to the emergency situation - after it was revealed she may have not been breathing properly following an emergency operation to stem the haemorrhage. He refused to accept evidence from Dr Azeez claiming she was 'breathing, moving her arms and responding' after the anaesthetic. He also said Dr Azeez was involved in a similar incident previously and should have been under 'proper supervision on October 9.' An international arrest warrant was issued for Dr Azeez, who fled to his native Pakistan before the charges were eventually dropped. In a statement heard on Monday, Dr Azeez sent his condolences to Mrs Cappuccini's family, adding: 'Unfortunately my best was not good enough to prevent her tragic death.' He revealed he had suffered from 'depression, insomnia and flashbacks' and said he had decided to relinquish his registration as a doctor. The inquest heard he had last provided a statement in February 2014 and had not been contactable since. Advertisement But when she arrived at hospital in October 8 in spontaneous labour doctors and nurses encouraged her to try for a natural birth. She endured 12 hours of gruelling labour before finally being rushed for a c section. Frances was cradling her newborn who was feeding for the first time when she felt a 'gush of blood'. She was eventually taken for an emergency procedure to stop the bleeding - where doctors found a 'raggedy' piece of placenta in her uterine cavity. Sadly the mum never came around from the general anaesthetic and died just hours after the birth of son. In his conclusions the coroner said the Caesarean section 'was not carried out with care' and the piece of placenta should not have been left behind. 'The result of this failure led directly to the subsequent series of events which tragically ended in the death of Frances Cappuccini,' he added. He also criticised the management of fluid levels and said the treatment of a post-partum haemorrhage which was not managed in accordance with the trust's protocols. He said he did not think Frances was pressured into trying for a natural birth, although evidence from her husband said she had arrived at hospital 'certain' she wanted an immediate Caesarean. The family declined to comment on whether they had negotiated a compensation settlement with the Trust. A Trust spokesman said: 'Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust wishes to extend its deepest sympathies to the family of Frances Cappuccini. 'Patient safety remains of paramount importance to the Trust. The Trust has however recognised from the start that there were aspects of Frances' care what fell short of the standards the Trust would expect and we wish once again to sincerely apologise to the family for this. 'As a first result of Frances' tragic death, the trust has made a number of changes to its processes that have further improved patient safety and experience. 'The trust will carefully consider all of the evidence heard at the inquest to ensure that any necessary changes which have not already been made are fully addressed.' Inquest: Mrs Cappuccini, 30, died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, pictured Consultant anaesthetist Dr Errol Cornish told an inquest into her death that stimulator drugs were not available to him in the operating theatre and precious minutes were wasted waiting for them. It took five minutes for the first stimulator to arrive but when that failed to work, there was another delay of five minutes until the second dose was delivered. Dr Cornish explained that the drugs were needed because Mrs Cappuccini was not breathing and the nerve stimulator would bring her around. The inquest, at Gravesend Old Town Hall in Kent, also heard how Dr Cornish left an operation to rush to the schoolteacher's aid after Dr Nadeem Azeez failed to rouse her. The tragic death of 'Mrs Coffee' and her family's fight for justice October 2012: Teacher Frances Cappuccini arrived at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent to give birth to her second baby. She requested a Caesarean section but instead went through 12 hours of labour before finally being given surgery at 8.30am the next day. Mrs Cappucini died on October 9, 2012, just hours after giving birth to her second son Giacomo. February 2014: The inquest into her death, held at West Kent Coroner's Court in Sevenoaks, was halted when it became apparent that criminal charges could be brought following the tragedy. March 2015: Kent Police revealed that two doctors and the NHS Trust would face charges. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust made legal history by becoming the first NHS trust to face corporate manslaughter charges. Dr Errol Cornish, the consultant anaesthetist who treated Mrs Cappuccini, had gross negligence manslaughter charges brought against him. Another doctor Nadeem Azeez - who flew to Pakistan following the incident - was also charged. January 2016: The case was dropped at the Inner Crown Court. Mr Justice Peter Coulson QC stopped the trial of South African-born consultant anaesthetist Dr Cornish and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, saying it would be 'unsafe and unfair' to go on. January 2017: The inquest resumed this year, starting on January 3 and lasting 10 days, ending today. Advertisement He suggested that Dr Azeez, the anaesthetist in charge of the new mother, had removed her ventilation tube too early. Dr Cornish told an inquest he has thought about what happened every day since then, and concluded that the teacher's death was 'not inevitable'. He recalled how he decided in a 'nanosecond' to ask for 'urgent help' from an on-call anaesthetist and expected it to arrive in 'maybe five minutes'. But it took between 35 and 40 minutes to come a delay that he agreed was 'manifestly unsatisfactory'. The white-haired South African and Dr Azeez both faced gross negligence manslaughter charges after Mrs Cappuccini's death at Tunbridge Wells Hospital, Kent, in October 2012. An international arrest warrant was issued for Dr Azeez, who fled to his native Pakistan before the charges were eventually dropped. Dr Cornish told the inquest that Dr Azeez had told him Mrs Cappuccini had been 'breathing well' and had also moved her arms. But he said in hindsight this was 'extremely unlikely' and said the anaesthetist had 'lulled him into a false sense of security'. He said: 'I don't think he told me half of the truth. He never told me about the blood loss. His recollection of Mrs Cappuccini breathing well and moving her arms it just doesn't fit with the rest of the picture.' He agreed that Dr Azeez had probably taken the ventilation tube out before Mrs Cappuccini was able to breathe unaided. The doctor who has worked in around 20 UK hospitals also revealed he had no idea he was supposed to have been supervising the junior anaesthetist that day. He said he had never met him before and 'did not have a clue' about his abilities or experience. The senior doctor also said he had to leave a patient on the operating table to help Dr Azeez, something he had 'never done' in 20 years as an anaesthetist. He said: 'It goes against many years of my training to leave my patients. It was a very traumatic decision to have to make.' Yet he described Dr Azeez's demeanour as 'quietly silent', adding: 'He was calmish. He did not appear agitated. He didn't seem anxious or worried.' The senior anaesthetist told the inquest that he had been troubled by the teacher's death ever since. He said: 'Not one single day has gone through my life when I haven't gone through every aspect of this unfortunate episode. Every single day I have thought about it and wished it had gone differently. Nick Kyrgios has suffered a nose bleed and sneezed uncontrollably mid-match at the Australian Open, as his mother opened up about media attention. The 14th seed made it through to the second round, despite a nose bleed hitting mid-match against Gastao Elias, of Portugal, at the Hisense Arena in Melbourne. Kyrgios, 21, said bad sinuses brought on the nose bleed, which medics controlled by sticking something up his nostrils and caused him to sneeze. Scroll down for video Nick Kyrgios suffered a nose bleed mid-match against Gastao Elias, from Portugal The 21-year-old sneezed uncontrollably when medics treated his nose bleed on Monday 'I've always had a problem with blood noses. I've got bad sinuses, so I get that a lot,' Kyrgios said. He winced in pain after receiving treatment from the tournament trainer but showed no ill-effects as he brushed past Portugal's world No.81 for the loss of only five games. 'They put some wood in there,' Kyrgios said. 'I don't know what it is but it makes me sneeze. It's okay - it helps and it stops the bleeding.' The 14th seed returns a shot to Elias during their first round match at the Australian Open 'I've always had a problem with blood noses. I've got bad sinuses, so I get that a lot,' Kyrgios said He suffered the nose bleed in the second set and ignored lingering knee pain to take victory against Elias 6-1 6-2 6-2. Kyrgios took the opening set in just 19 minutes and will progress to the second round against Italian Andreas Seppi. The win came as the 14th seed's mum, Nill, said the family is still learning how to live with media attention. '[Media headlines] used bother us a lot at the beginning because we're learning ourselves because we've never been in this position,' Nill said, according to Daily Telegraph. Kyrgios now believes he can prove Roger Federer wrong after the Swiss great questioned if he was ready to string seven best-of-five-set wins together on one of the sport's biggest stages. Kyrgios is pictured sneezing after medics put something in his nose to curb the bleeding He suffered a nose bleed in the second set and ignored lingering knee pain to take victory against Elias 6-1 6-2 6-2 Kyrgios gestures during his match against Elias at the Australian Open 'Doesn't bother me at all. I know he's the greatest of all time,' Kyrgios said. 'I know I just want to do my own thing. I played him once, I beat him once. 'If I didn't think I'd win it, why would I play? I think I can win it. I've beaten pretty much everyone in the draw before. So I think so.' The rapid-fire win was the perfect start for Kyrgios, the 2013 Open boys' champion, 2015 men's quarter-finalist and bonafide title contender in 2017. 'Just the way I got through the match pretty fast, I think I reserved a lot of energy,' Kyrgios said. 'I don't know what it is but it makes me sneeze. It's okay - it helps and it stops the bleeding,' Kyrgios said He winced in pain after receiving treatment from the tournament trainer but showed no ill-effects as he brushed past Portugal's world No.81 for the loss of only five games Kyrgios reacts during play against Elias of Portugal during the Australian Open Kyrgios signs his autograph on a camera after winning the first round 'I can feel it [the knee], I've had great treatment for it with a great team that's been helping me manage it. 'I've done everything I can and I played all right tonight so hopefully we can keep that going. 'The crowd was awesome today and that's why I request this court, 'cause it's my favourite court. I love getting here,' Kyrgios said. Next up for Kyrgios on Wednesday is Andreas Seppi, the Italian he beat at the same stage two years ago en route to the last 16. Next up for Kyrgios on Wednesday is Andreas Seppi, the Italian he beat at the same stage two years ago en route to the last 16 Kyrgios is pictured getting medical attention to stop a nose bleed Kyrgios sneezed uncontrollably on Monday through the nose bleed The support team for Kyrgios is pictured watching the first round match against Elias The 21-year-old reacts during his match against Elias on Monday Kyrgios reacts on Monday during play at the Australian Open The 14th seed gestures during play in the first round at Hisense Arena Kyrgios signs autographs after winning against Elias of Portugal Rony Otoniel Mendez, 26, was jailed on Friday in Tampa, Florida, for repeatedly raping the child A Guatemalan man has been jailed for life for raping and impregnating an 10-year-old girl. Rony Otoniel Mendez was jailed without parole in Tampa, Florida, last Friday for repeatedly attacking the girl in her mother's bedroom between 2013 and 2014. The abuse began when she was just nine and was revealed when doctors discovered she was pregnant during a visit to hospital. A DNA test later proved Mendez was the baby's father. The 26-year-old was extradited back to the US last year after fleeing to his native Guatemala when he suspected he would be arrested. He was convicted of three sexual battery charges and one charge of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12 in Tampa on Friday and given three life sentences without the possibility of parole, The Ledger reports. Mendez was 23 when he first abused the girl, who was nine at the time, by fondling her breasts through her clothes in 2013. On three separate occasions the following year, he raped her in her mother's bedroom while she was at work. Polk County Sheriff's Office revealed last year that he told the child not to tell anyone about the abuse because 'they would both be in trouble'. The girl's mother took her to hospital in 2014 concerned when she began vomiting. She believed the symptoms had been caused by recent vaccinations. Mendez told the girl they would both 'be in trouble' if she told anyone about the abuse Mendez fled to his native Guatemala after the abuse became known to authorities. Guatemala City is pictured above Doctors tested the child's urine as part of a routine work-up and discovered she was pregnant. The girl initially denied ever having been raped by Mendez despite her mother's suspicions. Mendez was given three life sentences without parole for each of the rapes Before police could get to him, Mendez fled the country after being confronted by the girl's mother on the phone. He even went to their home to retrieve some of his belongings before going on the run. After he had left the country, the girl admitted to having been abused. Mendez was arrested by the FBI in Guatemala in April last year and extradited back to Florida to face the charges. On Friday, he did not speak and required a translator throughout proceedings. His lawyer, public defender Marlisa DeMond, attempted to undermine the girl's testimony. She said the child had been 'encouraged' by officials to give details of the sexual abuse and that her versions of events were inconsistent. A jury took less than two hours to convict the sexual predator. Mendez's immigrant status in the US is not clear. According to US Immigration law, a non-citizen can face deportation if he or she has committed an 'aggravated felony'. There is no specific list of crimes to match the description and cases are reviewed individually. Advertisement This is the amazing house which was created using a former jumbo jet to build the ultimate dream home. An imaginative architect was flying high when he designed this mansion - made out of a former passenger jet. David Hertz spotted the scrap Boeing 747 and paid $26,000 and used it to build this stunning house in the remote hills of Malibu, California. Hertz, from Los Angeles, was tasked by Francie Rehwald who wanted curves and feminine shapes for her dream house. This is the amazing home built in the Californian hills by architect David Hertz using a scrapped Boeing 747 jumbo jet Hertz was commissioned to build the house by Francie Rehwald who paid $26,000 for the former passenger jet The large wing sections from the Boeing 747 were carried into place by a Chinook helicopter - made by Boeing Rehwald interviewed 12 architects before deciding on David Hertz Architects, and spent 15 years searching the globe for the perfect piece of land. All Hertz had to do was look to the skies for his inspiration - coming up with the idea when he was on an aeroplane. Rehwald even had to get permission from 17 government agencies - including Homeland Security - to build the house, as from the sky it looks like a plane crash. Rehwald had to secure permission from federal agencies for her home's design as it looks like a plane has crashed from the air As a result of the innovative design and location, the house has unbelievable views over the Malibu hills The giant sections of wing were moved around the construction site using a mobile crane and eased into their resting places Inside, the house has incredibly high ceilings and wide open spaces - taking advantage of the remote location The retired Mercedes Benz dealer said: 'I wanted something that was feminine. 'You might not think wings are feminine, but once they were detached from the place they really come into their own. 'They have such subtle curves.' Hertz's brief was an economical, feminine house with a floating roof. He said: 'I was flying and looking out at the wing, thinking about what I could do to float a roof. 'Then it occurred to me, why try to build a wing when I can appropriate a wing?' Rehwald interviewed 12 architects before deciding upon Hertz and spent 15 years searching for the ideal spot for the house Rehwald said the aircraft was perfect for her new home as the curved wings were very feminine The former passenger jet, pictured, cost Rehwald $26,000, although she would not reveal how much the Malibu house cost Rehwald - who refused to say exactly how much it cost to build, only hinting it was in the millions - added: 'No one had ever built anything like this before. 'There were a lot of surprises that brought the cost up, but it's just beautiful.' The mansion sits on 55 acres and is 1,000 feet above sea level. It used two Boeing wings and two tail fins, which were detached from the plane using the latest precision technology. The astonishing property sits on 55 acres of land and suitably for a former jet, it is now permanently 1,000 feet above sea level Officials were forced to close down five freeways to allow the heavy-duty Chinook to carry the wings across the road safely During the journey, the pilots were under orders to drop the wings if they were caught by the wind and risked the helicopter They were then transported to the mansion via helicopter, after having to close five freeways to get them partway there. Hertz said: 'There was a lot of risk with the helicopter. 'It was clear when we were transporting the wings that if they started to turn or catch the wind, they would just drop them.' Rehwald added: 'Every day is a complete and utter joy and I feel so lucky.' In this bedroom, the wing section provides the ceiling while the owner can look over the Californian hills from their bed The house used the aircraft's two wings and sections from its tail to create the unusual house in the hills The former Mercedes dealer spent 15 years looking for the perfect location to build their ideal home using the jet The floor-to-ceiling windows provide unbelievable views across the hills surrounding Malibu in California The interior of the building looks very modern with curved staircases bringing you to the upper level Fears are growing for the 16-year-old cousin of a BBC documentary star who vanished a week ago after going to visit a friend. Morgan Williams, 16, from High Wycombe, went missing in Marylebone in London, where her mother Tania Findlay, 34, had gone to collect her last Monday evening around 6pm. Mrs Findlay did not hear from her daughter until the following day, when she messaged her on Facebook to say she had been robbed in Camberwell and had gone to stay at a friend's house. Since then she has not heard from her daughter - who turned 16 in December - and is 'worried sick'. Morgan Williams vanished after telling her mother she had been robbed in Camberwell Morgan was seen in Dalston (pictured), around 8.45pm on Wednesday evening Mrs Findlay, a project manager, said she was at her 'wits end' after launching a desperate search for her daughter. She told the Bucks Free Press: 'She wasn't in trouble, we hadn't had a row, and there was no reason for her not to come home, there still isn't. 'I just want her to know that we love her and are so very worried. She isn't in any trouble; she just needs to come home so we know she's safe.' She told MailOnline: 'She has never done anything like this before.' Morgan Williams, 16, from High Wycombe, went missing in Marylebone in London, last Monday evening Morgan had been with friends in Elephant and Castle last Monday. She called her mother in the evening to say she was on her way home and needed collecting from Marylebone train station. However when she had not heard from her by 7pm, she tried texting and calling but there was no answer. She then called the police. The next day, Mrs Findlay received a Facebook message from Morgan to explain she had been robbed and so had stayed at a friend's house. But she was then seen in Dalston, in north London, around 8.45pm on Wednesday January 11, police told MailOnline. Morgan is the cousin of body-positive internet queen Grace Victory, who has made BBC Three documentaries on clean eating and puppy farming. Grace tweeted yesterday to say there had been a sighting of the GCSE pupil but she and the men she was with ran away after being seen. She wrote: 'My cousin has been spotted near Marylebone Station with 2 black men (around 30). They are all reportedly wearing hoodies. When approached, they apparently ran. 'This is so stressful but at least she's been given clothes and is alive. I will keep you updated when she's found.' Morgan is the cousin of body-positive internet queen Grace Victory (pictured right) Morgan was last seen wearing a black tracksuit, a Nike jumper, was possibly wearing black trainers and was carrying a cream-coloured holdall. Thames Valley Police has since issued an appeal to help trace the teen. Investigating officer Sergeant Hayley McEvoy, leading the search, said: 'I would like to hear from anyone who has any information about Morgan's whereabouts as we are understandably concerned for her due to her age and the length of time she has been missing. 'If anyone recognises someone fitting Morgan's description, please come forward and speak to officers. 'Morgan, if you see this appeal, you are not in any trouble however please call the police so we can check you are OK.' Anyone with any information about Morgan's whereabouts should contact the 24-hour Thames Valley Police enquiry centre on 101. A 39-year-old surfer from Florida has drowned in Puerto Rico amid rough seas. Police say Michael Wallace Wright was surfing in the western town of Rincon on Sunday when his leash broke and he was swept away by a current. Authorities say his brother, who is also a surfer, saw what happened and alerted police. Officials say they did not know the hometown of the victim. Authorities had warned of high surf over the weekend. Michael Wallace Wright was surfing in the western town of Rincon on Sunday when his leash broke and he was swept away by a current. Above is a stock image of a surfer in Rincon The drowning was first reported to authorities on the island at 1:09pm on Sunday, according to WOLE 12. Wright is reported to have drowned near a lighthouse located just off Highway 413. He was said to have been surfing in the area and was 'blown away by the sea currents.' Wright is believed to have been swept away from his surfboard and the safety cable attached to it. He was reported to have been surfing with his brother, who alerted authorities to his disappearance. Wright's body was spotted by local firefighters and extricated from the water. The drowning is being investigated by authorities. We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. We all love to relax at home, right? But to truly feel comfortable in your home, you need to create the perfect atmosphere. Of course, that means different things for different READ THE REST President-elect Donald Trump prayed with the son of Martin Luther King Jr. at Trump Tower Monday, just days after the president-elect went after civil rights icon John Lewis on Twitter as someone who was 'all talk.' Trump 'prayed with Martin Luther King III & discussed the legacy & work of his father #martinlutherkingday #MLKDAY' tweeted incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicier Monday afternoon. Spicer included a photograph of Trump flashing a 'thumbs up' and posing next to King in front of a wall of grip-and-grin photos inside Trump's Trump Tower office. Included on Trump's 'me wall' are photos of him with John F. Kennedy Jr. and Ronald Reagan, and a 1990 copy of Playboy Magazine with Trump on the cover. A source who was at the meeting said it had opened with a prayer about 'healing the nation', the Washington Post reported. The prayer and reflection came on a day when Trump hailed the 'wonderful things' that King stood for following a nasty online spat with civil Lewis, who is skipping Trump's inauguration after saying his election was 'not legitimate'. INNSER SANCTUN: Trump posed with Martin Luther King III inside his Trump Tower office, in a shot sent out by incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer HAND OF PEACE: President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with Martin Luther King III after their meeting at Trump Tower Monday. 'We are a great nation, and we must become a greater nation,' King said President-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to members of the media after meeting with Martin Luther King III Trump escorted Martin Luther King III to the lobby of Trump tower following their meeting, then got back in an elevator as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s oldest son addressed the cameras. Asked if he was 'offended' by Trump's tweets hitting Lewis of Georgia, King tried to downplay the situation, and even used words that echoed Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan. 'In the heat of emotion, a lot of things get said on both sides. And I think that at some point, I am, as John Lewis and many others are, a bridge builder. The goal is to bring America together and Americans,' King said. 'We are a great nation, and we must become a greater nation,' King said. King said that at their meeting Trump said 'That he is going to represent Americans. He said that over and over again. And I think that we will continue to evaluate that.' 'I believe that that's his intent. But I think also we have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure. It doesn't happen automatically. My father and his team understood that, did that,' he added. 'Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for,' Trump tweeted on Monday. He also met the revered civil rights leader's son at Trump Tower Pressed about Trump's online statement that civil rights icon John Lewis was 'all talk,' King responded: 'Absolutely I would say John Lewis has demonstrated that he's action. As I said, things get said on both sides in the heat of emotion. At some point this nation, we've got to move forward.' Asked how his father might view the current dustup, King responded: 'I think my father would be very concerned about the fact that there are 50 or 60 million people living in poverty. And somehow we've got to create the climate for all boats to be lifted.' The source who briefed the Washington Post on the meeting said that there had been discussion of a longstanding call from King for a free universal photo ID system. Trump was said to have expressed serious interest in photographs in Social Security cards, which would be an effective universal free photo ID. The other participants in the meeting included the Rev James Forbes, who conducted the opening prayer and is chairman of the Drum Major Institute, a progressive group which promotes 'the nonviolent social change legacy' of Dr King. One of its other members, Andrew Young, a former U.N. ambassador, who could not attend wrote to Trump saying that he still believed there should be a meeting despite 'the regrettable exchange between you and my friend John Lewis'. 'The first rule of Kingian nonviolence is that you can never find common ground without conversation,' he wrote, according to the Washington Post. Before the meeting, Trump tweeted: 'Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for.' He added: 'Honor him for being the great man that he was!' Trump's praise for the man who helped bring about an end to racial segregation and transform American society came after scrubbing a trip to Washington following a spat with civil rights here Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. President-elect Donald Trump meets on Monday with Martin Luther King III (center), after getting in a spat with civil rights legend Representative John Lewis, who is skipping Trump's inauguration Legacy: Dr Martin Luther King with his son Martin Luther King III in his arms after being freed from prison in Georgia for leading boycotts as part of the civil rights movement. The leader had children with his wife, Coretta, including older sisters Yolanda and Bernice (pictured) and younger brother Dexter. He was just 10 when his father was murdered. President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about MLK on Monday, after going after civil rights icon John Lewis on Saturday The sit down with the oldest son of the civil rights hero was just days after Trump got in a spat with Lewis, whom he accused of being 'all talk, talk, talk - no action or results' notwithstanding Lewis having been bloodied marching for civil rights. Trump went after Lewis, ripping his Atlanta-based district as 'falling apart' and being 'in horrible shape,' after Lewis said he would skip Trump's inauguration, saying he wasn't 'legitimate' because of Russian hacking. Since then, more House Democrats have announced plans to skip the inauguration, with the number approaching two dozen. Trump's transition had said over the weekend that a planned visit to the new Smithsonian African American history museum got pulled due to scheduling issues. Spicer said Monday, 'He was never going to Washington' Monday. He also kept up the pushback against Lewis. 'If someone's going to attack the president-elect Donald Trump is leading a successful business to fight for this country to fight for American workers and he's not going to sit back and let people take pot shots,' he said. Martin Luther King III hugs Omarosa Manigault as he arrives at Trump Tower Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil-rights icon, who was lambasted over the weekend by President-elect Donald Trump after Lewis questioned the legitimacy of Trump's election, speaks at the 5000 Role Models of Excellence breakfast in Miami Spicer called Lewis' comments 'disappointing,' but also referred to him as 'such an icon of voting rights and civil rights.' Speaking on MSNBC, Spicer indicated Trump was willing to call Lewis to try to patch things up. 'I wouldn't put it past him to do that. But I think there's got to be a willingness for John Lewis who has fought so hard for voting and civil rights to not use language about delegitimizing an election and the integrity of our voting system that he's frankly been a real champion of,' Spicer said. 'I wouldn't put it past him to pick up the phone and call him, but there's got to be a willingness on both sides,' he added. President-elect Donald Trump hailed Martin Luther King, Jr. as a 'great man' on Twitter Monday. Martin Luther King III (R) and presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (L) stand in front of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial during a rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act in 2015 Speaking to NBC's Chuck Todd (left) this week, Rep. John Lewis (right), the most prominent civil rights leader in Congress, called into question the legitimacy of Donald Trump's election But he slammed him for making a comment 'about the legitimacy of an election something he's fought so hard to create the integrity of.' His planned talk with MLK III about making 'more people to be part of the voting process' come as Democrats are warning Trump and his pick for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, will take steps to raise barriers to voting by signing off on tough voter identification laws. Trump won't be going to the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, transition officials told ABC News over the weekend. Senior sources initially said that Trump would visit the latest addition to the National Mall as part of his Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance instead he'll commemorate the civil rights leader in some other way. The change of plans comes on the heels of a testy back-and-forth between Trump and Rep. John Lewis, a congressman who marched alongside King, and said he didn't consider Trump a 'legitimate president.' In turn, Lewis said he would not be attending Friday's inauguration ceremonies. 'I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,' Lewis told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, in portions of an interview released earlier this week. The full Meet the Press exchange aired Sunday. Trump greeted Lewis' comments with a series of tweets, suggesting the Georgia Democrat's district 'is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested).' 'Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!' Trump said. Lewis represents much of downtown Atlanta, an ethnically diverse area, which features the world's busiest airport and the headquarters of many major American businesses including Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola and CNN. The original plan was for Donald Trump to visit the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture to observer Martin Luther King Jr. Day President-elect Donald Trump sent out a trio of tweets this weekend that were highly critical of civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis Trump, as of late, has been feuding with CNN as well, calling the cable channel 'fake news' at his press conference on Wednesday, as he slammed the media organization for mentioning but not leaking the dirty dossier in its coverage. Over the weekend, Trump continued tweeting about the dossier, while complaining about Lewis too. ABC's transition sources said Trump's visit to the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture was pulled from his calendar due to scheduling issues and because the visit hadn't been fully planned out. The transition team also announced that Clarence Thomas, the only African-American on the Supreme Court, would be swearing-in Vice President-elect Mike Pence at Friday's ceremony. Lewis was the original sponsor of the legislation to build an African American history museum on the National Mall, introducing the first bill back in 1988. He then backed the project for 15 years until Republican President George W. Bush signed it into law. Lewis' civil rights activism is featured prominently in the museum. Remain campaigners were accused of talking down Britain last night after claiming the UK was too small to strike a good trade deal with the United States. They warned a rushed agreement could wreck the environment, spark the privatisation of the NHS and force supermarkets to stock chlorine-soaked chickens. Senior Tories last night hit back at the unbelievably negative comments and urged Theresa May to embrace the opportunity to strike an early deal with the US. Emily Thornberry has been accused of talking down the UK by suggesting we would be 'swallowed up' in negotiations Downing Street welcomed indications from Donald Trump that he wants to agree a rapid trade deal with the UK in the wake of Brexit. But leading figures from Labour and the Liberal Democrats claimed the US would use the offer of a trade deal to demolish protections surrounding healthcare, consumer rights and the environment. Emily Thornberry, Shadow Foreign Secretary, warned Britain was now such a small player that it could be swallowed up in trade talks without the protection offered by the EU. Her Labour colleague Jonathan Ashworth said a rushed trade deal with the US could become a Trojan horse for NHS privatisation. And Mary Creagh, Labour chairman of the Commons environmental audit committee, also warned against a quick trade deal, saying it could be used to undermine environmental standards. He is the big player here and we stand to lose, she said. Nick Clegg said Britain would be forced to accept bloody horrible American chickens that had been treated with bleach. I suspect the good shoppers of Waitrose and Sainsburys and others might be a little shocked if, suddenly, they are having to eat this slightly white, chlorine-washed American chicken flesh, said the former deputy prime minister. But Gerald Howarth said the pathetic comments risked undermining Britain. The former Tory minister said the UKs international standing would be enhanced by Brexit, which he said would prevent Britain from being eclipsed by the EUs growing foreign policy ambitions. Britain is a major player in the world, said Sir Gerald. We are one of the largest economies in the world, we are one of the most active contributors to Natos foreign operations and the Queen is head of a Commonwealth of 2.6billion people. Britain commands authority and respect around the world, and the Shadow Foreign Secretary really ought to know better. Donald Trump gave Theresa May a huge boost today when he said he was eager to do a trade deal with the UK as quickly as possible It really is rather pathetic that the Labour Party feels it necessary to demean our countrys standing. Our departure from the EU will enhance, not diminish our influence. Fellow Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg urged Remain campaigners to drop their opposition to a deal with the US. We have seen some unbelievably negative reaction today, he said. There is a great possibility now for the UK to be in pole position for a strong relationship with the US. This is just the start. If the US the leviathan of global trade wants a deal with us then others will follow. Michael Gove who interviewed Mr Trump in New York last Friday, said the president-elect wanted a quick and fair trade agreement with the UK. The former minister described his visit to the billionaires man cave on the 26th floor of the Trump Tower, saying Mr Trump felt a sense of ownership of Brexit because of his early support for Britain leaving the EU. Theresa May is due to make a crucial speech outlining her Brexit blueprint tomorrow He also described Mr Trumps admiration for Mrs May and his soft spot for Britain. Mr Gove said: He stressed that he believed the European Union would potentially break up in the future and that other countries would leave. So in a sense he is both emotionally and financially invested in it. On Mrs Mays prospects of securing a deal, he said: The EU until now has been assumed to have a better hand to play, but the Prime Minister we now see has actually cards in her hand, including from candidate Trump, which will enable her, I think, to secure a better deal. Mr Gove said that the president-elect wanted a trade deal signature-ready at the earliest possible opportunity. He described Mr Trump as a warm and energetic, charismatic presence. Ukip MP Douglas Carswell told MailOnline: 'Emily Thornberry doesn't seem to believe in Britain and she doesn't seem to understand why trade happens. 'Trade happens because customers want to buy what other producers in other countries produce. 'It has got nothing to do with the size of your economy. 'But it so happens that Britain is one of the largest economies in the world. We are a permanent member of the UN security council. 'We have trade links with every continent. How much bigger can we be before people accept we can govern ourselves?' Tory backbencher Alec Shelbrooke told MailOnline: 'Emily Thornberry is clueless and shows once again that Labour think that one of the biggest economies in the world is too small to do a trade deal. She is talking us down.' Asked about Mr Trump's intervention, the PM's spokeswoman said: 'We welcome the commitment from the president elect to engage with the Uk on this to work together to agree a deal quickly. 'That highlights the opportunities of leaving the EU.' But she added that only 'scoping' discussions could be held before the end of the Article 50 process, and there were a 'lot of issues to cover' . 'We have also been clear that we will respect our obligations while we remain in the EU,' she said. 'We cannot enter and sign a free trade agreement while we remain in the EU. 'We will have scoping to look at what some of the areas may be ... but we will continue to respect while we remain a member of the EU. 'We will be having scoping discussions to look at the areas where we can benefit most. 'There will be a lot of issues to cover with this.' Advertisement This is the bloody moment a bear takes on a whole pack of wolves in an incredible brawl over a dead deer. The spectacular action shots taken by British holidaymaker Tom Littlejohns, show the pack of wolves enjoying their prey until they are interrupted by a six-and-a-half-foot long bear. To protect their dinner, the brave wolves attempted to warn off the bear but one by one were swatted away by the grizzly's giant paws. One close-up picture shows one wolf baring its teeth on the blood-stained snow as the bear continues to fight. While the other photos show the lone bear enjoying a deer supper after scaring off its rivals. The amazing photographs snapped by Mr Littlejohns, 75, a logistics consultant from Guildford while on a trip to the Rocky Mountains in Montana. He said: 'In these particular images, I saw the change from relatively docile and almost large cuddly wolves become unbelievably ferocious both with each other and prepared to take on a fully grown Grizzly.' Gray wolves were virtually wiped out in the lower 48 states by the 1940s, but thanks to a highly successful reintroduction program in central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, the population is once again back. By the end of 2012, the estimated population in the Northern Rockies region was 1,674 wolves. By comparison, there are only about 1,500 grizzlies left in the lowest 48 states, with about 800 living in Montana alone and another 600 or so in Wyoming, in the Yellowstone-Teton area. The scene captured by Mr Littlejohns is actually somewhat of a common occurrence, with grizzlies locating a carcass with its keen sense of smell once an animal has been killed by a wolf. As the wolves and the grizzly compete for the kill, one wolf may try to distract the bear while the others feed. But such is the size of the bear, that if wolves become aggressive, it can defend itself by sitting, eliminating being attacked at its hind legs. Fights rarely end in death or serious injury to either animal. The wolves were preparing to much down on a dead deer carcass after capturing the animal in the Rocky Mountains in Montana But as they prepared to devour the deer, the pack of wolves were disturbed by a grizzly bear who wanted to steal the prey Biting off more than it can chew: One of the wolves appears set to pounce on the slower, lumbering bear, unwittingly walking into a fight it won't win The bear then gave chase to the wolves who tried to protect their dinner from the hungry bear trying to steal their food As the animals brawled in the mountains, the snow beneath them turned red as the blood from the deer was smeared along the ground One close-up picture shows one wolf baring its teeth on the blood-stained snow as the bear continues to fight for the deer Retreat: Despite the wolf's ferocity, it appears to have been no match for the much bigger bear, who showed no signs of being in an epic battle Another wolf comes on the scene to try and protect its food but the bear uses his large paws to bat the animal away As the grizzly bear comes charging towards one of the wolves, the animal begins to run off in fear for his life Later the lone bear was pictured hovering over the dead deer after successfully stealing it from the pack of wild wolves Later, the lone bear was seen enjoying a deer supper after scaring off its rivals and having the dead animal all to himself The Royal Navy is facing its greatest challenge from Russia in more than 25 years, the First Sea Lord has warned. Adml Sir Philip Jones told his sailors that the Navy was dealing with the highest level of activity from submarines and warships since the end of the Cold War. He added that the Navy was having to make 'difficult' cuts to equipment as Vladimir Putin's fleet had increased its activity. In a New Year message to the Navy, Sir Philip said: 'In northern Europe and the Baltic, we are responding to the highest level of Russian naval activity since the end of the Cold War.' Vladimir Putin's fleet has increased its activity in the north Atlantic with submarines active in waters north of Scotland The message from the head of the Royal Navy came as British warships were again preparing to escort the Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov past UK shores as it returns from its bombing campaign in Syria. The Russian ship is making its way from the Mediterranean accompanied by a battlecruiser, two destroyers and a tanker, and will be escorted past Britain by a Royal Navy frigate and destroyer. However, experts sources have said that the activity of Russia's high-profile warships is of less concern than those of submarines in waters north of Scotland. The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov will be escorted past UK shores in coming weeks British frigates and submarines, with the support of Nato allies, have been working tirelessly to find and track the Russian craft. The Russian submaries are believed to be spying on Britain's nuclear deterrent vessels, which are based at Faslane. Russian activity in the area has not been so prolific since the 1980s. The Navy is understood to be facing a 500 million budget black hole, and commanders are having to find savings in personnel and equipment. Adml Sir Philip Jones told his sailors that the Navy was facing the greatest challenge from Russia in 25 years Dr Andrew Foxall, director of the Russia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, told the Telegraph that waters in the north Atlantic around Greenland, Iceland and the UK - once a key Cold War battleground - were again the site of secret confrontations. He said: 'I don't think it's the increase in absolute number [of missions] that's the increase of concern, it's the information that these Russian submarines are trying to collect.' 'Russia has been ramping up its presence in the North Atlantic at the same time that other countries have been winding theirs down.' A woman who booked a posh Manhattan apartment on Airbnb apparently admitted to stealing the homeowner's pricey Rolex and Cartier watches along with Louis Vuitton luggage while also paying for the pad with bad checks. Victoria Doramus, 32, was released from Rikers Island on Wednesday after being held for seven weeks for charges related to the theft, the New York Daily News reported. Assistant District Attorney Meredith Dempsey said in court that Doramus paid rent to Julie Maximova for the Bowery apartment with 'two separate checks that bounced'. Doramus admitted to authorities that she stole luxury goods and clothing from Maximova while living in her Bowery apartment. Victoria Doramus (above) admitted to stealing Rolex and Cartier watches along with Louis Vuitton luggage from the homeowner of a posh Manhattan apartment she booked on Airbnb while also paying for the pad with bad checks, authorities say Assistant District Attorney Meredith Dempsey said in court that Doramus (above) paid rent to Julie Maximova for the Bowery apartment with 'two separate checks that bounced' At first, Doramus blamed the missing items on someone she met 'on Craigslist'. 'He came over and got my belongings mixed up with her belongings in the wrong bag,' Doramus first told investigators on November 29. But then she admitted to selling the watches, but the other expensive items were inside of a storage unit she had in SoHo, police say. 'I was going to give it back,' Doramus later said. 'I will pay her for the rent and return her stuff.' The 32-year-old woman pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the third degree in exchange for a probation sentence and agreement to pay $2,400 in restitution. Doramus must also attend a program for mental health treatment. It's unclear for how long Doramus lived in Maximova's apartment. Doramus (above) admitted to authorities that she stole luxury goods and clothing from Maximova while living in her Bowery apartment. At first, Doramus blamed the missing items on someone she met 'on Craigslist' It's unclear for how long Doramus lived in Maximova's apartment. But during the court session on Wednesday, she was ordered to attend a program for mental health treatment. Doramus shared the above image to her Instagram page Investigators say that the missing items belonging to Maximova were eventually returned, as her costly watches were recovered after Doramus sold them to a pawnshop. During the court session, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Robert Stolz was shocked to believe that Maximova allowed her valuables to be so easily accessed inside the apartment. 'This is someone who operates an Airbnb and leaves her Rolex and Cartier watches, her diamond necklace and her Louis Vuitton luggage there?' Stolz asked Dempsey in court. This isn't the first time Doramus has run into trouble with the law. Back in November 2015, while employed at Rubenstein Public Relations, she was arrested for abusing her access to two corporate credit cards. During a 10-day period in July of that year, she had accumulated roughly $17,000 in charges that were unapproved to vendors including Amazon, a dry cleaning business and Southwest Airlines, the Daily News reported. This isn't the first time Doramus (above) has run into trouble with the law. Back in November 2015, while employed at Rubenstein Public Relations, she was arrested for abusing her access to two corporate credit cards Doramus agreed to a plea deal in that case and was ordered to pay $3,791 in restitution to American Express and serve 10 days of community service. Barry Agulnick, her attorney, said that she is working on improving herself. 'She'll be on probation. She'll be taking therapy. She'll straighten out her life,' he told the Daily News after her release last week. He added that she 'has emotional problems and psychological problems that have led to a drug dependency.' Photos shared to her Instagram page show Doramus leading a jet-setting lifestyle, as she posed for photos inside the exclusive members only club SoHo House, enjoyed weekends in Connecticut, the Catskills, and Tulum, Mexico. Katie Couric is looking to get back on network television this year when her current contract with Yahoo expires. The former Today host, who returned to the morning show earlier this month for a weeklong stint behind the anchor desk alongside Matt Lauer, is hoping to find a role that will allow her to once again appear 'on a regular basis'. She has already been offered a five-days-a-week cable news show, according to Page Six, and is now trying to determine 'the right balance.' It is unclear however when her Yahoo deal will end, with Couric, 60, having renewed her contract with the company for $10m back in June of 2015. Scroll down for video Don't call it a comeback: Katie Couric (above on Friday) is reportedly looking to return to a network TV show when her Yahoo contract is up later this year Reunited: Couric returned to Today for the first week of January to fill in for Savannah Guthrie (above with Today host Matt Lauer) Meanwhile, Couric's return to Today did not help the NBC morning show all that much in the ratings in the end, with ABC rival Good Morning America beating out the program in both total audience and the all-important adult 25 - 54 demo for the first week of January. Couric has reportedly already begun talks with Yahoo about what their plan might be for her once her contract expires, and is hesitant to accept the cable news offer. 'Shes already done that kind of thing, and shes learned her lesson from it - she doesnt want that kind of grind,' said a source familiar with Courics thinking. 'She doesnt necessarily need to be on TV every day, but she does need to be on TV regularly.' In addition to her job at Yahoo, Couric also hosts her own podcast and produces documentaries through her production company. Last year she released Under the Gun, a documentary examining gun control in America. Couric left Today to become the anchor of the CBS Evening News while also doing segments for 60 Minutes for a reported salary of $15 million a year - the most ever for a journalist at the time. Couric then stepped away from CBS in 2011 and moved over to ABC, where in 2012 she spent a week hosting Today rival Good Morning America. There was also talk of Couric moving to Today after she left CBS, but that did not come to be. CNN's Brian Stelter wrote in his book Top Of The Morning that Couric said at the time: 'I feel like it would have been a fun thing to reunite and to show that you can go home again. 'But I also thought, there's a reason why I left the show.' Money maker: Couric, 60, signed a $10m contract with Yahoo in June 2015 that is up later this year (Couric and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer above in 2015) Filmmaker: Couric is also working on documentaries with her production company, and released Under the Gun, about gun control in the US, last year (Couric at the Under the Gun premiere with Meryl Streep in May) Couric's most famous interview while at CBS came in 2008 when she sat down with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for a series of pieces that many believed doomed Palin and John McCain's campaign. In was during that interview that Palin famously talked about Alaska's proximity to Russia and was unable to name a single magazine she read on a regular basis, instead telling Couric: 'Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.' Palin would later claim that Couric had a bias against her. Couric worked as a special corespondent when she arrived at ABC, where she did segments for Nightline and 20/20 and filled in on all their morning programs at some point: The View, Live with Kelly and Good Morning America. Then, in 2012, she launched her own talk show, Katie, on ABC, which was cancelled after just two seasons in 2014. After leaving ABC there were rumors she might rejoin Today again as the show was struggling in the ratings. Couric instead went to Yahoo. Asian crime gangs are using new methods to smuggle drugs into Australia. Instead of concealing drugs in cargo shipments, smugglers are increasingly using commercial 'mother ships' to bring drugs close to the Australian coast line, Australian Border Force Commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg told the Daily Telegraph. Smaller 'daughter ships' then take over the illegal shipments and bring them onto the continent, the ABF commissioner said. Asian crime gangs are using new methods to smuggle drugs into Australia. Pictured, Australian law enforcement personnel board a dhow in the North Arabian Sea Instead of concealing drugs in cargo shipments, smugglers are using commercial 'mother ships' to bring drugs to the Australian coast. Pictured, a 2015 heroin bust in the Indian Ocean 'The Asian continent as a whole is an epicentre of illicit drug production, with China specifically at the forefront of a tsunami of methamphetamine production heading our way,' Mr Quaedvlieg said. He said that law enforcement agencies are seeing an increase in large-scale meth shipments to Australia. A sizeable portion of Asia's methamphetamine is made in China's Guangdong province, and in particular in the city of Guangzhou, Mr Quaedvlieg told the Daily Telegraph. Although China and Australia are cooperating to stop the flow of illegal drugs, and despite a Chinese crackdown on narcotics manufacturing, the problem is growing, the commissioner said. 'There is no question we have seen a spike in the last 12 months,' he said. A gang of fraudsters scattered across the UK have jailed for their part in a 1million Next Directory scam masterminded by a Scottish internet hacker. The criminals used and sold on details of hacked accounts belonging to hundreds of genuine customers who repeatedly used the same log-ins on their computers. Their details were gained by ringleader Edward Mullen, who then made them available on the 'dark web' - not visible to 'normal' users - to the highest bidder. A gang of fraudsters scattered across the UK have jailed for their part in a 1million Next Directory scam masterminded by a Scottish internet hacker. Stock image The scammers obtained thousands of pounds worth of goods before they were caught, Leicester Crown Court heard. People who bought goods using the illegally obtained information were then encouraged to post pictures of their 'spoils' to 'advertise and promote' the fraud. Matthew Lowe, prosecuting, said the scam was perpetrated across the UK against Next, whose headquarters are in Enderby, Leicestershire. The scam involved the sourcing of log-in details for legitimate mail order accounts from websites on the dark web. The details were sold on to other fraudsters, via closed Facebook groups, for between 25 and 80, depending on the amount of credit on the account. They were accompanied by instructions on how to commit the fraud to obtain goods and avoid detection by concealing their internet IP address. In total, 280 accounts were identified as being affected. The amount of available credit on those accounts was almost one million pounds, although the value of the transactions attempted was 239,681, and the actual amount of goods fraudulently obtained was 64,000. The fraudsters would collect the items rather than having them delivered, often using bogus proof of identity documents, such as forged utility bills. The court was told the details were not leaked or stolen from the Next organisation, whose security system was not infiltrated, but were obtained by internet banking fraud, and other internet fraud. Mr Lowe said: 'The Next customer account details became available on the deep or dark web.' They were obtained by Mullen, 30, from Glasgow, who recruited mother-of-five Toni Louise Willis to sell 'large amounts' of information using PayPal or bank transfer. Willis, 32, from Chelmsford, Essex, in turn, recruited Scottish mother-of-two Leisha Johnstone, 25, from Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, to also sell the information. Mr Lowe said the defendants were using a Facebook group set up by co-accused, Matthew Corry, 28, from Dramahoe, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, called Super Fun Happy Land. WHAT IS THE 'DARK WEB'? The 'dark web' is a small part of the internet that is not indexed and cannot be accessed via normal software or search engines. While almost everything you do online using software such as Google Chrome and Safari leaves a record, on the dark web, people cannot be tracked because of heavy encryption. It conceals the identity and location of the user, unlike the IP address that is revealed when using normal programmes. The complicated system makes it almost impossible to reproduce the node path and decrypt the information layer by layer. The system is lauded as the last bastion of privacy and free speech and privacy in a world where everything is monitored by some users. However, its private nature means that it is also used by some criminal enterprises, with illegal goods such as guns and drugs, as well as fraud, conducted on it. Advertisement He said: 'The fraud was carried out by the co-defendants and other (unknown) conspirators. 'Those who successfully used the hijacked accounts were encouraged to post photographs of their spoils on the Facebook group to advertise and promote the fraud. 'In November last year, Next became aware of the Facebook group and carried out their own investigation, before handing details to the police. 'Willis was arrested in December and items were seized from her.' Craig Ashley, 32, of Cresswell, Derbyshire, who also set up a Facebook group, called Exclusive Deals, was arrested, and fraudulently obtained goods were recovered. The two women and three men pleaded guilty to conspiring together and with unknown others to defraud Next Plc between October 2015 and April 2016. Defence counsel all said their clients co-operated with the police following their arrests, assisted in the investigation, pleaded guilty early and regretted their actions. Some became involved to obtain Christmas presents when money was tight. Henry Hughes, mitigating for Willis, one of the main players, said: 'This is a most graphic illustration of the dangers of the internet one is likely to see. 'She was sitting at home tapping away on her mobile phone and got drawn into something that has landed her in court. She had no link with the criminal world.' He said she was more likely to have 'scaled Mount Everest' than have accessed the dark web, which was done solely by Mullen, who was higher up the chain. He said: 'She's made a spectacularly stupid mistake.' Sentencing, Judge Nicholas Dean QC said: 'What lies behind this is extremely simple to state; it's greed. 'All of you saw an opportunity to make easy and, you thought, risk-free money - at the expense of Next Plc. It wasn't sophisticated, but it was persistent. The criminals used and sold on details of hacked accounts belonging to hundreds of genuine customers who repeatedly used the same log-ins on their computers 'The losses were not insignificant, but the potential losses were very significant. I must take into account the impact upon the victim in this case - Next plc. 'Although the actual loss doesn't strike me as being very considerable for that very large company, the reputational loss is incalculable. 'It doesn't take much imagination to understand that members of the public hearing of offences like these will not go near a Next account with a barge pole, they will consider, whether accurate or not, that they may be at risk of having their account details stolen. 'It's not a case in which the slightest responsibility applies to Next for your offending or for their account details being stolen. 'Their security arrangements and attempts to detect fraud couldn't be criticised.' POLICE WARNING ABOUT CYBER-CRIME Police issued a warning against using the same password for multiple accounts after the hearing. It was not made clear exactly how having the same password allowed Mullen to obtain private details, in order not to instruct others how to commit the crime. And Detective Chief Inspector Ed McBride-Wilding, from the Cyber Crime Unit, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, warned people to protect themselves against it. said: 'The targets were customers who used the same log-in and password for other online accounts where their details had been stolen during data breaches involving other companies. 'This case emphasises the need to use different passwords for every business and home account or application. 'Combining three words, which mean something to you but are random to others, will create a password that is strong and memorable. 'Most importantly, don't use the same password twice.' Advertisement The judge added: 'It's not a case of just obtaining goods using account details you obtained, you were selling the account details stolen from Next to others so that they could commit fraud. 'This was wholesale supply of hacked accounts, providing a facility for others. 'This is a crime that's, these days, prevalent, and involved persistent offending by each of you.' He said jail sentences must follow, and although many defendants had young children, he told them it was 'something you should have considered when you were first tempted to involve yourself in this very serious offending'. Judge Dean told Mullen: 'You were the source of all of these stolen details, the top of the tree. 'You had nothing to do with their original theft, but knew how to access them.' He jailed Mullen for 18 months, while Corry and Willis both received 15 month jail terms. Johnstone was sentenced to 12 months in prison and Ashley was handed an eight month jail term. A sixth defendant, Rachel Wall, 30, from Gorleston, Norfolk, who had used compromised accounts to obtain 11,000 of goods, but had not passed or sold details on, also admitted the conspiracy. She was given a six month sentence suspended for 18 months. A Next Plc spokesman said: 'We were pleased the judge commended Next's security systems and we'd like to reiterate that at no point was any customer data hacked or stolen from Next. 'We are also pleased our customers suffered no financial loss and we were able to act very quickly. 'The sound advice to never re-use passwords and to change them often remains key in preventing cyber fraud, especially as the migration online continues apace.' The defendants are due to face a proceeds of crime confiscation hearing in May. The body of a Utah man has been found in a public park, where police believe it had lain since he allegedly shot his estranged wife on the morning of Christmas Eve. Michael Darrin Lowe, 49, walked into the Tesoro Fast Gas Station in American Fork where wife Tina Lowe, 39, works, and shot her multiple times, leaving her in critical condition, police said. They believe he then went to Willow Park in Lehi City, around five miles away, where his body was found Sunday morning, Fox 13 said. Shot: Michael Lowe (left) shot wife Tina (right) on Christmas Eve, cops say. He then fled to a nearby park, where his body was discovered Sunday, they said. It's not yet known how he died A gun - believed to be the one used on his wife - was found next to Lowe's body. It's believed he walked into thick brush to hide from the cops who were following him, and there is no evidence he left the area, police said. However, the PD is waiting for the county medical examiner to determine the cause of death, as it was 'not immediately known', according to police. Temperatures on December 24 were between 48 and 36 degrees, according to AccuWeather. The park had been searched with dogs and helicopters after the shooting, but snow and freezing weather had severely hampered officers' efforts. Tina Lowe was found by a customer after the 6:40am shooting, and rushed to Intermountain Medical Center. Her condition has since been upgraded to 'serious'. Police say their investigation has uncovered a history of domestic violence incidents that hadn't been reported. American Fork is located around 30 miles from Salt Lake City. Trial: A blind woman said she felt 'completely and utterly trapped' by Rolf Harris (pictured) A blind, disabled woman felt 'completely and utterly trapped' by Rolf Harris as he spread his hands over her body like an 'octopus', a court heard today. Disabled since birth, she was totally blind and had to walk with a stick when she was allegedly groped by Harris at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in 1977, Southwark Crown Court heard. A subsequent accident has left her now unable to walk and in 'intense pain' for around 18 hours a day, the court heard in a pre-recorded interview from July 2014. The woman, who was not at the time an inpatient at the hospital, recalled hearing a door to the room she was in opening and recognising the voice of Harris whom she was expecting to meet. She remembered feeling hot air from the TV star's nostrils and his beard tickling the back of her neck after he approached 'from absolutely nowhere', and could tell he was getting excited as his breathing got heavier, the court heard. She said: 'I have never met anyone who could spread their hands across my body so quickly. Accusations: Harris, who appeared by videolink (pictured last week), is serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims 'They covered all my back really really fast and he got his hands going up both sides of my body and he was saying,"Well don't you like this then?" and I said "no I don't like it. Nobody has ever touched me like this, get off".' He then allegedly replied: 'Well you can't see me.' She then said: 'I know I can't see anybody but no one comes up to me and grovels all over my body so back off', the court heard. The complainant, who has two full-time carers, went on: 'What annoyed me was that I just could not escape, and being blind I couldn't always tell where he was. I was completely and utterly trapped.' The alleged victim said she knew straight away it was Harris who had entered the room from his 'unmistakeable voice'. She said: 'One (complainant) later described him as an octopus. I thought "that's exactly what it felt like with his arms and fingers spread as far as he could spread them". 'He completely covered me and I said to him "If you go any lower then that's it, you are going to get a thump".' Her voice breaking, she continued: 'The way he took advantage over someone that was totally blind, virtually stuck in terms of mobility ... it's absolutely appalling. In my opinion it's as degrading as it gets. 'I felt absolutely invaded by this man,' she added. She went on: 'No one has ever behaved like that to me in my life and I want to say even my husband, at his most passionate times, never covered my body in a way that he has done. Rolf Harris doesn't ask permission, he just grovels.' Hearing: Southwark Crown Court (file picture) heard the woman remembered feeling hot air from the TV star's nostrils and his beard tickling the back of her neck after he approached The alleged victim said she repeatedly asked Harris to stop touching her and at one point he replied: 'Don't be like that, I'm only being friendly.' She then said she grabbed his fingers and bent them back in a bid to stop the entertainer squeezing her breasts. She said he allegedly responded: '"That wasn't nice". I said "What do you mean that's not nice?" He said: "I can't get to you now".' Revealing she suffered problems with her body image she said: 'I hate my body, I hate the pain I am in and hate the restrictions of my body, and when I met the man that I married he was such a wonderful man and accepted my limitations. 'But people like Harris who think they are being clever, like taking my glasses off because he wants to see my face ... how sick is that?' Wearing a black suit and black and white tie Harris, who appeared by videolink, is serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims. He maintains his innocence, the prosecutor said, and has pleaded not guilty to a further seven counts of indecent assault and one alternative charge of sexual assault. Harris, pictured with his wife Alwen Hughes in May 2014, maintains his innocence Each of the new alleged victims contacted the police or the NSPCC in the wake of the 'widespread publicity' surrounding the first trial, prosecutor Jonathan Rees said. As she was cross-examined from a wheelchair with her carer by her side, the witness said she did not know why she had not come forward sooner. She spent a while with Harris in the room after the alleged assault, during which he spent a few moments teaching her how to play the didgeridoo he had brought with him. Asked by Stephen Vullo, defending, why she had not come forward until the publicity surrounding the first trial emerged, she said: 'I was just so amazed because Rolf Harris was somebody I had grown up with and we loved it. He was part of our culture and I used to love listening to him on the television. 'I truly don't know why I did not report it at the time,' she added. Jurors were shown photographs of the room in the hospital, which Mr Vullo said was about 13ft by 9ft, with a desk on the far side of the room. Another man was in the room at the time of the alleged assault and came over once he became aware the complainant was in distress, she said. She told the court: 'He heard me shout and he got up to find out was wrong. I don't think he knew exactly what I said, he just heard me shout and he came over to see if I was alright, and at that point Rolf Harris backed off.' She said she thought Harris may have climaxed during the episode, where she remembered him crouching down behind her and leaning his full weight against the chair she was sitting on. She told the court: 'He was obviously getting very sexually aroused because he was pushing against the chair and after several minutes he reached a climax and there was a great exhalation of air as he felt better, as it were.' Asked by Mr Vullo if she was saying the TV presenter had ejaculated in her presence, she said: 'I did not have the opportunity of seeing his trousers, nor would I wish to, but I can only tell you of the sounds he was making and the noises and the pressure he was putting on my chair.' The complainant said she did not report the incident or call the police that day because she did not think anybody would believe her allegations against 'an extremely popular man'. Appealing to the jury she said: 'Members of the jury, I promise you, I swear to God that everything I have told you is the truth, and all I pray is that you believe me.' She said when Harris was referred to as a 'predator' in his first trial she recalled he he had acted similarly with her. She said of the encounter: 'It was like a hawk pouncing on his prey and that is what he did to me.' 'I thought I was the only one but he did it to so many and that's what hurt me so much,' she continued. Raising her voice she said: 'He only has himself to blame and what I wish he would do is apologise to all his victims, me being one of them.' The entertainer had given his time freely that day and did not even charge the hospital for his petrol expenses, the alleged victim said, adding she was 'really grateful' for that. Mr Vullo asked her if she would agree the pair had what sounded like a 'very happy' exchange following the alleged incident and she replied: 'It may seem like that but I can assure you it was not the case.' 'Nobody had any idea that Rolf Harris was this kind of man. We all thought he was Mr Nice Guy,' she went on as Harris held his head in his hands. Mr Vullo told the jury the complainant had spoken previously about the possibility of giving interviews to the press to make people aware of what she said happened to her. She replied: 'I said that over the issue of anonymity I said I wasn't worried about that because I have nothing to be ashamed of, I had done nothing wrong and I had nothing to fear.' Asked if she plans to speak to the press after leaving court today she said: 'Not today, no.' The complainant said she was making 'no bones' about her current financial situation, agreeing with Mr Vullo that things were harder than they had been at other points in her life. The defence lawyer asked: 'Did you fabricate this in the hope that you may be able to get some of Mr Harris's money? 'Certainly not sir,' she replied. 'The reason I am here is because I thought I was the only person and then I discovered that I wasn't. And I was so shocked and incensed by it, I really felt that justice should be done. 'I wouldn't choose to be here', she added. The trial continues. An Oregon mother faces murder charges after she was accused of killing her 12-year-old son. Caden Berry, a seventh grader at Claggett Creek Middle School in Keizer, was found dead, covered over by a blanket, in the home he shared with his mom Amy Robertson on Sunday. Robertson, 38, who has been arrested for the aggravated murder of her son, is being held without bail at the Marion County Correctional Facility. Scroll down for video Amy Robertson, 38, (left, in her mugshot) was arrested for murdering her own son Caden Berry, 12, (right) Police have not released any more information about the circumstances surrounding Caden's murder. But next door neighbor Brenda King described how she had been the one to find the little boy's body at the property in Garland Way North in Keizer. She told KGW she had become concerned when Robertson came out of her apartment on Saturday morning, acting erratically and talking about 'demons'. 'I realized I didn't see him (Caden), so I said, 'Where's your son?' She said, 'In the house under the blanket,'' King said. When she ventured inside, she found Caden lying under the blanket in the living room. 'I can't even sleep because he was so young and so little,' said King. 'He loved his mother dearly.' Caden Berry, a seventh grader at Claggett Creek Middle School in Keizer, was found dead, covered over by a blanket in the home he shared (pictured) with his mom Amy Robertson on Sunday Authorities were called, with a 911 caller describing the kid as 'unresponsive.' Caden was pronounced dead at the scene. Robertson was taken into custody at 12.40pm on Saturday. Caden' older brother Colton Casto, who lives in Eugene, Oregon, paid tribute to him and wrote that their mother would 'get what she deserves' for the murder. 'Caden I love u doo(sic) much. Thank u for the awesome life we had growing up and I'm going to miss u so much. 'You didn't deserve what happened especially from our own mother. Trust me she will get what she deserves. 'Every second I get lost in my thoughts. U were, and are, my best friend. Ur in my heart all ways u will be remembered as a funny sweet lil bad ass. 'Love u bro from the bottom of my heart.' King's granddaughter, Mariah King said Caden was a good kid. 'He was good. He would play with us. We would have snowball fights, you know? He would help me get my boyfriend with the snowballs. He would give me candy all the time, you know.' Police have not released any more information about the circumstances surrounding Caden's (left and right) murder 'He looked really nice because he was always laughing with his friends and he always had a smile on his face,' classmate Emma Kennedy told KPTV. Candles, flowers, and tributes from dozens of mourners were left outside the home Caden shared with his mother. 'He was just an amazing friend. He was fun to hang out with. His personality was great and I just can't believe something like this would happen,' said friend Kaitlin Turner. Claggett Creek Middle School PTA released a statement yesterday confirming that it was aware of the investigation and asked students with information about Caden's identity to 'keep that to yourself.' Crisis teams will be on hand at the school on Tuesday for students who need extra support. An autopsy is scheduled to determine the cause of death. 'No specifics as (to) the cause of death will be released until the state medical examiner conducts the autopsy to identify it for fact,' Deputy Chief Jeff Kuhns with the Keizer Police Department told the Statesman Journal. Robertson is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday. This is the terrifying moment a Kansas state trooper came just inches from death after a truck lost control on a slick road. The footage, shot by the dashcam of trooper Bill Poland at 9am on Sunday, shows the truck driving westbound through rain on the I-70 when it suddenly swerves towards Poland's vehicle, which is heading eastbound. 'He said he was prepared for the trailer to hit him,' Tod Hileman, spokesman for Troop D of the patrol, told The Kansas City Star. Scroll down for video Terrifying: This is the terrifying moment a Kansas state trooper realized a semitrailer was about to strike his own vehicle. The truck lost control on the I-70 and crossed the meridian Poland, who has been a trooper for 30 years, was as in control of the situation as anyone could be, Hileman said. He said Poland was calculating whether the truck would hit him as it careened out of control. 'He was keeping a heavy eye on that to see if he needed to go into the ditch,' Hileman explained. Poland can be seen swerving off the road as tons of earth gout up onto the road in front of him. After the accident Poland turned around to help the driver, Hileman said. No-one was hurt in the terrifying incident. On a Facebook post accompanying the video, Trooper Tod KHP Hays advised caution when driving in the elements. 'Please SLOW DOWN and gauge the road mile by mile. Just because it's not icy where you are, does not mean it may not be icy 20 miles down the road. 'Again, if you don't need to drive please STAY HOME. #BeSafe.' The parents of one of two teenage girls accused of stabbing their best friend in the woods in an homage to the fictional internet character Slenderman have spoken publicly of the violent act for the first time. Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser are facing up to 40 years in jail for the attempted murder of their friend Payton Leutner. They were all 12 when Anissa and Morgan allegedly stabbed their friend in woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on May 31, 2014, apparently in fear of the Slender Man. The pair admitted the crime in police interviews but have pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to attempted murder and are awaiting trial. Appearing on Good Morning America on Monday, her parents said she wholeheartedly believed in the character and wanted to prove it when she attacked Payton. 'They thoroughly believed that Slenderman was real and they wanted to prove that he was real,' Kristi Weier, Anissa's mother, said. Scroll down for video Kristi and Bill Weier appeared on Good Morning America on Monday to speak about their daughter Anissa who is accused of stabbing her friend in the woods 19 times when they were 12 to apparently please fictional internet character 'Slender Man' 'Absolutely remorseful': Anissa (above in court in December) thought the character was real, said her parents, but has since expressed regret over the violent attack Despite her unwavering belief in the myth at the time, the Weisers said their daughter was 'absolutely' remorseful for the attack. Mrs Weier also revealed she and her husband Bill had no knowledge of their daughter's obsession with him until the near fatal stabbing. 'We've never seen her watch videos or watch stories or say "hey, look what I found on the internet". 'She was just typical. Compared to the other three children (her siblings) she didn't show any signs of... disbeliefs or anything.' The couple is yet to speak with the victim's family but said they were 'struggling' to grapple with the crime as much as they might be. 'If they were here face to face I would tell them I'm sorry, I would tell them I'm thankful Payton survived and I would tell them that for as much as they are struggling with trying to process this and what happened to their daughter, we are struggling equally trying to process this with not only what happened to their daughter but to our daughter,' Mr Weier said. Mr and Mrs Weier said their daughter was a 'typical' teenage girl before the chilling incident Anissa (left in her 2014 mugshot when she was 12) was arrested alongside Morgan Geyser (right). The pair are being tried as adults and are accused of attempted homicide They are accused of stabbing Payton Leutner (above) 19 times in woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Payton survived after crawling from the woods to a nearby road for help despite having been left for dead During their visits to see her in jail, Anissa likes to 'vent' to her parents. They are restricted with talking about her criminal case because all of the visits are recorded on film. 'Every time we visit her it's always been audio and video recorded. So we never talk business. 'Sometimes she tries to vent a little bit during our visits and most of the conversation is stuff that has already been revealed in court so we feel comfortable enough trying to console her and help her with how she feels that day.' Mr Weier described finding out what his daughter had been accused of as 'surreal'. 'It was really kind of surreal from the time I got the phone call to the time that we realized there were more things going on than what we were initially led to believe.. 'It's, surreal is the best way to describe it, because you struggle with processing what you're finding out about what your child is being suspected of.' Anissa has been behind bars since May, 2014. Morgan was moved to a mental health facility in March last year. Both are being tried as adults in court but their parents are fighting to see them tried as juveniles. Authorities say Morgan and Anissa attacked Payton (above being taken to hospital) after luring her to the woods. They had planned to kill her at a sleepover but waited until the next morning, they said Morgan was moved to a mental facility after doctors testified she suffered from schizophrenia They argue that the laws in Wisconsin, which allow children as young as ten to be tried as adults, are antiquated because they do not take into account how juvenile brain development can affect a young teenager's behavior. Mr Weier appeared before a judge in December asking that his daughter's 2014 police interview tapes be ruled inadmissible. He says she should not have been questioned without a parent present and that she did not fully understand the legal gravity of the interview. In her taped police interview, Anissa gave a full description of the character. '(Slender Man) can be anywhere from 6 feet to 14-feet tall. He constantly wears a suit. He doesnt have a face. His skin is white. 'At his own will, he can, like, explode these tendrils from his back, and, like, strangle his victims,' she said. Mr Weier says his daughter (left in court in 2015) did not fully understand legal proceedings when she told police she had committed the violent crime. He appeared before a judge in December (right) asking for testimony to be thrown out The character first appeared in 2009 as part of an online art contest. The image became a popular internet meme and inspired creepypasta - an online trove of horror stories based on it. Mr and Mrs Weier are taking part in an HBO documentary about the stabbing which they say shines light on the importance of juvenile brain development and the role it plays in juvenile crimes. Last year, a lawyer acting on Morgan's behalf claimed she still believed in the shadowy, fictional figure. Her mother Angie, who also appeared in the HBO documentary, said she knew her daughter was fascinated by Slender Man but never thought the interest would grow dangerous. Both girls have pleaded not guilty to the crime on the grounds of mental illness. They appealed to be released from jail last April while the await trial. No clear date has been given yet for a decision on the pair's fights to have their cases moved to juvenile court. Payton, who was rescued after crawling from the woods to a nearby road, returned to school after repeated surgeries. Their trials are likely to begin in Spring. The serial bank robber dubbed the 'Postcard Bandit' has been jailed for five months for escaping from a Perth prison dressed in a fake guard's uniform almost 30 years ago - but won't serve any extra jail time. Brenden James Abbott, 54, wore a suit when he appeared in person in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday, charged with escaping from legal custody over his November 1989 breakout from the now-decommissioned Fremantle jail. Abbott pleaded guilty to the historic charges, and Magistrate Matthew Walton sentenced him to five months behind bars to be served concurrently with his existing term. The serial bank robber dubbed the 'Postcard Bandit' has been jailed for five months for escaping from a Perth prison dressed in a fake guard's uniform almost 30 years ago Brenden Abbott, 54, spent more than six years evading authorities and managed to escape from two prisons Mr Walton accepted Abbott's escape was planned but not threatening or violent, although he also noted he would have been a free man years ago had he not escaped and committed more crimes. 'He has no one else to blame but himself for his time in custody,' he said. At the time of his escape, Abbott was serving a 16-year prison term for several offences including armed robbery, assault and unlawful detention. He escaped with another inmate while dressed in fake guard uniforms by cutting a steel bar on a window frame and scaling a fence, the court heard. Monday's court appearance was Abbott's seventh since his extradition from Queensland in May last year. He is already serving outstanding jail time in WA for offences including armed robbery and assault during a riot at Fremantle Prison. If he is granted parole, Abbott could be free in 2026, otherwise he could remain behind bars until 2033. Abbott (pictured left with a tourist) donned disguises, made fake IDs and robbed banks to keep himself afloat while on the run from police in the 80s While behind bars, Abbott took up painting portraits of famous figures and on the back of each work, would leave a thumb print and sign his name High profile defence counsel Tom Percy told the court Abbott had repeatedly asked to come back to WA to have the matter dealt with, but the state government only allowed him to return last year. Abbott acknowledged his supporters with a nod and a subtle thumbs up before being led away. If granted parole, Abbott could be released by 2026 Outside court, one of Abbott's supporters said they were happy with the outcome and having Abbott back in WA with his family. After his Fremantle escape, Abbott was arrested in Queensland in March 1995 and jailed for 10 years for offences including armed robbery. He again escaped from jail in November 1997 but was recaptured less than one year later in the Northern Territory. Abbott returned to Queensland in May 1998 and was jailed for a further 14 years for a string of offences. He was swiftly arrested upon being granted parole in April last year and unsuccessfully fought his extradition to WA. As one of the country's most wanted men, Abbott earned his nickname while on the run following reports he taunted police by sending them postcards. But that never actually happened and evolved from police finding undeveloped photos of him. A drug dealer who murdered his friend and buried his dismembered body parts could be jailed for life. Wade Cameron Dunn, 40, was bashed to death at an Alexander Heights home, cut up with a chainsaw and buried in Perth in May 2015. Mark David Corbett, 52, admitted his part in the murder and Gary David Jackson, 51, was found guilty late last year. Wade Cameron Dunn, 40, was bashed to death at an Alexander Heights home, cut up with a chainsaw and buried in Perth in May 2015 The crime scene in Alexander Heights, Perth, is pictured in 2015 On Monday, Corbett was handed a life sentence and will serve a minimum of 13 years in jail. Corbett met Mr Dunn in 2015 when the victim started buying drugs from him. Mr Dunn later started collecting debts for Corbett, the WA Supreme Court heard on Monday. Corbett's relationship with Mr Dunn and Jackson began to sour a few months later, when he amassed a substantial debt to his supplier and believed he was not getting all the money from Mr Dunn and Jackson, who was also collecting debts for him. Jackson rang Corbett and said he wanted to bring Mr Dunn to Corbett's house and 'whack' him. Forensic tents are pictured a crime scene in 2015 in Perth When they arrived, Jackson hit Mr Dunn to the back of the head with a metal bar and the pair bashed the victim until he died. Mr Dunn's body was dismembered with a chainsaw and the parts were buried in bushland near Bindoon, northeast of Perth. Justice Jeremy Allanson accepted Jackson instigated the plan to attack Mr Dunn and noted Corbett had showed contrition through his plea, testimony against Jackson and unsuccessful attempts to locate the body. 'I accept that Mr Jackson played a more prominent role as the one who both planned and first attacked Mr Dunn, but you joined in it, yourself assaulting Mr Dunn, aiding Mr Jackson, knowing what he was doing and intending to assist him to do it,' he said. Robyn Hudson, the mother of victim Wade Dunn, is pictured 'The way in which you dealt with and then disposed of the body has magnified the hurt to Mr Dunn's family. 'They have lost a son, a partner, a father in horrific circumstances. 'They continue to suffer from being unable to put the body at rest because it has not been found.' Jackson was last week jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years. The Philippines government has blocked Internet users from accessing the world's most popular porn websites. It comes only 10 days after a survey showed that for the third year running Filipinos had spent more time, per visit, on Pornhub than any other nation. But on Saturday access to Pornhub, Xvideos, Redtube and several other sites was forbidden on PCs, laptops and mobile phones. Users were redirected to a page notifying them of such a ban. The Deputy Commissioner of the Philippines National Telecommunications Commission, Edgardo Cabarios, told CNN they had ordered all the country's top Internet service providers to block access to adult sites. Customers of two of the main ISPs, Smart and Sun Cellular, confirmed to the BBC they were blocked. The move by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured, left) is believed to be part of his campaign to clean up Filipino society The notice said: 'This website has been ordered blocked under authority of the Philippine government pursuant to Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Law.' There is no suggestion any of the websites in question had posted images of under-age children. But the censorship of the adult websites is in line with President Rodrigo Duterte's determination to 'clean up' Filipino society. Pornhub's Vice President, Corey Price, told Mail Online: 'Non-consensual and child pornography is strictly prohibited on Pornhub. It's disappointing that Pornhub was blocked as it will just drive people to use less vetted, riskier, smaller websites. We're open to working with government officials to meet their standards in the Philippines.' When it comes to the length of each individual session of 'me time', Filipinos watch considerably more than any other country Since his election in May last year the 71-year-old has ordered a clampdown on drugs - which has led to 5,700 people being killed in the last six months amid claims of extrajudicial killings - and corruption. Earlier this month Pornhub's own survey found Filipinos spent an average of 12 minutes and 45 seconds on the adult website, almost two minutes longer than the next most avid viewers, South Africans. Ironically the age of consent in the Philippines is just 12 years of age. Pornhub is the world's most popular adult website, with 87.8 billion video views a year and 60 million visitors every day But people who logged onto Pornhub in the Philippines this week got only this message The Inquirer website said that under the country's Anti-Child Pornography Law adult websites are required to 'report the presence of child pornography, as well as the particulars the person maintaining, hosting, distributing or in any manner contributing to such Internet address, to the proper authorities' within seven days. In 2014, the Philippines National Telecommunications Commission issued a memo ordering Internet service providers to ban access to sites containing child pornography. Many other countries - Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, Cuba, Iceland, Thailand, Egypt and Pakistan - block online porn. In September last year Russia banned Pornhub, YouPorn and nine other porn websites and, following complaints, suggested users 'meet someone in real life'. Detective hunting a missing grandmother who vanished almost 18 months ago arrested a man on suspicion of murder. Victoria Cherry, 44, was last seen alive in October 2015 and has not been traced despite repeated appeals for information. The suspect, 43, was held after police searched a house overlooking a park in Bolton, Greater Manchester following a tip off about Miss Cherry's whereabouts. Victoria Cherry, 44, was last seen alive in October 2015 and has not been traced despite repeated appeals for information Police are treating her disappearance as a 'murder without a body' and have arrested a man Ms Cherry, from Fulwood, near Preston, Lancashire, was said to have lived a 'chaotic lifestyle' and would go several months without making contact with her family. Police began appealing for information about her last October after her mother tried and failed to get in touch with her. At the time, police said the family were getting 'increasingly concerned' about her welfare and urged the missing woman to get in touch. They are now treating her disappearance as a 'murder without a body.' Greater Manchester Police today appealed for anyone with information about what may have happened to Miss Cherry to contact officers. She is believed to have a daughter and a grand-daughter. Det Ch Insp Terry Crompton said: 'My thoughts are with Victoria's family, who are being offered the support of specialist officers at this incredibly difficult time. 'Clearly, the focus of our investigation has now changed and we remain keen to speak to anyone who may have any information about what has happened to Victoria. 'I am urging anyone who has any knowledge of Victoria's movements since her disappearance, or any information, no matter how insignificant you feel it may be, to please get in touch.' Police and forensic officers in Bolton during the investigation into Ms Cherry's disappearance A 36-year-old man is sentenced to almost two decades in prison for raping a 14-year-old at a Comfort Inn in Delaware. James Allen from Dresden, Maine was arrested at the Georgetown, Delaware motel February 1, 2015. Delaware State Police were called to find the missing girl who was discovered in suite 109, Allen's room. James Allen, 36, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for raping a minor he met on Facebook Allen was charged with three counts of second-degree rape, two counts of fourth-degree rape and one count of sexual solicitation of a child. He faced a maximum sentence of 100 years in prison for these crimes. Allen admitted to having sex with the underage girl twice in the motel. The two met on Facebook and acted out having a baby together by using a realistic baby doll, car seat, diapers and other infant supplies according to The News Journal . Police said Allen told them they were 'seeing what it was like to have a baby.' Allen met the minor online in 2014 and scheduled their meet-up the week beforehand. The minor was discovered at the Comfort Inn in Georgetown with Allen in room 109 The pedophile pleaded guilty on three counts of third-degree rape and one count of sexual exploitation of a child. In addition to the jail time and probation, Allen must register as a tier three sex offender, have no access to the internet and cease contact with the victim and any other minors. He also must complete Transitions Sex Offender Program and a professional must supervise his time with his biological son. Allen faces a slew of federal charges as well. The government seized a notebook with notes pertaining to the victim along with a laptop, a cellphone, a GPS and a pink iPod according to the Dover Post. He also faces charges related to child pornography committed over a seven month period. President-elect Donald Trump says son-in-law Jared Kushner will be able to broker a Middle East peace plan owing to his abilities as a 'natural deal-maker.' Trump gushed about Kushner's attributes, in a Middle East portfolio he has floated previously, in an interview published over the weekend. 'You know what, Jared is such a good kid and hell make a deal with Israel that no one else can,' Trump said in an interview published by the Times of London. 'You know hes a natural, hes a great deal, hes a natural you know what I was talking about, natural hes a natural deal-maker everyone likes him,' Trump said. Trump downplayed the role of Kushner's wife, daughter Ivanka, who is expected to take up ceremonial roles associated with the first lady, even as he talked up Kushner. 'You know hes a natural, hes a great deal, hes a natural,' Trump said of Kushner, who will try to broker a Middle East peace deal 'Well, not now, shes going to Washington, and theyre buying a house or something, but you know shes got the children, so Jared will be involved as we announced,' Trump said. Jared Kushner, 35, and Ivanka Trump have rented an elegant home in Washington. 'No salary, no nothing. If he made peace whod be better at that then Jared, righ?' Then Trump added, about the man who helped steer his campaign and advised him on foreign policy, 'Theres something about him . . .' Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who converted when they got married, are both Orthodox Jews. Trump first floated Kushner's role in solving seemingly intractable problems between the Israelis and Palestinians in a November interview with the New York Times. Steven Bannon and Jared Kushner are seen during US President-elect Donald Trump's press conference January 11, 2017 at Trump Tower FAMILY AFFAIR: Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump attend the COMEDY CENTRAL Roast of Donald Trump at the Hammerstein Ballroom on March 9, 2011 Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism upon marrying Kushner in 2009 Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are preparing to move to a home in DC's tony Kalorama neighborhood 'I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement,' Trump said. His transition has also announced that New York attorney Jason Greenblatt, will assist in negotiations as special adviser on international agreements. After his role first got floated, the Washington Post reported that the family foundation Kushner directs donated to fund West Bank settlements, a source of major contention with the Palestinian side. Kushner plans to join the White House, having been advised by counsel that his appointment doesn't break with anti-nepotism laws against a government official appointing a relative 'in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control.' 'What we know, hes a really tough, smart guy, and we hope he will bring new energy to our region, Israel's defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said of Kushner last month, the Jerusalem Post reported. Think it's hard for firefighters to rescue a cat in a tree? Try a cow in a swimming pool. Firefighters in Oklahoma City were summoned Sunday morning after a homeowner reported hearing some sort of 'snorting' coming from his swimming pool area. Emergency responders arrived and discovered a hole in the swimming pool's liner and the livestock stuck in the water. Mooving tale of rescue: Firefighters beckon the drenched cow into the truck for transport Oklahoma City Fire Department Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson says firefighters used their pumps to remove about 5 feet of water from the pool so the cow wouldn't experience hypothermia. The temperature dropped to 32 degrees in Oklahoma City on Sunday. Crews then brought in a wrecker to hoist the nearly 1,500-pound animal from the pool and to safety. The Oklahoma City Fire Department wrote on its Facebook page: ' A Very MOOOving Story! Earlier this morning, OKCFD received a call for a unique rescue.' Rescuers hoisted the 1,500lb cow out of the neighborhood swimming pool Cow did you end up there? The bovine did not appear to be injured after the pool ordeal 'It seems as though a cow had become bored and decided to take a morning dip in a neighborhood swimming pool.' The fire department said the pool lining the cow broke through was advertised as being able to hold an elephant. This is the incredible a quick-thinking office clerk saved a pensioner who fell on a moving escalator in three seconds. Yu Haohan, who works at a real estate registration centre in Yantai, eastern China, spotted the dangerous situation, jumped over his counter and dashed to rescue the elderly woman, as reported by Xinhua News Agency. The surveillance video footage, shot on January 6, captured his act of bravery and incredible moves. Yu heard a loud bang from the escalator and noticed an elderly woman had tripped and fallen The beginning of the video, posted by People's Daily on YouTube, showed people gathering around the escalator when the elderly woman in red coat fell down on an escalator. In the blink of an eye, Yu jumped over the desk he was working at before sprinting towards the moving staircase. He managed to rescue the pensioner in just three seconds. Yu was working on the desk behind the counter and he quickly jumped out and helped Yu said he did not have time to think but he wanted to stop the woman from being injured The elderly woman was carried to the ground. Yu calmed down her nerves then went back to work. The onlookers were all impressed by Yu's ninja-like moves and quick reaction. Yu told a local reporter: 'At that moment, I just wanted to prevent the elderly woman from being pushed by the escalator. So I jumped to the top as fast as I can.' In just three seconds, Yu sprinted and jumped to the front of the pensioner and picked her up The elderly woman was reported to sustain no injuries and the crowd were impressed by Yu According to Xinhua, the 29-year-old Yu did a military service in Jinan military region and volunteered during the rescue operation of Sichuan earthquake in 2008. He also joined numerous military exercises as well as the peacekeeping mission in Sudan. Yu added to the reporter: 'The rescue work I participated in Sichuan always reminds me to offer help to those who get hurt.' The elderly woman is reported to sustain no injuries. Father on trial: Jacques Lesage, 79, of Quebec, is accused of sexually assaulting his three daughters between 1971 and 2004, and even having three children with one of the victims A 79-year-old man from Quebec, Canada, accused of repeatedly raping his three daughters over the course of three decades, took the stand in his incest trial on Friday, admitting to abusing one of the women but denying the other allegations against him. Jacques Lesage, a local businessman and father-of-eight, has been charged with three counts of incest, two counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault as part of the high-profile case that rattled the Canadian province. Lesage is accused of sexually assaulting his three daughters between 1971 and 2004, and even having multiple children with one of the victims, who is now a middle-aged woman, reported CBC.ca. He was arrested in 2014 after that daughter finally went to the police, followed by her two younger sisters. On Friday, an emotional Jacques Lesage took the witness stand to testify in his own defense, recounting for the court how his own hardscrabble childhood was marked by physical and sexual abuse. With tears in his eyes, the defendant said that as a boy growing up with 14 siblings, he initially lived with one of his sisters, then with his violent father, before being sent to a Catholic orphanage in Montreal, where he was subjected to sodomy and rape at the hands of his male caretakers. Daughter speaks out: Lucie Lesage, 53, told the jury that her father raped her for 32 years, from 1971 until 2004, and got her pregnant three times during that time period According to prosecutors, one of Lesages daughters, Lucie, was raped by her father over a period of 32 years, beginning when she was just eight years old. The assaults seized after she turned 40. The Daily Mail does not typically identify victims of sexual assault, but Jacques Lesages three daughters told the court in Quebec they wished to be named so that the name of their father could be made public as well. Lesage is accused of impregnating his daughter Lucie for the first time when she was 13 years old. In all, the woman, who is now 53 years old, had three children by her own father. Under cross examination on Friday, the father acknowledged that he sexually abused Lucie, whom he described from the stand as a 'good woman,' and said he regretted it, but he claimed that at the time of the sexual encounters, he believed Lucie was the product of his wife's affair with another man. The 79-year-old defendant also claimed he did not think his daughters' repeated pregnancies were caused by his assaults. DNA tests subsequently confirmed that Jacques Lesage was the biological father of two of Lucie Lesages three children. When asked about the allegations of assault concerning his other two daughters, Chantal Knippenberg and Nathalie Lesage, their father vehemently denied ever touching the women and insisted that he had never been alone with them. In her testimony earlier last week, 53-year-old Lucie Lesage tearfully recounted in French how she spent her life fearing her father, whom she characterized as verbally and physically abusive. Lesage, pictured here being brought to the courthouse, acknowledged from the stand that he sexually abused his daughter Lucie and said he regretted it 'All I've known is sexual abuse,' she told the court, explaining that the trauma left her with such low self-esteem that she felt incapable of pursuing a career in her field of study, which was special education, or trying to build a romantic relationship with someone. The jury also heard from Lucie's half-sister, Chantal Knippenberg, 45, who claimed that Jacques Lesage began sexually abusing her at age 7, and that the assaults stopped when she was 15 or 16 years old. 'He ruined my childhood,' Knippenberg said of Lesage, then turned to face her father in court and said she loved him, but that what he did to her was wrong. Then on Thursday it was Nathalie Lesage's turn to testify, telling the jury through sobs how Jacques molested her for the first time when she was just five years old and raped her at age eight. The 49-year-old woman also claimed that her father warned her that his acquaintances at the police department would never believe her if she ever decided to come forward about the assaults. After a decade spent in a state of trepidation and panic, Nathalie said she left her familys home at age 16 and moved in with one of her siblings after confronting Jacques and threatening to shoot him if he ever touched her again, she said. Nathalie Lesage also explained she stayed silent about the sex attacks until her sister Lucie came forward in 2014 both because she feared her father, and also because she felt ashamed something she said she still feels guilty about. During the jury selection process earlier this month, prosecutors representing the Crown said Jacques Lesage would pick up his daughters from school at lunchtime, and again at the end of the day, for the purpose of having sex with them. Lesage allegedly plied his children with orange juice spiked with alcohol to get them to relax before the sexual assaults, which took place at the family's home, in the car, in various motels and at Lesage's office. In 2014, Lucie Lesage went to the authorities accusing her father of rape and incest. Her two sisters then followed suit, claiming that they, too, had been sexually assaulted by Lesage, leading to his arrest in November of that year. At his initial court appearance in 2015, Crown lawyer Gaston Langevin described Lesage as manipulative and intimidating. The prosecutor told the court at the time that the 79-year-old defendant warned his family that he had police officers, judges and politicians in his pocket, and while in custody, he violated a non-contact order to try and talk his daughters out of testifying against him using threats. Closing arguments in the case are set to be presented by the Crown and the defense on Tuesday. A man convicted of a triple murder which inspired the Oscar-winning movie Boys Don't Cry has filed an appeal against his death sentence. John Lotter was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1993 killings of 21-year-old Teena Brandon, a transgender man and two witnesses, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine in Humboldt, Nebraska. Lotter has joined the case of a fellow death row inmate who are complaining that Nebraska's rules for determining death sentences are unfair. John Lotter, pictured center in 1996, was convicted of the 1993 murder of 21-year-old Teena Brandon in Nebraska and sentenced to death by three judges following a trial by jury Teena Brandon, who was born a girl, was murdered on New Year's Eve in 1993 by John Lotter. Hillary Swank, right, won an Oscar in the film Boys Don't Cry for playing Brandon, left The state uses three judges as opposed to delegating the decision to a jury. According to the Omaha World-Herald, the attorneys cite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that struck down Florida's death penalty process, saying it gave too much power to judges to make the ultimate decision. After that ruling, Delaware's high court followed suit and threw out that state's death penalty-determining method. Lotter was condemned for his role in the 1993 killings of Teena Brandon, a 21-year-old woman who lived briefly as a man, and two witnesses, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine, at a rural Humboldt, Nebraska, farmhouse. A similar appeal has been filed on behalf of Jeffrey Hessler, convicted in the 2003 rape and murder of 15-year-old Gering, Nebraska, newspaper carrier Heather Guerrero. The Nebraska attorney general's office has filed motions arguing that Nebraska's sentencing scheme allows jury participation and is not identical to the one struck down in Florida. In Nebraska when a defendant is convicted in a death penalty case, the jury that decided guilt also decides whether aggravating factors exist to justify the defendant's execution. Lotter, left, was also murdered witnesses Lisa Lambert, right, and Philip DeVine, not pictured If the jury finds such, a three-judge panel is convened to determine whether the aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating factors in the defendant's favor. The three judges also must determine if the death sentence is warranted and, if so, whether it is proportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases. The three judges ultimately determine whether the defendant gets death or life in prison. Attorney Jerry Soucie, who has represented several Nebraska death row inmates, said Friday that he expects the state's other eight death row inmates to challenge Nebraska's method, too. A tailor has confessed to the rape and attempted rape of hundreds of girls as young as seven in India. Sunil Rastogi, 38, was arrested after CCTV of girls being abducted led police to him in the capital, New Delhi, in northern India. The father-of-five then admitted targeting around 600 schoolgirls over a 14-year period, with most victims aged seven to ten. Sunil Rastogi (pictured) has confessed to the rape and attempted rape of hundreds of girls as young as seven in the latest shocking rape case to rock India Sunil Rastogi, 38, a tailor, was arrested after CCTV of girls being abducted led police to him in the capital, New Delhi, in northern India His mode of offending was to tell passing girls that he had packages of clothes to give to their parents, convincing them to follow him to a secluded area to hand them over. Senior police officer Omvir Singh said: 'The accused told us he used to target girls between seven and ten. 'Whenever he would find any girl going home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place.' Rastogi served six months in jail in 2006, in the northern state of Uttarakhand's city of Rudrapur. The father-of-five is thought to have targeted around 600 schoolgirls over a 14-year period, with most victims aged seven to ten He also has various drug and molestation charges on his record. He was beaten up and driven away from his home in east Delhi in 2004 after attacking a local girl. Rastogi was taken into custody after the parents of two recent victims aged nine and ten told police how they were abducted and taken to a partly constructed building. He reportedly ran away when the girls screamed but police used CCTV of the kidnapping to identify him. His mode of offending was to tell passing girls that he had packages of clothes to give to their parents, convincing them to follow him to a secluded area to hand them over. he is pictured being paraded by Indian police after his arrest The police say the accused had been preying on young girls for over 13 years. Investigating officer Sandeep Kumar revealed that the accused wore the same set of clothes - including a striped red jacket that he considered lucky while molesting minors. He always carried a list of girls' schools so that he could keep a track of when children leave for home. He would follow a group for a short distance and then target a girl who would be alone at time. Investigators from the police department were shocked by the unprecedented scale of the offences he had committed with minor girls. Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.'s pro-life niece revealed on MLK Day that she voted for Donald Trump. Evangelist Alveda King, the director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, made the stunning revelation during an interview with the American Thinker on Monday. The 65-year-old added that she was praying for Trump and Congressman John Lewis to put aside their differences after their well publicized spat and learn to work together. 'I pray that all polar opposites learn to Agape Love, live and work together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools,' she said after civil rights leader Rep. Lewis, who marched alongside MLK, said he didn't consider Trump a 'legitimate president.' Scroll down for video Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s pro-life niece Alveda (left, in 2009) revealed on MLK Day that she voted for Donald Trump (right in New York on Friday) Earlier this year, she met with Trump's son Donald J. Trump Jnr. who posted a picture of their encounter on Instagram on Monday morning 'While I voted for Mr. Trump, my confidence remains in God, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' added the anti-abortionist. 'Prayers for President-elect Trump, Congressman Lewis, and everyone including leaders.' She made the revelation as people across the country mark the federal holiday of Martin Luther King Day. It became a national holiday in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan - twenty years after the civil rights leader gave his iconic 'I Have A Dream' speech in 1963 - and has been observed on the Monday closest to King's birthday ever since. Alveda King, a former Georgia state representative, has previously spoken in support of the president-elect and his policies. Evangelist Alveda King (pictured in 2014) the director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, told the American Thinker she was praying for that Trump and Congressman John Lewis could put aside their differences after their well publicized spat And earlier this year, she met with Trump's son Donald J. Trump Jnr. who posted a picture of their encounter on Instagram on Monday morning, praising her as a 'vocal Trump supporter.' 'Thinking back to this fall when I had the honor of meeting Alveda King,' he posted, 'niece of the great Martin Luther King Jr., activist, former Georgia state representative, and member of our National Diversity Coalition who has also been and amazing and vocal Trump supporter. #mlk #martinlutherking.' Last August, she even described the real estate mogul-turned politician has having 'take a page' out of her uncle MLK's book on how to deal with black communities. Following the announcement of Trump's plans for the black community - which she called 'promising' and his comments that Democrats simply expected black votes in the run up to the election, without earning them, Alveda King told Fox: 'I listened very carefully to everything Mr. Trump has said in the last 72 hours or so and I fully agree with so many of the things that he's saying. 'He has taken a page from the book of my daddy, A. D. King, and my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looking at the climate, people and really being concerned about what's happening in every community across America.' She made the revelation as people across the country mark the federal holiday of Martin Luther King (pictured) Day It may seem surprising that King, the niece of the celebrated civil rights leader, voted for Trump, a notoriously divisive figure. But Alveda, who serves as a Pastoral Associate and Director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, the African-American Outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries, is a fierce pro-life advocate. But during his campaign Trump, trying to appeal for the evangelical vote, pledged to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices. 'At no time did Mr. Trump advise that Americans need to disobey the Bible,' King said of his pledges, after a closed meeting between him and religious leaders. 'Those words did not come out of his mouth.' Following his election day victory, King said that she hoped Trump would remember those who voted and prayed for him to help heal the racial tensions in the U.S. 'I'm born into a family of preachers,' she told Fox Business in November. 'So I want Mr. Trump to remember that many people who voted for him took a long time praying for him. And if he can take some of that divine guidance, that's going to help him out. We do need unity, and from my perspective as a minister myself, God has not forgotten America. President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about MLK on Monday, after going after civil rights icon John Lewis on Saturday President-elect Trump (left) will meet with Martin Luther King III (right), the civil rights leader's son, today to mark MLK Day Alveda King said she was praying for that Trump and Congressman John Lewis (right, speaking to NBC's Chuck Todd) could put aside their differences after their well publicized spat after Lewis questioned the legitimacy of his election 'So if Mr. Trump can remember that, I believe that he can take some positive steps towards unity,' she said. Alveda King has previously criticized President Obama for failing to mention the 55 million fetuses aborted in America in his Selma speech about voting rights. Today, the incoming president called on the nation to celebrate Martin Luther King day and hailed the 'wonderful things' that King stood for as he prepared to meet with his son Martin Luther King III. Trump tweeted: 'Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!' Trump's praise for the man who helped bring about an end to racial segregation and transform American society came as he prepared to meet with Martin Luther King III in New York Monday. The Reverend Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, has posted a picture online of her alongside her father's memorial to mark MLK Day She then posted the tribute to her father and signed off the post with the hashtag #MLK The two men will meet 'to talk about the legacy of Dr. King, ways that we can continue to enfranchise people and advocate for more people to be part of the voting process and further the legacy that Dr. King fought so hard for,' incoming spokesman Sean Spicer revealed Monday morning in an appearance on 'Fox and Friends.' Martin Luther King III's sister, Reverend Bernice King, marked her late father's birthday by posting a touching online tribute saying 'Happy birthday day, I miss you!' Reverend King tweeted a picture of her up close to the memorial to her father in West Potomac Park in Washington DC. In the moving snap, she can be seen placing her hand on the statue's nose while laying her forehead against the memorial. She then posted the tribute to her father - who would have turned 88 yesterday - and signed off the post with the hashtag #MLK. Three Rangers fans have been accused of sexually assaulting an air stewardesses on a flight to Berlin to watch a friendly match at the weekend. The Scottish fans were arrested by police when their EasyJet flight landed and have been accused of spending the entire journey 'groping' flight attendants and insulting them when they begged them to stop. The trio, none of whom have been identified, were travelling on a flight from Edinburgh to Berlin-Schoenefeld Airport to watch the Glasgow giant play in a friendly in Germany against Red Bull Leipzig. Around 8,000 Rangers fans travelled to Germany at the weekend to watch the Gers (in blue) lose 4-0 to Red Blue Leipzig in a friendly Witnesses say the fans on the Saturday evening flight were drunk and created hell for the EasyJet crew, three of whom have decided to press charges. Several police cars and ambulances were waiting for the plane on its arrival in Berlin. An Easyjet spokesman said: 'I can confirm that three passengers, who were behaving in a disruptive manner during flight EZY6977 from Edinburgh to Berlin on 14 January, were met by police on arrival in Berlin'. He said 'the return sectors of the passengers' tickets have been cancelled as a result of their behaviour'. Police confirmed the three passengers faced charges for 'insult and coercion on a sexual basis'. The friendly match was arranged during Rangers' winter break and the majority of the 8,000 Rangers fans (pictured) who attended were well-behaved They were released after their arrest after the police managed to establish their identity and questioned them. EasyJet said workers had to exchange 'several dirty seats and seat covers' from the plane after the flight, which resulted in the return flight back to Edinburgh being delayed for over two hours. Around 8,000 Rangers fans descended on Germany to watch their club lose 4-0 in a friendly to Red Bull Leipzig, one of the Bundesliga's top clubs. Several drunk Rangers fans were also heard singing the notorious '10 German Bombers' song in the middle of a Berlin pub, a song the FA has deemed 'racially offensive'. During the match, a Rangers fan also toppled over a 20-foot barrier onto the concrete ground below at the stadium in Leipzig and was rushed to hospital. A Red Bull Leipzig spokesman said the fan was attempting to do a handstand, and was lucky to escape with only light injuries. The grandmother of teenager Kamiyah Mobley who was snatched from a Florida hospital just hours after she was born has told how she thought it would be too late to see her ever again. But Velma Aiken says she forgives the woman who kidnapped her granddaughter and then raised her as her own. Kamiyah, 18, became a national sensation when she was stolen from her mother Shanara Mobley's arms at the University Medical Center in Jacksonville in July 1998. Velma Aiken, grandmother of Kamiyah Mobley, who was abducted from hospital as a baby. Appearing on Good Morning Britain alongside a local news reporter, she said how she always thought it would be too late to see her ever again She was kidnapped by by Gloria Williams who posed as a nurse and then raised Kamiyah as her own in South Carolina. But last week, Jacksonville Police said the teenager found out on Friday morning that the woman who raised her in Walterboro her whole life was not her real mother. Since then Williams has been arrested at her home and will be extradited to Florida to face charges of kidnapping. Meanwhile Kamiyah has been reunited with her birth mother and biological father Craig Aiken. And now Mr Aiken's mother Velma has spoken out saying she never imagined that her grandaughter would ever be found. In her first TV interview with Good Morning Britain, she told hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid of the night Kamiyah was snatched. Sitting alongside TV reporter John Engel, she said: 'It bought a lot of sadness to us and we were hoping that they would have been able to find the kidnapper that night but it wasn't possible and then I just figured that at the time it was going to be too late.' Kamiyah with her abductor Gloria Williams. The 18-year-old had lived with her since being snatched Williams, left, has now been arrested on kidnap charges for stealing Kamiyah from the hospital just hours after she was born, pictured However, now Mrs Aiken says she is overjoyed she will finally be reunited with her granddaughter in the coming days. She added: 'I feel real good about it. I'm so glad of the joy part of it because from the beginning it was so sad, so I feel real good now. 'I haven't really been reunited with her [in person] yet, but I did talk to her on FaceTime and she seemed real good, she seemed like she'd been talking to us all the time.' And even when host Piers Morgan asked Mrs Aiken towards her feelings to Williams, who abducted her granddaughter, she said she wasn't focusing on that. She explained: 'To be honest, I don't have any feeling towards her, I'm so focussed on and so glad they found my grandbaby. Kamiyah has been reunited with her birth mother Shanara Mobley and biological father Craig Aiken at the weekend Williams had passed off Kamiyah as her own daughter to family and friends, who said they never suspected a thing 'I haven't really focussed on her. I [did] have some [bad] feelings towards her in the beginning, but it's just such a joy to know that I got my grandbaby back.' Kamiyah was only eight hours old in 1998 when she was taken from a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital by Williams posing as a nurse. A massive search produced nothing until a tip received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last year led Jacksonville police to South Carolina. It was there they found an 18-year-old woman with Kamiyah Mobley's birth date but a different name and quickly discovered that fraudulent documents had been used to establish her identity. A DNA sample from the teen was taken and submitted to a crime lab, where it was matched with the original newborn DNA taken the day Kamiyah was born. The test confirmed the teen was, in fact, Kamiyah. Shanara Mobley, who was just 16 when her daughter Kamiyah was snatched from the Florida hospital where she gave birth Williams, now 51, is thought to have suffered a miscarriage about a week before she drove the three hours from South Carolina to Florida and abducted baby Kamiyah in 1998. It is believed she then passed off Kamiyah as her own daughter to family and friends, who said they never suspected a thing. Among them was Charles Manigo, who said he only found out he was not Kamiyah's biological father last week when his former partner Williams was arrested. Kamiyah was reunited with her biological parents just days after learning the shocking secret of how she was snatched at birth by the woman who raised her. After spending nearly an hour with his daughter, Aiken, 41, said of seeing her for the very first time: 'It was the best day of my life. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. We are so happy. I hope the world is rejoicing with us.' A Missouri man has been extradited to the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba to face charges in the April 2015 killing and sexual assault of an American medical student. Dutch Caribbean law enforcement officials say the suspect will face charges that include murder, rape and possession of child pornography. Sunday's announcement identifies the suspect only by his initials, 'S.C.' But US officials previously identified him as 31-year-old Senad Cejvan, who is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina but has been a legal permanent resident of Missouri. Cejvan was a student at the Saba University School of Medicine with the victim, 24-year-old Kavya Guda, of California. Senad Cejvan, a native of Bosnia living in Missouri, was a student at the Saba University School of Medicine (pictured) with Kavya Guda when in April 2015 the woman was found murdered According to authorities, Cejvan abruptly left the Dutch island after Guda was found strangled to death in her apartment on April 15, 2015. When investigators searched a computer Cejvan left behind on the island, they discovered 10,000 images of child pornography. Saba is a five-square-mile island located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea with a population of about 1,800. Senad Cejvan was handed over by American authorities to the Caribbean Netherlands Police Force KPCN following a 16-month investigation, arriving on the neighboring island of Bonaire on Sunday. According to extradition documents cited by the St Louis Post-Dispatch, Guda, Cejvan and a group of friends left a nightclub at around midnight on April 15, 2015, and went to Guda home in The Bottom section of Saba island. Cejvan then went to another woman's home, but later returned to Guda's apartment and strangled her with the sleeve of a jacket, according to the documents. A 27-year-old Canadian national was arrested in June 2015 in connection to Guda's murder, but he was released a month later due to lack of evidence. Murder in paradise: Saba (seen on the map above) is a five-square-mile island located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea with a population of about 1,800 DNA from Senad Cjevans toothbrush later came back a match for DNA evidence found on Kavya Guda's body. After being ejected from the Saba medical school in May 2015, Cejvan relocated to Miami, then moved to Poland to continue his medical studies there, reported the Post-Dispatch. In June 2016, he returned stateside and moved in with his sister in the St Louis suburb of Arnold. Cejvan was arrested in August in response to an extradition petition made by prosecutors on Saba, and in November 2016 a federal US judge cleared the way for the suspect's extradition to the Dutch island. Orsolya-Anamaria Balogh, 27, who attempted to kill her own baby, arriving at Liverpool Crown Court for sentencing today This is the mother who dumped her newborn baby boy a hospital toilet as she walked into court to be sentenced today. The baby was found after the cleaner heard a muffled squeaking noise coming from a bin in the toilets of the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, in Wigan, on July 5 last year. The newborn was still in the foetal position and had tissues stuffed in his mouth, it was heard. His mother Orsolya-Anamaria Balogh, 27, has already admitted attempted infanticide at Liverpool Crown Court and will be sentenced later today. A sentencing hearing heard how Balogh had gone to the hospital's A&E department at around 7.40pm on July 5 last year, complaining of abdominal pain. She told a triage nurse there was no possibility she could be pregnant. Hospital staff said Balogh spent some time in the toilets but left by the time a nurse was ready to see her at around 10.20pm. Richard Pratt QC, prosecuting at a previous hearing, said at around 10.40pm a cleaner went to empty the bin in the toilet area but noticed it felt unusually heavy and heard a muffled squeaking noise. She called for assistance from a hospital security guard before opening the bin bag and finding the baby. The newborn was given oxygen and made a full recovery. Mr Pratt said: 'The baby survived his ordeal with remarkable fortitude and, with medical intervention, was effectively unscathed by the circumstances of his birth.' The mother had been complaining of abdominal pain in A&E but disappeared by the time nurses could see her The baby was found after the cleaner heard a muffled squeaking noise coming from a bin in the toilets of the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, in Wigan, pictured, on July 5 last year Enquiries by hospital staff revealed Balogh had left the hospital shortly after 10.10pm and she and her partner had taken a taxi back to their home in Wigan. Balogh and her partner initially denied she had given birth. This was disproved by a midwife examination. Balogh, now of no fixed address, eventually confirmed she had given birth in the toilet but said the baby had not been breathing and she thought he was dead. Orsolya-Anamaria Balogh, 27, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court, pictured, after admitting attempted infanticide and will be sentenced there today She said she had not known she was pregnant. Police later found internet searches relating to pregnancy and home birth on her computer. The court heard reports by consultant psychiatrists found the balance of Balogh's mind was disturbed after the birth and she experienced dissociation. Balogh, who had a Romanian interpreter for the court proceedings, has been remanded in custody since July 6, 2016. Members of the Muslim faith are welcoming Lindsay Lohan to Islam after the actress deleted her Instagram account and changed her bio on the social media site. Over the weekend, Lohan got rid of every photo on her Instagram page, leaving nothing but her profile picture and a bio that now reads: 'Alaikum salam.' The Arabic greeting translates to 'and unto you peace,' and many took it mean that Lohan was converting to the Muslim faith. 'Im so happy that lindsay lohan found Islam. may Allah guide her and bless her,' wrote one young woman on Twitter. Another posted on her account: 'I heard that Lindsay Lohan converted to Islam? If its true, alhamdulillah. God has shown her the right path to now follow.' Lohan has not revealed however if she is in fact converting to the faith, and a rep for the actress did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com. Scroll down for video New year, new Lohan: Lindsay Lohan, 30, deleted all the photos on her Instagram account over the weekend (above in 2015 carrying a copy of the Quran) Changes: She then changed her bio on the social media site to read 'Alaikum salam,' an Arabic greeting that translates to 'and unto you peace' (above) Lohan recently rang in the New Year in the Middle East, choosing to vacation in Dubai over the holidays. There were previously rumors that Lohan might be converting back in 2015 when she was photographed holding a copy of the Quran while doing community service in Brooklyn. When appearing on the Turkish talk show Haber Turk later year, she explained that the book was actually just a gift from some friends. 'My very close friends, who have been there for me a lot, in London are Saudi and they gave me the Quran and I brought it to New York because I was learning,' said Lohan. 'It opened doors for me to experience spiritually, to find another true meaning. This is who I am.' She claimed however that she was attacked after that picture was released in the media. 'They crucified me for it in America. They made me seem like Satan. I was a bad person for holding that Quran,' claimed Lohan. She said that she was then happy to leave and return to London because she felt 'so unsafe in [her] country.' Lohan professed her interest in a number of religions during an interview with Oprah Winfrey back in 2014, telling the popular talk show host that she was a 'very spiritual person.' She had just completed her sixth stint in rehab at the time that she spoke with Winfrey, saying: 'I'm a very spiritual person and I've become more spiritual as time has gone on,. 'I'm really in touch, whether it's prayer or meditation... there are so many powers greater than me in the world. I've been blessed and lucky enough to have been given a gift to share with other people.' Welcome: Many Muslims took this to mean that Lohan might be converting to the faith despite the fact that she had not commented on why she changed her bio Excited: 'I heard that Lindsay Lohan converted to Islam? If its true, alhamdulillah. God has shown her the right path to now follow,' wrote one woman (above) Changes: Lohan visiting Syrian child refugees in Turkey this past October (left), while she rang in the New Year in Dubai (right) Lohan spent time in October of last year visiting child refugees who had fled Syria and crossed over into Turkey. She told Page Six last month that she was hoping to return to Turkey again either before of after the start of the new year. 'The dates are not set yet. It depends on how Turkey feels after the recent terrorist attack in Istanbul,' said Lohan, 'Not that any attack has or will ever stop me from helping those suffering, those who need our help the most.' She then added: 'I miss my family a lot, but they are very supportive and understanding of the fact that my main focus is business, writing and soon to start another film. More so, my work with refugees.' Vice President-elect Mike Pence visited the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington and cited a famous king quotation inscribed on the memorial's walls as the incoming administration continued to battle civil rights icon Representative John Lewis for questioning Donald Trump's legitimacy. 'Honored to stop by Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial with my family & @SenatorTim Scott,' Pence wrote on Twitter, referencing the South Carolina senator, who in 2014 became the first African American elected from the South since reconstruction. 'Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope,' Pence added, quoting a phrase from King's 'I Have a Dream' speech. The visit was a gesture of solidarity on Martin Luther King Day, following an election where Trump got just 8 per cent of the black vote, according to exit polls. The visit also came during a time of political tension over race, after a weekend when Trump went after civil rights icon Representative John Lewis for questioning his own legitimacy. Scroll down for video Vice President-elect Mike Pence visited the MLK memorial in Washington Monday, accompanied by Senator Tim Scott (r) of South Carolina and Karen Pence. He said he was 'so disappointed' in Rep. John Lewis for saying that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president' Pence said Monday he is 'so disappointed' in Representative Lewis for questioning the legitimacy of Donald Trump's election with 'baseless assertions.' Pence made his comments in a call-in interview with Fox News on Martin Luther King day, after Trump blasted the civil rights icon over the weekend following his own comments that 'I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president' provoking a furious response from Trump on Twitter. 'I served with John Lewis and I disagree with him on many issues, Pence told 'Fox and Friends' on Monday, as the nation was honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 'I respect the role hes played in the civil rights movement and the voting rights movement,' he continued. 'Thats why I was just so disappointed that he would make the statement that he made suggesting that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president.' Pence laced his comments with compliments, after Trump blasted Lewis for being 'all talk, talk, talk - no action or results,' notwithstanding Lewis having been bloodied marching for civil rights. For someone of John Lewis stature to lend credibility to the baseless assertions of those who question the legitimacy of this election is deeply disappointing, he said. I hope he reconsiders it. TOWERING FIGURE: Pence tweeted about his visit on Monday and quoted King's 'I Have a Dream' speech Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Vice President-elect Mike Pence pushed back at Rep. John Lewis on Sunday, and then criticized him again on Monday on Fox News, while saying he respects the role Lewis played in the civil rights movement Incoming White House spokesman Sean Spicer appeared on several programs Monday morning. He indicated that Trump was willing to call Lewis THE NEXT GENERATION: Pence tweeted out a photo of himself and a young girl from the memorial Pence tweeted out images of his visit not long after saying he was 'so disappointed' in Rep. John Lewis for questioning the legitimacy of Trump's election win Lewis responded to the flare-up for the first time Monday in a speech at an MLK breakfast in Georgia. He referenced his role in the Nashville boycott, saying: 'Yes I did get in trouble. I stood out I spoke up I spoke out and I got arrested.' He spoke of his connections to Martin Luther King Jr. and traced his own role in the civil rights movement. Lewis told NBC's 'Meet the Press' in an interview that aired in full on Sunday, ' 'I believe in forgiveness. I believe in trying to work with people.' But he added: 'It's going to be very difficult. I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president.' 'I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,' Lewis said, referencing U.S. intelligence agencies who have said Russia hacked the elections. Trump went after Lewis, ripping his Atlanta-based district as 'falling apart' and being 'in horrible shape,' after Lewis said he would skip Trump's inauguration, saying he wasn't 'legitimate' because of Russian hacking. Since then, more House Democrats have announced plans to join Lewis and skip the inauguration, with the number approaching two dozen. Pence said on 'Fox News Sunday': "While I have great respect for John Lewis and for his contributions, particularly to the civil rights movement, I was deeply disappointed to see someone of his stature question the legitimacy of Donald Trump's election as president and say he's not attending the inauguration," Pence said on "Fox News Sunday." Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer also acknowledged Lewis' role as a civil rights 'icon' in TV appearances Monday. Speaking on MSNBC, Spicer indicated Trump was willing to call Lewis to try to patch things up. 'I wouldnt put it past him to do that. But I think theres got to be a willingness for John Lewis who has fought so hard for voting and civil rights to not use language about delegitimizing an election and the integrity of our voting system that hes frankly been a real champion of,' Spicer said. 'I wouldnt put it past him to pick up the phone and call him, but theres got to be a willingness on both sides,' he added. Swiss-Muslim families have vowed to create their own private schools to segregate boys from girls after a European court ruling made mixed-gender swimming lessons compulsory. Aziz Osmanoglu took a case to the European Court of Human Rights after Swiss authorities insisted his young daughters should participate in mixed swimming lessons. School authorities claimed the swimming classes were vital to the children's 'successful integration into Swiss society as part of the 'full curriculum'. Aziz Osmanoglu, right has vowed to set up his own Islamic school after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Swiss Authorities were correct to order his daughter to learn to swim Osmanoglu, complained his religion does not allow girls to learn to swim along with boys Swiss authorities said the children would be permitted to wear burkinis during the lessons After exhausting the Swiss legal process, Osmanoglu brought his case to the ECHR who upheld the original decision. Serhad Karatekin, media representative of the Muslim Commission in the city of Basel, said: 'We know that individual clubs have set themselves the goal of opening up a Muslim private school now.' Osmanoglu is still refusing to send his two daughters to mixed swimming lessons, a move that has been supported by the Basel Muslim Commission. Johannes Czwalina, a theologian and business consultant from Basel, said he would welcome a Muslim private school and would do all he can to help one open. Czwalina gained national fame in Switzerland after he paid the legal bills of numerous Muslims in recent years. The EHCR admitted that while the Osmanoglu family's right to religious freedom was being interfered with during the planned lesson, this breach did not amount to a violation He felt it was 'discriminatory' that Muslims were being fined when they did not send their children to the swimming lessons and offered to pay for them. Basel authorities fined Osmanoglu 1,140 in July 2010, which triggered the long-running legal battle. Czwalina said that nobody talks about ultra-religious Jewish students who would also refuse to take part in mixed swimming classes. He said: 'If the Jewish students were not under the protection of their own school, there would be more Jewish families affected by fines in Basel than Muslims.' While the ECHR did say that religious freedoms were being interfered with in the lessons, judges said unanimously that the interference did not amount to a violation. Muslim students will now have to take part in mixed-gender swimming lessons, after Switzerland won a court case earlier this month. The ECHR said in a statement that the refusal to exempt girls from swimming lessons 'had been an interference with the applicants' right to their freedom of religion'. The law involved with the right for freedom of religion, however, was made 'to protect foreign pupils from any form of social exclusion,' the ECHR said in a statement. The court said that schools are important for social integration. Exemptions, the ECHR said, are 'justified only in very exceptional circumstances'. 'Accordingly, the children's interest in a full education, thus facilitating their successful social integration according to local customs and mores, prevailed over the parents' wish to have their children exempted from mixed swimming lessons,' the court said. The court said that 'very flexible arrangements' have been offered, including allowing the girls to use a girls-only changing room and letting them wear burkinis during lessons instead of traditional swimwear. Education officials said that exemptions from swimming lessons were only available to girls who had reached puberty. The Swiss nationals' daughters had not reached puberty when their parents kept them from swimming lessons. In 2012, Switzerland's highest court in Lausanne ruled that the obligation to attend mixed-gender swimming lessons was not a violation on religious freedom. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be be investigated by the ethics commissioner for a recent family trip to the Caribbean. Commissioner Mary Dawson is launching an investigation into PM Trudeau's post-Christmas family holiday at the Aga Khan's private island in the Bahamas. Dawson said Monday that Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world's approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. Dawson says she is looking into both Trudeau's stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khan's private helicopter to get there. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau went on vacation with family on billionaire Ada Khan's private island. Pictured: Khan, left, Trudeau, center and his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, right Trudeau will be investigated by Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson for potential violations of Canada's Conflict of Interest Act in a recent trip to the Bahamas Trudeau went on a post-Christmas holiday with family and friends to the private Bahamian island owned by billionaire philanthropist and family friend Aga Khan Conservative ethics critic Blain Calkins wrote to Dawson last week about Trudeau's use of the private helicopter and the hospitality he accepted from a 'friend' whose foundation receives government funds, CBC News reported. Conservative ethics critic Blain Calkins wrote to Dawson last week about Trudeau's potential ethics violations Other guests on the trip included Newfoundland Liberal MP Seamus O'Regan, his husband Steve Doussis , Liberal Party president Anna Gainey and her husband, Tom Pitfield. Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau's own ethics guidelines - which restrict sponsored travel unless under 'exceptional circumstances and only with the prior approval' of the ethics commissioner - bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances. The maximum penalty Trudeau could face is a 'notice of violation.' Trudeau reimbursed $4,895.94 for personal use of a Canadian aircraft to fly to Nassau, the Canadian Armed Forces said last week. Other guests on the island included Liberal MP Seamus O'Regan, pictured left, his husband Steve Doussis , Liberal Party president Anna Gainey, pictured right, and her husband, Tom Pitfield Civil rights icon and Georgia representative John Lewis has been called 'a racist pig' in a Facebook by a white, Republican commissioner in the state. The remarks by Tommy Hunter, a member of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, came after Lewis said at the weekend he would boycott Donald Trump's inauguration, sparking an online row. 'John Lewis is a racist pig,' Hunter wrote Saturday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. 'There ain't one political pundit that didn't say on November 9 that this would be Demonrats EXACT response to Trump winning.' 'Racist': Civil rights icon and Georgia representative John Lewis (pictured left in 2016) was called a 'racist pig' by Tommy Hunter (right), a Gwinnett County commissioner Invective: Hunter posted the angry rant on his Facebook page, incensed by Lewis's vow not to attend Trump's inauguration because he believes Russia got the businessman elected 'Illegitimate': Hunter also said Lewis's success as a Rep was 'illegitimate'. Hunter said 'racist pig' was an 'overreaction' but said his other remarks were made to counter Lewis' claims Hunter continued: 'Like I heard Rush, I believe, say, Demonrats DO NOT live in reality. They believe the polls were right and THE REAL VOTES were wrong. 'What a bunch of idiots.' In a second post made Sunday afternoon, he added: 'John Lewis' district is drawn to keep him in power. His wins are illegitimate. How can other reps be concerned about working with him.' However, he also deleted both of the posts. Hunter, whose district is around 25 miles north-east from Lewis' 5th congressional district in Atlanta, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his 'racist pig' comment was 'probably an overreaction out of aggravation'. But he said he stood by his other comments. Trump tweeted Friday that Lewis was 'all talk - no action' and called Lewis's district 'falling apart' and 'crime-infested' after learning that Lewis would boycott his inauguration The commissioner, who is vice-president of an environmental testing firm in the county, was incensed by remarks Lewis made to NBC News on Friday. The representative, who was one of the 'Big Six' of civil rights in the 1960s, along with Martin Luther King Jr, told the station: 'I don't see this President-elect as a legitimate president. 'I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.' He added: 'You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong.' Trump responded furiously to Lewis on Twitter, saying he 'should spend more time' 'fixing' his 'horrible' and 'crime-infested' district, and said he was 'All talk, talk, talk - no action or results.' Narrow win: Hunter was elected in 2010 and only narrowly won reelection in November, in a 47 per cent non-white county Speaking to the Journal-Constitution, Hunter said he was 'grateful for what the Congressman did in Selma and other times during the civil rights movement'. But he also accused Lewis of 'using his fame as a way to continually divide the races', falsely calling Trump racist and trying to delegitimize the election by saying Trump only won because of Russian hacks 'which, of course, we all know didn't occur'. 'Therefore I claim [Lewis] is illegitimate and make just as many unsubstantiated claims as [Trump] does,' he said. 'After all, in today's world, it's not about the evidence, but the seriousness of the charges.' Since word got out about his Facebook posts, Hunter's comments pages have filled up with fiery invective. 'Embarrassed to be from Georgia,' wrote Katherine Hunt Arabis. 'Consider apologizing to John Lewis and to your constituents, the city, and people everywhere your words hurt.' Casey Wade Pleasant wrote: 'SHUT UP B***H. Can't wait for your b***h a** to get fired..... you fat piece of s**t.' On Sunday Hunter had posted a picture of Tom Hardy dressed as a cowboy, with the caption 'If you're easily offended and looking for a "safe place" my page ain't it.. move along snowflake.' But at midday Monday that post and all other public posts up to January 1 were either deleted or made available only to his friends. Hunter also posted a 'happy MLK Day' message on Monday that read: 'Remember it's the content of your character, not the color of your skin, that matters. Someday, hopefully that will become reality.' He later removed it, or made it private. Hunter was elected in 2012, and narrowly won re-election in November. Gwinnett County has a 47 per cent minority population according to the 2010 US census; 24 per cent of the population is black. Donald Trump has called on Britain to investigate an ex-MI6 spy who wrote a 'dirty dossier' full of lurid claims about the president-elect. Christopher Steele compiled a 35-page report claiming that Trump was open to blackmail after allegedly being secretly filmed paying prostitutes to take part in a sex game on a hotel bed in Moscow. Steele, who studied at Cambridge University, has packed his bags and fled his 1.5million Surrey mansion 'fearing for his life' and Russian reprisals after the story broke. Donald Trump has called on Britain to investigate an ex-MI6 spy who wrote a 'dirty dossier' full of lurid claims about the President-elect The President-elect and his aides have furiously denied the allegations in the reports with Trump himself branding BuzzFeed 'fake news' for publishing the claims. And now in an interview with The Times, Trump has admitted he is so disgusted by lurid sex claims about himself, he was afraid to shake hands with anyone and has called for an investigation. He told former British cabinet minister Michael Gove, who conducted the interview for the newspaper: 'I left, I wasnt even there... I was there for the Miss Universe contest, got up, got my stuff and I left I wasnt even there its all... so if this guy is a British guy you got a lot of problems. Christopher Steele compiled a 35-page report claiming that Trump was open to blackmail after allegedly being secretly filmed paying prostitutes to take part in a sex game on a presidential suite bed in Moscow 'Well, that guy is somebody that you should look at, because whatever he made up about me it was false he was supposedly hired by the Republicans and Democrats working together even that I dont believe because they dont work together, they work separately and they dont hire the same guy what they got together? 'See the whole thing is fake news because it said the, whoever it was, intelligence, the so-called intelligence, said hes an operative of Republicans and Democrats they dont work together, they dont work together.' Meanwhile when asked who he thought was behind the dossier, the president-elect said he thought it could be the Democratic party or intelligence. He added: 'When I just heard it I ripped up the mat... if I did that in a hotel itd be the biggest thing theyd have me on the front page of The New York Post, right?' Steele's dossier came to light last week and it claimed among other things that Russia had tapes of Trump engaging in 'perverted sexual acts' while in a Moscow hotel room. Steele's involvement in the dossier leak has also embarrassed Prime Minister Theresa May only weeks before she is due to fly to America to meet the new US President It circulated for months among major media outlets but neither the news organisations nor US law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been able to corroborate them. Steele, a married father-of-four, who set up his own intelligence agency - Orbis Business intelligence company - has now gone into hiding. His involvement in the dossier leak has also embarrassed Prime Minister Theresa May only weeks before she is due to fly to America to meet the new US President. The revelations have also damaged Britains shaky relations with Vladimir Putin. Christian woman Soad Thabet, 70, was attacked after her son was rumoured to have had an affair with a married Muslim woman Three Muslim men accused of stripping a 70-year-old Christian woman naked and beating her in the street in Egypt have had the charges against them dropped. Soad Thabet was attacked after her son was rumoured to have had an affair with a married Muslim woman. Despite dropping the charges against her alleged attackers, authorities are pressing ahead with the prosecution of Mrs Thabet's son for adultery. Mrs Thabet, a Coptic Christian, was attacked in May last year by Muslim villagers who dragged her from her home along the dirt roads of Alkarm, the Egyptian village where she spent her most of her adult life. 'They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes. I was just as my mother gave birth to me, screaming and crying,' Thabet told Reuters a week after the attack. But authorities have now dropped the case against her attackers due to a 'lack of evidence'. Her son Ashraf Abdo Attia will be tried for alleged adultery later this month. Adultery is illegal in Egypt and relationships between Christian men and Muslim women are also forbidden. However, Mr Abdo Attia, denies having an affair with the wife of his former business partner. The woman has also since denied the affair took place on national television. Mrs Thabet told The Telegraph this week: 'I was hoping that they will be punished. The people who comfort me say that Jesus was himself stripped naked. Now, I complain only to God, and hope he brings justice.' A damaged home belonging to one of seven Christian families, whose houses were looted and set on fire by Muslim men during the attack on Mrs Thabet, is seen at Al-Karm village in May last year Pictured is another damaged home belonging to one of seven Christian families, whose houses were looted and set on fire by Muslim men, in the southern province of Minya last year In this Christian home, pictured in May last year, chairs were ripped from the wall. Sectarian attacks occur so frequently in Egypt that they rarely attract wide publicity Orthodox Copts like Mrs Thabet, who make up about a tenth of Egypt's 90 million population, are the Middle East's largest Christian community. They have long complained of discrimination in the majority-Muslim country. Sectarian attacks occur so frequently in Egypt that they rarely attract wide publicity. But Mrs Thabet's ordeal, the public humiliation of an elderly woman, prompted an outcry among Copts and led to the case becoming national news at the time. 'If it were just a burning we could handle it, but what can we do about what happened to the woman? How can you compensate for this insult?' Ishak William, Mrs Thabet's neighbour and relative, told Reuters at his house in Alkarm. At the time President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi denounced the Alkarm attack, which underlines that Copts remain vulnerable four years after he took power and pledged to unite the country following years of political turmoil. After the attack in May, Bishop Makarios, the highest Coptic church official in Minya, said: 'We have people getting killed and there is no one answering for it, money stolen, houses looted, girls kidnapped ... and we bear it all and let it pass, but now there is escalation' Sectarian violence often erupts on the back of rumours about inter-faith romances or suspicions that Christians are building churches without the required official permission. Homes are burned, crops are razed, churches are attacked and, occasionally, Copts are forced to leave their villages, say human rights groups and residents of the southern province of Minya, home to Egypt's largest Christian community. Then come the reconciliation sessions, processes informally backed by the government that see local Coptic priests and Muslim clerics attempt to mediate a communal peace without resorting to the legal system. Christians interviewed by Reuters said the sessions often end with them making concessions, such as agreeing that certain families leave town or that the church not bear a visible cross, while those who perpetrated the attacks often go unpunished. Muslim residents and religious officials say the informal process helps broker compromises to avoid a cycle of escalation and retribution. Copts often go along with it to avert more trouble. The attack took place in the Egyptian village of Alkarm, in Egypt's Minya province, in the agricultural hinterland of Upper Egypt Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (C) is pictured delivering a speech during the funeral ceremony for the victims of the explosion at Saint Peter and Saint Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, Egypt on December 12, 2016 But the May attack left a new bitterness among the Copts of tiny Alkarm, in the agricultural hinterland of Upper Egypt. This time, they say, reconciliation is not enough. 'We answer to the law, not to reconciliation sessions. Whoever did this must be held accountable,' said Mr William. Mrs Thabet's ordeal led to the Diocese of Minya releasing a statement demanding justice. The attack subsequently drew condemnation from the government and Al Azhar, Cairo's ancient centre of Islamic learning. 'We have people getting killed and there is no one answering for it, money stolen, houses looted, girls kidnapped ... and we bear it all and let it pass, but now there is escalation,' Bishop Makarios, the highest Coptic church official in Minya, told Reuters by telephone. 'We get told, take reconciliation because it is better for you than other bad scenarios and people are simple and just want to live in peace, but this time people won't have it.' Neighbours who witnessed the incident told Reuters it took place on May 20, when a group of Muslim men set fire to seven Christian homes and stripped the grandmother naked in the street after rumours of her son Ashraf's inter-faith affair. Ashraf fled with his wife and children on May 19 after receiving threats, said Mr William. His parents went to the police, fearing for their lives, said Ishak Ibrahim of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The mob burned down their house the next day, Ibrahim and several local residents said. A British triathlete, who died from sepsis after going into A&E twice in 24 hours, could have lived if she'd been given antibiotics sooner. Ellie Penrose, 18, from Cottingham in East Yorkshire, died from meningitis hours after a junior doctor wrongly diagnosed her as suffering from a stomach bug and sent her home with painkillers. The teenager - who represented Great Britain and learned on the day she died that she had excelled in her A-levels - was suffering from sickness, a headache and an aversion to light when she was initially taken to hospital in August last year. She also had blotches on her skin. Her condition deteriorated and she died later that day - August 13, 2015, of sepsis caused by a meningicoccal infection. Ellie Penrose tragically died after a hospital's junior doctor thought her meningitis was a stomach bug An inquest in Hull today heard how Miss Penrose was not given vital antibiotics until two hours after she arrived at the A&E for the second time. Infectious diseases expert Dr Mike Beadsworth - who was brought in by the coroner to give him an independent opinion - told the inquest that, given the symptoms she displayed, he could not criticise the decision to discharge her at her first A&E visit. He did say that, in retrospect, Miss Penrose would not have died if she had been given antibiotics at that time. The expert said that he believed Miss Penrose should have been given antibiotics as as soon as she arrived at the hospital for the second time when a number of warning signs for sepsis were present. Dr Beadsworth told the court: 'She may have survived but I can't say that she probably would have survived.' Pushed again on this issue by Adam Korne, representing Miss Penrose's family, Dr Beadsworth said: 'I think I have to say 50/50. I just don't know if she would have survived or not.' Miss Penrose was a promising international and the court heard how she competed in a triathlon in Switzerland a month before she was taken ill, swimming in Lake Geneva Miss Penrose was a promising international and the court heard how she competed in a triathlon in Switzerland a month before she was taken ill, swimming in Lake Geneva. She had a bout of diarrhoea on a holiday in Florida and then began to feel unwell again on August 9. But the coroner noted that she still managed a lengthy bike ride Coroner Professor Paul Marks ruled that it was 'not inappropriate' for Miss Penrose to be discharged at 3.50am. But he said that she should have been given antibiotics as soon as she arrived in the hospital for the second time. The coroner said that 'crucially' he was able to say that this 'may have resulted in her surviving' but said: 'I am unable to a make a finding of fact that she would have survived.' In a narrative verdict, Prof Marks said: 'Had antibiotic therapy been given immediately, she may have survived.' He said that although Miss Penrose developed a severe meningococcal infection, she never had meningitis. A statement was read from Dr Mark Simpson, clinical director for emergency medicine at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who explained a range of changes that had been made to the A&E department since Miss Penrose's deaths. Mr Korne, for the family, asked the coroner to write to the trust stressing concerns about issues including the inexperience of the doctors in the A&E on the night when Miss Penrose first arrived which he described as 'one very junior doctor reporting to another very junior doctor'. The barrister also said the family wanted to encourage ongoing work to raise awareness of the dangers of sepsis. Shaip Nimani, 52, has been jailed for four years after a Romanian car washer was electrocuted in the shower in the 'rat infested squalor' behind his car wash company A businessman has been jailed for four years after a Romanian car washer was electrocuted in the shower in the 'rat infested squalor' behind his car wash company. Shaip Nimani, 52, originally from Kosovo, employed Sandu Laurentiu Sava, 40, and five other Romanian men for 40 a day at the Bubbles Car Wash in Bethnal Green, east London. He deducted 40 a week from each employee to stay in a makeshift accommodation block behind the car wash under the arches, which he leased from Network Rail. It was described as being an 'abject squalor' that posed 'extreme danger to life'. Mr Sava suffered a fatal electric shock while taking a shower in the garage after Nimani bypassed the meter to save money, a court was told. Prosecutor William Boyce QC told the court: 'The conditions in the residential block were ones of almost abject squalor and extreme danger to life. 'The electrical systems at the car wash were in an appalling condition. 'Someone had abstracted the electricity for the premises and bypassed the meter, no doubt to avoid paying the bill. 'Someone had maintained the systems in a woefully incompetent way.' The electricity supply had not been earthed and there were no circuit breakers. Copper wire had also been wrapped around the fuses to prevent the circuits from shorting out 'due to the overloaded and dangerous way they had been set up', Mr Boyce explained. The Old Bailey heard Mr Sava had found another job in the construction industry a few days before his death but was still living underneath the railway arches. At 9.40pm on 19 August 2015, he returned to the accommodation and was having a shower when he suffered the fatal electric shock. His co-workers tried to save him but he was pronounced dead at hospital at 10.37pm. Nimani, from Cricklewood, in northwest London, admitted manslaughter due to gross negligence. Nimani, 52, originally from Kosovo, employed Sandu Laurentiu Sava, 40, and five other Romanian men for 40 a day at the Bubbles Car Wash in Bethnal Green, east London Judge Nicholas Cooke QC said: 'You have accepted that Mr Sava died as a result of gross negligence on your part. 'There were other background causes but as his former employer and the owner of the premises the responsibility was clearly yours. 'There was wholesale ignoring of health and safety regulations, planning control and building regulations. 'The failure to pick up on flagrant breaches ought to be a source of public concern. 'However there is no escaping the fact you ignored the safety and welfare of your employees and tenants. 'They lived in rat infested squalor but they were also exposed to the risk of electrocution.' Judge Cooke ordered Nimani to pay 20,000 in compensation to the victim's family and 20,000 in prosecution costs or face an extra 12 months in prison. The court heard Nimani came to the UK in 1992 as a refugee from Kosovo and opened his car wash business in 2000. The car wash was last visited by officials from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in 2013. Network Rail tried to inspect the electric meter and fuses in July last year - a month before the death of Mr Sava - but were unable to gain access. Nimani failed to disclose who was responsible for incompetently re-wiring the premises and bypassing the meter. He is married with three sons, one of whom works as an ambulance controller in Basildon, and had no previous convictions. His brother, amateur electrician Nusret Nimani, 46, from Northolt, west London, was cleared of manslaughter due to gross negligence when the prosecution dropped the case following Shaip's guilty plea. Two construction workers died and a third is missing believed dead after they collapsed for unknown reasons while working underground in Key Largo - in an area with no gas lines. The workers, who have not yet been named, died while down a manhole at 175 Long Key Drive, near near mile marker 106, at around 8am. Four people who attempted to assist the trapped workers were hospitalized - one of them, a firefighter, was airlifted to hospital, WSVN reported. Deaths: Two workers died after collapsing down a manhole on a Key Largo road (pictured) on Monday morning. A third has not been recovered from the manhole and is presumed dead Investigation: The manhole is now being investigated. Fire crews were seen on Monday using an extractor fan connected to a large yellow pipe to pull any possible fumes out of the manhole The incident began when one of the workers entered the manhole to try to figure out why a section of the newly paved road had sunk in a certain spot. He collapsed down the hole and three other workers attempted to rescue him. One of those workers died along with the trapped man. They were determined to be dead at the scene. A third has still not been retrieved from the hole but is presumed dead, and a fourth was treated at the scene. Two bodies were retrieved by a group containing a volunteer firefighter with Key Largo Volunteer Fire Department and two Monroe County Sheriffs Office deputies. The firefighter, who climbed into the hole to retrieve the bodies, had to be airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center. The two deputies were hospitalized in the Mariners Hospital in Tavernier. Five homes in the area were evacuated of residents by local government as a precautionary measure. A hazardous materials team from the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is investigating, and the Monroe County Medical Examiner will examine the bodies to determine cause of death. The workers were all employees of Douglas N Higgins, who was contracted by Monroe County to repair Long Key Road. Advertisement A Victorian station where the real life Peaky Blinders spent their first night in custody has slammed its cell doors shut for the final time. Steelhouse Lane Police Station in Birmingham, has played host to a list of notorious criminals during its 125-year history, including the Blinders and serial killer Fred West. But the Grade II listed building, which is one of Britain's oldest custody suites, will no longer play home to the city's cops and robbers after it was deemed 'unsuitable' for modern policing. Reminiscent of a different age, Steelhouse features an underground tunnel through which thousands of criminals made the walk to court, heavy steel cell doors, art deco door handles, old fashioned interview rooms equipped with cassette players and even stained glass windows. Head of Birmingham West neighbourhood policing unit, Chief Superintendent Chris Johnson, said: 'We are moving to a fantastic new base which has been specifically designed to cater for 21st Century policing. 'As much as we all love the site on Steelhouse Lane, it's almost 100 years old and struggling to cope with the demands of modern policing. 'The age of the building means it's expensive to run, there's lots of repairs, there is no level access for wheelchair users or people with prams, the public space is incredibly small with nowhere to expand into, the list goes on.' Steelhouse Lane Police Station in Birmingham has slammed its cell door shut for the last time after 125 years of service Steelhouse has played host to a list of notorious criminals including serial killer Fred West and the real life Peaky Blinders (Pictured, Paul Anderson, Joe Cole and Cillian Murphy play in the BBC adaptation) The station has been closed by West Midlands Police as it was deemed 'unsuitable' for modern policing in Birmingham Steelhouse is a Grade II listed building and is one of Britain's oldest custody suites. Pictured: Shackles provide decoration above the fireplace in the station's old kitchen, in the basement Head of Birmingham West neighbourhood policing unit, Chief Superintendent Chris Johnson said that as much as his team loved Steelhouse Lane, the building was just 'too expensive' to run Pictured: The custody suite at Steelhouse Lane looks reminiscent of a scene from 1970s prison sitcom Porridge, rather than a modern police station Pictured: A metal stair case and landing provides access to Steelhouse Lane's old cells, that would have been used on a daily basis by Birmingham's criminals and police officers Pictured: One of the decorative hangovers from Steelhouse's early days are ornate stain glass windows, which even have a thin blue line as a border Pictured: The historic police station also has an underground tunnel which was used to take criminals to court This interview room is a far cry from the modern facilities housed at West Midlands Police Headquarters at Lloyd House Birmingham Boris Johnson enthusiastically greeted Europe's foreign policy chief at the start of the Brussels summit today. The British foreign minister was seen introducing himself to Federica Mogherini, before the meeting, in which he was told that trade deals cannot be negotiated until the country leaves the EU. Johnson was also pictured in deep conversation with German Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Boris Johnson enthusiastically greeted Europe's foreign policy chief at the start of the Brussels summit today The British foreign minister was seen introducing himself to Federica Mogherini, before the meeting Mogherini, the bloc's foreign policy chief, gave the warning to Britain after US President-elect Donald Trump backed a speedy trade agreement with London Foreign ministers, including Boris Johnson, met in Brussels following remarks by Donald Trump in which he said Britain and the US should work fast on securing a trade deal Mogherini, the bloc's foreign policy chief, gave the warning to Britain after US President-elect Donald Trump backed a speedy trade agreement with London. 'I would like to specify one thing that we discussed also with Boris Johnson today and he was agreeing with me,' Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about Trump's comments in two European newspapers. 'It's absolutely clear on the EU side that as long as a country is a member state of the EU, which is something the UK is at the moment, seven months after the referendum, still there are no negotiations bilaterally on any trade agreement with third parties,' she added. 'This is in the treaties and this is valid for all member states as long as they remain member states, until the very last day.' Trump told The Times and Bild newspapers that Brexit would be a 'great thing', and on a trade deal said he would 'work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly.' Johnson had said earlier Monday it was 'very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast.' Johnson was also pictured in deep conversation with German Foreign Affairs Minister Pictured is UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson speaking to German Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier Johnson attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels today Mogherini also rejected Trump's prediction that other countries would follow Britain's lead in voting to leave the European Union. 'I think the European Union will stick together, I'm 100 percent convinced of this,' she said after EU foreign ministers met in Brussels. 'I respect the opinions of the future president of the United States but I think the EU will be okay in the future.' Jack Daniel's is looking to be a staple on your night out as well as during your hangover cure routine. The Tennessee whiskey brand announced it is selling a non-alcoholic coffee that tastes like its whiskey. The 150-year-old booze giant partnered with World of Coffee Inc to bring whiskey fans the taste of the liquor with a different kind of buzz. Jack Daniel's new coffee line has the 'distinct caramel and vanilla notes of Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey' For $21.95, Jack fans can order an 8.8oz collectible tin of coffee beans. Or, for $6.95 they can enjoy a small 1.5oz bag of coffee. To compare, an 8.8oz can of medium roast Folgers coffee costs $4.19 at Target. The website says: 'The distinct caramel and vanilla notes of Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey are evident in each sip.' It was not disclosed if the hot beverage smells more like coffee or whiskey to judgmental colleagues. Jack Daniel's coffee line is sold in an 8.8oz collectible tin for $21.95 or in a 1.5oz bag for $6.95 The new product was launched in December for the holiday season. In a press release, the president and owner of World of Coffee said: 'We use the best tasting and highest quality coffees in the world and now add to that the authentic taste and aroma of Jack Daniels.' 'We take a lot of care and pride in the coffee products we craft and Jack Daniels Coffee is no exception.' It was initially sold in Lynchburg Hardware and General Store in Tennessee and has since rolled out nationwide through the Jack Daniel's website. There is also a decaffeinated version of the coffee beans. A couple struck down with severe illness while on holiday celebrating their Ruby Wedding anniversary will finally receive compensation after a ruling in the Court of Appeal. Dennis and Margaret Wood, of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, were celebrating 40 years together on an all-inclusive stay at the Bahia Principe resort in Cayacoa, in the Dominican Republic in March 2011. But their two-week holiday was ruined when they both developed acute gastroenteritis after consuming contaminated food or drink at the four star hotel. Dennis and Margaret Wood were struck down with acute gastroenteritis as they celebrated their anniversary at the Bahia Principe resort (pictured) in Cayacoa, Dominican Republic A judge awarded Mr Wood damages which included 16,500 for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life and his wife 7,500 - but TUI Travel plc trading as First Choice appealed against the finding of liability. In London today, Sir Brian Leveson, Lord Justice McFarlane and Lord Justice Burnett upheld the decision given in Birmingham County Court which was based on the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. Bahia Principe is the sister hotel to the Bahia Principe resort in San Juan - where more than 500 tourists were awarded 3.5million after being struck down with illness in 2007. Mr Wood said his dream break quickly turned into a nightmare. 'From the very first night we noticed a range of problems, particularly with the food. Fish dishes were often very undercooked and we saw red meat being cooked on nothing more than a hot plate,' he said. The 62-year-old added: 'We didn't see any of these being cleaned before the staff added different meats to the same hot plate. I couldn't believe anyone would think this was acceptable. 'I suffered diarrhoea, stomach cramps, drastic weight loss and dehydration before being rushed to hospital after just days out there. 'I stayed for five days and was diagnosed with both eyesight and bacterial problems - I was an absolute mess. 'Once we got home I went to pick up our car but I suddenly felt very faint in the lobby of the building and collapsed. 'I can't remember too much but know I was taken to hospital by paramedics and stayed for five hours while they checked me over. I was advised to go and see my GP. Unbelievably he told me to go back to the hospital.' Judges at the Court of Appeal in London upheld the Wood's compensation claim, awarding them 24,000 The judges in the Court of Appeal said underlying the appeal was a concern that package tour operators should not become the guarantor of the quality of food and drink when it was provided as part of the holiday they were contracted to provide. First Choice's counsel said it could potentially become liable for every upset stomach which occurred during one of its holidays. But that was not what the judge's finding, or the conclusion that he applied the correct legal approach, dictated. Rejecting the 'floodgates' argument, they said that the judge was satisfied on the evidence that Mr and Mrs Wood became ill as a result of food or drink which was not of satisfactory quality. First Choice's counsel said it could become liable for every upset stomach which occurred during one of its holidays after the initial ruling at Birmingham County Court (pictured) Simon O'Loughlin, of law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: 'Dennis is understandably devastated by what happened to him and he has good reason to be. 'But we are happy that he can now put this ordeal behind him. 'Dennis and his wife went on holiday expecting an amazing relaxing break but it was ruined by the horrible illness he suffered. 'And then, to add insult to injury, the tour operator has fought them through two court hearings to avoid liability by seeking to rely on a technical interpretation of the law. 'The Court of Appeal judges have unanimously agreed in his favour and we see this as a victory for common sense. 'The couple only ate food and drank in the hotel and Dennis suffered very severe gastroenteritis as a result. 'Their holiday was ruined and they deserve a fair settlement to enable them to put it behind them and move on.' The eight-year-old son of a former London Argos security guard elected as president of Gambia has been mauled to death by a dog. Adama Barrow's son Habibu was attacked in the town of Manjai and died on his way to hospital. His father is in the middle of a bitter political stand-off after pipping Yahya Jammeh to the post in the election meaning he could not even attend the funeral. Jammeh, who has held the post for 22 years, is refusing to stand down, which has prompted West African nations to prepare for an invasion of Gambia to ensure democracy is adhered to. Adama Barrow, the flag-bearer of the coalition of the seven opposition political parties in Gambia, greets supporters during a gathering in the buffer Zone district of Talinding on November 29 In the wake of presidential polls in the country in December, Barrow remains in exile in Senegal, according to the IB Times. Nearby nations are preparing to invade Gambia to overthrow Jammeh who failed to accept his election defeat to the ex-Argos security guard from north London. Barrow, who worked at Argos while studying in London, was meant to be sworn in on Thursday, but the long-term leader is refusing to stand down. Nigeria is understood to have asked the British Army to help out with plans for what is being described as a 'rapid reaction' to install the county's rightful president, according to the Telegraph. Incumbent Gambian president Yahya Jammeh (centre) has his finger inked before casting his marble in a polling station in a presidential poll, in Banjul, last year It has led to thousands of citizens fleeing the country who are in fear of mass bloodshed. The move comes from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is made up of 15 countries in the region. Jammeh, meanwhile, has filed an injunction to stop election winner Barrow from taking office and to bar other parties from swearing in the opposition coalition leader. The president told Gambians they must wait for a supreme court hearing before he considers stepping down. He addressed the West African nation as Senegal said it was hosting president-elect Mr Barrow until his January 19 inauguration. But Jammeh, 51, said that date, marking the end of his mandate, was 'not carved in stone'. 'I have confirmed that we have filed an application for an injunction to restrict Adama Barrow from being sworn in as well as restricting the chief justice and any other parties from swearing in Adama Barrow until the application is decided by the supreme court of Gambia,' Jammeh said. 'And until then, the status quo remains.' President of Gambia Yahya Jammeh (centre) welcoming President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari (right) and President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (left) for talks at the State House in Banjul, Gambia, on Friday Gambian president-elect Adama Barrow speaks during an interview in Banjul in December Jammeh called the chairwoman of the West African bloc, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, during his state TV broadcast. While on the phone, he confirmed that he filed the injunction and asked that the ECOWAS, which has been mediating the political crisis in Gambia, help facilitate supreme court judges. 'The only peaceful resolution of this impasse is through the courts,' he told Sirleaf. Sirleaf said that 'we are going to work on this right away' and encouraged Jammeh to confirm that he wanted peace and would follow the constitution. 'Gambia needs peace, and ECOWAS wants peace,' she said. Jammeh, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1994, had conceded after losing in the December 1 election, but a week later he rejected the vote, saying there were irregularities. He and his party filed a petition calling for a new vote and he appointed judges to the supreme court, which had not sat for more than a year. The Nigerian and Sierra Leone judges he appointed, however, have said they cannot sit until May. ECOWAS leaders attempting to mediate the political crisis met Jammeh and Barrow in Gambia on Friday, but said no deal was reached. Barrow, who once worked as an Argos security guard in north London, was then invited to meet African leaders at the France-Africa summit in Mali on Saturday. Gambian President Yahya Jammeh who is refusing to stand down after losing the election The West African regional bloc has said if Jammeh does not cede power it will consider military intervention and has already prepared a standby force led by Senegal, which almost completely surrounds Gambia. A Nigerian army memo has also ordered officers to prepare a battalion of 800 troops for the possible military intervention, should Jammeh not step down. The African Union has announced it will cease to recognise Jammeh as Gambia's legitimate leader as of January 19, when his mandate expires, and warns of 'serious consequences' if his actions lead to the loss of lives. Mr Jammeh criticised the AU's decision in his Sunday address, saying it had not been approved by member states. Gambia's political uncertainty has recently sent several thousand people, mostly women and children in buses, fleeing the country of about 1.9million people across the border to Senegal. Jammeh came to power as a 29-year-old army lieutenant and won four multi-party elections before he was finally defeated by Mr Barrow. Monica Crowley, a conservative author and pundit who was set to takeover as senior director of strategic communications for the White House's National Security Council, will not be joining the Trump administration after all. More than 50 charges of plagiarism, based on discoveries made by CNN's KFile division, led publisher HarperCollins to pull her 2012 book from its shelves last week. A transition aide cast the mini-scandal as 'a politically motivated attack' when the allegations first came out. Crowley told the Washington Times today, however, that she wouldn't be working in the incoming administration - casting the move as a personal decision. 'After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration,' she said in a statement to the publication. Monica Crowley, a syndicated talk show host who was set to takeover as senior director of strategic communications for the White House's National Security Council, will not be joining the Trump administration after all 'I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trumps team and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal.' Crowley, a former columnist and online editor for the Washington Times, had been accused of lifting numerous passages of her book, 'What The (Bleep) Just Happened,' from various sources, including news stories, columns and Wikipedia articles. HarperCollins said Tuesday it was pulling the critique of Barack Obama's presidency until Crowley sourced and revised the contents. The book (pictured), contains no bibliography or notes but some passages are strikingly similar to news stories, columns and even Wikipedia entries, CNN reported The 2012 book was a hit with conservatives like Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani, among other future Trump supporters. A second edition came out in 2013, with the same text and a new foreword in which Crowley responds to Obama's re-election. Both versions have been pulled from the shelves. The hardcover of 'What the (Bleep) Just Happened?' was already out of print, but the 2012 edition had been available as an e-book. The book currently unavailable for purchase on Amazon. Crowley appears to have plagiarized large sections of the book, according to an analysis by CNN's K File. Their review found more than 50 examples of apparent plagiarism. Politico separately charged that her 2000 dissertation wasn't properly sourced. Trump's transition team defended Crowley, dismissing the allegation as 'nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country'. 'Monica's exceptional insight and thoughtful work on how to turn this country around is exactly why she will be serving in the Administration,' a transition spokesperson told CNN in a statement. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Adviser, told the Washington Times today that the 'NSC will miss the opportunity to have Monica Crowley as part of our team. 'We wish her all the best in her future,' Flynn's statement read. Transition officials had not responded to questions about the allegations regarding Crowley's academic work or HarperCollins' decision to suspend sales of her book. Crowley also faced plagiarism allegations in 1999 after a piece she wrote on the 25th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's resignation ran in The Wall Street Journal. 'There are striking similarities in phraseology between "The Day Richard Nixon Said Goodbye," an editorial feature Monday by Monica Crowley, and a 1988 article by Paul Johnson in Commentary magazine,' the Journal noted a few days later. 'Had we known of the parallels, we would not have published the article.' Crowley also plagiarized several sections of her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, Politico Magazine said. The publication found more than a dozen instances in which Crowley appeared to lift from other works without providing proper attribution. HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Murdoch has been critical of Trump in the past, tweeting in 2015, 'When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?' But the two have apparently become closer. Trump recently tweeted: 'Rupert Murdoch is a great guy who likes me much better as a very successful candidate than he ever did as a very successful developer!' Ryan Counsell, 28, from Nottingham, is accused of travelling to the Philippines to join up with a terrorist group linked to ISIS A supermarket worker accused of trying to join ISIS in the Philippines has claimed he was actually interested in the country because of a TV programme by Ben Fogle. Ryan Counsell, 28, a white Muslim convert from Nottingham, had spent two years stockpiling military equipment for his trip with his wife and child, Woolwich Crown Court heard. Counsell, who worked part-time behind the tills at a branch of Asda in his home city, had allegedly booked days off to travel to a remote part of the Philippines and join a group linked to ISIS, called Abu Sayyaf. However, Counsell claimed his interest in the South-East Asian nation had been prompted by watching the series 'Lives in the Wild' by TV presenter Fogle, about an American man who had moved to the islands. He told the court: 'It was about a man from America who wanted to find a life sustainable with his income, so he moved there. 'That appealed to me because I want to live a life I can afford. I don't want to live outside my means and I wanted to live a simple life.' Counsell claimed he had also considered other venues including Egypt, Somalia and Bosnia. But Somalia was rejected because his Somali-born wife considered it too dangerous. The shop worker said he 'always planned to go there alone at first,' and did not discuss his plans for the Philippines with his wife. That appealed to me because I want to live a life I can afford. I don't want to live outside my means and I wanted to live a simple life. Ryan Counsell He explained: 'My wife is very sceptical about the life I want to live. 'She believes in it in theory but she is not prepared to make any sacrifices. I wanted to research it in depth and present her with a more rounded view.' Counsell told the jury that he thought he could get there and back without his wife noticing while she was visiting her mother and brothers in the Netherlands. He said: 'The trip was short and I would have been able to keep in touch with her by Whatsapp.' Counsell claimed that he had no plans to join Abu Sayyaf, and said: 'Since I was 18, I have been interested all terrorist movements, especially since I became a Muslim. I am very interested in Islamic terrorist movements. 'My interest is simply something I want to use in religious research and for journalistic purposes.' Counsell was brought up in Sheffield and the family moved to Cleveleys near Blackpool when he was five. He joined a band and left home when he was 18 to move to Nottingham where the rest of the bandmates were studying at university in Nottingham and Loughborough. He described his interests as religion, conspiracy theories, history, and military equipment, along with 'wanting to live off-the-grid so to speak, living without connection to electricity or gas in a caravan or a tent.' Counsell told Woolwich Crown Court (pictured) his interest in the South-East Asian country had been prompted by watching the series Lives in the Wild by the TV presenter Ben Fogle His interest in religion began when he was eight years old and it was his favourite subject at school, he told the court. Meanwhile his interest in military matters began when he was four, he said: 'My father introduced me to his collection of war movies, which I would watch day after day.' However, he also liked music and he told the court that when he was 17 he played the guitar and was 'looking to join a band.' He said: 'They weren't people I had known before. They were people I met off the internet. We played a few gigs and got paid, quite well in some cases.' But when Counsell was 21, he dropped out of the group in order to get married. He said: 'All I wanted was to live a peaceful life, off the grid, raise my own livestock and live a very simple life. 'My plan was just to get married, get a job and have a child, and from there progress to where I could live the life I wanted to live.' Counsell's other interest, he said, was in 'security and forensic data recovery.' He had a double A-level in ICT but added: 'I would argue for the most part, I am self-taught.' At an earlier hearing, the trial had heard how Counsell had spend hundreds on combat uniform including boots, trousers and camouflage clothing. Explaining these purchases, Counsell said. 'I have my own sense of fashion. 'I have struggled to wear jeans from a young age because I don't like how they feel. I normally wear cargo or combat trousers and since I was 16, I wear boots because I like how it feels under my heel.' Counsell converted to Islam at the age of 21 in 2011, explaining: 'I was interested in Islam to the extent I would spend time researching about it and writing about it. I was always religious and always praying but I didn't associate myself with any religion until I came across Islam.' Counsell worked part-time behind the tills at this branch of Asda in Nottingham At first he hid it from his parents, explaining: 'I like to keep things to myself. I don't like to rub my religion in people's faces. I am a very quiet person.' He said it did not change his life much, adding: 'All it did was enhance my life with other people.' Counsell met his wife, Fatima, though a matchmaking service and they were married on May 19 2012. He told the court: 'She wasn't someone I knew a great deal about before we got married. We interviewed each other and asked a few questions about marriage.' Fatima was originally from Somalia and her parents lived in the Netherlands. She had two sisters in London and a married sister in Nottingham. Counsell said: 'For me it was a good marriage without many arguments. It was a little bit unfulfilled because I expected different things from a relationship and she expected different things from a relationship. I put a lot of effort into it.' He added: 'I wasn't pleased with the way she cleaned up and things, because I am a little obsessive. Ideally I wanted to stay at home and do these things and she would go to work.' Counsell said he did not socialise much and preferred to company of women, adding: 'I used the marriage to fulfill that role of friendship.' 'I have always been a very obsessive person,' Counsell added. 'I have an obsessive personality. I have to collect things, I store things and struggle to throw things away. I have an obsessive personality. I have to collect things, I store things and struggle to throw things away. Ryan Counsell 'I was addicted to computer gaming, using the internet and aspects of hygiene and cooking.' The only time he went out apart from going to work, he added, was to take his daughter to the park every day and he spent at least four hours a day on the internet. The court heard how from the age of 18, he had been downloading material like military field manuals and three years ago he had started to collect Islamic material. He said: 'I made it a personal mission to collect every PDF [computer file] book about Islam in the English language and I think I did a very good job of that.' 'I wanted to challenge myself to research.' Counsell had studied on his own and been to Islamic classes where he studied with 'many scholars from abroad who have doctorates in Islamic studies.' He said: 'I wanted to develop my own opinions and see how other people approached the religion.' He had also studied Arabic at home, beginning before he converted, because he wanted to learn 'an international language spoken in a lot of places.' Counsell denies preparing acts of terrorism by obtaining information about Islamic terrorist groups in the Philippines, arranging to travel to the Philippines to join and fight for an Islamic terrorist group, and purchasing equipment and clothing for use when having joined such a group. Counsell also denies possession of electronic documents containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. The trial continues. Police have arrested a 17-year-old schoolboy for allegedly hacking his entire family to death with an axe as they lay in their beds. The teenager, named only as Alexander K, is accused of carrying out the horrific crimes at the family home in the city of Tambov in western Russias Tambov Oblast region. His father Victor, 43, his sister Victoria, 14, and his grandmother Vera, 67, were all found murdered in their blood-soaked beds with multiple wounds caused by an axe. Suspected killer Alexander K, pictured right with his identity hidden, with his father Victor The teenager accused of killing his family is said to have joined an extremist religious group The teenager is alleged to have hacked his family members to death in their beds Victor, 43, and his daughter Victoria, 14, are said to have been butchered by Alexander K Police say the boy's relationship with his family had become strained following the death of his mother from cancer three years ago and that he did not get on with his father's new girlfriend. But they said the final straw appeared to be when the family refused his request to borrow 200,000 RUB (2,788) from them. Neighbours said that Alexander appeared to have suffered from depression following the death of his mother. He had stopped spending time with his friends and had even reportedly joined a non-conformist and extremist religious group. Victor with his late wife, who died of cancer three years ago allegedly prompting Alexander's demise Victor and his daughter Victoria, who were both slaughtered in the suspected axe attack The house in the Russian city of Tambov in the Tambov Oblast region where the murders took place The mobile phones of the victims were hidden by the killer - suspected to be Alexander K Police are continuing to question Alexander, who remains in custody. He is expected to be charged with murder. The police investigation continues as it emerged the mobile phones of the victims appeared to have been hidden by the killer. Sweden's leading shopping mall has been deemed a no-go zone amid a spike in violence police say has been caused by unaccompanied migrants. Police are on high alert patrolling the Nordstan mall in Gothenburg after a spate of incidents involving staff and shoppers being threatened by gangs. In some cases, the number of youngsters outnumber the police and the rise in the sinister behaviour has seen the sales take a hit. The Nordstan mall in Gothenburg where migrant teenagers are said to be causing havoc Many shoppers are now afraid to even visit the complex, according to RT, and even officers are being threatened by the gangs. 'We have seen an increase since last autumn, with mostly unaccompanied minors who are staying here in Nordstan,' one of the police managers, Jonas Bergqvist, told Expressen. 'In the evening they deal drugs and violence between fractions sometimes occurs. 'If there are conflicts from their home countries, they bring them here.' The trouble appears to start at around 8pm - the time shops shut for the day - when groups of up to 150 teens descend upon the mall. The area being declared a no-go zone has meant the mall, pictured, has taken a hit in sales Police say the rise coincides with the increased number of unaccompanied migrants entering the country. A number of those involved are said to be youths from Syria, Afghanistan and Morocco, according to RT. Among the alarming incidents include a youngster and a shopkeeper who were robbed with a broken class held to their throats. Added to the chaos is the fact that police are finding it increasingly difficult to charge the offenders due to the lack of identification, meaning the teenagers are merely handed over to social services. Officer Rikard Sorensen told RT: 'I've had people in front of me that look like they are 35, but who claim to be 15. 'I can't prove they're lying so we have to release them,' Rikard Sorensen, another officer.' The troubles have seen the mall labeled a no-go zone, according to Expressen. An area is listed as such if there have been dangerous cases of muggings, robberies, harassment, and sexual assault. Moorcroft's daughter, Dubai-based stable owner and model Laylah De Cruz, 31 (pictured) A mother who posed as a millionairess to pull off an 'audacious' property scam is facing jail with her model daughter after they were both convicted of fraud. Dianne Moorcroft, 62, changed her name by deed poll to convince estate agents and solicitors she was Margaret Gwenllian Richards, 85, the owner of a vacant 3m house in Kensington. Moorcroft's daughter, Dubai-based stable owner and model Laylah De Cruz, 31, encouraged her mother to take part in the fraud at the insistence of her 'playboy' lover Karl Cronin. A British passport and Dubai resident's permit in Ms Richards' name were obtained to get a tenancy for the property and then arrange for its sale while the real owner was living in Cambridge. The gang secured a 1.2m bridging loan against the house before a buyer was found and they immediately transferred the money to Dubai. After deliberating for eight and a half hours, a jury of seven women and five men found Moorcroft and De Cruz guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud by a majority of 10-2. Neither the blonde haired, bespectacled mother or her dark haired daughter reacted as they were told they warned they both face jail. Moorcroft admitted she impersonated Ms Richards but went along with it because she wanted to help her daughter out after Cronin paid off a debt of 161,000 for De Cruz in Dubai. Dianne Moorcroft (right), 62, changed her name by deed poll to convince estate agents and solicitors she was Margaret Gwenllian Richards, 85 (Moorcroft's daughter, Laylah De Cruz, 31, left) De Cruz did not give evidence during the week-long trial at Southwark Crown Court. The judge, Ms Recorder Cheryl Jones ordered reports and adjourned sentence until March 10. Cronin, 50, is thought to be responsible for defrauding Fulham and Chelsea landlords of more than 5m, and is still wanted by police eight years after a Crimewatch appeal. He is known to have used 11 aliases and targeted estate agents by claiming to be the owner of rented properties on which the mortgage had been fully paid. He would then remortgage the properties, take the cash and leave the rightful owner with the bill. Earlier prosecutor Teresa Hay said: 'The fraud itself was as simple as it was audacious. 'The conspirators include not just these two ladies but others who identified a vacant property likely to be of significant value because of where it was in southwest London and then obtained a tenancy for the property. 'Moorcroft would not have become involved in this scam at all if it weren't for the involvement and encouragement of her daughter. 'The roles they played respectively in the grand scheme were relatively small but they were hugely significant in the success of the scam.' Moorcroft travelled from Blackpool and with De Cruz met with property lawyer Tim Cope. She convinced him she was the owner and arranged for the sale of the property even though she is 23 years younger than Mrs Richards. Mr Cope failed to notice that the image on the passport didn't appear to match that on the resident's permit and neither of the images matched those of the woman sitting in front of him. Mr Cope then negotiated a 1.2m offer through bridging loan company Fincorp on behalf of the fraudsters. Property Holdings Ltd provided the cash for the loan, and the money was transferred to Moorcroft's solicitors on October 21, 2014. After deliberating for eight and a half hours, a jury of seven women and five men found Moorcroft and De Cruz (pictured) guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud by a majority of 10-2 It was transferred to a bank account she had set up in Dubai on the same day after the land registry suspected a fraud on October 27, 2014. Police began investigating in January 2015 and discovered there were only two people in the UK named Margaret Gwenllian Richards. Moorcroft was arrested at her home in Blackpool in February 2015 and gave a no comment interview. De Cruz was arrested in May 2016 after travelling to the UK from Dubai and also declined to answer questions. Jurors heard the conspiracy also involved a man purporting to be Mrs Richards' son Mark, who was also not before the court. To allay some doubts Moorcroft was having De Cruz told her mother Cronin would increase her original cut of 30,000 to 100,000. Jurors were shown a social media Whatsapp message from De Cruz to Moorcroft which read: 'It's easier plus it's 100,000 for you.' Ms Hay said silver tongued Cronin 'was communicating with both ladies', and 'someone else must have been involved in the fraud in the UK'. Moorcroft said she travelled to Dubai on three occasions so Cronin could open a bank account in Ms Richard's name and complete the sale of two properties. She claimed she believed Cronin was asking her to impersonate Mrs Richards with the consent of her family and 'didn't think he was asking me to do anything illegal at the time'. 'He said that he wouldn't ask me to do anything illegal,' she said. 'He wasn't going to do anything illegal, and at the transactions there would be solicitors and banking staff involved in all these transactions along with Mrs Richards and her family,' She added: 'I thought that if Mrs Richards' family had consented that it was, it would be legal, I was doing it for a legitimate purpose.' Moorcroft said she felt pressured to continue impersonating Ms Richards by Cronin. 'So at that stage I was starting to feel intimidated by him.' Ms Hay told jurors Cronin and De Cruz had visited a fertility clinic together and said their relationship 'was a loving and enduring one'. Moorcroft, of Blackpool, and De Cruz, who currently lives in Dubai, were both convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit fraud between July 1 and October 31, 2014. Judge Jones had earlier directed the jury to find Moorcroft not guilty of a further charge of possession of an identity document with improper intent. Mother and daughter were bailed ahead of sentence on 10 March. Top government officials and ministers are among thousands of Australian Yahoo customers who had their personal details stolen in the biggest hack in history. Cyber-thieves stole data from one billion Yahoo customers in August 2013, but it took the internet giant three years to realise and urge users to change their passwords. More than 3,000 Yahoo log-ins compromised in the breach are reportedly linked to Australian Government email accounts, including Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, The ABC reported. More than 3,000 Yahoo log-ins compromised in the breach are reportedly linked to Australian Government email accounts, including Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen (left) and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi (right) Cyber-thieves stole data from one billion Yahoo customers in August 2013, but it took the internet giant three years to realise (stock image) Social Services Minister Christian Porter, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and opposition health spokesperson Catherine King also reportedly had their email accounts breached. A spokesperson for Senator Bernadi said he does not have a Yahoo account and it is believed some of the emails were set up by former staffers, according to the ABC. The hack was identified was provided by US security company InfoArmor and given to the Department of Defence. It is believed the hack originated from Eastern Europe. The stolen data includes email addresses, personal data and passwords. As well as politicians, high-ranking AFP officers, judges and magistrates are also believed to have fallen victim to the hack. Yahoo says hackers stole data from more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. Pictured here Marissa Mayer, who took the job as CEO at Yahoo in 2012 Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) is believed to have fallen victim to the massive hack 'If there are compromising activities inside those accounts again, whether I work for a corporate or government it doesn't really matter criminals may exploit that,' Alastair MacGibbon, the Prime Minister's Cyber Security Special Advisor, said. Yahoo claims that its one billion users' card details and bank account details are safe but refused to name the country behind it. The company has been heavily criticised by customers who are furious they didn't discover the hack in 2013 and failed to tell them until December 2016. Sky and BT, who are among a number of businesses who outsourced their email systems to Yahoo, have urged customers to change their passwords. According to Bloomberg, the government and military employees' names, passwords, phone numbers, birthdates, back up e-mail accounts and security questions were swiped. Advertisement Another heatwave is set to hit Australia on Tuesday and last until Sunday with temperatures set to skyrocket in the first 48 hours. Temperatures are tipped to climb as high as eight degrees above average as the second heatwave in as many weeks makes its way across much of the east coast. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a series of heatwave warnings for most of Queensland and NSW, as well as parts of South Australia and the Northern Territory. While temperatures will soar to the high 30s with ease during the days, nights too will be unbearable with temperatures around the 27C mark overnight on Tuesday in Sydney. A second heatwave in as many weeks is set to see temperatures soar to eight degrees above average - time to head to the beach and cool off in the water A map shows areas of Australia that will be hit by the heatwave as it spreads and increases in temperature This woman found a great location to keep cool during the heatwave which struck Australia's east last week A forecasting map shows just how hot Australia is going to get during the latest heatwave Beachgoers made their way to the seaside to keep cool during the last heatwave to hit Sydney A map shows the areas that will be affected by the heatwave on Tuesday Brisbane should reach a top of 35C on Wednesday, while temperatures in the west of the state could soar to 41C. Sydney and Canberra are also forecast to reach 36C several days this week and as high as 43C in the northwest. Melbourne is expected to hit a high of 38C on Tuesday. In South Australia's remote Coober Pedy, temperatures will hit 43C and 41C on Tuesday and Wednesday. Widespread areas of the east will be affected by a low intensity heatwave that will increase to a severe heatwave. During Wednesday and Thursday, parts of Queensland will be gripped by an extreme heatwave. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Ashleigh Langey told The Daily Telegraph: '[Tuesday] night is going to reach 26C or 27C in the city'. That meant for those sick of hot, sleepless nights, it wasn't going to get any better. The heatwave is expected to spread and become more intense as the week progresses. Left is the forecast map for Wednesday and right, for Thursday Coober Pedy, in a remote area of South Australia, which will hit a searing 43C on Tuesday The high temperatures will remain for the Coober Pedy area (pictured), with a predicted high of 41C on Wednesday Weather forecast maps show some of the expected temperatures across Australia for Tuesday (left) and Wednesday (right) Queensland Ambulance Service paramedic Lara King said it wasn't just children, pregnant women and the elderly who were at risk of illness or death as a result of heatstroke. 'It does happen and people who are young and healthy tend to be quite active as well, so put themselves at an even greater risk,' Ms King told AAP. Ms King urged people living in heat-affected areas to remain hydrated, keep cool and stay out of the sun between 10am and 3pm. 'We also recommend people wear light, loose clothing and stay indoors,' she said. Symptoms of heatstroke include cramping, fainting, nausea, headache, a rapid pulse, disorientation, drowsiness and unconsciousness. HOW HOT IS IT GOING TO GET DURING THE HEATWAVE? SYDNEY: TUESDAY: Min: 22 Max: 31. Fine WEDNESDAY: Min: 27 Max: 36. Hot, possible shower MELBOURNE: TUESDAY: Min: 21 Max: 38. Fine, some cloud WEDNESDAY: Min: 17 Max: 21. Showers ADELAIDE: TUESDAY: Min: 22 Max: 39. Fine WEDNESDAY: Min: 19 Max: 28. Partly cloudy BRISBANE: TUESDAY: Min: 23 Max: 32. Fine, some cloud WEDNESDAY: Min: 22 Max: 35. Fine CANBERRA: TUESDAY: Min: 15 Max: 37. Fine WEDNESDAY: Min: 22 Max: 36. Some cloud COOBER PEDY: TUESDAY: Min: 24 Max: 43. Fine, some cloud WEDNESDAY: Min: 29 Max: 43. Partly cloudy Advertisement Thousands of locals and visitors to Sydney descend on iconic Bondi Beach to cool down in the water on January 11 Astronaut Eugene Cernan - the last man to walk on the moon - has died aged 82. 'We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon,' said NASA in a statement. Details of his death were not immediately known. Captain Cernan, a retired U.S. Navy captain, was the second American to have walked in space and was the commander of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon. In December 1972, he had the distinction of being the 'last man on the moon' after he became the final astronaut to re-enter the Apollo Lunar Module. He was the last human being to leave his footprints on the moon surface. Scroll down for video Astronaut Eugene Cernan - the last man to walk on the moon - has died aged 82 Apollo 17 Mission Commander Eugene Cernan pictured during the final manned mission to the moon, standing near the lunar rover and the US flag during a spacewalk on the moon in 1972 Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan (L) and scientist-astronaut Harrison H. 'Jack' Schmitt, photographed by the third crewmember Ronald Evans, aboard the Apollo 17 spacecraft during the final lunar landing mission 'We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon,' said NASA in a statement He also held the unofficial lunar land speed record after recording a maximum speed of 11.2 mph during an Apollo 17 EVA. In a 2007 interview for NASA's oral histories, Cernan said: 'I keep telling Neil Armstrong that we painted that white line in the sky all the way to the Moon down to 47,000 feet so he wouldn't get lost, and all he had to do was land. Made it sort of easy for him.' Born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 14, 1934, Eugene Cernan - better known as Gene received his commission through the Navy ROTC Program at Purdue University. He entered flight training upon graduation and was assigned to Attack Squadrons 26 and 112 at the Miramar, California, Naval Air Station and subsequently attended the Naval Postgraduate School. After logging more than 5,000 hours, Captain Cernan was selected as one of fourteen astronauts for NASA's Gemini IX mission in October 1963. The three day mission, saw the spacecraft achieve a circular orbit of 161 statute miles, while Cernan became the second American to walk in space - logging two hours and ten minutes outside the spacecraft in extravehicular activities. On his second space flight, Cernan served as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 between May 18 and 26, 1969, during the first verification flight test of an Apollo lunar module (Cernan with fellow astronauts Thomas Stafford and John Young before their mission was launched) Cernan (L) and Thomas P. Stafford (R) preparing for the liftoff of the Gemini 9 in 1966 Cernan holding the lower corner of the American flag during the mission's first EVA on the moon, 12 December 1972 Astronaut Gene Cernan is pictured in the Command Module during the outbound trip from the moon during the Apollo 17 mission in December, 1972 The American crew of NASA's 'Apollo 17' with the lunar rover and the Apollo rocket behind in 1972, Left-right, Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt (Lunar Module Pilot), Eugene Cernan, front (Commander) and Ron Evans (Command Module Pilot) The flight ended after 72 hours and 20 minutes with a perfect re-entry and recovery as Gemini IX landed within 1.5 miles of the prime recovery ship USS WASP. He later served as backup pilot for Gemini 12 and backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 7. On his second space flight, Cernan served as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 between May 18 and 26, 1969, during the first verification flight test of an Apollo lunar module. Cernan made his third and most famous space flight as spacecraft commander of Apollo 17 on December 6, 1972 - the United States' final manned mission to the moon, and first nighttime launch. 'Apollo 17 built upon all of the other missions scientifically,' said Cernan in 2008. 'We had a lunar rover, we were able to cover more ground than most of the other missions. We stayed there a little bit longer. We went to a more challenging unique area in the mountains, to learn something about the history and the origin of the moon itself.' On their way to the moon, the Apollo 17 crew took one of the most iconic photographs in space-program history, the image of the Earth dubbed 'The Blue Marble.' The Apollo 17 mission saw Cernan and his fellow astronauts land the Challenger on the moon where they would spend the next three days exploring and taking samples. It set new records for longest manned lunar landing flight, longest time in lunar orbit, longest time in lunar extravehicular activities and biggest lunar sample return. During that time, Captain Cernan logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space-of which more than 73 hours were spent on the surface of the moon. A 1971 portrait photo of US astronaut Eugene A. Cernan. Cernan, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission, in December 1972 Captain Eugene Cernan discusses his career in May 7, 2004 at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City While he and lunar module pilot Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt conducted activities on the lunar surface, command module pilot Ronald Evans remained in orbit. At the end of the mission, Cernan was the last to board the spacecraft, making him the last man to walk on the moon. While on the Moon, Cernan he and Schmitt performed three EVAs (Extravehicular Activities) for a total of about 22 hours of exploration of the TaurusLittrow valley. Their first EVA alone was more than three times the length Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent outside their spacecraft on Apollo 11. Cernan piloted the rover on its final outing, recording a maximum speed of 11.2 mph - giving him the unofficial lunar land speed record. The following year, he acted for the Apolle spacecraft program manager as the senior United States negotiator with the USSR on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. American astronauts Eugene Cernan (in blue), Thomas Stafford (center, shirtless), and John Young (right) clown about with their families during a barbecue outside Young's home, Houston, Texas, 1969 when the three men were the back-up crew for the Apollo 7 mission American NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan, pictured hugging his daughter, Tracy, in Houston, Texas, 1969 Barbara Cernan, the wife of astronaut Eugene Cernan, watched her husband's space launch in NASA's Apollo 10 mission on television with friends and family, Coca Beach, Florida, 1969 He finally retired from the U.S. Navy after 20 years, and retired from NASA, in July 1976. Cernan, who was married to wife Jan Nanna Cernan with whom he had three daughters, later founded his own firm, The Cernan Corporation in 1981, which dealt with consultant interests in energy and aerospace. The retired Naval captain also became Chairman of the Board of Johnson Engineering Corporation which provides NASA's Flight Crew Systems Development with personnel. He was also recognizable face on TV after becoming the co-anchor of ABC's presentations of the flight of the shuttle. Cernan, whose hobbies included horse riding, hunting, fishing and flying, leaves behind his wife Jan, three daughters, and his grandchild. A Pennsylvania inmate out on work release and his girlfriend have been caught having sex in a parked car in the middle of the day with two children in the backseat, according to state police. Torrey Rudisil, 28, and Taylor Skursky, 26, have been charged with disorderly conduct stemming from the incident that took place in the parking lot of the Gettysburg Outlets at around 12.30pm Sunday. State police say a passerby spotted the amorous pair engaging in what appeared to be sexual intercourse inside their vehicle parked next to the movie theater in the strip mall. Torrey Rudisil, 28 (pictured left and right), and his girlfriend Taylor Skursky, 26, have been charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly having sex outdoors Caught with their pants down: State police say a passerby spotted the amorous couple inside their parked car at the Gettysburg Outlets (pictured) in broad daylight Officers who were summoned to the scene to investigate found two children in the backseat of the couple's car, reported PennLive.com. Not his first time: Rudisil's past criminal record includes a charge of resisting arrest Case workers with Children and Youth Services were also called to the Gettysburg strip mall to evaluate the condition of the two children. According to state police, Rudisil was out on a work release program when he was picked up by officers Sunday. He was remanded to Adams County Prison after being charged with disorderly conduct. Rudisil's past criminal record includes a charge of resisting arrest. Taylor Skurksy, who currently resides in Sykesville, Maryland, was arrested last August in Hanover, Pennsylvania, on a shoplifting charge that resulted in a fine. Moving vans were spotted on Monday outside the DC residence that President Obama and his family will be moving into come next week. The Obamas will will be taking up residence in a 8,200-square-foot-home they have leased in DC, where they decided to stay for two years while Sasha finishes high school. The $4.3 million home features plenty of room for the Obamas to stretch out with separate dressing rooms and his and her bathrooms, entertaining space, and a tranquil garden. The home was built in 1928 and features nine bedrooms and eight-and-a-half baths. The Obamas are leasing the house from Joe Lockhart, who served as press secretary to Bill Clinton, and his wife Giovanna Gray, an editor for Glamour. Vice President Biden and his wife Jill meanwhile will depart DC on Friday for Delaware on Amtrak. Getting ready: On Monday afternoon, moving vans were spotted outside the Obamas' new home in the district's Kalorama neighborhood (above) New digs: The Obamas will will be taking up residence in a 8,200-square-foot-home they have leased in DC Family vacation: President Obama will fly to Palm Springs on Friday with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia President Obama will be jetting out of Washington DC immediately after Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday and heading to a much warmer climate. It has been revealed that for his first vacation after he leaves the White House, Obama and his wife Michelle along with their two daughters Malia and Sasha will be heading to sunny Palm Springs, California. TMZ reports that the family will board a helicopter after leaving the Capitol on Friday which will take them to Andrews Air Force Base, where they will board a government plane for the trip out west. It will only be a one-way flight however, with the Obamas having to pay for their own tickets home at the end of the trip. There is a good chance that the Obamas could be staying at the home of Michael Smith and James Costos. Smith has been the interior designer for the Obamas since they entered the White House, and Costos is a former HBO executive who in 2013 was named the United States ambassador to Spain. The Obamas have stayed in the couple's Rancho Mirage home numerous times in the past when they traveled to Palm Springs. The 11,000-square-foot home was featured in an issue of Architectural Digest back in 2015, which revealed that the residence was purchased as a weekend retreat for the couple. Swank: The $4.3 million home features plenty of room for the Obamas to stretch out Palatial: The home was built in 1928 and features nine bedrooms and eight-and-a-half baths Landlord: The Obamas are leasing the house from Joe Lockhart, who served as press secretary to Bill Clinton, and his wife Giovanna Gray Smith also spoke about hosting the Obamas at the home. 'When they were here, it occurred to me that more than 50 years ago JFK had stayed just down the road at Bing Crosbys home,' said Smith. 'The President and Mrs. Obama basically woke up in the morning to the same view of the valley. There was something lovely about that thought. 'It made me contemplate all the change that has taken place in those decades, contrasting with the timelessness of this beautiful desert landscape.' Smith and Costos are also making their way home too, with Smith posting photos of their last night in Spain on Instagram over the weekend. Jim Fouts (seen above at a Martin Luther King Day event on Monday), the mayor of Warren, Michigan, was reportedly heard on audio making disparaging comments about blacks and older women The mayor of Detroit's largest suburb was heard on audio referring to black people as 'n***ers' and 'chimps' while labeling older women as 'dried up c***s.' Jim Fouts, the mayor of Warren, Michigan, was heard making the comments on audio obtained by Motor City Muckraker. 'Blacks do look like chimpanzees,' Fouts is heard on the tapes saying. 'I was watching this black woman with her daughter and they looked like two chimps.' In another recording, Fouts talks disparagingly about aging women. 'Think I want to date a f***ing 60-year-old hag?' Fouts said. 'F*** that s**t. I'm not interested in any old ugly hag. I think after a certain age they are dried up, washed up burned out.' 'They are p***ies when they are young, and when they get older, they're just mean, hateful dried-up c***s.' This is not the first time that Fouts was heard making offensive remarks. Last month, he was dismissed from his duties as host of a weekly radio show on 910AM after an audio recording of him surfaced in which he makes disparaging remarks about disabled people. In the audio, Fouts said that disabled people 'aren't even human beings.' Fouts denied that he made the remarks. He accused a political rival, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, of 'engineering' the audio. In a lengthy Facebook post (above), Fouts denied that he made the remarks, citing his record in appointing African American to key positions on city commissions 'Those are engineered tapes by Mark Hackel and his friends,' Fouts told WDIV on Monday. 'That is not my voice.' 'Those are engineered tapes inspired by Mark Hackel, just like the last one. It is not me. That is not me at all.' Fouts has accused a political rival, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel (above), of 'engineering' the audio 'Just attended what should have been a joyous occasion for our 4th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ceremony,' Fouts wrote Monday on Facebook just hours after the latest audio surfaced. 'Instead Mark Hackel and friends attempted to hijack this ceremony by releasing more vile, vitriolic, phony tapes against me.' 'This was timed so that they came out just before our noon ceremony. This distracted from my major announcement of the appointment of Greg Murray to be the new diversity coordinator.' 'This effort at negative tapes is designed to distract from my efforts of inclusion for all,' Fouts wrote. 'The media as usual bombarded me with questions all at once and allowed an agitator to shout over me! This tactic dishonors the memory of Martin Luther King a man of peace.' Fouts touted his record appointing African Americans to key positions on city planning councils and commissions as proof that he is not racist. A Pakistani pigeon fancier taught his pet to fly alongside him while he rode a motorbike at 50mph. The man was filmed travelling along a road in the sunset while the pigeon fluttered alongside him. He released the bird after starting up his motorbike, and it flew just behind as he built up speed. The man was filmed travelling along a road in the sunset while the pigeon fluttered alongside him After a few minutes, the pigeon was clearly straining to keep up up so the man pulled up by the side of the road to give it a rest. Racing pigeons usually travel at speeds just under 40mph, and are known for their ability to navigate home across long distances. A recent study found pigeons increase their homing speed by around 7mph when travelling through polluted conditions. Scientists are not certain why this happens, but it may be because pigeons do not like the smell of fog so fly faster to get away from it. He released the bird after starting up his motorbike, and it flew just behind as he built up speed Grieving families of three British soldiers murdered in an IRA honey-trap have blasted the police for refusing to re-examine the deaths despite conducting a witch-hunt against Army veterans who killed terrorists. Fusiliers Dougald McCaughey, 23, Joseph McCaig, 18, and his brother John, 17, were executed on a remote mountain road in Northern Ireland on March 10, 1971. The off-duty troops were drinking in Belfast bars when three men pretended to befriend them then lured them to their deaths with the promise of meeting young women at a party. They were lined up at the side of the road and shot in the back of the head at close-range at White Brae in Ligoniel, overlooking north Belfast. Fusiliers (from left) Dougald McCaughey, 23, Joseph McCaig, 18, and his brother John, 17, were executed on a remote mountain road in Northern Ireland on March 10, 1971 No one has ever faced trial for their cold-blooded murders, even though one IRA terrorist confessed his role in the plot and named two accomplices during a Scotland Yard-led investigation 46 years ago. A 2012 report by Northern Irelands now-axed Historical Enquiries Team (HET) set up to review every single death during the Troubles identified four IRA terrorists as prime suspects in the killing. Anthony Doherty - who admitted his guilt after being arrested in 1971 before breaking out of Belfasts notorious Crumlin Road prison and two unnamed IRA men are understood to still be alive in the Republic of Ireland. The fourth killer, Patrick McAdorey, was shot dead later the same year. Now bereaved relatives are launching a legal battle to try to bring the living murderers to justice. Families believe the authorities should be forced to re-open the investigation in the hope of bringing prosecutions. The Three Scottish Soldiers Campaign For Justice Group, co-led by Fusilier McCaugheys 50-year-old cousin David, is unveiling a 100,000 crowd-funding initiative. It aims to raise the money needed to start the work necessary to bring those responsible for the murders to justice. Relatives are angry that the Police Service of Northern Ireland has snubbed calls to re-examine the case or identify the two unnamed killers. It stands in stark contrast to the PSNIs decision to allow its taxpayer-funded Legacy Investigation Branch to look at 238 'fatal incidents' involving the Army in Ulster, which led to 302 deaths. Up to 1,000 retired soldiers in their 60s and 70s face a police witch-hunt some 40 years after they battled terrorism in Northern Ireland. Brothers Joseph McCaig (left) and John McCaig (right) were lured to their deaths by the IRA It mean UK veterans being investigated as potential murder or manslaughter suspects over actions they took decades ago at the height of the IRA's terrorist campaign. One ex-soldier, Warrant Officer (Class 1) Dennis Hutchings, a 75-year-old great-grandfather, has already been charged with attempted murder over the 1974 fatal shooting of an IRA suspect, later found to be innocent. Mr McCaughey, from Rutherglen in Scotland, who was only three when the soldiers were murdered, said: It is a wound that has never ever healed. This cannot go on any longer. The PSNI should now re-open the case to help give the families answers. They deserve justice. Instead, their killers have spent the intervening years enjoying their freedom in Ireland without fear of being prosecuted. At the very least, the boys families and loved ones, as well as the general-public, deserve to know who was responsible for their murders. One of those involved actually made an admission, although he said he hadnt pulled the trigger. Now hes safe in the Republic of Ireland. FACT BOX TITLE The inquiry into actions of British troops in Northern Ireland will put them at risk of being hounded with false allegations like those against many Iraq veterans, a senior MP warned. Julian Lewis said those who served in the Troubles would face the same ordeal as soldiers who fell victim to bogus accusations after the Iraq War. The chairman of the Commons defence committee said many claims investigated by the Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat) were made by lawyers cashing in on legal aid and had been shown to be spurious. Any country which allows its legal aid system to be used as a weapon against its own service personnel in this way has surely taken leave of its senses, Dr Lewis said in a speech at Speakers House in London. Unless the Government urgently gets a grip, the same will happen to hundreds of veterans of the Troubles while amnestied terrorists freely walk the streets of Ulster. He said recruitment could suffer and called for a statute of limitations to stop prosecution of soldiers for events before the Good Friday agreement. Advertisement Kris McGurk, 25, a former British soldier who is spearheading the campaign, said: It is disgusting that the PSNI are burying their heads in the sand. Our Government has also done nothing to bring the murderers of these young men, who pledged to serve their country only to be murdered in cold-blood, to justice. If the authorities will not act, then their family and loved ones will instead. It is a scandal that UK veterans of our Armed Forces are being pursued for actions they took under orders and in the fight against terrorism. Yet IRA terrorists have been granted amnesties and allowed to live out their days without fear of prosecution. This discrimination must end and the scales of justice rebalanced. Tory MP Sir Henry Bellingham, who has called on the Government to end the witch-hunt, said: This is staggering. The PSNI should show even-handedness by investigating this unsolved murder, one of the most wicked crimes of the Troubles carried out against the security forces. The suspects have been identified but there has been no follow-up. This beggars belief. There appears to be one rule for ex-servicemen and another rule for the terrorists. Colonel Richard Kemp, who served eight tours in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, said: This case highlights the disgraceful vendetta against British soldiers who daily risked their lives to protect the citizens of Northern Ireland. It is essential that the British government intervenes to straighten out a situation that is making the UK look like a banana republic and is turning Northern Ireland's police and legal system into a sickening joke. Matthew Jury, of lawyers McCue & Partners, which is representing the families, said: Singling out veterans for prosecution, while terrorists walk free, is a gross injustice. Our troops deserve better. The names of these suspected murderers are known to the authorities, yet no action has been taken. The families have a right to know the truth and see them brought to justice. A Corporal of the Royal Highland Fusiliers sheds a tear during the funeral of his three colleagues in 1971 The murder of unarmed fusiliers McCaughey, from Glasgow, and the McCaig brothers, from Ayr, who were serving with 1st Battalion, The Royal Highland Fusiliers, sent shockwaves across Britain and Ireland. Servicemen had been killed in the province before but it was the first time they had been targeted out of uniform. The coroner at their inquest said the shootings were one of the vilest crimes ever committed in living memory. The HET report said the soldiers were murdered in a ruthless planned ambush by the Provisional IRA. It was a cowardly and callous act of terrorism that brought utter shame on those responsible and disgrace to any cause that they professed to support. It condemned just how low the IRA would sink. The report said: They were young, inexperienced and naive, tricked by callous and ruthless terrorists who pretended to befriend them, all the while intending to isolate and execute them. However, the report added: There are no new lines of enquiry or investigative opportunities that could bring about the identification or prosecution of those responsible for [the] murders. But lawyers for the families say Dohertys confession, witness statements taken at the time, Dohertys terrorist links and the fact he was spotted in a grey Austin Cambridge car later put at the scene of the murders provide leads that could be used to pursue a prosecution. Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy, from the PSNI's Legacy Investigation Branch, said: The review carried out by HET did not lead to any new lines of enquiry than those that were available to the original investigation however if further credible opportunities develop to further this investigation in the future, they will be considered. To donate to the families campaign, go to http://www.crowdjustice.org/case/three-scottish-soldiers/ A hip hop podcaster who has a longstanding feud with the rapper who was injured at a T.I. concert last May has been arrested on weapons charges. Taxstone, whose real name is Daryl Campbell, was arrested by US Marshalls at his home in East New York, Brooklyn, on Monday morning. The 31-year-old is due to be arraigned on Tuesday, when more details of his arrestwill become known, but his lawyer told DailyMail.com he is being held on weapons charges. Police sources say his arrest is in connection to the shooting at Irving Plaza in May in which one person was killed and three more were injured. Rapper Troy Ave, whose real name Roland Collins, was shot in the legs during the gunfight and is currently facing an attempted murder charge after being filmed by surveillance cameras opening fire in the VIP room. Scroll down for video Hip hop podcaster Taxstone (left) was arrested on Monday on weapons charges connected to the May, 2016, shooting. Rapper Troy Ave (right being arraigned in a wheelchair after being shot in the legs) is currently on bail for attempted murder for his role and has a longstanding feud with the podcaster He claims he was acting in self-defense after being shot by someone else who he wrestled the gun from. Troy has had a longstanding feud with Taxstone and released a 'diss track' against the podcaster last year in response to his repeated public jibes. Taxstone previously said Troy was a 'fraud rapper' because he had 'never been a drug dealer'. Police sources told New York Daily News they had been investigating Taxstone's role in the shooting for months. The hip hop community is abuzz with speculation the podcaster, whose Soundcloud podcast has 33,000 subscribers, was involved. Taxstone's lawyer would not confirm whether he was at the concert back in May but said he was 'innocent of any charges'. 'We will know more when he is arraigned tomorrow,' Kenneth Montgomery, representing Taxstone, told DailyMail.com. Troy Ave's lawyer refused to comment on his enemy's arrest, speaking only to protest his client's innocence. 'As I told you day one, Troy was a victim. He was shot by someone else and his friend and bodyguard died a hero,' Scott Leemon said on Monday afternoon. Troy Ave was filmed on surveillance footage opening fire in the VIP room of Irving Plaza as the concert took place. His lawyers claim he had already been shot and was acting in self-defense In 2015, Troy Ave released a 'diss' track against the Tax Season podcaster (left). Taxstone responded in an interview by calling him a 'mediocre, fraud rapper' who had 'never been a drug dealer' The shooting took place inside Irving Plaza near Manhattan's Union Square on May 26 last year Donald 'Banga' McPhatter, the rapper's bodyguard, died after being shot in the chest. Maggie Heckstall, 26, was shot in the leg and 34-year-old Christopher Vinson was shot in the chest but both survived. Troy was arrested in May and later released on $500,000 bail after pleading not guilty to the crime. On Christmas Day, he was shot in the shoulder while sitting in his parked Maserati at a Brooklyn intersection with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Rapper 50 Cent rushed to his hospital bed, sharing a photograph with him on Instagram later. Mr Leemon said the shooting was a targeted attempt on his life. 'Thankfully, he will survive the second attempt on his life. 'As we have said from the beginning he is a victim. We pray for his speedy recovery.' No arrests were made in connection with the shooting. On Christmas Day, while out on $500,000 bail, Troy Ave was shot in his Maserati in Brooklyn. He survived the attack and is pictured above with rapper 50 Cent recovering in hospital Troy Ave was in his Maserati with his girlfriend when he was shot at at an intersection on Christmas Day. No arrests have been made Troy and Taxstone have been feuding for years. In a 2015 interview, Taxstone boasted that he had been 'harassing' the 'mediocre' rapper for years. He said he was a 'fraud rapper' who had 'never even been a drug dealer' and accused him of 'picking on scrawny white people' on Twitter. 'I think his music is mediocre and I think he was trying to portray this image that he was making better music than everybody in the city when he wasn't. 'I had to be the person to like interrupt that so, I just feel like he's a fraud rapper like he never was a drug dealer. Bodyguard Donald 'Banga' McPhatter (pictured) died in the crossfire 'I bothered him for five years just on social media just like calling him out for things, he likes to bully little scrawny white people but when it comes to dudes you know he thinks could take him on he falls back,' he told Baller Alert. Troy released a 'diss track' about the podcaster in 2015 in which he labeled him a 'gossip girl'. Speaking of the record, Taxstone said: 'I think at this point he decided to attack me after five years of attacking him as well cause now I'm on like MTV and s*** like that. He's not too smart.' Troy is not suing the venue for allowing weapons inside the venue. While ticket-holders were searched upon entry to the event, VIPs were not patted down, his lawyer said. 'He is the victim here. He did not bring a gun into this place, and we are seeking redress for the negligence,' said Mr Leemon. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton attracted controversy and criticism from the hip hop world when he said the shooting was proof rap artists were 'thugs'. 'The crazy world of these so-called rap artists who are basically thugs, that basically celebrate violence they did all their lives, and unfortunately that violence oftentimes manifests itself during their performances and thats exactly what happened last evening,' Bratton said. Darryl 'DMC' Daniels scolded Bratton for his comment, pointing to other artists including Will Smith and Kendrick Lamar who he said promoted a positive message through rap. 'There's a million rappers who come from the hood who do not portray, promote or produce products that celebrate or legitimizes any forms of negativity,' he said. T.I. is not believed to have had any involvement in the shooting. He apologized to fans after it in May and shared his condolences with the family of the bodyguard who was killed. Senator Pauline Hanson claims she saves taxpayers' money by driving herself to the airport or using her own plane. The One Nation leader detailed her expenditures this week in the wake of Sussan Ley's expense scandal, which ended in her resignation. It comes as Ms Hanson revealed plans to ban the burqa in Queensland government buildings if her party wins the state election. Scroll down for video One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson claims she saves taxpayer money by travelling as cheaply as she can Senator Hanson said she drives herself to the airport, flies economy or uses her own plane 'We have some big plans and idea and you know what I'm going to do going to investigate it ban the burqa in government buildings and banks and schools in Queensland,' she told Sky News on Monday night. 'We're going to lead the way in Queensland, no driver's licenses wearing the burqa or anything like that,' she continued. The controversial senator said taxpayers did not have to worry about her abusing political entitlements because she tries to do everything as cheaply as she can. Senator Hanson said she fills her own plane with petrol and drives herself to the airport, parking in the budget carpark and getting a bus to the terminal. It comes as the controversial senator announced she will ban the burqa from all Queensland government buildings if One Nation wins the state election She said she also always travels economy and if she needs to go to remote places, she will use her own plane at One Nation's expense. 'I've still got my plane, well the party's plane, but all the trips I've done in that since the election I've filled it up myself,' Senator Hanson told Sky News. 'I get on the bus with all the other people from the carpark and they look at me and say, why aren't you in the COMCAR, Pauline.' 'Astonished': Sue Peckitt was stopped by council enforcement officers and issued with an 80 on-the-spot fine for littering When Sue Peckitt could drink no more of the takeaway coffee she had bought, she took what she thought was the most considerate and public-spirited way of disposing of it. The pensioner went to put the cup in a litter bin, but only having first poured the unwanted liquid down a drain in the street to avoid making a mess of the bin. However, Miss Peckitt, 65, was shocked by what happened next to her disbelief she was stopped by three council enforcement officers and issued with an 80 on-the-spot fine for littering. When the retired civil servant appealed to the council in Ealing, West London, she was told the fine would not be revoked. 'I am astonished by the whole process,' said Miss Peckitt, who has lived in Ealing for 33 years. 'I had bought a cup of coffee, it wasn't very nice and I thought, 'I want to get rid of this'. 'So I poured it down the drain and then I started to walk to the bin to put the cup in the bin. The enforcement officers stopped me and said I was breaking the law, then I filled in all the forms and they fined me 80.' The pensioner went to put the cup in a litter bin, but only having first poured the unwanted liquid down a drain in the street in this area of Ealing (above) to avoid making a mess of the bin Miss Peckitt accused the council and its staff of being over-zealous. 'I think there is a big problem with litter but it is bizarre, I had put this coffee down the drain because it was the safe and environmentally friendly thing to do,' she said. 'The reason I didn't dispose of the cup and the liquid in the bin was that I didn't want to turn the contents of the bin into a soggy mess.' Miss Peckitt's attempts to get Ealing Council to withdraw the fine, which was imposed on her in November, initially fell on deaf ears. But then a local website, GetWestLondon, heard about the bizarre incident. The website approached the council for a comment on the story and officers conceded that the 80 fine would not be enforced. A spokesman for Ealing Council said yesterday: 'The council has investigated this particular case and will be dropping the fine originally issued. 'Our priority is to make sure that the borough is clean and litter free and we apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused.' Rolls-Royce has agreed to pay a record 671million to British, US and Brazilian authorities to settle bribery and corruption claims. In a landmark case, the engineering giant has agreed voluntary settlements over allegations it used middle-men to bribe officials to secure contracts in countries including China and Indonesia. The deals with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), US Department of Justice and Brazilian investigators mean Rolls-Royce will not be prosecuted over the claims - although in theory the SFO could still prosecute individuals. In a landmark case, the engineering giant has agreed voluntary settlements over allegations it used middle-men to bribe officials to secure contracts Rolls Royce is due to appear at Londons Royal Courts of Justice this morning to seek approval for its 497-million settlement with the SFO, the largest out-of-court settlement for the agency. The firm has also agreed to make payments of 140 million to US investigators and 21.2 million in Brazil. The payouts come after a series of scandals engulfed Rolls-Royce in recent years. It has issued its fifth profit warnings in 18 months, and appointed a new chief executive tasked with cleaning up the company. The deal with the SFO has been made under a deferred prosecution agreement which are more commonly used by US prosectors. It is only the third time the SFO has taken such measures. Lisa Osofsky, European chair of Exiger, a financial crime and risk adviser, said: The total penalty dwarfs the first few agreements struck a year ago under new UK legal powers. This sends a clear signal that the UK means business in cracking down on global bribery and corruption. Allegations about bribery at Rolls-Royce first surfaced in December 2012 when the SFO asked the company for information about allegations of malpractice in Indonesia and China. At the time, officials for the firm said its own investigations had found matters of concern in additional overseas markets. Until then, Rolls-Royce has a squeaky clean image as one of the giants of British engineering. It has major contracts across the globe, making plane engines and military equipment. In 2014 the company revealed it was also being probed by the Justice Department in the US. Since then, the British investigation has expanded to include about a dozen countries, among them places like Nigeria, India and Saudi Arabia. The SFO was granted extra government funding for the case. It is thought many of the allegations Rolls-Royce is faced with date back more than 10 years. They involve the use of intermediaries - which are local companies that handle sales, distribution, repair and maintenance - in countries where the Rolls-Royce does not have enough of its own employees. Last year an investigation by BBC Panorama and the Guardian newspaper suggested the intermediaries were bribing potential clients with illicit payments. The firm has also agreed to make payments of 140 million to US investigators and 21.2 million in Brazil Questions were raised about Rolls-Royces relationship with Unaoil, a Monaco-based firm that has been accused of using bribes to win contracts for dozens of multinationals in Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Angola and Azerbaijan. Another agent hired by Rolls-Royce was Fana Hlongwane, who is close to South Africas ANC government and in 2008 was implicated in a separate corruption scandal. Anti-corruption experts told the BBC and Guardian that firms can use well-connected agents to channel bribes to key politicians or officials who are responsible for awarding contracts, although there are many different legitimate uses for agents in foreign countries. Senior City lawyer Lord Gold was appointed by Rolls-Royce to lead a review of its procedures, reporting to the ethics committee of the board. In August 2015 Rolls-Royce confirmed it was cooperating with investigators looking into a corruption scandal at Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras, who it supplied with gas turbines for oil rigs. Meanwhile, Rolls-Royces profits have been hammered by the financial crisis and a slump in the oil price. After a series of warnings, in November it was engulfed in an accounting problems as it said profits for 2015 would have been 400 million lower than expected under new rules due to come into force next year. Then in December it announced it was cutting 800 jobs from its marine arm, as it battled falling oil prices. Its latest set of financial results are due on February 14, when the firm will outline how the new fines will dent its fragile profits. Under the terms of the agreement with the SFO, Rolls-Royce will pay 497 million plus interest over five years, plus a payment towards the SFOs costs. It will pay 293 million in the first year of all three agreements. Rolls Royce is due to appear at Londons Royal Courts of Justice this morning to seek approval for its 497-million settlement with the SFO, the largest out-of-court settlement for the agency Howard Wheeldon, a leading independent aerospace analyst said he thought the settlement would help the company move forward. He said: I think they have cooperated with the authorities throughout and I think this is the result of what can happen if a company which is accused on any level properly co-operates with the investigation. For all its problems it is very financially strong the fine is manageable. Overall, its unfortunate but it is a positive outcome and allows it to move forward. A Rolls Royce spokesman said: Rolls-Royce has co-operated fully with the authorities and will continue to do so. These agreements relate to bribery and corruption involving intermediaries in a number of overseas markets, concerns about which the company passed to the SFO from 2012 onwards. These are voluntary agreements which result in the suspension of a prosecution provided that the company fulfils certain requirements, including the payment of a financial penalty. The suspected New Year's Eve Istanbul nightclub attacker who police believe killed 39 people was today arrested by Turkish security forces. According to Turkish media, the main suspect in the attack on Reina nightclub was apprehended in Istanbul late on Monday. Abdulkadir Masharipov was reportedly caught in his friend's house in Esenyurt district of the city - just 25 miles from where the brutal attack took place. Scroll down for video A photograph shows the moment Abdulkadir Masharipov was arrested in Istanbul, with blood on his face and t-shirt (left). Police were hunting the main suspect (right) The alleged attacker entered the exclusive nightclub armed with an automatic weapon and began to shoot at revellers He was finally tracked down and was pinned down by officers next to his four-year-old son, according to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. He is now being transferred to Istanbul Police Headquarters. A photograph shows Masharipov, an Uzbekistan national, covered in blood after officers put him in handcuffs. Private NTV television said the gunman had resisted arrest. NTV reported that the gunman's Kyrgyz friend and three other people also were detained. The television channel said police established the alleged gunman's whereabouts four or five days ago, but delayed the raid so they could monitor his movements and contacts. The arrest came after those celebrating New Year's Eve in the exclusive club in the city were forced to run for their lives when the attacker entered. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the savage attack, later adding that it was revenge for the Turkish military involvement in Syria. Police in Turkey have desperately been hunting the main suspect for more than two weeks following the incident which also left 69 wounded. On New Year's Eve, the attacker opened fire with an automatic rifle, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground. Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among those killed in the attack. He was reportedly arrested in the Esenyurt district of the city - just 25 miles from the nightclub Another man was taken away after security officers arrived at a property in Istanbul, Turkey The suspect was caught in an operation jointly carried out by the Turkish police and the spy agency MIT, Turkish TV said. There had been confusion over the identity of the attacker in the wake of the massacre, with reports initially suggesting a Kyrgyz national and then a Uighur from China. But reports on January 8 said intelligence services and anti-terror police in Istanbul had identified him as a 34-year-old Uzbek who was part of a Central Asian IS cell. The suspect was living in an apartment rented by a Kyrgyz in Istanbul who was also detained, TRT reported. Security forces were seen arriving in the Esenyurt area of Istanbul on Monday evening Cory Booker says he will attend Donald Trump's swearing-in ceremony on Friday in spite of a dispute between the president-elect and civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis. Lewis says he's not attending, and at least 30 House Democrats will join him, per the Washington Post's latest count. Booker said Monday at an event recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. that he would follow the outgoing president's lead and go to Trump's inauguration, like most of his Senate colleagues. 'I respect everybody's choice in this. My personal feeling is this is the peaceful transition of power,' he said, according to USA Today. 'Barack Obama will be up there, handing off the reins of our country and I feel ... it's important for us to be up there. This doesn't mean I agree with Donald Trump.' Cory Booker, one of the Senate's only black Democrats, (left) says he will attend Donald Trump's swearing-in ceremony on Friday in spite of a dispute between the president-elect and civil rights hero and Congressman John Lewis (right) Booker sat beside Lewis last week on a panel opposing Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to the post of attorney general. He said this morning, at a Washington, D.C. breakfast, that he could not join Lewis in his inauguration boycott out of 'respect' for the nation's institutions, however Donald Trump's inauguration will be boycotted by at least 31 other Democrat lawmakers after he called 'all talk....no action' following Lewis' assertion that he's not a 'legitimate president' Booker sat beside Lewis last week on a panel opposing Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to the post of attorney general and said he could not support his colleague's promotion because of concerns over potential civil rights violations. He said this morning, at a Washington, D.C. breakfast sponsored by the National Action Network that he'll be fighting Trump's agenda as soon his hand comes off the Bible but he could not join Lewis in his inauguration boycott out of 'respect' for the nation's institutions. 'I'll be there just like the president will be there and most of my Senate colleagues,' he said, according to USA Today. A growing number of Democrat lawmakers are refusing to attend Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration over a feud between the president-elect and Lewis, a Georgia representative. Lewis said the Republican will not be a 'legitimate' president. Trump responded on Twitter with insults to Lewis, who he said was 'all talk...no action,' and his congressional district. The president-elect's jabs at Lewis, who marched on Washington with Dr. King and was brutally beat by police in Selma, on the eve of MLK's birthday-turned-national holiday has created an uproar among Democrats. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York congressman who's district includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, told CNN this morning that Trump 'was legally elected' but he agrees that he's but he agrees that he's an 'illegitimate' president. Russian hacking and eleventh-hour interventions into the November election by the FBI 'puts an asterisk next to his name,' Nadler said on New Day. Nadler's office released a statement after the appearance explaining the congressman's decision to skip Trump's swearing in. 'I refuse to sit idly by as he flaunts his illicit behavior without regard for the American peoples interest,' Nadler said. 'I refuse to applaud for a man with a history of offensive and abusive behavior to women and minorities. I refuse to treat January 20, 2017, as business as usual.' Bonnie Watson Coleman, the first black woman elected to Congress from New Jersey, says she's not going, either. ''Our nation is founded on democracy and inclusion that unfortunately our president-elect refuses to represent,' she said. She plans to hold an interfaith prayer vigil in Trenton on Friday instead. As of Monday afternoon, 31 House Democrats, including Lewis and Nadler, had said they would spurn Trump's swearing in. California Representative Mark Takano tweeted this image of Lewis (far right) marching with Martin Luther King Jr during their civil rights campaign, and said he stood with Lewis On the other side of the country, New York Representative Yvette Clarke said Trump had 'insulted America' when he made his remarks about Lewis Lewis, a congressman since 1987, told NBC's Chuck Todd on Friday, 'I dont see this president-elect as a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. 'I don't plan to attend the inauguration. It will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress,' he added. 'You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.' Trump fired back on Twitter Saturday in a message that said, 'Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. 'All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!' He doubled down on the claims later. 'Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the US. I can use all the help I can get!' he said. Lewis became famous in the 1960s as a prominent civil rights campaigner who became the youngest of the Big Six - the others included Martin Luther King Jr. He took part in mixed-race 'freedom rides' across America, to challenge laws that demanded segregated buses. He was beaten multiple times and arrested for doing so. He had also been beaten multiple times by the KKK and others for participating in civil rights marches. New York Representative Yvette Clarke said Saturday on Twitter after Trump's tirade: 'I will NOT attend the inauguration of @realDonaldTrump. When you insult @repjohnlewis, you insult America.' Clarke's fellow New Yorker, Nadler, tweeted: '@realDonaldTrump stands with V. Putin. I stand with @repjohnlewis.' She was also joined by three California Representatives - Ted Lieu, Mark Takano and Judy Chu - who had similar objections. Lieu's office released a statement in which he said, 'While I do not dispute that Trump won the Electoral College, I cannot normalize his behavior or the disparaging and un-American statements he has made.' He complained about Trump's 'racist, sexist and bigoted statements' and concluded: 'For me, the personal decision not to attend Inauguration is quite simple: Do I stand with Donald Trump, or do I stand with John Lewis? I am standing with John Lewis.' Trump tweeted Friday that Lewis was 'all talk - no action' and called Lewis's district 'falling apart' and 'crime-infested' after Lewis said he would boycott Trump's inauguration He later doubled down on his claims saying that Lewis should 'finally' focus on 'the burning and crime-infested inner cities' Among the others who have said they won't be attending are Arizona's Raul Grijalva (left) and California's Judy Chu (right) Three other Cali Reps won't attend (l-r) Jared Huffman said he would be with constituents; Barbara Lee will be 'organizing resistance' to Trump and Ted Lieu dislikes Trump's statements New York Congressman Jose E. Serrano, who represents the Bronx, said he 'cannot celebrate the inauguration of a man who has no regard for my constituents' Meanwhile, Takano tweeted: '"All talk, no action." I stand with @repjohnlewis and I will not be attending the inauguration.' And Chu wrote, 'After much thought, I have decided to #StandWithJohnLewis and not attend the inauguration.' Mark DeSaulnier tweeted Friday, before Trump's slap at Lewis, 'It is with a heavy heart and deep personal conviction that I have decided not to attend the #TrumpInauguration on January 20, 2017.' On Saturday he cast 'shame' on Trump for 'kicking off #MLKWeekend by criticizing one of our most treasured civil rights leaders' and thanked Lewis for his 'service, activism & personal sacrifice for our country'. Oregon Representative Kurt Schrader said Trump 'hasn't proved himself to me at all yet, so I respectfully decline to freeze my a** out there in the cold for this particular ceremony' Michigan's John Conyers (left) and Massachusetts' Katherine Clark (right) are both refusing to attend. Conyers didn't give a reason, but Clark said she didn't want to attend the 'pageantry' (l-r) California's Mark Takano took Lewis's side; Missouri's William Lacy Clay will spend Friday with St Louis kids; and Illinois' Luis Gutierrez said Trump wants to 'turn back the clock' Three more California Representatives, Jared Huffman and Barbara Lee, also threw their lot in with the 'nay' camp. Huffman said he would rather make 'a positive difference' with his constituents, suggesting he might 'pitch in' building homes or cleaning up flood debris rather than go to DC. Lee was more strident in her views, saying in a statement that Trump normalized 'the most extreme fringes of the Republican Party. 'On Inauguration Day, I will not be celebrating. I will be organizing and preparing for resistance.' Friction about the Trump Presidency wasn't restricted to the more liberal coasts, however - Midwest representatives have said they're not attending, too. Illinois Rep Luis Gutierrez told CNN's New Day he would not witness the swearing in of a man who would 'turn back the clock on women and turn back the clock on immigrants and the safety and freedom that we fought for them.' Michigan Representative John Conyers, Jr. invoked Vice President Joe Biden's unrelated statement that Trump needs to 'grow up' and said he would follow Lewis. Friday Missouri Representative William Lacy Clay's office told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that he would be 'back home in St Louis speaking to school kids' rather than attending the DC inauguration. New York Reps Yvette Clarke (left) and Nydia Velazquez (right) have both declined to attend. Clarke said Trump had 'insulted America' with his remarks about Lewis NY Rep Adriano Espaillat said his refusal to attend was 'an individual act... of defiance at the disrespect shown to millions and millions of Americans by this incoming administration' Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark told The Boston Globe on January 5: 'I support the peaceful transition of power, but I don't feel that I need to attend the pageantry associated with and for this President.' She was the only one of the Massachusetts congressional delegation who would not attend, the paper said. Three more New York representatives also swore off the inauguration: Adriano Espaillat, Jose Serrano and Nydia Velazquez. Espaillat said on Facebook that Trump and his appointees were trying to take the country 'back in time' and said 'the hate-filled rhetoric that plagued his election simply will continue in his administration.' 'THIS is not Dr King's Dream!' he added. Velazquez said she would instead participate in the national women's march on Washington on January 21. That march will take place in DC the day after the inauguration, and according to its website, is set up in response to 'the rhetoric of the past election cycle' which has 'insulted, demonized, and threatened many of us'. Trump struck out at 'angry' Democrats on Twitter Sunday, in what appeared to be a reference to the increasing numbers of representatives from the opposing party dropping out. 'The Democrats are most angry that so many Obama Democrats voted for me,' he said in a two-tweet tirade. 'With all of the jobs I am bringing back to our Nation, that number will only get higher. Car companies and others, if they want to do business in our country, have to start making things here again. WIN!' There are many seats to fill at the inauguration, but most Democrats will be present for the event, despite the nearly 20 rebels On Sunday, as rehearsals (pictured) took place, Trump struck out at 'angry Democrats' saying 'so many Obama Democrats voted for me' It's not just lawmakers that are giving Trump the cold shoulder - other Democrats have their own plans for the 20th. According to Politico, Clinton backer David Brock is gathering more than 200 of the left's biggest donors during the inauguration to figure out what the Democrats did wrong last year, and to plot Trump's downfall in years to come. 'What better way to spend inaugural weekend than talking about how to kick Donald Trumps a**?' he said. Donna Brazile, interim chair of the DNC, will also be ditching DC in favor of a conference in Paris, Politico said. And a young Democratic operative from the Clinton campaign told the site that those who leave the city are refusing to rent out their homes on AirBNB, as they're worried about having Trump supporters in their home. The Democratic exodus isn't absolute. The president, Booker, and other senior Democrats including Trump's election foe, Hillary Clinton, are attending. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on Friday. The Capitol (pictured, during inauguration) is still being prepared for the ceremony Dashcam video showing a police car colliding with another vehicle at an intersection has divided the internet, with people blaming both parties for the crash. The footage, taken in North Albury, New South Wales, on Saturday, shows the police car and a red Ford pull up at a junction. The Ford, which is facing a green traffic light, slows but then speeds up again to cross the intersection after the police car, which has its lights flashing and its siren wailing, slows down. Dashcam video showing a police car colliding with another vehicle at an intersection has divided the internet, with people blaming both parties for the crash Poll Who do you think was in the wrong? The police car The red Ford Who do you think was in the wrong? The police car 374 votes The red Ford 293 votes Now share your opinion But as the car starts passing through the junction, the police car speeds up again and ends up bumping into the rear of the other vehicle. A shocked pair of women filming the incident are heard reacting in shock after the two cars come together. 'Oh! He hit him. Why did the copper do that? He's seen him there,' one of the women says. 'But he was in the wrong that cop. He's seen that guy and he only had to wait,' she adds. As they pass the two cars, which have pulled over at the side of the road, one of the women shouts, apparently at the police officer: 'You were in the wrong!' The clip has divided people online, but most have taken the police officer's side. As the car starts passing through the junction, the police car speeds up again and ends up bumping into the rear of the other vehicle. The two cars pulled over to exchange details and no one was injured in the crash on Saturday Sam Costanzo wrote: 'How can the cop be in the wrong? Lights and sirens going, he has right of way. Better hand your licence in if you think that he was in the wrong.' Davif Reade-Evans added: 'If an emergency vehicle has it's lights on, you must give way. Even if you have a green light.' But Matthew Garcia said: 'Actually the cop is in the wrong. Any emergency vehicle still has to abide by all road laws. Although they can pass through red lights and stop signs with there emergency lights on, they can only do so if it is safe.' New South Wales Police said no one was injured in the crash. 'A Traffic and Highway Patrol car and a sedan were involved in a collision on Fallon Street, Albury,' a spokesman said/ 'The Highway Patrol car received minor damage. The other car was not damaged. Particulars were exchanged and no one was injured. The incident has been investigated.' This is the extraordinary moment that two apparent strangers became locked in a bloody - and sometimes ridiculous - fight on a busy New York subway car. The video, uploaded Thursday, begins with a bald Latino man running up behind a black man in a plaid shirt and swinging at him. No reason is given in the video. The black man ducks and weaves, but his attacker locks his arms around him, beginning a long and bizarre struggle through the subway car. Scroll down for video Fight: The footage shows the bald man apparently hitting out at the black man for no reason. The pair then get involved in a protracted struggle that sees them staggering around the car Unable to shift the bald man's grip, the black man begins to slam his opponent's head repeatedly against a metal pole, to groans from the dozen or so spectators. Even that doesn't budge the bald man, though, who tries a gruesome counter-attack. 'You biting me, b***h? You biting me, n***a?' the black man shouts, before trying to prize the bald man's head away from him. For a second it looks like the bald man is trying to kiss him - but if he is, the romance turns back to violence as he's shoved back again. The black man stands on a chair, eventually using the height advantage to prize the bald man's arms off. But the bald man grabs him by the leg, pulling him down and hugging him again. All of this is happening on a 4 Line train - one of the busiest lines in the world. Grabbed: At one point the bald man manages to grab the black man and trap him in a bent-over position. He then puts out his tongue, to the amusement of the crowd The pair stagger around as the bald man continues to squeeze him - now apparently content just to hug, not bite, his apparent victim. At one point the black man looks wearily at the camera - but just moments later the bald man attempts to shove him through the door into the 161st St station, where the train is being held due to the fight. A man in a red shirt attempts to separate the pair, and they do - but not before the bald man manages to trap the black man while he's bent double. The bald man then looks around and pulls a face in a parody of a professional wrestler before the pair are finally separated. They briefly face off outside the train - the bald man throwing some martial-arts-like moves after the black man lunges at him - but then the pair separate, to jeers from the crowd. A man in China reportedly got himself trapped inside a hollow utility pole after getting drunk. The man, unidentified, crawled into the 65-foot-long electricity pole which was lying at roadside in Qingyang city, Gansu Province, on Saturday, reported People's Daily Online. Firefighters managed to pull out the man after they cut off part of the steel post and tied a rope on his body. A man in China has got himself stuck in a tiny electricity pole (pictured) after getting drunk The tapered pole measured 2ft 7in wide at one end and 1ft 11in wide at the other The hollow pole measured 2ft 7in wide at one end and 1ft 11in wide at the other. It was left by the side of the road and was waiting to be erected. The man, allegedly drunk, climbed in from the wider end. But as the pole got narrower, he got stuck as he moved towards the narrower end. It is unclear how long he had stayed inside the tube when the firefighters arrived. However, reports claimed that he had shown signs of suffocation. Firefighters managed to tie a rope on the man's body before pulling him out of the pole Officers had pumped oxygen into the tube as the man had shown signs of suffocation The man has allegedly crawled into the 65ft-long pole placed at roadside when he was drunk A 53-second-long video posted on CCTV+ shows the firefighters' rescue effort. According to witnesses, firefighters first supplied oxygen to stabilise his condition. Afterwards, the officers started to dismantle the lid of the electric pole using a welding gun. The man was taken to the hospital immediately to receive medical treatment The firefighters sent in a slim-figured colleague from the narrow side of the pole to tie a rope on the trapped man. Then they used the rope to pull him out. The man was taken to the hospital immediately to receive medical treatment. It is reported that the man did not sustain any life-threatening injuries. He is currently kept in hospital for further observation. Several Masonic signs have been found 'hidden' in paintings of Scotland's bard Robert Burns. Tiny letters and symbols have been painted in minute detail in a paintings by Alexander Nasmyth, a contemporary of Burns. They include a comet, a hooded figures and the letters 'm a r a' on the side of his head. After studying photographs of different Masonic signs, Burns expert and writer Jerry Brannigan told Judith Duffy at The Sunday Herald that he believes he has discovered a representation of a comet over Burns's shoulder. A comet is claimed to have been found over Burns's shoulder, a cluster of numbers on his forehead and the letters 'm a r a' on the side of his head. The numbers could have indicated his status as a Royal Arch Mason. The comet could be a symbol of the Masonic Blazing Star WHO WAS ROBERT BURNS? Robert Burns was born 25 January 1759 and died 21 July 1796. He was widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland. He was a high-ranking member of the Freemasons. Much of his popularity stems from the fact he was a farmer's son who could speak to the common man. But he also led a varied social life which exposed him to different sections of society. In his poems, he often used small subjects to express big ideas. For instance, in 'To a Mouse', he draws a comparison between the lives of mice and men. Burns is thought of as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. He was a source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism after his death. Burn has a national day named after him on the 25th January each year. At New Year, his poem 'Auld Lang Syne' is still sung to this day. Advertisement The signs were only found when a 'lost' portrait of Burns, who was a high-ranking member of the Freemasons, was cleaned. Mr Brannigan, who believes the symbols are deliberate Masonic signs, spent two years analysing the 1787 painting. The numbers and letters on the poet's face and head could have been used to indicate Burns' status as a Royal Arch Mason. The comet could be interpreted as a symbol of the Masonic Blazing Star. 'You won't see the letters on such a general photo as you would need to get far closer,' Brannigan told MailOnline. He presented his theory on the 'Da Vinci code of paintings' at a conference held by the University of Glasgow's Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayr. The lost portrait, named the Shaw of Burns, is believed to be the fourth version of a portrait of Burns which was painted by Nasmyth and is on display in Dumfries House in Ayrshire. The other versions are currently on display in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow and the National Portrait Gallery, London. Jerry Brannigan discovered two areas on Burns' face - one on his forehead, where there are numbers or figures. 'You wont see the letters on such a general photo as you would need to get far closer,' Brannigan told MailOnline. Pictured is a close up of part of the background of the painting, believed to show a representation of a comet. It could also be interpreted as a symbol of the masonic Blazing Star, one of the most important symbols of Freemasonry Another area of Burn's forehead is shown here, believed to display Masonic-type symbols 'One of these photographs showed up an area in the background over Burns's shoulder and it turned out to be a representation of a comet,' Brannigan told the Sunday Herald. 'That led me to look at two other photos and I discovered two areas on his face - one on his forehead, where there are numbers or figures. 'Then there is another little row again to the side of his forehead, at an angle, with four or five letters.' Two areas on Burns's forehead have a series of symbols and letters, which may suggest Burns's status as a Royal Arch Mason. The comet could be interpreted as a symbol of the masonic Blazing Star, which was a key symbol of Freemasonry. Brannigan adding landscape paintings by Nasmyth also contained possible Masonic symbols. This includes a figure which can be seen in A View of Edinburgh from the West. It may be an allusion to the Knights Templar. We've all seen a drone flying around at some point or another, but seeing what it actually does to the air around it is something else entirely. Researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center in California have used computer models to create an animation of the air flow around a quadcopter drone. They developed the animation for the DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter - a battery-powered drone with four rotors. For years, NASA has used similar computer models to simulate the flow of air around aircraft to improve the performance of the vehicles of the future. The phantom drone relies on four rotors to generate enough thrust to lift it up into the air. The animation revealed the complex movements of the air caused by the interaction of the drones rotors and its X-shaped frame. In an experiment, the researchers added four more rotors to the drone to see what effect it would have on the quadcopters performance. The phantom drone relies on four rotors to generate enough thrust to lift it up into the air Adding four more rotors caused the quadcopter to have a nearly twice as much thrust. The Phantom 3 quadcopter has an integrated camera with gimbal stabilization for smooth videos and photos. It has a CMOS image sensor which captures 2.7K HD video and 12MP photos with auto and and manual focus. The drone can stream live videos and has 16GB of internal memory to save footage. It also has an Intelligent Flight batter which reminds you when the power is running low so you have the time to land the device. Currently, the drone is priced at $499 online. The researchers findings offer new insights into autonomous vehicles for uses such as cargo transportation. The research was announced at the 2017 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum in Grapevine, Texas by Seokkwan Yoon based at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames. DJI PHANTOM 3 QUADCOPTER - SPECS Integrated camera with gimbal stabilization for smooth videos and photos. CMOS image sensor captures 2.7K HD video and 12MP photos with auto and and manual focus. View a live video on a compatible mobile device. 16GB of internal memory to save footage. Intelligent flight system to automatically keep the quadcopter in the air while you're in control. Motion sensor for enhanced functionality. Intelligent Flight battery which reminds you when the power is running low so you have the time to land the device. Price: $499. Advertisement Dubbed the 'Sea Hunter', the 132ft ship is designed to travel thousands of miles out at sea without a single crew member on board. Now, the 132-foot Sea Hunter trimaran, is set to get an upgrade - turning it into a stealthy killing machine. The Navy has revealed plans to expand the mission portfolio of the craft so that it can conduct surface warfare missions, fire weapons and launch electronic attacks. Scroll down for video The 132ft-long (40-metre) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface without a crew. The ship's projected $20 million (14.2 million) price tag and its $20,000 (14,300) daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the navy THE SEA HUNTER WARSHIP The 132ft-long (40-metre) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface without a crew. The ship's projected $20 million (14.2 million) price tag and its $15,000 (10,650) to $20,000 (14,300) daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the navy. The ship is about to undergo two years of testing, including to verify that it can safely follow international norms for operating at sea. First and foremost is ensuring that it can use radar and cameras to avoid other vessels. Powered by two diesel engines, the ship can reach speeds of 27 knots per hour. Advertisement 'Right now, the sky is the limit, but, before we even get to that, we need to be able to have a more autonomous system that can steer and reposition itself,' Capt. Jon Rucker, program manager, Unmanned Maritime Systems, PEO LCS, said Jan. 10, at the Surface Naval Association, Arlington, Va, according to Defence Systems. The 132ft-long (40-metre) unarmed prototype, dubbed Sea Hunter, is the naval equivalent of Google's self-driving car, designed to cruise on the ocean's surface without a crew. The ship's projected $20 million (14.2 million) price tag and its $15,000 (10,650) to $20,000 (14,300) daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the navy. Now, new plans call for replacing a turret on top of the drone with a range of sensors for ISR, surface-oriented technologies, weapons and electronic warfare systems, Rucker said. 'It will have an ability to work with the surface force, do command and control and go investigate,' Rucker said. At the end of last year, DARPA awarded an $8.5 million contract extension to Reston, Virginia-based Leidos for continued test phase development of the program. The ship has taken to the seas off San Diego to begin at-sea testing of its sensors, and self driving software. When it enters service, Sea Hunter will operate for around 30 to 90 days at sea without a crew, and will leave and return to port on its own. In initial testing of Sea Hunter's autonomy capability, the ship successfully executed a multi-waypoint mission with no person directing course or speed changes. Leidos also completed a test of the Remote Supervisory Control Station (RSCS), which allows remote supervisory control of the vessel and enables new mission tasking from a remote location, either afloat or ashore. The completion of the RSCS test was the final test before beginning more extensive autonomous operations. Testing of the Sea Hunter autonomy system in a variety of mission scenarios is scheduled to continue through fall 2017 as part of a two-year test program jointly funded by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). 'Sea Hunter is at the forefront of new autonomy technologies for the U.S. military,' said Mike Chagnon, president of the Leidos Advanced Solutions Group. 'The operational testing is designed to showcase the unprecedented capabilities that this type of unmanned vessel could offer our military forces.' Experts say the vessel has the potential to revolutionise not only the military's maritime service but also commercial shipping. Sea Hunter is designed to operate for extended periods at sea with no person on board and only sparse supervisory control throughout deployment. While initial vessel tests require a pilot on board the ship, later tests are planned to have no personnel on board. The completion of Sea Hunter's performance trials is the first milestone in the two-year test program co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research. Testing in upcoming months is scheduled to include testing of sensors, the vessel's autonomy suite, compliance with maritime collision regulations, and proof-of-concept demonstrations for a variety of U.S. Navy missions. It marks the first step toward sending unmanned cargo vessels between countries, according to military officials, who showed off the ship in San Diego today before it was put in the water. The Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) developed the ship along with Virginia-based Leidos. Darpa will test it in conjunction with the Navy over the next two years off California's coast. The tests will largely focus on its ability to react on its own to avoid collisions with seafaring traffic. The vessel was unveiled by Deputy US Defense Secretary Robert Work and has been developed by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). The ship is about to undergo two years of testing, including to verify that it can safely follow international norms for operating at sea THE SILENT ENEMY SUBS The advent of increasingly autonomous ships and aircraft is stoking concern among some experts and activists about armed robotic systems that could identify people as threats and kill them. Diesel-electric submarines are quickly becoming one of the biggest threats to naval operations and a $1.8 trillion commercial shipping industry. Diesel-electric submarines, with their nearly-noiseless engines, are incredibly difficult to track from afar. They're also cheap at $200 million to $300 million each. Advertisement During the testing phase, the ship will have human operators as a safety net, but once it proves to be reliable, the autonomous surface vessel will maneuver itself able to go out at sea for months at a time. Program manager Scott Littlefield said there will be no 'remote-controlled driving of the vessel'. Instead it will be given its mission-level commands telling it where to go and what to accomplish and then software will enable it to drive itself safely. The military initially built the diesel-powered ship to detect stealthy electric submarines. But developers say they believe it has the capability to go beyond that, including doing mine sweeps. There are no plans at this point to arm it. 'There are a lot of advantages that we're still trying to learn about,' Littlefield said. Among them is the possibility that the full-size prototype could pave the way to developing crewless cargo vessels for the commercial shipping industry someday, he added. Countries from Europe to Asia have been looking into developing fleets of unmanned ships to cut down on operating costs but the idea has sparked debate over whether it's possible to make robotic boats safe enough to run on their own far from land. The International Transport Workers' Federation, the union representing more than half of the world's more than one million seafarers, has said it does not believe technology will ever be able to replace the ability of humans to foresee and react to the various dangers at sea. The 'Sea Hunter' was built off the Oregon coast, and moved on a barge to San Diego's coastline to begin testing. The project began in 2010, when Darpa announced that it was building an autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines. The program was dubbed Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV. An early concept image is pictured The prototype can travel at a speed of up to 27 knots per hour, and is equipped with a variety of sensors and an advanced optical system to detect other ships, Littlefield said. The program to develop the ship cost $120 million, though Littlefield said the vessels can now be produced for about $20 million. During the collision tests, the ship will be programed to follow international traffic rules for boats of its size. There are no standards for unmanned ships yet, but Littlefield believes that could change if vessels like this one make it out of the experimental stage. The Navy over the years has experimented with a number of unmanned systems from drone helicopters to small, remotely controlled boats launched from ships. The Pentagon's budget over the next five years calls for investing in more high-end Naval ships, including $600 million to be invested in unmanned undersea vehicles. The Antarctic research base that first discovered the hole in the ozone layer is set to be closed for the winter amid rising fears it could falling into a huge ice chasm. The Halley VI Research Station, which is home to the British Antarctic Survey, is set to be relocated 14 miles across the Brunt Ice Shelf, amid fears in could slide into an encroaching fissure. Now, researchers say a second crack and has been spotted, and is so unpredictable that researchers will return home once the relocation is complete. Scroll down for video The Antarctic research base that first discovered the hole in the ozone layer is in danger of falling into a huge ice chasm KILLER CHASMS The first chasm, which had lain dormant for more than three decades, began opening up in 2012, and by the following year it was expanding at the rapid pace of one mile per year. On October 2016, a second crack appeared some 17 km to the north of the research station. Researchers conclude that they are unable to predict with certainty what will happen to the ice shelf during the forthcoming Antarctic winter and beyond. Advertisement The British Antarctic survey said Monday that changes to the ice presents 'a complex glaciological picture' that causes concern about the shelf on which the station is located in the coming months. The survey says a new crack on the floating Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica will force them to remove people before the Antarctic winter, which runs from March to November, ends. There's no risk to the people currently at the station, but difficulties in evacuating people during the winter prompted scientists to shut the station as a precaution. 'Halley VI Research Station sits on a floating ice shelf. It was designed specifically to move inland if required,' said Director of Operations Captain Tim Stockings. 'The current work to relocate our station is going very well. This challenging engineering project is scheduled to complete as planned by early March 2017. 'We want to do the right thing for our people. Bringing them home for winter is a prudent precaution given the changes that our glaciologists have seen in the ice shelf in recent months. 'Our goal is to winterise the station and leave it ready for re-occupation as soon as possible after the Antarctic winter.' The station is a platform for global Earth, atmospheric and space weather observation in a climate-sensitive zone. The first chasm, which had lain dormant for more than three decades, began opening up in 2012, and by the following year it was expanding at the rapid pace of one mile per year. On October 2016, a second crack appeared some 17 km to the north of the research station. The Halley VI Research Station is set to be relocated 14 miles across the Brunt Ice Shelf, amid fears in could slide into an encroaching fissure in the ice shelf. This map shows the current location of Halley VI, its future location, and The Crack, labelled as Chasm I Since then glaciologists have monitored the growth of this crack using a network of GPS instruments that measure the deformation of the ice, together with European Space Agency satellite imagery, ground penetrating radar, and on-site drone footage, which show that the recent changes to the Brunt Ice Shelf have not been seen before. They have run computer models and created bathymetric maps to determine whether or not a large iceberg will calve, and the impact that could have on the remaining ice shelf. The base will be broken up into its eight modules and moved further inland by large tractors They conclude that they are unable to predict with certainty what will happen to the ice shelf during the forthcoming Antarctic winter and beyond. If the research station is not relocated, it could be swallowed by the ice by 2020. The problem is further compounded by a second crack, which has opened up to the north of the base, on a route sometimes used to deliver supplies. The team has just nine weeks to move the research station, before the harsh winter sets in. The base will be broken up into its eight modules and moved further inland by large tractors. Scientific research at will continue in temporary facilities at the existing site, until the team is moved to the new location next season HALLEY VI RESEARCH STATION Halley Research Station is an award-winning science lab, complete with accommodation for researchers. The modular lab, which was first constructed in 1956, is run by the British Antarctic Survey. It was here that researchers first discovered the hole in the ozone layer in 1985. The research facility comprises eight modules sitting atop hydraulic legs, enabling each module to be towed to a new location. Halley sits on the 130 metre-thick Brunt Ice Shelf. The ice shelf flows slowly out onto the Weddell Sea, where chunks of ice 'calve' off as icebergs. In its current 'VI' configuration, it has been operational since 2012. Halley is home to 70 staff during the summer (late December to early March) and around 16 during winter. Source: British Antarctic Survey Advertisement Scientific research will continue in temporary facilities at the existing site, until the team is moved to the new location next season. Crucial research carried out at the base includes studies into as the impact of extreme space weather events, climate change, and atmospheric phenomena. Halley has also taken ozone measurements continually since 1956, with the team first discovering the Antarctic Ozone Hole in 1985. Tim Stockings, Director of Operations at the British Antarctic Survey, told the Telegraph: 'Halley Research Station was designed and engineered specifically to be re-located in response to changes in the ice. 'Over the last couple of years, our operational teams have been meticulous in developing very detailed plans for the move. 'Antarctica can be a very hostile environment. Each summer season is very short - about nine weeks. 'And because the ice and the weather are unpredictable, we have to be flexible in our approach. 'We are especially keen to minimise the disruption to the science programmes. If the research station is not relocated, it could be swallowed by the ice by 2020 Crucial research carried out at the base include studies into as the impact of extreme space weather events, climate change, and atmospheric phenomena 'We have planned the move in stages - the science infrastructure that captures environmental data will remain in place while the stations modules move.' The research base also hosts an ongoing European Space Agency (ESA) experiment, testing how well people can adapt to life in remote and isolated locations. The data will be used in preparations for long space flights, such as the first Mars landing. Halley has also taken ozone measurements continually since 1956, with the team first discovering the Antarctic Ozone Hole in 1985 Meanwhile, in Europe, scientists have discovered tiny specks of cosmic dust, which is usually only found in Antarctica, in urban cities on the continent. The cosmic dust was discovered on rooftops in Paris, Oslo and Berlin. Dr Matthew Genge, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said: 'We've known since the 1940s that cosmic dust falls continuously through our atmosphere, but until now we thought that it could not be detected among the millions of terrestrial dust particles, except in the most dust-free environments such as the Antarctic or deep oceans. If you work on an hourly basis, you may not have given much thought to what happens to your hours after you log out of your workstation. You might assume those hours are simply converted into dollars and show up on your paycheck. However, there are a lot of ways employers can manipulate your time using timekeeping software, some of which are legal and others highly questionable. Scroll down for video Some software programs are more transparent than others (or can be customized to be more transparent). This graphic illustrates a program that allows managers to 'accept' or 'reject' an employee's time, but editing can be done only by the employee THE TRICKS COMPANIES USE TO CUT DOWN ON THE TIME YOU WORK Rounding your time away: employee's times are rounded to a preset increment such as the nearest 15-minute mark. Automatic break deductions for example for lunch breaks. Supervisor access to edit employee timecards One program allowed certain users to alter hours using a slider that could be dragged forwards or backwards. The slider was advertised next to a picture of a child on a slide, hinting that altering an employee's hours is 'fun.' A button labeled 'edit' rather than 'correct' suggests that it is okay to 'edit' wages for purposes other than fixing mistakes. Another program had a pop-up window for supervisors to review overtime hours. The window offered three options: to pay 'all,' 'none' or 'some' of the overtime. This is also problematic from a behavioral standpoint, because users may infer from the buttons that 'some' or 'none' is a reasonable option. A third program had a 'carry forward hours' function, which moved hours from one pay period to a future period. Advertisement About 60 percent of U.S. employees are paid on an hourly basis. To keep track of those hours, most employers use some form of electronic system. This adds up to a mountain of data, so employers use software to manage that data before turning it over to payroll. In collaboration with fellow researchers Charlotte Alexander and Zev Eigen, I examined 13 different timekeeping software programs by reviewing software tutorials, technical support materials and promotional information. This gave us some insight into the features available through the software. Our findings were recently published in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. These features allow employers to alter your time in a variety of unexpected ways, which we describe below. The federal regulations that govern how employers manage hourly records are hopelessly outdated. They were drafted by the Department of Labor in 1987 and did not contemplate the ease and scale with which timekeeping records can be modified. The recordkeeping rules were crafted around paper-based records and still refer to time 'cards' and 'microfilm.' As much as the old punch card machine is seared into our collective memories, most employers now use sophisticated digital systems. Employees log in and out through a computer, badge reader or smartphone. These logins are synced with the timekeeping software. The software can then make automatic changes to the time, which supervisors can review and edit. This has left software makers free to compete on features that ultimately serve to disadvantage workers, with little accountability. One of the more common features we observed in software programs was known as 'rounding,' in which an employee's times are rounded to a preset increment such as the nearest 15-minute mark (1:00, 1:15, etc.). For example, if you log in to your work station at 8:56 a.m., the software assumes you clocked in at 9 a.m., erasing four minutes of work. (Conversely, if you log in at 9:04, the software assumes you arrived at 9, giving you a bonus of four minutes.) It seems fair in theory. But when rounding interacts with employer attendance policies, it can hurt employees. You're more likely to log in a few minutes early to avoid getting in trouble for being late. But those extra minutes are rounded away. Rounding operates like 'house odds' at a casino you might win here or there, but in the aggregate, the house always wins. These minutes add up. A 5-minute loss per day adds up to 100 minutes a month per worker. If that person is working full time, those minutes may also be overtime, which federal law dictates must be paid at a 50 percent premium to the hourly rate. Multiplied across an entire workforce? That's a lot of wages that workers don't get to keep. Surprisingly, rounding is generally allowed under existing rules. It's a decades-old accommodation to employers previously forced to calculate hours manually. But there's no good reason to permit rounding when software can calculate hours to the millisecond. An example of an interface for reviewing employee time. Some software programs offered 'add-on' features providing meaningful notification to employees when changes are made to their timesheets, but these features are apparently rarely purchased by employers Another software feature automatically deducts scheduled breaks from an employee's hours. For example, if you're scheduled to take a 30-minute lunch break, that time can be deducted from your hours automatically, regardless of your actual time records. Here's an example of an employer's automatic break deduction setup There is a certain efficiency in this feature, and its legality depends on the circumstances in which it is applied. But like rounding, it is structured as a form of house odds. The presumption works in the employer's favor, and the employee usually must engage in some sort of override to be paid for a missed break like notifying a supervisor or filling in paperwork. Timekeeping software is commonly structured to give supervisors access to and the authority to modify the timecards of employees who work for them. Typically, the screen lists the names of each direct report and a button allowing them to 'edit' the time. There are legitimate reasons to give supervisors access to employee time, such as to correct mistakes like a missed punch. But the list of legal reasons that would justify changes to an employee's time is pretty short. Once an employee has already worked the hours, state and/or federal law generally requires employers to pay them. Otherwise, it's wage theft. Software makers seem unconcerned by the possible misuse of the software. Instead, the software present subtle behavioral cues that could legitimize unlawful wage practices. A button labeled 'edit' rather than 'correct' suggests that it is okay to 'edit' wages for purposes other than fixing mistakes. For example, if an employee works unauthorized overtime, a supervisor may mistakenly believe those hours can be shaved because they were unauthorized. One program allowed certain users to alter hours using a slider that could be dragged forwards or backwards. The slider was advertised next to a picture of a child on a slide, hinting that altering an employee's hours is 'fun.' A slider is problematic from a behavioral standpoint because it allows supervisors to morally distance themselves from what they are doing. Social psychology research suggests that people are more likely to engage in unethical conduct when it is distanced from stealing for example, stealing pens from the office versus taking money from petty cash. One program allowed certain users to alter hours using a slider that could be dragged forwards or backwards. The slider was advertised next to a picture of a child on a slide, hinting that altering an employee's hours is 'fun.' A slider is problematic from a behavioral standpoint because it allows supervisors to morally distance themselves from what they are doing The experience of moving a slider on a screen feels very different from taking money out of an employee's pocket. Another program had a pop-up window for supervisors to review overtime hours. The window offered three options: to pay 'all,' 'none' or 'some' of the overtime. This is also problematic from a behavioral standpoint, because users may infer from the buttons that 'some' or 'none' is a reasonable option. To the contrary, wage and hour law requires employers to pay for all overtime hours already worked. A third program had a 'carry forward hours' function, which moved hours from one pay period to a future period. We were at a loss to think of any legitimate use for this function and surmise that it is used to avoid overtime. Our study looked only at the software features available on the market we did not study how frequently the features were used for unlawful purposes. However, even if misuse of the software is extremely rare, it could add up to a lot of wage theft in the aggregate. This graphic illustrates the process of managing employee time data. Some software's automatically deduct scheduled breaks from an employee's hours Have your hours ever been modified in this way? You may not know. Many of the software programs were generally not set up to notify employees when supervisors make changes to their timecards. The status quo in which software is used to alter employee hours in numerous ways without their knowledge hurts everyone. Employees lose out on earned wages. Employers may benefit in the short term but they also risk big wage and hour lawsuits when small problems aren't detected early. It need not be this way. A few of the programs we reviewed were structured to involve employees in any managerial edits to their timecards. Other software programs offered 'add-on' features providing meaningful notification to employees, but these features are apparently rarely purchased by employers. More transparent software would satisfy the employer's interests in efficiency while also allowing supervisors and employees to hold each other accountable for the integrity of the time records. Record-keeping rules should also be updated to reflect current realities. Employers with transparent systems should be rewarded, while bad actors punished. Ultimately, employees should demand, and employers should select better software. Software makers will respond. Advertisement From urbanization to melting glaciers and catastrophic flooding, our planet is in a state of continuous change. Now, NASA has released shocking images taken from space that show just how much natural disasters, humans and other factors have contributed to a changing Earth over moths, years and decades. Called Images of Change, this collection compares Earth in then and now photos to help us understand the world, improve lives and safeguard the future. Scroll down for videos Slide me The first set of images reveal how the urban expansion in New Delhi, India has changed part of the Earth's surface, which is compared between 1991 and 2016. Over the past 25 years, Indias capital has experienced a boom in population, as it grew from 9.4 million to 25 million in a quarter of a century IMAGES OF CHANGE NASA published a collection of shocking images on its tumblr page that reveal how much the face of our planet has changed. Called Images of Change, this collection compares Earth in then and now photos to help us understand the world, improve lives and safeguard the future. The images cover several years of different landmarks and areas of the world. Urban Expansion in New Delhi, India Great Salt Lake Shrinkage, Utah Exceptional Early Ice Melt, Greenland Owens Lake Degradation, California Baban Rafi Deforestation, Niger Helheim Glacier Melt, Greenland Drying Lake Poopo, Bolivia Flooding on the Ganges River, India Advertisement Some of these effects are related to climate change, some are not, NASA shared on tumblr. Some document the effects of urbanization or the ravage of natural hazards such as fires and floods. All show our planet in a state of flux. The first set images reveal how the urban expansion in New Delhi, India has changed part of the Earth's surface, which is compared between 1991 and 2016. Over the past 25 years, Indias capital has experienced a boom in population, as it grew from 9.4 million to 25 million in a quarter of a century. It is home to more people than Australia and is the second most populated city in the world after Tokyo, Japan. However, this has resulted in a lack of basic services, such as schools, healthcare, housing, water and sanitation, and jobs, for those living in New Delhi. And officials say the city is not developing fast enough to accommodate a rising population. Poor infrastructure has given rise to numerous slums across the city. Water and power shortages, inadequate healthcare facilities, dilapidated schools, are common in India's urban areas. To put this in perspective, New York City is 304.6 square miles in area and is home to 8.4 million people. New Delhi is only 16.49 square miles with population of 25 million. NASA also shares a comparison of the Great Lake over a 25 year period from 1985 to 2010. In 1985, the Great Lake were filled to near capacity, which was caused by feeder streams being charged with snowmelt and heavy rainfall. UTAH'S GREAT SALT LAKE: HOW IT FORMED Great Salt Lake is the remnant of Lake Bonneville; a great ice age lake that rose dramatically from a small saline lake 30,000 years ago. The most conspicuous reminders of Lake Bonneville are the ancient terraces etched into the landscape along the lake's former shorelines. The terraces were eroded by wave action and are relatively flat areas that follow a contour line. Look south from Buffalo Point for an outstanding view of Lake Bonneville terraces carved into the island as high as a thousand feet above the Great Salt Lake's surface. After the ice age the earth's climate became drier and Lake Bonneville gradually receded to form Great Salt Lake. Advertisement Slide me In 1985 (left), the Great Lake were filled to near capacity, which was caused by feeder streams being charged with snowmelt and heavy rainfall. But 25 years later and the Promontory Peninsula that was surrounded by water on all three-sides in 1985 is landlocked on its eastern side (right) Although NASA has only shared an image from 1985, the Great Lake ice cover has decreased by 70 percent, which has contributed to the shrinking area, since 1973. The Promontory Peninsula is surrounded by water on three sides in the first image, but is landlocked on its eastern side in the second. Michigan has made efforts to combat the low levels, as companies and individuals wishing to make a large water withdraw from one of the lakes, streams or groundwater must first seek permission. Another change in the worlds surface has happened over just a two year period in Greenland. From 2014 to 2016, the ice sheets have drastically begun melting every spring or early summer. Slide me From 2014 to 2016, the Greenland ice sheets have drastically begun melting every spring or early summer. Melt extent in Greenland was above average in 2016, ranking tenth highest in the 38-year satellite record. NASA's images show pods of meltwater forming on the sheets, which are darker areas that absorb more sunlight than ice And although it has yet to be confirmed, many experts are contributing this to global warming. Melt extent in Greenland was above average in 2016, ranking tenth highest in the 38-year satellite record. The area experiencing melting was slightly greater than that of 2015, which ranked twelfth at the time. NASAs images show pods of meltwater forming on the sheets, which are darker areas that absorb more sunlight than ice. And surface melt increases sea-levels when the water runs off into the ocean. In 2016, Iran witnessed Lake Urmia change from stunning green to blood red between April and July. Slide me In 2016, Iran witnessed Lake Urmia change from stunning green to blood red between April and July, as a result of organisms living in the body of water. Data from NASA's satellites indicate that the lake has lost about 70% of its surface area over the last 14 years Slide me Nestled between the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo Mountains sits Owens Lake, which is about 130 miles north of Los Angeles, California. In the early 20th century, the lower Owens Lake, which fed the lake, was largely diverted to the Los Angeles aqueduct. And toxic chemicals and dust contaminated the regional environment and disturbed the bird habitat This was brought on by tiny organisms living in the water. As the Iranian lake's waters have shrunk over the hot summer months, it has become saltier, providing a feast for microscopic organisms that thrive on salt and light. Slide me The the darker green areas in the 1976 (left) photo represent the natural landscape of Savannah and Sahelian vegetation. Baban Rafi Forest, which is the most significant area of woodlands in the Maradi Department of Niger. The 2007 photo (right), it is clear that these areas were greatly reduced, which was mainly due to the population quadrupling in the area On April 23, the body of water was a stunning green, but by July 18 it turned the color of wine. NASA has stated that the color changes become common in the spring and early summer due to seasonal precipitation and climate patterns. And data from the space agency's satellites indicate that the lake has lost about 70 percent of its surface area over the last 14 years. Slide me The series of photos also reveals the extremes of water flow in the Colorado River from 1985 to 2007. It is 1,400 miles long and starts in the Rocky Mountains and empties in the Gulf of Mexico. The 1985 (left) image was taken in the midst of record high flow, while the 2007 image shows the driest period Another body of water has experience great changes over the past few decades as well. Nestled between the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo Mountains sits Owens Lake, which is about 130 miles north of Los Angeles, California. Images of Change, this collection compares Earth in then and now photos to help us understand the world, improve lives and safeguard the future For thousands of years, this lake was a popular spot for migrating waterfowl and shore birds in the western area of the US. However, in the early 20th century, the lower Owens Lake, which fed the lake, was largely diverted to the Los Angeles aqueduct. Although springs and artesian wells helped keep this area of the lake alive, toxic chemicals and dust contaminated the regional environment and disturbed the bird habitat. Another part of the world that has humans to thank for its makeover is the Baban Rafi Forest, which is the most significant area of woodlands in the Maradi Department of Niger. The images snapped by NASA show just how much of the land has been lost to agriculture from 1976 to 2007. NASA points out that the darker green areas in the 1976 photo represent the natural landscape of Savannah and Sahelian vegetation. However, in the 2007 photo, it is clear that these areas were greatly reduced, which was mainly due to the population quadrupling in the area. The series of photos also reveals the extremes of water flow in the Colorado River from 1985 to 2007. Slide me These of images in the collection show a fjord in which Helheim Glacier in Greenland has collapsed into large and small glaciers from 2001 to 2005. From the 1970s to around 2001, the glacier outlet was able to keep itself together, However, it started to pull back towards its source about 4/7 miles until 2005 It is 1,400 miles long and starts in the Rocky Mountains and empties in the Gulf of Mexico. The 1985 image was taken in the midst of record high flow, while the 2007 image shows the driest period. NASA says it is excessive rains or severe drought that contributes to the change in the amount of water sitting in the Colorado River Basin. Also, the increasing pressure of human needs in the western states is also a factor. Along the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet, outlet glaciers flow as icy rivers through fjords and out to sea. And the next set of images in the collection show a fjord in which Helheim Glacier collapsed into large and small glaciers from 2001 to 2005. Slide me In 2016 (right), Bolivia discovered that its second-largest lake, Lake Poopo, had dried up again. For three years (left), the lake experienced a drought and residents draining water for mining and agriculture. From the 1970s to around 2001, the glacier outlet was able to keep itself together, However, it started to pull back towards its source about 4/7 miles until 2005. In 2016, Bolivia discovered that its second-largest lake, Lake Poopo, had dried up again. For three years, the lake experienced a drought and residents draining water for mining and agriculture. Prior to 2016, Lake Poopo had dried up in 1994 and it took several years for water to return and even long for ecosystems to recover. Slide me The last images published on NASA's tumblr are the flooding on the Ganges River in India. From 2015 to 2016, heavy monsoon raised have caused disastrous flooding along the Ganges and other rivers in eastern and central India. The natural hazard has killed more than 300 people and has affected more than six million, according to NASA The last images published on NASAs tumblr are the flooding on the Ganges River in India. From 2015 to 2016, heavy monsoon raised have caused disastrous flooding along the Ganges and other rivers in eastern and central India. The natural hazard has killed more than 300 people and has affected more than six million, according to NASA. All of this knowledge about our home planet enables policy makers, government agencies and other stakeholders to make informed decisions on critical issues that occur all around the world, NASA shared on its tumblr page. From rising sea levels to the changing availability of freshwater, we enable studies that unravel the complexities of our planet from the highest reaches of Earths atmosphere to its core. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been hailed as the 'most expensive weapon in history', costing $400bn. It has been plagued with delays, prompting Donald Trump to describe it as 'out of control' and demanding a price cut from Lockheed Martin. Now, a new Pentagon report has warned the jet still has hundreds of faults - and won't be ready to even begin full combat testing until 2019. Scroll down for video The jets will first deploy as part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 in early 2017, a Marine spokeswoman said. The Pentagon's director of testing recently warned it is 'not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver' the plane's full combat capabilities on time, according to Bloomberg. THE MAIN ISSUES Fixing the 25mm cannon which vibrates excessively Way it is targeted by the aircraft's 'virtual reality' helmet needs work Overheating, premature wear of components in the vertical tails and vulnerability to fire also an issue Aircraft's 'objectionable or unacceptable flying qualities' while crossing the sound barrier - for which there are currently no plans for a fix Advertisement The crucial 'Initial Operational Test and Evaluation' tests were scheduled for August. The deadline represents the latest in a series of pushed-back delivery milestones. 'The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program Office (JPO) acknowledged in 2016 that schedule pressure exists for completing System Development and Demonstration (SDD) and starting Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) by August 2017, the planned date in JPO's Integrated Master Schedule,' the report says. 'In an effort to stay on schedule, JPO plans to reduce or truncate planned developmental testing (DT) in an effort to minimize delays and close out SDD as soon as possible. 'However, even with this risky, schedule-driven approach, multiple problems and delays make it clear that the program will not be able to start IOT&E with full combat capability until late CY18 or early CY19, at the soonest.' The Pentagon's Office of Operational Testing and Evaluation says only half of its long list of concerns will be addressed before the major performance milestone. 'The Services have designated 276 deficiencies in combat performance as critical to correct in Block 3F, but less than half of the critical deficiencies were addressed with attempted corrections in 3FR6' But addressing even that reduced list is appearing rushed, it says. There are 'significant, well-documented deficiencies resulting in overall ineffective operational performance ... 'hundreds of which will not be adequately addressed with fixes and corrections verified with flight testing.' Key among them are fixing the 25mm cannon which vibrates excessively and the way it is targeted by the aircraft's 'virtual reality' helmet. TRUMP'S F-35 PRICE CUT Lockheed Martin Corp is close to a deal to significantly lower the cost of its F-35 aircraft, Chief Executive Officer Marillyn Hewson said on Friday after meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. 'I certainly share his views that we need to get the best capability to our men and women in uniform, and we have to get it at the lowest possible price,' Hewson said to reporters in Trump Tower. Deal: Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson said after meeting with Trump: 'I certainly share his views that we need to get the best capability to our men and women in uniform.' Hewson had previously assured Trump she would drive down the cost of the company's fighter jet, after he tweeted last month that he was asking rival aerospace company Boeing Co whether it could offer a cheaper alternative to the F-35, based on its existing F-18 Super Hornet. Trump has threatened and rebuked some of America's largest companies, creating a new business risk for those who have been or fear being targeted. Advertisement Improvements in the internal diagnostics software the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) have also been slow to emerge. They lead a list including overheating, premature wear of componentsin the vertical tails and vulnerability to fire. The aircraft's 'objectionable or unacceptable flying qualities' while crossing the sound barrier as yet has no plans for a fix. 'The current schedule-driven program plans to close out testing in 2017 do not include enough time to fix these key deficiencies, nor time to verify corrections in flight test,' it adds. 'The program currently has 17 known and acknowledged failures to meet the contract specification requirements, all of which the program is reportedly planning to get relief from the SDD contract due to lack of time and funding.' Despite it's incomplete state, a partially operational squadron of the Marine Corps' F-35B was deployed to Japan last week. The report did note some progress, such as the completion of important ship-integration tests and steps toward fixing a dangerous ejection seat. However, most of chief tester Michael Gilmore's report focuses on what still needs to be done. Workers can be seen on the moving line and forward fuselage assembly areas for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at Lockheed Martin Corp's factory located in Fort Worth, Texas In a previous memo obtained by the Project On Government Oversight, Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, warns that the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office is simply cut short the plane's development phase in order to pretend that schedule and cost goals are being met. 'The purpose of this memorandum is to document my continuing concerns regarding progress in the -35 JSF program as you prepare to conduct the upcoming Defense Acquisition Board review,' the note says, according to War is boring. It calls for the entire programme to be restructured so enough testing can be completed. 'The primary concerns were that the program appeared to be prematurely ending System Development and Demonstration (SDD) and was not taking the necessary steps to be ready for which will be conducted using realistic combat missions fully consistent with our war plans and threat assessments.' The Marines be the first force to deploy the Lockheed Martin jet aboard the USS Wasp (pictured) next year, and will deploy a second contingent soon after, aboard the USS Essex. Taking incompletely developed F-35s into combat will, Gilmore says, place pilots at 'significant risk.' 'If the program continues with plans to close out SDD prematurely, it will carry the high risk of failing and having to repeat the approximately $300-million operational test, and failing for many years to provide the full combat capability Block 3F has long been meant and claimed to provide. 'Finally, the combination of unfnished SDD work and the likely follow-on Operational test would significantly delay, and increase the cost of, achieving the important capabilities which are urgently needed to counter current and emerging threats. 'I therefore recommend very strongly that the program be restructured now and provided the additional resources it clearly requires to deliver its long-planned and sorely needed full Block 3F combat capability.' The Marines began moving 16 F-35Bs to Iwakuni Air Station in Japan earlier this month, it has been revealed. The Marines will be the first force to deploy the Lockheed Martin jet aboard the USS Wasp next year, and will deploy a second contingent soon after, aboard the USS Essex. HOW DOES IT COMPARE WITH ITS 1970S PREDECESSOR, THE F-16 JET? F-35 Role: Stealth multirole fighter First flight: December 15, 2006 Unit cost (not including engine): F-35A - $98million F-35B - $104million F-35C - $116million Number built: 115 (as of November 2014) Length: 15.67m Wingspan: 10.7m Height: 4.33m Max speed (F-35A): 1,930kph Armament: One of the most highly-anticipated features of the F-35 armament is the Small Diameter Bomb II (SBD II).The bomb is able to guide towards its target using laser, imaging infrared or radar homing. It can hit moving or stationary targets in any weather, or at night, with unprecedented reliability and accuracy. The 'super weapon' is predicted to be the most versatile air-to-ground munition in the Pentagon's air combat inventory. The cost per SDB II is said to be around $250,000 and the US military plans on buying as many as 17,000 of them. F-16 Role: Multirole fighter First flight: January 20, 1974 Unit cost: F-16A/B - $14.6million F-16C/D - $18.8million Number built: 4,540+ Length: 15.06m Wingspan: 9.96m Height: 4.88m Max speed (F-16C): 2,120kph Combat history: The F-16 has served in the Air Forces of 26 nations, including the U.S., Israel, Egypt, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. During Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 assault on Iraq, F-16s flew over 13,000 operations, more than any other Coalition aircraft. The U.S. has employed the F-16 in operations over the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya. At its production peak in 1987, the F-16 team in Fort Worth was also making history, by producing 30 F-16s in just 30 days. Thanks to frequent upgrades improving and incorporating new technologies into the cockpit, avionics, sensors and weapons, the aircraft has become more reliable over its 40 years. The F-16 has served in the Air Forces of 26 nations, including the U.S., Israel, Egypt, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Advertisement 'We will learn from that, and see what capabilities we need to further develop,' said Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, the commanding general of the Marines' Combat Development Command, according toDefense One. 'A lot of it's going to be the school of hard knocks.' The jets will deploy as part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 in early 2017, a Marine spokeswoman said. At year's end, six of that squadron's planes will attach to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. Last year researchers revealed the hugely delayed and over budget project has finally fired its first shots in the air. The F-35A Lightning II completed the first three airborne gunfire bursts from its internal Gun Airborne Unit (GAU)-22/A 25mm Gatling gun system during a California test flight on October 30th Industry and U.S. defense officials say they are working hard to continue driving down the cost of the new warplanes to $85 million per plane by 2019, as well as the cost of operating them. Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he welcomed the announcement but made clear he intended to keep a close eye on the hugely expensive program. With a price tag of $400 billion for 2,457 planes, the fifth-generation fighter could finally be battle ready later this year, a new report claims. 'The Senate Armed Services Committee will continue to exercise rigorous oversight of the Joint Strike Fighter program's long-delayed System Development and Demonstration phase as well as the start of the operational test and evaluation phase,' McCain said in a statement. To become battle ready, at least a dozen individual F-35 must demonstrate their ability to drop bombs and shoot down other planes. Each jet must be upgraded to a specific software package, and plugged into the complex logistics cloud that manages maintenance. The F-35 project office had previously set an Aug. 1 target date. The project has been plagued with delays. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's record on cost, schedule and performance has been a scandal and a tragedy, Senator John McCain told senior Pentagon officials earlier this year. McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the aircraft's development schedule has stretched to 15 years, deliveries of the F-35 have been delayed, and costs have skyrocketed. 'It's been a scandal and the cost overruns have been disgraceful,' McCain said. THE EJECTOR SEAT THAT COULD KILL Pilots under 136 pounds aren't allowed to fly any F-35 variant. Pilots under 165 pounds have a 1-in-4 chance of death and 100 percent chance of serious neck injury upon ejecting, according to the testing office. 'The testing showed that the ejection seat rotates backwards after ejection. This results in the pilot's neck becoming extended, as the head moves behind the shoulders in a 'chin up' position. When the parachute inflates and begins to extract the pilot from the seat (with great force), a 'whiplash' action occurs. The rotation of the seat and resulting extension of the neck are greater for lighter weight pilots,' the report states. Sophisticated: Footage from ground testing of the F-35A stealth jet at Edwards Air Force Base in California, shows the awesome firepower of the four-barrel Gatling gun embedded in the left wing Advertisement It is designed to support operations, mission planning and to spot any maintenance issues with the vehicle. 'Program officials said that if ALIS is not fully functional, the F-35 could not be operated as frequently as intended,' the report said. 'But a DoD commissioned plan found that schedule slippage and functionality problems with ALIS could lead to $20-100 billion in additional costs.' So far, the software has been so flawed that maintenance crews have had to resort labour-intensive alternatives. According to National Interest, in one instance maintainers had to manually burn data onto CDs and to send the massive files across a civilian WiFi network. One major problem, the report said, is that the F-35 data produced goes through a single main operating unit which has no back up. 'The F-35 is still in development, and this is the time when technical challenges are expected,' Lt. Genernal Chris Bogdon told CNN. 'However, we believe the combined government and industry team will resolve current issues and future discoveries,' he said. Lead defense contractor for the plane, Lockheed Martin, insists development of the logistics software is on schedule. 'As ALIS development continues, our focus is on the warfighter and delivering the most effective, efficient fleet management system to sustain the F-35 over the next five decades of operations,' said Sharon Parsley, a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin. Advertisement It is often said that Brits tend to overreact when it comes to snow. And according to last week's flood of memes and general mockery, this winter season has proved no different. But peek back into the nation's archives and you'll find Brits - in some cases at least - positively revelling in the white stuff. One particularly devoted milkman was snapped in 1962 delivering his wares on New Year's Eve by way of skis - poles and all. Another image sees a duo of nuns having a whale of a time as they fly past on an on-fashioned toboggan. This collection of wintry shenanigans, assembled by MailOnline Travel, offers a glimpse into how the UK handled its annual dose of snow from the late 19th century onwards. A resourceful milkmen delivers a glass bottle of milk using skis on a snowy New Year's Eve in London, 1962 A pair of nuns clearly having a jolly good time tobogganing in this undated snap, published by the Manchester Daily Express After heavy snowfall, workmen in central London clear the roads using hosepipes In 1962, this car found itself buried under a whopping eight feet of snow in Elburton, Devon After a blizzard in March 1947, villages in South Wales, pictured, were cut-off from main roads This sled is bringing much joy to one winter reveller on London's Hampstead Heath in December 1938 Durham's Ushaw College, once a seminary for the training of Roman Catholic priests - seen here ice skating during the winter - is now a university college In this photo, taken in the early 1900's, a crowd forms around some horse-drawn carriages on the frozen River Thames in Oxford In 1904, people even took to sailing on the frozen river, pictured here in Henley-on-Thames A band plays despite the freezing temperatures during the opening of Oxford's new Churchill Hospital by the Duchess of Kent in February 1942 If you've ever fancied a trip to dreamy Palau, you might want to book that plane ticket pretty sharpish. The Pacific island nation is hoping to pass a new law that will encourage only affluent tourists to holiday there. Palau president Tommy Remengesau has spoken about his plan to allow only five-star hotels to open in the exotic archipelago as part of a 'quality rather than quantity' tourism strategy. Palau president Tommy Remengesau plans to allow only five-star hotels to open as part of a 'quality over quantity' tourism strategy It is hoped that the new restrictions would reduce visitor numbers and attract a different type of tourist with deeper pockets. The new hotels would have to be built within strict guidelines, but in return the government would provide tax breaks for the businesses. President Remengesau said: 'Our definition of high-end [tourism] would be that they would also come in with their own designed water treatment system, power back-ups. 'If there are any other infrastructures that they have to do, like opening a road, the investor would do that themselves.' It is hoped that the new restrictions would reduce visitor numbers and attract a different type of tourist with deeper pockets He continued: 'In return for that we will give them the necessary tax break and exemptions for them.' According to reports, the legislations came about as a result of increased tourism from mainland China over recent years. Package tours from the country saw large numbers of Chinese visitors, which the government claims has had a negative effect on the environment and they have since halved the number of flights to Palau from China. According to reports, the legislations came about as a result of increased package tourism from mainland China over recent years President Remengesau said: 'While the numbers went down, the actual tourist spending went up. 'It confirms our direction [to attract] less tourists who spend more which equates to more tax dollars . 'We [will] go for quality rather than quantity... to create a goal of high-end, high-value tourism.' Advertisement Jumping out of a plane at 16,000ft is not for everyone. But thanks to an amazing new project by Google Street View, even the most fearful of us can now witness what it would be like to skydive and soak up the spectacular New Zealand scenery, without even stepping away from the computer. A Google Street View photographer has joined forces with New Zealand skydive operator, Skydive Abel Tasman, to put the world's first skydive experience onto Google Street View. Scroll down for video Final preparations: A Google Street View photographer has joined forces with New Zealand skydive operator, Skydive Abel Tasman, to put the world's first skydive experience onto Google Street View Ready, set, go: The virtual tour, which begins on the ground, shows what it's like to fly up 16,500ft into the sky and then jump, falling at about 125mph over Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand's smallest national park, located at the north end of the South Island The skydive street view is the brainchild of Google certified photographer, Alex Mather and was filmed over five days to create a fully interactive picture. It was also captured in a 360-degree video. Mather was intrigued that nobody had photographed something from a skydiving perspective and was keen to try something different. The virtual tour, which begins on the ground, shows what it's like to fly up 16,500ft into the sky and then jump, falling at about 125mph over Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand's smallest national park, located at the north end of the South Island. It's the only skydive drop zone in New Zealand with views over both islands as well as mountains and the ocean at the same time. Custom attachment points and rigging for a 360 GoPro Pano Ball was built to maximise the experience. The beautiful footage takes in the huge, craggy mountains, the green, patchwork fields and the vast expanse of blue sea and golden beaches. Not for the faint-hearted: It's the only skydive drop zone in New Zealand with views over both islands as well as mountains and the ocean at the same time Bird's eye view: The amazing skydive - the brainchild of Google certified photographer, Alex Mather - was filmed over five days and was also captured in a 360-degree video Awe-inspiring: Custom attachment points and rigging for a 360 GoPro Pano Ball was built to maximise the experience Nearly there: The footage takes in the huge, craggy mountains, the green, patchwork fields and the vast expanse of blue sea and golden beaches Coming in to land: Marketing manager David Bonham-Carter, who put the idea to Skydive Abel Tasman, said: 'You look at the results that came out of [the project] and it's pretty stunning, we know we live in a special region but you look at it from the air and it puts it all in perspective' Back to earth: Owner of Skydive Abel Tasman, Stuart Bean, said: 'Skydiving in the Abel Tasman is unique. We have mountains, we have rivers, we have the ocean and we have the Abel Tasman National Park' Marketing manager David Bonham-Carter, who put the idea to Skydive Abel Tasman, told MailOnline Travel: 'We thought it would be such a cool opportunity to be the first in the world - how could we turn down such a great idea.' He added: 'We have a little piece of paradise here. How epic is it to explore it in unique ways and through technology share it with the world.' Owner of Skydive Abel Tasman, Stuart Bean, said: 'Skydiving in the Abel Tasman is unique. We have mountains, we have rivers, we have the ocean and we have the Abel Tasman National Park.' Bonham-Carter has said this won't be the last time for this venture: 'We are looking at some other Google Street View projects around the Nelson Tasman Region with Motueka and Abel Tasman National park being at the core of that.' The national park is named after Abel Tasman, who became the first European explorer to catch sight of New Zealand in 1642 and anchored nearby in Golden Bay. Still got the need for speed! Keanu Reeves takes a female friend sightseeing on his Harley Davidson in Montevideo He won one of his first movie awards for the film Speed. And 20 years on Keanu Reeves doesnt look in any mood to slow down as he took a tour around Montevideo, Uruguay, on a Harley Davidson motorbike. The 49-year-old actor was joined by a female friend, who rode pillion as they cruised around the South American countrys capital to take in the sights. Speed demon: Keanu Reeves takes a ride around Montevideo with a female friend Safety first: The pair both wore black helmets to protect themselves as they tour the capital city Keanu wrapped up in a brown jacket, white T-shirt and blue jeans for the breezy tour of the Rambla part of the city, which he is visiting ahead of a friends wedding, thought to be his 47 Ronin director Carl Rinsch. His female companion wore a baggy white shirt and blue jeans in the humid conditions, while the pair both ensured their safety by wearing jet black helmets. Keanu, who is known to be a big fan of motorbikes, was clearly concentrating hard as he navigated a roundabout. Let's go: Keanu looked the part as he sported a fetching pair of black biker gloves to match his sunglasses, while his pal wore a pair of aviators Thrill-seekers: Keanu wrapped up in a brown jacket, white T-shirt and blue jeans for the breezy tour of the Rambla part of the city He also looked the part as he sported a fetching pair of black biker gloves to match his sunglasses, while his pal wore a pair of aviators. The Hollywood hunk appears to have been having a good time in Uruguay and was spotted running errands and meeting fans in the coastal city of Punta del Este on Tuesday. The Canadian actor looked pleased to be surrounded by several supporters as he walked around on a rainy day in the city. Cheeky chappy: Keanu was all smiles as he was surrounded by a group of fans He also stopped off to get a takeaway bite to eat in the shape of a Chivito, a national dish similar to a sandwich. The actor smiled broadly as he left a grocery store, sporting a black hat, off-white blazer, grey polo shirt and baggy ripped jeans. Aviator sunglasses and beige shoes completed the stars look, while he still sported a slightly scruffy beard. The cast of the Today show are known for keeping a clean public image. Now, Channel Nine have denied claims that police were asked to intervene in a work party that got out of hand. This comes after Woman's Day wrote a piece suggesting authorities may have been called to Richard Wilkins' Northern Beaches home to respond to a 'raucous' Today Show Christmas bash. Scroll Down For Video Not true: Channel Nine have denied claims that police were asked to intervene in a Today show Christmas party at Richard Wilkins' house 'Rumour has it police were called to the raucous Today Show Christmas party, which Richard held at this North Shore home last month,' the magazine claimed. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Monday, Channel Nine Director Of Communications Victoria Buchan denied the publications claims. 'It is totally untrue, no police visit at the today show party at Richards place.' 'Totally untrue': Speaking to The Daily Mail Australia on Monday, Channel Nine Director Of Communications Victoria Buchan said: 'It is totally untrue, no police visit at the today show party at Richards place.' Location: Richard lives on the Northern Beaches, where the magazine claimed the party had gotten out of hand Didn't stick around: In the week following the party, Karl mentioned he was at the event, but implied he didn't stay for long in case things got out of hand In the week following the party, Karl mentioned he was at the event, but implied he didn't stay for long. 'Well I went to ours on Saturday just for a couple hours because I know things turn... you know always turn a little bit nanas (sic).' 'But I did hear reports, and it was that the Today show people were very well behaved.' He continued, confirming Nine's response. 'You've got to go and try and make sure you don't mess up because there can be some things that go horribly awry, especially with bosses and drinks and all that sort of stuff.' Well behaved: The 42-year-old then mentioned: 'But I did hear reports, and it was that The Today Show people were very well behaved,' confirming Nine's response What not to do: Karl and Lisa Wilkinson recently spoke to Forbes columnist Margie Warrell (not pictured) about what not to do at work Christmas parties 'It's not like Vegas': The columnist told the show 'What happens at the work party doesnt stay at the work party, it can come back to haunt you the next day.' Adding: 'What happens at the work party doesnt stay at the work party, it can come back to haunt you the next day' Daily Mail Australia spoke to Northern Beaches local area command police, who said they were not aware of any information in regards to a complaint to the star's home. The duty officer at the station said that if it was anything significant, she definitely would have heard about it. 'If it was something minor like a noise complaint, then maybe not.' She said. Woman's Day did not provide any information in regards to the nature or origin of the alleged complaint. Nothing Major? Northern Beaches Local Area Command police told Daily Mail Australia they would have heard about the event if it was something major. 'If it was something minor like a noise complaint, then maybe not.' The Duty Officer added Forbes columnist Margie Warrell recently spoke to Lisa Wilkinson and Karl about staying out of trouble at Christmas parties. '[People] forget that it is actually a work party and the truth is that its not like Vegas, she said. 'What happens at the work party doesnt stay at the work party, it can come back to haunt you the next day.' Maria Venuti was rushed to hospital in November after suffering a stroke when a stalker broke into her Sydney home. However, since then, the Australian cabaret performer has made a slow and steady recovery, giving daughter Bianca Venuti-Hughes the best birthday present on January 1. The 75-year-old was allowed back home briefly to mark the new year and Bianca's 37th Birthday. 'One of the biggest bleeds I have ever seen': Bianca Venuti-Hughes (right) has spoken about her mother Maria Venuti's (left) stroke and slow and steady recovery, following the frightening experience last year And the performer's daughter knows just how lucky she is, telling New Idea magazine this week: 'Initially, one of the nurses told me it (the stroke) was catastrophic - "one of the biggest bleeds I have ever seen"'. After a five-week stint in the intensive care unit of the Royal North Shore Hospital, where she was in a coma, Maria regained consciousness and has continued to impress doctors with her recovery since. Having moved to a rehabilitation hospital, the flamboyant personality was back in fine form when celebrating her little girl's birthday at an intimate gathering. Maria donned a colourful Camilla kaftan along with large gold hoop earrings and bright pink lipstick. However, Bianca says the smiling and spirited star left family friends thinking the 75-year-old was all recovered. Colourful costume: Maria donned a colourful Camilla kaftan along with large gold hoop earrings and bright pink lipstick for Bianca's intimate birthday bash (pictured April 2016) Still a way to go: The 37-year-old says while her mother is heading in the right direction, there is still a long way to go, with Maria still in the 'acute' phase of recovery 'I think the photos were too good,' Bianca told the magazine, adding while her mother is heading in the right direction, there is still a long way to go, with Maria still in the 'acute' phase of recovery. The stroke occurred in early November, when a 38-year-old man entered her house, who was allegedly convinced he was her husband. Maria is understood to have collapsed just minutes after alerting police of the man at her home around 8.30am. The man was allegedly still harassing Ms Venuti when officers arrived and had to be Tasered after becoming angry. 160117BUIN FM ON By Aloysius Laukai in Buin Buin and South Bougainville has received FM signals for the first time since Bougainville was discovered in the 18th century. New Dawn FM a local Bougainville station started testing its signals yesterday from its base in Buin town and received comments from BANA, SIWAI, BUIN and parts of Solomon islands last night. NEW DAWN FM will be broadcasting on 89.9 FM Band from its studio in Buka and retransmitted in Buin and Arawa. New dawn FM which started broadcasting in April 2008 has finally reached the home in South Bougainville after any setbacks and has a 1 Kilowatt Transmitter each for Arawa and Buin whilst the signals in Buka will be increased from 30watts to 300watts today, Monday 16th January 2017. Since its inception, New Dawn FM has received support from the ABG through Program sponsors, the Bougainville Copper Foundation for its Arawa Transmitters,Member for South Bougainville, TIMOTHY MASIU for the Buin setup, Unesco for ths Buka Studio Equipments and the German Government for its Buka Transmitter. With the wide coverage of South Bougainville, New Dawn FM intends to support the ABG and the COEs to provide the right information on Referendum and the general information on issues that can support the economic recovery of Bougainville. New Dawn FM with its parent company TAMBOLEMA HOLDINGS will work more closely with the local; farmers to export Copra, Cocoa and sawn timber or other products to overseas market. The official launching of New Dawn FM will be on Tuesday 31st of January,2017. ALL Bougainvilleans are invited to this ceremony and will be carried live. Pictured is the location of New Dwn FM before the street roads are sealed by Raibro They were reported to be relocating to Australia over Christmas. Now Ellen DeGeneres, 58, and wife Portia de Rossi, 43, have expressed interest in a $5.8 million property in Victoria, with a view to making it their Australian home. Real estate agent Greg O'Shea has revealed to Domain that the celebrity couple have requested a private tour of a Mornington Peninsula estate named Nirvana. Scroll down for video Australia bound: Ellen DeGeneres, 58, and wife Portia de Rossi, 43, have expressed interest in a $5.8 million property in Victoria with a view to making it their Australian home The agent said he reached out to the pair's management team regarding Nirvana after seeing a magazine article about their desire to find an Australian base. 'Their manager got back to me saying they are interested in the property, and that when they come to Australia, they want a private tour of it. 'I've been told around February or March.' Interested buyers: Real estate agent Greg O'Shea has revealed to Domain that the celebrity couple have requested a private tour of a Mornington Peninsula estate named Nirvana He was surprised to learn the A-list couple already knew of the listing. 'I don't know how. Maybe they are looking in that particular area.' The five bedroom mansion sits over 20 hectares, with picturesque views. Caught their eye: The A-list couple already knew of the listing. 'I don't know how. Maybe they are looking in that particular area' Open plan: The home features a dining room that opens out onto a living area Featuring three bathrooms, two powder rooms, three garages and a theatre room, it was built by the vendor Heiny Achermann. O'Shea estimates that the 'really impressive piece of real estate' will move quickly despite the $5.8 million price range quoted. Any suggestion that the couple will move full time to Australia would seem premature however given Ellen's ongoing commitment to her LA-based talk show. Meanwhile, Portia has committed to shoot a fifth season of Arrested Development, after executive producer Brian Grazer told The Wrap that the entire cast had signed on. Renovation? The interior of the grandiose house is a little dated, so the couple may want to upgrade with extensive renovations Large: The home features high ceilings and spacious rooms $5.8 million price range: Featuring three bathrooms, two powder rooms, three garages and a theatre room, it was built by the vendor Heiny Achermann According to NW magazine, the couple planned to travel Down Under over Christmas after Ellen 'fell in love' with Australia following a trip with her wife in March 2013. A friend of the couple told the magazine 'they both really want to buy a place there... Ellen knows how much Portia misses Australia.' During her trip to the country three years ago, Ellen told an audience of 3,000 she was going to make the move. Bed time: The master bedroom has a beautiful view Fit for a star! The master bedroom has a large walk-in-robe 'I shouldn't put it out there but I can see us living here one day,' she said. 'I'm moving here, it's so beautiful.' The smitten couple tied the knot in August 2008 during an intimate LA ceremony. For two: And the master en suite features his and hers basins Culinary dream: The kitchen is bright, modern and large After their nuptials Ellen, 58, revealed she was happier than ever: She said: 'What can I say? I'm the luckiest girl in the world. She's officially off the market. No one else gets her. And now she'll cook and clean for me.' 'I don't know if it's our immediate future. It's something we talk about every few months. 'It's something we would never take lightly and just say, 'That would be fun.' It's a lot of work and we recognize that,' Ellen added. 'In a way, we want to be selfish because we love our life, but we know how much that adds to it.' She concluded: 'If they would be as pretty as Brad and Angelina's kids, we might. The pair also discussed starting a family, with Portia saying: We go back and forth. Not leaving LA: Suggestions that the couple will move full time to Australia seem premature however given Ellen's ongoing commitment to her LA-based talk show and after Portia has committed to shoot a fifth season of Arrested Development Feeling at home? Ellen and Portia visited Australia together in 2013, and Ellen couldn't resist blurting out that she could see the pair living there 'one day' Recently Ellen told People magazine that she was most grateful for 'the love in my life' Portia. The star also shot down any rumours there is trouble in the couple's marriage: 'I'm not going anywhere. She's not going anywhere,' she said. The couple, who don't have children, live in Los Angeles with their three dogs and three cats. And they strive to put their marriage first, despite their busy careers. 'It's so beautiful': Ellen appeared to love her trip down under, and is rumoured to be interested in buying a house Smitten: The smitten couple tied the knot in August 2008 during an intimate LA ceremony She is known for her formidable reputation as a PR guru and lavish lifestyle. But it appears someone has other ideas about Roxy Jacenko's rise to fame, with a mystery user editing her Wikipedia page to describe her as a 'narcissist'. On Monday, the first paragraph of Roxy's Wikipedia page read: 'Roxy Elise Davis-Jacenko is an Australian businesswoman and media personality, narcissist, socialite and author, best known for her appearance on the 3rd season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia.' Scroll down for video Bizarre: A user has edited Roxy Jacenko's Wikipedia page to describe her as a 'narcissist' Narcissism is defined as the egotistic admiration of one's attributes. According to the revision history for Roxy's Wikipedia page, the word 'narcissist' was added by an anonymous user on January 10, with the editor using an IP address traced to a location in Sydney. The edit was deleted by Wikipedia user 'Anna26791' on Monday, following the publication of this article. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Roxy for comment. Wikipedia edit: On Monday, the first paragraph of Roxy's Wikipedia page described her as a 'media personality, narcissist, socialite and author'. It has since been reverted The Wikipedia edit comes after Roxy made headlines for criticising journalist Annette Sharp over her unauthorised biography, Blonde Ambition: Roxy Jacenko Unfiltered. Responding to an Instagram follower who asked about buying the book, Roxy made her feelings clear, writing: ''Creative' writing at its best. Not worth your $30'. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last week, Annette Sharp said: 'Roxy's comment would suggest she has read the book, which is great news. 'I'm sure if she has, she has been shocked by how much her father Nick and his fiancee designer Lisa Ho - not to mention her former employees, employers and those who once considered themselves irreplaceable friends - have had to say about her.' She added: 'Not as much as I might have expected was positive.' Hitting back: The Wikipedia edit comes after Roxy made headlines for criticising journalist Annette Sharp over her unauthorised biography, Blonde Ambition: Roxy Jacenko Unfiltered Not impressed? Responding to an Instagram follower who asked about buying the book, Roxy made her feelings clear, writing: ''Creative' writing at its best. Not worth your $30' Annette continued: 'I understand it has shocked her, as indeed some of it shocked me.' Blonde Ambition: Roxy Jacenko Unfiltered was published last year by Melbourne University Press after a tumultuous year for Roxy. It followed a shock breast cancer diagnosis, and her husband Oliver Curtis' jail sentence for insider trading. Bad timing: Blonde Ambition: Roxy Jacenko Unfiltered was published last year by Melbourne University Press after a tumultuous year for Roxy The Sweaty Betty PR founder spoke with Daily Mail Australia last August, before the book's release. At that time, Roxy said she knew 'very little' about the work and had 'no intention to participate'. Roxy, 36, has previously dismissed Annette Sharp as 'quite ill informed'. And judging by her recent Instagram comment, it seems Roxy hasn't changed her mind on the gossip columnist. She's made a comeback to the social scene with new BFF Sofia Richie. And Paris Hilton continued to mingle as she attended the Dsquared2 Fall/Winter 2017/18 show during Milan Men's Fashion Week on Sunday. The heiress to the Hilton brand, 35, turned heads in a thigh-skimming LBD, which made the most of her long, lean physique. Scroll down for video Leggy: Paris Hilton turned heads as she attended the Dsquared2 Fall/Winter 2017/18 show during Milan Men's Fashion Week on Sunday The tailored piece featured a slender satin belt which accentuated her minuscule waist, and pretty delicate gold buttons to the front. With a golden trim border drawing attention to her toned pins, she elongated them with round-toe black pumps. With her trademark golden tresses blow-dried to perfection, she made the most of her enviable bone structure, adding a touch of blusher, lipgloss and lashings of mascara. Turning heads: The heiress to the Hilton brand, 35, turned heads in a thigh-skimming LBD, which made the most of her long, lean physique Accessorising with huge diamond studs, she carried a snakeskin print clutch and warded off the the chill with a plush faux fur jacket. Posing up a storm in the FROW as she watched the show, Paris appeared in her element. The socialite, who starred in hit reality show The Simple Life with Nicole Richie from 2003 to 2007, has turned her hand to DJing in recent years. Scrubbing up well: The tailored piece featured a slender satin belt which accentuated her minuscule waist, and pretty delicate gold buttons to the front Posing up a storm: She threw a few expert poses for the camera Flaunt it! Paris wasn't shy flaunting her angles as she arrived at the exclusive bash Making an entrance: Paris attempted to gracefully exit the car in her cropped fur jacket Red hot: The DJ appeared mesmerised by the magician's tricks outside the venue and even filmed the marvel On January 5, the hotel heiress-turned-DJ filmed a segment of Bert Marcus' EDM documentary What We Started, which hits US theaters in July. 'I've learned so much more now. I've been DJing for six years. I produce my own music and I remix live. It's all me,' Paris told the Daily Star last August. 'Top name DJs that I really respect [were] like: "Oh my god Paris Hilton DJing, she can't do that." Well now those haters come to my nights and they get in the booth with me and are blown away.' Sky-high: Paris beamed with glee as she teetered her way to the venue in her black pump Chiselled: With her trademark golden tresses blow-dried to perfection, she made the most of her enviable bone structure Detail: Accessorising with huge diamond studs, she carried a snakeskin print clutch and warded off the the chill with a plush faux fur jacket Fashionista: Posing up a storm in the FROW as she watched the show, Paris appeared in her element Her trip comes shortly after she appeared to bury the hatchet with her frenemy and former assistant Kim Kardashian. It would seem the former BFFs have officially called off the frenemy fire - and the heiress has the picture to prove it. The socialite-turned-DJ shared a photo of her posing with Kim at the Kardashian Christmas party after patching things up with the reality star. Catwalk queen: Joan Smalls stepped out in an eclectic green sweater and floral floor length skirt and chunky boots She had narrowly escaped begin killed while sitting next to her ill-fated husband in the last season of The Kennedys. And Katie Holmes brings Jackie Kennedy's love story with Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis to life in the trailer for follow-up miniseries After Camelot. The Batman Begins starlet gets frisky with her older man in a teaser moment titled 'passion.' Scroll down for video American love story: Jackie Kennedy's romance with Aristotle Onassis is tackled in the trailer for After Camelot He is shown turning up at her hotel room with flowers, wining and dining her, before they ultimately get wed on a beach. In real life the marriage to her long-time friend brought considerable adverse publicity, including talk of excommunication by the Roman Catholic church. The friction caused in Jackie's personal life will also be tackled, with her mother-in-law Rose, played by veteran English actress Diana Hardcastle, telling her: 'I hope this doesn't mean we'll be losing you.' The show also reflects the fact she became a paparazzi target, with a scene showing her smiling as they take her photograph while she walks down the street. Father figure: Aristotle Onassis was 23 years older than Jackie Bouquet for Bouvier: Their romance begins when he arrives with flowers Happy couple: The real life Jackie O with shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1971 English Star Trek: Deep Space Nine legend Alexander Siddig is stretching himself by playing the Greek shipping tycoon. It will be certainly more memorable than his turn as Doran Martell in Game Of Thrones, where he spent most of his time sitting around doing nothing before being stabbed by Ellaria Sand, the lover of his slain brother Oberyn who tired of his laziness. Nowadays the magnate's entire fortune has been inherited by Athina Onassis, his sole surviving heir, and she has an estimated net worth of $1 billion. Meanwhile Ted Kennedy's eventful personal life is also tackled, with the infamous Chappaquiddick incident, in which a female passenger in his car died after he crashed and fled the scene, a show centrepiece. Showering him with affection: It is clear from the way she is covering him in confetti that their relationship is heating up Well she is marrying a tycoon: Katie's character grins for the paparazzi 'I hope this doesn't mean we'll be losing you': Her mother-in-law is concerned at her romance At one point Jackie tries to give Ted, played by Friends favourite Matthew Perry a pep talk, telling him: 'It's not about what you can get away with, it's about who you want to be. However in another scene she slaps him after discovering about the incident from a newspaper, and he says, 'I wish I had died.' Kennedy testified he had accidentally drove his car off a bridge and into a tidal channel before swimming free, leaving the scene, and not reporting the accident for ten hours. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne died in the car through drowning or suffocation, and her body was recovered by divers. A former campaign worker for his brother Robert, she seemingly did not know Ted well, and despite his claims to be giving her a lift to catch a ferry, they were not en route to the claimed destination at the time of the accident. She had also left her keys and purse behind. Meanwhile: Matthew Perry plays colourful Kennedy clan member Ted Sinking feeling: Mary Jo Kopechne's drowning death is covered in the series Where's Ted: The show follows the aftermath of Ted's decision to flee the scene of the accident and the ensuing Chappaquiddick scandal Despite his denials of being drunk or being in an inappropriate relationship with Kopechne, It became a national scandal and is thought to have influenced his decision not to campaign for President in 1972 and 1976. He eventually staged a disastrous run against then-President Jimmy Carter, which paved the way for the latter's defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Speaking about playing Ted from age 38 until 67, Matthew said: 'As a man who has been forced to transform his life many times, I really admire the changes he made 'You realize what a tragedy his life was and all the horrible things that happened to (the Kennedy family).' Reelzs sequel to The Kennedys is set to debut on Reelz on Sunday April 2. 'Will this damage your chances of being president?': Ted is probed immediately after the accident in the trailer Not impressed: Jackie confront's her brother-in-law with a copy of a newspaper Endevour (ITV) Rating: Walking The Americas (C4) Rating: Carry on, Morse. The opera-loving detective isnt celebrated for his bawdy sense of humour, but Endeavour (ITV) was stuffed with saucy asides and rigid with double entendres. The permissive society? snorted anti-porn campaigner Joy Pettybon (Sylvestra Le Touzel). Nobody asked my permission, and Im sick of having it rammed down my throat. And when Morse (Shaun Evans) was lured into the bedroom of Mrs Ps sexually desperate daughter, Bettina, he found himself struggling to open her window while she quivered and panted. Its a little stiff, thats all, he gasped. Morse, played by Shaun Evans (pictured) was lured into the bedroom of Mrs Ps sexually desperate daughter, Bettina As Carry On star Sid James might have said, theres a lot of it about... if you know where to look. And Mrs Pettybon certainly did. The leader of the Keep Britain Decent campaign was fuming over a BBC drama that featured 14 bloodies, six bleedings, two bleeders and a b*****d. And this was in the days before pause and rewind. In her ruched hat and horn-rimmed glasses, Mrs P might have cut a ridiculous figure, but she could certainly keep tally of profanities. She was modelled on the crusading Mary Whitehouse, of course, though the subplot about how shed goaded her hubbie to suicide over a sexual misdemeanour was sheer dramatic licence. The episode opened with her tirade about the tide of filth swamping television screens and wireless sets intercut with scenes of a very discomfited Morse with his trousers round his knees, getting an innoculation jab in his bare backside. All this was merely a diversion from the main storyline: the investigation into the murder of a bricklayer at a pop stars orgy. Abigail Thaw as Dorothea Frazil and Ruby Thomas as Tessa Knight in Endeavour The depth of detail in Endeavour is a great part of its appeal, and this time the show was packed with echoes of rocks golden era. It served up two songs that sounded like Sixties rareties but were clever new compositions by Matthew Slater the psychedelic Jennifer Sometimes, and a choreographed number with dancers in macs and brollies that was pure Dusty Springfield. Some camera-work mimicked classic album covers, such as a sun-dappled image of the pop group lounging in a summerhouse doorway. Pink Floyd fans will have spotted the reference to 1969s Ummagumma. Another was the climactic twist when an LSD overdose sent the bands poet Nick into a nightmarish mental breakdown exactly what happened to Pink Floyds Syd Barrett. Nick was treated by a terrifying quack, wielding a syringe and murmuring words that sounded very like the lyrics of the Floyds hit, Comfortably Numb. Am I reading too much into all this? Thats the joy of Endeavour. You can let it wash over you in a warm blur, or you can watch again and again to peel away layers and expose fragments of clues. Its just as fiendish as you want it to be. Other pleasures are its jokey surprises, such as the look on Morses face when his boss, Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), remarked that in the desert during World War II, he whiled away days smoking dope. Kiff, we used to call it, smiled the pipe-chomping family man. Theres much talk of drugs and the narco gangs in Walking The Americas, but, so far, long-distance hiker Levison Wood (pictured) hasnt seen anything more than a man with a cannabis plant growing in his front yard Theres much talk of drugs and the narco gangs in Walking The Americas (C4), but, so far, long-distance hiker Levison Wood hasnt seen anything more than a man with a cannabis plant growing in his front yard. Levs voice-over constantly threatens drama that it doesnt deliver. San Pedro Sula, he intones: Its one of the most violent cities in the world, but Alberto and I are heading... straight for it! When he gets there, of course, the scariest character is the pastor, who joins him for a chat. And when he meets a man on a mule with a Smith & Wesson in his waistband, Lev is thrilled to tell us hes in the original Wild West, confronting gunslingers. The element of danger is rather diluted five minutes later, when he is welcomed by the cowboys mum, a little old lady who grows bananas. If Levison werent so intent on looking macho, he would be better company, and this trek from Mexico to Colombia would be a more engaging journey. She's the Australian supermodel who's surely been flown in a private jet or two in her long and illustrious career. But on Sunday, Elle Macpherson enjoyed a private plane ride with a difference as her older son Flynn Busson was behind the controls. The proud the mother-of-two shared a snap to Instagram of her boy in the hot seat, while the 52-year-old sat in the back passenger seat, seemingly ready for take off. Scroll down for video 'When your son's the pilot': Elle Macpherson enjoyed a private plane ride with a difference as her older son Flynn Busson was behind the controls 'When your son's the pilot,' Elle captioned the image. One fan commented on the post: 'That be handy..your own private pilot.' In the image, the 18-year-old is seen flicking switches up on the panel in front of him with the runway in sight. It's believed the pilot-in-training is still taking lessons and learning to fly as opposed to a qualified pilot. Model mum: The 52-year-old shared a snap to Instagram of her boy in the hot seat, while she sat in the back passenger seat, seemingly ready for take off 'Speed is life, alititude is life insurance': The 18-year-old has also shared images with planes on his social media Later, the original supermodel, shared an image of Flynn chauffeuring her around town, believed to be their hometown of Miami. The model mum cheekily captioned the second image: 'when your son's the driver'. The teen's hand covered the badge on the steering, so it's not known what brand of car he was driving, but Flynn certainly looked comfortable behind the wheel. 'When your son's the driver': The supermodel, has also shared an image of Flynn chauffeuring her around town Elle gave birth to Flynn, whom she shares with businessman Aprad 'Arki' Busson, in New York in 1998. The pair share a younger son also, Cy Busson, who was born in London in 2003, two years before the couple separated in 2005 after almost ten years together. Elle is now married to hotel heir and billionaire Jeffrey Soffer and the couple live in Miami with their children from previous relationships. Kenya Moore sobbed on Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta when she came home to discover vandalism apparently done by her ex Matt Jordan. Her house and care were smashed up and her security cameras had been spray painted over, but she assumed it was the handiwork of Matt, a 29-year-old fitness instructor. 'He's trying to intimidate mehe's lost his mind,' cried Kenya, 45, saying she felt 'obligated to help him' during a distress call to Kandi Burruss. Distress call: Kenya Moore called Kandi Burruss in tears on Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta after her house and car were vandalized Kandi Buress advised her to get a restraining order. 'What would your father say?' She asked in concern. Adding: 'You need to get yourself away from all of that violent behaviour'. Phaedra Parks also sympathised with Kenya because she has lived thorough an abusive relationship with her now-incarcerated husband Apollo. Legal aid: The vandalism prompted Kenya to speak to lawyer Phaedra Parks about it Good advice: Kenya cried while talking to Phaedra who offered her advice from personal experience Door smashed: The vandalism included a smashed door Broken glass: Windows also were smashed 'I didn't know who he was at the end,' she recalled. 'You've got to be sure of your safety, that's paramount,' Phaedra told Kenya, who declared that she still loved Matt and didn't want him to go to prison. The show had opened with Phaedra, who was organising the pop-up shop to aid victims of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Prayer time: Phaedra said a prayer for Kenya after they spoke She said her actions would show her young son Ayden the importance of 'philanthropy and charity'. Previous fundraisers have all ended in catfights, so Phaedra was concerned. 'I am just praying they are going to behavemainline to Jesus,' begged the 43-year-old reality star. Fundraisers past: Phaedra was praying her fundraiser wouldn't turn into a fiasco Helping hand: Ayden helped his mother Phaedra with the fundraiser The other RHOA women met with Phaedra, to discuss the terms. Porsha Williams wondered what possible use Kenya could be to the children at camp. 'She could teach them how to do the little wave thingy,' she joked, gesturing a regal wafting of her hand. God question: Porsha wondered what Kenya was going to teach children at camp Group message: Phaedra sent a group message about the pop up shops Kandi, 40, said that her s*x toy party business was 'the only one making money'. Meanwhile Kenya was enthusiastically touting her real hair extensions. 'No one chooses to have a hair filled with horse hair,' she said. Hair extensions: Kenya brought her hair extensions to the pop up shop Apollo's parents both showed up to support Phaedra. 'His mom and I are very close,' she revealed. Kenya apologised for not inviting Marlo Hampton to her birthday, or her housewarming parties. Apology offered: The former beauty queen apologized to Marlo Hampton for not extending an invitation to her housewarming party Not acceptable: Marlo scolded Kenya for also not inviting her to her birthday party 'It's not acceptable, a friendyou don't do that to,' replied Marlo, who was annoyed that NeNe Leakes had been at the events and not her. 'Girl, bye, bye! I have clients to attend to, this is not a time to throw a hissy fit,' said Kenya, quipping that Marlo's clients were all 'old white men'. Over $7,000 was raised at the pop up, with Porsha trumping the other women by donating $1,000 plus 100 percent of her proceeds from her booth. Special guest: NeNe Leakes was invited to Kenya's party much to Marlo's dismay Philanthropic gesture: Porsha donated 100 percent of her proceeds and $1,000 Catching up: Phaedra hugged Apollo's mother and father who came out to support her In a sideline story Sheree Whitfield was going 'way over budget' for her chateau. 'Only the best for the chateau,' she cooed as she perused some imported European wall coverings. 'I want it old school Hollywoodand I'm also like '50 Shades of Grey,' she told her friend Marlo. Old school: Sheree Whitfield talked about her plans for her chateau Marlo cussed out Kenya calling her a 'crazy, fake, phony'. Sheree agreed, calling her a 'cheap b*tch'. Recently separated Cynthia Bailey was preparing to move house - but she didn't have anywhere to move. Good question: Ayden asked Cynthia for her contribution 'So we're basically homeless,' balked her 16-year-old daughter Noelle Robinson, a budding model. Both Cynthia and Kenya landed at Kandi's place - looking for salvation. 'How did I end up with both Cynthia and Kenya?' pondered Kandi wearily. Double trouble: Kandi Burruss ended up with Kenya and Cynthia looking to stay with her Cynthia became tearful when handing over the keys to her old house, which she'd shared with her ex husband Peter Thomas. 'I'm taking this leap of faithI feel like I'm not in control, I don't like not being in control,' said the 48-year-old. The Real Housewives of Atlanta continues next week on Bravo. Between homes: Noelle talked to her mother Cynthia about being between homes She touched down in Sydney on Sunday after visiting her home city of Melbourne recently. And Ashley Hart wasted no time taking advantage of Sydney's gorgeous weather, with the model being spotted taking an early morning dip. The 28-year-old showed off her gym-honed figure in a floral swimsuit during a visit to Bondi Icebergs pool on Monday morning. Scroll down for video Bikini babe! Model Ashley Hart showed off her incredible model physique as she was spotted enjoying a swim at Bondi Icebergs on Monday With her wet blonde locks slicked back, the Swisse ambassador put on a stunning display, showing off her toned derriere in the cheeky-cut briefs. Seen making her way out of the pools, the sister of Jessica Hart showed off her chiselled abs and sculpted legs as she walked up the stairs at the swanky hangout. Ashley looked effortlessly cool while sporting no makeup, with a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses shielding her eyes. Bronzed beauty: The 28-year-old's toned derriere was on display as she dried herself off after the swim The Melbourne-born bombshell carried a pair of leather sandals and a Chanel tote bag, which was holding her clothing as well as a large water bottle. Ashley continued to look every inch the model after getting changed and making her way out of the venue. Her bronzed legs were on display in a tiny pair of denim shorts, and a semi-sheer white shirt completed her Summery look. Effortless: The Swisse ambassador later changed into a Summer outfit, flaunting her bronzed pins in denim shorts and a white shirt Ashley's outing comes after she made her way out of Melbourne, where she had spent the past week catching up with friends and family. Last week, she took to Instagram to share a candid snap of herself with her grandfather. 'My definition of Heaven #Breakfastinbed with #Grandpa (sic),' the US-based star captioned the upbeat photo. Back home: Ashley's visit to Sydney comes after she made a trip to Melbourne, where she spent time with her grandfather (pictured) It appears Ashley's husband, Buck Palmer, has not joined her for the trip back to Australia. The couple eloped last year, with the Just Jeans model telling the Herald Sun: 'We did this really spontaneous, just-the-two-of-us wedding which was beautiful. I am Mrs Palmer.' 'We went totally boho, it was totally us and was perfect,' said Ashley, before adding that she wore 'a vintage, long flowy dress and we wore Akubras.' They've been together for ten years this year, and have two children together. And Dax Shepard shared a sweet throwback, on Sunday, with Kristen Bell sitting on his lap. The 42-year-old actor posted an adorable snap taken nine years ago, as he thanked his now-wife for her 'optimism' regarding him. Thanks honey: Dax Shepard shared a sweet throwback, on Sunday, with Kristen Bell sitting on his lap She is wearing overalls and looked glowing in his attention. Dax has his arm around her waist, and a sulky look which he explained was because chewing tobacco. He captioned: '9 years ago. And unfortunately that bottom lip isn't from injections, it's Skoal. That's right, I landed @kristenanniebell while in the throes of a nasty dip habit. Thanks for being an optimist, honey.' The couple - who both hail from Detroit - met in 2007, and announced their engagement in 2010. Close: The couple - who both hail from Detroit - met in 2007, and announced their engagement in 2010 (pictured January 8) Kristen asked Dax to marry her through Twitter, after they decided to wait for same-sex marriage to be made legal in California before walking down the aisle. He accepted and they wed at the Beverly Hills County Clerk's Office on October 17, 2013. They have two daughters: Lincoln Bell Shepard, born March 28, 2013 and Delta Bell Shepard, born December 19, 2014. Dax is next on the big screen in CHiPS, based on the 1970s television series, due for release on March 24. He has also written and directed the movie. Kristen stars in NBC's The Good Place, alongside Ted Danson. OFC: January 16, 2017 - Fans wanting to follow Oceanias premier international club competition in 2017 can get their diaries out as the match schedule for the OFC Champions League 2017 has been confirmed. OFC Competitions Director Chris Kemp was pleased to be able to announce the match schedule for the Group Stage of the competition ahead of the OFC Champions League Qualifiers which get underway in 11 days.The majority of the sides taking part in this years competition have been identified with Vanuatu and Solomon Islands finding their club champions in late 2016, Kemp explained.We are now just counting down to the qualifier, which is taking place at the end of this month in Tonga, to identify our final two competing clubs.The winner of the qualifier, which sets the club champions from Cook Islands, Tonga, American Samoa and Samoa against each other, will be heading to New Caledonias northern city of Kone, where Group B awaits them.The group includes host club Hienghene Sport, 2016 OFC Champions League runners-up Team Wellington and Ba FC.The qualifier runner-up will slot into Group A which is being held in New Caledonias capital Noumea, hosted by 2016 OFC Champions League semi-finalists AS Magenta and also featuring Hekari United and AS Central.Group C, which is taking place at Mangere Centre Park in Auckland, New Zealand, pits defending champions Auckland City FC against Lae City Dwellers, Vanuatu debutants Malampa Revivors and Solomon Islands runners-up Western United.The fourth and final group will be hosted by AS Tefana in Tahiti with Erakor Golden Star, another Vanuatu club set to make their debut, Marist FC and Rewa FC.The kick-off times for each group have also been finalised by the OFC Competitions Department, with Group A and B setting 17h00 and 20h00 for each match-day.The earliest kick-off times will be for Group C in Auckland where matches will be played at either 13h00 or 16h00, with Group D also opting for evening matches with kick-offs at 18h00 and 21h00.The full match schedule is available here. The OFC Champions League is the Confederations premier international club competition and brings together the top teams from around the Pacific to compete for the crown of regional club champion.The 2017 tournament will be the 15th edition of this prestigious event which offers a much coveted prize qualification to the FIFA Club World Cup.Defending champions Auckland City FC will be chasing their ninth regional title, in a competition that has largely been dominated by themselves and Waitakere United.Papua New Guinea club Hekari United became the first club outside of New Zealand or Australia to claim the prize with their 2010 victory, while Sydney FC, Wollongong Wolves and South Melbourne also have their place in the history books. Nick Cannon talked about his turbans and ex-wife Mariah Carey's disastrous New Year's Eve performance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The 36-year-old TV personality during an appearance airing on Monday wore a white turban embellished with a diamond. Nick who also wore a grey Tribe Kelley T-shirt, white jacket, black jeans and white Timberland boots said he's been wearing turbans to raise 'cultural understanding'. Fashion choice: Nick Cannon talked about wearing a turban during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing on Monday The America's Got Talent host said he's been studying turbans 'for quite some time' and wears them to encourage others to 'embrace differences'. Ellen, 58, also asked Nick about Mariah's live New Year's Eve televised performance that was marred by technical difficulties. 'You know me I'm a conspiracy theorist. I think the government did that, they set her up. That was a distraction,' joked Nick. Nick added that things can 'go wrong a lot' on live television and that Mariah just got 'flustered'. Warm welcome: The studio audience gave Nick a warm welcome upon his entrance He also discussed being hospitalized during Christmas after being diagnosed in 2012 with lupus. Nick said he had 'medication issues' that were 'life threatening' as 70 percent of his blood 'went to one of my arms'. 'This arm was like Popeye,' Nick said before doctors got his levels back to normal. Doting father: Nick talked about raising children Monroe and Moroccan with ex-wife Mariah Carey Dance moves: Ellen and Nick danced a little bit on the chat show Ellen also showed pictures of a ball pit in his house for his five-year-old fraternal twins Monroe and Moroccan with Mariah. The kids also have access to a candy room complete with lots of sweet treats, a cotton candy maker and a Slurpee machine. Nick also said that he was expecting a baby in about a month with Brittany Bell. Ellen guessed that he was expecting a boy and Nick said she was right. She's the model mum with her own line of cosmetic products. And Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) has shared some of her other favourite beauty brands to travel with via her Instagram. Seemingly still on holidays, the 29-year-old took to social media on Sunday to show off the luxury products she currently uses, including a $180 face mask, a $160 eye cream, and a moisturiser that retails for $240. Scroll down for video It costs to look this good! Lara Worthington has shared her recommendations for travel beauty products, which are worth a total of nearly $1,000 With the travel-sized products laid out on a marble bench top, the mother-of-two captioned the image with shout-outs of the brands and what she loves about each item - all totalling around $1,000. 'Good products to travel with @oribe I think I need to make some travel size products for The Base,' Lara wrote alongside two mini cans of luxury hair care products, also referencing her own label. It's unclear what the cans contain, but according to stockist Net-a-Porter, the Oribe range costs anywhere between $25 and $150. Expensive taste! The 29-year-old listed a $240 La Mer moisturiser, a $180 Sisley face mask, a $43 Ouai hair oil, as well as a $160 eye mask as her favourite beauty products to travel with Another product which the blonde beauty swears by, calling it 'youth in a tube,' is Sisley's Black Rose Cream Mask, which costs an eye watering $180 for 60mL. Next to it is the Parisian brand's eye contour mask, which would set you back $160 for a small 30mL tube. 'I put this on top of the mask for my tired mum eyes,' she wrote alongside the green container. Self-promotion: The blonde didn't pass up the chance to give a plug to her own range of beauty products, The Base by LB The next product found on Lara's bench top is a La Mer moisturiser, which retails for $240 for the smallest 30mL size. The wife of Sam Worthington also lists a bottle of $43 hair oil from Ouai - Khloe Kardashian's hairdresser Jen Atkin - as a favourite. In a cylinder case are several makeup brushes by Australian makeup artist Rae Morris, which cost anywhere between $35 and $110 each. A Shu Uemura eyelash curler, $32, is also recommended by the former model, who added this advice: 'Always curl lashes before mascara!' 'Always curl lashes before mascara!' Lara also made sure to offer sound beauty advice to her many Instagram followers alongside the product mentions The cheapest product listed is a Wella sea salt spray, which retails for $20. Lara also took the opportunity to give a plug to her own range, listing a $44 makeup base as a go-to for eyeshadow or primer. In a previous snap, she also showed her brand's illuminating cream and LB cream sitting neatly by the tap on the bathroom sink. Last week, it was reported that the stunner - who gave birth to her second son in October - headed to the Maldives for a holiday with her actor husband. According to OK!, the couple escaped to the islands to celebrate their second anniversary. Hot on the heels of his split from brunette Rebecca, reality star Davey Lloyd has seemingly moved on. Debuting their romance on Instagram just after Christmas, the former Bachelorette star appears to be loved up with blonde bombshell, Jade Amber Williams. The 24-year-old mother-of-two from Wollongong boasts a following of over 36,500 fans on social media, and isn't shy about sharing racy shots of herself in lingerie. Scroll down for video Moved on! Davey Lloyd has debuted his new girlfriend, Jade Amber Williams, on Instagram, just weeks after his split from brunette Rebecca The couple first made their appearance on each other's Instagram accounts in late December, with Jade simply captioning her snap: 'DAVEEEEEEEYYYYYY (sic).' 25-year-old Davey meanwhile, referenced his girlfriend's status as a mother to two young boys, adding the caption: 'MUMMSIIIIIIEEEEE (sic).' Jade's Instagram page is loaded with risque images of the model striking various poses while leaving little to the imagination. Racy: The 24-year-old blonde is a lingerie and bikini model from Wollongong, New South Wales She's not shy! Jade is clearly proud of her body of work, often sharing topless selfies on social media She is also known to show off her ample assets in topless selfies, often taken in front of a mirror. As well as showing off her svelte physique, the New South Wales South Coast resident also shares photos of her two sons. She is mother to Axton, four, and Carter, who just turned two in December. Loved-up? The pair first went public with their romance just after Christmas Glamour: The busty blonde is also a mother to two young sons, Axton, four, and Carter, two According to a Moll Mag feature on the blonde, she is a 'mother, model and creative director' who describes herself as a 'girl next door type'. Jade's resume includes various bikini and lingerie shoots, and she has also previously posed completely nude. It appears things are still going well between her and Davey, with the former reality star sharing a selfie of the couple on Sunday. 'Girl next door': Jade described herself as a 'mother, model and creative director' in a profile featured in Moll Mag 'My little piggy,' he captioned it. Daily Mail Australia have reached out to Davey for comment on his new-found love. The new relationship comes just weeks after his split from ex-girlfriend Rebecca, 19. That didn't last long: Davey's new romance comes just weeks after his split from 19-year-old Rebecca The Eastern Suburbs-based brunette last made an appearance on Davey's Instagram page in September. It is believed Davey and Rebecca have been an item for several months after he confirmed the relationship to Daily Mail Australia on May 20. He first appeared on Sam Frost's season of The Bachelorette in 2015, but failed to impress her with his boyish charm. With a Hollywood heavyweight husband and dozens of blockbusters gracing her resume, Leslie Mann has more than earned the title of Hollywood's queen of comedy. The 44-year-old actress looked more than regal while attending the Palms Springs International Film Festival Sunday. At the screening for The Comedian, Leslie was joined by fellow Hollywood talents husband Judd Apatow and costar Robert De Niro. Comic royalty! Leslie Mann looked like a bonafide Hollywood princess attending a screening for her film The Comedian at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Sunday All eyes on her! The 44-year-old actress was the center of attention at the 28th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Leslie looked lovely in the tomato red dress with her blonde hair delicately swept to the side. The Knocked Up star's full skirt gave the mother of two's dress a princess-like air. Her skin looked dewy as the actress opted for a makeup look that highlighted her natural beauty. Sparkling pumps added a fun kick to the George Of The Jungle star's charming look. Photog for a day! Leslie's husband Judd Apatow played photographer as he grabbed some shots of his lovely wife charming the red carpet Hilarious husband: The comic couple contrasted each other nicely in their red and blue ensembles. Leslie has starred in several of her husband's biggest hits, including Knocked Up, Funny People and nineties classic The Cable Guy Husband Judd Apatow looked like he was wife Leslie's biggest fan, enthusiastically snapping shots of his significant other alongside the other event photographers. Leslie posed with her happy hubby after he made sure he got some memorable photos. The Trainwreck director looked handsome, sporting salt and pepper hair and a smart blue suit at the preview. Boy in blue: Robert De Niro was handsome but dressed down in blue jeans and a navy jacket Working well together: Leslie smiled sweetly at her costar before the pair screened their film The Comedian The starlet had even more company at the event, as she was joined with her costar from The Comedian, Robert Di Nero. The legendary actor opted for a casual wardrobe at the event, relaxing in handsome jeans paired with a navy jacket and matching polo. The 73-year-old talent looked like he was enjoying himself at the laid back red carpet event, seen smiling earnestly while taking pics with his on-screen partner. Having a ball: The pair later couldn't stop laughing as they spoke at a conference after the closing night screening Set to be a hit: The Meet The Parents actor and Ms. Mann join forces in The Comedian, which follows the life of an aging stand up comedian Witty woman: Leslie showed off her famous sense of humour during the interview as she answered questions about her role before fooling around for the cameras Unusual pairing: In the dark comedy, Di Nero's character Jackie meets Leslie's Harmony Schlitz after he's assigned to do community service for harassing an audience member The Meet The Parents actor and Ms. Mann join forces in The Comedian, which follows the life of an aging stand up comedian. In the dark comedy, Di Nero's character Jackie meets Leslie's Harmony Schlitz after he's assigned to do community service for harassing an audience member. The pair create a surprising bond that becomes the driving force of the film. The Comedian is already receiving mixed buzz from critics and arrives on the big screen for all to see on February 3. Chemistry on and off screen: The pair are said to create a surprising bond that becomes the driving force of the film On Sunday, Suki Waterhouse was spotted taking a leisurely walk out and about in Beverly Hills in a trendy all-black outfit. The 25-year-old model went braless for the day around the exclusive neighborhood and chose to wear only a skimpy black crop top. She paired the basic tank with flared black high-waisted pants that buttoned at her belly button and cinched in her tiny waist. Rebel: Suki Waterhouse, 25, went braless for the day around the exclusive neighborhood and wore only a skimpy black crop top Black suede boots could be seen poking underneath The Bad Batch starlet's structured bottoms. Waterhouse accessorized with a thick velvet choker that had a pearl-ended pin piercing through it. On her ears, Bradley Cooper's young ex-girlfriend wore delicate silver hoops. Slaying: Waterhouse accessorized with a thick velvet choker that had a pearl-ended pin piercing through it The Insurgent actress opted to venture out sans-makeup, partially covering her fresh face with rounded dark sunglasses. Her blonde locks, reaching just past her shoulders, were blown out stick-straight, with her fringe hanging down her forehead. Though Suki's pop star dreams may yet be unfulfilled - her debut track failed to make the top 200 in the UK, despite her fans enjoying the song - her acting career and romantic life seem to be thriving. It's in the details: Her blonde locks, reaching just past her shoulders, were blown out straight, her fringe hanging down her forehead Up-and-coming: Though Suki's pop star dreams may yet be unfulfilled, her acting career and romantic life seem to be thriving The young starlet, who turned 25 shortly after the new year, is reportedly dating Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden. Speaking of the blossoming romance, a source told The Sun: 'Suki and Richard recently started dating after meeting through mutual friends.' Continuing on the insider revealed: 'Its early days but theyve got a great connection and are looking forward to spending quality time with each other next year.' Bradley who? The young starlet, who turned 25 shortly after the new year, is reportedly dating Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden Suki previously dated Silver Linings Playbook star Cooper - who is now expecting a child with supermodel Irina Shayk - for nearly two years. The IT girl will next be seen on TV and on the silver screen. She will appear in the TV mini-series The White Princess, featuring Jodie Comer and Jacob Collins-Levy. Waterhouse will also star in the upcoming sci-fi film Future World, based on a young boy who searches a future world wasteland for a cure for his dying mother. She will also be seen in the Billionaire Boys Club starring Billie Lourd and Emma Roberts. She's best known for role as Kirsty Sutherland on Home And Away. But actress Christie Hayes, 30, has made the big jump to breakfast radio on i98FM in the Illawara region, south of Sydney, with co-hosts Marty Haynes and Ryan 'Crammy' Cram on Monday morning. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Christie said that she is an open person, except when it comes to discussing personal correspondence between her and husband Daniel White. Scroll down for video New career: Former Home and Away actress Christie Hayes has made her debut on Sydney breakfast radio on i98FM with co-hosts Marty Haynes and Ryan 'Crammy' Cram Apparently their mushy love-letters are off the table - which she joked might embarrass him. 'We'll see what happens, but hey, there's not too many skeletons in the closet. If there's something that comes up, which we prefer too keep private, then by all means [it will stay private].' 'We haven't had that conversation, maybe it's something we'll have [because] obviously [I] will not shut up,' she joked. Off-topic: Christie joked her husband's mushy love-letters are off the table for discussion on the radio show, saying it would embarrass him 'But at the end of the day I'm aware of the fact that people like to have honesty and authenticity,' she said. Christie credited Daniel for being supportive with her new radio career. 'Daniel is very supportive with my own career it's nice to just be Christie - not the mother, not the wife, just Christie at work for a couple of hours a day.' Good old days: Christie (picture right) said, 'coming from a background in television, especially home and away, was something that I thought I might cope slack for, but I'm looking forward to proving myself' She added that he has given up his career as a wine broker and to take up stay-at-home dad duties for their two sons, Hendrix, two, and Harley, one. 'At the moment he lovse being a stay-at-home dad, which he does, [but] I think he might see how much work is actually involved. He'll come to learn that himself,' she said. With her foray into the radio world, the former Home And Away star said she is taking an honest and open approach to presenting. Husband's support: Christie credited her husband, Daniel, for being supportive with her new career in breakfast 'At the end of the day I'm a pretty open person and I think everybody wants to hear stories about what's going on and I think that's a nice relatable thing,' she said. The brunette beauty is hoping to channel her acting prowess will her helping bring people together to have a great conversation. 'Being part of somebody's life in the morning that makes me happy because I'm such an open person,' she said. 'Coming from a background in television, especially Home And Away, was something that I thought I might cope slack for, but I'm looking forward to proving myself,' she added. She welcome her firstborn son into the world last week. And Stephanie Davis continued to give fans a glimpse into her life as a new mother online. The former Hollyoaks actress, 23, re-tweeted a picture posted by her best friend Jay Roberts, who she has chosen to be the tot's godfather. Scroll down for video The before shot! New mum Stephanie Davis continued to give fans a glimpse into her life as a new mother online Sweet: The former Hollyoaks actress, 23, re-tweeted a picture posted by her best friend Jay Roberts, who she has chosen to be the tot's godfather The picture showed him tenderly touching the baby's feet while he still wore his hospital nametag. He captioned the image: 'Welcome to the world godson. I promise to love and care for you for the rest of your life.' Stephanie announced the birth of her baby with another image of her newborn's feet. She gushed in the caption: 'The day my world became complete. Welcome! Stephanie announced the birth of her baby with another image of her newborn's feet last week Taking a swipe? While the star is focusing on her new role as a parent, her CBB ex Jeremy McConnell has been continuing his wild ways on a trip to Thailand 'I've been overwhelmed & so in love with you. Words could never describe. Thank you for all your support!' While the star is focusing on her new role as a parent, her CBB ex Jeremy McConnell has been continuing his wild ways on a trip to Thailand. While he has long denied that he's father of Stephanie Davis child the Irish appeared to be celebrating the birth of his rumoured love child with the disgraced Hollyoaks actress. In a video obtained by the Mirror Online, the 26-year-old former Celebrity Big Brother star can be seen looking bleary eyed as he parties in Thailand with pals hours after his ex gave birth. MailOnline have reached out to representatives of Jeremy for comment. The videos shared on a friend's Snapchat see Jeremy swigging beers, play-fighting and partying at a club. In the stream of clips, believed to have been recorded hours after Stephanie gave birth to a baby boy, Jeremy and his friends seemingly ridicule and taunt the former CBB star. One clip which shows Jeremy swigging form a beer as he collapses on a bed is captioned: 'Get the kid a physcoligist (sic)'. Not thinking of her: In a video obtained by the Mirror Online , the CBB, 26, star can be seen looking bleary eyed as he parties in Thailand with pals hours after his ex gave birth The caption appears to be a dig at Stephanie as the caption seems to be a miss-spelling of 'psychologist'. However, a source close to Jeremy denied it was aimed at the new-born, saying: ' 'The text on the snap chat "Get the kid a ..." is referring to Jeremy as the kid and is personal joke between friends. 'It has been completely taken out of context and is certainly not aimed a Steph's son.' Lashing out? In the stream of clips, believed to have been recorded hours after Stephanie gave birth to a baby boy, Jeremy and his friends seemingly ridicule and taunt the former CBB star Later on the evening the former Beauty School Cop Outs cast-member is seen dancing at a party shirtless. As he dances and plays up for the camera a caption on the clip alludes to Jeremy being the father - something he categorically denied in June. Spinning around and pulling faces in the snippet, a caption above Jeremy reads: 'Yes, a son.' Whetting the baby's head? Later on the evening the former Beauty School Cop Outs cast-member (pictured with Stephanie in April) is seen dancing at a party shirtless Not a care: A fellow reveler said: 'Jeremy doesn't seem to care too much about becoming a dad, it was as though he didn't have a care in the world' A fellow reveler told the Mirror: 'Jeremy doesn't seem to care too much about becoming a dad, it was as though he didn't have a care in the world. 'How insensitive to share such a video saying her baby needs therapy, my heart breaks for Steph. Even if it was made in jest, it's pretty disgusting.' Jeremy is still refusing to confirm he's the father of his estranged ex Stephanie Davis' baby boy - despite her finally giving birth on Friday. Not about her: A source close to Jeremy said: 'The text on the snap chat "Get the kid a ..." is referring to Jeremy as the kid and is personal joke between friends' The Irish model revealed he was 'delighted' for his former flame after she welcomed her new bundle of joy after a reported 48 hours in labour - but still echoed his former denial of the baby being his. Jeremy addressed the issued of the child's paternity on Twitter shortly after the news broke, writing: 'I am delighted that Steph has safely had the baby, of course if he is my son I will absolutely step up and do what I can to support him.' 'Any timescale for that is in Steph's hands now. I did reach out to her some weeks ago but didn't hear back,' Jeremy explained the situation further. 'I am delighted': Jeremy McConnell, 26, congratulated his ex Stephanie Davis after she gave birth on Friday but still refused to confirm he was the father Jeremy and Stephanie embarked on a toxic romance after meeting on CBB a year ago which culminated in a bitter split shortly before she announced she was expecting his child - claims he vehemently denies. She has maintained constantly throughout her pregnancy that Jeremy is the father, yet the Dubliner has lashed out at her claims and insisted he wants a paternity test upon the arrival of the little boy. Speaking about the saga, the actress told new! magazine: 'Jeremy knows the truth. I'm keeping (the DNA test) private. I'll sort that with him. If I could have done one straight away, I would have, but it was too dangerous for the baby.' 'If he is my son I will absolutely step up': Jeremy revealed he will do his best once he's confirmed as the father of the newborn (Pictured February 2016) Meanwhile, just weeks before Stephanie gave birth, Jeremy had told the Daily Star: 'I was in a position where we broke up for a period of time. I found out she was pregnant, but in the meantime I knew she was with other people.' 'I can't do anything while the baby's in there,' he explained. 'When it comes out I would step up to the plate. All I want is clarification. If I find out it's mine I'll be the best dad.' A source close the star told MailOnline: 'Jeremy has tried to contact Steph on a number occasions but he hasn't heard back. 'If he is the father then of course he going to do step up and do the right thing.' Tumultuous times: The former lovers have had a bitter back-and-forth war of words since splitting up In the past: The couple found love in the Celebrity Big Brother house back in January 2016 Meanwhile, a representative for Stephanie confirmed her happy news to the MailOnline on Friday, stating: 'We are delighted to confirm that our client Stephanie Davis gave birth to a baby boy on Friday. Mother and baby are doing fine.' The former Hollyoaks star, whose baby's name is yet to be revealed, is believed to have been in labour for a gruelling two days. As Stephanie's labor went on, a source told The Sun: 'The baby's taking his time, but we're hoping that he will arrive today. Steph is so excited that the day has finally come that she will meet her son. 'At the moment she is focusing on welcoming her little boy - her priority is his safe delivery and spending some quality time with him.' The birth comes after a close pal of Jeremy defended the inked hunk for jetting off to Thailand for a lad's holiday, despite his ex's due date being imminent - saying he's within his rights to take the break as he has nothing tying him down. He's finally here! The former Hollyoaks star, whose baby's name is yet to be revealed, is believed to have been in labour for a gruelling two days 'No ties': Pals of Jeremy McConnell have reportedly defended the Irish model for going on holiday to Thailand with his friends as his ex Stephanie prepares for the birth of their child 'Jeremy is simply having a well deserved holiday in Thailand with his pals,' the source told The Sun. 'I'm not sure why he's getting so much grief for posting a selfie of him having a drink.' Despite, Jeremy's long-haul trip, the star is ready to come back at a moments notice, with his representative telling MailOnline: 'Jeremy is currently in Thailand enjoying a short holiday with friends, which has been booked for sometime. 'He has an open return ticket should he need to return to the UK before the end of his trip'. The reality star has certainly been enjoying himself since splitting with Stephanie - and was most recently accused of sleeping with a fan's girlfriend after a nightclub appearance after a barrage of Twitter direct messages were revealed. And Jeremy he also set tongues wagging again as he enjoyed a steamy New Year's Eve kiss with a mystery blonde earlier this month. She's never been one to shy away from flaunting her enviable curves. And now Chloe Lewis, 26, has every reason to as she continues to soak up the sun during her describable trip Down Under in a plethora of raunchy bikinis on on Sunday. The TOWIE beauty - who has been enjoying a much deserved break on the Southern Hemisphere - took to Instagram to share her endless swimwear collection with her 814,000 followers on the photosharing site. Scroll down for video Beach babe: Chloe Lewis, 26, has every reason to as she continues to soak up the sun during her describable trip Down Under in a plethora of raunchy bikinis on on Sunday Showcasing her gym-honed physique, the ITVBe darling slipped into a nude Unique Avenue two-piece that featured eye-catching criss-cross detailing across her bust, teasing at her ample cleavage with its plunging neckline. Proving fashion comes first and not tan lines, Chloe ramped up the sex appeal as she worked a pair of high-waisted bikini bottoms that mimicked the criss-cross detailing of her racy top. The daring detail highlighted her slender hips and narrow waist whilst displaying her toned pins while she posed on a rock, with Milk Beach's idyllic coastline in the background. Equipped with a chic panama hat and oversized circular shades, she captioned the snap: 'No place I'd rather be'. Flaunt it! In another figure-flaunting shot from her trip, Chloe sported a tummy teasing bikini with crochet and pom pom detailing while she stopped for a steamy snap with a pal In another figure-flaunting shot from her trip, Chloe sported a tummy teasing bikini with crochet and pom pom detailing while she stopped for a steamy snap with a pal. The peach swimwear boasted high thigh cut bikini bottoms that paraded her perfect pins across the white sand. She accessorised her beachy look with a gold plate neckline and same retro sunnies as she let her glossy chestnut locks cascade into a soft wave down her shoulder. Chloe has been enjoying herself in Oz, documenting her every move on social media and even flaunting her figure in a fetching wetsuit. Breath-taking: Chloe has been enjoying herself in Oz, documenting her every move on social media Suiting up! Chloe flaunted her figure in a fetching wetsuit as she snorkeled with friends Meanwhile, Chloe appeared ready to move on from her break-up with Jake Hall, after celebrating her birthday with 'someone special', shortly before jetting away to Australia for a blissful break. The reality star shared a stunning snap as she posed in a red swimsuit, which made the most of her incredible figure, in an image which no doubt thrilled her Instagram followers. Chloe suffered a tumultuous break-up from Jake after a whopping seven years as a couple when they first arrived on the ITVBe show in 2015. Yet after her ex-beau left the show, the brunette beauty became embroiled in many dramas yet never enjoyed a lengthy relationship. 'Oz life'! Chloe appeared ready to move on, after celebrating her birthday with 'someone special', shortly before jetting away to Australia for a blissful break Now, the stunner has hinted that she may have found love once more, after she shared a snap from her birthday meal while adding the caption: 'Special birthday dinner, with a special someone'. Chloe's birthday date came just days before she jetted to Australia and stole the moment to slip into swimwear almost instantly. As she posed at the helm of a boat, she held her hands in the air in a joyous pose while also showing off her incredible figure. The red swimsuit boasted a plethora of complicated straps extending across her taut abs while the plunging front gave a glimpse of her perky cleavage. Moving on up? She suffered a painful and public break-up with her boyfriend Jake Hall Proving her impeccable attention to high fashion, she wore a funky fedora above her hair which was tied into a low chignon at the nape of her neck. Before jetting away on holiday, Chloe rang in her 26th birthday with a glamorous meal in which she dazzled in a Balmain-inspired black jacket. She added a caption on the snap reading: 'Special birthday dinner, with a special someone' - seemingly alluding to a date night. While Chloe appears to be moving on, Jake has firmly made the transition to his new relationship as he is loved up with Real Housewives Of Cheshire star Misse Beqiri, who looks strikingly similar to Chloe. She's been hiding out on the continent since discovering her boyfriend Ross Barton had shot Robert Sugden. But Debbie Dingle (Charley Webb) is set to make an explosive return to Emmerdale at the end of January in a drama-filled comeback story-line. According to the soap's producer Iain MacLeod, her reappearance will cause sparks to fly as she returns from France. Scroll down for video Chaos is coming! Charley Webb will reprise her role as Debbie Dingle this month and make an explosive return to Emmerdale that will 'cause shock waves' through the village 'Just when you think you cant catch your breath, theres a surprise that she has for us at the end thats kind of desperately sad, really heartbreaking and I think will trigger a massive storyline for her for the next 12-18 months,' MacLeod told OK! magazine. Charley has said that shes going to be really busy filming over the next 12 months, but this is all the information that has been teased. She said: 'Im going to be full on for the next year at least. I cant really reveal anything, but its going to hugely affect the whole Dingle family.' ITV have also added to the speculation of precisely what the plot-line will entail, teasing that things in Emmerdale are about to get chaotic. Sparks are set to fly: According to the soap's producer Iain MacLeod, her reappearance will cause chaos as she returns from France Debbie will supposedly be looking for help from her on-screen parents Cain (Jeff Hordley) and Charity (Emma Atkins). ITV said: 'Debbie Dingle will make an explosive return to the village early next year, leaving chaos in her wake. 'Having spent the last year in France, she is now on the run but who is Debbie running from? And how long will it be before Cain and Charity come to her rescue?' Webb said that she expects Ross to be involved in Debbie's big return when she spoke about it weeks ago, before it was set in stone. Help! Debbie will supposedly be looking for help from her on-screen parents Cain (Jeff Hordley) and Charity (Emma Atkins) She said: '[My return] wont be too far away and Im sure that Ross will be involved. There has to be some Ross and Debbie drama in there.' On how she felt about returning, Webb said: 'I did walk into my dressing room and burst into tears. 'Thankfully there was no one else in there!' She's spent her last week in the Big Apple. And now Lisa Wilkinson, 57, is headed for the tropical sun of Hawaii with husband Peter FitzSimmons before heading back home. The Today show presenter took to Instagram share a gorgeous photo of heavy amounts of snow falling on New York City. Scroll down for video Loved up: Lisa Wilkinson, 57 and husband Peter FitzSimmons take a selfie in Times Square in New York before heading back home from their getaway Saying goodbye to the sleepless city, Lisa captioned her post: 'Farewell New York. Even with all that snow, miss you already... #beautiful.' The night before leaving, the veteran journalist posted a selfie with author husband, in the bright lights of Times Square. She wrote: Still in love after all these years. And our last night in New York. Next stop, Hawaii! #TimesSquare #nyc #ny #newyork #newyorkcity #usa #holidays #winter #thebigapple #manhattan #bigapple.' Now that's a view: Lisa shares a selfie with a viewfinder at the top of the Rockerfeller Centre, with the Empire State Building in the background So long snow! The veteran journalist wrote in her last post, 'Farewell New York. Even with all that snow, miss you already... #beautiful' On of there last places the couple visited was the top of the Rockefeller Centre where Lisa took another selfie, this time with a viewfinder and Empire State Building in the background. In the photo, she wore a stylist leather boy-style hat and furry scarlet scarf. Her post read: 'Had to get a shot with those famous viewfinders at #topoftherock. New York, you are a stunner.... #empirestatebuilding #rockefellercenter #newyork #newyorkcity #thebigapple #bigapple #nyc #ny' 'Five degrees below here': Lisa showed off the view from her hotel room, which showed roofs blanketed in snow In earlier holiday photos mother-of-three, spent her time in the Big Apple seeing some of its main attractions. Lisa shared a photo of her lying on a window bench at her hotel, showing off the snow on the rooftops outside the building. 'Five degrees below here in #NEWYORK and the city is blanketed in snow,' the presenter captioned the photo, adding: 'So pretty.' Hitting Broadway: The couple rubbed shoulders with Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh after attending the opening night of the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Present Another photo shows Lisa and Peter about to take in a Broadway show, with the couple rugged up to protect from the cold temperatures. The couple rubbed shoulders with Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh after attending the opening night of their Sydney Theatre Company production of The Present. Photos shared on Thursday show Lisa visiting 30 Rockefeller Plaza and a John Lennon memorial. 'A New York State of mind': Lisa Wilkinson swaps the Today desk for sightseeing in the Big Apple with husband Peter FitzSimons The former magazine editor looks radiant as she perched by a window at the famous building, with a dramatic view of the Empire State Building visible behind her. 'A New York State of mind,' she captioned the photo. Lisa's fans were quick to complement the journalist on her youthful appearance, with one writing: 'Was this taken when you were in your early twenties?' Imagine: Lisa also took time to pay her respects at the John Lennon memorial in Central Park The New York City trip is making for a much more relaxing summer vacation than two years ago. In 2015, Lisa and Peter were holidaying in Paris when staff at satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in a terror attack. 'Streets of #Paris where I am absolutely teeming with police. Many buildings guarded by police nursing serious armory,' she described the aftermath on Twitter. *M*ake what you will of this. In the modern era of partisan polarization, which can be dated back to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, only the presid... As the granddaughter of style icon Diana Vreeland, she has likely been handed down countless tips on how to make an impacting entrance aesthetically. But Caroline Vreeland appeared to focus less on clothes and more on flashing the flesh when she shared a busty selfie from her getaway to Mexico's Mayan Riviera on Sunday. The 28-year-old model and musician took to Instagram to share a shot of herself holding a coconut next to her bulbous boobs, which were barely covered by a deeply plunging black swimsuit. Scroll down for video Three of a kind! Caroline Vreeland shared a very busty shot of herself on Instgram on Sunday, as she enjoyed a getaway to Mexico's Mayan Riviera Cheekily captioning the shot '3 of a kind', she later returned to the picture-sharing app to upload another image, in which she posed on her tiptoes with her pert bottom strategically aimed at capturing all of the camera's attention. Wearing a black high cut swimsuit, which was backless and featured lace-up detailing on the sides, the barely-there ensemble gave her the opportunity to show off her jaw-dropping figure. Referencing R&B veteran R. Kelly's 2003 hit, she wrote next to the decidedly racy snapshot: 'Move ya body like a [snake] ma.' Racy! She later returned to the photo-sharing app to share an even racier shot of herself All by my selfie: She has been sharing a slew of shots since touching down south of the border Caroline is a descendant of fashion royalty, with her grandmother Diana being a famous fashion editor known for her work on US Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. The Paris-born columnist, who died in 1989, counted Coco Chanel, Wallis Simpson, Andy Warhol and Jack Nicholson among her long and prestigious list of friends. In a previous interview with W magazine, Caroline explained her fashion legacy. Healthy assets: The model and musician isn't shy about displaying her healthy assets She said: 'In my early 20s, I really wanted to be seen for who I was, and not this blonde girl with big boobs and a family legacy.' Of her grandmother, she added: 'She stood for being yourself and embracing your flaws, making them what's sexy and interesting about you. 'My music is an expression of everything that makes me menot just the pretty parts.' Fashion: She is descended from fashion royalty, with her grandmother being Diana Vreeland She's been enjoying a whirlwind adventure in one of the most fashionable cities in the world. And Lindsay Lohan put her best foot forward as she cut a sophisticated figure in a simple all-black ensemble while leaving her hotel in Milan, Italy, on Sunday evening. The Mean Girls actress, 30, looked in high spirits as she headed out for the evening, flashing a huge grin to awaiting photographers. Scroll down for video On the move: Lindsay Lohan cut a sophisticated figure in a simple all-black ensemble while leaving her hotel in Milan, Italy, on Sunday evening Combating the cool January chill, the Parent Trap star kept warm in a knee-grazing overcoat, artfully matched with her loose-fitting loungewear trousers. Adding a pop of colour, the redhead beauty toted her belongings in an oversized orange handbag, while giving her usually heeled feet a break with casual black sneakers. Lindsay dressed up the simple look by opting for a glamorous hairdo, wearing her fiery tresses in thick curls, which casually billowed in the winter breeze. The former child star's make-up accentuated her natural beauty, drawing attention to her pout with a bright red lippy and a soft smokey eye. Beaming: The Mean Girls actress, 30, looked in high spirits as she headed out for the evening, flashing a huge grin to awaiting photographers Lindsay has been enjoying her Italian break, stepping out with her reality star pal Tommaso Zorzi for a night out on the town on Friday. Looking effortlessly glamorous for the outing, the flame-haired beauty donned a sheer white blouse with a cute dog print. She teamed the garment with matching trousers that bore long black lines across the seams and elongated her lean legs. Layering up, the radiant redhead donned an emerald faux fur coat that complemented her velvet peep toe heels. Dazzling duo: Lindsay ensured she was dressed to impress as she stepped out in Milan on Friday, where she was joined by Italian reality star Tommaso Zorzi Two of a kind: The pair have been enjoying each other's company in Milan, and Tommaso was spotted on Lindsay's hotel balcony as they looked over at his phone Adding yet another splash of colour, the Freaky Friday star wore a slick of fuchsia lipstick on her plump pout. She also carried a small black handbag in the crook of her arm. Lindsay finished off the look by styling her trademark auburn locks in loose waves that framed her pretty face. The actress no doubt had some help with her ensemble from Tommaso, who describes himself as a 'Fashion & Lifestyle Influencer'. Cheeky! Over the new year, Lindsay appeared to be on Tommaso's mind as he shared a meme poking fun at the star, which he captioned: 'Sorry baby I had to post this' The pair have been enjoying each other's company in Milan, and the star was spotted on Lindsay's hotel balcony as they looked over at his phone. Over the new year, Lindsay appeared to be on Tommaso's mind as he shared a meme poking fun at the star. The image showed Lindsay headed out of a shop holding cartons of cigarettes and snacks as he joked about people who make New Year's resolutions to be healthy. '(Sorry baby I had to post this @lindsaylohan)' she captioned the snap. Exes: Lindsay had a turbulent 2016 which she began in a relationship with Egor Tarabasov, though it unravelled around August when the duo had a highly publicised fight in Mykonos Lindsay had a turbulent 2016 which she began in a relationship with Egor Tarabasov, though it unravelled around August when the duo had a highly publicised fight in Mykonos. Speaking on Russian TV, the Mean Girls star also said of her ex-fiance, 'I went to bed and he broke into my house. He started strangling me. I feared that Egor may splash acid in my face.' Egor strenuously denied the claims, however, and accused the star of starting a 'smear campaign' against him. She's recently come home from lavish holiday in Hawaii with her family. And it looks like Pixie Curtis, daughter of Roxy Jacenko, has taken her babysitting duties to heart. In a picture posted on the five-year-old's Instagram account, managed by her PR queen mother, she can be seen sitting in a huge heap her toys and dressing a baby. Scroll down for video Their own world: Pixie seen playing with her dolls, while tries to climb out of the box, in a room filled with toys Meanwhile, two-year-old Hunter, clambers his way out of the box and onto the doll filled floor. Both kids appear to be encapsulated in their own world of fun with their dozens of figurines strewn across the room. The captioned said: 'She (mum - Roxy) asked me to babysit on Sunday morning - @huntercurtis14 was extremely well behaved.' New addition: Pixie recently showed off her latest addition to her collection, a Lady Gaga Moster High doll Her adorable post was recieved well by her followers, including her grandmother Doreen Jacenko said: 'Too much stuff Roxy @pixiecurtis,' along with laughing face emojis. A follower commented: 'They've ransacked the place, ha ha!' While another wrote: 'Kids will be kids.' Creativity: She also spent an afternoon drawing and painting with little Hunter All smiles: The trio recently came home from an lavish holiday in Hawaii The doting sister also spent a recent afternoon drawing and painting with her young brother. The five year-old excitedly showed off her latest addition to her collection, a Lady Gaga Moster High doll. Her post was captioned: 'OH MY GAGA!!! Lady Gaga has gone Zomby and she's here to make you all embrace your uniqueness, be YOU!' Roxy recently traveled by private jet to Cooma with young Hunter to visit her husband jailed husband Oliver Curtis, Pixie was noticeably absent from the trip. She's the Big Brother star known for her extreme cosmetic enhancements and for her controversial comments during her makeup tutorials. And on Monday Skye Wheatley posted a bizarre snap of herself covered in streaks and spots to her Instagram. The 22-year-old captioned the snap: 'Who else makes crazy patterns on their face when contouring?' Scroll down for video Animal instinct: On Monday Skye Wheatley posted a bizarre snap of herself covered in streaks and spots to her Instagram The image shows her pouting towards the camera with leopard like spots on her face while she holds a makeup palette. The post comes shortly after the reality star said she wished she was a 'naturally tanned Aboriginal' in a 12-minute YouTube makeup tutorial. Skye made the remarks after talking about her hands, which featured a streaky tan. Scroll down for video Reality star: Skye Wheatley treated fans to a make-up tutorial on YouTube claiming she wished she was a 'naturally tanned Aboriginal' in the clip Just a little disclaimer: My hands will probably annoy the F out of some people while watching this,' she told viewers. 'I apologise. I'm not a naturally tanned Aboriginal. I wish I was. But unfortunately I'm not,' Skye said. After making the comments, Skye reassured viewers that she meant no disrespect. Makeover: Skye began the tutorial make-up free, before adding products to her face throughout the video 'Was that racist? I'm not a racist person, like I actually dated an Aboriginal guy and I wish that I had Aboriginal in my blood or just some type of anything that makes you brown,' the reality star said. One viewer claimed that Skye's comment were inappropriate, writing, 'You look so hottt (sic) but what you were saying was so disrespectful.' Another viewer disagreed, believing that Skye meant her comments as compliments. 'I know in my heart I'm not being racist or malicious': Skye talked with Daily Mail Australia about her comments 'I'm 1/4 Aboriginal and it's honestly the best thing... tan all year around, love this vid babes X,' they wrote. Speaking with Daily Mail Australia, Skye said: 'I think no matter what I say people are always going to be offended.' She continued, 'I know in my own heart I'm not being racist or malicious.' Going under the knife: Skye recently underwent a rhinoplasty and shared her journey with fans in a series of YouTube videos Referencing the comment from her fan who stated she was 1/4 Indigenous, Skye stated: 'She loves being Aboriginal and I don't blame her.' Skye's 12-minute clip featured her randomly breaking out into song, including part of the Lady Sovereign's track, Love Me or Hate Me. 'If you hate me then f**k you,' Skye sang. Future pop star? Skye also broke out into song during the tutorial Afterwards, Skye treated her followers to a glitter liner tutorial. Appearing make-up free near the beginning of the video, Skye altered her appearance as the clip went on, applying products to her face, including a pink gloss to her plump pout. Skye made sure to reply to many who left comments on the tutorial. Referring to her rhinoplasty, one wrote, 'Your nose is PERFECTION!!' 'Thanks Bub. Still a little swollen but yeah it's gone down so much x' the blonde beauty replied. 'Your nose is PERFECTION!!': Elsewhere Skye's fans gushed over her recent rhinoplasty Rise to fame: Skye shot to fame after appearing on Big Brother Skye is no stranger to going under the knife after having travelled to Bangkok in 2015 to have her chest enhanced. Unfortunately, Skye was left unhappy with the augmentation which was botched leaving her with a 'wonky' and 'uneven' result. Speaking a previous time to Daily Mail Australia about the ordeal, Skye warned young girls not to be lured by the promise of cheap plastic surgery and said, 'Don't, it's not worth it.' She added, 'If something goes wrong you have to pay for another flight to more costs to get it fixed. Do your research, I wish I had done mine better.' He's well known for his love of luxury cars, owning a Rolls Royce that reportedly cost close to $1 million. But on Monday, Kyle Sandilands swapped from an automobile to a motorcycle. The 45-year-old shock jock was seen on a custom Harley-Davidson in a photo uploaded to Instagram by girlfriend Imogen Anthony. Scroll down for video Ready to ride: On Monday, Imogen Anthony uploaded a photo of boyfriend, shock jock Kyle Sandilands, cutting a cool figure as posed on the custom Harley-Davidson he bought the model for Christmas in 2015 The radio star looked in his element posing on the revved-up vehicle that he had gifted Imogen for Christmas in 2015. In the snap, a cool Kyle sported a scowl for the camera, trying out his best biker look. The picture showed the star dressed head-to-toe in black as it appeared he was revving up the engine, ready for a ride. Making sure he went with protection, the radio royal - who makes up one half of KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show- wore a fitted helmet, but it appeared he had yet to do up the strap. 'When bae gives you a CUSTOM HARLEY for Christmas!!!' Imogen appeared overwhelmed when she was gifted the flash machine in 2015 Clearly impressed with how her man looked on her ride, Imogen captioned, 'You can be my full time, baby.' The model was overjoyed when she received the lavish gift just over a year ago. At the time Imogen took to Instagram to share her joy, posting a picture of herself on the Harley. A-List couple: Imogen and Kyle are fixtures on the Sydney social scene Holding her hands to her face in shock, she captioned, 'When #bae gives you a CUSTOM HARLEY for Christmas!!' Whilst it's unknown whether Imogen has been taking the bike out for regular rides, it's clear the couple both enjoy the fancy machine, which features silver flames down its side. The high-profile couple are soon set to celebrate five years together, after they began dating in March 2012. She rocked the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris in November. And Kelly Gale showed her fans just why as she shared a sultry snap of herself taking a shower in a luxurious villa in Bali. The 21-year-old beauty had her ample assets on display as she uploaded the sizzling snap to Instagram on Monday. Scroll down for video Cheeky! Kelly Gale had her ample assets on display as she uploaded a sizzling snap to Instagram on Monday The leggy model was pictured taking a shower outdoors topless wearing nothing but an orange G-string. Kelly captioned the post: ' Home sweet home ... for the next 5 days. I could get used to this amazing villa.' She recently finished shooting with Victoria's Secret and last week shared a behind the scenes snap. Professional poser! Kelly Gale was back working for Victoria's Secret once again on Friday, stopping to take a sexy selfie before a photo shoot She captioned the picture: 'Shooting with @victoriassecret today.' In the photo, the Swedish-Australian star stuck a sultry pose as her dark locks fell over her shapely bust. A grey bra and delicate necklace were all Kelly wore for the snap, which she shared with her 538,000 followers. Runway regular! Kelly was one of the main attractions at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris last year Striking: Kelly has become synonymous with Victoria's Secret during the early years of her career since making her runway debut for the brand in 2013 (pictured) Seasoned pro: Kelly walked again for the lingerie brand in 2014 before making her third appearance during their annual spectacular in November last year The super-fit model has become synonymous with Victoria's Secret during the early years of her career since making her runway debut for the company in 2013. Kelly walked again for the lingerie brand the following year before making her third appearance during their annual spectacular in November last year. After taking a year out in 2015, the model's return to the runway nearly ended in disaster. 'I was so concerned that my boobs were going to pop out': After taking a year out in 2015, the model's return to the runway nearly ended in disaster 'My bra was too small this year': Following the 2016 show at the Grand Palais, Kelly told News Corp she was close to suffering a wardrobe malfunction Following the show at the Grand Palais, Kelly told News Corp she was close to suffering an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. She said: 'I was so concerned that my boobs were going to pop out of my bra. 'My bra was too small this year, but you just have to put the costumes on and hope that they will fit and stay in place. 'Before the show, I prayed that my boobs wouldn't fly out of my bra, but I think I managed to keep them nicely tucked away.' She's a blonde bombshell that kept the crowds enthralled during her stint on Strictly. But Laura Whitmore, 31, was left a little red-faced as Shane Richie, 52, cheekily joked about their kissing scenes in a new play while appearing on Monday's Good Morning Britain. Chatting to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, the Irish presenter and former EastEnders actor were quizzed about their upcoming theatre tour of Peter James Not Dead Enough - but attention quickly focused on the pair's steamy onstage smooch. Scroll down for video 'I'm forced to kiss her': Laura Whitmore, 31, was left a little red-faced as her co-star Shane Richie, 52, cheekily joked about their kissing scenes while appearing on Monday's edition of GMB Discussing the romantic relationship between the two characters, Shane joked: 'I hate it. I have to kiss her, Im forced to kiss her!' A giggling Laura was then asked if she switched career paths from TV presenter to budding actress in an attempt to lock lips with Shane, to which she cheekily quipped: 'Thats pretty much it. 'Ive been auditioning for EastEnders and everything, and now finally I got cast with you.' The duo shared some awkward looks and proceeded to blush as they were quizzed on how much they had to pucker up for the nationwide tour. Dazzling duo: The Irish beauty and former EastEnders actor were quizzed about their upcoming tour of Peter James Not Dead Enough Awkward? Discussing the romantic relationship between the two characters, Shane joked: 'I hate it. I have to kiss her, Im forced to kiss her!' Playful pals: A giggling Laura was then asked if she switched career paths from TV presenter to budding actress in an attempt to lock lips with Shane, to which she cheekily agreed to Bringing the focus back onto the play, Laura said: 'We like to mix it up. Theres other stuff going on in the play as well.' Shane added: 'Those who are familiar with the books know that my characters wife went missing ten years ago and we dont know if she went missing or was abducted.' Laura, who is set to make her acting debut later this month, looked stunning in a monochrome mini-dress emblazoned with flower embroidery. Stunner: Laura wore her long golden locks in loosely curled waves, while keeping her makeup simple with a slick of pink lipstick and lashings of mascara Flirting friends: The duo shared some awkward looks and proceeded to blush as they were quizzed on how much they had to pucker up for the nationwide tour Getting serious: The pair discussed their upcoming theatre tour, which will begin later this month Acting ace's: Shane will play superintendent Roy Grace, meanwhile Laura has been cast as his love interest Adding simple black stilettos, the former Strictly Come Dancing star's long and lean pins were on full display. Meanwhile, Shane - who will play Roy Grace in the play - opted for a simple yet stylish look donned in a fitted leather jacket, black trousers and lace-up boots. The upcoming play is a murder mystery about Brian Bishop, who claims he was sixty miles away in bed the night his wife was murdered, and superintendent Roy Grace investigates. Professionals: The pair, who clearly had great chemistry, pulled the focus back onto the play Leggy lady: Laura, who is set to make her acting debut later this month, looked stunning in a monochrome mini-dress emblazoned with flower embroidery Stylish stars: Meanwhile, Shane opted for a simple yet stylish look donned in a fitted leather jacket, black trousers and lace-up boots Laura spoke to the Irish Independent about her role in the play and her feelings about playing mortuary assistant Cleo. She said: 'Peter has created a strong character in Cleo Morely and I can't wait to sink my teeth into the role. Before I trained in journalism, I studied drama and played some great roles. 'I have been waiting a long time to return to acting and for a great role like this to come along, so I can't wait to get on stage.' They're the Australian sisters who have become international models. And now Ashley Hart and her big sister Jessica are working together on a health and wellness project. Ashley revealed the news to The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, but didn't detail the top-secret project. Model material: Model Ashley Hart (R) revealed to The Daily Telegraph that she will partner with big sister Jessica (L) to work on a health and wellness project 'I can't say much more than that for now,' the 26-year-old blonde told the publication. 'But it is exciting to be working with my sister again'. The famous siblings are both known for their healthy and free-spirited lifestyles, so the new venture should come as no surprise. Whilst Jessica remains back at her American base, Ashley has been spending time in Sydney. Cheeky day in the sun! Ashley was enjoying her brief time in Sydney, sharing this saucy snap to Instagram that showed her reclining on her pal's pert posterior It's a quick trip for the Los Angeles-based stunner, who said, 'I flew myself home to Melbourne and jumped up to Sydney for a couple of days to have some sun'. And sun is exactly what she got, with the model seen flaunting her fantastic physique at Bondi's iconic Icebergs pool on Monday. It appeared to be an action-packed day for Ashley squeezing in as many activities as possible into her short stint in the harbour city. Quick trip to Sydney: LA based Ashley spent the day with her close friend Melanie Moylan Taking to Instagram she documented a variety of activities in which she partook over the course of the day. In one racy snap, the star was seen at Gibson's Beach in the city's east, using her friend's peachy posterior to rest her head upon. 'The Best Beach pillow a gal could ask form' she captioned the picture, tagging her friend Melanie Moylan. Namaste: On her busy day, Ashley shared a snap where she was seen practicing yoga in Bondi Later in the day Ashley was seen partaking in yoga in Bondi, before hopping on a motobike as they rode through the city streets with Melanie. Ashley will soon head back to the US to reunite with her husband, Buck Palmer, to whom she wed in 2015. They reportedly 'reconnected' their teen romance over the festive period while holidaying with their respective families in the Maldives. And it seems Brooklyn Beckham, 17, was missing his former flame, model Sonia Ben Ammar, as he looked in sombre spirits while leaving a branch of Pizza Express in north London on Monday afternoon. While the eldest of the Beckham brood relaxed with friends in England, his on-off girlfriend was busy hitting the runway at Milan Men's Fashion Week - and amassing a few adoring fans along the way. Scroll down for video Missing someone? Brooklyn Beckham, 17, looked in sombre spirits while leaving a branch of Pizza Express in north London after a solo lunch date on Monday The French model, also 17, looked happier than ever as she pulled silly faces for selfies and was even gifted with a red rose from one keen fan. But that was a far cry for Brooklyn, who hung his head as he left the London pizzeria alone. In a bid to stay incognito, the aspiring photographer covered his floppy locks with a grey baker boy cap, as he donned a chic wintry ensemble. Layering a fur-trimmed checkered jacket over a plaid shirt, Brooklyn ensured he combated the cool January chill as he headed to an awaiting car. Beaming: Brooklyn's former flame, model Sonia Ben Ammar, 17, was greeted by adoring fans as she continued her duties at Milan Men's Fashion Week in Italy Stylish star: In a bid to stay incognito, the aspiring photographer covered his floppy locks with a grey baker boy cap, as he donned a wintry ensemble Sonia looked equally fashionable, sporting a metallic bomber jacket paired with ankle-grazing chinos. Clearly in high spirits, Sonia beamed towards photographers showing off her pearly whites and model good looks. The teen has been has been busy strutting her stuff for Milan Men's Fashion Week, most recently sharing the catwalk with Sofia Richie for the Dolce & Gabbana show on Saturday in the Italian city. Rumours of reconciliation began after the pair reconnected on Instagram shortly after landing in the Maldives, where he enjoyed a festive end of year break with his family. Cool dude: Layering a fur-trimmed checkered jacket over a plaid shirt, Brooklyn ensured he combated the cool January chill as he headed to an awaiting car Poser: Sonia looked equally fashionable, sporting a metallic bomber jacket as she posed for selfies with her fans Happier than ever: Clearly in high spirits, Sonia beamed towards photographers as she showed off her pearly whites and model good looks By coincidence Sonia was in the midst of her own idyllic holiday in the tropical island country, from where she has posted a series of sunny snaps for her 246,000 followers. The pair also shared remarkably similar shots of themselves bathed in shadow while posing on the beach at sunset. The Maldives no doubt conjure fond memories of Sonia, who Brooklyn dated for five months from October 2015 to March 2016. The teenager originally met the model daughter of Tunisian producer and director Tarak Ben Ammar, who counts Silvio Bellusconi and the late Michael Jackson among his circle, the previous year. On the move: The eldest of Beckham brood headed towards an awaiting vehicle after enjoying lunch at Pizza Express Back together? Rumours of reconciliation began after the pair reconnected on Instagram shortly after landing in the Maldives Sonia, who made her film debut in the 2013 French film Jappeloup, then began to appear on Brooklyn's Instagram account at the end of the summer. The model reportedly made an impression on Brooklyn's parents, with a source confirming they were dating and adding that his famous parents were 'happy about it'. Following their split Brooklyn enjoyed a short lived romance with Hollywood actress Chloe Grace Moretz, before the couple parted ways in August. Pucker up! The French model was more than happy to pose for selfies with her fans Kylie Jenner has been thanked for raising half a million dollars for charity through her cosmetics company. The 19-year-old reality television star launched a special-edition lip kit to aid children with a cleft palette. The pale pink hue, named Smile, benefited Smile Train charity to the tune of $500,000 - and will fund 1,800 surgeries. Philanthropic: Kylie Jenner has been thanked for raising half a million dollars for charity through her cosmetics company Helping hand: The 19-year-old reality television star launched a special-edition lip kit to aid children with a cleft palette The teenager - who also recently launched her own pop-up cosmetics store - donated 100 per cent of the proceeds of sales to the charity, which supports free cleft palate surgery for millions of children around the world. 'Smile Train has been aware of Kylies generous heart and her commitment to helping children through her #IAmMoreThan social media campaign and her many visits to childrens hospitals,' Susannah Schaefer, CEO of Smile Train, told People on Monday. She added: 'Its the perfect synergy because Smile Trains core vision is to help children with clefts not only receive new smiles, but also build confidence. Theres nothing more powerful than a smile. Generous: The star donated her first sum in October and launched it again this month Smiles: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star launched the shade on World Smile Day in October, and it sold out almost immediately 'Kylie has a beautiful smile herself, yet we were most impressed with her selflessness, huge heart and extremely generous giving spirit. Everyone here at Smile Train, and all of the cleft children around the world that she has helped, couldnt be more grateful.' The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star launched the shade on World Smile Day in October, and it sold out almost immediately. She donated $159,500, after writing on Instagram: 'I'm very excited to reveal SMILE, a beautiful pale pink shade that I created in partnership with @smiletrain for #WorldSmileDay 100% of net proceeds will go towards cleft surgery for children in the developing world and I will be presenting a check to them personally. Let's do this October 3rd at 11am pst. @kyliecosmetics' Money raiser: The teenager donated 100% of the proceeds of sales to the charity She relaunched the shade in January, and raised an additional $300,000. The youngest of the Kar-Jenner sisters debuted a blonde platinum wig over the weekend and teased a forthcoming 'secret project'. As well as Kylie Cosmetics, Kylie's current business pursuits include the recently launched Kylie Shop where she sells Kylie-themed merchandise, Kendall + Kylie - her joint fashion line with her sister - and her collaboration with Puma. According to Forbes, the teenager made a whopping $18 million in 2016 alone. Wealthy: According to Forbes, the teenager made a whopping $18 million in 2016 alone Entertainment / Celebrity by Agencies Our journey begins in Kadoma as Intercape Pathfinder takes us to Bulawayo to meet Beks Ndlovu who was going to take us on a road trip of a lifetime to SOMALISA Camp. Every fibre in me is excited about the journey and am so impatient I don't even want this overnight stopover.StopoversBut Beks check us into this lovely gem in Bulawayo called the Taveller's Guest Lodge. The ideal spot for travellers that want some clean linen a hot shower with an awesome breakfast in the morning. This is a property setup well and what an awesome stopover. We arrived late and the kitchens in the nearby restaurant was closed but we had one of the most awesome GUIDES in the world with us so finding food wasn't going to be difficult. Beks takes us to this old school bulawayo members only club that invigorated my desire and passion for local cuisine because we had boiled beef, fried intestines and chicken with drinks great conversation and loads of chilli!The road trip continuesAfter breakfast we are off down the ZRP infested highway paying our fines as we attempt to enjoy a road trip. Our excitement dampened at each spot check from the authorities, but we must continue this is a journey of a lifetime we say. What is a trip to HWANGE or Victoria Falls without stopping by the now dilapidated but still popular HALF WAY house to take a much needed toilet break replenish our drinks and set off to WILDERNESS PARADISE.The welcomeYou can already see this is going to be an amazing couple of days when Mr Ndlovu says "Ok guys this is the last point we will get some MOBILE RECEPTION so send your last emails before we go OFF GRID" Oh my word I thought, this is special ALREADY. This is only at the GWAYI river turn off and we still have an hour or so to go but boy am I already getting into this. On the way we are welcomed by the usual celebrities by the drinking hole, ZEBRA and ELEPHANT with the ability to do close up's on my camera without needing a special sense. This is already like a game drive. Driving past many water holes retrofitted with solar pumps to keep them going and relics of old school diesel generators that used to do the same function.I see SOMLISA in the distance but an elephant bull crossing in the foreground. The staff or team at SOMALISA waving at us ready with towels to refresh us from our not so long road trip. The elephant bull walks over to the pool to take a drink as if this was a rehearsed intro straight out of their BROCHURES, what an amazing start.OMG the TENTSBags offloaded and am in awe of this so called tent. Hardly a tent as I have seen 5 star hotels that can't lift a finger to these well thought out creations that we were going to call home for the next couple of days. No televisions but a super wide screen opposite the be looking out to the watering hole with no on or off button and animals just coming out to give a show whenever we were in the tent. The finishing the copper tub, the outdoor shower, the rustic look of the rooms said I am in the BUSH but I will do this in style!The ChefOk so we had to leave the rooms at some point and the CHEF is out by the decking explaining what we are having for lunch. We are part of a birthday party with the pleasure of meeting the wonderful Ashleigh who has just turned 21. Great themed meals in a different setting all the time so we can't really remember where you can or can't eat when you are at SOMALISA, great idea because everyone's experience is different it seems.Game DriveThere we go for our first of many game drives, the knowledge of these guides is impressive. Their admiration of their boss is inspiring to quote one of the guides CALVET "Its inspiring when you see one of ours create such an amazing place like SOMALISA" wow I thought to myself this is the vision of a former guide and it inspires everyone around him, I could feel how all that knowledge was put together to make this a truly special place.Drinks by a waterholeWe end our game drive by going to a watering hole called the CHRIS PAN to have a sundowner. I just put my camera down to notice breathtaking sunset. I put my feet up and took stock of all the things that have brought me to this one place. A gin and tonic in one hand and a beer stick in another i've made it mom, I whispered to myself!The real starsThe team at SOMALISA led by the energetic and amazing Yvonne (you'll know when you see her) have taken so much care to making the fear of the bush as safe as possible without being intrusive and the animals have shown me that they are not out there to hurt you and are even happy for you to watch them. Its the IDIOTS that come out here shooting at everything that spoils it for the rest of us!So that's it for my very first travel DIARY entry on one of my favourite #visitZimbabwe experiences and I encourage you to keep dreaming and keep travelling! She's been hitting the ice hard, in more ways than one, to take on her new role as disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding. And while Margot Robbie is doing a great job in the rink, her slender body looked nothing like Harding's heavier physique...until now. The 26-year-old was spotted filming I, Tonya in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday with her blonde hair styled in frizzy waves and toting some extra pounds thanks to a padded body suit. These pounds will be easy to shed: Margot Robbie rolled up the sleeves of her sweater to reveal a fat suit, as she filmed I, Tonya, in the rain in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday Biopic: The Australian actress will play the disgraced ice-skater Tonya Harding, pictured in an interview in 1994 The star tucked her blue sweater into high-rise jeans, helping to evoke the style of the early 1990s. Margot walked to the set carrying an umbrella to protect her from what must have been a slight shower because no one else covered up. The movie follows Tonya and husband Jeff Gillooly, played by Sebastian Stan, who secretly hired a thug to break rival Nancy Kerrigan's leg to force her to pull out of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in Norway. Unrecognisable: The 26-year-old has undergone a dramatic transformation for the part Retro look: The star tucked her blue sweater into high-rise jeans, helping to evoke the fashion style of the early 1990s The attack was botched and Nancy was badly bruised. But despite her injuries she went on to compete, winning a silver medal with Tonya coming eighth. When details of the crime - known as The Whack Heard Round The World because Nancy's knee was clubbed with a baton - came to light, Tonya received a lifetime ban from skating competition. Gillooly got a two-year prison sentence. Margot returned to work in Los Angeles on January 3 after tying the knot with producer Tom Ackerley on December 19 at a private property in the Byron Bay Hinterland in her native Australia. Bad break: The movie follows Tonya and husband Jeff Gillooly, played by Sebastian Stan, who hired a thug to smash rival Nancy Kerrigan's leg before the 1994 Winter Olympics Husband and wife team: Margot and Tom Ackerly, seen at LAX on January 2 after jetting in from her native Australia where they got married on December 19, are co-producing the biopic Aside from her starring role, she and Tom are both co-producing I, Tonya. Margot told Glamour magazine about learning to skate last year, saying: 'I'm really excited because I love acquiring a new skill for a role, it's one of the biggest treats of acting. 'On the producing side of it - if I get an injury I'm scared I'm going to ruin everything so I'm nervous.' New role: Tonya appeared with Melissa Rauch in 2015's ahletics comedy The Bronze When pictures emerged of Orlando Bloom enjoying a naked paddle boarding trip with girlfriend Katy Perry, they quickly went viral. And it seems the actor couldn't be prouder of his notoriety - using the infamous nude shot as a backdrop for his 40th birthday party on Friday night. A huge blown-up image of the actor kneeling proudly on his board, nude but for a hat, was blown up and used as a unique background in the event photobooth. 'Life's a smooth ride with you!' Orlando Bloom's friends pose with nude cutout at his 40th birthday bash Having fun: Orlando had covered up his private parts with a huge black modesty bar - rather larger than was strictly necessary Amusingly Orlando had covered up his private parts with a huge black modesty bar - rather larger than was strictly necessary. The image was also doctored to remove his girlfriend - who in the original shot was sat in front of the actor, modestly wearing a bikini. Perhaps Katy was behind the cheeky backdrop - she hosted the party in Palm Springs. Loving it: Orlando's pal Markus Molinari was obviously amused by the backdrop The original: Orlando was pictured last summer on vacation with girlfriend Katy Perry, who was PhotoShopped out of the party backdrop Orlando's pals certainly got into the spirit of the party - posing for pictures with their naked, buff friend. mdmolinari wrote: 'life's a smooth ride with you in it. Thankful to have been part of such a beautiful celebration of your life.' And drjenbarhamfloreani shared: 'Such a hoot celebrating with you the last few days honey, @orlandobloom love and appreciate you.' Do blondes have more fun? It seems that Katy Perry has decided to experiment with life as a blonde, as the singer debuted a dramatic new dye-job on Saturday night Katy caught the British actor off guard with the big bash in his honor, flying friends and family to Palm Springs to surprise the British actor. Pictures from the bash showed her with a new blonde hairdo. A video shared on her Instagram Story sees Orlando blowing out the candles on a cake, which bore the message 'Happy Birthday Lando'. Nocturnal Animals actor Armie Hammer has taken on yet another new role. The 30-year-old and his wife, journalist Elizabeth Chambers Hammer, have welcomed their first son together and are said to be overjoyed by the newest addition to their family. Both mom and baby are doing great, a representative for the Lone Ranger star told People magazine after the child was delivered on Sunday in Los Angeles. New addition: Armie Hammer and his wife, Elizabeth Chambers Hammer, have welcomed their first son together. The heartthrob and his wife already have two-year-old daughter Harper and are keen on seeing the tots bond. Armie and Elizabeth are overjoyed with their growing family and daughter Harper is already embracing the role of big sister, a source told the weekly. In September, the 'Social Network' actor made the announcement that he was going to be a father for the second time, and later he revealed to Jimmy Kimmel the childs sex on the comedians late-night show. Bonding babes: The couple want to see how daughter Harper reacts to her new brother. He jokingly said of their prospective baby names: Were thinking Jack. [Or] Michael Charles, and he can just go by M.C. I think I just gave away our baby name? Im in so much trouble. Adding, She loves it. I mean, she seems to love it now. If you go, "Wheres the baby? "shell rub Mamas belly and kiss her stomach. Its really cute. I think when the new baby comes out, its going to be a serious adjustment period. The couple, married in 2010, began dating in 2008 after an introduction from Armie's friend, artist Tyler Ramseyand it's a moment Armie has described as 'love at first sight' during an interview with Momtastic.com while promoting his role in 2012's 'Mirror Mirror'. Going strong: Armie Hammer has been married to Elizabeth Chambers Hammer since 2010. After four happy years getting to know each other in wedded bliss, Armie said they both agreed it was time to share that by having their first child together, Harper. On the woes of raising a child in the Hollywood spotlight, Ernie previously revealed to Cherwell Independent that his philosophy is to keep things as normal as possible. 'I just dont consider myself famous. I dont really consider the problems of raising my child whileI dont even like saying famousI dont know. I would like to do everything I can to raise them so they dont even realize it,' he said. They're a couple off-screen as well as playing a married duo on their FX show. So lucky for actors Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys that they got to spend time together on Sunday night while filming scenes for their spy drama The Americans. Keri, 40, wrapped up in a long black coat over smart trousers as she strolled alongside her beau. Night shift: Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys were spotted filming scenes for their TV show The Americans in New York on Sunday As cameras rolled the couple wore serious expressions as they walked with their hands in their pockets. Matthew, 42, who hails from Wales, donned beige slacks and a black jacket. At the Golden Globes earlier this month Keri and Matthew were both up for the best TV drama acting lead trophies for their roles as Soviet spies Philip 'Mischa' Jennings and Elizabeth 'Nadezhda' Jennings. Cameras rolling: The couple wore serious expressions as they walked with their hands in their pockets Hit show: The actors play a married couple, who are also KGB spies, in the FX drama which completed its fourth season last year But the duo lost the honour to Goliath's Billy Bob Thornton and The Crown's Claire Foy, respectively. Keri and Matthew confirmed their relationship less than a year after she separated from Shane Deary in 2013 after seven years. The couple welcomed their first child together in May 2016. Keri is also mother to two children - son River, nine; and daughter Willa, five- with her ex-husband. The 13-episode fifth season of The Americans premiers in March on FX. So in love! The couple, who confirmed their relationship in 2014, shared a smooch at the Golden Globes earlier this month She seems to have an eye for the older man having previously dated Hollywood heartthrob Bradley Cooper who's 17 years her senior. And Suki Waterhouse, 25, looks to have bagged herself another handsome actor in the form of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's Diego Luna, 37. The pair were snapped putting on a very close display as they strolled through a park in Tulum, Mexico, during their break at the luxury Hotel Esencia on Saturday. Scroll down for video Cheeky! Suki Waterhouse, 25, looks to have bagged herself another handsome actor in the form of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's Diego Luna, 37 Hand in hand: The pair were snapped putting on a very close display as they strolled through a park in Tulum, Mexico, on Saturday Suki showed off her bra through a sheer purple long sleeve top which she teamed with black shorts. The pretty model appeared to be wearing minimal make-up and allowed her blonde tresses to fall messily over her shoulders. She finished her look with a pair of pale pink pumps. Diego wore a buttoned down short sleeve navy shirt with a pair of beige over-the-knee shorts and grey espadrilles. Side by side: Suki showed off her bra through a sheer purple long sleeve top which she teamed with black shorts He sported finely groomed facial hair and covered his eyes with stylish shades. The pair held hands as they strolled through the natural setting, looking relaxed in one another's company. As they stopped to look at a historic feature, Diego slipped his hand down the back of Suki's shorts while she placed her arm across his shoulders. Bathing beauty: Suki shared a snapshot of herself enjoying a luxury soak in the bathtub The duo chatted away happily as they picked up a few drinks, no doubt parched from their walk in the hot weather. The young starlet was reportedly dating Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden, however the latest snaps would suggest she's already moved on. A representative for Suki declined to comment when asked by MailOnline. A representative for Diego is yet to respond. He's the action man who has been having a ball in Australia while filming the sequel to Pacific Rim. And daredevil Scott Eastwood took a break from his gruelling schedule to go cliff jumping on Monday, at famous Wattamolla Falls in Sydney's Royal National Park. The hunky star starred in a death-defying video posted on Instagram, sending his female fans into a frenzy by also going shirtless the clip. Scroll Down For Video Taking the plunge: Scott Eastwood took a break from his gruelling schedule to go cliff diving on Monday, at famous Wattamolla Falls in Sydney's Royal National Park 'Great morning, now we are at the Royal National Park about to jump off some s**t,' he said in another clip. Before the dive, Scott crossed paths with some native Australian reptiles, a giant lizard. 'Holy s**t that f**king lizard is huge,' he gasped. Scooping it out: The movie star checked out the drop before he took the plunge No going back! Scott appeared to film the jump with a Go-Pro as he fell to the bottom and into the water Shirtless: The star stripped down to colourful board shorts Meanwhile, adventure man Scott was spotted going for a surf at iconic Bondi Beach, last Wednesday. The hunk was seen showing off his enviable physique as he strolled on the sand with his board in the Summer heat. The Suicide Squad heartthrob stripped down to a pair of board shorts, exposing his washboard abs and buff biceps. Success! The Pacific Rim actor pulled off the jump unscathed The star pulled a brooding gaze, perhaps coming to terms with the sweltering Australian summer. Scott's toned legs flexed as they pushed through the sand. In one image, the 30-year-old clutched the side of his ripped torso, perhaps nursing a stitch after riding some waves. In another, beachgoers got a good look at his biceps as he tightened his grip on the board. Like father, like son: Scott is the son of legendary actor, Clint Eastwood Ouch! The actor got a nasty gash on his forehead during an on-set accident on Wednesday after his surf session The hunky US-native has been filming Pacific Rim: Maelstrom in Brisbane and Sydney. Since touching down in the country, he's been snapped fitness training in Bondi, and even took a trip to the famous 'Big Banana' in Coffs Harbour. He spent New Year's Eve on Sydney Harbour, later claiming the city put on the best end of year fireworks display in the world. Pacific Rim: Maelstrom is scheduled for a 2018 release. Busy boy! Since touching down in the country, Scott has been snapped fitness training in Bondi Big Banana! He Even took a trip to the famous 'Big Banana' in Coffs Harbour Coming soon! Pacific Rim: Maelstrom is scheduled for a 2018 release She's best known for her role as Kirsty Sutherland on TV soap Home And Away. But actress Christie Hayes, 30, insists her claim to fame was setting Aussie heartthrob Chris Hemsworth's heart racing. The actress, who has now joined breakfast radio on i98FM in the Illawarra region, told Yahoo! biting her lip in an old Pepsi commercial turned him on. Scroll down for video 'I turned on Chris Hemsworth': Former Home And Away actress says her claim to fame was an 'unsexy' lip bite that gave Chris a 'massive erection' in an interview with Yahoo! on Monday The Pepsi Light TV advertisement aired more than 10 years ago, and well before the hunk met his now-wife, Elsa Pataky. 'Years ago I did an endorsement for Pepsi, ages ago in 2006 and for this commercial I bit my lip at the end of it and I thought I was the dorkiest thing in the world, it was so unsexy,' the brunette star recalled. However, she later found her 'unsexy' gesture caused much excitement for Chris when he confronted her at a Borat premiere the same year. 'I thought I was the dorkiest thing in the world': The actress later found her 'unsexy' gesture caused much excitement for Chris when he confronted her at a Borat premiere the same year 'Every time you bite your lip I got a massive erection': Christie claimed Chris complimented her performance in the 2006 commercial by saying he was turned on by her lip biting 'We saw each other and he was like "I loved your commercial, you were really good and I shouldn't be saying this but every time you bite your lip I got a massive erection,"' she added. 'He was taken at the time and it was all in jest but that's my claim to fame. I turned on Chris Hemsworth!' Christie said. It's believed at the time he was dating Home And Away co-star Isabel Lucas. Christie had been taking a break from the series from 2005 to 2008. 'He was taken at the time': It's believed Chris was dating Home And Away co-star Isabel Lucas at the time, with Christie on a break from the series from 2005 to 2008 Chris married his wife Elsa in 2010 and now shares three young children with her. Christie made the big jump to breakfast radio on i98FM in the Illawarra region, south of Sydney, this week with co-hosts Marty Haynes and Ryan 'Crammy' Cram. Marrying her husband Daniel White in 2013, the former soap star is the mother to two young boys. Happy family! Marrying her husband Daniel White in 2013, the former soap star is now the mother to two young boys Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Christie said that she is an open person, except when it comes to discussing personal correspondence between her and husband. 'We'll see what happens, but hey, there's not too many skeletons in the closet. If there's something that comes up, which we prefer too keep private, then by all means [it will stay private].' 'But at the end of the day I'm aware of the fact that people like to have honesty and authenticity,' she said. Christie credited Daniel for being supportive with her new radio career. Out-of-sorts Halep becomes first major Australian Open casualty "Frustrated" fourth seed Simona Halep said she was struggling with a knee injury as she fell at the first hurdle for the second year in a row at the Australian Open on Monday. The out-of-sorts Romanian, who called for medical attention after losing the first set, went down 6-3, 6-1 to American Shelby Rogers on day one in hot conditions on Rod Laver Arena. Halep was playing the first match of the tournament on the centre court, and she became the first major casualty. Simona Halep goes out to Shelby Rogers on day one of the Australian Open at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne PETER PARKS (AFP) It was a case of deja vu for the right-hander, who was sent packing at the same stage last year by Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai. Halep is one of the fastest movers on court but she was missing her usual zip against the 24-year-old American, who reached the French Open quarter-finals last year. "I had pain at my knee," she said, adding that she first felt the tendon problem in October at the WTA Finals in Singapore. "For me, in the second set, was difficult to move anymore, but she deserved to win. She was aggressive, and she hit very strong." Asked about crashing out in the first round once again, she replied: "I'm a bit frustrated, but you cannot change much. "I'm okay. Just looking ahead. It happens, and I just want to be well with the knee. And then I will think about the game." Rogers, in only her second Australian Open appearance, was ecstatic at claiming such a big scalp, having missed last year's tournament to focus on a lower-level ITF Tour event in Florida after injury problems. "It's pretty incredible, I played really well today," said the American, ranked 52 in the world. "There are no easy matches at this level so I am happy to get through and I take a lot of confidence from today." - 'I'm good enough' - She added that making the last eight at Roland Garros had given her the belief that she can beat the top players. "The biggest thing I took away from that was just that I can compete with the top players in the world and I'm good enough," she said. "So I have definitely carried that away from the French Open and just been enjoying it a little bit. There has been a lot of positive feedback, which has been nice. I'm just trying to keep that going." Playing the first match of the tournament on centre court, Rogers held serve first up when Halep sent a backhand wide as both players adjusted to the conditions. As sweat quickly started dripping off them, it went with serve to 2-2 in a close-fought contest as Halep was forced to save two break points to stay at level pegging. Rogers, coming off a run to the quarter-finals at the Hobart International, finally got the break in the sixth game to lead 4-2 when Halep smashed a volley into the net. The sluggish Romanian saved two set points on her next service game but Rogers wasn't to be denied and she wrapped up the set 6-3 in a gruelling 46 minutes. The usually tenacious Halep was clearly struggling and she called for the trainer at the changeover. But a confident Rogers broke in the third game of the second set to go 2-1 ahead before quickly reeling off the last four games. First lady Melania and the political fashion police She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police -- designers refusing to dress her because of her husband's politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. "It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration," Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. US President-elect Donald Trump arrives with his wife Melania for a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 31, 2016 DON EMMERT (AFP/File) From Mamie Eisenhower's pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama's white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America's first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favorites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a "traditional" first lady like Jackie Kennedy -- famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isn't their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband's insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. - Incompatible - "The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by," Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. "Personally, I'd rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters," Marc Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Women's Wear Daily that anyone should be "proud" to dress the new first lady and Trump's daughter Ivanka -- who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Year's Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a "thank you." Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. "Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity," von Furstenberg has said. - Buy American - But what is Melania's style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman -- manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman -- Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. She's already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the country's huge fashion industry. "The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors," Vera Wang told Women's Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. "Don't underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved," Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up." Not only is Melania Trump the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all Andrew H. Walker (Getty/AFP/File) US First Lady Michelle Obama looks at her 2009 inaugural gown as the designer of Mrs. Obama's dress, Jason Wu stands by, during a ceremony at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, in 2010 JEWEL SAMAD (AFP/File) Oman receives 10 prisoners from Guantanamo: ministry Oman said it received 10 inmates from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay Monday, as outgoing President Barack Obama looks to reduce the number of prisoners there before leaving office. Neither the sultanate's foreign ministry nor the US defence official who confirmed the transfer would disclose the nationality of the inmates who would reside in the Gulf Arab country on a temporary basis. "At the request of Sultan Qaboos and the US government for a solution to the question of Guantanamo detainees, 10 of these detainees arrived today in the sultanate to reside here temporarily," the ministry said, quoted by the official ONA news agency. Latest transfers to Oman would leave the number of Guantanamo detainees at 45 PAUL J. RICHARDS (AFP/File) In Washington, the US official said: "We can confirm the transfer of 10 detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of Oman. We have nothing further at this time." The latest transfers leave the number of Guantanamo detainees at 45, according to the official. Ten days ago, four Yemenis were sent from the US prison on Cuban soil to Saudi Arabia. Early this month, Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest said he would expect "additional transfers" before the Democrat hands power to President-elect Donald Trump on January 20. Obama vowed to close the Guantanamo detention facility when he took office in 2009, arguing that detention without trial did not reflect American values. But faced with Pentagon foot-dragging and stubborn Republican opposition to shutting down the prison, his administration has focused on whittling down the number of inmates. Trump has called for a freeze on transfers. On January 3, he tweeted that "there should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield." Only a handful of those who remain at the prison have started moving through US military tribunals, including the alleged plotters of the 9/11 attacks. News / Africa by News24.com Being deputy president of the ANC is not a "shortcut" to the presidency, said ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe at the party's birthday rally in George on Sunday, the News24.com reported.There was also no need to refer to the possibility of a woman leading the 105-year-old liberation movement as "the first woman president of the ANC", he said."We don't want a woman president, we want a president of the ANC," said Mantashe, according to the party's Twitter feed from the event.The ANC is heading into what is expected to be a tumultuous year of underground lobbying for the person to succeed President Jacob Zuma, who will finish his controversy-riddled second term in December when new leaders are chosen at its 54th elective conference.Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was expected to be a shoe-in but political chatter is placing party stalwart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in the hustings since her resignation as chairperson of the African Union Commission.FactionalismOn Thursday night Zuma told listeners to three radio stations that there was no tradition in the ANC that the deputy president automatically moved up to the number one spot.He added that the country was ready for a woman president, a shift from previous decades when this seemed unthinkable.In his address - one of many by ANC leaders fanned out across South Africa - Mantashe warned members against lobbying to the benefit of individual interests, and against factionalism.He drew on the ANC's document "Through the Eye of the Needle", which analyses how working for personal material gain goes against the party's ethos."We must elect leadership that's fitting and ready to deal with challenges of the time. Beware of those who come to you lobbying for their friends," he said. At least three dead in Nigeria suicide attack At least three people were killed and 15 injured in a suicide bomb attack claimed by Boko Haram on a university campus in northeast Nigeria, police said on Monday. The blast happened at a mosque in the staff quarters area of the University of Maiduguri and is thought to have been carried out by a teenage girl, a local resident and a lecturer told AFP. Islamist group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly used young women and girls as human bombs, claimed responsibility for the attack. Nigeria has recently trumpeted a major victory in its battle against Boko Haram, claiming in late December that its army had routed the jihadists from their Sambisa forest stronghold in Borno state ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP/File) "We are the ones that triggered the explosions in the University of Maiduguri," said Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in an audio message. "A woman can fight when the need arises." Borno police spokesman Victor Isuku said that before the blast at the mosque, police on patrol shot a girl aged about 12 as she tried to get into the university at about 5:15 am (0415 GMT). "The IED (improvised explosive device) strapped to her body exploded, killing her instantly," he said in a statement. "Shortly after that a second explosion occurred in a mosque inside the university. "Four persons, including a professor and the second suicide bomber, died, while 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to UMTH (University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital)." One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said he heard two explosions at 5:25 am as he was leaving the mosque in his neighbourhood. "I rushed to the university, which is not far from my house. On entering, I saw the mosque in a mess. Three people lay dead, including a young girl, whose body was badly mutilated," he said. "Thirteen other worshippers were injured." A university lecturer who lives on site confirmed the resident's account. - No let-up in attacks - Filibus Yamta Mshelia, from the registrar's office at the university, said examinations scheduled for Monday had been postponed to a later date because of the attack. Examinations set for Tuesday will take place as planned, he added in a letter to staff and students. "We urge all students to remain calm and vigilant," he wrote. Access to the university campus has been strictly controlled, with checkpoints and searches at the gates, which until now had prevented a direct attack. But the site, on one of the main thoroughfares leading in to and out of the city, is vast and most areas are badly lit. Students also say security has been relaxed in recent months and some of the soldiers who manned the campus gates have been withdrawn. At least 20,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram conflict since it began in 2009 and more than 2.6 million others made homeless. Nigeria maintains the insurgency is in its final stages. Last month said it had flushed out Boko Haram fighters from their stronghold in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital. Yet there has been no let-up in attacks both on troops and civilians. On January 8, at least five soldiers were killed when rebels targeted a base in Buni Yadi, in neighbouring Yobe state. The following day, suicide bombers killed three in Maiduguri. Boko Haram's name translates roughly to "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language spoken widely across northern Nigeria. Its fighters have attacked schools across the region for teaching a so-called Western curriculum. Many have only recently re-opened after being shut for several years. Christian and Muslim students live and study together at the university, which offers both Islamic and Arabic studies, as well as courses from medicine to law. China will 'take the gloves off' over Taiwan: media China is running out of patience with Donald Trump's stance on Taiwan, state media said on Monday, and will "take the gloves off" if he keeps challenging the One China policy. The US president-elect told the Wall Street Journal over the weekend the longstanding policy was up for negotiation, in his latest comment on the issue. Trump had already irked China by accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen after he won the presidential election, upending decades of diplomatic precedent in which the US avoided direct public communication with the island's leader. Donald Trump has irked Beijing by suggesting the One China policy could become a bargaining chip in trade with the world's second-largest economy GREG BAKER (AFP) The foreign ministry, for the second time in two days, warned Trump Monday the One China policy was non-negotiable. Anyone who tries to use it as a bargaining chip will be met with "common opposition" and will ultimately "shoot oneself in the foot", foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing. The China Daily said in an editorial earlier Monday that Trump "will seldom be given the benefit of the doubt twice, because doing the same thing for a third time shows intent". The Taiwan issue is a "Pandora's box of lethal potential", it added. While the president-elect had been given the benefit of the doubt so far, it said, if he is "determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves." Trump has threatened to get tough with what he sees as unfair Chinese trade practises and suggested that the One China policy could become a bargaining chip in this. "Everything is under negotiation, including One China," he told the Journal in the interview published Friday. Beijing considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province to be brought back within its fold, by force if necessary, and the United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. China first warned Trump on the issue last month after he said he did not see why Washington must "be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade". But he has less leverage than he might think, warned the Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid thought to have close ties to hawkish elements of the ruling Communist Party. China will "mercilessly combat those who advocate Taiwan's independence", it said in an editorial Monday. If Trump chooses to use the island as a bargaining chip, it added, it "may be sacrificed as a result of this despicable strategy". Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen made two stops in the US this month while in transit to diplomatic allies in Central America, despite Beijing's objections. On her return to the island Sunday she said its "new direction" of diplomacy was clear. "We must all continue to work to let Taiwan be seen, to let Taiwan make its contribution to the world." Syrian rebels to attend Astana peace talks Syrian rebel groups said Monday they will attend peace talks next week, in a boost to efforts by rivals Turkey and Russia to put an end to the nearly six-year-old conflict. The pledges came as the Islamic State group, which is excluded from peace talks as well as a nationwide truce deal struck on December 30, advanced in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province, cutting off a key airport from government-held territory. The talks, beginning on January 23 in the Kazakh capital Astana, are designed to build on the truce that has largely held despite escalating violence across several battlefronts in recent days. The Syria peace talks, beginning on January 23 in the Kazakh capital Astana, are set to build on a nationwide truce that has largely held despite escalating violence across several battlefronts in recent days Nazeer al-Khatib (AFP/File) Organised by rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Russia and Iran, the meetings are the latest bid to put an end to the brutal war raging in Syria since March 2011. The powers have backed opposing sides of Syria's conflict for years but have worked closely in recent weeks to end the bloodshed. If the Astana meetings are successful, they could bode well for fresh UN-hosted political negotiations on the conflict next month in Geneva. "All the rebel groups are going (to Astana). Everyone has agreed," said Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group. "Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes," Alloush said. Sources from the opposition and the regime said the talks would "probably" be face-to-face. Several rounds of peace talks brokered by the United Nations have failed to produce a political solution to the conflict. The Astana talks will adopt a different approach, focusing strictly on military developments ahead of the discussions in Switzerland in February. - 'Only military' talks - Ahmad Ramadan, from the leading National Coalition opposition group, said the Astana talks would aim to reinforce the truce "while the details of the political process will be left to Geneva". Osama Abu Zeid, a legal adviser to rebel groups, said rebels were encouraged to attend by the fact that "the agenda will be focused only on the ceasefire". The opposition's delegation to Astana "will be only military" but will consult "a team of legal and political advisers" from the High Negotiations Committee umbrella group, he said. For Syria expert Thomas Pierret, the participants "will discuss military questions because those are the only ones they agree on". US President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has been invited but has not yet officially responded. Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was "optimistic" about the talks and would be "ready for reconciliation with (rebels) on condition that they lay down their arms". Hundreds rallied Monday in the Kurdish city of Qamishli in protest at the exclusion of Kurdish political or military groups from the peace talks. - 'Huge reinforcements' - Syria's conflict began with protests against Assad in 2011, but it has since morphed into a war that has killed 310,000 people and witnessed the rise of radical jihadists like IS. The group advanced Monday around the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, cutting off the regime's access route to a nearby airport. "The supply route to the airport is cut, and the city's eastern half is cut off from its western half", Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. A military source told AFP that government forces carried out more than 20 air strikes on IS positions on Monday. "IS has resorted to heavy use of infiltrators and huge reinforcements from Raqa and western parts of Deir Ezzor province," the source said. Raqa, to the north, is the de facto capital of the self-styled caliphate IS declared across Syria and Iraq more than two years ago. IS already controls more than half of Deir Ezzor and launched a fierce offensive Saturday to capture remaining government-held territory, where the UN estimates 100,000 people live. The Observatory said the assault has killed at least 28 regime forces so far, as well as 40 IS fighters and at least 14 civilians. Syria conflict Thomas SAINT-CRICQ, Sophie RAMIS (AFP/File) Syrian Kurdish women attend a rally denoucing that Kursdish reprensantatives were not invited to take part in the upcoming Astana peace talks, on January 16, 2017, in the northeastern city of Qamishli DELIL SOULEIMAN (AFP) Palestinians can't stop US embassy move: Israeli minister An Israeli minister said Monday the Palestinians had no way to block incoming US President Donald Trump from moving his country's embassy to Jerusalem. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said such a move would have consequences as it was a "red line" whose crossing would ruin hopes for a two-state solution. But regional cooperation minister Tzachi Hanegbi, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, said the Palestinians were powerless to stop it. Palestinians walk past the Dome of Rock at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, on January 13, 2017 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) "What can they do? What can they do?," he said in a briefing to reporters in Jerusalem. "There are not going to be any consequences." Trump -- who takes office Friday -- has pledged to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. That is bitterly opposed by Palestinians, who see it as a destructive and unilateral action, as the status of the city is contested. They demand Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel proclaims the entire city as its capital. The United States and most UN member states do not recognise Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish state, and the city's status is one of the thorniest issues of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Sunday French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned the move would have "extremely serious consequences." Among the threats Abbas has made is that his government could reverse its recognition of Israel, but Hanegbi said that would be suicidal. Others have suggested it could lead a new Palestinian intifada -- or violent uprising. "This is not a threat. This is shooting themselves in the head," Hanegbi said in English. "I don't think Abu Mazen has an interest to open an intifada, I don't think the Palestinians would like another intifada," he added, referring to Abbas by his Arabic nickname. He said he did not expect a "domino effect," and that most other countries would keep their embassies in Tel Aviv. Japan pledges patrol vessels, aid for Vietnam Japan pledged new patrol boats and $1.1 billion in aid to Vietnam Monday as part of a sprawling package targeting maritime and security affairs to bolster ties in the face of regional powerhouse China. Hanoi and Tokyo are locked in separate standoffs with Beijing over territorial claims in disputed regional waters, pushing the two countries closer in recent years. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the six new vessels and the 130 billion yen loan package during a two-day visit to Vietnam, which is also aimed at boosting business ties with the fast-growing communist nation. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a press conference in Hanoi on January 16, 2017 HOANG DINH NAM (POOL/AFP) "I wish to make basic principles such as freedom of navigation, rule of law and peaceful resolution of conflict to become unshakable," Abe told reporters. Vietnam welcomed Japan's maritime pledge made earlier on Abe's trip, his third visit to the country as prime minister. "Both sides agreed on the importance of ensuring the maritime security on the issue of the South China Sea and promoting to resolve conflict by peaceful means (and) respecting international law," Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. Vietnam and China have traded barbs over disputed territory in the South China Sea, where Beijing has built islands capable of hosting military installations. Tokyo has also sparred with Beijing over its territorial claims in the East China Sea, and both Japan and Vietnam have repeatedly stressed that maritime disputes should be addressed according to law. Japan has made similar gifts of patrol vessels and aircraft to the Philippines, which also has competing maritime claims with China. - Trump meeting 'asap' - Tokyo is an increasingly vital ally to Vietnam -- it is the country's largest aid donor, the second largest foreign investor and a key trading partner. At their meeting Monday, both sides pledged to keep trade ties alive in the wake of a promise by US President-elect Donald Trump to scrap the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership on his first day in office. "We must create free, fair and rules-based market... we should all aim at the early entry into force of TPP," Abe said. Abe, who has previously said the TPP would be "meaningless" without the US, added that he he wants to meet the US leader "as soon as possible after he takes office" on Friday. Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his shock election victory in November and on Monday he described the US-Japan alliance as "rock solid". His six-day swing through Asia-Pacific also took him to the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia before his final stop in Vietnam. Climate projects and waste management were also included in Japan's aid package to Vietnam announced Monday. Vietnam has come under fire for failing to enforce environmental regulations, especially in the industrial sector. Last year, Taiwanese steel firm Formosa was blamed for a toxic waste dump that killed tonnes of fish along Vietnam's central coast. Returning Federer basks in 'special moment' at Australian Open Seventeen-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer said it was a "special moment" to return to the big stage as he passed a first-round test at the Australian Open on Monday. Federer, back in action after a six-month injury lay-off, downed his one-time junior rival Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in 2hr 6min on Rod Laver Arena. The Swiss 17th seed will now play American qualifier Noah Rubin in the second round. Switzerland's Roger Federer in action against Jurgen Melzer of Austria in the Australian Open first round in Melbourne on January 16, 2017 PETER PARKS (AFP) "A special moment walking out on the court. A special moment when you get to match point and when you win the match point," Federer said of his comeback. "I think those three components make it special when you're coming back. "It's already great to just be here, trying to play with the guys. I'm happy with the more relaxed attitude and also the success came easier." Federer, at 35, is bidding to become the second oldest man in the Open era to win a Grand Slam title after Australian Ken Rosewall. Asked about the constant debate about his eventual retirement, Federer said: "It doesn't surprise me because I've been talking about retirement for seven years. "Naturally that's the perfect opening for people to ask that question yet again, think to themselves, 'Why more?' I get it. It's fine. I'll keep answering it." Federer, playing in his 69th major, has dropped to 17th in the world rankings after a knee injury restricted him to just seven Tour events last year. Federer dropped out of the world's top 10 rankings for first time in 734 weeks or over 14 years last November and his ranking is at its lowest position since May 2001. He fell behind to an early break against Melzer in the opening set but once he gained his playing rhythm he broke back and then again in the 11th game. Melzer, who grew up in the juniors with Federer, levelled the match taking the second set. But the Swiss legend whipped through the third set in 28 minutes with the Australian crowd cheering his every winning point. Trial of Ugandan LRA warlord Dominic Ongwen resumes in The Hague Former child soldier-turned-warlord Dominic Ongwen was back in the dock Monday as the first witness appeared in the trial of the Ugandan ex-commander of the Lord's Resistance Army due to last several years. Abducted as a child and pressed into the ranks of the LRA, Ongwen has denied "in the name of God" 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity brought against him at the International Criminal Court. In December, the former LRA commander became the first-ever member of the notorious rebel group led by Joseph Kony to go on trial at the tribunal in The Hague, for his role in terrorising parts of northern Uganda between 2002 and 2005. Dominic Ongwen, a former commander in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), pictured at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, on December 6, 2016 Peter Dejong (ANP/AFP/File) The first member of the Lord's Resistance Army to be tried at the ICC, Ongwen, said to be in his 40s, also became the first former child soldier to go before judges at the ICC in what will be a highly-watched case likely to set legal precedent. "I am not the LRA. The LRA is Joseph Kony who is the leader," Ongwen told the court in December. A Catholic, Kony, came from a family which was said to be possessed by spirits, "a potentially frightening thing" for others around him, witness Tim Allen, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, told the court, as he gave a sombre account of the militia's bloody history. A self-styled mystic and prophet, Kony launched a rebellion against Kampala some three decades ago seeking to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments on northern Uganda. The UN says it has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children since it was set up in 1987. Allen said many people were fearful of Kony and his "unpredictability" and they were "brutally abducted and forced to see and do terrible things." Kony remains at large, believed to be hiding in the jungles of the Central African Republic, after Ongwen surrendered to US special forces in January 2015. Defence lawyers said he feared for his life and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Hamas slams 'absurd' Paris peace conference Islamist movement Hamas rejected Monday the outcome of a Paris conference on Israeli-Palestinian peace, labelling the summit "absurd." "The Paris conference is a return to the absurd negotiation approach, which lost the rights of the Palestinian people and gave legitimacy to the Zionist entity on Palestinian land," Fawzy Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, said in a statement. Hamas rules the Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas controls the West Bank and is the partner for peace negotiations with Israel and the West. Islamist movement Hamas dismissed the results of the Paris peace conference (pictured), calling it "absurd" on January 16, 2017 Betrand Guay (POOL/AFP/File) Barhoum called for the various Palestinian factions to unite on a "national strategy" around the "resistance in defence of our people." Around 70 countries attending Sunday's talks in Paris agreed a joint statement supporting an independent Palestinian state as part of a negotiated settlement with Israel. The statement warned Israel and the Palestinians against "unilateral steps" that could threaten a two-state solution, but included no serious enforcement mechanisms. Zimbabwe priest held over Mugabe death prophecy Zimbabwe police on Monday detained a pastor who claimed that veteran President Robert Mugabe, who turns 93 next month, would die in October, his lawyer said. Gift Mtisi said Pastor Patrick Mugadza was arrested at the magistrates court in Harare where he was appearing on separate charges of wearing the national flag and charged over the prophecy made last week about Mugabe's demise. "He was appearing at the court on a different matter when police arrested him during a break and charged him over the prophecy," Mtisi told AFP. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe speaks at the party's annual conference on December 17, 2016 in Masvingo Jekesai NJIKIZANA (AFP/File) "He was initially charged with undermining the authority of the president and the charge was later changed to insulting people of a certain race or religion." Mugadza, who is based in the northern resort town on Kariba held a press conference last week where he announced that Mugabe would die on October 17. Poking fun at Mugabe or making predictions about him is a risky business in Zimbabwe, which has a law that forbids "undermining the authority of or insulting the president." In 2015, Mugadza was arrested and detained for nearly a month after holding a placard telling Mugabe his people were suffering under his rule. On independence day last year he gave a sermon while tied to a lamppost in Harares main shopping mall saying the act symbolised the lack of freedom in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has been in power since independence from British colonial rule in 1980. His health has been subject of speculation as he makes frequent visits to the Far East for medical treatment. Mugabe has avoided naming a successor and his ZANU-PF party has been riven by factional fights between camps angling to succeed him. Europe, NATO hit back at Trump EU heavyweights Germany and France led a sharp European response to US President-elect Donald Trump Monday after he branded NATO "obsolete" and said more countries would leave the EU after Britain. In a hard-hitting interview with two European newspapers, Trump unleashed a volley of verbal attacks on Europe and criticised German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "catastrophic" decision to open Germany's borders to Syrian refugees. With fears growing in Europe over Trump's commitment to the transatlantic alliance and signs he will pivot towards Russia, Merkel warned that the continent now had to take responsibility for itself. With fears growing in Europe over Donald Trump's commitment to the transatlantic alliance and over signs he will pivot towards Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warns that Europe now has to take responsibility for itself Odd ANDERSEN, Joshua LOTT (AFP) "We Europeans have our fate in our own hands," Merkel told reporters in Berlin when asked about Trump's criticisms, adding that she will work towards getting the EU to strengthen the economy and fight terrorism. French President Francois Hollande's response to Trump's intervention was more blunt, insisting that the European Union "has no need for outside advice" on its affairs. - 'Astonishment and agitation' - Trump's latest remarks have in particular caused further consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow, following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily, on Friday. "Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said, referring to its Cold War, post-World War II origins. "Number two, the countries aren't paying what they're supposed to pay." On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States was not "reasonably reimbursed" for the costs of defending them -- a common source of friction in the US-led 28-nation alliance. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Europe was stunned by Trump's remarks on NATO, just five days ahead of the billionaire businessman's inauguration as president. "The interview statements of the American president-elect... caused, indeed here in Brussels, astonishment and agitation," Steinmeier said as he went from a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to talks with EU counterparts. Stoltenberg was "absolutely confident" in Trump's commitment to NATO, the alliance chief's spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said. Criticism of Trump's comments also came from Washington. Outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the president-elect had been wrong to criticise "courageous" German leader Merkel. - 'Catastrophic mistake' - Trump however further extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under Obama's outgoing administration over its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for suspected cyber attacks to influence the US election. "Let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia," Trump said, suggesting in vague terms a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow eased. In another comment that alarmed the Europeans, Trump refused to say that he trusted Merkel more than Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the next US president has often expressed admiration. "Well, I start off trusting both but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all," he said. Trump also directly criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants, insinuating that this posed a security risk following a wave of Islamic State jihadist attacks in Europe. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from," Trump said, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Trump went on to threaten punitive 35 percent tariffs on German carmakers like BMW if they build cars in Mexico and not the United States. - Brexit a 'great thing' - In other remarks, Trump said Brexit "is going to end up as a great thing", and he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain which would be "good for both sides". "We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on Friday. The British pound took a hit Monday after Britain said it might undercut the EU economically if it cannot obtain both single market access and immigration controls, with British media warning of a so-called "hard Brexit". "Other countries will leave" the EU in future, Trump predicted, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a surge in arrivals of migrants and refugees fleeing war in Syria and elsewhere. Mogherini however said it was "absolutely clear" that Britain could not start any trade talks with the United States until it leaves the bloc.burs-dk/bmm/pvh/mt NATO AFP (AFP) Spending has been a common source of friction within the 28-nation NATO alliance over recent years Vano Shlamov (AFP/File) Iran's historic agreement with world powers went into force on January 16, 2016, ending a 13-year standoff over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme Majid Asgaripour (Mehr News/AFP/File) News / Local by Mary Charamba Kariba-based cleric with the Remnant Pentecostal Church, Philip Mugadza who last week said that 92 year old President Robert Mugabe will die on October 17 has been arrested.Mugadza was reportedly picked up at the Magistrates court in Harare early today.The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights quickly dispatched Gift Mtisi to offer emergency legal services to Mugadza.In his prophecy, Mugadza said "I just want to tell you something concerning the year 2017." It is a very special year because of number SEVEN and at the same time also, 2017 collides with 37 years by which Zanu PF has been ruling this beautiful nation of Zimbabwe, but something is going to be happening also, which is very critical for us to know".He added, "It was on the 26th of December 2016 when I was in prayer and God said to me this coming year 2017 the President is dying and he told me that he is dying on 17th of October, like I said earlier on that I am not happy for somebody to die but, this is something that is going to happen".His arrest come as Zanu PF political commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere was today quoted saying prophets in Zimbabwe were becoming reckless and careless with their pronouncements.He said they should "stop the behaviour or they will force government to act". Gambia top judge pulls out of inauguration challenge The Gambia's top judge on Monday pulled out of hearing a bid by President Yahya Jammeh to halt the inauguration of president-elect Adama Barrow later this week, in a blow to the incumbent head of state. The small west African country has been plunged in political turmoil since Jammeh disputed Barrow's December election victory and refused to cede power. Jammeh has lodged a challenge to the election result with The Gambia's Supreme Court and last week filed a fresh injunction to prevent the chief justice from swearing Barrow into office. Gambia's President-elect Adama Barrow in his office in Serekunda on December 11, 2016 SEYLLOU (AFP/File) But on Monday Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said he could not hear the new case, dealing a blow to Jammeh's efforts to halt Thursday's inauguration. "Given that the injunction affects me in my capacity as the chief justice, I will recuse myself from hearing it," he said. "The motion therefore waits for the constitution of the Supreme Court or allow the judges to arrive in The Gambia." Edward Gomez, a lawyer for Jammeh's party, conceded it was "certainly not possible under these circumstances" to have an injunction barring Barrow from being sworn in. The Gambia relies on foreign judges, notably from Nigeria, to staff its courts due to a lack of its own trained professionals. Last week the Supreme Court said Jammeh's challenge to the election result could not be heard for several months as it did not have a full bench, and the extra judges needed to hear the case were not available. - High tensions - Barrow is in Senegal, where he plans to remain until the inauguration on Thursday. On Monday his special advisor Mai Fatty read a statement on his behalf in Dakar, urging Gambians to "exercise restraint, observe the rule of law and not to respond to provocation". A personal tragedy struck Barrow on Sunday when his eight-year-old son Habibou died after being bitten by dogs, according to a family source. With tensions running high, Jammeh said on Sunday that he had spoken to Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and was adamant he would not budge until the Supreme Court had heard his challenge to the poll result. "The so-called deadline of 19th January 2017 is not cast in stone and all parties shall await the outcome of the Supreme Court," he said on state television. Leaders of neighbouring countries and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) have repeatedly called on the long-serving strongman to leave office peacefully, so far to no avail. As well as Sirleaf, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Ghana's ex-president John Mahama have appealed to Jammeh to step down twice in person, without success, most recently on Friday. Barrow was the surprise guest at a Bamako summit over the weekend, where he was welcomed as a head of state and introduced to several world leaders. The prospect of military intervention in The Gambia has even been floated in recent days, following declarations by the United Nations and African Union that boots on the ground could get the green light without a rapid resolution of the crisis. The head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel said on Friday that ECOWAS would ask the Security Council to approve the deployment of troops to The Gambia if Jammeh continues to refuse to leave office. UN envoy meets with Yemen president as war toll hits 10,000 A UN envoy held talks with Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi on Monday as the United Nations said the death toll from the war had reached 10,000. The envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, was in Aden for the meeting that focused on a return to a ceasefire and to political talks to end the nearly two-year war. The United Nations said the civilian death toll in fighting since a Saudi-led force intervened in March 2015 had reached 10,000, up from the previous figure of 7,000. The United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed speaks during a press conference ahead of his departure at Sanaa international airport, on November 7, 2016 MOHAMMED HUWAIS (AFP/File) The higher toll "underscores the need to resolve the situation in Yemen without any further delay," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq. "There is a huge humanitarian cost." Ould Cheikh Ahmed is hoping to revive peace prospects in Yemen after Hadi rejected his proposed roadmap. He is due to report to the UN Security Council later this month. The roadmap provides for a new unity government in Yemen and a rebel withdrawal from the capital and other cities. "A peace agreement, including a well-articulated security plan and the formation of an inclusive government, is the only way to end the war that has fueled the development of terrorism in Yemen and the region," Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement. "I asked the president to act swiftly and engage constructively with the UN's proposal for the sake of the countrys future." "The current political stalemate is causing death and destruction every day. The only way to stop this is through the renewal of the cessation of hostilities followed by consultations to develop a comprehensive agreement." Under the proposal, Hadi's powers would be dramatically diminished in favor of a new vice president who would oversee the formation of the interim government that will lead a transition to elections. The envoy has been holding talks in the Gulf region in recent weeks, including in Riyadh, where he met with Yemen's central bank governor to ease a cash crisis in rebel-held areas. One of the poorest countries in the Arab world, Yemen slid deeper into chaos when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to push back the rebels who had seized Sanaa and other parts of the country. Morocco parliament elects speaker in absence of new govt Morocco's parliament elected a new speaker on Monday, three months after elections that left the country, which aims to rejoin the African Union, without a government. Sole candidate Habib el-Malki, a leftist economist who has held several ministerial posts, mustered 198 votes in the 395-seat house, in a plenary session broadcast live online. King Mohammed VI has called on parliament to ratify laws by Friday to clear the way for Morocco's return to the African Union at a summit in Addis Ababa at the end of January, according to legislators. This image shows a general inside view during a session at the Moroccan parliament, where a new speaker was elected on January 16, 2017 in absence of a new government Saudi 'optimistic' about Trump's rule: foreign minister US ally Saudi Arabia is "optimistic" about Donald Trump's impending presidency, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Monday, hailing Trump's stern line on arch-Saudi rival Iran and promise to defeat the Islamic State group. "When we look at the Trump administration's view as articulated -- wanting to restore America's role in the world -- we welcome this," Jubeir told a group of reporters during a visit to Paris. "Wanting to defeat ISIS: absolutely. Wanting to contain Iran and prevent it from causing mischief through its negative policies in the region: absolutely, we have been calling for this for years," he said. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir (R) speaks with the Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa (C) on January 15, 2017 THOMAS SAMSON (POOL/AFP) "Our interests align," he said, declaring that Washington and Riyadh also shared the same objectives on Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, terrorism and "energy issues". Netanyahu slams 'unprecedented' media campaign amid graft probe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been questioned by police in a corruption probe, on Monday denounced an "unprecedented" media campaign to bring down his government. Police have questioned Netanyahu in a probe into whether he unlawfully received gifts from wealthy supporters. They are also looking into a recording of a conversation he had with the owner of top-selling Yedioth Aharonot newspaper about getting favourable coverage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on January 15, 2017 RONEN ZVULUN (POOL/AFP/File) Israeli media have leaked several details about the investigations, including a report by Channel 2 television on the alleged conversation between Netanyahu and Yedioth owner Arnon Moses. The Channel 2 report alleged that the two discussed "a deal that would help Yedioth in return for favourable coverage (of Netanyahu)." The television said the essence of the talk between Netanyahu and Moses was the possibility of downsizing or closing the weekend supplement of Yedioth competitor Israel Hayom, which is pro-Netanyahu. In return, it added, Yedioth would tone down its coverage of Netanyahu. At the start of a Knesset, parliament, session Netanyahu lambasted Israeli media which he said "are pursuing an unprecedented campaign against me in order to bring down (my) Likud government". "Among other things the campaign is aimed at putting pressure on the attorney general so that he would convict me," said Netanyahu. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is also overseeing the probe into whether the prime minister illegally received gifts from wealthy supporters. On Monday, Mandelblit said during a meeting with students that he would not allow himself to be influenced by "the background noise of those who are trying to steer us from our goal". He also said he would not render public, at least for the time being, the recorded conversation between Netanyahu and Moses. Media reports say Netanyahu allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from wealthy supporters. The premier's wife is said to have also received valuable gifts. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, saying repeatedly that "there will be nothing because there is nothing". Uganda military denies Congolese rebels left camp Uganda's military on Monday denied that armed Congolese rebels sheltering in the country had crossed back into the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying they were still in their camp. The DRC government said Sunday that at least 200 former members of M23, a mostly ethnic Tutsi rebel group defeated by the Congolese army three years ago, arrived from Uganda and took over a village in North Kivu province. Government spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP the Congolese army was fighting two battalions installed in Ishasha village "who were supposed to be in Uganda under the responsibility of that country's authorities". The Democratic Republic of Congo said on January 15, 2017 that at least 200 former M23 (rebel group) members arrived from Uganda, though Uganda denied these allegations on January 16, 2017 Isaac Kasamani (AFP/File) Ugandan defence spokesman Major Henry Obbo said in a statement that the rebels were still at the Bihanga army camp some 320 kilometres (190 miles) west of the capital "where they have been since 2013." Congo's resource-rich eastern provinces have suffered years of brutal conflict, with neighbouring states backing rebel groups in a civil war against Kinshasa's authority, and roaming armed militia triggering the mass flight of terrorised civilians. In 2012 former members of a Tutsi militia who had integrated in the Congolese army mutinied, claiming that a peace deal signed on March 23, 2009 had not been respected. The M23 rebels wreaked havoc in the east, even managing to briefly seize the regional capital Goma. After its November 2013 defeat at the hands of Congolese and UN forces, M23 agreed to a plan to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate its soldiers into DRC civilian life. But the return of the former rebels has stalled, with fewer than 200 of the 1,900 sheltering in Uganda and only 13 out of hundreds left in Rwanda coming back. During the civil war Congolese authorities denounced Rwanda and Uganda for allowing the rebel groups to use their territory as staging grounds for attacks. More recently, they have blamed the states for "bad faith" for allowing "criminals to circulate freely" instead of extraditing them to stand trial in DR Congo. "We sympathise with DRC on issues of belligerents but they should not use M23 rebels in Uganda (when they) should be concentrating on their country", Uganda's Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem told AFP Sunday. Thousands rally to resist Republican health law repeal drive WARREN, Mich. (AP) Thousands of people showed up in freezing temperatures on Sunday in Michigan to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders denounce Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, one of dozens of rallies Democrats staged across the country to highlight opposition. Labor unions were a strong presence at the demonstration in a parking lot at Macomb Community College in the Detroit suburb of Warren, where some people carried signs saying "Save our Health Care." Lisa Bible, 55, of Bancroft, Michigan, said she has an autoimmune disease and high cholesterol. She said the existing law has been an answer to her and her husband's prayers, but she worries that if it's repealed her family may get stuck with her medical bills. Britt Waligorski, 31, and Mary Whitfield, 18, attend an Affordable Health Act rally on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2016, in Warren, Mich. Thousands of people showed up in freezing temperatures on Sunday in Michigan where Sen. Bernie Sanders called on Americans to resist Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, one of a number of rallies Democrats staged across the country to highlight opposition. (AP Photo/Corey Williams) "I'm going to get really sick and my life will be at risk," said Bible, an online antique dealer. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to overturn and replace the Affordable Care Act, and majority Republicans in Congress this week began the process of repealing it using a budget maneuver that requires a bare majority in the Senate. "This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. It is time we got our national priorities right," Sanders told the Michigan rally. The law has delivered health coverage to about 20 million people but is saddled with problems such as rapidly rising premiums and large co-payments. Britt Waligorski, 31, a health care administrator for a dental practice, said she didn't get health insurance through work but has been covered through the health law for three years. While the premiums have gone up, she said she is concerned that services for women will be taken away if it is repealed. "It's done a lot for women for their annual checkups, for mammograms -- women's health in general. If this gets repealed, we're going to go back to the old days when that's not covered," she said. At the rally in San Francisco, Silvia Pena, a 45-year-old nanny, said she had never had held insurance until she enrolled in the Affordable Care Act six years ago. "I don't have health issues, but you can need insurance any time. We should all have access to health services," said Pena, who held a sign that read "It's our right and our body. Keep Planned Parenthood and Obamacare." About 2,000 people cheered and held rainbow and American flags and signs that read "Don't Make America Sick Again" and "Health Care For All" at the rally. Patients who survived cancer, strokes and other health difficulties are sharing stories on how they benefited from the mandated health insurance. In Los Angeles, organizers of the rally outside the LA County/USC Medical Center warned that a repeal of the law without a replacement will throw the state's health care system into chaos and strip coverage from 5 million Californians. Rallies in other cities in support of the health law also were well attended. Police estimated about 600 people showed up in Portland, Maine. Hundreds also attended events in Newark, New Jersey, Johnston, Rhode Island, Richmond, Virginia and Boston. The health law has provided subsidies and Medicaid coverage for millions who don't get insurance at work. It has required insurers to cover certain services such as family planning and people who are already ill, and has placed limits on the amount that the sick and elderly can be billed for health care. Republicans want to end the fines that enforce the requirement that many individuals buy coverage and that larger companies provide it to workers. But they face internal disagreements on how to pay for any replacement and how to protect consumers and insurers during a long phase-in of an alternative. ___ This version of the story corrects Lisa Bible's age and the name of the community college in Michigan. ___ AP reporters Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey, Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, Collin Binkley in Boston, Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco and Chris Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this story. Lisa Bible is one of thousands supporters of the Affordable Care Act who turned out Sunday, Jan. 15, 2016, in Warren, Mich., to hear Democratic U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speak against Republican efforts to repeal the law. Bible has her health insurance through the law and worries that she may not be able to afford medical treatment if it's repealed. (AP Photo/Corey Williams) People wait for the start of a health care rally in Warren, Mich., north of Detroit, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. Thousands of people endured freezing temperatures at the rally in Warren, where Sen. Bernie Sanders called on Americans to resist Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obamas health care law. The rally was one of a number of rallies Democrats staged across the country to highlight opposition to the repeal efforts. (AP Photo/Corey R. Williams) Hundreds of people attend a rally in support of the Affordable Care Act, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017, at Portland City Hall, in Portland, Maine. Similar rallies took place around the country. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle) Hundreds of people attend a rally in support of the Affordable Care Act, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017, at Portland City Hall, in Portland, Maine. Similar rallies took place around the country. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks against the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act during a rally in San Francisco, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. It was one of dozens of rallies Democrats staged across the country to denounce Republican efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law. (AP Photo/Olga R. Rodriguez) Health care workers rally to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at podium, joins health care workers to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Rep. Hilda Solis, D-CA, joins health care workers at a rally to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Health care workers rally to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Californians join health care workers at a rally to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at podium, cheers health care workers to save the Affordable Care Act across the country outside LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017. The rally was one of many being staged across the country in advance of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20. Trump has promised to repeal and replace the health care law, and the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday passed a measure taking the first steps to dismantle it. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) Stark inequality: Oxfam says 8 men as rich as half the world DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, anti-poverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. It's urging leaders to do more than pay lip-service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last year's election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britain's vote to leave the European Union. In this Friday, Jan. 13, 2017 photo, workers unload bricks at a brick-making factory in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. As bricks continue to be used in construction throughout Myanmar, traditional craftsmen who produce hand-made bricks are facing competition from machine-made bricks which are produced more efficiently. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo, File) "It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the meeting in Davos. "Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy." The same report a year earlier said that the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. However, Oxfam has revised that figure down to eight following new information gathered by Swiss bank Credit Suisse. Oxfam used Forbes' billionaires list that was last published in March 2016 to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion. The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex, financier Warren Buffett, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. They include higher taxes on wealth and income to ensure a more level playing field and to fund investments in public services and jobs, greater cooperation among governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich don't dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfam's policy adviser, urged billionaires to "do the right thing," and to do "what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes." The ability of the rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called "Panama Papers," a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. "We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary," Lawson told The Associated Press. "That's crazy." It's because of this kind of inequality that trust in institutions has fallen sharply since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to Edelman, one of the world's biggest marketing firms. In its own pre-Davos survey of more than 33,000 people across 28 markets, Edelman found the largest-ever drop in trust across government, business, media and even non-governmental organizations. CEO credibility is at an all-time low and government leaders are the least trusted group, according to the survey. The firm's 2017 Trust Barometer found that 53 percent of respondents believe the current system has failed them in that it is unfair and offers few hopes for the future, with only 15 percent believing it is working. That belief was evident for both the general population and those with college education. "The implications of the global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging," said Richard Edelman, the firm's president and CEO. "It began with the Great Recession of 2008, but like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalization and technological change have further weakened people's trust in global institutions. The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites." Edelman highlighted how "the emergence of a media echo chamber" that reinforces personal beliefs while shutting out opposing views has magnified this "cycle of distrust." According to the survey, search engines are trusted more as an information tool than traditional news editors, 59 percent to 41 percent. "People now view media as part of the elite," said Edelman. "The result is a proclivity for self-referential media and reliance on peers. The lack of trust in media has also given rise to the fake news phenomenon and politicians speaking directly to the masses." Edelman said business may be best-placed to help improve trust. Companies need to be transparent and honest with their employees about the changes taking place in the work-place, improve skills and pay fairly, he said. The online survey was conducted between Oct. 13 and Nov. 16, 2016. ___ Recent developments surrounding the South China Sea BANGKOK (AP) A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, home to several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. FILE - In this April 21, 2015 file photo, a U.S. Navy's amphibious assault vehicle with Philippine and U.S. troops on board storms the beach at a combined assault exercise at a beach facing one of the contested islands in the South China Sea known as the Scarborough Shoal in the West Philippine Sea at the Naval Education and Training Command at San Antonio township, Zambales province, northwest of Manila, Philippines. China is watching carefully whether the incoming U.S. administration will raise tensions in the region after Donald Trumps choice for secretary of state said last week the U.S. should deny Beijing access to its man-made islands. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File) ___ BAD CHOICE OF WORDS? In comments that could raise the stakes in the South China Sea, Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state said the U.S. should stop Beijing from constructing artificial islands and deny it access to them. "We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed," former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said during his Senate confirmation hearing. He compared China's island-building in the disputed waters to Russia's annexation of Crimea. The outgoing U.S. administration has challenged China by sending warships close to man-made islands on four occasions, but the talk of denying access to those features could significantly raise the risk of military confrontation. It wasn't clear if Tillerson was referring to the islands with a Chinese military presence already established or those like Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing wrested from the Philippines in 2012 but hasn't built on yet. Blocking China's access to the islands "could spark armed conflict," said Mark Fitzpatrick, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "I can't help but think that he did not mean it this way." A person familiar with deliberations inside the Trump transition team was aware of no such plans, raising the likelihood that Tillerson misspoke. Retired Gen. James Mattis told his own confirmation hearing for secretary of defense that China's militarization of the South China Sea posed a threat to the global order. Asked about Tillerson's comments, Mattis said the U.S. needed an integrated government approach to avoid an incomplete or incoherent strategy. He stressed the importance of freedom of commerce and nurturing U.S. alliances in the region. "The bottom line is that international waters are international waters and we have got to figure out how do we deal with holding on to the kind of rules that we have made over many years that led to the prosperity for many nations, not just for ours," Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee. China's Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper called Tillerson's statements "astonishing," while China Daily says they are not to be taken seriously "because they are a mish-mash of naivety, shortsightedness, worn-our prejudices, and unrealistic political fantasies." The outgoing secretary of state, John Kerry, said that China's assertiveness has tested "whether the U.S.-China relationship will be defined by our differences or by what we can achieve cooperatively." ___ CHINA ANALYSTS SEE U.S. CARRIER DEPLOYMENT TROUBLESOME The USS Carl Vinson battle group is on its way to the Western Pacific to augment the Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan a move seen by China analysts as a sign that Donald Trump's administration will ratchet up the U.S. military presence in the South China Sea. The Carl Vinson's deployment coincides with Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and the just-completed drills by China's sole aircraft carrier in and around the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. The combat exercises involving the Liaoning , including takeoffs and landings by J-15 fighter jets and helicopters, have been closely shadowed by both Taiwan and Japan as China's largest warship sailed past its nervous neighbors. The Nimitz-class carrier's dispatch "shows that the Pentagon, including the U.S. Navy, wants to extend Obama's Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy and further get involved in the West Pacific," Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, told the state-run Global Times newspaper. He said that facing pressure from the U.S., China needs to enhance building up of strategic forces and the construction of reefs and islands. "The waters are an effective maneuver to curb China, as 80 percent of China's crude oil imports come through the South China Sea. If the U.S. controls the waters, it will be a blow to China," he said. The U.S. emphasis on freedom of navigation through waters China considers its sovereign territory is likely to intensify under the Trump administration, the Global Times quoted Lin Zhiyuan, a scholar with the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, as saying. He believes the deployment of the Carl Vinson was a move by the Pentagon to disrupt potential talks between China and other claimants notably the Philippines on solving the disputes bilaterally. "Although the U.S. relationship with the Philippines is deteriorating, it will continue colluding with Australia and India, as well as strengthen ties with Singapore, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries, in the hope of joint patrols," he said. ___ BEIJING GRATEFUL PHILIPPINES WON'T RAISE ARBITRATION RULING China has welcomed the statement by the Philippines that it won't raise its arbitration victory against Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea during Southeast Asian summit talks hosted by Manila this year. "We are not going to raise this issue ... because there is really no useful benefit," Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said. "This is a matter that we will be raising with China at some future time in bilateral talks and to do and involve others in the discussion of this decision is just simply counter-productive for our purposes." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the disputes were never an issue between Beijing and the 10-member Association of Southeast Nations as a bloc, but rather individual claimants. Yasay said if any country would like to pursue their respective claims against China, "they can do so and perhaps use the decision of the arbitral tribunal as a precedent-setting case in pursuing the matter." Citing improved relations with China, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also put on hold a repair of a runway on Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island in the Spratlys, which is also claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. ___ Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington in Washington, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report. ___ A look at how Trump might shake things up in Asia BEIJING (AP) Donald Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established U.S. policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: ___ FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2017 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) TRADE Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. The pact was the centerpiece of the Obama administration's outreach policy to America's Asian partners known as "the pivot," which also involves a greater military commitment to the region. Obama said the TPP would allow the U.S. to impose higher labor, environmental and human-rights standards, as well as give U.S. businesses access to some of the fastest-growing economies. The deal would have slashed 18,000 taxes that other countries impose on American goods and services, but Congress failed to act amid skepticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Trump's opposition to free-trade agreements has fueled fears of protectionism and puts him at odds not only with U.S. trading partners but also with many in the Republican Party. Killing the TPP may open the way for other regional free-trade initiatives, including those pushed by rival China. "With the U.S. withdrawing from TPP, Japan will have to redesign its external economic policy," said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Other options "may not be easy," Takenaka said. ___ CHINA Trump raised China in speech after speech during his campaign, at times accusing the country of ripping America off in trade and threatening a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese imports. Things turned far more serious after his election win when he took a phone call from the president of self-governing Taiwan, upending four decades of diplomatic protocol barring such direct contacts. Critics accused him of ignoring the "one-China policy," long considered unassailable in China-U.S. relations, to which Trump responded by questioning why the U.S. should be bound by such an arrangement without economic incentives. He again touched on the issue in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, saying "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" While the Chinese government's response was muted, the official China Daily newspaper said he was "playing with fire." Trump has also criticized the Chinese military's island-building program in the South China Sea, and accused it of blocking U.S. imports through high taxes and manipulating its currency to the detriment of American exports. ___ ALLIANCES WITH JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA Trump raised eyebrows during the campaign when he appeared to question the inviolability of long-standing U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea, seen as bulwarks against North Korea's military threats and China's push for regional dominance. The two were included in a list of countries that Trump said he would be "respectfully asking ... to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them." During the campaign, Trump suggested Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons so the U.S. would no longer be burdened with the costs of defending them, a disquieting notion in many Asian capitals. But after Trump's election win, Japan's Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him, sitting down in Trump Tower with the business mogul and his daughter, Ivanka. Japan is concerned about how spill-over from China-U.S. conflicts might affect its economy and foreign relations, possibly compelling it to play a larger role in regional security, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. "Trump measures would be the top priority for Prime Minister Abe this year. The biggest question is that Trump is unpredictable," he said. ___ NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT Trump's approach to North Korea probably offers the least divergence from previous administrations, but he faces stark choices on countering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's missile threat. After Kim, announced in his annual New Year's address that the country had reached the "final stages" of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump responded by Twitter: "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!" Trump has not said how his approach to the North might differ from Barack Obama's, although his campaign's position paper talked of more "modern destroyers to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea." That would appear to indicate continued support for deploying the advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea, despite Chinese and Russian objections. Trump appears to be a firm believer that North Korea could be reined-in if only its sole significant ally China would tighten the screws. ___ INDIA AND PAKISTAN During the campaign, Trump was largely positive toward both India and Pakistan, even while he piled negative rhetoric on China and other nations. However, his threat to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has raised accusations of Islamophobia. In the days after his win, Trump appeared to follow in the well-trodden path of seeking a balance between the nuclear rivals albeit in his unorthodox style. A phone call between Trump and Pakistan's prime minister was remarkable mainly for the effusive praise he reportedly lavished on the struggling state. Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the battle against Islamic extremism but is also close to U.S. rival in Asia, China. In its readout of that call, Pakistan said Trump described the country as "amazing" and expressed a desire to visit something President Barack Obama did not do. India's national security adviser followed the Pakistan exchange with a low-key visit to Washington to meet with a senior Trump aide in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration. __ News / Local by Alice Dube Outgoing Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku today made stunning revelations that he received a fake Executive Order advising him to stop interviews for his replacement.Chidyausiku told puzzled guests at the official opening of the 2017 legal year in Harare.According to the top lawyer, he later discovered that the executive order was faked as President Robert Mugabe was in the dark about it.In his speech the Chief Justice said:"In light of the above, was surprised to receive communication a few days before the interviews were due to commence that an Executive order had been issued ordering the Judicial Service Commission to stop the interviews for filling the post of Chief Justice."I responded to the communication, advising that the Executive's directive could not be complied with without breaking the Constitution and that the interviews would proceed as planned and in terms of the Constitution."I have since established that the President never issued the alleged Executive order to stop the interviews..".When news of his shock revelation spread, as per norm, Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo took to twitter to express his views.He wrote "So JSC was sent a fake Executive Order in a desperate attempt to scuttle a constitutional process?" Whoever did that must account in Parly!".Chidyausiku is retiring from the Bench at the end of February, stepping down from the most powerful position in the judiciary after joining the Supreme Court in March 2001.He has reached the 70-year mandatory retirement age. Muted reaction in Russia to Trump's talk of nuclear arms cut MOSCOW (AP) Suggestions by President-elect Donald Trump that sanctions against Russia could be lifted in exchange for a nuclear arms cut attracted a frosty reception in Moscow on Monday. In an interview with the Times of London published on Sunday, Trump indicated that he could end sanctions imposed on Russia in the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. Russia isn't so anxious to get the sanctions lifted that it is prepared to "sacrifice something, especially in what concerns security," said Konstantin Kosachev, the Kremlin-connected chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of parliament. FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2017 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Trump says his team will have a full report on hacking within 90 days, and is again dismissing as fake a document alleging Russia has damaging information about him. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Kosachev also told the RIA Novosti news agency that Trump's comments to the Times should be treated with caution because it wasn't an official statement, since Trump hasn't assumed office yet. Washington, along with the European Union, has imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Russia and travel bans for individuals following Moscow's annexation of Crimea and interference in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The latest round of U.S. sanctions came at the end of December. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, sounded similarly cautious with reporters in Moscow later in the day. "Let's wait until he assumes office before we give assessment to any initiatives," Peskov said. He added that Russia never raises the issue of sanctions in talks with its foreign counterparts and doesn't intend to do so because it's not up to Moscow to scrap them. Another influential Russian lawmaker, Alexei Pushkov, in a tweet late Sunday laughed off warnings of the CIA director about challenges that will follow lifting the sanctions. Speaking on Fox News, CIA Director John Brennan said on Sunday that in his opinion Trump doesn't have "a full understanding of Russian capabilities and the actions they are taking on the world." Pushkov replied on Twitter: "There aren't going to be any consequences. "Except for their proponents getting a heart attack." Supreme Court considers suit over 2001 detention of Muslims WASHINGTON (AP) Ahmer Abbasi speaks softly as he describes the strip searches, the extra shoves, the curses that he endured in a federal jail in Brooklyn following the Sept. 11 attacks. "I don't think I deserved it," Abbasi said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in Karachi, Pakistan. Abbasi's quiet, matter-of-fact tone belies his determination, even after 15 years, to seek justice in American courts provided the Supreme Court will let him. Ahmer Abassi talks to the Associated Press in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The Supreme Court on Wednesday is hearing an appeal from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI Director Robert Mueller and other former U.S. officials who want to shut down a lawsuit filed by human rights lawyers. The legal case is on behalf of Muslim men who were detained at a federal jail in Brooklyn after the Sept. 11 attacks. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) The justices on Wednesday are hearing an appeal from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI Director Robert Mueller and other former U.S. officials that seeks to shut down the lawsuit that human rights lawyers have filed on behalf of Abbasi and others over their harsh treatment and prolonged detention. "Somebody has to be accountable, somebody has to be responsible," said Abbasi, 42, who works in real estate in Pakistan. The former officials, including the top immigration enforcement officer and the warden and deputy warden at the New York City jail, say it should not be them. "Senior government officials should not be regularly second-guessed by lawsuits seeking money damages from them in their personal capacity," said Richard Samp, chief counsel at the Washington Legal Foundation and author of a brief from four former attorneys general. Abbasi was among more than 80 men who were picked up in the days and weeks following Sept. 11 on immigration violations. Until then, he said he had been "living the American dream" since coming from Pakistan in 1993. He was living in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan and driving a taxi in New York. He acknowledges he remained in the United States after he should have left and that he entered into a fraudulent marriage so he could get a coveted "green card" that would allow him to stay in the U.S. legally. He might never have been caught except for the terrorist attacks and the aggressive response of officials who wanted to be sure there would be no follow-on strikes. When he was arrested in late September 2001, Abbasi said he readily admitted he was in the country illegally and assumed he would be quickly deported. Instead, he was held for nearly 11 months, including more than four months in the most restrictive conditions. He was strip-searched frequently and allowed out of his cell for no more than a couple of hours a day. He was deported in August 2002. The Justice Department's inspector general produced two reports detailing problems with the detentions. The government settled an earlier suit involving five other men for $1.2 million. Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights will argue the Supreme Court case. Meeropol said the men she is representing were arrested without any evidence linking them to terrorism because they fit a profile in law enforcement's eyes. "They were a group of individuals who looked how they imagined the hijackers looked," Meeropol said. A divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the men were detained "as if they were terrorists, in the most restrictive conditions of confinement available, simply because these individuals were, or appeared to be, Arab or Muslim." The appeals court said that the suit could go forward because "the suffering endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately following 9/11 is not without a remedy." The case stems from a class-action suit originally filed in 2002. It's the third time the court has intervened in lawsuits against Ashcroft and others from Muslims who were arrested in the U.S. following the 2001 attacks. The justices have twice sided with Ashcroft. The odds that the court will come out differently this time are long, especially because only six justices will take part. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the New York-based federal appeals court that heard an earlier version of the case and Justice Elena Kagan worked on the issue when she served in the Justice Department. One seat on the nine-member high court has been empty since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February. Four justices a majority of those taking part on Wednesday voted to limit the ability to sue Ashcroft in the two earlier cases. Abbasi said he harbors no anger toward the United States. If anything, he misses his time there. His brother is an American citizen and his nephew recently graduated from Penn State. He said he tried to get a visa to attend the high court hearing. "I was denied for some reason," Abbasi said. So, too, were others who sought visas, Meeropol said. PICTURED: Migrants in Belgrade endure week in nasty weather BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. When the weather suddenly turned nasty before Orthodox Christmas Eve on Jan. 6, temperatures plummeted way below 0 C (32 F) and a cold wind pushed into every corner of the makeshift migrant shelter. Men and boys occupying the sprawling complex a vast crumbling building with few windows or doors found themselves in danger of exposure while aid groups scrambled to help. In this Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017 photo, a migrant washes himself outside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a makeshift shelter in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. When the weather suddenly turned nasty it sent temperatures plummeting way below zero and cold wind started to blow pushing into every corner of make-shift migrant shelter. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) Wrapped in blankets, migrants huddled next to each other, desperately trying to warm up by the fires they lit inside and outside the warehouse. A search for firewood became a morning routine migrants chopped branches from frozen trees or burned old wooden railway tiles they picked from the abandoned tracks by the warehouse. Thick, choking smoke filled the warehouse. Migrants said two people have been hospitalized with respiratory problems from inhaling the smoke. Muhammad Yusuf Navid from Afghanistan said he couldn't sleep at night: "It is too bad, too cold. I did not sleep for one hour." At lunchtime every day, hundreds of migrants lined up, with a blizzard brushing wind and snow against their faces, to receive a warm meal distributed by aid groups. Holding plastic dishes, the men looked for a quiet corner or squatted in the snow to eat the meal of cooked cabbage or beans. Some melted the snow to wash themselves despite the freeze. Migrants appealed to European nations to open their borders graffiti on one wall of the Belgrade warehouse reads: "The problem is borders." ___ Darko Vojinovic is The Associated Press' chief photographer in Belgrade. Follow Darko Vojinovic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apdarkov In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, a migrant warms up by a fire inside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, migrants squat in the snow as they eat warm meals distributed by aid groups as others queue for their portion outside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a makeshift shelter in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, two migrants carry a wooden railway track to use as firewood inside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017 photo, migrants queue for food in front of an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, a migrant walks through a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men wishing to reach Western Europe, in Belgrade, Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, a migrant passes by a graffiti reading "The problem is borders" on a wall of a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017 photo, a migrant eats donated food in front of an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017 photo, migrants wash themselves outside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a makeshift shelter in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017 photo, a migrant shaves himself inside a warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. Wrapped in blankets, people huddled next to each other desperately trying to keep warm by the fires they lit inside and outside the building.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017 photo, migrants queue for food in front of an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, migrants sleep inside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. Wrapped in blankets, people huddled next to each other desperately trying to keep warm by the fires they lit inside and outside the building.(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017 photo, a migrant walks outside a crumbling warehouse that has served as a make-shift shelter for hundreds of men trying to reach Western Europe in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 photo, migrants warm themselves by the fire in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017 photo, a migrant stands in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. It was a week in frigid hell for hundreds of migrants squatting in an abandoned warehouse in the Serbian capital of Belgrade while trying to move on toward Western Europe. When the weather suddenly turned nasty it sent temperatures plummeting way below zero and cold wind started to blow pushing into every corner of make-shift migrant shelter. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) Saudi's Flynas to buy 80 Airbus A320neo planes in $8.6B deal DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Airbus says it has agreed to sell a total of 80 A320neo planes to Saudi Arabian low-cost airline Flynas in a deal worth $8.6 billion. The agreement announced Monday includes a new order for 60 of the single-aisle aircraft and upgrades an existing order for 20 of the less-advanced A320ceo model. The value of the 60 additional planes alone is $6.4 billion at list prices, though airlines typically negotiate discounts for large orders. Riyadh-based Flynas is a low-cost airline previously known as Nas Air that flies to domestic Saudi and regional destinations. Oman says it accepts 10 Guantanamo Bay detainees DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Oman said Monday it accepted 10 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had accepted the prisoners at Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners. "In consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 persons have been released from detention and arrived in the sultanate today for a temporary residence," the statement said. FILE - In this June 7, 2014, file photo, the entrance to Camp 5 and Camp 6 at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center, at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, it accepted 10 inmates from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. There was no immediate word from the U.S. Defense Department about the transfer. (AP Photo/Ben Fox, File) The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to questions about the transfer. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity as the transfer had yet to be publicly announced by the U.S., confirmed the prisoners had been sent to Oman. The official declined to elaborate. The Omani Embassy in Washington said it had no other information about the transfer. The U.S. Embassy in Muscat declined to immediately comment. The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Neighboring Saudi Arabia took four prisoners earlier this month and the United Arab Emirates took 15 in the largest-single transfer during Obama's administration in August. Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, remains in the grip of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels making returning Guantanamo detainees there impossible. Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obama's presidency. Obama has been unable to fulfil promises to close the facility in part because of congressional opposition to transferring any of the detainees to U.S. prisons. Congress ultimately banned the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil for any reason. Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Friday as America's 45th president, said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but "load it up with some bad dudes." That's put pressure on the Obama administration to find places to send as many of the prisoners abroad as possible this week. The U.S. began using its military base on southeast Cuba's isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on Jan. 11, 2002. At its peak, 18 months later, the facility held nearly 680 detainees. There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge. A September report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said 122 of 693 detainees transferred out of the prison, or 17.6 percent, returned to fighting. An additional 86 detainees are suspected of having returned to the battlefield, according to the report. The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. ___ Associated Press writer Ben Fox in Miami contributed to this report. ___ Head of Poland's ruling party to reprimand Germany's Merkel WARSAW, Poland (AP) Poland's most powerful politician said Monday that he would tell German Chancellor Angela Merkel during an upcoming visit that she has some responsibility for what he sees as the German media's critical and harmful opinion of Poland. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ruling party leader who holds no government office but dictates the government's conservative and populist policies, expects to meet Merkel when she visits Warsaw on Feb. 7 for talks with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. Kaczynski backs the pursuit of more independence within the European Union and of raising Poland's profile internationally. The Law and Justice party took power in late 2015. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, center, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, speaks with lawmakers during a parliament session after opposition lawmakers ended their protest in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. The parliament session hall was occupied by opposition lawmakers in a protest against the budget vote that was according to them illegal. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) In a Monday interview on Radio Szczecin, Kaczynski said that he finds it "very worrying" that German media criticize neighboring Poland. He thinks that the media are "loyal" to Merkel's government, which he says makes her share some responsibility for the criticism. "I will have to tell the chancellor that Germany should decide what kind of relations it wants to have with Poland, because one cannot attack Poland, question its reputation and at the same time expect bilateral relations to be good," Kaczynski said. Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin that Germany wanted to maintain a "very good and close German-Polish relationship," but that that required "talking with each other, not about each other." He stressed that the "press freedom and the freedom of the press to report is an important part" of European values that Germany is following. Germany's leading daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said on Jan. 2 that Poland is a problem because the government is pursuing its own values and subordinating state bodies to its goals. The newspaper predicted Germany's relations with Poland would grow increasingly difficult. Kaczynski said that the talks would also focus on negotiations with Britain about terms on which it will be leaving the EU. Kaczynski said Poland wants Britain to stay as close to the club as possible and eventually return to it as a full member. He believes Poland could play an important role in the negotiations. The Radio Szczecin interview also touched on his view that adult cats shouldn't be given milk to drink and his preference for white wine from the Mosel region. ___ David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party speaks to journalists in the parliament in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017. The parliament's session hall is occupied by a group of opposition lawmakers as they continue a protest since Dec.16, 2016 against the policies of the ruling Law and Justice party, causing delay of the first session of 2017. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) Obama made Kenyan artist's name, but Trump portraits fizzle NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) Kenyan artist Evans Yegon is sad to see President Barack Obama leave office. The artist has made a name for himself painting $1,000 portraits of Obama and he's finding the new focus of his work Donald Trump a hard sell. Obama's presidency electrified Kenyans, who are proud that his father was a Kenyan. Thousands thronged Obama's visit to the country as president in 2015. Many express sadness at the impending end of Obama's time in office. "Simple: Obama is a sort of miracle of the century," journalist Ochieng Ogodo posted on Facebook. In this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016, Kenyan artist Evans Yegon displays one of his paintings of Donald Trump, as a painting of President Barack Obama hangs on the wall, left, at his studio in Nairobi, Kenya. Yegon is sad to see President Barack Obama leave office. The artist has made a name for himself painting $1,000 portraits of Obama and he's finding the new focus of his work, Donald Trump, a hard sell. (AP Photo/Jo Mwihia) While Trump is an interesting subject with his facial expressions and persona, Yegon said he has struggled to find buyers for his paintings of the president-elect. "Even if you are a Donald Trump supporter, you don't want to make it public," Yegon said. "I painted him because he is hated and he is loved." Yegon has sold just one Trump painting, to an American client, of the 10 he has painted so far. He said he sold 28 of the 30 Obama paintings he made during the outgoing president's second term. Women's march in DC an echo of the past WASHINGTON (AP) Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, German actress Hedwig Reicher wearing costume of "Columbia" with other suffrage pageant participants standing in background in front of the Treasury Building in Washington. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) So notable was the women's suffrage parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on March 3, 1913, that Wilson slipped into town almost unnoticed on the eve of his swearing-in, forced to travel back alleys to reach his hotel. "Scarcely a score of persons noticed his automobile as it whizzed through the silent streets, and only a few applauded him as he reached his hotel," The New York Times reported at the time. Meanwhile, more than 5,000 women marched from the Capitol to the steps of the Treasury Department in a parade that featured nine bands, four mounted brigades and two dozen floats. The procession proved so pivotal in the struggle to give women the right to vote that it will be depicted on the back of the new $10 bill scheduled to be issued in 2020 100 years after women won the vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. This year, more than a century later, throngs of woman on Saturday will march a route similar to the suffragists' in an echo of the past. Women still are seeking a stronger voice in society as a new president is inaugurated who repeatedly demeaned women during his election campaign. The marchers' mission statement pledges: "We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society." The 1913 women's march, timed to get maximum publicity by coinciding with the inauguration, was not without controversy. According to the Library of Congress' American Memory archives, crowds in town for the inauguration mostly men surged into the streets and made it difficult for the marchers to pass, forcing them to go single file at times. Women were jeered, tripped, shoved and spat upon, and police did little to assist them or quell the unrest. Some 100 marchers were taken to the hospital with injuries. The participants included Helen Keller, the deaf and blind political activist and author. She was so unnerved by the disruptions that she was unable to speak later that day at Continental Hall. Secretary of War Henry Stimson authorized a troop of cavalry to help control the crowd, according to the archives. The treatment of the women by the crowd and police led to congressional hearings and the ouster of the District of Columbia's police chief. "If I had had a policeman's billy, I would have got that crowd back," one suffragist testified at the hearings, The Times reported. The controversy ultimately worked to the women's advantage, producing broad and sympathetic press coverage for their cause. ___ Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/nbenac In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain rides astride suffrage parade in Washington as the first of four mounted heralds. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, four women march ahead of large procession with the banner "We demand the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment" at the woman suffrage parade in Washington. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 19193, women suffragists marching on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, led by Mrs. Richard Coke Burleson, center on horseback, with the Capitol in background. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, shows parade and enormous crowd on Pennsylvania Ave. looking toward Capitol past old Post Office, in Washington. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, a crowd gathers around a Red Cross ambulance during the women's suffrage procession in Washington. Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (Library of Congress via AP) Berlin lawmaker with Stasi secret police past resigns job BERLIN (AP) A lawmaker in Berlin's new state government has resigned his position over his past with communist East Germany's Stasi secret police, saying he no longer had the support of the left-wing governing coalition. Andrej Holm, an independent, said on his website Monday he would step down as deputy construction minister because "in recent days, the Social Democrats and Greens have made clear they do not support me politically." The two parties make up the new government with the Left Party, which has its roots in the former East German communist party and runs the construction ministry. Biden: Trump should retain sanctions on Russia KIEV, Ukraine (AP) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a last foreign trip before leaving office, has met with Ukraine's president and called on the impending Donald Trump administration to retain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. Biden's comments Monday at a briefing with President Petro Poroshenko came after Trump indicated in a Times of London interview that he could end sanctions imposed in the aftermath Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. "The Crimea-related sanctions against Russia must remain in place until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine," Biden said. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko smile at the media during a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Other U.S. sanctions are connected to Russia's involvement in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine. Biden said that Russia must fulfill its obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement on ending that conflict. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko shake hands during a joint press conference in in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko give a joint statement to the press in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pose for a photo after a joint press conference in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko go for talks during Biden's visit in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden steps out from his car upon arriving to the Ukrainian Presidential office in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko smile at cameras during a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wave at the media during their meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman during a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman pose for a photo during a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) News / National by Staff reporter LAWYERS representing Lebanese businessman Jamal Ahmed insist that First Lady Grace Mugabe invaded their client's private property and is now using "rogue elements in the Zimbabwe Republic Police" to shield herself over a US$1,35 million diamond ring scandal.In a letter dated January 11 2017 and addressed to the Police Headquarters legal department, Beatrice Mtetwa poked holes in the court submissions by President Robert Mugabe's wife and the police. Mtetwa argued that the illegal occupants at Ahmed's houses are acting on behalf of Grace, and querying why the police had not divulged that they had occupied the houses when the Sheriff of the High Court requested a police escort in his bid to evict the occupiers.She also questioned why the occupants of the houses had referred them to the First Lady and her son Russell Goreraza."A provisional order per the attached copy was granted by the High Court on the 21st (of) December 2016 for the forthwith eviction of all those who occupy our clients' premises," wrote Mtetwa."Although the Sheriff was requested to effect the eviction as at 4th (of) January 2017, he has regrettably not done so under the subterfuge that he awaited the provision of escorts from the Officer Commanding District Harare (Dispol Harare)."Police escort was sought after Grace's security personnel allegedly threatened to shoot the Sheriff of the High Court, Macauff Madega, when he delivered an eviction order to the First Family's Blue Roof palace in the Helensvale area of Borrowdale suburb on December 22 last year.Madega last week wrote a letter to the Officer Commanding Harare requesting police escort in his bid to evict the illegal occupants of Ahmed's premises."We hereby seek police assistance to enforce the attached writ and order. We want to carry out the ejectment of the occupants of 409 Harare Drive Pomona, 18 Cambridge Road Avondale and 75 King George Road Avondale," wrote Madega.Mtetwa said "whilst awaiting the eviction, we received, on the 10th (of) January opposing papers meant for the return.""These opposing papers include affidavits from Superintendent Kennedy Fero, the 3rd respondent in the High Court application and one from Superintendent Nyambo Viera of the Criminal Investigation Law and Order," she wrote."As gleaned from these affidavits, Fero claims that our clients' properties were occupied in terms of directives he received from his superiors within the police force and that our clients' staff and other occupants of the said premises were removed from the premises for their own security and safety."Regrettably, his affidavit does not state the law under which he acted which allows the police to literally take over private property without any form of due process and to evict occupants without any form of due process and without explaining the reasons for this."Mtetwa also stated that following the receipt of instructions from their clients, she addressed letters to respondents and the occupants of various properties on November 23 2016."Those occupying No. 409 Harare Drive refused to open the gate to the premises other than to refer us to Russell Goreraza and the First Lady. None of these people identified themselves as members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police," Mtetwa wrote."From 409 Harare Drive we proceeded to 18 Cambridge Road and we were attended to by Obed William whose immediate superior was Kennedy Fero, one of the First Lady's bodyguards."Mtetwa also said when she requested Fero's phone number, she was furnished with it and immediately called him."We called Fero advising that our client had been left with no choice but to litigate and whether he and his principal, the First Lady, appreciated the bad publicity which would follow such unnecessary litigation. During this conversation Fero did not at any stage advise that the First Lady had nothing to do with the occupations. Neither did he advise that the premises had been occupied as a result of police action," the letter reads."Instead he pleaded with us to convince our client to refund the US$1 350 000 and that the properties would be vacated on receipt of payment. We pointed out that the occupation was unlawful and that the First Lady could not force the payment of the money through illegal occupations."If Fero had been acting in terms of a police investigation and the occupation was at the instance of the police, he most certainly would have advised me about this and he would not have ventured into issues related to the dispute between our client and the First Lady. That he made no reference to the police and their now claimed investigations coupled with the fact that I was not referred to Superintendent Viera speak volumes about the newly invented claims."In the letter, Mtetwa also states: "Instead, within hours of speaking to Fero I was called by a go-between who interceded on behalf of the First Lady requesting for an amicable and private settlement of the matter, a request that was acceded to and a draft agreement specifically included that the First Lady would cause her agents who were occupying the premises to "immediately vacate such properties"."This clause in the agreement was not in any way contested and it was only after the provisional order had been granted that the go-between only requested a change to the repaying terms so that US$650 000 would be paid as the first instalment.Mtetwa went further to say: "Even at this late stage, nothing was said about the occupation having been at the instance of the police as a result of whatever investigations they might have been conducting."In Grace's opposing affidavits, Viera states that he has been investigating Ahmed for months."The investigations of this individual have been ongoing for some months and are wide ranging," he said."What is under investigation are allegations of theft, fraud, property acquisitions, money laundering, contravention of exchange control laws, his immigration status, purchase of minerals, loans he acquired and generally all those he might have done business with locally and the role each of the people might have played to facilitate his illegal activities," reads the affidavit. Viera's affidavit also states that: "While carrying out investigations which are advanced and which include the protection of properties under his portfolio in various vehicles, we came to learn of the theft/fraud he perpetrated against the First Lady."Coupled with all the other investigation material at hand, we applied and got a warrant of arrest against this individual. We alerted Interpol to assist us in extraditing him from any country he might be residing presumably Belgium, Dubai or Europe in general."However, Mtetwa is emphatic that Grace is using the police to shield herself."We wish to make it very clear that we do not believe that the unlawful occupation of private property where occupants, including employees and their children were displaced, were at the instance of the police. In our respective view, these are attempts by a few rogue police officers to shield the First Lady and to sully the image of the police force," She stated in the letter."However, in the event that the police are indeed involved in the unlawful occupations and the displacements of innocent employees and their children, this constitutes a clear violation of the police duty to maintain law and order and to protect the lives and property of the people."That Harare Dispol had in fact been asked to provide the Sheriff to provide escorts to undertake the eviction can only serve to demonstrate that the latest version is fiction deliberately designed to frustrate a court order in violation of the constitutional mandate to enforce the law without fear or favour."Should the police therefore be responsible for these illegalities, we kindly request that our clients' premises be vacated forthwith and in any event within 24 hours of the delivery of this letter. We also request that the police pay damages for the unlawful occupation of the premises from the 14th of October to date of vacation of the premises."In addition there will be damages arising from the fact that our clients have not been able to conduct business since the 14th (of) October." As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation's first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters. In more than one venue Monday, speakers and attendees expressed reservations about President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration, some even raising the specter of the Ku Klux Klan. 'When men no better than Klansmen dressed in suits are being sworn in to office, we cannot be silent,' said Opal Tometi, a Black Lives Matter co-founder, told a crowd in Brooklyn. Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her fathers Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta four days before President-elect Donald Trumps inauguration. She also tweeted a heartfelt birthday message to her late father Opal Tometi speaks during Dr Martin Luther King's 88th birthday commemorated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music A man walks past Ebenezer Baptist Church where the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. preached Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, urged Americans during the service to honor her father's legacy regardless of who occupies the Oval Office James R. Johnson hands out programs before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta King's daughter offered a less direct message, encouraging 2,000 people at her father's Atlanta church to work for his vision of love and justice 'no matter who is in the White House.' Bernice King spoke at Ebenezer Baptist hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, met privately with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. The younger King described the meeting as 'productive.' Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 black voters in November after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, and tensions have flared anew with his recent criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, whom the president-elect called 'all talk' and 'no action.' Bernice King avoided a detailed critique of Trump, but said the nation has a choice between 'chaos and community,' a dichotomy her father preached about. 'At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go,' she said, later adding, 'We still have to find a way to create ... the beloved community.' She told Americans they would have to fight for her father's vision of love and justice 'no matter who is in the White House. ' The current Ebenezer pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, did not call Trump by name, but praised his predecessor. 'Thank you, Barack Obama,' he said. 'I'm sad to see you go.' An eternal flame burns at the gravesite of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr in Atlanta A man walks past Ebenezer Baptist Church, early Monday morning in Atlanta, before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemorative service A visitor snaps a photo at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington In South Carolina, speakers at a state Capitol rally said minority voting power has never been more important and some attendees expressed unease about Trump joining forces with Republican congressional majorities. 'It's going to be different, that's for sure,' said Diamond Moore, a Benedict College senior who came to the Capitol. 'I'm going to give Trump a chance. But I'm also ready to march.' In New York, Martin Luther King III told reporters that Trump pledged to be a president for all Americans, but King III added 'we also have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure' because 'it doesn't happen automatically.' Trump did not participate publicly in any Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances. President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama took part in a service project at a shelter in Washington. The Atlanta Hawks pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. covering the floor with his image during a pre-game video before an NBA basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks In this August 28, 1963, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his 'I Have a Dream' speech Back in Atlanta, Sen. Bernie Sanders brought the Ebenezer assembly to its feet with his reminder that King was not just an advocate for racial equality, but a radical proponent for economic justice a mission that put him at odds with the political establishment. 'If you think governors and senators and mayors were standing up and saying what a great man Dr. King was, read history, because you are sorely mistaken,' roared Sanders, who invoked the same themes from his failed presidential campaign. Sanders, who struggled to attract black voters in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Clinton, recalled King opposing the Vietnam War as exploiting the poor. He also noted King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he'd gone to rally striking sanitation workers, white and black. Activist priest Michael Pfleger, himself a self-described radical, built on Sanders' message with a 45-minute keynote message indicting the nation's social and economic order, which he said would get worse under Trump. The Chicago priest said 'white hoods' of the Klan 'have been replaced by three-piece suits.' He bemoaned high incarceration rates, a 'militarized, stop-and-frisk police state,' profligate spending on war and a substandard education system. As Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, left, holds the Phoenix MLK Torch Run flame, Tonia Robinson, center, takes a selfie as the two lead the participants in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march Audience members join hands while singing 'We Shall Overcome' during a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta Participants take to the streets for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march celebrating the life of the civil rights leader in Phoenix Members of the Wolfson High Army JROTC march in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Jacksonville, Florida Pfleger said many Americans too quickly dismiss violence in poor neighborhoods as the fault of those who live there, when the real culprit is a lack of opportunity and hope. 'If you put two lions in a cage and you don't feed them,' he said, 'one will kill the other in the pursuit of survival.' Warnock, meanwhile, zeroed in on Trump for his treatment of Lewis, now a Georgia congressman who represents most of Atlanta. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he views Trump as 'illegitimate' because of alleged Russian interference in the campaign. Trump retorted on Twitter that Lewis is 'all talk' and said his district is 'falling apart' and 'crime infested.' 'Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history,' Warnock said, notably declining to say the president-elect's name. People wait in line to enter the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. The museum is built in what was formerly the Lorraine Motel, and the balcony at upper left is marked with a wreath where King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 Visitors tour the Historic Ebenezer First Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached People attend the Martin Luther King Jr. Day march in Erie, Pennsylvania As a young man, Lewis was arrested and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Lewis was in Miami at King Day events. Some Republicans have defended Trump's criticism of Lewis, arguing it is inappropriate for a congressman to question an incoming president's legitimacy. Clara Smith, an Atlanta resident who came Monday to Ebenezer, scoffed at any GOP indignation, remembering that Trump for years questioned whether Obama was a 'natural born citizen' as the Constitution requires. 'He carried on with that knowing full well what he was doing' to the first black president, Smith, 66, said. Elsewhere, residents in Memphis are honoring King with neighborhood clean-up events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked the day by pedaling to sites connected to a historic visit King made to the city. Audience members join hands while singing 'We Shall Overcome' during a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church Churchgoer Yolanda Cox holds a church program with the depiction of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., during a service at the St. John Baptist Church in Camden, New Jersey 26 sentenced to death in Bangladesh for killing 7 people DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) A Bangladesh court on Monday sentenced 26 people, including a politician and three officials of an elite security battalion, to death in the grisly, politically motivated killings of seven people in 2014. Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain found the defendants guilty of abducting and killing the victims, including a senior official and a lawyer in the town of Narayanganj. Nine other defendants were sentenced to up to 17 years in jail. The main suspect, Nur Hossain, was found guilty of hiring a local commander and members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion to kill his rival to establish supremacy in local politics and business. Hossain was a ruling Awami League party member who allegedly controlled many establishments and illicit drug businesses in the town, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Dhaka. Three days after the victims went missing on April 27, 2014, their bodies began appearing floating in a river with their bellies sliced open. The killings shocked the nation, and the battalion came under a renewed focus after facing allegations of extrajudicial killings for years since it was formed in 2004 to fight serious crimes. The battalion consists of soldiers, police and other security personnel and has earned fame for dealing with Islamist militants in the Muslim-majority country, which has been facing threats of radicalism. Hossain fled to India shortly after the killings, but was arrested by Indian authorities and sent back to Bangladesh a year later. The court ruled that Hossain's main target was his political rival Nazrul Islam, a panel mayor in the local city corporation who was among those abducted and killed. But a lawyer filmed the abductions on the street, and the assailants then abducted the lawyer and his driver and killed them as well. Twenty-three of the defendants were present in the court for the sentencing, while the rest were tried in absentia. The area battalion chief, Lt. Col. Tarque Sayeed Mohammad, who was among those sentenced to death, is a son-in-law of a government minister. The verdict said he was responsible for planning and carrying out the abductions and murders. The defendants facing death also include an army major and a lieutenant commander. Trumping Trump? Democrat Cuomo courts 'middle-class anger' SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) An ambitious Democratic governor with possible White House aspirations has a formula for staying blue in the time of Trump: Take your progressive message directly to angst-ridden middle-class voters. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to break from tradition and roll out his state-of-the-state address in a series of speeches across the state this past week infuriated lawmakers he essentially bypassed. But his populist proposals, including free college tuition, expanded child care tax credits and a "buy American" plan, appear to have landed with at least some of his intended target. "It was a personal touch. When you're in Albany, you don't get the vibe and the feel of the people," said Syracuse steelworker Keith Odume, who attended Cuomo's speech and was particularly impressed with his plan to give American companies preference in state purchases. FILE- In this Jan 11, 2017 file photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers one of his state of the state addresses at SUNY Albany in Albany, N.Y. The ambitious Democratic governor with possible White House aspirations has a formula for staying blue in the time of Trump: Take your progressive message directly to middle-class voters. Cuomo's decision to break from tradition and roll out his state-of-the-state address in a series of speeches across the state infuriated lawmakers he essentially bypassed. But his populist proposals, including free college tuition, expanded child care tax credits and a "buy American" plan, appear to have landed with at least some of his intended target. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File) But some wonder just how sincere Cuomo really is, questioning whether his middle-class outreach formula that he defiantly posed as an alternative to Donald Trump is nothing more than the groundwork for a presidential run. And they question where this formula combining progressive social programs and big spending on airports, train stations and water infrastructure was during Cuomo's previous six years as governor. "He hasn't done anything for me," said Adam Kelley, an unemployed carpenter who was walking through downtown Syracuse as Cuomo delivered a speech nearby. Kelley said he is cautiously optimistic about Trump's presidency but less enthused about the governor. "This town was an industry town. There were jobs. Look at it now. It's empty. He hasn't done enough to fix that." New York is a deep blue state, where Hillary Clinton beat Trump by more than 20 percentage points. But take away New York City and liberal enclaves like Albany, Westchester County and Ithaca, and New York begins to resemble Ohio, Pennsylvania or Michigan: Rust Belt states that have lost jobs, population and, seemingly, their confidence. Leading Democrats around the country are struggling to respond following Trump's victory in November. Cuomo has been mentioned on some lists as a possible challenger in 2020. That speculation only intensified when Cuomo asked Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to join him in announcing his free-tuition plan, which would cover students attending public institutions whose families make $125,000 or less. "Politicians in both parties should have received the message loud and clear that the American public is not happy with the status quo," said James Campbell, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo whose most recent book examines America's political polarization. "But another lesson is that Americans want a somewhat more conservative government, less government. I'm not sure Gov. Cuomo's plans reflect that." During his time in office, Cuomo has worked to balance progressive victories on the minimum wage, paid family leave and same-sex marriage with more conservative efforts to cut taxes, cap government spending and invest billions in corporate subsidies for manufacturing and high-tech industry. "What makes our economic progress even sweeter, frankly, is that it has been matched by unprecedented social progress," Cuomo said in his speech on Long Island. "We talk about the anger in the election, and the roar that we heard in the election," Cuomo told another crowd on his tour. "That middle-class anger that's what we have to address." Cuomo's critics from both parties question the governor's true motives, given that he's famously the son of a former governor, the late Mario Cuomo, who long contemplated but never took the plunge into a presidential run. Western New York Assemblyman Steve Hawley, a Republican, said Cuomo's road trip was nothing more than a dry run for a presidential campaign. And an excuse to flee lawmakers, many of whom blame Cuomo for killing their first pay rise in 18 years late last year. Or as Ed Cox, chairman of the state Republican Party put it, "Andrew Cuomo would like to run away from New York state and go where his father didn't go to Washington." Others note that while Cuomo did take his message to the hinterlands, there were no stops in any of the 20 mostly rural counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican during the presidential election. Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi said Cuomo was treating those areas "like New York state's version of 'flyover country.'" FILE- In this Jan. 3, 2017, file photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders appear onstage together during an event at LaGuardia Community College in New York. Leading Democrats around the country are struggling to respond following Trump's victory in November. Cuomo has been mentioned on some lists as a possible challenger in 2020. That speculation only intensified when Cuomo asked Sanders to join him in announcing his free-tuition plan, which would cover students attending public institutions whose families make $125,000 or less. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) FILE- In this June 14, 2016 file photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, third from right, throws dirt in the air during a ceremonial ground breaking on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York. An ambitious Democratic governor with possible White House aspirations has a formula for staying blue in the time of Trump: Take your progressive message directly to angst-ridden middle-class voters. But some wonder just how sincere Cuomo really is, questioning whether his middle-class outreach formula that he defiantly posed as an alternative to Donald Trump is nothing more than the groundwork for a presidential run. And they question where this formula combining progressive social programs and big spending on airports, train stations and water infrastructure was during Cuomo's previous six years as governor. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File) Piccadilly Circus signboard goes dark for digital overhaul LONDON (AP) The lights have gone out at Piccadilly Circus. The famous electronic advertising signboard in central London went dark Monday for several months of renovation. It's the longest period of darkness since World War II, when the city's lights were turned off to confuse German bombers. The advertising screens at Piccadilly Circus, central London, after they were switched off in preparation for redevelopment Monday Jan. 16, 2017. The iconic lights have gone out so that the electronic hoardings can be replaced with a state-of-the-art screen measuring 790 square metres which is expected to be unveiled in the autumn. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP) The Piccadilly Circus signs were switched back on in 1949, and power cuts aside have only been dimmed to mark the funerals of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana. When the lights go back on in the autumn, six separate screens will be replaced with one giant digital screen, which can be used by a single advertiser or divided into sections. Property company Land Securities, which owns the site, says Coca-Cola and Samsung will be among brands advertising on the signboard when it reopens. A general view of the advertising screens at Piccadilly Circus, central London, Sunday Jan. 15, 2017, before they were switched off in preparation for redevelopment. The iconic lights have gone out so that the electronic hoardings can be replaced with a state-of-the-art screen measuring 790 square metres which is expected to be unveiled in the autumn. (Yui Mok/PA via AP) A view at Piccadilly Circus in London, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. The famous illuminated advertising boards at Piccadilly Circus are shown switched off for the first time since the the end of World War Two. The iconic lights have gone out so that the electronic hoardings can be replaced with a state-of-the-art screen measuring 790 square metres which is expected to be unveiled in the autumn. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) EU eyes UN-backed Syria conference in Brussels in April BRUSSELS (AP) The European Union wants to host a conference on the future of Syria this spring and is hoping that it can focus on rebuilding the war-torn country. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday that the preferred date for the meeting, to be held in tandem with the United Nations, would be in April. Mogherini said that the conference would come after the planned restart of the Geneva peace talks and "could be a moment for the international community to turn the page and start the reconstruction of Syria." EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, center, talks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, right and Belgium's Foreign Minister Didier Reynders during an EU foreign ministers meeting at the EU Council in Brussels on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) The conference, to be held in Brussels, would also take stock of whether international donors are respecting their pledges to Syria. The Latest: Kasich: Fix social problems 'bottom up' like MLK ATLANTA (AP) The Latest on celebrations across the country for Martin Luther King Jr. Day (all times local): 7:15 p.m. Ohio's governor says Americans shouldn't focus so much on the highest-level people when there are ways to tackle many societal problems at the local and individual levels. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama help paint a mural of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the community room of the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter in Washington, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. The mural,"Wall of Hope" was created by artist Omatayo Akinbolajo and features a painting of Martin Luther King Jr. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) Republican Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) spoke Monday in Atlanta at the King Center on the holiday honoring its namesake, Martin Luther King Jr. Kasich says King got the attention of people in power through a "bottom-up" approach worth emulating. Kasich says efforts such as addressing drug use and improving education need people committed at the community level. He also says it's important to keep an open mind. It was a message of cooperation from a governor who has dealt with division within his own party recently. Kasich is the Republicans' only 2016 presidential contender who didn't fall in line behind President-elect Donald Trump. ___ 7 p.m. Several thousand people walked through snowy Denver to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. in the city's 31st annual "marade". The Denver Post (http://dpo.st/2jhlHLm ) reports that the crowd that made its way down the city's main street, Colfax Avenue, Monday chanted and held up signs expressing love for King and opposition to Donald Trump. The crowd was smaller than in the last two years. Organizer Vern Howard blamed the weather and a disruption last year by Black Lives Matters. This year during opening speeches by lawmakers, some in the crowd heckled Republican congressman Mike Coffman because of his vote to repeal the federal health care law. He continued speaking and participated in the marade. Denver got several inches of snow but it eased by the time of the marade. ___ Hundreds of Minnesota residents have marched through downtown St. Paul to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Afterward, city and state leaders spoke at the Ordway Center on Monday about the progress the country as made, as well as the inequalities that still exist. Speakers included U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Lt. Gov. Tina Smith. Poverty, justice and discrimination were among the topics. Klobuchar said income inequality, the achievement gap and an unfair criminal justice system still trouble the U.S., and creating change is never simple. Students from Maple Grove High School, the site of racist graffiti that sprung up after the election of Donald Trump in November, spoke about their efforts to organize a student walkout. ___ 5:20 p.m. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are honoring Martin Luther King Jr.'s memory by painting a mural at a family shelter in Washington. The Obamas joined residents of the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter to paint a display of the slain civil rights activist on a wall in the community room. The mural features a large rendering of King's face surrounded by butterflies, under the words "Wall of Hope." Obama was working on a butterfly and told reporters he was just trying to get it right. The shelter is also where the Obamas donated the swing set they installed on the White House South Lawn in 2009 for their daughters when Malia and Sasha were younger. Obama leaves office Friday. ___ 4 p.m. A Mississippi city has decided to rename the holiday it called "Great Americans Day" to honor slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The Biloxi City Council voted 6-0 to make the change Monday. The Sun Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2jspo2W ) the vote came moments before the beginning of an annual parade honoring the slain civil rights leader. Monday was a federal holiday and was recognized in most of the United States as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. However, in three states Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas the holiday has a dual designation honoring King and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The change follows an uproar on social media that erupted after a Biloxi spokesman posted that city offices would be closed for Great Americans Day. The name came from a city ordinance adopted in 1985 two years after the federal holiday was created. ___ 1:40 p.m. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day by pedaling to sites connected to a historic visit the slain civil rights leader made to the city. About 300 bicyclists participated in Monday's free 10-mile ride, which took in such sites as downtown Detroit's Cobo Center. That's where King gave an early version of his "I Have a Dream" speech in June 1963. He also led more than 100,000 marchers down Woodward Avenue in what was called the "Great Walk to Freedom," about two months before he delivered his famous speech in Washington, D.C. The tour took place in 30-degree weather, but sleet fell on riders toward the end. It is one of several events being held in the area and state to honor King. ___ 12:30 p.m. President-elect Donald Trump is calling on Americans to honor Martin Luther King Jr. for "all of the many wonderful things that he stood for." Trump, who is scheduled to meet with King's son later in the day, may be trying to put behind him the controversy over his criticism of John Lewis, a black congressman and civil rights icon. In a message sent on Twitter on Monday, Trump said: "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!" Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, had angered Trump by calling him an "illegitimate president" and saying he would not attend the inauguration. ___ 11:50 a.m. Residents of Memphis, Tennessee the city where civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed are honoring his legacy with neighborhood events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Volunteers on Monday fanned out across Memphis neighborhoods where blight is a major problem to take part in a "MLK Day of Service." They picked up litter and trash along streets, at blighted homes, in empty lots and in parks in historic neighborhoods such as Orange Mound and Soulsville. Visitors to the National Civil Rights Museum gathered for performances, youth-centered educational programs, a blood donation drive and a food drive. King was killed while standing on a balcony at the old Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The motel has been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum. ___ Civil rights leaders and activists are gathering at sites across the country to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. On the same day that Americans celebrate King's legacy, his son is scheduled to meet President-elect Donald Trump. Martin Luther King III will meet with Trump at Trump Tower in New York. The meeting comes amid lingering tensions between the president-elect and Congressman John Lewis. Lewis is the civil rights leader who called Trump an "illegitimate president" and said he will not attend the inauguration. Trump responded on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart." In Atlanta, a commemoration at King's storied Ebenezer Baptist Church will be headlined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. ___ This story corrects that Trump will meet King's son, not grandson, in 2nd paragraph of first entry President Barack Obama pushes kids on the swings as they visit "Malia and Sasha's Castle," the playground that the Obamas donated to the Jobs Have Priority Naylor Road Family Shelter in Washington, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) FILE - In this Aug. 28, 1963, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. As civil rights leaders and activists gather Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, at sites across the country to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leaders daughter Bernice King is encouraging Americans to fight for his vision of love and justice no matter who is in the White House. (AP Photo, File) Arrington James, 8, grabs the hand of a freed slave figure at the African-American history monument at the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, in Columbia, South Carolina. James and her family were at the Statehouse for the South Carolina NAACP's King Day at the Dome rally. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) South Carolina NAACP Executive Director Dwight James welcomes marchers to the organization's MLK King Day at the Dome rally at the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, in Columbia, South Carolina. Monday's King Day at the Dome rally was the second since the Confederate flag was removed from Statehouse grounds and one of the most sparsely attended since the event began in 2000. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) African Cup: Ivory Coast stumbles, Congo beats Morocco OYEM, Gabon (AP) Ivory Coast's Europe-based stars stumbled in the heat of northern Gabon in their African Cup of Nations opener, with the defending champion held by Togo to 0-0 on Monday in another twist to start the tournament. Ivory Coast's title-winning coach fared worse as Congo beat Herve Renard's Morocco 1-0 in the day's second game. Congo, a team that was on strike and refusing to train two days ago, finished with 10 men on the field and on top of Group D. Congo's Issama Mpeko celebrates with supporters after they won their match against Morocco during their African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Congo and Morocco at the Stade de Oyem in Oyem, Gabon, Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Ivory Coast created few clear chances against Togo, with Wilfried Zaha's blocked shot in the second half after a clever run probably its best. Zaha was substituted two minutes later and, although Ivory Coast pressed hard in stages, it never broke open Togo's well-drilled defense in the first game in Group C in the northern jungle town of Oyem. Togo was competitive in the first half and had two good openings with around 10 minutes to go, when Kodjo Laba missed with a header from in front of goal and Mathieu Dossevi's deflected shot dropped onto the roof of the net. Four of the first six games at the African Cup have been draws, with Ivory Coast's fellow title challenger, Algeria, held to 2-2 by Zimbabwe, a team that hasn't qualified for the African Cup in over a decade. Also, host Gabon couldn't beat outsider and tournament debutant Guinea-Bissau in the opening game. "After Algeria-Zimbabwe and Gabon-Guinea-Bissau, we were very careful," Ivory Coast coach Michel Dussuyer said. "But we still have two (group) matches so we are still confident." Togo even started better, and Dossevi was clear on goal in the 29th minute only for Ivorian goalkeeper Sylvain Gbohouo to smother the chance. Zaha was at the heart of Ivory Coast's two best attacks, first in the first half when he sped down the right wing and sent across a dangerous low cross that was scrambled away. Then, in the 68th minute, he tricked his marker with a clever turn, cut inside, and hit a low shot that was headed to goal before two Togo defenders managed to get in the way. Senegal and Congo are the only teams to win at the tournament. Junior Kabananga got the winner for Congo in the 55th minute after a mistake from Morocco 'keeper Monir el-Kajoui. Congo's Lomalisa Mutambala was sent off for a wild tackle in the 81st and the Congolese played for about seven minutes with nine men when captain Gabriel Zakuani went off injured in the 83rd with all their substitutes used up. Zakuani returned in injury time but was limping heavily and not much use. This victory was a major mood-changer for Congo, whose players refused to train on Friday and Saturday, claiming they hadn't been paid tournament bonuses. They also posted a video on social media during their strike, where they complained about their treatment. On Monday, Morocco was the one frustrated: Midfielder M'Bark Boussoufa hit the crossbar in the second minute. Goalkeeper El-Kajoui tried to block a cross with his feet and managed only to divert the ball to Kabananga to score the winning goal. Then, substitutes Youssef En Nesyri and Youssef el-Arabi missed late chances. Although Ivory Coast and later Renard failed their first tests at the tournament, the Stade d'Oyem held up despite a desperate race to be ready in time, which saw workers scrambling around the venue finishing all sorts of jobs on the day of the game. Television viewers won't have seen the construction debris that surrounds the outside of the stadium, which juts out of dense jungle canopy around 15 kilometers outside of Oyem. Even organizers couldn't do anything about the heat during the opening match, though, with Togo coach Claude le Roy's shirt covered in dark sweat patches after urging his team on to a promising draw against the defending champion Ivorians. "It was very hot. We were sweating so much," Le Roy said. "We did what it takes. We are satisfied with the draw." ___ This story has been corrected to show Congo finished with 10 men on the field, not nine. ___ Follow Gerald Imray on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP Congo's Chancel Mangulu Mbemba, left, is challenged by Morocco's Nabir Dirar, right, during their African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Congo and Morocco at the Stade de Oyem in Oyem, Gabon, Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Congo's Issama Mpeko, celebrates with teammates after winning their match against Morocco during their African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Congo and Morocco at the Stade de Oyem in Oyem, Gabon, Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Ivory Coast's Franck Yannick Kessie, left, is challenged by Togo's Atakora Lalawewe, right, during the African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Ivory Coast and Togo at the Stade de Oyem in Gabon Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Ivory Coast's Serge Aurier, right, is challenged by Togo's Bebou Ihlas, right, during the African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Ivory Coast and Togo at the Stade de Oyem in Gabon Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Congo's Junior Kalonji, left, is challenged by Morocco's Ghanem Saiss, right, during their African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Congo and Morocco at the Stade de Oyem in Oyem, Gabon, Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) A Congo supporter chants ahead of the African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match between Congo and Morocco at the Stade de Oyem in Gabon Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) Togo supporters chant ahead of a match against Ivory coast, during their African Cup of Nations Group C soccer match at the Stade de Oyem in Oyem, Gabon Monday Jan. 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) A Pakistani mother who boasted about burning her daughter alive in an honour killing over her teenager's choice of husband has been sentenced to death. Parveen Bibi was convicted of murdering Zeenat Rafiq just a week after getting married to Hassan Khan in June. The murdering mother tied the 18-year-old to a cot with the help of the victim's brother before dousing her in kerosene and setting her alight in the family home in Lahore, Eastern Pakistan. Bibi then went outside and began shouting on the street to neighbours that she had killed the teen for bringing shame on her family, while beating her chest. Bragging rights?: After the killing of her daughter, Mrs Rafiq began shouting on the street to neighbours that she had killed the teen for bringing shame on her family, while beating her chest Burned alive: Zeenat Rafiq died after her mother and brother tied her up and set her on fire in the family home in Lahore, eastern Pakistan Perveen Rafique in the custody of Pakistani police after confessing to the murder of her daughter Family members comfort Hassan Khan, center, the husband of Zeenat Rafiq, at his home in Lahore, Pakistan Prosecutor Abdur Rauf said judge Chaudhry Ilyas in eastern Lahore on Monday convicted Parveen Bibi of burning to death Zeenat Rafiq a week after her marriage to Hassan Khan last June. Rauf said the court sentenced the victim's brother Anees Rafique to life in prison for helping his mother kill his 18-year-old sister. Defense lawyer Shahid Iqbal said the son had no role in the killing and was wrongly convicted. Naseem Bibi, the murderer's younger sister, in the aftermath of the killing said: 'After killing her daughter, Perveen went out on the street, took off her shawl and started beating herself on her chest, shouting: 'People! I have killed my daughter for misbehaving and giving our family a bad name.' 'My sister declared a long time ago she would not allow her daughter to marry a Pashtun.' Zeenat's crime in her mother's eyes was getting married to her partner Hassan Khan, a motorcycle mechanic. His ethnicity was the main cause of the family's disapproval. Mr Khan's is an ethnic Pashtun, while Zeenat was a Punjabi. Fears: Mr Khan says his wife Zeenat had begged him not to let her family take her back to their house, as she feared they would kill her as punishment for eloping Zeenat's husband Khan told local TV station Geo News last year that the pair had eloped. He had reluctantly allowed his wife to return to her family home after her family promised they would hold a celebration and not harm her. He said: 'After living with me for four days following our marriage, her family contacted us and promised they would throw us a proper wedding party after eight days. Then we would be able live together. 'Zeenat was unwilling to go back to her home and told me that she would be killed by her family, but later agreed when one of her uncles guaranteed her safety. 'The day we eloped she had been abused, there was blood on her nose and on her lips,' Hassan told CNN. 'She was in distress; she asked me to take her away and marry her.' 'After two days, she called me and said that her family had gone back on their word and asked me to come to get her, but I told her to wait for the promised eight days. 'Then, she was killed.' Honour killing: Punjabi Zeenat's 'crime' was getting married to her Pashtun boyfirned Hasan Khan, a motorcycle mechanic, and her mother (centre in headscarf) said the teenager had brought shame on the family Violence against women is rampant in Pakistan, according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Citing media reports, it said there were more than 1,100 'honour killings' in 2015. Pakistan's parliament passed legislation against 'honour killings' in October, three months after the murder of outspoken social media star Qandeel Baloch. Her brother was arrested in relation to her strangling death in July. Perceived damage to a family's 'honour' can involve eloping, fraternizing with men or other breaches of conservative values. In most cases, the victim is a woman and the killer is a relative who escapes punishment by seeking forgiveness for the crime from family members. Under the new law, relatives can forgive convicts in the case of a death sentence, but they would still have to face a mandatory life sentence. A Mississippi city voted Monday to ditch 'Great Americans Day' and instead celebrate a holiday named for Martin Luther King Jr. The Biloxi City Council voted 6-0 Monday to change the name of the holiday in the city code. The vote came moments before the beginning of an annual parade honoring the slain civil rights leader. Biloxi officially named Monday's holiday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In this August 1963 photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr addresses marchers during his 'I Have a Dream' speech Biloxi's City Council voted 6-0 to change the name of the holiday in the city's Code of Ordinances from 'Great Americans Day' to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Biloxi's mayor, Andrew Gilich (above), tweeted on Friday that he considers Monday to be Martin Luther King Day even though his city passed an ordinance years ago renaming it 'Great Americans Day' Monday was a federal holiday and was recognized in most of the United States as MLK Day. In three states Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas the holiday has a dual designation honoring King and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A Biloxi ordinance adopted in 1985 officially called the holiday 'Great American Day,' although the name seemed to have been forgotten by many, the newspaper reported. An uproar erupted on social media after a Biloxi spokesman posted last week that city offices would be closed for Great Americans Day. According to The Sun Herald City officials quickly changed the name. Council President Dixie Newman said the Monday meeting was called to 'correct a mistake.' The city followed up by posting on social media that, 'It's official. Biloxi's MLK Day is MLK Day. Unanimously.' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr waves to the crowd after giving his 'I have a dream' speech in Washington on August 28, 1963. The third Monday of January is a federal holiday honoring him When the federal government signed MLK Day into law, a number of states resisted by either renaming the holiday or combining it with another remembrance. Mississippi marks MLK Day on the same day that it remembers the birth of Civil War general Robert E. Lee (right) On Friday, Biloxi's mayor, Andrew Gilich, tweeted that he considers Monday to be Martin Luther King Day even though his city passed an ordinance years ago renaming it 'Great Americans Day'. 'Y'all spelled Martin Luther King wrong,' wrote one Twitter user. 'Delete your account,' another Twitter user wrote to the city of Biloxi. One Twitter account posted a screenshot of the original tweet and drew a red mark over 'Great Americans Day,' replacing it with Martin Luther King Jr Day. 'Fixed it for you guys,' the Twitter user wrote. Making matters worse, the city failed in its efforts to do damage control. The City of Biloxi's official Twitter feed posted a notice on Friday touting its observance of 'Great Americans Day' with no mention of MLK Day Initially, Biloxi claimed the name for the holiday was mandated by the state, even though it was passed as a city ordinance (above is a screenshot of the official city website listing the day) It deleted the original tweet and then responded to the criticism by claiming that 'Great Americans Day' was mandated by the state of Mississippi. The 'holiday' however is not mentioned on the state's official website. Mississippi officially celebrates MLK Day concurrently with Robert E. Lee's birthday. Lee was a famous Civil War general who commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia over 150 years ago. A member of the Biloxi city council told BuzzFeed that it was the state that came up with the name 'Great Americans Day.' 'That's the state, the state called it Great Americans Day,' said Councilman Felix Gines. 'The city of Biloxi celebrates MLK Day.' A municipal spokesperson said that Biloxi hosts a number of events celebrating MLK Day. 'Biloxi, a city that appreciates and embraces diversity, is a longtime supporter and sponsor of the city's hugely successful MLK celebration,' Creel said. 'Y'all spelled Martin Luther King wrong,' wrote one Twitter user. 'Bless your hearts' Erick Fernandez took a screengrab of the original tweet and 'fixed it' so that it reflects the federal holiday In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law which decreed the third Monday in January as MLK Day, a federal holiday. The day was first observed in 1986, though not without resistance from some conservative states in the South and West who either renamed it or combined the holiday with another so as to dilute its importance. 'For whatever reason, some couldn't bring themselves to do follow suit, and this notion of 'Great Americans Day,' honoring Robert E. Lee and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came about,' Creel said. Officials in the city were at a loss to explain why the name 'Great Americans Day' appears on the official Biloxi code of ordinances, yet for it not to be ntioned on the official state site. 'It filtered down to somehow be called Great Americans Dayin our city code of ordinances,' Creel said. Another city councilman, Kenny Glavan, said he had never even heard of 'Great Americans Day' and no one could explain why Biloxi's official Twitter account failed to mention MLK Day. After the criticism, Gilich was quoted in a clarifying tweet saying that he considers Monday to be 'Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day' 'As far as I'm concerned, we're celebrating Martin Luther King Day,' he told BuzzFeed. 'I've never heard of the city calling it that.' 'My first reaction is it sounds like an error,' he said. After doing some investigating work, Glavan found that the city did indeed officially pass an ordinance years ago designating the third Monday of January as 'Great Americans Day.' Now the viral nature of news in the era of social media has generated unwanted negative publicity for a city that relies on tourism as a main source of revenue for its economy. 'The thing that I have found most disheartening is that the city's story on the community wide MLK Day celebration is lost in the brouhaha over Great Americans Day tweet,' Creel said. Glavan said that the city council would consider amending the ordinance and restoring the holiday's name to its original title. Biloxi's mayor, Andrew Gilich, agrees. 'As far as I'm concerned, it's called 'Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day',' he is quoted in a tweet posted by the city. News / National by Staff reporter A MAN from Bulawayo's Cowdray Park suburb has been arrested for allegedly selling a non-existent residential stand for $3 000.Farai Matavire (42) allegedly duped Mr Ranganai Ndava (42) that he was a Bulawayo City Council (BCC) contractor and was selling a stand in Cowdray Park suburb.Matavire met Mr Ndava at the BCC offices in the city in November 2011 and allegedly told him to deposit $3 000 in his bank account for the stand.Mr Ndava developed the stand, but lost it when its owner claimed it.Matavire was on the run since 2011 until he was arrested in December last year for the crime.He appeared before Magistrate Mr Manasa Musiiwa on Friday facing a fraud charge.Matavire pleaded not guilty and was remanded out of custody to January 18."I did not defraud this man. I assisted him to get a house stand, unfortunately, l think the city council allocated the stand to someone else," he said.Prosecuting, Mr Mthulisi Moyo said sometime in November 2011, Matavire approached Mr Ndava and told him that he was selling one of his stands in Cowdray Park suburb."The complainant paid $3 000 in batches to the accused person as the money to purchase the stand. The complainant went on to develop the stand but only to discover that the owner of the stand was Mr Gerald Bhebhe," he said.Mr Moyo said the accused contacted Matavire but he was evasive.He said in 2015, Matavire lied and said he was admitted at Mpilo Central Hospital."The complainant and the police went to the hospital to meet the accused person but the nurses told them that the hospital did not have such a patient. In 2016, the accused person made a call to the complainant saying that he was having an important meeting with the President," said Mr Moyo.He said Matavire made a call to Mr Ndava in December last year and falsely claimed that he was accompanying President Mugabe to a conference in Masvingo and promised that he was going to restitute his money .Mr Moyo said in December last year, the complainant saw Matavire at a city food outlet and reported him to the police leading to his arrest. Gene Cernan, last astronaut to walk on the moon, dies at 82 HOUSTON (AP) Former astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the last person to walk on the moon returned to Earth with a message of "peace and hope for all mankind," died on Monday, his family said. He was 82. Cernan was with his relatives when he died at a Houston hospital following ongoing heath issues, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned. "Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation's leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon," his family said in a statement released by NASA. In this Dec. 12, 1972, photo provided by NASA, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan holds the lower corner of an American flag during the mission's first Extravehicular activity on the moon. NASA announced that former astronaut Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, surrounded by his family. He was 82. (Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt/NASA via AP) Cernan was commander of NASA's Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface. On Dec. 14, 1972, he became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon and he traced his only child's initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own. "Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. "I didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while." Cernan called it "perhaps the brightest moment of my life. ... It's like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can't." Decades later, Cernan tried to ensure he wasn't the last person to walk on the moon, testifying before Congress to push for a return. But as the years went by he realized he wouldn't live to witness someone follow in his footsteps still visible on the moon more than 40 years later. "Neil (Armstrong, who died in 2012) and I aren't going to see those next young Americans who walk on the moon. And God help us if they're not Americans," Cernan testified before Congress in 2011. "When I leave this planet, I want to know where we are headed as a nation. That's my big goal." Cernan died less than six weeks after another American space hero, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Their flights weren't the first or last of the Mercury and Apollo eras. Yet to the public they were the bookends of America's space age glory. On Dec. 11, 1972, Cernan guided the lander, named Challenger, into a lunar valley called Taurus-Littrow, with Harrison "Jack" Schmitt at his side. He recalled the silence after the lunar lander's engine shut down. "That's where you experience the most quiet moment a human being can experience in his lifetime," Cernan said in 2007. "There's no vibration. There's no noise. The ground quit talking. Your partner is mesmerized. He can't say anything. "The dust is gone. It's a realization, a reality, all of a sudden you have just landed in another world on another body out there (somewhere in the) universe, and what you are seeing is being seen by human beings human eyes for the first time." Three days earlier, Cernan, Schmitt and Ronald Evans had blasted off atop a Saturn rocket in the first manned nighttime launch from Kennedy Space Center. Evans remained behind as pilot of the command module that orbited the moon while the other two landed on the moon's surface. Cernan and Schmitt, a geologist, spent more than three days on the moon, including more than 22 hours outside the lander, and collected 249 pounds of lunar samples. "In that whole three days, I don't think there's anything that became routine," Cernan recalled. "But if I had to focus on one thing ... it was just to look back at the overwhelming and overpowering beauty of this Earth." "To go a quarter of a million miles away into space and have to take time out to sleep and rest ... I wished I could have stayed awake for 75 hours straight. I knew when I left I'd never have a chance to come back." Completing their third moon walk on Dec. 14, Schmitt returned to the lunar module and was followed by Cernan. "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," Cernan said. He later acknowledged that he had grasped for words to leave behind, knowing how the world remembered Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" on stepping on the moon in 1969. Before heading home, Cernan said he drew the letters "TDC" the initials of his then 9-year-old daughter, Teresa Dawn with his finger on the dusty gray lunar surface. He said he imagined someone in the distant future would find "our lunar rover and our footprints and those initials and say, 'I wonder who was here? Some ancient civilization was here back in the 20th century, and look at the funny marks they made.'" Eugene A. Cernan was born in 1934 in Chicago and graduated from Indiana's Purdue University in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering. (Armstrong also was a Purdue grad.) He had been a Navy attack pilot and earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering when NASA selected him in October 1963 as one of 14 members of its third astronaut class. Cernan had the looks of an astronaut from central casting. "He's your classic sort of handsome debonair flyboy," said space historian Roger Launius, associate director of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 1966, he was pilot of Gemini 9, a three-day flight with command pilot Tom Stafford where they used different techniques to rendezvous with a docking adapter that was previously launched. On the flight, Cernan became the second American to walk in space, spending more than two hours outside the Gemini spacecraft. Cernan would later call the mission, "that spacewalk from hell." "It was very serious," said Launius, the historian. "He lost all kinds of water, his equipment did not work effectively. He overheated. His visor glossed over with water, he could barely see. He barely got back in the spacecraft." Cernan's sweat so much he lost 13 pounds. The space agency was forced to go back to the drawing board. "That was a really important learning experience," Launius said. "The difficult thing about that is they put an astronaut's life at great risk there. They learned the lesson." With the Apollo program underway, Cernan flew on Apollo 10 in May 1969. It was a dress rehearsal for the lunar landing on the next flight and took Cernan and Stafford, aboard the lunar module Snoopy, to within 9 miles of the moon's surface. The mission was marked by a glitch when the wrong guidance system was turned on and the lunar module went out of control before Stafford righted it by taking manual control. Cernan often joked that his job was to paint a white line to the moon that Armstrong and the rest of the Apollo 11 crew could follow. Yet Cernan was one of only three people to voyage twice to the moon either to its surface or in moon orbit. James Lovell and John Young are the others. In 1973, Cernan became special assistant to the program manager of the Apollo program at Johnson Space Center in Houston, assisting in planning and development of the U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission. He was senior U.S. negotiator with the Soviets on the test project. He retired from NASA three years later. He worked for a Houston energy firm, Coral Petroleum, then in 1981 began his own aerospace consulting company. He eventually became chairman of an engineering firm that worked on NASA projects. He also worked as a network television analyst during shuttle flights in the 1980s. A documentary about his life, "The Last Man on the Moon," was released in 2016. Teresa was Cernan's only child with his wife Barbara. The couple married in 1961 and divorced 20 years later. In 1987, he married again, to Jan Nanna, and they lived in Houston. In all, Cernan logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, more than 73 hours of them on the moon's surface. "I can always walk on Main Street again, but I can never return to my Valley of Taurus-Littrow, and that cold fact has left me with a yearning restlessness," he wrote in his 1999 autobiography, also entitled "The Last Man on the Moon." "It was perhaps the brightest moment of my life, and I can't go back," he said. "Enriched by a singular event that is larger than life, I no longer have the luxury of being ordinary." Cernan is survived by his wife, Jan Nanna Cernan, his daughter and son-in-law, Tracy Cernan Woolie and Marion Woolie, step-daughters Kelly Nanna Taff and husband, Michael, and Danielle Nanna Ellis and nine grandchildren. ___ Borenstein reported from Washington. Associated Press writer David Warren contributed from Dallas. FILE - In an undated file photo provided by NASA, US Navy Commander and Astronaut for the upcoming Apollo 17, Eugene Cernan, is pictured in his space suit. NASA announced that former astronaut Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, surrounded by his family. He was 82. (NASA via AP) FILE - In a Oct. 27, 2007 file photo, former astronaut Neil Armstrong, left, is congratulated by fellow ex-astronaut Gene Cernan following the dedication ceremony of the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. NASA announced that former astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, surrounded by his family. He was 82. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File) In this June 3, 1966, photo provided by NASA, Gemini IXA astronauts Eugene Cernan, left, and Tom Stafford, center, arrive in the white room atop Launch Pad 19 at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA announced that former astronaut Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, died Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, surrounded by his family. He was 82. (NASA via AP) Istanbul nightclub attacker who killed 39 captured ISTANBUL (AP) A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a New Year's attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police operation, Turkish media reports said early Tuesday. The suspect was captured in a special operations police raid on a house in Istanbul's Esenyurt district, private NTV television reported. The broadcaster said he had been staying in the house belonging to a friend from Kyrgyzstan. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the nightclub massacre, saying the attack in the first hours of Jan. 1 was in reprisal for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack. CORRECTING DATE TO JAN 16 - Reina club attacker after being caught by Turkish police in Istanbul, late Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. Turkish media reports say police have caught the gunman who killed 39 people at an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year's celebrations, detained during a police operation. (Depo Photos via AP) Hurriyet newspaper and other media have identified the gunman as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbekistan national. The suspect was to undergo medical checks before being taken to police headquarters for questioning, the paper said in its online edition. Dogan news agency published what it said was the first image of the attacker. It showed a bruised, black-haired man in a grey, bloodied shirt being held by his neck. Private NTV television said the gunman had resisted arrest. NTV reported that the alleged gunman's Kyrgyz friend and three other people also were detained. His 4-year-old child, who was with him at the home, was taken into protective custody. Hurriyet newspaper said the alleged gunman's wife and 1-year old daughter were caught in a police operation on Jan. 12. Police established his whereabouts four or five days ago, but delayed the raid so they could monitor his movements and contacts, NTV reported. The television channel also broadcast footage showing plain-clothed police taking away a man in a white top and sweat pants, forcing his head down. The station said the images showed the gunman's Kyrgyz friend being taken to a police vehicle. The state-run Anadolu Agency likewise reported the arrest and identified the gunman, only with a slightly different spelling of his first name, Abdulgadir. It said a Kyrgyz man and three women were detained with him Anadolu said the suspects were being taken to Istanbul's main police headquarters for questioning. Police were carrying out raids on other suspected Islamic State group cells, the news agency said without providing details. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu posted a Twitter message thanking the interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, police and intelligence organizations "who caught the Reina attacker in the name of the people." Earlier in the day, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the Reina nightclub attack had been carried out professionally with the help of an intelligence organization, a claim he had made in the first days after the attack. He did not name the organization suspected of being involved. Hundreds of people were gathered at the swanky Reina nightclub to celebrate the end of a tumultuous 2016 only to become the first victims of 2017. The gunman shot a police officer and a civilian outside the club, then stormed the premises. Most of the dead in the attack on the upscale club were foreign nationals, from the Middle East. The gunman had reportedly left Reina in a taxi. ___ 88 million tons a year: Auditors decry EU food waste BRUSSELS (AP) The sheer waste of food had been bothering teacher Marijke De Jongh for so long that two years ago she set up a pop-up restaurant to serve perfectly good groceries and meat that were approaching their expiry date. With her Rekub team, she followed it up with an app that brings thousands of consumers to retail shops were they can buy food closing in on its sell-by date. Still, the efforts of a small group of conscientious consumers are no match for the masses that still waste food from farm to fork. A worker removes expired food in a local supermarket in Brussels on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. The European Court of Auditors has chided the European Union's executive branch in a report, "Combating Food Waste," that decries the bloc's lack of effort in reducing the food waste, estimating the EU wastes 88 million tons of food per year. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) The European Court of Auditors on Tuesday chided the European Union's executive branch in a report, "Combating Food Waste," that decried the bloc's lack of effort in reducing the food waste. It estimated the EU wastes 88 million tons of food a year for a population of 510 million. "The Commission is not combating the food waste effectively," said ECA member Bettina Jakobsen, noting a lack of strategy and inspiration being used to tackle the problem. The report said more efforts should be made all along the food chain and special precautions should be taken when setting farm policy to make sure that less produce is discarded. An EU study, however, shows about half that waste can still be tied to households, not policy. The ECA also recommended making food donations easier, since they are still mired in legal and tax issues that sometimes become a disincentive for food producers to give food away. It said with better EU regulations that could be turned around. The European Commission complained the ECA had overlooked recent efforts the member states and the executive had made. "This commission is fully committed in the fight against food waste and maybe some of these efforts were a bit overlooked," European Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio said. At the same time, De Jongh continues to try to make a difference at a local level in Antwerp, northern Belgium. After her pop-up experiment in 2015, she is planning a permanent Rekub eatery now. "We have to keep this moving and put it on everyone's radar," she said. A worker removes expired food in a local supermarket in Brussels on Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. The European Court of Auditors has chided the European Union's executive branch in a report, "Combating Food Waste," that decries the bloc's lack of effort in reducing the food waste, estimating the EU wastes 88 million tons of food per year. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) Maradona welcomed 'home' by Napoli fans for anniversary NAPLES, Italy (AP) Even 30 years later, Diego Maradona remains revered in Naples. When he walked on stage at Naples' opera house on Monday, he was greeted by a roar of applause and cheers from the audience. It was as if he was back playing at San Paolo Stadium across town. The Argentine great was the guest of honor at an event to celebrate Napoli's first Serie A title 30 years ago. FILE - A Friday, Nov. 25, 2016 file photo showing Argentina's soccer legend Diego Maradona watching the Davis Cup finals tennis singles match between Croatia's Marin Cilic and Argentina's Federico Delbonis in Zagreb, Croatia. Former Napoli star Diego Maradona is in talks to work with the Serie A side, where he is still idolized nearly 27 years after leaving the club. Maradona, who is in Naples for a theatrical event on Monday celebrating the club's first title win, met with Napoli President Aurelio de Laurentiis on Saturday night, Jan 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, File) "I feel at home here, as I've always felt," Maradona told the San Carlo theater crowd of 1,300 spectators, some of whom paid up to 330 euros ($350) for tickets. "Some people have complained because the tickets cost 300 euros but we did that because when Pele organizes a show they sell tickets for 200 euros. And he's got to always come second," Maradona joked. Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis confirmed that Maradona has a job offer once he settles his decades-long feud with Italy's tax collection agency. "I'm thinking of a position as Napoli ambassador in the world," De Laurentiis said, according to the ANSA news agency. Maradona got emotional when he talked about his parents. "I wish my mother could see me now," he said, then added: "I want to tell kids: Don't take drugs. Don't shoot." Maradona left Napoli in 1992 after testing positive for cocaine use. He led Napoli to its only two Serie A titles in 1987 and 1990, along with the 1987 Italian Cup and the 1989 UEFA Cup. Maradona concluded the show by addressing his once-neglected son, who was in the audience. Donald Trumps pledge to work to secure a rapid trade agreement with Britain after Brexit is very good news, Boris Johnson has said. The Foreign Secretary said a deal could be very much in the interests of both sides after the US president-elect made clear it would be a priority for his administration. In an interview with The Times and German newspaper Bild, Mr Trump said he would be inviting Theresa May for early talks in Washington following his inauguration on Friday and predicted leaving the European Union would be a great thing for the UK. The front page of The Times. In contrast to Barack Obama, who said Britain would be at the back of the queue when it came to a trade deal with the US, Mr Trump made clear it could be done very quickly. "First things first..." Obama indicates TPP and Ttip - plus UK-EU terms - bigger priorities than UK-US trade deal. pic.twitter.com/p3orCsaKxX David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) September 4, 2016 Were going to work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides, he said. I will be meeting with (Mrs May). Shes requesting a meeting and well have a meeting right after I get into the White House. I think were going to get something done very quickly. Mr Johnson and Downing Street welcomed Mr Trumps comments, which came in an interview with former Cabinet minister Michael Gove. Boris Johnson Speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, Mr Johnson said: I think its very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free-trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast. Its great to hear that from president-elect Donald Trump. Clearly it will have to be a deal thats very much in the interests of both sides, but I have no doubt that it will be. My concern about a swift UK US trade deal is Trump and Tories could just sell our public sector for a mess of pottage Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) January 16, 2017 Mrs Mays official spokeswoman said the intervention highlights one of the opportunities of the UK leaving the EU. The spokeswoman said Mrs Mays expected visit to Washington in the spring would provide an opportunity for early discussions on a UK-US trade deal, but stressed Britain will respect EU rules which bar it from signing agreements with third parties so long as it remains a member. Donald Trump and Theresa May The spokeswoman said it would be possible to hold scoping discussions before Brexit takes place on possible measures to bring down barriers to UK-US trade. We welcome the enthusiasm and energy the president-elect and his team are showing for engaging with the UK, she said. Mr Gove said he understood Mr Trump wanted a signature-ready deal on the table at the earliest possible opportunity. Speaking to Mr Gove, the co-leader of the Leave campaign, Mr Trump also made clear, unlike Mr Obama, he welcomed the result of last Junes EU referendum vote. 1. Why is Michael Gove 'MP' interviewing Trump? 2. US-UK trade deal can only happen after EU-UK deal - potentially 10+ yrs - nothing quick! Theresa Griffin (@TheresaEurope) January 16, 2017 People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity. Brexit is going to end up being a great thing, he said. In his first UK interview since becoming president-elect, Mr Trump identified the refugee crisis as one of the key factors driving the Brexit vote. The pound slumped to its lowest point for more than three months after reports that Theresa May is heading for a hard Brexit. Before making a slight recovery on Monday, Sterling fell to below 1.20 dollars - its lowest point since Octobers flash crash. The drop comes ahead of the Prime Ministers announcement on Tuesday regarding her approach to Brexit negotiations. Various Sunday newspapers said Mrs May was heading towards a departure from the single market. Sterlings slump in the Asian markets also came after Chancellor Philip Hammond suggested ministers could slash corporation tax rates if Briton was frozen out of the single market. Mr Hammond told a German newspaper that the Government would do whatever we have to to ensure UK businesses would stay competitive. Downing Street would not be drawn on reports Mrs May would announce plans to withdraw from the single market and the European customs union during her speech at Londons Lancaster House. But The Sunday Telegraph quoted a government source as saying: Shes gone for the full works. People will know when she said Brexit means Brexit, she really meant it. Theresa Mays official spokeswoman made clear the Prime Minister backs the Chancellors comments to German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag, in which he indicated the UK wants to remain in the mainstream of European economic and social thinking but was ready to change our economic model if it was denied access to the single market. The comment was widely interpreted that the UK could adopt a Singapore-style low-tax approach to attract business if it was frozen out of the single market. The PMs spokeswoman said: She shares the view that the Chancellor set out that we want to remain in the mainstream of a recognisable European-style taxation system, but if we are forced to do something different because we cant get the right deal, then we stand ready to do so. Kane Williamsons excellent 104 not out led New Zealand to an unlikely seven-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the first Test. But the result was slightly overshadowed by Mushfiqur Rahim being taken to hospital after being hit on the helmet by a bouncer. Injury striken Bangladesh fought hard to hold the possession but eventually lost the test match. Read more: https://t.co/c5PU9t7q3q#BANvNZ pic.twitter.com/6azdOIWlPS Bangladesh Cricket (@BCBtigers) January 16, 2017 Mushfiqur took his eye off a shorter delivery from Tim Southee and was struck on the back of his helmet, requiring an ambulance to come onto the Basin Reserve pitch and take the Tigers captain away to a nearby hospital. Mushfiqur Rahim Bangladesh vice-captain Tamim Iqbal sought to play down concerns for his team-mate, saying in quotes reported by ESPNcricinfo: (Mushfiqur) is fine. He spoke to us. He has been taken (to hospital) for precaution. But the footage of Mushfiqur being carried off on a stretcher with looks of concern etched on the faces of several players conjures the harrowing incident of Phillip Hughes, who suffered a fatal blow to the neck from a bouncer in November 2014. Mushfiqurs departure, retired hurt for 13, left the tourists in dire straits as they collapsed to 160 all out in the second innings on the final day, leaving New Zealand a target of 217 in 57 overs. Kane Williamson was full of praise for Bangladesh after they pushed New Zealand all the way in the 1st Test #NZvBan pic.twitter.com/qTcPJcc3al ICC (@ICC) January 16, 2017 That they won at a canter was largely down to the brilliance of Williamson, who raced to his fifty in only 43 balls to soothe any Kiwi nerves after Mehedi Hasan had accounted for both of their openers. The New Zealand captain then brought up a chanceless hundred off 89 balls with his 15th four before sealing victory off the very next delivery as the Black Caps reached their total in 39.4 overs. A ton to the skipper! Kane Williamson brings up his 15th test ton and the Basin reserve stands to applaud #NZvBAN^CE pic.twitter.com/N4zz25qNhj BLACKCAPS (@BLACKCAPS) January 16, 2017 Ross Taylor provided able support in his 60 to complete a fine comeback win for New Zealand and condemn Bangladesh to an unwanted record, with their 595 for eight declared in the first innings the highest ever score in a losing cause. That broke a 123-year record held by Australia, who scored 586 all out against England in Sydney in 1894 before being beaten by 10 runs. A top order wobble on the fourth evening saw Bangladesh resume on 66 for three and Sabbir Rahman showed flashes of resistance with a battling 50 but it was not enough as Bangladesh meekly subsided. Sabbir Rahman paves the way for injury stricken Bangladesh. Read more: https://t.co/T4FfBW5oAe#BANvNZ pic.twitter.com/5fP7c9vlUc Bangladesh Cricket (@BCBtigers) January 16, 2017 Their plight was summed up by Sabbir taking the wicketkeeping gloves in the fourth innings, due to Mushfiqurs unavailability and back-up Imrul Kayes nursing a hip injury. Mushfiqur was back at the ground by the end of the Test and was well enough to conduct his media duties at the presentation ceremony. In quotes published by ESPNcricinfo, he said: I am feeling much better. It could have been worse. There is some pain and I will get through it. Sinn Fein has declined to re-nominate a Stormont deputy first minister in a move set to collapse the power-sharing executive in Belfast and trigger a snap election. The collapse of the Democratic Unionist/ Sinn Fein-led coalition government in Northern Ireland comes after 10 years of power-sharing. The renewable heat incentive (RHI) scandal is but one of many crises that have engulfed the institutions in the last decade. Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Ian Paisley and leader of Sinn Fein Gerry Adams hold their first face-to-face talks and agree a date for the return of power-sharing in Northern Ireland. Mr Paisley and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness assume office as first minister and deputy first minister at the head of the power-sharing government. Dr Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. Mr Paisley resigns as first minister and leader of the DUP. He is replaced by Peter Robinson. Disagreement breaks out between Sinn Fein and the DUP over plans for the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Northern Ireland. Mr McGuinness warns of an impending full-blown crisis in Stormont. The disagreement over policing and justice devolution continues. Mr Robinson temporarily stands down as first minister amid a political storm over his wifes private life and financial affairs. Remaining as DUP leader, he continues to lead devolution negotiations. In February, after 10 days of talks, a deal is reached. Peter Robinson A vote at Belfast City Council in December to limit the days the Union flag flies from Belfast City Hall leads to street protests across Northern Ireland by Ulster loyalists. Most involve protesters blocking roads and some lead to riots. The vote to limit the flying of the flag increases tension between the two biggest parties. The flag protests continue. Tensions between Sinn Fein and the DUP are heightened when the DUP withdraws backing for a peace and conflict resolution centre on the site of the old Maze Prison, which housed paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from 1971 to 2000. Sinn Fein accuses Mr Robinson of caving in to hardline unionist opinion. Richard Haass Richard Haass, the former US envoy to Northern Ireland, is brought in as an independent chairman of an all-party group set up to deal with divisive issues such as parades and protests, flags, symbols, emblems and related matters stemming from the past. Months of talks break up at Christmas without agreement. A crisis over welfare threatens to bring down power-sharing when Sinn Fein refuses to implement reforms demanded by London. Following 11 weeks of discussion, an agreement known as the Stormont House Agreement is reached in December to resolve wrangles over the administrations budget and its non-implementation of welfare reforms while establishing new structures to deal with the legacy of unsolved killings during the Troubles. Devolved government again faces possible collapse over a fresh welfare reform row between DUP and Sinn Fein. Devolution is already hanging by a thread after the murders of two former IRA men in Belfast in August. The chief constable of Northern Ireland, George Hamilton, says individual Provisional IRA members were behind the killing and the organisation still exists. Theresa Villiers and Charlie Flanagan Crisis talks lasting 10 weeks result in the Fresh Start Agreement, a deal between the British and Irish governments and Northern Irelands two largest parties to find a way forward on paramilitarism and welfare reform. DUP MLA Arlene Foster becomes first minister after Peter Robinson resigns. Serious questions begin to arise over the RHI scheme. Mrs Foster was the minister in charge of the department at the time the error-ridden boiler subsidy scheme was set up. Sinn Fein calls for Mrs Foster to stand aside pending an investigation. She refuses. Arlene Foster Mr McGuinness resigns as Northern Irelands deputy first minister in protest at the DUPs handling of the RHI, which could cost taxpayers 490 million. Donald Trump has branded Nato obsolete, claiming it has not tackled terrorism, before stating that the military alliance was very important to him. The US president-elect reiterated criticism made during his campaign and said a lot of the 28 countries in Nato were not paying their fair share. Donald Trump In an interview with The Times, he laid blame at it being designed many, many years ago, and added: Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. And the other thing is the countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. But in a conflicting message, adding to uncertainty over the alliances future, he went on to describe its value to him. With that being said, Nato is very important to me, he said. Earlier this week, retired general James Mattis, Mr Trumps choice to be in charge of the Pentagon, accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of trying to break Nato. #Steinmeier in Brussels: #Trump comments on @NATO caused astonishment here and certainly not only here (1/2) GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 16, 2017 #Steinmeier: comments are contradictory to statement of designated defense secretary #Mattis during Congress hearing (2/2) GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 16, 2017 Under-fire Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has pocketed an estimated 14.4 million from the sale of his education company as the NHS plunges into a full-blown crisis. Mr Hunts firm Hotcourses, a listings provider, has been sold to Australian outfit IDP Education for 30.1 million. .@IDPGlobal announce purchase agreement with world leader in digital student engagement & marketing @HotcoursesGroup https://t.co/6xZpBaAsch pic.twitter.com/ZkgCd1hKEp IDP Connect (@IDP_Connect) January 16, 2017 The cabinet minister holds 48% of the company he co-founded, although he is not thought to play an active part in its day-to-day operation. The timing of Mr Hunts multimillion-pound windfall comes during a difficult period for Prime Minister Theresa May, who has been accused of underfunding the NHS. Earlier this month, NHS chief executive Simon Stevens told MPs it is stretching it to say the health service received more money than it asked for. Chief Executive of NHS England Simon Stevens The NHS Confederation, which represents managers across England, last week said it was time the Government accepted limited investment has consequences. The Royal College of Physicians has also sounded the alarm bell, warning that vital services are struggling or failing to cope, fuelling fears that Mr Hunt has lost control of the situation. Mr Hunts bumper paycheque will also sit uneasily with Mrs Mays pledge to crack down on excessive executive pay. Theresa May In July, Mrs May said: There is an irrational, unhealthy and growing gap between what these companies pay their workers and what they pay their bosses. A role advertised on its website shows that Hotcourses, which employs 300 people, is offering a basic salary of up to 25,000 plus bonus for a sales support role. The average UK salary is around 28,000. (Andrew Matthews/PA) In addition to the 14.4 million payday, Mr Hunt has earned well over 1 million in dividends from the company since it was founded in 1996. Mr Hunt said: I am incredibly proud to have set up a successful business, even prouder of the current Hotcourses team who have taken it from strength to strength, and intend to use a significant proportion of the proceeds to campaign for causes I believe in when I eventually leave frontline politics. Andrew Barkla, boss of IDP Education, said the deal would provide the firm with greater international reach and provide a one-stop shop for student marketing and recruitment. News / National by Stephen Jakes A political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya has called for a candidate who is not a political leader to take over from President Robert Mugabe so as to enable peaceful power transition in the country."Here is where I am saying my narrative is different from everybody else," he said."I believe we should push for the most popular candidate, who is not necessarily a political figure. It is the people, who must decide who should lead them and not a bunch of 10 to 15 men sitting at a table and forming a coalition. We should open up so that whoever feels they can lead Zimbabwe presents themselves to the people and then they decide." OUTSPOKEN politician and MDC legislator Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga."Ngwenya said according to News Day, she is definitely against a 'stage managed coalition' designed to suit "a bunch of 10 to 15 men sitting at a table and forming a coalition.Ngwenya said it is very easy to mobilise for the non political inclined politicians to take over and civic organisations must mobilise resources for the polls."Civic society organisations must look for resources for a parallel election, or a pre-run to elections where that popular candidate is chosen. They can group up, as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, and do elections at constituencies. Those interested in leading can submit their names for nomination. It may sound ridiculous, but the entrance of Trump was on that basis because people were sick of the establishment and politicians. So our way out may even be getting someone who is not even a practicing politician,:" he said."Civic society can use the 210 constituencies to do this pre-run election, and this method can even be used for Parliament so that capable people submit their names for elections and we avoid having people sitting for five years without uttering a word in Parliament. I am not against males, but even in the media, it is their voices that have been articulated and they are the ones talking about a coalition of opposition parties. It is Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni (Mavambo Kusile Dawn), Tendai Biti (People's Democratic Party), and Welshman Ncube (MDC), and sometimes Joice Mujuru (Zimbabwe People First) who are given a chance to speak."He said women's voices must also be heard on this issue because it is everybody including those that do not belong to political parties that are needed to deal with Mugabe in 2018. He said every candidate should be subjected to a popular vote." Two people have been seriously injured after an explosion which destroyed a terraced house. Emergency services were called to the blast, on Cecil Road in Blackley, Manchester, at about 12.30pm on Monday. Some footage from the scene in Blackley pic.twitter.com/XhlCEvM1Dt Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service (@manchesterfire) January 16, 2017 A spokeswoman for the North West Ambulance Service said a man was taken to Salford Royal Hospital by ambulance and another casualty was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital. Both were said to be seriously injured. Three other people were believed to have been treated at the scene for minor injuries. There's 2 ambulances, 2 @NWAmb_HART vehicles & a number of senior clinicians on the scene along with @manchesterfire and @gmpolice #Team999 pic.twitter.com/IdNaaE5VjH North West Ambulance Service (@NWAmbulance) January 16, 2017 Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service said the cause of the blast was not yet known. A spokesman for the service said five crews of firefighters were called to the partially collapsed end terraced house. Crews still have a lot to do here at the house explosion in Blackley. More updates to follow... pic.twitter.com/gBSx8eRKl3 Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service (@manchesterfire) January 16, 2017 Crews assessed the scene and carried out searches of the area. Station Commander Merl Forrer, incident commander for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said: We are currently shoring up the property and using dogs to search the scene to ensure nobody is trapped inside. The building is partially collapsed and we are working effectively with partners to determine a cause of the explosion. The explosion left the house partially collapsed The road the property is on is currently closed and we advise people to avoid the area if possible. Police were also at the scene of the explosion. Firefighters rescued a small kitten from the debris of the house and posted photos on Twitter. Potholes could hit UK roads at an unprecedented rate over the coming months, according to a breakdown firm. The RAC issued the warning after recording a 24% rise in the number of pothole-related breakdowns between October and December compared with the same period in 2015. It is the first annual increase for the last quarter of a year since 2013. The incidents included damaged shock absorbers, broken suspension springs and distorted wheels. RAC chief engineer David Bizley described the increase as particularly worrying because rainfall which can be a catalyst for potholes between October and December was the lowest for that period in more than a decade. He said: If the first three months of 2017 prove to be both wet and cold, potholes are likely to appear at an unprecedented rate which would inevitably stretch local authority repair resources to their limit. If the first three months of 2017 prove to be both wet and cold, potholes are likely to appear at an unprecedented rate. #NationalPotholeDay pic.twitter.com/NbXagOnZuC RAC Press Team (@RACPress) January 16, 2017 Mr Bizley said urgent remedial repairs are needed to reduce the risk of further damage to vehicles or injuries to motorcyclists and cyclists. He added: It is insufficient investment in preventative maintenance, such as resurfacing, which is ultimately to blame. RAC's #ROM2016 found that 51% of motorists believe the state of the roads in their area worsened over the past 12 months #NationalPotholeDay RAC Press Team (@RACPress) January 16, 2017 A survey of almost 18,000 motorists commissioned by the AA to mark National Pothole Day on Monday found that a fifth (20%) would volunteer to fill a pothole themselves rather than wait for a local authority. AA president Edmund King said: The state of local roads has got so bad that we now have a sea of volunteers to tackle an ocean of potholes. If we are ever going to get a handle on the situation, the Government must give authorities the tools they need to fill potholes. Otherwise councils will simply pass the shovels on to ratepayers. (Martin Rickett/PA) The Local Government Association recently warned that 2017 could be a tipping point for tackling potholes as it said the bill for repairing roads in England and Wales could reach 14 billion within two years. The Department for Transport (DfT) has committed 6 billion for English councils to improve local roads over the current Parliament, in addition to a 50 million-a-year fund specifically for tackling potholes. On Friday it unveiled plans for high-definition cameras to be fitted to bin lorries to spot road surface problems which can be treated before they become potholes. A new pothole-spotter will be trialled by @thurrockcouncil and @CityofYork to identify road surface problems https://t.co/0uSVuxh3vc pic.twitter.com/rU5m0lwJWJ Department for Transport (@transportgovuk) January 13, 2017 The DfT claimed the system, which is being trialled by councils in York and Thurrock, Essex, could revolutionise the way potholes are identified and managed. Transport Minister Andrew Jones said: "This Government is investing record amounts improving and maintaining highways across the country to help motorists. Fresh funding cuts to Britains largest police force could undermine efforts to protect the public from terrorist attacks, the government has been warned. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said it will become near impossible to maintain the number of officers on the capitals streets if Scotland Yard is hit with further reductions. Dozens of police stations have closed and thousands of staff lost after the Met made 600 million in savings since 2010, with further reductions of 400 million set to follow over the coming years. Keeping Londoners safe is my first priority as Mayor. That means keeping police officer numbers as high as possible. https://t.co/dWmf3DaM2s Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) January 16, 2017 Mr Khan said: Keeping Londoners safe is my first priority as mayor. But, in the face of continued pressures on the police budget, exacerbated and deepened by central government, this is becoming increasingly difficult. The official threat level for international terrorism in the UK stands at severe, meaning an attack is highly likely. (Stefan Rousseau/PA) A Home Office spokesman said: The Metropolitan Police Service remains the best-funded force in the country and will receive 2.5 billion in 2017/18 provided it maximises its precept. It is vital our police forces are fit to face the challenges of tomorrow. Vacuum and electronics giant Dyson is expanding its pool of software engineers, with the majority of its recruits set to work in the UK. The company is on the hunt for 110 new staff as part of plans to hire an additional 3,000 engineers globally by 2021. A Dyson spokesman confirmed the majority of the 110 positions will be based in Britain at its Malmesbury campus in Wiltshire and the Dyson software hub in Bristol. Others will be recruited to Dysons operations in Singapore. Sir James Dyson Welcome to the Smart Rooms. The ultimate test. Do you have what it takes? https://t.co/8jA3s07pKZ #SmartRooms pic.twitter.com/xVmUZOoXVk Dyson (@Dyson) January 16, 2017 To help in its hiring spree, the company is launching a pop-up in London where participants will have to solve cryptic software-based challenges in teams to help test applicants problem-solving skills. The top challengers will then be offered job interviews with Dyson. It follows an announcement from billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson last November when he outlined plans to launch a new university to help bridge Britains chronic skills gap. Sir James is expected to pour 15 million into the Dyson Institute of Technology which will be based at Dysons campus in Wiltshire as he looks to double his engineering workforce to 6,000 over the next five years. It will take its first 25 students in September 2017. A Tory smack in the face for Leave voters told that Brexit meant more jobs & more investment in the UK. Dyson = investment in the Far East https://t.co/Lj6uuNSLGr Louise Johnson (@CharlotDearling) December 29, 2016 He told the Press Association in November that the private sector had a duty to help plug the engineering skills gap because the UK needed 10 times as many engineers as it did 10 years ago. Sir James said that the idea of launching the university came after he visited the Government to moan about the lack of engineers. He was advised to take matters into his own hands. The degrees will initially be awarded by Warwick University, with Dyson applying for powers from the Department of Education to create a full-fledged university. The Dyson Institute of Technology will only gain university status if proposals in a Government whitepaper Success as a Knowledge Economy make their way into law. A Stormont Assembly election will take place on March 2, the Northern Ireland Secretary has announced. James Brokenshire called the poll minutes after a deadline elapsed that effectively triggered the collapse of the powersharing executive in Belfast. Mr Brokenshire was obliged by law to set an election date after Sinn Fein brought down the institutions by refusing to replace Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister. Martin McGuinness, left, and Arlene Foster Mr McGuinness quit last week citing irreconcilable differences with his long-term Democratic Unionist partners in government. The deadline for Sinn Fein to re-nominate a minister passed at 5pm on Monday. Mr Brokenshire said: No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake. While it is inevitable that debate during an election period will be intense, I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll. .@JBrokenshire says NI has overcome major obstacles in past and can do again. pic.twitter.com/pgyJTVIBnw David Young (@DavidYoungPA) January 16, 2017 The Government continues to stand firmly behind its commitment to the Belfast Agreement and its successors, and our responsibilities to safeguard political stability. We will continue to do all that we can to find a way forward and secure the continuation of devolved government and I will make a further statement in Parliament tomorrow. Mr McGuinnesss resignation was precipitated by the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scandal a botched eco-scheme set to cost Stormont 490 million but that row has also reignited a range of other bitter disputes dividing the coalition. How we got here: A timeline of the "cash for ash" scandal that has brought down Stormont's powersharing administration pic.twitter.com/vjfIztvH2g PA Media (@PA) January 16, 2017 Sinn Fein MLA Michelle ONeill told the Assembly: The DUP have treated these institutions and sections of the community with contempt and arrogance. Today, Sinn Fein will not re-nominate for the position of deputy first minister. Ms ONeill said Sinn Fein would only return to government if there was real and meaningful change. Mr McGuinnesss resignation automatically removed DUP leader Arlene Foster from her position as first minister as executive structures dictate one cannot govern without the other. This is what Sinn Fein's political stunt means for the people of Northern Ireland. pic.twitter.com/Y8uH67o0SU Sammy Wilson MP (@eastantrimmp) January 16, 2017 On Monday, the DUP renominated Mrs Foster to the post. That was rendered meaningless by Sinn Feins subsequent refusal to renominate its own incumbent at the head of the executive. Mrs Foster claimed the electorate did not want or need an election. She accused Sinn Fein of triggering a poll because they did not like the outcome of last Mays vote. They have forced an election that risks Northern Irelands future and stability, and which suits nobody but themselves, she said. Theresa May phoned Mrs Foster and Mr McGuinness early on Monday in a last-ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the devolved administration. But her intervention was to no avail. Tunisian law enforcement units deliberately delayed their arrival on the scene of the terrorist attack in Sousse in which 38 tourists were killed, an inquest has heard. The hearing into the deaths of 30 Britons in the June 2015 assault by extremist Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi heard that a local investigation into the slaughter criticised some police for stalling as they made their way to the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel. Rezgui systematically gunned down the innocent tourists on the hotels beach before going into the grounds and the building and killing more, the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London was told. CCTV footage played to the packed courtoom, full of relatives of those who died, showed the killer as he approached the hotel with his gun hidden under a parasol. More graphic scenes showed him enter the building and shoot at least one tourist. Local law enforcement in Sousse could have stopped Tunisia terror attack sooner but deliberately delayed arrival at beach, inquest told. David Wilcock (@DavidTWilcock) January 16, 2017 Samantha Leek QC, counsel to the inquest, said a report by Tunisian Judge Akremi had identified failings by local units which could have ended the slaughter before more police arrived and shot Rezgui dead. She said the inquest would hear evidence from that report citing an unnamed interior minister as saying some Tunisian security officers nearby had consciously slowed down their arrival. Bruce Wilkinson Ms Leek said: He said the units that should have intervened in the events deliberately and unjustifiably slowed down to delay their arrival at the hotel. They had the ability to put an end to the attack before the police arrived but wasted a considerable amount of time in getting to the hotel. Footage shown to the inquest included the shooting of 72-year-old grandfather Bruce Wilkinson, from Goole, East Yorkshire. A woman, believed to be a family member, left the room before it was shown. Families of Tunisia terror attack victims packed into Royal Courts of Justice courtroom for start of the inquest, due to last 7 weeks. David Wilcock (@DavidTWilcock) January 16, 2017 Another clip was shown of the gunman being dropped off in a white van, before walking away carrying a large item. In another he was seen walking along the shoreline, past a tent and yellow boats, with people seen running in panic in what is believed to have been the beginning of the attack. Ms Leek added that on June 26 2015 Rezgui entered the hotel from the beach, carrying an automatic weapon and a number of explosives. #Tunisia inquest starts with reading of names of all 38 victims and a minute's silence David Wilcock (@DavidTWilcock) January 16, 2017 She added: He systematically took the lives of 38 people who had travelled to Tunisia for enjoyment, luxury and relaxation. An armed guard on the beach opened fire on Rezgui, but fell to the ground seemingly unconscious after the gunman threw a grenade at him, she added. This led to a local speedboat driver, named as AI, picking his gun up and attempting to confront Rezgui. However he was unable to work the weapon. She said Rezgui was thought to have acted alone on the beach albeit with an accomplice in a van nearby and AI brandishing the gun may have sparked reports at the time of a second gunman involved in the shooting. Liverpool could be without Joel Matip for the next month as the row over the defenders availability rumbles on. The centre-back, who has not played for Cameroon since September 2015, was withdrawn from selection by the club for Sundays 1-1 draw at Manchester United as FIFA failed to provide the necessary guidance on the players eligibility. Jurgen Klopp has spoken about Joel Matip's withdrawal from #MUNLIV...https://t.co/sjRmdFMJkU Liverpool FC (@LFC) January 15, 2017 Despite Matips assertion to his national association that he does not want to be considered for selection they still made attempts to call him up for the African Nations Cup. With no likelihood of an agreement being reached with Cameroon, Liverpool asked FIFA specifically to clarify the status of a player who has no desire or intention to represent his country. However, the world governing body appear to have ducked the issue and insist the regulations are clear. Unless Cameroon cede to Matips request he will have to sit out the entire period for which he should have been released according to FIFA guidelines plus an additional period of five days. Buck-passing of highest order from FIFA re: Matip/Cameroon/@LFC. FIFA say rules in place: Cameroon have to 'release' Matip or he sits out Carl Markham (@carlmarkham) January 16, 2017 Any attempt by Liverpool to play the defender without Cameroons consent would lead to a FIFA disciplinary committee investigation. We can confirm that Liverpool FC contacted FIFA about the matter, a FIFA spokesman told Press Association Sport. Our services answered by directing the club to the applicable provisions (Annexe 1 of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players) in particular its article 5. Jurgen Klopp is angry about the situation surrounding Matip (Martin Rickett/PA) FIFA also indicated that any potential violation of the applicable provisions would need to be investigated by the FIFA disciplinary committee. We cannot provide any further comment on this issue. Article 5 to which FIFA refer states the following: A player who has been called up by his association for one of its representative teams is, unless otherwise agreed by the relevant association, not entitled to play for the club with which he is registered during the period for which he has been released or should have been released pursuant to the provisions of this annexe, plus an additional period of five days. Joel Matip has been an impressive performer for Liverpool this season (Scott Heavey/PA) The final of the African Nations Cup is not until February 5 so should Cameroon make it all the way in the competition Matip would, in theory, not be available until February 10 the day before Tottenhams trip to Anfield. West Ham continue to remain firm on the future of want-away playmaker Dimitri Payet after turning down an improved offer from his former club Marseille. Press Association Sport understands a fee, believed to be just over the 20million mark, was rebuffed by co-chairman David Sullivan on Monday afternoon. Payet shocked the Hammers last week by declaring his desire to leave the London Stadium, despite having only signed a fresh deal last February after shining in his first season in the Premier League. Dimitri Payet and Slaven Bilic The 29-year-old quickly established himself as a fans favourite following his signing from Marseille, and was named as West Hams player of the year for their final campaign at Upton Park. This season has not been as impressive for either Payet or Slaven Bilics side as a whole and the West Ham boss revealed last week that the France international is now refusing to play for the club. Despite his stance, both co-chairmen Sullivan and David Gold have expressed that they have no financial need to sell the former Lille man and are refusing to be bullied into a quick sale. Bilic announced the news at his press conference ahead of Saturdays 3-0 win over Crystal Palace, saying he was let down and angry at Payets decision. The first team were given Monday off following their impressive display against the Eagles but Press Association Sport understands Bilic has followed through on his threat to banish Payet from training and he will now practice with the under-23 side instead. Payet certainly was not missed in the short term as West Ham beat Palace on Saturday, with Andy Carrolls acrobatic overhead kick the pick of the goals. Lucky West Ham didn't do anything stupid like build a gigantic Dimitri Payet shirt into their stadium pic.twitter.com/wJS6xx5bNs Andy Gerlis (@ndyGerlis) January 14, 2017 Maintenance staff taking down the Dimitri Payet shirt at the stadium today. The love affair is truly over! #WHUFC pic.twitter.com/0201SQ9eep West Ham News & Views (@WestHamViews_) January 13, 2017 After the convincing London derby win, Bilic was more interested in praising those who did turn out. Payet is a great player so you are losing quality, but the team showed it is about the team and not individuals, he said. This is a great example for that. So lets talk about Carroll, or Darren Randolph, or Mark Noble. LME copper eases on profit-taking after hefty gains last week By James Regan SYDNEY, Jan 16 (Reuters) - London copper prices eased on Monday as some investors took profits following hefty gains last week on the back of strong economic data from the United States and China. Customs figures on Friday showed China shipped in a record 4.95 million tonnes of copper in 2016, while U.S. data revealed broad retail sales in that country climbed in December. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange had slipped 0.23 percent to $5,894.50 a tonne by 0700 GMT. It rose more than 5 percent last week. But a commodities trader in Perth cautioned against reading too much into copper's modest contraction. "Sentiment still favours the bulls," he said on condition of anonymity. "All the data we are seeing is supportive." The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 0.95 percent at 47,950 yuan ($6,957) a tonne. Meanwhile, London nickel declined 1 percent to $10,325 a tonne, reversing some of Friday's unexpected 1.7- percent gain after Indonesia eased a ban on exports of nickel ores. Traders said they were worried that the country's abrupt easing of a three-year ban on such exports would drag on prices for the metal, despite assurances over the weekend from top Indonesian mining officials that the step would not flood the global market with supply. Three-month LME aluminium traded 0.08 percent lower at $1,807.50, while three-month zinc slipped 0.5 percent to $2,776 a tonne. Three-month lead gained 2 percent to $2,271.50 a tonne. In other Shanghai metals, aluminium was off 0.11 percent, zinc rose 1 percent and lead gained 0.61 percent. PRICES Three month LME copper Most active ShFE copper Three month LME aluminium Most active ShFE aluminium Three month LME zinc Most active ShFE zinc Three month LME lead Most active ShFE lead Three month LME nickel Most active ShFE nickel Three month LME tin Most active ShFE tin Reuters Health News Summary Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Trump vows 'insurance for everybody' in replacing Obamacare U.S. President-elect Donald Trump aims to replace Obamacare with a plan that would envisage "insurance for everybody," he said in an interview with the Washington Post published on Sunday night. Trump did not give the newspaper specifics about his proposals to replace Democratic President Barack Obama's signature health insurance law, but said the plan was nearly finished and he was ready to unveil it alongside the leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress. The Republican president-elect takes office on Friday. U.S. House Republicans to vote on Obamacare repeal U.S. House Republicans were moving ahead on Friday with legislation aimed at dismantling Obamacare, despite concerns about not having a replacement for the healthcare program and the potential financial costs in repealing President Barack Obama's landmark law. Moderate Republican Representative Charlie Dent said he had reservations about voting for the effort to start a repeal but would not say whether he would vote for or against it. China confirms one more human death from H7N9 bird flu A man in China's central Henan province has become the latest person reported to have died this winter from H7N9 bird flu, the state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday citing local health authorities. The 36-year-old roast duck salesman developed a fever and a cough around Dec. 25 in coastal Zhejiang province, near Shanghai, and returned to Henan in early January, Xinhua said. He was diagnosed with H7N9 on Jan. 10 and died the next day. Bulgaria reports virulent bird flu at over 50 farms, culling 430,000 poultry News / National by Stephen Jakes A political commentator Ronald Midzi has said Zaniu PF despite continued economic crisis that has rocked the nation under its rule still command spirited grass roots support against the sprouting opposition political parties that threaten each other's chances of winning the polls.He said in 2013 elections Robert Mugabe and Zanu Pf won resoundingly against the main rival Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC T. He said among other small parties were that contested the election were MDC N and Zapu."Zanu PF fired Joice Mujuru who then went to form her political party ZimPF which will contest in 2018. In MDC-T Tendai Biti resigned and went to form his own political party People's Democratic Party. Elton Mangoma also left and started his own outfit. Both Biti and Mangoma parties will be on the ballot paper come 2018. In addition, after 2013 elections Lovemore Madhuku formed the NCA party and has been contesting in Bi-elections around the country along side Ngarivhume's Transform Zimbabwe party. Also in play is Barbara Nyagomo' s Party." he said."Robert Mugabe and Zanu Pf still enjoy major grassroots support even though Mujuru left. Apart from support gained in 2013 Zanu Pf also gained more in Bi-elections. Tsvangirai and his MDCT have been the major victims of fall. From the little they had in 2013, Tendai Biti left with some whilst Elton Mangoma took his own fair share. As witnessed in Bi-elections TZ, NCA, ZimPF supporters or candidates are those who deflected from MDCT after 2013 elections.Joyce Mujuru ZimPf has generally poor support base that it will not stand the crippled MDCT in any election.The rest of the parties are obviously losers."He said the rigging Zanu PF has already won the 2018 elections. Syrian rebels to attend peace talks in Kazakhstan By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi BEIRUT/AMMAN, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Syrian rebel groups have decided to attend peace talks backed by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan to press for full implementation of a ceasefire they say has been widely violated by the government and its Iranian-backed allies. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's most powerful ally, set the new diplomatic effort in motion after Syrian rebels suffered a major defeat last month by losing control of districts of eastern Aleppo they had held for nearly four years. The United States, which led failed efforts to launch peace talks last year, has not been involved in the latest diplomacy. Assad has already said his government is ready to attend the talks. After winning ground with Russian and Iranian military support, he looks stronger than at any point in the war. The rebels took the decision at meetings underway in Ankara, and are now working to form a delegation that will be headed by Mohammad Alloush, the head of the political office of Jaish al-Islam rebel group, Alloush told Reuters. He said the rebels were going to Astana to "neutralise the criminal role" of Iran. Analysts believe the rebels have been under pressure from Turkey, one of their main sponsors, to attend. Earlier this month, they called off any talks on their participation in the Astana meeting over what they said were government violations of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey. Turkey's priorities in Syria appear to have shifted away from toppling Assad towards combating Kurdish groups and Islamic State in areas of northern Syria near its border. Its ties with Russia have also improved in recent months. "The factions will go and the first thing they will discuss will be the matter of the ceasefire and the violations by the regime," said an official in a Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group who declined to be identified because the groups had yet to appoint a spokesman. "This will be a test for the Russians as the guarantor," he said. A second official, Zakaria Malahifji of the Fastaqim rebel group, said: "The majority of the groups decided to attend. Discussions will be on the ceasefire - the humanitarian issues - aid deliveries, release of detainees." The rebel groups would reject any discussion of broader political issues at the Astana talks, the rebel officials said. FIGHTING CONTINUES The talks are scheduled for Jan. 23 in Astana. Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday that Ankara and Moscow had decided to invite the United States to attend. A Kremlin spokesman did not confirm that on Monday. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed preparations for the talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. As with last year's peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey. Fighting has continued despite the ceasefire, notably near Damascus where government forces backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah are trying to recapture a rebel-held area where the capital's main water supply has been bombed out of service. Separately, Islamic State, excluded from both truce and talks, has launched its fiercest assault in a year against a besieged government enclave in the city of Deir al-Zor. The rebel groups that will attend the talks include FSA factions fighting in northern Syria, some of them the groups defeated in Aleppo. Alloush's faction, Jaish al-Islam, is one of the bigger rebel groups, with a strong presence in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus. The delegation will be different to one sent to peace talks in Geneva last year by the main opposition council, the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee. The HNC, which includes political and armed opposition groups, represented the opposition in peace talks last year. Alloush sits on the HNC, which said on Saturday that it had supported efforts towards the talks in Kazakhstan, and viewed the meeting as a preliminary step for resuming the next round of political negotiations in Geneva. Malahifji said the new delegation would be formed in coordination with the HNC, but it would differ from it because "the Russians are focusing very much on the military factions". Copper retreats on dollar strength after rally to five-week high By Jan Harvey LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Copper eased on Monday as a stronger dollar prompted some investors to cash in gains after last week's upbeat Chinese and U.S. data lifted the metal to a five-week high overnight. With U.S. traders absent because of the Martin Luther King Day holiday and wider markets gearing up for U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday, some buyers are taking the opportunity to realise profits in copper. The metal posted its best weekly performance in seven last week, climbing nearly 6 percent, and touched its highest since Dec. 7 overnight at $5,930 a tonne. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed down 0.7 percent at $5,865. "This is probably just a bit of a pause for breath," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Asa Bridle said. "Everyone is watching and waiting to see what happens this week, with comments from the presidential inauguration and other bits and pieces. We have Janet Yellen speaking about U.S. banking, and a lot of key economic indicators." More broadly, the economic backdrop has been supportive for copper of late, he said. "Recent economic data has been positive, particularly from China," he said. Chinese customs data on Friday showed that the country shipped in a record 4.95 million tonnes of copper in 2016, while U.S. data revealed retail sales there climbed in December. Along with other commodities, copper came under pressure from renewed strength in the dollar. The U.S. currency rose 0.4 percent against a basket as investors pondered Trump's likely economic policies after he takes office on Friday. LME nickel ended 1.8 percent lower at $10,255 a tonne as news that Indonesia is easing a ban on nickel ore exports weighed on the stainless steel ingredient. The retreat came despite assurances from Indonesian mining officials that the step would not flood the global market. "We believe the lifting of the Indonesian nickel ore export ban creates uncertainty on the medium-term direction of nickel prices," Citi said in a note. "There are a lot of uncertainties as to how much excess ore will actually come out of Indonesia given all the requirements to be fulfilled before export of ore can begin, the low nickel price (and the) need to ramp up (the) export infrastructure logistics chain." LME zinc closed down 1.5 percent at $2,751.50, while lead was up 1.6 percent at $2,268. Aluminium ended the day 0.9 percent lower at $1,792 a tonne, and tin was down 0.4 percent at $21,050. PRICES Three month LME copper Most active ShFE copper Three month LME aluminium Most active ShFE aluminium Three month LME zinc Most active ShFE zinc Three month LME lead Most active ShFE lead Three month LME nickel Most active ShFE nickel Three month LME tin Most active ShFE tin Trump team struggles for cohesion on tougher China policy By David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The incoming U.S. administration's tough talk against China has set the stage for showdowns on everything from security to trade and cyberspace, but contradictory signals are sowing uncertainty over how far President-elect Donald Trump is prepared to go in confronting Beijing. Highlighting the contested South China Sea as a potential flashpoint, Trump's Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson threw out an explosive challenge to Beijing on Wednesday by calling for it be denied access to artificial islands it is building in the strategic waterway. A Trump transition adviser told Reuters that Tillerson, Trump's pick to be America's top diplomat, did not mean to suggest the new administration would impose a naval blockade, which would risk armed confrontation with China, something the new administration was not seeking. But another official authorized to speak on behalf of the transition team pushed back on that view, saying Tillerson "did not misspeak" when he said China should be barred from its man-made islands. Amid the conflicting signals on policy, the team appears to be making progress on plans for a major naval build-up in East Asia to counter China's rise. The transition adviser told Reuters about specifics under consideration, such as basing a second aircraft carrier in the region, deploying more destroyers, attack submarines and missile defense batteries and expanding or adding new bases in Japan and Australia. They are also looking at installing "air force long-range strike assets" in South Korea, bordering China's nuclear-armed neighbor North Korea, said the adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Trump, who succeeds President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, has vowed to greatly expand the U.S. Navy to 350 ships, but his transition team has not made clear how he will fund this, amid other massive spending plans. China's Foreign Ministry said it could not guess what Tillerson meant by his remarks, which came after Trump questioned Washington's longstanding and highly sensitive "one-China" policy over Taiwan. But an influential Chinese state-run tabloid warned on Friday that blocking Chinese access to South China Sea islands would require the United States to "wage war." Trump's pick for defense secretary, retired Marine General James Mattis, did not endorse Tillerson's message on the South China Sea, which would seem at odds with Washington's own longstanding commitment to freedom of navigation for all. Asked about the remarks at his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Mattis said China's actions in the South China Sea were part of a broader attack on the world order, but said the State, Defense and Treasury Departments needed to put together an integrated policy "so we are not dealing with an incomplete or an incoherent strategy." The conflicting messages underscore the incoming administration's struggle in crafting an approach to one of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing Trump, who during his election campaign repeatedly bashed China, saying it was "killing" and "raping" America on trade. RISKS OF RETALIATION A former U.S. official who has informally advised Trump's transition team said it may not have fully thought through the risks of any new U.S. military or trade pressure on China. "We should not underestimate China's willingness to retaliate in kind," the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. As part of a drive to protect American jobs, Trump has threatened to declare China a currency manipulator - even though economists say Beijing has been seeking to prop up, not weaken, its currency. He has also threatened to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, risking a trade war that could hurt both countries and the global economy. Trump has yet to name to his national security team high-level members with deep experience of the region, leading some analysts to question whether the new administration will have enough expertise to translate rhetoric on a more robust Asia policy into action. But Trump has appointed two harsh China critics to his trade team - Peter Navarro, an academic who authored a book entitled "Death by China," and Robert Lighthizer, a former Reagan administration official. Trump advisers dismiss concerns their approach could prove risky or counterproductive, arguing that a "peace through strength" stance will put real muscle behind U.S. policy in the region after decades of under-resourcing due to U.S. distractions elsewhere in the world. "Once we start correcting the military imbalance, I actually think you will get more cooperation rather than less," the Trump adviser said. Trump and his cabinet nominees have also vowed to step up pressure on China to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, including by holding out the possibility of "secondary sanctions" on Chinese entities found to be violating sanctions on Pyongyang. But analysts say China may be in no mood to cooperate if Washington is leaning on it on other issues. Those include U.S. pressure on Beijing to curb cyber hacking of U.S. entities. China's official responses to recent broadsides have been measured so far as they wait to see how Trump will act once he takes office. "We have seen many conflicting messages from people within his prospective administration," said Tu Xinquan, a trade expert at Beijing's University of International Business and Economics. But analysts say confronting Beijing over hot-button nationalist issues like Taiwan and the South China Sea could trigger strong reactions, especially in a year when President Xi Jinping is seeking to further consolidate power at a congress of the ruling Communist Party held every five years. Zha Daojiong, a professor at Peking University, said the theme of clash of civilizations was becoming increasingly popular in Chinese circles and this was ominous. Japan pledges boats to Vietnam as China dispute simmers By Mai Nguyen and My Pham HANOI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday promised Vietnam six new patrol boats during a visit to the Southeast Asian country, which is locked in a dispute with China over the busy South China Sea. Abe's stop in Vietnam completes a tour through an arc of a region where Japan stakes a leadership claim in the face of China's growing dominance and uncertainty over what policy change Donald Trump will bring as U.S. president. "We will strongly support Vietnam's enhancing its maritime law enforcement capability," Abe said, while emphasising that the dispute over the South China Sea should be settled through talks and in accordance with international law. China claims almost all the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion worth of seaborne trade passes every year. Vietnam and four other countries also say they have rights in the sea, believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas. Tokyo has no territorial ambitions there, but worries about China's growing military reach into the sea lanes. Japan has a separate dispute with China over a cluster of islets in the East China Sea. The six new coastguard patrol boats had a total value of 38.5 billion yen ($338 million) and Vietnam would get a concessional loan to pay for them, a Japanese official said. No timeline for delivery has been discussed yet. Japan had previously agreed to provide six old patrol boats to Vietnam. Maritime security and trade have been themes during Abe's other stops - in Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. Given the readiness of the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte to move closer to China and further from its traditional U.S. ally, Vietnam is one of fewer regional states showing potential readiness to confront China. TRUMP QUESTIONS Uncertainty over U.S. policy in Asia was amplified last week by comments from Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson that China must stop building islands in the South China Sea and that its access to those islands must not be allowed. Despite their differences, Vietnam also maintains a strong diplomatic track with China. China and Vietnam said at the weekend they had agreed to manage their maritime differences and preserve peace and stability. Both Japan and Vietnam have also been strong supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade pact which looks to have stalled in the face of Trump's pledge to withdraw the United States. In Hanoi, Abe stressed the importance of the TPP and other free trade agreements, but gave no further details. "Vietnam now plays a more significant role in Japan's foreign policy," said Ha Hoang Hop, a Vietnamese political analyst who has advised the government. China's crude oil juggernaut to roll on, but more slowly: Russell By Clyde Russell LAUNCESTON, Australia, Jan 16 (Reuters) - There is little doubt China's crude oil imports enjoyed a robust 2016, hitting a record high. The question is how long the party can continue? Customs data released on Jan. 13 showed Chinese imports of crude reached 36.38 million tonnes in December, or 8.57 million barrels per day (bpd), the most in a month and well above the previous mark of 8.04 million bpd set in September. For the year crude imports were 13.6 percent higher at about 7.6 million bpd. In volume terms this represents a gain of about 912,000 bpd, showing that China is still by a large margin the major driver of global growth in crude oil demand. To put that figure in perspective, Asia's other major source of oil demand growth is India, where crude imports were about 4.3 million bpd in 2016, up 7.5 percent or about 300,000 bpd from the prior year. The International Energy Agency estimates global oil demand growth was about 1.4 million bpd in 2016, not much more than the combined growth in imports of China and India. China appears poised to continue its recent strength in crude imports, with state-owned major China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) forecasting the nation's oil demand will gain by 3.4 percent in 2017 to 594 million tonnes, or about 11.88 million bpd. CNPC estimates net crude oil imports in 2017 will be around 7.95 million bpd, about 350,000 bpd higher than last year, still significant growth but down from the breakneck pace of 2016. Another key to the outlook for China's crude demand is how much the smaller, private refiners known as teapots will be allowed to import. It's possible their import quotas may be adjusted lower as they weren't using the full amounts last year, but this may be offset by more quotas being granted to operators previously barred from directly importing crude. Export quotas for products will also be important, because if both state majors and teapots can export more refined fuels, they may import more crude, especially if margins for key products such as diesel and gasoline remain robust in Asia. China's fuel exports reached a record 5.35 million tonnes in December, and for the whole of 2016 they rose by one-third to 48.3 million tonnes, equivalent to about 1.06 million bpd. This broadly suggests China's additional imports of crude oil were simply processed and exported as refined products. This is backed by calculations of China's apparent demand, which in the first 11 months of last year was 11.07 million bpd, down 0.9 percent, according to price reporting agency Platts. STORAGE QUESTION MARK Another factor to consider is how much of China's crude imports are flowing into strategic or commercial storage. Data for this isn't released officially, and the best way to estimate it is to look at the difference between the amount of crude processed by refiners and the amount of crude available from domestic output and net imports. December data isn't yet available, but for the first 11 months of the year that figure was about 31.85 million tonnes, equivalent to about 694,000 bpd. The level of crude imports will also be influenced by domestic oil output, which has been declining, dropping by 6.9 percent in the first 11 months of 2016 compared to the same period a year earlier. There is no guarantee this will continue, especially if higher crude prices make it more economically viable to invest in exploration or life extension for existing wells. But China's domestic production does appear to be on a declining trend, meaning imports will have to make up any shortfall in local output. Another consideration in looking at prospects for China's crude imports this year is how successful OPEC and its allies outside the producer group will be in cutting output and driving up prices. Higher prices won't keep China from buying oil, but history suggests it tends to cut imports for strategic storage if it judges them to be unsustainable and likely to retreat over time. China's economic growth rate is also expected to remain relatively stable, although this is subject to the caveats of a possible trade war or other tensions with incoming U.S. President Donald Trump. This should provide support to domestic consumption growth, especially for gasoline given expectations that vehicle sales will remain solid in 2017. Taking all the various strands together a somewhat mixed picture for China's crude imports emerges for this year, with the risks still weighted in favour of modest gains. On the plus side, imports should gain on softer domestic output and rising refinery throughput, although much of this will flow back onto Asian markets as refined fuels. The economic backdrop should be supportive, but higher prices may curb demand for strategic storage. A final thought is that a clear trend for China's 2017 imports may not appear until the end of the first quarter, given volatility around the time of the Lunar New Year holidays at the end of this month. SEB's CEO heads for Swiss private bank after navigating crisis By Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson STOCKHOLM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - SEB CEO Annika Falkengren, who steered Sweden's fourth-biggest bank through the financial crisis and its aftermath, is quitting to join Swiss wealth and asset manager firm Lombard Odier Group. Falkengren, 54, is one of only a few female bank chief executives in Europe and a flag-bearer for women in Swedish industry where women hold the top job in only 6 percent of listed companies. She said she would leave SEB, the central hub of the Wallenberg family business empire, in July because she could not see an operational role for herself at the bank, which she joined 30 years ago as a trainee. She will join Lombard Odier Group as a managing partner. Falkengren earned 22.5 million Swedish crowns ($2.5 million) in 2015, according to the bank's annual report, making her one of Sweden's best paid executives. SEB said it is looking for a replacement to run the bank, which was founded in 1856 by the chairman's great-great grandfather, after Falkengren streamlined and integrated its activities after taking over the helm in 2005. Falkengren concentrated on boosting capital after losses in its Baltic business forced SEB to raise 15 billion Swedish crowns ($1.67 billion) after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. During her tenure, SEB Swedish media focused not only on her business achievements but also on how she successfully combined running a bank and motherhood, including sending breast milk by taxi for her infant daughter or going home for lunch for feeds. SHARE SUCCESS Unlike many of their peers in Europe, Swedish banks fared relatively well during the financial crisis, with none requiring a bail-out from the government. "She has navigated SEB through an extremely difficult time in the history of the financial industry," SEB chairman Marcus Wallenberg said, adding that the bank remains "committed to the current business plan and our financial targets". Shares in SEB were down 1.5 percent at 1111 GMT, in line with the blue-chip Stockholm index, with analysts saying the departure of Falkengren was a blow. SEB stock has risen by 23 percent since she was appointed, while the European banking index is down around 50 percent. Low funding costs and cutting-edge IT systems have enabled Swedish banks to deliver returns on equity roughly double those of their European counterparts since the crash. Prominent Dutch lawyer Wakkie arrested in Spain in telecoms insolvency probe: source By Angus Berwick and Toby Sterling MADRID/AMSTERDAM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Spanish police arrested prominent Dutch corporate lawyer Peter Wakkie at Madrid airport on Monday in an investigation into the insolvency of Russian-Spanish telecom firm ZED+, a judicial source said. A spokesman for Wakkie, who is ZED+'s interim manager, said he could not immediately comment on the arrest at Barajas Airport after a flight from the Netherlands, where the company is domiciled. The source from the Spanish investigation said Spain's anti-corruption prosecutor's office was seeking to charge Wakkie with belonging to a criminal organisation and making false claims of insolvency. The source, speaking anonymously to confirm a report in news outlet El Confidencial, declined to elaborate on either charge and said the proceedings were secret. Further calls to Wakkie's spokesman on the charges went unanswered. A spokeswoman for the Spanish High Court declined to comment on the arrest. Wakkie was named interim top manager of ZED+ by the Amsterdam Commercial Court in November 2014 pending an inquiry into the company's previous management, whose infighting had brought it close to bankruptcy, according to Dutch court documents. In February 2016, the court suspended ZED+ Co-President and Chief Executive Javier Perez Dolset from its board of managers after the London Court of International Arbitration found in 2015 that he had forged documents, the court documents show. Dolset and an associate named in the UK hearing denied any wrongdoing or fraud. Dolset, whose family founded the Zed group, remains in control of Spain-based Zed Worldwide, in which ZED+ has a controlling stake. A Zed spokeswoman in Spain did not respond to emails and phone calls from Reuters and Dolset did not respond to a message sent on Linkedin. ZED+ controlled 379 million euros in assets in 2014 and reported 10.1 million euros of profit on 385 million euros of sales, according to a filing with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The Dolset family has a 30 percent stake in the firm through their holding company Wisdom, the documents show, plus additional smaller stakes via several other firms. Brazil sees new uprising at penitentiary where 26 killed over weekend By Pedro Fonseca RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A new uprising has broken out at a prison in northeastern Brazil where 26 inmates were killed by a rival gang faction over the weekend, authorities said Monday. "A SWAT team is there at this exact moment. Our men are entering the prison now to get control of the situation," said Eduardo Franco, head of communications for police in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, where the prison is located. It was not immediately clear what sparked the latest uprising at the Alcacuz prison, located about 25 km (15.5 miles) south of the state capital Natal. It was in the same prison that members of Brazil's most powerful drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), slaughtered 26 other inmates in a riot that began late Saturday and was not controlled until Sunday. As in a series of other prison uprisings in recent weeks, many of those killed had their heads cut off and were badly mutilated or burned. At least 140 inmates have died in Brazil's prisons in just over two weeks. The intense violence is the result of a split between the PCC and Brazil's second-most powerful gang, the Red Command. For more than two decades the two gangs maintained an uneasy working relationship, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and arms easily made its way over Brazil's porous borders with the world's biggest cocaine-producing nations. But about six months ago, security officials and experts say, the PCC moved to fully take over trafficking routes and tried to push the Red Command aside. The Red Command responded by forming alliances with smaller regional gangs, primarily in Brazil's Amazon region and in the northeast, in an attempt to block the PCC from taking over those drug routes and gaining new turf. A New Year's Day prison massacre at the Anisio Jobim prison complex in Amazonas state in which 56 died ignited the recent violence. Most of those killed were members of the PCC, butchered by members of the North Family gang, which is allied with the Red Command. It was Brazil's deadliest prison uprising since a 1992 rebellion at the Carandiru penitentiary in Sao Paulo state that saw police storm the building and kill 111 prisoners. After the Jan. 1 bloodletting, members of the PCC on Jan. 6 murdered 33 inmates at the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima. Videos taken by inmates showed the slaughter, with those hacking away at bodies saying they were doing so in revenge for their "brothers" killed the week before. Brazil's prisons, mostly under control of states and not the federal government, have for decades been in a state of chaos, with extreme overcrowding and escapes and violence the norm. The prisons are also largely run by prison gangs and the state, experts and authorities acknowledge, has little control over the institutions. Drugs, guns and all manner of contraband seemingly enter the jails at will. Iran shoots at a drone in central Tehran - military commander DUBAI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Iran's anti-aircraft forces fired shots at a drone on Monday that had entered the no-fly zone in the capital Tehran, a military commander was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. Central Tehran is a no-fly zone as government institutions and the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei are located there. "Shots have been fired at a drone as it entered the no-fly zone in Tehran. Nothing to be worried about," the governor of Tehran province, Isa Farhadi was quoted as saying by Tansim news agency. "We do not know yet who it belonged to," he added. A commander in Iran's air defence forces, Alireza Elhami, told Tasnim news that the drone was a quadcopter that left the area after the warning shots. Quadcopter are non-military drones, usually used for filming. Indian tailor confesses to sexually assaulting "hundreds" of schoolgirls - police By Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI, Jan 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A tailor in India has confessed to abducting, molesting and raping "hundreds" of schoolgirls over the last decade, said Delhi police, uncovering what may be one of the biggest serial paedophile cases in the country in recent times. Sunil Rastogi, a 38-year-old married man with five children, was arrested on Saturday by police investigating the sexual assault of three girls aged nine and ten in the east of the Indian capital. "This criminal, Sunil Rastogi, is from Rudrapur in Uttar Pradesh, and is a tailor by profession," Omvir Singh Bishoi, East Delhi's deputy commissioner of police, told a news conference on Sunday. "During interrogation he told us that at least once a week he would come from Rudrapur and, in order to satisfy his paedophile lust, he would target girls between the ages of seven and ten years old." Rastogi was charged with rape, aggravated penetrative sexual assault of a minor, and criminal intimidation, in the three cases, said police, and is also being investigated for related paedophile crimes. Police said that Rastogi could not remember the exact number of girls he had sexually assaulted since 2004, but said it could be "hundreds". Wearing a red, white and green striped sweater and a red balaclava covering his face, Rastogi was paraded in front of the media on Sunday. "I used to take them (the girls) to a secluded area," he said as he stood handcuffed to a policeman. "I don't know why I did it. I liked it." Child sex abuse is widespread in India, but is largely considered taboo in its conservative society and ignored within families, say activists, who say victims are often afraid to come forward for fear of being blamed for the abuse. There were over 94,000 crimes committed against children in 2015, says the National Crime Records Bureau, with almost 40 percent of cases being sex offences such as rape, molestation and sexual harassment. Police said they began investigating Rastogi in December after receiving a complaint of a 10-year-old girl who had escaped attempted rape in Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area. Two similar complaints from other girls in the same area were received on Jan. 10, said police, and after scouring through hours of CCTV footage of the area, and using sketches and photographs to identify him, Rastogi was arrested. Rastogi has been sent to judicial custody for two weeks, said police, and an investigation team will look into other sexual assault cases in Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Activists and politicians questioned how Rastogi managed to abuse so many girls and evade arrest for over 10 years, despite having served jail time for a previous sexual offence in 2006. Swati Maliwal, Head of Delhi's National Commission for Women, said the case was "horrifying". "This serial rapist shud get death 4 raping 500 little girls over 13 years. His case shud be heard urgently in fast track mode," tweeted Maliwal. News / National by Stephen Jakes 2017 has come and Loyiko, in partnership with the people of Matebeleland, are expected to make this year a very progressive one regarding highlighting Matebeleland issues.According to an article published by Mthwakazi, this year shall go down as a turning point for Loyiko and its campaign for Truth, Justice, Reparations and Healing for the victims and survivors of the Gukurahundi Genocide."This is a promise and a promise we shall fulfil. Mthwakazi get ready! We are in the Human Rights Departure Lounge, ready to take a Human rights flight! Be part of that flight! We have marked 2017 as a year of aggressive engagement with uMthwakazi people on their freedom campaign and we stand ready to offer that support and platform. The Mthwakazi people who are in South Africa and whose status is in Question remain our big priority and the RSA special permit campaign we launched last year remains on the cards. We are ready to unleash it in 2017," the Mthwakazians said."We are however alarmed with the reports that uMthwakazi was intimidated during the Christmas holidays. It has come to our attention that the Vice President of Zimbabwe, Emerson Mnangagwa deployed the 5th Brigade in Bulawayo streets to intimidate uMthwakazi during the holidays. Emerson Mnangagwa, who is directly accused of being the mastermind of Gukurahundi Genocide in the 80s, was the Acting President during the holidays and therefore he was the Commander-in-Chief of the security apparatus of Zimbabwe. The deployment was therefore directly under his command."The Mthwakazi activists said they were also alarmed to receive reports of increased land grab in Matebeleland, specifically in Matopo, to pave way for Arda and Trek Petroleum and the eviction of Matebeleland people from their homeland of birth."Again, in this instance, we have received reports that the 5th Brigade has been deployed by the Government of Zimbabwe under the Command of Emerson Mnangagwa, to carry out the operation of enforced Land grab from the people of Matebeleland. We receive reports that this army has imposed a curfew in the area and has adopted a shoot to kill policy against peaceful citizens of Matebeleand. This is unacceptable and is a clear violation of the human rights of the people of Matebeleland. It is a deplorable act that is part of the 1979 Grand Plan and its objectives. This is Gukurahundi in operation and motion," reads the article in part."As Loyiko, we condemn in the strongest terms, the deployment of the 5th Brigade soldiers in Bulawayo over the holidays and the deployment of the same 5th Brigade in Matopo to harass innocent people and make threats to shoot and kill them and in the process taking their land. the regime is not satisfied with the blood it has been spilling in Matebeleland since 1983. We strongly condemn the Vice President of Zimbabwe, Emerson Mnangagwa for his continued Gukurahundi Genocide Operation against the peace-loving and law abiding people of Matebeleland who remain traumatized by the Gukurahundi Genocide pogrom he and his colleagues carried out in the early 80s. The Zimbabwean government must stop this programme immediately to avert Land wars in Zimbabwe. This is another unprovoked aggression against the people of Matebeleland. It is unacceptable."The activists said the cited above examples of unprovoked aggression against the defenceless people of Matebeleland give us young South Africans, a determination to push for Truth, Justice, Reparations and Freedom for the people of Matebeleland through our Loyiko Play and other means. We will engage our brothers here in South Africa and elsewhere and set the stage for an intensified international campaign against the Zimbabwean regime and its Gukurahundist policy towards Matebeleland."We strongly urge the Zimbabwean government to remove its 5th Brigade Army in Matopo, Matebeleland and to abandon immediately its shoot and kill policy on defenceless and unarmed civilians. Mnangagwa we directly say this to you, "Hands-off The People of Matebeleland". You have caused so much suffering in your blood letting adventure in Matebeleland! Enough is Enough," the article reads."We equally urge the people of Matebeleland to stand up and defend their rights. They have got rights under the sun. We are ready to continue to partner the people of Matebeleland in their trials and tribulations brought on their shoulders by the regime of Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his right hand man, Emerson Mnangagwa and other hangers-on of the regime.""Meanwhile those who wish to follow our programmes for 2017 are kindly requested to check our website for more information on: www.uloyiko.co.zaMatebeleland you are our Love. Together as one, we shall triumph over Evil! Get ready Europeans look past Trump remarks to keep trans-Atlantic alliance alive By Robin Emmott and Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS, Jan 17 (Reuters) - If Washington's European allies had any hope that Donald Trump would sound less like Donald Trump now that he is days from the U.S. presidency, his first European newspaper interview quickly buried it. Trump declared the NATO alliance "obsolete", praised Britain's exit from the European Union and gave his clearest hint yet that he would consider lifting financial sanctions on Moscow, which the United States and EU both imposed after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. His new remarks drew public expressions of dismay from across Europe. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said they had led to "astonishment and agitation" in Brussels, where Steinmeier was meeting EU counterparts. He said he had already met with the head of NATO to share his concern. But behind the scenes, European officials say they are still confident that the architecture of the Western security alliance will survive a Trump presidency. Many say they have taken heart from the more conventional foreign policy positions described by Trump's picks for defence secretary and secretary of state, General James Mattis and Exxon-Mobil ex-CEO Rex Tillerson, at confirmation hearings. They also point to the strong support for NATO and the firm line on Russia expressed by senators from Trump's Republican Party during the questioning. Ultimately, they expect the post-World War Two Western alliance to withstand a more sceptical approach from the White House, thanks to deep institutional understanding of its benefits on both sides of the Atlantic. A stepped-up schedule of summits and meetings will give early chances to clear the air. "We are working on the basis that Trump will listen to Mattis, Tillerson and foreign policy Republicans," said a senior EU diplomat involved in foreign policy planning in Brussels. "If we can cement a relationship based around the calendar of meetings, bilaterals and summits, we may be able to get beyond the headlines and the election campaign." FOCUS ON EUROPE Trump takes charge of U.S. foreign policy and becomes commander-in-chief of the military at a time when the 2014 Ukraine crisis has already prompted Washington and NATO to shift their focus from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq back towards the founding mission of defending Europe. Three years after the last U.S. tank left Europe, U.S. heavy weaponry is returning as part of a congressionally-approved $3.4 billion spending plan to increase Europe's defences against what NATO -- led by U.S. strategists -- sees as an increasingly aggressive Russia. Under that plan, the U.S. army will deploy thousands of troops in Poland and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which all fear that Russia could attempt a land-grab on the model of its operation in Ukraine. The head of the Latvian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Ojars Eriks Kalnins, told Reuters his country was reassured by Mattis's confirmation hearings last week. "If you listen to his testimony then everything fits with our positions," he said. The first big chance to solidify the alliance will come Feb. 15-16, when Mattis is expected to make his debut at NATO headquarters in Brussels for a meeting of alliance ministers. That will be quickly followed by the annual Munich Security Conference in the German city, normally attended by world leaders and cabinet ministers, at which EU officials can press Trump administration figures for their views. A second senior EU official working on EU foreign policy said there will also be a swift invitation for Tillerson to attend an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. "We obviously plan to engage with the incoming US administration, it'll be important to assess our common priorities." Trump himself could make his European summit debut at a NATO meeting in April or May, although it has not yet been scheduled and could wait until 2018. Otherwise, he will share a stage with the British, Canadian, French, German, Italian and Japanese leaders at a G7 summit in Italy in May. Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said the main strategy was to ensure lines of dialog are open between the new administration and allies on the continent. "I'm convinced it's about communication," he said. "Our role is to be active, it's not a wait-and-see strategy. For all of us, it's very important to address partners in this new structure and to start cooperation and exchange of views." European officials say they expect Trump to hear about the importance of the U.S.-European alliance not only from diplomats and generals, but from fellow businessmen who recognise the need for close ties with the world's biggest trading bloc. Trump "would be well-advised to ask his international American companies how much sense it makes to operate in a single market in Europe. Then perhaps a sense of understanding would prevail," said Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner in charge of the bloc's future expansion. Still, despite the reassurance Europeans take from Trump's cabinet picks, one EU diplomat said the conclusion in Brussels was that they were dealing with "a big unknown" in Trump himself. "Whatever Tillerson, Mattis and others say, it is not necessarily the new administration's policy." French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Europe could learn a valuable lesson from a sceptical Washington: European countries need to stick together to defend themselves. UN: No justice in South Sudan after July rapes, killings By Magdalena Mis LONDON, Jan 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United Nations rebuked South Sudan on Monday for failing to pursue justice after grave human rights abuses -- including killings and gang rapes -- were committed during an explosion of violence in the capital Juba in July. Forces loyal to South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar engaged in five days of street battles with anti-aircraft guns, attack helicopters and tanks. The U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the U.N. Human Rights Office said it documented 217 cases of rape, including gang rape, committed by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) and other armed groups from July 8 to 25. The South Sudan government spokesman was not immediately available for comment. "The fighting that erupted in July 2016 was a serious setback for peace in South Sudan and showed just how volatile the situation in the country is, with civilians living under the risk of mass atrocities," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. "In the absence of any semblance of justice and accountability for the violations perpetrated - including possible war crimes - such unbridled outbursts of violence could quickly escalate (and) civilians will continue to suffer immensely. "Concrete steps to halt this downward spiral must be urgently taken, beginning with justice and accountability." Political rivalry between Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his former deputy Machar, a Nuer, led to civil war in 2013 that has often followed ethnic lines. The pair signed a shaky peace deal in 2015, but fighting has continued. According to the U.N., nearly 1.4 million South Sudanese have fled to other countries and another 1.8 million have been displaced inside the country. In its report on Monday, the U.N. said July abuses were targeting civilians along ethnic lines and women and children were subjected to extreme violence. On one occasion women and girls were ordered to cook for soldiers when their friends or family members were raped. The U.N. said most cases of extreme violence were committed by SPLA soldiers, police officers and members of the National Security Services (NSS). According to one testimony, ethnic Nuer men and women appeared to have been particularly targeted. Gambia Supreme Court judge declines to rule on president's election challenge By Lamin Jahateh BANJUL, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The top judge in Gambia's Supreme Court declined on Monday to rule on President Yahya Jammeh's petition to overturn his election defeat, as many Gambians wait nervously to see how the veteran leader will react to his rival's planned inauguration this week. Jammeh initially conceded defeat to opposition leader Adama Barrow following the Dec. 1 poll but later changed his mind, drawing widespread condemnation and the threat of a military intervention by regional neighbours. Whether Gambia succeeds in swearing in Barrow is viewed as a test for democracy in West Africa, a region which is seeking to draw a line under a history of coups and autocratic rule. The Supreme Court has not sat for over a year and all the judge's seats bar that of the chief justice are unoccupied. Jammeh has hired judges from Nigeria and Sierra Leone to hear the petitions, but they have failed to arrive in Gambia. "It is crystal clear that the justices from Nigeria and Serra Leone are not coming," the court's Nigerian Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said. The chief justice said the court would be adjourned until the next regular session in either May or November, but added that the petitions could be heard if the judges arrived sooner. The court's inability to convene only deepens the political crisis in Gambia. Allies of Jammeh said there could be no inauguration with petitions still pending before the court. "In the interest of justice, the petition must be heard and determined before the inauguration can take place," said Edward Gomez, a lawyer for Jammeh's APRC political party, reacting to the adjournment. Tensions are rising in the capital Banjul as Barrow's Jan. 19 inauguration approaches. Heavily armed security forces man checkpoints throughout the city. MEDIATION EFFORTS Barrow, who is visiting neighbouring Senegal, insists the swearing in ceremony will go ahead. Leaders of regional bloc ECOWAS have tried to convince Jammeh to step aside, rather than risk dragging the country into crisis or civil war. But the bloc has also indicated that military force could be used to install Barrow. Jammeh has called ECOWAS's placing of troops on alert "a declaration of war" and Gambia's army chief has publicly declared his loyalty to the 51-year-old leader who seized power in a 1994 coup. Jammeh is looking increasingly isolated on the African continent. The African Union said last week it would not recognise Jammeh as Gambia's president after Jan. 19. In a statement, Jammeh's office described the AU's stance as "irresponsible and malicious and only meant to annoy and aggravate the political situation in The Gambia." The most recent mediation mission on Friday failed. "As far are we are concerned all the options are on the table," an advisor to Senegal's President Macky Sall told Reuters. "And from January 19th he will no longer be president ... and all the countries will recognise Barrow." Saudi says Trump stance on Iran and IS cause for optimism By John Irish PARIS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Monday he was positive about the way the incoming U.S. administration wanted to restore American influence in the world, contain Iran and fight Islamic State. "We are optimistic about the incoming administration and look forward to working with it in all areas that are a concern for both of us," Jubeir told reporters in Paris. "We will look at the Trump administration's view as articulated. Wanting to restore America's role in the world, we welcome this. Wanting to defeat ISIS (Islamic State), absolutely. Wanting to contain Iran ... absolutely." Jubeir said the interests of the world's largest oil exporter were aligned with those of the United States, be it geopolitically - in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran - or on energy and financial issues. "The objectives we want to achieve are the same. We may have disagreements on how to get there, but we don't disagree on what needs to be done, and that will not change," he said. When asked specifically about Riyadh's relationship with its Shi'ite regional rival Iran and whether there could be a detente between them, Jubeir accused Tehran of destabilising the region. Relations between the two worsened after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the 2015 Muslim haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Iran blamed the disaster on organisers' incompetence and boycotted last year's haj. Ties worsened further when Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia executed a Shi'ite cleric a year ago. Angry Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran and Riyadh severed diplomatic relations. "Our relationship with Iran is tense and it's in function of its aggressive and hostile policies. It would be wonderful to live in peace and harmony with Iran, but it takes two to tango," Jubeir said, speaking in English. "We can't be subject to death and destruction and expect to turn the other cheek. We tried, but it didn't work." Jubeir added that proposed talks in the Kazakh capital Astana aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Syria were worth testing. However, it should not be construed as Riyadh abandoning moderate rebels fighting to topple Iranian-backed President Bashar al-Assad. "The objective is to arrive at a ceasefire and move on to the political process. Let's test it. So far it hasn't succeeded," he said. "If it does, then we go down the political path, but that doesn't mean we abandon the moderate opposition." The Astana talks, which are backed by Russia and Turkey, are due to take place later this month, with rebel military factions set to hold face-to-face negotiations with a government delegation. Jubeir, whose country has given military support to the opposition forces, said there had been close consultations with Turkey on the meeting and that it did not believe Ankara had changed its view on Assad leaving power at the end of a transition. Brazil aims to build 30 prisons this year to tackle crisis -Temer By Daniel Flynn and Maria Pia Palermo BRASILIA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Brazil aims to build nearly 30 prisons over the next year to ease chronic overcrowding in its penitentiary system as part of a package of emergency measures to tackle a wave of deadly prison riots, President Michel Temer said on Monday. In an interview with Reuters, Temer said Brazil's federal government would build five maximum security prisons to house the most violent convicts, often members of rival drug gangs whose turf war has plunged the prison system into crisis over the past two weeks. At least 140 inmates have been killed since the start of the year in riots at poorly staffed prisons run by cash-strapped state governments. Many of those killed had their heads cut off and were badly mutilated or burned. Brazil's penitentiary system, the fourth largest in the world, is home to more than 620,000 convicts and is running more than 50 percent over capacity. Almost all of its 1,400 jails are run by state governments. Brazil's existing four federal maximum security prisons - which have not seen rioting - are close to overflowing as more and more convicts are being sent from state prisons following the riots. As part of the package of measures worth more than 1 billion reais ($309 million), Temer said state governments in partnership with the federal government will also build an additional 25 prisons to reduce overcrowding. "We want to expedite the construction of these prisons because it would take two or three years using traditional methods," Temer told Reuters. "By using pre-fabricated buildings - which has already been done in Espirito Santo state - perhaps we can build all of these prisons in one year." Brazil's prisons are largely controlled by gangs, with drugs, guns and all manner of contraband entering regularly, authorities acknowledge. Jailed gang leaders continue to run their criminal networks by cellphone from their prison cells. This year's intense violence is the result of a split between Brazil's most powerful drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and its main rival, the Red Command. For more than two decades the two gangs maintained an uneasy working relationship, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and arms easily made its way over Brazil's porous borders with the world's biggest cocaine-producing nations. But about six months ago, security officials and experts say, the PCC moved to fully take over trafficking routes and tried to push the Red Command aside. The latest round of violence came at the weekend when members of the PCC slaughtered 26 other inmates in a riot at the Alcacuz prison in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. A new riot erupted there on Monday. Temer said the problem would not be solved by building prisons alone. He said his government would in the future insist that non-violent criminals were separated from more dangerous ones to prevent them being recruited by organized crime. With more than one-third of Brazil's prison population being held pending trial, Temer said his government would work with judicial authorities to speed up their hearings to reduce overcrowding. A planned census of prisoners would also identify inmates who have already served their term but are still being held behind bars, Temer said. He also pledged greater cooperation with neighboring countries to crack down on gangs funded by drug trafficking. Brazil's defence minister is due to meet with his counterparts from Peru and Colombia to discuss border security this week. (Daily Mail, London), 16 January 2017 - A Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed into a village killing 37 people after missing the runway at Kyrgyzstans main international airport. The Boeing 747 crash-landed in heavy fog just outside Manas airport, south of the capital Bishkek and ploughed through 43 buildings. The impact of the crash killed 17 people on board and at least 15 living next to the airport - including an entire family. There were reports this morning that looters had already descended on the scene with one man arrested for stealing two kettles from the wreckage, and hiding them under his coat. Dramatic pictures show the wreckage of the plane among the ruins of the village. Local emergency services are still at the scene.The majority of the dead were from the village of Dacha-Suu, a spokesman for the countrys emergency services, Muhammed Svarov, said. Members of Bangladeshs elite Rapid Action battalion force are among the 26 sentenced to death (Daily Mail) DHAKA AFP Jan16, 2017 - A Bangladesh court Monday sentenced 26 people to death after hearing how a politician from the ruling Awami League hired members of the countrys elite security unit to assassinate political rivals. At the end of a trial that gripped the nation, a judge found all 35 defendants in the case guilty of involvement in the abduction and murder of seven people in the central city of Narayanganj in April 2014. Convictions of security force members are rare in Bangladesh. Rights activists say they frequently carry out unlawful killings and are effectively able to operate in a climate of impunity. COLOMBO: The theme of this years World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is Responsible and Responsive Leadership. But one possible reading of Donald Trumps victory in the United States presidential election is that voters these days care less about responsibility than authenticity. Voters welcomed Trumps reckless comments on sensitive issues because he was speaking his mind and being true to himself. Ordinary politicians, by always saying the rightthing, seem packaged and staged. But does authenticity need to involve recklessness? Alternatively, can politically correct behavior be a form of recklessness, to the extent that it evades difficult issues and focuses on what is easier to justify rather than what is right? Does authenticity involve facing the anxiety and anguish that Jean-Paul Sartre thought was the inevitable companion of freedom and responsibility? Questions for economic policymakers These are questions for economic policymakers as much as for anyone else. Policymakers approach their task in two fundamentally different ways. One paradigm regards economic policies as a set of universal best practices. The more you adopt, the more they (investors) will come. The other paradigm views policies as solutions to specific problems. Because each society has a unique set of characteristics, constraints and goals, policies are necessarily idiosyncratic: the path is made by walking. This does not mean that one should disregard what can be learned from others; but imitation without adaptation is a recipe for ineffectiveness, if not worse. It can easily imply importing solutions to non-existent problems, while letting real problems fester. Colombia and Panama illustrate the contrast between these approaches. For much of the recent past, economic policymaking in Colombia has been driven by two goals: signing a free-trade agreement with the US (in effect since 2012) and joining the OECD (in negotiation since 2013). (True, other important initiatives have been the peace process and the expansion of the road network, though these are not, strictly speaking, economic policies). In the meantime, Colombias main obstacle to growth, which arguably is the lack of export dynamism, given the fall in oil prices, has not been addressed. Despite the FTA and a 38 percent depreciation of the peso since 2014 exports to the US have gone nowhere: they have stagnated overall, fallen as a share of overall exports, and become even more concentrated in traditional products such as oil, coffee, gold, and flowers. This stands in marked contrast to the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on Mexicos exports: between its entry into effect in 1994 and 2000, exports to the US tripled, from $50 to $150 billion. In the following decade, Vietnam generated an even larger export boom, with no major trade agreements. Clearly, NAFTA was crucial for Mexico; but whatever is preventing Colombia from becoming a more successful exporter is not the kind of transaction costs that FTAs can address. OECDs play But it is highly unlikely that these issues will be tackled by joining the OECD. The OECD demands asmorgasbord of reforms affecting corporate governance, private insurance markets, competition policy, statistics, health, technology, agriculture, and many other regulatory areas. Whether any of these reforms nurture a new suite of export industries that can propel Colombia forward is, to put it bluntly, a crapshoot. Now consider Panama by far Latin Americas fastest-growing economy during the 2004-2014 commodity price boom. Panamas annual GDP growth averaged 8.2 percent, despite the fact that it did not profit directly from the commodity bonanza that benefited Colombia and much of South America. Now that the boom is over, Panama is still growing at 5 percent, while Colombia is bordering on a recession. How did Panama do it? After the Panama Canal reverted to national control in 1999, policymakers started to think about how to maximize the Canals potential spillover effects. Ultimately, they transformed the US military bases into special economic zones. They granted concessions to build new ports, in order to facilitate logistics activities around the Canal. They developed the airport, to support the local private airline COPA as it became a regional player. They invested 7 percent of GDP in expansion of the Canal, a project completed in 2016. And they created a special tax and migration regime to attract regional headquarters of multinational companies. Panamas leaders also authorized a pipeline to transport oil across the isthmus, with port facilities on either side. Together with the pre-existing Colon Free Trade Zone and the International Financial Center, the whole ended up being much more than the sum of its parts. The synergies between the airport, the new ports, the logistics facilities, banks, and the regional headquarters generated a boom in services exports and investment, underpinning rapid economic growth. And with it have come gastronomy, arts, and tourism. The non-residential construction boom this created helped not only to absorb the labour force that was leaving rural areas but also to achieve a remarkable reduction in inequality. In this services-export-led growth strategy, skill shortages did not become a major problem, thanks to a fairly open immigration policy, which allowed the country to use the talent that Colombia, among other countries, was unable to keep. The comparison between these two approaches is clear. Colombias policymakers have been hoping that if they adopt best-practice legislation and regulation, somebody will come. And if they do not, they can still bask in the international accolades they receive from foreign entities. Making it to happen Panama, by contrast, took the risk of imagining some key strategic, export-oriented investments, and then focused on creating the conditions to make them happen. In many cases, the private sector took the initiative. But policymakers did not shy away from large strategic public investments when needed, as in the case of the Canal expansion or the airport. The special tax regimes and other policies they adopted may make some at the OECD cringe. But, arguably, this helped create the ecosystem that makes Panama so attractive to so many Fortune 500 companies. Authentic leadership requires a commitment to real goals. But, to achieve them, there are no pret-a-porter solutions. Tailoring policies to specific problems, without disregarding the lessons from the past or from elsewhere, involves risks, and any responsible leader will necessarily feel the anxiety this creates. Authenticity does not, in the end, require Trumpian recklessness. But abandoning economic goals and imitating the means taken by others is not only inauthentic: it is also deeply irresponsible. (Ricardo Hausmann, a former minister of planning of Venezuela and former Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, is Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and a professor of economics at the Harvard Kennedy School) (Originally appeared in Project Syndicate dated January 13: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/authentic-leadership-tailored-economic-policies-by-ricardo-hausmann-2017-01) The Great Depression of the 1930s and the populist protectionist policies that exacerbated it fostered the emergence of fascist regimes and the collapse of a liberal political order in Europe, putting the continent on a path to the disaster of the Second World War. The United States chose another direction, electing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ushering in the New Deal that brought reform, recovery and eventually led to a global liberal order though not before it too was engulfed in the war. Economic recovery has been slow in the United States and Europe since the global financial crisis of the last decade. The initial policy response to the crisis was active and positive, coordinated through the creation of the G20 leaders summit, and suggested that the lessons of the Great Depression had been learnt. But fear of debt and sharp turns towards austerity in key countries, as well as competitive exchange rate depreciations, have led to a downward spiral of low growth, depressed investment and secular stagnation. Marking decade This year marks a decade since the beginning of the global financial crisis. While the economic aftermath of the collapse in global financial markets has not been as bad as that of the Great Depression, political systems have not produced an answer to the problems that slow recovery brings. Last year the United States took a turn towards populism and protectionism with the election of Donald Trump. Europe is still trying to keep its integration experiment alive with countries on the periphery on life support. And the United Kingdom voted to exit the Union, beginning a process of undoing decades of painstaking political and economic progress in building European unity and prosperity. The United States led the creation of postwar global institutions and an economic system that witnessed the greatest period of economic expansion and reduction in poverty the world has ever seen. China and the countries of Asia that have joined and committed to that system have prospered. The advanced economies that underwrote the rules-based order and invested in keeping it open and functioning are now in retreat. The global economic tailwind that provided a favourable climate for the growth of emerging economies has now turned into an unfavourable headwind. Australia, Canada, Japan and a handful of other advanced liberal democracies have weathered the storm but they themselves are too small to prop up the global economy. In this weeks lead essay, Mari Pangestu and Shiro Armstrong argue that Asia is now the global economys best hope. Populist anti-trade and anti-immigration sentiments seem to be capturing the North Atlantic, they say, and given Asia is still growing faster than the rest of the world it has a peculiar responsibility to protect the global system. Whether Asian leaders individually or collectively are ready or not, Asian economies need to lead the push-back against protectionism and inward lookingness. Global trade growth has slowed dramatically. Before the global financial crisis it was close to double the rate of global GDP growth now, global trade growth is slower than global GDP growth. Three-quarters of the trade slowdown comes from a lack of investment and dynamism in the large advanced economies. The rest is due to protectionism, global value chains reaching their limits without new large countries joining, and Chinas rebalancing towards a consumption and services-led growth model from one of export and investment-led growth. Pangestu and Armstrong argue that the slowdown in trade and growth and the fact that the economies which have thus far been guarantors of the global regime are starting to turn their backs on it will make it harder for developing countries to achieve higher or even middle incomes. Need of leadership The global economic system needs leadership. If the United States and Europe are not going to lead by example or underpin the global regime, who will? Should China provide global leadership? The Kindleberger Trap the idea that the United States failing to provide global public goods as it surpassed the United Kingdom in economic power led to the economic disaster of the 1930s would suggest that China should. It is unlikely that China can provide that leadership and global public goods on its own. It may be a large economy but it is still a developing country. And the established powers will have a harder time than otherwise in accepting Chinese global leadership given its different political system. But China playing a central role will provide the best chance of resisting protectionism and keeping the global system open. So what should that leadership look like? Pangestu and Armstrong suggest collective Asian leadership around the deep common interest of maintaining development. The best way for Asia to help the world will be for it to help itself. Strong unilateral action on difficult reforms will benefit the individual countries undertaking them but also act as a positive force externally. Doing so in concert would not only boost Asian trade and growth, but would also boost the global economy given that Asia is now such a large part of it. Global institutions will need support and can provide the platform for Asian collective action. The initiatives within the WTO such as the Trade Facilitation Agreement and Environmental Goods Agreement need strong commitments and momentum that Asia can provide. The efforts at the G20 to keep the global economy on track require active support by the six East Asian members. Building regional institutions and reaching credible agreements at the regional level will also be important. The East Asian Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and other arrangements will need to be ambitious and demonstrate openness to rest of the world. Now is not the time to create inward-looking arrangements and de-link from the global economy but a time to engage and support it. That will buttress liberal international forces in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe and might just help make the difference in keeping the global system open. (The East Asia Forum Editorial Group is comprised of Peter Drysdale, Shiro Armstrong, Ben Ascione, Ryan Manuel, Amy King and Jillian Mowbray-Tsutsumi and is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific) The government is considering the possibility of specifying locations in Colombo City where people could stage protests or demonstrations, instead of staging them on the streets or elsewhere, it is learnt. This is would be in line with practices in various cities of the world, where people may assemble only at specified locations to stage their protests. This was mentioned by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe when he met senior police officers at Temple Trees last Friday. Sources from the Ministry of Law and Order said this came up for discussion when the police officers informed the prime minister that protests held across Colombo and in locations such as Parliament Road had become a problem for them. The prime minister had also informed the police that they would be provided with new equipment such as helicopters in the future. Helipads will be set up all over the country soon, and police will also get an opportunity to carry out operations using helicopters, he had said. He had also stressed the need for for policemen to develop bilingual skills as this would help Sinhalese policemen to work in Tamil and thereby serve the people better. Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake, who also participated in the discussions, had promised that the salary increment proposed in the budget would be given soon. He had said police personnel would be given a course on dealing with cybercrimes. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara, other senior police officers and Minister of Prison Reforms and Resettlement D M Swaminathan had also participated in the discussions. News / National by Kariba Satelite The newly licenced Kariba based radio station,will hold its radio auditions for presenters, newscasters and producers next week Wednesday at Pagomo Grill in Kariba. The station is headed by Maxton Kanhema and owned by ZimPapers who are also owners of the Herald, star FM, Kwayedza among other publications and will broadcast in English, Shona and Tonga.Nyaminyami FM was granted a broadcasting licence by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe in year 2015 and is set to occupy the Kariba media space which was predominantly covered by Patsaka Nyaminyami Community Radio Iniative an affiliate of Zimbabwe Association of Communty Radio Stations.The radio initiative managed to groom news reader Obert Siamilandu and reporter Edmore Mbonda who have all become house hold names in Kariba after undergoing massive radio trainings for years.Speaking to this reporter, James Mabhandi,one of the local leaders, praised ZimPapers for bringing the radio in town and encouraged the management to recruit more talent from the resort town. "We are happy that the station is going to occupy a media space where Patsaka Community Radio Station groomed more radio personalities, therefore, we expect more local faces at the station." Another Kariba resident who was interviewed by this reporter had this to say, "Kariba is a multilingual community, therefore, if Nyaminyami FM is to steal hearts of many, it should broadcast in local languages as the case with Kariba FM in Siavonga Zambia which caters for both Tonga and English listeners."Nyaminyami FM will mainly broadcast issues that are centred on Kariba and its sorroundings and will be stationed at Kariba Heights where the studios will be installed soon. Sri Lanka had not agreed to any condition that would be unfavorable to people to gain GSP Plus, a Deputy Minister said yesterday. We have not agreed to grant federalism or to take away the status given to Buddhism in the Constitution and such things have not been presented as conditions, he said at a media briefing while highlighting that the conditions that had been put out by the EU were minor ones pertaining to Human Rights and preserving the rule of law. The Deputy Minister said the fate of the GSP Plus status for Sri Lanka would be decided in two months time when the European Parliament took up a resolution whether to grant it or not. We are confident that the European Parliament Members will approve it without any issue as all 28 member states of the European Union is in favour of granting GSP Plus status to Sri Lanka, he said. Asked whether exit of the UK would dilute the benefit Sri Lanka could get out of GSP Plus status, the Deputy Minister said it would not, to a large extent. Around 36 percent of Sri Lankas export was going to the Europe countries and the GSP Plus would help Sri Lanka to increase its exports, he added. Referring to the stance take by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) that Executive Presidency should continue, Mr. Perera said United National Party (UNP) would not give up its effort to abolish it. In such a situation he said talking of a UNP candidate for the 2020 Presidential election was not relevant and was too early.(Yohan Perera) Video by Buddhi Presidents Counsel Kushan D Alwis, who served the Public Representation Committee that deliberated with people on Constitution making, says there is lack of transparency in the whole Constitution making process. In an interview with Daily Mirror, he says strong unitary features are needed in the Constitution. Excerpts; As a Presidents Counsel who served the Public Representation Committee, how do you see the Constitution-making process? What I witness at the moment is lack of transparency. Why I say so is because we, the Public Representation Committee, gave certain recommendations regarding the presidential system, the electoral system and so forth. Unfortunately, the sub-committee reports do not touch on either. These two are very crucial in my mind to any Constitution-making process. What is the future of the presidential system? The sub-committee report does not touch on it. Next, the electoral system is also not looked at. It is a part of the present Constitution. These two are vital elements to be considered, and according to my understanding, there is lack of transparency. In the Public Representation Committee report, as you see, there are recommendations which are quite contrary to each other on each subject. If you go through it, you would find the proposals contradicting each other on matters like the national flag, religion and power devolution. There is no need for anyone to pen a second report. You would, sometimes, find five different recommendations on a single subject matter. One cannot settle on any conclusion by going through the Public Representation Committee report as to what the Constitution would look like in the end. How important is it to have the current presidential system? It is like this. The presidential system, coupled with the provincial council system and devolution of powers, plays a vital role. That is for the reason that it is the President, through the governors appointed by him, who controls the activities of provincial councils. The parliament has nothing to do here. It looks like the government is attempting to give more powers to the periphery. Then, if one is to knock off the presidential system, there will have to be alternative safeguards for it. Otherwise, there can be absolute chaos. There is an argument that power devolution is needed to guarantee the rights of minorities. What are your thoughts? I do not agree with it. I say the 13th Amendment is the unwanted child fathered forcibly by India on Mother Lanka. Moreover, we all know how the 13th Amendment was passed in Parliament, how the MPs were brought in to Parliament and how they voted. It is something which the country was basically forced to swallow. There was no demand from the country, barring the North and East, for devolution of power. Therefore, I feel that the solution to this issue is not devolution of power in the manner now being tried upon. It could be worked out more administratively. Of course, every Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim has a right to every inch of the country. Be it in Jaffna or Matara, everyone has a right. There must be absolute freedom for every citizen to be able to transact his or her day-to-day work in their mother tongue. I am talking particularly about the Sinhala and Tamil languages. I would say a Tamil must be able to transact his or her business in Tamil in Matara. We must bring it up to that level. Also, if there are issues about university admission and similar concerns, all have to be looked into. But, in this small nation, I do not believe that the creation of a Federal state or something akin would be the best answer. It can have very dangerous consequences. There is criticism that the govt. will bring in a Constitution which is unitary in name but Federal in content. How do you see it? Yes. One can see from the reports of the sub-committees that there is a move to weaken the power of the centre and strengthen the provincial councils along with land and police powers. Then, although it is unitary in name, it will amount to be a de facto Federal state. In the Supreme Court ruling on the 13th Amendment at that time, four judges of the bench argued that Sri Lanka was a Federal state. How do you comment? In that dissenting judgment, the thing is that, as it stood at that moment, there were police and land powers outlined in the Bill presented. However, even during the times of the then President the late J.R. Jayewardene, the late R. Premadasa and former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, land and police powers were not given. Therefore, there would have been some good reasons for it. Ms. Kumaratunga, during her 11 years, even did not take any step in this regard. The 13th Amendment was already in place. There is no need for two-thirds in Parliament to do it. When those four judges looked at it in this manner, it sounded almost a de facto Federal state. The central government, having realised the dangers involved and due to certain judgments, did not give land and police powers. Now, there are attempts to weaken the centre as shown in the proposals for new Constitution-making. "At least now we must put in some effort to stop further damage being done. There are a lot of players involved here. Now, there is the so-called international community. All of them push for more devolution of power. If we can stop it at least, that will be a great achievement. Certainly, it will be a bonus if we can strengthen the Constitution. At the moment, I do not think that can be achieved" How dangerous is it for a country like Sri Lanka to devolve power? I consider it to be very serious. I say it with reasons. One is the fact that none of the present Northern political leaders has condemned Prabhakaran. They have not said Prabhakaran did not represent the views of Tamil people. If they say so, they would lose their political bases in those areas. In turn, it means the population believes in it; a worst scenario. In that mindset, one has to take into consideration the fact that there are 77 million people in Tamil Nadu which is in close proximity to Sri Lanka. As long as there is a strong central government in India, the Eelam dream will be unrealistic there. However, maybe 75 or 100 years later, if there is any weakening of the central government of India, disintegration will be inevitable. The Eelam concept will definitely come into play. If there is a de facto Federal state, it will fall short of only one step behind a separate state. One has to think far. As long as India is united with a strong central government, it will be impossible in that country. What do you propose to do in terms of constitutional arrangements to prevent Sri Lanka from being partitioned in future? What I feel is that there must be economic development of the country right across. If there is development in the North and East and rest of the country, higher education standards and facilities, then the clamour for Eelam will diminish. Constitutionally, one has to ensure that every citizen has equal rights everywhere in the country. I am totally against devolution of power based on ethnicities, and I have specifically mentioned that in this report. Then, how do you see the need to strengthen the unitary character of the Constitution? It would be ideal to strengthen it further. At least now we must put in some effort to stop further damage being done. There are a lot of players involved here. Now, there is the so-called international community. All of them push for more devolution of power. If we can stop it at least, that will be a great achievement. Certainly, it will be a bonus if we can strengthen the Constitution. At the moment, I do not think that can be achieved. There is an argument that the minorities have been denied the right of decision-making due to lack of power devolved. How do you respond? Of course, they can be brought into decision-making processes by assigning Cabinet responsibilities to their representatives. One can look into various systems within the framework of the central government. It is possible under the unitary character. Today, the Muslim and upcountry Tamils are represented in the Cabinet. The Northern Tamil political leaders have decided to stay away from Cabinet responsibilities. How do you see the foremost status accorded to Buddhism? When looking at the sub-committee reports, I do not think the government will touch on this point. But, what is proposed is to weaken this particular clause on Buddhism in another way by expanding the scope of fundamental rights. Under fundamental rights on religion, the right to propagate has been given. One should have the liberty to preach religion. That is one. Propagation is another. According to the sub-committee report on Fundamental Rights, the freedom to manifest religion is there. You could manifest the religion of person in worship, observance and practice. These are not issues. The issue is propagation. Even teaching religion is not an issue. Propagation can lead to a lot of abuse because it can be done in many ways. Then, there is a watchdog to look after all these aspects. It is practically impossible. It will create dissension among the religions. Some religious sects with fundamentalist agendas and backed by some foreign countries can create issues in the guise of propagation. I strongly feel that the word propagation should not be included. Now, in the Steering Committee, the focus is on revisiting the APRC proposals for Constitution-making in the past. There is reference to the 2,000 proposals by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike. How do you look at them? The 2000 Bill, for instance, sought to take off the unitary status. I do not think it should be touched. That too, I believe, will not be touched in words. But, by the subsequent devolution of power, the entire meaning of the word unitary will be brought to nil. In my view, the government will try to work out the new Constitution. Whatever it is, it should be presented to the approval of the people by referendum. The Supreme Court has to decide whether it should be a referendum or not. While some articles or clauses may need two-thirds approval as well as a referendum, some others may not. It is ultimately the Supreme Court that will have make the call. "When looking at the sub-committee reports, I do not think the government will touch on this point. But, what is proposed is to weaken this particular clause on Buddhism in another way by expanding the scope of fundamental rights. Under fundamental rights on religion, the right to propagate has been given. One should have the liberty to preach religion. That is one. Propagation is another" The two subsidiary companies of Lakdhanavi Ltd and LTL Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, namely; Raj Lanka Power Company Ltd (RLPCL) and Lakdhanavi Bangla Power Ltd (LBPL) which operate two thermal power plants with the capacity of 104 MW in Bangladesh, commenced their direct import of furnace oil from Singapore market recently after receiving approvals from the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB). Lakdhanavi Ltd is the power generating subsidiary of LTL Holdings (Pvt) Ltd which own and operate several power plants in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Accordingly, both subsidiaries of Lakdhanavi Ltd will now import around 100,000 MT of furnace oil annually for these 02 power plants to generate the contracted capacity of electricity for the next 13 years. With this initiative, the two subsidiaries shall have the opportunity to operate power plants efficiently with high quality furnace oil which will be purchased at competitive market prices from Singapore oil market to reduce the unit cost of electricity and enhance the profitability with the additional service charges offered by the Bangladesh Power development Boardfor furnace oil importing Independent Power Producers (IPP).This step is considered as a win-win initiative for the LTL subsidiaries and the Bangladesh Power Development Board. LTL Holdings has been active in the Bangladesh power sector since 2010 and they have constructed two 100 MW power plants under Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for Orion Group, Bangladesh. Thereafter, Lakdhanavi Ltd won 02 international tenders floated by BPDB in 2011 to set up 02 thermal power plants in the capacities of 52.2 MW each in Natore and Comilla, Bangladesh. For that purpose Lakdhanavi Ltd incorporated two subsidiaries to buildthose two power plants under Build, Own & Operate (BOO) basis to sell electricity to BPDB for 15 years as Independent Power Producers (IPPs). LTL Holdings has participated in another international tender floated by BPDB in August 2016 to set up 100MW thermal power plant in Feni, Bangladesh under BOO basis and hopeful that BPDB will award the Letter of Intent (LOI) during the first quarter of 2017. Re-electing the politicians who have fallen out of the seat of power will justify all past actions taken by such politicians, which would become relevant for Sri Lanka in the future, the head of a leading Indian media conglomerate said recently in Sri Lanka. When a politician, who was out in the cold, returns to power, he will say Who are you to question the past? The people have given me a mandate. I think this applies to Sri Lanka and we have to face this in the future, The Hindu Group Chairman and Publisher N. Ram said at the Galle Literary Festival, which concluded last weekend. Parliamentarian and Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa last week was quoted as saying that 2017 might present an opportunity for a change in government. He had said that there is no development under the current government. However, Rajapaksas presidency was marred with wide-scale allegations of human rights abuses, corruption, nepotism and repression of the media. During his presidency, Ram had said that Rajapaksas government was the strongest government to have existed in Sri Lanka. Ram, who was speaking on the topic of media freedom, said that politicians could use the presence of a mandate to justify any number of activities including corruption and pressure the media to not dig deep into such matters, which he said former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram too had done. The media mogul said that last week he interviewed Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who also concurred with his views that the media is much freer under the leadership of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. (But) free speech deficits remain, he admitted, after a member of the audience questioned Ram on how Wickremesinghe has repeatedly attacked the Daily Mirror and its Editor in public forums. Ironically, Wickremesinghe too is a politician, who has been out in the cold multiple times before his recent return to power. (CW) Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake last week challenged the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to explain where the remaining funds from the US$ 1.4 billion loans documented to have been drawn for the development of the Hambantota Port are, if only US$ 450 million was spent to develop it. As a former President and Finance Minister, he (Rajapaksa) cant speak irresponsibly. He has said that only US$ 450 million has been spent on Hambantota. So to whose pocket has the rest of the money gone to? Karunanayake questioned. He presented evidence of correspondence between Former Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundera and the Chinese Ambassador, where Dr. Jayasundera had requested China to renegotiate the 30-year loans taken to construct the Hambantota Port since Sri Lanka wont be able to repay it. Even the Sri Lanka Ports Authority documentation published during the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa had placed the cost of developing the first and second phases of the Hambantota Port at US$ 1.4 billion. Some of these loans were taken at 8 percent interest. So, where is this money? Karunanayake inquired. Recently, China Merchants Port Holdings had proposed to purchase 80 percent of the Hambantota Port shares for US$ 1.12 billion, which would place the current value of the port at US$ 1.4 billion. Rajapaksa had also said that there was a better proposal from China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) during his presidency for Hambantota port development. However, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama had claimed that CHECs proposal had offered less in exchange for the shares. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa had an opportunity of regaining the GSP+ facility during his tenure if he had agreed to the conditions laid down by the European Union (EU) at the risk of compromising the countrys sovereignty, SLPP Chairman G.L.Peiris claimed today. He told a news briefing that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was only speaking a lot about GSP+ but not about the conditions laid down by the EU to grant this preferential tariff system again to Sri Lanka. Government has to agree to 58 conditions which are disadvantages to the country and its sovereignty, such as the removal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and restructuring the military. We are in favour of Sri Lanka regaining this facility but opposed to selling our nation. Mr. Rajapaksa rejected a similar set of conditions, Mr. Peiris said. He said regaining the GSP+ was not the issue but what mattered was the repercussions of regaining it. We cannot pawn the country for the sake of economic growth. The Prime Minister cannot deny the fact that these conditions will impact on the country and the people adversely, Mr. Peiris said. The Generalized Scheme of Preferences or GSP+ allows developing countries to pay less or are exempt from duty exports to EU-member countries while providing access to EU markets and contribute to their economic growth. Sri Lanka lost this facility in 2010. Last year German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured President Maithripala Sirisena that the EU would re-consider offering the GSP+ facility based on the steps taken by him on re-establishing Human Rights, Labour Rights, Environmental Protection and Good Governance. (Thilanka Kanakarathna) Video by Buddhi NATO is obsolete, Germanys Angela Merkel made a catastrophic mistake on refugees, Brexit will be great and the US could cut a deal with Russia: Donald Trump unleashed a volley of broadsides Sunday in interviews with European media. Five days before his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, he let loose a torrent of controversial comments about European allies in interviews with British newspaper The Times and Germanys Bild. He extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under his predecessor Barack Obama over Moscows involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia, Trump said in remarks carried by The Times. The US president-elect suggested a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased, but gave no details. Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit, said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Washingtons European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. - AFP Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has criticised the lawyers appearing for the Ports Authority in the case filed in the High Court against the Hambantota lease agreement, MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage said today. He told a media briefing organised by the joint opposition that Prime Minister had done so at a discussion held at Temple Trees on Sunday. The MP said that the Attorney General, Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama and Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga had attended the discussion. The Prime Minister has criticized Minister Ranatunga and the lawyers as they were against the Hambantota Port agreement and the acquiring of lands for the proposed Hambantota industrial zone. The lawyers had showed that the agreement was illegal and the Ports Authority should not authorise it, he said. The MP said according to the sources, the lawyers had been warned to remain silent till the agreement was finalised. While the subject minister has repeatedly said the country will lose some Rs.330 million if the government goes ahead with the agreement, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister are trying to sign the agreement in secret, he added. (Thilanka Kanakarathna) Video by Buddhi HINDUSTAN TIMES, 15th JANUARY, 2017-Britains Prince William is getting ready to quit his part-time job as an air ambulance rescue pilot to become a full-time royal. The second-in-line to Britains throne will leave his job with the East Anglian Air Ambulance this summer, according to The Sunday Times. The 34-year-old Duke of Cambridge and wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, will also make Kensington Palace in London their permanent base from later this year when their son Prince George starts school. Their daughter, Princess Charlotte, is also expected to attend a London nursery. The move follows months of discussion within the royal family, who are said to have been very supportive of Williams decision. A union of former employees of the Global Transportation and Logistics (Pvt) Ltd (Global Park) in Seeduwa staged a protest today demanding solutions to their sudden removal from the company. Pix by Ranjith Ferdinandaz At least seven civilians were killed when their truck hit a roadside bomb explosion in eastern Afghanistan (Courtesy Pakistan Today). JALALABAD AFP Jan15, 2017- At least seven civilians, including a woman and three children, were killed when their truck hit a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said. The villagers were travelling from Pacheer Agam district to a nearby village in Nangarhar province, Hijratullah Rahmani district governor of Pacheer Agam told AFP. Unfortunately, in the blast, seven civilians, including a woman and three children were killed and one wounded, he said. No one claimed responsibility, but the interior ministry in a statement blamed enemies of peace and stability, a term Afghan officials use to refer to Taliban. Nangarhar is also home to Islamic State group fighters, who are trying to expand their presence in Afghanistan by winning over sympathizers, recruiting followers and challenging the Taliban on their own turf. SRINAGAR AFP Jan16, 2017 -Three militants were killed in an overnight gun battle with soldiers in a village in Indian Kashmir, an army spokesman said Monday. Rajesh Kalia said troops cordoned off the village near the tourist resort of Pahalgam after receiving a tip that fighters were hiding out in a private home there. On specific intelligence army soldiers cordoned off the village on Sunday evening and the gun battle started, Kalia told AFP. By Chandeepa Wettasinghe The government is making decisions without doing proper research, specially in the case of the countrys thrust areas of infrastructure development and trade policy, Sri Lankan Presidents Economic Advisor Dr.Sarath Rajapatirana said last week. The issue is policy informed by research. Theres no dialogue between the research community and policy makers. I see this as a huge gap between the two parties, Dr. Rajapatirana told a forum titled International Conference on Human Capital, Food Security and Economic Development in South Asia, hosted by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and Monash University, in Colombo. Dr. Rajapatirana, who is a highly regarded expert in trade policy, internationally, noted that the governments main agenda, trade reforms and negotiations, are done without research. In a way, politicians arewhat is the word? Scared is not the wordshy of researchers. Why cant they get these people (researchers) interested, and to see what they have done on trade policy? Short-sighted is another term, he quipped. Sri Lanka is currently negotiating trade pacts with India, China and Singapore, and is considering entering into negotiations for trade pacts with at least another half a dozen countries. However, the government is facing much opposition in this exercise from various quarters, including academics, industrialists, professional organizations, specially against closer economic ties with India and China, which are leading global growth. Some research and commerce institutions with liberal leanings have been supporting the trade negotiations, perhaps due to the liberal stance of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, despite the disinclination of larger economies to provide favourable terms for Sri Lanka. Trade pacts with China and India are being viewed by some experts as geopolitical, with economic benefits taking a rear seat. While Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama had promised a national trade policy prior to engaging in negotiations, such policies have so far not been, at least, publicly unveiled. Further, the Right to Information Bill absolves the government from the duty of informing the public about developments in trade negotiations. Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake recently admitted that the government may be flawed in the communication of its policies to the public. Even President Maithripala Sirisena was quoted as saying that he only learns of some of policies of his government after reading them in the newspaper. Meanwhile, Dr. Rajapatirana said that politicians are suspicious of academics, while academics too have been narrow-minded at times. He said that there is little to no local research done on Sri Lankas total factor productivity (TFP), and that research on the subject has been done in Iowa, USA, for the past 30 years, which shows Sri Lankas TFP has been just 1 percent during the entire period. Now we are investing a huge amount of money in infrastructure and we are hoping to do more. And the point is that we are wasting. Because for the sake of argument, if we can get 2.5 percent (TFP), which is the average for countries of our income levels, institutions and other structures, we can get such a bang for our investments. But whos going to do the research? Nobody here has done it, he said. Spending excessively on infrastructure has been a concern both during the past and the current governments, with allegations of corruption taking the limelight. Further, most of the infrastructure projects were financed by borrowed moneys from foreign sources at commercial rates. We have come to a point where we are going to make decisions without input from others, Dr. Rajapatirana said. This statement was highlighted earlier in January, when Tourism Development, Land and Christian Affairs Ministry Secretary Janaka Sugathadasa said that a Rs.800 million tourism promotions campaign had been forwarded for Cabinet approval, while admitting that no research has been done for a campaign of such magnitude. However, Dr. Rajapatirana said that the current unity government presents the best chance for Sri Lanka to transition back towards policy informed by research. We have come to a point where we need many policy changes. We have done them in the past but they have not been very successful. We have a chance now to do it, he said. Meanwhile, he said that countries should learn from each other as well, and that India could have implemented demonetization better if it had called for expertise from Sri Lanka, which has done the exercise successfully in the past. What does Patali know about politics that Harini doesnt know? Sri Lanka is going through great pains to get its economy in order after the Sarhadon par bahut tanaav hai kya? Kuch pata to karo chunaav hai kya (Is there tension along the border? Just find out if there is an election around the corner)? Poet Rahat Indoris question could perhaps be best answered by the appointment of our new Army chief General Bipin Rawat. For, Rawat looks battle-ready with his threats of will-do-again surgical strikes. His is exactly the kind of pop-nationalism (and warmongering) with which the government wants to divert public attention ahead of the crucial Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and other states. What better way to deflect public anger, but indoctrination of nationalistic jingoism! The newly appointed Army chief is crying proxy war (by Pakistan) and asking the soldiers to be ready for future wars that will "be short and intense (and the armed forces will have to be prepared to move quickly). Rawat's repeated warnings against Pakistan laced with typical war rhetoric is in sync with what we have been hearing from the Modi government in recent months. The government's "cherry-picking" (as termed by the Congress) of Rawat over two senior officers, Lieutenant General Praveen Bakshi and Lieutenant General P M Hariz, has already drawn much criticism. Rawat, according to defence ministry sources, was found to be the best suited among the lieutenant generals in the current environment in which counter-terrorism and proxy war are key issues. What went against Lieutenant General Bakshi was his very "limited operational experience in counter-insurgency in J&K and elsewhere". Bakshi, who heads the Kolkata-headquartered Eastern Command, is from the Armoured Corps. The Armoured Corps and Infantry are both fighting arms. General Shankar Roy Chowdhury was the last Armoured Corps officer to be Army Chief (1994-97). Lieutenant General Hariz, who is from the Mechanised Infantry, heads the Pune-headquartered Southern Command. General Bipin Chandra Joshi, who served as Army chief between 1993 and 1994, was also from the armoured corps, and took charge when insurgency was at its peak in Jammu and Kashmir. Keeping past records aside, Rawat's repeated warnings against Pakistan laced with typical war rhetoric is in sync with what we have been hearing from the Modi government in recent months as it continues to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan. While India-Pakistan relations have hit a new low after the Modi government came to power in 2014, India-China relations have also become increasingly tense. Even though the prospect of a full-fledged India-Pakistan war is highly unlikely, the BJP government has consistently shown more than required willingness to give a "befitting reply to Pakistan". Its evident what kind of benefits a desperate BJP is looking to reap from surgical attacks against Pakistan. That the government was under tremendous pressure to act after the Pathankot and Uri attacks in view of the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and other states is not just an opposition allegation but something that many within the party admit, even if off the record. Party insiders maintain that examples of Operation Parakram by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government following the 2001 Parliament attack and the Kargil war were enough to prod the Modi government to act against Pakistan. Even BJP general secretary Ram Madhav went public with a whole jaw for a tooth remark after the terror attack in Uri. And this is where the new Army chief fits perfectly into the governments scheme of things. Add to that the famous frustration within the Army about its diminishing importance due to lack of war, stoked from time to time by the BJP. In 2015, defence minister Manohar Parrikar had gone on record saying that the Army's importance has diminished because the country hasn't gone to battle in the past 40-50 years. He, however, had clarified that his remarks should not be taken as endorsement for war. While the new Army chief said he is fully aware of the role and task that has been assigned to the army by the government, he seems to be unaware of the rot within the system. When addressing the issue of women in frontline combat roles (on January 13), Rawat chose to show the women soldiers their place by listing out the practical challenges (like no toilets and sleeping under one tent) and leaving it entirely to them to take a call. Not even once did he talk of how the army also needs to address the issue of sexual assault of women by security forces in conflict areas, including J&K and the Northeast. How can women soldiers feel safe among colleagues when many of them have been often accused of violating womens rights with impunity? Secondly, on 69th Army Day (January 15), after a second video of a jawan alleging discrimination by officers surfaced on social media, Rawat warned of action against those using the route to air their grievances instead of going through the regular channels. Even though he talked (January 13) of a suggestion and grievance system to be put in place through which soldiers could reach him directly, issuing diktats to supress dissent sounded more like a government PRO doing the talk than a fellow soldier empathising with his aggrieved colleagues. That brings us to the much-politicised One Rank One Pension (OROP). Rawat on January 3 appealed the army veterans to call off their protest over OROP scheme, saying that the government is trying its best to provide full assistance to them. As far as the OROP is concerned, our army chief veterans and ex-servicemen would have felt that the kind of assistance that they were expecting was not given. But I would like to say that our demand has been fulfilled to a certain extent," he was quoted as saying by the ANI. 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. BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Derwent London plc owns 83 buildings in a commercial real estate portfolio predominantly in central London valued at 5.4 billion (including joint ventures) as at 30 June 2020, making it the largest London-focused real estate investment trust (REIT). Our experienced team has a long track record of creating value throughout the property cycle by regenerating our buildings via development or refurbishment, effective asset management and capital recycling. We typically acquire central London properties off-market with low capital values and modest rents in improving locations, most of which are either in the West End or the Tech Belt. We capitalise on the unique qualities of each of our properties - taking a fresh approach to the regeneration of every building with a focus on anticipating tenant requirements and an emphasis on design. Reflecting and supporting our long-term success, the business has a strong balance sheet with modest leverage, a robust income stream and flexible financing. As part of our commitment to lead the industry in mitigating climate change, in October 2019, Derwent London became the first UK REIT to sign a Green Revolving Credit Facility. At the same time, we also launched our Green Finance Framework and signed the Better Buildings Partnership's climate change commitment. The Group is a member of the 'RE100' which recognises Derwent London as an influential company, committed to 100% renewable power by purchasing renewable energy, a key step in becoming a net zero carbon business. Derwent London is one of only a few property companies worldwide to have science-based carbon targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Landmark schemes in our 5.6 million sq ft portfolio include 80 Charlotte Street W1, Brunel Building W2, White Collar Factory EC1, Angel Building EC1, 1-2 Stephen Street W1, Horseferry House SW1 and Tea Building E1. In 2019, the Group won several awards including EG Offices Company of the Year, the CoStar West End Deal of the Year for Brunel Building, Westminster Business Council's Best Achievement in Sustainability award and topped the real estate sector and was placed ninth overall in the Management Today 2019 awards for 'Britain's Most Admired Companies'. In 2013 the Company launched a voluntary Community Fund and has to date supported over 100 community projects in the West End and the Tech Belt. The Company is a public limited company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and incorporated and domiciled in the UK. The address of its registered office is 25 Savile Row, London, Post Holdings, Inc. operates as a consumer packaged goods holding company in the United States and internationally. It operates through five segments: Post Consumer Brands, Weetabix, Foodservice, Refrigerated Retail, and BellRing Brands. The Post Consumer Brands segment manufactures, markets, and sells branded and private label ready-to-eat (RTE) cereal and hot cereal products. It serves grocery stores, mass merchandise customers, supercenters, club stores, natural/specialty stores, and drug store customers, as well as sells its products in the military, ecommerce, and foodservice channels. The Weetabix segment primarily markets and distributes branded and private label RTE cereal, hot cereals and other cereal-based food products, breakfast drinks, and muesli. This segment sells its products to grocery stores, discounters, wholesalers, and convenience stores, as well as through ecommerce. The Foodservice segment produces and distributes egg and potato products in the foodservice and food ingredient channels. It serves foodservice distributors and national restaurant chains. The Refrigerated Retail segment produces and distributes side dishes, eggs and egg products, sausages, cheese, and other dairy and refrigerated products for grocery stores and mass merchandise customers. The BellRing Brands segment markets and distributes ready-to-drink (RTD) protein shakes, other RTD beverages, powders, nutrition bars, and supplements. It serves club stores, food, drug and mass customers, and online retailers, as well as specialty retailers, convenience stores, and distributors. Post Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1895 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri. 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. U.S. president-elect Donald Trump placed the blame on the acceptance by Europe of Middle East refugees, called by him all these illegals, for Britains decision to exit the European Union. He predicted that the organization would fall apart unless there was a reversal of policies on immigration promoted by Angela Merkel the Chancellor of Germany. Get Warning: Undefined variable $CompanyName in /home/acctdp/public_html/wp-content/themes/responsalambre/single.php on line 65 alerts: Countries, people, all want an identity that is their own and the UK wanted its own, said Trump about the Brexit vote in June. However, he said he believed that if it was not forced to accept refugees, with the problems it entails, there likely would not have been a Brexit. I believe that others are going to leave, said Trump about possible exits by other countries from the EU. Merkel, a long time ally of the U.S., who faces an election in 2017, received criticism from Trump who also was critical of NATO the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has been the defense for the west against Russia in Europe. At one time, Trump appeared to equate Germanys Merkel with Vladmir Putin the leader of Russia, a put down due to the alliance between Germany and the U.S., but one representative of the frequent praise Trump has for Putin. Trump added that he will start his presidency trusting both Merkel and Putin, but said he would see how long that lasted and added that it might not be that long. Trump says Merkel made a very big mistake and that was accepting all the illegals from anywhere they came from and no one even knew where they had originated from. In the U.S., entering refugees go through an investigation that can last as many as two years. However, Trump throughout his election campaign, and now nearing his presidency, has called them threats to the U.S. The president-elect told reporters that he would sign presidential orders starting on Monday to restrict travel coming from Europe and impose extreme vetting for people coming from places that are known to be problematic due to Islamist terrorism. However, Trump has never been clear as to which countries were going to fall under his umbrella of extreme vetting. The statements by Trump, while maintaining his positions taken during his campaign, are in sharp contrast to decades of policy in the U.S. Politicians from both major political parties have up to now favored more globalist approaches including trade deals internationally that Trump has scorned as well during his campaign. Demonstrators in Charlottesville and Albemarle County on Sunday afternoon called on members of Congress to preserve the Affordable Care Act. Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, joined more than 200 people on the Downtown Mall for a pro-ACA rally. President-elect Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress have said they plan to repeal the law and replace it with a more free-market alternative. Speaking to the crowd on Sunday, Toscano said the Republicans are on the verge of repealing the most critical social insurance program, probably, since the New Deal. We cant let it happen, he said. Barbara Germershausen, of Charlottesville, talked about her personal ordeal with a cancerous tumor on her eye. Until Obamacare was passed, Germershausen said she had gone without health insurance for most of her adult life. Thanks to the insurance she purchased under the law, she said she was able to afford lifesaving treatment. If the cancer returns, Germershausen said, treatment costs could go into the six figures. Whos got that kind of money? she said. Later in the afternoon, about 30 people showed up to the local office of newly elected Rep. Tom Garrett, R-5th. On Friday, the House passed a procedural measure that began the process that could lead to the repeal of the ACA. In a brief statement, Garrett cited rising premiums and costs to small businesses as reasons he supports a repeal. Today, we took the first step towards implementing a practical, market-based solution to American health care policies, read the statement. The protesters asked how Garrettand the rest of the Republicans in Congresswould help cover the 20 million people added to the insurance rolls since the law was passed. Among the protesters was Robin Passantino, a nurse at the University of Virginia Medical Center who said she has seen more people getting the kind of care they need since the law passed. Passantino, of Albemarle County, said shes hoping the Republicans preserve some of the gains made by the passage of Obamacare. We cant throw the baby out with the bathwater, she said of the potential repeal. Pam Rivera, of Charlottesville, said the ACA helped her daughter afford an insurance plan that covered a surgical procedure last year. Rivera said she doubts that Garrett has a viable alternative to the current system. Wed like to know exactly what [hed] do to replace what 20 million Americans now have, she said. Andrew Griffin, a spokesman for Garrett, said the congressman supports alternative plans put forth by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. The plans would keep the ban on denying insurance to people because of pre-existing conditions, but drop the individual mandate, provide tax credits for people buying private plans and allow people to buy those plans across state lines. They will need tweaking and work but it provides more than a baseline, Griffin said of the alternative plans. Desmarie Sherwood, a Charlottesville resident who protested in front of Garretts office Sunday, said she doesnt believe the pre-existing conditions clause of the act will work without the individual mandate, which was meant to keep premium costs down. One is not effective without the other, she said. The local protests were among many similar events held across the country Sunday. Republicans are putting a great deal of pressure on President-elect Donald Trump to fire Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He should resist that pressure. Any effort to discharge Cordray would be illegaland it might even precipitate something close to a constitutional crisis. Heres the legal background. Most federal agencies count as executive, meaning that their heads serve at the pleasure of the president. But some agencies are independentmeaning that by law, the people in charge of them can be removed only for good cause, which Congress often specifies to mean inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office. The Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are independent agenciesand so is the CFPB. Under the law, Cordrays five-year term extends until July 2018. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have not loved the idea of independent agencies, operating outside of their daily control. But in 1935, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the Constitution gives Congress the power to create such entities. The court has stuck with that position ever sinceand for decades no president has even tried to remove the heads of independent agencies. To be sure, some people believe that the 1935 decision was wrong. Suppose President Trump shares that belief and asserts his authority to fire Cordray. On the day of his removal, Cordray would be within his rights to go to court to seek a judgment that the president acted beyond his constitutional authority. This would be quite a spectacle. As the law now stands, Cordray would almost certainly win. Things could get pretty ugly. Would a lower court issue an injunction against the president? Would he comply with it? The Trump administration could make a less ambitious argument. It could concede the legitimacy of independent agencies in general, but attack the independence of the CFPB in particular, because it is headed by a single person (rather than the more usual multimember commission) and because of the sheer breadth of its authority over the economy. Thats an adventurous argument, but its not outlandish. In fact, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia accepted it a few months ago. But its just too early for the Trump administration to act on the basis of that ruling. The panels decision has been stayed pending the CFPBs petition for review by the full court. Until its judgment goes into effect, Trump is bound by the law that Congress enacted. Emphasizing Republican objections to Cordrays performance, Trump might try one final argument. He might claim that Cordray has been guilty of inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in officeand hence that the legal standard for discharge has been met. Good luck with that one. No one seriously argues that Cordray has essentially failed to show up for work (inefficiency), ignored the law (neglect of duty) or engaged in corruption (malfeasance). Strong policy disagreements are not a lawful ground for dismissing the CFPB director. If Trump wants to control the agency, he has much better options. He can work with Congress to scale back its powers. His administration can try to convince the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, that the Constitution forbids Congress from making the CFPB independent. There is even an argument, not yet tested, that the president has the authority to direct the CFPB to consult with the White House before it issues expensive regulations. But discharging Cordray would be beyond the pale. It is already clear that the Trump administration will ignite more than its share of controversies, and face numerous challenges in federal court. It would be a big mistake for it to choose, right out of the gate, to start a fight that it is overwhelmingly likely to lose. It has been widely observed that President-elect Donald Trumps national security nominees differed with his campaign positions during their confirmation hearings on a range of issues, from the threat of Russia and importance of NATO to the value of building a wall along the border with Mexico. To his credit, Trump seemed to approve of these departures, tweeting that I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine! While it can be harmful for an administration to send conflicting messages to adversaries and allies, at this pre-inauguration stage, it is encouraging that the president-elect appears ready to hear the different policies outlined by appointees such as Defense Secretary nominee James Mattis and John Kelly, the prospective secretary of Homeland Securityparticularly as they appear to be tugging the administration toward more rational and centrist positions. Of these, none is more important than the stance on torture staked out by CIA Director-designate Mike Pompeo and Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions. During the campaign Trump repeatedly promised to use tactics worse than waterboarding on terrorist suspects, even though Congress has outlawed all interrogation tactics outside the Armys interrogation manual, which conforms with international anti-torture conventions. As we pointed out at the time, Trump could try to get around the law by seeking a secret Justice Department legal ruling that it infringed on the presidents constitutional authority and then ordering the CIA to use harsher methods. It was therefore important then that when Pompeo was asked whether he would follow such an order, he responded absolutely not, adding that he had voted for the 2015 law banning waterboarding as a member of Congress. Similarly, Sessions said that the law makes it absolutely improper and illegal to use waterboarding or any other form of torture, both for the military and for the CIA. While he said he had opposed making an Army field manual the standard for all agencies, Sessions said, it is a law, and it needs to be enforced, absolutely. Sessions and Pompeo were not the first to line up behind the torture ban. By Trumps own account, Mattis made a strong pitch about the ineffectiveness of torture during one of their initial conversations. I was very impressed by that answer, Trump told the New York Times, though he added, Im not saying it changed my mind. Whether he has changed his view or not, Trump has ensured through his national security appointments that any move to reinstate torture techniques will be stiffly resisted inside his own Cabinet. The statements by the nominees suggested the heartening conclusion that, despite the continuing political debate about the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods during the George W. Bush administration, the nations military and intelligence establishments have learned the lesson from the enormous harm that resulted. The use of torture violated international law, badly tarnished the United States international image, and gave dictators and terrorists around the world an excuse to employ the same methods, including on Americans. Meanwhile, an exhaustive 2014 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee found the harsh methods yielded no valuable information. Trump did not live through those years as a commander, as Mattis did, and he has not had the exposure of Pompeo to the intelligence community. Having now appointed them to lead national security agencies, he will do well if he not only allows them to speak their minds, but also listens to them. January 16, Franciscan friars Source: Ewtn.com Roman martyrology: In the city of Marrakech in the Maghreb (Morocco Today), martyred saints Berard, Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis, All Franciscan Friars were sent by Saint Francis himself to evangelize the Moors. They were arrested in Seville and moved to Marrakec, where they were put to the torture and beheaded. Canonization Date: 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV. SHORT BIOGRAPHY Of the noble family of Leopardi, and a native of Carbio in Umbria, Berard was received into the Franciscan Order by the Seraphic Patriarch himself, in 1213. He was well versed in Arabic, an eloquent preacher, and was chosen by St. Francis, together with two other priests, Peter and Otho, and two lay-brothers, Accursius and Adjutus, to evangelize the infidels of the East. In 1219 with the blessing of St. Francis, Berard left Italy by ship with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him. They tried preaching in Seville, then in Muslim hands, but made no converts. They preached on streets and in public squares. People treated them as if they were crazy and had them arrested. To save themselves from being sent back home, the friars declared they wanted to see the sultan. Once in Morocco, the sultan received the friars and gave them freedom to preach in the city, but some of the people did not like this. They complained to the authorities so the sultan tried to save the friars by sending them to live in Marrakech, on the west coast of Morocco. A Christian prince and friend of the sultan, Dom Pedro Fernandez, took them into his home, but the friars knew that their mission was to preach the faith, so they returned to the city as often as they could. This angered some people who did not want to hear the friars' message, the complaints angered the sultan so much that one day when he saw the friars preaching, he ordered them to stop or leave the country; they refused. When they began preaching again, an exasperated sultan ordered them executed. After enduring severe beatings and declining various bribes to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ, the friars were beheaded by the sultan himself on January 16, 1220. Dom Pedro went to claim the bodies of the martyrs. Eventually he brought their relics to Holy Cross Church in Coimbra, Portugal. The friars' mission to Morocco had been brief and an apparent failure, but the results were surprising. The story of these heroes fired the first Franciscans with the desire to be missionaries and martyrs too. It was their particular witness that inspired a young man to dedicate his life to God as a Franciscan priest. We know him as St. Anthony of Padua. His feast day is June 13. When Francis heard of their deaths, he exclaimed, "Now I can truly say that I have five Friars Minor!" These five martyrs were canonized in 1481. Mumbai: National Company Law Tribunal that is hearing contempt plea brought in by Cyrus Mistry against Ratan Tata, Tata Sons and others will deliver its order on January 18. Mistry family-run Cyrus and Sterling Investments had approached the tribunal that has posted its order for Wednesday, CNBC-TV18 reported. NCLT directives mean no legal actions, can be undertaken by Tatas or Mistry, the channel quoted Tata Sons counsel as saying to the tribunal. Earlier in the day, Tata Sons lawyer had said the tribunal did not consider interim relief sought by Mistry. Mistry who was ousted as Tata Sons chairman on October 24 last year has challenged the move in NCLT. He has also requested the panel to declare his ouster as void and disband the entire Tata Sons board. Mistry invoked section 241 of Companies Act in his plea against Tatas. He alleged mismanagement and oppression at Tata Sons. In their reply, Tatas charged Mistry broke confidentiality clauses of the company. Mistry knowingly leaked sensitive information to the public in his plea with NCLT and indulged in criminal breach of confidentiality, Tatas charged. Mumbai: Moving the head of Tata Consultancy Services to the top job at Tata group's holding company fills a critical hole for the salt-to-software conglomerate, but it leaves another at its most valuable company ahead of a complex and unpredictable 2017. The promotion of Tata veteran Natarajan Chandrasekaran the well-regarded, high-performing boss of TCS under whom shares have quadrupled should be no surprise. But the departure of Chandrasekaran, known as Chandra, from the Tata group's most profitable arm still rattled investors. They sent TCS shares down more than 4 percent on Friday, a day after it also posted better-than-expected quarterly results. "The IT industry is facing headwinds, and shareholders would have preferred Chandra to stay as CEO for some more time," said Souvik Guha, an analyst with Shriram Asset Management, which owns shares in TCS. Indeed, for Tata Sons, promoting one-time Tata intern Chandrasekaran to chairman of the $100 billion conglomerate is something of a gamble: to help unpick the group's boardroom troubles, he leaves behind the growth engine and crown jewel. The vast majority of Tata Sons' annual revenue comes from dividend payouts. Key businesses include Tata Steel and Jaguar Land Rover-owner Tata Motors. But TCS, with its IT services and consulting businesses, accounts for nearly 90 percent of total group revenue. Investor concerns highlight the outsized importance of TCS, more than 70 percent owned by Tata. "Investors were more confident about Chandra," said a fund manager at a local mutual fund, which owns shares in TCS. "In a tough time when volume growth is elusive, you want someone with a proven track record and it would been preferable to have someone from the business side." Chandrasekaran has been replaced at TCS by Rajesh Gopinathan, described by analysts and insiders as a meticulous operations man. Fund managers fret, however, over the vision for the IT services firm, at a time when it needs to tackle slowing growth in the industry and a problematic period ahead. From an incoming Donald Trump administration in the United States, determined to clamp down on visas vital to the smooth operations of IT services companies in their biggest market, to the still unravelling fallout from Britain's move to bow out of the European Union, TCS will face one of its most complex years. Some also fear that Chandra will have little opportunity to lavish attention on TCS in the new role, as he will be saddled with untying the Gordian knot of Tata Sons politics, and also overseeing 200 group companies - all against the background of a bitter ongoing spat with its ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry. Mistry has publicly detailed the complex array of problems the conglomerate faces from its troubled European steel segment, from ethical concerns to allegations of fraudulent transactions at its Air Asia India joint-venture, and a host of other issues. Rocking the boat Chandra, who joined the Tata group in 1987, rose through the ranks to become TCS CEO in 2009. Under his leadership, TCS revenue has risen almost fourfold and its workforce has almost tripled. TCS has fared better than rivals Infosys and Wipro. This is despite a rapidly evolving landscape that has forced IT services players to rethink some increasingly commoditised services and innovate with offerings such as automation and artificial intelligence to win clients and boost revenue. The size of TCS has long been its strength, but the changes in the industry mean its size could also become a challenge. "In a time marked with multiple challenges and key headwinds impacting the IT sector, this is not an apt moment to rock the boat for TCS," said Reliance Securities analyst Harit Shah, adding that Chandra's relationships will be missed. TCS has more than tripled the number of its $100 million plus accounts in the last six years to 34 from 10, according to data from JPMorgan. Over that same period, Infosys has only grown that customer base to 18 from 11. Its stock has also vastly outperformed both Infosys and its third-largest Indian rival, Wipro, in that same period. Inside the company, executives at the 350,000-strong firm are more confident, describing the new TCS chief, Gopinathan, as "hands-on". "Chandra will be at the helm and he will continue to guide the new CEO," said RK Gupta, managing director at Taurus Asset Management, which owns TCS shares. Mumbai: Private equity inflows into the country's real estate sector surged 62 per cent to Rs 38,000 crore, during 2016, largely helped by Parliament's clearance of two significant legislations Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill and GST, says a report. Funds amounting to Rs 23,500 crore were pumped into realty by PE investors in 2015, as per the latest data compiled by global real estate services major JLL India. The Rs 38,000 crore inflows is the second highest-level for a year since 2007. Interestingly, PE investments worth Rs 21,000 crore alone were pumped in the second half of 2016. This is 121 per cent more than PE investments recorded in the same period year-ago. "The performance was due to increased confidence shown by investors post the Parliament's passage of RERA [Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Bill] and GST (goods and services tax)," JLL India managing director (Capital Markets) Shobhit Agarwal said. Further, the report said that out of the entire PE amount in 2016, Rs 13,500 crore was investment via pure equity while the rest was through different structures of debt. "Even in terms of pure equity, 2016 saw an impressive increase of 29 per cent (year-on-year)," Agarwal added. Agarwal noted that owing to an improvement in India's rankings on different indices and a pro-active government keen on improving these further, the country is bound to attract more equity investment going forward. "Economic and political stability, liberalisation of the FDI policy by prime minister Narendra Modi's government and the resultant improvement in the investor community's sentiment are some of the factors working in Indian real estate's favour," Agarwal said. "This year may even turn out to be slightly better than 2016 ? despite Brexit and the outcome of US presidential elections, thanks to a strengthening and modernising economy and India's growing reputation as an attractive investment destination," he added. Real Estate bill seeks to protect the interests of the large number of aspiring house buyers while at the same time enhancing the credibility of construction industry by promoting transparency, accountability and efficiency in execution of projects. Meanwhile, GST will replace a jumble of levies to create one of the world's biggest single market. A single tax will make it easier to do business in the world's seventh-largest economy as also help combat evasion, boost revenue for the government. Mumbai: The ninth GST Council meet held at Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan ended without the Council specifying a proper timeline for implementation of Goods and Services Tax. Mondays talks failed to reach a breakthrough on contentious issues of cross empowerment and dual control as the states want more power to levy under the One Nation One Tax regime. Kerala Finance Minister Isaaq Thomas was quoted by CNBC-TV18 as saying that both the Centre and the states failed to clinch a deal on dual control under which states want powers to levy with Rs 1.5 crore yearly turnover. The Council has also not resolved the issue of administrative control. Thomas added that there was also no agreement over jurisdiction of states on territorial waters. The Centre in its new definition of state under new GST law has proposed to exclude 12 nautical miles of territorial waters from a states boundaries. The official said that representatives of other concerned departments besides certain bankers would attend the meeting. New Delhi: Labour intensive sectors like gems& jewellery and textiles may soon get easy flow of credit as the government is working on the issue on account of demonetisation. Top officers from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and Department of Financial Services among others will meet on January 23 to discuss the issue. "The deliberations would be on finding ways and means to increase availability of credit to the labour intensive sectors so that they can create more jobs and deal with the impact of demonetisation," an official said. The official said that representatives of other concerned departments besides certain bankers would attend the meeting. The sectors which would participate include footwear, auto components and construction. The cash crunch following demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 has hurt these sectors. The sectors are important as they create large number of jobs in the country and also contribute significantly in the country's economic growth. Mumbai: Zaira Wasim, who played the younger Geeta Phogat in the critical and commercial blockbuster Dangal, has written an open letter, reacting to the controversy surrounding her recent meeting with Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti. The 16-year-old Kashmiri actress had come in for a lot of backlash, post her meeting with the CM, so much so that she ended up apologising for unintentionally hurting people. She also ended up playing down her much acclaimed performance in 'Dangal,' saying that she is not proud of it'. The actress ended up deleting the post ultimately, though she did get a lot of support, after she shared her apology letter. Omar Abdullah, one of Mufti's staunchest critics, came out in support of the young girl, calling the hatred coming her way unwarranted. Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit also came out in support of Zaira, who'll next be seen in Aamir Khan's 'Secret Superstar'. Geeta Phogat, whom Zaira portrayed in Nitesh Tiwari's 'Dangal,' came out in support of the youngster. "I just want to say that Zaira shouldn't apologise. She didn't do anything wrong. Just like we have made our country proud by winning medals, she has done the same thing by playing my younger version in the movie. She did a lot of hard work for that role and she played it really well. "I've met her so many times during shoot; she is a very simple girl... I want to say to her family that don't be afraid about anything and just don't worry. We all are with them. The entire country stands with them. She equally deserves like us and we all respect her from the bottom of our hearts," Geeta said. Her sister Babita herself was quite vocal about her support of Zaira. "Dhaakad ladkiyon ka role kiya hai usne toh usko darne or sharminda hone ki koi zarurat nahi hai," Babita remarked, sharply. Babita also went on to emphasise on the support that Zaira has across the nation, saying, "We also reached here by facing many hardships; want to tell Zaira Wasim she shouldn't be scared. The nation is with her." Despite the formal set up of their relationship, Ranbir says that he loves his father "dearly", and always looks up to him for inspiration. New Delhi: Ranbir Kapoor, who has written the foreword to his father's soon-to-be released autobiography 'Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored', has opened up about the "formal" relationship between him and his father. The 34-year-old actor, who recently delivered the box-office hit 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil' says that the father-son relationship is "one of complete reverence" and that he has never crossed a "certain line" with Rishi. "I am closer to my mother. I feel that Dad modelled his relationship with me on the one he shared with his own father. And it is true that I have never crossed a certain line with him. "But there is no sense of loss or vacuum here. I do wish sometimes that I could be friendlier with him or even spend more time with him," Ranbir writes in the foreword. The actor goes on on to say that he would not want to share a similar relationship with his own children in the future and unlike his father, spend more time with them. "Sometimes I wish I could just pick up the phone and ask him, 'Dad, how are you doing?' But we do not have that. We do not have a phone relationship. "When I get married and have children, I would want to change that dynamic with them. I don't want my relationship with my children to be as formal as the one I have with my father. I want to be friendlier, be more connected, spend more time with them than he did with me," he writes. Despite the formal set up of their relationship, Ranbir says that he loves his father "dearly", and always looks up to him for inspiration. "I love my father dearly and have immense respect for him. I'm inspired by him and never want to let him down. I know he has only my best interests at heart. He also takes care of the financial side of my work. So we are more connected now. "His confidence in me and my work makes me take pride in it. I persevere that much harder because of this. His belief and his encouragement are important to me," the 'Rockstar' actor writes in the book. Ranbir, however, steered clear of commenting on Rishi Kapoor's Twitter personality, but added that his father is a "straight arrow". "I do not have a take on his Twitter personality. All I can say is, so long as he is being honest and having fun, it's his prerogative. Social media is something very personal. "Of course, he gets himself into a spot sometimes with his frank speak, but I know he has no agenda and no hidden motive. My father is a straight arrow," he writes. The HarperCollins book, co-written by Rishi Kapoor and Meena Iyer, is available for pre-order online and will be launched officially here on Tuesday. Mumbai: Shahid Kapoor is having a great time professionally as well as personally. The actor is winning accolades galore, for his eccentric act in Abhishek Chaubey's 'Udta Punjab,' even having won the Filmfare Best Actor Critic's Award. Besides that, he's got Vishal Bhardwaj's highly ambitious 'Rangoon' co-starring Kangana Ranaut and Saif Ali Khan, waiting to hit the big-screen on February 24. Sasha has also been blissfully married to Mira Rajput, recently having been blessed with a baby girl, Misha. The two had appeared on Koffee with Karan, winning many a heart over with their earnest, innocuous public display of affection. However, it seems like Shahid isn't the only person Mira is married to! Well, don't get us wrong, we are not talking about anyone else, but Mira's phone. You heard us right! If one's to go by Shahid's latest Instagram post, the lady is always on the phone. And Shahid's imitation of his adorable wife is all the more endearing. Shahid, who's currently working on Sanjay Lella Bhansali's 'Padmavati,' alongside Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, can't tease us with such tiny tidbits and needs to give us regular doses and insights into their beautiful life. Check the Instagram post out here: She has already done photo shoots for magazines (Photo: Facebook) Kozhikode: Although Indian society has a long way to go when it comes to accepting transgender people and ensuring their rights, steps in the positive directions always come forward as rays of hope. As Nepals first transgender model is all set to scorch the ramp at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai this February, another transgender beauty is making waves in Kerala, as she is set to star opposite Malayali superstar Mammootty. 21-year-old Anjali Ameer is a transgender model who has successfully transformed into a woman after sex reassignment surgery, and is now the first transgender model from to star in a mainstream Malayalam movie. The Coimbatore based model will be Mammoottys heroine in a movie called Pernabu. Anjali is excited about things to come and described the superstar as very helpful. Anjali had always felt that she was born in a body that didnt feel like hers and when she travelled to Bengaluru for her graduation as a 19-year-old, she went on to transform into a woman through surgery. Anjali has already done photo shoots for magazines as her modelling career paved way for her foray into films. The accused helped the victim to board a car which was standing some 100 meters away, and then committed the crime in the vehicle. (Photo: Representational Image) Bengaluru: Two persons, including a police officer, have been arrested for allegedly raping a mentally-challenged woman in Tumkuru city, about 70 km away from in Bengaluru. An Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) has been arrested for the alleged rape as also the driver of a private vehicle for abetting the crime, Tumkuru Superintendent of Police Isha Pant said. The ASI and the driver have been booked under IPC sections 376-C (sexual intercourse by person in authority), 202 (intentional omission to give information of offence by person bound to inform) and 36 (effect caused partly by act and partly by omission), Isha said. The incident took place in the intervening night of January 14 and 15, when the victim was walking alone, some five kilometers away from her house, Isha said. The ASI spotted her while on patrol on a motorbike with a Home Guard jawan, she said. The ASI stopped the bike and enquired about her address and called on her brother's phone telling him that he is bringing his sister back home, Isha said. The accused then asked the Home Guard jawan to go back to the police station, she said. The accused helped the victim to board a car which was standing some 100 meters away, and committed the crime in the moving vehicle, Isha said. Bengaluru: A 23-year-old courier delivery boy was fatally stabbed, while his friend, a rowdy, sustained injuries when a gang of miscreants attacked them in Saraswathipura in Nandini Layout police station limits on Saturday evening. The deceased has been identified as Pradeep alias Manja, a resident of Saraswathipura, who was working in a post office. His friend Venkatesh, a rowdy sheeter of Mahalakshmi Layout police station, was also stabbed and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. According to the police, as part of Sankranthi local residents had organised 'kicchu haisodu', in which cattle are made to jump over bonfires. New Delhi: A 38-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting school girls after waylaying them by saying that he has been sent by their parents for giving them some items or others in east Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area, police said on Monday. Sunil Rastogi was arrested on Saturday on the basis of tip off, DCP (East) Omvir Singh said. "The accused told police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place," he added. According to a report in Indian Express the man told the cops that he tried to sexually assault 600 girls. The accused works as a tailor and is married with five children, including three girls, said another officer, adding that his daughters are being counselled to know whether he had also targeted them. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station wherein complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9, said the officer. The accused allegedly took them on the stairs of a building and fled when they raised an alarm, he said. Earlier, on December 13 also, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl, said the officer. He said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. "In all the three cases, victims were minors in the age group of 9-10 and it was also revealed that the accused first misled the minors by telling them that their father had given some clothes or articles for them and then he took them to isolated place where he allegedly tried to sexually assault them," said the officer. A team under inspector CR Meena, SHO, New Ashok Nagar police station, and ACP (Kalyanpuri) Rahul Alwal took up the investigation. CCTV footages from cameras installed near the places of incidents were obtained and some images of the accused were developed, said Singh. During interrogation, he confessed he committed the alleged offences and also revealed he committed similar offences with other girls in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand), said the officer. It has also been revealed from interrogation that many cases including under NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) and of theft and molestation were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. Rastogi is a permanent resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. "He resides in Rudrapur now. He studied up to fifth standard at government school in his village. He is being interrogated regarding other offences committed by him at different places," added the officer. CHENNAI: Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin on Thursday alleged Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam is unable to act on the drought situation in the state due to those wielding power from behind. He said the number of farmers deaths had crossed 100 and the state government had not acted to mitigate their sufferings by declaring the state as drought hit. Referring to DMKs demand to convene an emergency session of the Assembly and pass a resolution to declare the state as drought hit, Stalin said during the meeting with the Chief Minister, he could feel that the Chief Minister, who is aware of the fairness of the demand, is in some sort of a crisis and not in a position to act. The lives of farmers could not be affected due to the complacence of those who are running the administration from behind, he alleged. The farmers had been severely affected as the state could not get its due share of water, besides failure of monsoon and lack of relief assistance from the government. While there is demand from every quarter to declare the state as drought hit, the AIADMK government had not acted, he said. The government had formed a committee to analyse the crop damage after the DMK sought time to meet the Chief Minister, he said. The neighbouring state of Karnataka had submitted a report to the centre on the drought situation and demanded Rs 4,702 crore. Karnataka had been sanctioned Rs. 1788 crore by the Centre, he said and added that Kerala too had submitted a report seeking funds for relief. Tamil Nadu is facing more severe drought compared to the neighbouring states, besides facing the threat of acute drinking water shortage. There are reports that Chennai would get drinking water supply for just one month, he said and added that the delay by the state government would cause more deaths of farmers. He appealed to the state government to act fast and exert pressure on the centre to declare the state as drought hit, besides getting the required funds. Compensation should be given for the families of farmers who lost their lives and the other farmers should be given compensation for loss of crops, he added. The yatra will commence on June 29, coinciding the Skandshasthi which is an auspicious day as per Hindu calendar, and conclude on Shravan Purnima (Raksha Bandhan) on Aug 7. (Representational Image) SRINAGAR: This years Amarnath yatra will be of 40 days duration and begin on June 29, an announcement made by Jammu and Kashmir Governor, N.N. Vohra, on Monday said. Mr. Vohra who is also the chairman of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) presided over its 32nd meeting in Delhi which was attended besides others also by the Art of Living Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and other members and officials. A statement issued by the board after the meeting said that the duration and date of commencement of the annual pilgrimage were decided keeping in view the boards foremost concern of ensuring the safety and security of the pilgrims. The yatra will commence on June 29, coinciding the Skandshasthi which is an auspicious day as per Hindu calendar, and conclude on Shravan Purnima (Raksha Bandhan) on Aug 7. Also, the SASB will organise a special pooja ritual at Chandanwari, a base-camp of the yatra near Kashmir's premier resort of Pahalgam, on the day of Jyesth Purnima, which falls on June 9 this year, to invoke the blessings of Lord Shiva for the smooth and safe conduct of the pilgrimage. The statement further said, Considering the carrying capacity of the existing tracks and other available infrastructure in the yatra area, the board decided that 7,500 pilgrims, per day per each of the two routes (traditional Pahalgam and shorter Baltal), excluding the pilgrims who would fly to the shrine area by helicopters, would be allowed to register for the pilgrimage. As many as 433 designated branches of Punjab National Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank and YES Bank located in 32 states and Union Territories will begin to register the pilgrims on March 1. Each intending pilgrim would be required to submit mandatory health certificate to be issued by doctors and hospitals nominated by the State or U.T in which he or she resides at the time of registration. New Delhi: Efforts to form grand secular alliance in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh gained momentum on Monday after the Election Commission recognised Akhilesh Yadav-led faction as Samajwadi Party and granted it the "bicycle" poll symbol. Soon after the EC order, SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav, a close associate of Akhilesh, expressed hope a grand alliance will be formed to fight elections in the state. Ramgopal, who has been staunch supporter of Akhilesh through the intra-party tussle, however, hastened to add the Chief Minister will take the final decision in the matter. Read: Akhilesh to take call on alliance with Cong, but hope it happens: Ramgopal Congress spokesman and former Union minister R P N Singh was among the first to hail the EC order, which he said, shows that Akhilesh enjoys "90 per cent support" in the organisation as also among the legislators of the Samajwadi Party. Replying to a question, Singh suggested the development could hasten the alliance process. Hectic efforts are already on to hammer out such an alliance with Congress being offered 90 to 100 seats by the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, which is also roping in Ajit Singh's RLD as a junior partner. Talk in Congress circles was that party General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ramgopal Yadav from SP are sorting out disputes over some seats. Uttar Pradesh has 403 Assembly constituencies where Akhilesh's party would be contesting the majority of seats and would also have RLD as a junior partner in Western Uttar Pradesh, which was once a stronghold of Ajit Singh. The three parties will have to race against time to finalise the seat arrangements in the next two days as the Western Uttar Pradesh, where Ajit Singh enjoys some influence, goes to polls in the first two phases. Talk is that the three parties would come out with a common minimum programme. The SP general secretary also said the list of party candidates will be released in a day or two. Leaders from the three parties insist that the main task in Uttar Pradesh is to stop the Narendra Modi-led BJP from coming to power. In 2015 assembly elections in Bihar, the Congress had joined hands with JD(U) and RJD to form a grand alliance, which caused a major upset for BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by easily securing power. The BJP-led NDA had won 31 of the 40 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar. In a major boost to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Election Commission today recognised the faction headed by him as the Samajwadi Party and alloted the reserved symbol 'bicycle' to it for contesting the coming Assembly elections. Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh's new capital city Amaravati might take the shape of a glorified film set and live up to its sobriquet 'Bhramaravati' (an illusionary or mythical city) as Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is now enlisting the services of yet another movie director to help design Amaravati. The Chief Minister has already chosen to go with foreign architects to design the core of Amaravati. But now besides 'Bahubali' helmer S S Rajamouli, another filmmaker. Jagarlamudi Krish and art director Anand Sai will also be asked to chip in with his concept for the city. The state government conducted an international competition seeking designs for the capital in 2015 and picked Japan's Maki and Associates' "models" in March last. Subsequently, Maki was dumped and last month Foster and Partners of Britain was appointed as Master Architect. Top Indian architect Hafiz Contractor is partnering with Foster in designing two "iconic structures" -- the High Court and the Legislature Complex -- apart from the master plan for the 900-acre core capital area. In the meantime, the Chief Minister seemed to have been fascinated by the sets of film 'Bahubali' and spoke to director Rajamouli to help design Amaravati. While the AP Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) accordingly approached Rajamouli, the Chief Minister has now directed it to consult Krish and Sai also for necessary "inputs". Sai worked as an art director for many popular Telugu films like Indra, Badrinath, Yamadonga and is now serving the Telangana government on its ambitious Yadadri temple town project. Krish, who made many popular films in Telugu, has just released a "historical" movie on Satavahana ruler Goutami Putra Satakarni. The movie stars Nandamuri Balakrishna, Chandrababu's brother-in-law and TDP MLA, and the Chief Minister watched the film on January 12. Ostensibly impressed by the grandeur of the film that supposedly depicts the history of Amaravati, the CM has asked the CRDA to contact Krish and Sai. "The CM has asked us to contact Krish, so we will take inputs and suggestions from him and also Sai," Municipal Administration Minister P Narayana said. "These people (Rajamouli and Krish) already studied a lot of history (for their films). So the CM wanted us to contact them and take inputs. He also wanted us to identify if there is someone else with knowledge of history," Narayana said. Meanwhile, Foster and Partners -- who already held one round of talks with the Bahubali director on the design aspects -- is expected to submit a "rough draft" design of Amaravati to the CRDA on January 25. Foster is charging Rs 67 crore for the design work. To its credit, London-based Foster has designed iconic structures like the 50 UN Plaza, Singapore Supreme Court, Imperial War Museum (UK), Century Tower (Japan), the Ireo City (Gurugram), Cyber Port (China), Bloomberg headquarters (UK), The Index (UAE), International Airport (Kuwait), to name a few. The UTC Department of Art 2017 Annual Juried Student Exhibition with Juror Jeffrey S. Morton, professor and chair, Art Department, Covenant College, is now open at the Cress Gallery at UTC. There will be a Juror's Public Lecture Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Room 201, Derthick Hall, 624 Vine St., followed by the public reception and jurors awards presentation in the lobby of the Fine Arts Center. There will be a Jurors Professionalism Session on Wednesday from 1-2 p.m. in Room 356 Fine Arts Center. The exhibition runs through Jan. 27, closed Monday, Jan. 16, in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. Gallery hours are 9:30 a.m.7:30 p.m., Monday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. All events and daily admission are free and open to the public. A longstanding tradition within the mission of the Cress, this event provides students currently enrolled at all levels of the UTC Department of Arts curricula the opportunity to submit their work for consideration by an independent jury. Participation in this professional process exemplifies the dedication of these students, the quality of their efforts in studios and classrooms, and their investment in their education from foundations to contemporary trends in art, said officials. This years exhibition is unlike any in the past. It is diverse in content, varied in media and scale, and authentic in nature. Each work is unique. Whether the solution to an assigned problem or the development of an original concept, mastery of skill, embrace of risk, and desire to creatively express an objective are clearly apparent, said officials. Mr. Morton selected 57 entries from a total of 105 submissions. His selections include two dimensional work created in graphite, charcoal, oil, acrylic, and mixed media on canvas, wood, or paper; sculpture in metal, wood, plaster, concrete, or fiber; analog and digital photography; animation, manipulated and original video; zines, artists books, posters, and other examples of graphic design. Visitors will find themselves not just observing but also physically interacting, reading and listening. In his statement, the juror offers an analogy to the wild fires that blanketed the city in smoke on Nov. 7, and the political fallout that surrounded the national election of Nov. 8. Whatever we call it, the last few months for many of us felt like we had been stumbling our way through a material fog and a political haze," said Mr. Morton. "Since art is a part of a particular community and context, our artists felt it too.The works in this collection address how artists not only feel their way through the haze, but more importantly how they work their way through it. They use their work to make sense of their environment and the events that surround them. Mr. Morton holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from Temple University, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. He is an accomplished painter specializing in various interpretations of the landscape. During a two-year residency in Japan early in his career, Mr. Morton was drawn to Japanese art and culture. His work of the last 25 years has a strong connection to the bold color fields found in 17th Century Japanese folding screens, and the fluid brushwork of the 19th Century Japanese ink painter Uragami Gyokudo. Mr. Morton has exhibited his work regionally and nationally, including the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery, Knoxville; the Harrison Center for the Arts, Indianapolis; and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington. In Chattanooga he curated the show Accessing the Artists Brain: Drawing as Metaphor at the Association of Visual Arts, and his work was selected for the Hunter Invitational III (2014), Hunter Museum of Art. Most recently his exhibition The Anxious Landscape was exhibited in Knoxville at Pellissippi State Art Gallery. Mr. Morton received a 2016 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee State Arts Commission. Mr. Morton has served as professor of Art at Covenant College since 2000 and is currently chair of that program. The Cress is in the lobby of the UTC Fine Arts Center, 752 Vine St., corner of Vine and Palmetto Streets. Parking: After 5 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends, visitors to the Cress may park free in any nearby lot not marked 24 hour reserved. Before 5 p.m. on weekdays, visitors may find limited nearby street parking or park in the 5th Street Garage near MacKenzie Arena for a $4 fee and stroll across campus to Vine Street. For more information about parking visit www.cressgallery.org. This exhibition is supported in full by the contributions of the Friends of the Gallery. For more information visit www.cressgallery.org or contact the director email ruth-grover@utc.edu or voice and text at 304-9789 . If you require accommodations for this event, please contact the UTC Department of Art at 425-4178 or email Patricia-Kelley@utc.edu or contact the UTC Disability Resource Center at 425-4006 New Delhi: Congress on Monday hailed as "judicious" the Election Commission's decision to grant the 'Bicycle' symbol to the Akhilesh Yadav faction of the Samajwadi Party ahead of the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. "We congratulate Akhilesh on being allotted the cycle symbol. Election Commission has taken a judicious decision in record time," Congress spokesman R P N Singh said, adding the UP Chief Minister had 90 per cent of the party including legislators on his side. Read: Akhilesh has right to use cycle symbol, his faction is real Samajwadi Party: EC Congress and the Akhilesh-led faction are busy stitching up a grand secular alliance in the state in an apparent bid to prevent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from coming to power in the politically key state. In a major boost to UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, the EC recognised the faction headed by him as the SP and allotted the reserved symbol 'Bicycle' to it for contesting the coming Assembly elections. The verdict comes a day ahead of the start of the filing of nominations in the seven-phased polls in the state beginning on February 1. Lucknow: Even before the Election Commission (EC) had granted the use of the Samajwadi Party's 'bicycle' symbol to Akhilesh Yadav's faction, supporters of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister on Monday put up a nameplate at Samajwadi Party headquarters that read "Akhilesh Yadav, Party President". The nameplate appeared moments after Mulayam Singh Yadav stunned partymen by declaring he would fight against his son if he did not shed his "negative approach" towards Muslims. Hardly had the 77-year-old SP patriarch left the party headquarters in Lucknow after addressing workers, the brand new nameplate appeared strategically positioned directly under Mulayam's nameplate which mentions him as "Party President". The full-blown crisis in the ruling party recently reached a flash point when Akhilesh was anointed SP chief in place of his father at the party's national convention, which was dubbed as "illegal and unconstitutional" by Mulayam. The brand new nameplate of Akhilesh appeared to be an angry retort to Mulayam's comment that he was ready to cross swords with him. The father-son duo had met last week but key differences mainly on the post of party president persisted. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday refused urgent hearing on a plea seeking a status report from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) following a BSF soldier's allegation that troopers posted along the LoC were being served poor quality food. The petitioner urged the bench headed by Chief Justice G Rohini, which did not assemble, that the matter be transferred to another bench on Monday itself as it was an "urgent issue". The court master, who was giving dates in the matter, asked the counsel for the petitioner as to what the urgency was. "The authorities concerned are looking into the issues (raised in the writ petition). Even the Army Chief has also taken steps in this regard," the court master said. In response, the counsel for the petitioner requested the issue to be listed for Tuesday post which, the matter has been fixed for consideration on Tuesday. The plea was filed by Puran Chand Arya, a former central government employee, in the wake of a video posted on Facebook by BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, claiming corruption among officers and poor working conditions. The public interest litigation (PIL) sought direction to the MHA to submit a status report with respect to all paramilitary forces in India over allegations of the BSF jawan in his video, which went viral on social media. Citing the fundamental Right to Equality (Article 14) and Life (Article 21), the PIL filed through advocate Abhishek Kumar Choudhary highlights the allegations about insufficient and bad quality of food provided to jawans. It seeks action on the incident so that the morale of the force is not affected and also asks for clarity on ration procurement, food preparation and servings to various categories of officers. On 9 January, Yadav had posted a video on Facebook which showed a meal box comprising a watery soup-like dal, which he said had only turmeric and salt and a burnt chapatti. He said this is what jawans were served at mealtime on duty. He said jawans often went to bed on an empty stomach. The PIL has sought direction to depute higher officers to supervise cooking of proper healthy food and its distribution. The fire personnel managed by laying pipes for 90 feet. Then they ran out of water. Fire officials said the water works staff was not available to send water tankers with the series of holidays. (Representational image) Hyderabad: A furniture godown was gutted in a fire accident in Jiyaguda on Sunday. Firemen were hampered by narrow streets and shortage of water while trying to douse the blaze. Police said the godown that was attached to a house caught fire due to short circuit at about 9 pm. Fire personnel rushed from Langer Houz but their fire tender could not enter the narrow lane. The fire personnel managed by laying pipes for 90 feet. Then they ran out of water. Fire officials said the water works staff was not available to send water tankers with the series of holidays. They asked the GHMC to provide for tankers. Hyderabad district fire officer M. Srinivas Reddy said the GHMC then sent a tanker to assist the firemen. Two more fire tenders from Chandulal Baradari and Moghalpur rushed to the spot at about 9.30 pm. The Alanaganallur villagers took the strong police presence of thousands of cops by surprise when the bulls were let into the open ground. Madurai: Impromptu jallikattu events were held at 14 venues in and around Madurai on Maattu Pongal day in which nearly 100 bulls participated. In Palamedu near Madurai, which is one of the main centres of jallikattu, police thwarted the attempts of locals on Sunday to hold the event provoking widespread anger among the youth. In Alanaganallur, the most famous of jallikattu venues, saw three bulls let into the field located on the backside of Vadivasal engaging youths for 20 minutes in the event which ended with police arresting two persons. In all, police took action against 40 people in Madurai district. The Alanaganallur villagers took the strong police presence of thousands of cops by surprise when the bulls were let into the open ground. The police were focussing on the traditional Vadivasal (the entry point of bulls into the arena) when the villagers used the ground at the rear to let the bulls loose. Policemen in mufti had been deployed for each of the bulls in Alanganallur to prevent the villagers from mobilising a jallikattu. But members of Tamil Nadu Kongu Ilaingar Peravai had secretly moved 7 bulls into the village tank and stayed awake the entire night to ensure jallikattu was held. Around 4 am, we erected a makeshift Vadivasal and brought the bulls of the famous Pullakulam cattle breed for the event, said Arunkumar, a bull tamer from Muduvarpatti village. Around 100 youths had gathered at the venue and were just about attempting to tame the bulls, but the event ended abruptly as police surrounded them. However, none could lay their hands on the Ayyur Kari bull, which stood majestically in the middle of the arena, scraping up sand with his hooves and looking sharply towards the tamers. Kari had won all his jallikattu events in Alanganallur and Palamedu since 2010, said the tamers. Similarly, members of Tamil Nadu Jallikattu Youth Federation, conducted an event with 20 bulls inside the Alangulam tank at Mudukkathan village for more than an hour. We gifted a bucket, towel, vessels and Rs 200 for 20 bull tamers each appreciating their sporting spirit for participating in the event despite the threat of arrest by the police, said B Prakash, the organiser. The event saw 150 participants who had assembled at the venue by 5 am. This event is an open statement to urban educated elites that they have no right to decide on Tamil culture and tradition. We are the guardians of our ancient sports, said the bull tamers. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday said that the victims of 2008 Amarnath land row or their kin would be paid ex-gratia and compensation on the likes of the 2016 unrest in the Kashmir Valley. She also said that Article 370 of the Constitution will stay as it secures Jammu and Kashmirs pluralistic ethos. Ms. Mufti who was winding up the discussion on Motion of Thanks on the Governors address in the State Legislative Council said that the people of Kashmir must be lauded for their unique examples of this pluralistic ethos exhibited during the unrest that followed the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Wani in July last year. It were the people of the Valley who in spite of curfew being in force came out of their homes to rescue the Amarnath pilgrims after they met with a road accident outside the highway town of Bijbehara, she said and added that in another such example of showing care and love for the followers of other faiths by local Muslims was when they made arrangements for the marriage of a Kashmiri Pandit while nobody could dare to venture out. The Chief Minister said a large number of those killed, blinded, injured or affected in any way during unrest in the Valley belonged to very poor families and many of them were orphans who had nobody to guide. As such the rehabilitation of their kin or these injured lies with the government, she said. I announced setting up of Special Investigating Teams to probe these killing besides announcing the ex gratia. Ms. Mufti said on a similar pattern, victims of the 2008 Amarnath land row in the State would also be paid ex-gratia and other financial compensation. She said, similarly, the kin of Chamail Singh, a civilian from Paragwal area of Jammu province killed in Pakistan in 2013, would also be duly compensated. She said her government wont differentiate on the basis of caste, creed or colour when it comes to the rehabilitation of its people. The Chief Minister said only 138 persons are detained by police for questioning and 370 persons are booked under Public Safety Act (PSA) whose status is being reviewed on case to case basis. She said she has directed not to re arrest a person in whose favour the court has quashed the detention but take his parents into confidence while counseling him to shun the path of violence. She said her government would value the criticism and suggestions of the opposition so that the governance system is further fine tuned in a collective manner. The Chief Minister asserted that strengthening of democratic system in Jammu and Kashmir holds key to the resolution of many issues of the State. She also maintained that Article 370 not only grants special status to the State but secures its pluralistic ethos as well. To unbundle the knots of uncertainty we need to strengthen this democratic system, she said appealing the members to rise above party lines and work to minimize the mistrust and discord between regions and people in the State. She added that the need of the hour is that Jammu and Kashmir remains united as a single entity so that it approaches the issues confronting it with singular attention and focus. She further said that dialogue is a universally accepted mechanism to resolve disputes and issues and her government is keen to initiate political process in the State for which she asked all shades of opinion to help. She reiterated that friendly relations between India and Pakistan are in the best interests of the State. We have to find the issues of common interest and common benefit between the two countries and move ahead, she said. She hoped that relations between the two neighbouring countries would take a better turn in days to come. Turning again to the special position of the State in the Indian Constitution, the Chief Minister said Article 370 is not any other entry in the rule book but it has to be understood in depth and with perspective. Its not only about securing the geography of Jammu and Kashmir alone but the pluralistic ethos and cultural diversity of the State as well, she said and asked for further strengthening this position thereby further improving the relations between the State and the Centre. Earlier in a written reply in the State Assembly, the Chief Minister said that hawala money was being used to fund terror activities and violence in the State and that 173 such cases have been registered in the state since 2001. As per reports from CID, hawala channels are being used to fund terror and violence in the state. Since 2001, 173 hawala cases have been registered. Challans were issued in 90 of these, she said. She added that of the total, 45 cases are under investigation, while sanction is awaited in 23 cases. Nine cases were untraced and six not admitted. Rishikesh (Uttarakhand): Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of impinging upon the autonomy of institutions like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Central Bank's Governor was informed of his decision on demonetisation just a day before the move. "RBI was created as an institution which would work independently free from all political pressure. However, a letter was shot off to the RBI Governor (Urjit Patel) just a day before demonetisation, saying that Modi ji had taken a decision to withdraw the 500 and 1000 rupee notes from circulation," Rahul said at a rally in Rishikesh. "The Congress party made and strengthened the RBI and ensured that such an institution does not bow down to government pressure...but in a minute the soul of this institution, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was murdered by Modi," he said. Charging the Prime Minister with taking his autocratic style of functioning too far, he said Modi was out to impose his face on everything. Citing the recent Khadi and Village Industries Commission Diary controversy as an instance where Mahatma Gandhi's face was replaced by that of Modi, he said if things go on like this the day was not far when Ramlilas will be staged with actors wearing Modi's mask instead of that of Lord Ram. "If things go on like this you would find even Ramlila actors wearing the mask of Modi from next year instead of that of Lord Ram. Modi ji wants the rule of one person. He wants his voice to drown out all other voices," Rahul said. Alleging that Modi's professed commitment to Khadi was fake, he said 15 lakh suit and Charkha could not go together. The Congress Vice President said Charkha stood for promotion of cottage and handicrafts industries and is Modi's commitment to Khadi was real then he would not have worked 'day in and day out' for 50 chosen industrialists. Pointing out that Modi was often seen in photos posing with the rich, Rahul said it was an indication that farmers and the poor did not figure in his scheme of things. He said Modi was imposing himself on the nation by adopting a policy of listening to none. "His approach is to do what he wants at any cost come what may. He changes the land acquisition laws to suit the purposes of industrialists. He can even snatch the lands of farmers without taking them into confidence and distribute them among his industrialist friends," Rahul added. The Congress Vice President accused the Prime Minister of ruling by creating fear in the minds of people and said he was pitting religions and castes against each other. "There is no need to fear anything. It is a country of lions," Rahul said, adding that the Congress party's ideology is fearlessness. He urged his party workers to take the message of fearlessness, religious amity and development to the masses in poll-bound Uttarakhand. Claiming that the Congress stood for the national flag, Rahul said 15,000 Congress workers had laid down their lives to uphold the national flag. He described his party as the one which has fought for the country's independence and said working for Congress meant working for the national flag. Attacking BJP's ideological parent RSS, Rahul alleged it had not unfurled the national flag at its headquarters in Nagpur for 52 years. RSS should be asked why it did not do so, the Congress Vice President said, adding that the saffron outfit had "no respect" for the national flag. Asking Modi to show the same urgency in the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) which he had displayed in imposition of demonetisation, Rahul said ex-servicemen were still protesting at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi. "If demonetisation can be done in a minute, OROP too can be implemented in a minute," he said. Rahul also demanded a green bonus for Uttarakhand in recognition of its contribution to environment conservation. Assembly elections in Uttarakhand will be held on February 15 in a single phase for the 70 seats. Chennai: Drought-hit Tamil Nadu on Monday urged the Centre to sanction Rs 39,565 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund towards mitigation measures, with Chief Minister O Panneerselvam seeking Rs 1,000 crore urgently as the state government does not have sufficient funds to meet the challenge. Panneerselvam also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to depute a Central team "to study the extensive damage caused to agriculture crops and to take stock of the drinking water scarcity in the state". A detailed memorandum on the drought situation in the state, besides a letter from Panneerselvam to the Prime Minister, was handed over at the PMO in New Delhi by Relief Commissioner and Commissioner of Revenue Administration K Satyagopal and Revenue Secretary B Chandra Mohan. In his letter, a copy of which was released in Chennai, Panneerselvam said Tamil Nadu experienced a 62 per cent deficient northeast monsoon, following the 20 per cent deficiency in southwest monsoon. All 32 districts in the state had received rainfall which was "scanty or deficient and the range is from 35 per cent to 81 per cent," he said, adding, the state has already been declared drought-hit. The drought situation was "exacerbated" by 'non-release' of water by Karnataka as per the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal's final order. The upper riparian state had released only 66 tmcft as against total quantum of 179 TMC feet of water due between June 1 and December 31, 2016, he said. As a result, he said, storage in Mettur Dam, the main reservoir which serves the Cauvery Delta, was "grossly insufficient" to save even a single paddy crop in the state's Cauvery Basin. Panneerselvam said the government had to provide relief to farmers for damage caused to crops due to failure of the monsoon and to ensure drinking water supply through various temporary measures to tackle the water scarcity in the state. "Moreover, adequate fodder availability needs to be maintained to protect cattle and the small ruminant population. Employment generation programmes have to be taken up on a war footing to ensure that livelihood of agricultural labourers is protected. For the above purposes, I request that a sum of Rs 39,565 crore may be sanctioned from the National Disaster Response Fund," Panneerselvam said. The state government was not having sufficient funds following expenditure post December 2015 floods and last month's Cyclone Vardah, he said. "The funds available with the state government in the State Disaster Response Fund are not sufficient to meet the situation. The state is in urgent need of assistance from NDRF to take up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures in the state," he said. "Hence, I request you to urgently sanction the release of an on account payment of Rs 1,000 crore from NDRF to the Government of Tamil Nadu to enable taking up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures to mitigate the drought situation," he said in the letter to Modi. The Chief Minister said he had reviewed the situation and ordered a detailed assessment of the drought situation by Ministers, District Collectors and officials. Following inspection, 13,305 of 16,682 Revenue villages in the state have been identified as drought affected. The situation was likely to worsen in the coming months as the North-East monsoon has come to an end and further rains are not part of the normal pattern, he said. Due to the failure of the South West and North-East monsoons in 2016-17, storage position in all the water bodies was at a 'critical level,' Panneerselvam said. "As against the total storage capacity of 198.384 TMC ft. in 15 major irrigation reservoirs in the state, the water available as on 31.12.2016 is only 25.742 TMC ft," he said. The combined storage in four drinking water reservoirs catering to the state capital, Chennai was "only 1.966 TMC ft. as on 31.12.2016 as compared to 10.339 TMC ft. at the same time in 2015," he added. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee will meet on Monday to decide on the name of next Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director. Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India JS Khehar will also attend the meeting. The meeting of the selection committee is expected to finalise the name to head the premier investigating agency of the country. Currently, Rakesh Asthana, a Gujarat-cadre IPS officer of 1984-batch, is holding the additional charge of the director CBI. Asthana's appointment as the interim chief of the CBI has been challenged in the Supreme Court as after the enactment of the Lokpal Act, the director of the agency has to be appointed by the collegium of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee and the Leader of the Opposition. Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday hit out at his son Akhilesh Yadav, stating that he would fight against the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister if he does not listen to him. I called Akhilesh 3 times, but he met me for just a minute and left even before I could begin speaking, Mulayam said. Playing the religion card, Mulayam also claimed that Akhilesh does not have a single Muslim name in his list of candidates for the UP elections. He said he was worried his son was being seen as a "Muslim baiter." Speaking to party workers, Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party. The SP supremo also said that he was trying to ensure that the cycle symbol of the party stays with his faction, but that he would accept whatever decision the Election Commission (EC) takes in this regard. The EC is expected to announce the decision on allocating the SP symbol on Monday. Akhilesh and Mulayam camps have both expressed confidence that the EC would rule in their favour. However, the Lok Dal, a party from UP, has offered Mulayam Singh Yadav usage of their own party symbol if he loses his case at the EC. On Monday, the SP supremo also slammed his cousin and Akhilesh confidante Ramgopal Yadav, claiming that he had destroyed the Samajwadi Party. Southern Adventist University will host its 24th annual Community Service Day in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, concluding a week of service emphasis. The event coordinates students and faculty to serve local organizations and community members within the Chattanooga area. This year Southern is partnering with more than 30 organizations including the Chattanooga Zoo, Salvation Army, Tech Town, Crab Tree Farm, American Red Cross, and the Samaritan Center. Topping off lasts years attendance of 900 students, more than 1,000 participants are expected this year. This kicks off Southerns goal for the year of collecting 125,000 hours of community service in honor of the universitys 125th anniversary. See southern.edu/125 for the running total. For a complete list of locations being served, visit www.southern.edu/mvc/Serve/Events. New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may get its first woman chief on Monday, with Archana Ramasundaram, a woman IPS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre, in contention for the post. Archana Ramasundaram could be named the CBI chief in a bargain move, after Gujarat officer RK Asthana's appointment as the temporary head of CBI became controversial. Asthana's appointment as the interim chief of the CBI has been challenged in the Supreme Court as after the enactment of the Lokpal Act, the director of the agency has to be appointed by the collegium of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee and the Leader of the Opposition. A Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led selection committee will meet on Monday to decide on the name of next Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director. Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India JS Khehar will also attend the meeting. The meeting of the selection committee is expected to finalise the name to head the premier investigating agency of the country. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (from L), Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Minister for Industries R.V. Deshpande at the inauguration of Main Line Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) service between Bengaluru and Ramanagara, in Bengaluru on Monday (Photo: Satish B.) Bengaluru: The South Western Railways, Bengaluru division took baby steps to starting the much-sought-after suburban railway system by signing an MoU with the state government on Monday. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, who was in the city for the ceremony, said that the project will be implemented on a cost-sharing basis. However, a disagreement persisted between the state and central governments on who would shell out how much. While the Centre wants the state to bear 80 per cent of the cost, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is rooting for a 50:50 split. The Phase-1 of suburban rail is estimated to cost Rs 2,500 crore and will be take at least another year to take off, officials said. Suburban rail cost: State, Centre clash The Karnataka government and Railway Ministry have agreed to build the suburban rail infrastructure in Bengaluru. The financing will be done through innovative means and not the budget. There will be a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that is a separate department to look after suburban rail," announced Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu, and added that the project will be funded by 'leveraging the market'. A slight friction exists between the Centre and state on the issue of cost sharing. While the Railway Ministry has stated in the draft that 80 percent of the cost will come from the state, Karnataka feels otherwise. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, "I request the Railway Ministry to modify the draft policy. 80 percent will be a huge burden on Karnataka. I appeal for a 50:50 cost sharing. Rs 100 crore has been allotted in the state budget, for suburban rail, this year. If more is needed, we are ready." Citing the expensive land rates in the city, Mr Siddaramaiah said, "I request the Railway Ministry to share the land cost as well. We will also put in efforts to bring in private participation for innovative financing." Mr Prabhu said, "Once this is implemented, 78 lakh four-wheelers and 48 lakh two-wheelers will go off the roads and will help reduce congestion. The MoU has been agreed in principle. Bengaluru needs it not because it is the capital of Karnataka, but because it is the Tech Capital of India." Union Minister for Statistics D.V. Sadanada Gowda, Union Minister for Chemicals and Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar, Minister of Large and Medium Scale Industries R.V. Desphande and Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George were present. Members of the Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), the civilian group that pressured the government to implement the suburban rail, were present. Their campaign Chukubuku Beku finally saw success with the release of the MoU. An ecstatic group of CfB volunteers were seen cheering and applauding at the event. They later personally thanked the officials. CfB members worked hard to make it happen Members of the Citizens for Bengaluru worked tirelessly to put pressure on the authorities for the suburban railway system in the traffic-choked city. As Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu's visit to the city drew near, they urged all their volunteers to get the support of their ward corporators. Over 50 corporators representing a total of 30 lakh people signed a letter addressed to Mr Prabhu. Over 25,000 online signatures were also included. Tara Krishnaswamy of Cfb said, "We celebrate the success of this citizen movement. We need to keep our efforts for a full fledged suburban train system and ensure adequate funds are allocated." The suburban rail system will aid the 1.2 crore people in the city, reducing congestion by 50 percent and also improve air quality, the group believes. SSB deputy commandant Kumar Sundaram said the smugglers who hail from Assam came to Kisanganj with the lizards hidden in a box of slipper by Kamakhya Express train. (Representational image) Kisanganj (Bihar): Rare variety of lizards valued at about Rs 1.5 crore in the international market was on Monday seized from two smugglers in Kisanganj district. In a coordinated action, a joint team of SSB, RPF, GRP and Forest department personnel caught two smugglers with the rare species of lizards known as 'Tokyo' which they were supposed to hand over to a contact near Hanuman temple in Kisanganj. SSB deputy commandant Kumar Sundaram said the smugglers who hail from Assam came to Kisanganj with the lizards hidden in a box of slipper by Kamakhya Express train. A hole was created in the box for the lizards to breath and they were fed with moths from time to time during the journey, the SSB Deputy Commandant said. He said that the seized lizards have been handed over to the officials of the forest department. During the resumed hearing today, counsel for the petitioners argued that the court should examine the validity of the notification particularly the procedure followed in bifurcation. (Photo: PTI/File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine the constitutional validity of the March 1, 2014 notification to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh into two states of AP and Telangana from June 2, 2014. A Bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, admitted a batch of petitions filed by former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Kiran Kumar Reddy, former ministers and MLAs to declare the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 as unconstitutional as being violative of the basic structure of the Constitution, having been enacted without following the due procedure of law. During the resumed hearing today, counsel for the petitioners argued that the court should examine the validity of the notification particularly the procedure followed in bifurcation. It was pointed out that even during the voting in Parliament, there was a black-out of the proceedings in the television and people are not aware of what exactly happened. When the CJI pointed out that the people of Telang-ana wanted a new State, counsel said there was no formal request from the State of AP for bifurcation and yet the division took place. However, additional solicitor-general P.S. Patw-alia said due procedure was followed. A Committee was set up and its recommendations were considered and only thereafter the bifurcation took place. The Bench said it would examine the validity and admitted the petitions. The Bench said the matter would come up for final hearing in due course. Mr Reddy and others contended that the law violated various Articles of the Constitution. They said the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh is in breach of federalism, one of the basic features of the Constitution. The Act was unjust, unfair and unreasonable to the people of Andhra region and it was passed without following the due procedure as laid down in the Rules. They said the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2014 was cleared in the Lok Sabha within a short span of 23 Minutes on February 18, 2014. It is pertinent to mention here that what transpired in the Lok Sabha is not known to anybody as the Proceedings of the House were not telecast as a blackout was declared on the ground of technical reasons. As such the petitioners are praying for a direction to call for the proceedings and records of the Lok Sabha in respect of the discussions on the AP Reorganisation Bill 2014. They pointed out that even in the Rajya Sabha, it was passed on February 20, 2014 without carrying out the amendments suggested by the members. They said bifurcation was done for malafide reasons. The woman had found out about the defect in the 21st week of gestation when she had a sonography done at a private clinic in Mumbai. (Representational image) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday permitted a 22-year-old woman from Mumbai who is in her 24th week of pregnancy to undergo abortion after medical reports found the foetus to be without a skull. The woman had found out about the defect in the 21st week of gestation when she had a sonography done at a private clinic in Mumbai. Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, abortion is legal in India only up to 20 weeks of pregnancy provided it involves a risk to the life of the woman or it involves a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities. A Bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao gave the permission for termination of the pregnancy of Ms. Meera Santosh Pal, taking note of the medical report submitted by a committee of doctors from KEM hospital that the foetus was without a skull and it would not be advisable to proceed with the pregnancy. She had moved the apex court after her request for abortion was refused on December 20, last when the defect was detected. It was the same hospital that had given its opinion in the rape survivors case in July 2016, when such permission was given. This is the fourth such case to be brought to the Supreme Courts notice in the past three years and court has given similar permission in all such cases. In this case the petitioner had also challenged the constitutional validity of Section 3 (92) (b) of the MTP Act of 1971 which prohibits a woman from aborting foetus beyond the stipulated period of 20 weeks. Senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the woman, submitted that the 20 weeks stipulation in the Act for a woman to avail of abortion services may have been reasonable when the provision was introduced in 1971 but has ceased to be reasonable today when technology has advanced and it is perfectly safe for a woman to abort even up to the 26th week and thereafter. The counsel further argued before the court that determination of foetal abnormality in many cases can only be done after the 20th week and by keeping the ceiling artificially low, women who obtain reports of serious abnormality after the 20th week have to suffer excruciating pain and agony because the deliveries that they are forced to go through. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao receives a memento from Deepa Venkat, the managing trustee of Swarna Bharat Trust, after the inauguration of the trust building at Muchintala village in Shamshabad near Hyderabad on Monday. Ms Venkat is the daughter of Union I&B and urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu (right). (Photo DC) Hyderabad: Union information and broadcasting minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said that beef and kiss festivals are against the Indian culture and any public demonstration of such events must be condemned. During the launch of Hyderabad chapter of Swarna Bharat Trust founded by his daughter Deepa Venkat at Mutchintala village near here, Mr Naidu said that the youth must keep up the cultural image of the country, which is progressing through a technological revolution. Speaking about his children, the minister said that he would encourage his children to play a key role in the nation-building activities through the trust but he would never let them join politics. He said that his daughters trust had never got any financial assistance from either the Centre or any state government. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao lauded the efforts of Ms Venkat for taking up several activities connected to rural development and career-building. Speaking at the event, the Chief Minister said more than politics, social work can achieve better results. He promised to support the trust members in activities taken up by them and also invited Deepa Venkat for a lunch to discuss on how to coordinate their activities. Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who attended the ceremony as the chief guest, commended the trust members for their efforts to create self-employment opportunities by training rural women. Mr Parrikar said that career-building initiatives will help in the development to rural areas and improving the standards of the society. Chennai: A college student was arrested and police are on the lookout for three of his associates who together tried to strangulate and murder a call taxi driver in an attempt to hijack the car. The timely intervention of a police patrol vehicle saved the life of the driver during the small hours of Saturday. At around 1.45 am on Saturday, call taxi driver S. Murali Krishnan (53), received a pickup call from one Karthick who booked a ride from Kovalam to Besant Nagar. The driver reached Kovalam and picked up Karthick, who was later identified as Mohamed Irfan, along with his friends Niroshan, Kalyan and Suhil Ahmed. As the cab reached Bethal Nagar junction in Injambakkam, the gang asked the driver to stop to pick up another friend. Two men got off the car and returned after five minutes saying their friend failed to come. One was sitting in the front seat while the other three occupied the back row. As Murali was wearing the seat belt, the four together tried to strangulate him using the seat belt. However, Murali managed to open the door to shout for help. A police patrol team headed by Kannagi Nagar crime Inspector Ravi was on the rounds and the team rescued Murali. The police team managed to catch hold of Mohamed Irfan, a resident of Royapuram who doing his BA in Arabic, while the other three members of the gang escaped, police said. Investigations revealed that Mohammed was not staying with his family after a standoff with parents and he stayed with his friend Suhil Ahmed, who works in a cell phone shop in Anna Salai. With an aim to make easy money, the duo roped Suhils friends Niroshan and Kalyan for carjacking. They were planning to sell the car in Andhra Pradesh after preparing fake documents. It was Mohamed Irfan who booked the taxi in the name of Karthik and set the carjacking plan rolling, said a senior police officer. Police are on the lookout for the other three suspects. Amritsar: Terming former BJP leader Navjot Singh Sidhu a "traitor", Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal alleged that he has betrayed his "mother party", the BJP, which brought him into the politics. She was addressing an election rally in favour of her brother and Revenue minister Bikram Singh Majtiha in Matewal which falls in Majitha constituency. Harsimrat alleged that Sidhu has betrayed his mother party, BJP, and the people of Punjab. Taking a dig at Sidhu, she said that his practice to laugh in the comedy show on the small screen has also helped him to make his own mockery. Claiming that it was the BJP which brought him in the politics and made him MP four times, she alleged that Sidhu "stabbed" the party on its back and "cheated" with the people of Punjab by not serving them despite being the MP. Slamming the former MP, she said that he initially bargained with the AAP but could not get any space there as his aspirations were too high. But he succeeded in striking a deal with the Congress for his "vested interests" and not to serve the people of Punjab. She said that there was no danger to Akali Dal from Sidhu with his joining the Congress party since Sidhu has always remained an "aimless" politician. Claiming that PPCC chief Captain Amarinder Singh was afraid to take on General J J Singh from Patiala assembly constituency, she stated that this is the reason why Amarinder was talking about contesting from Lambi constituency. Bathinda/Chandigarh: Accused by AAP of being soft on the Badals, Amarinder Singh on Monday said if elected to power, he would not shy away from "hanging" those guilty of sacrilege and drug mafia even if it is the "Badals themselves", evoking a sharp reaction from the ruling party which said the Punjab Congress chief had gone "berserk". Amarinder also slammed AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, calling him names like "coward". Amarinder said, if his party is elected to power in February's assembly polls, he would launch immediate inquiries into all incidents of major crimes such as religious sacrilege, as well as the drug and other mafias. "I will hang the guilty from their heads, even if it is the Badals themselves who are found to be implicit in such crimes," he said while addressing a rally here after paying obeisance at Mehraj gurdwara in Rampura Phul. Hitting back, SAD secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said "from the tone and tenor of the statement, it becomes clear that sensing crushing defeat, Amarinder has gone berserk". "His statement shows that he had no positive agenda except vendetta politics in which he indulged during the previous tenure as chief minister," he said. The SAD spokesperson asserted that party leaders are not afraid of "bogus threats" and Amarinder should stop day dreaming of becoming chief minister. Amarinder also also attacked Kejriwal, describing him as a "small and sneaky man" who did not have the guts to fight him on the electoral battleground. "Punjab does not tolerate cowards like the AAP leader", said Capt Amarinder, adding that if left to AAP or the Akalis, Punjab will never be able to restore its lost pride and glory. Challenging Kejriwal to fight against him from Lambi constituency, he said "AAP is a party of outsiders which is getting outsiders to campaign and coordinate the elections since they did not have any trust or ties with Punjabis." He said he would ensure that Kejriwal does not succeed in taking over the state, with which he has no connect. He said he has decided to fight Chief Minister Parkash Singh on his home turf Lambi to free Punjab from the clutches of the Akalis, who had been "looting" the people of the state for the last 10 years. Amarinder charged the Badal family with trying to inflame communal passions to polarise voters by not getting a proper investigation done into the cases of religious sacrilege in the state in recent past. Referring to the problems faced by Punjab under "10 years of Badal misrule", Amarinder pledged to fulfil all the promises made by him and his party, including farm debt waiver, for which 33 lakh people had signed forms. He promised to bring industrial growth back on its track and reiterated his commitment to continue with all the ongoing public welfare schemes. "From power to water to atta-dal scheme, no welfare programme will be stopped by my government," he said. He reiterated his promise to finish off the drug mafia within four weeks of forming the government. SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav with his son and UP CM Akhilesh Yadav after the announcement of Election Commissions decision in Lucknow on Monday. (Photo via web) New Delhi: UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav scored a major political victory over his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, with the Election Commission on Monday allotting the partys bicycle symbol to him, and recognising his faction as the real SP. Mr Akhilesh Yadav, 43, now officially replaces Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, 77, as the national president of the party. The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the SP and is entitled to use the name and its reserved symbol bicycle for the purposes of the election symbol, the EC said in its 42-page order. The shift of power from the old to the new was swift, but respectful. Minutes after the EC order, a shiny, new nameplate announcing Akhilesh Yadav, National President was nailed at the SP office in Lucknow, below the nameplate carrying Mr Mulayam Yadavs name and his designation, Rashtriya Adhyaksh. The Mulayam faction has threatened to move court against the ECs decision. Mr Ram Gopal Yadav, Mr Akhilesh Yadavs uncle, close aide and the architect of the political coup, flushed with triumph, said that the EC took the right decision as they (the Mulayam camp) did not have any supporting documents to claim the symbol and party name. The Chief Minister is very happy, he added. Mr Ram Gopal Yadav, whom Mr Mulayam Yadav had branded as the villain of the piece, said that a fresh official list of candidates would be finalised by Wednesday for the first two phases, and a grand alliance will be formed to fight elections. UP is to vote in a seven-phase election for its 403 seats starting February 11. The ECs decision dealt a severe blow not merely to the SP patriarch, but it also dashed the BJPs hope of splitting the Muslim-Yadav vote. Grand Alliance may be a reality now With the secular grand alliance comprising SP, Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal, JD(U) and other smaller parties now becoming a reality, Akhilesh Yadav could have an edge in the UP elections. Majority of the 20 per cent Muslim vote and the Yadav votebank in the state could now consolidate in favour of Akhilesh Yadav and the grand alliance. And the RLD's presence in the alliance guarantees a major chunk of Jat votes from western UP, which had tilted towards the BJP during the last Lok Sabha polls. In this high-stake election, the BJP was hoping that the Muslim vote would split between the SP, the BSP and the Congress, and the Yadavs between the Mulayam and Akhilesh factions. Akhilesh Yadavs victory could also have an adverse impact on BSP supremo Mayawati's attempts to return to power in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress described the ECs decision as judicious and congratulated Akhilesh Yadav on being allotted the cycle symbol. As soon as EC announced its decision around 6.30pm on Monday, celebrations broke out in Lucknow and across Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds of youths carrying SP flags and Akhilesh Yadav's cutouts poured out on the streets raising slogans, Akhilesh Yadav zindabad. Earlier in the day, sensing that the poll panels decision could go against him, the angry father huffed, puffed and even threatened to contest against his son if need be. While a defeated Mulayam threatened to go to court against the EC decision, his close aide Amar Singh, who had emerged as the epicentre of the family feud in SP, was in London. Pariwar Aug. 14, 2016: Shivpal Yadav threatened to resign citing officers ignoring him Aug. 15, 2016: Mulayam Singh Yadav backs brother Shivpal Sept. 13, 2016: Mulayam Singh replaces Akhilesh as the state unit chief with Shivpal Yadav Sept. 19, 2016: Shivpal expels seven Akhilesh-loyalists Dec. 30. 2016: Mulayam Singh expels Akhilesh Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav for six years for gross indiscipline Jan. 2, 2017: Akhilesh Yadav declared new national president of the party. Mulayam quickly declares as illegal the decisions made to give Akhilesh power Here are the new business licenses from the County Clerk's office: 309 MEDIA 100 CHEROKEE BLVD SUITE 2112 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 A TOTAL EDGE 8916 BRAMLETT ROAD HARRISON, TN 37341 A-1 TAXI AND TRANSPORTATION LLC 8908 DRAKE PARKWAY ROAD CHATTANOOGA, TN 37416 ADVANCED COMMERCIAL GROUP, INC VARIOUS LOCATIONS CHATTANOOGA, TN 37400 ADVENTUREITUS PRODUCTIONS 974 EAST ELMWOOD DR CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 AGILE ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES 1120 WEST MISSISSIPPI AVENUE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 AMERICAN WINGS #2 2316 EAST 3RD ST CHATTANOOGA, TN 37404 BARRIGON PLASTERING, INC 728 MARKET ST CHATTANOOGA, TN 37402 BATTLE GAME RENTALS 146 S ASTER AVE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37419 BONNER CONSULTING SERVICES 1089 BAILEY AVE STE B11 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37404 . BROWNS FERRY FOOD MART 541 BROWNS FERRY RD CHATTANOOGA, TN 37419 CERIUM LLC 2206 HAMILL ROAD HIXSON, TN 37343 CHATTANOOGA ROOFING CONTRACTORS, LLC 1808 ROCK BLUFF RD HIXSON, TN 37343 CHUPACABRA CODERS 4806 ARROWHEAD TRAIL CHATTANOOGA, TN 37411 DANCE ON PARTY EVERYWHERE 1129 VALENTINE CIRCLE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 DANSHIRE MARKET & DESIGN, LLC 418 TREMONT STREET CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 DB DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION MGMT GROUP 3214 12TH AVE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37407 DCS ELECTRIC 1615 LOGAN TRAIL HIXSON, TN 37343 DIAMOND CONTRUCTION OF TENN 9228 ROCKY POINT ROAD SODDY DAISY, TN 37379 DIGITALNOOGA, LLC 2700 INDIAN PIPE LANE SIGNAL MOUNTAIN, TN 37377 . DRIP DROP SHOPPE 2316 RIVENDELL LN CHATTANOOGA, TN 37421 DTPC 7428 EDGEFIELD DR CHATTANOOGA, TN 37421 ELYSIA P BELVA, D D S , P L L C 1724 HAMILL RD STE 114 HIXSON, TN 37343 EVOLUTION TINT AND AUDIO 9307 BRANFORD DRIVE SODDY DAISY, TN 37379 FAMILY CLEANER #1 4921 OOLTEWAH RINGGOLD RD OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 FAMILY CLEANER #2 5958 SNOWHILL RD SUITE 220 OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 FRIENDS CONSTRUCTION 8889 LEROY LANE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37421 FUEL NUTRITION & TRAINING 9224 LAWFORD WAY APT 106 OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 GEORGE S ELDER COMPANY, LLC 316 HIGH STREET STE 15 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37403 GOSSETTS FLEET SERVICE 2907 B CUMMINGS HWY CHATTANOOGA, TN 37419 . GREENPAGES INTERACTIVE, INC 2001 N CHAMBERLAIN AVE STE 212 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37406 HATFIELD HOME SERVICE 8439 CROSS TIMBERS CIRCLE HIXSON, TN 37343 HEART WORK 9019 WARBLER LANE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37421 HIGH COTTON REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS LLC VARIOUS LOCATIONS CHATTANOOGA, TN 37402 HOLDEN CONSTRUCTION COMPANY 7101 SIMS ROAD HARRISON, TN 37341 INSPIRE ALURE 5716 RINGGOLD ROAD STE 108 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37412 JAMEIARY 2001 SOUTH LYERLY ST APt 131 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37404 LOCALS ONLY GIFT BASKETS 708 DARTMOUTH STREET CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 LOS POTROS MEXICAN RESTAURANT LLC 5611 RINGGOLD ROAD SUITE A EAST RIDGE, TN 37412 LULAROE AMANDA CAIT 1510 GARNER CIR CHATTANOOGA, TN 37412 . MALCHAN G 4856 PATTENTOWN RD OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 MARK JARVIS 7158 BRITISH RD OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 MAX DISCOUNT PHARMACY 4531 HWY 58 STE 105 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37416 MISSION-MINDED JEWELRY BY HEATHER 6938 BUCKSLAND DR OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 ONE WAY LANDSCAPING, LLC 6415 FOREST MEADE DR HIXSON, TN 37343 PATTIE BLESS CLEANING SERVICE 3825 HIXSON PIKE # 328 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37415 RACEWAY # 6843 405 SIGNAL MOUNTAIN ROAD CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 RACEWAY #6845 3459 AMNICOLA HWY CHATTANOOGA, TN 37406 RATLEDGE CONSTRUCTION 11932 RATLEDGE RD SODDY DAISY, TN 37379 RELIABLE PROPERTY MAINTENANCE 8502 OOLTEWAH HARRISON RD OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 . ROYAL ARMS PROPERTY AND PRESERVATION 9412 SOMERSET DR OOLTEWAH, TN 37363 RPB MEDICAL LLC 711 SIGNAL MTN RD #231 CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 SANITARY CLEANER 4403 RINGGOLD RD CHATTANOOGA, TN 37412 SIZEMORE DESIGNS 801 CENTRAL AVE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37403 STITCHINGS BY ELLEN 6507 PATTY LANE HARRISON, TN 37341 SUNRISE INTERIOR FD , LLC 387 SULLIVAN RD MCMINNVILLE, TN 37110 SUPER LLAMA PRINT 4705 FLORIDA AVE CHATTANOOGA, TN 37409 TENDERCARE LEARNING CENTER 3242 WILCOX BLVD CHATTANOOGA, TN 37406 TRACK DEPOT 3600 GLEASON DRIVE APT A CHATTANOOGA, TN 37412 TRIPLE J CAKES & THINGS 5469 MANDARIN CR HIXSON, TN 37343 . WEBB TAX SERVICE 1829 COFFEETREE LN SODDY-DAISY, TN 37379 WHAT NEIGHBORS GIVE 146 E MANNING ST CHATTANOOGA, TN 37405 WILLIAM VERLIN ARTHUR 6004 TALLENT RD MCDONALD, TN 37353 WOODS PAINT COMPANY INC 2235 WEAVER PIKE BRISTOL, TN 37620 XTREME CLEANING LLC 9585 DAISY DALLAS ROAD SODDY DAISY, TN 37379 Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday accused RSS pracharak Prime Minister Narendra Modi of constantly taking anti democratic stand on various issues. In his Facebook post, the chief minister alleged that the central governments each action was aimed at backing and strengthening the RSS move to disturb communal harmony in the country. Those who had absolutely no role whatsoever in Indias Freedom Struggle, now want to do away with even Gandhijis pictures. The Prime Minister should not have stooped to such low levels, Pinarayi said. He said the image of Gandhiji spinning charkha is ingrained in the minds of people. Replacing the picture with that of Narendra Modi was nothing but height of meanness, he added. The chief minister taking cue from the Centre, the RSS was going berserk in the state. How can the RSS ask people who differ with their views to leave the country? What right have they got to make such statements? he said. Pinarayi came down heavily on the BJP and RSS for attacking noted writer and jnanapeeth award winner M.T. Vasudevan Nair. It is the same mindset which targeted the eminent writer who had only aired the problems being faced by the common man because of demonetisation decision. Does one require permission to speak about his experience, Pinarayi asked. The chief minister condemned the campaign against Kamal who is an acclaimed film maker and widely accepted and recognised by the people. He is being told to go to Pakistan. Where are these people pulling this country to? Pinarayi said the views expressed by BJP leader C.K. Padmanabhan indicated that there were people among their ranks who were right thinking. The chief minister called upon everyone who believed in humanity and secularism to come together for countering and defeating RSS propaganda. Karachi: The words on these pages over the past few days have well captured the despair many of us feel at witnessing the slowly sinking ship that is our democracy, our human rights, our freedom of speech, our very belief that humanity is united by a basic sense of decency. But if you follow Ahsan Iqbal on Twitter, youre probably in a much cheerier mood. From his perspective, Pakistan is rising. This year has started on a particularly high note: on the Economists January 6 ranking of the fastest growing economies, Pakistan was the highest-ranked Muslim-majority country. The CEO of Nestle Pakistan has said that Pakistan is poised to enter a hot zone of economic activity with double-digit growth. The year 2017 will see Pakistan break free from its categorisation as a frontier market and romp ahead as an emerging economy as per MSCI indexing, which will no doubt attract more investors. The Nikkei Asian Review has given Nawaz Sharif top marks and predicted hell win the 2018 elections thanks to his administrations orchestration of an economic turnaround and the CPEC windfall. How does one reconcile the growing anguish of many Pakistanis with the buoyant projections of the countrys outlook on its planning ministers Twitter feed? During a recent prize acceptance speech, British novelist Zadie Smith discussed optimism and despair, and reminded us that in this world there is only incremental progress. Only the wilfully blind can ignore that the history of human existence is simultaneously the history of pain: of brutality, murder, mass extinction, every form of venality and cyclical horror. No land is free of it; no people are without their bloodstain; no tribe entirely innocent. But there is still this redeeming matter of incremental progress. Smith also warned that those with apocalyptic perspectives might miss incremental changes and fall into despair. Perhaps thats the issue too many liberals and champions of democracy are giving in to their apocalyptic perspectives and failing to suitably revel in the incremental progress? Sadly, I think not. The problem is not one of perspective, but of precariousness. Pakistanis are despairing because they no longer know the rules and more importantly, the values and priorities of the country in which they live. And this sense of precariousness, and the uncertainty and fear it produces, is a direct consequence of the states confusion about its vision for Pakistan. A Pakistan in which sectarian militant groups are defended by the interior minister and social media activists disappeared is not an unfamiliar place. How could we forget the 1980s so soon? Such events align perfectly with an entrenched belief that Pakistan is under existential threat from its neighbours and the worlds great powers, and that only a securitised state can protect the nations sovereignty and territorial integrity. In this context, anyone that threatens the power and control of the securitised state whether it be external actors with Cold Start doctrines or no-name Facebook users who question security policies is the enemy. This paradigm is consistent and familiar. But Pakistan cannot both be rising and existentially threatened. These world views do not and cannot align. The states dilemma is that it cannot reconcile the disconnect, nor can it wilfully induce cognitive dissonance among the public. And while this disconnect endures, Pakistanis will remain on uncertain footing, fearful of falling, and that too on unfamiliar ground. A country cannot simultaneously experience prosperity (reflected in the rise of a middle class, improving socio-economic indicators, inward investment and greater connectivity with the world) and peril (which demands authoritarianism, surveillance and repression). The past few days are a good illustration of why the contradiction must be resolved. Each good news story about Pakistans economic prospects and positive outlook is undermined by a negative news headline about persistent militancy and widespread human rights violations. International allies, investors, and the diaspora community may rejoice at the former, but they dont like the latter. Even our all-weather friend China has called for tighter border controls with Pakistan (at the same time that its putting up the cash for mega projects aimed at facilitating the movement of goods and energy supplies across that border). Our powers that be should not be greedy at the expense of Pakistans institutions and social fabric. They cannot have their cake and eat it too. They cannot have both complete power and prosperity. They cannot live by the fallacy that Pakistan is both rising and falling at every moment. They must choose between optimism and despair as they craft their vision for the country, and know that their choice will be reflected in the daily experience of its citizens. My vote is for optimism, and the open, democratic, progressive and prosperous Pakistan that it entails. By arrangement with Dawn The late B.P. Koirala, Nepals first democratically elected Prime Minister, who held office for 18 months before King Mahendra had him deposed and imprisoned, once told me that Indias Constitution was nothing more than the Government of India Act of 1935 embellished with Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles. He meant that in some aspects, Indias governance has not changed radically since the British Raj. One could go beyond that to suggest that one-person-one-vote democracy is seriously flawed, specially in a country whose barely literate masses treat elected leaders like hereditary monarchs or deities, as Tamil Nadus love affair with the late J. Jayalalithaa clearly demonstrates. Thomas Babington Macaulay, the historian who gave India its education system, was convinced the supreme authority in a state could not be entrusted to the majority of citizens told by the head, in other words, to the poorest and most ignorant part of society. But, of course, that is exactly why populist politicians want democracy, Indian style. It enables them to appeal to the instinctive urges of societys lowest common denominator. Despite the Supreme Courts order on caste, there is no denying the truth of Bal Thackerays observation that in India people dont cast their vote, they vote their caste. Its the same with religion, ensuring that the worlds largest democracy cleverly camouflages populist authoritarianism in democratic trappings. Koiralas stricture came to mind on December 28 when Narendra Modi promulgated an ordinance to sanctify demonetisation. It was only a fortnight after Parliaments Winter Session had ended so that the opportunity to subject the ban on certain notes to democratic scrutiny was avoided. Earlier, the government had refused the Oppositions clamorous demand to discuss demonetisation in Parliament. So, although a sweeping measure with far-reaching effects from which we are still suffering was announced and implemented on November 8, there was no proper debate on it even by the time it became law more than seven weeks later through the backdoor tactic of an ordinance. Koirala would have split his sides laughing, for Section 42 of the 1935 Act empowered the Viceroy to issue ordinances while the Central legislature was in recess. I must hasten to add this was not the first instance of government by ordinance. Nor is Mr Modi the only perpetrator. Indira Gandhi was even more blatant in 1969 when she promulgated an ordinance nationalising 14 major banks only two days before Parliament was due to convene. Its a wonder the Supreme Court did not comment on such shortcuts earlier but a seven-judge bench did announce in a landmark judgment this month that the Constitution did not sanction a lapsed ordinance being promulgated again. It held that such an ordinance would remain valid only if its continuation was manifestly in the public interest or if it were physically impossible to replace it with an enactment. This is not the only instance of our supposedly republican regime clinging tenaciously to a viceregal privilege. Article 356 of the Constitution, which authorises the Centre to dismiss a state government, is also derived from the same colonial legislation Indians rejected and Koirala condemned. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, did not think Article 356 would ever be used. Asked about its likely abuse, he replied: I share the sentiments that such articles will never be called into operation and they would remain a dead letter. If at all they are brought into operation, I hope the President, who is endowed with these powers, will take proper precautions before actually suspending the administration of the provinces. I hope the first thing he will do would be to issue a mere warning to a province that has erred, that things were not happening in the way in which they were intended to happen in the Constitution. If that warning fails, the second thing for him to do will be to order an election allowing the people of the province to settle matters by themselves. It is only when these two remedies fail that he would resort to this article. Not many would say his advice has been heeded. The imposition of Presidents Rule has varied over the decades. Its use 49 times between 1970 and 1980 highlighted the polarised political atmosphere in which Article 356 became a political tool. The use or misuse of the clause dropped significantly following the Supreme Courts landmark judgment in the case that a Karnataka chief minister, S.R. Bommai, who felt he had been unfairly dismissed, brought before the court in 1994. The judges stipulated circumspection along the lines Ambedkar had suggested. Presidents Rule was imposed five times between 2011 and 2016, including three times by the BJP after coming to power in 2014. There are many other ways of interfering with the democratic equilibrium. The Planning Commission was one such, being an extra-constitutional centre of authority. The relationship in practice between the ruling party at the Centre and its branches in the states is another. The self-seeking subservience of Indians who praise every action of a prime/chief minister in hopes of reward is probably the worst enemy of the democratic spirit. We see every day the truth of Senator Adlai Stevenson IIIs belief that the United States has a democratic government whereas India can claim at the most only representative government. Its not a question of the system of governance; its the software. Indias medieval psychology will transform any system into elective authoritarianism until education teaches people to reject Hegels stricture, possibly inspired by India, The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free In a democracy everyone has to be free and equal. No one is worshipped as God or King. Credible information is always preferable to a cacophonic debate on matters relating to China, with that country increasingly getting hyper-sensitive on three issues trade, territory and terror(ism) whenever asked to clarify its position by the international community. What blurs Chinas vision and position on the phenomenal growth of Pakistan-based terror factories anad its Army/ISI-trained and funded terror deep inside India for the past 28 years? How does China stay so indifferent to and seemingly blindly ignorant of such Pakistani terror, and yet, simultaneously, is keen to promote trade in the huge Indian market for its manufactured products, with Chinese-made smartphones in a dominant position. Does China recognise or even acknowledge this glaring contradiction in its forked policy on South Asia? Is China doing the right thing, trying to enhance trade with India and at the same time pretending to be ignorant about Pakistans overdrive on terror, as it aims to check India in South Asia part of its efforts to maintain its political and diplomatic hegemony? Why has China imposed restrictions on its border with Pakistan at Xinjiang? Why is China failing to put pressure on Pakistan to leash the terror networks and outfits? Has Pakistan become so indispensable for Chinas external, commerce and defence policy against India? Will Pakistan become another Xinjiang? The only difference is whereas landlocked Xinjiang has 25 million Muslims, there are 200 million Muslims in Pakistan, which gives it access to warm water ports near the vast Indian Ocean. This magnetic attraction and lure of ocean access is such that every landlocked state or territory from the Black Sea to the Bay of Bengal covets a foothold on the South Asian coastline from Bahrain, Bandar Abbas to Myanmar, and beyond, to Banda Aceh. What emerges is the sense of urgency in Chinas thinking on realpolitik and a matching global geopolitical-cum-geostrategic ambition. The 66 per cent of the worlds area that is water has always attracted every superpower, real or potential, as humankind inhabits and squabbles over the other 33 per cent-plus area that is landmass. The Chinese appear to know world history all too well. Competitive neighbours have always been intractable and rarely enjoyed enduring peace. This is particularly true of the great Euro-Asian land arc, of which China and the Indian peninsula constitute the two fringe areas of the Far East and South Asia; the latter an open outlet to the Indian Ocean. That is why China covets South Asias coast access to unlimited water. In this respect, while India is comparatively blessed, China appears cursed. Why? Between the Indian shoreline and Antarctica there doesnt exist a single landmass of any standing, giving India a virtual free longitude all through the Indian Ocean. China, on the other hand, has the South China Sea and East China Sea in close proximity; both infested with neighbours who have traditionally been a hindrance and are unlikely to allow unhindered naval or marine movements by One China even today. Chinas access to its own sea, contiguous to its land, is subject to scrutiny and surveillance by several foreign powers, most notably the United States and its considerable naval fleet. And Beijings efforts to have unfettered freedom of navigation in its own East Asian backwaters is also causing annoyance to all, Chinas rising international profile notwithstanding. What then is the way out for China? Access to South Asian waters with its comparatively freer navigation! But friction with India ever since the 1962 war has been a stumbling block, with New Delhi, like Beijing, aiming to raise its maritime profile in the region. That is where Pakistan comes in as a readymade tool to check and counter India. The indirect option is chosen terror operations on land by a third party compels India to divert resources to its land borders, weakening Indian enterprise at sea, and giving China a freer hand to operate unhindered and unchallenged in the Indian Ocean region. With the Pakistani Navy by its side, the Beijing-Islamabad ships constitute the multi-theatre, and not merely a war on two fronts, as referred to in some quarters. This would comprise China, Pakistan and the Islamic terrorists on the north, northwest and northeast land borders and in the two water sectors of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. In this scenario, Indias position can only worsen if the trade and industrial sector are also captured in advance or taken over by the lure of Chinas surplus funds and strong financial institutions. With an India of weakened economics and foreign-controlled (China) finance and a two-nation (Beijing-Islamabad) military encircling through the sea, one can well understand why is China reluctant to take any action and is in fact wholeheartedly backing Pakistan to help the likes of Hafiz Sayeed and Masood Azhar, and their outfits Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and at least 50 other terror outfits in Pakistan. Is it incorrect to suggest that Chinas actions are totally unbecoming of a permanent member of the UN Security Council? That China, sitting at the high table as one of the P-5, is brazenly flouting the UN Charter on terrorism by failing to take note, despite repeated evidence produced by India, of cross-border terror? Does China sincerely believe it is doing the right thing by failing to recognise terrorism and terrorists under the overall command and control of its all-weather friend? One certainly expects better from China. Will it be too much to expect New Delhis diplomats to deliver a polite, yet firm, message to Beijing that these actions designed to subvert the sovereignty and territory of India arent in consonance with the stature of a great country like China and also not commensurate with the status and behaviour of a state considered a friendly country! No nation can collude with terror attacks against this country and yet seek enhanced trade. That is the contradiction between trade, terror and territory; and beyond a point it is bound to be unacceptable. Islam is a religion to 1.2 billion Muslims across the world. The word comes from the term aslama in Arabic, which means to surrender or resign oneself. Muslims are united across boundaries of geography and culture through their observance of five practices known as the Five Pillars, or the Pillars of Islam. They are strong expressions of the Islamic ideals of equality and unity and serve as anchoring points of the communitys life and by which every practicing Muslim must abide. The Quran presents them as a framework for worship and a sign of commitment to faith. These include pledging ones faith (witnessing, the shahadah), ritual prayer (salat), charity to the poor (zakat), fasting during the month of Ramzan (sawm), and pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca (haj). The profession of faith (shahadab qalma tuyaba). A simple statement in Arabic. consists of two declarations. The first, There is no god but God, affirms belief in a single divine reality (tawhid). The second, Mohammad is the messenger of God, affirms acknowledgment of the Message revealed to Mohammad. Making this statement in the presence of at least two Muslims makes you a Muslim as well. Prayer (salah). Muslims pray five times a day at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening facing toward the Kaaba, the House of God. Before praying, one is expected to perform a ritual ablution, cleansing both mind and body. Fasting (sawm). Every day from dawn to dusk during the holy month of Ramzan, Muslims must abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual contact. They must also avoid cursing, lying, cheating and otherwise abusing or harming others and any other lewd behaviour. Travellers, the elderly, pregnant women, and the sick are exempted, but are expected to make up the days of fasting at some other time or feed the poor for all the days that one missed Charity (zakah purification, indicating that such a payment makes the rest of ones wealth religiously and legally pure).) One of the most important principles of Islam is that all things belong to God and that wealth is held in trust by human beings. Zakah nvolves setting aside a portion of ones personal wealth for the poor. This purifies ones wealth. Islam discourages begging, and zakah allows poor people to find help without feeling disgraced. All Muslims who are able are expected to donate roughly 2.5 per cent of their net gain annually. The beneficiaries of zakah are mentioned in the Quran: (Zakah) charity is only for the poor, and the needy, and those employed to administer it, and those whose hearts are made to incline (to truth), and (to free) the captives, and those in debt, and in the way of Allah and for the wayfarer. Pilgrimage (haj). The journey to Mecca is obligatory for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to make it. Pilgrimage need be made only once in a lifetime, but it can be made several times if a Muslim wishes The haj is seen as a chance to wipe clean past sins and start fresh. At any other time of year, Muslims can perform similar prayers and rituals and thus complete the Umrah, or lesser pilgrimage. Muslims believe in a chain of prophets beginning with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus. Gods eternal message was reaffirmed and finalised by the Prophet. Narendra Modi made history on May 20, 2014. For the first time, the people of India had elected a prime ministerial candidate who had never been a member of Parliament before. As Mr Modi entered Parliament for the first time as PM-elect, in a dramatic gesture, he bowed in reverence and touched with his forehead the ground of the steps in Parliament. Later, in an emotional speech, he described Parliament as the temple of democracy. It is simply astonishing that the gentleman who had described Parliament as the temple of democracy, in just two and half years of assuming office has done everything possible to desecrate this temple, to denigrate the institution, and to undermine and subvert its authority. Parliament is the supreme legislative body in the country, embodying the collective will and wisdom of people in a democracy. The people of India determine and shape the destiny of the nation through their representatives elected directly in the Lok Sabha, and through an indirect process of election in the Rajya Sabha. One of the most important functions of the legislature is to enact and amend laws. The President can promulgate an ordinance when Parliament is not in session, and immediate action is needed. The Supreme Court has clarified that the legislative power to issue ordinances is in the nature of an emergency power given to the executive only to meet an emergent situation. However, the Modi government incessantly threatened the authority of Parliament by attempting to push its way through the ordinance route. As many as 23 ordinances were promulgated in a span of two and a half years. More significant than the numbers is the nature of many of the ordinances. A prime example of this is the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, popularly known as the land bill that was promulgated thrice as an ordinance. The original law, affecting 70 per cent population of India, was passed by the UPA-2 government in 2013, after wide-ranging consultations with all political parties, including the BJP. But as soon as the Modi government came to power in 2014, it severely diluted the law making it anti-farmer and anti farm-labourers. In its zeal to oblige its corporate friends, Mr Modi and his government killed the spirit of the law and tried to bulldoze its way through Parliament, completely bypassing its authority, by taking the ordinance route repeatedly. However, the bill had to be dropped in the face of a united Opposition. An act like demonetisation that has affected the 125 crore people of India was taken through a Cabinet decision, issuing an ordinance to this effect only two months after the declaration of the decision. Why were the peoples representatives not consulted before such a major decision? It could be argued that even the demonetisation by the Morarji Desai government in 1978 was brought in through an ordinance. But unlike the 1978 decision, where the higher-denomination notes of Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000, and Rs 10,000 consisted merely two per cent of the currency in circulation, now a staggering 86 per cent of currency had been invalidated. Unlike 2016, when Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were in possession of every common man; in 1978, Rs 1,000 and higher value notes were almost impossible to possess for the common man given the value of these amounts then. Mr Modis disregard for Parliament is indicated by his frequent absence from Parliament and his refusal to speak despite repeated demands from the Opposition. Mr Modi did not speak a word on demonetisation in Parliament, while talking about it outside the House. This is completely against the norms of parliamentary decorum. It is ironical that while the session is on, the PM comments on important issues outside Parliament, but refuses to speak inside it. Disruptions in Parliament have become a matter of concern for all citizens. It is the responsibility of the incumbent government to ensure the smooth running of Parliament. Progressively over the years, disruptions by Opposition parties have become the practice, though an unacceptable one. But its for the first time in the history of Indian democracy that members from the ruling party disrupted Parliament, showing placards to the Chair. Breaking all norms and decorum, BJP members in the Rajya Sabha started disrupting the proceedings, not allowing Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad to speak. It is utterly shameful that a senior member and a minister from the ruling party branded the Leader of the Opposition as anti-national. An anecdote about Mr Modis bete noire, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, describes what the founding fathers of parliamentary democracy in India thought about it and how they behaved. Syama Prasad Mookerjee was the founder of Bharatiya Jan Sangh. In the first general election in 1952, the Jan Sangh won three seats, including that of Dr Mookerjee. As per parliamentary rules that allocate time to political parties to speak in Parliament on the basis of the strength of the number of MPs in each party, the time allotted to the BJS was very little. However, Dr Mookerjee participated in every major debate, and often spoke way beyond his allotted time. Once while he was speaking, a Congress member got up and objected to this. Pandit Nehru was present in the House at that time. He told the Congress member: when you speak, the House listens, when Dr Mookerjee speaks the whole of India listens. Let him speak. That was the spirit of the day and it shows the respect that leaders had for each other. Mr Modi should learn from his predecessors and teach his party MPs to imbibe this spirit. Thats the greatest homage he may offer to this temple of democracy. The world's smallest rocket SS-520 carrying a mini satellite for observation of the Earth's surface is launched from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, on January 15, 2017. Japan's space agency Sunday aborted a mission to use a mini-rocket to send a satellite into orbit after the spacecraft stopped sending data to ground control shortly after liftoff. The SS-520 rocket, which stands around the size of a power pole, lifted off at 8:33 am (2333 GMT) into a clear sky at the Uchinoura Space Centre in southern Kagoshima Prefecture. The rocket, regarded as one of the smallest units in the world capable of sending satellites into the space, was carrying the three-kilogramme (6.6 pound) "TRICOM-1" observation satellite. But officials aborted the mission within minutes of takeoff after the space agency stopped receiving data from the rocket after the launch. Local media said data stopped arriving 20 seconds after liftoff. "The first stage of the rocket's flight went as planned. However, we were unable to receive [data] from the unit as it continued the flight," the agency said in a statement. The rocket later fell back to earth, landing within a designated safety area in waters off the coast of southeast Japan, according to officials. The country's space agency is expected to provide a more detailed debrief about the nature of the mishap as more information becomes available. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. According to a survey of more than 4,000 business representatives worldwide, conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International in 2016, time is the crucial factor in incident detection and response. Kaspersky Lab has announced the global availability of Kaspersky Threat Lookup a security intelligence service aimed at enhancing enterprise incident response and cybersecurity forensics capabilities. Kaspersky Threat Lookup provides access to several petabytes of global security intelligence data that is being updated almost in real-time. This always-on web service helps businesses to properly analyze digital evidence in light of a security incident and obtain the insights needed to speed up detection and remediation. According to a survey of more than 4,000 business representatives worldwide, conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International in 2016, time is the crucial factor in incident detection and response. The survey findings show that enterprises pay over 100 per cent more in recovery fees if they are unable to detect a security breach in a short time. The average recovery cost of a breach that stays undetected for a week or more is over $1 million, while instantly discovered incidents cost US$400k to mitigate, almost half the overall industry average. Detection and response are some of the most time-critical activities on the agenda of security operations centers (SOCs) in organizations around the world, and both require reliable security intelligence. Accelerating incident response Kaspersky Threat Lookup is the solution of choice for corporate IT security teams to accelerate their incident response and forensic capabilities. Once suspicious indicators such as IP, URL or file hash have been identified by a corporate IT security officer, they can be entered into the service web interface. In return, users are provided with meaningful and structured information about a potential threat and offers global insights that help identify a targeted attack in progress. Kaspersky Labs security intelligence is collected from various sources including Kaspersky Labs cloud security network, spam traps, botnet monitoring initiatives and web crawlers. More importantly, that data is constantly being cross-checked by Kaspersky Labs own research team and automatically correlated. The solution offers corporate security officers contextual intelligence capabilities. It enables them to quickly investigate the source of theproblem, distinguish between potentially malicious and benign actions, and obtain data for fast and efficient incident investigation. Overall, Kaspersky Threat Lookup allows SOC operators to prioritize and act efficiently in the typical scenario of hundreds and thousands alerts received every day. Kaspersky Threat Lookup offers enterprises the same level of intelligence that Kaspersky Lab specialists use to analyze the most sophisticated threats, and includes indicators of compromise for these new attacks. The solution makes it possible to match data obtained during an investigation due to vast knowledge of malicious objects, as well as access to one of the largest databases of clean objects, part of the Kaspersky Whitelist service. One of the early adopters of Kaspersky Threat Lookup service is INTERPOL. Kaspersky Lab has been offering early access to the organizations threat intelligence according to the expertise sharing agreement to help investigate cybercrime. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. The Cyberspace Administration of China recently made an announcement on its website, requiring all mobile app stores to register with its offices. This is reportedly being carried out as a form of security measure. According to the information provided on the website, the rules go into effect from Monday, January 16. The new law falls parallel with the 2016 law that is specifically designed to restrict apps that attempt to disrupt national security, social order and other illegal activities. Users will now be protected from fraudulent companies that essentially collect information and money from consumers but shut down before they can actually take advantage of the services. Prominent companies such as Apple and Alibaba run their own app stores. These companies have their own rules and guidelines for developers. Meanwhile, Google is restricted from operating in the countries; there are many other third-party Android stores that a majority of the consumers use. The New York Times claims that many of these apps and websites feature lax security standards, which indirectly puts Chinese consumers at risk. App store owners will now have to register in any of the three cases: if they are planning to set up a store front, if they plan on implementing changes to their product, or if they decide to shut the company down all together. The rules will help provide certain regulatory oversight for consumers. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Sony is in plans to launch two new Xperia smartphone that will be powered by the MediaTek Helio P20 MT6757 chipset, according to Sonys UAProfs (user-agent profile). Two Sony smartphones, codenamed G3112 and G3221, will be powered by MediaTek Helio P20 chipset, which will be a combination of a 2.3GHz quad-core and a 1.6GHz quad-core processor. The smartphones will run on Mali-T880 GPU. In addition, the information spotted on UAProfs, the Sony G3112 model will feature a 720p display, where as the G3221 will sport a 1080p display. Sony is speculated to unveil these two smartphones at the Mobile World Conference (MWC) next month. Although there is not any other information leaked about the two handsets, the G3112 model and G3221 model are believed to target low-end and high-end smartphone market respectively. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Hundreds of Chattanoogans put service into action Monday for the 2017 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, commemorating the great civil rights leader. For Chattanoogas fourth year of A Day On, Not a Day Off, the Office of Multicultural Affairs mobilized local citizens, schools, neighborhoods, businesses, and organizations to help complete service projects around the city and advance Dr. Kings dream of opportunity for all. There were to be volunteer activities across the city, and East Chattanooga will be the focal neighborhood for this years service projects. The projects began at 9 a.m. and were scheduled to run until 12:30 p.m. The list of projects can be viewed here. The bloodbath erupted on Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande doNorte. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP) Natal: The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials have said. The bloodbath erupted on Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande doNorte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference on Sunday. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federalgovernment stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light yesterday to storm the site with armoured vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead, many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disembowelled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. Washington: Indian-American Congresswoman from Seattle, Pramila Jayapal, has announced that she won't attend Donald Trump's inauguration this week, saying the President-elect's "language and actions" undermine America's democracy and its history. "I did not undertake the decision lightly," Jayapal said in a statement on Sunday. So far two dozen US lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting Trump's inauguration. "I had hoped in the days following the election that we would see a President-elect who broke from his campaign rhetoric and worked to unite the American people. Instead, we have seen this President-elect continue to use language and take actions that demean our history and our heroes, and undermine our democracy," she said. The only lawmaker to oppose Trump's presidential victory confirmation during the joint session of the Congress early this month, Jayapal alleged that his Cabinet appointments underscore the grave threat to the country that his presidency represents. "Appointments of people such as Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Andrew Pudzer threaten the very fabric of our country and the institutions that these men and women will lead. The continued promises to create a Muslim registry, to repeal DACA, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and punish women for abortions, fly in the face of our 7th District values," she said. Instead of being in Washington DC attending the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump, Jayapal said she would be with her constituents attending a seminar on immigration. "My decision to be here in the district with my constituents who are truly terrified that they will no longer have a home in this city and country was not, at the time, a boycott of the inauguration. I believe my first responsibility is to listen to my constituents and to be with them, through the darkest of times," she said. "If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trump's response to one of our country's great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis. With Donald Trump's tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott,? She said. Jayapal said she does understands that she and others are breaking from long-standing tradition of bipartisan attendance at the Presidential inauguration. However, these are not normal times and one cannot pretend it is so, she argued. "If we are worried about breaking from long-standing tradition, let us focus on the fact that when this President is sworn in on January 20, he will be in violation of the Constitution, the very document that he will swear to protect and defend. His disregard for the conflicts of interest he brings into this office, and his refusal to address those conflicts are the break from tradition on which we should focus," Jayapal said. Cancun: A shooting erupted at an electronic music festival in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen early Monday, leaving at least five people dead and sparking a stampede, the mayor said. Fifteen people were injured, some in the stampede, after at least one shooter opened fire before dawn at the Blue Parrot nightclub during the BPM festival, Mayor Cristina Torres said. Among the victims, there were two Canadians, one Italian and one Colombian, said an official. "For the moment we have indications that one person opened fire," Torres said, adding that authorities were contacting the US, Canadian and Colombian consulates to provide information about their citizens' conditions. She said the shooting appeared to have taken place inside the club, causing people to flee in panic. Playa del Carmen is 68 kilometers (42 miles) south of Cancun. The region, popular among American and European tourists, has been largely spared from the drug violence plaguing other parts of Mexico. German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sent the telegram in January 1917 to the German representative in Mexico. (Photo: Archives.gov) Newport: In a secret telegram a century ago, Germany tried to get Mexico to join its side during World War I by offering it territory in the United States. Britain intercepted, deciphered and shared the "Zimmermann Telegram." Historians, seeing parallels to today, say there's a lot to be learned. They gathered at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, last week and discussed how a foreign government hacked a secret communication and used the information to sway American public opinion and policy. When it was released, there was a heated debate over whether it was real or what we now call "fake news." The message's publication and Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare was the culmination of a series of events that drew the United States into the war. Fast-forward a century. Today, the US intelligence community says Russia hacked Democratic groups during the presidential campaign to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. President-elect Trump says the DNC was "totally open to be hacked" and praises his future chief of staff for ordering "hacking defence" at the Republican National Committee. "The greatest strategic threat the US faces is the general ignorance of the past and how the past is with us every day," said David Kohnen, interim executive director at the US Naval War College Museum. German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sent the telegram in January 1917 to the German representative in Mexico. Germany would resume sinking vessels without warning and Mexico could ally itself to reconquer Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, he wrote. Germany wanted to keep the United States busy fighting Mexico so it couldn't send troops and supplies overseas. The British waited to share the information to avoid compromising their intelligence-gathering methods. But once the "German plot" appeared in headlines, President Woodrow Wilson had few options, said Kohnen, the conference organizer. The United States declared war April 6, 1917. Retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, current director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, said he sees parallels with Russia's recent actions, but stressed that England wasn't trying to diminish US influence in the world by discrediting its values and democracy. Cox focused on how many people refused to accept the telegram's authenticity because it didn't fit with their preconceived notion of reality, which he said is a reminder of the importance of driving misinformation and rumour out of political debate. "If you have an environment where the truth becomes optional, like we're kind of facing today, once you're in that environment it becomes difficult to break out of it," he said. "People refuse to believe the truth because they can't tell the difference." Other historians pondered the consequences of the Germans' overconfidence in their abilities to encode messages. Cryptographers get too arrogant- they think no one will get into "my system," said David Hatch, a National Security Agency historian. "It was true in 1917 and it's certainly true today," he said at the conference. Cox has sent a memo to naval leaders about the significance of the Zimmermann Telegram so the lessons learned could prove useful. New York: She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police, designers refusing to dress her because of her husband's politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modelled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. "It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration," Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. From Mamie Eisenhower's pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama's white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America's first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favourites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a "traditional" first lady like Jackie Kennedy famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isn't their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband's insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. Incompatible "The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by," Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. "Personally, I'd rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters," Marc Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honoured to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Women's Wear Daily that anyone should be "proud" to dress the new first lady and Trump's daughter Ivanka who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Year's Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a "thank you." Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. "Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity," von Furstenberg has said. Buy American But what is Melania's style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. She's already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the country's huge fashion industry. "The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors," Vera Wang told Women's Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. "Don't underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved," Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. "She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up." Diyarbakir: Three police officers were killed and three others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on Monday as a police vehicle passed by in Kurdish-majority south-eastern Turkey, the local governor's office said. The attack took place in the Sur neighbourhood of Diyarbakir province, where the Turkish army launched an intensive campaign last year against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). "An attack was carried out when explosives... detonated as an armoured vehicle carrying our riot police was passing by," the governor's office said in a statement. Two of the three injured police officers were in critical condition, it added. The toll of three police killed raised a previous figure of one dead. It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack but the state-run Anadolu news agency pointed the finger of blame on "PKK terrorists". The governor's office called it "an atrocious terror attack", vowing that Turkey would continue to fight "against terror" with determination. Turkey has been on edge after a wave of attacks blamed on Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadists. The PKK -- designated as a terror organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union -- has been waging an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. London: A 22-year-old easyJet air hostess in the UK has been sacked for gross misconduct and theft as she failed to ask for a receipt from the manager in the flight after eating a bacon sandwich costing 4.50 pounds meant for customers. Shannon Gleeson, ate the baguette because she had a nut allergy and had not been able to find safe food to eat while working abroad, an employment tribunal heard. But she was sacked from the company for gross misconduct and theft after failing to ask her manager if the food had been paid for, the metro.co.uk reported. A tribunal at Cambridge Magistrates Court last week was told that Gleeson had breached company policy by not asking for a receipt. The panel heard she may have been wrongly dismissed because easyJet's policy placed no obligation on the consumer to see a receipt if food was given to them. "I am not a thief and that was what I was labelled as," Gleeson said. The matter was settled by the company out of court for an undisclosed sum on January 11 after it was heard there was no way of recording missing stock from a flight. easyJet launched an investigation following the sandwich incident, which happened on a flight from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on January 3, 2015. A fellow crew member told the company she had seen Gleeson and the cabin manager eating a bacon baguette and croque monsieur meant for customers in the galley. Gleeson, who had been employed by the company for three years, was later called in to a meeting about the investigation. She apologised for the incident and offered to pay the 4.50 pounds fee but was sacked alongside the cabin manager. Introducing the case on January 10, employment Judge Michael Ord said, "The actual incident is not in dispute. Gleeson ate a bacon baguette and she had not paid for it. That is the extent of the mistake." He added, "You have actually got to show some loss for there to be a theft. I see no evidence that anything was paid for or not paid for." The hearing was told the Luton-based company had no way of recording missing stock from a flight and that there was no 'black and white' policy in place for food given to staff. London: A British court has sentenced a woman carer for elderly people to two years and four months in jail for stealing more than 170,000 pounds from a vulnerable 95-year-old pensioner. Nazneen Chattun cashed 71 cheques and obtained power of attorney which gave her control of the old age pensioner's bank accounts. Chattun, 55, of Hounslow, was convicted of three instances of theft totalling to 171,455 pounds between June and August 2013, media reported. At Isleworth crown court she was sentenced to two years and four months in prison. The pensioner, from Isleworth, gave evidence during the trial of Chattun, who was being paid by Hounslow council to care for her at home. Social services became involved after the woman was taken to West Middlesex Hospital casualty department in February 2012. They discovered she had been neglecting herself and living in sub-standard conditions. There was no heating in the house, it leaked and she was not eating properly. Mauritius-born Chattun gave more than 8,000 pounds of the pensioner's money to her children. Police were able to seize 130,000 pounds held in Chattuns bank account, the paper said. Recorder Edward Jenkins said, "You came to realise quickly she was to be an excellent source of money for your needs and you started to steal from her for a sustained period. You acted in breach of trust of your employers and the trust society has placed in you as a carer. "You needed to take further steps to control her money and you got power of attorney over her financial affairs, showing a level of persistence and considerable sophistication." During the trial the pensioner gave evidence via video link, but answered: "I dont know," and "I cant remember," to most of the questions. Paris: A French newspaper on Sunday published Kim Kardashian's testimony to police of how a robber threatened her at gunpoint when she refused to hand over a ring worth millions of dollars. In the account of the Paris robbery she described how she was bound and gagged and said one of the gang was wearing a jacket emblazoned with police insignia. The Journal du Dimanche said it had exclusive access to the handwritten report based on Kardashian's account, in which she said that the robbers seemed "inexperienced". The newspaper also said it had a transcript of a brief interview given to police after the masked men burst into Kardashian's luxury residence in October, taking jewellery worth nine million euros ($9.5 million). Police last week made arrests in Paris and the south of France and 10 suspects have been charged, including the alleged ringleaders. Old Omar And Blue Eyes Investigators say the gang's key members were Aomar Ait Khedache and Didier Dubreucq, men in their 60s with long criminal pasts nicknamed "Old Omar" and "Blue Eyes". In the Journal du Dimanche report, for which the newspaper did not provide English quotes, Kardashian, 36, said she heard noises at the door after returning from dinner after midnight. Her bodyguard was absent, guarding her sister Kourtney at a nightclub. "I saw through the sliding door two people coming," Kardashian said in comments translated from the newspaper's French account, adding that one of the men was wearing "a jacket with 'police' written on it". "He asked me with a strong French accent where my ring was. It was on the bedside table. (But) I replied that I didn't know and then he pulled out a gun and I showed him the ring," she told police, adding it was worth four million dollars. Kardashian told police the men tied her up with plastic cables and adhesive tape "and they carried me to my bathroom" where they placed her in the bathtub. The gang also took a box containing jewellery including two Cartier diamond bracelets, a diamond-studded necklace, a yellow gold Rolex watch and a diamond-encrusted cross. The wife of Kanye West said after the gang had put her in the bathroom that she heard the men talking to each other in French and had the impression they were saying they should leave. Once they had fled, Kardashian managed to free herself -- she told police she could tell the men were "kind of inexperienced in the way they tied me up". Completely Amateurish The alleged mastermind, 60-year-old Khedache has been charged, along with nine others. Investigators have told AFP that he had gone on the run six years ago while on trial for drug trafficking offences. In September last year, an acquaintance gave him "a tipoff worth its weight in gold", according to one investigator that Kardashian and her entourage would be staying at a discreet apartment-hotel complex in Paris's chic Madeleine district to attend catwalk shows during fashion week. He recruited Dubreucq, 61, who had previous convictions for robbery and drugs. Khedache's lawyer Jean-Yves Lienard said the gang were "completely amateurish". His own client left traces of his DNA on the plastic cable and the tape they used to tie up Kardashian. Khedache "has admitted taking part in the robbery but has refused to speak about any accomplices and denies he was the mastermind", Lienard said. He told Lienard that the jewellery was passed to another party. Khedache was seen in the Belgian city of Antwerp, one of the world centres of the diamond industry, with another suspect, 64-year-old Marceau Baum-Gartner, a few days after the robbery. French police had placed other members of the gang under surveillance and spotted four of them meeting up at a Paris bar in December. Investigators believe they were discussing how to divide up the spoils of the robbery. Around 250,000 euros was found in the police raids last week. Dylan Kussman will speak at The Backlot: A Place For Filmakers on Monday, Jan. 23 at Heritage House Arts and Civic Center, 1428 Jenkins Road in Chattanooga. "Some film fans will remember him in the role of Richard Cameron in 1989's 'Dead Poets Society,' starring the late Robin Williams. More recently, Mr. Kussman has starred in the TV series "Vital Signs" as well as the features 'Jack Reacher' and 'Flight.' "In the over 30 years since he entered the industry at the mere age of 16, Mr. Kussman has branched out to create a very large and varied body of work. "Today's moviegoers will be familiar with his work as one of the writers for Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, as well as The Mummy (2017). A member of the Writers Guild of America (West) since 2005, Mr. Kussman has also contributed to the scripts for Booth, The Mayor of Castro Street, The Ghost Inside, and Mission Blacklist, as well as being the writer, director, and star of the critically-acclaimed web series The Steps, filmed in Chattanooga in 2010. "Mr. Kussman directed his first feature, Wrestling Jerusalem, last year. The film deals with the many perspectives to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict," officials said. There will also be two casting calls that evening; for Emily Steele's PFTT short film project "Train of Thought"*, and for Leonard Jackson's anti-gang violence film, 'The Get-Away.' The roles for "Train of Thought" are paid. See the "notes tab" of the Backlot Facebook page for complete character descriptions and sides of both projects. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and a Q and A with Mr. Kussman starts at 7 p.m. The event is potluck and attendees are encouraged to bring a snack to share with their fellow filmmakers as well as business cards and/or head-shots. Although 'The Backlot' is normally held on the third Monday of the month, the January meeting will be held on Jan. 23 in recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman pose for a photo during a meeting in Kiev, Ukraine on Monday. (Photo: AP) Kiev: Outgoing US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine on Monday to support the war-scarred country's leaders amid concerns that ties could chill under Donald Trump. Biden's one-day visit to meet President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman was his last to Kiev before leaving office and was aimed at underscoring his personal involvement in providing support for the former Soviet country. Biden has spearheaded efforts by Barack Obama's outgoing adminstration to push Ukraine towards reforms as the country struggles with Russia's annexation of Crimea and its support for separatist fighters in the east of the country. But US president-elect Trump's praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised doubts over whether he will provide further assistance for Kiev. "I wanted to come here one more time in my last trip as vice president to honour how much progress the people of Ukraine have achieved," Biden told journalists at a briefing alongside Poroshenko, saying Americans and Ukrainians were united by deep bonds. "I hope the next administration will also want to be a supporter and a partner in your continued progress but as you know no one else can do the hard work but the Ukrainian people," he said. Biden's visit comes days after Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels accused each other of disrupting a fragile truce declared in late December. That deal brought fresh hope of an end to almost three years of a conflict that has killed nearly 10,000 people. Ukraine and its Western allies including the United States accuse Russia of fuelling the war by deploying troops and smuggling arms to separatists, claims Moscow has repeatedly denied. "It is no secret that Russia does not want you to succeed," Biden said, adding that Russia had for the last decade "used corruption to keep Ukraine vulnerable". Despite giving broad economic support for the pro-Western government in Kiev, Obama's administration has held off on supplying lethal assistance. Bahrain's Interior Ministry said on Monday the blaze at the Northern City Hall appeared intentional. (Photo: AP) Dubai: Bahrain says a city hall was set ablaze during a night of clashes between police and protesters following the execution of three men convicted of a deadly bombing targeting police. Bahrain's Interior Ministry said on Monday the blaze at the Northern City Hall appeared intentional. It said firefighters were able to contain it. Hundreds protested on Sunday over the three Shiite men put to death by firing squad over the 2014 bombing that killed two Bahraini policemen and an Emirati officer. Opponents of Bahrain's Sunni-ruled kingdom saw the men's charges as politically motivated and alleged the men were tortured. Some youth threw gasoline bombs and clashed with police into the night Sunday. Police fired tear gas and birdshot. Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet and an under-construction British naval base. Um Yousef and her two young daughters recover in an Irbil hospital after they were badly injured in a mortar attack outside their home in Mosul. (Photo: AP) Irbil: The mortar attack that left Um Yousef blind in one eye and killed two of her children came on the same day that Iraqi forces retook her neighbourhood in eastern Mosul from the Islamic State group. "We were supposed to be liberated that day," she said from her hospital bed in the nearby city of Irbil. She asked to only be identified by a nickname to protect her family members still living inside Mosul. Doctors at West Irbil Emergency Hospital say cases like Um Yousef's are on the rise as Iraqi forces continue to make gains against IS in their effort to take control of Mosul. The blast of the attack that wounded Um Yousef ripped open her daughter's stomach, killing her instantly. Her son Yousef was hit in the head with shrapnel and he slowly bled out as they waited for hours for help. As Um Yousef was evacuated by the Iraqi military, her husband stayed behind in Mosul to bury the two children. "I called him by phone, but he just cries, saying nothing," she said. Her youngest daughter, just over a year old who lost three of her toes to the blast, played in her lap. When the operation to retake Mosul was launched in October more than a million people were estimated to still be living inside the city. While Iraqi forces largely evacuated civilians from cities like Ramadi and Fallujah that were retaken from IS this year, in Mosul they told people to stay put. Since Iraqi forces pushed into Mosul's city limits in November, the fight has seen relatively high numbers of civilian casualties. In the first week of January the United Nations said 683 people were injured in the city, and at least 817 were wounded during the last week of December. "You would expect in a conflict like this that the number of civilian casualties would be around 15 percent, a high of 20 percent. What we're seeing in Mosul is that nearly 50 percent of all casualties are in fact civilians," Lise Grande, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, told reporters at a briefing last week. "It's clear that this is because of direct targeting by combatants," she said, explaining that IS fighters are targeting civilians as they try to flee militant-held parts of the city. Aid groups opened two new hospitals closer to Mosul this month in an effort to see more civilians faster, but West Irbil Emergency Hospital still receives dozens of injured civilians from Mosul every day and is still operating above capacity, said the hospital's administrator, Dr. Lawand Meran. "We are running out of everything, clean gauze, hospital gowns, even simple saline solution," said Hazhen Mama, a surgeon. Mama says his work is often complicated by the fact that civilians without immediately life-threatening injuries must wait for days for a security clearance to travel out of Mosul and into Irbil to see a doctor. "When they arrive here they almost all already have infections," he said. The slow pace of the Mosul fight has also contributed to the high number of killed and injured civilians. As Iraqi forces slowly push IS out of the city, neighborhoods remain frontlines for longer and it's more difficult for severely wounded civilians to be evacuated. Iraqi leaders initially pledged Mosul would be retaken before January, but the conflict now appears poised to last months longer. After 35-year-old Khalida Ahmed was shot by an IS sniper outside her home in eastern Mosul she had to wait for three days for help to arrive. "I was standing at my front gate and I didn't feel anything, but I suddenly fell," she said. A man ran over to help her but was also shot and died shortly after, Ahmed said, and began to cry as she told the story. "He was my neighbor's son," she said. Another neighbor helped her dress her wound to stop the bleeding. After Iraqi forces retook her neighborhood over the weekend, a Humvee moved her to a field hospital where she was put in an ambulance and brought to Irbil. Now she says she's waiting for surgery to have her hip replaced. "I don't know why (IS) shot me," she said, "I didn't have a mobile phone to inform on them, I wasn't resisting them, I'm innocent." The bill needs the support of at least 330 deputies in the 550-seat assembly to go to a referendum. (Photo: Representational Image/AP) Istanbul: Turkey's parliament has voted in favor in a first round ballot on a constitutional bill that will extend President Tayyip Erdogan's powers, which opposition politicians say could put the country at risk of growing authoritarianism. The assembly approved the final 18th article of the package late on Sunday and according to parliament regulations will now take a two-day break from the talks before a second round of voting during which any changes to the articles will be debated. The ruling AK Party, backed by the nationalist MHP, is pushing through legislation that Erdogan says will bring strong executive leadership needed to prevent a return to the fragile coalition governments of the past. If parliament gives final approval to the constitutional package it will be put to a referendum expected in the spring. The main opposition CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP, the second largest opposition party, strongly oppose the changes. The reform will enable the president to issue decrees and will allow him to be a member of a political party. The plans envisage presidential and general elections in 2019 with a president eligible to serve a maximum two five-year terms. The bill needs the support of at least 330 deputies in the 550-seat assembly to go to a referendum. The AKP has 316 deputies eligible to vote and the MHP 39. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. (Photo: Representational Image) Beijing: China on Monday said it has sold two naval ships to Pakistan to protect the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying the sale of vessels was part of "normal" military and trade cooperation. "I have learnt that some reports said China has donated these vessels. This is not correct," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here while replying to a question that Beijing has gifted two vessels to Pakistan. "The report mentioned surveillance ships. It is a normal military trade cooperation with the two countries and complies with the international commitments of the two countries," Hua said. "So I want clarify that it is not donation but it is military trade cooperation. Pakistani side bought these two ships from China," she said. China on Sunday handed over the two ships to the Pakistan Navy for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Gwadar port in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province has been developed under CPEC linking western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. A ceremony was held in Gwadar where Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts. In the past, China has shied away from saying that it plans to deploy its naval ships in Gwadar, a move which could raise alarm in the US and India. China has not only rebuilt the Gwadar port but also has its operational control. It is also building a network of roads and railways to link up its remote western region to Gwadar for easier access to the Arabian Sea. The revamped Gwadar port became operational in November last year after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and EU. After the investigation, which took almost a year, police pressed charges against Nur Hossain, three senior officers of the Narayanganj-based RAB battalion and 31 others. (Photo: Representational Image/AP) Dhaka: Twenty six people, including a former city councillor extradited from India and three senior officers from Bangladesh's elite security force, were on Monday sentenced to death for brutal murders of seven persons in Narayanganj in 2014. "They (26 convicts) shall be hanged by neck until they are dead," said Narayanganj's District and Sessions Judge Sayed Enayet Hossain as the convicts were brought to the dock under heavy security vigil. Former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain and former Bangladesh Army Lt Col Tarek Sayeed are among the 26 persons given the death penalty for the 2014 Narayanganj multiple murders. Sayeed, the son-in-law of a cabinet minister of the government, was the senior-most of the three officers who were serving as the Rapid Action Battilion (RAB) commander in Narayanganj during the murders. The two others were an army major and a navy lieutenant commander, Arif Hossain and MM Rana, who were serving under his command in the elite crime busting unit. Twenty three accused who were given death were sentenced in absentia. Nine others have been given various terms in prison. The court of Narayanganj's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict. Hossain was extradited from India. He had fled the country to evade the trial. He was the mastermind of the murder of seven persons. West Bengal police arrested Hossain shortly after he fled the country. Border Security Force men handed Hossain over to Border Guard Bangladesh on November 12, 2015 after he was freed from a jail in West Bengal on a court order. Hossain allegedly bribed several officers of RAB, which is mainly commanded by army officers on deputation, for carrying out the murders. Both Islam and Hossain belonged to the ruling Awami League. The verdict was delivered nearly a year after the court indicted 35 people, including 25 RAB personnel. Hossain had earlier planned to murder of fellow councillor alone over the dominance of parts of the port town. But, they said, the derailed RAB men also kidnapped and killed the lawyer fearing that he might have speculated the plot. The victims were administered lethal injections inside a vehicle and the bodies were thrown to the river after getting their stomach slit. The other victims were the two drivers of the councillor and the lawyer who were driving their cars at the time of their near simultaneous abduction and the associates of the assassinated councillor who were accompanying him during the kidnapping. The convicts were whisked away from the courtroom as the verdict was delivered to await subsequent procedures in jail but under the Bangladesh law their death penalties must be endorsed by the High Court. China's economic cooperation with Sri Lanka does not target any third party, including India and Japan, because the project is just another move in pushing forward the Belt and Road initiative, Chinese media said. (Photo: Representational Image) Beijing: India should rethink its opposition into Chinese investments in Sri Lanka and join the port development in the island nation instead of feeling "jealous", China's state media said on Monday. "It is understandable that the cooperation has left some Asian countries vigilant as media reports suggest that an 80 per cent share of the port, which sits on an important trade route, and land for an industrial zone will be leased to China for the next 99 years," an article in Global Times referring to Sri Lanka's decision to hand over the Hambatota Port to China. Also there was public agitation over the land given to China to industrial zone in Hambatota. "However, joining the project would be better than standing aside and being jealous," the article said. "As more and more South Asian countries keep a positive attitude toward China's efforts to improve infrastructure in the region, skeptics in countries such as India should rethink their stance toward the Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka," it said. "China is likely to adopt an open attitude if other countries can put aside the idea of geopolitical confrontation and join in on harbour construction of the island nation," it said. Referring to concerns in India and Japan over Chinese investments totalling over USD 8 billion, the article said, "The Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka is not a nail being knocked into the geopolitical landscape of South Asia to curb India's rise". China's economic cooperation with Sri Lanka does not target any third party, including India and Japan, because the project is just another move in pushing forward the Belt and Road initiative, an open, inclusive international cooperative proposal that any nation is welcome to take part in, it said. India and Japan should feel free to join the initiative in a bid to boost their presence in Sri Lanka's economy, but it is questionable whether the two countries are willing to spend a large amount of money on supporting the economy of Sri Lanka and pushing forward regional economic integration, it said. "If Sri Lanka could not get enough financial support from India and Japan to build its port facilities, it seems inadvisable to prevent the South Asian country from seeking help from China, a country that is witnessing a boom in outbound investment," it said. "Some countries like India and Bangladesh will be the first batch of beneficiaries of China's efforts to build a network of roads and infrastructure facilities in South Asia to open up new trade routes. In this regard, China's economic cooperation with Sri Lanka will contribute not just to the local economy but to the whole region," it said. Islamabad: Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday warned India of severe consequences in case of a surgical strike on his country. The minister also claimed that India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. "If India conducts a surgical strike, such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session, according to media. Earlier this month, Pakistan's Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor had quoted General Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that General Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat about 'so called surgical strikes' and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targeting terrorists and destroying their training camps, in September last year. General Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. General Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. Lahore: A mother in Pakistan was sentenced to death on Monday for burning alive her 18-year-old daughter after she eloped and got married without the family's consent, months after the Parliament passed a new law making the punishment for 'honour killing' more stringent. The girl, Zeenat Rafiq, was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi in June 2016, a week after she eloped with a man, Hasan Khan, to marry him before a court here. Bibi had earlier confessed she had murdered her daughter for "bringing shame to the family". Police had suspected that Bibi was helped by her son in killing the girl. Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Azam Chaudhry on Monday sentenced Parveen to death in the 'honour killing' case, and sentenced Zeenat's brother Anees to life in prison, the Dawn reported. It was revealed in court that Zeenat's mother and brothers had first beaten her, then her mother doused her in kerosene and set her on fire. Parveen who appeared in court on Monday accepted responsibility for Zeenat's death. Zeenat's husband, Hasan Khan last June had agreed to let his wife return to her home after her family promised, in the days before her murder, to organise a traditional wedding reception for the couple. He earlier told the media that Zeenat was not willing to go back to her parents' home because she feared they would kill her. "But she agreed after her family gave assurances regarding her safety," he had said. After Zeenat was set on fire in a low-income neighbourhood of Lahore, none of her relatives sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husband's family to bury her charred remains in the dark in a graveyard near the city. Pakistan's National Assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a stiff penalty for those convicted of so-called honor killings and closes a legal loophole that has permitted the families of those who commit honor killings to forgive the perpetrator. The new law mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honor killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer a common occurrence in these tragic crimes. Islamabad: Pakistan Senate unanimously passed a resolution on Monday condemning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent remarks in which he described Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism", calling it a "baseless" propaganda to divert international attention from "atrocities" in Kashmir. The resolution moved by Sehar Kamran, a lawmaker of the opposition Pakistan People's Party appreciated the reaction of international community to this baseless propaganda by the Prime Minister. It drew a parallel between India's handling of the Kashmir issue and Israel's stance of Palestine. The resolution said that the statement made by Modi was an effort to divert the attention of the international community from the Indian atrocities against the people of Kashmir, media reported. Modi during the BRICS Summit in Goa in October had referred to Pakistan as the "mothership of terrorism....linked to terror modules across the world". The resolution said that there will be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and "our resolve to fight against terrorism and contribute towards bringing peace and harmony in the world". Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif has said that Pakistan will continue political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for right to self-determination. The Minister said the India is making failed attempts to link the Kashmir freedom movement with cross border infiltration and terrorism. He said India's campaign has failed at the diplomatic fronts. Asif said India is also afraid of Pakistan's success in fight against terrorism. He claimed Pakistan's success has been recognised by the world and world bodies. He claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 violations on Line of Control and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He also claimed that 45 civilians were killed and 138 injured in these violations, adding that the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. Asif said India also claimed to carry out surgical strikes which were faked. He futher commented that said if India tried to make any effort to carry out surgical strikes in future, it will be responded with full force. Speaking on the motion, the Senators strongly condemned the ceasefire violations by India on the Line of Control and Working Boundary. The members described the violations as "cowardice act by the Indian forces". They said that India is also involved in such violations with other neighbouring countries including Nepal and Bangladesh. They said that the "evil designs" of Indian government should be highlighted at all the international fora. CHI Memorial Medical Group annonced that Jeffrey Colburn, M.D., has joined Hixson Pike Medical Center. Dr. Colburn received his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham. He completed his residency in family medicine at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Colburn into CHI Memorial Medical Group, says Glyn Hughes, CEO, Mountain Management Services. He joins a great staff that serves the communities north of the river. Dr. Colburn joins Mario Mariani, M.D., Michael Ozborn, M.D., Jerrold Selzer, M.D., and Mystie Swingle, FNP. Hixson Pike Medical Center is located at 3739 Hixson Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37415. Office hours are 8 a.m. 5 p.m. Monday Friday. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Colburn, call (423) 875-0999. Nearly 30 villagers armed with guns and sticks attacked the convoy on Sunday, forcing the royal to relocate to a safer area. (Photo: AP/Representational Image) Quetta: A Pakistani official says a group of villagers attacked the convoy of a Qatari prince on a hunting trip, wounding four people. Yasir Khan, deputy commissioner of the Musakhel district, near the Afghan border, says the mob was led by a local landowner who objected to the hunting of the houbara bustard, a rare bird prized by Gulf Arab elites. Khan says nearly 30 villagers armed with guns and sticks attacked the convoy on Sunday, forcing the royal to relocate to a safer area. He declined to identify the visiting prince. Karachi: Pakistan's former President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US on January 20, according to media reports. Zardari, co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was invited to the January 20 ceremony by the US government which he accepted. He will leave for the US on January 17, media reported. Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late last month after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include ex-Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders. It is also said that he would proceed to France from the US. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is expected to join him in the US on January 25 after the PPP's Lahore-Faisalabad rally, which is scheduled to be held on January 19. Besides US-Pakistan ties, issues related to Pakistan-India relations, Afghan policy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will also come under discussion during one-on-one meetings with the US authorities, including the Congressmen and senators. Zardari, who is currently in Dubai, is expected to undergo a medical examination while in the US. In signs of rising income inequality, India's richest 1 per cent now hold a huge 58 per cent of the country's total wealth -- higher than the global figure of about 50 per cent, a new study showed today. The study, released by rights group Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting here attended by rich and powerful from across the world, showed that just 57 billionaires in India now have same wealth (USD 216 billion) as that of the bottom 70 per cent population of the country. Globally, just 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 per cent of the world population. The study said there are 84 billionaires in India, with a collective wealth of USD 248 billion, led by Mukesh Ambani (USD 19.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi (USD 16.7 billion) and Azim Premji (USD 15 billion). The total Indian wealth in the country stood at USD 3.1 trillion. The total global wealth in the year was USD 255.7 trillion, of which about USD 6.5 trillion was held by billionaires, led by Bill Gates (USD 75 billion), Amancio Ortega (USD 67 billion) and Warren Buffett (USD 60.8 billion). In the report titled 'An economy for the 99 per cent', Oxfam said it is time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few. It said that since 2015, the richest 1 per cent has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. "Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over USD 2.1 trillion to their heirs - a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people," Oxfam said. The study findings showed that the poorest half of the world has less wealth than had been previously thought while over the last two decades, the richest 10 per cent of the population in China, Indonesia, Laos, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have seen their share of income increase by more than 15 per cent. On the other hand, the poorest 10 per cent have seen their share of income fall by more than 15 per cent. "Due to a combination of discrimination and working in low-pay sectors, women's wages across Asia are between 70-90 per cent of men's," it said. Referring to the Global Wage Report 2016-17 of Indian Labour Organisation, the study said India suffers from huge gender pay gap and has among the worst levels of gender wage disparity -- men earning more than women in similar jobs -- with the gap exceeding 30 per cent. In India, women form 60 per cent of the lowest paid wage labour, but only 15 per cent of the highest wage-earners. It means that in India women are not only poorly represented in the top bracket of wage-earners, but also experience wide gender pay gap at the bottom. It also said that more than 40 per cent of the 400 million women who live in rural India are involved in agriculture and related activities. However, as women are not recognised as farmers and do not own land, they have limited access to government schemes and credit, restricting their agricultural productivity. The study also said that the CEO of India's top information firm earns 416 times the salary of a typical employee in his company. In the US, by contrast, billionaires have frequently chosen to cash out of their businesses, and their wealth has not lasted so long. In Asia, Singapore and India have a high number of multi-generational billionaires and a lot many people across the globe, including India, will transfer wealth to their heirs in the next 20 years, the study said, while pushing for a need to establish a system of inheritance tax. It also referred to the world's largest garment companies that have all been linked to cotton-spinning mills in India, which routinely use the forced labour of girls. "There are evidences against cotton-spinning mills of India, which feed into the world's largest garment companies, using forced labour. As per ILO, there are 5.8 million child labourers in India," it added. In many parts of the world, corporations are increasingly driven by a single goal -- that is to maximise returns to their shareholders. In the UK, 10 per cent of profits were returned to shareholders in 1970 and this figure is now 70 per cent. "In India, the figure is lower, but is growing rapidly, and for many corporations, it is now higher than 50 per cent. In India, as profits have been rising for the 100 largest listed corporations, the share of net profits going to dividends has also increased steadily over the last decade, reaching 34 per cent in 2014/15, with around 12 private corporations paying more than 50 per cent of their profits as dividends," it said. The report also said the local air pollution caused by burning coal causes around 100,000 premature deaths per year in India. "South-East Asia and India have both substantial coal power development plants and large populations without access to electricity. While coal provides 75 per cent of the nation's electricity, many areas with the densest concentration of coal plants also have the lowest rates of electricity access," it said. It asked the Indian government to end the extreme concentration of wealth to end poverty, introduce inheritance tax and increase the wealth tax as the proportion of this tax in total tax revenue is one of the lowest in India. "Indian government must eliminate tax exemptions and not further reduce corporate tax rates. Governments must support companies that benefit their workers and society rather than just their shareholders," Oxfam said. "Indian government must crack down on tax dodging by corporates and rich individuals to end the era of tax havens. Government must generate funds needed to invest in healthcare and education. The government must increase its public expenditure on health from 1 per cent GDP to 3 per cent of GDP and on education from 3 per cent of GDP to 6 per cent," it added. Terming B R Ambedkar a "bigger leader" than Mahatma Gandhi, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said it was because of the secular and class-free Constitution given by the Dalit icon which has ensured justice in society. Owaisi's remark came during an All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad- ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) rally here yesterday as he continued his poll campaign in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. "Ambedkar is a bigger leader than Mahatma Gandhi ... had Ambedkar not given a secular and class-free Constitution, the level of injustice in the country would have been much more and RSS people would not have left any opportunity to spoil the situation," Owaisi said. On the Khadi calendars and diaries row, Owaisi said though Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims to be a follower of Mahatma Gandhi but when he got a chance he 'replaced' the Father of the Nation on the symbols as he deemed it to be a fit time to hold the 'charkha' The Hyderabad MP also hit out at the PM over the foreign policy, saying before getting elected to the post Modi had said he would give a "befitting" reply to Pakistan but such a response was still to come even after the martyrdom of 28 jawans following the surgical strike. The AIMIM national president was also critical of the demonetisation move taken by the Centre on November 8 last year, which he said has "only troubled the poor". On internal fight in Samajwadi Party, the ruling party in UP, Owaisi said politics in the state has gone "wayward" with the son (chief minister Akhilesh Yadav) having no faith in the father (Mulayam Singh Yadav). UP, which has 403 assembly constituencies (ACs), will go to polls in seven phases between February 11 and March 8. Sambhal district which has four ACs -- Sambhal, Asmoli, Chandausi, Gunnaur -- will go to polls on February 15 during the second phase. Results of the election will be out on March 11. Kashmiri girl Zaira Wasim, who played the younger version of Indian wrestler Geeta Phogat in Aamir Khan-led Bollywood blockbuster "Dangal", today apologised for "offending" and "unintentionally hurting" people after her meeting with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti kicked up a row. Zaira took to social media and tendered an apology apparently over her meeting with the chief minister on Saturday, which drew sharp reactions from the youth in the valley because of the situation here during the last few months. She also played down her performance in "Dangal", saying she was "not proud of" what she is doing. "This is an open confession/apology. I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met," the 16-year-old actress wrote on her Facebook page. Wasim said she wanted to apologise to "all those people who I have unintentionally hurt and I want them to know that I understand their sentiments behind it especially considering that what had happened over the past six months" apparently referring to the unrest in the valley which left 86 people dead and thousands injured. "But I hope people can also understand there are certain circumstances that emerge which one cannot control and I hope people still remember that I'm a just a 16 year old girl and I hope you treat me accordingly. I'm sorry for what I did but it was not a deliberate decision and I really hope people can forgive me," she said. Zaira also played down her projection as a role model for the youth of Kashmir, saying she does not want anyone to follow in her footsteps. "There are few more things which are very important and I want to clear them as well. The first and foremost thing is that I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri Youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me as a role model. "I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the Youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history," she said. "To even consider me as a role model would be disgracing them and their disgrace would be OUR DISGRACE! I do not wish to start an argument here, this was a just a mere confession from my end which I really wanted people to know. May Allah bless us and guide us," she said. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah said Wasim should not be forced to apologise. "A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise & that too allegedly for meeting @MehboobaMufti. What are we coming to!!!!!," he tweeted. "I've a problem with @MehboobaMufti trying to usurp other peoples success to cover up her own failures but why punish/troll people she meets?," he added. Wasim later removed her first post and came up with a new one, where she claimed that she has "not been forced into anything by anyone". She, however, deleted that too after sometime. "Regarding my lst post, I have no idea why this has become such a big issues. I just wanted to make sure that I did not hurt anyone's feelings and all of a sudden it has been turned into national news. Again and again I am telling people that I have not been forced into anything by anyone. "This post was not meant against anyone, just wanted to make sure that people were not hurt by what I was doing. From media to everyone else, please don't blow this out of proportion. Neither was I forced nor am I against anyone. Hopefully this post just stops this once and for all (sic)," she wrote. Reacting to her post, filmmaker Ashoke Pandit said, "This is exactly what happened with the girls band Pragaash... They had to pack up and they stopped singing. I see nor reason why this child had to come out and issue the statement. She must have been targetted, must have ben threatened." Geeta Phogat also backed Wasim, saying she need not apologise or worry as she has not done anything wrong. "I just want to say that Zaira shouldn't apologise. She didn't do anything wrong. Just like we have made our country proud by winning medals, she has done the same thing by playing my younger version in the movie. She did a lot of hard work for that role and she played it really well. "I've met her so many times during shoot, she is a very simple girl... I want to say to her family that don't be afraid about anything and just don't worry. We all are with them. The entire country stands with them. She is equally deserving like us and we all respect her from the bottom of our hearts," Geeta said. Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of impinging upon the autonomy of institutions like the RBI, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today said the Central Bank's Governor was informed of his decision on demonetisation just a day before the move. "RBI was created as an institution which would work independently free from all political pressure. However, a letter was shot off to the RBI Governor (Urjit Patel) just a day before demonetisation, saying that Modi ji had taken a decision to withdraw the 500 and 1000 rupee notes from circulation," Rahul said at a rally here. Charging the Prime Minister with taking his autocratic style of functioning too far, he said Modi was out to impose his face on everything. Citing the recent Khadi and Village Industries Commission Diary controversy as an instance where Mahatma Gandhi's face was replaced by that of Modi, he said if things go on like this the day was not far when Ramlilas will be staged with actors wearing Modi's mask instead of that of Lord Ram. "If things go on like this you would find even Ramlila actors wearing the mask of Modi from next year instead of that of Lord Ram. Modi ji wants the rule of one person. He wants his voice to drown out all other voices," Rahul said. Alleging that Modi's professed commitment to Khadi was fake, he said 15 lakh suit and Charkha could not go together. The Congress Vice President said Charkha stood for promotion of cottage and handicrafts industries and is Modi's commitment to Khadi was real then he would not have worked 'day in and day out' for 50 chosen industrialists. Pointing out that Modi was often seen in photos posing with the rich, Rahul said it was an indication that farmers and the poor did not figure in his scheme of things. He said Modi was imposing himself on the nation by adopting a policy of listening to none. "His approach is to do what he wants at any cost come what may. He changes the land acquisition laws to suit the purposes of industrialists. He can even snatch the lands of farmers without taking them into confidence and distribute them among his industrialist friends," Rahul added. Assembly elections in Uttarakhand will be held on February 15 in a single phase for the 70 seats. Claiming some pilgrims at Gangasagar died due to natural causes and not in a stampede, a West Bengal minister today said the PMO coming up with a tweet in this regard without confirming with the state government is "against the federal structure of the country". "It is against the decorum and established protocol in the federal structure that the PMO tweeted about the death of pilgrims without confirming with the state administration that whether any stampede had really taken place," state Fire and Environment minister Sovan Chattopadhyay told reporters here. "The PMO should have confirmed with the state government before coming up with any statement," he said. Chattopadhyay, who is also the Mayor of Kolkata, said five ministers including him were ensuring proper facilities like food, shelter and transport for around 16 lakh pilgrims who took the holy dip at Sagar Island at the confluence of the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal. At least six pilgrims died while returning from Gangasagar fair yesterday, which the officials initially said was a stampede, but the state government later claimed it was not. According to a state minister, six elderly women died after falling ill while rushing to board a vessel to cross the Muri Ganga river to reach the mainland in South 24 Parganas district. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last evening tweeted: "Saddened by the loss of lives caused by a stampede in West Bengal. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased (sic)." The PMO had tweeted: "PM approved ex-gratia from PMNRF of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased & Rs 50,000 for those injured in the stampede in WB (sic)." Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif today warned India of severe consequences in case of a surgical strike on his country. The minister also claimed that India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. "If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session, according to Geo TV. Earlier this month, Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor had quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about 'so called surgical strikes' and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces in September last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. Gen Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. Lance Naik Yagya Pratap, who had uploaded a video talking about some jawans allegdly being made to do menial duties in the Army, has been shifted to Bareilly Military Hospital after he abstained from food and was showing "aggressive behaviour". The army also said Pratap has spoken to his wife on mobile today and that he is free to use mobile. They added that Rajput Regimental Centre, where he is posted since December 21 last year, has reached out to the wife of the individual asking her to reach Bareilly Military Hospital so as to confirm welfare of her husband. Army authorities have made arrangements for her stay and interaction with her husband, it said. "The individual since January 14 had abstained from food and was showing aggressive behaviour. With a view to monitor his parameters the individual has been shifted to Bareilly Military Hospital on January 16, as requisite medical facilities do not exist at Fategarh," a statement by the Army said. The development came a day after Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat warned soldiers of possible action if their air their grievances on social media. Gearing itself up for cross-border expansion, eMudhra is making an investment of Rs 40 crore into the setting up of its all-encompassing centre in Bengaluru. The 1.5 lakh sq feet centre is scheduled to begin operations by March 2019. The company is present in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius and the UAE, apart from India, which still claims 85-90% of its market. While it has its eyes set on entering the US in about one-and-a-half years, the digital signature provider will mark its entry into Cambodia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and about five African countries in FY2017-18. In an interaction with DH, eMudhra Executive Chairman V Srinivasan said, We are looking at expanding into neighbiouring countries, but with the governments digitisation agenda, there is huge scope for digitisation and going paperless in India itself. What we see now is just the tip of the iceberg. The company has witnessed its revenues quadruple over the last three years due to increased consumer uptake. Even two to three years down the line, as the company expands it geographic presence, India will contribute to as much as 50% of the revenues, he said. However, if we are able to crack the US market, this ratio may tilt, he claimed. The company offers digital signatures in two formats esign and conventional digital signature the former witnessing a growth of one million users on a monthly basis and the latter witnessing up to 60% growth on a yearly basis. The infrastructure for digital signatures is in place, but the awareness of its benefits is very low, especially at a decision-making level. A focused attempt is required to ensure better reach, he said. With payments banks, mutual fund houses, brokerage houses and ecommerce companies comprising the larger portion of its user-base, the company wants to push digital signatures and paperless transactions for customer onboarding in the banking industry, employee onboarding for corporates and prescription management in the healthcare industry. As of now, digital signatures are being used mostly for online money transfers, but we want to enable routine transactions like customer onboarding in a paperless manner, wherein applications and verfications can be done by linking it to the consumers Aadhaar number, he said, adding that the banking space is the one with most potential to attain end-to-end digitisation with full legal validity. The company is working closely with SBI, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank, alongside government entities including IRCTC, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Income Tax Department and Goods and Services Tax Network, among others. Back Alley Productions is holding auditions for the production of A Few Good Men. Auditions are Feb. 6 and Feb. 7 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Back Alley is housed at the historic Mars Theater at 117 N. Chattanooga St. in LaFayette and brings in actors from the North Georgia and Chattanooga area. Review for "A Few Good Men": A Few Good Men details the courtroom drama of two Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine and the tense legal tribulations that follow. A callow young Navy lawyer serves as the focus of the story. He is more interested in softball cases and expects a plea bargain. Prodded by a female member of his defense team, the lawyer eventually makes a valiant effort to defend his clients and, in so doing, puts the military mentality and the Marine code of honor on trial. A Few Good Men is one of my favorite stories, Director James Reed said. We are going to breath new life into it and we are looking for strong, local talent to bring the tension and drama to life for the local audience. The whole story weaves loyalty and deception together and really examines honor and the extent by which the ends justify the means. The cast has openings for 14 men and one woman. Performances are weekends from April 7-23. The audition process includes the reading of a monologue before a production panel, and possible callbacks. Visit BAPshows.com for more information on Back Alley Productions, including the full season lineup and upcoming shows and auditions. Soon, you cannot directly go to a private hospital for treatment under a government health scheme. You will need to visit a government hospital first. Only when doctors refer you to private hospitals owing to lack of facilities in government hospitals can you go to private facilities. This is one of the several changes being planned by the state government in its various health schemes, Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar told DH after a meeting with representatives of private hospitals on Monday. Patients wishing to get subsidised treatment under government schemes must go to state-run hospitals first. If doctors there are unable to attend to the case or if a procedure cannot be performed for lack of facilities, they can get treatment at private empanelled hospitals. But they will need a reference from government doctors except in case of an emergency, Kumar said. Kumar insisted that the government was proactive in improving public hospitals. All taluk hospitals are going to have ICUs as well as diagnostic facilities, except CT and MRI scans which will be available at district hospitals in public private partnership, he said. The minister assured people who use government health schemes for treatment at private hospitals under unavoidable circumstances. We will stand by them. But in other cases, patients will have to foot their own medical bill, he said. Kumar promised to fill all the vacancies in government hospitals in a month. We will start postgraduate diploma courses in government medical colleges. Seats will be reserved for doctors serving in government hospitals. This way, we hope to address the shortage of specialists in state-run hospitals, he said. The government is also introducing smart cards for beneficiaries of its health schemes. The cards will have details of the patient and members of his/her family, and the health scheme they are eligible for. The patients medical history will also be available, Kumar said. The smart cards will be linked to the patients Aadhaar card to make it foolproof. If a resident of Shivamogga goes to Vijayapura and needs emergency care, he can just use the card and get treatment at a private or government hospital, he added. But once the smart cards are rolled out, patients will not be reimbursed from the chief ministers relief fund. There could be hope for the much-delayed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) with the Centre keen to fund the project. Mahendra Jain, additional chief secretary, Urban Development department, told DH that the Union government has indicated that it would help the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) in funding the land acquisition process for early completion of the project. On Monday, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George said the state government will submit a proposal to Niti Aayog, seeking financial assistance to acquire land for the project. He was speaking at a meeting chaired by Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation D V Sadananda Gowda to review the Centre-assisted infrastructure projects. An estimated Rs 8,100 crore is required for acquiring about 1,890 acres. It is an important project that links five national highways. But the government cannot afford to acquire land at such a huge cost, George said. Japan International Co-operation Agency has agreed in principle to fund the project, excluding the cost of land acquisition. The total cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 11,955 crore, he said, requesting Sadananda Gowda to impress upon the Centre to provide assistance to implement the project. Gowda promised to take it up with the minister concerned. The BDA has been planning to construct the 65-km-long PRR from Tumakuru Road to Hosur Road for more than 12 years. The authority plans to connect the semi-circle to the existing one built by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) connecting Tumakuru Road and Hosur Road via Magadi Road, Mysuru Road and Kanakapura Road. In September, 2016, the BDA released a new innovative method to mobilise resources. It had also held a meeting with farmers, explaining the new proposal of creating commercial zones around the PRR to raise money for the project. The BDA had proposed to create a 100-metre wide commercial zone along the PRR with service roads of 30 metres. Our assessment has shown that most of the areas seen development, including ones near the ring roads. Hence, land acquisition will now be a challenge. Under the new master plan, thrust is on improving infrastructure, in which PRR is one of the top priorities along with the Metro and wide roads. We are also hoping that the new TDR scheme will help in land acquisition, a senior BDA official said. BBMP has withdrawn Mantri Malls occupancy certificate and has initiated an inquiry into the incident of wall collapse there on Monday. Speaking to DH, Palike Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said the incident seems to have happened due to dampness in the adjoining sewage pipe. Our section engineers are probing the matter. We will consider reissuing the certificate only if the faults are rectified to the satisfaction of our engineers, said Prasad. Mayor G Padmavathi too visited the spot and told reporters that BBMP engineers will assess the strength of the building. Meanwhile, mall authorities called the builder, who rushed to the spot with the structural engineers to assess the damage and to check if there could be further collapses. The main column is intact and the building is safe as far as the structure is concerned. The portion of the building that collapsed extends up to 1.5 metres from the building, which is called cantilever (chajja). The cantilever on the third floor terrace collapsed and it came down, dragging the two lower levels and the debris fell on the compound wall between Mantri Square mall and the Metro, said Gururaj T S, consultant engineer, Mantri Developers. The building is seven years old and we have used standard quality material, including sand used to build similar structures. We are investigating the reason for the collapse, he added. Multiple water tanks, pipes There are multiple water tanks, including the ones for fire safety and air conditioning, on the mall terrace. According to mall sources, there are water leakages from these tanks and the pipes that carry water to and from them. Leakages over a period of years dampened the balcony that collapsed on Monday. Traffic was thrown out of gear in and around Mantri Square mall as vehicles coming out of the mall and those waiting outside to enter inside were gridlocked. Police were finding it difficult to manage traffic as fire tenders and police vehicles crowded the road. Traffic gridlocked The police had a tough time cordoning off the collapse area as media personnel and senior BBMP officials, including the Mayor and commissioner, thronged the area when portions of the wall were still hanging. Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Labhu Ram ordered evacuation of people to safe locations. Traffic was thrown out of gear in and around Mantri Square mall as vehicles coming out of the mall and those waiting outside to enter inside were gridlocked. Police were finding it difficult to manage traffic as fire tenders and police vehicles crowded the road. One of the colleagues of Lakshmamma, a housekeeping staffer who suffered injuries in the incident, said that the injuries sustained by her were not due to the building collapse. They were a result of her fall while running outside, the colleague said. For Ireland, Britain's exit from the European Union is complicated by the division of the island into the Republic and Northern Ireland, the region retained by Britain when the Republic was freed from its colonial yoke in 1922. In spite of partition, the Republic and the North have close ties dictated by geography, blood, tradition, politics and economics. All Ireland opposes Brexit. Ireland as a whole is desperately trying to fend off the fall-out from Brexit and to find means to stall or avert divorce. Since British courts are reluctant to take on the job, anti-Brexit British tax lawyer Jolyon Maugham is launching a legal action in Dublins courts to seek a ruling from the European Court of Justice, the highest tribunal in the European Union, on the possibility of reversing the process of Britains departure. If the court rules that procedures for withdrawal from the EU are reversible, Britain would be able to reject the outcome of Brexit negotiations. That is, if it is unacceptable to the countrys parliament and voters. The case could also clarify what rights Britons would lose as EU citizens when the withdrawal process is triggered and when these rights would be lost. Hundreds of long-term Briton resident in or employed in EU member states, including the Republic, have already applied for naturalisation. It is significant that this effort is being mounted in the Republic and that it is being financed by crowdfunding, an internet means of raising cash for causes. The campaign has raised 70,000 ($852,000), mostly in donations of 50 or less, demonstrating that the cause is popular in Ireland and elsewhere. Although Britain is to set into motion procedures for withdrawal from the EU by the end of March, commencing two years of negotiations on Britains departure and post-Brexit relations with the bloc, a crisis in Northern Ireland could delay this process. The resignation on January 9 of Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister, has plunged the region into chaos. His party says it will not replace him. This could trigger a snap election which could take two months to organise. The Northern Ireland Assembly which cannot meet unless the crisis is resolved or elections are held - must be involved in discussions on Brexit. Both the Republic and Britain joined the EU in 1973, and in 1999 political relations improved because of a power-sharing agreement between Protestants who insisted on remaining in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK), and Catholics who sought to unite with the Republic. Unlike England and Wales, the other components of the UK Northern Ireland and Scotland voted in favour of remaining in the EU. In both Northern Ireland and Scotland, there are some who propose secession from the post-Brexit UK with the aim of joining the EU on their own. Due to Brexit, British and Irish citizens fear the loss of full rights to live, work and vote in both countries while there is a concern that the two-way trade valued at more than 1 ($1.22) billion a week and supporting 4,00,000 jobs in the Republic could be affected. Consequently, once negotiations begin, the Republic plans to lobby for close relations between post-Brexit Britain and the EU. Ties, however, could depend on whether there is a hard or soft Brexit. Export market In a bid to fend off Brexit losses and foster trade, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, has set up a gateway intended to connect firms in the two countries. Unfortunately, the Republic has already begun to suffer from the negative fallout from the Brexit vote. During the last six months of 2016, Irish food and drink exporters lost Euro 570 million ($604 million) following the drop in the value of the British pound vis-a-vis the Euro. The British export market for Irish produce is expected to sink further. Dairy farmers across the border in Northern Ireland could close down after Brexit if trade barriers with the Republic are re-established. Exports of dairy products would disappear from the shelves of the Republics supermarkets while one-third of Northern Irelands milk production would cease to cross the border for processing into butter, cheese and baby milk in the Republic. Tariffs, customs checks and red tape would make it impossible for the North to export its raw milk to the Republic. The Republic's Brexit losses in the agricultural sector could be compensated by the gains in the banking and business sectors. The UK, US and Asian banks and firms based in Britain are flocking to Ireland with the aim of basing themselves within the EU and retaining access to the European single market. Many firms also seek to take advantage of Ireland's 12.5% corporate tax rate, which is low for the EU and an incentive to set up in the Republic. Both banks and companies also see it as a suitable replacement for post-Brexit Britain because English is spoken and is the language of these sectors. Since, for the Republic and the North, Brexit poses serious political and economic risks, the Irish simply want Britain's divorce from the EU to go away. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday asked senior police officials to work more on methods for preventing crime. He said this while chairing the senior police officers annual conference here on Monday. The chief minister advised the police to be people friendly. Sources said Siddaramaiah referred to the Kammanahalli molestation case and political murders in Mandya and felt that both could have been prevented if there was intensive patrolling. The incidents like the one that happened on the night of December 31 could hav been prevented with intensified patrolling. The patrolling on that night should have been high,'' he is said to have told senior police officers. Terming the political killings in Mandya reported in the first week of this month a failure to act promptly on intelligence inputs, Siddaramaiah directed the senior police officers to take intelligence inputs seriously. He is said to have reffered to a spate of murders as lack of swift response anticipating retaliation in such killings. Later speaking to reporters, Siddaramaiah said instructions have been passed to DGP&IGP Om Prakash to take stern action against the police staff involved in the rape on a mentally unsound woman in Tumakuru. The ASI accused of raping a woman in Tumakuru has been placed under suspension. He has already been arrested and I have instructed them to investigate the case and to take steps to dismiss him from the service, if charges are proved, he said. On the pay hike for police personnel, Siddaramaiah said the government has already released a partial pay hike. More allocation will be made in the next budget. The government recently promoted 10,000 lower-rung staff who have been working in the same rank for several decades, he added. Home Minister G Parameshwara also attended the meeting convened at the state police headquarters on Nrupathunga Road. Umashree for stricter laws Women and Child Development Minister Umashree on Monday said exceeding the limits of morality is the reason for increasing atrocities against women. While responding to questions from reporters on the recent incidents of assault against women in Bengaluru, she blamed perverts among men as responsible for molestation cases. Even the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) has not prevented crimes against women. Therefore, self-restraint becomes important. The Centre should enact stricter laws to take action against those who commit crime against women. There is a demand for capital punishment for those who indulge in such acts. It is incorrect to blame women for increasing crime against women, she said. Referring to the Tumakuru rape incident involving an assistant sub-inspector (ASI), Umashree said her department would be rehabilitating the mentally challenged woman who was reportedly raped by the policeman. She has also urged the home minister to terminate the service of the ASI. Decks were cleared for a grand alliance in Uttar Pradesh with the Election Commission (EC) deciding to award the reins of the Samajwadi Party (SP) to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The commission set aside the claims of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Soon after the EC order, Akhileshs political strategist Ramgopal Yadav said that the SP will make moves towards forging a grand alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties. The SP-Congress-Rashtriya Lok Dal-Janata Dal(United) alliance may be announced in the next couple of days. The Congress, too, welcomed as most judicious the EC order to award the SPs election symbol to Akhilesh. Cong gears up Obviously we will now see how we can move forward, Congress spokesperson R P N Singh told reporters here. Three-time Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the Congress chief ministerial face for the Uttar Pradesh elections, also announced that she was ready to make way for Akhilesh to take the leadership role. I am ready to step away if the Congress decides to enter into an alliance with Akhilesh, Dikshit said. The Congress leaders have already been in back room talks with Akhileshs team for an alliance with the Janata Dal(United) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). A source said the SP was ready to spare about 85 seats to the Congress, around 25 seats to the RLD and a couple of seats for the JD(U) in the 403-member Assembly. Congratulatory messages poured in for Akhilesh from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as well as Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad. I congratulate Akhilesh and appeal to Mulayam Singh that it is an election for the country and not for Uttar Pradesh, Lalu said. The first Digi Dhan Mela in the state held in Bengaluru on Monday received a good response with the young and the old seeking information on various modes of digital transactions. The mela is being held in various cities by the Centre in association with state governments to popularise digital transactions and it was Bengalurus turn on Monday. The day-long mela had around 50 stalls. Various banks displayed and also registered customers for digital transaction schemes. There were also kiosks for Aadhaar registration, enrolment for RuPay cards, private m-wallet service and mobile money. The organisers said the footfall crossed 5,000 by evening. The most vocal at the mela were the farmers from villages around Bengaluru, who were informed about the mela through fertiliser companies. Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda held the draw for Lucky Grahak Yojana for customers and the Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants, which are cash reward schemes to those who have made cashless transactions. Three more cities in the state - Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad and Kalaburagi - have been chosen for the mela. A high-level panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met here on Monday to choose the next CBI Director but no official announcement was made on its choice till late evening . Official sources said the three-member panel, which also had Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India J S Khehar as its members, considered the names of IPS officers from 1979 to 1982 batches to choose the new CBI chief. The front runners for the post included Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Verma and SSB Director General Archana Ramasundaram among others. If Ramasundaram is chosen, she would become the first woman chief of the investigation agency. The post fell vacant on December two after incumbent Anil Sinha retired but the government did not appoint a full time Director. Senior IPS officer and CBI Additional Director Asthana was given additional charge but this decision ran into controversy after an NGO Common Cause approached Supreme Court against the decision. The transfer of senior officer R K Dutta, who was supervising the 2G allocation and coal scam cases, to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) as Special Secretary (Internal Security) two days ahead of Sinhas retirement also had triggered a row. The choice of Asthana and transfer of Dutta prompted Kharge to accuse the government of trying to manipulate the selection process and shot off letters to Modi on the issue. The Chattanooga Tea Party will be kicking off its first meeting of the year with Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett as its guest speaker. As Mayor of the third largest county in Tennessee, Mayor Burchett will be speaking on the need for a smaller government at all levels."Knox County tea party members highly recommend Mayor Burchett as a strong fiscal conservative. Entrepreneurship, confidence in the free market, and a desire to serve are traits that guide Mayor Burchett. They are a large part of the conservative foundation from which he derives his core principles of service, efficiency and savings.This will be an excellent opportunity to meet Mayor Burchett in person," officials said.The meeting will be held this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at The Century Club Banquet Hall, 3221 Harrison Pike (off Access Road, just south of the Highway 153-Amnicola Highway intersection, next to Indian Motorcycles).Attendees are asked to bring a non-perishable canned good item to support the local Chattanooga Area Food Bank.RSVP at Chattanooga Tea Partys Facebook page (link at ChattanoogaTeaParty.com ). Donations will be accepted at the event to help defray costs. The Election Commission (EC) on Monday recognised Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the new supremo of the Samajwadi Party (SP). The poll panel also granted him the right over the partys poll symbol bicycle. The EC rejected SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadavs claim, concluding that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister enjoyed overwhelming majority support, both among the legislative and the organisational wing of the party. The ECs order came as a shot in the arm for Akhilesh ahead of the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, where the ruling SP is being challenged by the BJP and the BSP. Mulayam wanted the SP to go it alone in the polls, but the ECs order has paved the way for Akhilesh to go ahead and forge the much-speculated alliance with the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. The order was signed by Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and the two other Election Commissioners, A K Joti and O P Rawat. The EC went by the Supreme Courts 1972 order that test of majority support among members of the legislature and organisational wing of a party would be critical to take a call on disputes among splinter groups. The poll panel observed that the test of majority clearly went in favour of the faction led by Akhilesh, which had submitted affidavits by 4,716 out of total 5,731 delegates of the SP all endorsing the Uttar Pradesh chief minister as the new national president of the party. The delegates supporting Akhilesh included 205 out of 228 SP members in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly, 56 out of 68 members of the legislative council, 15 out of 24 parliamentarians, 28 out of 46 national executive members and 4,400 of the total delegates who had attended the last party convention in October 2014. The EC also noted that Mulayam had not submitted to the commission any affidavit except his own by any delegate of the party in support of his plea that he continued to be the partys national president and that only he should have the right to allot the poll symbol to the candidates of the party. The WhatsApp Messenger is a private service or a public utility? The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine a plea that raised apprehension of right to privacy of WhatsApp users being compromised by sharing information with Facebook. A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud told two students, who challenged the 2016 Delhi High Court judgement allowing WhatsApp Messenger service to share data with Facebook, that the facilities were being provided without paying anything and they can opt out of it. You can choose to opt out of WhatsApp if you want to protect your privacy, the bench told senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the petitioners. Salve, on his part, contended that other countries like the United Kingdom and Germany have been regulating it and there has to be sufficient amount of data protection. To this, the bench said, What is disturbing is you want to use this private service and at the same time you want to protect your privacy, you can walk out of it and choose not to avail its services. Salve submitted that as there were 155 million users, it has become a public utility service like telephone calls, which cannot be intercepted without the governments permission. The court then said, in telephone service, you pay for it and get your privacy, but here you dont pay. On this, Salve submitted that even telephone calls come for free in certain cases. The government has a duty to regulate the telecom service. Our complaint is with the telecom regulator, TRAI should do it, he said. The bench then asked under what provisions of law the court should issue orders if the server is lying in a foreign country. Salve said, My right should be protected as guaranteed under Article 19 (freedom of speech) and Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution. Agreeing to hear the matter, the court issued notice to the Union government, the TRAI, and WhatsApp and Facebook on the special leave petition, seeking their response within two weeks. The court also asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to assist it. During the hearing, the court indicated that it would set up a Constitution bench in summer vacation to consider a similar plea for right to privacy raised in petitions challenging collection of private data in preparation of Aadhaar. The Centre is building pressure on all higher educational institutions and bodies associated with the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry for adopting a complete cashless mode of transactions in all financial matters. Issuing an official order, the HRD ministry has asked all of them to prepare a clear road map for transition to cashless mode of financial transactions within a time frame. The ministry has also restricted all the universities and colleges, as well as the regulatory bodies under it, from insisting upon the draft and pay orders for any financial transaction till further orders. The ministry had earlier asked all the educational institutions, including schools, post-demonetisation to migrate to the digital mode of transactions. It also later launched a nationwide campaign for spreading digital financial literacy among people, by roping in students of higher educational institutions. Following a call from HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar last month, over one lakh students joined the nationwide campaign with a pledge to spread awareness about the benefits of digital financial transactions and also train at least 10 families in their close vicinity on using mobile phones for their day-to-day financial transactions. The response of the institutions to the ministrys call for cashless transactions has so far been good, but much is still left to be done by many of them to ensure that there is a complete cashless transaction in all financial matters. Why should a daily wage worker get remuneration in cash when easy options are available for digital payment? an official source in the ministry told DH, requesting anonymity. The ministry has directed all the educational institutions, as well as regulatory bodies including the UGC and the All India Council for Technical Education, to use the RTGS route or the NEFT in their financial transactions. After complaints raised by multiple users of the Pixel phones, Google has revealed in a series of emails that the audio issue cannot be fixed with software updates. The Google Pixel phones have been known to be plagued with multiple bugs ever since launch, and now, a recent disclosure out of email exchanges between Google Store Support and a customer has revealed that the Pixel phones have a hardware issue that affects the audio, and the same has been known to Google for a while. Mark Buckman was among the first to raise a flag on this, uploading a video on YouTube that displayed the static distortion issue of Google Pixels audio playback. While the problem is seemingly infrequent, it still registers when certain frequencies are played by the speaker. It also did not seem to be an isolated, device-specific issue, as Buckman has replaced five units of his Pixel XL since buying the smartphone. The issue leads to cracking noises relayed by the Pixel XLs speaker, and since Buckman posted about this on a Reddit thread, many others have come forth and claimed that they too have been suffering from the same issue. In response, Googles Store Support team acknowledged the issue, stating that it is a known hardware issue affecting a certain build of all the Pixel phones and cannot be solved by a software update. The team also initially offered a refund to Buckman, but following the lapse of 14 days following the refund offer, Google Store Support has offered to replace the unit for him. The Support team has also said that currently, no refunds are being processed based on the same issue. Since launch, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL have garnered widespread acclaim. Despite positive feedback, the phones have been affected by multiple camera issues, most of which Google has managed to address via software updates till date. It remains to be seen exactly how many devices are presently suffering from the static distortion flaw in Pixels audio, and how Google responds if the number of complaints keep increasing. Reliance Jio says that it crossed 50 million subscribers in 83 days, making the addition rate faster than Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype Reliance Jio has announced that it has become the fastest growing technology company in the world. The company claims that it crossed 50 million subscribers in 83 days, with a subscriber addition rate of 6 lakh subscribers per day. It also says that the addition rate is faster than the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype. As of December 31, 2016, there were 72.4 million subscribers on the network. Jio has also admitted that subscribers on its network are facing interconnection congestion issues with other operations. The company blames this on the inadequate provision of points of interconnection (POI) capacities. It says that POI capacity provided by these operators is below requirement and is falling short of the pace at which Jio is getting new subscribers. The company notes that 175 calls out of a 1,000 calls made between Jio to Airtel networks are failing. QoS regulations mandate that no more than 5 calls out of a 1,000 can fail. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited stated, I am also delighted by our countrys eagerness to adopt to a digital life as witnessed by the record-breaking launch of Jio. Its comprehensive ecosystem has enabled millions of Indians to lead a richer life through its offerings. Jio noted in its Financial and Operational Performance report that the average download speed on the Jio network was 18.17Mbps as per the TRAI MySpeed portal. It notes that this speed was twice that of any other telecom. The company also talked about its Jio Happy New Year Offer and its partnership with Niantic as part of which the Pokemon Go mobile game was finally brought to India. Chicago Cop Charged With Sexually Assaulting A Teen, Held On $75K Bond By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 16, 2017 2:40PM Chicago Police Department Eugene Ciardullo, 51, was arrested at his Far Southwest Side home, on Sunday. According to news reports, prosecutors said the officer started communicating through social media with a student who attended the same school where Ciardullo worked part-time as a security guard. The girl was 16 at the time. He started a sexual relationship with the victim when she was 17, she told police. Ciardullo faces one felony count of criminal sexual assault of a victim 13-17 years of age. He was ordered held on $75,000 bond on Sunday. The Chicago Police Department is also conducting its own internal probe into the allegations, according to CPD Communications Director Anthony Guglielmi. "The Chicago Police Department is currently also investigating this incident internally and administratively, Guglielmi said in a statement. We remain committed to the highest levels of accountability for our officers and members and will not tolerate any activity or actions that undermine the integrity of the hard working men and women of our Department. The Chicago Public Schools confirmed in a statement that Ciardullo was terminated in December after allegations were made: "A part-time security officer at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences was removed from his position in December in response to serious allegations, and the individual is no longer an employee of Chicago Public Schools. The school responded promptly and followed proper protocols after it became aware of the allegations, and CPS is cooperating with law enforcement as it investigates the matter." The Tribune notes that some 40 complaints were lodged against Ciardullo during his 21 years on the force, including an excessive force grievance, but only two resulted in reprimands. He was suspended for 10 days in 2001 over excessive force and two days in 2008 for a weapon/uniform-related violation. Fund manager First Property Group has created a new 15.2m fund, Fprop UK Special Opportunities, with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to invest in commercial property. Christ Church and St Catherine's College from Oxford, along with Robinson College from Cambridge, have collectively invested 14.5m, while First Property has committed 725,000. Investments by the fund may be leveraged, with a maximum loan amount of 50% of the value of the investments, and the fund therefore has a total buying power of just over 30m. The AIM-listed company will earn annual fees from the new fund related to the value of the properties under management. Chief executive Ben Habib, said the fund aims to invest in higher yielding commercial property investments with ways in which to enhance value. He added: The UK economy is robust and we anticipate that this strategy will yield healthy returns for its investors. In December, the company announced that its Shipbuilding Industries Pension Scheme (SIPS) fund was 95% invested following the acquisition of a portfolio of supermarkets and a retail warehousing scheme in Southampton. The SIPS fund is invested in twenty four properties at a cost of 160.7m, producing a yearly income, after fees, of 6.3%. Shares in First Property Group were up 1.03% to 49p at 1140 GMT. Global Energy Development announced on Monday that it has conditionally agreed to purchase 11 offshore subsea service vessels and a barge vessel as it seeks to adopt a new business strategy focusing on the subsea oilfield services sector. The AIM-traded company confirmed it has entered into two share purchase agreements to acquire a total of 11 offshore service vessels, a barge vessel and other related equipment through the purchase of 100% of the issued shares in vessel-owning companies. It said all vessels are currently located in Louisiana, US, with direct access to the offshore oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico The acquisitions would mark a fundamental change in Global's business strategy, its board said, as the transactions are the company's first step into the global subsea industry. It said it was seeking to make counter-cyclical investments within the global subsea industry that will enable it to capitalise on future recoveries in the oil price and related increased requirements for offshore support services The vessels will be able to operate in depths of up to 300 feet and, in the case of one vessel up to 5,000 feet, opening a large addressable market for the company. Global will issue Convertible A Loan Notes for a near-term cash injection of $10.5m, resulting in a strengthened balance sheet allowing it to further pursue the new business strategy The notes of $10.5m, when fully issued, will have a 50p conversion price, coupon of 8% and a maturity date of 1 January 2027. Globals board also proposed to change the companys name to Nautilus Marine Services to reflect the new business strategy. The transactions represent a reverse takeover that will be subject to a vote of Global's shareholders. We are very pleased to have committed to these acquisitions of the offshore service vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, said chairman Mikel Faulkner. This represents the company's first step towards delivering on the ... new strategy of increasing shareholder value by targeting investment and acquisition opportunities in the subsea services sector with the potential for significant upside. Brickmaker Michelmersh Brick Holdings has sold a 25-acre former brickworks site in Buckinghamshire for 2.68m to London Green Resources, a waste disposal company. The AIM-listed company has exchanged contracts for the sale of the former Dunton Brothers brickworks in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, subject to procedures of the Environment Agency, which is expected to take place within 10 days of transfer of the landfill permit, likely to be towards the end of the first half of 2017. The 2.68m is payable on completion and the proceeds will be added to the companys cash reserves. Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2015 included this plot of land in fixed assets as a landfill asset worth 1.25m and, after costs, the expected surplus on sale will exceed 1m. The uplift in value from 2015, will be credited to revaluation reserves in the companys financial report for the year ended 31 December 2016, to be released on 20 March. Meanwhile the company, expected its performance for 2016 to be similar to that for 2015, as cash generation was particularly pleasing with the cash balances exceeding forecasts. Michelmersh shares were up 2% to 50.50p at 0806 GMT. Goldman Sachs has downgraded global technology and services innovator Cobham to sell from neutral and lowered its price target to 110p from 174p. The bank said that the companys new management is tasked with stabilising the business, developing a strategic plan to restore growth and deleveraging the balance sheet. The forecasts for 2017s organic growth was cut to -1.8% due to the continued pressure on the wireless business and defence program phasing. The bank expects a relatively muted outlook for 2017 to weigh on sentiment in the companys upcoming final results. The price target cut implies 20% downside and price/earnings for 2017/18 at 11 or 10.4 times, dividend yields of 4%-4.4% and free cash flow yields of 6%-9%. The earnings per share forecast has fallen to 10.07p from 14.74p for 2017. On the upside, an acquisition of Cobham is viewed as unlikely given the diversified nature of the business and sensitive contracts. A large disposal is also unlikely given commercial challenges in the Australian business as well as government concerns, according to the broker. Additionally there is better-than expected growth driving up earnings before interest, tax, and amortisation (EBITA) and cash flow. The share price fell 2.46% to 134.80p at 1024 GMT on Monday. Looking out to 2017, analysts at Macquarie retained their "bullish" stance on European banks, arguing that multiples in the sector were not "stretched", earnings were likely to recover further and consensus expectations were undemanding. However, their bias was for retail/commercial banks with cost and impairment improvements. "We are cautious on optimistic revenue stories and would thus avoid the investment banks," the broker said in a research note published on 14 January but dated 12 January. Despite the sectors 40% rally from its June lows, valuation multiples for the Stoxx 600 banks index had only just returned to their normal historical levels, Macquarie said. The relative price-to-earnings ratio stood at 81% that of the Stoxx 600, and the relative price-to-book value at 49%, with the latter reflecting the sectors relative return on equity at 45%. "Recent price gains have been dramatic in many cases but we dont think they are excessive or over," it said. In Macquaries opinion, the key swing factors for European bank earnings in 2017 would be costs and impairments. A return to historical trough-cycle levels for the former might add about 15% to the sectors earnings and a reversion to those same levels for the latter about 10%. "Against this, the revenue outlook is still tough. We see asset re-pricing keeping margins under pressure and we are sceptical on capital markets in view of an unspectacular 4Q and US rate headwinds to FICC, debt issuance and APAC," it cautioned. Among the brokers 'top buys' was Lloyds, which had underperformed the section thus far. Furthermore, the brokers estimate of impairments in 2017 was 25% below consensus. "Permanent TSB is another cheap, indirect play on better Brexit outcomes on a 40% TNAV discount and geared to Irish housing recovery," the broker added. On investment banks, Macquarie said: "we dont buy the revenue reflation argument, stocks have rallied hard and 4Q looks unexciting. We downgrade Credit Suisse to 'underperform' where it joins UBS and Deutsche Bank. After a 35% rally we are also lowering Barclays to 'neutral'. Commodities were little changed at the end of the week on Friday as traders kept their cards close to their chest ahead of the long holiday weekend in the States. Energy futures were weaker following mixed Chinese trade data referencing the month of December, with higher than expected exports alongside weaker than forecast imports. Nevertheless, Chinese imports of crude oil climbed 755,000 barrels a day year-on-year or 9.6% to 8.6 mb/d during December, analysts at Barclays pointed out. In parallel, overseas purchases of coper concentrates fell by 5.1% month-on-month, yet that represented a 13% gain year-on-year. The above data saw Brent crude futures slip 1.0% to $55.45 a barrel on the ICE while natural gas futures were up 0.97% to $3.42/MMBtu on NYMEX. For the week, West Texas Intermediate declined 3% amid simmering doubts regarding OPEC countries compliance with their output quotas. Metals prices were generally higher, with COMEX copper adding 0.69% to reach $2.69 a pound. Silver futures rose 0.42% to $16.184/oz.. and spot platinum was up 0.75% to $984.85/oz.. Among agricultural commodities, cocoa futures on ICE slipped 0.76% to $2,213 a metric tonne while live cattle futures on the CME. The pound was sent reeling by reports over the weekend that the Prime Minister was set to announce the next day that the UK was willing to leave the European Union's single market and customs union in order to regain control over immigration and escape from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Although it had been known for some time that the UK might go that far if needed, and despite Brexit Secretary David Davis saying Britain might pursue a transition phase, the pound shuddered lower, approaching its post-Brexit lows at one point in the session. As of 1654 GMT cable was trading 1.11% lower and changing hands at 1.2052, while euro/dollar was off by 0.34% at 1.0600 and US dollar/yen was retreating 0.41% to 114.10. Mays spokesperson told Reuters on Monday that the report was speculation. In overnight trade, cable hit an intra-session low of 1.1986. That was it lowest mark since 7 October, when it plumbed 1.1841, its weakest since 1985. Depleted trading volumes as a result of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday likely contributed to moves in FX markets. Nevertheless, implied levels of volatility were also notably higher as traders looked to hedge the risk of sharp swings in Sterling should the High Court decision on Brexit, due out over the next month, come in against Westminster. "We dont want the EU to fail, we want it to prosper politically and economically, and we need to persuade our allies that a strong new partnership with the UK will help the EU to do that," Davis said. On a more combative note, the Chancellor said that if pressed the UK would take all measures necessary to remain competitive. In the background, at least one newspaper pointed out how US President-elect Donald Trump's offer of a fast-track deal for the UK might have strengthened Britain's hand in negotiations with the European Union. The US dollar spot index was edging higher by 0.24% to 101.58. South Korean authorities are seeking an arrest warrant for Jay Y Lee , the de-facto head of the Samsung group, in relation to an ongoing corruption scandal in the country. In December, the South Korean tech giant admitted to donating around 16m to organisations linked to the key person-of-interest in the case, Choi Soon-sil. Lee is the heir apparent to the Samsung group, and a co-vice chair of Samsung Electronics, the world's largest maker of smartphone and tablet devices. "The special prosecutor's office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the countrys economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence," a spokesman for prosecutors said on Monday. A district court in central Seoul will open a hearing into the case on Wednesday, and will decide whether or not the prosecutors' request will be granted. Lee admitted that Samsung had given money to help the equestrian career of Choi's daughter, including the purchase of a horse valued at around $850,000. Samsung has been accused by authorities in the country of giving large donations to non-profit foundations operated by Choi. She has been charged with coercion, bribery and attempted fraud. Choi is a long-time associate of the country's former president Park Geun-hye, who was impeached last December after being accused of making decisions based on the interest of her friend. US car-maker Ford Motor Co. has announced a redesign of its popular F-150 Jeep series just two years after the launch of the newest version of the vehicle. Ford has invested heavily in larger vehicles following a record sales year in 2016, with the F series being one of the most popular in the United States. The redesign will include tweaks such as a new front-end grille, bolder seat colours and a new diesel engine. In a press release the Detroit-based company also announced its "City of Tomorrow" plan which includes the investment of $4.5bn in the design and build of 13 new electric vehicles. Chief executive officer Mark Fields said the move would bring the company ahead of others in the realm of new vehicles. "This year, the expansion of our business as an auto and mobility company moves into even higher gear," Fields said. "We're introducing even more new vehicles and technologies to make life better for millions of people in the near term, plus we're presenting a vision and partnering with cities to move more people even more efficiently in the future." Executive chairman Bill ford added that the ambitious City of Tomorrow project would encompass everything from autonomous driving to ride sharing. "By solving the mobility challenge, we have the chance to create a better world for future generations. Its both an exciting opportunity and a big responsibility," he said. Ben Bernanke , the former head of the US Federal Reserve, has dismissed claims from president-elect Donald Trump that China is a currency manipulator. Bernanke served as head of the Fed between 2006 and 2014, overseeing the global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent bailout deal with the biggest banks in the US. Trump has previously accused China of manipulating the yuan in order to gain trade advantages over other nations. He also threatened to introduce a 45% tariff on Chinese exports into America. "One of the things the candidate said he would do was label China a currency manipulator, which means that China is keeping its currency artificially low in order get an advantage in exports," Bernanke said at the UBS Wealth Insights conference in Singapore. "Of course, China right now is working very hard to keep the renminbi from falling. So it's a little bit inconsistent." The yuan fell to an eight-year low in the aftermath of Trump's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton, as the prospect of a trade conflict became more likely. Bernanke affirmed however that he did not expect a hugely significant change in US-China trade relations as Trump takes over the Oval Office on Friday. "It is a dangerous thing to try to interfere too much with our trade and I'm hopeful that this will be a very cautious process," he said. Trump's incoming administration contains distinctive voices on trade, with some subscribing to a kinder view on global trade than others. The former Fed boss believes that this will cause plenty of "internal dissension". "I think what we're going to see is a lot of internal dissension, where different points of view are fighting it out within the administration and the president is sort of broadcasting to the public what he's thinking in the moment," Bernanke said. "So there's a lot of uncertainty." Chicagoans Rally To Fight GOP Effort To Repeal Affordable Care Act By aaroncynic in News on Jan 16, 2017 4:01PM Tracy Trovato tells the story of how the Affordable Care Act helped her family weather the financial storm of her husband's fight to survive his battle with Leukemia. Hundreds gathered at a rally in East Pilsen on Sunday to denounce President Elect Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The two-hour event included speeches from recipients of President Barack Obamas landmark legislation, representatives from labor and health care organizations and Illinois politicians including U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and more. Republicans have promised to repeal the ACA, also known as Obamacare, since Trump won the election in November. They took their first steps earlier this month via budgetary votes in Congress that allow for parts of the healthcare law to be rolled back. Over the weekend, the President Elect told the Washington Post that his plans to replace it, which neither he or any other Republicans have provided any details on whatsoever, would provide insurance for everybody. If you have ever had a moment in your life when you were a father of a sick daughter and had no health insurance, youll remember it as long as you live, said Durbin. I was that father. God forbid anyone else would have to live through this wondering if your daugther was going to get the medical care she absolutely needed. Durbin said that some 1.2 Illinoisans could lose their health insurance, roughly ten percent of the states population. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who said that a new study shows that Illinois could also lose more than 117,000 jobs in 2019 and $33 billion federal dollars, called on Gov. Bruce Rauner to rebuke the repeal. Where is Governor Rauners voice? He should be shouting from the rooftops of all his houses, she told the crowd. "Gov Rauner should be shouting from the rooftops of all his houses" - @RepSchakowsky #twill pic.twitter.com/Mt2jz802yU Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) January 15, 2017 The rally was one of many held across the country Sunday, where politicians spoke alongside those who would be affected by the sudden loss of their healthcare. "Two months after aging into Medicare, I got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer," Scott Gledhill told the Tribune at a rally in Bowie, Maryland. "My bill would have been half a million dollars. I would have lost everything I had, after a whole lifetime of work and saving." "Our job today is to defend the ACA," Vermont Senator and former candidate for the Democratic nominee for president Bernie Sanders said at a Michigan rally that drew 10,000. "Our job tomorrow is to bring about a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system." There is nothing in the world that can prepare you to hear the words its Leukemia, said Tracy Trovato, who told the audience about her husbands battle surviving the cancer. Cancer is expensive. I knew that when I called our insurance company and asked whether this awful disease could bankrupt us. That day I learned some of the sweetest words an insurance representative can say - no maam, you dont have a lifetime cap anymore, President Obama took care of that. Wolfgang Schauble , the German finance minister, has warned US president-elect Donald Trump that protectionist trade policies will cause long-term damage to the global economy. Trump will move into the White House on Friday after a successful election campaign in which he promised to rip up trade agreements with the likes of China and Mexico. Schauble, one of Germany's most influential lawmakers, also told Trump to tread carefully in how he approaches matters with Russian president Vladimir Putin. "Whoever wants growthand I trust this administration will be a growth-friendly onemust be in favour of open markets," Schauble said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. "Protectionism can afford short-term advantages but is almost always damaging in the long term." On Russia, the German politician said that the conclusion of intelligence agencies that Russia attempted to influence the result of the election was a serious issue which needed to be monitored. "We must counter these attempts to influence through defamation and lies and false news," he added. Trump gave an interview to the Times newspaper on Sunday in which he threatened Germany with a 35% tariff on cars imported into the United States, as well as saying that he would deal with Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a similar level when he takes office. He attacked Merkel's government's immigration policies, referring to them as a "catastrophic mistake". "I have great respect for her, I felt she was a great leader, I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all these illegals and taking all these people where ever they come from and nobody really knows where they come from," Trump said. The global economy was set to accelerate over the next two years but there were uncertainties around exactly what policies the US would put in place and several emerging market economies were now seen growing more slowly, the International Monetary Fund said. In an update of its October 2016 World Economic Outlook forecasts, the IMF said global gross domestic product would expand at a 3.4% clip in 2017 and by 3.6% in 2018, which was unchanged from its prior projections. The new set of forecasts included assumptions for a changed policy mix in the States and a higher price of oil, the Fund said. However, advanced economies were now seen expanding slightly more quickly and emerging ones, where financial conditions have generally tightened, a tad more slowly. Among the former, the IMF now expected saw the US growing at a pace of 2.5% in 2018, which was four tenths of a percentage point more than previously expected. In parallel, the UK was seen growing 1.4% in that year, versus a prior forecast of 1.7%. That was more than offset by an upwards revision to the IMFs 2017 projection from 1.1% to 1.5%. Italy on the other hand was now seen growing less in both 2017 and 2018, by 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively, instead of by 0.9% and 1.1%. Emerging market and developing economies would grow by 4.5% and 4.8% over those same two year, with the former being one tenth of a percentage point less than previously anticipated. Growth expectations for the Asean-5 and India in 2017 were marked down, as well as those for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East for both years. Saudi Arabia fared particularly poorly, with the Funds economists new forecasts calling for an expansion of 0.4% and 2.3%, which were 1.6 and 0.3 percentage points than the IMF said in October. At 0.2%, Brazils economy was now seen expanding 0.3 percentage points less quickly in 2017. Mexico would also grow 0.6 percentage points less in both years, with GDP increasing 1.7% and 2.0%. On a more positive note, the forecast for Chinese GDO growth in 2017 was revised from 6.2% to 6.5%. Despite its markdown for India, the Subcontinent was still seen clocking in with growth of 7.2% and 7.7% over the same time horizon. European stocks remained in the red, with car makers losing out as investors digested comments from US President-elect Donald Trump. At midday, the Stoxx Europe 600 index and Germanys DAX fell 0.70%, while Frances CAC 40 was 0.66% lower. Meanwhile oil prices edged lower as traders looked ahead to production data released by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Wednesday to check if member states have met the production targets set in an agreement signed last year. West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude fell 0.4% to $52.18 and $55.22 per barrel respectively. The pound fell below $1.20 for the first time since the October flash crash following a Sunday Times report that Prime Minister Theresa May will indicate in her speech on Tuesday that she plans to pursue a hard Brexit and quit the European Unions single market to gain more control over migration and the countrys laws. Luzdary Hammad, research analyst at FXTM, said: It is becoming quite clear that the persistent Brexit woes and ongoing uncertainty have left the Pound vulnerable to extreme losses with anxiety over a rigid divorce from the European Union exposing the currency to further downside risks in the future. While most anticipate Theresa May to provide some clarity on Tuesday on how the UK plans to move forward with the hard Brexit scenario, there is a threat of the Sterling sinking deeper into the abyss if investors are left empty-handed instead. Meanwhile, US President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to agree a quick trade deal between the US with Britain once it has exited from the European Union. In an interview with Conservative MP and leading Brexiteer Michael Gove for The Times, he said: "I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing. Ill tell you, the fact that your pound sterling has gone down? Great. Because business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the UK." On the data front, the eurozone seasonally adjusted trade balance for November 2016 came in above the consensus of 22bn at a surplus of 25.9bn, up from 22.9bn in November 2015. Pantheon Macroeconomics said: The headline looks great, but it only partially reverses the sharp fall in October. The higher surplus was chiefly a result of a 3.3% month-to-month jump in exports due to strong performance in Germany and France. Our estimates for Q4 net trade in these two economies suggest that net exports in the Eurozone as a whole provided a moderate boost to quarter-on-quarter GDP growth. In corporate news, German luxury fashion house Hugo Boss was in the green despite recording a slight fall in fourth-quarter sales, confirming its outlook for lower full-year profits. It did however say that it expected operating profits in March to reach the upper end of its forecast. Italian eyewear designer Luxottica and French lens maker Essilor rallied after the two companies announced a merger worth about 46bn. Fund manager Ashmore advanced as it said it was confident of a strong 2017 despite a drop in quarterly assets under management. On the downside, car makers BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler skidded after Trump said in an interview with Germanys Bild newspaper that cars manufactured in Mexico would be taxed 35% if exported to the US. "I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the US without a 35% tax then you can forget that," said Trump. Swedish clothing retailer H&M was on the back foot after it reported a 6% jump in year-on-year sales in December, which was the slowest pace since September and weaker than expected. Royal Bank of Scotland was weaker after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to neutral from buy on valuation grounds and removed the stock from its Pan-Europe Buy List. Vodafone was also under pressure after HSBC cut its rating to hold from buy and trimmed the price target to 240p from 270p. German insurer Allianz has said it is in the market for "big takeovers" around Europe and in the US. Chief executive Oliver Baete told daily newspaper Suddeutschen Zeitung the focus in Europe was on property insurance, investment management and credit insurance. He refused to comment on reports Allianz was interested in Swiss rival Zurich. "Only a big takeover would help us. Buying smaller companies does not make sense for us," Baete said, in a translation by Reuters. "We would have to look at who would be a good match for us, who has a clean balance sheet, and is affordable," he added. The power sharing government in Northern Ireland has collapsed and an election will follow after Sinn Fein refused to nominate a replacement for Martin McGuinness, who resigned from his position as Deputy First Minister a week ago. McGuinness stood down from his position in response to the First Minister Arlene Foster's botched handling of the Renewable Heat Incentive, also citing other actions such as the DUP's Paul Givan's decision to cut funding for the Irish language. After his resignation, Sinn Fein had seven days to nominate a replacement before the institutions would be dissolved and elections ensued. Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire is expected to call for an election, which will take place in the next few months. The RHI scheme was set up in 2012 with the goal of rewarding businesses, which use renewable energy, but serious flaws in its implementation led to an overspend of an estimated 490m. Foster criticised the actions of Sinn Fein on Monday as the clock ticked down on its seven-day period, saying that the population of Northern Ireland does not want an election. "They have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland's future and stability and which suits nobody but themselves," Foster said. Sinn Fein assembly member Michelle O'Neill echoed many of the sentiments expressed by McGuinness in his letter of resignation, referring to the "arrogance" and "disrespect" shown by the DUP. "Sinn Fein will only be part of institutions which work and deliver for all in the community," she said. "There can be no return to the status quo. If something is broken, you stop and you fix it." 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. Bicycle advocates want more protected lanes as Columbus develops plan Columbus bicycle advocates want more protected bike lanes for safety as city embarks on new bikeways plan. Statewide Lead Testing Mandate For Schools & Day Care Signed Into Law By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 16, 2017 5:46PM Glass of water (photo via [cipher] on Flickr All Illinois elementary schools and daycares will be required to test drinking water sources for lead per a bill that was signed into law on Monday by Gov. Bruce Rauner. Rauner praised the law as a bipartisan, necessary corrective measure. Today is about our future, about making sure our students are not exposed to lead poisoning," Rauner said, via ABC7. "This shows what is possible when we work together. It is a step in protecting our children from the devastating effects of lead exposure." School buildings built before 1987 that host pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade classes will be required to finish testing by years end. Newer building must complete testing by the end of next year. This is critical. We know that any source of lead in the bloodstream, particularly for kids, is highly problematic, sponsor state Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, said on Tuesday, according to the Sun-Times. And this way we will know now that we are protecting our kids from ingesting any lead. A pilot-program test of Chicago Public Schools sinks and fountains was launched last year in the wake of the Flint, Michigan contamination crisis. The test found more than 350 water sources with lead levels that exceeded federal thresholds. Chicago is believed to have more lead service pipe lines than any other city in the country. Lead contamination in nearby East Chicago, Indiana has prompted government officials to seek the relocation of some 1,000 residents. The Chicago Park District disabled hundreds of park drinking fountains last October after tests showed higher levels of lead than allowed by EPA standards. Children are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning. "Even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems," according to the Mayo Clinic. "Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect mental and physical development." Protesters Knit Up A Statement As The Pussyhat Project Takes Chicago By Stephen Gossett in News on Jan 16, 2017 9:52PM Pussyhat Project / Facebook Thousands of people are expected to demonstrate downtown on Saturday, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump, at the massive Womens March on Chicago. When protesters gather to make a statement against the incoming administrations threats to womens rights, health care and myriad other issues, theyll have a sartorial statement to match: the pussyhata pink knit show of solidarity that knitters in Chicago have been working furiously to produce. Lynne Coe, owner of Knit 1, just wrapped up a week of formally hosting knit-ins at her shop in North Center, providing materials and a gathering space for those looking to stitch together a visual representation of the cause. As many as 65 people filled the shop on Sunday, Coe said, knitting out the now iconic ears-up pattern. (The design specs are available here.) The reaction was overwhelming, as nearby businesses like Big Bricks chipped in, donating pizzas, unprompted, or stopping by with seats and stools. Nobody in the neighborhood [reacted in a way] other than enormously positive, Coe told Chicagoist. The outpouring of action reminded Coe, 58, of the 1960s social-justice surge, when everybody was united behind the cause either for civil rights or against the Vietnam War or for voting rights. The knit-ins crowds were a diverse group, including several men, who felt motivated to respond in a positive way to the incoming Trump administration. The demand was so high that Coe had to enlist the help of a neighborhood friend who dyes yarn just to keep up with the weekends demand. In fact, supplies were so sought-after that Knit 1 is now booked for reservations for hats through the week. But interested parties can still be a part of their contribution to the pussyhat vision. A group is meeting at the store on Saturday at 9 a.m. then taking the CTA downtown to the Womens March. Like the organizers themselves, Coe said she hopes the march becomes a jumping-off point for broader, sustained activism, feeding off the energy this election has created. Tickets for U2s forthcoming Croke Park concert, which went on sale this morning, were sold out in a short time with many tickets already appearing on resale websites at significantly inflated prices. The news of the sold out concert, which will celebrate the release of the Joshua Tree album, and the subsequent resale prices prompted an outpouring of anger from fans. Fans took to social media to voice their disappointment at not being able to purchase tickets online. Seatwave, a reselling service, is currently listing the average price of tickets being resold through the site as 319.91 and some individual tickets, that cost less than 100 originally, are now being advertised for over 1,000. Early indications are their will not be a second concert in Dublin as the venue is one of the largest the group will play to on their current tour. If you have been lucky or unlucky in getting a ticket for the much anticipated concert please let get in touch with reporter eamonn.mcfadden@donegaldemocrat.com or 074 91 88213 Practice makes perfect when it comes to preparing a dog for competition. The AKC Obedience/Conformation Match held Sunday at the Houston County Farm Center cow barn was an opportunity for owners to put their dogs in an informal and educational dog show environment. This is what these matches are for, to get them in a show-type environment and put them in the ring with their dog with a judge, Jim Chambers, president of the Southeast Alabama Kennel Club, said. Conformation and obedience are two elements in judging. Each breed the AKC registers has a standard a word description of the perfect dog of that breed. The standard describes the dogs looks, movement and temperament, according to the AKC website. Breeders involved with each breed are attempting to produce a dog that most closely conforms to the breed standard. The purpose behind dog shows officially known as conformation showings is to evaluate breeding stock. The dogs conformation his overall appearance and structure is an indication of the dogs ability to produce quality purebred puppies, according to the AKC. Thats why mixed-breeds and spayed or neutered purebreds are not eligible to compete. The conformation judging on Sunday was open to AKC-registered dogs only, but the obedience judging was open to AKC and mixed-breed dogs. Chambers conducts obedience classes twice a year. The classes teach people how to train a dog. The training begins when the dog is three months old or so, Chambers said. It involves teaching basic commands like sit and come. In the beginning its really short, maybe 10- to 15-minute sessions, because you want your dog to enjoy what theyre doing, Kim Brackin, a local trainer who worked the match on Sunday, said. And then later on you can train a little bit longer once they understand what theyre doing. Early instruction emphasizes the basics. Just get them used to basic commands and show them how to respond to you when you tell them to do something, Chambers said. Training often involves demonstrations. You have to show the dog and tell them at the same time, Chambers said. Conformation training for handlers includes learning ring procedures and how to set up, move and display the dog. The AKC has seven groups of dogs and each breed is assigned to a group, Chambers said. They compete in breed first, he said. If they win breed, then they go to the group ring. If they win their group, then they go to best in show. Sundays match fee was $8 per entry, much lower than the daily fee owners pay to enter a show. The match was conducted much like a show. They have a judge in the ring that is actually grading them, Chambers said. Of course theyre pretty lenient, and theyll let them try things two or three times to get it right. Owners were allowed to use the rings for practice before the judging started. A match gets dogs used to the kind of environment they will encounter at a show. Competing on the show circuit can be expensive, Chambers said. Because shows are held in various locations, you need to draw a line on how far you want to travel. Besides entry fees are fuel, lodging, food and other expenses. Chambers and his wife have been involved in shows since the late 1980s and he said its a good hobby. The show Chambers club helps host in Perry, Ga., has about 1,200 dogs. The show hes going to in Atlanta at the end of the month has about 2,400 dogs. Its a big show, he said. Home Four wheelers 2017 Tokyo Auto Salon: Honda Civic Type R Makes Asian Premiere oi-Sreejith Honda's concept hatch Civic Type R Prototype has made its Asian Premiere at the 2017 Tokyo Auto Salon. This prototype is adorned with red accents and the interior is also embellished with the same colour scheme. {photo-feature} Most Viewed Car Photo Gallery Lamborghini has always made cars which look absolutely astonishing and manic. The new raging bull, the Aventador S also follows the tradition. Check our photo gallery of this V12 powered masterpiece. Home Four wheelers Datsun redi-GO: The Reason Behind The Success Story Of India's First Urban Crossover oi-Dennis James Japanese carmaker @DatsunIndia added a new car to its lineup in India's entry-level car segment on June 7,2016 by launching the redi-GO, the nation's first Urban Crossover. With prices starting at just Rs 2.38 lakh ex-showroom (Delhi), the new #rediGO proved to be an instant hit with customers from both urban and rural areas who pre-booked the car. {photo-feature} Home Four wheelers Spy Pics: 2017 Honda City Facelift Spotted At Dealership Yard Launch Imminent? oi-Dennis James The facelifted Honda City has been spotted once again at a dealership yard in its top-spec ZX guise ahead of its launch. The 2017 Honda City is expected to go on sale in India later this month. {photo-feature} Via AutosArena Clarinetist Wang Tao has just released his first classical album, Schubert, and will start a national tour in March. [Photo provided to China Daily] Clarinetist Wang Tao is very excited these days. He recently released his first classical album, Schubert, which he says is a milestone. "This is the best album I have released. I feel like a retired athlete who has got an opportunity to take part in the Olympic Games," the clarinetist says in Beijing. "I am so excited to release a classical album with the renowned Deutsche Grammophon label." Despite his modesty, Wang is no underachiever. The clarinetist, who has won many titles and awards, is the first musician in China to receive a master's degree in clarinet from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, a top music school in the country. He also has 10 crossover albums that are used as teaching material at the conservatory, and he has won a best instrumental-album award from the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan. For the new album, Wang selected some of Schubert's most beautiful melodies from both vocal and instrumental works and arranged them for clarinet, including Auf dem Wasser zu singen (To Sing On The Water), D. 774, Ave Maria (Ellen's Gesang) D. 839, and An die Musik (To Music), D.547. He also adapted Schubert's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano In A Minor, D. 821, a piece Wang had listened to hundreds of times as a student. Swiss pianist and harpsichordist Michel Kiener joined Wang to record the new album at the Salle de Musique of La Chaux-de-Fonds, a famous concert hall in Switzerland. The collaboration with Kiener, who was awarded the first prize at the Brudges International Harpsichord Contest in 1977 and teaches at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, was both a challenge and source of inspiration for Wang. "Both of us had our own ideas about Schubert's music. One day, we stopped recording and drove two hours to a lake. The lake sparkled under the sun as we talked for a long time," says Wang. "I usually exaggerate the emotion in the music, but he told me that even the sadness should be beautiful." So, in September 2016, Wang visited Schubert's grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery, where he also found the graves of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms. "When I was told that Schubert was first buried next to Beethoven, whom he had admired all his life, in the village cemetery at Wahring, Vienna, I also went there and spent a few hours there," says Wang. Wang, who is married to former Olympic gymnastics champion Liu Xuan and is the father of a 2-year-old son, considers the album to be a reflection of his life. Born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Wang, who is nearly 40, studied the cello and the erhu (a two-stringed bowed instrument) in his childhood besides the clarinet. Ever since he first performed onstage at the age of 9, he wanted to make music his career. In 2011, as a visiting scholar, Wang studied with two-time Grammy-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman as his first Chinese student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, which is among the oldest independent schools of music in the United States. Two years later, Wang returned to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing as a teacher. Speaking about his music career, he says: "The clarinet is not as popular as the piano or the violin in China. So, I didn't have opportunities to play onstage. "I once even thought that my career as a soloist had ended since I could hardly concentrate on my music, which was really frustrating to me." But in 2015, Wang had a turning point when he signed a contract with Universal Music and released a crossover album, Night & Day, featuring 10 tracks with the clarinet in a leading role, supported by pop, rock and jazz. Commenting on that album, Ye Xiaogang, a renowned composer and vice-president of the Central Conservatory of Music, who has known Wang since he was young, then said: "I am proud of him. This album is a new start for him." Ye is the mastermind and driving force behind the Beijing Modern Music Festival, founded in 2002 to promote modern works and support young Chinese musicians. Wang will go on a national tour from March to September to promote the album, with his last stop at Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts. As the war for employee talent heats up, more and more companies are funding graduate management education for their brightest and most senior employees. The main reason for organisations taking this approach is to reduce staff turnover and strategically invest in both the employee and the company. Today, between one-in-five and one-in-ten students at some of Americas largest business schools are studying company-funded Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees. This number is rapidly increasing too, as more online study options emerging onto the global market, which allow employees to study while they work full-time. MBAs go beyond a quick fix they make businesses better While a short business course can offer a quick fix to those who need more leadership or management skills, completing an MBA gives students invaluable insights into a wide range of industries. This is becoming a preferred option for many companies wanting to open up business silos and improve turnover. Many online courses also grade students on their ability to apply their knowledge to the workplace, providing an immediate and measurable return on investment for the company. The Australian Institute of Business is responding to this growing demand by offering flexible MBA options with work-applied methodology. The student can apply each module directly back to their current workplace. Developing skills and proficiency in finance, marketing, leadership, and strategic planning enables employees to do their job considerably better, which in turn benefits the business. How much of MBA fees are subsidised by the company? This question usually depends on the financial situation of the company and the employee in question. Some companies may choose to pay a set amount of tuition fees; others will pay a percentage of the tuition costs, or provide reimbursement on the successful completion of the degree; and some subsidise costs in increments, as the employee successfully completes course modules. Large multi-national companies such as Apple, Google, and Starbucks regularly provide MBA scholarships to their employees. Unfortunately, this isnt always a possibility for smaller businesses, so they may choose to pay for staff education on a case-by-case basis. If the company isnt in a position to finance the degree, they may offer other benefits such as time off, study leave, or a flexible work schedule, particularly around exam and assignment dates. An MBA gives employees a broad scope of business knowledge MBA programmes give employees a generalised understanding of business, including the key elements of finance, accounting, marketing, human resources and operations management. Students can also choose to specialise their degree on a topic of great interest, or their area of professional expertise. MBAs draw from practical case studies and teach students how to solve real business problems and improve their decision-making skills. The degree provides diverse business knowledge and teaches skills that will always be in demand, which can be taken from company to company, role to role, or even used to start a new business. See how Chris Cowley, Managing Director Australasia at Varian Medical Systems, became a better manager after completing his MBA with the Australian Institute of Business. You are here: Home A ceremony is held to mark the shooting of the first IMAX 3D panda documentary "Return To Nature" in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Jan. 10. 2017. [Photo/sc.people.cn] Panda lovers can expect more spectacular views of the bear in cinemas as the first IMAX 3D panda documentary began filming on Tuesday in southwest China's Sichuan Province. "Return To Nature" documents the conservation, breeding and rehabilitation of giant pandas in a breeding base in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, and a research center in Dujiangyan City. Drew Fellman is director of the film. Filming is expected to take nine months. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and Canadian-based IMAX Corporation are cooperating on the film, which is funded by Global Cause Foundation, a U.S. non-profit. Officials from the Chengdu research base said they hope the documentary can help promote protection of giant pandas as well as Chengdu's image as an international tourist destination featuring pandas. The Global Cause Foundation has been working with the Chengdu base for many years and has set up research projects to release pandas to the wild. IMAX Corporation signed a deal with the Chengdu research base to shoot the panda documentary in October 2015. In honor of the Philippines second saint, Eastwood Mall hosts the Pedro Calungsod Art Exhibit which opened today October 22, 2012 just right after his canonization yesterday October 21, 2012. St. Pedro Calungsod exhibit, which will be shown until October 24, 2012, showcases over over 60 paintings and artwork from highly skilled Angono artists, who have interpreted Calungsods likeness and showed him doing his missionary work in the Marianas Islands. The theme of the exhibit is the Evangelizing Presence of Filipinos in the World. While the paintings display the artists individual styles and skills, all of them express Calungsods Filipino-ness and his dynamism. The exhibit was produced as collaboration between the National Commission of the Canonization of Pedro Calungsod and several Angono artists groups like the Angono Ateliers Association, Angono Artists Association, the Neo-Angono Artists and the University of Rizal System-Angono. Heres some of the paintings you can see from the exhibit: Pedro Calungsod with a Spanish Jesuit Missionary. Pedro Calungsod accompanied the missionaries to the Ladrones islands (later renamed the Marianas by the missionaries in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary) to help them in their mission to evangelize the Chamorros. In the second painting, Pedro Calungsod also bears the bible and the crucifix as symbols of his mission to help Christianize the natives of the Ladrones islands. I hope some of you can take time to visit the exhibit and instead of fighting for ownership over St. Pedro Calungsod original birthplace, let us all celebrate his canonization and recognition of another saint from the Philippines, our homeland. Catch the Pedro Calungsod Art Exhibit at the Eastwood Mall Atrium this October 22 24. For inquiries, call the Megaworld Lifestyle Malls Concierge at 709-9888, 709-0888, 0917-8380111 or visit www.megaworldlifestylemalls.com. Its been almost 8 years since the last time Ive visited Hong Kong. I am looking forward to see this city again and see what are the many changes. Ive been there thrice in different occassion, two solo travels and one with my family. We were there when Hong Kong Disneyland Resort just opened and it was a Christmas Holiday travel with the family. Most of these photos were taken the first time I started taking solo trips out-of-the-country or out-of-town during my birthday month. Our first out-of-the-country trip as a family started when my father passed away. It was our way of mourning to cope with our loss. Go away as far as we can from the places we used to celebrate Holidays with my father. Anyway, enough my life drama. My past visits in Hong Kong were all about tourist destinations , exploring the scenery and immersing myself in their culture by visiting their temples and museums. For my next visit what I plan is to have an #Eatsperience. People around the world flock to Hong Kong to experience its rich culinary landscape. I was not that adventurous with food before but now Id try anything (except poisonous ones of course). The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) gave me a list of the must-try eats that will give every traveller in the city an athentic local experience. Here are the 5 Places 5 Dishes to #Eatsperience Hong Kong Like a Local : Hop Yik Tai G/F, 121 Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po For a taste of popular Chinese Dish head on to this Michelin guide-recognized eatery known to serve some of the best cheng fun, or noodle rice roll in the city. Kwan Kee Claypot Rice Shop 10, G/F, Pei Ho Arcade 115-117 Fuk Wa Street, Sham Shui Po This place have been serving delicious claypot rice meals for over 20 years. Choose from a variety of toppings on your delicious saucy and crisp rice, but most recommended is the Chinese Sausage. Perfect time to visit is before 7Om or after 9pm when the crowd dies down. Kei Tsui Cake Shop G/F, 135 Fa Yuen Street Kei Sui is as traditional as a Chinese bakery gets. Dont expect to find your usual cakes here their branches draw in both local and tourist alike for their variety of old-school snacks that have become hard to find in Hong Kong such as egg tarts, chicken biscuit, and sweetheart cakes. Kams Roast Goose G/F, Po Wah Commercial Center, 226 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai This eatery was awarded the Michelin star just months after opening and it is apparent why. Founded by the third successor of the world-famous Yung Kee Goose, Kams serves only the most delicious roast meats like char siu, barbeque pork, suckling pig and goose. The half century-old family recipe has been satisfying customers since 1974, so the wait will be worth it. Sun Kee Noodles Shop B G/F, 49 Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay Locals love card noodles for its affordability, convenience and variety. This street food gained its popularity in 1950s and still remains popular today for Hongkongers looking for a quick ad filling bite to eat. When at Sun Kee, dont miss out on their famous spicy sauce made from their secret recipe. Cant wait to try them out? These mouthwatering #Eatsperience dishes can only be savored in Hong Kong. Get to know more about the culturally-rich city one bite at a time. You may try to get an affordable group/family package at the upcoming Traval Tour Expo at SMX Convention Center this February 10-12, 2017! For more information about Hong Kong visit discoverHongKong.com/best. Stay gorgeous everyone! This movement moment is calling on those of us who believe in the vision of Dr. King to respond. This movement moment is calling on us resist. But, what does resistance look like? In 2014, I published an article in the beloved, but now defunct, Michigan Citizen newspaper called, A Time for Visionary Resistance. In that article, I said in part: We live in a time where those who have the illusion of power attempt to continue their authoritarian rule with increased militarism at home and abroad. We live in a time where those in government and corporate America continue to evade the global environmental crisis, while flip flopping sides on where they stand, leaving the American people to suffer as a result of their indifference. It is no coincidence that we continue to experience this never-ending turmoil in America. America has not been honest with herself when it comes to her identity as a country, her coming into being, or the violence she inflicted and maintains at home and abroad in order to continue to exist in the way that she has since her inception. Many have been harmed and killed by the values carried forward by pursuit of the American Dream. In order for us to transform this country we have to start being honest about what we stand for. In 1964, Dr. King said, It is a question of whether we are making any real progress in the struggle to make racial justice a reality in the United States of America. And whenever I seek to answer that question, on the one hand I seek to avoid and undo pessimism, on the other hand I seek to avoid superficial optimism and I try to incorporate or develop what I consider a realistic position by admitting on the one hand, that we have made many significant strides over the last few years in the struggle for racial justice. But, by admitting that before the problem is solved we still have numerous things to do and many challenges to meet . . .We have come a long, long way, but we have a along long way to go before the problem is solved. It is time that we had very frank conversations about the condition of this country. It is time that we had brave conversations about the fear that sparks racial divide. It is time that we had honest conversations about the individualism that feeds capitalism and its toxic relationship to racism. It is time that we had real conversations about the misinformation perpetuated in the mass media and regurgitated in our homes and our communities about various cultures and identities that incubates ignorance and encourages violence. By 1968, Dr. King was calling on this country to have a radical revolution of values. He was calling on us to do more than build non-profits, coalitions and allegiances. He was calling on us to do more than become allies and good samaritans. Dr. King was calling on us to look inside ourselves, to look at our own humanity and resist a society, a country that would allow so many people to gain wealth at the expense of other people. Of course now we know that it has been at the expense of all living beings. Our land has suffered. Our air has suffered. Our water has suffered. Our humanity has suffered. Right now, we are witnessing within the White House an increased investment in the 1% by President Elect Trump. This is a repeat of what we have witnessed from the top time and time again. It begs the question, what are the rest of us willing to invest in? An exclusive interview with one of the most outspoken champions for the American people in the U.S. House of Representatives. Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee gets it. Hes been fighting for the American people, particularly working families, his entire career. And when it comes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, he understands the human consequences better than most people: His wife has multiple sclerosis and his daughter has diabetes. Both of these conditions are incurable but manageable but without health insurance, these conditions would be life-threatening. So its not just that Rep. Kildee advocates for his constituents, including those who live in Flint. He personally understands whats at stake if the ACA is repealed or dismantled. I spoke with Rep. Kildee after the Save Our Healthcare rally in Warren, Mich. As usual, the Congressman was eloquent and passionate. So Im sharing the interview as it happened, only lightly edited for length and clarity. Help our readers understand the human cost of repealing the ACA. People have had their lives transformed because for the first time ever they dont go to bed every night worrying that their next illness could turn their whole world upside down. I know that Im in a unique position Im fortunate to have a job that has provided me with healthcare but I wonder what my life would be like without it, or what the life of another person in a similar situation would be. My wife has multiple sclerosis and my daughter has diabetes. I worry about it with my daughter because shes going to be 25 in June shes a year away from being on her own [because under the ACA children can stay on their parents insurance until they turn 26]. Is she going to be able to get health insurance to take care of herself? Those stories are numbered in the millions. So when people begin to speak up, I think Republicans are going to have a real awakening. Im sure youre hearing from your constituents who are concerned about losing their health insurance. For them, its not about Oh, those Republicans. Its fear, its anxiety about their loved ones or themselves. Thats the most powerful emotion on the face of the Earth. The worry or concern about caring for a sick child. Its the kind of thing that transforms all political arguments sometimes theyre bigger than that. Even Republican voters are starting to say We didnt vote to have our insurance taken away. Its a very cynical notion that the Republican leadership is clinging to that theyre sort of obligated to vote to repeal when they have no idea what theyre going to replace it with, because they say they promised they would repeal it. Even knowing that it will create chaos, not just in the healthcare world but it will create chaos for people. Isnt it amazing that they dont care about that or that they rationalize that it doesnt matter? Republicans tell themselves that their plan will allow you to keep your child on your insurance until theyre 26, that their plan will prohibit denial over a pre-existing condition, that their plan will not allow you to be kicked off your health insurance if you get sick, that their plan will not kick 20 million people off who, for the first time ever, have the freedom of health insurance that others have enjoyed. Theyre telling themselves that those elements will all be maintained. Theres a simple way to maintain them: Work with us to fix the real problems with the ACA. Dont blow it up. I contacted my representative, Congressman Dave Trott, and explained to his staff that I have diabetes, and without insulin I will die. That I am self-employed and give contract work to others, and without the ACA I might not be able to afford insurance and would have to find a job somewhere instead of being an entrepreneur. His email response said, in part, Obamacare does little to actually protect patients. Its very upsetting that some members of Congress dont seem to understand the law or whats at stake. If a person is born into wealth and has experienced wealth their entire existence, they cant understand why you cant just go buy your insulin, or you cant just go sign up and pay the premium for health insurance. Its not recognized as a fundamental right its actually recognized as one of the consequences of the competition in the economy. Its sad. Something many people dont know is that Democrats dont just want to keep the ACA they want to improve on it. Can you provide an example of how youd do that? Sure. The entire healthcare system is sort of interconnected. So things like allowing Medicare to negotiate for bulk pricing on prescription drugs would bring down costs. Even something as simple as thinking about the imperfections in the structure of the marketplace. The way the health insurance exchanges are set up is sort of uneven. For example and this is not an opinion shared by Republicans, but its true having a public option [a federally run insurance program that would compete with private insurers for consumers business] would change the competition in the marketplace. Republicans will say Thats a step toward government control, but if the marketplace is this perfect environment they say it is, why is the market afraid of competition from what Republicans say is a highly inefficient institution, the federal government? If its so inefficient, it wont compete so lets try it out. But they dont want to deal with it. They just want to blow it up and go back to the way it used to be. They liked it, it worked for them. But it doesnt work for all of us. Something else people dont realize is that repealing the ACA would hurt everyone not just people who bought their coverage through HealthCare.gov. The reality is that this isnt even a question of rich and poor. Its about healthy and sick. And its about people who dont understand that sooner or later, they will have an illness or a family member may have an illness that could change everything. So while its about 20 million people who, for the first time ever, have health insurance, its also about many tens of millions who, before the ACA, walked around with a health insurance card in their wallet and thought they had health insurance. And then they got sick and their insurance got cancelled the falsehood of insurance that no longer exists with the ACA. If my wife and I had to deal with lifetime limits on her coverage, there would come a moment where the medications she takes right now to delay the degenerative nature of her disease would be gone and she would be left with nothing. There are millions of people in this same position. So this idea that many Republicans suggest that things were so much better before the Affordable Care Act the only way it was better is if you were not sick and you were never going to get sick, or you were never going to die, ever. The people of Flint have been facing tough challenges and they are going to have more significant healthcare needs than the average person moving forward because of their toxic exposure to lead. What happens to them if the ACA is repealed? Thats a good question. We were able to get an expansion of Medicaid under the ACA for residents of Flint, for example. What happens when the Republicans take that away? There are human consequences to all these questions. This transcends political ideology. This is such a fundamental question. With all the advantages we have in this country with all the opportunity and the ingenuity and productivity and wealth we have it should be embarrassing that were the only advanced society that doesnt guarantee its citizens access to life-saving treatment or even basic preventive healthcare. Its kind of pathetic. There are a lot of reasons why healthcare costs continue to go up, and one of them has to do with the fact that we are doing amazing things in healthcare. Weve got to accept the fact that those amazing things keep people alive and ease misery. Theyre not free. You cant have a situation where you dont have to make any contribution to help someone else have it, but you can have it when you want it. Thats fundamentally selfish. What can the people of Michigan and the rest of the country do to help the Democrats fight to protect and improve the ACA? Tell your stories about what the law means to you and then ask very tough questions if your member of Congress is not with us. Ask them, What do I do when the health insurance that provides me with insulin or interferon is gone? Can I call you? Will you help me? It has to be about personal stories. We couldnt agree more, Congressman. If you have a story about how the ACA has helped you or your family, tell us about it HERE if youd like to be considered for a future post. Well keep sharing these stories to underscore whats at stake if the law is repealed without a replacement. [Photos courtesy of Congressman Dan Kildees office.] Photos of the two horse relief scupltures at Penn Museum. [Screenshot Photo/Penn Museum website] A Chinese museum in northwest China's Shaanxi Province has openly demanded the return of two horse relief sculptures displayed at a University of Pennsylvania museum. The sculptures were illegally sold overseas. The Zhaoling Museum made its announcement on Jan. 11 via its official WeChat public account, calling on the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) to return the pieces so that the "Zhaoling Liujun," a set of six horse relief sculptures, can be reunited. The six memorialized horses lived during the Tang Dynasty. They were allegedly the favorites of Emperor Taizong, Li Shimin. Together with other decorations and monuments, the six pieces were supposedly placed at the gate of the emperor's tomb. "We believe it is most reasonable for the two horses to be returned to China from the Penn Museum The University of Pennsylvania has long been dedicated to global cultural heritage protection. We hope that the Penn Museum can reach a consensus with China on this issue and make a greater contribution to the protection of the common cultural heritage of human beings," the Zhaoling Museum stated. The other four horse sculptures are currently on display at the Forest of Stone Steles Museum in Shaanxi. Two replicas are standing in for the horses in Pennsylvania. File photo of a stamp collection featuring the "Zhaoling Liujun." [Screenshot Photo/Penn Museum website] Citing archives from the Shanghai Museum, earlier media reports revealed that the two missing pieces were sold for $125,000 to the then-director of Penn Museum by notorious antiques smuggler Lu Qinzhai, after Lu ordered the theft of the sculptures from the tomb. According to the Zhaoling Museum, professional principles dictate that a museum must obtain its exhibited items without any legal burden. It should not purchase relics that have not been reported to authorities, and should assist in the return of improperly obtained articles if permitted by law. For exhibits dating earlier than 1970, museums should be able to prove that its items were acquired through proper channels. "The Penn Museum should not have purchased the two horses, which were obviously excavated after deliberate sabotage that created damage on the [sculptures'] surface. We hereby demand that Penn Museum negotiate a plan to reunite the six horses," the Zhaoling Museum stated. It went on to articulate how the separated art pieces have damaged the completeness of the Zhaoling Liujun, which are best observed in full. The Zhaoling Museum also guaranteed that the two relief sculptures would be under good protection and would be available for viewing by both casual admirers and researchers. The University of Pennsylvania and Penn Museum could not be reached for comment as of press time. It remains to be seen whether they will respond to the call. This was one of 70 rallies across the country today and the first of many actions to come to protect and improve the Affordable Care Act. This was more than a great turnout. The response to the Save Our Healthcare rally in Warren, Michigan, was so overwhelming the event had to be moved to a larger venue than the one originally announced. According to Michigan Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon, 9,000 people RSVPed for the rally. 9,000 is a huge response, Dillon told me. This is a real issue for people they are telling us the Affordable Care Act saved their lives. Its no surprise that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, is saving peoples lives. Ive been telling those stories here for three years. But that isnt stopping Congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump from moving to repeal the law at the first opportunity. I talked to people at the rally about why they were there. Heres what Carl from Warren told me: Im here to support the Progressive movement. Im a retired autoworker, so Im not as worried about myself as I am about others. Im pretty sure this rally is the beginning of something and its imperative that we stand up. Brigitte from Southfield told me she doesnt want to see 11 million kids lose their healthcare if the ACA is repealed. A U.S. Army veteran with a special-needs child, she doesnt want to see veterans lose their healthcare, either. Shawn, a 26-year-old from Pontiac, told me this: Im here because I work over 40 hours a week and I dont get healthcare at work. Obamacare is affordable. I looked around at other options and, without the ACA, I could not afford insurance. Renee, a registered nurse who came all the way from Howell for the rally with one of the coolest signs there, believes everyone has a right to healthcare. Whether its the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid healthcare is important to all of us and we should all have healthcare, she told me. Every industrialized country provides healthcare to its people but us. The time has come to have healthcare for all. Because Im a nurse, Im very aware what peoples needs are and what people go through if they dont have access to healthcare. People end up getting chronically ill or dying because they dont have access to care. Thats just not right in a country such as ours. One of my favorite interviews of the day was with Lauren and Anne, a pediatrician and a family physician who came out to lobby on behalf of their patients, particularly kids with pre-existing conditions including Laurens son, and those who cant speak for themselves or feel disempowered people who are fearful and dont know how to stand up, Anne told me. We want our entire community to have the American Dream, and that starts with health. You can see for yourself how powerful their voices are in this short video: The rally was a star-studded event featuring Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Bernie Sanders, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, and the entire Michigan Democratic Congressional delegation: Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, and Congressional Representatives John Conyers, Sander Levin, Dan Kildee, Brenda Lawrence and Debbie Dingell. Among the speakers were also Michigan citizens who have benefited from the ACA, some in lifesaving ways. I spoke with Senator Gary Peters after the rally, and he had this to say about the human cost of ACA repeal. At my office, were hearing from people who are quite simply afraid. This is about saving lives. Youve got hundreds of thousands of folks who would immediately lose their healthcare coverage if theres straight repeal. These are the people who called my office in tears to thank us when the ACA was passed, saying Now I can get insurance. I have a pre-existing condition. I didnt have the money. Every story was compelling and something that touched them and their family in the most direct way. And now theyre afraid of going backward, so its a scary time. Thats why were here, outside on a cold Sunday morning in Michigan, and we got thousands of people to come out. Rallies are important, but hopefully theyre a catalyst for folks to get out and talk to friends, co-workers and their families, to make phone calls and make their voices heard. The elected officials and leaders at the rally were fired up and their message was loud and clear: We are all in this together. They are fighting for us, and theyre not going to back down, but we all have to stand up, too. They need all of us in the fight with them, rallying our friends and neighbors and letting our elected officials know their jobs are on the line if they dont protect our access to health insurance and healthcare. This was the first day of rallies across the country with many more events and actions planned to protect the ACA and other hard-won rights Congressional Republicans and President-elect Trump want to take away. Check out the hashtag #OurFirstStand on social media to see some of what went on in Michigan and across the country. Follow the Michigan Democratic Party on Facebook to stay updated on the next steps to protect the ACA and more. And check out my interview with Congressman Dan Kildee, who I also spoke to after the rally. Has Obamacare helped you or someone in your family? Tell us about it HERE if youd like to be considered for a future post. Well keep sharing these stories to underscore whats at stake if the law is repealed without a replacement. Wish you could have been at the rally? The Michigan Democratic Party streamed it live and you can watch the recast here. 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Japanese whalers cover their crimes with a mock body bag. Sea Shepherd Global / Glenn Lockitch The Nisshin Maru was spotted by the helicopter of Sea Shepherds MY Steve Irwin at 12:34 a.m. GMT Sunday, at a position of 64 57.6S 085 09.6E, within the Australian Whale Sanctuary. When the helicopter approached, the Nisshin Maru crew scrambled to hide the slaughtered whale with a tarp, while the fleets harpoon ships Yushin Maru and Yushin Maru #2 quickly covered their harpoons. The whale killers from the Nisshin Maru were caught red-handed slaughtering whales in the Australian Whale sanctuary, said Captain Adam Meyerson of the Ocean Warrior, Sea Shepherds newest Southern Ocean patrol ship. The Steve Irwin has shut down their illegal operations and caught them trying to hide the evidence. Crew of the Yushin Maru scramble to cover their harpoon. Sea Shepherd Global / Glenn Lockitch These are the first photographs documenting the Japanese whaling fleets killing of whales since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled their whaling program illegal in 2014 and the Australian Federal Court found the Japanese whaling industry in contempt for killing protected whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherds discovery of the factory ship and the slaughtered whale comes just a day after Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Australia on an official state visit. The lack of action by the Turnbull government while whales are being killed in Australian waters just a day after Japans Prime Minister was on a state visit in Australia shows that the government has no spine when it comes to protecting the wishes of Australians to defend the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, Jeff Hansen, managing director of Sea Shepherd Australia, said. Protected Antarctic minke whale about to be dismembered on the deck of the factory whaling ship, Nisshin Maru. Sea Shepherd Global / Glenn Lockitch Sea Shepherds helicopter has relayed the whaling fleets position to the MY Steve Irwin, now on an intercept course with the factory ship. No more whales will be killed today. The fact that the Japanese crew went to cover up their harpoons and the dead minke whale on deck just shows that they know what theyre doing is wrong, said Captain Wyanda Lublink of the MY Steve Irwin. They know they are in contempt of the ruling of the International Court of Justice and the Australian Federal Court. How can the Australian government ignore these actions when the majority of Australians condemn what they are doing? Republican lawmakers in Wyoming have introduced a bill that would block the use of renewable energy in the state. If passed, utilities that use wind or solar to produce power for Wyoming residents would be penalized with a costly fine of $10-per-megawatt-hour. Under Senate File 71, only six resourcescoal, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, natural gas, and net metering systems such as rooftop solar or backyard wind projectsare considered eligible generating resources. Electric utilities will have one year to be 95 percent compliant with the approved resources and 100 percent compliant by 2019. As InsideClimate News pointed out, the bill was filed last Tuesday on the first day of the Wyomings 2017 legislative session. Its sponsors, who largely come from top coal counties, include climate change deniers such as Rep. Scott Clem who once said, I dont believe that CO2 is a pollutant, and am furious of the EPAs overreach. How deeply embedded are the Koch brothers in the Trump administration? @EcoWatchs take: https://t.co/ExLEOYsiE9 EDF (@EnvDefenseFund) January 11, 2017 Wyoming is by far the nations largest coal producer and a major producer of natural gas and crude oil. But the state also has some of the best on-shore wind resources the U.S., with wind power constituting 8 percent of the states energy. Still, Wyoming has waged a quasi-war on wind. Wyoming is the only state in the country that taxes wind energy production, and a proposed tax increase has effectively stalled a Wyoming power companys plans to build the largest wind farm in the country. Like most of the wind power already generated by the state, the power generated by the massive Carbon County wind farm will head to other states. While this new bill would allow out-of-state wind power sales to continue, it certainly discourages future renewable energy development. Wyoming is a great wind state and we produce a lot of wind energy, bill co-sponsor Rep. David Miller explained to InsideClimate News about the motivation behind the bill. We also produce a lot of conventional energy, many times our needs. The electricity generated by coal is amongst the least expensive in the country. We want Wyoming residences to benefit from this inexpensive electrical generation. We do not want to be averaged into the other states that require a certain [percentage] of more expensive renewable energy, Miller continued. Miller, however, is not confident the bill will pass, putting its chances at 50 percent or less. Still, Republicans overwhelmingly outnumber Democrats 51-9 in the state House and 27-3 in the Senate. Opponents have called the bill baffling, as renewable energy is becoming cheaper and out-performing fossil fuels on a large scale. Why would [legislators] try to drag down solar and wind, two potentially successful industries that could make a home in the state? editors at the Casper Star-Tribune asked, adding that the lawmakers are shutting out potential sources of revenue. Others have remarked that this law is completely unsound and even unprecedented. It would be very difficult to implement, difficult to regulate, Shannon Anderson, lawyer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, told the Star-Tribune. It goes against longstanding precedent to choose least-cost resources, and it ignores the reality of a multi-state grid. Anderson also told InsideClimate News, I havent seen anything like this before. This is essentially a reverse renewable energy standard. (Photo: REUTERS / Max Rossi)(L-R) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Pope Francis, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the Orthodox Christians, arrive at the Vatican Gardens to pray together in the Vatican June 8, 2014. Opening a diplomatic mission to the Vatican, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has warned that moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv would "not help the peace process. Pope Francis met with Abbas at the Vatican on Jan. 14 in a private meeting before the Palestinian leader headed to inaugurate the diplomatic mission. It is located in a building facing the Vatican that also houses the embassies of Peru and Burkina Faso. "I met with His Holiness. The Vatican has fully recognized Palestine as an independent State, I hope that other States take their example from the Holy See," Abbas later told journalists. Their meeting was the day before senior diplomats from world powers gathered in Paris to affirm their stance on peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians were invited to the meeting. About 75 governments and international organizations used the meeting to send a message to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that the only viable solution to the conflict is the creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel. Noting that a new administration was poised to take power in Washington, French President Francois Hollande said that decades of talks to create a Palestinian state can't be "improvised or overturned." "This solution is the only one possible for peace and security," Hollande said during the meeting. The Paris conference marks another flashpoint over Israel between the international community and Trump, who has vigorously backed the Israeli government since winning the election, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump's team objected to the conference in talks with French diplomats ahead of the meeting, a French official involved in the discussions said. "They made it clear that they did not think it was a good idea," the official said. The Trump transition team couldn't be immediately reached for comment. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was at the Pairs meeting, one of his last before handing over control of U.S. diplomacy to the Trump team. Earlier, the Vatican had released a statement on Israel after the papal meeting. It noted, "Hope was expressed that direct negotiations between the parties may be resumed to bring an end to the violence that causes unacceptable suffering to civilian populations, and to find a just and lasting solution." AFP reported that in brief words with journalists, Abbas said he remains opposed to Trump's pledge about the possible transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. "We cannot say anything yet because it has not happened, but if this does happen it will not help the peace process. I hope it will not happen," said Abbas, speaking in Arabic. CHURCH IN PALESTINIAN SOCIETY The Vatican statement after the meeting said that both parties "evoked the existing good relations between the Holy See and Palestine, sealed by the Global Agreement of 2015, which regards essential aspects of the life and activity of the Church in Palestinian society." It said that in this context, mention was made of the important contribution of Catholics to favouring the promotion of human dignity and assistance for those most in need, especially in the fields of education, health and aid. Among the gifts exchanged, Abbas offered the pontiff a stone from the Church of the Holy Sepulchwe in Jerusalem, according to Greg Burke, spokesman for the Holy See, Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. The private meeting between Francis and Abbas was their third audience. The Pope visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2014 and Abbas made a trip to the Vatican the following year for the canonization of two Palestinian nuns. Less than half of white-collar workers in China said they expect to receive a year-end bonus for 2016, according to a recent report by the Chinese human resources website zhaopin.com. About 39 percent of professionals surveyed said they received a year-end bonus, with 9.6 percent responding that their employer promised to pay the bonus after Chinese New Year. Among workers who expect a year-end bonus, over 95 percent said they will be paid in cash and nearly 10 percent that they would receive goods instead. The average score for year-end bonus satisfaction was 2.18 out of a possible 5 in 2016, remaining low but better than the 2.07 score in 2015. It shows most white-collar workers are not satisfied, the report said. Employees at state-owned enterprises were more satisfied with their year-end bonus compared with workers at private or overseas companies. Those working in the finance sector said they can get 17,000 yuan ($2,464) at the year end on average, which topped other industries, with the average figure at 12,821 yuan. White-collar workers in Beijing and Shanghai topped the list with year-end bonuses of 15,846 yuan and 14,640 yuan on average, followed by Shenzhen at 14,605 yuan and Hangzhou at 13,765 yuan. Worker satisfaction with year-end bonuses may affect their career decisions in the new year, the report said. Thirty-nine percent of white-collar workers said they would consider changing jobs because of their bonus, a rate higher than in 2015. The report also said over 41 percent plan to use the year-end bonus to buy gifts for the elderly, followed by 36.5 percent for saving, 28.3 percent for investment and 26 percent for shopping. 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. Beaver County preparing for robust Election Day turnout As the Nov. 8 midterm election approaches, nearly 114,000 people are registered to vote in Beaver County. Xie Wanqing, 61, a farmer in Longxian, Shaanxi Province, became deeply attached to a Hongmei-brand camera in 1978, and married his wife, An Guiqin, in 1980. The former has given him more than 20,000 photos, while the latter has produced two daughters and a son with him. Xie Wanqing brings a cow to drink the water at the bottom of a trench near his home in Longxian, Shaanxi Province, on Jan. 5, 2017, with a Sea Gull camera hung on his neck. [Huo Yan / China.org.cn] Xie finally managed to lift his family out of poverty last year by planting trees. However, he thinks photography raised him out of spiritual poverty a long time ago. When the reporter met Xie on a cold winter's morning in his village, he was bringing his cows to drink water at the bottom of a trench in the loess plateau, with an old-fashioned Sea Gull 4B camera hung around his neck in a most inopportune manner. "I was pasturing cows when I saw camera for the first time in 1969," he recalled. At 14 years of age, he came across a young man from Xi'an, or an educated youth as they were called during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), who was drawing pictures on the mountain slope, with a Hongmei 120 camera beside him. Xie had never seen a camera before and was extremely interested in the "magic" machine. The young man invited Xie to take a photo of him while he was painting, and patiently taught the boy how to operate the camera. At the moment Xie pressed the shutter, the snapping sound penetrated the innocent boy's heart and soul. "It was from that moment that I decided to have a camera of my own," he said. Xie worked hard for the commune to earn money. The income from cattle pasturing was too low, however. In the late 1970s, the government implemented new policies determining that "the more you work, the more you earn," ending the former rigid equalitarianism. Xie went to work on construction sites undertaking the heaviest work. "Some chronic diseases of today developed at that time," he added ruefully. In 1978, he finally accumulated 70 yuan (US$9), and went to buy camera in the county department store. However, the Hongmei 120 camera was priced at 74 yuan. He went to the store many times to bargain with the store manager. The 23-year-old farmer's sincerity finally touched the manager, who agreed to sell the camera at 70 yuan. It had taken him nine years to realize his first camera purchase dream. During that time, Xie, who had only spent four years in primary school, never ceased thinking, pondering what to photograph, how to shoot and develop a film. Although he still lived a farmer's life, what he thought was obviously quite different from his fellow villagers. Buying films became a practical problem. A roll of film cost about one yuan. To save money, he walked 34 kilometers to the county seat to save the bus fare, and ate only one meal a day on the journey to buy films. He bought a book "Introduction to Photography," which became his bible in the years that followed. "I read it numerous times. It became like an addiction," Xie said. At this moment, a calf jumped into the water to play. Xie quickly took out his camera and focused on the animal, murmuring: "This makes a good photo." After marriage and the birth of his children, Xie felt the burden on his shoulders become heavier than before. However, he tried his best to protect his photography kingdom. "My wife said I was grudged buying her some cheap cream, and my children always complain that I did not buy them candies," said Xie, recalling the life in the 1980s and 1990s. An Guiqin, with a smile on her face, observed: "Those things have passed. Now, I can understand him very well. This is his hobby, and as long as he likes it, he deserves the freedom to do it. Photography is better than drinking and gambling." Xie replaced his old home with a new building, equipped with heated brick beds. He displayed his cameras to me on his bed, and said his education mentor is Liu Daguang, an official of the provincial labor union. Liu was sent to the county labor union in Longxian during the Cultural Revolution, and was good at photography, painting and calligraphy. "I learned all rudiments of photography from him," Xie said. "I took many photos of farmers and their work and life. Liu liked my photos and often taught me. I made great progress under his instruction." Xie learned to develop films with vinegar and fertilizers, and expose the films with oil lamp in those days before the village had electricity. "It is not that my photos are good, but I took them early," Xie said. Local newspapers started using his photos from the late 1970s, and he was already a star farmer photographer in the county by the 1980s, when he learnt he was engaged in documentary photography -- historical records of social development. His works are also exhibited in the Milan Expo in March 2015. Last year, with the help of his friends in Xi'an, Xie had the first personal photography exhibition in a park in the provincial capital, showing 150 photos taken over more than three decades. When asked why a farmer would do this, Xie said: "I am telling stories through the photos about what happened in the rural areas that the urban residents do not know." Xie does not use digital camera. He said that's not photography, but computer stuff. He still develops films at home himself. He does not shoot other things except farmers and village life. Those, he said, are his roots that cannot be severed. 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People do the Chinese New Year shopping at an agricultural product wholesale market in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in early January. [Photo/Xinhua] The Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, is China's most important family holiday, with hundreds of millions of people heading for their hometowns to reunite with relatives and old friends. It falls on Jan. 28 this year. Thanks to high temperatures throughout most of the country, good transportation conditions and abundant supply, the rise of food prices will only be mild, said a report from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The report said markets should reserve goods well in advance to stabilize food prices in case extreme weather occurs during the holiday. Food prices, accounting for one-third of the the consumer price index (CPI) calculation, are a major driver pushing up consumer prices. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that CPI in December increased 2.1 percent from a year ago, slightly down from November's 2.3-percent rise. For the whole of 2016, the CPI rose 2 percent, well below the government's 3-percent annual target. The country's consumer price growth stood at 1.4 percent in 2015 and 2 percent in 2014, NBS data showed. Super Mario Odyssey is Nintendo's latest Mario game. The new adventure is a sandbox-style game that throws Nintendo's famous plumber into environments from the real world. Super Mario Odyssey will be launching in the Holiday 2017 on the Nintendo Switch and will include a whole new adventure in what appears to be the real world. "Mario leaves the Mushroom Kingdom to go on a new sandbox-style journey," as described by Nintendo Producer Yoshizaki Koizumi. He showed off the new title during the Nintendo Switch Presentation, and it was first fore-tasted in the Switch's teaser trailer in 2016. According to the Daily Express, Super Mario Odyssey is the first new Plumber-platformer to hit consoles since 2013's Super Mario 3D World. Taking a leaf out of the Rareware platform game playbook, Mario's trademark hat looks more like a sidekick than an article of clothing. In the short teaser video, it was used for boomerang attacks, hung in midair as a moving platform and sported enormous puppy-dog eyes. But if it wants to borrow from Banjo-Kazooie then it's fine. While the specs are yet a little murky, Nintendo also mentioned Mario's hat would have special features exclusive to the Switch, reports CNET. Nintendo has also announced that the new Nintendo Switch console will launch worldwide on Friday 3rd March. The package will consist the main console, Joy-Con (L) and Joy-Con (R) controllers, a Joy-Con grip, to which two Joy-Con are attached and used as one controller, a set of Joy-Con wrist straps. And a Nintendo Switch dock, which holds the main console and connects it to a TV, a HDMI cable and an AC adapter. Two versions of the console will be released: First version with a set of grey Joy-Con, and the second version with one neon blue and one neon red Joy-Con. The package will be priced at 279.99 on the Nintendo Official UK Store. Kate Middleton has been reported to have done something that affected her royal duties and this relates to how she deals with people and her sincerity in doing and attending to these obligations. However, some say that the Duchess is just exerting her best and effort in order to please everyone. As reported by Celeb Dirty Laundry, the Duchess of Cambridge visited the London's Anna Freud Center for Children and Families just recently and according to some reports, she showed unreal empathy with them. The wife of Prince William admitted before them that she finds parenting difficult and a tough responsibility. Kate spent the whole afternoon listening to the struggle stories of the mothers and also shared to them that this responsibility is no walk in the park. However, Kate Middleton has been criticized for this because they feel that she is not that actually sincere enough to say those. Some claim that Kate and William have a team of full-time royal nannies who help the royal couple in looking after Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Of course, Kate is the future Queen of England and her life is different from that of the life of a typical mother. Therefore, according to some royal observers, Kate has no right to admit that she is having a hard time raising the kids like them. Perhaps Kate Middleton just wanted the mothers who were present in that event to feel that she is one with them whether she has the actual experience of it or she is just feigning. However, the Duchess is still believed to be only doing her work since she already changed plans this year. Kate has been putting more focus on her royal duties and will exert all her best to accomplish this. But according to Hollywood Gossip, this is not the first time Kate insulted the public since she has just been considered as the laziest royal after having spent 68 days only on her royal engagements. People have wondered because what could have been the reason for this while she has several nannies to help her raise her two kids. She should have ample time to attend to her royal obligations. Well, being the wife of the future King of England, much is expected of Kate Middleton so perhaps she needs to be cautious with her words, actions and even decisions in life because a slight incongruity matters. If one will base on the specification leaks surfacing online, Apple should really be worried with Samsung Galaxy S8. While the Cupertino is said to be working with the best iPhone yet to commemorate its 10th anniversary, Samsung also the Galaxy S8. It is even said that the Android smartphone is the company's best one, yet. This should be true given the huge catastrophe and sales problems that the exploding Galaxy Note 7 gave the South Korean technology giant last year. Some of the Samsung Galaxy S8 specs that are noteworthy are its display, chipset and camera. The South Korean company is also said to be following Apple's footsteps with the elimination of the 3.5 mm headphone jack, in favor of the USB Type-C port. Edge to Edge Display Samsung Galaxy S8's display is really something to look forward to. Aside from the company adapting the Edge design as the standard model, the Galaxy S8 will also ditch the home button. According to Forbes, like Apple, Samsung is going to incorporate the home button, front camera and fingerprint sensor on the glass display. This means that Samsung Galaxy S8 will have a pure screen display. 4K Screen The Samsung Galaxy S8 specs will also include a (full-screen) 4K resolution screen with 3840 x 2160 pixels. This will make S8's screen the most well-defined among smartphones today. The screen will also be Virtual Reality (VR) capable. This is big news especially for hardcore gamers However, this innovation can greatly increase the Samsung Galaxy S8 price. Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 and Exynos 8895 According to Phone Arena, the Galaxy S8 will run on two chipsets: Qualcomm Snapdragon 830 and Exynos 8895. The latter will be made in-house and will run on 3 GHz speed. The Samsung Galaxy S8 specs also include 6GB RAM while the internal storage is said to be 64 GB and 128 GB, expandable with a microSD. Dual-lens Camera The South Korean company is also said to follow the path of other mobile companies and incorporate the dual-lens camera. The upgraded camera is for higher DSLR quality photographs. Samsung Galaxy S8 release date is said to be on February 26, 2017. While Samsung Galaxy S8 price will be $900. Tom Cruise is reportedly ready to quit Scientology to be with daughter, Suri Cruise. It was just some days back that Tom Cruise hit the headlines as he was nowhere to be seen at an important event of the Scientology Church in San Diego. His absence became a talking point in the media with many saying that the actor is no longer following the cult religion. However, now it has come out that his absence could have something to do with daughter Suri. It is said that Tom Cruise is willing to give up the controversial religion for the sake of his daughter Suri who he shares with Katie Holmes, reports Counsel & Heal. Insiders claim that he has not been able to devote much time to his daughter and this is not because of his busy work schedule. Scientology is a prominent reason that he is not there for Suri and it has made him rethink his equation with the controversial religion. However, neither Cruise nor the Church has said anything about the rumors of breaking up and as of now, he is very much a follower of Scientology. It remains to be seen if he will continue to do so amidst the rumors. What is more, ex-wife Katie Holmes would be free in some time to speak about the mystery around Scientology and Cruise's beliefs as the contract that barred her from speaking about the religion will expire this year. Speaking of Holmes, the 38-year-old actress seems to have moved on in life as she is busy looking after Suri, claims Ocean Drive. In an interview, she said that she does not really regret anything she has done. She admitted that she has learned from everything and according to her everything sort of leads one to the next place. Some time back, she had also said that daughter Suri is the inspiration behind everything she does and her directorial venture is dedicated to her daughter dear as well. Katie Holmes does seem to be doing a great job as a single mother and though one does not know how much Suri misses daddy Tom Cruise, one cannot deny that she would be really delighted if he takes out time for her, leaving Scientology on the back seat. Looks like Amal Clooney just put a seal on the pregnancy rumors that have been hounding her and George Clooney for a long time. The international human rights lawyer was recently spotted in a loose floral dress that seemed every bit like an attempt to hide the tiny bulge on her otherwise washboard stomach. Amal Clooney attended a special Netflix screening of The White Helmets with George Clooney at the Bulgari Hotel in London, wearing a loose frock, reports Mirror. She was also sporting a somewhat rounder tummy, leading to speculations that it was nothing but a baby bump. The fact that she was wearing a loose floral dress strengthened the rumors as the sexy wife of the actor is normally seen in figure-hugging outfits. Notably, George and Amal Clooney have been under the media glare ever since stories started floating around that they were ready to start a family. In August 2016, the pregnancy buzz was quite strong but it turned out to be false. However, a week back it was reported by Lebanese Daily Star that Amal is expecting twins and the babies are due in March. Though neither George nor Amal has confirmed the rumors, it cannot be denied that the recent sighting seems substantial enough for the rumors mills to get working again. The billowy dress and the unconfirmed reports that she only drank water at the event have gotten the media into a frenzy, claims Hollywood Take. It is being said that Amal is pregnant but the claims that she is expecting twins is not correct. This is because the earlier report had sources saying that she was due in March, which means she must be six months pregnant now. Well, the tiny bump she was flaunting did not seem to justify the story by any account but it cannot be denied that Amal is pregnant. It is worth mentioning here that George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin have been married for two years and initially George was reluctant about having kids but later on, he accepted the idea. He also jokingly thanked the media last year in January for starting the pregnancy rumors. Drain the FCC swamp By Eric Steinmann President-Elect Donald Trump is looking for bold actions to drain the swamp in Washington, DC and free Americas economy, so that it can once again become the global leader and innovator. A great place to start would be abolishing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Ronald Reagan ended his first term by abolishing the Civil Aeronautics Board. The CAB determined air passenger routes, airline slots at airports and ticket prices. The agency was an obsolete relic from Franklin Roosevelts New Deal. Its elimination freed the airline industry for unprecedented growth and expanding service to nearly a billion airline passengers a year. The FCC is another obsolete vestige of the New Deal. It is what happens in Washington when people with little or no experience in actual business dream up regulations and schemes to expand their influence as they see fit, with a virtually unlimited budget and few or no checks and balances. FCC Commissioners have their own funding source, they answer to no one, the courts defer to them for some unknown reason, and they dream up new and different perceived problems that they can solve with more rules in the process destroying honest American-style competition, time and again. The wireless communications industry, once an example of American technological prowess, creativity and beneficial competition, has been largely relegated to four big companies and many small FCC-subsidized companies. Instead of competing for the good will and business of American consumers, they often line up to seek more FCC favors. So what is the FCC doing right now? * It is spending a purported quarter-billion dollars to auction a radio spectrum that rightfully belongs to the American public. It did so in a manner devised by highly paid thought leaders and game theorists, causing small businesses which wanted to participate to run afoul of its overly complex rules and have to withdraw in the first week. * Its crafting programs to further subsidize rural telephone companies under a 1930s era Universal Service landline concept that the commissioners have never relinquished supposedly to provide broadband in rural areas where very serviceable broadband already exists. Worse, they plan to subsidize competition against small businesses that are providing that broadband and cannot afford the lawyers and hassles to go through cumbersome approval processes and become additional FCC sycophants. * The FCC still refuses to end subsidies to rural phone companies that are part of a 70-year-old program that charges hundreds or even thousands of dollars to companies that want to compete with established entities. Would-be newcomers are compelled to interconnect with existing companies, many of which are notorious for setting up free sex chat lines and conference calling, and for extorting fees per call-minute from those upstart newcomers while the established companies have their operating costs essentially paid for by the FCC. * The agency continues to sit on rulings that have been pending for well over 13 years, to effectively punish companies it doesnt favor or preclude them from getting any legal determination of their rights. In the process, the FCC violates its own rules, which require that such rulings be issued in five months. * It continues to take every opportunity to further the interests of certain wealthy foreign monopolists who have donated to the commissioners affiliated causes, at the expense of American businesses that are trying to compete. In so doing, the FCC employs perverse policy actions or interpretations, to punish or largely put out of business any competitors that are not participating in one of its tentacle programs. * The FCC is also preventing the full utilization of existing broadcast spectrum and putting wholly unreasonable burdens on companies that are trying to construct new and improved infrastructure on which our nations networks operate. It is doing this by suspending all such construction, until Indian tribes with no historical connection to a region have given the go-ahead at a snails pace and at a permit cost that has no upper FCC limit, but which often exceeds the cost of constructing the actual towers. Adding insult to injury, the FCC has decreed that American businesses must pay whatever the tribes ask, and that only the FCC may communicate with the tribes. The agency has hired a number of additional personnel to conduct these sovereign-to-sovereign discussions, one tribe at a time. But in the many months since this untenable situation has been brought to the agencys attention, it has not (to the best of our knowledge) had even one discussion or addressed one case of price gouging nor has it provided any valid or convincing reason for its inaction. The communications industry can largely self-regulate and can certainly negotiate and settle any disputes over construction and other infrastructure matters. If they reach an impasse, the courts or other government agencies can be asked to intervene. There is no need to issue more broadband spectrum at this time. If a need can be demonstrated, the Department of Commerces Patent & Trademark Administration or the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) could handle any needed registration. President Trump should shut down the FCC and its inane government make-work programs. This would save the American People billions of dollars annually and allow competition to flourish. It is not too late to open the marketplace and allow Americas communications industry to new ways to benefit our nations consumers, in an era when they deserve to reap the blessings of the numerous incredible technological breakthroughs of recent years. Eric Steinmann is an executive with Clear Talk Wireless. Home GOP faces tough choices replacing ObamaCare By Dr. Peter Morici ObamaCare has not delivered on its promises to provide health insurance for virtually all Americans and lower costs but Republicans will find it tough to repeal and replace. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the ranks of the non-elderly uninsured are down nearly 13 million but 28.5 million are still without coveragemostly people of color and lower income adults. Even with generous federal subsidies, 57 percent of the uninsured polled say insurance is too expensive or they are unable to get coverage. Requiring more Americans to obtain coveragethrough their employer, by purchasing policies on government run exchanges or enrolling in Medicaidwas supposed to improve the risk pool for insurers by including more healthy young people. And reduce the cost of taking care of poor and low-income individuals by increasing access to preventative care and reducing expensive treatments for ailments left to fester until patients showed up at hospital emergency rooms. However, individuals added to the health insurance rolls on the exchanges are using more services than anticipated, insurance companies lost considerable sums in 2016, and premiums are up about 22 percent for 2017. Many small businesses who were insured before the Affordable Care Act lost access to more cost-effectivepolicies that permitted owners and employees to pay for everyday expenses out of pocket and through tax-sheltered health savings accounts, and rely on insurance for large unexpected bills. For most Americans, the Affordable Care Act has created an unfair, two-tiered system. Medicare and Medicaid reimburse doctors poorly, and many limit the number of patients they accept from these programs. Elderly and low-income Americans often face difficulties finding a primary care physician. Thanks to limited insurance company provider networks, many Americans have lost access to family doctors and face long waits to see a specialist. In contrast, well off Americans can subscribe to concierge services that charge high annual fees for access to primary-care physicians who offer same-day appointments, telephone consultations and assistance in obtaining access to specialists quickly. Medicare legislation does not permit the government to negotiate drug prices. Pharmaceutical companies can set those as high as they like knowing the elderly will simply send the bill to Uncle Sam. Those reimbursements encourage arbitrarily high drug prices for everyone, and most Americans now support some kind of federal intervention to lower drug costs. Republicans in congress cannot simply repeal the ACA. Private plans lost in the upheaval cannot be easily resurrected, and now that millions of Americans rely on federal subsidies to obtain coverage, simple politics require those be sustained even if repackaged as income tax credits. The German system of private insurance, like ObamaCare, requires virtually everyone to obtain coverage, but costs for medical services and products are more tightly controlledfor example, regulators price new drugs according to how much they improve treatment over existing medicines. Overall, northern European countries spend about 11 percent of GDP on health care whereas the United States spends 17 percent and enjoy high standards of care. However, their approach violates two basic principles Republicans are not likely to abandon: Americans should not be compelled to purchase insurance under threat of fines, and government interference in the pricing of health services is unacceptable. The private mandate could be eliminated by charging non-elderly adults, who do not maintain continuous coverage, a fee when they apply for private insurance. Medicare already imposes a penalty to discourage the elderly from opting out of the system until they need expensive care. However, permitting insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines as Republicans propose will not solve the cost problem through competition. States like New York and California provide large enough populations to encourage robust competition but little persuasive evidence indicates that their prices and premiums are lower than in moderate-sized states like Virginia. In the end, Republicans in congress and President Trump will have to accept a role for government in regulating prices inside the private marketplace for health care or repeal and replace will prove a terrible failure. Otherwise, the Democrats may well oust them from power in 2020 and then impose a single payer system that subjects most Americans to moribund, low-quality service akin to that offered by the Post Office and IRS. Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist. Obama's legacy makeover: A reality check By Mark Alexander Barack Hussein Obama entertained his dwindling legion of constituents with farewell remarks last Tuesday night the last stop on his extensive "legacy makeover" tour that began after Donald Trump defeated his designated heir, Hillary Clinton. I should note that by "last stop," I mean as "president." Unlike his predecessor, Obama has no plans to quietly recede from the nation's capital, as has been the practice of former presidents since 1796. In fact, the Obamas will be taking up residence in a nine-bedroom mansion in the District's most exclusive neighborhood, and you can be certain that he'll be out on his front stoop stumping for his failed policies every time Trump endeavors to alter or abolish one of them. Given that the Obama presidency has been the equivalent of a neutron bomb to the Democrat Party brand leaving its structure intact while annihilating the human resources within it is it any wonder that he's so desperate for that legacy makeover? Leftist political analyst Ed Klein gleefully opines that Obama will be leading "a shadow government opposing the Trump administration," while presidential historian Stephen Hess concludes that Obama's adoring media will be "camping out on [his] doorstep." Since George Washington delivered his extraordinary farewell remarks in 1796, such addresses have served as a bookend for a president to highlight the nation's achievements under his tenure. The last great farewell address, indeed the greatest of the 20th century, was Ronald Reagan's delivery of his inspirational paean to "the shining city upon a hill." He humbly declared, "I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries." Indeed, like President Washington, President Reagan departed office having affirmed the sense of the people that America's best days were ahead. As is my practice, I will be rebutting some of Mr. Obama's more salacious and fallacious assertions from his final national address. However, given it is his final address, let's first review how he, and we, arrived at this point in history. During 2008, in a series on then-presidential candidate Obama's disturbing pathos, I noted that he was an unknown "community organizer" with a tragic pedigree who had, for his entire adult life, been mentored as a disciple of hate by "pastor" Jeremiah "G-d Damn America" Wright. Of greater political significance, in the third part of that series, "Another Marx Brother," I named the Marxist mentors who shaped Obama's political views from his earliest years and paved his way into the Illinois State Senate in 1997, and then the U.S. Senate in 2005. I noted that his first political fundraiser was hosted by his friend and neighbor, Bill Ayers, cofounder of the Weather Underground, a communist revolutionary terrorist group that bombed public buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, including police stations, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol Building. Not only were Obama and Ayers friends, but they actively worked together for leftist organizations. Ayers's terrorist wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was a close friend and law partner with Michelle Obama. Few Americans had ever heard of Obama when he was tapped to provide the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention by ultra-leftists John Kerry and Teddy Kennedy. Four years later, however, an utterly unqualified Obama would win first the Democrat nomination and then the 2008 presidential election, largely due to a banking crisis precipitated by a manufactured mortgage crisis, and the fecklessness of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who lacked any semblance of Obama's charismatic appeal and failed to launch both a substantive grassroots campaign and an effective argument against Obama's snake-oil candidacy. In 2009, I noted that Obama's remarkably brief White House bio began with this assertion: "His story is the American story values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family." Of course, nothing could've been further from the truth. Nothing about Obama's "American story" has anything to do with "the heartland" or "a middle-class upbringing" or "a strong family." (Amazingly, that deceitful bio page has not been altered since 2009.) Ultimately, the election of Barack Obama, who was sold to the American people as a centrist but who is in fact an ardent ideological Socialist, came with some unintended consequences for him and his leftist cadres across the nation. Chief among those consequences was the emergence of the grassroots Tea Party movement ahead of the 2010 midterm election. That year, Republicans dealt Obama and his fellow Democrats a historic "shellacking": 63 House seats, 6 Senate seats, 6 governorships and a whopping 680 state legislative seats more state legislatures than at any time since 1928. But, regrettably, establishment Republicans, led by then-House Speaker John Boehner, excluded these new conservatives from leadership positions. Thus, in 2012, the grassroots momentum was sidelined by fratricidal infighting, and Republicans lost eight House seats and two Senate seats. Most notably, Mitt Romney failed to connect with grassroots conservatives, which allowed Obama to dupe voters into electing him for a second term by a very narrow margin. (Remember how, during the final presidential debate, Obama mocked Gov. Romney's assessment of Russia as our nation's "number-one geopolitical foe"? How's that working out, Barry?) However, once again, in 2014, Republicans decimated Democrats in not only House and Senate midterm races but in gubernatorial and statehouse elections across the nation. This was a broad and deep victory for Republicans and particularly conservatives, one that moved the political needle back toward Liberty. After the smoke cleared, Republicans had made historic gains both in federal and state elections. This time, they picked up a whopping nine Senate seats for a total of 54, retaking the majority with fresh, conservative grassroots candidates like Iowa's Joni Ernst, Nebraska's Ben Sasse and Arkansas' Tom Cotton. Republicans also gained 14 additional House seats, increasing their majority to 247. And they added two more Republican governors, bringing that total to 31, while picking up 11 more legislative chambers for a total of 68. The line between conservatives and leftists was never more clear, nor was the truism that when genuine conservatives are on the ticket, they prevail. Of the 2014 gains, Charles Krauthammer noted, "[R]egaining the Senate would finally give the GOP the opportunity, going into 2016, to demonstrate its capacity to govern. ... [C]ontrolling both houses would allow the GOP to produce a compelling legislative agenda." And, indeed, they did. Recall last year, when Hillary Clinton's election seemed all but certain, Obama arrogantly declared, "I will not be on the ballot, but everything we've done is going to be on the ballot." And recall when he told a Congressional Black Caucus dinner audience, "I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy" if blacks don't get out and vote in sufficient numbers against Donald Trump. Indeed, BO's record was on the ballot, and so was his legacy. Obama's heir-apparent Hillary Clinton, a consummate congenital liar with an extensive record of malfeasance, would bring out enough middle-American "irredeemable deplorables" to defeat her, and to thereby reject Obama's "third term." The 2016 election further decimated Democrats nationwide. When Obama took office there were 256 Demos in the House. Now there are 188 (-68 for -27%). There were 58 Demos in the Senate. Now there are 46 (-12 for -21%). There were 28 Demo governors. Now there are 18 (-10 for -36%). Across the nation, Democrats held 4,086 state legislative seats and controlled 60 chambers. Under Obama, they have lost 949 (-23%) of those seats and now control just 31 chambers (-52%.) In the end, thanks to welfare-addled voters in California, Clinton won a popular plurality, 48% to 46%, which is notably short of a popular majority. But when her bewildered supporters ask, "Who won the popular vote?" leave them stumped with this reply: "Our Constitution." Now, Obama, in full denial, insists that he's the best-qualified person to rebuild the once-noble Democrat Party, which devolved into the Socialist Democratic Party under his leadership. On this venture, he has my full and unconditional support. In his last official press conference in December, Obama spared no truth when distorting his record. He doubled down on his delusional self-assessment in his farewell remarks. In those remarks, Obama said, "My mother used to tell me reality has a way of catching up with you." So, what follows is a final reality check on Obama's last eight years. If you did not watch Obama's 4,350-word self-congratulatory farewell fest, I slogged through it so you wouldn't have to. It was a longer delivery than Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush (43) combined, and Obama only referred to himself 75 times. Obama returned to Chicago for his final soapbox extravaganza, a city that, like most of America, is in much worse shape now than it was eight years ago. Urban poverty plantations have grown substantially under the Obama regime, and Chicago is no exception. One measure of the cultural devolution in the Windy City is the fact there have been 3,929 murders there since Obama was elected another Obama record! Despite the Beltway memo-media accolades concluding that Obama's central message was "unity," the fact is he never uttered the word. Instead, predictably, when he was not congratulating himself, he devoted the rest of his airtime to disunity, invoking all the standard Demo playbook "divide and conquer" constituencies race, ethnicity, religion, gender and, of course, wealth. According to Obama, "The disaffection and division that has stalled our progress will only sharpen in years to come." Well, of course it will with him at the Democrat Party helm. He has devoted his career to fomenting of division and, in his words, promoting "the rise of naked partisanship." Invoking his race-bait rhetoric, he declared, "After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America. Such a vision, however well-intended, was never realistic. Race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn't suddenly vanish in the '60s." On ethnicity and religious "diversity," Obama complained about "fear of people who look or speak or pray differently" and our failure to "invest in the children of immigrants just because they don't look like us." He added, "I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans who are just as patriotic as you are!" And stirring the class-warfare pot, Obama said, "Our economy doesn't work as well or grow as fast when a few prosper at the expense of a growing middle class. ... Stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic principles. ... If every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hard-working white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves. ... [This] increases economic and regional stratification." In the self-congratulatory category, Obama gave himself high marks for his domestic and foreign policies. Obama claimed, "By almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started. ... If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession ... and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history ... you might have said our sights were set a little too high." Actually, I would say that his hindsight is set much too high. Domestically, Obama's policies have crushed the middle class. Currently the labor participation rate is testing the lows of the 1970s, with 95 million Americans out of the labor force. The "Obama recovery" is the worst since World War II. America has lost more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2008 and the global trade deficit has risen to more than $730 billion. There are 11 million more Americans on food stamps than 2008, another Obama record, and more than 43 million Americans now live below the poverty line. Consumers are now paying $874 billion for government regulations, with 2,988 new regulations under Obama. Oh, and Obama accumulated more "unpatriotic" national debt than all other presidents combined almost $10 trillion with little to show for it. On his signature namesake, ObamaCare, he declared, "The uninsured rate has never, ever been lower [and] health care costs are rising at the slowest rate in 50 years." Ah, yes, those claims are as accurate as this most memorable line from his litany of ObamaCare lies: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, he will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period." Despite Obama's claims about reduced premiums, on average premiums are going up 25% in 2016 and the insurance cost for an average family has increased almost 50% since 2008. Beyond failed economic and health care policies, Obama heralded new levels of corruption, including his IRS Enemies List targeting conservatives; his "Fast and Furious" gun control charade; the VA death panels cover-up; the immigration crisis on our southern border; and his corrupt attorney general, Eric Holder. Regarding homeland security, in a typical example of hubris, Obama had the audacity to claim, "No foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years." Finding a shred of truth in this statement requires convulsive Clintonian parsing of the facts. Obama had best not assert his lone wolf defense of Islamist jihadis at Ft. Hood or in Boston or San Bernardino or Orlando or Chattanooga or any other homeland sites of Jihadi assaults during his tenure. On the national security front, Obama has chalked up the most inept and dangerous foreign policy failures since James Earl Carter. On a prior farewell tour stop, Obama insisted, "Almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office." Actually, not. Obama's foreign policy malfeasance is unparalleled. Under his tenure we witnessed the "Russian Spring" in Crimea; his hollow "Red Line" in the Syrian sand; the Middle East meltdown in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan and Gaza; his political retreat from Iraq discarding all the blood and treasure spent there to establish stability; the Benghazi cover-up ahead of the 2012 election; the dramatic resurgence of al-Qa'ida; Obama's reference to ISIL as the "JV team"; and the rise of the Islamic State and an epic humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. While Obama claims to have ended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American troops are on their way back into both theaters. At present, in Afghanistan we have 8,500 military personnel and 26,000 military contractors, and in Iraq we have more than 5,000 military personnel and 15,000 military contractors. Obama heralded his Iran nuke "deal" as one of his greatest foreign policy achievements: "I shut down Iran's nuclear weapons program without firing a shot." The fact is, his acquiescence and coddling of Iran resulted in the re-emergence of the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, which is now metastasizing into Western Europe and North America. Additionally, Obama and Kerry took a parting shot at Israel, undermining our historic relations with this essential Middle Eastern ally. Islamist assaults worldwide have increased greatly under Obama, and there will be a very heavy price to pay in the next decade for his unprecedented foreign policy failures one reason he has a record low approval rating with our military personnel. (Memo to Obama: The Nobel Committee called they want their medal back!) All his unearned self-aggrandizement notwithstanding, perhaps most disturbing in Obama's remarks was his deliberate mischaracterization of our form of government as a "democracy" 20 times while mentioning "republic" only once. He insisted, "We must forge a new social compact," having failed to "fundamentally transform the USA" as he promised in 2008. He even mentioned Rule of Law four times, but in each case, out of context. Finally, Obama asserted, "In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote ... that we should reject 'the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties' that make us one." But that divisive alienation is all Obama and his Democrats have done for the last eight years. The good news no, the GREAT NEWS is that in days there will be a new administration and a new era of recovery for our nation. Donald Trump's team is shaping up to be a Reagan revival! Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post. A bare tree stands in stark contrast to the wide white land, Weichang county in Chengde, North Chinas Hebei province, Jan 8, 2017. [Photo by Zhang Xingjian/chinadaily.com.cn] The Bashang Grassland is located in Weichang county in Chengde, North Chinas Hebei province. The unique climate and its position at the junction of the North China Plain and the Inner Mongolia Grassland mean Bashang is home to amazing natural landscapes. That makes the area a popular destination for tourists and photographers both at home and from abroad. Tourism in Bashang has flourished in recent years and many special activities for have been established there. In summer, you can see a sea of trees and enjoy the fun of living like a herdsman. In winter, the land under the wide open skies turns into a white wonderland. Oil prices running out of reasons to rally By Nick Cunningham Oil prices faltered at the start of the second week of the year, as fears set in about a rapid rebound in U.S. shale production. For the better part of two months, optimism surrounding the OPEC deal has buoyed oil prices, but bullish sentiment from speculators are showing early signs of abating, raising the possibility that the oil rally is running out of steam. WTI and Brent sank more than 2.5 percent in intraday trading on Monday, after a report at the end of last week showed another solid build in the U.S. rig count, the tenth consecutive week that the oil industry added rigs back into the field. Aside from a single week in October, the U.S. oil industry has deployed more rigs in every week dating back to June, a remarkable run that has resulted in more than 200 fresh rigs drilling for oil. The gains in the rig count come even as oil prices have held steady in the mid- to low-$50s per barrel. At the start of 2017, there are two major dynamics at play occurring at the same time, each pushing in opposite directions on the market. The OPEC deal is slated to take oil off the market, while U.S. drilling is expected to add new supply. The pace and magnitude of each trend will ultimately drive oil prices one way or the other. On the positive side of the ledger, there are early signs that OPEC members are meeting their commitments. Saudi Arabia said recently that it is lowering its production in January by 486,000 barrels per day, a volume that it promised to cut as part of the November deal. That will take output down to 10.058 million barrels per day, a level that Riyadh was only required to meet as an average over the January to June time period. Cutting to that level ahead of time is a sign of good faith from Saudi Arabia, and increases the chances that OPEC will stay true to its promises. On top of that, Kuwaits envoy to OPEC said that Qatar, Kuwait and Oman were also complying with the cuts. In an interview with Bloomberg, Kuwaits Nawal Al-Fezaia said that those countries already told customers that cuts were imminent. "Its a good time to do maintenance on oil fields during production cuts," Al-Fezaia said, noting that Kuwait will lower output from 2.89 mb/d in December to 2.7 mb/d by the end of January. Market analysts paused a bit on news that Iraqs oil exports from its southern ports on the Persian Gulf hit a record high in December, but the data has no bearing on whether or not Iraq will comply with the agreed upon cuts. "Achieving this record average will not affect Iraqs decision to cut output from the beginning of 2017," Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi told Bloomberg in an emailed statement. "Iraq is committed to achieving producers joint goals to control the oil glut in world markets." It is still early but all signs point to a stronger commitment from OPEC to adhere to the specifics of the cuts than market analysts might have given them credit for. That bodes well for a narrowing supply surplus and ultimately a deficit as well as falling inventories. In other words, OPEC is succeeding in putting upward pressure on prices. However, the flip side of the equation is faster drilling from the U.S., where rig counts continue to climb. Oil output, according to EIA weekly surveys, is up roughly 300,000 bpd from summer lows, with more supply expected to come online in the months ahead as drilling picks up pace. It is unclear, at this point, how rising U.S. supply and falling OPEC output will ultimately balance out. For now, the consensus seems to be tightening conditions in the first half of 2017, with much greater uncertainty in the second half, but that remains to be seen. What is clear is that oil speculators have built up such a large bullish bet on oil that they have opened up crude to near-term downside risk. According to Reuters, hedge funds and other money managers amassed net-long positions in WTI and Brent equivalent to 796 million barrels in the last week of December, which was nearly double the amount from mid-November. The OPEC deal clearly fueled a huge speculative rush in rising oil prices, which, not coincidentally, corresponded with real gains in crude prices. But at this point, there are very few short positions left in oil, while a massive volume of long bets have built up. That suggests two things, both of which are bearish for oil: there is not a lot of money left to go long, lowering the chances of further prices gains; and the potential for a correction in prices is very high at this point. Indeed, in the most recent week for which data is available, net-long positions declined a bit, raising the possibility that bullish bets have peaked. All it will take is a bit of bearish news to spark a downturn in prices. There are a few minor worrying signs for oil prices that could crop up as additional bearish forces in the next few weeks. The U.S. DOE announced on January 9 a "notice of sale" from its strategic petroleum reserve, with plans to sell 8 million barrels for delivery over the course of February, March and April. Meanwhile, Libya is seeing rapid gains in oil exports after the reopening of a key export terminal, with output jumping to 700,000 bpd, according to the latest data, up sharply from the 580,000 it produced in November and the 300,000 bpd it exported before it started restoring output last summer. Moreover, Nigeria which, like Libya, is exempt from the OPEC deal is intent on restoring production. It may struggle to do that with the recent shuttering of the Trans Niger Pipeline, potential strikes from oil workers unions and the announcement from the Niger Delta Avengers that attacks will resume this year. In fact, production appears to have declined in December, falling 200,000 bpd to 1.45 mb/d, becau se of some of these issues. But if those problems can be overcome, Nigeria has latent production capacity that could come back online at some point. And in a sign that there is not a lot of room on the upside, a kerfuffle in the Persian Gulf over the weekend did nothing to affect oil prices. A U.S. Navy destroyer fired three warning shots towards Iranian ships, an incident that in the past would have led to a sharp, even if brief, rally in crude prices. Instead, the markets shrugged off the incident WTI and Brent sank on the first trading day after the event, on unrelated news. "The market is overbought and under a lot of downward pressure," Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA Inc., told Bloomberg. "The shots fired at the Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz didnt do anything to the market. A few years ago that would have added a couple dollars to the price." Nick Cunningham is a writer for Oilprice.com where this originally appeared. Home On Friday John and I spent an exceptionally soggy day checking out Epcot's first ever Festival of the Arts. The rain may have put a damper on things - literally - but it also kept the crowds and temperature down, so I'll take it. Best thing of the whole Festival greets you right behind Spaceship Earth: FIGMENT TOPIARY!! Isn't he perfect?! Gah. I want one in my front yard. (Would that be weird? Because I'm ok with being weird.) And another surprise awaits you just past the fountain: These living statues will look familiar if you've been to Disney Springs lately, though they're different designs and on new custom platforms. I've been trying to figure out the themes: Copper is obviously Earth/Nature (wind power, flowers, etc.), and Silver is Space, but Gold is... steampunk? I... I don't get it. Whatever, I got the coolest shot of Gold: HDR is fun. And that's the actual sky color! Talk about a literal gray day. (All of these were taken with my iPhone 6S. I edited this one with Snapseed - also on my phone - but most of the others were done in Adobe Lightroom.) Over in the Odyssey Building there are daily art presentations on stage: Plus themed food and drink and exclusive merchandise: Noticing a theme here? Aw yeah Figment! There's also some great art for sale: Best of all, there are two small walk-through exhibits. One's for Mary Blair: ... though if you go in expecting her iconic Small World style - like I did - you'll be disappointed. Still, some nice paintings, and this adorable sketch: My favorite is the second exhibit, dedicated to Herbert Ryman: He did the most incredible concept art for the parks. Check it out: I would seriously hang any of these in my house! I love how big they are, too, so you can see all the little details. It's been far too long since we had a Figment picture in here. BOOYAH. These fabulous chocolate paintings (on chocolate easels, natch!) are just one of the many art-themed foods being sold around the park. When this chef saw me ogling them, he beckoned me over and held it up so I could take a picture. There are other chocolate art options at different booths around the Showcase: There are so many pretty food items, though, I won't bother trying to mention them all. Head over to Disney Food Blog for a complete list and tons of photos, if you're curious. Once you get to the World Showcase you'll find some of the most clever photo ops I've ever seen: These set-ups let you walk inside famous paintings, and as you can see even from my angle, the illusion is crazy convincing. (The group before this had someone pretending to throw up over the side of the boat. Ha!) There are three or four of these photo spots around the showcase. Another fun thing to look out for? Almost all of the character spots have custom paintings! Doc painted this one, while it looks like there was a... disagreement... over who painted Aurora's: Baha! Such a great touch. Look for other paintings by Belle's dad (which has an amazing, steampunky easel) and Alice. Since Morocco doesn't allow art of living things, though, you won't find one near Jasmine & Aladdin. This also affects the Figment Scavenger Hunt, but more on that in a sec. First, look at this suh-WEET picture: I combined my phone's fish eye lens ( womp womp ) with the panorama feature. Nifty, right? Moving on. Also around the Showcase are artist tents, selling a mix of both Disney and non-Disney art. Some of my favorite artists, like Kristin Tercek and Jerrod Maruyuma , are having signings throughout the Festival at these, so keep an eye out! OK, now let's talk my favorite part of the Festival: the Figment Scavenger Hunt. Just like the annual Easter Egg Hunts, this involves purchasing a map & stickers, which you'll place on the corresponding country as you find them. If $7 seems steep, keep in mind you get a prize at the end: one of these four Figment magnets. Also, "Figment's Brush with the Masters"? C'mon, that pun alone is worth $7. The stickers are of famous paintings, but they are oh-so-slightly misleading: If you don't want to know why the stickers are misleading, because you plan to do this Hunt sometime before it ends Feb. 20th, then GO NO FURTHER. Yep, I'm about to post major Scavenger Hunt spoilers from all of the Showcase countries. So again, if you want to be surprised, do NOT scroll down. But for everyone else, who can't visit in time to experience it yourself? Prepare to be DELIGHTED. Here we go. Starting in Mexico, you have to enter the building itself to find the first painting: At first I completely fixated on the Figment accent on the frame (there was much squeeing), so John had to point out that Figment was also IN the painting itself. See him? Here, I'll zoom in: Right then and there we knew: this was gonna be goooood. Yep, not only does the Hunt make you go into each country's buildings (unlike the Easter Eggs, which are always outside), you also get to see how the Imagineers incorporated Figment into each famous painting! And lemme tell ya, they are SO FUN. Let's take a closer look at that frame accent, because I love it with the love of a thousand squishies: K, back to the paintings: I won't tell you exactly where the painting are in each country, but they're almost all in shops, and I think all are near or in the KidCot areas. Remember how I said Morocco doesn't allow art of living things? That makes its painting the only Figment-less one: But you'll note it IS in Figment colors. Oh hey, I just noticed Figment's reflection is waving to him in this one: And he's wearing a beret! Cute! Some of the paintings were hard to get close to, so I had to zoom in on these last ones: And that's the whole hunt! Hope you guys got a kick out of your virtual visit with me! Again, the Festival runs every weekend (including Fridays) through February 20th. If you go, be sure to tell me which foods you tried and liked, so I know what to get next time! [Note: I'll be announcing my art winners next post, so you've got a few extra days to enter!] The root of the historical cause of development was the desire of human beings to be well governed or, at least, not too badly governed. The history of the Western civilisation has been shaped by the struggle to answer this question. Metamorphoses of the City is a comprehensive interpretation of the Western political form, from the Greek city-state and Roman Empire to the rise of the nation state by one of Europes most influential contemporary political philosophers, Pierre Manent. The question and curious logic of modernity serve as a point of entry into the work of Manent. It is the desire that guides the entire life of Western societies. The will to be modern has been in force for centuries. The end of the process that we thought we saw coming at various moments [1789, 1917, 1968, and 1989] has always proved illusory (Manent 2012). Manent has portrayed the ambition of Western Europe since ancient times to build an even better form of collective self-government, with an idea to be modern. He refers to this project of modernity as the real orientation of the entire life of Western society. Adding to Bangladesh's woes were the injuries to key batsmen: opener Imrul Kayes had retired hurt on the fourth day during Bangladesh's second innings due to a thigh injury, and Mushfiqur's innings was cut short on day five. The end to Mushfiqur's innings came at a time when he seemed to be dealing with the short ball quite well. A ball that kept low from Southee hit him on the helmet just behind his left ear. There would be outcry over how often the bowlers targeted the fingers on Mushfiqur's bottom hand - which might well be broken - but he would have known what he was in for when he decided to bat with a target on him. Mushfiqur was taken to the hospital, where scans indicated he was out of immediate danger , and returned to the ground to watch his record partnership for Bangladesh with Shakib - they had added 359 in the first innings - become the second-highest one to result in a defeat Brathwaite was hired by the Thunder as a replacement for fellow West Indies allrounder Andre Russell, who suffered a combination of hamstring and knee injuries. In the two matches he has played so far in the BBL, Brathwaite has taken five wickets: 2 for 31 against Hobart Hurricanes and 3 for 21 in the Saturday Sydney derby against the Sixers. He batted only against the Hurricanes and scored 6. He had become an instant hit in the tournament with his 'dab' celebrations. Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st L) are received by Swiss President Doris Leuthard (2nd R) and her husband Roland Hausin at the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a welcome ceremony held by all members of the Swiss Federal Council in Bern on Sunday. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke highly of the China-Switzerland partnership on Sunday, saying it has become a paradigm of relations between countries of different sizes. Accompanied by his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard, Xi made the remarks during a tea chat on a special train of the Swiss government running from Zurich to Bern, during his ongoing visit to the European country. Appreciating the years' commitment of Leuthard to deepening the two countries' cooperation in all areas, Xi said he is glad to visit Switzerland at the beginning of 2017 and attend the World Economic Forum (WEF). As one of the first Western countries to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the People' s Republic of China, Switzerland has taken the lead in developing cooperation with China, recording a trove of "firsts" in this process, Xi said. He cited Switzerland's lead on the continental Europe to sign and implement a free trade agreement with China, and join the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In 2016, Switzerland became the first and only country to set up a strategic partnership with China featuring innovation. "During this visit, I would like to engage in in-depth talks with President Leuthard and other Swiss leaders, to enrich our partnership, and boost our cooperation in all areas," Xi said. He added that China, sharing similar views with Switzerland on many international issues, wishes to work with the European nation to enhance their coordination in international affairs. Noting that China encourages more and more Chinese tourists to travel to Switzerland, Xi said China, which is to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, stands ready to promote cooperation with Switzerland on developing winter sports. For her part, Leuthard thanked Xi for choosing her country as the destination of his first state visit in 2017, saying the decision represents the importance China has attached to Switzerland. Switzerland stands ready to push forward cooperation with China on various fields, said Leuthard. China is an influential country in the world, said Leuthard, adding that the international community looks forward to hearing Xi's exposition of China's policies at the WEF as the world is facing many uncertainties right now, said the Swiss leader. Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the WEF annual meeting on Tuesday to share the views of the world's second largest economy on charting the course for globalization. During the chat, the two leaders also exchanged views on such issues as Belt and Road Initiative and green development. They agreed to propel the two countries' cooperation in science and technology, innovation, connectivity, infrastructure construction, clean energy and regional-level exchanges. The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said last week that the European governments must do more to help protect migrants and refugees from cold and harsh winter. UNHCR reported that there have been five known cases of death from cold including two Iraqi men and a Somali woman found dead close to the Turkish border in Bulgaria. There was also a young Pakistani man who was found dead along the same border in late December and a young Afghan man found dead after he had crossed the Evros River on the Greek-Turkish border at night in -20 degrees Celsius. Around 1,000 people including many children are living in unheated tents and dormitories on the Greek island of Samos. Hundreds of others have recently been transported to better conditions on the islands of Chios and Lesbos. In Serbia, it is estimated that about 1,200 refugees are exposed to winter while about 7,300 are staying in heated shelters provided by the Serbian government. Referring to the migration flows across the Mediterranean, Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), commented these had started out in a big way in 2017 and the total death toll for the first two weeks of this year stood already at 27. Meanwhile, UNHCR spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly commented that given the harsh winter conditions, we are particularly concerned by reports that authorities in all countries along the Western Balkans route continue to push back refugees and migrants from inside their territory to neighboring countries. The United Nations childrens agency UNICEF added that children were particularly prone to respiratory illnesses and that the dire situation is especially in Greece. Page Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. Akbar Komijani is upset with the US treatment of Iran Akbar Komijani, deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iran, finds it difficult to contain his frustration during an interview with Euromoney at the end of 2016. There has to be some speedy movement, he says, impatient for international banks to accelerate their re-engagement with Iran. Any actions that are taking place should be legitimized, should be lawful, but it doesnt mean that this process should take a long, long period of time. We do feel that this is putting further pressure and unwanted pressure on the Iranian banks and Iranian economy. At the end, the final bitterness goes to the people of Iran. His voice rises: It is not morally acceptable. Any party that has signed a contract should be respecting the commitments and should be moving ahead as scheduled. Komijani is upset with the US treatment of Iran since the nuclear deal came into force in October 2015. The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was meant to free up Irans economy and banking sector by lifting most of the sanctions imposed on the country in exchange for curbs on Irans nuclear programme. Flash South Sudan's central state of Jubek have inaugurated Jubek Model Secondary School built with support from the Chinese government. The new school located in the suburb of Gudele, west of the South Sudanese capital of Juba, is built using a grant of 8 million U.S. dollars provided by China to construct two schools in South Sudan. The 2,200-square-meter facility comprises of 16 class rooms that can accommodate about 1000 students, running water and a 24-hour solar power. Jubek State Governor Augustino Jadalla Wani said Friday the new school is going to fight congestion in public schools and also reduce the cost of traveling long distance by secondary school students. He lauded Beijing's efforts to continue seeking lasting peace and stability in South Sudan, adding that China's support to South Sudan's oil, construction and education sectors would help shore up the young East African country into prosperity. "Lack of public schools in the capital has been a major problem to our children because most schools are located east of Juba. I sincerely congratulate and thank the People's Republic of China for this great offer. I hope this school is going to be among the best schools in the whole country," Wani said. Minister of Education Wani Sule advised the school management to maintain the modern facilities with proper, cautioning the local community against theft of solar panels and other property. On his part, Zhang Yi, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in South Sudan said the successful completion of the project signals China's good and sincere friendship with South Sudan. Zhang revealed that China had contributed toward construction of two other Schools (Yapa and China Friendship Secondary schools) in Jubek state, totaling to three China-aided secondary schools. In addition to building schools, the Chinese government will embark on capacity building for South Sudanese teachers, Zhang pledged. No... dental labs tend to make dentures/bridges/retainers/gold onlays/crowns and the like. While your dentist may send his/her dental appliance work to a specific lab, I believe that you are allowed to tell your dentist that you want your stuff made by a specific dental mechanic (my friend's ex husband is a dental mechanic and said that I was within my rights to ask my dentist to send the work for my crowns to his lab for fabrication, if I so chose). My husband and I are looking for a rental property too. One thing I found very confusing is that rentals are listed on immobilier sites under 'locations,' and not 'a louer' as I had thought, and there is not much out there regardless of where you look. You might try leboncoin for your area. There is also a site for mainly short term rentals called rentaplaceinfrance.com which you may find helpful. They have some places listed that are available to rent long term. These are mostly all furnished rentals, because French law distinguishes between furnished, mostly short (or shorter) term rentals and unfurnished, long term rentals, which have a minimum three year term. The rights that attach to each category are very different. If you google it I'm sure you will find much useful information. Good luck! Hi all I want to find out whether anyone has more info on the following possible citizenship. My great grandfather was born in Latvia (Tukums) in 1881. He later then moved to South Africa (the year, as well as reasons I do not know). According to some sites, you can gain citizenship based on the following: Documents that confirm the eligibility of acquiring citizenship based on ethnic origin: 1. Document that confirms ancestors place of residence in territory of Latvia between 1881 and June 17, 1940; 2. Documents proving relationship to the ancestor; 3. Documents confirming ethnic background (passports, birth/marriage certificates etc.) 4. Confirmation of Latvian language exam being passed. Are there any way that I will be able to gain citizenship based on this? if the lineage is too far out, is my mother able to apply, and if she meets all the requirements and is successful in her application, are we as her children able to apply? (All over the age of 25). Does anyone have more info or had similar experiences concerning Latvian citizenship specifically? From: Ad Council For Immediate Release: Dateline: New York , NY Monday, January 16, 2017 Today marks the 54th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech. The iconic speech called for equality, unity, and freedom for all people. In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.s contributions to America, weve picked 6 TV commercials that we love for embracing diversity and inclusion. Honey Maids This is Wholesome Back in 2014, Honey Maid released their This is Wholesome ad with the tagline Everyday wholesome snacks for every wholesome family. We love this ad for depicting the real diversity of families, with different race, the same gender, and even tattooed families included. H&Ms Shes a Lady This ones for the women who want to see their body types reflected in clothing commercials. H&M introduced their Autumn 2016 line with an array of women of all shapes, sizes, styles, and ages. The ad starts with a close-up of a woman in her underwear and bra. Then, in each scene, we see different, diverse women with the tune Shes a Lady in the background. This commercial shows us that no matter their haircut, clothing style, age, race, religion, size, all women deserve to feel confident and be celebrated. Pedigrees The Walk Pedigree only uses two characters in their commercial, but they speaks volumes. Sometimes we need a subtle reminder not to make judgments based on appearances. Instead, we should meet everyone in the same uninhibited way that two dogs meet each other. CoverGirls So Lashy With the tagline Equal is Beautiful, CoverGirl takes diversity to the next level. In the spot, we see different races, religions, and in an industry dominated in the past by women, we even see a man as one of the spokespeople for mascara. By making all lashes equal, CoverGirl sends the larger message that all people are equal. Apples The Human Family The Olympic Games are the most competitive sporting event around the world. During the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Apple took the opportunity to remind us that despite this competition, We are more alike than we are unalike. The spot shows us how real people around the world use a device that most of us use every day, thus proving that technology can be a force for unity. Ad Councils We Are America We Are America asks all Americans to re-think love, patriotism, and what it means to be American. The average American probably differs from what most people initially think. The tagline To love America is to love all Americans calls on us to love all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, disability, sexuality, or age. The post Today marks the 54anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.s I Have a Dream speech. The iconic speech called for equality, unity, and freedom for all people. In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.s contributions to America, weve picked 6 TV commercials that we love for embracing diversity and inclusion.Back in 2014, Honey Maid released their This is Wholesome ad with the tagline Everyday wholesome snacks for every wholesome family. We love this ad for depicting the real diversity of families, with different race, the same gender, and even tattooed families included.This ones for the women who want to see their body types reflected in clothing commercials. H&M introduced their Autumn 2016 line with an array of women of all shapes, sizes, styles, and ages. The ad starts with a close-up of a woman in her underwear and bra. Then, in each scene, we see different, diverse women with the tune Shes a Lady in the background. This commercial shows us that no matter their haircut, clothing style, age, race, religion, size, all women deserve to feel confident and be celebrated.Pedigree only uses two characters in their commercial, but they speaks volumes. Sometimes we need a subtle reminder not to make judgments based on appearances. Instead, we should meet everyone in the same uninhibited way that two dogs meet each other.With the tagline Equal is Beautiful, CoverGirl takes diversity to the next level. In the spot, we see different races, religions, and in an industry dominated in the past by women, we even see a man as one of the spokespeople for mascara. By making all lashes equal, CoverGirl sends the larger message that all people are equal.The Olympic Games are the most competitive sporting event around the world. During the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Apple took the opportunity to remind us that despite this competition, We are more alike than we are unalike. The spot shows us how real people around the world use a device that most of us use every day, thus proving that technology can be a force for unity.We Are America asks all Americans to re-think love, patriotism, and what it means to be American. The average American probably differs from what most people initially think. The tagline To love America is to love all Americans calls on us to love all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, disability, sexuality, or age.The post 6 Commercials We Love for Embracing Diversity appeared first on AdLibbing.org From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Monday, January 16, 2017 Taylor Ellis, a doctoral student and lead evaluator, and Dr. Debra Nelson-Gardell, an Associate Professor, providing consultation at the Taut and Alkin (2002) reported people stereotypically view program evaluation as being judgedthat the evaluation is used to get me, that it is not going to be used to assist me but is perceived to be negative and punitive in its nature (p. 43). Our program evaluation faced derailment because the program had never been evaluated before, or perhaps because of the inevitability of resistance to evaluation. Accepting the resistance as normal, we tried addressing it. But, our efforts didnt work as we had hoped. Below are the hard lessons learned through hard knocks. Lessons Learned: The Importance of Stakeholder Input : Stakeholders need to believe evaluators will listen to them. Early in the evaluation process, stakeholders were interviewed and asked about their ideas for program improvement to promote engagement in the process. What the interviews lacked was a greater emphasis on how what stakeholders said affected the evaluation. Remember and (Emphatically) Remind Stakeholders of the Evaluations Purpose/Goals : During the evaluation, the purpose of the evaluation was lost in that stakeholders were not reminded of the evaluations purpose. Project updates to stakeholders should have been more intentional about movement towards the purpose. We lost sight of the forest as we negotiated the trees. This lack of constant visioning led to many stakeholders viewing the evaluation implementation as an unnecessary hassle. The Illusion of Control : Easily said, not easily done: Dont (always) take it personally. Despite our efforts, a great deal of resistance, pushback, and dissatisfaction remained. After weeks of feeling at fault, we found out that things were happening behind the scenes over which we had no control, but that directly affected the evaluation. Knowing these lessons earlier could have made a difference, and we intend to find out. Our biggest lesson learned: Resist being discouraged by (likely inevitable) resistance, try to learn from it, and know that you are not alone. The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Southeast Evaluation Association (SEA) Affiliate Week with our colleagues in the SEA Affiliate. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from SEA Affiliate 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 Hi, were Southeast Evaluation Association (SEA) members, a doctoral student and lead evaluator, and, an Associate Professor, providing consultation at the School of Social Work at The University of Alabama . We form a team tasked with evaluating a program providing community-based, family-inclusive intervention for youth with sexual behavior problems (youngsters who lay people might call juvenile sex offenders). This post focuses on our lessons learned regarding our approach to resistance in program evaluation.Taut and Alkin (2002) reported people stereotypically view program evaluation as being judgedthat the evaluation is used to get me, that it is not going to be used to assist me but is perceived to be negative and punitive in its nature (p. 43). Our program evaluation faced derailment because the program had never been evaluated before, or perhaps because of the inevitability of resistance to evaluation. Accepting the resistance as normal, we tried addressing it. But, our efforts didnt work as we had hoped. Below are the hard lessons learned through hard knocks.Knowing these lessons earlier could have made a difference, and we intend to find out. Our biggest lesson learned: Resist being discouraged by (likely inevitable) resistance, try to learn from it, and know that you are not alone.The American Evaluation Association is celebratingWeek with our colleagues in the SEA Affiliate. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from SEA Affiliate 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. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate One of San Antonios military bases is ground zero to test how renewable energy can keep the lights on for mission-critical infrastructure even when the grid is down. The $950,000 microgrid system at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston was funded by CPS Energy and implemented by a partnership between Omnetric Group and Siemens. The system utilizes a 20-kilowatt solar system and a 75-kilowatt battery that can power the Keith A. Campbell Memorial Library for up to 40 minutes. The project is part of the Energy Departments National Renewable Energy Laboratory Integrated Network Testbed for Energy Grid Research and Technology Experimentation program, or INTEGRATE, which seeks to better integrate intermittent sources of power such as renewables into the grid. We have DoD, Air Force and Army goals that state mission assurance through energy assurance or energy resilience, and (this project) is right in line with that goal, said Brenda Roesch, Joint Base San Antonio base civil engineer. The system at Fort Sam generates and stores electricity, allowing CPS to draw off the system while offering a backup for the 23,000-square-foot library if grid power turns off. The library was chosen as a test site because its not mission-critical to Fort Sam. Frank Almaraz, CPS senior vice president of strategy and commercial operations, said systems such as the one at Fort Sam are part of the utilitys future. The way weve done business historically is not the way that things are going to happen forever. Were in a period of accelerated change, Almaraz said. Such microgrids are usually known for their use on remote islands throughout the world, where a combination of solar or wind power is stored in batteries. Other systems can use diesel generators to store electricity, but they require expensive fuel to be delivered to remote locations. 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. Siemens Clark Wiedetz, director of microgrid and renewable integration, says microgrids make renewable assets such as the more than 1,200 megawatts of wind and solar power that CPS buys more valuable as a part of their overall system. It allows them within their service territory to redistribute the load based on if something happens weather issues somewhere, a station goes down now they can move loads, Wiedetz said. CPS getting to that point hinges on battery costs coming down. Almaraz said such costs are currently prohibitive, but he hopes that the testing on the Fort Sam microgrid will help CPS prepare to take advantage of batteries when their costs come down. One day, it could be a neighborhood, it could be a facility like the airport, or our military or the hospital or an individual who never wants to be out of power and produce some of their needs by a solar system on their roof, Alamaraz said of how microgrids could be used. When times were good and crude was selling at $100 a barrel just three years ago, lawyers and bankers scored record profits advising companies on mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and securities offerings. For the past 2 years, however, the energy industry has been in crisis. Oil slipped below $30 a barrel. Thousands lost jobs. Scores of oil and gas companies and the businesses servicing them declared bankruptcy. But the law firms and financial counselors working for those distressed energy operations continue to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to the complex federal bankruptcy system. The U.S. energy companies that declared bankruptcy during the past 30 months a majority of them based in Texas have paid their legal and financial advisers more than $1.4 billion in fees and expenses since the bust got underway in 2014, according to a Texas Lawbook examination of court records. Those same lawyers and consultants have requested an additional $260 million in payments, pending the approval of federal bankruptcy judges in Texas, Delaware, New York and Oklahoma. In addition, there are more than 60 active bankruptcy cases in which the legal and financial advisers have not yet filed their fee requests fees that legal specialists conservatively estimate will add $80 million to the tab. Since July 2014, three law firms Kirkland & Ellis, Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Skadden Arps have collected a combined $354 million for their representation of distressed energy companies not including pending requests for payment. All three national law firms have outposts in Houston. The business of corporate bankruptcy has become very lucrative for a small group of professionals, Gary Kennedy, the former American Airlines general counsel who guided the Fort Worth company through Chapter 11 two years ago, said at a seminar at the SMU Dedman School of Law last year. It has gotten so expensive that some companies can no longer afford to go bankrupt. The law firms, however, say bankruptcy is a complex legal proceeding that requires lots of time, money and know-how to reorganize companies, restructure debt and satisfy creditors, bankruptcy trustees and judges. Ultimately, they add, the companies benefit when they emerge from bankruptcy as going concerns with greatly reduced debt. Most of these bankruptcies are extraordinary, complicated restructurings that require the law firms have expertise in so many areas of law from tax law and capital markets to antitrust and securities, Andrew Calder, a Kirkland partner, said in an interview. Before the oil bust, bankruptcy law practice had struggled because many larger businesses avoided bankruptcy court by raising cash through the shadow banking system of private equity firms and hedge funds. All that changed in the second half of 2014 when the price of crude oil began its slide. More than 1,280 Texas businesses of all kinds have filed for bankruptcy in courts in Texas and other states during the past two years, with many of them connected to the oil and gas industry, according to data provided by Androvett Legal Media, a public relations and marketing company for law firms. Most bankruptcy law practices were pretty slow, but now most bankruptcy lawyers are either busy or crazy busy, said Bill Wallander, who leads the bankruptcy practice at Houston-based Vinson & Elkins. The Androvett data show that 752 businesses filed for bankruptcy restructuring in federal courts in Texas in 2016 up 42 percent from 2015 and up 81 percent from 2014. More than 150 oil and gas companies filed for bankruptcy in 2016 71 of them were exploration and production operations with a cumulative debt of $56.8 billion, according to Haynes and Boones Oil and Gas Bankruptcy Monitor. The Haynes and Boone data show that 70 oil and gas services companies also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. Chapter 11 protects companies from creditors while the firms reorganize, work with lenders to figure out how and how much creditors will be paid back, and develop plans to remain viable businesses. The longer a company stays in bankruptcy, however, the more expensive it gets. Law firm partners working on these energy company bankruptcies charge hourly rates ranging from $950 to $1,450, according to the Texas Lawbooks review of court records. Theres no better example than oil services firm CHC Group, which filed for bankruptcy in Dallas in May. The company expanded quickly when petroleum prices were high, buying hundreds of helicopters to ferry workers and cargo to energy production sites around the globe. When oil fell to $30 early last year, CHC idled nearly 100 of its choppers, laid off scores of employees and filed for Chapter 11, citing $1.5 billion in debt. CHC is still several weeks away from getting U.S. Bankruptcy Chief Judge Barbara Housers final stamp of approval, but the company has already paid its legal and financial advisers including Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Ernst & Young, Debevoise & Plimpton, Gardere, DLA Piper and PricewaterhouseCoopers more than 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. $26 million in combined fees and expenses, according to court records. That figure does not include any fees for work those firms have done for the past three months. Those bills have not yet been submitted to Houser for approval. Fort Worth-based QuickSilver Resources paid $36.7 million in fees and expenses for only a year in federal bankruptcy court. Another Fort Worth company, Energy & Exploration Partners, paid $15 million in professional fees and expenses. Houston-based Sabine Oil & Gas has paid its advisers more than $78 million for 14 months in bankruptcy court. But not one of these compares with Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, which filed for protection in April 2014. To date, the company has paid its lawyers and financial advisers more than $449 million a tab that analysts predict will hit $600 million before the bankruptcy is concluded this spring. Kirkland is the biggest beneficiary. In April 2014, the Chicago-based law firm opened its first Texas office in Houston by luring Andrew Calder away from a competing law firm. That same month, EFH hired Kirkland to be the lead counselor for the debtor. In the months since, EFH has paid the firm more than $160 million in fees and expenses. Kirkland was willing to spend the resources, and now they are reaping the benefits, said bankruptcy litigation specialist Nick Foley, who joined McKool Smith as a partner in December. For a longer version of this report, please visit TexasLawbook.net. Spurs fans who miss seeing star power forward Tim Duncan and his No. 21 jersey at the AT&T Center can now see them both for a limited time on a cereal box at their breakfast tables. Slam Duncan Os, a honey nut toasted cereal with chocolate puffs named for the fan favorite, officially hit H-E-B stores Monday and demand is expected to be high after early samples of the product released last month were listed for sale on eBay, according to company executives. It took two hours to sell out the first 500 boxes of the limited-edition cereal, which were accidentally stocked on the shelves of one store Friday, said Cory Basso, H-E-Bs vice president of marketing and advertising. H-E-B is producing up to 400,000 boxes of the cereal, which touts Duncans 19-year career with the Spurs. The supermarket chain is limiting purchases to six per customer. If you think back over the years, a cereal is a very iconic thing to be a part of, Basso said. We just thought it was going to be a lot of fun to do a commemorative cereal with him. The company is experimenting with other products named for individual players that could debut as early as this fall, Basso said. He said he expects that the Duncan cereals product line will be sold out after three months. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Tim Duncan Foundation. Once theyre gone, theyre gone, Basso said. There wont be a reprint. And, were doing that to keep it limited-edition because we think that makes it more special. Duncan, who retired in July, reprised his role in H-E-Bs popular commercial series starring the Spurs in October. The 6-foot-11 power forward began appearing in the chains ads in 2004 and has since been in every round of its Spurs ads. Duncan wont be appearing with current Spurs players in future commercials, Basso said, but has filmed another ad to accompany the cereal rollout that will begin airing today and is on the hook for at least two more before the end of the year. Basso wouldnt disclose details of Duncans contract with H-E-B but said he expects him to stay with the company for years to come. Duncans post-Spurs role is still being hammered out. 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. Weve done charity work in the past, weve now done a product with him, Basso said. We havent fully explored all of the opportunities. H-E-B became the Spurs lead sponsor in 2004 and signed a five-year extension in 2013. Players negotiate individual contracts with the San Antonio company, usually tied to the length of their Spurs contracts. The chain has partnered with Spurs on products in the past including Slam Dunk Chocolate Chunk ice cream in 2007. Now, H-E-B is exploring potential player-specific products, Basso said, but he didnt name which players could get their own products. The company has plenty to pick from. Under contract are Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Danny Green, Patty Mills and newcomer Pau Gasol. jfechter@express-news.net Twitter: @JFreports This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Two unrelated San Antonio online businesses a grass and sod retailer, and an auto-parts distributor have been sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for allegedly defrauding consumers. Grass4Sale.com Inc. and CEO James Walker are accused of deceiving consumers, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Bexar County District Court. The state wants Grass4Sale and Walker to turn over any ill-gotten gains. MJM Autohaus Inc. and owner Kelly Madden allegedly misled consumers, who reported waiting months for parts, receiving incorrect merchandise or never getting deliveries, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 10. The states claims in each case could exceed $1 million. Grass4Sale officials did not respond to email messages Monday. The companys voice mail system would not accept new messages. MJM Autohaus phone appeared to be disconnected. The company didnt immediately respond to an email. Kayleigh Lovvorn, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, said she could not comment because both lawsuits are pending. Grass4Sale bills itself on its website as Americas (sic) largest online grass distributor. In truth, the state said in its suit, the company never had more than two or three independent contractors in the San Antonio area. Grass4Sale is operated out of a home in Texas and has no divisions providing the advertised localized response, the suit added. The suit contained affidavits from four customers who shared tales of woe in dealing with Grass4Sale. One consumer reported spending more than $1,100 for grass and top soil in 2015. He received the topsoil but not the grass. Despite disputing the charges with his credit card company, the customer said, he received a collection notice. Another consumer reported paying $307 for a pallet of zoysia grass but getting a different type of grass. Grass4Sale later came and picked up the zoysia grass but never delivered the sod that the customer ordered, the affidavit stated. Grass4Sale has received an F rating from the Better Business Bureau. The organizations website shows it has received 50 complaints. Grass4Sale failed to respond to 19 complaints and 11 complaints were unresolved, the BBB reported. The attorney general is suing Grass4Sale for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The state seeks civil penalties of $20,000 for each violation and an order directing the company to repay consumers. 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 state is pursuing similar penalties against MJM Autohaus, the auto-parts distributor. MJM Autohaus is accused of failing to ship merchandise in a timely manner. The company cuts off communication with the consumer if it cannot resolve an issue, the suit added. One consumer mentioned in the lawsuit paid MJM Autohaus $400 for an Audi IT suspension kit that he took to his mechanic to install. But parts were missing and others were too small. After checking the model number on the parts, the mechanic discovered they were for a Volkswagen. The customer successfully disputed the charge with his credit card company but said in an affidavit that he still believed these people are scammers. The attorney generals lawsuit noted that MJM Autohaus forfeited its corporate registration in 2008. The companys website displays a BBB accreditation logo, but the BBB states it has not awarded any such designation to the business. MJM Autohaus is rated an F by BBB, which reported receiving 94 complaints including 82 that received no response. pdanner@express-news.net Twitter: @AlamoPD In his latest criticism of what he sees as unfair trade, Donald Trump has taken aim at German cars. Why, the president-elect asked a German newspaper, do so many well-heeled drivers in New York drive a Mercedes-Benz, while Germans buy so few Chevrolets? Trumps question could set the stage for action by his incoming administration against the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which he criticized for its plans to build a new plant in Mexico. But the president-elects musing shows an incomplete understanding of how globalized the auto industry has become since Ronald Reagan went after Toyota and Honda in the 1980s. That Mercedes-Benz in New York, for example, may have been made in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, depending on the model. BMW has a plant in South Carolina that exports 70 percent of the vehicles made there, it says. And Germans might not buy many Chevrolets, which are no longer sold in Germany, but they buy plenty of Opels, which, like Chevy, is owned by General Motors. Trump has criticized other companies and industries for moving production out of the United States at the expense of U.S. jobs, such as appliance makers and pharmaceutical companies. But the vehicle industry in general and particularly foreign automakers, his new target illustrate how difficult it can be to parse U.S. from international when criticizing global trade. BMW and Mercedes-Benz as well as Japanese carmakers Honda, Nissan and Toyota employ thousands of factory workers in Alabama, South Carolina, Texas and other states. GM gets more than one-quarter of its auto-related sales outside North America, while Ford gets one-third. Chrysler was bought by Fiat of Italy. Cars of all types increasingly have Chinese parts. Nevertheless, Trump has been making a series of ever-broader demands that the auto industry manufacture in the United States to sell in the United States. The president-elects latest comments came Sunday in excerpts from an interview with the German tabloid newspaper Bild. After praising German manufacturing prowess, Trump threatened to impose a 35 percent tariff he called it a tax on every car that BMW imported to the United States. BMW should build the factory in the U.S., Trump said, where it would benefit from his plans to slash corporate taxes. Car exports are the lifeblood of the German economy, and the U.S. is one of the most important markets. New trade barriers would be a serious threat to German growth and could sour relations with one of the United States most important allies. We take his comments seriously, Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Auto Industry, said in a statement. Restrictions in the NAFTA zone would put a real damper on the economy. In a Sunday post on Twitter, Trump laid out his expectations for the auto industry: Car companies and others, if they want to do business in our country, have to start making things here again. WIN! The main question lies in what Trump and his trade advisers decide to do once in office, auto industry officials and trade experts said. Measures to force manufacturers to shift assembly to U.S. factories and to use more U.S.-made parts could drive up prices for U.S. car buyers and make U.S. vehicles less competitive in world markets. The people who lose are the core Trump supporters, who end up buying more expensive products, said Bill Russo, a former chief executive of Chrysler China who is managing director for the automotive industry at Gao Feng Advisory Co., a Chinese consulting firm. German carmakers are hoping that, once Trump takes office, they will be able to convince him that tariffs on vehicle imports would hurt the U.S. economy and get him to modify his views. We should seek a dialogue with Trump, Clemens Fuest, president of the Ifo Institute, a research organization in Munich, said in an email. But Fuest also expressed concern that differences over trade could escalate. There is a danger that his policy fails and that he subsequently starts looking for scapegoats, Fuest said. One such scapegoat could be the German economy. In some respects, Trump has a point. The United States has been more open to imports than other large automotive markets, with the result that cars shipped in from abroad represent a considerably larger share of the U.S. market than of markets elsewhere. European governments have effectively limited imports by putting pressure on vehicle manufacturers not to close high-cost factories or to lay off workers. The Chinese government requires foreign automakers to partner with local manufacturers and sometimes requires them to transfer technology to Chinese companies. Still, tailoring measures against the auto industry to create jobs in the United States could be difficult. For example, BMWs Mexico plant would produce 3 Series sedans, which are made only in Germany and China. Most likely, the plant in Mexico would take jobs from the factories in Germany and China and create demand for components imported from the U.S. BMW is very much at home in the USA, Glenn Schmidt, a BMW spokesman, said in an email. Mercedes-Benz declined to comment. The BMW factory site in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, is swarming with construction workers rushing to make a 2019 deadline to begin production. There is little chance BMW will change its plans and move the assembly lines to the U.S. Trumps comments hark back to the 1980s, when the Reagan administration criticized Japan for what it called unfair trade policies in the auto business. That compelled the Japanese government to set annual limits on the number of cars shipped to the United States. Although President George H.W. Bush allowed Japan to drop the limits soon after taking office in 1989, the fights of the 1980s taught the global industry a valuable lesson: Made in America can be a good thing. Japanese and European automakers built assembly plants in the U.S., taking the edge off political battles while creating tens of thousands of jobs in the country. 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. Building plants in the U.S. helped in other areas as well, such as improving the foreign automakers logistics and moderating the effect from turbulence in currency markets. BMWs largest factory anywhere in the world is in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It employs nearly 9,000 people and exports 70 percent of the vehicles it makes, BMW says. Daimler makes Mercedes-Benz SUVs and C-Class cars in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and it is building a factory in Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture Sprinter vans, creating more than 1,000 jobs. Daimler, which also builds Freightliner trucks in the United States, has 22 factories or research and development centers in the U.S. that employ 22,000 people. Even Volkswagen has not given up on the U.S. despite an emissions scandal that has led to $20 billion in civil settlements and criminal penalties. The carmaker, which has long produced cars in Mexico, is expanding a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to manufacture a new full-size SUV. GM and Ford, meanwhile, saw big opportunities in places such as China, where rapid economic development meant more people could afford cars. A tough stance on autos from Trump may not have the same impact as that of Reagan. Since the 1980s, automakers have made fewer of their own parts, buying them instead from hundreds of parts suppliers based all over the globe. That means a U.S. car assembled in the United States could still have large chunks that are manufactured abroad. Chinese manufacturers dominate the market for replacement parts in the U.S., often undercutting prices for parts from the automakers by half or more. Tariffs on Chinese parts would end up being paid by Americans who took their cars in for repairs. U.S. consumers are paying a good price for their aftermarket parts, because of Chinese providers, said Yale Zhang, managing director of Automotive Foresight, a Shanghai-based consulting firm. Global automakers assembly plants have been rapidly shifting orders from parts factories in the Midwest to plants in China in the last few years. But that trend could stop or reverse if Trump imposes sizable tariffs on those imports, Zhang said. For any move Trump makes, the devil is in the details. Options include tariffs on imported cars and possibly car parts. He could also prompt a rewrite of the U.S. tax code so that imports but not exports are taxed, a move known as border adjustment. The architect of the Reagan administrations restrictions on Japanese car imports and of a Reagan-era law that temporarily reduced taxes on exporters was Robert E. Lighthizer. Lighthizer was deputy U.S. trade representative at the time. He is now Trumps choice to become the United States top trade negotiator. Q: I read your column about helping animals in the Express-News (Resolve to help animal shelters in 2017, December 27, 2016), and it prompted me to write with this question. I have read that there are animal rehabilitation organizations that welcome donations of fur as bedding for wild animals. I have a large fox stole and another piece of fur which might be appropriate, but I don't know of any group in this area who is looking for such a donation. Do you know of any? Mara A: I called Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation (WRR) in Kendalia, and Executive Director Lynn Cuny said the group accepts donations of fur to use for bedding for the wild animals rehabilitating there. I didnt know this practice even existed. What a great way to get rid of Grandmas old fur coats. WRR has a location in San Antonio at 137 Earl St. where you can drop off your donation. Q: I read your column Resolve to help animal shelters in 2017about donating time and money to animal shelters. I dont have much money, but I do volunteer with my pre-teen kids. Kids this age dont mind cleaning cages and love walking dogs and playing with cats. Its a great way for them to learn about homeless pets first-hand. Leslie A: Volunteering with your kids is a great way to help animals and educate your kids. I hope your letter will inspire more families to volunteer together in 2017. Q: I read your Express-News Animals Matter blog post, 20 pet safety tips just for Christmas trees, and found your tips helpful. We used some of your tips for securing and decorating the tree even putting our three cats in a back room during the decorating process. While they were curious at first, the pine cones around the base of the tree kept them from going up the tree. We also ditched the shimmery ornaments for fake flowers and nonreflective ornaments, as you suggested, and they quickly lost interest in the tree. Thank you! Do you have tips for keeping cats out of potted plants? Lizzy A: You can use similar strategies for potted plants. Cover the soil with small pine cones or large rocks or stick popsicle sticks halfway into the soil every 2 inches apart to keep the cats from digging and urinating in the soil. I also have discouraged my cats by covering the top of the pot with aluminum foil, leaving room for the plant to stick out, of course, and spraying Bitter Apple, available online or in pet stores, around the pot itself. My Animals Matter blog can always be found on the Express-News site at the link below. Send your pet tips, stories and questions to cathy@petpundit.com. You can read her blog, Animals Matter, at blog.mysanantonio.com/animals. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Amid the solemn pomp of a military funeral, Luis Torres was laid to rest Friday at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, 66 years after he went missing as a Korean War prisoner of war. After a long procession of cars crawled up Broadway to the cemetery, a caisson with four horses appeared, bringing his flag-draped casket along a winding road to the burial grounds. Five current soldiers from his unit C Company, 1st Battalion, 23 Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division served as his color guard and presented a Purple Heart to the family. His family, unaware for decades what happened to Torres, received an Ambassador of Peace Medal from the Consulate General of South Korea in Houston. Throughout the funeral, his brother, Greg Torres, 71, clutched his folded flag close to his heart. Carlos Mendoza, a nephew who had worked on an effort to locate Luis Torres, sat nearby. The family members said they looked forward to visiting his grave, now that he had been found. I feel very happy, because my brother is here, said Guadalupe Torres, at 92 the oldest of Torres surviving sisters. Hes here with all of us. Torres joined the Army and arrived in Pusan on Aug. 5, 1950, when the war in Korea was barely 2 months old. On Aug. 31, a battle on the east bank of the Naktong River decimated his unit. Just 20 soldiers in the company returned that day. Torres was not among them. Greg Torres had seen his brother shortly before he left for Korea. He was a young boy then. When the Army told his mother, Esther, that Luis was presumed killed in action, she didnt believe them, not to the end of her life. Greg Torres also believed that his brother would return one day. After joining the military himself and serving in the Vietnam War, he became active in veterans ceremonies in San Antonio. He would always bring a picture of his brother. In 2005, Mendoza, a retired Army staff sergeant from Eagle Pass, began interviewing those who knew Luis. His uncle was nicknamed Shorty, he loved music and his female admirers thought he was very handsome. Mendoza received a possible lead in 2013 on the whereabouts of his uncle. Based on witness statements and records of who fought at what battle, a grave in a cemetery of unknown soldiers in Hawaii was exhumed. A briefing given to the family Dec. 15 confirmed that Torres remains had been found and identified. They were earlier found 6 miles from the battlefield. Its believed that he was a short-term prisoner held by the North Koreans before he was executed. Three bullets, one of them near his spine, pierced his body. For years, the family had assumed that he had been tortured. Their fears were confirmed when they were told in the briefing that he was missing his feet and his left hand. His remains were returned to San Antonio on Tuesday. Omar Torres, son of Greg Torres, said that since he was a young boy, he always wondered what his great-uncle was like. Omar, 46, resembled Luis, according to his relatives. He would wonder if his great-uncle had the same sense of humor. He had learned about the disappearance when he was very young, and he had made sure to teach his children about Luis. When he arrived on Tuesday, and I saw him come off that plane, I felt it right here, Omar Torres said, clutching his heart. Almost as if I had just lost him. I felt a rush of emotion. At the visitation, Omar Torres said he brought his family to the casket. He told his great-uncle, This is my family. Then he hugged his family. He said what he felt was relief. jlawrence@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate At her desk and preoccupied, 1st Sgt. Tiwanda Griffin-Greer didnt see Tech. Sgt. Steven Bellino enter her office until she heard a metallic clinking and looked up. He had taken a seat in front of her, a Glock handgun tucked into the waistband of his Air Force blue suit uniform. Bellino told her to call her boss. Several minutes passed before Lt. Col. William Schroeder opened the door, stared down at Bellino and spotted the gun, an Air Force investigator later would tell Bellinos family. You really ruined a lot of airmens lives, Bellino told Schroeder, according to a description of the encounter provided by the investigator, Special Agent Elizabeth Rocha. Bellinos family recorded Rochas statement and made it available to the San Antonio Express-News. Lets talk about your AWOL status, replied Schroeder, commander of the 342nd Training Squadron. A moment later, he lunged at Bellino. The shots fired April 8 inside Forbes Hall, a training headquarters on Lacklands Medina Annex, put the base on a brief lockdown. The two men, veterans of the U.S. Special Operations Command, died in a murder-suicide. They were in the Air Forces elite Battlefield Airmen program at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, where Bellino had trained in a tough pararescue program the summer before and by washing out, had seen his military career unravel. An Air Education and Training Command investigation of the shooting continues. But a collection of audio recordings, military records, an Air Force psychiatric evaluation, a timeline Bellino made of key events in his life all made available to the Express-News by family members, much of it provided to them by the Air Force show he harbored a deep anger. The trove included a two-page unsigned note typed eight months before the shooting. The Air Force described it as a suicide note. The family members dispute that, saying an expert they hired called it highly unlikely Bellino wrote it. At 41, Bellino had struggled to regain his footing amid professional setbacks following repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Post traumatic stress disorder symptoms grew more and more severe in the final year of his life, the documents indicate. Friends say Bellino was idealistic, a man of exacting fairness, even when distributing candy to kids in the Balkans. He lived up to the letter of the law and expected it of others. He would call out anyone who fell short he once accused a sergeant major of lying in front of a roomful of soldiers. But the high standards and high achievement through his years as an Army Ranger, Green Beret, CIA and NSA contractor and FBI agent masked a growing personal crisis. A series of perceived slights and violations of his sense of honor had accumulated long before he came to Lackland and he told almost no one about it. I do not like this world, and I do not want to be a part of it any longer, Bellino wrote in the disputed note in August 2015, the month he quit the pararescue program, went home to Ohio and was charged with being absent without leave. Ive searched for many years to find a home consistent with my ethics and such a place does not exist. The Air Force confirmed it found that note in a flash drive during a search of a San Antonio storage shed and that investigators believe Bellino wrote it. Bellinos family members refuse to believe he killed himself and are trying to clear his name. Still grieving in Parma Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, they say he had everything to live for after a sterling military career. Steve devoted his life to the military, his father, Michael Bellino Sr., told one of his sons friends from the pararescue program in a phone call the older man recorded. And then, I mean, he was in battle. He had all these missions he did; the awards, everything hed done and then its going to come down to this, where (hes) going to kill himself? Hardened, then brittle Bellino considered himself a patriot. He had joined the Army with his parents permission at 17, spent years in special operations, became an explosives expert, spoke Arabic. He lived in Ecuador to perfect his Spanish. His GPA was 3.5 at Ohio State University, majoring in criminal psychology. And Bellino had excelled in a long list of military schools and deployments. He earned the coveted Ranger tab, became a Green Beret, spent years in the Ohio National Guard and did contract work for the CIA and National Security Agency in Iraq. Out of the military, Bellino graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, hoping to serve in the agencys Hostage Rescue Team. He impressed many along the way. A Special Forces company commander, Maj. Richard G. Rhyne, wrote of him in 2001, Staff Sgt. Bellino continually displays a heroic attitude. He is above the standards in every thing that he does. Behind the standout resume was a darker side. Bellino soldiered through multiple overseas deployments over two decades but told his family members very little about his service. They didnt know Bellino had been a Green Beret until his funeral. He had close calls. A suicide bomber in Iraq detonated an explosive belt on the other side of a wall from him. Much later, Bellino mentioned it on a long list of memories that triggered PTSD symptoms the worst of which was how he unintentionally killed a young Afghan girl with an M203 grenade launcher during a firefight. He was fond of children, a doting uncle, though he never married and had few serious relationships, said Bellinos half-brother, Scott Workman. As colleagues and commanders fell short of his ethical code, an older, brittle Bellino smoldered. In conversations with his lawyers in his final eight months, it was clear that his experience at Lackland made it a full burn. Yet Bellino wrote that he had arrived feeling excited about the future when he pulled up at the Medina Annex in an old Saturn bought in better times. Hammered by war Bellinos entire adult life had been about conquering the next mountain, but recent years of frustration might have given him pause. After his final tour in Afghanistan, he had gone to the FBI in 2011 but ended up in a New York assignment he thought was for burned-out agents. He clashed with a supervisor and quit in 2013. Every day I was there felt like a lie and as if I couldnt breathe, he wrote in the disputed note. Agents were there to achieve their dream title, not actually make the world a better place. Theres no record of Bellino seeking psychiatric help while in special operations, though it could have been done informally. An Air Force psychiatric evaluation stemming from his AWOL charge found he suffered from no severe mental disease or defect, and had no historical or current mental health symptoms. The forensic psychiatrist who examined him, Dr. (Maj.) Belinda Kelly, also wrote: Tech. Sgt. Bellino does possess certain personality traits, specifically stoicism, limited interpersonal relationships, a high threshold for respecting leadership and a somewhat rigid personal code of what he considers professional behavior. He denied experiencing any persistent negative emotional effects from combat-type situations as a CIA contractor in Iraq and Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, she wrote. Bellino gave a different narrative to Dan Conway, his last lawyer, weeks before his death. In a 13-page report and timeline that included a summary of historical events relevant to potential PTSD, he described being incapable of concentrating or controlling his anger, having trouble falling asleep most nights or being around large crowds. There were recurring nightmares. He kept to himself more than in the past. Those symptoms would worsen almost as soon as he began Lacklands two-week Developmental Course, where he was the highest-ranking NCO and class leader. The Air Force was not his first choice. After the FBI, Bellino had lived with his parents in Ohio, tried to rejoin the active-duty Special Forces and felt betrayed when he was rejected. He had been misled for months into thinking he could return, he wrote in his timeline to Conway, adding, Words do not capture the energy I expended to make this application process work and the anger that followed. He tried to enter the Navy but was too old, and his FBI experience steered him away from any other U.S. law enforcement agency, Bellino added. I had reasonable expectations enlisting into the Air Force, he wrote. But some of the challenges encountered I could never have foreseen. The washout The trouble began quickly. Trainees were told they wouldnt get washbacks a second chance to pass training. In his timeline, Bellino called that policy arbitrary and punitive. Students who had flunked told him they believed the schools trainers seemed to dislike airmen who had transferred from other military branches. They were released from the Air Force with a stigma a re-entry code, 3A, that made it it more difficult to land jobs in the Defense Department or private security firms. Col. Sean McKenna, AETCs chief spokesman, confirmed that the code is typically given for performance failure and requires a waiver to re-enlist. A policy now allows such individuals to get new jobs in the Air Force it stemmed from a commander-directed investigation into the Battlefield Airman program that has not yet been publicly released, he said. The Air Force told Bellino his training had a 90 percent attrition rate but never mentioned troops from other services would be punished for failure with the 3A code, Bellino complained in his timeline. He detested the way the school was run, with nightly accountability check-ins and daily room inspections. But worst of all, Bellinos ethical code was affronted. His group was ordered to start a fund, with the understanding that it was to buy very expensive parting gifts for the trainers. Each trainee would chip in $80 to raise a total of more than $4,700 clearly a racket, Bellino wrote in the timeline. The AETC disputes that. The Battlefield Airmen Training Group classes have voluntary funds to buy food or equipment supplements for trainees and for the benefit of the student training team, which doesnt violate policy, McKenna said. He said the trainers and their methods were professional and the commanders probe uncovered no hazing. Bellino wrote that an instructor at an exercise class asked about his Army specialty the Special Forces 18 series and that another trainer shouted at me in a very proud tone, Did you hear what I did to the last 18 series guy we had? The Air Force said such a comment would violate no rules but could not confirm that it had been made. The same trainer yelled that he hadnt completed a lap in a pool days later. The airmen had to complete 25-meter underwater lengths, touching a crack on the bottom corner of the deep end, ascending and recrossing within three minutes. Bellino followed an order to swim down to touch the crack again, but he had been unfairly singled out, he wrote in the timeline. The following Monday, on Aug. 3, 2015, Bellino quit the program. He refused trainers orders to sound a bullhorn to signal his departure, telling them it was juvenile, and the trainer who he felt had singled him out shouted in my face for a few minutes, Bellino wrote. It made me feel angry beyond any words that could describe it. To avoid another shouting match, Bellino skipped an exit interview with the programs commandant. He walked to his dorm, changed into civilian clothes, grabbed his backpack and headed for San Antonio International Airport, he wrote. Hours later, he was home with his folks. In free fall By going AWOL, Bellino believed he was retaking control of his life, he wrote. But he was in free fall, watching movies in his room for days, according to his psychiatric exam. He was aware of PTSD symptoms and conceded, in the timeline, they were worse than ever. Bellino later would tell the Air Force psychiatrist he knowingly left the base without permission, and that a week passed before he thought about it. His family, as usual, was in the dark. He didnt call anyone at Lackland. The Air Force, in time, called him. Ten days passed before Bellino flew back to San Antonio. He passed a drug test, gave Security Forces a statement admitting he had gone AWOL, and was represented by a New York lawyer who crafted a plea agreement an Article 15, a form of nonjudicial punishment. Bellino wouldnt agree to it and fired the lawyer in November. Conway, the lawyer who represented him later, told Bellinos father that it was an arguably lenient deal that included a general discharge, a recording of their conversation shows. An Air Force lawyer, then-Capt. Taren Wellman, took over Bellinos defense and tried to cut a similar deal, but he resisted. She tried to convince him the deal was better than a federal conviction. A recording of their Dec. 1, 2015, conversation included an exchange in which Bellino expressed an expletive-laced hostility toward Schroeder, but its unknown if Bellino and Schroeder ever met before the shooting. By this time, Bellino was under Air Force scrutiny for creating a website critical of the Battlefield Airmen program. On Dec. 10, having pleaded with him through several meetings, Wellman warned Bellino that Air Force prosecutors were angry at how long it was taking to resolve his case and might add new charges. Bellino could get a year in jail and a bad-conduct discharge. Bellino said no. He already had taken a demotion for a job that turns out to be a big lie, thats riddled with children who talk down to me, he told her. I was Ranger qualified, SF qualified, airborne qualified and had other qualifications before they were even in junior high. Wellman let him have it. You seem batshit crazy, Sgt. Bellino. Excuse my language. I dont care at this point. Ive got a client whos about to voluntarily walk down a plank for the rest of his life, and I cant talk you out of it. Bellinos relationship with Wellman was tense. She had found out he was recording their conversations and had asked him at one point if he was carrying a firearm. He said no. Wellman, now a major, cannot comment on conversations with clients, an Air Force spokeswoman said. The showdown Bellino got along better with Conway, a San Antonio-based lawyer, and finally agreed to take the deal. Its unclear what changed his mind. Conway fielded an email early in April that appeared to settle it. I wont bother with a long explanation, Bellino wrote him. Things are getting worse with my mother, and the other day I realized that I am no longer angry about this place. I would like to return to Ohio as soon as I can. Conway was relieved. But there were questions. The Air Force said the agreement did not settle what kind of discharge Bellino would get. Taking it meant he had stopped trying to get a guaranteed honorable discharge with the re-entry code he wanted. There also was a personal factor that Conway knew was a big deal. It was Schroeder. Bellino had a major problem with taking an Article 15 from the colonel that he viewed as being arrogant, Conway told Bellinos father. Bellino had spoken of friends who had flunked the training and wound up depressed, alcoholic or with suicidal thoughts, Conway said. The meeting with Schroeder was a formality. Once done, Bellino would have three business days to decide if hed accept the Article 15. A court-martial never was in the cards. The Air Force said Schroeder did not intend to force one. Those who encountered Bellino as he headed to Forbes Hall saw nothing unusual. He arrived in Griffin-Greers office in dress uniform, rows of service ribbons on his chest and a technical sergeants chevrons a daily reminder of his comedown from Special Forces master sergeant. Rocha, the Air Force investigator, told the Bellino family that Griffin-Greer felt like everything just drained out of her when she saw the gun. Her call to Schroeder went straight to voicemail, and Bellino told her, OK, well wait and well try again, according to the recording made by his father. Griffin-Greer reached Schroeder on the second try and tried to alert him to trouble with her tone of voice, Rocha told the family. When Schroeder entered, Bellino sat facing him and slowly nudged the Glock to point it at his commander. The fight started after a few words. The men struggled, standing up. Schroeder yelled at the first sergeant to run after the first shot. Three more shots came before she was out of the office, racing down a hallway crying, 911 active shooter! Rocha told Bellinos family that Griffin-Greer heard at least three more shots, locked herself in a room and called Security Forces. Schroeder, 39, of Ames, Iowa, was hit three times in his right arm and once in the head, the Air Force said. Friends and admirers said the colonels decision to tackle Bellino saved his first sergeants life and was perfectly in keeping with a straight-up career that ended heroically. He left a wife and two sons. Bellino had carried two handguns and a knife to the encounter, the Air Force said. The pathology report stated that he was shot in the head, through his mouth. The Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner at Dover AFB, Delaware, ruled it a suicide. A forensic pathologist hired by Bellinos family, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, offered no finding and did not characterize the cause of death. Workman, 49, of Millen, Georgia, insisted that both he and his parents are certain that his half-brother wouldnt have killed himself. Air Force investigators might know things they have not yet released, perhaps a recording of those final moments. The Air Force autopsy said Bellino was carrying a cellphone and an unspecified electronic device. AETC would not say if a recording was made but secretly taping meetings something Bellino routinely did at Lackland. Workman said that neither he nor his parents can be sure that Bellino killed Schroeder or was even armed when he entered Forbes Hall. Its also possible Bellino went into a pre-programmed mode when Schroeder lunged at him, said Workman, who believes his half-brother is a victim and a hero who cared about trainees whose careers were ruined by not being able to re-enlist after attempting a program that only one out of 10 complete. I dont care what the Air Force says. Theyre looking to cover their ass. And thats all this is about, Workman said. He wasnt just fighting for himself, he was fighting for the others. sigc@express-news.net This years Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade may be joined by showers and thunderstorms rolling through the San Antonio area, according to the National Weather Service. Weather was soggy throughout the state over the weekend. San Antonio has a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms early Monday morning as a storm front moves Northeast across the state, meteorologist Steve Smart said. Smart said as much as 1-2 inches can be expected in the area between Sunday night and Monday morning. The high for Monday is expected to be near 73 degrees, while the low could drop in the mid 50s. The Alamo City has seen warmer temperatures than what is normally expected for this time of year. Smart said San Antonio hit near record highs Thursday, with temperatures reaching 79 degrees. The record for Jan. 13 was set in 1907 with 81-degree weather. It's not typical to have temperatures like this, Smart said. This isnt normal for San Antonio. As this initial storm front moves out of the area late Monday night, another cold front will bring more rain for the rest of the workweek. Forecasters have predicted a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms throughout Tuesday. Rainfall chances will steady around 30 percent between Wednesday morning and Thursday evening until the storm dissipates. Chances for rain or thunderstorms will be gone by Thursday night, the weather service said. Smart said we can expect mild and seasonable temperatures starting Thursday, which has a projected high of 71 degrees and low around 52 degrees. Fridays forecast is sunny with a high near 74 degrees. Staff Writer Caleb Downs contributed to this report. qramirez@express-news.net Twitter: @quixem This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate In the week since Archbishop Emeritus Patrick Flores died, anecdotes have piled up about his life many about his humility, his affinity for song, his immense kindness, even to his own kidnapper. As the city prepares for his grand farewell today and tomorrow at San Fernando Cathedral, all the stories wont make their way into print how he pushed San Antonio to see itself, making its rich and powerful uncomfortable about their own views on race and poverty; how some called his commitment to diversity the browning of the chancery; how he experienced discrimination first-hand as a pupil in a Mexican school without indoor plumbing. He had to walk past the white school to get to his. Everywhere in San Antonio, it seems, Flores left a remembrance, blessing or contribution. They testify to his commitment to educational opportunity and social justice. It fills a long resume that only begins with the Mexican American Catholic College, the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Communities Organized for Public Service, now COPS/Metro Alliance. Some of the stories that have surfaced since Flores death from congestive heart failure and pneumonia are poignant theres the blessing he extended to Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller and how Flores clutched his pectoral cross when the archbishop drew near him; theres the guy who called to say the bishop talked his friend out of committing suicide many decades ago, a handgun sitting on the table between them; there was the nun who said Flores gave her academic work one of the biggest affirmations she ever received. Then there were the stories of Flores great sense of humor, often at his own expense. But one of my favorites came from Sister Joan Elise Rodriguez of the Missionary Catechists of Divine Providence, a congregation founded by Sister Benitia Vermeersch in Houston and in San Antonio, where MCDP remains. Rodriguez met the young Flores in the early 1950s, after Sister Benitia had orchestrated his religious education, one that Anglo priests had discouraged, saying Mexicans werent smart enough. It was Benitia who put Flores in front of Galveston Bishop Christopher Byrne, which got Flores into Kirwan Catholic High School and St. Marys Seminary in Houston. Sister Benitia kept her eye on Flores through those years, and when she couldnt, she sent her nuns. Rodriguez, now 86, was a member of that reconnaissance team. Sister Benitia heard that girls were sitting next to him on the bus from Pearland to Houston, Rodriguez said. Fearing those girls might sideline his vocation, Sister Benitia decided to raise money for Flores to live at the seminary. Andy Sarabia, founding president of COPS, noted Flores, as an auxiliary bishop, and Archbishop Francis Furey were part of the groups genesis, as it trained activists to advocate for themselves. They famously held actions such as tying up bank tellers with thousands of pennies on pay days, when people wanted to cash their checks and go shopping. In another protest, hundreds of activists went to Joskes Department Store and tried on fur coats and other expensive garments that they werent going to buy, tying up clerks time. COPS goal was to get business support at City Council meetings, where they demanded fair infrastructure funding, including the installation of flood controls in poor neighborhoods, where rains claimed lives and destroyed property. He stood by us with Furey during all those confrontational years, Sarabia said, even when some Anglo Catholics werent happy with Flores ascent. With Flores, there was no kissing of rings, no genuflecting, Sarabia said. He had no ego needs. More often than not, the stories were much like former Councilwoman Maria Antonietta Berriozabals, who recalled how the archbishop showed up at a neighborhood cleanup project. No press, no cameras. His heart was so big that he could fall on his knees with the people and help them pick up trash. That humanity was his blessing, she said. Furey gave Flores his highest support. When Rome asked for three names for an auxiliary bishop, Furey wrote Flores name three times. Furey knew Flores potential, but former Mayor and Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said the church was awfully late in acknowledging it and that of its U.S. Latino faithful. We still dont have a cardinal, Cisneros said. And when one is named and his bet is on Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez Cisneros says Flores will deserve credit for paving the way. eayala@express-news.net Twitter: @ElaineAyala AUSTIN As the states top officials head to Washington to celebrate the inauguration of the hard-hitting, tough-talking, controversy-stirring businessman elected to the nations highest office, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is making a case for conducting the Lone Star States business in a far different way than weve seen so far from Donald Trump. Straus who eschewed Trump in the GOP primary to instead support Jeb Bush used his own election to a record-tying fifth term as House leader to make a case for hewing to the values that he sees exemplified in Bushs father, former President George H.W. Bush. The speaker recounted the elder Bush, as a congressman from Houston, getting slammed for supporting a fair housing law. But George Bush didnt back down. In fact, he described one critic this way: He couldnt have been uglier and meaner. But that just made me more determined to do what was right, Straus said. Fifty years later, this is our time to do whats right and to conduct ourselves in the right way. He cited a disconnect between political discourse and the way that most Texans treat each other. The corrosive cynicism that dominates the public discussion of politics does not reflect the character of our people, Straus said. The Texans we represent are kind, and they are decent, and they are charitable. They deliver meals to the hungry, comfort the sick, and look after their neighbors. Straus told his fellow House members that Texans expect them to govern with the same sense of goodness - the same humanity and decency - that we so clearly recognize in the people we represent. He also made a pitch for compromise, as we reported on the Legislatures opening day, saying its a good word in the Texas House, despite being viewed as a dirty word in the political world. Straus was immediately, though obliquely, called to task by the tea-party-aligned Empower Texans Michael Quinn Sullivan, who has been trying unsuccessfully for years to oust Straus. Sullivan tweeted that someone should read what the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had to say about consensus to wit, the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects. Sullivan also indicated anew that hes not in line with Strauss earlier call for civil discourse, saying that one can tell the Legislature is back in session because several of the old cronies have gotten fresh dye jobs and new lifts. But those who like some civility with their politics might take heart from at least some of the Trump supporters who are Texas statewide elected officials. Gov. Greg Abbott, who unlike Straus will attend Trumps inauguration, used part of his brief remarks to the Legislature last week to highlight the value of people working together even when they have different political perspectives. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also headed to the inauguration this week, said in a statement as the session opened Tuesday that maintaining our conservative principles and protecting Texas values is the top priority in deliberations. But the tea-party-backed Patrick also had a news conference with Democratic Sen. Royce West of Dallas two days later, promoting a measure to provide police officers with the safest bullet-proof vests. That doesnt mean Patrick will ease up on his push for proposals that divide Republicans and Democrats, such as transgender bathroom restrictions, but it demonstrates a continued willingness to work together when they can agree. In an interview before the legislative session began, Patrick didnt cite Trumps bellicose rhetoric when I asked what it was like to be with him during the campaign. Instead, Patrick described someone who doesnt sound much like the Trump we saw on the campaign trail or have seen since. When youre just two guys talking, Patrick said, hes a very relaxed person. ... Hes a great listener. He is extremely gracious and kind. And he wants to learn. You have to understand, hes an entrepreneur. A wildly successful entrepreneur. And how did he become successful? Not by telling everyone what to do, but by gathering information and listening and then making decisions, said Patrick, who headed Trumps Texas campaign. Patrick said even on a nearly-15-hour campaign day, Trump stopped and took a photograph with everybody who asked It didnt matter if they were voting for him or not. He loves people. He loves this country. Hes a throwback to a patriot a patriot who loves this country and wants us to be great, Patrick said. Im very hopeful and very optimistic. pfikac@express-news.net Twitter: @pfikac MOUNT HOPE, Ohio The first event to be held in the newly-built Mount Hope Event Center drew more than 1,200 people who were interested in growing produce. The Mid-Ohio Growers Meeting, held Jan. 12-13, brought growers from across Ohio and surrounding states all looking for ways to improve their operation. Brent Baker, of Manfull Orchards in Carroll County, talked about what it takes to plan a new apple orchard. The first step, Baker said, is choosing what variety you will grow. There are about 7,500 cultivars of apples to choose from, so you need to consider your customer base and also what will grow well on your land. You also need to decide which rootstock to plant, keeping in mind that the rootstock you choose is what determines spacing in your orchard. Thinking ahead Baker said growers also need to consider whether a previous apple tree had been growing in the same area, because apple trees emit a toxin in the soil that can be fatal to new trees, unless the rootstock is resistant. A successful orchard is only as good as the thought and planning that go into it, he said. You should order your rootstock well in advance of when you need it, because it can take nurseries one to two years to have it ready. Other considerations include site location, and of course, soil preparation. Baker said the ideal site is on rolling or elevated land, so the cold air can drain during spring frosts. But at the same time, higher elevations can sometimes lead to winter cold damage, he said. When preparing to plant, he uses a deep tiller pulled behind a tractor that digs down about 30 inches, breaking up the hardpan, as well as old tree roots. Deep tilling also helps aerate the soil and increases the drainage capacity. Disease resistance In a separate talk, Sally Miller, professor of plant pathology at Ohio State University, gave growers some tips on managing soil-borne diseases in vegetables. One of the biggest things, she said, is managing the amount of water you give your plants and seedlings. Over-watering leads to bacterial diseases, so plants should only be given the amount of water they need. Maintaining an ideal growing temperature is also important, and so is keeping the organic matter up, which helps the soil retain moisture. Vegetables should have at least 2 percent organic matter, she said, with 3-4 percent even better. Organic matter can be increased by adding compost or growing cover crops, that are in turned mixed into the soil. Food safety In a talk on food safety and federal regulations, Theresa Klaman, inspector with the Food and Drug Administration, said growers have a range of compliance dates before theyll be inspected, but producers should already be practicing Good Agricultural Practices and be preparing for the future. The final produce safety rule was published in November 2015, and producers generally have two-to-three years to become compliant, depending on what they grow and at what size. The smallest producers who grow $25,000 or less a year in food crops, are exempt from the new rule. Klaman said FDA is in the process of training inspectors and plans to work with state and local entities to eventually conduct the inspections. Klaman said FDA will respect the different ways growers produce food, the different sizes of farms, and the different biosecurity practices. But at the same time, she said the new rules reflect the need to improve certain farming practices, with the goal of reducing foodborne illness. The whole goal is to build the relationship with the farmer while still promoting public health, she said. Family connection Other speakers, such as Emanuel Erb of Conneautville Canvas, talked about the social aspects of growing produce and working together as a family. Erbs family ventured into the canvas and tarp-making business in 1967, in Holmes County, and now operates from Conneautville, Pennsylvania. His children have always been involved with the business something hes enjoyed over the years, but also something that took some effort. He started them when they were young, making sure they got up early and helped with the chores. Eventually, getting up early became a habit, and his children took on more responsibility and new roles within the company. Growing the future Erb said today, there are certain things with canvas that his children can make better than he can make but hes not ashamed. He said its good when your children surpass you, because it means theyre learning and growing. When you experience something like that, dont feel bad about it, he said. Erb also advised families to take each day at a time and to not fall for something that sounds too good to be true. No need to be too involved in the GRQ (Get Rich Quick scheme), he said. WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether jurisdiction rests with the federal district or appellate courts to hear a lawsuit brought by the National Pork Producers Council and dozens of other agricultural organizations, businesses and municipalities against a Clean Water Act rule. The Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which took effect Aug. 28, 2015, was proposed in April 2014 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clarify the agencies authority over various waters. That jurisdiction based on several U.S. Supreme Court decisions had included navigable waters and waters with a significant hydrologic connection to navigable waters. But the regulation broadened that to include, among other water bodies, upstream waters and intermittent and ephemeral streams such as the kind farmers use for drainage and irrigation. It also covered lands adjacent to such waters. The High Court In the case that the U.S. Supreme Court accepted National Association of Manufacturers v. U.S. Department of Defense the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted a restrictive approach to judicial relief, allowing only federal courts of appeals to hear WOTUS challenges. This would prohibit federal trial courts around the country from hearing lawsuits from aggrieved landowners; instead, such challenges would effectively be concentrated in the first appellate court to consider a challenge. The National Association of Manufacturers appealed this jurisdictional ruling to the Supreme Court. Previous court action The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati in October 2015 issued a stay on implementation of the regulation pending disposition of numerous lawsuits filed in U.S. district courts around the country. Last year, however, the 6th Circuit consolidated the suits under its jurisdiction. Several agriculture groups in November submitted briefs to the appellate court, arguing that the agencies promulgated the WOTUS rule without following federal rulemaking procedures, the regulation is arbitrary and capricious or contrary to law and the agencies exceeded their authority under the Clean Water Act and the U.S. Constitution. The Obama EPA has filed its brief in defense of the rule with the 6th Circuit. The WOTUS rule is vague, overbroad and fails to let regulated parties know when their conduct violates the law, said NPPC President John Weber, a pork producer from Dysart, Iowa. We all want clean water, but this regulation is a big land grab that promotes growth of government and allows activists to extort and micromanage all kinds of farming and business activities. In their brief to the appellate court, NPPC and the other groups said EPA and the Corps of Engineers failed to reopen the public comment period after making fundamental changes to the proposed rule and withheld until after the comment period closed the scientific report on which the rule rested. The groups also claim the agencies didnt conduct required economic and environmental analyses, and engaged in a propaganda campaign to promote the rule and rebuke its critics and illegally lobbied against congressional efforts to stop implementation of the rule. Stray sheep in Scotland's forests are to become a thing of the past as the Forest Enterprise Scotland is to work closely with farmers to better manage rogue sheep. A particular worry is that unregulated movements of sheep in forests poses a biosecurity risk. A key element highlighted in the guidance is that incidents of straying sheep are normally resolved quickly when a continued, honest and open dialogue is entered into. FES worked with Police Scotland and the Scottish Government to produce the guidance with industry bodies such as the NFU Scotland, National Sheep Association and Sheep Scab Industry Group. Robin Waddell, Forest Enterprise Scotlands Agriculture Advisor said: For the vast majority of cases we work very well with our neighbours and can resolve sheep trespass issues pretty quickly. This is how we would like to continue keeping an open dialogue throughout and working together to get the animals back to their owners. Unfortunately it doesnt always go that way and the guidance will help our staff manage the times when action is needed. Recent records show there to be a particular problem with stray sheep in the south of Scotland. We recorded around 190 separate incidences involving 1,500 animals in the Borders, Galloway and Dumfries areas. We have now introduced a consistent approach to recording incidents across the country so that we can get a better idea of impacts across Scotland. 'Animal welfare is a concern' A particular worry is that unregulated movements of sheep in forests poses a biosecurity risk, specifically in terms of the scourge that is sheep scab and the transmission of tree diseases. Mr Waddell continued: Animal welfare is also a concern and this issue is often reported when we have had to deal with unmanaged sheep. "Another direct impact on Forest Enterprise Scotland is the browsing that stray sheep can cause this is a drain on our financial resources. We have a duty to protect and manage designated areas of land so there is a real need to tackle these incidences as quickly as we can. The guidance aims to achieve a good result for all concerned. The guidance for FES staff highlights the current policy, legal position, roles and responsibilities and options for tackling unmanaged sheep on the National Forest Estate. 'Biosecurity risk' Penny Johnston of NFU Scotland said the union supports the production of this guidance. Feral or straying sheep can be a biosecurity risk and in some areas are responsible for the perpetuation of disease, such as sheep scab. A lack of clarity over how to deal with feral or stray sheep creates barriers to the removal of these animals and clear protocols should make it possible to deal with these animals effectively and fairly. A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: Police Scotland recognise the work of Forestry Commission Scotland to bring better understanding to this complicated area and welcome their action to assist in discharging the duties under the relevant legislation, which will better protect Scottish farmers." France has passed a bill to introduce mandatory, independently-monitored CCTV in slaughterhouses, and the UK has been urged to follow suit. France has passed a bill ordering slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras, following an outcry over animal cruelty. Members of the French National Assembly were informed that lawbreaking is a widespread problem in the nation's abattoirs. The new bill requires slaughterhouses to install CCTV cameras across all areas, including in lairages and on the killing floor, by 2018. A trial will take place this year to inform how the technology will be rolled out across the board. Those caught inflicting unlawful cruelty on animals will face one year in prison. Animal Aid - one of the UK's leading animal protection organisations - is today calling on George Eustice MP, Minister for DEFRA, to bring forward similar measures to ensure the use of independently-monitored CCTV becomes mandatory in slaughterhouses, in an effort to combat unlawful animal cruelty. A poll by the RSPCA has revealed eight out of ten people want animal welfare laws improved or at least kept the same after we leave the EU. The poll found that 81% of the public believe that post Brexit animal welfare laws in the UK should be improved or at least kept at the same level and only 5% disagreed. In December, a report instructed by the Welsh Government has recommended that CCTV should not be mandatory in slaughterhouses in Wales. The House of Lords is set to take evidence from farming minister George Eustice on EU proposals to change the regulation of fertilisers. The HoL European Union Committee will ask Mr Eustice to clarify the Governments position on the levels of Cadmium - which can be damaging to the environment and human health - that could be allowed in fertilisers that are marketed in the EU. The Committee has been corresponding with Mr Eustice on the EU Proposal regarding the putting on the market of CE marked fertilisers since May last year but has been unable to secure 'satisfactory answers' on the Governments position regarding cadmium limits and the scientific assessments that underpin them. The Committee has now asked Mr Eustice to provide clarity on the outstanding issues. Mr Eustice will be joined in giving evidence by Sarah Church, Director of Future Farming and Land Use at DEFRA. The session will start at 10:30am on Wednesday 18 January. Questions the Committee will put forward What is the current position of European Council on the issue and are there any substantial changes to the Proposal? Why does the Government favour a cadmium limit of 80mg/kg as opposed to 60mg/kg? What scientific assessments if the impact and safe levels of cadmium are ongoing and how will this inform the negotiation through supplementary analysis? Are there concerns about limited data on this issue? What assessment has the Food Standard Agency made of the risk of human exposure to cadmium-containing food or soil? Is a precautionary approach to cadmium required given the gaps in the knowledge about safe levels and whether it is likely to end up in the food chain? The National Pig Association (NPA) has been invited to Downing Street to outline its position ahead of crucial Government Brexit negotiations. The associations chairman Richard Lister will be accompanied by chief executive Zoe Davies and policy services manager Lizzie Wilson to a meeting with Brexit Minister David Jones in Downing Street on February 8. Mr Jones has told the NPA he would be pleased to meet the organisation to discuss any concerns and the position of the British pig industry following the referendum. The NPA has said the future sustainability of the British pig industry can be achieved only if pig producers are able to compete with both their European and global counterparts. The meeting was agreed after Mr Lister wrote to Brexit Secretary David Davis outlining the NPAs position on the big Brexit issues and seeking assurances that the industrys concerns will be reflected as the Government formulates a policy for life after the EU. Mr Lister said: We are delighted to have been invited to Downing Street to express our hopes and fears ahead of the Brexit negotiations. We will be seeking a fair deal for British pig farmers on trade, while retaining access full-time to EU labour will be an absolute priority for our sector. The NPA has also been in regular contact with Defra Ministers and has written to Home Office Minister Robert Goodwill (on immigration) and Liam Foxs Department for International Trade, with a view to further meetings, as it strives for a positive outcome for pig farmers. Twenty pigs have died due to a livestock lorry flipping over on its side on the A16. The incident happened on the 11 January, when extreme gale force winds battered much of the UK. Some of the pigs were so severely injured as the lorry overturned on the A16 bypass at Cowbit, Lincolnshire at about 10am, they are having to be put down. Police were at the scene and vets have been assessing the welfare of the animals, the Lincolnshire Echo reports. Nick Purnell, spokesman for one of Britain's leading food companies Tulip Ltd, said: "The driver is thankfully uninjured and has been treated for shock by paramedics. "We have had to take immediate measures to euthanize a small number of animals due to the nature of injuries sustained. The remaining animals are being taken to the Spalding site for further examination and assessment by onsite vets. It is too early to confirm the cause of the incident and we are working in full co-operation with authorities." An eye witness who passed the area soon after the accident said he could see emergency services pulling animals from the lorry. President-elect Donald Trump has said the UK is 'doing great' following its vote to leave the EU, and promised a quick trade deal between the US and UK. In his first UK interview - with former Justice Secretary Michael Gove for the Times - Mr Trump said he thought the UK was "so smart in getting out". Mr Trump promised a quick trade deal between the US and the UK after he takes office on Friday. Outgoing US President Barack Obama said in April last year that the UK would be "at the back of the queue" if it quit the EU. Mr Trump said: "Countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity, but I do think if they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees then you wouldn't have a Brexit." In his interview, Mr Trump talked about the recent dip in the value of the pound. "The fact that your pound sterling has gone down?" he said. "Great, because business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the UK, as you know. I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing." Trump has previously suggested positive stances on the UK leaving the EU. It opens the door for the UK to negotiate its own bilateral trade deal with the US, therefore giving the UK access to the largest meat and dairy producer in the world, while providing the US access to the most advanced and sophisticated grocery market in the world. Farming under Trump is likely to continue on a track of high-volume, low-cost commodity production, relying heavily on exports. He has said that he will reduce the power of government bureaucrats and increase the freedom of farmers to be as productive as possible. Read more: What does a Trump victory mean for farming? An international research partnership on the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to improve productivity and sustainability in the farming sector. Academics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow have been announced as partners in the four year Internet of Food and Farm (IoF2020) project, co-funded by the European Union through Horizon 2020. The 30 million project aims to encourage large-scale take-up of IoT technologies, which have the potential to help the European farming and food sector face future challenges through real-time monitoring, better decision making, and improved operations management. Focusing on 19 trials throughout Europe, the project will explore five agri-food areas; arable farming, dairy, meat, vegetables and fruits. Strathclyde is the only UK partner in the 71 member consortium, which has representatives from 16 countries. Saving farmers money Dr Craig Michie and Professor Ivan Andonovic of the Universitys Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, will advise on how dairy producers can implement IoT technology to maximise the productivity and profitability of their farms. This will involve trialling technology with farms and evaluating the results, before making recommendations to Horizon 2020 to help shape how they should be implemented within the wider agriculture sector. Dr Michie said: "From monitoring cattle movement, remotely assessing milk quality or detecting breeding and welfare problems, IoT products for the farming industry have the potential to significantly improve productivity and sustainability, while saving farmers time and money. "Once IoT technologies are in place, producers can spend less time directly observing the herd and focus on other essential operational tasks. As farms increase in size to meet the demands of 21st century farming, this is of particular importance. Implemented correctly, the right technology will add value to the business operation and improve the wellbeing of the cattle. 'Paradigm shift' Dr Michie continued: "We are delighted to be collaborating with leading research universities across the world and its testament to the work done at the University to be chosen as a partner." George Beers, Project Manager at the Wageningen University & Research and IoF2020 Project Coordinator said: "IoF2020 does not only bring IoT in the food and farm sector, it stands also with the tremendous objective of delivering technologies that fit the needs of the entire value chain and the end-users, more particularly, and strengthen them for the challenges ahead. "Together with our 70 partners we believe IoF2020 has the potential to bring a paradigm shift in the way food is produced in Europe, from the fields to the plates, and will contribute to reinforce European competitiveness and excellence in this area." Retailers stocking more British pork but 'more can be done' Farmers applying fertilizer to 50 or more acres must receive certification By Diego Flammini Assistant Editor, North American Content Farms.com A group including the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA), Ohio State University, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation and Ohio Soybean Association are urging farmers in the state to attend Agricultural Fertilizer Certification Program courses. In May 2014, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed into law that any farmer applying fertilizer to 50 or more acres must attend courses on fertilizer application and receive certification by Sept. 30, 2017. Officials say taking the courses while theres snow on the ground is a good way to ensure theyre fully prepared for planting season. While they cant plant in the winter, they can learn about the numerous practices that will save them money while improving water quality, David Daniels, ODA director, said in a release. Nearly every farmer who takes the training says they learned something, so I ask producers what are they waiting for? As farmers look for training opportunities we would encourage them to become certified through our program as soon as possible. The training sessions focus on best management practices and expose farmers to the latest research findings when it comes to nutrient availability. Between the law and voluntary efforts, farmers have proven theyre willing to help address Ohios water quality challenges, said Adam Sharp, executive vice president of Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, in the release. Becoming certified by the deadline is a crucial part of meeting our responsibilities. Farmers who hire someone to apply their fertilizer do not require certification. But whoever is applying the fertilizer must be certified or must be under the direct supervision of someone who is. The law requires certified applicators to keep records for up to three years, at which time the certification needs to be renewed. Ohio State University Extension will hold many courses throughout the winter. Information can be found on its website. By Todd Hubbs, Scott Irwin, and Darrel Good Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics University of Illinois We recently began a series of articles to evaluate the history of corn and soybean yields and deviations from trend yield in Brazil and Argentina. The objective of the yield analysis is to provide a basis for forming expectations about the likely yields of the 2017 crops. The first five articles focused on the alternative sources of historical yield estimates, the selection of the appropriate series to use in the analysis for both corn and soybeans, the selection of the best-fitting trend model for each commodity and country, and trend yield deviations in each country for corn (farmdoc daily, November 2, 2016; November 9, 2016; November 16, 2016; December 14, 2016; and December 15, 2016). Today's article examines soybean yield trend estimates and trend deviations for the Brazilian soybean crop. Brazil is the world's second largest producer of soybeans and is a major competitor with the United States in the world soybean market. Table 1 presents soybean production by country from 1970 through 2015 and gives an indication of overall growth in soybean production in the world, and Brazil in particular. Background We begin by providing some perspective on regional soybean production concentration in Brazil. The production map of Brazil from the USDA/FAS gives a visual sense of the concentration. Table 2 shows the Brazilian states by region. Figure 1 shows the changing nature of Brazilian soybean planted acreage within the country using estimates from CONAB, The National Food and Supply Company (a public company allied with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply). The area and yield estimating methodology used by this organization is very different than used by NASS to make yield estimates for the U.S. To the best of our knowledge, CONAB uses satellite data, information from field operators, and various statistical methodologies to derive area and yield estimates. The explosive growth in soybean acreage in the Central West region is obvious over the sample period. Central West and South region production dominate soybean acreage currently with increased planting in the Southeast region over the last five years. Brazil continues to plant more acreage in soybeans with a steady upward trend in planted acreage over the last decade. Figure 2 presents the annual soybean yields in Brazil for the period 1978 through 2016. As previously discussed in the farmdoc daily article of November 16, 2016, we chose a linear trend to fit the soybean yield data for Brazil. Note that these yield estimates are provided by the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and are based on past trends, expert opinion, industry intelligence, and CONAB estimates. Yields have obviously trended higher over time. The linear trend indicates annual average yield increases 0.66 bushels for Brazil. A linear trend explains about 89 percent of the annual variation in actual yields in Brazil. The historical soybean yields in Brazil show quite a bit of variation around the trend with a noticeable exception from 1992-1997, when yields were consistently near trend values. The period of yields consistently near trend value in the mid-1990's represents a very different pattern than experiences over other time periods. Estimated yields were very near trend value in both the traditional production regions and in the rapidly expanding Central West region, with offsetting yield deviation in these regions. While the pattern is unusual, there is no obvious explanation beyond the likelihood of a period of favorable weather. However, these yield estimates may also reveal some estimating methodology deficiencies in the non-probabilistic yield estimates for Brazil. Since soybean production increased rapidly in the Central West region during the sample period, we examine trend yields separately for the Central West region and all other regions. Regional soybean yields for Brazil without the Central West region are calculated using a weighted average of planted acres and production for each region using CONAB estimates. The Central West region soybean yield data is truncated to 1983 due to low acreage levels prior to that year. A linear trend is the basis for subsequent trend deviation analysis for both sets of data. In Figure 3, the linear trend for all Brazilian regions without the Central West region indicates that the annual average yield increased 0.60 bushels per acre. The linear trend explains approximately 79% of the yield variation in those regions. Variation around the trend is pronounced with the exception of a period of sustained above trend yields between 1992 and 1999. The expected soybean yield for these regions based on the linear trend for 2017 is 43.50 bushels per acre. Figure 4 displays a different story for Central West region soybean yields. We present a linear and quadratic trend for soybean yields in the region. The quadratic trend provides a better fit over the sample period and highlights the decreasing rate of trend yield growth in the Central West region over the last five years. It is tempting to say a new period of flattening yields has occurred in the region due to a variety of factors that include double cropping management practices and large acreage expansion into new territory. If the yield trend in the region is slowing down and the quadratic fit is the proper relationship, the expected yield for the region in 2017 is 45.57 bushels per acre. We choose to analyze trends and deviation with the linear yield trend due to the unusual pattern of yields in the region. Yields in the Central West region stay on or below its trend until 1997. After 1997, a sustained period above trend yields is maintained until 2003. A pattern of both above trend and below trend yields was maintained over the rest of the sample. It is striking, however, that actual annual soybean yields in the region have been below trend and decreasing since 2012. The expected soybean yield for the Central West region based a linear trend is 48.39 bushels per acre. Historical Deviations Historical deviations for Brazilian soybean yields for the period 1978 - 2016 are shown in Figure 5. Over the 39-year period, the average Brazilian soybean yield was above trend in 20 years and below trend in 19 years. The largest deviation below trend was 5.54 bushels per acre in 1991. The largest positive deviation from trend was 5.84 bushels per acre in 2001. The average positive deviation was 2.13 bushels while the average negative deviation was -2.25 bushels. The deviation from trend is quite symmetric in count and magnitude. This differs substantially from similar analysis on U.S. soybean trend deviations. Brazilian soybean yields have been below trend and slightly variable since 2012 with significant yield loss in 2014 and 2016. Based on the historical trend deviations, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation is 50 percent. If a negative deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation of greater than two bushels is 53 percent and there is a 16 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. If a positive deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a positive deviation of greater than two bushels is 50 percent and there is a 10 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. Historical deviations for Brazilian soybean yields in regions other than the Central West Region for the period 1978 - 2016 are shown in Figure 6. Over the 39-year period, the average soybean yield was above trend in 21 years and below trend in 18 years. The largest deviation below trend was 8.76 bushels per acre in 1991. The largest positive deviation from trend was 6.17 bushels per acre in 2011. The average positive deviation was 2.52 bushels while the average negative deviation was -2.94 bushels. The deviation from trend does not have the same symmetry in count and magnitude shown in the national yield deviations. Negative trend deviations tend to be larger in magnitude than positive deviations. Based on the historical trend deviations, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation is 46 percent. If a negative deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation of greater than two bushels is 50 percent and there is a 22 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. The unconditional probability of a positive yield deviation is 54 percent. If a positive deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a positive deviation of greater than two bushels is 52 percent and there is a 24 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. The probability of yield being more than two bushels below (above) trend is 23 (28) percent. The probability of yield being more than four bushels below (above) trend is 10 (13) percent. Historical deviations for soybean yields in the Central West Region (based on a linear trend) for the period 1983 - 2016 are shown in Figure 7. Over the 34-year period, the average soybean yield was above trend in 19 years and below for 15 years. The largest deviation below trend was 6.54 bushels per acre in 1990. The largest positive deviation from trend was 5.27 bushels per acre in 2001. The average positive deviation was 1.70 bushels while the average negative deviation was -2.15 bushels. Negative trend deviations tend to be larger in magnitude than positive deviations. Based on the historical trend deviations, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation is 44 percent. If a negative deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a negative deviation of greater than two bushels is 47 percent and there is a 13 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. The unconditional probability of a positive yield deviation is 56 percent. If a positive deviation occurs, the unconditional probability of a positive deviation of greater than two bushels is 42 percent and there is a 11 percent probability of a greater than four-bushel deviation. The probability of yield being more than two bushels below (above) trend is 21 (26) percent. The probability of yield being more than four bushels below (above) trend is 6 (6) percent. Implications An examination of the national average soybean yields in Brazil for the period 1978 through 2016 reveals an upward yield trend with substantial annual variation. The estimated linear soybean yield trend points to a 2017 average soybean yield of 46.8 bushels per acre, 3.38 bushels above the 2016 average and 0.56 bushels above the record yield of 2011. Based on the projections of harvested acreage in the USDA's January 12 World Agricultural Production report, yields at trend value for Brazil points to a 2017 crop of 3.909 billion bushels, 363 million bushels (10.2 percent) larger than the 2016 crop. Using estimates of the historical yield trend deviations, we estimate there is an unconditional probability of 51 percent of yields above or below trend by two bushels per acre. The largest deviation below trend was 8.76 bushels per acre and the largest positive deviation from trend was 6.17 bushels. A trend yield deviation of two bushels per acre would add or subtract 167 million bushels to our projection of Brazil's 2017 production. The USDA projects the 2017 Brazilian yield at 45.65 bushels per acre (1.15 bushels below the trend value) and production at 3.821 billion bushels, 276 million bushels larger than the 2016 crop. The USDA estimated production level for Brazilian soybeans is slightly less than our national average projections but very close to the expected production level generated from our regional trend analysis. It appears that 2017 may be a return to soybean trend yield in Brazil. The large growth in soybean acreage in the Central West region and the recent flattening of yields in the region creates uncertainty about the yield risks in Brazil. While the national trend deviations calculated from FAS data are symmetric, the downside potential and flattening of yields over the last few years in the Central West region provides the possibility of lower trend yield growth. It is too early to tell and the next few years will be informative. In the next article, we will examine soybean yield deviations in Argentina to further assess soybean yield and production risk for 2017 in South America. Future articles will assess the impact of La Nina events on Brazilian and Argentinian soybean and corn production. 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 Events and things to do to celebrate Veterans Day in Cumberland County Cumberland County will honor veterans for two weeks starting with the annual Veterans Day Parade on Saturday in downtown Fayetteville. WASHINGTON On the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump will face a serious governing challenge of his own creation. He has promised a tax cut that will, by one estimate, reduce federal revenues by $7 trillion over 10 years. He has promised an infrastructure initiative that may cost another trillion. He has promised to rebuild the military. He has effectively promised not to make changes in Social Security and Medicare. And he has promised to move swiftly toward a balanced federal budget. Taken together, these things cant be taken together. Trump has made a series of pledges that cant be reconciled. If he knew this during the campaign, he is cynical. It he is only finding out now, he is benighted. In either case, something has to give. Congress and the country normally get a first glimpse of presidential priorities in the administrations initial budget hashed out internally, translated into legislative-speak by experts and published in a hefty book. It makes for stupefying reading. It is a useful document nonetheless. The budget book throws an ocean of campaign pledges against the rocky shore of fiscal reality. Proposals and pledges must be forced into a pie chart. Anyones gain, it turns out, is someones loss. The first time is the hardest. It is the equivalent of a final exam on the first day of class. But not really on the first day. Under the law, Trump has until Feb. 6 to submit a budget to Congress. He can ask for an extension but not an exemption. A new presidents first speech to a joint session of Congress is less a State of the Union address than a statement of budget priorities. And if the presidents party controls both houses of Congress (as Barack Obama did at the start of his presidency), many of the proposals we hear on that night will become laws. Rather than being dead on arrival, the Trump budget will be alive and taking a Zumba class. Finishing the budget will require a series of major decisions, beginning with what replace means in the repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act. Anything involving a sufficient, refundable tax credit to buy private insurance (a feature of many Republican plans) is not cheap. The primary goal of most Republican health care policy wonks is not to save money. It is to retain the gains of Obamacare including insurance coverage for an additional 20 million people without overregulating the health care sector and destabilizing insurance markets. And to make the purchase of health insurance by younger people attractive rather than compulsory. Members of Congress looking for leadership from the new administration have (at least) two problems. First, the congealing organization chart of the Trump administration is flat and (so far) dysfunctional. A number of people have been given the highest level of White House jobs without a clear indication of who is in charge. By some accounts, Trump likes this sort of management chaos around him. But it is not conducive to policy creation. Some senior Trump advisers have gone public to influence the policy process or perhaps to create the impression that a process actually exists. Kellyanne Conway, for example, recently stated, We dont want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance. That type of assurance is difficult to make because Trumpcare doesnt seem to exist. Second, Trump himself is unfocused and erratic. He is dismissively impatient with policy meetings. He wants others to sweat the details, allowing him to focus on bigger things. Like Meryl Streeps Golden Globe remarks. This looks less like delegation than a vacuum. How do you build a decision-making structure around a vacuum, without inviting a constant, bitter staff struggle to fill it? Is incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus capable of taking control of access to Trump and building an orderly policy process? To some extent, every presidential transition is chaotic. But not every incoming administration fires its initial transition team after winning and essentially starts over. Or has a president-elect who seems to view public policy as a distraction from his social media calling. It is not too late for a structure to emerge that is capable of making sound decisions and choices. But it would take a president-elect who wants it to happen. Dr. Kings collection of Gandhis work (Image courtesy of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University)Martin Luther King, Jr. argued that Mahatma Gandhis philosophy of non-violent resistance was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom. Dr. King first encountered Gandhis ideas during his studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in 1949, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. In a seminary paper, Dr. King included Gandhi among individuals who greatly reveal the working of the Spirit of God. Gandhi had called the practice of segregation in the United States a negation of civilisation. Dr. King first used Gandhis strategies of nonviolent direct action in the 1955 to 1956 Montgomery bus boycott, saying thatChrist showed us the way and Gandhi in India showed it could work. In 1959, Dr. King and his wife Coretta Scott King spent five weeks in India. In his Palm Sunday sermon delivered in India, Dr. King preached on the significance of Gandhis 1928 salt march and his fast to end discrimination against Indias untouchables. Dr. King ultimately believed that Gandhis approach of nonviolent resistance would bring about a solution to the race problem in America. * * * Mohandas K. Gandhi later known as the Mahatma or Great Soul was born in 1869 in Porbandar, in the western part of India. He was raised as a Hindu and practiced Hinduism his entire life. At 18, Gandhi began training as a lawyer in England. He returned to India in 1891 as a barrister but couldnt find work. In 1893, he signed on for a year with an Indian law firm in South Africa. He ended up staying 21 years, leading the Indian community there in opposition to race-based laws and repression of the poor. He called his non-violent approach to civil disobedience satyagraha (literally, truth-force or love-force). It included boycotts, sit-ins, fasting, and prayer. Gandhi accepted no violence from his followers, even if they were attacked by police or strike breakers. He returned to India in 1914 and transformed the existing Indian National Congress party into a mass movement promoting Indian self-rule, using satyagraha and mass boycotts of British goods and institutions. As part of his boycotting strategy, he advocated that all Indians should wear khadi, or homespun cloth, instead of British-made textiles. He linked spinning khadi to the Indian independence movement and invented a small, portable spinning wheel. One of his greatest acts of satyagraha was the salt march. In the spring of 1930, he and 80 volunteers walked 200 miles to the sea. They produced salt from seawater. That violated the Salt Laws, part of the British colonial tax regime. After a year of struggle, Gandhi negotiated a truce with the British colonial governor and ended the civil disobedience campaign. By then more than 60,000 Indians had been jailed for making salt. When Gandhi was jailed again in 1931 for his protest against laws discriminating against untouchables, he fasted until near death. The laws against untouchables were finally repealed in 1947. Later that year, Britain transferred governing power to a partitioned India, creating the two independent states of India and Pakistan. On January 30, 1948, Gandhi was shot to death during evening prayers at Birla House in Delhi. The assassin, later convicted and executed, apparently thought Gandhi hadnt done enough to help Hindus in the Muslim areas of what became Pakistan. * * * This post is based on work published by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. ____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. This one won't surprise anyone but I have a thing about blacksmiths fire + muscles + sweat = HELLO! When I was researching the Star and Sixpence stories, I spent a day working in a forge and made my very own toasting fork and it was hard work. I appreciated the skill involved even more after that! Holly Hepburn by Tamsyn Murray I once got myself and a group of friends barred from a pub. I was a nineteen year old student, it was an empty country pub we'd gone to so that we could use the pool table and we were each buying our own drinks. I went first, ordering an orange juice and the landlady asked me sourly if we were splitting it between us. "Yes please," I said, widening my eyes. "Have you got four straws?" I have a recurring dream where I am about to go on stage and suddenly realise I don't know my lines. So I have to bluff my way through and try to fool the audience. Sometimes I don't have the right costume, either. You don't have to be Freud to figure this one out. I am allergic to popcorn! Which is a major hardship because I love it, especially the salty, buttery kind, and it makes going to the cinema a bit of a torturous experience. There's nothing worse than being able smell popcorn and not eat it. I make up for it by eating ALL the ice cream but it's not the same. I have been in love with Indiana Jones since I was eleven years old I used to have a giant Raiders of the Lost Ark poster on my wall and I kissed it every night. In fact, Raiders of the Lost Ark is probably my most-watched film I have probably seen it around fifty times. Needless to say, I can quote it endlessly, which is every bit as impressive as it sounds. Once I realised I couldn't marry Indiana Jones, I fell in love with Philip Schofield and devised a detailed (written) plan on how I would move to London and make him fall in love with me. And I did move to London (to study Archaeology at university absolutely due, in part, to my Dr Jones obsession) but when I finally did meet Philip, I was so busy trying to be witty and clever that I think I annoyed him. We are still not married. I spent a summer living above a pub with my then-boyfriend, who was the cellarman that's how I know a little bit about running a cellar. But we had to move out when the landlady split up from her husband: she came home early one day to find him dancing around the bedroom dressed in her underwear. I promise I'm not making this up. My favourite country to visit is Italy and my favourite city is Rome. So I suppose it isn't a great surprise that my new novella series features an Italian ice cream shop. I do have to think about ice cream a lot as a result. After the devastating deaths of George Michael and Carrie Fisher at the end of 2016, I've decided to make 2017 the year I write to all the people I admire. First up is Barack Obama, followed by Michelle Obama (because I won't have their address for much longer) and then Harrison Ford, obviously. I have a lot of people to write to My best friends are a group of amazing, wonderful women who inspire me every day. You know the saying that if you ever find yourself being the most talented person room then you need to find a new room? With friends like mine, I'll never have to find a new room. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Andrew Garfield thinks Donald Trump is a "sick man". Andrew Garfield The 33-year-old actor was taken back by Meryl Streep's heartfelt speech, in which she indirectly took a swipe at the president elect for mocking a disabled reporter at a rally in 2015, at the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, last week. And the 'Silence' hunk thought it was absolutely "ugly" that Trump, 70, later branded her one of the most "overrated actresses" because he couldn't handle the truth. Speaking on 'The Awards Show Show' podcast, he said: "You switch on the television and you see this sick man. The sickness, the toxicity, that is emanating out of his every pore -- energetically, you can just feel it, I believe, if your eyes and ears are open. It's shocking. "What Meryl was saying [is] totally inarguable. It was stunning, it was riveting. It was gorgeous. You could hear a pin drop. "She said everything so succinctly and with such passion and sincerity. The show should have ended! That should have been the last thing said. The fact that then the man she was referencing came out with these slurs and this empty, empty response, the feeling that he had to have some kind of response, is just ugliness." Trump - who will take over from President Barack Obama in the White House this week - lashed out at Meryl, 67, online after hearing her hard-hitting six-minute speech. He said: "Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky who lost big." Meryl took aim at Trump - without naming him - in front of millions of people around the world when she admitted the incident two years ago broke her heart. She said in her speech: "There was nothing good about it, but it did its job. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it out my head because it wasn't in a movie, it was in real life. "It was that moment when a person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter - someone he outranked in privilege, in power and in the capacity to fight back." Armie Hammer has become a father for the second time. Elizabeth Chambers and Armie Hammer The 'Man From U.N.C.L.E.' actor and his wife Elizabeth Chambers - who already have two-year-old daughter Harper together - welcomed a son into the world in Los Angeles on Sunday (15.01.17), and mother and baby are doing well. A representative for the star told People magazine: "Both Mom and baby are doing great." And little Harper is already devoted to her new brother. A source said: "Armie and Elizabeth are overjoyed with their growing family and daughter Harper is already embracing the role of big sister." The 30-year-old actor - who married Elizabeth, 34, in May 2010 - announced in September he was to be a father again, and revealed later that month they were expecting a boy. And he jokingly said of their prospective baby names: "We're thinking Jack. [Or] Michael Charles, and he can just go by M.C. "I think I just gave away our baby name? I'm in so much trouble!" And the 'Lone Ranger' star admitted Harper was thrilled at the prospect of being a big sister - but he was unsure whether she'd be so keen when the baby arrived. He said: "She loves it. I mean, she seems to love it now. If you go, 'Where's the baby?' she'll rub Mama's belly and kiss her stomach. It's really cute. "I think when the new baby comes out, it's going to be a serious adjustment period." Meghan Markle's half-brother is seeking help for the drinking problem that led to him allegedly threatening his lover with a gun. Meghan Markle Thomas Markle Jr has turned to professionals in a bid to get his alcohol-related problems under control and has apologised for his behaviour towards Darlene Blount, 36, at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon. Thomas, 50 - who shares dad Thomas Snr with Meghan - said: "I am incredibly sorry for my actions and I'm especially sorry to everyone affected by my drinking. "I am seeking help and I promise I will be the best person I can be going forward. Thank you for understanding." According to court papers, Thomas pointed the gun at Darlene's head as he tried to get her to leave. He subsequently sent a text message to his son Tyler, informing him that he'd been taken to jail. Tyler, 24, said his dad is aware of how embarrassing the incident will be for Meghan, who has been dating Prince Harry since mid-2016. He told The Sun newspaper: "He knows it is an embarrassment to Meghan and the family. "He is very sorry and is apologising to everyone. He just needs some time to heal and reflect on life. But he wants to apologise for everything. "He is in the spotlight now and everyone gets to see his flaws." Tyler said his dad's behaviour was influenced by the alcohol he'd consumed and is not a reflection of who he really is. He explained: "Due to being inebriated, his emotions got the better of him and he got into an argument with his girlfriend. He's not like this normally. "I also want to apologise on behalf of my dad. Unfortunately my father has a problem with alcohol. He is now in recovery." Tuesday, Jan. 3 marked the first day of the 103rd Wisconsin Legislature, and I had the privilege of being present as new and returning Senate colleagues were sworn into office. With elections behind us and the inauguration over, legislators from across the state are geared up and ready to take on the challenges facing us in the State Capitol. The start of a new legislative session in Madison always begins with a wave of new and returning bill ideas. Proposals cover everything from health care and taxes to transportation and education, with a whole lot in between. In fact, during the previous two-year session, 1,830 bills were introduced and 392 of those were signed into law. Of those that became law, you might be surprised to learn that more than 90 percent were bipartisan, receiving support from legislators on both sides of the aisle. As new bills come before me in the Senate, I am always interested to learn your views. If you have opinions about a proposal, please dont hesitate to reach out to me. I rely on the thoughts of people like you, who may be impacted by the changes in state law these proposals bring. One of the biggest tasks for legislators over the next few months will be putting together the 2017-2019 state budget. Although Wisconsin is a medium-sized state, our budget is a $72 billion document that doesnt just balance state finances, but also lays out our priorities and goals for the state by allocating limited resources. Over the past few budget cycles, we worked hard to balance our books and turn budget deficits into a surpluses. Weve grown our rainy day fund and state finances are in better shape than theyve been in decades, all while curbing the growth of property taxes, freezing university tuition and cutting state income taxes. While all of those things are important, there is a lot more work to be done. This budget will be a challenging one, as we try to stabilize the transportation fund for the long term, invest more in education, continue improving Wisconsins business climate and ensure that our government is operating in an efficient and cost-effective way. Gov. Walker will give his budget address in February, laying out his priorities for the state and highlighting key areas of investment. At that time, the budget will come before legislators for several months of review and change before likely being signed into law this summer. As a State senator, I am always happy to help you work with state agencies you may come into contact with when getting a permit, obtaining aid, or registering for a state program. To help you keep in touch, follow my work in Madison on your behalf, and navigate state government more easily, Im proud to announce the launch of my new legislative website, SenatorMoulton.com. At the new site youll find information about legislation Im authoring, as well as press releases, e-updates, and services my office can provide. You can also sign up to track legislation that interests you and keep up-to-date on the latest legislative news affecting the 23rd Senate District. Its an honor to serve as your state senator, and I look forward to hearing from you online and around the district. The 1975 have postponed their European tour dates. The 1975 The 'She's American' rockers were due to perform 16 dates across Europe, kicking off in Amsterdam in the Netherlands on January 31, but have been forced to put them on hold due to "unforeseen circumstances", although they plan on sharing the rescheduled dates within the next two days. The band's record label, Dirty Hit Records, announced the news on Twitter. They wrote: "Due to unforeseen circumstances @the1975 will be postponing their European tour. Rescheduled tour dates will be announced (sic)" It comes days after the indie rock group - fronted by Matt Healy - received two BRIT Awards nominations for MasterCard British Album of the Year for 'I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It' and British Group. The 'Chocolate' hitmakers will also perform at the star-studded ceremony at London's The O2 on February 22. Matt, 27, recently teased that the band are planning on putting on a one-off show in the British capital. He said: "We're gonna play a show for 500 people in a small venue in London next month." Meanwhile, the quintet's frontman - who is joined by Adam Hann, Ross MacDonald, and George Daniel in the group - has ruled playing Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, south west England this June - but says the band would be up for it in the future. The 27-year-old musician previously said: "I want to headline Glastonbury! Not next year, but soon. I never used to say stuff like this - I'm not a mental, insane narcissist - but there's so much faux modesty in music now. It's transpired that we get to play arenas all over the world, so why now would I not want to headline Glastonbury?" Meghan Markle's half-brother is "incredibly sorry" after he allegedly put a gun to his lover's head whilst drunk. Meghan Markle Thomas Markle Jr. has told loved ones he is "seeking help" for his drinking problem which he claims led to the alleged incident involving his lover Darlene Blount, which took place in Oregon, US, last week. The 50 year old - who's half-sister Meghan is currently dating Prince Harry - said: "I am incredibly sorry for my actions and I'm especially sorry to everyone affected by my drinking. "I am seeking help and I promise I will be the best person I can be going forward. Thank you for understanding." And Thomas' son Tyler, 24, has branded his father's alleged actions as "an embarrassment", but said it was difficult for him because Meghan's relationship with the 32-year-old royal has put their family "in the spotlight". He told The Sun newspaper: "He knows it is an embarrassment to Meghan and the family. "He is very sorry and is apologising to everyone. He just needs some time to heal and reflect on life. But he wants to apologise for everything. "He is in the spotlight now and everyone gets to see his flaws. "Due to being inebriated, his emotions got the better of him and he got into an argument with his girlfriend. He's not like this normally. "I also want to apologise on behalf of my dad. Unfortunately, my father has a problem with alcohol. He is now in recovery." Thomas was taken into custody for the alleged offence on Thursday (12.01.17), and was charged with menacing, pointing a firearm at another person, and unlawful use of a weapon. An official police log of the incident stated: "Markle and Blount got into an argument. "In his drunken state Markel grabbed a gun and pressed it to Blount's head in an attempt to get her to leave." Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip have attended a church service in the wake of Lord Snowdon's death. Queen Elizabeth II The 90-year-old royal and her husband, 95, made an appearance at the solemn church service just outside Sandringham on Sunday (15.01.17), two days after the royal photographer passed away peacefully at home aged 86. Joining them in the service was David Armstrong-Jones, the 55-year-old son of the late Lord Snowdon and his ex-wife Princess Margaret - the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth - who passed away in 2002. According to the Daily Mail newspaper, the royals appeared to be in high spirits despite the sombre mood of the event as they arrived at the church of St Mary the Virgin in Flitcham, Norfolk. For the couple, the outing marks their second appearance in public since the Queen was struck with a heavy cold which prevented her from attending the traditional Christmas and New Year's Day church services. Last week, it was reported that Queen Elizabeth was feeling "better", after her 66-year-old daughter Princess Anne assured well-wishers her mother was well during the services at Sandringham that were missed by the royal. The Queen's decision to miss the festive church may have come as a shock to some - as it was the first time in 30 years she was unable to attend the ceremony - but Buckingham Palace said at the time, that missing the church service was a "precautionary measure" and it was not a cause for concern. They said at the time: "[It was] a precautionary measure but there was no sense of undue concern." Katherine Kelly has given birth to her second child. Katherine Kelly The 37-year-old actress and her husband Ryan Clark - who already have three-year-old daughter Orla - welcomed their little girl into the world three months ago but decided to keep their news a secret because she didn't want to be involved in a "bump watch." Speaking to HELLO! magazine, Katherine said: "We didn't go out of our way to keep it a secret but we didn't announce the pregnancy so people were not immediately on bump watch. So it's been wonderful to have this precious time just for us. "It is different if you are in something like 'Coronation Street', as you can't keep it quiet. It leaks within a second as paparazzi are always at the gates." The former 'Coronation Street' star met her second child named Rose on October 21 following a speedy labour and water birth at London's Whittington Hospital. She explained: "It was a rush to get to the hospital and by the time we were checked in, Rose was born within one hour and 40 minutes!" The blonde beauty decided to put her career on the back burner when she gave birth to her first daughter Orla three years ago but is adamant that she will continue to work as well as care for her kids this time around because she loves her job so much. She said: "I love my job but I do want to spend as much time as I can with Orla and Rose. To have two healthy children is a blessing." And it seems Katherine and Ryan are good at keeping secrets as they also opted for the hush hush option when they tied the knot in an intimate ceremony three years ago. The couple fled to Las Vegas without telling anyone - not even family - to get hitched. She said at the time: "The day was everything we hoped it would be - no fuss, low-key, sunshine and just us. We wanted to enjoy the day without all the usual planning and pressure. We just wanted to let it roll, so it had an on-the-run feel to it." Improvements in compliance are crucial to ensure sustainable growth of the ready-made garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh, according to a recent report. Better compliance across the sector would require initial investments to improve physical infrastructure, fire protection and funding for operations costs to maintain high levels of compliance. Bangladesh has made progress toward eliminating child labor and curtailing long working hours, but the Tazreen Fashion fire of 2012 and the Rana Plaza collapse of 2013 demonstrate that compliance is still lacking in many respects, particularly when it comes to safety. The disasters have focused global attention on Bangladeshs sector, heightening consumer awareness about garment production and increasing the need to improve compliance, says Copenhagen Consensus Centre report put forward by a team of four Bangladeshi economists, led by Wasel Bin Shadat, a lecturer at the University of Manchester, examining investments that will improve Bangladeshs vital RMG sector Improvements in compliance are crucial to ensure sustainable growth of the ready-made garment (RMG) industry of Bangladesh, according to a recent report. Better compliance across the sector would require initial investments to improve physical infrastructure, fire protection and funding for operations costs to maintain high levels of compliance.# Ensuring that companies comply with safety regulations is important not only for worker safety, but also to increase opportunities to export. The report estimates that industry-wide compliance would cost between Tk 164 billion and Tk 234 billion. Greater compliance reduces the probability of accidents, increases productivity, lowers employee turnover, and makes the sector more attractive to both existing and new buyers, notes the report. Based on the research, factory compliance instituted across the sector would boost export earnings by an estimated 10 per cent. This would help ensure that the RMG sector reaches its self-defined target for a total export value of $50 billion. Driven by the export increase, the overall benefits from investing in RMG compliance would then be 14 times higher than the costs. The report also says that the RMG Palli special zone thats perfectly suited for garment production would essentially be an industrial park, with ample infrastructure for factories and straightforward ways to monitor compliance, allowing firms to produce readymade garments efficiently and safely. A separate RMG zone would allow factories to cluster in a single geographic location, which would reduce production costs, allow for simple transfer of knowledge and technologies, make pollution mitigation easier, and promote other positive spillover effects. The zone would employ an estimated 300,000 people at more than 250 factories. The creation of an RMG Palli will result in an additional 142 factories over the next three years, when compared to the long-run growth of the industry. The incremental costs to build these additional factories are estimated to be Tk 1.3 billion. With increased productivity and better capacity utilisation within the special zone, the report estimates that the total export earnings from more than 250 factories would equal Tk 312 billion. Each taka spent on the investment would do an estimated 8 takas of social good. (KD) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the countrys commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# These one-way trade preferences would consist of the full removal of duties on 66 per cent of tariff lines, covering a wide array of products including textiles, the Commission said in a statement. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# These preferences would come under a special arrangement of the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences, known as GSP+. The arrangement is designed to support developing countries by fostering their economic development through increased trade with Europe and providing incentives to take tangible measures towards sustainable development. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# The European Parliament and the Council have now up to four months to raise potential objections before the measures become effective. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# GSP+ preferences can make a significant contribution to Sri Lankas economic development by increasing exports to the EU market. But this also reflects the way in which we want to support Sri Lanka in implementing human rights, rule of law and good governance reforms, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# GSP+ scheme offers the incentive of increased trade access in return for further progress towards the full implementation of 27 international conventions, and provides a platform for engagement with beneficiaries on all problematic areas. As is the case for all GSP+ countries, the removal of customs duties for Sri Lanka would be accompanied with rigorous monitoring of the countrys progress in the area of sustainable development, human rights and good governance. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# Sri Lanka had already benefited from GSP+ in the past. In 2010, the EU stopped the preferential treatment for Sri Lankan imports due to the failure to address reported human rights violations in the country. In 2015, the new government of Sri Lanka set out a path of major reforms aiming for national reconciliation, respect of human rights, the rule of law and good governance principles, as well as sustainable economic development. The Sri Lankan government applied for GSP+ in July 2016 and the Commissions assessment has concluded that it met the GSP+ entry criteria set out in the EU Regulation. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# The EU is Sri Lankas biggest export market accounting for nearly one-third of Sri Lankas global exports. In 2015, total bilateral trade amounted to 4.7 billion. EU imports from Sri Lanka amounted to 2.6 billion and consisted mainly of textiles as well as rubber products and machinery. The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# There are currently 8 GSP+ beneficiaries: Armenia, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay and the Philippines. (RKS) The European Commission (EC) has proposed that a significant part of the remaining import duties on Sri Lankan products should be removed by the European Union in exchange for the country's commitment to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of the environment and good governance.# Fibre2Fashion News Desk India In a bid to trace source of wood based fabrics like viscose and rayon and eliminate sources connected to the destruction of rainforests, fashion retailer Ralph Lauren has developed a new policy on the use of such fabrics. The company continues to work on its framework for tracking, assessing and developing purchasing guidelines in purchase of raw materials.Ralph Laurens policy and actions on wood-based fabrics were developed in cooperation with Rainforest Action Network (RAN). The Out of Fashion RAN campaign is drawing attention to the risks that controversial wood-based fabrics pose to endangered forests. In a bid to trace source of wood based fabrics like viscose and rayon and eliminate sources connected to the destruction of rainforests, fashion retailer Ralph Lauren has developed a new policy on the use of such fabrics. The company continues to work on its framework for tracking, assessing and developing purchasing guidelines in purchase of raw materials.# Ralph Lauren joins leading brands, like H&M, Zara, Stella McCartney, ASOS, Levis Strauss & Co. and others that have already adopted forest products purchasing policies and moved to source more responsibly in order to slow the rate at which the worlds remaining endangered and ancient forests are being pulped for fabrics like rayon, modal and viscose.In 2017, Ralph Lauren intends to publish and implement our new sourcing guidelines on wood based fabrics as part of a broader initiative to establish a traceability, risk assessment and verification framework for the raw materials that we use, said Halide Alagoz, Ralph Laurens senior vice president of global manufacturing and sourcing.Weve already communicated our commitment to our vendors. We believe this initiative demonstrates Ralph Laurens commitment to the environment with responsible and traceable sourcing, which we believe will create a positive impact on ecosystems and global communities, Alagoz added. (AR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Textiles should be at the heart of Taiwans thinking while developing new global trade arrangements and strategies, according to president Tsai Ing-wen. She felt that there is considerable development potential for the textile sector in Central America, according to a statement released by her office during her recent four-nation tour to the region. This is the time to begin thinking about new arrangements and new strategies, starting with the textile sector, Ing-wen said, according to the statement. During her week-long state visit to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, Ing-wen said that these Central American nations have free trade agreements with the US, which could be advantageous for Taiwanese manufacturers. Textiles should be at the heart of Taiwan's thinking while developing new global trade arrangements and strategies, according to president Tsai Ing-wen. She felt that there is considerable development potential for the textile sector in Central America, according to a statement released by her office during her recent four-nation tour to the region.# Chan Cheng-tien, Taiwan Textile Federation chairman, was also part of the Taiwanese delegation that toured these nations. (RKS) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India South Korean manufacturer of specialty fibres Hyosung participated in the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2017 held in the US from January 10 to 12 in a joint booth, with several South Korean small and mid sized companies. Its various business divisions like the nylon polyester division and spandex division introduced new and innovative fibres at the show.The nylon polyester fibre division launched many high functional nylon and polyester fibres, of which Aeroheat is a heat generating polyester that emits thermal energy by absorbing lights with mineral substances to manufacture winter clothing like fleece and leggings. South Korean manufacturer of specialty fibres Hyosung participated in the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2017 held in the US from January 10 to 12 in a joint booth, with several South Korean small and mid sized companies. Its various business divisions like the nylon polyester division and spandex division introduced new and innovative fibres at the show.# Aqua-X, a nylon fibre is meant for summer outdoor clothing, as it effectively absorbs heat and blocks UV rays, while Robic is a high strength, durable and wear resistant textile yarn for uses in applications like bags, working clothes and sewing yarns.On the other hand, the spandex business division displayed fabrics, manufactured from yarns blended with nylon, polyester and spandex fibres.The division also showcased fabrics blended with odour neutralising spandex fibre Creora Fresh and nylon Aqua-X. The division also displayed fabrics combining Aerowarm fibre which features superior sweat absorbing with Creora Power Fit, a spandex with high power and excellent heat resistance. (AR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Will just less than four months to go before the trade show for processing textile and flexible materials, Texprocess begins from May 9, 2017, the show has witnessed the highest number of exhibitor registrations in its history. The growth in numbers has been mainly driven by companies in CAD/CAM, and Cutting, Making, Trimming (CMT) product groups.The technology products on show at Texprocess covers all stages in the value creation chain of textile goods like design, IT, cutting out, sewing, seaming, embroidery and knitting to finishing, textile printing and logistics. Will just less than four months to go before the trade show for processing textile and flexible materials, Texprocess begins from May 9, 2017, the show has witnessed the highest number of exhibitor registrations in its history. The growth in numbers has been mainly driven by companies in CAD/CAM, and Cutting, Making, Trimming (CMT) product groups. # In partnership with World Textile Information Network (WtiN), the show organisers will also be organising the European Digital Textile Conference on May 10. Digital printing on textiles will also be taken up as a topic in a dedicated series of lectures forming part of the Texprocess Forum.The Innovative Apparel Show also returns to Texprocess this year at which four European colleges will be showcasing their fashion designs from functional textiles and the processing stages that go into making them.In the 2017 edition, exhibitors and visitors at Texprocess will also benefit from a Techtextil hosted zone called 'Living in Space', which will be showcasing a wide variety of applications for technical textiles in space travel, together with the processing involved. (AR) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India You saw it come out earlier today. Its another cigar rights petition to rally the troops against the U.S. Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) assault on the cigar industry.. And like many cigar enthusiasts, you probably are petitioned out. However, I think its important to understand why this petition was put out there and the most effective way in spreading the word. Whether we like it or not; for all practical purposes, we required a new petition. The 115th Congress is in session. Bill HR 564 proposes an exemption premium cigars from regulation by the FDA. Its basically an re-introduction of previous legislation from previous sessions of Congress. There are many people in Congress who do not know much about what the cigar industry is facing around FDA regulation. There are also many members of Congress who most likely need a refresher. Thats what this petition is going to do. Its going to call the attention the members of Congress to take a closer look at HR 564 and get on board. Basically, just because you signed a petition doesnt cut it. You need to sign this petition again. Typically when these petitions are introduced they hit social media in large waves. I still highly encourage spreading the word online, but in this authors opinion its really not enough. Ive mentioned in the past for any cigar-released petition to really take form, it requires more of a grass roots person to person effort. In other words if you signed it, have you told a friend? Have you told two or more friends? Remember Facebook and Twitter represent a very small fraction of the cigar population (and remember, this is a small industry). I also challenge manufacturers, brand owners, and retailers to do the same thing. Make this a requirement to your sales teams whether in the field or at the retail level. Even though previous iterations of what is proposed in HR 564 have not advanced, they have been effective at still gaining support on the ground in Washington. It is also not inconceivable that the Trump Administration might see some of the numbers supporting this. In fact, I would say its more likely than getting help from Rudy Giuliani. The bottom line: those cigar enthusiasts hoping for the long shot for the FDA regulations to be repealed forever, this is a necessary step. You cant repeal a law without introducing legislation to do so. This is the legislation. Most importantly, dont ignore the petition. Its not the first, and it certainly wont be the last. Click here to sign. HON PM BAINIMARAMA SPEECH AT THE OPENING OF THE 25TH ASIA-PACIFIC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you. Honourable Speakers;Honourable and Distinguished Members of Parliament;Ambassadors and Members of the Diplomatic Corps;Ladies and gentlemen.Bula vinaka and a very good morning to you all.Im delighted to be here to officially open the 25th Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum and to welcome all of our distinguished international guests to Fiji.Our Fijian delegation is joined here today by 20 Heads of Delegation from Russia, Cambodia, Australia, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Colombia, New Zealand, Micronesia, Indonesia, Chile, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Korea, Laos, Peru, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.Allow me to say, on behalf of the Fijian people, what a privilege it is to welcome all of you to our shores. And I hope that you are all able to experience the famed hospitality that we Fijians pride ourselves on offering.Fiji is extremely proud to have renewed our participation with the APPF following the establishment of true parliamentary democracy the first time in our history that our Constitution provides for common and equal citizenry and an electoral system that guarantees that every vote has equal value.Over the last decade, Fiji has embarked on a progressive path that has seen our standing in the world and our integration with the region grow exponentially. And we are very proud of the recognition you have afforded Fiji by honouring us as the hosts of this years forum.The APPF is an esteemed and highly regarded international body and its strength is rooted in our shared commitment to democracy. Each of us is beholden only to the people who have placed us here, to those we were elected to serve. And that underlying principle makes Fiji very proud of our membership and of what we have been able to achieve alongside our APPF partners.Those achievements were also made possible in no small part by the dedicated members of the APPF, to whom we again owe our thanks for their invaluable help bringing us together here in Natadola. To the working groups, Drafting Committee, Executive Committee and other members: vinaka vakalevu for all your hard work. Thank you very much.Ladies and gentlemen,Over the last quarter of a century, the APPF has consistently remained at the forefront of the global and regional challenges of our time. Under the Tokyo Declaration and the expansions that followed this forum has remained committed to its core mandate to further regional trust and cooperation by forging common ground among us, and by using the great diversity of our region to boost the international standing of the Asia-Pacific.Today, our region is on the cutting edge of development. Around the world, we are increasingly seen as a model for economic dynamism and integration. And the APPF has shown many other countries and international institutions how elected legislatures can lead the way in deepening regional cooperation to spur economic development.Raising the status of women has been a top priority for my Government, and so I was extremely proud that last years forum produced its first-ever meeting of Women Parliamentarians a welcome step towards addressing the need for greater inclusion of women in public life, and particularly in political spaces.We have all just heard from the Honourable Dr. Jiko Luveni, who we are blessed to have serve as our first female Speaker of any Fijian Parliament. As a woman who serves as a tremendous role model for every Fijian, she has used her position to become a forceful advocate for greater acceptance of women in Fijian politics and national life. And that is a cause I am deeply proud to champion alongside her.Ladies and gentlemen,Throughout our history of working as partners through the APPF, we have seen over and over again that we are strongest when we are most united. And that unity and the trust have allowed us to strike a regional balance in the Asia-Pacific that works for the benefit of us all. Most of Fijis major trading partners are fellow APPF countries, and that is not by mere chance.Certainly, geography has created natural trade patterns. But we have also had the wisdom to build strong economic partnerships, and we learned long ago that the transfer of knowledge, expertise and experiences gives us all a better chance of improving the lives of our people. And at this years forum I believe that will ring more true than ever, as we seek to forge parliamentary partnerships for our mutual peace and security, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 16.Here in Fiji, my Government is very proud of the significant strides we have made to address social and economic inequality in our society.Ten years ago, Fijian society was riddled with institutional biases on the basis of religion, ethnicity, gender, provincialism and socioeconomic status. And while it is a work in progress, we have knocked down many long-standing barriers to equal opportunity and have laid out a clear progressive path for our national development. Today, I am proud to say that the Fijian people stand more united and more prosperous than at any time in our history.On the back of our seventh consecutive year of economic growth, we have committed ourselves to mainstreaming as many Fijians as possible by making sure our economic gains do not belong to the few or to the elite, but rather to the manyto all of the hard-working ordinary Fijians to whom we owe our economic achievement.We are doing everything in our power to make ambition, discipline, and ability the only predictors of success in Fijian society. Merit must be rewarded over social position, political connections or sense of entitlement. And we are committed to building a social safety net that protects those who are most vulnerable.Whether it be through our free education initiative, subsidised water and electricity, free medicine for those below a particular income level or our merit-based approach to civil service recruitment. At the same time we are also expanding our road network and connecting the unconnected to water, electricity and telecommunications.We are striving to bring greater opportunities into the life of every Fijian. That is a basic responsibility of government. And then it is up to each Fijian to determine what he or she will do with those opportunities. In that way, we unleash the talents and energies of our people so they can improve their own lives and build a better and stronger Fiji. And while we may be spread out over 100 populated islands, our long-term goal is to ensure that geographic location has no bearing on the economic prospects of any of our people.I am very proud of all we have achieved, but it is vital that we match our unprecedented development with equal efforts to ensure that it is sustainable that we take steps to protect the hard-won progress of the Government I lead and of the Fijian people.I know that the nations gathered here today share my belief that national security is the most essential function of any governmentthat information relating to public safety and well-being is vital and must be managed with transparency and efficiency, and that our economic security and national security are intrinsically linked. We cannot be prosperous if we are besieged by crime, corruption and internal or external threats, either by state actors or criminal and terror organisations.It is our sacred duty to protect the men, women and children of our respective countries, and that is best achieved by promoting peace and security at a regional and international level because there is no operating in isolation in the current global security landscape.Conflict can spill over to reach any corner of the globe at any time. Criminals operate in cyber-landscapes irrespective of national borders and outside of geographic limitations. And many existing laws, regulations and tactics are woefully out of date and irrelevant to the evolving threats we face.That is why this forum is so important. Here we can deepen the trust and security cooperation among our nations and find solutions that can save valuable time in preventing transnational crimes. Here we can share strategies that have been effective, and explain pitfalls that should be avoided. Here we can lay the groundwork for the next phase of regional security by strengthening existing frameworks and systems, and preparing the next generation for the challenges not yet upon us.The stakes could not be higher. The crises we will discuss in the coming days threaten years of development progress throughout our region, are causing countless innocents to suffer, and jeopardise entire peoples and ways of life.These issues demand regional action because any weak link in the Asia-Pacific leaves us all exposed. We live together in this part of the world. It is our home, and it should nurture the hopes and dreams of our people. We share this most sacred space, and so we share a destiny and a responsibility to all our people, and Fiji stands ready to do our part.That being said, each of us faces different sets of security concerns. Each of us has to develop tailored solutions that fit our own situation. We in the Pacific, for example, are faced with an external threat that far exceeds our own abilities to confront. I am speaking, of course, about the rising seas and severe and erratic weather patterns brought about by climate change.When taking stock of the scale of the security risks we face, none compare to the threat climate change poses to many low-lying nations throughout the Pacific--nations whose very existence is at stake due to rising seas. We have no choice but to give this crisis all the energy, rigorous attention and sincere commitment that we can muster. And as you are all aware, Fiji has been elected to preside over the UN climate change negotiations at COP 23 in November, and we are also co-hosting the UN Oceans Conference with Sweden in June.So clearly these are issues close to our heart and major cornerstones of our foreign policy and Im glad to see that regional cooperation on climate change has been given due prominence on our agenda. I very much look forward to increased cooperation among us on climate change adaptation, the conservation of our oceans, seas and marine resources, and disaster-risk reduction.The Asia-Pacific region is considered the most disaster-prone in the world. This is a fact to which every Fijian can attest, given the destruction wrought upon us by Tropical Cyclone Winston last year the strongest cyclone to ever strike in the southern hemisphere. So the urgency could not be greater, and whether it be severe weather events, food security or eroding coastlines, we all face consequences and we all have a role to play in addressing the global climate crisis.Given our role as parliamentarians, given our commitment to democratic principles, and given the enormous good the APPF has already achieved, I am highly optimistic about what we can accomplish over the next few days. But we cant stop there. We have to turn the outcomes of these plenary sessions into tangible policies and programmes that keep our economies sustainable and bring as many of our citizens as possible into the fold of economic prosperity. Only then will we live up to the faith placed in us all as elected officials that great responsibility we owe to our citizens and to each other.Again, let me welcome you all to Fiji. During your time with us I hope you are able to take some time to enjoy some of the stunning natural beauty that surrounds you here in Natadola, and experience the relaxation and the tranquillity that has made our islands such a draw for tourists from all over the world.Thank you all for being here, I look forward to our discussions. And I now have the great pleasure of declaring the 25th Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum open. From thunderous performances to tear-jerking speeches, Bollywood's biggest annual gala, the Jio Filmfare Awards was about it all. We look back at the weekend that it was and list out the moments that the night will be remembered for 1. Shah Rukh Khan descended like a true blue megastar and kick-started the night and proved yet gain why he is Filmfare's favourite host for decades. His camaraderie with co-hosts Karan Johar and Kapil Sharma kept the audiences glued to their seats till wee hours 2.Salman Khan danced to his career's best chartbusters and needless to say had the audiences applauding every minute of it. From Oo Oo Jaane Jaana to Baby Ko Base Pasand Hai every song was grooved to. 3.Jacqueline Fernandez and Sushant Singh Rajput tantalised with their tango act, one thats definitely going to have more filmmakers wanting to cast them together. 4.Best Debut Male winner Diljit Dosanjh melted every heart in the dome as he crooned to Ikk Kudi from Udta Punjab. That was followed by Kapil Sharma singing a chunk of Main Jahan Rahoon from Namaste London that took everyone's breath away. 5. Tiger Shroff made a superhero entry, danced like a DREAM and ended his performance with dad Jackie Shroff thus making it an extraordinary memory for all. 6. As Shabana Azmi took the stage to accept her award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Female) for Neerja, Shah rukh Khan and Kapil didn't let her get off it. Instead they got Javed Akhtar on stage and made the couple dance to Janam Janam but only after Shah rukh had done his bit of serenading Shabana to the same track. 7. The red carpet belonged to the couples as much as it did to couture creations. Shahid Kapoor-Mira Rajput and Preity Zinta-Gene Goodenough kept their Couple Game strong strutting hand-in-hand. 8. Everybody moved to tears as Alia Bhatt thanked mentor Karan Johar in her acceptance speech for bagging the Best Actor in a Leading Role (Female). Her imitation of father Mahesh Bhatt left the audience in splits 9. Varun Dhawans dark turned masala performance ended with a bang as Alia made her way to the stage in a doli and they unveiled a song from their upcoming film, Badrinath Ki Dulhania. 10. While Alia Bhatt paid tribute to some of Bollywoods evergreen actresses, Sonakshi Sinha danced to every hit number of 2016. Salman Khan is currently shooting for his upcoming film Tubelight with Kabir Khan and also has Tiger Zinda Hai slated for release on Christmas 2017. Now, latest reports suggest that the third installment of the Dabangg franchise will go on floors after Tiger Zinda Hai. Salmans Dabangg 3 has been long-awaited and there have been several reports about the cast of the film. According to sources, Dabangg 3 shoot will start in the month of January 2018 and it will have an Eid release. Sources say, after Arbaaz produced the first two installments and also directed Dabangg 2, he was waiting for the right concept to come along and now that he has got it, he is all set to begin. Currently, he is staying at the tourist resort Arosa in Switzerland completing his script and has visited Zurich for recce as some parts of the film will be shot there. We just cant wait for Salmans next 3! Zaira Gets Trolled However, the Srinagar-based Zaira was trolled on social media when photos from the meeting emerged. She took to social media on Monday to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris. Zaira's Open Letter "This is an open confession/apology. I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met." 'I Want To Apologise' "I want to apologise to all those people who I've unintentionally hurt and I want them to know that I understand their sentiments behind it especially considering that what had happened over the past 6 months." 'I Am Just A 16 Year Old Girl' "But I hope people can also understand there are certain circumstances that emerge which one cannot control and I hope people still remember that I'm a just a 16 year old girl and I hope you treat me accordingly." 'I Hope People Can Forgive Me' "I'm sorry for what I did but it was not a deliberate decision and I really hope people can forgive me. There are few more things which are very important and I want to clear them as well." 'I Don't Want Anyone To Follow My Footsteps' "The first and foremost thing is that I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri Youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my footsteps or even consider me as a role model. I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the Youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history." Zaira Concludes.. "To even consider me as a role model would be disgracing them and their disgrace would be OUR DISGRACE! I do not wish to start an argument here, this was a just a mere confession from my end which I really wanted people to know. May Allah bless us and guide us." Kangana Ranaut is known for her film projects as well as her fashion sense. The actress says it was not a "conscious leap" to come forward as a style icon. The actress also said she has been experimental with her looks since her growing up days. "I started as a small town girl and it was not a conscious leap where I decided that 'Okay fine, I have to emerge as this style icon'. While growing up, I was quite experimental with my looks. It was not like that I didn't stand out back home in my little village where I grew up," Kangana told IANS. Also Read: Unbelievable! My Performance Is My Publicity; Aamir Khan Had Said This Even Before Becoming A Star! "In fact, my fashion sense was quite outrageous. I remember wearing torn shorts and straw hat and going to market, which sort of scandalised everyone," she added. The 29-year-old is known for films like Gangster - A Love Story, Fashion, Queen, Tanu Weds Manu and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. She is now being lauded for her look in her forthcoming film Rangoon, Vishal Bhardwaj's period drama set in the 1940s amidst the turmoil of India's Independence struggle. The actress said her father was not happy with her style while growing back. "I remember my father being extremely upset with what I wore and how I carried myself. He didn't approve of it. But I just thought that it was none of his business and I did what I liked anyway." "I think that was the phase where a child tries something and everybody sort of doesn't give the right reaction," said the National Award winning actress. After Rangoon, she will be seen in Rani Lakshmi Bai and Simran. Saif Ali Khan was all set to fly to the New York city for the shoot of his upcoming film 'Chef' but due to extreme snow and chill the shoot has been postponed for a month. The director of Chef, Raja Krishna Menon confirmed the developments as, Rishi Kapoor's Prediction! Fatima Sana Shaikh Of Dangal Will Be A Huge Star! "We are waiting for the weather to improve. At the moment we are told we will get just six hours of light so we have pushed the schedule by a month. For now Saif and his onscreen son, Svar Kamble, will shoot at a Mumbai studio for a week." It is reported that Saif Ali Khan had to shoot the climax scene in New York and also had to shoot a montage song. For now, he'll be shooting other scenes at a studio in Mumbai and will head off to New York when its sunny and bright. Aamir Khan Opens Up About The Donald Trump & Meryl Streep Controversy! Chef is the remake of the 2014 released Hollywood film that also goes by the same name. The original starred Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson. The film is about a top chef who quits his job and begins to explore the world of culinary. He also mends ways with his family along the journey. Pictures! Celina Jaitley Holidays In China Along With Her Husband Peter Haag Rishi Kapoor On Buying An Award For Bobby & His Cold War With Big B Rishi Kapoor admitted that he bought a popular magazine award for Bobby, and later he felt guilty for a long time. He also thought that this was the reason for the initial coldness between him and Amitabh Bachchan who felt that he deserved the award for Zanjeer. On His Struggles In Bollywood "It was a mistake, and I'm owning it up in the book. But that doesn't mean after that I bought all my awards. I was so naive then... a 20-year-old brash bacha,"he said in a Facebook live interview with HT. "I may have not slept on pavements or gone hungry and had a huge hit in Bobby, but then on what? I was in the choppy sea all my life. I was battling the huge hurricane of action movies and competing with stars such as Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Shatrugan Sinha, and so on. I was a romantic hero in an action-films era." On His Depression ''I had thought Karz (1980) would do wonders for my career. It had wonderful music, and some great work by the cast and crew. When that didn't happen, I lost my nerve, sinking into a deep depression.'' On His Relationship With His Father & Son ''I couldn't face the camera anymore. At that time I was shooting simultaneously for four films: Naseeb, Deedar-e-Yaar, Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai and Prem Rog. But I couldn't bring myself to go to work.'' "My time was very limited but I never failed in taking them on vacations and spending Sundays with them. But then I would have hated to be on hey buddy-back-slapping terms with my father and I don't expect my son to do the same. I believe ek izzat ki deewar honi chahiye.'' I Love My Son But I Can't Go Overboard "I'm not the kind who'd like to share secrets with him about his girlfriends. I wouldn't like that or ever do that. I am a different kind of father. I love my son to death but I cannot go overboard. Maybe I am wrong - that is debatable - but that is how I was brought up." On Being Outspoken "I have never hurt anybody intentionally. If I do, I always apologise. I know diplomacy is not one of the great virtues of mine. I choose to be very outspoken and often I land myself into trouble." How He Met Dawood Ibrahim ''The year was 1988. I had landed in Dubai with my closest friend, Bittu Anand, for an Asha Bhosle-RD Burman night. Dawood always had a man at the airport to keep him posted on VIP movement. When I was leaving the airport, a stranger walked up to me and handed me a phone. He said, 'Dawood sa'ab baat karenge (Dawood sa'ab would like to talk to you).''' On Having Tea With Dawood Ibrahim ''Obviously, this was before the 1993 blasts in Mumbai and I didn't think of Dawood as a fugitive on the run. Dawood welcomed me and said, 'If there is anything you need, just let me know.' He also invited me to his house. I was taken aback.'' ''At his home greeted us warmly and apologetically explained, 'I called you to tea because I don't drink or serve alcohol.' So, we had a tea-and-biscuits session for four hours.'' What Happened Next... ''He spoke of a number of things, including some of his criminal activities for which he had no regrets. 'I have carried out petty thefts but I have never killed anyone, though I have got someone killed," he revealed. ''He claimed to have had someone shot in a Mumbai court for lying. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was about someone going against Allah's word and so they had to do it.'' Dawood Loved Me In The Film Tawaif ''He claimed, 'I was Allah's messenger, so we shot him through his tongue and then through his brain.' Director Rahul Rawail later used this real-life incident as the basis of a courtroom murder scene in his film Arjun (1985).' ''Dawood also told me he'd loved me in the film Tawaif because my name in it was Dawood. Dawood was pleased that through the film I had (unwittingly) glorified his name. Years later, in Nikhil Advani's D-Day, I once again played Dawood on screen.'' ''Dawood spoke of his fondness for my father, my uncles, Dilip Kumar, Mehmood, Mukri and other actors. I remember feeling rather fearful when I first arrived there, but as the evening progressed my anxiety melted away and I relaxed, and we shared innumerable cups of tea over four hours.'' Vin Refers Ranveer As Deepika's BF "Life experience gives you swag... It was just so funny. Just last night, Ranveer, her boyfriend, paid me this really sweet compliment. He said your body swag...he didn't use the word swag," Diesel said in an interview to digital show Film Companion, hosted by critic Anupama Chopra. Vin On Ranveer "He said the mastery of your body is so impressive from a third person's point of view because of the way you turn and the way you stand impacts more than the words and the lines and I explained that comes from being a bouncer in the US city. Vin Further Added.. "And standing on the front door with a look on my face that says 'Don't even think about it'," he added. Vin Had Also Complimented Deepika During his visit to India, Vin Diesel had also called Deepika 'an angel with a beautiful soul'. I was waiting for the opportunity to come here. And she is the queen and angel who is such a blessing in my life. She has a such a beautiful soul. To be a part of the magic that is made on-screen is a blessing of my life," had said Vin Diesel. 'There's No One Like Deepika' "There is no one like Deepika. Though her origin is Indian, she is the queen of the whole world. I saw her in 'Bajirao Mastani' and she was mindblowing," said Vin, heaping praise on his co-star. Vin Diesel On Visiting Mumbai "Being in this city (Mumbai) is like a dream comes true. I wanted to work with Deepika from a long time. I met her years ago. She requested me she wants to do the premiere in her country. So the fact is that we are here to keep her promise," he had further added. TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japan's producer prices continued to decline at the end of the year, though at a slower-than-expected pace, preliminary figures from the Bank of Japan showed Monday. The producer price index fell 1.2 percent year-over-year in December, just below economists' expectations for a 1.4 percent decline. That was also slower than the 2.2 percent decrease in the previous month. On a monthly basis, producer prices rose 0.6 percent from November, when it increased by 0.4 percent. Data also shower that import prices slid 10.0 percent annually in December, while it rose 5.6 percent from a month ago. Similarly, export prices dipped 7.8 percent on year, while it grew 3.1 percent over the month. 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. Mariehamn, 2017-01-16 08:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bank of Aland Plc Changes, Board/executive management/auditors January 16, 2017, 9.30 a.m. Changes in the Bank of Aland's Executive Team Mikael Morn, 51, has been appointed as a new Executive Team member at the Bank of Aland Plc (Alandsbanken Abp) because he will assume the position of Director of the Aland Business Area on February 1, 2017. Morn has worked at the Bank of Aland for nearly 30 years and is responsible at present for its Private Banking operations in Aland. He is replacing the current Director of the Aland Business Area, Birgitta Dahlen, who is resigning from the Executive Team at the Bank of Aland Plc due to her retirement. Magnus Johansson, 44, has been appointed as a new Executive Team member because he is assuming the position of Director of the Sweden Business Area on January 16, 2017. Johansson has worked at the Bank of Aland since the Bank began its Swedish operations in 2009 and is responsible at present for its Private Banking operations in Sweden. He is replacing the current Director of the Sweden Business Area, Magnus Holm, who is resigning from the Executive Team at the Bank of Aland Plc on January 16, 2017 because is he stepping down as Director of the Sweden Business Area. For further information, please contact: Peter Wiklof, Managing Director and Chief Executive, Bank of Aland Plc, tel. +358 204 291 225 Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Jan 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SKF is investing a further SEK 145 million in improving the competitiveness of its large-size bearing production in Schweinfurt, Germany. As part of the investment, a new, automatized hard machining channel will be installed. Combining this with the latest in connectivity solutions will allow for shorter resetting times and greater flexibility in production batch sizes. A new heat treatment process will also be implemented, making the process more efficient and improving bearing performance. Luc Graux, President, Bearing Operations, says: "This investment is in-line with our strategy of developing world-class manufacturing channels across our main product lines that replace older, less competitive technologies. It also reaffirms our commitment to developing our manufacturing base in Europe and, in particular, Germany." The investment announced today is expected to be completed during 2018. In total, during the last three months, SKF has announced investments totalling SEK 295 million in upgrading production channels in Schweinfurt. Previous press releases on similar topics: 3 November 2016: SKF invests SEK 150 million in Schweinfurt production channels: [link to press release] 9 June 2016: SKF consolidates manufacturing facilities in North America: [link to press release] 17 April 2015: SKF invests SEK 190 million in Gothenburg production channels: [link to press release] Aktiebolaget SKF (publ) For further information, please contact: PRESS: Theo Kjellberg, Director, Press Relations Tel: 46 31337 6576, Mobile: 46 725-776576, E-mail: theo.kjellberg@skf.com INVESTOR RELATIONS: Patrik Stenberg, Head of Investor Relations Tel:46 31-337 2104; 46 705-472 104 E-mail:patrik.stenberg@skf.com SKF is a leading global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and services which include technical support, maintenance and reliability services, engineering consulting and training. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2015 were SEK 75 997 million and the number of employees was 46 635. www.skf.com SKF is a registered trademark of the SKF Group. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com http://news.cision.com/skf/r/skf-invests-further-sek-145-million-in-schweinfurt-production-channels,c2166609 BAE Systems has been selected by Lockheed Martin to modernize the F-22 Raptor's head-up display (HUD) for the U.S. Air Force, replacing it with a completely digital version. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005448/en/ BAE Systems will modernize the F-22 Raptor's head-up display with its Digital Light Engine technology. (Photo: BAE Systems) Under terms of the contract, BAE Systems will use its advanced Digital Light Engine (DLE) technology to implement a form, fit, and function HUD solution that integrates seamlessly into the F-22's existing HUD space. The company then anticipates receiving a follow-on production contract to retrofit the F-22 fleet's current HUDs with the modern DLE solution. "The F-22 is a premier fighter aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, and its pilots deserve the most advanced situational awareness technology available today," said Andy Humphries, director of Advanced Displays at BAE Systems. "We've worked closely with Lockheed Martin to deliver a completely modernized HUD solution for the F-22 fleet that meets the long-term needs of the Air Force." The DLE package is compatible with any existing aircraft interface. Designed for mission effectiveness, the upgrade removes the conventional cathode ray tube image source and introduces a more advanced digital display solution. The digital technology offers increased reliability, eliminates high-maintenance and obsolete items, and provides a constant luminance performance. "This new F-22 head-up display is a great example of how the F-22 industry team is integrating innovative technologies into the combat Raptor fleet," said Ken Merchant, vice president of the F-22 program at Lockheed Martin. "This directly supports our ongoing efforts to deliver affordable and reliable new capabilities to our Air Force customer and warfighters." BAE Systems has been a leader in HUD development and production for more than 50 years, a position gained through continuous investment in technology and innovation. The company has produced more than 15,000 head-up displays that have been in service on more than 50 different aircraft types in more than 50 countries around the world. BAE Systems' displays perform on some of the most advanced and demanding military aircraft around the world. For more information about the company's DLE technology, visit: www.baesystems.com/dlehud View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005448/en/ Contacts: BAE Systems Amanda Desourdis Mobile: +44 7990 623358 amanda.desourdis3@baesystems.com www.baesystems.com MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 01/16/17 -- NQ Exploration Inc. ("NQ" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: NQE) is pleased to announce the closing of an additional and final tranche for gross proceeds of $50,000 through the issuance of 50,000 debentures (each a "Debenture") at $1,000 principal amount per Debenture, which will mature 36 month from their issuance and will bear interest at a rate of 14% per annum payable quarterly in cash. The aggregate principal amount of the Debentures shall be automatically convertible at any time before maturity into common shares of NQ (each a "Common Share ") at a price of $5 per Common Share in the event of a default on the loan to A&M Resources USA 2015 LLC, as more particularly described in the Corporation October 21, 2016 press release. The Debentures are subject to a hold period expiring April 17, 2017. The Corporation reports the results of its Annual General Meeting held on December 22, 2016. All of the resolutions presented to the shareholders were approved (see the SEDAR filing of the Company's Information Circular, dated November 17, 2016). NQ further announces that it issued 240,000 common shares at a deemed price of $0.05 per share to Societe de Developpement de la Baie-James ("SDBJ"), representing the $12,000 in interest due as of June 30, 2016, and that, subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV"), it will issue 240,000 common shares to SDBJ at a price of $0.05 per share in payment of debenture interest of $12,000 due on December 31, 2016, 2016, all pursuant to the private placement of a $200,000 unsecured convertible debenture to SDBJ on December 29, 2011, as amended October 28, 2015 (the "Debenture"). The Debenture bears interest at the rate of 12% per annum, payable semi-annually either in cash or in shares. ABOUT NQ EXPLORATION INC. NQ Exploration Inc. is a mining exploration company with a solid portfolio of mining properties in the James Bay and Abitibi regions of Quebec. NQ Exploration Inc. is betting on Quebec's excellent mineral potential and favourable investment climate to produce new world-class gold and base metal deposits. 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: NQ Exploration Inc. David Grondin President and Chief Executive Officer (514) 583-3490 www.explorationnq.com Initial US commercialization to begin immediately, will be in combination with Zavation's pedicle screw system SpineGuard (FR0011464452 ALSGD), an innovative company that develops and markets disposable medical devices to make spine surgery safer, announced today it has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its new DSG (Dynamic Surgical Guidance) integration module to be used in combination with Zavation's spinal fusion system to make its pedicle screws "smart." This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005524/en/ DSG-enabled smart screw system (Photo: SpineGuard) "This FDA clearance will allow US spine surgeons to insert pedicle screws 'with a DSG enabled device' not only in just one step but also with confidence, hence further securing and streamlining the most commonly performed instrumented spinal procedure, fusion. We are thrilled to immediately begin supplying Zavation, our US partner, with our DSG integration module and look forward to working with our combined networks for the introduction of the first DSG-enabled pedicle screw in the US market," said Pierre Jerome, CEO and Co-founder of SpineGuard A DSG-enabled screw is the unique combination of a bipolar sensor and a pedicle screw in just one device. The technology offers surgeons real-time guidance and the ability to insert the screw directly into a vertebra without drilling a pilot hole. In minimally invasive surgery, it also obviates the need for a k-wire. The DSG sensor differentiates various tissue types (cancellous bone, cortical bone, blood and soft tissues) based on the analysis of the local electrical conductivity. Real-time feedback informs the surgeon of changes in tissue type by an audio signal varying in pitch and cadence. This in turn alerts the surgeon of potential breaches during pedicle screw placement and allows for screw redirection. The outcome is a single-step pedicle screw insertion with a high degree of accuracy, reduced radiation exposure and streamlined surgical steps resulting in potential time and cost savings. During the recent annual meeting of the North American Spine Society (NASS) in Boston, SpineGuard received an award from Orthopedics this Week recognizing the DSG Screw as one of the BEST new spine care technologies. Another DSG-enabled SmartScrew co-developed with Neuro France Implants (La ville-aux-Clercs, France) is currently in alpha launch in Europe with seven surgeons having started to use the system. "DSG enabled devices offer a new paradigm to pedicle screw manufacturers who wish to differentiate their products from the rank-and-file screws in the market today. We are extremely pleased that our first DSG-partner in the USA is Zavation, and we look forward to extending this technology platform to other players in the industry," concluded Stephane Bette, Co-founder, CTO and US General Manager of SpineGuard More information on the DSG technology, its new applications and surgeons' testimonials here Latest news release: 2016 full year revenue, January 5, 2017 Next financial press release: 2016 full year financial results, March 23, 2017 SpineGuard will attend the 'Invest Securities Biomed Event' in Paris, on January 26, 2017. About SpineGuard Co-founded in 2009 in France and the USA by Pierre Jerome and Stephane Bette, SpineGuard's mission is to make spine surgery safer by bringing real-time digital technology into the operating room. Its primary objective is to establish its proprietary DSG (Dynamic Surgical Guidance) technology as the global standard of surgical care, starting with safer screw placement in spine surgery and then in other surgeries. PediGuard, the first device designed using DSG, was co-invented by Maurice Bourlion, Ph.D., Ciaran Bolger, M.D., Ph.D., and Alain Vanquaethem, Biomedical Engineer. It is the world's first and only handheld device capable of alerting surgeons to potential pedicular or vertebral breaches. Over 50,000 surgical procedures have been performed worldwide with DSG enabled devices. Numerous studies published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals have demonstrated the multiple benefits that PediGuard delivers to patients, surgical staff and hospitals. SpineGuard is expanding the scope of its DSG platform through strategic partnerships with innovative medical device companies and the development of smart instruments and implants. SpineGuard has offices in San Francisco and Paris. For further information, visit www.spineguard.com. Disclaimer The SpineGuard securities may not be offered or sold in the United States as they have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act or any United States state securities laws, and SpineGuard does not intend to make a public offer of its securities in the United States. This is an announcement and not a prospectus, and the information contained herein does and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the securities referred to herein in the United States in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or exemption from registration. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005524/en/ Contacts: SpineGuard Pierre Jerome, +33 (0)1 45 18 45 19 Chief Executive Officer p.jerome@spineguard.com or Manuel Lanfossi Chief Financial Officer m.lanfossi@spineguard.com or Europe / NewCap Investor Relations Financial Communication Florent Alba Pierre Laurent, +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94 spineguard@newcap.fr or US Ronald Trahan Associates Inc. Ronald Trahan, APR, +1-508-359-4005, x108 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/16/17 -- Saturn Minerals Inc. (TSX VENTURE: SMI)(FRANKFURT: SMK) ("Saturn" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company's name will be changed to "Saturn Oil & Gas Inc." The common shares of the Company will commence trading on January 17, 2017 under the existing symbol "SMI" on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company also confirms that from January 17, 2017, the Company's new ISIN will be CA80412L107 and its CUSIP will be 80412L107. Following this change in ISIN, Saturn shareholders are required to take no action. To reflect the Company's name change to Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. the Company will be changing its web address to www.saturnoil.com on January 17, 2017. About Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. (TSX VENTURE: SMI)(FRANKFURT: SMK) is a junior Canadian energy company advancing a portfolio of oil and coal properties in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Company exclusive oil & gas rights in Saskatchewan and is advancing a number of oil exploration projects. Saturn has also made three shallow bituminous coal discoveries since 2009 with coal seams ranging in continuous vertical thickness from 9 to 89 meters. Saturn has a strategic ownership in Inowending Exploration & Development Corp., a First Nations owned exploration and development company co-founded by Saturn with a consortium of Saskatchewan First Nations active in Canada's prairie provinces. Saturn's mission is to be a leading industry player in the discovery and commercial production of oil & gas resources in the Northern Williston Basin. On Behalf of the Board of Directors SATURN MINERALS INC. s/ "Stan Szary" President and Chairman 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 NEWS RELEASE. Contacts: Saturn Minerals Inc. +1 (604) 685-6989 www.saturnoil.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 16, 2017) - Gunpowder Capital Corp. (CSE: GPC), (CSE: GPC.PR.A), (FSE: YS6N), (the "Corporation"), announced today that it has purchased additional investment portfolio assets from YCF Capital Inc., ("YCF") a Toronto based private investment firm. Please see our press release dated November 16th, 2016. The YCF loan portfolio consists of mortgages and commercial loans all of which are in "good standing". The loan portfolio that Gunpowder Capital Corp., is purchasing generates approximately 16% interest per annum and has a face value of Three Hundred and Thirty-Two Thousand Dollars ("$332,000.00") CDN. The Corporation has agreed to issue Thirty-Three Thousand, Two Hundred ("33,200") of its "Class - A" Preferred Shares at Ten Dollars ("$10.00") CDN per "Class - A" Preferred share, as consideration for the purchase. In total, the entire loan portfolio purchase amounted to Nine Hundred and Thirty Thousand Dollars ("$930,000.00") CDN which will generate for Gunpowder Capital Corp., approx. One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ("$150,000.00") CDN, per annum in revenue. For further information please contact: Mr. Frank Kordy Interim CEO & Director Gunpowder Capital Corp. T: (647) 466-4037 E: frank.kordy@gunpowdercapitalcorp.com Mr. Paul Haber CFO Gunpowder Capital Corp. T: (416) 363-3833 E: paul.haber@gunpowdercapitalcorp.com Forward-Looking Statements Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made as of the date of this document and the Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation. Although Management believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such. Neither CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. - 30 - Dangal actress Zaira Wasim has issued a public apology via her Facebook account, after her meeting with Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti triggered a backlash. Wasim, who played the young Geeta Phogat in the Aamir Khan had met with Mufti on Saturday, 14 January 2017, after the latter praised her performance in Dangal. However, the 16-year-old Kashmiri actress was trolled on social media when photos from the meeting emerged. Wasim took to Facebook on Monday, 16 January, to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris. In her note, she wrote: "I know that many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or by the people I have recently met. I want to apologise to all those people who I've unintentionally hurt and want them to know that I understand their sentiments, especially considering what has happened (in Kashmir) over the past six months." Wasim added, "(However) I hope people can also understand there are certain circumstances that emerge which one cannot control. I hope people still remember that I'm a just a 16-year-old girl and treat me accordingly. I'm sorry for what I did, but it was not a deliberate decision and I really hope people can forgive me." Wasim also addressed how she was being held up as a role model for Kashmiris, and being upbraided for meeting with Mufti. "I am being projected as a role model for Kashmiri youth. I want to make it very clear that I do not want anyone to follow in my foot steps or even consider me a role model. I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history." Wasim later deleted her post and put up another another, asking that her apology not be blown out of proportion, reported The Indian Express. Regarding my last post, I have no idea why this has become such a big issue. I just wanted to make sure that I did not hurt anyones feelings and all of a sudden it has turned into national news. Again and again, I am telling people that I have not been forced into anything by anyone. This was post was not meant against anyone, just wanted to make sure that people were not hurt by what I was doing. From media to everyone else, please dont blow this out of proportion. Neither was I forced (to apologise) nor am I against anyone. Hopefully this post just stops this once and for all, Wasim wrote in her second post before deleting that as well. Kashmir has been in a state of unrest ever since popular militant commander Burhan Wani was shot dead by Indian forces. His death sparked anti-India protests in the Valley, leading to a curfew being imposed in the state. Karan Johar's An Unsuitable Boy co-authored by Poonam Saxena and published by Penguin Books India is probably the most anticipated celebrity autobiography this year. And not for a moment, through its 200+ pages does it disappoint. In An Unsuitable Boy, Karan traces his childhood and growing up years, initiation into the film industry, experiences with moviemaking and helming Dharma Productions, equations with friends like Shah Rukh Khan, Aditya Chopra and Kajol, and of course, the subject of his sexuality. He also talks about the success of Koffee With Karan, the controversial AIB Roast before recapping how the film industry has changed over the years. That's a lot of detail, packed into a (relatively) slim volume. There is a sense as you rush through these pages (and you will rush, because you'll want to know what he's about to say next!) that each is stuffed full with revelations. There's little that is redundant or uninteresting, and the feeling is one of Karan narrating his life's events to you, the reader. The tone is direct, personal and conversational if you're looking for a work of literary art, you'll be disappointed. What the book delivers instead, is solid storytelling. Like Johar's films, it is also extravagantly emotional. An Unsuitable Boy is not a book about Bollywood although it is peopled by the Hindi film industry's denizens. Yes, Bollywood provides the background against which these stories and personal interactions unfold; but Unsuitable Boy is really a coming-of-age story. Of a lonely-but-loved boy who grappled with personal inadequacies and ultimately triumphed over them once he found his creative direction. The early years At the start of this narrative, we are introduced Karan Johar, the only child of Yash and Hiroo Johar; Johar senior ran an export firm in addition to being a film producer the profits from the former helping tide over the losses incurred in the latter capacity. As much as his father pampered him, his mother was a disciplinarian. We get a sense of a childhood that would have been near-idyllic, except for one thing Karan was a deeply lonely child. Early on, he talks of being taunted for being effeminate by strangers or casual acquaintances; how being described as "pansy" had the power to wound him deeply (in later years, he would take voice modulation lessons to develop a baritone, and learn to control his hand movements that had been pointed out to him as 'too feminine'). Reserved and unable to mix socially with others of his peer group, he withdrew into himself, seeking solace in food. But if food comforted, it also added another layer of shame when it led to major weight gain. Events reached a head when Karan was sent away to boarding school; here, he was miserable and homesick until a boisterous Twinkle Khanna convinced him to run away. There's a humiliating moment when the runaway is caught by the school guards and brought back and admonished in the morning assembly the principal in front of all the students. More heartbreak awaits: his mother is crushed when Karan is brought back home so many of her hopes for her only child are bound up in his receiving a quality education. That evening, she sits him down for a serious conversation: Does he want to be mediocre for the rest of his life? Back at his old day school, his mother's words still on his mind, Karan's life begins to change. It is partly by chance he gets involved in a club at school, is picked for an inter-school recitation contest (where seated next to him is Aditya Chopra, a fellow contender) and discovers that he is really, really good at elocution. When he wins the big prize, it cements his confidence and thus effects a dramatic life transformation. Act II: Friendship with Aditya Chopra Act II of Unsuitable Boy has its roots in a friendship that between Karan and Aditya Chopra. Karan recounts how he a diehard Hindi movie buff drew closer to Adi and Anil Thadani (the distributor, now married to Raveena Tandon) during his college days. Of course, he had always known Adi his parents Yash and Pam Chopra were friends with the Johars. But a shared love for Hindi movies drew the younger generation closer during their college years. Karan recounts how he, Adi and Anil became inseparable, talking movies through all hours of the day. And when Karan was about to take on the mantle of his father's business, it was Adi who convinced him to assist with the making of Diwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. As with the elocution contest during his boyhood, the making of DDLJ proved to be the turning point in Karan's life as a young man. From then, there was no looking back. His friendships with Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan date back to this time, (his friendship with Kajol went back longer) and this would prove to be his 'training ground' for a career in films. It laid the groundwork for Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and Karan's career as a filmmaker. Filmmaking career, and death of Yash Johar The next few years were a spiral of highs: Karan made Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, followed by Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, and his narrations of how these films came about hold much of interest to the Bollywood fan. For instance, he shares an anecdote about how Salman Khan agreed to come on board for his extended cameo in KKHH, a part that definitely placed him as second fiddle to Shah Rukh. But it is in his recounting of the making of KKKG, that Karan reveals the insecurities he faced as a filmmaker: as he went about with his multi-starrer, Lagaan released to great acclaim and later earned an Oscar nod. That same year Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai also came to the theatres, and Karan writes of how he was struck by how genuinely cool it was. Karan admits to feeling threatened, like his own work would not match up, and wanting to make something that had the same authentically cool feel of Dil Chahta Hai. The result was Kal Ho Na Ho, which Karan scripted, and asked Nikhil Advani to direct. KHNH led to a falling out with Kareena Kapoor (read about it here) and on-set tensions with Nikhil, but the worst thing to take place during this time was that Yash Johar was diagnosed with cancer. The Johars went through the rigmarole of radiation and chemotherapy; but by June of 2004, Karan's father succumbed to the illness. The loss was devastating, one Karan didn't recover from for a while, and it's one of the most poignant sections of Unsuitable Boy. Taking charge of Dharma and later years Karan has written that he'd been happy while his father was alive, to deal with only the creative aspect of filmmaking. But after Yash Johar passed away, he had to get to grips with the minutiae of the business side as well. In this, he was helped by Apoorva Mehta, his closest friend from school, who quit his job at YRF's London division to take charge at Dharma. Karan writes of how they've grown to be the production house they are today after a slow and steady process of learning from their success and failures. As Dharma grows, so does Karan Johar, in stature, in confidence, more sure of his place in the world. Personal issues and equations What sets An Unsuitable Boy apart is its often blistering honesty: Karan turns his gaze on subjects like his sexuality (read what he has to say about it, here) his close friendship with Shah Rukh Khan (there's an entire chapter dedicated to SRK, although he does make appearances in other parts of the narrative as well)and the acrimonious breakdown of his relationship with Kajol (click here to see pages from the book). There's something disarming about the openness you can't possibly pick flaws in someone who so courageously highlights them himself. Karan also writes of his battle with depression, and the process of being at peace with himself and his life choices. Not that they're comparable, but merely by virtue of being celebrity autobiographies and having released at the same time, Rishi Kapoor's Khullam Khulla: Uncensored and Karan's An Unsuitable Boy, are bound to be held up against each other. In Firstpost's review of Khullam Khulla, we wrote: "Having read Khullam Khulla in its entirety, and just the prologue to Unsuitable Boy, one can safely say that perhaps it is Johars book that is probably more deserving of the uncensored tag. It isn't that Rishi Kapoors book lacks in frankness; he's held forth in detail about his famous family, his equations with his contemporaries, the highs and lows of his film career, the moviemaking business, and a couple of scandals. But being forthright or frank isn't quite the same as baring your soul. And Khullam Khulla, except in some instances, doesn't seem like a baring of Rishi Kapoors soul." Khullam Khulla is perhaps the better-written and better edited book. But An Unsuitable Boy is most definitely a baring of Karan Johar's soul. It's has everything that one would look for in a celebrity autobiography: gossip, insight, and an insider's view into the fascinating world of Bollywood. "Coming clean is my dynamic," Karan writes towards the end of his book. With An Unsuitable Boy, he's come clean and how. An Unsuitable Boy by Karan Johar, with Poonam Saxena; Penguin Books India; pages: 216; price: Rs 699 (hardcover) The Telugu actor Chiranjeevi is among the scores of film stars and other celebrities who entered politics in the past decade. To say the least, his political career has been a disappointment. Chiranjeevi the star, on the other hand, is another matter altogether. That Chiranjeevi Megastar and Boss as he is known in fan circles is now back with Khaidi No 150, a well-made and thoroughly enjoyable film. In the past decade, he was seen on screen in just two cameo appearances in films starring his actor son Ram Charan. For generations of film buffs who have grown up (or old, as the case may be) watching Chiranjeevi dance, fight and emote, this is a moment of pure joy. Early reports indicate the latest Chiranjeevi film had a strong opening in India and North America. In Khaidi No 150, Chiranjeevi is featured in the dual role of Shankar, a hydrologist-turned-activist and Kaththi (meaning knife) Seenu, a prisoner on the run. The routine of the double, with one of the two characters being a recognisably mass (lower class but also vulgar) role, is a well-established feature of Chiranjeevis earlier work. Chiranjeevi as Kaththi Seenu reminds viewers of his memorable performances in similar roles from Donga Mogudu (1987) all the way up to Andarivadu (2006). In fact, the film is packed with quotations of the stars earlier work, starting from the title, which recalls the movie that launched Chiraneevi into stardom (Khaidi, 1983). Among other references to the stars oeuvre is the veena step from the more recent Indra (2002). For the thousands of fans associations of the star, there is another reason for getting fired up. Telugu cinema websites point out that this is the 9th time that the Megastars Sankranti release is pitted directly in competition with a Balakrishna film (yes, there are people tracking these occasions). Balakrishnas latest offering is the historical film Gautamiputra Satakarni, released just a day after the Chiranjeevi vehicle last week. Balakrishna, son of former Chief Minister NT Rama Rao and Chiranjeevis closest competitor in the 1980s and 1990s, is now a Telugu Desam Party MLA. In fan circles and beyond, the competition between these stars had, in the past, been dramatised as a serialised battle between two dynasties (basically, their extended families, which include several other actors). This Sankranti, according to an estimate, film business worth 180 crore rupees is at stake. Much of this amount is to be earned, or lost, from the Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna vehicles. The very act of choosing one star/film over the other might acquire social and political significance, because the actors belong to different castes (Chiranjeevi is Kapu and Balakrishna Kamma) and political parties. Political pundits have predicted that Khaidi No 150 is part of a larger plan of Chiranjeevi to re-launch his political career. It is inevitable that this film will be closely scrutinised for political messages and be the subject of much speculation. This, in spite of the fact that it is a faithful remake of the Tamil hit Kaththi (AR Murugadoss, 2014) and is not custom-designed to address issues in Andhra politics. But there is no stopping anyone from reading it as an attack on the state government or a comment on Chiranjeevis own political career. Such readings are by now a matter of habit for the media and viewers alike. For a decade and a half before the launch of Praja Rajyam Party (in 2008), Chiranjeevis films were interpreted as stepping stones to a political career, regardless of his own intentions. This is in part due to Chiranjeevis close association with the mass film from the 1980s. The mass film is the film industrys name for highly formulaic, big-budget spectaculars, featuring major stars who are often but not always cast in the roles of lower class/caste characters. The mass film conflates the star and characters he plays. A typical mass film packs in a web of references to the stars life and earlier films, inviting viewers to erase the distinctions between the two at certain points in the narrative. For Chiranjeevi, what was once an attribute of the formula is proving to be a fraught with risk. Coming as it does after what an English newspaper cruelly called his flop show in parliament, Khaidi No 150 is being subjected to a reality check of an unusual kind. For example, a news website wants to know what the star has done so far for farmers, whose plight is touchingly foregrounded in this film. Social media memes attacking Chiranjeevi for his silence on farmers issues while he was a minister are being circulated. These attacks could well be handiwork of fans of Balakrishna and other stars, or supporters of the ruling Telugu Desam Party. These are also unfair questions and criticisms of film actors, whose mandate is, at best, to weave fantasies that foreground popular discontent and nurture hope and aspirations. But then, this is no ordinary actor. His films are not just fodder for fantasy and idle speculation. He was a minister and continues to be a member of parliament. No conspiracy theory can ignore these facts. Treating films as a form of propaganda may or may not help Chiranjeevis political career, which to be honest, cant be in a worse shape than it is now. However, his film career can be seriously damaged by drawing parallels between filmic narratives and the acts of commission and omission of the star-politician. There is a real danger of the fiction falling apart: from the weight of political considerations that the actor brings to bear on it on the one hand and the insistence of viewers that he authenticate the fantasy with real world actions on the other. As an admirer of Chiranjeevi, the quintessential mass hero, I hope this crisis too will pass. I would like to read the English tagline of the film, Boss is Back, as a hint that he will retire from politics and be back in films for good. I look forward to the day when he takes the cue from the character he played in Mutha Mestri (1993) to announce that he would rather be the mestri (foreman) of his viewers, than continue to be an also-ran politician. By doing so, he will not only reassure viewers anxious of losing him again, but will also silence those who read aloud his political progress report. SV Srinivas is the author of Megastar: Chiranjeevi and Telugu Cinema after NT Rama Rao (Oxford University Press, 2009). He is a Professor at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Kareena Kapoor Khan and Priyanka Chopra entertained us with their candid retorts to filmmaker Karan Johar on the latest episode of his chat show Koffee with Karan Season 5. The next episode, going by the Koffee Teaser, seems to follow suit as Priyanka Chopra will make a solo appearance on the Koffee Couch. This will be Chopra's fourth appearance on the show. She shared the couch with her co-star from her debut film, Raj Kanwar's 2003 romantic drama Andaaz, Lara Dutta. Season 2 and Season 3 saw her competing with her Krrish co-star Hrithik Roshan and then-rumoured boyfriend Shahid Kapoor in the Rapid Fire round respectively. Her last appearance was alongside Bajirao Mastani co-star Deepika Padukone. Chopra will be seen discussing her Hollywood career including her television series Quantico and her upcoming film Baywatch in which she plays the negative role. She will also discuss how different the concept of dating is back home and in the USA, where she spent a major chunk of the past year. She will put all speculation over her love life to rest. Also, the trailer depicts Johar asking her some general knowledge questions including asking her to say three words in Marathi. It was quite a surprising sight to see her struggling for words given that she played Kashibai in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani last year and that she lent her voice to a Marathi song 'Baba' in Ventilator, her maiden Marathi production. Johar also quizzes her on naming three presidents of India, probably taking a dig on the infamous episode of Alia Bhatt announcing Prithviraj Chauhan as the President of India two seasons ago. Since there would be no other guest to compete with, Johar will compete with Chopra in the Koffee Shots round himself. Though he will have the happening Chopra by her side, going by the teaser, it is rather surprising to see Johar admit to being 'binge-cheated.' Given the vast body of work she is involved in over the past couple of years and her appearances on global platforms, Chopra will have a lot to offer on the next episode of Koffee with Karan Season 5. After external affairs ministry, it is the turn of economic affairs secretary to warn Amazon, a company that has committed to invest about $5 billion in India over sale of tricolour doormats. The economic affairs secretary on Sunday told the company to desist from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons, cautioning it that "indifference will be at your own peril". "Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet. Amazon,better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 In another tweet, however he added: "Comment on Amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it." Comment on amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 Remain committed to economic reforms,ease of doing business & open trade.Sometimes get touchy when our icons are involved. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 Last week, after a strong protest by India over Amazon selling doormats depicting Indian flag, the e-retail giant removed the offensive article from its Canadian website. A spokesman for Amazon based at its headquarters in Seattle had told The Washington Post that the doormat was no longer for sale on its website. After the Indian flag incident, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had received several complaints of Amazon selling flip-flops with Mahatma Gandhi's image. Some Twitter users have tagged Swaraj in their tweets complaining that the beach sandals with Gandhi's image were being sold on the Amazon US site. When asked, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup did not specifically mention the issue, saying, "As a follow-up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments." Swaraj's intervention through Twitter had attracted severe criticism from a section of the Indians. Many felt the move by the minister is reducing the governance to a social media event. It is said that certainty of punishment is more important than its severity. In other words, the heavy hands of law coming down on a crime with punishment without discrimination or delay is a greater deterrent than the theoretical possibility of one say a murderer going to the gallows someday as the slow process of law grinds on. Ditto for corporate India. It does not expect confetti of sops to be showered on it. What it expects in Budget 2017 a fortnight down the line is certainty in the following areas among others: 1) The income tax law has been conferring 100 percent depreciation on certain industries in a piecemeal basis every year thus encouraging jockeying in the run up to the budget every year. At present, cold storages, oil and gas pipelines, hospitals having certain number of beds etc make the grade. The government should not play favorites. Let 100 percent depreciation be the norm except for a small negative list containing the typical vice industries like liquor, cigarette and the like. It would not only be good for capital goods industries but also conducive to capex budgeting which always has a long term tilt. Jockeying is also borne of uncertainty. 2) Minimum Alternative Tax (MAT) on corporates has been on since 1996 along with the tax perversion called the dividend distribution tax (DDT). Both had a fig leaf of rationale went brought in---Zero tax companies were adding salt to injury by not only not paying tax but also paying dividend to shareholders. Now that many of the tax breaks have been phased out or are being rationalised, MAT should go in lockstep with its Siamese twin DDT. Dividend ought to be taxed in the hands of recipients. Every year expectations are rife about the end of the MAT regime. This year it must end without further uncertainty. 3) Section 37(1) follows the either or approach when it comes to majority of expenses also known as omnibus expenses. It says if they are capital in nature, they would be completely disallowed. In all fairness, if they are capital in nature they must be allowed say over a period of five years equally. Bulk of the litigation in income tax matters center around this potentially vexatious provision. Apart from imparting fairness to assessments, the move would also end costly and prolonged litigation. The pointed disallowance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) spends under the same section seems to be incongruous---you expect corporates to behave like good citizens but their gesture in this regard would go abegging. Altruism does not necessarily mean heightened tax payments. Disallowing CSR pointedly bespeaks of smallness of mind and pettiness. 4) The regime of weighted deduction for in-house scientific research encourages charlatans as much as the serious ones. The government must replace this with grants for the serious ones on the basis of application as it happens in the US in the matter of medical research. Universities apply and are given grants and then the progress is monitored. This is as it should be. Research is a serious business, and me-toos must not be encouraged because their focus is on the hefty tax deduction and not on research. It may perhaps be a better tax regime if those getting patents abroad are granted a tax break. Under the weighed deduction regime, authorities could swoop down to verify if genuine research is going on which is not conducive to certainty. 5) Section 72A allows the unabsorbed business losses and unabsorbed depreciation of amalgamating company to be carried forward for set off by the amalgamated company. While there is a rationale behind the requirement that the amalgamated company should carry on at least for five years the business of the amalgamating company---there should be no asset stripping---there is no rationale behind the requirement that the amalgamating company should have been in existence for at least three years. Bleeding and hemorrhage must be stopped at the earliest. A wound should not be allowed to fester. In addition the government can prescribe other conditions for losses to be thus transferred. These should be spelt out and not be brought out in fits and starts in the interest of certainty. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has walked the talk in so far as progressively reducing the corporate tax rates to 25 percent is concerned. He must do more. For full coverage of Union Budget 2017, click here. The Reserve Bank of India has raised the withdrawal limits from ATMs to Rs 10,000 per day per card from the present Rs 4,500. It has also increased the limit for withdrawal from current accounts to Rs 100,000 from Rs 50,000, it said in a notification issued to the banks. "On a review of limits placed on withdrawals from ATMs and current accounts, it has been decided to enhance the same, with immediate effect as under: (i) The limit on withdrawals from ATMs has been enhanced from the current limit of Rs.4,500/- to Rs.10,000/- per day per card (It will be operative within the existing overall weekly limit). (ii) The limit on withdrawal from current accounts has been enhanced from the current limit of Rs.50,000/- per week to Rs.1,00,000/- per week and it extends to overdraft and cash credit accounts also," the RBI said in the notification. On a weekly basis, there is a limit of Rs 24,000 per card. The move will be a relief for the customers, who have been hoarding cash. However, the fears of a cash shortage is unlikely to go completely as the central bank did not give any details on notes printing or supply. The queues before the banks and ATMs to withdraw cash which continued to be lengthy for more than a month after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from 9 November, have by and large reduced of late. However, not all ATMs are still dispensing cash and so the cash hoarding by customers continued even after the RBI relaxing the withdrawal limit from 1 January. "It is a welcome move," Shyam Srinivasan, MD of Federal Bank, told CNBC-TV18 in an interview soon after the RBI's notification. According to him, his bank does not witness any queue nowadays. He expects 75 percent normalcy to return in cash circulation by the end of January. "Cash availability has improved materially but of course supply of Rs 500 notes could be improved," he told the TV channel. The central bank has not given a break up of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 injected into the system after demonetisation. The RBI had increased the withdrawal limit last on 1 January to Rs 4,500 per day from Rs 2,500 earlier. Following demonetisation of old Rs 500 and 1,000 notes on 9 November, limits had been imposed on withdrawal of cash from banks as well as ATMs. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been lying on the face to the public about the cash situation, alleged former chairman of State Bank of India (SBI) Pratip Chaudhuri. In an exclusive interview to Firstpost on Monday , Chaudhuri said, the central bank should have been more transparent about the whole process of demonetisation. If there is a problem, you should share it and come clean, Chaudhury said, instead of running away and hiding. According to the veteran banker, the cash situation will not become normal at least for the next three months. This will have a lasting impact on the economy as Indias consumption story has been hit badly, Chaudhuri said. Edited excerpts: Its been over two months since the demonetisation announcement happened. How do you look at the situation when look back? Every country takes back old currencies periodically. But, there is a way of doing it. Pulling out 86 percent currency was not the solution (to check black money). It was a bad idea. Demonetisation exercise couldnt have been used to unearth black money. Note ban was partially successful in checking fake currency, but not black money. But, no country does it in this way. There is no doubt that the government failed to assess the effectiveness of note ban as a measure to achieve the stated objectives. But, (at best), it is an attempt made to achieve the stated objectives. Do you think this exercise was forced upon the banking system? Government decided to do it. So, the only point of exchange was banks. They had to do it, had no choice. But, thing could have been done more efficiently. An ATM works 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, but by restricting it to say 5 hours a day you are making it 30-35 hours a week, you made cash dispensation low. And mechanically it can be distributed much quicker than manually. With this kind of restrictions, things got worsened. And with banks put on this job, all other things home loans, car loans came to a halt. And RBI was a silent spectator? RBI couldnt do much, absolutely. In fact, RBI should be like a fireman. If there is a fire, the fireman should douse the fire, but here, it is running away. Should the demonetisation announcement have come from RBI rather than PM? No. It was an administrative and a political decision. Also, who owns the RBI? How long it will take the cash crunch to ease and things return normal? It is because the replenishment cash is not printed adequately and it would take at least three more months minimum, going by the way cash is being replenished. You see, the withdrawal limit of ATMs have been increased from Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,500, but if you do a sample check of the ATMs, one out of two ATMs are not dispensing cash (even now). That means, the RBI is awfully short of cash. Is it because shortage of Rs 500 notes? Largely yes. But, also due to the shortage in other denominations. But, RBI has been periodically assuring the public that there is enough cash? That is false. RBI is lying in this case. If they have enough cash, there are 2 lakh ATMs in this country. What prevents them from putting one crore rupees in each of these ATMs and saying you draw Rs 5,000 or Rs 10,000? The crowds will diminish. So, they are lying on the face about cash situation? Yes, they are lying on the face. See, if there is a problem, you should share it and come clean. For example, the cooking gas subsidy was spinning out of control. The Prime Minister made an appeal to the public those who are better off should give up subsidies. More than one crore people obliged. The RBI should have come forward and said that this is the problem, rather than hiding. The RBI has reduced itself to nothing. RBI has also been blamed for lack of transparency. Your views? They (RBI) do all India video conferencing etc for monetary policy (for transparency). Why cant they do it for currency issue (to be transparent and alleviate the public concern)? There is a general sense that RBI has given more cash to private sector banks. But, private banks are not much in rural areas. Thats why cash is not reaching rural areas. But, I dont have any evidence to prove this. The introduction of Rs 2,000 notes was a good decision. In India, Rs 1,000 note cant even buy a good pair of shoes. Non-cash transactions have spiked post note ban. Isnt it a good thing? Thats because, there is no other option. People do it for convenience and nobody is willing to pay for it. For instance, this sparring that is taking place in petrol pumps. I want it, but not me, because Im not willing to pay. But, the government is saying that retailer and consumers dont need to pay extra. It is very easy to say that others will bear it. Businesses are saying they dont have margins and oil companies will have to cut down their refineries function. It is not sustainable method. Shouldnt the change into cashless economy happen gradually? People should feel the need. It should happen gradually. We have seen more number of people using debit cards for transactions. This has been happening, and not out of any compulsion. Incentives can help, but not something like lucky draws. Because, I dont know whether I will get it for sure. What kind of impact do you foresee on the economy due to note ban? The consumption is hurt in a big way. That is bad. But, wont that come back when cash crunch eases? Lets see. Initially, it was said that the pain is only for 50 days. Now, it is elongated. And some of the consumption demand that is gone wont come back. For instance, I was planning a vacation to Rajasthan, I may not do it anytime now. Are we looking at a lasting pain phase? Not because of this (cash crunch) alone. You see, when the consumption demand goes down, it will take a long time before it recovers. It is like you are driving a car at 50 km/hour and you bring it to a halt in 2 seconds. Now, to back to 50 km/hour, 2 seconds will not be sufficient, isnt it? What is happening in informal economy? If the auto driver doesnt get his fare, he wont buy vegetables. It works that way. Also, job losses will have cascading impact, it is quite serious. That is happening. Business confidence doesnt come back like we turn on a switch. Also, bank credit growth is at multi-year lows. This is quite serious. Corporate credit has already dried up. Now, if housing also dries up, what will happen? Will the recent steep cut in home loan rates help? It should help. They had to do it at some point, If RBI abolishes CRR, it will help even more to push credit growth. The government must be going ga-ga over its demonetisation move undertaken early November last year to eradicate black money from the system, but the country's fast-paced economy, however, seems to have lost some edge or is facing the prospect of a slowdown in the coming months. In the wake of such short-term uncertainty prevailing over the growth prospects, finance minister Arun Jaitley may take measures to revive the economy during the forthcoming budget. Among the measures expected, the finance minister may look at putting in more cash in the hands of individuals by reducing the personal income tax slabs. This could be done to accelerate consumption, which in past few weeks has reportedly turned subdued, especially, post the demonetisation announcement. After the government put restriction on cash withdrawals from banks and ATMs following the note ban, consumers in urban areas cut back on spending, while the rural counterparts were deeply impacted due to the ensuing cash shortage in the system. "Some fiscal stimulus measures to embed a feel-good factor and stimulate consumption and investment could be taken up, " a report in The Economic Times said quoting Sudhir Kapadia, national tax leader, EY. According to experts, the government's likely move to cut personal income tax to revive demand stems from the fact that rise in bank deposits post demonestiaton and introduction of goods and services tax (GST) later in the year would result in increase in the country's tax base. Currently, the lowest tax slab of 10 percent is levied on income between Rs 2.5-Rs 5 lakh per annum. Experts feel, the Rs 2.5-Rs 5 lakh slab could be widened and tax rate may also be lowered further so that more cash will be in the hands for spending. Further, with the government eyeing an increase in tax base, enhanced deductions, especially in housing loans, is also on the anvil in order to give a fillip to the struggling housing sector post the note ban. In a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a group of economists organised by the NITI Aayog held late last month, the message from the interaction broadly hinted at measures that may benefit common taxpaying citizens and push growth as well. The discussion focussed on simplifying tax measures for corporate and personal income tax, besides reducing the tax rate to match the global standards. "Tax simplification figured quite a lot... on direct taxation, corporate and personal income tax, reducing exemptions, bringing down the tax rate and aligning tax system to make India competitive with international destinations," The Economic Times had reported quoting NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya. As the Modi government prepares to announce its third budget, the government is also looking at offering incentives and packages to boost consumption and prop up growth. It also discussed on Modi government's plans to double farmers' income in the next six years time. Last month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said infrastructure investment needs a booster and his next Budget in February will focus on encouraging more public as well as private spending to boost economic growth. The Finance Minister said there is a long-term potential of more resources getting into the system and that is going to be the top priority. Therefore, the areas where we were lacking, whether in terms of encouraging investment of the private sector and so on, I think these are going to be the areas where budget should concentrate on, he said. Not just common man, the government may also provide some relief to India Inc on the tax front. The government has amply made it clear about its intention to rationalise the corporate tax rate to 25 percent in next four years time, beginning with this year, while phasing out the various exemptions given to companies. While the process to remove exemptions in a phased manner has already begun in the last budget, the move to reduce tax may gain momentum in this year's budget in order to prop up private sector investment, which has been languishing over last few years. Already, the government expects growth to fall to 7.1 percent this fiscal from 7.6 percent in 2015-16 amid slowing growth. Not just that, India's strong economic momentum could face the prospect of a downward trajectory in the next couple of quarters as falling sales and slowing consumption amid the lingering cash shortage could stiffle growth, cautious economists. "Using the cash elasticity of GDP, we estimate that over a year, economic growth can fall by 0.7-1.0 percentage points, with the maximum impact in the immediate two quarters, which will see a large contraction in 'effective' money supply," HSBC said in a research note last month. According to a report by Ambit Capital, GDP growth is likely to decelerate from 6.4 percent in first half of this fiscal to 0.5 percent in the second half with a distinct possibility of GDP growth contracting in third quarter of this fiscal. Foreign brokerage Bank of America-Merrill Lynch also sees the demonetisation exercise impacting the country's growth in the next two quarters, and estimates GDP to fall by 50 basis points. For full coverage of Union Budget 2017, click here. New Delhi: Inverted tax structure in pharma, chemicals and petrochemicals industry needs to be rectified in the upcoming budget, Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar said. Pharma, as well as the chemicals industry, have been demanding lowering of import duties on raw materials to make the domestic industry more competitive. When asked about his Ministry's budget wish list, Kumar said: "The proposal is that inverted taxes for both pharma and chemicals and petrochemicals industries should be rectified." Under inverted tax structure, duties on finished goods are lower than the import duty on raw materials. Last September, medical devices industry had demanded the government to rationalise tax structure to ensure that the import duty on raw materials is kept lower, or hike the customs duty on finished products. Kumar had earlier said that the government has raised the import duty on finished products gradually to 11-12 percent. Besides simplification of inverted tax structure, the Minister has pitched for special banking arrangement for the fertiliser sector, which is reeling under the huge subsidy arrears to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore. "I have already written to Finance Minister to allow special banking arrangement for Rs 20,000 crore to clear old dues. I had a meeting with FM on this issue. I am hopeful this will be approved," he said. The Minister pointed out that the fertiliser industry is facing some liquidity issue as it has sold soil-nutrients to farmers on 100 per cent credit post-demonetisation. Kumar said the country's growth and employment generation would get a boost if fertiliser subsidy arrear gets cleared and more funds are allocated for institutes like CIPET. "If backlog of fertiliser industry is cleared and money is allocated for Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), medical devices, then the GDP growth rate and employment generation will be more," he added. For the 2016-17 fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 70,000 crore for fertiliser subsidy, Rs 211 crore for Department of pharmaceuticals and Rs 202 crore to the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals. For full coverage of Union Budget 2017 click here. By Rania El Gamal and Maha El Dahan | ABU DHABI ABU DHABI Saudi Arabia will adhere strictly to its commitment to cut output under the global agreement among oil producers, its energy minister said on Monday, expressing confidence that OPEC's plan to prop up prices would work. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, speaking at an industry event in Abu Dhabi, also said he was encouraged by signs of commitments by other participants in the deal since it took effect on Jan. 1."Many countries are actually going the extra mile and cutting beyond what they've committed... I am confident about the impact... and I am very encouraged about those first two weeks," Falih said.The comments are the latest in a series of assurances from officials that participants will follow through on the agreement intended to help get rid of a glut. Compliance with the deal will be a key influence in early 2017 on oil prices, which at $56 a barrel are about half their level of mid-2014.Under the accord, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia and other non-members will curtail oil output by nearly 1.8 million bpd, initially for six months. Last week, Falih said Saudi output had fallen below 10 million bpd, meaning Saudi Arabia had cut production by more than the 486,000 bpd which it agreed to late last year under the producers' agreement.On Monday, he said: "We will strictly adhere to our commitment," adding that during the six-month agreement, Saudi output would either be at the kingdom's target under the deal or "as is the case now, slightly below". Producers were unlikely to extend the deal beyond six months and would allow market forces to prevail once the supply glut is eradicated. "My expectations (are)...that the rebalancing that started slowly in 2016 will have its full impact by the first half," he said."Once we get close to the 5-year average of global stocks and inventories we will basically let our foot off the brakes and let the market do its thing." OPEC complied with up to 80 percent of its last output cut in 2009, according to International Energy Agency data. A committee of OPEC and non-OPEC ministers to monitor the issue is meeting on Sunday. Kuwait also said last week it had cut production by more than it committed to and OPEC's secretary general told Reuters he was confident of the level of commitment and enthusiasm among producers who agreed to the deal. (Additional reporting by Stanley Carvalho; Writing by Andrew Torchia and Alex Lawler; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. A Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) jawan called Suresh Gaikwad allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service rifle at Kempe Gowda Airport in Bengaluru, according to reports. According to The Financial Express, the incident took place on Monday morning while Gaikwad was on duty. This incident comes to light just days after another CISF jawan on Thursday shot dead his four senior colleagues with his service rifle in a fit of rage following a heated argument over leave issues in Bihar's Naxal-hit Aurangabad district. Constable Balveer Singh, from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, fired around two dozen bullets, killing Head Constables Bachha Sharma and Amarnath Mishra on the spot, while Assistant Sub-Inspector GS Ram and Head Constable Arvind Kumar later succumbed to grievous injuries in a nearby hospital. The incident took place when the victims and some others had assembled for a shift change. Balveer, who had recently undergone a month-and-half-long de-stressing course in Yoga, was reportedly agitated over an administrative issue regarding his leave after he resumed duty on 4 January. A heated argument ensued and the CISF jawan lost his cool, firing his rifle multiple times, Superintendent of Police Satyaprakash had said. He was quickly overpowered by other CISF personnel and handed over to police who arrested him. But before that could be done, his targets lay sprawled on the blood-splattered floor. Gaikwad's suicide also took place just a day after a Sikh soldier put up a video on social media in which he is seen singing in Punjabi about the tough conditions they live in. On the other hand, Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat had earlier asked soldiers not to air their grievances through social media. "A few of our friends have taken to social media to speak about their complaints. This affects the soldiers deployed at the borders... You can be held guilty of doing a crime for what you have done and invite punishment," Rawat had said. On Friday, the army chief had also announced a new grievance redressal system under which complaints would reach him directly while the identity of the complainant would be kept a secret. With inputs from PTI Sanitation workers on Monday called off their 11-day strike and agreed to lift garbage much to the relief of the east Delhi residents. The MCD Swacchata Karmchari Union had gone on strike demanding payment of pending salaries and arrears. RV Untwal, a union leader, told Firstpost that the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has assured to meet their demands and clear the dues by March. We had a meeting with Mohanjeet Singh, the commissioner of the EDMC. He has sought time till March to clear the arrears, he said. The demands of the sanitation workers included salaries that were pending for three months, along with arrears and the facility of cashless health insurance. We frequently fall ill due to constant exposure to dirt. But don't have cashless health insurance scheme despite repeated demands, said one of workers. The commissioner has assured that the files related to arrears and cashless health insurance have been sent to the Delhi government and the demand will be met by March, Untwal said. The commissioner told the Hindustan Times that the corporation has already paid two months salary last week. We have agreed to most of their demands but we cannot pay them the arrears yet, he said. Untwal also said that a few of the sanitation workers will continue with their demonstrations until all the demands are fulfilled. On 7 February, we are going to organise a massive protest in front of the Delhi Secretariat. The ball is now in the Delhi governments court. It is up to the Delhi government to pay our dues," he added. Alleging negligence on the part of the AAP government, Satya Sharma, the mayor of the EDMC, told Firstpost, I have been asking the Delhi government to pay up the dues accumulated over the last four years. But we are yet to receive the funds. She said that the Delhi government has dues amounting to Rs 527 crores. The mayor further said that after the trifurcation of the Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCD) in 2012, the EDMC was left with huge financial liabilities and minimum revenue sources. We have to pay Rs 125 crores to our 28,000 employees as monthly salaries. But we receive property tax of Rs 120 crores per year, she said. Recently, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that Rs 119 crores has been released for payment of salaries but the agitating workers pointed out that it is too small an amount given the liabilities of the corporation. Property tax constitutes 45 percent of the corporation's revenues as per the City Development Plan prepared by the Delhi government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, that was implemented from 2005 to 2014. There are 128 unauthorised colonies in East Delhi from where we do not get any property tax, she said. When asked what could be the permanent solution to the problem she said that nothing can be done until the Delhi government pays the dues. The 4th Delhi Finance Commisssion recommended the Delhi government to pay Rs 5,000 crores to the corporation. Permanent solution could be expected only if we receive this fund, said Sharma. In a press release issued by the media cell, AAP said that the BJP has turned the MCDs into national shame with its criminal negligence and monumental inefficiency. AAP Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey said, The Delhi government had tabled the 4th Finance Commission recommendations in the Delhi Assembly, we are in favour of completely implementing them but the central government showed no interest in implementing its part. The press release also raised a host of questions, one being Is it not a fact that all the MCDs for the current financial year have been released what was due to them ahead of the schedule in every quarter? It also accused the BJP-led MCDs of not doing their part to increase revenue. Earlier, the AAP ministers cited corruption being the reason for the MCDs perennial fund crisis. In 2015, Sisodia tabled the recommendations of the 4th Delhi Finance Commission which suggested that the state government share more of its revenue with the MCDs. The Delhi government decided to implement these recommendations only if the Centre does the same. Over four months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced support to freedom-seeking people of Balochistan province in Pakistan, different government agencies remain divided on what to do next. Opinion is divided among a section that wants to continue with the old strategy of extending financial support to a few Baloch expats in Europe and among those who seek to back new and younger elements among Baloch separatists. Differences in approach and a lack of clarity stems from the absence of any blueprint on how India can leverage Baluchistan to pressure Pakistan. Support to Baloch groups fighting against Pakistan government and exposing human rights violations in Balochistan are seen as only two viable options before India. After all, India cannot carry out an overt action in Balochistan. Fighting for Indias favours Conflicting ideas among agencies and lack of clarity on how to approach the issue has led to some decisions that could have easily been avoided. Modis announcement led to a sudden demand by exiled Baloch leaders to seek asylum or Indian help to form a government-in-exile, an idea that could have serious consequences for Kashmir. The repression of Baloch resistance fighters by the Pakistan Army increased in the past 12 years and that triggered a flight of many into exile and in the absence of a single recognised leader or a grouping, there are a host of groups that vie for support in their fight against the Pakistani State. On 22 September last year, New Delhi received Baloch Republican Party head Brahamdagh Bugtis application for political asylum. Brahamdagh is the founder of the Baloch Republican Party. News of his application saw his cousin Shahzain Bugti declared in Karachi that the Bugtis were Pakistanis and would fight for the country against India. He said their grandfather Nawab Akbar Bugti was always with Pakistan, reported PTI on 26 September. A month later, Kabul-based Naela Quadri Baloch landed in Delhi and sought Indian help for a government-in-exile. She was criticised by Brahamdagh Bugti for making a demand for which there was no consensus among the Baloch people. Most prominent insurgency leader Of the three groups fighting against the Pakistani state, Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) is the only group whose leader is operating from within the country. The elusive Allah Nazar Baloch, head of BLF has a formidable reputation and Pakistani forces have been on his look out for long. India has backed Baloch leaders exiled in Europe and the US. But, the new generation of leaders like Allah Nazar must be supported, argue a section of Indian government. According to Pakistani daily Dawn, Allah Nazar is the most prominent Baloch leader who, unlike most other separatist leaders does not have a feudal background; he belongs to a middle-class family is the only leader of the main insurgent groups who is engaged in actual fighting on the ground in Balochistan, contributes to his popularity among the younger Baloch. In September last year, Reuters secured a filmed interview of Allah Nazar wherein he sought Indias help. He said, "We not only wish India should support the Baloch national struggle diplomatically and financially, but the whole world. A few other insurgent groups are Balochistan Liberation Army, Baloch Liberation Army, United Baloch Army, Lashkar-e-Balochistan, and Baloch Students Organisation-Azad. Many of the leaders of these insurgent groups have been killed in targeted attacks by Pakistani military. Some escaped into exile. India has reportedly supported exiled Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) leader in exile, Khaibak Maari, for long. Financial support to such leaders has made little tangible difference, argues an intelligence agency officer. On condition of not sharing his name, he said that a few of these exiled leaders used Indian financial support to pick up expensive cars and homes. That defeats the entire purpose of backing exiles, he remarked. Focus on Human Rights On 29 December, Hindustan Times reported that nearly 1,000 bodies of political activists and suspected separatists have been founds in Balochistan province in the past six years. Most of these bodies were dumped in areas where Balochistan insurgency is on. Rights activists were quoted as saying that discovery of these bodies pointed to large-scale extra-judicial killings. Interestingly, there was no official reaction from the Indian government to this news report. May be because it was end of the year. But, the Indian government needs to keep focus on reports of human rights violations and share such reports with the outside world. After Modis Independence Day speech, the Indian envoy to the UN Syed Akbaruddin did comment at length on the state of human rights in Balochistan and it attracted global attention. Sustained attention needs to be focussed on human rights violations there and Pakistans dubious record needs to be exposed. At the mercy of feudal lords After 1947, tribal leaders and clansmen were co-opted by the Pakistani state and Sardars (tribal leaders) and Waderas (clan leaders) secured major economic payoffs for their loyalty to the ruling elite in Islamabad. While ordinary Balochi people remain subjugated and have the worst human development indicators in the province, Islamabad remains indifferent to their plight. New developments have bypassed the majority and the Gwadar port project and the CPEC that would connect China with the Arabian Sea has become yet another glaring example of a project that will bring no benefit to ordinary people. In fact, such is the hold of these feudal chiefs that all members of the current Balochistan cabinet are said to be Sardars or Waderas. Demand for separation from Pakistan is not an idea that is well articulated or even demanded by all groups. Complaints against Islamabad are primarily the failure to develop Balochistan while the state exploited its mineral resources, absence of autonomy and human rights violations. The province has become a safe sanctuary for remnants of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Mullah Omars successor, Mullah Mansoor, was staying in Quetta until he was removed in a targeted killing by a US drone over a year ago. Following the attacks of 11 September in the US, the terrorism threat and commitment to the US to fight Taliban became an excuse to set up a chain of army garrisons across mineral-rich Balochistan. The two major Sardar families of Bugtis and Marris suddenly saw a cut in moneys being paid by the government to them as royalties from gas fields. This turnaround by President Pervez Musharraf contributed to a growth in attacks on government assets and the final break with Bugtis took place when Musharraf ordered the assassination of Nawab Bugti along with his two grandsons. There are reports of rival militant factions killing each others cadres. And this has given an excuse to Pakistani forces to target people and eliminate Balochis who seek independence and justice from Pakistans government. Conclusion Modi broke from the past and publicly announced Indias support to people of Balochistan. Traditionalists were taken aback by such a declaration and condemned it. But, others called it a brave gamble. Keeping the focus light on Pakistans record of discrimination and violation of human rights in Balochistan is a clever ploy to highlight the underbelly of the Pakistani State. Modis bold move needs government agencies to review and relook at their old policies and reorient them to back the new generation of Baloch leaders. The compensation announced by the Jammu and Kashmir government for the victims of the unrest in the valley was opposed by the coalition partner BJP with the party claiming that the move to grant relief will encourage stone-pelters. Last week, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had announced a relief package for the victims of the unrest in Kashmir and constituted a Special Investigating Teams (SITs) at the district level to probe the killings. But refused to constitute a judicial probe as demanded by the Opposition National Conference and Congress in the state Assembly. On Monday, Mehbooba reiterated her decision in the legislative council stating that the government's biggest challenge is to guide the youths. She added that the youths involved in stone-pelting incidents are mostly orphans and had the misfortune of losing their parents in militancy-related incidents. She announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the next of kin of those killed in the five-month long unrest, apart from a job. However, Nowshera BJP MLA, Ravinder Raina, on Monday said that the BJP members would oppose the state government's decision to compensate stone-pelters, as it would be demoralising for the "nationalistic people" of the state as well as the armed forces fighting "terrorism" in J&K. "Giving compensation to such people will boost the morale of the anti-nationals," Raina told Firstpost outside the state Assembly in Jammu on Monday."Compensating these anti-national elements would set a bad precedent for future generations," he added. The decision to compensate the victims was first opposed by the two BJP MLAs, who were soon joined by former BJP leader and now Independent MLA Udhampur, Pawan Gupta. "The government is putting premium on terrorism and emboldening terrorist forces involved in perpetuating unrest," Gupta said. "It is ironical that it is the PDP-BJP led government that is diluting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attack on terrorist outfits by awarding compensation to terrorists," he added. Gupta said that the BJP has moved away from its basic ideology that the party has practiced and propagated for the last 65 years and has shown "utter disrespect to the sentiments of nationalist and patriotic forces by completely surrendering to the PDP for the sake of power." The six months of unrest in the valley left close to hundred people dead and thousands injured, while nearly hundred people were partially or fully blinded during the protests, after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July. But the chief minister recently said in the Assembly that only 76 civilians were killed in the unrest and announced Rs 75,000 compensation for those permanently disabled and rehabilitation on extreme compassionate grounds and free education for the partially disabled. On Monday, after the ruckus created by the BJP members over the issue the parliamentary affairs, PDP minister Abdul Rehman Veeri said that the members of the Assembly should believe in the proceedings of the House and should believe in the announcements made in the House. "This is the status of the government where one partner announces a policy and the other opposes it," Davinder Singh Rana, senior National Conference leader, said. Officials from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) have said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photograph was used in the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) calendar and diary without permission from the PMO. Top officials told The Economic Times that Modi himself had made his disaprroval clear and an 'upset' PMO has sought explanation from the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises on the issue. The entire controversy began when Modi's image replaced that of Mahatma Gandhi in the 2017 wall calendar and table diary published by KVIC. Opposition leaders like Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had criticised the Modi government over this issue. The Mangalyaan effecthttps://t.co/NnkbJ4i7vx Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) January 13, 2017 Hitler and Mussolini were also very powerful brands https://t.co/BdDQtsX0gE Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) January 14, 2017 The great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Tushar A Gandhi, had also criticised the government over the issue. "Prime minister models for polyvastra (polyesterene). Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi) wore khaddar (khadi) to Buckingham Palace, not a Rs 10 lakh suit," Gandhi had said in a sharp tweet. He had added: "Haath me Charkha, Dil me Nathuram. No sin in calling a spade a spade and a joker a joker on television," and demanded shutting down the KVIC. Gandhi was referring to his iconic great-grandfather's historic visit to Britain in 1931, when he met Britain's King George V and Queen Mary, clad in his trademark plain loincloth and a shawl. In comparison, Modi wore a controversial expensive suit during US president Barack Obama's visit to India in January 2015. In an earlier tweet, Gandhi had said: "Tera Charkha le gaya Chor, Sun le Bapu ye Paigaam, Meri Chitthi tere naam (Your spinning wheel has been stolen a message to Bapu)... First, Bapu disappeared from few Rs 2,000 currency notes, now he disappears from KVIC office and calendar. Replaced by Rs 10 lakh-ka suit loving prime minister." Protesting the KVIC decision, Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam had said it is "an insult to the Father of the Nation". With inputs from PTI A high-powered panel comprising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of the Congress Party in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge and newly sworn-in Chief Justice Of India JS Khehar will on Monday select the next director of India's premier investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, reported The Economic Times. Currently, the CBI is headed by R Asthana, who was appointed by the Modi government on 2 December last year on an ad hoc basis. The decision was termed controversial as he was chosen to lead the agency without the the selection panel consisting of the prime minister, Leader of the Opposition or the largest party in Opposition and the chief justice meeting even once. Interestingly, Asthana had been promoted to the number two position, just three days prior to his appointment to head the investigation agency, noted a report in India Today. However, the decision to appoint Asthana on a ad-hoc basis the first such instance in the last 10 years led to eminent jurist Prashant Bhushan filing a Public Interest Liitgation in the Supreme Court to declare the appointment illegal. Nevertheless, with the government now deciding to choose a full time CBI, here are five top contenders for the coveted post: Alok Kumar Verma: The current Commissioner of Delhi Police, the 1979-batch IPS officer replaced BS Bassi on 1 March last year. Prior to taking over as the chief of Delhi Police, he was Special Commissioner of Police (Administration). He rose to prominence as the Director General of Tihar Jail, from August 2014 onwards, DNA noted. Verma belongs to the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. Satish Mathur: The 1981-batch IPS officer became the Director General of Maharashtra Police in August 2016. The 1981-batch IPS officer had suceeded 1977-batch officer Pravin Dixit. According to a report in The Indian Express, Mathur is perhaps best known for being the first NSG-trained IPS officer in India. The prospective CBI chief is also known for his stint with the CBI, in the 1990s, when he handled the prosecution of the 1993 blasts accused. Rupak Kumar Dutta: The 1981-batch officer is perhaps one of the favourites to be the next top boss. Currently, Dutta is a special director in the CBI, a post he was promoted last July. The officer is known for his rich experience as a CBI officer, with an experience of over 15 years. A 1981-batch Karnataka cadre IPS officer, Dutta is the senior-most officer from the state, a report in the Deccan Chronicle noted. Archana Ramasundaram: Another candidate is Archana Ramasundaram, who made history recently when she became the first women to head the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB). Notably, she was also the first women to head any paramilitary force in India. The 1980-batch officer belonging to the Tamil Nadu cadre was in the news in 2014, when the Centre appointed her Additional Secretary in CBI. However, as The Hindu reported, after the Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court challenging the move, she had to be made the head of the National Crime Records Bureau. Krishna Chaudhary: The senior-most of the five contenders, the 1979-batch Bihar cadre IPS officer is at present the Director General of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), having been appointed by the Modi government in January 2015. Previously, Chaudhary was heading the Railway Protection Force. Dear Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Supreme Court, in its annual reports released in January 2017 on judicial administration 2015-16 and the lower courts in the country, has brought out once again the enormous pendency in the courts. But this is not new. It is only restatement of the fact. Increasing arrears of court cases has continued to cause anxiety since early years after Independence. Addressing a conference of state law ministers in 1959, the then prime minister Nehru, had expressed alarm at the slow pace of the wheels of justice. Justice K Subba Rao had observed in 1970 that laws delays is not a new problem. The basic problem is as old as the English wig. On 30 July 1978 the then law minister, Shanti Bhushan, had expressed the hope that the backlog of cases would be cleared in 5 years so that no case took more than a year to be decided in the high courts. He had further stated that the government is determined to create a situation where a case from trial court to final appellate court would take one year to be completed. All these have remained Mungherilal ke sapne (just the pipe dreams). Eminent jurist and senior advocate Late Nani Palkhivala had rightly said, I am not aware of any country in the world where litigation goes on for as long a period as in India... The law may or may not be an ass, but in India it is certainly a snail and our cases proceed at a pace which would be regarded unduly slow in a community of snails. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2002) had referred to the formidable arrears of court cases at various levels and stated: particularly disturbing has been the chronic and recurrent theme of the near collapse of the judicial trial system, its delays and the mounting costs. The glorious uncertainties of the law have frustrated the aspirations for an equal, predictable and affordable justice. With the pendency of nearly 3 crore cases in courts, there has been no improvement in the situation over the years. In fact, the situation has sharply deteriorated. In a democracy, peoples grievances are expected to receive timely attention from their elected representatives. However, this subject has continued to be neglected irrespective of which political party was in power at the centre and in the states. This is primarily because millions of harassed and dejected litigants are effectively faceless and unorganised, and are not considered important as a vote bank. For the first time in the history of the country, former chief justice of India, TS Thakur, was moved to tears, more than once, signifying his utter helplessness to deal with the problem. India must be the only democracy which saw such a shocking spectacle. Ushering in good governance has become a favourite slogan of all political parties. Any well accepted definition of good governance includes institutional, procedural and legal guarantees for speedy dispensation of justice. This concept has been incorporated into the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 and later into the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. There is also a Federal Act of 1974 called Speedy Trial Act which establishes a set of time limits for carrying out the major stages of the trial. The right to speedy trial is recognised as a common law right flowing from Magna Carta. This is the accepted view in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Under Article 14 of the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights, 1966, the right to a speedy trial is recognised. Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights also provides for it. The scope of Article 21 of the Constitution of India pertaining to protection of life and personal liberty has been interpreted widely by the Supreme Court to provide against delays in bringing the accused to trial and ensure speedy trial. The Court has also declared that a procedural law is void if it does not provide for speedy trial and that speedy trial is a component of personal liberty. In spite of this enunciation, this right has continued to be neglected. Sir, you have brought home the power of tremendous personal political clout and popular support enjoyed by a leader of a non-Congress party, for the first time in the country. In fact, your coming to power has seen the very unusual combination of presidential and parliamentary systems operating together. However, there are legitimate apprehensions that, as in the Indira Gandhi regime, forces of majoritarianism may come into play, leading to weakening of institutions vital for strengthening and sustaining democracy. In such a situation, the institution of judiciary must not be weakened in any way. Success of democracy lies in institutionalised system of checks and balances. In this context, it will be pertinent to recall some significant judgements of the Supreme Court of India which were responsible for the survival of not just the democracy but of the Constitution itself during the notorious Emergency (1975-77). These included, among others, Kesavananda Bharati case, Bank Nationalisation case, Privy Purses case and Minerva Mills case. In spite of the shocking majority judgment of the Supreme Court upholding the suspension of rights under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution, the dissenting judgment of Justice HR Khanna in ADM Jabalpur vs Shukla case, helped in sustaining the confidence of the beleaguered nation. Justice Khanna had underlined that The State has got no power to deprive a person of his life or personal liberty without the authority of law. That is the essential postulate and basic assumption of the rule of law in every civilized society. The concept of basic structure of the Constitution enunciated by the Supreme Court during the period has been invaluable for sustenance of democracy, secularism and the rule of law in the country. The Supreme Court has also laid down that a procedure prescribed by any law must be reasonable, fair and just. In Bommai and other cases, the Court has declared that even orders of the President of India must conform to the tenets of the Constitution and are liable to be scrutinised by the Court. It must be underlined that the relationship between the judiciary and the executive, as visualised by the scheme of the Constitution of India, has to be inevitably adversarial. As well-known Justice Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court had stated: The court has no reason for existence if it merely reflects the pressures of the day. It will be foolhardy to try to convert the judiciary into a committed judiciary, as was attempted during the Indira Gandhi regime. If there is one lesson of the dreadful years of Emergency which must never be forgotten it is that judiciarys independence must not be compromised in any way. It appears that the tussle between the government and the judiciary on this critical issue has been largely responsible for the delays in appointments of judges of the high courts and the Supreme Court, transfers of high court judges, and the central government turning a deaf ear to the plea of the judiciary for larger budgetary provisions to meet its requirements. The problem of arrears has been examined by a number of committees and commissions, including parliamentary committees, over the years. They have unanimously recommended appointment of more judges, depending on the period which is to be specified for clearance of arrears and disposal of new cases. All that is wanting is the political will to announce a time bound programme to address the issues. Whatever rigorous tests are applied, cost benefit analysis of additional expenditure on judiciary would bring out that this expenditure would give handsome returns. Sir, some of the initiatives taken by you have become unduly, and often undeservedly, controversial and divisive. But, taking time-bound steps for eradication of the huge arrears in court cases will, I am sure, receive unanimous support in the country from all well meaning and informed sections of society and the political parties. I would earnestly urge you to announce that the arrears of court cases would be wiped out in a period of 3 years and for this purpose all necessary infrastructure and manpower will be provided. I would further suggest that the central government should bear the entire cost of providing requisite infrastructure to the courts all over the country. The recurring revenue expenditure by way of appointment of judges and staff etc. could be shared by the central and state governments with the central government bearing, for a period of ten years, larger share in poor states. Sir, you have laid down the eminent goal of less government and better governance. Your other commitment of sabka saath, sabka vikas, (taking everyone along and inclusive development) is evocative and has caught the imagination of the people. If these pldges are to be translated in reality, I would urge that an announcement as above be made and steps taken to bring down the arrears of court cases in a period of three years. There can be no better gift to the citizens of India than such an announcement. This can be your lasting legacy. With best regards, Madhav Godbole, a concerned citizen (The writer is former union home secretary and secretary, justice. He is the author of, among other books, Judiciary and Governance in India (2008) and SecularismIndia At A Crossroads (2016).) Absence of trust in Indias police system has made Indias apex investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a favourite choice for all kinds of investigative work from murders to corruption in recruitment, and from political cases to kidnappings. At a time when the appointment of a new director keeps newsrooms busy, it would be interesting to see the problems that stare at the organisation and issues that need to be addressed. In December last year, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the minister in charge, Jitendra Singh, informed Parliament that 2,555 cases before the CBI are pending trial for a decade. The minister informed MPs that 46 courts of special judge and 10 courts of special magistrate exclusively for trial in the CBI cases were set up. But, more glaring is the challenge faced by the organisation when it comes to staffing. There is a shortfall of 1,530 officers ranging from those with executive duties to investigating officers. Such high pendency of cases reflects the huge gap between sanctioned strength of investigating officers and the number of vacancies. There is a need to fill in posts of 385 constables, 253 inspectors and 211 sub-inspectors. There is a big shortfall in number of legal officers as well. According to government data, 103 posts of legal officers are vacant, 60 vacancies for public prosecutors and 34 for assistant public prosecutors. Compare the grave situation that faces the CBI when it lacks adequate personnel at all levels to take up cases. However, on an average, the CBI takes up more than 1,000 cases every year. Or, 80 new cases a month. The state of Delhi has the maximum number of cases pending before the CBI, followed by Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand. While direct recruitment is a long drawn process, the CBIs top bosses depend on state government to send officers on deputation. States though have there own challenges and refrain from freely sending their men on deputation. Last year, the then CBI director Anil Sinha had said that if states fail to send their personnel on deputation, a time could come when the agency would collapse and fail. Later at a meeting in New Delhi of states representatives, Sanjay Kothari, secretary, Department of Personnel and Training which acts as nodal authority for administrative needs of the CBI raised concern over increase in the number of cases undertaken by the agency. In Delhi, just before he left office as Lieutenant Governor, Najeeb Jung, recommended the issue of hiring of bouncers in government with higher footfall to the CBI. Over the years the organisation has gained notoriety for being used as a tool by parties in power. If earlier the BJP held Congress responsible for misusing the agency, now the Congress Party accuses BJP of using the dirty tricks department for political ends. These are the pertinent issues that the three-member panel lead by the prime minister need to look into while selecting the next CBI director. The selection of the new chief is already shrouded in controversy. In December 2016, the incumbent head, Rakesh Asthana, was appointed by the Narendra Modi government without constituting a selection panel . In response to the appointment, lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan moved Supreme Court to quash the appointment, on allegations of government using completely "mala fide", "arbitrary" and "illegal" means to ensure that Asthana was given the charge of CBI director. With the new CBI chief set to be announced soon, the task is cut out for the incoming director of India's premier investigation agency. Calling the loss of lives in the Patna boat capsizing incident tragic, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday ordered a probe into the incident, reported News18. Addressing media persons at Patna, the chief minister also urged authorities to take more precautionary steps to stop such loss of lives. Nitish also added that he has been deeply affected by the tragedy which took place on Saturday evening. #BREAKING Bihar CM @NitishKumar addresses media on boat tragedy,says "immediately took stock of accident; investigating the cause" Image:ANI pic.twitter.com/Tfifsx35UN News18 (@CNNnews18) January 16, 2017 Mujhe is ghatna se gehra sadma laga hai. Iske har pehlu ki jaanch hogi: CM Nitish Kumar on #PatnaBoatTragedy pic.twitter.com/QN7bPIbL1v ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 Nitish reiterated that his government would ensure that Standard Operating Procedures are in duly followed in future events, while adding that if SOPs are not followed by the organisers then the permission to hold the event would be revoked. The JDU leader announced that all events in the future can be held only after the permission of the state's chief secretary. Nitish also added that the government will look into all events to ensure SOPs are followed. The bodies of four more persons were recovered on Sunday from the river Ganga taking the toll in the boat tragedy in Patna to 24. Around 40 people were said to be on-board the country boat when it capsized near NIT ghat on Saturday evening. With inputs from PTI Yeh koyle ki khaan ek ajgar hai... joh roz anginat mazdooron ko nighalta hai aur unhe chabake, peeske, kuchalke ek laash ki soorat mein unhe vapas ughal deta hai (This coal mine is a python which swallows countless workers every day and chews them, crushes them, smashes them and then spits out their dead bodies): Yash Chopra isnt best remembered for Kaala Patthar (1979), which focused on the Chasnala mining disaster that took place near Dhanbad and claimed nearly 400 lives. Instead, hes known for tulip fields, Swiss snow dust and the romantic woes of bipolar Indians. Activists feel that is the problem with mining. Particular incidents are of national interest but the reasons, allowing them to occur and re-occur, arent dramatic enough to hold a nations attention. The Mines Minerals & People (MM&P) is a growing alliance of individuals, institutions and communities who are concerned and affected by mining. The group that spans 20 diverse support organisations in 16 states has signed a petition against illegal mining in the country and its signees will soon arrive in the national capital to present it to parliamentarians. The document states that minerals are the natural resources most easily converted to cash and this drives rent-seeking, illegal mining, bending of rules, turning a blind eye to violations, under and over invoicing among other malpractices. This has, the petition notes, been well documented in a number of states including Rajasthan, Karnataka, Goa, Odisha, Jharkhand. For instance, the Supreme Court ruled that mining in Goa was illegal after November 2007. Mining was finally stopped nearly five years later. Estimates of the loss in Goa is Rs 65,000 crore, Rs 4.5 lakh per person. This is a huge driver of corruption, poor governance and the resource crunch. In Goa, between 2004 and 2012, 95 percent of the value of the minerals were lost. The per head loss from the recent legal lease renewal was Rs 10 lakh. "The 2014 Supreme Court judgement found mining after 2007 to be illegal. The amount of what was illegally mined was estimated at Rs 65,000 crore, which is Rs 4.5 lakh per person in Goa. The Goa budget is about Rs 10,000 crore, this is 6.5 times the annual budget. The illegal mining was done under the Congress rule. The BJP made it worse by renewing 88 mining leases under questionable circumstances. This gave up the claim we had to Rs 65,000 crore. In fact, under the lease terms, an estimated Rs 79,000 crore was given away instead, says Rahul Basu of the Goa Foundation, which has conceptualised the Goenchi Mati Movement. Further, as mining is essentially the sale of the family gold, everything received must be saved in an inheritable asset, in the Goenchi Mati Permanent Fund (Goan earth). The Supreme Court order established a Goa Iron Ore Permanent Fund, Rs 94 crore has been deposited, but the order doesn't go far enough. It doesn't cover all minerals and everything received. Ravi R, the founder of MM&P, is also the man behind the Supreme Court Samata judgement of 1997 which laid down that transfer of mining lease to non-tribals is unconstitutional and that at least 20 percent of the profits be set aside as permanent fund for development needs, apart from reforestation and maintenance of ecology. Ravi feels that conservation isnt only about jal (water), jangal (forest) and jameen (land), but also about khaneej (mineral). What is below the ground is also ours and the exploitation of minerals is just like the reckless selling of family gold, which can be used by our children, he says. On the lines of the Forest Conservation Act 1980, an all-inclusive act needs to be put in place for minerals, he says. The reply to a parliament question posed to the Ministry of Mines in the Lok Sabha in May 2016, on the number of illegal mines in India, was scary. As stated, there were 48,467 illegal mining cases in 2015-16, a total of 43,091 court cases filed from 2013-2015 and the fine realised by the state government in the same period was Rs 117,081 lakh. The problem takes a peculiar turn in each state. Ashok Shrimali, secretary general of MM&P and environmental activist based in Gujarat, says that the day to day monitoring that the mining departments must do, is not being done. On paper, there are committees on district and state levels that are supposed to meet every three months to conduct reviews on the rapid growth of mining due to urbanisation, but these committees are nowhere to be found. This is especially required in the Tapi district near Surat, where a large amount of stone crushers are at work, says Shrimali. The other areas where illegal mining exists, he says, are Jamnagar and Dev Bhoomi Dwarka. Due to the illegal mining near rivers like Tapi, Narmada, Mahisagar and Vishwamitri and consequent ecological changes, vegetable cultivators and fishing communities turn into labourers or migrate to other states. The one way to tackle the issue is by securing the lives of those who raise a voice against the mining mafias. There should be satellite monitoring particularly in sensitive areas like Belgaum and Kolhapur, he says. In Madhya Pradesh, the belt between Gwalior, Morena and Bhind is inaccessible to any government officer. Also, a ban in one state will simply make them pick up their establishment and move to another one. A ban on illegal mining in Haryana urged miners to move to Alwar, on the Haryana-Rajasthan border, all the more reason why a nationwide law is necessary. In Madhya Pradesh, Yousef Beg runs the Pruthvi Trust that works with stone quarry workers and tribals affected by Panna tribal reserves. He says silicosis, a lung disease caused by inhalation of crystallise silica dust, is common. Moreover, it is diagnosed as tuberculosis and the wrong treatment is handed out to thousands. In Panna, where diamond and stone mining takes place, there are no facilities where the disease can be detected. Because there is a tiger reserve in the area, residents are forced to go work in mines, all the more reason why the government should focus on health, he points out. In Uttarakhand, independent environmental activist Ravi Mittal, says that the rule that no machine should be used within 20 metres of a river bed is flouted in the state. There are pressure plants close to the Ganga and construction materials lies in heaps around rivers like Sooswa and Song. Mining trucks come here from Himachal Pradesh, he reveals. The situation worsens as you move eastward toward Bihar. Santosh Upadhyay, who started the Bandhi Adhikaar Andolan in 2010, says mining departments have made allotments to contractors who are extracting sand from along the river Som. In districts like Darihat, Hurka, Nasriganj, instances of children and animals drowning into large landfills are quite common. The question is, why doesnt Bihar have a district mineral foundation where a royalty of 30 percent can be reserved for the district? This model has already been adopted in states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Through the route of illegal mining, minerals are reaching other states and abroad and we are not even getting royalty, he says. Move further eastward and Deme Oram, tribal activist from Sundergarah, Odisha, tells you that the amendment to the Mines and Minerals Act passed in 2014 says that clearance for auctions must be granted by gram sabhas. Oram asks, where are the gram sabhas? Why havent they been constituted? The Mining Area Development Corporations formed by the state government interferes with the work of the District Mineral Foundations because the money that was to be spent in the district is now going to the state and being used for designing welfare programmes. There is no way to track how and where the raw materials coming out of the mines are being spent, he says. Moreover, children are involved in ancillary activities like stone cutting and polishing. Since only one adult is on the roster and entire families are at work, it is hard to track child labour in mines, says Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, HAQ Centre for Child Rights. Agreeing with her is Mahalakshmi Parthasarthy, an environmental activist from Bengaluru. She asks why the environmental costs are never spoken about and instead there are only talks about acquisition and compensation? Environmental impact assessment is a hurried three-month job. If we dont pump time and money into research, were denying the intensity of the problem, she says. The petition states the following: 1. All mining must be on a zero loss basis. We cannot afford to lose any part of our childrens inheritance. This requires us to do the following: (a) Illegal mining is simply theft from our children and must be punished severely. (b) The government must prove that the terms of any fresh mining and prevent a loss. (c) If there are any mines where we are losing any of the value of our childrens inheritance, the government must pursue all legal avenues to cancel the lease. (d) In instances like the recent coal auctions that result in a subsidy for power consumers financed by selling the commons cheap, compensation for the full subsidy should be received from the Center. 2. All receipts from minerals should be treated as a capital receipt from the sale of our childrens inheritance. This should be deposited in a Future Generations Fund, with the state as the trustee on behalf of the present and especially future generations. This is already the practice in 50 countries and sub-national entities. The following steps must be followed: (a) Any receipts from new leases must be deposited into the Future Generations Fund. (b) All auction premium from mineral auctions should be deposited into this fund. (c) At present, royalty is treated as revenue and spent. This must stop, although it may take a few years to reduce the dependence. Within five years, all receipts from minerals must be deposited into the fund. Any loss is a loss to everyone equally, effectively a per-head tax, highly regressive. 3. The Future Generations Fund should be managed by the National Pension Scheme. The primary investment goal is to maintain the real value of the corpus in the face of rising prices, and various other threats like corruption, expropriation, etc. and to earn real income. The real income must only be distributed to all the people as a Citizens Dividend. Any loss or diversion is effectively a per-head tax, immoral. 4. As minerals are some of our most valuable assets, the state must implement a cutting edge control system. This includes the ICGLR Regional Certification Mechanism, a whistleblower rewards and protection scheme, real time data feeds, satellite, drone and lidar imaging, etc. Mining entities should also be audited frequently. 5. The people, as the real owners, should be permitted to satisfy themselves at any time that their childrens inheritance is protected. This requires radical transparency including implementing EITI, the ability to conduct social audits, and open access to the public to all data (including the data feeds) in real time at no cost. The Supreme Court on Monday permitted a woman in Mumbai to abort her 24 week foetus on the grounds that continuing with the pregnancy could endanger the life of the woman. Abortion is legal in India, but it's not at will, it's only permissible if it would involve a risk to the health of the pregnant woman. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act makes a distinction between twelve weeks and twenty weeks. Under twelve weeks, an abortion can be prescribed by one doctor and after twelve weeks an abortion has to be be prescribed by two. If the pregnancy exceeds twenty weeks you go into the grey area of Section 5 of the Act which says that a medical practitioner, may in good faith, terminate a pregnancy if they feel it is necessary to immediately save the life of a woman. However, the grey area exists because there are provisions in the Penal Code of 1860 that still criminalise abortion done in violation of the Act namely Section 312 of the Penal Code which could expose the doctor concerned to imprisonment of up to seven years. So doctors are very wary of taking that risk due to the language of Section 5, which uses the word "immediately". So when there is a situation where the life of a woman is at risk, the woman is put in a situation where she has to wait till the risk grows so high that she is immediately at risk of death before a doctor is willing to risk the law, or she has to do what the petitioner did, and move the Court for permission to have an abortion after twenty weeks. Needless to say this is obscene, no matter what one's views on the subject, a decision to have an abortion to save someone's life should be one that is between a woman and her doctor and should not be one that's finally left up to three men in fancy dress in a court room as has been the case in India where there have been petitions to allow late-term abortions on a case by case basis. Each case usually works on a similar basis, the court is never equipped to fully form a medical opinion, so it requests for one from the hospital concerned and after studying that opinion, it decides if it's going to permit an abortion or not. The decision at the end of the day should be a medical call and not a judicial call. If allowing the pregnancy to complete it's term would endanger the life of the woman, it should be the doctors who prescribe the abortion. In this case, there is an urgent need to reform Section 5 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. Already, Section 4 of the Act specifies a place where a pregnancy can be terminated. Section 4 can be amended to state that pregnancies that exceed twenty weeks may only be terminated at Government approved hospitals. Further Section 5 can also be amended to put in place an institutional mechanism to approve when a pregnancy that exceeds twenty weeks can be terminated if it harms the life of a woman. A medical board may be constituted to which the treating physician may apply for permission and this board may also include a representative from an NGO to take care of the State's interest in preserving the life of the unborn. There is absolutely no need to invoke the jurisdiction of a court. There is a legitimate interest the State has in preserving the life of an unborn child, which is why the medical termination of pregnancies in India is a regulated matter. However, the approach India takes is one that regulates pregnancies as medical matters rather than matters of personal choice. This outdated law, that requires women to move a court in order to terminate their pregnancies in cases of rape, incest or in situations where their lives are at risk merely because these situations came to light after an arbitrary time deadline expired is unnecessary an inhuman torture. (In cases of rape and incest, the victim may only come out and address the situation weeks after the act happened, so there may not be time to perform an abortion within the window) A medical decision must be one that is between an individual and their physician and legal regulations cannot prescribe arbitrary cut offs such as twenty weeks. Abortion is a decision that is one of the hardest that most women have to make, asking them to move a court to save their lives one top of it, is unnecessarily cruel and inhuman. The law needs urgent amendment, Monday's order is just one of many that brings that to light. The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a woman in her 24th week of pregnancy to undergo abortion after a medical report found that the foetus was without a skull. Reports further said that the 22-year-old woman hails from Maharashtra and a board of specialists recommended abortion as they noticed that the foetus was under-developed. This is not the first time, though, that the Supreme Court has given such a ruling. In July last year, giving benefit of a provision in the abortion law, the Supreme Court had allowed a rape survivor to abort her 24-week-old abnormal foetus, on the ground that continuance of pregnancy would gravely endanger her physical and mental health. The apex court gave benefit of the exception in law under section 5 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, which allows abortion after 20 weeks only in case if there is grave danger to the life of a mother. During the hearing, a report by a seven-member medical board of King Edward Memorial College and Hospital at Mumbai which diagnosed the health of the woman was tabled before the bench in a sealed cover. The apex court had said that the medical board has found serious abnormalities in the foetus which is around 24 weeks old and has opined grave risk to the mothers life if pregnancy is allowed to continue. It had said that board has recommended that the pregnancy can be terminated. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi appearing for the Centre had said that their is exception under section 5 of the Medical Termination Act, 1971 and ceiling of 20 weeks pregnancy under section 3 of the Act will not apply in this case as there is a risk to mothers life. With inputs from PTI On Monday, the Delhi Police made a massive breakthrough in a case and arrested a serial rapist who according to the police, had raped and assaulted over 500 minors. Have solved three rape cases, paedophile arrested; being interrogated: Delhi Police ANI (@ANI_news) January 15, 2017 The accused paedophile we arrested is Sunil Rastogi,who is a tailor by profession. He is married with children:Omvir Bishnoi,DCP East #Delhi pic.twitter.com/4PBwV4b9eb ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 The 38-year-old, a tailor by profession, from Uttarakhand had told the police that he sexually assaulted 500 minors during a period of 12 years, according to The Times of India. In fact, the police said that Rastogi had attempted to assault more than 2.500 minors. He was jailed for six months in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand in 2006 for sexually assaulting a girl while he was working at a farm. "He used to target school going girls and so far we have found his involvement in 12 such cases. Further investigation is on," Omvir Bishnoi, Delhi Commissioner of Police (East) is quoted as saying in News18 report. Rastogi preyed on girls between the ages of 7 and 10 in Delhi, west Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. According to Hindustan Times, Rastogi used to "prowl schools between 2 pm and 4 pm," and he also carried a list of girls' schools with him. Rastogi would pick those who would stray from their groups and say that he was a friend of her father's who sent clothes and goodies. He would tell the victim he was a friend of her fathers who had sent clothes and snacks. For every victim, he would stitch a new set of clothes and wrap a new parcel. The Times of India report also says that in 2004, Rastogi along with his family were forced to leave Mayur Vihar after he allegedly tried to assault a neighbour's daughter. During the interrogation with the police, Rastogi admitted to committing crimes since 2004 and that he would lure the girls on some false pretexts, then take them to secluded areas and rape them. For someone who has been eluding the law for many years, Rastogi's final act cost him his freedom. According to India Today, the Delhi Police identified him in a CCTV footage while investigating the case of a raped seven-year-old girl in New Ashok Nagar. How does a father of five feel when he rapes girls younger than his daughters? Why does a serial rapist start chanting mantras, ostensibly to invoke blessings of gods, every time he sets out to commit a crime against humanity and, perhaps, the very deity he worships? And how does a paedophile go undetected for almost 15 years by cops of two states Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the capital of India? Thinking about Sunil Rastogi, the 38-year-old tailor who was arrested in Delhi on Monday for allegedly raping dozens of girls, makes your skin crawl. Day after day, year after year, a man prowls the streets, stalks young girls, lures them into narrow alleys and deserted buildings and then disappears into the darkness with impunity. This happens not in some forsaken corner of mofussil India, but in Delhi, right under the nose of two governments. Prima facie, Rastogi fits the stereotype of a crafty criminal, pervert and sexual deviant who thought luck was by his side and the powers above with him, all classical signs of a psychopath. He didn't seem to conform to any of the norms of civilisation or respect the conventional definitions of right and wrong, moral and immoral. And, ironically, he invoked god and believed in a string of superstitions and pre-crime rituals. A criminal with a convoluted feeling of being entitled to his prey, blessed by good luck and without an iota of remorse is like a beast. He strikes not out of vengeance, for self-preservation or in a weak moment of lust or greed. He commits a crime because that has become the sole purpose of his life, his 'raison d'etre'. Rastogi was like a predator hunting in the urban jungle. He was having fun, believed in his invincibility, had no fear of the law or consequences of his actions. The only way to stop him was to notice his presence, his string of crimes and hunt him down. Unfortunately, if his confession is an indicator, nobody saw this paedophile for almost 15 years. And, when he finally got caught, it wasn't because cops were looking for him. He fell into their hands because, as Rastogi claimed, he ran out of luck when two girls escaped his net and their parents went to the police. What does this tell us about our police, criminal justice system and society? Did none of the "hundreds" of victims (or their parents) of this creepy tailor ever go to the police after they were abducted and raped? Did all his victims stay silent, preferring to suffer in silence than report about the crime? It is understandable that many of his victims were too young to grasp the magnitude of Rastogi's crimes. It is also possible that some parents may have preferred to remain silent and not approach the cops. But, how is it that so many rapes of young girls from just a few localities he reportedly hunted primarily in Ashok Nagar go unreported? Or is this another instance of the incompetence of cops, helplessness of rape victims and our inability to spot beasts among us? Of course, nothing about Delhi or NCR surprises us anymore. A decade ago, the entire country was shocked by the Nithari murders, where a psychopath not just killed with impunity, but also buried remains of his victims in the middle of a busy, urban area of Noida. Back then too, nobody seemed to have noticed a string of murders and disappearances right from under the nose of cops. But, initial reports indicate that unlike Surinder Koli, the butcher of Nithari, the tailor of Rudrapur/Rampur had a history. He was reportedly hounded out of Delhi in 2004 after sexually attacking a girl, arrested (and later released) for allegedly molesting a girl in his hometown and had several other cases pending against him. So, Rastogi was definitely on the radar. Yet he managed to slip under it without fear and rape dozens of young girls for years. Think about this: If the law, luck and as Rastogi claims divine blessings are by a paedophile's side, how safe are our streets? Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Monday requested the central government for Rs 39,565 crore assistance towards drought relief and an immediate release of Rs 1,000 crore. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, text of which was released to the media, the chief minister said all the districts in the state are affected by drought due to insufficient rainfall during monsoon this year and non-release of Cauvery river water by neighbouring Karnataka. "The government has to provide relief to the farmers for the damages caused to the crops due to the failure of the monsoon and to ensure drinking water supply through various temporary measures, which have to be undertaken up to tackle the water scarcity across the state," Panneerselvam told Modi. According to Panneerselvam, adequate fodder availability needs to be maintained to protect cattle and employment generation programmes have to be taken up on war footing. "For the above purposes, I request that a sum of Rs 39,565 crore may be sanctioned from the National Disaster Response Fund," Panneerselvam said. "In view of the urgency, I request you to kindly depute a team from the government to study the extensive damages caused to agriculture crops and to take stock of the drinking water scarcity in the state," he added. Panneerselvam said the state received only 168.3 mm of rainfall during monsoon against a normal rainfall of 440.4 mm. Stressing that the state government is suffering from insufficient funds in its State Disaster Response Fund, Panneerselvam requested release of Rs 1,000 crore from National Disaster Response Fund to take up immediate relief and rehabilitation measures. Primary and secondary schools run in tribal areas are by-and-large a neglected topic in our everyday discourse. The following is the first part of a series that seeks to explore some of the issues that affect these schools. On 7 October last year, 12-year-old Kaushalya Bharsat complained of loose motions at around 6.30 am to the female superintendent of the government-run tribal school where she lived. The principal, SS Sooryavanshi, ordered her to be taken to the nearest hospital in Vikramgad, which is a 25-minute ride from her school in Sakhre village of Palghar district, about 120 kilometres from Mumbai. According to hospital records, Kaushalya was brought to the hospital at 7.35 am, where she was declared dead on arrival. Sooryavanshi said she had been feeling uneasy the day before, and was taken to the hospital where the doctors prescribed medicines. She was feeling better in the afternoon, he said. She even attended classes that day. We made sure she took her pills after dinner. Hospital records, though, told a different story. She had been keeping ill for the past three days. On the morning of 6 October, doctors had advised her to take a blood test. But she left without doing so, the report stated. The superintendent, who has since left the job, had reportedly said the doctors did not mention the blood test. Kaushalyas distraught father Kusa said he was not even informed of his daughters illness. While the doctors verbally told Sooryavanshi that Kaushalya died of food poisoning, the report does not mention the cause of death. Sooryavanshi said if food poisoning had been the reason, she would not be the only victim. Further reports that would ascertain the cause are still awaited from the JJ Hospital in Mumbai. There are just over 1,100 tribal residential schools in Maharashtra half of them state-run while others aided by the state. With more than 5 lakh tribal students enrolled in these schools, Kaushalya is not the first whose health has so dramatically and mysteriously deteriorated. According to the high-level probe by Salunkhe Committee, which submitted its report to the Maharashtra governor in October last year, 1,077 deaths have transpired over the last 15 years in the state-run tribal residential schools. In 67 percent cases, there was no proper mention of the cause of death in the death certificates, the report noted. Vague descriptions like severe illness and sudden death dominated the cause of death column while malnutrition, lack of medical help, negligence were other reasons, casting serious aspersions on the healthcare, hygiene and sanitation facilities available in these schools across Maharashtra. In August 2015, Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS) submitted a comprehensive report to the current ruling dispensation after examining 1,076 schools, in which it came up with some embarrassing findings regarding healthcare and sanitation facilities at the ashram schools. Only half the schools actually had a first aid kit. Menstrual cycles of the girl students were not monitored appropriately, which could lead to Reproductive Tract Infection. Around 54 percent of the aided schools and 61 percent of the government-run schools provided sanitary napkins, while others did not even do that. In case of an emergency, most of the schools would be frazzled, as hardly anywhere is there a trained doctor to offer immediate treatment. At a government ashram school for girls in Nashiks Devgaon village, the staff dreads an emergency. The Primary Health Centre is 12 kilometres from here, said a staff member, requesting anonymity. The civil hospital is 70 kilometres. How do we deal with a crisis? We would have to live with perpetual guilt if something goes wrong with the girls. An open space surrounded by different one-room constructions occupies the complex of Devgaons tribal school. Three years back, another construction came up: The health centre. Except it has been closed from the day it was inaugurated, and the staff said no health official or doctor has even paid a visit. Because of these inadequacies, activists say the proactive medicinal measures seldom transpire and often, the staff wakes up to a health emergency that could have well been avoided. TISS also noted that merely 29 percent aided and 20 percent government ashram schools had good drainage facilities. The rest being average or worse, magnifying the chances of water-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, etc. Sooryavanshi, whose school in Sakhre moved to a newly constructed complex in the same vicinity at the end of 2016, said he is glad the students would now live in clean, hygienic conditions. Earlier premise was too small, where students would live, sleep, eat and study in the same room, he said. The freshly painted two-storey buildings have a separate residential building for girl students. A huge banyan tree extends its shadow enabling pleasant breeze around the school. However, it appears to be the same medicine in a new bottle. Within days of its move, the school ran into problems with water supply, forcing boys to bathe under the open sky at a nearby lake, which is freezing early in the morning. The amount of water we have at our disposal is not enough for all the 352 students, said Sooryavanshi. We have to prioritise girls over boys. The school in Sakhre might have run into problems now, but bathing in the open is a norm in most of the schools. TISS study revealed that only 30 percent of the residential school hostels aided and state-run provided a bathroom behind every 20-girl students, while 27 percent aided and 30 percent government schools provided a toilet behind every 20 students. The rest had one toilet behind 50 students or more, compelling students to defecate in the open. Around 10 percent aided and 23 percent government schools did not have toilets at all. Just six kilometres from the Devgaon Ashram School, is a a state-run school along the river Vaitarna, where every monsoon almost 30-40 students suffer from diarrhea or loose motions, said a staff member. Fortunately, girls here do not live at the school. The toilets are non-functional and boys go to the riverside or in the nearby farm fields to relieve themselves. A few open taps are supposed to serve as bathrooms, needless to say, insufficient for over 300 residing boys. Gajanan Pingle of Rayambe village, a few kilometres from the Vaitarna School, still remembers the fateful day of September 2004, when a staff member of the school came to his village and said a boy from Rayambe has drowned while bathing in the Vaitarna reservoir. Gajanan rushed to the site along with his neighbours and collapsed when he saw the recovered body of his nine-year old son Deepak. He was his only son. It has been 12 years since the tragedy. A solar panel, which does not work, has been installed at the school since then. But the bathrooms are still inadequate. And students still bathe in the Vaitarna reservoir. Read Part 2: Students stare at malnutrition due to poor food, filthy kitchens Some months ago I saw a film which showed a loving, law abiding, white community that was allowed, by law, to go mad one day of the year and shoot any black they could. The film was about a family that rescued a black and how they were hunted down by their friendly neighbours and killed. We have two days like that in India. One is Bakr Id, when the people of the Muslim community get a free pass to kill goats by law (or any other animal they want) while the government and the police look the other way. They kill lakhs of young goats by slitting their throats. But they also kill cows in West Bengal and Kerala, and camels and young buffaloes illegally in Hyderabad, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Meerut. There are strict laws on where the goats can be killed, but no one bothers. The sewers, in every Muslim ghetto, runs with blood which flows into the rivers. There are certain areas in each city where the smell of rotting blood and meat can actually make you sick. Hindus consistently object to this brutal and unnecessary slaughter that has no real roots in Islam. Every year there is a debate on this and the television anchors bring in the same people to argue the pros and cons of Bakr Id, and it always turns into a Hindu-Muslim issue. But Hindus have their own day of massacre as well. The day of harvest, which ushers in the spring and is celebrated all over the country with song and dance, is also a day of violence and killing. Makar Sankranti, 14 January, is the Bakr Id of Hindus. In Karnataka, till the animal activists stopped it, there used to be a ritual in which foxes were hunted, imprisoned, beaten and burnt alive. Now that has been replaced by Kambala, where cows are whipped and made to race through flowing water. Many of these animals die due to broken limbs which are too weak to withstand the force of the water and some die due to the intense beatings. In Assam, thousands of bulbuls, which are small, fragile endangered species of birds, are caught by professional bird catchers weeks before and then sold to villagers, who keep the birds in cages and then make them fight with each other till one dies. Spaces are allocated for these fights like Roman arenas. This has been banned by court as well. In Andhra Pradesh, lakhs of cocks are kept in dark cages and poked with long sticks till they become vicious. Then razors are tied to their legs and they are set on each other, slashing and cutting till one dies of blood loss immediately and the other wounded warrior a few hours later. Then they are eaten by grinning villagers who have bought the alcohol being sold in the fight fields. This has just been banned by the Andhra Pradesh High Court and upheld by the Supreme Court. Since many politicians are involved in these filthy fights, let us see what happens this year. In Goa there used to be bullfights. Two bulls would be fed alcohol and then made to fight each other, by hitting each others heads, while drunken spectators shouted and threw things at the animals to egg them on and get a better show of more blood. It was stopped by the Courts over twenty years ago. Every now and then some politician will encourage it secretly, and every political party puts it on their Goa manifesto during elections, but it is, more or less, over. Madhya Pradesh, however, continues this ghastly illegal fighting and the newspapers carry pictures of the illegal event, which is made even more exciting when a human is killed. Maharashtra has village races, in which bullocks and buffaloes are made to run tied to each other. Sometimes a cow and a horse are tied. They are fed alcohol and they have iron thorns inserted into their anuses. They are steered by their tails which break in the first few minutes. They are whipped mercilessly again and again. Many die or are maimed permanently. This also has been stopped by law, but some politicians defy the law and hold this vulgar, cruel sport because they think it makes them popular. This is mainly done in the districts around Pune. In Gujarat, you have the kite flying festival which goes on for a week starting on this day. It kills over three lakh birds who become entangled in the nylon strings embedded with glass. I believe that the joy of flying a kite is far less for the people flying it than the joy of seeing dying birds fall from the sky. The court has banned the Chinese manja, as it is called. It continues to be used. Then you have Jallikattu. Bulls are confined for weeks in dark rooms, fed alcohol, beaten. Chunks of flesh are literally bitten off by crazed young boys. Then they are let free into an area and dozens of alcohol fuelled boys jump on each one and try to tear its horns off. Bulls die. Some people die. So many politicians from all the parties have jumped into this cesspool of violence in the name of Tamil Culture, but actually mistakenly believing that they will make a political space for themselves by encouraging this viciousness. The Supreme Court banned it last year and the ban continues. Calls have been made by local politicians for the government to issue a notification overruling all laws. Everyone in India looks down upon it as civilized people should. But that has not deterred even fading Tamil actors, who want popularity, from insisting that Tamil Nadus entire culture will be destroyed if these bulls are not pounded to death. The only difference between Bakr Id and Makara Sankranti is that the Muslims dont bet while they maim and kill animals. The Hindus do. They drink and they gamble on how which animal dies faster. No Hindu pretends that it has a basis in religion. They simply call it Hindu culture, even though some of these massacres have only started a few decades ago. The innocent fell prey to his devious scheme. He looked harmless with a below average physique and gait; which in no way hinted at his sinister intent. Sunil Rastogi, 38, father of three daughters was arrested by Delhi police on Sunday. Police was on a lookout for Rastogi in three cases of sexual assault of minor girls that took place in Delhi in last two months. Rastogi who is a native of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and had lived in Delhi for 14 years from 1990 to 2004 before shifting to Rudrapur in Uttarakhand was a school dropout and a tailor by profession. His work and life all speaks of a normal life. What shatters this image of normalcy is the crime he committed. He reportedly abused more than 500 young girls during a period of 12 years. On 13 December and then on 10 January, Delhi police received three different complaints about sexual assault of three minor girls aged 7 to 10 years. According to the two complainants who filed the complaints on 10 January, a man misled their children aged 10 and 9 years, took them to the staircase of a deserted building and sexually abused them. What would initially have looked like two different cases of sexual abuse, when investigated by the police, revealed a face that was hidden in the crowd and was extremely ugly. Here was a man who was on sinister spree. Leaving his home like he is leaving for a regular job, he would end up 'hunting' innocent minor girls. After his arrest Rastogi revealed that he had committed similar offences with young girls in the area of New Ashok Nagar Delhi, Ghaziabad and in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. According to Delhi police the accused also disclosed that "Whenever he finds any minor girl going home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes and some other articles to give the same to her and take her to an isolated place and raped or tried to rape them". Dr Manju Mehta, former professor of Clinical Psychology, All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, an expert in psychological disorders in children, adolescents and adults, terms Rastogi's behaviour as "mental illness". Mehta says, "It is a psychological disorder where these people are attracted towards minors and children only, like it happened in the Nithari case. The accused in that case Surender Koli also use to target young girls and boys and there is a reason behind that. These people are usually very introvert and lack confidence. They feel less threatened by small children so they attack them". She adds, "These people have immense lack of self worth and self confidence due of which, to satisfy their urge which is usually guided by pervert impulses, they target children." It is usually found in many cases that the likes of Koli and Rastogi themselves have been victims of sexual abuse in their childhood. But psychologists feel that it is not always the case always. "It is not necessary in all the cases but definitely their fantasies are related to young females", says Dr Mehta Briefly explaining the profile of paedophiles, National Center for Biotechnology Information which is part of United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) writes, "Pedophiles and child molesters share some characteristics. Most are male, and they can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Some prefer adult sex partners but choose children because they are available and vulnerable". It adds, "The sexual abuse perpetrated may be a one-time incident and may consist only of fondling. Penetration is unlikely with young children. Perpetrators' age ranges from teens to midlife. Most victims are girls, and the perpetrator usually is a relative, friend, or neighbor. The home of the victim is often the setting for the incident. When boys are victims, sexual abuse may take place outside the home, and perpetrators may be strangers. Perpetrators of sexual abuse of children often claim that they themselves were victims of childhood sexual abuse. Psychological profiles are helpful but are compromised partly because many perpetrators are prisoners and control groups are lacking for this research". Dr Manu Tiwari Psychiatrist at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre, Noida says, "There are three factors behind such sexual deviance. First is personality issues, second is psychiatric illness and third is previous history. Psychiatric illness is most common factor behind such sexual disorder. Paedophile are usually people who are not able to sustain normal adult sexual life so they are attracted to the vulnerable groups.They are also aroused by the alternative ways of sex which is not normal. It is sometimes done under the influence of some substance and sometimes these people have what we call anti-social personality disorder which is not limited to sexual activities". He adds, "Other factor may be a previous history of sexual abuse. It is found that in many such cases the accused have been victim of the sexual abuse themselves in their childhood". Further talking about the profile and treatment of such offenders Dr Tiwari adds, "Males are more common offenders and the ratio of male versus female offender is 10:1. Their treatment is very hard as they are non-compliant. The treatment given to them is called cognitive behaviour therapy and meditation which is long term. Their treatment is usually done under court guidance and in custody and there is major chances of relapse as they don't follow up. Usually they are habitual and not opportunistic offenders". New Delhi: BJP's central election committee on Sunday night held a meeting to finalise its candidates for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls. The party is likely to announce candidates for a majority of 70 seats in the hill state, which goes to polls on 15 February and for the seats in UP. The seven-phase UP assembly polls start from 11 February. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah besides other CEC members attended the meeting. Another CEC meeting is scheduled for Tuesday in which names of more candidates will be finalised. It had held its first meeting on 11 January in which candidates for Goa and Punjab polls were finalised. In the run up to the CEC meeting, Shah has been holding deliberations with top party leaders from Uttar Pradesh to narrow down differences over likely party candidates and evolve a consensus. In Uttar Pradesh, which has a 403-member House, polls will be held on 11 February (73 constituencies), 15 February (67 constituencies), 19 February (69), 23 February (53), 27 February (52), 4 March (49) and 8 March (40). Shah has been pulling out all stops to lead the party to victory in UP, which in terms of political implications is more important than all other four poll-bound states combined. It has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 2002 and was a declining force till the 'Modi wave' catapulted the party to an unprecedented success in 2014 Lok Sabha polls when it won 71 of the 80 seats. Party sources believe that it may not be possible for the saffron outfit to repeat the 2014 feat of capturing over 42 percent of vote share but it hopes to emerge a winner in the state's fractured polity by garnering more that 30 percent of votes. SP and BSP won a majority of 403 seats in 2012 and 2007 assembly elections by pulling in 30.4 and 29.16 percent of votes. If the BJP is making inroads into West Bengal and the RSS is spreading its shakhas across booths and gram panchayats, the party should thank Mamata Banerjee for it. Through a series of administrative missteps, an all-too-frequent adversarial position against the Centre and by indulging in politics of polarisation, the Trinamool Congress has paved way for BJP's rise as the dominant opposition force. A quiet saffron surge is under way. The numbers don't tell the story. According to last year's Assembly elections, BJP's vote share has come down to just over 10 per cent from an unprecedented high of nearly 17 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. But this is not a surprise. Wave election gains are typically unsustainable and the BJP had neither the structure nor the infrastructure in the state to build on that advantage. The party has also suffered due to massive infighting and the lack of a unifying, grassroot-level local leader. During a 'chintan sabha' in November 2015, BJP apparatchiks had expressed frustration about the internal bickering and the party's inability to make much headway into the birthplace of Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. BJP had an opening, but was unable to build a grassroot base. It also faced a perennial perception problem. It was perceived in this part of India as a party of 'north Indians' associated with baniyas and traders. BJP was also divided about its communicative strategy. While the high command wanted development to be the core plank, the party's state unit workers rued a missed opportunity. They claimed that the BJP is failing to tap into the massive disgruntlement that exists among the Hindus who are feeling increasingly restive about Mamata's "appeasement" politics. It is here that the TMC came to their 'help'. Mamata Banerjee's paranoia in not letting BJP gain a toehold in the state has ironically ensured that possibility. Instead of trying to counter BJP politically, she sought to use the might of administrative machinery and ended up conceding political ground. The brouhaha over RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's rally in Kolkata is the latest example. There was no legal, ethical or moral justification for the state government to deny RSS the permission for the 7 January meeting of swayamsevaks. One would have imagined the state government has learnt its lesson from past experiences. On multiple occasions Amit Shah rally in November 2014, VHP rally in December 2014, Sansad Mela in Asansol this year organised by Union minister Babul Supriyo the state government had withheld permission on flimsy grounds only to be snubbed later by the Calcutta High Court and had to reluctantly comply. The HC even issued a suo motu contempt notice against Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata Police Commissioner, "for not complying with its earlier order with regard to the RSS application for permission to hold the event." Each time this charade was played out, a message went out that the TMC, despite its absolute majority in state Assembly and total domination of Bengal political stage, is insecure about the saffron unit's presence. The arrest of state BJP vice-president and spokesman Jay Prakash Majumdar on the basis of a five-month old cheating case has also strengthened the perception of tit-for-tat vendetta politics, catapulting the BJP on a higher orbit. While administrative heavy-handedness presented BJP the visibility, it got the chance to make deeper and firmer inroads due to increasing polarisation in state polity. Despite returning with unprecedented majority for a second term bagging 211 seats in the 294-member state Assembly, Mamata has been frequently accused of trying to "appease Muslims" to ensure that the considerable amount of 27 percent Muslim votes stays firmly in her kitty. As the accusations mounted and the TMC government courted frequent and persistent criticism, it created an angst and valuable space for Opposition to exploit. No less than the Calcutta High Court had slammed the state government recently for trying to "appease minorities". While lifting the curbs on Durga Puja rituals imposed by the administration, the HC held in October last year that the time limits set by the state government for Durga idol immersion on account of Moharram were "arbitrary" and said the order was a "clear endeavour" by the state to "appease the minority section of the public", according to a report in The Indian Express. The court added that there has been a clear endeavour on the part of the state government to pamper and appease the minority section of the public at the cost of the majority section without there being any plausible justification. The reason therefore is, however, not far to seek." Be it the monthly stipends to imams and muezzins, turning a blind eye to fatwa-happy Muslim clerics, attempting to "secularise" school textbooks by replacing traditional Bengali names with Urdu designations or new coinages, denial of communal riots and desperate attempts to play down the seriousness of the incidents, the various bungling of the state government has given rise to anger among the majority. The RSS, however, has been careful in trying to stress that they are not against communities but are fighting for the unification of Hindu Samaj. Addressing the rally in Kolkata, Bhagwat said: "We have formed this organisation not to oppose anybody but to strengthen ourselves. The Hindu Samaj has a glorious history in this country. But despite such a glorious history, is the condition of Hindu Samaj the way it should have been? Are Hindus able to perform their religious rites and activities freely and fairly across India? Are the human rights of Hindus well established in this country?" The question is an open-ended one and partial towards interpretation. The RSS is spreading wings. In North Dinajour alone, it has shakhas in 75 of 99 gram panchayats. It is trying to engage with the youths and has even set up separate units for women and members of the minority community, according to a report in Bengali daily Ei Samay. The overall number of local RSS members has also seen a rapid rise. This is not a vote share-driven surge but a firmer, steadier ascension. The stage is set for bitter political battle ahead. Recently the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has accelerated its efforts to appropriate historic national icons like Gandhi and Ambedkar. Driven by the possibility of electoral gains, the party has been trying to hitch its bandwagon to the legacies of both personalities. Why this appropriation is purely symbolic and has not affected the BJPs core ideology, is a separate matter of discussion. We have been seeing evidence of the symbolic co-option of Gandhi and Ambedkar for a long time. What began with the synchronisation of his pet project, the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, to Gandhis birth anniversary, culminated last week in the Prime Ministers desire to replace Gandhi with his own image. For any thinking person, it is surely difficult to ignore the implications of this huge leap in the self-promotion that has always defined Modis politics. What we see on display here is a deepening culture of personality cult, the likes of which we have not really witnessed before. Given that personality cults of varying degrees and ideologies have been part and parcel of Indian politics, the novelty of this particular move is no small matter. It can be argued the culture of narcissism has been continuously bolstered since Narendra Modi rode to power with a thumping majority, decimating the main opposition in 2014. Over the last two years and more, the Prime Minister has gone from projecting himself as a legatee of Gandhi, to replacing Gandhis image with his own, on the Khadi and Village Industries Commissions (KVIC) calendar and diary. The latest row was sparked by the controversial KVIC representation, which shows Modi instead of Gandhi spinning the charkha. That historic image had, till now, been associated solely with Gandhi in popular consciousness. The charkha and Gandhi are synonymous not only in our national culture but also internationally. Ironically, Gandhi has now been replaced by Modi, whose beliefs especially in the sphere of economics could not be further removed from those of the man he displaced. The charkha is, above all, an embodiment of Gandhis economic philosophy and his belief in self reliance. Privatisation, economic liberalism, and the opening up of society to all kinds of external capital doesnt fit Gandhis ideas one bit. Still, we could possibly have overlooked self-delusion of replacing Gandhi with his own image as a one-time flight of fancy, an aberration, had it not been of a piece with the BJPs and its Prime Ministers consistent efforts to promote a personality cult. However, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vijs offensive remarks, coming a day after the KVIC announcement, affirm such apprehensions. Even as the controversy still raged, Vij said at a press conference: Jab se khadi ke saath Gandhi ka naam judta raha, khadi uth hi nahi saki. Khadi doob gayi (Ever since Gandhis name has been associated with khadi, the industry has not been able to stand up. It has drowned.) As fresh uproar erupted over his comments, Vij was forced to retract his remarks. But such tactical, clumsy retractions are unlikely to fool anyone. Especially if we keep in mind the Ministers earlier elaborate comment that khadi sales had risen by 14 percent after its association with Modi. But thats not the end of it. In response to the question about why the BJP government is continuing to use Gandhis image on the new currency notes, Vij said: Gradually, he (Gandhi) will be removed from the notes. Let us also not forget in this context the prime ministers office's reaction to the matter. Modi is an icon of the youth and the growing popularity of khadi in the world is testimony to this. Clearly, the ruling party seems happy to both tacitly and explicitly abet the construction of a cult of personality surrounding the Prime Minister. In saying this, we cannot overlook the prominent role Modi himself has played in creating an image of himself as the sole architect of his governments, the sole protagonist, the only doer, in his party. He has represented himself as the primary mover of each and every policy beginning with Swachch Bharat in the early days of his government, right down to the recent demonetisation policy. It is the singular I and not the collective we, which has unfailingly characterised most of his speeches delivered at home and abroad. Call it narcissism or arrogance, the ultimate result of such politics is both predictable and alarming: personality cults feed dictatorial cultures. An atmosphere is being created where Modi believes he can legitimately step into the shoes of Gandhi, a belief his party colleagues and rank and file applaud from the sidelines. These are not welcome signs. To state a common sense truism: personality cults particularly when promoted by powerful leaders at the top portend disastrous consequences for democracy. India is no exception in this regard. The Sangh parivar is seeing red in selection of the editor-in-chief and CEO of Lok Sabha Television where its candidates were outwitted by a last minute entrant who was allegedly backed by Lok Sabha Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan. Aashish Joshi, a senior faculty member of the Bhopal-based Makhanlal Chaturvedi University, secured 77 points out of 100 to pip the rest amid complaints that Joshi was a last minute addition, his name not even on the list finalised by the Lok Sabha Secretariat - it oversees operations of the channel on November 27, 2016, the last day for the applications. What made matters worse was the fact that Joshis name was not even there on another list of candidates issued by the secretariat on 23 December, 2016. These two lists were put up on the Lok Sabha Secretariat website. And then, his name featured in another list issued by the Secretariat on 27 December, 2016. The last list had only one name, it was the final one and Joshi featured as a new candidate. It is evidently clear that he did not figure first and was added later, claim sources. It was not immediately known why Joshi, first included in the first two lists of those seeking the job, eventually made it to the list and was included for the final interview. A senior official of Lok Sabha Television, speaking from the office of Dr D Bhalla, secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, said the secretarys office had no comments to offer on the selection process. A mail to Joshi remained unanswered. Sources within the Sangh parivar also alleged that Joshi lacked experience required, had stayed away from mainstream journalism for long but still managed the job because of his connections with Mahajan. Some candidates were picked up because they were writing books on BJP leaders, claimed the sources. As if it was not enough, the loss-making channel invited Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, a veteran filmmaker who also portrayed the role of Chankaya in the television serial of the same name, as the chief interviewer on the panel, which also had a print journalist from Madhya Pradesh assisting Dwivedi conducting the interviews. It was strange because they asked nothing relating to a channel, its day to day operations and its profitability, said one of the candidates requesting anonymity. The selection process is over, and Joshi who hails from Indore, also home to Mahajan is firmly in the slot. Those backing him have argued that Joshi once worked with the state-owned Doordarshan, and private channels like Aaj Tak and IBN7 and has the necessary experience required for the slot. But the deserving candidate versus undeserving candidate debate is still hot. Two of the contenders, Ravi Parashar and Sarjana Sharma, who had worked with Zee Telefilms and had the backing of the RSS, could be urged by the Sangh Parivar to lodge official protests, claim those in the know. The RSS has already expressed its displeasure to senior officials of the interview panel for the chief editor and CEOs job, arguing how the decision could backfire on the channel which always remained mired controversies over appointments. There were many deserving candidates, mostly senior journalists, who could have been called for the interviews but strangely, they were not, claim the sources. Interestingly, Lok Sabha Television, for long, has been drawing attention for all the wrong reasons. First, Rajiv Mishra, the editor-in-chief and CEO, who turned the channel into a profitable venture, lost his job after the NDA swept to power. Mishra had then alleged that his service was terminated because the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar was annoyed after the channel flashed the news of her losing from Sasaram on the counting day on 16 May, 2014. The sack was abrupt and strange, given the fact that the order was issued at a time when Kumar had just 48 hours left as the Speaker. Then Seema Gupta, who had once worked with Zee Telefilms, was selected for the job. Within months, a host of seasoned producers were asked to leave because their programmes were seen critical of the ruling government. But over the months, even Mahajan was miffed with what sources claim was Guptas alleged abrasive behaviour and the Lok Sabha Speaker expressed her dissatisfaction at the way things were run in the channel. But Gupta didnt listen to Mahajan, she reportedly took orders from top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party. In a bust up between her and a senior producer, Dhiraj Singh, over Lok Sabha Television feed given to Doordarshan without informing the producers, a series of e-mail exchanges between the two went public, showing how Gupta made it amply clear that she was taking instructions from two top ministers and that she should not be questioned. Singh, eventually, was asked to put in his papers and leave the channel. But Gupta could not retain her job. Complaints about Gupta, claim sources, reached Mahajan who made some independent queries. And then, for the first time in the history of the channel, the Lok Sabha Secretariat issued an advertisement seeking a new editor-in-chief and CEO around the time Gupta was in office. Interestingly, both Mishra and Gupta were among the candidates shortlisted for the final round of interviews, the list also including Rahul Mahajan, former head of E-24 channel, Kumar Rakesh, formerly of Dainik Bhaskar and Anuranjan Jha, formerly of IndiaTV. Mishra and Mahajan were placed right after Joshi in rankings for the final slot. Prominent names among those found ineligible included Sunit Tandon, the former head of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Imphal: Union Minister Prakash Javadekar disclosed on Monday that the Bharatiya Janata Party is planning a Congress-free Manipur. The Human Resource Development Minister was talking to reporters in the BJP office here on the conclusion of his two-day visit to Manipur to short-list the names of the party candidates for the 60 assembly constituencies. Manipur goes to polls in two phases on 4 and 8 March. Javadekar said: "The final list of the BJP candidates will be released shortly before the nomination of papers. Every BJP member has the right to aspire for the party ticket." However, each case would be examined by the election committee of ten party for allotting tickets, he said. One senior BJP leader told IANS that the delayed allotment of party tickets was to pre-empt "anti-party activities by those who miss the bus". With over six strong aspirants in each constituency, the five disappointed politicians in each constituency may join some other parties or work against the party candidates as a political vendetta, he said. All the BJP ticket aspirants have publicly pledged support to the party candidate. One such aspirant said: "Such a miracle had never happened in the past in Manipur." Javadekar said: "On Sunday, I had urged Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to tender resignation on moral ground as he is politicking the blockade." "Since law and order is a state subject, we cannot do anything except to rush paramilitary forces on request. But Ibobi is not making use of the forces to gain political mileage," the Union Minister said. However, a Congress leader said: "Despite the Manipur government's request for 60 companies of paramilitary forces, the Centre has sent just 29 companies and it is not enough." Javadekar also accused the Chief Minister of not reacting to his call for resignation. However, the Congress leader said: "Ibobi has been away in Delhi for party works. Javadekar will get a befitting reply when Ibobi is back." The Union Minister also said that despite the people of Manipur suffering as a result of the blockade, the Manipur government refused to take part in the tripartite talks arranged by the Centre. He said: "Ibobi does not care for the people." Though ticket aspirants have been thronging the party office here since Sunday, Javadekar, Lok Sabha member Prahlad Singh Patel and the state unit leaders have refused to meet anyone. Instead they were informed that the state election committee had short-listed the candidates and the list would be submitted to the election committee of the party headed by their national President Amit Shah. In a dramatic twist to the Samajawadi Party saga, family patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday announced that he would contest against his son, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the forthcoming polls in Uttar Pradesh, reported News18. #BREAKING -- Mulayam Singh to contest against Akhilesh Yadav. MSY says I am ready for battle in the court for 'cycle' #SamajwadiDangal pic.twitter.com/FkWMO2HJu9 News18 (@CNNnews18) January 16, 2017 Targetting his son for playing communal politics, the former UP chief minister blamed Akhilesh for hobbnobbing with the BJP while turning the Muslim community against the party. Mulayam Singh Yadav interacting with supporters at SP office in Lucknow ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 Talking about his son, Mulayam added that he had tried to talk to Akhilesh, but he chose to ignore him. Maine 3 baar Akhilesh ko bulaya par wo ek minute ke liye hi aaye aur meri baat shuru hone se pehle hi chale gaye: Mulayam Singh Yadav ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 Mulayam blamed his nephew Ram Gopal Yadav for the apparent split in the party and attacked him for misguiding his son. My son is acting on the behest of Ramgopal Yadav: Mulayam Singh Yadav ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 The Azamgarh MP, while meeting his supporters in Lucknow, spoke about the ongoing case related to the party symbol in the Election Commission, adding that the he will abide by whatever the apex poll panel decides on the election symbol. "EC decision will come at 4 pm. Tried to convince Akhilesh but he is not realising his mistake," said Mulayam in his address. Reacting to the decision, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Juhie Singh said, "It is a tragic day, now the issue is with the Election Commission." Another party leader, Deepak Mishra chose to apparently put his weight behind Mulayam and said, "Mulayam Singh will never allow communal power to enter Uttar Pradesh." Another party leader and Mulayam supporter Madhukar Jaitley added that while the party partriarch tried to save the party, they have been unable to do so. The 'pari-war' is all set to reach its climax as the Election Commission (EC) is likely to give an interim order on the dispute in the ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, with the option of freezing their symbol 'cycle' most likely to be exercised. The three-member EC, headed by Nasim Zaidi, heard both the sides on Friday and reserved its order. The order is most likely to be delivered on Monday, a day before nominations will be filed in the first phase of election in the state which will conduct elections in seven phases. The dispute arose following election of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the National President of Samajwadi party at a national convention convened by party MP Ram Gopal Yadav on 1 January. At the same convention, incumbent President Mulayam Singh Yadav was made the patron of the party. This was contested by Mulayam, who approached the EC and conveyed that he continues to be the party president and the election symbol should remain with his faction. Mulayam's claims were contested by the other side, which had filed affidavits by various party office bearers, MPs, MLAs and district presidents to claim that the majority was with the Chief Minister's faction and that it was the group which was entitled to the symbol. Under the Symbols' Order, the Commission heard the two sides on Friday. Noted lawyers Kapil Sibal and Rajeev Dhawan appeared for the Akhilesh faction and strongly argued that the cycle symbol be allotted to them on the basis of having the majority in the party. Former solicitor general Mohan Parasaran, appearing for Mulayam's side, disputed the contention that there was any split in the party and insisted that the symbol should remain with him. In the meanwhile, the embattled Samajwadi patriarch on Sunday received an 'option B' with Lok Dal offering its symbol and national president post to him in case the SP symbol 'cycle' was frozen by the Election Commission. Lok Dal's national president Sunil Singh had told reporters in Lucknow that his party in EC's records was a registered, unrecognised party that was formed by veteran socialist leader Charan Singh way back in 1980 and "netaji" (Mualayam) is its founder member. "I offer Lok Dal's symbol and national president post to 'netaji' and am ready to contest the polls with him," Singh said. Lok Dal, which has the old election symbol of farmer ploughing field (khet jotta kissan), on which Charan Singh had become the chief minister of UP, wants to contest Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and has already short-listed names of 100 candidates. With inputs from PTI New Delhi: Efforts to form grand secular alliance in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh gained momentum on Monday after the Election Commission recognised Akhilesh Yadav-led faction as Samajwadi Party and granted it the "bicycle" poll symbol. Soon after the EC order, SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav, a close associate of Akhilesh, expressed hope a grand alliance will be formed to fight elections in the state. Ramgopal, who has been staunch supporter of Akhilesh through the intra-party tussle, however, hastened to add the Chief Minister will take the final decision in the matter. Congress spokesman and former Union minister R P N Singh was among the first to hail the EC order, which he said, shows that Akhilesh enjoys "90 per cent support" in the organisation as also among the legislators of the Samajwadi Party. Replying to a question, Singh suggested the development could hasten the alliance process. Hectic efforts are already on to hammer out such an alliance with Congress being offered 90 to 100 seats by the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, which is also roping in Ajit Singh's RLD as a junior partner. Talk in Congress circles was that party General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ramgopal Yadav from SP are sorting out disputes over some seats. Uttar Pradesh has 403 Assembly constituencies where Akhilesh's party would be contesting the majority of seats and would also have RLD as a junior partner in Western Uttar Pradesh, which was once a stronghold of Ajit Singh. The three parties will have to race against time to finalise the seat arrangements in the next two days as the Western Uttar Pradesh, where Ajit Singh enjoys some influence, goes to polls in the first two phases. Talk is that the three parties would come out with a common minimum programme. The SP general secretary also said the list of party candidates will be released in a day or two. Leaders from the three parties insist that the main task in Uttar Pradesh is to stop the Narendra Modi-led BJP from coming to power. In 2015 assembly elections in Bihar, the Congress had joined hands with JD(U) and RJD to form a grand alliance, which caused a major upset for BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by easily securing power. The BJP-led NDA had won 31 of the 40 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar. In a major boost to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Election Commission on Monday recognised the faction headed by him as the Samajwadi Party and alloted the reserved symbol 'bicycle' to it for contesting the coming Assembly elections. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election will be held on 21 February, but until the time of writing, there have been no signs of an alliance between the Shiv Sena and BJP on one hand, or the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party on the other. With barely 35 days left for the election of corporators for the countrys richest civic body, there have yet to be any formal proposals discussed. The first dialogue between the Sena and BJP is set to take place on Monday evening at a suburban hotel, with Rajya Sabha MP Anil Desai, MLC Anil Parab and Ravindra Mirlekar representing the Sena, and BJP Mumbai president Ashish Shelar and Education Minister Vinod Tawde representing the ruling party in the state and at the Centre. In the 2012 civic election, the Sena contested 158 seats and won 75, whereas the BJP contested 69 and won 32 seats. But in the 2014 Assembly election, the BJP emerged as the number one party in Mumbai. Of 36 seats, the BJP won 15 seats, while the Sena won 14 seats. As per BJP statistics from the time, of the 227 BMC wards, the BJP was ahead in 144 during the Assembly polls. And so, the BJP's demand is that the old ratio of 69:158 (considering the BJP had until the 2014 Assembly polls, been the junior member in the state) must change to something like 110:117 to reflect the new dynamic. A source within the Sena, however pointed out, "We are ready to tie up with BJP in Mumbai but on our terms and condition, not theirs. We are ready to change the seat-sharing equation, but not if they want 100-plus seats." Both parties conducted their own surveys, with the Sena claiming that contesting the election solo would see its numbers jump from 75 to 105-110 seats, while in alliance, the party's numbers would increase from 75 to just 85. As a result, grassroots workers and office-bearers want the party to go it alone in the BMC election. Meanwhile, the BJP's survey concluded that going it alone would see the party's numbers increase three-fold, from 32 to over 100. On the other side of the political spectrum, NCP president Sharad Pawar has appealed for an alliance with the Congress in the 10 municipal corporations and 26 zilla parishads. However, Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam told Firstpost that there is no possibility of such an alliance with the NCP in Mumbai. "I have already gave report to (senior leader) Mohan Prakash and vice-president Rahul Gandhi. On the basis of recommendations made by prominent leaders, we have decided to contest the BMC polls independently. We will contest all the 227 seats and our list is expected within a week," said Nirupam. State party president and former chief minister Ashok Chavan also ruled out an alliance with the NCP in Mumbai. "However, for the rest of Mumbai, an alliance is possible and we will discuss the strategy at the meeting on Monday," he told Firstpost, "Also, we are already allies in the teacher and graduate constituency elections to be held next month. And while it is not possible to ally with the NCP everywhere, we have given the go-ahead for local unit-level alliances with the NCP. Congress district presidents have been authorised to take a decision." In response, NCP Mumbai unit president Sachin Ahir said, "The Mumbai Congress chief always says that their party doesn't want to ally with us. So, went ahead and announced 45 NCP candidates. But, we'll have a better idea about a possible alliance after the meeting between our leaders and those of the Congress on Monday evening." NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik added that it wasn't too late for a tie-up. "We already declared our list for Mumbai, but we are open for a discussion to stop the Shiv Sena from ruling the BMC again." An interesting trend on both sides of the political divide is that the Sena and Congress are willing to ally with the BJP and NCP, albeit selectively. In other words, neither party wants a hard-and-fast statewide alliance, preferring a pocket-wise alliance. How these equations will come together will become much clearer after both sides hold high-level meetings on Monday evening. His fans consider him the biggest Tamil superstar but as far as colleague Sarath Kumar is concerned, Rajinikanth is just an "outsider" Kannadiga who stepped into Tamil Nadu to find work. Actor-turned-politician Kumar who contested on the AIADMK symbol in the Assembly election from Tiruchendur in Tamil Nadu in May 2016 and lost, has declared that he will be the first to oppose Rajinikanth if he tried to turn politician. Within hours of his diatribe against Rajinikanth, Kumar who has acted in over 130 films in all major South Indian languages, was trending on Twitter in Chennai. Rajini fans tore into him, with memes both ridiculing and abusing him having a field day. At some places, Kumar's posters were burnt by Rajini fans. In a state where Rajinikanth is seen as a demi-god, Kumar's atheism spoilt the Pongal cheer. What triggered this outburst from Kumar who prefaced it by acknowledging Rajinikanth's superstar status? It was Rajini's speech at the Thuglak annual event, meant also to remember former editor Cho Ramaswamy who passed away last month. Rajinikanth, displaying uncharacterstic candour, spoke of an "abnormal situation" prevailing in Tamil Nadu since the passing of J Jayalalithaa. Kumar saw that as an opening. Taking Rajinikanth head on, Kumar taunted him, asking if he is not able to step out of his home and asked him not to make loose comments. Kumar said chief minister O Panneerselvam had travelled to Delhi to seek help after Cyclone Vardhan and had also visited Vijayawada to ask for water from his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu, and pointed out that all this showed there was nothing 'unusual' about the political situation in Tamil Nadu. Kumar said a functional government was in place in Chennai. He derided Rajini as someone who would comment when he wants to and only on issues that suited him. In other words, he described Rajinikanth as opportunistic. Rajinikanth, by virtue of having been born as Shivaji Rao Gaekwad and having worked as a bus conductor in Bengaluru, was always in a dilemma during disputes between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He had to do a deft balancing act between his mother state and the state that made him a Superstar. This was always exploited by his critics on either side who took him to task for not supporting their respective sides Given Rajinikanth's larger-than-life persona in Kollywood, it is not easy for any actor to criticise him. That Kumar did so, certainly points to a larger purpose. And the reason is pretty obvious. RSS ideologue Gurumurthy, who is the newly appointed editor of Thuglak urged Rajinikanth to take the political plunge at the same event. Now this again is not a new request. For over two decades, the 'will he-won't he' question has dogged Rajinikanth. When he said, "Even God can't save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa is elected back to power" ahead of the 1996 elections, it decimated the AIADMK and helped the DMK-Tamil Maanila Congress combine to come to power. But after that, Rajinikanth has maintained a 'touch-me-not' equation with politicians despite Cho telling him several times to embrace politics. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Narendra Modi visited Rajinikanth at his residence, giving rise to speculation about the actor's proximity to the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. That Modi was also addressing the Thuglak event via video conference is a point not to be missed. Is Kumar batting for the AIADMK? Looks quite likely. The ruling party even though quite convinced that Rajinikanth does not have the stamina for politics, wouldn't want to take chances. The party has tasted the destructive power of his one-line-punch dialogue in 1996. The question that arises is whether by "abnormal situation", Rajini was referring to Sasikala taking over and giving Panneerselvam the cold shoulder at most public events. Would Rajini then do a 1996 to Sasikala? The AIADMK will also note with a touch concern the BJP's ambitious muscle-flexing in Tamil Nadu. The saffron party's biggest disadvantages are in its being seen as a North Indian party and the lack of a popular face in Tamil Nadu. If it succeeds in roping in Rajinikanth and brewing a new political cocktail, they could overcome both hurdles in one shot. Kumar's diatribe against Rajinikanth, saying only a Tamilian should rule Tamil Nadu and that outsiders can do business in Tamil Nadu, but not politics also does not make sense. AIADMK founder, MG Ramachandran, was after all from Kerala. Jayalalithaa was a Tamil Brahmin, born in Mysuru. Both were embraced and loved by people of Tamil Nadu. At a personal level, Kumar is also using the Rajinikanth name to stay relevant. He lost control of the Nadigar Sangam, the actor body in Tamil Nadu that he controlled for three terms from 2006 to 2015. And now that he is no longer a lawmaker, he has to indulge in political pinch-hitting to remind the new AIADMK selectors that he has the firepower. And what could be better net practice than belting Rajinikanth for a six? The fight over the 'cycle' seems to be over. According to media reports, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday allotted the Samajwadi Party's official electoral symbol of 'cycle' to the faction led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. Reports suggest that Mulayam Singh Yadav is likely to move court over EC's decision. The decision of the three-member Election Commission, headed by Nasim Zaidi, comes after two weeks of factional war between Akhilesh and his father and party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav over the election symbol. The verdict comes a day ahead of the start of the filing of nominations in the seven-phased polls in the state beginning on 11 February. "The commission hereby answers the issue by holding that the groups led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol Bicycle for the purposes of the Election symbols (Reservation and allotment) order 1968," the EC order said. EC order on @yadavakhilesh. He has the numbers he is the party and hence gets the cycle. pic.twitter.com/ZlHixPfFUt Marya Shakil (@maryashakil) January 16, 2017 Election Commission to give Samajwadi Party's 'Cycle' symbol to Akhilesh Yadav: Sources to ANI ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 Soon after the announcement, Akhilesh Yadav tweeted on his official Twitter page, saying, " the cycle will keep moving ahead." Reacting to the verdict of the top election body, an elated Ram Gopal Yadav, uncle of Akhilesh and member of his faction, welcomed the EC's decision. The Rajya Sabha MP also reiterated that the list of candidates for the first phases of the election will be declared in the next two or three days. Talking about the prospects of an alliance with the Congress and the RLD, Ram Gopal added that the final decision will taken by Akhilesh. He also hinted at a "mahagathbandhhan" (grand alliance). As news of EC order trickled in, hordes of Akhilesh loyalists broke into celebrations outside the 5-Kalidas Marg residence of the chief minister. There were scenes of jubilation in the VIP security zone that houses the complex where Akhilesh and Mulayam live in separate bungalows. "Our prayer has been answered. We will now work with full zeal and vigour to ensure the victory of our Akhilesh bhaiya," said a youth SP leader outside the CM's bungalow. As soon as he got the news, Akhilesh went to meet his father to seek his blessings. Interestingly, the EC announcement came hours after Akhilesh supporters put up his brand new name plate at the SP headquarters that read "Akhilesh Yadav, Party President" strategically positioned directly under his father's nameplate which mentions Mulayam as "Party President". Mujhe ummeed hai ki maha-gathbandhan hoga, lekin antim nirnay Akhilesh Yadav lenge: Ramgopal Yadav, SP pic.twitter.com/xwlvUFQIQo ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 We just want to go back to Lucknow now and win the elections: Ram Gopal Yadav pic.twitter.com/U5JaQeCTCd News18 (@CNNnews18) January 16, 2017 Congress was quick to comment on the development. The party's chief ministerial face Sheila Dikshit said that she was ready to step down as the party's chief ministerial candidate and make way for Akhilesh. Dikshit also added that the ultimate decision will be taken by the high command. "We congratulate Akhilesh on being allotted the cycle symbol. Election Commission has taken a judicious decision in record time," Congress spokesman R P N Singh said, adding the UP Chief Minister had 90 per cent of the party including legislators on his side. Akhilesh is now the owner of Samajwadi Party: Sheila Dikshit to CNN-News18: News18 (@CNNnews18) January 16, 2017 Akhilesh is now the owner of Samajwadi Party: Sheila Dikshit to CNN-News18: News18 (@CNNnews18) January 16, 2017 CP Rai, a Mulayam loyalist, speaking to CNN-News 18, asserted that the party was originally built by Mulayam and that he would remain with the faction-led by the former chief minister. Regretting the apparent split, Rai added that they failed to keep the party united. The BJP, however, urged that the party officially belonging to Akhilesh, it would be time for him to weed out the corrupt elements in his party. Akhilesh Yadav's lawyer Kapil Sibal also weighed in on the matter an said that the Election Commission was likely to choose his faction because, "by 9 January Akhilesh group filed all docs at various levels, the Mulayam group did not respond to commission's direction and that meant that really had no evidence of their support claim." Given the overwhelming support received by Akhilesh group, EC gave its decision: Kapil Sibal, Lawyer of Akhilesh Yadav pic.twitter.com/JbesBnnLb0 ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 Akhilesh Yadav supporters took to the streets to celebrate the Election Commission's decision. Kanpur: Akhilesh Yadav's supporters celebrate after EC said group led by him is SP and is entitled to use 'Bicycle' symbol #UPpolls pic.twitter.com/vs3EolKTPO ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav too acknowledged EC's decision and appealed to Mulayam Singh Yadav to give his blessings to Akhilesh Yadav. I congratulate Akhilesh Yadav; would appeal Netaji to give his blessings to Akhilesh, this is country's election not just UP: Lalu Yadav pic.twitter.com/SrlQylF72E ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 Advising both Mulayam and Akhilesh not to fight, Lalu said that its very important for them to unite to stop the "communal forces". "The communal forces will be benefited by the divide in Samajwadi Party... this country would not be saved if Narendra Modi will come to power (in UP)," he said. He added Akhilesh's triumph is also a victory for his father Mulayam Singh. With inputs from agencies Sambhal (UP): Terming B R Ambedkar a "bigger leader" than Mahatma Gandhi, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said it was because of the secular and class-free Constitution given by the Dalit icon which has ensured justice in society. Owaisi's remark came during an All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad- ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) rally in UP on Sunday as he continued his poll campaign in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. "Ambedkar is a bigger leader than Mahatma Gandhi ... had Ambedkar not given a secular and class-free Constitution, the level of injustice in the country would have been much more and RSS people would not have left any opportunity to spoil the situation," Owaisi said. On the Khadi calendars and diaries row, Owaisi said though Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims to be a follower of Mahatma Gandhi but when he got a chance he 'replaced' the Father of the Nation on the symbols as he deemed it to be a fit time to hold the 'charkha'. The Hyderabad MP also hit out at the PM over the foreign policy, saying before getting elected to the post Modi had said he would give a "befitting" reply to Pakistan but such a response was still to come even after the martyrdom of 28 jawans following the surgical strike. The AIMIM national president was also critical of the demonetisation move taken by the Centre on 8 November last year, which he said has "only troubled the poor". On internal fight in Samajwadi Party, the ruling party in UP, Owaisi said politics in the state has gone "wayward" with the son (chief minister Akhilesh Yadav) having no faith in the father (Mulayam Singh Yadav). UP, which has 403 assembly constituencies (ACs), will go to polls in seven phases between 11 February and 8 March. Sambhal district which has four ACs Sambhal, Asmoli, Chandausi, Gunnaur will go to polls on 15 February during the second phase. Results of the election will be out on 11 March. Mulayam Singh Yadav's statement on Monday, that he will fight against Akhilesh if he "doesn't listen to him" is a game-changing twist in the intriguing Samajwadi Party drama. If such an eventuality does arise, it could be a crippling blow to SP and even BJP's chances in the upcoming Assembly polls and smoothen the turf for Mayawati's return as chief minister. Talking to party members while waiting for the Election Commission to decide on the party symbol, the ageing SP patriarch appeared heartbroken and desolate, accusing his son of "hobnobbing with the BJP" at the behest of Ram Gopal Yadav. The shadows have lengthened and the strength has visibly deserted the wrestler, but Mulayam indicated that he has one last, bitter fight left in him even if it is against his own blood. "We will accept whatever the Election Commission decides. I called Akhilesh three times. He dropped in for only a minute, and left even before I started to speak. I am trying my best to save the party and cycle (symbol), and if he (Akhilesh) doesn't listen then I will fight against him," said Mulayam. The Nasim Zaidi-led three-member EC has reserved its order on the election symbol following a five-hour hearing on Friday. There is a possibility that 'cycle' could be frozen in an interim order. Time is at a premium because the process for filing nominations for the first of the seven phases starts on Tuesday. The Akhilesh faction claims majority support and through a 'national convention' on 1 January, had elected the Uttar Pradesh chief minister as party president and 'elevated' Mulayam to the role of a 'margdarshak'. Mulayam has contested the claims, saying that he remains the president and that the 1 January 'convention' was invalid because Ram Gopal had already been expelled for six years from the party. On Monday, Mulayam vented his ire at his brother again, blaming him for engineering the split. "My son is playing into someone's hands. He is acting at the behest of Ram Gopal. I appeal to you to extend your support to me," the 77-year-old urged party workers, adding that "Ram Gopal is leaving no stone unturned in order to destroy the party." The septuagenarian's real worry, however, became evident when he expressed his fear that the SP under Akhilesh is being increasingly perceived as anti-Muslim. "The message has been conveyed the people that Akhilesh is anti-Muslim. There are fewer Muslim candidates in his list." With a population strength of around 19 percent, the Muslims are one of the most crucial pieces of the Uttar Pradesh jigsaw. Under Mulayam, the SP's electoral mathematics have always centred around a consolidation of the Muslim vote bank along with the Yadav votes. An opinion poll conducted in December by ABP-CSDS, the results of which were published in January, put SP ahead with 141-151 seats. According to the survey, demonetisation won't be able to catapult BJP to the driver's seat and it would have to settle for 27 percent of the votes while BSP chief Mayawati will drop to third with 22 percent. However, this maths was based around an undivided SP. The moment there is a formal split in the party and if the father chooses to take on the son, the 19 percent Muslim votes will split between the factions. Another possibility is that the Muslims may take recourse to tactical voting and may side with Mayawati instead to keep the BJP away. For the BSP chief who enjoys committed support among the Dalits, a sizable addition of Muslim votes would be enough to take her past the marker in the first-past-the-post voting system. A Dalit-Muslim combination will be too steep even for the BJP to surmount. For the saffron unit, an ideal situation would have been the split in Muslim votes between SP and the BSP which would ensure that none gets the advantage, while the BJP emerges on top with the a combination of upper class and some non-Jatav Dalit votes. If Amit Shah had indeed been betting on such a calculation, he will have to return to the drawing board. A formal split in the SP with the father taking on son will bring an irrepressible smile to Mayawati's face. Mulayam Singh Yadav made a big announcement on Monday afternoon that he will contest the election against son Akhilesh Yadav. A Yadav senior going against Yadav junior in the same constituency could be the mother of all of electoral battles. But minutes later, all parties concerned realised that this was news that was not to be. Consider the following: Firstly, Akhilesh will lead his party, Samjawadi or whatever name he gets approved from the Election Commission, but he is unlikely to contest the election from any of the Assembly seat. He is a member of the legislative council and will remain so. In Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has led his party JD(U) during the elections but did not contest the Assembly election, preferring to remain a member of the legislative council. Akhilesh is following the same pattern. So if Akhilesh is not contesting from any of the Assembly seat, how would Mulayam contest election against him from a particular constituency. Secondly, a seasoned politician like Mulayam knows that he is fighting a losing battle against his son and also for power in Uttar Pradesh. Hypothetically, if he contests the Assembly election and wins, he would have to vacate one of the two, his prospective Assembly seat or his parliamentary seat. It will again be a challenge for him to win that seat, Assembly or parliamentary, for his nominee. If he fights the Assembly election and loses, Mulayam would lose whatever remaining aura that is left. The Samajwadi patriarch has become a king without a kingdom, party and state, both of which has been snatched away from him by son Akhilesh. Third, those who know SP chieftain know that this is yet another classic ambiguous statement by Mulayam, open to multiple interpretations. To his supporters, he was playing both the victim card and that of a fighter. Wronged by treacherous son, he is fighting for his party, that he founded 25 years ago, along with younger brother Shivpal Yadav, a few other family members and loyalists like Amar Singh. Playing the victim card, he said, "Maine teen baar Akhilesh ko bulaya par wo ek minute ke liye hi aaye aur meri baat shuru hone se pehle hi chale gaye (I called Akhilesh thrice but he came only for a minute and left even before I could speak)." He said that he had called his son to convince him and make him (Akhilesh) realise his mistakes, but the latter didn't pay attention. He then acquired an aggressive tone vowing to fight for his dignity and to retain the faith of his followers, announcing that he will fight against son Akhilesh. His outburst among his gathered followers, mostly Muslims, was an indication that there was no scope left for a patch up between father and son. Fighting against his son meant leading his party against the party led by Akhilesh. In a few hours, the Election Commission is expected to give its judgment on which warring faction gets to retain the party name (Samajwadi) and party symbol (cycle). There is also a possibility that the cycle symbol may get frozen and the warring leaders might have to fight for a new symbol and name. In Lucknow, Akhilesh's supporters fixed his name plate below his father's both claiming to be the national president of the Samajwadi Party. ANI tweeted a picture of both the name plates at SP headquarters. Akhilesh Yadav's nameplate as National Pres put below Mulayam Singh Yadav's nameplate of the same designation at SP office in Lucknow pic.twitter.com/aLsbz192xy ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 Despite the Supreme Court's verdict saying that the parties and leaders couldn't use caste, creed, religion, language to seek votes in elections, Mulayam is said to have told his gathered supporters that Akhilesh had turned Muslims against Samajwadi Party and had given less number of tickets to Muslims. Mayawati too has been openly talking about Muslims, asking the minority community members not to waste their vote on Samajwadi Party, and vote for the BSP. It has to be seen how the Election Commission reacts to it. Mulayam is trying to evoke sympathy for him. Here again he would be competing against his son. Akhilesh, as some surveys reveal, has an advantage over him. New York: Wading into foreign affairs days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump said Britain's decision to leave the European Union would "end up being a great thing" and predicted the bloc would continue to break apart. The incoming president, in an interview published on Sunday, said European countries are reacting to an influx of immigrants that threaten each nation's identity. "People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity," Trump said in an interview with London's The Sunday Times and Bild, a German newspaper. "I believe others will leave," he continued. "I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think. And I think this: if refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe...I think it's gonna be very hard to keep it together, because people are angry about it." The comments largely echo Trump's rhetoric during his presidential campaign. He helped rally white working-class voters by railing against illegal immigration and vowing to build a massive wall along the border with Mexico. Trump indicated he was indifferent to whether the EU stays together or not, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which encouraged Great Britain to remain in the EU last year. The vote injected instability across the region and triggered calls for similar moves in France, Sweden and the Netherlands. It also weakened the 28-nation bloc's ability to push back against Russian aggression in Ukraine, among other regional challenges. Trump did not address Russia in the sections of the interview released Sunday. His praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin has come under intense scrutiny following reports that Russia interfered in the U.S. election to help him win. He did criticize German Chancellor Angela Merkel's immigration policies. While saying he had "great respect" for the German leader, Trump said Merkel made a "catastrophic mistake" by welcoming an influx of immigrants into her country. He indicated that a December attack at a German Christmas market by a Tunisian was one effect of Merkel's policies. Trump also took aim at another key western alliance in the interview. He called the North American Treaty Organization, commonly known as NATO, "obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror" and said member organizations aren't paying their "fair share." "A lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump said. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me." OTTAWA Canada's ethics watchdog is investigating Justin Trudeau for potential breaches related to his recent holiday on an island owned by the Aga Khan, the first time a prime minister has faced such scrutiny, media reported on Monday.Trudeau has been confronted with repeated questions from the opposition about his vacation in the Bahamas over the New Year's holiday and said last week that he had flown there by private helicopter.In a letter to a Conservative lawmaker on Jan. 13, Mary Dawson, the federal conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, said she has begun an examination to determine whether Trudeau has contravened the Conflict of Interest Act, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported.In the letter, Dawson acknowledged concerns about potential breaches related to the use of the private helicopter and the Aga Khan Foundation's lobbying of the government, the Globe said. Official ethics rules introduced by Trudeau himself in 2015 bar government ministers from taking private flights without getting Dawson's approval.A Trudeau spokesman declined to comment on whether an examination has been launched and said the prime minister will answer any of Dawson's questions. A spokeswoman for the ethics commissioner did not immediately comment. Trudeau is facing a separate probe by Dawson into fundraising by his Liberal party, but an examination into the trip would be the first such investigation of a prime minister, said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.The Aga Khan, the wealthy leader of the Ismaili branch of Shi'ite Islam, is a close Trudeau family friend. The Aga Khan Foundation Canada is a registered lobbyist with the government and its executives met with government officials as recently as December. In an apparent bid to reconnect with ordinary voters, Trudeau, who came to power in 2015 and has enjoyed high popularity ratings, scrapped a trip to this week's World Economic Focum in Davos and embarked on a cross-country tour instead. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Paul Simao) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Brussels: EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini on Monday insisted the bloc will stand by the Iran nuclear accord, bluntly condemned by US President-elect Donald Trump, because it serves Europe's security needs. "It is proof that diplomacy works and delivers... The European Union will continue to work for the respect and implementation of this extremely important deal, most of all for our security," Mogherini told reporters as she went into an EU foreign ministers meeting. Trump has repeatedly blasted the nuclear accord with Iran as "one of the dumbest deals I have ever seen", claiming it will not stop Tehran getting atomic weapons. He repeated the charge in interviews with top European newspapers on Sunday when he also cast fresh doubt on NATO's role and the EU's future after Brexit. Mogherini said she would not comment on Trump's remarks, but claimed on the first anniversary of the accord she helped negotiate that much had been accomplished. The agreement "has delivered both on the nuclear-related commitments Iran took and on the firm determination of the international community to fully implement this deal", she said. As far as the EU was concerned, the accord had resulted in increased trade and economic ties, "which is really significant", she added. British foreign minister Boris Johnson, who spoke to the press ahead of the EU ministers meeting, also said the accord must be maintained. He said it had been "a difficult and controversial deal, but one which has stopped the Iranians from acquiring nuclear technology they might otherwise have acquired, and it is a deal which we think has great merit and we want to keep going." The accord was finally sealed in 2015, before being implemented in January 2016, with Tehran agreeing to rein in its nuclear programme in return for an easing of punishing Western economic sanctions. US President Barack Obama hailed the accord as one of his major achievements, preventing Iran getting nuclear weapons without having to go to war, but Trump has said repeatedly he will ditch it. Berlin: Europe should face Donald Trump with "confidence", German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday, after the US president-elect had predicted that more EU members would join Britain in leaving the bloc. "I think we Europeans shouldn't somehow plunge into a deep, great depression," Gabriel told Bild daily following Trump's own interview with the German newspaper and Britain's The Times. Ahead of his inauguration on Friday, Trump had also described Nato as "obsolete". "I don't underestimate what Trump says, especially regarding Nato and the EU, but a little bit of self-confidence would serve us well in such a situation," added Gabriel. "Look at China, the place he has attacked the hardest, and how relaxed the Chinese have been in their reaction. "Maybe there is something to be learned from that. "Europe in this current weak phase has to pull itself together, has to act with confidence and in its own interest." Germans and Europeans "are not somehow inferior, we have something to offer", he added. Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is expected to run for chancellor against centre-right incumbent Angela Merkel in elections later this year, was the first German politician to react to the lengthy Trump interview. As Merkel's current junior partner in a right-left coalition, Gabriel defended the government's open-door policy to refugees, which Trump had slammed as Merkel's "catastrophic mistake". He insisted the refugees, branded as "illegals" by Trump, had mostly fled war and turmoil in the Middle East, but Gabriel did agree with the president-elect that the US invasion of Iraq may have been America's worst ever mistake. "There is a connection between the flawed US interventions, especially in terms of the Iraq war" and the refugee crisis, said Gabriel, adding that the migrant influx "confronted us in Europe, not the United States". On the apparently friendly relations so far between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Gabriel said that reduced East-West confrontation "is, first and foremost, sensible". However, he said that "we are all viewing with a little bit of concern that Trump and Putin are in agreement on the wrong questions". He added that "if the USA really wants to retreat from the Middle East, then it can't be in Europe's interest if Russia fills the vacuum". On Trump's warning he would impose punitive tariffs on carmakers that produce in Mexico, including Germany's BMW, Gabriel warned that this would make the American car industry "worse, weaker and more expensive". Responding to Trump's criticism that there are too few US-made cars on German roads, Gabriel said that "the US will have to build better cars". By Mai Nguyen and My Pham | HANOI HANOI Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday promised Vietnam six new patrol boats during a visit to the Southeast Asian country, which is locked in a dispute with China over the busy South China Sea.Abe's stop in Vietnam completes a tour through an arc of a region where Japan stakes a leadership claim in the face of China's growing dominance and uncertainty over what policy change Donald Trump will bring as U.S. president."We will strongly support Vietnam's enhancing its maritime law enforcement capability," Abe said, while emphasising that the dispute over the South China Sea should be settled through talks and in accordance with international law.China claims almost all the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion worth of seaborne trade passes every year. Vietnam and four other countries also say they have rights in the sea, believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas. Tokyo has no territorial ambitions there, but worries about China's growing military reach into the sea lanes. Japan has a separate dispute with China over a cluster of islets in the East China Sea.The six new coastguard patrol boats had a total value of 38.5 billion yen ($338 million) and Vietnam would get a concessional loan to pay for them, a Japanese official said. No timeline for delivery has been discussed yet. Japan had previously agreed to provide six old patrol boats to Vietnam. Maritime security and trade have been themes during Abe's other stops - in Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia.Given the readiness of the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte to move closer to China and further from its traditional U.S. ally, Vietnam is one of fewer regional states showing potential readiness to confront China.TRUMP QUESTIONS Uncertainty over U.S. policy in Asia was amplified last week by comments from Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson that China must stop building islands in the South China Sea and that its access to those islands must not be allowed.Despite their differences, Vietnam also maintains a strong diplomatic track with China. China and Vietnam said at the weekend they had agreed to manage their maritime differences and preserve peace and stability.Both Japan and Vietnam have also been strong supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade pact which looks to have stalled in the face of Trump's pledge to withdraw the United States. In Hanoi, Abe stressed the importance of the TPP and other free trade agreements, but gave no further details."Vietnam now plays a more significant role in Japan's foreign policy," said Ha Hoang Hop, a Vietnamese political analyst who has advised the government.The delegation signed a number of business agreements, including energy and textile projects and a project to help with the impact of climate change. Japan is Vietnam's biggest foreign investor after South Korea.($1 = 113.99 yen) (Editing by Matthew Tostevin) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. There is a recent trend in Pakistan where activists have started disappearing. Not in a mystical manner with smoke and dust, more accurately they have been disappeared, almost undoubtedly by a state intelligence agency. The most notorious of which is the ISI. It used to be that only the Baloch were disappeared, on charges of sedition, and nobody in Punjab or the big cities like Karachi cared. Then journalists started disappearing, some were shot at, suddenly television media realised that missing persons and death threats is quite a real thing, and all those Baloch people camping near the parliament house for months were not going for the worlds longest picnic. Now its the turn of activists. Four have gone missing in recent weeks. Poet, lecturer and dramatist Salman Haider. The state has two answers for missing persons questions. One that it wasnt us, it was militants. Which is true in cases like Shahbaz Taseer, but not true in the dozens upon dozens of other disappearances. The second answer is that they are being investigated for working against and undermining the state, as if the uniformed patriots dont do a good enough job of that, or when in the mood for a simpler answer, they are Indian agents. Even NGOs havent been spared the foreign agents label. Its not unusual to see Facebook pages pop up about Pakistani human rights and peace activists adorned with a bindi and a diya in one hand. Or otherwise dressed as a Hindu pundit. The lawyer and activist Asma Jahangir has more photo-shopped pictures of her online than Kim Kardashian. See, we as a nation hate activity. Hence we hate activism. We like the way things are, by we I mean Punjab, where sectarian groups are free to hold rallies, contest elections and spew venom against minority sects of Islam. This keeps the province safe for the Sunni majority, a primary function of the state, because all guns and bombs then turn towards Shias, Ahmadis and Christians. Jinnah did say youre free to go to your mosques and temples but he never said anything about making it back alive. So really what these activists are doing is disturbing the peace. Intelligence agencies pick up Baloch people and always find evidence of them being separatists with links to RAW. Its a 100 percent record. But activists ask why the best spy agency in the world cant tell when 60 kilos of C4 is being smuggled into a heavily barricaded city for a suicide blast. But hey, the important thing is that they can identify the bombers as Uzbeks afterwards and find more RAW links in the debris, it isnt easy reading burned and charred documents. There is peace in Punjab. The military is winning a battle its mostly fighting against its own citizenry, the militarys already won the PR battle, Zarb-e-Azb was declared a success long before the first shots were fired. In Karachi MQM workers and leaders are being lifted too. So Karachi is obviously safe now..So what if someone stole my cars tape deck, central navigation unit, screen and air conditioner parked next to a Rangers checkpost. So what if a Sindh High Court Judges son was abducted while he was shopping at a store. The city is safe. China is coming to build a port and take over half of Balochistan, which is now clear of dissidents, and people. Everyone will become rich because the Chinese are going to literally throw money out of the CPEC train that will run across the country but mainly through Punjab. Activists protest that were trading one imperialism for another, Pfft! If theres anything to protest it should be about not having enough Chinese language centres and to ask: where are the genuine Chinese food outlets? Those protesting missing persons are just trying to destabilise the entire thing. Under the National Inaction Plan suspicious persons, namely persons holding placards on the sides of roads, people who write poetry, and those who claim to promote human rights when they should be cheering military courts, can be detained for 90 days without an arrest warrant. Though, after 90 minutes, the mainstream media has forgotten all about them so then they can be detained indefinitely. What kind of peaceful activism involves poetry anyway? Its hard for agency workers to decipher. When the military police imprisoned Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the 1950s, it took them three years just to comprehend the title of Naqsh-e-Faryadi. Of course, well wishers can file an appeal with the Supreme Court but each time they ordered the agencies to present evidence or let someone go, some judge gets shot somewhere in the country, by pure coincidence, and they say look were only picking these people up for your own safety. And who doesnt want to be safe? In a world with Taliban and undercover Indian agents and cross border surgical strikes, the only safety is with the military and its intelligence agencies. The most intelligent agency, with a collective IQ of 84. But there are always mavericks. A prominent woman activist and mentor to Karachis youth was shot after conducting a panel discussion on Balochistan and its missing persons. She had no regard for her own safety obviously. They caught a boy who confessed to doing it because he didnt like the interior decor. The agencies were absolved. And what about the Baloch missing persons themselves. Its not like theyre never seen again. The agencies do return them mangled, tortured and deceased lying in a pool of their own dried up blood in the middle of the road. But missing no more. At the rate of these disappearances, one would think we have half of Indias RAW in our holding cells and safe-houses. RAW must now spend years educating new professors, grooming artists writers, architects and investing in cafes and NGOs. I have a personal anecdote about the magnanimity and kind nature of the ISI. Once, sitting around a small coal grate in the lawn, as retired uncles are wont to do in winters, one former ISI colonel told us a story about how its a huge misconception that the ISI is against the citizens of Pakistan. It just targets enemies. A high profile person was pinpointed for suspicious money transactions, the colonel and some of his goons went to the persons office. But there were two similar looking men in the office and the goons were unsure who the mark was, so they picked up both. In the van, the colonel started an interrogation. On the left was the man he wanted, on the right was his aide, public relations guy? Oh! His brother. Just visiting from America. Hearing that, the colonel opened the rear doors of the van and politely said: 'Youre free to go,' and pushed him out with a warm smile. The van was still moving. Quite fast. The colonel didnt know how many bones were broken of the brother who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he estimated, with a chuckle, that it must have been less than the number of bones broken of the brother they took. With people like these protecting us. What do we have to fear from India? By Fatos Bytyci | PRISTINA PRISTINA Serbia plans to seize a slice of northern Kosovo just as Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014, Kosovo's president told Reuters on Monday, as the two Balkan neighbours trade accusations of wanting to ignite a new regional war.Kosovo special police units on Saturday prevented a train painted in Serbia's national colours and bearing the words "Kosovo is Serbia" from crossing the border.Serbia does not recognise the independence of Kosovo, its former province, and did not seek Pristina's permission for the passage of the train, which it paid for and organised. On Sunday Serbia's president, Tomislav Nikolic, said Kosovo's action had shown it wanted war with Belgrade.Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci said the train was aimed at "provoking" Kosovars in order to create a pretext for Serbia to intervene militarily and annex northern areas of Kosovo, home to some 50,000 ethnic Serbs who refuse to accept the province's independence and want to be governed again by Belgrade."Serbias intention is to use this train, which was donated by Russia, first to help carve away the northern part of Kosovo and then ... attach it to Serbia. It is the Crimea model," Thaci said in an interview.He was referring to Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet and populated mainly by ethnic Russians who after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 continued to feel loyalty to Moscow rather than to the newly independent government in Kiev. Crimea's ethnic Russians welcomed Moscow's annexation - carried out initially by soldiers wearing unmarked uniforms to disguise their identity - though the move also triggered Western economic sanctions against Russia."CHAIN REACTION" Serbia lost control of Kosovo when NATO air strikes forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops in 1999 after they had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians. NATO still has around 5,000 troops stationed in Kosovo to keep the fragile peace.As well as Serbia, its ally Russia and some other countries also refuse to recognize Kosovo's 2008 independence. After talks with Serbia's military top brass and state security chiefs in Belgrade on Sunday, Serbia's Nikolic threatened to send troops back into Kosovo. "If they are killing Serbs, we will send the army, all of us will go, I will go as well, it would not be my first time," said Nikolic, who is a former member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party and in the 1990s fought alongside Serb paramilitaries in Croatia. Responding to Nikolic's remarks, Thaci said any attempt by Serbia to annex northern Kosovo would set off "a chain reaction across the whole Western Balkans".Belgrade and Pristina both aspire to join the European Union and normalising relations is a condition of their progress, but Serbia continues to block Kosovo's membership of international organisations such as the United Nations.Bilateral relations came under renewed strain this month when former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj was arrested in France on a warrant from Serbia, which accuses him of war crimes. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Editing by Gareth Jones) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As university students mill around a bright and airy study hall in London, Eiad Zinah converses in his native language Arabic with a female student from Germany.It is the first time the pair have met for a language tuition session - and it is the Syrian refugee who is running the tutorial today, not the other way around."It's an amazing thing to be able to teach your language to other people because it will help them understand you more," the 30-year-old said after the language class organised by UK social enterprise Chatterbox at the University of London."Today I had students from Taiwan, England and Germany. You meet people from everywhere and I love that," said Zinah, who also tutors people online.Zinah fled war in the Syrian capital of Damascus in 2012 and arrived in Britain two years ago after smuggling himself onto a lorry from Brussels in Belgium. Although he was a qualified dentist in Syria, Zinah is doing a postgraduate dentistry degree and English language tests so he can practice in Britain.He joins a growing number of newly-arrived, degree-educated refugees that Chatterbox has employed to teach languages, including Swahili, Arabic, Korean and Farsi, to university students, businesspeople and private clients.One of Zinah's Arabic students, Leah Sternefeld, said she used to teach German to Syrian refugees in her hometown of Tubingen in southern Germany, and found the change in power dynamics "humbling". "When you're learning a language, you're humbling yourself and it's a great sign of respect," the 20-year-old student told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "I don't want to put people in boxes. I want to get to know (Zinah) as a person - not because he's a refugee or Syrian, and learning their language is a good way to do that," she said."TALENT DOESN'T HAVE BORDERS" Former Afghan refugee Mursal Hedayat said she founded Chatterbox after watching her mother, a civil engineer, struggle to get relevant work when they first arrived in Britain in 1994.Hedayat said many degree-qualified refugees, like her mother, aren't able to find work in host countries since they don't have professional networks and their qualifications may not be recognised."If all your relevant work experience was in a country that is now engulfed in civil war, it's going to be hard to find a sympathetic employer willing to take a chance on you," said the 25-year-old economics graduate. She now employs dozens of English-speaking refugees from countries like Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq - many of whom have worked as lawyers, teachers, health workers and translators. "After spending months or even years on the receiving end of help, being able to provide it is such a boost to your confidence," Hedayat said, who officially launched Chatterbox last week."It really affirms that you are skilled, and that you have something to offer. Talent doesn't have borders."Hedayat said she hopes the Chatterbox programme will expand across Europe and to Canada or the United States, so refugees can gain quality work experience and get to know the local population through language tutoring.For Zinah, meeting different people through his work as a language teacher has made him feel a part of London's multicultural community."Other people will keep themselves in this box and think they are just a refugee from another country and living in London. I don't think in this way," he said."I feel like I'm just like another student who has come from another country to learn, to get a good education. And one day I'll go back to my country." (Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women's rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. It hasn't attracted a ton of media attention, but Toyota Motor Corporation (TM 1.55%) did something very big this past week: It unveiled an all-new and decidedly different version of America's best-selling car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The all-new 2018 Toyota Camry features surprisingly (for a Camry, anyway) sporty styling inside and out. It's a bold and interesting attempt to boost Toyota's image in a segment that is losing ground to SUVs -- and it just might work. What it is: a rethink of a huge-selling model Toyota said that the all-new 2018 Camry, the eighth generation of the venerable nameplate, "has gone through a total evolution, from a proven, dependable, and safe car to one that also possesses a more exciting and emotional character, thanks to its newfound sporty performance and style." That sums up Toyota's intent with the new Camry in a nutshell. It's still a roomy and practical five-passenger midsize sedan. And it's still a Toyota, meaning that it comes with a well-earned expectation that it will be safe, durable, and very reliable transportation. But Toyota isn't kidding about "sporty performance and style," concepts never before associated with the company's boring-but-safe midsize stalwart. It's a little hard to tell in the photos, but in person, the new Camry is surprisingly low-slung, with an exterior shape that's still Toyota-quirky but more purposeful than before. The 2018 Camry almost looks like it might be fun to drive -- and that's something new for a car wearing the Camry nameplate. (Alas, the all-new Camry Hybrid gets a different front-end treatment that looks like it might be a little less fun, to be honest.) The new Camry's interior reinforces that impression, as I confirmed firsthand in Detroit this past week. Like the outgoing models, the 2018 Camry's interior is roomy and practical -- but again, there's a strong sport-sedan flavor. The driver's view is almost more Audi than Toyota, with big round analog speedometer and tachometer gauges behind a meaty steering wheel. And while the front seats aren't quite sports-car stiff, they're more supportive side-to-side than you'd expect in a family hauler. We won't know if the new Camry delivers on its sporting looks until the road testers get their hands on it, but at least on paper it looks as if it might. Toyota promises "vastly superior driving dynamics" thanks to a stiffer structure and new rear-suspension design. There are three powertrain options: An all-new 2.5 liter four-cylinder and a 3.5 liter V6, both with an eight-speed automatic transmission, and a new hybrid system. The hybrid pairs the 2.5 liter four-cylinder with an electric motor and a continuously variable transmission that features a new "Sport Mode" that simulates a sporty six-speed. Like the current model, most of the 2018 Camrys sold in the U.S. will be built at Toyota's factory in Georgetown, Ky. Toyota said the new models will begin arriving at U.S. dealers in "late summer." What it means for investors: an intriguing new entry in a struggling segment Toyota's Camry has been one of America's best-selling cars since the 1990s, and it has led all sedans in sales in the United States for 15 straight years. But that's worth a little less than it used to be, as sedans in general have been losing ground to car-based "crossover" SUVs in recent years, not just in the U.S. but also around the world. Toyota still sold a hearty 388,618 Camrys in the U.S. in 2016. But that number was down 9.5% from the Camry's 2015 total, a drop that was more about macro industry trends than it was about the still-very-competitive 2016 Camry itself. Mindful of those macro trends, some of Toyota's rivals are putting more effort into SUVs than sedans. That may make sense for them, but I sense that Toyota sees an opportunity to gain market share with its surprisingly charismatic all-new Camry. Will devotees of Toyota's boring-but-reliable past models go for this decidedly non-beige new Camry? I bet they will, but we'll find out this fall. One reason investors gravitate to dividend stocks is their reliability, and Coca-Cola (KO 0.82%) is a good example of how consistency can turn into strong long-term returns. Coca-Cola has a long track record of providing dividend growth to its shareholders, finding ways to boost its payouts even when the company has gone through difficult situations, and it has averaged more than 12% in annual returns to shareholders over the past half century. The soft-drink giant is facing some tough challenges right now as it tries to navigate the changing consumer preferences among its customers, but the question that shareholders have is whether that will stop Coca-Cola from continuing its impressive history of rising dividends. Let's look more closely at Coca-Cola to see whether investors can count on the Dow component to raise its dividend in 2017. Dividend Stats on Coca-Cola Current Quarterly Dividend Per Share $0.35 Current Yield 3.4% Number of Consecutive Years With Dividend Increases 54 years Payout Ratio 84% Last Increase March 2016 How Coca-Cola's dividend growth has looked lately It's hard to find companies that have a longer history of dividend growth than Coca-Cola. The soft-drink giant hasn't made a big splash with the pace of that dividend growth, generally remaining satisfied with single-digit percentage dividend increases. Yet year in and year out, Coca-Cola's increases over the past 15 years have ranged from 6% to 11%, including the most recent increase that sent the payout from $0.33 per share on a quarterly basis to $0.35. Yet the problem for Coca-Cola investors is that earnings growth hasn't really kept up with those rising payouts, leading to a substantial increase in the company's payout ratio. Back in 2011, Coca-Cola paid out a total of $0.94 per share in split-adjusted dividends throughout the year. That compared favorably with diluted earnings of $1.85 per share, working out to a payout ratio of just over 50%. Since then, however, earnings have actually fallen gradually, and over the past 12 months, Coca-Cola has earned $1.65 per share. When you compare that to the $1.40 per share in total annual dividend payments, you get the nearly 85% payout ratio listed above. That has some dividend investors worried, despite Coca-Cola's long track record of dividend success. What ails Coca-Cola right now? The primary problem with Coca-Cola is that its namesake line of sugary carbonated beverages has fallen out of favor among customers, especially in its key North American market. Health advocates argue that soft drinks are partially responsible for the epidemic of obesity across the globe, and policymakers have looked at initiatives like adding taxes to soft drinks to discourage consumers from using them. In response, Coca-Cola has undergone a major transformation. By branching out further into areas like bottled water, tea, and juice as well as emphasizing sugar-free options and product reformulations in its sparkling offerings, the drink-maker thinks that it can successfully navigate the adverse environment for its former core products and use its diversified portfolio of beverage offerings to start growing earnings again. Will Coca-Cola raise its dividend in 2017? Investors are hopeful that Coca-Cola's efforts will be successful enough to boost income and support higher dividends. Currently, those following the stock expect nearly $2 per share in earnings in 2017, and that would support a typical high-single-digit percentage increase to $0.38 per share for the beverage giant. With a 54-year commitment to rising dividends, Coca-Cola won't willingly give up its status as a Dividend Aristocrat by failing to make it 55. Investors can expect an announcement in February with a higher payout. In the long run, though, Coca-Cola needs to find ways to bolster its bottom line if it expects its streak to keep going in the years to come. It's no secret that Americans' retirement readiness is abysmal. According to a 2013 study, more than half of American households won't be able to live as comfortably in retirement as they did while working. Retirees typically need 70% or more of their pre-retirement income to maintain their lifestyles, and Social Security is only designed to provide about half that amount. For the past three decades, more and more employers have been helping to alleviate the retirement crisis by offering 401(k)s. Workers can save up to $18,000 per year in these tax-advantaged accounts (or $24,000 if they're aged 50 or older), and employers will typically match a certain percentage of their employees' contributions. There are a multitude of benefits to contributing to an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan, including the end game, which is a healthy source of retirement besides a monthly Social Security check. But there's a hitch: You can only get the benefit of an employee-sponsored retirement savings plan if you actually participate, and millions of American workers pass up the opportunity to save through a 401(k). That's why more and more employers are automatically enrolling their workers in 401(k) plans; those who don't want part of their paychecks set aside for retirement have to opt out. But what employers have found is that, once people are signed up, they stay signed up, and they are reaping the benefits of setting aside money now to ensure they'll have more than enough when they retire. What is a 401(k)? Since their inception in the early 1980s, 401(k) plans, also called defined-contribution plans, have become the primary way people supplement their retirement incomes. You can only access this type of retirement-savings plan through an employer, although states are also jumping on board. Connecticut is about to roll out an initiative allowing residents to buy into a state-run 401(k) plan. How does a 401(k) plan work? Employees contribute a portion of their wages, with the goal of growing those funds over time by investing them in assets like mutual funds. In many cases, employers will match a portion of the contribution. The contributions, and any interest you gain, are tax-free until you start drawing money from the plan after retirement. Between your employer's contribution and your long-term commitment to saving through a defined-contribution plan, you'll realize a healthy source of supplemental income by the time you're ready to retire. What's the benefit? There's more than one benefit to participating in a 401(k) plan. The money is taken out of your paycheck pre-tax, so your tax liability is reduced up front. Another benefit is that, if your employer is matching some of your contribution into the plan, you'll automatically earn huge "returns" in the form of free cash. The key to having enough money to supplement your retirement income is to start saving as early as possible. For example, if you save 10% of your $50,000 salary starting at age 25, then you'll have just over $1 million saved by the time you reach age 65, assuming your investments earn a respectable 7%. However, if you wait until age 45, then you'll only accumulate $219,000 by age 65. So if you're behind on your retirement savings, you'll need to save much more aggressively to ensure your future financial security. Can automatic participation improve retirement for the masses? Most people are employed up until they reach retirement age, and many employers offer 401(k) plans. So why aren't more people taking advantage of the tax ad "free money" they can reap by participating? In some cases, it's simple inertia, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. If you have to go out of your way to sign up, then a lot of people won't bother, even though they stand to gain more stability in retirement. To combat this type of inaction, more employers are automatically enrolling new employees in their 401(k). According to WorldatWork, 37% of the 500 or so employers who took part in the study reported that they automatically sign up their employees and have an 80% to 89% participation rate. Meanwhile, only 21% of employers that did not offer automatic enrollment reported such a high participation rate. Automatic enrollment tends to allow inertia to work for employees, rather than against them, as studies show that once employees are signed up, they tend to remain in the program. If your employer offers a 401(k) and you haven't already enrolled, then sign up as soon as possible -- especially if your employer offers matching contributions. If you've been signed up automatically, don't rely on the "default rate" to make sure you're saving enough. According to a 2013 CRR study, employees who remain at the automatic contribution "default rate" -- the lowest contribution amount set by your employer -- risk not saving enough for retirement. Gradually raise your contribution over time, with the goal of eventually saving at least 10% of your salary. This type of savings plan can make the difference between limping along during retirement and having enough to travel and enjoy your golden years. Don't wait, because you're only short-changing your future self. But its not the high-roller gamblers helping the casinos see green its the shoppers and diners infusing cash into the states industry. Nevadas casinos, which in 2015 lost $662 million, made a profit last year for the first time since 2008. The financial boost came from room rentals and fees generated by hotels dotting Las Vegas Strip and in Downtown Vegas, among other areas. According to the state Game Control Board in a report released last week, the majority of the $979 million that was generated came from resort lodging and hotel guests. Nevadas visitors are basically spending more money on things other than gambling. There is an ongoing trend that is pivoting to dining, shopping, and other amenities. People heading to Nevada to see a show, eat at a Michelin star restaurant or shop at a high-end boutique are choosing such experiences over casino tables and slot machines. According to the report, gambling revenues last year dropped to 34.2% of total profit, the lowest percentage ever and a decrease from 34.9% the previous year. Thats a major change from 1990, when gambling revenue made up about 58% of total profit. BMW and other German automakers dont appear ready to surrender in a new battle between President-elect Donald Trump and foreign car production. After taking shots at Detroits Big Three, Trump turned his fury to the Germans on Monday, calling out the countrys car industry. I would tell BMW if they want to build cars in Mexico and sell in the U.S.A. without a 35% tax, they can forget it, Trump said in an interview with German newspaper Bild, translated by The Wall Street Journal. They can build cars for the U.S.A. but for every car that comes into the U.S.A. they will pay a 35% tax. What Im saying is, they have to build their factory in the U.S.A. It will be much better for them and for our efforts. Unlike their American counterparts Ford (NYSE:F) and General Motors (NYSE:GM), German automakers are so far holding firm. BMW is standing by its decision to build a new $1 billion factory in Mexico, saying the facility will supply cars to global markets. BMW also noted that its assembly plant in South Carolina, where the company is spending $1 billion to increase capacity, is now the companys largest in the world. The issue is about commitment and BMW made a significant commitment to the U.S. when it began manufacturing vehicles in America more than 22 years ago, BMW said in a statement. I would tell BMW if they want to build cars in Mexico and sell in the U.S.A. without a 35% tax, they can forget it. - President-elect Donald Trump BMW exports 70% of its U.S. production, according to company statistics. The Department of Commerce pegs the annual value of those exports at nearly $10 billion, more than any other auto company manufacturing in the U.S. For German producers, the United States is not only the second largest export market but also an important production site from which the world market is supplied, Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), said in a statement provided in German. One can only warn against the global rampant tendencies towards protectionism. In the end, all nations will be harmed, despite seemingly short-term benefits. One government official went so far as to needle American car companies. In comments cited by Bild, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel shrugged off Trumps tariff proposal, saying the U.S. should build better cars. Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, declined to comment on Trumps interview with Bild. Volkswagen didnt immediately respond to a request from FOXBusiness.com for comment. Mexico is the home of a large manufacturing base for most major automakers, who have sought to capitalize on cheap labor south of the border. Also, vehicles can be shipped to the U.S. and other top markets without incurring taxes. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW all have a presence in Mexico. In the U.S., Mercedes-Benz has expanded its Alabama plant to build more SUVs, and Volkswagen builds certain models in Tennessee. According to the trade group VDA, 59% of the vehicles produced by German manufacturers in U.S. are exported to other markets. German car brands, who currently employ 33,000 Americans, nearly quadrupled their U.S. production from 2009 to 2016, Wissmann said in remarks made at the Detroit Auto Show last week. Trump has been a frequent critic of the U.S. automotive industry, targeting Ford, General Motors and Toyota (NYSE:TM) for building vehicles in Mexico and shipping them into the U.S. tax-free. The soon-to-be 45th President has threatened to pursue tariffs of up to 35% on those vehicles. Some corporate giants have already bowed to pressure from Trump. After taking heat throughout the presidential campaign and after the election, Ford scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico. Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE:FCAU) is making a $1 billion investment in two U.S. factories, opening up the possibility that production of Ram heavy-duty pickup trucks will return from Mexico. CEO Sergio Marchionne said Trumps policies could play a role in the final decision. Both moves earned the automakers a positive thank-you tweet from the President-elect. Poor Zoe's Kitchen (NYSE: ZOES) shareholders. Their bet on the fast-casual chain was seemingly starting to pay off, only to be upended last fall when the company reported worse-than-expected results. Data by YCharts. There is some silver lining to be considered, though, as the company grew its top and bottom lines over the past year. With that in mind, there's reason to think 2017 could hold better times for the stock. Let's take a closer look. Looking back on 2016 An up-and-comer in the fast-casual segment popularized by Chipotle, Zoe's Kitchen specializes in fast, fresh Mediterranean-inspired cuisine. In spite of the conclusions you might draw from the stick-price chart above, the 200-location chain actually mustered up a pretty good year. Image source: Zoe's Kitchen. In mid-November, Zoe's reported that total revenue had increased 23% in the 40 weeks ended Oct. 3, 2016, compared to the year-ago period. The company accomplished this through 36 new openings, but also benefited from comparable-restaurant sales increases of 4.9%. In addition, Zoe's Kitchen is in the black and is set to have its first full year of profitability. Net income during the 40 weeks rose to $2.3 million, up from a loss of $1.4 million during the same time the previous year, as company growth started to pay off. The company also added new menu items early in 2016, including two new flatbread sandwiches, that management says continue to be strong performers. An updated kids menu was rolled out in the third quarter, and the catering business that was started in 2015 has been a success in driving comparable-restaurant sales higher during the past year. All the positives got swamped, though, as management's upbeat tone for the fiscal year struck early in 2016 was tempered later in the year. The stock reversed course, but that isn't to say the company doesn't have big plans. 2017 outlook and beyond 2016 was a landmark year for Zoe's, as total restaurant count passed 200 late in the year. That is an impressive feat, as at the end of 2013 the count was half that number. The chain now has its sights set on doubling store count again in just as short a time. Management sees the number hitting 400 by 2020, and thinks that 1,600 restaurants is in the cards for the longer term. Image source: Zoe's Kitchen. But is that number realistic? It would seem so, as Zoe's brand of fast, fresh fare has grown to its current count in just 20 states, clustered mainly in the southern and eastern United States. Plus, the company has yet to break into the heavily populated food battleground states of California and New York. The company also feels it has unique positioning in the quick-service restaurant space with its offerings of Mediterranean-inspired plates. Management wants to leverage that position and reach diners outside of its restaurants as well. To that end, delivery service has been in test phase at 30 locations. Zoe's vision for the future includes a catering and small-delivery platform supported by an online ordering app, which is currently in development. Investors should listen in on reports during the next year for more updates on these initiatives. What investors should think about The positive news has not been enough to lift Zoe's Kitchen stock out of its doldrums, but the upstart diner keeps pushing business to new highs. Investor expectations got a little ahead of the curve over the last few years, so the late-year beatdown isn't totally unwarranted. However, share prices are now hovering just below levels seen nearly three years ago when Zoe's debuted as a publicly traded company. With business rapidly growing, the company now turning a profit, and big ambitions in the works, the recent drop looks like a gift to new investors looking to take a stake in the fast-casual chain. 10 stocks we like better than Zoe's Kitchen 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 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Zoe's Kitchen 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 January 4, 2017 Nicholas Rossolillo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Chipotle Mexican Grill and Zoe's Kitchen. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Tests conducted on Fiat Chrysler vehicles show they are compliant with regulations and contain no emissions defeat devices as alleged by Germany, Italy's transport ministry said in a statement on Monday. Tensions have risen between Rome and Berlin over the issue, with German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt saying at the weekend that Fiat Chrysler vehicles breaking emissions rules should be recalled and taken off the streets. "This is an inadmissible suggestion. You don't give orders to a sovereign nation like Italy," Italian Transport Minister Graziano Delrio said. Germany last year raised concerns over certain Fiat Chrysler models, including the Fiat 500X, Fiat Doblo and Jeep Renegade, alleging that hidden software allowed excessive emissions by their diesel engines. The issue resurfaced last week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accused Fiat Chrysler of manipulating emissions tests in its Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicles and Ram 1500 pick-up trucks. Fiat Chrysler has denied any wrongdoing. After Italy rejected Germany's allegations last year, Berlin asked the European Commission to mediate in the dispute. Italy's transport ministry said on Monday it had "carried out the necessary checks and sent a detailed report to the German authorities which shows that the Fiat 500X, in contrast to what is claimed by Germany, is in compliance with regulations". It added that the European Commission did not appear to have conducted any tests of its own that would confirm the German allegations. An EU official has told Reuters that the Commission had taken emissions measurements on one rented Fiat 500X model. The Commission last week called on Italy to provide proof against Germany's allegations. Rome on Monday dismissed Commission accusations that it was dragging its feet in the case, saying it has always responded to requests from Brussels in a punctual manner. The Commission could not immediately be reached for comment. Under an emissions testing regime which the Commission is now seeking to overhaul, national watchdogs approve new cars and have the exclusive power to police manufacturers - though once approved in one country, vehicles can be sold across the bloc. Volkswagen AG admitted in September 2015 to installing secret software in hundreds of thousands of U.S. diesel cars to cheat exhaust emissions tests. Earlier this month it said it had negotiated a $4.3 billion draft settlement with U.S. regulators and would plead guilty to criminal misconduct over the issue. As part of a widening clampdown on health-threatening nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution levels in the wake of the VW scandal, the Commission in December began legal action against Germany, Britain and five other EU member states for allegedly failing to police for cheating emissions tests. (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak in Milan and Alissa De Carbonnel in Brussels; Editing by Greg Mahlich) Oil prices settled up on Monday, as Saudi Arabia's commitments to reducing production offset a report forecasting U.S. output would again rise this year. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 32.5 million bpd from Jan. 1 in an attempt to clear a global oversupply that has depressed prices for more than two years. Russia and other key exporters outside OPEC have said they will also cut output. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Monday the country will adhere strictly to its output reduction commitment, expressing confidence that OPEC's plan to prop up prices would work. Benchmark Brent crude oil was up 41 cents a barrel, or 0.7 percent, at $55.86 and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 27 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $52.64 a barrel. But expectations of rising oil output in the United States as well as the U.S. federal holiday on Monday capped price gains. Goldman Sachs said it expects year-on-year U.S. oil production to rise by 235,000 bpd in 2017, taking into account wells that have been drilled and are likely to start producing in the first half of the year. U.S. oil output is now at 8.95 million bpd, up from less than 8.5 million bpd in June last year and generally at levels in 2014, when overproduction sent the market into a tailspin. Falih's words were also not entirely positive. While committing to the cuts, he had also said producers are unlikely to extend their agreement to cut oil output beyond six months, especially if global inventories fall to the five-year average. "We don't think it's necessary given the level of compliance," Falih said at an industry event in Abu Dhabi. "My expectations (are) ... that the rebalancing that started slowly in 2016 will have its full impact by the first half." Investors have doubted that OPEC and its allies can trim output enough to push up prices. Russian oil and gas condensate production averaged 11.1 million bpd for Jan. 1-15, two energy industry sources said on Monday, down only 100,000 bpd from December. Russia has committed to a 300,000-bpd cut during the first half of 2017. "Cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC countries have just started and it will take some time for them to filter through," said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB Markets in Oslo. "We do not really expect the oil price to strengthen much more in the first quarter of 2017." (By Ethan Lou; Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson and Julia Payne in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao) Despite the political tension during and after the presidential campaign, as well as the recent war of words between Rep. John Lewis, (D-GA), and President-elect Donald Trump, Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and author of America: Return to God, is optimistic. My uncle would be very happy with these times because it is forcing America to talk again. We cant be great again until we talk again, King told the FOX Business Networks Neil Cavuto. King then pointed out Rep. Lewis legacy in the civil rights movement. His legacy of civil rights activity is so powerful. He was trained by the best, Martin Luther King, Jr., with my dad A.D. daddy King in how to do nonviolent conflict resolution. But King felt Lewis skills in nonviolent conflict resolution were being underutilized in the current political climate. I dont think hes forgotten, but I dont believe people are inviting him to use those skills, those are the skills that are needed, the negotiation skills, the communication skills. King explained that the debate over Lewis comments is obscuring the John Lewis she knows. The John Lewis I know is a peacemaker. President-elect Trump has said German automakers should start manufacturing cars in the U.S. or they will face a hefty border tax. During an interview with the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said when it comes to preserving and creating American jobs, no company is off limits. Hes been pretty successful with Lockheed, Ford the list is getting pretty long, Spicer said. So, yeah, hes moving over to foreign automakers as well. Trump has threatened to slap a 35% tariff on automakers that plan to manufacture cars in Mexico and sell them in the United States including Toyota (NYSE:TM), GM (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F), and now Germanys BMW. will only get higher. Car companies and others, if they want to do business in our country, have to start making things here again. WIN! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017 The goal is always going to be to fight for America and fight for American workers. Hes not going to stop and hes going to continue to figure out ways, said Spicer. More From Spicer Sean Spicer: Tax reform will be top priority with Obamacare After Trumps election, telecom giant Sprint (NYSE:S), as well as ecommerce leaders Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), announced plans to invest in the U.S. In Spicers opinion, more companies will make clear that they want to be part of Trumps agenda. This is a really positive sign for so many American workers across this country who have given up hope, he said. Broadway star Jennifer Holliday has backed out as a performer at this week's presidential inaugural, saying she did not realize that her participation would be interpreted as a statement of support for President-elect Donald Trump. Holliday, best known for her Tony-winning role in Broadway's "Dreamgirls," faced pressure from fans when it was announced she would sing at a Thursday concert at Washington's Lincoln Memorial. Holliday said in a statement Saturday that she apologized for her lapse of judgment, for being uneducated on the issues and causing heartbreak for her fans. Several prominent entertainers have declined to perform at Trump inaugural festivities. Country star Toby Keith and actor Jon Voigt are in the lineup for Thursday's concert. Keith responded to his critics and indicated he has no plans to change his mind about performing. I dont apologize for performing for our country or military, Keith said in a statement to EW on Friday. I performed at events for previous presidents [George W.] Bush and [Barack] Obama and over 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO. Holliday's reversal was first reported by The Wrap; the publication obtained a letter Holliday wrote to her fans. Her representative, Bill Carpenter, confirmed the details in the letter to The Associated Press. "My only choice must now be to stand with the LGBT Community and to state unequivocally that I WILL NOT PERFORM FOR THE WELCOME CONCERT OR FOR ANY OF THE INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES!" she wrote. "Please know that I HEAR YOU and I feel your pain. The LGBT Community was mostly responsible for birthing my career and I am deeply indebted to you," she added. "You have loved me faithfully and unconditionally and for so many years you provided me with work even though my star had long since faded." In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Holliday defended her decision to perform at the inauguration. "I didn't see it as singing for Trump; I saw it as singing for the people on the mall," Holliday told the AP. JENNIFER HOLLIDAY SEES INAUGURAL GIG AS FOR 'THE PEOPLE,' NOT TRUMP The performer, who most recently starred on Broadway in "The Color Purple," said she was hurt by the angry backlash, which included calls to boycott her music. Others called her "Uncle Tom" and there was even a suggestion that she take her own life. "It just really made my heart drop to my feet," Holliday said. "How could I have this much hate spewing at me, and I haven't even done anything? I guess it's not like those old days when political views were your own and you had freedom of speech. ... We live in a different time now, and a decision to go and do something for America is not so clear-cut anymore." Holliday was to perform at the "Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration" which included Keith, Voight, and Trump himself. The celebrity wattage for Trump's inaugural festivities doesn't rival that of Obama's inaugurations, which attracted top names including Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, Eva Longoria and Jennifer Hudson, among others. But Trump has insisted that's how he wants it, saying the swearing-in festivities should be about the people, not the A-list stars. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Actress Zoe Saldana thinks Hollywood stars' "arrogant" ways are partially to blame for President-elect Donald Trump winning the election. The "Star Trek" actress told AFP that she's learning from Trump's victory "with a lot of humility." "We got cocky and became arrogant, and we also became bullies," she said. Saldana explained that the more Hollywood stars demonized Trump, the more voters started to believe in him. STAR DROPS OUT OF TRUMP INAUGURATION PERFORMANCE "We were trying to single out a man for all these things he was doing wrong...and that created empathy in a big group of people in America that felt bad for him and that are believing in his promises." The 38-year-old suggested that if "people continue to be strong and educate ourselves and stand by equal rights and treat everyone with respect" the country will be OK. 'SNL' BRUTALLY MOCKS TRUMP Fellow Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg echoed Saldana's thoughts after the election. "A lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble," Wahlberg said. "It just goes to show you that people aren't listening to that anyway. They might buy your CD or watch your movie, but you don't put food on their table. You dont pay their bills." An Indianapolis eatery is honoring the lives of two workers who were killed on the job by giving away free meals Monday. Ammar Shatnawi and Wesam Sammour were Jordanian nationals who worked at Jordans Chicken, Fish & Gyrosa local fast food chain. On Jan. 3, two hooded gunman entered Shatnawi and Sammours place of work, jumped the counter and killed the two men as they were closing up the restaurant for the evening. A relative called police around 1 a.m. Wednesday after becoming concerned about them not returning home. Both men were found in the restaurant and, at the time, Police Maj. Richard Riddle said that the attackers killed the workers for "no apparent reason." RESTAURANT WORKER WARDS OFF KNIFE-WIELDING ROBBER WITH SOUP LADLE To honor his slain employees, Sam Saadeh, who owns the Jordans location were the two men were killed, will be giving away free food, starting at lunch time. We have literally a ton of chicken tomorrow, two thousand pounds of chicken wings, Saadeh told Fox 59 Sunday. Everybody is welcome. These victims were not just two restaurant employees. They were brothers, sons, uncles, friends and classmates to a family and they were part of the community not only here in Indianapolis but back home in Jordan, the restaurant owner told reporters. Since the attack and alleged robbery, Saadeh said Jordans has received letters and condolences from, churches, mosques, individuals, businesses, corporations, everybody, supporting his effort to honor Shatnawi and Sammour with free food for all. Were trying to send a message to the public and a message to the community. Were trying to have them stay together and stand together in tough times like this and stop the crimes in the community thats increasing every day. FOR THE LATEST FOOD FEATURES FOLLOW FOX LIFESTYLE ON FACEBOOK We cannot be safe unless we stand together. According to Fox 59, Indianapolis police are still investigating whether the suspected gunmen have been involved in any other recent crimes. The food deal is set to begin at noon CT and will last until every wing has been given away. The Associated Press contributed to this report. More from Fox 59. Official reports on the impact of Zika virus in Colombia appear to dramatically underestimate the number of infants born there with associated birth defects, a new study suggests. The actual number may be at least two times higher than the official estimate and perhaps even higher still, according to the study. The study was published Friday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, a journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was conducted by scientists from the CDC and its Colombian equivalent, the National Institute of Health. The research found there was a fourfold increase in microcephaly cases babies born with a smaller than normal heads and often under-formed brains in Colombia from March to November of this year compared with last year. While there were 110 in that period in 2015, there were 476 in 2016. More From Stat News Colombia declares end of Zika epidemic, as other experts urge caution Colombia has reported only 60 cases of Zika-linked microcephaly to the World Health Organization. The peak in affected births came about 24 weeks after the peak in reported infections in pregnant women and corresponds with the theory that maternal infection in the first trimester or early in the second is the period of highest risk for the developing fetus, said one of the senior authors, Margaret Honein, chief of the CDCs birth defects branch. So we think this is pretty compelling evidence that the increase in microcephaly is linked to the increase in Zika virus disease in these pregnant women, she said. Honein suggested Colombia is following a pattern similar to what Brazil saw. We expect that every country that has a large Zika virus outbreak will have an increase in microcephaly and severe brain abnormalities following that, she said. So Colombia has experienced a significant increase in microcephaly six months after the peak of Zika virus disease in pregnant women. And thats what we would anticipate happening. Asked why the official microcephaly figure differs from the numbers in the study, Honein deferred to Colombia. But she said researchers there are conducting thorough investigations of each suspected case and reporting on those in which there is strong evidence of maternal Zika infection during pregnancy. The study noted that samples were not taken for testing in all cases, and even when samples were taken, sometimes they were not taken quickly enough to find evidence of infection. Neither WHO officials nor Colombian officials responded immediately to requests for comment. Public health experts studying the Zika outbreak have been puzzled by the fact that Brazil where the link between the virus and microcephaly was first noted has seen so many infants with Zika-induced birth defects and other countries have seen, in comparative terms, so few. A report on Zika released by the WHO on Thursday showed 29 countries have reported a total of 2,436 affected births, with 2,211 of them from Brazil. The new study noted that between half and three-quarters of Colombias population lives in parts of the country where Zika hasnt been spreading because of the altitude. In other parts of the country, there has been a definite increase in microcephaly cases. But the condition is difficult to diagnose, and different definitions have been used in different countries, complicating efforts to compare what is happening across borders, Honein said. Additionally, after Brazil raised the alarm about the potential link between Zika and microcephaly, the government of Colombia advised women to consider delaying pregnancy. The number of live births in the country dropped by approximately 18,000 over a nine-month period after that warning was issued, the study authors reported. After a sixth grader was being bullied for shaving his head in support of his grandfather, who has cancer, the schools principal stepped in and volunteered to lose his locks too. "It really struck me," Tim Hadley, principal of Pekin Middle School in Packwood, Iowa, told WTXF. "He's just a kid. He's already going through something with his grandpa." Jackson Johnston, 11, used to have shaggy blonde hair with side-sweeping bangs, The Des Moines Register reported. When he buzzed his hair in support of his grandfather, Rick Wilkerson, students taunted him with comments including, Hey baldy! and You look like a cancer patient. Wilkerson, who goes by Papa Rick in the family, has incurable mantle cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The average age of diagnosis is the mid-60s and its more often diagnosed in men than women, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Jacksons mother, Amber Johnston, called Hadley to voice her concerns. The next day, Hadley called an impromptu assembly and asked Jackson to do the honors of shaving his head. I expect more from our students. I expect support and for us to be there for one another, Hadley told WTXF. Cause you know, we need each other at the end of the day. Health officials said a California Bay Area woman's death was likely caused by bacterial meningitis, which would make it the second fatality linked to the illness in one week. David Robson, Laura Robson's brother, told a local news outlet that his sister had complained of a headache and a slight fever before her death. Robson reportedly was already dead when she was found in the back of a San Francisco Muni bus, which was located in Daly City at the time, NBC Bay Area reported. A preliminary investigation said the 53-year-old's cause of death was likely meningitis, David told the news outlet, but a complete autopsy is being conducted by the San Mateo County Coroners Office. David and his 5-year-old son received antibiotic treatment as a precaution, NBC Bay Area reported. On January 7, Seven Phillips, a 48-year-old San Rafael resident, died of bacterial meningitis. As a precaution, more than 200 individuals who attended classes at the SoulCycle location which Phillips frequented were contacted by the spin studio. Phillips contracted the infection between December 31 and January 7, but did not contract it at the popular fitness studio. No one has reported symptoms so far, the New York Post reported. "While the rider did not contract the infection at our studio, we have nonetheless been in constant communication with the Department of Health which has emphasized that there is no evidence of any health risk to our riders," SoulCycle said in a statement, according to NBC Bay Area. The disease is rare and risk of infection is low. It spreads through respiratory droplets, coughing and sneezing and can stay on surfaces. David told NBC Bay Area that his sister had not attended a SoulCycle class at the studio Phillips had visited. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Seniors with memory problems and related attention and decision-making issues may struggle with driving tasks, according to a Canadian study. Not all patients with mild cognitive impairment, the early stage of memory loss, have issues with driving, the researchers write in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. However, patients with added impairments, such as difficulty with multi-tasking or making quick decisions, are particularly likely to have trouble with tasks like staying in lanes and making left turns in traffic, the researchers write. "Driving is a highly complex task that requires the integration of multiple cognitive functions, such as attention, memory, and visuospatial ability, all of which can be affected by mild cognitive impairment," said senior author Tom Schweizer, director of the neuroscience research program at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. "Despite this, there are no validated tools or guidelines to help assess the driving safety of patients with mild cognitive impairment," Schweizer told Reuters Health by email. To study how mild cognitive impairment affects driving ability, Schweizer and colleagues recruited 24 patients with memory loss. They divided participants into two groups: one group with only memory problems, and another group with other cognitive problems too, such as issues with attention, reasoning/planning, or visual perception. Twenty cognitively healthy participants in the same age range acted as a comparison group. The participants underwent cognitive testing as well as a driving simulation that tested their ability to perform a range of tasks such as driving straight, making turns, and making left turns with oncoming traffic. Overall, patients with mild cognitive impairment committed more than twice as many driving errors as the cognitively healthy drivers. Memory impaired patients were more likely to cross the center line of the road and stray out of the legal driving lane than healthy drivers. They were also more likely to make mistakes turning left with oncoming traffic, but they had no issues with turning right, or turning left with no traffic. When researchers analyzed data on the two groups separately, however, they found that seniors with only memory issues were not more likely than healthy drivers to make errors. Patients with multiple cognitive impairments, however, were at much greater risk of errors, including crossing the center line, missing stop signs, and straying out of the driving lane. These individuals were also much more likely to make errors during left turns. A diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment alone "does not mean that someone should stop driving, but it is important to monitor for declines," said Jennifer Davis, a clinical neuropsychologist at Rhode Island Hospital who studies cognitive issues and driving. Mild impairment is often a symptom of Alzheimer's disease and is likely to get worse over time, "so it is also important to help patients and families identify when it might be time to stop driving," Davis, who was not involved in the study, noted by email. "Families are encouraged to monitor driving by riding with their family member as a passenger," Davis advised, adding, "If concerns arise, be sure to see your doctor and consider taking a formal road test." "These results highlight the importance of physicians talking to their patients about driving, even when cognitive deficits are very mild in nature," said Schweizer. New tools are needed to help doctors better assess driving, he added. If we really want to restore traditional values to our culture we cant rely on the Republicans or the Democrats. Its going to be up to us the folks Hillary Clinton called a basket of deplorables. My new book, The Deplorables Guide to Making America Great Again, is a handbook to how we can reclaim our American heritage and how we can fight back against Social Justice Warriors and secular humanists. Yes. We elected Donald Trump. We saved the Supreme Court. And we're going to defend American sovereignty. But winning was just the beginning. My book offers practical advice on fighting and winning the war on traditional values. My book has been endorsed by a who's who of deplorable Americans including Duck Commander Phil Robertson, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Janet Parshall and Don Wilton, Billy Grahams pastor. Governor Mike Huckabee wrote: "The Deplorables' Guide to Making America Great Again" should be required reading for every high school student and every patriot in America. Page after page Todd reminds us that every generation has a responsibility to defend our freedom. Todd delivers a dose of deep-fried reality served up with a heaping helping of his signature Southern humor." And that's how we're going to do it, America -- with the Bible in one hand and a hefty dose of humor in the other, I show you how we can be Happy Warriors! Click here to get a personally-autographed, limited edition hard cover edition of "The Deplorables' Guide to Making America Great Again." The soft cover edition is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The following column originally appeared in The Hill newspaper and on TheHill.com. Eight years ago this week, I cried. I couldnt hold back the tears as Barack Obama was inaugurated. Its all on tape. I was on television doing political commentary for Fox News Channel. The emotional power of that historic moment was extraordinary. A web of thoughts encompassing everything from the Civil War to Martin Luther King Jr.s dream came rushing up at me like a wave as Obama was sworn in as Americas first black president. For a nation just a century and a half removed from slavery and still a majority white country to recognize a black mans intelligence and character by electing him as our nations leader still strikes me as an incredibly potent event. Last week, the emotions flowed again as President Obama, finishing his second term, made his farewell address. This time it was Obama who cried as he thanked his wife, Michelle, for her grace and grit as the first black First Lady. What got to me emotionally last Tuesday night was when the president spoke about current race relations and the coming presidency of Donald Trump. Obama said there was talk of a post-racial America at the time of his 2008 election but, eight years later, race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society. Yet even with the rise of white nationalism in the 2016 election, Obama is steadfast in his belief that race relations are better than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, no matter what some folks say. To my ears, those words sounded like an updated version of the courageous civil rights-era anthem We Shall Overcome, which was sung in optimism by activists even as they were beaten and jailed for demanding equal rights. In the 2016 version, Obama is reviving the audacity of hope to pump up Americans who see the incoming Trump administration as a harbinger of a new, bleak era of racial division, anger at immigrants and the poor. Obama challenged blacks, Latinos and Asians to make sure to include whites in their movement as they fight the political impulses encouraged by Trumps insulting words about women, Mexicans, immigrants, blacks, and Muslims. That means, he said, talking to the middle-aged white guy who from the outside may seem like hes got all the advantages, but has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change. We have to pay attention and listen. When I saw Obama at the White House Christmas party, I asked him about the effect of television and radio broadcasts that divide Americans, liberal from conservative, urban from rural, affluent from poor, white from non-white: Its destroying the country, he said. In his farewell speech, the president lamented the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste, and quoted our first president, George Washington, as saying Americans needed to reject the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest According to a new Quinnipiac poll out last week, Trump will begin his presidency with a 51 percent disapproval rating and a 37 percent approval rating. President Obama will leave office with a 55 percent approval rating and 39 percent disapproval. Among many people of all colors, but especially black and brown, it is hard to reconcile the presidents high approval rating and hopeful words with the cold hard fact that his successor will be Donald J. Trump. They remember that Trump would never have become a national political figure had he had not stoked false, racist conspiracy theories about Obamas legitimacy as president. According to an Economist/YouGov survey taken last month, half of self-described Trump voters still believe Obama was born in Kenya. He was born in Hawaii. The same Economist/YouGov survey found that 80 percent of Trump voters do not believe that Russia hacked Democratic Party emails to help Trump win. Last week, in a contentious news conference, Trump finally acknowledged that the Russians are to blame. But his long denial has left his supporters dismissive of the facts of Russian foul play. Similarly, Trumps voice often seems to resonate with white nationalists and offer little hope of a search for common racial ground. There is another ingredient in this combustible mix: Democrats are still smarting over the unprecedented, unyielding obstructionism of Obama by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Many on the left want to block Trumps agenda as revenge for the conservative blockade of the first black president. This week is supposed to be about hope and optimism for the nations future, celebrated with inaugural balls and parades. But Trumps divisive political language on race and immigration makes me sad. Polls taken when Obama was inaugurated showed lots of optimism. In his inaugural address, Im praying to hear Trump speak to his trouble with the third of the nation made up of racial minorities and immigrants. Trump can meet with black celebrities such as Steve Harvey all he likes. Given his past words, Id be surprised to see tears of joy from any minorities as he is sworn in. Members of Congress, enraged over the Obama administration's in the United Nations, overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday supporting the U.S. ally. The 342-80 vote calls on the United Nations to repeal with Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem a violation of international law. The Obama administration, breaking with decades of tradition, refused to veto the resolution and allowed it to pass with an abstention from the United States. "Today we put Congress on record objecting to the recent U.N. Security Council resolution that hurt our ally, that hurt Israel, and I believe that puts an enduring peace her out of reach." "Today we put Congress on record objecting to the recent U.N. Security Council resolution that hurt our ally, that hurt Israel, and I believe that puts an enduring peace her out of reach," House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said on the House floor. The status of settlements on the West Bank -- and especially East Jerusalem -- long has been recognized as a major issue that would have to be worked out as part of any lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The resolution passed by the House maintains that the U.N. action undercuts Israel and dims the prospects for those long-sought negotiations. "Honestly, given the many blunders from the Obama administration on the world stage, I guess this most recent action shouldn't be all that surprising," Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) said on the House floor. "But this action is one of the most irresponsible acts ever by an outgoing president. It will be a dark stain on an already disastrous legacy." Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) called Thursday's vote a "good start" but added more will have to be done to repair the damage. "It is shameful that we abandoned our ally and emboldened the Palestinians, passively letting an anti-Israeli resolution pass the U.N. Security Council," he said in a statement. "We cannot continue to denigrate our Israeli friends and the only true democracy in the Middle East." While offering moral support to a longtime ally, the House vote has little practical effect, even if the Senate passes its own resolution as expected in the coming days. The U.N. resolution -- itself non-binding -- cannot be overturned by Congress. And U.N. member states, stocked with Israel-haters, are unlikely to be swayed by the views of American politicians. The resolution enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Majorities of both caucuses voted for the measure, and it had 105 co-sponsors -- including Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee. President-elect Donald Trumps pledge to build a U.S.-Mexico wall has touched off a fierce debate in the U.S. border towns that would be most affected with local Democrats vowing to fight Trump tooth and nail if he proceeds. Mexico is an ally, not an enemy, Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas, told FoxNews.com. It is our second-largest trading partner, and building a wall between two countries with such important ties is a senseless and wasteful exercise." Vela is a colorful Trump critic. He made headlines after calling the president-elect's illegal immigrant policies hateful, dehumanizing, and frankly shameful. In a public letter, he also advised Trump to take your border wall and shove it up your ass. Vela is part of a growing number of Democratic lawmakers bracing for a fight with Trump over his proposed 1,933-mile border wall with Mexico -- one of several big immigration clashes on the horizon. Many Democratic officials in "sanctuary cities" also are preparing to battle Trump over his threat to cut their federal funding. On Wednesday, Trump stood by his promise that the U.S. would begin building the wall immediately after he takes office and force Mexico to pay for it, whether by tax or direct payment. "It's not a fence -- it's a wall," he stressed at a press conference, citing support he heard during his campaign rallies for the plan. "I don't want to wait." Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, in an interview with The Guardian, insisted Mexico "absolutely" will not pay for the project. Stateside, Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar told FoxNews.com he thinks the wall is an antiquated idea. I think we need to secure our border. I just want to do it in a smart way in a way thats efficient, its effective, its something that works instead of just saying a wall, Cuellar said. Its a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. Trumps own pick for secretary of Homeland Security testified Tuesday at his Senate confirmation hearing that a border wall isnt the only answer. A physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly said. He pushed for a layered defense that includes deploying drones to patrol the gaps in the existing wall as well as an increase in Border Patrol agents. House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, has indicated hell offer a bill later this month that supports more fencing and resources to prohibit illegal entry into the United States. In Brownsville, Texas, which shares a border with Matamoros, Mexico, Democratic Mayor Tony Martinez argues Washington is out of touch with conditions on the ground. A trial lawyer by trade, he believes the wall sends the wrong message. Why dont you go to the source of the problem? Martinez said. Lets address real immigration reform. Republicans for years have argued that border security should come before other aspects of immigration reform. Martinez advocates for bi-national talks between the United States and Mexico. The two nations already collaborate closely on security issues and often share intelligence through a partnership forged in 2007 to help stem drug trafficking. Martinez has been invited to Mexico City in February to discuss options between the neighboring countries. As for the wall, Martinez calls it an illusion. Trump still has allies in Congress who support his goal of constructing a complete physical barrier, parts of which already exist. GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, in a FoxNews.com column, urged Trump to follow through on the campaign promise. Local law enforcement, meanwhile, are waiting to see how the debate shakes out. In Cameron County, Sheriff Omar Lucio dislikes the wall idea and blames the media for trumping up security fears. Lucio and his staff of around 100 are responsible for securing 60-70 miles on the most southern tip of Texas. Lucio, who was just elected to his fifth term as sheriff, told FoxNews.com he found it insulting that the majority of Washington lawmakers have never set foot in Texas. He noted his county already has a border barrier in spots and suggested it hasn't helped. Perception becomes reality, he said. Come down here and see for yourself. EXCLUSIVE: Nearly two dozen former top U.S. government officials have urged President-elect Donald Trump to work with Iran's opposition once in office, according to a letter obtained by Fox News. A letter signed by 23 former officeholders calls on Trump to consult with the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The group has called for free elections and freedom of religion in Iran, as well as an end to what it calls Tehran's "religious dictatorship." READ THE LETTER While the Iranian government calls the group terrorists, the NCRIs network of supporters in Iran helped the U.S. with intelligence during the Iraq invasion. The group also helped expose Iran's nascent nuclear weapons program. "Iran's rulers have directly targeted US strategic interests, policies and principles, and those of our allies and friends in the Middle East," the letter reads, in part. "To restore American influence and credibility in the world, the United States needs a revised policy." The letter's signatories include former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani; former Sen. Joe Lieberman; and retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Bill Clinton. IRAN DISSIDENTS SEEKING MEETING WITH TRUMP Last month, Fox obtained a letter to Trump from a group of Iranian dissidents that urged the president-elect to follow through on his campaign promise to revisit the nuclear deal between Iran and six global powers, including the U.S. "I think what's being offered here is to say, 'Look, there is an opposition in Iran,'" former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told Fox News. "It's a lot of different pieces, like all opposition movements [and] a lot of the groups don't get on well together, but let's be clear: There is an alternative to the ayatollahs." The Trump transition team has not given any official response to the letter, and it's unclear whether Trump has any plans to take a meeting with Iran dissidents and groups. Earlier Sunday, Iran's deputy foreign minister told reporters that "the new U.S. administration cannot abandon the deal." Abbas Araghchi added that the agreement "will not be renegotiated" and repeated an earlier warning by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who publicly stated, "If they tear it up, we will burn it," without elaborating. Fox News' Eric Shawn and Ben Evansky contributed to this report. A proposed law that would punish countries that refuse to take back their illegal immigrant criminals is two years too late to save Casey Chadwick, but the Texas congressman behind it figures its the least Washington can do. Chadwick was murdered in 2015 by Jean Jacques, an illegal immigrant from Haiti and one of thousands freed onto U.S. streets each year after they serve prison time because their homelands refuse deportation. But a proposal by Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, the Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act, would force such countries to take back their citizens or risk losing foreign aid and travel visa privileges. The problem is hundreds of Americans are being robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered every year by criminal aliens who are then released back onto the streets because their countries of origins refuse to take them back, Babin said. I have personally met with a number of these victims, or if the victim is deceased, I have met with their families. It is heart-wrenching. Chadwicks case is among the most egregious, Babin said. Jacques was sentenced to 60 years in prison last year for stabbing Chadwick, 25, to death in her Norwich apartment. The killer had been in the U.S. illegally since 1992, had already spent 17 years in prison for attempted murder and possession of a firearm without a permit. He was not deported after serving time, but it was not for lack of U.S. effort. Jacques was listed as a passenger on three charter flights to Haiti in June, August and October of 2012, but each time the Haitian government refused to repatriate him. A 2001 Supreme Court ruling, Zadvydas v. Davis, held that illegal immigrants ticketed for deportation but unaccepted by their home countries cannot be detained indefinitely. Jacques was held for 205 days, but ultimately freed less than six months before he killed Chadwick. For the sake of Casey and thousands of other Americans who have been victimized, it is time we start putting the safety of our citizens first and stop this revolving door that is allowing dangerous criminals who should be deported back onto our streets, Babin said. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in April documented that since 2013, 86,288 illegal immigrants have committed 231,074 crimes after being released from prison. Many of those illegal immigrants are ultimately deported, but some 2,166 who had served their time for various crimes were released last year when their home countries refused to take them back. Babins bill would require the Department of Homeland Security report to Congress every three months the names of uncooperative countries. The federal government would then withhold foreign aid to those countries while the State Department would suspend travel visas. Under President-elect Donald Trump, the bill faces renewed interest because Trump has voiced his strong support for punishing countries that refuse to accept deportations, Babin said. The problem is getting out of hand, agreed Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. There are now more than 20 countries that refuse to cooperate with the U.S., and more than 60 that make the process extremely difficult, Vaughan said. Its not just Cuba and Cambodia anymore; now its China, Bangladesh, Nigeria and many others, she said. The State Department has imposed visa sanctions only once, on Gambia, just a few months ago, which worked right away, Vaughan said. All they had to do was stop issuing visas to Gambian government officials, and they suddenly started cooperating, within weeks, which is fast in the diplomatic context, Vaughan said. Under current law, the State Department must impose sanctions upon request of the Department of Homeland Security, but that rarely happens, said Vaughan. Claude Arnold, a former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, said in past administrations, DHS would raise this issue to the State Department but nothing would ever happen. He believes under this proposed bill, will be more Congressional oversight. The U.S. is the center of international trade. As soon as businesses are not allowed to come to the U.S. to do business internationally, thats all it would take, Arnold said. Those countries would start accepting back their deportees immediately because they would get such pressure from their citizenry who would be hurt financially. Neither the State Department nor the Department of Homeland Security comments on pending legislation. But a State Department official told FoxNews.com facilitating the removal of aliens subject to a final order of removal, particularly those who pose a danger to national security or public safety, is a top priority. Stepped-up diplomatic efforts by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the State Department have resulted in significant increases in cooperation among the 23 countries currently on ICEs Uncooperative list, with nearly half of these countries improving their records of issuing travel documents, accepting charter deportee flights with deportees, and agreeing on formal arrangements for future removals in recent months, the spokesman said. A spokesperson for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said the agency is working through diplomatic channels to ensure that other countries accept the timely return of their nationals in accordance with international law. But Babin said he will fight for tougher restrictions. Many of these countries are getting millions and millions of dollars from the American taxpayer, and then not taking their criminals back, Babin said. Malia Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter for FoxNews.com focused on crime, homeland security, illegal immigration crime, terrorism and political corruption. Follow her on twitter at @MaliaMZimmerman The Clintons are moving ahead with plans to downsize their controversial foundations network of offshoots, a decision carried out as the powerful familys political influence wanes and its once-lengthy donor list shrinks. In a decision announced last week, 22 additional employees are being laid off from the Clinton Global Initiative known for its annual glitzy gathering of high-powered leaders and celebs. The layoffs are tied to a decision to shutter CGI that originally was announced in an Aug. 22 letter from former President Bill Clinton. At the time, the Clintons were under pressure to explain how they would handle potential conflicts of interest with their namesake foundation if Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton were to win the White House. Bill Clinton wrote in his letter at the time: Nine years ago in my book Giving, I wrote, I want to continue these meetings for at least a decade, with the objective of creating a global network of citizen activists who reach across the divides of our interdependent world to build real communities of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, and a genuine sense of belonging. ... That is exactly what CGI, its members, and its dedicated staff have done. Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump -- but the family is proceeding anyway with its CGI plans, and those dedicated staff are getting the ax. The 22 staffers are part of a wave of layoffs. EMAIL DETAILS HOW TOP AIDES HELPED MAKE EX-PRESIDENT RICH Syracuse.com reported on Oct. 4 about a WARN notice announcing 74 employees would be laid off. Another notice was issued on Jan. 12 stating 22 more employees would be let go. WARN is the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers to give 60-days advance notice of business closings. Under the forms Reason for Dislocation section, a staffer wrote: Discontinutation (sic) of the Clinton Global Initative (sic). The layoff date is set for April 15. Its unclear how many employees will be left at CGI after the latest round of layoffs, or if any of those workers will be shifted to other Clinton projects. A spokesperson for the Clinton Foundation declined to comment on the record for this story. CGI, which began in 2005, is not a direct-action charity like the Clinton Foundation, but instead brings power players together to address significant global challenges through their own commitments to action. TOP BILL CLINTON AIDE CRITICIZED EX-PRESIDENT FOR CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, EMAILS SHOW While Hillary Clintons presidential prospects were quashed mere months after Bill Clinton penned his August letter, other factors may have contributed to CGIs ending despite the disappearance of looming conflict-of-interest issues. While the 2011 CGI meeting boasted a roster of 46 sponsors, that number had been cut in half by the final September summit, Politico reported. And since Clintons presidential election loss in November, other donors have cut back or stopped giving to the overarching Clinton Foundation, too. After 10 years and more than $88 million in donations, the Australian government decided against renewing its partnership with the foundation, news.com.au reported. Norway reduced its giving from $20 million in 2015 to $4.2 million in 2016. The final CGI event came only days before anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks released a trove of emails from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Some of the emails, dating as far back as 2008, revealed internal tensions and possible impropriety among the Clintons and CGI insiders. I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi, top Clinton confidant Doug Band wrote in a Nov. 17 email to Podesta in which he referred to Clinton by his initials, WJC. Oddly, wjc does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc. He added: I could add 500 different examples of things like this. EMAILS: CLINTON AIDE SAYS FOUNDATION PAID FOR CHELSEAS WEDDING Chelsea Clinton was appointed to the CGI board in late 2011 and the Podesta emails show there was no love lost between the Clintons daughter and Band, with notes from both sent to Podesta privately excoriating the other. Band, who began as Clintons body man during the White House years, was one of the masterminds behind CGI and played a key role in securing donations for the Clinton Foundation. He continued soliciting clients for the Clintons even after founding his own company, Teneo, in June 2011, according to a memo he wrote addressing his role in the Clintons world. Two of the major clients secured by Band The Coca-Cola Company and Barclays Capital did not sponsor CGI in 2016, Politico reported, despite years of reliably donating to the event. Pamela Taylor thought she was living the American dream when she and her husband bought a two-acre plot of land near the Texas border in Brownsville seven decades ago. She would never have predicted her one-story brick home, surrounded by bright pink bougainvillea bushes and mesquite trees, would become a makeshift crash pad and hideout for border crossers, drug smugglers and human traffickers. Its a way of life now, Taylor told FoxNews.com. They come every day. Taylor, whose property is on the front line of the border battle, says illegal immigrants have been using her land to sneak into the U.S. for years. One day, the 90-year-old grandmother recalled, she even walked into her living room to find a border crosser trying to evade capture. He had come into my house and was just sitting in my rocking chair watching Border Patrol go by, she said. It was terrifying. Another time, drug dealers stashed 30 pounds of marijuana under her bougainvillea bush. Taylor is not alone. On a recent tour of border towns in south Texas, FoxNews.com spoke with residents like Taylor as well as business owners and local law enforcement about the daily fears people face as they live and work in what amounts to disputed territory. Many describe a deteriorating situation where illegal immigration is on the rise but few can do anything about it for fear of retaliation by cartels, human traffickers and even some authorities. Its hard to know who to trust, Taylor said. She added that while she has a good rapport with local law enforcement on the ground, Its the ones who sit in the office they dont care about us. Several residents FoxNews.com spoke to near the border say they feel forgotten. We live here, we work here and raise our children here but every day we see [border crossers, drug smugglers] and nothing changes, said McAllen resident Milo, who asked FoxNews.com not to use his last name out of safety concerns. Ive seen [drug and human trafficking] scouts on our street with Border Patrol parked down the road. They dont do anything. He also said he's seen "SUVs sitting in front of the house" after reporting suspicious activity. As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, vowing a ramp-up in border and immigration enforcement -- and the construction of a controversial U.S.-Mexico border wall -- the outgoing Obama administration has taken some steps to boost enforcement. U.S. Customs and Border Protection last year dispatched 150 more agents to police the southwestern border. But Taylor said her area still is used as a "funnel" for people illegally crossing the border. Some paddle across the river while others hide in the field waiting for their coyote or smuggler to pick them up. Some stroll in through a gigantic gap in the border barrier near her house. Taylor says she always calls the authorities to report criminal activity on her property, including when she found the marijuana stash. But she also said she worries she could be putting herself and her family in danger. In south Texas, Mexican and South American cartels have been able to infiltrate law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Several former law enforcement officials from an anti-narcotics force in the Rio Grande Valley are currently serving lengthy prison sentences for drug crimes and corruption. In 2016, Border Patrol agent Joel Luna was charged with capital murder for the March 2015 beheading of an undocumented Honduran immigrant. Luna, a south Texas native and Army combat veteran, allegedly decapitated Palacio Paz and left his headless body floating in the bay. Prosecutors claim Luna was part of a cartel drug trafficking conspiracy with his brothers. Luna has pleaded not guilty. In November, Border Patrol agent Eduardo Bazen Jr., also was arrested after being accused of working with a drug trafficking organization. According to the criminal complaint, Bazen said he was paid $8,000 for falsifying a 2007 drug bust and admitted to lying about suspects being present at the scene. The drug trade even more so than human trafficking has skyrocketed in recent years along the border. In fiscal 2016, nearly 1.3 million pounds of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines were seized along the southwest border, according to U.S. Border Patrol. Cameron County Sheriffs Office Lt. Robert Rodriguez told FoxNews.com the cartels are constantly reinventing ways to smuggle drugs into the U.S. They change tactics all the time, he said, adding that drug runners are now using large makeshift rafts to float trucks, fully loaded with drugs, across the Rio Grande. They always seem to be one step ahead. As for residents living along the border, some have sold their property and moved. For Taylor, thats not an option. Why should I move? I havent done anything wrong," she said. Instead, she locks her doors but leaves food and water out for anyone who needs it. I always ask Are you hungry? she said. I will feed them but they know I will also be calling Border Patrol. Liberal groups are calling on senators who got contributions from President-elect Donald Trump's education secretary pick to recuse themselves from voting on her confirmation drawing accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans who note Democrats never recused themselves in similar situations. In a letter to 21 Republican senators, to whom nominee Betsy DeVos has given almost $1 million in campaign donations, Generation Progress and other left-wing groups called for them to recuse themselves or risk imperiling the legitimacy of DeVos confirmation. DeVos, a strong advocate for school choice, has her Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for Tuesday. In addition to these individual campaign contributions, DeVos and her family contributed $2.25 million during the fall campaign to the Senate Leadership Fund, and have also given $900,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. That comes out to a $4 million bid to influence you, the letter says. Generation Progress is an arm of the Center for American Progress. But Republicans are pushing back, arguing that previous Obama Cabinet picks had donated to Democratic politicians and causes, and Democrats cast confirmation votes anyway. Penny Pritzker, Obamas now-Commerce secretary, was a bundler for Obamas 2012 re-election bid, collecting more than $1 million in campaign donations. The Wall Street Journal reported she also raised more than $250,000 for him in 2008, when she served as finance chair of his campaign. Pritzker had also donated roughly $20,000 to at least 20 of the 51 Democrats who voted on her confirmation on June 25, 2013. In 2009, she also made a $28,340 donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to Open Secrets. Sally Jewell, Obamas now-Interior secretary, had also donated to a number of Democratic senators who voted on her 2013 confirmation, including $4,250 to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. who introduced her nomination. Republicans denounced what they saw as a shameless double-standard. "The hypocrisy of Democrats and their liberal allies is truly shameless. Where was their outrage when Democrats voted for Obama cabinet nominees who donated to his and their campaigns?" Raj Shah, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, told FoxNews.com. While the amounts donated by Pritzker and Jewell dont hit the same numbers as DeVos donations, her supporters describe the situations as similar. If you accept the faulty premise that political contributions create a conflict of interest, then any amount is problematic, Ed Patru, spokesman for Friends of Betsy DeVos, told The Washington Post. I dont remember a single Democrat, citing conflicts of interest, recusing themselves from a vote on billionaires like Penny Pritzker. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday previewed his ObamaCare replacement plan -- in an apparent effort to take the lead in the growing GOP effort to simultaneously repeal and replace the 2010 health care law. Paul, who was a 2016 presidential candidate, said the bill that he and other congressional Republicans have crafted attempts to insure the most amount of people, give access to the most amount of people, at the least amount of cost." Paul, a physician, has emerged in recent weeks as a leader in the repeal-replace effort, amid Republican concerns that fulfilling campaign vows to dismantle ObamaCare at the start of the 115th Congress could leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured. Incoming Republican President Donald Trump has expressed similar concerns, despite campaigning on a winning repeal-replace agenda. Paul tweeted on Jan. 6: "I just spoke to (Trump) and he fully supports my plan to replace ObamaCare the same day we repeal it. The time to act is now." The Republican-led Congress has already taken votes toward repealing ObamaCare under a process known as budget reconciliation, which effectively keeps Democrats from blocking the effort and requires only a simple majority for passage. Among the other Senate Republicans trying slow the repeal process, to synch with a replacement plan, are Susan Collins, Maine; Bob Corker, Tennessee; Rob Portman, Ohio; and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Paul suggested Sunday that the replacement plan will include more low-cost insurance plans "One of the key reforms that we will do is, we're going to legalize the sale of inexpensive insurance," he told CNNs State of the Union." That means getting rid of the ObamaCare mandates on what you can buy. Paul last week announced some of the early details of the plan on Fox News' "Special Report" with Bret Baier. Paul said his plan borrows from previous GOP replacement plans and appears to have consensus among congressional Republicans. "The ideas that we've taken for the replacement bill come from other Republicans' bills," he told Fox. Paul said Sunday the plan also will include health saving accounts and tax credits to help customers save money. He also suggested the plan will allow people and small businesses to create their own markets. "There's no reason why (a business owner) with four employees shouldn't be able to join with hundreds and hundreds of other businesses that are small to become a large entity to get leverage to bring your prices down," Paul said. However, he acknowledged rolling back Medicaid expansion as part of the ObamaCare repeal remains a big question. Many Americans got coverage under Medicare expansion in states. On the issue of Rex Tillersons effort to become the next secretary of state, Paul said hell support the former ExxonMobil CEOs bid. "Yes, I will vote for Rex Tillerson," said Paul, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holding the confirmation hearings. I was very impressed." President-elect Donald Trump revealed in an interview with The Washington Post that hes almost finished with a plan to replace ObamaCare and vowed to have insurance for everybody. Trump declined to reveal the pertinent details of the new health care plan, but told The Post in the interview published Sunday night that drug companies will be forced to negotiate on Medicare and Medicaid prices. He also plans to fight pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. The president-elect insisted that his plan for replacing the Affordable Healthcare Act is all but finished, and added that care would have lower numbers, much lower deductibles. He went as far to say that hes ready to reveal it alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Its very much formulated down to the final strokes. We havent put it in quite yet, but were going to be doing it soon, Trump said during the interview with the paper. He added that hes still waiting for Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to be confirmed as his secretary for health and human services. A hearing for his confirmation has yet to be scheduled. PAUL PREVIEWS OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT PLAN FOCUSING ON LOWER COST POLICIES Congressional Republicans took the first big step last week in their seven-year trek to dismantle President Obamas health care law, passing a budget that would ease the passage of a bill that would replace ObamaCare. The budget the Senate approved it Thursday bars Democratic senators from blocking that future legislation with a filibuster. The budget "gives us the tools we need for a step-by-step approach to fix these problems and put Americans back in control of their health care," Ryan, R-Wis., said after the vote. Though Trump wants a quick repeal and replace of the law, theres likely to be months of debate and infighting before the new law could be passed. Much of Friday's debate underscored the sharp-elbowed politics of the issue. "People in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio -- screwed," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., citing places where he said voters would suffer from the health law's repeal which also were normally reliably Democratic states that Trump won on Election Day. Continuing the theme of highlighting Trump voters, Jeffries added, "People in Appalachia and rural America -- screwed." Democrats praised the law for extending coverage to tens of millions of Americans and helping many millions more afford policies and buy prescriptions. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said rather than "repeal and replace," Republicans should name their effort "repeal and repent" because of the harm they were about to cause to voters. No. 3 House GOP leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana aimed his rhetoric at Democrats defending one of Obama's proudest legislative achievements, a law that Republicans say missed its goals of cutting consumers' medical costs and increasing access to doctors. "This should not be about preserving somebody's legacy," Scalise said. "It should be about fulfilling those promises to the American people that were broken." THOUSANDS ATTEND US RALLIES TO SUPPORT OBAMA HEALTH LAW Approval of the budget means Senate Democrats won't be allowed to filibuster the future repeal-and-replace bill a pivotal advantage for Republicans. They control the Senate 52-48, but it takes 60 votes to end filibusters, which are endless procedural delays that can scuttle legislation. Congressional Republicans have made annulling Obama's law and replacing it a top goal for the past seven years. GOP rifts and an Obama veto prevented them from achieving anything other than holding scores of votes that served as political messaging. Trump insists that the new law will be better despite worries from Congress and the possibility of putting 20 million Americans at risk of losing their health coverage. Were going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from The Washington Post. President-elect Donald Trump vowed over the weekend to quickly work out a trade deal with Britain in a bid to help smooth the country's path out of the European Union -- further strengthening ties with the Brexit movement he lauded during his campaign. At the same time, in an interview with The Times of London published Sunday, Trump also riled European leaders by dismissing the E.U. as a vehicle for Germany. Trump ripped German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to welcome more than a million Syrian refugees into her country. While Trump said he had great respect for Merkel, he accused her of making a catastrophic mistake, which triggered Brexit. [I]f they [EU countries] hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit," he said. Trump used the interview to again endorse the Brexit decision to leave the E.U., saying he was a "big fan" of the U.K. Amid widespread questions over how the U.K. will re-establish trade ties with international partners once it leaves, Trump vowed to work out a U.S.-U.K. agreement soon: "Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides." Trump's remarks stand in contrast to President Obama's warning before the June vote that Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal if it voted to leave. The president-elect also showed indifference to the E.U. as a whole: You look at the European Union and its Germany. Basically a vehicle for Germany. Thats why I thought the U.K. was so smart in getting out. Trump has spoken positively of the Brexit decision in the past, and repeatedly compared it to his own populist campaign. But his latest remarks, in which he predicted Brexit is going to end up being a great thing, along with the promise of a trade deal, were greeted with particular enthusiasm by pro-Brexit politicians. "It's very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast and it's great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump," U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told reporters Monday in Brussels. I was delighted to hear Mr. Trump speak so positively about Brexit, U.K. Independence Party MP Douglas Carswell told FoxNews.com. It means so much to me -- and to the millions of Brits who voted to leave the EU. It is good to know that our American ally will help us make it work. Trumps remarks come as Prime Minister Theresa May is set to make a major speech on the subject Tuesday, in which she is expected to call for a so-called hard Brexit -- in which Britain will also leave the E.U.s single market and customs union in order to assure control over Britains borders. Carswell, whose party was instrumental in the campaign to leave the E.U., said that Trumps comments are likely to have a significant impact in breaking down the fierce European opposition to Brexit. If there is a U.S./U.K. trade deal based on mutual standard recognition, far from the EU trying to impose protectionist barriers on us, they might even actually ask if they too could be part of something similar, he said. Trump also said some NATO partners arent paying enough into the alliance, and repeated his past accusation that the alliance is obsolete. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much, he said. Trumps comments on Europe immediately drew criticism from European politicians. Merkel said, "I think we Europeans have our fate in our own hands when asked about Trumps comments Monday morning. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Trumps NATO comments had caused astonishment both in Brussels and with NATO leaders. First, it goes against the statements of the nominated defense secretary a few days ago. We have to see what it will yield in terms of U.S. foreign policy. The same goes for the statements on trade policy, he said, according to the Wall Street Journal. We count on the U.S. to stick to its international obligations, including in the World Trade Organization. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on European leaders to remain united. As is the case with Brexit, the best way of defending Europe, which is rather what Mr. Trump has invited us to do, is to remain united, to remain as a bloc, not to forget that the strength of the Europeans lies in their unity, he said, according to the Journal. However, Carswell indicated there may be some support for Trumps stances in Britain. Europe needs to start meeting its responsibilities as part of the wider West -- and post-Brexit Britain can be part of making that happen, he said. In the wide-ranging interview, Trump also expressed hope that the U.S. can make some good deals with Russia, including reducing nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions. The incoming White House press secretarys repeated suggestions that reporters covering a Trump administration may be moved out of the executive mansion left the White House Correspondents Association vowing Sunday to fight such a change. We object strenuously to any move that would shield the president and his advisers from the scrutiny of an on-site White House press corps, WHCA President Jeff Mason said in a statement. Mason, a White House correspondent for Reuters, also said he would meet Sunday with incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer in an attempt to get more clarity on exactly what they are suggesting. The briefing room is open now to all reporters who request access, he said. We support that and always will. The WHCA will fight to keep the briefing room and West Wing access to senior administration officials open. Spicer told Fox News Media Buzz hours earlier that the potential change is in response to the off the chart demand to cover Trump. To be sure, the wealthy businessman and first-time candidates unexpected White House victory is among the most compelling stories in U.S. political history. But Trumps repeated arguments that much of the mainstream media is dishonest and unfair to him has led to concerns that hell deny reporters the traditional levels of White House access. I think sometimes change is scary, Spicer told Fox News. But change can be good, and good for the better. He said thousands of reporters have sought White House credentials for a briefing room that has space for just 49 people. Lets try it for the first few weeks, maybe we see what the demand is, see what the upsides are, Spicer continued. The idea that you can involve more people, be more transparent and have more accessibility should be seen as a welcome change. Spicer earlier told Esquire magazine that another possibility was moving the press corps to the White House Conference Center, near Lafayette Square. Gene Cernan, an early NASA astronaut who was the last man to set foot on the moon, died Monday, NASA announced in a tweet. He was 82. Details of Cernan's death were not immediately known. We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. https://t.co/Q9OSdRewI5 pic.twitter.com/gPdFTnXF2C NASA (@NASA) January 16, 2017 Cernan was the commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972 the last lunar mission and one of the final Apollo flights. When Cernan stepped out from lunar module Challenger he became the 11th person to walk on the moon. His lunar module pilot, Jack Schmitt, was the 12th. But as commander, Cernan was the last to re-enter the lunar module, giving him the designation of being the last person to walk on the lunar surface. His words would not become as famous as Neil Armstrong's first sentence spoken from the moon, however, Cernan's final goodbye to the moon was just as poetic. "...America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow," Cernan said. "And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17." In the 2007 documentary "In The Shadow Of The Moon," Cernan spoke of the epiphany he experienced while standing on the desolate -- yet majestic -- surface. "There is too much purpose, too much logic, it was just too beautiful to happen by accident," Cernan said. "There has to be somebody bigger than you and bigger than me...And I mean this in a spiritual sense, not in a religious sense, there has to be a creator of the universe who stands above the religions that we ourselves create to govern our lives." Cernan had previously served as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 10 and was a pilot on the Gemini IX mission. On the Apollo 10 flight, Cernan and Commander Tom Stafford flew to within eight miles of the surface of the moon. The May mission served as a "dress rehearsal" for the historic Apollo 11 mission two months later. Cernan became the second American to walk in space on the Gemini IX mission in 1966. We mourn the loss of our friend Gene Cernan, the Last Man on the Moon and a hero for the ages. Godspeed the Commander of Apollo 17. pic.twitter.com/pRQtpkQkW6 SmithsonianAirSpace (@airandspace) January 16, 2017 Cernan logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, of which 73 hours were spent on the surface of the moon, according to NASA. Born in Chicago in 1934, Cernan received an electrical engineering degree from Purdue and a Masters of Science in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. A captain in the Navy, he was selected in NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1976. Cernan's death leaves six astronauts remaining who have walked on the moon. A team of teenage Mexican students have come up with an invention that is turning quite a few heads: an electronic spoon that heats up your meal one spoonful at a time or reheats it all at once if you choose to stir it. hey are hoping their innovation can offer an easy solution for hungry consumers on the go. The PoliCuchara (PolySpoon), designed as part of their freshman year Creative Development course at Mexico Citys National Polytechnic Institute, won first prize at a countrywide innovation fair last week, and has already been patented by the school. Equipped with three 9-volt batteries inside the wooden handle, the spoons ladle reaches up to 140 F, enough to heat a meal but not enough to burn the user. The innovative new tool allows a hungry consumer to heat anything from soup, rice, pasta and other bite-sized pieces of food in the time it takes for a microwave to perform the same task. We came up with the idea while riding the Mexico City subway, said Maria Caudillo, 15, the youngest member of the four-girl team, whose electrical engineering studies allowed the idea to become reality in just two months of twice-weekly classes. So many commuters bring food with them on public transport, but have to wait until they reach a place with a microwave oven if they want a hot meal, she told FoxNews.com. The idea for a thermoelectric spoon seemed obvious to us. Microwaves focus energy on heating water molecules, which leaves the food soggy, and besides that, they arent always available, said Andrea Moreno, 17, who believes the product could become a bestseller in Mexico. We wanted to design something portable which would deliver reliable results. The spoon has a single heat setting and users can choose between heating their meal fully ready for eating, or warming each individual mouthful as they go. The batteries can last up to a month of daily use twice a day. We took the product to the streets and the people we interviewed loved it, said Cinthia Padilla, 16, who discovered in the course of her inquest that roughly half of Mexicans take homemade packed lunches to work or school, the majority in Tupperware-style containers. We were very encouraged by our market research, and with a few changes we hope to be able to sell the PolyCuchara commercially soon, she told FoxNews.com. It would be wonderful to see people using an invention of ours in their everyday lives. With the help of the college and a few modernizing adjustments to the spoon, the girls are hoping to bring the PolySpoon to the Mexican market by mid-2017 to retail at $10 apiece. The manufacturing costs are just $3.50 per unit. We will have to install a rechargeable battery and make it look a bit neater, but we believe it will appeal throughout Mexican society and that it will sell, said Tania Yolotzin, 17, who designed the new products logo. Babies, hospitals, office workers, school children; there are a lot of potential users. It could even be used as a hair curler when the user has finished eating, she joked. It has been designed by Mexicans, with Mexicans in mind. Im extremely proud of the students, said their teacher Maria Rivera, who had encouraged the 22 design teams in her classroom to solve problems they face in their everyday lives. It bodes well for their futures that they have already gained such nationwide recognition for their work, and after less than a semester at the college. Other teams in the girls class came up with a blow-operated microwave system, aromatherapy-infused pet toys and a walking cane that allows users to answer phone calls hands free, via Bluetooth, preventing loss of balance while fumbling in pockets to find the phone. The National Polytechnic Institute, a Mexican state-run trade school for students from underprivileged backgrounds, has a long history of innovation and invention. The institute is responsible for color television, weight-loss chocolate, the air-cleaning light bulb and a phone charger that uses the kinetic energy from knee movement to replenish a cell phone battery. We have a lot more ideas for innovative products, said Andrea Moreno, but they will be surprises later on. For the moment its very satisfying to put all our energy into this to see how far it can go. Looking for a way to spend your extra day off this weekend while honoring a Civil Rights icon? This year, U.S. residents might consider visiting a few of the many locations where the activist and preacher Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired thousands, leaving an indelible mark on American civic life. One of the most prominent U.S. Civil Rights leaders, King was instrumental in ensuring voting rights and desegregation policies for African-American people throughout the country. Given his dedication to pacificism and refusal to fight violence with violence, he became a broader symbol of peaceful protest, a reminder of the change that individuals can make in an unjust society. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is also a moment to remember the many thousands of other students, preachers, and activists who risked their safety to secure a better life for African-Americans. Rep. John Lewis, who is still a congressman in Georgia, walked with King in a march in Selma and suffered a fractured skull when law enforcement attacked. Medgar Evers, who worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, was shot dead in his home in 1963. Viola Liuzzo, a woman who traveled to Alabama in 1965 to help with the boycotts and marches, was killed by the Ku Klux Klan a few weeks shy of her 30th birthday. King was simply a representative of what was a mass movement, David J. Garrow, author a Pulitzer prize-winning King biography, told Travel + Leisure. He would not have wanted a memorial to the movement that singled him out rather than representing multiple people. Atlanta, Georgia Travelers can start at the beginning by taking a visit to the two-story childhood home of King in Atlanta, Georgia. The house at 501 Auburn Ave recently reopened after repairs in order to welcome visitors on the anniversary of King's birthday Monday. Visitors to King's home can also take a brief walk to the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church where his father was a preacher and where King himself would be ordained as a minister in 1948. After lunch at a one of Atlanta's many great restaurant options, admirers of King's life can pay respects to his grave site and memorial. Washington, D.C. The newly opened National Museum of African-American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is a must-see. The expansive collection tracks the cultural and historical contributions of African-American people from the birth of the country until the present day. Artifacts include Harriet Tubman's prayer book and shawl, Chuck Berry's Cadillac, and the casket of Emmett Tilla 14 year-old boy whose gruesome murder helped spark the Civil Rights movement. While there is an entire section of the museum devoted to the Civil Rights movement, King artifacts are conspicuously missing. His former attorney Clarence Jones blames King's children, Bernice, Martin III and Dexter who have a history of demanding exorbitant fees for the use and display of their father's items, the Chicago Tribune reported. Visitors to the museum can still learn about King's legacy through other exhibits, including a documentary video entitled "August 28," by award-winning director Ava Duvernay that delves into King's I Have a Dream speech, among other historical events that occurred on the same day. The museum is situated on the National Mall, where King made his " I Have a Dream Speech," in 1963. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy, he told thousands of supporters stretching toward the Washington Monument. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of Gods children. Memphis, Tennessee King was shot and killed the night of April 4, 1968 while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. An escaped convict shot King when he was staying in town to organize around the issue of economic equality for sanitation workers, and he was pronounced dead upon arrival to the local hospital. He was 39 years-old. Since then, a complex of buildings including the motel have been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum. Visitors can see the room where King was staying the night of his death and explore a variety of exhibits related to the 1960s Civil Rights movement as well as the history of American slavery. Selma and Montgomery, Alabama Upon hearing of Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus, King went to Montgomery, Alabama, where he helped lead bus boycotts and other demonstrations, aimed at dismantling the systematic segregation of African-Americans in public spaces In 1965, King and hundreds others attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery in a demonstration for voting rights. State and local authorities met the demonstrators with violent resistance on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, severely injuring dozens of people in graphic footage that was shown on the nightly news, in an event that became known as Bloody Sunday. King and his supporters would eventually complete their march, with the protection of national guardsmnen. While both Montgomery and Selma have a limited number of well-preserved historical sites, both are part of the Alabama Civil Rights museum trail and visitors can make their own pilgrimage to the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Birmingham, Alabama This southern city was also a focal point of King's organizing, and it includes several monuments as well as a series of historical placards throughout the town that allow visitors to make their own guided walking tour. Birmingham is far and away my strongest recommendation, King historian David J. Garrow said. Present-day Birmingham is also a really nice destination city. Historic sites include 16th street Baptist church, where Ku Klux Klan members planted a bomb during services in 1963, killing four young girls. The nearby Gaston Motel served as an impromptu headquarters for King during his time in Birmingham, and was also the site of a bombing. King spent several days in Birmingham Jail for organizing a protest, and it was during this time that he wrote his seminal "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," an open letter that became one of the best-known documents of his era.. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom, he wrote. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. A former senior executive at Haiti's state-run telecommunications company was sentenced Monday to nine years in federal prison for money laundering offenses tied to nearly $500,000 in bribes he accepted from U.S. businesses. U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez imposed the sentence on 45-year-old Jean Rene Duperval, who was international relations director for eight months in 2003 and 2004 at Telecommunications D'Haiti, better known as Haiti Teleco. Duperval was found guilty of money laundering offenses by a U.S. jury in March, one of eight people convicted so far in a massive case brought by the Justice Department under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. One former U.S. telecommunications executive, Joel Esquenazi, received a 15-year sentence, the longest ever imposed under that anti-corruption law, federal prosecutors said. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Koukios said Duperval's crimes were notable because he came from a prominent Haitian family with access to wealth and advantage. He was appointed to the Haiti Teleco position in 2003 by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "This is a person who didn't have to steal. He didn't have to take that money. But he did," Koukios said. "That was money for the people of Haiti. It wasn't for Mr. Duperval." Trial evidence showed the payments were intended to give certain U.S. telecommunications companies favorable rates and contracts with Haiti Teleco. One of Duperval's predecessors as Haiti Teleco international relations director, Robert Antoine, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty and admitting he received more than $1 million in similar bribes. Testifying in his defense, Duperval insisted the payments through shell companies he controlled from Miami-based Cinergy Telecommunications and Terra Telecommunications were not bribes but only "tokens of appreciation" for doing his job well. Martinez called that testimony "ludicrous" before finding Duperval had committed perjury on the witness stand, grounds for adding to his sentence. Duperval, who used the bribe money for personal expenses such as mortgage payments and children's education costs, also was ordered to forfeit more than $433,000 in assets. He did not speak at Monday's hearing but his wife, Ingrid Duperval, asked for mercy. Duperval, has three children and a home in Miramar, Fla. "He is the best father, the best son, the best husband, any woman could dream to have," she said. The Haitian corruption case is far from over and recently has been shadowed by violence. A former Haiti Teleco director general, Patrick Joseph, pleaded guilty in February to a money laundering conspiracy charge and agreed to testify about sharing bribery payments with other senior Haitian officials. The former president, Aristide, has not been charged in the case. Shortly after word spread about Joseph's plea deal, unidentified gunmen on motorcycles fatally shot his father, Venel Joseph, at the wheel of his car on a Port-au-Prince street. That slaying remains unsolved. Joseph was director of Haiti's Central Bank during Aristide's second term from 2001 to 2004, when he was forced out of office. Aristide afterwards lived in exile in Africa until returning in 2011 to Haiti. _____ Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt Neighbors knew them for years as a church-going mother and her polite teenage daughter before police swarmed Gloria Williams' home in this small, quiet South Carolina city. Williams, 51, was arrested on kidnapping charges. Then came the real shocker: Police identified the victim as the 18-year-old woman Williams had raised as her daughter. Investigators said DNA analysis proved she had been stolen as an infant from a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. "She wasn't an abused child or a child who got in trouble," a stunned Joseph Jenkins said of the young woman who lived across the street. "But she grew up with a lie for 18 years." COLD CASE CRACKED: NEWBORN KIDNAPPED IN 1998 FOUND ALIVE AND WELL IN SC She grew up as Alexis Manigo, but has now learned she was born as Kamiyah Mobley. Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams described her Friday as being in good health but emotionally overwhelmed. Tesha Stephens, a cousin of Willams', said the young woman had much to think about. "She's probably going to have to take this day-by-day," Stephens told reporters outside Williams' home. Mobley got to spend a few emotional moments with Williams, who is also charged with interference with custody, after her arrest. She cried "Momma" through the caged window of a security door after Williams waived extradition to Florida, according to WXJT-TV, which posted a video online. Meanwhile, the young woman's birth family cried "tears of joy" after a detective told them their baby had been found. Within hours Friday, they were able to reconnect over FaceTime. "She looks just like her daddy," her paternal grandmother, Velma Aiken of Jacksonville, told The Associated Press after they were able to see each other for the first time. "She act like she been talking to us all the time. She told us she'd be here soon to see us." Mobley was only eight hours old when she was taken from her young mother by a woman posing as a nurse at University Medical Center. A massive search ensued, with helicopters circling the hospital and the city on high alert. Thousands of tips came in over the years, but she had disappeared. THE WEEK IN PICTURES Some months ago, the young woman "had an inclination" that she may have been kidnapped, the sheriff said. Authorities didn't say why she suspected this. The case broke thanks to a tip received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said Robert Lowery, a center vice president. He would not say from whom the tip came. But the center soon reached out to the cold case detectives at the sheriff's office, and Mobley provided a swab of her cheek for DNA analysis that proved the match, the sheriff said. "This was something brand new to all of us," said Stephens, Williams' cousin. The center has tracked 308 infant abductions since 1983 by nonfamily members in the U.S. Of those cases, 12 were still missing at the end of last month. That's now one number smaller. The woman has been provided with counseling, the sheriff said. Meanwhile, Aiken is thrilled to know that they can speak with each other as much as they want. "I always prayed, 'Don't let me die before I see my grandbaby'," said Aiken. "My prayer was answered." The family never forgot the little girl ripped from her mother's arms that day in 1998. Her mother, Shanara Mobley, told the Florida Times-Union newspaper on the 10th anniversary of the kidnapping that on every one of Kamiyah's birthdays, she wrapped a piece of birthday cake in foil and stuck it in her freezer. "It's stressful to wake up every day, knowing that your child is out there and you have no way to reach her or talk to her," Mobley told the paper in 2008. News moved quickly through the community of about 5,100 people early Friday after police cars swarmed Williams' home. Jenkins said he awoke to see officers searching the house and the shed around back. "At the fish market, the hair dresser, the gas station, they're all talking about it," said Ruben Boatwright, who said he's known Williams for about 15 years. Lakeshia Jenkins, Joseph's wife, said Williams and the girl would often come over for cookouts in the yard, or join their family at a nearby water park. Kamiyah seemed to be well cared for, and "Ms. Williams, she seemed like a normal person," Jenkins said. "She went to work, came back here and went to church every Sunday," she said. Williams also worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs' hospital in Charleston, volunteered in the area for Habitat for Humanity and lead the youth program at a Methodist church, she said. "She's very intelligent, smart as a whip," Boatwright said. "All I can say are good things about her." Police and fire rescue crews are on the scene after three people were shot and five others were injured at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. .@MiamiDadePD officers carry a woman that appeared to have been shot at the MLK Jr. Memorial Park in #Miami. pic.twitter.com/1u8LWbMLb2 WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) January 16, 2017 Miami-Dade Police was among the multiple agencies that responded to the scene of the shooting at 6011 N.W. 32nd Avenue, in Northwest Miami-Dade, Monday just before 4 p.m. At around 5:20 p.m., Miami-Dade Police tweeted out that they had detained two people and recovered two weapons from the scene. MLK parade and festival in NW Miami Dade turns into shooting scene. @wsvn pic.twitter.com/eG0lznurPN Ann Keil (@ann_keil) January 16, 2017 All three shooting victims were transported to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. One of these victims was transported as a trauma alert. 7News reporter Ann Keil and photographers were about 100 feet away from the scene of the shooting, along Northwest 32nd Avenue and Northwest 62nd Street. They heard between four and six shots. Moments later, the news crew saw displaced children crying after losing their parents when a stampede of attendees ran away from the scene in search of safety. Many police officers were seen carrying small children away from the scene. As all of this was going on, parade-goers were seen ducking for cover underneath vendor tables and behind walls. Around 4 p.m., several law enforcement agencies and fire rescue vehicles were seen flooding the area. At one moment, MDPD officers were seen at a nearby house with their guns drawn. It is unclear if this is related to the shooting at the park. According to Keil, at least two women looked like they had been shot in the leg. Officers were seen picking up these victims by hand and carrying them away to safety. Moments later, a man was seen on the floor in handcuffs. Click for more from WSVN. The civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. famously pursued equality through peaceful protest, but many 21st century activists have said they want to "reclaim" him under a different image: as a forceful "radical." MISSISSIPPI MAYOR HOPES TO HONOR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR 'RIGHT WAY' AFTER CONTROVERSY The Chicago branch of Black Lives Matter pushed the #ReclaimMLK hashtag on Twitter, claiming Martin Luther King Day would allow activists to "engage about the real radical King they don't want you to know about!" "We do King a disservice when we try to tell a flat story of turning the other cheek," said 31-year-old Charlene Carruthers, national director of the Black Youth Project 100 in Chicago. "It was never simply that." OPINION: CAL THOMAS ON 'BLACK AMERICA SINCE MLK' King's niece, the activist, author and Fox News contributor Alveda King, said protesters should not push his civil disobedience successes into the background. "Let's discuss racism from a peace with justice perspective," she tweeted ahead of Martin Luther King Day. Younger black activists say they prefer the pointed, more forceful King to the Nobel Prize-winning pacifist who preached love over hate while leading nonviolent marches across the segregated South. They say they appreciate how the urgency exhibited in King's demand for equality in the years just before his 1968 assassination is in keeping with the Black Lives Matter rallying cry. "There is a Martin Luther King that is important to the resistance movement that we don't hear about," Abdul Aliy-Muhammad, the 33-year-old co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Collective in Philadelphia, told The Associated Press. "We always hear about love and forgiveness. ... There was also a King who was radical." As Carruthers sees it, "agitation" was the core of King's work. "Their agitation shows up differently than how our agitation shows up today. However, I think King's work and the work we do are part of the larger tradition of black radical resistance." Several protests across the country, many of which targeted the actions of police, have sparked riots. King's response to such riots in 1967: "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." Fifty years ago this month, King retreated to the Caribbean with his wife, Coretta, and a few friends to write his final book, "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" In the book, published in June 1967, King argued for racial equality for black Americans through the wholesale embrace of social and economic reform. During the book's promotional tour, King spoke out against the Vietnam War and criticized U.S. leaders for allowing slum conditions to persist in the cities. "Everyone is worrying about the long hot summer with its threat of riots. We had a long cold winter when little was done about the conditions that create riots," King said in June 1967. King fought to end public segregation and pushed for the right to vote. But he also advocated for a living wage and worked to close the employment gap for blacks and spoke out against discrimination in policing -- to which rioting was a common response. King reacted to the Feb. 29, 1968, release of the report by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, by noting that the solutions suggested "have been made before almost to the last detail and have been ignored almost to the last detail." It's a familiar climate for many in the Black Lives Matter movement who see their efforts in cities like Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago, Baltimore and Cleveland on a continuum that reaches back to King. They identify with the fact that King was only 26 when he was thrust into a leadership role in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. When he died at 39 in 1968, before he could launch his Poor People's Campaign, King was still far younger than civil rights establishment figures such as A. Philip Randolph and Adam Clayton Powell. Remembering King as a community organizer places his movement alongside contemporary activism, said Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter. "He was really focused on poor black people," Cullors, 33, said. "Let's remember the King who was invested in changing the country that he loved so much, who called out elected officials who continued to endanger black people." The Associated Press contributed to this report. While Mexico officials and incoming President Donald Trump feud over a border wall, cartels are finding plenty of opportunities to smuggle drugs underground. A plan by the United States and Mexico to shut down tunnels that the cartels used along borders for smuggling is failing as criminals have found ways to carve them out again, according to the Los Angeles Times. The reason is because while the United States sealed the entire portion of tunnels on its side of the border, Mexico sealed only the openings on its side, citing a lack of finances. Proponents of strict border security say that more must be done, by Mexico and a U.S.-Mexico joint effort, to beat back the cartels. It would be nice to have full cooperation from the Mexican government, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, which pushes for tighter immigration enforcement. If they cant completely fill the tunnels, then maybe they could adequately police them. Obviously theres no guarantee that nothing is going to get across, Mehlman said to FoxNews.com. But you do your best to make sure its as difficult as possible for them, you raise your stakes, you raise their cost of rebuilding the tunnels and smuggling. On the U.S. side, drug tunnels have been filled with concrete since 2007, after the Los Angeles Times reported that they were being left unfilled because of budget constraints within Customs and Border Protection. Since 2007, it has cost Customs and Border Protection $8.7 million to fill drug tunnels, according to a 2016 report by the Department of Homeland Security. An estimated 20 large tunnels, constructed before and after 2007, are largely intact on the Mexican side, officials told the newspaper. If the U.S. government had tighter control of illegal immigration, some experts say, it would free up more resources to focus on such things as cartel operations along the border and national security. They need to cut off magnets that draw illegal economic migrants, Mehlman said, so that we can focus our resources on stopping people who pose a real threat to the country. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, which also favors strict immigration enforcement, agreed. Vaughan says the U.S. should attack one of the cartels biggest source of finances human trafficking. As long as people think they could reach the United States, they keep paying the cartels to do it, she said to FoxNews.com, adding that stopping such border enforcement strategies as catch and release would be a step toward chipping away at the demand by would-be immigrants for smugglers. Our lax immigration policies, our sanctuary policies, and the inability to make progress on drug abuse problems in the U.S. are what have enriched the cartels to begin with, Vaughan said. Theyre making so much money smuggling through the border. The U.S. government focused efforts on filling up large tunnels leading up to the border after U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called them national security risk, the Times noted. Even then, however, some U.S. authorities predicted that traffickers would try to make the tunnels usable again, and suggested that the U.S. government pay Mexicos filling of the tunnels something that hasnt happened. Mexican authorities say they lack the money to completely fill the tunnels, some of which are outfitted with ventilation and rail systems to whisk contraband hundreds of yards under the border. Only the tunnel openings are sealed south of the border. That allows traffickers to simply dig a new entry point to access the largely intact subterranean passageways leading to the U.S. A smugglers' tunnel that had been shut down but left unfilled on the Mexican side was found to be back in operation in December, the Times reported Sunday. Traffickers have reactivated or tried to reactivate at least four other tunnels in recent years, most recently last month near Tijuana's airport. "The biggest threat is that it's a huge open invitation for drug traffickers, and it's definitely going to be taken advantage of," said Michael Unzueta, a former special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego, to the Times. Border and drug war analyst Sylvia Longmire said to FoxNews.com: As long as theres a demand for drugs in this country, cartels will get creative about how to get around border walls and impediments to tunnels. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The FBI on Monday arrested the wife of the gunman in the Pulse Nightclub massacre on charges connected to the shooting rampage, investigators confirmed to Fox News. UP NEXT FOR DYLANN ROOF: 2ND TRIAL, LONG DEATH ROW WAIT The June 2016 shooting, seen as the deadliest in modern U.S. history, killed 49 people and wounded dozens more. Police shot and killed gunman Omar Mateen after a three-hour standoff, during which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group. The charges against his wife, 30-year-old Noor Salman, included aiding and abetting his attempts to support ISIS, as well as obstruction of justice. WOMAN CHARGED IN ADOPTED DAUGHTER'S DEATH FOSTERED 30 KIDS According to a source close to the investigation, the U.S. Attorney in Florida and attorneys within the Dept. of Justice, the agencies, which jointly prosecute terrorism cases, wanted to charge Salman with directly supporting ISIS, in addition to aiding the terror network through her husband. However, Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord refused to support additional charges. FBI agents from the bureau's San Francisco field office picked up Salman outside her home in Rodeo, Calif., law enforcement sources said. She did not resist the arrest. In April 2016, Mateen and Salman took their 3-year-old son to Walt Disney World, but their behavior reportedly was alarming enough for Disney officials to have contacted the FBI to alert them that Mateen and Salman appeared to be scouting the theme park as a venue for a potential attack. The family went to another Disney property, Disney Springs, that June. During the attack that began around 2:00 a.m. on June 12, Mateen placed 16 calls, an FBI source told FoxNews.com, and communicated by SMS, a texting service. At least three calls were to 911 and one was to a local news service, during which he pledged his allegiance to ISIS and expressed support for the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He texted Salman during his shooting rampage, made posts to his Facebook account proclaiming his allegiance to ISIS and pledging more attacks, and according to an FBI source, used the social media platform Snapchat to communicate with at least one other person. Salman is set to make her initial appearance in federal court Tuesday in San Francisco. She had moved to Contra Costa County after the shooting. The charges were filed in the Middle District of Florida - the jurisdiction in which the nightclub massacre took place. Following her initial appearance, the plan is to fly Salman back to the Middle District of Florida where she will continue through the judicial process. The New York Times first reported Monday's arrest. Salman claimed last November she had no clue about what her husband was planning, according to a Times interview. "I was unaware of everything." She also said Mateen got increasingly violent as their marriage got rockier, even punching her in a fit of rage while she was pregnant, during a trip to buy baby clothes. Her son, now 4, is partly named for his father. Salman filed a petition to change the boy's name last month. The Justice Dept. released transcripts of Mateen's 911 calls after the shooting. In one call, he said, "Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, Im in Orlando and I did the shootings." "Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones. But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime," Orlando Police Chief John Mina responded. One of the officers who responded to the massacre, Master Sgt. Debra Clayton, was shot and killed last week outside a Walmart in the city. Her suspected killer, Markeith Loyd, remained on the loose one week later. FoxNews.com's Malia Zimmerman, Fox News' Mike Lundin in Rodeo, Matt Dean, Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. A Hawaii state lawmaker is looking to add more protection to a Korean and Vietnam War Memorial that had been desecrated by some of the homeless population. State Rep. Bob McDermott, R-Ewa Beach, said Friday the memorial, which stretches 100 feet in its Honolulu location, that some homeless residents were using it as an open latrine, according to Hawaii News Now. "The homeless are nesting there and defecating there because it provides a degree of concealment. It's human waste several piles along with clothing and needles and other trash. It's just terrible," he said. The station reported that McDermott had taken photos of the vandalized memorial to see it in shambles. When he returned, he discovered that the mess got even worse. McDermott sent a letter to the desk of Gov. David Ige on Thursday to notify him of what was happening. A spokesperson told the station that Ige had yet to receive the letter. Edward Richardson, a former state adjutant general, said some of the names on the memorial were his friends and he said it bothered him to hear that the monument was being defaced. "I was very bothered last night to hear it had deteriorated to a point where's it's become and embarrassment. There needs to be some form of security to ensure that people don't come here and mess it up," Richardson said. The grounds around state Capitol buildings are regularly patrolled, the Department of Public Safety said. Officers who catch anyone breaking the law will hand out citations or possibly arrest the culprits. Click for more from Hawaii News Now. A man placed on the FBI's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives after authorities said he killed two men in Milwaukee was arrested Sunday in Texas, the FBI said. Terry A.D. Strickland, 24, was arrested in El Paso and booked into the jail. He has been charged in Milwaukee with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Jail records do not list an attorney to comment on his behalf. Authorities said Strickland was among a group of men arguing in front of a Milwaukee home July 17. Witnesses saw him go inside the house, emerge with a gun and fire into the small crowd. Authorities said Strickland fatally shot Maurice Brown Jr., 38, who was on the ground, then turned to Michael Allen Reed, 39, and shot him in the head. "It was vicious," Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said when Strickland was added to the FBI's most-wanted list last month. "It was unnecessary. Neither individual posed the slightest threat to Mr. Strickland, but they paid with their lives for occupying the same space." Authorities have said Strickland fled from the shooting in a black SUV, abandoning his 18-month-old daughter inside the house, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Think it's hard for firefighters to rescue a cat in a tree? Try a cow in a swimming pool. Firefighters in Oklahoma City were summoned Sunday morning after a homeowner reported hearing some sort of "snorting" coming from his swimming pool area. Emergency responders arrived and discovered a hole in the swimming pool's liner and a cow trapped in the water. Oklahoma City Fire Department Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson says firefighters used their pumps to remove about 5 feet of water from the pool so the cow wouldn't experience hypothermia. Crews then brought in a wrecker to hoist the nearly 1,500-pound animal from the pool and to safety. Fulkerson says the cow appeared to be uninjured after its ordeal. The manhunt for accused cop-killer Markeith Loyd focused on an abandoned country club building on Sunday -- but police ultimately announced they'd found no sign of him there. Orlando police said they were just searching the Rosemont County Club and a wooded area and werent acting on a tip, according to Fox 35 Orlando. That same area was under lockdown last week after Lt. Debra Clayton was shot and killed. As many as a dozen law enforcement officers were involved in the search at the country club, WFTV added. WOMAN CHARGED IN ADOPTED DAUGHTER'S DEATH FOSTERED 30 KIDS Clayton was remembered Saturday at her funeral service as someone who put everyone at ease with her infectious smile and made every effort to bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement. She was posthumously promoted to lieutenant during the ceremony. Loyd is accused of gunning down Clayton when she approached him outside a Walmart in Orlando last Monday. Loyd was wanted for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend at the time. Hundreds of officers and deputies have been searching for him since Monday, and a $100,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to his arrest. Among them was sheriff's Deputy First Class Norman Lewis, who died when he was thrown from his motorcycle in an accident. Police arrested a former supervisor at the fried-chicken restaurant where Loyd worked, an ex-girlfriend and a niece on Tuesday and Wednesday on charges of helping him. Orlando police Chief John Mina said they havent been cooperative. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from Fox 35 Orlando. The Coast Guard suspended the search Monday along the Oregon coast for a father and his young son after a wave swept the two out to sea. The U.S. Coast Guard told Fox 12 Oregon it received a report Sunday of two people in the water just before 1 p.m. local time. The incident took place at the Boice Cope County Park beach, located 4 miles north of Cape Blanco, Ore. The 31-year-old man, identified by Oregon State Police as Jayson Dean Thomas, and his 3-year-old son, both from the Eugene area, were walking along the beach when the wave struck. The man's wife, who has not been identified by police, saw the whole incident happen and called authorities. The Coast Guard said MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crews, as well as a 47-foot Motor Life Boat crew, searched 112 square miles for over 22 hours, covering 583 total miles in an effort to locate them. On land, Oregon State Police on all-terrain vehicles spent Sunday and part of Monday scouring the beach areas. OSP, @CurrySheriff, @USCGPacificNW searching for adult male and small child washed out to sea near Floras Lake in Curry County pic.twitter.com/e7Ff6C6Axv Oregon State Police (@ORStatePolice) January 15, 2017 A child carrier worn by the father and his coat were found in the surf, the Coast Guard said in a news release. Oregon State Police spokesman Capt. Bill Fugate told the Associated Press the area where the two were swept away is steep, and the ocean was rough due to an approaching storm. Cick for more from KPTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 A community near Philadelphia is gathering to celebrate the life of a 14-year-old girl who authorities say was killed and dismembered by her adoptive mother and the mother's boyfriend. School parents describe Grace Packer as a bubbly teen who looked out for lonely classmates at Abington Junior High School. A vigil for Grace is being held Monday afternoon. Organizer Andrea Green-Adams and others are also raising money to start a foundation to assist foster children in need. They are tentatively calling it "On Gracie's Wings" in a nod to Grace's love of butterflies. Sara Packer and Jacob Sullivan are in custody awaiting a preliminary hearing Friday in Grace's death. Authorities say they killed Grace as part of a "rape-murder fantasy." Sullivan has said he's sorry for what he did. A woman charged along with her boyfriend in the rape, murder and dismemberment of her adopted 14-year-old daughter took in 30 foster kids before her then-husband was deemed a sexual predator. Former adoption worker Sara Packer and her ex-husband fostered the children from 2000 to 2010, when they led a transient life in northeast Pennsylvania, state officials confirmed on Friday. The state's Department of Human Services said it was reviewing the family's history leading up to the torture death of adopted daughter Grace Packer. Sara Packer and her boyfriend, Jacob Sullivan, are charged with killing Grace in their Bucks County home before Packer reported her missing in July. Grace's body was found in a wooded area upstate in October, and the couple were charged with murder on Sunday after a joint suicide attempt. Packer and Sullivan are being held without bail until a preliminary hearing set for next week. Neither has a lawyer listed in court records. But Sullivan apologized as he was led into court, the Intelligencer newspaper reported. "I'm sorry for what I did," Sullivan said. "It was wrong." Packer's ex-husband, David Packer, was convicted in 2011 of raping a foster teen and molesting Grace between 2006 and 2010, when the family lived in Allentown. The foster teen, who was learning disabled, initially told police David Packer had had sex with her when she was 18 and Sara Parker knew about it, authorities said. "As reprehensible as that may be, it isn't a crime," said Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin, whose office prosecuted the case. However, the teen ultimately disclosed the sex had begun when she was 15. David Packer went to prison for about five years on statutory rape and indecent assault charges. Sara Packer was barred from taking in more foster children and lost her $44,000-a-year job as a Northampton County adoption supervisor over unspecified misconduct. But she kept her two adopted children: Grace and her biological younger brother. And there would have been no child welfare checks unless a new complaint was filed, since adoptive parents have the same rights as other parents, Martin said. "Grace, who was subsequently raped and murdered, was an adopted child. That adoption was already a fait accompli," he said. "It's a horrific story, but I don't know what else my office or the Allentown Police Department could have done at the time." Within a few years, Sara Packer and the two children were living with Sullivan, a draftsman, in Glenside, in Montgomery County. In the fall of 2015, they sent Grace to live with a relative in North Carolina, where she spent several happy months, prosecutors said. When she returned home, the couple started plotting her death, a police affidavit says. Sara Packer watched as Sullivan raped Grace on July 8 and then went out to buy Tylenol PM used to sedate Grace before they left her to die, bound and gagged, in a sweltering attic, the affidavit said. When they found her still alive the next day, Sullivan strangled her, police said. They packed her body in cat litter and hid it in the house for several months before they cut it up with a saw and dumped it in the woods, police said. The Packers had adopted Grace and her brother when she was 3, after a Berks County judge removed them from a home where they had been sexually abused by adults living with their parents. The Department of Human Services has opened a six-month review of the Packer family that will include checks on the welfare of the 30 former foster children, authorities said. "If there is a systemic review that comes out of this horrible tragedy, at least we can take some solace in that ... so children like Grace are not forgotten, so they don't fall through the cracks," said Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, whose office is leading the murder investigation. Court records show the Packers divorced last June. David Packer's lawyer from a 2010 case said this week he couldn't comment. A man who answered the phone at Sara Packer's father's home declined to comment and hung up. Six children are the latest victims of Colombias ongoing land mine crisis, as a 3-year old was killed and five others wounded following an explosion in the central-western department of Tolima. This recent incident has helped the Andean nation reach what Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzon called the "dishonorable figure" of 10,001 landmine victims, making it the second most affected country in the world in terms of land mine incidents after war-torn Afghanistan. "Girls, boys, teens, women, indigenous, farmers, workers, soldiers, police and heroes of the country have sacrificed their lives for the freedom and security of the Colombians. We want a Colombia without more victims of anti-personnel mines and free of these artifacts," Garzon said, according to Colombias Radio Caracol. The main culprit of the land mines is the leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose half-century campaign against the Colombian government has left thousands of mines scattered across the country. As the group became involved in the countrys cocaine trade, the FARC used mines to protect their bases, transit routes and in coca fields to prevent eradication. But as they moved to different locations, the land mines, which are difficult to detect underground and detonate as they are stepped on, were left behind. The Colombian government has sent teams to remote regions to eradicate the crops and mines with the help of metal detectors and dogs, but this tactic has caused its fair share of accidents and deaths. "They send [the eradicators] out with an armed forces escort, which uses metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs to try to disarm the mines," said Alvaro Jimenez, director of the Colombian Campaign Against Landmines, a victims advocacy group, according to the Los Angeles Times. "But obviously something is not working as well as it should." Colombia is one of the 160 countries in the United Nations to have signed the Ottawa Treaty, which aims to eliminate land mines around the world. States who signed the treaty must cease production of mines and destroy its stockpile of anti-personnel mines within four years. There are still 34 UN nations , including the U.S., China and Cuba, who have not signed the treaty. Despite Colombias efforts to put a stop to land mine violence, Colombias Presidential Program for Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Mines (PAICMA) revealed that 6,222 military and 3,779 civilians, including 968 who have children and young people, were killed or injured by these devices. So far this year, 45 minors have been victims of land mines, 11 of whom have died. In 2011, there were a total of 44 incidents involving minors and land mines in Colombia. The Colombian department of Antioquia is one of the most affected regions when it comes to land mines. The home of Colombias second largest city, Medellin, Antioquia has in recent years seen a time of relative peace as FARC guerrillas have moved out of the region and violence related to drug trafficking has dipped. Despite this, land mines still pose a problem to residents of the department as Antioquia registered 2,228 victims of the mines, according to the PAICMA data. The department, which is working to eradicate the mines, has responded with programs to teach people how to avoid land mines and ways to quickly treat victims. Land mines are spread out mainly over rural areas," said Julian Rendon Cardona, the departments secretary of government. "But also in places close to schools. Follow us on twitter.com/foxnewslatino Like us at facebook.com/foxnewslatino A Florida man filed a lawsuit in Miami federal court Monday, demanding a judge to order the government of Venezuela to return what he claims is rightfully his -Simon Bolivar artifacts. The lawsuit contends Venezuela borrowed items of the 19th century South American independence leader from Ricardo Devengoechea in 2007 and never returned them. A featured item includes a lock of Bolivars hair used by Venezuela to verify the authenticity of his remains buried there. Other key artifacts include epaulets from a uniform worn by Napoleon Bonaparte, a liberation medal awarded to Bolivar by the government of Peru, as well as numerous documents and letters. The lawsuit states the items were given to Devengoecheas great-great Colombian grandfather by Bolivar himself. According to Reuters, the complaint says the items were taken by the Venezuelan government under the guise of a cooperative investigation with Ricardo Devengoechea into Venezuelas history. The court document also states Venezuela allegedly sent a private jet to Florida to pick up Devengoechea in 2007 and transport the artifacts to the country. He said he spent nearly a month as a guest of Hugo Chavezs government. Chavez had Bolivars bones exhumed for examination in 2010, ordered a new mausoleum, and unveiled a 3D image of his face based on scans of the Venezuelan heros skull. The complaint also claims that in 2011 Devengoechea met with officials from Venezuelas Consulate in Miami to make arrangements for the return of the artifacts. However, he states, his requests were ignored. Bolivar is revered for being a military leader who freed many parts of South America from Spanish rule. The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington has not commented on the lawsuit. Based on reporting by The Associated Press. Follow us on twitter.com/foxnewslatino Like us at facebook.com/foxnewslatino next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 In the mountains of southwestern Jordan, where tradition says Moses saw the Promised Land, dozens of sick dogs lay chained and starving at an isolated olive plantation. The dogs, including 40 puppies, eat only rotten chicken wings every few days, getting just enough water and food to keep them alive to breed. But the scene that would horrify animal lovers in the West gets only a shrug from their breeder, a 27-year-old man who describes his operation as a "great tax-free business." Dog breeding coupled with dognapping is a thriving business in Jordan, where lax laws call for only a $7 fine for violators and police remain hesitant to pursue those suspected of animal abuse. Activists have campaigned for years for increased penalties, but lawmakers seem uninterested to pursue them in a culture where animal abuse remains rampant. For Mohammad, the breeder at the olive plantation in Madaba, 30 kilometers (18 miles) southwest of Amman, the abused animals represent $7,000 a month in earnings. He said he can make that much from selling just four puppies, mostly German Shepherds and Huskies, raised at his father's farm. Most of the breeding dogs come from "street hunters," said Mohammad, who asked that only his first name be used to avoid having to pay taxes on his additional income. That's the term used for thieves who steal animals off the streets and from homes in Jordan to sell to breeders. Such thefts often garner shrugs from authorities. Interior decorator Zeina Khalil said she had two German Shepherd puppies stolen from her home in the capital, Amman, in July. She called the police, but "the operator hung up in my face when I told him it was my two poor puppies," Khalil said. The thefts are so organized that every Friday before dawn, breeders converge on the so-called "thieves market" in Amman to buy stolen puppies, dogs, guinea pigs, snakes, cats and birds of all kinds. An Associated Press journalist who visited the market recently saw a man who identified himself as Mahmoud sell a barking German Shepherd for $100 that he freely admitted was the victim of a dognapping. The dog was "stolen from a filthy rich family that taught him manners," Mahmoud said. Casual animal abuse remains common across much of the Arab world. In Lebanon, an online video last month showed two young men force a cat into a microwave and cook it for few seconds until it screamed in pain. In Egypt, authorities beat pigs to death with iron bars and stabbed piglets over swine-flu fears. Such abuse likely comes from Islamic tradition, which warns adherents against contact with dogs and other animals deemed impure, said Hussein Khazaei, the dean of the sociology department at Jordan's Al-Balqa Applied University. "Generation after generation was taught that dogs are impure, cats dirty the house and ruin the furniture, that animals are generally vicious and that it is useless to have a pet," Khazaei said. There have been some efforts made toward protecting animals in Jordan. Princess Alia a passionate animal advocate and the half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah II serves as the chair of the country's first animal shelter. She also forced a Jordanian slaughterhouse to close after Australian animal rights activists took video there of a bull being beaten and stabbed before having its head cut off. Yet lawmakers and government officials declined interview requests to discuss animal rights in Jordan with an AP journalist. Margret Ledger, a Briton who runs the animal shelter Princess Alia is involved with, simply called the lack of compassion for animals "very sad and frustrating." That attitude can even be seen at Jordan's largest zoo, where a zookeeper named Mahmoud beat a lion's head with an iron bar to force him to roar for visitors on a recent day. "Animals must be treated forcefully to know that humans are their master," he said, smiling. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 A Buenos Aires mayoral candidate aligned with Argentina's top opposition presidential contender has won the first round of city elections. With 92 percent of election places reporting late Sunday, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta had 45 percent of the vote. Less than 50 percent will mean a runoff in two weeks between Rodriguez and Martin Lousteau, who got 25 percent of the vote. Larreta, from the Republican Proposal party, is Cabinet chief for Mauricio Macri, the out-going mayor of Buenos Aires who is the top opposition contender for the presidential contest in October. The results show Macri's party continues to enjoy wide support in Argentina's largest city. Macri has been mayor since 2007. Sunday's elections included governor and legislator spots in a handful of places across Argentina, including Cordoba. At least 38 girls and young women were killed in a crash while travelling to Swaziland's most famous traditional festival, a rights group said on Saturday. An additional 20 others were injured when the truck they were in collided with another vehicle on Friday, the Swaziland Solidarity Network said in a statement. Members of the Swaziland Defense Force alerted the rights group to the accident and gave the number of deaths, said Lucky Lukhele, the solidarity network's spokesman. The young women and girls were travelling on the back of an open truck, the rights group said. Swazi police at first refused to give any information on the accident but later disputed the death toll provided by the rights group. Only 13 people were killed in the crash, said police spokesman Khulani Mamba. Cellphone images taken of the crash show the bloodied bodies of young women lying on the back of a flatbed truck. The girls and young women were on their way to the Swazi king's royal residence for the annual reed dance. About 40,000 young women participate in the eight-day reed dance ceremony in which they sing and dance, usually bare-breasted, as they bring reeds to reinforce the windbreak around the royal residence. During the reed dance, the king often selects one of the young women to become one of his wives. Swaziland is polygamous and the king has more than a dozen wives. "We all have heard about the dark cloud that has befallen the 'imbali,'" said King Mswati III, using the Swati language word for flower, used to refer to the groups of women dancers. Speaking Saturday at the opening of an international trade fair in Swaziland's economic center Manzini, the king promised that the affected families would be compensated. He added that an investigation into the accident was underway. Police in Swaziland, a small mountainous country of 1.4 million people bordering northeastern South Africa and Mozambique, discouraged reporting on the accident, said the rights group. Press photographers were prevented from taking pictures at the scene, said a Swazi journalist who insisted on anonymity for security reasons. However some people managed to take photographs of the aftermath of the crash with their cell phones. Earlier, a high-ranking police officer contacted by The Associated Press refused to comment on the accident, saying the matter was related to the "highest authority," and no details could be disclosed to the media. The females were travelling on a highway between the Swazi cities of Mbabane and Manzini, when the truck carrying them smashed into a vehicle and was then hit in the rear by a second truck, the Times of Swaziland reported. "We were about 50 on board the first truck that smashed into the Toyota van," said Siphelele Sigudla, 18, a survivor quoted by the Times of Swaziland. Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy, ruled by King Mswati since 1986. Swaziland held parliamentary elections in 2013, but many international observers say the electoral process is manipulated to prolong the king's hold on power. According to the king, Swaziland's image has been damaged by misinformation. The country has one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection. As the Colombian government keeps up its efforts to revive a peace deal with the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the tens of thousands of land mines planted by the left-wing guerrilla throughout the decades keep killing and maiming people. Colombia ranks second, trailing only Afghanistan, on the 2015 list of countries with the most land mines compiled by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). Since the conflict started gathering steam in the early 90s, land mines have killed and wounded more than 11,500 people, both civilians and militaries. Just this year, 10 people have died and at least 70 people have been hurt by land mines in the South American country, according to the governments Directorate for Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Mines (DICMA). Reinel Barbosa was 22 when he stepped on a mine that shredded his left leg in Meta, a region in eastern Colombia where he grew up and ended up leaving to avoid having to choose sides. Neither FARC guerilla nor the army was an alternative for me, Barbosa told Fox News Latino. These were the main options in my region. In the past 26 years, more than 1,000 people have been hit by landmines and other buried devices in Meta. In 2008 he moved to Bogota, the capital, and joined the ranks of 6.9 million Colombians UNHCR displaced by the conflicts violence. The FARC planted most of the landmines and improvised explosive devices the government is now struggling to deactivate in the mid-2000s -- the number of land mine victims in Colombia began to spike in 2006, when more than 1,200 victims were reported. The ELN, Colombias other guerrilla group, which recently announced peace talks with the government, also used land mines widely. As part of the peace negotiations with FARC, in March of 2015 the government agreed to embark in a pilot project aimed at clearing the mines in cooperation with the Norwegian Peoples Aids (APN). The main goal of this pilot project was to show the country the willingness of peace between the parties, said APNs Esteban Rueda, explaining they have been targeting minefields in El Orejon, Antioquia and in Santa Helena, Meta. Colombian rebels viewed land mines as a cheap, effective way to bog down advancing soldiers. In Meta we found mines that are called tipo betun that is a PVC tubing with a wire. In Antioquia, we found mines based on sulfuric acid in a syringe, Rueda said. Many of these land mines are rustic mines, handmade even, planted in roads, fields, cow pastures and beneath schoolyards. The land mine that almost killed Barbosa had been planted [close to] in a cow pasture. We were four [guys] visiting a cow pasture and when we were getting back home I heard the first explosion, he recalled. Then my friend Rufino [a childhood friend, who was behind me] started yelling, Its killing me! Its killing me! Like 200 yards ahead another explosion went off, and thats the one that got me injured, he said. Today Barbosa is in charge of the National Network of Organizations of Mine/ERW Survivors and Victims with Disabilities, which advocates for the rights to more benefits and opportunities for survivors. What encourages me to move on was the misfortune of all the victims like me. I spent 32 days at the hospital in Villavicencio, and there were 27 amputee victims by landmines among military and civilians. I thought then I was not alone, Barbosa told FNL. He said, however, that land mine survivors should be given better treatment and guarantees. We are claiming for more equity and social justice. We demanded to President Juan Manuel Santos to assign a disability pension to all the land mine victims with disabilities to dignify our lives as survivors. But the government said no because of the fiscal crisis. Many say the 2021 deadline to clear the country of land mines is not realistic. A key problem is the lack of precise information about where and how many mines are planted across the country. It is true that the demining has begun, there are certain conditions that are allowing the clearing of land mines, Barbosa said. But there are some regions, where the ELN rebels are located - like Narino, Putumayo, Cauca, some parts of Arauca, Norte de Santander, Antioquia and Choco - where this might be not yet possible, he said. Barbosa said that while he supported the peace deal in the past referendum, he believes peace still lays a long way ahead. I see peace far away. It is a process that we need still to walk far to get to reach it, he said. An official says at least six people have been killed in a stampede during a Hindu religious festival in eastern India. West Bengal state Development Minister Mantu Ram Pakhira says the stampede took place Sunday as hundreds of thousands of people had assembled on the banks of the Buriganga river. Pakhira says the stampede occurred as people were trying to get into a crowded boat. Six women were killed and seven other people were injured. The area where the stampede occurred is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state. Deadly stampedes are fairly common during Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with few safety or crowd control measures. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 Pope Francis is demanding that "every possible measure" be taken to protect young refugees as he marks the church's World Day of Migrants a day after the latest Mediterranean migrant shipwreck. Italy's coast guard says only four people survived the sinking of a migrant ship off Libya's coast Saturday. An estimated 100 people were aboard and only eight bodies have been recovered. Search and recovery efforts continued Sunday. In his Sunday noon blessing, Francis recalled that the theme of this year's migrant day message concerned the vulnerability of young migrants, "our young brothers" whom often flee home alone and face "so many dangers." He said: "We must adopt every possible measure to guarantee young migrants protection and defense, as well as integration." COLUMBUS It could get a bit windy in Lincoln in the months ahead as state lawmakers work to untangle a budget knot created by a projected $900 million revenue shortfall for the upcoming two-year budget cycle. It could be the year of the filibuster, said state Sen. Paul Schumacher while summing up his take on this years session of the Nebraska Legislature during the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerces annual legislative meeting held Monday morning. The Columbus senator said the Unicameral is sharply divided on issues such as income taxes, charter schools, property tax relief, guns and funding for the states corrections system, and are all likely targets for filibusters by lawmakers. I think the dynamics are that no consensus will be reached on any major issue, said the 65-year-old Schumacher, who has represented Columbus and the rest of District 22 since 2011. This year is going to be unpredictable. Schumacher, who serves on the Legislatures Revenue and Banking committees, said a projected $267 million shortfall in the current budget could be covered by tapping the states emergency cash reserve. The senator said the funding gaps for existing programs that total nearly $900 million through June 2019 are not an easy fix. Thats when youre at a rock and a hard place, Schumacher said. The senator said lawmakers have played tax favorites, handing out exemptions and displaying little spending restraint during the last 10 years. The formula has made it difficult to balance the budget when times get bumpy. Its a long-term problem that has become more serious, Schumacher said. Gov. Pete Ricketts' plan to balance the budget, according to an Associated Press report last week, relies on a combination of spending cuts and drawing money from dozens of cash accounts that are separate from the state's general fund. Some of the major cuts Ricketts proposed for the upcoming budget are $50.7 million in state aid for individuals, $17.6 million from the University of Nebraska and $6 million from the state's community colleges. Child welfare services, K-12 public education and the state's problem-plagued prison system would see funding increases. It also would pull money from the state's emergency cash reserve, reducing the rainy day fund from a projected $630 million to around $500 million. That could go very, very quickly (if the revenue slump continues), Schumacher said. The governor challenged lawmakers to balance the budget without raising taxes. Schumacher said there is some magical belief that lawmakers can cut property or income taxes while maintaining current spending levels. An Austrian court has found a man guilty of human smuggling and sentenced him to four years in prison after a truckload of migrants bound for Germany crashed, leaving 12 passengers seriously injured. The verdict and sentence issued Monday came after the 49-year old man acknowledged driving the truck that rammed into a concrete wall and overturned, spilling many of the 36 migrants packed inside the nearly airtight hold onto a highway. State broadcaster ORF says the truck picked up the Iraqi, Iranian and Pakistani passengers in Hungary and was on its way to Germany 18 months ago when a tire burst, causing the driver to lose control at high speed. The man was not identified in keeping with Austrian privacy laws. A lawmaker in Berlin's new state government has resigned his position over his past with communist East Germany's Stasi secret police, saying he no longer had the support of the left-wing governing coalition. Andrej Holm, an independent, said on his website Monday he would step down as deputy construction minister because "in recent days, the Social Democrats and Greens have made clear they do not support me politically." The two parties make up the new government with the Left Party, which has its roots in the former East German communist party and runs the construction ministry. Holm said years ago he trained with the Stasi in 1989 and 1990. It emerged recently, however, he wrongly stated to an employer in 2005 that he had never been a full-time Stasi employee. China is apparently concerned that its boys are becoming too effeminate. The country's solution: a masculinity-promoting school textbook called Little Men, aimed for use in grades 4 and 5. The illustrated book talks about fathers and sons, and it encourages boys to stress their masculine side, with money management and other ostensibly guy-geared topics thrown in. 'ONE CHINA PRINCIPLE' NOT NEGOTIABLE, CHINA TELLS TRUMP NBC News reports the concern is widespread and that citizens blame the "gender crisis" on everything from too much homework (and too little physical activity), to to being spoiled rotten by parents allowed just one child. "Girls are becoming more like boys while the boys are becoming more like girls, introvert[ed] and shy," one parent complains. An English-language newspaper in China blamed the perceived problem on "effeminate" actors and pop stars in Japanese and Korean culture. The new six-chapter textbook was printed in December by Shanghai Educational Publishing House and has already been given a test drive in some schools. The idea is that boys will be taught from the book during class, while girls won't take the course, reports the South China Morning Post. Anthropologist Tiantian Zheng tells NBC the concern about masculinity is seen as a priority among government officials, and she suggests that all-male middle schools could result. Click for more from Newser. next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Canada's ethics commissioner is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent family holiday at the Aga Khan's private island in the Bahamas. Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Monday Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world's approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. It's the first time the ethics commissioner has opted to investigate the actions of a sitting prime minister. Dawson says she is looking into both Trudeau's stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khan's private helicopter to get there. Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau's own ethics guidelines bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances. Germany has published a timeline of authorities' handling of the Tunisian man who drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and wounding scores. The chronology, published Monday , details Anis Amri's whereabouts in Germany, his risk evaluation and his criminal behavior. It shows he said as early as December 2015 that he wanted to buy firearms "to commit attacks in Germany" a full year before the Dec. 19 attack. Last February, state authorities declared him a potential threat. He was under surveillance by several German agencies, but they repeatedly concluded he did not pose a concrete or immediate danger. Amri, who came to Germany in mid-2015, had been rejected for asylum but authorities had been unable to deport him due to paperwork problems. While the world has been focused on the effort to liberate Mosul from ISIS, the barbaric terrorist group has found refuge 100 miles south in the city of Hawija. According to civilians stuck inside, the situation has become desperate, with those trapped feeling the world has forgotten them. International forces not to mention world headlines are focused on Iraqs second-largest city, ISIS headquarters in the embattled nation. The government of my country and the media of the world are only interested in Mosul, a 23-year-old resident named Ahmed told FoxNews.com. But what is happening here is horrible. Everyone is suffering from shortages of food. There are people dying because of hunger. ISIS has been in control of Hawija -- an almost entirely Sunni Muslim, 100,000-person city south of Kirkuk -- since the Iraqi Army withdrew on June 16, 2014. More than 2 years later, the city is a horror-scape of garbage, sickness and starvation. ISIS started cutting off food supplies six months ago, Ahmed said. People eat only bread and eggplant. Its $40 for a kilo of sugar and $70 for tea, $20 for rice. People cannot afford this. There is no cooking gas. There are no cleaning materials; people clean using the ashes of fire. The battle for Mosul has prompted besieged ISIS members to take their rage out on their Hawija captives. In recent weeks, scores of civilians have been executed inside the city on suspicion of working as a spy for Iraqi or Kurdish forces, and fighters are sent on suicide missions to kill families suspected of fleeing the city. The failure to clear Hawija, which lies between Baghdad and Mosul, before taking on ISIS in its stronghold has already proven costly, as Hawija has emerged as a harbor for sleeper cells and a safe haven for militants. Last week, the governor of Kirkuk, Najmadin Karim, called on the Iraqi government to begin an offensive to rescue Hawija as soon as possible, asserting that it was a mistake that the Mosul operation commenced before Hawija was liberated. It was a huge mistake from the beginning. Mosul is getting all the attention and it is in slow motion, one Iraqi intelligence source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But officials were in a hurry to announce the Mosul operation before the U.S election and direct attention there. Col. John Dorrian, the U.S. Air Force spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, said Mosul came first simply because it is the biggest prize to the enemy. Mosul is the second most populous city in Iraq and it will deeply hurt the enemy when that is taken away, Dorrian told FoxNews.com. The longer we allow (ISIS hold on Mosul) to exist, the longer the brutal ideology of the group will exist in the world. Hawija is important, but it is not anywhere near as important as Mosul. Victory in Mosul is likely many months away, which leaves those caught in the crossfire of Hawija to languish without an end in sight. Hawija isnt a priority for the Iraqi government because it does not have a lot of strategic value, said Michael Knights, an Iraq-focused military and security affairs strategist at the Washington Institute. You could run a functional Iraq even if ISIS controls Hawija. Once you take Mosul, ISIS is reduced to a normal-type terrorist movement. Jamie Brennan contributed to this report. next Image 1 of 3 prev next Image 2 of 3 prev Image 3 of 3 The Latest on the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos (all times local): 1:30 p.m. The World Economic Forum, which organizes the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, says the focus on economic growth, which has guided policymaking for decades, is no longer fit for purpose. In a report published Monday, the WEF proposed a shift in policymaking to "respond more effectively to the insecurity and inequality accompanying technological change and globalization." The WEF's main recommendation is that governments make improving living standards one of their key goals. It says most countries are "missing important opportunities to raise economic growth and reduce inequality at the same time," adding that measurements such as life expectancy, productivity and poverty rates should be priorities. Under a new ranking system that incorporates so-called "inclusive development," the WEF rated Norway top, followed by Luxembourg and Switzerland. The issue of inequalities both within countries and across the world is a key focus of this year's WEF, which officially opens Tuesday. North Korea has been getting some pretty high praise lately from the stoner world. Marijuana news outlets including High Times, Merry Jane and Green Rush along with British tabloids, which always love a good yarn are hailing the North as a pothead paradise and maybe even the next Amsterdam of pot tourism. They've reported North Korean marijuana to be legal, abundant and mind-blowingly cheap, sold openly to Chinese and Russian tourists at a major market on the North's border for about $3 a pound. TWO TEEN BROTHERS FROM CUBA WERE KILLED OVER POT IN NY, OFFICIALS SAY But seriously, North Korea? Baked? The claim that marijuana is legal in North Korea is not true: The North Korean penal code lists it as a controlled substance in the same category as cocaine and heroin. And the person who would likely help any American charged with a crime in North Korea emphatically rejects the idea that the ban is not enforced. SOUTH KOREA SEEKS ARREST OF SAMSUNG HEIR AS BRIBERY SUSPECT IN POLITICAL SCANDAL "There should be no doubt that drugs, including marijuana, are illegal here," said Torkel Stiernlof, the Swedish ambassador. The United States has no diplomatic relations with the North, so Sweden's embassy acts as a middleman when U.S. citizens run afoul of North Korean laws. "One can't buy it legally and it would be a criminal offense to smoke it," Stiernlof said. He said that if a foreigner caught violating drug laws in North Korea happened to be an American citizen, he or she could "expect no leniency whatsoever." Americans have been sentenced to years in North Korean prisons for such seemingly minor offenses as stealing a political banner and leaving a Bible in a public place. Even so, the claim that North Korea is a haven for marijuana smokers has cycled through the internet in various incarnations with great success over the past few years. Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-government-funded news service, lit up the latest round of stoner glee late last month with a story that Chinese and Russian tourists are stocking up on North Korean pot by the kilo in Rason, a special economic zone on the country's northernmost frontier that has a large, bazaar-style marketplace. The same market was the setting for one of the earliest blogs on the topic, a first-person account of getting high in the North from 2013. Categorically confirming or denying such claims is difficult because foreigners' access to the market is restricted. But where there's smoke, there usually is at least a little fire. Troy Collings, a frequent traveler to North Korea and managing director of Young Pioneer Tours, offered a more mundane explanation: It's just hemp. Ditchweed. Nebraska no-high. "I've seen and even purchased hemp, but it doesn't contain any THC and is just sold as a cheap substitute for tobacco," he told the AP in an email. "It grows wild in the mountainous regions of the North and people pick it, dry it and sell it in the markets, but it doesn't get you high no matter how much you smoke." Hemp is grown in North Korea with official sanction. It's used to make consumer goods including towels, cooking oil and noodles, as well as and military uniforms and belts. It's also used as rabbit fodder. The rabbits are grown for food. But industrial hemp is generally so low in THC, the active ingredient found in its cannabinoid cousins, sativa and indica, that it's useless for medicinal or recreational purposes. It's even cultivated in a different manner, focusing on male plants that do not produce buds. It's the buds of female plants that recreational users are most after. The Pyongyang Hemp Processing Factory actively markets hemp products as "environmentally friendly" and "perfect for the 21st century." An official at the plant told The Associated Press that while several varieties of hemp grow in North Korea, all are very low in THC. "No one smokes this in our country," she said, requesting she not be named because of the sensitive nature of talking to the American media. "It's only used for making things." North Korea grows something else that might be confused with marijuana: a mix of brown and greenish leafy tobacco that is used in pipes and sold openly in Pyongyang and elsewhere. Smoking a lot of that could certainly give someone a buzz and probably a bad headache. But from the nicotine. Nevertheless, Simon Cockerell, general manager of Koryo Tours, another agency that specializes in bringing foreign tourists to the North, said the idea marijuana is legal in North Korea has become so widespread that it's not uncommon for prospective tourists to ask what to expect. "We apologize, but have to inform those enquiring about this that weed is not legal. They are not going to be able to get any there," he said. "The idea that the country is full of stoners blissfully getting high in a legal-weed paradise is not an accurate one," he added. "Not having seen or done something doesn't mean it is never seen or done, of course. But I have never seen this." More North Koreans are fleeing their country for political reasons, rather than economic reasons, and an increase in defections by Pyongyangs elite will ultimately weaken Kim Jong Uns regime, South Koreas unification minister said in an interview. Hong Yong-pyo, who heads the Ministry of Unification, expects to see more defectors like Thae Yong Ho, the North Korean deputy ambassador in London, whose defection to Seoul last year was the most high-profile in nearly two decades. The support of North Koreas top government officials is crucial to ensuring Mr. Kims continued rule. A crippling famine triggered the first major wave of defectors from North Korea about 20 years ago, but many now say that they are leaving the country not just because they are starving, but for a better life, and for freedom and for their childrens education, Mr. Hong said. The cumulative number of defectors has swelled to more than 30,000, making them a sizable and growing community in the South. Last year, South Koreas President Park Geun-hye urged North Koreans to defect to the south to seek a better lifean unprecedented call for any South Korean leader. A looming change in government in Seoul could derail that approach. Ms. Park was recently impeached over an influence-peddling scandal and polls show a candidate supportive of warmer North-South ties is likely to take power soon. The progressive administrations that governed South Korea between 1998 and 2008 tended to take a more conciliatory view toward Pyongyang, and de-emphasized support for defectors. But Mr. Hong said the political divide over support for defectors is long gone. Whoever becomes the president, whichever party has the power, by and large we have a consensus that we should assist and support defectors as they enter South Korean society, Mr. Hong said. Click for more from The Wall Street Journal. Just hours after a deadly riot at a Brazilian prison was contained, authorities are reporting a new uprising Monday involving rival gangs of prisoners, Reuters is reporting. The new riot broke out at the same prison where 26 inmates were killed over the weekend, authorities told Reuters. "A SWAT team is there at this exact moment. Our men are entering the prison now to get control of the situation," said to Reuters Eduardo Franco, head of communications for police in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, where the Alcacuz prison is located. It is the fourth prison riot in the country's isolated northeast since the start of year. At least 140 inmates have died so far. Many of the dead had been hastily thrown into graves dug within the prison complex by other inmates and their bodies are only now being found by authorities. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. The deadly violence is the result of a split between the two most powerful drug gangs in the country, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command. The Alcacuz state penitentiary has a capacity of 620 but currently houses 1,150 inmates, the Justice Secretariat said. The recent string of prison violence began on Jan. 1-2, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Then on Jan. 6, in the neighboring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out. The riots in the Alcacuz prison started on Saturday evening; police said they regained control the next day, after a 14-hour siege. EFE contributed to this report. COLUMBUS Winter Storm Jupiter didn't have an astronomical impact on the Columbus area, but it was certainly an inconvenience. Freezing rain that started early Sunday afternoon turned local streets and sidewalks into sheets of ice as the slow-moving winter storm made travel treacherous from New Mexico to Wisconsin. It was so slick in Columbus that two city street department trucks working to treat roads before the morning commute were involved in minor fender-benders early Monday. The massive ice storm closed schools, shut down businesses and canceled events across the area. "It's an ice-skating rink out there," Columbus Public Schools Superintendent Troy Loeffelholz said Sunday night after making the decision to cancel Monday classes across the district. Lakeview Community Schools, Scotus Central Catholic, local Catholic elementary schools and Central Community College all made the same decision as road conditions continued to deteriorate as light rain fell throughout the night before freezing on roads and sidewalks. The temperature hovered just below the freezing mark during the overnight hours. Major roads that were pretreated with brine held up better against the ice, but side streets quickly became slippery in Columbus. Loeffelholz was also concerned that district workers wouldn't be able to keep ice off sidewalks and parking lots at the schools, putting students and staff at risk for falls. "I'd rather err on the side of student safety," Loeffelholz said while noting that the missed day will be made up at the end of the school year. Lakeview officials made the decision to cancel Tuesday classes around 5 p.m. Monday, just as the storm was wrapping up. Superintendent Aaron Plas was concerned about refreezing overnight that could make travel dangerous again Tuesday morning. "It's going to get pretty bad tomorrow from what they're saying," he said after communicating with the National Weather Service and state and county roads officials. Scotus and Columbus Public also made the decision to cancel Tuesday classes, and Central Community College campuses didn't open until 10 a.m. An ice storm warning extended until 7 p.m. Monday for Platte County, where around a quarter-inch of ice accumulation was expected. Barbara Mayes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, said temperatures that got just above the freezing mark Monday limited the storm's impact on the Columbus area. "That's all it took for it not to be a catastrophe," she said. "Some other areas it did end up being a catastrophe." Because of the warmer temperatures here, much of the precipitation fell as steady rain throughout Monday, which actually helped melt some of the ice on roadways. "That was really a double bonus for us," Mayes said. "We got lucky." Parts of southeast Nebraska weren't as fortunate. More than half an inch of ice accumulation was reported in the Fairbury area. Columbus also benefited from the light winds, which limited the potential for damage to ice-coated trees and power lines. A tree limb did fall on a power line around 9:30 a.m. Monday, briefly knocking out electricity for around 430 customers of Loup Public Power District in the Bradshaw Park and Wagner Lakes areas. Power was restored within 30-45 minutes, according to Neal Suess, the utility's president and CEO. A second outage caused by an ice-covered tree occurred shortly before 2 p.m., affecting 850-900 customers north and east of Hy-Vee, some for as few as 20 minutes and others for a little over an hour. The biggest concern for most areas was slick highways, streets and sidewalks. "Certainly the biggest impact is travel on untreated roadways," said meteorologist Josh Boustead with the weather service's Valley office. City crews pretreated major roads and intersections Friday and Saturday with a salt brine and salt-sand mix, and were back out at 3 a.m. Monday to hit many of the same areas. However, rain can wash away the brine over time and the city doesn't have enough material on hand to treat all of the more than 500 lane miles of local streets, so workers focused on the heavily traveled roads. "You try to do the best you can," said Public Works Director Greg McCaffery, whose crews get help from police officers to identify trouble spots. Jay Nickolite, the city's street superintendent, said most of the main roads in Columbus were in good shape around 6 p.m. Monday, but untreated residential streets remained slick. City street crews planned to be out early Tuesday morning with salt, sand and brine to treat roads again after the refreeze expected overnight. "Hopefully we get some warmer temperatures tomorrow and get everybody melted off," Nickolite said. Columbus Rescue transported two people to the local hospital on Monday with injuries sustained during slips on the ice, and Columbus Community Hospital reported fewer than 10 emergency room visits over the 24-hour period related to the slick conditions. The good news is high temperatures are expected to reach the mid-40s for Columbus on Wednesday and Thursday, which should get rid of all this pesky ice. A woman in Brazil has confessed to stabbing her teenage son to death because she couldnt tolerate he was gay, local media outlets are reporting. The woman, Tatiana Lozano Pereira, lured her 17-year-old son to the family home after a heated argument on Christmas Eve. Once in the house, Itaberli Lozano was reportedly ambushed by the woman and two thugs she had hired to beat her son up to teach him a lesson. However, the woman changed course and ordered the men to kill the boy as he was lying on the floor, severely beaten. When they refused, she took a kitchen knife and stabbed him herself, authorities said. Lozano Pereira, 32, told police that she removed the body from the house with the help of her husband, the boys stepfather, and took it to a cane field where they burned it. Lozanos charred body was found on Jan. 7. The mother reportedly admitted her part in the crime during the first interrogation, naming also the two men she had hired for the beating. Her husband was charged for his collaboration in disposing of the boys body. According to his uncle Dario Rosa and other relatives, Lozano had long been rejected by his mother for his sexual orientation. An attack on a security checkpoint in Egypt's Western Desert killed at least six people Monday, state media reported. Gunfire continued into the evening, Reuters added. The attack unfolded in the New Valley province, according to state TV. VIDEO: FIERCE FIGHTING BETWEEN IRAQI FORCES AND ISIS IN MOSUL A possible motive was unclear. Police did not identify the attackers. The shooting unfolded at the Naqb checkpoint more than 40 miles from Kharga, state media added. Egypt has faced a string of attacks linked to the Islamic State after the army overthrew the president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013. Many of the attacks have unfolded in the Sinai Peninsula. A car bombing at a police checkpoint in northern Sinai last week killed at least nine people and wounded 12 others, The New York Times reported. Since the military took power, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has presided over a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, banning unauthorized protests and jailing thousands of people. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Dutch firebrand populist Geert Wilders is accusing Prime Minister Mark Rutte of behaving like a "dictator" by ruling out a coalition with Wilders' Party for Freedom after national elections on March 15. Two months ahead of the polls, Wilders is riding high in opinion polls, but appears increasingly unlikely to be able to form a majority government. Rutte said in an interview Sunday that the chance of his center-right Liberal Party forming a coalition with Wilders' party was "zero." Rutte was the latest mainstream politician to rule out working with Wilders, meaning that the fiery lawmaker who wants to drastically rein in immigration and lead the Netherlands out of the European Union appears unlikely to be this country's next prime minister. Police said on Sunday evening that the man suspected of robbing the First Citizens Bank on Thursday is now in his second stolen vehicle, this time a Ford Escape. The man, who police said had been in a stolen Lexus SUV when the robbery happened, is suspected of stealing the Escape at about 6 p.m. Friday at the 7-Eleven at 905 Lafayette Blvd., according to a Sunday news release from the Fredericksburg Police Department. The black 2013 Escape (with a license of JLU-2050) has a circular black-and-white sticker with 718 Venue on the rear window. Police said surveillance video shows the man wearing a pink knitted stocking cap and a grey sweatshirt at the 7-Eleven. The gold Lexus RX-300 police say the man had been driving was found in the parking lot of Brock's Bar and Grill at 503 Sophia St. Police said the man is considered armed and dangerous and that he should not be approached. The apparent crime spree started on Thursday morning, according to police, who say the man started by stealing the Lexus in Hanover County. The next point where police pick up the suspect is at a Hanover County 7-Eleven later Thursday morning, where surveillance video shows a man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing a black jacket and olive cargo pants. Police say he is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and in his 40s or 50s. Fredericksburg police spokeswoman Sarah Kirkpatrick said investigators also have video from the CVS next to the bank at Cowan Crossing on U.S. 1 prior to the Thursday afternoon robbery showing the man enter the pharmacy and then leave and drive off in the Lexus. The bank, which is near Cowan Boulevard, was robbed just before 4 p.m. Thursday. A man entered the bank and handed a teller a note saying he had a weapon and demanded cash. The teller complied, and the man left on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash, Kirkpatrick said. Police released a still video image of the smiling robber, who was last seen headed toward the nearby CVS. Anyone with information should contact police immediately. The police departments number is 373-3122. To make an anonymous tip, send a text to the number 847-411 and text the word FPDtip followed by your tip. Tips can also be sent by using a free FPD Tip app that can be downloaded for Android and iPhones. One by one, the elementary-schoolers delivered timely messages in honor of a historical figure. If only we could find peaceful ways to resolve our conflicts. If we could do less fighting and more talking. Lets look at what we have in common. Lets strive to embrace cultures that are different. Finally, the Lafayette Upper Elementary School students shouted in unison: Let there be peace on earth! They delivered those remarksand performed two songsSunday during the 11th annual Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at James Monroe High Schools auditorium in Fredericksburg. The eventpresented by The Partnership for Academic Excellence and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternityfeatured several rousing musical performances and speakers who included Fredericksburg Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw, city Councilman Charlie Frye. Jr., and University of Mary Washington President Troy Paino. The Rev. Lawrence Davies, Fredericksburgs first black mayor, and the Rev. Larry Haun of Fredericksburg Baptist Church delivered opening prayers. With political tensions rising ahead of President-elect Donald Trumps inauguration, some speakers emphasized Kings vision of a beloved community. The Rev. Doug McCusker of Fredericksburgs Unitarian Universalist Fellowship said Kings beloved community envisioned an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood and peaceful resolutions to international disputes. He recited a prayer first delivered by King that includes the line: Help us never to let anybody or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Paino, UMWs president, touched on the political climate, saying: In 2017, we once again stand at the crossroads between hate and love, division and unity, fear and hope. As we stand witness to the possible unwinding of America, I pray that we have the courage and conviction displayed by Reverend King and so many others who fought and sacrificed to advance the rights of the marginalized and help our Republic live up to its ideal. Retired minister Faye Gunn told the approximately 200 people in attendance that she grew up on Chincoteague Island, but had to travel to the mainland to attend a black elementary school. And she said segregation forced her to drive 80 miles roundtrip to attend high school, where she graduated with honors. But years later, she became the second black teacher at a desegregated high school in Danville. King made that possible, she said. Gunn followed her speech with a prayer asking God to help bring love where hatred exists. God, make us channels of your peace in this dark, difficult world in which we live and where segregation and prejudice still exist today. The University of Mary Washington will celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a keynote speech from attorney Bakari Sellers on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m. in Chandler Ballroom, University Center. This event is free and open to the public. Sellers, the son of civil rights leader Cleveland Sellers, was just 22 years old in 2006 when he defeated an incumbent state representative to become the youngest member of the South Carolina state legislature and the youngest AfricanAmerican elected official in the nation. In 2014, he was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in South Carolina. He was named to Time magazines 40 Under 40 in 2010 and provides commentary to television news outlets. He also served on President Barack Obamas South Carolina steering committee during the 2008 election and is widely considered to be a rising star within the Democratic Party and a leading voice for his generation, according to a university press release about the event. Lindley Estes Long Island Medium (Theresa Caputo) works for Satan Shes charming, shes whacky, and shes got funny hair and crazy fingernails- shes also working for the devil. Sound harsh? Good. ... Fr.Longenecker vs Michael Voris Quote: "If the faith is in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public."-St. Thomas Aquinas ... Catholic Controversy over "Son of God" movie It is seldom that I disagree with Michael Voris from Church Militant TV , but today I do. It seems some of the more traditional leanin... Banning Children from Gay Pride Parades ** WARNING : Adult homosexual content GRAPHIC GAY PRIDE PARADE PHOTOS ** Should children be banned from gay pride parades? Ye... Saint Peter taught me to love Pope Francis Anyone who has been following my blog [along with family and friends] know that I have had serious issues with Pope Francis since Holy We... What's up with Life Teen Catholic Youth Ministry? So I'm on Twitter when I see Ryan Fitz retweet a Creaky tweet about Catholic Life Teen Youth Ministry that caught my eye. Someth... Lonely: I pray for someone I came across two stories on Twitter recently about lonely people. The first was about an elderly woman who sat alone in her house for ye... Archdiocese of New Orleans has a gay problem There is something seriously wrong with the Archdiocese of New Orleans . Namely, they speak with a forked tongue. How can any Cath... Fr James Martin says the Virgin Mary opposed Jesus Christ because Jesus was crazy Father James Martin strikes again, taking another shot at the Holy Mother of God on his Facebook page . Martin says... get this.... 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. Page Content The Maltese government has set the single market, security of Europe's borders, maritime policy and migration, as its priorities. These are all issues that matter greatly to local and regional governments. Supporting growth has been at the heart of my Presidency which is why I applaud the Maltese government for prioritising the Single Market. We need to demonstrate that our local and regional economies are open for business by simplifying regulation and directing EU funds towards entrepreneurship, start-ups, new technologies and innovation. We need to bolster the sustainable smart development of our regions and cities by attracting even more private investment through tools such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments. The Digital Single Market, a Maltese Presidency priority, will help create more smart jobs making our economy even more competitive on the global stage. On 7 February in partnership with the European Commission's Vice-President, Maros Sefcovic, we will gather local and regional leaders in Brussels to showcase some of the best examples of smart regional development encouraging others to also become pioneers. The Maltese government's commitment to get the recently published Clean Energy Package off the ground shows that our future lies in improving energy efficiency and decarbonising our energy system. Our cities and regions need to create the right conditions locally to support green innovation. Greater energy efficiency needs political commitment equally at European, national, regional and local level backed by the right level of funding. Europe is still recovering from the economic crisis which has and will continue to alter the way we do business. This applies equally to the maritime and marine sector which employs more than 5 million people and generates almost 500bn a year. We need an approach that further unleashes the sector's potential by supporting entrepreneurship and innovation whilst taking a cross-cutting approach to policy. Boosting growth in Europe's islands is also of utmost importance and the focus of a report our Committee will deliver on request from the Maltese EU Presidency. One of the issues citizens are most worried by and even protesting against is the migration crisis which has demographic, economic and political consequences for our communities. In Europe we need to remember that managing the flow and reception of people ultimately falls on the shoulders of local and regional governments which is why the EU's response must be based on solidarity and pragmatism. The EU needs to step-up its efforts in supporting Europe's local and regional governments to integrate migrants into their communities and manage emergencies when they occur The global focus should be more on the migrants places of origin. My major concern is the shortcomings in promoting peace, creating more job opportunities and upholding basic human rights in unstable regions and countries. Tackling the migration crisis also means strengthening partnerships between regions and cities on both sides of the Mediterranean and helping third countries to develop a better future for their citizens the focus of a conference organised by our Committee in Valletta on 22 February 2017. The European Committee of the Regions is ready to further support the Maltese EU Presidency by using its networks outside Europe's borders to enhance dialogue and capacity building through the exchange of local and regional authorities' best practices. Helping at the root of the issues is critical to finding a workable solution to the migration crisis. We also need to bridge the gap between Brussels and our communities showing that first and foremost the EU works on behalf of its citizens. We need to rebuild trust towards the European project by strengthening how we communicate Europe, showing that the EU does listen and demonstrate that every voice counts. As part of this reflection on Europe, led by our members we are co-organising a series of events where citizens and local and regional governments can share their concerns, views and opinions on Europe this will contribute to a referral being written by our Committee which will be submitted to the European Council. On 25 March this year the 60th Anniversary of the Treaty of Rome will be celebrated. But this is not only a time to remember and celebrate what has been achieved over the past 60 years. It is a time to reflect on what the European Union is today and find ways to improve it so it even more effectively delivers for the 500 million citizens it represents. An unseasonably wet season has led to a Tasmanian farmer claiming a new Australian record for the highest oilseed rape yield, at nearly 6.2t/ha. Michael Nichols, cropping manager at Redbank Farm at Sisters Creek in the states north-west, harvested 8.5ha of the variety Hyola 970CL last week, averaging 6.17t/ha. See also: Yorkshire grower hits unofficial oilseed rape yield record Bumper harvest Australia, not known for high yields with a national average of 1.3t/ha in 2012-13, is seeing a bumper harvest for cereals and rapeseed because of a higher rainfall. Because it was a mild spring and summer, the pods could mature and didnt dry out and fall off due to heat stress, explains Mr Nichols. The crop received a record 2,150mm of rainfall in 2016, nearly twice the average of 1,200mm. We planted the canola (oilseed rape) on 27 April and up to the beginning of May it only had 150mm, so it basically got 2m of rain after that, he says. This bumper crop sees him take the number four spot in the unofficial world ranking, which is topped by the UKs Steve Tuer who in 2015 achieved 7.2t/ha. In the same year, UK grower Tim Lamyman hit 6.7t/ha and New Zealands Chris Dennison reached 6.31t/ha. Too big to cut At 8ft, it was too big to direct cut, so had to be swathed. Mr Nichols used a Claas Lexion 580 combine harvester with a variable cut front to extend cutting depth, and local contractor David Charleston helped with windrowing using his D60-D MacDon front. I was going about 3km/hour which is about standard, as there was a lot of product going through the machine and I needed to keep it steady, he says. On the mainland that is definitely considered slow. Oilseed rape is grown in a six-year rotation along with mustard seed, poppies, potatoes, onions and wheat across his 180ha of arable cropping. A hard Brexit which sees the UK leave the EU single market will be disastrous for the British lamb sector, say sheep industry leaders. The National Sheep Association (NSA) said it did not support the prospect of the UK walking away from the single market being used as a negotiating position during Brexit talks. It comes amid expectations a speech due to be made by prime minister Theresa May on Tuesday (17 January) will signal that a hard Brexit is on the cards. See also: Minister under fire on lack of farm Brexit policy Several Sunday newspapers reported that Mrs May will use a speech at Lancaster House, London, to say the UK is prepared to leave the single market. Disastrous NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said an immediate move away from the single market at the point of departure from the EU could be disastrous to UK sheep farmers. It would have a devastating impact on the UKs agricultural sustainability, environmental protection and rural communities and infrastructure, he warned. Some 30-40% of the UKs total lamb crop is exported, with some 96% of this output going to countries within the EU, said Mr Stocker. Any loss of access or tariff placed on this, coupled with the absence of alternative trade options, will not only cause huge disruption to trade but an almost inevitable fall in farmgate prices. If this were to happen at the same time as the industry is facing extensive uncertainty around farm support payments, the potential impact on the UK sheep sector would be crippling. The UK simply cannot afford to leave the single market and pass any costs of tariffs back to the agricultural industry until alternative and workable trade deals are developed elsewhere. Transitional period Mr Stocker said sheep producers would need a long transitional period if the UK was were to leave the single market. NSA understands the need for a tough negotiating stance, but our exit from the EU needs to be done with a clear vision for the future so that businesses can plan and adapt. Sheep farming, like most farming sectors, is a long-term activity where decisions taken today may take years to come to fruition. A two-year run-up to a hard Brexit would be nowhere near long enough to steer the sheep farming industry through one of the most seismic changes we could possibly face. Pig sector The National Pig Association (NPA) has also called for a fair deal on trade a move which has seen pig sector representatives invited to outline their position to Downing Street. Association chairman Richard Lister, chief executive Zoe Davies and policy services manager Lizzie Wilson will meet Brexit minister David Jones on 8 February. Mr Lister said: We will be seeking a fair deal for British pig farmers on trade, while retaining access full-time to EU labour will be an absolute priority for our sector. Mr Jones has told the NPA he would be pleased to meet the organisation to discuss any concerns and the position of the British pig industry following the referendum. Monique Eloit blamed the plethora of different strains of the AI virus across Asia for the downbeat conclusion that more bird flu outbreaks can be expected across Europe. Bearing in mind that particularly in Asia there are always different viruses bubbling up no region is really safe from the fresh contamination, particularly from migrating wild birds, she told Reuters. 18 European countries have been hit by the wave of H5N8 cases since mid-October, which has seen the culling of 1.5 million birds. In the past 3 weeks, Hungary and France have registered more than 50 and 30 cases. Significant spike in reported AI cases The OIE said the large number of cases reported in December and January represented a significant spike. Neo Mapitse, deputy head of department with the OIE, suggested this was likely due to an increase in the number of outbreaks and improved surveillance and diagnostics, which were picking up the disease in wild birds. Both Spain and Slovenia announced their first cases in wild birds this week. Dr Mapitse urged countries to adopt good biosecurity to ensure the disease did not spread further. In the UK, the Animal and Plant Health has released its epidemiological findings of the outbreaks in Louth, Lincolnshire and Carmarthenshire, west Wales, saying there were no links between the 2 cases. Laboratory tests on a number of wild birds found the virus was very closely related. Free-range status under the prevention zone Defra also clarified information around free-range bird status under the prevention zone. It said by declaring a prevention zone, birds could be housed for up to 12 weeks (in this case, up until 28 February) and still maintain their free-range status. It said the 12-week period applied to the time when birds were slaughtered or eggs laid rather than the time of sale: So provided birds are slaughtered or eggs are laid on or before 28 February 2017, they may still be marketed as free range. Meanwhile, Dutch MEPs have written to the European Commission calling for these rules to amended, allowing eggs from housed hens to be classed as free range beyond the 12-week window permitted. It should be borne in mind in this context that loss of status not only has consequences for producers of free-range eggs but would also distort the market for barn eggs and undermine investment in free-range facilities, they wrote. WHATS UP The Cherokee County Literacy Association is having a hot dog sale fundraiser on November 12 at 11:00 a.m.2:00 p.m. in the office parking lot at 409 Buford Street. Plates for... Blacksburg town employees to get bonus of $175 Blacksburg town employees were rewarded for their work Tuesday with a little extra in their holiday bonuses. Blacksburg Town Council unanimously agreed to give most full-time and part-time employees an... In this region, no one fights alone Traditional rivals Landrum and Liberty presented a $4,700 check at Fridays Blacksburg game from a competitive fundraiser to celebrate Pink Out Week. Students competed to see which school could raise... Pet Obituary Cameo CamiWard 7/27/2004 10/29/2022 Cameo chose her forever family by walking into their yard June 2006. She loved her cat proof backyard, window and screen porch. Cameo for many years played hide and go... The protest against efforts at repealing the Affordable Care Act in Corvallis drew an energetic crowd of more than 200, complete with banners, drumming, chants, singing and many, many signs. In Albany, a protest in support of the ACA drew around 50 sign-waving people who cheered enthusiastically as passing drivers honked their support. The events coincided with similar rallies in support of President Barack Obamas health care law that took place across the U.S. on Sunday. The national effort was led by Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders and comes in response to moves towards repealing the act by the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress. The signs in both towns had similar messages: Save health care. Health care is a human right. Emergency room visits will increase. Save the ACA. A better deal before you repeal. Single payer health care. Stand with Planned Parenthood. Genevieve Lynch, a Lebanon resident, attended both rallies with her sign, which read The ACA Saved My Life. Lynch, a self-employed house cleaner, said she was unable to afford health insurance for 26 years before the ACA was implemented. She said because she had a pre-existing injury from a car crash, when she tried to get herself insurance she was quoted premiums of $1,000 a month. Through the health care exchange, with government subsidies, Lynch said she was able to buy insurance for $33 a month. When she went into the doctor after signing up, she was diagnosed with a heart condition, which fortunately was treatable with medication. I feel (the ACA) saved my life, she said. She said she is now worried that the repeal effort will take away her insurance, right after a mammogram that her doctor thought showed signs of possible cancer (shes currently waiting to do additional imaging). Im terrified theyre going to cancel my insurance, cancel my subsidy, Lynch said. To the people trying to repeal the act she had two questions: Why do you want some of us to die? Why do only rich people deserve health care? The Corvallis rally was organized by local progressive groups, including the Benton County Democrats and Our Revolution Corvallis Allies, which formerly was Corvallis for Bernie. Stephanie Hampton, a member of both groups who helped organize it, said health care protest is just a start for local progressive groups. People are getting more involved because of how the election went and the Republicans are rolling out their anti-people agenda. She said since the election, progressive groups have created a Show Up Everywhere Corvallis page to organize events like these. We are building a community and people are becoming civically engaged, she said. Hampton said public reaction can have an impact and gave Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives quickly reversing plans to strip independence from an ethics agency earlier this month as an example. If we fight back, together we can win, she said. Bert Guptill, with Albany Our Revolution, said while the Albany protest was smaller, the message was more important there. Weve got more people who are affected, he said. Guptill said Donald Trump being elected president may be a good thing in getting Democrats to rebuild themselves more in the Sanders direction. This is just a new beginning, Guptill said. State Rep. Sherrie Sprenger had a good idea: A bill she shepherded through the Legislature would have encouraged schools with mascots named after Native American symbols to reach out to tribes if they wanted to keep using those mascots. But Sprenger's bill, for all intents and purposes, was undercut by the state education department, a striking example of how bureaucrats can frustrate the best efforts of the Legislature, deliberately or not. The result in this case is a missed opportunity to build partnerships between schools and tribes and to give today's students some real-life lessons from those tribes. The State Board of Education ruled in 2012 that all Oregon public schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, had to stop using American Indian names, symbols, or images as school mascots by July 1, 2017. Those who don't risked the loss of state funding. After months of hearings and reports, and more than 700 written comments that were almost evenly split on the issue, the board sided with research that indicates Indian mascots are tantamount to institutionalized racism and give tacit approval for stereotyping, bullying and other negative messages. In the mid-valley, the decision affected school districts in Philomath and Lebanon, both of which use the "Warriors" nickname. The decision left room for those schools to keep the "Warrior" name because it does not specifically carry a Native American connotation, but the state said it can't be linked with a symbol or image that refers to any Indian tribe, individual, custom or tradition. Sprenger, the Scio Republican whose district includes Lebanon, has been following the issue for years. In 2014, she convinced the Legislature to sign off a bill that allows school districts with Native American names and imagery to keep them if they worked out agreements with local tribes. Sprenger's hope was that school districts would build relationships with tribes, getting to know them and adding their information to school history lessons. She worked hard to convey that hope to school districts, meeting with officials from every affected district. The problem was that the bill still had to be implemented by state officials, and although they did so grudgingly any educator paying any sort of attention to the process surely understood that the Board of Education was not particularly interested in fleshing out Sprenger's bill. Lebanon Superintendent Rob Hess put it well, with more than a touch of diplomatic understatement: "The process the state ended up with was very limited and did not fit our needs." It looks as if other districts around the state have reached the same conclusion: To date, no school districts in Oregon have requested approval from the state Board of Education to continue using a name or image associated with Native Americans. However, Philomath school officials say they're going to give it a shot. Schools superintendent Melissa Goff says that the school board will review a draft memorandum of agreement with the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians regarding keeping the names Warriors and Braves, and associated logos. Philomath Middle School uses the Braves nickname. Goff said that the Siletz Tribal Council has been working "to ensure that this work is seen within the classrooms in what our students learn about the history of our region and the contributions and impacts of the Siletz tribes." The school board will take a look at that draft MOU during Thursdays meeting. If the deal comes to pass and gets approved by the Board of Education, apparently not a given it could result in exactly the kind of relationship building that Sprenger originally had in mind. It's too bad that other Oregon students apparently won't get the same opportunity. Here are updates on a handful of stories that the Gazette-Times has been tracking: Air quality monitoring The story: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced plans in November to set up air monitoring equipment near the Hollingsworth & Vose glass fiber plant in south Corvallis. Area residents have voiced concerns about breathing glass fibers and other emissions from the plant, which is applying for new air pollution permits from the state after operating for almost 20 years under the wrong class of permit. The latest: Anthony Barnack, the DEQs ambient air monitoring coordinator, said he has completed the monitoring plan for the project and sent it out for internal review. He has also identified two possible locations near the H&V plant where the monitoring equipment could be set up. Bennett Hall Beaver genome The story: Oregon State University researchers raised $30,000 through a crowd-funding effort in the fall of 2015 to sequence the genome of the North American beaver, the schools mascot. OSUs Center for Genomics and Biocomputing said the project would increase scientific understanding of the industrious rodent while raising the universitys profile. The latest: On Saturday, a team of OSU faculty, staff and students was scheduled to release the Beaver Genome Projects findings to date at a genomics conference in San Diego. The researchers said the results constituted a first draft of the beaver genome and that publicly releasing their data would enable other scientists to analyze the information. With roughly 26,200 genes, they said, the animals genetic blueprint is about one-third larger than the human genome. Bennett Hall Siga Technologies The story: On Sept. 16, 2014, Siga Technologies filed for protection from its creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The company, which has laboratories in Corvallis, won a $433 million federal contract to provide a smallpox drug to the federal biodefense stockpile but then lost a lawsuit filed by a rival firm that claimed half the proceeds after Siga backed out of a planned merger. The latest: Siga emerged from bankruptcy protection in April after the court approved a reorganization plan that included paying $205 million plus interest to PharmAthene Inc., the companys onetime merger partner. Siga made the final payment in November, and on Dec. 22, the court entered a final decree in the bankruptcy proceedings, bringing the case officially to a close. Bennett Hall Members of the Oregon State University Alumni Association will be asked this month to approve a merger of the organization with the OSU Foundation. The merger, Alumni Association staff said, would allow it access to a broader pool of resources to offer services to members and non-member alumni, but it would also remove association members right to vote on the associations board of directors. Besides a few things no one will notice, were basically the same organization, said Kathy Bickel, vice president of alumni relations and executive director of the OSUAA. She said OSUAA will continue to be located in the CH2M HILL Alumni Center and none of its logos or brands will change, and it will continue to send the Oregon Stater magazine to all alumni, not just members. I dont see there are downsides to the alignment, she said. According to Bickel, if the proposed merger is approved by a vote of their members, they would like to develop new programs such as a volunteer relations platform, more professional development and career resource programs, like mentorships, and more methods for engaging alumni digitally. The foundation is the bigger organization: it had a budget of $21.6 million in the 2016 fiscal year, while OSUAAs budget was just $5 million. The foundation has more staff too, 134 to the OSUAAs 26. She said these changes are needed to keep the association relevant for two reasons: OSU increasingly has graduates all over the nation and world who arent being engaged by events in Oregon. Alumni no longer depend on the association to stay in touch with their classmates the way they did before the age of social media. In the past, she said the Oregon Stater and alumni events were the only way for alumni to learn what their classmates were doing. Now you probably know what your (college) friends had for breakfast, she said. However, she said they also see more opportunity to engage alumni by offering career resources, since a college degree is no longer the guarantee for a good job that it once was. We want to be able to adapt to the new environment, she said. Bickel said with the merger they hope to offer more services to young alumni who may not yet want to join the association, but if they can build relationships with them they may be able to get them to become members later. Its sometimes difficult to engage young alumni, she said. The process of the merger began in September of 2014, and both the foundation and OSUAA boards voted unanimously to approve it, Bickel said. She said both organizations had task forces evaluating the merger, and that there was a thoughtful, robust process for assessing it. If the change goes through, the Alumni Association would become a part of the foundation, and the foundations board of directors would gain the power to appoint OSUAAs board members. However, the associations members must approve the merger before it goes forward: to vote OSUAA members must show up in person to a meeting at 10 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 27, at the OSU Portland Center, located at 707 S.W. Washington, Suite 500. Angela McBride, marketing associate director with OSUAA, said the associations bylaws require members voting to be present and do not allow proxy voting, including paper or electronic ballots. According to McBride, the reason for the vote being held in Portland is that about 25 percent of their members live there, which is the highest concentration of the organizations members anywhere. She added that they have sent out emails and letters to all of the approximately 14,500 OSUAA members and have had fewer than 20 comments, and there were twice as many positive comments as negative ones. However, not everyone is happy about the proposal: Walt Griffiths, a Corvallis resident and OSUAA member since 1980, said he thinks the merger is really about making the association part of the universitys fundraising apparatus. I dont believe (increasing services) is really what drives this change, he said. Griffiths said in his years in the association hes watched services decline, including programs that formerly gave OSUAA members discounts at the university bookstore and gave them the ability to audit classes for free. Over the past almost 40-years, I have seen benefits for alumni do nothing but decline, just as I see the association will decline through this proposed, and almost certainly approved, decision by university manipulators, he said. Griffiths said he and his wife each get at least two calls a year from the Foundation soliciting donations. He also said only allowing people to vote in Portland is an example of the universitys attitude that it will move forward regardless of what people want. He said he doesnt plan to go to Portland for the meeting. The university will get its way, usually sooner than later. Ask the city of Corvallis, the students or the faculty. He added that he thinks the association should focus on offering access to the university and its decision makers, which is the one unique thing it can offer. Griffiths added that he has two adult children who are graduates of OSU, and they have no desire to join the association. They are a generation later, and theres nothing left to join, he said. Bickel said the move isnt all about fundraising, and the association does say on its website that it already shares its membership information with the OSU foundation. She said they will not be laying off any employees, but through the merger they will be able to move some employees to more outward facing positions. This will allow our Alumni Association to strengthen relationships with all alumni, not just members, Bickel said. It seems to be a common statement during the 2016 campaign: "If so-and-so is elected, I'm moving to Canada" (or some other country). Here are Parking in Bonn : App is more reliable than information boards BONN Since the Marktgarage has closed, the search for a parking space in Bonn is testing peoples patience, but theres an app that can help. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Parking places were scarce in Bonn city centre on Saturday. As well as the long-closed Unigarage, the Marktgarage is now also closed for renovation. The situation was calm in the morning but as it got later, first the car park at the main station, then at the Munsterplatz, then at the city hall and finally at Friedensplatz were all full. Only the Beethoven car park always had free spaces. Heinrich Petka, who works at the garage, said, At the weekend, theres not much going on here. There are nearly always spaces for about 200 cars. It is different during the week: Then workers come and every space is taken. Using the Beethoven car park at the weekend is a bit of an insider tip, although the city administration recommends using it more. For many, it is apparently too far from the city, says Karin Braun. But the parking bays here are bigger than, for example, at the Munsterplatz. The adjacent car park a few metres away is also seldom full and depending on parking times up to two euros cheaper. But price does not seem to be crucial to the search for a space. After a 20 minute search, Mario Deilmann ended up at the car park in front of the main train station. This will soon disappear when works start on the renovation of the area and is already regularly full. I did not see the signs in time and always drove past the entrances, said the Bruhl resident. He described the parking information system as confusing and said there were too few signs. Other cities do it better. An example is the information board at city hall, which is supposed to show the number of free spaces in the car parks but seems to have nothing to do with the actual occupancy rate. At around 1.30pm, it showed 285 free spaces in the Munsterplatz car park and 720 in the Friedensplatz car park. In reality there were no free spaces on Saturday and those who relied on the information boards found themselves trapped at the entrance to the Munsterplatz car park. The mobile app from Bonner City Parkraum GmbH is more reliable. Data is transferred in realtime and the occupancy rates are constantly updated. The app is easy to use and 5000 users have currently downloaded it. Bonn A taxi driver was attacked with a knife on Annagraben last week. Police have now arrested a 33-year-old suspect. There has been a break-through in the case of the taxi driver stabbed last week. The police have arrested a 33-year-old man from Bonn whom they suspect of attacking a 46-year-old taxi driver on Annagraben last week and injuring him so seriously with a knife that the victim was left in a life-threatening condition. Tommyknocker Legends tell of giants and also trolls, Cyclops, Goliath, and more. They also tell of the "wee folk," "little people," "elves," "dwarfs," "Tommyknockers" and more. Around the world, evidence of actual races of little people have been uncovered. Perhaps the most widely recognized one today is the "Hobbit" of Indonesia. Homo floresiensis Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "Hobbit," was found in Jakarta, Indonesia and aged at about 17,000 years ago. His brain was the size of a chimp, his body 3 feet long, but his feet strangely long and flat at 7-1/2 inches. The assumption by his very flat feet is that he was unable to run like we do, but could walk. In fact, though he was a hominin, he did not seem to have feet that were anything like our own evolutionary process. There has been much debate if the island isolation created this unusual race, but it would seem more likely that they evolved in their own direction from the primates on the island many millions of years ago. Even more interestingly, wee folk around the world are portrayed with long feet! Artist reconstruction - interestingly with a hairy body for a being who lived only 17,000 years ago. LINK) The past existence of Negritos (a descendant race?) has been known for some time in New Guinea (extinct c.1920 due to inter-tribal wars and head-hunting practices as far as it is known) and in the Cairns region of North Queensland. The noted historian and anthropologist Norman B. Tinsdale was in fact the last person to see the remnants of such a race alive (c.1930) before the last of these peoples walked off into the northern jungles never to be seen again. Some academics have even stated that the now extinct Tasmanian natives because of their unique culture, language and characteristics were also descended from the Negritos of old driven into isolation by earthly changes and invading northern natives. In the 1400s and 1500s, Dutch and Portuguese sailors sighting the Western Australian coastline noted tall natives in warfare chasing and killing hordes of little native peoples. This race was proven by artifacts, but have we found skeletons of other "little people?" From the book The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee by John Haywood (starting page 200 on reprint edition from Amazon): Referred to as "pygmies," these skeletons were found buried in crypts just outside of Sparta, Tennessee in the County of White and reported in the Nashville Whig in June 1820. These graves had many bodies, all of them quite small. Some of the crypts were as small as 18 inches by 12 inches. The first grave was 2 feet long and inside the small skeleton and its teeth had the researcher wondering if it was canine or monkey. He had them sent off to be examined. They were buried with care in a stone crypt and had shells and urns with them. The bones were so old they crumbled quite easily. One skull the examiner held up was 5" across from side to side. Most individuals were from 18 inches to 2 feet 10 inches long. One find was a 5 foot 5 inch individual found with the smaller ones. The taller skeleton had a head that was longer, eyes much wider asunder, the forehead much higher above the eyebrows, and the under jaw measured one inch longer on each side than the smaller fellows. Atop the head of one skull had bright silver grey fine hairs. There was great dissimilarity in skull shapes, the size and shape of the bones, and looked to belong to different tribes of people. Just 8 miles away, a 7-foot giant was found. These finds were packaged and sent for examination in Nashville. The prevailing opinion was that they were not children. No 1 skull belonged to some carnivorous animal of the canine genus; but that the skull belonged on an adult person of small size, not much exceeding 3 feet in length. Cylindrical bones and teeth appeared canine. Others gave the same odd opinion. Source: V.R. Pilapil, for example, asserts that the disputed Tennessee graves really did contain pygmy remains. Not only that, but he hypothesizes that the pygmies arrived in ancient times from southeast Asia, probably the Philippines, where today's diminutive Aetas live. To support his case, Pilapil recalls B. Fell's examination of the Tennessee skeletal material. Fell noted that: (1) The skull brain capacity was equivalent to only about 950 cubic centimeters, about the volume of a non-pygmy 7-year-old; (2) The teeth were completely developed and showed severe wear characteristic of mature individuals; and (3) The skulls were brachycephalic (flat-headed like dogs) with projecting jaws (like dog). Fell had, in fact, described skulls very much like those of today's adult Philippine Aetas. Another line of evidence adduced by Pilapil involved the traditions of British Columbia tribes, which recognized a tribe of very small people called the Et-nane. More significant is the oral history of the Cherokees, which mentions the existence of "little people" in eastern North America. An ancient graveyard of vast proportions has been found in Coffee county. It is similiar to those found in White County and other places in middle Tennessee, but is vastly more extensive, and shows that the race of pygmies who once inhabited this country were very numerous. The same peculiarities of position Observed in the White County graves are found in these. The writer of the letter says: "Some considerable excitement and curiousity took place a few days since, near Hillsboro, Coffee county, on James Brown's farm. A man was ploughing in a field which had been cultivated many years, and ploughed up a man's skull and other bones. After making further examination they found that there were about six acres in the graveyard. They were buried in a sitting or standing position. The bones show that they were a dwarf tribe of people, about three feet high. It is estimated that there were about 75,000 to 100,000 buried there. This shows that this country was inhabited hundreds of years ago." Source: Anthropological Institute, Journal, 6:100, 1876: Interestingly, this area around Sparta and White County had been the site of extensive saltpeter mining in the Civil War era and also has the 10th longest mapped cave in America, the largest in Tennessee. Caves, mining and little people; seem to go together. Mining and caves and the wee folk are prolific in the legends. Tommyknockers: These little folk are in the legends of the Welsh as troublemakers and sometimes, early warning folks within caves. Interestingly, Wales is the site of the Great Orme Caves which, when uncovered, showed ancient mining with tools too massive and big for humans to have utilized, showing signs of giant culture. Giants and little folk seem to show up hand-in-hand in regions, like Tennessee and other mining areas. And, local "Native" people tell of these in their legends and lore repeatedly to the point that one has to give it credence. The Native peoples of North America told legends of a race of "little people" who lived in the woods near sandy hills and sometimes near rocks located along large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. Often described as "hairy-faced dwarfs" in stories, petroglyphs illustrations show them with horns on their head and traveling in a group of 5 to 7 per canoe. A graveyard unearthed in the 1830s in Coshocton County, Ohio was believed to contain skeletons belonging to a pygmy race. In fact that the graves, only about three feet long, were "bone burials" containing disarticulated or bent bones packed together. The physical remains of tiny people have been reported found in various locations in the western United States, particularly Montana and Wyoming. Typically these are described as being found in caves with various details such as descriptions that they were "perfectly formed", dwarf-size. Source: The Native peoples of North America told legends of a race of "little people" who lived in the woods near sandy hills and sometimes near rocks located along large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. Often described as "hairy-faced dwarfs" in stories, petroglyphs illustrations show them with horns on their head and traveling in a group of 5 to 7 per canoe.A graveyard unearthed in the 1830s in Coshocton County, Ohio was believed to contain skeletons belonging to a pygmy race. In fact that the graves, only about three feet long, were "bone burials" containing disarticulated or bent bones packed together.The physical remains of tiny people have been reported found in various locations in the western United States, particularly Montana and Wyoming. Typically these are described as being found in caves with various details such as descriptions that they were "perfectly formed", dwarf-size. Let's take a wee look around the world at the little people legends - America "Yunwi Tsunsdi." The Little People of the Cherokee are a race of Spirits who live in rock caves on the mountain side. They are little fellows and ladies reaching almost to your knees. They are well shaped and handsome, and their hair so long it almost touches the ground. They are very helpful, kind-hearted, and great wonder workers. They love music and spend most of their time drumming, singing, and dancing. They have a very gentle nature, but do not like to be disturbed. The little people of the Pryor Mountains. Crow folklore says the "Little People" ("Nirumbee") live in the Pryor Mountains, a small mountain range in Carbon County, Montana. Petroglyphs on rocks in the mountains, the Crow said, were made by these demon-like creatures. Because the Little People live there, the mountains are sacred to the Crow. The Little People are said to be no more than 18 inches (46 cm) (or knee) high. Crow folklore differs slightly from that of other tribes in describing the Little People of the Pryor Mountains as having large, nearly round bellies; incredibly strong but short arms and legs; and little or no neck. Source: "Yunwi Tsunsdi." The Little People of the Cherokee are a race of Spirits who live in rock caves on the mountain side. They are little fellows and ladies reaching almost to your knees. They are well shaped and handsome, and their hair so long it almost touches the ground. They are very helpful, kind-hearted, and great wonder workers. They love music and spend most of their time drumming, singing, and dancing. They have a very gentle nature, but do not like to be disturbed. CROW: The little people of the Pryor Mountains. Crow folklore says the "Little People" ("Nirumbee") live in the Pryor Mountains, a small mountain range in Carbon County, Montana. Petroglyphs on rocks in the mountains, the Crow said, were made by these demon-like creatures. Because the Little People live there, the mountains are sacred to the Crow. The Little People are said to be no more than 18 inches (46 cm) (or knee) high. Crow folklore differs slightly from that of other tribes in describing the Little People of the Pryor Mountains as having large, nearly round bellies; incredibly strong but short arms and legs; and little or no neck. Enukins of Alaska: Small mischievous people of the night are part of Alaskan legend. They were also said to live underground! Small mischievous people of the night are part of Alaskan legend. They were also said to live underground! Ishigaq: Inuit legend of little people who left no footprints in the snow. Nimerigar: Shoshone legend of little folk of the American Rockies. Shoshone legend of little folk of the American Rockies. Yunwi Tsundsi: Cherokee described little folk who reached just about the human knee in height and loved music, singing, and were kind. Cherokee described little folk who reached just about the human knee in height and loved music, singing, and were kind. Mannegishi: Cree legend of little people with no nose, big heads, gangly limbs (sounds like alien greys, eh?). Cree legend of little people with no nose, big heads, gangly limbs (sounds like alien greys, eh?). Europe Gnomes: Legendary creatures that live underground. Elves "Huldufolk": Icelandic - Secret, hiding, tiny folk. Fairy: Winged, tiny, magical creatures. Goblins/Gremlins: Dwarf-like mischievous being. Leprechaun: Magical little folk. Brownie: Tiny beings who come out at night, help around the house, do not want to be seen, and appreciate a food gift. Pixies: Tiny folk who like to dance and wrestle and play. The arctic north Source: Sirtya- are mythical folk in mythology of Nenets people which live in the most north-eastern tip of European continent . Nenets live in arctic tundra and have a society based on nomadic reindeer. Scientists believe that Nenets came in that region around 1500-1000 years ago from most south-eastern lands around river of Enisey in Siberia. They aren`t indigenous people because not only their legend told that but also their settle into land of modern Arkhangelsk Oblast (westernmost their location) was well documanted during reign of Russian tzar Ivan V Groznyi (16th century). Article Protecting the worlds oceans an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs. Economic Recession: Lagos Girl Puts Her Virginity On Sale Via Social Media kacylee at 16-01-2017 09:51 AM (5 years ago) (f) Just like it has been done in the United States of America and other developed countries, a 21 year old lady based in Lagos State has decided to auction her virginity due to financial difficulties. The space of the economic squeeze in Nigeria seems to be getting out of hand has the act of prostitution has become attractive to ladies. Just like it has been done in the United States of America and other developed countries, a 21 year old lady based in Lagos State has decided to auction her virginity due to financial difficulties.The space of the economic squeeze in Nigeria seems to be getting out of hand has the act of prostitution has become attractive to ladies. This 21-year old girl from the mainland area of Lagos currently battling hard times has decided to auction her virginity to the highest bidder online for the purpose of raising money for her business ideas. A relationship blogger, Joro Olumofin shared the story of the University student who is in her 4th year. Read it below: This 21-year old girl from the mainland area of Lagos currently battling hard times has decided to auction her virginity to the highest bidder online for the purpose of raising money for her business ideas.A relationship blogger, Joro Olumofin shared the story of the University student who is in her 4th year. Read it below: Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 16-01-2017 09:51 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero beneno at 16-01-2017 10:06 AM (5 years ago) (m) She thinks this is Europe were every thing is real and natural.only a ritualist will pay to disvirgin you in Africa.just wait ontil one ritualist will pay you and after the sex you will have your menstruation all your life no stop,no break..mumu.Nigeria with copy copy .ashawo kobo kobo Posted: at 16-01-2017 10:06 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero She thinks this is Europe were every thing is real and natural.only a ritualist will pay to disvirgin you in Africa.just wait ontil one ritualist will pay you and after the sex you will have your menstruation all your life no stop,no break..mumu.Nigeria with copy copy .ashawo kobo kobo Reply james987 at 16-01-2017 10:14 AM (5 years ago) (m) Liar Posted: at 16-01-2017 10:14 AM (5 years ago) | Hero Liar Reply gogoman at 16-01-2017 10:20 AM (5 years ago) (m) Quote from: beneno on 16-01-2017 10:06 AM She thinks this is Europe were every thing is real and natural.only a ritualist will pay to disvirgin you in Africa.just wait ontil one ritualist will pay you and after the sex you will have your menstruation all your life no stop,no break..mumu.Nigeria with copy copy .ashawo kobo kobo menstruation for life you know lol Posted: at 16-01-2017 10:20 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero menstruation for life you know lol Reply Dramaking at 16-01-2017 10:25 AM (5 years ago) (m) Smh..... Yall see why social media shuld be ban, or @least be restricted coz the madnezz online iz juz becomin 2 much 4 me 2 cope wit. Posted: at 16-01-2017 10:25 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Smh..... Yall see why social media shuld be ban, or @least be restricted coz the madnezz online iz juz becomin 2 much 4 me 2 cope wit. Reply morolayo at 16-01-2017 11:02 AM (5 years ago) (f) where the girl? Idiot! Virginity be gold? Abeg, make i see her face! Posted: at 16-01-2017 11:02 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac where the girl? Idiot! Virginity be gold? Abeg, make i see her face! Reply Kroffor at 16-01-2017 12:02 PM (5 years ago) (m) Quote from: morolayo on 16-01-2017 11:02 AM where the girl? Idiot! Virginity be gold? Abeg, make i see her face! hahaha, Where ur own dey? I sure say u lost ur virginity when u were around 15yrs old. To live up to 21yrs still a virgin in this era is not easy. So that is why she think its valuable above other things she have. Posted: at 16-01-2017 12:02 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming hahaha, Where ur own dey? I sure say u lost ur virginity when u were around 15yrs old.To live up to 21yrs still a virgin in this era is not easy. So that is why she think its valuable above other things she have. Reply Mykie010 at 16-01-2017 12:40 PM (5 years ago) (m) I dey sorry for this girl, when 2019 don dey reach. Posted: at 16-01-2017 12:40 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac I dey sorry for this girl, when 2019 don dey reach. Reply tuscanT at 16-01-2017 12:50 PM (5 years ago) (m) This has shown the level of borrowed life Nigerians leaves, who give a rat neck about ur virginity when there is lot of clean virgin out there waiting to be deflower. Pls let me the highest bider. You fools should stop blaming ur lame life on recession. All these excusses coming from right to left is all greed leave recession out Posted: at 16-01-2017 12:50 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming This has shown the level of borrowed life Nigerians leaves, who give a rat neck about ur virginity when there is lot of clean virgin out there waiting to be deflower. Pls let me the highest bider. You fools should stop blaming ur lame life on recession. All these excusses coming from right to left is all greed leave recession out Reply akinmanchy at 16-01-2017 01:55 PM (5 years ago) (m) Another fake news! Life na jeje so just try to take am softly Posted: at 16-01-2017 01:55 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Another fake news! Reply kacylee at 16-01-2017 07:07 PM (5 years ago) (f) Quote from: Mykie010 on 16-01-2017 12:40 PM I dey sorry for this girl, when 2019 don dey reach. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN 2019 I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 16-01-2017 07:07 PM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero WHAT IS HAPPENING IN 2019 Reply jeroba1 at 17-01-2017 03:10 AM (5 years ago) (m) foooool. Posted: at 17-01-2017 03:10 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac foooool. Reply chukkychukky at 17-01-2017 08:40 AM (5 years ago) (m) highest bidder go b 5k Joramentity aka chukkychukky Posted: at 17-01-2017 08:40 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac highest bidder go b 5k Reply LegendaryU at 17-01-2017 05:07 PM (5 years ago) (m) I don't even believe that she is a virgin self, she maybe ashawo by profession, ritualist will soon apply, because is only them that can really make good use of virgin! Copy, copy slot! Gush Posted: at 17-01-2017 05:07 PM (5 years ago) | Upcoming I don't even believe that she is a virgin self, she maybe ashawo by profession, ritualist will soon apply, because is only them that can really make good use of virgin! Copy, copy slot! Gush Reply BournIdentity at 18-01-2017 11:52 AM (5 years ago) (m) Them tell sey d devil reside in Africa BT I no believe until I enter Akwa Ibom na im I no say d devil true true is a liar....,,, shey na ur nyash or ur mouth be virgin....? Even if na d 2 I no still believe Lyf na from phase to face..,,,...,,...... Posted: at 18-01-2017 11:52 AM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero Them tell sey d devil reside in Africa BT I no believe until I enter Akwa Ibom na im I no say d devil true true is a liar....,,, shey na ur nyash or ur mouth be virgin....? Even if na d 2 I no still believeLyf na from phase to face..,,,...,,...... Reply HP unveils industrys first-ever mini workstation News oi -GizBot Bureau HP Z2 Mini delivers server-grade power in a 2.3 by 8.5-inch package. HP Inc. today introduced the world's first mini workstation in India designed for users in Computer Aided Design (CAD) and other compute-intensive industries. The stylish, new P HZ2 Mini Workstation is expected to deliver breakthrough power and versatility and at only 2.3-inches high, the new workstation is 90 percent smaller than a traditional business-class tower. With this new offering, HP is positioned to extend its workstation leadership by delivering a new category of workstations that offers superb performance, elegance, and efficiency. Building off the success of the HP Z240 SFF, the HP Z2 Mini Workstation is supposedly twice as powerful as any commercial mini PC on the market today and is deemed to have the ability to support six displays right out of the box. The HP Z2 Mini has been designed for the millions of CAD users demanding smaller hardware without compromising acoustics and performance and mission-critical reliability. Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) will come with Android Nougat "Today designers want sleek, innovative and powerful workstations that enable new experiences. Designed for the workspace of the future, HP Z2 Mini Workstation is remarkably versatile and it showcases next level power by offering twice the power of a business-class mini PC, a key for designers. It is the result of HP engineers and designers reinventing the concept of a workstation by rethinking its shape, size and look while adding functionality to enable new use case." said Ketan Patel, Senior Director - Personal Systems Business, HP Inc. India. "When designing some of the most technically complex architectural forms the need for cutting-edge technology is essential," said Daniel Libeskind, a world-renowned architect and founder of Studio Libeskind. "The speed in which we create, and the complexity of projects have become more intense over the years, but computers like HP Workstations are helping quickly bring the visions of my designers to life." Shorter than a cup of espresso, the new HP Z2 Mini Workstation is capable of designing anything from state-of-the-art electronics to home and office buildings. The workstation, will run Windows 10 Pro or Linux and comes equipped with next generation Intel Xeon processors, NVIDIA professional graphics and there's an availability of HP Z Turbo Drive for handling large files remarkably fast. Andy Rubin's smartphone with Snapdragon 835 SoC appears on benchmark listing "The HP Z2 Mini, the world's first mini workstation, delivers breakthrough power and versatility in a small, iconic design," said Jeff Wood, vice president and general manager, Workstations and Thin Clients, HP Inc. "HP redefined the workstation in 2009 with the introduction of the HP Z series, and now once again is disrupting the category with the new HP Z2 Mini Workstation - the ultimate combination of space efficiency and power for our customers and partners." The HP Z2 Mini has been designed considering how workplaces have become more space constrained and that there's a greater business need for the smaller workstations. HP's new ultra-compact and aesthetically pleasing workstation will provide users with numerous versatility options: on/under the desk, behind an HP Z display, or on a wall. AS such, the HP Z2 Mini's design and engineering ingenuity could transform the way people think about workstations and workspaces. HP Z2 Mini Workstation will be available in India from January 25th onwards at a starting price of INR 72,000/-. -Press Release Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals Best Mobiles in India How Facebook wants to change the way humans communicate Features oi -Rohit Facebooks new project-the brain-computer interface technology is straight out of sci-fi Hollywood movies. Mark Zuckerberg could be the closest human to Tony Stark in real life. The CEO of Facebook created a digital butler for his home in San Francisco in over 100 hours, which he took as a personal project for the year 2016. And now when he's finished with the first version of his voice-controlled artificial assistant, he's ready to accomplish another task, which might forever change the way we humans interact with each other. As per a report by Business Insider, a secretive new research division that Facebook created last year is working on a new technology- 'brain-computer interface', which might be the next big thing in the history of human communication. The tech that sounds a lot like digital telepathy to transfer human thoughts might use non-invasive techniques to measure human's brain waves and artificial intelligence to decode the message. However, unlike the voice-activated artificial assistant, the futuristic communication platform is not a personal resolution for the year 2017 by Mark and seems to be more of an official Facebook project. This means that the new technology has more chances to be a product to make it to the real market. SEE ALSO: Desktop users can now go live on Facebook as well As per reports, several job postings has been listed by Facebook's Building 8 group, which the team behind the project. The listings describe a project involving 'neuroimaging' and 'electrophysiological data' to create a communications platform of the future. Facebook is looking for neural image engineers who can design methods based on non-invasive approaches such as optical, RF, ultrasound, etc. to enable communication between two users. Besides, Facebook also seems to be looking for brain-computer interface engineer who can apply artificial intelligence to scan human brain for communication. We will not be shocked if Facebook also ropes in virtual reality and a VR headset to the platform to enable communication. It seems doable for tech giant like Facebook in near future to study brain's electrical signals carrying message and project them on a VR headset mounted on a user's head. This might be the new form of communication where one can simply transform the thoughts into visuals. If Facebook somehow turned it into reality, it might start a new trend and will also fulfills company's dream of building technologies that fluidly blend physical and digital worlds together. Whatever happens, the future seems to be quite interesting for the world and the Facebook. Stay tuned for updates on GIZBOT. Click Here for New Smartphones Best Online Deals Best Mobiles in India Microsoft Surface Phone might be a 2-in-1 foldable phone, hints latest patents News oi -Chakri Kudikala The Microsoft Surface Phone is the Redmond giants next step towards smartphone space. Redmond tech giant, Microsoft is slowly progressing their work on the Surface Phones, which are rumored to release in Q3 2017. That said, the Microsoft Surface Phone was a long-rumored project of the company. Adding to the already existing rumors, today we have another news regarding the same Microsoft Surface Phone. Yes, the company has been granted the permission to manufacture 2-in-1 foldable device and that might be the Surface Phone itself. Also Read: Xiaomi Mi 6 price and launch date revealed by company VP That said, the patents show that the device will boast of a hinge that is used to rotate the device in any angle. However, there is no relevant information regarding this for now. And, it is worth noting that most of the patents approved won't get cut into the final consumer product. So, take these with a pinch of salt for now. Source Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Edge data centres will account for most of the telecom server market growth and is projected to reach US$14 billion by 2026 according to a new report from DellOro Group. 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 VANCOUVER, Jan. 16, 2017 /CNW/ - Orex Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: REX) ("Orex") is pleased to announce that it has exercised the first option and formed a joint venture pursuant to an option agreement dated September 15, 2015 (the "Option Agreement") with Canasil Resources Inc. (TSX.V: CLZ) ("Canasil"). Orex has earned a 55% ownership interest in the Sandra Escobar project in Durango state, Mexico (the "Project") by paying Canasil CAD $500,000 upon signing and spending more than USD $2,000,000 in exploration and development at the Project. A joint committee will be formed to manage ongoing exploration at the Project with representation based on the proportional interest of each party. Under the terms of the Option Agreement, Orex had a second option to earn an additional 10% interest (for a total of 65%) by paying Canasil an additional CAD $500,000, and spending a further USD $2,000,000 on exploration and development at the Project in the next two years. Orex notified Canasil today that it would not be proceeding with the second option. Orex's President, Gary Cope says, "We are looking forward to further exploration at the Sandra Escobar project with Canasil as our joint venture partner." Sandra Escobar Silver-Gold Project, Durango, Mexico Sandra Escobar is situated north of the town of Tepehuanes, Durango, in the heart of the "Mexican Silver Trend", midway between the mining districts of Tovar and Guanacevi and is 75 km west of Silver Standard's La Pitarrilla. This prolific trend hosts some of the world's largest silver camps and deposits, including Fresnillo, Guanajuato, La Pitarrilla, La Preciosa, Real de Angeles and Zacatecas. The project consists of 6,976 hectares of mineral concessions and covers multiple mineralized epithermal quartz veins and breccia structures. These veins form a high level silver-gold-base metals system, hosted in andesitic and rhyolitic rocks, centered on a large rhyolite dome complex in the north and silver systems in smaller rhyolite dome complexes to the southeast. Intense alteration zones and fluid flooding in permeable formations indicates the presence of bulk tonnage targets. Excellent infrastructure exists in the Sandra Escobar area, including paved road access, electrical power, water and manpower from nearby communities. Dale Brittliffe, P.Geo., and Ben Whiting, P.Geo., are Qualified Persons, as defined in NI 43-101, and take responsibility for the technical disclosure contained within this news release. ABOUT OREX MINERALS INC. Orex is a Canadian-based junior exploration company comprised of highly qualified mining professionals. Orex has several current projects: the Coneto Gold-Silver Project in Durango, Mexico, a joint venture with Fresnillo Plc, the Jumping Josephine Gold-Silver Project in British Columbia, Canada, plus the Sandra Escobar Silver Project in Durango, Mexico, with Canasil Resources Inc. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gary Cope President This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements and Orex undertakes no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. 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. SOURCE Orex Minerals Inc. GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2017) - Alphamin's Bisie Mining Project in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo received official endorsement with a strong vote of Government support with the establishment of a North Kivu Government support committee for the development of the Bisie Tin Project. Alphamin Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AFM) ("Alphamin" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the establishment of a committee by the North Kivu Government to support Alphamin subsidiary, Alphamin Bisie Mining, S.A. (ABM), to develop its Bisie tin project (80.25% AFM ownership). ABM is developing the Bisie Tin Project with plans to begin full production in 2019. North Kivu Governor Julien Paluku Kahongya signed the legal order in Goma on 20 December, 2016 creating the Committee to Accompany ABM in Implementing its Mine at Bisie (CAIMB in French) in order to both support ABM and to inform the Provincial Authorities of potential impediments to the project. The CAIMB is composed of high-level technical and specialized services who will assist in guiding ABM for the three years of construction and initial operations. A branch of the CAIMB will be created in Walikale Territory to engage with local authorities in the same way. Confirming the Province's strong commitment to promoting private investment and public-private partnership in North Kivu, Governor Julien Paluku stated: "The provincial government is committed to providing a favourable environment for private investment in a win-win partnership. We affirmed this in two economic forums of the province held in 2010 and 2015. North Kivu has indeed an enormous economic potential to exploit for the benefit of its population. We must support Alphamin, so that other investors in the mining, agriculture, energy and tourism sectors are reassured to follow the example and invest responsibly." The North Kivu provincial minister in charge of mines, Professor Anselme Kitakya, who is responsible for the smooth operation of the CAIMB, adds: "Alphamin is already demonstrating the importance of partnership with the government of North Kivu by co-financing the rehabilitation of the Sake-Masisi-Walikale road for approximately 230 km and through the contribution to social development within the framework of the Lowa Alliance, a non-profit foundation initiated by the populations that will be supported by the mining project that develops ABM in the territory of Walikale. Socio-economic infrastructures will be erected in the area surrounding the Bisie mining site. We are committed to providing support and advice to investors such as ABM." Alphamin CEO Boris Kamstra commented, "North Kivu has many assets and remarkably industrious people, from which past events have diverted investors' attention. This is a very encouraging sign and helps us in our role as ambassadors for North Kivu to global investors to convey the support of government, nationally, provincially and locally which will assist Alphamin with the development of our Bisie Tin Project." Richard Robinson, Managing Director of ABM, echoed these sentiments: "As the Bisie Tin Project moves forward in road and preliminary construction activities, including the ventilation tunnel, we are seeing increasing support from local and national stakeholders through actions such as that of the North Kivu Governor. This reinforces the progress made by Alphamin in 2016 with the signing of a collaborative Memorandum of Understanding with the Walikale Community in April and June, 2016, followed by concrete social development projects such as the construction of the new Luuka Primary School and the formal founding and registration of the Lowa Alliance, as well as partnerships with North Kivu and the national road agency in rehabilitating the Masisi Walikale road." It is anticipated that ABM will employ approximately 700 people during construction and will create approximately 450 permanent local jobs during operations. As a result, significant economic benefits are expected in an area of the DRC that has seen little foreign investment while overcoming security and governance challenges for decades. The mine is estimated to produce 10,000 tonnes of tin in concentrate on average per year over the 12-year mine lifespan, which represents about 3% of the world's current production and will double the DRC's current tin exports. Alphamin and North-Kivu actors understand the project will serve as an example for foreign investment and will also serve as an infrastructure platform for other businesses to start, including service providers to the mine. Indirect job creation will be far higher than the mine's direct numbers and can be reasonably expected to achieve the 1:14 ratio of indirect jobs commonly reported in Africa for similar projects, resulting in potentially an additional 6,300 jobs. ABM S.A. is a Congolese commercial enterprise which holds a national exploitation permit for the Bisie concession until 2045 and, in addition to AFM's shareholding (80.25%), the balance of shares are held by the Governments of the DRC (5%) and the Republic of South Africa (15%) through its "Industrial Development Corporation." 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 News Release. ISSUED ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF Alphamin Resources Corp. BY Boris Kamstra, Chief Executive Officer MORE INFORMATION ON Alphamin Resources Corp.: Alphamin is a tin exploration and development company with the vision to be respected in the international tin sector by unleashing the full profit and potential of its world-class tin asset in North Kivu, DRC currently under development. Alphamin has the vision to become a premier tin producer by: Leading a world-class, profitable mining company in North Kivu, delivering results for the benefit of all stakeholders and viewed with respect by the communities and Government. Becoming a profitable tin producer, while continuing with exploration to increase life of mine. ABM intends to operate a profitable tin mine in a safe environment and uplifting the local community. Alphamin is striving to develop the first, low-cost per tonne tin, commercial mine in North Kivu, while at the same time making a marked, positive impact on the communities surrounding the mine. We intend to be a tin mining company that excels at the production of tin and provides leadership for the region in terms of safety, health, environment and community development. Delivering on the commitment to develop the first and large, commercial tin mine in that part of the country - giving Alphamin credibility locally and abroad - and becoming a business transformation reference in the tin mining industry. Creating value for both shareholders and the community. Committing, from the date of production, to spend 4% of its in-country operating and administrative expenses on community development. This investment will be governed with representative input from local communities and managed by the Lowa Alliance, a GDRC-regulated not-for-profit foundation. Alphamin will continue to preserve its legal rights to develop Bisie and explore ways to assist artisanal miners to transition from illegal to legal status, conflict-free sites elsewhere in the region. The community projects, supported by the Alliance, being selected following an in-depth survey of the 13500 households (approximately 80 000 residents) across the 44 communities closest to Bisie. Representative committees will prioritise a range of projects to promote social and economic development to which they, local authorities and potentially external donors, will also contribute. These projects would provide incentives for income beyond illegal artisanal mining while also providing educational and health infrastructure and services like potable water, malaria reduction and treatment and primary health care capacity building. CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Information in this news release that is not a statement of historical fact constitutes forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation, statements relating to costs of production, success of mining operations, the ranking of the project in terms of cash cost and production, economic return estimates, social, community and environmental impacts, and continued positive discussions and relationships with local communities and stakeholders. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Although Alphamin has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: Alphamin's ability to secure sufficient financing to advance and complete the Bisie Tin Project, uncertainties associated with Alphamin's resource and reserve estimates, uncertainties regarding global supply and demand for tin and market and sales prices, uncertainties associated with securing off-take agreements and customer contracts, uncertainties with respect to social, community and environmental impacts, adverse political events, uncertainties with respect to optimization opportunities for the Bisie Tin Project, as well as those risk factors set out in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and Alphamin disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws." Cranbrook, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: EPL) is pleased to assist in funding a museum-level display of ore and rock specimens as well as drill core from Sullivan mine and surrounding area which will be located in the Kimberley Underground Mining Railway Station. Mick Henningson, former Senior Vice President, Mining with TeckCominco, now President of the Sullivan Mine & Railroad Historical Society, has secured funding and with an intrepid group of volunteers is organizing construction for this project. Drawings illustrating key elements of regional and mine geology will also be included in the display. Most of the specimens and core have been donated from the personal collection of Paul Ransom, with many ore specimens having been cut and polished to enhance mineral and textural details. The Sullivan Core Shack will be an archive of specimens of one of the greatest lead-zinc-silver deposits on Earth. It will be organized in such a manner that the display will be of educational value to students at all levels and of viewing interest to the layman or professional. In addition to focusing on the orebody itself the display will cover aspects of the sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks of the region as well as five local historic mines of note: the North Star and Stemwinder Mines also in Kimberley, the St. Eugene at Moyie, the Kootenay King at Fort Steele and the Estella at Wasa. Eagle Plains Resources has been actively exploring in the East Kootenay region for Sullivantype lead-zinc deposits and is proud to join the City of Kimberley, Teck Resources, Kootenay Zinc Corp., Redding Mining and Columbia Basin Trust through both the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and the RDEK administered Community Initiatives Program in sponsoring this project. About Eagle Plains Resources Based in Cranbrook, B.C., Eagle Plains continues to conduct research, acquire and explore mineral projects throughout western Canada. The Company is committed to steadily enhancing shareholder value by advancing our diverse portfolio of projects toward discovery through collaborative partnerships and development of a highly experienced technical team. Managements current focus is to preserve its treasury while advancing its most promising exploration projects. In addition, Eagle Plains continues to seek out and secure high-quality, unencumbered projects through research, staking and strategic acquisitions. Since 2012, Eagle Plains has added to its portfolio a number of new projects exceeding 130,000 ha targeting mainly gold, uranium and base-metals in Saskatchewan, a highly-prospective mining jurisdiction which was recently recognized by the Fraser Institute as the second best place in the world in terms of Investment Attractiveness. Throughout the exploration process, our mission is to help maintain prosperous communities by exploring for and discovering resource opportunities while building lasting relationships through honest and respectful business practices. Expenditures from 2011-2016 on Eagle Plains-related projects were approximately $16.0M, which was funded by Eagle Plains and for the most part, by third-party partners. This exploration work resulted in approximately 15,000 m of diamond-drilling and extensive ground-based exploration work facilitating the advancement of numerous projects at various stages of development. On behalf of the Board of Directors Tim J. Termuende President and CEO For further information on EPL, please contact Mike Labach at 1 866 HUNT ORE (486 8673) Email: mgl@eagleplains.com or visit our website at http://www.eagleplains.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/EaglePlains0162017.pdfSource: Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. (TSX Venture:EPL) To follow Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below. Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 Filing Services Canada Inc. The Nissan Altimas 65% year-over-year tumble in December 2016 was the sharpest drop of any volume car on sale in Canada. The Altima led a group of 20 volume cars the 20 worst-selling new vehicles in Canada that included ten cars such as the Chrysler 200, three GM pickup trucks, and seven utility vehicles. Canada Vehicle Sales Rankings By Model 2016 Year End Canadian auto sales rose to record high levels in 2016, but December volume was down 2%, the fifth decline in the last six months. GCBC has also compiled lists of the outright 20 lowest-volume vehicles on sale in Canada in December 2016, a list chock full of high-priced machinery such as the Bentley Flying Spur and defunct nameplates such as the Lincoln MKS and Hyundai Genesis. Furthermore, the list of Canadas 20 fastest-declining new vehicles regardless of the volume levels achieved in December includes only 12 active nameplates. You can always select a make and model at GCBCs Sales Stats page to find historical monthly and yearly sales figures from both Canada and the United States. Pertinent links are clickable at the bottom of this post, but you can also find related links at the Best Sellers page. Mobile users can now thumb across the tables for full-width access. January 2017 November 2016 December 2015 Gian Carlo Minardi has hit out at criticism of Lance Stroll's impending debut in F1. Undoubtedly, the 18-year-old Canadian's rapid rise to formula one has been powered in part by his billionaire father Lawrence. For instance, Stroll has been embarking on an arguably unprecedented global F1 testing tour with a 2014 Williams, including his most recent outing in recent days at Sepang. But Minardi, a former F1 team boss, insisted: "Any formula one driver is assessed from a commercial perspective by team management before they are signed. "So I do not understand, in a sport where teams rely on huge budgets, why there is such a negative connotation about a driver who provides financial support," he is quoted by the Spanish daily AS. "Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna and Fernando Alonso also had to provide financial support at some point in their careers," said Minardi. (GMM) Gerhard Berger says he does not relate to Nico Rosberg's decision to quit F1 at the age of 31. Rosberg has said he called time on his career after achieving his boyhood dream of the world title, but at first Berger says he could not believe the content of the text message from his German friend. Earlier in 2016, the F1 legend had successfully negotiated a lucrative new two-year Mercedes contract for Rosberg. "At first I thought 'Is he still drunk from the celebrations?' "Now, I see it with mixed feelings, but I could not have done the same in his situation," Berger told Auto Motor und Sport. "He had the best car, with a great contract, at his age and with his health -- I could never have stopped. "We'll see if he regrets his retirement or not," the former Ferrari and McLaren driver added. Bild newspaper has published photos of Rosberg enjoying a relaxing holiday with his wife in Rome. (GMM) Bernie Ecclestone doubts Mercedes can be beaten in 2017. Many are hoping and expecting that, with the major aerodynamic regulation changes, 2016 runner-up Red Bull can mount a serious title tilt this year. But F1 supremo Ecclestone told the Munich newspaper TZ: "If Red Bull believes they can beat Mercedes with better aerodynamics, I'm not so sure. "The gap that Mercedes has with the engine is still huge," he insisted. However, Ecclestone does fully support Red Bull's young sensation Max Verstappen, despite the controversy his attacking style has provoked. "He is a future world champion," said the 86-year-old Briton. "He tries to win races and is probably better at being on the limit than the others. That's racing," said Ecclestone. Former Sauber technical boss Willy Rampf agrees with Ecclestone that the pecking order is unlikely to change in 2017. "From the outside, I got the impression last year that Mercedes only released the developments that were necessary to stay ahead of the others," he told Speed Week. "They did not show everything that was possible in 2016, and had the opportunity to work on the 2017 regulations from an early stage," added Rampf. (GMM) New Ferrari reserve Antonio Giovinazzi actually deserves a seat on the 2017 grid. That is the claim of former Italian F1 team owner Gian Carlo Minardi, referring to the Italian 23-year-old who almost won this year's GP2 title. "He is already worthy of F1, possessing all the skills that enable a driver to do well in the top category," Minardi told the Italian publication Autosprint. "The good news is being taken by Ferrari; the less good news is that he has no guarantee of actual kilometres. If I still had my team, he would certainly be making his debut, gathering valuable experience for the future. "But apparently at this time, there is not a smaller team who can give these opportunities, or at least there are no vacancies," Minardi added. Giovinazzi himself is looking on the bright side of his new job, nonetheless admitting that he will miss the adrenaline of actual racing in 2017. "But still I'm happy to be learning new things," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper. "F1 is completely new to me, although in reality the car is not so different from GP2. I will need to understand all the functions, train hard and make myself ready," Giovinazzi added. (GMM) Valtteri Bottas' expected move from Williams to Mercedes looks set to be finalised this week. That is the latest news in the wake of Nico Rosberg's shock retirement, which will surely also involve Felipe Massa calling off his retirement to fill the place left by the Mercedes-bound Finn Bottas. British newspapers including the Guardian quote Claire Williams as saying it would "not be nice to stop a driver who has such a great opportunity". "We've always said if we can make this happen on terms that are positive for Williams then it is probably the right thing to do," said the Grove team's deputy. "We are nearly there -- we are at the tail end of it and hope we'll be able to make an announcement this coming week," Williams added. It is believed the complex deal with Mercedes also involves the early arrival at Williams of the reigning world champions' technical boss Paddy Lowe. Williams said: "Of course someone like Paddy, now that he is available, is going to be appealing to us. He started his career at Williams -- and what team wouldn't want someone like Paddy Lowe?" (GMM) General Motors will launch 18 new and refreshed models this year to achieve continued growth in the companys largest retail market. Half of the models to be introduced in 2017 under the Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun and Wuling brands will be SUVs or MPVs. The products are expected to build on GMs 2016 sales record of 3.87 million vehicles. The company announced earlier that it will roll out more than 60 new and refreshed vehicles in China from 2016 through 2020, including 13 models launched last year. This year, GM will bring to the market more new energy vehicles. The company introduced the Buick LaCrosse Hybrid, Chevrolet Malibu XL Hybrid and Cadillac CT6 Plug-In in 2016. GM will also continue to enhance its local manufacturing capability. SAIC-GMs Wuhan plant phase II will start operation this year. SAIC-GMs battery assembly plant in Shanghai will begin to produce battery packs for the companys expanded offering of electrified vehicles. GMs Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC) joint venture will open its new R&D facility in Shanghai. It will include an advanced design and styling center, vehicle engineering facility and small-scale wind tunnel, and be home to a dedicated vehicle development and engineering team. In addition, GM will continue to explore new opportunities along the automotive industry value chain, including connectivity through Shanghai OnStar, automotive financing through SAIC-GMAC and automotive insurance through INSAIC. Bulk gas cargoes are carried under the International Code for the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Liquefied Gases in Bulk (IGC Code) which is a mandatory code under the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention. The IGC code does not currently allow for the transportation of liquid hydrogen. Australia and Japan recently signed a memorandum at the headquarters of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority ( AMSA ) which will allow liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ) to be shipped in bulk for the first time. Ship containment systems are being developed in Japan that will be capable of safely transporting liquid hydrogen in bulk from Australia to Japan as part of a pilot project scheduled to commence in 2020. Cargoes not covered by the code can be carried if there is an agreement between relevant nationsthe flag State of the ship, port of loading and port of unloadingand changes are developed to the code and taken to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for approval. Australia worked with Japan to develop interim carriage requirements for the transportation of liquid hydrogen in bulk from Australia to Japan. These were agreed to at the IMO Maritime Safety Committee in November 2016. The interim carriage requirements specify the construction standards of containment vessels for liquid hydrogen carriers, and mitigate the safety risks associated with transporting the liquid hydrogen via sea. The interim carriage requirements are a critical milestone in the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain Project and will allow the pilot project to proceed in 2020. The memorandum signing was a key element in this process, and an important step forward for Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), which is building the pilot projects liquid hydrogen carrier in partnership with Shell. Kawasaki is currently developing a prototype LH 2 carrier; the vessel will have a cargo capacity of 2,500 m3, equivalent to that of coastal trading LNG vessels. (Earlier post.) Kawasaki obtained approval in principle from Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) for the cargo containment system in 2013. Kawasaki aims to develop a large liquefied hydrogen carrier with a capacity of around 160,000 m 3 . The pilot project between Australia and Japan will inform future amendments to the IGC Code which will allow liquid hydrogen to be carried in bulk under the code without any special agreements. Clean cooling technologies, which can support environmentally sustainable cold chains, include Dearmans zero-emission transport refrigeration system ( earlier post ); solar-driven cooling for pack-houses; and even small transportable ammonia-water absorption refrigeration which can be used to transport medicine. Scientists from the University of Birmingham launched a major research project to investigate how clean cold could help to achieve almost all of the United Nations (UN) global Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 Global Goals include abolishing poverty and hunger; providing good healthcare and education; raising peoples quality of life; and cleaning up the environment, while promoting economic growth. Dearman Engine The Dearman Engine operates by the vaporization and expansion of cryogenic fluidsspecifically, liquid nitrogen. Ambient or low grade waste heat is used as an energy source with the cryogen providing both the working fluid and heat sink. The Dearman Engine process involves the heat being introduced to the cryogenic fluid through direct contact heat exchange with a heat exchange fluid (HEF) inside the engine. The Dearman Engine can be used to produce clean cold and power for a range of applications across transport, logistics and the built environment. The most advanced current application of Dearman technology is as a zero emission transport refrigeration system designed and developed in conjunction with Hubbard Products as a sustainable alternative to the diesel driven units that conventionally keep refrigerated trucks cold. The system is currently on trial with Sainsburys, delivering food across London, where it is already having a positive impact on air quality. Professor Toby Peters and colleagues at the Birmingham Energy Institute aim to work with partners in countries where demand for clean cold is soaring, such as India and China. They will develop strategies using novel low-carbon and zero-emission technologies and new policy approaches. The roadmaps they produce could provide a global template to help meet the UN targets, as demand for cooling booms in fast growing economieslargely driven by urbanisation and emergence of an Asian Pacific middle classpredicted to rise to 3 billion by 2030. The nine-month projects launch report highlights many global concerns related to cooling, including: The lack of adequate cold chains of refrigerated warehousing and transport causes two million vaccine preventable deaths each year, and the waste of 200 million tonnes of food; Food wastage occupies a land area almost twice the size of Australia and consumes 250 km 3 of water per yearthree times the volume of Lake Geneva. It also accounts for 3.3 billion tonnes of CO 2 , making it the third biggest emitter after the US and China; Conventional refrigeration and air conditioning cause 10% of global CO 2 emissionsthree times that attributed to aviation and shipping combined; The global stock of room air conditioners will rise by an additional 700 million by 2030, and 1.6 billion by 2050; and By the end of the century, global air conditioning will consume the equivalent of half the electricity consumed worldwide for all purposes in 2010. Cooling is a huge problem faced by India, China and other fast-growing economies. It is all too often overlooked, but without it, supplies of food, medicine and even data break down; life in many parts of the world would be scarcely tolerable without air conditioning. The University of Birmingham is a world-leader in clean cold expertise. We look forward to working with experts around the globe to tackle the challenge of supporting growing populations without causing environmental or societal damage. A huge research effort is now under way into how to realize the Global Goals and many linkages, such as economic growth and pollution are well understood. It is now becoming clear that cooling will be critical to achieving almost all the UNs Global Goals. Professor Peters The report highlights that, as the worlds population heads to 9 billion by mid-centuryincreasing projected food demand by 60%we will need far more cooling to conserve food, water and other resources; tackle poverty, hunger, health and climate change; and underpin growth and development. It will be vital that any new cold chain infrastructure should be clean. Diesel-powered transport refrigeration units, for example, emit not only high levels of CO 2 but also huge amounts of nitrogen oxides (NO x ) and particulate matter (PM). Clean cold is, therefore, central to achieving the Global Goals. If food wastage could be halved through the development of clean cold chains and other measures, each year it would: Anja Niedringhaus / Associated Press The roster of speakers at this weeks World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland includes Greenwich billionaire Ray Dalio, chairman of Bridgewater Associates, the worlds largest hedge fund based in Westport. Running through Friday, Jan. 20, the conference includes myriad panels on the world economy and policies, including two on which Dalio is featured titled Squeezed and angry: how to fix the middle-class crisis and Russia in the world. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate STAMFORD Bundled up against the cold, Democratic protesters rallied in Mill River Park Sunday, within sight of Trump Parc Stamford, to discuss plans to resist the agenda of President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress after this weeks inauguration. This is a venue for people to meet other people with common interests to come together and realize they are not alone, said Stamford native Nina Sherwood, of the Fairfield County Progressive Activists, who was a delegate for former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention. Its also an event to send a message to Hartford and Washington to the people who represent us that the days of representing the elites and not the voters is over, she said. More than a dozen speakers including U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, Mayor David Martin and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman warned that Trump and Congress threaten the countrys social safety net, as well as the rights of a constellation of groups, including immigrants, Muslims and women. Weve got to fight like anything to make sure the Republicans hear us in Washington, Wyman said. You need to call friends and relatives in other states to get out there to talk to their congressmen, because they are probably not voting the way our congressmen vote. Himes said he is not that hopeful, Trump will backpedal to a more moderate stance on civil rights, the Affordable Care Act, and the social safety net than the candidate espoused on the campaign trail. Trumps character as evidenced by a video in which he discussed forcing himself on women sexually and his calls for a ban on immigration by Muslims are a major concern, Himes said. Im hoping that something magically changes at the end of this week, Himes said. But be ready to fight. Be ready to stand, not as Democrats, or liberals, progressives or Hillary Clinton Democrats or Republicans or Cruz Republicans, but as Americans, for the values that make our country truly great. Speaking for the Coalition of Residents and Immigrants in Solidarity, Raul Camino, 21, of Stamford said he felt uncertain Trump would honor immigration policies that authorize employment and deportation protection for the children of immigrants. Brought here at the age of 3 from Ecuador by his parents, Camino said he has been protected from deportation under President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This new administration is picking a fight with anyone who does not fit their homogenized idea of what this country should be, Camino said. And while they think they can get away with blatant abuses of human rights, were here proving no administration is powerful enough, or privileged enough, to escape judgment. Wyman said disparate interest groups need to unite to check Trump and the Republican Congress proposals that effect the rights of others. Our grandchildren should be able to do whatever they believe is right, to get jobs, have health care and if they choose to marry someone of the same sex, they should be allowed to do that, Wyman said. We need you to get out there and fight. Protesters punctuated the comments by ringing cowbells and chanting slogans like, Save our health care, and This is what democracy looks like, and, Corporate greed has got to go. The protest was organized in response to a call by former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Congressional leaders for a day of action to oppose cuts to existing health care programs, including the Affordable Care Act. At the rear of the protest, a trio of Trump supporters from Stamford Alan Shaw, Fritz Blau and Wilm Donath stood quietly holding pro-Trump signs including, My President, Your President, Our President. He is going to break up the uni-party racket that has been going on since probably World War II, Blau said of Trump. Blau and Donath said they were on hand less to debate than to emphasize their view that Trump was the duly elected candidate. They dont want to give Trump a chance, Donath said. I gave President Obama a chance until he screwed up. Rainy Broomfield, 68, of North Stamford, said more than any specific issues, the event demonstrated that most Connecticut residents want to hold Trump accountable for his misleading statements and ideas. Broomfield said Trump polluted the political discourse in order to win, cynically hoodwinking voters and fanning the flames of mistrust of the public toward government. Unrepentant opportunism belies a staggering lack of character and caring that cant be vanquished from someones memory, Broomfield said. As far as Im concerned, he did real harm to this country and its citizens, and Im not about to forget that. About two years ago, my wife and I decided to exchange our stable home in Switzerland for a small sailing boat in order to sail around the world. As you can imagine, this was not an easy decision to make. Our children said goodbye to their friends, to 95 percent of their toys, to their cozy bedroom and to their familiar playground. My wife and I locked the doors to our home for the last time, hopped into the rental mini-van that contained all of our belongings, fetched the kids from daycare, and then drove to our boat -- the Maya located in the south of France -- to begin our once-in-a-lifetime journey. Since the day we set sail, I have started a new company, which has had a very successful launch recently. To be precise, this is my second company. I am working and communicating with my team members -- situated in different parts of the world including Switzerland, Finland, Mauritius and Portugal -- while sailing, on anchor or when in a marina. Just recently, we crossed the Panama Canal into Costa Rica on the Pacific side. Then we set sail to Galapagos, and from there, we'll head to the island paradise in the south Pacific. Not many entrepreneurs can say that they launched a company while on the open sea. Perhaps Im the only one, or maybe one of the first? Through this whole process of sailing with my family and starting a business at the same time, it occurred to me that there are indeed lessons from sailing that also apply to startups. In this article, Ill address five sailing essentials and their respective counterparts in the startup world. 1. Sturdy boat. This part might seem the most obvious, but having a sturdy boat in sailing is like having a strong team. When building a company, how does one ensure that the team they put in place is going to be strong enough to endure the challenges, as well as enjoy and appreciate the good times? Ideally, Id like to meet candidates in person, but I put faith in screening candidates multiple times via video conferencing until I am sure of the hiring decision. I made three hires while I was on anchor. (Ill highlight my sailing path in the conclusion.) I believe in recruiting worldwide. This allows us to meet the best people wherever they feel home. It also allows for 24/7 customer support with a tiny team. Therefore, I am a big believer of distributed teams. Related: What I Learned by Spending $650,000 on My Credit Card Last Month 2. Compass and stars. As most of our charts are on the iPhone -- and we've lost that in the water already twice. I no longer carry the phone on deck for navigation. This means that we went back to traditional navigation -- studying where to go, writing down directions and distances and using the compass for navigation. Only rarely do we check with the electronic chart on the iPhone, which has to stay inside the cabin while on the water. The compass and even the stars have thus been an important part for navigation for us. They have helped sailors throughout history steer in the direction they want to go, and help them stay on course. My compass is super helpful and always a valuable and trustworthy guide. In the business world, choosing the right problem to solve is equivalent to having a trustworthy compass. As such, I cant stress enough the importance of picking a problem worth solving when building a business from the ground up. This helps you plot the right course and stay on course once youve set off. Check with your customers often if the solution you believe you are providing is still the right one. Your customers are your nautical charts, which is stressed by Y Combinators co-founder Paul Graham. 3. Communication. Communication is key, wherever you are. And when youre sailing, you want to have the best communication tools available. We have the following communication tools: Four iPhones for redundancy when one or two or three fail. We use electronic charts on the iPhone for navigation on top of paper charts, compass and stars. One Android phone to have a constant phone number. One Satellite phone, marine VHF radio, and shortwave SSB Ham radio. A pactor modem for sending emails via shortwave radio. The satellite phone and the pactor modem are most important for weather reports on high sea. When it comes to the business world, especially when looking at the new company that I started, the team is using HipChat and Trello. HipChat allows us to synchronize on a daily basis. Everybody writes what they were doing during the day and what is planned next. This, for me, is the most important tool. Time difference and the lack of face-to-face contact during lunch or coffee breaks make this the most important source of information on what everybody is doing. Related: 3 Lessons Coach K Can Teach You About Building Your Team Lets not forget the importance of communication in general among crew members. In this case, my family and me as the captain and my wife as the capitana. Its important that everyone is on the same page, particularly when the seas get rough. The same holds true in business. You have to be able to have an open dialogue among the team in good times and bad, in order to move the company forward. 4. Being honest to everybody, including yourself. This is one of the most important lessons I have learned in life. It is extremely important to be honest with yourself and others. Always speak the truth without judgment, whatever it costs. It is not always easy, but it pays off in the long run. For example, when sailing, I need to sail to a destination where I will stay a day due to a meeting or whatever reason. But, I dont feel like doing it because the weather might be tricky. Being honest to oneself is very important. I could ignore the feeling and just tell myself to carry on. However, this can be fatal. In business, it's the same way. Being honest with others gives respect. When we arrived in Curacao, we had some troubles with the boat -- and we had kids in tow. We didn't have time to go to customs to check in, but we did go two days later. When they asked us when we arrived, we could have lied and said that we just got there. Nobody would ever find out. But, I didn't want to lie, so I told them the truth. They were not happy, but in the end, they told me that they appreciated my honesty. This builds trust, and this is the basis for everything great. 5. Troubleshooting. Mishaps will happen in life, whether in your personal or professional world. I cant tell you how many times during our sailing adventure problems or situations would rear their ugly heads. The latest misadventure was having to replace the toilet seat on the boat. We were in Costa Rica and its not like a replacement toilet seat can be easily found at the local Home Depot. So we used some ingenuity and asked a local repairman to create a piece out of some material collected from the trash bin. He turned it into a replacement part, and it worked. Related: 18 Things to Know Before You Date an Entrepreneur In a startup, you often need to prepare for the worst. You also need to trust in your team to come up with solutions when problems arise. For example, our marketing director learned to how to code rails and html. When we needed a video, we just made one ourselves for less than $500. Being able to improvise along the the way is the difference between success and failure -- or at sea, it could mean life or death. Having that ability to troubleshoot and find solutions to problems is a critical skill set to have as a sailor and as an entrepreneur. In closing, life on a boat truly is like life in a startup -- unpredictable. There is always something unforeseen happening. Wind changes, something breaks, lack of electricity. No more wind is like changes in the stock market, customer preferences or launch delays. The key is to realize that every day is different, but it also offers an opportunity to do something new -- a chance to come up with a new win. In startup life, not a single day is predictable and every moment is very unique. Therefore, my take away is that entrepreneurs should never have to worry for anything, ever. As the Buddhist saying goes, If you have a problem that can be fixed, then there is no use in worrying. If you have a problem that cannot be fixed, then there is no use in worrying. So why worry. In case you were wondering, the path I took from the south of France, take a look at our blog. Related: Egypt-Based Startup PushBots Wants To Make App Notifications Smarter 5 Things Sailing Around the World Has In Common With Startup Life Expectations from Budget 2017: A Promising Year for Fintech Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. A year ago the Xiaomi Mi 5 came out as one of the most beautiful, most powerful and most capable smartphones we have tested. To try and build on that its successor will have a few different versions, aiming to cater to a much wider audience. According to Weibo user, the alleged Xiaomi Mi 6, which live pictures popped up months ago will come in three variations with three different prices. Xiaomi Mi 5 color variations The first will be with Helio X30 and will cost CNY1,999 (or about $290), the second device will sport the mighty Snapdragon 835 and will be priced at CNY2499 (approx. $360). The third option will also come with Qualcomms latest chipset but will have dual-edge curved display (akin to Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge) and is going to go for CNY2999/$434. The Mi 6 might be officially released at MWC in Barcelona next month. We'll be onsite to report back once Hugo Barra shows it on stage. Via Haiti - Elections : Quick parallel counting and tendency of votes Friday, in the perspective of legislative and local elections of 29 January, the leaders of the Steering Committee of the Citizen Observatory for the Institutionalization of Democracy (OCID) met, on the one hand, academics and opinion leaders and, on the other, members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) around the experience of Systematic Electoral Observation, particularly the parallel and quick counting of voting trends. During these two meetings, Rosny Desroches, a member of the Steering Committee, reminded the observatory bet to enhance the use of scientific methods at the service of politics to the detriment of subjectivity and inconsistency, while seeking the contribution of the interlocutors in this fight. Neil Nevitt, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and consultant to the National Democratic Institute (NDI), explained the stages of systematic observation, from the determination of a sample polling station to the publication of the data collected. Highlight of these exchanges was the presentation by Professor Nevitt of the results of the "Quick Count" carried out discreetly by the OCID during the presidential election of 20 November 2016, substantially matching to those published by the CEP. The reactions of the participants were rather positive. Several officials of State structures and of the society have renewed their commitment to advocate for the modernization of political life through the use of scientific processes, such as surveys and polls. This Monday, January 16, it will be the turn of the leaders of political parties to exchange with the leaders of the OCID about the actions to institutionalize democracy in Haiti. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping politics... Jovenel Moise welcomes election of Senate bureau Jovenel Moise, the elected President of Haiti welcomed the election of the new Senate Bureau https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19797-haiti-politics-youri-latortue-new-president-of-the-senate.html "This is an important step in the process of strengthening our democratic institutions and political stability. I renew my commitment to work together, executive and legislative, in a perfect spirit of national concord and transcendence to write the most beautiful page in the political, economic and social history of our common homeland." Ambassador Paul Altidor and Martin Luther King Sunday, Ambassador Paul Altidor received the International Service Award at the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Salute Celebration. "We dedicate this weekend to the life and legacy of this great man whose dream made it possible for all nations to believe and strive for freedom, justice and equality for all. Haiti is honored to have been an inspiration as the First black nation to stand and revolt against oppression. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day friends !" declared the Ambassador. BAI deplores BCEN decision The Office of International Lawyers and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) deplore the incomplete verification carried out by the electoral authorities of Haiti, which are well below the verification indicated in the "before matters" of the Office of National Electoral Litigation (BCEN). The BCEN decision of January 3, 2017 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19690-haiti-flash-bcen-rendered-its-final-decision.html ignores the legitimate demands of political parties and observation groups and jeopardizes the credibility of the results of the recently announced presidential elections. Jovenel Moise already supported by the State According to a member of the government, Jovenel Moise would already be taken in charge by the State for his expenses while waiting for his oath on 7 February. Senator Etienne thanks his colleagues "I thank my colleagues Senators who elected me almost unanimously first Secretary of the Senate," said the new senator and only woman in the Upper House Dieudonne Luma Etienne (PHTK). Successful concert at the Palace Sans-Souci Saturday at the Palace Sans-Souci, despite the threats of rain, the public moved in numbers for the Concert for Peace and Reconciliation https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19785-haiti-news-zapping-politics.html More than 1,500 people on site and many others outside. The people of Milot came to attend the Concert with their chair and the joy of living... Some people remained standing, but with a smile... HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2017/01/15 | Source "New Monkey King" Ahn Jae-hyun was full of charm. Advertisement On the second episode of the tvN show "New Monkey King", the team spent a night in Guilin, China. Director Na Young-seok gave the team a mission to drink a whole bottle of alcohol during the 'escape room' game. The six members had to drink a bottle each. Kang Ho-dong was appalled at the mission and Cho Kyuhyun said, "Luckily, we all drink well". Ahn Jae-hyun said, "This is Internet TV. This is impossible on real TV". The "New Monkey King" production said, "Watch the rest on the Internet and we will move forward 30 minutes from now". 30 minutes later, the team was excited. They got the Dragon Ball thanks to drinking a bottle each. Kang Ho-dong wanted ramyun and Ahn Jae-hyun charmingly asked for a cookie. Published on 2017/01/15 | Source Im Soo-hyang denied what Han Gab-soo said. Advertisement On the latest episode of the MBC drama "Blow Breeze", Kim Dae-hoon (Han Gab-soo) returned to Kim Deok-cheon (Byun Hee-bong). Kim Deok-cheon found Kim Dae-hoon at the police station and cried. Kim Dae-hoon returned home alone and said, "Park Sin-ae (Im Soo-hyang) went out saying it was a surprise party for you're her father's birthday". Park Sin-ae was surprised and said, "Were you dreaming? I was in the office because of an important thing". However, Kim Dae-hoon got angry at her and said, "Why are you lying? That's not what you said". The family told Kim Dae-hoon to get some rest as he might be in shock. Jo Dal-ho (Lee Jong-won) asked Sin-ae if she really did say that and Park Sin-ae denied it. Ma Cheong-ja (Lee Hwi-hyang) comforted Park Sin-ae and said, "How did you come back alive? You're tough". Login or sign up to follow actresses, movies & dramas and get specific updates and news Login Sign Up New Ad-free Subscriber Login Email Password Password Username Your E-mail will only be used to retrieve a lost password. Stay logged in Help 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. 12:22, 4 NOV 2022 An estimated 200,000 women, including a bus full of locals, are expected to attend the Womens March on Washington during the weekend of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. The protest rally begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017 and ends at 1:15 p.m. The starting point of the rally will be at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Third Street, Washington D.C., near the U.S. Capitol. The rally will feature nationally known advocates, artists, entertainers, entrepreneurs and other leaders, according to the Womens March on Washington website. Kaye Barley of Boone is among the locals taking the sold-out Boone bus to Washington D.C on Saturday. Other organized locations in North Carolina with offered trips include Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem. While Hillary Clinton wasnt Barleys first choice for the presidency during this election cycle, Barley said she wouldnt feel scared if Clinton was the candidate being inaugurated in a few days. Donald Trump is crazy and dangerous. I dont see him lasting four years without being removed in a straightjacket. That is not far fetched as far as I am concerned, Barley said. Sister marches are also taking place across the state. For more information about the rally, click here. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket The Village Foundation of Blowing Rock recently announced that Mr. Bob Hambright and Mr. Ted Couch have joined the Foundation Board of Directors. Both Mr. Hambright and Mr. Couch have been and continue to be active civically in Blowing Rock, and the Foundation looks forward to their service on the Board. Ms. Melissa Pickett, who formerly served in an ex-officio position on the Board as President of the Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce, will now continue on the Board as a regular member. In other action, the Foundation announced that the following Officers for 2017: Mr. John Aldridge, President; Mr.Jim Clabough, Vice President; and Ms.Melissa Pickett, Secretary/Treasurer. Mr. Jim Pitts and Ms. Cathy Robbins will join these officers to form the Executive Committee of the Foundation for 2017. The Village Foundation of Blowing Rock is a 501c3, North Carolina non-profit corporation dedicated to economic development and business education in Blowing Rock. For more information regarding the Foundation, go to www.VillageFoundationofBR.org. To invest in Blowing Rock by making a tax deductible donation, contact the Foundation by e-mail at [email protected] Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket Family Continues Search for Missing Golden Retriever Our Beloved Family Pet (Summer) went missing from Boone, NC on March 11th 2016? Long red hair // white patch on chest // black S tattoo on belly (50-60 lbs) Golden color eyes // brown nose She is extremely shy, so please do not call or chase. If you are able, please snap a picture if you see her and call or text Lucy 931-808-7477 or Pat 704-577-6464. She went missing from Boone, NC on March 11th 2016, but could be anywhere by now. Republican Women to Meet Jan. 25 at Sagebrush The Watauga County Republican Womens Club (WCRWC) will have its next monthly meeting onWednesday, January 25th at the Sagebrush Steakhouse in Boone, NC. The meeting will begin at noon. All interested in furthering the Republican cause in The High Country are welcome to attend and are invited to join. Call 828-295-9020 for more information. The WCRWC meets the last Wednesday of each month. There will be no meeting if Watauga County schools are closed due to weather. Weekly Events at Lost Province Brewing Company January 16, 2017-January 22, 2017 Short List Wednesday, 1/18/17- Trivia at 7pm. Thursday, 1/19/17-$3 Thirsty Thursday and College Night featuring Live Music with Dane Page. Friday, 1/20/17-Live Music: Lucky Strikes at 7:30pm. Saturday, 1/21/17-Live Music: Jacob Johnson Band at 7:30pm. Tuesday, 1/24/17-Cheap Date Night and A Movie. A salad, pizza and two pints for $25. Hot Dog the Movie, is free! Wednesday, 1/25/17-Trivia at 7pm. Thursday, 1/26/17-$3 Thirsty Thursday and College Night featuring Live Music with Robbie Neeb. Friday, 1/27/17-Live Music: MaisCeu at 7:30pm. Saturday, 1/28/17-Live Music: Face the Music at 7:30pm. Monday January 16 Family Night-Buy any regularly priced pizza and receive one free kids meal. Wednesday January 18 7pm-9pm Trivia Night: Beginning at 7pm, Lost Province will be hosting Trivia Night. Compete on your own or on a team! The competition gets started at 7pm so come a little early for a pizza and a pint and get your seat! Thursday January 19 $3.00 Thursday-$3.00 pints on all Lost Province brewed beers (except high gravity). 7:30-Closing Live Music: Dane Page. Dane Page has been playing music professionally for 4 years in bars/coffee shops/breweries and wherever else in the Charlotte and Boone area, but calls the Carolina Piedmont his home. He started playing guitar in 7th grade wanting to be Jimmy Page, and still does, but music has lead him to many different genres of music, and most recently, songwriting. His songwriting influences range from modern song writers (Amos Lee, Josh Ritter, Gregory Alan Isakov, Justin Townes Earle) to classic song writers (Merle Haggard, Hall & Oates, Woody Guthrie, Paul Simon). Friday January 20 7:30pm-Closing Live Music: Lucky Strikes. From classic jazz standards made popular today by artists such as Diana Krall and Tony Bennett, to timeless hits from the 50s, 60s and 70s, The Lucky Strikes musical repertoire spans over four decades. Saturday January 21 7:30-Closing Live Music: Jacob Johnson Band. Hailing from the humble town of Granite Falls, North Carolina, The Jacob Johnson Band is a three-piece blues experience suited for a stadium, able to be professionally condensed to the size of your local bar or any place where live music can be found. With a rock steady rhythm section as his foundation, Jacob Johnsons leads soar into the stratosphere with sonic influences from Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie King, and many more. With vocals ranging from the howls of a hurt man, to the love struck crooning of Elvis, everyone will find the blues lover in themselves. Sunday January 22 Lost Province Sunday: Residents of The Lost Province (Watauga, Ashe, Avery and Alleghany) receive 10% off food with verification of residency. GriefShare at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church Feb. 1 May 3 Mount Vernon Baptist Church hosts GriefShare, a grief support group on Wednesdays at 6:30 pm. The Spring 2017 session runs FEB 1 MAY 3. New members are welcome and may join at anytime! MVBC Minister of Education and Administration, Rev. Bud Russell, a seasoned GriefShare facilitato r, leads this group. For more information check out griefshare.org/findagroup or call our office 828.266.9700. ScaleUp WNC Info Session Jan. 17 Take your business to the next level in 2017! Apply now for the 2017 ScaleUp WNC program Up to 30 high-potential small businesses from across WNC will be accepted; Deadline to apply is January 29 Starting a business is hard work. Scaling a business is equally hard, and often requires different strategy and skills than used in the startup phase. The ScaleUp WNC program works with existing entrepreneurs and small businesses owners from across WNC that have demonstrated initial success and have potential for significant growth. Starting a business is hard work. Scaling a business is equally hard, and often requires different strategy and skills than used in the startup phase. The ScaleUp WNC program works with existing entrepreneurs and small businesses owners from across WNC that have demonstrated initial success and have potential for significant growth. Using a cohort based approach, with 15 businesses accepted into each group, ScaleUp WNC provides mentorship, management training, growth capital connections and other critical resources to help companies achieve sustained growth and contribute to the small business-led economic development of our WNC communities. The deadline to apply is January 29 . Visit ScaleUpWNC.com for full program details and to apply. Mountain BizWorks is now accepting applications for the 2017 ScaleUp WNC program. This Week at BRAHM Coffee with a Curator Tuesday, Jan 17, 11am Take a walk through the galleries with the Curator and get a behind-the-scenes look into our exhibit of Elliott Daingerfeilds. Afterward, guests are invited to converse and pose questions while enjoying complimentary cookies (courtesy of Appalachia Cookie Company) and coffee with the Curator at the Museum. Free for Members, Regular admission for Non-members TACTalks: Why is Everyman Jack Important to All of Us? Thursday, Jan 19, 6pm Join renowned author/Illustrator Gail Haley to discuss Jack as an archetype, and how far reaching his importance is to the English speaking World. Learn how his image as Jack and the Bean Tree came down to us through Vikings who intermarried with English and Scottish women, and through them to modern English and American audiences. Twenty-four of these stories were preserved in the oral tradition of the mountains for over two hundred years. Free for Members, $5 for Non-members January Old Time Dance Friday, Jan 20, 7:30pm Come in out of the winter and shake a leg with the fun and comradery of old-time dance: circles, squares, and lines! Absolutely NO experience is necessary and people of all ages are welcome. Dance instructions will be given by experienced callers and live music will be provided by Strictly Strings! Admission is $5 per person, free for children 12 and under. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket Almost everyone agrees on the necessity to balance the public economy of Finland. Our income and expenditure account is still not in balance, although the situation has indeed improved, he writes in a recent blog entry . Aki Kangasharju, the chief economist at Nordea, estimates that efforts to balance the public economy are becoming less of an obstacle to the economic growth of Finland. The Government of Prime Minister Juha Sipila's task has been made easier by the de-escalation of both domestic and international crises, on the one hand, and by the better structuring of the adjustment measures, on the other, believes Kangasharju. That is why adjustment measures are becoming less of an obstacle to economic growth. This has also created room for additional cost-saving measures, if the need arises in the spring's framework session. Kangasharju reminds that the adjustment policy was first introduced in Finland by the Government of Jyrki Katainen (NCP) in 2011, as the national economy was slipping into recession. The economic decline, however, has halted despite the continuing commitment to adjustment measures of Sipila's Government. The apparent resilience is attributable primarily to two factors, he views: the subsiding of the negative developments that underlaid the term of Katainen's Government, such as the eurozone crisis, and a shift in the economic policy. Katainen's Government sought to reverse the debt trajectory of the country mainly by adopting tax hikes, while Sipila's Government stated immediately after taking office that the economy would be balanced primarily by reducing public spending, not by raising the overall burden of taxpayers. The policy shift has already halted the rise of the nominal expenses of both the central administration and municipalities, highlights Kangasharju. Kangasharju believes the economy reacted differently to spending cut-based and tax increase-based adjustment policy largely because of psychological reasons. The confidence in future economic growth required to drive private consumption and investment, he explains, is not dented as much by the prospect of spending cuts as it is by that of tax increases. Private investments tapered off notably during the term of Katainen's Government, but they have been recovering gradually during the term of Sipila's Government, he says. Petteri Orpo (NCP), the Minister of Finance, has estimated that additional spending cuts of up to one to two billion euros will have to be agreed on in the upcoming framework session. Sipila, on the other hand, has offered a more conservative estimate of the adjustment measures ahead. Timo Soini, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has contrastively argued that no further spending cuts will be needed. The Government has to have confidence in its own policy decisions and action plan, Soini stated in a speech before the party faithful on Saturday. It's a fact that the economy is growing and unemployment is declining. Aleksi Teivainen HT Photo: Roni Rekomaa Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi You naturally have to keep in mind why the sanctions were imposed in the first place. They weren't imposed because of terrorism but because of Crimea and Ukraine, he reminded in an interview on YLE TV1 on Saturday. President Sauli Niinisto has estimated that the sanctions against Russia can be dissolved only in the event that progress is made in resolving the disputes for which the sanctions were originally imposed. American President-elect Donald Trump indicated in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal that he is prepared to lift the sanctions if Russia is willing to aid the United States in the fight against terrorism. The Russian willingness cited by Trump should be manifested in support for and the implementation of the Minsk Agreement, viewed Niinisto. He also reminded that the sanctions were levelled in two stages: first after the Russian annexation of Crimea and second after the Russian attempts to de-stabilise the situation in East Ukraine. The sanctions, he said, should consequently also be lifted in two stages. Trump, similarly, said the newly-imposed sanctions against Russia would remain in place at least for a period of time before being lifted, according to the BBC. Niinisto was also asked to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the euro for Finland. The first ten years we were in a phase where even those who were firmly against [the monetary union] probably admitted that [joining] it had been a good decision. The criticism waned. Now we're in a different phase and the situation seems to have turned upside down, analysed Niinisto. He urged all stakeholders to consider whether the single shared currency or the policies pursued after its adoption are to blame for the current difficulties. We're all aware that there have been quite a number of departures from the original agreements, he said. Niinisto also called attention to an opinion piece by ex-Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (SDP) in Friday's Helsingin Sanomat. The euro is not to blame, if you cannot take care of things, argued Lipponen. We can no longer resort to devaluation, reminded Niinisto. Finland grew in the 1990s precisely because of two devaluations. Our product prices were cut by 30 per cent. But what has received less media attention is that someone had to pay for [the price cuts] they were the debtors. If Finland was to carry out a devaluation today in the event that we had the markka all debtors would have to pay through the nose because I'm guessing that most of our debt would be euro-denominated, he said. Aleksi Teivainen HT Photo: Roni Rekomaa Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi 'According to figures released by the Department of Justice, between 2006 and 2015 some 127 homicide offences have been linked to organised crime or dissident groups' (stock photo) Just one-in-five of the 143 gangland murders committed in the last 10 years have been solved by gardai. This year alone 16 murders relating to organised crime have been carried out, with up to eight of these linked to the ongoing Hutch/Kinahan feud. Gardai investigating these killings have made 44 arrests while five people have been charged with murder. A further three people have been charged with related offences. Dissident According to figures released by the Department of Justice, between 2006 and 2015 some 127 homicide offences have been linked to organised crime or dissident groups. However, only 25 of these murders have been detected, showing that just under 20pc of such crimes are solved. In total, 28 people have appeared before the courts in relation to these gangland murders. Murders linked to the ongoing Hutch/Kinahan feud carried out in 2016 include that of Martin O'Rourke (26), who was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity on April 14. Another feud victim was Eddie Hutch (58) - a brother of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch - who was shot dead at his home in Ballybough, Co Dublin on February 8. No charges have yet been brought in either of these murders. The number of murders in 2016 is also five times that of the previous year, when just three fatal gun attacks were linked to organised criminality. Detection rates for gangland murders are among the lowest of recorded offences, which gardai say is linked to the fear witnesses have of coming forward as well as professional hitmen being used by certain organised crime gangs. Overhaul The last 22 months has seen a massive overhaul within An Garda Siochana in their fight against drug gangs and dissident republicans. In February 2015 the Garda National Drugs Unit and the Organised Crime Unit were merged to form the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB), and in 2016 officers were handpicked for the Special Crime Task Force. A MAN was left fighting for his life last night after he was assaulted on the way home from an evening out. The victim, named locally as David Kirwan (28), is also a carer for his brother. He was walking towards his house on Rowan Grove in the Fassaroe area of Bray with a friend in the early hours of yesterday when an argument developed between the two at James Everett Park on the outskirts of the town. The disagreement became heated and Mr Kirwan was attacked and beaten by the other man, gardai believe. The man helped raise the alarm and remained with the victim. Bloodstain A large bloodstain could be seen on the paving yesterday at the spot where Mr Kirwan had collapsed. James Everett Park ends in a cul-de-sac at the point where the attack took place, but pedestrians are able to walk through it to a local shop and into the Fassaroe area. Gardai believe Mr Kirwan and the second man were taking the popular shortcut, having being out socialising earlier in the night. "It appears that a row broke out and Mr Kirwan was assaulted and injured as a result," said a source. "The man who attacked him, who is not related to the victim, stayed at the scene afterwards and helped raise the alarm. "He was then arrested for questioning." Local people helped Mr Kirwan until the emergency services arrived and he was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital. It was later decided to transfer him to Beaumont Hospital which specialises in head injuries. His condition was described last night as critical. It is not clear if the injuries suffered by Mr Kirwan are as a direct result of the attack on him or if he hit his head on nearby railings or paving as he fell. The scene was sealed off by gardai pending a forensic examination by members of the garda technical bureau. Officers carried out house-to-house enquiries throughout yesterday afternoon. Searches of the area also took place in the vicinity of the crime scene and the local shop and streets leading to the surrounding housing estates. Locals reacted with shock and disbelief when they awoke and saw the garda cordon beside a local shop. Shocked "David and his brother live locally in a bungalow. They haven't been there that long and are doing it up slowly," said one neighbour. "Everyone is absolutely shocked by this. "They keep to themselves mostly. We just see them coming and going." Another local resident said the area was generally quiet. "It seems that some locals were alerted by noise on the street outside and came to the victim's aid when they saw what had happened," said the neighbour. "We saw the man lying on the path and people trying to help him. He didn't seem to be moving." Another neighbour said: "The ambulance came and the crew worked on him before taking him away." Gardai have launched an appeal for witnesses. They particularly want to hear from anyone with information who was in Bray town centre and the Little Bray, Fassaroe and James Everett Park areas between 1am and 2am to get in touch. They can be contacted at Bray Garda Station on 01 6665300, the Garda Confidential Line, 1800 666111 or any Garda station. It's been 125 years since Dracula was published. And it's still scary. lifestyle Patricia Y. Schmidt Patricia Yvonne Schmidt passed away peacefully on the afternoon of January 11, 2017, surrounded by her family. She was born in Rutland, Vermont, to Edward and Dorothy Martell, and spent her youth and early adult years in Vermont and Massachusetts. Even after more than 50 years in Pennsylvania, her affection for the beauty and serenity of Vermont endured. Her love for the theatre began after attending Springfield College, where she met the love of her life, Emile O. Schmidt. They were married in 1958 and began a partnership that lasted for 53 years. After moving to Gettysburg, they founded the Gettysburg Summer Theater and over the course of four decades brought hundreds of plays to the Gettysburg community. She inspired and touched the lives of hundreds of students as actress in the summer theatres, mentor to Emiles college students, and director at Gettysburg Junior and Senior High School. Patricias charm and talent were eclipsed only by her generous and loving heart. Over the decades, first in Gettysburg and later in Carlisle, she volunteered her time and energy with numerous organizations and charities to help families and individuals who were less fortunate. Where there was a person who needed help, she gladly gave her time and her support. Patricia was the light and love of those who knew her, most especially her family. She was predeceased by her husband Emile, and is survived by her children Kristine Filiaci and husband Peter, Jenni Shomaker and husband Matt, and Matthew Schmidt and wife Dina, and grandchildren Joshua, Jeffrey, Brian, Misha, Erik, and Rebecca. Visitation will be held on Saturday, January 21, from 6:008:00 pm at Hoffman Funeral Home, 2020 W. Trindle Road, Carlisle, PA. Funeral services will be held on Sunday, January 22, at 2:00 pm at Second Presbyterian Church, 528 Garland Drive, Carlisle, PA. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Project Hope. Justice reinvestment in Pennsylvania, if enacted as planned, is projected to save the state more than $100 million over the next five years. Roughly half of that money is recommended to be put back into programs meant to reduce crime and re-offending, and in turn save even more money. The tagline for justice reinvestment is 'achieving corrections savings and reinvesting savings in strategies to reduce recidivism,' and we are very in keeping with that here in Pennsylvania, said Carl Reynolds, senior legal and policy adviser with the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Probation The main area for reinvestment that is designed to reduce recidivism is the more effective county-level probation. Probation is hugely important, Reynolds said. It's where most of the people end up. Something like 75 percent of the sentences result in a probation sentence, and yet it's sort of a stepchild in the Pennsylvania construct. Reynolds said the current system is underfunded at the state level and under-governed. Recommendations include changing the way county-level probation is funded by tying state dollars to caseload and the needs of those being supervised rather than by a portion of salary costs incurred by the county. The group also recommends allowing counties to retain all supervision fees rather than remitting them to the state temporarily, and creating a state governing body to create a funding mechanism, provide data collection and provide training and technical assistance to counties. 'Swift and certain' The group also recommended what is known as a swift, certain and fair model for parole violators. This is the one that gets me really excited, said Bret Bucklen, director of the Bureau of Planning, Research & Statistics at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. He said the system would trade severity for technical parole violations with swiftness and certainty of punishment. Individuals found to have committed a technical parole violation missing an appointment with a parole officer, getting caught drinking or other behaviors that do not include arrest for a new crime would be sentenced to a short stay in prison of less than a week. Currently, Bucklen said those individuals can spend three to six months back in prison for a technical violation and are subject to wide discretion as to which violations will trigger a return to prison. These quick dip prison stays for technical violations operate under the theory that it is not the severity of a punishment that makes it effective, but the certainty and the speed with which that punishment will be imposed, Bucklen said. He said the swift and certain model should also provide a better sense of fairness and legitimacy to the corrections system. This is kind of a deterrence 101 approach, Bucklen said. Intermediate punishment expansion Nearly 70 percent of all inmates in state prison have a substance abuse issue, Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel told The Sentinel in 2015. However, a program aimed at treating these inmates known as intermediate punishment is likely underused. Justice reinvestment seeks to increase the number of inmates in the program. Intermediate punishment is a 24 month treatment-based program for non-violent offenders with diagnosed substance abuse disorders. A minimum of seven months is served in prison, at least two are served in a community-based therapeutic treatment program and a minimum of six months are served in outpatient treatment. The remainder of the flat 24-month sentence is served under supervised community reintegration. Historically ... weve always had a problem using it to its fullest capacity, Bucklen said. All of our estimates have been that only about 25 percent of those who are eligible for SIP are getting sentenced to SIP. A study by the Council of State Governments found only 27 percent of inmates released from SIP were rearrested within three years, compared to more than 40 percent of inmates released from a strictly prison based sentence. Bucklen said one of the main problems with getting prisoners into the program is the current logistics to do so. Currently, a judge must recommend a defendant for an SIP evaluation. The defendant then goes to the department of corrections to be evaluated. Once the evaluation is complete, a recommendation is returned to the judge who then must sentence the defendant to the intermediate punishment program. One of the complaints that we have heard is that it is just so convoluted to get an offender into SIP, he said. So, if we could just make it a simpler process, then we can get more people in. The work group has recommended that process be streamlined. Instead of the judge being required to sentence the defendant to SIP, the judge would only indicate if a defendant should not be enrolled in the program. It would then be up to the Department of Corrections to evaluate the defendant following a sentencing and determine if they are a good candidate for SIP. Bucklen said this change should conservatively expand the use of the program by 10 percent. Victim services The working group has also recommended making changes to victims services. While this may not be directly tied to reducing recidivism, Bucklen said it is part of increasing justice in the criminal justice system. The recommendations include increasing access to information about crime victim's rights and expanding who is covered under the victim's compensation fund. On the notification side, we want to suggest that individual police officers have a responsibility to notify victims, to hand them the state form that says 'you have the right to avail yourself in the crime victims' services' and essentially require officers ... who are at the scene of the crime and asking them to make sure that that information gets in the hands of the victim, Reynolds said. The work group also recommends that district attorneys notify the state victim advocate when a defendant has been sentenced to state prison in an effort to maintain contact between victims services and the victim following that transition. Reynolds said there are several little changes requested for the crime victim's compensation fund including lowering the threshold of financial loss that allows for reimbursement, expanding the offenses that can be compensated and providing a good-faith exception to the deadline victims need to file a claim. Welcome signs will soon be going up in some downtown Carlisle businesses. The colorful, 11x17 signs read: Hate has no business here. We respect women. We value black lives. We stand with our LGBT community members. We stand with immigrants and refugees and people of all faiths. We stand with our community. All are welcome here. Sarah Taby, owner of Miss Ruths Time Bomb on West High Street, said she first spotted one of the signs at the Alchemist, a Vermont brewery that has attracted craft beer aficionados from across the country. She had seen similar signs at other stores, but the wording on this particular sign resonated with her. She snapped a photo and posted it to Facebook. A couple of days and comments later, she found the connection to Main Street Alliance, the organization that created the sign. Main Street Alliance is a national network that advocates for small businesses on public policy issues. Taby ordered 20 signs from the alliance, and eight have already been promised to other downtown businesses. She is certain other businesses will post the sign, and would be happy to have to place a second order due to high demand. Making the signs available is, in a sense, a continuation of the work Taby did in organizing business support for the recently approved non-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance makes it unlawful for anyone to engage in discrimination related to employment, housing and commercial property or any public accommodation where it is not currently prohibited by other state or federal laws. Its not political. This is community. This is just caring about my neighbors, Taby said. There had been talk of a decal that could be used by local businesses to state that all are welcome, but nothing has yet materialized. For me, as an individual, I dont want to wait anymore, Taby said. She added that she hopes the signs will be taken at face value as a way to make members of the community feel safe and to show that they are welcome. I would hope there wouldnt be any pushback, Taby said. When you look at that poster, you cant help but find yourself in it. This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. 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Learn more here Grand Prize Winner: Donna Rickey Blog Winners: A Song for her Enemies by Sherri Stewart: Mary Ann Hake Spies & Sweethearts by Linda Shenton Matchett: Connie Ruggles Sword of Trust by DebbieLynn Costello: Brenda Walters Justice for Julia by Donna Schlachter: Natalya Lakhno Party Prize winners: Sherri Stewarts Winners A Song for her Enemies: Angie Pool Bottle of Dutch Syrup: Carol Koch Alscheff Corrie ten Boom book: Deb Gramie Burgess Linda Shenton Matchetts winners: $5.00 gift card to online retailer or choice (Kobo, B&N, AppleBooks, Amazon): Karen Hadley A Bride for Seamus: Carol Osterhouse Wotring DebbieLynn Costellos winners: Sword of the Matchmaker: Melissa Planas Sword of Forgiveness: Paty Hinojosa Gomez Shattered Memories: Charlene Zall Capodice Sword of the Perfect Bride: Licha Haney Donna Schlachters winner: Leather Journal: Lisa Turley GIVEAWAY RULES Winners must leave their email address and will be notified by email and the winners name will be announced in the days comments. No one under 18 can enter our giveaways. No purchase is necessary. All winners have one week to claim their prize. USA shipping only. Offer void where prohibited. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. On Jan. 1, France implemented a new law that gives workers the legal right to disconnect from emails and other digital correspondence from co-workers and bosses while off the clock. For the sake of accuracy, I must point out that the law covers only companies with 50 or more employees, thus leaving out the mom-and-pop operations (or, as they call them in France, the mom-and-pop-and-pops-mistress operations). If workers and management cant compromise on after-work correspondence, the company must publish a charter that specifically states expectations for workers outside the office. Alas, it is a rather toothless law. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, it lacks any defined punishment for companies that fail to define employment terms or abide by after-hours rules. This shortcoming certainly dashed the hopes of the guillotine industry. There would have been protests in the street, but most of the guillotine office staff were tied up using Frances generous benefit of six weeks paid leave for flashbacks from that really traumatic paper cut incident during my probation period. Even though the standard work week in France was set at 35 hours in 2000, I can understand the stress that office workers face. My teachers assured me the workday is a constant barrage of Where is the library? and I want a cheese omelet. Unless someone accidentally presses two and gets a frantic string of Donde esta la casa de Pepe? Perhaps unions should have forgotten about legislation and instead countered family-time intrusions by outsmarting management. (Oui, you can pick my brain about the Chevalier Project; but be forewarned that Im including you in a CONFERENCE CALL with the vinyl siding guy, the home security system guy and the alumni donations guy.) A lot of people around the world empathize with the French professionals, but the farmers and ranchers I deal with in my day job at a farmers cooperative think the French have got it made and dont know it. The farm folk can only dream of a world in which they can be sheltered from unexpected communications for most of the day. When a cow is delivering a calf in a hailstorm at midnight, they dont get to say, Chill out and check my rights in the CHARTER, Bossy. Perhaps the NEED for after-hours conversations could be minimized if a few executives had a backbone. I know there are multinational goals and umpteen time zones and all that jazz, but the corporate world doesnt HAVE to be one crisis after another. Instead of huffing, Maurice, our client in Buenos Aires needs an algorithm ASAP to determine the exact optimum proportion of mauve and puce oolated squiggs for shipment at Christmas 2017, a manager could say, Tomorrow morning after wine break, well tell the client in Buenos Aires that he can help us find a new place to stick the Arc de Triomphe! Skeptics wonder if this French revolt against blurred lines between work and leisure time could really be exported to the U.S. and other countries. With all due respect to the American work ethic, perhaps the lines have already been irreversibly blurred. Get me the legal department stat! I need to notarize your bets in the March Madness pool and your requisition for my daughters Girl Scout cookies. And ask Human Resources if they have any snails to serve with the Do-Si-Dos. Mmm... Danny Tyrees weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate. Email him at tyreetyrades@aol.com. HICKORY After years of moving around for his career, Catawba Countys assistant county manager has found a community he feels comfortable serving for the rest of his career. Much of Dewey Harris life, both personal and professional, has been characterized by movement around the country in pursuit of public service. Born in Connecticut, Harris and his family moved around various places in the Northeast and Midwest, following his fathers job as a college president. Harris own professional life would follow a similar pattern of relocation. Harris started out as a pension underwriter for an insurance company in Connecticut, and decided later he wanted to pursue a career path that would better allow him to serve people. That desire led him to a career in state and local government. I felt that I could do more for my community working for the government, particularly local government as opposed to state government because you are closer to serving the people, Harris said. In his first decade of service in local government, Harris worked in both state and local roles. Harris first job in government came in Oregon, as a budget analyst under two governors. A job as city administrator in Pacific, Wash. gave Harris insight into the functioning of local government. Transitioning from the private sector to the public sector helped Harris find his niche, Dewey Harris wife Sandy Harris said. Dewey believes in giving back, Sandy Harris said. Harris and his wife moved with their two children from the Pacific Northwest to take a job in Wilmington in 1999. After a decade, the family decided it wanted to make another change and relocated to Catawba County in 2008, when Harris took the job as assistant county manager. We wanted to get back to a community that looked a lot like where we grew up, in terms of the rolling hills, Dewey Harris said. Another reason the job appealed to Dewey Harris was the potential for problem solving. Around the time he took the job in Catawba County, Dewey Harris was considering another job in an area with a more robust economy. Moving to an area with more challenges gave him an opportunity to work with others to find solutions, Dewey Harris said. Now that he has been in the community for eight years, Dewey Harris said he has been impressed with the working environment in Catawba County. Id say for me its the amount of collaboration despite the challenges the community has had, Dewey Harris said. Collaboration and community involvement are the things that Dewey Harris seems to enjoy most, both in his professional and personal lives. Dewey Harris colleagues recognize him for his skills working with people. Hes just really a strong people person, able to interact with a lot of different folks, Catawba County Manager Mick Berry said. The dedication to working with others extends beyond Dewey Harris job and into numerous volunteer roles. Dewey Harris volunteer roles in the community include work with the United Arts Council, the Hickory Museum of Art and the Hickory Schools Foundation. Volunteering, in addition to going toward his personal interests, also helps him in the job by helping to bring him closer to the community, Dewey Harris said. Family is central in Dewey Harris' life, and even with all the responsibilities of his job and volunteer work, he makes certain to set aside time for the family. Its challenging, because when you work in this line of work, you really operate in a fish bowl, Harris said. Sandy Harris said Dewey Harris has always been good about making the family a priority. On weekends, he would often budget off days to spend with the children, and would always make a point of calling if he had to work late, Sandy Harris said. I do not doubt that our family is no. 1 for him, Sandy Harris said. Much in the same way that Dewey Harris' father influenced his career in public service, Dewey Harris himself has seen his own son working for the public. Duke Harris, Dewey Harris son, works in the City of Hickory public services, Dewey Harris said. In considering the challenges the community faces, Dewey Harris is hopeful. Id say that my orientation in life is that Im an eternal optimist, Dewey Harris said. Im also optimistic about life and the future of this community." HICKORY The Hickory Area Ministers and the Greater Hickory Ministerial Alliance hosted the annual Spirit of King Community Celebration to honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday. The event was held at the First Presbyterian Church in Hickory. The theme mirrored one of Kings guiding principles in his life love for his neighbors. There are many stories of love we know of: Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Napoleon and Josephine, guest speaker and Conference Minister of the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ Rev. Edward Smith Davis said. There are other stories of love other than between two individuals. In that sense, Im not talking about a usual love story. What Im talking about is a love story between a man and his love for humanity. Davis said King was his hero when he was young and often wondered why the world was so curious about him. In time he developed the idea it was because people are intrigued by the notion of love. It fascinates us when its expressed or in his case lived, Davis said. When we talk about and honor Dr. King, we are reminded of his great love for us, how he sacrificed by putting himself in harms way for the sake of others. Here was a man who was so motivated by love that it even cost him his lifeI believe Martin was a friend of humanity. Kings life also inspired Davis to realize people learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate, then they can learn to love, Davis said. Rev. Whit Malone, the pastor at First Presbyterian Church also touched on this theme with his welcome to the crowd gathered for the event. We gather to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to recall a person who had a dream to bring all people together in mutual respect and love, Malone said. The pastor of Morning Star First Baptist Church, Rev. David Roberts mentioned this same idea in his prayer of remembrance. May we continue to work for a nation marked by justice, love and fellowship, Roberts said. Love and concern for one another was at the heart of the Litany of Confession by Rev. Sandi Hood, Church of the Master UCC. This message was shared again during Old and New Testament readings by Rev. Bill Garrard from St. Lukes United Methodist Church and Rev. Antonio Logan, pastor at Friendship Baptist Church and president of the Greater Hickory Ministerial Alliance. Rev. Reggie Longcrier, pastor at Exodus Missionary Outreach Church, added to this chorus of thought during his Litany for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He quoted from King, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The United Voice Community Choir performed during the celebration. This years recipient of the Spirit of King Award was also named, Carolyn Thompson. The annual award is given to an individual who personifies the ideals of King in making the community a better place to live for all people, according to Greater Hickory Ministerial Alliance press release. The country officially celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. Martin Luther King Jr. was at the heart of the leadership of the modern American Civil Rights movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968. Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950s and 60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States, according to thekingcenter.org. In 1964, at age 35, King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Back in October, when the release of a recording of Donald Trump boasting of groping women rocked the presidential campaign, Sen. Jeff Sessions minimized the severity of his candidate's comments: "I don't characterize that as sexual assault. I think that's a stretch." He advised the Republican leadership to "take a deep breath." Although he almost immediately softened those comments, he tried to put the matter to rest this way: "This thing is overblown. Everybody knows that Trump likes women," Sessions said. "This is not a disqualifying event." Trump didn't pay much of a price for the scandal of the "Access Hollywood" tapes, but Sessions may not get off so easy. On Tuesday, at his confirmation hearings to be attorney general, the senator was the one breathing heavily. "Is grabbing a woman by her genitals without consent, is that sexual assault?" Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vermont, asked. "Clearly, it would be," Sessions replied. Clearly, like frankly, is a gratuitous modifier that most often suggests that what follows is anything but. Session was Trump's first and, for a long time, only supporter in the Senate, a stiff Methodist who was nonetheless comfortable with a candidate carrying significant baggage. Standing by his man paid off for Sessions. Now, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee needed assurance that as the land's chief law enforcement officer he would enforce the law of the land, a task that would force him to take a hard line against the kinds of behavior Trump once bragged about. When Sessions proffered that Trump loved women, he was partly right, but only individually: Melania; his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who dragged him across the finish line; and especially his daughter Ivanka. But as a group, they're on their own. He has vowed to appoint a Supreme Court judge who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. During the campaign, he said he wanted to punish any woman who got an abortion. His daughter is in favor of paid maternity leave, but he has yet to take it up. He chose as his vice president a governor who fought for the right of bakers in Indiana to refuse to put a groom and groom on top of a cake. His appointments to all the top spots are male. And then there is Trump's treatment of women outside his immediate circle which, if his own words are to be believed, is abysmal. Looking at President Barack Obama as he praised his wife and daughters in his farewell address was to see a role model for every boy in America. OK, Trump won the majority of white women in the election. Nonetheless, the women's war on Republicans is about to heat up again with a march on Washington the day after Trump's inauguration. Sessions set out to give needed assurance to the Judiciary Committee that he didn't mean to countenance Trump back in October. With the dispensation that all Trump's nominees have to say whatever gets them through their hearings, Sessions reversed his earlier rubber-stamp of the boss's behavior. Asked whether he would prosecute a sitting president accused of the behavior described in the tapes, Sessions said, "The president is subject to certain lawful restrictions and they would be required to be applied by the appropriate law enforcement official if appropriate, yes." That's one too many "appropriates," but it satisfied most of his colleagues, who'd drawn a warm bath for him. But women shouldn't buy it. In many ways, Sessions may be the most troublesome of Trump's nominees when it comes to domestic issues, and not only because he was once deemed too racist to be a federal judge. Well before sidling up to Trump, he had a poor record on protecting women that made it all too easy for him to brush off Trump's boasting about conduct that would land many men in jail. Sessions did not support an expansion of the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act in 2013, which was labeled by his party as a feminist attack on family values for its extension of protection to lesbians and gays. He changed his view at this week's hearing so that VAWA now enjoys his "broad" support, whatever broad means. He's against abortion rights, voting for restrictions every chance he got, but told the committee he would carry out current law, that is, until his boss appoints a Supreme Court justice to change it. He voted against a bill to alter the handling of military sexual assaults. He surprised women senators when he arrived at an Armed Services Committee hearing on proposed legislation and changed the subject to the possible connection between the epidemic of sexual assaults and the ready availability of pornography on military bases. Another Trump wingman, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, had to twist himself into the candidate's world view, but couldn't see his way to defend him after the tapes. He's back in Trenton now. Sessions arrived pre-shrunk. Like Trump, he believes those in power know best, even if it means not stretching to see that what the boss admitted to is the very definition of sexual assault. The rest of the males around Trump seem cut from the same bespoke suit. Most of all, being in the room where the fawning takes place, Sessions knows that if you don't bow down to the boss, you will no longer be working for the boss and that means either enjoying, or letting pass, locker room banter, as Trump described his assertions on the tapes. Listen closely for "clearly" and "appropriate." It's likely Sessions will be reversing himself again soon. The Right continues its push for a post fact world in Raleigh. Example number one this week would be Senator Andrew Brock. Brock makes the list for his defense of the decision the General Assembly made in its unannounced power-grabbing special session in December to reduce the number of jobs in state government that serve at the pleasure of the governor from 1,500 to 425. Brock was part of the Republican legislature that increased the number of political jobs from 500 to 1,500 after Republican Governor Pat McCrory was elected. Now that Democrat Roy Cooper is governor apparently 1,500 is just too many. Brock told the Carolina Journal that although the legislature voted to grant McCrory up to 1,500 political appointments, he only replaced about 300 employees, similar to what past governors did. So giving Cooper 425 political appointments is actually an increase, and Cooper just wishes he was elected king. Putting aside the fact that Cooper appears to have no desire to be king but probably does want at least the same respect and authority to set up his administration as McCrory had, Brock is simply not telling the truth. Rep. David Lewis made a similar claim during the special session, saying that McCrory had not filled many of the political positions available to him. But as multiple media outlets reported at the time, McCrory filled roughly 1,400 of the political jobs, not 300 as Brock claimed or not a small number as Lewis maintained. But then those are just the factsnothing to worry yourself about if youre a right-wing politician these days. Lewis flip flops on redistricting reform he sponsored Speaking of Lewis, he was back in the news this week as a coalition of progressive and conservative groups renewed its call for an independent redistricting process in North Carolina. The group that includes NC Policy Watch and the John Locke Foundation has been pushing for redistricting reform since before the Republicans took over control of the General Assembly in 2011. Democrats never thought it was a priority when they were in charge despite the push for it by leading Republicans at the time, including current Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. The enthusiasm of many Republicans for changes in the way districts are drawn faded away once they were in power, though to its credit the House did pass an independent redistricting reform bill in the 2011 session with a large bipartisan vote. The Senate never took up the bill that Berger himself sponsored just a few years earlier. That brings us back to Lewis. He not only voted for the 2011 independent redistricting legislation, he was a primary sponsor of the bill and helped get it through the House. This week Lewis appears to have changed his mind, telling reporters that it is disingenuous to say the redistricting process can be nonpartisan, which of course is what he claimed he supported just a few years ago. Lewis is the point person on the Houses gerrymandering efforts that he now continues to defend even as both the legislative and congressional districts have been thrown out by a federal court and are now both, in different stages, before the U.S. Supreme Court for consideration. The public overwhelmingly believes it is time to stop allowing politicians to gerrymander districts to protect themselves and their political parties. Lewis used to believe it too. Too bad hes changed his mind. One final note about the redistricting reform push. One far-right news aggregation site linked to the coverage of the redistricting reform news conference with the headline Lefties try to steal NC Legislature. The picture in the story is of a staff member of the John Locke Foundation, where folks will probably be surprised to learn they are part of a left-wing organization. Is not telling the truth a N.C value? And now example number two of the post fact world on the Right, this time from the misnamed N.C. Values Coalition. The group continues its vigorous effort to make sure the General Assembly does not repeal the sweeping anti-LGBT law HB2 that has cost North Carolina hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs and demonized thousands of people in our communities. The coalition is now urging supporters to send a letter to lawmakers urging them to resist calls to repeal HB2 and it includes the claim that lawmakers almost repealed it in a special session after they were tricked into believing that the City of Charlotte had repealed its nondiscrimination ordinance. But theres no trick there. The Charlotte City Council, unfortunately, did fully repeal its ordinance that protects the rights of LGBT people. It was part of a deal with legislative leaders to prompt the repeal of HB2, a deal the leaders did not keep. The council first repealed parts of the ordinance affect by HB2 and then to remove any confusion, met again to repeal the entire ordinance the morning of the day the special HB2 session began last month. The local ordinance is off the books but the coalition is circulating a letter saying its not. Not telling the truth is an interesting approach for a group that claims to represent North Carolina values. Chris Fitzsimon is the founder and executive director of N.C. Policy Watch. RALEIGH Let me say this with as much tact and respect as I can muster: If you truly believe that the level of democracy in North Carolina is in any way comparable to the level of democracy in Cuba, then you are either 1) an ignoramus, 2) an unrepentant communist, or 3) a college professor. An ignoramus wouldnt know that in dictatorships such as Cuba, competitive politics is illegal, all media outlets are either owned or controlled by the dictators in power, and dissenters are routinely imprisoned and killed. The unrepentant communist would know these things, and approve. But what of the college professor? This isnt a hypothetical question. As you may know by now, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill named Andrew Reynolds wrote a December 22 op-ed in the Raleigh News & Observer in which he cited research from the Electoral Integrity Project to assert that North Carolinas overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone. Ill explain the details in a moment, but right from the first you should spot the problem. Cuba and Indonesia dont even belong in the same category, much less Cuba and North Carolina. In any line of inquiry, if you develop a model that produces nonsensical outcomes, you go back and see whats wrong with your model. Unless, of course, you dont know any better (ignoramus) or actually think the perverse outcome is good (communist). Assuming Reynolds is neither, why would he excoriate North Carolinas election laws based on the results of an obviously faulty comparison? I can only guess that like many denizens of the modern academy, he sees truth as subjective and instrumental, not objective and fundamental. His purpose in the op-ed was to attack state Republicans not just for enacting voter ID laws but also for enacting House Bill 2, which has nothing to do with the election process. Comparing North Carolina to Cuba came in handy. It got Reynolds op-ed space and social-media shares and national coverage. I saw hundreds of Democratic activists and politicians who ought to have known better trumpet it. Reynolds even got a follow-up piece in the N&O in which he bragged about the exposure he got and tried to turn it into an argument for redistricting reform in North Carolina. Unfortunately, his antics have done nothing but hurt the cause of redistricting reform, a cause I have championed for decades, which frustrates and angers me. How many people who gladly peddled this nonsense actually went online to read the research Reynolds was citing? It consisted of a survey sent to other professors. In North Carolina, there were 29 respondents. Most identified themselves as rather left-wing (an average of 3.1 on a scale in which 1 was liberal and 10 was conservative). While some of the questions were related to public policy, others pertained to private action (such as whether the professors thought media coverage was biased) or assumed progressive preferences (such government-funded campaigns). North Carolinas worst ratings were, indeed, on voting districts. We got a 7 out of 100. Cuba got a 52. We got a 28 for election laws and 73 for election procedures, vs. Cubas 43 and 82 respectively. Again, a reasonable person hoping to take such a research model somewhere useful would see that result, strap on a parachute, and jump out not eagerly ride it into the side of a cliff, as Reynolds and his followers have done. I advocate reforms that would generate more competitive congressional and legislative districts. I did so when Democrats were gerrymandering the maps the 2001 districts they tried to enact, until the courts stopped them, were far more contorted than the current ones and Ive continued to do so with Republicans in charge. But I wont scream wolf at the top of my lungs whenever I see a terrier. Ill leave that boyish task to ignoramuses, communists, and college professors. John Hood is chairman of the John Locke Foundation and appears on the talk show NC SPIN. You can follow him @JohnHoodNC. HICKORY The Hickory Museum of Art is looking to create a bridge to Cherokee culture for local students with its upcoming exhibit called Solitude & Mystery by Cherokee artisan John Julius Wilnoty. The exhibit will open to the public on Feb. 9 but a special, free reception also will be held that day for area teachers and home school educators. Exhibit curator and scholar Anna Fariello will discuss Cherokee objects and how educators can incorporate them into their curriculums. This kind of educational outreach is something the museums executive director Lise Swensson has wanted to do since she took the job more than 12 years ago. She is retiring in March. This is what the Hickory Museum is all about. Were about connecting to the community through the visual arts, Swensson said. She has been looking for a Catawba Indian exhibit, and this is the closest she was able to get. What I look at, at this museum is to show a variety of art work. You never know whats going to spark the interest of the person who walks through the door, Swensson said. We need to figure out who might be looking for it and with the education committeeweve found teachers are looking for native information, objects, experiences to make it more interesting for their children, so were here to help make that connection. Fariello said the exhibit actually represents several generations of Cherokee artisanship with work from Wilnoty, his son, grandson and one piece from his father. We selected Wilnoty for this exhibit because among the Cherokee people he is a legend but outside of Cherokee, not so much, Fariello said. The form of his pieces are traditionalbut just what he incorporates, very detailed work, very whimsical work. I think its really important for young people who live here to realize there was a culture here before they were here, Fariello said. The Cherokee were a huge tribe. The covered eight statesthey are very strong in their culture. The emphasis on tradition has a lot of value for their young people. Lambert Wilson is the owner of the Wilnoty Collection and an avid Native American art collector. Hes also a former educator himself in Cherokee. About 50 percent of my students were Native American so I got to know the Cherokee and their beliefs, Wilson said. The museums education manager Ginny Zellmer sees the new Cherokee exhibit as an easy tie-in to social studies classes and their curriculum for fifth and 11th graders. She said the museum has already talked to some local art teachers and some of the local schools but also plans on a bigger promotion once the exhibit is up. Zellmer thinks the stories behind the hand-carvings will inspire most students who see them. The Cherokee have so many stories with their art. Were going to have other parts to go a long with it, Zellmer said. Were going to have some Kachina dolls from the Hopi and Navajo Indians on display also, from a local collector (and artist), Pat Viles, who also has an exhibit here. Educators interested in incorporating the exhibit into their class time should email Ginny Zellmer at gzellmer@hickorymuseumofart.org. The special reception for educators will be Thursday, Feb. 9, 4-5 p.m. The public reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. the same day and is also free. A member of the Eastern Band, Wilnoty was born in 1940 in the Bigwitch community of the Qualla Boundary and later lived in Wolftown, according to a Hickory Museum press release. He grew up with little formal education. As a sculptor, he is completely self-taught, taking up carving when he was about 20 years old. His Eagle Dancer was a masterful carving that used the natural grain of the wood to emphasize the movement of the dancer, the release said. The sculpture was declared a masterpiece by all who saw it. Columnist John Parish dubbed the artist the Cherokees Michelangelo. The exhibit will be at the Hickory Museum of Art, Feb. 1 through May 21 and is sponsored by the N.C. Arts Council, North Carolina Humanities Council, Hickory Community Relations Council and Charlotte Paint. This project is made possible by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, visit HickoryArt.org. Putting together a school budget is like putting together a jigsaw puzzleand administrations always hope they arent missing any pieces. Local county and state funds make up more than half of all the monies school systems use to operate. While some of these funding sources have increased Catawba County raised its per pupil funding for each school system to 3.8 percent its still not enough to keep books on desks and teacher assistants in classrooms. Whether its a bake sale or a grant from a local education foundation, every school and every school district starts every new year looking for ways to improve funding gaps they face. The Parent Teachers Organization (PTO) at Sherrills Ford Elementary in the Catawba County Schools system stepped up their pursuit of funds this year with a new online program called Make It Happen. They raised more than $30,000 in just 17 days in December. The goal was $15,000. The money will go to provide an average of $25 per student for various school related expenses and $200 per teacher to reimburse for classroom materials. The funds also will help to send teachers to professional development courses. The thing is were unique in that we are not a Title 1 school, and we depend on our PTO to fund a lot of activities were able to do, Sherrills Ford Principal Lathan Fowler said. With things that have happened to budgets the last few years, we had to get creative with the way we fundraise for our kids and get resources for our students. A Foundation for Funds The Hickory Public Schools Education Foundation has played a key role in providing extra resources for its students in the Hickory Public Schools system. Last year, three elementary and two middle schools received a share of nearly $37,000 in grant money from the foundation. The Foundation established its Innovation Grants Program two years ago to help continue improvement through creative teaching in Hickory Public Schools (HPS). The PTA in all our schools fund many projects their schools cannot fund. They raise money through box tops, Lowes Rewards, Fall Carnivals, Discount Booklets, school nights at local restaurants, etc, the education foundation Executive Director Sandi Fotheringham said via email. They all solicit donations from parents and community for specific projects such as playground equipment and walking tracks. Our Foundation is focusing on two areas: Teacher Creative Ideas Grants and a Teacher Recruitment/Retention Package. Jenkins Elementary was awarded the largest creative grant last year, $9,964. The money was used to create a technology room for the students at the school where they could experiment with STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math) projects. Another example of outside funding was by the Parent Teacher Association at Hickory High School. They helped raise $3,700 by selling Lowes Foods gift cards. Proceeds from the sale will go toward Hickory High staff development and enrichment. Overall, Hickory Public Schools has 66 percent of its funding come from state money, 17.5 percent from local and 7.5 percent from federal. The HPS Director of Finance Adam Steele shared several examples of why the amount of funding stills falls short in certain areas. Finding quality teachers has become difficult because North Carolina is 47th in the nation in teacher pay, and the NC Teaching Fellows (scholarship program) has been cut, he said via email. He said teacher assistants have been reduced and have been moved to hourly and student days only. At-Risk funding has decreased around $200,000 over the last four years as some of the funding is now grant funding. The Central Office allotment has been reduced three times over the last five years as well. English as a Second Language funding has been reduced and there has been a loss in federal funds from cuts to federal programs in Title I and Title II, Steele said. There has been a reduction of assistant principal months of employment from 11 or 12 months to 10 or 11 months based on position. Renting Pays The Newton-Conover City Schools system takes advantage of the value in its own buildings to help bridge some of its funding gaps. The system uses money from renting out school gyms and other facilities to fund the NCCS Innovative Grants, which was started in 2014. NCCS embraces the fact that every child learns differently and that the number of ways we can engage students is limitless, Director of Elementary and Middle Grades Tammy Brown who also oversees the grant program said. Our goal, as educators, is to prepare students for college, career and beyond and NCCS Innovative Grants will be awarded to fund projects that extend the regular curriculum; encourage higher-level thinking skills; and enrich student learning through culture, art, music, and other activities. Teachers who receive a grant are encouraged to create interactive and enhanced learning experiences that would not be possible without additional funding. These opportunities may include but are not limited to providing engaging learning opportunities outside of the standard curriculum or piloting innovative educational programs, Brown said. The grants are available to staff or students who work in Newton-Conover City Schools. The past examples show just how creative some of the projects funded were. They included a body double robot, utilizing a remotely controlled segway with an iPad attached to keeping homebound students in the classroom at Shuford Elementary, according to last years grant winners information. The grants program also helped to fund a hydroponics and aquaculture project at Discovery High School. The project allowed students to perform hands-on activities that were directly linked to the North Carolina Essential Standards for Biology, including environmental impacts of traditional farming and pesticide resistance. The grants support the purchase of equipment, materials or experiences which go beyond school budgets, Brown said. Innovative Grants are not intended to become a regular funding stream for ongoing projects. Individual teacher grants for classroom projects are limited to $1,000. Collaborative grants for two or more teacher are limited to $1,500. Counting by Pupils Catawba County Schools Chief Finance Officer Karla Miller said education funding in general has declined since 2008-09. Our state budget has been particularly hard hit in the areas of teacher assistants, non-instructional support (substitutes, office support and custodians) and supplies and materials, Miller said via an email. Catawba County allocates our funds based on a per pupil allotment, currently $1,540 per pupil, and thankfully, their per pupil allocation has increased over the years; however, our enrollment is down and we are actually receiving less in total funding from the county. Federally funds have declined, except several years ago when we received a special ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) allotment. That federal funding expired several years ago. Catawba County Schools received 54 percent of its funding from the state, 16 percent from the county, five percent from federal. The system also received 14 percent from the county for Capital Projects, three percent from grants and eight percent from school nutrition and Quest enterprise funds. Catawba County government allocates the majority of the systems capital funding for building projects by project. We submit our list of Capital requests each year and they choose which requests to fund, Miller said. Needless to say, we have many more needs than there are funds available to cover. Major projects, such as new schools, are part of a long range funding cycle that the county maintains. Miller said both the county and state have remained strong proponents of technology, so that funding has remained more stable over the last 10 years. We just simply don't receive enough to cover all of the initiatives we'd like to pursue, Miller said. Make it Happen The PTO at Sherrills Ford had this problem in its crosshairs when it created the Make it Happen campaign. The group, led by parent and fundraising coordinator Luke Walling, also raised nearly $38,000 earlier in the year through another project called Chromify Sherrills Ford Elementary. It raised money to purchase computers for students. The 'Make it Happen campaign came about because every year we do what we consider our big fundraiser which usually consists of our students selling some kid of product, PTO president Dina Haugstatter said. The problem with selling a product is that we only keep a percentage so last year we sold over $30,000 in cookie dough but only kept 40 percent of that. Instead of selling, the campaign had students to reach out to friends, neighbors and relatives for tax-deductible donations and based on how much they raised the students could win prizes. We tied this event into our fall festival - here is where we did our big prize winner drawings, a way to get more people at the festival and raise more money, Haugstatter said. We also had prizes for the teachers whose class raised the most money - an incentive for teachers to encourage their students to get out and ask for donations. The PTO plans on continuing the campaign with the Make it Happen page still up on its website, sherrillsfordpto.org. 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/ The Election Commissions decision to allot the Samajwadi Partys cycle symbol to the Akhilesh Yadav faction --- and recognising his group as the real SP --- will have a significant bearing on the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh. For one, the end of the internecine fight is likely to swing a significant chunk of the SPs loyal voters, mainly the Muslims and the Yadavs, in favour of the young chief minister. Voters relate with the symbol, more than the party, says professor Badri Narayan of Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University. A section of the Yadavs might still go with party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav but a majority of them, especially the youth, are likely to shift their loyalty to the 43-year-old SP leader. In 1995, Chandrababu Naidu had launched a successful revolt against Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder and then chief minister NT Rama Rao. NTR died soon after, but Naidu didnt face any backlash from his loyalists in subsequent months and years. The SP is likely to seal its alliance with the Congress later this week, a deal that would pitchfork the combine as the main contender against the resurgent BJP in the coming elections in UP. Muslims are known to go with a party or alliance that stands the best chance to defeat the BJP. Akhilesh-led SP and the Congress together could provide them this option. While it is still not clear which way Muslim leaders such as Azam Khan would go, the community is unlikely to place its bets on Mulayam-led party or what could be a mere shadow of the SP. Read: UP election 2017: Why getting the SP cycle is Akhilesh Yadavs biggest victory There will be a division in Muslims and Yadavsbetween Mulayam and Akhileshbut the CM will have an edge. UP might witness a triangular fight, says Badri Narayan. He believes that the support of Muslims to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) might not be to the extent that it expected earlier. The ECs order might be a setback to the BJP and the BSP, which were banking on the family feud in the SP to give them an advantage. The BSP expected the Muslims to leave the SP and join its core votebank of Dalits to give it the requisite numerical heft to bring it back to power. The ECs decision on Monday might have come as a disappointment to the party. The BJP has been wooing non-Yadav OBCs and so was Akhilesh. The young CMs revolt against Mulayam --- the face of Yadavs assertion in UP --- and other members of this clan was perceived to go down well with other communities. He projected himself as the face of aspiring UP, looking beyond the considerations of caste and religion. Read: Five things Akhilesh Yadav gets by winning the cycle symbol His fight against the entrenched powers in SP could also neutralise, to an extent, the anti-incumbency factor against his government as he could lay the blame for all that went wrong on his family elders (excluding uncle Ramgopal Yadav). While Akhilesh has become the undisputed face of the SP, the BJP is banking on the achievements of Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre to get a mandate in Uttar Pradesh. The ruling party at the Centre believes that demonetisation has given it an insurmountable lead in the state. And, without a face in the crucial elections, the BJP should hope that its assessment is correct. China hands over two ships to Pakistan Navy for Gwadar Port security Published: January 16, 2017 China has handed over two ships to the Pakistan to safeguard the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). These ships have been named as Hingol and Basol, after two rivers near Gwadar. They will be part of Pakistan Navy and are equipped with state-of-the-art guns. They will be used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. Besides, China will also provide two more ships to Pakistan Navy which have been named Zhob and Dasht after two districts in Balochistan. Background In recent times, China has actively started extending its help and cooperation to Pakistan for security along the $46 billion CPECs land and sea routes. As a follow up, Pakistan Army already has raised a new division of the army to ensure security along the CPEC route and around the strategic Gwadar port. The security of Gwadar city also has been handed over to the Pakistan Armys new division raised during the tenure of former army chief Gen Raheel Sharif. In the past, China restrained itself from deploying its naval ships in Gwadar, as it could had raise alarm in US and India. Gwadar port The strategic Gwadar port is located in Pakistans restive Balochistan province. It has been developed under CPEC which link western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The revamped port became operational in November 2016 after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and European Union. For more information: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Month: Current Affairs - January, 2017 Topics: China-Pakistan CPEC Gwadar Port International Security Latest E-Books Though predatory pricing is not a new phenomenon, it was more commonly used in the past by incumbents to keep out fresh competition. Now, such pricing strategies appear to be finding favour with disruptors and new entrants too. Predatory pricing can benefit consumers in the short run. Regulators are however cautious of such pricing strategies because of the ominous possibility that the winner of the pricing wars will eliminate all competition. Upon achieving this outcome, prices could well start spiralling upwards with no alternative in sight for the consumer. Moreover, the infant industry argument from Indias economic past retains some bit of traction even today. Some domestic players have recently accused their foreign competition of being better placed to carry out predatory pricing strategies. Two distinct kinds of responses to predatory pricing have emerged in the Indian context. The first is a regulatory model, captured best in the Guidelines for FDI in E-Commerce issued last year by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Guideline 2.3 (ix) stipulates that e-commerce entities will not directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods or services, and shall maintain level playing field. This guideline, introduced to protect brick and mortar stores against disruption by e-commerce players, places a total embargo on discounting, subject to creative legal interpretation. Read | Do Flipkart and Ola need protection? The judicial model, practiced by antitrust/competition regulators in various jurisdictions including India, works on a case-to-case basis and relies on standards rather than hard-and-fast rules and rigid embargos. The law on predatory pricing is fairly complex and varies across jurisdictions. The United States follows the correct standard that predatory pricing must be frowned upon only when there exists a distinct possibility in the near future, of the predator recouping losses suffered on account of below-cost prices. The challenger has to first demonstrate the dominance of the predator in the relevant market. Questions such as whether e-commerce portals are part of the retail sector, or form a separate, standalone market, arise here, with no clear cut answers in sight yet. Once such dominance stands established, the competition regulator examines the permissibility of the pricing model. The Competition Commission of India has sent out early signals in MCX Stock Exchange v. National Stock Exchange (2009) that it would not look at recoupment possibilities as an independent factor, focusing instead on whether the conduct of predatory pricing is unfair to the competitor. Regardless of the standard employed, the judicial model is more appropriate, considering the regulatory model can freeze innovation by removing any free play from the equation. Moreover, market forces are reasonably capable of driving out irrational predators. No business can survive on endless discounts. The regulatory model ignores this commonsensical view. Read | Dare to dream: 5 Indian entrepreneurs who are driving social change The regulatory model should instead be used only to enhance customer options and convenience. The Watal committee report on digital payments recently advocated State intervention only when there is an absence or stagnation of competition, and that too for promoting corrective innovation. To enhance supply of payment systems, the committee has endorsed unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) based systems and direct carrier billing facilities, and even possible use of crypto-currency. It has also called for open access and greater interoperability between payment systems so as to enhance customer convenience. Read | Flipkarts fashion unit Myntra bets on artificial intelligence to drive growth The committee also recommended a competition impact assessment of any proposed regulation, which would assess the regulations impact on the choice and information available to consumers of payment services, and on the ability of payment service providers to compete efficiently in the market. Similar impact assessment should follow in every sector, instead of focusing on protecting incumbents against lower pricing structures. This way, the regulatory model can be kept in check while simultaneously ensuring that regulations benefit end users. Ananth Padmanabhan is fellow, Carnegie India The views expressed are personal As the focus shifts from demonetisation to remonetisation, one priority of this government, as articulated by the Prime Minister in his New Years Eve speech is to help the honest, protect them, and ease their difficulty. How then are honest, hardworking Indians to be rewarded for the sacrifices they have made? The metaphor of the honest Indian conjures up several imagesthe farmer, the entrepreneur, the middle class salaried employeeand there were tangible rewards for some in the speech. These included, among others, a 60-day interest waiver for farmers who availed of loans for rabi crops from District Cooperative Central Banks and Primary Societies and RuPay debit cards to about three crore Kisan Credit Card holders, interest subventions for various income categories and an increase in number of houses for the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY) and credit incentives and relaxations for the MSME sector. As hardworking, honest and in possibly more difficulty are those employed in the urban informal sector, many of them rural migrants who came to the city to diversify household incomes beyond agriculture and in pursuit of a better life. How their expectations of rewards will be met are unclear. The government will need to think about addressing the urgent needs of this important segment of India workforce that constitute, among others, construction workers, contractual factory workers and the self-employed like street vendors and small-scale retailers. Read:15 lakh migrant labourers affected by demonetisation in Ludhiana In the cash-strapped days post demonetisation, many of these workers were pushed into more precarious, casual and insecure work. On field in the first half of December, we encountered rickshaw pullers taking on odd jobs at wedding banquets, and factory workers looking for work in grocery stores. Some workers got paid in old notes and the losses incurred in exchanging them through informal channels only added to their woes. The scrambling for work and the renegotiation of informal relationships have strained the networks of employment that characterise the informal sector. Whether at labour chowks, in the neighbourhood market, or at workplaces, this jaan-pehchan, which hitherto has been a source of support, is fraying under the uncertainty. Job losses or downgrading also means that remittances take a hit; in East Delhis Ghazipur, for example, at a banking suvidha kendra, we found that daily remittances had dropped from 2.5 lakh to under 50,000 in late November. This will impact the rural economy, but more worrying are reports of migrants returning to their villages post demonetisation. Read: Note ban disrupts Gurgaons migrant-fuelled village economies With employment and migration networks in a flux, rural youth with aspirations will rethink their plans to seek urban opportunities. A tentative approach to migration bodes ill for industrialisation and urbanisation, the pillars on which the economic transition is envisioned, with schemes like Make in India, AMRUT and Smart Cities Mission. The PM must deploy his credibility to reassure migrants and reduce their pain through deeper policy engagement at all levels. This needs no new sops; he only needs to put his weight decisively behind a few key measures. First, considering that a large minority of migrants are employed in construction, he must urge States to utilise the unused cess funds from the construction workers welfare boards (CWWB). In 2013, the Ministry of Labour and Employment reported that only 15% of the funds were utilised, despite 22.4 million workers being registered. Increasing registrations and working with states to design and implement projects including rental housing, and health and education facilities must be an absolute priority. Second, the government must ensure that migrants can access social benefits like the public distribution system (PDS), health and education at destination as well as at source. Much can be achieved by tweaking or just implementing existing schemes; for instance, by linking homeless shelters to the social protection system, as mandated under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay- National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY-NULM) scheme or by allowing migrants unrestricted access to urban skills training under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDUGKY). The PM has expressed confidence in our ability to move towards digitalisation in pursuit of a cashless or less-cash economy. By making social protection portable, using the same digitalisation, the government can substantially reduce precariousness for migrant workers while focusing existing policy on developing a more skilled, healthy workforce for the future. Digitalisation can resolve issues of documentation, unique identification and inter-governmental expenditure assignment to ensure full portability of benefits across the board. Read: Demonetisation blues: No work or cash, over 10,000 daily wagers leave Gurgaon Notwithstanding the glitches that many have already commented on, the demonetisation exercise has demonstrated the enormous reach of the state apparatus and the possibilities offered when it, and the people, are mobilised. It is time this power was used to support those deserving, honest, hardworking and aspirational migrants whose contributions are key to achieving the shared dream of building a glorious India. Mukta Naik, Eesha Kunduri and Ashwin Parulkar are researchers at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi The views expressed are personal Accused by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of being soft on the Badals, Amarinder Singh on Sunday said if elected to power, he would not shy away from hanging those guilty of sacrilege and drug mafia even if it is the Badals themselves, evoking a sharp reaction from the ruling party which said the Punjab Congress chief had gone berserk. Amarinder also slammed AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, calling him names like a coward. Amarinder said, if his party is elected to power in next months assembly polls, he would launch immediate inquiries into all incidents of major crimes such as religious sacrilege, as well as the drug and other mafias. I will hang the guilty from their heads, even if it is the Badals themselves who are found to be implicit in such crimes, he said while addressing a rally here after paying obeisance at Mehraj gurdwara in Rampura Phul. Hitting back, SAD secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said from the tone and tenor of the statement, it becomes clear that sensing crushing defeat, Amarinder has gone berserk. His statement shows that he had no positive agenda except vendetta politics in which he indulged during the previous tenure as chief minister, he said. The SAD spokesperson asserted that party leaders are not afraid of bogus threats and Amarinder should stop day dreaming of becoming chief minister. Amarinder also also attacked Kejriwal, describing him as a small and sneaky man who did not have the guts to fight him on the electoral battleground. Punjab does not tolerate cowards like the AAP leader, said Capt Amarinder, adding that if left to AAP or the Akalis, Punjab will never be able to restore its lost pride and glory. Challenging Kejriwal to fight against him from Lambi constituency, he said AAP is a party of outsiders which is getting outsiders to campaign and coordinate the elections since they did not have any trust or ties with Punjabis. He said he would ensure that Kejriwal does not succeed in taking over the state, with which he has no connect. He said he has decided to fight chief minister Parkash Singh on his home turf Lambi to free Punjab from the clutches of the Akalis, who had been looting the people of the state for the last 10 years. Amarinder charged the Badal family with trying to inflame communal passions to polarise voters by not getting a proper investigation done into the cases of religious sacrilege in the state in recent past. Referring to the problems faced by Punjab under 10 years of Badal misrule, Amarinder pledged to fulfil all the promises made by him and his party, including farm debt waiver, for which 33 lakh people had signed forms. He promised to bring industrial growth back on its track and reiterated his commitment to continue with all the ongoing public welfare schemes. From power to water to atta-dal scheme, no welfare programme will be stopped by my government, he said. He reiterated his promise to finish off the drug mafia within four weeks of forming the government. Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday hit back at newly-joined Congress member Navjot Singh Sindhu for his criticism of the Shiromani Akali Dal-led Punjab government and said that some people indulge in profitable deals for nefarious gains. He was with us earlier and at that point of time he used to shower praise on me. The BJP brought him to this position but he left the party. Till the last moment he was confused on whether to join the Congress or AAP, so what can I say about him. So, such people have no respect for anybody, Badal told the media. The chief minister dubbed the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates in poll-bound Punjab as migratory birds and said it is only the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that has been associated with the state since 70 years. These are all migratory birds (Congress and AAP candidates) who will come and go, but we have been here since 70 years, said Badal. Badals outburst came after Sidhu earlier today lambasted the incumbent SAD Government for ruining the state and said that his mission is redemption of Punjab. A government, which was by the people, is now a government for the family. I will expose Badals. I am a soldier ready to fight for Punjab. Akalis were a good group. Now, its just about a family, he added. Punjab goes to polls on February 4. The Election Commission of India on Monday alloted the Samajwadi Partys bicycle poll symbol to the faction led by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Celebrations erupted outside the Uttar Pradesh CMs house on 5, Kalidasa Road late Monday after the notification came out from the Election Commission, which is seen as the biggest win by the junior Yadav in the family feud so far. The state goes to the polls in seven phases starting February 11. The SP is up against the BJP, Congress and regional rival Bahujan Samaj Party to win the politically crucial state. Here are latest developments in the story from New Delhi and Lucknow as they took place: 9.12pm: 8.35pm: Lawyer of Akhilesh Yadav Kapil Sibal tells ANI: Election Commission dealt with the issue from various angles. By Jan 9, the Akhilesh Yadav faction had filed all the documents at various levels. The Mulayam Singh Yadav faction did not respond to the commissions direction, which meant they really had no evidence to support their claim. Given the overwhelming support received by the Akhilesh group, the EC gave its decision. 8.10pm: Kanpur: Akhilesh Yadav's supporters celebrate after EC said group led by him is SP and is entitled to use 'Bicycle' symbol #UPpolls pic.twitter.com/vs3EolKTPO ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 16, 2017 8.06pm: Sources say Akhilesh Yadav met his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, took his blessings. 7.52pm: Akhilesh Yadav arrives at his father Mulayams residence -- 4 Vikramaditya Marg-- in Lucknow. 7.43pm: The Election Commission has taken a judicious decision in record time, says Congress 7.36pm: We are relaxed now and will go back to our constituency and campaign, says Amit Gujjar, district youth president of SP from Saharanpur. 7.31pm: I congratulate Akhilesh Yadav. I would appeal Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) to give his blessings to Akhilesh; this is countrys election not just UP: Lalu Yadav to ANI , Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) January 16, 2017 ,, Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) January 16, 2017 Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) January 16, 2017 7.28pm: Congratulations @yadavakhilesh for getting SP symbol. You deserve it, tweets Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. 7.20pm: Celebrations outside Akhilesh Yadavs residence after Election Commission allots his faction the right to use cycle symbol. 7.03pm: I hope a Mahagathbandhan (Grand alliance) is formed, but Akhilesh Yadav will take the final call, says SP leader and Akhileshs uncle Ramgopal Yadav, who is on the CMs side. His cousins -- SP patriarch Mulayam Singh and Shivpal Yadav -- are in the other faction. 6.55pm: The Election Commission of India allots the Samajwadi Partys cycle poll symbol to the faction led by Akhilesh Yadav. Full coverage of Yadav Family Feud SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said he would contest against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the assembly elections if he does not listen to him, seeking to wield the stick after the chief ministership carrot failed to make his rebellious son fall in line. With chances of a rapprochement between the two warring factions in the party receding with each passing day, Mulayam accused Akhilesh of having a negative approach towards Muslims, a loyal vote bank of the Samajwadi Party for years. Read | Who gets Samajwadi Partys bicycle symbol? EC to consider three scenarios Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ramgopal (Yadav). If he does not listen, I will fight against him, Mulayam, a Lok Sabha member from Azamgarh, told party workers. Ram Gopal, a member of the Rajya Sabha and Mulayams cousin, has sided with Akhilesh in his fight for control over the party. The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a negative approach towards Muslims and that he was playing into the hands of Ramgopal Yadav, who was working on directions of BJP. I will live for Muslims and die for them. When it comes to Muslims interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh), he said. Read | UP elections 2017: Mulayam slams son Akhilesh, indicates party feud will go on I have always stood for protecting the interest of the Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as the states Director General of Police (DGP), Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It sent an anti-Muslim message, Mulayam said. The Samajwadi Party supremo said he had made many sacrifices to build the party and Akhilesh sacked several ministers including a woman without valid reasons. Mulayam had sprung a surprise earlier this month when he said Akhilesh will be the chief minister if party retained power after the assembly elections, extending an olive branch to his recalcitrant son. However, Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav, a key stretegist of the party, have steadfastly rejected the overture. Akhilesh reportedly demanded that he be allowed to continue to lead the party for the next three months, a demand that was rejected by Mulayam. Amid reports that the Akhilesh camp enjoyed support of a majority of party delegates, MPs and legislators, Mulayam indicated he may move the court if the partys name and election symbol was allotted to the rival camp by the Election Commission. Mulayam said it was upto the EC to decide on it but the fight will reach the court. Read | Akhilesh is SPs heart, Mulayam its heartbeat Earlier in the day, Mulayam reached the residence of his younger brother and state SP president Shivpal Yadav. Interestingly, he also called Naresh Uttam, who has been appointed party state president by Akhilesh, and he was present during Mulayams address to partymen. Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for not understanding things. Though she has directed only two movies, Gauri Shinde (right) has proved her prowess as a director. Both her directorial ventures, English Vinglish (2012) and Dear Zindagi (2016; DZ), brought certain issues to the fore and also became box-office hits. Relaxing in Goa post the success of her last release, starring Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan, she is in no hurry to start working on her next. Gauri also hopes people dont look at women directors or the movies they make as special cases. Excerpts from the interview. It is great to write about your own gender, as you have more to tell and you feel compelled to tell stories from that perspective. Both your movies were about women. Was it a conscious decision to make women-centric films? No. It was subconscious, perhaps. In fact, Kiaras character in DZ (played by Alia Bhatt) could easily have been a man as the problems she had were universal and not gender-centric. However, I thought it would be better to look at it from a womans point of view. It is great to write about your own gender, as you have more to tell and you feel compelled to tell stories from that perspective. Moreover, how many stories are from a womans point of view in the industry? No one questions when there are male-centric films every week. I want that day to come when no one questions women-centric films, and it becomes as normal as other films. Kaira wouldn't have been Kaira without these bunch of goofs! Watch the off screen madness here: https://t.co/zOu7yNlGfX Gauri Shinde (@gauris) December 6, 2016 A film cant change society as its too lofty a goal, but you can help people look at life in a different way. Both your films have had strong messages for the audience. Is that also subconscious? No. I didnt start writing [my film] with a social message [in mind], as I am not an activist. I wanted to express a story. It happened to be about a subject I believed in and wanted to tell the world. Many young girls struggle in life like Kiara. Many people responded saying how DZ has impacted their lives, and how they didnt think therapy was needed for a family member, but later they got help. If my story helps one or two people, then its worth it. Then you feel you have done something right. That isnt something that one sets out to do. A film cant change society as its too lofty a goal, but you can help people look at life in a different way. Striking a chord with viewers & critics alike, #DearZindagi is a winner at the box-office too. Read more: https://t.co/GAKo8Fns7c pic.twitter.com/g6SU3S853p Red Chillies Ent (@RedChilliesEnt) December 3, 2016 Farah Khan objects to the term women directors. What do you think about it? It is equivalent to women-centric films. We need more and enough number of [women] directors to not make us sound like we are minority, or as if we are a special case and a category. Watch this...so much fun with these two Zindagi Bahut Dear ho gayi https://t.co/IPMCtM1rqY Gauri Shinde (@gauris) November 29, 2016 I have no ulterior motives in life other than films and travelling. There is no complication in my life. In an interview, Alia said that you have a unique voice in the industry. Do you agree? It feels nice to receive a compliment. I dont mind being that person (laughs). I am glad people feel so, as I wouldnt want to be part of a crowd. I dont care about anything else. I dont care about fame and where I want to be in terms of ambition. I dont want to be the greatest film-maker, or compete with. anyone. I have no ulterior motives in life other than films and travelling. There is no complication in my life (laughs). I hope I can keep it simple. Whats next? Nothing yet. I am thinking of different ways to relax and travel. Right now, I am in Goa. It is my go-to place. Before I make plans for a big trip, I want to chill here. I want to travel in India this year, maybe first to Pondicherry, and later to Europe. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In his soon-to-be-released autobiography, Khullam Khulla, actor Rishi Kapoor opens up about meeting with one of Indias most-wanted men, Dawood Ibrahim, on two occasions in Dubai. The first time the two met was in 1988, when the actor was invited to the gangsters house in Dubai for tea. Rishi wrote that the meeting was before the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts took place and Dawood wasnt an enemy of the state, so he didnt think there was anything wrong in meeting him. The actor described how he was taken to an undisclosed location, where he met Dawood, and the two spoke for over four hours over cups of tea. During their conversation, Dawood told Rishi that he did not drink or serve alcohol, he also said that he had only carried out petty thefts and got someone killed, but hadnt killed anyone himself. The actor pictured during a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar in December 2016. (Gurpreet Singh/ HT Photo) He wrote, The year was 1988. I had landed in Dubai with my closest friend, Bittu Anand, for an Asha Bhosle-RD Burman night. Dawood always had a man at the airport to keep him posted on VIP movement. When I was leaving the airport, a stranger walked up to me and handed me a phone. He said, Dawood saab baat karenge (Dawood saab would like to talk to you). Obviously, this was before the 1993 blasts in Mumbai and I didnt think of Dawood as a fugitive on the run. He wasnt an enemy of the state yet. Or, at least, that was the impression I had. Dawood welcomed me and said, If there is anything you need, just let me know. He also invited me to his house. I was taken aback. On another occasion in 1989, Rishi wrote that he bumped into Dawood while he was shopping for shoes with wife Neetu Singh in Dubai. The actor wrote that the underworld don was surrounded by eight to 10 bodyguards and he offered to buy Rishi whatever he wanted. On both occasions Dawood had assured Rishi that he could contact him for anything he needed. He wrote, Finally Dawood said, I am a fugitive because I will not get justice in India. There are a lot of people there who are against me. There are also many in India I have bought. I pay several politicians who are in my pocket. I said to him, Dawood, please leave me out of all this, yaar. I am an actor and I really dont wish to get involved. He understood. He was always extremely nice to me and showed me a lot of warmth. Rishi also said that the two have had no interaction at all after that chance meeting at the shoe shop. But there have been some more encounters with members of his family. He wrote, I made a film called Shreemaan Aashique which had music composed by Nadeem-Shravan and lyrics by Noora, Dawoods brother, who had a flair for writing. The actor incidentally played Dawood Ibrahim in Nikhil Advanis 2013 film D-Day. Rishi Kapoors memoir Khullam Khulla, published by Harper Collins, will be launched in Delhi on January 17. Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor has opened up about the colourful life of his father, filmmaker Raj Kapoor in his soon-to-be released autobiography, saying he loved his cinema, booze, and his leading ladies. Titled, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored, the tell-all book sees the Bobby actor talking about his fathers affairs with co-actors and his passion for films, besides capturing the evolution of their father-son relationship. Rishi practically begins the book talking about his fathers affair with yesteryears actor Nargis Dutt, who together, he writes, continue to be widely acknowledged as the most iconic pair onscreen. My father, Raj Kapoor, was 28 years old and had already been hailed as the showman of Hindi cinema four years before. He was also a man in love at the time, unfortunately, with someone other than my mother. His girlfriend was the leading lady of some of his biggest hits of the time, including Aag (1948), Barsaat (1949) and Awara (1951). Rishi writes that Nargis was Raj Kapoors in-house heroine and was understandably immortalised in the RK Studios emblem. The 64-year-old actor has also shed light on the relationship his father shared with co-star Vyajanthimala, who had denied having an affair with the actor. He writes, I remember moving into the Natraj Hotel on Marine Drive with my mom during the time Papa was involved with Vyjayanthimala. From the hotel, we shifted for two months into an apartment in Chitrakoot. My father had bought the apartment for Mom and us. He did all he could to woo her back, but my mother wouldnt give in until he had ended that chapter of his life. He remembers getting livid when Vyjayanthimala claimed that his father had manufactured the romance because of his hunger for publicity. She had no right to distort facts just because he was no longer around to defend the truth...But I can say with absolute certainty that if Papa had been alive, she wouldnt have denied the affair so blatantly or called him publicity hungry, Rishi writes in the book. In a cheek-in-tongue observation, the Karz actor also reveals his fathers fascination for a particular brand of whisky, which he refused to share. My father loved his cinema, his booze, his leading ladies and his work. But for a man legendary for his hospitality, he was very possessive of his whisky. When we started drinking together, for him it was always Johnny Walker Black Label bought in London, while we were served locally procured whisky, he writes, adding that heaps of unopened Black Label bottles stashed away in his cupboards were recovered after Raj Kapoor passed away. Much like his own relationship with son Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi too shared a bond with his father that was one of reverence. He says that it evolved from being driven by fear to one laden with an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing. When I finally got over the fear of my father, it was replaced by an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing, especially after I had the opportunity to work closely with him. For me, Raj Kapoor was both father and guru, the person who taught me everything I know about my craft. I worked with him in three movies the most for any actor after Nargis-ji, he writes in the book. Follow @htshowbiz for more Its past 10pm, and understandably, Mehboob Studio is desolate, especially with the Mumbai winter setting in. But inside his vanity van, one man is as energetic as ever Shah Rukh Khan. I think everybody is like this (energetic), he says nonchalantly. Herein, the actor, who readies for his next release, Raees, opens up about his stardom and real issues. Is it difficult to be SRK? Yes, and I wouldnt wish it upon many people. I hear some actors saying that they wish they were Shah Rukh Khan, and I say, Please dont wish for it. Its a pain. I cant explain the kind of patience, goodness, humility and the modesty you have to show besides the hard work you have to do, and stress you have to take. But I will still give my left and right arm to be Shah Rukh Khan again. But I wont wish it upon others, as I dont think they can handle it. Shah Rukh Khan started his career with Deewana co-starring the late Divya Bharti. (HT Photo) There is almost always an issue with every film you do. Is that frustrating as a creative person? I am okay with whatever the need of the hour is. To me, its essential that a film that is made by 200-250 people reaches 20 crore people, because thats what you make it for. I am fine with everything else that follows meeting XYZ for whatever reasons, having ideological differences or sensitivity issues because the bottom line is, the film should reach a lot of people, as thats what I work for. I want that especially for those 200-250 people who work on the film. Har daur mein alag alag cheezein aati hai (things are different in every era). The only thing I have learnt is, do what needs to be done before the Friday the movie releases (smiles). I only believe in my film. I wont cut off my nose if you tell me that it is disturbing you (laughs). But we are creative people, and I think we can work things out. Shah Rukh Khan hit the big league with his powerful act in Darr. (HT Photo) Recently, Meryl Streeps speech at the Golden Globes made headlines. In India, many wonder why Indian stars wont talk about real issues... My take is that all of society needs to be like that. Get me a top television journalist who puts my views across as they are, without trying to add their own point of view. Then I would say something. I have said it before, and I rue the day I said it [shared my opinions]. Its about how my views are put across, which is very sad. And then the same people ask, Why doesnt Shah Rukh say anything? No, I wont say anything. You say it, but you cant tell me what to say. You like Meryl Streep so much, please run her tape. God bless you; you have Meryl Streep saying it, so why do you want someone else to say the same thing again? Why do you want to be a copycat like you always have been? Its stupid. Shah Rukh Khans became a superstar with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. (HT Photo) Do you feel Meryl Streep did the right thing? I think Meryl Streep said a wonderful thing. We all have to be like that, and I am not talking about just artistes. Also, whenever something happens somewhere, they are like, Why isnt Shah Rukh Khan commenting on it? But I dont want to. I am an actor, main koi vocal leader thodi na hoon. (Im not a leader who is very vocal.) So, what the lady (Meryl) said is marvellous. She found a platform and she found people who appreciated what she said. In India, everybody has so many opinions that they want to pick on something others say. I think journalism in the US is different. Journalists there became stars and are now past that stage [of being stars]. And so did I when I was 10 years into stardom. Ive reached a stage in life where stardom is taken for granted. Indian journalists are new stars. When they get used to it [stardom], I will speak my mind, as I know that they will then like real stars treat it [what I say] with respect. In the wake of Bangalore molestation cases, Shah Rukh Khan says every man and woman should know that there is a dignity of space for each other. (AFP) Would you want to comment on women safety, especially after the Bangalore molestation cases? I dont know how politically incorrect or correct this is but regardless of what the act is molestation, eve teasing or sexual assault etc. it should be converted into a physical crime and not be called just a sexual crime. You are encroaching upon somebodys space. You dont even like somebody stepping on your toes. We all get so agitated even if somebody stands close to you in a lift. We have our own spaces so when you encroach upon a womans space even through speech it should be a serious issue. It has become fashionable to talk about these things but I dont know how much effect it has. The essential thing is, every man and woman should know that there is a dignity of space for each other. When such incidents happen, we need to talk a lot about it, but also feel it a little more. Shah Rukh Khan says his kids, Aryan and Suhana have to be graduates before they think of joining Bollywood. (HT Photo) Rumours are that your son, Aryan will soon step into Bollywood... In my home and family, theres a minimum qualification to be an actor you have to be a graduate. If you arent a graduate, I believe you cant be an actor. Im really sorry for all the actors who are not graduates. Its not because I look down upon people who are not. But I am a graduate and I believe education has helped me beyond my limit. I have limited talent, but I believe education has helped me go beyond time and helped me become who I am. Watch Raees trailer Karan Johar says only he will launch Aryan I dont think they are being launched right now. But Karan means it both jokingly and seriously (laughs). Aryan does visit my film sets sometimes, and I am very proud. He came the other day just to learn about lighting; not to see his father act or learn direction, since he was specialising in the field of lighting in the first year [of his college degree]. He sat with the cameraman without even asking me. He was there for two hours, just learning the techniques. He told me, Papa, it was nice. So he didnt visit as a producer or a heros son, or as someone who wanted to learn acting. I feel, Let him learn the craft and then see if he has the same love for acting as I do. Shah Rukh Khan will next be seen in Raees. (HT Photo) But it must be tough for you to send them away... Its heart-wrenching to send them away. They also find it difficult and why should they leave a nice house and good schools here, but they know its important for them. So Im assuming that they will finish their education. They have done well so far. I think seeing a view of the world is nicer, especially for cinema. Why do European and south American talent reach the international stage before us? Its because the access to that world is closer. Indians still dont have it. Slowly, these doors are opening. I hope Indian film-makers including my son and daughter, can take Indian cinema to international levels. Watch Zaalima song from Raees We have heard Suhana also loves acting My daughter is in the 11th but she has to graduate. She loves acting on stage, television, films or street and she is quite a good actor, at least for her age. So, I would like to encourage her. But the encouragement will happen only post her graduation. My son has never shown interest in acting. But of late, he has started showing interest in film-making and got into UCLA and USC (USA), which came to me as a tremendous surprise but a pleasant one. He has completed his first year, so there are three more years to go. Shah Rukh Khan starred with Deepika Padukone in Chennai Express. (HT Photo) Does it feel like you have completed 25 years in Bollywood? Not at all. I am still excited to give interviews or promote my films. I dont know what the fate of a new film is going to be, but I am as excited as I used to be. I love making films. I cant even explain it to anyone. Even my family, my wife and children say, You get up in the morning and do the same thing every day. How can you do it? But we [actors] love to make films, and people have their perceptions about why we do it He wants to be richer, wants to make a blockbuster, wishes to be a bigger star or get an award. It can be anything, but the bottom line is, it has to be something heartfelt. I dont even know how 25 years have passed. It seems like yesterday that I started working. Meryl Streep accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards. (AP) What would you rather be a star or an actor? Its difficult to explain, but I am an actor and I have always been. In fact, in my first interview, I had said that I want to play character roles. One of my friends had told me, Aisa mat bol; sab character roles dene lagenge. (Dont say such things, or else you will only be offered character roles.) But I said I want to play characters and never wanted to do hero-type roles. I think thats why I did films like Baazigar and Darr (1993), which other actors refused at that time. I believe that I can play a different guy every time, and hope to pull it off in a commercial format. Once you are a star and have had huge success, you dont want to. I know Dear Zindagi (2016) is not going to be at that level, but its beautiful to play that role, so one can keep mixing it up. Sometimes it goes right, and sometimes it doesnt, but Id like to believe that I can act a little. Rumours go that Shah Rukh Khan will have a cameo in Salman Khans next, Tubelight. (HT Photo) You are apparently doing a cameo in Salman Khans Tubelight, which has again set tongues wagging Salman and I were planning to do something together on the business front. But then he sent me a message saying, Nahin karte hain yaar. Phir se log kahenge ki hamara jhagda ho gaya. (Lets not do this. People will say we started fighting again.) Some relationships are personal. I should tell you a secret stars know everything. We had our issues, but they were not at all like what was written. The third party never understands what happens in a relationship. There was a time when Salman and were waiting to be friends again just to stop it [the rumours], because it was so stupid; we felt silly after a point. We are grown up, mature people and were not crazy. I find it odd when people say, friends turn foes. When I moved to Mumbai, his family was wonderful to me. We were never foes. Salman and I are very different people. We still dont agree on a lot of things. But I will always respectfully agree to anything that he says. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Kunal Kapoor is stoked about his role in Tigmanshu Dhulias next movie. The actor plays a soldier in the movie, and says the films script was the most powerful one he has seen since Rang De Basanti (2006). Speaking about his relationship with the director, Kunal says, I love Tigmanshu Dhulias work. He is an amazing director. He is also an actor, so we have a great understanding about acting. He just makes the whole process smooth. This was the soonest I have said yes to a film. I usually take my time, mull over things and, think about what Im going to do next. Soldiering on #raagdesh #dehradun A photo posted by Kunal Kapoor (@kunalkkapoor) on Nov 3, 2016 at 9:43am PDT Kunal reveals that he found very little information about the Indian National Army on the internet during his research for the movie, which is set in Indias pre-independence era. It is surprising to know that there is such little information available. As far as the independence of our country is concerned, the army has contributed immensely, he adds. A still from Rang De Basanti featuring Kunal Kapoor. (HT Photo) From portraying a Muslim in Rang De Basanti to playing a Sikh character in Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008), Kunal has played a variety of different roles in his career. When asked about his varied choices, he says, My wife (Naina Bachchan) keeps making fun of me, saying that Im mapping the country. But the scripts that excite me the most are the ones that are not just entertaining, but have something to say as well. I love pictures in black and white. Just adds such a mysterious, magical quality to any image. A photo posted by Kunal Kapoor (@kunalkkapoor) on Jun 15, 2016 at 6:19am PDT Kunal also believes life experiences contribute to an actors skill and ability as well. The more I learn about life through my films and outside of them, the better I am as an actor. You have to try different things, meet different people, and travel to new places in order to grow, he says. Delhis mouth-watering street snacks have made a special place in the hearts of many one of them being actor Urvashi Rautela. Although she isnt a fan of junk food, she cant resist Delhis golgappas. Delhi is the only city where I eat junk food. I really love momos, dahi-vada and of course golgappas. I make sure not to miss these snacks when visiting Malviya Nagar, Delhi, says Rautela, who is known for movies such as Singh Saab The Great (2013) and Sanam Re (2016). Along with her own hard work, the actor credits Delhi for shaping her life. Delhi has contributed to my prosperity. It holds a special place in my heart. But it is also hard work and talent that makes you successful, she says. Rautela is more of an indoors person than outdoors something which hasnt changed since her Delhi University (DU) graduation days. Like earlier, I still prefer to work and come back home. Now, being a model and an actor, Im trying to learn more as my profession demands it. If I have a performance at an award function, then its okay, otherwise I dont go out. I am still facing difficulties opening up, says Rautela, who studied in Gargi College. Her recent dance number on the popular 80s song Sara Zamana, in the film Kaabil starring Hrithik Roshan, has had more than eight million views. Thrilled to have Hrithik as a dance partner, she says, He is my idol. I am a much bigger fan of his than Tiger Shroff, (actor). He is a very caring person, she says. About the recreation of iconic songs getting flak, she says, One does have to be very careful when recreating these songs. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON China on Monday said it has sold two naval ships to Pakistan to protect the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying the sale of vessels was part of normal military and trade cooperation. I have learnt that some reports said China has donated these vessels. This is not correct, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here while replying to a question that Beijing has gifted two vessels to Pakistan. The report mentioned surveillance ships. It is a normal military trade cooperation with the two countries and complies with the international commitments of the two countries, Hua said. So I want clarify that it is not donation but it is military trade cooperation. Pakistani side bought these two ships from China, she said. China on Sunday handed over the two ships to the Pakistan Navy for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Gwadar port in Pakistans restive Balochistan province has been developed under CPEC linking western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. A ceremony was held in Gwadar where Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts. In the past, China has shied away from saying that it plans to deploy its naval ships in Gwadar, a move which could raise alarm in the US and India. China has not only rebuilt the Gwadar port but also has its operational control. It is also building a network of roads and railways to link up its remote western region to Gwadar for easier access to the Arabian Sea. The revamped Gwadar port became operational in November last year after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and EU. Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today indicated that start-ups may get additional tax benefits in the forthcoming budget, to be unveiled on February 1. The ministry has already suggested the finance ministry to consider raising tax holiday for start-ups to 7 years from the current 3 years to encourage budding entrepreneurs. Sitharaman said tax and tax-related matters always come from start-ups as it makes tangible difference to a start-up, and in that some work has happened, more to be happening. Lets see what this budget is going to offer. She said that all the suggestions of the entrepreneurs have been compiled by the ministry and given to the finance ministry. Asked about raising the tax holiday for 7 years, she said: That suggestion also we have given to the finance ministry. We have to wait. Tax related (benefits) will have to come only through the budget, she said, adding that suggestions with regard to exempting start-ups from MAT (minimum alternate tax) have also been forwarded. Further she said the government is committed to removing legislative hurdles, if any, being faced by them. The Centre is also involving local authorities, including states, to help the budding entrepreneurs in terms of local taxes among others. The minister also asked DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek to organise a meeting with RBI, SIDBI, banks and VCs to deliberate on funding related issues. Sitharaman was speaking at the first anniversary of Start Up India here. Speaking on the occasion, Abhishek said the start-ups need more support in terms of taxation and infrastructure. We need to do more for them and we are working with the finance ministry (on tax related matters), he said, adding that state governments too should extend full support to promote the units in the country. The RBI today allowed withdrawals from ATMs to be increased from the current limit of Rs 4500 to Rs 10,000 per day per card. The withdrawal limit from current accounts has been extended from Rs 50000 to Rs 100000 per week. These relaxations will be in effect from Monday midnight. However, the other restrictions in withdrawals, deposits and exchange of old notes will continue. And here is the list of the rules that have been put in place since the demonetisation drive began on November 8: Cash Withdrawal: Cash withdrawal limit at ATMs enhanced to Rs 10000 per day per card. But this relaxation is within the bank withdrawal limit of Rs 24,000 per week. The withdrawal limit from current accounts has been extended from Rs 50000 to Rs 100000 per week. Withdrawals from Jan Dhan accounts limited to Rs10,000 per month for fully KYC compliant customers. Cash Exchange: Old notes cannot be exchanged at banks only deposits allowed. Exchange of old notes allowed only at RBI offices subject to regulations till March 31. NRIs can deposit old notes up to Rs 25,000 till June 30. Exceptions for Farmers: November 17: Farmers allowed to withdraw up to Rs. 25000 per week and agriculture traders allowed to withdraw Rs 50000 to facilitate smooth operation of mandis. Additional 60 days grace period for farmers to repay their crop loans and avail 3% interest subvention. Exceptions for Weddings: Families allowed to withdraw up to Rs 2,50,000 from their own bank accounts, in case of a wedding. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Reliance Jio, the telecom subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries, is already making its investments in technologies of the future. The company in its third quarter statement said that it has built a mobile-video network and is providing voice-over-IP (essentially where voice calls can be made using an internet connection). It has built a future ready network which can easily deploy 5G and beyond technology in the last leg, the statement said. Ambani, in his previous speeches, said that through Jio, he will disrupt the way people use and consume the internet and its linked services. On Monday, he said in a statement, I am also delighted by our countrys eagerness to adopt to a digital life as witnessed by the record-breaking launch of Jio. Its comprehensive ecosystem has enabled millions of Indians to lead a richer life through its offerings. Already, Jio is focussing on creating a network of devices, applications and content. The company calls it the Jio Digital Life, and it is seeding the market with free internet services, which has become the biggest reason for worry for incumbent operators such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone. Since, it launch in September, Jio in its first 83 days added over 50 million users, which made it the fastest growing technology services company, pitting it against the likes of Facebook, Whatsapp and Skype. On December 31, it had 72.4 million users on its network. To lure more customers it launched the Jio Happy New Year Offer, through which it offers data, voice, video and all the Jio applications and content, free of cost, up to March. The statement also pointed out issues that the company continues to face in a turf war battle with other telecom operators. Jio continues to face interconnection congestion issues with some of the large operators on account of inadequate provision of points of interconnection (POI) capacities even months after commencement of services by Jio. The POI capacity provided by these operators is still way below requirement and is falling short of the customer addition pace of Jio, resulting in quality of service issues for Indian customers, the statement said. As a result, the company claims that there is a fall out of 175 calls in every 1,000 calls made. But, anyone who knows Ambani, these problems wont deter him from taking the next big move. Jio has already entered into a strategic partnership with Niantic, and brought the Pokemon GO game to India. To further built its operations and strengthen its network, another Rs 30,000 crore of investment has been planned, which will be largely financed through an equity offering. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON South Koreas special prosecutor on Monday sought a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group, the countrys largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of President Park Geun-hye. Investigators had grilled Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee for 22 straight hours last week as a suspect in a corruption scandal, which last month led to parliament impeaching Park. The special prosecutors office accused Lee of paying bribes totalling 43 billion won ($36.42 million) to organisations linked to Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is at the centre of the scandal, in order to secure the 2015 merger of two affiliates and cement his control of the family business. The 48-year-old Lee, who became the de facto head of the Samsung Group after his father, Lee Kun-hee, was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014, was also accused of embezzlement and perjury, according to the prosecutions application for an arrest warrant. The special prosecutors office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the countrys economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence, special prosecution spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told a media briefing. Prosecutors have evidence showing that Park and Choi shared profits made through bribery payments, he said, without elaborating. Lee is due to appear on Wednesday morning at the Seoul central district court, which will decide whether to grant the arrest warrant. Samsung, whose companies generate $230 billion in revenue, equivalent to about 17 percent of South Koreas economy, rejected the accusation that Lee paid bribes. It is difficult to understand the special prosecutors decision, it said in an emailed statement. Prosecutors have been looking into whether Samsungs support for foundations and a company backed by Choi was linked to the National Pension Services 2015 decision to support a controversial $8 billion merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc. Samsung has acknowledged providing funds to the institutions but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger. It is especially hard to accept the special prosecutors assertion that there was improper request for a favour related to the merger or succession of control, it said on Monday. NPS chairman Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted on Monday on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony. Last month he acknowledged ordering the worlds third-largest pension fund to support the merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries in 2015 while heading the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. The special prosecutors office said in its indictment of Moon that Park, through her aides, ordered Moon to ensure the merger of the two Samsung companies succeeded. Park, 64, remains in office but has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to make her the countrys first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Park has denied wrongdoing but admitted to carelessness in her relationship with Choi, a friend for four decades. Choi, in jail as she undergoes criminal trial and also denies wrongdoing. Shares Hit Prosecutors opted not to seek the arrest of three other Samsung executives they had questioned, including Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung, a group veteran who is seen as Jay Y. Lees mentor and a likely caretaker head of the conglomerate in the event Lee is arrested. Shares in flagship Samsung Electronics, the worlds biggest maker of smartphones, flat-screen TVs and memory chips, ended 2.14 percent lower, underperforming the 0.61 percent drop in the broader market. Investors say that while key Samsung businesses are run by professional CEOs and would not be hurt on an operational basis if Lee is arrested, his absence would slow bigger-picture decision-making. The Korea Employers Federation, a business lobby, said arresting Lee would undermine confidence both in Samsung and the countrys economy, Asias fourth-largest, and called the special prosecutors probe very regrettable. South Korea has seen numerous corporate scandals over the years. Jay Y. Lees father Lee Kun-hee was himself handed a three-year suspended jail sentence in 2009 for tax evasion. He was later pardoned. Public opinion has in recent years grown less tolerant of leniency extended to the heads of conglomerates, or chaebols, for the sake of the economy. Political Crisis South Korea has been gripped by political crisis for months, with Park impeached in December. If the impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, an election would be held in two months, with former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expected to be a candidate. Choi, in detention and on trial on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud, again denied wrongdoing on Monday in an appearance at the Constitutional Courts impeachment trial. She also denied having any prior knowledge of the Samsung Groups controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place, Choi told the court. Two Uttarakhand Congress leaders, including a state cabinet minister, joined BJP on Monday dealing a blow to the faction-ridden ruling party barely a month ahead of assembly elections. Irrigation minister Yashpal Arya and former Yamnotri MLA Kedar Rawat joined the BJP in New Delhi on the day Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi addressed party workers in Rishikesh to galvanise them for the February 15 elections. Arya, who is also partys Dalit face in the state, switched over to the BJP along with his son Sanjeev. The legislator from the Bajpur (SC) reserved seat was reportedly angry with the party for not giving ticket to his son to contest Nainital (SC) reserved seat, presently represented by Congress MLA Sarita Arya. It is unclear whether BJP will give tickets to both the father and son duo, but they are likely to get at least one ticket from their choice of seats. Congress is not the same party which I knew, it has drifted from its principles Yashpal Arya said soon after joining the BJP in presence of partys state in-charge Shyam Jaju and other leaders from Uttarakhand. Reacting to the development, the Congress termed him a turncoat and a backstabber. Congress gave identity, position and respect to Arya. Such leaders never become loyal to anyone Congress spokesperson Mathura Dutt Joshi said. BJP vice president Kedar Joshi welcomed Aryas entry into the party saying it would strengthen the party. Arya is the 11th Congress legislator to leave the party in less than a year time after nine party legislators raised the flag of rebellion under former CM Vijay Bahuguna and Harak Singh in March last year. Another legislator Rekha Arya had also earlier left the party. It was Satpal Maharaj, a former union minister, who first quit the Congress in 2014 soon after Harish Rawat took reins of the state as chief minister from Bahuguna. A fire swept through a new, modern canteen about 15 ft away from the famed Pramod-das canteen of Presidency University early on Monday morning, even as it hosts the bicentenary celebrations. President Pranab Mukherjee and former prime minister Manmohan Singh are scheduled to attend the programme on the last day of the celebrations on January 20 at Derozio Hall on the same campus. No one was injured in the blaze, which triggered a wave of concern for the well-being of Pramod Sai, popularly known as Pramod-da (da is a shortened version of dada which means elder brother in Bangla) by Presidency students and generations of alumni. Incidentally, Pramod-da, who is around 60 years old, was sleeping in a room near the site of the blaze. He was inundated with phone calls enquiring after his well-being. I am fine. Nothing happened to me. I was sleeping in an adjacent room when the fire broke out soon after 5 pm, he told HT. I ran and joined people here to try and douse the flames, he added, even as he received anxious visitors. The fire did not spread beyond the modern canteen, which is housed in a stand-alone building and has no connection with the main administrative building and the Derozio Hall. The fire has been doused completely. We will find out how the fire spread. Our men tried to tackle the fire with the basic infrastructure that we have here, said the registrar of the university, D Konar. Six fire engines were pressed into service to douse the flames. According to fire department sources, the flames could have spread from the kitchen. This is not the first time that fire has damaged the hallowed Presidency University. On September 9, 2016, a fire broke out at the central library of the university that is home to more than 3.73 lakh books and 1.5 lakh periodicals collected over a century. On August 27, 2014, there was a fire at the physics laboratory. On October 28, 2010 a fire destroyed the chemistry lab. The university has been modernised for the bicentenary celebrations (January 5 to 20) for which a number of scholars and dignitaries have come to the campus. The origins of the university can be traced back to an educational institution established on January 20, 1817. The institution made a significant contribution to the Bengal renaissance. Presidency University now has four buildings, of which two the main administrative building and the Baker Building have been declared heritage structures. Chet Ram cant recall when exactly his famous cousin -- BJP veteran and former chief minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri -- migrated from Margadna, his ancestral village. I must have been a child when they (Khanduris) had relocated from here, said septuagenarian Ram, around 10 years younger to Khanduri who was born at Dehradun in 1934. The former Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel has no idea how Margadna reacted when Khanduri, a retired major general, was first elected as a member of parliament from Pauri in 1991, the year the former chief minister joined the BJP. Khanduri served in the Indian armys Corps of Engineers from 1954 to 1990. I have no idea about how people here reacted to his (Khanduri) maiden entry into parliamentI was then away guarding the India-China border, recalled Ram. The residents of Margadna though remember how they rejoiced over Khanduris victory. We were all overjoyed at his election to parliament because it was something we had never expected, said Virendra Dobhal, 42, the pradhan of Margadna. None of us ever imagined that somebody from us would one day enter politics and lead the country at the national level. Their joy knew no bounds when Khanduri took over as the Union surface transport minister in the then NDA government. We celebrated the event by organising a Pandav Nritya, a famous group dance of Garhwal, which was performed to the beats of Dhol-Damau, recalled Dobhal, referring to the traditional drums played by local artistes to celebrate the regions folk festivals. Margadna was overjoyed when Khanduri became the chief minister after the BJP won the 2007 assembly election. We were happy for him, expecting that he would do something for the country, Dobhal said, clarifying that most residents of the village never wanted to use Khaduri for personal benefits. The population of Margadna is thinning out fast because of lack of medical and educational facilities, and crop damage by wild animals. The remoteness of the village also spurs forced migration. Perched on the shoulder of a steep slope, the village can be reached through a one-and-a-half-km trek. We continue to stay here because we are now an ageing coupleWe also dont have enough means to migrate, said Bina Devi, 61, Khanduris sister-in-law. Khanduri now comes to his ancestral village occasionally but cant visit them owing to the age factor as their house is located at a steep slope, she said. He returns after offering prayers at the temple he got built on his ancestral land near the main road. The temple was erected at the spot where Khanduris ancestral house had once existed. It was destroyed in the 1995 forest fires that raged through the mountain state, villagers said. Khanduris visits to his native village may be occasional, but his bond with his relatives remains intact. Bina Devi describes her brother-in-law as tradition bound who treats me and other family members with respect. Khanduri tried to link his remote village with an approach road. A survey had been completed after he got it (the approach road) sanctioned, she said, adding that the project failed to materialise as villagers refused to part with their land. But not many are generous towards Khanduri and accuse him of failing to leverage his position to provide even basic facilities, such as a primary health centre, to the village. Half of the families have already migrated from here. It will soon turn into a ghost village like many dotting this border state, rued Sohan Singh Sajwan, a retired soldier. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON CET : ; Netas switching loyalty during elections is not a new thing in any poll-bound state. But what is noticeable is that in the last eight months, 11 Congress legislators in Uttarakhand have left the party to join the BJP. In less than a month time Uttarakhand goes to the polls and timing of senior Congress legislator Yashpal Arya leaving the party could indeed leave a negative impact on the image of Congress poster boy and chief minister Harish Rawat. Congress in Uttarakhand had witnessed inner squabbling in past but leaders preferred to remain with the party. Some of Congress leaders who joined BJP - Satpal Maharaj, Vijay Bahuguna, Yashpal Arya and Harak Singh - remained claimants for the chief ministerial position. In fact, all of them enjoyed a clout within the party and they had one common competitor Harish Rawat. The latter who took reins of state in early 2014 paved a way for others to exit. The first one to leave was Maharaj followed by a battery of leaders. In the present scenario in Uttarakhand, the only stalwart in the Congress who poses a challenge to Harish Rawat is Indira Hridayesh. Whether exit of senior leaders have strengthened the position of Harish Rawat or has weakened his position? Insiders say Rawats position has somehow weakened and his leadership is also under question. The Congress averted a split by preferring ND Tiwari over Harish Rawat in 2002 when it won the assembly poll, recalled Anil Bahuguna, a political analyst. In 2012, Harish Rawat was a strong claimant for the chief ministers post but the party ignored him and picked Vijay Bahuguna owing to opposition from Maharaj and Arya camps. In the last two years, the one man show led by Harish Rawat perhaps became a catalyst for others to sulk. Harish Rawats autocratic style of functioning has annoyed (leaders), said Harak Singh Rawat who had revolted against the chief minister. In the ongoing poll season, Aryas exit has somehow signaled that nothing going fine in the Congress. 1-2% swing of votes in Uttarakhand tilts political atmosphere either way. Party strategist fear that Arya leaving party will leave a negative imprint on minds of voters and it will be a big challenge for the Congress to come out of it. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Congress leader Yashpal Arya, who on Monday joined the BJP, had a dramatic rise in politics from a gram pradhan in 1984 to a chief ministerial prospect in 2012. Arya, a 5-time MLA from Mukteshwear, Khatima and Bajpur constituencies, was the Congress Dalit face in Uttarakhand. He joined the BJP along with his son Sanjeev in Delhi. He displayed his anger on December 8 when his name was not put on flex at a Congress rally in Kashipur and it took chief minister Harish Rawat 30 minutes to coax him to attend the rally. Arya was a local leader in Haldwani until pandiji (Arya prefers to address former Uttar Pradesh chief minister ND Tiwari) promoted him in 1980s. Aryas critics refer him as a dull leader who took advantage of his proximity with Tewari. In an interview to HT earlier, Arya said he owes his career to Tiwari. During 1977 general election, Arya (25) was appointed as Congress polling agent at Develchaur centre in Nainital district - the home turf of Tiwari. Despite strong anti-Congress wave, Tiwari received maximum number of votes from Develchaur polling booth. This was the first time I met pandiji he had said. In 1984, his career took a U-turn after he was elected as gram pradhan (village head) and was subsequently appointed district youth president for Nainital. In 1989, Arya became an MLA from Khatima constituency and this was the year when Congress prospects started dwindling in Uttar Pradesh. He was reelected in 1993 when the Congress had only 28 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh assembly. He, however, lost next assembly election. In the first assembly election of Uttarakhand in 2002, he won from Mukteshwar assembly segment reserved for SC. In 2007, he became chief of the Congress state unit and continued in the post till 2014. Monday saw air pollution levels in the city oscillating between poor and very poor levels. According to the graded response system, this calls for a slew of emergency measures. The 24-hour rolling average of PM10 and PM2.5 on Monday were recorded at 257g/m3 and 124g/m3, respectively, according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR). These are in poor and very poor levels respectively. PM2.5 and PM10 are ultra-fine particles that are the dominant pollutants in Delhi. The acceptable levels of PM 2.5 and PM10 are 60g/m3 and 100g/m3, respectively. According to the newly notified graded response system of the Central Pollution Control Board, very poor category, under which PM2.5 levels are between 121-250 g/m3 and PM10 levels are between 351-430 g/m3, calls for measures like ban on diesel generator sets, enhancement of parking fee by up to 3-4 times and increase in bus and metro services. Residential Welfare Associations and individual house owners to provide electric heaters during winter to security staff to avoid open burning by them and alerts will be put out in newspapers/TV/radio to advise people with respiratory and cardiac illness to avoid polluted areas and restrict outdoor movement, the graded response system said. Read: Capital chaos: Delhis traffic has slowed down and doubled time spent on roads A meeting has been called by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), which has been empowered to enforce the plan, on Friday to discuss the formation of state-based special task forces. Once this is done, the guidelines of the notification will have to be implemented. When the air quality reaches severe level for 48 hours, trucks, barring those carrying essential commodities, will be stopped from entering the city, the odd-even road rationing scheme will kick in, there will complete ban on the burning of waste and brink kilns operating in and around the city will be shut. This winter season, however, air quality dipped to severe level for two consecutive days in the city only once the weekend after Diwali when Delhi was shrouded with smog. On many other days, the pollution levels reached severe proportions but again subsided to very poor levels the following day. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A man gagged and stabbed his five-year-old son who was demanding two rupees for buying a kite, the child leaving him severely injured in Sarnath area in Varanasi, police said on Monday. The incident occurred on Sunday when Shivam, a class I student, was attacked by his father Vinod Rajbhar, 35, when he demanded Rs two from him for buying a kite. Vinod, who works as a tourist guide and lives in Ganj area with his wife Gyatri, 32, daughter Komal, 3, and two sons Shivam and Satyam, 10, and was reportedly facing financial crisis, police said. Irked by the demand, Vinod, who was in an inebriated condition, took Shivam to the terrace of the house, where he first gagged him and then stabbed him severely, police said. His other son Satyam, who saw him attacking his brother, informed his mother Gyatri and together they intervened before rushing the child to hospital, they said. The neighbours after hearing their cried gathered at the house and informed police after which Vinod was arrested from his house, police said. The injured boy after getting preliminary treatment at the nearby government hospital. He was later admitted to a private hospital by his mother where his treatment was underway, they said. The Delhi government is likely to review its proposal for funding from Asian Development Bank (ADB) for Shahjahanabad Redevelopment plan, pending for two years. Recently, the Delhi High Court asked the government to apprise it about the proposal. With the instructions from the High Court, the government is likely to re-examine the proposal for revitalisation of the Walled City area. The next date of hearing is January 19, said a source. To expedite the project and smooth coordination among all stakeholdersNorth Delhi Municipal Corporation, PWD, Delhi Traffic Police, Delhi Jal Board, Discoms and others agencies the court appointed PWD secretary Ashwini Kumar as chief nodal officer. A bench comprising justices BD Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar also directed that agencies should meet once every two weeks to ensure progress in the project. Ashwini Kumar shall convene a meeting of all the nodal officers and other officials and stakeholders concerned every fortnight to ensure that there is progress in the matter. The minutes of each meeting shall be filed within a week thereafter before this court, said the bench. Read: Coming: Food plaza, walkways and more at Old Delhis Netaji Subhash Marg In Februray, the court nominated deputy general manager (project and administration), Nitin Panigrahi, as the point person for coordination. According to the court order, he will continue and assist Kumar. The Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation (SRDC) prepared a preliminary project report for assistance and finance of Rs 1,840 crore from ADB in October 2014. A presentation was also made before then lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung when the Presidents Rule was in force in the national capital. Later, the chief secretary approved the proposal too. On governments instruction, the proposal for financial assistance was squeezed to Rs 1,400 crore, a senior government official said. However, it was not taken up appropriately, the source said. In December 2014, the finance and planning department said the proposal was the right way to redevelop the area. Comments were sought from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) in July 2016, which also said the proposal is timely intervention. After that, it was presented before the board meeting. Later, there was no discussion about it, he added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON How many children have fallen victim to the alleged serial rapist who has been held in east Delhi? Is it 13, or 60, or 500, or 1000? Delhi Police have yet to ascertain the number of girls the 38-year-old suspect abused in the last 13 years in the national capital, officials said on Monday. Police said Sunil Rastogi, a tailor who belongs to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and nabbed in Kalyanpuri on Saturday, had been allegedly preying on schoolgirls since 2004. Speculation over the number of victims began as Rastogi first confessed to raping at least 13 girls but then kept changing his statement saying he sexually assaulted 60 minors. Police also suspect the number of victims could be more, as Rastogi, who has five children, including two girls, frequently visited Delhi. He also has cases against him in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. People have started making their own calculations taking a lead from Rastogis statement. He said that he used to visit Delhi at least twice a month for the past 13 years. So, it has been assumed that if he molested even one girl per visit, it would come to 312 victims. However, in his statement he has only confessed to having victimised 60 minors, a police officer explained. Read: Delhi serial rapist was amused, encouraged by girls cries for mercy Rastogi, a school dropout, has reportedly given a list of 60 locations to the police where he assaulted the minors. While there are only six cases registered against him in the past, police suspect that he had raped more girls who did not come forth to file a complaint. Police said he allegedly threatened them with dire consequences and blackmailed them which prevented them from filing a complaint. Rastogi used to prowl schools in the Capital between 2pm and 4pm when schools shut for the day and carried a list of girl schools in his pocket. He would follow a group for a short distance and then pick a child who would stray from others. He would tell the victim he was a friend of her fathers who had sent clothes and snacks. For every victim, he would stitch a new set of clothes and wrap a new parcel. He would tell the child he had more presents for her and would take her with him and sexually assault her, a police source said. Read I 3 years of manhunt, sketches, jail records led police to Delhi serial rapist During another round of questioning, Rastogi told the police that he does not remember the number of girls he raped very clearly as he randomly scouted for them. But he told the police was that he travelled to Delhi at least twice a month for the purpose. How many girls he victimised will be clear once we complete the questioning and verify all his claims, deputy commissioner of police (east) Omvir Singh said. We do not know where the bizarre numbers are coming from. During his questioning, he said that he assaulted 60 girls and has also given us the location of the crime. We, however, need to verify his claims. The questioning is on and his statement is not consistent. We are on the job, an investigator told HT. According to police, Rastogi came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left in 2004. He resides in Rudrapur now ... He is being interrogated regarding other offences committed by him at different places, an officer said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Sanitation workers in east Delhi finally called off their strike on Monday, 11 days after they refused to lift garbage to protest against non-payment of salaries. The last batch of workers on strike had a meeting with Mohanjeet Singh, commissioner, East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) after which they announced that they will resume work right away. By Friday 83% of the protesting sanitation workers had already returned to their jobs, as they had been paid their salaries for the last two months. It was only one union of the total 15 unions - MCD Swachhata Karamchari Union - that was continuing to protest. We have already paid them salaries for Nov-Dec. We have also agreed to most of their demands but we cannot pay them the arrears yet, Singh told HT. Read: MCDs says salary liability has risen, govt says funds doubled Union members said that they had been reassured by the commissioner that salaries would not be delayed from now on. They have also agreed to one of our other demands that the 700 odd employees, who are currently working on a substitute basis where they fill in for people on leave, these people will be taken on the regularized roll soon, said Sanjay Gehlot, president of MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union. Another point of contention has been that employees who are eligible for a promotion according to the MCD recruitment rules, which states that a regularized sanitation worker may be promoted to Assistant Sanitation Inspector after eight years of service, have not been promoted yet. Gehlot said that the commissioner had agreed to promote such employees if they meet certain criteria. However, Gehlot also claimed that the EDMC has said they would not be paying any of the arrears from 2003, because they do not have the money for it. Read: What can be done to avoid the mess: NGT asks Centre, Delhi on garbage strike Though the workers have resumed work and seem to be appeased for now, the MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union members claim that they will continue to protest outside the EDMC offices until their demands for settlement of all pending dues are met. They also have a mass protest planned for February 7, which will see participation of municipal staff from various departments, such as horticulture, education, health and others. The sanitation workers will gather at Rajghat and later protest outside the chief ministers office and Delhi Secretariat and demand the implementation of the recommendations of the fourth Delhi Finance Commission report and pending arrears. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON What is killing our citizens? Not so long ago, epidemics such as cholera and plague could depopulate cities. Now, heart diseases are the biggest killers. Ischemic heart disease, a condition where the arteries contract and prevent blood and oxygen from reaching the heart causing a cardiac attack, will cause the maximum number of deaths in 2017, predicted an analysis in UN Dispatch last week. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that even in 2030, it will remain the worlds deadliest disease. Its risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, smoking, excessive alcohol intake and depression. Many of these conditions are triggered not only by how we live but also where we live. Badly planned cities also expose its people to severe health risks. Urban living and its increased pressures of mass marketing, availability of unhealthy food choices and accessibility to automation and transport all have an effect on lifestyle and health, says WHO. Delhi is an example. The municipal records show that heart diseases, diabetes and digestive problems are responsible for more than 20% deaths in the national capital. These diseases are assuming a rather democratic pattern. While infectious and parasitic diseases due to bad sanitation and no access to clean water still kill 15% residents, mostly in citys slums, a survey by the Directorate of Health Services in 2011 found that at least 20% of the 100,000 slum dwellers screened were suffering from hypertension and 10% from diabetes. For a city to be considered healthy, its citizens must enjoy equal access to clean water and air, sanitation, and good healthcare. But haphazard urbanisation denies citizens these basic rights. Large urban sprawls contribute to a citys ill-health, says the 2016 Global report on Urban Health by WHO and UN Habitat. In the absence of density, access to public transport, hospitals, schools, businesses, parks and planned public spaces for certain communities can be infrequent or non-existent. In Delhi, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities are not equally distributed. The Delhi government is trying to address the primary health care needs through mohalla clinics. But most emergency services and specialised hospitals are concentrated in certain districts. The NCR towns are pretty much in private hands. The global report also points out that in compact cities, intra-urban distances tend to be shorter the things people require and the places people need to access are close by. This reduces time spent in a vehicle and lowers travel costs. The lower cost of transport can substantially help low- and middle-income households. Decreased transit time often reduces exposure to pollution and also boosts mental health. The Marchettis constant, developed by Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti, states that anything beyond a 60-minute commute stresses one out. Delhi drivers have long surpassed this limit. According to IBMs 2011 Commuter Pain Index, 70% respondents in Delhi said traffic increased their stress levels, upped their anger, and negatively affected their performance at work or school. The rising levels of air pollution, mainly from vehicular fumes and construction dust, are suppressing our immunity, making us vulnerable to lung infections, heart attacks and cancer. In 2015, 8% deaths in Delhi were caused by respiratory ailments and 6% by cancer. A study by CSE says half of Delhis population lives within 500 metres from arterial roads and is directly affected by vehicular pollution. Noise disturbance in Delhi is as severe as air pollution. But it remains the most underestimated threat. We absorb the din without realising that prolonged exposure to noise can boost stress hormones and contribute to cardiovascular maladies and hearing damage. At least 70% of these damaging sounds emanate from Delhis nearly 10 million vehicles. On the other hand, unregulated compactness can constrain the housing stock and inflate real estate prices, and at the extreme, can lead to unhealthy crowding, warns the Global Health report. This is exactly what has happened in Delhis Walled City and numerous unauthorised colonies, which are so tightly packed that they have little open space or access to fresh air. Our health or wellness often depends on how we live. Our lifestyle choices, in turn, are dictated by where we live and the options it offers. Wellness, therefore, is also an urban planning issue that demands a lot more than providing access to healthcare. It is a reflection of how we plan, reinvent and run our cities. As always, prevention is better than cure. shivani.singh@hindustantimes.com SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Hey, arent you the psychologist who works with paedophiles? a lady sitting next to me on a flight asked me. I saw you on television the other day, she said with a frown. When I replied in the affirmative, she said in a voice full of indignation and righteousness, I wonder how someone can even sit next to them and hear them out? After sometime, she asked the hostess to change her seat. When I was walking out of the airport, she came to me once again and said, I am sorry for being so rude. It was just the thought that someone tries to make their life easier seems unpalatable to me. Its one group that I dont even want to know anything about. I nodded saying I understood and walked on. This was not the first time someone had reacted to me like that. The mere mention of the word paedophile evokes violent reactions from most people that I have not seen with even words such as serial killers. Are they really the vile creatures that they are made out to be? Having testified in courts in a large number of cases and having interrogated a few hundred, I share some stories that can help us to understand their personality. They are unusually confident of themselves when it comes to children. Many years ago, I had been called for a case in which a paedophile entered a home and a bedroom and picked up a child of five years sleeping between her parents and took her out of the house. He ran away when a police jeeps lights fell on him. On studying the case, I suggested we look at all the men working at a local creche, at a hospital and a kindergarten school. One man was missing from the school and when we interrogated him, he confessed. Read | Delhi paedophile raped girls on rooftops, threatened to throw them What kind of a man would have the confidence to pick up a sleeping child in a dark room from between her parents and the child would not even make a sound? The principal of the school where he worked gave the answer. After initially denying that her best staff could do it, she replied, When a kid is sick or needs to be taken to the loo, I have always relied on this attendant and to know that he is like that? They camouflage, hide their actions and mask their crime so cleverly that people often miss catching them by a hairs breadth. A child once complained about a man molesting him. The man denied any involvement and instead accused the child and his family, saying they owed him money. The SHO told me he suspected something was wrong but had to let the person go for lack of evidence. They searched his room but found nothing. With his permission when I searched the room again, I found many magazines stacked in one corner. As I started turning the pages, he told me that his team had checked them. They were not pornographic magazines. My eyes caught something strange in one of the lower stacks. Next to photos of children something was written in Tamil, his native language. When we asked a Tamil-speaking person to read them out, her face became red. He wanted to have sex with them, the person read. The man confessed that the handwriting was his and that he had molested the child. In their belief system, children are like adults and their bodies are missing the pleasures of sex. They feel it is their rightful task to make children aware of this depravation. They dont see their act as crime and never feel remorse. Do men or rapists assault children in the absence of women? While a formal clear answer is not possible for me, personal experience of those who work in this field shows this may not be the case. A pimp had once told me that when kothas or brothels become fully occupied, he asks his clients, bacchha chalega kya and most of them agree. I have come across a large number of paedophiles among priests, clergymen and those who manage homes for orphans. The profession invites unconditional trust and is a perfect cover for their feelings. Sometime ago, I had interviewed a priest after receiving complaints about him. A check revealed a sordid history of him abusing children in several countries and he was not prosecuted in any of the cases due to lax laws. Read | Did Delhi serial rapist abuse 500 girls? Doubts remain over the number Can counselling or therapy ever reform them? The answer is a bleak no. Most of them think having sex with children is the only way in which they can feel a high in their daily lives. They dont feel the other normal joys of life from relationships that govern our daily lives have any significance. I wanted to tell that lady I mentioned about in the beginning of this article something. As a psychologist, I have worked with many groups that committed heinous crimes. With each group I have been able to empathise to different degrees, the most powerful tool in the arsenal of a psychologist to build a bond. Yet to the best of my abilities and reaching out to hundreds of paedophiles in jail during interrogation, I have not felt empathy for them. A top professional in the field told me it is normal and he himself hasnt been able to ever feel that way towards any paedophile. The best one can do is to keep them under surveillance. Today with the rise of internet and digitization, paedophiles never had it so good. They operate under a mask of greater anonymity and have become more cunning. The recent cases in India and ones from different countries are a pointer that if we dont teach our children how to protect themselves, many a childhood will be destroyed. It is important that we take our learning sooner than later to nurture and protect our children to keep their bodies safe from predators. The writer is a criminal psychologist. Poorly-built shelters, the lack of proper blankets and sanitation facilities are something we hear about every year come the intense cold. And this is in Delhi which is comparatively better off than many other towns and cities. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), more than 1,600 people died due to extreme weather conditions across India last year, with the severe heat wave claiming 40% of the total deaths. The IMD said 2016 was the warmest year ever recorded, globally as well as in India. Phalodi in Rajasthan recorded 51 degrees Celsius, the highest ever in India. Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra registered the highest number or fatalities, 35% of the total. Read | Out cold in ill-equipped night shelters: Sorry state of Gurgaons homeless All these deaths were avoidable. The various ministries concerned have not even seen it fit to declare a heat wave as a national calamity though a cold snap is. If a national calamity is declared, a lot of measures kick in, which could help people withstand the weather conditions. Many of those who die due to extreme weather are construction workers, migrants and the homeless. Most cities or for that matter employers make little or no provision for them. The solutions are simple availability of safe and well equipped shelters, drinking water and medical attention. Women tend to avoid city shelters for fear of their safety and lack of sanitation facilities. None of these are cripplingly expensive. It is simply that these people have fallen through the policy cracks. We have a national disaster management policy in place to deal with other extreme weather phenomenon like floods. But every time we seem to be caught on the wrong foot. The heartening thing as we saw in the Chennai floods is the large-heartedness of citizens in lending a helping hand. The flooding, it has now been proved, is a result in part of rampant construction on river banks with no thought of the consequences. In the case of heat waves, a cost effective method is to provide people with oral rehydration kits. But most of all, people should have some sort of shelter. Read | Swachh Bharat Abhiyan goes for a toss at night shelters in Jaipur Both extremes of cold and heat affect productivity and it is in the enlightened self-interest of both employers and the state to enforce more mitigating measures. It is only now that a few shelters in Delhi have got hot running water. We have a lot to learn from the West on the subject of shelters and soup kitchens that can ease the hardship of so many people who are left to the mercy of the elements and who contribute to the economy in different ways. Lame ducks are honest fowl. Officials of an outgoing administration in Washington are generally prone to a degree of frankness that they lacked when their authority was complete. Thus a member of the lame duck Barack Obama administration has publicly singled out China as the reason that India was unable to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group last year. And, it follows, India was able to join the Missile Technology Control Regime because Beijing is not a member of that body. While this is hardly a surprise, even New Delhi had publicly blamed one country for the failed NSG bid and there was little illusion as to the fact this was the Middle Kingdom. This comes on the heels of the Obama administrations sanctioning a set of Pakistani entities involved in that countrys missile programme. The administration kept silent when the US Senate accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of killing US soldiers in Afghanistan. It also called out Israel on the settlements in the West Bank, though noticeably continued to advocate its failed policy of appeasement regarding Beijings takeover of the South China Sea. Read | Why India may matter less in world politics during a Trump presidency The Obama administrations end-of-term declarations matter only in two ways. One, they show what the actual, underlying beliefs of the US bureaucracy were as opposed to expressed policies suitably muddied by geopolitical requirements and personal biases. Two, they hopefully leave an imprint on the next administrations thinking. This seems extremely unlikely given the seeming determination of the incoming regime of Donald Trump to overturn whatever the Obama administration has done. However, when it comes to taking a hard line on Pakistan and on China it is hoped that there will be greater continuity than there is likely to be in, say, climate change and the Iranian nuclear deal. Definitely on China, the comments of Mr Trumps nominations for the secretaries of defence and state go much further in warning Beijing than those of the Obama administration. There remains some ambiguity about Pakistan, but the statements so far make it clear that Mr Trumps nominees see Pakistans support for terrorist groups as the core of the South Asian problem. Read | 2017 likely to be bad for yuan and rupee. Heres why... The test will be what happens when the Trump administration comes to power and the rubber hits the road. Traditionally when a president-elect comes to power, clear and unsullied intentions become diluted and sometimes warped by the realities of diplomacy, security and so on. Pakistan has long been an example with the US privately admitting to that countrys perfidy but then ignoring the same because of its fears of the countrys stability or interest in its geopolitical utility. Trump, for all of his other eccentricities, seems to be cut from a different cloth, a person who wants to implement what he says. In less than a week the world will be able to judge if this will be a US administration which is true to its rhetoric from the first day. The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday asked the Gurgaon administration not to demolish a working womens hostel situated in civil lines area of the city. The high court also ordered that present inmates would not be evicted forcefully and all the basic facilities would be restored forthwith by the hostel management. The Gurgaon deputy commissioner, Indian Red Cross Society and Kohinoor Welfare Society, presently running the hostel, have been asked to respond by February 20. The order from high court bench of justice SS Saron and justice Darshan Singh came on the plea of one Priyanaka Madan, a resident of the Working Women Hostel, Civil Lines. The hostel with 40 rooms has a capacity to accommodate 80 residents and was constructed in 1984. The advocate for the petitioner, IPS Kohli had told the court that the hostel was ordered to be demolished in September 2016 despite two reports of public works department recommending for renovation only. Further the management was handed over to Kohinoor Welfare Society for ten years in January 14, 2016 in place of Indian Red Cross Society, Haryana state branch. Despite a fee hike from 2,500 to 3,500 per month, the renovation work was not initiated by Kohinoor Welfare Society. Now Society is trying to forcefully evict the inmates by doing away with basic facilities such as security and food, the court was told seeking direction against demolition and forceful eviction of hostel residents . Even as the Reserve Bank of India has increased the limit of withdrawing cash from bank ATMs to 10,000 on Monday, both pensioners as well as industrial workers are suffering because of lack of cash in the system. Large number of senior citizens, who get welfare pensions under various social schemes of the state and central government are also facing trouble because of non-payment due to cash crunch. The situation in rural areas is even worse. On Monday, a group of senior citizens held a protest at Sohna post office after they were denied their dues for the third month in a row. The pensioners shouted slogans, and refused to budge till assurance was given to them that they will be paid within a couple of days. Workers in industrial belt of Manesar alleged that their bank accounts have not been opened despite submission of forms, and documents. We have been waiting for the bank account so that salaries are paid but nothing has happened. There is limited cash available at banks I dont know how they the ATMs will dispense 10,000 to every person, said Irfan Ahmed, a worker in Manesar. His firm had transferred his salary last month to his wifes account in Lucknow but that has left him without any money. For senior citizens in Gurgaon, many of whom are dependent on pensions to pay for their medicine and health bills, the governments note ban decision has come as a cropper. The post offices in the city are particularly facing cash crunch as they are getting only 6 to 10 lakh per day for managing the transaction whereas they need almost 40 lakh per day. Around 40,000 pensioners in Gurgaon who get their social security benefits through post office have not been able to get their pension with ease. More than 2 months have passed but the situation has not improved and the common man is facing the trouble, said Kamal Thakur, who had come to get information about the payment as his uncle was unwell. CJ Arora, chief postmaster, Sadar Bazar, Gurgaon said that they are facing problems due to non-availability of currency. The pension of last months was released on January 2 but the for this month people have been called on January 24. We are trying to resolve the problem, he added. Star Vin Diesel has shared a picture of him with Deepika Padukone in which the duo can be seen enjoying cutting chai together. The xXx: Return of Xander Cage actor took to Instagram to post the photograph with his co-star. Global... India already breaking records... you called it. Wow. #Blessed #Grateful A photo posted by Vin Diesel (@vindiesel) on Jan 15, 2017 at 9:26pm PST In his post, the-49-year old actor thanked his fans around the world, especially the Indian audience, for their astounding response to his recently released film. Diesel captioned the post as, Global... India already breaking records...You called it. Wow. #Blessed #Grateful. Deepika also gave a shout-out to Diesel by reposting the image on Instagram. The actor had visited India, alongside xXx director, DJ Caruso on January 12 for the premier of his film. Follow @htshowbiz for more As many as 26 people were killed and 158 injured in Pakistani shelling along Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir during past two years, the Assembly was told on Monday. 216 structures were also damaged in the cross-border shelling during the period, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said in a written reply to a question of NC member Ali Mohammad Sagar. 9 people were killed in Poonch, followed by 7 each in Jammu and Samba districts, 2 in Rajouri and one in Kathua, she said. Among the injured, 91 people were in Jammu, 31 in Poonch, 13 in Kathua, 12 in Samba, 8 in Kupwara and 3 in Rajouri, the CM said. In all Rs 26 lakh were paid as compensation to the next of kin of those killed in shelling, she said, adding Rs 6.70 lakh and Rs 42.35 lakh have been paid to injured and for damages respectively. Police detained at least 30 people at a village in Tamil Nadus Madurai district where hundreds of Jallikattu enthusiasts defied a Supreme Court ban on the bull-taming sport on Monday, for the third successive day. Police erected barricades at Alanganallur and prevented people from holding Jallikattu but thousands of people assembled there in protest. The protesters alleged that police were stopping people from reaching Alanganallur. On Thursday, the Supreme Court refused to advance its judgment on a clutch of petitions challenging a notification by the Centre allowing Jallikattu this year. Read | Jallikattu events held in Tamil Nadu, Supreme Court ban defied The apex court had banned Jallikattu on grounds of animal cruelty in 2014 drawing protests from political parties across the state. In November last year, SC dismissed the state governments plea for a review of its judgment. As the crowd that began to gather early in the morning swelled into thousands, their strong presence gave the police little chance to control them. At least 200 policemen formed a three-tier ring at the village to prevent the sport from being played in accordance with the Supreme Court ban. Initially, the police had to allow the villagers who came with their bulls for traditional puja application of turmeric and vermillion after which the animals were led away. However, as a bull came charging in a signal the Jallikattu supporters were waiting for people pounced on the animal that seemed confused as it was surrounded. The police detained at least 30 people as the number of protesters on the ground grew. A tension was palpable in the area as reports of Jallikattu being held in nearby places came in. Protesters wore black badges, tied black ribbons to the horns of the bulls and also hoisted black flags on their houses to decry the ban. In Sivaganga, rekala or bullock cart races were also held along with Jalikattu in defiance of the SC order that banned bullock cart races as well. At Kattikulam in Sivaganga, at least 10 bulls were let loose by 11am for the youth to chase them. As the focus and concentration of the police were on the traditionally well-known Jallikattu venues, the participants chose to quietly hold the sport on the outskirts of smaller villages. Read | Politics of Pongal: Outrage over Jallikattu but not over drought in Tamil Nadu On Sunday, police detained several people at Mudakathan, Alanganallur, Palamedu and Vilangudi in Madurai district, at Nallampatti in Dindigul district and Pottuchavadi in Thanjavur district in the state for attempting to organise the sport. Die-hard Jallikattu supporters along with major political parties in Tamil Nadu have been demanding an ordinance for conducting Jallikattu after the Supreme Court imposed a ban on it. On Saturday, 149 persons were detained in Madurai district for staging protests against the ban. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Outlining its network expansion plans which include new flights and increase in frequencies to the existing domestic and international destinations, Air India on Monday said it expects to roll out non-stop services to Washington and Copenhagen from the national capital in next fiscal. As part of this, Air India is expected to add two new international destinations -- Washington and Copenhagen -- and increase frequencies on domestic routes like Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Leh by July, the airline said. The state-run carrier had added 12 new flights in its domestic network while four flights were launched on international destinations in the previous year. As part of its international route network expansion plans, Air India is looking to launch its flight services to the Denmark capital Copenhagen from New Delhi in May, while the non-stop Delhi-Washington service is expected to take off in July, the airline said. The services to Copenhagen will be operated by the Boeing 787-8 (Dreamliner) while Delhi-Washington route would be serviced by B777, it added. Air Indias Washington flight would be the fifth direct connection to the US, it said, adding the Copenhagen flight service will offer convenient onward connections to Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Norway, among others. In addition to this, Air India plans to connect Bangkok by starting direct flight operations from Chandigarh and Kolkata in May besides starting a second frequency from Delhi, it said. On the domestic side, Air India plans to add new frequencies on various routes apart from starting new connections to bolster regional connectivity. This includes a direct flight service to Port Blair from Delhi in May as well as addition of frequency to Leh from the national capital in May. Air India also plans to introduce a second flight to Nagpur from Delhi and increase frequency to Ahmedabad from New Delhi to four in March, it said. Terming B R Ambedkar a bigger leader than Mahatma Gandhi, All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad- ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said it was because of the secular and class-free Constitution given by the Dalit icon which has ensured justice in society. Owaisis remark came during an AIMIM rally in Sambhal on Sunday as he continued his poll campaign in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh. Ambedkar is a bigger leader than Mahatma Gandhi ... had Ambedkar not given a secular and class-free Constitution, the level of injustice in the country would have been much more and RSS people would not have left any opportunity to spoil the situation, Owaisi said. On the Khadi calendars and diaries row, Owaisi said though Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims to be a follower of Mahatma Gandhi but when he got a chance he replaced the Father of the Nation on the symbols as he deemed it to be a fit time to hold the charkha The Hyderabad MP also hit out at the PM over the foreign policy, saying before getting elected to the post Modi had said he would give a befitting reply to Pakistan but such a response was still to come even after the martyrdom of 28 jawans following the surgical strike. The AIMIM national president was also critical of the demonetisation move taken by the Centre on November 8 last year, which he said has only troubled the poor. On internal fight in Samajwadi Party, the ruling party in UP, Owaisi said politics in the state has gone wayward with the son (chief minister Akhilesh Yadav) having no faith in the father (Mulayam Singh Yadav). UP, which has 403 assembly constituencies (ACs), will go to polls in seven phases between February 11 and March 8. Sambhal district which has four ACs -- Sambhal, Asmoli, Chandausi, Gunnaur -- will go to polls on February 15 during the second phase. Results of the election will be out on March 11. Food served to soldiers at high altitudes doesnt suit their palate, reveals a new army report that has called for replacing it with something that tastes better. The report predates a video clip in which a BSF jawan raised questions about poor meals, but it does link troop motivation to food quality. The 119-page report, compiled by the Army Design Bureau (ADB), lists 50 problems that need to be quickly addressed to provide the best protection to frontline soldiers and develop cutting-edge weaponry for battlefield triumphs. The report on Future Core Technologies and Problem Statements acknowledges the challenges that soldiers face, ranging from vulnerability of their body armour, outdated night fighting gear, problems with winter clothing to lack of situational awareness systems to keep them updated during operations. In his maiden press conference as army chief, General Bipin Rawat on Friday touched on the report promising that frontline soldiers would be equipped with world-class gear and the force was collaborating with the countrys top academia and industry to fix the problems. Read | Soldiers using social media for complaints can be held guilty, warns Army chief The army says high-calorie food, improvised for Indian tastes, is required to improve the operational efficiency of soldiers at high altitudes. Presently, troops deployed in high altitude areas are being issued tinned food and some meals ready to eat (MRE) but these are not adhering to Indian tastes and have issues related to shelf life, the report says. It goes on to add that supply of food that suits their palate will tremendously enhance the motivation levels of soldiers. The report cites the examples of other countries that provide soldiers food conforming to their tastes. It also suggests the possibility of using edible packing material to get rid of disposal problems. The army hopes to come up with a solution within a year. Read | Soldiers made to polish officers shoes: Army man complains after BSF, CRPF troopers The body armour used by soldiers offers them limited protection, a concern flagged by General Rawat. The army chief said the bullet proof jackets worn by soldiers provide protection in the front and back but leave them vulnerable on the sides and neck. Fewer soldiers would have been killed in operations if they were equipped with superior body armour. The ADB says the existing bullet-proof jackets are heavy, uncomfortable and fall short of international standards. The bullet proof headgear or patka is not only heavy at 1.7kg but also exposes soldiers to risks as it covers only the sides and leaves the top exposed. The report states the forehead plate caters for ballistic protection from 7.62 mm ammunition, but the side plates provide protection only from 9 mm fire. It lays down a time frame of two to three years to fix the problem. Soldiers cant engage targets with precision in the absence of world-class sniper scopes. (File Photo) The army has stepped up efforts to buy new bullet proof vests and ballistic helmets for soldiers who carry out more than a hundred operations daily in Jammu and Kashmir. General Rawat said an army team, headed by deputy chief Lieutenant General Subrata Saha, has held 25 rounds of interactions with the industry and academia from Indian Institutes of Technology and other centres of excellence to involve them in finding solutions for the forces needs. Indian soldiers may be deployed on the Siachen glacier, the worlds coldest and highest battlefield, but the army is still struggling to provide them quality winter clothing. Read | Cheetah, Chetak choppers to retire after string of crashes raise safety concerns The report says the winter clothing used by the army is cumbersome, restricts freedom of movement and makes it difficult for soldiers to carry loads or use equipment such as radio sets. Soldiers have been forced to buy light-weight clothing from the market for their survival, the report highlights. Inaccurate sniping is another typical problem at high altitudes. Soldiers cant engage targets with precision in the absence of world-class sniper scopes. The report says sniper fire has been found to be inaccurate due to terrain and weather conditions and new scopes with inbuilt distance and crosswind correction need to be bought within four years. STRUGGLING TO SHARPEN MILITARY EDGE A 119-page report, compiled by the Army Design Bureau (ADB), lists 50 problems that need to be quickly addressed Chinks in the armour Lack of wire strike protection systems puts low-flying helicopters at risk, night-vision gear for aircrew also required puts low-flying helicopters at risk, night-vision gear for aircrew also required Gearboxes of advanced light helicopter prone to premature failures, metallurgy needs to be improved to prevent frequent chipping prone to premature failures, metallurgy needs to be improved to prevent frequent chipping Mobility of artillery guns severely constrained in the mountains due to terrain, steep gradient and weight and turning radius of the weapon systems severely constrained in the mountains due to terrain, steep gradient and weight and turning radius of the weapon systems Lack of awareness of the location of soldiers during operations a crippling problem faced by commanders on the ground of the location of soldiers during operations a crippling problem faced by commanders on the ground Armys helicopter fleet lacks weather radar to warn pilots about turbulence, compromising flight safety lacks weather radar to warn pilots about turbulence, compromising flight safety Army requires smart vests with built-in codes for auto identification of troops to prevent friendly fire casualties Plugging The Gaps Food supplied to soldiers in high-altitudes not to their liking Troops buying lightweight winter clothing from the market for their survival Bullet-proof jackets heavy, uncomfortable, not up to global standards Soldiers cant engage targets with precision in the absence of world-class sniper scopes Navigation devices based on foreign GPS application prone to inaccuracies and denial during war time Such scopes are required for sniper teams deployed in counter-terrorism operations, plains and high altitude areas of up to 20,000 feet. To achieve effective results out of the precision fire of a sniper rifle, it is important that forced incidental errors due to environmental factors be reduced to the minimum, the ADB has pointed out. The army has flagged concerns about lack of awareness of the location of soldiers during operations, with the report describing it as a crippling problem faced by commanders on ground. Despite the existence of facilitating technology, we are yet to adopt a credible and lasting solution to this problem, the report says. The army hopes to fix the problem by next year to increase command and control efficiency. The force also plans to equip soldiers with a helmet assembly serving as a hub for real-time situational awareness, providing communications and the visor acting as a heads-up display monitor in three years. We are identifying technology trends worldwide to tailor them to our requirements, said a senior army officer, familiar with key ongoing projects. Read | In FB post, UP cop complains to PM Modi about harassment by senior officers A high-powered panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet on Monday to shortlist police officers for the post of the full-time director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. Nearly 49 Indian Police Service officers are in the fray --- including Delhi Police commissioner Alok Kumar Verma, Maharashtra police chief Satish Mathur, Indo-Tibetan Police Force chief Krishna Choudhary and Archana Ramasundaram, the first woman IPS officer to head a border guarding force, the Sashastra Seema Bal. The Centre had kept the CBI directors post vacant after Anil Kumar Sinha completed his two-year term on December 2. It appointed a Gujarat-cadre officer, Rakesh Asthana, as the interim director. Senior IPS officer Rupak Kumar Dutta, who was sent packing from the CBI to the home ministry to a non-existent post to clear the way for Asthanas temporary elevation, will also be considered for the top post. But he is unlikely to make it. The three-member panel headed by the PM also features Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, and Chief Justice of India JS Khehar as members. But this selection panel does not really have the power to select one officer for the CBIs top post. Under the law, this panel has to recommend a shortlist of police officers from which the government will select one name. In 2014, the panel had cleared the names of National Investigation Agency chief Sharad Kumar and Anil Kumar Sinha. The government had picked Sinha, who demitted office in December. Asthana, who took over from Sinha, isnt eligible to be considered for being appointed as a full-time director as the 1984 batch officer was way too junior. The Supreme Court had earlier ruled that IPS officers of the four senior-most batches be considered for the top post. Asthana, whose controversial appointment had triggered protests from the Congress, does not meet this requirement. The PM-led panel has to select someone from the 1979-1982 batches. Congress leader Kharge had reacted sharply to Asthanas appointment, accusing the government of manipulating the process of selecting the CBI director by appointing him. Asthana, who supervised the initial investigation into the Godhra train burning incident when he was inspector general of police, Vadodara range, is said to be close to both PM Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, both from Gujarat. The Congress leader alleged that the government had vitiated and manipulated the process to preempt the decision and the CBIs credibility demands that a meritorious and experienced officer of requisite seniority be appointed as its head. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable allegedly committed suicide at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on Monday morning. Suresh Gaikwad (28) ended his life by shooting himself with a service rifle at an observation tower at the airport, said deputy commissioner of police (North-East division) PS Harsha. Preliminary investigations suggest that Gaikwad committed suicide because of issues in his personal life, Harsha said. Harsha said Gaikwad had gone through a divorce just a few days ago. He was undergoing the pain of divorce, and hence he took this extreme step, Harsha said. Forensic and explosive experts rushed to the spot and are investigating, Harsha said, adding the airport police station had filed a complaint. (With PTI inputs) The Congress on Monday demanded the resignation of RBI governor Urjit Patel over the apex banks loss of autonomy and said the party will gherao RBI offices in Mumbai, Nagpur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad on January 18 over the issue of demonetisation. Maharashtra Congress president and former chief minister Ashok Chavan will lead the protest in Mumbai, while the leader of opposition in legislative assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil will participate in Nagpur. Former Maharashtra chief ministers Prithviraj Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde will take part in the protests in Bangalore and Ahmedabad respectively, it was decided at a party meeting on Monday. Similarly, the party has also planned to hold a state-level convention in Mumbai on January 29 over the issue of demonetisation, former union home minister and senior Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde said. Ashok Chavan, who was also present at the press conference, demanded Urjit Patels resignation. The RBI has lost its autonomous status under the Narendra Modi government...Demonetisation was a one man decision. Therefore, we demand the resignation of Urjit Patel, Shinde alleged. Even today, citizens cannot withdraw cash from the bank accounts, he claimed, adding that the Congress was with the citizens, who are facing hardships due to the note ban, he said. The two leaders were talking to reporters after a meeting of the state-level committee formed to hold protests over the demonetisation issue. Chavan alleged that the Centres interference in the functioning of RBI has increased. Responding to questions on the possibility of alliance between Congress and NCP for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, he said the tie-up cannot materialise since the Mumbai unit of the party is against it and the NCP has already announced a list of 45 candidates. Chavan also alleged that the MIM has got a contract from BJP to contest the civic polls. If there is a proposal for alliance with NCP from the district Congress units, approval would be given for it, Chavan added. Rajasthan education and panchayati raj minister Vasudev Devnani has said that cow is the only animal that inhales and exhales oxygen and that people need to understand its scientific significance. According to a release issued by the Rajasthan education department, the minister made the statement at a programme organised at the Hingonia Cow Rehabilitation Centre by Akshay Patra foundation on Saturday. Devnani also said that diseases such as cold and cough are healed if one goes near a cow and emphasised on the role of youth in promoting cow conservation in the entire country. He also claimed that cow dung has ample quantity of vitamin B that results in soaking radioactivity. However, in 2006 a UN Food and Agricultural Organisation report said that livestock, including cows, are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. Protection of cow, regarded by Hindus as a holy animal, has become a political issue in the country. Last year, vigilantes several of whom were linked to Sangh Parivar organisations have attacked and killed people on suspicion of killing the animal or consuming its meat. The wife of alleged paedophile Sunil Rastogi doesnt want to see him again. Rastogi, a 38-year-old tailor from Rudrapur in Uttarakhand, was arrested in the national capital on Saturday for allegedly sexually assaulting young girls, mostly students he lured outside schools and in slum clusters. The youngest victim is said to be just seven years old. Wife Bhawna, who suffers from a spine ailment and is bedridden, told Hindustan Times at the familys rented home in the foothills town on Monday that she had ignored his behaviour despite witnessing him inappropriately touching young girls. Read | Delhi serial rapist superstitious: Wore red jacket, jeans before abusing girls Lying on a cot, she said: Achcha hua pakda gaya, uske jane ka hamein koi gham nahi. Meri aisi haalat hai, upar se wo kuch nahi karta tha (Good that he has been caught ... we dont lament that he is gone. Despite my miserable state, he would hardly care). She pointed towards her hunched back from a protruded spine, a deformity that developed after she delivered her third child. Rastogi, a father of five, seldom interacted with his neighbours and loved watching crime serials on television till late into the night. But he was good at his work, according to the shop owner who employed him. Bhawna said her husband has been in and out of prison more than 40 times in the past 15 years, sometimes for molesting girls, but she never imagined he would have raped minor girls. The last time he came out of prison, the family decided to move to Bilaspur where his younger sister lived. Every time they had to seek refuge as none of the landlords were ready to give them a place to stay. Everyone was aware of his acts, Bhawna said. Her account sounded sketchy, though. Delhi police maintained that Rastogi was arrested twice in 2006 and 2016. An FIR was registered against him for raping a minor last year and he was jailed. He, however, walked out on bail six months later in November. On the next court hearing, Rastogi did not turn up. Rurdapur police corroborated the Delhi police version, saying he was arrested last February for molesting a 10-year-old and he spent time at Haldwani prison. He used to visit a slum cluster near Rudrapur bus station to prey on minor girls. Rastogi is said to have sexually abused over 60 minor girls across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In his confession to police, he mentioned 60 locations, mainly rooftops, abandoned buildings and under-construction houses, where he allegedly took the girls and abused them. Read more | Did Delhi serial rapist abuse 500 girls? Doubts remain over the number On Monday, four more victims came forward to press charges against him. Wife Bhawna vouched for her husband on one count that he was a caring father and never misbehaved with me or my children at home. Probably he didnt behave badly with his family, but he did push his children to fend for themselves, according to the landlady Kavita Prabhu. Last August, two girls aged 15 and 13 approached her. Our father works in Delhi and our mother is disabled. We are five brothers and sisters and have no place to live. Please give us a room on rent, Prabhu said quoting the sisters. She couldnt say no. Had I known anything about his past I would have never let them stay here, she said on Monday. Rastogi continued his visits to New Delhi, a city he left in 2004. The pattern remained the same. He used to leave in the morning to board the Sampark Kranti Express which departs from Rudrapur railway station at 10.06am. The visits were short but regular, his brother-in-law Naresh said. His excuse was common too: Looking for work. He returned next evening, always empty-handed. Read | 3 years of manhunt, sketches, jail records led police to Delhi serial rapist (With inputs from Ananya Bhardwaj, New Delhi) The government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are set to bring out tougher norms for cooperative banks, which have come under scanner for alleged discrepancies and irregularities in the wake of the demonetisation drive. According to a recent report by the income tax department, most banks have indulged in money laundering after the Narendra Modi government announced ban on high-value bank notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from November 8 midnight. Many banks accepted and exchanged the old currency notes at a premium and parked large deposits in multiple accounts, the report added. Moreover, several accounts have been opened without following Know-Your-Customer norm, the report pointed out. A senior government official said these banks could become conduits for black money in the future. At present, the scrutiny and vigilance on these banks is not as stringent as that on scheduled commercial banks. These banks need to be monitored as carefully as any other scheduled commercial banks have been used for a large number of inappropriate activities in the past and these can be used for the same purpose in the future, the official, who did not wish to be identified, said. The demonetisation drive has been used as an excuse by several of these lenders to make quick money, the official added. The report also pointed out that a cooperative bank in Alwar was used to launder personal unaccounted cash of Rs 2 crore by the management. Similarly, in another bank in Jaipur, Rs 1.5 crore was found stashed away in a cupboard in a cleaning room. Besides, more than 2,000 new currency notes of Rs 2,000 were withdrawn from the bank illegally. While the cooperative banks have played a chief role in financial inclusion and many farmers and people categorised as low-income group are still dependent on these lenders, they have also indulged in illegal activities. As on March 31, 2015, there were 32 state cooperative banks, besides 370 district central cooperative banks. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Senior leader of Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) Prakash Ambedkar on Monday the Modi governments demonetisation drive has failed to serve its stated purpose and put the credibility of RBI at stake. Addressing a press conference here, he said, Figures shared by the Reserve Bank of India reveal that most of the cash in circulation has returned to banks. If it is true, then what purpose the decision of demonetisation (whose one of the aims was to extinguish black money) has served? The entire episode has put the credibility of RBI at stake. Speaking at the same press meet, Dalit leader Jogendra Kawade said, We also want to know the cost incurred on implementing demonetisation. Printing of new currency notes comes at a cost and it should be made public. He said the November 8 currency exchange exercise caused hardship to the common man. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed the decision (note ban) was targeted at black money hoarders. But the reality is the common man is suffering from it, Kawade said. Ambedkar said the note invalidation measure will push the economy towards recession and also hit the agriculture sector hard. This is not just a short term shock to the economy. We are moving towards economic recession. With agriculture suffering losses, purchasing power of people has gone down and demand for several consumer items has either slowed down or disappeared completely. Even after more than two months of the note ban announcement, there is still not sufficient cash supply in the economy. This will have serious repercussions, said the grandson of Constitution-maker Babasaheb Ambedkar. The Delhi High Court on Monday refused urgent hearing on a plea seeking a status report from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) following a BSF soldiers allegation that troopers posted along the LoC were being served poor quality food. The petitioner urged the bench headed by Chief Justice G Rohini, which did not assemble, that the matter be transferred to another bench Monday itself as it was an urgent issue. The court master, who was giving dates in the matter, asked the counsel for the petitioner what was the urgency. The authorities concerned are looking into the issues (raised in the writ petition). Even the Army Chief has also taken steps in this regard, the court master said. To which the counsel for the petitioner requested that at least it be listed for Tuesday. Agreeing to which, the matter has been fixed for consideration on Tuesday. The plea was filed by Puran Chand Arya, a former central government employee, in the wake of a video posted on Facebook by BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, claiming corruption among officers and poor working conditions. The public interest litigation (PIL) sought direction to the MHA to submit a status report with respect to all paramilitary forces in India over allegations of the BSF jawan in his video, which went viral on social media. Citing the fundamental Right to Equality (Article 14) and Life (Article 21), the PIL filed through advocate Abhishek Kumar Choudhary highlights the allegations about insufficient and bad quality of food provided to jawans. It seeks action on the incident so that the morale of the force is not affected and also asks for clarity on ration procurement, food preparation and servings to various categories of officers. On 9 January, Yadav had posted a video on Facebook which showed a meal box comprising a watery soup-like dal, which he said had only turmeric and salt and a burnt chapatti.He said this is what jawans were served at mealtime on duty. He said jawans often went to bed on an empty stomach. The PIL has sought direction to depute higher officers to supervise cooking of proper healthy food and its distribution. Read| CRPF jawan claims service conditions disparity in video, asks PM Modi to intervene On January 6, when the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said it has found prima facie evidence that Chhattisgarh policemen gangraped, molested and assaulted women during three anti-Maoist operations, it marked a rare official acknowledgement of atrocities by security personnel in Bastars conflict-ridden landscape. Though the NHRC order is also the only tangible redress so far in the three cases of mass sexual violence, registered 12 to 14 months ago, the Chhattisgarh police have neither made any arrests nor filed chargesheets in this regard. Contrast this with the fact that non-bailable warrants were issued last October against the women complainants mostly hardscrabble farmers and labourers from hamlets spread across remote tracts of forest with little or no public infrastructure for missing some court dates. The NHRC order is based on statements narrated by multiple survivors to judicial magistrates in district courts, and repeated before rights panel investigators who visited Bastar in March 2016. The first set of atrocities took place in October 2015, when police and paramilitary personnel were sent on an anti-Maoist operation in the remote villages of Pedagellur, Chinnagellur, Pegdapalli, Gundam and Burgicheru in Bijapur district. Two months later, in January 2016, 13 women in Bijapurs Nendra village testified to being sexually assaulted by security personnel deployed in their area between January 11 and 14. In Sukhma districts Kunna village, several women narrated disturbing stories of molestation and rape by security forces on January 12. While the NHRCs order is heartening, it also needs to take a holistic view of the violence not viewing them as isolated acts of a few guilty men, said Shalini Gera, a lawyer who has extended legal aid to several assaulted women. There is a pattern across villages in the kind of graphic language used against the women and violent acts such as squeezing of breasts (see box). They seem to be punitive measures that had received the go-ahead as part of anti-Naxal operations. Gera said activists who tried to help the women faced intimidation and false complaints. TS Singh Deo, leader of the state opposition, said the Congress would demand a detailed statement from the government on these cases in the upcoming assembly session. It is unfortunate that chief minister Raman Singh is shielding the guilty. He thinks the morale of the force can be boosted by protecting individuals who rape... by suppressing social workers and the media. For now, the NHRC order has cited 16 statements of rape survivors from multiple villages, and asked the Chhattisgarh chief secretary to explain why the state should not pay an interim monetary relief of Rs 37 lakh to them. Subsequent NHRC orders are likely to expand in scope as its investigators return to Bijapur and Sukhma this month to record the testimonies of at least 20 other women complainants whose allegations could not be recorded during the March visit. The NHRC also summoned Chhattisgarhs chief secretary and director general of police on January 30 for questioning on human rights violations in Bastar. A senior NHRC official said on the condition of anonymity that the interim order was meant to signal to Chhattisgarh authorities that all excesses come at a cost. Since we are tracking several cases in the state, they will not be cavalier in their approach. The courts will also not be browbeaten since we are passing the orders, he said. Though we cannot reverse past violations, this should create some deterrence, the official added. Gera said the survivors have received little support since the attacks. Lodging the FIRs was a herculean task, given the police reluctance. Since then, the survivors have been made to present their statements multiple times before various authorities, travelling long distances in difficult conditions, and even had non-bailable warrants issued against them, she said. But they have not seen any action being taken against the guilty. Former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzais cousin died in New Delhi on Monday morning. Mohd Hashim, 58, was undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. He had sustained critical injuries in a blast at Kandhar in Afghanistan, and was airlifted to Apollo in an air ambulance on January 14. He died at 10.45am of cardiac arrest. He also had developed sepsis, a life threatening infection in the blood stream that put stress on his heart. According to the hospital sources, Hashim had sustained 35% burn injuries. He also had severe injuries to his lungs because of inhaling toxic fumes at the site of the incident, and legs were fractured. He was brought to us in a critical state around 1am on January 14. He was on ventilator, said a hospital source, requesting anonymity. He had received emergency treatment in Afghanistan and was flown to us from the local hospital there. We tried our best but his organs were failing. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Normal life was on Monday disrupted in Kashmir due to fresh snowfall, which led to the closure of Srinagar-Jammu National Highway and affected flight operations in Srinagar as well. Fresh snowfall was recorded across Kashmir with some places in the higher reaches of the Valley witnessing heavy snowfall, an official of the meteorological department said. He said the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir received around two feet of fresh snowfall during the night. There are reports of heavy snowfall in many of the higher reaches of the state as well, including in some of the areas along the nearly 300-km long Srinagar-Jammu National Highway forcing its closure. Srinagar-Jammu National Highway has been closed for traffic due to bad weather, an official of the traffic department told PTI. He said there was snowfall of around two feet near Jawahar Tunnel and other areas along the highway the only all-weather road-link connecting Kashmir with the rest of the country so the authorities decided to suspend the traffic. The official said snowfall was hampering the efforts to reopen the highway for traffic. Kashmiri villagers walk along a snow-covered road on the outskirts of Srinagar on January 13, 2017. A cold wave further tightened its grip in Jammu and Kashmir with most places in the state recording sub-zero temperatures. (AFP) The air traffic to and fro Srinagar International Airport was also affected due to the snowfall and two flights were cancelled on Monday morning. Two flights have been cancelled and if there is no improvement in the weather, the flight operations for the day will be difficult, an official at the airport said. In Srinagar city and other towns of the valley, snowfall began during the night and continued in the morning, affecting the movement of traffic as the roads were rendered slippery. However, owing to the overnight cloudy sky, the night temperature improved by several degrees across the Valley and Ladakh region. The summer capital recorded 7.4 cm (about three inch) of snowfall during the night, the MET official said, adding it registered the minimum temperature of minus 0.9 degree Celsius, compared to the previous nights minus 2.3 degrees Celsius. He said the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg recorded 53 cm (about two feet) of snow and the mercury there settled at a low of minus 8 degrees Celsius. He said the resort was the coldest places in the Valley. The official said there also were reports of heavy snowfall in the peripheral areas of the resort including in the areas of Khilanmarg, Kongdoori and Afferwath. The famous health resort of Pahalgam in south Kashmir, which serves as a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra, received 3.5 cm of snow and the mercury registered a low of minus 3.2 degrees Celsius. Qazigund recorded 25.4 cm of snow, while Kokernag 7.5 cm and Kupwara 2 cm, the official said, adding the higher reaches like Keran, Machil, Karnah, Gurez, Shopian, Sonamarg and Amarnath cave along with surrounding areas experienced heavy snowfall. Leh in the frontier region of Ladakh was the coldest recorded place in the state with a low of minus 10.1 degrees Celsius, while the nearby Kargil town registered the minimum temperature of minus 4.8 degrees Celsius. The MET Office has forecast widespread snowfall or rains over two days from Monday and fairly isolated to scattered rains or snowfall for two days after that. At a brief Thursday night meeting of the Bismarck Board of Aldermen, a local resident complained about stray dogs he said are chasing after children and adults in his neighborhood. James Somraty, a new Bismarck resident, asked board members if there was something that could be done to keep the dogs from posing a danger to people. "There's been an ongoing issue for a while," he said. "The pictures I have were taken since Christmas all probably within a week-and-a-half's time, so you can see the problem we've been having. When we first moved in there was one dog and then two, and then three, and then four, as you can see. "The real problem is the dogs chasing the children. We now have parents who are afraid of their children going to other people's houses because they're afraid they're going to get chased by or bitten by a dog." Asked if the police are called when problems occur with the dogs, Somraty said he usually contacts city hall. Mayor Seth Radford said, "I know that this particular dog here the husky looking dog he did receive tickets and he's out of town. A police officer wrote tickets for that." Somraty told Radford that he had seen animal control officers around his home. "If they can't catch the animals, what's to be done?" he asked. Radford replied, "That's the question and that's one thing we're going to have to look at euthanizing the animal. We do have one up there we cannot catch, but the others have all been ticketed. We've got two out at the pound that's going for rescue that was in your pictures as well, but we also have the yellow dog that's a nuisance and we're working with the police chief on it. It may come to it having to be euthanized. Somraty said he would hate to see a dog be euthanized, but admitted that he guessed safety had to be the priority. "You can't have them attacking citizens either," Radford said. The mayor thanked Somraty for appearing before the board and assured him the situation was being dealt with. In other action, the board heard a report on the city's latest audit given by Robert Mathes of Crouch, Farley & Heuring. He said that, beyond several small issues that were already being taken care of, the audit was clean. In old business, Mayor Radford reported that the Missouri Department of Transportation had confirmed that the city had been selected to receive funding for the Transportation Alternative Program. He also noted that City Assistant Alan Williams will be attending a mandatory workshop set for Jan. 18. A 12-year-old mentally challenged girl, who was allegedly gang-raped by three teachers and the headmaster of a government school in Bihars Jehanabad district on Sunday, is reportedly in a critical condition. The girl was admitted to the Patna Medical College and Hospital by her mother, who is also a physical training teacher in the same school in Kako. The girl was found in a dishevelled condition on the rooftop of the school by her mother after a long search. Four teachers allegedly raped her on the roof. Police said that at the time of the incident, the girls mother was taking classes. Police recorded her statement, in which she named four accused - Aju Ahmad (headmaster of Kako secondary school), Atul Rehman, Abdul Bari and Md Shaukat (all teachers). Kusum Bharti, station house officer of the womens police station in Jehanabad, said a first information report (FIR) has been lodged against the four accused on the basis of the statement by the girls mother. Prima facie, the incident appears true and raids are on to arrest the culprits, she added. The teacher said her daughter was mentally challenged and so she always kept a tab on her at the school. When I did not find her for some time, I started looking for her and reached the rooftop. She was found in a bad condition there, she said. She immediately took her daughter girl to the Kako police station, where police recorded her statement and referred her girl to the Jehanabad Sadar hospital. As my daughters condition worsened and the bleeding did not stop, I took her to Patna by train and admitted her at the Patna Medical College and Hospital. She was referred to the maternity ward after the emergency ward did not accept her case, she said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In yet another case of men in uniform taking to social media to air their grievances, an Uttar Pradesh police constable has posted a video on Facebook addressed to the Prime Minister, complaining of harassment by senior police officers and corruption in the force. Constable Sarvesh Chaudhary who belongs to Mathura is currently posted at the Etah police lines in western Uttar Pradesh. Sarveshs complaint comes on the heels of a BSF jawan posting a Facebook video about poor quality of food and an army soldier uploading a video on YouTube alleging that he was forced to wash clothes, polish boots and walk dogs for his seniors Etah district police chief Rajesh Krishna has ordered a probe into Sarveshs Facebook post by additional superintendent of police Anup Kumar. Read| CRPF jawan claims service conditions disparity in video, asks PM Modi to intervene The constable who addressed his recorded message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he is a policeman of the 2011 batch. He said 80% of policemen were not in good health but worked round the clock. He termed the British-era Police Act of 1861 as a black law which earlier allowed the British and now our officials (use) to harass policemen. He questioned why such a law was continuing. He has complained about his repeated suspensions and transfers after joining the police force in 2011. I have been transferred five times since joining at Ghaziabad and was suspended thrice for no proper reason. I refused to pay a bribe of Rs 500 asked for by the staff for providing pay slip in Firozabad. Instead of a corrupt babu, it was I who received a suspension order, Sarvesh complained. I was taken back into service but salary for the suspension period was not paid to me, he complained in the video. Sarvesh claimed he was being harassed and penalised for not meeting unlawful demands. Read| Soldiers made to polish officers shoes: Army man complains after BSF, CRPF troopers The additional SP Anup Kumar has been asked to conduct a probe, said Etah SSP who said Sarvesh was suspended thrice for indiscipline at Ghaziabad, Agra and Firozabad but is currently on duty. There was a delay in submission of his (bank) account number by the constable because of which the salary for the period of suspension was delayed but the payments for October, November and December 2016 have been made, the Etah SSP Krishna said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON India has taken up with Bahrain at a high level the issue of non-payment of salary to Indian workers, one of whom died during a protest against the employer, the external affairs ministry said on Monday. M/s GP Zachariadis Overseas Ltd., a construction company which employs nearly 1,500 Indian workers has been faced with severe financial hardship. This has resulted in non-payment of salary/dues to workers employed by the company. On 3rd January 2017, nearly 350 workers at a site went on strike due to non-payment of salary for nearly two months. After intervention of the mission in association with the labour ministry, the company paid the pending salaries on 4th January, 2017, ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. The company again failed to pay the next salary, which was due on 12th January 2017, he said, adding the Mission had immediately taken up the matter with the ministry of labour, which had called the company management for a joint meeting the same day. On 15th January, nearly 200 workers of the company started a protest due to non-payment of their salary. The company had approached the Bahraini Police authorities to intervene in the matter. During the protest, one of the workers Narayanan Pitchai, an Indian national, fainted and this happened when the police authorities reached the site. He was taken to hospital, where he was declared brought dead, he added. The police authorities have confirmed to the embassy that since it was a peaceful protest, no police action was taken against them, the spokesperson said. Several workers on protest have also conveyed to the embassy officials that no action was taken by the police authorities on the protesters, he added. The embassy has taken up the matter at a high level. Bahraini authorities have expressed regret over the incident and have assured that safety and well-being of all workers, including Indian nationals, remains their first priority. They have also conveyed that they would do their best on this matter, Swarup said. On Sunday, Swarup had also tweeted that following up on labour issues in the Gulf. MoS @Gen_VKSingh visits Manama, holds talks with Ministers of Labour & Interior of Bahrain. India should rethink its opposition to Chinese investments in Sri Lanka and join the port development in the island nation instead of feeling jealous, Chinas state media said on Monday. It is understandable that the cooperation has left some Asian countries vigilant as media reports suggest that an 80 per cent share of the port, which sits on an important trade route, and land for an industrial zone will be leased to China for the next 99 years, an article in Global Times referring to Sri Lankas decision to hand over the Hambatota Port to China. Also there was public agitation over the land given to China to industrial zone in Hambatota. However, joining the project would be better than standing aside and being jealous, the article said. As more and more South Asian countries keep a positive attitude toward Chinas efforts to improve infrastructure in the region, skeptics in countries such as India should rethink their stance toward the Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka, it said. China is likely to adopt an open attitude if other countries can put aside the idea of geopolitical confrontation and join in on harbour construction of the island nation, it said. Referring to concerns in India and Japan over Chinese investments totalling over USD 8 billion, the article said, the Chinese-funded project in Sri Lanka is not a nail being knocked into the geopolitical landscape of South Asia to curb Indias rise. Chinas economic cooperation with Sri Lanka does not target any third party, including India and Japan, because the project is just another move in pushing forward the Belt and Road initiative, an open, inclusive international cooperative proposal that any nation is welcome to take part in, it said. India and Japan should feel free to join the initiative in a bid to boost their presence in Sri Lankas economy, but it is questionable whether the two countries are willing to spend a large amount of money on supporting the economy of Sri Lanka and pushing forward regional economic integration, it said. If Sri Lanka could not get enough financial support from India and Japan to build its port facilities, it seems inadvisable to prevent the South Asian country from seeking help from China, a country that is witnessing a boom in outbound investment, it said. Some countries like India and Bangladesh will be the first batch of beneficiaries of Chinas efforts to build a network of roads and infrastructure facilities in South Asia to open up new trade routes. In this regard, Chinas economic cooperation with Sri Lanka will contribute not just to the local economy but to the whole region, it said. In signs of rising income inequality, Indias richest one percent now hold a huge 58% of the countrys total wealth -- higher than the global figure of about 50%, a new study showed on Monday. The study, released by rights group Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting attended by rich and powerful from across the world, showed that just 57 billionaires in India now have same wealth ($216 billion) as that of the bottom 70% population of the country. Globally, just 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50% of the world population. The study said there are 84 billionaires in India, with a collective wealth of $248 billion, led by Mukesh Ambani ($19.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($16.7 billion) and Azim Premji ($15 billion). The total Indian wealth in the country stood at $3.1 trillion. The total global wealth in the year was $255.7 trillion, of which about $6.5 trillion was held by billionaires, led by Bill Gates ($ 75 billion), Amancio Ortega ($ 67 billion) and Warren Buffett ($60.8 billion). In the report titled An economy for the 99%, Oxfam said it is time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few. It said that since 2015, the richest 1 % has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs - a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people, Oxfam said. The study findings showed that the poorest half of the world has less wealth than had been previously thought while over the last two decades, the richest 10% of the population in China, Indonesia, Laos, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have seen their share of income increase by more than 15%. On the other hand, the poorest 10% have seen their share of income fall by more than 15%. Due to a combination of discrimination and working in low-pay sectors, womens wages across Asia are between 70-90% of mens, it said. Referring to the Global Wage Report 2016-17 of Indian Labour Organisation, the study said India suffers from huge gender pay gap and has among the worst levels of gender wage disparity -- men earning more than women in similar jobs --with the gap exceeding 30%. In India, women form 60% of the lowest paid wage labour, but only 15% of the highest wage-earners. It means that in India women are not only poorly represented in the top bracket of wage-earners, but also experience wide gender pay gap at the bottom. It also said that more than 40% of the 400 million women who live in rural India are involved in agriculture and related activities. However, as women are not recognised as farmers and do not own land, they have limited access to government schemes and credit, restricting their agricultural productivity. The study also said that the CEO of Indias top information firm earns 416 times the salary of a typical employee in his company. In the US, by contrast, billionaires have frequently chosen to cash out of their businesses, and their wealth has not lasted so long. In Asia, Singapore and India have a high number of multi-generational billionaires and a lot many people across the globe, including India, will transfer wealth to their heirs in the next 20 years, the study said, while pushing for a need to establish a system of inheritance tax. It also referred to the worlds largest garment companies that have all been linked to cotton-spinning mills in India, which routinely use the forced labour of girls. There are evidences against cotton-spinning mills of India, which feed into the worlds largest garment companies, using forced labour. As per ILO, there are 5.8 million child labourers in India, it added. In many parts of the world, corporations are increasingly driven by a single goal -- that is to maximise returns to their shareholders. In the UK, 10% of profits were returned to shareholders in 1970 and this figure is now 70%. In India, the figure is lower, but is growing rapidly, and for many corporations, it is now higher than 50%. In India, as profits have been rising for the 100 largest listed corporations, the share of net profits going to dividends has also increased steadily over the last decade, reaching 34% in 2014/15, with around 12 private corporations paying more than 50% of their profits as dividends, it said. The report also said the local air pollution caused by burning coal causes around 100,000 premature deaths per year in India. South-East Asia and India have both substantial coal power development plants and large populations without access to electricity. While coal provides 75% of the nations electricity, many areas with the densest concentration of coal plants also have the lowest rates of electricity access, it said. It asked the Indian government to end the extreme concentration of wealth to end poverty, introduce inheritance tax and increase the wealth tax as the proportion of this tax in total tax revenue is one of the lowest in India. Indian government must eliminate tax exemptions and not further reduce corporate tax rates. Governments must support companies that benefit their workers and society rather than just their shareholders, Oxfam said. Indian government must crack down on tax dodging by corporates and rich individuals to end the era of tax havens. Government must generate funds needed to invest in healthcare and education. The government must increase its public expenditure on health from 1 % GDP to 3% of GDP and on education from 3% of GDP to 6%, it added. Malayalam writer Kamal C Chavara, who was booked for insulting the national anthem in December last year, has alleged he was attacked by a member of the Sangh Parivar on Sunday in Kunnamangalam near Kozhikode in north Kerala, a day after he burnt his book in public. Chavara, who is also a theatre activist, said the incident took place in a bar where the attacker approached him asking whether he was the one who had burnt his book on Saturday. When he said yes, the assailant slapped him and pushed him to the floor without any provocation, he said. The writer said while slapping him the assailant said he was a Sangh Parivar activist and threatened that those who criticise national symbols will meet with dire consequences. He slapped me and hit me in the chest several times. Since he threatened me to come out of the bar for more I remained there and called the police, he said. He was injured in the attack and is admitted to Kozhikode medical college hospital. Later, the police took the assailant into custody and described the incident as a drunken brawl. However, the writer said he would approach senior officials. Chavara had symbolically cremated his controversial novel Smashanangalude Notupustakam (A Book on Graveyards) in protest against the alleged police high-handedness and what he called fascist action by the Sangh Parivar. He said along with his book some activists had burnt a copy of Manu Smriti that infuriated the saffron outfit. However, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader dismissed the incident as a mere publicity gimmick. The writer was arrested on December 17 for allegedly insulting the national anthem on social media. Charged with section 124 A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), he was released after human rights activists and others criticised the police action. Though the police said the charges against him were dropped, Chavara claimed that he was continuously being harassed by law enforcement agencies. Chavara had courted trouble after he posted excerpts of his latest novel Smashanangalude Notupustakam on Facebook. The Bhartiya Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP, had filed a complaint against him claiming that he had insulted the national anthem. In a school in Kerala, there were 44 students, named after 44 rivers of the state which had all dried up. The teacher never bothered to meet requests of students, including the request to go to the toilet to urinate. At 4pm every day they had to stand up for the national anthem. Since urinating was more important to me than Jana, Gana, Mana, I was the most indisciplined student, the excerpts read. A fire swept through the canteen of Presidency University early on Monday morning, even as it hosts the bicentenary celebrations. President Pranab Mukherjee and former Prime minister Manmohan Singh are scheduled to attend the programme on the last day of the celebrations on January 20 at Derozio Hall in the same campus. Fortunately the fire could not spread as the canteen is housed in a stand alone building and has no connection with the main administrative building and the Derozio Hall where the President and former Prime Minister are supposed to be present. The fire has been doused completely. We will find out how the fire spread. Our men tried to tackle the fire with the basic infrastructure that we have here, said registrar of the university, D Konar. Six fire engines were pressed into service to douse the flames that were first noticed at 6:15 am. The fire destroyed the canteen. The false ceiling helped the fire to spread. The fire destroyed the ceiling, wood structures, electrical lines and even the aluminium structures of the canteen. According to fire department sources, the flames could have spread from the kitchen. This is not the first time fire has damaged the hallowed Presidency University. On September 9, 2016, a fire broke out at the central library of the university that is home to more than 3.73 lakh books and 1.5 lakh periodicals collected over a century. On August 27, 2014, there was a fire at the Physics laboratory. On October 28, 2010 a fire destroyed the chemistry lab. The university has been modernised for the bicentenary celebrations (January 5 to 20) for which a number of scholars and dignitaries have come to the campus. The University was established on January 20, 1817 and was then known as Presidency College. The institution made significant contribution to the Bengal renaissance. Presidency University now has four buildings, of which two the main administrative building and the Baker Building have been declared heritage structures. A 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her teacher in a village in Pathardi tehsil of Ahmednagar district, police said on Monday. The accused, identified as Raviraj Dattatray Chaudhari (34), used to teach in a government-run school in Jat Devale village, police said. The accused has been booked under IPC section 376 (rape) and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, inspector of Pathardi police station, Levin Kambale, told PTI. In her complaint, the victim said that the teacher sexually assaulted her on January 14 at his relatives residence in Dhamgaon, located close to Jat Devale village. The accused has gone absconding, police said. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has sought a report over the short supply of medals which have forced soldiers to buy duplicate ones from the market. Defence sources said the situation has been such that only a handful of medals have been officially issued over the last 7-8 years while over 10 lakh are pending. The Defence Minister has sought a report on the situation and why it has not been issued for so many years, a source said. Read | With medals in short supply, soldiers now buy them at markets The medals are for various achievements including bravery, distinguished service among others. The favourite place for soldiers to get the duplicates of their hard-earned medals is Gopinath Bazaar in the Delhi Cantonment. The difference between the original and the duplicate is that the name of the soldier and his badge number is engraved beneath the real one. Sources said while those medals awarded at investiture ceremonies were available, lakhs of others awarded over the years are not. This includes those given for completing a certain number of years in service, serving in difficult areas or taking part in some operation. The Medals Department of Defence Ministry is responsible for issue of these awards that soldiers wear during ceremonial functions, sources said, adding that non-availability was due to some financial constraints. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday rejected the BJP Bihar units demand to postpone the human chain programme scheduled for January 21, in the wake of Patna boat tragedy. The Bihar government has organised a statewide human chain programme to mark the success of liquor prohibition in the state, which the BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi has requested to be postponed after 24 people were killed on January 14, when a boat carrying 50 people capsized in Ganga river near Patna. Attacking the ruling party at the Centre, the JD(U) chief said he fails to understand the logic of BJP leader Sushil Modis demand for postponing the human chain programme. Why should it be postponed...What kind of demand is this? It is a social event in support of liquor ban, he said. Involving two crore people, the human chain programme would be the largest in the world and its image would be captured by ISRO satellite and several drones, the CM said, adding, standard safety drills, including traffic regulations and other safeguards, would be undertaken. Sushil Modi had on Sunday alleged that negligence of the Bihar government led to the boat capsize and said the chief minister should take responsibility. He had also demanded the state government postpone the proposed human chain programme. Speculation of a bonhomie between the JD(U) and the BJP were rife after Nitish Kumar supported PM Narendra Modis demonetisation decision notwithstanding disquiet within a section of his party over his stand. The speculation grew thicker after Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an event in Patna to celebrate the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Govind Singh praised Kumar for implementing prohibition in the state. However, Kumar on Monday took a dig at BJP for attacking him over arrangements for the kite festival and said the idea for it was theirs and was started in 2010 when he was chief minister with their support. Kumar said, After the Indore-Patna Express accident in Kanpur on November 20, 2016, I had cancelled issuing the report card of my government scheduled on that day, but they (BJP) went ahead with the rally (PMs rally) at Agra. Police were called to Walmart in Farmington Thursday morning about a suspicious person. Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said at about 9:45 a.m. they got a call from an employee at Walmart who stated there was a suspicious person there and he was lying on the floor near the cosmetics department. He appeared to be on some type of drug, said Baker. The officer responded and when he got to Walmart he located the reporting party. The reporting party then escorted him over to where this person was and from a distance the officer observed him for a few minutes. Baker said the officer then approached the man later identified as a 23-year-old man from St. Louis. Walmart employees asked the officer to have the man leave. So the officer was watching him for a few minutes trying to get an idea of what his problem was and he then decided to go on up and speak with him. When he did talk to him, he was nodding off and was kind of incoherent. The officer brought him to the front of the store, was talking to him and was trying to let the guy know with his condition Walmart didnt want him there. Baker added the officer asked the man if he was on some type of medication, just in case he would need emergency medical attention. After a short period of time, the person just took off running from him, said Baker. Well the officer felt that in his condition that he was not able to care for himself. He was afraid he might get ran over or something would happen to him, so he chased after him. A foot pursuit ensued. Baker explained the foot pursuit went from Walmart, north to Karsch, then east on Karsch, crossing over Karsch to where Burger King. That is where the officer caught up with him again. At this point, he got ahold of him and placed him under arrest, said Baker. He searched his person and found some prescription medication that wasnt his and some drug paraphernalia. He was just going to arrest him for disorderly conduct because he couldnt provide for himself. Baker added the officer even asked him when they were at Walmart if there was someone who come and get him. So anyway, once he caught up to him he did find the drugs on him, which was prescription medication that wasnt his, said Baker. He went ahead and arrested him and we will be seeking charges for two counts of possession of a controlled substance, felony resisting arrest and possession of drug paraphernalia. More than 1,600 people died due to extreme weather conditions across the country last year, with severe heat wave claiming the largest chunk of the total deaths at 40%, followed by flooding and lightning. The IMD said 2016 was the warmest year ever recorded, globally as well as in India. Phalodi in Rajasthan recorded 51 degrees Celsius, highest ever recorded in the country. Read | Cold wave kills three in Jharkhand January and February were the warmest winter months ever, according to IMD, which records weather patterns since 1901. Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra topped the casualty list with the states contributing 35% of the total. They together recorded 552 deaths due to extreme weather patterns. According to a report by India Meteorological Department (IMD), 40% of the total deaths were due to severe heat wave, which claimed more than 700 lives in the country, with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh together recording the maximum deaths i.e more than 400. Gujarat and Maharashtra registered 87 and 43 deaths due to heat waves respectively. Cold wave claimed 53 lives in the country. Lightning claimed more than 415 lives and the worst hit were the eastern states of Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Read | Lightning kills more than 70 as rain and storm lash Bihar, Uttar Pradesh Odisha alone recorded more than 132 deaths due to lightning while 43 deaths occurred in Maharashtra. IMD last year started issuing summer and winter forecasts with heat wave and cold wave warnings. After two consecutive droughts, India last year had a normal monsoon, but several parts of the country witnessed heavy to very heavy rainfall, causing flooding in many areas. More than 475 lives were lost in floods and thunderstorms. Bihar alone saw nearly 146 deaths due to flooding between July 25 to September 3. 2016 saw four cyclonic storms in Bay of Bengal, the major being severe cyclonic storm Vardah, which killed 18 people in Tamil Nadu. Read | Heat wave claims more than 100 lives in Telangana and Andhra We have tried to minimise the loss of lives, especially in large scale events like cyclones and heavy rains. For example, accurate predictions helped minimise loss of lives during Vardah and prediction of heavy rains. But when it comes to events like lightning, it becomes difficult as at several instances it takes places in villages and hamlets. In such a scenario, mobile companies can play a pro-active role in helping disseminate information in a particular district or hamlet by sending alerts, IMD Director General K J Ramesh said. Two plaques holding former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi responsible for the 1984 riots will be part of a memorial which has been constructed by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee here as a reminder of injustice towards the victims. The metal plates, titled Dastan-e-Indira Gandhi and Dastan-e-Rajiv Gandhi, were presented to the office-bearers of the DSGMC by the 1984 riot victims council. They read: Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, in a self-styled dictatorial manner, ordered the Operation Bluestar thereby attacking the Golden Temple where the Sikh sangat had gathered to commemorate the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev. In this so called military operation, thousands of innocent Sikhs were killed, sacrileges committed and the Akal Takht was razed to the ground. Hundreds of Sikh military personnel, falsely implicated in sedition cases, were killed after dragging them out of their barracks. The group said widows of riot victims will carry these plaques to the gurdwara. The plaques tell the truth. This is what had happened. This is what Indira and Rajiv did. We have received the plates. The committee members will now take a decision on where they will be installed. The only thing that we need to talk through is whether these two attackers merit a mention at a memorial in a gurdwara, said Manjinder Singh Sirsa, general secretary, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee. The memorial, called The Wall of Truth, has been built in an area of 2,500 sqm at a cost of Rs 2.25 crore at the Gurdwara Rakabganj Sahib near Parliament. It was thrown open to the public on Sunday. The structure has names of thousands of Sikhs killed in the riots and people from other communities who laid down their lives trying to save them etched on its walls. The Wall of Truth had courted controversy in 2013 with the Congress-backed SAD (Delhi) opposing the choice of venue. At the memorial, space has also been given to the observations of different panels which were set up by the government to probe the riots. The decision to build it had come in 2013, close on the heels of acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, who was facing allegations of perpetrating the riots, by a Karkardooma court in April that year. The construction work had begun in November 2014. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday of masquerading as a pro-poor messiah but devoting extra time for at least 50 rich and influential industrialists. Also, he alleged that the Prime Minister wants to impose his face on everything, citing the latest khadi commission calendar controversy in which Modis image replaced the enduring picture of Mahatma Gandhi spinning the charkha. If things go on like this you will find Ramlila actors wearing Modi masks from next year, instead of Lord Rams, he told a gathering of party workers in Rishikesh. Gandhi was at the town known for its temples and yoga centres to prep up Congress workers for the February 15 assembly polls. The ruling party is up against the BJP in a two-pronged fight in this hill state. Gandhi showed his torn kurta pocket to illustrate his point. He wants to replace Mahatma Gandhi, but wears clothes worth Rs 15 lakh. I have my khadi kurta with a torn pocket. The Prime Minister had stirred a row when he wore a Rs10-lakh monogrammed suit during his meeting with US President Barack Obama in New Delhi last year. The suit has pinstripes with Narendra Damodardas Modi woven into it in gold letters. Gandhi charged Modi with demolishing established institutions and infringing upon their autonomy such as the Reserve Bank of India. He wants to run this country only by himself He took the decision to demonetise the economy in a single minute and do so in the case of Orop as well. But he doesnt want agitating ex-servicemen at Jantar Mantar (in New Delhi) to get the benefits of Orop. Orop one rank, one pension is an emotive issue for Uttarakhand, which has two of Indias finest military legions in the Garhwal and Kumaon regiments. The Congress and the BJP blame each other for not implementing the policy, which promises to equalise pension payments for retired military personnel who served at the same rank and for the same amount of time, regardless of the year they retired. At a poll rally in Dehradun in December, Prime Minister Modi accused the previous Congress-led UPA government of ignoring the former soldiers demand for uniform retirement benefits, saying jawans who sacrifice their lives were being cheated. On Monday, the Congress vice president alleged Modi was unwilling to implement Orop that would benefit the brave soldiers of Uttarakhand and the country. The BJP described Gandhis Rishikesh meeting a flop show, saying he had nothing to discuss but criticise the Prime Minister. The rally was a super flop. He did drama by showing his torn kurta at the event. It seems he is worst-hit by the demonetisation drive that aims at curbing black money and exposing corrupt people, said Naresh Bansal, the partys state spokesperson. (With inputs from Nihi Sharma) Renowned actress Geeta Sen, wife of celebrated filmmaker Mrinal Sen, died in her residence here on Monday after a month-long illness. She was 86. She leaves behind her famed husband and only son Kunal. A month back, she had suffered cerebral hemorrhage, which robbed her power of speech and made her bed ridden. Known for her excellent portrayal of character roles, she had acted in a number of films including Chorus, Calcutta 71, Kharij, Akaler Sandhane, Ekdin Pratidin and Khandahar. Police seized Rs 22 lakh in cash during the ongoing checking campaign in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh to prevent use of money power to influence voters. Superintendent of police DPN Pandey said on Monday that Rs 20 lakh were recovered from a vehicle on Mirzapur road in Gopiganj police station area on Sunday. People carrying the cash said the money had been collected at toll booth, but failed to furnish any documents to support their claim, he said. In a similar incident, Rs 1.96 lakh were recovered in Koirana police station area from two people, who said the money belonged to a carpet company but they too could not present any document to prove it, the SP said. One person with a .32 bore pistol and magazine has also been nabbed in a separate incident in course of the ongoing drive against use of money and muscle power during elections, he said. Bhadohi district in eastern UP will go to polls on March 8 in the last phase of the staggered seven-phase assembly elections that begin on February 11 in the state. The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses of the government and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on a plea seeking framing of privacy policy to regulate commercial exploitation of private communication through social networking sites like WhatsApp and Facebook. A bench comprising Chief Justice JS Khehar and justice DY Chandrachud also issued notice to WhatsApp and Facebook and sought their responses within two weeks. The bench sought the assistance of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi in hearing the plea, which alleged that the social networking sites compromise the privacy of interpersonal communication of over 150 million people in the country. Senior advocate Harish Salve alleged that privacy of citizens has been infringed by the social networking sites, which amounted to infringment of Articles 19 (Freedom of Speech and Expression) and 21 (Right to Life) of the Constitution. Right to Life includes the Right to Privacy, Salve said. Shimla and tourist resort of Manali on Monday experienced fresh snowfall. The famous tourist centre Narkanda and upper areas of Shimla district is cut off due to snow blocked roads. The temperature in Shimla town was recorded at -0.2, while Jakhu peak recorded 15 centimetres of snow while the local remained confined to their homes. Few visitors who were in town for the weekend ventured out to enjoy the snow. Owing to snowfall the traffic movement on national highway five connecting the upper areas of Shimla district came to halt . Fresh snowfall on Monday has disrupted vehicular traffic in Shimla. (HT Photo) No vehicles plied beyond Sanjauli road leading to Kufri and Narkanda. The fresh snow also disrupted traffic in Shimla town. Towns main circular road remained closed for traffic near snowdown area. Snow clearance machines stationed at vantage points by district administration were pressed into service to clear the snow. Vehicular traffic from Shimla to chopal also remained suspended. Himachal Road Transport Corporation routed the buses to Rampur via Basantpur but the roads were blocked at the Dhandha, ten kilometers from Shimla. Directions have been issued to all the authorities concerned for clearing the roads, said deputy commissioner Shimla Rohan Chand Thakur . People in Shimla walked their way to office, as the snow hampered the vehicular movement. The traffic on the circular road remained disrupted, police diverted the it on Shimla-Tutti Kandi bypass that resulted in long queues of vehicles . Heavy snow fall was also recorded in the upper reaches of the state. Bharmour in Chamba district has been cut off. Narkanda had experienced 18 centimetres of snow while Kufri recorded 20 centimetres of snow.The meteorological office in Shimla has predicted more snow till 17th of January. Western disturbance in the region are active it will bring more snow, said director meteorological office Shimla . In a jibe at RSS ideologue M G Vaidya over his remarks on dividing Maharashtra into four smaller states, the Shiv Sena said on Monday chief minister Devendra Fadnavis should consider him for the states top honour Maharashtra Bhushan. By asking for smaller states to be carved out of Maharashtra, he is only putting forth his view, which everybody has a right to do in a democracy. Many a times some peoples love for Pakistan also keeps sprouting now and then, an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana said. Vaidya should be invited to Mumbai and lauded for his views. Maharashtra chief minister should consider honouring this person, who has such great views, with a Maharashtra Bhushan award, the Sena said. The Senas comment slamming Vaidya, a former spokesperson of the RSS, comes in the backdrop of his speech in Nagpur last week, where he had reiterated his stand on the division of Maharashtra into four states. I am a pro-Vidarbha person and a separate Vidarbha should be carved out. Any state should not have a population of more than three crore. There should not be any need for protest for small states, Vaidya had said. Vaidya had often advocated division of Maharashtra into Vidarbha, Marathwada including Khandesh, Konkan, and western Maharashtra and the official language of all these states would remain Marathi. He had also also suggested constitution a state reorganisation commission and each state should have restricted population. The Sena, however, has vehemently opposed the idea of division of Maharashtra. A 27-year-old Sri Lankan was arrested at Arichal Munai, 15 km from here on Monday after he arrived by an illegal ferry, four days after another man from the island nation was held from the same area. Police said Rochen (27) had told them he had come here from Vavuniya in the island nation after paying Rs 40,000 to a ferry operator, which dropped him and then went back On January 13, another Lankan national Prithviraj landed in the same area by an illegal ferry and was arrested. Meanwhile, officials, quoted fishermen from Mandapam as telling them that the situation in Palk Straits was scary as gold and ganja smugglers were making frequent trips to Dhanushkodi and Talaimannar and that they were caught between the smugglers on the one hand and Sri Lankan navy on the other. They wanted the Coastal Marine Group to further tighten vigil on the sea. A 12-year-old student of a government school was allegedly gangraped by the principal and three teachers in Jehanabad, police said on Monday. Principal of Kako Secondary School, Aju Ahmed, and three teachers -- Atul Rahman, Abdul Bari and Md Shakaut allegedly raped the girl on Sunday when she was alone in the building, sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) PK Srivastava said. The accused took her to the roof of the school building and committed the crime, the SDPO said, quoting an FIR registered against the four based on a complaint filed by the girls mother. The victim was spotted by her mother, also a teacher in the same school, lying in a dishevelled state on the roof. The girl then narrated the incident to her, the SDPO said. The accused are at large and searches are being conducted to nab them, he said. Sunday, routinely a holiday, had been declared a working day in the school in a verbal communication by the principal who had instead ordered it to be closed on Friday, Srivastava said. DEAR ABBY: I am a 58-year-old female. My mother passed away in my home almost exactly a year ago. I took care of her for the last three years of her life. After she died, my brother and his wife came to my home at 1:30 p.m. The funeral home didn't arrive to pick her up until 8:30 that night. Later that evening, after my mom was gone and my brother and his wife left, my daughter came to me and announced that my sister-in-law had secretly taken pictures of Mom in the body bag on the stretcher as she was being wheeled out of my home. She didn't know that my daughter had seen her. I am furious, horrified and hurt beyond description! My mother always liked to look nice and made a special effort to look good for a picture. The coroner had told me to go into another room when they were taking her because he said I wouldn't want that as my last memory of her. I have never said anything to my sister-in-law, but I can't seem to let this go. It's killing me. Am I overreacting? Please, I need your advice. -- MISSING MOM DEAR MISSING MOM: I am truly sorry for your loss, but you may be overreacting. Not everyone grieves in the same way, and similarly, not everyone feels the same way about taking pictures of deceased loved ones. During Victorian times the practice was quite common. I don't know why your sister-in-law felt compelled to take the photos, but it could have been a gesture of love and respect. If you want to know why she did it, you should calmly ask her and let her explain. DEAR ABBY: I have been seeing my boyfriend for about a year. He's three years younger than I am, which hasn't been an issue for us. However, recently, because of work scheduling, I have been waiting at his house until he comes home and spending more time with his father. I am extremely ashamed that I have developed feelings for his dad. His dad has a girlfriend. I am aware this is inappropriate, but I am not sure how to handle this. -- ANONYMOUS IN ILLINOIS DEAR ANONYMOUS: The way to "handle it" is to accept that your boyfriend's father has a girlfriend and is probably not looking for anything extracurricular. And further, if anything should develop, recognize that it would not only devastate your boyfriend, but would also probably destroy his relationship with his father. DEAR READERS: In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we remember today: "To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough, and morality enough, to cut off the chain of hate." DEAR ABBY: My wife and I have been married for 50 years. We were both raised in a conservative religion, but haven't attended Sunday services in a long time. I have become more liberal than my wife over the years, and I recently attended a service at a liberal, internationally recognized church. I felt I belonged immediately. I had never before felt so happy to be with like-minded worshippers. My wife had huge issues with it, and the next time I wanted to attend, she got very upset. There was an iciness around the house for three days after I went. That was a month ago, and I haven't gone again. I resent my wife's resistance. This coming Sunday, I plan to tell her I'll be "going out" and will be back in a couple of hours. No doubt she'll know I'm at church, and I'll pay the price with her cold attitude or tears. Does she have a right to tell me I can't attend a particular church? -- MOVED BY THE SPIRIT DEAR MOVED: No, she does not! In light of the fact that you haven't attended church together in years, she should be happy for you. DEAR ABBY: My sister and her family recently moved out of state after having lived near our family all her life. Mom and I want to visit her this year, but she likely won't have enough room for us in the house because she has three kids and only three bedrooms. She does have a sofa bed and an air mattress, but neither my mother nor I want to sleep on them. Both of us suffer from back and knee problems and don't want to be uncomfortable. Would it be rude if we stayed at a hotel? We have never stayed with her family before, so we're not sure if they would be upset. What is the proper etiquette here? -- PUZZLED GUEST DEAR PUZZLED: Call your sister around the time you're planning to visit, and tell her how much you both are looking forward to seeing her. Then ask if there are any hotels or motels nearby, making sure to explain that you and your mother plan to stay in one because your physical problems prevent either of you from sleeping comfortably on a sofa bed or an air mattress. To do that is not insulting, and it may take the pressure of "entertaining" off your sister's shoulders, because with three children, I'm sure she's plenty busy. DEAR ABBY: I had a relationship with a man who was introduced by a family friend. Our relationship lasted a month before he ended it without giving me a reason. I went on with my life. A year later, he sent me a message asking how I was and what was happening in my life. I was caught by surprise because I thought he had forgotten about me. I replied casually, and the conversation continues. He knows about my plans to work abroad. He says he supports them and would like to send money to help me start, but he wants to keep it a secret and asked me to promise not to tell anybody. Is it OK to accept his offer? -- TEMPTED IN THE PHILIPPINES DEAR TEMPTED: I vote no. Unless you fully understand why your benefactor wants to keep his generosity hush-hush, I don't think you should accept. Keep your guard up and the relationship casual until you know a lot more about him -- like whether the man is married, because I'm wondering if he may be. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. DEAR ABBY: I have read letters in your column with suggestions for how to be a good wife, daughter-in-law, etc. Would you please give me some suggestions for how to be a good former wife? I know things like not attacking the present wife, but when we are at family functions, what am I required to do? -- EX-WIFE ETIQUETTE DEAR EX-WIFE: Good manners dictate that you act like a lady. Not all divorces are friendly, but if you exhibit hostility, it will make everyone at the gathering uncomfortable. Give a pleasant greeting when you see your ex. If relations are cordial, make conversation. If not, then occupy yourself with other family members. And when the party is over, say a pleasant goodbye. I think that about covers it. DEAR ABBY: Now that I'm older, I often find it hard to remember all the names and amounts of my prescriptions when I visit my various doctors. To help myself, I now carry in my wallet a small copy of a spreadsheet listing all my medication information. That way, I can give accurate details to the physician. I'd like to pass my solution on to other readers who may have the same need to be precise and up-to-date when visiting the doctor. -- IN GOOD HEALTH IN AUSTIN DEAR IN GOOD HEALTH: That's a suggestion worth sharing. And while you are at it, you should also list for your doctor any vitamins, supplements and over-the-counter meds you take on a regular basis. This information can also be stored in your smartphone, if you have one. DEAR ABBY: If you go to a party and bring something (chips, soda, etc.), what is the rule of etiquette about taking it home when you leave? -- PRACTICAL IN IDAHO DEAR PRACTICAL: When someone brings food to a party, it could be considered a host/hostess gift. Before taking any of it home, first ask your host or hostess if it would be all right. While some people wouldn't mind, others may, so you shouldn't assume that because you brought something that the leftovers are yours. DEAR ABBY: My son's girlfriend of five years and her 8-year-old daughter have been living with my son for the last four years. She has recently started introducing my husband and me as her daughter's "grandparents." Tonight she asked for details about my father so her daughter could include them in a paper she is writing about her "family." The daughter's father and his current wife had twins recently, and I understand from her mother that she is somewhat jealous. I feel uncomfortable with this new description of our relationship, although I don't want to hurt the girl. Should I say something to my son's girlfriend or my son? -- FAMILY DETAILS IN CALIFORNIA DEAR FAMILY DETAILS: The word from here is: Keep your lips zipped! If you object, it will cause only hard feelings. You say your son and his girlfriend have been living together for four years. If they should have a child together, do you plan to treat that child differently? Face it, you ARE in the role of a grandparent. My advice is to accept it graciously and act accordingly. DEAR ABBY: I'm an 18-year-old girl and on my way to Navy boot camp. I'm excited about my enlistment, but I have a few troubling distractions. The first is my mother, "Dana." I moved in with my dad a year and a half ago, and it has been an amazing, positive change. But any contact I have with Dana or my grandmother screws me up majorly. I become mopey, have a bad attitude, and I'm just an all-around bad person to be around. This upsets my dad and my stepmom, "Ashley," whom I consider to be my true mom, because it affects them and my three sisters. They say I need to forgive and let go, since obviously I won't get an apology from Dana for how she raised and treated me. What I need is advice on how to forgive and remove her from my life without hurting her feelings or making it worse at home. -- ON MY WAY TO BOOT CAMP DEAR ON YOUR WAY: It isn't necessary to forgive a toxic parent. What you need to do is distance yourself from her, which will happen soon as you depart for boot camp. If being around Dana depresses you, see her as little as possible and don't feel guilty about it. Do not demand or expect an apology from her and don't offer one, because separating oneself from someone who mistreated you is healthy. DEAR ABBY: I'm 57 and have been married for 25 years. My husband has retired and is ready for me to do the same. I enjoy my work, and I am delaying my retirement because he wants to move to another state. Abby, all I can think about is how I will be forced to start all over with a new church, new doctors, new friends, etc. That's incredibly stressful for me, and I don't want to do it. It takes me a while to warm up to people, and I don't do it easily. To me, it would not be an exciting adventure. I have told him I don't want to do this and why. He responds that if I want to visit my friends I can always "hop on a plane." He said he's tired of the cold and wants to move. All I can think about is having to sell our home, buy another one, learn a new area, make friends, find a new church. I have all of that here. Maybe he should be a snowbird? -- DON'T WANT TO START ANEW DEAR DON'T WANT: If you and your husband can afford two places, perhaps you should both be snowbirds. It couldn't hurt to rent a place for a few months to see what life would be like in a new community. That's what I recommend to readers who contemplate making a drastic change -- such as relocation -- in their lives. If you do that, you might find that the "natives" are friendly and the community is congenial. However, if that's not the case, it could help you to avoid making a costly mistake. DEAR ABBY: My daughter has been divorced less than a year and is dating again. (She's the one who left the marriage.) However, she keeps many pictures of her ex-husband on her Facebook page. She says he was a big part of her life, and she refuses to take them down. She thinks if a guy can't accept it, then he isn't the right guy. Do you agree that she's sending the wrong message? -- TAKE THE PHOTOS DOWN DEAR TAKE: Personally, I do. A picture is worth a thousand words, and what it shows those who see hers is that she hasn't emotionally let go of her ex-husband. However, if men date her after looking at her Facebook page and seeing his pictures posted there, it's working for her, and I can't offer a criticism. Because you can't stop her, I suggest you accept it. DEAR ABBY: It's that time of year when you print your gift ideas for seniors column. When my dad was alive, he, like many others, was on a fixed income. Among his pleasures was watching ballgames and keeping up with current events. So I contacted his cable company and arranged to pay his cable bill for a period of time as a gift. This can be arranged for any increment of time to match the gifter's budget -- from one month to a year. It allowed Dad to enjoy his TV and have some extra spending money that would otherwise have gone to paying the cable bill. -- ROSEMARY IN PENNSYLVANIA DEAR ROSEMARY: You are a good daughter. Thanks for sharing your idea. It's a thoughtful one, and I'm sure my readers will thank you for the suggestion. DEAR ABBY: You missed the mark in your answer to "Mother Doesn't Know Best" (July 7), whose 8-year-old stepson arrives for visits in old, ill-fitting clothing, even though the father purchases new clothes for him on every visit. I live in Ohio, and the state considers housing, food, electricity, gas and running water as part of the makeup of child support. I know this firsthand. You also need to know if the mother is working and if she contributes to her son's support. What about other expenses (toys, haircuts, uniforms, etc.)? Part of the problem may be that Stepmom and Dad live across the country and aren't there to see what exactly goes on day to day. Yes, the little boy shouldn't be showing up at their home in clothes that are too small, but even Stepmom said he was putting on weight. -- MITZI IN DAYTON, OHIO DEAR MITZI: Your points are well taken. However, the majority of the feedback I received about that letter pointed out that children arriving in old clothes for visits with their dads is a popular ploy that some custodial mothers use in order to get new clothes, and some even return the clothes for cash. Read on: DEAR ABBY: I had a divorced girlfriend I had confided in about this same problem. She said, "Don't you know? We always send the kids to their dad's in their worst clothing. That way, they'll have to buy them new stuff during the visit." You can't assume that because a child arrives in worn or ill-fitting clothes that the custodial parent is unfit or that the child doesn't have lots of better clothing at home. -- MRS. D. IN VIRGINIA DEAR ABBY: Please suggest that when Stepmom and Dad buy clothes for his son, they mark the labels with the boy's initials. The mom may be returning the items for cash and buying something she wanted for herself. -- MOM WHO KNOWS DEAR ABBY: I am writing this as I sit in a hospital at my daughter's bedside. When staff comes into her room, she asks them to wash their hands in front of her before putting on their gloves. Several doctors took offense at this. We even posted a note on the door, asking the staff to wash up inside the room. Were we wrong? She doesn't want to increase her risk of infection. I would think that a patient worried about proper hygiene would not be sneered at by the people trying to get her healthy. -- TRYING TO STAY HEALTHY DEAR TRYING TO STAY HEALTHY: Bravo to you for speaking up! According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital-acquired infections have cost the hospital industry $30 billion and resulted in 100,000 patient deaths. A 2013 New York Times article reported that unless pushed to do so, hospital workers wash their hands only as little as 30 percent of the time they interact with patients. The problem is so widespread that some hospitals must monitor workers via video cameras or have them wear electronic badges to "encourage" compliance, while others have resorted to "bribing" workers to do the right thing. You were not wrong to ask staffers at your daughter's hospital to wash their hands. Nobody should feel reluctant to ask for something that is standard procedure. Because many patients in hospitals and care facilities feel vulnerable and dependent, they fear that staff will "dislike" them if they ask for too much. For patients to request handwashing is not only in their best interest, but also the hospital's. Too often, change doesn't happen in the medical profession until patients speak up and advocate for their own well-being. You would not have been "sneered at" if your request hadn't made those individuals feel defensive. Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069 The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a 22-year-old Mumbai woman to terminate a 24-week pregnancy after doctors said the foetus was malformed and also posed a risk to the mothers life, an order that relaxes a 20-week legal ceiling on abortion. The court had on January 11 asked Mumbais KEM Hospital to examine the petitioner whose advocate said the woman should be allowed to abort the foetus that was diagnosed with anencephaly. Anencephaly is a congenital defect in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull. A bench of justice SA Bobde and justice L Nageswara Rao allowed the abortion taking into account the report of KEM hospital medical board that said the foetus would not survive without the skull. In the interest of justice, particularly right of the petitioner to preserve her life by letting her undergo pregnancy, we direct termination to be performed by the hospital that gave the report, the bench said. The panel that examined the petitioner found her coherent and of average intelligence and her husband supported her, the court was informed. The woman learnt about the deformed foetus last year. Her request for an abortion on December 20 was denied by doctors in Mumbai on the grounds that the pregnancy had crossed 20 weeks. The pregnancy termination law allows a woman to abort but only after doctors confirm it is necessary to save the mothers life. It, however, is silent on a remedy in case of an abnormal foetus. Calling the 20-week ceiling unreasonable, the woman told the court that foetal abnormality in many cases can only be done after the 20th week. The ceiling of 20 weeks is therefore arbitrary, harsh and discriminatory and violative of Articles 14 (right to equality) and 21 (right to life) of the Constitution, the petitioner said. The court had in July allowed another Mumbai woman to terminate her pregnancy after the foetus was diagnosed with the same condition. Internationally, a woman can seek an abortion of abnormal foetus. However, each country has its own limit, which in most cases is more than 20 weeks. Switzerland, Great Britain and the Netherlands are the only countries to not have such a ceiling. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON WhatsApps privacy policy has come under the scanner of the Supreme Court, which sought on Monday a response from the Centre, TRAI, Facebook Inc and its Indian subsidiary on a plea challenging the messaging service providers decision to share 160 million Indian users data with Facebook. Initially reluctant to issue a notice, a bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar asked attorney general Mukul Rohatgi to assist the court. If you do not want it (services), walk out of it. You cannot say that you want it and then also ask for privacy, the bench told senior counsel Harish Salve, who on behalf of the petitioners two students contended that Facebook and WhatsApp must be treated on par with telecom service providers. Their (telecom service providers) licence can be terminated if they snoop on users personal data, Salve told the bench. However, the bench was of the view that WhatsApp was a private and free service that no one was forced to join. The bench agreed to have a detailed hearing but only during the summer break in June. It also told Salve to be present to argue the case. The petition, filed by Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, challenges the Delhi high courts 2016 decision that ordered WhatsApp to delete all data in its possession till September 25, 2016. However, the court permitted the messaging service provider to share the data with Facebook if the users subscribed to its policy post the cut-off date. Subscribers were free to withdraw if they were not keen on sharing their data. The judgment also asked the Centre and TRAI to have a regulatory regime for message services. The petition said the HC ruling seriously impinged upon the privacy of users. WhatsApp was originally launched as an application in 2010. Millions of users signed up for the service that at the time of its launch in 2010 did not allow sharing of users data. However, after it was bought over by Facebook in 2014, the company announced sweeping changes in its privacy policy in August 2016. There is nothing more private, personal and confidential for any person than the private conversations and messages exchanged with their family, friends or other acquaintances and people in general, the petitioners submitted. The petition stated that besides Germany and UK, several European countries had taken proactive action restraining WhatsApp from sharing the data. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Supreme Court on Monday sought a comprehensive status report on the probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases being investigated by the SIT set up in 2014. A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice R. Banumathi sought the report as petitioner S Gurlad Singh Kahlon told the court that the Special Investigation Team has utterly failed in carrying out the probe. The Centre earlier told the court that further investigation was on in 21 out of the total of 221 cases. The court has adjourned the matter for next hearing on February 20. A Delhi Court had on December 21 last year granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in connection with 1984 anti-Sikh riots case on the condition that he would cooperate with the investigation agency and not leave country without permission. The Delhi High Court had earlier on November 4 last year rejected Kumars plea to change the judge hearing the case. Kumars case was transferred to the Patiala House Court by the High Court, which directed the district judge to video record the proceedings. Kumar has been accused of instigating a mob for killing two Sikhs - Sohan Singh and his son Avtar Singh - in Delhis Janakpuri area on November 1, 1984. Read| Special probe team to reopen 75 cases of 1984 anti-Sikh riots Three militants were killed on Monday in a gunfight with security forces in south Kashmir. An army spokesperson said that three AK rifles were recovered from the militants who were killed in Awoora village of Pahalgam in Anantnag district. Police sources said the three were local militants. Police said the gunfight erupted on Sunday evening after security forces received inputs about presence of militants in Awoora village. They launched a cordon and search operation which triggered an encounter with the militants. Locals said as soon as the news of the encounter spread, people from neighbouring villages tried to march towards the site triggering clashes with the security forces. On Sunday, security forces also arrested a suspected militant of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, believed to be an associate of slain LeT commander Abu Bakr in north Kashmirs Sopore region. Read| Lashkar-e-Taiba militant killed in encounter in Budgam Union Minister Babul Supriyos convoy on Monday was attacked by alleged activists of the Trinamool Congress while he was on an official visit to a thermal power station here but escaped unhurt. Supriyo, the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, told PTI that his convoy was attacked by alleged TMC activists when he was on an official visit to Durgapur Steel Thermal Power station in his Asansol constituency during the day. I am driving with Daughter & mumdad in the carHOW CAN the TMC goons get so close 2 me without Police Help? #shame pic.twitter.com/qcLAZ5efoo Babul Supriyo (@SuPriyoBabul) January 16, 2017 As my car was entering the venue, TMC activists shouted slogans and pelted my car with stones. They tried to break my car, he said. Supriyo alleged there was no response from the local police though a CISF senior official had informed them after seeing the huge gathering of aggressive TMC supporters at the gate. The CISF commander had requested local police for help but there was no response from the police, Supriyo alleged. District police officials did not elaborate on the incident but said they are looking into the matter. On January 4, over 100 Trinamool Congress workers had staged a protest outside the house of Supriyo in Kolkata demanding his arrest in the Rose Valley chit fund scam. If the Election Commissions verdict Monday on the protracted symbol war between the Samajwadi Party factions is being keenly awaited, the reasons are not far to seek. The EC verdict will not only have a strong bearing on the electoral prospects of the SPs Akhilesh Yadav group in particular, but will also trigger the process of reconfiguration of political forces in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The decision on the bicycle will also impact the poll prospects of rival parties including the BSP and the BJP. Chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidis decree in the case will impact the political scenario in the Hindi heartland state in more ways than one: Scenario 1: Bicycle gets frozen and both Samajwadi Party factions asked to pick new symbols Considered a safe and neutral option for the Election Commission, a ruling to such effect will massively damage the poll prospects of the SP group led by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and also take some sheen off the moralistic posturing of the Akhilesh Yadav faction. Read | Cycle to bicycle pump? Samajwadi Party fight throws many poll symbol options The Commission can ask the two factions either to choose new symbols, or to adopt one from the ECs list of free symbols. Alternately, the factions could tie up with other political outfits to borrow their existing symbols. The two factions can use the new or adopted symbols until such time that a final verdict on the bicycle is pronounced by the Commission. In such a scenario, there will be some confusion among voters of the two groups on the party symbol the reach of the electronic and social media notwithstanding. Mulayams faction is likely to suffer heavy losses in the poll battle, while the group led by his son might not perform as well as anticipated. Scenario 2: Akhilesh gets the bicycle This would be Akhileshs big reward and a heady culmination to the painfully bitter political battle he has fought against his father and uncle in for much of last year. Such a decision from the EC would establish his legal status as the SPs undisputed leader, while pushing the group led by his father into political oblivion. Such a decision will empower Akhilesh to approach the elections with greater verve and confidence and will provide to him an opportunity to negate the anti-incumbency factor. With the Congress and possibly the Rashtriya Lok Dal by his side, he could emerge leader of the third vertical in a poll contest with the BSP and the BJP being the other claimants to power. Click here for full coverage of Yadav family feud Scenario 3: Mulayam retains the official symbol Although considered unlikely, a possible decision by the EC in permitting the Mulayam faction to retain the bicycle could upset Akhileshs applecart and cause big confusion in the party rank and file. In such a scenario, the Akhilesh faction would still go to poll with a new party symbol, but his reputation as a winning horse might suffer partial damage. His support base among the party MPs, MLAs and MLCs could dwindle, while the party old guards including Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh would be emboldened to retrieve their position to the extent possible. Such a possibility is likely to cause confusion in the SPs support base amongst the Muslims. This would open up possibilities for rival parties such as the BSP and BJP to make political inroads. Read | If SP splits, will Mulayam or Akhilesh ride the cycle into UP polls? SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON On the morning of 15 February, a group of six will leave Boundul village on a long trek along a narrow path to cast their vote in Uttarakhands assembly elections. There is a reason they will make the journey together through dense forests. As the only adults left in an empty village at the bottom of a hill, they are each others sole defence against a growing list of threats to their daily life. Akele jayenge toh baagh kha jaayega (if I go alone, a leopard might attack me), says Buna Devi, one of Bounduls three remaining women. But nothing will stop her from casting her vote. We have to go. Voting is our right. Devi has cast her vote in all three assembly elections since the formation of Uttarakhand in 2000. Her reasons for voting increase with every term. Boundul is one of the 341 villages in Pauri district with just a handful of residents. There are 664 such villages in the Garhwal region. Worse, nearly 1,100 villages in Uttarakhand 88% of the state is hilly do not have a single person left. Migration from the hills is one of the biggest issues facing political parties in this election. Yet, its a problem they have no clue how to handle. Read | Uttarakhand polls less about issues, more about personalities and cult There are a number of reasons why these villages are emptying out. After the first batch of working-age people left for a better life in the plains, the remaining residents struggled to carry on with farming, their only source of income. Pine trees spread wild in the fallow farms, monkeys settled themselves on these trees and began to destroy whatever crop we managed to grow, says Birbal Singh, gram pradhan of Balori, a remote village in the foothills of Pauri. As Pine trees encroached further into the villages, so did the surrounding forests wildlife. Leopards, bears, wild boars, you name it, adds Singh. Waves of young people have left these villages over the years to work in cities. Dehradun, Haridwar, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Mumbai anywhere they can find a factory, says Basanti Devi, mother of two sons in Balori. One works in a factory canteen in Gurgaon. The other will follow soon. Most of us find work either in factories or restaurants, says Bipin Kumar, one of Baloris 12 residents below the age of 25. The worst thing about the migration from this part of Uttarakhand is that you will find our people doing the pettiest of jobs for the most meagre salaries because of the complete lack of option back home, said a district official in Pauri. Those remaining in these villages no longer have faith in governments, whether its Congress or BJP at the helm. Jahan haath chala jaayega, wahin vote lag jaayega, says 70-year-old Lalita Devi. Most people of her generation have followed their children to the cities. Read | Muslims may spell trouble for BJP in Uttarakhand election A hundred families lived in Balori in 1980. Most of their typically multi-storey wooden houses have crumbled to the ground. Giant locks hang from the colourful doors still standing. The villagers have tired of trying to seek government help. We need more time, says Mathura Dutt Joshi, the Congress spokesperson. The Congress took a number of steps to counter migration offer a bonus of Rs 500 for every quintal of produce to farmers in the hills, send doctors to remote medical centres, open industrial training units for the youth, create jobs in the forest sector. We could have done better had the BJP not disturbed the process by trying to topple the government. Reverse migration is the Congress motto for this election. Says Munna Singh Chauhan, BJP MP and spokesperson: We have several plans in mind launching small and micro enterprises in the hills, pushing tourism by building better roads and bridges, promoting organic farming, setting up plantations of apple, ginger etc. The leftover people in the hills have heard these promises before. Our lives dont change with change in governments, says Naveen Juyal, one of the three men left in Boundul. All of them support their families with occasional work under NREGA. Its too late for these men to leave the village looking for jobs. They hope their teenage children will take them along once they grow up and go out. Either that or when the animals take over. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Very soon, you could be put in jail and even slapped with a fine for buying a Hilsa that weighs less than 500 grams. Known across the world as the king of fish because of its unique taste, the Hilsa takes at least two years to attain that weight. With an average live expectancy of around four years, the fish may weigh up to 2.5 kilo. But these days you rarely see a Hilsa that big. And thats why, law is stepping in. The West Bengal Fisheries Department is planning to initiate a process that will introduce stiff penal provisions under CrPC and IPC and allow the police to arrest anyone for catching, selling and buying Hilsa weighing less than 500 grams. The proposal was floated at a recent meeting at the fisheries department. We will soon approach the state home department to start the process of bringing provisions under CrPc and IPC in this regard, said state fisheries minister Chandranath Sinha. If things go as planned, the Hilsa could become the first Indian fish to get legal protection, experts pointed out. At present, the fisheries department doesnt have the power to arrest or fine anyone for selling, catching and buying small Hilsa, commonly called khoka ilish in Bengal. But there are regulations. The government can confiscate a catch of fish and fishing net from a trader or fisherman. There is also a ban on catching Hilsa during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon season when the fish migrates to the Hooghly river from the sea for laying eggs. Tough legislation is necessary to conserve the hilsa population in the Hooghly River. The dwindling population has also pushed the price of a Hilsa weighing above a kilo to around `1,500. A big Hilsa is beyond the reach of the middle-class, said Utpal Bhowmik an expert on Hilsa and a former scientist at the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The state capitals heritage watch tower Satkhanda, a nawabi era structure in the Old City, is all set to don a new and refurbished look, , as its custodian Hussainabad and Allied Trust is planning to transform the red brick structure into a major attraction in the city of nawabs. HAT officials said the trust had several ambitious plans to highlight the 18 Century edifice, which was among one of the lesser known monuments dotted across the city. Satkhanda is an altogether different monument, so for this we have plans other than those for the Bada Imambara, Rumi Darwaza and the Clock Tower, said a HAT official. Read more: Tourists will not get to hear Lucknows history in Om Puris voice He said Satkhanda would not be the same after face lift. It will be heavily illuminated to highlight the structure at night. Besides, the surrounding area is being developed as a green belt, to give the visitors a pleasant look and feel, said Nasir Naqvi, HAT officer on special duty. Naqvi said the plastering and strengthening work had been completed and now the constructing agencies were engaged in beautifying the whole structure. In addition, the agencies are also installing sound kiosks and glass windscreen atop the structure. The sound kiosks would narrate stories of old Lucknow while the glass shade would ensure safety to the tourists and give a different look to the structure, he added. Read more: In pics| Lucknows HERITAGE in new light Will corruption emerge as a major poll issue in Uttar Pradesh this time? Despite rhetoric created around issues such as corruption and development in the past, virtually every election has finally boiled down to primordial sentiments of caste and community. However, this year indications of a break from the tradition writ large. Corruption may become an important election issue, albeit in the garb of demonetisation with the BJP and the opposition leaving no stone unturned to corner each other on the issue. While the BJP has declared demonetisation as a fight against corruption and labelled opponents as worshippers of black money, the opposition has held note ban responsible for economic slowdown and layoffs and has highlighted the hardships faced by the common man due to the whimsical decision. It will be clear to the people soon that demonetisation in itself is the centurys biggest scam which was implemented to benefit certain prominent industrial houses close to Modi, RLD state president Masood Ahmad said. Addressing the BJPs national executive in New Delhi last week, BJP president Amit Shah declared that the party sought to make demonetisation the main poll plank in the state assembly elections. Rahul Gandhis Talkatora stadium speech in New Delhi made it amply clear that the Congress would make note ban a core election issue. Former Prime Minister and Congress leader Manmohan Singh termed demonetisation as organised loot while Rahul Gandhi during his recent rallies in UP even levelled personal charges against Modi. Though the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is not contesting UP polls, its leader Arvind Kejariwal, who has often called note ban a financial fraud, has announced he would campaign against the BJP in UP. The two principal parties -- the SP and the BSP -- have made their stance against the move clear from the word go. Read more: Gift me UP, Mayawati tells cadre on her 61st birthday In fact, the BJP is upbeat over its success in the by-elections in some states and local body polls in Maharashtra and Haryana even though the elections were held amidst the hullabaloo over note ban. The party feels it enjoys the public support since people feel demonetisation will combat corruption and curb black money. Making demonetisation the cornerstone of election and billing it as a fight against corruption suits the BJP. More so in UP for the simple reason that the two main parties, the BSP and the SP, which have cried hoarse over it have faced serious corruption charges from time to time. Public perception does not favour them when it comes to the issue of corruption, points out SK Sharma, professor of political science in Meerut University. Probably, this explains why the Prime Minister, while addressing a rally in Lucknow on January 2, taunted the BSP and the SP for being on the same page on the issue of note ban despite being arch-enemies. Sharma claimed that the BSPs political graph that was going up before November 8 started falling as Mayawatis vitriolic attack on demonetisation grew both in and outside the Parliament. This, somehow, sent a wrong message to the poor who believe that black money holders will lose and they will gain because of the crackdown through demonetisation. The BJP knows this and will make corruption a big issue in the UP election, he said. Sharma also cautions that to consider demonetisation as a purely economic decision would be a blunder. The note ban decision has to do with politics as well. The BJP has cleverly touted this decision as a fight against corruption because corruption is an issue that affects all irrespective of caste and community. The BJP wants to exploit the anti-corruption sentiments of the people to its advantage, he said. Read more: Parties set up war rooms, get ready for battle of ballots According to Nand Lal Rajhar, a treasurer with Nav Chetana Producers Ltd, which works with farmers in Ghazipur, People are fed up with corruption and see the ban as a tool to combat the evil. They have welcomed the decision despite some initial hardships. It will be interesting to observe how voters react to the issue during the upcoming polls in the countrys biggest state. I-T gears up for first elections post demonetisation The income tax (I-T) department has set up a 24x7 toll free helpline - 1800-180-6555 - to help people report movement of black cash during the seven phased Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections. The move is important given the renewed focus on black money post demonetisation. Since November 8 midnight, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the currency ban, the I-T, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the police have seized crores of unaccounted wealth. This is the first election where all the candidates would be required to open a separate bank account and conduct all poll-related transactions through it to ensure transparency in political funding and spending. The account number would have to be mentioned at the time of filing nominations. Read more: Ahead of UP elections, police seize 65 litres of liquor in Varanasi; 8 arrested Demonetisation is likely to impact UP polls as experts expect the move to pull Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency out of circulation just ahead of elections would affect election spending. Though currency ban would affect the usual splurge candidates indulged in before the polls it would be unrealistic to expect that the black money would be completely wiped out. So there is no way we could let down our guard, an income tax official said. Unaccounted cash or black money have always played a role in elections with candidates often accused of luring voters through cash. The Election Commission would also deploy expenditure observers to check black money. These expenditure observers would also be from I-T. The Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) are also being geared up to keep an eye on fund movement. The tax officials are also readying their air intelligence and surveillance units to detect flow of unaccounted wealth. I-T sleuths would also keep a watch on cash movement through train at railway stations. I-T sleuths have also sought assistance from the Railway Protection Force (RPF) in reporting unaccounted cash. Tax officials have also released an e-mail (nodaleec.itax-up@gov.in) and a fax number (2209525) to report any suspicious cash movement. Read more: No mention of sports in manifestos of political parties shows their priorities: Milkha Singh SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Nagpada police have booked two minors and an adult for flinging acid on a 14-year-old boy after he refused to give them Rs100. The incident took place inside the parking lot of Orchid Enclave on Belasis Road in Nagpada around 8pm on Saturday. According to the police officials, the victim was immediately admitted at JJ Hospital while the three accused which includes one adult and two minors were arrested later. The 18-year-old accused has been identified as Jiyad Siddique who was remanded to police custody while the other two were sent to a remand house. An officer from Nagpada police station said, The victim was originally a resident of Malad and would come to Nagpada on weekends as one of his aunts stays there. He was familiar with the other two minors would give them money on a regular basis. On Sunday, the three accused took the victim to the parking lot of the building and asked him to give them Rs100 but when he refused to do so, they threw acid on him and fled the spot. Locals took the victim to JJ Hospital, who then informed the Nagpada police. A case was registered under section 307 (attempt to murder), 326 A (acid attack) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. The police recorded the victims statement and based on his descriptions, sent a team to arrest the three accused. The victim sustained injuries on his right ear, chest and right hand. We have learnt that the three accused would constantly demand money from the victim and when he refused, they threw acid on him, added an officer. Similar incidents May 2013 Preeti Rathi was attacked with acid outside Bandra terminus following which succumbed to her injuries within a month. Later, as the GRP officials failed to nab the accused, a special team was formed following which accused Ankur Panwar was arrested. October 2013 A 24-year-old man was attacked with acid by an unidentified accused while he was asleep in Mulund. The police said that the victim has been identified as Rahul Deepak Jinval and worked as a bouncer in certain events. The accused had arrived at his resident in the BMC colony in Mulund around 9 am after which the accused threw acid on Jinval face and fled the spot. Also read: Lover attacks widow with acid in West Bengal SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The change of leadership at the Tatas, the countrys largest conglomerate, was watched keenly by Parsi-Zoroastrians. Though the companies under the group are run as corporate entities, with public shareholdings and professional leadership, the 150-year-old business group, founded and run by Parsis, is considered a community institution. In many ways, the companies and the public trusts that control them have been part of Parsi society: the trusts have built housing colonies for Parsis, founded educational institutions where children from Parsi families study, set up fire temples, and funded charity organisations that help poorer members. Generations in families have worked at Tata companies, supplying blue collar labour at the automobile and steel factories, working as secretaries and clerks in the offices, and providing the leadership at many of the companies that form the group. Most families hold some shares in a Tata company, or have invested their savings in a term deposit account in a firm. When the conglomerate announced last week that the group will be headed by a non-Parsi specifically, a Tamil speaker - community forums were humming with comments on the change of leadership. Many comments were witty, a few downright racist. Some commentators wondered whether Western Classical Music at the National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai an institution funded by Tata philanthropy would be replaced by Carnatic Classical Music. Others wanted to know if the egg-chicken-fish menu at Ratan Tata Institute another example of Tata benevolence - will be replaced by south Indian breakfast fare. There were questions whether the de rigueur suits in the boardrooms would be replaced by dhotis and bush shirts. Some joked whether Bombay House the headquarters of the group will be renamed. At the end of the day, the Bawas (a term used to describe them) enjoy a good laugh. When I read Bawa groups on Whatsapp there was a lot of funny conversation. This kind of light humour, not being serious about anything, it is a Parsi thing, said Kersi Randeria, Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustee and owner of the weekly Parsi Times. There were some serious debates too. An online forum called Zoroastrians.net conducted an online poll to find out the opinion. About 1,200 took part in the survey; three out of every four wanted a Parsi CEO at Bombay House. Three did not want another Parsi at the helm; the rest were fine with a change of leadership. Randeria said when the boardroom battle began at the Tatas with the ouster of Cyrus Mistry, scion of a Parsi business dynasty, there were hopes that another Parsi would succeed him. Once people realised that this is not going to work out, they felt that the interest of the (business) group is more important, and not whether it is headed by a Parsi or a non-Parsi, said Randeria. Noshir Dadrawala, a BPP trustee and chief executive of Centre for Advancement of Philanthropy, said, Much as a Parsi I would have liked to see a Parsi at the helm, but there was a dearth of leadership at the Tatas. If there was a good and competent Parsi who had been bypassed for the post I would have felt that this was some kind of reverse discrimination, said Dadrawala. The old (Parsi) war horses are all gone. One has to look at it in a balanced way. Once just hopes that the Tata banner flies high. When the uncertainty ended last week, people dealt with it in their own ways. There were no serious (Parsi) contenders for the post. At the end of the day, if somebody is needed to run the group it has to be a capable person, not a Parsi, said Randeria. I have not seen any bitterness. To the credit of the Parsis, they have been fair. Yazdi Tantra, a businessman and banker who did the poll, said there was disappointment when the new leader was announced. Some comments (in the social forums) were in bad taste, he said. Read A driven veteran Chandrasekaran signals continuity for Tata group Shining star: Why is N Chandrasekaran best suited to lead Tata Sons The Congress announced on Monday that it would tie up with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for the legislative council elections being held for five seats. However, the decision to team up for the municipal corporations and district councils is unlikely to be taken for most of the districts. The partys Mumbai unit launched its campaign against the two-decade-old rule of the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the citys civic body. After a meeting of the Congress senior leaders at the party headquarters in Dadar, state unit chief Ashok Chavan said his party will fight the legislative council elections from Amravati, Nashik and Nagpur from the graduate and teachers constituency. It will support the NCP in Aurangabad from the teachers constituency. Both parties have decided to support Peasants and Workers Partys (PWPs) candidate in the Konkan teachers constituency for the elections held on February 3. The party is holding talks with Jogendra Kawade-led Peoples Republican Party and may concede few seats in Dalit-dominated pockets. Chavan alleged that the AIMIM works a BJP-mandated contract, and hence, his party would not even think of an alliance with it. Party members said they will stage protests against demonetisation in the state as part of the Congress national strategy. Senior party leader Sushilkumar Shinde said the party would hold a gherao in front of the Reserve Bank of Indias office in Mumbai and Nagpur on January 18. The party will also stage a massive rally in Mumbai on January 29. He said the Union government was responsible for taking away the central banks autonomy. The Mumbai Congress launched a campaign to highlight the corrupt rule of the Shiv Sena-BJP. Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam said the party would resort to traditional and modern mediums to expose the ruling parties corruption. Noted theatre personality Mandar Shinde will direct about 150 plays, which will speak about the road and desilting scam, the hardships faced by the common man owing to demonetisation and Shiv Senas campaign Did You Know, Nirupam said. We also are launching a comprehensive campaign on social media, besides advertisements in print and on billboards, he said. The party has announced a slew of freebies for voters if elected to the civic body. This includes the free water supply, cut in property tax, pothole-free roads and a waste-free city. Read Congress to gherao four RBI offices on Jan 18 against note ban Can underdog Congress get its act together? In the early and mid-1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Gopinath Munde had launched an aggressive campaign against criminalisation of politics in Maharashtra. Post-liberalisation, real estate in Mumbai and surrounding areas started becoming a lucrative business. It also led to emergence of several strongmen in these areas. Faced by opposition parties such as the Shiv Sena and the BJP that were becoming stronger, the Congress then fielded several strongmen such as Pappu Kalani in Ulhasnagar and Hitendra Thakur in Vasai who called the shots in their areas. The Congress led by chief minister Sharad Pawar managed to retain power in the 1990 assembly elections and some of these strongmen entered the legislature. Most of these strongmen had serious criminal cases against them. A shrewd Munde picked this opportunity and ran a campaign accusing Pawar and the Congress of criminalising politics. He made a series of allegations against Pawar and even accused him of links with the underworld. This campaign made a dent in Pawars popularity in the state. It also led to the urban middle class in Maharashtra looking at the Congress with suspicion. The events that unfolded in the next few years, including the communal riots and the 1993 terror attack, further damaged the Congress leading to its defeat in 1995 and the coming to power of the first Shiv Sena-BJP government. Two decades later, things seem to be changing. The BJP is in power and in a bid to win the civic polls, it is inducting controversial people who can help it defeat the rival parties. A few days ago in Pune, it inducted Vithal Shelar who has several criminal cases against him. In Thane, it is now welcoming Sudhakar Chavan who was one of the first politicians to be arrested under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act in 1992. There are reports that the party is talking to Pappu Kalanis son Omi for improving its chances in Ulhasnagar. Papu Kalanis wife Jyoti is currently the NCP MLA from Ulhasnagar. There were media reports about some other people with criminal background joining the BJP, one or two of them even in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis who later distanced himself from those elements. Earlier, the BJP also inducted former Maharashtra Navnirman Sena legislator Pravin Darekar who was in the dock for irregularities in the Mumbai District Central Cooperative Bank. So why is the BJP, which always took pride in being a party with a difference, allowing such controversial persons to the join its fold and give a chance to rivals to criticise it? Why do Fadnavis and his party need such people to win elections, given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is popular and the chief minister himself compares well with the states politicians? According to party insiders, there are several reasons behind this. First, the local political calculations: Either these people can influence voting in certain areas or they will be needed to counter rival parties that have numerical strength in that area. For the BJP, the elections to 10 municipal corporations and 25 district councils (ZP) are crucial. Since about 80% of the population will be voting in these elections, they are being called mini-assembly polls. The party knows that the opposition Congress and NCP will get a launch-pad to bounce back in the 2019 assembly polls if they a majority of the local bodies. As such Fadnavis and his party dont want to take any chances. The BJP is also preparing for the next assembly elections. It suspects that the 2019 elections will probably be contested in the absence of any wave. As such, there are chances that each seat will be fiercely contested. Then such strongmen could come in handy whether it is about showing strength on the ground or managing resources. Speaking at the meeting of partys state executive in Thane last Thursday, Fadnavis told his colleagues that the BJP needed to be expanded and different types of people will have to be accommodated. As the party aims for expansion and retaining power in the state, its stand on criminalisation of politics may take a backseat. A small price to pay when you aim for higher rewards in politics Read BJP welcomes another alleged criminal in Pune Mumbai: BJP leader Pravin Darekar booked in bank scam SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Almost 24 hours have passed after a Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) bus caught fire, but the administration is yet to find out what led to the gas leakage that caused the mishap. On Sunday, a bus following route number 396 (between Mulund and Andheri) had caught fire near Chakala Church around 1.50pm. There were pasengers in the vehicle who were asked to vacate the bus by the driver after he heard a loud noise from the engine, according to reports. The incident could have jeopardised passenger safety. In fact, it has raised concerns over the safety of about 30lakh passengers who travel by the buses daily. The deteriorating condition of the vehicles is becoming a regular complaint by the passengers. According to the BEST officials, prima facie the fire occured because of a gas leak but the administration is still investigating the defective spare part. The bus got so charred that it was difficult to find the affected spare part. Our officials are still investigating and the reason for fire will be finalised by evening, confirmed a senior BEST official, who did not wish to be named. READ MORE Fewer buses lead to longer commuter queues: BEST panel members SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Maratha march slated to be held in Mumbai on January 31 has been postponed to March 6, amid differences among its leaders over the anticipated response to the protest. The march will now be held on the first day of the state legislatures budget session. The organisers said they will hold statewide road blockades seeking that the communitys pending demands be addressed. The Marathas were divided over the announcement of January 31 march. The differences among the organisers were evident during a meeting held at Wadala on Sunday to chalk out the communitys strategy. During the six-hour meeting, representatives of various Maratha organisations from various districts said it was difficult to organise the rally on the scheduled date. They also expressed apprehension over the dismal response similar to the response to the Nagpur rally held in December owing to the poll code of conduct. Organisers said those affiliated to various political parties would not be able to participate as they would be busy preparing for the civic polls. The district representatives said it would be difficult to mobilise resources for the march, which was expected to be the largest of the protests held so far. Owing to the code of conduct, it would be impossible for the government to make a firm commitment to the rally, which could lead to its failure. The recent Supreme Court order about not soliciting votes in the name of religion and caste also could pose a difficulty for some participants, said representatives. We discussed various difficulties in holding the rally on January 31. Almost all the districts insisted on the date being postponed. The decision to postpone the rally was taken unanimously. The route and the timings will be decided over the next few days, said Narendra Patil, MLA and a Maratha leader. Mansing Pawar, one of the key organisers of protest rallies, said the decision was taken after much deliberation. When local volunteers brought practical difficulties to our notice, we decided to postpone the rally. We will now be able to put up a huge show in Mumbai, he said. To keep the momentum going, the organisers will hold road blockades in every district. Read Maratha protest march in Mumbai on January 31 Are Maratha protests in Maharashtra losing steam? The Bombay high court on Monday asked the Maharashtra government to explain the delay in deciding whether the benefits of its rehabilitation schemes meant for survivors of rape and child abuse can be applied with retrospective effect in certain deserving cases. A bench of justices Ranjit More and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi said the state had assured it several times during past hearings that it would look into expanding the scope of the Maharashtra Victim Compensation Scheme, 2014, but had failed to take any concrete steps. The bench also observed that during the last hearing on December 5 last year the state government had sought time, claiming that the proposal to suitably amend the scheme, so as to make it applicable retrospectively, was under consideration before the state cabinet. The state had also placed a letter from the home department on record, which affirmed this. However, on Monday, the state said the cabinet was yet to make a decision. It sought an extension, saying the concerned government official was unavailable. The bench then asked the government if it had made a false statement when it claimed that the proposal was pending the cabinets approval. Either you were making a false statement then, or you are doing so today. Please tell us what the reason for such inaction is, the bench said. The issue has been pending since 2014, owing to the states non-committal approach. The petitioners had sought that the scheme be applied retrospectively to aid survivors of rape, acid attacks or sexual abuse, who are poor and cannot afford medical treatment and counselling. Currently, those eligible under the scheme are given monetary compensation and are helped with legal aid, counselling, and rehabilitation. The high court scheduled the matter for hearing on Tuesday. Read: Preeti Rathis family to be paid Rs2 lakh as compensation SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Kherwadi police on Saturday night carried out a crackdown on young bikers race on the reclamation stretch in Bandra as well on the western express highway. These areas have witnessed several accidents, including fatal ones, in the past few years due to racing. According to the Kherwadi police, they put up a nakabandi at Dipakwadi near Gausia mosque on the northbound stretch of western express highway and on the Bandra reclamation to deter bikers from racing. Senior police inspector Rajendra Patil of Kherwadi police station said, Zonal deputy commissioner of police Virendra Mishra had ordered the crackdown and we have caught five bike riders for racing near the reclamation grounds. He added, They tried to escape when apprehended but we managed to nab all five of them. About 15 bikes were also seized. We have handed the case over to the Bandra police. Assistant police inspector Raghvendrasingh Kshirsagar of Kherwadi police station said that another five bikers were arrested for rash driving during the nakabandi. They were booked under appropriate sections of the IPC and later released on bail. Also read: Bike race claims 11-year-olds life The government will now be able to act against teachers and office staff of private unaided schools if they are caught taking bribes, after the school education department recently delegated powers to the director of primary education to prosecute private school staffers for graft. This effectively means the department can suspend, terminate the service or remove from office teachers, including principals and school heads, and non-teachers, following an inquiry into their conduct. Under the Prevention of Anti-Corruption Rules, 1988, section 19, the education department could take action only against employees of government-run and government-aided schools, whereas private school managements reserved the right to conduct inquiry and initiate action against their own staff. Revising these rules, the government has now allowed the education department to directly suspend or terminate the services of private school employees guilty of corruption. Through a government resolution (GR) issued last week, the department has changed the clauses published in its July 14, 2016 GR. The department can take action against the teaching and non-teaching staff in government recognised and government aided and unaided schools, reads the corrected clause. Previously, unaided schools were not included in it. Education activists, fighting for parents and teachers causes, are in favour of the changes, stating that graft is on the rise in schools donations are collected from parents during admissions, agents (usually school employees) guarantee seats or quick processing of papers for a fee and so on. Often the management tries to bury the evidence instead of taking action. Schools ask for donations from parents during admissions, said Jayant Jain, president of Forum for Fairness in Education, a non-government organisation (NGO) working to help parents. But the new rules have left private schools worried about government interference in school administration. They want the management to retain the right to prosecute its employees and not the government. Being privately-run institutes, we ought to retain the freedom to have our own rules for handling any complaints, including corruption charges, said Yogesh Patel, director, Swami Vivekananda International Group of Schools in Kandivli and Gorai. Managements fear that inquiries and actions taken by the government, against the employees convicted in graft cases, might get influenced by vested interests. They said such actions were unnecessary, considering that every institute has its own policy to handle such complaints. An internal inquiry is conducted into the incidents, which decides the course of action to be taken by the management, said principals. Every school handles it differently, said Father Francis Swamy, principal, St Marys School (ICSE), Mazgaon and joint-secretary of the Archdiocesan Board of Education, which runs 150-odd schools in Mumbai. It is a good idea only if this is being done as a step towards uniformity. Also read: Ban on privately held competitive exams for Maha school students SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As mangrove destruction continues unabated in Mumbai and along the Konkan coast with several cases piling up over the past two years, the Maharashtra Forest department is tying up with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to track the mangrove destruction through real-time satellite imagery, a first in India. Officials from the Mumbai Mangrove Conservation Unit told HT that over the next six months, real-time satellite maps for mangroves across Maharashtra will be acquired by the cell. After talks with scientists from ISRO last year, the cell received a proposal from the former in December 2016, wherein an open source software digital tracking through satellite maps acquisition were discussed. Monitoring the destruction of mangroves by physically entering the forests has its limitations, said N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forest, state mangrove cell. The idea is to track destructions as it happens through satellite images from the confines of a room, and reduce the time gap for taking action in such cases. Currently, Mumbai has a total of 5,800 hectares (ha) of mangrove cover 4,000 ha on government land and 1,800ha in private areas. While Navi Mumbai and the eastern end of Thane creek have a cover of 1,471ha, for the western bank of Thane creek, it is 1,500ha. The total mangrove cover in the state is 15,088 hectares, spread across Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri. Vasudevan added that currently the cell is in possession of maps from 2005, and fresh satellite maps for Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Raigad have already been developed by Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC). The remaining maps for Thane and Palghar are in the last stage. Once we acquire the new maps, we will tally it with the ones from 2005 and find out locations where there have been an increase in the cover or a decline, he said adding, Once this is done, we will use open source software from ISRO to check loss of mangrove cover on a real-time basis. The process of acquiring the maps and software will be completed in next six months. Real-time monitoring of mangroves will help keep a tab on the health of the trees, locations where more mangroves need to be planted and other issues such as tackling encroachment, illegal housing development and checking bird population. We will fund the project through the forest departments mangrove foundation and the cost of the project will go to the tune of Rs40 lakh approximately, said Vasudevan. Initially, we will be getting low resolution images and it would take a day or two to identify violations. However, over time, we will be acquiring better software to get high resolution images from ISRO. Even though several Bombay HC orders prohibit construction within wetlands, rampant destruction of mangroves continue. Noting a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Bombay Environment Action Group an NGO in Mumbai in 2005, the HC banned destruction of statewide mangroves and construction within 50m of them. After Vanashakti filed another PIL, the HC banned all reclamation and construction on wetlands in 2014. According to the Konkan divisional commissioners office, since 2014, there have been 500 complaints on the destruction of mangroves against unidentified persons in the Konkan regions, of which there has been an enquiry in 335 cases, which have been finalised. However, 165 cases are still pending and under enquiry. There have been FIRs in 40% cases but no convictions in the last two years, said Bhausaheb Dangade, Konkan deputy commissioner (revenue). SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON What Park Hills officials hoped was just a somewhat minor delay back in November has turned into more than two months and counting for the long-awaited and much-anticipated project to replace the St. Joe Drive bridge that spans the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Its very discouraging," Park Hills Economic Developer Norm Lucas said. City officials and Kozeny Wagner Construction, the projects contractor, are ready to begin the project but continue to be hampered by the railroad company. The Special Road District (the county board responsible for implementing the project) is chomping at the bit for them to get started, but the contractor cant do it until they have the right-of-entry document in hand, said Lucas. Kozeny Wagner is serious about getting to it, if they could just get the paperwork from U.P. that would allow them to get in there. The reason for the continued delay isnt clear. For whatever reason, they still have not issued the right-of-entry to the contractor, Lucas said. We think we dont know for sure but we think its all about them getting a crew down here to put in the derailment devices. Lucas said that before the contractor can begin demolition, Union Pacific crews first have to place derailment devices onto the tracks at specified distances on either side of the construction site. What they do is surround your project with oddball devices clamped to the track, he said late last year. So if some errant, empty (train) car somehow gains momentum going downhill towards your project, it would hit this derail device clamped to the track, which would cause it to overturn and not actually roll through your project. Railroad officials have not said when the devices will be in place and, according to Lucas, they are not obligated to inform the city when they will be installed. They keep telling us that as soon as the right-of-entry is issued to the contractor, the derails will be in place within 10 days and then the contractor can get in there and get to work. Theyve given verbal assurances that all the plans are good. They just havent issued (the permit). City officials had expected the demolition phase of the project to begin at the beginning of last November, but continue to wait for officials from Union Pacific Railroad to put the stamp of approval on the right-of-entry permit the contractor must have to be able to begin tearing down the bridge. Things went pretty swimmingly up until about November, said Lucas. I thought we were making very good progress on the project until that point. And here we are. Not an iota of progress on a project that really could have started November 1. They told us when the demolition plan was approved, it would be only 10 days until the right-of-entry (would be granted). Were still waiting. The contractor is ready and the road district has secured the loan proceeds to pay for the bridge. The contractors construction pylons, which will be used to close the road once the project begins, have been lined up off the roadway on both sides of the bridge since late October 2016. Once the contractor gets the go-ahead, detour signs will be placed at designated locations along the temporary routes around the construction. As Lucas mentioned previously, the detours will be fairly extensive because of the bridges location and the lack of roads connecting with St. Joe Drive within the vicinity of the project. Along with signs leading drivers around the construction site, detour maps are also available at Park Hills City Hall. Lucas said once the detour signs are in place, crews will first take measures to protect the railroad tracks from damage during the bridge demolition phase to follow. Once it finally begins, the entire project is expected to be completed within about five to six months. The (contractor) has a schedule in which they have not overlapped certain parts of the work which could overlap, said Lucas previously. Meaning that, if the weather allows them to work, they may actually be able to work on two things at once and shorten up the timeframe theyve given us. Planning for the project began in 2015 with the design stage completed back in January by BFA-Engineers, Surveyors & Consultants of Washington. The plans were then sent to Union Pacific corporate headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska for final approval. For a while, the way things seemed to be progressing indicated there was a chance to get the project completed by the first day of school in August. Certainly, as Lucas stated last year, the best time for the construction phase of the project to take place would have been during the summer. One of the major challenges of the project, simply because of the way the streets in Park Hills are laid out, is the lack of options when it comes to creating a practical detour during construction of the new bridge. A summer construction project would have reduced disruption for school buses and motorists who routinely travel along St. Joe Drive and over the bridge. According to Lucas, unexpected steps toward final approval for the project from Union Pacific temporarily stalled its progress around mid-summer. The railroad just has these hurdles and you just have to go at em, Lucas said last July. There are no short cuts. Working their way through the process, directors of the St. Francois County Special Road District #2, who are responsible for implementing the project, accepted a bid, as recommended by the BFA firms engineers, for a contractor to, as the next step, develop a bridge demolition plan. Followed, again, by up to a 30-day waiting period. Union Pacific representatives told Park Hills officials to expect them to take the full 30 days and maybe even a little longer to approve the demolition plan. Fortunately, the right-of-entry permit is the last bit of red tape from the railroad company. Once it has been granted, the project can begin in earnest. Lucas said the new bridge, once it is finally completed, will be concrete and will be wider than the existing span. Each lane will be widened by about two feet and one side of it will be outfitted with a walkway for pedestrians. Like the bridge in place now, the replacement structure will be two-lane. Lucas and members of the St. Francois County Special Road District #2 Board of Directors have stated they wish to minimize as much as possible any inconvenience the detour will cause, but also believe the residents of Park Hills and all who regularly travel across the bridge will be satisfied once it has been completed. Byculla zoo is the only one in India that has Humboldt penguins and sending them back will deprive Indians of the opportunity to see them, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) wrote in an affidavit to the Bombay high court. We have taken utmost care and precautions for providing a healthy and conducive environment for the seven imported Humboldt penguins and therefore there is no question of sending them back, the BMC adds in the affidavit, filed in reply to a public interest litigation by lawyer Advait Sethna. Through his PIL, Sethna wants the BMC to be ordered to return the penguins either to the place from where they were imported (South Korea) or their natural habitat, coastal South America. He also wants the court to issue an interim order to prevent the BMC from exhibiting the seven penguins to the public. The BMCs affidavit states that according to the approved animal collection plan 2011, Byculla zoo is authorised to exhibit 18 Indian animals and five exotic animals, including Humboldt penguins. Accordingly, the BMC in July 2016 imported eight Humboldt penguins three males and five females after obtaining all the required permissions. One of the females, a one-and-half-year-old named Dory, died in October 2016 of a viral infection despite the BMCs best attempts and providing the best possible medical treatment, the affidavit reads. It adds that Humboldt penguins are sturdy and easily adapt to new environments when compared to Antarctic penguins. The BMCs counsel, Anil Sakhare, told the bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Girish Kulkarni that the penguins are in quarantine, not on display to the public, and that only a veterinarian and a keeper are allowed to enter their living area. The court will next hear the matter in a week to give Sethna time to respond to the BMCs affidavit. Also read: Central Zoo Authority seeks status report on surviving penguins in Mumbai Excessive fishing along the Mumbai shoreline and several parts of the Konkan coast could be one of the reasons for the death of over 30 marine mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises over the past two years, said marine experts. In just 15 days into the new year, the decomposed carcasses of two marine mammals an Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin and a finless porpoise washed ashore at Nariman Point, south Mumbai. HT spoke to government officials and marine biologists to find out what could be the reasons for such deaths. Whales, dolphins and porpoises are endangered species and are protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Scientists agreed that the rate at which carcasses have been washing ashore was unusual in its frequency, especially over the past two years. It is a cause of concern, as one of the primary reasons is pollution and poor water quality closer to the shore of big cities like Mumbai. Whales are the most affected by this issue, said Vinay Deshmukh, marine biologist and former chief scientist, Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI). The other reason could be excessive fishing and the use of the Purse seine nets large fishing nets used to catch fish in bulk for the death of dolphins and porpoises. Purse seine nets were banned by the state across 12 nautical miles from the coast of Maharashtra from January 1, in a bid to safeguard different species of fish and increase their population. Purse seine nets can stretch from 500m to 1km, and sometimes fishermen attach two or three such nets and cover an area of 3km, pulling out a large proportion of fish population. The nets have a mesh that spans 25 mm to 35mm. This blocks small fish and fish eggs from falling back into the ocean, thereby stopping them from multiplying. While catching a lot of fish at one go, larger mammals like dolphins and porpoises are entangled within these nets in their search for small fish, which makes for a major portion of their food. This happens because of the sheer expanse of the nets, said Deshmukh. They need air to breathe, and so these mammals come closer to the surface intermittently. When they get caught in the nets, they suffocate and sometimes drown. Overtime, they wash ashore with the flow of the tide. In February last year, the state government had restricted the use of such nets for sustainable fishing practices. The guidelines brought down permits from 494 to 182, and allowed the use of such nets only between September and December, in certain areas along the 720km coastline of Mahrashtra. State government officials said that there was an immediate need to change fishing gear and practices or incidents of mammal deaths will continue. It is a fact that there is over-exploitation when it comes to fishing, much more than our coasts can bear. We are trying to make fishermen aware of the need to shift to a more conservation-oriented practice. In Sindhudurg, fishermen have moved to square mesh nets for this very reason, said N Vasudevan, chief conservator of forest, state mangrove cell. Along with the fisheries department, the state forest department will patrol the Maharashtra coast to check such incidents. Officials from the fisheries department said that a team had been formed to investigate the deaths. As far as the Purse seine fishing net issue is concerned, we have banned them but our jurisdiction is as far as 12 nautical miles from the coast of Maharashtra. Beyond that, it is the Central governments prerogative, said MB Gaikwad, commissioner, state fisheries department. However, when it comes to such cases of overfishing, we will be taking action against violators and a report will be drafted to ascertain the exact reasons behind the mammal deaths. State fisheries can now take action under Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 In a move that might boost marine conservation, the state government has given the state fisheries department the authority to book persons involved in violating the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972, by endangering the lives of marine mammals protected under it. The state fisheries, along with the forest department, can now take action against instances of cruelty against whales, dolphins, porpoises, turtles and tortoises, all protected under Schedule I of WPA. The government passed the order last year and it comes into effect from this year onwards, said a senior official from the state environment department. Major cases of mammal deaths (2015-17) January 15, 2017: The carcass of a three-foot finless porpoise washed ashore, opposite Taj Hotel, Nariman Point in south Mumbai January 1, 2017: A five-foot dolphin carcass had washed ashore at Nariman Point. Mangrove cell officials said that the exact cause of death was not known but the dolphin had several marks on its head, almost as if it had lost direction and hit a hard surface of a ship or rock several times. October 7, 2016: A mutilated carcass of a 35-foot Blue Whale, the largest mammal in the world, washed ashore at Guhaghar beach. September 11, 2016 : A 47-foot Blue Whale, the largest mammal in the world, was rescued from a beach near Madban village, close to Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant in Ratnagiri district. It was rescued by forest officials with two boats and 50 people. February, 2016: A 40-foot Blue Whale was rescued with the help of two boats in a nine-hour rescue operation near Daboli, Ratnagiri. This was the first ever successful rescue operation carried out along the coast of Maharashtra for the largest mammal in the world. A 20-member team had used two boats to rescue it. January, 2016: The carcass of a 40-foot male Brydes whale washed up at Juhu beach, near Juhu Tara Road, on January 29. The whale was beached for 17 hours and could not be rescued and sent back to the sea. The carcass of the whale was burnt and buried at Juhu beach after the rescue operation failed. March 2, 2016: Three cases of dolphin carcasses that washed ashore at Girgaum Chowpatty, Gorai beach and Bhuigaon beach, Vasai December 13, 2015: The carcass of a two-and-a-half-foot finless porpoise, protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, washed ashore near Haji Ali Dargah November 27, 2015: The carcass of a six-and-a-half-foot Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin washed ashore near Bhagwanlal Indrajit Road, Malabar Hill July 22, 2015: A six-foot carcass of an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin with injuries on its body was discovered on Bhuigaon beach in Vasai. The high tide carried it back into the sea, said local fishermen June 17, 2015: The carcass of a seven-foot dolphin was found on Vasai beach June 1, 2015: The mutilated carcass of a humpback whale was found on Manori beach. Only the skin and skeleton of the whale could be recovered as all the other body parts had decomposed; it could not been sent for a post-mortem May 5, 2015: Carcass of a six-foot Indo-Pacific dolphin was found at Versova beach. A four-foot dead porpoise was also found at the same location. A post-mortem was conducted in both cases and the bodies were burnt at an isolated location in Andheri April 27, 2015: A six-foot dead dolphin was found wedged in the rocks near Oberoi Hotel at Nariman Point. The carcass had decomposd in such a manner that a post-mortem could not confirm the cause of death. READ MORE Mumbai: Carcass of dolphin-like mammal washes ashore near Gateway of India India to get its first marine mammal museum by end of 2017 SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON After putting the rural economy in trouble by banning district central cooperative (DCC) banks from exchanging demonetised currency over fears of being misused for parking unaccounted money, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has now admitted that it has no details of any irregularities or scams occurring in the DCC banks one month since demonetisation. The RBI accepted this in an RTI reply sought by activist Anil Galgali. Five days after demonetisation announcement, the RBI on November 13 had abruptly prohibited DCC banks and cooperative credit societies from doing exchanging currency. The RBI justified the move saying that these institutions can be used for parking unaccounted money. Galgali had sought information under the RTI query on the extent of irregularities committed by the DCC banks and state cooperative bank between November 8 and December 10, 2016. The reply given by AG Ray, public information officer, RBI, said the information sought on district and apex bodies was not available with him. While data on urban cooperative banks could be obtained from other department, Ray said in the reply, dated January 9. The ban directly hit millions of farmers as the DCC banks and credit societies were facing liquidity crisis. The information was sought to expose irregularities in DCC banks but it seems that RBI has no data of a single case. This has forced me to question whether RBI has taken its decision on DCC banks on mere heresay? Galgali asked. HTs queries to the RBI did not get any response. The co-operative movement in Maharashtra is nourished by a three-tier co-operative credit structure, at the helm of which is the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank, the apex body for all DCC Banks. DCC Banks at the middle level and at the bottom network of over 21,085 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS). There are around 48 lakh borrowers of crop loan from DCC Banks alone while members of PACS are around 1.14 crore, majorly farmers. The total amount deposited at the credit societies is more than Rs 24,000 crore. Also read Banned notes in hand, cooperative bank customers have nowhere to go Demonetisation effect: Govt, RBI to bring tougher norms for co-op banks SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena finally began talks for a possible alliance in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday evening. However, after the first round of talks, the job of resolving certain sticking points has been left to CM Devendra Fadnavis and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. The talks were held at state BJP president Raosaheb Danves residence, with BJP being represented by four leaders and Sena by three leaders. Although the talks were not conclusive, the parties agreed to take a decision on the alliance by January 21. While a section within the BJP said the talks got stuck on the issue of transparency that Fadnavis had stressed as a necessary condition for a tie-up, Sena refuted that was a discussion point. It was a preliminary discussion and we did not talk about seats. We have decided that by January 21, we will wrap up these talks. On Tuesday, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray will discuss certain issues and after that we will take these talks forward, said Ashish Shelar, BJPs city unit chief, who was present at the meeting. A senior BJP leader told HT the sticking point was transparency, as the BJP was keen that Sena comes on board on the issue. We are not saying that Sena should take blame for all the wrongdoing in the BMC, but they should come on board saying they are keen on clean and transparent governance, he said. Sena MP Anil Desai, who was a part of the discussion, said that transparency was a non-issue. Other than Danve and Shelar, BJPs team included state education minister Vinod Tawde and housing minister Prakash Mehta, while the Sena team comprised of party Desai, MLC Anil Parab and former MLC Ravindra Mirlekar. The surprise induction was of old-timer Mirlekar, supposedly good with political arithmetic, instead of industries minister Subhash Desai, who has represented the party earlier in such negotiations. The other hurdle in the talks could have been the seat-sharing formula. While the BJP is keen on the 2014 Assembly poll results as the main criteria for discussion, Sena believes that the starting point should be the 2012 Mumbai civic poll mandate. For now, the BJP is likely to demand 110 seats from its ally on the basis of its performance in the 2014 Assembly polls, while the Sena is willing to concede around 90 seats. Both the parties may finally come down from these positions as the negotiations progress. In the 2012 Mumbai civic polls, BJP had contested 63 and Sena 135 seats. Out of this, BJP won 31 seats, while Sena won 75 seats. In the 2014 polls, the parties contested separately, with BJP winning maximum legislators at 15 and Sena closely coming second with 14 legislators. Also read: Shiv Sena, BJP plot to grab Dadar seat from MNS SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON There is set to be a high-profile tussle over the Dadar seat during the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. The Shiv Sena plans to snatch the prestigious position away from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena by fielding former mayor Vishakha Raut, said sources. Electoral ward 191 covers Maharashtrian-dominated Dadar including Shivaji Park and also houses Shiv Sena headquarters Shiv Sena Bhavan. The area was the Senas citadel right from its inception in 1966, before the MNS won it during the 2012 civic polls. The first chief minister from the Sena, Manohar Joshi, was elected from the area, which is now reserved for women. The MNS is all set to field Swapna Deshpande, wife of high-profile corporator Sandeep Deshpande. Swapna resigned from her government job to contest the polls. In what came as a surprise to many, BJP leaders said Medha Somaiya will be its candidate for the seat. Medha, wife of BJP MP Kirit Somaiya has been active in politics. Political observers said the move was aimed at irritating the Sena as Kirit is a vocal opponent of the party. He had gone to the extent of targeting Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, saying he was running the BMC in a non-transparent manner. On Sunday, Kirit told reporters that the Sena was unaware of the ground reality. He stated that as the BJP has gained considerable strength in Mumbai, it has the right to ask its ally for additional seats. Dadar has been the stronghold of the Sena for decades. However, in 2009, the MNS snatched it during the assembly elections with MNS chief Raj Thackerays friend Nitin Sardesai winning the seat.During the 2012 civic polls, the MNS won all the seats from this belt. However, during the keenly-contested 2014 assembly polls, the Sena regained the seat and Sardesai conceded defeat to Sena leader Sada Sarvankar. Read Can smaller parties sway major players voters? BJP, Sena: United may rule BMC, divided lose votes SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a major blow to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Thane, Sanjay Bhoir opposition leader in the Thane Municipal Corporation his wife Usha, and his father Devram who held the post twice in the past joined the Shiv Sena on Monday. Nine sitting corporators, including the Bhoirs, have left the NCP in the past few weeks and joined either the Shiv Sena or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Bhoirs had a stronghold in Dhokali, Balkum, Majiwada and Kolshet. Devram had won six consecutive elections, while Sanjay had won four. Their defection has left the NCP scrambling to find new faces to represent the party in these areas. Our family has been loyal to the NCP since the inception of the TMC. However, the party has demeaned us several times. I held the post of opposition leader only on paper, I did not have the right to make any decisions. Despite single-handedly winning seats for the party along the Ghodbunder belt, our superiors did not support us. The partys focus is only on developing Kalwa and Mumbra, while they ignore Thane, Sanjay Bhoir told HT. He added that the familys aim of developing the city only seemed possible if they left the opposition and joined the party in power. However, many claimed that Devram was promised the post of mayor, as well as an assembly seat if he joined the Shiv Sena. Devram has denied these claims. The Shiv Sena welcomed us, but did not promise us any seats. We joined the party seeking development, Sanjay added. NCP city president Anand Paranjpe said the Bhoirs exit will not create a vacuum in the party. New leadership will emerge in these areas, he told reporters. Defectors from the NCP include Yogesh Jankar and Laxman Tikmani, who joined the Shiv Sena and corporators Pragati Araj, Manohar Dumbre and Bharat Chavan, who joined the BJP. Former Congress corporator Ravindra Patil joined the Shiv Sena on Monday. Read BJP-Shiv Sena set to benefit as old allies Congress and NCP part ways Ask soldiers, farmers about BJPs transparency: Shiv Sena SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a surprise move, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Monday t expelled its sitting Sahibabad MLA Amarpal Sharma on charges of indulging in anti party activities. A letter to this effect was issued by BSPs Ghaziabad district president Premchand Bharti. Sharma does not maintain coordination with locals and party workers. Party workers are upset with him for not giving enough time to the constituency and feel he should neither be given a ticket to contest the upcoming polls nor allowed to remain in the party, Bharti said. He claimed Sharma stays away from party meetings, cadre camps and other deliberations and mostly prefers to camp in Delhi instead. He has been expelled from the party on account of indiscipline and anti-party activities. The decision was conveyed by the BSP leadership, he said. Despite repeated attempts, Sharma couldnt be reached for his version of events. He is believed to be in touch with the party brass since being issued the letter by Bharti. The sitting MLA from the Sahibabad assembly segment in Ghaziabad, Sharma trounced BJPs Sunil Sharma, who was elected MLA from the seat in 2007, by 24,348 votes during the 2012 state polls. He is a Brahmin and enjoys popular support in such major votebank areas as Khoda, Makanpur, and Jhandapur. Sharma was named along with three other sitting BSP MLAs from Ghaziabad in the partys list of candidates for the upcoming state polls. The list was rolled out on January 5, a day after the Election Commission announced the poll dates for five states, including UP, and imposed the model code of conduct. Read I On Mayawatis home turf, BSP fields Brahmin first-timer Speculations are rife that Sharma could gravitate to the saffron camp and be one of the BJPs nominees from Ghaziabad. The name of Pankaj Singh, elder son of Union home minister Rajnath Singh, is also doing rounds as a contender for the Sahibabad constituency or any of the seats in Gautam Budh Nagar. Pankaj is the BJP state general secretary in the UP. The BJP still hasnt declared its list of candidates for the first phase of UP polls. The partys central election committee held a meeting on Sunday and was expected to roll out its list of candidates. However, theres no word on when the names will be out. Sharmas expulsion means that the party would have to declare a new candidate from Sahibabad. The party will decide the Sahibabad candidate within the next couple of days, Bharti said. Read: BSP supporters hold mega event to celebrate party chief Mayawatis birthday SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON It started out as a project on the street vendors of Ghaziabad, but while at it, a team of five students of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi were drawn instead to their plight and a host of issues that threaten their livelihood. They compiled a survey report where they highlighted the issues which they now want addressed and resolved by the authorities. The five students carried out a survey and interviewed vendors in Vijay Nagar and Nandgram areas between December 21 and December 30 last year. The report clearly brings out the exploitation that the vendors face and also the apathy by the government agencies. A majority of vendors were not willing to speak up fearing harassment. We found out that the vendors have given a part of their earnings to certain people who come to collect money from them either on daily, weekly or monthly basis. The vendors had no clue as to who these people were. Nearly 95% of the vendors had no clue about the town vending committee (TVC) as well and its function, said Aakash Bhat, an IIT student from Noida and part of the group which conducted the survey. Read I Ghaziabad street vendors suffer dip in sales Under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, the government had to constitute a TVC featuring officials of the local corporation and other members nominated form traffic police, health department, RWAs, police and the association of street vendors among others. We came to know from these vendors that there was hardly any meeting of the TVC. Several vendors who fought to have their issues addressed, couldnt keep up the fight as they were not organised and didnt have enough ways and means at their disposal to highlight their cause, Ishan Tyagi, an IIT student from Ghaziabad who was part of the team that conducted the survey. In some cases, the vendors said they even have to pay to shop owners if they put up their stalls or kiosks outside areas designated for them. They were forced to pay up even if the land where they put up their stalls didnt belong to shop owners, Tyagi said. The project on vendors was undertaken by the IIT students as part of their curriculum covering professional ethics and social responsibility. Moved by the plight of street vendors, they want their project report to be shared with the respective agencies so that the issues faced get highlighted and resolved. Additional municipal commissioner DK Sinha could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. The students had earlier contacted Rashtriya Sainik Sanstha, an organisation of civilians and ex-servicemen, which advised them to take up the project. We will be forwarding the findings of the report to the authorities concerned and aim to bring the issues of vendors to the fore. The vendors have been a neglected lot in the city. The TVC meetings should be held frequently and must include vendors as members, said Colonel TP Tyagi (retired), national president of the association. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON As candidates are resorting to social media campaigns to influence voters, the Election Commission has instructed officials to keep a strict watch on such expenses and include it under election expenditure. The commission has issued detailed guidelines on social media, which mentions about furnishing details of social media accounts by the candidates in the affidavit that is to be filed for the nomination process, Nijlingappa, treasury officer and expenditure committee head, said. The commission has brought the political advertisements to be issued on social media sites under the purview of pre-certification. The commission has further instructed that candidates and political parties shall include all expenditure on campaigning, including expenditure on advertisements on social media, both for maintaining a correct account of the expenditure and for submitting the statement of expenditure. Candidates will have to seek prior permission from the media certification and monitoring committee, he said. I have briefed the committee members about the EC guidelines on expenditure and maintenance of records by candidates and also the verification process, he said. In the 2014 Noida assembly by-elections, BJP candidate Vimla Batham had spent 5.21 lakh on a publicity campaign, including 85,393 on bulk SMS and social media campaign. Samajwadi Party candidate Kajal Sharma had spent 50,000 on bulk SMS, 15,000 on social media campaigns, besides 1.49 lakh on other advertisements. Congress candidate Rajindra Awana had stated an expenditure of 12,550 on bulk SMS and social media. In 2014 Parliamentary elections, Dr Mahesh Sharma, BJP candidate, had shown an expenditure of 1,93,529 on bulk SMS and social media campaigns. Satish Kumar, the BSP candidate, had spent 15,050 and Congress candidate Ramesh Chand Tomar, 6,002. Samajwadi Party candidate Narinder Singh Bhati had spent 33,854 and Nav Bharat Democratic Party candidate SP Singh had spent 10,167 on bulk SMS and social media campaign. Aam Aadmi Party candidate Kishan Pal Singh had stated nil expenditure towards bulk SMS and social media campaigns. The district administration has made necessary arrangements for candidates to file their nomination, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday, for the upcoming state assembly elections in UP. The district administration officials and police personnel made necessary provisions and assessed security measures at the venue the courts of the additional district magistrate and the sub-divisional magistrate in the collectorate. The last date for filing nomination is January 24. Scrutiny of the documents will be done on January 25. The last date for withdrawal of nomination is January 27. The polling date for the district is February 11. Sub-divisional Magistrate (Sadar) RK Singh issued instructions to the staff regarding the guidelines to be followed and the documents to be collected from those filing nominations. Proper barricading (of the collectorate) has been done ahead of filing the nomination papers. Only limited persons will be allowed to accompany candidates to file the nomination, as per the EC guidelines, Singh said. As per the arrangements, the area around the district magistrates office will not be affected. Candidates will move to the left from the main gate of the collectorate building in the barricaded area, which leads to the rooms for the filing of nomination. Vehicles are to be parked near the district panchayat office. The nomination halls are numbered according to the assembly segments 113 for Noida, 114 for Dadri and 119 for Jewar. The returning officer (RO) for Noida assembly segment is sub-divisional magistrate Amit Kumar Singh, for Dadri is sub-divisional magistrate RK Singh and for Jewar is sub-divisional magistrate Vivek Srivastava. Senior police officials and intelligence officials surveyed the area and issued directions for posting of additional police and paramilitary force at certain points. I have appealed to the candidates to follow the EC guidelines and limit the number of persons (to accompany them) to the nomination hall. This will save them as well as others from unnecessary inconvenience, Nagendra Pratap Singh, district magistrate and district election officer, said. 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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 The Bihar government has decided to use all its four trainer aircraft to capture the ambitious human chain programme on January 21 for creating awareness on benefits of prohibition. Each aircraft can carry fuel to last over an hour flying time. This will be in addition to helicopters and 40 drones hired to cover the event. The government has also approached Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to capture satellite imagery of the 11292-km human chain, which officials said would be worlds longest. The officials of the space agency will arrive in the state three days before the event to work out modalities. We have approached the director-general of civil aviation (DGCA) for approval of the plan to use aircraft with cameras. We hope the weather remains clear on that day," said Brijesh Mehrotra, principal secretary, cabinet coordination department, under which the Bihar flying institute falls. The four trainer aircraft of the Bihar flying institute will have two cameras each. One will take off from Patna, while the other three will operate from Bhagalpur, Darbhanga and another place which is yet to be decided, he said. ISRO authorities have also taken it as a challenge. They may have to purchase images from foreign satellites. As the main route will itself be over 3000-km long, capturing the huge stretch with one satellite at the specific time may not be possible, said chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh. An ISRO team, comprising officials from Kolkata and Hyderabad, have already held meetings with the chief secretary and other officials to work out the details. "ISRO may make use of two of its satellites and rely on one foreign satellite to capture the image. For them also, it is a new experience, said an official. It is precisely because of this reason that some alteration has been made to the timing of the event. Earlier, the timing of human chain formation was 10am to 10.30am. It will now be a 45-minute affair, from 12.15pm to 1pm. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON PATNA: The boat tragedy on the Ganga, which claimed 24 lives near Patnas NIT Ghat on Saturday, has exposed serious lapses in the manner in which a crowd-pulling event like a kite festival was organised on a riverine stretch of the river on Makar Sankranti day (Jan 14). As much in question is a committee set up to inquire into the tragedy, comprising Patna DM Sanjay Agrawal (since dropped), Patna DIG Shalin and principal secretary, disaster management, Pratyaya Amrit. "It is ironical that officials responsible for the slack arrangements, leading to the disaster, have been tasked to conduct the inquiry. The committee is just an eyewash," said senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi. He said the inquiry should have been handed over to an agency or officials not associated with the event. Chief minister Nitish Kumar, on the other hand, has directed that the inquiry should be conducted objectively and cover all angles. Officers responsible for the lapses will not be spared, said Kumar. Nonetheless, preliminary reports indicated the Patna district administration and state disaster management department did not conform to guidelines followed during Chhath, a festival during which large crowds hit the river bank. For instance, the riverine stretch hosting the event, Sabalpur diara, did not have any on-site control room, proper lighting or deployment of trained divers (the SDRF team patrolling the river had no divers as admitted by DM, Patna). Even plying of country boats was not banned. All these are the standard operating procedures (SOPs) laid down for preparations for Chhath festival and should have been followed for the kite event as well. These would be the focus of the inquiry, said Amrit. Passing the buck also appeared to be in play. Patna district magistrate (DM) Sanjay Agrawal said, "People boarded the ill-fated boat about 1 km from the kite festival site in the diara, which falls in Saran district. Even the Saran DSP was present when they did so." Others argued the kite fest was a state-sponsored event for which arrangements and deployment were made from Patna. Agrawal admitted the administration had commissioned just two ferry boats to take people from Patna to the festival site. He also affirmed none of the 10 boats carrying 40 SDRF personnel had divers. "There are swimmers in the SDRF team," he said. The DM said the administration had deployed 150 constables with over 20 magistrates for crowd control during the event. The claim begs the question as to how a very large number of people boarded the ill-fated boat despite the presence of magistrates and policemen. There are also no answers as to why boats not on district requisition roster or licensed for the event and country boats were allowed to ply, or why there were no boats and ambulances on standby with divers for exactly such an emergency. The lie of SDRFs claim over the last one year to have trained divers for such eventualities has also been nailed by the mishap even as the complete lack of coordination between the tourism department and the district administration has now been laid bare. It is now evident there were no disaster mitigation processes in place to rescue ill-fated boat passengers or any advance review of preparations at any level for the Makar Sankranti event as happened repeatedly ahead of Guru Gobind Singhs recent Prakashotsav. Visitors also claimed much of the wherewithal was used to ferry bureaucrats, police officers and their families. Even the SDRF teams were reportedly not patrolling the Ganga near the event and the better equipped NDRF was taken into the loop much after the mishap. Besides, it remains a mystery why the two ferry boats/steamers, 'MV Kasturba' and 'MV Kautilya', which transported many to the diara, did not turn up for their return trip. It was found the decrepit boat, recovered from the river on Sunday, had no number, no life-jacket and did not look river worthy. It was not fit even for ferrying vegetables, let alone carrying human beings," said Ganesh Sahni, a boatman. Although 20,000 visitors were expected to attend the festivities, the BSTDC appeared prepared to ferry just about 500 Makar Sankranti revelers to the Ganga diara from Gandhi Ghat on the state capital side. It is anybodys guess, why only two vessels, CL Kasturba (capacity 350) and MV Kautilya (capacity 40), along with two motor boats, were pressed for the occasion. A third vessel, MV Ganga Vihar (capacity 70) started with revelers from Gandhi Ghat but had to return as it could not anchor at Sabalpur diara, said a source. A BSTDC official said a letter was sent to the administration to check overloading on boats and to deploy security personnel, along with divers, ambulance and other medical facilities, for the kite flying event. But none of this happened," he added. He said, "The Saran district administration was also requested to make security arrangements at Sabalpur diara, the site of kite festival, much in advance. But hardly any apparatus was put in place, he claimed. (With inputs from Anirban Guha Roy, Avinash Kumar and Reena Sopam) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A 12-year-old student of a government school was allegedly raped by the principal and three teachers in Jehanabad, police on Monday said. Aju Ahmed, the principal of Kako Secondary School, and three teachers -- Atul Rahman, Abdul Bari and Md Shakaut -- raped the girl on Sunday when she was alone in the building, sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) PK Srivastava said. The accused took her to the roof of the school building and committed the crime, the SDPO said quoting an FIR registered against the four based on a complaint filed by the girls mother. The victim was spotted by her mother, also a teacher in the same school, lying in a dishevelled state on the roof. The girl then narrated the incident to her, the SDPO said. The accused are at large and searches are being conducted to nab them, he said. Sunday, routinely a holiday, had been declared a working day in the school in a verbal communication by the Principal who had instead ordered it to be closed on Friday, Srivastava said. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Sunday asked chief minister Nitish Kumar to own moral responsibility for Saturdays boat tragedy, which claimed 24 lives according to officials. If the chief minister takes credit for the success of Prakash Parv and Kalachakra puja, then he should be ready to take responsibility for the death of so many people, who were returning back home after attending a kite festival organised by the state culture department, said Modi. Modi told mediapersons that he was surprised the CM who personally reviewed preparations for the Prakash Parv and Kalachakra Puja, did not have time to review preparations for the kite festival on Makar Sankranti. He also expressed anguish that while the government spent around `200 crore on Prakash Parv and Kalachakra Puja, it did not bother to spare even a single paise for the kite festival. The BJP leader said, after inviting the people to participate in the festival, the government did not think it necessary to make arrangements for adequate number of boats to ferry the visitors. He claimed that no senior police or administrative officials were present at the venue to manage the huge crowd, which had gathered for the function. The fact remains that all top officials were present at the residence of RJD president Lalu Prasad, who had thrown a chura-dahi party, while the visitors at the diara area were left to fend for themselves, he added. Modi expressed surprise that top officials of the district administration, who were responsible for managing the kite flying festival, have been made members of the fact-finding team. He said, in order to divert the attention of the public, the government was unnecessarily blaming hosting of a Disney Land programme, against the permission of the district administration, for drawing a huge crowd. In fact, there is no such programme in the area, he claimed. He said now that the JD(U) had cancelled its proposed chura-dahi party and functions related to the Mahatma Gandhi Setu repair, the chief minister should also postpone the human-chain programme slated for January 21 to publicise prohibition. Later talking to HT, senior BJP leader Jamshaid Ashraf pointed out that the boat tragedy made it quite evident that the Bihar government miserably failed to take a lesson from the past two tragedies, which had struck the state capital. He was referring to the tragic death of many people during Chatth and Dussehra festivals in Patna. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Diesel motors to propel country boats pose a huge risk, especially when vessels are overloaded. The boat, which capsized in the Ganga on Saturday, was no exception. This reporter spoke to some boatmen in Raghopur to find out what could have possibly happened to the ill-fated boat, which claimed 24 lives. The diesel motor sets, installed to propel boats, tend to lose steam against head winds and catch fire easily, when overloaded. The heavy weight of the motor pump underneath breaks the boat in such a situation and compromises the lives of passengers, said a former boatman who has now changed vocation. He attributes the high casualty in Saturdays mishap to the fact that most occupants were from urban areas who did not know swimming. Unlike those from urban areas, most living on sand bars in riverine areas, popularly known as diara in Bihar, know swimming. The lack of preparation for rescue operation accounted for so many deaths, he added. If boatmen are to be believed, over 1,000 unlicenced boats ply between the northern and the southern banks of Patna, Vaishali and Saran districts. Being unlicenced, there is no safety check on maintenance. To the people living in diara areas old boats, whether motorised or manual, are still an important mode of transportation across the Ganga and Gandak rivers between Saran, Vaishali and Patna. Those using country boats are generally vegetables sellers, milk-vendors or farmers, residing across 20 square km stretch from Sabalpur in Saran district to Raghopur in Vaishali district. The reason why they prefer to commute by boat is because the fare is less as compared to bus or auto-rickshaws. Besides, they also cut travel time given the chaotic traffic on the Mahatma Gandhi Setu, which is under repairs. Binda Rai, a villager from Saran, said that 80% milk, vegetables and other agricultural produce are ferried by boats to Patna from diara areas. We earn up to `1,000 daily, ferrying people between Patna, Vaishali and Saran diaras, said a boatman. Normally, a boat makes 5 to 8 trips a day, ferrying people, vehicles, vegetables and even personal effects. Transporting cattleheads on such boats are also common, but the district administration has preferred to look the other way. There have been instances of cattle going berserk while being transported on boats, leading to capsize and loss of lives. Such instances are under reported. Local residents, requesting anonymity, said the police were aware about the illegal plying of boats, but do not intervene. The district administration acts only after an incident or during VVIP movement in diara. Otherwise, it does not bother to ensure safety of boats or ensure that only the licensed ones ply, said a villager. A senior police officer, on condition of anonymity, said, It is not possible for local police to check plying of boats on normal days. Those residing in the diara have no other option but to take boats for business travel to Patna and back. The link roads in diara are in bad shape. Whenever we take action against boatmen, we have to face the ire of people. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) replaced two of its incumbent ministers as it named its six remaining candidates for the Punjab assembly polls on Monday evening. In place of industry minister Madan Mohan Mittal, 81, the party has named his former aide Parminder Sharma, ignoring his wish to pass the baton on to his son, Arvind Mittal. From Jalandhar West, though, Chunni Lal Bhagat, 84, has made way for his son and chosen heir, Mahinder Bhagat. While both Chunni Lal and Mittal are aged above 75 a cut-off set in the BJP by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for contesting polls in Mittals exclusion, allegations of corruption against him played a key part, sources said. Two other ministers, Anil Joshi and Surjit Kumar Jyani, will again fight from Amritsar North and Fazilka, respectively. Som Parkash, one of the partys Dalit faces, has been named from Phagwara. Former minister Manoranjan Kalia will again seek to wrest Jalandhar Central. Except Som Parkash, who got the ticket despite opposition by state unit president Vijay Sampla, this list too has Samplas stamp. With this, the BJP has announced candidates for all 23 seats that it contests while alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) fights the remaining 94 out of the 117. Mittals replacement Sharma, who will make his poll debut, is a doctor who also remained the district planning board chairman. A one-time supporter of Mittal, Sharma had announced his wish to contest four months ago. Sources also said that corruption charges against Mittal were too blatant to be ignored. Mittal was the proxy legislature group leader of the BJP, because the designated leader, Chunni Lal, was inactive for most of the five years. But Mahinder Bhagat could not be ignored as Chunni Lals heir because the constituency has significant votes of the Bhagat community loyal to the family, said a senior leader not willing to be named. It was on Wednesday last that the party had announced its first list of 17 names, which included five first-timers and a second chance for seven candidates who had lost the 2012 polls. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Trust Salman Khans Bigg Boss 10 to shock us with surprises. Just when you thought Swami Om throwing urine at fellow contestants was the most bizarre thing you ever saw on national television, heres another amusing development. If reports are to be believed, Bigg Boss 10 is also going to be the wedding venue of Monalisa and her boyfriend Vikrant. It seems the two are preparing for their marriage on the show. For the uninitiated, Vikrant Singh Rajpoot is a Bhojpuri actor who entered the Bigg Boss house a few days ago. He wasnt happy with Monalisas proximity with Manu Punjabi. Now we have learnt that he is going to enter the house again with his family and friends to propose marriage to Monalisa. And if she agrees, the two can get married on the sets. Bigg Boss 10, which is reaching its finale in a couple of weeks, may witness a grand wedding. Brace yourself for more drama. Bigg Boss 10 airs on Colors TV. Shabana Azmi, who along with Smita Patil, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah helped the Indian New Wave in the 1970s with brilliant portrayals, has been nominated for the Asian Film Awards as one of the five actresses in a supporting role in Neerja. The work recalls in a fiction feature the tragic killing of a Pan Am stewardess, Neerja Bhanot, during a Libyan-backed hijack at Karachi airport in 1986. The Awards - which will this year take place in Hong Kong to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the territorys handover -- will be announced on March 21. For the past three years, Macau had been the venue. Other than Azmis, Indian cinema, despite being miles and miles ahead of the other Asian nations in movie production, has not been able to garner any nomination. Shabana Azmi in a scene from Neerja. (YouTube Grab) It is the tiny South Korea with an equally tiny annual film output that has bagged an impressive tally of nods with the countrys The Handmaiden (which competed at Cannes last year) walking away with six. Chinas I Am Not Madame Bovary clinched five nominations, and so did South Koreas Train to Busan. The Handmaiden, a lesbian tale of treachery, helmed by Park Chan-wook, got the pat for the best supporting actress, best newcomer, best screenplay, best editing, best costume design and the best production design. But it missed out in the best movie and best director categories. It was the Chinese helmer, Feng Xiaogang, who got the best director nod for his scathing social satire, I Am Not Madame Bovary - which will also run the best film race. Additionally, the movie got nominations for the best actress, the best supporting actor and best cinematography. A sleeper-hit, Train to Busan, won nods for the best actor, best supporting actor, best editing, best costume design and the best visual effects. The best film category will witness a hot race among The Wailing and The Age of Shadows, both from South Korea, Harmonium from Japan, Godspeed from Taiwan and I Am Not Madame Bovary from China. What may seem somewhat strange to some is that of the 34 movies which were nominated this year from 12 countries in 15 categories, 21 titles are from China or produced partly with Chinese funds. And 20 pats have gone to South Korea. List of nominations: Best Film The Wailing, South Korea The Age of Shadows, South Korea Harmonium, Japan Godspeed,Taiwan I Am Not Madame Bovary,China Best Director Na Hong-jin, The Wailing Koji Fukada, Harmonium Derek Tsang, Soul Mate Feng Xiaogang, I Am Not Madame Bovary Lav Diaz, The Woman Who Left Best Actor Michael Hui, Godspeed Gong Yoo, Train to Busan Asano Tadanobu, Harmonium Fan Wei, Mr. No Problem Richie Jen, Trivisa Best Actress Son Ye-jin, The Last Princess Fan Bingbing, I Am Not Madame Bovary Haru Kuroki, A Bride for Rip Van Winkle Kara Wai, Happiness Charo Santos-Concio, The Woman Who Left Best Supporting Actor Jun Kunimura, The Wailing Ma Dong-seok, Train to Busan Ayano Go, Rage Dong Chengpeng/Da Peng, I Am Not Madame Bovary Lam Suet, Trivisa Best Supporting Actress Elaine Jin, Mad World Moon So-ri, The Handmaiden Maeda Atsuko, The Mohican Comes Home Shabana Azmi, Neerja Lynn Xiong, See You Tomorrow Follow @htshowbiz for more ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop The United Nations humanitarian aid official in Yemen said on Monday the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jamie McGoldrick told reporters the figure is based on lists of victims gathered by health facilities and the actual number might be higher. This announcement marks the first time a UN official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest nation. Earlier, the UN reported 4,200 civilians were killed in the war. The Yemen conflict pits Shia Houthi rebels and allied forces against a Saudi-led coalition. The coalition began an air campaign in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government that fled the country after Houthis seized the capital. McGoldricks remarks come as UN special envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed arrives in the southern city of Aden, which the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has turned into a temporary capital, officials said. According to Yemeni officials, Ahmed will present an amended peace deal to Hadi, who rejected the last initiative. That proposal was supported by the US because it largely recognised the rebels and sidelined Hadi. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media. Peace efforts have stalled because of disagreements over a timeline. Hadi is pressing for an implementation to a UN Security Council resolution that stipulates the Houthis withdrawal from all cities and the handover of weapons. The Houthis are pressing for a political deal in which they would get a share of power for giving up land and arms. All five Indian-American lawmakers, the highest in the history of the US Congress, have been nominated to influential Congressional panels. Congressman Ro Khanna representing Silicon Valley has been nominated to the powerful House Budget Committee, while Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, elected to the House of Representatives from Seattle, would serve on yet another powerful House Judiciary Committee. Raja Krishnamoorthi, representing Chicagos west and northwest suburbs, will serve on the House Education and Workforce Committee, along with the powerful House Democratic Policy and Steering Committee. Read I Power play: Indian-American Fab Five formally enter US Congress Three-term Congressman Ami Bera, the senior most among all Indian-American lawmakers in the House of Representatives, has been renominated to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Science, Space and Technology Committee. He is also the co-chair of Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. Kamala Harris, the first Indian-American to have been elected to the US Senate, has been made member of four powerful Senate Committees. These are Committee on Budget, Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on Environment and Public Works and Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. These four committees will be key battlegrounds in the fight for the future of our country. At a time when so many Californians and Americans are uncertain about our future, I will aggressively fight for our families and the ideals of our nation, Harris said in a statement. This is the highest number of Indian-Americans in the history of the US Congress. Amnesty International on Monday urged Nigeria to comply with a court ruling to release a pro-Iran cleric and hundreds of his supporters, as a deadline for them to be freed loomed. Ibrahim Zakzaky, who leads the Shia Muslim Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), has spent more than a year in custody since clashes between his followers and troops. The three days of violence in the northern city of Zaria left at least 350 IMN members dead, according to human rights groups. Nigerias military has rejected the claimed death toll. A judge in Abuja on December 2 called the detention of Zakzaky and his followers illegal and unconstitutional, and imposed a 45-day deadline for their release, which expires later on Monday. Amnesty Nigeria director Makmid Kamara said the government will demonstrate a flagrant -- and dangerous -- contempt for the rule of law if it ignored the ruling. Zakzaky is being unlawfully detained, he said in an emailed statement. This might be part of a wider effort to cover up the gruesome crimes committed by members of the security forces in Zaria in December 2015 that left hundreds dead. There was no immediate response from the government. The IMN and Zakzaky have been at loggerheads with the federal government for years, not least because he has called for an Iranian-style revolution in Nigeria. The Kaduna state government in December said Zakzaky should be held responsible, fully investigated and prosecuted for acts of lawlessness committed by the organisation over the last 30 years. Nigeria is constitutionally secular but religiously divided between a mainly Christian south and largely Muslim north, which is predominantly Sunni. A mother pleaded guilty Monday to murdering three of her children and attempting to kill another by plunging her car into an Australian lake. In 2015, Akon Guode, 37, who came to Australia after fleeing war in South Sudan, drove into the water on the outskirts of Melbourne. Her one-year-old son and four-year-old twins died, while rescuers pulled her and a five-year-old daughter from the sinking vehicle. The mother of seven entered a guilty plea for the attempted murder of her surviving daughter, court officials said. Witnesses said before the tragedy Guode had complained of receiving threats from the wife of the childrens father and had isolated herself from the Sudanese community, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Guodes eldest daughter told the court that she was concerned for her mothers driving as she had been experiencing dizzy spells for six months leading up to the tragedy, the ABC said. Sentencing is expected in March. Authorities in Bahrain said on Monday a municipal building was set ablaze as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three Shia convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police. Tensions in the Sunni-ruled kingdom have been on the rise since the three men were executed by firing squad yesterday, a move that drew international condemnation. The Shia majority in Bahrain, which has been ruled by the Al-Khalifa dynasty for more than two centuries, has long complained of marginalisation. The country had been rocked by sporadic unrest since 2011. A municipal building was torched overnight Monday in Shamalia, in the Shiite area of Aali, south of the capital Manama, the interior ministry said, without explicitly linking the incident to the executions. According to initial reports, the fire was intentional, the ministry said on Twitter, adding that it had been brought under control. Protests broke out yesterday after the executions, reportedly the first carried out in Bahrain in six years. Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres and threw firebombs, and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media. The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of the village of Sanabis chanting slogans against the Al-Khalifa dynasty, according to witnesses. Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabis, the hometown of the three executed men, but were blocked by security forces. Sanabis was the closest Shia village to the former Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shiite-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011. Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shia villages, according to other witnesses who said police opened fire with buckshot to disperse demonstrators, wounding several. Bahrains authorities do not permit international news agencies to cover events independently. Canadas ethics commission is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus recent family holiday at the Aga Khans private island in the Bahamas. Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson on Monday said Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the worlds approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. Its the first time the ethics commissioner has opted to investigate the actions of a sitting prime minister. In a letter to opposition Conservative lawmaker Blaine Calkins, who was among those who filed formal complaints, Dawson said she is looking into both Trudeaus stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khans private helicopter to get there. The vacation included Trudeau, his family, Liberal lawmaker Seamus ORegan and Liberal party president Anna Gainey, all of whom took part in the chopper flight from Nassau to get to the secluded island. Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeaus own ethics guidelines bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances. The guidelines also prohibit a minister or any member of their family from accepting gifts or advantages that could reasonably be seen as influencing government decisions. The only exception is if the person providing the gift is a friend. Trudeau has repeatedly called the Aga Khan a longtime family friend who was a pallbearer at his fathers funeral. Late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the Aga Khan were friends. Trudeau has said he is ready to meet with Dawson about the trip. As the prime minister said last week, we are happy to engage with the commissioner and answer any questions she may have, the Prime Ministers Office said in a statement. China said on Monday it had sold two warships to Pakistan to protect the strategic Gwadar port, denying reports that it had donated the vessels. Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing that Pakistan had bought the two battle ships. I have learnt that some reports said China has donated these vessels. This is not correct, she said while replying to a question. It is normal military trade cooperation between the two countries and complies with the international commitments of the two countries. So, I want clarify that it is not a donation, it is military trade cooperation. The Pakistani side bought these two ships from China. China handed over the warships to the Pakistan Navy last week as part of efforts to ensure the joint security of the Gwadar port in Balochistan and the trade route of the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Read | Pak special naval force to guard Gwadar port and CPEC against maritime threats The formal handover of the ships was done at a ceremony at Gwadar port that was attended by Chinese officials. Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini received the ships, which have been named after the nearby rivers Hingol and Basol. Hussaini told the audience at the ceremony that the Pakistan Navy has become stronger with the induction of the Chinese-built ships. The Chinese government will provide two more warships to Pakistan Navy, officials said. Pakistan has already raised a new division of the army to protect the CPEC route in and around Gwadar. China has invested $14 billion in 30 early harvest projects under the CPEC, a flagship project of the One Belt One Road initiative launched by President Xi Jinping. Some early harvest projects will be complete by early 2018 and some hydroelectric projects will be ready in 2020. Read | Pakistani rights body says Gwadar fishermen have reservations about Chinese corridor Britain cannot negotiate new trade deals until it leaves the EU, the blocs foreign policy chief said on Monday after US President-elect Donald Trump backed a speedy trade agreement with London. I would like to specify one thing that we discussed also with (British foreign minister) Boris Johnson on Monday and he was agreeing with me, Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about Trumps comments in two European newspapers. Its absolutely clear on the EU side that as long as a country is a member state of the EU, which is something the UK is at the moment, seven months after the referendum, still... there are no negotiations bilaterally on any trade agreement with third parties, she added. This is in the treaties and this is valid for all member states as long as they remain member states, until the very last day. Trump told The Times and Bild newspapers that Brexit would be a great thing, and on a trade deal said he would work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Johnson had said earlier Monday it was very good news that the United States of America wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast. Mogherini also rejected Trumps prediction that other countries would follow Britains lead in voting to leave the European Union. I think the European Union will stick together, Im 100 percent convinced of this, she said after EU foreign ministers met in Brussels. I respect the opinions of the future president of the United States... but I think the EU will be okay in the future. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and not India were on top of the priority list for the Obama Administration in South Asia, but the Indo-US relationship under the outgoing president is ending on a high note, according to a former Indian-American White House official. It (India-US relationship) is ending on a high note, Anish Goel, the former senior director for South Asia at the National Security Council, White House, told PTI. In this position, Goel was one of the key players in the India-US relationship in the first two years of the Obama Administration that saw the first state visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in November 2009 and the historic visit of President Barack Obama to India a year later. Goel, a senior South Asia Fellow at the New America Foundation, a top US think-tank, said the relationship between India and the US has gone through some peaks and valleys. It started out very strong and then I think everyone knows in the middle years in 2011, 2012 and 2013 it was really short of a low point in the relationship. At that point you had administration officials on both sides openly criticising each other, said Goel, who headed the India desk at the White House in his first two years of the Obama presidency. You had cases being filed in WTO, India blocking things that was a priority for the US and on top of things you had (Devyani) Khobragade episode, which really exposed sort of a tenuous relationship. So that was the point when everybody wondered if the relationship could cover or this is really going to be how the two countries interacted, he noted. Read| Barack Obamas farewell speech: this is how a leader signs off But it is ending on a high note. The relationship has really recovered since that time. The flurry of activities in the last two years is great. Both sides deserve credit. The Obama Administration was ready to move forward, Goel said. After Modi became the Prime Minister, the relationship has seen an upward trajectory, he said. And I think, Prime Minister Modi deserves enormous amount of credit for putting the relationship back on track. He could have taken a very very different approach and he could have said that this is a country that denied me entry for 10 years and we have been at loggerheads for the past three years, and that this relationship is not that important for me and I am going to keep a different track, Goel said. But he did not. He put aside all of that in the background and said it is important for India to have a string relationship with the United States. I think, he moved forward in this regard, Goel said, giving credit for the revival of the relationship to Prime Minister Modi. Responding to a question on Obamas vision on India when he occupied the White House, Goel recollected that he wanted to continue the strong relationship. One of the successes of the Bush Administration had been building a strong strategic partnership with India and President Obama wanted to continue that. He might not have been quite enthusiastic as President Bush was but he certainly wanted to keep the relationship going, he said. Four police officers were killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb exploded on Monday as a police vehicle passed by in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey, the local governors office said. The attack took place in the Sur neighbourhood of Diyarbakir province, where the Turkish army launched an intensive campaign last year against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). An attack was carried out when explosives...detonated as an armoured vehicle carrying our riot police was passing by, the governors office said in a statement. The toll of four police killed raised a previous figure of three dead. It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack but the state-run Anadolu news agency pointed the finger of blame on PKK terrorists. The governors office called it an atrocious terror attack, vowing that Turkey would continue to fight against terror with determination. Turkey has been on edge after a wave of attacks blamed on Kurdish militants and Islamic State jihadists. The PKK -- designated as a terror organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union -- has been waging an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. Eight men own the same wealth as half the worlds population, a level of inequality which threatens to pull our societies apart, Oxfam said on Monday ahead of the World Economic Forum opening in Davos. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, anti-poverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. Its urging leaders to do more than pay lip-service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last years election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britains vote to leave the European Union. It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the meeting in Davos. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy. The same report a year earlier said that the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. However, Oxfam has revised that figure down to eight following new information gathered by Swiss bank Credit Suisse. Oxfam used Forbes billionaires list that was last published in March 2016 to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion. The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex, financier Warren Buffett, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Oracles Larry Ellison and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Measures to help reduce inequality Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. They include higher taxes on wealth and income to ensure a more level playing field and to fund investments in public services and jobs, greater cooperation among governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich dont dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfams policy adviser, urged billionaires to do the right thing, and to do what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes. The ability of the rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called Panama Papers, a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary, Lawson told The Associated Press. Thats crazy. Its because of this kind of inequality that trust in institutions has fallen sharply since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to Edelman, one of the worlds biggest marketing firms. In its own pre-Davos survey of more than 33,000 people across 28 markets, Edelman found the largest-ever drop in trust across government, business, media and even non-governmental organizations. CEO credibility is at an all-time low and government leaders are the least trusted group, according to the survey. The firms 2017 Trust Barometer found that 53 percent of respondents believe the current system has failed them in that it is unfair and offers few hopes for the future, with only 15 percent believing it is working. That belief was evident for both the general population and those with college education. The implications of the global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging, said Richard Edelman, the firms president and CEO. It began with the Great Recession of 2008, but like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalization and technological change have further weakened peoples trust in global institutions. The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites. Edelman highlighted how the emergence of a media echo chamber that reinforces personal beliefs while shutting out opposing views has magnified this cycle of distrust. According to the survey, search engines are trusted more as an information tool than traditional news editors, 59 percent to 41 percent. People now view media as part of the elite, said Edelman. The result is a proclivity for self-referential media and reliance on peers. The lack of trust in media has also given rise to the fake news phenomenon and politicians speaking directly to the masses. Edelman said business may be best-placed to help improve trust. Companies need to be transparent and honest with their employees about the changes taking place in the work-place, improve skills and pay fairly, he said. The online survey was conducted between Oct. 13 and Nov. 16, 2016. Donald Trump has offered views on US relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established US policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: Trade Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. The pact was the centrepiece of the Obama administrations outreach policy to Americas Asian partners known as the pivot, which also involves a greater military commitment to the region. Obama said the TPP would allow the US to impose higher labour, environmental and human-rights standards, as well as give US businesses access to some of the fastest-growing economies. The deal would have slashed 18,000 taxes that other countries impose on American goods and services, but Congress failed to act amid scepticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Trumps opposition to free-trade agreements has fuelled fears of protectionism and puts him at odds not only with US trading partners but also with many in the Republican Party. Killing the TPP may open the way for other regional free-trade initiatives, including those pushed by rival China. With the US withdrawing from TPP, Japan will have to redesign its external economic policy, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Other options may not be easy, Takenaka said. India and Pakistan During the campaign, Trump was largely positive toward both India and Pakistan, even while he piled negative rhetoric on China and other nations. However, his threat to ban Muslims from entering the US has raised accusations of Islamophobia. In the days after his win, Trump appeared to follow in the well-trodden path of seeking a balance between the nuclear rivals albeit in his unorthodox style. A phone call between Trump and Pakistans Prime Minister was remarkable mainly for the effusive praise he reportedly lavished on the struggling state. Pakistan is a US ally in the battle against Islamic extremism but is also close to US rival in Asia, China. In its readout of that call, Pakistan said Trump described the country as amazing and expressed a desire to visit something President Barack Obama did not do. Indias national security adviser followed the Pakistan exchange with a low-key visit to Washington to meet with a senior Trump aide in a sign of New Delhis desire to forge close ties with the incoming US administration. China Trump raised China in speech after speech during his campaign, at times accusing the country of ripping America off in trade and threatening a 45% tariff on all Chinese imports. Things turned far more serious after his election win when he took a phone call from the president of self-governing Taiwan, upending four decades of diplomatic protocol barring such direct contacts. Critics accused him of ignoring the one-China policy, long considered unassailable in China-US relations, to which Trump responded by questioning why the US should be bound by such an arrangement without economic incentives. He again touched on the issue in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, saying everything is under negotiation, including one China. While the Chinese governments response was muted, the official China Daily newspaper said he was playing with fire. Trump has also criticised the Chinese militarys island-building program in the South China Sea, and accused it of blocking US imports through high taxes and manipulating its currency to the detriment of American exports. Alliances with Japan and South Korea Trump raised eyebrows during the campaign when he appeared to question the inviolability of long-standing US military alliances with Japan and South Korea, seen as bulwarks against North Koreas military threats and Chinas push for regional dominance. The two were included in a list of countries that Trump said he would be respectfully asking ... to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them. During the campaign, Trump suggested Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons so the US would no longer be burdened with the costs of defending them, a disquieting notion in many Asian capitals. But after Trumps election win, Japans Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him, sitting down in Trump Tower with the business mogul and his daughter Ivanka. Japan is concerned about how spill-over from China-US conflicts might affect its economy and foreign relations, possibly compelling it to play a larger role in regional security, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Trump measures would be the top priority for Prime Minister Abe this year. The biggest question is that Trump is unpredictable, he said. North Koreas nuclear threat Trumps approach to North Korea probably offers the least divergence from previous administrations, but he faces stark choices on countering North Korean leader Kim Jong uns missile threat. After Kim, announced in his annual New Years address that the country had reached the final stages of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump responded by Twitter: North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It wont happen! Trump has not said how his approach to the North might differ from Barack Obamas, although his campaigns position paper talked of more modern destroyers to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea. That would appear to indicate continued support for deploying the advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea, despite Chinese and Russian objections. Trump appears to be a firm believer that North Korea could be reined-in if only its sole significant ally China would tighten the screws. Theres been no dearth of reports on what US president-elect Donald Trump intends to do during his first 100 days in office and the man himself outlined his position on key global issues in two interviews. Heres what he said on issues such as terrorism, immigration and the Iran nuclear deal: Afghanistan: Trump told The Times that the campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan was going badly. He told Bild newspaper of Germany that the US had not succeeded in Afghanistan after intervening militarily 17 years ago. If you look at the Taliban thereTheyre just getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year. And you ask yourself whats going on there? He added, But when you look at the whole region in all fairness we didnt let our people do what they were tasked to do. Immigration: He told Bild that people entering the US will face extreme security checks, including nationals of some European countries. He told The Times that orders will be signed by January 23 to strengthen US borders, including possible travel restrictions on Europeans and extreme vetting for people from parts of the world affected by Islamist terrorism. Trump also told The Times that he believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a catastrophic mistake by letting in more than 1 million migrants. In an apparent reference to the truck attack in Berlin in December by a Tunisian asylum-seeker, Trump told Bild: And no one knows where they come from at all. You will find out, youve had a clear impression of that...So I am of the opinion that she (Merkel) made a catastrophic mistake, a very serious mistake. NATO: Trump acknowledged that the trans-Atlantic military alliance is important but has problems. He told the Bild that NATO is obsoletebecause it was designed many, many years ago and that its members arent paying what they should. He also noted that NATO didnt deal with terrorism. Trump told The Times only five NATO members were paying their fair share and that some countries dont pay what they should pay. Iran: Trump told The Times he would not divulge the specifics of his Iran policy even as he attacked President Barack Obamas historic deal with Tehran. Im not happy with the Iran deal, I think its one of the worst deals ever made, I think its one of the dumbest deals Ive ever seenWhere you give$150 billion back to a country, where you give $1.7 billion in cash. Did you ever see $100 million in hundred-dollar bills?...$1.7 billion in cash. Plane loads. Russia: Trump told The Times he would be willing to remove sanctions on Russia in exchange for some good deals, including a new deal to cut Moscows nuclear arsenal. He added, For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. Syria: Speaking to The Times, Trump was very critical of Russias intervention in Syria, saying it was a very bad thing that led to a terrible humanitarian situation. He was critical of Obama for failing to restrain Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Putin in their campaign against Syrian rebels, saying it had led to a humanitarian crisis. Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town they cant even walk and theyre shooting em it almost looks like theyre shooting em for sportthatsa terrible situation, he said. He told the Bild that security zones paid for by Gulf states should have been set up in Syria. That would have been considerably cheaperthan the trauma that Germany is now going through. I would have said: create security zones in Syria. Israel: Trump told the Bild he will appoint his son-in-law Jared Kushner to broker a Middle East peace deal. Talking about Kushners possible role, he said: Jared is such a good lad, he will secure an Israel deal which no one else has managed to getHe has an innate ability to make deals, everyone likes him. He described the Obama administrations decision to abstain in a UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements in December as terrible. He also refused to comment on whether he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Twitter: Trump told The Times he will continue to use the @realDonaldTrump account with 46 million followers after being sworn-in despite criticism that he used Twitter too much. and the tweeting, I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the pressthat I can put out TwitterI can go bing bing bingand they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out, he said. President-elect Donald Trumps remarks that NATO is obsolete have caused concern at the US-led military alliance and also appeared at odds with his own officials, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday. Steinmeier said he had met NATO head Jens Stoltenberg earlier Monday where the statements of President-elect Trump... were received with concern. This is in contradiction with what the American defence minister said in his hearing in Washington only some days ago and we have to see what will be the consequences for American policy, he added. A mother in Pakistan was on Monday sentenced to death for burning alive her 16-year-old daughter after she eloped and got married without the familys consent, months after the Parliament passed a new law making the punishment for honour killing more stringent. The girl, Zeenat Rafiq, was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi in June 2016, a week after she eloped with a man, Hasan Khan, and married him in a Lahore court. Parveen had earlier confessed that she had murdered her daughter for bringing shame to the family. Police had suspected that she was helped by her son and a son-in-law in killing the girl. Anti-Terrorism Court Lahore judge Chaudhry Muhammad Ilyas sentenced Parveen to death and her son Anees to life imprisonment for killing Zeenat. The court, however, acquitted the son-in-law, Zafar. Both the convicts confessed in the court that they had first beaten up Zeenat and then her mother tied her to a bed and set her on fire after dousing her with kerosene. In her confessional statement, the mother said she killed her daughter for disgracing the family honour and had no regret in burning her alive. Zeenat had married Hasan, who was from her locality, on May 29 last year. Hasan was a Pashtun while Zeenat was a Punjabi which was said to be the main cause of her familys disapproval, forcing them to elope. Zeenats husband had agreed to let his wife return to her home after her family promised to organise a traditional wedding reception for the couple. He said that Zeenat was not willing to go back to her parents home because she feared they would kill her. But she agreed after her family gave assurances regarding her safety, he said. He said that after two days, she called him and said that her family was angry and she was not feeling safe there. She was later killed. After Zeenat was set on fire in a low-income neighbourhood of Lahore, none of her relatives sought to claim her body, police said, leaving her husbands family to bury her charred remains in the dark in a graveyard near the city. Pakistans national assembly in October last year passed a much-anticipated new law that mandates a stiff penalty for those convicted of so-called honour killings and closes a legal loophole that has permitted the families of those who commit honour killings to forgive the perpetrator. The new law mandates a minimum 25-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of carrying out an honour killing, and prohibits families of victims from forgiving the killer -- a common occurrence in these tragic crimes. Hundreds of women are killed every year in Pakistan often by their family members in the name of so-called honour. Some buildings at the University of Mosul are charred by fires, others rigged with explosives, and bullets still periodically fly past a campus scarred by the battle for the city. The sound of a jet, the whoosh of a descending missile and the explosion as it hits home mark an air strike nearby that sends a stream of black smoke rising toward the grey clouds blanketing the sky over Mosul. The university -- like others located in or near cities that were seized by the Islamic State group in 2014 -- has become a casualty of the war to push the jihadists back. Iraqs elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) has retaken the university from IS, officers said, but the danger posed by the jihadists here is far from over. There are booby-trapped buildings in addition to chemical materials inside the university, Captain Saif Ali told AFP on the eastern side of the campus. The chemicals may have been part of ISs rudimentary chemical weapons programme, which it has used to attack Iraqi forces, but which ultimately poses far less danger than the jihadists bombs or bullets. We took control of chemical stores or laboratories that they worked in, Staff Major General Sami al-Aridhi, a CTS commander, said in Mosul. Around nine barrels of chemical mixtures were found at the university, Aridhi said, adding that military engineers had been dispatched to the campus. IS also used the University of Mosul as a command centre, said Brigadier General Ali Aboud, another CTS commander. Aridhi said that wireless stations in a command and control centre were still working when CTS forces arrived. Read| In parts of Mosul, a semblance of normality despite war Burned buildings, blood stains CTS forces attacked the university from two sides and were able to reach their main objective in five to six hours of fighting, Aridhi said. IS deployed car bombs against them, but they were destroyed, he said. Some campus buildings seem to have escaped relatively intact, but others are heavily damaged, with streaks of soot over the windows marring the tan exteriors of those that were set on fire. The rusty tail of what appears to be an aerial bomb is lodged in the rubble inside a burned building with a sign at its entrance that reads: Mosul Technical College. Drops of blood make a trail on the stairs inside another building, while long, red-brown streaks show where a body was likely dragged down a hallway. Engineers Under Construction, a sign in the building says in English, fallen ceiling tiles scattered on the floor nearby. On the eastern edge of the university, black-clad CTS members huddle around small wood fires to keep warm, one smoking a water pipe. The fighting was from building to building, said Haider, a CTS member who took part in the assault. With the recapture of the University of Mosul, the battle for the eastern side of the city -- which is split by the Tigris River -- moves a step closer to its conclusion. A top CTS commander estimated on Saturday that could take around 10 days. But nearly three months after the operation to retake the city began, the fight for the smaller but more densely populated west Mosul is still ahead. A Turkish Airlines cargo plane crashed into a village near Kyrgyzstans main airport on Monday. 37 people were killed in the crash which also destroyed homes after the cargo plane attempted to land in thick fog. Plane debris which crashed into residential area near Kyrgyzstans Manas airport outside Bishkek. (REUTERS) A policeman guards an area at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet. (REUTERS) A member of a rescue team walks at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport outside Bishkek. (REUTERS) The majority of the dead were from the village of Dacha-Suu where the cargo plane crashed at around 7.30 am local time. Authorities said the death toll could be bigger than the initial numbers. Rescue teams are seen are seen at the crash site. (REUTERS) Around 43 houses were damaged by the crash. Eyewitness said the plane crashed into the houses and killed entire families. Rescue teams are seen at the crash site. (REUTERS) Rescue teams are seen at the crash site. (REUTERS) At least four pilots on the flight, which was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstans capital Bishkek, were among the dead. Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was heading a specially-appointed government commission to investigate the circumstances of the crash. Pakistans Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday warned India of a befitting response if it dared to carry out surgical strikes inside his country. Asif also claimed India does not want to continue the process of negotiation with Pakistan and reduce the tension. If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it, Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session. He was speaking on a motion moved by Senator Sehar Kamran regarding the situation arising out of the alleged Indian violations of the Line of Control and ceasefire on the Working Boundary, resulting in the loss of precious lives. A befitting response would be given if India dared to carry out surgical strikes inside Pakistan, he said, adding Indias claims of surgical strikes were baseless and false. He claimed that India was making failed attempts to link the Kashmir insurgency with cross border infiltration and terrorism, Radio Pakistan reported. The minister claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 on LoC and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He said 45 Pakistani civilians were killed and 138 injured in the violations. He said the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. The minister said the violations were effectively responded by the armed forces of the country. He said these violations were reported to United Nations Military Observer Group at the Line of Control and Working Boundaries to appraise the UN for investigations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also raised the issue at the diplomatic and bilateral levels, he added. He said that Pakistan would continue extending political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris in their struggle for their right to self-determination. Earlier this month, Pakistans Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India. Pakistans armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India, army spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor had quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the self defeating claims of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about so called surgical strikes and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces in September last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated hard response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. Gen Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State group in Mosul on Monday retook an area where the jihadists levelled one of the citys most well-known shrines in 2014, officials said. We retook control of Nabi Yunus area... raised the Iraqi flag above the tomb, Sabah al-Noman, spokesman for the Counter-Terrorism Service spearheading the Mosul offensive, told AFP. He said two other neighbourhoods in eastern Mosul were also retaken from IS on Monday. The Nabi Yunus shrine -- which was built on the reputed burial site of a prophet known in the Koran as Yunus and in the Bible as Jonah -- was a popular pilgrimage site. Read | Mosul University fully liberated by Iraqi troops: Military In July 2014, weeks after overrunning Mosul and much of Iraqs Sunni Arab heartland, IS militants rigged the shrine and blew it up, sparking global outrage. IS destroyed several other key landmarks in Mosul and elsewhere it considered as part of heretical rituals and practices. Staff Lieutenant General Abdulghani al-Assadi, a top commander in the CTS, said about 90 percent of east Mosul was now under government control. Commanders have said it would only take a few more days to flush out the last jihadists remaining on the east bank of the Tigris River than splits the city in two. Read | In parts of Mosul, a semblance of normality despite war The destruction of all bridges over the river in air strikes has made it difficult for IS fighters in east Mosul to resupply or escape to the west bank, which they still fully control. The western side of Mosul, which is home to the old city and some of the jihadists traditional bastions, was always tipped as likely to offer the most resistance. Islamic State has launched its fiercest assault in a year against a besieged Syrian government enclave in the city of Deir al-Zor, trying to cut it off from a nearby military air base in a battle that has killed dozens. A Syrian military source said the fighting was intense. This attack is one of the most fierce attempts by Daesh on the airport and the area, the source told Reuters, using an Arabic term for the group. It seems Daesh has mobilised a big force. Describing the fighting as the fiercest in the eastern city for a year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that at least 82 people had been killed. It also reported that Islamic State had cut the road linking the air base to the rest of the government enclave, meaning the army would be able to supply the city only by air drops, but this was denied by the military source. The governor of Deir al-Zor, Mohammad Ibrahim Samra, said in a telephone interview on state television that clashes were taking place on the air base road. The fiercest fighting was around the Deir al-Zor cemetery and a road junction known locally as the Panorama Roundabout, the observatory said. The dead comprised 28 from the army and allied militia, at least 40 Islamic State fighters, and 14 civilians, the British-based monitoring group said. Syrian state news agency SANA said the army had killed dozens of Islamic State fighters in attacks on the groups positions around Deir al-Zor. Islamic State advanced into Deir al-Zor and the surrounding area in 2015 and managed to besiege it last year, but the army retained control of the airport and neighbouring districts in the city, which lies on the Euphrates river. A US-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias and rival Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups have pushed Islamic State from much of its territory in northern Syria, but it remains embedded in the eastern desert and Euphrates basin. Last month it recaptured the city of Palmyra, 185km southwest of Deir al-Zor, from the government in an unexpected advance that demonstrated its continuing military threat. An Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore on Monday sentenced a mother to death for burning her daughter alive in June 2016 after she contracted a free-will marriage. Zeenat Rafiq, 18, of Lahores Factory Area was set on fire by her mother Parveen Bibi more than a week after the girl reportedly eloped with Hasan Khan to marry him in a court in Lahore, Dawn reported. Parveen Bibi confessed she murdered her daughter for bringing shame to the family. President-elect Donald Trump, in remarks likely to rattle US allies, described NATO as obsolete in an interview published in Monday editions of two European newspapers. He also hailed Britains exit from the EU and backed a speedy trade deal with the UK, but condemned as catastrophic Chancellor Angela Merkels decision to open Germanys doors to a flood of refugees. I said a long time ago that NATO had problems, Trump said, in remarks carried by The Times of London and Bild, Germanys biggest-selling daily. Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, he said. Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay. I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right. He added, though, NATO is very important to me. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States were not reasonably reimbursed for the costs of defending them. His comments caused consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russias annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. After Trumps victory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had been a bedrock of transatlantic security for almost 70 years and was especially needed at a time of new challenges. This is no time to question the partnership between Europe and the United States, Stoltenberg said. Spending has been a common source of friction within NATO over recent years. The core military contributor to the alliance is the United States, which accounts for about 70 percent of spending. In 2014, stung into action by Russias intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, NATO leaders agreed to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence. Read| Trumps plan on Day 1 in White House? Undo Obama orders, build Mexico wall The countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries, Trump said in Sundays interview. (...) Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much. NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation -- was founded in 1949 to offset the Soviet domination of eastern Europe, which ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Moscows eastern European allies joined the NATO club after the end of the Cold War, sparking angry accusations in Russia that the West sought to encircle it. NATO says that it is a purely defensive operation. The alliance today has 28 members, and 22 other countries in a so-called Partnership for Peace Programme. Members pledge to defend each other if attacked, although the only time the self-defence clause has been invoked was after the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States. Great Brexit In other remarks, Trump said Brexit is going to end up as a great thing and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be good for both sides. Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly, said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. Other countries will leave the European Union in future, Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant uptick in migrants and refugees arriving. If they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back, he said. Nato is obsolete, Germanys Angela Merkel made a catastrophic mistake on refugees, Brexit will be great and the US could cut a deal with Russia: Donald Trump unleashed a volley of broadsides Sunday in interviews with European media. Five days before his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, the billionaire populist let loose a torrent of controversial comments about European allies in interviews with British newspaper The Times and Germanys Bild. He extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under his predecessor Barack Obama over Moscows involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia, Trump said in remarks carried by The Times. The US president-elect suggested a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased, but gave no details. Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit, said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Washingtons European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. Nato obsolete In comments set to cause further consternation among eastern European Nato countries nervous about Moscow following Russias annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine, Trump said NATO was obsolete. I said a long time ago that Nato had problems, Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germanys biggest-selling daily. Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, he said. Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping Nato allies if the United States were not reasonably reimbursed for the costs of defending them. After Trumps victory, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had been a bedrock of transatlantic security for almost 70 years and was especially needed at a time of new challenges. Spending has been a common source of friction within the 28-nation alliance over recent years. The core military contributor to the alliance is the United States, which accounts for about 70% of spending. In 2014, stung into action by Russias intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, Nato leaders agreed to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence. The countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries, Trump said in Sundays interview. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much. Great Brexit In other remarks, Trump said Brexit is going to end up as a great thing and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be good for both sides. Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly, said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. The pound took a hit Monday in early Asian trade after Britain said it might undercut the EU economically if it cannot obtain both single market access and immigration controls, with British media warning of a so-called hard Brexit. Other countries will leave the European Union in future, Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant uptick in migrants and refugees arriving. If they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back, he said. Trump also criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants enter the country, insinuating that this posed a security risk. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from, Trump said, adding he had great respect for the chancellor. Merkel took flak at home after her open-door policy aimed at desperate Syrian refugees brought 890,000 asylum seekers to Europes biggest economy in 2015, contributing to the rise of an anti-migrant movement. But in 2016, that figure dropped back sharply, to 280,000 arrivals the government said last Wednesday. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday formed a special committee for the clearance of Indian movies to be screened in the country, according to a report. The move came days after cinema owners in Pakistan resumed screening of Indian films, ending a self-imposed temporary suspension of more than two months. The panel would include minister of state for information and broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, advisor to the prime minister Irfan Siddiqui, film censor board chairman Mubashir Hasan and a representative from an intelligence agency, Geo News reported quoting sources. Secretary commerce Azmat Ranjha would serve as the secretary of the committee that will be responsible for clearing the films to be screened in the country, the report said. Cinemas across Pakistan had stopped screening Indian movies in September last year after the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) that came in the wake of the September 18 terror strike in Uri that claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers. The upper house of Pakistans Parliament on Monday passed a resolution condemning Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarks that described Pakistan as the mothership of terrorism. The resolution, moved in the Senate by Sehar Kamran, a lawmaker of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, appreciated the world communitys reaction to what it said was baseless propaganda by the Indian premier. The resolution said Modis comments were an effort to divert the world communitys attention from alleged atrocities against the people of Jammu and Kashmir, according to Radio Pakistan. The resolution, which was passed unanimously, pointedly referred to Modis remarks about Pakistan at the BRICS Summit held in Goa last October. During the meet, Modi had referred to the country the mothership of terrorismlinked to terror modules across the world. It also drew a parallel between Indias handling of the Kashmir issue and Israels handling of Palestine. It said there will be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and the resolve to fight against terrorism. Speaking in the Senate, defence minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan will continue its political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for the right to self-determination. India is making failed attempts to link the Kashmir freedom movement with cross-border infiltration and terrorism, he said, adding this campaign has failed at the diplomatic fronts. He blamed India for 330 ceasefire violations, including 290 on the Line of Control and 40 on the international border, till December. A total of 45 civilians were killed and 138 injured in these violations, he said. The frequency of violations had declined after December, Asif said. Asif described the surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army along the LoC in September as fake. He added, If India tried to make any effort to carry out surgical strikes in future, these will be responded with full force and they will forget to carry out even faked strikes in future. A group of Pakistani villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the houbara bustard, a rare bird whose meat is prized by Arab sheikhs, officials said on Monday. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack on Sunday evening in Musakhel, in Pakistans southwestern province of Baluchistan, district deputy commissioner Muhammad Yasar said. A case has been registered against 25 people, he added. Police said the villagers turned violent after they were prevented from meeting the visiting royal to seek donations to build a mosque. A Qatari official involved in the sport of falconry confirmed the attack by a large group of men on a convoy of hunters that included a royal family member. He declined to identify the individual, but said the party was safe. Qatari hunters apply and pay for government hunting permits and donate to local communities and wildlife conservation, the official said. Unfortunately there have been attacks led by armed groups. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the bustard as a vulnerable species with a global population ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. It has almost vanished on the Arabian peninsula. Last year, Pakistans Supreme Court lifted a ban on hunting the bird after the government argued it hurt relations with Gulf states whose wealthy hunters traditionally travel to Pakistan to pursue the endangered species with falcons. To seek favour with communities on whose land they pursue prey, Arab hunters have built roads, schools and mosques in places like Balochistan and the province of Helmand in neighbouring Afghanistan, while residents also benefit from the international-standard airstrips that can spring up. New four-wheel-drive vehicles brought in for the hunt are sometimes left behind as gifts for regional leaders. But critics say that hunting with falcons, a practice Arab nomads used to survive life in the desert, is today a reckless hobby that threatens the houbara and funnels money into areas controlled by militias. In December 2015, about 100 gunmen kidnapped at least 26 Qataris from a desert hunting camp in Iraq near the Saudi border. A member of Qatars ruling family was freed in April 2016, along with an accompanying Pakistani man. A shooting attack at an electronic music festival in Mexicos Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen on Monday left five people dead, including two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian, authorities said. The attorney general of Quintana Roo state said that four of the dead appear to have been part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival. Miguel Angel Pech said the shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m. at the Blue Parrot nightclub, one of the BPM Festivals venues in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. Pech said a lone gunman apparently entered the nightclub and began to exchange fire with another person inside. Festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire. Pech said it was not a terrorist attack. He said 20 bullet casings from three different pistols had been found at the scene, and said it was unclear if the security detail had been armed or fired any of the weapons. The shooting apparently caused a rush of people heading for the exits at the beach-side club, and the lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. Pech said 15 people were injured, included one Mexican woman who was seriously injured. He said five of the injured including two U.S. citizens and one Canadian had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. He said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of a disagreement between people inside the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. The BPM Festival posted a statement saying four people had been killed and 12 injured in an attack that involved a lone shooter. BPM wrote that the violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue. Playa del Carmen has largely been spared the violence that has hit other parts of Mexico. Canadas global affairs office confirmed the death of one Canadian and said it was investigating reports of another. Italys Foreign Ministry confirmed one its citizens died. Pope Francis admitted on Sunday to sometimes having darkness cloud his own faith, while warning against Christian parrots who pay lip service to the church without acting on its values. At certain times, I have also encountered moments of darkness in my faith and that faith decreased a lot, but with a little bit of time we rediscover it, the Pointiff told parishioners after saying mass in a village near Rome. Some days we cant see faith, everything is in darkness. Yesterday, for example, I christened 13 children in areas devastated by earthquakes and there was a father who had lost his wife, and we ask ourselves if this man can have faith. We understand that there is darkness, we must respect this darkness of the soul. We dont study to get faith, we receive it like a gift. Francis also urged believers to spend more time talking to their family. If I say Im Catholic and every Sunday I go to mass but then I dont talk to my parents, I dont help my grandparents, the poor, I dont visit the sick, then theres no point, said Francis. In that way, were nothing but a Christian parrot: words, words, words. A professor at the University of Maiduguri and a child were killed and 17 people wounded on Monday in a twin suicide bombing in the city in Nigerias northeast, officials said. State emergency agency NEMA said two suicide bombers blew themselves up at different gates to the university in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, the former stronghold of Boko Haram Islamist militants, at around 5 a.m.. There was no claim of responsibility but the attacks bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during a seven-year insurgency to set up an Islamic state in Nigerias northeast. The group has stepped up attacks in the past few weeks as the end of the rainy season facilitates movements in the bush. In early 2015, Boko Haram controlled an area about the size of Belgium. It has been pushed out of most of that territory over the past year by Nigerias army and troops from neighboring countries. Last month, President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram fighters had been pushed out of the Sambisa forest, their last stronghold in the northeast. Security analysts say the groups ability to carry out attacks in neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad suggests it has multiple bases. A Russian state-controlled broadcaster on Monday blamed hackers for the embarrassing leak online of the final episode of the BBC drama Sherlock a day before it was due to air. Russias Channel One was set to broadcast the final episode of the fourth series of the popular detective drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch on Monday just after midnight Moscow time (2100 GMT), simultaneously with Britain. But the full episode professionally dubbed into Russian by the channel was leaked online on Saturday and swiftly copied across numerous sites. According to preliminary findings, the cause was a hacker attack, Channel One spokeswoman Larisa Krymova said in a statement sent to AFP. She said that the channel has been in close contact with the BBC from the moment it learnt of the leak and is carrying out an investigation to identify the source of the material uploaded onto the Internet. Channel One will be ready to share full information on the incident with colleagues after the investigation is completed, Krymova said. The BBC said yesterday that it had launched a full investigation, the Telegraph website reported, also citing a source at the corporation as claiming that the leak was more than an accident. The shows producer Sue Vertue warned fans on Twitter on Saturday that the Russian version of Sherlock The Final Problem has been illegally uploaded. Please dont share it. Russias most popular social networking site VK.com responded to a wave of posts discussing Sherlock over the weekend by adding an automatic warning saying Spoilers: Sherlock to every message mentioning the show. On Russian-language Twitter, hashtags and jokes about the leak were trending over the weekend. That moment when the Russians have watched your show before you, wrote one Twitter user, @zaz1995. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs official Twitter account posted its first ever like on a comment about the show. Russias love affair with Sherlock Holmes was fired by a televised version with Soviet actors filmed in the Baltic state of Latvia that aired in the 1980s and is still popular today A video of a Canadian mayor dancing to bhangra and learning how to tie a turban was hailed on social media for celebrating the countrys diversity. In the video posted on Facebook, Dan Curtis, the mayor of Whitehorse -- the capital of Yukon state -- is given a tutorial on tying a Sikh turban followed by a lesson on bhangra. Its been an experience Ill remember for my whole life, Curtis said at the end of the seven-minute video posted earlier this month by dancer Gurdeep Pandher. Thank you for bringing diversity to our city, our territory and our country... And I firmly believe that it is because of people like yourself, having these amazing customs, you make our city, our territory and our country so much stronger, Curtis said, wearing a deep red turban. The video was lauded online for celebrating the inclusivity of the nation, with one user saying: We definitely need more understanding of each others culture....after all we are just humans. Great job Mr Mayor. Love not war is the answer. I'm moving to Canada so much #love and #diversity - check out this Canadian mayor learning how to put on the Turban pic.twitter.com/qxXTSHaQQ0 Mina (@mina_ysf) January 13, 2017 This is what Canada is all about - DIVERSITY! https://t.co/7s0iZQ1Ipg Brian Parrott (@BParrottSTCInd) January 13, 2017 Anti-racism campaigns have been held across Canada in the past. In September last year, the University of Alberta organised a Turban, Eh! campaign where participants were taught how to tie a turban and the curious could learn more about Sikh culture and its customs. The varsity had also launched an online campaign #MakeItAwkward in response to racist posters against Sikhs that had propped up in the campus last year. Indian origin citizens make up one of the largest non-European ethnic groups in Canada, according to government data. Including defence minister Harjit Sajjan, there are four Indian-origin ministers in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Cabinet. Syrian rebel groups will attend talks in the Kazakh capital next week aimed at bringing an end to the countrys nearly six-year war, rebel officials said on Monday. All the rebel groups are going. Everyone has agreed, said Mohammad Alloush, a leading figure in the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group. Astana is a process to end the bloodletting by the regime and its allies. We want to end this series of crimes, Alloush said. Ahmad al-Othman from the Sultan Murad faction also told AFP that the rebel groups have decided to go to the talks. The meetings in Astana are hosted by regime backer Russia and rebel supporter Turkey, who are working closely to find an end to the Syrian conflict although they have backed opposing sides. The talks are set to begin on January 23. Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was optimistic about the talks and would be ready for reconciliation with (rebels) on the condition that they lay down their arms, according to the French lawmakers with whom he met. US president-elect Donald Trumps transition team has been invited to take part, but has not yet officially responded. The talks are expected to build on a nationwide truce that began on December 30 and initially saw a drop in violence across many of Syrias battlefronts. The ceasefire excludes the Islamic State jihadist group and its rival, the Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after breaking ties with Al-Qaeda last year. 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. When Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa called Ashraf Ghani to condemn recent terror attacks, the Afghan President had a blunt message for him those responsible for the assaults live and recruit in Pakistan. Any inaction and hesitation in tackling terrorism and extremism will result in threats to Pakistan and the region, Ghani said, according to a statement issued by the presidents office on Monday. Soon after Bajwa made the call on Sunday night, the Pakistani militarys media arm had given a different take on the conversation. A statement issued by the Pakistani military quoted Bajwa as saying that Pakistan had come a long way in its fight against terrorism of all hue and colours and eliminated all safe havens. Bajwa also said Pakistan will cooperate with the Afghan government to eliminate terrorism. But the Afghan statement made it clear Ghani believes Pakistan is the root of the problem. He said: Those who claimed responsibility for carrying out these terrorist attacks live, operate freely and recruit people in Pakistan and no action has been taken against them. Those claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks live, operate freely & recruit people in Pakistan, & no action taken against them. pic.twitter.com/zL5T8S8hEE (@ARG_AFG) January 16, 2017 Ghani also pledged to take revenge against those responsible for the attacks, saying Afghanistan had made all necessary preparations for its security. Terrorism and extremism are common threats to the region and world, inaction and hesitation to tackle them can pose threats to Pakistan and the region, he added. Ghani said he wanted all-front and serious discussions on the issue of terrorism since repetition of 2016 is unacceptable to the people and government of Afghanistan. The Afghan statement also quoted Bajwa as referring to the past and promising that such activities will not be repeated on (the) part of Pakistan. More than 50 people, including five diplomats from the UAE, were killed in three terrorist attacks in Helmand, Kabul and Kandahar on January 10. The Taliban claimed an attack outside the Parliament in Kabul but denied any involvement in the attack in Kandahar, which resulted in the death of the diplomats. The police chief of Kandahar had blamed the attack on the Haqqani Network and the ISI. Since taking over in November, Bajwa has tried to reach out to the Afghan leadership, which has been very wary of Pakistans civilian and military leaders after a failed attempt by Islamabad to broker peace talks with the Afghan Taliban. During his conversation with Ghani, Bajwa suggested a robust border management mechanism and intelligence cooperation to stop the movement of terrorists across the border. Read | Kandahar blast triggers speculation of link to upcoming India visit of UAE crown prince SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Egypts top administrative court upheld on Monday a ruling voiding a government agreement to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia in a deal that sparked rare protests. The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had appealed against a lower court ruling in June that found the controversial border demarcation agreement was illegal. In its ruling, the High Administrative Court said it was its unanimous decision that the two islands -- Tiran and Sanafir -- were sovereign Egyptian territories. The courtroom erupted in cheers as the judge delivered the verdict, with lawyers and activists chanting: These islands are Egyptian. The decision came after the government referred the agreement to parliament for a vote. It may further complicate ties between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, a main financial backer of Sisi since the former army chief toppled his Islamist predecessor in 2013. Saudi Arabia has already signalled unease by stopping a promised flow of oil to Egypt, leaving Cairo scrambling to find a new supplier. But relations have cooled over Egypts stance on war-torn Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is seen as closer to Russia than Saudi Arabia which supports rebels fighting him. Lawyers present in court told AFP the ruling was final, but a former senior judge said the government could still find a way to appeal it. - Unconstitutional? - Mohamed Hamed al-Gamal, the former head of the administrative court, said the decision was final according to this courts procedure, but it could be unconstitutional. The law and the constitution affirm the absence of administrative court jurisdiction in sovereign matters such as international treaties, Gamal said. The government may challenge the ruling before the constitutional court, he added. The deal to hand over the islands, signed during an April visit by Saudi King Salman in which Riyadh showered Egypt with aid, provoked accusations that Cairo had sold the strategic islands. Cairo said the islands were Saudi to start with, but had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s. But even many who agreed with the government objected to the way the deal was announced, buried in a cabinet statement a day after it was signed. Two rare protests were held in downtown Cairo in April against the deal, leading to clashes with police and arrests of activists. More than 100 people were jailed for up to five years for taking part in demonstrations that police quickly dispersed, but they were later freed on appeal. Police had also made scores of arrests in the lead-up to the protests to discourage a repeat of a large rally on April 15 at which demonstrators chanted for the fall of the regime. Sisi had defended the deal, and said in a televised meeting with politicians that his mother had taught him not to take other peoples belongings. He further requested that the matter not be brought up again. US President Barack Obama has said Donald Trump was a change candidate and cautioned people against underestimating the president-elect, even as he acknowledged that it has been an unusual transition. He was a change candidate, Obama told CBS News in his final interview as the President of the United States. Asked if anyone can change Washington, Obama said, I think the American people can change Washington. But I think that it is not going to change, because somebody from high directs that change. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, are motivated by all kinds of issues, the 55-year-old outgoing President said. Theyre sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing theyre interested in is getting re-elected. And if they think that its harder for them to get re-elected by cooperating with each other, then they wont cooperate, Obama said. Reflecting on the election campaign, the US President said Trump was clearly able to tap into a lot of grievances. And he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how youd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate, Obama said of the billionaire-turned-politician, who will be sworn in on January 20. What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone, he said, in an apparent reference to the series of tweets that Trump writes everyday, which very often are the main source of news. And I think that theres a power in that. Theres also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isnt the same as the process required to actually solve the problem, Obama said. Obama also cautioned political pundits and others who are critical of Trump that they should not underestimate him. First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge dont underestimate the guy, because hes going to be 45th president of the United States, he said. The one thing Ive said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that, as we go forward certain norms, certain institutional traditions dont get eroded, because theres a reason theyre in place, he said. Responding to a question, Obama acknowledged that this is an unusual transition. Describing Trump as an unconventional candidate, Obama said he does not think there is anybody who has run a campaign like this successfully in modern history. Not that I can think of. And, as a consequence because he didnt have the support of many of the establishment in his own party, because he ran sort of an improvisational campaign..., he said. However, Obama said he does not think that Trump can run an improvisational presidency. Rolling back Obamacare and industry regulations. Deporting undocumented immigrants. Scrapping trade deals. And of course, building that border wall. It will be an extremely busy first day in the White House for Donald Trump if he lives up to his various campaign and transition pledges to undo the policies of Barack Obamas eight-year presidency. Some orders or guidance can be reversed with the stroke of a pen. Other policies will take months or longer to unwind. But he will be able to set efforts in motion on several fronts. Trump has outlined dozens of actions he intends to take in the first hours of his presidency, but experts told AFP that the 70-year-old billionaires effectiveness will be limited, given that the executive office is just one branch in a government that includes Congress and the judiciary. He cant just walk in there and do everything he wants to do on day one, immigration attorney David Leopold told AFP. In a democracy, there is no CEO. Some of Trumps promises are pie-in-the-sky political messaging, like proposing a constitutional amendment imposing congressional term limits. Other proposals, like his day one vow to cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama, would dramatically shatter tradition. But Trump is about nothing if not upending established order. In this Nov 10, 2016 photo, President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP file photo) Here are some highlights of his stated opening day plans. Health care Trump has pledged to introduce, with Republican leaders in Congress, legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, and his team stresses he will immediately sign executive orders related to dismantling the law. He could issue them on two fronts: allowing people to keep their plans which might not have qualified under the Affordable Care Act, and voiding penalties for individuals not having coverage. Trump recently said he then hoped to see Congressional action to repeal and replace Obamacare essentially simultaneously, although Republicans have yet to unveil their replacement. Immigrant rights advocates demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump's immigration policies, during a rally at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington on Saturday (AP) Read | Kanishk Tharoor writes: Instead of draining the swamp, Trump is muddying the waters Immigration During the campaign, Trump was eager to order the deportation of convicted criminals who were living in the country illegally, a group he said topped two million people. Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone, he told supporters in Arizona in August. But Leopold said such processes are already underway: Obamas administration made deporting criminals a high priority. Plus, the president doesnt have the power to order anybodys deportation, Leopold said. Trump has vowed to introduce legislation on day one that would fund construction of the great wall he wants built on the US border with Mexico. He could immediately suspend the Syrian refugee program, and pledged a day one suspension of immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. Another controversial move he has advocated is scrapping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Obama instituted in 2012 to allow more than 750,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the country as young children to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation. Trump could reverse that guidance with the stroke of a pen, Leopold said. A billboard showing a pictures of US president-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen through pedestrians in Danilovgrad, Montenegro on November 16, 2016. (Reuters file photo) Read | The story is a fantasy: Trump aides deny plan of summit with Putin Environment, energy Trump has made no secret of his intent to end what he sees as the Environmental Protection Agencys intrusion into American industry, including Obamas Clean Power Plan compelling power plants to slash carbon emissions. Vice President-elect Mike Pence has said Trump will end the war on coal on day one. Trump pledged to scrap coal leasing moratoriums and open federal lands for drilling and mining in order to access a mother lode of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium. He has also expressed intent on day one to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project linking Canada to US Gulf Coast refineries, which the Obama administration blocked. Trump also pledged to immediately cancel billions in payments to UN climate change programs and use that money to improve environmental infrastructure. Workers hang an early version of the American flag on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, to be used as part of the backdrop to the presidential inauguration for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week. (AFP) Read | Why India may matter less in world politics during a Trump presidency Trade, government Defying the longstanding free trade traditions of his own party, Trump said that on his first day he will announce the United States will back out of or renegotiate two sweeping trade pacts: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation agreement that has yet to come into force, and the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. He vowed to immediately instruct his treasury secretary to label China a currency manipulator, a move that some observers warn could spark retaliation by the worlds second largest economy. As a way to drain the swamp, his catchphrase for cleaning up Washington, Trump has said he will issue a five-year ban on political appointees becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration. He would also slap a hiring freeze on federal employees. Read | A political party in India on Trumps ideologies? US president-elect Donald Trump called Britons smart for voting for Brexit and foresaw the dismantling of the European Union in a wide-ranging interview that rocked Westminster on Monday, proving a new irritant for Prime Minister Theresa May. May, who will try to dispel the impression her government is riddled with muddled thinking on Brexit during a speech on Tuesday, is yet to get an appointment with Trump, who will take over as US president at the inauguration on Friday. The interview was more of an irritant for May because it was done by Michael Gove, Conservative MP and former justice secretary, and one of the contenders for Mays job after David Cameron quit as prime minister following the June 23 referendum on Britains future in the EU. Gove, a former journalist and a leading Brexiteer, interviewed Trump for The Times, where he is now a columnist. It was Trumps first interview with a British publication, conducted in what Gove called his glitzy, golden man cave in the Trump Tower, New York. Promising a quick trade deal after Brexit unlike President Barack Obama, who said before the referendum Britain would be back of the queue if it voted to exit the EU Trump said he could understand why voters chose to leave the bloc. You look at the European Union and its...basically a vehicle for Germany. Thats why I thought the UK was so smart in getting outI believe others will leave (the EU). I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think, Trump said. Critical of Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel for welcoming a large number of refugees last year, Trump said: I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from. People, countries, want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity. But I do believe this: if they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that itentails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit, he added. Asked whether he would push ahead with a trade deal with Britain after Brexit, Trump said, Absolutely, very quickly. Im a big fan of the UK. Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides. Trump spoke on several issues, including Russia, foreign policy and his mothers praise for Queen Elizabeth. He said he was keen to meet May after his inauguration. I will be meeting with (Theresa May). In fact if you want you can see the letter, wherever the letter is, she just sent it. Shes requesting a meeting and well have a meeting right after I get into the White House andwere gonna get something done very quickly, he said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON US President-elect Donald Trump is ready to repeal and replace his predecessors signature healthcare reform law, better known as Obamacare, with a plan that will ensure every American was insured, addressing the chief concern of critics. In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, he also said work was nearly complete on his plan to cut taxes all around, with corporate tax down as close as possible to 15%, a move Indian companies with US operations will be keenly watching. President Barack Obamas health care law, the Affordable Care Act, has been in the crosshairs of Republicans mostly on ideological grounds and Trump, who takes charge on Friday, had promised to make its repeal among his first tasks in office. At Obamas request, Trump had agreed to take another look at the law for elements he might want to retain. But its not clear if he did, as he gave no details of his plan to the Post. He did promise though that everyone will be covered. Were going to have insurance for everybody, Trump said in the interview, recorded on Saturday. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us. Obamas driving motivation behind the health care overhaul was to extend coverage to include all Americans. And 20 million of those previously uncovered were brought under the umbrella through a carrot-and-stick approach. Supporters of the Act, which was signed into law in 2010 and rolled out over 2013 and 2014, worried that its repeal and replacement will leave those Americans, mostly those who cant afford it, without coverage once again. Trump promised insurance for all, but without details. Grounds for the laws repeal has already been prepared with both chambers of US congress, which are in the control of Republicans, voting it down in recent days. And the president-elect has been cheering them on from the sidelines. The Unaffordable Care Act will soon be history! he wrote in a Twitter post last Friday, after the House of Representatives voted to start dismantling the law. In the Post interview, Trump spoke also about forcing pharmaceutical companies to cut prices as part of making health affordable, a move that could test the powerful drugs lobby that has been attacking India over IPR issues for years. About his tax plan, Trump said in the interview, Itll probably be 15 to 20% for corporations. For individuals, probably lower. Great middle-class tax cuts. He added the corporation tax could be as close to 15% as we can. To American companies still planning to sell US products manufactured abroad, Trump reiterated his threat to impose a forbidding 35% duty, which has already made some companies such as Carrier and Ford drop their plans. The chief of the UN atomic agency says Iran has complied with a key commitment of its nuclear deal with six world powers by removing sensitive equipment from a strategic underground site. Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday that Tehran has met a deadline and taken excess centrifuges and infrastructure from what used to be the Fordo uranium enrichment facility. The main focus of the nuclear deal is limiting Irans uranium-enrichment capacities out of fear Tehran could spin uranium in its centrifuges all the way to levels used for the core of a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is not interested in such arms. While more than 1,000 centrifuges can remain at Fordo according to the deal, they must be used for research and other non-enrichment purposes. She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police -- designers refusing to dress her because of her husbands politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. Its hard to find a great dress for this inauguration, Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husbands presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by, SophieTheallet . From Mamie Eisenhowers pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obamas white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by Americas first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonians National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favorites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a traditional first lady like Jackie Kennedy -- famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isnt their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husbands insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. Read| Poised and glamorous Melania Trump the second foreign-born First Lady of US Incompatible The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husbands presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by, Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trumps opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. Personally, Id rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters, Marc Jacobs told Womens Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Womens Wear Daily that anyone should be proud to dress the new first lady and Trumps daughter Ivanka -- who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity, Diane von Furstenberg has said. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Years Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a thank you. Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity, von Furstenberg has said. Read| A meeting of First Ladies: Michelle Obama welcomes Melania Trump to White House Buy American But what is Melanias style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman -- manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman -- Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors, Vera Wang told Womens Wear Daily. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. Shes already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the countrys huge fashion industry. The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors, Vera Wang told Womens Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. Dont underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved, Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up. Pakistans former President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US on January 20, according to media reports. Zardari, co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was invited to the January 20 ceremony by the US government which he accepted. He will leave for the US on January 17, the Daily Times reported. Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late last month after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include ex-Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders. It is also said that he would proceed to France from the US. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is expected to join him in the US on January 25 after the PPPs Lahore-Faisalabad rally, which is scheduled to be held on January 19. Besides US-Pakistan ties, issues related to Pakistan-India relations, Afghan policy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will also come under discussion during one-on-one meetings with the US authorities, including the Congressmen and senators. Zardari, who is currently in Dubai, is expected to undergo a medical examination while in the US. The museum and heritage center covers plenty of Old West ground. Frontier Texas!with or without the exclamation pointis likely to elicit exclamations of approval from visitors with a hankering for Old West history. In the heart of Abilene, this Western heritage center and interactive museum brings the Texas frontier to life while also serving as the official visitor center for Abilene and the 650-mile Texas Forts Trail. Frontier Texas is also one of the few museums in the world to relate history through life-size holographic figures. Visitors enter through the high-definition, surround-sound Blood & Treasure welcome theater, which screens a 12-minute introduction (narrated by Gunsmoke star Buck Taylor) to a museum that opened in 2004 and underwent a $2 million renovation in 2012.At the other end of the facility the immersive Frontier Experience Theater puts viewers in the midst of a shootout in the Beehive Saloon, a thunderstorm on the prairie, an Indian attack and a buffalo stampede. In between visitors will find visual treats at each of seven exhibitsA Wild Land, Comanche Empire, Buffalo Hide Trade, Military on the Frontier, Cowboys and Longhorns, Frontier Settlements and Guns of the West. A Wild Land relates the geologic and early cultural history of this harsh and perilous land, where survival was the primary focus for animals and man. The Spanish, who tried to establish missions and presidios, incurred the opposition of many tribes from the late 17th century through the 18th century. It was the Comanches who, after acquiring horses from the Spanish in about 1700, first achieved dominance in the region, as described in Comanche Empire. They called themselves Numunah (Our People) and made would-be settlers unwelcome in their Comancheria homeland for at least 150 years. On display are examples of their bows and arrows,spears, tomahawks and guns. The Military on the Frontier and Buffalo Hide Trade exhibits also relate Comanchetales. The U.S. military established forts in Texas following the Mexican War, first to prevent the Comanches from raiding into Mexico and then to protect settlers from the Comanches and other Indians deemed hostile. Despite a treaty that preserved bison for Indian use, the military mostly looked the other way when non-Indian hunters set their sights on the valuable beasts. It took them less than a decade to wipe out the Texas herds. No museum depicting the history of Texas would be complete without a tribute to the Texas waddies and the cattle they drove north to the Kansas railheads.The Cowboys and Longhorns exhibit presents relevant artifacts as it tells the story of the Lone Star State cattle trade.The original terminus of the Chisholm Trail was Abilene, Kansas, the first of the Kansas cow towns.Abilene, Texas, which cattlemen established in 1881 as a stock transshipment point on the Texas & Pacific Railway,was named for that Kansas town. The Frontier Settlements exhibit introduces visitors to the people, good and bad, who populated Abilene and the other Texas towns. Of course the taming, or shaping, of the wild frontier was largely made possible by firearms,from muzzle loaders and flintlocks to Winchesters and Colts, and the Guns of the West exhibit puts the spectrum of weapons on display. Youll learn that at the time of the Civil War a soldier had about the same firepower as a Comanche warrior with a quiver of arrows, while postwar technical advancements in weaponry made one suitably armed soldier equal to about a dozen bow-carrying Comanches. Several of the historic firearms are from the Fort Phantom Hill collection. The U.S. Army operated out of Fort Phantom Hill from 1851 to 1854.Today the fort site [www.fortphantom.com], on the banks of the Clear Fork of the Brazos 10 miles north of Abilene, is a stop on the Texas Forts Trail. Three of the posts original stone buildings and other remnants still stand. Finally, the museums new Early Texas exhibit area features interactive discovery stations that showcase the regions natural history. Providing plenty of interest for visitors of any age (children certainly included), Frontier Texas is at 625 N. First St. in downtown Abilene. For more information call 325-437-2800 or visit www.frontiertexas.com. Originally published in the February 2015 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here. Prospector George Lufkin and partner Chris Watson first scoured this remote valley for its rich silver ore in early 1878.Local John Miller grub staked the pair and promoted the strike, soon attracting regional attention. By 1881 the district had drawn Eastern investors, who hired mining engineer George Daly to evaluate the site. Impressed, Daly bought the claims and formed the Sierra Grande Mining Co.with partners J. Whitaker Wright and George Roberts. They in turn attracted many well-known investors, including poet Walt Whitman. In August 1881 blacksmith turned prospector John Leavitt discovered a fabulous silver lode. Just 40 feet beneath the surface he struck an opening with a mass of horn silver 4 feet thick that assayed an incredible 15,900 ounces of silver to the ton. It was one of the richest silver deposits in the world, producing more than2.5 million ounces of silver. Mine superintendent Bernard MacDonald named it the Bridal Chamber for the sparkling light reflected by cerargyrite crystals lining the cavern. The operators removed carloads of ore so pure they were shipped directly to the U.S. Mint. In sections of the claim miners cut silver from the walls with handsaws. One mass, dubbed Jacksons Baby after mine manager D.H. Jackson,weighed more than 5 tons and had to be removed from the mine in pieces. On the day the Bridal Chamber was discovered, Apaches ambushed and killed George Daly and several companions. Indian attacks were just one hazard miners faced,as the booming area also attracted rustlers and outlaws. Local legend has gunfighter Longhair JimCourtright serving as town marshal,but he may have been just an ore guard for one of the district mines. By 1882 the town the Bridal Chamber had spawned took the name Lake Valley.At its peak it had 1,000 residents, a dozen saloons, three churches, two newspapers,a school and several stores and hotels,while more than 400 mineshafts pocked the ground. Late that year George Roberts sold his interest in the Sierra Grande Mining Co. to Wright, as his association with the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 (see October 2013 Wild West) had tarnished the companys image. Wright was forced out within months. By 1883 the area was thick with rustlers. The governor authorized the Territorial Militia to deal with them in anyway they deemed appropriate. Major Albert Jennings Fountains Las Cruces militia raided the town in early March, arresting two rustlers who were later gunned down while allegedly trying to escape. The Santa Fe Railroad built a spur to Lake Valley in 1884, solidifying the towns position as the district hub. But the Bridal Chambers ore was exhausted, and the Sierra Grande Co. discontinued development. Other companies continued operations, but rather than concentrating on average ores,they continued to search for the next bonanza. Thus they built expensive mills and smelters designed to handle high-grade ores while overlooking steadily profitable deposits. As the ores decreased in quality, the smelters closed in 1889. The demonetization of silver in 1893 sparked widespread financial panic and a mass exodus from the district. A fire deliberately set in the back of a saloon destroyed most of the business district in 1895, and by 1900only about 200 people remained. That year Lucius Fisher won most of the area mines in a poker game in Denver.For several years he tried to restart them,with limited success. J. Whitaker Wright,who promoted the Lake Valley district,was convicted of mining fraud in London in 1904 and attracted world attention when he committed suicide in the courtroom by swallowing cyanide. Violence broke out in the district in1921 when the Sikes and Nunn ranching families started a feud known as the Lake Valley War over land and water rights. By the time the smoke cleared,two members of the Sikes family lay dead.A jury accepted a self-defense plea and acquitted the Nunn faction. Despite production of manganese during both world wars and in the mid-1950s, Lake Valleys population continued to dwindle. The last residents,Pedro and Sabina Martinez, moved to Deming in 1994. Today about 15 structures remain, including a small museum staffed by a U.S. Bureau of Land Management caretaker. Originally published in the February 2015 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here. A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 37 people, most of them inhabitants of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as the jet tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials have stated. A Turkish cargo jet flying from Hong Kong crashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan, killing dozens. The Kyrgyz president, Almazbek Atambayev, declared that Tuesday would be a national day of mourning. According to the airport's administration, the jet was supposed to make a stopover at Manas airport, near the capital, Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. The jet crashed when attempting to land in poor visibility at 7.31 am (0131 GMT). Locals thought it was an earthquake The cargo jet ploughed on for a few hundred metres through the Dachi Suu village, which is home to hundreds of families. It shattered into many pieces and damaged a big number of buildings. Smoke rose above the crash site, the torn-off tail assembly, rotated upside down, towered above a house. At first, locals thought the area had been struck by an earthquake. The area nearby was covered with twisted pieces of metal. Nobody understood what happened because there was a fog and the weather was not good. ACT Airlines declared that the cargo jet was its plane Turkish Airlines stated the cargo flight was operated by ACT Airlines and neither the aircraft nor the crew belonged to Turkish Airlines. ACT Airlines declared that the Boeing 747-400 was its plane. ACT Airlines stated: Our TC-MCL signed plane, flying on Jan 16 from Hong Kong to Bishkek, crashed on landing at Bishkek at the end of the runway for an unknown reason. There will be a research about it to get more information on the causes of the accident. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 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 InterContinental Bucharest appoints a new general manager, in the person of Lior Bebera. He is replacing Stefan Frank, after being more than four years in this position, a press release shows.In this role, Lior Bebera will be primarily responsible for managing the hotel operations. A German national, born in Israel, Bebera has lived and worked in seven countries, on three continents. Before coming to Bucharest, he worked at numerous InterContinental hotels such as InterContinental Berlin, David InterContinental Tel Aviv, InterContinental Kiev, IHG Head Office in London. His previous role was at InterContinental Malta as Hotel Manager, being responsible for the entire hotel operation, playing a crucial role in the strategy and re-positioning of the hotel during and after the renovation process. Despite Trump winning the election, it appears that he will continue to get roasted by SNL and Alec Baldwin, who has emerged as his top impersonator, as he begins his presidency. On the latest SNL episode, Baldwin staged a parody of Trumps press conference last week, which was his first as president-elect. Baldwin began by addressing the question thats on everybodys mind: Yes, this is real life, he said. This is really happening. On January 20, I, Donald J. Trump, will become the 45th president of the United States. The SNL press conference went on to mock the lackluster list performers and celebrity guests at Trumps inauguration, before Baldwin faced predictable questions on the unverified golden showers report that was the source of scandalous headlines last week. Baldwins Trump attempts to dodge the question, only to speak with obvious innuendo regarding the pee party that allegedly took place in Moscow. This country will be literally showered with jobs, he says. Because I am a major whiz at jobs. And this will be a golden opportunity for me as president to make a big splash. He later avows to replace Obamacare with a policy he read about called the Affordable Care Act, not realizing the two are one in the same. Toward the end of the sketch, a bald and shirtless Beck Bennett, calling himself Wolf Blitzer but clearly intending to play Vladimir Putin, asks Trump, Are you sure Russia was behind hacking? Putin then holds up a videotape with Pee Pee Tape and says, But are you really, really sure? to which Trump responds, It was China. Err, I mean Canada. It was Meryl Streep! As is usually the case after a particularly scathing Baldwin impression, the real Trump was quick to condemn the sketch as well as the entire SNL production on Twitter. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job, wrote the man who becomes president in four days. Really bad television! Alec Baldwin This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Here's a radical thesis about the best way to eliminate poverty: Give money. Don't give stuff. Also, don't give conditional money, either, expecting the recipient to do something you want them to do. I'm intrigued by an international charity called GiveDirectly, which puts this radical thesis to the test. I understand this "just money, no stuff, no strings attached" approach runs contrary to our most cherished charitable instincts. It also goes against our typical "Don't give a man a fish, teach a man to fish" plans, delightful as that cliche may be. International groups addressing poverty usually focus on building infrastructure capacity in poor areas - stuff like digging wells for clean water, or building housing. Other groups might provide a family with a goat, enroll a girl in school, or teach sustainable farming techniques. These are all super-nice, well-intentioned plans. One teensy problem, however, is that international development like this might not really work very well for eradicating poverty. I named "give only cash, no strings" above just a "thesis," because I don't actually know if it's better than traditional poverty-relief or traditional development projects. But a series of well-conceived experiments are going on right now to test the thesis. And they are on the cusp of launching an even bigger test. A group of economists who believe in the thesis of "cash only, no strings" founded GiveDirectly, an organization that I think of as a radical critique of both traditional development organizations and traditional poverty-reduction schemes. Here's what it does: It just give cash, unconditionally, to poor adults in Africa. Right now it mostly operates in Kenya and Uganda but is also expanding into Rwanda. GiveDirectly doesn't demand recipients raise a specific protein-rich crop, get sober or build a type of fuel-efficient oven out of local mud. They simply transfer money to households in extreme poverty, accessible through a mobile payments system. And then they let the poor recipients themselves figure out what they need. In that way it's the simplest poverty-eradication plan imaginable. Governments around the world have experimented - even before GiveDirectly - with programs like this, known in policy wonk circles as "unconditional cash transfers." Unlike most development or poverty-relief charities, however, GiveDirectly measures the results of their programs using the gold standard of data analysis, a series of randomized control trials. That means picking randomly selected cash recipients according to a set of criteria (poverty being one criteria, obviously) and then comparing their outcomes with people under the same conditions who didn't receive any cash. Then they try to improve their program design, based on the evidence. GiveDirectly spokesman Max Chapnick said the charity raised and earmarked close to $40 million for direct cash transfers last year. That's not as big as international development organizations like Save The Children or Oxfam or international governmental aid, but it ain't chicken feed either. If radical disruption of an industry, evidence-based giving, randomized control trials and continuous design improvement all sounds very "Silicon Valley" to you (it does to me) then you will not be surprised to learn that Facebook co-founder Dustin Moscovitz, and Google.org are early and aggressive backers of GiveDirectly. But what if poor people quickly spend their unearned money on alcohol, drugs or other vices? A research paper published in April 2016 found no increase in alcohol and tobacco consumption among GiveDirectly recipients from 2011 to 2013. Not only that, but other research on unconditional cash transfers suggests this fear about cash transfers may be overblown. A December 2016 study from the University of Chicago of 19 cash transfer programs worldwide also found no increase in alcohol or tobacco use among recipients. Or another big objection: What if "free money" discourages people from working? An MIT study from 2015 of seven randomized controlled trials found no evidence that cash transfers discouraged work. You can choose to believe these researchers, or your own lying eyes. GiveDirectly's next experiment, for which they've targeted a $30 million fundraising campaign, will be their biggest cash transfer program yet. They have $23 million raised so far, but if they reach their $30 million goal, their next experiment will be in something known as Universal Basic Income (which wonks call UBI), which is closely related - but distinct from - unconditional cash transfers. With their new plan, GiveDirectly will transfer cash to Kenyan households in three different ways to compare the effects on poverty: 1. 75 cents per day (the poverty level in Kenya in U.S. dollars) to every adult in 40 villages, paid monthly for 12 years, 2. 75 cents per day to every adult in 80 villages, paid monthly for two years; and 3. 75 cents per day to every adult in 80 villages for two years, but paid in a single lump sum. Researchers will compare the effects on the health, well-being, poverty, education, stress and the impact on the local economy of households and villages between these groups. They'll also compare the results to a control group of 100 villages that does not receive payments. With their two-year and 12-year commitment to incomes, they will have a way to measure both short-term and long-term effects of the Universal Basic Income theory on poverty. This program is universal because every adult in a chosen village will receive income. GiveDirectly chose 75 cents per day because it approximates the poverty level in Kenya, qualifying as basic aide. I know this all may sound a bit kooky and maybe too radical and hard to take. It goes against our charitable instincts. We naturally want to bequeath tangible goods instead of free money, and we want to control and improve the poor recipient's behavior. But what if that approach - and a few centuries of failed development work - is totally wrong? Every 10 year-old knows the coffee-mug wisdom: "instead of giving a man a fish, you should teach a man to fish." What if we learned that all wrong? As one of the co-founders of GiveDirectly, Paul Niehaus, cleverly tweeted recently: "The implicit hubris in 'teach a man to fish' is that we're great at fishing lessons. We're not." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate After more than two decades in business, Saint Arnold Brewing Co. is paying homage to one of the events that helped define it from its earliest days, the brewery-sponsored pub crawl. The tribute, fittingly, is a new beer with a relatively low alcohol content, so you can enjoy more than one while out with friends. For the uninitiated, the pub crawl is a rollicking, communal trip through a handful of bars clustered in a particular neighborhood across Houston or, as the brewery has grown, in towns from Galveston to Beaumont and beyond. Saint Arnold beers are promoted at each stop. Brock Wagner, who co-founded the brewery in 1994, recalls that the first one drew 25 people. I remember, as a mid-1990s newcomer, marveling as the festive crowds on the Rice Village pub crawl blew through my neighborhood watering hole. Soon I was joining the fun, getting my card stamped at each stop, earning a souvenir glass. I live in the Heights now and have watched with near-equal amazement as the spring pub crawl there has mushroomed to Mardi Gras proportions, swamping White Oak Drive, to herald the arrival of Spring Bock. Wagner says the biggest crawls now draw more than 5,000 fans. More Information New brews Saint Arnold Brewing Co. debuted two new beers this week. One is Pub Crawl Pale Ale, a lower-alcohol "sessionable" year-round brew. The other is the high-octane Divine Reserve No. 17, a Baltic porter out for a limited time. The Houston craft brewery is celebrating with events around town. Thursday: Valhalla, Rice University campus, 4 p.m. Thursday: Guru Burgers, Sugar Land Town Square, 6:30 p.m. Friday: Clancy's Public House, 503 FM 359, Richmond, 6 p.m. See More Collapse "While we didn't invent pub crawls, our events have become famous throughout the region," Wagner said in a news release last week. "It's certainly something the Gulf Coast craft beer community has come to look forward to from us throughout the year." But it is not just nostalgia that has me excited by the arrival of Saint Arnold Pub Crawl Pale Ale, now available on draft around Houston, with cans expected to hit the shelves in March or April. The pale ale was a big part of craft brewing's early success. Remember how great that first Sierra Nevada tasted? What a departure it offered from the bulk of what then counted as American beer. It's been eclipsed by the hoppier India pale ale, but this style remains a favorite of mine. Other worthy local examples include Brash EZ-7, 8th Wonder Brewston and Karbach Weekend Warrior, their names connoting a breezy good time. So welcome Pub Crawl pale ale to the party. At a relatively light 4.7 percent alcohol by volume, it should be a good choice for a ... pub crawl. "Our aim was to make something hoppy and balanced," brewer Aaron Inkrott said in the beer's announcement. "This is the perfect beer for all-day drinking." But wait, there's more! At the other end of the booze scale, Saint Arnold this week also debuted its latest Divine Reserve special release, a Baltic porter that weighs in at 8.8 percent ABV. The brewers made just 425 barrels of Divine Reserve 17, so don't tarry in seeking it out. Saint Arnold Brewing Co. The piece: "Nanoosh" The artist: Martin Durazo Where: Barbara Davis Gallery, 4411 Montrose When: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Saturdays, through Feb. 4 Why: This is what my head feels like on Friday afternoon. Fragmented and full of a dizzying assortment of thought remnants from a busy week. Durazo, who lives in Los Angeles, explores concepts about travel, searching and "the eventual spirituality of experiencing the uncharted" (whatever that means) in his latest show, "The Adventurers." "Nanoosh" is slightly lighter-spirited than the title piece although both contain varied marks referencing maps, water and the march of time, conveyed in transparent layers with an intense sense of movement. The piece: "Broken Obelisk" The artist: Barnett Newman Where: Rothko Chapel reflection pool, 3900 Yupon at Sul Ross When: Daily Why: Because it's Martin Luther King Day. Built in 1967, Barnett Newman's monumental Cor-ten sculpture projects an awesome mix of power and poignance. Legendary art patrons John and Dominique de Menil brought the piece to Houston, matching a government grant for monumental public artworks on condition the sculpture would be placed in King's honor at City Hall's reflection pond. City officials accepted the sculpture and its placement but rejected the dedication. So the de Menils withdrew their offer, purchased the sculpture outright and found a home for it beside the chapel, which opened in 1971. Placing "Broken Obelisk" above a reflection pool was a magnificent gesture that emphasized the work's spirituality. Newman never saw it completed; he died in 1970 of a heart attack, but the sculpture and the chapel have become landmark Houston attractions. There's programming all year, but the Annual Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration is always a highlight. Today's event includes a ceremony to officially mark the return of the sculpture, which is just back from a year in conservation, and a 7 p.m. lecture in the chapel by Leonard Pitts, Jr. entitled "The Fierce Urgency of Now." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate This story ran in the Houston Chronicle's Sunday magazine on Nov. 6, 1966. The words and headlines are reprinted as they ran then. They tell you at the Shriners Burns Institute in Galveston that a new patient is being flown in. A small boy. Being piloted by his own father. From Baton Rouge, La. You speed to the airport, to where an ambulance is waiting. Some men stand around, including a member of the hospital's administrative staff, who has helped with arrangements. It's a windy hot afternoon and the sky is spotless blue. The plane grows out of the distance, circles the field noiselessly, lands and taxis near. A Piper Comanche. A nurse gets out, gray, tired-face, followed by the pilot, a stocky man in glasses. A boy, wrapped in a sheet, is gently lifted from the plane and placed on a stretcher. He whimpers once. Then his dark eyes dart around, taking in all the spectators. You can see where the flames had licked up to his face. The father and nurse ride with him to the hospital. But they are not allowed in the treatment room, where he's to be examined and cleansed, with all his clothing and bandages removed. The boy cries out" "Daddy, don't leave me," as he's wheeled in. You talk with the father, Otis T. Forbes who owns the Fiesta Motel in Baton Rouge. He's a soft-voiced man, is impressed with his first view of the hospital. He tells about his 6-year-old son, Otis Jr., who is better known as "Lil Dude." The child and two other boys, cool in swim trunks, where watching TV in the storage room next to the motel's pool. They were laughing and cheering at the cowboy action on the screen when make-believe suddenly became real-life fury. A drum of chlorine exploded, rocked the storage room with flames and smoke. The boys staggered out, unharmed. But then Lil Dude remembered that his white kitten was somewhere in the place. He hesitated a moment, then ducked back through the flames. He groped, couldn't find the kitten. He fought his way into the open again, leaped into the pool. This probably saved his life. Doctors said he suffered more than 50 percent burns, 25 percent of them third degree. "We had my boy in Baton Rouge hospital for a few days," says Forbes. "But they didn't have the facilities to treat such cases. I was told about this Shriners Burns Institute -that they use the most modern techniques here. That's one reason I wanted to get him here." He contacted a Baton Rouge Shriner, who became the sponsor of the child. This is the usual procedure. The child's doctor then phones the Institute's chief surgeon, Dr. Duane Larson, gives him the medical history and asks if there's a bed available. The Shriner sponsor then makes all arrangements, including transportation, which is usually by plane, and then hospital is notified of time of arrival so an ambulance will be waiting. In this case Forbes furnished his own plane. His hobby is flying. As he tells about it, the nurse Nannie Mae Dykes, keeps nodding her head and looking motherly. She mumbles something about Lil Dude being such a brave boy. Another case, another bed. Lil Dude's admission brought the number of patients to 20. As many as 30 can be handled. You find out that two other Burns Institutes, at Cincinnati and Boston, are to be completed by the Shrine of North America, at a cost of nearly $4 million each. The Institutes, which join the Shriners' 19 orthopedic units, are dedicated to the treatment of burns in children under 15-regardless of race, color or religion-whose parents or guardians are unable to pay for treatments. Funds to operate them come from annual assessments of each Shriner, voluntary contributions and money raised through temple activities. Parts of the proceeds from the Shrine Circuses go for this purpose. The Arabia Shrine Circus in Houston is now thrilling audiences at the coliseum, will continue through next Sunday. The hospital at Galveston accepted its first patients in April. Boys and girls with severe burns, usually caused by carelessness in the homes. Many are saved from crippling effects, are able to return to a normal life again. A good example is a 10-year-old boy who was admitted to the Shrine hospital seven months after being burned in a gasoline fire. His previous doctor has suggested amputation of his leg. The boy underwent grafting procedures as well as release and graft of the scar contractures. His leg was saved. Some of the reconstruction cases need prosthetics as well as skin grafts. The hospital medical sculptor, Joseph Paderewski, shows you a prosthetic ear. Made of silicon rubber and tinted, it looks like the real thing. It's put on by adhesive in the morning, taken off at night. Superior care is provided through use of specially designed equipment for operating and therapy procedures. And there's a big competent staff, numbering about 125. This includes surgeons, nurses, clerical, laboratory and research workers. Administrator R.L. Innes is particularly proud of the research program, Dr. M. C. Goodall, director of research, constantly probes for ways to improve the treatment of all types of burns. "We also keep a photographic record of each patient," Innes says. "This is to help us check on his progress and for teaching purposes. Through our affiliation with the University of Texas Medical Branch we carry on an extensive teaching program for medical and nursing students on the care and treatment of burns." You find out many things about this hospital, about its work to save children's lives and restore their bodies. And you are pleased to hear what the doctor says after an early examination of the little boy from Baton Rouge. Successfully skin grafting is the prospect. Then the boy would be placed in traction apparatus to prevent development of scar contractions of arms and legs. "We hope he'll be released within a few weeks," the doctor says. UPDATE Shriners Hospital for Children Galveston was one of three burn centers financed with $10 million by Shriners North America in 1962. After visiting 21 university medical centers, Shriners chose the University of Texas Medical Branch for the first of the three and named it Shriners Burns Institute. The institute opened in 1963 with seven beds at UTMB's John Sealy Hospital while Shriners Burns Hospital was being built on land donated by the Sealy & Smith Foundation. Construction was completed in 1966. Shriners considered moving the hospital to the Texas Medical Center in Houston in the 1980s, but decided to remain in Galveston after the Moody Foundation offered financial support for doing so. An eight-story hospital across the street from John Sealy Hospital was completed in 1992 with 30 beds, three operating rooms and a 163-seat auditorium. Hurricane Ike damaged the hospital in September 2008, and the economic downturn a few days later caused a $3 billion loss to the Shriners fund that finances the operation of its hospitals. The national Shriners board voted to close the Galveston burn center and several other hospitals, but a membership revolt led by the 1,000-member El Mina Shrine, based in Galveston, overturned the board decision in July 2009 at a national convention. The damage was repaired, and the burn center, now known as Shriners Hospital for Children Galveston, reopened in November 2009. - Harvey Rice This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When police found the body of slain League City mother Anne-Christine Johnson, she was still wearing her Christmas pajamas. Her ex-husband - with whom she'd had a long and volatile relationship - admitted to the brutal murder, telling police he stabbed then tried to suffocate her because he "wanted to see" her die, according to court documents made public Tuesday. Shaun Hardy, 32, admitted the killing after breaking down in sobs when police arrived Friday to search his suburban Galveston County home. He was arrested after officers found a body - who the medical examiner later confirmed was his ex-wife and the 30-year-old mother of two - stashed in the garage. Her death comes amid a statewide rise in deadly domestic violence. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of women in Texas killed by male intimate partners jumped 20 percent, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. After three weeks of searching, local law enforcement finally realized last Friday that Johnson's troubled relationship had turned deadly when League City police showed up at her ex-husband's home with a search warrant to retrieve cellphones. Hardy started sobbing as police searched the house, according to the probable cause affidavit. More Information How to get help AVDA 24-hour Crisis Hotline: 800-355-8547 National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-SAFE See More Collapse When a detective drew near the garage, he noticed a "strong odor of decaying flesh" that only grew stronger as he opened the garage door. Once inside the garage, the detective spotted an object - about the size of a human body - covered in dark plastic and duct tape. Splayed around it were a number of scented candles. Officers immediately put an end to their hunt and got a second search warrant. Wounds to neck, chest At first, Hardy refused to talk to police without a lawyer present. But then he changed his mind and agreed to a recorded interview at the League City Police Department. Hardy told officers that he threw his ex-wife on the ground as hard as he could and left her there bleeding. When Johnson held a knife to her chest as if to stab herself, Hardy kicked the hilt so hard he dented his shoe, according to the affidavit. As Johnson coughed and gurgled, Hardy said he threw a Kroger bag over her head to put her "out of her misery." When police finally found her body, Johnson was still clothed in Christmas pajamas and had the plastic bag over her head. The medical examiner determined that she had two puncture wounds in the neck and "a wound that could have been caused by a knife in her chest." Police said Johnson was probably killed on or about Dec. 8 - the day she went missing. Hardy was arrested Friday and initially charged with felony tampering with evidence. Later, prosecutors added a murder charge. He is being held in the Galveston County Jail on $500,000 bond. After his arrest, the couple's 5-year-old autistic son was handed over to a family member. Johnson's older child was already in the care of his father, her first husband. Ominous warning But long before the shocking murder charge, court documents show that the two had a fraught relationship. In 2014, Hardy filed for divorce and was awarded primary custody of their son Roland. The following year, Johnson alleged that Hardy choked her, pistol-whipped her and tried to drug her during a June 2015 fight, according to court documents. "Shaun Philip Hardy's violent behavior against me has gotten so bad that he has assaulted me with a shotgun, threatened me with a knife, and choked me," Johnson wrote when filing for a protective order after the blow-up. "I am afraid that without this protective order, Shaun Philip Hardy will continue to hurt me or even kill me in the future." Johnson's court filings came on the heels of a similar set of paperwork from Hardy. A judge granted both protective orders but canceled them before the end of the next month. Now, she's become one a growing number of women whose current or former domestic partner turned into their accused killer. In 2015, at least 158 women were killed by an intimate male partner, TCFV data shows. "It's the highest number we've ever seen in terms of fatalities," said the council's director of policy, Aaron Setliff. More than three-quarters of those fatalities were in a home and 37 percent of the victims were women who - like Johnson - had taken steps to end a problem relationship. "There is a misperception that once they leave they're safe," said Sherri Kendall, CEO of a Houston-based nonprofit called Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse. Part of the problem could also be a lack of education and resources. "There were 72,000 people served in domestic violence programs last year - and a turnaway rate of about 39 percent," Setliff said. Oftentimes, that's simply due to a lack of beds, he said. "As long as we have this turnaway number there's not as much of a safety valve as we would want," he said. "This is the highest fatalities number we've seen, so we're trying to think about why we're in this place." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate As Dr. Tom MacGillivray made an initial incision to open up a patient's chest earlier this month, Adele's voice echoed through his new operating room at Houston Methodist Hospital. The sweetest devotion hitting me like an explosion. "Who picks the music?" MacGillivray said, repeating a question from a reporter who'd come to observe his first operation at the hospital. "Not me. I thought we'd be listening to George Strait or something." He's joking now, but a year ago when MacGillivray was still at Harvard University and contemplating whether to take a job interview at Methodist, he'd imagined Houston was a city of cowboy hat-wearing, country music-loving Southerners. After 19 years on staff at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital having become regarded as one of the nation's top heart surgeons while practicing in his hometown MacGillivray wasn't interested in moving to Texas. But an old friend, Texas Medical Center President Dr. Bobby Robbins, had called and asked him to at least make a visit. "And out of respect to him, I said, 'Sure, I'll come take a look at it,' " MacGillivray said. "That's what I was saying. But what I was thinking was, 'There's not a chance I'm going to move to Houston. Why would I leave Mass General?' " At the end of a two-day visit a year ago, while waiting to board his return flight to Boston, MacGillivray called his wife: "You know, Les, I could really see myself living here and working here," he remembers telling her. "In fact, I'd really be excited." For a moment, there was silence on the other end. And then: "OK. We can talk about it." *** Robbins has seen it play out again and again as he's sought to recruit top physicians to the Medical Center since taking the job four years ago. At first, they're leery. Texas is far away, foreign. They've never been to Houston and have misguided assumptions about life here. "But once you get them in the door and have them see how fantastic this place is, you can sign the deal," Robbins said, pointing out that, although most recruits are aware Houston has the world's largest medical complex, they don't fully appreciate the scope of clinical research being done here. Robbins' official job description doesn't include recruiting, but he's become particularly obsessed with luring doctors from elite Ivy League institutions. So when he learned Methodist was looking to hire a surgeon, Robbins a cardiac surgeon himself thought of MacGillivray, a man he's known for years. After calling to feel him out, Robbins got in touch with Dr. Alan Lumsden, the chair of cardiovascular surgery at Methodist, and told him "one of the best heart surgeons I've ever seen is potentially recruitable." Lumsden called a mutual friend, another cardiac physician in Boston, who confirmed that MacGillivray was an expert surgeon. But he told Lumsden not to bother: MacGillivray would never leave New England. Lumsden decided to give it a try anyway. "He's a big deal," he said of MacGillivray. "Bringing someone like Tom down here will generate interest and give us an avenue into even more recruitment. He's that kind of a talent." Within a few hours of stepping off the plane at George Bush Intercontinental Airport last year, MacGillivray said he was "blown away." Methodist had assembled a team of top heart surgeons that seemed to match its legacy as a pioneer in the field. He was particularly impressed with a program Dr. C. Huie Lin set up to treat adults with congenital heart disease, a new and developing field that MacGillivray specializes in. More children than ever who were born with congenital heart defects are surviving late into adulthood, thanks in part to surgical techniques developed at Methodist more than 50 years ago by Dr. Denton Cooley and others. "My suspicion is we have more adult congenital heart patients than anyone in the country," Lin said. "They exist here in Houston because Denton Cooley worked on them and saved their lives when they were children." As a result, Methodist is now one of the nation's leaders in treating emerging health problems in those patients, Lin said. In Boston, MacGillivray had carved out a niche as one of only a handful of surgeons in the country who specialize in treating heart disease in those patients. It was a perfect fit, Lin said. "It's one thing to have someone who is a flawless and a phenomenal technical surgeon, but also to have someone who has the passion and vision to take care of this emerging population is pretty exciting," he said. After a day with Lin and Lumsden, MacGillivray, 55, realized Methodist was likely the place where he could do the most good. "The team here is involved in nearly every clinical trial that's pushing the field forward," MacGillivray said. "Boston was my home, and I was very comfortable there and had a thriving practice there. But to me it seemed like the future was here, and for me, that meant my future was here." *** MacGillivray started at Methodist on Dec. 1. After assisting on several surgeries, the Jan. 3 operation was his first as lead surgeon. The patient was a man in his 30s who'd survived a high-speed car accident several years earlier. A stent graft inserted in his aorta to improve blood flow following the crash had begun to fail, mimicking a condition that leads to high blood pressure that's common in adult congenital heart disease patients. "This one's tailor-made for him," said Lumsden, who'd come to the operating room to see his high-profile hire in action. As MacGillivray worked to open the man's chest and maneuver past one of his lungs, he noted that he was operating on hallowed ground - in the same operating room where legends of his field had worked. Cooley. Michael DeBakey. E. Stanley Crawford. Jimmy Howell. "It's kinda like something you think about when you're a kid," MacGillivray said, an Adele track still playing in the background. "You get to work in the place where these men operated. It's a real honor." That wasn't the only reason he agreed to come here. Houston, he said, was not at all what he'd imagined. The food. The diversity. The arts. He's embarrassed to admit it now, he said, "but I had that parochial Northeasterner's view of the rest of the country. As I've come to learn, this is an amazingly cosmopolitan, metropolitan city, just like the few other huge cities around the world." And despite her initial hesitation, it didn't take long for his wife, a dermatologist in Boston, to catch his enthusiasm, he said. She'll be moving to Houston later this year. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Standing between several bright posters, Marylyn Harris used an index finger to type a phone number for the U.S. House of Representatives into her smartphone Sunday. The Houston-based registered nurse said she plans to call to ask elected officials to keep in place the Affordable Care Act. The law, Harris said, helped her patients afford mental health care - and helped her pay for surgery that would have cost thousands of dollars. "The economic status in this country is tied to health," she said. "Let's get out there, let's make the calls." Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, hosted the rally Sunday in the Mickey Leland Building, promising a crowd of about 200 attendees that she will keep fighting to preserve the Affordable Care Act - days after D.C. lawmakers took the first steps to repeal President Barack Obama's signature health care law. Her event was among several planned by left-leaning lawmakers on Sunday in cities including Boston and Tampa, Fla. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Tim Kaine, the former vice-presidential candidate, headlined two rallies, which were titled "Our First Stand." "Don't be fearful of being isolated, castigated, rejected, called divisive if you are doing it out of the conscience of helping those who cannot help themselves," Jackson Lee said. Labor leaders, physicians and Houston residents with emotional personal stories spoke alongside the congresswoman. Supporters cheered and listened as they clustered around the U.S. and Texas flags. Republicans characterize the law as expensive and ineffective and have taken steps to roll it back. The House and Senate last week voted to approve plans for a budget that would stop funding for the law, and President-elect Donald Trump has said he believes the "'Unaffordable' Care Act" law should be repealed and replaced. Americans are split. A recent poll from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that one-fifth of respondents want an immediate repeal without a replacement plan in place. But nearly 30 percent said lawmakers should wait to strike down the law until they find a replacement plan, and 47 percent said lawmakers should not vote to repeal the law. "Cheap plans" supported by Republican lawmakers "will run (citizens) right to their graves," said Jackson Lee, who added after the event that she has not yet decided whether she will attend Trump's inauguration on Friday. Twenty-four lawmakers have said they won't attend the ceremony, NBC reported Sunday. Jackson Lee, who is serving her 10th term in the House, said she was not totally discouraged from last week's votes, adding that Republican senators may be persuaded to keep some measures of the law. The rally followed a listening session last weekend in which citizens including 23-year-old Rony Escobar of Houston spoke to Jackson Lee about how the Affordable Care Act affected their lives. Diagnosed with several illnesses in his childhood, Escobar said he saved several thousand dollars a month from lower costs from prescriptions and specialist visits after the Affordable Care Act was made law. "We're fighting for our future," he said to applause. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate GALVESTON - In the summer of 2015, Anne-Christine Johnson accused her ex-husband, Shaun Hardy, of pointing a loaded shotgun at her, choking her, striking her with a shotgun barrel, slamming her head into a wall and threatening her with a knife. He also threatened to use a hypodermic needle to shoot a concoction of drugs into her mouth that would render her unconscious, then drag her into the bathroom and slit her wrists so that it would look like suicide, she alleged in court records. Johnson broke away and ran out of the apartment, eventually persuading a stranger to drive her to Clear Lake Regional Hospital. Johnson's mother said the nurses gave her a voucher for a taxi and urged her to leave Galveston County. But Johnson didn't leave the county, and she didn't sever ties with Hardy. And last month, police searching for Johnson found her plastic-wrapped body in her ex-husband's League City garage surrounded by scented candles. Hardy has been charged with murder and confessed to the brutal slaying, authorities said. Friends and family members say they believe Johnson, 30, maintained contact with Hardy out of concern for their young autistic son, who was in his care. More Information Need help? Victims can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 to be directed to the closest agency. See More Collapse "She was a fearless mother going back to save her child," said Jen Elkins, 32, who worked with Johnson at a pub in El Lago and became a confidant. "That's so bold that I can't even imagine." Johnson's case illustrates how difficult it can be to get separation from an alleged abuser. Her situation was complicated by the facts that Hardy had won custody of their son, she had a prior drug conviction and authorities never charged Hardy after the alleged abuse in 2015. Her body was found Dec. 30 after three weeks of searches by police and Texas EquuSearch. Well-liked, respected Abuse claimed the lives of 158 women in Texas in 2015, up from 132 in 2014, according to the Texas Council on Domestic Violence. Harris County led the state in domestic violence fatalities with 34, up from 23 in 2014. The council found nearly 195,000 incidents of reported domestic violence in Texas in 2015. "This is happening on every street in at least one house tonight," said Selah Tacconi, executive director of the Resource and Crisis Center of Galveston County. Johnson met Shaun Philip Hardy, now 32, at Christian's Tailgate Bar and Grill in Houston, where she was working as a waitress. Johnson divorced her first husband, with whom she had a son, now 8, to marry Hardy in 2012, despite the misgivings of family and friends, who mostly stayed away from her wedding. Her first husband now has custody of their son. Hardy was employed by League City as a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning specialist, a job he'd held since 2007. His supervisor, Charles Anthony "Tony" Meyer, said Hardy was good at his job and well-liked and respected by other city employees. "Everyone at the city who knew Shaun knew him to be a bright, avid reader who loved history and the arts," Meyer said. "He worshipped his son and had a sincere interest in handicapped children." Meyer said Hardy left his job in October because he wanted to return to school and become an advocate for disabled children. Hardy's arrest two weeks ago on charges of murder and tampering with evidence astounded Meyer, who likened him to a son. "Not in our wildest dreams did we think that he was capable of something like this," Meyer said. Abusers often are well-liked by acquaintances and co-workers, said Aly Jacobs, manager of counseling and advocacy at the Houston Area Women's Center. "Outside of the house he appears to be a great guy; he's got his stuff together," Jacobs said. 'Behavior changed' Some of Johnson's friends were convinced that Hardy was not a good match for her. "I was vocal against it," said Roni Keller, 34, of Houston, a longtime friend. Keller noticed a change in Johnson soon after the marriage. "Right off the bat, he tried to put her friends and family out of her life," she recalled. "She wasn't allowed to hang out with me and her friends." The few times that Johnson went out with her friend, she kept it a secret from her husband. "I had to drop her off a block from her house," Keller said. "I felt uncomfortable texting her," she added, fearing that Hardy would see the text. "I didn't want to be the reason she had to deal with Shaun's ridiculous wrath." The victim's mother, Stephanie, said she was not aware that her daughter was being physically abused until she was treated at a hospital emergency room in 2015. "In restrospect, there were signs," Stephanie Johnson, 58, of Houston said. "She became more isolated and more withdrawn to herself. I never saw bruises, but her behavior changed markedly." Hardy filed for divorce in October 2014, though the reasons are murky. The divorce petition cited "discord or conflict of personalities." Galveston County Court-at-Law Judge Barbara Roberts ordered mediation, as is standard in divorce cases. Hardy hired attorney Kathleen M. McCumber to represent him. McCumber did not respond to a request for comment. Johnson had no attorney. Roberts told the Houston Chronicle that although mediators are fair, parties to a divorce who have no attorney are not always aware of their legal options. During mediation, Hardy was given custody of their autistic son, Roland, and she was allowed to see him two hours a week at a McDonald's restaurant in League City. Although unemployed when the divorce was granted, she agreed to pay $224 monthly child support. Also unusual was her agreement to allow Hardy's father to have custody of her son if Shaun Hardy died or was incapacitated. Roberts said domestic violence was never mentioned during the proceedings, and Johnson never raised any objections. Even if the domestic abuse issue had been raised, Roberts said, the Texas Supreme Court has ruled that judges must accept mediated agreements. Johnson's mother believes Hardy intimidated her daughter during mediation. "I don't think she was competent at that point," she said. "She was afraid of her abuser." Jacobs, the Women's Center manager, said abusers often manipulate victims. The divorce was finalized in April 2015. Order 'was a joke' Meanwhile, Johnson was struggling with other problems. Eleven days after Hardy filed for divorce, Johnson was arrested on charges of possession of less than 1 ounce of cocaine by Webster police and placed on probation. If Johnson used drugs, it never interfered with her work, according to three former employers. Employers found her to be one of their most reliable workers. "Anne never took drugs," insisted Alessandra Sussini, owner of the Italian Connection Restaurant until it closed in May. "She was like a spitfire when it came to waitressing. I've never seen anyone work as hard as Anne." Even after the divorce, Hardy and Johnson continued to live together at times. Johnson's friends said Hardy constantly tried to control her life after the divorce and that she believed staying with him was the only way to be near her son. Her friends feared for her life after the violent incident in June 2015. The attack drove Johnson to seek help from the Galveston Crisis Center, which provided an attorney to help her seek a protective order, according to court records. "Shaun Philip Hardy's violent behavior against me has gotten so bad that he has assaulted me with a shotgun, threatened me with a knife, and choked me," Johnson alleged in the request. "I am afraid that without this protective order, Shaun Philip Hardy will continue to hurt me or even kill me in the future." Hardy also filed for a protective order, attaching a copy of the divorce decree and an affidavit accusing Johnson of hitting him with the shotgun and trying to slash him with a knife. "It was a joke to know he said that," said Elkins. "Anne-Christine was never that way." Both requests for protective orders were withdrawn. Johnson's family and friends are still critical of police for not arresting Hardy. The emergency room medical report, made available by Johnson's mother states, "She also notes that she did not want to contact the police because, 'her husband knows everyone in the police force, and if he found out (she) told anyone he would kill (her).' " League City Police spokesman Kelly Williamson denied that officers were friends with Hardy. "That is absolutely not true," Williamson said. "Nobody knows him more than seeing him around doing his job for the city." He said the police fully investigated the case and presented their findings to the Galveston County District Attorney's Office, which declined to prosecute. The Chronicle filed an open-records request for the full police report; the city has appealed to the Texas attorney general. Gruesome confession Tacconi, the Galveston Crisis Center director, declined to discuss whether Johnson was a client but said abuse victims are often not believed. "There is a lot of potential victim blame that could occur as well as believing she's just playing the domestic violence card," Tacconi said. Keller said she had hoped the incident would be a turning point for her friend. "I thought that was what woke her up," Keller said. "In three weeks, she was back with Shaun." Employers and friends said Hardy would stalk her during the periods when she had her own apartment, bombard her with accusatory and threatening texts and demand that she come home even when she was in the middle of a shift. "He was really big on calling her a slut and you're dirty and no one wants you," Elkins said. Friends and family say Johnson sought help from a local battered women's shelter in the months before her death but canceled the appointment after Hardy told her he had cancer and needed her help. They doubt that he had cancer. Johnson was last seen alive Dec. 8. She was supposed to have lunch on Dec. 9 with her father, Lee, but she never showed. When Lee Johnson went to Hardy's residence, he maintained his ex-wife had left his house on Dec. 8 and got into the car of another man. An early police affidavit in support of a request for phone records notes her drug conviction and speculates that she could have disappeared on a drug binge. A police search on Dec. 30 discovered Johnson's body. Hardy allegedly gave a gruesome confession to police, saying he threw her on the floor. As she lay on the floor with a knife pointed toward her as if she intended to harm herself, he kicked the knife and drove it into her chest, then suffocated her because she was making gurgling sounds, he told police. The confession is seared into her mother's memory, causing her to agonize over her daughter's last moments. "To live with a confession like that for the rest of your life as a mother I just don't know how," Stephanie Johnson said. Hardy remains in Galveston County Jail awaiting trial with bail set at $1 million. Stephanie Johnson said she intends to devote the rest of her life to combatting domestic violence. She has started a web page to that end in her daughter's memory. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BALTIMORE - The 4-month-old on the operating table has a shocking birth defect, nearly half his heart too small or even missing. To save him, surgeons will have to totally reroute how his blood flows, a drastic treatment that doesn't always work. So this time they are going a step further. In a bold experiment, doctors injected donated stem cells directly into the healthy side of Josue Salinas Salgado's little heart, aiming to boost its pumping power as it compensates for what's missing. 'More responsive' It's one of the first attempts in the U.S. to test if stem cells that seem to help heart attack survivors repair cardiac muscle might help these tiniest heart patients, too. "We think the young heart is able to be more responsive," said Dr. Sunjay Kaushal, chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, who is leading the study in partnership with University of Miami researchers. Kaushal bent over the baby's right ventricle, the part of the heart that will take over for the abnormal left side. The surgeon had repaired as much as possible for now. Next he measured where to place eight shots of precious stem cells. Then the bustling operating room went silent as Kaushal helped fellow surgeon Dr. Si M. Pham guide tiny needles into the ventricle's muscle. "We're not saying we're going to cure it," Kaushal said of the birth defect, called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. But, "my whole quest is to see if we can make these little kids do better." Josue's parents knew there was no guarantee the experimental injections would make a difference. But their son had been hospitalized since birth and needed open-heart surgery anyway for a chance to go home. "We are marching ahead with God," said Josue's father, Hidelberto Salinas Ramos, speaking in Spanish through a hospital interpreter. Nearly 1,000 babies are born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome in the U.S. each year. It's the most complex cardiac birth defect. Josue is missing his left ventricle, the main pumping chamber that pushes oxygen-rich blood to the body. Other key structures on his heart's left side are too malformed to work. Always lethal until a few decades ago, this defect now is treated with three open-heart surgeries performed between birth and age 3. Doctors route blood around the abnormal left heart and they convert the right ventricle - which normally would shuttle oxygen-poor blood to the lungs - into the main pumping chamber. Treating underlying problem Today, about 65 percent survive at least five years, and many reach adulthood, said Dr. Kristin Burns, a pediatric cardiologist at the National Institutes of Health. But too many children still die or require a heart transplant because the right ventricle wears out under its increased workload. That's why doctors are conducting this early-stage study of whether stems cells might help that ventricle work better. "This is very different than a surgical approach or giving a medicine just to treat the symptoms. This is trying to treat the underlying problem," said Burns, of NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "I know you're really nervous," Kaushal told Josue's father, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Everything is going to be fine." Just 4 months old, Josue was undergoing his second open-heart surgery. The first operation, a day after his birth, was a temporary fix to keep his heart pumping and create an aorta. Josue never got strong enough to be discharged to his Edgewater, Md., home. This time, Kaushal would take pressure off Josue's right ventricle - and inject those stem cells. For testing in babies, Kaushal turned to Dr. Joshua Hare at the University of Miami's Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, who researches a specific type of stem cell donated from the bone marrow of healthy adults. Hare's institute freezes these so-called mesenchymal stem cells, which have a long safety record in adult studies, and is providing them free for the baby study. Initially, Kaushal's team tested piglets, whose hearts are similar to humans. When the right ventricle was damaged, they found stem cell injections preserved the piglets' heart tissue. Apparently the cells spurred some of the heart's existing repair mechanisms. Back in the Baltimore operating room, University of Miami researchers helped Kaushal's nurses thaw the frozen stem cells and prepare injections. A few feet away, Kaushal was moving a large vein so it will drain deoxygenated blood from the top of Josue's body straight to his lungs without having to enter that overworked right ventricle. (When he's 3, Josue will need a final operation to similarly reroute blood returning from his lower body.) Then, just before his chest was stitched back up, Josue became the second baby with this defect to receive the experimental bone marrow stem cells. It will take several years to know if stem cell experiments work. But, like many babies after their second surgery for the heart defect, Josue bounced back - and a week later, finally got to go home. President-elect Donald Trump entered the week of his inauguration fending off questions about the legitimacy of his presidency even as he promised to unite the nation as its new leader. Taking its cue from Trump, his administration-in-waiting came out swinging this weekend against criticism from all corners. His aides went on the attack against the Democratic Party and civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who questioned the legitimacy of Trump's claim to the White House. And a top aide issued a pointed warning to the head of the office of government ethics to "be careful" after he publicly called for Trump to make a cleaner break with his business interests. Furthermore, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus piqued the media's interest by acknowledging that there had been discussion about moving press briefings out of the White House to accommodate larger crowds. Trump's top aides pushed back hard on the notion that Trump's presidency was somehow not legitimate - a charge that stems from the allegation that Russia meddled in the elections - Priebus calling Lewis' charges "insanity" and "disappointing." "I think President Obama should step up," Priebus told ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. "I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on the Republican side of the aisle: Look, we may have lost the election on the Democratic side, but it's time to come together." Vice President-elect Mike Pence asserted Trump's right to "defend himself" against the suggestion he is not a legitimate president, even coming from an "icon" such as Lewis. And he criticized Lewis for refusing to attend Trump's inauguration. 5 days before inauguration The combative stance comes five days before Trump will take the oath of office and address a bitterly divided nation. "For many years our country has been divided, angry and untrusting. Many say it will never change, the hatred is too deep. IT WILL CHANGE!!!!" Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon. On Saturday, Trump was widely criticized for responding to Lewis in a series of tweets, claiming that the Georgia congressman was "all talk" and "no action, no results." Lawmakers in both parties pointed to the arrests and physical beatings Lewis withstood as a leader in the civil rights movement as evidence to the contrary. The incident, which came at the start of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend, may only serve to deepen the distrust of Trump among African-Americans. National exit polling from the election found that 91 percent of black voters viewed Trump unfavorably. Trump also poured salt on old wounds for Democrats who argue that his long history of doubting President Barack Obama's citizenship was a racist effort to delegitimize the country's first black president. "What (Democrats) are right about is to talk about the racistpast of Donald Trump," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Sunday on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." Questioned on birther issue Transition officials deflected questions about Trump's years-long refusal to accept that Obama is an American citizen, calling it "old news." Priebus said questions about Obama's birth have "been resolved for at least two years in Donald Trump's mind" and distinguished between questioning Obama's citizenship and accepting the results of the election. Stephanopoulos corrected Priebus, noting that Trump continued to raise questions about Obama's eligibility well into his own presidential campaign. "That's not the point. The point is not where Barack Obama was born," Priebus said. Priebus took a similarly bellicose stance against Walter Shaub, the director of the obscure Office of Government Ethics. Shaub has criticized Trump's transition for rushing his nominees' ethics reviews and he called on Trump to divest from his business assets to avoid conflicts. The comments prompted Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to call for Shaub to testify before Congress. "The head of the government ethics ought to be careful because that person is becoming extremely political," Priebus said on ABC. "Apparently, (Shaub) may have ... publicly supported Hillary Clinton ... calling out the president with info on Twitter about our disentangling of the business over a month ago. So I'm not sure what this person at government ethics, what sort of standing he has any more in giving these opinions." "Why is Congressman Chaffetz investigating Walter Shaub for doing his job, George, for speaking so courageously?" Norm Eisen, a former Obama ethics czar, said on ABC. Eisen called Priebus' comments "shocking, mafia-style THUGGERY" on Twitter. Priebus also signaled that the media may be seeing some changes during the Trump administration. To allow for "more press coverage from around the country," he told ABC that initial press briefings may be moved from inside the White House to the nearby Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He did not mention evicting the press from its workspace inside the White House , despite reports to the contrary. "This is all a distraction, and it's all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election," Pence said on Fox News Sunday. "The American people see right through it." President-elect Donald Trump said in a weekend interview that he is nearing completion of a plan to replace President Barack Obama's signature health care law with the goal of "insurance for everybody," while also vowing to force drug companies to negotiate directly with the government on prices in Medicare and Medicaid. Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview late Saturday with the Washington Post, but any proposals from the incoming president would almost certainly dominate the Republican effort to overhaul federal health policy as he prepares to work with his party's congressional majorities. Trump's plan is likely to face questions from the right, following years of GOP opposition to further expansion of government involvement in the health care system, and from those on the left, who see his ideas as disruptive to changes brought by the Affordable Care Act that have extended coverage to tens of millions of Americans. In addition to his replacement plan for the ACA, also known as Obamacare, Trump said he will target pharmaceutical companies over drug prices and demand that they negotiate directly with Medicaid and Medicare. "They're politically protected but not anymore," he said of pharmaceutical companies. The objectives of broadening access to insurance and lowering health care costs have always been in conflict, and it remains unclear how the plan that the incoming administration is designing - or ones that will emerge on Capitol Hill - will address that tension. In general, congressional GOP plans to replace Obamacare have tended to try to constrain costs by reducing government requirements, such as the medical services that must be provided under health plans sold through the law's marketplaces and through state's Medicaid programs. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other Republicans have been talking lately about providing "universal access" to health insurance, instead of universal insurance coverage. Trump said he expects Republicans in Congress to move quickly and in unison in the coming weeks on other priorities as well, including enacting sweeping tax cuts and beginning the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. 'Can't get cold feet' Trump warned Republicans that if the party splinters or slows his agenda, he is ready to use the power of the presidency - and Twitter - to usher his legislation to passage. "The Congress can't get cold feet because the people will not let that happen," Trump said during the interview with the Post. Trump said his plan for replacing most aspects of Obama's health care law is all but finished. Although he was coy about its details - "lower numbers, much lower deductibles" - he said he is ready to unveil it alongside Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "It's very much formulated down to the final strokes. We haven't put it in quite yet but we're going to be doing it soon," Trump said. He noted that he is waiting for his nominee for secretary of health and human services, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to be confirmed. That confirmation rests with the Senate Finance Committee, which has not yet scheduled a hearing. Trump's declaration that his replacement plan is ready comes after many Republicans - moderates and conservatives - expressed anxiety last week about the party's lack of a formal proposal as they held votes on repealing the law. Once made public, Trump said he is confident his plan could get enough votes to pass in both chambers, but he declined to discuss how he would court Democrats. So far, Republicans have used budget reconciliation - where only a majority is needed - on the initial steps to repeal the ACA. Removing or replacing other parts of the law will likely require 60 votes to overcome Democratic filibusters. Republicans control the Senate 52 to 48. "I think we will get approval. I won't tell you how, but we will get approval. You see what's happened in the House in recent weeks," Trump said, referencing his tweet during a House Republican move to gut their independent ethics office, which along with widespread constituent outrage was cited by some members as a reason the gambit failed. As he has developed a replacement package, Trump said he has paid attention to critics who say that repealing Obamacare would put coverage at risk for more than 20 million Americans covered under the law's insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. "We're going to have insurance for everybody," Trump said. "There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us." People covered under the law "can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better." No Medicare cuts For conservative Republicans dubious about his pledge to ensure coverage for millions, Trump pointed to several interviews he did during the campaign where he promised to "not have people dying on the street." "It's not going to be their plan," he said of people covered under the current law. "It'll be another plan. But they'll be beautifully covered. I don't want single-payer. What I do want is to be able to take care of people," he said Saturday. When asked in the interview whether he intends to cut benefits for Medicare as part of his plan, Trump said "no," a position that was reiterated Sunday on ABC by Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff. He did not elaborate on that view or how it would affect his proposal. Moving ahead, Trump said lowering drug prices is central to lowering health costs nationally - and will make it a priority for him as he uses his bully pulpit to shape policy. When asked how exactly he would force drug manufacturers to comply, Trump said part of his approach would be public pressure. The following are excerpts from reports generated by the Houston Police Department: A 54-year-old woman reported on Jan. 2 that someone had broken into a locked bedroom at her Broadway Street residence and stole numerous items with a total value of $1,720. The woman named a man as a suspect and investigation continues. Corey J. Fitzpatrick, 35, of 137 Junction St. at Raymondville, was issued citations for carrying a concealed weapon and first-degree trespassing after an incident at Walmart on Jan. 11. An officer was dispatched to Walmart at about 9:30 a.m. regarding a report of a trespasser. Upon arrival, the officer made contact with a Walmart manager who said Fitzpatrick was in the store after being banned from all Walmart properties in October 2014. The officer then made contact with Fitzpatrick who stated he knew he wasnt supposed to be in the store. After arresting Fitzpatrick on the trespassing charge, the officer proceeded to find two knives on his person, including a 10 1/2 long gurkha knife. He was taken to the Texas County Jail, fingerprinted and released. Bobby W. Williams, 23, of 11927 Mallard Road at Licking, was arrested Jan. 12 for having an active Texas County warrant for driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest, stealing, careless and imprudent driving and driving while revoked. An officer made the arrest at the state probation and parole office after being advised Williams was there. He was taken to the Texas County Jail where he was unable to post $150,000 bond. Anthony D. Long, 35, of 614 N. Second St. in Houston, was cited for unlawful disposal of solid waste on Jan. 11. Long was cited after a pair of officers investigated a report of trash dumped on a hillside behind his residence. Upon arrival, the officers observed a large amount of trash that appeared to have been recently dumped. A box with Longs name on it was found, and he admitted the offense after being asked. Chad W. Hutsell, 27, of 8030 Indiana Road in Houston, was cited for displaying the plates of another on Jan. 8. Megan L. Neal, 33, of 210 W. Steffens St. in Houston, was arrested Jan. 6 for having an active Texas County warrant for stealing under $500. An officer made the arrest after responding to a report that a woman driving an older model white Ford truck had attempted to swipe candy from Casey General Store on South Sam Houston Blvd. The officer located a truck matching the description and made a traffic stop just north of Highway B. After making contact with the driver, the officer recognized her as Neal, and knew she had a warrant and that her drivers license was revoked. She was taken to the Texas County Jail on the warrant and held without bond. The officer noted in a report that Neal had eight prior driving while revoked convictions and a probable cause statement was sent to the county prosecutor seeking another. The following are excerpts from reports generated by the Texas County Sheriffs Department: A deputy was dispatched at about 8:35 p.m. Jan. 11 after a man reported a person or people in the yard at his Somerset Lane residence at Houston. Upon arrival, the officer was unable to locate them. A deputy was dispatched to the same home at about 9:50 p.m. Jan. 12 after the man reported that his daughter had seen two men dressed in camouflage walking in their yard and crossing a fence. The officer was unable to locate them. At about 7 p.m. Jan. 13, a deputy was dispatched to the same home at regarding a report of a prowler. The officer made contact with the same man and he said he had seen a white truck driving down the lane and he didnt want it driving down the lane. The officer was unable to locate the vehicle. A deputy was dispatched at about 9:35 p.m. Jan. 13 after a woman reported seeing someone near a barn in the backyard of her Fisher Drive residence at Houston. Upon arrival, the officer was unable to locate a suspect. A deputy was dispatched at about 8:45 p.m. Jan. 15 to check the well-being of a woman at a Red Bud Road residence at Cabool after her daughter reported not being able to make contact with her for several days. The officer made contact with the woman at the location, and she said she was fine but wasnt speaking to her daughter. The officer made contact with the daughter and advised her that her mother was fine but didnt want to talk. A 56-year-old Houston man reported on Jan. 14 that a bottle containing 30 phentermine pills was missing from the bedroom of his U.S. 63 residence at Houston. There are no suspects. A deputy was dispatched at about 8:20 p.m. Jan. 11 regarding a report of a possible self-inflicted knife wound on Highway U at Cabool. Upon arrival, the officer located a woman in a ditch who appeared to be bleeding form her head and a man nearby. The man, 53, told the officer the woman, 54, was very drunk and had gotten into a fight with some friends and had taken off walking with a knife and large rock. He said that when he found her she was bleeding, so he called 911. The officer determined the woman had apparently fallen and hit her head on the pavement. She was transported from the scene by ambulance for medical attention. Texas County Jail admissions Jan. 10 Benjamin E. Coleman assault Michael S. Skouby writ (to appear before judge) Jan. 11 Kelsy N. Day 14-day commitment Amanda L. Davis tampering with motor vehicle Jan. 12 Robert J. Bush non-support Jamie D. Wilson burglary, assault Bobby W. Williams DWI, resisting arrest, driving while revoked Jan. 13 Thomas E. Spann Jr. tampering with motor vehicle Kerry D. Brooks 48-hour commitment Jan. 15 Leonard E. Bay DWI, driving while revoked 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. Zealands big businesses may be missing a trick if they dont reconsider their pay schemes thats the claim from one union campaigner who says the Living Wage benefits both employers and their staff.According to Annie Newman , convener for the Living Wage Movement, a growing number of employers are catching on to the business benefits of offering a better wage but large multi-nationals still show the most reluctance.The one area where we would love to see people come on board, because they can really afford it, is in the multi-national companies and theyre just not, says Annie Newman, who is also the national director of campaigning for E tu.Newman says smaller employers with a strong ethical image tend to be the most interested in becoming accredited but they soon realise the benefits are greater than just maintaining a desirable brand.We find that most employers come on board because they want to do the right thing and they say that this is a moral and ethical thing to do but then they find out that this makes financial sense for them as well, says Newman.Now, shes encouraging New Zealands corporate giants to reconsider their pay schemes and guarantee the Living Wage to all staff or risk missing out on a whole host of business benefits.Employers find there is better recruitment and retention, that there are higher levels of productivity, that there are more stable workforces and there is higher morale so there is a lot of very strong evidence around those benefits to employers, she says.Despite its growing popularity, the Living Wage has its fair share of critics among them is the CEO of Aucklands Chamber of Commerce, who claims the populist movement can have wide-reaching implications upon businesses.If Im going to be giving out salary increases from $15 and hour to $20 an hour and Im not doing it on the basis of increased performance and improved outputs [then] to me, thats just bad business, Michael Barnett said last year.Despite being a strong advocate for the cause, Newman also acknowledges that implementing the Living Wage wont always be an easy task.We know that thats a big ask and it means constructing a model for how youre going to run your business very carefully but it can be done, she says.The Living Wage for 2016 was calculated at $19.80 per hour - $4.55 more than the minimum wages set by the government. Accredited employers include Oxfam New Zealand, Little Island Ltd, Greenpeace NZ and Auckland Womens Centre. Cargill, one of Brazils main food producers and manufacturer of popular mayonnaise brands Liza and Maria, and International Meal Company (IMC), one of the countrys largest restaurant companies, with 271 locations in Brazil, Colombia, Panama and the United States, including popular restaurant chains Viena, Frango Assado and Carls Jr., announced that they will source exclusively cage-free eggs in their supply chains in Brazil. These policies follow discussions with Humane Society International and other animal protection organizations. Cargill has pledged to complete its transition to cage-free eggs by 2025 and IMC by 2022. Fernanda Vieira, corporate policy and program manager for HSI Farm Animals in Brazil, stated: Animal welfare has become a priority corporate social responsibility issue in Brazil, and were happy that industry leaders like Cargill and IMC have pledged to go cage-free. These policies will improve the lives of millions of egg-laying hens in the country, and we look forward to working with other companies on similar policies. Support our efforts to improve life for animals on farms. Egg-laying hens are typically confined for their whole lives in wire battery cages, so small that the hens cannot even fully stretch their wings. Both common sense and science agree that virtually immobilizing animals for their entire lives causes mental distress and significant physical pain. The use of conventional battery cages for laying hens is banned or being phased out under laws or regulations throughout the EU, in five U.S. states and in New Zealand and Bhutan. Officials in the majority of states in India, the worlds third largest egg producer, have declared that the use of battery cages violates the countrys animal welfare legislation, and the country is debating a national ban. Cargill and IMC join other leading food manufacturers and corporations that have also committed to switching to exclusively cage-free eggs in Brazil and throughout Latin America, including Unilever, which has committed to a global cage-free egg supply chain by 2020, and Nestle, the largest food company in the world. After working with HSI, Burger King and Arcos Dorados, which operates McDonalds in Brazil and 19 other countries in the region, committed to switching to 100 percent cage-free eggs, as did other leading restaurant operators, totaling thousands of restaurants in Brazil and Latin America alone. Compass Group (GRSA in Brazil) and Sodexo, both leading food service providers in the country, announced a global cage-free policy in partnership with HSI. Alsea, the largest restaurant operator in Latin America and Spain, and Grupo Bimbo, the worlds largest bakery company, announced cage-free egg policies after several years of talks with HSI specialists. Other leading corporations like BFFC, Grupo Trigo, AccorHotels, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Subway, Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide have also pledged to go cage-free in Brazil. Take action and donate now to help. Media contact: Fernanda Vieira, fvieira@hsi.org, 11 9 8905 3848 If you have three million dollars and are looking to buy a house in Vancouver, may we present you with another option: this charming village in Quebec. OK, so a number of the buildings are basically facades and almost none of them are liveable, but look at it! Advertisement Canadiana Village, a mock rustic settlement now used for TV and film shoots, is up for sale in Rawdon, Que. for a cool $2.8 million. The village is over an hour outside Montreal and has 45 buildings, according to Sotheby's International Realty. Other structures on the property include a church, a prison, a windmill and a taxidermist store. Part of the property has a western theme while the rest is built as a 19th-century pioneer village. While some buildings are little more than facades, others are authentic historical homes brought from around the province, according to Radio Canada International. Advertisement There are 22 homes in total, but only one is actually liveable, realtor Mary-Catherine Kaija told CBC News. Nearly 30,000 tourists visited the site a year during its heyday, according to the broadcaster, and it was utilized as a set for more than 110 film and TV productions, including the Bob Dylan biopic "Im Not There." The nearly 56-hectare property is picturesque along with the collection of random buildings, the buyer will also have access to mountains, a lake and forest. Advertisement A local airport also allows planes to land nearby. Several people have expressed interest, realtor Jeremie Sirois told Journal L'Action in December, but the owners hadn't received a final offer. He said the owners want to hand it over to someone who will keep operating the site and improve it. But while prospective buyers may want to rent it out for commercial purposes, buying a village just for personal use isnt entirely unprecedented. Back in 2001, actor Johnny Depp bought an abandoned village in France. Check out more photos of Canadiana Village in the slideshow below. Just think about it. It would go from New York to the North Country right up to the Canadian border. From Albany to Buffalo. 750 miles. It would be a finished pathway that travels through our parks, our valleys, along our waterways, through our beautiful tourist destinations all across the state. You could run, you could bike, you could walk, you could do segments of it. You could make it an entire vacation. You would see some of the most beautiful parks in the state. Whether youre saving for your first house or planning for retirement, hiring a financial advisor is one of the smartest decisions you can make. But when you eventually meet that advisor, dont expect him or her to give you a solid plan without your help. Youll want to prepare bill statements, a list of your investments and note all your goals so that he or she has a clear understanding of your financial history. Similar to meeting with a new doctor, you want to go in with a series of questions to guide the conversation. This is, after all, about your financial health. Here are four things you should keep in mind before you head to your appointment, brought to you by Sun Life Financial. Advertisement Gather your recent financial information That means pay stubs, health benefit information and your latest tax return. You may also want to bring bank statements, along with information on your assets and liabilities. The more details you can provide, the better for your advisor. You will also want to let them know about any dependents or elderly parents you may be responsible for. Get on the same page with your partner Some financial advisors say couples come into meetings without having discussed their goals with each other first. This is a huge mistake. You and your significant other should map out a retirement plan, discuss how much you want to put away for your childrens education and make note of any travel or renovation plans you might have. Advisors have seen money fights play out in front of them not exactly a great first impression or good use of your appointment. Better to settle your differences, or at least agree to disagree on some issues, before you get there. Prepare a list of questions, on paper, for your financial advisor Make sure you take the time to think about what you want to ask of your advisor. Where did they go to school? How many years of experience do they have in the industry? What are their areas of expertise? What is their investment philosophy? These are all important questions. Advertisement Get over your fear of money talk Although some people would rather go to the dentist than talk about money, understanding some financial basics prior to your first meeting is a good idea. If your eyelids start to droop whenever someone starts discussing RRSPs, mutual funds and dividends, have a sip of coffee and do some research. It's important to have at least a beginner's understanding of what you want your financial plan to look like before you start this process. If you doubted Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would make it past the holidays you would be wrong. The "Suits" star and the red-headed royal not only started 2017 with a romantic vacation in Norway, sources are now saying the prince has introduced his lady love to two other important ladies in his life: his sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge and his niece Princess Charlotte. Advertisement Meghan Markle has been dating Prince Harry since last summer. According to US Weekly, Markle met the Duchess at Kensington Palace on January 10 and the meeting "went well" so it might not be long before we spot the two waltzing around the streets of London. Prince William, who was not at the meeting, reportedly met Markle in November, shortly before he released a statement supporting his brother's new relationship. Will and Kate's three-year-old son Prince George was also absent from the meeting as he was attending school near William and Kate's Norfolk home, Anmer Hall. Markle has yet to meet the most important woman in Prince Harry's life, his grandmother the Queen. And it might take a little while before she does. Kate Middleton met the Queen for the first time in 2008 at the wedding of Peter Phillips and Autumn Phillips, five years after she began dating Prince William. Also on HuffPost Meghan Markle See Gallery Jenna Bush Hager, the daughter of former U.S. President George W. Bush, has shared never-before-seen photos of the Obama sisters first visit to the White House eight years ago. Malia and Sasha Obama were just 10 and seven years old, respectively, when they moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and succeeded Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara, as the First Children. Advertisement In the sweet photos, which were shared on The Today Show last week, the Bush sisters are seen taking the Obama girls on a tour of their new home. Adorably, the youngsters are in complete awe as they see the White House rooms and slide down a banister in the residence. Sweet photos of the Bush twins showing the Obama sisters the White House on their 1st visit https://t.co/OV8rWnnxu2pic.twitter.com/74rrQS6zNY Erin Ruberry (@erinruberry) January 14, 2017 Previously, the Bush sisters released an open letter to the Obama girls recalling their first meeting in November 2008. The four of us wandered the majestic halls of the house you had no choice but to move in to, Jenna and Barbara wrote. When you slid down the banister of the solarium, just as we had done as 8-year-olds and again as 20-year-olds chasing our youth, your joy and laughter were contagious. Advertisement While discussing the heartfelt letter on Today, 35-year-old Jenna said: Its just amazing how fast eight years go by and how theyve become these really unbelievable women, and we just wanted to make sure they knew. The Obama girls have certainly done a lot of growing up in the White House. Malia, 18, graduated from high school last year and will attend Harvard University in the fall. Sasha, 15, is continuing her studies at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. and is enjoying being a teen. Also on HuffPost Small businesses are easy victims for cyber attackers. According to IT research firm IDC, 71 per cent of cybersecurity threats are targeted towards the small business segment and that's because a lack of education and protection software make it far too simple for hackers to make their way into your network. With the rising growth of malicious attacks happening across the globe, its important for small business owners to stop merely reacting to security threats and begin to adopt a more proactive stance to protecting their organization. With this in mind, here are the best ways to protect your small business from cyber attacks, presented in partnership with Cisco. Advertisement Develop a cybersecurity policy Any effective security plan not only protects your employees, it guards your technology too. Think about developing an IT security policy that clearly outlines all the potential risks the business faces by not adhering to cybersecurity procedures. Be sure to also regularly review, update and revise any policy to accurately reflect current threats. The key here to is inform everyone in the organization of the important role they play in ensuring the business is protected and secure. Continuously assess your IT environment According to the 2016 Cisco Annual Security Report, many businesses have older IT infrastructure operating on aging, outdated operating systems. This can make these businesses easy targets. A key step in keeping your corporation safe is understanding all the various technologies that are present within the organization, including antivirus software, virtual private networks, intrusion protection, and firewalls. Conducting a security inventory can assist in identifying potential gaps in your security. Advertisement Train your employees Security is a shared responsibility. Everyone in the organization has an important role in ensuring the business is protected and secure. Think about establishing a culture of cyber security in your workplace. That involves creating best practice education programs and bulletins for employees to ensure they are aware of the latest security threats. This also includes educating staff on how to set up more secure passwords, how to respond to suspicious email links and attachments, and how to protect data on mobile devices. It may not be the most conventional way to pay for university, but in 2016 hundreds of students across Canada signed up to find "sugar daddies" to raise the funds they need to get them through post-secondary education. Matchmaking website Seekingarrangement.com released figures last week that show more and more Canadian students are signing up for its service, which matches student "sugar babies" to wealthy benefactors who are willing to provide money and gifts in exchange for paid dates and other agreements. Advertisement The University of Alberta led the way with new sign-ups in 2016, with 138 new students logging on bringing the school's total to 422 students signed up, the seventh highest of all Canadian schools. Ryerson University and the University of Ottawa rounded out the top three, with 135 and 132 new sign-ups in 2016, respectively. But the University of Toronto still boasts the largest number of total students participating, with 683 students taking advantage of the service at the beginning of this year. "We are in the middle of a serious crisis," said Seeking Arrangement's founder Brandon Wade in a statement. Advertisement "Students know they must acquire a degree if they hope to look forward to higher salaries, but how can they achieve that if these institutions continue to raise prices?" As tuition and other school costs rise, student loans in Canada have been growing larger, and the average student debt is estimated to have passed the $25,000 mark. In November, the government announced that no graduate will have to pay back their Canada Student Loan until they are earning at least $25,000 a year. The president of the University of Alberta's Students' Union says it's troubling, although not surprising, that so many students are signing up for a controversial service that could potentially involve the expectation of sexual relationships while still in school. Advertisement "When youre a student, youre definitely more vulnerable and youre getting involved with someone who might be a bit more established in their life and career, and (the student) might be negatively impacted," Fahim Rahman told Postmedia News. "Im concerned about power dynamics in relationships like this." Seeking Arrangement says on its website that 8.2 per cent of all student sugar babies are from Canada. In the past two years, the number of students using the service worldwide has exploded from 1.4 million to 2.5 million. According to the site, a sugar baby typically earns a $2,700 monthly "allowance" from their sugar daddy, pretty much covering the cost of school but many sugar babies make more than that, depending on the arrangement. Advertisement Whether or not sex is involved is up to the individuals concerned. To hear the motivations of one sugar baby, watch the video above. Here are the 20 fastest-growing schools for sugar babies in Canada: Heres a bit of a surprise: The busiest shopping centre in North America isnt in New York or L.A., as one might expect. Its in Toronto the iconic Eaton Centre. Thats just one tidbit of information from the Retail Council of Canadas recent report, which shows Canadian malls are beating their U.S. counterparts on many of the measures that count. Advertisement Malls in Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal also made the list of the busiest malls in the U.S. and Canada. But the Eaton Centre takes the cake, with 48.9 million visitors in 2015. Thats more visits than were made to the Las Vegas strip or to Disney World and Disneyland combined that year, the report says. Click for full size Advertisement More important to mall owners and retailers is how much money the mall makes per square foot. On this measure, Canadian malls beat U.S. malls by a landslide. Canadian malls made $744 per square foot in 2015, or $562 in U.S. dollar terms. That compares to US$466 for American malls. The chart below compares mall sales per square foot in U.S. dollars. The Canadian numbers show a decline because of the loonies fall in recent years. But in Canadian dollars, sales are rising. The report could only speculate on why Canadian malls are doing better. One reason is that there is less shopping centre space in Canada. There are 23.6 square feet of mall space per person in the U.S., compared to 16.5 square feet per person in Canada. Advertisement "The question becomes, why are Canadas centres more productive? Is it because we have less space and are more efficient, or because we pay more for products than in the United States?" the Retail Council report asks. Malls for the rich still making a killing Although Canadian malls make considerably more on average than U.S. ones, the U.S.s malls for the wealthy and tourist-oriented shopping centres still beat Canadian malls by a long shot. The U.S.s highest-earning mall is the Bal Harbour Shops complex in the Miami area, with earnings of US$3,185 per square foot in 2015. Canadas highest earning mall, the Yorkdale Centre in Toronto, earned C$1,650.85 the same year. Also on HuffPost What Shopping Malls Looked Like In 1989 See Gallery Tom Ford doesn't want to dress Melania Trump. And it's nothing personal. During an interview with Elle magazine at the 2017 Golden Globes, the 55-year-old American designer said that "given this presidents beliefs about made in America,'" both president-elect Donald Trump and the first lady should only wear clothes made in America and accessible to all Americans. Ford's clothes, however, are made in Italy. And are very expensive. Advertisement "I think that whoever is the president, or the first lady, should be wearing clothes at a price point that are accessible to most Americans, and wearing clothes made in America. My clothes are made in Italy, they're very, very expensive. I don't think most women or men in our country can relate to that, and I think the first lady or the president should represent all people." The "Nocturnal Animals" director, who said he was "sad and disappointed" at Hillary Clinton's loss, stopped by "The View" in November and firmly said he would not be dressing the former Slovenian-born model. "I was asked to dress her quite a few years ago and I declined," Ford said. "Shes not necessarily my image." Advertisement And Tom Ford isn't the only top fashion designer to speak out against dressing Trump. After the election, designer Sophie Theallet told her colleagues to not feed into what she called a "rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia." Marc Jacobs also said he had "no interest whatsoever in dressing Melania Trump." "Personally, Id rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by [Donald] Trump and his supporters," Jacobs said in an interview with WWD. As of press time, it's still unclear who will dress Melania for Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. Follow Huffington Post Canada Style on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter! Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus spokesman is suggesting his boss was echoing the sentiments of his predecessor when he said Canada would phase out Albertas oilsands. Trudeau sparked some controversy Friday when he made clear at a town hall meeting in Peterborough, Ont. that resources wouldnt be extracted from the oilsands indefinitely. Advertisement We cant shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels. That is going to take time, Trudeau said. And, in the meantime, we have to manage that transition. While the statement was pounced upon by politicians in Alberta and several Tory leadership contenders, Trudeaus press secretary Cameron Ahmad says it isnt a new concept. The prime minister, as he and previous prime ministers including Stephen Harper have been saying for a long time, was reiterating the need to move away from our dependency on fossil fuels and his commitment to growing the economy all while protecting the environment, Ahmad said in an email. Advertisement The federal government is introducing a federal price on carbon pollution and has given the green light on two major oil pipeline expansions. Ahmad said the approvals will ensure we can move Canadas natural resources to international markets, he added. "The Prime Minister, as he and previous Prime Ministers including Stephen Harper have been saying for a long time, was reiterating the need to move away from our dependency on fossil fuels." Though Harper was a vocal champion of Canadian energy and a fierce advocate for pipeline projects, he also joined with other G7 leaders in 2015 to commit to the full phase out of fossil fuels by the year 2100. Harper said at the time that such a shift would require technological transformations in Canadas energy sector over the long term to lower greenhouse gas emissions. I dont think we should fool ourselves. Nobodys going to start to shut down their industries or turn off the lights, he said. Weve simply got to find a way to create lower-carbon emitting sources of energy, and that work is ongoing. Advertisement However, a government official told The Globe and Mail at the time that the G7 statement was an aspirational target. Watch Harper's 2015 remarks: A few members of Harpers former cabinet and caucus, who are now pursuing leadership roles of their own, were apparently alarmed by Trudeaus remarks. Ontario MP Lisa Raitt, now running to replace Harper, took to Twitter to accuse the prime minister of harbouring a hidden agenda. Hidden agenda anyone? Now I *really* want to know if he is saying this to other countries. If so - we're the biggest chumps in the world. https://t.co/uNOdERaB3h Lisa Raitt (@lraitt) January 13, 2017 Advertisement Saskatchewans Andrew Scheer, also running for Tory leader, shared an edited clip of Trudeaus remarks. Canada, we need to #PhaseHimOut, Scheer wrote. "We can't shut down the oilsands tomorrow. We need to phase them out." -- PM Trudeau No, Mr. Trudeau. Canada, we need to #PhaseHimOutpic.twitter.com/NzF4F6mPyy Andrew Scheer (@andrewscheer) January 13, 2017 Meanwhile, Kellie Leitch blasted the PM on Facebook Friday. Would Justin Trudeau ever say we need to phase out manufacturing jobs? Banking jobs? Creative jobs? No, of course not, Leitch wrote. Why does he insist on being hostile to our energy sector? Justin Trudeau thinks we need to phase out our energy sector. I think we need to build it up and create more jobs.... Posted by Kellie Leitch on Saturday, 14 January 2017 Former federal minister Jason Kenney, now running for Alberta PC leader with hopes to merge with the Wildrose party, released a video targeting Trudeau. Advertisement Kenney accused the prime minister of wanting to hand complete control of global oil markets to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. I have a message for Justin Trudeau. We will not let you do to Albertas oil energy what your father did to Alberta with his National Energy Program, Kenney said. Unite Alberta: Stand Up for the Oil Sands Today Justin Trudeau said that he wants to "phase out" Alberta's oil sands. Let's be clear what he's talking about. The oil sands represent trillions of dollars of future wealth for Canadian families. That's our ability to pay for pensions, healthcare, and infrastructure and education. It also represents hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs for working, middle-income families. I have a message for Justin Trudeau: We will not let you do to Alberta's oil and gas industry, what your father did to Alberta with his National Energy Program. Are you with me? Join here: www.jasonkenney.ca Posted by Jason Kenney on Friday, 13 January 2017 But conservatives weren't the only ones weighing in. Albertas NDP Premier Rachel Notley, seen by some as a Trudeau ally, also released a video last week. Alberta's oil and gas industry and the people who work in it are the best in the world. And we're not going anywhere, any time soon, she said in the clip, which made no reference to Trudeau. Advertisement Today I was asked about the future of the oil sands how long into the future will the world need oil? Heres what I would like to say. Posted by Rachel Notley on Friday, 13 January 2017 With files from The Canadian Press Also on HuffPost Of the places in your body where you do not want things to go awry, the vagina is definitely up there on the list. And yet, vaginal thrush (or yeast infections) is remarkably common: almost three-quarters of women will get a yeast infection at least once in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. Advertisement The bad news about yeast infections is that they are itchy, uncomfortable, and sometimes, very annoying. But the good news is that they are common, which means most yeast infections can be treated with inexpensive medication bought at any pharmacy. Here are 12 things you should know about yeast infections, from what causes them in the first place to how you can prevent the yeasty beasties in your vagina from running amok in the future. Advertisement Candida-what? When we talk about yeast infections, were referring to genital or vulvovaginal candidiasis, an overgrowth of the candida yeast found in all of our bodies vagina and environs included. Fancy! Were all yeasty: It doesnt sound like yeast should be in vaginas, but its actually a pretty normal state of affairs. "Yeast cells occur naturally in humans and this is not considered sexually transmitted, gynaecologist Dr. Antonio Pizarro tells The Huffington Post Canada. Our bodies always have candida on or in them in small amounts it's only a problem when the yeast begin growing far more than normal. But sometimes yeast behaves badly: Problems start when yeast gets out of control, growing when and where it ought not to be growing. In the vagina, this can happen because of hormonal changes, or because of shifts in the normal acidity of the vagina. "Genital yeast infections, or vulvovaginal candidiasis, are common overgrowth of yeast cells, Pizarro says. The candida multiplies, symptoms start to show up, and youre miserable. Advertisement Some people are more susceptible than others: Some women never get a yeast infection, while others deal with them several times a year. There are some factors that can make them more or less likely. "The factors that predispose to more severe genital yeast infection or overgrowth include obesity and diabetes, Pizarro says. You can also get a yeast infection on the penis, but that is relatively rare. What are the symptoms? If youve ever had a yeast infection then you are probably more familiar with the symptoms. "The cardinal symptom of yeast infection is itching accompanied by a thick white discharge from the vagina, Pizarro says. The discharge is often described as resembling cottage cheese. (Sorry.) The genital itching can also come with a burning sensation. Other genital infections can have similar symptoms, so it is worth getting these checked out. Advertisement Who has higher risk: According to the CDC, those with a weakened immune system are at higher risk for yeast infections. There are several different factors that can lead to reduced immunity: a condition like HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, diabetes, immune-suppressing medication, use of corticosteroids, and long-term antibiotic use. Preventing thrush: There are some ways to help prevent yeast infections. Wearing cotton underwear can help reduce risk by preventing vaginal overheating, which encourages yeast growth. This also works for avoiding super-tight clothing. The CDC says there is some evidence that probiotics can help those with persistent yeast infections. It can often be treated over-the-counter: In uncomplicated yeast infections, over-the-counter treatments can be quite effective, Best Health magazine notes. "A reasonable first step in treating vaginal yeast for women without chronic medical conditions is use of over-the-counter vaginal antifungal treatments yeast infection creams and ovules, Pizarro says. Advertisement Which treatment is best? The first time you check out the selection of yeast infection treatments at your local pharmacy can be quite confusing. There are a variety of options available, for different lengths of time and in varying formulations. "Treatment can include prescription-strength antifungal creams, oral preparations, boric acid suppositories usually for patients affected by recurrent infection and topical antifungal powders for skin involvement, Pizarro says. "I generally recommend creams, suppositories, or powders whenever possible to lessen the metabolic burden on the liver that could be caused by pills. If youre unsure which is best, talk to the pharmacist or your physician. But for some, thrush is more serious: For some people, this infection requires immediate medical attention. "Women who have diabetes mellitus, those who use immune-suppressing medications, and pregnant women should contact their care provider as soon as they recognize the problem, Pizarro says. Advertisement And it can cause problems if left untreated: Dont just wait for a yeast infection to go away on its own. "Severe cases of vulvo-vaginal yeast infections can lead to ulcers, severe swelling, and profuse vaginal discharge, Pizarro says. "Rarely, yeast of the vulva can become severe enough that opportunistic bacteria, such as Staph, also invade the tissue." martin-dm via Getty Images Woman texting in the tram - copyspace Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." That phrase was never easy to fulfill until I started traveling. There wasn't much that scared me in my typical Toronto work, home, repeat routine. However, when I embarked on my first solo travel experience at 25, I unearthed a list of fears I never knew I had, and now, roughly a decade later, I find myself grappling with the same fears on every adventure I take. I've realized that fear is a completely acceptable emotion to feel while traveling. And instead of trying to eliminate my fears, I embrace them and use them to make each travel experience a fulfilling one. The following are three recurring fears that bump up my blood pressure before every flight or road trip, and how I cope with them on every journey. Advertisement Something Bad Will Happen When I'm Gone Every time I board a plane and leave someone I love behind, whether it's my mom, dad, daughter, husband, or friend, I get this undeniable fear that I'll be too far away if something bad happens to them. The truth of the matter is, that if something does go wrong, I'm typically no farther away than I was at home. It takes me a day to reach my parents' home by car, and it will only take me a day to reach them by air. I always arrange ways to stay in contact with the ones I love before departing, and I never forget that I'm only a plane ride away if an emergency occurs. I'll Lose Something Some people are ultra organized. They know where their passport, driver's license, and all of their travel money is at all times. That's not me. I have to check the secret interior pocket of my backpack 15 times to make sure I dropped my passport in there, then half the time I need it, it's magically in a different pocket. I'm used to carrying my credit card and driver's license loose in my pocket, and it takes me awhile to get used to carrying cash in foreign locations. To combat my fear of losing something, which I know will never be cured, I have copies of my passport available online. I also keep a secret stash of $100 USD in another secret pocket, which I refuse to move or use unless I'm in an emergency. Additionally, I travel with two debit cards and two credit cards in separate places throughout my bag. That way, I can access money if one of my cards is stolen and needs to be canceled. I've learned the hard way that it's not easy to have a new credit card mailed from Toronto to a small guest house in Koggala, Sri Lanka. Advertisement I'll Get Sick With Nobody Around Nothing can cure an illness quite like my mom's chicken noodle soup. But Montezuma's Revenge and Bali Belly don't come with a side of mom's award-winning (in our family at least) cooking. Getting sick while traveling happens, and it's a fear that has become reality for me. However, facing the illness alone couldn't be farther from what actually happened. A 24-hour stomach bug in Thailand is all it took for me to realize that you're never truly alone when traveling. The owners and employees of the guesthouse I was visiting supplied me with more than a day's worth of tea, bottled water, hot soups, and menthol nasal inhalers (the Thai cure for just about everything). The bottom line is that you're not the only one with travel fears, and there will never be a truly perfect time for you to travel. You'll always feel stressed before you go, and you'll always be afraid that something bad may happen. All you have to do is buy the ticket, take the adventure, and discover that when you're a traveler, you're never alone, no matter where you are. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Dan Riedlhuber / Reuters Workers contracted to help clean Lake Wabamun vacuum oil from the surface of the lake, west of Edmonton, August 13, 2005. Alberta is eyeing charges against Canadian National Railway for not telling it that a derailment last week might have contaminated a popular lake with a hazardous chemical, a provincial government official said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Dan Riedlhuber DR/PN One of the most misunderstood issues in the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) debate is what happens to diluted bitumen (dilbit) in a marine spill. The common misconception is that "bitumen sinks". The truth is that both bitumen and dilbit float in the marine environment. The misconception is based on a misreading of a US. National Academies of Science (NAS) report from 2016. The NAS report is an expert review of the literature intended to address a regulatory requirement governing "spill response planning, preparedness, and clean-up." The scientists who wrote the NAS report did no original research, rather they rely on the research of others. Advertisement For bitumen behaviour in a marine environment the NAS relied on work by Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Natural Resources Canada. For referencing purposes any physical data/observations in the next few paragraphs are straight out of that Environment Canada technical report. To start, dilbit consists of a mixture of 20 per cent to 30 per cent diluent and 70 per cent to 80 per cent bitumen. The diluent is typically a light-hydrocarbon mixture (like naptha) called "condensate." Bitumen has a density of 0.998 g/mL while the condensate has a specific gravity around 0.6 g/mL. The resultant dilbit has a density/specific gravity around 0.92 g/mL. This actually makes dilbit easier to skim off the surface early in a spill event. Since we know that freshwater has a density of 1 g/mL and seawater's density ranges from 1.025 g/mL to 1.033 g/mL that means that when spilled any dilbit will initially float (like the oil in your bottle of oil and vinegar salad dressing) in both fresh and marine waters. Historically it was believed that as spilled dilbit weathered the diluent would all evaporate away and the resulting evaporated mass would sink. Well, the research says that this is not the case. Advertisement The Environment Canada research show that even with pretty much all the diluent evaporated the resultant evaporated dilbit still retained a specific gravity (at 0 degrees Celsius) of 1.02 mg/L. Thus the material would not sink in marine spills but would remain afloat. More interestingly, when lighter crude oils are hit with breaking waves they form small droplets that lack the buoyancy to float and will often remain entrained in the water column. The dilbit did not act in this way. Rather when the experimental dilbit was exposed to a wave pool it formed much larger droplets which they called "oil balls" that quickly resurfaced and coalesced into a surface slick. This actually makes dilbit easier to skim off the surface early in a spill event. The Achilles heel of the dilbit, however, appears to be sediments in the water. Oils exposed to silty water will form oil-particle aggregates (OPAs) which under certain conditions will sink to the bottom. In the Environment Canada research when they mixed the spilled dilbit with high concentrations of a very fine type of clay called "kaolin" virtually all the bitumen either dispersed or formed OPAs and sunk to the bottom of the wave tank. Modelling exercises by Fisheries and Oceans Canada using the approximate sediment load and characteristics of the Douglas Channel concluded that approximately 20% of the diluted bitumen would form OPAs which would sink below the sea surface, with little of that material actually sinking to the sea bottom. Coincidentally, that is pretty much the same behaviour one would expect from a typical crude oil spill. A stochastic model of an oil spill in the Salish Sea suggests that the majority of the oil would stay on the surface, and accumulate on the shoreline, rather than dispersing into water column. Once again a spill would be a tragedy, but the behaviour of the diluted bitumen would be no different from a similar crude oil spill. Advertisement The NAS report covers all this ground and even includes a Figure (Figure 3-2 presented below) that shows how evaporated bitumen retains a density less than seawater. The problem is that the authors wrote the NAS report for a technical audience in language that non-specialists apparently find challenging to understand. As a consequence many end up reading the section on freshwater behaviour and apparently get confused. Since freshwater is less dense than seawater whether spilled dilbit will sink or float becomes far more dependent on the source material and ambient temperature. As the NAS figure indicates, highly-weathered Cold Lake Blend will retain a density less than 1 g/mL (it will float in freshwater) while Access Western Blend will reach a density above 1 g/mL (it will sink in freshwater). We also have to consider environmental conditions. Consider the Kalamazoo spill which occurred during a heavy rainfall event where the river was filled with sediments. In that case events conspired to produce a scenario where a majority of the material formed OPAs and sank to the bottom. What is most interesting about that spill is that under those conditions a typical crude oil would likely have behaved in a very similar manner. At those sediments levels OPAs were inevitable. To be clear, any oil spill, be it crude or diluted bitumen, represents a tragedy and catastrophe. The point of this blog post, however, is to establish whether diluted bitumen sinks in a marine spill; since that is what the activists fighting TMX keep insisting. In response the research is clear: dilbit doesn't initially sink when spilled in seawater, it floats and, in the absence of heavy sediment loads, keeps floating even after days of evaporation. Advertisement Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: I never met Lionel Desmond, the soldier who suffered from PTSD and killed his family. I can tell you about a case that I thought of when I heard about the tragedy, a case of a soldier from the same base, CFB Gagetown. In 2014, following the closure of the Veterans Affairs office in Windsor, Member of Parliament Joe Comartin hired me to help him with the influx of veterans that would come to his office seeking help. My first case came early, on the day former Conservative MP for Essex Jeff Watson held a veterans' town hall. Advertisement That was the day I got a message from Paul. Paul had been in the regular army for 10 years, including a tour to Bosnia, and was threatening to commit suicide because of the stress that the Department of National Defence was causing him. Paul had gone to a padre, a religious figure often seen as a source of counsel. Paul shared his anxiety and confided sensitive information. The padre betrayed the confidentiality that Paul had thought was there and informed his chain of command. Once this information was brought to the attention of his bosses, there were no attempts to help Paul -- instead, they processed the paperwork to get him discharged from the Forces. I had to move fast. I called the police and got Paul admitted into a facility. Through Joe Comartin's office, I then tried to coordinate with the Department of National Defence (DND) to ensure that CFB Gagetown was aware of the situation. Advertisement I remember looking up the Joint Personnel Support Unit (JPSU) office numbers and leaving messages. Some of the numbers listed were for officers that weren't even there anymore, and others weren't in service. I talked to MPs, generals and higher-ups at Veterans Affairs to try to get him help. None arrived. Overall, the only contact I had during Paul's struggles were with Paul himself. Paul described the treatment he received from DND as the opposite of help. According to him, they did everything in their power to sabotage him, belittle him, bully him. Paul reached out with the expectation that he would be taken care of, and when help didn't materialize it worsened his stress. Paul would threaten to kill himself, but the help never came. I would not be surprised if we were to find out that Desmond's family faced the same kind of response. After a year and a half of mental anguish, Paul did eventually take his own life. I was shocked. My first-ever case file had ended his life. I wanted the country to know about how Paul was treated. I contacted his parents and I told them that they should demand answers and justice for their son. I lined up a friend at the Windsor Star, but at the 11th hour his parents said that they didn't want to pursue this further in the form of an article. They wanted their son who had lived with so much anguish to rest in peace, and I was not about to go against his parents' wishes. Advertisement I saw the way in which CFB Gagetown and DND not only failed to help Paul, but made things worse for him. I would not be surprised if we were to find out that Desmond's family faced the same kind of response. I don't know what happened in the case of Lionel Desmond, but this is what I do know: the root cause of Lionel Desmond's death and the killing of his family is political. It was the Liberals in 2003 who sent us to fight in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan, Kandahar Province. Lionel Desmond, myself and many others were in constant danger of being killed -- all in the name of profit. One-hundred and fifty-eight died, 2,100 were wounded and countless others battled mental health issues so the profit margins of billionaires would remain intact. In fact, more Canadian soldiers committed suicide during the Afghan mission than those that lost their lives in theatre. And when we came back, there was no real help waiting for us. Around the same time that they sent us to fight in a more dangerous mission, the Liberal government told Veterans Affairs that they had to implement a mental-health program without additional resources. The legislation that passed unanimously in the House was what is now called the New Veterans Charter. Advertisement The result is nothing short of highway robbery. The new mental-health programs are in shambles. This has done nothing but take money from injured veterans. Which brings us to today. The Liberals are back in power and back to letting veterans down. As the Opposition they voted unanimously to re-establish lifelong pensions, the same pensions they took away in the first place. They campaigned on re-establishing them and then, months after winning a majority government, they reopened the court case fighting plaintiffs who are trying to re-establish life-long pensions. The treatment of veterans in Canada is at a crisis level. And what of the Atlantic MPs, including the MP that represents the riding where Lionel Desmond and his family lived? We haven't heard anything from the 32 Liberal MPs when it comes to demanding better for veterans. In the face of such tragedy, silence. My message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is that Lionel Desmond's death and his killing of his family could have been avoided. It's time to stop lying to veterans. It's time to stop fighting veterans. Millions of tax-payer dollars have gone into fighting veterans in court over something that you said you were going to do when elected. The fact that the Liberals had the audacity to campaign on a platform to fix the problems they created, only to break their promise, is beyond reprehensible. Trudeau's recent cabinet shuffle only proves that the veteran file is not a priority for the Liberal government. Advertisement The treatment of veterans in Canada is at a crisis level. The mental-health positions are not being filled, the pensions are not being restored, the transition services are not forthcoming. The current government is picking up right where the last one left off -- if you delay long enough and deny services, eventually the veteran will simply die. Services delayed are services denied, and the frustration from this system has created a sense of hopelessness that can lead to catastrophic consequences. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: John Gress / Reuters U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle acknowledge the crowd after President Obama delivered a farewell address at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/John Gress With the inauguration of Donald Trump nigh, I miss the Obamas more than ever. Yes, yes, I know some of you may not feel the same way. More's the pity. But before you start haranguing me, let me be clear. Today is not about what Barack Obama did or did not do as president of the United States. That discussion (debate) will have to wait for another day. Today is about the man, his wife and their children; and why they'll be missed. Advertisement It's probably fair to say his 2008 win was not predicted, at least not when he first announced his candidacy. How could it have been? The young, relative newcomer was hardly a household name, even after he delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, although he did get a lot of tongues wagging about what might be, down the road. I wonder, though, if anyone, including Barack Obama, ever expected "down the road" would come so quick. But 2008 it was and it didn't take long for America, and the rest of the world, to get caught up in his message of hope, to get swept away by the passionate, energetic senator from Chicago, the master orator with the Martin Luther King-esque delivery. It's a memory that will be with me forever. And the next thing we knew, Hillary Clinton was out; and Barack Obama was in. I watched him accept the nomination. Goosebumps. For his inauguration I was in India. Before leaving I told my travel agent that I didn't care where we'd be on "the" day, I had to watch the proceedings on TV. Advertisement As it turned out, we were pretty much at the end of our trip in Munnar, a remote hill station in Kerala (southern India). Our resort was on a tea plantation, 7500 feet above sea level and, unlike the rest of the spots we visited, where every hotel room had Wi-Fi and a flat-screen TV, technology was not quite as accessible at this more rustic locale. However, there was one television, in a private room off the dining room, and the staff kindly obliged. It was 1:30 in the morning and, as it turned out, I wasn't alone. With me were travellers from other parts of India, Germany, France, Japan, Australia and a couple of Americans who, like me, wanted to both witness, and be a part of, the historic moment. There we sat, verklempt (Yiddish for emotional), watching it all unfold, as it happened, on CNN. It's a memory that will be with me forever. Little did we know what a difference 24 hours would make. Because the Republicans had a plan to derail Obama's presidency right from the start. And still worse are the vicious, cruel, slanderous and personal insults, innuendos, slurs, barbs and racist remarks that have been leveled, continuously, at the president, his wife Michelle and their girls. Barack Obama was in office for barely two months when a New York tabloid published a cartoon that portrayed him as a monkey. A California mayor distributed a photo of watermelons on the White House lawn. A widely-circulated email referred to him as "the magic mulatto" and showed a cartoon of him with large ears and a wide nose. Advertisement This past spring Fox News had to disable the comments section of an article about Malia Obama because of readers posting racist comments. And the mayor of West Virginia was forced to resign after he called Michelle Obama "an ape in heels." We'll have the next four years to reflect upon all we lost. No, the last eight years have hardly been America's finest. Through it all, however, this family has stood tall -- resolute, proud, dignified. Never letting on how hurt, how insulted, how devastated, how disappointed and yes, how justifiably angry they must have been, may still be, may always be. Michelle Obama explained it so powerfully: "When they go low, we go high." Indeed. Easier said than done. But the Obamas showed us how. They showed their daughters. They showed America. They showed the world. And for that, for the honour, integrity, decency and grace they brought with them, for everything they did and all they tried to do, we owe them our gratitude, admiration and respect. Then we'll have the next four years to reflect upon all we lost when the Obamas left the White House for the very last time. Advertisement If you enjoyed this story click on "become a fan" at the top of the article right next to my name. You'll be notified every time I post. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: Two year-end surveys of Canadians, respectively conducted by Forum Research Group and by Abacus, provide some potentially useful insights into the relationship between discrimination and prejudice. The surveys remind us that prejudice is uneven, and that some groups are viewed less favourably than others. In effect, the surveys reveal that Asians, Blacks and Jews are less likely to be regarded unfavourably by Canadians than are Muslims and Aboriginal Peoples, and that the latter two groups are also more likely than are others to be seen as objects of discrimination. Although we've rarely described it as such, there has always been a hierarchy in the way racial, ethnic and language communities are viewed. Over time, what's changed is how unfavourably some groups are viewed when compared with others. There is little doubt that prejudice towards Muslims has surged since September 2001 and by consequence they've moved to the top of the list of those regarded most unfavourably. It's not just where Muslims rank that has evolved. The gap has also widened in the extent to which they're viewed more unfavourably. As a result, when looking across the list of groups in the two surveys, it's possible to ascertain that prejudice towards Blacks and Jews is less important than it was in the past, simply by virtue of the fact that the percentage of persons expressing animosity towards them is currently much lower than it is for Muslims. Advertisement Eradicating negative stereotypes is essential in the fight against prejudice and discrimination. This may also give rise to the broader conclusion that societal prejudice and discrimination are in decline. Yet the more cogent observation would be that, with time, there has been a displacement in the degree and the intensity of negative feeling towards those groups that become the object of greater public attention. Amongst the issues raised by the hierarchy of prejudice and the accompanying perception of discrimination is identifying who's best situated to combat this destructive phenomenon. It's a key question for policy makers, educators and anti-racist activists. Often the leaders of those communities whose members are more likely to have experienced prejudice assume that they best understand discrimination and are therefore most qualified to combat it. Conversely, they may also feel that persons who have not been victims of prejudice are ill equipped to deal with it. Explaining why some groups were liked or overlooked and others were disliked was difficult according to the renowned psychologist Gordon Allport. Yet there is consensus that eradicating negative stereotypes is essential in the fight against prejudice and discrimination. Stereotypes are generalizations that arise when people are either unable or unwilling to acquire the necessary information to make proper assessments about groups. Prejudices are not simple to debunk as they provide reassurance for people's impressions. Victims of prejudice may indeed be best placed to undo negative stereotypes about the communities with which they are identified. It's also true that common stereotypes that serve to denigrate certain groups vary and hence some may assume different approaches are needed to tackle them. In other words, the common stereotypes about Muslims differ from the ones about Jews which in turn differ from those about Blacks, etc. However the removal of one stereotype may have no impact whatsoever on diminishing another. Indeed this appears to be confirmed by the persistence of a hierarchy of prejudice as revealed in the surveys referred to above. Advertisement Ideally victims of prejudice should band together across communities to insist that the generalizations that underlie stereotypes are wrong. Ideally they need to work with persons who have not been victims of prejudice and that perhaps previously harbored negative stereotypes and thankfully have since evolved. In the absence of such efforts we can expect some Canadians to continue to provide a rational and/or justification for why some groups deserve to seen more unfavourably than others. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost:. Canadian Human Rights Commission Last summer, a woman named Terry Baker took her own life while being held in solitary confinement in the same facility where Ashley Smith took her life. Despite all that we've learned since Canadians first saw the disturbing and heartbreaking video footage of Ashley Smith in the days leading up to her death, solitary confinement continues to be a tool used in federal correctional facilities. It seems obvious that solitary confinement for someone with mental health issues is dangerous and destructive. Then why does it continue to be used? Will it take yet another death to bring about change? Advertisement The Canadian Human Rights Commission has long held that placing vulnerable individuals in solitary confinement denies them their human rights, and for those with mental health issues, it can lead to irreparable harm. Canada's human rights laws and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act give people with mental health issues the right to receive correctional services that respond to their unique needs. Yet, despite the law and all the evidence, those with the keys are unwilling to recognize the harm they are doing. Correctional Services Canada continues to deny that their actions can cause profound damage. We are looking for a gesture that acknowledges that there is a serious problem. While this position is not new, it comes as the pressure continues to mount. Last month an Ontario judge certified a $600-million class action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of thousands of inmates who say they did not receive proper treatment of their mental illnesses. The lawsuit alleges Canada's federal prison agency fails to properly care for mentally ill inmates, relies too much on the "cruel and unusual punishment" of solitary confinement, and neglects to adequately train its staff. There is a disconnect between the Government of Canada's public position on solitary confinement, and Correctional Services Canada's views and practices in our federal prisons. This disconnect is dangerous. Dangerous for individuals in solitary confinement, and dangerous for a society that must deal with the lasting impact of this practice when these same individuals serve their sentences and return to their communities. Whether prison officials are unwilling to find other ways to manage inmates with mental illness, or there are not enough resources to allow them to do their job properly, the truth remains: it is wrong and stands in stark contrast to our international reputation and how Canadians see themselves. Advertisement That's why we are a looking for a small step. We are looking for a gesture that acknowledges that there is a serious problem. We are calling on government to place a moratorium on the use of solitary confinement for women in federal prisons. Why women? Because the overwhelming majority of incarcerated women suffer from past trauma and a significantly higher percentage of them have an identified mental health need. A moratorium for incarcerated women would immediately impact less than 10 inmates, but could have an impact on countless others. As punishment for their crimes, their freedom has been taken away, but not their human rights. Whether we call it administrative segregation, or solitary confinement, or the "shu" -- it is cruel and unusual punishment. And it's happening in Canada. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook CP Following last week's cabinet shuffle in Ottawa, La Presse's editorialist-in-chief Francois Cardinal complained that Stephane Dion's departure was a big loss for Quebec. Not because Dion was good at his job as foreign affairs minister. Not because his renown reflected well on Quebec. Rather because, according to him, Dion was one of the few important ministers who could knock at the prime minister's door and pressure him to make a decision favourable to Quebec on various files. From subsidies to Bombardier to increased health transfers and Ottawa's contribution to Montreal's transport infrastructure, there are several files where more federal money would be welcome in the province. As the editorialist noted, citing historical examples from previous governments, the presence of strong ministers often results in a province or a city being "showered with dollars." Advertisement To me, that's not a good reason to have strong ministers -- it's the worst! Each region can point towards many examples to bolster claims that the way the pot is being divided is unfair. This is based on the view that the federal government is essentially a big pile of cash and that every region and special interest group should try to grab as much of it as possible for its own benefit. One of the arguments of those who defend this perspective or say it is inevitable is that we need our share of the loot because others got theirs and the money will be spent anyway. "Manitoba got such and such investment," "Toronto benefited for this program," or "Nova Scotia got that amount of money." If we don't lobby hard enough, the money will again go to them instead of to us. Since Ottawa has been throwing money in all directions for decades, it is very difficult to argue with that view. Each region can point towards many examples to bolster claims that the way the pot is being divided is unfair. Advertisement So, to calm down frustrations and buy support in vote-rich regions, governments double down on the spending. Each passing decade, the federal government spends more and more on equalization, on health transfers, on large regional infrastructure projects, and other programs. They send hordes of ministers and MPs to cut ribbons and make sure local populations are aware of their "generosity." This is the dynamic that has brought us to today's intolerable situation of having a huge government that spends money it doesn't have on everything. And the Trudeau government is making things even worse. It has to stop. We cannot continue to pass our children the bills for all the projects that we cannot afford to pay for ourselves. We cannot continue to distribute ever larger amounts of money to please everyone and buy social peace, while refusing to face the consequences. We cannot ask governments to manage our money in a responsible manner while at the same time constantly demanding more money for ourselves. To get out of this dead-end, as Conservatives, we should be defending the principle of subsidiarity, which is inherent in our Constitution. This means that issues should be handled by the most local competent authority, the one closest to the people. This way, each province, each region, each community, develops according to its citizens' preferences and priorities, and is forced to act responsibly because it pays for what it wants. Advertisement Big government leads to unfairness and irresponsibility. The federal government has important national functions to fulfill. It would be better able to fulfill them if it stopped trying to solve every problem in the country, especially by violating our Constitution and intruding on provincial jurisdictions. This is why I have proposed to get Ottawa out of the business of funding health care through transfer payments. Freed from federal conditions and unable to shift the blame to another government, provinces would also be more inclined to experiment in finding better ways to deliver health care services. For the same reason, Ottawa should stop funding local infrastructure, and leave cities and provinces responsible to deal with their own needs. Apart from infrastructure of national importance, there is no reason for the federal government to get involved. As the great economist Frederic Bastiat wrote in 1848, "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else." Big government leads to unfairness and irresponsibility. It's time to reverse that trend. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook Also on HuffPost: Advertisement The five things you need to know on Monday, January 16 1) GOVE-RNMENT IN EXILE Michael Gove is paid 150,000 a year by the Times, but the paper will feel hes worth his weight in gold hairpieces after his world exclusive interview with Donald Trump today. Getting the President Elect to talk about policy - in real life rather than on Twitter - is an achievement in itself and he proves a veritable story machine. Advertisement Eurosceptics were delighted by his line that he wants a UK-US trade deal done quickly and done properly, even though those two adverbs are often pulling in different directions. Some ministers have long felt the talk of seven-year Canada-style trade deals is overblown and think where theres a political will, theres a bureaucratic way. Still, those Leavers (on the Left and in UKIP) who worried about the US-EU TTIP deal opening the floodgates to US corporations may feel Trump has echoes of Macbeth: If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well. It were done quickly On the Today programme, Gove said Trump intimated that a draft trade deal could be worked on swiftly and hinted it would be ready to go when we formally quit the EU in 2019. Theresa May may be pleased that Trump talks of her more warmly than he does Angela Merkel. Others will worry deeply that the German Chancellor, dubbed the new leader of the free world by some after Trumps victory, is now put by the President Elect in the same bracket as Putin: I start off trusting both but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all. That diplomatic relativism is yet another signal to Europe that Trump is more Anglo than Saxon. But our PM is likely to feel a little uneasy that first Farage (how is our Nigel doing? Trump asks) and now Gove got an audience with Trump first. Gove confides: We chatted, on and off the record, for an hour. Will he tell No10 the off-the-record stuff too? In some senses, this feels like not just a newspaper interview, but also a job application for a Cabinet comeback. Gove revealed on Today he had had a private conversation with May just before Christmas. "I'm a backbencher, a commentator," Gove pointed out. The interview certainly feels like a poke in the eye for former ally Boris Johnson, who is supposed to be our global diplomat. Never forget that Boriss original I want to have my cake and eat it quote was made privately when he agonised over keeping his Spectator job and becoming an MP. Will Gove find theres something sweeter? Advertisement Keen on no-nonsense, businesslike deals, Trump is also more shrewd than many think in his media strategy. He tells Gove that his 46m social media followers will grow. I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and its not 140, its now 280 I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out this morning on television, Fox Donald Trump, we have breaking news. Hes not wrong. 2) CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS Trump also welcomed the fall in the pound, pointing out that it makes British exports more competitive. In Asian currency markets this morning, sterling dropped again. That may well be a reaction to the Sunday paper stories on Theresa Mays long-awaited speech due tomorrow, all of which signalled a hard and clean Brexit. Government sources told the Sunday Times they were braced for a further market correction after the speech's clarification of the UK position. Looks like theyve already got one. When even a soft Brexiteer like Philip Hammond is warning the EU (via the German press) that the UK could end up as a tax haven if we dont get a decent trade deal, its no wonder the markets reacted. Heres Hammos ammo: You can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say too bad, weve been wounded. We will change our model and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged. The tactic to Brussels and Berlin is clear: hey, look, we really arent bluffing. No10 had in fact briefed out on Saturday rather conciliatory extracts from the PMs speech, stressing a time for national unity and saying the country is coming together. But that kind of stuff was never going to satisfy the Sunday Lobby and Brexiteers appear to have briefed the hard-but-slow Brexit approach (out of the customs union and single currency but with a possible transitional deal) rather than Downing St itself. Some expect the Supreme Court ruling later this week, so the PM is getting her retaliation in first. Meanwhile, the FT has a story of the Lords warning May not to use Henry VIII powers in the Great Repeal Bill to amend or repeal EU laws further down the line with little Parliamentary scruinty. One to watch. Advertisement 3) JEZ-ITATION, REPETITION, DEVIATION The old joke about Tony Blair was that he holidayed in Umbria, because it was Cumbria without the sea. In fact, I remember the ex-PM taking a family break in the Lake District, after all the criticism of his foreign hols. "It's raining now, but yesterday afternoon it was absolutely beautiful, he once told reporters. When Jeremy Corbyn addresses the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) tonight, he may well face questions about the looming Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent Central by-elections. Asked on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday whether he would be toast if Labour lost both heartland seats, Corbyn replied without hesitation No. The Labour leader went on to say that in fact the two by-elections were not a threat but an opportunity to ram home his message on the NHS and on Brexit. Yet yesterdays latest polling on both issues werent good for JC. ComRes/Independent found more people trusted the Tories to deal with the NHS winter crisis than Labour; on Brexit, Labour was way behind May and only just ahead of UKIP. This Thursday sees the selection of Labours candidate in Copeland. Some locals are furious that the shortlist was stitched up, leaving off a GMB-backed former Sellafield man Tim Knowles, and with the NEC selection panel featuring new Momentum director Christine Shawcroft and Unites Jennie Formby. Expect some questions about that at PLP. I can reveal that Corbyn himself paid a lightning visit to Copeland yesterday (Ill write more on this today). He had a private chat with the local party, but unlike Tom Watson and Jon Ashworth last week it seems there was no Labour doorstep with the party leader. With former doctor Gill Troughton seen as the main rival to homeless hostel founder (and Momentum-backed) Rachel Holliday, the Copeland selection will be a real test of how much influence Corbyn supporters have in parties in the north. Advertisement BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR Watch this vox-popped jogger come up with a surprising answer when asked to spell her first and last name. Youve got to feel for her. 4) WINNING THE POTTERY Jeremy Corbyns critics think hes more at home in Stoke Newington than Stoke Central. And many Labour insiders think Tristram Hunts departure has landed Labour with a more difficult task than in Copeland. Since Corbyns second leadership election victory, there has been an air of resignation rather than actual resignations in the PLP. Jamie Reed and Hunt have changed that mood, although both have been careful to go out without taking pot-shots at the leader. Thats not least because centrists dont want to get the blame for the continuing dire poll position (which those around Corbyn admit are grim right now). Peter Mandelson was less coy and had a message for likeminded MPs on The Week in Westminster on Saturday, that the only way to save the Labour Party is by staying in it. But he added that for Labour MPs to stay they had to be sure they wouldnt be bullied and threatened by Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters and his Momentum organisation in reselection and deselection contests. Parts of Stoke were battlegrounds in the old Kinnock-Militant days, but some locals argue Hunts other-wordliness and parachuting in in 2010 is where the rot started. The real threat seems to be UKIP, who came second in 2015. And former Tory MP Esther McVey yesterday suggested on the Marr sofa that Paul Nuttall should be given a chance by her old party to take the seat from Labour. Staffordshire MP Bill Cash has swiftly told us he thinks that is not a smart move - but senior figures in UKIP are urging Nuttall to be bold. Advertisement 5) GETTING SCHOOLED No10 may hope that making this week Brexit week will ease the media pressure on the NHS, but it is obviously still a huge issue. The Sunday Mirrors pic of a little girl on a mat in A&E yesterday said more in one picture more than a thousand stats. And our GP blogger Dr Zoe Norris gives a taste of the backlash after the No10 weekend warnings that GPs are to blame for the crisis. Yet its not just health where funding is causing some unease on the Tory backbenches: education too is a concern. The new fairer schools funding formula has already prompted criticism from some senior Tories - including backbench 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady - who were shocked to find their own areas were losers not winners from the changes. Today, an alliance of six unions has published a new analysis claiming that nearly every school will lose out. Pupils in the PMs and Justine Greenings constituencies will see cuts, though it remains Labour areas that will suffer most. Read our report, plus an exclusive list of the areas worst hit, HERE. ICYMI - SUNDAY POLITICS PROGRAMMES ROUND-UP In a new public service, weve wrapped up the main clips of the Sunday political programmes. Click HERE. If youre reading this on the web, sign-up HERE to get the WaughZone delivered to your inbox. Despite the fact that the UK is ranked as one of the richest countries in the world - it just doesn't feel like that does it? And it feels less like that the further you are from London and the SE. As productivity and real household income has flat-lined over the last decade, many parts of Britain have unfortunately not shared the growth experienced by London and the SE. Whilst London may be one of the world's wealthiest cities, the rest of the country continues to lag behind. We all know that despite our high ranking on national wealth indexes - we suffer from extreme disparities within our own country. Even though unemployment is falling faster in the North than in the South, a report, published last month by the Centre for Cultural and Social Research based at Manchester University, showed that there remains a 2:1 difference between London and Greater Manchester GVA, with London GVA per capita at 43k compared to 21k in Manchester. And, if that isn't shocking enough, other boroughs and areas in the North and North East are as low as 15k per capita. The disparity between capital cities and other cities in the same country is not unusual of course, but what is unusual is that in the UK, our second and third cities are still not performing as well as other second and third cities in other countries around the world. This is something we urgently need to address if we want to limit fractures within our communities and the creeping notion of unfairness that growth and prosperity is for some but not all. Advertisement Last weekend the Financial Times reported research showing that "the regions that make up the Northern Powerhouse have struggled more than most other areas to improve productivity since the financial crisis, with workers there still producing less for every hour they work than in 2007". Between them, the North West and the Yorkshire and Humber regions now account for nearly a quarter of the entire shortfall in UK output and productivity. By bringing together the major cities of the North, the Northern Powerhouse framework creates a population of 15 million and GVA of 304 billion to the region. These two facts alone give politicians and policy makers the beginnings of a toolkit to lead and implement a nuanced and thoughtful strategy for growth. If nothing else, as a marketing mantra these are impressive statistics for anyone seeking to grow a business. I hope that the creative economy can be properly fitted into these plans and utilised to support a more inclusive approach to growth - one that reaches beyond the shiny new builds, and benefits some of those citizens who are feeling left behind by the digital world. Technological developments - themselves driven to a large extent by our creative industries - have enabled the growth of the flexible 'gig' economy. The creative industries' workforce is a primary example of this - in 2007 the average creative firm size was just under four workers and by 2014 this had declined to 3.3. 90% of creative businesses have no more than five employees and 60% have just one. Advertisement So how do we deliver the right sort of growth? How do we make sure that money doesn't just go to city centre developers but benefits the people who originally lived there? We need to make sure that the flexibility and entrepreneurship enabled by new patterns of working are complemented by the support and connections people need to keep their skills at the cutting edge. The aim of this is to boost their productivity and to encourage and foster networking and collaboration, bringing people together to help spark great new ideas and innovations. Maybe we need to adopt a more sophisticated understanding of what constitutes growth - nuanced by outcomes and impacts related to social value, creating educational and social wealth and creative excellence, as well as economic prosperity. I would challenge the focus on capital infrastructure spend as the primary form of investment. And in particular I think we need to stop fetishing physical "infrastructure". Our sector's greatest industrial asset is our people and their ideas - so as much as we invest in buildings and roads we also need to invest in people and their ideas. We need to ensure that all young people benefit from a good cultural education - not just in school, but outside formal education too. We need continual investment in training, as it is now common for people to transition through several careers, and we need to have risk capital available to invest in the development of new ideas and the creation of new IP. Advertisement And we need to ensure that where our creative entrepreneurs want to move from sole traders to small businesses, or small businesses to scaleups, they have the opportunity and support to do so - to drive jobs and economic growth in the communities they live in, instead of being forced to relocate to London to make their business ideas work. Put at its simplest: to make sure the creative industries in the North can reach their potential, can face up to the challenges of Brexit in terms of skills and access to markets, we need to match the region's rich seam of talent with the right opportunities to grow and develop. That is the only way we will be able to build creative resilience for our country and ensure that our industry plays its part in building a more inclusive economy. The Washington Post via Getty Images The excitement of Donald Trump proposing a new trade deal with the UK should be tempered with some realism. Putting aside how uneasy we should all feel at the sycophancy of our government towards a man who openly mocked a disabled reporter, is misogynistic, and to many threatens the stability of the world order, we must not fall blindly in to a trap of thinking this outweighs the benefits of free trade with Europe through being in the Single Market. Of course, this is what the Brextremists want you to think, but it doesn't add up. Donald Trump's victory may have shaken the kaleidoscope, but there are plenty of facts that are as true now as they were on 8 November. Europe is our most important trading partner; the value of a US deal has been overstated; negotiating such an agreement would take years, and negotiations will not begin until we leave the EU; and trade with the United States is perfectly compatible with staying in Europe's Single Market. Advertisement The EU is our largest trading partner, and is going to stay that way. International businesses invest in the UK because we are economically integrated with the EU. If we weaken those ties through new trade barriers, trade and investment will fall. Therefore, protecting our trade links with the EU must be the priority. By embracing a deal with the US, the UK would be leaving the Customs Union, which would mean new bureaucratic hurdles to cross-border trade. Whatever Leave campaigners might say, there is actually no evidence to suggest a deal with the US would significantly boost trade. Government-commissioned research showed that a EU-US deal would boost UK GDP by, at most, 0.35%. The Government also estimated that leaving the Single Market would, at best, hit UK GDP by 3.8%. Even if both estimates are not exact, the scale of the potential benefits versus potential risk is striking. Even in the best-case scenario, a trade deal with the United States will not come close to compensating for the damage caused by pulling out of the Single Market. Brextremists like to talk of a "quick" deal with the United States, as though international trade negotiation is a matter of shaking hands and signing the dotted line. Not so. To have a deal that is speedily agreed almost certainly means the smaller partner, in this case the UK, acceding to the terms of the larger partner, the US. Will the US retain their desire to allow US private healthcare providers access to our NHS, as many feared would be the consequence of TTIP? Will they want to import their agricultural products tariff-free, and with what consequence for our food safety standards and our domestic industry? Will tariff-free access be reciprocal given Trump's protectionist rhetoric? What specific sectors will benefit and on what timescale? These questions need answers. In any case, Britain cannot begin formal trade talks with other countries while it remains within the EU's Customs Union, which we will be until March 2019 at the earliest. For the UK to pursue this path would damage relations with the EU at a time when we must prioritise friendly and co-operative negotiations that work for both sides. It makes little sense to start negotiations with a strategy of ensuring the EU feels like spurned competitors rather than valued participants in a mutually-beneficial partnership. Advertisement Hard Brexiteers who talk about replacing the Single Market with new trade deals are creating a damaging false dichotomy. They ignore the fact that Britain can stay within the Single Market and strike our own international trade deals too. All countries in the European Economic Area, but outside the EU, can strike their own deals covering goods and services. The EFTA States have 27 Free Trade Agreements covering 38 countries. If the UK Government's formal assessment is that new FTAs will be so beneficial that leaving the Customs Union is essential, we can combine this with remaining in the Single Market. Such decisions should be evidence-based and subject to Parliamentary debate and scrutiny. The most significant aspect of this is that the Government's direction of travel is now becoming clear. They intend to erect new trade barriers with the EU by leaving the Single Market in pursuit of an unachievable migration reduction target that, if it were met, would harm our economy by choking off our access to skills and labour. They intend to leave the Customs Union in pursuit of new trade deals which will not outweigh the costs of leaving and, rather, will impose impediments to trade that could deter investment. They intend to embrace a deregulatory, low tax agenda to incentivise investment at the expense of workers' rights, public spending, and environmental standards. They will use the mirage of a positive UK-Trump relationship to mask the costs of this approach. And they will do this without allowing our nation's elected representatives time to debate these issues. Most Britons - whether they voted Leave or Remain - will be the losers in this scenario; the top 1% of earners and tax-avoiding multinationals will be the winners. So the Prime Minister needs to stop betting the house on the most unpredictable US president in history, and embrace the safe option of staying in the Single Market. It is a preposterous suggestion to say that the European Union is a single market. It is NOT, NEVER has been, and NEVER will be. To be a true single market, all the member states would enjoy, facilitate and action a free movement of goods and services. They do not. For the goods and services to be considered 'freely moving' then what was made in, say, Slovenia would be perfectly acceptable in, say, France given the sign-up by member states to a mutually agreed set of standards. Neatly bending though to national vested interests, the EU offered "Protected Designation of Origin," "Protected Geographical Indications," and "Traditional Specialities Guarantees." All of this so that Champagne can only come from the Champagne region, and no interloper can lay claim to producing a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie unless they make them in the relevant UK village. Advertisement You might consider this to be fair and reasonable. I happen to do so. Yet, within the EU regulations are the real reasons behind such designations: the promotion of products with specific characteristics, particularly those coming from less-favoured or rural areas; the improvement of the income of farmers, in return for a "genuine effort to improve quality"; the retention of population in rural areas So the reasoning behind the designations is not so that the consumer gets to make an informed choice, but rather the producer gets protection in the market, can charge a premium for their goods, plus they get a ramp up in the value of the land in the region of designation. These are examples of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) The United Kingdom operates some of the world's strictest NTBs. Our cars must have right-hand drive and a speedometer denoted in miles per hour. Other NTBs like pints and pounds (weight) are in decline, but still exist to a point in labeling. But many more NTBs exist, and they are not as obvious as pork pies or Parma Ham, they exist in the service sector. Advertisement The European Commission has recently pointed out that more than 5,000 regulated professions across Europe represent an obstacle to the free transfer of services, and with an estimated 90% of new jobs being created in this sector, this is an enormous number of NTBs. These barriers come in a variety of shapes and form, often in the form of licencing, training, and local regulations. The Commission listed as protected professions within Europe architects, engineers, lawyers, accountants, patent agents, real estate agents and tourist guides amongst others. NTBs, also called Technical Barriers to Trade, are outlawed as measures that result in discrimination or arbitrary restrictions on international trade by the World Trade Organisation, but as usual and true to form the EU is refusing to tackle the problem head on. The Commission can only provide guidance on how to prevent such protectionism. "We are not telling any member state how to regulate professions," said Jyrki Katainen, Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth and Investment. An admission that the barriers were simply too well entrenched in services and that, for once, the EU was powerless to act. The World Bank estimates that the internal EU NTBs cost as much annually as the external tariff does. But unlike an external tariff they are impossible to stamp out, as, a bit like Hydra, if you take one out another will appear. Advertisement All these NTBs however pale into insignificance compared to the real Beast on the Block. It is all very well for the Commission to rail against architects, lawyers, and local favouritism, but they are small fry compared to the volumes upon volumes of European legislation. Like a battery farm for red tape Brussels spews out rules and regulation with no end ever in sight. It is a relentless creature whose raison d'etre is to create more rules. There are a total (as of May 2015) 134,500 EU legislative acts that must be complied with on the UK statute books. Each piece of EU legislation acts as a NTB for companies, slowing down the transaction rate and increasing the cost of bureaucracy, as well as upping the tax rates to pay for implementation thus reducing competitive advantage. For the vast amount of UK companies the EU NTB of regulation grinds down business hitting the Small to Medium business sector and start-ups particularly badly. For those lucky few giant corporations who can afford the legions of lawyers and lobbying resources required, it is an irritation and helpfull yrestricts competitive new entrants so of less consequence. As a Brexit supporting UK MEP my point is that some protection is acceptable to guarantee standards and provenance. Some levels of protection are culturally embedded and have to be accepted. However crushing levels of regulation designed to stamp out smaller fry competition is not acceptable. And here is the opportunity for the UK. Post-Brexit, free of Brussels and its protectionist agenda, the UK can choose to trademark the pork pies, and drive on the wrong side of the road. The UK can also choose to rid itself of the world's largest barrier to trade namely European regulations. That really is an opportunity. So in summary it is a nonsense to describe the EU as a single market. What purports to be a Single Market actually has millions of distinct and culturally individual nuances complete with costs. These will never be stamped out, as the EU itself admits. But, these are small fry compared to the biggest impediment to Free Trade of all, the EU itself. Advertisement Religious officers lead a youth onstage before a public whipping in Banda Aceh. BANDA ACEH, Indonesia Things were hopping at Redinesh Coffee Roastery in this seaside city one recent evening. Electronic dance music blared from the cafes speakers as patrons, some in ripped jeans and fashionable spectacles, sat outside drinking locally sourced coffee and smoking cigarettes. But then the Muslim call to prayer sounded, and a waitress hurriedly ushered everyone back into the cafe. She turned down the music, closed the doors and covered the windows. It was the Maghrib the second to last of the five daily calls to prayer and outdoor socializing had to cease. Aceh Province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island, stands alone in having formally established Shariah law in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country with a relatively secular Constitution. In Aceh, women are required to dress modestly, alcohol is prohibited, and numerous offenses from adultery to homosexuality to selling alcohol are punishable by public whipping. Aceh (pronounced AH-chay) began its experiment with Shariah in 2001, after receiving special authorization from Indonesias central government, which was intent on calming separatist sentiment in the deeply conservative region. Now, Shariah police officers roam the province, raiding everything from hotel rooms to beaches in a hunt for immoral activity. In the decade and a half since, Indonesia as a whole has drifted in a conservative direction, and Aceh, once an outlier, has become a model for other regions of the country seeking to impose their own Shariah-based ordinances, alarming those who worry about the nations drift from secularism. Whenever Aceh issues a law, saying its the highest order of Shariah, it provokes others to do the same thing, said Andy Yentriani, a former commissioner on Indonesias National Commission on Violence Against Women, who wants the national government to repeal certain Shariah-based regulations as violations of the Indonesian Constitution. A recent study found that more than 442 Shariah-based ordinances have been passed throughout the nation since 1999, when Jakarta gave provinces and districts substantial powers to make their own laws. These include regulations concerning female attire, the mixing of the sexes and alcohol. But for local officials, the spread of Shariah from Aceh is a point of pride, and delegations from areas with a history of embracing conservative Islam regularly visit to see how it has been carried out here. They look at how we facilitate an atmosphere of religiosity, said Syahrizal Abbas, the head of Acehs Department of Shariah, who said he gives visiting delegations advice on how to incorporate Shariah teachings into law. Mr. Syahrizal, who is considered a moderate, said that Acehs version of Shariah was softer than that of the oft-maligned form in Saudi Arabia, because it welcomed alternative schools of Islamic thought and accepted the role of female leaders. Indeed, Banda Aceh, the provinces capital, is currently led by Illiza Saaduddin Djamal, the citys first female mayor. Many activists for womens rights say they supported her candidacy in hopes that she would be a progressive leader. Instead she has proved to be a zealous, hands-on enforcer of Acehs conservative moral code, issuing a nighttime curfew for women and personally dispersing events deemed to contradict Shariah. Last February, Ms. Illiza, wearing a black head scarf, strode into the hall where Indonesian Model Hunt, a beauty competition, was underway, interrogating cowering models about the event as news cameras rolled. Why arent you wearing a jilbab? she asked one, referring to what Indonesians call a head scarf. The Shariah police loaded the competitions trophies into a bag and escorted models out of the building. Shariah right now is about what someones wearing, said Ratna Sari, the head of the Aceh branch of Solidaritas Perempuan, a womens rights organization, who said she longed for a version of Shariah that tackled political corruption and promoted good public services. Where are all the Islamic hospitals? Shariah was imposed here in 2001 toward the end of Acehs decades-long struggle for independence from Jakarta. Scars remain from the war, as well as the aftereffect of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people here in 2004. Today Aceh is one of Indonesias poorest provinces, with nearly one in five people believed to be living in poverty. In February, the Acehnese will go to the polls to select new leaders, but none of the candidates for mayor or governor are willing to challenge the primacy of Shariah law. Irwan Johan, a vice speaker for the Acehnese Provincial Legislature, said any real debate over Shariah was impossible, even though a silent majority thinks the government has gone too far. Public whipping in Banda Aceh, Indonesia Theyre not brave enough to say anything, he said about critics of Shariah. Talk about issues of religion and you could be expelled, or be considered a person who isnt really Acehnese. Everybody became a hypocrite. Theyre not brave enough to say anything, he said about critics of Shariah. Talk about issues of religion and you could be expelled, or be considered a person who isnt really Acehnese. Everybody became a hypocrite. Debate over the provinces Islamic identity erupted in December when Indonesia unveiled new currency notes featuring a portrait of a female anticolonial fighter from Aceh. A provincial lawmaker protested that the woman, Cut Meutia, was not depicted wearing a head scarf, even though local historians say that Acehnese women of that era did not generally wear them. Many say that according to Shariah she must wear a jilbab, but its a historical fact that she didnt wear one, Mr. Irwan said. Mr. Irwan remembers a different era in Acehnese history the 1990s, in his youth, before Aceh gained its special autonomy and instituted Shariah law. When I was still in high school there were so many discotheques here, he said. The discotheques would close at 3 a.m. But at 3 a.m. if we werent satisfied yet, wed go to the beach, and from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. wed play disco music with no problem. Now, he noted, there are no more discotheques in Banda Aceh, and men and women are told to sit apart during concerts. Now Aceh is at its most Islamic, he said. It used to not be like this. Islamist leaders from outside the province are hoping to push things further here. In late December, Rizieq Shihab, a firebrand preacher who leads the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, a national organization that led the campaign to have Jakartas Christian governor prosecuted on blasphemy charges, gave a fiery speech before a crowd in Banda Aceh. When Islam first came to Indonesia it entered through Aceh, correct? he asked the crowd. Correct! the crowd thundered back. Aceh is a model for the entire Indonesian nation, the preacher continued. It must become the locomotive for the movement to apply Shariah law throughout Indonesia. Agreed? he asked the crowd. Agreed! the crowd shouted back. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; 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 New York Times, Jon Emont, January 12, 20127 BEN STANSALL via Getty Images After the referendum last June there were fears that environmental protection could be one of the casualties of Brexit. Whilst the more suspicious of us were not entirely convinced by reassuring noises from some politicians, the intervening months might have left us a bit less worried. But now the alarm bells are ringing again ahead of Theresa May's long-awaited speech on Brexit. Media speculations (not to say the financial markets) now think the so-called 'hard' Brexit seems the more likely option. The consequence of this is that environmental protections built up over decades of EU membership could be lost. We shouldn't forget that the UK has been in the EU since 1971 and much environmental concern, and thus law, has arisen since that time. Furthermore, many environmental problems - e.g. air pollution, conservation of migratory species, and climate change - can only be tackled at an international level so having a regional body regulate these trans-border issues makes sense. When you hear some politicians referring to this as 'Brussels red tape', it's worth remembering the advantages of much environmental law and regulation being done at an EU level. Not to mention the fact that, over several decades, EU law has helped clean up our beaches, our air, our drinking water and our energy system. Advertisement Of course, a chunk of this EU law will be incorporated into UK legislation in the 'Great Repeal Bill'. But this already comes with caveats. Firstly, the Environment Secretary has said about a third of EU law will not be incorporated because it's too difficult. Secondly, some standards like those on air pollution are enforced through the European courts, and the UK removing itself from the EU means that there's no redress if government action fails to deliver those required standards. You only need to look at what's already happened in the court cases brought by ClientEarth to understand the importance of this. In the absence of court enforcement, it's easy to see UK governments, of all different colours, making some pious noises of concern, but failing to take tough decisions necessary to clean up our air. This much was already clear. What's new from this weekend is that there is now a wide expectation that Prime Minister May will side with a 'hard' Brexit and cut Britain off from ties with the EU market, EU court, and the EU's body of law and standards (including environmental law). Advertisement Meanwhile a full recognition of the economic difficulty the UK will be in under the circumstances of a hard Brexit is becoming clear. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, said that the UK could 'change economic model to regain competitiveness', widely interpreted as meaning a shift to a low-tax economy and - here's the crunch point - weaker social security and environmental standards to lower the cost base of UK businesses. So the threat to our environmental protections is clear. But, one might argue, if EU standards are being incorporated into UK law through the 'Great Repeal Bill', there would still have to be Parliamentary votes to shift the UK to this 'new economic model' with all the loss of environmental and social protections involved. Well, maybe not. We've now learnt that the Great Reform Bill may well also include provisions allowing ministers, without a parliamentary vote, to sweep aside legislation originally passed into law by parliament. Thus those senior ministers with a deregulatory bent can simply abandon them on a gut instinct. Note that some ministers have described environmental protections as 'spirit-crushing', and other prominent politicians have form on calling for deregulation while key senior ministers have links to deregulatory think tanks looking to roll back environmental regulation. The temptation to do away with these protections by ministerial fiat in the interests of getting trade deals has already been raised. The chilling effect of international trade deals on environmental and social progress was raised heavily during the controversy on an EU trade deals with the US known as TTIP, although that specific deal now looks to have been abandoned. A new push for deregulation may well train its sights on environmental and consumer protections we now take for granted, from the UK standards on chemicals legislation, to resource efficiency and water quality. And given the bind the government is currently in over its compliance with air quality laws - and the hurdle this poses to expanding Heathrow airport - the temptations to get rid of these crucial laws protecting our health from illegal levels of air pollution could become overwhelming. And so the scenario which now looks plausible is this: the UK heads for a hard Brexit completely cutting ties with the EU, and turns itself into a low-tax, low-standards economy, destroying decades of law building up environmental protection. This is done by a deregulatory government unhindered by Parliament, yet without a mandate from either a General Election or, in any meaningful way, the EU referendum. There was a clear 'leave' vote on 23 June, but it's also clear people weren't voting in favour of diluted environmental standards. Advertisement Jonathan Brady/PA Wire A friend of mine has a wonderful job for a political addict - a global bank pays him to write reports analysing politics in countries around the world. If he thinks it's relevant, he can write about it, and since the bank operates everywhere, virtually all markets are relevant. My friend is as knowledgeable discussing Thailand's palace intrigues as he is discussing the nuances of the New Hampshire primaries. The accepted wisdom in political analysis circles had been that political risk was only truly a factor in the emerging economies of Africa and southern Asia. Coups, revolutions, dramatic policy shifts, corruption and dynastic rivalries could upset your company's interests in those economies. But in the rich world, centrist parties could be relied on to provide broadly sensible economic stewardship. How dated that wisdom now seems. My friend's reports recently dwell on the uncertainties of Trump, Farage, Le Pen and various other actors dancing around the bonfires of our vanities. Advertisement As unsettling as political risk is, it is also not without some merits. The notion that politics should comprise simply careful economic stewardship and nothing more is a sterile idea, which would stifle change and progress. Politics should be about ideas, principles and identities, and can be as dynamic as the human experience itself. Economic stewardship is important (ask anyone who remembers the Great Depression), but sometimes decisions need to be made on ideas, not on numbers. An aspect of the referendum campaign that I did not like was its excessive focus on the costs of Brexit and of EU membership. Each household would be 4,300 worse off under Brexit, the claim went. EU fees deprive the NHS of 350million a week, the counter-claim went. But to my mind, Brexit should have been contemplated not primarily on the costs but on the principles. What kind of country do we want to be? How much a part of Europe are we? What sort of signals do we want to send to migrants and would-be migrants? What does sovereignty in the 21st century really mean? These were the ideas I thought needed to be discussed more, rather than obsessing on the costs (which both sides indulged in). If a course of action is the right thing to do, the costs will be worth it. Theresa May will this week give a major speech on Brexit. Some speculate she will signal leaving the European Single Market. Others say she will focus on Britain's post Brexit identity. It is likely she will address both. Once again, it comes down to costs and ideas. Political risk is back in Europe. The prospect of France embracing Marine Le Pen's world view is a genuine political risk, though I am still hopeful that the French principles of liberte, egalite et fraternite will prevail - it is fair to say that Le Pen seems to cherish none of those principles, at least not in the way that liberals understand them. In Eastern Europe self-described illiberal governments in places such as Hungary and Turkey have already reintroduced new considerations to political and business decisions that many had assumed were passe. Advertisement Yet let me offer some notes of hope. Political risk can be managed, if not fully ameliorated. Good political analysis (such as my friend turns out) offers not just explanations, but identifies options and pressure points for influence. It is not just about identifying the Who and the What, but also the Why and the How. While Brexit offers uncertainty, there are clear policy sweet spots that can be massaged. The government is plainly keen on the wider trade agenda, for example - and understandably so if we are to lose access to the European Single Market. Companies that offer governments support for their trade agenda will have leverage. Even as a veteran of numerous Oxfam global inequality reports I was shocked when our latest research found that just eight individuals own the same wealth as the poorest half of the planet. That's 3.6billion people. This year better data, particularly in Asia, shows that the world's poorest have even less than we thought - and the inequality crisis is far worse than we feared. For all the talk of growth over the last 40 years, we have to face the fact that most of this economic success has been pocketed by the rich. Since 1988 the poorest 10 percent of the world's population have seen their incomes rise by just $3 a year. For all the progress made reducing poverty - and there has been welcome progress - one in 9 people around the world still go to bed hungry. Contrast that with the private jets, champagne and world-class cuisine that characterise the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week and you have to wonder: do the elites gathering to discuss the state of the world have a clue? Advertisement Well, on paper, they seem to be getting it. WEF's annual risks report has consistently listed inequality among the biggest risks to the global economy. This year it is number one. But observing this crisis through the pages of the Financial Times is one thing, feeling it is quite another. Many people around the world don't need another report to tell them what they already experience every day. Oxfam works with people who know exactly what it's like to be on bottom end of the spectrum in an unequal world. To give you an idea, picture a young Vietnamese woman called Oanh, too sick to work but too poor to get the kidney transplant she needs. Each day she walks the streets of Hanoi - past flashy cars and Dior boutiques - to work illegally selling tea to finance her dialysis. Advertisement Oanh is a 27-year-old kidney dialysis patient who lives in Hanoi Consider Thailla, a bright young student from Sao Paolo in Brazil. She is fighting the government to keep her school from closing, even though the roof is falling in and there are no desks, because she wants an education. Thailla, 18 year old student and activist, in Brazil Their governments have chosen not to invest in poorer citizens like Oanh and Thailla. Brazil is currently pushing through a 20-year freeze on education spending. Meanwhile, wealthy Vietnamese people can receive excellent healthcare and Brazilian kids from rich families attend great schools. Here in the UK we've got a situation where the top 1% own a quarter of all the country's wealth. One in five people live in poverty. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the political turmoil last year has brought the message home - the undeniable discontent that led to votes for Brexit or President-elect Trump, or Duterte in the Philippines. Maybe these things do keep the elites awake at night, gnawing at them as hunger gnaws at the poorest? Advertisement Deep down, I suspect the political and business leaders at Davos know that people are right to feel cheated. Let's be clear: today's broken economy is no inevitable force of nature. The increasing power of the financial sector, ever cheaper labour, the "fourth industrial revolution" of technological advances, such as driverless cars - all of these trends are shaped by political choices. There is no reason why Apple paid only 0.005% tax on its European profits in 2014 except that it - and other multinationals - can get away with it. There is no reason why the average FTSE CEO is paid 129 times the salary of their average employee, other than un-checked greed. We live in a distorted world where wealth is so concentrated at the top that the richest one percent own as much as the rest. Oxfam's report "An Economy for the 99 percent" calls for some common sense - and common decency - to be put back into the way we run our economies so that they work for everyone. That means an end to tax havens, and higher taxes on the rich so that governments have enough revenue to ensure everyone gets good-quality healthcare and education. Advertisement It means a re-think about the role of companies, so they offer a fair deal to workers, producers and customers instead of pushing ever greater profits to shareholders. And behind all this we need politicians that listen to the voices of the poorest as much as the louder voices of the rich. As Oanh told us: "If I was the minister for health, I would put poor people first." Getty Images An extraordinary piece of research has been published today by Working Families that shows more than half of millennial men want to change their job for something with less responsibility and less pay; a trade-off dads are prepared to make to get rid of the stress they face in balancing work and family life. This should be a wake up call for business and a wake up call for Government. What's changed? Since the recession, to increase the financial resilience of families, record numbers of women work. In the past most mums who worked did so on a part time basis to enable them to take the lion's share of family responsibility-now most families have two parents working full-time and the pressure is mounting. Millennial parents want to do things differently but most employers haven't caught up. It's now men who are saying enough is enough faced with the conflicting pressures of work and family life. Advertisement Dads are also realising they face a new sort of 'fatherhood penalty'. Those seeking flexible work soon find out that just one in four part-time jobs goes to a man because, for the most part, this type of work is confined to highly feminised, low-paid sectors of the economy. Most believe, as women do too, that any move towards flexible working will blight their careers. We have long known that millennials view life differently. Research published by the government themselves before the last General Election showed half of parents think childcare should be shared equally between mums and dads. Yet in fact, dads are only able to do 24 minutes caring for every hour of care from mums. Dads want more of a role in caring for their children but the reality of the current British workplace is making that almost impossible. The parenting revolution hasn't been matched with workplace revolution. Millennium men clearly feel trapped but with two full-time earners perhaps they also feel they can take matters into their own hands and opt out of a system that they feel is letting them down. Business and government need to find some solutions. To coincide with this new research from Working Families, the Women and Equality Select Committee are launching a new Inquiry into 'Fathers in the Workplace' to scrutinise the effectiveness of government policies in helping millennial dads live the lives they want. This builds on the Gender Pay Gap report that we published in Spring 2016. Advertisement As part of this Inquiry we will be considering the work done by the Fatherhood Institute, who last year called for a fundamental redesign of the Government's flagship parental leave policy which so far is supporting fewer than one in ten new dads to have time off when their children are born. They are suggesting a move to a Scandinavian-style system including a substantial period of well-paid, 'use-it-or-lose-it' leave for fathers. But the Fatherhood Institute also recommended renewed efforts to reduce the gender pay gap too because the erosion of women's earning power does nothing to ease the pressure on dads. Too much of the infrastructure that supports working families in the UK is still designed to engage mums not dads, and in the Select Committee's call for evidence we hope to hear from early years, schools, social work and other services on their engagement with fathers. Having dads more involved in the early years of their children's lives is not only a practical necessity, it's good for children too. Dads are caught up in a culture change in the workplace as much as mothers are. The research published today suggests that, for some fathers, the financial resilience of two full-time working parents could be giving them a new found sense of choice. With the potential workforce challenges businesses face around Brexit there has never been a better time to look at whether government policy is playing its proper part in speeding up a change in business culture and securing the productivity of the country. FILE - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, D.C. in this Aug. 28, 1963 file photo. Former South African President Nelson Mandela never met with King but the two fought for the same issues at the same time on two different continents. Mandela said in a 1964 speech that he was prepared to die to see his dream of a society where blacks and whites were equal become reality. King was killed by an assassin's bullet while working for that same dream. (AP Photo/File) NEW YORK - OCTOBER 16: Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd on October 16, 1965 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) One doesnt have their very own national holiday and 900 streets named after them unless they are truly deserving. Nor does Gallup name you the second most beloved person in all of the 20th century without good reason. Martin Luther King Jr. was aptly awarded all of the above. Today on the 46th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, he is being celebrated for the Civil Rights Movement hero that was. Sam Moore, of Sam & Dave, is releasing a song titled, "They Killed A King" in his honor, and tomorrow The National Civil Rights Museum is reopening -- after a 16-month renovation -- at the site of his assassination in Memphis. Advertisement Dr. King will always be known for his passion and achievements in the area of civil rights, but it is also worthwhile to remember what made him such a revered public figure was his dedication to numerous causes under the umbrella of human rights. Here are some you may not know Dr. King kept near and dear until his passing. Sanitation Workers' Rights There is much documentation about Dr. King's work for sanitation workers' rights. In fact, MLK was in Tennessee helping organize the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike at the time of his assassination in 1968. On the evening before his death, MLK gave his famous Mountaintop speech and urged workers, "weve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end," to keep fighting for union recognition, and thereby adequate wages and improved safety standards. Curriculum Reform Dr. King not only wanted equal opportunity of education for people of all races, but valuable education for people of all races. It is his opinion that is the only way to find truth and raise a human population with integrity and character: A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction. The above quote is from "The Purpose of Education" which he wrote in 1947. You can read it in its entirety here. Advancing Economic Opportunity Part of MLK's solution to economic inequality in America was a anti-capitalist view for the future of the country. He was criticized for it, but he felt passionately about equal pay and equal rights for workers, and would not be moved on the subject despite acquiring a "socialist" label for his beliefs. Anti-War Sentiment Even from beyond the grave, MLK can tell you in his own words how his non-violent protest principle transfers over to international policy in his famous speech "Why I Am Opposed To The Vietnam War." Advertisement Working Across Religions Dr. King was a christian, and a firm believer at that. That did not however, stop him from recognizing shared ideals of social change with people of other faiths, such as Malcolm X, who was Muslim. During a PBS civil rights series, Coretta Scott King said about her husband, "I know Martin had the greatest respect for Malcolm... I think that if Malcolm had lived, at some point the two would have come closer together and would have been a very strong force." Human Dignity And Integrity Regardless of MLK's position on pro-life vs pro-choice, Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded him the PPFA Margaret Sanger Award for "his courageous resistance to bigotry and his lifelong dedication to the advancement of social justice and human dignity" in 1966. His wife Coretta Scott King graciously accepted the award on his behalf. Gay Marriage Rights Was MLK on board with gay rights? CNN pieces together the puzzle of clues left behind in his legacy and closest of family and friends. For starters, Coretta Scott King was an avid gay rights activist. Advertisement On Wednesday January 4, 2017, a full-page advertisement in the New York Times declared the Trump presidency a fascist regime and called on millions who stand in opposition to rise up in a resistance movement that would create a political crisis in the nation. The group's webpage announced a month long action in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to shut down Washington DC and prevent Donald Trump from taking office. I thought I was reading an old SDS Weatherman call for "Days of Rage" in Chicago in 1969 when revolution was supposed to be imminent (it didn't happen), and then I saw the ad was signed by some of the same "sixties" radicals. A friend joked that if they really wanted to shut down Washington this time they should join the Republican Party. A Donald Trump presidency is scary, but fascism has not arrived in the United States, at least not yet. I will join the January 21 Women's March on Washington to protest the Trump agenda, but I don't think the solution at this point is to take to the streets in rebellion. A lot of grassroots organizing has to be done to turn the nation around. Given today is the official holiday recognizing Dr. King, I thought it was appropriate to turn to him for on advice on how to proceed. Advertisement In an August 1967 speech at the 11th Annual Southern Christian Leadership Conference Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. asked his audience, which included much of the leadership of the African American civil rights movement, "Where do we go from here?" The Civil Rights Movement had achieved many legislative and judicial victories. The Brown decision by a unanimous Supreme Court declared de jure segregation of public schools a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, including schools, housing, at the workplace, and in facilities that served the general public. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited states and localities from imposing voting restrictions resulting in racial discrimination and empowered the federal Justice Department to enforce regulations. Yet despite these achievements support for civil rights was waning among White liberals who believed its goals had already been achieved with the passage of legislation and court rulings and urban Blacks, especially younger people, who did not see the conditions of their lives, education, employment, and housing, significantly improved. Many established Black leaders had renounced King because of his opposition to the War in Vietnam. Dr. King could have been discouraged, maybe he should have been discouraged, but he wasn't. These were dark times for the non-violent civil rights movement. In 1964 there were race riots in Harlem, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rioting had torn apart Watts in Los Angeles in 1965 and had just destroyed Black communities in Detroit and Newark. His campaign to desegregate housing in Chicago stalled in the face of intense northern racism. Advertisement Instead of being discouraged Dr. King told the assembly that it was time to "honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society." Challenging racial discrimination within American society was proving to be insufficient. It was time to question the "edifice" that produced a society wrought with poverty, inequality, and injustice. He had concluded, the "problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together . . . A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will 'thingify' them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together." When I re-read Dr. King's speech, the speech and the questions he posed seem remarkably contemporary and even prescient. Racial inequality has definitely not ended. According to a 2011 report by the Economic Policy Institute, "Millions of African Americans live in communities that lack access to good jobs and good schools and suffer from high crime rates. African American adults are about twice as likely to be unemployed as whites, black students lag their white peers in educational attainment and achievement, and African American communities tend to have higher than average crime rates." There are nearly one million African Americans in prison in the United States, a result of unfair drug laws, a privatized prison industry, and courtesy of the school-to-prison pipeline. In the "Age of Trump," rightwing ascendency and anti-democratic authoritarian movements across Europe, genocide in Africa, terror and war in the Islamic world, and environmental rapists in control of the world's most populous nations in Asia, where do we, progressives, people who believe in social justice, go from here? It is also the "Age of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders." Dr. King believed the "arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and that that "Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again." But we live in an age of false news on Facebook and post-truth, what Steven Colbert calls truthiness, and I am not as confident. Martin Luther King, Jr. was sustained by a religious faith I do not share. He could call on the Bible and Christian theology for comfort and support. When Dr. King said, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," I am sure he must have anticipated Donald Trump. Dr. King's beliefs sustained his "hope for the future," his certainty that "we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow, with a cosmic past tense, 'We have overcome! We have overcome! Deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.'" Advertisement There are lessons that can be learned n Dr. King's analysis and faith, in his life, hope, and commitment. In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King addressed white clergy who were critical of the civil rights campaign in their Alabama city. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC were accused of being outsiders disrupting peaceful local accommodations. King responded, "I am in Birmingham because injustice is here . . . Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds." In this case I expand on Dr. King, in fact, I think he would as well. Anyone who lives on this planet can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. Birmingham's white clergy deplored the demonstrations taking place in their city. Dr. King's response was that "your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations . . . It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative." Dr. King responded by explaining his strategy for promoting progressive change and social justice. "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth." The words and actions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to offer vital lessons for social movements. We are not outside agitators. We must address underlying causes, not just symptoms. Our job as organizers is to promote action that precipitates crises. And we must always remember, "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Advertisement There is one last lesson that is fundamental to sustained struggle for progressive social change. The struggle ages and dies unless each generation prepares a new generation to be activists. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a teacher as well as a minister and an activist. At Birmingham, in Selma, young people were at the forefront of the struggle, learning to be activists in their own right. In Birmingham, thousands of young people joined the Children's Crusade. King told participants "What you do this day will have an impact on children yet unborn" and parents "Don't worry about your children; they are going to be alright. Don't hold them back if they want to go to jail, for they are not only doing a job for themselves, but for all of America and for all of mankind." During the Civil Rights Movement college students held sit-ins, road busses, taught literacy classes, and conducted voter registration drives. There is much to be hopeful for on the progressive left today despite the Trump ascendency. The Black Lives Matter movement continues to grow. The Bernie Sanders campaign energized a new generation of young people to political action, many who will return to local communities to build grassroots groups and where they will influence political decision-making. Globalization and technology have transformed how people live all over the world, ending isolation, and creating the potential multi-national political action across old boundaries. The environmental movement is global and should form the basis for expanding international networking. As old and new progressive activists try to figure out where we go from here there will be many opportunities for non-violent civil disobedience challenging imperialistic adventurism and nuclear rearmament, the privatization of schools and social services, environmental destruction in the United States and around the world, the erosion of civil liberties, and increasing economic inequality. I never got to meet or speak with Dr. King but I know he would have been at the front of the line in the next era of discussion, organizing, and protest. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously stated "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others? " For many people, it's a day of remembrance for his contributions to the civil rights movement; however, this is simply not enough. To truly fulfill Dr. King's legacy, it must be a day of service where we venture into our communities to pay it forward. It is our duty to make MLK day a "Day On, Not A Day Off. The federal government has spearheaded this initiative as a part of United We Serve in conjunction with the Corporation for National & Community Service and The King Center. This initiative asks for all Americans from all backgrounds to collaborate to provide solutions to our country's most critical issues. Some colleges and universities are really leading the effort to make this a day of service. Forty universities nationwide received grant funding from the Campus Compact to expand service programming for MLK day. West Virginia University is among one of the forty universities to receive funding. Leah Cunningham, Operations Coordinator at West Virginia University's Center of Service and Learning says "This national service holiday is a great opportunity to become involved. It provides students a chance to travel outside of Morgantown, and experience one of the best things West Virginia has to offer... its people." Advertisement Students will be volunteering in Charleston, Grafton, Fairmont, and Morgantown, West Virginia. Cunningham anticipates over 100 WVU students to participate amounting to 1,000 service hours. Director of the WVU's Center of Service and Learning, Dr. Kristi Wood-Turner stresses the importance of service, particularly in a higher education environment. Dr. Wood-Turner notes, "MLK Day allows us to help students connect the reason we serve with the direct impact on communities." Service learning truly enriches one's education by exploring interests and honing certain skills outside of one's regular curriculum. It compliments the knowledge students are getting in class and provides great perspective for how one's degree affects everyone. Dr. Wood-Turner opined, "Higher Education has a responsibility to educate students not only on the theories of today but on the evolution of tomorrow and what that may bring. Service to community plants the seeds of critical thinking and progressive design that is necessary in careers of tomorrow." Whether it's with a group of friends, a local organization, a university or the like, let's ensure that it's not a day off. Advertisement The mythical view of artists has placed them in their studios or garrets, waiting for the Muse to inspire some great new idea or image. Were that the case, the wait could be a long one, leaving artists with little to do between brainstorms. In fact, most artists rely on good work habits to solve technical, aesthetic or intellectual problems. These include maintaining a regimen of drawing or painting for a certain amount of time every day as well as pursuing certain ideas to their completion in the hope that they might lead to other, new and interesting concepts. In the mostly hands-on profession of art, inspiration comes from doing. In Search of the Muse No artist is free from dry periods or mental blocks, when the old ideas seem to lead nowhere and new ones are hard to find. There are really two aspects to this problem: The first is the feeling of having run out of ideas, which tends to be a very temporary condition; the second is a general lack of enthusiasm about creating art itself and losing a sense of what makes art exciting, which can be far more troubling. For artists who have established a market for their work, fear of negative criticism or turning off past collectors may also enter their thinking. "When I'm at an impasse," photographer Sandy Skoglund said, "I try to do whatever feels good. The internal satisfaction has to be the focus." That may be more easily said than done, as some methods work, others don't. Jackson Pollock, who was stung by criticism of his later work, largely gave up painting in the last few years of his life. Italian comic opera composer Gioacchino Antonio Rossini's mental block lasted for the better part of three decades, as he wrote almost nothing of any length or importance for the last half of his life. Different artists have approached the problem in various ways. Pablo Picasso, for instance, periodically looked for rejuvenation in various media (ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, stage design) and subject matter (copying Old Masters, ancient Greek mythology). Painter Janet Fish "started doing watercolors as a way of loosening up my use of color. I had begun to find that subject matter had come to dominate my painting." Ben Shahn, who by 1950 felt trapped in the socially conscious work he had done in the 1930s and '40s, took a teaching position at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, which proved stimulating to him. "Black Mountain was a very argumentative place. A lot of the abstract expressionists were there," said Shahn's widow, Bernarda Bryson Shahn. "It helped clarify his ideas, and his work also went in a variety of directions after that. He moved from just continuing on with the same subjects that had come out of the Depression--the poor, hungry and homeless people--to more universal themes." The search for a way out of a dry period may also lead to new ideas for artwork as well as energy for the task. Edward Hopper, who is best known for his paintings of urban life, lived most of the year in New York City but he frequently became restless there, unable to paint. His restlessness led him to travel around the country and to Mexico, subsequently yielding a sizable body of paintings devoted to people on trains and highways, at gas stations and hotels. Some artists delve into art's past for a source of ideas, although others feel a bit more detached or want to get away from the art of the past altogether. Photographer Mary Frey noted that she gets "solace and sustenence from looking at the work of artists of the past but, after all, I'm a contemporary artist and I need to find the work of contemporary artists. I think that my work has become part of a dialogue with contemporary art, and so it is more important to me to see what similar or not-so-similar things other artists are doing currently." Noting that a mental block indicates "something that you are trying to avoid," Janet Fish said that a dry period "can lead you to stop working entirely. As they say, when you fall off a horse, you have to get right back on the horse because, the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to get back on the horse. You just have to keep painting. Going to museums can easily become another way to avoid working. It certainly is that way for me." For many artists, the act of creating a work of art is analogous to following a train of thought, developing and reworking ideas that may or may not come together to form a successful piece. A dry period may arise when artists have not pushed their ideas far enough or when a particular problem has already been solved--leaving artists only to repeat themselves. Janet Fish has found that her response to a problem in her work is to open herself to new ideas and experiences, and to keep working. "Sometimes, I work small when I'm not sure about what I'm doing," she said. "Better a little bad painting than a big bad painting." Fish noted that it is important to distinguish between a dry period, when problems in one's work need to be confronted, and just having a bad day, when nothing seems to go quite right. A particularly rough dry period can lead an artist to "do anything to avoid dealing with the painting." To her mind, the worst thing to do is "indulge in a dry period and let yourself quit working altogether. That way, you lock yourself into a mental block. If you get too polemical, or overly embroiled in a certain narrow idea, you can't go anywhere." Tense, even combative mother-daughter relationships aren't unusual when the daughter is an adolescent. Most of these relationships improve, however, when the daughter has reached her twenties. But not always. In The Beauty Queen of Leenane, one of Martin McDonagh's earliest plays--perhaps the first, but that's uncertain--he introduces a terrifying mother-daughter pairing (the toughest in theater annals?). Now the participants' high-voltage family fracas is on scandalizing display in an immaculate revival at BAM. Mag Folan (Marie Mullen) rarely rises from her rocking-chair in the squalid Connemara, County Galway home that Francis O'Connor recreates these 20 or so years on from the original Druid production, directed then and now by Garry Hynes. (The print of a beatific Virgin Mary over the door is the only colorful feature. Otherwise, it's all grey walls, aging refrigerator, heater and battered table and old radio.) Advertisement Complaining about her bad leg--the chronic "bone on bone" pain--Mag has no need to do for herself. She has forty-ish daughter Maureen (Aisling O'Sullivan) to do for her. Not uncomplainingly, though. Mag buckles under with hatred lodged in her dominated heart. As the daughter nominated by siblings to be the carer for an infirm (or seemingly infirm) parent, Maureen is a sad figure common to many families, and she understandably resents it--all the while only fleetingly recognizing that she's allowed herself to take on the role for unexamined psychological reasons. Mag's underlying motivation is her fear that she will be abandoned. To counter that, she's undermined whenever possible Maureen's hope for a life of her own. Prominently, she either lies about or destroys anything that might separate Maureen from her. She's also not averse when provoked to recalling a previous breakdown Maureen suffered. Late in McDonagh's taut and chilling two-act play, Mag's loathsome tactics include burning a marriage proposal contained in a letter from Pato Dooley (Marty Rea), who's taken a heart-warming fancy to Maureen and she, at long last, to him. The doomed letter has been delivered by Ray Dooley (Aaron Monaghan), Pato's somewhat dim-witted younger brother, a lad who frequently drops in on the Folans and does enjoy the Kimberley biscuits Maureen stocks simply because Mag dislikes them. Advertisement It's Ray who mentions the unpleasant odor in the Folan home, which Maureen and the audience know results from Mag's pouring her urine in the kitchen sink rather than venturing to the unseen bathroom. (Or it is an outhouse? Could be, given this squalor.) McDonagh has her witnessed indulging this habit relatively early in his script. Mag denies the action, of course. The relatively minor activity in Mag's string of abuses remains only one of the many accumulating taunts she aims Maureen's way--taunts that Maureen doesn't shy away from meeting and raising. Eventually, the mounting mother-daughter battle, particularly the disappeared letter, leads to a radical development that won't be described here. That eventuality probably doesn't catch too many audience members off guard. It's something that doesn't attain the reassuring end the perpetrator hopes, and it has everything to do with McDonagh's immense playwriting skills. For those who don't know, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is the first of McDonagh's Leenane Trilogy. (The others are The Lonesome West and A Skull in Connemara.) These plays along with the Aran Island Trilogy (The Lieutenant of inishmore, The Cripple of Inishmaan and the still-unproduced The Banshees of Inisheer) were all written in the early 1990s, mostly in McDonagh's extremely fertile 1994. Instantly, McDonagh demonstrated that he possessed a unique vision. Born in London of Irish parents who, like many before them, moved to England in search of work, he visited Ireland in summers. So though he had experience of his parents' homeland, he was also brought up with the English attitudes towards the myth of Ireland. Undoubtedly, that accounts for the hint of spoofery that permeates the playwright's vision of Ireland. Advertisement Director Hynes, the first to take a chance on McDonagh, refers to it as "mythic" and "distant." Thereby comes the dark humor, not to say the hilarity, common to the plays as well as the recurring macabre atmosphere. Laughing heartily while gazing in shock is hardly an unusual response to McDonagh's works. His unmistakable hallmarks are spread like margarine on bread throughout The Beauty Queen of Leenane, which, by the way, McDonagh wrote in three weeks when he was 25. A particular talent McDonagh has is lodging in his plots implications of what's to come so that spectators sense the untenable pickles in which his characters will find themselves immersed. He's diabolical at the kinds of things that have ticket buyers silently screaming "Don't go that, don't go there" at the endangered figures. The skill is a good part of his torturing fun. (Incidentally, by the mid-'90s, McDonagh announced he would no longer write for the stage and turned to movies, like the brilliant In Bruges. He has since resumed with the not-top-drawer A Behanding in Spokane and the scintillating-for-myriad-reasons Hangman, which has yet to be produced stateside. Apparently, there is even a newer play ready to go.) Returning to, and perhaps even enhancing her achievement, now that she's taken it up again, Hynes, the first woman to in a Tony for direction, does so with a remarkable cast. As Pato, Rea has a masculine sincerity about him. He's especially effective sitting in a square of light at the act-two beginning reciting the crucial letter he sends brother Ray to put directly into Maureen's hands. Monaghan's Ray starts many of his lines with a high, breaking voice that then settles in a moderate range. It's only one contributing factor to his Kimberley-loving, easily-gulled-by-Mag performance. Advertisement AsMaureen, tall, fit, wired O'Sullivan is an upright battering ram. Alternately giving mother Mag as good (as bad?) as she gets at times and tied in metaphorical knots at other times, she has a toolbox full of hard looks to aim at her tormenter. It's a gallant show, maybe no more gallant than in her final undone moments. Then there's Mullen's Mag. The irony here for longtime Beauty Queen of Leenane fans is that Mullen appeared as Maureen in the original production. Now she's turned into her mother (as so many women eventually do, while men turn into their fathers) in the most impressive way. Ceaselessly needling O'Sullivan's Maureen, she's savage. Maybe the cruelest of her traits, though, are the pleased grins she lets slip (out of Maureen's view) when she thinks she's one-upped her unfortunate daughter. John Lotter has joined a fellow death row inmate in lodging a challenge to Nebraska's 3-judge method for determining whether a killer should receive a death sentence. And a veteran death penalty attorney expects the other eight members of Nebraska's death row to follow suit. A 3-judge panel made the decision to send Lotter to death row in 1996 for his role in a 1993 triple murder near Humboldt that inspired the film "Boys Don't Cry." The now-45-year-old targeted Teena Brandon for being transgender and reporting a rape to police. Lotter's attorneys argue that Lotter had a right to have jurors, not judges, weigh his ultimate fate, following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared Florida's scheme unconstitutional. Lotter argues that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling "renders the Nebraska capital sentencing scheme unconstitutional and void." The Nebraska Attorney General's Office disagrees - and has filed motions resisting a similar attempt in another death row inmate's appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Florida's capital punishment scheme, noting that defendants didn't have the right to have jurors be the finder of every fact necessary for the death penalty. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's sentencing scheme, Delaware's high court followed suit and threw out that state's scheme. Attorney Jerry Soucie, who has represented several death row inmates, said Friday that Nebraska's death penalty scheme has been ripe for challenge. Soucie's reason: Nebraska has jurors weigh only aggravating factors that lead to death and not mitigating circumstances that might weigh in a defendant's favor. And a defendant doesn't have the right to have jurors, rather than judges, make the ultimate determination of death or life. "It is really a big deal," Soucie said. "This issue has been floating around a long time." Omaha attorney Alan Stoler filed a similar appeal on behalf of Jeffrey Hessler, convicted in the rape and murder of 15-year-old newspaper carrier Heather Guerrero. State officials have argued that Nebraska's sentencing scheme allows jury participation and is not identical to the one struck down in Florida. In Nebraska, a 2nd trial takes place after a defendant is convicted in a death penalty case. The same jury that decided guilt also decides whether aggravating factors exist to justify the defendant's execution. If the jury finds that aggravating factors were present in the murder, a 3-judge panel is convened to determine whether they outweigh any mitigating factors in the defendant's favor. The 3 judges also must determine if the death sentence is warranted and, if so, whether it is proportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases. After making the necessary determinations, the judges impose the sentence. "The State of Nebraska denies that Nebraska's capital sentencing statutes violated the defendant's ... right to a jury," Assistant Attorney General Doug Warner wrote in a recent filing in the Hessler case. Lotter's attorneys, Rebecca Woodman and Tim Noerrlinger, wrote that Nebraska's sentencing setup doesn't go far enough in requiring jury determinations. "Nebraska (law) unconstitutionally permits a judge, rather than a jury, to find facts necessary to impose a sentence of death," they wrote. Both challenges currently are at the district court level; it could be months before they reach the Nebraska Supreme Court. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; 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: Omaha World-Herald, January 14, 2017 For his first trip abroad in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping has chosen Switzerland and with a special attention given to the symbols and substance of his visit, he will send three key messages to a world facing serious economic and political turbulence. First, the event at the United Nations office in Geneva, a city of peace, negotiations and dialogue, illustrates China's fundamental belief in internationalism and its enduring commitment to the construction of a better global governance. Xi's China is an open power which sees itself as a pro-active co-architect of an inclusive and peaceful international order. Second, the participation of the Chinese President to the World Economic Forum signals that Beijing is more engaged than ever in global business since Davos, which is diverse in its content, remains above all a business gathering. To the global business leaders gathered in the Alps, as he already did at the Lima APEC Summit in November 2016, Xi will repeat that Beijing is supportive of free trade - China and Switzerland signed a Free Trade Agreement in 2013 - and wants multilateralism to be fully in play. Advertisement Third, by choosing a European country for his first foreign visit in the year of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi indicates that the Sino-European relations are not only of the highest importance in a world defined by multipolarity, but that they are also essential for the realization of the New Silk Road vision. These messages have to be interpreted by contrast with a series of American moves triggered by the entry of Donald Trump in the White House. As articulated in the Chinese tradition, non-action can be the most productive action, reminiscent with this paradoxical wisdom, Xi will not directly address Trump's provocations but his non-answers will be the most effective responses to Trumpian Washington. While the 45th President of the United States of America proclaims that the U.S. interests have to come first, while he emphasizes the shortcomings of the United Nations or expresses doubts on the reality of climate change, Xi Jinping places China's responsible universalism at the center of his discourse. In that perspective, the Geneva meeting between the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the Chinese President will open a chapter of renewed cooperation between the 72-year old international organization and the world's most populous nation. Advertisement While Donald Trump takes the risk of a trade war by calling for protectionist measures, Beijing acts to support the global economy through its efforts to stimulate trade between nations. Talking at the World Economic Forum whose theme this year is "Responsive and Responsible Leadership", Xi Jinping, who has hitherto demonstrated strategic patience in dealing with the U.S. change of tone toward China, shows his aptitude to deal with complexity and his capacity to lead in a world in need of equilibrium and inclusiveness. While the U.S., since the election of Donald Trump, has been a source of unnecessary tensions across the Pacific, Xi's visit in the heart of Europe is a reminder that in a multipolar world, China can find economic and political partners outside north America. Based on new forms of unilateralism and on an obsession for hard power Donald Trump wishes to "make America great again", but by choosing the side of internationalism, multilateralism and multipolarity, Xi Jinping is not only fully in phase with our time but he is also taking China's image and status in the world at another level. True greatness can't be self-proclaimed and imposed upon by hegemonism, it is the recognition by the other of a country's long term contribution to the happiness and peace of mankind. Advertisement The world will tell, indeed, what is great, the spectacular populism which pretends to elevate a country above the rest or the renaissance of a civilization which aims to be a catalyst for a larger harmony. As we said repeatedly in the build-up to Sunday's gathering in Paris of representatives of 70 countries to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian issue, AJC has long supported the search for an enduring peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state accord. It is precisely in that spirit that we voiced our concerns about this conference, believing it would be irrelevant at best, harmful at worst, to the pursuit of a deal. Our concerns, following the conference's conclusions, can be summed up in five points. First, as should have been crystal-clear by now, the Palestinians have avoided the only place where an agreement can be reached - the bargaining table with the Israelis. Therefore, every such diplomatic end-run only emboldens the Palestinians to believe, mistakenly of course, that they can achieve their goals without the tough negotiating required of face-to-face talks. Advertisement Second, Israel rightly felt that its own concerns were ignored in convening the conference, which the Israeli prime minister called "futile" and "rigged." Antagonizing and isolating one of the two principal parties to the conflict from the get-go is not a strategy for success. Third, it was not lost on the incoming U.S. Administration that this conference took place exactly five days before the transfer of power in Washington. President-elect Trump and his team didn't hide their objections to the gathering. It is very possible that there will be some form of "payback" after January 20th, when the international community has to come to grips with the fact that the U.S. is the one indispensable player in advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and may have a long memory about what occurred on January 15th. Fourth, France didn't help its own quest to be an "honest broker" in the conflict. Indeed, one nation, the United Kingdom, laudably demonstrated why. To the credit of London, it adopted a hands-off approach, saying in an official statement: "We have particular reservations about an international conference intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them - indeed which is taking place against the wishes of the Israelis - and which is taking place just days before the transition to a new American President when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement. There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace. That's why we have attended in an observer status and have not signed up to the communique." Advertisement And last but by no means least, this conference sought to mobilize the globe, and not for the first time, on this one issue, and only days after the UN Security Council did the same thing. Meanwhile, other, pressing issues cry out for attention and resolution, but to no avail. Syria, above all, represents by far the greatest human tragedy of the 21st century, shattering the country, killing hundreds of thousands, and driving millions into exile, with profound ramifications for both neighboring countries and all of Europe as well. Yet all the time, effort, and investment of the Paris gathering went into the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and not to Syria (a topic, by the way, on which France claims special historical understanding and political savoir-faire) - or, for that matter, to the other failing and disintegrating states in North Africa and the Middle East, or to the brazen Russian attempt to divide Europe against itself while continuing its occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, or to the profound threats to Europe deriving from terrorism, failed integration models, and the surge of populist, xenophobic political parties. This conference is now behind us and, thankfully, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has offered assurances that it will not be followed by still more UN Security Council action in the coming days. I do not think President-elect Donald Trump has his mind completely made up on the subject of stem cell research. Certainly I cannot find any quotes from him opposing the research. But if the President-Elect chooses representative Andrew Harris (R-MD) as Director of the National Institutes of Health, that will signify an irrevocable decision. The President-elect will have boxed himself in as an opponent not only of stem cell research supporters, but also the one in five Americans with a disability--and we, their families, who dream of cure. Families like mine. My paralyzed son Roman Reed's name is on state legislation which funded the first embryonic stem cell research therapy in the nation: The Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act of 1999. "Roman's Law" funded Dr. Hans Keirstead's famous method of using embryonic stem cells to "re-insulate" damaged spinal cord nerves, currently in human trials. Advertisement In California, voters backed a $6 billion stem cell program, which has led to therapies in clinical trials for blindness, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, cancer and much more. We felt so strongly about protecting our research that we established protections for it in the California State Constitution. This was done precisely because of political ideologues like Representative Harris, a determined enemy of the research California supports. In public and behind the scenes, Harris has worked against embryonic stem cell research since 2005, when he tried (unsuccessfully) to kill a stem cell program for his own home state of Maryland. But that was not the end of his attacks. Harris co-sponsored a "personhood" bill, House Resolution 816, which defined every fertilized egg as a person with rights under law. Bear in mind a fertilized egg is essentially liquid, often shed unnoticed in a woman's monthly cycle. Yet personhood bills would criminalize embryonic stem cell research. Advertisement It was almost certainly Harris who manipulated the 21st Century Cures Act so that its funds were limited to the less effective adult stem cells, with zero funding allowed for the far more powerful embryonic. President-Elect Trump might wish to consider retaining the services of Francis Collins, the current Director of the National Institutes of Health. A born-again Christian, Dr. Collins is a moderate, not a boat-rocker. But he is also pro-stem cell. Dr. Collins is strongly supported by such key Republicans as Lamar Alexander, Chairman, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Roy Blunt, Chairman, Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services; Fred Upton, Chairman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and Tom Cole, Chairman, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. On December 2, 2016, these Republican leaders sent an open letter to President-elect Trump, recommending the retention of Dr. Collins, saying: "Dr. Collins is the right person, at the right time, to continue to lead the world's premier biomedical research agency. He possesses all the attributes one should have as the Director of the National Institutes of Health--intellectual prowess, renowned scientific experience, and outstanding leadership skills. We are confident that under his leadership and with Congress' commitment to biomedical research as a national priority, the National Institutes of Health will thrive and continue to enhance the Nation's health through scientific discovery and biomedical research." Advertisement Selecting Francis Collins as NIH Director puts the President on the side of science. But for all who hope for a positive stem cell policy, hiring Andrew Harris would be an absolute deal-breaker. Another Christmas has passed, to the disappointment of children around the world. Christmas is the holiest Christian holiday. But it also is an international celebration, marked by many people with little interest in its religious roots. The flood of gift-giving makes it the perfect symbol of a consumer society, with Santa rather than Jesus the dominant figure. Even though many non-Christians focus on the holiday's secular attributes, some treat the holiday as a challenge. Muslim nations as varied as Brunei and Saudi Arabia ban Christmas. Yet before our most recent celebration Turkish writer Mustafa Aykol, author of the very fine Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty, argued that the holiday is consistent with Islam given its veneration of Jesus: "Even if this is not a Muslim holiday, we don't need to object to Christmas. The miraculous birth of Jesus--the prophet, the Messiah and the 'Word' of God--should not offend any Muslim." However, the status of Christmas is a minor issue for the Islamist radicals committing murder and mayhem in the Middle East. If they only wanted to outlaw Christmas the harm would be modest. Alas, they want to eliminate Christians (and other non-Muslims) as well as Christianity's cultural manifestations. Hence murdering male believers and selling women into sexual slavery. Of course, despite the headlines routinely set by jihadist killers--recently including the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey and truck assault at the Berlin Christmas Market--the vast majority of Muslims do not advocate such tactics. The West will lose if it allows its response to Islamist terrorists to appear to devolve into a war with Islam. Advertisement Yet the mantra that Islam is a religion of peace obviously doesn't reflect reality. Most Muslims are peaceful. (Those in America are particularly well assimilated.) But a still disturbing number use their faith to justify the most hideous violence against truly peaceful and often helpless members of other religions, as well as Muslims who believe differently. Some Muslims obviously interpret their historic faith in a way that threatens the lives and liberties of anyone different than themselves. Other religions are not innocent. Violence is a tool of some Hindus in India and Buddhists in Burma and Sri Lanka. Yet the brutal episodes are limited and opportunistic if sometimes intense. And religious identification often seems subordinate to ethnic, cultural, and national identities. Violence by Christians and Jews for religious purposes is essentially ancient history, other than sporadic communal outbreaks in a couple of countries. (Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians reflects its operation as a nation state, not a religious faith.) There are no marauding bands of Christians and Jews kidnapping, shooting, or bombing Muslims (or others) at worship, school, leisure, or elsewhere. Were Christian terrorists to arise and kill Muslims in the West the reaction would be utter shock--which, sadly, is not the response to Islamist attacks. Islamists typically are killing and brutalizing because of their faith. While the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, or even violent, Islam has a unique problem in that it motivates some of its adherents to use violence and engage in terrorism. Advertisement The most victimized believers are Christians and Jews. The former, as the largest religious group, have the most members persecuted. The latter, as the traditional scapegoat, including for too long by Christians as well, are the most intensely persecuted. Still, only a small percentage of the faithful are engaged in violence. And many Islamist attacks on the West can be explained as hideously misdirected retaliation for a violent and repressive U.S. foreign policy directed against Muslim peoples and nations. Bomb, invade, and occupy other countries, and blowback occurs. That is an explanation, not justification, and should surprise no one. Less explicable and more disturbing is widespread acceptance of if not demand for religious repression by many more Muslims. For all of the claims of "Islamophobia" in the West, no nominally Christian nations, other than ones distorted by Communism past or present (Russia and Cuba, for instance) actively punish believers of any sort, let alone non-Christians for being non-Christians. Some European states inhibit religious practices--donning the hijab, for instance--thereby restricting religious freedom, but they tend to do the same to Christians and Jews. In any case, Muslims in those nations remain freer than Christians in the most liberal Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Turkey, and the (non-Saudi) Gulf States. The difference between Muslim and Christian nations is dramatic. The 9/11 attacks created fear in America, sparking sometimes ugly physical assaults, religious profiling, and personal discrimination. A few European nations, reeling from terrorist attacks committed by their own Muslim residents or refugees, have legislated against some of Islam's highly symbolic manifestations, such as dress and mosque architecture. Still, religiously-based discrimination and violence against Muslims is minimal. In contrast, majority Muslim nations usually employ pervasive discrimination and persistent persecution, and sometimes demonstrate almost genocidal brutality. No Muslim-majority state, except perhaps the old secular dictatorships of Saddam Hussein and Hafez/Bashar al-Assad, much respects religious liberty. And a disturbing number of Islamic nations actively persecute: governments threaten members of other faiths with prison and execution or stand by as mobs act in the state's stead. Advertisement For instance, the group Open Doors publishes its World Watch list of the worst 50 offenders against freedom of religious conscience and practice. Thirty countries are majority Muslim. Communist/former Communist states constitute another nine, and five of them have majority Muslim populations. Only five nations are majority Christian, and in some of them, such as Kenya and Mexico, most of the violence or other forms of persecution are directed against Christians. (Of the remainder, three are mixed, two are majority Buddhist, and one is majority Hindu.) Of the top ten persecutors, eight are Muslim. Correlation is certain. Causation also is clear. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom targets serious religious liberty offenders as well. Ten countries have been designated as Countries of Particular Concern. Three are Muslim: Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Five are Communist/former Communist: China, North Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (the latter three also are Muslim). Burma (Buddhist) and Eritrea (mixed faith, independent totalitarian) round out the group. The USCIRF recommends that another seven nations be designated as CPCs. Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria are Muslim. Vietnam is Communist. Nigeria is mixed, but most of the violence is Muslim on Christian. Only one is majority Christian, the Central African Republic. Of ten "tier 2" countries cited by the Commission, four are Muslim: Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey. Five are Communist/former Communist: Azerbaijan, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Russia (the first and third also are majority Muslim). India is majority Hindu. Finally, the USCIRF is monitoring six other countries/regions. Two are Muslim, Bahrain and Bangladesh. Two are former Communist, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan (also majority Muslim). One is mixed, Horn of Africa. One is Christian, Western Europe. Some in the West have argued that Islam needs a Reformation or Vatican II. The inner workings of the faith, of course, are up to its believers, not others. But in treating outsiders Islam needs a doctrine of tolerance and respect. Non-Muslims both near and far should be treated as creatures made in the image of God. Advertisement When Christmas comes again at the end of this year, we can state with reasonable certainty that the number of Muslims harmed for their faith by Christians will be close to zero. Incidents of terrorist bombings, mob attacks, demands to convert, sex-based kidnappings, and interference with worship even in majority Christian societies also will be essentially zero. Most Christians, outside of those involved in communal violence that often is as much ethnic as religious, accept if not embrace religious liberty. Alas, we know with equal certainty next Christmas that in majority Islamic nations some Christians will be beaten and probably killed. Other Christians will see their homes or businesses wrecked, their daughters seized and forced into marriage, their churches attacked, desecrated, and destroyed, and their worship services disrupted. Such violence does no honor to God, however conceived. There is no excuse for failing to respect the basic freedom of conscience of other people. The American Jewish Congress stands opposed to the Paris Peace Conference led by France on January 15th and the possibility of any further untoward one-sided and anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council meeting set two days later on January 17th. We also support the decision taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attend the summit. The way the outgoing Obama administration has acted in its final weeks in office, allowing the adoption of the anti-Israel resolution by the Security Council on December 23rd, 2016, has given the impression that this summit and subsequent Security Council meeting will be biased against Israel. President Obama is continuing to use his final days in office to wrongly influence the peace process. It is a long-standing convention that an outgoing administration does not take it upon themselves to make major policy changes in the lead up to the inauguration of their successor. The Paris talks should be postponed, as the newly elected President should have the opportunity to represent the U.S. on this issue. Until then, the United States should maintain the status quo and oppose resolutions against Israel by international bodies, rather than turning their back on years of foreign policy. There is only one way that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved, through direct bi-lateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Resolution 2334 has already changed the goal-posts for any talks. Every effort should now be made to bring the parties together on an equal footing, the current moves by the international community are prejudiced against Israel and are preventing constructive dialogue. Advertisement The countries attending the Paris summit should be aware that singling out America's ally Israel five days before the January 20th inauguration, will be viewed as a complete lack of respect for American convention and the newly elected Trump Administration. The participants should also recognize that any attempt to put together a second anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution will make it harder to achieve lasting peace and send a negative message to the incoming Administration whose publicly stated views are in opposition to the anti-Israel resolution. Thank you for your loyal support of the American Jewish Congress. Best, Jack Rosen President American Jewish Congress Dr. Munr KazmirVice PresidentAmerican Jewish Congress The Via Fanfulla da Lodi lies in Pigneto, a once impoverished neighborhood on the Southeast outskirts of Rome which has now become gentrified. Street art and graffiti don't just adorn the walls. They cry out, representing less a form of desecration than a need to speak. There's an urgency to these inscriptions which can include the face of a transvestite or that of the famed Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini whose portrait with it's "mo sto bene" tee shirt adorns the terrace of the Cafe Necci, an institution in the neighborhood. Pasolini himself was attracted to the underlife of Rome and it was here that he both caroused and gave birth to his classic Accattone (1961) whose milieu is the world of petty criminals and thieves (there's a wall of photos of Pasolini shooting Accattone on the Cafe Necci's walls). If you walk down to number 43 you will come to a modest B&B. When you gaze up at the side of the building, you are caught up short by a portrait of Pasolini's right eye replete with crow's feet. In Wanted in Rome, 2/3/16, Martin Bennett quotes the director thusly, "The eye alone is aware of beauty." The streets of the neighborhood are narrow and not conducive to looking up say the way you would at a billboard in Times Square. And what's distinctive about the mural, by the artist Maupal, is that it gives the impression of having captured you before you see it. Pasolini's eye is that of the voyeur looking at his subjects before they've even had a chance to react. Here is a Pasolini quote found on a wall on the Via del Pigneto accompanying yet another mural: "non illuderti; la passion non ottiene mai perdono Non ti perdano neanch'io, che vivo di passion," "Don't fool yourself the passion never gets lost for those who live the passion." The Greek Way, Chapter 6, Question 4: Why is leisure needed to cultivate the mind? Imagine a modern Everyman as a tabula rasa upon which is imprinted a post-literate culture. So much time is spent on making a living and the practicalities of life that little time, energy, and interest are left for calm reflection and the life of the mind. The world revolves at such a dizzying pace that he is lost in the kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria of modern life. Trivialities and distractions so wear him down that he is benumbed by the mindless robotics of daily routine. In such a world, the cultivation of the mind becomes an unlikely ever-receding Shangri-La that forever eludes his grasp. Yearn as he might for those solitary moments that put him in touch with who he actually is, he seems forever doomed in an escapist culture of self-avoidance. And woe unto him who is different in a land where a life of reflection is viewed as abnormal and groupthink the norm! However, he reaches a point where he no longer is willing to be part of a culture that alienates him from himself. He withdraws as the only way to survive in a world that suffocates him with little chance for independence of mind. He sets aside his evenings to engage in quiet reading to reclaim his soul. Advertisement During these hours, he feels enriched, challenged, and even confused by what he discovers - and he has never been happier. Over the next several months, he finds himself both in this world but not of it as he begins to view his society as a clinician would a Petri dish where all sorts of derangements are the order of the day. However, he remains detached in his newfound retreat which for a few brief hours restores him from the madness he daily endures. At forty, all the questions of life have changed for him and he finds himself less in need of endless repetitions of everyday sameness than for commentary about what it all means. He wants broader horizons, deeper understanding, and universal empathy. He conceives an irrepressible desire for a more intensely lived life and a more conscious existence as he seeks liberation from the tyranny of the immediate and the stultification of mass consciousness. He recalls from high school those enigmatic words of Samuel Johnson while visiting the lonesome, windswept isle of Iona steeped in historical significance: "Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, and the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." Not until now does he begin to understand those words as a cure against what for years has been his fate. It is time to reread Boswell's Life of Johnson. What has been said about Everyman is even truer when one is still young and the habits of a lifetime are being formed -- especially those of reflection, self-reliance, and independence of mind. The problem today, however, is that among high-school students those habits are fast disappearing. While there are exceptions, too many students in our extrovert culture have lost the ability even to sit still with a book and lose themselves in another time and place. Advertisement Drowning in a vortex of gadgets, noise, and distractions, they are unable to commune with the page because they are unable to commune with themselves. In a breakneck-speed culture they have never found the time or quiet to discover the healing of silence or the meaning of things. The hypnotic allure of their quick-changing world of computer-screen images makes it impossible to slow down and focus on an inner life. Computer-savvy as they may be, they pay a terrible price for being trapped in this dungeon of hyperactivity along with their entire generation. Nor can they help it for this is the only world they have ever known. The memory of a commonly shared cultural heritage no longer exists, a casualty of a much larger problem of the loss of inherited meaning in the modern world. T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land almost a century ago lamented this moonscape of broken certitudes that litter modern consciousness. Without a sense of the past, the young are helplessly marooned in a one-dimensional visual world without direction or meaning. In search of an urgent quick-fix of incessant distractions, students are enslaved to a technology that has become their god! Despite this tool's undeniable potential for good, its unintended consequences have become alarmingly apparent to both teachers and parents. The young simply lack the self-control to engage responsibly with technology, which has become an addiction that has taken over their lives. Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 prophetically speaks to this condition of modern America. However, there is a sad irony when students are assigned this novel today. Published almost 65 years ago, it was meant as a wake-up call about where the culture was heading. Now it reads as an elegy of cultural despair about a dying literate culture, so advanced has the sickness become. Advertisement Some students even fail to grasp the point of the novel, so ominously have they come to resemble the very characters in this disturbing tale. In this imaginative retelling of Plato's Cave Allegory, we see the struggle toward self-liberation from the idols and myths of his tribe as the hero of this story painfully frees himself from a modern concentration camp. The reality is that few high-school students read anymore, even in Honors and Advanced Placement courses. It takes too long and is too much trouble, a pandemic trend even among these "better" students, who routinely go online for summaries of novels and plays, bloodless specters of the living, breathing classics themselves. These soulless, uninspired boneyards, the burial grounds for the picked-over carcasses of dumbed-down great fiction, debase to banalities what might otherwise have been a moving reading experience. Students no longer understand that it's only the emotional involvement with powerful texts that can stir their feelings and even, perhaps, transform their lives. They don't understand that reading only the words of great literature isn't enough; they must be in touch with the feelings behind those words and relive the experiences conveyed by those words for a book to work its magic on them. A book is a mirror and can reflect only what a reader brings to that mirror. If a reader brings much to that book -- rapt attention, desire to be changed, and willingness to identify emotionally with what is happening, he or she will receive much in return; and, if not, nothing will happen. In the ancient world, one summoned the spirits from the other world with blood offerings; today, the soul of great fiction can be called forth only by preparing oneself for that reading experience. Without the wish to be changed, thought the ancients, even the gods were helpless to change us. We must first want to be changed, and only then might the gods intervene. A teacher knows when a novel or play has been read, digested, and has begun to transform a student. One can sense the dissonance such works provoke in the writing. "An axe for the frozen sea within us" was Kafka's metaphor for these life-changing moments, seismic events that can awaken our sleepwalking selves. Instead, when students write their in-class essays, no flashes of lightning illumine their writing, no oracular utterances flow from their pens, only tired cliches expressed without fire. Advertisement Introspection is rarely found in their writing; little yearning after subjective vision or trace of any deeply-felt meaning, just the clicking rattle of lifeless old bones. It is clear from their very first sentence that rarely has there been a personal fusion with the story, but only the ennui of stringing together cut-and-paste memories of online study guides read before class. The young need old-fashioned quiet time to read and reflect, but, most of all, they need exposure to the habit of reading in the home even before entering school. They need role models for understanding what's important in life and what it means to be a reflective person with a life of the mind. In the past, children could always look to their parents as examples after whom to pattern their lives; parents who were also readers, who would sit down with their children and explain the world to them as parents of past generations always would do -- talking about life and becoming a person. They knew that there would come a time when they'd no longer be there for them, so they wanted to prepare them for whatever befell them and, most of all, to be true to themselves. Are there any parents who are still readers out there? As mentioned before, there are exceptions. A case in point was a student who once came after school to discuss an entry from Blaise Pascal's Pensees and a stanza from Robert Frost's poem "Desert Places": Advertisement When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me? (#205) They cannot scare me with their empty spaces between stars -- on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home to scare myself with my own desert places. He had interesting things to say about both passages, was intrigued by their viewpoints, and asked if I could help him determine "which view was right." I asked him whether both views couldn't be right. He said they could, but he wanted to know which one was "objectively" right, because this question had been haunting him for weeks. I mentioned that we human beings rarely have finality about anything in this world, but could he identify with each viewpoint and grow as a person? Yes, he could and felt that he had. I then had him role-play that both views were objectively right, then objectively wrong, and, finally, that both were simply a matter of preference that reflected two different psychologies and life experiences. Advertisement Then, how would each have reacted to the other's viewpoint and could each have learned something valuable from it? How might each have reacted to our conversation and what would each have advised him to do? How would he advise his best friend and a future son or daughter if they asked his question? This went on for an hour and he thanked me for listening to him. As is evident, I didn't give him "the answer," but helped him toward reaching one. Some answers come by simply outgrowing the question or by seeing it from a larger perspective. He seemed to realize that both saw the universe as they honestly saw it, and that that's all that matters in living one's life. A gifted 17-year-old? No doubt, and there are students like this in every class, readers who come to school motivated and insatiably curious. A teacher listens and helps them sort themselves out, leaving it to them to find their own answers. Others want suggestions for reading, so I show them around the school library and point out a dozen plays and novels, and tell them why they should read them as they scribble down notes. And when they've read them, I can give them more titles. Advertisement All the advice these students need is to keep doing what they've always been doing for it's obviously working, keep themselves open to everything, refuse to be narrowed, and never to be discouraged by a culture that doesn't value the mind. This article comes to us courtesy of InternationalLiving.com, the world's leading authority on how to live, work, invest, travel and retire better overseas. Assorted bruises adorned my legs, exhaustion blanketed my body and my arms were so sore that I questioned whether they could lift my evening mojito and fresh-from-the-ocean tuna sashimi to my lips. Yet, despite these discomforts, I was sporting an enormous grin that just wouldn't go away. How did I end up in pain and sipping cocktails with a goofy smile plastered across my face? Advertisement Photo courtesy of Eoin Bassett, InternationalLiving.com Well, it was my husband's fault, really. David wanted to spend our family vacation somewhere that could provide fantastic saltwater fishing, and he hit the bull's-eye with Pedasi, Panama. Located on the Azuero Peninsula, Pedasi sits on what is known as the "tuna coast," though a more apt nickname might be "anglers' paradise." Scores of tuna do inhabit these waters, including the prized yellowfin. But dozens of other species of sport fish live here, too -- and in large volume. This small section of Pacific fishing grounds contains an abundance of ocean creatures, due in part to the prohibition of commercial netting. While commercial fishing is allowed through the use of hand lines or rod-and-reel, the ban on netting results in more -- and larger -- fish. Not surprisingly, monstrous dorado, roosterfish, tuna, amberjack, jack crevalle and marlin have all been taken here. David wanted to spend long days on the water, so fishing from shore was out, though it is a popular option among locals. We could have hired a panga (a small, open-bow skiff) for around $60 per day plus fuel, but with our two sons along, it would have been a tight squeeze. Luckily, we found Pascal Artieda, with Panafishing Adventure. He was able to provide both lodging and a spacious twin-v catamaran with captain. Panafishing charges $510 per person per day (based on two anglers) for an all-inclusive experience. The rate provides a full day of fishing, fishing gear, accommodation and all meals. The Panafishing Lodge wasn't what we imagined; it was even better. The cabins were clean and airy, the pool refreshing while providing a great outlet for our sons' excess energy, and the French cuisine was simply outstanding. Our evenings were spent in the open-air dining area, where mounted fish and surfboards grace the walls and soft Caribbean sounds drift into the night. Even better, though, was the sincere, welcoming vibe and instantaneous friendships we developed with Pascal and his staff. Advertisement The beautiful pictures of Pedasi and the surrounding area, which David used to entice me into visiting Pedasi, didn't lie, either. The town is indeed filled with well-maintained, colorfully-painted buildings and the locals are friendly and eager to tell you about their town. Though only about 2,000 people call the place home, our days were spent discovering just how much Pedasi has to offer. From a cozy cafe and bakery, to a boutique spa, to a watersports store specializing in fishing and snorkeling equipment, Pedasi has it all. Relaxing came easy, too. Several nearby beaches were everything we could have wished for. Easily our favorite sand-and-surf hangout was Playa Venao. This is a popular spot for surfers, where the turquoise waters rush onto the horseshoe-shaped beach surrounded by palm-laced bluffs. But we were in Pedasi primarily for the fishing, and it did turn out to be world-class. Three days on the water saw us haul up dozens of fish from eight different species. Captain Javier found a good selection of fish for us on our first two days, but our final day on the ocean was all about the torpedo-like yellow-fin and the tenacious amberjack. The line on our reels sang, as tuna after tuna snatched our lures and ran. As fun as it was to battle fish on the end of my line, my greatest enjoyment came from watching my nine-year-old son bring in his own tuna. He was so proud that he spoke of nothing else for days. Your Own Island for a Day Any visit to Pedasi should include a stop at Isla Iguana, a small island just a few miles from shore. Set up as a wildlife refuge, Isla Iguana harbors frigate birds, brown boobies, land crabs, and, of course, iguanas. These creatures can all be spotted easily from nearly any part of the island. Arriving on a weekday gives you an excellent chance of being the only human visitors enjoying the sun-bleached coral beaches. A favorite activity here is to snorkel among the bright displays of tropical fish that hang out along the coral beds. Advertisement Photographers will love the stunning vistas and up-close wildlife. Two trails cross the island, if you fancy a short hike. Or you may simply choose to take it easy from under the shade of a coconut palm, while watching the waves gently lap at the beach. Whatever your preferences, don't miss this gem. Admission to the island is $10 per adult; children are free. You'll find other travelers in town to split the cost of the $60 boat ride in a panga from Playa Arenal, a five-minute drive from town. Pardon me. This piece is admittedly too clever by half, but then again, so is The Gospel of Wealth. Two preachers, male and female, both proponents of The Gospel of Wealth, will deliver prayers at Mr. Trump's Presidential Inauguration. These pastors are two out of many very rich American Protestant preachers who believe money is an indicator of God's blessings. The richer you are the more blessed you are, and God wants you to be rich. That's the Gospel of Wealth. The Gospel of Wealth has scripture on its side. Few people know this, but Jesus was a wealthy man. Let's go to the proof texts: As an infant, Jesus was gifted in gold from a traveling and colorful band of Persian Magi. Mary and Joseph wisely invested the bullion and by the time Jesus began his itinerant ministry some decades later, he was worth a fortune (in today's terms, roughly 100 billion dollars). When Jesus did begin his journey through Palestine, the devil thought to trip him up by presenting Jesus with all the world's jewels. But since Jesus could have purchased all the world's jewels without much difficulty, the temptation was easily resisted. Jesus went out of his way to befriend tax collectors, which was a shrewd scheme to minimize his own tax bracket, although he did encourage bucolic yokels to willingly pay their exorbitant taxes. Enlisting the taxman Matthew among his twelve-member board of directors was one of Jesus' masterstrokes. Jesus was a vintner and sommelier of the first order, producing vats and vats of high quality wine, suitable for wedding parties and bar mitzvahs. Jesus' oratorical brilliance--flawless diction, enunciation, and his general flair for metaphor--was the product of expensive and selective Roman schools, where Jesus hobnobbed with the children of Roman elites. Jesus toured with an array of chefs, offering a surf and turf menu that effortlessly fed many thousands of Jesus' followers who insisted upon dining alfresco in the Galilean hills. Leftovers were collected each time and distributed to the homeless vagabonds of nearby villages. Jesus cornered the market on perch and trout, inasmuch as he could infallibly detect when schools of fish were near to his friends' fishing boats. In addition to building a split-level hill country house with a view of Sepphoris in his home hamlet of Nazareth (complete with a woodworking shop), Jesus bought waterside acreage in Capernaum on Lake Galilee and also beach front property on the Mediterranean coast in Caesarea, not far from Pontius Pilate's summer home. Jesus built fabulous houses at both sites, employing the best tradesmen and materials, and he ducked in and out of these homes on his many journeys. The Caesarea beach house utilized twenty thousand travertine tiles. And the Capernaum house was made of import cedar and ceramics. You might recall that at Jesus' Capernaum home he was not one bit annoyed when rude-mechanicals tore a gurney-sized hole in his roof and ceiling. Jesus could easily absorb the costs of the repair. Also at the Capernaum home, Jesus kept a large boat, and he often took his friends on sailing adventures on the lake, even in inclement weather. Jesus was not alarmed that a woman would anoint him with very expensive oil. In fact, he seemed accustomed to that brand of oil and knew its value. Jesus once told his twelve-member board of directors to go tell 'the Fox' King Herod what Jesus was up to. The King was an old family friend, a favorite of Jesus' father Joseph, and as a boy Jesus had nicknamed Herod 'the Fox.' Jesus advised his twelve-member board of directors not to carry money, that is, cash. Jesus, as the super-wealthy everywhere, did not carry cash and in fact had to ask for a coin, an emperor-stamped denarius, one time when he had no pocket change. Jesus famously said foxes have dens and birds have nests but he had Nowhere to lay his head. 'Nowhere' was the name of a swanky west-end Jerusalem hotel. Jesus' attempt to evict the pretentious occupants of the Temple franchises was an ownership dispute. Jesus hosted a final and grand meal for his twelve-member board of directors in the chic upper room of a posh Jerusalem establishment. Jesus promised mansions to his many followers and he was undaunted by the guaranteed expense of such a scheme. Throughout his life, Jesus wore luxurious clothes and shoes. His sandals were double tanned and thrice cured camel leather and were, as suggested by his stroll upon the surface of Lake Galilee, waterproof--or at any rate water resistant. His tunics were seamless Egyptian cotton and the envy of all of Palestine, as confirmed by several Roman soldiers who threw dice to own one of Jesus' used smocks. Mark, in his recollections of Jesus' arrest, said soldiers attired Jesus in a purple robe. But Matthew, in his account, corrects this and let's us know the soldiers outfitted Jesus in a red robe. In point of fact, both Mark and Matthew were correct in that Jesus had first slipped into the purple robe, but seeing that purple was not his color, he quickly asked for and received the red robe, which exploited his skin tone and hair and eye color. He looked good in red and he knew it. These examples convince us that Jesus was extraordinarily wealthy, and it stands to reason that wealthy preachers of the Gospel of Wealth are completely correct to say that possessing a great deal of money indicates God prefers you. Two of the preachers (maybe more) offering prayers at the Inauguration are spectacularly rich, as is Mr. Trump. In fact, the combined wealth of Mr. Trump and his Cabinet proves that God has never before assembled for the purpose of governance any such conspicuous display of divine favor. Many in the USA will share in the monetary blessings of the next few years, mainly those close to our fabulously wealthy President, chiefly his darling wife and children, and more particularly the President himself. At his life's end, Mr. Trump can be sure he'll ascend skyward to just rewards. As Jesus said: 'It is easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom heaven.' My 8 yr. old grandchild, who I am raising, is transgender. I had deeply embedded religious beliefs, and when faced with this situation I became totally confused. But I chose not to make it about me. I began to question what I had been taught from my religious peers, and began to educate myself on transgender people. Instead of trying to change my grandchild (who had a girl's body but whose brain told him he was a boy), I decided to combine my faith in God with education to lead me to the truth. The truth wasn't hard to find anyway. It was there every time I looked into my grandson's eyes. I live in a very small southern town, so I had to take him out of school and home-school him because he became very depressed. It took me awhile to find a therapist in this area who counseled transgender children. I could have chosen to go the other way, and forced Aaron to wear girl clothes, and tell him that God didn't approve of him if he chose to be a boy instead of a girl. Yes, I could have ruined him emotionally and spiritually! I thank God for leading me to the truth. I chose not to continue being a delusional "religious" Christian. I am thankful that I chose a different path to take concerning Aaron's journey, or he may have been another suicide statistic. This has truly humbled me and made me a better human being. A lawyer for Steven Thomas, who faces the death penalty after being convicted of capital murder in Williamson County, says some of the DNA evidence presented at the trial was false, according to court documents. A district judge approved payments this month for the lawyer to hire a DNA analyst and a fingerprint analyst to review the evidence in Thomas' case, court orders showed. Thomas was convicted Oct. 31, 2014, in the death of 73-year-old Mildred McKinney, who was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled at her Williamson County home in 1980. He was 56 when he was convicted. He was arrested in 2012 after DNA he was required to provide for a federal drug charge matched DNA found at the crime scene. A DNA analyst from the Texas Department of Public Safety testified at Thomas' trial that his sperm was found on a ribbon wrapped around one of McKinney's thumbs. Thomas' fingerprint also was found on a clock at McKinney's home, according to another DPS analyst. Thomas, who worked for a pesticide service that had been to McKinney's house, appealed his case in January 2015 to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, where it is pending. As part of the appeal, 1 of Thomas' attorneys, Joanne Heisey, filed requests with Williamson County's 26th District Court in November requesting money to hire a DNA analyst and a latent print examiner. Latent fingerprints - such as the one prosecutors said Thomas left on the clock - aren't visible to the eye but are left behind by oils or perspiration on a finger. "Mr. Thomas's trial counsel did not seek expert assistance to independently review any of the forensic evidence the State used to convict him," the requests said. "A preliminary review of the DNA evidence presented at Mr. Thomas' trial indicates that at least some of that evidence was false." Recent research, the requests said, "has called into question the reliability of various forensic methods, including latent fingerprint analysis." The research shows that latent fingerprint analysis has a false positive rate that could be "as high as 1 error in 18 cases," the requests said. A lawyer who works with Heisey said their office had no comment about the case. Lytza Rojas, a former prosecutor involved in Thomas' trial, didn't return requests for comment last week. Williamson County District Attorney Shawn Dick said Thursday he couldn't comment on pending litigation. State District Judge Donna King on Jan. 3 approved Heisey's requests to hire a DNA analyst for $5,500 and a fingerprint analyst for $3,000, according to court orders. Under state law, Williamson County will be repaid by the state for the expenses, according to the requests filed by Thomas' lawyer. Another one of Thomas' lawyers, Ariel Payan, said in his appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals in August that the evidence presented at the trial showed McKinney was killed by more than one person. No evidence at the trial showed Thomas had killed McKinney or helped commit any other crime against her, Payan said. Evidence at the trial showed that a throat swab taken from McKinney's autopsy showed male DNA that didn't belong to Thomas and also ruled out other suspects in the case, including serial killer Henry Lee Lucas and his partner Ottis Toole. The ribbon wrapped around one of McKinney's thumbs not only had DNA on it from Thomas but also from an unknown man, according to a DNA analyst who testified at the trial. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; 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: Austin American-Statesman, January 15, 2017 A 74-year-old Puerto Rican man sits in federal prison today having served 34 years, twelve of them in solitary confinement. Research shows that at that age the likelihood of recidivism, should he be released, is less than you or I committing a federal offense, even if we have never committed a previous crime. He has asked the president for executive clemency. I ask you, President Obama: When it comes to Puerto Rico, who in the world are you listening to? Oscar is a veteran of the armed forces and is serving a grossly disproportionate sentence, and yet he has never been convicted of any act of violence. His only crimes were for conspiracy -- 55 years for seditious conspiracy in 1981, and an additional 15 years for conspiracy to escape in 1987. Serious charges -- but are they worth 34 years of imprisonment? If President Obama does not commute his sentence now, right now, he may not be released until he reaches 80. His call for freedom has been seconded by Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu and Mairead Maguire. So, I ask you, Mr. President, after you have crusaded against disproportionately long criminal sentences, who is counseling you to deny clemency to this one senior citizen? He is an avid supporter of Puerto Rico's independence from the United States. In 2016, the island's status as a colony of the United States has never been clearer. Congress passed a law that denied Puerto Rico immediate access to a bankruptcy reorganization of its massive debt and established a seven-person board to completely take over its finances and budgetary authority. The executive branch argued to the Supreme Court that federal power over Puerto Rico was so omnipotent, that effectively, Puerto Rico's constitution could be undone by Congress if it thought necessary. And the Supreme Court ruled in two cases that Puerto Rico has no sovereign power independent of whatever power Congress decides to grant it because it is an unincorporated territory of the United States. That's code for Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. It does not control its currency, its economy, its trading partners, its shipping vessels, its immigration, or its borders. The federal courts that operate on the island can impose the federal death penalty even when Puerto Rico's constitution bans it. The 74-year-old prisoner who sits in an Indiana penitentiary has railed against this colonial status of Puerto Rico. He was imprisoned for his ideas and he was previously offered clemency by President Bill Clinton. He refused because the offer did not include other Puerto Rican political prisoners at the time. All of them have been released since. Mercy here is appropriate since granting presidential clemency for prisoners who advocate for Puerto Rico's independence is not a complete rarity. President Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have all done it. When it comes to Puerto Rico, President Obama is not listening to its political or religious union, or civic leaders. They have all demanded the release of this prisoner. He is not listening to the people of Puerto Rico or its diaspora -- in December over 100,000 of them signed a petition supporting executive clemency in this case. He is not listening to Puerto Rican members of Congress like Nydia Velazquez, Luis Guitierrez, Jose Serrano or the representative from the Island they have all demanded immediate release. Mr. President, you are not listening to your own words when you eulogized Nelson Mandela at his memorial in South Africa in 2013. You spoke of Mandela's activism for freedom, inspiring both him and the whole world and then he spoke of Mandela's reconciliatory outlook: "It took a man like Madiba to free not the prisoner, but the jailer as well... to teach that reconciliation is not just a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion, generosity and truth." President Obama, the name of this Puerto Rican political prisoner is Oscar Lopez Rivera. He is widely considered to be the Puerto Rican Mandela, and he has now served more time than Mandela did in South African prisons. I personally met with Oscar Lopez Rivera in prison in 2015. Lopez Rivera holds no rancor, and was the picture of peace and benevolence. His mind was clear and spirit intact. His return to his cell that day as I exited the visiting room was an affront to everything I have learned about justice in our country. Mr. President, listen to him, listen to us. For in commuting his sentence, it will not only free Oscar Lopez Rivera, but also indict very system that unjustly jails him. "Forget about the Sandinistas. They're obsolete." That was Violeta Chamorro's advice in September 1989, when asked about her chances for defeating the Sandinistas in Nicaragua's first presidential election after the Contra War. To the surprise of sitting El Presidente Daniel Ortega and all Nicaragua, Mrs. Chamorro won that election in February 1990. The Sandinista Ortega stepped down graciously, and Dona Violeta began the work of rebuilding her country. I visited Nicaragua for the first time three years later. Managua, thanks to the earthquake of 1972, the revolution, and the civil war, was a near disaster zone. No reason at the time to stick around Nicaragua's capital city and this is only slightly less true today. Gringos like me, then and now, migrated instead slightly south and west, to the Pacific coast, where, by the early 1990s, speculators had already begun snatching up stretches of this country's primo beachfront, and inland, to the colonial city of Granada. While both Granada and Nicaragua historically have been and can still be short on amenities, they have always been long on heart. I discovered this country was pulling herself up by the bootstraps. In the towns and traveling along the dirt roads back then, you saw men and boys in olive green military garb, sometimes carrying weapons. They seemed intimidating, until you stopped to speak with them. They talked openly of their desire for peace. These Nicaraguans were tired of fighting, worn out by decades of watching their once-prosperous little country dissolve into chaos. Advertisement In the years that followed, the transformation was remarkable. The gringos kept coming and even began settling in. The speculating along the Nicaraguan Pacific Riviera went into overdrive. Sleepy Granada became a tourist hub, so crowded you'd sometimes have to wait your turn for a rocking chair on the porch of the Alhambra. Dona Violeta, it seemed, had been right. The Sandinistas had become obsolete, just like the political model they'd sought to follow, replaced, it appeared for some time, by property investors, foreign retirees, and adventure-entrepreneurs. Indeed, through 2006, Nicaragua was on the fast track to a bigger, brighter future. That is not to say that the Sandinistas -- the party or the people -- had disappeared. Indeed, the most famous Sandinista of all, Daniel Ortega, sits again, today, in the seat of the country's presidency. How did that happen? You'd have to ask the Nicaraguans. They re-elected him, putting him back in office in 2007. And, as a result, all those investors, retirees and entrepreneurs who had tied their dreams to Nicaragua's post-Sandinista future panicked. The panic deepened when, in 2011, Ortega adjusted things so that he could run for a consecutive term as president, something that had previously been mandated against in the country's constitution. Ortega ran again...and was re-elected again. Again, you'd have to talk to the Nicaraguans to understand the thinking behind this. It's a mystery. Meantime, in 2008/2009, U.S. and world real estate markets began to tumble, compounding investor panic further and creating a perfect storm of negative influences that succeeded in nearly annihilating Nicaragua's property market. The whole of Central America (with the notable exception of Panama) has been hit hard by the global recession, but Nicaragua has been hit harder than its neighbors. Historically, the majority of foreign property buyers in this country have come from the United States and Canada. Most of these buyers leveraged property assets back home to find the money to acquire new Nicaraguan assets. That hasn't been a realistic option for some time now, meaning Nicaragua's buying pool has evaporated. Advertisement I don't see this changing in the short term, despite what some Nicaraguan developers you might speak with might argue, meaning that I don't see Nicaragua as a place to invest for quick growth. On the other hand, the retiree willing to take a longer-term view should be looking at Nicaragua right now. Politics have too long distracted people from recognizing what Nicaragua has to offer. Take Dona Violeta's advice and forget about Ortega and the Sandinistas. Some two-and-a-half decades ago, they tried to make a new Nicaragua. Fortunately for you and me, the old Nicaragua, the largest but least-visited nation in Central America, lives on. This Nicaragua is a beautiful country with loads of sunshine and two long coasts, one of white sand, one with crashing surf. It is a land of lakes and volcanoes, of cloud forests and tropical jungles, of cattle ranches and Spanish-colonial cities (including two of the oldest cities in the Americas, Granada and Leon, both classic colonial towns with shady plazas and centuries-old Spanish-colonial architectural gems), of rare orchids and white-faced capuchin monkeys, and, most recently, of a new-and-improved foreign retiree residency program. Thinking practically, Nicaragua's big advantage is its cost of living, which is among the lowest you'll find anywhere in the world you might actually want to live. The Ortega Factor has frightened off many would-be retirees and expats looking for a budget destination, but not all. Both retirees and tourists in search of low-cost adventure continue to make their way to this country, which offers an affordable lifestyle bundled with the chance to start over. Geographically, Nicaragua has everything Costa Rica and Panama have got, all less discovered and developed and available for the adventurer and eco-traveler at bargain rates. Advertisement Architecturally, too, Nicaragua is notable. Its two sister colonial cities, Granada and Leon, vie for the title of Oldest City in the Americas. Whichever story you believe (that the Spanish conquistadores settled first on the shores of Lake Nicaragua at Granada or, perhaps, a few months earlier in Old Leon), Nicaragua is the big winner, with impressive colonial-era churches, public buildings, and parks to her credit. Thinking long haul and putting this country into perspective, Nicaragua boasts a product that will always be in demand: Pacific coastal real estate reminiscent of the best of southern California. Right now, values along this country's long and dramatically beautiful Pacific coastline are down 40% and 50% from their peaks, and developers are uncharacteristically open to offers. It's possible to buy in a full-amenity development for as little as $30,000, sometimes even with developer financing. In Granada, Nicaragua's other key expat and investor market, it's possible today to buy one of the small Spanish-colonial houses the city is famous for for as little as $40,000 or $50,000. Earlier on Huff/Post50: The photograph is iconic. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., only 39 years old but the nation's most prominent civil rights leader, lay fatally wounded on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. His lieutenants stood over his body, pointing frantically across the parking lot in the direction of the shooter. Dr. King was in Memphis to support the city's sanitation workers -- members of the union I'm proud to serve as president, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- who were striking in protest of poverty wages and dangerous, degrading working conditions. Their fight for dignity and respect was expressed with a simple, compelling slogan: "I Am a Man." In his final campaign and throughout his life as an activist, Dr. King (whose 88th birthday the nation celebrates today), highlighted the struggle of all working people to get a fair shake. Advertisement He's best known, of course, for his civil rights leadership, for his unparalleled role in ending legalized segregation and advancing the cause of racial justice. But he also had close ties to the union movement, and they were instrumental in his success. Indeed, the 1963 March on Washington -- the venue for King's most famous speech ("I Have A Dream") -- featured a prominent economic message. The marchers' demands included a higher minimum wage, job training and a stronger Fair Labor Standards Act. King understood the unbreakable links between labor rights and civil rights; he knew it was impossible to have one without the other. The needs of black Americans, he said at the AFL-CIO's 1961 convention, "are identical with labor's needs -- decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community." There's extra poignancy in this year's celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After all, it comes as the first African-American president prepares to leave the White House, a few days before the inauguration of a new chief executive who has stoked racial resentment. Just as civil rights are imperiled, Dr. King's vision of economic fairness and the dignity of work is also under attack. Although the incoming president was elected on promises to lift up the working class, the available evidence suggests that his populism will turn out to be more rhetoric than reality. And around the country, newly elected and emboldened state officials are systematically undercutting the rights of working people to organize, bargain collectively and raise their voices at work. The result will be lower wages and benefits, less secure retirements and a hollowed-out middle class. And when public service workers -- like the 1.6 million AFSCME members who pick up the trash, staff the schools, drive the buses and answer the 911 calls -- are disrespected, it also weakens our communities. Advertisement This Martin Luther King Day, we must be more vigilant than ever as guardians of his dream. We must not only promote diversity and racial progress, commit to serving others and heed his call for non-violent collective action. We must also meet the challenge of economic inequality and defend the labor rights that were a pillar of Dr. King's work. We must do more to empower working families and expand opportunity for people of all races. Should Judith Clark be Paroled? By Leon Friedman On December 30, 2016, Governor Andrew Cuomo granted clemency to Judy Clark, one of the participants in the Brinks armed car robbery in 1981 in Nanuet N.Y. During the robbery two police officers and one Brinks guard were killed. Judy did not shoot anyone - the killings were all accomplished by the robbers who stole the money. But Judy drove a getaway car for one of the robbers. There were six African-American robbers (and shooters) and four white getaway drivers involved in the project, called "the Big Dance" by the participants. Two of the African-American robbers are dead -- one killed by the police in a shoot-out shortly after the robbery and another dying of AIDS in prison. Two others were tried for the same crimes in federal court, received lesser sentences, served their time and were released. Another robber (who drove in Judy's getaway car) made a deal with the government, giving them helpful information in exchange for a lesser punishment. He is now in the witness protection program. The last robber, the brains behind the project, Mutulu Shakur, received a sixty year sentence in federal court, served 30 years and is now eligible for parole. Federal law seems to require parole at this point, but the federal authorities are resisting his release. Advertisement Of the four white getaway drivers, one, Kathy Boudin, pleaded guilty and received a sentence of twenty years, served that time and is now teaching at Columbia University. Another white participant, Marilyn Buck, went on to bomb the United States Senate in 1983, was arrested and convicted, served twenty five years, and died of cancer shortly after her release in 2010. The other two white getaway drivers were Judy and David Gilbert, Kathy Boudin's partner. They were tried together, refused to cooperate in the proceedings so that they were not in court throughout the presentation of the prosecution's case against them. They received sentences of 75 to life, 25 years for each of the three victims; the absolute maximum permissible sentence. Why did these last two getaway drivers get heavier sentences than the actual robbers and shooters? It is certainly true that a getaway driver for a bank robber is considered equally guilty of any crime committed by the actual robber, including any murder committed in the course of the robbery. But in Judy's (and David's) case, their behavior in court - screaming that they were freedom fighters, shouting out political statements, refusing to participate in the proceedings - gave the judge a justification for the maximum penalty. He stated: "I harbor no illusions about any of the defendants. They hold society in contempt and have no respect for human life.... There is no reason to believe that any of the defendants will change despite the understandable hopes of their parents and families." So the judge focused on the possibility of future crimes as opposed to the actual crimes that they were convicted of. Indeed, in a similar situation, the getaway driver for a bank robber who killed a policeman in the course of a robbery, received a much lower sentence, when the driver showed remorse about the crime. Another radical, Katherine Ann Power, served six years in jail following her participation in a bank robbery in Boston, Massachusetts where a police officer was killed by an accomplice. Power was sitting in a getaway car, several blocks from the bank where the killing occurred, a situation almost identical to that of Judy. Power then went underground for 23 years and turned herself in 1993. She received a sentence of 8 to 12 years. While in prison, she obtained a bachelor's degree and was a model prisoner, just like Judy. Power was released on parole after serving six years, in 1999. Advertisement Well, Judy did change, dramatically so, as Governor Cuomo announced when he granted clemency. " While at Bedford Hills [Correctional Facility] , Clark has made exceptional strides in self- development. She earned a Bachelor's Degree and a Master's Degree from Mercy College and has an extensive prison programming record including teaching pre-natal parenting courses in the Nursery Program, founding an HIV/AIDS education program, training service dogs in the Puppies Behind Bars program, and serving as a college tutor. Further, she has maintained a perfect disciplinary record and lives in honor housing." What are the standards that a parole board must consider in considering release of a prisoner, and does Judy meet those standards? The official parole board standards are found in published regulations: One regulation states that parole should be granted "if there is a reasonable probability that, if such inmate is released, he will live and remain at liberty without violating the law . . . . [and the release] will not so deprecate the seriousness of his crime as to undermine respect for the law." Judy meets that part of the standard. She has certainly come to realize the errors of her revolutionary ways and at 67 years of age will not return to that way of life. In an affidavit she prepared at an earlier stage of the proceedings, she stated: "I began, literally, by making myself say their names out loud. Peter Paige. Edward O'Grady. Waverly Brown. Doing so dissolved the protective fog I had maintained with abstractions and slogans about "casualties of war." These men had not been soldiers going into battle that day. Each was a working man who had gotten up that fateful morning, kissed his wife and children goodbye, and gone to work like they did every day with no reason to believe that they would not be home for dinner." People who have come to know Judy also write of her remorse. Sister Elaine Roulet, the former director and founder of the Children's Center at Bedford, as well as the former Chaplain at Bedford (she is now retired), wrote: "In all my dealings (and there were many) I watched Judy not only touch remorse, but embrace it, own it, and carry it with her every day." Elaine Lord, former Superintendent of the Bedford Hills prison, writes: "Over many years, I watched her change into one of the most perceptive, thoughtful, helpful and profound human beings that I have ever known either inside or outside of a prison." Advertisement The parole board standards also focus on the prisoner's "institutional record, including program goals and accomplishments [and] academic achievements," as well as the prisoner's release plans, Judy certainly meets these requirements. In prison she participated in a series of constructive programs, as Governor Cuomo recited. She helped to rebuild a prison college program when public funding was eliminated in the 1990s. She worked in a parenting program in the prison, helping imprisoned mothers build responsible relationships with their children. Judy helped to found an AIDS Counseling and Education (ACE) program to address the impact of the AIDS epidemic at Bedford Hills. Judy has been one of the longest and most dedicated members of the Puppies Behind Bars program at Bedford Hills, a program that raises and trains puppies to become guide dogs for the blind, explosive detection dogs for law enforcement agencies, and service dogs for disabled people, primarily veterans. Judy has immersed herself in religious studies and Clinical Pastoral Education, becoming the first prisoner ever to earn certification as a Chaplain. She also published numerous scholarly articles in many educational journals. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and The New Yorker. She also won the 1995 PEN Prison Poetry Writing Award. As far as release plans are concerned, Judy is planning to work at Hour Children, a Catholic Charity that cares for and houses the children of imprisoned women in New York. She is also planning to work on a community based medical care facility in underserved communities. In every aspect of her life, Judy has shown that she has turned away from the destructive life that led to the original crimes and has forged a constructive life that she wishes to continue when she is released. Advertisement At the southern tip of India, the State of Kerala is generally not on the top of the list for first-timers to this vast country, but it is growing in popularity for good reason. Palm trees, tea plantations, backwater excursions, mountain hikes - this tropical region of India, settled (or conquered) by Syrian Christians, King Solomon's Jews, Portuguese Catholics, Dutch Protestants, and of course the British, has been more diverse in population than any other area of the country. The following recommendations cover three distinct areas of Kerala: Munnar in the mountains, the city of Cochin on the waterfront, and the thread of rivers and channels that form the Kerala Backwaters. And because taking a cooking class enhances any visit to a foreign land, I've included information about the award winning cookbook author, Nimi Sunilkumar, who has opened her home in Munnar to foodies eager to learn about, and create, the foods of Kerala. Advertisement MUNNAR This mountaintop town, a favorite vacation spot for Indian nationals, is becoming more and more popular among foreign tourists as well. Truncated tea trees swath the hills in vineyard-like patterns - and its here you'll see (mostly) women working hard to harvest the leaves. It's arduous and laborious work, and makes you think twice about the source of your green and black tea. 1. Hire a driver to take you to the staggeringly beautiful Tea Plantation mountaintop town of Munnar. It's a 100-mile 5 hour drive (from the Cochin Airport) up sometimes terrifying switchbacks - especially harrowing when local buses come careening down from the other direction, seemingly without brakes, forcing you to the brink of hundred plus foot cliffs. 2. Stops along the way include restaurants to get the local "Fish Fry" - a whole fish crisped on the outside and flaky moist on the inside, 3. And Spice Shops chock full of herbal medicinals that promise to treat anything that ails you. 4. Arrange a guided hike through the Munnar Tea Plantations. Impressively sturdy women still pick tealeaves by hand, sometimes using shears ("machines") to clip bunches at a time. These workers must wear heavy, hot protective aprons to keep from being lacerated by tea tree branches as they climb up and down nearly vertical hills, carrying heavy bags full of leaves on their heads. I was in complete awe. Advertisement 5. Hike upward into the mountains of Munnar - the views from above are spectacular. 6. Visit the Munnar Tea Museum for an overview of the local industry that put this town on the map. 7. Soak up the flavors of Kerala though a Cooking Class with "Nimi's Culinary Adventures" right next door to the Munnar Visitor Center. When Nimi Sunilkumar's first self-published cookbook, Lip Smacking Dishes of Kerala, (full of recipes she created to satisfy her picky husband) was chosen as the #3 Best International Local Cuisine Cookbook several years ago, this unassuming Munnar housewife became famous practically overnight. The talented Nimi continues to be interviewed for international publications and was showcased by the website, Hooplaha, on this YouTube video. As Nimi is gaining fame quickly, catch this rising star while you still can, by signing up for a cooking class in her modest one-bedroom home. From 2pm until you finish eating the dinner you helped cook (4 or 5 hours), you'll learn all about Indian spices and learn to cook the dishes that locals love. Up to 8 people at a time, 2,000 rupees (about $30 pp). 8. Stay at the Windemere Estate, Munnar. On the mountainside overlooking the tea plantations, this Indian Heritage Hotel is just one of over 100 hotels in Munnar - but among the most exquisite. Climb a rock outcropping right outside your guestroom door to watch the sunrise over the hills first thing in the morning, or take a dip in the pretty pool at sunset. There's a restaurant on site - so you don't have to leave. Ever. And you may not want to. COCHIN (aka KOCHI) A port city on the Spice Route where traders from many nations intermingled, Cochin has always had a global presence. Walk through its old streets to learn the history of this diverse town. 9. Take A Walking Tour of Old Cochin through burgeoning shopping and restaurant sectors to see the following: Advertisement 10. Santa Cruz Cathedral - the first Portuguese Church built in Cochin on this site in 1506 - and rebuilt in 1558. 11. St. Francis Church - where Portuguese explorer, Vasco Da Gamma was buried in 1524. (Years later, his body was moved back to Lisbon). 12.Jew Town, where, at Sarah's Hand Embroidery Shop, you'll find Sarah Cohen, one of the last 5 remaining Cochin Jews, purported to be 102 years old. It's been said that Cochin's Jews arrived "with King Solomon," but the bulk were descendants of Spanish, Dutch and other European settlers. Most of Cochin's Jewish community moved to Israel in the 1960's leaving just a few behind. 13. Paradesi Synagogue, built in 1568 with a magnificent floor of Delft Tiles and stunning interior. Still operating as a house of worship, Paradesi was one of 7 synagogues in Cochin. Remains of one of the first constructed in the mid-1300's can be found among artifacts here. 14. See a Kerala Kathakali presentation at a Kerala Cultural Center. An extreme, and much more colorful version of Japanese Kabuki, this form of ancient storytelling involves vivid make up (applied by actors right on stage prior to the performance), exaggerated facial expressions and muscle control, and outrageously designed costumes, in a performance syncopated to the beat of drums and chimes. Advertisement 15. Stay at Xandari Harbor Hotel. Right in Fort Cochin, streets are dusty right outside the big red pivoting door of the boutique Xandari Harbor Hotel. Walk though it, however, and you're in another world, with a serene waterfront courtyard, infinity pool, trendy restaurant and chic poured-concrete floored rooms. Hidden, unexpected and very, very lovely. KERALA BACKWATERS 16. Rent a Houseboat and Crew for a few hours or a few days (e.g. on the first-class Xandari Riverscapes). These luxury houseboats plow through waterways awash in clusters of floating hyacinth. You can take in views of riverside homes, other boat traffic and this transcendent scenery while the Captain does all the work. This is a "must-do" experience even if you plan to stay in a lakeside resort. Arrange to take the boat from Cochin to Vembanad Lake, about 10 hour trip, and book a fresh-cooked lunch onboard. If you want to spend nights on the houseboat, several rooms, each with their own bathroom, are luxuriously adorable. If you have a loved one with dementia, my first suggestion would be to find the very best doctors possible. My second piece of advice would be to go to the Alzheimer's Reading Room. It's a free blog that focuses on Alzheimer's disease and the art of Alzheimer's caregiving. The goal of the site is to educate and empower Alzheimer's caregivers, their families and the entire Alzheimer's community. This popular site, established in 2008, has more than 29,000 subscribers and reaches over 100,000 new visitors each month. It was ranked #1 by 'Healthline' five years in a row (2012 - 2016). At its core the Alzheimer's Reading Room is about helping members of the Alzheimer's Community understand, cope, and communicate with persons living with Alzheimer's and related dementias. It's the nation's largest blog on Alzheimer's and the number one source of news about Alzheimer's disease and caregiving. Advertisement This site offers advice on issues that are important to Alzheimer's caregivers. It provides specific insight and solutions to problems they face each day - issues such as wandering, challenging behaviors, showering, toileting, driving, caregiver loneliness, treatments, medications, hospice and so many other problems that arise when caring for someone with Alzheimer's or other dementias. The Alzheimer's Reading Room has 5,000 articles in its searchable database - many written by everyday caregivers. Others are provided by some of the world's top scientists, clinicians, doctors, nurses and other professionals in the field who share their advice, knowledge and expertise. The site was established by Bob DeMarco, a former Wall Street professional from Delray Beach, Florida, who was the full-time caregiver to his mother, Dotty, for eight years. He started the site to keep track of the thousands of articles and numerous books he was reading about Alzheimer's disease to help him understand how to care for his mother. DeMarco himself also contributes a prodigious number of articles to the site, based on both his personal experience caring for Dotty and his own research. "Soon after I started the blog," states DeMarco, "I began to receive emails from Alzheimer's caregivers from all over the world. At first an email here and there. Then thousands began pouring in. I soon realized that these caregivers were often thrust into their roles with little or no experience or training. As a result, they are often overwhelmed and suffer from feelings of helplessness. At its core, the site is about providing advice and insight to help remedy that problem." Advertisement As DeMarco gained experience caring for his mother, he decided to start writing more about the success he was having in fighting the disease. "I learned that the more I let her do, the more she could do," he says. "I learned that there were solutions to some of the problems posed by the disease." The Alzheimer's Reading Room encourages every reader to comment and share his or her experiences. Readers learn from each other. But most importantly they learn that they are not alone . Articles published on the site receive numerous comments, sometimes up to 50 or more each, from the site's large, loyal readership. In addition, articles from the site have been syndicated on Reuters Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, Time Warner, the Chicago Sun Times, the Houston Chronicle, and Livestrong - just to name a few. DeMarco says the most rewarding aspect of running the Alzheimer's Reading Room is when people email him that they've had a breakthrough in their caregiving attitudes and skills as a result of reading articles posted there. Steven Mnuchin's family foundation donated to, and Mnuchin himself sat on the boards of, two nonprofits that wrote supportive letters to the Fed when his bank was trying to get a merger approved. The deal earned the Treasury Secretary-designate many millions of dollars. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) BY: ASHLEY BALCERZAK The deal was helped along by supportive letters written by 14 nonprofits that had received a combined $5.95 million from OneWest's charitable arm in the years before and after the sale, as POLITICO has reported. That helped counter opposition to the merger from advocacy groups. Advertisement But it turns out that some of the groups might have had further incentives to speak up about the good citizenship of Mnuchin's bank: The Treasury nominee is also a board member or trustee of at least two of the organizations that backed him up, the LAPD Foundation and Cedars-Sinai Hospital, according to his personal financial disclosure statement made public earlier this month. And there are even more connections binding the Treasury Secretary-designate, whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Thursday, and the two nonprofits: The Steven and Heather Mnuchin Foundation gave them a combined $66,000 from 2012 through 2014, according to the Mnuchin group's Form 990s. Cedars-Sinai received $21,500 and the LAPD Foundation received $44,500. Asked to comment on these further, not previously reported ties between Mnuchin and two groups that spoke out in favor of the deal, Mnuchin spokesman Barney Keller sent the following statement, which we reprint in full: The Center for Responsive Politics needs to send their reporters back to Journalism school. You don't need to read Steven's financial disclosure - using this new-fangled tool known as Google, any member of the public can discover Mr. Mnuchin's relationship with Cedar-Sinai [sic], where donations from OneWest bank went to help sick kids, or the LAPD foundation, which helps brave police officers - both highly public relationships that were in place well before the letters to the Federal Reserve. Only in your sick mind would the support of cops and sick children be a conflict of interest in the public sale of a bank. Get a life. However, neither of these nonprofits includes this information on its website. Mnuchin is notably absent from the LAPD Foundation's Board of Directors page and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's website and its profile on Bloomberg. (The LAPD Foundation told OpenSecrets Blog that he was listed on its website until his resignation last month, though we could not find such a page using Internet Archive.) A Cedars-Sinai spokesperson said it does not post online members of its board of governors, a group of almost 800 volunteers who help raise funds.) We don't learn much more looking at these nonprofits' tax filings. The Los Angeles Police Foundation's IRS Form 990 lists Mnuchin as a board member in 2013 and 2014, the most recent available on Guidestar. Mnuchin reports himself as a trustee on his ethics filing, and says he took the position in 2012. The LAPD Foundation confirmed to us he was on its board of directors until last month, when he resigned. His name doesn't appear on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's tax forms for 2014, 2013, or 2012, nor on those of the hospital's Cedars-Sinai Medical Care Foundation during the same period. Mnuchin reported he was on the board of governors of "Cedar Sinai Hospital" since Jan. 2010. Google, for all its newfangled-ness, really didn't provide much help on this puzzle. In an email to OpenSecrets Blog, LAPD Foundation Executive Director Cecilia Glassman said that "OneWest Foundation's support of one of the LAPD's vitally important youth programs was the major consideration in LAPD Chief [Charlie] Beck's decision to write a letter to the Federal Reserve." She said she did not know whether Mnuchin, who was on the board at the time, asked for the letter to be written. "Cedars-Sinai was asked by OneWest Bank to send a letter describing its philanthropic contributions to Cedars-Sinai," said Sally Stewart, Cedars-Sinai media relations manager, in an email to OpenSecrets Blog. "The request that Cedars-Sinai send a letter was not in any way a condition for any donations Cedars-Sinai received from OneWest Bank." Stewart also said that the names of governors aren't required to be reported on IRS tax forms. Advertisement Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund manager, was paid severance totaling almost $11 million when he left the company last year in a management shakeup. He still holds a stake of about $100 million in CIT, which his ethics agreement says he'll divest within 90 days of being confirmed for the Treasury job. And he was paid more than $28 million by OneWest and CIT in addition to the severance in the 12 months covered by his disclosure statement. Overall, according to the document, Mnuchin is worth at least $166 million; it is impossible to say precisely because the values of assets and other holdings or debts are given in ranges. In addition, the agreement makes clear that because of a "holdback" provision involving cash owed Mnuchin but reserved by the company for contingent debts, and a restrictive covenant he signed, he will not participate in matters affecting CIT Group until at least mid-2018 without receiving an ethics waiver. In addition to the merger, Mnuchin is expected to be questioned at his confirmation hearing about accusations of redlining and wrongful foreclosures by OneWest during the time he was chairman. Researchers Alex Baumgart, Robert Maguire and Anna Massoglia contributed to this report. Jan. 17: This post has been updated to include a statement from Cedars-Sinai, as well as a clarification about its board of governors. HOMESTEAD, FL - NOVEMBER 16: Demonstrators including students from local high schools as well as a college rally in front of Homestead City Hall against President-elect Donald Trump and are asking that the city be used as a sanctuary city and their respective schools be sanctuary campuses on November 16, 2016 in Homestead, Florida. Mr. Trump has said he will crack down on so-called Asanctuary citiesA or cities that donAt help federal authorities seize undocumented immigrants. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) President Obama still has time to save an important group of immigrants from deportation -- lawful permanent residents who once committed minor criminal offenses, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people. The President can avert their deportation by exercising the pardon power that the Constitution explicitly gives him. But time is running out. Advertisement Mr. Obama has made several valiant attempts to provide common-sense compassionate relief to defined sub-classes of otherwise deportable immigrants. Too often, those efforts have fallen victim to partisanship. Comprehensive immigration reform, passed by a bipartisan Senate supermajority, died in the House when Speaker Boehner refused to allow a floor vote. Republican state officials sued to enjoin a temporary deportation reprieve for the long-term resident parents of U.S. citizen children, and Republican judges obliged. President Obama's analogous program for undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children is still on the books, but Mr. Trump has pledged to rescind it. A pardon would be different. Neither Congress nor the courts could undo it. References to "criminal aliens" evoke dark images of violent, frightening, hard-core invaders. The reality is different. Some fit that sinister description. President Obama has wisely made their removal his highest immigration enforcement priority. He has recognized, however, that not all crimes are equal. Today, crimes like marijuana possession and shoplifting don't normally trigger deportation for long-time lawfully present immigrants. Advertisement But that could change. President-elect Trump has pledged to deport all immigrants who have committed any "crime," no matter how minor the offense, how lenient the sentence, or how long ago it was committed. Perhaps he will ultimately modify this extreme position, but we have no way to know. Many of the lawful permanent residents who once committed minor offenses came here as children and now have U.S. citizen spouses and children of their own. The offenses might be one-time youthful indiscretions. Many have already fully served their criminal sentences and have lived peaceful, productive, law-abiding lives ever since. Rey (not his real name) came here as a baby, legally admitted as a permanent resident. He is a college graduate with a good job and a history of volunteering in his community. One day, he gave a ride to a childhood friend. The police pulled him over for a traffic violation and discovered drugs in his friend's bag. Because the drugs were in his car, Rey pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Without a pardon he is at risk of being deported, alone, to a country he does not know. Law professors Peter Markowitz and Lindsay Nash, supported by more than 100 nonprofit organizations, have sent President Obama a memo urging him to pardon people like Rey, forgiving the deportation penalties they potentially face. They acknowledge that the pardon power has most frequently been exercised in criminal cases. Deportation, in contrast, is a civil penalty. But the Supreme Court has made clear that the pardon power is not limited to criminal offenses. Professors Markowitz and Nash meticulously document the legal authority for pardoning civil penalties and offer examples of Presidents who have done precisely that. Advertisement Perhaps the best-known modern example is President Carter's categorical pardon of the several hundred thousand men who had left or remained outside the U.S. to avoid the military draft during the Vietnam War. Many of the pardoned individuals were non-U.S. citizens. President Carter emphasized that the pardon eliminated both the criminal penalty and the civil immigration penalty. A subsequent, carefully-reasoned opinion of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel confirmed his power to do so. Fifteen Presidents have granted categorical pardons. President Washington pardoned everyone who had been guilty of treason during the Whiskey Rebellion. President Lincoln pardoned all who had taken up arms against the U.S. during the Civil War. Presidents Johnson, Grant, and Truman all issued mass pardons for Army deserters -- in Truman's case, for the specific purpose of preserving their eligibility for naturalization. A pardon is this president's best and last chance to secure the futures of Rey and the thousands of other lawful permanent residents whose minor transgressions earlier in life now threaten their futures and their families. Mr. Obama should seize this one remaining opportunity. After Francis Church and the New York Sun, I want to say, "Yes, (saint) Nicholas, there is a Virgin -- as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist." Just not as supposed by your conversation partner in your New York Times column of Christmas Day. You asked him, "Can one be a Christian and doubt the virgin birth?" You even wondered whether, doubting, you are a Christian. As a Christian pastor for many decades, I have often encountered a spirit of uncertain questing like yours. And I always pointed toward a different door than the one opened for you in the published dialogue. The first response I'd have offered to your questions is, "How would you know?" A teacher who gives all the answers and assumes the questioner will take the shape of empty, ignorant vessel disserves both student and himself. A good teacher wants to know how the inquirer is expecting to learn. How does she think one can know of "things above"? Does she want to be told what is so, like a child? Is she ready to go higher? "Am I a Christian?" you asked. How would you know? Who, in your conception of reality, has the right, the power, even the duty to tell you what is so with the things of God? Advertisement You asked whether belief in the virgin birth is essential. Essential to whom? You were told that "if something is truly integral to a body of thought you cannot remove it without destabilizing the whole thing." That is a truism, but it does not help sort what is integral from what is not. Moreover, the truism pertains only to thought. Religious life is not mainly about thought, but about wholeness and well-being -- not in the unknowable future, but now. It is said that a man once asked, "Teacher, how can I inherit eternal life." And the Teacher replied, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" (Luke 10: 24-25) The Teacher turned first to learn from the man. Who are you? What do you hold to be essential? What a beautiful beginning. You observed that the earliest of the writings of the New Testament, including the letters of the apostle Paul, say nothing about Jesus' birth, virgin or not. You wondered whether the birth narratives might have developed long after the Crucifixion-Resurrection experience. A lot of biblical scholarship supports your surmise. Yet the answer you got only warned that if part of the ancient Christian story were deemed a legend, the very fabric of the Christian message would come undone. Says who? No evidence was supplied. You heard next that the story of the virgin birth teaches -- claims -- that the power behind all things is a person who can be known and loved. Paul emphatically accepted this claim also, yet he "decided to come knowing nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Cor. 2.2) Well, as for that old-time religion -- if it was good enough for Paul, it's good enough. Yes, Nick, there is a virgin birth story worth telling -- but its worth is measured not by assertions of what happened long ago, rather by signs of what happens in the telling now. The story tells of the unstoppable movement of God Holy Spirit to give a new song and help humans bear love to life as their high and holiest offering in the grace of God. Anyone can sing that song, give that birth. You asked whether the Resurrection must be taken literally. In no uncertain terms, you were told it must. Yet the dialogue did not really probe what you called the Easter stories' "fuzzy" account of Jesus' bodily presence. In fact, all but one of the Resurrection stories include the detail that the evidence of witness by sight was weak or faulty or irrelevant. This gospel chorus comes on forte. In each story, what brings witnesses to new life in Christ is hearing their Lord. Not seeing. Even years after the Crucifixion-Resurrection, the apostle Paul's experience of meeting the Christ first blinds him. Only then does he hear himself addressed. Paul would one day write, "Faith comes through what is heard." (Romans 10: 17) Advertisement Your partner in dialogue suggested that "the only historically plausible explanation for the birth of the Christian movement" is that many hundreds actually saw the risen Jesus. That assertion ignores the crucial fact that getting beyond dependency on eye-witness claims was the crisis of the early church, for sooner or later, there were no claims of appearances! Unless faith developed deep down, coming only through what was heard, there would be no church at all. Christians have always benefited from the cautions implicit in the gospels' teaching of the Resurrection as more like a beloved voice than a face. Put plainly, the stories say that faith is not about things seen, that seeing is not believing. Early on, people urgently needed this message, so of course the churches learned fast which sorts of vessels could hold the holy fire for faith from generation to generation. Only stories have that quality. No doctrine, no essay like this, can carry the flame. Does that suggest that the stories were "invented?" Not at all. "They didn't invent them," your dialogue partner said. Absolutely right -- if invention refers to an inventor with designs and desires to influence the public. Across the whole world, no one ever invented a story with power to draw souls into awareness of divine grace. People rather discovered the stories, by the grace of God -- together, in communities, according to their most sublime and practical needs. The origins of the stories are shrouded in mysteries that need no probing (although they can withstand any amount of it) because an open heart and mind receive quite naturally the meaning of a godly story. It has nothing to do with fretting its facts. Faith's cares are different. So of course anyone is Christian who feels drawn to the light of the story like a wanderer to a candle in a window. On this question, the Apostles Creed has no vote. Finally, of course, you asked about salvation for others than Christians. I was glad that your dialogue partner knows that his cannot be considered "the Christian response." Who claims to know the ways of the Eternal! Yet imagine if all embraced the word of the prophet, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8) Many Christians see that they have no standing to assert that salvation for all must be through Jesus Christ. If here and there the Bible tells me so, and if people not convicted by its word say, "That's not my word!" -- how do I respond? Either I say, "You are wrong because I am right, so you change or else I hold you in the wrong on fundamental things." Ah! Those so certain to put others in the wrong abandon the way of Jesus for paths of power and control along which are strewn all the bloody evils of empires past and future. What is the alternative? We say, "You are right; this word is not your word, it is mine. I will endeavor to listen well to what I have heard." Advertisement The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is pictured during a steady rain in Washington January 18, 2015. Monday will mark the U.S. national holiday in memory of the fallen civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS ANNIVERSARY) You don't need me to remind you of the bitter irony. Today we mark the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. At the end of the week we say goodbye to the first African American president and watch him be replaced with the most avowedly bigoted candidate since George Wallace ran for the presidency in 1968, the very year King was assassinated. So on this Martin Luther King Day we might look to King not so much for inspiration but for solace, and to be reminded of King's confident assertion that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." It's a prediction and a promise and we can all take some hope from it. Advertisement But as much as King looked to the future in that statement, he drew his faith in the future by looking at the past. That statement encapsulates a central narrative about American history - the narrative of progress. It expresses the abiding belief Americans have always had that today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be an improvement on today. It is a belief that goes back to our founding and is inherent in a political experiment designed, someday, to achieve "a more perfect union." Pause over that phrase for a moment. Perfection not as an end unto itself, but as a process; a nation that can always be made more perfect. Talk about the audacity of hope! And it's important to remember that the story of forward-marching progress appealed to 3 million more American voters in November than the gloomy invocations of decline. Trump, by contrast, offered a relentlessly negative view of America. But his narrative is another version of the American past and one with even deeper historical roots. His intoning to "make America great again" is a classical "declension" narrative - a story of American decline - and this narrative traces all the way back to the 17th century Puritans: We were once favored by God, now we have sinned and are loathsome in his eyes. Repent! otherwise be damned! The Puritans relied on this formula so often that those sermons became their own genre: the jeremiad. Variations of it fueled the religious revival known as the Great Awakening in the mid-18th century and the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th. Trump may have scrubbed the jeremiad of its religious overtones - and of any sense of Christian humility and social obligation - but he has tapped into the same sky-is-falling emotions. Advertisement The point is not that these two narratives contradict one another. Rather they exist side-by-side and in tension with each other. We still aren't perfect, after all, and so for some Americans, having failed to achieve perfection, we must be in decline. Even more, the story of declension helps some people make sense of a world changing faster than they can keep up with or in ways they find threatening. In other words, declension is a story that helps soften the otherwise vertiginous progress we are simultaneously celebrating. But in the main Americans have always preferred the story of progress, because by any meaningful indicator life has indeed gotten better and better, however much a corrosive nostalgia for the "good ol' days" appeals to certain people at certain moments. And African Americans in particular have a vested interest in the promise of progress. King was born in 1929 at the end of a decade in which roughly 300 people were lynched. For African Americans (and one might add gays, women and lots of other Americans) there never really was a good ol' days. The litany of social, scientific and technological progress is almost endless, and you'd be hard pressed to find a Trump voter who thinks making America great again means going back to a time without cell phones, antibiotics, or indoor plumbing. But take one (semi) specific reference Trump has made to previous greatness that must be restored: coal. When the coal industry was at its peak, early in the 20th century - actually it has been in decline since the 1930s - children worked in mines, and between 1870-1970 31,000 miners died in coal mine disasters in Pennsylvania alone. That's an average of one miner killed on the job every day for 100 years. No one - except perhaps Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey - wants to put kids back in coal mines. King predicted the American future with his metaphor about the universe because he looked at the American past and then at the present and measured the distance between the two. Americans are periodically prone to spasms of nostalgia, but that too will be overcome. And on this Martin Luther King Day it's worth remembering the next thing King said in that sermon at Temple Israel on February 26, 1965. Quoting the English philosopher Thomas Carlyle, King reminded the congregation: "No lie can live forever." Trumpistas, consider yourselves put on notice. Advertisement 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. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu is the Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a think tank based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He recently served as the Secretary of the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms (CTF). This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. CTF's big report is finally out. What are some of the key takeaways? CTF recommendations are grouped into general, cross-cutting and specific recommendations on the four mechanisms [a truth commission, a judicial mechanism and offices to handle both reparations and disappearances]. What we found at the outset was that people were both frustrated and angry by their past experiences of providing testimony to commissions without any results. Once they realized that this was the first time the government was seeking their views before the enactment of policy they expressed the hope that it would be different. People wanted to be part of the mechanisms, have them located outside Colombo and operate in the languages they speak. Across the board, there was a demand for the truth and acknowledgement of it by the state. People also spoke to a number of confidence-building measures they wanted to see ranging from a new constitution with a political settlement to the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to the return of land. Regarding accountability [for wartime abuses] they were clear that this should apply towards those who gave orders. Advertisement They also spoke about reparations in cash and in kind as well as symbolic reparations. The CTF in response to all of this did recommend that the government engage in outreach on transitional justice, come up with the legislation for the mechanisms without delay as well as a roadmap clearly indicating the relationship between the mechanisms. What has attracted the most attention and criticism is the recommendation of a hybrid court in respect of accountability, the presence of internationals on the court and in the special counsel or prosecutor's office. This is in response to the demands on the one hand, predominantly in the north, that any mechanism that was entirely national would not be credible and on the other hand in the rest of the country, that international judges would be a violation of Sri Lanka's sovereignty and be biased. The CTF has recommended international participation as judges and in the prosecutor's office as reflected in the resolution at the UN Human Rights Council co-sponsored by the government of Sri Lanka and also recommended in the report on Sri Lanka prepared under the aegis of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. What, if anything, about the consultative process surprised you? The depth of feeling and conviction of the importance of transitional justice and reconciliation, the lack of trust in the state and, as mentioned above, the anger and frustration with regard to going before so many commissions without result. It was suggested that there would be no interest in the consultations outside the north and east and that there would not be anything said about [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] LTTE atrocities and violations. This was not the case at all. In total, we received 7,300-odd submissions through public meetings, focus group discussions, national-level consultations, through e-mail and by post. Advertisement Do you expect any transitional justice mechanisms to be operational in the next few months? What sort of timeline should we expect? Legislation on the Office of Missing Persons was passed in August, probably to meet the deadline of the September session of the Human Rights Council. Yet the office has not been appointed. I suspect that there may be legislation on a Truth Commission and [an office for] Reparations but not on accountability. Seems unlikely that all of these will be set up and running in the very near future. Partisan political considerations between and within the two main parties in government intrude to stymie quicker progress on transitional justice. The challenge to civil society is to ensure that transitional justice does not get indefinitely stuck. Continued attention at the Human Rights Council is therefore critical. What's the best way for the international community to help Sri Lanka at this critical juncture? Concerns about media bias and fake news are valid. Some claim the free press is out of control - others that it's under attack. But the state of the "free press" is not the greatest cause for concern. Our ability to think about what it offers, without emotional and logical blinders, is what should worry us more. Thomas Jefferson came to abhor newspapers once he became president (and subject to their daily attacks), writing in 1814 that "I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them . . . This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." He should have known of course, having put a man on his Department of State payroll in 1791 for the express purpose of starting a newspaper to attack the Washington administration in which he served. Yet then, as now, the sheer number and diversity of information outlets was an antidote to the dangers of the "mendacious spirit." Jefferson appreciated this, at least in theory. Writing from Paris in 1787 he had said that "were if left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." But then he added an essential caveat: "But I should mean that every man should receive these papers & be capable of reading them." Advertisement The free press will continue. The question, as Jefferson rightly posed it, is whether we receive this information and are capable of critically reading it. To receive diverse views, you have to be open to hearing them. Yet too many live in political "echo chambers," where they only access sources supporting pre-existing views. A 2012 Pew Research survey found that 78 percent of those who listen to Sean Hannity are conservatives while only 5 percent are liberals. The numbers are nearly reversed for Rachel Madow, 57 percent of whose listeners are liberals while only 7 percent are conservatives. Selective attention leads to confirmation bias. It also produces group polarization - the more people surround themselves with like thinking, the more extreme their views become. Were everyone adept at critically evaluating information, Jefferson's second criterion might be met, but this is a tough challenge. Neuroscience shows that emotions get engaged before reason and can block or overcome it. In short, the logical brain comes up with reasons for what the emotional brain has already decided. In such an environment, potentially disconfirming facts become "inconvenient truths," losing their legitimacy as they are rationalized away. This is the human condition. It is not new, but something else is. In the Internet connected twenty-first century, the reach of biased and fake news and the power of poor thinking can spread faster and create widespread damage. In Jefferson's day, a political lie might take weeks to spread beyond a small readership. Today, a lie spreads nearly instantaneously, globally, and thus may be widely accepted before proven false. Even then, the knowledge that it is a lie gets less attention than the lie itself. Advertisement Thinking freely - without the blinders of preformed views, emotions, and rationalization - is the only antidote to the dangers that come with today's free press. But a vaccine is ineffective if unused. This has implications for the media, how government supports free expression, and for those who educate citizens in their democratic obligations. Clearly, some in the media and politics have little interest in accuracy or objectivity. That only increases the need for respectable media sources and watchdogs to strengthen their own credibility, monitor and critique the veracity of "news" and politicians, and improve the ethics of their profession, including visible and meaningful sanctions for abuse. Governmental regulation of the free press is anathema, but that does not mean government should not ask: what can be done, consistent with the First Amendment, to prevent intentionally fake news? Calling attention to the problem and showering shame on those who would subvert democracy are minimally necessary tasks. Politicians also have a moral obligation to speak truthfully. When they lie, they weaken the democratic process. One famous politician instead argued that leaders must "appeal to the feelings of the public rather than to their reasoning ability. . . . The less science is involved and the more emotions are involved, the more complete the success will be . . . " That leader, Adolph Hitler, was speaking in Mein Kampf, his Machiavellian handbook. Our schools, at all levels, must do better in training students to separate fact from feeling and to apply critical thinking to what the press/media offer. Laziness in thinking is neglecting one's moral duty in a democracy. Like every other freedom, freedom of the press comes with responsibility. If we shirk it, a free press will make us less free. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters Religion is one of the toughest challenges facing modern secular societies in their search for identity, equality and cohesion. It's increasingly a stronger source of identity than nationality or ethnicity for minorities and migrants while majorities appear to grow more and more religiously indifferent. The paradigms of republicanism, as practised in France, or multiculturalism as implemented in a number of Western democracies, such as the UK and the US, or indeed employment-based integration models of Sweden or Germany, are all in crisis. Advertisement Europe has not yet found a middle way between secularism and state religion that combines national and religious identity, and where ethnic and religious minority groups can co-exist within a state's institutions. But other countries' experiences can perhaps shine a light. Accommodating difference First, some key questions: in accommodating religious diversity should we encourage more religion in public life, for both majorities and minorities, or move towards a more radical secularism? If the former is the way to go, what are the obstacles that a more egalitarian religious pluralism would face in liberal Western societies? All sorts of problems could arise from minority groups making special requests for accommodation, including powerful majority churches finding it difficult to accept pluralism, feeling that their historically privileged position is threatened. Advertisement What about those who oppose the presence of religion in public life, let alone an increase of it? Will all minority religious groups be equally easy or difficult to accommodate? Recent rises in Islamophobia in Europe would suggest such moves would face significant opposition. While most governments turn inwards to look at what went wrong in their own version of secular republicanism or multiculturalism, perhaps the answer is to be found in more radical views, beyond secularism, such as those in the large multi-religious and multi-ethnic democracies of Asia. Looking for alternatives India is a relevant case in point. The country faced a tough challenge at its creation in 1947. Divided at first along religious lines, the communal riots that followed its partition into India and East and West Pakistan signalled the trust deficit that existed between its majority Hindu and the Muslim communities. Bringing people together under these circumstances required something more than the promise of state neutrality. The nation's diverse communities, the victims of communal violence and the Muslims who stayed on in India needed to be assured that they would be equal partners in the emerging democracy and that they would be treated in a fair and just manner. A commitment to secularism - namely, that the state would not be aligned with any one religion - was an important first step. But it was not enough. In a society where religion was, and remains, an important anchor of personal identity, deeply valued by individuals and closely tied to notions of self-worth and dignity, the state had to make space for plurality of religious observances and cultural practices. Advertisement For members of different communities to have a sense of equality, the state needed to create a public culture that was hospitable to religious differences - one that allowed individuals to enter and participate in public life despite their religious beliefs. Indifference towards matters of religion by the state, or complete neutrality and promise of non-intervention, were simply not the right answer. Beyond secularism To create a comfortable and non-alienating public culture, the Indian constitution gave each individual the right to observe their religious practices, and gave minorities the right to set up their own religious and educational institutions. Minority educational institutions could receive funds from the state, if they so desired. Although no firm obligation was placed on the state, this allowed subsequent governments to support minority schools. The government put together a list of public holidays that gave due consideration to different religious communities. At least one holiday was given for a major festival or event of religious importance, for each community. And it made an effort to design national symbols (such as the flag, and the national anthem) in a way that included different communities. Advertisement The colours of the flag and the symbols on it were carefully chosen. Orange was chosen because saffron was associated with the Hindu community, green was included for its significance for the Muslim community. White was added to represent all other communities. When it came to the national anthem, Jana Gana Mana was preferred to Vande Mataram. Although the latter had been used at different moments in the struggle for independence, it invoked spiritual symbolism from the Hindu religion, and this was to be avoided. As India was embarking on its journey as a democracy, it had the opportunity to deliberately opt for inclusive symbols. But of course, this option is not available to most countries of Europe today. So what is there to be learned from the Indian state? The lesson is the importance of creating a diverse public sphere that is inclusive and welcoming to all. And, most of all, one where cultural choices - in dress codes, food habits, and modes of address in social interaction - are not shaped entirely by the culture of the majority. This is the opposite to what we see in modern-day France, for instance. Advertisement No easy solutions India's founding framework went far beyond the idea of liberal secularism; it made a deliberate effort to give minorities the space to continue with their distinct religious and cultural practices and to pass them on. Culture and religion-related anxieties can be exploited to nurture resentment, and this had to be avoided. Visible differences that marked the bodies of citizens in different ways were not seen as threatening. One could get past them, or at least see them as markers of identity instead of prejudging them as liberal or anti-liberal. This was an important starting point but it had to be supplemented by government policies that ensured equal opportunity and security for all. Governments at the political centre and in different states failed to perform these tasks. Repeated incidents of inter-community violence, such as the 2013 Muzaffarnagar and 2002 Gujarat riots, and the failure to punish the perpetrators of such violence have pushed vulnerable minorities into the arms of their community for solace and legitimised the hold of religious leadership. These could have been avoided. The state could have given a stern message that such forms of violence and community targeting would not be tolerated. But in case after case, governments let their citizens down. Political parties were divided, choosing to stand with different communities at different times but always with an eye on electoral gains. In an effort to curb such communitarian politics, the Supreme Court has recently prohibited appeals to religion and caste during elections. This is being seen as a landmark judgment by some, but even though it aims to force parties to think of all citizens, and not merely one community, it does not address all concerns. Advertisement It has not, for example, forbidden reference to Hindutva - the founding principle of Hindu nationalism. The courts claim it denotes a way of life rather than a religious doctrine used as part of a campaign for cultural homogenisation. Space for dissent The point is that, in a democracy, it is not religion per se but efforts to stigmatise and intimidate people or groups that is a matter of concern. This is what India has yet to tackle effectively. When political parties can reach out to religious communities, take up their concerns and show that they give representation to candidates from different religions, they give a voice to minorities. This stems the sense of alienation and neglect that radicalisation so often taps into. The most serious challenge today is to make space for individual dissent and autonomy and protect a person from those who wish to enforce the diktats of the community or the nation. India has focused so heavily on equality between groups that it has neglected to protect individual liberty - something that is pursued more effectively in Europe. India has much to learn on this subject from Western Europe. But its own journey shows that the presence of religion or its markers are not, and should not be, seen as the most important threat. It is not a case of more religion or less of it. Anxieties about religion and the lack of respect for it can be tapped to create a rigid and more closed identity along with a politics of resentment. The focus must therefore be on creating a stake in democratic politics, involving different communities at different levels of institution functioning and extending avenues for equal opportunity. Advertisement The pluralised public sphere It should go without saying that no state's approach to religion is perfect, and India faces its own significant problems with diversity and integration, from religious violence to the persistence of the caste system. But that doesn't mean there is nothing for Europe to learn. Put simply, integrating religious differences is easier when religious freedom goes hand-in-hand with an understanding of the nature of religious commitments, and the creation of a pluralised public sphere. Neutrality is insufficient when communities already see religion as an important part of their personal identity, one they want to hold on to along with their civic identity. It should be possible to have both. Current political debates in the West need to open up to solutions that go beyond secularism, from places like India and from elsewhere. They need to embrace differences with policies for integrating minorities into education, the labour market and overall public life. Advertisement New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recently pledged to make undergraduate education at the the City University of New York (CUNY) and the State University of New York (SUNY) system free for families making less than US$120,000 annually. If this happens, it wouldn't be the first time that undergraduate education has been free in New York. For most of its history, up until the 1970s when New York City was in dire financial straits and the state had to step in to bail out the City University of New York, CUNY was free to many of the city's residents. And this is not just the case in New York. College has been tuition-free in other states as well. In 2014, Tennessee governor Bill Haslam promised to provide free community college to all residents in his state. He has delivered on the promise, making Tennessee a model state in this area. Advertisement In a country where student debt and the rising cost of the college degree grab national headlines on a weekly basis, efforts to make college "free" can also get attention. In truth, however, a large part of tuition costs are already subsidized in the U.S. through a combination of grants, tax breaks and loans. What causes waves is the ever-increasing sticker price, rather than what students actually pay. My interest, as a scholar of global education policy, is understanding how college costs in the U.S. compare to those of the rest of the world. The fact is that nowhere is college truly free. The critical difference is whether the bulk of the costs are born by the student or by the government. So, what are some of the changes taking place globally as countries try to manage college costs? Who pays? Some countries follow a model similar to the U.S. by charging high tuition rates but then defraying the costs for certain students with grants, loans or tax incentives. As to which country charges students the most, that depends on how one does the calculations. Let's look at the "2015 Education at a Glance" report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report shows that public colleges in England charged the highest fees, when factoring in public aid, to domestic students (approximately ($9,000), followed by the U.S. ($8,200), Japan ($5,100), South Korea ($4,700) and Canada ($4,700). Advertisement But the numbers alone do not tell the full story. A simple comparison between the total cost of tuition fees and the median self-reported income of the country reveals a very different picture: Hungary becomes the most expensive country, with 92 percent of median income going toward the cost of education, followed closely by Romania and Estonia. The U.S. ranks sixth on this listing. (This calculation does not factor in loans and grants.) Low or no tuition models Some countries take a very different approach, charging no or low tuition fees. According to the International Higher Education Finance, a project sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, more than 40 countries offer free or nearly free post-secondary education to domestic students. These include Argentina, Denmark, Greece, Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Uruguay, Scotland and Turkey. A variety of approaches are used to fund higher education in these countries, such as imposing high taxes or making use of their significant natural resources (e.g., oil and natural gas reserves) to provide the financial resources for extensive social investment. In other places, such as Germany, an egalitarian philosophy and deeply held beliefs about the value of a public education preclude the government from shifting costs to the students. In Germany, for example, there was a short-lived effort from 2005-2014 to charge minimal tuition, which was rolled back after a major public outcry. Germans strongly believe that higher education is a public good to be totally subsidized the government. The point being in these countries students pay very little for post-secondary education - a policy shift going on in the U.S. Advertisement The UK: A divided approach There have been attempts in other countries to shift some of the cost of higher education to students. Following the great recession in 2012, England, for example, tripled tuition in one year to approximately $11,000 (9000 pounds). The intent was to offset steep declines in government funding. Despite a significant outcry by students and other critics, these high tuition costs have stayed. In fact, England recently surpassed the U.S. in terms of having the highest tuition fees of the 34 countries in the industrialized world. While the sticker price for many U.S. institutions is higher, financial aid helps bring down the total cost. However, England's "sister country" Scotland continues to provide more substantial subsidies for higher education, providing domestic students with free access to college while at the same time charging significant fees to students from elsewhere in the U.K. What about international students? The free tuition debate typically is domestically focused, but it can spill over into affecting international students. There are now more than one million international students in the US - comprising about 5.2 percent of the total number of college students. Advertisement The question now facing policymakers globally is whether to extend the concept of free college to international students or to let them be a source of additional revenues to offset costs of domestic students. The no-tuition and low-cost tuition models have emerged as competitive advantages for attracting international students in many countries. For example, a growing number of U.S. students are pursuing their degree outside of the U.S. in countries such as Germany and Scotland as they look for ways to escape the rising cost of college at home. Even though some U.S. students can receive subsidies to offset their education, those in the middle- and upper-income levels tend to receive minimal support and are also most likely to see studying abroad as a possibility. New Zealand saw the number of international students quadruple from 2005 to 2014, soon after it made the decision to subsidize international doctoral students at the same level as domestic students. In contrast, nations that have significantly increased their tuition costs for international students have found mixed results. Advertisement Denmark, for example, saw attendance from outside the EU drop by 20 percent in one year, after it introduced tuition fees for international students in 2006. Sweden too saw a massive drop in international students after it introduced fees in 2011-12 - the number of international students plummeted by 80 percent. (Some modest recovery has happened in recent years.) Implications for U.S.policy The issue in the U.S. is that it already has the largest share of the international student market - approximately 15 percent - and a steady stream of international students looking to study in the U.S. In fact, state universities often seek to make up resource declines by increasing the number of full-fee paying international students. A recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that a 10 percent reduction in state funding resulted in an 12 percent increase in the number of international undergraduate students at public research universities. A number of questions therefore arise when considering the implications for the "free college" policies in the U.S.: Could free college policies reverse the trend of more U.S. students studying outside of the U.S. to escape high fees? Could improved state funding in support of making college more financially accessible to domestic students stop colleges from actively seeking international students? Or, could it push these students into the private sector which will likely have more room as students take advantage of free public education? There are far too many variables still in play to answer any of these questions. But while the push for "free college" in the U.S. may be a sexy political move, we need to think through intended and unintended consequences. Advertisement Jason Lane, Chair and Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership & Co-Director of the Cross-Border Education Research Team, University at Albany, State University of New York ".... we are here today to fight in particular for the first amendment, with its guarantee of protected speech. "Trump has used many methods of silencing. "He silences through ridicule of those who have less power than he does. "He silences through autocratic threats....... "He tries to silence us by threatening financial consequences. " 'We're going to open up those libel laws, so when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post...writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected.' "When, at his so-called press conference, he attacks a CNN reporter for asking a perfectly reasonable question by saying his organization is guilty of promulgating 'fake news,' that is a closing down of the reporter and his freedom to ask questions........ "As Mao and Stalin went after the intellectuals first, so Trump goes after the intellectuals, against those whose words might buck up an opposition to him." By Omeed Alerasool Of all the policy lessons to take away from 2016, here is a simple one: referendums should not be deciding major changes and reforms in established democracies. A number of world leaders called for national referendums in the past year. They mistakenly thought that linking a major reform or decision to their personal reputations in a standalone vote would help guarantee the desired outcome and result in a stronger political mandate. As these referendums demonstrate, placing a major decision up for a simple "Yes" or "No" vote is unwise, regardless of the specifics of the referendums. Instead of referendums, democratic leaders in established democracies should turn to more traditional routes for reform: specifically, through legislation passed by the parliament or congress. The leaders who have called for such referendums believed that there was a "correct" answer to the binary votes, expecting cooler heads would ultimately prevail. Some even expected that their political challengers would be put away by an astounding show of support by the populace. But these leaders were wrong, and the results could not be further from the truth. The British stunned the world by voting to leave the European Union, ending the premiership of David Cameron. Italians voted against constitutional reform, resulting in Prime Minister Matteo Renzi stepping down. Colombian voters shot down a historic peace accord with the FARC rebel group, threatening to upend the agenda and political future of President Juan Manuel Santos. These campaigns put in thousands of hours to make a case for a simple one-word answer. But in a time when passionate appeals can trump logical arguments, it does not matter how much time David Cameron, Matteo Renzi, or Juan Manuel Santos spend making a case to voters. Decisions can be made in a split-second, and "Take Back Control" resonates. Advertisement If all it can take is a protest vote to put an end to a major national initiative, it is clearly the method that is problematic. The problem is not the voters (many have justifiably lost faith in traditional democratic governance), but the structure of these binary referendums. Except for where there are explicit constitutional requirements, putting a major decision in the hands of those elected to serve and represent the voters is a better idea. This not to say that major decisions should be taken away from the people, but rather that there should be more effort required to contribute. There is a reason direct democracy has fallen out of practice. Modern democracies are designed as representative systems, with checks and balances, intended to provide avenues for citizens to affect change without needing to be career politicians. Referendums are not more democratic than modern systems, and thus should not be in a democratic leader's toolbox. Hypothetically, imagine Brexit without the referendum: If there truly is such a strong desire to remove the United Kingdom from the European Union, British voters could contact their respective MPs and make their voices heard. If there is enough support from voters, the political mandate for Parliament to initiate Brexit would be clear. And if the people's representatives failed to heed their constituents, voters could elect new representatives that would implement a withdrawal from the European Union in the next election. This process is the core of democratic governance - referendums that sidestep the give-and-take of electoral politics are not. The tendency for referendums is likely a product of the times. Ironically, traditional institutions of government are increasingly seen as incapable and untrustworthy in many established democracies. For a leader facing pressures for change, a referendum can be the "easy way out." Why fight a prolonged political battle over the fate of the United Kingdom within the European Union, when a national referendum (with an expected favorable outcome) could put the issue to rest once and for all? Yet, the true solution to the dissatisfaction with traditional democratic institutions will not be a bypass of the entire system, it will be a demonstration of its utility. Advertisement The Colombian peace deal with FARC is a prime example of where representative democracy can succeed where referendums fail. The historic peace accord was initially put to a national referendum by President Santos. With less than 40 percent turnout, the vote failed - a result of a populist right-wing campaign against the deal and hurricane weather conditions in parts of the country. However, Santos pressed on and returned to the negotiation table, soon emerging with a revised peace deal. Even as former president and populist leader Alvaro Uribe denounced the new accord, calling for a new referendum, Santos pushed forward. The new agreement, largely reflective of the original deal, skipped a second referendum and was sent to the Colombian Congress, where it easily passed. Within established constitutional democracies, referendums undermine the democratic process. For decisions that are so contentious and consequential, it should not be so effortless to impact the result. There will always be valid opposition to major national efforts, but these battles are worth fighting and they are best fought by the people's representatives in the halls of parliament or congress. If national budgets were put up to a popular referendum each year, would governments be able to function? Likely not. Bill Self, Kurtis Townsend won't be on sidelines for KU's first four games Midemlab: 10 Years Of Music and Music Tech Innovation This year marks the tenth year of Midemlab, a startup competition put on by Midem. Here we look at ten of the contests greatest success stories from the past ten years. ___________________________ Guest Post by Melina Druga on Midem In this series of posts from Reportlinker, we review the latest music+tech news, with one big statistic per news item. All you need to know, in figures! This year marks the 10th anniversary of Midemlab, Midems startup competition. The competition has awarded innovation in the digital music industry and recognised the potential of countless music+tech companies, including SoundCloud, The EchoNest & BandPage, to name just three. Lets look at 10 Midemlab success stories by the numbers: 2008: The year Midemlab began, although the competition was called The New Business Showcase (and subsequently MidemNet Lab), and it had no winner. Finalist Reactable has since been showcased in more than 150 concerts and has been used by many big-name artists such as Bjorkand Coldplay 175 million: The number of users 2009 winner SoundCloud has per month. Since its founding, SoundCloud has raised $123.3 million in funding. Five years after wowing the Midem crowd, the company was worth $700 million $1 billion: The amount 2010 finalist Kickstarter has seen members pledge in funding to 73,000 creative projects since its launch. The pledged funds were raised by 7.4 million members 70%: The percentage of the music industry 2011 winner Next Big Sound provides data for. That same year, the company raised $6.5 million in funding. It follows more than 3.3 billion fan-to-band connections and more than one million music artists 10 million: The number of concert tickets sold by 2012 finalist Weezevent since its launch to more than 36,000 users. In addition to being a Midemlab finalist, Weezevent was named one ofHypebots Top 15 best-music apps for 2012 and was the top company on the 2014 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 4 million: The number of songs in 2013 finalist Pulselockers music catalogue. The company has deals with 27,000 independent record labels and approximately 60 different aggregators. A deal with Merlin, the largest indie company, doubled Pulselockers catalogue. Merlin oversees 20,000-plus distributors and labels $6 million: The amount 2015 finalist Dice raised in Series A funding. The app also finalised a deal with Apple Music to give people an alternate way to enter a contest to win Apple Music Festival tickets. The British startup is installed on 40% of London smartphones owned by Millennials and has sold tickets to concerts for more than 700 artists 2 Million SEK: The amount of investment recently raised by 2016 winner, Swedens Mind Music Labs. Its investors are all keenly interested in Mind Music Labs SENSUS smart guitar. The guitar represents the evolution of instruments. In this world of AR and VR, stage musicians still use technology from the 1950s, the company says. The investment brings the company one step closer to bringing its guitar to the market. Two million also is the number of hits the company received in one week for its first music video, a demonstration of SENSUS 700%: 2016 winner Stagelinks growth between October 2015 and October 2016. During that period, the staff increased by 10 and the company sold one million tickets. Stagelink crowdsources live events and promotes tours. In June, it completed its most recent round of investing and plans to use the funds to expand internationally. $2.5 million: The amount 2016 finalist Revelator raised in its latest round of funding. The company provides data analytics and rights administration for digital assets. It plans to use the funding to grow its platform and add new features. To join these amazing music startups, look no further: submit your company for Midemlab 2017 here! With huge thanks to our faithful partners, MusicAlly & bluenove Top photo: Champeaux/Image & Co Melina Druga is an author and freelance journalist. You can follow her on Twitter @MelinaDruga. Share on: MUST READ: Well-Being In The Music Industry In this follow-up to David Emery's must read post How To Survive The Music Industry In 2017. MD and music industry veteran Darren Hemmings looks at the impact that a life in the music business can have on a person's mental health; and why music companies must do more about it. _______________________ Guest post by Darren Hemmings MD, Motive Unknown from Medium Its rare that an article prompts me to immediately write a post of my own, so hats off to David Emery whose latest blog post has prompted me to do just that. Equally I feel compelled to write this because I think it is important to stand up and show support on something eminently deserving of more awareness. Before we continue, please go and read Davids post, which discusses well being when working in the music industry, and the need for a wiser approach to working in general. It wont come as shock to anyone who knows me to hear that I agree with David wholeheartedly (except on the never file email bit thats just crazy talk!). So, lets lay down some hard truths here: Of all the people I know who work in music, more have suffered with severe anxiety issues and depression than have not. This isnt just at a certain level within music either; anyone from junior staff to senior VPs to managers of globally-known artists all fall into this, and that is a horrible, horrible thing to realize. Ive heard tales of people hiding from family when on holiday, sitting in their room checking emails on their phone, right through to comments from colleagues realizing they have no life whatsoever beyond music: no friends outside of the industry, no hobbies and nothing to actually delineate ones work life from their personal one. Across many music companies, be it labels, management or beyond, the sad reality is that the working culture is frequently toxic. Often theres an expectation to be on call 24/7, with personal devices ensuring that you can be contacted by any means such that escaping from work is all but impossible. Unsurprisingly then, the upshot of this is burnout. First may come insomnia, often thanks to checking emails before bedtime and generally not catching a mental break for work. Then eventually anxiety will kick in; a sense of panic as one feels cornered by all the work piling up and the never-ending flow of it all. Subsequent to that, if unaddressed, this may well then spiral into depression and once youre there, you are in a very, VERY dark place indeed; one in which your means to enjoy happiness of any sort is almost switched off, and one may even find themselves calmly contemplating drastic, horrific measures to escape this utterly horrible situation. Sounds dramatic right? Well sadly, this is the reality too many people face within the music business. The MUSIC business! Not the nuclear disarmament business. Not the cancer treatment business. Not the aid-work-in-Aleppo business. Music. That, when you consider it for even a small time, is completely, utterly ridiculous. So, lets lay down another hard truth: Most music businesses do not do enough to address this. Based purely on the breadth of people I know working in music, it is clear that the majority of music companies do very little to ensure their employees are properly protected in any way. Few rules are put in place and it is almost a given that one should be working 24/7. Furthermore, operating a you can come and talk to HR policy isnt good enough. The failing of that logic is that any employee should suffer at the hands of poor working practice and then come and flag it, rather than simply addressing the issue at source. Sorry, but thats just not good enough. The bitter irony to me is that a more simple truth lies in plain sight and yet remains unaddressed, specifically: happy workers do better jobs. It sounds blindingly obvious, right? And yet, very little is done to address this in my opinion. Now lets be clear: work cannot be a never-ending round of laughs. There will always be stressful periods, and there will always be bad days for whatever reason, or occasionally even the odd late night as one works to get things finished. But and this is a crucial but there is a world of difference between the occasional stressful moment and an ongoing cycle of over-working that affects peoples mental health. But this doesnt just affect the music industry! I hear you cry and youd be right. However that response offers some kind of get-out here; it is the kind of view that says well everyone else is as bad, so thats just how it is. That does not make it right, sorry. I feel strongly that change should begin with ones self, and so a few months ago I committed to ensuring that at Motive Unknown the wellbeing of my staff is paramount. Im not perfect by any means, but I am trying to ensure that my team are happy and that nobody feels like they are being drowned in work such that theyre working consistently long days with no time for a personal life. Monstrous profit is not my sole intent as the business owner: yes we have to make money, but that should be balanced with a generally happy and healthy life. As stated above, I actually think this also ensures that my staff do a much better job in general. Creativity is ridiculously high. Clarity of thought is fantastic, and the level of organisation in the team has led to a running joke that the most poorly-organised person in the company is now me, the guy who owns it. We commit time to figuring out how to work more intelligently, and now make good use of things like Slack bots and other platforms to remove some of the donkey work tasks, which in turn ensures we have more time to get work done within standard hours and generally work to a higher level. And therein lies the irony: by focusing on having happy, healthy staff wherever possible, I firmly believe Motive Unknown operates to a significantly greater level. Put simply: we are a much better company because the staff are all in good shape. Is that such a strange notion to grasp? So I would like to ask one thing of every music company out there, whether you employ 5 people or 500: send around an anonymous questionnaire to your staff asking them how they feel about their working life; their thoughts on things like their working hours, whether theyve suffered panic attacks, anxiety or sought help for depression should all be asked. Do that and if you get happy, healthy responses, I will congratulate you. And if you dont? Ask yourself what you can do to address this, because if nothing else you have a moral duty of care to your staff. Additionally though, you will get a better working culture, lower staff turnover and dare I say it most likely a better-functioning organisation on the whole. Lets not allow this debate to go away. Change can and should be made. MORE: David Emery's must read post How To Survive The Music Industry In 2017. Share on: YouTubes Safe Harbor: The Push For Reform With YouTube being the most used streaming service in the world, the pressure is building from major artists for a reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which currently grants the video site safe harbor provisions harmful to artists. ______________________ Guest post by Michael Kostaras from Berklee's Music Business Journal. Music industry pressure is mounting on YouTube. In June, a diverse group of 180+ major artists, including Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift, released a petition calling for a reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which grants safe harbor provisions to the video service. The open letter ran as a three-day ad in the Politico, Roll Call, and The Hill.1 Behind it, stood key trade players, notably the three major labels and the PROs, i.e. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. Industry heavy weights chipped in too. Trent Reznor, Music Chief Creative Officer for Apple Music and ex Nine Inch Nails, argued that You Tubes business model, owned by Google, was served on a gratis platter built on the backs of free, stolen content.2 Industry mogul and manager Irving Azoff, a Billboard most powerful personality of 2012, remarked on YouTubes unfair [legal] advantage.3 Context With an average of over 1 billion users per month, YouTube is the most-used streaming service in the world. According to the IFPIs Music Consumer Insight Report, 82% of those 1 billion users are listening to music.4 Now that streaming, and YouTube in particular, have become such strong market drivers, their role in compensating artists is more important than ever; hence the increasing dissatisfaction from the industry. According to Forbes, research conducted by MIDiA indicated that between 2014 and 2015, total views increased 132%, whereas rights payments only increased 11%. This would actually mean YouTube/Vevos pay per-stream rate decreased from $0.0020 to $0.0010 for that year.5In that same time, Spotify (which has a higher number of paid subscribers) reported paying between $0.006 to $0.0084 per-stream.6 In the past, ad-based revenue was more feasible than a flat rate per stream. However, as the number of paying subscribers grows, along with streaming revenue, the ad-based remuneration is proving to be insufficient for the industry at large. The DMCA, (section 512 of the U.S. Copyright Law) is important to YouTubes current model, because it grants safe harbor to digital service providers under specific circumstances. Essentially, safe harbor provisions state that these services are not legally responsible for the uploading of unlicensed content by their users provided they either compensate the rightsholders or remove content when it is found to be infringing. However, YouTubes especially high user rate gives it a unique position as a marketing platform, to the point where even established artists cant afford not to leave their music up. The result of this bargaining power means YouTube is often able to host copyright protected web content on its free tier, without necessarily acquiring the proper license. Or if it does, it may not always offer fair compensation. The CO and the EU The June petition is notable in that it may be the most assertive call to arms made by the music industry. Moreover, it is clear that the U.S. Copyright Office is listening, for it is currently conducting a public study of the DMCA to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the safe harbor provisions contained in section 512 of title 17, United States Code.7 As of the April 1 deadline, the Copyright Office reportedly received over 92,000 written submissions of public commentary on the matter. In May, roundtable discussions were held in San Francisco and New York. When released, the much anticipated report should shed some light on the costs and burdens of the notice-and-takedown process on large- and small-scale copyright owners, online service providers, and the general public, and how successfully section 512 addresses online infringement and protects against improper takedown notices. The end result may be critical in deciding whether or not YouTube is overstepping its bounds as a neutral party, and in what capacity it will be allowed to proceed with its current business and compensation practices. At the same time, the European Commission is also taking some important first steps with its own safe harbor provisions to ensure artists see better compensation for their work. On September 14, the EC published its new proposals to update copyright in the EU. Articles 13 and 14 are pertinent to YouTube. These articles discuss the storage, use, and access of protected works by information service providers. Service providers, it is argued, must take proper measures to allow rights holders to manage the use and access of their protected works. The EU advocates the adoption of recognition technologies to take down a protected work if a rights holder wants it. And because Europe has a history of being more bullish in the defense of copyright, the estimation is that the use of new recognition technologies may serve creators better there than, for example, YouTubes Content ID system does in the US (more on this later). Service providers in Europe must also keep rights holders informed as to the carrying out of those measures, and report on any recognition or removal of said works. They must also offer a way for users to notify them of any disputes or errors regarding the removal of content. In particular, Article 14 is intended to create more transparency surrounding fair compensation for any protected work. It states that, authors and performers must receive timely, adequate and sufficient information regarding the exploitation of their works, along with revenue generated and remuneration due.8 Economics YouTube says that it is good for the industry. It claims that fan-uploaded content accounts for 50% of the $3 billion revenue it pays the business, making it a highly effective promotional tool for musicians. It points out that it debuted YouTube Red, a monthly-paid subscription service exclusively for users in the United States which provides advertising-free streaming of videos hosted by the service, offline and background playback of videos on mobile devices, and access to advertising-free music streaming. This should provide more receipts to musicians. In addition, it has developed it own app, YouTube Music to better catalogue, as it puts it, its sprawling catalogue of song videos.9 This may be so, but given the vast number of YouTube users, the question is whether its ad-supported revenue service can ever match, as perhaps it should, subscription services like Spotify. The IFPI, the international trade body of the record labels, has repeatedly made the point that, in 2015, the 68 million global users of subscription based services paid the record companies $2 billion; those same companies received only $634 million from YouTube with nearly fifteen times more users.10 Therefore, out of the $3 billion YouTube claims it redistributes back to the music business, only a fifth seems to go back to the recording business. In effect, YouTube seems to be paying publishers more money for the song composition than it pays for the master recording an unusual occurrence in the music business. The problem for YouTube is that the labels have more clout and deeper pockets than the publishers and the PROs that collect for them. But the music publishers, which collect on the sound composition, are not happy either, so the industry conflict with YouTube will likely escalate. Another factor is the dispute over the recognition of infringing material. YouTube maintains that its Content ID technology is highly successful in recognizing and managing 99.5% of infringement claims, and that it has an overall 99.7% accuracy rate.11 The IFPI disagrees, saying that YouTube failed to identify as many as two of every five infringing works.12 There has been some progress, with the U.K.s Intellectual Property Office reporting last year a drop from 63% to 58% in the use of YouTube by infringers, but the music industry clearly sees a greater schism there than YouTube does.13 It must be said too that the conflict with YouTube is happening against a changing backdrop in the business. In 2015, the recording industry had its first year of growth since Napster. Reports are also encouraging about the future of recorded music. In the US, the Recording Industry Association of Americas mid-year report for 2016 puts labels revenue growth at 8.1%, with streaming retail income accounting for one of every five dollars made and offsetting declines in both physical and digital sales.14 Thus, the marginal value of YouTube in label income stands in relative contrast, and the video giant is perceived ever more as devaluing recording product when at last it is becoming better monetized. YouTubes Case Naturally, there are arguments to be made on YouTubes behalf. Take Google, its parent company, commenting on the new EU measures: There are things to like in the proposal [and] were pleased to see the Commission mandating more transparency and data sharing for artists and rights holders. However, Goggle continues, [excessive filtering by online services] would effectively turn the internet into a place where everything uploaded to the web must be cleared by lawyers before it can find an audience.15 Indeed, many industry players among them the IFPI but also the Independent Music Publishers Forum (IMPF) and the UK Performing Rights Society (PRS) are concerned that if the new EU legislation doesnt empower member States with the necessary authority to carry out the new mandate, the results could be counterproductive and hurt the livelihood of European songwriters, for it will provide a cover to the status quo. Clear regulatory guidance may be needed on both sides of the Atlantic for YouTube to be reigned in, but the dilemma is that this could stifle originality. From Googles and YouTubes perspective, moreover, account should be taken of the fact that YouTube music videos are per se a small part of YouTubes entire video catalog, which of course means that music related ad revenues cannot be relative to the total number of YouTube users as the IFPI, among others, would wish. If the new measures are to be fair, in short, the principle of proportionality should apply. Perhaps the strongest argument pro-YouTube is its function as a marketing trampoline for indie and breaking artists. Rising stars like Bieber, the Weeknd, Karmin, and Shawn Mendes, among others, have seen their careers skyrocket thanks to the video giant. Indeed, Digital Music News writes that Silicon Valley has built the recording industry a vast and powerful new global platform for content distribution and monetization all for free,16 and Music Ally seems to agree that user-upload platforms have generated huge new value for unsigned and independent creators by affording them tools to reach a worldwide audience.[17] Both dailies are inclined to praise YouTubes long-term role in the music business. Conclusion Moving forward, the problem for YouTube is one of size. Its page views and unique users make it the second highest ranked website in the world after Google. It surpasses Facebook. In this context, the music recording and publishing industries are no longer prepared to stay on the sidelines and just gratefully acknowledge YouTubes role in promoting music and, often, new talent. As YouTubes ad earnings grow in tandem with its popularity it is being perceived as a beneficiary of proprietary sound recording and musical compositions that demand more consideration at a time when consumers of music are demonstrably paying more for it and are expected to continue doing so in the future. The reform of longstanding safe harbor provisions, and their relationship to music making, are in the end a discussion about how the shares of recorded music product should be distributed over the Internet. So far the spoils have gone to the colonists, i.e. the technology companies and, particularly, YouTube. But the trend has been for sites that trade in user-uploaded content to go legal and move away from free music. SoundCloud is the best example (see MBJ, Apr 2016). YouTube, therefore, would do well to be perceived as a neutral and passive host of music, not just for its own long-term engagement with the industry but to stay within the confines of the newer, and likely more binding, safe harbor provisions. By Michael Kostaras __________________ Endnotes: Billboard. (2016, June 20). Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Among 180 Artists Signing Petition For Digital Copyright Reform. Retrieved from Yahoo!: https://www.yahoo.com/music/taylor-swift-paul-mccartney-among-180-artists-signing-100300269.html Halperin, S. (2016, June 14). Apples Brain Trust Iovine, Reznor, Cue and Kondrk on Streamings New World Order and Why We All Should Be Worried. Retrieved from Billboard: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/7407889/apples-brain-trust-iovine-reznor-cue-and-kondrk-on Levine, R. (2016, May 05). Its a System That Is Rigged Against the Artists: The War Against YouTube. Retrieved from Billboard: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/7357360/its-a-system-that-is-rigged-against-the-artists-the-war International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. (2016). Music Consumer Insight Report 2016. Carpenter, S. (2016, July 12). More People Are Streaming YouTube Music But Its Paying Artists Less, Report Says. Retrieved from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelbycarpenter/2016/07/12/more-people-streaming-youtube-music-paying-less-artists/ 2e13eb385555 Spotify. (n.d.). How is Spotify Contributing to the Music Business? Retrieved from Spotify Artists: https://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/ United States Copyright Office. (n.d.). Section 512 Study. Retrieved September 2016, from Copyright.gov: http://www.copyright.gov/policy/section512/ European Comission. (2016). Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the Digital Single Market. Muller, C. (2016, April 28). YouTube: No other platform gives as much money back to creators. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/apr/28/youtube-no-other-platform-gives-as-much-money-back-to-creators IFPI, Global Music Report 2015, 22. Muller, C. (2016, April 28), loc.cit. Music Ally. (2016, 09 14). Music Industry Welcomes EC Copyright Proposal as A Good First Step. http://musically.com/2016/09/14/music-industry-welcomes-ec-copyright-proposal-as-a-good-first-step/ Smirke, R. (2016, July 08). YouTube Leads Music Consumption While Piracy Dips, According to U.K. Government Survey. Retrieved from Billboard: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/7431176/youtube-leads-music-consumption-while-piracy-dips Recording Industry Association of America. (2016). 2016 Mid-Year RIAA Shipment and Revenue Statistics. Google. (2016, September 14). European copyright: theres a better way. Retrieved from Googles Europe Blog: https://europe.googleblog.com/2016/09/european-copyright-theres-better-way.html Shapiro, G. (2016, September 07). Why the DMCA Is the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Artists. Retrieved from Digital Music News: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/09/07/dmca-best-thing-ever-artists/ Reed Smith Entertainment and Media Group. (2016, Semptember 20). Analysing the European Commissions Copyright Reform Proposals. Retrieved from Music Ally: http://musically.com/2016/09/20/analysing-the-european-commissions-copyright-reform-proposals/ Share on: Were going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us, president-elect Donald J. Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post.Furthermore, he promised that citizens covered under the new law can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better.The Washington Post conducted a telephone interview over the weekend with President-elect Trump, in which he also revealed that his administration is nearing completion of a universal health care plan to replace Obamacare, which has drawn flak since its 2014 enactment due to floundering exchanges that hemorrhaged financially from slow adoption.However, the new President declined to reveal further details of the plan, except that he has taken into consideration the possibility that 20 million Americans are bound to lose health insurance coverage with the repeal of Obamacare.Trump was further reported to have said that he expects the full cooperation of the Republican-dominated legislature to expedite the passing of the measure, along with tax cuts, and the approval of the construction of a wall along the Mexico border.If Congress drags its heels over the proposed law, The Washington Post reported that the new president is ready to use the power of the presidency - and Twitter - to usher his legislation to pass. Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage. I know some on the left do not get this but the job belongs to the employer. The labor is worth what the employer is willing to pay to get the work done. Minimum wage is the wage that is paid to those just starting out at a job. If a person is still making minimum wage after being on the job for a year, it is because they are only worth... minimum wage. If they were worth more, they'd have already earned a promotion and raise or they would have went to work somewhere else for money. Another novel idea, work two jobs. Have two working parents in the home. I know, those are not concepts that the left embraces. They feel the employer owes a person a wage high enough to take care of his or her families needs regardless of what they are doing for the employer. Yet, when they buy a car, they don't walk in and pay more than sticker. They don't walk in and pay more than the grocery total at the register. As we reported last week (see article ), a deal has been struck between the USA and the European Union that has the potential to release as much as $40 billion that European reinsurers must hold as collateral in the USA. So where has the deal come from?The deal finds its base in the US Dodd-Frank reform and represents the culmination of four years of discussions. It was presented to US Congress on Friday, and the timing is notably significant. Incoming President Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle the reforms and so the deal was pushed during the last session before his official arrival at the White House.The Federal insurance Office and the European Commission struck the deal but the agreement still requires approval in Congress and at parliamentary level in Europe. It is estimated that it could take around five years to officially push through.The deal works two ways and is referred to as a covered agreement.The idea is that reinsurers based in the European Union will benefit by not needing to hold collateral in business they write across the USA.Meanwhile, US reinsurers will also benefit from a promise that they too will not need to post collateral to operation businesses in the European Union.In addition, the regulation that European regulators can apply to US reinsurers (and vice versa) has also been reduced.News of the deal has largely been welcomed across the reinsurance industry. Leigh Ann Pusey, chief executive of the American Insurance Association, told the Financial Times that the agreement would allow US insurers and reinsurers to compete in their markets without the costly and duplicative regulations being imposed on them under Solvency II.Meanwhile, Chris Jones, a director of legal and market services at the International Underwriting Association told the publication that the deal creates a more level playing field in terms of collateral treatment and mutual recognition. Munich Re , one of the largest reinsurance companies in the world, also cautiously welcomed the agreement, although it did note that it was yet to examine all of its details. Willis Towers Watson has appointed long-time executive Alexis Faber as global head of financial lines.In her new role, Faber will be responsible for the strategic direction of the financial lines business, which is part of the companys corporate risk and broking segment.Faber will lead a team of more than 800 professionals around the world to help Willis Towers Watson in its efforts to become the leading risk advisor for clients across financial and executive lines, financial solutions and other financial products.Faber will keep reporting to Todd Jones, the global head of corporate risk and broking. She will also continue to be responsible for the strategic direction of the companys international cyber business.We are thrilled to have Alexis leading this important business for Willis Towers Watson, Jones said. Her strong background in financial lines, combined with her broad financial, operational and leadership experience, will help us execute on our strategy in corporate risk and broking.Faber has more than 16 years of experience in the insurance and financial services industry. She previously served at Willis as co-head of global financial lines and leader of FINEX in North America.Before joining Willis in 2003, she worked in investment banking at Citigroup with a focus on the financial services Industry. 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WHIPPLE CREEK REALTY WILLIAM PITT SOTHEBY'S - GT BARRINGTON WILLIAM PITT SOTHEBY'S - LENOX WILLIAM PITT SOTHEBY'S - SALISBURY WILLIAM PITT SOTHEBY'S INTERNATIONAL REALTY WILLIAM PITT SOTHEBY'S INTERNATIONAL REALTY, LENOX WILLIAM RAVEIS REAL ESTATE Williamstown Realty Group WITALISZ & ASSOCIATES, INC. WOLCOTT REALTY www.HomeZu.com ZOE MELISSA HIRSCH REAL ESTATE All Saints Parish is helping ensure every third-grader in the North Adams Public learns how to swim. PreviousNext North Adams Third-Graders Get Free Swimming Lessons Kids splash at the YMCA last Tuesday. NORTH ADAMS, Mass. All North Adams third-graders will be provided free swim lessons through a donation from All Saints Episcopal Church and the Northern Berkshire Family YMCA. According to the National Safe Kids Campaign, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death to children ages 1 through 14. But through donations from the All Saints parish, all North Adams third-graders will learn a life skill that could save their lives. "The goal of this program is to get every third grader to know how to swim because that is the age and the grade where the most drownings occur," YMCA CEO and Executive Director Randy Kinnas said. "In our area, there is a lot of open water and a lot of backyard pools and one of the big misconceptions is that most drownings occur in the deep end but most drownings happen in the shallow end." Every Tuesday after school, third-graders are bused to the YMCA next to Brayton School for free lessons. Students learn in small groups throughout the afternoon. The swim lessons are funded by the church's Children's Fund that has been supported through weekly loose-plate donations from parishioners and boosted by a $10,000 donation made by Senior Warden Bob Blair and his wife, Linda. School Committee member John Hockridge said the program exemplifies the district and the community working together to better the community. 'The Apples of our I: iPhone Photography and iPad Paintings' will teach people how to to cool and artsy things with their i gadgets. Berkshires Beat: OLLI Opens Spring Classes Lifelong learning: OLLI, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Berkshire Community College, kicks off its winter semester of classes this month in Pittsfield and Great Barrington. OLLI is a membership organization that offers over 80 classes, talks, workshops, events and trips a year, designed especially by and for people 50 years old and up. There is no educational requirement for joining OLLI, just a love of learning for the sake of learning. The classes have no tests, no grades and no required homework. Winter OLLI classes in Pittsfield include "International Folk Dance," "Ancient Writing Systems," "The Many Faces of Addictions," "Todays Headlines," "The Apples of our I: iPhone Photography and iPad Paintings" and "Bach is Back." In Great Barrington, classes are held on Tuesdays, including "Tuesdays at the Movies: Great Parodies" (held at the Triplex Cinema), "Travel Photography for Everyone" and "Cracking the Medieval Glass Ceiling: Women Writers of the Middles Ages." On Fridays the Berkshire Museum hosts three accessible science classes: "Science Conversations," a moderated discussion of the latest scientific advances as written about in the Science Tuesday section of the New York Times; "Advances in Medicine," featuring three different doctors discussing the latest medical advances in their field; and "A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words: Understanding Visual Perceptual Phenomena" on the neurology of seeing. OLLI membership is $50 a year and allows people to enroll in up to four semesters of classes, join a variety of free Shared Interest Groups, enjoy discounts from cultural partners, and much more. OLLI's programs are designed especially by and for people 50 years old and up, but are open to all. For more information about joining OLLI and the programs it offers, visit their website or call 413-236-2190 to request a free catalog. History in action: The Mass Humanities Board of Directors voted to offer an Open Discussion Grant to the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum in Adams for "Overcoming the Impossible: A Speaker Series on the Era of Reform." The funding will ensure that all guests can attend these discussions without admission. The grant will cover the cost of the speakers/performers and advertising costs. The series will link the reforms of Susan B Anthony's time period with the obstacles we face today that directly correlate with the mission of the museum. Susan B Anthony was involved is nearly every reform from the mid-1800s to the end of her life in 1906; however, as we near the 100th Anniversary of Suffrage, we are reminded that there is still quite a bit of work left to do. The series will begin with the annual birthday celebration on Feb. 12. This year, the museum has invited actress and performer Judith Black to come in as Lucy Stone, an abolitionist and suffragist who fought for wage equity and educational reform who believed that women were not the property of their husbands and refused to take her husbands name. For more information, visit the museum's website. Great Barringtons facility, which maintains 35 miles of sewer line and six pumping stations throughout Great Barrington and Housatonic, was recognized for its exceptional organization and exemplary maintenance program. iciHaiti - Business : Conciliation and Arbitration for Investors The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti (CCIH), the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration of Haiti (CCAH) affiliated to the CCIH, and the Center of Facilitation of the Investments (CFI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as part of a strengthening plan and their desire to offer Haitian and foreign investors effective solutions to resolve trade disputes, that are the Mediation and Arbitration. The signatories to this protocol were Carline Joseph, President of the CCIH, Wilhelm Lemke, President of the CCAH and Norma Powell, Director General of the CFI. "The protocol is to arrive at an arbitration clause for all contracts, agreements and approvals. It allows disputes that arise in any relationship to be settled much more quickly, within a maximum of 6 months, where the cost is known in advance by the parties," said Wilhelm Lemke, pointing out that the decision, once taken, protects the relationship. Thus any entrepreneur can contact its Chamber of Commerce through the 10 departments of the country to be advised or to explain what it would like to settle. IH/ iciHaiti A Monroe Avenue eatery near Oregon State University has switched its focus from hot dogs to something far sweeter doughnuts. Death by Donutz took over the interior space of Roxy Dawgs over winter break, said Curtis Fisher, who owns both businesses. What we have here is a full line of classic doughnuts and a classic doughnut shop feel, Fisher said. In addition to that, we have a line of designer doughnuts that are kind of unusual. That means theres everything from maple bars and old fashioned doughnuts to a bananas Foster fritter, root-beer-float-flavored-cream-filled goodies and more. Doughnuts have become a bit trendy, and there isnt much competition for those treats in Corvallis compared to normal food, Fisher said. Hot dog sales leveled off, and he was looking to make a change after purchasing Roxy Dawgs five years ago. Hot dogs will continue to be sold from a walk-up window at the Cobblestone Square business, but customers can bring those inside to eat. The hot dog offerings, however, have been streamlined, and there arent as many condiments, for example. Fisher said the transition to running a doughnut shop has been fairly smooth, in part because he worked at a one in college and he later was a wedding cake decorator, which translates well to doughnuts with frosting or creme on top. Presentation is important, Fisher said. Of course, he still has to come in to work in the wee hours to make the doughnuts now, which is a change. Unlike many other campus-based eateries, Death by Donutz is running full swing in the morning, and that alleviates the parking problems near OSU. The reason people dont want to drive to campus doesnt exist during doughnut hours, Fisher said. OSU students Holly Chapman of Sisters, an environmental science major, and Alex Leahy, from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and majoring in geology, said they welcomed Death by Donutz as there werent many breakfast options along Monroe Avenue and the only other doughnut shop in Corvallis is downtown. Its nice to have the classics nearby, Chapman said. A lot of students, its hard for them to get away. Breaks between classes, this is a nice place, Leahy added. Death by Donutz also offers a twist on the traditional breakfast sandwich, where customers can get a cheese and bacon or sausage stuffed doughnut, glazed or unglazed. Classic doughnuts cost $1.25 each or $12 for a dozen while designer doughnuts cost $2.25 each or $22 for a dozen. Death by Donutz, 1425 Monroe Ave. Suite G, is open 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Friday and Saturday, the business is also open from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. to catch people leaving the bar scene or otherwise out late in Corvallis. (Roxy Dawgs is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday through Saturday and also late on the weekend.) For more information on Death by Donutz, call 541-207-3351 or go to the business Facebook page. Ahmed El Amoury A foreign construction company in Qatar recently won a lawsuit in relation to a dispute with a local company. This case is significant because the competent court applied and upheld the principle of personal freedom and the rights of movement set out in the Qatari Constitution. These hold that personal freedom and the rights of movement outside the state should not be restricted except in accordance with the law. Background A local company (the claimant) filed a civil case against a foreign company (the defendant) requesting the court to issue a judgment obligating the defendant to pay a ratio of five percent of the total sum of the contracted project, in addition to compensation of QAR 1,000,000 (approximately $275, 000). Simultaneously, the claimant submitted a request for the court to impose a travel ban against the defendant's representatives (the managers and authorised signatories). The claimant's grounds for the request were that the defendant may smuggle the company's assets outside Qatar. The competent judge issued an order imposing a travel ban against the defendant's representatives. The defendant's representatives (the petitioners) appealed the decision regarding the imposition of the travel ban before the court of first instance, based on the following reasons: the defendant, for which the petitioners work, is one of the largest foreign construction companies, maintains a high level of creditability and executes large projects in Qatar. Thus, the fear that the defendant may dissipate the defendant's assets was unreasonable; the order imposing the travel ban violated article 36 of the Qatari Constitution. This stipulates that personal freedom is guaranteed. No person may be arrested, detained or searched, and his stay or his freedom of residence or movement restricted except in accordance with provisions of the law; and the defendant is a limited liability company which has a separate legal personality independent of its shareholders and so the shareholders are not responsible for the company's debts. The Court of Cassation in appeal number 37 of 2008 stated that a limited liability company has its financial disclosure which is independent from its partners' custody and hence the representative director of this company has his own financial disclosure that is independent from it. Thus, he is not responsible for its debts and not asked to fulfil them with his own money. In view of the above, the petitioners argued that the court's order preventing them from travelling restricted their freedom in breach of the principle of freedom of movement guaranteed by the Qatari Constitution and the provisions of the Commercial Companies law. The reasoning for this was twofold. Firstly, the petitioners are not personally liable to the claimant for the financial commitments of the defendant. Therefore, even in the event the court issues a verdict against the defendant, the petitioners should not be held responsible for paying the value of this debt. Thus, the travel ban does not guarantee any rights to the claimant. Secondly, there is no merit to the claimant's claim and no factual evidence was presented to support the claimant's allegations. Hence, the travel ban constituted a violation of the provisions of the Qatari Constitution, which requires a high threshold for the instances under which the freedom of persons may be restricted and confirms that such instances must be kept to a minimum. The case at hand did not satisfy the threshold of seriousness that must be applied in issuing a travel ban, particularly because the claimant's request was not based on any substantiated evidence. Ruling of the court of first instance The court of first instance accepted the petitioners' arguments and issued a judgment revoking the travel ban based on the following reasons: The claimed amount in this case was not substantiated in fact to the petitioners personally. It was established that the defendant is a credible company with a project value exceeding QAR 2 billion (approximately $550 million). In addition, the project was extended for an additional duration. Therefore, there was no fear that the defendant may dissipate any of the claimant's claimed assets. The petitioners' arguments were legally correct since the defendant has an independent juristic person separate from its shareholders. Thus, the managers should not be held personally responsible for the defendant's debts except in the circumstances determined by the law. The freedom of movement is guaranteed by virtue of the constitution; it is prohibited to place restrictions on this freedom except for serious reasons. The claimant did not submit an appeal for this judgment, which therefore became final. This judgment is a clear example of the court's application of the provisions of the Qatari Constitution, which uphold a person or persons' freedom of movement without any restrictions. The judgment has confirmed that a travel ban should be restricted to circumstances where there are serious reasons justifying its imposition, such as if the debtor will flee the country or transfer his assets outside Qatar. It should be subject to the applicant's ability to provide prima facie evidence that such risks exist. The judgment should allay limited liability managers' fears that a travel ban may be imposed against them for the debts or liabilities of their company. Ahmed El Amoury Travelers passing through the community 10 miles east of Lebanon known as Lacomb can be forgiven for not really knowing they've been there. They might notice the Lacomb Grocery on the corner of Meridian and East Lacomb Road, or the K-8 school about a block farther on. Otherwise, not much distinguishes the area. But longterm residents know it wasn't always that way, and they can now remember anytime they see the new sign up at Lacomb Grocery. The 4-foot-by-8-foot sign is sort of a mini mural and a testament to the history of the former town, which lost its post office in 1966 and is now considered a part of nearby Lebanon. Bill Babb, who owns the store with his wife, Connie, commissioned the sign late last year and put it up about a month ago just inside the front door. His plan is to give the store a front-wall makeover sometime this summer and move the sign there, putting it behind a plexiglass frame to keep it safe from both human- and weather-related elements. Babb said he's long wanted to have a real, outdoor mural on one of the walls of the grocery store. He was searching for a local artist to produce one when he met Londa Anklam, who lives in the area. Anklam, a former professional sign painter, has a truck she custom-painted with pictures of eagles. Babb had admired the truck, and got to talking with her one day in the store about how some of Lacomb's history could be immortalized in paint. From that discussion, the sign project was born. Babb procured books from a neighbor and local historian and pored over old photos, including one of the store from the turn of the last century. He learned the town incorporated in either 1886 or 1889 depending on the source had tried to start existence as "Tacoma," but the name was shot down because of duplication elsewhere. Anklam's painting depicts the store as it was in its early days, with the windmill behind it that can be seen in a photo from 1913. Other parts of the sign pay tribute to photos and local memories that recall a community that once boasted three grocery stories, two service stations, a skating rink and a dance hall. Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries grew everywhere in the area, supporting two "berry stations" and countless family paychecks. The building that became the grocery started as a livery stable and blacksmith shop in the late 1890s, Babb learned. "Sometime shortly after the turn of the century, near as we can come up with, the first guy who turned into a grocery store was named Raines," he said. Connie's parents, Clarence and Helen Middlestadt, owned the store from 1966 to 1976. Babb, who had moved to Lacomb with his family as a high school senior in 1969, met his future bride right in the middle of the family's store-owning tenure. "At that time it still had the wooden floors, the oiled wooden floors with the caulk boot marks from the loggers who would come in," Babb recalled. "It was really cool back then." Logging was king in those days, and Babb was among many young men in the area to find employment in the woods. He and most of his friends worked for Snow Peak Logging Company, part of Willamette Industries, which later became Weyerhaeuser. People lived and worked locally at the time, but that changed with each merger, each layoff, each round of industrialization that replaced workers with machinery. Babb can think of just one log truck driver who lives in Lacomb now. Everyone else he knows commutes. "Other than the people who bought the gas station and us, who bought the store. And there's a few farmers around, don't get me wrong," he said. "But for the most part, everyone works in Salem or Lebanon." "It's just not the same." Babb said he hasn't given up on the idea of a full-scale mural, and he's also received suggestions from people for additions to the sign. "Somebody came in and said, 'You forgot the post office,'" he said. "There's no reason we can't have another sign, hang it beside it, if we come up with more stuff." Anklam said she started with a basic rough sketch that Babb liked, then added details about the local history. "The more I read, the more it grew towards the way of life and not just a few key businesses," she said, adding that she hopes people who see the sign will be interested in learning more. "He told me his vision of telling the history in murals, and I felt honored to do such an important work." The content you are trying to view is exclusive to our subscribers. To unlock this article: 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 }} JRR Tolkien began writing The Fall of Gondolin while on medical leave from the First World War, 100 years ago this month. It is the first story in what would become his legendarium the mythology that underpins The Lord of the Rings. But behind the fiction was his interest in another epic act of creation: the construction of imaginary languages. That same year, on the other side of Europe, Ludwik Zamenhof died in his native Poland. Zamenhof had also been obsessed with language invention, and in 1887 brought out a book introducing his own creation. He published this under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto, which in time became the name of the language itself. The construction of imaginary languages, or conlangs, has a long history, dating back to the 12th century. And Tolkien and Zamenhof are two of its most successful proponents. Yet their aims were very different, and in fact point to opposing views of what language itself actually is. Recommended Baboon study suggests language began evolving 25 million years ago Zamenhof, a Polish Jew growing up in a country where cultural and ethnic animosity was rife, believed that the existence of a universal language was the key to peaceful co-existence. Although language is the prime motor of civilisation he wrote, difference of speech is a cause of antipathy, nay even of hatred, between people. His plan was to devise something which was simple to learn, not tied to any one nation or culture, and could thus help unite rather than divide humanity. As international auxiliary languages go, Esperanto has been very successful. At its peak, its speakers numbered in the millions, and although exact estimates are very difficult to make, even today up to a million people still use it. It has an expansive body of native literature, theres a museum in China dedicated exclusively to it, while in Japan Zamenhof himself is even honoured as a god by one particular Shinto sect who use the language. Yet it never really came close to achieving his dreams of world harmony. And at his death, with World War I tearing Europe apart, the optimism hed had for it had turned mostly to disillusion. Fantasy languages JRR Tolkien was himself a supporter of Esperanto, believing it could help unite Europe after World War I. But his personal interest in language invention was very different. His aim wasnt to enhance the world we live in, but instead to create a completely new one in fiction. He referred to it as his secret vice, and explained that for him the purpose was aesthetic rather than pragmatic. It was the creative delight in matching sound, form and meaning in entirely original ways. Tolkein in 1916 As part of the process of giving substance to the languages he was inventing, he needed to provide a mythology for them. As living, evolving entities, languages take their vitality from the cultures of the people who use them. And it was this that led to the creation of his fictional universe. The invention of languages is the foundation, he wrote. The stories were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. Culture news in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures 30 September 2016 An employee hangs works of art with "Grand Teatro" by Marino Marini (R) and bronze sculpture "Sfera N.3" by Arnaldo Pomodoro seen ahead of a Contemporary Art auction on 7 October, at Sotheby's in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 29 September 2016 Street art by Portuguese artist Odeith is seen in Dresden, during an exhibition "Magic City - art of the streets" AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 Dancers attend a photocall for the new "THE ONE Grand Show" at Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, Germany REUTERS Culture news in pictures 28 September 2016 With an array of thrift store china, humorous souvenirs and handmade tile adorning its walls and floors, the Mosaic Tile House in Venice stands as a monument to two decades of artistic collaboration between Cheri Pann and husband Gonzalo Duran REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A gallery assistant poses amongst work by Anthea Hamilton from her nominated show "Lichen! Libido!(London!) Chastity!" at a preview of the Turner Prize in London REUTERS Culture news in pictures 27 September 2016 A technician wearing virtual reality glasses checks his installation in three British public telephone booths, set up outside the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The installation allows visitors a 3-D look into the museum which has twenty-two paintings belonging to the British Royal Collection, on loan for an exhibit from 29 September 2016 till 8 January 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 An Indian artist dressed as Hindu god Shiva performs on a chariot as he participates in a religious procession 'Ravan ki Barat' held to mark the forthcoming Dussehra festival in Allahabad AFP/Getty Images Culture news in pictures 26 September 2016 Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Air Power', 1984, is displayed at the Bowie/Collector media preview at Sotheby's in New York AFP/Getty Culture news in pictures 25 September 2016 A woman looks at an untitled painting by Albert Oehlen during the opening of an exhibition of works by German artists Georg Baselitz and Albert Oehlen in Reutlingen, Germany. The exhibition runs at the Kunstverein (art society) Reutlingen until 15 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 24 September 2016 Fan BingBing (C) attends the closing ceremony of the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival at Kursaal in San Sebastian, Spain Getty Images Culture news in pictures 23 September 2016 A view of the artwork 'You Are Metamorphosing' (1964) as part of the exhibition 'Retrospektive' of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. The exhibition runs from 25 September 2016 to 1 January 2017 EPA Culture news in pictures 22 September 2016 Jo Applin from the Courtauld Institute of Art looks at Green Tilework in Live Flesh by Adriana Vareja, which features in a new exhibition, Flesh, at York Art Gallery. The new exhibition features works by Degas, Chardin, Francis Bacon and Sarah Lucas, showing how flesh has been portrayed by artists over the last 600 years PA Culture news in pictures 21 September 2016 Performers Sean Atkins and Sally Miller standing in for the characters played by Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell during a photocall for Tim Burton's "Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children" at Potters Field Park in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A detail from the blanket 'Alpine Cattle Drive' from 1926 by artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is displayed at the 'Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Arts' in Berlin. The exhibition named 'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Hieroglyphen' showing the complete collection of Berlin's Nationalgallerie works of the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and will run from 23 September 2016 until 26 February 2017 AP Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. The trade fair on photography, photokina, schowcases some 1,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and runs from 20 to 25 September. The event also features various photo exhibitions EPA Culture news in pictures 20 September 2016 A woman looks at 'Blue Poles', 1952 by Jackson Pollock during a photocall at the Royal Academy of Arts, London PA Culture news in pictures 19 September 2016 Art installation The Refusal of Time, a collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison, which features as part of the William Kentridge exhibition Thick Time, showing from 21 September to 15 January at the Whitechapel Gallery in London PA Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Artists creating one off designs at the Mm6 Maison Margiela presentation during London Fashion Week Spring/Summer collections 2017 in London Getty Images Culture news in pictures 18 September 2016 Bethenny Frankel attends the special screening of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" to celebrate the 25th Anniversary Edition release on Blu-Ray and DVD in New York City Getty Images for Walt Disney Stu Culture news in pictures 17 September 2016 Visitors attend the 2016 Oktoberfest beer festival at Theresienwiese in Munich, Germany Getty Images Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Visitors looks at British artist Damien Hirst work of art 'The Incomplete Truth', during the 13th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled 'The World, Europe and Ukraine: storms of changes', organised by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation at the Mystetsky Arsenal Art Center in Kiev AP Culture news in pictures 16 September 2016 Tracey Emin's "My Bed" is exhibited at the Tate Liverpool as part of the exhibition Tracey Emin And William Blake In Focus, which highlights surprising links between the two artists Getty Images Culture news in pictures 15 September 2016 Musician Dave Grohl (L) joins musician Tom Morello of Prophets of Rage onstage at the Forum in Inglewood, California Getty Images Culture news in pictures 14 September 2016 Model feebee poses as part of art installation "Narcissism : Dazzle room" made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo. Matsuyama's installation features a strong contrast of black and white, which he learned from dazzle camouflage used mainly in World War I AP Culture news in pictures 13 September 2016 Visitors look at artworks by Chinese painter Cui Ruzhuo during the exhibition 'Glossiness of Uncarved Jade' held at the exhibition hall 'Manezh' in St. Petersburg, Russia. More than 200 paintings by the Chinese artist are presented until 25 September EPA Culture news in pictures 12 September 2016 A visitor looks at Raphael's painting 'Extase de Sainte Cecile', 1515, from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence during the opening of a Raphael exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia. The first Russian exhibition of the works of the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino includes eight paintings and three drawings which come from Italy. Th exhibit opens to the public from 13 September to 11 December EPA Culture news in pictures 11 September 2016 Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd perform during Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration - Rehearsals at the Macon City Auditorium in Macon, Georgia Getty Images for Otis Redding 75 Culture news in pictures 10 September 2016 Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall in London PA Culture news in pictures 9 September 2016 A visitor walks past a piece entitled "Fruitcake" by Joana Vasconcelo, during the Beyond Limits selling exhibition at Chatsworth House near Bakewell REUTERS Culture news in pictures 8 September 2016 A sculpture of a crescent standing on the 2,140 meters high mountain 'Freiheit' (German for 'freedom'), in the Alpstein region of the Appenzell alps, eastern Switzerland. The sculpture is lighted during the nights by means of solar panels. The 38-year-old Swiss artist and atheist Christian Meier set the crescent on the peak to start a debate on the meaning of religious symbols - as summit crosses - on mountains. 'Because so many peaks have crosses on them, it struck me as a great idea to put up an equally absurd contrast'. 'Naturally I wanted to provoke in a fun way. But it goes beyond that. The actions of an artist should be food for thought, both visually and in content' EPA Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures Culture news in pictures And how about conlangs today? A hundred years after the death of Zamenhof, in many ways the art of language construction is as popular as ever. One of the most celebrated current examples is Dothraki, from Game of Thrones. Created by David J Peterson for Game of Thrones, the televised version of George RR Martins novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, the inspiration for this can be traced back to both Zamenhof and Tolkien. Zamenhof in 1908 It was while taking a course on Esperanto at university that Peterson first became interested in conlangs, while Martin has spoken of the way that his saga is, in many ways, a response to The Lord of the Rings. And as a tribute he includes various small linguistic references to Tolkiens world: warg, for example, meaning someone who can project his consciousness into the minds of animals, is a word Tolkien uses for a large species of wolf. So overall one would have to say that its the Tolkienian tradition of fantasy world-building that has prevailed. There are perhaps two reasons for this. Recommended Manchester by the Sea and the silent language of grief The first is linguistic. Paradoxically, Tolkiens concept is closer to how languages actually work in the real world. His Elvish languages as they are depicted throughout his work are living, changing things, which evolve to reflect the culture of the communities who speak them. The idea of an international auxiliary language, on the other hand, is to provide a stable, unchanging code, which can be easily learnt by anyone. But human languages are never static; theyre always dynamic. So Esperanto has a fundamental flaw built into its very conception. And the second reason? Well, maybe these days were happier to dedicate ourselves to the creation of fantasy worlds, rather than looking for ways to repair our own. Philip Seargeant, senior lecturer in applied linguistics, The Open University. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) 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 }} A week before the 2017 Oscar nominations are announced, HD versions of the big contenders have once again leaked online. This happens pretty much every year now and is down to the fact that all voters are sent DVD screeners of the films in contention. One of these inevitably finds its way onto torrent sites for each film, and a quick look shows that La La Land, Arrival, Moonlight, Silence, Lion, Jackie and more are all now available to pirate. DVD quality versions of Arrival now sit atop the camera-shot ones on torrent sites Poor quality versions of some of the movies, filmed in the cinema (usually labelled camrip), have been up for a while, but now HD versions are attracting many seeds, identifiable by a DVDscr or BRscr (blu-ray) tag. The cache of leaked screeners came a little later than usual this year, possibly down to crackdowns on piracy, possible down to major pirate group Hive-CM8 declaring it would no longer release any films before theyve been in theatres. Finally first quality release, we do think this is a hot title and we decided to share it with the public, the group wrote in a pretty brazen release note for La La Land, encouraging other Oscar insiders to share their treasure. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Show all 19 1 /19 Early Oscars 2017 contenders Early Oscars 2017 contenders La La Land Whiplash director Damien Chapelle opens this years Venice Film Festival with this original musical starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as a couple of dreamers trying to make it big in Hollywood: she, a lonely aspiring actress; he, a cocky jazz pianist. The trailer promises a neon-soaked, dreamy take on the classic Golden Age musical, all big-hearted romance and wholesome glamour. Expect La La Land to explore some darker emotional territory alongside all the toe-tapping, too. In cinemas here on 13 January. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Silence Martin Scorseses passion project since 1991 is yet to receive a release date but rumours abound that it will be out in time for the Oscars. Based on a novel of the same name by Japanese author Shusaku Endo, the story centres on two Jesuit missionaries sent to 17th century Japan to spread Christianity and find their mentor Once there, they endure brutal persecution at the time of Kakura Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) following the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion. Silence sounds weighty, intense and full of hard-hitting promise. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi director Ang Lee has narrowly missed out on a Best Picture win twice now but this adaptation of Ben Fountains acclaimed novel could be the film that finally wins him some overdue glory. The cast includes Kristen Stewart and Vin Diesel with newcomer Joe Alwyn in the lead as 19-year-old soldier Billy, who is brought home for a victory tour after serving in Iraq. Told in flashbacks, the drama reveals the horror of what really happened to his squad in contrast to Americas flashy, patriotic perceptions. Out here 6 January. Early Oscars 2017 contenders A United Kingdom Oyelowo plays Prince Seretse Khama, inaugural Botswana president from 1966 to 1980, in this follow-up to 2015s Belle. Films about real life people often hold clout with the Academy when done well and with Gone Girls Rosamund Pike playing Khamas eventual wife Ruth Williams, A United Kingdom should pull in cinemagoers. Khama sparked a global stir when he married the white Londoner in the late Forties and the first pictures from the movie promise beautiful costumes and cinematography. A United Kingdom will open the London Film Festival before its general release on 25 November. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Loving Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton star as Mildred and Richard Loving in this historical drama about an interracial couple sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for the crime of getting married. Out here just in time for the Oscars on 3 February. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, Loving earned positive reviews from critics when it competed for the Palme dOr at Cannes and received a standing ovation for understated, strong performances. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Manchester by the Sea One of the best scripts co-producer Matt Damon had ever read, this tragedy about an uncle who is forced to take care of his teenage nephew after the boys father dies while trying to reconcile with his ex-wife stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and newcomer Lucas Hedges. It was bought at Sundance by Amazon for $10 million and arrives in the UK on 13 January. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Nocturnal Animals Designer Tom Ford has cinematic strings to his bow, as proved with 2009s Venice premiere The Single Man. Hes back in the chair for this drama-thriller starring Amy Adams as a remarried art gallery owner whose ex-husbands violent new book begins to haunt her. Jake Gyllenhaal, Isla Fisher and Armie Hammer also star. Due in UK cinemas on 4 November. Early Oscars 2017 contenders The Light Between Oceans Michael Fassbender stars alongside last years Best Supporting Actress winner Alicia Vikander in the big screen adaptation of ML Stedmans 2012 novel of the same name. Derek Cianfrance is the man behind the camera for this story about a lighthouse keeper war veteran who rescues a baby girl with his wife after she washes up on an adrift rowboat. Then, in steps another Oscar winner, Rachel Weisz, as the woman who threatens to break their happy family apart. Out in the UK on 4 November - bring tissues. Early Oscars 2017 contenders American Pastoral Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut with this period adaptation of Philip Roths novel American Pastoral. The drama - set in the 60s - centres on a successful businessman (McGregor) whose missing daughter (Dakota Fanning) is accused of a violent bombing in post-war America. Out in the UK on 11 November. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Queen of Katwe Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is the director behind this long-awaited biopic of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi. That Mutesi is played by 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyongo is reason enough to anticipate this Disney-produced film, out here 21 October. Disney Early Oscars 2017 contenders Free Fire Ben Wheatleys new action thriller will close the London Film Festival. Set in Massachusetts in the late Seventies, Free Fire stars Oscar-winning Room actress Brie Larson in the lead alongside Cillian Murphy. It follows the heart-stopping game of survival after shots are fired during a meeting between Justine, two Irishmen and two arms dealers who are selling them a stash of guns. Expect blood, sweat and irony with bravura filmmaking from the High-Rise director. Reaches UK cinemas sometime in 2017. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Paterson Jim Jarmuschs Palme dOr contender sees Adam Driver take the lead as a bus driver poet from Paterson, New Jersey. Each night after work, he has dinner with his wife Laura before walking his dog (2016s Palm Dog winner) to the bar for one beer. Then one day, a small disaster strikes. Early Oscars 2017 contenders The Founder Michael Keaton has starred in the last two Best Picture winners Spotlight and Birdman. Here, he takes on the role of ruthless McDonalds founder Ray Kroc, with the film telling the story of the fast food empires origins. The ambitious entrepreneur on a journey to theme didnt end so well for last years Joy, so it remains to be seen whether The Founder can live up to expectations as an Oscars contender. Out here 30 September. The Weinstein Company Early Oscars 2017 contenders Sully Clint Eastwood returns with Sully: Miracle on the Hudson, about the hero pilot who, in 2009, successfully landed his plane along the Hudson River after it was disabled by a flock of geese, saving all 155 crew and passengers. Tom Hanks takes the lead as Chesley Sullenberger in a biopic that sounds like it could tick a lot of Oscars boxes. Based on the autobiography Highest Duty, the thriller marks Eastwoods first directorial effort since 2014s American Sniper. Out 2 December. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Jackie Pablo Larrain directs Oscar winner Natalie Portman as late first lady and fashion icon Jacqueline Kennedy in what he has promised will not be another classic biopic. Set in the days immediately after John F Kennedys 1963 assassination, the film sparked great excitement among distributors after a seven-minute promo screened at Cannes. Release date unknown at this stage. Early Oscars 2017 contenders The Girl on the Train The Helps Tate Taylor is in the directors chair for this years Gone Girl about a troubled woman who becomes embroiled in a murder case after developing a fixation on a beautiful couple from her commuter train. Expect a film pulsating with creepy, voyeur vibes, a la Rear Window, based on Paula Hawkins bestselling thriller. Out in the UK on 7 October. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Florence Foster Jenkins Meryl Streep has been widely praised for her turn as the 1940s New York heiress who couldnt sing (and we mean really couldnt sing) yet somehow became an opera singer with the help of her patient husband St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) and pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg). Directed by two-time Academy nominee Stephen Frears, the film proved heartwarming and inspiring upon its release earlier this year and was embraced by both film lovers and critics. Early Oscars 2017 contenders Christine Rebecca Hall set Sundance ablaze in January, earning five-star reviews for the performance of her career in Christine, about the news anchor who killed herself live on air in 1974 after suffering from depression. Yet to receive a UK release date, Christine arrives in US cinemas in October, with Antonio Campos also one to watch for directorial accolades come awards season. Courtesy of Sundance Institute Early Oscars 2017 contenders Arrival Paramount Pictures We are looking for the guys sitting at home with all the 30 discs and posting pictures all over the net, but not sharing with anyone, they added. Not sure why you are hiding it can be done safe and secure, for private viewing only if requested. Just msg us if you need help, we don't bite. Piracy is thought to cost the movie industry $20 billion annually in the United States alone. 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 new Michael Jackson biopic was announced by Lifetime on the same day that a controversial episode of Urban Life about the King of Pop was pulled from broadcast. Currently titled Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland, the film will look at Jackson's final years through the eyes of his bodyguards, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard. Jackson will be portrayed by Navi, who is considered to be the most prominent Michael Jackson impersonator in the world, while Chad L. Coleman will play Whitfield, The Wrap reports. Sky chose not to air an episode of the Sky Arts comedy series Urban Myths after Joseph Fiennes' portrayal of the star caused outrage and drew ire fom Jackson's daughter Paris. The episode centred around a road trip from New York to LA with Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando after the 9/11 terror attacks. Fiennes' casting caused criticism, with many citing Jackson's own comments about the idea of being portrayed by a white man. Recommended Watch Joseph Fiennes play Michael Jackson in Urban Myths trailer Asked by Oprah Winfrey in 1993 if it was true that he wanted a white boy to play him in a television commercial, Jackson was visibly angered and upset at the idea and called it "ridiculous". "It's the most ridiculous, horrifying story I've ever heard." "Why would I want a white child to play me? I'm a black American. I'm proud to be a black American. I'm proud of my race. I'm proud of who I am." Forward the clip to 3.47 for Jackson's comments on being played by a white actor. Jackson's daughter Paris said of Fiennes' portrayal: "I'm so incredibly offended by it... as I'm sure plenty of people are as well, and it honestly makes me want to vomit." 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 }} Scientists have found that a pulsing techno beat could be the missing ingredient that helps test tube babies grow. An experiment at the Altra-vita IVF clinic in Moscow showed that playing 24-hour techno to eggs in test tubes not only helped them to become more fertilised, but also increased the number of viable embryos by around a fifth, The Times reports. According to findings presented at Fertility 2017, a conference held in Edinburgh, the 'techno eggs' were slightly more likely to grow into embryos and a lot more likely to develop at the point where they could be implanted in the womb. Techno music also appeared to have a stronger effect than previous results from tests with classical, metal and pop music. Researchers played dance tracks such as Armin van Buuren's "A State of Trance" because of the consistency of its pulse. Embryos have shown response to different tunes in the past. A group of Spanish scientists in 2013 found that playing artists including Madonna, Bach, Metallica and Mozart appeared to give some test tube babies a growth spurt. Dr Dagan Wells, associate professor of obstetric and gynaecology at the University of Oxford, said that IVF doctors could learn from rave culture, and suggested that eggs and embryos cultured in dishes miss out on the 'swirling' movements in the womb after natural conception. "It is possible that vibrations could simulate some of these effects by agitating the medium," he said, "helping to mix the fluid in which the embryo is immersed, diluting potentially harmful chemicals excreted by the embryo and increasing exposure to important nutrients." Keep an eye out for a bunch of scientists shaking test tubes at your next rave. 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 }} Theresa May will feature in a spread for the esteemed fashion magazine Vogue, Downing Street has confirmed. The Prime Minister will feature in the upcoming April issue in a spread shot by the respected fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz. The longtime editor of the US title, Anna Wintour, was recently made a dame in the New Years Honours. Theresa May in quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Theresa May in quotes Theresa May in quotes On being described by the former chancellor Ken Clarke as a bloody difficult woman: Politics could do with some Bloody Difficult Women actually Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On keeping secrets even from her husband: There are some things I am told that I am not able to confide in anybody Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On the relentless focus on her appearance during a speech at the Women in the World summit: "I like clothes and I like shoes. One of the challenges for women in the workplace is to be ourselves and I say you can be clever and like clothes. You can have a career and like clothes Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On comparisons to Margaret Thatcher: I think there can only ever be one Margaret Thatcher. Im not someone who naturally looks to role models. Ive always, whatever job it is Im doing at the time, given it my best shot. I put my all into it, and try to do the best job I can AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On her rebelliousness, or lack of, as a teenager: I probably was Goody Two Shoes at school Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On being replaced as chairman by Lord Saatchi and Liam Fox in 2003: Yes, it takes two men to step into the shoes of one woman AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes What Theresa May said when she was asked about her political ambitions during an interview with Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a lawyer married to Nick Clegg, in December: MD: "My very last question is: that little girl who is somewhere there, is she dreaming of becoming the next British Prime Minister?" TM: "Shes dreaming of carrying on doing a good job in the Home Office" Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On not being able to have children: I like to keep my personal life personal. We couldnt have children, we dealt with it and moved on. I hope nobody would think that mattered; I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On whether she can deliver the mandate of the EU referendum: I think for party members and indeed for others, I would say look at my record. I think they can see that Im somebody who gets on with the job, but Im also somebody who says it as I see it and actually delivers on what I say Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On the equally relentless obsession with her shoes: As a woman I know you can be very serious about something and very soberly dressed add a little bit of interest with footwear. I always tell women you have to be yourself, dont assume you have to fit into a stereotype and if your personality is shown through your clothes or shoes, so be it Getty Images Ms Leibowitz who is known for her empowering portraits of women has previously shot Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton for the title. Last year, she photographed the Queen and the Royal Family to mark the monarchs 90th birthday celebrations. Ms Mays affection for the publication has been made known before when she told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs she would take a lifetimes subscription of the magazine as her luxury item. While the UKs only other female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was photographed on four occasions for British Vogue, Ms May is the only PM to feature in the US title. However, the Prime Ministers penchant for fashion has, on occasion, prompted controversy. Last year, she was criticised by former education secretary Nicky Morgan, who she fired when she took over from David Cameron, for wearing leather trousers which cost 995 for a magazine spread. Downing Street denied the shoot was scheduled to coincide with her first meeting with the President-elect Donald Trump. The long-planned shoot for US Vogue will come out in April, a Number 10 spokesman told 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 }} Donald Trump will continue tweeting from his personal account as President, he has said. The President-elect's Twitter feed has become a source of concern and confusion since he won the election, with many of the posts that come from it changing stock markets and attacking his political enemies. Some had thought that he would give up the account when he became President or turn it over to his team, but he has promised not to. A handle exists for the President @POTUS, which is currently used by Barack Obama's team but Mr Trump will apparently use both accounts during his time in the White House. Women go on strike against Donald Trump Show all 7 1 /7 Women go on strike against Donald Trump Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump Protestors march during a demonstration against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, December 12, 2016. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Women go on strike against Donald Trump Protestors march during a demonstration against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump near Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City, December 12, 2016. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images Women go on strike against Donald Trump People rally as part of a nationwide protest against US President-elect Donald Trump outside of Trump Tower on December 12, 2016 in New York. Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images In an interview with Michael Gove, published in The Times, Mr Trump said that he had considered cutting down his Twitter use. But his reach is so large and he feels the press are so unkind to him that he will continue to send out updates, he said. "@realDonaldTrump I think, Ill keep it," he said. "So Ive got 46 million people right now thats a lot, thats really a lot but 46 million including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that youre 46 million there, Id rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, its working and the tweeting, I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and its not 140, its now 280 I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out this morning on television, Fox Donald Trump, we have breaking news." It's not clear what the President-elect meant by "its not 140, its now 280" it may be a reference to changes that Twitter is making to its character limit, or to the fact that he will have control of the Presidential Twitter account as well. Mr Trump's team will gain control of that account after the inauguration, on 20 January. Dress rehearsal takes place ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration Mr Trump's Twitter account has become his main way of responding to news stories as well as for posting updates on his transition. Chinese state media has condemned his obsession with the site, and Joe Biden said that he should "grow up" and stop attacking people. But he has defended his use of it before, arguing that he is "not unproud" of the bizarre tweets he sometimes sends late at night. 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 death of a young mother just hours after she gave birth to her second son was a result of failures, inadequate diagnosis and treatment at the hospital caring for her, a coroner has said. Frances Cappuccini, 30, died at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, shortly after giving birth to her son, Giacomo, by Caesarean section. The school teacher suffered heavy bleeding and was anaesthetised, but went into cardiac arrest and died at 4.20pm on 9 October, 2012. The inquest at Gravesend Old Town Hall in Kent heard that Ms Cappuccini lost more than two litres (around four pints) of blood after the C-section. She was subsequently operated on for a postpartum haemorrhage, but never woke up from the anaesthetic. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA The inquest criticised the care given to her, including a piece of placenta that was left in her womb. Senior Coroner Roger Hatch said the Caesarean section was not carried out with enough care and that checks should have been made to ensure nothing was missed. He added: The result of this failure led directly to the subsequent series of events which tragically led to the death of Frances. Ms Cappuccinis husband Tom was in court to hear Mr Hatch deliver his conclusions at the end of the 10-day inquest. Speaking on behalf of the family afterwards, solicitor Kate Rohde said: "Frankie was a wonderful wife, mother, daughter and sister. She was bubbly, intelligent, beautiful, loving and much loved. Failures of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and those employed by the Trust cost Frankie her life. Nothing can heal that pain. At least today, after over four years, the truth is acknowledged. The trust offered its deepest sympathies to Ms Cappuccinis family and said it recognised it had fallen short in areas of her care. It said: Patient safety remains of paramount importance to the Trust. The Trust has, however, recognised from the start that there were aspects of Frances care that fell short of the standards that the Trust would expect and we wish to once again sincerely apologise to the family for this. As a result of her death it has brought in changes to improve patient safety, it said, and promised to carefully consider all of the evidence heard at the inquest to ensure that any necessary changes which have not already been made are fully addressed. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust was accused of corporate manslaughter (PA) The inquest heard that Ms Cappuccini had been terrified of having her second child because of difficulties during the birth of her first son and had chosen to have an elective Caesarean birth on 10 October. But she went into labour two days before she was due to be admitted to Tunbridge Wells Hospital, and was in labour for around 12 hours before finally having the Caesarean procedure and giving birth to Giacomo at 8.28am on 9 October. It was suggested she may have been pressured into having a natural birth, but Mr Hatch dismissed this claim in his conclusions. After the birth she began to bleed heavily and was rushed into theatre for emergency surgery, before eventually going into cardiac arrest less than seven hours after her son was born, dying at 4.20pm. The inquest heard that a small piece of placenta was left inside Ms Cappuccinis uterus, which Dr Dib Datta, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist brought in to provide an incident report on the case, called a fundamental failure of care, and also said note-taking during her treatment was inadequate. Mr Hatch also criticised the managing of Ms Cappuccinis haemorrhage during which she lost 2.3 litres (more than four pints) of blood noting that there was no fluid replacement plan in place. Doctors missed symptoms of sepsis and possibly a kidney injury, and the coroner said that the premature removal of a breathing tube and its subsequent reinsertion also contributed to the escalating emergency situation. And Mr Hatch said anaesthetist Dr Nadeem Azeez, who had the main responsibility for Ms Cappuccinis care and has since returned to his native Pakistan, should have been supervised better after being involved in a similar situation before. 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 }} More than 4.5bn (3.95bn) was wiped off the market value of Germanys flagship car companies on Monday, after US President-elect Donald Trump warned he would impose a border tax of 35 per cent on vehicles imported from abroad to the US market. In an interview with newspaper Bild, published on Monday, Mr Trump criticised German carmakers for failing to produce more cars on US soil. If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA you will pay 35 per cent tax, Mr Trump said, according to Reuters. I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 per cent tax, then you can forget that, Trump said, adding that carmakers will instead have to build plants in the US. Shares in carmakers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen fell on Monday morning following Mr Trumps comments. Shares in BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler and the broader pan-European auto industry index were all trading around 2 per cent lower in morning trade and all closed more than 1 per cent lower on the day. It is surprising that Trump singles out the carmaker that exports more vehicles from the United States than any other manufacturer, analysts at Evercore ISI wrote in a note. All three companies have invested heavily in factories in Mexico, with an eye to exporting smaller vehicles to the US market. German senior officials rejected the President-elects remarks. Sigmar Gabriel, Germanys deputy chancellor and minister for economic affairs, told Bild that a tax on German import would lead to a bad awakening among US car manufacturer since they were reliant on transatlantic supply chain. The American car industry will be worse, weaker and more expensive, he said. 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 Matthias Wissmann, the president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, wrote in a statement that in the long term, the United States would be shooting itself in the foot by imposing tariffs or other trade barriers. Mr Trump has in the past taken aim at car manufacturers who have moved manufacturing jobs abroad, including General Motors and Toyota. BMW, one of the worlds largest luxury carmakers, last week, reaffirmed its commitment to opening a new plant in Mexico, despite the threat of big border tax on companies by Mr Trump. 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 }} Ikea wont spend any of its 524m green energy fund in the UK because government policies on renewables have made it difficult to invest, the company said. The Swedish furniture giant reportedly says it has spent more than 1.5bn over the last 20 years on tackling climate change and has another half a billion to invest by 2020. Joanna Yarrow, Ikea UKs head of sustainability, told the Huffington Post that the UKs political context does not encourage investment in renewables. Recommended Record number of oil and gas firms go bust amid renewables revolution Ms Yarrow said that despite the UK being one of the best places in the world to generate wind power, Ikeas fund would be taking its money elsewhere. I would say that over the last five or six years it has become increasingly difficult to invest in renewable energy production in the UK, and that for a large organisation like Ikea which has the resources to invest, it would be great for the UK to benefit from it, she told the Huffington Post. The Conservative government has scrapped a series of subsidies for green energy as it in a bids to save money. Government financial support for on onshore wind turbines was ended in April 2016, one year earlier than planned. A report from professional services firm PwC found the UKs solar industry lost around 12,000 jobs in the year to July 2016 after the number of installations plummeted as a result of cuts to government subsidies including the Feed in Tariff and the Renewables Obligation In January, the Green Alliance, a renewables think tank, analysed the current pipeline of renewable energy projects and predicted that investment in wind, solar, biomass power and waste-to-energy projects will fall off a cliff edge, declining by 95 per between 2017 and 2020. Alasdair Cameron, a renewable energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said Ikeas refusal to invest in the UK should be a major wake-up call for government energy policy. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. Recent policy changes mean the UK risks falling behind the rest of the world in these crucial technologies, Mr Cameron said, adding: In the years ahead renewables will be among the most important industries in the world - its high time the UK government fully recognised their enormous potential. Ikeas global energy fund has so far helped construct 327 of its own wind turbines and almost 700,000 solar panels on top of its buildings around the world. The firm owns and operates three wind farms in the UK and Ireland. A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: Britain is one of the best places in the world to invest in clean energy. Last year a record high 13bn was invested in renewables across the UK and in November we reiterated our commitment to spend a further 730m per year supporting new projects. 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 }} It is an unremittingly bleak vision of the future: over the next decade the worlds economy stagnates, fossil fuels ramp up global warming and the gap between rich and poor widens, fuelling nationalist tensions based on resentment of the global elite. But, while a major new report by the Business & Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC) warns this appears to be humanitys current path, it also spells out how to create not quite heaven on Earth but a world that is wealthier, more peaceful and fair for all. And their call for the world to start living up to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals was backed by more than 80 major companies in a joint letter to Theresa May, which urged the UK Government to take this essential step to secure our long-term prosperity and the well-being of generations to come. However, Ms May did not respond personally to the letter, with the Department for International Development instead issuing a response on behalf of the Government in an implicit snub to the letters call for all departments, not only DfID, to get involved. The UNs Global Goals, as they are known, seem at first sight to be almost impossibly ambitious. There should be no poverty and zero hunger in the world, universal health coverage, a decent education for all, gender equality, access to affordable and clean energy, action on climate change, the list goes on. But the BSDCs report, compiled after a year of research into their effects, says achieving them is actually key to delivering massive growth. The document, called Better Business, Better World, estimates the Global Goals could be worth up to $36,000bn (30,000bn) a year in savings and extra revenue by 2030. They based this on an analysis of four major economic sectors food and agriculture; energy and materials; cities; and health and wellbeing which would benefit to the tune of $12,000bn a year. They then estimated the total economic prize would be two to three times higher. Lifting people out of poverty could bring up to a billion people into the consumer economy. And achieving gender equality alone could add at least $12,000bn to the worlds total GDP by 2025, according to one estimate. The overall prize is enormous, the report says. The results will not be heaven on Earth; there will be many practical challenges. But the world would undoubtedly be on a better, more resilient path. We could be building an economy of abundance. Achieving the Global Goals would create a world that is comprehensively sustainable socially fair, environmentally secure, economically prosperous, inclusive, and more predictable. The report said the way the world had been run over the last 30 years had delivered unprecedented economic growth which had lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But it added: Signs of its failure and imperfections in todays markets are everywhere. Natural disasters triggered by climate change have doubled in frequency since the 1980s. Violence and armed conflict cost the world the equivalent of nine per cent of GDP in 2014, while lost biodiversity and ecosystem damage cost an estimated three per cent. 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 We continue to invest in high-carbon infrastructure at a rate that could commit us to irreversible, immensely damaging climate change. Social inequality and youth unemployment is worsening in countries across the world, while on average women are still paid 25 per cent less than men for comparable work. Average wages had been stagnant in the developed world since the 1980s, generating deep anxiety and opposition to more globalisation, while total debt remains uncomfortably high, the report added. The report warned the world was essentially at a crossroads. If a critical mass of companies joins us in doing this now, together we will become an unstoppable force. If they dont, the costs and uncertainty of unsustainable development could swell until there is no viable world in which to do business, the report said. In an interview with The Independent, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, a former UN Deputy Secretary-General and Labour government minister who helped found the BSDC, said the 21st century was shaping up to witness a clash between two great political ideas: nationalism and globalism. Saying he was speaking personally, rather than as the BSDCs chair, he admitted that globalisation hasnt really worked for many people. But he said the swing to nationalists such as Nigel Farage and protectionists such as Donald Trump had been a mistake and the report could be viewed as a counter-manifesto. Dont throw globalisation out with the bath water as Trump and some components of the Ukip unit of the Brexiteers appear to have done. But instead embrace globalisation 2.0, or whatever youd call it, where there is a much greater attention to issues of equality, poverty reduction and sustainability, Lord Malloch-Brown said. US Ethics chief brands Donald Trump's plan to handle business interests as 'wholly inadequate' The new dividing line of 21st century politics is going to be globalists versus nationalists. I do not put myself in the category of those who are declaring the end of the world. More nationalists will be coming over the horizon after that because thats going to be the great debate of 21st century politics. My big message to people is chill out, we are going to have a century of this. He said Mr Trumps election might be a setback particularly if the cabal of climate change deniers around him win a looming battle with more mainstream Republicans. If we lose that fight now in the US, one would hope the US political system would come back to it down the road, he said. As the costs of not addressing climate change increase and the economy slows, we think ultimately our logic will prevail. The question is when. This new political split would force some degree of political realignment in which new parties emerge, Lord Malloch-Brown argued. You cannot have a party system that is rowing against this great new dividing line, he said. One way or another, politics will reform around it; that would be my argument but I would hesitate to predict how. Barack Obama says Donald Trump might have 'just enough craziness to think he can be President' A plea for sustainable development from an organisation led by a former Labour minister might be easily dismissed by a Conservative government. But the BSDCs call came as some of Britains biggest companies decided to write to the Prime Minister to urge her to ensure Britain was on the right path. The signatories included supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsburys and the Co-op, financial firms like PWC, KPMG and HSBC, and various other corporate giants from BT to Coca-Cola and Mars. As a group of businesses investing in making our economy fit for the future, we support sustainable development in the UK. This is essential for our long-term prosperity and the wellbeing of generations to come, they wrote. Sustainable development will create jobs, increase competitiveness and secure the natural resources our economy relies on. They asked Ms May to demonstrate to business your commitment to deliver the Global Goals in the UK and get the Government to work with the private sector on the issue. And they specifically wrote that she should require all departments, not only the Department for International Development, to work with business and other stakeholders to develop a [Global Goal] delivery plan. Together we can build a fairer, sustainable and more prosperous Britain. The Independent contacted the press offices for Downing Street and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. However, in what may be an indication of Ms Mays support for the Global Goals in the UK, the response was issued by DfID. The UK is committed to implementation of the Global Goals, both internationally and at home. The goals are embedded in Single Departmental Plans and progress against them will be reported in each departments annual reports and accounts, it said. The Government believes that delivering the goals will create better opportunities for business in developing countries, leading to stronger trading partners for Britain in the future this is firmly in our national interest. Domestically we are delivering on this by investing in research and innovation, supporting businesses with competitive taxes and adequate financial support, and increasing employment across all sectors of UK society. The Government is currently developing a report outlining the UKs contribution to implementing the goals domestically and internationally. The International Development Secretary is working closely with the Cabinet Office to ensure that we have a coherent, consistent cross-government response to achieve the Global Goals. The UK was at the forefront of ensuring the UNs Global Goals focused on eradicating extreme poverty. We worked to make sure they not only finished the job of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but went further to address global challenges of our time and ensure no one is left behind. Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices 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 Voices Dispatches email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Leading scientists have urged Theresa May to put pressure on Donald Trump to acknowledge and act on climate change. A letter signed by 100 of the worlds leading climate researchers working in the UK was delivered to Downing Street on Friday. It called on the Prime Minister to use the special relationship with the US to stop any political attempts to prevent, hamper or interfere with vital research on climate change when Mr Trump takes office. The President-elect has described climate change as a hoax invented by China to undermine US manufacturing and pledged to withdraw from the world's first comprehensive treaty to tackle greenhouse gases, the Paris Agreement. The signs are pretty obvious that Trump does not support action on climate change, and that his team will act against it, said Corinne Le Quere, professor of climate change science and policy at the University of East Anglia. Professor Le Quere told Radio 4s Today programme many of the people appointed to senior positions by Mr Trump had rejected the risks of climate change or had links with the fossil fuel industry. Some of the advisors in [Trumps] transition team have proposed to cut down climate research at Nasa, and they have requested names of scientists working on climate change at the US Department of Energy. Protestors demonstrated outside the US embassy in London in response to Donald Trump's vow to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (AFP/Getty) The academics warned Ms May damage inflicted by Mr Trump's administration on US-funded climate change research would have an impact around the world, including in the UK. They said the President-elect could "diminish the provision of robust and rigorous evidence that is used by policy-makers and researchers around the world, including in the United Kingdom". Professor Le Quere said it was important scientists did not lose access to cutting-edge research from Nasa, which uses satellite data to monitor the Earth and examine solar activity and rising sea levels. There are other regions in Europe and the UK in particular, and in China that do satellite observations, but the programme at Nasa is very extensive, she said. Its very important that politicians around the world stand up to Donald Trump, and press [him] and his administration to acknowledging the evidence on climate change, and for the US to support international action. The UK has been at the forefront of climate research and policy for the last 30 years, said the letter, which told Ms May she should be prepared to respond decisively to the situation. It said Britain could have a great opportunity to work alongside the US in strengthening the evidence base on climate change, supporting the development of new technologies and leading international co-operation on the issue. 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 Donald Trump is not as ideological has others have been on Climate change, said Professor Le Quere. Hes quite a practical and pragmatic person, he is himself focussed on business and job opportunities, and there are lots of job opportunities that could result from moving to clean energy. We think that there is potential to move him and move his administration towards understanding these opportunities. 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 }} Rolf Harris spread his hands over a blind, disabled woman like an octopus in an attack where she was "completely and utterly trapped", a woman has claimed in court. Disabled since her premature birth, the complainant was totally blind and had to walk with sticks when she was allegedly groped by Harris at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in 1977, Southwark Crown Court heard. A subsequent accident has left her now unable to walk and in "intense pain" for around 18 hours a day, the court heard in a pre-recorded interview from July 2014. Mr Harris denies seven charges of indecent assault and one of sexual assault. The woman, who was not at the time an in-patient at the hospital, recalled feeling hot air from Harris's nostrils and his beard tickling the back of her neck after he approached "from absolutely nowhere", and could tell he was getting excited because of the rapidity of his breathing, the court heard. She said: "I have never met anyone who could spread their hands across my body so quickly. "They covered all my back really really fast and he got his hands going up both sides of my body and he was saying,'Well don't you like this then?' and I said 'no I don't like it'." The alleged victim said she knew straight away it was Harris who had entered the room from his "unmistakeable voice". She said she told him repeatedly to stop touching her but he carried on. At one point he tried to justify his behaviour saying 'I'm just a touchy-feely sort of bloke", later adding: "Don't be like that, I'm only being friendly" when she resisted, she told the court. The complainant, who has two full-time carers, went on: "What annoyed me was that I just could not escape, and being blind I couldn't always tell where he was. "I was completely and utterly trapped." Wearing a black suit and black and white tie Harris, who appeared by video-link, is serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims. He maintains his innocence, the prosecutor said, and has pleaded not guilty to a further seven counts of indecent assault and one alternative charge of sexual assault. Each of the new alleged victims contacted the police or the NSPCC in the wake of the "widespread publicity" surrounding the first trial, prosecutor Jonathan Rees said. She continued: "One (complainant) later described him as an octopus. "I thought 'that's exactly what it felt like with his arms and fingers spread as far as he could spread them'. "He completely covered me and I said to him 'If you go any lower then that's it, you are going to get a thump'." Her voice breaking, she continued: "The way he took advantage over someone that was totally blind, virtually stuck in terms of mobility ... it's absolutely appalling. In my opinion it's as degrading as it gets. "I felt absolutely invaded by this man," she added. She went on: "No-one has ever behaved like that to me in my life and I have to say even my husband, at his most passionate times, never covered my body in a way that he has done. "Rolf Harris doesn't ask permission he just grovels." The witness said she grabbed Harris's fingers and bent them back in a bid to stop the entertainer squeezing her breasts, and he allegedly responded: "That wasn't nice". She said: "I said 'What do you mean that's not nice?' "He said: 'I can't get to you now'." While being cross-examined from a wheelchair with her carer by her side, the witness said she did not know why she had not come forward sooner. She spent a while with Harris in the room after the alleged assault, during which he spent a few moments teaching her how to play the didgeridoo he had brought, the court heard. Asked by Stephen Vullo, defending, why she had not come forward until the publicity surrounding the first trial emerged she said: "I was just so amazed because Rolf Harris was somebody I had grown up with and we loved it. He was part of our culture and I used to love listening to him on the television. "I truly don't know why I did not report it at the time," she added. Jurors were shown photographs of the room in the hospital, which Mr Vullo said was about 13ft by nine foot, with a desk on the far side of the room. Another man was in the room at the time of the alleged assault and came over once he became aware the complainant was in distress, she said. She told the court: "He heard me shout and he got up to find out was wrong. "I don't think he knew exactly what I said, he just heard me shout and he came over to see if I was alright, and at that point Rolf Harris backed off." She said she thought Harris may have climaxed during the episode, where she remembered him crouching down behind her and leaning his full weight against the chair she was sitting on. She told the court: "He was obviously getting very sexually aroused because he was pushing against the chair and after several minutes he reached a climax and there was a great exhalation of air as he felt better, as it were." Asked by Mr Vullo if she was saying the TV presenter had ejaculated in her presence, she said: "I did not have the opportunity of seeing his trousers, nor would I wish to, but I can only tell you of the sounds he was making and the noises and the pressure he was putting on my chair." The trial continues 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 }} Human rights campaigners have criticised the Governments foreign children list experiment and urged parents to boycott the School Census in an open letter sent to every head teacher in the UK. New questions about a childs nationality and country of birth have been included in this years census. Parents can refuse to share this data with the Department for Education, but hundreds of schools have failed to inform parents that they can opt out of the nationality questions. The Schools Against Borders for Children (Schools ABC) campaign, which is calling for a national boycott of the census, has collected requests for personal data which do not inform parents that these questions are optional. They have published 30 of these letters via Twitter in December alone. The letter, jointly authored by Liberty and Schools ABC, aims to address this confusion, and urges schools to inform parents of their right to refuse to share sensitive data. Parents and guardians deserve to know they do not need to be complicit in this Governments foreign children list experiment, which uses childrens education to enforce border controls. If enough of them take a stand, we can make the playground off-limits to border police, defend every childs right to education and begin to reunite our communities. Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, said. The letter also states: The Government provided inadequate and confusing guidance to schools about their duties to provide this data and this has led to misunderstandings between schools, parents and pupils about what they are and arent legally obliged to do. Schools Week also found that a number of schools have been unnecessarily requesting their pupils passport numbers, while a school in Berkshire had only requested nationality data from its non-white pupils. On 10 January, the Government issued updated guidance on the School Census, which explicitly informs schools of their obligation to tell parents that they can refuse to share the nationality data. Campaign groups have expressed anger that the Government only provided this guidance less than a fortnight before the results were due on 9 January. The Department for Education has said it will only use the data to to help gauge the targeting of support for pupils and schools. However, Liberty and Schools ABC are concerned that the Department for Education will also use this new data for immigration enforcement, after a leaked Home Office memo last month revealed education officials have an agreement to share the personal details of up to 1,500 schoolchildren a month with the Home Office. The memo also said it would aim to to create a hostile environment in schools for irregular migrants. Gracie Mae Bradley, Campaign Co-ordinator for Schools ABC, said she feared that the census would contribute to an atmosphere of increased xenophobia. The way the census has been conducted so far has produced some discriminatory and outright racist outcomes. As hate crimes soar and the status of EU migrants remains precarious, schools should be a place where all children feel safe. 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 }} Northern Ireland will hold elections on 2 March to choose a new Assembly following the collapse of the Stormont power-sharing executive. The collapse came after Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister last Monday, following a row between his party and the Democratic Unionist Party over a green energy scheme. The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) was designed to encourage businesses to use green energy source, however subsidies were found to be overly generous and ineffective, with projections estimating an overspend of 490m. Sinn Fein had until midday to nominate a replacement for Mr McGuinness, which they refused to do, meaning the Northern Ireland Assembly is no longer able to continue to govern. It gave Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, authority to call a snap election after 5pm. He confirmed in a statement shortly after the deadline that elections would be held on Thursday 2nd March and that the Assembly would be dissolved from the 26th January, with its last sitting day held on 25th. "No-one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake, he said in a statement. "While it is inevitable that debate during an election period will be intense, I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after that poll. This is essential for the operation of devolved government. And this means that all must remain open to dialogue. He also confirmed the Governments continued commitment to the Belfast Agreement and promised a further statement in Parliament on Tuesday. "The Government continues to stand firmly behind its commitment to the Belfast Agreement and its successors, and our responsibilities to safeguard political stability here in Northern Ireland, he said. "We will continue to do all that we can to find a way forward and secure the continuation of devolved government. More follows. 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 BBC is trying to work out whether the final episode of its flagship Sherlock series was deliberately leaked by Russias state broadcaster. The British corporation aired the third and final instalment, The Final Problem, of one of its most internationally successful creations on Sunday night. But a Russian language version, featuring a three-second continuity announcement linking it to the countrys Channel One, emerged online the previous day. Channel One owns the rights to show Sherlock in Russia. A BBC source reportedly said the leak was more than an accident and a spokesman said: BBC Worldwide takes breaches of our stringent content security protocols very seriously and we have initiated a full investigation into how this leak occurred. Sherlock: Season 4 finale trailer Sherlock, which premiered in 2010, and features Benedict Cumberbatch, is streamed in more than 180 territories and the third series was the UKs most watched drama of all time. Its 2016 New Year's Day special, The Abominable Bride, was apparently the biggest overseas export of the last financial year after selling to 216 territories. This weeks leak mirrors a 2014 incident when unfinished footage from Doctor Who, whose writer Steven Moffat is also the producer-writer for Sherlock, trickled out of the BBC Worldwide Miami office. Sherlock- series 4 trailer The Kremlin is believed to have been angered by a recent decision to expand the BBC World Services Russian language output. It is also understood Moscow threatened to freeze BBC finances in Russia and report Britain to watchdogs after Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) subsidiary NatWest considered closing the account of state-funded Russia Today. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman reportedly said the NatWest threat reeked of BBC intervention. Russia has repeatedly been blamed for a string of cyber-attacks, including the hacking of the US election. Ben Nimmo, an information defence fellow at the Atlantic Council think-thank, said: As Sherlock Holmes said himself, When youve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. There appears to be no profit motive, no benefit to the broadcaster from doing this. What remains is a political motive. The most obvious explanation is that this is punitive. But Russia analyst and senior economist at HIS Global Insight Lilit Gevorgyan told The Telegraph: It could be a simple case of poorly executed intellectual property handling. The show's producer Sue Vertue announced the leak on Saturday and tweeted: "Russian version of #Sherlock TFP has been illegally uploaded. Please don't share it. You've done so well keeping it spoiler free. Nearly there." The Independent has contacted Channel One for comment. 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 }} Inquests into the deaths of the 30 Britons killed in the Tunisia beach massacre of 2015 will begin today. The hearings will take place in court 38 at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, presided over by judge and coroner Nicholas Loraine-Smith. They are expected to last around seven weeks. Families' battles for justice have been intensified by a lengthy and truncated legal process, which had seen the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. During a previous hearing Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 families, said it was their view that a full and fearless investigation would be required to remain in keeping with the principle of open justice. He also said many families feared the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may have failed in its responsibilities to thousands of British tourists. He said the families were also potentially concerned about the FCO having cosy chats with travel companies interested in running profitable businesses in light of FCO then current advice that there was a high risk of terrorist activity, including in tourist areas. All the victims were killed by gunman Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi at the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel and the adjoining beach at the popular resort of Port El Kantaoui on June 26 2015. In March 2015, 24 people were killed in a terror attack at Bardo National Museum in the capital, Tunis. The British victims of the Tunisia attack Show all 22 1 /22 The British victims of the Tunisia attack The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Janet and John Stocker, in a statement, their children described the couple as the "happiest, most loving" people who enjoyed simple pleasures and the strong love they shared after decades of marriage. "They were both young at heart and enjoyed all that life could offer, and especially enjoyed travelling to new places, exploring and appreciating local cultures, and they died together doing what they enjoyed most; sunbathing side by side," the statement said. Mr Stocker, 74, was a retired printer from Peckham and his 63-year-old wife was born in Fulham. They had five children and 10 grandchildren PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims John Welch and Eileen Swannack, a couple in their 70s from Wiltshire, "adored" the Imperial Marhaba hotel and had been going twice a year for eight years. After desperately appealing for information on social media, Ms Swannack's granddaughter wrote on Facebook that the family received news of their deaths PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Denis Thwaites, 70, a former Birmingham City Football Club player, and his wife Elaine Thwaites, 69, were killed in the attack. Birmingham City FC said: "We are deeply shocked and saddened by the death of former player Denis Thwaites and his wife Elaine in the Tunisian terrorist attack." Their daughter Lindsey, who identified their bodies in Tunisia, and son-in-law Daniel Clifford, said in a statement: Words can't express what all the family are feeling at this difficult time...we would like to take this opportunity to thank people on the ground in this horrendous situation. It was extremely hard to find out any information beforehand but now we completely understand" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims James McQuire, 66, a retired former marine engineer from Cumbernauld in North Lanarkshire, was captain in the Boys' Brigade, a Christian youth organisation that said it was "shocked and deeply saddened" to hear of his and his wife's deaths. Ann McQuire, 63, was a former medial practice receptionist. Their son, Stuart, said: I just dont know what to say, I cant speak. The couple's minister from Cumbernauld Abronhill Church of Scotland paid tribute to them, saying they had a close family and would be sorely missed. "They had given a life of service to young people and to the church and community" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Chris Dyer , a 32-year-old engineer from Watford, was on holiday with his wife Gina Van Dort when they were both shot. He died at the scene and doctors said his wife had to be prised from his dead body because she "didn't want to leave him" Instagram The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims John Stollery, a 58-year-old children's social worker from Nottinghamshire, was described by his family as a special man "who made a difference and gave his best to others". He was on holiday with his wife and son when he was murdered. His wife, Cheryl, said: "We still had a long life to live with plans and dreams for our future together PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Lisa Burbidge, a grandmother from Whickham in Gateshead, was called the "most beautiful, amazing, caring and gentle person in our lives" by her family in a statement. "We have been left with a massive hole in our hearts," it said. "She leaves behind many family members including four fantastic grandchildren who were her world and will miss her tremendously" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Carly Lovett, a 24-year-old fashion blogger from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, was the first British victim to be named. Lincolnshire Police said it had appointed a family liaison officer to support Ms Lovett's family and police officers were positioned outside her address, while her fiance was understood to be travelling back home PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Claire Windass, 54, has been named by her family as one of the victims. Ms Windass and her husband Jim Windass lived in Thistlewood Court in Bransholme and were in Sousse for a week's holiday. He was sat next to her as they sunbathed but escaped unharmed and has returned home. A family statement said: "She was a warm, kind-hearted woman who made friends easily and was loved by everyone who knew her. She will be deeply missed" Humberside Police The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Trudy Jones, a 51-year-old mother of four from Blackwood in Gwent, South Wales, was killed. A statement from her family read: "Our mother of all people didn't deserve this, such a caring person who put everyone else before herself. She was the rock of our family and kept us all going. None of us have a clue how we're going to cope without her." They described Ms Jones, who worked at Highfields Nursing Home, as "always willing to help others". "She'll be missed by so many people" Gwent Police The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Bruce Wilkinson, 72, a retired power station worker from Goole in Yorkshire, was also among the victims. His family issued a statement through local MP Andrew Percy saying they were "devastated" at the loss of a devoted husband, father and grandfather" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Joel Richards, 19, was a student at the University of Worcester. A local football referee and keen Gaelic football player, Birmingham County FA said he had had the world at his feet and that he was highly thought-of and will be sadly missed PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Sue Davey, 42, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, was the subject of an appeal on Twitter for information from her son, Conor Fulford, who thought he had seen her in a Sky News TV report. He tweeted that he was sorry to tell you we lost my mother Sue Davey tonight, adding: "Love you always mum, I've go my teddy bear you got me tonight, rest easy" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Scott Chalkley, 42, was Ms Daveys partner. His son Ross Naylor, from Derby, had also launched an online plea for any information on his father but later posted saying Mr Chalkley was no longer with us. Severn Trent Water, where both Ms Davey and Mr Chalkley worked, paid tribute to the couple. A spokeswoman said: We are immensely saddened by the news about Sue and Scott. They were much-loved by their colleagues PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims David Thompson, a retired scientist from Tadley in Hampshire, is also believed to have been killed in the attack. The 80-year-old reportedly worked for the Atomic Weapons Establishment and was described by his neighbours as a "wonderful man" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Patrick Evans, believed to be aged 78, was killed alongside his son Adrian and his 19-year-old grandson Joel Richards. Joel's 16-year-old brother, Owen, survived the attack PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Adrian Evans, 44, worked for Sandwell Council in the West Midlands as a manager in the gas services department. Council leader Darren Cooper said he was a very popular and long-serving employee and his colleagues were absolutely devastated PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Christopher Bell, from Leeds, died in the attack along his wife Sharon. Their family issued a statement saying they were "deeply saddened" and knew little about their deaths but were "working with the authorities to gather as much information as possible" PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Mrs Bell, a care manager, was described by colleagues as a "caring, loving woman" who "spent her life looking after other people", while Mr Bell was fondly remembered as a "much loved" member of staff in the ticket office at Leeds railway station PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims Stuart Cullen, 52, from the Lowestoft area of Suffolk, is believed to have died instantly. His wife, who was with him, was injured but survived and has returned to the UK PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims William, 51 and Lisa Graham, 50, a Scottish couple from Perthshire, were on holiday to celebrate Mrs Graham's 50th birthday. Mr Graham's sister, Lindsay, said that the family received the news they feared after an agonising wait PA The British victims of the Tunisia attack Tunisia attack victims The coffin of Stephen Mellor is taken from the RAF C-17 aircraft at RAF Brize Norton in Tunisia. Stephen Mellor, an engineer from Bodmin in Cornwall, was killed as he shielded his wife Cheryl on the beach. The other confirmed British victim include: Philip Heathcote, 52, who flew to Tunisia with his wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary, has been confirmed dead by his family, while his wife Allison is in an induced coma while being treated for serious injuries after being shot Getty Some of the families of those caught in the Sousse attack said they had been assured by tour operator Thomson it was safe to travel to Tunisia after the Bardo attack. TUI, the travel company that owns Thomson, said it wants to understand the specific circumstances that led to the killings and is co-operating with the coroner. The company would not comment further before the inquests but said it does not accept the accuracy of all the statements that have been made. PA 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 }} Chlorine-soaked chickens will be on sale in British supermarkets if the US gets its way in a post-Brexit trade deal, Nick Clegg has warned. The former deputy prime minister used the prospect of eating chicken washed with chemicals to illustrate the difficulties and dangers of freer transatlantic trade. Brexit supporters have hailed Donald Trumps enthusiasm to achieve a rapid trade agreement with Britain as a big boost, ahead of EU withdrawal. But Mr Clegg accused Brexit supporters of believing in a fantasy world of trade deals with far-flung countries, which could never replace the EUs single market. And he recounted a conversation with Joe Biden, the outgoing US Vice-President, to underline what the US will demand as the price of an agreement with Britain. The former Liberal Democrat leader said: He said to me very unsentimentally in that folksy way he does We are not going to sign anything that the chicken farmers of Delaware dont like!. Now, the chicken farmers of Delaware wash their chicken flesh with some sort of chlorine. Its bleached bloody horrible stuff which is not allowed in the EU, the EU has decided, through various laws. You tell me, but I suspect the good shoppers of Waitrose and Sainsburys and others might be a little bit shocked if, suddenly, they are having to eat this slightly white, chlorine-washed American chicken flesh. Mr Clegg added, sarcastically: And thats the great triumph of the new US-UK trade agreement. However, Theresa Mays official spokeswoman said, speaking of the President-elects comments to The Times about a quick deal, That highlights one of the opportunities of the UK leaving the EU. The danger of chemically treated chicken meat reaching British shops first reared its head during negotiations on an aborted trade deal between Europe and the US. The mooted Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal now appears dead with Mr Trump keener to try to reach agreement with post-Brexit Britain. Mr Clegg said the same obstacles stood in the way, including long-standing criticisms that US farmers use chemical washes to make up for inadequate hygiene on farms and abattoirs. In contrast, the EU uses a so-called farm-to-fork approach, requiring steps all along the production chain to ensure the food ultimately sold is safe. Any deal to allow US meat to be sold in Britain after inferior safety measures would be likely to provoke uproar from farmers and consumers. Mr Clegg spoke as he urged Ms May to return the UK to the same 1960s trading arrangements it had with Europe before it joined the EU, if she decides there is no alternative to a hard Brexit. The most sensible fall-back option to avoid crashing out of the EU with no fresh trade deal would be to re-enter the European Free Trade Association (Efta), which it co-founded in 1960. That would involve teaming up with its four current members Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland in a body meant to provide a free trade alternative to European integration. Mr Clegg acknowledged the Prime Minister would never make it her declared aim, but argued she could be forced to embrace the off-the-shelf model if and when the Brexit talks falter, next year. 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 will, on Tuesday, set out her plans for Brexit at a major speech in London, which is expected to provide clarity ahead of triggering Article 50 in two months time. Her aides in Downing Street have closely guarded the text of the speech but it is expected it will be used to defy her critics, who say the Prime Minister has no clear strategy beyond the mantra of Brexit means Brexit and accusations she is hiding behind her rule of no running commentary on the Governments strategy. In her speech at Lancaster House, Ms May is likely to reassure Brexiteers that she intends to stick to her timetable and provide some of the certainty that people have been looking for according to aides. Here The Independent looks at what we know, so far, about Theresa Mays plan for Brexit: Britain is leaving the EU Britain is going to leave the European Union, declared Ms May at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham last year. This seems obvious at first glance but there have been calls for a second referendum on the terms of Brexit, which the Prime Minister has rejected. As it stands, there will be no second referendum or second vote on membership of the EU. Article 50 to be triggered in March Despite an imminent judgement at the Supreme Court over whether Ms May needs to consult Parliament before triggering the mechanism for leaving the EU, she is likely to reaffirm her commitment to triggering Article 50 before the end of March a pledge made ahead of the Tory conference last year. What to expect from Theresa May's big Brexit speech But the Supreme Court case will not be the only issue causing a headache for Ms May and her aides in the coming weeks and months ahead of serving notice of Article 50. The breakdown of the decade-long power sharing agreement in Northern Ireland is expected to trigger new elections and threaten Ms Mays Brexit timetable. Downing Street and Government ministers, however, are determined to press ahead. So, when will Britain actually leave the EU? Article 50, once triggered, allows for a maximum two-year timeframe to negotiate an exit deal with the other European countries. If the Prime Ministers timetable is correct and the Article 50 notice is served to Brussels in two months time, then Britain could, technically, be out of the EU by March 2019. However, many, including civil servants, expect the process to last much longer. Ivan Rogers, who dramatically quit as Britains ambassador to the EU earlier this month, has privately suggested a trade deal might take a decade to finalise. For the two-year process to be extended all the 27 other EU states must provide their approval. A bespoke deal Ms May has called for a bespoke deal with the EU after Brexit, rather than an off the shelf solution. This appears to reject the so-called Norway model the country is not a member of the EU but has access to the majority of the continents market and is part of the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. In return Norway is obliged to be part of Europes passport-free Schengen travel zone. Norwegians also have no say in EU rules and have no representatives in any of the blocs institutions despite paying a considerable amount each year for its semi-detached relationship with the EU. But it is clear Downing Street believe Ms May will achieve a deal with a model that does not already exist. Jurisdiction of the European Court will end As anticipated, Ms May will say the European Court will hold no influence over Britain once it has left the EU. According to the Telegraph, she will use her speech on Tuesday to rebuke those who have claimed the UK will remain under the rule of European courts for years after Brexit, especially if a transitional deal is on the table. Control of immigration It is quite clear the Prime Minister believes immigration control is a red line she views the referendum result, in part, as an instruction from the British people to curb migration. Ms May has already ruled out an Australian style points-based system, which advocated by the leading voices in the campaign to leave the EU last year. Ms May is yet to outline how she intends to bring down immigration figures. Single market access While Ms May has not explicitly said she is ready to leave the EUs tariff-free market, she has indicated she is prepared to do so. During an interview last week the Prime Minister said the UK should not expect to hold onto bits of its membership. It is also clear the Prime Minister will not accept the free movement of people in a final Brexit deal, which is one of the conditions of access to the single market. European leaders have consistently said, since the referendum, that Britain cannot have access to the single market a la carte. At the weekend, a Downing Street source told Sky News the issue of the single market will be answered on Tuesday when the Prime Minister sets out her negotiations. SODAVILLE A fire which started on the rear porch of a Sodaville manufactured home Sunday afternoon quickly spread to the entire structure and left the occupants with the total loss of their home. Multiple callers reported the fire at 30245 Townsend Road at 2:23 p.m. and responding fire crews could see a large column of smoke while traveling to the scene. The Battalion Chief called for a second alarm to bring more firefighters and water to the scene while en route and the Albany Fire Department responded by sending a water tender. First arriving Lebanon Fire District units described a manufactured home fully engulfed in flames and two occupants safely outside the home watching it burn. According to a resident, she was in a bedroom of the home and noticed smoke coming into her room around the closed bedroom door. She opened the door to see smoke throughout the house and fire burning on the back porch. She alerted her father-in-law who was also in a bedroom and the two escaped the house along with their dog. There were no working smoke detectors in the home. Interviews with the occupants have led fire investigators to believe the fire was caused by smoker's carelessness as moments before the fire one resident had been on the back porch smoking a cigarette which was discarded into an ashtray and then into a plastic paint bucket filled with discarded cigarette butts and other debris. Investigators believe that the cigarette was not properly extinguished, which resulted in a fire in the bucket which then quickly spread through the enclosed porch and into the home. Firefighters remind smokers to use extreme caution with discarded cigarettes and to avoid disposing of matches or butts inside of structures. Additionally, firefighters stress the extreme importance of having multiple working smoke detectors on all levels of your home. For more information on home fire safety contact the Lebanon Fire District at 541-451-1901. 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 has been warned by campaigners and politicians that a rushed trade deal with Donald Trumps US administration puts the NHS, the environment and food safety at risk. Figures from different political parties, a union and pressure groups united to say an agreement hurriedly arranged to show Ms Mays Brexit strategy is a success, would likely see Britain bowing to Mr Trumps terms. Brexiteer hopes of a quick US deal were boosted when Mr Trump used an interview to say his team would look to cement an arrangement with the UK quickly, but shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth demanded urgent guarantees the health service would not be carved up by US corporations. He added: A rushed trade deal with Trump may give ministers cover for their dangerous Brexit strategy, but it will not hide the risk that this could be a Trojan horse for NHS privatisation. Much of the opposition to the EU/US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as TTIP, focussed on whether it would allow the de-facto privatisation of health services. Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis said a quick-fix trade deal with Mr Trump would be as bad for the NHS and the environment as TTIP threatened to be. Joe Carberry, Co-Executive Director of campaign group Open Britain, said: A quick deal will almost certainly mean the smaller partner acceding to the terms of the larger partner, the US, which in our case could threaten our NHS and high environmental standards. Chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee, Labour MP Mary Creagh, said: A quick trade deal with Donald Trump runs real risks. Theresa May acknowledges incidents of 'unacceptable practice' in NHS Our food safety and environmental standards could be compromised if we simply open up our domestic markets to US interests without asking questions. The Government is chasing positive Brexit headlines but that must not come at the expense of the UK remaining a world-leader on environmental issues. Liberal Democrat spokesperson for energy and climate change, Baroness Featherstone, claimed rushed trade deals could jeopardise environmental standards and push the UK further away from climate change solutions. Co-Leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas MP, said: While the EU has shown climate leadership, Donald Trump has appointed at least nine climate-sceptics to his cabinet. 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 If the British Government is serious about climate change, we need to keep working closely with European countries who are leading the world in facing up to this challenge. Friends of the Earth campaign lead Samuel Lowe argued that the US has long pushed for the removal of the EU ban on hormone treated beef and a watering down of our precautionary approach to regulating health and the environment. He added: There is a real risk that, in its rush to sign a headline-grabbing UK-Trump deal as quickly as possible, the Government will be forced into concessions it would never normally make. Trump knows this; that's why hes interested. A trade agreement is not a good thing solely by virtue of its own existence. Substance matters. Context matters. Politicians forget that at their peril. Downing Street has welcomed Mr Trumps pledge to work to secure a rapid trade agreement with Britain. In an interview with The Times and German newspaper Bild, the US president-elect said he would be inviting Ms May for early talks in Washington following his inauguration on Friday. Ms Mays official spokeswoman said: We welcome the commitment from the President-elect to engage with the UK on this, to work together to agree a deal quickly. That highlights one of the opportunities of the UK leaving the EU. The spokeswoman said that Ms May's expected visit to Washington in the spring would provide an opportunity for early discussions on a UK-US deal, but stressed that Britain will respect EU rules which bar it from signing agreements with third parties so long as it remains a member. 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 Good Friday Agreement is under threat because of Theresa Mays plans to enact a Hard Brexit, a leading Northern Irish politician has warned. Colum Eastwood, leader of Stormonts main nationalist opposition group, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, says the British government is blindly ignoring the interests of Northern Ireland in order to pursue the Prime Ministers pledge to leave the European Union. His warning comes as power-sharing in Northern Ireland collapsed after Sinn Fein withdrew from joint rule at Stormont. The parliament will now be dissolved, with an election scheduled for 2 March to elect a new government. Speaking to The Independent, Mr Eastwood said: Our institutions and our Good Friday Agreement are under threat because of Brexit... we think it will be hugely damaging to the peace process in Northern Ireland. Im not convinced that the British Government are all too concerned about that. He added: The European context and the European Union and our joint membership of that with our colleagues across the border is fundamental to the peace process, fundamental to the Good Friday Agreement, fundamental to nationalisms ability to democratically advance our wishes, so the idea that we can just rip all that apart and it wont be destabilising I think thats fairly naive of the British government to think thats possible. He added: The British government have taken its eye off the ball here. Theyve done that at their peril. Northern Ireland is expected to be particularly affected by Brexit as it shares a land border with another EU country, in the form of the Republic of Ireland. It is unknown if the border will be affected by EU withdrawal, such as a physical barrier or check point being erected. In addition, Northern Ireland receives a number of EU subsidies for peace process projects as part of cross community relations to repair social discord from the Troubles conflict. Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, by a margin of 56 per cent. 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 Announcing Stormonts collapse and imminent dissolution, Secretary of State James Brokenshire said the Northern Irish political crisis would not delay Brexit and re-affirmed that Ms May remains committed to triggering Article 50 by the end of March, the formal processes by which EU withdrawal occurs. Sinn Fein withdrew from power-sharing at Stormont last week, citing concerns about the Democratic Unionist Partys arrogant response to allegations their leader had misspent more than 490m of public funds. On Monday, the term period for them to return to government elapsed, meaning power-sharing has officially collapsed after more than a decade of joint rule between unionists and nationalists. 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 }} Donald Trump has pledged to move very quickly in securing a trade agreement with Britain after Brexit and predicted that leaving the European Union would be a great thing for the UK. In an interview published in The Times with Michael Gove, the former Justice Secretary and prominent Leave campaigner, the President-elect suggested the fall in the value of the pound was great because business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the UK. I think Brexit is going to be a great thing, he added. I thought the UK was so smart in getting out. His comments came as sterling fell 1.5 per cent against the US dollar, to its lowest levels since October amid speculation Theresa May is preparing to announce she is willing to leave the EUs tariff-free market in a major speech at Lancaster House on Tuesday. When asked whether he would move quickly on a potential trade deal once Britain has left the EU, Mr Trump, who is set to be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States on Friday, said: Absolutley. Very quickly. Im a big fan of the UK were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides. CIA Director John Brennan has stern warning for Donald Trump Mr Trump, however, dodged a question on whether Britain would be at the front of the queue for a trade deal a reference to Barack Obamas back of the queue intervention during the EU referendum campaign. In late 2016, two of Ms Mays most senior aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, travelled to Washington to meet some of the President-elects closest aides. When the secret mission by the Prime Ministers joint chiefs-of-staff was made public earlier this month, a Government source said it was part of the process leading towards the Prime Ministers first visit in the spring. Mr Trump told The Times: I will be meeting with [Theresa May] in fact if you want you can see the letter, wherever the letter is, she just sent it. Shes requesting a meeting and well have a meeting right after I get into the White House and... were gonna get something done very quickly. Sir Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to the US, has previously suggested the so-called special relationship will continue and that the two leaders will build on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The interview also comes after a poll by ComRes for The Independent suggested up to half the British public believe the Prime Minister should pursue a close relationship with the incoming President because it is in Britains best interest to do so. The poll found that 49 per cent supported a close relationship, while 31 per cent thought it would be better for Downing Street to turn its back on the new American administration. The other 20 per cent said they didnt know. 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 In the hour-long interview with Mr Gove, who rejoined The Times as a columnist last year after he was sacked by Ms May, the President-elect also revealed his mothers admiration for Queen Elizabeth II. Any time the Queen was on television, an event, my mother would be watching, he added. It makes Mr Gove the second British politician to have met with Mr Trump since his victory over Hillary Clinton in the American elections last year. Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, met the billionaire business mogul at Trump Towers in New York shortly after his electoral victory. Elsewhere in the interview the President-elect also spoke of his belief that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had made an error when she opened Germanys doors to migrants. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, he said. 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 }} Labour has urged Theresa May not to rush into a trade deal with Donald Trump, warning Britain could be swallowed up. Britain after Brexit will be a small player, making it easier for the United States to get its way and impose unwanted measures in any rapid-fire trade talks, the Opposition said. The warning came as questions were asked about the implications for UK pharmaceutical firms and farmers of any agreement offering the US freer access to markets. Corbyn makes fun of Trump's hair live on TV Recommended Gove laughs off claims he could be next UK ambassador to America It was also pointed out that the President-elect has threatened German carmaker BMW with sanctions over its plans to build a plant across the border with Mexico. In his first UK interview with former Justice Secretary Michael Gove for The Times Mr Trump boosted Brexit supporters hopes of a quick US-UK trade deal, soon after 2019. We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides, he said. But Emily Thornberry, Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary, raised the prospect of Britain being forced to agree to unpopular aspects if any agreement was rushed. She pointed out that an aborted transatlantic trade deal between Europe and the US sparked huge controversy, because of fears it would force the privatisation of public services. The mooted Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal would have set up an investor court system (ICS), allowing multi-national firms to sue EU governments for perceived profit losses. And critics said TTIPs procurement rules could have forced the NHS to contract out services, making it impossible for a future government to restore them to public hands. Ms Thornberry said it was great that Britain was already the USs biggest investor, saying: Lets do a trade deal with them. But she added: Many people who had reservations about the TTIP, that America was getting a better deal out of it than Europe might well be concerned that if we were to do a trade deal within weeks which is what Donald Trump is saying that were going to have if America was to do a trade deal with Britain we perhaps as such a small player now, compared to doing a deal with America as part of Europe, we have to be very careful that were not swallowed up. Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Westminster Hour programme, Ms Thornberry urged the Prime Minister to use its very strong and influential position to curb Mr Trumps actions on Iran, climate change and Israel. She said: I think that Theresa May should be in a position to say No, Mr President, its wrong. Tim Farron, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the interview had exposed Mr Trumps opposition to helping refugees and environmental protections and his backing for President Putin. He said: Michael Gove has had a rare opportunity to put questions to the most divisive and reactionary President-elect in modern history and all we get is a puff piece from a clearly admiring fan. I dont know the shape of the Europe that Trump dreams of but I know it frightens me. 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 }} Michael Gove has laughed off the suggestion that he could be a future ambassador to Washington after his interview with Donald Trump. He also praised the work done by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in forging links with the incoming Trump administration. The senior Tory, whose alliance with Mr Johnson during the Brexit campaign spectacularly collapsed in the jostling to replace David Cameron after the referendum, said the Foreign Secretary was doing a "very good job indeed". The former education secretary became the second prominent British politician, after ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage, to meet the US President-elect at Trump Tower. Mr Trump later suggested that Mr Farage would do a "great job" as ambassador to Washington. But Mr Gove laughed at the suggestion that he too could be a candidate for the post of British ambassador, instead highlighting the "fantastic" work being done in the role by Sir Kim Darroch. "I think you can probably tell from my instinctive reaction to that that, wonderful though the Foreign Office is, it is probably better off without me as one of its ambassadors," he told BBC Radio 4's Today. "We have got Kim Darroch doing a fantastic job in Washington, by all accounts. Certainly, from the encounters I have had with him, he is a first-class diplomat." Mr Gove's decision to stand for the Tory leadership in the wake of Mr Cameron's resignation effectively torpedoed Mr Johnson's own effort to secure the keys to Number 10. After Theresa May's victory in the leadership race, Mr Johnson was made Foreign Secretary and visited New York and Washington earlier this month to meet key players in the Trump team. Mr Gove said: "I think Boris is doing a very good job indeed. One of the things that I was told while I was there is that the relationship that Boris had forged with members of the Trump team had been strong and they appreciated his combination of friendliness and candour." An election is expected to last for at least two months, during which time the Northern Ireland Assembly will be unable to sit and approve decisions (Getty) 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 }} Britain's minister for Northern Ireland says the Catholic-Protestant government must be dissolved for elections to be held on 2 March. Please wait a moment for the live blog to load: In a motion to go to the floor of the devolved parliament at midday, Sinn Fein are expected to formally refuse to continue to share power. From 5pm today, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire will have the authority to trigger new elections, in the hope that new politicians will be returned to the parliament and power-sharing can then resume. If Stormont is collapsed, Theresa May might be unable to trigger Article 50 and commence the UK's withdrawal from the EU as Northern Irish politicians will not be sitting in parliament and therefore will be unable to approve Brexit plans. Brexit could therefore be further delayed by several months. The Supreme Court is currently considering whether Northern Irish politicians are entitled to vote on whether Ms May can trigger Article 50, the formal mechanism by which a country can leave the EU. A decision is expected in the coming days. Power-sharing was plunged into crisis on Monday of last week when Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister. He said he was resigning in protest at his counterpart, First Minister Arlene Foster's handling of a government scheme. Ms Foster, who is from the Democratic Unionist Party, is accused of running a botched government scheme which has cost the tax payer 490 million due to mishandling. She denies any wrong doing and refused to stand aside. Mr McGuinness then resigned, subsequently ousting her from her position too as under power-sharing rules, both politicians must govern jointly. Power-sharing has been suspended on a number of occasions in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. However, the institutions have not been collapsed since the St Andrew's Agreement was signed in 2006. If a new government formed after the coming election is not willing to power-share, Northern Ireland may have to be run directly from London. However, the move would be seen as a considerable step back in the peace process, parties have spoken of their desire to avoid such a decision. 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 }} Power-sharing has collapsed in Northern Ireland, ending more than a decade of joint-rule between unionist and nationalist politicians. Sinn Feins Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister last Monday. The party had until midday to nominate a replacement for him, however in a midday motion in the devolved parliament, they have refused to do so. This means the Northern Ireland Assembly can no longer continue to govern. In response, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, has now called for fresh elections, in the hope of returning a new government to parliament. He announced the elections will be held on 2 March. Mr McGuinness resigned last Monday, citing concerns about the Democratic Unionist Partys arrogance at how they had handled allegations of a financial scandal. The partys leader, Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster, is implicated in a government scheme which was badly handled under her tenure. The Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, which was set up in 2012, was designed to encourage local businesses to use renewable heat sources, however it appears to have been seriously flawed in its implementation and instead paid businesses money to pointlessly burn fuel. It is estimated that the affair has cost the tax payer more than 490 million. One of Ms Fosters party colleagues added further criticism when he alleged she had asked civil servants to alter documents in order to reduce the appearance of her role in the scheme. She denies the allegations. Ms Foster denies any wrong doing and has refused calls to step down. Mr McGuinness therefore resigned on Monday. Under power-sharing rules, both politicians must govern jointly. Therefore, if one resigns, their counterpart also loses their position. Arlene Foster: Instability due to Sinn Fein's "selfish" actions Snap elections are now expected in a bid to elect a new government. While Stormont is collapsed, Theresa May might be unable to trigger Article 50 as the Northern Ireland Assembly will be unable to approve the plans. Speaking to The Independent, leader of the anti-sectarian Alliance Party Naomi Long, said Ms May could face a court challenge if she attempts to do so while Northern Irish politicians are not in parliament to be consulted on such plans. This raises the possibility that Brexit could be delayed by several more months. The Supreme Court is currently considering whether Stormont is entitled to approve plans to trigger Article 50, through a mechanism put to the devolved assemblies known as a legislative consent motion. A decision is expected to be announced by the judges in the coming days. Northern Ireland voted to keep the UK in the EU, by a margin of 56 per cent voters for Remain. As the only part of the UK which shares a land border with another EU country, in the form of the Republic of Ireland, concerns have been raised about how this border could be affected by Brexit. 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 Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has warned the challenges faced by Stormont should not be underestimated after power-sharing collapsed in the region, following an escalating political crisis. The historic announcement ends over a decade of joint rule between nationalist and unionist politicians. Secretary James Brokenshire announced he will dissolve the parliament and has set an election date of 2 March. It is hoped fresh elections will return a new government who will be willing to move back to power-sharing, in order to revive the institutions. Last Monday, Sinn Fein pulled out of power-sharing to protest an ongoing financial scandal in which the Democratic Unionist Partys leader is allegedly implicated. Under power-sharing procedures at Stormont, Sinn Fein were given a seven-day period in which to return to government, however, they confirmed that they will not do so, meaning the power-sharing executive officially ended. Sinn Fein said they have resigned to protest what they see as arrogance from the Democratic Unionists over how their party leader Arlene Foster, who is also Northern Ireland First Minister, has responded to allegations she was implicated in a financial scandal. The Renewable Heat Incentive, set up in 2012 when Ms Foster was an executive minister, was designed to encourage local businesses to use renewable heat sources. However, the scheme appears to have been badly designed and actually paid businesses money to burn fuel pointlessly. It is estimated that mismanagement of the scheme will cost the taxpayer 490 million. Ms Foster denies any wrongdoing and has resisted calls to step down. Sinn Feins Martin McGuinness, who is Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, resigned last Monday in protest. Under power-sharing rules, both parties must be in power at all times, for the other to remain. Mr McGuinness resignation therefore meant Ms Foster lost her position too. It is the first time that power-sharing has collapsed in the region since the St Andrews Agreement in 2006 which restored institutions. If a new government returned to Stormont after fresh elections will not engage with power-sharing, the prospect would be raised of Northern Ireland being run directly from London. However, the main nationalist opposition group, Social Democratic and Labour Party, has said they would not accept British rule as they feel Theresa Mays government no longer has any legitimacy after Brexit. Announcing fresh elections, Mr Brokenshire said: No one should underestimate the challenge faced to the political institutions here in Northern Ireland and what is at stake. While it is inevitable that debate during an election period will be intense, I would strongly encourage the political parties to conduct this election with a view to the future of Northern Ireland and re-establishing a partnership government at the earliest opportunity after the poll. He added that Ms May is determined the political crisis will not be allowed to derail or delay her plans to trigger Article 50, the formal mechanism by which the UK could begin to leave the EU. He told local politicians the Conservatives remain committed to triggering the clause by the end of March. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA Leader of the Alliance Party, Naomi Long, told The Independent the Prime Minister could face a legal challenge if she attempts to enact Brexit while Stormont is collapsed, as it would mean Northern Irish politicians would have no say in EU withdrawal negotiations. 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 tour guide has been mauled to death at a South African crocodile farm in the Western Cape province near Cape Town, police said on Monday. The body of 54-year-old Johan Burger was found in a pond in the crocodiles' enclosure by his co-workers, as they arrived for their shifts on the morning of 14 January, according to local media reports. The incident occurred at the Le Bonheur crocodile farm, which named Mr Burger in a statement published on Facebook. Police said they suspect the crocodiles attacked Mr Burger while he was working in the pool. Le Bonheur organises interactive guided tours across open dams that house over 1000 crocodiles. Visitors can touch baby crocodiles, view the animals underwater through viewing panels and witness feedings in the summer. The farm is said to be child friendly and an ideal destination for families. In a statement, the farm's management said: We lost a very dear colleague. Johans passing is a huge shock to all that has worked with him and who knows him. We offer our deepest sympathy and condolences to his family and friends, it added. Mr Burger joined the team on a part-time basis as designer and executor of display areas in and around the crocodile ponds at the end of 2015 before becoming a tour guide during the winter holiday season. Le Bonheur said the incident would be investigated fully before it provided any more details. 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 }} No sign was greater of the outsized hopes the world placed in Barack Obama than the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, less than nine months after he had taken office. He became just the third sitting US president to be so honoured (after Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson), on the basis not of deeds but speeches and a litany of noble diplomatic intentions. This particular speech, delivered on 10 December 2009, offered a fascinating glimpse into Obamas mind, of a firmness that later events would belie. Obama, the supposed man of peace, introduced himself as a president at war, in Afghanistan and Iraq. He went on to justify the use of war in certain circumstances: To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism. It is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. He spoke unapologetically about Americas role as global policeman in the decades since World War II, and made clear that if there was to be an alternative to a violent response to global transgressors, it must be tough enough to actually change behaviour. If we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Here too, events have not borne out Obamas aspirations. The international community is feebler than ever, while the US has stood aloof from the Syrian tragedy, where a timely and judicious use of American force might have made a difference. Mr Obama had been in office just months when he was awarded the prize (AP) Full transcript below: Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world: I receive this honour with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice. And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labours on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history whove received this prize Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organisations to relieve suffering; the unrecognised millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women some known, some obscure to all but those they help to be far more deserving of this honour than I. But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries including Norway in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks. Still, we are at war, and Im responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other. Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease the manner in which tribes and then civilisations sought power and settled their differences. And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a just war emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defence; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence. Of course, we know that for most of history, this concept of just war was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it's hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished. In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons. In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty and self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud. And yet, a decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale. Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In todays wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred. I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace. We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations acting individually or in concert will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr Kings life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know theres nothing weak nothing passive nothing naive in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al-Qaedas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the worlds sole military superpower. But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions not just treaties and declarations that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity. So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldiers courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such. So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. Let us focus, he said, on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions. A gradual evolution of human institutions. What might this evolution look like? What might these practical steps be? To begin with, I believe that all nations strong and weak alike must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I like any head of state reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who dont. The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognised principle of self-defence. Likewise, the world recognised the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression. Furthermore, America in fact, no nation can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we dont, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified. And this becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defence or the defence of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region. I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. Thats why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace. Americas commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come. The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage theyve shown in Afghanistan. But in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public. I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. Thats why NATO continues to be indispensable. Thats why we must strengthen U.N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries. Thats why we honour those who return home from peacekeeping and training abroad to Oslo and Rome; to Ottawa and Sydney; to Dhaka and Kigali we honour them not as makers of war, but of wagers but as wagers of peace. Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognised this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions. Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed Americas commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honour we honour those ideals by upholding them not when its easy, but when it is hard. I have spoken at some length to the question that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me now turn to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace. First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behaviour for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one. One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to upholding this treaty. It is a centrepiece of my foreign policy. And Im working with President Medvedev to reduce America and Russias nuclear stockpiles. But it is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system. Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war. The same principle applies to those who violate international laws by brutalisng their own people. When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, repression in Burma there must be consequences. Yes, there will be engagement; yes, there will be diplomacy but there must be consequences when those things fail. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression. This brings me to a second point the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognised that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise. And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nations development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world. I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests nor the worlds are served by the denial of human aspirations. So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements these movements of hope and history they have us on their side. Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach condemnation without discussion can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door. In light of the Cultural Revolution's horrors, Nixons meeting with Mao appeared inexcusable and yet it surely helped set China on a path where millions of its citizens have been lifted from poverty and connected to open societies. Pope John Pauls engagement with Poland created space not just for the Catholic Church, but for labour leaders like Lech Walesa. Ronald Reagans efforts on arms control and embrace of Perestroika not only improved relations with the Soviet Union, but empowered dissidents throughout Eastern Europe. Theres no simple formula here. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time. Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want. It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children cant aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within. And thats why helping farmers feed their own people or nations educate their children and care for the sick is not mere charity. Its also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action its military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance. Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more and that's the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there's something irreducible that we all share. As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognise how similar we are; to understand that were all basically seeking the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfilment for ourselves and our families. And yet somehow, given the dizzying pace of globalisation, the cultural levelling of modernity, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish in their particular identities their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like were moving backwards. We see it in the Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines. And most dangerously, we see it in the way that religion is used to justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan. These extremists are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or the Red Cross worker, or even a person of ones own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe its incompatible with the very purpose of faith for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. For we are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us. But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealised world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached their fundamental faith in human progress that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey. For if we lose that faith if we dismiss it as silly or naive; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace then we lose whats best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass. Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the isness of mans present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal oughtness that forever confronts him. Let us reach for the world that ought to be that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees hes outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that childs dreams. Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that for that is the story of human progress; thats the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you very much. 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 }} Barack Obama has released 10 inmates from Guantanamo Bay before Donald Trump potentially tries to fulfill his promise to fill it with some bad dudes. Mr Obama has persuaded Oman to take in 10 of the remaining few inmates being kept at the controversial prison. The outgoing president is set to fail on his promise to close down the facility, which forms part of a US air base in eastern Cuba, before he leaves office on Friday. Oman confirmed on Monday that it had agreed to take in almost a quarter of the camps remaining prisoners. "To meet a request by the U.S. government to assist in settling the issue of the detainees at Guantanamo, out of consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 people released from that prison arrived in the Sultanate of Oman for a temporary residency," a foreign ministry statement said. It comes as Guantanamo officials prepare for a potential expansion of the prison following Mr Trumps election, having spent years believing the facility would be closed. They are said to be confident they can house up to 150 additional inmates without having to expand the prison facilities. It is unclear exactly what Mr Trump plans to use Guantanamo, nicknamed Gitmo, for. He has said only that he wants to keep it open and load it up. In pictures: Obama's advisers Show all 3 1 /3 In pictures: Obama's advisers In pictures: Obama's advisers 39213.bin In pictures: Obama's advisers 39215.bin Getty In pictures: Obama's advisers 39218.bin Getty Speaking at a rally early last year, the Republican said: "This morning, I watched President Obama talking about Gitmo, right, Guantanamo Bay, which by the way, which by the way, we are keeping open. Which we are keeping open ... and we're gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we're gonna load it up." Earlier this month, four Guantanamo prisoners were released to Saudi Arabia as the Obama Administration desperately tries to empty the prison before handing office to Mr Trump and his team on 20 January. The four inmates were Yemeni and had been held at Guantanamo for more than 14 years without being charged. They were suspected of having links to al-Qaeda but never stood trial. The prisons population has now been reduced to 31, with 15 cleared for release - a significant decrease from the 684 inmates that were kept at the site in 2003. Mr Obama has repeatedly vowed to close Guantanamo Bay but proved unable to do so. One of the difficulties his administration has encountered is unwillingness by other countries to take in Guantanamo prisoners. 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 CIA's outgoing director has said Donald Trump lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States. John Brennan delivered a public lecture that infuriated the president-elect and further highlighted his bitter relations with American intelligence agencies. His pointed message on national television came just five days before Mr Trump becomes the nation's 45th president amid lingering questions about Russia's role in the 2016 election. "Now that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that US and national security interests are protected," Mr Brennan said on Fox News on Sunday, warning that the president-elect's impulsivity could be dangerous. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests," he said. Mr Trump has repeatedly called for a better relationship between the US and Vladimir Putin's government and suggested in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday that he would consider easing the latest sanctions on Russia. But Mr Brennan said: "I think he has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road." Mr Trump, who has unleashed a series of aggressive tweets against the US intelligence community and his political rivals in recent weeks, responded aggressively on Twitter several hours later. "Was this the leaker of Fake News?" he tweeted, referring to a recent document that contains unverified financial and personal information that could be damaging to the President-elect. Mr Trump remained in his Manhattan high-rise on Sunday, as his team worked to answer questions about his plans at home and abroad once he is sworn into office on Friday. CIA Director John Brennan has stern warning for Donald Trump His immediate challenges include the United States' complicated relationship with Russia, an affordable health care alternative that does not strip coverage from millions of Americans, and growing questions about the legitimacy of his presidency. Without providing details, Mr Trump promised his plan to replace the nation's health care law would provide universal coverage. "We're going to have insurance for everybody," he said in a Washington Post interview. "There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can't pay for it, you don't get it. That's not going to happen with us." Meanwhile, civil rights legend and congressman John Lewis is among several Democrats who vowed to skip Mr Trump's inauguration, saying that Russian interference in the 2016 election delegitimises his presidency. "There will be many more members who join us in this decision," California Democrat Jared Huffman wrote on his Facebook page. Mr Trump's lieutenants pushed back hard on Sunday in a round of television interviews. "I think it's incredibly disappointing and I think it's irresponsible for people like himself to question the legitimacy of the next United States president," incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said of Mr Lewis on ABC's This Week. Mr Priebus insisted that Republicans did not question Barack Obama's legitimacy, but later acknowledged that conservatives, led by Mr Trump himself, spent years questioning Mr Obama's eligibility to serve as president, suggesting he was not born in the United States. Vice president-elect Mike Pence told Fox News on Sunday that he hoped Mr Lewis would change his mind and attend the inauguration. Mr Trump has done little to encourage unity in recent days, instead inflaming tensions with his critics through a series of tweets. The incoming president tweeted on Saturday that Mr Lewis should pay more attention to his "crime ridden" Atlanta-area district, adding that the civil rights leader was "all talk". Mr Lewis suffered a fractured skull when he led a march in Selma, Alabama, more than 50 years ago and has devoted his life to civil rights. Current White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said Mr Lewis "has literally fought, bled and gone to jail" during what he called his "remarkable life" and encouraged the incoming president to move past his criticism. 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 "That would be the kind of thing that would not only send a message to the American people that we're prepared to work together, but would also send a message to the Russians that we are united," Mr McDonough told CNN's State Of The Union. Questions about Mr Trump's relationship with Russia have dominated the days leading up to his inauguration. Retired general Michael Flynn, who is set to become Mr Trump's national security adviser, has been in frequent contact with Russia's ambassador to the US in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for the alleged election hacking, a senior US official said. After initially denying the contact took place, Mr Trump's team later acknowledged the conversations. "The conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new US sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats," said Mr Pence on Fox News on Sunday. Repeated contacts just as Mr Obama imposed sanctions would raise questions about whether Mr Trump's team discussed - or even helped shape - Russia's response. Mr Putin, unexpectedly, did not retaliate against the US for the sanctions or the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, a decision Mr Trump quickly praised. Meanwhile, US vice-president Joe Biden, on a last foreign trip before leaving office, has met with Ukraine's president and called on the impending Trump administration to retain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. Mr Biden's comments at a briefing with President Petro Poroshenko came after Mr Trump indicated in a Times interview that he could end sanctions imposed in the aftermath of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. "The Crimea-related sanctions against Russia must remain in place until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine," Mr Biden said. Other US sanctions are connected to Russia's involvement in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine. Mr Biden said that Russia must fulfil its obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement on ending that conflict. Associated Press 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 has avoided saying who he trusts more German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a longtime US-ally, or Russian President Vladimir Putin. Well, I start off trusting both but lets see how long that lasts," the incoming president said in an interview with The Sunday Times. "It may not last long at all. During the interview, Mr Trump said Britain's decision to leave the EU would "end up being a great thing" and reiterated his claim Nato is "obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror". 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 also criticised Ms Merkel's immigration policies. Despite saying he had "great respect" for the German leader, Mr Trump said she had made a "catastrophic mistake" by welcoming an unlimited number of refugees to her country. He also suggested the December Christmas market attack by a Tunisian man was one effect of Ms Merkel's policies. The President-elect said he will consider reviewing sanctions against Russia if Mr Putin is prepared to move away from confrontation with the US. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," he said. "But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit." Trump's message to Putin Breaking with his previous rhetoric, Mr Trump condemned Russia's involvement in the Syrian conflict. He said: Its a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and... nothing happened. He added: "Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town they cant even walk and theyre shooting em it almost looks like theyre shooting em for sport ah no, thats... a terrible situation. Mr Trump also took aim at another key western alliance in the interview, saying Nato has not reformed to meet the main threat of Islamist terrorism. He called the North American Treaty Organisation "obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror" and said member organisations are not paying their "fair share". I said a long time ago that Nato had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay." He added: "A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, Nato is very important to me." 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 }} Just one day after suggesting he may lift sanctions on Russia for US election-related hacking, Donald Trump has condemned Russias involvement in the Syrian conflict. In an interview published in The Times with the UKs former justice secretary Michael Gove, the President-elect blamed US President Barack Obama for not intervening further to prevent President Assad and Vladimir Putin carrying out attacks in Aleppo. According to Mr Gove, Mr Trump was unequivocal in his condemnation of Mr Putin over his role in the conflict, despite reiterating his desire to improve the USs relations with Russia. Mr Trump said: Its a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and . . . nothing happened. That was the only time. And now, its sort of very late. Its too late . . . But Aleppo was nasty. He added: I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town they cant even walk and theyre shooting em it almost looks like theyre shooting em for sport ah no, thats . . . a terrible situation. In the interview, Mr Trump also said he would be willing to review Russias sanctions if Mr Putin reduced Russias nuclear arsenal. He said: They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit. In recent days Mr Trumps relationship with Russia has come under greater scrutiny after the CIA warned Russia may hold more than one recording of compromising footage of Mr Trump, containing video and audio of a sexual nature, which could be used to blackmail him. In addition, the President-elects team has given imprecise reports of its contact with the Russian administration, which has worried many in Washington, including Republicans. Mr Trumps team initially denied that national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russias ambassador Sergey Kislyak spoke on the day Mr Obama imposed sanctions last month, but later admitted that one call had been made on that day and another call made the day before. However, it later emerged that as many as five calls were made between the pair on the day the sanctions were imposed. Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Show all 14 1 /14 Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A lesbian couple kisses in front of mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a barbecue bar 'Keule Ruke' on May 19, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Barcroft Media/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A lesbian couple kisses in front of mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a barbecue bar 'Keule Ruke' on May 19, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Barcroft Media/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural VILNIUS, LITHUANIA - NOVEMBER 23: A woman walks past a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A woman walks past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A child walks past a graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a bar in the old town in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis) AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural People walk past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A man photographs a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural AP Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A young woman walks past a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the slogan "make everything great again," in reference to Trump's campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again," on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A morning commuter stops to look at a mural on a restaurant wall depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Restaurant owner Dominykas Ceckauskas pose next to a mural on the wall of his establishment depicting US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on May 13, 2016. Kestutis Girnius, associate professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius university, told AFP -This graffiti expresses the fear of some Lithuanians that Donald Trump is likely to kowtow to Vladimir Putin and be indifferent to Lithuanias security concerns. Trump has notoriously stated that Putin is a strong leader, and that NATO is obsolete and expensive. / AFP / Petras Malukas (Photo credit should read PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images) Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural A passerby photographs a mural showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (R) blowing marijuana smoke into the mouth of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the wall of a bar-b-que restaurant on November 23, 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Many people in the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are concerned that Russia, because Trump has expressed both admiration for Putin and doubt over defending NATO member states, will be emboldened to intervene militarily in the Baltics. Sean Gallup/Getty Trump and Putin passionately kiss in street mural Getty The relationship has raised questions about whether repeated contact with the President-elects team has helped shape Moscows response to the imposition of sanctions. 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 }} Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton may be attending Donald Trumps inauguration, but a growing number of their Democratic colleagues have decided to boycott the event. The 19 house representatives, including civil rights leader John Lewis, have decided to skip Mr Trumps inauguration on 20 January in Washington DC. The dissenting politicians span eight states from Arizona and California to New York and Oregon. Six Democrats - four of them in the Congress - made the decision to skip the ceremony after the President-elect dismissed Mr Lewis, who marched alongside Martin Luther King and was beaten up by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s, claiming he was "all talk, no action". Mr Trump was responding to a perceived attack from Mr Lewis, who had earlier questioned Mr Trumps legitimacy as the 45th President. The President-elect then tweeted: "Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. "All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!" New York representative Yvette Clarke responded on Twitter that she would not attend the inauguration. "When you insult [John Lewis], you insult America," she said. She was joined by New York representative Jerrold Nadler and three California representatives - Ted Lieu, Mark Takano and Judy Chu. Vice President-elect Mike Pence said Mr Lewis comments about his boss were "disappointing" and that Mr Trump had "a right to defend himself". Dress rehearsal takes place ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration Mr Trump has done little to assure he has a positive message for African-Americans when he carried out a relatively last-minute attempt to woo their vote, asking a black audience in Ohio, "What the hell do you have to lose?" His team cancelled plans to visit the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture on Martin Luther King Day within five hours of leaking them, saying Mr Trump will visit the museum after he becomes president. Other representatives revealed they would not attend the inauguration before the spat over Mr Lewis. Massachusetts Rep Katherine Clark told the Boston Globe on 5 January: "I support the peaceful transition of power, but I don't feel that I need to attend the pageantry associated with and for this President." New York Rep Adriano Espaillat said on Facebook that Mr Trump wanted to take the country "back in time". Mr Espaillat protested against his "hate-filled rhetoric". While colleague Nydia Velazquez said she would not attend the inauguration, she said she would be at the womens march in the capital on the same day. Donna Brazile, the interim head of the Democratic National Committee, is also skipping the ceremony. She allegedly funnelled several debate questions to Ms Clintons team ahead of time during the primary debate season - a fact that Mr Trump and his team have repeatedly called out to deflect more pressing questions about his ties with the Kremlin. Many Democratic donors will reportedly gather on the day to discuss what went wrong in the election and plot Mr Trumps downfall in the next election. 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 }} Every year, Human Rights Watch publishes a report highlights threats to ordinary people around the world. It has drawn attention to pressing problems in places such as China, the Philippines and Syria. But the 2017 report also highlights the threat to human rights by the rise of populist movements in Europe - and of the election of Donald Trump as US President-elect. Donald Trumps election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk, wrote Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth. Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism. They all claim that the public accepts violations of human rights as supposedly necessary to secure jobs, avoid cultural change, or prevent terrorist attacks. Dress rehearsal takes place ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration He added: In fact, disregard for human rights offers the likeliest route to tyranny. During the election campaign, Mr Trump concerned many with what a number of observers said were authoritarian suggestions and proposals. He has called for the US to once again torture terror suspects, he has threatened to sue the media and change the libel laws, and he also proposed the mass deportation of migrants without documents. During one debate with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, he claimed that once he was president he would appoint a special prosecutor to try and convict her. At his rallies, his supporters repeatedly chanted: Lock her up. Mr Roth said Mr Trumps campaign was a powerful example of the politics of intolerance. He said that Mr Trump had responded to those discontented with their economic situation and an increasingly multicultural society with rhetoric that rejected basic principles of dignity and equality. His policy proposals threatened to undermine human rights advances that had taken decades to secure. He said that unless Mr Trump repudiated these proposals, his administration risked committing massive rights violations in the US. 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 }} US President-elect Donald Trump said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made a catastrophic mistake with a policy that let a wave of more than one million migrants into her country. In a joint interview with The Times and the German newspaper Bild, Trump also said the European Union had become a vehicle for Germany and predicted that more EU member states would vote to leave the bloc as Britain did last June. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake, and that was taking all of these illegals, Trump said of Merkel, who in August 2015 decided to keep Germany's borders open for refugees, mostly Muslims, fleeing war zones in the Middle East. CIA Director John Brennan has stern warning for Donald Trump And nobody even knows where they come from. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake, Trump said, adding that he always had great respect for Merkel and that he still viewed her as one of the most important world leaders. Merkel faces a tough re-election battle in September. Trump, who takes office on Friday, campaigned for president on promises of banning Muslims from entering the United States or imposing more severe restrictions on migrants from countries or regions with high levels of militant Islamist activity. Trump said Germany had only recently gotten a clear impression of the consequences of Merkel's migration policy, without elaborating. Last month, a 24-year-old Tunisian failed asylum-seeker drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people, before fleeing to Italy, where he was shot dead by police. The attacker, Anis Amri, came to Germany in July 2015 after having spent four years in jail in Italy. That means he entered Europe before Merkel's August 2015 border decision. In the interview, Trump said British voters would not have approved leaving the European Union had Europe not been engulfed in a migrant crisis. I do believe this, if they (the EU countries) hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many... I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit, Trump said. It probably could have worked out but this was the final straw, this was the final straw that broke the camel's back. 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 Turning to his family's German roots, Trump said he was proud to have had ancestors from Germany and that he loved Germany. Asked about character traits he would link to his German roots, Trump said he liked order and strength. The United States is Germany's most important trading partner, and Trump's protectionist talk has unnerved business leaders and exporters in Europe's biggest economy. In the interview, Trump said the United States will impose a border tax of 35 percent on cars that German carmaker BMW plans to build at a new plant in Mexico and export to the US market. Reuters 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 }} President-elect Donald Trump has said Britain's decision to leave the European Union would "end up being a great thing" and has reiterated his claim Nato is "obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror". The incoming president, in an interview with Michael Gove published in The Times, also discussed the future of the EU, his stance on Russia and a new trade deal with the UK. Here are the 10 most important things he said: 1. Brexit 'a great 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 "I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing," Mr Trump told the newspaper. He added: "The fact that your pound sterling has gone down? Great. Because business is unbelievable in a lot of parts in the UK." 2. The EU will break up US President-elect Donald Trump on recent allegations The President-elect predicted the EU would continue to break apart as European countries react to an influx of refugees threatening each nations identity. People, countries, want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity," he told the newspaper. He said if EU countries hadn't been "forced to take in all of the refugees" that "you wouldn't have a Brexit." He added: "I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think. "And I think this, if refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe... I think its gonna be very hard to keep it together because people are angry about it. 3. Nato is 'obsolete' US soldiers arrive to Zagan, Poland as part of Nato deployment (Zbigniew Janicki/Agencja Gazeta/Reuters) While saying he is committed to the defence of Europe and the West, Mr Trump told The Times he is concerned Nato has not reformed to meet the main threat of Islamist terrorism. He called the North American Treaty Organisation "obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror" and said member organisations are not paying their "fair share". I said a long time ago that Nato had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay." He added: "A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, Nato is very important to me." 4. Trade deal with the UK Mr Trump said he would move "very quickly" to make a new trade deal with the UK. "Im a big fan of the UK, were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," he said. "Good for both sides." 5. Angela Merkel German Chancellor Angela Merkel came under political pressure following the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin (Reuters) Criticising German chancellor Angela Merkel's immigration policies, he said she made "one catastrophic mistake" by welcoming an unlimited number of Syrian refugees, which he referred to as "all these illegals". He also suggested the December Christmas market attack by a Tunisian man was one effect of Ms Merkel's policies. 6. Russia Mr Trump wants a new arms control agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin (MIKHAIL KLIMENTIEV/AFP/Getty Images) The President-elect said he will consider reviewing US sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin is prepared to move away from confrontation. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," he said. "But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit." 7. Syria Russian President Vladimir Putin greets his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad upon his arrival for a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow (Getty) Mr Trump criticised President Barack Obama for failing to take action on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and for allowing Russia to take control of the course of the civil war. He said "nothing happened" when the US "had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand." "Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town they cant even walk and theyre shooting em it almost looks like theyre shooting em for sport ah no, thats... a terrible situation. 8. Iran Mr Trump said he did not want to reveal the details of his policy on Iran, saying: "I just don't want to play the cards." However, he did say he was "not happy" with Barack Obama's deal with Iran on nuclear weapons and described it as "one of the worst deals ever made". He said: "I think its one of the dumbest deals Ive ever seen... Where you give ... $150 billion back to a country, where you give 1.7 billion in cash. "Did you ever see $100 million in hundred-dollar bills? Its a lot. 1.7 billion in cash. Plane loads. Many planes. Boom. 1.7 billion. I dont understand. I think that money is in Swiss bank accounts. 9. The Russia file Christopher Steele worked for MI6 before founding private firm Orbis Business Intelligence Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who investigated Mr Trump's alleged links to the Kremlin, is "somebody that you should look at," Mr Trump said, "because whatever he made up about me it was false." Commenting on allegations made in the report, he said: "I don't even want to shake hands with people now I hear about this stuff." 10. Twitter Mr Trump boasted about his 46 million followers on social media and said he tweets so much because he is "covered so dishonestly by the press". "Id rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, its working and the tweeting, I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and its not 140, its now 280 I can go bing bing bing... and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out this morning on television, Fox Donald Trump, we have breaking news. 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 }} In the first three months of his presidency, Donald Trump wants to pull America out of a free trade deal, reduce environmental protections and establish a cyber defence team. He may also try to scrap Obamacare and appoint a Supreme Court Justice who shares his worldview. The President-elect has made a flurry of claims as to what he will do in his first 100 days upon entering the Oval Office. For all his talk about building a wall on the Mexican border, that is unlikely to begin in the first three months. But the signals he has given about the things he will set out to do, have already sparked concern among a number of activist and campaigners, anxious that Mr Trump will roll back a number of hard-earned victories. Activist are worried that advances on heathcare, women's rights and gender rights could be reversed (Getty) I think some of the extremely right-wing people are saying that Trump does not care about issues such as abortion right and reproductive rights, and that it would be an easy bone to throw them, Jon OBrien, president of Catholics for Choice, told The Independent. I hope he will not delegate this issue to people such as Mike Pence, who has an extreme position. The first 100 days of a presidency are considered the period when the incoming administration seeks to set the pace for what is to come. The term came into use during the administration of President Franklin D Roosevelt, who used that period set in place the foundations of the New Deal. Yet other presidents have frequently failed to match the example, and even make bad mistakes. President John F Kennedy ordered the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. How the 25th Amendment can stop a Donald Trump presidency President Barack Obamas first 100 days saw him try to confront the economic crisis he inherited, by pushing through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Mr Trump laid out his priorities in a video address last November, which he said his overarching aim was to put America first. The list of things he reeled off focussed on issues he could address using executive orders. His proposals include withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy and creating many millions of high-paying jobs. This was taken to be a deference to limits on emissions overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr Trump has dismissed climate change science. His incoming chief-of-staff, Reince Priebus, said last year of Mr Trumps attitude: Look, hell have an open mind about it, but he has his default position, which is most of it is a bunch of bunk. Mr Trump also intends to establish a cyber-review team made up of members of the military, law enforcement and the private sector. On immigration, his plan is to end illegal immigration and suspend immigration from terror problem regions. In the video, Mr Trump also said he will investigate all abuses of visa programmes that undercut the American worker. As part of his promise to drain the swamp, he want to prohibit officials becoming lobbyists for five years after leaving government. A plan that has not been warmly welcomed on Capitol Hill is to push for a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress. Trump seems to have so many priorities, doesnt he? First up will be revocation of many of President Obamas executive orders, such as those in the areas of immigration and climate change. This Trump can do with the stroke of his pen, said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia. Then he wants to nominate his Supreme Court choice quickly. He added: Dont forget about tax cuts always a big winner on the Republican side. On foreign policy, Mr Trump has said he wants to establish a new relationship with Russia. This will be very controversial, even among his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill, but the New York tycoon he has indicated he is ready for a reset. People will watch to see if he reverses the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats by Barack Obama in response to Moscows alleged cyber-meddling in the election. At last weeks news conference in New York, Mr Trump said of his approach to Russia: If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what folks thats called an asset, not a liability. The President-elect says he expected things to happen quickly. Shortly after his election win, Mr Pence went meet with Republican Congressional leaders and urged them to buckle up. Im very confident that as we move towards inauguration, bring together a great team, work in concert with leaders in the House and Senate, and were going to move an agenda that's going to rebuild our military, revive our economy, and in a word make America great again, he said. Activists believe the rolling back of environmental safeguards and the withdrawal of affordable healthcare, could have the most dramatic impact. Natural Resources Defence Council president Rhea Suh said earlier this month: If we care about our waters, our lands and all they support, if we care about American values of equity and justice for all our people, if we care about leaving our children a livable world, its time to stand up and fight this extremist agenda. 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 met the oldest son of Martin Luther King, just days after he slapped down civil rights hero John Lewis for being "all talk, no action". Martin Luther King III visited Trump Tower on the day that commemorates his father's birthday to discuss voting rights. He arrived shortly before 1pm and was seen walking out less than an hour later. He told reporters that he, as well as Democratic congressman John Lewis, were "bridge builders" and they would "continue to evaluate" Mr Trumps pledge to unify the US. "What my father and mother represented, what I always try to do in my life, was to always bring people together," he said. The 59-year-old advocate and community activist added that Mr Trump told him during the meeting "over and over" that he would "represent all Americans". "I believe thats his intent but we have to consistently engage with public pressure. My father understood that," said Mr King. Mr King has long campaigned to provide free government photo identification to make it easier for Americans who do not have a drivers licence or other ID to cast their ballot. Many Americans cannot open a bank account without a form of government ID. Asked what his father, the slain civil rights leader, would make of Mr Trump, he replied: "I think my father would be very concerned about the 50 to 60 million people living in poverty. "With an American multi-trillion dollar economy, it's insanity that we have poor people in this nation. Thats unacceptable. And we know that we can roll up our sleeves and there's nothing we cant do." Mr Trump did not speak about the meeting to the press pool at Trump Tower, but his press secretary Sean Spicer announced Mr King's visit earlier that day. "Today, President-elect Trump is going to sit down with Martin Luther King III and others in New York and have a conversation about voting, about bringing more people into the system, the legacy of Doctor King and how we can continue to pursue that under the Trump administration," Mr Spicer told NBC. Mr Trump tweeted earlier on Monday that Mr Kings father was a "great man". The President-elect was heavily criticised for attacking Mr Lewis on social media, however, saying he was "all talk, no action" and he should focus more on his "infested" district. He also cancelled a trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, about five hours after saying he would go. Mr King refuted the claims about Mr Lewis, who has worked for congress since 1986. "No, absolutely, I would say John Lewis has demonstrated hes action," he said. "As Ive said things get said on both sides in the heat out of emotion. People are literally, probably, dying. How do we feed people? How do we clothe people? Thats what we need to focus on." In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Mr King III said that Mr Trump won in key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin where minority turnout was lower than normal. "While we cant know how those affected would have voted, we can agree that every citizen should have the unfettered opportunity to vote," he wrote. "Indeed, my concern is not how people vote, but simply that they vote." 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 FBI has reportedly arrested the wife of Omar Mateen, the man who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Authorities arrested Noor Salman in San Francisco. She is expected to face charges of aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice. However, Ms Salman has told investigators that she tried to stop Mateen from committing the attack. In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Show all 44 1 /44 In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Frank Escalante AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Conde AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Brenda Lee Marquez McCool In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Joel Rayon Paniagua AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jerald Arthur Wright AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Paul Terrell Henry AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Shane Evan Tomlinson AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Antonio Davon Brown AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jason Benjamin Josaphat AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Enrique L. Rios, Jr. AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Darryl Roman Burt AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Cory James Connell REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Tevin Eugene Crosby AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jonathan Antonio Camuy-Vega AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Leroy Valentin Fernandez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Andrew Leinonen AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Angel L. Candelario-Padro AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernande AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Javier Jorge-Reyes AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Gilberto Ramon Silva-Menendez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan P. Rivera-Velazquez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Miguel Angel Honorato AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jean Carlos Mendez Perez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Mercedez Marisol Flores REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Luis Laureano Disla REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Oscar A. Aracena-Montero REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Martin Benitez Torres REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Stanley Almodovar Facebook/Stanley Manolo Almodovar III In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eddie Justice Faebook/ Eddie Justice In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Vielma Twitter/@jk_rowling In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Facebook/ Eric Rivera In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan Ramon Guerrero Facebook/ Juan Ramon Guerrero In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz Facebook/ Peter Gonzalez Cruz In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Amanda Alvear Facebook/ Amanda Alvear In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Disla Facebook/ Anthony Disla In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Edward Sotomayor Twitter/@ryanraiche In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo Facebook/Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Kimberley Morris Twitter/ @katiezavadski Authorities suspected she had prior knowledge of the attack and failed to reach out to law enforcement in an effort to prevent it. She is believed to have been with her husband when he purchased ammunition, and allegedly visited the Pulse nightclub wiht Mateen prior to the 12 June attack. Mateen and Salman reportedly exchanged text messages during the shooting. Authorities are treating the shooting, that killed 49 people and injured dozens more, as a hate crime and act of terrorism. 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 }} Pictures from the scene in Kyrgyzstan where at least 37 people were killed when a Turkish cargo plane crashed into homes show bricks, debris from cars and domestic goods strewn across the ground. The pilots on board died in the disaster by Manas airport, near capital Bishkek, along with residents who would have been sleeping in their beds. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 out of 43 houses in the village were destroyed by the plane, which was scheduled for a stopover at the airport en route from Hong Kong to Istanbul. Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Show all 16 1 /16 Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish cargo jet wheel is seen in a home amongst belongings in Kyrgyzstan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Handout via REUTERS Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Rescuers work at the site of an airplane crash near the airport Manas, 30 km from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. A Turkish Boeing 747-400 cargo plane crashed on a village near the capital of Kyrgyzstan, destroying 32 houses and killing at least 37 people, EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Rescuers work at the site of an airplane crash near the airport Manas, 30 km from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. A Turkish Boeing 747-400 cargo plane crashed on a village near the capital of Kyrgyzstan, destroying 32 houses and killing at least 37 people EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Members of a rescue team work at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Manas airport outside the capital city Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Handout via REUTERS Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish cargo jet landing gear is seen at the crash site near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport outside Bishkek Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Handout via REUTERS Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish cargo plane crashed into a village near Kyrgyzstan's main airport Monday, killing 32 people and destroying homes after attempting to land in thick fog Getty Images Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Rescue personnel work at the crash site of a Turkish cargo plane in the village of Dacha-Suu outside Bishkek Getty Images Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan The plane wreckage is seen at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Manas airport outside the capital city Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan REUTERS/Vladimir Pirogov Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyz police officers cordon off the site of a Turkish cargo plane crash in the village of Dacha-Suu outside Bishkek Getty Images Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Rescue teams are seen at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport outside Bishkek REUTERS/Vladimir Pirogov Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan An undercarriage of a crashed Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane lies at a residential area outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The cargo plane crashed, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the Manas airport as well as those on the plane AP Photo/Vladimir Voronin Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish Boeing 747-400 cargo plane crashed on a village near the capital of Kyrgyzstan, destroying 32 houses and killing at least 37 people EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan The damaged cockpit at the site of an airplane crash near the airport Manas, 30 km from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. A Turkish Boeing 747-400 cargo plane crashed on a village near the capital of Kyrgyzstan, destroying 32 houses and killing at least 37 people EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan A Turkish Boeing 747-400 cargo plane crashed on a village near the capital of Kyrgyzstan, destroying 32 houses and killing at least 37 people EPA Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan Firefighters work among remains of a crashed Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane at a residential area outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan AP Photo/Vladimir Voronin The prime minister's office said one of the two flight recorders had been recovered from the scene. The Turkish transportation ministry is sending two experts from its accident investigation board to assist and ACT Airlines, which owns the Boeing 474-400, said the cause was still unknown. AFP news agency says at least one Kyrgyz official has blamed a pilot error for the tragedy. 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 }} Australia said on Monday it was deeply disappointed Japan had continued whaling in the Southern Ocean after anti-whaling activists published a photograph of a dead whale, and two days after Australian and Japanese leaders discussed the issue. Australia has long opposed Japanese whaling and the contentious issue was raised in talks between Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Sydney on Saturday, sources familiar with the discussions said. The Australian government is deeply disappointed that Japan has decided to return to the Southern Ocean this summer to undertake so-called scientific whaling, Australian Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said on Monday. It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them, Frydenberg added, without confirming the exact location of the current hunt. Recommended SeaWorld San Diego ends its killer whale show Japans whaling in the Southern Ocean should stop, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 in a case brought by Australia, prompting Japan to suspend its hunt for one season, though it resumed in 2015. Australia, which opposes all forms of commercial and scientific whaling, will continue raising its concerns about the issue with Japan, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Reuters. Japan maintains that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is part of its culture. Japan started what it calls scientific whaling in 1987, a year after an international whaling moratorium took effect. Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd published a photograph on Sunday of a dead minke whale, that appeared to have been punctured by a harpoon, on the deck of the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru. Video footage showed the dead whale later covered by a blue tarpaulin. The group said the ship was hunting in an Australian sanctuary off the Antarctic coast. 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 }} There is a global crisis in trust of government, business, media and non-governmental organisations, according to a comprehensive new report. The 2017 Trust Barometer by Edelman, one of the worlds biggest marketing firms, says 53 per cent of its surveys responders believe the current system has failed them. Just over 47 per cent, compared with 49 per cent in the 2016 report, said they trusted any one of these four sectors. It said its pre-Davos survey, which also follows analysis by Oxfam claiming that the eight richest own as much wealth as half the globes population, questioned more than 33,000 people across 28 markets. The implications of the global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging, said firm president and chief executive Richard Edelman. It began with the Great Recession of 2008, but like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalisation and technological change have further weakened people's trust in global institutions. The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites. Mr Edelman also said the emergence of a media echo chamber that reinforces personal believes but shuts down opposing views has magnified theis cycle of distrust. Recommended The countries who trust their media the most The survey, conducted between 13 October and 16 November 2016, also said 59 per cent trusted search engines as an information tool more than traditional news editors. Fifteen per cent of respondents in the questionnaire, which went to those with and without a college education, said the system was working. People now view media as part of the elite, said Mr Edelman. The result is a proclivity for self-referential media and reliance on peers. The lack of trust in media has also given rise to the fake news phenomenon and politicians speaking directly to the masses. Trump calls leak "fake news" and "something that Nazi Germany would have done" The report follows a poll of 1,150 Britons, in which 75 per cent said they did not trust the Three Brexiteers to do what is right. Donald Trump told Michael Gove in an interview for The Times that Britons voted to leave the European Union because they dont want people coming in and destroying their country. The World Economic Forum annual meeting, in Davos in Switzerland between 17 January and 20 January, is a coming together of global political and business elites. 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 }} British diplomats have expressed reservations about the outcome of a Middle East peace conference in Paris, saying it risked "hardening positions". While the French-led conference involved some 70 countries, it did not involve any Israeli or Palestinian representatives. The closing declaration at the conference in Paris urged both sides to "officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution". It also warned them against taking one-sided actions that could hurt talks, in an apparent reference to Israeli settlement building. But Britain, which attended as an observer, did not back the final communique. A Foreign Office statement said: "We have particular reservations about an international conference intended to advance peace between the parties that does not involve them - indeed which is taking place against the wishes of the Israelis - and which is taking place just days before the transition to a new American President when the US will be the ultimate guarantor of any agreement. Four killed as lorry rams group of Israeli soldiers "There are risks therefore that this conference hardens positions at a time when we need to be encouraging the conditions for peace." Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu derided the talks as useless. Speaking to his cabinet about the conference, he said: "Its goal is to try and force terms on Israel that conflict with our national needs. Of course it pushes peace further away because it hardens the Palestinian positions and it also pushes them away from direct negotiations without preconditions. Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Show all 12 1 /12 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict The fire in my heart is beyond my ribs. You left me beloved - Soliman Shaheen, 15 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict Let me get enough of you, as Im still hungry for your smile my son - Soliman Shaheen, 15 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict They besiege me in my homeland so I flew to heaven - Rodaina Al Agha, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict And I am still facing the pain all by myself - Lama Shakshak, 15 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict My brother, I watched you go while my heart was tearing - Helen Mo'amar, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict My new doll is lonely in the rubble - Ayah Sha'ath, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict When a soul hugs another soul they never split, even in death - Ismail Matar, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict Everyone is gone and I stayed alone to make the world witness the injustice done to me - Hamza Shaheen, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict The hand that carries the arms carries roses too - Madeeha Al Majayda, 15 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict My eyes tell you about a dream that overcame the fence - Soliman Shaheen, 15 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict A childhood caught in an unjust siege - Hadeel Quidh, 16 Remembering the Israel-Gaza conflict Remembering Israel-Gaza conflict All the details are torn after you - Hamza Shaheen, 17 Apparently referencing the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, Mr Netanyahu continued: "This conference is among the last twitches of yesterday's world. Tomorrow's world will be different -- and it is very near." The international community has long favoured a two state solution for the decades old conflict, but many critics say this is now unworkable. Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been increasingly critical of Mr Netanyahu, represented the US at the talks and defended the effort, rejecting Israeli criticism of the conference. Mr Kerry said the concept of a two-state solution to the conflict is "threatened" and must be reinforced if it is ever to happen. The conferences communique, he said, endorses that without imposing a resolution. He also warned that it's too early to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem, as proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. "This is not the right time," he said. "We think it's ill-advised." No one from Mr Trump's administration took part in the meeting. 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 }} Pope Francis has said there is no point in people going to church if they do not follow the teachings of the Bible in their daily lives. The head of the Catholic church took a stand against what he termed Christian parrots, who talk a lot about their religion but dont do good deeds. If I say I am Catholic and go to mass, but then dont speak with my parents, help my grandparents or the poor, go and see those who are sick, this does not prove my faith, theres no point, he told young residents of Guidonia, a village near Rome. Pope Francis at 80 Those who do this are nothing but Christian parrots words, words, words, said the Pope, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa. Christian faith is expressed with three things: words, the heart, and the hands. Canon law requires Catholics to go to church on Sundays and other holy days of obligation and to abstain from work or other business that would inhibit their worship on those days. During his conversation with the parishioners, Pope Francis also said it could be difficult to forgive people when they have hurt you, or even, in some cases, committed crimes against you. Its difficult, I knew an old woman who was strong, bright, whose husband used to hit her. You should always forgive but sometimes to forget is difficult, he said, according to La Stampa and a more detailed report on the website Famiglia Cristiana. In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy Show all 13 1 /13 In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy Fractures on a road in Norcia after the strong earthquake in central Italy EPA/Matteo Crocchioni In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy The bell tower of St. Augustine's church destroyed after the strong earthquake in central Italy, Amatrice EPA/Massimo Percossi In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy Nuns rest on a bench after been evacuated from their monastery following an earthquake in Norcia, Italy REUTERS/Remo Casilli In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy The church of the Madonna of the Angels is seen partially collapsed following an earthquake along the road to Norcia, Italy Reuters In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A powerful earthquake rocked the same area of central and southern Italy in August and a pair of aftershocks last week, sending already quake-damaged buildings crumbling after a week of tremors that have left thousands homeless Vigili Del Fuoco/Italian Firefighters via AP In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck 6km north of Norcia, Italy, EPA In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck 6km north of Norcia, Italy EPA/Alberto Orsini In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy People are evacuated from an hospital following an earthquake in Rieti, Italy REUTERS/Emiliano Grillotti In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy L'Aquila Mayor Massimo Cialente speaks on his mobile telephone as he checks the damage after the strong earthquake in L'Aquila, central Italy EPA/Alberto Orsini In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy Italian firefighters escort a frightened woman out of a building just as an aftershock rattled Norcia, central Italy AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A view of Amatrice village completely destroyed after the strong earthquake in central Italy EPA/Massimo Percossi In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A firefighter and an alpine soldier look at rubble in the hilltop town of Amatrice as an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 struck central Italy Massimo Percossi/ANSA via AP In pictures: Most powerful earthquake for three years hits Italy A handout map released by the US Geological Survey (USGS) shows the location of the earthquake striking around 68km east-southeast of Perugia, Italy EPA When youre at war with someone, your heart is wounded by hate and hostility, and those wounds can hurt, but you need to forgive them and not go to that person to forgive them like an enemy. Forgiveness needs to be given with the heart, even if you dont say it out loud, by treating that person as if nothing had happened. Pope Francis, 80, was born in Buenos Aires and succeeded Pope Benedict XVI following his resignation in spring 2013. His full name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Recommended Catholic priest who smuggled arms to Palestinians dies age 94 He also spoke of the darkness that sometimes clouds his own belief. Some days you cant see faith, and all is black, he said, referring to the challenges faced by people in earthquake-stricken areas of Italy. I, too, have at times experienced moments of darkness in my faith, and my faith diminished a lot, but then, after a short time, I found it 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 }} Russian dissident artist Pyotr Pavlensky, whose protests against the state have included nailing his scrotum to Moscow's Red Square, has said he plans to seek asylum in France. Pavlensky, 32, fled to Ukraine with his partner last month to avoid being sent to prison on what he said were trumped-up allegations of committing a sex crime. In his first interview since leaving, he said the Russia of President Vladimir Putin had become increasingly authoritarian and intolerant of dissenting voices. "I wouldn't say I was a threat, more a big inconvenience, because lots of money and resources are spent on propaganda ... then I carry out some action and it's a strike on the propaganda machine," he said. As their two young daughters played quietly in the next room, Pavlensky and his partner Oksana Shalygina - both dressed all in black - described how on Dec. 14 they had been detained by police at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky was transferred to a psychiatric hospital (AP) During a nine-hour cross-examination by state investigators, they learned that they had been accused of committing a sex crime by an actress they had both slept with. The crime is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The couple, who are in an open relationship, deny the allegation, likening it to the denunciations that led to mass imprisonments in the repressive Soviet era. Recommended Russian artist who nailed his genitals to Red Square facing jail "Through all of this we were shown that there were two ways for us to be got rid of, or taken out of the political context," Pavlensky said. "Either (they could send us) to a prison camp for the next 10 years, where we'd describe how we had become victims of state security scheming, or (they could send us) beyond the border limits of passport control." While they do not know if a criminal case has been officially opened against them, they decided it was too risky to remain in Russia. By the next day, they had collected their daughters and flown to Kiev, from where they plan to fly to France, he said. Russia's Interior Ministry and its Investigative Committee did not reply to requests for comment from Reuters on Pavlensky's allegations. The couple's decision to claim asylum is likely to draw further attention to Russia's patchy record on protecting freedom of speech. In 2012, the jailing of members of anti-Kremlin group Pussy Riot for performing a "punk prayer" in a church provoked international outrage. Sewn lips Pavlensky said the couple would not return to Russia until they believed they were no longer at risk of being prosecuted, even if this meant many years in exile. "Probably it's a good option for them if we disappear (abroad) and aren't able to be heard at all and are completely dispersed, but this isn't going to happen," he said. His works or "actions" have included sewing his lips together to protest at the treatment of Pussy Riot, and wrapping his naked body in barbed wire to express his opposition to laws he deemed repressive. In 2015 Pavlensky was detained by Russian police after he set ablaze the wooden door of the Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the successor organisations to the Soviet-era KGB. He avoided prison, but was handed a fine of over $15,000 that he did not pay. The performance, which he titled "The Threat", was meant to draw attention to what he called FSB terror tactics. Pavlensky said the sex crime allegations illustrated the security services' preference for underhand strategies. "It's clear that the people in the security services aim to work carefully and quietly, not messily or crudely. Probably they believe that beating someone and bloodshed is crude. If it's possible to do it quietly, they aim to do so." Reuters 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 been ordered to pay Cyprus 90 million (73.3 million) in compensation for its 1974 invasion of the island. In its largest ever judgement, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said the passing of almost 40 years did not erase Turkey's responsibility for the ensuing conflict and continuing division of Cyprus. The court ruled that the Turkish government must pay 30 million in damages to relatives of those missing in military operations and 60 million for the enclaved Greek-Cypriot residents" of the Karpas peninsula. The Karpas peninsula in the northernmost tip of the breakaway Turkish part of the island is still home to hundreds of Greek Cypriots. Only Turkey recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that was proclaimed there. Cyprus was divided by the 'green line' after the invasion (Independent Graphics) Turkish forces were accused of ethnic cleansing after thousands of Greek residents were forced from their homes and replaced with Turks from the mainland. Atrocities and massacres were alleged by both sides and more than 100,000 people became refugees during the invasion. The invasion was sparked by a Greek military coup in July 1974, when supporters of union with the country took control. The Greek military Junta collapsed and there was a second invasion by Turkey taking more than a third of Cyprus in August. In Turkey, the events are often referred to as the "Cyprus Peace Operation". Monday's judgment comes as the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities are making a new effort to reunite the island. Speaking ahead of the ruling, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that a judgment against Turkey would come at a delicate time and said that he viewed it as neither binding nor of any value". Not only is it legally problematic, its timing is wrong, Davutoglu added. The court said it would be up to the government of Cyprus to determine how to award the damages but Turkey has not always complied with the court's rulings. In a 1998 ruling, the Strasbourg court ordered Turkey to pay Titina Loizidou compensation for depriving her of property in the seaside city of Kyrenia. It was the first case in which a Greek Cypriot successfully sued Turkey over the invasion and earned the right to compensation. Turkey paid the money in 2003 but has yet to comply with an earlier European Court decision ordering Ankara to allow the woman to reclaim her property. Analysts noted that the case was notable not only because of its size, but also because it took Turkey to task for the invasion and awarded the money to Cyprus on behalf of individuals, a sensitive point that could affect current reunification talks. The big question is how the decision will affect the negotiations that are the most promising ever. It could put the talks into difficulty, said Cengiz Aktar, an analyst on Turkey-EU affairs at the Istanbul Policy Centre. Achilleas Demetriades, a prominent human rights lawyer in Cyprus, who has won several cases in the European Court involving Turkey, said that the judgment pertains to Turkey's failure to carry out an effective investigation of the whereabouts of Greek Cypriots who disappeared during and after the invasion of the island, and to provide that information to relatives of the missing. Additional reporting by AP 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 }} Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the media of trying to oust him from government as more details surrounding investigations into corruption allegations against him emerge. The Israeli Prime Minister allegedly tried to orchestrate a "quid pro quo" deal with a newspaper publisher in 2014 in order to get favourable coverage, and of receiving inappropriate and lavish gifts from influential business leaders and a Hollywood film producer. Many aspects of the two police investigations have become public knowledge thanks to the leak of hours of taped conversations, excerpts of which have been published by Haaretz and Channel 2. In the past few days the media has orchestrated a campaign of unprecedented scope to bring down my Likud [ruling party] government, Mr Netanyahu said in a statement posted on his Facebook page on Sunday. This campaign is intended to put pressure on the Attorney General and others in the prosecution so that they will indict me. The media took quotes out of context or lied about his intentions, Mr Netanyahu said. He also criticised the legal restrictions barring him from speaking about the details of the huge anti-corruption sting, claiming they prevented him from defending myself." Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Calls UN 'Joke' and 'Moral Farce' I cant tell the public the true story behind these matters, which make it clear that there was never any crime here, the Prime Minister wrote. Both Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the daily Yedioth, and Mr Netanyahus wife Sara have been questioned extensively by police. Legal experts have said that if some of the allegations which have surfaced in the last two weeks were proved to be true, they would constitute bribery as defined by the Israeli penal code, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Mr Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing. The Prime Minister is due to be questioned for a third time later this week. 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 Istanbul nightclub attack on New Year's Eve was carried out professionally and an intelligence organisation was involved, Turkey's deputy prime minister has said. "It appears the Reina [nightclub] attack is not just a terrorist organisation's act, but there was also an intelligence organisation involved. It was an extremely planned and organised act," Norman Kurtulmus said during an interview with broadcaster A Haber on Monday. The deadly assault in which a gunman shot a police officer and security guard before entering the upmarket nightclub to spray New Year's Eve partygoers with bullets was claimed by Isis. Thirty-nine people were killed and 70 injured in the attack which served as revenge for Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war, the group claimed. Dozens of people across Turkey have been arrested and questioned in connection to the assault in the last two weeks. Police say they know the identity of the alleged attacker - who remains at large - but have not released his name. The authorities previously said that they believe the gunman acted alone, but may have belonged to a cell or had help in planning. Selfie footage emerges of Istanbul attacker The suspect is thought to be of ethnic Uighur origin, from a central Asian country. The Uighur are a largely Muslim Turkic-speaking minority from far Western China, with a significant diaspora community in Turkey. Overnight on Sunday two Chinese nationals were arrested in relation to the attack, police 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 }} Tunisian security forces deliberately and unjustifiably slowed down as a terrorist gunman massacred 30 British tourists at a popular beach resort, according to witness evidence presented at an inquest into the deaths. Police wasted time before responding to the hour-long attack near Sousse in June 2015, in which 38 people were killed, the inquest heard. The hearing at London's Royal Courts of Justice began on Monday and is set to last for seven weeks. Counsel to the inquest Samantha Leek QC said the tourists had needlessly lost their lives in the mass shooting. Presiding coroner to the inquest, Nicholas Loraine-Smith, called for those in attendance to stand to observe one minutes silence in memory of those killed on the beach outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel, and then read out the names of all of the victims. The attack was the deadliest on Britons since the 7 July 2005 London bombings. From around 11.30am local time, the 38 tourists who had visited the Tunisian resort for "relaxation and enjoyment" were "systematically" gunned down, according to Ms Leek. She cited a report compiled by Tunisian judge Lazhar Akremi, which described multiple failings by local security units. She said its contents would be examined further. Two armed guards were in the nearby vicinity when 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire. He threw a grenade at one, leaving him "seemingly unconscious" and the second was unable to work his gun. Recommended How the Bardo Museum attack changed Tunisia tourism one year on Nearby security forces "had an ability to put an end to the attack" before the police arrived, Ms Leek said, but they "deliberately and unjustifiably slowed down to delay their arrival at the hotel". Rezgui was shot dead by police about an hour after the attack began. The families' battle for justice has been intensified by a lengthy and truncated legal process, which had seen the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. During a previous hearing Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 families, said it was their view that a full and fearless investigation would be required to remain in keeping with the principle of open justice. Additional reporting by 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 }} Turkeys parliament has voted to advance a bill which would give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unprecedented executive powers, a move widely criticised by opposition politicians. Politicians voted to approve the final 18th article of the lengthy package late on Sunday. The proposed reforms which proponents in Mr Erdogans ruling AK party say are necessary to deal with Turkeys fragile economic and security situations would give the President the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, to once again become head of a political party, and possibly govern until 2029. Opposition politicians and democracy activists have said the bill is dangerously close to a form of authoritarianism. During a debate on the legislation last week, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the reform would resolve the problem of Turkey having two executive authorities. There needs to be one authority in the executive branch, he said. Two captains sink the ship, there needs to be one captain. A second round of voting is due to begin on Wednesday, after any proposed changes to the articles in the bill are debated. President Erdogan and opposition unite in Turkey rally If the reform legislation is passed by 330 of the 550 members of the assembly in a third vote, it will go to a nationwide referendum, expected in the spring. President Erdogan has steadily consolidated his control of Turkeys branches of government since his election in 2014. There has been a particular crackdown on members of the opposition, academics, journalists and rights activists since a failed military coup in July last year, after which the government declared a state of emergency. 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 murder of Qandeel Baloch, a Pakistani social media celebrity, in July 2016 has given high-profile political attention to the issue of so-called honour killings. Her brother and three others were indicted in early December for her murder and await trial. A tendency to label honour related violence committed under the pretext of defending the supposed honour of a family or community as a cultural issue rather than a crime can do more harm than good. In the UK, for example, there are reports that the Crown Prosecution Service may have avoided tackling such crimes for fear of offending certain communities and cultures. Instead, the scale of this kind of violence means it should be seen and treated as a public health problem. A 2009 study showed that one in five homicides in Pakistan may be killings of this nature. In 2000, the UN Population Fund estimated that at least 5,000 women and girls worldwide are murdered each year in the name of so-called honour although these figures are contested and some researchers believe that the rates are at least four times higher. In the UK, the police recorded more than 11,000 incidents of this kind of violence between 2010 and 2014. In a recent study, my colleagues and I argued that the portrayal of this kind of violence in cultural and religious terms stigmatises certain communities. In turn, by presenting these kind of killings in this way, media coverage often distracts from the problem of violence and the larger political processes that shape it from being properly addressed. Pictures of the year: World News 2013 Show all 12 1 /12 Pictures of the year: World News 2013 Pictures of the year: World News 2013 JANUARY A relative of a victim weeps by flowers put in front of the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, southern Brazil where a blaze left a death toll of over 230 Pictures of the year: World News 2013 FEBRUARY A view of the wall of a local zinc plant which was damaged by a shock wave from a meteor in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk. A meteor strike in central Russia that left hundreds of people injured is the biggest known human toll from a space rock Pictures of the year: World News 2013 MARCH Newly elected Pope Francis I appears on the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Vatican. Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the 266th Pontiff and will lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics Pictures of the year: World News 2013 APRIL People visit a make-shift memorial on Boylston Street near scene of Boston Marathon explosions, which killed 3 people and injured estimated 265 Getty Images Pictures of the year: World News 2013 MAY Danielle Stephan holds boyfriend Thomas Layton as they pause between salvaging through the remains of a family member's home after a tornado devastated the town Moore, Oklahoma. Rescuers went building to building in search of victims and thousands of survivors were homeless after a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, wiping out whole blocks of homes and killing at least 24 people Pictures of the year: World News 2013 JUNE An Egyptian holds up posters during a protests against President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood as they joined thousands at Egypt's landmark Tahrir square in Cairo. Egypt braced for mass rallies with President Mohamed Morsi's opponents determined to oust him and his Islamist supporters vowing to defend his legitimacy to the end, stoking fears of a violent first anniversary of his taking office Pictures of the year: World News 2013 JULY A crane removes a derailed train's car at the site of the Spain's deadliest rail disaster, near the city of Santiago de Compostela. A train hurtled off the tracks in northwest Spain killing at least 77 passengers and injuring more than 140 Pictures of the year: World News 2013 AUGUST US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning was found guilty of several counts under the Espionage Act and sentenced to 35 years in prison for passing hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks Pictures of the year: World News 2013 SEPTEMBER Pakistani earthquake survivors rest near their collapsed mud houses in the earthquake-devastated district of Awaran. The death toll from a major earthquake that hit southwestern Pakistan rose to almost 400 Pictures of the year: World News 2013 OCTOBER Demonstrators stand atop a monument during a teachers protest demanding better working conditions and against police beating in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Pictures of the year: World News 2013 NOVEMBER A boy who was wounded by flying debris due to Super Typhoon Haiyan stays at the ruins of his family's house in Tacloban city. Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines province of Leyte with coastal towns and the regional capital devastated by huge waves Pictures of the year: World News 2013 DECEMBER Nelson Mandela passed away at his home in Houghton at the age of 95. People passed the casket to pay their respects as former South African President Nelson Mandela laid in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria In Pakistan, the killings have been traditionally viewed as the problem of particular ethnic groups such as Sindhis and Balochs. For instance, the term karo-kari is a Sindhi-language expression which means black male-black female. This implies that the victim has blackened themselves by bringing dishonour to the family by engaging in illicit pre-marital or extra-marital relations. In Pakistan, the term is still predominantly used by print and electronic media to label such crimes, whether the incident occurred in Sindh province or elsewhere in Pakistan. Yet, killings of this sort occur across Pakistan. In 2014, there were an estimated 19 killings a week and are known by regional names such as Kala-Kali (Punjab), Tor-Tora (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Siyakari (Balochistan). Qandeel Baloch became an internet celebrity after auditioning for Pakistan Idol (Rex) Since 2002, with the emergence of private television and radio channels, the reporting of incidents has increased across Pakistan and it has also begun to be documented as a Pakistani problem, not restricted to one particular ethnic group. This media coverage has raised awareness and debate about the issue. There has also been a move in Pakistan to make sure this kind of violence is dealt with more stringently by the law. In October 2016, lawmakers in Pakistan approved new legislation to tighten the punishments available. Prior to the bill, perpetrators often walked free because they could seek pardon for the crime from another family member. Under the new law, relatives of the victim can only pardon the killer from the death penalty, but they would still face a compulsory life sentence of 12-and-a-half years. Honour has been a central concept across societies throughout history. It has been attributed as an underlying reason of horrible types of violence, for example, duelling in England, foot binding in China and wife burning (sati) in India. But these horrific forms of violence were not seen through a cultural lens when they were outlawed. Instead, they were tackled through political, social and legal measures driven by moral revolution, as the philosopher Kwame Appiah has explained. Violence against women and girls is a widespread problem in all societies around the world but its manifestations differ widely according to place, time and context. For instance, recent census figures show 900 women were killed by men in six years in England and Wales. These killings are not tagged with any particular culture or community. A peaceful march against gender violence in Santiago, Chile, in October (Reuters) In the UK, the police watchdog defines violence committed under the pretext of honour in cultural and religious terms but this creates hurdles to tackling this problem and makes it into a highly sensitive issue. An emphasis in definitions on religious and cultural beliefs makes the issue peculiar to certain groups and communities, particularly Muslims and black communities. If we assign an incorrect definition to a problem, ultimately the solution will be inexact, so framing a problem in the right way is an essential step towards tackling it. Violence against women committed by men using any excuse honour or otherwise is related to the socio-economic and political structures of society. As Nafisa Shah, a Pakistani lawmaker, argued in a recent book: Violence is not cause, function or effect of honour but merely draws its legitimacy from it. Presenting violence of any sort as a cultural issue does not help prevent it. Other, more practical ways are required to analyse its nature, roots and spread. A public health approach to the issue could include creating a definition of the problem that is unprejudiced and inclusive. This is because if it is seen as problem that can affect anybody, rather than just one part of a community it will be treated more seriously by the police, judiciary, social and healthcare professionals. Sadiq Bhanbhro is a researcher on public health and gender-based violence at Sheffield Hallam University. This article first appeared on The Conversation (theconversation.com) 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 }} In Florida, the far north means Amelia Island, nudging into the Atlantic just below the Georgia state line. The isle measures 13 miles by 2 miles, making it the same size and shape as Manhattan, but rather more relaxed. The islands only city, 350 miles up the Atlantic coast from Miami, is Fernandina Beach. It does a good line of B&Bs in historic properties, such as the Addison. The proprietors, Bob and Shannon, are Canadians who came here on vacation in 2007 and were hooked. They sold up and set up at 614 Ash Street. The furnishings in the 14 guest rooms are Old Florida style with four-poster beds and hardwood floors. Addison B&B, Fernandina Beach Millionaires, smugglers and pirates In the city centre, the Palace Saloon is Florida's oldest. Millionaires, smugglers and pirates have all raised a glass here. The Palace has been serving drinks almost continuously since 1903; during Prohibition in the 1920s, when alcohol was banned, it sold ice cream, gasoline and cigars. The proprietor is Johnny Miller, whos also the citys mayor. Palace Saloon, Fernaninda Beach At the far north of the island, the cannons on the rampart of Fort Clinch are testament to the number of flags that have flown over Amelia Island: France, Spain, England, the Patriots, Floridas Green Cross, Mexico, the Confederates and the Stars and Stripes. The fort is surrounded by a state park and you can rent a bike from Fort Clinch Visitor Centre and cycle through the Maritime Forest Canopy. If you want to stay in the Sunshine State and frankly who wouldnt? the only way is south, to the place where Florida began. Due South Heading south, of course, means taking to the road. Seven days hire of a compact car from Jacksonville International Airport costs from 170, or you can upgrade to a Chevrolet Camaro Convertible from 287 with Hertz. Then its on to Highway A1A, which is one of my favourite Florida roads, tracing many of the best stretches of the Atlantic shore, and officially known as a Scenic and Historic Coastal Byway. Theres a bonus on the journey south a ferry ride across the St John's River ($6 cars). The five-minute ferry ride saves a long drive through the city of Jacksonville, and provides an extra dimension to a road trip. The waterway is Floridas longest: more than 300 miles long. Yet between the headwaters and its mouth it drops only 30 feet. South of the river, the road stays close to the ocean, with access to some fine beaches. Most historians agree that the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the coast of Florida on 3 April 1513 and claimed the land he called La Florida for the Spanish King. But they argue about where exactly he came ashore. Some folk are so convinced it was close to Ponta Vedra that theyve put up a statue to the first European visitor at the GTM Reserve North Beach Parking area Where it all began Theres no dispute about where the first colonial city in the present-day US was established: St Augustine. Castillo San Marcos dominates, a response to repeated raids by British privateers such as Sir Francis Drake. Pirates are a recurring theme in St Augustine. I stayed at the Pirate Haus, which claims to be the only budget accommodation in the downtown St Augustine Historic District. The artery of that district is St George Street, which is full of history. Florida has had wave after wave of immigration including, in the late 18th century, a large contingent of Minorcans. Many of them settled in St Augustine, and their traditions continue at the Spanish Bakery at number 42 St George Street. It serves empanadas, gazpacho and great coffee. The final attraction in St Augustine, the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, is located on the site where the first Spanish settlement was established in 1565. Its a curious mix of theme park and heritage. The fountain in question rises from the Floridan aquifer, and helped support a robust population of Timucua Indians and, later, Spanish settlers. This stretch of the north-east Florida coast has seen plenty of conflict, but now its a scene of tranquility and nature. Discover more at Visit Florida 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 }} As peace conferences go, this was the most miserable of all. Pathetic, hopeless, hapless, woebegone, dead before its time. Trump sent nobody, Netanyahu called it the last twitches of the world of yesterday, the autocratic Mahmoud Abbas didnt bother to turn up and Theresa Mays secretary of state for buffoonery only sent a clutch of underlings. John Kerry, who said two years ago that peace between Israelis and Palestinians had at the most 18 months to succeed or its over, announced lamely that the gathering of 70 nations in Paris had moved the ball forward whatever that means. So what was it all for? No doubt Francois Hollande an emperor with no clothes if ever there was one wished to restore Frances place among the nations while the EU nations and the Arabs wanted to twitch one final time if only to clear the decks for failure and avoid all blame. Two-state solution? Jerusalem as a capital? Occupation? Land theft? Refugees? We gave it one last go. Cant say we didnt warn you. Dont blame us, guv. Even the Russians only sent their Paris ambassador to the peace conference. But what did they all expect? That Trumps new ambassadorial stooge to Israel would choose to stay in Tel Aviv? That Benjamin Netanyahu, the Coloniser and Settler-in-Chief, would make no more territorial demands? That the Palestinians, losing acres by the day to Israeli land theft but saddled with a leader whose legitimacy depends on Israel rather than them, would restart negotiations with their occupiers? And so it came to pass that the great and the good in Paris spoke thus: thou shalt not prejudge the outcome of negotiations by taking unilateral steps. And this, announced a French spokesman, was a subliminal message to Trump. Ye Gods! Trump doesnt receive subliminal messages. He sends tweets. Stay strong Israel. How do you answer that? But maybe the lads and lasses in Paris got the message. Not once did they utter the word occupation, let alone apartheid. Why, they didnt even mention the little matter of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. This would be inappropriate, quoth the mighty Kerry. And this was supposed to be a strong message to the Prime Minister of Israel (clearly Trump) and the President of the United States (obviously Netanyahu) that the two-state solution really was the only game in town. John Kerry lays into Netanyahu for Israeli settlement-building And so the Palestinian tragedy continues its slide down the domestic news schedules to Israels delight sandwiched somewhere between hospital trolley deaths and academy awards, but way behind Trump and Putin, Russia in the Middle East, Isis, Brexit, European migrants and global warming. The worlds biggest volcano is bubbling away in Palestine but one of the worlds largest icebergs is about to break off from the Antarctic. Guess which gets the bigger headline? What has got into our leaders? Theresa Mays charlatans are worried that the Paris conference may harden Palestinian positions may harden the Palestinians, for heavens sake while Australia continues to view Obamas first veto on a UN anti-settlement resolution as deeply unsettling. It seems that Malcolm Turnbull finds it unsettling to discuss Israeli settlements while everyone else finds the settlements unsettling. So which is worse: Turnbulls pusillanimity or May sucking up to the Kremlins top spy-to-be in the White House? No British Mandate in Palestine for her. Seriously though, what was it all about? Anyone whos visited the West Bank these past few years, looked at the Jewish colonies built on stolen Arab land, witnessed the occupation and the filth of Gaza and observed its brutal Hamas militia leaders and realised that Netanyahu will soon be the most left-wing member of his increasingly racist government knows very well that the two-state solution vanished long ago. Why, did we really think it would survive the political surgery of our beloved former Middle East panjandrum, Tony Blair? As he would say if he was honest, the whole charade is absolutely and completely over. Netanyahu congratulates Trump And the rest of the Arabs? Oh lordy, lordy. We embrace the head-choppers of the Gulf, the dictator of Egypt and the rebels of Syria. We sell weapons to the Saudis to bomb the Yemenis which may harden the Yemeni position quite a lot and send money to Lebanon to keep the Syrian refugees in situ because their further presence among us would be deeply unsettling. We loved the rebels of Aleppo and hate the rebels of Mosul and any comparison between them would no doubt be highly inappropriate. Now thats a subliminal message if ever there was one. Its called moving the ball forward. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to outline her plan for a 'hard Brexit' that includes regaining full control of UK borders and taking Britain out of the single market. In the speech tomorrow in front of diplomats at London's Lancaster House, Mrs May will outline the priorities for the UK once Article 50 is triggered. This includes withdrawing from the single market and the European customs union - to regain control of immigration and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. But the speech, which was partly leaked to the UK media, is likely to spark a backlash from business figures concerned about higher tariff barriers and the impact on the Northern Ireland Border. A spokesman for the Irish Government said it didn't want to pre-empt the speech but said there needed to be "clarity from the UK as soon as possible". "We are aware of speculation regarding content of the speech the prime minister is expected to make on Tuesday. It's not appropriate to comment on speculation and we look forward to hearing what the prime minister has to say," he told the Irish Independent. Expand Close Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show. REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show. REUTERS "It's clear that there is need for clarity from the UK as soon as possible on the proposed approach for negotiations. "Ireland's key priorities remain: economy and trade, common travel area, Northern Ireland (peace process) and the future of Europe." Conservative MP Nicky Morgan, the pro-Remain former UK education secretary, said Mrs May should be seeking "maximum participation" and warned her not to damage the economy for the sake of controlling immigration. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the PM of pursuing "an extremely risky strategy", taking the UK in "the direction of a bargain basement economy". "It seems to me a recipe for some kind of trade war with Europe in the future. That doesn't really seem to me a very sensible way forward," he said. Meanwhile, British Chancellor Philip Hammond has fired a warning shot across the bows of Brussels over the issue of the single market. Read more: UK could become 'tax haven' of Europe if it is shut out of single market after Brexit Read more: Theresa May given one-month deadline to end secrecy on her Brexit strategy In an interview with a German newspaper, Mr Hammond said the government would do "whatever we have to" to ensure UK businesses remained competitive if European markets were "closed off" to them. The chancellor told 'Welt am Sonntag' that the UK "could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term" if it were left with no access to the EU after Brexit. He suggested Britain could cut taxes to encourage companies to move to the UK in retaliation. Asked if the UK's future was as the corporate "tax haven of Europe", the chancellor said ministers were ready to change if they had to. "If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the European Union without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term," he said. "In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. You can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. "The British people are not going to lie down and say, 'too bad, we've been wounded'. We will change our model, and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged." Mr Hammond also said there was a possibility of "a time period between Britain leaving the EU and the full introduction of a long-term future arrangement between the UK and the EU" to allow companies to prepare for the new regulatory regime. Lord Lawson of Blaby, who was Conservative chancellor in Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s, warned that the EU would reject any offer of a free trade deal. "We must accept that our free trade offer will be rejected and that no remotely acceptable post-Brexit trade agreement between the UK and the EU is negotiable," he said, writing in a Policy Exchange pamphlet. He said it was "incontrovertible" that "in common with the rest of the world, we should be outside both the so-called single market and the customs union". "This is not a 'hard Brexit': it is Brexit," he said. 'There is a real risk that with continued inward investment, with its resultant need for office accommodation in the central business district, that domestic companies will be forced to seek alternative office space in suburban locations.' Stock Image Dublin risks developing a two-tier commercial property market with multinationals in the desirable city centre and indigenous businesses increasingly pushed to the margins, one of Ireland's biggest estate agents has warned. Lisney said a Brexit-related increase in demand would likely exacerbate the trend. In its annual property review and outlook published today, the estate agent said that more than 90pc of office space in the capital is occupied. "Whilst it is encouraging to see Ireland continuing to attract FDI and major IT and financial services companies, continued demand for prime city centre locations from these businesses where vacancy rates are at among the lowest levels historically is causing rents to increase significantly," Lisney chairman James Nugent said. "With competition intense for available developments, lettings from blue-chip international companies taking significant amounts of space are more attractive to developers. "This is leading to a perfect storm of sorts for indigenous Irish companies struggling to compete for the most centrally located office space." Market analysis by Lisney put the pace of construction about 50pc higher than the total space let last year - with 320,000sqm being built, compared to the 230,000sqm of office space let in the capital last year following a number of years of relative inactivity. Lisney said 42pc of the space being constructed was already pre-let or reserved. It said Dublin vacancy rates fell below 10pc for the first time in 16 years in 2016. "There is a real risk that with continued inward investment, with its resultant need for office accommodation in the central business district, that domestic companies will be forced to seek alternative office space in suburban locations where comparable space can be about half of city centre office costs," Mr Nugent said. "Brexit-related market activity will only accelerate the issue." Last week the Irish Independent reported that American insurance giant AIG had asked Michael Noonan how an application to move AIG European headquarters from London to Dublin would be viewed by the Government. AIG's chief financial officer, Sid Sankaran, the CEO of its consumer division, Kevin Hogan, and Declan O'Rourke, the head of AIG's operations in Ireland, met Mr Noonan last month and broached the possibility of a move. However, also last week, the head of Irish Life's asset management division, which is one of Ireland's biggest commercial landlords, said the demand for Dublin office space on foot of the Brexit vote may have been overstated. Patrick Burke said the company had received more than 50 enquiries from companies looking to move here from the UK. "Some of what's come through already was already in train, or was significantly in train, and we're talking about Irish operations who are increasing the size of their operations here from London bases," Mr Burke said. He said there were enquiries from "a couple of names" who did not already have a presence here and that it was too early to say how much office space would be required to house Brexit relocations. Retailers in Dundrum Town Centre, the country's premier shopping centre, have clashed with its new owners Hammerson over alleged poor trading over Christmas. At a fraught meeting between tenant representatives and management last week a number of retailers claimed that trade and footfall had been below expectations. Many are blaming an increase in parking charges introduced last August after it was acquired by the UK fund. As a result, shorter visits for food shopping and prescriptions collections, for example, have fallen, it is claimed. Read More Sources told the Sunday Independent that anchor tenant Marks and Spencer was among those who had voiced dissatisfaction with Dundrum's Christmas performance. The retail giant said it would not comment on private meetings. Neither Hammerson, which owns the centre in a joint venture with Allianz, or Dundrum Town Centre would comment. This dispute comes against a background of rent increases. Dundrum commands the country's third-highest rents after Grafton Street and Henry Street and some retailers said that they may seek rent decreases if they do not see a pick-up in their business. Read More Some 76pc of leases at the centre are subject to upward-only rent reviews. When the Hammerson deal was announced in July the fund said 16 rent reviews had completed with another 56 to be finalised within 12 to 18 months. Retail Excellence Ireland chief executive David Fitzsimons said there were growing concerns among retailers over their relationship with the new owners of several centres - the majority of which are property funds. FDII director Paul Kelly said the Irish agri-food and drink sector was 'uniquely exposed'. Stock Image: PA The European Commission should allow exceptional state aid support for the Irish agri-food sector to help mitigate the fallout should a 'hard' Brexit occur, a lobby group has said. Food and Drink Industry Ireland (FDII) said the increased likelihood Britain could pull out of the single market and customs union demands a series of exceptions from EU state aid rules. The United States has announced the lifting of the embargo on imports of beef from France - the second EU country to gain access. The European Commission has welcomed the decision, saying it is a new step in the reopening of a closed market since the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in the 1990s. "Following similar decisions for Ireland , Lithuania and the Netherlands, the Commission welcomes the decision by the United States to authorize imports of beef from France, a further illustration of the European Union's efforts to eradicate the " It said it was excellent news for French producers and that it would continue to work with all parties concerned to ensure that in the near future all Member States will have the same access to the US market. "This decision by the US clearly demonstrates what we can achieve by having an open and constructive relationship with one of our most important trading partners," said Commissioners Cecilia Malmstrom, Trade Commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, in charge of health and food security, and Phil Hogan, in charge of agriculture. Ireland was the first EU Member State to be granted access to the US for manufacturing beef, which is typically used in burgers and processed products. Access was granted to Irish manufacturing beef after more than a year of intensive work by the Department of Agriculture, it said, and built on the January 2015 granting of access to raw, intact Irish beef. The first shipments of Irish beef landed in the less than three months later, in time for St Patrick's day. At the time, the then Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said the US market could be worth 100m per annum to Irish beef exports. However, Department of Agriculture figures, obtained by FarmIreland.ie show that by the end of quarter three this year, only an estimated 1,800t of beef has been exported to the US, with an estimated value of 13m. It said trade in manufacturing beef has not yet commenced so trade to date is entirely composed of intact cuts. Total Irish beef exports to the US in 2015 were worth 14m. Northern Ireland farmers could end up paying less for their livestock feed post Brexit depending on which trading deals are sorted out between nations. Northern Ireland will be the only part of the UK that physically borders the European Union which will present trading challenges between the two Irish countries. However, Brexit brings a chance for the feed companies to import grains from countries outside the EU that will maintain tariff-free trading agreements with the UK. But, for the livestock feed companies based in the north, Brexit will make exporting feed to neighbouring Republic of Ireland costly, depending on the trading arrangements that are developed. Thompsons Feeds is known as the largest multi-species feed mill in all of Europe and it just happens to be based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Company chief executive officer Declan Billington said Brexit could give the industry access to GM crops in the UK. Mr Billington said: "If I was to sum up Brexit in one word it would be, uncertainty. Uncertainty in every aspect of our business. "With 30pc of Northern Ireland production exported outside the UK and with EU tariffs on milk and beef products operating in the 50pc range on exports to Europe, exports become impossible without a trade agreement. "Northern Ireland is the only region of the UK which will have a land border with Europe. Post-Brexit, the default position is that the border will once again have a significant presence in our daily lives, with customs inspection and duty payments to be dealt with. "The question is, where the border, affecting 3pc of the UK population, ranks in importance within the UK government?" With many EU trade agreements currently in place, Northern Ireland agri businesses could be hit hard in terms of exports once Brexit kicks in. Mr Billington said: "Europe has 53 trade agreements with other regions around the world through which we also trade. "For some of our local companies, losing access to these agreements poses a direct threat to their export businesses including milk powder to West Africa and catering products to our world's catering companies. "For others, it poses a threat to the price processors can afford to pay for the animal with the potential loss of sale of fifth quarter offal products into areas such as Asia. "On a positive note, the ability to access grains tariff free, especially maize from North America, might make our input costs cheaper as will the ability to access UK-approved GM crop varieties yet to be approved by Europe. Tariffs "However, given the 95 per tonne tariff on feed wheat and a price floor of 154 per tonne on maize, our ability to trade feed and flour across the border into the Republic of Ireland will restrict the extent to which we can benefit from these opportunities in Northern Ireland. "And to this uncertainty around future trade, we need to add currency volatility. Although the decline of sterling increases the cost of farm inputs, it also makes our producers' exports appear much cheaper on the world markets, assuming we do not face higher access tariffs. "However, within the UK, feed and, thus food, will appear more expensive. The challenge is to get cost recovery on that 70pc of Northern Ireland food business traded into the UK market. "In the short term, currency can be hedged but ultimately the hedge will unravel and within the highly competitive supermarkets will full cost recovery be achieved?" The Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association recently published a report on how Brexit might be made to work for the North's agrifood sector. "However, the right policies and negotiating positions need to be deployed and the question is, will the UK government listen to Northern Ireland industry?" asked Mr Billington. "The answer is, as with everything Brexit related, uncertain." The European Milk Board is angry that milk powder mountains from market intervention are being released on the market which in its view would strongly increase the pressure on prices. It says this is despite milk farmers all over Europe are far from getting cost-covering prices. According to the EMB, this shows again that market intervention does not solve any problem on the market, but rather serves as an instrument to prolong this lasting crisis. We need a permanent crisis instrument now, which addresses production volumes. The programme of voluntary production cuts showed that this can work. The Commission and the Ministers of Agriculture now have to set a legal basis for the Market Responsibility Programme (MRP). For this reason, we will be present in Brussels on the day of next Council meeting. With strong symbolic images we will make clear that milk powder from market intervention threatens milk price. Last week, the European Commission announced the result of its second tender for its giant reserves of Skimmed Milk Powder sold into public ownership over the past two years. In its most recent tender, the Commission put forward over 11,000t of stock however, no bidders were willing to pay the Commissions minimum price. It comes following a similarly poor tender late last year for the stock with less than 40t out of a possible 20,000t sold at the Commissions minimum price of 2,150/t. The Commission has been praised in some quarters for thus far not selling its reserves 'cheap', however concerns have been raised over the length of time it can hold onto the stock. Last month, the European Commission announced its proposal to go ahead with a sale of Skimmed Milk Powder out of intervention following agreement from Member States. The Commission said the proposal was on the back of encouraging signs of recovery being seen on the European milk market, with an increase of about 10pc of the average price paid to producers in the last three months. It said in order to test the market reaction, the quantity of product concerned by the tender procedure is limited, corresponding to only 6pc of the total amount of 355,000t of SMP stored and taken off the markets since the opening of the measure in September 2014. Following a steady slow down, no more quantities of SMP have been put into public intervention since September 2016, even though this market measure remains open. A man in his 30s has died in a farming accident in Kerry today. The accident occurred at Lisheenbawn, Farranfore, Kerry today when a man, in his 30s suffered a fall on a farm he was working on. Gardai were alerted to the accident at around 11am this morning and the main was taken to Tralee Hospital with injuries that were described as "critical". He was later pronounced dead. A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Authority said it was investigating the incident. Gardai from Castleisland were notified and are investigating, as is the Health and Safety Authority (HSA). Last year 21 people died in farming-related accidents on Irish farms. Just last week the European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan warned that Irish farmers who break farm safety rules will risk losing their EU grants. He said the rate of serious workplace accidents was reducing in Ireland and across the EU but no such progress was happening in farming where 21 Irish people were killed in 2016. But we have to do more in the light of the recent accidents and heart-breaking tragedies which have hit so many farm families in 2016, Mr Hogan said. A man cleans the carpet in the building where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland, over the coming days. Photo: AP Photo/Michel Euler Ireland ranks 12th in the world for its ability to attract, retain, train and educate skilled workers, according to a new survey ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Ireland features ahead of Germany, Canada and France, but falls behind the UK, the US, and most of the Nordic countries, according to the Adecco group's Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI). The presence of large tech companies with a global reach such as Apple, Facebook and LinkedIn in basing their European headquarters here led to Dublin being ranked 10th out of 46 capital cities for global talent competitiveness, ahead of cities including London, New York and Berlin. The report says Ireland's status as a European tech hub bodes well for its ability to reap the benefits of technology. However, the report, carried out by HR firm Adecco, business school INSEAD and the Human Capital Leadership Institute, warns that while Ireland is a magnet for foreign talent, it lags behind in formal education and in "preventing the brain drain of its own top workers". "This year's Global Talent Competitiveness Index demonstrates Ireland's success in building a robust talent infrastructure, capable of both attracting and retaining highly skilled talent from across the world," said John L Marshall, CEO of Adecco Group UK & Ireland. "This is greatly facilitated by Ireland's phenomenal success in positioning itself as a European tech hub and securing a steady stream of foreign direct investment. The first ever global ranking of cities shows that Dublin, ranked 10th ahead of London and New York, has the potential to further boost Ireland's attractiveness to highly skilled workers. Read More "That said, the report also demonstrates the need to continue to invest in home-grown talent, to ensure the next generation of Irish professionals are equipped to compete in the global marketplace and face challenges of the future." Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Finance Minister Michael Noonan are leading the Irish delegation to Davos this year where the IDA is hosting a series of bilateral meetings with investors. The world leaders meet as the World Economic Forum has warned rising income inequality and the polarisation of societies pose a risk to the global economy and could result in the rolling back of globalisation. In a report launched today, Oxfam says eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorer half of the world's population. "A fundamental change in the way we manage our economies is required so they benefit everyone, not just a fortunate few," said Oxfam Ireland chief Jim Clarken. "We need a global economy for the 99pc not just the 1pc." The most talked about Davos guest is Chinese President Xi Jinping who is attending for the first time. Mr Jinping will lead an 80-strong delegation of business executives and billionaires to the annual gathering where he is expected to speak out against the protectionist policies espoused by Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States. Many world leaders are not attending this year's forum. French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have all cancelled. Strong growth in passenger numbers in the Asia Pacific region continued into 2016, and there's no sign yet that the market has reached its peak. In fact, according to the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) 20-year forecast, the Asia-Pacific region will see 7.2 billion airline passengers in 2035, up from the 3.8 billion estimated for 2016 - and China is set to overtake the US as the world's largest aviation market. Why is this significant to Ireland? Approximately 40pc of the world's commercial aircraft are not owned outright by airlines, but are leased, and forecasts show this figure will increase by 50pc by 2020. More than half of these leased aircraft are owned and managed from Ireland. Thus, a growth in international traffic numbers in all markets, but particularly in Asia, presents a massive opportunity for Irish lessors and the wider Irish economy in this high-value industry. Ireland is regarded by many as the birthplace of the aviation finance industry, dating back to the foundation of Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) in the 1970s, and is now firmly established as the leading global hub for the sector. Nine of the world's top 10 lessors have their headquarters here. There is more growth to come and the opportunities lie in the East. While this presents a real opportunity for Ireland, the country must ensure it maintains its market-leading position and protect itself from competitors. The reasons for Ireland's success are many. Ireland offers a unique pool of talent with specialist expertise and commercial experience. Support provided by successive Irish governments has helped meet the evolving needs of the industry. This support has created a favourable tax regime consisting of the availability of the 12.5pc rate of corporation tax on leasing profits, tax depreciation for aircraft over an eight-year period, and access to over 70 double tax treaties, many negotiated with aircraft leasing as a target, and thus offering either zero or reduced rates of withholding tax on lease rentals. By its nature, aircraft leasing involves the movement of high-value assets into and out of Europe as well as into and out of other jurisdictions on a global basis. Ireland provides a business friendly customs jurisdiction, common law legal system and flexibility in financial reporting, which allow easier integration with international organisations. In 2015, Bohai Capital, a Chinese company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, bought Irish-headquartered Avolon. The acquisition completed in the first quarter of 2016, and less than a year later Avolon announced the acquisition of the aircraft leasing business of the CIT Group to place it as the world's third largest aircraft leasing platform, behind GECAS and AerCap, who also operate in Ireland. Recognising all that Ireland has to offer in the aviation finance space, Chinese and other Asian banks have decided to establish their European headquarters in Ireland. In 2012, ICBC Leasing, the leasing arm of ICBC, the largest bank in the world, and CDB Leasing (Sinoaero), the leasing arm of China Development Bank, both established European headquarters in Dublin. In 2014, the IDA announced a third Chinese leasing company, Bank of Communication Financial Leasing (JY Aviation), had chosen Ireland for its leasing operations. In 2015, China Construction Bank announced the establishment of its leasing arm's international headquarters in Ireland. Ireland has been so successful in attracting Chinese lessors, it has an unrivalled pool of talent with specialist aviation skills and experience. That includes those employed directly by the lessors, and experienced professional advisers, including technical advisers, corporate service providers, non-executive directors, legal advisers, auditors and tax advisers. Ireland cannot be complacent, however. To retain a high-paying industry, reform of the personal tax regime and a lower top rate of income tax would significantly enhance Ireland as an FDI location. Ireland must remain a great place to do business, full of highly experienced and qualified people, with a tax, regulatory and political system that is stable and certain. The authors are members of BDO's Aviation Finance Team Irish mineral exploration firm Kenmare Resources recorded a record year in production in 2016 at the companys Moma Titanium Minerals Mine . Kenmare reduced its net debt by 87pc over the course of the year to US$44.9m(42.2m),down from US$353.5(333m)in 2015. Ilmenite production increased 18pc while Zircon production increased by 32pc. 2016 saw Kenmare deliver a record year of both production and shipments of all products. Q4 2016 was another record quarter, continuing the increasing production to end and improving on the record set in the prior quarter. Production in 2017 is expected to rise further as mine optimisation continues, while unit costs of production are anticipated to fall further, said Kenmare managing director, Michael Carvill. The company added that it had a total of US$102.6 million in outstanding bank loans. Kenmare said the outlook for ilmenite prices remains positive for 2017 with demand for ilmenite in China set to remain robust in the year ahead. Here's a look at what it says in this morning's business pages Irish Independent Ireland will be a rock of stability irrespective of the type of Brexit the UK negotiates with the European Union, according to junior Government Minister Eoin Murphy. Political chaos in the North following the resignation of deputy First Minister Marin McGuinness will not alter Theresa Mays Brexit timetable. Ireland is ranked 12 when it comes to recruiting, training and educating skilled workers, according to a new survey released ahead of this weeks World Economic Forum in Davos. A rise in commercial rent could result in indigenous Irish firms being pushed out of Dublin city centre. Outgoing startup commissioner Niamh Bushnell has been appointed to the Millennial board at New Ireland Assurance. Oil prices are set to become even more volatile in 2017 despite a deal agreed late last year by OPEC to reduce output. Irish Times There are fresh fears that border tariffs could be imposed in the North as UK Prime Minister Theresa May gets ready to negotiate a hard Brexit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has hinted the UK could become a tax haven for multinationals in the event of a hard Brexit. A new survey from the charity Oxfam has shown that the worlds eight wealthiest individuals control as much wealth as the poorest 3.6bn on the planet. Stockbroker Davy has predicted that house prices will rise by 8pc this year. Facebook has said it is updating its platform in Germany in a bid to combat the spread of so-called fake news. Llloyds of London is considering setting up a subsidiary in Ireland as it finalises plans for Brexit. Ibec has called for Ireland to be given an exemption from EU state aid rules. The organisation wants support to be allowed for indigenous firms who have been adversely affected by Brexit. Irish Examiner The Irish construction sector ended 2016 with rising activity in residential and commercial building. Corks Red FM is celebrating 15 years on the airwaves. The popular radio station now has a market share of 21pc. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be a key focus for the Irish farming community in the year ahead. Personalised baby clothing specialists and online outfitter of high-profile children My 1st Years has secured 5m (5.7m) in funding to expand its offering for the likes of Prince George, Elton John's children and Mo Farah's. My 1st Years, which was founded by two friends who met at university back in 2009, has agreed a deal with growth investor Beringea that will go towards improving its personalisation technology and applying data analysis to its work. Specialists in online retail and tailored clothes, the company sells personalised products include clothing, teddy bears, blankets and silver keepsakes. "When we launched the business, our aim was to plug the gap and provide quality products in the same amount of time you would have an unpersonalised item," said Daniel Price, co-founder of My 1st Years. "Because we were early to the party weve grown with the personalisation trend and have had to be pretty reactive, adapting our systems to ensure we are able to personalise items the same day. With this funding under our belt we'll be able to enhance our existing proprietary technology." My 1st Years, which has a 7m turnover, also has plans to use some of the investment to expand into the US. The company's revenues from the online business grew 85pc year on year in 2016. It hasn't disclosed figures for its retail partnerships. The funding brings the total raised by the company, which has retail partnerships with John Lewis, Harrods, Selfridges, and website Not On The Highstreet, to 7m to date. Previous backers include Lord David Alliance, co-founder of Coats Viyella. Price and his co-founder initially planned to sell or list the business within four years, but have changed their minds after seeing its success. Expectant parents on average spend around 220m on baby showers, according to Price, let alone gifts, clothing and toys. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Prince George outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, London with his parents Kate Middleton and Prince William. 2. A close-up of the heir to the throne when he was just one day old. 3. He makes his way out of his christening at St James' Palace as he's held by his mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. 4. Prince William carries George, wearing a replica of a 172-year old royal christening robe, as he arrives with his wife Kate for their son's christening at St James's Palace in London. 5. To celebrate his birth, William and Kate shared this portrait with George and their dog Lupo. 6. Things really kicked up a few notches on the cuteness scale during the royal tour of Australia and New Zealand in April 2014. 7. Where he made faces like this on arrival. 8. Seriously, that outfit. 9. During a visit to the Taronga Zoo, he became a worldwide sensation. 10. Where he met a marsupial also names George. 11. And melted all our hearts with his new stuffed toy Bilby. 12. When he acted like a real baby during a playgroup visit in Wellington. 13. And he came face to face with his arch nemesis. 14. Kensington Palace released this fun photo to mark his first birthday as e visits the Sensational Butterflies exhibition at the Natural History Museum. 15. During a visit to the polo, as every infant is known to do, he took his first public steps. 16. Approaching his second birthday, George stole the show at the polo once again. 17. Seriously. 18. For his first Trooping The Colour, George stole the show among a balcony of royal family members, including Queen Elizabeth II. 19. As he makes his way to see his sister Princess Charlotte for the first time, he's joined by Prince William and the cutest knee socks of all time. 20. Not to mention the haircut. 21. For his official Christmas portrait in 2014, he was full of too-cute poses. 22. In this photo taken by Kate Middleton, George tenderly cradles Princess Charlotte days after her birth. 23. And let's face it, he was never going to play second fiddle to anyone, even his little sister at her christening. 24. When you remembered he's not even two years old and got startled by the crowd. 25. Kate Middleton, Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte in their 2015 Christmas card. 26. His first day at school was all kinds of nursery was adorable. The family's first ski holiday 28. His need for a stool in Queen Elizabeth's Royal Mail photoshoot elevated his cuteness to new heights. 29. Nothing will ever top anything more than when he met US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in a monogrammed bathrobe and PJs. 30. Until he facepalmed when Prince William was scolded by the Queen during the Trooping the Colour this year. 31. Prince George walks with his mother, the Ducheess of Cambridge during a visit to the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford and stole the show as expected. 32. And he was NOT happy about not having a pair of headphones. 33. Prince George certainly knows how to make an impression. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prince George outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, London with his parents Kate Middleton and Prince William. "It really struck us that there was a huge untapped market for personalisation," said Price. "When we launched the business our aim was to provide quality products in the same amount of time you would have an unpersonalised item." Since its launch seven years ago, the company has grown into a leading personalised child gift brand. Prince George notably wore a My 1st Years dressing gown when he met US President Barack Obama. "Daniel and Jonny are natural entrepreneurs," said Maria Wagner, investment director at Beringea. "What they have achieved so far is particularly impressive given this is their first job out of university." Beringea has recently invested in a number of online retail businesses, including male fashion site Thread and re-seller Watchfinder. Expand Close Credit: My 1st Years / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Credit: My 1st Years Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] The logo of the World Economic Forum is seen in the congress center of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 15, 2017. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich Just eight individuals, all men, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world's population, Oxfam said on Monday in a report calling for action to curtail rewards for those at the top. As decision makers and many of the super-rich gather for this week's World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, the charity's report suggests the wealth gap is wider than ever, with new data for China and India indicating that the poorest half of the world owns less than previously estimated. Oxfam, which described the gap as "obscene", said if the new data had been available before, it would have shown that in 2016 nine people owned the same as the 3.6bn who make up the poorest half of humanity, rather than 62 estimated at the time. In 2010, by comparison, it took the combined assets of the 43 richest people to equal the wealth of the poorest 50pc, according to the latest calculations. Inequality has moved up the agenda in recent years, with the head of the International Monetary Fund and the Pope among those warning of its corrosive effects, while resentment of elites has helped fuel an upsurge in populist politics. Concern about the issue was highlighted again in the WEF's own global risks report last week. "We see a lot of hand-wringing - and clearly Trump's victory and Brexit gives that new impetus this year - but there is a lack of concrete alternatives to business as usual," said Max Lawson, Oxfam's head of policy. "There are different ways of running capitalism that could be much, much more beneficial to the majority of people." SUPER-CHARGED CAPITALISm Oxfam called in its report for a crackdown on tax dodging and a shift away from "super-charged" shareholder capitalism that pays out disproportionately to the rich. While many workers struggle with stagnating incomes, the wealth of the super-rich has increased by an average of 11pc a year since 2009. Bill Gates, the world's richest man who is a regular at Davos, has seen his fortune rise by 50pc or $25bn (23.5bn) since announcing plans to leave Microsoft in 2006, despite his efforts to give much of it away. While Gates exemplifies how outsized wealth can be recycled to help the poor, Oxfam believes such "big philanthropy" does not address the fundamental problem. "If billionaires choose to give their money away then that is a good thing. But inequality matters and you cannot have a system where billionaires are systematically paying lower rates of tax than their secretary or cleaner," Lawson said. Oxfam bases its calculations on data from Swiss bank Credit Suisse and Forbes. The eight individuals named in the report are Gates, Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, veteran investor Warren Buffett, Mexico's Carlos Slim, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Be gone, 2016, and with you the ills of falling stars and rising monsters you gave us. 2017 kicks off with something delirious in its romantic wonderment that has just steam-rolled the Golden Globes with a record haul of seven wins. We shouldnt be surprised. Like The Artist (2011), La La Land is an all-singing, all-dancing love letter to classier times. Damien Chazelles rendering of Los Angeles takes the lighter notes of digital-era melancholy and washes them in Golden-Age pizazz and old-school values. Like Chazelles Whiplash (2014), jazz provides the beat while technology is a distant buzzkill. Into these comely confines waltz picture-perfect Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (their third screen outing together, after Gangster Squad and Crazy, Stupid, Love). Just detectable over Justin Hurwitzs lush score are the Academy silverbacks already swooning. Once the hysterical and slightly off-putting opening extravaganza is done, things settle down. Stone is Mia, a struggling actress working in a film-studio cafe. Sebastian (Gosling) is a pianist whose passion wont be tempered by shifts as a restaurant ivory-tinkler. The two Cinderellas cross paths via colourful coincidences before love blossoms to the sound of tapping feet and charming duets. Love, alas, is just another dream to vie with Mias big-screen ambitions and Sebastians goal to open a jazz club. While better than anything from his recent run of so-so performances, Gosling is still largely acted off the screen by Stone who doesnt put a figurative or literal foot wrong. Despite being such a stylised venture, Chazelle aims to conjure an adorable, pungent and bittersweet universe, and hits his target. Hilary A White Underworld: Blood Wars Cert: 16; Now showing Kate Beckinsale's career is a strange scattershot thing, largely made up of films that range from mediocre to full on bad. It is usually the films that are weak, not her performance. But sometimes there have been great films, and indeed last year in Love & Friendship, Beckinsale gave the performance of that strangely scattershot career. Now, however, she is back in the role for which she will be best remembered, in the fourth film in 14 years in the Underworld franchise. Set in the (under)world of vampires and Lycans, the film sees Beckinsale again play Selene. A death dealer once held in high esteem by her vampire brethren, events of previous films, recapped in narration fairly extensively over the opening credits, have left her isolated, hunted by vampire and Lycan alike. She has lost the will to live. The reason Selene is in such demand is also the source of her greatest sadness; her estranged daughter Eve, a unique hybrid child whose pure blood offers extra power. Video of the Day Vampire leader Semira (Lara Pulver) persuades her community, living in fear of attack from the Lycans under powerful new leader Marius (Tobias Menzies), that their best course of action is to rehabilitate Selene. But all is not what it seems, and the stylised violence that has characterised the franchise so far begins with a vengeance. Underworld first timers, director Anna Foerster and screenwriter Cory Goodman, deliver on brand what is a formulaic film that will preach mostly to the converted. Aine O'Connor Manchester By The Sea Cert: 15A. Now showing A welcome return for director Kenneth Lonergan, who has not been seen near the auditorium since his ambitious 2011 drama Margaret. The antithesis to La La Land's soft-focused jazz hands, Manchester By The Sea screams "January", what with its tragic protagonist (a morose Casey Affleck) and overcast skies, not to mention its awards-season release timing (Affleck is already a Best Actor front-runner). Affleck is janitor Lee Chandler, a bruised puddle of a man living in Boston. He is sucked into a previous life up the coast in the titular seaside town after the death of his brother. Once there, Lee discovers his brother's will stipulates he is to be guardian to his 16-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Run-ins with Michelle Williams's ex also force him to face a grisly past trauma. Lonergan's screenplay shovels on the pathos when it wants to, so brace yourself. However, a sophisticated, mesmeric and haunting film, one filled with subtle frequencies and exceptional visual editing, awaits you on the other side. Hilary A White Live By Night Cert: 15A; Now showing Following on from his Oscar for Argo in 2012, Ben Affleck had carte blanche and he decided to go big, for the first time starring, directing and screenwriting (he had a co-writer on The Town). He also chose a risky genre, the Gangster Movie. The reviews so far will perhaps bruise an ego said to be already smarting from the (exaggerated) mauling given to Batman v Superman. But, while Live By Night is unquestionably flawed, it is very enjoyable and extremely watchable. Affleck plays Joe Coughlin who returns from the trenches of WW1 disenchanted with the country that sent him to war. His father Thomas (Brendan Gleeson) is a police chief in Boston but Joe operates on the other side of the law. When he runs foul of Irish gangster Albert White (Robert Glenister) thanks to their mutual girlfriend Emma (Sienna Miller) Joe takes up with Italian gangsters and moves to Florida. There's a gorgeous Cuban rum magnate (Zoe Saldhana), a flinty sheriff (Chris Cooper) and his starlet-turned-preacher daughter (Elle Fanning) and that is only a very rough outline. One of the criticisms levelled at the film is that there is too much going on, and there is. Affleck is also a bit too keen to whitewash a character who is essentially a thug. The smaller roles are much better written, and often acted, than the main one. Affleck isn't bad but those supporting performances make the film. There's a blunt but timely lesson about capitalism and it looks great. As a work of art it is flawed, as a night out there is much to enjoy. Aine O'Connor This was first screened in Canada on the Discovery Channel but Netflix funded it, hence they have the rights to show it worldwide. It's a sort of Wild West tale but instead of oil the Canadians have fur. The action - and there is plenty of it - centres around the cartel murders which mark shifts in control of the trade. At the start, and for much of it, the dominant character is Declan Harp (Jason Momoa, familiar as the beast Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones), a half-Irish, half-native outlaw who is the most determined of the rebels who want to wrest control of the trade. A young Irish rogue, Michael Smyth (Landon Liboiron), is a stowaway to Canada after trying to rob a ship with his girlfriend and is persuaded to try to con his way into the company of Harp. Of course with a series like this there is always the delicate matter of how they deal with the native settlers, but Declan's trump card is that he works with them rather than killing them. It's action-packed, never overly-earnest, and there are panoramic views of the Canadian wilderness. Irish actress Katie McGrath also puts in a fine performance. Take The 10 Movie; available from January 20 The question used to be asked if Andy Samberg was big enough to carry a movie. Well ask no more, because here is the Saturday Night Live alumnus doing just that on an often funny road movie. The 10, of course, refers to Route 10, the highway in Southern California that you can take to get from Los Angeles to the so-called 'Inland Empire', which is the working-class part of Orange County. The plot is really very much in the vein of your typical 'buddy' movies (think all the way back to the Easy Rider days). Two hapless friends want to get to a music festival by any means necessary. And that "by any means necessary" part is where they all get into trouble. It's all good fun - the jokes flow at a terrific clip and there is the added bonus of the spectacular scenery of Southern California. You Me Her 1 season, 10 episodes; available from January 18 The South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, is best known for showcasing movies but occasionally a cracking TV series has emerged. You Me Her comes from writer John Scott Shepherd and stars Greg Poehler, the younger brother of Amy Poehler. It's being billed as television's first "polyromantic comedy", a sort of indie rom-com with a naughty twist. What begins as an impulsive one night stand between suburban husband Jack (Greg Poehler) and neophyte escort Izzy (Priscilla Faia) spins into a whirlwind three-way affair including Jack's wife Emma (Rachel Blanchard), who's been keeping secrets of her own. Their 'arrangement' soon breaks free of its financial bonds to become something else entirely - a real romance with real stakes involving three real people - confronting viewers with the question: What if your best, truest, happiest life looked nothing like you thought it would? Would you be brave enough to live it? These might seem like weighty themes to ponder, but this series leans on its comedy and it may cause a little stir when it airs to a bigger audience (it has previously languished on a little-known network in the US). Neal Brennan, 3 Mics Available from January 17 When this show debuted on Broadway it was likened variously to a play, and an exercise in eavesdropping on someone else's therapy sessions. Chappelle's Show co-creator Neal Brennan multi-tasks by switching between - you guessed it - three different microphones, symbolising three different styles of comedy. One is for traditional stand-up, another is for one-liners, and the third is for short confessional monologues, or what the trailer calls "emotional stuff", such as his difficult relationship with his father. It's at this microphone, of course, that the real risks are taken. Brennan is at his best in his segment on depression, where he does a moving, yet also witty, job of explaining this still-misunderstood condition and how frustrating it is when people treat it dismissively. The mood changes could be jarring but they flow brilliantly here and you can see why Amy Schumer got this guy on board to work on her series. Excellent stuff. Podcasts... listen at your leisure Emily Hourican Video of the Day Revisionist History www.revisionisthistory.com Expand Close Malcolm Gladwell / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Malcolm Gladwell Revisionist History is the work of Malcolm Gladwell (author of best-selling game-changers, including David and Goliath and Tipping Point), who has temporarily moved his particular brand of counter-intuitive thinking into podcast form. Ten episodes, 10 historical events, with Gladwell revisiting and reinterpreting them, and providing plenty of fascinating contemporary insight as he goes. So The Lady Vanishes is dedicated to artist Elizabeth Thompson Butler, whose painting The Roll Call took England by storm in the 19th century, becoming prominent in an all-male world, and was promptly forgotten after her death. Through this, Gladwell explores the idea of moral licensing, which is when the acceptance of one outsider a female leader, one Jewish poet for the Nazis, a black President actually gives the status quo justification to shut the door again, as Gladwell puts it. Then theres an episode about a Grade-A scholarship student in LA, Carlos, whos academic success is pitched as an example of American meritocracy. Until Gladwell looks a little closer. His style is intimate and revelatory, and the analysis typically thoughtful and provocative. Hip Hop Saved My Life with Romesh Ranganathan www.audioboom.com/channel/romeshranganathan This is comedian Romesh Ranganathans personal take on what hip hop means to him, but also the device he uses to interview others including Robert Popper, writer of Channel 4s Friday Night Dinner about themselves and their relationship to music. Even the guests, who say they dont like hip hop, end up sharing stories and anecdotes, thanks to Ranganathans infectious enthusiasm. These are then intercut with great old gems from Wu Tang, and more unexpected acts. U2 will play second dates in London, Rome, Paris and Amsterdam but the Irish band will not be performing for a second night in Dublin. Tickets for the band's gig in Dublin on July 22 were snapped up in just six minutes on Monday, with many speculating that a second date would be added. However, fans who missed out on tickets were left disappointed when a spokesperson announced that there would be "only one date" in Dublin for the European leg of their Joshua Tree Tour. Now the band has announced it will play four more gigs at Twickenham, London on July 9, the Olympic Stadium in Rome on July 16, the Stade de France in Paris on July 26 and the Amsterdam Arena on July 30. Tickets for these shows will go on general sale next Monday January 23. Read More Meanwhile, a number of U2 tickets became available on official and black market websites last week after diehard fans with access to pre-sale tickets chose to sell them on for a profit. Tickets for the July 22 gig are priced from 39.05 (including booking fee) right up to 186 but they are now appearing on SeatWave for almost 13 times above face value. Sources in the industry said a flurry of activity has seen fans splash out to guarantee their places at the gig. A spokesman for Ticketmaster said the Seatwave prices are not set by the company but by the person who is selling the tickets on. "The thing about Seatwave is that it is a safe and secure market so tickets would be genuine. The ticket prices are set by the seller, which in this instance is not Ticketmaster, but that price may not necessarily be secured by the seller. "Ticketmaster is just facilitating the sale." Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, who has prepared a bill that would ban ticket touting, criticised the ticket retailer. Video of the Day "We need this law to be enacted as soon as possible," he said. "Right now, the present situation suits touts, it suits Ticketmaster-owned Seatwave and as they make a commission from both buyer and seller, it suits Ticketmaster as it drives up early demand." Bus Eireann will receive no additional funding from the State for carrying pensioners this year, despite the company saying it is in talks to address the underpayment. The scheme allows pensioners to travel on the buses free of charge, with a portion of the cost of the fares covered by the Department of Social Protection. Bus Eireann, unions and party opposition have called for additional funding to keep pace with increasing passenger numbers - in an attempt to help the company, which has faced turmoil. However a spokesman for the department said that no increase would be considered until next year's Budget. "Minister (Leo) Varadkar is a big supporter of free travel for pensioners, carers and people with disabilities," the spokesman said. "The Budget for 2017 is done at this stage. Any increase could only be considered in the context of the 2018 Budget," he added. A spokeswoman for Bus Eireann said: "The company is in talks with the Government and other relevant stakeholders, to seek to address the under-funding of the Free Travel Scheme." Fianna Fail transport spokesman Robert Troy has hit out at Transport Minister Shane Ross for "taking a back seat" in addressing the Bus Eireann crisis. "Minister Ross has been aware of the financial problems at the company for months but has failed to engage with bosses or unions," Mr Troy said. "Now we're facing a collision course between the management and unions over cost-saving measures," he added, Mr Troy also said that all Bus Eireann Expressway services should be reviewed as part of the company's cost-cutting measures. "The 23 routes that are currently being operated by Expressway, each one of them needs to be reviewed. Certainly there are some routes that quite simply will never be commercially viable and that's what Expressway is - commercially viable routes," he said. "Some of the routes need to be moved over onto the public service obligation routes whereby they would enjoy the benefit of a state subvention," he added. Bus Eireann intends keeping Expressway, but says changes are urgently required to address its financial situation. "We are making all efforts to ensure that no passengers are discommoded as we introduce vital cost savings and necessary efficiencies," the spokeswoman said. The company will notify staff of cost-saving measures today. There had been suggestions that overtime would be cut entirely by Bus Eireann to save money. However, National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) spokesman, Dermot O'Leary said "banning overtime would result in services being impacted and Bus Eireann can't run all of its services unless there is a significant level of overtime". Former Anglo Irish Bank director of lending Pat Whelan has been fined 3,000 for failing to register a fraudulent 8.2m loan to fellow director Willie McAteer. Mr Whelan (54), of Coast Road, Malahide, Co Dublin has also been disqualified from being a director of a company for five years. But the sentencing of former Anglo finance director McAteer (66), who admits fraudulently obtaining the cash to avoid having to sell his Anglo shares, has been postponed to next week. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Mr McAteer, of Greenrath, Tipperary Town, Co Tipperary, faces up to seven years in prison for the offence. He took the loan on September 29, 2008 to avoid the forced sale of 3.3 million shares, a situation Anglo felt would be catastrophic for the bank. But not only was the loan obtained fraudulently, it was never included in any register of directors loans, as required by law. In imposing the fine on Mr Whelan (54), Judge Martin Nolan accepted he probably did not know the appropriate way to record the loan as there was no register kept by Anglo. Mr Whelan has three months to pay the fine or else he will face three months in prison. The maximum fine the judge could have imposed was 12,697. Under questioning from prosecution counsel Sean Gillane SC, Detective Garda Glen Mackessy told the court that at the time directors of Anglo were encouraged to hold shares in the bank. Mr McAteer funded his shareholding through five loans obtained from Bank of Ireland. The court heard he borrowed sums of 5,535,000, 1,293,000, 984,832, 310,000 and 133,095 to purchase his shares. The Bank of Ireland loans were secured against the shares. However, under the loan facility agreement, if the value of the shares fell to 1.8 times below the value of the loans, Bank of Ireland could seek a reduction in the loans or an increase in the security. Another clause said that if the value of the shares fell 1.4 times below the value of the loans, Bank of Ireland could sell the shares without reference to Mr McAteer. With Anglos share price in freefall during 2008, Mr McAteer informed colleagues he was in breach of his loan agreement with Bank of Ireland and that his shares could be sold at any time. Det Gda Mackessy accepted that the sale of shares by a director would have had a considerable negative impact on the bank. He said Anglo decided to help Mr McAteer refinance his Bank of Ireland borrowings via a loan of 8,246,307 from Anglo. The security for the Anglo loan was a charge over the 3.3 million shares and Mr McAteer had no personal liability. The court heard Mr Whelan signed a facility offer for Mr McAteer on September 29, 2008, but the loan was never recorded in a directors loans register. Anglos chief financial officer Matt Moran subsequently approached Mr McAteer in 2009 seeking to amend the terms of the loan. That February, Mr McAteer signed a undertaking making him liable for the borrowings, but excluding his family home and pension. Det Gda Mackessy said that when questioned in March 2010, Mr McAteer said the terms of the Anglo loan were not decided by him, but he had accepted them. Mr Whelan was questioned the following month and told gardai Mr McAteer was under pressure to refinance his Bank of Ireland borrowings. Judge Nolan asked if Mr Whelan was ever asked by gardai why he had not registered the Anglo loan. But Mr Gillane indicated that garda inquiries were focussed on other matters and that he was never asked the question specifically. Det Gda Mackessy also told the judge: He didnt tell me, but there was confusion about the register in the bank at the time. Mr Whelans counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, said his client had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity to failing to maintain a register in respect of granting the loan. He said Mr Whelan had cooperated fully with an investigation by gardai and the Office of Corporate Enforcement. Mr Grehan said it was not a situation where the loan was concealed, it was just that a separate register was not kept. Such registers werent kept in Anglo at the time and there was confusion as to what constituted a register and who was responsible for keeping it. The court heard Mr Whelan had one previous conviction for giving illegal loans to developers to buy shares in the bank, for which he got 240 hours community service. Imposing a 3,000 fine on Mr Whelan, Judge Nolan said that he was satisfied Mr Whelan did not know of the obligations placed on him to ensure directors loans were recorded. The judge said he was satisfied the defendant probably did not know the appropriate way to record the loan. Mr McAteers counsel, Patrick Gageby SC appealed for leniency for his client and asked that any sentence run concurrent to a three-and-a-half year term he is already serving for conspiring to mislead investors by using interbank loans to make Anglo appear 7.2bn more valuable than it was in 2008. Mr Gageby said Mr McAteer had not sought the Anglo loan and that the loan document had been put in front of him to sign. He also said his client had pleaded guilty to the offence, saving the State the substantial expense of running a trial which would have included voluminous disclosure. Judge Nolan said he would sentence Mr McAteer next week. Five young men have been jailed for the manslaughter of Dale Creighton, who was kicked and beaten to death in a prolonged and vicious attack on a footbridge in Tallaght. The accused were given jail time ranging from three to seven and a half years at the Central Criminal Court today. A woman will be sentenced to a year in prison for violent disorder after a judge said her screaming and shouting incited the men involved in the frenzied assault. A seventh accused, who also did not physically assault the victim but had a knife at the scene, had his two-year sentence suspended in full. As the sentences were handed down, gasps and cries of Jesus Christ, and shame were heard from the public gallery where Mr Creightons family were sitting. Speaking after the hearing, a family spokesperson said the sentences were too lenient and that Dale had been the centre of their world. Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy said while the accused were not evil, none of the seven had shouted stop. Dale Creighton died following an assault at the footbridge over the Tallaght bypass between St Dominics Road and Greenhills Road in the early hours of New Years Day, 2014. The Tallaght man had been accused of stealing a phone belonging to one of the accused, Aisling Burke, before he was confronted and beaten. He died in hospital the following day, from blunt force injury to his head and face. The court heard his injuries were so severe his own family did not recognise him. Today, the five who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were given 10-year sentences, with portions suspended. Graham Palmer (26) was jailed for five years, Ross Callery (23) and Jason Beresford (23) for six each, David Burke (28) for seven and a half years, and Gerard Stephens (27) was jailed for three. Aisling Burke (23) is to be jailed for one year for violent disorder but the judge adjourned imposition of the sentence for a week, for the mother-of-one to make childcare arrangements. The judge said she will give her a five year sentence with the final four years suspended. Judge Murphy said Aisling Burke had been screaming and roaring for the return of her phone while Mr Creighton was being assaulted. This, the judge said, was a material contributing factor in the "frenzy of the final assault." James Reid's two-year sentence for possession of a knife was suspended in full after the judge said she was satisfied that he did not participate in the assault. The court heard the knife had been taken from Mr Creighton and the judge accepted Reid (26) had not brought it to the scene. The seven accused had originally been charged with murder and all had pleaded not guilty, but those charges were later dropped by the prosecution and they admitted lesser offences. The court is quite satisfied that the seven young people before the court are not evil people, Judge Murphy said today. In the courts view, they are not even bad people. She said they individually and collectively brought about the death of Mr Creighton in a prolonged and vicious attack. She said the attack started at 3.52am on January 1, 2014 and ended at 4.06am - lasting 14 minutes, during which Mr Creighton was mercilessly kicked and beaten. During that beating not one of the seven people before the court shouted stop, she said. She said the assailants were normal, average young people and the fact that they could kill a person in such a way was particularly frightening for society. Judge Murphy said the court had frequently encountered situations where young people sorted out their differences between themselves. This was not confined to Tallaght and could happen in leafy suburbs among the most privileged in society, she said. The court wanted to make clear that rough justice is no justice, she continued. The assailants had taken the law into their own hands and brutally ended the life of Dale Creighton, she said. The court heard the seven had been to the Plaza nightclub earlier with multiple free drinks included in the entrance fee. After it closed, Aisling Burke had her handbag with her phone stolen and raised a hue and cry with her brother David Burke. Dale Creighton was later confronted and was seen to have a knife in his hand. The subsequent beating he suffered by multiple parties continued unabated, long after the accused was able to protect himself or offer any resistance. The attack ended after Jason Beresford kicked a prone Mr Creighton full in the face as if his face was a football, before flinging his limp body down the steps. After the hearing, family spokesperson Helena Darcy said their lives had radically changed on New Years Day, 2014. Dale was then and still is the centre of our world, she said. The happiness and joy we once shared is now gone as we can no longer enjoy Dales presence in our lives. It is only through the unending and deep love we have for Dale that gives us the strength to move forward. Dale was a shy young man who loved his family unconditionally. He was loved by so many people, he had his whole life ahead of him. But on that dreadful New Years morning, those people decided it was their right to take it away. Because of their vicious actions, we now have an everlasting ache in our hearts. While we appreciate the difficulty Judge Murphy had in sentencing these individuals, we as a family consider them to be too lenient, especially the one-year sentence of Aisling Burke and the suspended sentence of James Reid. Detective Superintendent Brian Sutton said he hoped that the result may bring the family some bit of closure and some solace to the tragedy they have gone through over the last three years. This was a difficult investigation and An Garda Siochana would like to thank the people of Tallaght who have come forward, yet again, in this investigation and assisted us in bringing about this outcome today, Det Supt Sutton added. A teenager who handed himself into gardai hours after he robbed two students and hit one with a steel mop handle has been given a suspended sentence. Dylan Brophy's victims, a man and a woman, were extremely traumatised as a result of the robbery, Judge Melanie Greally told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today. Brophy (19) of Reuben Walk, Rialto, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbery on Reuben Street on March 12, 2015. He has 21 previous convictions for road traffic, public order and drug offences. At Brophy's sentence hearing last November, Garda Brendan Lynn said Bronte Kavanagh and Ryan Donnelly were walking into town when a friend ahead of them warned them to run. Ms Kavanagh was then dragged to the ground by someone holding her bag before she was hit in the head a number of times. She could hear male voices shouting at her before her bag, containing her iPhone and 40 in cash was ripped from her hands. She went to accident and emergency the following day to be treated for mild concussion. Gda Lynn said Mr Donnelly was hit from behind with a metal object and punched in the face. He managed to block a few blows before his attackers demanded that he empty his pockets. Another youth, who was armed with a knife, demanded his phone before he punched him and ran away. Mr Donnelly went to the doctor the following day where he was treated for bruises and swelling on his cheek and bruises to his legs, arms and ribs. A small amount of money had been taken from him. Brophy was arrested two hours later when he came to the garda station. He denied making any threats and claimed he had been defending his friend. Handing down a suspended three-year sentence, Judge Greally said the injured parties were subjected to an extremely violent and frightening incident. However, she accepted Brophy who spent six months in custody for the offence last year - was extremely remorseful and taking steps to address his offending behaviour. The court heard Brophy came from a broken home and was easily led into criminality. Gda Lynn said Brophy was both abusing and selling drugs at the time of the offence. Defence counsel Tony McGillicuddy BL said Brophy's father died when he was ten years old and he was effectively passed from pillar to post afterwards. He had been living on Reuben Street with his grandparents before his grandmother died in February 2015. Her death further destabilised him said Mr McGillicuddy. His grandfather then died this March. The officer is the third garda from the same district to be suspended, transferred or disciplined over separate sexual assault cases. Stock picture A detective has been suspended and is under investigation after a woman accused him of demanding sexual favours. The officer is the third garda from the same district to be suspended, transferred or disciplined over separate sexual assault cases. Sources said a woman walked into a station, which cannot be named, and asked to speak with a senior officer to report a crime. The woman, who is in her 30s and a member of a criminal family, alleged a detective in the same district had demanded sexual favours in return for concealing certain offences. "She accused him of asking to receive sexual favours in return for perverting the course of justice," a senior source told the Irish Independent. "She made a full statement to the senior officer about this detective, who was subsequently suspended with full pay." Expand Close Legal sources said this involves Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald (pictured), the Attorney General and named gardai. Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Legal sources said this involves Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald (pictured), the Attorney General and named gardai. Photo: Steve Humphreys The woman who has made the allegations has a number of teenage children and has previously been before the courts for theft and fraud offences. Sources said the officer at the centre of the investigation comes from a well-respected family. "Anyone aware of it is completely shocked by the allegations against him," a source said. The matter has been handed over to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) for investigation, and first came to the attention of gardai in July 2016. The Irish Independent has learned that the officer who took the original complaint is the same man who is now under investigation for the alleged sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl. This officer was previously accused of raping a woman in a car in August 2013 and was suspended from duty for a period of time. During the alleged attack it was claimed he detailed child sex fantasies. A GSOC investigation was carried out into the allegation but the Director of Public Prosecutions directed no prosecution be taken. The garda was permitted to return to work but was subsequently accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl and has since been suspended from the force for a second time. Yesterday the 'Sunday Independent' revealed how this same officer is taking legal action against An Garda Siochana, the State and named officers over his alleged treatment during the original investigation. The officer involved alleges he was the victim of biased and unfair treatment during the original investigation by a fellow officer. It has emerged that a senior officer charged with leading the investigation into the rape claims had previously been in a relationship with the woman involved. The senior officer was married and, despite the relationship with the single woman at the centre of the rape claim, did not excuse himself from the investigation. The officer was subsequently transferred and was the focus of disciplinary action following a GSOC review. A civil action by the garda member originally accused of the rape is now at an advanced stage. Legal sources said this involves Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald, the Attorney General and named gardai. A formal statement of claim was notified to the various defendants last year. However, it is understood no details of a defence have yet been signalled by the State or other defendants. If the matter is not resolved, a trial date is expected to be set for later this year. A source familiar with the case acknowledged that the allegations involved are "potentially very serious for the entire force". Mrs Fitzgerald and Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan have been personally contacted by various parties in relation to the shocking allegations over the garda district involved. A spokesperson for An Garda Siochana said they do not comment on ongoing investigations and or the outcome of internal investigations. A spokesperson for GSOC said they had no comment. Education Minister Richard Bruton is to tackle the "baptism barrier" that gives Catholic children priority admission to nine out 10 of the country's primary schools. Bowing to growing pressure for change, he says he plans to limit or remove the role that religion can play in the school admission process. It is the first such move by any Irish government. Mr Bruton says the system is 'unfair' and does not reflect the reality of modern Irish society, where the number of Catholic-controlled schools is now well ahead of the proportion of families who are practising Catholics. A Catholic-first admissions policy means many children cannot get into their nearest school because they are not baptised - and many parents are baptising children purely for school-entry purposes. According to a new survey by Equate - which has been campaigning for reforms to the system to reflect social and cultural change in Ireland - 24pc of parents of school-age children would not have baptised their child if they didn't need to in order to gain entry into their school. "It is unfair that preference is given by publicly funded religious schools to children of their own religion who might live some distance away, ahead of children of a different religion or of no religion who live close to the school," Mr Bruton said. Read more: Baptism barrier 'a dark stain on national conscience' - Ferriter Read more: 'Baptising children simply to be able to attend a specific school is an abuse of baptism' - Archbishop The minister will set out his plans today at a seminar organised by Equate, when he will put forward four options for discussion: Catchment area approach, prohibiting religious schools from giving preference to children of their own religion who live outside the catchment area ahead of non-religious children who live inside the catchment. 'Nearest school rule', allowing religious schools to give preference to a religious child only where it is that child's nearest school of that particular religion. Quota system, which would allow a religious school to give preference to children of its own religion in respect of only a certain proportion of places, meaning the remaining places would be allocated based on other admissions criteria, such as proximity to the school or a lottery. Outright prohibition on religious schools using religion as a factor in admissions, meaning all places would be allocated based on other factors. Adoption of any option faces considerable obstacles because of the legal entitlement enjoyed by denominational schools in relation to protecting their religious ethos - and admissions polices are a vehicle for this. But Mr Bruton who, soon after taking office last year, asked officials in the Department of Education to explore options, clearly believes any difficulties are surmountable. He is inviting the views of all interested parties, and hopes to have proposals to table when a Labour Party bill in this area comes to committee stage in June. Mr Bruton acknowledges a number of potential difficulties in the road ahead, including avoiding possible breaches of the Constitution, traditionally put forward as the reason why the State could not introduce changes in the 'Catholic-first' rule. He also says he is conscious of the need to protect schools of minority religions, such as Protestant, Jewish and Islamic, from the unintended consequences of any change. Read more: Comment - Children and parents will pay the price for Bruton's surrender to church power on the 'baptism barrier' He insists reform must not lead to 'postcode lotteries', such as other countries have experienced, resulting in pronounced divergence in quality of schools in more advantaged, compared to less advantaged, areas. Overall, 96pc of primary schools are under the patronage of Christian religious organisations. In particular, 90pc are of Catholic ethos. But Mr Bruton says Ireland must move on from the system of patronage/ ethos "that we have inherited and reflects a very different era in Ireland; change is needed to meet the needs of today's families". "Over one-third of couples who are getting married are choosing to do so in a non-religious ceremony, and all the evidence points to a population in which very significantly fewer than 90pc of young families are religious," he added. Emma O'Keeffe was killed after her car collided with a truck on January 13 2017 The funeral of the young mother who died following a road crash in Co Meath will take place this morning. Mother-of-three Emma O'Keeffe of Coghalstown, Wilkinstown, Navan, Co Meath, died on Friday following a traffic collision near her home between Nobber and Kingscourt. The car she was driving was in a collision with a lorry on Thursday afternoon. Two of her sons were in the car and they were taken to hospital. One of her sons, who was seriously injured, had surgery at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin, on Saturday. "He is battling bravely and we are all praying for him at the moment. From what we are told the next 48 hours are crucial," said a family friend. Expand Close Emma OKeeffe will be buried in a local cemetery today / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Emma OKeeffe will be buried in a local cemetery today Mrs O'Keeffe (26), originally from Kilmainham in Dublin, lived in Kells and in Nobber in Co Meath before she and her husband Robin settled in Wilkinstown. Emma and Robin were married two-and-a-half years ago, while the couple's three young children are Daniel, Adam and Logan. The young mother's funeral takes place today at 11am in Saint John the Baptist Church in Kilberry, Co Meath, followed by burial in the local cemetery. The distraught family was dealt a further blow on Saturday night when her mother-in-law, Eileen O'Keeffe, collapsed with a suspected heart attack in the family home at Caulstown, Wilkinstown. A family friend said: "Eileen, who is in her 50s, collapsed at the wake in the house. "She was taken to Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, where she was treated for a suspected heart attack, and has been kept in for observation. "We are not sure if she will be released for the funeral. "The medics seemed to think it was the stress of the whole situation that has unfolded since the crash that caused her collapse." Emma is also survived by her parents, Mary and Patsy Smith, her brother Peter and sisters Donna and Kelly and her grandfather Eugene Smith, and father-in-law John O'Keeffe. Helicopter Following the road crash on Thursday, shortly after 1pm, four garda units and four fire units and a helicopter attended the scene. Emma was rushed to the intensive care unit at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda after being removed from the car. She was pronounced dead less than 24 hours later. James Minnock, principal at Scoil Naomh Barra, Wilkinstown, said on Friday the whole school was praying for all the family. Meanwhile, a woman was killed when struck by a car in Co Kilkenny last night. The woman, a 50-year-old mother-of-four, was killed on Green Street in Callan when she was involved in a collision with the car. The woman, who was a pedestrian, died at the scene. The driver of the car, a woman in her 20s, was not injured in the collision. Gardai said the accident happened about 6pm and they have appealed for witnesses to contact them. The road was closed to facilitate a forensic examination of the crash scene and was not expected to reopen until today. A local man said last night the woman may have tripped and fallen shortly before being involved in the collision with the passing car. "The fire brigade went to the scene and an ambulance arrived shortly afterwards. "Efforts were made to revive her but she died. "Her husband arrived on the scene as they were treating her," he said. Anyone who was in the area of Green Street, Callan, at around 6pm is asked to contact Kilkenny garda station on 056 7775000. Dermot Gallagher "embodied the best of Ireland and its people", said Taoiseach Enda Kenny in a warm tribute to the former secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who has died aged 72. The Taoiseach said Mr Gallagher was "a patriot, an outstanding public servant" who was " intellectually brilliant yet unassuming". "He had a rare elegance and warmth," said Mr Kenny. "He used his contacts and authority to do good. He showed immense humanity and compassion to those who needed it most. "Dermot used to say 'a shroud has no pockets' but there is neither shroud nor pocket big enough to hold even a minuscule amount of his wisdom, decency and kindness. "Dermot Gallagher is a major loss to Irish public life. Today, Ireland is the less for his passing." President Michael D Higgins led tributes, saying Mr Gallagher "dedicated a lifetime to public service, serving with distinction as ambassador to the United States and making a significant contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland." Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said: "Dermot ably served successive governments with great loyalty and constant commitment. "His talented service covered the spectrum of the department's work, from EU affairs to development aid. "It included two ambassadorial posts. "Perhaps it was in the area of Northern Ireland and the peace process that Dermot made his greatest contribution." Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said: "On his retirement. . . he continued his very distinguished career of public service by serving for a number of years as chairperson of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission. "He combined a deep respect for An Garda Siochana with a determination that all who served in it should live up to its highest standards." Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said Mr Gallagher was "a true gentleman who epitomised the very essence of public service". Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said he "gave a lifetime of service to the Irish state". Fr Sean McManus, president of the Washington Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, said: "May God rest Dermot's noble, Leitrim soul." A protest march took place on Saturday afternoon in Waterford city against the lack of cardiac services at Waterford University Hospital. Photo: Patrick Browne. Two patients' lives were placed in danger when they had to be transferred to Cork from Waterford Hospital for cardiac intervention. The transfer came as thousands protested against the lack of a 24-hour cath service in University Hospital Waterford (UHW) over the weekend. Patients are currently being referred to Cork University Hospital for cardiac PCI interventions. This is despite the fact it is medically accepted a person requiring such urgent medical treatment has a 90-minute window post heart attack if survival is to be guaranteed. On Saturday, two patients had to be taken from Waterford to Cork for treatment. One was taken in the Irish Coast Guard helicopter, and one was removed by ambulance because the aircraft was being used. Expand Close John Halligan TD pictured at the march. Picture: Patrick Browne / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John Halligan TD pictured at the march. Picture: Patrick Browne Cardiac services campaigners have been active in recent months on the issue of a second lab at University Hospital Waterford, which was denied last year after the Herity report was published. The campaigners, along with Junior Skills Minister John Halligan, have maintained the terms used to determine the need for an additional Cath lab at UHW were flawed. The findings in the Higgins report in 2012, meanwhile, recommend that a second lab is required for a population of 500,000 people. Read more: Thousands march in Waterford for 24/7 cath lab unit amid 'cautious welcome' to mobile unit Expand Close A protest march took place on Saturday afternoon in Waterford city against the lack of cardiac services at Waterford University Hospital. Photo: Patrick Browne / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A protest march took place on Saturday afternoon in Waterford city against the lack of cardiac services at Waterford University Hospital. Photo: Patrick Browne Mr Halligan said last week that a review of the Herity report with pre-approved terms of reference would also take place. He also confirmed that a mobile cath lab would be in place in a matter of weeks. He said that the matter was finalised late on Thursday night following a meeting between the Independent Alliance and Health Minister Simon Harris. "We have to keep fighting for the second cath lab," he told WLRFM. "I have to be honestif there was no mobile lab, I would see no future for me in government." While the news was welcomed by the campaigning group South East Patient Advocacy Group Waterford (SEPAG), it has also said anything short of a second lab is unacceptable. Up to 6,000 people took part in a protest in Waterford city on Saturday afternoon, which began at the Glen and finished at the Bishops Palace on The Mall. "We have to ensure that no more patients have to go to Cork in the ambulance, and we know they can't get there in 90 minutes and their lives are being put at risk," SEPAG spokeswoman Hilary O'Neill said. "There is no reason to be sending people a hundred miles away in this day and age." John Tobin (55), a heart attack survivor from Tramore, said: "I owe my life to the Order of Malta voluntary service." Mr Tobin had his heart attack on September 23, 2015, at 1am and would not be alive only for first-aid volunteers. "They brought me back three times; the heart had stopped three times," he said. "They had the (Coast Guard) helicopter ready to go. But it had to stand down because of fog. "So I had to go by ambulance. Now, remember I only have 90 minutes." Mr Tobin said that he had already spent 30 minutes being dealt with at home, with a journey of one hour and 50 minutes to go to get to Cork University Hospital. "What happens if I have another heart attack?" he said. "Will I make it again? It's 90 minutes; it's all I have." Dr Paddy Condon, of the group 24-7 Cardiac Care, yesterday said that "quite a high percentage of people will die from it (heart attack) - it's a serious thing". "The problem about it that's distinct from any other medical condition is that it has to be treated urgently, as an acute procedure," he said. The lifetime ban on gay men who want to give blood is lifted from today. Stock Image The lifetime ban on gay men who want to give blood is lifted from today. A man who last had sex with another man more than 12 months ago will now be able to donate blood if he meets the other blood donor selection criteria. Health Minister Simon Harris announced that from today the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) have introduced the change to the blood donor deferral policy. However, from today there are stricter rules in place for donors who have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease. They cannot give a blood donation for five years after completing treatment for the infection. Mr Harris said: The IBTS provides a safe, reliable and robust blood service to the Irish health system and has the necessary programmes and procedures in place to protect both donors and recipients of blood and blood products." "Furthermore, the IBTS will continue to keep all deferral policies under active review in the light of scientific evidence, emerging infections and international experience," he added. The change to a one-year deferral for a man who had sex with men ( MSM) is supported by the most current scientific evidence available and brings Ireland into line with similar policies in the UK, Canada and elsewhere. Only 3pc of the eligible population of Ireland are active blood donors - yet 1 in 4 people will require a blood transfusion at some time in their lives. The mother of a non-verbal boy with juvenile arthritis has criticised the length of time her son must wait for injections that would reduce the joint pain he lives with. Elaine Kehoe's son Patrick (11), who has Down syndrome, has undergone many medical treatments in his short life. He had open heart surgery when he was six months old and had screws inserted into both his ankles due to low muscle tone. He also broke his femur due to arthritis. Patrick is now waiting for steroid injections that would alleviate his joint pain. His family were told in August he needed the injections. They were advised in November that they would be waiting four to five months for treatment. Patrick has at least three active joints which are inflamed and need to be treated. He is waiting for a date for treatment at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin. Elaine and husband Mark give Patrick injections twice a week to try to reduce their son's discomfort. She says administering this is "extremely traumatic for Patrick". Elaine is utterly frustrated at the time it is taking for the appointment. "I'd like to ask the Health Minister to try to put himself in our shoes and show some empathy," she said. "How would he like if it was one of his children in pain, if they were non-verbal and couldn't verbalise how sore they were? We have been through such stress as a family and my new year wish would be no more pain for Patrick." Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin is this weekend trying to establish if a sexual crime was committed on church property involving a member of the clergy and an adult man, who alleges he was sexually assaulted The SAVI Report showed that, of those reporting being sexually assaulted or raped in adulthood, only 1pc of men and 8pc of women had reported the assault to the gardai. The Rape Crisis Centre suggests that this low level of reporting reflects victims' perception that court proceedings are insensitive and intimidating and that they will not be treated fairly. While there is no legal obligation on a victim to report a sexual assault, they should always be encouraged to report a crime to the gardai, otherwise the perpetrator gets away with it and could strike again. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin is this weekend trying to establish whether a sexual crime was committed on church property involving a member of the clergy and an adult man, who alleges he was sexually assaulted. Last summer, when the Grindr app and gay sex scandal among Maynooth's seminarians erupted, the Archbishop referred to "strange goings-on". These "strange goings-on" appear to have reared their ugly head once again, but this time with a very sinister twist - the "body hunting" of one trainee priest may have resulted in a crime. That a young cleric, vowed to celibacy and preaching abstinence to the rest of us, should so flagrantly be seeking out "no-strings-attached" sex is bad enough. That he should be seeking out gay sex, when the Church takes such a condemnatory and derogatory stand against gay people, is hypocritical. That he should allegedly sexually assault someone on church property is unconscionable. No matter what spin the bishops give their ad limina visit in Rome, the crisis of priesthood in the Irish Church is irrefutable. This latest tawdry affair underlines the extent to which there is something deeply wrong with the calibre of young men currently attracted to the priesthood. It begs the question, does a dysfunctional system create dysfunctional people, or do dysfunctional people create a dysfunctional system? Last August, Archbishop Martin sparked a debate about the nature of priestly formation in seminaries, indicating he favoured something less clerical, less like boarding school, less comfortable and more practically based. It is time now for Dr Martin to deliver on this and give leadership to his fellow bishops. Sending seminarians, who may be in the priesthood for the sexual opportunities it offers, to Rome doesn't stack up. Sending them to the shanties of Nairobi or the homeless hostels of inner city Dublin would make more sense. As to mandatory clerical celibacy, the bishops have already indicated that they will doggedly uphold this disciple despite all the indications that it is destroying the priesthood. But no doubt their blind loyalty will delight many curia officials in the Vatican (not a few of who have their own skeletons lurking in curial closets . . .). The priesthood as a celibate male 'profession' is a broken model. Jesus called mainly married men when he chose the apostles. Can the bishops get their heads around that? If they can't, then they must take ownership of the Eucharistic famine that is coming down the tracks. Following an 'inconclusive discussion' on celibacy, the bishops decided not to bring a proposal to the Popes attention that priests who left ministry to get married should be invited to return to ministry. Photo: REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi A group of lay Catholics has expressed "deep frustration" over the bishops' failure to bring proposals on ending the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests to Pope Francis during a visit to Rome this week. According to a spokesman for the Association of Catholics in Ireland (ACI), there is a solution to the current chronic shortage of priests in the Irish Church but the bishops are "sticking" their heads "in the sand hoping the problem will go away". The comments come after the Irish Independent revealed a middle-aged man has claimed he was sexually assaulted by a young cleric he met through a gay dating site. Over 26 bishops representing every diocese in Ireland have begun a visit to Rome this week. But following an "inconclusive discussion" on celibacy, they decided not to bring a proposal to the Pope's attention that priests who left ministry to get married should be invited to return to ministry. The ACI has warned that the growing shortage of priests needs to be addressed "as a matter of urgency to ensure access by the faithful to Eucharist in the years ahead". The ACI lay reform group said it fully supported Bishop Leo O'Reilly of Kilmore's proposal to set up a commission to examine the issue of celibacy. That proposal emerged as a recommendation from a listening process last year among the laity and priests in Bishop O'Reilly's diocese. In its statement, the group pointed out that, in seeking the establishment of a commission, Bishop O'Reilly was "reacting positively to the urging of Pope Francis who, speaking about the shortage of priests, said that local bishops are best acquainted with the needs of the faithful and should be courageous and bring concrete suggestions for reform to Rome". Speaking to the Irish Independent, Noel McCann of the ACI, said: "In addition to ordaining married men, the ACI believes there is a cohort of ordained priests who left active ministry to marry, without seeking laicisation, who could be invited back into ministry right now." Read more: Comment - Its clear the priesthood as a celibate profession is broken how the bishops handle that will seal the vocations fate The high percentage of priests over 65 years of age in Ireland and the low intake of seminarians suggest that in 10 years' time, many parishes will be without a resident priest. The clustering of parishes has already resulted in some parishes being without a daily Mass, while others can only provide prayer services on selected weekdays without the distribution of communion. "The crisis is clear, what is causing the crisis is clear, but what are we doing about solutions? Where is the urgency in terms of addressing the issue?" Mr McCann asked. Two women have been killed in a cllision on the main Dublin to Derry road. Picture Ciara Wilkinson Two women have been killed in a collision on the main Dublin to Derry road. The accident happened at Hunterstown, south of Ardee. It is understood that the women, who are in the their 60s stepped off a bus and were crossing the road to where their car was parked when they were struck by a vehicle. Gardai have sealed off the road and a garda spokesman said that the road will be closed overnight and tomorrow. The driver was uninjured and remained at the scene. Ardee Gdi at scene of a road traffic collision on the N2 South of Ardee. Diversions in place. An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) January 16, 2017 The tragic scene on the N2 Dublin to Ardee road near Hunterstown where two local pedestrians died in a Road Traffic Accident pic.twitter.com/E8qFZynJ7p Micheal Mac Suibhne (@MicMacSuibh) January 16, 2017 Diversions are currently in place. The women were pronounced dead at the scene. Paramedics and fire fighters were also at the scene. The bodies of the women have been removed from the scene and have been taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital where a post-mortem is expected to take place tomorrow. Members of the family of the deceased visited the scene this evening. Cllr Jim Tenanty visited the scene and saw several emergency vehicles and gardai diverting traffic. He said: "It happened at about 6.20pm. People are shocked, absolutely. The road is just after being reopened on December 22 after they took the dangerous junction out of it to make it safer." LOUTH: The N2 Dublin/ Ardee Rd is blocked at Hunterstown due to a collision. Diversions are in place https://t.co/9H7eVw9Wjc AA Roadwatch (@aaroadwatch) January 16, 2017 Ardee Gdi at scene of a road traffic collision on the N2 South of Ardee. Diversions in place. An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) January 16, 2017 Local man Aaron McCabe was in the area at the time. "I didn't see it happen but I just went up and seen four ambulances and a fire brigade. It happened just outside the Hunsterstown Inn." Parish priest Fr Peter Murphy was last night calling to the homes of the families of the deceased and said: "It is a terrible shock for everybody." Another man who did not want to be named said: "The news is just coming through now. Everybody is in shock. They were two lovely ladies. One of them did a lot for the community, they were just lovely, we are all in shock." The car park of the Hunterstown Inn is used by people who park there and then get the bus to Dublin. Gardai wish to appeal for witnesses to contact Ardee Garda Station on 041-6871130, The Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station. Deputy Sean Fleming: Issues may come and go, but housing is the one that Government wont be able to get under control. Photo: Tom Burke The housing crisis, not water or pay-by-weight bin charges, is the issue most likely to trip up the Government and spark an election, Sean Fleming predicts. "Normally it's a little thing we don't envisage," the senior Fianna Fail TD, and chairman of the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said. "But the one thing I don't see the Government getting on top of, despite all the effort they're making, is the housing crisis. "If you were to ask me 12 months after they take office will there still be homeless people, the answer, unfortunately, is there will be a lot of homeless people and that's not acceptable. "The other issues may come and go but that's a big issue and despite all the talk and all the plans, they aren't getting on top of it," he said. That's not to say he thinks Fianna Fail will be pulling the plug on facilitating the minority Government. Mr Fleming insisted it won't, even if the polls are looking good for Micheal Martin's party. He pointed out that the confidence and supply agreement lasts for three Budgets and added: "The only instability here is within the Government." But he wasn't happy with how legislation on rent caps was pushed through by the Fine Gael-led administration at the end of last year. He argued that it was "absolutely reminiscent of how they set up Irish Water - Christmas week, rail-roading something through with not enough time." In the end, Fianna Fail accepted a commitment from Housing Minister Simon Coveney that rent pressure zones (RPZ) where the caps will apply - originally planned for just Dublin and Cork - will also be considered for other cities and commuter counties. Read more: Comment - Apollo House has put urgent need for home building back to top of Government's agenda Mr Fleming would like to see two towns in his own Laois constituency - Portlaoise and Portarlington - where he said rents have gone up by 60pc, examined for inclusion in the scheme. As well as considering the needs of his local area, which still dominates his workload, Mr Fleming has been devoting up to 20 hours a week to the PAC's probe of Project Eagle, the controversial sale of Nama's Northern Ireland loan book. He is enjoying his role as chairman of the Dail's most high-profile committee but conceded that the examination of such a complex issue is not "tabloid politics". But he says it's important because Nama was established to take over more than 70bn in bank loans during the economic crisis that "cost every household in Ireland dearly". "People need to know that this organisation was well managed on behalf of the State," he said. TDs are examining Project Eagle after the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) found that a probable loss of 190m (223m) was incurred in the sale. Nama has strongly rejected this finding. Mr Fleming said it's not the committee's function "to try to be a referee" between the two State bodies that have had a public difference of opinion. There have been media reports of division among PAC members during the process of producing its own report. Mr Fleming said he hopes the PAC can produce an agreed report by the end of the month and it will be the "definitive" statement on any losses from Project Eagle. An accountant by trade, his former profession means he is well suited to the numbers-heavy role on the PAC. He also said this is how he approaches the issue of whether or not people who paid water charges should be given refunds. Read more: Dismay as Nama apartment block - which could house up to 200 people - remains vacant He is concerned at the potential cost of pursuing households that haven't paid, saying solicitors' letters and court dates could lead to "wasting" taxpayers funds and "still not collecting the money". He said "the figures need to be run" but added: "It could be quicker, neater and simpler just to send the money back." Mr Fleming believes Fianna Fail is being "constructive" in the context of the current Dail set-up but accuses others in the opposition of "opposing everything for the sake of opposing it." He also said "we're not seeing much from the Government" saying they're "hanging back a bit too much" because of the Dail numbers. Unsurprisingly, he thinks Fianna Fail will be the biggest party after the next election, whenever that may be, and that Mr Martin will be taoiseach. He said the party needs to add at least 10 seats to the 44 they currently have. He would also like to see more women elected both within Fianna Fail - which currently has just six female TDs - and in the Dail more generally. "Politics needs more women...too many men with their high testosterone is not the way to run a country," he said. His party turned down Taoiseach Enda Kenny's offer of a grand coalition last year and doesn't see it happening next time. "I'd be concerned it would lead to too big a majority if the two parties came together. Big majorities lead to bad government." Gardai at the scene in James Everett Park, Bray, Co Wicklow. Photo: Caroline Quinn Two men in their 20s were fighting for their lives last night after separate attacks in counties Wicklow and Offaly. One of the victims was in a critical condition after receiving head injuries during an assault. The second man was stabbed and is also in a critical condition. Both attacks happened at around 1am yesterday. The Co Wicklow victim was named locally as David Kirwan, also known as David Foley. He was walking in the direction of his house on Rowan Grove in the Fassaroe area of Bray with someone known to him in the early hours of yesterday morning when an argument developed between the two at James Everett Park on the outskirts of the town. Mr Kirwan (28) acts as a carer for his brother, locals said. . "The two of them live locally in a bungalow. They haven't been there that long and are doing it up slowly. Everyone is shocked by this," said one neighbour. "They keep to themselves mostly. We just see them coming and going," she said. "It appears that a row broke out and Mr Kirwan was assaulted and injured as a result," said a source. "The man who attacked him stayed at the scene afterwards and was arrested for questioning." Expand Close McAuley Drive, Birr, Co Offaly, where a man was seriously assaulted. Photo: James Flynn / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp McAuley Drive, Birr, Co Offaly, where a man was seriously assaulted. Photo: James Flynn He was detained at Bray garda station. Late on Sunday night the man was released without charge. A file will now be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Locals helped Mr Kirwan until the emergency services arrived and he was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin. But it was later decided to transfer him to Beaumont Hospital, which specialises in head injuries. His condition there was described as critical. The scene was sealed off by gardai pending a forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. A large bloodstain could be seen on the cobblelock paving at the spot where Mr Kirwan had collapsed. James Everett Park ends in a cul-de-sac at the point where the attack took place, but pedestrians are able to walk through it to a local shop and into the Fassaroe area. Gardai are appealing for witnesses and anyone with information, particularly those who were in Bray town centre and the Little Bray, Fassaroe and James Everett Park areas between 1am and 2am to contact them. The second attack occurred at McAuley Drive in Birr, Co Offaly, at around 1am yesterday. An investigation is under way after the victim, named locally as Darragh Daly, was discovered on the ground with stab wounds. He is from McAuley drive and the attack took place close to his home. Wound "Gardai were called to the scene and discovered the injured man with an apparent stab wound. There was also significant blood loss and a knife was found nearby," said a source close to the investigation. A man was arrested in the vicinity and is being questioned by gardai. He is being detained at Birr garda station. The injured man, who is in his mid 20s, was taken to the Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore, where his condition was described as critical. The scene was been sealed off pending a technical examination. Gardai are appealing to witnesses or anyone who saw anything suspicious in the McAuley Drive, Townsend Street, New Road or Pound Street areas of Birr between 12.30am and 1.30am yesterday to come forward. Anyone with information can contact Birr garda station on 057 91 69710, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any garda station. From the ages of 11 and 13 respectively, brothers Paul and Ian Davey knew that they wanted to be hairdressers. "We just got a set of clippers off our mum and dad, and started cutting all our friends' hair," recalls Ian. "We could never get our hair cut the way we wanted," adds Paul. "None of the hairdressers in the area were brave enough. Undercuts, tramlines - we wanted all the things that were fashionable back then." Smiling, Ian adds, "All the hipster looks are back in now, but we were totally into that the first time." Originally from Wales, the pair have worked in Dublin for almost two decades. As you can see on our pages today, the brothers' creative vision pairs perfectly with the diverse work of the new Irish fashion design heavyweights like Helen Steele and Claire O'Connor. Setting up their own salon was always part of Paul and Ian's plan, and, seven years ago, they opened their first salon, Davey Davey, on Drury Street - the heart of Dublin's Creative Quarter, as the area between South William St, George's St, Stephen St Lower and Exchequer St, is known. It's an area that celebrates eclectic small businesses, run by people for whom style - in hair as well as clothes - is a form of personal expression. This ethos suits the Davey brothers' creative aesthetic perfectly. So wholeheartedly have they captured the loyalty of the hipster crowd working nearby that they were able to open another salon, four years ago, on their own doorstep, on Stephen St Lower. Originally, that salon was men-only; now they are relaunching it as unisex. "There was an influx of men looking for the hipster styles. And we were right on it. Roles are reversed now, and we needed to facilitate more women," Ian explains. It was an easy transition to make, as they had originally hired fully trained hairdressers with barbering skills, as opposed to barbers. "Everybody we took on could specialise in weddings, balayage, Great Lengths hair extensions . . . " Ian adds. Like the original salon, the relaunched premises is all calm greens and dark tones, more akin to a spa experience than a busy city-centre hairdressers. "We're committed to creativity, to high fashion, and customer service," explains Paul. "We slow things down in the salon. Take more time with each client." Over the years, the brothers have developed a comprehensive education syllabus through training up staff. Next month, they will launch this programme as an educational book for professional hairdressers. It will be available through daveydavey.com, their new retail website, which launched last month and which sells the Davey Davey line of hair accessories, as well as products by Moroccan Oil, Kerastase, and Sachajuan. That's it for now; they're happy to continue to let the business grow organically. As Ian puts it, to be "that perfect little find, rather than that mainstream, in-your-face kind of thing." Photography by Kip Carroll Styling and words by Liadan Hynes Fashion edited by Constance Harris Ciara Staunton is convinced that her son Luke would not be here today if it wasn't for recent advances in medical care. "If he'd been born 30 years ago, he probably wouldn't have survived," she says. She also believes the ability to deliver first-class medical services is often only made possible by the generosity of donors who leave something in their wills to Irish charities. Ciara (31) has lived in rural Co Meath since she was a child. After school, she was a nanny with a local family, and loved the work. So it came as no surprise when, following her marriage to mechanic Steve Staunton, she became pregnant with their first child. In July 2011, Luke was born following a "hard" labour, lasting two days and two nights. Soon after, his proud dad gave him his first bottle. But unfortunately, the milk flowed straight out through the infant's nose. Ciara and Steve weren't too concerned, as they thought the baby was still in shock from the difficult birth. So, while mum was wheeled off to the general ward, Luke was taken for an X-ray. Meanwhile, Steve was advised to go home and rest; he'd had an emotional and exhausting couple of days. But soon after, he got a call summoning him back to the hospital. "Luke was now in ICU because he had a gap in his oesophagus," explains Ciara. A feeding tube was inserted straight away; meanwhile, staff hooked the baby up to oxygen. The next morning, he was taken to Temple Street Children's University Hospital in Dublin. "It only took them 25 minutes to get there from Drogheda," says Ciara. "Steve was following the ambulance. They went so fast, he realised it was much more serious than we'd thought." Luke was met by a surgical team, who immediately began tests. That evening, an operation, lasting over six hours, was done to repair the gap in his oesophagus. "They kept me informed all the time by phone," says Ciara. "They said things were going well, but slowly." Unfortunately, more bad news was on the way. During the operation, doctors also discovered that Luke had an anal atresia, and this necessitated fitting him with a colostomy bag. By now Ciara, who was still hospitalised, had had enough. "I couldn't stand lying in bed, not knowing what was going on," she says. So, on the Tuesday morning, having discharged herself, she and Steve rushed to their baby's bedside. Along the way, they got a call from a nurse who told them to "prepare" themselves for what was in store for them when they got to ICU. When they next saw Luke, they didn't even recognise him. "He looked long and scrawny when he was born," Ciara remembers. "But when we saw him in intensive care, he was very swollen. He was on a ventilator, and he had tubes coming out of him everywhere. I was heartbroken." Surgeon Alan Mortell explained to Ciara and Steve that Luke was suffering from Vacterl association. This is a disorder that can affect several parts of the body (Vacterl is an acronym for vertebral defects, anal atresia, cardiac defects, tracheo-oesophageal fistula, renal anomalies and limb abnormalities). Luke was fortunate, because he only suffered from two of these defects. As far as a spinal problem was concerned, they could only be certain about that once scans could be done when the infant came off the ventilator. In the meantime, Ciara and Steve had to shuttle between their home in Kilmessan, Co Meath, and Dublin. "We weren't allowed to stay over, because we lived relatively close to the hospital," explains Ciara. "When I wasn't with Luke, I kept my phone in my hand all the time. And I used to call every single hour. The nurses were fantastic. They would take however many calls were thrown at them, and they'd never complain." Ciara says it was an extraordinarily tense time for her and Steve, but they were greatly comforted by the honesty and skill of Mr Mortell. "Everything seemed like a blur in those early days," says Ciara. "But he sat us down and explained it all to us. He was always very honest and open with us. He told us what the worst outcomes could be, but he also gave us great hope." The next few days were spent helping little Luke to recover from his serious surgery. Then doctors decided to see if they could get him off the ventilator. Ciara and Steve were told to wait in the family room for about 15 minutes. When there was still no news half an hour later, they began to panic. But their very real fears were unfounded. Brave Luke had rallied. He spent another two weeks in the high-dependency unit, and then he was able to go home. In the meantime, a scan had detected no problems in his spine. "That was such great news," says Ciara. However, once he got home, it was not all plain sailing. Luke required tiny feeds every two hours and was constantly throwing up. "He had terrible reflux, which was caused by the condition," Ciara says. "So, putting on weight was a problem. We were up and down to Temple Street all the time for general check-ups, and to monitor the colostomy bag." A few months later, corrective anal surgery was performed by Mr Mortell. It took almost four hours. However, it would still be some months before the colostomy could be reversed. Things then went reasonably smoothly, until Luke was two years old, when he suffered a prolapse of the anus, which required more surgery. Now that he was older, hospitalisation was more traumatic for him. "He was uncomfortable and he didn't want to be in that bed," says Ciara. "He just couldn't understand what was going on." But Luke got through the ordeal, and is now doing really well. "The oesophagus normalised when he was about 18 months," says Ciara. "However, the bowel is still not quite right; but even that is getting better." At the time of this interview, five-year-old Luke, who is happily enrolled in senior infants at his local school, was full of laughter as he played happily with Zoe, his boisterous, full-of-fun, two-year-old sister. Meanwhile, Ciara is backing a campaign called My Legacy to encourage people to leave something in their wills to charitable causes such at the children's hospital in Temple Street, which has to raise funds to supplement its budgets. The campaign represents about 70 such Irish charities. "When your child is so ill, you don't think about those machines keeping him alive," Ciara concludes. "But if it wasn't for the generosity of donors, those same machines might not have been there to save his life." For more information, see mylegacy.ie In the past week, Julie and Owen McLoughlin have experienced some pretty dramatic changes. The Wicklow couple have moved into an apartment they bought together in Smithfield, after 12 years of renting on Bachelors Walk. Owen has also given up his job in finance to concentrate on their growing design business, so they clearly don't do things by half-measures. Julie (34) and Owen (38) met 15 years ago through friends, and their friendship developed through a mutual interest in music and turned into attraction. "Julie is a beautiful-looking girl with a bubbly personality and a really quirky sense of humour," says Owen. "I didn't have to be anybody else with her because she got me for who I was." Julie says that Owen is one of the best-dressed people she has ever met, and she loves his passion for music, movies and art. "He's a mine of information," she says. "And sure he's a good-looking hunk too." Julie and Owen both grew up in Wicklow - she on a dairy farm in Kiltegan and he in Baltinglass. Julie is the eldest of Charlie and Theresa O'Brien's five children, and she did hotel and catering management at DIT, Cathal Brugha Street. While she was a student, she worked part-time in market research and has been working in that industry ever since. Owen is the eldest of two and his mum, Mary, still lives in Baltinglass. He studied computer applications at Dundalk Institute of Technology, and pursued a career in music for a while and released an album. He then went to work in finance for 10 years and left it behind to focus on the design business last week. Owen proposed to Julie in 2009 on Brooklyn Heights Promenade in New York, and they were married in the US city in 2012. They were joined at the New York wedding by 44 close family and friends. "In the lead up to the ceremony, we were looking for stationery and wedding vendors to fit us and our personality but we couldn't find anything," says Julie. "Owen was really hands-on with the wedding and when we couldn't find the invitations we wanted, we decided to do them ourselves." The pair created their wedding invitation in the form of a 40-page, hard-back book, which contained their story and individual picture profiles of all of the guests. "We put silly, quirky things in about people that we knew would be good conversation-starters at the wedding," says Owen. "We chiselled out a secret compartment by hand in each book, and put in things like luggage tags, confetti and little button pins, which took us ages. At the end, we put Jando Design on it, which stands for Julie and Owen. We didn't realise it at the time, but that was when our business was born." Julie and Owen's wedding invitations received great acclaim, and they began getting messages from all over about it from friends of their friends. They also designed the setting charts for the wedding, and when they returned from their wedding, they set up their own Etsy store. It went brilliantly and they were getting orders from all over the world. They have since moved away from doing wedding-related designs. "I had been working on these screen prints of landmarks all around Dublin as a kind of secret little project," says Owen. "When I showed Julie, she said that they should go into a shop. We approached the Jam Art Factory which is one of the biggest art shops in Dublin. They took our stuff straight away and have been an amazing support for us." Video of the Day Jando now does illustrations and screen prints of Irish landmarks, and also did a London series for their recent launch into the UK market. Their fantastic prints are available online and in shops like Kilkenny around the country. They were also commissioned by Cork City Hall to do an illustration that was used on all of their tickets and brochures. Julie and Owen are very much looking forward to taking part in Showcase - Ireland's creative expo - next weekend at the RDS. The trade-only event explores the best of Ireland's creativity from over 450 exhibitors, including leading Irish designers and manufacturers and the very best emerging home-grown creative talent. Owen is the principal designer of Jando and now that they have moved into their new apartment, they have a home studio for him to work from. Julie still has a day job in market research and she works on the business in her free time. Their spare time has become very limited, but they try to watch movies and go to gigs, where possible. Having a family is not on the radar at present, they say, because Jando is very much their baby. "We're putting every ounce of ourselves into it at the moment and we're really loving it," says Julie. www.jandodesign.com 'Showcase' takes place at the RDS, Dublin, from January 22-25. www.showcaseireland.com Premium Mary Kenny Opinion If men want to yammer on about sport, then let them it helps them connect emotionally I was travelling on a train from Dublin to Cork, and near me sat two Dublin men. Throughout the entire journey they managed to keep up a fluent dialogue about English football teams. From Aston Villa to Sheffield Wednesday, from Crystal Palace to Manchester City the conversation flowed eloquently. I was in awe at the minutiae of their knowledge and expertise. And if the topic of their discourse lacked a certain variety, it was nonetheless better than sitting in sullen silence, or glued to their phones. I didn't see Coronation Street last Wednesday. It is too soon for me to watch anything that even remotely resembles my own experience. In the popular soap, Michelle Connor, played by Kym Marsh, went into labour at 23 weeks, her waters breaking at her baby shower in true soap style. She was rushed to hospital and delivered her baby to his inevitable death, in a maternity ward surrounded by the sound of crying newborns. By all accounts it was well handled and sensitively portrayed, unsurprising given that the actors involved have experienced late miscarriages - both Kym Marsh and Simon Gregson, who plays her husband Steve McDonald, lost babies at 21 weeks. Social media was awash with women praising the storyline and sharing their experiences and the media responded to the interest by calling on miscarriage and stillbirth support groups to advise people on how to respond to women in a similar situation. Women like me. Last March I gave birth to a boy at 19 weeks, but his heart had stopped beating a week or so before that. Maybe I am imagining it but I believe I can pinpoint the very moment he died. It was a Tuesday evening. I was lying in a warm bath and I felt a couple of slow movements and then nothing. Experts will say that it was too early to feel anything at that stage of pregnancy, but I thought I had been feeling flutters from about 15 weeks. I started to get a horrible sense of foreboding at about 17 weeks and that night in the bath I just knew that the baby I was carrying had perished. My husband told me I was worrying too much and reassured me somewhat. He's right, I told myself, all pregnant women worry - particularly 41-year-old pregnant women. I took comfort in remembering what the consultant had told the 12-weeks-pregnant me at my check-in visit at Holles Street: "At this stage, there is a less than 1pc chance of anything going wrong with this pregnancy." I tried to put all thoughts of doom out of my mind and went to bed. As soon as I dropped my then three-year-old daughter to creche the next morning I rang the Merrion Fetal clinic to book a scan. I didn't have a consultant to call as I was a public patient at the midwife-led clinic at the National Maternity Hospital, as I had been with my daughter. I made an appointment for a 'reassurance' scan for the Friday and busied myself with work and mothering for the intervening couple of days. A colleague dropped me to the hospital after a meeting. I mentioned half-jokingly that there would probably be bad news. I went in and sat in the waiting room until I was called. I lay on the bed as the midwife applied gel on my stomach and asked me if I wanted to know the sex. I just want to see if the baby is alive, I told her. She went quiet. As she moved the transducer over my stomach we could see the baby curled up. There was a bit of movement and for a tiny moment I started to hope. But it was just my pulse. The silence was deafening. That horrible, empty silence that is every pregnant woman's worst nightmare. It sucked the oxygen out of the room and I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. Even though I had been expecting bad news, the silence shocked me. I forced myself to stay calm. "It's dead, isn't it?" I said. "I knew it would be dead." I can't remember exactly what she said after that but she was so very nice to me. And I felt sorry for her having to share in this horrific moment. I felt sorry for the other women in the waiting room who had to see my face as she led me in to the special room they have for people whose babies will never take a breath. I felt sorry for my devastated husband when he came to get me after I broke the news and I felt most sorry for my three-year-old daughter who would be so disappointed that she was never going to meet her much anticipated brother or sister. I chose to spend the weekend at home before I went in to the hospital to begin the process of delivering the baby and I will always be grateful that I had that precious time. To say goodbye, to try and get my head around what was happening, to give the poor little mite inside me some time with his family. I don't let my mind go back to the rest of the story. It is still too raw and too scary. It is too precious and it is too soon to share. I will some day, because the only thing that got me through the experience was reading the stories of others who had lost babies so late. I wanted all their intimate gory details so I would know what to expect. The thought of delivering a dead baby scared me so much and reading their stories helped me. It made me feel less of an anomaly - and less alone. It gave me a context for the horror and the disappointment and the shock. It wasn't just me. This happened to other women, too, and they survived. But the majority of experiences I read, while they did help me feel less alone, they also made me feel like an outlier. Because unlike Michelle in Coronation Street, I wasn't desperate to meet my perished baby and hold him tight for as long as I could. I was terrified. Terrified of what he would look like. Petrified of my reaction. Horrified at the idea of unleashing the tide of overwhelming grief and trauma that I am still keeping at bay. I didn't want to do any of the things that the wonderful bereavement nurse and the incredibly kind chaplain suggested. I didn't want to name the baby, I didn't want to take pictures, I didn't want to have a funeral, I didn't want to see him, I didn't want it to be real. But I trusted them - and the advice of my amazing friend who had herself recently lost her baby - and I did some of those things. And as it turned out, naming the baby has made it much easier for my daughter to process the event. But, unless it comes from her, I dread hearing that name. It hurts every cell in my body to hear it. It hits me at a visceral, cellular level, in the same primal place as did my daughter's newborn cries. The advice given by some of the support groups in the wake of the Coronation Street story suggests using the baby's name when talking to bereaved parents. To me, that would be like a sucker punch. That name reminds me that maybe everything I believed about myself was a lie: that I was strong, that I was healthy, that I was lucky, that life would be good to me. It brings me to a place where I feel like damaged goods, like a faulty woman because I failed to sustain that poor little baby's life and in that I let down my husband, my parents, my daughter, our family - all the people who were excited at the thought of our new baby, the baby that would have been their son, grandson, nephew, cousin, their baby brother. Which is why I decided to write this piece. Not to criticise that advice - because I know that it is good advice probably for the majority of women - but to add another voice to the conversation. To share a part of my still unfolding story in the hope that it might be a balm to some other woman reading this who doesn't want to talk about her baby with anyone, even her closest friends. To pay it forward for the stories that helped me. One piece I read in particular soothed me. It was an essay by the American writer Ariel Levy. She too gave birth at 19 weeks, in a hotel bathroom on a press trip to Mongolia. Her baby lived for a few minutes and her essay is one of the most compelling, honest, irreverent pieces I have ever read. It made me laugh and cry and, for some reason, it made me feel like less of an outlier. She describes her moments with her son as "black magic" and I really like that phrase. Seeing my 19-week-old baby boy was awesome in the real sense of the word. I bore witness to a miracle arrested, putting my eyes on a being that was not of this world and was not yet mine to see. Those moments I spent with him opened a vortex that can never be closed. It was both unnatural and supernatural. Like black magic. Sherlock actor Andrew Scott has revealed fans quizzed him on a daily basis over a possible return as Jim Moriarty Sherlock actor Andrew Scott has revealed fans quizzed him on a daily basis over a possible return as Jim Moriarty to the hit BBC drama. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, locked horns with Moriarty for the show's first two series before the super-villain supposedly killed himself in The Reichenbach Fall. He returned to the show in Sunday night's series four finale as part of a flashback sequence. Speaking at a screening of the episode alongside several of the show's stars and co-creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, Scott said he had "spent the last six months under wraps". Asked how often fans quizzed him over his mooted return to the show, the 40-year-old said: "I'd say every day." The concluding episode saw Moriarty team up with Sherlock's secret sister Eurus, played by Sian Brooke, before he died. The pair enticed the detective, Martin Freeman's Dr John Watson and Mycroft Holmes (Gatiss) into a series of games. A final twist was also revealed as Sherlock's long-referenced dog, Redbeard, was discovered to be a fourth Holmes sibling who had been killed by Eurus. Gatiss said the plot twist had originally been a joke that had turned into a "monstrous" storyline. "I remember being in Beryl's (executive producer Beryl Vertue) flat talking about something else and I said 'what if Redbeard is not a dog'. Video of the Day "Redbeard began as a joke, it was a little reference to the fact that Sherlock thought his pet dog had gone to live on a farm. "Sometimes you plant the seed and it grows into a monstrous thing," he added. The future of the show is in doubt following the episode, with Moffat saying "we're not planning it to be (the final), but it might be". He added: "We could end it there. We couldn't have ended it on any of the previous series because they always ended in walloping great cliffhangers, usually by Andrew." Meanwhile Gatiss added that the show had deliberately been left open to any follow-ups. He said: "I think what's actually happened is we have now done the story of how Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson that we have always known became those men. "The reason we leave it at Rathbone Place is that actually if we do come back, and we would love to come back, we could absolutely very easily start it off with a knock on the door and Sherlock saying to John 'do you want to come out to play'." Former Coronation Street star Katherine Kelly has revealed she has given birth to a second child. The actress said she did not deliberately keep the pregnancy a secret but has enjoyed having time with the baby out of the spotlight. The Happy Valley star, 37, gave birth to daughter Rose, her second child with husband Ryan Clark, three months ago. She told Hello magazine: "We didn't go out of our way to keep it a secret but we didn't announce the pregnancy so people were not immediately on bump watch. So it's been wonderful to have this precious time just for us." "It is different if you are in something like Corrie, as you can't keep it quiet. It leaks within a second as paparazzi are always at the gates." Kelly, who already has a two-year-old daughter Orla, told the magazine she had a water birth at London's Whittington Hospital on October 21 saying: "It was a rush to get to the hospital and by the time we were checked in, Rose was born within 1hr and 40 mins!" While she is currently starring in Doctor Who spin-off Class, Kelly said she is also loving spending time with the children. She said: "I love my job but I do want to spend as much time as I can with Orla and Rose. To have two healthy children is a blessing." She added: "The joy that they bring, it is like Christmas every day when our two girls open their eyes each morning and look at us." :: Read the full article in Hello, which is out now. Kim Kardashian returned to social media with this picture with husband Kanye West and children North and Saint Kim Kardashian was been held up at gunpoint in a Paris hotel room by masked men dressed as police officers A police report detailing the Paris robbery in which Kim Kardashian was held at gunpoint has been released. The thugs who bound and gagged Kim Kardashian in her Paris apartment during an October raid seemed "inexperienced", according to the reality TV star. Masked robbers held the terrified star at gunpoint at the No Name Hotel and swiped with valuables worth more than $10 million. French authorities arrested 17 people in connection to the crime last week and filed charges against 10 suspects on Thursday and Friday. Expand Close Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in Paris / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in Paris Kim has yet to personally comment on the latest developments in the months-long investigation, but on Sunday, the statement she gave to police at the time of the incident was published by editors at French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. Her statement gives a first-hand account of the traumatising raid, during which she was ordered to hand over her $4 million diamond engagement ring - a gift from husband Kanye West. "I heard a noise at the door, like, footsteps, and I shouted to ask who was there, but no one answered," she recalled. "I called my bodyguard at 2.56am. Then, beyond the sliding doors, I saw two people arrive with the gentleman from reception, and he was tied up. Both men were hooded, one had a ski mask and he had a cap and a jacket with 'police' on it. The second man had the same 'police' clothes, but did not have any ski mask... It was the one with the ski mask who stayed with me (during the robbery)." Expand Close Kim Kardashian West's engagement ring from Kanye West / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kim Kardashian West's engagement ring from Kanye West Kim went on to detail how she was tied up with "plastic cables" and had tape wrapped around her hands, her mouth, and her legs, before she was moved to the bathroom and placed in the bathtub. The 36-year-old also suggested the men seemed "a bit inexperienced", as she was able to successfully remove the tape from her hands and mouth moments after the gang "ran away". Video of the Day Kim told police she was not hurt, and expressed her desire to return to her family in the U.S. as soon as possible. According to the leaked report, other items stolen during the heist included diamond earrings, bracelets, and a necklace bearing the name of her son, Saint. It is the latest in a string of prison disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people have died within two weeks. Security authorities finally regained control of two Brazilian prisons almost 24 hours after rioting inmates killed at least 30 people, including some by beheading. It is the latest in a string of prison disturbances across the country in which more than 100 people have died within two weeks. Prison officials in the northern state of Rio Grande do Norte said the rioting broke out Saturday at the adjacent Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho lock-ups near the city of Natal. Officials said the death toll was likely to rise as police assess the damage caused by the disturbance, apparently a clash between rival gangs who have been fighting for control of the prisons and of drug networks outside across northern Brazil. The number of injured was not yet clear and officials did not identify the gangs involved. State security chief Caio Cesar Bezerra said police decided to wait until dawn yesterday before entering the prisons to prevent the situation from worsening. "This way we guaranteed a calm intervention, a pacific intervention without resistance from the inmates," Mr Bezerra said. President Michel Temer expressed concern over the rebellion, saying he had been following the situation closely. Like many prisons across the country, Alcacuz is overcrowded, with more than 1,000 inmates crammed into a facility meant for 620. The recent outbreak of prison violence began on New Year's Day, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of Brazil's most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Four others died at a smaller prison. Then on January 6, in the neighbouring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out. Experts say First Command is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions to expand its reach across the national prison system. Meanwhile, the prison chief for the southern state of Parana, Luiz Alberto Cartaxo, said 21 inmates escaped from the Piraquara prison yesterday after using explosives to break through the prison wall. He said two other inmates died while trying to flee. Stand-ins for president-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania and son Barron rehearse the swearing-in ceremony of next Fridays inauguration at the US Capitol in Washington. Photo: Reuters Outgoing CIA director John Brennan has ripped into Donald Trump for "talking and tweeting" about possibly easing sanctions against Russia. He said the president-elect lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States. "I think he has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road," Mr Brennan said on 'Fox News Sunday', a show Mr Trump routinely watches. "Now that he's going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting, he's going to have tremendous responsibility to make sure that US and national security interests are protected," he said. The extraordinary televised lecture to the incoming president highlighted the bitter state of Mr Trump's relationship with the American intelligence community just days before he is inaugurated as the nation's 45th president. Mr Trump has repeatedly shrugged off intelligence that has convinced Republicans and Democrats that Russia tried to help him win the election. He has called for a better relationship between the US and President Vladimir Putin's government, and suggested in an interview on Friday he would consider easing sanctions imposed by President Obama. Mr Trump has also suggested that the intelligence community is out to get him - including by the leak of a document containing potentially damaging, but unverified, financial and personal information on him. He has likened the situation to "Nazi Germany". Mr Brennan called that comparison "outrageous" and said the intelligence community wanted the president-elect to know that the document was circulating among news outlets. However, an array of revelations has shed more light on the Trump-Putin relationship. Retired general Michael Flynn, who is set to become Mr Trump's national security adviser, and Russia's ambassador to the US have been in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on the day the Obama administration hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for the alleged election hacking, a senior US official said. After initially denying that Mr Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak spoke on December 29, a Trump official then admitted the transition team was aware of one call on the day the Obama administration imposed the sanctions. Vice-president-elect Mike Pence, also in an appearance on 'Fox News Sunday', denied Mr Flynn and Mr Kislyak discussed anything relating to the sanctions. Repeated contacts just as Mr Obama imposed sanctions would raise questions about whether Mr Trump's team discussed - or even helped shape - Russia's response. Mr Putin unexpectedly did not retaliate against the US for the sanctions or the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, a decision Mr Trump quickly praised. Mr Brennan roundly denounced Mr Trump's approach to Russia and other national security threats, suggesting the president-elect has much to understand before he can make informed decisions. Mr Trump's impulsiveness could be dangerous, he suggested. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests," Mr Brennan said, saying twice that the matter was "more than being about him". "I think Mr Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road he needs to be very, very careful about moving down." There were costs to casting doubts on the credibility of the national intelligence community, Mr Brennan said. "The world is watching now what Trump says and listening very carefully. If he doesn't have confidence in the intelligence community, what signal does that send to our partners and allies as well as our adversaries?" Mr Brennan said. Priebus "I'm not sure what sort of standing he has any more to be giving these opinions." Photo: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's incoming chief of staff warned that the top US ethics official "ought to be careful" after publicly criticising the president-elect's plan to step down from leading his businesses while keeping his ownership interests. "That person is becoming extremely political," incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said about Walter Shaub Jr, director of the Office of Government Ethics. "I'm not sure what sort of standing he has any more to be giving these opinions." Mr Trump has announced his two adult sons would run his company and would take steps to limit any conflicts, including a ban on new international business deals. Mr Shaub said Mr Trump's plan to step down from leadership roles while still owning the business was "meaningless from a conflicts-of-interest perspective". Akon Guode (37) drove her son Bol (1), her four year old twins Hanger and Madit and Alual (6) into Lake Gladham in Melbourne. Only Alual survived the crash. (Photo: ABC) A mother has pleaded guilty to murder, after killing three of her children by driving them into a lake. Akon Guode (37) drove her son Bol (1), her four year old twins Hanger and her brother Madit and her daughter Alual (6) into Lake Gladham in Melbourne. Only Alual survived the crash. Afterwards she told police that a dizzy spell had caused her to veer into the lake, but that was ruled out by investigators. Witnesses heard the car revving after it landed in the water according to 9news. They gave evidence against her at a four week committal in Melbourne Magistrates Court last June. Investigators also showed that the driver would have needed to turn the steering wheel three times to get into the lake. She didn't address the hearing other than to respond guilty in response to a charge of infanticide in relation to her youngest son, two murder charges in relation to the death of her twins and attempted murder in relation to her six-year-old daughter. Under Australian law infanticide is defined as conduct which causes the death of a child by a mother whose mind was "disturbed" within two years of that child's birth. The family were refugees from Sudan, arriving in Australia in 2008. A key witness at the trail testified that Ms Guode said she believed she was "under a spell" when she drove into the lake. She believed her lover's wife may have used a 'witchdoctor' against her the hearing heard. Her partner Joseph Manyang was the father to the three decease children and Alual, who survived. At the hearing Mr Manyang said he believed the tragedy was an accident and continued to visit Guode in prison. "I'm still believing Akon, she didn't do it," he told the court according to local reports. Anyone who is affected by any of the issues raised in this article can contact the Samaritans on 116 123. People celebrate after the court ruling on the Red Sea islands (AP/Amr Nabil) An Egyptian court has ruled against the government's decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia - a landmark verdict likely to deepen tensions with the kingdom. The ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government against a lower court's decision to annul the islands handover agreement, signed in April during a visit by the Saudi monarch, King Salman. During his visit, King Salman pledged billions of dollars to Egypt in loans and investments. The agreement was condemned by many in Egypt who saw it as a land sell-off. It also sparked the largest demonstrations against Mr el-Sissi's two-year rule. Ignoring the legal process, Mr el-Sissi's government last month approved the agreement on the islands and sent it to parliament for ratification. The 596-seat chamber is packed with Mr el-Sissi's supporters. The verdict was met by jubilation from activists and lawyers in the courtroom in Cairo, some of whom sang the national anthem. Outside the court, a small number of activists chanted: "Saudi Arabia, take your money back, for tomorrow, the Egyptian people will trample on you." There were minor scuffles between police and several dozen people outside the courthouse who attempted to stage a demonstration. The court said the two islands, Sanafir and Tiran, are Egyptian - contrary to the government's claim that they were Saudi and only given to Egypt in the 1950s to protect them from a possible attack by Israel. "It's enshrined in the court's conscience that Egypt's sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir is beyond doubt," the court's presiding judge, Ahmed al-Shazli, said in announcing the verdict to a packed courtroom. The judge said the government lawyers did not provide the court with documents "or anything else" that could persuade the court to believe otherwise. Sanafir and Tiran are located at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, controlling the narrow shipping lanes running to and from the Red Sea port cities of Eilat and Aqaba, in Israel and Jordan, to the north. The fate of the two islands has been at the heart of friction between Riyadh and Cairo over a string of regional issues, including Syria and Yemen. Last September, Saudi Arabia unilaterally suspended fuel shipments to Egypt agreed during the king's visit to Egypt, forcing Cairo to look for alternative sellers. AP Police believe Amri may have been under the influence of both cocaine and ecstasy during the attack last month which left 12 dead. Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker, may have been high on a cocktail of cocaine and ecstasy when he ploughed a truck into a crowds of shoppers in the German capital, police believe. An internal police memo leaked to German newspaper 'Die Welt' indicates that investigators suspect that Amri (24) was a heavy drug user. Police believe Amri may have been under the influence of both cocaine and ecstasy during the attack last month which left 12 dead. The memo goes on to say that Amri, a Tunisian-born failed asylum seeker, may also have been earning a living in Berlin by selling drugs, according to 'Bild'. The Islamic terrorist was already known to have links to the drugs underworld, and in July was involved in a knife attack following a dispute over a deal. His alleged drug habit goes strongly against the puritanical values of the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), on whose behalf he carried out the attack. However, it has long been suspected that drinking and drug taking is common among the extremist group's lower ranks. Salah Abdeslam, one of the architects of Isil's bomb and gun attack in Paris in November 2015, which killed more than 130 people, used to run a bar. His brother Ibrahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in the attack, used to smoke cannabis and drink heavily, according to his ex-wife. The disclosure was made as a senior ally of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said he was open to starting a parliamentary inquiry into whether authorities made mistakes in handling the jihadist. Volker Kauder, the caucus leader of Mrs Merkel's conservative Union group, said there were questions over whether there were coordination problems between federal and state authorities. Amri had been rejected for asylum but authorities had been unable to deport him. He used at least 14 identities and was on their radar as a potential security risk. ( Daily Telegraph, London) Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Rolf Harris appearing by video link at Southwark Crown Court in London. Photo: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire A blind, disabled woman has described how she felt "completely and utterly trapped" by Rolf Harris as he spread his hands over her body, a court heard. Disabled since birth, she was totally blind and had to walk with a stick when she was allegedly groped by Harris at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in 1977, Southwark Crown Court heard. A subsequent accident has left her now unable to walk and in "intense pain" for around 18 hours a day, the court heard in a pre-recorded interview from July 2014. The woman, who was not at the time an in-patient at the hospital, recalled hearing a door to the room she was in opening and recognising the voice of the TV star whom she was expecting to meet. She remembered feeling hot air from Harris's nostrils and his beard tickling the back of her neck after he approached "from absolutely nowhere", and could tell he was getting excited as his breathing got heavier, the court heard. She said: "I have never met anyone who could spread their hands across my body so quickly. "They covered all my back really really fast and he got his hands going up both sides of my body and he was saying,'Well don't you like this then?' and I said 'no I don't like it'. "'Nobody has ever touched me like this, get off'." He then allegedly replied: "Well you can't see me." She then said: "I know I can't see anybody but no-one comes up to me and grovels all over my body so back off", the court heard. The complainant, who has two full-time carers, went on: "What annoyed me was that I just could not escape, and being blind I couldn't always tell where he was. "I was completely and utterly trapped." The alleged victim said she knew straight away it was Harris who had entered the room from his "unmistakable voice". She said: "One (complainant) later described him as an octopus. "I thought 'that's exactly what it felt like with his arms and fingers spread as far as he could spread them'. "He completely covered me and I said to him 'If you go any lower then that's it, you are going to get a thump'." Her voice breaking, she continued: "The way he took advantage over someone that was totally blind, virtually stuck in terms of mobility ... it's absolutely appalling. In my opinion it's as degrading as it gets. "I felt absolutely invaded by this man," she added. She went on: "No-one has ever behaved like that to me in my life and I want to say even my husband, at his most passionate times, never covered my body in a way that he has done. "Rolf Harris doesn't ask permission he just grovels." The alleged victim said she repeatedly asked Harris to stop touching her and at one point he replied: "Don't be like that, I'm only being friendly." She then said she grabbed his fingers and bent them back in a bid to stop the entertainer squeezing her breasts. She said he allegedly responded: "'That wasn't nice'. "I said 'What do you mean that's not nice?' "He said: 'I can't get to you now'." Revealing she suffered problems with her body image she said: "I hate my body, I hate the pain I am in and hate the restrictions of my body, and when I met the man that I married he was such a wonderful man and accepted my limitations. "But people like Harris who think they are being clever, like taking my glasses off because he wants to see my face ... how sick is that?" Wearing a black suit and black and white tie Harris, who appeared by video-link, is serving a sentence at Stafford Prison for a series of offences of indecent assault carried out on four female victims. He maintains his innocence, the prosecutor said, and has pleaded not guilty to a further seven counts of indecent assault and one alternative charge of sexual assault. Each of the new alleged victims contacted the police or the NSPCC in the wake of the "widespread publicity" surrounding the first trial, prosecutor Jonathan Rees said. As she was cross-examined from a wheelchair with her carer by her side, the witness said she did not know why she had not come forward sooner. She spent a while with Harris in the room after the alleged assault, during which he spent a few moments teaching her how to play the didgeridoo he had brought with him. Asked by Stephen Vullo, defending, why she had not come forward until the publicity surrounding the first trial emerged, she said: "I was just so amazed because Rolf Harris was somebody I had grown up with and we loved it. He was part of our culture and I used to love listening to him on the television. "I truly don't know why I did not report it at the time," she added. Reina club attacker after being caught by Turkish police in Istanbul, late Monday, Jan. 17., 2017. (Depo Photos via AP) The gunman suspected of killing 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Day has been caught by police, according to reports. The man, who media quoted police as saying had operated under the cover name Abu Muhammed Horasani, was caught in a hideout with his four-year-old son, in the city's Esenyurt district, the Hurriyet newspaper website and other media reports said. The reports could not immediately be confirmed. Dozens of people have previously been detained in connection with the attack for which Islamic State has claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Expand Close FILE PHOTO - A frame grab made from a video which was distributed by Turkish police and released on January 3, 2017, shows a man, the suspected gunman behind the attack at Reina nightclub, taking a selfie in Istanbul. Photo: TPX images of the day / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp FILE PHOTO - A frame grab made from a video which was distributed by Turkish police and released on January 3, 2017, shows a man, the suspected gunman behind the attack at Reina nightclub, taking a selfie in Istanbul. Photo: TPX images of the day On January 1, the attacker shot his way into the Reina nightclub then opened fire with an automatic rifle, reloading his weapon half a dozen times and shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground. Turks as well as visitors from several Arab nations, India and Canada were among those killed in the attack. Horasani was described as being of Uzbek origin by the Haberturk website, which said he was caught at a housing complex in Esenyurt district, on the European side of the city. There were three people in the apartment where he was caught, the home of a Kyrgyz friend of his to which he had gone three days earlier, Haberturk said. According to state-run Anadolu news agency, five people were detained in the operation, including the alleged perpetrator, a man of Kyrgyz origin and three women. It said simultaneous raids were being conducted on other cells linked to the group. The shooting in Istanbul's Ortakoy neighbourhood, an upscale district on the Bosphorus shore, came after a year in which NATO member Turkey was shaken by a series of attacks by radical Islamist and Kurdish militants and by a failed coup. PHOTO: First image of the Reina attacker after capture. Named as Abdulgadir Masharipov, now being transferred to Istanbul HQ - @DailySabah pic.twitter.com/w7dkHO3YD6 Conflict News (@Conflicts) January 16, 2017 One security source said in the wake of the attack that the gunman appeared to have been well-versed in guerrilla warfare and may have trained in Syria. President Tayyip Erdogan has said the attack, which targeted a club popular with local celebrities and moneyed foreigners, had been being exploited to try to divide the largely Sunni Muslim nation. Yahya Jammeh has filed a supreme court injunction to stop his president-elect successor taking over (AP) Gambia's strongman president has filed an injunction to stop election winner Adama Barrow from taking office on Thursday and to bar other parties from swearing in the opposition coalition leader. President Yahya Jammeh t old Gambians they must wait for a supreme court hearing before he considers stepping down after more than 22 years in power. He addressed the West African nation as Senegal said it was hosting president-elect Mr Barrow until his January 19 inauguration. But Mr Jammeh, 51, said that date, marking the end of his mandate, was "not carved in stone". "I have confirmed that we have filed an application for an injunction to restrict Mr Adama Barrow from being sworn in as well as restricting the chief justice and any other parties from swearing in Mr Adama Barrow until the application is decided by the supreme court of Gambia, Mr Jammeh said. And until then, the status quo remains." Mr Jammeh called the chairwoman of the West African bloc, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, during his state TV broadcast. While on the phone, he confirmed that he filed the injunction and asked that the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS), which has been mediating the political crisis in Gambia, help facilitate supreme court judges. "The only peaceful resolution of this impasse is through the courts," he told Ms Sirleaf. Ms Sirleaf said that "we are going to work on this right away" and encouraged Mr Jammeh to confirm that he wanted peace and would follow the constitution. "Gambia needs peace, and ECOWAS wants peace," she said. Mr Jammeh, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1994, had conceded after losing in the December 1 election, but a week later he rejected the vote, saying there were irregularities. He and his party filed a petition calling for a new vote and he appointed judges to the supreme court, which had not sat for more than a year. The Nigerian and Sierra Leone judges he appointed, however, have said they cannot sit until May. ECOWAS leaders attempting to mediate the political crisis met Mr Jammeh and Mr Barrow in Gambia on Friday, but said no deal was reached. Mr Barrow, who once worked as an Argos security guard in north London, was then invited to meet African leaders at the France-Africa summit in Mali on Saturday. The West African regional bloc has said if Mr Jammeh does not cede power it will consider military intervention and has already prepared a standby force led by Senegal, which almost completely surrounds Gambia. A Nigerian army memo has also ordered officers to prepare a battalion of 800 troops for the possible military intervention, should Mr Jammeh not step down. The African Union has announced it will cease to recognise Jammeh as Gambia's legitimate leader as of January 19, when his mandate expires, and warns of "serious consequences" if his actions lead to the loss of lives. Mr Jammeh criticised the AU's decision in his Sunday address, saying it had not been approved by member states. Gambia's political uncertainty has recently sent several thousand people, mostly women and children in buses, fleeing the country of about 1.9 million people across the border to Senegal. Mr Jammeh came to power as a 29-year-old army lieutenant and won four multi-party elections before he was finally defeated by Mr Barrow. AP People take part in a vigil after the attack on an Istanbul nightclub which left 39 people dead Police have caught the alleged gunman who killed 39 people during an attack on a nightclub in Istanbul during new year celebrations, according to Turkish media reports. The private Dogan news agency and other media say the suspect was caught in Istanbul's district of Esenyurt in a police operation late on Monday. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in reprisal for Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The suspect was caught in a special operations police raid on a house in a housing complex in Istanbul's Esenyurt district, private NTV television said. The report said he had been staying in the house belonging to a Kyrgyz friend. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack. Hurriyet newspaper and other media have identified the suspect as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national. The suspect was to undergo medical checks before being taken to a police headquarters for questioning, the paper said in its online edition. Dogan news agency published an image showing a bruised, black-haired man in a grey, bloodied shirt being held by his neck. Private NTV television said he had resisted arrest. AP Ivanka Trump has made clear she wants to push for policies benefiting women and girls Ivanka Trump, t he president-elect's daughter, has revealed she is determining the "most appropriate ways" to serve the country. She may not be working in the White House, but that does not mean Ms Trump is staying out of politics. Although she has said she will have no official role in her father's administration, she has been quietly laying the groundwork for an effort that could make her perhaps the best-connected policy advocate in Washington. Ms Trump, who has made clear she wants to push for policies benefiting women and girls, last week sought the advice of a group of female executives and media stars in New York. And transition aides have reached out to congressional staff on childcare policies, an area she has urged President-elect Donald Trump to prioritise. In a Facebook post detailing her next moves, Ms Trump thanked people who had reached out on such issues and added that she is determining the "most impactful and appropriate ways for me to serve our country." It is not clear if she will establish herself independently or if she will eventually enter the White House. But operating from the outside may take her into uncharted territory, as there are few recent examples of a first family member without a White House office advocating for policies. The closest model is the first lady, who has an office in the East Wing. For now, the businesswoman has said only that she is stepping away from executive roles at the Trump Organisation and her lifestyle brand and is moving her family to Washington so that her husband Jared Kushner can take a job as a senior adviser. She has also stressed that she wants to focus on settling her three young children in a new home. But Ms Trump is also thinking beyond that. On Thursday, she attended a dinner with female executives at the home of her friend Wendi Deng, ex-wife of media executive Rupert Murdoch. The dinner was put together by Dina Powell, a Goldman Sachs partner who is joining the Trump administration as an assistant to the president and senior counsellor for economic initiatives. Ms Powell has been advising Ms Trump and is expected to continue working closely with her. Also there was Sheila Marcelo, founder of www.care.com, a website that connects families with caregivers, said an attendee. Ms Marcelo spoke about the high cost of caregiving - both for children and adult family members. The attendee said the group also discussed the Trump transition team's recent approach to the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee staff about Mr Trump's childcare proposals. Asked about news reports about the approach, Ms Trump noted that these were priorities for the president-elect, the source said. A Trump Transition spokesman declined to comment on the event. Ms Trump's interest and influence on these issues was clear during the campaign. Encouraged by his daughter, Mr Trump offered a childcare plan in September, which includes guaranteeing six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers, as well as some incentives to encourage employers to provide childcare to workers. The policy would require congressional approval - a considerable hurdle. Such proposals are not a high priority for the Republican leadership and it is not clear how well they will be received by conservatives in Congress. AP US Secretary of State John Kerry holds hands with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan looks on during the Middle East peace conference in Paris. Photo: Reuters A total of 70 countries including Ireland have warned that only a two-state solution can resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The one-day international Middle East peace conference in Paris also said the 70 nations would not recognise any unilateral steps by either side that could prejudge negotiations. The conference shied away from explicitly criticising plans by US president-elect Donald Trump to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, although diplomats said the wording sent a "subliminal" message. Mr Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel's capital, despite international objections. Countries including key European and Arab states, as well as the permanent members of the UN Security Council, were in Paris for the conference that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as "futile". Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians were represented. However, just five days before Mr Trump is sworn in, the meeting was seen as a platform for countries to send a strong signal to the president-elect that a two-state solution to the conflict could not be compromised on and that unilateral decisions could exacerbate tensions. The participants "call on each side...to refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final-status issues, including, inter alia, on Jerusalem, borders, security, refugees and which they will not recognise," the final statement of the conference said. A French diplomatic source said there had been tough negotiations on that paragraph. "It's a tortuous and complicated paragraph to pass a subliminal message to the Trump administration," the diplomat said. Relations between the US and Israel have soured during President Barack Obama's administration, reaching a low point late last month when Washington declined to veto UN resolution 2334 demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory. Paris has said the meeting did not aim to impose anything on Israel or the Palestinians and that only direct negotiations could resolve the conflict. An injured woman cries as a man covers a dead body after a car bomb explosion in Jub al Barazi, east of the northern Syrian town of al-Bab. Photo: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters At least a dozen civilians were killed and dozens more injured yesterday as Syrian government forces attacked Deir Qanun, a village in the water-rich Wadi Barada area. The activist-operated Wadi Barada Media Centre said 12 were killed and more than 20 injured after a banquet hall where they were sheltering was bombed. The group posted pictures of the bloodied floors of the hall, some showing bodies with severed limbs. The village was attacked after unknown gunmen shot and killed a negotiator sent from nearby Damascus to repair water infrastructure in exchange for a cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of rebel fighters. Each side blamed the other for the death of Ahmed al-Ghadban, a retired army officer who had only resumed his duties that day. Fighting has raged since last month in the valley that provides the Syrian capital with most of its waterThe violence has tested the fragile ceasefire and restricted water supplies to the city. The state media outlet SANA said "terrorists" opened fire on Mr Ghadban after he left a meeting with armed groups in the village of Ain al-Fijeh, about 14km north-west of Damascus. Activists opposed to President Bashar al-Assad denounced the killing, which they claimed had been ordered by the regime to "kill any hope of a peaceful solution". Rami Abdel Rahman of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that after the shooting "regime forces and their allies tried to advance to Ain al-Fijeh", bombarding rebel positions with heavy artillery. Ain al-Fijeh, the rebel-controlled spring that supplies Damascus with 70pc of its drinking water, is a vital strategic asset in the country's civil war. In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, Mr Assad's forces lost territory yesterday to Isil. Despite air strikes by regime fighter jets, the jihadists pressed at the city's edges for a second day, seizing several hilltops near a government air base. At least 12 government fighters and 20 Isil militants were killed in the offensive, which included suicide attackers. ( Daily Telegraph, London) The increase of Israeli settlements has "gotten so substantial" that it is inhibiting the possibility for an "effective, contiguous Palestinian state", Barack Obama has said in his final interview as US president. Speaking to CBS' 60 Minutes, Mr Obama dismissed the idea that there was a "major rupture" in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last month's decision by the US to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. "Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the US) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, 'This is a problem'," he said. "It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States." The outgoing president reflected on his legacy and his biggest challenges during his eight years in office during the hour-long interview. A number of his policies, from health care to his contentious relationship with Israel, could be short-lived as president-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th president later this week and vows to reverse some of them. Mr Trump has been vocal about his disapproval of many of Mr Obama's policies, often voicing his disagreement or engaging in public disputes with the president on Twitter. Most recently, Mr Trump lashed out over hypothetical comments Mr Obama made that he would beat Mr Trump if they ran against each other in a general election. During the festive holiday, Mr Trump accused Mr Obama of throwing up "inflammatory" road blocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with "total disdain". Mr Obama acknowledged ii had been an "unusual" transition, adding: "I suspect the president-elect would agree with that. "We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites and some headline that comes over their phone. "There's a power in that. There's also a danger - what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem." Mr Obama warned people not to "underestimate the guy" and urged congressional Republicans and Trump supporters around the country to be sure "that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions don't get eroded, because there's a reason they're in place". He said there needs to be a focus on "making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity". With that, he said he had been "disturbed" about intelligence reports over Russia hacking the US election. "I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the US government," he said. "You're not going to be able to make good decisions without building some relationship of trust between yourself and that community." Mr Obama also reflected on his approach to the civil war in Syria, as it approaches its sixth year with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced around the world. The president acknowledged that his "red line" declaration about the use of chemical weapons by Syrian president Bashar Assad's government was not in his 2012 speech and that he did not have to use those words. They later prompted harsh criticism, since the US did not follow through on the threat. "I would have, I think, made a bigger mistake if I had said, 'Eh, chemical weapons. That doesn't really change my calculus'," he said. "And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think, in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons." AP President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but 'load it up with some bad dudes' (Ben Fox/AP) Oman has accepted 10 inmates from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office. There was no immediate word from the US Defence Department about the transfer. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Oman News Agency that it had accepted the prisoners at Mr Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners. The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Meanwhile, Oman's neighbour, Saudi Arabia, took four prisoners on January 5 and the United Arab Emirates took 15 prisoners in the largest-single transfer during Mr Obama's administration on August 15. Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It has also negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, remains in the grips of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels - making returning Guantanamo inmates there impossible. Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the US military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Mr Obama's presidency. It was part of an effort by Mr Obama to shrink the prison since he could not close it. US President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but "load it up with some bad dudes". The US began using its military base on south-east Cuba's isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on January 11 2002, and reaching a peak 18 months later of nearly 680. There were 242 prisoners when Mr Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge. Mr Obama was unable to close Guantanamo because of Congressional opposition to holding any of the men in the United States. That ultimately became a ban on transferring them to US soil for any reason, including trial, making the failure to close the detention centre part of his legacy. The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. AP Lee Jae-yong is a bribery suspect in the influence-peddling scandal that led to the impeachment of South Korea's president (AP) Prosecutors have requested the arrest of Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong as a bribery suspect in the influence-peddling scandal that led to the impeachment of South Korea's president. The move is a departure from the leniency South Korean big businesses typically receive. Lee Jae-yong, the 48-year-old vice chairman at Samsung Electronics, faces allegations of embezzlement, of lying under oath during a parliamentary hearing and of offering a bribe of 43 billion won (30 million) to a long-time friend of impeached President Park Geun-hye, according to Lee Kyu-chul, a spokesman for a special prosecutors' team investigating the political scandal. It will surprise many that prosecutors requested the arrest of the man who symbolises the future of South Korea's most important chaebol, as family-controlled conglomerates are known. Such leaders tend to be treated as vital for the national economy. Samsung Electronics is South Korea's most successful company and a source of pride for many who equate its huge global success with national prestige. The company has gone through a rough patch in the past half-year, however, after its latest premium smartphone was found to be prone to catching fire. Prosecutors understood worries that Mr Lee's arrest could hurt the economy, but "we believed that it was even more important to carry out justice", the spokesman at the special prosecutors' team told reporters. A Seoul court said it will review the prosecutors' request on Wednesday. The request takes two to three days to review, according to a Seoul court official in charge of arrest warrants who declined to give his name because of office rules. Samsung allegedly donated funds to various entities controlled by Choi Soon-sil, the jailed secretive confidante of the president, including two non-profit foundations and a winter sports centre run by Choi's niece. This allegedly happened while the company was seeking the government's help with a leadership succession within the Samsung group to Lee Jae-yong from his father who has been in hospital for more than two years. Part of the money given to Choi was allegedly embezzled by the Samsung vice chairman, the spokesman for the prosecutors said. He declined to disclose the exact amount. Samsung said it has never made donations to win favours. Prosecutors also indicted ex-health minister Moon Hyung-pyo on Monday on charges that he abused his power to compel the national pension fund to support a contentious Samsung merger in 2015. "We cannot accept the special prosecutors' argument that there were unlawful favours related to the merger or the leadership succession," Samsung said in a statement. The investigation of the Samsung chief could also target Ms Park. Her impeachment is under review by the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether to restore her power or force her from office. The prosecutors' spokesman said investigators had evidence proving that Ms Park shared wealth with Choi and was an accomplice in the Samsung bribery case. They plan to summon Ms Park and will then decide whether to name her as a suspect in the Samsung case, he said. The national pension fund is the biggest shareholder in Samsung C&T. Its vote in favour of the company's merger with Cheil Industries helped facilitate Samsung's leadership succession, allowing Lee Jae-yong to increase his control over Samsung Electronics without spending any of his own money. Smaller shareholders said the merger unfairly benefited Samsung founding family members and hurt minority shareholders. Samsung sought "unlawful favours" related to "leadership succession", the prosecutors' spokesman said. Samsung Electronics was founded by Lee Jae-yong's grandfather. The younger Mr Lee has been serving as its de facto head since his father suffered a heart attack in 2014. Other leaders at Samsung, Hyundai Motor and SK, including Mr Lee's father Lee Kun-hee, have been convicted in the past for embezzlement or tax evasion. But most avoided imprisonment and later won pardons from presidents who worried that the economy might suffer if they were jailed. In turn, the businesses often responded to such pardons by announcing big investments or jobs. A former South Korean president pardoned Lee Kun-hee, the ailing Samsung chairman, in 2009, in the hope that he would help South Korea win a bid to host the Winter Olympic Games. He was reinstated as a member of the International Olympic Committee after the pardon and South Korea won the bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics games in Pyeongchang. AP Representatives of some Syrian rebel groups have said they will attend talks sponsored by Russia and Turkey, despite mounting violations of a ceasefire across the war-ravaged country. A rebel adviser said the talks between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition, to be held in the Kazakhstan capital Astana later this month, will initially focus on ways to strengthen and monitor the ceasefire that came into effect on December 30. Opposition activists have reported widespread violence around Syria. Although the scale of the violence was not comparable to the government-led, Russian-backed offensive against Aleppo that preceded the ceasefire, air strikes and shelling were reported in at least eight of Syria's 14 provinces on Monday. The ceasefire excludes areas where the militant Islamic State group operates. There, too, fighting raged as militants closed in on a government military base while Turkey-backed and Kurdish-backed fighters clashed with the extremist group in three different provinces. Faced with the ongoing violations, members of Syrian armed groups have been meeting in Turkey for days to decide on whether to participate and with what delegates. Syrian representatives said the Turkish government, one of the few remaining backers of the opposition, was keen on convening the talks. They are scheduled for January 23. UN-sponsored talks will follow in Geneva in February. On Monday, Syrian rebel group members and an adviser to the fighting groups said the Astana talks will focus on violations of the ceasefire and ways to reinforce it. "The first sessions will be to study the violations and implementation of the ceasefire," said Molhem Akidi, a leading member of the Fastaqim group. The group was a leading fighting force in Aleppo before its fighters left as part of a Russia-Turkey brokered deal. Mr Akidi said the High Negotiations Committee, a political group that represented the opposition in the last Geneva talks, will provide support and technical help for the delegation. Osama Abo Zayd, a legal adviser to the Free Syrian Army rebel groups, said the first round of talks will last for four days and focus solely on ways to monitor ceasefire violations. Mr Abo Zayd said Moscow has promised to rein in violations of the ceasefire by government and allied troops. If a mechanism is worked out, there will be a phase two of the talks, he told the opposition-linked Revolutionary Forces of Syria online. "If Russia doesn't live up to its promises after phase one, Russia, Iran and the regime will be the main cause of fighting in Syria," he said. Mr Abo Zayed and Mr Akidi said Ahrar al-Sham, one of Syria's largest rebel groups, was not participating in the talks but support the delegation going. The other powerful group, Fatah al-Sham Front, is not included in the ceasefire, according to the government. The talks are considered a diplomatic feat for Moscow. After withstanding a crippling, months-long siege and punishing bombing campaign, the opposition surrendered one of its most prized urban centres, Aleppo. Rebel groups had control of nearly half of the city, once Syria's commercial centre, since 2012. The United States was left out of the ceasefire agreement and it is not clear if the new administration will attend the talks next week. Rebel fighters and government allied troops have exchanged blame on who is responsible for violating the current ceasefire. AP A tourist mourns at a makeshift memorial to the victims of the beach massacre in Tunisia. Photo: Getty Flowers on the beach at the scene of the massacre in Sousse, Tunisia Tourists carry a Tunisian flag along Marhaba beach yesterday in a tribute to the victims of the massacre. Photo: Getty Inquests into the deaths of the 30 Britons killed in the Tunisia beach massacre of 2015 will begin today. The hearings will take place in court 38 at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, presided over by judge and coroner Nicholas Loraine-Smith. They are expected to last around seven weeks. Families' battles for justice have been intensified by a lengthy and truncated legal process, which had seen the Government apply for certain elements of the inquests to be kept private over concerns about national security. During a previous hearing Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 families, said it was their view that a "full and fearless" investigation would be required to remain in keeping with the principle of "open justice". He also said many families feared the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may have failed in its responsibilities to thousands of British tourists. He said the families were also potentially concerned about the FCO "having cosy chats" with travel companies interested in running profitable businesses "in light of FCO then current advice that there was a high risk of terrorist activity, including in tourist areas". All the victims were killed by gunman Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi at the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel and the adjoining beach at the popular resort of Port El Kantaoui on June 26 2015. Three of the victims of the attack were Irish - Lorna Carty and Larry and Martina Hayes. In March 2015, 24 people were killed in a terror attack at Bardo National Museum in the capital, Tunis. Some of the families of those caught in the Sousse attack said they had been assured by tour operator Thomson it was safe to travel to Tunisia after the Bardo attack. TUI, the travel company that owns Thomson, said it wants to understand the specific circumstances that led to the killings and is co-operating with the coroner. The company would not comment further before the inquests but said it does not accept the accuracy of all the statements that have been made. The consular team in the Department and the Irish Embassy in Madrid, which is responsible for Tunisia, and the Irish Honorary Consulate in Tunisia, have been involved in providing active and ongoing assistance and support to the families of the three Irish citizens who lost their lives in the terrorist attack at Sousse in June 2015. A spokesperson said officials from the Department remain in ongoing contact with the families. "The Department keeps its Travel Advice for all countries under constant review, taking into account all available information on relevant threats and risks. Our current advice in respect of Tunisia is that Irish citizens should avoid all non-essential travel to that country. Revelations from an inquest into the Tunisian terrorist attacks in 2015 that killed three Irish citizens are "horrendous" according a family friend of one of the victims. Evidence from the inquest shows that police deliberately slowed down when going to scene. Three Irish citizens were killed in the June 2015 attack when extremist Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi launched a deadly assault on a Tunisian beach. The UK hearing into the deaths of 38 tourists heard that a local investigation into the slaughter criticised some police for stalling as they made their way to the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel. Expand Close Larry and Martina Hayes / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Larry and Martina Hayes Amongst the people killed in Sousse was Lorna Carty from Co. Meath. Fine Gael Senator Ray Butler, who knew the family of Ms Carty, said "it is horrendous and it's terrible to think that more lives could have been saved". "I'm sure the revelations won't help the family, who are very private people. I spoke to Lorna's husband at the time and he was just devastated. Senator Butler said he would help "push for the family" if they wanted a similar inquest to take place in Ireland. Read More "I'd like to see what the families would think of an Irish inquest and I would have no problem pushing for the family if they wanted one. I would be totally behind them, he said. Athlone couple Larry and Martina Hayes were also killed in the deadly attack and Athlone Parish Priest Fr Liam Devine said the revelations were "another twist" in the tragedy. "The news will only further add to the all the grief felt by the family. "It is still very raw and I remember talking to a brother of the family at the time and they were just devastated so this will not help matters now", he said. "I suppose this could spark off an inquiry over here if that was possible into the deaths," he said. A teenager who was abducted from hospital as a newborn baby has said that the man who raised her "didn't help with anything". Charles Manigo says he was left heartbroken after Kamiyah Mobley was returned to her biological parents, insisting 'She's still my child'. Manigo and his ex-girlfriend Gloria Williams raised Kamiyah as their own daughter in South Carolina, naming her Alexis Manigo. Williams was arrested on Friday after authorities received a tip off that she allegedly kidnapped the girl at birth. Expand Close Kamiyah Mobley, now 18, was found living in South Carolina on Friday living under the name Alexis Manigo. Pictured with Gloria Williams who has been arrested for kidnapping Credit: Facebook / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kamiyah Mobley, now 18, was found living in South Carolina on Friday living under the name Alexis Manigo. Pictured with Gloria Williams who has been arrested for kidnapping Credit: Facebook However, 18-year-old Kamiyah has now taken to Facebook, claiming all Manigo did was "lie to her". "He did nothing...he was the reason I didn't go to my senior prom...you work at a car dealership and my granddaddy still gave me my first car. "All he did was lie my whole life and then tell people differen't." Charles Manigo gave an interview with ABC News on Sunday and spoke of his heartbreak that Kamiyah had been reunited with her biological parents. He said: "The person she called dad for 18 years isn't her dad. "She's still my child. It doesn't change any feelings I have for her, the same love I have for her the day I held her to now, to 43 more years, she is my child." Kamiyah's disappearance in 1998 sparked a national search and on Saturday, she was reunited with her biological parents. She took to Facebook to defend the woman who abducted her, saying she "raised me with everything I needed." Williams is thought to have suffered a miscarriage about a week before she drove the three hours from South Carolina to Florida and abducted baby Kamiyah in 1998. It is believed she then passed off Kamiyah as her own daughter to family and friends, who said they never suspected a thing. She will be extradited to Florida to face charges of kidnapping. President-elect Donald Trump, who spent the weekend engaged in a war of words with civil rights activist and Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, will meet Monday with Martin Luther King III to discuss voting rights. "Today, President-elect Trump is going to sit down with Martin Luther King III and others in New York and have a conversation about voting, about bringing more people into the system, the legacy of Doctor King and how we can continue to pursue that under the Trump administration," Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said on NBC's "Today" show Monday. The private session at Trump Tower with civil rights advocates, on the same day the nation is honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, represents a mix of symbolism and substance. King III has campaigned for years to establish a form of free government photo identification that could make it easier for Americans who lack a driver's license or other official ID to cast ballots. He and the other attendees, including the Rev. James A. Forbes, have urged Trump to endorse the idea of making such identification free. But it also provides Trump, who is viewed largely in unfavorable terms by African Americans, with an opening to the black community. In national exit polling in November, black voters favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by a margin of 89 percent to 8 percent. Trump tweeted Monday: "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for the great man that he was!" Many African-American leaders see the distribution of a free government ID as a critical boost to low-income Americans who cannot open a bank account without one. The lack of an ID not only makes it more difficult to vote in several states, but it also often makes individuals dependent on check-cashing operations that charge high commissions. King, who had urged the Obama administration to make a government photo ID ubiquitous, invited Trump on Jan. 8 to commemorate his father's birthday by accompanying him on a visit to his memorial on the Mall. Instead, Trump's aides suggested that they meet at Trump Tower. All of the meeting attendees are affiliated with the Drum Major Institute, a progressive public policy think tank where King is president and Forbes is chairman. William Wachtel, a New York lawyer who co-founded the institute, and Scott Rechler, a board member who is the chief executive and chairman of RXR Realty, will also come to the session. Former U.N. ambassador and civil rights activist Andrew Young, who chairs the nonpartisan voting rights group Why Tuesday? and is chairman emeritus of the Drum Major Institute, was invited to attend but had a scheduling conflict. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post , King noted that Trump won in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, where minority turnout declined and stricter voter identification requirements may have deterred some minorities from voting. "While we can't know how those affected would have voted, we can agree that every citizen should have the unfettered opportunity to vote," he wrote. "Indeed, my concern is not how people vote, but simply that they vote." According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, seven states have strict photo ID laws -- voters lacking such identification can only cast provisional ballots - and eight have less stringent photo ID requirements. King, along with Young, has proposed that the Social Security Administration place a photo on the cards they give every citizen or that the State Department waive the $55 passport fee for low-income Americans. "Many people are concerned that our new president could undo much of what the outgoing president has achieved," King wrote in the op-ed. "But in the area of voting rights, I am the opposite of concerned; I am hopeful in recognition that there is an opportunity to build a better system." Several prominent Democrats, including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, have endorsed the idea. But some - such as Lewis - have argued that it might leave Americans more vulnerable to data theft. And libertarians, such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, also oppose a universal government ID. Government Asks States to Exempt Startups from Local State Laws In keeping with the governments goal of a flourishing startup sector in India, the government is in discussion with state governments to allow startup firms to get exempt from local laws, including labor regulations. Many such firms get entangled into regulatory and tax disputes as their evolution propels them into legal grey areas, with the need for the updation of regulatory norms and laws. This is why the central government is considering a more flexible approach, whereby startups can benefit from regulatory easing. So far only ten states have cooperated in terms of exempting startups from various local laws and labor regulations, though the details of this agreement have yet to be finalized. An instance of industry regulations playing catch-up to the challenge posed by entrepreneurial disruption was observed in the case of cab aggregators battling both the respective state and central governments as well as taxi and autorickshaw (three-wheeler) unions last year. Additionally, the central government is contemplating organizing startups into two stages, namely, the early-funds stage and the growth stage. Further, the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) is reforming its US$1.47 billion (Rs100 billion) startup funding scheme by incentivizing venture capital (VC) funds to invest in startups while reducing overall capital risks. This means that VC funds will now be allowed to invest half of the US$1.47 billion corpus in startups and the rest of it in established firms, instead of the mandated 100 percent investment in startups. Central Excise and Service Tax Payers Move to GST Indias Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) has started the migration of central excise and service taxpayers to the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), effective January 9, 2017. Existing taxpayers need to login to the ACES (Automation of Central Excise and Service Tax) portal to receive provisional login details for the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). The login details will allow taxpayers to access the GST portal to submit required documents. Value Added Tax (VAT) assessees under the State Commercial Tax department who are already in the process of migrating to GST require no further action. The Permanent Account Number (PAN) is mandatory for the migration. The CBEC has also started to notify via email alerts and telephone messages to all assessees, informing them about the move to GST. The last date for migrating to GST is January 31. PAN is Mandatory for All Bank Account Holders The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has amended existing income-tax rules while directing banks to obtain and link the Permanent Account Number (PAN) or Form 60 (in the absence of PAN) belonging to all existing account holders by February 28.. Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts (BSBDA) are excluded from the amendment. Banks and post offices are also required to submit information about cash deposits between April 1, 2016 and November 8, 2016 for accounts holding deposits greater than US$3676.5 (Rs 250,000) between November 9, 2016 and December 31, 2016. Form 60 is available in the banks while one can apply for PAN online through the National Securities Depository Limited portal. In addition, the government from January 1 began issuing newly designed PAN cards to make them tamper proof with added security features. Companies Act Norms Relaxed for Firms Operating in IFSCs On January 4, the central government announced that private firms established in international financial services centers (IFSC) will be exempt from several norms in the Companies Act of 2013. An IFSC company provides services to customers located outside the domestic economic jurisdiction and are based in special economic zones (SEZs). Such firms manage the movement of finance, financial products, and services across borders. A list of 39 modifications or exemptions are listed on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) website. Further, various tax concessions will be granted to firms licensed to operate out of IFSCs such as transaction taxes and stamp duties. This move by the central government is more than likely to encourage private firms to set up at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), inaugurated in April 2015 as Indias first IFSC. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email india@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2016 Doing Business in India 2016 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in India. As such, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Indian market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to stay up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes. Pre-Investment Due Diligence in India In this issue of India Briefing Magazine, we examine issues related to pre-investment due diligence in India. We highlight the different regulatory, tax, and socio-economic issues that a company should be aware of before entering the Indian market. We also detail some of the topics related to entry structures while investing in the Indian market, as well as cultural and HR due diligence, which may differ from state to state. Strategies for Repatriating Funds from India In this issue of India Briefing Magazine, we look at issues related to repatriating funds from India. We highlight the unique regulations for sending funds back from India, examine the various strategies companies can make use of while repatriating, and look at remittance procedures for different types of Indian entities. Finally, we give some tips on how expats can remit their Indian money to their home countries. JMC Projects India secures new orders of Rs2,277 crore; Stock gains 2.6% JMC Projects (India) Limited (JMC), a leading Civil Engineering and EPC Company has secured new orders of Rs2,277 crores. The details are as follows: Water Projects in India of... November 04, 2022 | 04-11-2022 2:08 pm Lupin receives USFDA tentative approval for Drospirenone Tablets Global pharma major Lupin Limited (Lupin) has announced that it has received tentative approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Abbreviated New Drug ... November 04, 2022 | 04-11-2022 1:26 pm Bloomberg Report: Pegatron Corp starts production of iPhone 14 in India Pegatron Corp., a Taiwanese contract manufacturer for Apple Inc., has begun producing the most recent iPhone 14 model in India. Pegatron is now the second Apple supplier to manufacture th... November 04, 2022 | 04-11-2022 12:48 pm JMC Projects India allots NCDs for Rs100 crore; Stock rallies over 3.5% The Management Committee of the Board of Directors of JMC Projects (India) Limited at its meeting held on November 04, 2022 has allotted 1000 Repo Rate, Unsecured, Rated, Listed, Rede... November 04, 2022 | 04-11-2022 12:34 pm Nykaa receives shareholders' approval for bonus issue and ESOP; Stock down 1% The Board of the lifestyle retailer FSN E-Commerce Ventures Limited (Nykaa), on October 3, 2022, approved Bonus Issue of Equity Shares in the proportion of 5 (Five) fully paid-up Equity Sh... November 04, 2022 | 04-11-2022 12:03 pm The appalling Bengaluru Mass Molestation has left the entire country in shock. Not just the commoners but even the film industry has come out and spoken vehemently against the shameful incident. From Akshay Kumar to Aamir Khan, all the bigwigs of Bollywood have expressed their fury against the molesters and have even cited the importance of men treating women with respect. The Bangalore incident makes me feel we r evolving backwards,from humans to animals,rather beasts coz even animals are better!Truly shameful pic.twitter.com/FJwJ80Mkby Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) January 5, 2017 Father of two sons, Shah Rukh Khan recently opened up about the same and revealed how he strictly expects his sons to respect women and be on their best behavior around them. shortday.in In an interview with Femina, SRK said,"I tell Aryan and even AbRam never hurt a woman. If you do, I'll behead you. And no, times have not changed. A girl is not your chhadi-buddy; show some respect." Its commendable how the stars realize their standing and the fact that their views can influence many people at end. They make sure that they are heard loud and clear when it comes to addressing the social evils of our society. The stars have not just fearlessly taken digs at politicos for playing the blame game and not taking necessary actions but they have also stressed on the fact that the men have to take a united stand and ensure the safety of the womankind. In fact, stars like Akshay Kumar even organize free martial arts camps for the ladies to learn the art of self-defence. Filmmaker/actor Farhan Akhtar even launched a social campaign called MARD Men against Rape and discrimination in 2013. They are doing their bit, the question is are you? BCCL In a major relief for cash users, the limits placed on withdrawals and current accounts has been raised with immediate effect as under: (i) The limit on withdrawals from ATMs has been enhanced from the current limit of Rs.4,500 to Rs.10,000 per day per card (It will be operative within the existing overall weekly limit). Read more here Here are 5 more stories for you: 1. Here's Why Pakistani Villagers Attacked A Qatari Royal Family Hunting In Balochistan dawn.com A group of Pakistani villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the houbara bustard, a rare bird whose meat is prized by Arab sheikhs, officials said on Monday. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack on Sunday evening in Musakhel, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, district deputy commissioner Muhammad Yasar said. "A case has been registered against 25 people," he added. Police said the villagers turned violent after they were prevented from meeting the visiting royal to seek donations to build a mosque. A Qatari official involved in the sport of falconry confirmed the attack by a large group of men on a convoy of hunters that included a royal family member. He declined to identify the individual but said the party was safe. Read more here 2. India Is Worst Among Five BRICS Nations, Slips To 92nd Rank In Global Talent Competitiveness c4yindia Despite holding a pool of talent with so many premier institutes in the country and innumerable bright minds, India has slipped 3 places to 92nd rank on the global index of talent competitiveness. Last year, India came on the 89th on the same index. While the country produced a lot of talent, it is clearly unable to retain and attract talent. In terms of retaining and attracting talent, India was ranked at a lowly 104th and 114th, respectively. .Read more here 3. Hyderabad's Famous Biryanis Contain Heat And Drug-Resistant Bacteria Healthfood/Representational Image Harmful bacteria that are tolerant to high temperatures and resistant to a number of highly potent drugs have been discovered from meat sold in city markets. Some of these bacteria have learnt to survive in temperatures as high as 70 degrees Celsius. Even powerful drugs like Kanamycin, which is used for treatment of severe bacterial infections including chronic cases of tuberculosis, are unable to kill certain types of bacteria isolated from meat samples in retail mutton and chicken shops. Researchers have also isolated heat-tolerant Escheri chia coli from knives, butcher's blocks, cutting and chopping tables and weighing scales.Even the water used in meat shops is contaminated by pathogens. A team of researchers from the College of Veterinary Science, Korutla, collected as many as 120 samples from a number of retail meat shops and analysed them for food-borne bacteria.Read more here 4. Oops They Did It Again! Petrol And Diesel Prices Raised By 42 Paise And Rs 1.03 BCCL Remember the viral pre-election campaign by BJP which told the UPA II that 'janta maaf nahee karegi' for rising prices of many things, including petrol and diesel. Well, I want to meet the people behind that campaign now to come to any junction on a busy Indian street and shout to the present government what Janta feels right now! State oil companies have raised the prices of petrol by 42 paise/litre and diesel by Rs 1.03/litre after the fortnightly review. The new prices will be effective from Monday. Actual price increases would vary from state to state depending on local levies. Read more here 5. At Least 32 Dead After Turkish Cargo Plane Hits Village In Kyrgyzstan sputniknews A cargo plane crashed near Kyrgyzstan's main airport Monday, leaving 32 people dead including four pilots as it hit a populated area after attempting to land in thick fog, authorities said. The majority of the dead were from the village of Dacha-Suu where the plane -- a Turkish Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek -- crashed at around 7.30 am local time (0130 GMT), a spokesman for the country's emergency services ministry told AFP. Four pilots also died, the health ministry said. Read more here One of the greatest joys in life is to return back home at the end of every taxing day. As people who are constantly thriving, we may not address the enormity of this blessing, but only those who don't have it, know how hurtful it is. Meet Saroo Brierley, a boy who lost his mother in 1986, when he was just 5 years old. Now a businessman, Saroo grew up from the lowest levels of life. He was travelling with his older brother, working as a sweeper on India's trains. "It was late at night. We got off the train, and I was so tired that I just took a seat at a train station, and I ended up falling asleep." dailymail "I thought my brother would come back and wake me up but when I awoke he was nowhere to be seen. I saw a train in front of me and thought he must be on that train. So I decided to get on it and hoped that I would meet my brother." He then found a spot on that train and slept, hoping that his brother would find him and wake him up. But his belief was wrecked 14 hours later, when he woke up and found himself on a moving train, without his brother. He had then reached Calcutta (now Kolata), India's third biggest city and notorious for its slums. ABC Hapless and alone, he started begging, because that was the only way for him to make a living, in a city all alone. A few years later, he was taken in by an orphanage, which put him up for adoption. and that's where he was adopted by the Brierleys, a couple from Tasmania. "I accepted that I was lost and that I could not find my way back home, so I thought it was great that I was going to Australia." But as he got older, his desire to go back home and meet his birth mother grew stronger and that's when he decided to go back home, but, even now, a huge barrier endured in between. As an illiterate, he didn't know about the place he had come from, and all he had was some vivid memories. YouTube So he began using Google Earth to search for where he might have been born. "It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo mentally and ask, 'Does this match?' And when you say, 'No', you keep on going and going and going." With some maths, memories and logic, he was able to reach his destination. "I multiplied the time I was on the train, about 14 hours, with the speed of Indian trains and I came up with a rough distance, about 1,200km." He drew a circle on a map with its centre in Calcutta, with its radius about the distance he thought he had travelled. Incredibly, he soon discovered what he was looking for: Khandwa. "When I found it, I zoomed down and bang, it just came up. I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used to play." Upon reaching there, he was taken to meet his mother. thebetterindia "The last time I saw her she was 34 years old and a pretty lady, I had forgotten that age would get the better of her. But the facial structure was still there and I recognised her and I said, 'Yes, you are my mother.' "She grabbed my hand and took me to her house. She could not say anything to me. I think she was as numb as I was. She had a bit of trouble grasping that her son, after 25 years, had just reappeared like a ghost." "It has taken the weight off my shoulders. I sleep a lot better now." themercury An autobiographical account of his experiences, A Long Way Home, was published in 2014 and adapted into the 2016 film Lion, starring Nicole Kidman as his adoptive mother and the slumdog millionaire fame and Dev Patel as Saroo. Days after China blocked India's proposal in the UN , the world body's key member France has pitched for designating Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as an international terrorist, saying there are "very strong arguments in favour" of such a move. Reuters French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who was on a four-day India visit, also sent out a veiled message to China without naming it, saying "the international community's determination to combat terrorism must be the same everywhere, regardless of the threat." Pointing out that Azhar's outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad "is already included in the (Sanctions) Committee's list of terrorist organisations", he told PTI in an interview, "therefore, there are very strong arguments in favour of listing its chief, as India has requested". That's why, he said, France not only supported but also co-sponsored the Indian request at the UNSC. India had submitted in February last year a proposal to the 15-member 1267 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council to list Azhar as an international terrorist for masterminding the attack on Pathankot Air base. PTI Since then, China had twice imposed "technical hold" on the Indian proposal and finally on December 30 last, it blocked it, becoming the only country to do so. "We regret that, despite our joint efforts and wide support from the Committee, unanimity could not be reached," said Ayrault, whose country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. He said France will now discuss with India what should be done. "India knows it can count on our support," he added. AFP Azhar, a resident of Bahawalpur in Pakistan, was one of the three terrorists freed by India in exchange of 166 hostages of Indian Airlines plane IC-814 which was hijacked to Kandahar in December 1999. Azhar, at that time, belonged to Harkat-ul Mujahideen, and soon after his release, he floated the new outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan which carried out several attacks in India, including on Parliament on December 13, 2001 and Pathankot Air base . The French Foreign Minister, whose country has faced a number of terror attacks over the last few years, pitched for a "decisive action" against Pakistan-based terror groups like LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen which are "targeting" India. "France has very firmly condemned the terrorist attacks against India, including the recent Uri attack , and reiterated its full solidarity with India in its combat against terrorism," he said. BCCL Clearly referring to Pakistan without naming it, he emphasised that all countries should fight effectively against terrorism "originating from their territory or territories under their control". "We particularly want to see decisive action taken, in keeping with international law, against terrorist groups targeting India, particularly the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Hizbul Mujahideen," he said. The French Minister was asked about his views on the surgical strikes carried out by Indian Army in September last to target terror camps based across the LoC in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. "Nothing can justify terrorism, which must be fought everywhere with equal determination. When a country is faced with a terrorist threat of this nature, it has the right to defend itself," he replied. AFP Ayrault also spoke about the scope of cooperation between India and his country in combating terror, the footprint of which is expanding and intensity increasing. "France and India are both victims of terrorism, and they are in full solidarity vis-a-vis this scourge," he said. He said the fight against terrorism is one of the cornerstones of India-France strategic partnership. In concrete terms, he said, France and India hold "constant and very operational exchanges" on the terrorist threat. "We have a bilateral working group that brings together all the players concerned over counter-terrorism, and, among others, cooperation with regard to investigations and between our respective intervention units, the GIGN from the French side, and the National Security Guards from the Indian side. I welcome the development of all these cooperations," he said. A group of Pakistani villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the houbara bustard, a rare bird whose meat is prized by Arab sheikhs, officials said on Monday. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack on Sunday evening in Musakhel, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, district deputy commissioner Muhammad Yasar said. dawn.com "A case has been registered against 25 people," he added. Police said the villagers turned violent after they were prevented from meeting the visiting royal to seek donations to build a mosque. A Qatari official involved in the sport of falconry confirmed the attack by a large group of men on a convoy of hunters that included a royal family member. He declined to identify the individual, but said the party was safe. "Qatari hunters apply and pay for government hunting permits and donate to local communities and wildlife conservation," the official said. "Unfortunately there have been attacks led by armed groups." AFP The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the bustard as a vulnerable species with a global population ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. It has almost vanished on the Arabian peninsula. Last year, Pakistan's Supreme Court lifted a ban on hunting the bird after the government argued it hurt relations with Gulf states whose wealthy hunters traditionally travel to Pakistan to pursue the endangered species with falcons. To seek favour with communities on whose land they pursue prey, Arab hunters have built roads, schools and mosques in places like Baluchistan and the province of Helmand in neighbouring Afghanistan, while residents also benefit from the international-standard airstrips that can spring up. AFP New four-wheel-drive vehicles brought in for the hunt are sometimes left behind as gifts for regional leaders. But critics say that hunting with falcons, a practice Arab nomads used to survive life in the desert, is today a reckless hobby that threatens the houbara and funnels money into areas controlled by militias. In December 2015, about 100 gunmen kidnapped at least 26 Qataris from a desert hunting camp in Iraq near the Saudi border. A member of Qatar's ruling family was freed in April 2016, along with an accompanying Pakistani man. Prosecutors have demanded an arrest warrant for Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong as a bribery suspect in a scandal that led to the South Korean president Park Geun-hye's impeachment. Reuters 48-year-old Lee is currently Vice Chairman at Samsung Electronics. Prosecutors also indicted ex-health minister Moon Hyung-pyo on charges of abusing power to compel the national pension fund to support a Samsung merger in 2015. Last week, the investigators questioned Lee on allegations Samsung won government favors such as getting backing for the merger in exchange for donating corporate funds to various entities controlled by Choi Soon-sil, a long-time friend of President Park Geun-hye. She has been jailed. Lee could face a maximum five years in prison, but leading South Korean businessmen have previously been given suspended terms for such offences. Samsung Electronics valuation has fallen by 2.14%, shaving more than $5 billion off its market capitalisation. "This is a big crisis for us" "This is a big crisis for us," Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed senior Samsung executive as saying. "We have to make aggressive investment and merger and acquisition decisions to race ahead of competitors. "But we are afraid that the latest development would cause great delays in our decision-making process." But Greg Roh, analyst at Seoul-based HMC Investment & Securities, said the firm had a "very well-organised management system" and was not driven by "a certain personality". The scandal could even help Samsung in the long term, said Shim Jung-Taik, an author of several books on the firm, if it persuaded the founding Lee clan to improve the group's opaque governance structure and become more transparent. For any bibliophile, there can never be 'enough books'. "So many books, so little time!" is literally their favourite mantra. Then again, there's this one girl who's giving every reader on this planet a run for their words. Why? Because she has, in every sense of the word, devoured over 1,000 books! And, how old is she? 4. Damn. Years. Old! @LibnOfCongress Meet Daliyah Arana, a Georgia resident, who read her first book, Ann's Big Muffin, at the age of two years and 11 months. Soon thereafter, Arana was set up for a challenge by her mother, Haleema - one that required her to compete in the '1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Programme', which she managed to do with flying colours. Library of Congress So much so that Arana became the first girl ever to walk into the US's largest library - the Library of Congress - and play its librarian for an entire day! Arana also joined Carla Hayden, the first female and the first African-American to hold the position as the Librarian of Congress. It was fun to have 4-year-old Daliyah Marie Arana of Gainesville, GA as "Librarian For The Day." She's already read more than a 1,000 books. pic.twitter.com/MQfwlUrakO Carla Hayden (@LibnOfCongress) January 11, 2017 Together they both sat on the high chair, roamed the swanky halls, and interacted with the staff. Arana even suggested the library got whiteboards installed so that the children could practice their writing. The staff told her that they were already working on it. @LibnOfCongress But how did Arana land in the Library of Congress? Once again, courtesy her mother who had written to the Library to tell them about their daughter's genius habit of reading books. The Library had responded to Haleema's letter and invited the family to visit. Interestingly, the Library will now make 'Librarians For The Day' a regular feature that will see other young readers walk down the hallowed halls. See. This is why reading is good. Canada is a wonderland for people of diverse cultures - everyone is welcome here without any prejudices and judgments. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also, time and again, celebrated the many religious communities residing in Canada, supporting the rich heritage each brings to the fore. FB And that enthusiasm has trickled down to possibly every position of importance because in the following video you will see the Mayor of the City of Whitehorse, Dan Curtis learning to wear a turban and dancing happily to bhangra beats! The video was posted by Gurdeep Pandher on Facebook and since then gone immensely viral. The Mayor is seen dancing ecstatically to the Indian dance form in the City Council Chambers. The Dodgy Trump Dossier Reminds Me of the Row Over Saddam's WMDs By Patrick Cockburn January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Unz Review " - I read the text of the dossier on Donald Trumps alleged dirty dealings with a scepticism that soon turned into complete disbelief. The memo has all the hallmarks of such fabrications, which is too much detail and that detail largely uncheckable and too many names of important people placed there to impress the reader with the sheer quantity and quality of information. I was correspondent in Moscow in the 1980s and again during the first years in power of Vladimir Putin. Every so often, people would tell me intriguing facts about the dark doings of the Kremlin and its complicity in various crimes, such as the infamous apartment block bombings in 1999. But my heart used to sink when the informant claimed to know too much and did not see that what they were saying contained a fatal contradiction: Putin and his people were pictured as unscrupulous and violent people, but at the same time they were childishly incapable of keeping a secret damaging to themselves. The conclusions reached in the Trump dossier similarly claim to be based on multiple sources of information where, in the nature of things, they are unlikely to exist. The dossier cites at least seven of them. Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively, [said that] the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald TRUMP, for at least five years. I obviously failed as a correspondent when I was in Russia because it turns out that Moscow is choc-a-bloc with fellows in senior positions willing to blow the gaff on the Kremlins deep laid plans. A and B, despite achieving high rank, apparently remain touchingly naive and more than willing to make revelations that, if known, would get them imprisoned or shot in short order. Reading the papers on Trump brought back memories of talking to Iraqi defectors in the 1990s who claimed to have plenty of information about Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and gossip about his family affairs. It did not take long to work out that they were making it up when they produced convincing but uncheckable details about the doings of some of the more dangerous and suspicious people in the world, with whom the defectors claimed have had frank and revealing conversations. In its determination to damage Trump, the US press corps has been happy to suspend disbelief in this dubious document. The former member of MI6, Christopher Steele, reportedly has a high reputation in espionage circles and was stationed in Moscow 20 years ago. The New York Times is unworried by his consequent inability to travel to Moscow to study Mr Trumps connections there. This is where the famed MI6 tradecraft proved so useful. Steele is said to have hired native Russian speakers to call informants inside Russia and made surreptitious contact with his own connections in the country as well. The word contact is a useful word for journalists because it could mean a highly-placed friend or, alternatively, it might refer to some lowly freelancer who is being paid to supply information. Having Russian speakers call up Russians in Russia is an astute move, though it presupposes that FSB does not monitor foreign phone calls to people with sensitive information. I suspect that those Iraqi defectors who used to tell me tall tales about WMD and the home life of Saddam Hussein would have dreamed up a more convincing story than this. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. Whos the Real Manipulator of Elections? Exclusive: In berating Russia for alleged interference in the recent U.S. election, the U.S. intelligence community ignores the extensive U.S. role in manipulating political movements around the globe, observes Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - The Director of National Intelligences public report on alleged Russian hacking opens with a key judgment that Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscows longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order. Thats a strong claim. The assertion suggests a fundamental and sustained Kremlin challenge to Western freedom, reminiscent of the early years of the Cold War. That such an unqualified and ideologically charged claim should lead the report speaks volumes about the politicization of the U.S. intelligence communitys leadership. That such a claim has gone mostly unchallenged, aside from Donald Trump, speaks volumes about the powerful ideological consensus in Washington for escalating political and military conflict with Russia. Yet a recent review of relations with Russia during the Obama years by former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul a harsh critic of President Putin puts the lie to the notion that Moscow has consistently sought to undermine U.S. political interests. At the same time, however, McFauls article illustrates the blinders shared by many American policy makers regarding the counterproductive impact on Russian behavior of repeated U.S. electoral and military interventions. From Cooperation to Conflict Writing for Foreign Policy, McFaul states that Russian cooperation allowed the Obama administration to negotiate the New START treaty, which slashed the number of missile launchers on each side; implement joint economic sanctions to pressure Iran into dismantling any capability of producing nuclear weapons; open up critical transportation routes for the resupply of NATO forces in Afghanistan; and arrange huge business deals for major U.S. corporations. Russia also cooperated extensively in counterterrorism and persuaded the Assad regime to give up its stockpiles of chemical weapons. These are hardly the actions of a government with a long-term plan to undermine the United States or the liberal democratic order. That order is far more at risk from the Saudi monarchy, whose export of the rigid, bigoted, patriarchal, fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism has fueled global extremism and contributed to terrorism, to quote The New York Times. So what went wrong with Russia? As I recently argued, and McFaul acknowledges, one major sticking point in recent years was the Obama administrations insistence on deploying missile defenses in Eastern Europe, which Moscow interpreted as a long-term threat to its nuclear deterrent. Congressional meddling in Russian affairs by imposing sanctions on alleged human rights abusers also angered the Kremlin. But those issues were not fatal, McFaul insists. Instead, McFaul claims, the fault lay with Putins paranoid reaction to common people demonstrating in the streets to demand greater freedoms and democratic rule during the Arab Spring, the 2011 Russian elections, and then in Ukraine. Putins response to those events, first the annexation of Crimea and then intervention in support of insurgents in eastern Ukraine, ended for good our ability to cooperate, he maintains. McFaul writes that Putin had wild theories about American financial support for Russian opposition leaders and their organizations, and about U.S. responsibility for regime change more generally in the Middle East and Ukraine. We tried to convince Putin and his government otherwise. We explained that the CIA was not financing demonstrators in Cairo, Moscow, or Ukraine . . . But Putins theory of American power engrained long ago as a KGB officer (and confirmed, it must be admitted, by previous American actions in Iran, Latin America, Serbia, and Iraq) was only reconfirmed by events during the Arab Spring and especially on the streets of Moscow in the winter of 2011 and spring of 2012. In his view, people dont rise up independently and spontaneously to demand greater freedom. They must be guided, and the Obama administration was the hidden hand. On that, we profoundly disagreed; our bilateral relations never recovered. Even Paranoids Have Enemies McFauls parenthetical acknowledgment of past U.S. complicity in regime change all over the world is refreshing. But he dismisses as phantom the documented evidence that the Obama administration also sought to overthrow regimes in areas of Russian interest with catastrophic results. In Libya, for example, Putin was appalled when Obama flagrantly violated his narrow mandate from the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians in the 2011 civil war. That March, President Obama accepted that broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake. One month later, he declared, with the leaders of France and Great Britain, Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good. A recent British parliamentary report condemning that fundamental change of mission blamed the Western military campaign for triggering Libyas political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa. McFaul is similarly silent about Obamas promotion of regime change in Russias longstanding ally, Syria. Fresh from their disaster in Libya, Obama and his two European partners declared in August 2011 that the time has come for President Assad to step aside. Their proclamation came four months after the Washington Post reported that Obama had continued a covert Bush administration program to fund Syrian Islamists who were engaged in a long-standing campaign to overthrow the countrys autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Five years and half a million dead later, can McFaul really paint Putin as paranoid about regime change? Russias 2011 Elections McFaul also discounts as irrational Putins anger over Washingtons alleged intervention in Russias 2011 parliamentary elections, which a hostile Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned as fraudulent. Putin complained that Clinton judged the elections unfair even before international election monitors announced their findings. He called her comments a signal for our activists who began active work with the U.S. Department of State to stage mass protests. Concerns about the fairness of the election were legitimate . Putin no doubt scapegoated Washington in part to explain the drop in popularity of his United Russia party. However, he wasnt making up the fact that the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), created during the Reagan administration to take the place of covert CIA programs to influence civil groups, was all over the place inside Russia. Moreover, according to University of Westminster dean Roland Dannreuther, For Putin and his entourage, there were clear parallels with Western democracy promotion in the Middle East and rising opposition and societal conflict within Russia, which had only recently achieved political and economic stability after its near collapse in the 1990s. The lesson they took from events in Libya and Syria was that the Wests commitment to democracy meant a willingness to break up societies, to use force, and to impose the wishes of an elite pro-Western minority on the majority. The interpretation was that we must not allow the Libyan scenario to be reproduced in Syria. Even more important, of course, was that the Libyan scenario should not be reproduced in Russia or in key neighbours, such as Ukraine. Regime Change in Ukraine Ukraine was, in fact, the final straw. After Washington recognized the February 2014 coup against the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych, who was friendly with Moscow, Russias rushed to annex (or reunify with) Crimea and back the separatist movement in Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine. Western powers responded with economic sanctions. Relations have gone downhill ever since. Although the political opposition to Yanukovych had genuine mass appeal (at least in Western Ukraine), Washingtons hands were all over the movement to oust him and move Ukraine closer to the West. The demonstrators were publicly encouraged by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (former foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney) and by the ardently anti-Putin Sen. John McCain. Just weeks before the Ukraine coup, the Russians intercepted a phone call between Nuland and the U.S. ambassador, discussing their picks for new leadership in the country. U.S. government funds also poured into Ukraine before the coup, through the National Endowment for Democracy, to train grass-roots activists, support key journalists, and foster business groups. In 2013, the president of NED, Carl Gershman, published a blatantly provocative op-ed column in the Washington Post calling Ukraine the biggest prize among countries of interest to Russia. He boasted that U.S. programs to pull Ukraine into the Western orbit would accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents and defeat him not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself. NED: History of Interventions Putin has had reason to doubt Western claims about democracy promotion since Washington and its European allies overlooked Boris Yeltsins unconstitutional power grab in 1993 and his blatant manipulation of the 1996 election. That election prompted a famous Time magazine cover story: Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win. U.S. interference in Russias domestic affairs was soon followed by the so-called color revolutions in such former Soviet republics as Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Columbia Universitys Alexander Cooley remarked, Eurasian elites viewed the color revolutions not as legitimate democratic responses to corrupt authoritarian rule, but as Western-sponsored threats targeting their very survival. These perceptions were supported when various Western NGOs and donors began to publicly take credit for their role in ushering in regime changes . . . Cooley added, the United States has also contributed to the erosion of its own credibility as a promoter of democratic values through the manner in which it dealt with the government of Georgia and its democratic failings in the post-[2003] Rose Revolution period. Indeed . . . the United States vigorous support of Georgia contributed to the notion that Washingtons efforts to promote democracy in the post-Soviet space were simply justification for supporting anti-Russian regimes. Ukraines Orange Revolution in 2004 followed more than $65 million in spending by the Bush administration to aid political organizations in Ukraine and to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders, reported Associated Press. Its report continued, U.S. officials say the activities dont amount to interference in Ukraines election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but . . . officials acknowledge some of the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate people who now call themselves part of the Orange revolution. American Manipulation Ian Traynor, the Guardians European editor, called the 2004 Ukraine campaign an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to . . . topple unsavoury regimes. Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box, he continued. If the events in Kiev vindicate the US in its strategies for helping other people win elections and take power from anti-democratic regimes, it is certain to try to repeat the exercise elsewhere in the post-Soviet world. As it happened, the campaign in Kiev did turn out to Washingtons liking. Yushchenko who was married to a former official in the Reagan administration emerged as Ukraines new president and began seeking membership in NATO and the European Union. Scholars agree that Putin and other Russian elites were deeply shaken by these successive U.S. interventions along their borders. That should have come as no surprise: Washington would have reacted much the same to Russia spending tens of millions of dollars on political revolutions in our backyard, as indeed we did during the Cold War in Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Grenada. The DNI report thus would have been much more correct to state that Russia has long opposed U.S.-led regime changes on its borders and in the Middle East. Moscow is not implacably hostile to American values or interests, as shown by the cooperative behavior it repeatedly showed during the early Obama years. In order to genuinely advance U.S. interests and better protect our freedoms, therefore, the Trump administration should follow through on the President-elects implicit promises to rethink policies that provoke conflict with Russia in the name of promoting democracy. Jonathan Marshall is author of many recent articles on arms issues, including How World War III Could Start, NATOs ProvocativeAnti-Russian Moves, Escalations in a New Cold War, Ticking Closer to Midnight, and Turkeys Nukes: A Sum of All Fears. CIA Director Warns Trump to Watch What he Says, be Careful on Russia By Doina Chiacu January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Reuters " - - CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday had a stern parting message for Republican Donald Trump days before he assumes the U.S. presidency, cautioning him against loosening sanctions on Russia and warning him to watch what he says. Brennan rebuked the president-elect for comparing U.S. intelligence practices to Nazi Germany in comments that laid bare the friction between Trump and the intelligence community he has criticized and is on the verge of commanding. In an interview with "Fox News Sunday," Brennan questioned the message sent to the world if the president-elect broadcasts that he does not have confidence in the United States' own intelligence agencies. "What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany," Brennan said. "I do take great umbrage at that." His comments followed a tumultuous week of finger-pointing between Trump and intelligence agency leaders over an unsubstantiated report of compromising information Moscow had collected on Trump. The unverified dossier was summarized in a U.S. intelligence report presented to President Barack Obama and Trump this month that concluded Russia tried to sway the outcome of the Nov. 8 election by hacking and other means. It did not make an assessment on whether the attempts were successful. Trump accused the intelligence community of leaking the compromising information, which its leaders denied. They said it was their responsibility to inform the president-elect that the allegations were being circulated. Brennan sounded an alarm on the topic of U.S. relations with Russia, something Trump has vowed to improve as he beats back criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump does not yet have a full understanding of Russia's actions, Brennan said, noting its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, its support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war and Moscow's activities in the cyber realm. "Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia of various actions it has taken in the past number of years is a road that he I think needs to be very, very careful about moving down," he told Fox. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Trump suggested he might do away with sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in late December in response to alleged cyber attacks if Moscow proves helpful in battling terrorists and reaching other U.S. goals. RUSSIAN RELATIONS The president-elect's comments about Putin and his reluctance to assign blame to Moscow for the hacking of Democratic political groups has opened him up to criticism that he will be too soft on Russia. For months, Trump had publicly doubted U.S. intelligence conclusions about the cyber attacks before acknowledging at a news conference on Wednesday that he thought Russia was behind the hacking. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told the Fox program, "What the president-elect is determined to do is to explore the possibility of better relations." Pence did not say whether Trump would undo some of the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions Obama had slapped on Moscow. He confirmed Trump's incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, held conversations with the Russian ambassador around the time the sanctions were imposed, but said the talks "were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats." However, Pence denied that Trump's political team had any contact with Russian officials during the presidential campaign. "Of course not," he told Fox. Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Friday they will investigate alleged Russian attempts to influence the election and any links between Russia and the political campaigns. Brennan also on Sunday said Trump needs to be mindful about his off-the-cuff remarks once he takes the oath of office on Friday, alluding to his penchant for making broad pronouncements on Twitter. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests," Brennan said. "So therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound. "It's more than just about Mr. Trump. It's about the United States of America." Dear Donald Trump: A Letter From Mexico 'What you say may cause deep damage that will last longer than a government's mandate or a financial year.' By Jose Carlos Yee Quintero Dear Mr President-elect, I am writing to you as a migration researcher and the coordinator of the Casa del Migrante (Migrant's House) in Tijuana, which provides assistance mainly to men who have been deported to Mexico from the United States. I am also writing to you as the descendant of Chinese migrants, born in Tijuana, at the southern border of your country, where I have witnessed the impact of US migration policies first-hand while I was growing up. The US has deported more than two million immigrants between 2010 and 2015. This represents more than twice the population of San Francisco. But, we also need to understand that we are talking about actual people and lives. In recent years, the Mexican government has taken several steps affecting migrants trying to enter the US, such as introducing checkpoints within Mexico, and raising the speed of some freight trains on which Mexicans and Central Americans travel towards the "American dream". I will tell you why this matters. When I worked at the border between Guatemala and Mexico, I met Sandra, a woman from Honduras who was travelling towards the US with her 16-year-old daughter. Sandra was running away from the Mara Salvatrucha gang, one of Latin America's most powerful street gangs, which was trying to recruit her child by force. As they tried to board one of these freight trains, Sandra's daughter managed to get on the train, but Sandra fell on to the rail tracks because of the train's high speed, and lost her left leg in the accident. Sandra spent weeks in the hospital, away from her daughter, who could not get off the train and spent two months looking for her mother. Why am I telling you this story? Because raising the speed of freight trains from 10 km/h to 60 or 70 is one of the measures that have been indirectly supported through different US programmes and funding schemes. Through the years, the control of migration to the US has started to take place from the south of Mexico itself. In real life, these policies result in broken families, mutilations, death, and suffering. Unfortunately, cases like that of Sandra and her daughter are very common. Just enter any migrant shelter in the south, along one of the migration routes that crisscross Mexico, or go on the main square of a city like Tapachula, and you'll see migrants with makeshift leg prostheses made out of PVC tubes and sellotape. Let me tell you about some other cases. I met Maria when she was staying in a shelter for migrant women in the north of Mexico. She was captured in California, on her way to work as a domestic worker, and deported. Maria's main problem was not the deportation itself, but that her four-year-old child, who is a US citizen and was in the nursery at the time of her mother's deportation, was sent into foster care. Now Maria is facing arduous processes that may take years, and may not even allow her to see her daughter again. Another common story is that of deported war veterans. After serving the United States in several wars, some vets end up being deported to Mexico because they have committed a felony and are not US citizens. After serving their sentence in the US, and although they've lived most of their life in the US and have pledged to protect this country, they are deported. I am telling you these brief stories to give you a glimpse into the real-life consequences of complex migration policies. I hope you can imagine how many different scenarios can exist and how hard it is for every one of those millions of persons to get back on their feet after a deportation or migration-related problem. In your new job, your decisions will not only impact the lives of US citizens, but also those of millions of fathers, mothers and children in dozens of other countries. I trust that your administration will represent US citizens and their concerns as best you can. I do not expect that the decisions you make in this area will leave us all satisfied. I simply ask that, before you take steps that will affect the future of millions of migrants and their families, you listen and have an open mind to understand how these decisions can not only affect other countries, but yours. One last thing: I'd like to remind you how important your public discourse will be during your mandate. What you say may cause deep damage that will last longer than a government's mandate or a financial year. Your discourse can become the ground for years of racism and xenophobia towards people who only want to survive, to work, and to give their loved ones the chance of a decent life. Your mandate will leave its mark on the world's history. I hope that this legacy will make you - as well as your voters and the millions of people who haven't voted for you, but whom you now represent - proud. Best of luck. Sincerely, Jose Carlos Yee Quintero This text has been edited for clarity and length. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. Nearly 2 Million Ecuadoreans Lifted out of Poverty since 2009 : Ecuador's National Institute of Statistics and Censuses reported that the country's multidimensional poverty rate dropped 16.5 percent between 2009 and 2015, translating into 1.9 million Ecuadoreans who no longer live in poverty. Obama Declares Cuba and Venezuela National Security Threats : The United States declared a national emergency to deal with perceived "threats" in Cuba and Venezuela on Friday, along with Iran, Libya, Ukraine, Zimbabwe. With Rising Prices, Could Pena Nieto Face a Tortilla Rebellion? : In seven out of 10 cities tortillas have had an increase of 5 percent reaching 80 cents per kilogram in a country where the daily minimum wage is US$3.8 and where nearly half the population lives in poverty. Mexico: New plan to help citizens in US after Trump win : The news comes as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador agreed to join forces and seek support from Mexico to forge a joint strategy in response to Trump, El Salvador's foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday. Europes Courageous Journalism Voice Has Passed Away By Paul Craig Roberts January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - On January 13, Udo Ulfkotte died, reportedly of a heart attack. Ulfkotte had been an editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitzung. He published a courageous book in which he said that the CIA had a hand on every significant journalist in Europe, which gave Washington control over European opinion and reduced knowledge of and opposition to Washingtons control over European heads of state. Essentially, there are no European governments independent of Washington. Courage, once plentiful in Europe, is today hard to find. Charles de Gaulle was the last head of a major European state that maintained independence from Washington. Today we find independence in Marine Le Pen and perhaps in the president of Hungary. But for the most part West and East European heads of state are Washingtons vassals committed to Washingtons wars. This, of course, includes the Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, and the British Prime Minister. These once powerful countries of Europe, whose dominance comprises most of Western history from the fall of Rome to the Second World War, are today American puppet states. Under Yeltsin, Russia herself succumbed to American overlordship, but under Vladimir Putin Russia regained her independence and is today able to constrain Washingtons unilateralism in some areas of the world, such as Syria and Crimea. In the Far East Washingtons Japanese vassal is now checked by the rise of China, a country like Russia that has first class leadership that cannot be found anywhere in the West. The Western world has proven itself incapable of producing real political leadership. This failure results from the centuries of Western dominance that has so corrupted Western political processes that the entirety of the West is subservient to an oligarchy that has succeeded in concentrating all income and wealth gains in a few hands. These few have enormous power, as we see in the CIAs open and blatant assault on the president-elect. The danger that life on earth faces is that Washington assumes, based on the historical rule of the West, that it is normal for this rule over the world to continue. However, Russia and China do not agree. Either country is sufficient to stand up to Washington, and together they overmatch Washingtons military capability. Due to the arrogance that resides in Washington, the would be overlords of the world are not aware that Russia and China are not Iraq and Libya. If the moronic idiots that rule in Washington bring us into war with these powers, the United States will disappear from history along with the rest of the world. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. Home Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter Not Yet Inaugurated; Already a New War By Joe Clifford January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Set aside all feelings for Donald Trump, and reflect for a moment on the historical happenings of the last couple of months. Early in the primary, Trump was the media darling, with non-stop coverage of everything he said or did. He was constantly on media outlets, so much so, rivals in his own party started complaining of unfair coverage. They argued Trump was getting free air time, while they were excluded. To their point, Media Quant, a company that does media analysis, estimated that Trump had been given about 2 billion dollars worth of free coverage by media outlets. Suddenly the honeymoon ended, and Trump went from media darling, to the devil incarnate. Media suddenly turned with vengeance on Mr. Trump, and his every move was analyzed and ridiculed. Some argue the turning point occurred, because media realized they had created a Frankenstein, and they might be, in part, responsible for a possible Trump victory, and were shocked at what they had done. Further reflection on the precise turning point shows things dramatically changed and reversed, when Mr Trump expressed his sentiments about Russia. He insisted, he did not want a war with Russia, and he would move to reset US relations with Russia. That was the turning point, and from that day on he was subjected to relentless criticism and ridicule, by corporate media outlets. He was accused of being an unwitting tool of Putin. This was followed by a plethora of stories about his close relations with Russia, and the possible relationships members of his administration had with Russia. Now there were two villains; Trump and Russia, and they were always depicted as more or less one in the same. The Russophobes were in full attack. Russia, their new scapegoat, was vilified and called all kinds of nonsensical things, and was accused of all that is evil in the world. But Trump held fast and brushed aside most of the accusations and stood by his belief that better relations with Putin and Russia was a good thing. Things escalated, when accusations without proof were made and repeated by corporate media, that Russia had hacked the e-mails of the DNC, and interfered in the election to assist Trump in his victory. This story went viral despite the absence of any credible evidence. Journalism was thrown aside, and any rumor, accusation, based on no source or anonymous sources, circulated widely. Papers like the NYT and the Washington Post became shameless in their unfounded, unsubstantiated, repetition of rumors and accusations. It appeared a modern-day McCarthy-like witch hunt was in progress. Early on, the FBI would not go along with the intelligence agencies, but was eventually bullied into compliance. The intelligence agencies produced laughable reports and proof of their accusations, and still Mr Trump stuck to his belief that a better relationship with Russia is a good thing. Trump refused to knuckle under to the government, corporate media, and intelligence narrative. They got desperate and pulled out of their hat, a completely made up story about Trumps sexual behavior, which was plastered and repeated all over corporate media for one day, until it was categorically and unequivocally proven to be a fake story, but the damage had been done. BuzzFeed, who originally published the bogus report, after CNN announced it, got over 2 million reads, and no one knows how many times the story was read or heard on subsequent venues of corporate media. The damage had been done. The stakes have been vicariously raised with the leak of disinformation by the intelligence agencies. It was either a leak, or release of information, depending on your point of view. Formerly, the military industrial complex, along with the support of neocons, the media, and intelligence agencies, had been trying to bring Trump into the fold of demonizing Russia and Putin. With this latest however, things have changed, with the goal of the Deep State (a collection of the above forces) apparently having decided, to bring Mr Trump down. The intelligence agencies have refined their trade of bringing down governments for the past fifty years all over the world, and now have decided to take down our own. Far-fetched? Think about the whole thing, especially the time and sequence of events. Think about the timing of the latest leak of the fake bogus story of Mr. Trumps alleged exploits. It was leaked, and appeared just in time for Mr Trumps first press conference. We are spectators to a historical battle between a President elect and the Deep State. Certainly, there have been many other such battles, but they have never erupted in open warfare with the intent of bringing down a sitting president. If this be true, continue to watch the constant dribble by corporate media, working in conjunction with the military industrial complex and the neocons, to undermine this President. Their goal is to render him useless by throwing so much adverse publicity at him, the public will demand his impeachment. Time will tell, but it is very apparent that the battle lines have been drawn. Will Trump fold and be beaten into submission by those powerful forces, and jump on the demonizing Russia bandwagon, or will he continue to defy them? Some readers hate Mr Trump so much they are probably wishing for his demise. I believe Trump is horrible, and in no way, would I ever support such a horrible person to be president, but put all that aside and ponder the happenings. Those who cannot put their emotional hard feelings aside should be very cautious about getting what you wish for. If those Deep State forces prevail, and run Trump out of town, what next? For Mr. Trump, a bit of parting advice. Dont be hanging around any grassy knolls. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. Please read our Comment Policy before posting - It is unacceptable to slander, smear or engage in personal attacks on authors of articles posted on ICH. Those engaging in that behavior will be banned from the comment section. Home Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter Obamas Farewell Tears Are an Insult, His Record is Soaked in Blood By John Wight Do not be fooled by the tears and gushing words of Obama and his supporters as he counts down to his departure from the White House. They are an insult when measured against the tears of the countless Libyans, Syrians, Afghans and others who have suffered as a result of a foreign policy that brought his administration into disrepute. Barack Obama goes down in history as a president who more than any other in living memory entered the White House on a wave of hope and expectation, only to depart eight years and two terms later under a cloud of crushing disappointment and bitterness. In speech after speech, America's first black president outlined a vision of his country's place in the world that would embrace multilateralism, place a premium on diplomacy, and embrace a foreign policy underpinned by justice. He also pledged to close the controversial US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Eight years later it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that he lied. When it comes to the Middle East, although Obama certainly cannot be blamed for creating the disaster in Iraq for this we have the war unleashed on the country by his predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2003 to thank his actions upon entering the White House in 2009 made the situation worse. The military surge, begun in 2007 under the Bush administration with the deployment of thousands of additional US troops to the country's Anbar province (Sunni Triangle), had been designed to end the brutal sectarian control of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) over the province. Within a year it had succeeded in reducing the terrorist group to the point of near extinction. In partnership with Anbar's Sunni tribes, who'd suffered under the iron heel of the terrorist group, US forces had embarked on an aggressive policy of seek and destroy. It was an innovative and successful operation that not only succeeded militarily but also in terms of winning the hearts and minds of the country's Sunni minority. Unconscionably, Obama ended the surge while continuing to support the Maliki government in Baghdad, whose sectarian policies favouring of the countries Shia majority at the expense of the Sunni minority led to the revival of AQI's fortune. In 2013 the group changed its name to Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) and at the beginning of 2014 succeeded in taking control of Fallujah, just 57km from Baghdad, where its notorious black flag first came to international attention. In attempting to underplay the significance of the growing strength of ISI in Iraq, Obama infamously compared the terrorist group to a junior varsity (jayvee) team in other words a threat of no great consequence. How wrong he was. In June 2014, ISI launched offensives against Tikrit and Mosul, taking both cities, before moving across the border into Syria. There it morphed into Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL), establishing a reign of barbarism, terror, and cruelty such as the world hasn't seen since the Khmer Rouge ravaged Cambodia in the 1970s. It was a disaster that had arrived in the Middle East on the coattails of a so-called Arab Spring that saw the Obama administration throw former US and Western-supported dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt under the bus. It did so at the same time as opportunistically throwing its weight behind the mass protests that had erupted throughout the region, doing so with the objective of ensuring that the outcome was favourable to US and Western strategic, geopolitical, and economic interests. The destruction of Libya, wrought by Washington and its NATO allies in 2011, along with US support for sectarian terrorist groups in Syria, almost pushed the region into the abyss. When Russia entered the fray at the end of 2015, at the request of a Syrian government whose forces were overstretched and struggling to beat back a Western supported onslaught, Obama refused to accept Russia's request to join forces to defeat terrorism. Instead his administration did its utmost to impede Russian efforts. The result has been the unnecessary prolongation of the conflict in Syria and the suffering if its people. Along with the turning of Libya into a failed state, it produced a refugee crisis of biblical dimension, leading to thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean in the act of fleeing a region plunged into chaos. In Eastern Europe, meanwhile, the US under Obama's watch supported a fascist driven coup in Ukraine in 2014 that toppled the country's democratically elected government. The result was a civil conflict on Russia's southwestern border. The attempt to paint Russia as the cause of the ensuing instability exposed Obama's mendacity and his blithe disregard for Russia's security and legitimate rights. With the arrogance of a Roman emperor, the president attempted to bully the largest and most populous country in Europe into submission over Ukraine and its role in Syria fighting terrorism reduced relations between East and West to the point of full-blown crisis, where they currently remain. Add to his legacy a drone war that has killed hundreds of innocent civilians, and nobody should be fooled by the happy-clappy emotional farewell speeches he is currently giving in advance of his departure from the political stage. His record in office leaves both him and his presidency disgraced. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House editorial policy. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. Please read our Comment Policy before posting - It is unacceptable to slander, smear or engage in personal attacks on authors of articles posted on ICH. Those engaging in that behavior will be banned from the comment section. How the Israel Lobby Influences British Politics Video A six-month undercover investigation reveals how Israel penetrates different levels of British democracy. Posted January 15, 2016 Part 2 In part two of The Lobby, our undercover reporter joins a delegation from the Israeli Embassy at last years Labour Party Conference. The programme reveals how accusations of anti-Semitism were made against key Labour Party members and how a former official at the Israeli Embassy was upset when her background was revealed. Part 3 In part three of The Lobby, our undercover reporter travels to the Labour Party Conference, revealing how accusations of anti-Semitism by group within Labour targeted Israel critics and saw some investigated. Part 4 In part four of The Lobby, the senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy in London discusses a potential plot to 'take down' British politicians including a Minster of State at the Foreign office who supports Palestinian civil rights. Making Russia The Enemy Despite conflicting accounts about who leaked the Democratic emails, the frenzy over an alleged Russian role is driving the U.S. deeper into a costly and dangerous New Cold War. By Robert Parry January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Consortium News " - The rising hysteria about Russia is best understood as fulfilling two needs for Official Washington: the Military Industrial Complexs transitioning from the war on terror to a more lucrative new cold war and blunting the threat that a President Trump poses to the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist foreign-policy establishment. By hyping the Russian threat, the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, who include much of the mainstream U.S. news media, can guarantee bigger military budgets from Congress. The hype also sets in motion a blocking maneuver to impinge on any significant change in direction for U.S. foreign policy under Trump. Some Democrats even hope to stop Trump from ascending to the White House by having the Central Intelligence Agency, in effect, lobby the electors in the Electoral College with scary tales about Russia trying to fix the election for Trump. The electors meet on Dec. 19 when they will formally cast their votes, supposedly reflecting the judgments of each states voters, but conceivably individual electors could switch their ballots from Trump to Hillary Clinton or someone else. On Thursday, liberal columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. joined the call for electors to flip, writing: The question is whether Trump, Vladimir Putin and, perhaps, Clintons popular-vote advantage give you sufficient reason to blow up the system. That Democrats would want the CIA, which is forbidden to operate domestically in part because of its historic role in influencing elections in other countries, to play a similar role in the United States shows how desperate the Democratic Party has become. And, even though The New York Times and other big news outlets are reporting as flat fact that Russia hacked the Democratic email accounts and gave the information to WikiLeaks, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, a close associate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, told the London Daily Mail that he personally received the email data from a disgusted Democrat. Murray said he flew from London to Washington for a clandestine handoff from one of the email sources in September, receiving the package in a wooded area near American University. Neither of [the leaks, from the Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta] came from the Russians, Murray said, adding: the source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks. Murray said the insider felt disgust at the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders. Murray added that his meeting was with an intermediary for the Democratic leaker, not the leaker directly. [Update: Murray subsequently said his contact with the intermediary at American University was not for the purpose of obtaining a batch of the purloined emails, as the Daily Mail reported, since WikiLeaks already had them. He said the Mail simply added that detail to the story, but Murray declined to explain why he had the meeting at A.U. with the whistleblower or an associate.] If Murrays story is true, it raises several alternative scenarios: that the U.S. intelligence communitys claims about a Russian hack are false; that Russians hacked the Democrats emails for their own intelligence gathering without giving the material to WikiLeaks; or that Murray was deceived about the identity of the original leaker. But the uncertainty creates the possibility that the Democrats are using a dubious CIA assessment to reverse the outcome of an American presidential election, in effect, making the CIA party to a preemptive domestic regime change. Delayed Autopsy All of this maneuvering also is delaying the Democratic Partys self-examination into why it lost so many white working-class voters in normally Democratic strongholds, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Rather than national party leaders taking the blame for pre-selecting a very flawed candidate and ignoring all the warning signs about the publics resistance to this establishment choice, Democrats have pointed fingers at almost everyone else from FBI Director James Comey for briefly reviving Clintons email investigation, to third-party candidates who siphoned off votes, to the archaic Electoral College which negates the fact that Clinton did win the national popular vote and now to the Russians. While there may be some validity to these various complaints, the excessive frenzy that has surrounded the still-unproven claims that the Russian government surreptitiously tilted the election in Trumps favor creates an especially dangerous dynamic. On one level, it has led Democrats to support Orwellian/ McCarthyistic concepts, such as establishing black lists for Internet sites that question Official Washingtons conventional wisdom and thus are deemed purveyors of Russian propaganda or fake news. On another level, it cements the Democratic Party as Americas preeminent war party, favoring an escalating New Cold War with Russia by ratcheting up economic sanctions against Moscow, and even seeking military challenges to Russia in conflict zones such as Syria and Ukraine. One of the most dangerous aspects of a prospective Hillary Clinton presidency was that she would have appointed neocons, such as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and her husband, Project for the New American Century co-founder Robert Kagan, to high-level foreign policy positions. Though that risk may have passed assuming Clintons Electoral College defeat on Monday, Democrats now are excitedly joining the bash-Russia movement, making it harder to envision how the party can transition back into its more recent role as the peace party (at least relative to the extremely hawkish Republicans). Trading Places The potential trading places of the two parties in that regard with Trump favoring geopolitical detente and the Democrats beating the drums for more military confrontations augurs poorly for the Democrats regaining their political footing anytime soon. If Democratic leaders press ahead, in alliance with neoconservative Republicans, on demands for escalating the New Cold War with Russia, they could precipitate a party split between Democratic hawks and doves, a schism that likely would have occurred if Clinton had been elected but now may happen anyway, albeit without the benefit of the party holding the White House. The first test of this emerging Democratic-neocon alliance may come over Trumps choice for Secretary of State, Exxon-Mobils chief executive Rex Tillerson, who doesnt exhibit the visceral hatred of Russian President Vladimir Putin that Democrats are encouraging. As an international business executive, Tillerson appears to share Trumps real-politik take on the world, the idea that doing business with rivals makes more sense than conspiring to force regime change after regime change. Over the past several decades, the regime change approach has been embraced by both neocons and liberal interventionists and has been implemented by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Sometimes, its done through war and other times through color revolutions always under the idealistic guise of democracy promotion or protecting human rights. But the problem with this neo-imperialist strategy has been that it has failed miserably to improve the lives of the people living in the regime-changed countries. Instead, it has spread chaos across wide swaths of the globe and has now even destabilized Europe. Yet, the solution, as envisioned by the neocons and their liberal-hawk understudies, is simply to force more regime change medicine down the throats of the worlds population. The new great idea is to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia by making its economy scream and by funding as many anti-Putin elements as possible to create the nucleus for a color revolution in Moscow. To justify that risky scheme, there has been a broad expansion of anti-Russian propaganda now being funded with tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money as well as being pushed by government officials giving off-the-record briefings to mainstream media outlets. However, as with earlier regime change plans, the neocons and liberal hawks never think through the scenario to the end. They always assume that everything is going to work out fine and some well-dressed opposition leader who has been to their think-tank conferences will simply ascend to the top job. Remember, in Iraq, it was going to be Ahmed Chalabi who was beloved in Official Washington but broadly rejected by the Iraqi people. In Libya, there has been a parade of U.S.-approved unity leaders who have failed to pull that country together. In Ukraine, Nulands choice Arseniy Yats is the guy Yatsenyuk resigned amid broad public disapproval earlier this year after pushing through harsh cuts in social programs, even as the U.S.-backed regime officials in Kiev continued to plunder Ukraines treasury and misappropriate Western economic aid. Nuclear-Armed Destabilization But the notion of destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia is even more hare-brained than those other fiascos. The neocon/liberal-hawk assumption is that Russians pushed to the brink of starvation by crippling Western sanctions will overthrow Putin and install a new version of Boris Yeltsin who would then let U.S. financial advisers return with their neoliberal shock therapy of the 1990s and again exploit Russias vast resources. Indeed, it was the Yeltsin era and its Western-beloved shock therapy that created the desperate conditions before the rise of Putin with his autocratic nationalism, which, for all its faults, has dramatically improved the lives of most Russians. So, the more likely result from the neocon/liberal-hawk regime change plans for Moscow would be the emergence of someone even more nationalistic and likely far less stable than Putin, who is regarded even by his critics as cold and calculating. The prospect of an extreme Russian nationalist getting his or her hands on the Kremlins nuclear codes should send chills up and down the spines of every American, indeed every human being on the planet. But it is the course that key national Democrats appear to be on with their increasingly hysterical comments about Russia. The Democratic National Committee issued a statement on Wednesday accusing Trump of giving Russia an early holiday gift that smells like a payoff. Its rather easy to connect the dots. Russia meddled in the U.S. election in order to benefit Trump and now hes repaying Vladimir Putin by nominating Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Besides delaying a desperately needed autopsy on why Democrats did so badly in an election against the also-widely-disliked Donald Trump, the new blame-Russia gambit threatens to hurt the Democrats and their preferred policies in another way. If Democrats vote in bloc against Tillerson or other Trump foreign-policy nominees demanding that he appoint people acceptable to the neocons and the liberal hawks Trump might well be pushed deeper into the arms of right-wing Republicans, giving them more on domestic issues to solidify their support on his foreign-policy goals. That could end up redounding against the Democrats as they watch important social programs gutted in exchange for their own dubious Democratic alliance with the neocons. Since the presidency of Bill Clinton, the Democrats have courted factions of the neocons, apparently thinking they are influential because they dominate many mainstream op-ed pages and Washington think tanks. In 1993, as a thank-you gift to the neocon editors of The New Republic for endorsing him, Clinton appointed neocon ideologue James Woolsey as head of the CIA, one of Clintons more disastrous personnel decisions. But the truth appears to be that the neocons have much less influence across the U.S. electoral map than the Clintons think. Arguably, their pandering to a clique of Washington insiders who are viewed as warmongers by many peace-oriented Democrats may even represent a net negative when it comes to winning votes. Ive communicated with a number of traditional Democrats who didnt vote for Hillary Clinton because they feared she would pursue a dangerous neocon foreign policy. Obviously, thats not a scientific survey, but the anecdotal evidence suggests that Clintons neocon connections could have been another drag on her campaign. Assessing Russia I also undertook a limited personal test regarding whether Russia is the police state that U.S. propaganda depicts, a country yearning to break free from the harsh grip of Vladimir Putin (although he registers 80 or so percent approval in polls). During my trip last week to Europe, which included stops in Brussels and Copenhagen, I decided to take a side trip to Moscow, which I had never visited before. What I encountered was an impressive, surprisingly (to me at least) Westernized city with plenty of American and European franchises, including the ubiquitous McDonalds and Starbucks. (Russians serve the Starbucks gingerbread latte with a small ginger cookie.) Though senior Russian officials proved unwilling to meet with me, an American reporter, at this time of tensions, Russia had little appearance of a harshly repressive society. In my years covering U.S. policies in El Salvador in the 1980s and Haiti in the 1990s, I have experienced what police states look and feel like, where death squads dump bodies in the streets. That was not what I sensed in Moscow, just a modern city with people bustling about their business under early December snowfalls. The police presence in Red Square near the Kremlin was not even as heavy-handed as it is near the government buildings of Washington. Instead, there was a pre-Christmas festive air to the brightly lit Red Square, featuring a large skating rink surrounded by small stands selling hot chocolate, toys, warm clothing and other goods. Granted, my time and contact with Russians were limited since I dont speak Russian and most of them dont speak English but I was struck by the contrast between the grim images created by Western media and the Russia that I saw. It reminded me of how President Ronald Reagan depicted Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua as a totalitarian dungeon with a militarized state ready to march on Texas, but what I found when I traveled to Managua was a third-world country still recovering from an earthquake and with a weak security structure despite the Contra war that Reagan had unleashed against Nicaragua. In other words, perception management remains the guiding principle of how the U.S. government deals with the American people, scaring us with exaggerated tales of foreign threats and then manipulating our fears and our misperceptions. As dangerous as that can be when were talking about Nicaragua or Iraq or Libya, the risks are exponentially higher regarding Russia. If the American people are stampeded into a New Cold War based more on myths than reality, the minimal cost could be the trillions of dollars diverted from domestic needs into the Military Industrial Complex. The far-greater cost could be some miscalculation by either side that could end life on the planet. So, as the Democrats chart their future, they need to decide if they want to leapfrog the Republicans as Americas war party or whether they want to pull back from the escalation of tensions with Russia and start addressing the pressing needs of the American people. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, Americas Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). Home Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter In Case You Missed It Americans Claim Role in Yeltsin Win Russia: Consultants say they spent months in Moscow secretly devising U.S.-style strategy. By ELEANOR RANDOLPH January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " LA Times " - July 09, 1996 - WASHINGTON A team of American political strategists who helped Gov. Pete Wilson with his abortive presidential bid earlier this year said this week that they served as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin's secret campaign weapon in his comeback win over a Communist challenger. And while some Muscovites are debating whether the Americans saved Yeltsin's job or merely provided one voice among many working to revive the Russian president's political chances, the consultants have now emerged to give interviews about how they quietly peddled advice to Yeltsin's 36-year-old daughter and key advisor, Tatyana Dyachenko. "I don't have candidates generally who are as responsive as Boris Yeltsin," said George Gorton, who worked for Wilson in 1994 and later ran Wilson's abortive bid for the GOP nomination. "Certainly not Pete Wilson." Hired in February through a San Francisco firm with connections in Moscow, Gorton said that the team members never met Yeltsin. Instead, they sent their detailed, unsigned memos to his daughter. "We were told that we were formally retained as advisors to the Yeltsin family." Although the Americans spoke no Russian and worked through translators, they began secretly laying out an American-style campaign to counter the public sentiment running against Yeltsin. When they started, Yeltsin's approval rating was about 6%, and, as they told Time magazine, Josef Stalin had a higher positive rating in their polls. Yet last week, Yeltsin defeated Communist candidate Gennady A. Zyuganov by more than 13 percentage points. In an interview here Monday, Gorton said that he and his colleagues quickly realized that Yeltsin did not trust his campaign advisors to help him win reelection and placed more value on the advice of his daughter. "However, she didn't know anything," Gorton said. "She's very bright, very articulate, very strong-willed, but she didn't have the first idea about campaigning, not even the ideas that a child here would have." The Americans were brought in by a circuitous route. Felix Braynin of San Francisco, a Soviet immigrant who is now a wealthy consultant to American businesses working in Russia, began helping the Yeltsin campaign last year. After he asked about American advisors who could help, San Francisco lawyer Fred Lowell suggested Gorton and Joe Shumate, an expert on political polling, and Richard Dresner, a political strategist who has helped not only Wilson but President Clinton in his earlier campaigns for governor of Arkansas. The Americans will not say how much they were paid, although their fee has been estimated at about $250,000. They were told that their involvement had to be treated like a state secret because of fears that the Communists would use their presence to try to foment anti-Western sentiment among voters. The group worked in hiding on the 11th floor of the Kremlin's lavish President Hotel in downtown Moscow. The hotel can be entered by invitation only. After six weeks inside, Gorton and his colleagues began to sneak out for occasional meals in the city or to go into the countryside to help conduct some of Russia's first focus groups. "What you have to understand is that this hotel is a minimum-security prison masquerading as a five-star hotel," said Steven Moore, a 28-year-old political consultant who joined in the effort. The team is still secretive about some of its Russian business. Dresner prefers to stay mum about whether he was in touch with his old colleague Dick Morris, now Clinton's chief campaign advisor. Citing certain "agreements" that they refuse to explain, Dresner and Gorton acknowledge only that information about their work was made available to the Clinton White House. The American advisors also worked with the Russians on such details as replacing a poster of a scowling Yeltsin with a smiling version. They suggested that some negative ads needed to be more subtle--persuading the Yeltsin campaign to pull one poster that showed a hammer and sickle made of cockroaches. Some of Yeltsin's Russian advisors felt strongly that he could not criticize communism, especially since Communists had done so well in parliamentary elections in December and their leader, Zyuganov, was doing so well in the polls. But Yeltsin followed the American advice until the last few days before the first round of balloting June 16, Gorton said. At that point, however, the Russian advisors canceled the anti-Communist ads. About the same time, Dresner said, Yeltsin's campaign polls showed a flattening out. But mostly, Yeltsin took their advice, the Americans said. Perhaps the most troubling moment in their adventure came when it appeared some of Yeltsin's advisors in the Kremlin were trying to convince him to cancel the election. At one point, the Americans believed that a Moscow pollster was handing out false numbers showing that Yeltsin could not possibly win. "It came to the point that we wrote a memo I would never have written anywhere else. We said: 'This campaign is in the bank. It's over. It's finished,' " Gorton said, meaning that Yeltsin had won. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. Please read our Comment Policy before posting - It is unacceptable to slander, smear or engage in personal attacks on authors of articles posted on ICH. Those engaging in that behavior will be banned from the comment section. Weve Been Hacking Elections For More Than a Century By Stephen Kinzer January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Boston Globe " - Outrage is shaking Washington as members of Congress compete to demonize Russia for its alleged interference in Americas recent presidential election. Any foreign intervention in our elections is entirely unacceptable, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has asserted. Russian actions, according to other legislators, are attacks on our very fundamentals of democracy that should alarm every American because they cut to the heart of our free society. This burst of righteous indignation would be easier to swallow if the United States had not itself made a chronic habit of interfering in foreign elections. One of our first operations to shape the outcome of a foreign election came in Cuba. After the United States helped Cuban rebels overthrow Spanish rule in 1898, we organized a presidential election, recruited a pro-American candidate, and forbade others to run against him. Two years later, after the United States annexed Hawaii, we established an electoral system that denied suffrage to most native Hawaiians, assuring that only pro-American candidates would be elected to public office. During the Cold War, influencing foreign elections was a top priority for the CIA. One of its first major operations was aimed at assuring that a party we favored won the 1948 election in Italy. This was a multipronged effort that included projects like encouraging Italian-Americans to write letters to their relatives warning that American aid to Italy would end if the wrong party won. Encouraged by its success in Italy, the CIA quickly moved to other countries. In 1953, the United States found a former Vietnamese official who had lived at Catholic seminaries in the United States, and maneuvered him into the presidency of newly formed South Vietnam. He was supposed to stay on the job for two years until national elections could be held, but when it became clear that he would lose, he canceled the election. I think we should support him on this, the US secretary of state said. The CIA then stage-managed a plebiscite on our mans rule. Campaigning against him was forbidden. A reported 98.2 percent of voters endorsed his rule. The American ambassador called this plebiscite a resounding success. In 1955 the CIA gave $1 million to a pro-American party in Indonesia. Two years later the United States maneuvered a friendly politician into the presidency of Lebanon by financing his supporters campaigns for Parliament. Throughout the elections, I traveled regularly to the presidential palace with a briefcase full of Lebanese pounds, a CIA officer later wrote. The president insisted that he handle each transaction by himself. Our intervention in Lebanons election provoked protests by those who believed that Lebanese voters alone should shape their countrys future. The United States sent troops to Lebanon to suppress that outburst of nationalism. Much the same happened in the Dominican Republic, which we invaded in 1965 after voters chose a president we deemed unacceptable. Our intervention in Chiles 1964 election was more discreet, carried out by covertly financing favored candidates and paying newspapers and radio stations to skew reporting in ways that would favor them. Condemning interference in foreign elections is eminently reasonable. The disingenuous howls of anti-Russian rage now echoing through Washington, however, ignore much history. Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and author of the forthcoming book The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzer. Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works By CJ Hopkins January 15, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " Counterpunch " - For students of official propaganda, manipulation of public opinion, psychological conditioning, and emotional coercion, it doesnt get much better than this. As Trump and his army of Goldman Sachs guys, corporate CEOs, and Christian zealots slouch toward inauguration day, we are being treated to a master class in coordinated media manipulation that is making Goebbels look like an amateur. This may not be immediately apparent, given the seemingly risible nature of most of the garbage we are being barraged with, but once one understands the actual purpose of such official propaganda, everything starts to make more sense. Chief among the common misconceptions about the way official propaganda works is the notion that its goal is to deceive the public into believing things that are not the truth (that Trump is a Russian agent, for example, or that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, et cetera). However, while official propagandists are definitely pleased if anyone actually believes whatever lies they are selling, deception is not their primary aim. The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an official narrative that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between the truth as defined by the ruling classes and any other truth that contradicts their narrative. Imagine this Maginot line as a circular wall surrounded by inhospitable territory. Inside the wall is normal society, gainful employment, career advancement, and all the other considerable benefits of cooperating with the ruling classes. Outside the wall is poverty, anxiety, social and professional stigmatization, and various other forms of suffering. Which side of the wall do you want to be on? Every day, in countless ways, each of us are asked and have to answer this question. Conform, and theres a place for you inside. Refuse, and well, good luck out there. In openly despotic societies, the stakes involved in making this choice (to conform or dissent) are often life and death. In our relatively liberal Western societies (for those of us who are not militant guerillas), the consequences of not conforming to the official narrative are usually subtler. Despite that, the pressure is still intense. Conforming to the consensus reality generated by these official narratives is price of admission to the inner sanctum, where the jobs, money, professional prestige, and the other rewards of Capitalism are. Conforming does not require belief. It requires allegiance and rote obedience. What one actually believes is completely irrelevant, as long as one parrots the official narrative. In short, official propaganda is not designed to deceive the public (no more than the speeches in an actors script are intended to deceive the actor who speaks them). It is designed to be absorbed and repeated, no matter how implausible or preposterous it might be. Actually, it is often most effective when those who are forced to robotically repeat it know that it is utter nonsense, as the humiliation of having to do so cements their allegiance to the ruling classes (this phenomenon being a standard feature of the classic Stockholm Syndrome model, and authoritarian conditioning generally). The current Russian hacking hysteria is a perfect example of how this works. No one aside from total morons actually believes this official narrative (the substance of which is beyond ridiculous), not even the stooges selling it to us. This, however, is not a problem, because it isnt intended to be believed it is intended to be accepted and repeated, more or less like religious dogma. (It doesnt matter what actually happened, i.e., whether the hack was a hack or a leak, or who the hackers or leakers were, or who they may have been working for, or what whoevers motives may have been. What matters is that the ruling classes have issued a new official narrative and are demanding that every normal American stand up and swear allegiance to it.) The ruling classes are not exactly making it easy for their followers this time. Their new official narrative (lets go ahead and call it The Putinist Putsch to Destroy Democracy) is so completely fatuous that its beyond embarrassing. The plot is more or less what youd expect from a mediocre young adult novel or a Game of Thrones-type fantasy series. And if that wasnt already humiliating enough for the liberals being asked to pretend to believe it, the PR folks in charge couldnt even be bothered to assemble a new collection of liars to market their childish fairy tale for them. Not only are they insisting that liberals take the word of the Intelligence Community and the mainstream media that sold the world the Saddam Has Secret WMDs hoax, they actually dispatched James R. Clapper to sit there, in more or less the same spot he sat in the last time he lied to Congress, and do his dog and pony show again. Meanwhile, the ruling classes papers of record, which cosmopolitan liberals rely on to provide a simulation of serious journalism, highbrow arts and culture, and so on, have descended to the level of the National Enquirer. Among the recent highlights was The Washington Posts Russians Hacked the Vermont Power Grid story, which it turned out involved neither Russians nor hackers, nor the Vermont power grids actual computers, and was basically just another made-up story, like the one about Putins Fake News Army. The New York Times, which has also been dutifully rolling out the new official narrative, has taken the leash off Charles M. Blow (aka The Withering Gaze), who is accusing Trump of being Russias appointment and proclaiming his election an act of war. And now, as I was writing this piece, they hit us with the Golden Showers story, in which Trump paid a bunch of Russian hookers to pee on the bed where Obama slept. Any day now we are going to be told that Elvis is secretly working with Putin to deploy a Zhirinovskian gravitational weapon in a UFO disguised as Jesus that Assange and Snowden will personally pilot across the Atlantic to sink America. Its like some kind of loyalty test in which the ruling classes are trying to determine just how far they can go with this crap before liberals refuse to salute any more of it. The point of all this propaganda is to delegitimize Donald Trump, and to prophylactically reassert the neoliberal ruling classes monopoly on power, reality, and truth. In case this wasnt already abundantly clear, the neoliberal ruling classes have no intention of giving up control of the global capitalist pseudo-empire theyve been working to establish these last sixty years. Theyre going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants after which life will go back to normal, and liberals will do their best to forget this unfortunate period where they pretended to believe this insipid neo-McCarthyite nonsense. Donald Trump wont send an official representative to the annual gathering of the worlds economic elite in Davos, taking place this week in the days leading up to his inauguration. Former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, a regular attendee in the past, told the group he would skip 2017 after being named in December to head the National Economic Council, said people familiar with the conference. Other top Trump appointees will also pass up the forum. A senior member of Trumps transition team said the president-elect thought it would betray his populist-fueled movement to have a presence at the high-powered annual gathering in the Swiss Alps. The gathering of millionaires, billionaires, political leaders and celebrities represents the power structure that fueled the populist anger that helped Trump win the election, said the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. Read more HERE. Update 1/30/16 Another My Neighborhood Storage Center is under construction in Florida. In a joint venture with Osprey Capital and private investors, Liberty broke ground on a new facility in downtown St. Petersburg. The partners hosted a ceremony earlier this month to commemorate the event. Attendees included community members as well as representatives from JM Williams Contractors, BB&T Bank and Genesis, a civil-engineering and architectural firm. Because of Libertys prior experience in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties, we are excited to re-enter the downtown market, Mikkelson said. Were focused on bringing a best-in-class storage facility to match the growing demands of the residential and commercial customers in the downtown core. The new development on 2nd Ave. North will comprise 92,000 square feet of storage space in 600 units and feature a 230-foot drive-through bay. Liberty Investment Properties Inc., which specializes in the development and operation of commercial real estate, is building a My Neighborhood Storage Center in Orlando, Fla. Once complete, it will be the companys 51st self-storage investment, according to a press release. The 90,000-square-foot, multi-story facility is near The Mall at Millenia, an upscale shopping center. It will offer climate control, a drive-through loading/unloading bay and 24/7 access. This new self-storage development will be a welcomed addition to the growing Millenia area and will provide exceptional service for the storage needs of private customers and business clients alike, said Adam Mikkelson, president of Liberty. Based in Orlando, Liberty focuses on income-producing assets and related equity and debt investments on behalf of individual and institutional investors. The company was founded by husband and wife Mike and Melissa Mikkelson, who built their first self-storage facility in 1988. It has diversified to offer a range of investment, asset-management and development ventures in the self-storage and hospitality industries. My Neighborhood Storage Center operates more than 10 locations in Florida, including a newly built property in Windermere. The Scotland self-storage market was recently featured in a BBC report chronicling the business. The report highlights the types of consumers who use storage and the state of the industry in the region, and compares its progress to the U.K. market as a whole. Though the Scottish market didnt emerge until the 1990s, about a decade behind other parts of the United Kingdom, the local industry is showing signs of growth behind efforts of independent operators, according to the source. "In Scotland we don't have much dominance by the major chains at all. In fact, the three major operators in the U.K. only have a handful of sites there, so the Scottish market is very much full of independent operators, Rennie Schafer, chief executive of the Self Storage Association of the United Kingdom (SSA-UK), told the BBC. I can certainly see significant growth over the next 10 years. Particularly in Scotland, more people will use it as more people become aware of the product. Consumer recognition is still a challenge across the U.K as a whole, the source reported. While 90 percent of the public have heard of self-storage, just 30 percent understand how it works, according to the 2016 annual survey published by the SSA-UK. Of those surveyed, 66 percent couldnt name a single self-storage brand. Growth in Scotland is being driven by smaller operators and primarily in urban areas. "The Scottish market was not as developed as the south of England, so growth was not as fast there, Schafer explained. "Scotland is more sparsely populated, and more densely populated areas help to bring more visibility to the product. The BBC report also highlights growth from business tenants, economic factors affecting the market and consumer motivations for renting self-storage. Update 6/7/18 Eric Capitanich has been sentenced to three years of probation for being an accessory after the fact in his mother's suicide last year at Peabody Self Storage. He also received credit for time served during the prosecution of his case. The charges couldve been filed as a misdemeanor or felony. Capitanich was charged with a felony and faced 16 months, or two or three years in prison, according to the source. A Solano County Superior Court judge also ordered Capitanich to attend counseling under the direction of the probation department. In addition, he cant possess dangerous or deadly weapons or ammunition. The firearm that was used in the suicide has been destroyed, the source reported. 9/12/17 Eric Capitanich appeared in court on Monday to waive his right to a preliminary hearing. During his Jan. 10 arraignment, Capitanich pleaded not guilty to the single felony charge, according to the source. His next court hearing is Sept. 25. Since Diane Capitanichs suicide, a police investigation has revealed she was suffering from severe health issues at the time of her death, the source reported. 1/16/17 Eric Capitanich, 43, has been arrested and charged with helping his mother commit suicide inside a unit at Peabody Self Storage in Vacaville, Calif. Capitanich called the police on Dec. 7 to report his mother, Diane Capitanich, had died from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to Lt. Matt Lydon. Investigators believe the 69-year-old womans body had been inside the unit for about two weeks, the source reported. Police recovered handwritten notes from Capitanich and his mother from inside the unit at 201 Peabody Road, which expressed the womans wish to die and detailed how the suicide would be carried out. Investigators believe Capitanich wasnt present at the time of the shooting but purchased the gun and taught his mother how to use it. Though Diane was the one who fired the gun, she may have used a device to assist her, Lydon told the source. We believe that he (Eric) believed he was carrying out his mothers wishes, Lydon said. Ive been doing this job for over two decades, and Ive never seen anything remotely close to this type of case. California voters passed a right-to-die law in June, which stipulates that terminally ill adults with 6 months or less to live may obtain aid-in-dying drugs with a doctors prescription. It isnt clear if Capitanich or his mother sought medical advice, according to Lydon. Capitanich has been charged with one count of assisting a suicide and will be arraigned on Jan. 26. He faces up to three years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Sources: San Francisco Gate, Man Who Was Accessory To Mother's Suicide Sentenced To Probation CBS Sacramento: Vacaville Man Charged With Helping Mother Commit Suicide in Storage Locker The Reporter: Man Accused of Assisting in Mother's Suicide Waives Preliminary Hearing A.M. Best has noted increasing M&A activity among Chinese insurance companies, a trend that is expected to continue in the long term despite an uncertain economic outlook in China and evolving regulatory policies.In a Bests Special Report, the ratings agency said that most of these acquisitions take place overseas; are focused on real estate when done overseas; and are targeted at industry-leading enterprises, banks, and other service-related companies when carried out locally.This growing M&A activity is driven by the buyers strategic aim for asset diversification, international business expansion, financial investment, and long-term development; and is mostly undertaken by new players. Currently, more than 200 Chinese buyers await local regulatory approval to start their insurance business.More private Chinese companies are also beginning to take an active part in outbound M&A mature markets, as compared to past years when the space was dominated by state-owned groups.And because the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) and Chinese companies are still in a relatively early stage of foreign investment, A.M. Best said they may face challenges caused by emerging issues, uncertain risks, and new policies.While the Chinese regulator will have to build its supervision experience, companies will have to be able to prove that they can financially sustain and successfully manage the acquisitions.CIRC said it will continue to implement a structured regulatory system that promotes transparency and prudent supervision of the industrys rapid growth. It recently issued guidelines on strengthening insurers asset-liability and risk management operations, and is also tightening its supervision on insurers funding sources and shareholding structures, A.M. Best reported.Major outbound M&As by Chinese companies include Anbang Insurance Groups purchase of Allianz Life Insurance Korea and Allianz Global Investors Korea, a deal which is still subject to approval; Fosun Groups buyout of Banco Comercial Portugues SA, also subject to approval; and CM Internationals acquisition of Sirius International Insurance Group in Bermuda. "We expect the insurance industry to fulfil its end of the bargain," minister said An Australian travel insurance company has warned uninsured travellers against expensive medical bills overseas, as it reveals that the costliest claim it paid out last year amounted to $1,300,000.Southern Cross Travel Insurance (SCTI) said that it received the highest claim it has ever paid in Australia during 2016, valued at $1,300,000, for a client who had to be transported by air ambulance from Southeast Asia for medical treatment, BTN News reported.SCTI CEO Craig Morrison said that the costs for foreign medical care and repatriation could quickly accumulate, making uninsured travellers highly vulnerable to significant financial losses.The reality is that unfortunate incidents can happen to anyone, at any time, regardless of how cautious the traveller is, he said. The cost of travel insurance is just a tiny fraction of the costs that can result from these incidents.Morrison cited as an example some hospitals in the US that require up to US$10,000 in deposit before they provide treatment, the report said.This is one of the key areas where having travel insurance is really important, as we can try to help eliminate the need to pay this deposit, he said. If you end up in a US hospital and are asked to pay, you should immediately call our emergency assistance team who will negotiate with the hospital on your behalf. McClellan was also a senior policy and technical adviser to two chairmen of the Committee during his time there. He has a wealth of experience in government, having served as lead counsel on the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002, the FSC Repeal and Extraterritorial Income Exclusion Act of 2000, and the Tax Relief Act of 2001. At Covington, he will be a part of the tax and public policy and government affairs practice groups. His tax knowledge covers international and domestic corporate taxation, accounting methods, redomiciliations, financial services, capital gains, dividend taxation, financial products, REITs and corporate integration. In private practice, McLellan most recently worked for PwC, joining in 2007. His first job after leaving government in 2005 came when he joined Alston & Bird. Earlier in his career he worked for Baker & Mckenzie, KPMG and in-house. Brexit, Unione europea, rapporti con la Russia, Nato e terrorismo. In una lunga intervista al Sunday Times, Donald Trump spiega alcuni punti chiave della politica estera e della sicurezza interna che contraddistingueranno lamministrazione americana a partire dal 20 gennaio prossimo, giorno del suo insediamento alla Casa Bianca. Rapporti tesi A partire dai rapporti con Bruxelles, che si annunciano tuttaltro che facili. Il presidente eletto considera lUe solo un mezzo per per raggiungere gli obiettivi della Germania. Percio ho trovato cosi intelligente che la Gran Bretagna sia uscita. Brexit, secondo il futuro capo di Stato, e una grande cosa che fara da esempio ad altri Paesi del Vecchio Continente destinati anche loro ad abbandonare lUnione europea. Intanto ha annunciato che lavorera subito ad un accordo con il Regno Unito, innanzitutto commerciale, e i primi passi verranno compiuti quando invitera la premier britannica Theresa May alla Casa Bianca, subito dopo il suo insediamento. Il pacchetto Non solo: il neopresidente considera lEuropa un ponte verso gli Usa per i terroristi. Per questo tra i primi provvedimenti che firmera una volta entrato in carica ce un pacchetto per rafforzare i confini americani. Trump gia in campagna elettorale aveva suscitato un polverone non solo con la proposta di vietare lingresso dei musulmani negli Usa, ma anche indicando come maggiore attenzione sarebbe stata rivolta a Paesi del Vecchio Continente con una forte immigrazione e ad elevato rischio terrorismo. E aveva indicato in particolare Francia e Germania. Nellintervista, il tycoon definisce la linea della cancelliera tedesca Angela Merkel che afferma ha permesso lingresso di un milione di immigrati e rifugiati in Germania, un errore catastrofico, aumentando di fatto in maniera esponenziale la minaccia terroristica in tutta lEuropa. Spiega cosi che i provvedimenti che si appresta a firmare potrebbero comprendere anche restrizioni sugli europei che viaggiano negli Usa e controlli estremi per le persone che arrivano in America da parti del mondo conosciute per la presenza del terrorismo islamico. Nato e Russia Trump ha poi ribadito le sue perplessita nei confronti della Nato, riprendendo alcuni concetti gia espressi in campagna elettorale. E obsoleta ha spiegato -. Non e attrezzata per combattere il terrorismo islamico e i suoi membri si appoggiano sullAmerica, non pagano quello che dovrebbero pagare. Lattacco allAlleanza Atlantica si traduce nellennesimo ammiccamento al Cremlino. Dobbiamo cominciare a fidarci di Vladimir Putin ha affermato, rivelando che proporra al presidente russo una riduzione degli arsenali nucleari in cambio di un allentamento delle sanzioni americane contro Mosca. What Is Financial Technology (Fintech)? Financial technology (better known as Fintech) is used to describe new tech that seeks to improve and automate the delivery and use of financial services. At its core, fintech is utilized to help companies, business owners, and consumers better manage their financial operations, processes, and lives by utilizing specialized software and algorithms that are used on computers and, increasingly, smartphones. Fintech, the word, is a combination of "financial technology." When fintech emerged in the 21st century, the term was initially applied to the technology employed at the back-end systems of established financial institutions. Since then, however, there has been a shift to more consumer-oriented services and therefore a more consumer-oriented definition. Fintech now includes different sectors and industries such as education, retail banking, fundraising and nonprofit, and investment management, to name a few. Fintech also includes the development and use of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. While that segment of fintech may see the most headlines, the big money still lies in the traditional global banking industry and its multi-trillion-dollar market capitalization. Key Takeaways Fintech refers to the integration of technology into offerings by financial services companies in order to improve their use and delivery to consumers. It primarily works by unbundling offerings by such firms and creating new markets for them. Startups disrupt incumbents in the finance industry by expanding financial inclusion and using technology to cut down on operational costs. Fintech funding is on the rise but regulatory problems exist. Examples of fintech applications include roboadvisors, payments apps, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending apps, investment apps, and crypto apps, among others. 1:03 Fintech Understanding Fintech Broadly, the term "financial technology" can apply to any innovation in how people transact business, from the invention of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping. Since the Internet revolution and the mobile Internet/smartphone revolution, however, financial technology has grown explosively. Fintech, which originally referred to the use of computer technology applied to the back office of banks or trading firms, now describes a broad variety of technological interventions into personal and commercial finance. Fintech now describes a variety of financial activities, such as money transfers, depositing a check with your smartphone, bypassing a bank branch to apply for credit, raising money for a business startup, or managing your investments, generally without the assistance of a person. According to EY's 2017 Fintech Adoption Index, one-third of consumers utilize at least two or more fintech services and those consumers are also increasingly aware of fintech as a part of their daily lives. Fintech in Practice The most talked-about (and most funded) fintech startups share the same characteristic: they are designed to be a threat to, challenge, and eventually usurp entrenched traditional financial services providers by being more nimble, serving an underserved segment of the population, or providing faster and/or better service. For example, Affirm seeks to cut credit card companies out of the online shopping process by offering a way for consumers to secure immediate, short-term loans for purchases. While rates can be high, Affirm claims to offer a way for consumers with poor or no credit a way to both secure credits and also build their credit histories. Similarly, Better Mortgage seeks to streamline the home mortgage process (and obviate traditional mortgage brokers) with a digital-only offering that can reward users with a verified pre-approval letter within 24 hours of applying. GreenSky seeks to link home improvement borrowers with banks by helping consumers avoid entrenched lenders and save on interest by offering zero-interest promotional periods. For consumers with no or poor credit, Tala offers consumers in the developing world microloans by doing a deep data dig on their smartphones for their transaction history and seemingly unrelated things, such as what mobile games they play. Tala seeks to give such consumers better options than local banks, unregulated lenders, and other microfinance institutions. In short, if you have ever wondered why some aspect of your financial life was so unpleasant (such as applying for a mortgage with a traditional lender) or felt like it wasn't quite the right fit, fintech probably has (or seeks to have) a solution for you. For example, fintech seeks to answer questions like, "Why is what makes up my FICO score so mysterious, and how it is used to judge my creditworthiness?" As such, loan originator Upstart wants to make FICO (as well as other lenders both traditional and fintech) obsolete by using different data sets to determine creditworthiness. They include employment history, education, and whether a would-be borrower knows their credit score to decide on whether to underwrite and how to price loans. Similar treatment is given to financial services that range from bridge loans for house flippers (LendingHome) to a digital investment platform that addresses the fact that women live longer and have unique savings requirements, tend to earn less than men, and have different salary curves that can leave less time for savings to grow (Ellevest). Fintech's Expanding Horizons Up until now, financial services institutions offered a variety of services under a single umbrella. The scope of these services encompassed a broad range from traditional banking activities to mortgage and trading services. In its most basic form, Fintech unbundles these services into individual offerings. The combination of streamlined offerings with technology enables fintech companies to be more efficient and cut down on costs associated with each transaction. If one word can describe how many fintech innovations have affected traditional trading, banking, financial advice, and products, it's 'disruption,' like financial products and services that were once the realm of branches, salesmen, and desktops move toward mobile devices or simply democratize away from large, entrenched institutions. For example, the mobile-only stock trading app Robinhood charges no fees for trades, and peer-to-peer lending sites like Prosper Marketplace, Lending Club, and OnDeck promise to reduce rates by opening up competition for loans to broad market forces. Business loan providers such as Kabbage, Lendio, Accion, and Funding Circle (among others) offer startup and established businesses easy, fast platforms to secure working capital. Oscar, an online insurance startup, received $165 million in funding in March 2018. Such significant funding rounds are not unusual and occur globally for fintech startups. Entrenched, traditional banks have been paying attention, however, and have invested heavily into becoming more like the companies that seek to disrupt them. For example, investment bank Goldman Sachs launched consumer lending platform Marcus in 2016 and recently expanded its operations to the United Kingdom. That said, many tech-savvy industry watchers warn that keeping apace of fintech-inspired innovations requires more than just ramped-up tech spending. Rather, competing with lighter-on-their-feet startups requires a significant change in thinking, processes, decision-making, and even overall corporate structure. Fintech and New Technologies New technologies, like machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI), predictive behavioral analytics, and data-driven marketing, will take the guesswork and habit out of financial decisions. "Learning" apps will not only learn the habits of users, often hidden to themselves, but will engage users in learning games to make their automatic, unconscious spending and saving decisions better. Fintech is also a keen adaptor of automated customer service technology, utilizing chatbots and AI interfaces to assist customers with basic tasks and also keep down staffing costs. Fintech is also being leveraged to fight fraud by leveraging information about payment history to flag transactions that are outside the norm. Fintech Landscape Since the mid 2010s, fintech has exploded, with both startups receiving billions in venture funding (some of which have become unicorns), and incumbent financial firms either snatching up new ventures or building out their own fintech offerings. North America still produces most of the fintech startups, with Asia a relatively close second, followed by Europe. Some of the most active areas of fintech innovation include or revolve around the following areas (among others): Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.), digital tokens (e.g., NFTs), and digital cash. These often rely on blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that maintains records on a network of computers but has no central ledger. Blockchain also allows for so-called smart contracts, which utilize code to automatically execute contracts between parties such as buyers and sellers. Open banking, which is a concept that proposes all people should have access to bank data to build applications that create a connected network of financial institutions and third-party providers. An example is the all-in-one money management tool Mint. Insurtech, which seeks to use technology to simplify and streamline the insurance industry. Regtech, which seeks to help financial service firms meet industry compliance rules, especially those covering Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer protocols which fight fraud. Roboadvisors, such as Betterment, utilize algorithms to automate investment advice to lower its cost and increase accessibility. Unbanked/underbanked services that seek to serve disadvantaged or low-income individuals who are ignored or underserved by traditional banks or mainstream financial services companies. These applications promote financial inclusion. Cybersecurity. Given the proliferation of cybercrime and the decentralized storage of data, cybersecurity and fintech are intertwined. Fintech Users There are four broad categories of users for fintech: 1) B2B for banks and 2) their business clients, as well as 3) B2C for small businesses, and 4) consumers. Trends toward mobile banking, increased information, data, more accurate analytics, and decentralization of access will create opportunities for all four groups to interact in heretofore unprecedented ways. As for consumers, as with most technology, the younger you are the more likely it will be that you are aware of and can accurately describe what fintech is. The fact is that consumer-oriented fintech is mostly targeted toward millennials given the huge size and rising earning (and inheritance) potential of that much-talked-about segment. Some fintech watchers believe that this focus on millennials has more to do with the size of that marketplace than the ability and interest of Gen Xers and baby boomers in using fintech. Rather, fintech tends to offer little to older consumers because it fails to address their problems. When it comes to businesses, before the advent and adoption of fintech, a business owner or startup would have gone to a bank to secure financing or startup capital. If they intended to accept credit card payments they would have to establish a relationship with a credit provider and even install infrastructure, such as a landline-connected card reader. Now, with mobile technology, those hurdles are a thing of the past. Regulation and Fintech Financial services are among the most heavily regulated sectors in the world. Not surprisingly, regulation has emerged as the number one concern among governments as fintech companies take off. As technology is integrated into financial services processes, regulatory problems for such companies have multiplied. In some instances, the problems are a function of technology. In others, they are a reflection of the tech industry's impatience to disrupt finance. For example, automation of processes and digitization of data makes fintech systems vulnerable to attacks from hackers. Recent instances of hacks at credit card companies and banks are illustrations of the ease with which bad actors can gain access to systems and cause irreparable damage. The most important questions for consumers in such cases will pertain to the responsibility for such attacks as well as misuse of personal information and important financial data. There have also been instances where the collision of a technology culture that believes in a "Move fast and break things" philosophy with the conservative and risk-averse world of finance has produced undesirable results. San Francisco-based insurtech startup Zenefits, which was valued at over a billion dollars in private markets, broke California's insurance laws by allowing unlicensed brokers to sell its products and underwrite insurance policies. The SEC fined the firm $980,000 and they had to pay $7 million to California's Department of Insurance. Regulation is also a problem in the emerging world of cryptocurrencies. Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are a new form of fundraising that allows startups to raise capital directly from lay investors. In most countries, they are unregulated and have become fertile ground for scams and frauds. Regulatory uncertainty for ICOs has also allowed entrepreneurs to slip security tokens disguised as utility tokens past the SEC to avoid fees and compliance costs. They have established fintech sandboxes to evaluate the implications of technology in the sector. The passing of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a framework for collecting and using personal data, in the EU is another attempt to limit the amount of personal data available to banks. Several countries where ICOs are popular, such as Japan and South Korea, have also taken the lead in developing regulations for such offerings to protect investors. Because of the diversity of offerings in fintech and the disparate industries it touches, it is difficult to formulate a single and comprehensive approach to these problems. For the most part, governments have used existing regulations and, in some cases, customized them to regulate fintech. What Are Examples of Fintech? Fintech has been applied to many areas of finance. Here are just a few examples. Roboadvisors are apps or online platforms that optimally invest your money automatically, often for little cost, and are accessible to ordinary individuals. are apps or online platforms that optimally invest your money automatically, often for little cost, and are accessible to ordinary individuals. Investment apps like Robinhood make it easy to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and crypto from your mobile device, often with little or no commission. like Robinhood make it easy to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and crypto from your mobile device, often with little or no commission. Payments apps like Paypal, Venmo, Block (Square), Zelle, and CashApp make it easy to pay individuals or businesses online and in an instant. apps like Paypal, Venmo, Block (Square), Zelle, and CashApp make it easy to pay individuals or businesses online and in an instant. Personal finance apps such as Mint, YNAB, and Quicken SimpliFi let you see all of your finances in one place, set budgets, pay bills, and so on. such as Mint, YNAB, and Quicken SimpliFi let you see all of your finances in one place, set budgets, pay bills, and so on. P2P lending platforms like Prosper, Lending Club, and Upstart allow individuals and small business owners to receive loans from an array of individuals who contribute microloans directly to them. platforms like Prosper, Lending Club, and Upstart allow individuals and small business owners to receive loans from an array of individuals who contribute microloans directly to them. Crypto apps , including wallets, exchanges, and payments applications allow you to hold and transact in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens like Bitcoin and NFTs. , including wallets, exchanges, and payments applications allow you to hold and transact in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens like Bitcoin and NFTs. InsurTech is the application of technology specifically to the insurance space. One example would be the use of devices that monitor your driving in order to adjust auto insurance rates. Does Fintech Only Apply to Banking? No. While banks and startups have created useful fintech applications around basic banking (checking & savings accounts, bank transfers, credit/debit cards, loans), many other fintech areas that have more to do with personal finance, investing, or payments (among others) have grown in popularity. 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 AI Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) AI Driven Financial Technology Patent Application Received a Notice of Publication San Diego, CA - November 3, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) received a notice of publication for its financial software patent application. Top AI Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer NEW YORK, NY - November 2, 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, announces the hiring of Euan King, an experienced and respected Insurtech industry leader as Chief Revenue Officer for insurance technology-focused subsidiary Intellagents. 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. Check out our Podcasts for great investor ideas: Get new posts by email: Subscribe Powered by Investorideas.com Newswire: Subscribe to Investor Ideas Newswire Joanna Krupa and Brandi Glanville's legal battle is FINALLY coming to a head later this month after nearly two years of legal wrangling.reports that lawyers for formerstar Joanna Krupa, the plaintiff, and formerstar Brandi Glanville are set to argue before Judge Pedro Echarte on whether he should throw out a slander case involving the two reality stars.The subject matter is delicate: Its about rumors allegedly spread by Glanville in 2013 and 2014 that a foul odor emanates from Krupas lady parts.And on January 24, Judge Echarte will have to decide whether Granvilles statements on Bravo, the cable outfit that owns the Real Housewives franchise, fall under a statute of limitation.Glanvilles side says the one-year limitation of California, where the statement was made, should be considered. If that were the case, the lawsuit would be dismissed, reports the publication.Krupas attorney, Ray Rafool, says only a fool would use California law in Florida, where the limit is two years. If the judge picks Florida, the case will likely go to a trial later this year.Its unlikely the judge will throw the case out on that argument, Rafool says. Joanna was and is a resident of Florida, so theres no reason to use California standards.What makes that motion even more important is that Rafool won the right to ask Glanville for punitive damages since Glanville made the un-hygienic accusations she claims she was just repeating what a former lover of Krupas told her willfully and more than once.Punitive damages are supposed to punish a person in her wallet, Rafool said. The award will be proportionate to Glanvilles wealth.Thats estimated to be in the $4.7 million range, mostly from Glanvilles divorce from Third Watch star Eddie Cibian in 2010.Photo Credit: Bravo A group representing Catholic primary schools is insisting there is no baptism requirement for their school places. It comes as the Minister for Education Richard Bruton is due to announce plans this morning to legislate on the controversial school admissions system. Under the so-called 'baptism barrier', many children cannot access religious primary schools unless they have been baptised in a Christian faith. The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association says it only arises in cases of oversubscription for school places, when preference may then be given to a baptised child. General Secretary Seamus Mulconry insists it is mostly a problem in the Dublin area. He said: "There are a few in the commuter belt, but the vast majority of oversubscribed schools are in Dublin, and in affluent areas in Dublin. "Nobody has been refused entry down the country, because their child hasn't been baptised, because oversubscription is not happening in rural areas." In a speech later today, it is believed the Minister will say he believes it is unfair that publicly funded religious schools are able to give preference to children of their own religion ahead of those of no religion who may live closer to the school. On Newstalk Breakfast, the Minister said he is aiming to ensure Ireland has "the best education service in Europe", and wants the system to accommodate people of different faiths. "Ireland has changed very substantially, and we now need to respond to the new environment", he said. "Many parents want choice and don't marry in the Catholic or any other denominational setting." Minister Bruton said allowances need to be made for these families as 96% of primary schools are denominational. Meanwhile, new research by the campaign group EQUATE shows that almost one in four parents of children of school-going age would not have baptised their child if they did not need it to gain entry to their local school. EQUATE Executive Director Michael Barron says there is growing momentum across Irish society to remove the baptism barrier. He said: "We've heard from parents who actually regret baptising their children against their beliefs solely on the basis of getting their children into a local school", he said. "We heard last year from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin who said he really did not believe in the practice of baptising children to get into your local school. "I think there's widespread agreement that it's really not a practice that anybody can really support in a modern democracy." Latest: Twenty-seven inmates have died in eruptions of violence in two northern Brazilian prisons, officials have said. Earlier: Police have entered two prisons where fighting between rival gangs left at least 10 inmates dead in northern Brazil. The riot started in the Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho detention facilities outside the city of Natal on Saturday, said the office in charge of state penitentiaries. Police entered the adjacent prisons on Sunday morning. Authorities have said they expect the death toll from the violence to rise. The riot in the state of Rio Grande do Norte was the latest in a series of massacres in the country's penitentiaries that have killed more than 100. The last rebellion in Alcacuz prison, which should house 620 inmates but has 1,083, was in November 2015 when a tunnel was discovered in one pavilion. The recent outbreak of prison violence in Brazil began on January 1-2 when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. The Family Of The North gang targeted members of Brazil's most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered. Then 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out, in the neighbouring state of Roraima on January 6. Experts say First Command, known by the Portuguese acronym PCC, is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions in Brazil's penitentiaries to expand its reach across the national prison system. The gang runs drug-trafficking operations both inside and outside prisons even though many of its leaders are in maximum security penitentiaries in Sao Paulo state. Donald Trump has pledged to secure a rapid trade agreement with Britain as he predicted leaving the European Union would be a "great thing" for the UK. In an interview for The Times, the US president-elect said people voted for Brexit because they "want their own identity". He also used the interview to signal his desire for a new arms reduction agreement with Russia saying the numbers of nuclear weapons should be "reduced very substantially". In contrast to Barack Obama, who said Britain would be at the "back of the queue" when it came to a trade deal with the US, Mr Trump made clear it would be a priority for his administration. "We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides," he said. He made clear that - unlike his predecessor who urged British voters to back Remain - he welcomed last June's referendum vote. "People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity," he said. "Brexit is going to end up being a great thing." Despite having prompted fears of a new arms race last year when he said the US needed to "greatly strengthen and expand" its nuclear capability, Mr Trump indicated he would like to strike a new nuclear deal with Russia. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that's part of it," he said. The president-elect - who will be inaugurated on Friday - also spoke of his belief that German chancellor Angela Merkel had made an error when she opened Germany's doors to migrants. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals," he said. In his first UK interview as president-elect, Mr Trump said he would be inviting Theresa May for an early meeting in Washington. "I love the UK," he said. "She's requesting a meeting and we'll have a meeting right after I get into the White House and it'll be, I think we're gonna get something done very quickly." He disclosed that the Prime Minister had written to him shortly after Christmas with a copy of Winston Churchill's address to the -Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. In her letter, she said she hoped the feeling of "unity and fraternal association" between the two countries was "as true today as it has ever been". In what was described as a wide-ranging interview, Mr Trump said orders would be signed next Monday to strengthen America's borders. They could include travel restrictions on Europeans coming to the US as well as "extreme vetting" of those entering from parts of the world known for Islamist terrorism. Mr Trump was highly critical of US foreign policy, describing the invasion of Iraq as "possibly the worst -decision ever made in the history of our country", -likening it to "throwing rocks into a -beehive". He said Afghanistan was "going badly" and the offensive to retake Mosul - Islamic State's last stronghold in Iraq - had turned out to be a disaster. Agriculture, Food and Marine Minister Michael Creed announced last week that agreement had been reached with Egypt for re-opening its market to Irish beef. Once the necessary technical arrangements are in place, five Irish plants can commence exports to Egypt, the largest market in the Middle East with some 95m consumers. Egypt banned Irish beef exports in November 2000 over BSE fears. It had been one of the largest markets for the product. The recent agreement, which follows the opening of the Egyptian market to live Irish cattle in February of last year, also includes approval for beef offals and a limited approval for particular types of sheepmeat products. Minister Creed said the search for new third country markets, a top priority for his department, has taken on an added urgency in the context of the challenges posed by Britains forthcoming exit from the European Union. Last year saw the extension of market access to the United States for Irish beef as well as the opening of the Canadian, New Zealand and Israeli beef markets. Significant steps were also taken in terms of beef market access to China, South Korea and Vietnam amongst others and I look forward to further progress in 2017, he said. Farm leaders have welcomed the re-opening of the Egyptian market but they have also called for increased efforts to secure more outlets for both beef and live exports. Greater emphasis is being placed on these calls this year because the number of cattle on the market is likely to increase by some 100,000, with a continuing increase in calf supplies. Live cattle exports fell by 18% last year to some 147,000 head. This followed a 55% decline in cattle movements to Northern Ireland, as well as fewer exports to the Netherlands (-38%) and Italy (-24%). More positively, exports to Turkey began in September, and these reached almost 20,000 for the year. Exports to Spain increased by 26%, totalling 36,700 head. Joe Burke, Bord Bias livestock sector manager, told a recent meeting in Tullamore, Co Offaly, that French exports were highly competitive in 2016, and the Netherlands remains challenging. While Spain is a key market for quality calves, EU demand has been impacted by cull cow supplies and so there is an increasing focus on international markets. Mr Burke said a recent trade mission to Algeria has prompted interest from buyers to explore possibilities of buying livestock from Ireland. Recent communications with these potential importers indicate a desire by them to visit Ireland and establish direct contacts with the Irish livestock industry. Algeria imports an average of 40,000 animals per year, with France and Spain being the main two export partners, he said. Teagasc has meanwhile warned that the Irish beef sector is facing into a difficult year. Supplies across the EU are forecast to increase. Demand for beef in the EU is not particularly strong and EU beef prices are likely to fall by up to 10%. Given that the UK market is particularly important for Irish beef exports, the weakness of sterling will also have an adverse impact on beef prices in Ireland which are forecast to decline by 12%, it said. Irish Farmers Association president Joe Healy said a major national diplomatic initiative is needed to maximise every single market opportunity, especially for live exports. It is clear that there are real opportunities for Ireland in the live export markets such as Turkey, North Africa and continental Europe and all of these must be actively pursued in 2017, he said. In order to drive competition and deliver viable prices from the market, Mr Healy said there is a need to get the capacity of the live trade back up to 300,000 to 400,000 head. Currently there are four boats cleared to sail. Another is set to be inspected. Three more are lined up for approval. All are essential to service the new and developing live export markets, he said. Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association Livestock committee chairman, Michael Guinan, said the more markets that are available to Irish beef exports the healthier the outlook for the sector. But securing new markets or re-opening markets, closed for whatever reason, could not be seen as an end-in-itself. It cannot be stressed often enough that announcing new export opportunities is practically pointless unless primary beef producers can see a resultant improvement in their cattle prices. "These increased export opportunities have to translate back into better prices for the farmers or they quickly become just irrelevant as far as ICMSA is concerned, he said. Mr Guinan said priority must be given to stepping up live exports and working through the obstacles regulatory, licensing, shipping, financial that have repeatedly stopped that trade being developed. Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association Beef Committee chairman Edmond Phelan said the re-opening of the Egyptian market was welcome and timely. We need all the markets we can get to facilitate increasing cattle numbers. However, farmers will be keen to see if this move will strengthen beef prices. That will be the real test, he said. Mr Phelan praised Mr Creeds efforts to open live trade with Algeria. With extra cattle supplies, these ongoing efforts to secure new markets are vital. He said that the ICSA would also like to see the same efforts put into the potentially lucrative Iran market ICSA president Patrick Kent previously called on the Irish Government to re-open its Embassy in Tehran. It followed a meeting he had in Dublin with the Iranian Ambassador to Ireland Javad Kachoueian. The state-of-the art facility, which cost approximately 250,000, is being named after a noted former senior army officer, Lieutenant General Pat Nash. The facility will be utilised to deliver training programmes to the significant number of new entrants due to be recruited in 1 Brigade during the coming months. Kerry councillors and senior officials stole a march on their Cork counterparts last week: they met with Transport Infrastructure Ireland officials in Dublin and claimed to have secured agreement on the key bypass. But they didnt tell Cork about the meeting, despite what was to be a joint approach, it has been claimed. The mayor of Kerry, Michael OShea, said that Kerry was leading the way in securing the Macroom N22 bypass, and they felt let down that Corks mayor had not joined with them. The delegation from Kerry County Council said it was absolutely amazed at the commitment they received for the bypass and is confident work will begin by 2019. Cllr OShea said 14m in preparatory work, including fencing, is starting shortly, Their counterparts in Cork showed no enthusiasm for the meeting in Dublin and were not interested, he said. But the meeting has come as a surprise to officials in Cork, who were waiting to meet with Transport Minister Shane Ross and were planning to invite officials from Kerry to strengthen their case. It has come as a surprise to the mayor of Cork County Council, Cllr Seamus McGrath, and the chief executive, Tim Lucey, that Kerry County Council met with TII last week, regarding the N22 project, without having been notified by Kerry County Council that a such meeting was arranged, the council in Cork said. Far from not co-operating, Cork had understood there was to be a joint approach, the statement continued: Both the county mayor and chief executive advised their Kerry counterparts, in 2016, that Cork County Council would co-operate with the arrangements for a joint delegation, particularly as there are three other major national roads schemes that are critical to the south-west region, to be progressed by TII. Cork County Council is awaiting a meeting with minister for transport, Shane Ross on national road projects, and will be more than happy to facilitate Kerry County Council representation on same, in order to strengthen the case for the early commencement of the N22. Fr Kevin McNamara, parish priest in Moyvane near Listowel in north Kerry, wrote in this weekends Moyvane parish newsletter about his hurt beyond words at hearing the host described as haunted bread by a member of the Rubberbandits hip hop comedy duo, on the so-called flagship chat show of the national broadcaster. The priest who is a native of Co Clare and was for many years based in Killarney, where he was hugely popular, and outspoken, said the phrase which he found so offensive was endorsed by presenter Ryan Tubridy. Fr McNamara said he felt it was time to call a halt to the disrespect for religious belief and for those of us who respect religious beliefs. The religious were fair game in this country for all sorts of remarks but the description of the eucharist on the Late Late on January 6 was an all-time low. We live in an age where there is great emphasis on the need for clean air, clean water and a healthy environment, but how much attention do we give to fostering a clean soul, heart and mind?, the address began in the newsletter to parishioners. Fr McNamara outlined his complaint in detail: On the Late Late Show of January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, there was a discussion in which the holy eucharist [holy communion] was referred to as haunted bread. During a discussion about whether religious practice long in decline, might be on the rise, comedian David Chambers, who performs as Blindboy Boatclub in the comedy duo The Rubberbandits, said that young people attending midnight mass at Christmas were not going there for haunted bread, but because it was a family event. Everyone at midnight mass is half-cut anyway. The priest told parishioners that presenter Ryan Tubridy said he thought the phrase haunted bread was a great expression. Mr Chambers said, thats what it is, arguing that the Church does not want us to use critical thinking and is asking us to eat the ghost of a 2,000-year-old carpenter, Fr McNamara said. On hearing that fellow guest Michael Harding who had been a priest, he murmured sorry about the haunted bread stuff, the priest wrote. Isnt it time we paid attention to creating a clean environment for soul, heart and mind? Fr McNamara has asked parishioners. It hurt me beyond words to see the eucharist ridiculed on RTEs so-called flagship chat show. I have made a complaint to the Broadcasting Authority, the priest informed his parishioners at the Church of the Assumption. Mairtin O Muilleoir, a Sinn Fein South Belfast Assembly member, said the situation was moving inexorably towards an election, a week on from Martin McGuinnesss resignation over the so-called cash for ash crisis. Signalling that it is now on an election footing, Sinn Fein selected its three sitting candidates to contest the West Belfast constituency. With a Stormont election on the cards, Mr Brokenshire warned the parties of the dangers of running divisive campaigns and how they could hamper efforts to rebuild power sharing in Belfast. A deadline of 5pm today has been set for Sinn Fein to nominate a deputy first minister to replace Martin McGuinness. His resignation was precipitated by the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal a botched eco-scheme set to cost 490m but the row also reignited a range of other disputes dividing the DUP/Sinn Fein-led coalition. Mr Brokenshire said Brexit would not be hampered by a potential 25-day Stormont election campaign, polling in late February or early March and a possible three weeks of negotiations following that to form an executive. I should also stress that we are not delaying the (Brexit) timetable. We still remain absolutely committed to triggering the Article 50 process by the end of March, the Secretary of State told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show. Mr Brokenshire said a Stormont election was increasingly likely but that contacts with the parties are ongoing. He also said Northern Ireland should not lose out in the Brexit negotiations if there is no serving first and deputy first minister at Stormont. He said the ministers would remain in their roles even with an election and they will continue to be consulted. Mr McGuinnesss resignation automatically removed DUP leader Arlene Foster from her position as first minister as executive structures dictate one cannot govern without the other. Mr Brokenshire refused to be drawn on the possibility of Northern Ireland being run on the basis of a joint authority with Dublin. Im not contemplating alternatives to devolved government in Northern Ireland, he said. The political crisis in Stormont will come to a head this afternoon. The reappointment process is one issue to be raised, along with emergency proposals by DUP Economy minister Simon Hamilton aimed at reducing the RHI overspend and a Sinn Fein motion of no confidence in DUP Speaker Robin Newton. Mr Newton has been under political pressure over his handling of a recalled Assembly session to debate RHI before Christmas. He has also been forced to defend himself against conflict of interest accusations in regard to his handling of Assembly exchanges on a controversial charity in his east Belfast constituency. The devolution meltdown has cast a shadow of uncertainty over a series of big ticket Stormont Executive plans. One of those is a payment scheme for households losing out under the UK Governments so-called bedroom tax and, also on Monday, DUP Communities minister Paul Givan will by-pass the Executive to ask for direct Assembly approval for the support measure. Meanwhile, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood warned it may be illegal for the UK Government to push ahead with Brexit if there is no devolved government. Northern Ireland is most exposed in the event of a hard Brexit and yet our voice faces the risk of being sidelined and silenced, he said. Mr Eastwood also warned of the risk of a hard border with the Republic. Consultants at the regional hospital and campaigners are adopting a wait and see approach to the mobile lab which was announced last week by independent TD and minister of state John Halligan. Despite the announcement, more than 5,000 people marched through Waterfords city centre on Saturday afternoon in protest at the governments failure to allocate a second catherisation laboratory at UHW. The event took place under the auspices of the South East Patient Advocacy Group (SEPAG) who dismissed the mobile cath lab option announce last week as a stop-gap measure and not a permanent solution. Clinical director at UHW, Dr Rob Landers, said he expected the operating arrangements for the mobile lab to be given to consultants in the next day or two. The devil will be in the detail, he said. It depends on how many days a week it will be on site, will it be staffed and will the funding be there for the running costs? It wouldnt be beyond the HSE to put that lab in and under-fund it. Dr Landers said the mood was positive and determined to carry on the campaign for a permanent second lab following Saturdays march. Coming away from it, everybody was saying were not giving up on this, were going to stick at it. Campaigners say that sending cardiac patients to Cork is not a safe solution as they could lose vital minutes on the journey. I would be confident that if that lab is left there five days a week, it would more than justify the case for a permanent second lab. Lets see if they will put it there five days a week, Dr Landers said. Provision of a second cath lab at the busy hospital, which would allow 24/7 access to diagnostic equipment in Waterford for heart attack patients, has been a key tenet of John Halligans policy list in recent years. However, an independent study commissioned by the Government did not call for a second facility and instead recommended some patients be sent to Cork for cath lab services. Minister Halligan said on Friday that the agreement to provide a mobile cath lab is a step forward but not a permanent solution for Waterford. The independent alliance member attended Saturdays march, as did Fianna Fail TD for Waterford Mary Butler, and local Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane, along with the mayor of the Waterford metropolitan area, Councillor John Hearne, and the Mayor of Co Waterford, Councillor Adam Wyse. The situation was outlined by British chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond and in widely leaked extracts from a speech to be made by prime minister Theresa May tomorrow, sparking fears for Irelands tentative recovery. In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Mr Hammond said his government will do whatever we have to to ensure Britains economy stays competitive after leaving the EU. The chancellor said the protectionist policies are likely to include aggressive business tax cuts to entice existing firms to remain in Britain, if necessary slashing the countrys existing corporate tax rate a move that has a direct knock-on effect for Ireland. Asked if Britain could become a tax haven, he said: If we are forced to be something different, then we will have to become something different. If we have no access to the European market, if we are closed off, if Britain were to leave the EU without an agreement on market access, then we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short term. In this case, we could be forced to change our economic model. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people are not going to lie down and say, too bad, weve been wounded. The comments came as leaked extracts from a speech British prime minister Theresa May is due to give tomorrow confirmed her government is now seeking a hard Brexit from the EU. The hardline position would include pulling out of the single market and customs union in order to regain control of immigration issues and cancel any role for the European Court of Justice in Britain. However, it also has the serious impact of customs tariffs on exports from Ireland, a likely reduction of Britains corporate tax to undercut this country, and severe damage to hopes of a deal surrounding the common travel area and the Irish border. While the development has been seen by some as Britain seeking to take a strong stance before formal Brexit negotiations begin in March, British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last night warned the events are a recipe for some kind of trade war with Europe and could turn Britain into a bargain basement on the shores of Europe. A spokesperson for Taoiseach Enda Kenny declined to comment last night, saying the comments remain speculation, a position repeated by a Department of Finance spokesperson. However, junior finance minister Eoghan Murphy said it is about providing a gateway to the single market, which the UK no longer can if they leave, while Fianna Fail finance spokesperson Michael McGrath warned this country must prepare for a potential trade war between Britain and the EU. The implications of the UK strategy spells terrible economic news for Ireland, Mr McGrath said. Any suggestion of a trade war would leave Ireland as the meat in the sandwich; we would be heavily exposed. The UK wont be subject to any competition restrictions [such as corporate tax rates], so this could all get quite dirty, he said. The situation emerged as Mr Murphy told Irish investors at the Asia Financial Forum in Hong Kong a hard Brexit is inevitable, adding the risks from a disorderly exit or breakdown in talks are beyond the worst case scenario. Mr Murphy is on a four-day trip to Hong Kong, to be followed by next weeks European Financial Forum in Dublin, as part of attempts to position Ireland as an EU gateway for Asian business. MARGO Price has seen a few things in her 33 years. When she was a child, the bank foreclosed on the family farm in Illinois. A recovering alcoholic, she has spent time in prison for drunken misdemeanour. In 2010, she gave birth to twins only to lose one to a rare heart defect. But she has drawn strength from such reversals rather than submit to despair. You can hear it on her remarkable debut solo record, Midwest Farmers Daughter, released to widespread acclaim in 2015. Here, gushed reviewers, was an album which wore its scars openly and with a provocative pride. On stand-outs such as Hurtin (On The Bottle) and Worlds Greatest Loser, she sung with searing directness, accompanied by bare-boned Old Timey country arrangements. Loretta Lynn and a pre-rhinestone Dolly Parton were influences yet the pain so movingly articulated was Prices own. Singing about my life is one of the best decisions Ive ever made, says Price. It lets people know who I am and where I am coming from. If you dont like it well thats me. But if you can get past all the bad things Ive done and all that Ive gone through, then maybe you can connect with it. Honesty is a powerful quality. It is freeing, not having to hide anything. For so long, I felt these were things I shouldnt talk about. Shes a classic late bloomer. Price moved to Nashville in her early 20s dreaming of breaking into music. She passed through several bands and formed, with her husband, the cult ensemble Buffalo Clover. Yet nothing she did seemed to stick a situation not helped, she has stated, by her lifestyle. As is often the case in music, success, when it finally came, seemed to drop out of the clear blue sky. She recorded Midwest Farmers Daughter in just three days (the maximum for which her budget allowed). Some 30 labels rejected it until it was finally picked up by Third Man Records, the imprint founded by Jack White. I was all on my own when I met Third Man, she says. Theyve been great helped me find management, booking agents, publicists. Jack is always ready to advise. They let me be myself but if I have questions, theyre on hand. She has been on a steady upward trajectory ever since. Gushing write-ups in Rolling Stone and Billboard led to an invitation to perform at the secular temple of country music, Nashvilles Grand Ole Opry. I was nervous but they say that if you dont get nervous before playing the Grand Ole Opry then you shouldnt be there. The history is so rich yod be a fool not to feel the pressure. Several tracks on the record are inspired by her upbringing in Aledo, Illinois, a one horse town deep in the states rural west. She left as soon as she could, yet is proud of her roots and takes issue with the depiction in the media of smalltown America as a hotbed of the prejudices that swept Donald Trump to power. It is a small and humble town, she says. Growing up, there wasnt a lot to do. You can find trouble if you are looking for it but mostly there was a lot of boredom. We pride ourselves on being good people and in creating a good environment in which to raise a family. I have a lot of respect for the people who lived there. Just because you live in a small town doesnt mean you have a small mind, she says. I know a lot of people from there who didnt vote for Trump. You can have a small mind and live in a big city. The late TK Whitaker told a wonderful story about the time Ian Paisley threw snowballs at an Irish taoiseach. This incident occurred after a meeting between Jack Lynch and Terence ONeill, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, in the late 1960s. The Taoiseachs car was leaving Stormont when it was set upon by protestors led by Dr Paisley. Whitaker, who had accompanied Lynch to the North, recalls Paisley shouting at the car No Pope here as he angrily fired his snowballs. As their car hastened away, Lynch turned to Whitaker and asked with characteristic tongue-in-cheek humour: Which one of us does he think is the Pope? Politics in Northern Ireland in recent weeks has been dominated not by the throwing of snowballs, but by the hurling of insults. Martin McGuinnesss decision to resign was the final breakdown in relations between the DUP and Sinn Fein, but tensions have been smouldering almost from the moment Arlene Foster became First Minister less than a year ago. In almost a decade since Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness confounded many sceptics by being able to build productive working relationships with Fosters predecessors. Last September, at the Venice film festival, The Journey, a film documenting the unlikely friendship between the former Derry IRA commander (played by Colm Meaney) and Ian Paisley (played by Timothy Spall), received its world premiere. McGuinnesss subsequent political partnership with Peter Robinson was perceived as being cooler, but Paisley, in fact, left office without ever shaking McGuinnesss hand. Robinson and McGuinness shook hands for the first time in a private meeting in 2010 when McGuinness commiserated with the then First Minister about the difficulties the DUP politician was experiencing on account of a personal relationship his wife, Iris, had entered into. When Peter Robinson ultimately stepped down as First Minister at the end of 2015, he had shared his intention to do so with McGuinness long before he told many people in the DUP and well advance of it being announced publicly. If McGuinnesss relationship with Robinson was characterised by mutual respect, the same cannot be said about his relationship with Foster. David McKittrick, the doyen of political journalism in Belfast, who has been reporting on the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland for over 45 years, has described the dynamic between Foster and McGuinness as frankly terrible. McKittrick has observed that while Paisley and Robinson tried to strike some sort of balance between the moderate and the unyielding, Foster has tended to opt for confrontation rather than reconciliation, showing few signs of outreach to McGuinness or to republicans in general. Foster has always given the impression that she is a reluctant power-sharer. She began her political career in the Ulster Unionist Party and, along with Jeffrey Donaldson, was an internal party critic of David Trimbles support for the Good Friday Agreement, until her defection to the DUP. Fosters suspicions of Sinn Fein are deep rooted. In one of her first interviews as DUP leader, she recalled the day when she was eight that the IRA shot her father, a member of the RUC who survived the attack, and how this shaped her politics. In the same interview, Foster also spoke of the trauma she endured as a teenager when the IRA bombed her school bus in an attempt to assassinate the driver, a part-time UDR soldier. I was actually sitting beside a friends sister and I was in the inside and she was in the aisle. She was very badly injured, Foster said. You then had to deal with the fact that this had happened and it could have been me, because we used to fight about who sat next to the window. Last April, Foster did not attempt to disguise her anger when Sinn Fein staged a commemoration for Seamus McElwain, an IRA volunteer who had been killed by the SAS and the man that she believes tried to murder her father. Foster told the Belfast Telegraph that McElwain was an evil man responsible for the murder of many border Protestants. The First Minister said that celebrating his life sends a mixed signal to dissidents today. Murder was always wrong. No matter if it was 2016 or 1976. Fosters more recent comments that there should be a reappraisal of the mandatory coalition arrangements in Northern Irelands political institutions, with a view to a shift to voluntary coalition government, can only be interpreted as harking back to the old order of Unionist hegemony in Stormont. Such comments are only adding further fuel to flames of this crisis. Fosters contempt for the IRA, her unwillingness to compromise and her hard-line Unionism has won her few friends in Sinn Fein. But the tipping point for the Northern Executive came about as a result of the DUPs less than generous attitude to the Irish language. In early November, McGuinness accused the DUP of being motivated by hate following the decision of Peter Weir, the DUP Minister for Education, to stop translating official publications and correspondence into Irish. The DUPs decision later to pull the plug on an Irish language bursary scheme prompted another furious reaction. A groundswell of opinion emerged within Sinn Fein that they could no longer work with Foster. The DUP last week belatedly moved to restore funding for the bursary scheme, but by this stage trust in the Executive had been shattered. There is some irony in the DUPs Communities Minister, Paul Givan, initially claiming that the withdrawal of a measly 50,000 in funding to run the bursary scheme was necessary as an efficiency saving, when the Renewable Heat Incentive was spiralling out of control at huge cost to the public purse. The proxy battle that has been fought out in Northern Ireland Executive over the status of the Irish language goes to the heart of the age-old animosity between Republicans and Unionists. For Sinn Fein, mainstreaming the Irish language is a way of manifesting their nationalist identity in government, but for many in the DUP it amounts to a dilution of Northern Irelands essential Britishness. In Northern Ireland, sadly, the Irish language has moved a long way from Douglas Hydes dreams of using the language as a unifying bond to bring all Irishmen together. When Peter Robinson was immersed in controversy in 2010, Sinn Fein chose not to force him from office. This was because there was a recognition that though Robinson was often dour, he was a sincere convert to the peace process and understood the realities of power-sharing. Significantly and pointedly, McGuinnesss resignation letter refers to Arlene Fosters deep seated arrogance. It is hard not to conclude that the Ash for Cash scandal and the public anger it has provoked has provided Sinn Fein with an opportunity to pull the rug from under a First Minister that they perceive to be an unreconstructed Unionist and someone they find it increasingly difficult to do business with. Gerry Kelly was quick to insist last week that there has to be an election. He also categorically rejected Bertie Aherns worthy suggestion that there should be a four week cooling off period, accompanied by a preliminary inquiry into the Renewable Heating Incentive Scheme. Sinn Feins insistence on an election gives Foster little wriggle room and may ultimately make her position untenable. To borrow Fosters own description, an election will be a brutal affair. Mired in allegations of corruption and incompetence, the DUP in adversity are likely to resort to the banging of old tribal drums. This election, if it comes, is shaping up to be the most divisive and sectarian election the North has seen in a long time. Political orthodoxy suggests an election is often a good thing to clear the air. However, in the context of the polarised politics of Northern Ireland, a bitter election could further enflame passions and unleash forces that will undermine decades of peace-building. Of further concern is that even after an election, there is no inevitability that the parties will be able to come speedily together to form a new administration. A worst case scenario is that in March, as Theresa May invokes Article 50 for the UK to leave the EU, Northern Ireland may have no government. The impact of Brexit will be damaging across the entire island of Ireland, but if Northern Ireland is convulsed in political instability, there are many ingredients in place for a perfect storm. This should set alarm bells ringing in Dublin, and our Governments political priorities must be to protect the peace process and to mitigate the damage that Brexit can wreak. These tasks are not mutually exclusive. In 1967, TK Whitaker, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Hugh McCann, the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, went on a tour of European capitals to generate support for Irelands application to join the EEC. Fifty years on, the Taoiseach and key officials might consider a similar tour of European capitals to gain support for a soft Brexit and to ensure that Britains exit does not contribute to the unravelling of the peace process in the North. Women Book Highlights Womens Unique Role and Contribution to Burmese Society Author Carin Salerno (R), pictured in Rangoon in Nov. 2016 with hotelier Ma Yin Myo Su (L) at the launch of Salernos book, The World of Women Myanmarin which Ma Yin Myo Sus story is featured. / Giuseppe Salerno / Women In Action Worldwide In November 2016, Women in Action Worldwide published a travelogue highlighting the experiences of contemporary female entrepreneurs, researchers, educators, artists, politicians and activists in Burma. The World of Women Myanmar is a compilation of stories of women from diverse ethnic backgrounds hailing from five regions in the country: Rangoon, Bagan, Mandalay, southern Shan States Inle Lake, and the Irrawaddy Delta. Author Carin Salerno has been living in Burma for more than three years, and spent two years compiling the interviews necessary to complete the book, while also working for the Swiss embassy in Rangoon. In a correspondence with The Irrawaddys Nyein Nyein, Salerno explained that she aims to inspire and empower women through her writing, and allow readers to discover Burma through their experiences. Could you share what led you to compile this travelogue of these womens experiences in Burma? I was very impressed by the openness of women to share their stories, including sometimes very painful moments of their life. At the same time, I found that Myanmar women have a strong determination to overcome difficulties to build a better life for themselves, for their family and for their country. Moreover, they have a high level of resilience, and are all committed to bringing about peace and understandingeach one in a different way and with various very personal strategies. What are some particularly interesting details you discovered about the women you profiled in the book? Many women draw their inspiration and strength from the extraordinary role model who now leads their country, Daw Suu, and each of the women whose stories are voiced in the book are examples of determination, resilience, creativity, empathy and vision: they have inspired me and I hope they will inspire women in Myanmar and worldwide. This is the second such book, following The World of Women Tanzania. Are there similarities and differences amongst the women featured in these travelogues, which transcend geographical and cultural differences? Beyond borders and across continents, I find that there are a lot of similarities in the strategies of women to lead their lives. Their priorities are often bound to their responsibilities towards their family, caring for their parents, sending their children to school and giving them a good education and health care. [These are] prime targets of women worldwide. The other common feature is that women across the world are willing to share: their experiences, their intelligence, their wealth. As Fatima, a coffee grower in Tanzania, voices, Happiness is the number one priority, money is nothing. If you have some, share it, share your intelligence to improve the loving conditions of those in need in the world. Yin Myo Su, a hotelier in Inle Lake said, when you are sharing, you are caring; women, we have to help each other! Why did you feel the experiences of these women needed to be documented? By giving a voice to the women who tell their own stories, the book brings to light their unique role and contribution to their country. It does so in a form accessible to the wider public, women and men, reflecting on the way women have conducted their life journeys over the past 50 years and today, in a very personal, evocative way, with a positive spirit and a lot of laughter. Is there a Burmese version of the book, too? Not yet. What is the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation doing to support women in Burma? Through its domains of workvocational training, agriculture, health, local governance and peace promotionthe Swiss cooperation program supports the set up of training courses that will increase the opportunities of more women to have access to skills for better employment and self employment. [It also supports] improved knowledge and training of women farmers, so that they can be better organized and knowledgeable to produce better quality products, and become stronger in trading their crops to earn higher incomes. The Swiss cooperation supports women to be competent and equal actors in the peace process and to have access to leadership positions in local administration and in political processes overall. Switzerland is also committed to ending gender-based violence and to achieving equal access (of women and men) to land. As someone who works both in international development and as an author, how do you describe yourself, personally and professionally? I love listening to people, women in particular, and I am very happy to pass womens stories on to the wider public. I love writing. I hope that the stories of the book will inspire many other women as they inspire me. I am no expert: the people of Myanmar know what best suits them as individuals, as members of their community and of their country to bring about peace, democracy and prosperity for all. I see myself as a facilitator. I can share my experiences of working in other countries, but Myanmar people from all ethnic groups know what is best for them, valuing their rich diversity and building a peaceful, democratic prosperous future for all. News Fearing Intensified Fighting, More Than 100 Taang Flee Namhsan IDPs from Namhsan are pictured seeking shelter at Aung Mingalar Namhsan monastery in Lashio. / Ashinnyarnika Nyarnika / Facebook RANGOON More than 100 ethnic Taang have fled from their town in northern Shan States Namhsan and took refuge in monasteries in Lashio, after fighting between the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Burma Army broke out nearby. Ashin Nyarnika, a Lashio abbot, reported that 90 people arrived at Aung Mingalar Namhsan monastery over the weekend and 20 other displaced people (IDPs) were staying at the nearby Mann Su monastery. Fifty IDPs first arrived first on Saturday, and others came on Sunday, the abbot explained, with more are expected to arrive in the coming days due to the ongoing instability. The monasteries are supporting the displaced people with the help of local donations, but Ashin Nyarnika said more funds are needed. De De Poe Jaing, joint secretary of the Taang Womens Organization (TWO), said that some IDPs had also traveled to Mandalay to stay with relatives. Residents of Namhsan town are reportedly shaken after fighting between the Burma Army and the TNLA led to two deaths and eight injuries after an artillery shell hit a nearby village house on Jan. 12. The TWO issued a statement over the weekend condemning Burma Army abuses including the use of air strikes, the destruction of locals property, and the actions that led to the shelling which killed the two individuals, including one eight-year-old boy. Ethnic Taangalso known as Palaunghave blamed the shelling on the Burma Army, but the Ministry of Defense reported that the shell was fired by the TNLA. Local sources have said that the deteriorating security in the town has also reportedly led to Namhsans high school teachers leaving the area. Ba Taung, a leader from Taang Literature and Culture Organization, said on Monday, Students went to schools this morning, but there were no teachers there. The teachers fled from the town as they were afraid of the fighting. The Taang Literature and Culture Organization and lawmakers from the Taang National Party (TNP) issued a joint statement on Sunday asking people not to leave Namhsan, and to respond to rumors critically. According to Mai Win Htoo, a TNP lawmaker, the Burma Army fired artillery shells on Sunday, despite requests from the TNP to cease the strikes. The Taang Literature and Culture Organization also asked the TNLA not to engage in combat in or near the town. Ba Taung said, They [the TNLA] told us that they would not fight in the town. But, they are all based in villages. The fighting will break out if the Burmese army comes. News Hardline Buddhist Monks Stop Prophet Muhammads Birthday Celebration in Prome A row of Buddhist vehicles parked in front of a mosque in Prome on Sunday. / Kaung Myat Min / The Irrawaddy PROME, Pegu Division A Muslim ceremony to celebrate the 1,491st anniversary of Prophet Muhammads birth was stopped at the last minute in Prome Township, Pegu Division by a Rangoon-based nationalist group. Event organizers planned to hold their celebration Sunday afternoon inside a mosque in Promes Si Taw Mingalar Ward. But on Saturday, members of the Rangoon Division Nationalist Coalition Group demanded the event be canceled. The Muslim organizers held talks on Saturday with the Prome Township administrator, the township police chief, and the head of Pegu Divisions Religious Affairs Department. An informal local citizens group, the anti-religious riot network, also joined in the talks. Concerned authorities wanted to allow the religious ceremony for 30 minutes. We negotiated from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, and the Muslim side agreed to hold the ceremony for only 30 minutes, said Ko Than Htike, a member of the anti-religious riot network. But then, the nationalist group said later in the evening that the ceremony must be canceled. We negotiated with them [until 11:00 p.m.], but we could not reach an agreement. If they wanted to object, they should have done so earlier, said Ko Than Htike. They should not force us to cancel the event at the last minute. Those invited have already started to arrive, and now we have to explain that the event is canceled. In previous years, the Prophet Muhammads birthday celebration has been held peacefully in Prome. This is the first time the ceremony was canceled, said Ko Kyaw Naing, an event organizer. It is an annual donation ceremony that is held peacefully, he said. We canceled it at the objection of a group of people because we want to show Burmese citizens and global citizens that our religion is peaceful. Before the event, we received permission from government authorities. Now, we cant even donate the meals we cooked. The Irrawaddy counted eight vehiclesincluding a light truck carrying Buddhist monks and bearing the Buddhist religious flagbeing parked in front of the mosque in Si Taw Mingalar Ward on Sunday. Group members refused to answer questions about why they were stopping the Muslim religious event. About 20 police were seen providing security near the mosque while pandals were being removed. Exactly a week ago, a similar birthday celebration held inside Rangoons Young Mens Christian Association (YMCA) was also interrupted by Buddhist monks and nationalists. Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko. News Leadership Change Looms for UWSA A UWSA soldier holds a weapon while marching in Panghsang, Wa State. / Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun Burmas strongest ethnic armed group is set for its biggest leadership shake-up in a quarter century, senior sources told Reuters, raising the prospect of a period of instability in a group that is key to Daw Aung San Suu Kyis signature peace process. The United Wa State Army (UWSA) boasts some 30,000 soldiers who control a secretive, China-dominated statelet the size of Belgium in the remote hills on Burmas eastern border. This year the groups political wing, the United Wa State Party (UWSP), is holding elections for the first time since 1992, with at least some of the old guard who have led the statelet since its 1989 formation set to stand down, three senior Wa officials said. The election will also include the chairman, but whether he will be replaced is unknown, said one of the sources. Those who are sick or old would retire. The party is going to cultivate a new group of young talents, the person added, referring to the partys top decision-making Politburo. A second Wa official with direct knowledge of the matter described the vote as an earth-shattering event within the reclusive Wa State hierarchy. Reuters visited the self-proclaimed Wa State in Octobera rare trip by a major international news organizationwhere officials described for the first time its inner workings. The reshuffle could pose a new headache for Daw Aung San Suu Kyis nine-month-old civilian administration, already grappling with escalating clashes between government forces and other ethnic armed groups along the mountainous border with China and a military crackdown in the Muslim-majority northwest that has sent 65,000 people fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh. After sweeping to power following a November 2015 election, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has made ending the ethnic conflicts that kept Burma in a state of perpetual civil war through decades of military rule a priority. As the biggest ethnic army, the UWSA will be crucial to the success of that goal, but the group has so far declined to actively participate in the peace process launched by the State Counselor last year. Daw Aung San Suu Kyis peace process is almost impossible without Was participation, said Rangoon-based political analyst Soe Naing, a former member of the Central Committee of the UWSP. Wa is a mediator between government and several ethnic armed groups who are still fighting against the Burma army. Rotating Leader The Wa State, which has not fought the Burma Army in years but has declined to disarm, is currently led by UWSP Chairman Pao Yu Hsiang, a veteran of the Communist Party of Burma, which disintegrated and split into various ethnic factions in the late 1980s. Pao is in poor health that prevents him from travelling, but remains the ultimate decision-maker, three sources close to the leadership said. The UWSP operates on a rotating duty leader system. This means the four most senior leaders in the Politburo, Deputy Chairman Hsiao Ming Liang, Defense Minister Chao Chung Tan, and two other top leaders, rotate on a monthly basis. Pao no longer participates due to his sickness, but makes key decisions. The party has about 15,000 members and closely resembles Chinas Communist Party leadership structure. The second rung of decision-making is the Central Committee with up to 30 additional members, followed by a larger body of some 700 party representatives, who would take part in the rare leadership change vote in mid-2017. Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based analyst for security consulting firm IHS-Janes, said it was important to watch for potential rifts between different clans within the UWSP. One constant is likely to remain Chinas heavy influence in the Chinese-speaking Wa territory. We should send the new generation of leaders to China for its comprehensive training of political economy, said one of the senior officials, who will stand down after the elections. That would help them master their important job in the future. News Mandalay Man Sentenced to 40 Years for Child Rape A photo campaign against child sex abuse cases in Mandalay calls for harsher penalties for the offenders. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy RANGOON A man who was accused of sexual abuse of two underage children in Mandalay has been sentenced to 40 years in prison on Friday, according to local police. On November 28, 40-year-old U Hla Htwealso known as U Kyin Wattwas accused of sexually abusing two children, a boy, aged seven, and a four-year-old girl, who live in a squatters hut in Chanayethazan township in Mandalay. U Hla Htwe was arrested and was being investigated under sections 376 and 377 of Burmas Penal Code for rape and unnatural offenses, both of which can be punished with up to 20 years in prison and additional fines. U Hla Htwe was sentenced under both sections and given 40 years with hard labor, said a local authority. Womens rights activists, as well as members of the public, have voiced concern over the significant rise in child rape cases and have carried out a campaign calling for harsher penalties against sex offenders. There have even been calls for the death penalty. Lawmakers also raised the issue in Parliament and the government has promised to revise laws affecting children to better protect minors. News Protester Attacked at Rally in Support of Burma Army Anti-war protester Ko Thae Nit Aung after being assaulted in Mandalay. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy MANDALAY A lone anti-war activist was attacked during a rally in support of the Burma Army in Mandalay on Sunday afternoon. Ko Thae Nit Aung carried a poster reading Stop Wars and drove his motorbike near Manawyaman grounds where pro-military demonstrators held a rally in support of Burma Army and its soldiers who are engaged in ongoing conflict in the countrys north and east. A number of men blocked Ko Thae Nit Aungs way and ripped the poster from his motorcycle. As his motorcycle fell, he was attacked by the group, and at least one man punched him in the face. When theres war, everyone is affected, but the civilians in war zones are the ones who suffer most, Ko Thae Nit Aung said before leaving the area escorted by police. I dont want wars, and I dont support any party involved in wars. VIDEO: Anti-war protester Ko Thae Nit Aung is assaulted in Mandalay. (Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy) Military supporters repeatedly say the wars waged in ethnic areas are fair, but who will be the judge? he added. Ko Thae Nit Aung was escorted to Maha Aung Myay Township police station for his own protection and released after questioning. He did not report the incident or file any charges. The Irrawaddys photographer Zaw Zaw was also attacked for photographing the assault on Ko Thae Nit Aung and reported the incident at Maha Aung Myay Township police station. Speakers at the rally said ongoing wars against ethnic armed groups were just and that the Burma Army was fighting to protect the nation. Everyone should support the wars, supporters said. The rally was joined by former lawmakers U Hla Swe and Daw Khin Wine Kyi. Similar rallies were held in Rangoon and Moulmein in the past few weeks. News Rangoon Launches New Bus System An overcrowded bus stop in downtown Rangoon. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy RANGOON On the first day of operation, commuters remained optimistic about Rangoons new public bus system despite overcrowded and delayed busses. The new Yangon Bus Service (YBS) replaced the former capitals notorious old bus systemthe Rangoon Motor Vehicles Supervisory Committee also known as Ma Hta Thawith 69 bus lines. The regional government announced last week that the new public transit would serve the citys commuters from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily with nearly 4,000 vehicles. Long waits were observed at Rangoon bus stops Monday morning, however, with many blaming an insufficient number of buses traversing the routes on the first day of the new system. Some busses scheduled to start today were not ready on time. Many good-natured drivers of private vehicles could be seen picking up weary commuters as they waited for buses to arrive. It was a good day for taxis, however, with reports of drivers charging above usual fares for frustrated commuters who gave up waiting. Forty-nine-year old Ma Wah commuting from Tamwe Township to downtown said she was encouraged by the new public transit but said the buses should be more frequent. I have waited for 45 minutes at the bus stop since early this morning but didnt see a bus I could get, she said. The only bus that arrived was packed full and I couldnt manage to get on board, she complained. Ahlone Township resident Ma Aye Cho Thwe who was commuting to North Dagon on Monday morning told The Irrawaddy that the shift to the new system was applauded but there were many inconveniences on the first day. The starting and ending points of the bus routes changed, I had to walk further as buses dont go through the [downtown] roads they used to anymore, she said. About 4,000 volunteers from different philanthropic and charity organizations led by regional lawmakers occupied some 2,000 bus stops across the city on Monday, distributing flyers that included bus route information and helping install the YBS mobile application. The volunteers will be present until Friday assisting commuters with the shift to the new system. Regional lawmaker Ko Nay Phone Latt of Thingangyun Township, who is on the supervisory team overseeing the volunteers, said as much as he was optimistic about the new system, he thinks the regional government should have thoroughly planned the new system so as not to inconvenience commuters. The major issue I observed was insufficient time preparing for the immediate shift as there were no regular buses going across the city, which resulted in overcrowding at the bus stops, he said. The volunteers also surveyed commuters on the new public transit in order to report their feedback to the regional government. Bus fares range from 100-300 kyats, depending on distances of travel. He said the volunteer groups will sit down for a meeting reviewing all the complaints received on Monday and will look for solutions. Lawmakers are the ones engaging with the public most closely, lawmaker Ko Nay Phone Latt said. The government should have asked for suggestions from lawmakers about which routes should remain unchanged and how it could be managed. The new public transit system managed by the Yangon Region Transport Authority (YRTA) will end the overlap of bus lines in a move to eliminate competition between buses. The regional government hopes the new system will also relieve some of the traffic congestion in the hub of the city, limiting the bus lines to serve downtown. According to the new system, buses previously operated under Ma Hta Tha had to register with the YRTA to be able to continue in the new system. Some 3,000 individually-owned buses have come on board, according to joint secretary U Than Win of the YRTA. The buses operating under the new system have yet to install digital payment systems, which will only be implemented in the next three-month phase, Rangoon chief minister U Phyo Min Thein told the media at a press conference on Saturday. U Phyo Min Thein said that after the citys commuters get used to the new system, the government will improve the condition of the vehicles, then the security of the buses, and the payment system. He hopes to finish the whole reform process by the end of 2017, allotting each area three months. Once the payment system goes digital, the regional government will require individual bus owners to become part of the recently selected eight public-private partnership firms to facilitate the new system. The eight companies include Bandoola Transportation Co. Ltd.run by the military-owned Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd.as well as other existing private bus line operators. The Yangon Bus Public Co., Ltd. (YBPC)the citys first bus rapid transit (BRT) systemis a public company launched in February last year. Its buses currently traverse three routes in the city and provide an electronic ticketing service. According to the Japan International Cooperation Agencys 2014 survey on public transportation in Rangoon, 61 percent of Rangoons population relies on public transportation and 49 percent of all commuters use the busapproximately 2.6 million people. News Timber Production Stations Become Elephant Camps Inside the Wingabaw Elephant Camp. / Kyaw Hsu Mon / The Irrawaddy RANGOON Thirteen government-owned timber production stations across the country will become elephant camps for visitors beginning early this year. After the new government announced last year that timber production would be stopped for 10 years, major production areas near the Bago Yoma mountain range were slated to become elephant camps in order to promote tourism. U Aye Cho Thaung, deputy general manager of the Myanmar Timber Enterprise, told The Irrawaddy that timber production stations along the Bago Yoma range as well as in Arakan States Sagaing Division would become elephant camps. We have already opened four elephant camps, and the rest will be opened officially later this year, he said. Due to the cessation of timber production, some working elephants between ages 18-55 will be transferred to other areas where timber production is still permitted, primarily in Sagaing Division. Some production areas were only ordered to stop production temporarily. In the first phase, 75 elephants from Bago Yoma, 18 from Irrawaddy Division and 12 from Taungdwingyi Township will move to Sagaing Division timber stations this month. Elephants outside of the working age range will be sent to elephant camps around the country. Between 10-20 elephants will be assigned to each elephant camp. The Wingabaw Elephant Camp in Bago Township has been open for two months, but visitor facilities are still needed, said Ma Shwe Sin, a supervisor at the camp. We still need additional facilities, but our budget is insufficient. I hope it will be okay eventually, she said. There are currently 11 elephants at the Wingabaw camp. The 80-acre camp was formerly used to store equipment used in timber production. At the camp, visitors can ride and feed elephants, and watch them bathe. The entrance fee is 1,000 kyats (About US $0.75) for a local visitor and 20,000 kyats for a foreigner. The fee to ride an elephant is an additional 5,000 kyats. Each elephant costs about 28 lakhs (about $2,000) per year to maintain so we need a budget for them, Ma Shwe Sin said. Once young elephants inside the camp are old enough to work at timber stations, they will be moved. Elephants that reach age 55 will be moved from production stations back into the camps. The forestry department, which falls under the Ministry of National Resources and Environmental Conservation, will take control of all restricted forest reserves in the Bago Range throughout the 10-year logging ban. The ministry plans to replant trees, protect existing forests, and prevent illegal logging. Nearby villages will be required to undergo educational initiatives in order to prevent deforestation. News UN Burma Envoy Nambiar Finishes Term, Future of Role Unclear (L-R) Permanent Representative of Burma to the UN Tin Kyaw, then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and the Secretary-Generals Special Adviser on Burma Vijay Nambiar are pictured at the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly in Manhattan, New York on September 23, 2016. / Andrew Kelly / Reuters Vijay Nambiar, a veteran Indian diplomat who served as the UN Secretary-Generals special envoy to Burma, left the position at the end of December, a move that coincided with the end of Ban Ki Moons term as the head of the UN. Nambiar, who previously served as Ban Ki Moons chief of staff, had been the Secretary Generals special envoy to Burma since 2010 when he succeeded Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari in the role. In his position as special envoy, Nambiar traveled frequently to Burma and repeatedly visited a number of the countrys hot spotsmost notably Arakan and Kachin states. He also made regular briefings to the UN Security Council about the situation in Burma, mostly recently having done so on November 17. In recent years, Nambiar had focused much of his time on the ongoing peace process, and was a frequent attendee of the series of high-level meetings that have been ongoing since 2012. He traveled to the Kachin Independence Organizations (KIO) de-facto capital Laiza in 2013 to attend a summit of armed groups, and also attended a similar meeting of ethnic armed groups held in Karen National Union territory at Law Khee Lar in 2015. It was at Law Khee Lar, during a speech delivered to an audience that consisted of the senior leadership of most of Burmas major ethnic armed groups, that the veteran diplomat strongly urged the armed groups to move forward with the peace process and sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement. It is critical that we get such a process started as soon as possible, he said, before adding, For this to happen you will require to make some concessions. The advice was not universally welcomed by all the armed groups in attendance, particularly those who continue to be on receiving end of repeated attacks by government forces. Nambiar most recently traveled to KIO territory to attend another meeting of ethnic armed groups in Mai Ja Yang in July 2016. In contrast, Yanghee Lee, the UN special envoy for human rights in Burma, was denied permission by the government to visit the KIO area in 2016 and again on Jan. 9 this year. In a Dec. 16 interview in New York that appears to have been his last before leaving his position as Burma envoy, Nambiar spoke at length about the ongoing crisis in Arakan State, another issue that was a key focus during his tenure in the role. Nambiar told Turkeys state-owned Anadolu Agency that the recent attacks in Arakan State, while condemnable, exposed a deep-seated malaise in the place itself. For almost three years, there hasnt been any major outbreak of violence in Rakhine, even though the 2012 events were a pointer, a reference to the violence which led thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee from their homes and also displaced a number of Arakanese Buddhists. We had been bringing this to the notice of the government and telling them that unless some action was taken to address some of the root causes, it was likely that this would erupt once again, said Nambiar. In another interview conducted with the Bangladeshi daily Prothom Alo last week, after he had left office, Nambiar expanded on the Rohingya issue and their statelessness. According to Nambiar, the government has to address the root cause, the issue of citizenship. I understand the majority of the Rohingyas have in the past been recognized [as citizens]. That process of reassurance must start soon. There has to be a sense of assurance among the Rohingyas that the government recognizes them as citizens, and the minority would be given their due place in the country. Ban Ki Moons successor as Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has yet to name a replacement for Nambiar and it remains unclear whether he will do so. The Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General responded to questions from The Irrawaddy about whether a successor would be appointed by saying that the matter is still being discussed. Nambiar is the fourth UN special envoy to Burma the first was Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto, who beginning in 1995 was dispatched by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to meet with the junta, which then called itself the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). After several years of mostly fruitless effort to open up a dialogue with the regime, de Soto was replaced by the Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail in April 2000. Razali, was, for much of his stint as envoy, dogged by controversy stemming from his 30 percent stake in a Malaysian firm that had a contract with the Burmese government to make electronic passports. He made numerous visits to Burma until the October 2004 purge of intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, after which point Razali was longer welcome in the country. Razali, who had previously been Malaysias permanent representative to the UN, was later replaced by the Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari in 2005. Nambiar took over from Gambari in 2010. Italian Outdoor Group is looking forward to EOS 2017 Following a hugely successful event in Barcelona in 2016, the EOS 2017 will be delivered in partnership with both Assosport (Italian Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers) and the Italian Outdoor Group (IOG). "Our country has a long tradition in outdoor and most of the worlds footwear manufacturers are based in Italy, near Venice," Luca Pedrotti, IOG President, said: "I am confident that Assosport and the IOG have the knowledge and the people to make EOS 2017 a success. For further information please click the logo: WikiLeaks supporters are really concerned for Julian Assanges well-being after the whistleblower organization posted a mysterious tweet in which it clarified that none of its employees were in danger of dying, which many considers as an ambiguous message with dangerous implications regarding. One of the most suggested is that someone could be targeting WikiLeaks staffs (including its leader) in order to attack them and make it look as an accidental death. WikiLeaks Unleashed Several Conspiracy Theories On its Twitter post, the pro-transparency organization stated "No present WikiLeaks staff, including our editor, have medical, psychological or drug conditions which could lead to sudden death." Naturally, this statement unleashed several conspiracy theories about what could have motivated this publication. In fact, the post came one day after Julian Assange said that he was willing to turn himself to an extradition if the U.S. president Barack Obama agreed to grant clemency to Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. soldier which was jailed for proving classified documents to WikiLeaks, regarding the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, even when it has been rumored that Obama could actually order Mannings liberation, the White House recently told that this was not going to happen. Theres No Official Reasons To Believe That Julian Assange Is In Danger Of course, it is almost impossible to determine if WikiLeaks post is based on any real fear of danger for Julian Assange and its members, given the fact that there hasn't been any other information regarding this possibility. Actually, the non-profit organization was been criticized for feeding inaccurate suggestions and conspiracy theories regarding its leaders death or WikiLeaks Twitter account sabotages, given the fact that when its supporters publish this kind of information, Julian Assange never confirms it or denies it. Nevertheless, even when there are many people that believe that WikiLeaks actions are extremely paranoid, its a fact that the whistleblower organization has been in a delicate position under the spotlight for several years, getting to the peak of it since 2016 onwards, after its role in the U.S. presidential elections and the accusations of cooperating with the Kremlin. Despite WikiLeaks post, theres no official or clear reasons to believe that Julian Assanges life might be in danger. The last decade has seen a rapid surge in wearable sensing and monitoring gadgets. By revealing a lot about what really happens inside a person's body, these wearable devices can assist people in upholding their health. But right now, there is not enough indication to evaluate whether these devices work. New Study Checks The Accuracy Of Popular Wearable Devices Recently, academics from Stanford University School of Medicine directed a large-scale study to assess the reliability of these high-tech devices. Researchers found that wearable devices that monitor heart rate, skin temperature and other variables can help track our well-being and can also inform us when we are getting sick. "I was very awe-struck with all the statistics that was collected. There's a lot here-a lot of sensors and a lot of diverse data on each person," said Eric Topol, professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, who was not included in the study. "The fact that you can pick up illness by monitoring before they happen is very practical." Lead study researcher Michael Snyder was also among those contributors who helped check the correctness and dependability of wearable devices. As the part of the study, he was wearing seven biosensors during a flight to Norway for vacation when he noticed that his heart rate and blood-oxygen levels were irregular. The readings did not return to normal even when the flight landed and he ended up having a fever. In another example, Snyder suspected that he might had been bitten by a tick during a visit to rural Massachusetts. Tests also validated that he was indeed been infected with Lyme disease. His wearable biosensors picked up the contamination even before he knew he was sick. Snyder explains the technology this way. "Your car has 400 sensors and console lights go on when a problem occurs like the engine starts overheating or you are nearly running out of gas." He added. "In near future, you will have multiple devices relaying information to your smartphone, which will become your health dashboard. Alerts will go off with raised up heart rate over your normal level and heart beat irregularities will be detected - these will enable early recognition of disease, perhaps even before you can sense it yourself." Germany has been eyed as a "fake news hotspot" while the country's key election came up with parliamentary polls scheduled for September. Facebook announced on Sunday that it will initiate a series of measures to avoid the dissemination of fake news on German-language platforms. "We are working very carefully on a solution to this problem. Our efforts are focused on the distribution of unique false alarms generated by spammers," says Facebook in a statement. "We have also used third parties to provide objective, unbiased reviews of news." Correctiv, a German nonpartisan nonprofit collective dedicated to investigative journalism was brought in by Facebook to take care of fact checking and review the user-flagged stories found on the platforms. According to Correctiv, fake news found on Facebook is clearly a major threat of society. The collective is concerned that the threats will only grow as elections start to roll in. Facebook will create tools to easily report suspected fake news articles. A display warning will come up next to statements that has been deemed false by Correctiv. Whenever the fact checker suspects the news as unreliable, the story will find itself de-prioritized in Facebook's news feed algorithm. This would essentially mean that there would be a lot of people who will see the story hitting their newsfeed. German officials threatened internet companies with prosecution under strict libel and slander laws if they did not focus their efforts on eradicating fake news on their platforms. Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Mass said that we need to fully utilize all the legal authority at our disposal. While Facebook is actively looking at Germany, the company is sizing up other countries as well. Right now, Facebook is testing the fake news filter in the United States. US President Barack Obama who recently delivered his farewell speech in a 360 video called false news found on the popular social media platform a "dust cloud of nonsense" and "crazy conspiracy theorizing." Nokia has finally released its first smartphone for its epic comeback, the Nokia 6. But is the Finnish company ready to remind smartphone companies who the boss is or has the company lost its tech prowess? Design The Nokia 6 comes in an all-metal unibody design and has an FPS (Fingerprint Scanner) embedded on its Home Button. It is also equipped with Dolby Atmos technology to give the device better sound quality. Its body dimensions are 6.06 x 2.98 x 0.33 inches and weighs 169 grams. The iPhone 7 Plus' features a sleek metal design similar to the previous iPhone 6 and 6s models, but with no 3.5 mm headphone jack and has a water and dust resistant feature. Just like the Nokia 6, it also has an FPS embedded on its Home Button. It also features a Home Button that no longer moves and clicks as you press it, but instead, responses to finger pressure. Its body dimensions are 6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 inches and weighs 188 grams. Display Both smartphones feature a 5.5-inch display and a screen resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels but differs in screen type. In terms of screen performance, it is too early to decide, because there are no comparison videos or tests between the Nokia 6 and iPhone 7 Plus. Camera The Nokia 6 features a 16 MP rear camera and an 8 MP front-facing camera. It does not shoot in 4k. On the other hand, the iPhone 7 Plus features a 12 MP dual-rear camera and a 7 MP front snapper. Unlike the Nokia 6, the iPhone 7 Plus is capable of shooting in 4k. Also, another thing cool feature is that it allows the user to jump in and out of zoom without taking a break when filming videos. Software The Nokia 6 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat and is powered by a Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430. The iPhone 7 Plus runs on iOS 10.0.1 which is now upgradable to iOS 10.2. It is equipped with one of the best processors of 2016, the Apple A10 Fusion chip. Internal Memory The Nokia 6 features 64 GB with 4 GB of RAM and has an expandable option of up to 256 GB. The iPhone 7 Plus features 32/128/256 GB with 3 GB of RAM and has no expandable option. The Verdict Nokia's return has been one of the talked about topics in the tech industry for quite some time now and was expected to hit it big. However, that quickly died out after its low-key release of the Nokia 6 and why how it was made to be China-exclusive only for 1,699 Yuan ($246) which many tech enthusiasts wonder. Another notable thing to mention is that the Nokia 6 does not carry the head-turning designs like previous Nokia phones had, like the Nokia 3310's indestructible ability or the Nokia N-Gage's unique design. Base on the information above, you can see that not all of the specs and features of the Nokia 6 are not that underpowered compared to the iPhone 7 Plus, but is a little bit underwhelming and easy to forget for a big comeback. Perhaps later this year with the release of the other upcoming 2017 Nokia smartphones, those devices may prove to be more powerful than the Nokia 6 and iPhone 7 Plus. Based on the thorough analysis made, the iPhone 7 Plus proves to be the better smartphone. Lenovo has started sending out invites for this year's Mobile World Congress event which scheduled for February 26. The annual mobile and smartphone trade show is an avenue for major manufacturers, like Nokia, Samsung, LG and Xiaomi, to unveil new products. The event is set to take place in Barcelona, Spain. The company is expected to showcase a new smartphone under the Moto brand. There aren't specific details about the device as it was not disclosed by Lenovo. The design of the invite shows a Moto phone casting a shadow of the Sagrada Familia Church found in Barcelona. The invitation provides us with a glimpse of what might be the Moto G5 Plus which leaked online earlier this month. Chinese social network site Weibo uploaded the press image of the supposed phone. The phone's looks bear a resemblance to Moto X which set off speculations that Moto X will be the next generation's ideal smartphone. The first generation of Moto G series smartphones came out the previous year performed well with their decent specs and pricing and have been considered successful at entry-level devices. According to a removed listing from Romanian site OLX, details about the specifications of Moto G5 Plus include a 5.5 inch Full HD display that will run on an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC together with Adreno 506 GPU. It's quite possible that it will be powered by 4GB RAM and provide 32GB of internal storage. The handset might have a 3080mAh battery and run Android Nougat out of the box and offer stock UI experience. The phone would have a 13 MP camera at the back and sport a 5 MP camera for the front. The online leaked photos also suggest a visible and physical home button, which is expected to be used as a fingerprint scanner as well. Over the past year of fighting the virus, we've seen how life-altering effects of the Zika virus on newborns of their lifetime. Images of babies with unusually small heads and other birth flaws have been shown in newspapers and on TV broadcasts. These images often show the hands of their parents feeding, bathing and comforting them, or the hands of doctors or nurses caring for them. These hands embody the intensive, potentially lifelong sustenance that many of these children will need. For families, this will demand love, patience, and hope. For doctors and nurses, it will demand learning new ways to treat patients. For the administration, it will require funding, research, and commitment. Intensive Action, Multi-Million Fundings And Unconditional Love Of The Medical Team Aimed To End Zika Nearly a year ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started its Emergency Operations Center, and scientists began working in haste and in earnest to try to comprehend and suppressed Zika's spread. The March of Dimes began cultivating women and families on Zika stoppage and supporting health specialists as they prepared to care for babies affected by the virus. Numerous of CDC staff members continue to work keenly to protect pregnant women and pick up more about how to control Zika. The first wave of the epidemic has slowed, but we must not let our watch down, mostly in the Southern United States, where the mosquitoes that carries Zika can be found. We must endure to back up research to develop a safe and active vaccine for those at risk of Zika. We need better problem-solving tests for Zika and more effective approach to control the mosquitoes that carries the virus. And we must prepare for the affected newborns who will be born before a vaccine become obtainable. We need devote and capable hands to care for these infants. Over $10 Million Babies Affected By Zika The Zika virus affects all Americans. In accumulation to the overwhelming demonstrative toll on families, the CDC estimates that lifetime health and educational costs for each baby born with microcephaly could be approximately over $10 million. Affected children will need protection, funding, and care for decades to come. As we look to the future, we hope to see pictures showing the hands of public members helping to regulate or seize mosquitoes, the hands of health experts protecting the next peers from Zika with new vaccines and the hands of caregivers helping affected children to reach their full aptitude. "We published the paper to describe it, to donate to the medical literature," said Chen, who included photos with the article. Such data could speed up diagnosis and proper treatment, Dr. Lucy Chen, a dermatologist at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. For now, "the most important thing we can do is keep good mosquito control," he said. "Some of the approaches we are using now have not been verified effective for Zika. And some means that we maybe should study aren't being used now." Tom Frieden is director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Edward McCabe is chief medical officer of the March of Dimes. The Washington Post first published this column. Amazon has asked FCC for permission to run undisclosed experiments with wireless technology in Washington State. Amazon's Secret Tests According to The Christian Science Monitor, Amazon has filed an application with the US federal government that suggests the company has plans to experiment with wireless communications technology. Amazon has remained silent about the details but tech experts speculate that this is perhaps signaling that the company aims for a new product or service. Amazon asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to test this year for five months some undisclosed prototypes and their related software in the Washington State, in and around its Seattle headquarters. According to an FCC, application made public last week, the tests will involve anchored stations and mobile devices and alike. The story was first reported by Business Insider, that noted the project could be part of Amazon's drone-delivery initiatives. In recent years, Facebook and Google have also conducted wireless experiments of their own, pursuing innovative projects such as self-driving cars. Meanwhile, Amazon has focused on drone delivery service for its online retail business. However, the company has wide-ranging interests and that makes it difficult to anticipate precisely what the tests entail. Few Details Known About Secretive Amazon Tests Amazon's application to the FCC specifies that the tests would begin indoors then later move outdoors. The document states that the tests are beginning as early as Feb. 11, 2017, and they will last five months. According to The Verge, the application requests permission to operate on selected frequencies. Amazon aims to test software and hardware equipment for innovative communications functionalities and capabilities. In each indoor and outdoor location will be installed three low-power, fixed transmitters, and wireless units. Amazon's FCC application also specifies that the study might also incorporate evaluating antennae. The company has declined to give more details about the application and any related plans. Google Lunar X project has sparked interest in private companies to race to the moon. Google is offering $20 million to the first time to complete the tasks. There are three tasks involved in the race. They have to land a craft on the surface of the moon, drive 500 meters and transmit high definition footage back to Earth. This will be all carried out before the end of the year for the team using private funding to win the prize. One of the five participants is the U.S. based company Moon Express. In August, the company became the first to receive permission to engage in commercial activity beyond Earth orbit from the U.S. government. Moon Express has raised $20 million in funds and have all the resources to make it to the moon. Bob Richards, chief executive and co-founder of Moon Express stated that with all financial and legal hurdles now cleared, it is now a matter of rocket science stuff. The company plans to test launches early this year after they have secured a contract with Rocket Lab, a U.S. aerospace corporation. In a new round of series B funding, Founders Fund and Social Capital and Autodesk, a software company have raised the funds to $45 million. However, Moon Express leadership wants to raise another $10 million as contingency. The next step for the company is exploring mining on the surface of the moon and start flying commercial flights according to an article from the Mining. The company aims to run a full-fledged delivery service to the moon. Co-founder and chairman Naveen Jain stated that Moon Express envisions bring precious resources from the moon to Earth such as metals and moon rocks. The moon's helium 3 could be used as valuable fuel source for fusion reactions. The moon also has ice that could be melted for water. Hydrogen resource could also be used to power future space travels. Planetary Resources, another company, had also set its sights at mining in space. It plans to harvest metals and water from asteroids. The company estimates that harvesting water from space could be a trillion dollar market. This brings up the question who owns space? The Outer Space Treaty of 1966 established rules governing activities in space. Among the regulations are stated that there will be no weapons, no territory claiming and enterprises should be to the benefit of all of humanity. In 2015, the U.S. government had passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act to pave the way for a growing number of companies that are interested in space exploration and resource collection in space such as SpaceX, Moon Express, Planetary Resources and other companies of the same nature. With Google's Lunar X program, more companies are setting to move their ventures into outer space. Companies are allowed to own and sell resources that are gathered and extracted from space objects but not the objects themselves. Others are arguing that the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty's provision that all countries should benefit, is being violated as reported in The Christian Science Monitor. Thousands of people rally to support Obama's health care law. Democrats and labor organizers spent Sunday, pledging to fight against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and any attempt to change Medicare or Medicaid. The party's leaders faced the thousands of people, urging them to call the Republicans and push the protest of repeal. Democrats' 2016 vice presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. Said, Nobody's going to shut them up nobody's going to turn them around. In a rally in Richmond that drew a crowd at least 1,000. He added that they are fighting on behalf of tens of millions of Americans. One of the earliest protests by an opposition party against an incoming president, themed "Our First Stand". Brainstormed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Democratic leaders in Congress, each rally introduces people who had faced death or bankruptcy before the ACA went into effect. And during this rally they challenge Republicans to listen to their stories. Sanders said in an interview this week that the purpose of the thousands of people rally against the repealing of the Affordable Care Act is for the Republicans to see that majority of the people was against it. Meanwhile, in Bowie, a number of rally attendees said they are going to join the Women's march on Trump's inauguration in DC. The rallies also demonstrate how the party's restive left is shaping its response to Trump. According to the Chicago Tribune, some activists rallied while chastising the Democrats who had voted against an amendment to the Republicans' repeal resolution that would have made it easier to import prescription drugs from Canada. According to the Fox News, Republicans want to end the fines that enforce the requirement that many individuals buy coverage and that larger companies provide it to the workers. But they face internal disagreements on how to pay for any replacement. And how to protect consumers and insurers during a long phase-in of an alternative. There were thousands of people rally to support the health law, these rallies were held at different places all over the country. Police estimated that about 600 people showed up in Portland, Maine.While hundreds also attended events in Newark, New Jersey, Johnston, Rhode Island, Richmond, Virginia and Boston. 2016 was a year for Honda to remember. It was during this year that both the leaders were the Honda Accord and Honda Civic in terms of for the majority of the year when it came to boosting the overall sales of vehicles from the car maker. On the other end, the slowly declining Honda CR-V has been left behind, struggling for sales and making it hard to gain some much-needed profit. But for this year, it is going to be a whole different story. According to several reports, the 2017 Honda CR-V has already put an end to the CR-V line's dismal sales and has now taken the lead for the best-selling car. The Honda CR-V so far In this early time of the year, the 2017 Honda CR-V has already enjoyed a 4.4% increase compared to last year, currently, with 30, 306 sales, while overall Honda saw its surprising climb to the top as a very welcoming sign that this year will still be Honda's to take. Honda still experiencing sale decrease But According to reports, the company is currently experiencing a 2% decrease in overall sales. According to other reports, the majority of the focal core models of the carmaker has already suffered sales losses and, which further explains the drop down in the overall sales numbers. The Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Honda Pilot and the Honda Odyssey are all prime contributors to the decline in sales. Decrease by the numbers As reports were circulated, it was revealed that there was a sales decrease of about 15% with the Honda Accord with sales at 25, 551 and sales of the Honda Civic were down 5% with sales at 26, 359. So while most of the vehicles of Honda are currently declining in sales, the 2017 Honda CR-V has been thriving so far. Foxconn, the well-known manufacturer of iPhones, is rumored to build its own LCD manufacturing facilities in the states. The company has acquired Sharp early last year and this means that Foxconn would also be taking over Sharp's glass production capabilities. If this ends up being true, a chain of positive effects is expected to happen. Foxconn's Alleged Plan To Build A Glass Facility In The States According to Phone Arena, a Sharp official has claimed that Foxconn's plans of building a US-based glass facility is already "on the table". Take note that the iPhone manufacturer now has rights over Sharp after the $6.2 billion acquisition deal. This can lead to a couple of things: Foxconn's ability to create its own screens for iPhones within the US; and Foxconn's capacity to provide hundreds or thousands of jobs in the country. Foxconn's Plans In The US Foxconn and Sharp do intend to provide a large amount of jobs in the US by means of a glass manufacturing plant. This would hopefully relieve the criticisms given to US companies who have been cutting manufacturing costs by handing over their productions in Asian facilities rather than in the States. Nevertheless, although this US-based facility is supposedly intended towards LCD display panels for home appliance, there is also a good chance that Foxconn would eventually take its iPhone manufacturing in the same location, as per a Redmondpie report. Foxconn's Apple iPhone Production On a different note, recent reports suggest that Samsung will be the one to supply Apple with its OLED panels needs for this year until the end of 2018. Nevertheless, reports have also come out about Foxconn's plans to start producing OLED screens within the same facility in China where it does the majority of iPhones' assembly. The race towards the use of OLED display panels has become more serious than ever as the trend shifts towards the use of the said display. In fact, Apple is reportedly expected to get about a hundred million OLED display panels in this year alone. This could create a problem for other smartphone makers who aim to use the same display technology. Nevertheless, as Foxconn is reported to join OLED manufacturing, this could undeniably relieve the demand for the said display panel. Apple's MacBook Pro line of laptops may be one of the most popular in the industry but that hasn't stopped other companies from trying to topple its dominance. Samsung is set to challenge Apple once more. At the just concluded CES 2017, Samsung unveiled a number of impressive products one of which was the newest member of the Notebook line. The Notebook 9 immediately made an impression thanks in part to its lightness of being, so to say. The MacBooks have long been known for its weight or rather the lack of it. The latest MacBook Pro, released October of last year to mixed reactions, weighed 3.02 pounds (13-inch model) and 4.02 (15-inch). Surprisingly, Samsung beat Apple in this category as the Notebook 9 weighed a measly 2.77 pounds. But that is not the only significant difference between the two. To know more, here's a breakdown of the specs of both laptops: Samsung Notebook 9 13- and 15-inch models available 2.77 pounds Both sports a 1920 x 1080 display Sixth gen Core i5 processor (13") and Core i7-6500U processor (15") Both have 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD USB Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, LAN port, HDMI port, headphone, and microphone input and a microSD card slot Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU $999 for the 13-inch Notebook 9; $1,199 for the 15-inch variant; $1,499 for the 15.6-inch 3840 x 2160 Notebook 9 with Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M graphics card MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch models are available LED-backlit display with IPS technology 2560 x 1600 (13-inch) and 2880 x 1800 (15-inch) pixel resolutions 2.6GHz dual core 6th gen Intel Core i5 processor (13") and 2.9GHz quad-core 6th gen Intel Core i7 processor (15") 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD (13"); 16GB of RAM and 256GB SSD (15") Two (13") and four (15") Thunderbolt ports; standard 3.55mm headphone jack Intel Iris Graphics 540 (13") and 550 (15") Both have Touch Bar with Touch ID The 13-inch variant costs $1,799 while the 15-inch one sells for $2,399 Comes in silver and space gray colors For a more detailed review of the Notebook 9 and MacBook Pro, check here and here, respectively. A strange UFO sighting was reported from over Lake County, Illinois. According to an eyewitness account, a UFO which appeared like a bright light was seen hovering on the night sky. It broke apart into five distinct orb before reassembling into a big ship. Previously there were reports of bizarre UFOs such us dark triangle UFOs, angel-like flying objects and more. However, alien ships which breaks apart and reassembles on the sky are rare to be seen. Alien hunters believe it is no ordinary light or star. In a report in the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), the witness described that he saw a bright glowing light. He added that he initially thought it was a bright planet but then, it started moving to his right and it was too large to be a satellite. The witness provided a video of the alleged UFO from a distance. He also said that he continued watching the object from his zoomed camera when it broke apart into five orbs, and then reassembled again into one giant orb. "I then noticed an orb by it detach itself and then sporadically went left of the orb and then vanished. The object was in my sight for about two hours and then slowly vanished behind the treeline of my house," the witness said according to Openminds.tv. James Wolford, state section director at MUFON who investigated the case said the UFO sighting was considered as an unnatural phenomenon. "The complex structure and behavior of the object rules out natural phenomena," Wolford said. He added that the technology used in the orb might be something more advanced than man-made construction. UFO hunters believed that the orb ship is controlled by extraterrestrial beings. However, some netizens are claiming their doubts on the alleged UFO sighting. Some are saying it might be drones or new technologies being tested and caught in camera. The popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras contain a critical remote code execution vulnerability that could allow hackers to gain root access and take full control of them. The vulnerability was discovered by researchers from the hacking collective the Exploiteers (formerly GTVHacker), who have found vulnerabilities in the Samsung SmartCam devices in the past. The flaw allows for command injection through a web script, even though the vendor has disabled the local web-based management interface in these devices. The Samsung SmartCam is a series of cloud-enabled network security cameras that were originally developed by Samsung Techwin. Samsung sold this division to South Korean business conglomerate Hanwha Group in 2015 and the company was renamed Hanwha Techwin. In response to vulnerabilities reported in the web-based management interface of various SmartCam models over the past few years, Hanwha Techwin decided to completely disable the local administration panel and only allow users to access the cameras through the accompanying smartphone app and its My SmartCam cloud service. The Exploiteers researchers recently analyzed the Samsung SmartCam SNH-1011 and noticed that while accessing the web interface over the local network was no longer possible, the web server was still running on the device and hosted some PHP scripts related to a video monitoring system called iWatch. One of these scripts allows users to update the iWatch software by uploading a file, but has a vulnerability that stems from improper sanitization of the file name. The flaw can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to inject shell commands that will then be executed by the web server running with root privileges. "The iWatch Install.php vulnerability can be exploited by crafting a special filename which is then stored within a tar command passed to a php system() call," the researchers explained in a blog post Saturday. "Because the web-server runs as root, the filename is user supplied, and the input is used without sanitization, we are able to inject our own commands within to achieve root remote command execution." While the flaw was found in the SNH-1011 model, the researchers believe that it affects the entire Samsung SmartCam series. Ironically the vulnerability can be exploited to turn on the disabled web management interface, whose removal was criticized by some users. The Exploiteers published a proof-of-concept exploit that does just that. They also provided instructions on how to manually patch the flaw. Re-enabling the web interface will allow users to monitor the camera feed via the local network again without having to use the My SmartCam service. But there's a catch: it also reactivates some of the old vulnerabilities that the vendor mitigated by simply disabling the interface in the first place. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. It seems that blogging is going out of fashion faster than I produce posts. I've had to prune the list of friends below to account for inactivity. But hope dies last, and maybe there will be a day that another of my friends starts blogging. It would help staying up to date. Back in Utah, Sean and I were fellow graduate students and roommates for a while. Plus, we spent a lot of time riding mountain bikes and breaking parts. Deidra, a purely virtual acquaintance, has kept me up to date with life in NYC for many years now. VIDEO POLICE looking for London man Robert 'Robbie' Gibson, who was last seen on the Isle of Wight in June 2016, will search an area in Shanklin this week. Officers from Hampshire Constabulary will search the Luccombe Road coastal path between today (Monday) and Wednesday. At 3pm on Monday, June 13, 2016, Robert Gibson, 45, left his home in Gipsy Hill, Norwood, Greater London. There was a confirmed sighting of Robert at 6.45pm that day, catching the catamaran from Portsmouth to Ryde. He is then believed to have boarded a train at Ryde Pier Head towards Lake and Shanklin. Hampshire Constabulary officers, with the assistance of the dog unit, will search the area. Police appealed for anyone with information regarding Roberts whereabouts to come forward. Robbie Gibson was described as white, 6ft tall, of slim build with grey/silver hair. He wears black rimmed Prada glasses. He was last seen wearing a blue/grey T-shirt with green/brown khaki trousers. DS John Stirling, of Newport CID, said: "Robert has been missing for a number of months now, and we are still keen to trace his steps. "He was last seen in Co-op in Shanklin, and is known to enjoy coastal walks. We know that the coastal path near Luccombe Road is a particular route Robert has walked in the past during trips to the Isle of Wight. "Officers have chosen to search the area now as it was too overgrown during the summer months when Robert was reported missing. "We hope this search will provide us with additional evidence which may help us trace Robert." Anyone with information on his whereabouts can call DS Stirling on 101, quoting 44160231297, or contact the charity Missing People on 116000. A County Press reporter attended the search at Luccombe, but nothing was found. Police with specialist victim recovery dogs were trawling the area, supported by crews from Isle of Wight Search and Rescue. See this week's County Press for the full story. President-elect Donald Trump showed his support to L.L. Bean after the company got into a predicament in connection with a donation to his candidacy. If his tweet related to L.L. Bean is any indication, companies that supported his bid for the presidency can expect to be treated the same way. Trump, who will assume the highest position in the U.S. government this January, urged people to buy L.L. Bean catalogs after Grab Your Wallet asked people to boycott the company, Bloomberg News reported. The anti-Trump group wanted people to stop patronizing L.L. Bean products due to the contribution of one of the company's board members to Making America Great Again LLC, a political action committee that helped Trump secure the presidency. Linda Bean, a board member of the catalog seller and a granddaughter of the company's founder, reportedly donated $60,000 to Making America Great Again, but the political action committee's filing stated that the donation only amounted to $30,000, Daily News reported. However, it was enough to rouse the ire of Grab Your Wallet. Linda hit back at Grab Your Wallet, saying that what the anti-Trump group does is bullying. Aside from the boycott of L.L. Bean products, the group is also calling for Linda's resignation. In a tweet, Trump praised Linda's courage in the face of adversity. L.L. Bean denied having any political leanings. The catalog seller's chairman, Shawn Gorman, said Linda's action and political activity does not reflect the views of the other board members and family owners of the company. The latest issue signals an administration that would be much friendlier to corporations. Jobs & Hire previously reported that Trump praised Ford and Fiat Chrysler for their decisions to invest in the U.S. after the president-elect shamed Toyota for not choosing to do so. What does Putin want? He has some very legitimate gripes with Western policy-- especially the way NATO has moved to encircle Russia. Russians are historically touchy about that-- and for good reason . "The West" killed 11 million Russian soldiers and between 7 million and 20 million civilians during World War II. (In comparison, the U.S. lost around 400,000 soldiers in that war.) Weakening the EU and destroying a hostile NATO certainly appears to be in Russia's national interest, irrespective of Putin's penchant for kleptocracy and tyranny. Putin would be remiss in his job if he weren't supporting right-wing nationalist movements in the West that seek to undermine the EU and NATO. That includes Senor Trumpanzee. And it's working out better than Putin could have ever imagined it would. Over the weekend, Alex Barker, reporting from Brussels for the Financial Times noted that, according to the US ambassador to the EU, members of the Trumpanzee transition team (TTT) have called EU leaders to ask "what country is to leave next" with a tone suggesting the union "is falling apart" this year. In a pugnacious parting press conference, Anthony Gardner warned of "fringe" voices such as Nigel Farage, the former UK Independence party leader, holding influence in Washington over Mr Trump's team. Speaking days before leaving office, Mr Gardner said it would be "lunacy" and "the height of folly" for the US to ditch half a century of foreign policy in order to support further EU fragmentation or become a "Brexit cheerleader" in Brussels. "I was struck in various calls that were going on between the incoming administration and the EU that the first question is: what country is about to leave next after the UK?" he said. The perceived sense is that 2017 is the year in which the EU is going to fall apart. And I hope that Nigel Farage is not the only voice being listened to because that is a fringe voice... He argued that the next administration needed to be told plainly that the EU "was not falling apart" and was in fact finding more sense of purpose in the wake of Brexit. Trumpanzee was firmly rebuffed when he tried to strong-arm the British government into naming his neo-fascist crony, Farage, ambassador. All that said, we still don't have any way of knowing for sure the extent of interference by the Russians in placing Trump into the White House. The Russian and American intelligence services aren't exactly known for veracity or integrity. The Christopher Steele story and his golden showers dossier is still fascinating, regardless of what you believe about it. On Saturday, The Independent revealed the FBI's role in this sordid affair. Steele is a former MI6 agent-- a kind of James Bond character-- who was freaking out about what he claims to have found between Trump and the Russians. He sent his information to both the U.S. and U.K. intelligence services "after concluding that such material should not just be in the hands of political opponents of Mr Trump, who had hired his services, but was a matter of national security for both countries." It looks like Giuliani and his cronies at the FBI were able to keep the information off the Bureau's front burner. Steele became increasingly frustrated that the FBI was failing to take action on the intelligence from others as well as him. He [and a colleague, a former Wall Street Journal reporter named Glenn Simpson,] came to believe there was a cover-up, that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails. ...[In July] Steele produced a memo, which went to the FBI, stating that Mr Trumps campaign team had agreed to a Russian request to dilute attention on Moscows intervention in Ukraine. Four days later Mr Trump stated that he would recognise Moscows annexation of Crimea. A month later officials involved in his campaign asked the Republican partys election platform to remove a pledge for military assistance to the Ukrainian government against separatist rebels in the east of the country. Mr Steele claimed that the Trump campaign was taking this path because it was aware that the Russians were hacking Democratic Party emails. No evidence of this has been made public, but the same day that Mr Trump spoke about Crimea he called on the Kremlin to hack Hillary Clintons emails. By late July and early August MI6 was also receiving information about Mr Trump. By September, information to the FBI began to grow in volume: Mr Steele compiled a set of his memos into one document and passed it to his contacts at the FBI. But there seemed to be little progress in a proper inquiry into Mr Trump. The Bureau, instead, seemed to be devoting their resources in the pursuit of Hillary Clintons email transgressions. The New York office, in particular, appeared to be on a crusade against Ms Clinton. Some of its agents had a long working relationship with Rudy Giuliani, by then a member of the Trump campaign, since his days as public prosecutor and then Mayor of the city. As the election approached, FBI director James Comey made public his bombshell letter saying that Ms Clinton would face another email investigation. Two days before that Mr Giuliani, then a part of the Trump team, talked about a surprise or two youre going to hear about in the next few days. Weve got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn things around. After the letter was published Mr Giuliani claimed he had heard from current and former agents that theres a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI over the original decision not to charge Ms Clinton and that Mr Comey had been forced by some of his agents to announce the reinvestigation. Democrats demanded an investigation into how Mr Giuliani acquired this knowledge without getting an answer. In October a frustrated and demoralised Mr Steele, while on a trip to New York, spoke about what he has discovered to David Corn, the Washington editor of the magazine Mother Jones. There was a little flurry of interest that quickly died down. Mr Trumps surprise election victory came and the Democrat employers of Mr Steele and Mr Johnson no longer needed them. But the pair continued with their work, hopeful that the wider investigation into Russian hacking in the US would allow the Trump material to be properly examined. It was against this background that Senator John McCain, who had been hearing with growing alarm reports about Mr Trump and the Kremlin, met Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, who had spent 10 years in Russia and is highly respected for his knowledge of Russian affairs, at a security conference in Halifax, Canada. Sir Andrew stressed to Senator McCain that he had not read the dossier, but vouched for Mr Steeles professionalism and integrity. The chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee then sent an emissary to London who picked up the dossier from an intermediary acting on behalf of Mr Steele. The Senator personally took the material to Mr Comey. Mr Trump and Barack Obama were briefed about the allegations as part of a report into Russian hacking a week ago. Mr Trump remained silent about them until they were published this week and then he angrily denounced them as lies. His spokesperson said he could not recall the briefing. Mr Steele is now in hiding, under attack from some Tory MPs for supposedly trying to ruin the chances of Theresa Mays Government building a fruitful relationship with the Trump administration. Some of them accuse him of being part of an anti-Brexit conspiracy. A right-wing tabloid has outed him as being a confirmed socialist while at university. I wonder how closely Giuliani will be questioned by the various investigatory bodies that are getting ready to take on the task of getting to the bottom of all this. No waterboarding, right? A settlement has been reached in the WARN Act compensation dispute between defunct Microfibres Inc. and plaintiffs certified for a class-action lawsuit. The settlement was disclosed Friday, eight days after the case appeared headed to alternative dispute resolution. Bankruptcy trustee Joseph DiOrio said the parties expect to file the settlement with the bankruptcy court this week. Microfibres, based in Pawtucket, R.I., filed for Chapter 7 voluntary bankruptcy protection in January 2016 with plans to liquidate its assets the same day it closed its Winston-Salem and Pawtucket plants. The local workforce was at 270 employees in 2004. About 125 employees in Winston-Salem and 60 in Pawtucket were projected to be covered by Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, protections. The plaintiffs are requesting at least $1.5 million in damages and priority administrative claim status for the first $12,745 of each employees claim, meaning they typically would be first in line after secured creditors are paid. The act was enacted in 1989 with the intent of preventing situations in which rank-and-file employees show up for work only to discover that their employer has shut down without notice. The act does this by requiring companies that are planning large job cuts defined as more than 50 employees to notify their state and local governments, as well as affected workers, at least 60 days in advance. The act provides certain benefits to laid-off workers, such as 60 days of pay and benefit contributions if the closing is immediate, and access to COBRA insurance benefits for 60 days. However, the U.S. Labor Department has no authority to enforce WARN regulations, hear employee complaints, investigate potential wrongdoing or file lawsuits representing employees. Employees must file a lawsuit in federal court to assert WARN rights. On Aug. 24, a federal judge certified the class-action lawsuit with a local former employee, Cedric Williams, serving as lead plaintiff. DiOrio had asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming the company is not financially liable to the workforce because it was a faltering business when it ceased operations. DiOrio said Microfibres acted in good faith toward its employees, including paying them in full for compensation they were owed. The former local Microfibres facilities may have a new owner Feb. 8. Up for sale is 473,000 square feet of space that includes five buildings on 25 acres. Two building are on the main manufacturing site at 3821 Kimwell Drive. The other local properties are at 3760, 3803 and 3811 Kimwell. DiOrio received on Nov. 28 an asset purchase offer of $5.79 million from Tukek Holding Anonim Sikreti, based in Turkey. Tukek was identified as the owner of Flokser Inc., and a strategic buyer in the international textile sector. Bankruptcy judge Diane Finkle approved the proposed offer Dec. 29. Objections to the sale must be filed by Feb. 2. Martin Luther King Jr. Day got off to a poignant start for the more than 1,000 people gathered in a ballroom of the downtown Embassy Suites Hotel. Guests attending the Winston-Salem Chronicles annual MLK Day celebration entered to a recording of Kings famous I Have a Dream Speech. And U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who has represented Minnesotas 5th district since 2007, gave an impassioned keynote address Monday morning to commemorate Kings 88th birthday, which would have been Sunday. Ellison, older brother of Forsyth County Democratic Party Chairman Eric Ellison, has been in the national spotlight since November, when he announced plans to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The elder Ellison, a progressive voice who is advocating for the party to return to a 50 states model of outreach, was initially viewed as a lock for the job, but the race has tightened as critics have rehashed some of Ellisons past controversial comments. Now, hes engaged in a heated battle over the direction of the party with several other prominent Democrats. Ellison, the first Muslim to serve in Congress, spoke at length about the legacy of King and the lessons communities can take with them into the next four years, connecting his vision for the future of the Democratic Party to the success of the civil rights movement. And he alluded to the controversy surrounding President-elect Donald Trump, who sparred with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and legendary civil rights figure, in the days leading up to the King holiday. If we confront the era of Donald Trump, then you dont need to get all scared, Ellison said. People before you stood up. Think about how much better off we are than our ancestors who fought for civil rights. Responsible leadership Ellison reminded the crowd that while racism cannot be defeated, Jim Crow was. It used to be, we couldnt sit where we wanted to sit, he said. We couldnt drink where we want to drink. Change happened, Ellison said, because activists worked for years to engage people on a grass-roots level and built a coalition. In order to move forward now, he said activists and politicians need to return to those grass-roots tactics of the civil rights era and look for unity where it can be found. Responsible leadership should bring people together, he said. Ellisons run for DNC chairman comes after a disastrous 2016 election cycle. Democrats are reeling after losing the presidential election, failing to gain control of either chamber of Congress and losing many state-level races. Ellison has picked up endorsements from, among others, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, of New York. The DNC will elect its next chair in February. Benefactors of the dream Monday was not the first time Ellison has taken an interest in North Carolina politics, though. While he was applauding the work of Rev. William Barber and the NAACP protests, last month he drew national attention to the General Assemblys attempts to curtail the powers of newly elected Gov. Roy Cooper before he took office. Ellison said Democrats will work with Trump and Republicans on issues if they can find common ground, but will continue to stand up to negative rhetoric and damaging policies like Trumps plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They have earned our opposition, Ellison said. The Chronicles breakfast kicked off Forsyth Countys MLK Day celebrations. Others, including a march, were scheduled for later in the day, a fact applauded by Judge Denise Hartsfield, of Forsyth District Court. We are the benefactors of that dream that Dr. King told us about some time ago, she said. In addition to a sold-out crowd, the breakfast was well-attended by local officials. The mayors office, police department, fire department, city council and school board were among those represented. I think Dr. King might be horrified by whats going on in our state and in our nation, said Mayor Allen Joines. I wonder what hed say. I think he might say that we cant settle into a false sense of complacency and accept the next four years as a new normal. State officials were represented by Forsyth County Democrats Sen. Paul Lowe and Rep. Ed Hanes. The event, which stretched to nearly three hours, was peppered with performances from the Big 4 choir, made up of graduates from Winston-Salems four historically black high schools. After Eric Ellison introduced his older brother, Hartsfield the mornings emcee stopped the representative from coming to the podium. Dr. King was a Baptist preacher and you cant get up here before that choir sings, she said. And so they sang. On the third Monday of each January, Americans honor the memory of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King, a Baptist minister from the southern state of Alabama, was a leader in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, advocating social change through non-violent means. On January 15th, he would have celebrated his 88th birthday. Believing that "change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle," Dr. King organized and participated in mass-action boycotts, sit-ins, peaceful marches and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience. Dr. King once stated that "an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." And so, activists sometimes deliberately, but peacefully and respectfully, broke laws aimed at segregating the white citizenry from the non-white, thus hoping to bring attention to the inherent unfairness of such legislation. Thus, when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks broke the law in Montgomery, Alabama, by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, and subsequently was jailed for her transgression, her plight generated national attention and increasing sympathy for her cause across the country. Dr. King was thirty nine years old when he died by an assassin's bullet on April 4th, 1968. But his legacy lives on. In the fullness of time, segregationist laws were repealed, discrimination is a legally punishable and punished offence. And even as we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and enormous contribution to society, Barack Obama, the first ever African-American U.S. President, is just finishing his second term in office. "I never thought in my lifetime that I would see one of us aspiring to be the head of our nation," said Martin Luther King Jr.'s eldest sister, Dr. Christine King Farris. "Mr. Obama leading us toward the presidency is like the Promised Land for us." Dr. King's life is well summed up in his own words: "The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important." THE REV. DUKE ISON, Winston-Salem Admirer or follower? Recently, several letters to The Readers Forum have talked about believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. What I hear in their letters is that one needs to give intellectual assent to the assertion that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. Say that Baptist minister Clarence Jordan (founder or Koinonia Farms and inspiration for Habitat for Humanity) defined belief. Our word belief comes from two Anglo-Saxon words: Be meaning by and life meaning life. Belief means by your life you show what you really trust. So when I hear people claim allegiance to Jesus but by their lives reject the values, kindness and justice Jesus exemplified, I think they are admirers of Jesus, not followers of Jesus. Take for example the issue of the expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina for the poor. Would Jesus, the great healer, be against this? I dont think so. Yet, a host of N.C. legislators who will happily claim allegiance to Jesus are against this. Jesus needs to be more than a ticket for salvation. He needs to be the lens through which his followers see and act in the world. When that happens, his followers begin to look like him and not just claim allegiance to him. ****** KENNETH R. OSTBERG, Winston-Salem Defunding Planned Parenthood In the coming weeks Congress will once again discuss, and possibly vote on, the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood. Because the headlines usually say Defund Planned Parenthood, most people assume that means it, unlike other health-care providers, receives an annual block grant of federal dollars to support its activities. This is not true. Planned Parenthood receives fee-for-service reimbursements from the federal government and many private insurance companies for providing health-care services to qualifying women. These are services for such things as pregnancy testing, pap smears, cancer screenings, STD testing and birth control services. These are exactly the same fee-for-service reimbursements that other doctors, medical practices, clinics and hospitals receive for providing these same services. Planned Parenthood has long been singled out for attack by some politicians without recognition of the community services it provides. Ninety-five percent of what it does is provide educational and medical services other than abortions. Through its educational and birth-control services it has been instrumental in reducing nationwide the number of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Planned Parenthood does not receive any special treatment from the government and defunding it would negatively impact women across the country. When You Write The Journal encourages readers comments. To participate in The Readers Forum, please submit letters online to Letters@wsjournal.com. Please write The Readers Forum in the subject line and include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Or you may mail letters to: The Readers Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Letters are subject to editing and may be published on journalnow.com. Letters are limited to 250 words. Letter writers are allowed one letter every 30 days. If you would like a photo of yourself included with your letter, send it to us as a .jpg file. For more guidelines and advice on writing letters, go to journalnow.com/opinion/submit_a_letter. The Journal welcomes original submissions for guest columns on local, regional and statewide topics. Essay length should not exceed 750 words. The writer should have some authority for writing about his or her subject. Our email address is: Letters@wsjournal.com. Essays may also be mailed to: The Readers Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Please include your name and address and a daytime telephone number. LAS VEGAS (AP) A Nevada judge has revised a previous order in a legal challenge to the states voucher-style Education Savings Account program to allow the treasurers office to continue to accept applications. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that District Judge James Wilsons order more closely aligns a previous injunction with a state Supreme Court decision that found only the programs funding source unconstitutional. Wilsons latest order grants a motion by Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, who says the program can be fully implemented once the funding issue is resolved. The state Supreme Court in September upheld some major parts of the program but ruled that the programs funding mechanism should remain blocked. Gov. Brian Sandoval has said he plans to include a funding source for the accounts in his proposed budget. WASHINGTON (AP) The outgoing Obama administration on Monday blacklisted five Russians, including a senior law enforcement official close to President Vladimir Putin, as the two nations feud over U.S. election hacking escalated. The founder of WikiLeaks, publisher of the election-related emails, denounced last weeks U.S. intelligence report about the hacking as a press release. The economic sanctions against the five Russians are not related to the U.S. intelligence agencies findings, officials said, and instead are connected to a 2012 U.S. law punishing Russian human rights violators. Americans are now banned from doing business with the men and any assets they may have in the United States are now frozen. But the symbolic effect of the new penalties was more significant, following weeks of accusations that Moscow spearheaded a campaign designed to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Novembers presidential election. And their timing was unmistakable: Just three days after U.S. intelligence agencies connected Putin directly to the hacking of Democratic accounts. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Russia provided the emails to WikiLeaks. The websites founder, Julian Assange, denies that is the case, but Democrat and GOP lawmakers have largely backed the accusation and many have demanded a sterner response for meddling in Americas democratic process. Mondays action could go some way to answering those calls. Trump, however, could repeal these sanctions when he takes office next week. The billionaire businessman has expressed an interest in warming relations with Russia and has voiced skepticism about the intelligence agencies conclusions. The most prominent individual targeted by the U.S. is Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russias main investigative agency. Bastrykin and Putin attended the same university together. The Investigative Committee under Bastrykin investigated Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitskys death in prison in 2009. It determined that Magnitsky died in detention and closed the case after determining that there was no evidence of a crime. Two of the Russians placed on the Treasury Departments list Monday have been accused of trying to help cover up Magnitskys death. Britain blames the two others for the London murder of a former Russian spy. Forty-four Russians have now been subjected to U.S. sanctions under the so-called Magnitsky law, the State Department said.Before the new penalties were announced, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the Kremlin still believes the U.S. accusations of election hacking had no substance. They are amateurish and are hardly worthy of the high professional standards of top intelligence agencies, Peskov said. We categorically rule out the possibility that Russian officials or official bodies could have been involved. We are tired of such accusations. This is beginning to remind us of a full-fledged witch hunt. The report accused Russia of hacking into the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individual Democrats like Hillary Clintons campaign chairman John Podesta. Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid trolls to make nasty comments on social media services, it said, although there was no suggestion such operations affected the actual vote count. It also explicitly tied Putin to the hackings, calling them the boldest effort yet to influence a U.S. election. WikiLeaks founder Assange on Monday brushed aside the allegations. He called the report a politically motivated press release that provided no evidence Russian actors gave WikiLeaks hacked material. The report lacked details about how the U.S. learned what it says it knows, such as any intercepted conversations or electronic messages from Russian leaders, including Putin. It also said nothing about specific hacker techniques or digital tools the U.S. may have traced back to Russia in its investigations. A still-classified version of the report was shared late last week with President Barack Obama, Trump and top lawmakers in Congress. ___ Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. Reddit Email 326 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | Reaction has two main meanings in English. One is to respond to some new situation (not specifying the nature of the reaction). The other is to resist some innovation. In this second sense, a reactionary is one who wants to go back to a previously existing condition of society. A reactionary is worse than a conservative. A conservative resists progressive change that benefits large numbers of people but does not help the rich. A reactionary wants to undo a progressive change already long since effected, taking achievements away from the people for the sake of the 1%. We live in a reactionary age. Trump crony Newt Gingrich wants to undo the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt entirely, getting rid of social security and condemning large numbers of elderly Americans to penury. (In the 1930s the elderly were the poorest segment of society; that is no longer true today, and people can hope to retire and live with dignity, because of social security). We live in a moment where 8 billionaires are as rich as the poorer half of humankind and when the top 1% takes home 20% of the US national income (up from 10% only a few decades ago). Ironically, it is in this moment, when workers and the middle classes are prostrate and the lions share of resources is going to 1.2 million households out of 124 million American households it is at this very moment that reactionaries are demanding that ordinary people surrender their pensions and social security and health care for the sake of a further fat tax cut for the super-rich. The average wage of the average worker has been flat since 1970 in the US, as any increases in productivity or real economic growth appears to have been taken right to the top and the 1% by the Republican tax-cut conveyor belt. A loss of entitlements would actually reduce their incomes substantially, sending them back to the 1950s. I saw the Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Stephens on Farid Zakarias GPS recently, opining that he goes around the country talking to small business owners, and they are complaining about excessive regulation and the injustices of the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act. Let me just say that I believe Mr. Stephens was using small business as a more sympathetic stand-in for his actual client, mega corporations. Sarbanes-Oxley made it illegal to destroy records to forestall a Federal investigation, in the wake of Enron and other scandals that robbed large number of employees of their pensions. Very inconvenient. Dodd-Frank is also no doubt very inconvenient for small business. Any let or hindrance on the super-rich whom Stephens and his like serve is of course a brake on economic progress. Except that Enron and the 2008 crash, which occurred in the absence of regulation were not in fact good for the economy or for workers and the middle class. Stephens may well get his way, and these regulatory reforms may well be deep-sixed in the Age of Trump. Many among the rich dream of getting back to the halcyon unregulated 1920s, managing to forget the plunge their predecessors took off the Empire State building in 1929. The very definition of reaction is a nostalgia for an age whose time has passed. Reaction menaces us in the realm of civil rights as well as in that of the economy, where we have become a hereditary plutocracy. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It made it illegal for state officials to give literacy (or even Latin) tests only to African Americans as a prerequisite to register to vote. It ended racial discrimination in establishments that offered what was defined as a public accommodation. That is, white southerners like George Wallace insisted that a restaurant is a private business and so the owner should be welcome to discriminate in which customers he or she would serve. The Voting Rights Act begged to differ. If youre serving the public, it said, you are in some ways a public institution and you may not operate in a racist manner. Some members of the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party still hold the George Wallace position on restaurants, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). In this age of reaction, the achievements of the Voting Rights Act have been deeply eroded when they havent been entirely reversed. After three decades in which desegregated schools operated perfectly well throughout the country and came to be supported by many progressive southern Whites, from about 1990 the Federal courts began ceasing to require desegregation. The result? Apartheid schooling in the United States is again a reality. Given the high rates of racial segregation in neighborhoods, this reality, partly economic, has come to be reflected in the schools. Weve seen large-scale resegregation. Call it Jim Crow by other means. h/t American Studies Ironically, all students benefit from being in racially mixed schools, including the white students. There are cognitive benefits; i.e. you learn to think more clearly in a more hybrid social situation. Not only have the schools been resegregated but once the Roberts court removed oversight from the Deep South states, they immediately ran and put back in the Latin tests for African-Americans. This time though they cleverly did it more subtly by requiring identification papers in order to vote. If challenged, the white racists who passed these laws will say it is to prevent voter fraud. But there isnt any voter fraud to speak of, at least from these quarters. Maybe the law should have been restricted to the Russian embassy. That supposed Libertarians who squawk at the idea of national identity cards should have suddenly decided we need identity cards to vote can only be explained by bigotry. John Roberts was snarky in asking whether court oversight was really any longer needed for the former Jim Crow states, asking if people in the New York-Boston corridor really were less racist nowadays. I dont know, John. Why dont you tell me? Heres a map to help you decide. Notice where the white spaces are. h/t Sun Herald So we are back to de facto restrictions on the voting rights of African-Americans, which may have affected the election outcome in 2016. And were back to all-Black schools. The Republican Party is still dedicated to equality in one area, though. Theyd love to make us all wage slaves with no unions, no rights ( even to have a break), no minimum income, no health care and no social security. Indeed, there is a sense in which the 99% are all Black in the Age of Trump, whether they know it yet or not. That is why we need the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., today more than ever. Here is his last speech, on the dignity of labor: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Speech to Memphis Sanitation Workers Reddit Email 0 Shares TeleSur | Before he announced his proposal, Strache warned the crowd of the existential threat posed by Islam to Europe. As the vortex of right-wing populism courses through Europe, Austria is no stranger to such discourse: the head of its far-right Freedom Party said Saturday that there should be a complete ban on fascistic Islam. Heinz Christian Strache told a crowd in the city of Salzburg that there should be a ban on Muslim symbols in the country, just as there are Austrian laws banning Nazi symbols. Before warning the crowd of the existential threat posed by Islam to Europe, he said, Let us put an end to this policy of Islamization Otherwise we Austrians, we Europeans will come to an abrupt end. The Freedom Party is also vehemently anti-immigrant, with Stache declaring the same day that Austria should implement zero and minus immigration. Austrias Muslim population at 600,000 has faced a constant barrage of Islamophobic rhetoric. Recently, an Austrian cardinal asked in a speech: Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe? Many Muslims want that and say: Europe is at the end. Last month, a right-wing trade union in the country proposed that Muslims should be denied Christmas bonuses because they are against all Christian traditions. In light of all this, a recent study of Muslim youth in Vienna found that many dont feel they belong as Austrians in the country. And the Freedom Partys anti-Muslim posturing isnt a fringe opinion. While the partys presidential candidate Norbert Hofer was defeated in a runoff vote last month, he gained 47 percent support among the countrys electorate. Elsewhere, in the Netherlands, the right-wing nationalist Freedom Party, in preparation for the March 2017 elections, is running on a platform of closing mosques and Islamic schools, and banning both the Quran and Muslim migrants. It would also like to impose a ban on the hijab. Via TeleSur Related video added by Juan Cole: WSJ: Austria Rejects Right-Wing Populist in Presidential Election From Martin Luther King Jr., from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963: I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. photo by Mike Licht LUCY BURDETTE : King was only 39 years old when he was assassinated, and yet he left such a large footprint. He identified civil rights as his lifes work back when he was a teenager. And he never let up on that. And he was willing to sacrifice his own life to stand up and speak his mind. Ricci Coughlan/DFID His holiday has me wondering, are we making heroes the way we used to? I mean grand-scale heroes who are willing to sacrifice their lives either literally or figuratively to protect something vitally important for the rest of us. I would put forward Michelle Obama as one of mine. Over the past eight years, she has been consistently classy and strong-minded supporting issues she believed to be important, and managed to raise two amazing daughters while under the microscope. Whom do you admire, and for what? RHYS BOWEN : I'd agree about Michelle. One classy lady who has raised two daughters with the idea of service and dedication. Another of my heroes was Maya Angelou. When I tried to go through our current crop of politicians I'm afraid I couldn't come up with a single "Ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you." It's been more "Ask how I can accept kick backs from lobbyists while denying the other party the chance to do anything." But there are plenty of small heroes: those who teach in inner city schools and buy all their own supplies. Nurses who sit by the bedside of a dying child. Those who minister to the homeless and go to war-torn countries to provide help to refugees. I think we are all called upon to be heroes in our own small way. It involves not turning a blind eye to injustice, speaking up even though it may make us feel foolish. Never allowing bullying or intimidation. Choosing our charities that mean something special to us and then giving generously. Volunteering. Showing compassion. Vowing to do one small act of kindness every day and to leave the world a little better than we found it. A great challenge, but worth undertaking! HALLIE EPHRON : I agree on Michelle Obama. And in that vein, another heroic first lady was Eleanor Roosevelt. She found her own niche. lobbied for the needy and oppressed, and had Franklin's ear. And I'll second teachers and nurses and politicians who are motivated by a desire to serve for the public good. And the suffragists and suffragettes and abolitionists. Reminding us that it's easy to sign a petition but actions speak louder. JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING : Chiming in on Michelle Obama. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does as a private citizen (and she has so many years ahead of her! She's younger than many of us.) Politicians, leaders... I find Sen Tammy Duckworth incredibly inspiring. Someone who has given as much as she has to our country and who is willing to give more. Elizabeth Warren, the populist firebrand. Maine's own Senator Susan Collins, one of the last of the moderate Republicans in DC, a politician who is willing to listen to and work with people across the aisle. I agree with Rhys: the days to come will require us all to be heroes, if even in one small gesture or one kind word. I think there are groups who have acted heroically by providing shelter and relief to those displaced by war. I think Anita Hill was a hero for taking a stand (literally) in the face of horrendous abuse and character assassination. I think that kids who stand up for other kids on the playground are acting heroically, and I do think people who do jobs where they run towards danger rather than from it are heroes. INGRID THOFT : Another Michelle Obama fan here. I looked up "hero" in the dictionary, because it seems to be a word we toss around a lot more than we used to. Dictionary.com defines it as "a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character," and Michelle seems to fit the bill with nobility of character.I think that kids who stand up for other kids on the playground are acting heroically, and I do think people who do jobs where they run towards danger rather than from it are heroes. I consider myself a work in progress, learning from people like Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou, Emma Thompson, Malala Yousifazi, and my mom, to name just a few. In raising boys, I feel lucky that they have several strong male role models (like their dad) to learn from but when they were younger, I also employed the Rule of DC/Marvel. If they exhibited behavior that was unacceptable, I'd say, "You love (insert Spiderman, Ironman, Batman, etc.), do you think he would behave like that? If you want to be a hero, you have to act like one." For the most part, it worked like a charm. It will be interesting to see who they choose to emulate as they grow older. Right now, it's all about music, specifically rock and roll -- Keith Richards as a role model, go figure! JENN MCKINLAY : I adore Michelle, too. Frankly, I admire anyone who can keep their composure when under constant scrutiny and frequent vicious attack. I am not that person - my command of profanity prohibits me from being polite when a good chewing out is deserved. I do try, but I usually fail.In raising boys, I feel lucky that they have several strong male role models (like their dad) to learn from but when they were younger, I also employed the Rule of DC/Marvel. If they exhibited behavior that was unacceptable, I'd say, "You love (insert Spiderman, Ironman, Batman, etc.), do you think he would behave like that? If you want to be a hero, you have to act like one." For the most part, it worked like a charm. It will be interesting to see who they choose to emulate as they grow older. Right now, it's all about music, specifically rock and roll -- Keith Richards as a role model, go figure! DEBORAH CROMBIE : I'm all for Keith Richards as a role model, Jenn!! And I admire Michelle tremendously. I think it will be very interesting to see what she does when the First Lady shackles come off. I know it seems hard at the moment to remember that there are lots of people who act with decency, kindness, and compassion, and speak up--and act--on their principles. There is Jimmy Carter, and Pope Francis. I have great admiration for Bill and Melinda Gates, who donate huge amounts of money AND effort to make the world a better place. And Bill Gates's buddy, Warren Buffet. There's John Lewis, the congressional representative who's much in the news the last few days, but his record as an activist goes back many years. Barbara Bush is a long-held hero of mine for her efforts towards improving literacy. And here's something inspiring; the Bush girls (young women, I should say,) Barbara and Jenna, writing to Sasha and Malia on leaving the White House . They have grown up to be women to admire. HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN : Jenn, your rule of DC/Marvel is awesome. Thank you! I am trying that out this very day. As for the incomparable Michelle. Yes. I am endlessly grateful. And I am so attached to her. (And I have talked with Anita Hill, and could barely form a coherent word.) But heroes and role models? My step-son and his wife and our two grandsons are visiting us this weekend. It is enthralling and amazing to watch Josh and Eli learn things and acclimate to their world--and to see their parents juggle and help and encourage. Paul works every day at a stimulating and important job and Krista is getting her masters in early childhood education and STILL they focus on their kids. It is so difficult. So--I am in AWE of any hard-working and devoted parents. Any parent who is taking the responsibility to introduce a new person into the world--to teach them about love and music and literature and analytical thinking and kindness and pizza. I applaud you all. Reds, how about you? Any thoughts about modern day heroes? Three men were executed [Bahrain News Agency report] by firing squad in Bahrain on Sunday after being convicted of killing three policemen in March 2014. The execution came a week after a the high court upheld their sentence, leading to the first documented execution in Bahrain in six years. The executions have been controversial and heavily critized, especially because of the fact that all the three men were Shia. The execution sparked several protests in Shia villages and several policemen were wounded in the clashes between police and protesters. The human rights organization Reprieve [advocacy website] has further warned that the executions were based on confessions obtained through torture of the three men. Bahrain has faced growing international concerns about its human rights practices in later years. In September 2016, 32 nations joined a statement read to the UN Human Rights Council [official website] urging Bahrain [JURIST report] to protect its citizens freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and rights to a fair trial. In November 2016, Amnesty International [advocacy website] critized Bahrain [JURIST report] for not taking adequate steps to stop unlawful killings, torture and human rights violations that has been committed by Bahrains secury forces. There has especially been concern over Bahrains treatment of its minority Shia population. In August 2016 a group of UN human rights experts expressed concerns [JURIST report] that the human rights of the Shia population were being suppressed, as they were often unfairly charged with with illegal gathering, inciting hatred against the regime, money laundering and acts of terrorism. The High Administrative Court in Egypt on Monday rejected the appeal of a lower courts decision in June [JURIST report] to stop the government from handing over two uninhabited islands, Tiran and Sanafir, in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia stating that the government failed to provide any evidence [BBC report] that the islands originally belonged to Saudi Arabia. The islands are at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba and control the narrow shipping lanes [Al Jazeera report] leading north to Eilat in Israel and Aqaba in Jordan. Both islands remain uninhabited but for the Egypt military and multinational peacekeepers stationed there. The transfer, which was signed in April, sparked protests across Egypt at which hundreds were detained. A group of lawyers, including former presidential candidate Khaled Ali, also opposed the transfer. Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi [BBC profile], a proponent of the transfer stated that the islands had always belonged to Saudi Arabia [BBC report] and that Egypts troops had been stationed there only at the request of Saudi Arabia in 1950 for its protection. However, al-Sisi has been accused of bias toward Saudi Arabia, which has backed al-Sisi financially since he led the military overthrow of his Islamist predecessor, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013. Furthermore, Ali added that a 1906 maritime treaty between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire established Egypts sovereignty over the islands and that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia did not even exist until 1932. News of the decision was met with public jubilation in Cairo and across Egypt, and Ali stated that the decision was a victory for Egypt. Last year Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement [JURIST report] to improve stability and safety in the region. The agreement, entitled the Cairo Declaration and signed in Cairo by al-Sisi and Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aims to boost military and social ties in the region, as well as improve economic stability. The relationship between the two countries has been improving since the ouster of Morsi in 2013. Saudi Arabia has in turn offered billions of dollars to aid Egypt in its joint bombing campaign with the Saudis against Yemen. The pact also sets out plans to build a new joint Arab military force to combat regional terrorism. This decision might very well cast a stain on the relations between the two countries. Former Haitian coup leader Guy Philippe pleaded not guilty [BBC report] on Friday to charges of drug trafficking and money laundering in the Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida [official website]. Philippe was arrested on January 5 and flown to the US to stand trial on longstanding charges, after appearing on a Haitian radio show. His arrest came just days before he was set to be sworn in as a senator in the Haitian senate, which would have afforded him some immunity from being prosecuted in the US. Many of Philippes supporters showed up to the hearing at the court house protesting the arrest, claiming he was innocent and that he has immunity as an elected Haitian official. Philippe who was serving as the chief of police, was part of the coup that removed the sitting President of Haiti from power in 2004. The case has not yet been set for trial. US authorities have previously prosecuted numerous former Haitian officials on drug charges, some of whom may be witnesses in the Philippe case. These are not the only Haitian offcials to stand trial. In February 2014 an appellate court found that Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier who ruled the nation for 15 years, could be charged [JURIST report] with crimes against humanity committed during his reign in the 70s and 80s. Former president of Haiti Jean Bertrand Aristide has also been charged [JURIST op-ed] with commiting several crimes, centering on allegations of corruption, criminal conspiracy, money laundering and misappropriation of funds. ELKO Bring a lunch to the museum theater for Brown Bag History at noon on Thursday and enjoy an illustrated presentation on early Elko from 1868, when it was an end-of-track tent town on the Central Pacific Railroad. This is in preparation for the City of Elko Centennial that is set to celebrate 100 years of incorporation (1917-2017). Education Coordinator Dette Mawson will also preview topics for her upcoming series related to the centennial. Brown Bag History is the third Thursday of every month. It is free to the public. Attendees are encouraged to suggest subjects for future sessions. Being on hand for Brown Bag History may also serve as an opportunity to stroll through the rest of the museum to view exhibits in the History Gallery, habitat dioramas in the Wanamaker Wildlife Wing, the Will James Collection in the Ellis Gallery, or the two new traveling exhibits in the Barrick and Halleck Bar galleries. Northeastern Nevada Museum is located at 1515 Idaho St. in Elko. Public hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 738-3418 or email director@museumelko.org. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a recent letter, warned [Independent article] President-Elect Trump against moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Specifically, Abbas said the move would have a disastrous impact on the peace process, on the two-state solution and on the stability and security of the entire region. The new administrations plan has also been criticized by many in the international community, who have hypothesized that the move could lead to violence. Palestinian officials have expressed their belief that the move could put to a halt the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and one official has even likened the move to a declaration of war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been at the forefront of recent international news and reports. Human Rights Watch claimed [JURIST report] recently that some senior Israeli politicians are calling for Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians whom they suspect of harming Israelis, even if the suspects are not currently dangerous. A spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned remarks [JURIST report] made by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the current Israeli government. In a speech given in December, Kerry criticized the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, stating that such actions jeopardize prospects of peace in the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December summoned the ambassadors of the 14 UN Security Council members [JURIST report] who supported a resolution condemning Israels settlement in Palestine to rebuke them for the vote. Following the passage of this resolution, Netanyahu also ordered the countrys foreign ministers to reevaluate Israels ties to the UN within the month. The Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said he plans to declare martial law [Reuters report] if the countrys drug problem becomes very virulent. Duterte, who recently called reports that he intended to institute martial law nonsense, has made a concerted effort to combat drugs in the country, a campaign which has resulted in the killing of 6,000 people and the arrest of over 1 million drug traffickers and users. Specifically, Duterte said [i]f I wanted to, and it will deteriorate into something very virulent, I will declare martial law, and, in reference to the Supreme Court and Congress, he said [n]o one can stop me. The current crackdown on criminal activities in the Philippines has been Dutertes central focus since he entered office last year. During his campaign, Duterte said that 100,000 people would die [Guardian report] in his crackdown on crime. Since Duterte has taken office, more than 400 suspected drug dealers have been killed and 600,000 have surrendered to the police. In October the International Criminal Court [official website] expressed concern [JURIST report] over the rising occurrence of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines in connection with the ongoing war on drugs. In September Duterte declared a state of lawlessness [JURIST report] in the Philippines, which would allow police and military personnel to frisk individuals and search cars. In August Duterte named [JURIST report] 150 serving and former state officials connected to the nations illegal drug trade and ordered them to either surrender to the authorities or risk being hunted down. Duterte has stated that he disregards criticisms from the UN and human rights groups. Also in August Duterte threatened to withdraw [JURIST report] the country from the UN following criticisms against his controversial crackdown on illegal drugs. Dec. 14 Jordan Shane Redger was bound over on one count of eluding or failing to stop for a police officer and one count of grand larceny of a vehicle. Dec. 20 Melissa Ann Higgins was bound over to district court on one count of possessing a controlled substance. - Nicholas Prentice Holcomb was bound over to district court on two counts of conspiracy to buy, possess, receive or withhold stolen property. Dec. 21 Louis Malchodi Albedi was bound over to district court on one count of selling or transporting a controlled substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance. Dec. 22 Andrew Erby Lee was bound over to district court on one count of assault with a deadly weapon. Jan. 3 Andrew James Hockenberry was bound over to district court on one count of theft. Jan. 5 Hector German Guerrero was bound over to district court on one count trafficking of a controlled substance. - Jamie Rae Moore was bound over on two counts of selling or transporting a controlled substance and one count trafficking of a controlled substance. Jan. 6 Chad Elliott Bleuler was bound over on one count of possession of a controlled substance and one count of selling or transporting a controlled substance. - Austin Coy Brewer was bound over on one count of burglary and one count of attempted grand larceny. - William George James Sr. was bound over on two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Jan. 11 Amy Jo Summers was bound over on two counts of felony killing of a big game animal. German cheese maker Hochland has snapped up US cream cheese business Franklin Foods. Free Report Whats the forecast for the food and grocery industry? Market drivers and inhibitors Five-year forecasts and the impact of COVID-19 The performance of the online channel versus offline Major trends in the market including rapid delivery, ambient retailing, supply chain disruption, and inflation Assess developments within this sector to help your business thrive in 2022 and beyond. The food and grocery sector thrived during the pandemic, largely due to the shutdown of the food service industry and the sectors subsequent necessity, panic-induced bulk purchasing, and spending more time at home. The market has grown as a result of inflation. Consumer unwillingness to go out and socialize, and the reopening of several hospitality facilities, helped maintain the demand for groceries, particularly online, in 2021. As consumer behavior changes, we consume more food and drink at home, and inflation increases basket sizes. GlobalData predicts that the sector will continue to hold a higher share than had been predicted prior to the pandemic. This is true despite the fact that the food and grocery sector's share of overall retail will decline from its peak in 2020. This report will discuss market forecasts and key themes in the global food & grocery industry in 2022 and beyond. It covers:Assess developments within this sector to help your business thrive in 2022 and beyond. by GlobalData Enter your details here to receive your free Report. 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Visit our privacy policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address. Thank you.Please check your email to download the Report. Hochland said the deal, struck for an undisclosed sum, would help it further develop its own brands in the US. Three years ago, Hochland set up a sales arm in the US called Bergland Cheese USA. The strong market position, nationwide distribution and two modern production plants of Franklin Foods offer Hochland the ideal platform for a successful implementation of our own brands and products in the USA, Hochland CEO Peter Stahl said. According to Hochland, Florida-based Franklin Foods is the third-largest producer of cream cheese in the US, generating revenues of approximately US$140m in 2016. Hochland said Franklin Foods has grown rapidly in the past few years. Franklin Foods runs operates two production sites in Vermont and Arizona. It has 200 employees. The company sells its own brands and private-label products through the retail and foodservice channels. The business range of brands include Hahns cream cheese, Lombardis mascarpone and cream cheese-to-spreads brand Green Mountain Farms. Related Companies Wine is either white, rose or red, but never blue. A business venture by five Basque entrepreneurs has run afoul of Spains winemaking industry . A complaint filed by the sectors biggest producers has resulted in a prohibition against commercializing its blue-colored drink Gik Live as a wine. The people behind the eye-catching product say that the complaint has put sales on hold for three months while forcing them to fire two workers. A promotional image showing Gik Live. Gik, a startup based in the Basque town of Portugalete that aimed to revolutionize a traditional industry with the worlds first blue wine, has been forced to rethink its business strategy in the wake of the industry protest. Company officials said that from now on, they will no longer be able to market their product as a blue wine, even though it is made exclusively with wine grapes (a mixture of red and white varieties) and uses organic pigments to create the blue hue. Its unfair, because Gik is 100% grape. It represents something new that the sector does not want to live with Aritz Lopez, co-founder Instead, the new label will not show the word wine at all, and the product will be classified under other alcoholic beverages. Weve had to change the makeup to 99% wine and 1% grape juice in order to make it adapt to existing legislation, said a Gik spokesman. Its unfair, because Gik is 100% grape. It represents something new that the sector does not want to live with, says Aritz Lopez, one of its five creators. The product received wide media coverage when it first came out in November, with UK broadcaster the BBC describing it as a cross between a wine, a wine cooler and a cocktail mixer, with a mellow, sweet, slightly syrupy mouthfeel. Rainbow wine There is another similar case in Spain. Vinedos Amaya, a winemaker from El Bierzo with its own vineyards, was told by a court that its colored "technowine" cannot be marketed as wine, regional daily El Diario de Leon reported. Instead, the company now markets a Rainbow Drink "made with wine and in any color you wish." But all the attention also had its side effects. Two inspectors showed up at the companys facilities in early August to analyze the characteristics of Gik Live, which was then being marketed as a blue wine. The company said it has sold over 90,000 bottles in the domestic market. Gik Blue has an alcohol content of 11,5 degrees, and contains sweeteners. It pairs well with sushi, guacamole and nachos, tzatziki, pasta carbonara and smoked salmon, say its makers. They also stress that the drink is regulated by the European Food Safety Authority and has all the necessary approvals. But none of this was enough for Spains wine producers, who filed a complaint stating that the term blue wine is not included in the 17 categories of wine products listed in 2013 industry regulations. The company has also been slapped with a fine that it declines to disclose. Lopez said that some people defend tradition and the good name of their favorite wines, but we dont feel that we are hurting anybody. Were just trying to bring this world closer to young people like ourselves. There should be room for everyone. Gik officials also say that the Spanish Conference of Wine Regulatory Councils establishes that diversity is one of the pillars of Spains wines. Now, the company has launched a petition on Change.org in a bid to have their product categorized as wine and to have a fair spot in the industry. English version by Susana Urra. A Spanish aid worker who was kidnapped in Aghanistans Kunduz province four weeks ago was released on Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Spains Foreign Ministry have confirmed. The aid worker was safe and sound and currently with a Red Cross team after Afghan special forces ensured his release, according to Spanish news agency EFE. The Red Cross worker was kidnapped in mid-December after being singled out from the group he was traveling with at a fake roadblock set up to ambush two vehicles without an escort, said the ICRC at the time. Spains Foreign Ministry was not directly involved in the release Although the ICRC have not revealed the identity of the kidnappers, their motives, or details of the aid workers release, Afghan government sources said the kidnappers were part of a well-known criminal group who did not have the capacity to hold a hostage for a long period of time. The fear was that the group would sell the prisoner on to a terrorist organization with greater infrastructure, like ISIS or the Taliban. Fortunately that did not happen, sources said. The chief of police for Kunduz province, General Abdul Hamid Hamidi, told EFE that the aid worker had been released when several members of the group holding him attempted to transfer him by car to a new location. Investigations were still underway, the official said, refusing to confirm whether the group known as Haji Fateh has been behind the kidnapping. If Red Cross protocols are followed, the aid worker will be flown to Geneva before returning to Spain. Spains Foreign Ministry was not directly involved in the release of the aid worker after the ICRC asked to take the lead in the operation, but offered support where required and kept in permanent contact with the Spaniards family. English version by George Mills. The investigation into the murder of Honduran environmental campaigner Berta Caceres has taken a new turn. Mexican Federal Police officers have arrested one of the suspects in Reynosa (Tamaulipas). The detainee is Henry Javier Hernandez Rodriguez, a 26-year-old former member of the military, who was working in a barber shop at the time of his arrest. A total of eight people have been detained so far in the investigation. Honduras environmental leader Berta Caceres. More information Detenido en Mexico un implicado en el asesinato de la ecologista Berta Caceres Caceres was killed on March 2, 2016 in La Esperanza, located to the west of Tegucigalpa. The murder shocked the world, and prompted the United States, the United Nations, the Vatican and Venezuela to demand that the killing be properly investigated. The winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize (considered the green Nobel Prize) had made a lot of enemies during her years of activism due to her fight against environmental excesses in Honduras. Her last battle was being waged against a dam in Agua Zarca. The huge project would have drained the River Gualcarque, which is a sacred site for the indigenous Lenca people. The winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize had made a lot of enemies during her years of activism To combat the plan, Caceres mobilized the indigenous communities and took her campaign outside the borders of Honduras, managing to get the World Bank and the Chinese public company Sinohydro to abandon the construction project. The Honduran company Desarrollos Energetico SA (DESA) was left in charge of the work, and this was allegedly at the origin of the killing. Early versions of the story suggest that it was the manager of DESA, Sergio Ramon Rodriguez Orellana, who ordered the murder. To get the job done he is thought to have enlisted one of his security chiefs, retired lieutenant Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, whom Caceres had already publicly denounced for making threats and sexually harassing her. Bustillo allegedly turned for help to Major Mariano Diaz Chavez a military police instructor and a member of the armed forces who was asked to carry out the operation and to hire hitmen. Edilson Duarte, 25, is suspected of shooting the activist while she was in the bedroom of her own house. He is alleged to have received 50,000 lempiras ($2,200) for the murder. Gustavo Castro is the only witness to the murder of Berta Caceres. SAUL RUIZ At the time of the attack, Mexican environmentalist Gustavo Castro was asleep in another room. A hitman fired a shot at him, but it merely grazed his left ear. Left for dead, he managed to escape, and his testimony has been key in exposing the plot. But the arrests have not managed to bring any closure to the case. The family of the victim and Castro himself say that senior figures from DESA are yet to be arrested. And the deaths of ecologists continue. Just 12 days after Caceres was killed, another colleague from her organization was left dead after being shot in the face. Four months later, another activist died from a machete blow to the head. According to Global Witness, a total of 114 environmental activists have been killed in Honduras in the last decade. The majority of cases have gone unpunished. English version by Simon Hunter. When Donald Trump won the presidency on Nov. 8, pundits, reporters and political wonks turned to the national exit poll to find out exactly what had happened. How had various groups in various states voted? One of the exit poll findings was particularly surprising: Although Hillary Clinton triumphed among Latinos overall with 66 percent of their votes she got fewer of their votes than Barack Obama got in 2012. And although Trump lost among Latinos, his share of their votes 28 percent was 1 percentage point higher than Mitt Romneys in 2012. If those figures were accurate, they would represent a major reversal in Latino voting trends. Since the 1990s, scholars tracking Latino votes have seen the groups increasing muscle at the polls, which in general, has been put to work for Democrats. Was the largest ethnic group in the nation suddenly starting to shift its party allegiances? And could that have happened even with a Republican candidate who called immigrants rapists, promised to build a border wall and claimed that a Mexican American judge couldnt be impartial because of his heritage? As it turns out, a closer analysis in states with large Latino populations indicates that the national exit poll which is still being cited as an authoritative source is wrong. In Florida, Arizona and Texas and in California, where we just finished analyzing the data the exit poll has substantially overestimated Trumps success among Latinos. The national exit poll is a state-by-state survey conducted by Edison Research and paid for by news media. It samples selected precincts in an attempt to gather an accurate overall count quickly on election night. But, like all polls, it isnt fail-safe. In California, the Edison exit poll data suggested that 71 percent of Latinos cast their votes for Clinton, and 24 percent for Trump. According to our research, the numbers are significantly different: 83 percent for Clinton, and just 11 percent for Trump. Instead of polling a sample of voters, our analysis is based on actual votes: The official 2012 and 2016 results in 10,121 precincts in 16 California counties (the most populous counties and the ones that certify their election results quickly). That data is combined with census information that tells us the demographics of each precinct. We know that Obama won California by 3 million votes in 2012, and Clinton expanded this margin to 4.3 million in 2016, so we would expect to see Clinton doing better and Trump doing worse than their counterparts in 2012. That is exactly what we found. Trump underperformed Romney across almost every precinct we analyzed, and the deficit widens as voting precincts get more heavily Latino. Clintons vote share largely mirrors Obamas except in precincts where more than 75 percent of the population are adult Latino citizens. In these precincts, she captures a greater proportion of the vote share. (That increase is most likely the reason Clinton won the state by such a large margin over Obama in 2012.) One key finding from all of our analysis is this: It is virtually impossible that 24 percent of California Latinos cast their vote for Trump as purported by the exit poll. Instead of winning 71 percent of Latino votes, Clinton won more than 80 percent. The discrepancy between the exit poll and our findings is similar to discrepancies found via research in Texas, Arizona and Florida. Taken together, these results suggest an entrance poll conducted in the days before the Nov. 8 election was much closer to reality than the national exit poll. The research firm Latino Decisions did the survey. It put the Latino vote for Clinton at 80 percent in California, and for Trump, 16 percent. Nationally, 79 percent voted Democratic, and only 18 percent Republican. More state level analysis needs to be done on the voting patterns in the 2016 election. At the very least, we expect scholars and policymakers will ultimately recognize that the trend in Latino voting more turnout and more votes for Democrats was buoyed and extended by Clintons candidacy, not interrupted or reversed. Voting patterns drive policy and party choices in Washington and in state capitals. And exactly how the vote stacks up in California is particularly significant. The demographics of the Golden State where Latino voters are an increasingly influential bloc at the polls are likely to be replicated in much of the rest of the nation in coming years. We know that democracy needs good data. When it comes to the Latino vote, the national exit poll isnt good enough. Francisco I. Pedraza is assistant professor of political science and public policy at the University of California at Riverside. Bryan Wilcox-Archuleta is a doctoral student in political science at UCLA. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrates the life and legacy of a man who played a key part in many well-known civil rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s and affected generations of people since he began his work. He brought hope and healing to the U.S. and radiated the values of courage, truth, justice, love and compassion in a time where people of color were segregated. In commemoration of this day, two Keesler dragons and the guest speaker for the base Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Luncheon reflect on how King affected their lives and what he represents to them. Staff Sgt. Vesta Dixson, 81st Diagnostic and Therapeutics Squadron pharmacy NCO in charge How has Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy affected your life? Kings legacy has directly affected my life by allowing me to receive educational opportunities regardless of my race or gender. His legacy means a chance of a fair and better life for me, my peers and the generations that will follow. It also means being able to pursue a quality education, profession and life without racial biases. King and his countless contributions to history have shown me that I have the power to make a change in this world. Its because of his perseverance and dedication that I can overcome any obstacles in my path and stand up for what I believe in. Without his dedication to end racial discrimination I would not have the opportunities I do. What does Martin Luther King, Jr. represent to you? King represents a prodigious civil rights leader who brought about peace to the American people and fought for the equality and fairness for all races. He is and will forever be a timeless inspiration to never give up on your hopes and dreams. It was his legacy that opened the door to a generation and culture that embraces diversity and change. He is a servant-leader who believed in peacefully doing whatever it took to make a difference and bring about change. Rev. Eric E. Dickey, First Missionary Baptist Church of Biloxi pastor How has Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy affected your life? King's legacy has and will continue to have a tremendous impact on my life. Born in the 1960s during a time of racial turbulence, King's foresight and dream made it possible for a young African-American child like myself to have an opportunity to attend public school under the desegregation laws. He promoted equality and fair treatment for all humanity regardless of one's background and encouraged me to seek an opportunity to become an elected political official. Through his legacy, I will continue to serve and seek the very principles and ideology of his dream until it becomes a reality. What does Martin Luther King, Jr. represent to you? King lived a life that was faithful. He embodied a discerning spirit of helping mankind as he journeyed through life. King was best known for his leadership in various organizations that helped shape and reform civil rights for all people. The most pivoted aspect of his life was being a pastor who cared and attended to the needs of a congregation whose needs were fundamentally segregated. He dealt with the pressures of segregation and the pain of injustice, but as a pastor, he preached to the congregation and to the world the message of hope, peace and that a new day was on the horizon. Even today, I have the greatest task and responsibility as a pastor to proclaim and echo the same words to the congregation and to the world. While things have improved, there is still a new day coming. Tech. Sgt. Valerie Divert, 81st Training Wing executive support services NCO in charge How has Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy affected your life? The civil rights movement that King pursued during his lifetime greatly affects my life today. Without him and countless others who refused to allow the basic rights and equality of all human beings to be overlooked or suppressed, I would not have the family I have today. My husband was born in Haiti and is of African descent and I'm of Caucasian decent. Our marriage during King's time would have been illegal. I'm very grateful for all the work King did not only for my family, but for the world. We are better together, not divided and I whole-heartedly embrace diversity. What does Martin Luther King, Jr. represent to you? To me he represents peace and harmony. My daughter came home from school the other day and told me they read a book about King. She told me all about him, his wife and the bus boycott, but the thing that stood out to me most was she continued to say he was a man who represented peace and harmony. After I thought about it, he had a vision, a dream, and a goal, and he pursued that with continued peace and harmony. I believe a lot of us can learn from that. Brazilian riot police on Sunday ended an uprising at the Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Original reports put the number of dead at 10 but this figure was later elevated to at least 30, according to the AFP news agency. Sundays uprising was the fourth such riot in Brazils overcrowded prisons so far this year, with the combined death toll from the incidents at least 120. A group of prisoners being watched over by police after the mutiny. Ney Douglas (EFE) More information El cuarto motin del ano en una carcel de Brasil se salda con 30 muertos The Secretariat of Security for Rio Grande del Norte said specialized riot police known as Shock Troops began a staged incursion of the prison premises on Saturday night, finally retaking complete control of the facility more than 14 hours later. The unrest began with a fight between rival prison gangs, according to initial reports from the authorities. This was the same reason cited for the other prison uprisings in Brazil seen so far this year. Alcacuz prison is home to 1,150 prisoners but is only designed to house 620 State justice authorities said the Alcacuz prison Rio Grande del Nortes largest is home to 1,150 prisoners although it is only designed to house 620. Meanwhile, a prison workers union has filed a complaint stating that a vehicle drove up to the prison on Saturday with unknown men then passing weapons over the facilitys walls. In a statement, the Secretary of State for Public Security and Social Defense (Sesed) said the deaths in the prison were the result of a dispute between rival gangs, while the regional government stated it was gathering information on the participation of criminal factions in the mutiny. The crisis in Brazils prison system began on the first day of the year with a mutiny at the Anisio Jobim prison in the city of Manaus, in Brazils northern Amazonas state, that left 56 people dead. Four others died in a separate incident at another facility in the same city. A further 33 were killed when violence broke out at a prison in Boa Vista, the capital of the state of Roraima. Photographs and videos taken at the Anisio Jobim prison showing piles of bodies, many of them hacked to pieces, were posted on social networks after the January 1 riot there. In one, a hand could be seen holding the heart of a decapitated prisoner. English version by George Mills. Dan Albas, shown here in a 2017 file photo, will have to work hard to prevent right-of-centre voters from casting ballots in support of the People's Party on Oct. 21 if he hopes to win re-election, Courier columnist Ron Seymour says. Juan Manuel Munoz Luevano, suspected of carrying out operations for Mexican drugs cartel the Zetas in Spain, is to be extradited to the US where he is wanted over alleged offenses including drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons and money laundering. Munoz, also known as El Mono (The Monkey) was arrested by Spanish police at his Madrid home in March 2016 on similar charges and is currently in prison. Juan Manuel Munoz (left) in Madrid at a meeting filmed by Spanish police. Last October, EL PAIS revealed that Excel spreadsheets stored on two computers seized at his residence detailed the handover of 59 items of luggage containing millions of euros to Zetas bosses at downtown hotels in Mexico. Accounting records show the money, which totaled 63 million, came from the sale in just six days of 2,100 kilograms of cocaine that the Zetas cartel had shipped into Spain. Munoz is also suspected of being involved in a plan to murder a Mexican state prosecutor Spain will now hand over Munoz to the US, Spanish news agency EFE reports. US authorities suspect the Mexican citizen of having headed up, from the late 1990s to 2015, a drug trafficking ring with links to the Zetas, and which imported cocaine into the US from Mexico. The US believes El Mono to be an important member of the criminal organization the Zetas with links to Mexican politicians at the highest level. For the Drug Enforcement Administration and US justice authorities, Munoz is a major drug trafficker and money launderer. He is suspecting of running a chain of gas stations in Mexico he uses to launder the money he makes from drug trafficking. Munoz is also suspected of being involved in a plan to murder a Mexican prosecutor. In December, EL PAIS reported that Spanish authorities had alerted their counterparts in Mexico about an order given by Munoz in Madrid for the assassination of the official at the public prosecutors office in Mexicos Coahuila state. However, the Mexican government never followed up on the matter. English version by George Mills. Luis Barcenas, a former treasurer for Spains Popular Party (PP), on Monday offered damning information about the ruling conservatives at a court hearing that is part of a major kickbacks-for-contracts case known as Gurtel. Speaking at the 30th session of the trial at the Audiencia Nacional, Spains High Court, Barcenas confirmed the existence of a parallel fund that he and his predecessor, Alvaro Lapuerta, were in charge of as party treasurers. Former PP treasurer Luis Barcenas. Claudio Alvarez It was unofficial accounting, it was off the books, and it was the PPs, of course, said Barcenas, who is one of the key individuals in a sprawling corruption case involving six regional governments and nearly 200 official suspects. It follows from the fact that there were certain donations made, and Mr Lapuerta and myself would make a note of who was handing over those amounts, said Barcenas. Those donations did not have a specific purpose [] They were not on the official records, that much is obvious, but there was an oversight of what came in and what went out. Ive been buying art for myself, and because my wife likes it, since the 1980s Luis Barcenas Over two-thirds of the alleged donations violated party financing legislation, either because they went over the legal limit or because they were made by individuals or businesses that were barred from being donors. But Barcenas on Monday told prosecutor Concepcion Sabadell that the donations were not meant to secure party favors. Every time a businessman made a donation, Mr Lapuerta, who is an absolutely honest person, would tell them that he accepted the donation but that it served no specific purpose. To them [the donors], it was a way to have a relationship with the party, it was innocuous. Barcenas, who has already served 19 months in preventive detention, faces a prison term of 42 years and a fine of nearly 89 million for crimes ranging from money laundering to misappropriation of funds, tax fraud and document forgery. He was party manager from 1990 to 2008 and treasurer between 2008 and 2010. A TV monitor shows Luis Barcenas testifying on Monday and Francisco Correa sitting in the first row (right). Emilio Naranjo (EFE) The story of graft and patronage, which covers the years 1999 through 2005, has already cost dozens of PP elected officials their jobs at all levels of government. The investigation began in the summer of 2008 after a former PP councilor, Jose Luis Penas, filed a complaint with the anti-corruption attorney. Another defendant named Francisco Correa is considered the mastermind behind the web of corruption the entire case is named after him, as his surname translates as belt in English and gurtel in German. The former treasurer also denied allegations that Correa gave him money in exchange for securing favors for Gurtel companies seeking government contracts. I never received anything from Mr Correa; not for myself and not for the PP, said Barcenas. A private fortune Besides being in charge of the PPs parallel accounting system, Barcenas also accumulated 48.2 million in Swiss bank accounts. Investigators believe the money came partly from kickbacks, and partly from at least 299,650 that he appropriated from the slush fund, according to prosecutors. But he has always held that the money came from real estate transactions and the sale of artworks. On Monday, he reiterated this position. Ive been buying art for myself and because my wife likes it since the 1980s, but my first attempt at making money with it dates back to December 2002, he said in reply to questions from Sabadell. Don Vito Barcenas said that Correa, who enjoyed his nickname of Don Vito, after the character in The Godfather, "let his relationships, his financial situation and the feeling that he was an important person go to his head; he felt that the party belonged to him." Did you keep part of the money [from the slush fund]?, asked the prosecutor. No, nothing, absolutely nothing at all, it was impossible. It is false that I appropriated any amounts, replied Barcenas. Barcenas also named current Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as the person who decided in 2003 that the PP would no longer hire Correas companies for organizing party events, as they had been doing for years. The decision was allegedly made after a party donor alerted Rajoy to the fact that Correa was conducting illicit activities in municipalities in the Madrid region and that anyone who wanted to do business in those places had to go through him. English version by Susana Urra. An order of ceviche, please. With a hospital visit on the side. 144 Shares Share Its October, and Im a second-year medical student. My best friend Carly and I have just finished a backpacking trip through South America. We fly out tomorrow from Lima, Peru, and we have just one thing left to do: eat shrimp ceviche, the classic South American dish of raw seafood marinated in lime or lemon juice, oil and spices. We wander along the busy streets until we find the restaurant our hostels desk clerk recommended. Its a small, dingy joint that doesnt look up to the current health code, but I dont give that another thought once a giant bowl of amazing shrimp ceviche is placed in front of me. Its incredibly delicious, and we quickly demolish it. Im so full! I lean back and sigh. I know! I could throw up right now! Carly says jokingly. Minutes later, shes not joking. No, I really might throw up, she says, looking confused. Im confused, too. The timeline doesnt make sense: Food poisoning wouldnt kick in this fast. But I dont have a clue what else it could be. Back at the hostel, Carly says offhandedly, You know, it feels like my throat is swelling. She absentmindedly scratches her chest, where a few angry welts have appeared. This sets my head reeling. This is not food poisoning, I think. This is an allergic reaction a potentially deadly medical emergency! Allergic reaction how to treat an allergic reaction? I rummage through my bag, find some Benadryl and hand Carly a tablet. Whats this? Its Benadryl. You are not having anaphylaxis on me in Peru, I tell her firmly. She shrugs and pops the pill. I make her take two more, just to be thorough. Im trying not to freak her out, but Im absolutely terrified. I learned about this in class, but Ive never seen it in real life. My mind is racing: What are the other symptoms, again? Can you breathe? I ask, scanning her for signs of distress. ,p>Yeah obviously, she answers a bit snarkily, clearly unaware that anything much could be wrong. No, I mean, is it hard to breathe? I persist. She looks alarmed. I dont even know if 911 is the right number to call in Peru, I realize. It probably isnt. Just stay here, keep your phone close, and call me if you cant breathe, I say. Her eyes pop. What is happening?! she yells after me as I run downstairs to find out where the nearest hospital is. The desk clerk speaks some English, but not much. After some extensive explaining (No, no, there was nothing wrong with the food; shes just allergic to it.), I get a hospital address and call a cab. Carly and I gather our passports and our few remaining Peruvian soles, wait an eternity for the cab, then wait another eternity as the driver takes us to the hospital. With every passing minute, my apprehension grows. Carlys face and neck are ballooning out, and her skin is covered in hives. She isnt wheezing yet, but her voice sounds muffled. I peer anxiously through the windshield for any sight of the hospital. Finally, we stop in front of a small white building that gives no hint of its purpose. I run inside. Carly trails behind, now completely unable to speak. The clinic layout is simple: just one open room. To the left, theres a waiting area devoid of magazines or toys. White plastic lawn chairs line its whitewashed concrete walls, whose small windows overlook the street outside. A few people sit quietly waiting. To the right is the treatment area, divided by white curtains into a half-dozen individual rooms. This is an urgent-care center at least, I realize. They probably have the capacity to treat anaphylaxis. Despite its drabness, this space is the most beautiful sight Ive ever seen. Two nurses in plain, blue scrubs greet us calmly. In my broken Spanish, I begin: Um .. Necesitamos un doctor Mi amiga esta enferma (We need a doctor. My friend is sick.) The nurses look at me with expressions that say, Um, yeah, we can see that. Carly, who now resembles a juicy, ripe tomato, is viciously scratching every accessible inch of skin. Before Im done speaking, the nurses whisk her into an exam room and stick two needles into her deltoids. I hope that at least one of them holds epinephrine. A man in scrubs a physician, I presume appears. He surveys the situation, murmurs approvingly to the nurses, then walks out. I try to ask whats in the syringes, but my Spanish is so horrible that no one can guess what Im asking. Carly speaks Spanish fluently, but her ripe-tomato face, coupled with her intense fear of needles, made her taciturn. After 30 minutes, shes definitely improving, and I exhale for the first time in what feels like ages. The doctor walks in, shines a light into Carlys throat, plants a stethoscope on her chest, murmurs something to the nurse, and leaves. The nurse pushes the remaining medication through the syringes, then briskly removes them. Carly looks like a different person. Her hands rest quietly at her sides instead of attempting to remove her skin. Her face is still puffy, but its color is almost back to normal. We wait there for another couple hours, listening to the waiting room backdrop of screaming children, coughs and sneezes. I look around the clinic and notice that, spare though the room is, every item there has a purpose: Nothing is wasted. Although no one speaks English or attempts to explain whats going on, and the amenities are basic at best, I couldnt care less. Clearly, these medical professionals are getting the job done, and Carly continues to improve. Finally, the doctor deems Carly to be healed. He hands her a piece of white paper on which hes scribbled instructions to purchase two medications at the pharmacy and to avoid beer, oranges and fish. I read it and look quizzically at him as he ushers us out. Why no beer and oranges? It makes He places his hands by his neck and slowly moves them outward, puffing his cheeks. Carly and I look at each other and shrug, then head to the front desk to pay. My heart starts pounding all over again. How much is this going to cost? Much to my surprise, the whole experience costs only fifty-five soles, the equivalent of twenty bucks. We eat our last meal in South America at Applebees, taking special care to avoid beer, oranges and fish, and marveling at the crazy events of the day, now that the terror and shock have worn off. Hey, thanks for not letting me die in Peru, Carly says casually, through a mouthful of burger. No problem, I shrug. Then, thinking back on how truly terrifying the whole experience was, I add, Thanks for helping me rule out emergency medicine as a career choice. Kirstin Hirni is an internal medicine-pediatrics physician. This piece was originally published in Pulse voices from the heart of medicine. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 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 Kilkenny looks set to have a brand new bus service up and running on two routes around the city by September, local councillors have heard. The bus network will be fully subsidised by the State as a Public Service Obligation (PSO). While exact timetables and routes are still being determined, it is envisaged that the bus routes will both operate two buses per hour, both feeding into a central spine in the city centre. Fares will be in line with similar services elsewhere, while there are also plans in place to introduce a 'Leap' card system. A presentation was given to the elected members at Friday's meeting of the Kilkenny City Municipal District. Marian Wilson and Paul McGartoll from the National Transport Authority (NTA) said that there is demand for regular public transport in Kilkenny City which is not currently being met. Ms Wilson told the members that the new bus service must be ambitious, and that it would take a long, long time for people to realise that the bus is there, to change their behaviour, and maybe consider getting rid of the second car. Using data from Census 2011, Mr McGartoll outlined the challenges involved in planning a network for Kilkenny,such as the historic city centre with narrow streets, weight restrictions on High Street, and large retail/business parks to the east and south of the ring road. Data on car ownership shows that more than half of households in the centre of Kilkenny do not have a car, while car ownership is also low in the areas to the west and east of the city centre. Internal trips account for more than three quarters of all trips originating from the city. A Kilkenny City service operated by Bernard Kavanagh ceased operating in July. An interim service has since operated eight times a day, Monday to Saturday with an average patronage of 150 trips per week. The NTA's proposed network design involves two routes green and red runing two buses per hour. Both routes will be just under 9km in distance, with an average journey time of around half an hour. It's proposed the green route have 14 stops, and the red route, 19. The routes are devised with the intention of serving 'areas of high population density, deprivation and low car ownership'. Schools, business and retail parks, and hotels are served. Mr McGartoll said that the Hebron Industrial Estate is the only major trip attractor not served due to a 'lack of permeability in its layout'. Bus poles and associated infrastructure will be funded by the NTA, and installed by the local authority. The local authority is also responsible for the design of the stops and any associated highway works. Bus shelters and Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) signs will be provided where possible and appropriate. Unlike an infrastructure project, there is no statutory requirement to carry out formal consultation for the new service. However, the NTA says it will nonetheless be important to fully engage with stakeholders. An engagement process is now under way, which will involve talking to elected members and officials in the council, local business groups, public organisations such as schools and hospitals, and community groups, such as residents' associations, the elderly, and students. The NTA's Smarter Travel team will visit schools, colleges and workplaces in the coming weeks and months to spread awareness of the new service and promote the Leap card option. The tender to operate the service will be advertised through the Official Journal of the EU, and there will follow a time-consuming procurement process with a view to having the service up and running by September of this year. BE NOT Afraid is a new, enthralling, sometimes gut wrenching yet compassionate, six-part series which shows another side to the popular TV3 chef Edward Hayden. Edward, who presents The Saturday Show with Edward Hayden on KCLR 96fm, sits down with six local people to hear their true-life series. The programme airs weekly from this Saturday (9am-10am) on KCLR 96fm. I am delighted with how the show turned out and I really appreciate how openly and candidly our invited guests spoke to me during the show and the strength of the show stands on their story alone, Edward explains. I am thrilled that KCLR gave people an opportunity to tell their story without any time limits or restrictions and I am confident it will be very popular with our listeners, he added, Here is a glimpse into the six who took part in the series: John Whelan John Whelan: In a poignant interview, John reveals the first time he met his sister, Sharon Whelan, when she was adopted from St Josephs Industrial School. Sharon was brutally raped and strangled by postman Brian Hennessy at the familys rented farmhouse in Roscon, Windgap, Co Kilkenny in the early hours of Christmas morning 2008. He later set the house on fire killing her two little children Zsara (7) and Nadia (2) who were asleep in their beds. John says: In life we all have choices to make, he had a choice to make that night and he chose to strangle Sharon and he chose to light those fires knowing well the two girls were there. To look into the mentality of someone whod do that, its very dark, its very sinister. Mairead Tywang Mairead Tywang: The Castlecomer mother recalls the joy her daughter, Searlait, brought to her life. Maireads happiness was shattered when it was discovered that the little girl had a large mass, possibly the size of a large grapefruit, on the left side of her brain. Searlait was rushed from St Lukes Hospital, Kilkenny, to Temple Street in Dublin where her parents were told some days later that she had a grade four brain tumour. Mairead says the journey to Temple Street felt like it was a lifetime. We were told she was so weak that she may not even make the journey to Temple Street. The ambulance driver was told to avoid all humps and bumps and to keep it at a steady speed all the way up the road that she was so unstable at that stage, they just needed to get her to Temple Street. Geraldine Roche Geraldine Roche: The mother of missing Kilkenny man, Dean Roche, talks about her heartache over her sons disappearance, his life growing up and dealing with his crippling heroin addiction. Dad-of-one Dean was last seen in Ballyfoyle, Co Kilkenny in March 22, 2015, where he went to buy a car. Geraldine recalls the first time she discovered Dean was using drugs. I was actually at my next-door neighbours wedding and I was talking to somebody about Dean and I said I think Dean is smoking hash and this lady turned around to me and said oh, hes smoking more than hash Geraldine described how she tried to get Dean help many times. I never wanted (heroin) for my children . I thought it only happened far away. Helen Fahey Helen Fahey: Former Carer of the Year and Rathvilly resident, Helen Fahey, describes her life as a mother of a son with autism. Helens little boy, Alex, was two-and-a-half when she discovered he was on the autistic spectrum. The waiting list for him to be assessed would have taken six months and I couldnt wait that long I went privately I just wanted the psychologist to say it so I could say right, it is autism and now I can see what I have to do and just get on with it. She reveals her fears for Alexs future: Youd wonder will he be independent? Will he actually be able to live on his own? Thats the frightening part. It scares me to think too far ahead. Angela Stuart Angela Stuart: Angela is a remarkable woman who has survived three terrible tragedies in her life. As a young woman starting out in life, she lost her mother to sudden adult death syndrome (SADS). Some years later in September 2009, her sister, Lisa Doyle, was brutally strangled to death by her boyfriend, Gerard OHara, as she lay beside him in bed at their home in Leighlinbridge. I dont tend to re-live that night, I dont think about it. Ive dealt with the vision of that as far as I can As a family, we never go there. We never sit among each other and talk about Lisas last night. We talk about Lisa in the best way we can which is the memories we have of Lisa. The joyful moments we had we cant rob those from us. The third major blow in Angelas life came last year when she miscarried baby Isla Grace. Before the miscarriage, Angela and her husband were told the baby had Downs Syndrome and a chromosomal defect. Life is fragile, you dont have control over everything and its OK. I had to learn that the hard way. At the end of an emotional interview, Angela reveals she is expecting a baby. Fr Paddy Byrne Fr Paddy Byrne: Carlow native, Fr Paddy Byrne (42), who is known as the tweeting priest, opens up about his life since joining the priesthood. He says most priests are getting their old age pensions. He thinks the church should be open to allowing priests marry. We do need young men. I really think we need younger men to come with us but perhaps thats only half the lung of the church. Where I work in Portlaoise, where I have served in Newbridge, where I have served in Bagenalstown, the vast, vast majority of people who are involved in service in church are women. I often wonder what is it like to be a woman, particularly an 18-year-old or 25-year-old who has a vocation to become a priest. I think thats a bigger question. The six-part series presented by Edward Hayden and produced by Eimear Ni Bhraonain will air every Saturday from 9am-10am from Saturday, January 21 for six weeks. The show will be repeated on Thursdays at 11pm. Interviews were recorded in Butler House, Kilkenny, and the Seven Oaks Hotel, Carlow. More information, more photographs or quotes, contact Eimear 086 0200016. By Anusha Ravindranath Jan 16 (Reuters) - Australian shares bounced on Monday as miners rejoiced on higher metals prices, with the benchmark metal index soaring to its highest in more than two years. The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.6 percent or 32.98 points to 5754.6 by 0025 GMT. The benchmark lost 0.6 percent last week. Basic material stocks outperformed thanks to strong copper prices that hit a five-week peak on Friday, while aluminium jumped to its highest in nearly 20 months, after solid economic data from top metals consumer China and the United States fuelled optimism about metals demand. The metal index rose as much as 1.8 percent, with heavyweights BHP Billiton Ltd hitting its highest in seventeen months, and Rio Tinto Ltd rising as much as 2 percent. Smaller iron-ore miner Fortescue Metals Group rose 2.0 percent and was among the top gainers. The gold index touched a two-month high, with shares of gold producer Newcrest Mining Ltd up 2.7 percent, and Evolution Mining Ltd adding 2.3 percent. The yellow-metal was up on Friday, after the U.S. dollar weakened and U.S. Treasury yields came off their highs. Financials also supported the benchmark with the 'big 4' banks rising between 0.14 percent to 0.8 percent. "We saw good profit results from big U.S. banks on Friday, which helped the Australian bank stocks," said Ric Spooner, chief market strategist with CMC Markets, adding that markets are waiting for clarity on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's policies and their impact on bond yields, as rising bond yields could help bank stocks. Wall Street had risen on Friday after major U.S. banks kicked off their fourth-quarter earnings season with strong results. Shares of energy firm DUET Group rose as much as 5.4 percent, their highest in more than 8 years after it recommended a takeover offer from a consortium led by Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings . Oil stocks underperformed as weaker prices weighed on the sector. Crude prices fell on Friday and ended the week 3 percent lower on lingering doubts over the extent of OPEC cuts. Oil Search Ltd shed 0.8 percent, while Caltex Australia Ltd shed 0.5 percent. New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index gained 0.2 percent or 15.22 points to 7062.19 at 0039 GMT. Utilities and consumer non-cyclical stocks were the top gainers with Meridian Energy Ltd adding 1.5 percent and shares of a2 Milk Company rising 3.6 percent. For more individual stocks activity click on (Reporting by Anusha Ravindranath in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Suhail Hassan Bhat; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) HANOI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official market and indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi at 0109 GMT. Jan 16 Jan 13 USD/VND mid-point 22,161 22,161 USD/VND interbank 22,560/22,580 22,565/22,575 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.43/36.75 36.35/36.67 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, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0431 GMT. Jan 16 Jan 13 USD/VND mid-point 22,161 22,161 USD/VND interbank 22,568/22,575 22,565/22,575 USD/VND unofficial 22,710/22,750 22,770/22,820 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.45/36.77 36.35/36.67 Interbank offered rates Overnight 4.0-5.4 4.0-5.4 1 week 4.5-5.4 4.5-5.4 1 month 5.0-5.4 5.0-5.4 3 months 5.2-5.4 5.0-5.4 NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources. One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co. For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on . For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom) (Adds economist's quote) * Nov core orders -5.1 pct m/m vs forecast -1.7 pct * Core orders +10.4 pct yr/yr vs forecast +8.1 pct * Capex considered essential to higher economic growth By Stanley White TOKYO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Core orders for Japanese machinery fell in November at their fastest in seven months, a sign companies may be deferring capital expenditure as uncertainty over the incoming Trump Administration's trade policies and global demand worries take hold. Core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as a leading indicator of capital expenditure, fell 5.1 percent in November from the previous month, Cabinet office data showed on Monday, more than the median estimate for a 1.7 percent decline. Many economists originally forecast that capital expenditure would gradually increase this year, but growing concerns that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump may adopt protectionist trade policies could cause companies to scale back investment. Trump vowed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact, a blow for Japan because it was counting on the TPP to boost exports and drive structural reform in its farm sector. "There is some uncertainty about the new U.S. government, but this has not been fully factored in yet," said Shuji Tonouchi, senior market economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities. "Depending on what happens, Japanese companies could be forced to rethink their capex plans. There are also worries that domestic consumer spending may not accelerate." Core machinery orders, which exclude ships and heavy electrical equipment, fell in November due to a decline in orders from chemicals makers, oil refiners and the transport sector, the data showed. Orders from the wholesale and retail industries also fell in November. Orders from the services sector fell 9.4 percent in November after a 4.6 percent increase in the previous month. Orders from manufacturers rose 9.8 percent, following a 1.4 percent decline in the previous month. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has rattled Japanese automakers by threatening a large border tax on the cars they manufacture in Mexico and export to the United States. Some economists worry that once Trump takes office his criticism could shift to the goods Japan manufacturers within its own borders for export the United States, which could discourage Japanese capital expenditure. There are also concerns that trade friction with the United States could hurt Japanese consumer sentiment, which would then weigh on household spending. (Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Eric Meijer) If you're looking to splurge some of the profits you've made investing in gold so far this year, look no further. Just in time for President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Friday, you can now get your hands on your very own gold-plated, diamond-encrusted Donald Trump iPhone7, thanks to Goldgenie, a United Arab Emirates-based store catered to the super rich. The product, which includes the President-elect's face on it, is priced at around $151,000 and is just one of the many gold-covered products this company sells. As the company's managing director Frank Fernando told CNN Money last month, the idea for the unique phone came from a Chinese customer, who he preferred to keep anonymous. "There are very wealthy, high-net-worth individuals all over the world and sometimes it's very difficult to buy gifts for them because they have everything," he told CNN. At the time of reporting, CNN claimed that Goldgenie received nine other orders for the Trump product, adding up to roughly $1.36 million. It might be safe to say, Donald Trump has managed to make iPhones great again! I need one of these immediately - A Gold-Plated, Diamond-Encrusted Trump iPhone 7 cover https://t.co/ZEVHnXEm0H pic.twitter.com/to7vDIIKzN Preston Cooper (@prestonmcooper) December 28, 2016 When you can't even afford so much as a McDonald's in January but people are paying $151,000 for a custom gold Donald trump iPhone 7 ?????? pic.twitter.com/WRyLTXsCek PAPER a? a??i?, (@PaigeForExample) January 4, 2017 By Sarah Benali of Kitco News; sbenali@kitco.com Follow @SdBenali (Kitco News) - Despite a strong performance since the start of the new year, one international bank sees a relatively gloomy fate for silver. Georgette Boele, coordinator of foreign exchange and precious metals strategy at ABN AMRO, said in a report Monday silvers role as a monetary precious metal and proxy for gold will continue to dominate prices in 2017. The bank expects silver prices to fall lower in the first half of 2017 as gold prices weaken on the back of higher bond yields and a stronger U.S. dollar. We expect gold prices to decline in the first half of this year on the back of a higher U.S. dollar, Fed rate hikes and higher U.S. Treasury yields. We also expect silver prices to decline in line with gold prices but its decline will probably be more substantial as the net-long speculative silver positions are still quite large, she said in a report Monday. The Dutch bank is expecting 2017 silver prices to average around $15.50 an ounce with the first quarter seeing the best price action, averaging $16.30 an ounce. Although markets are closed Monday, in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, silver has risen almost 5% since Friday, benefitting from seasons factors in the first few weeks of trading in 2017. The grey metal is outperforming gold, which has recently seen its highest prices in seven weeks, rising slightly less than 4% since the start of the year. By Neils Christensen of Kitco News; nchristensen@kitco.com Follow @Neils_C (Adds quotes, details) FRANKFURT, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Blackrock , the second-largest shareholder in both Deutsche Boerse and London Stock Exchange Group , publicly voiced its support for the $28 billion merger of the two European exchanges as key regulatory decisions on the tie-up loom. Deutsche Boerse and LSEG have been working to overcome regulatory hurdles holding up the merger and looking to appease antitrust regulators. LSEG agreed this month to sell its French clearing business to Euronext . "Sceptics of this merger must consider the need for stronger capital markets in Europe - as well as the ways the alliance could in fact benefit competition by deepening access to capital on the continent," Blackrock Chairman Laurence Fink said in a speech at a Deutsche Boerse reception on Monday. "Deutsche Boerse itself has taken an important step towards healthier markets through the proposed merger with LSE." The German state of Hesse, which has the authority to veto a merger of the two exchange operators, will host a summit on Tuesday to review the tie-up. Britain's preparations to trigger divorce talks with the European Union have put a question mark over the deal because a Brexit would place London, Europe's financial capital and planned headquarters of the new group, outside the bloc. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to use a speech on Tuesday to signal a so-called "hard Brexit", meaning Britain would pull out of the single market and customs union. German regulators, fearing a loss of control, want Frankfurt to play the leading role, or, at the very least, be one of two headquarters with London. Blackrock's Fink also said that Germany needed to keep a close relationship with Britain. "Brexit means that maintaining ties with London is even more important today, given its more developed capital markets," he said in a prepared speech. Fink, who is part of President-elect Donald Trump's business advisory council, also hailed the moral leadership of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Despite the terrible events in Berlin only a couple of weeks ago, Germany has demonstrated its ability to balance acts of humanity and economic and political challenges that come along with it," Fink said, referring to the attack in which a truck ploughed into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12. Trump's stance on immigration contrasts sharply with that of Merkel, whose policy has allowed for an influx of more than a million migrants into Germany in 2015 and 2016, mainly Muslims fleeing war-torn countries including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. (Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by David Evans) * Ukraine sold Russia $3 bln bond weeks before government change * Moscow at odds with Kiev's now pro-Western government * Russia chooses public hearing over private arbitration * London High Court hearing starts on Jan. 17 (adds name of judge in last paragraph) By Karin Strohecker LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A $3 billion dispute between two adversarial governments will come to a head in an English court on Tuesday when Russia and Ukraine meet for a first hearing in their legal battle over a politically charged eurobond. The debt at the heart of the dispute was sold in late December 2013 by then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich to Russia, less than two months before his Moscow-backed government was ousted by street protests that swept the ex-Soviet republic. Fast-forward through a pro-Western change of government in Kiev, Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and an International Monetary Fund bailout for Ukraine involving a restructuring of sovereign, hard currency bonds. Those bonds, restructured to pull the near-bankrupt Ukraine back from the brink, were chiefly held by private investors - aside from $3 billion worth held by the Russian government. Moscow insists the bond which matured in December 2015 is sovereign debt and should never have been included in the restructuring plan. Kiev refused to repay the bond, saying Russia should have participated in the restructuring. Russia, represented by Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP, filed a lawsuit in February 2016 demanding a full $3 billion repayment plus legal fees and interest, which according to Moscow's finance ministry amounted to $75 million a year ago. The case, which will be heard at the High Court on Jan. 17, is unusual in many ways, according to Mitu Gulati, a law professor at Duke University in the United States. "The most important big issue here is: Does Ukraine actually owe money to a country that basically ran it as a vassal state and invaded it and took its territory? And that is the kind of question that courts usually don't ever decide," said Gulati. The bond is unusual because countries do not generally lend to each other under a third country's legal framework, opting instead for direct bilateral agreements. Terms are often kept under wraps. If debt relief is needed, it tends to be agreed under the framework of the Paris Club of creditor nations, of which Russia is a permanent member. This bond however was structured under English Law, and both Russia and Ukraine had agreed from the outset that a British court ought to decide on possible disputes, Gulati noted. "Now a dispute is actually happening, and rather than negotiating and resolving it on their own, they are bringing it in front of a judge which means the judge is going to have to decide on matters that affect international law, not just commercial law." Both Russia and Ukraine's government declined to comment. UKRAINE SAYS BOND WAS ISSUED UNDER DURESS Ukraine's defence, managed by Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, centres around a number of arguments. First, that the bond had never been properly authorised by Ukraine's parliament and government, was issued under duress and was subject to a number of implied additional terms. Kiev should also be allowed to take "counter-measures" in response to actions taken by Russia, it argued, according to a defence document seen by Reuters. Russia's "illegal invasion and unlawful occupation" had deprived Ukraine "of the entire purported economic benefit of the transaction", the document states in its defence. The hearing comes after Russia requested a summary judgement, often used to speed up proceedings. This means the court will look at each of Ukraine's defence arguments and decide if they are likely to stand up in court. Following this, it could allow the case to go to trial, or not. Russia had the option of a private hearing at the London International Court of Arbitration, according to the bond prospectus, but the fact it chose to bring the case to a public court shows it is confident of victory, legal experts said. "Their choice was very interesting," said Peter Griffin at Slaney Advisors, an expert in international arbitration and foreign investment disputes. "Russia's case seems to me very strong. And Russia has played this one really intelligently from the beginning - it is almost like they have been two steps ahead of Ukraine and everyone else." According to a spokesman for the court, the case will be heard by William Blair, the brother of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a highly regarded judge who has written about the concept of "odious debt". The term is often used to describe debt incurred by a government that does not serve the interest of the country. (Additional reporting by Natasha Zinets in Kiev and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; editing by Mark Heinrich) By Senor John Stringer formerly coNZervative (and perhaps again). FINAL: I mentioned in earlier posts about the famous May Square where Argentines protest (where that Athenian style Catholic basilica and the French revival architecture is). This of course is where The Mothers still gather to protest The Disappeared under the military junta of Juan Peron. On the ground now around the square are these painted templates of the bonnets of the mothers commemorating their decades long vigil (and lack of justice). The only Russian Orthodox church in Buenos Aries. The cross faces a different way that normal; that is because Russian church crosses always face Russia. I loved the public sculpture of Buenos Aries everywhere, commemorating everything or just art for arts sake. This enriches Buenos Aries and I hope we emphasise this a lot more in Christchurch as part of the rebuild: extravagant; quirky; fun; inspiring. Here are some samples. This stunning Donatello-style door A fountain with bronze sculptures of bull-rushes An modernist eagle; and this seat is very cool; they have lots of them scattered throughout the city it is sold metal but looks soft and comfortable I guess it dissuades the homeless sleeping on them so pedestrians can sit. Argentines are really in to the gaucho culture (cowboys) of the pampas and youll see sculptures along that vein quite a lot like these two; one a brightly painted horse the brown one is covered in glitter. This was an idea taken up in Christchurch using giraffes and Sydney did it also but with Rio Christs. Below is The First Murder and shows Adam and Eve with Abel. It is truly beautiful and worked in marble. It amazes me how anyone can capture such softness and fluidity carved from a lump of marble (I really admire good sculptors) . The faces and fingers and feet are exquisite Above: The Monty Python foot? Below: Typical street scenes in Buenos Aries Off the streets some of the malls are opulent much more attractive than NZ malls which seem utilitarian by comparison. Others are cheaper and have rows of small shops (above right) where smaller traders can operate. In some cases they have erected an atrium roof between two buildings to create a mall but not just any roof a facsimile in Italian or French or Classical style. You can see above (right) how a glass partition separates two Corinthian columns and spans across to another building to enclose the mall; quite clever. There was also this enormous Christmas tree still up and the ceiling mural is painted in the style of Diego Rivera (Frida Kahlos husband). Argentines are quite open about male and female nudity and we were surprised to see murals of full frontal female nudity where kids pass through with their parents. You can see here the French influence in this mall mural. There were other more riske murals which youd never see in a NZ mall. There are obviously all sorts of restaurants in BA of varying quality and cost to suit your taste like this posher restaurant below. But on our last evening we selected this pirate bar with really cool pirate sculptures in-the-round inside the restaurant and fixed to the exterior. I liked the pirate bandannas of the waiters. Food costs are comparable with NZ; taxis are cheap ($5 approx) so use those to go everywhere; I recommend the three-hour city bus tour (max 12); we felt perfectly safe and coped perfectly with zero Spanish. The archietcture and arts museums were my highlight and from BA you can skip easily over to Uruguay to see the spectacular Niagara falls there. Now that AirNZ flys directly I think Argentina is a great option for a getaway from NZ. As we sat in our pirate lair on beer and burgers a dramatic electric storm without thunder (like that storm in War of the Worlds) came in like a fireworks display or a rolling menace out of Mordor. The sky flashed blue and purple-pink every few seconds as it rolled up the avenue. A fitting conclusion to our visit. ~ J. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Stuff reports: New Zealand police say they have laid charges against yachtie Alan Langdon. Langdon left Kawhia in December on a six-metre catamaran with his six-year-old daughter, Que. He told Kawhia residents they were headed to the Bay of Islands, but wound up in Australia 25 days later. Search operations failed to locate the pair. They arrived in Queensland on January 11. A 49-year-old man is due in Te Awamutu District Court on 25 January 2017, charged with taking a child from New Zealand, Detective Sergeant Bill Crowe said on Sunday. Seyran Ohanyan said I leave, as I dont agree with you (video) Amaras NGO made a call for creating a chamber of Diaspora Armenian lawmakers in the RA NA. Arthur Aleksanyan, founder of the NGO, veteran of Artsakh War, today told journalists that they have already turned to Serzh Sargsyan in connection with this issue, He said that it is our business, and we acted right that initiated it. He also said that in case of success he would welcome it, if not, that would be our problem. I can present presidents reply in this way, he said, adding that Diaspora Armenians welcomed their proposal. According to the words of Mr. Aleksanyan, nowadays Diaspora has more problems than Armenia, All the problems there will be reflected here, in Armenia. Its time to start thinking about Diaspora. There is a risk of preservation of Armenian identity in Diaspora. Member of the initiative, the former lawmaker of the SC Azat Arshakyan added that the suggested project intends to create the 2nd chamber in the NA, The NA existing today will deal only with inner affairs, and the 2nd chamber will deal with pan-Armenian affairs. For example, where the means of Hayastan fund are directed, how the resources of Diaspora are spent. In general, relations with Diaspora will be regulated etc. Touching upon the upcoming parliamentary elections and presentation of political bid by the former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, Mr Arshakyan noted that there is nothing strange that after quitting the post Ohanyan started speaking of the drawbacks of the country, As long as he is a soldier, he obeys the system. But I think that his withdrawal means that he didnt agree with March 1, October 27. I honestly said I leave, as I dont agree with you. 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. Vienna Boys Choir / Courtesy of Credia By Yun Suh-young January will be the month of Vienna music in Seoul as several Viennese music groups will be visiting the city to perform. The Strauss Festival Orchestra of Vienna (SFOV) will hold a New Year's Concert on Jan. 19 at the Seoul Arts Center which is its eighth concert in Korea since its first in 2004. The SFOV annually holds New Year's Concerts in various parts of the world. Conducted by Willy Buchler, the orchestra will showcase various pieces by Johann Strauss II including "Die Fledermaus Overture," "Fruehlingsstimmen (Voices of spring)," "An Der Schoenen Blauen Donau," and "Champagner Polka (Galopp)." In addition to Strauss, the orchestra will also perform music by Austria's favorite composers, Eduard Strauss, Franz Lehar, Josef Strauss, and Richard Heuberger. A ballet duo will perform Viennese waltzes of the 19th century dancing to the tunes of Johann Strauss. For more information, call 02) 580-1300. The Vienna Boys Choir will also be visiting Seoul for a nationwide tour starting in Seoul on Jan. 22 at the Seoul Arts Center. Since its first Korean performance in 1969, the choir has visited the country 27 times and has had 170 performances here. The annual New Year's Concert in January is only being held in Korea and is the first opportunity to experience the choir's repertoire on the Asia tour program for the year. The theme for the New Year's Concert this year is "Smile" and the repertoire includes medieval music, folk music of various countries, movie soundtracks, waltzes and polkas to name a few. The Vienna Boys Choir was established in 1498 as a royal church choir of the Austrian palace and has since maintained its reputation as a court choir. For more information, call 1577-5266. Paper-craft covered robots in various colors made by 3.14 are on display. / Courtesy of 3.14 By Kim Tae-gyu In the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, high-end robots with prohibitively high price tags are not the only ones which exist, but there also affordable paper covered ones. A Korean upstart dubbed 3.14, named after the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, created paper-craft covered robots last year to gain global popularity. The robots, called kamibots, are available at $198 through Amazon, the world's largest online retailer. Offshore companies knocked on the door of the Daegu-based firm to get exclusive distribution rights in their regions. "Kamibot is a programmable robot for children, who can customize it with their own codes and colors," said the firm's founding CEO Chae Deok-byeong, who established the venture firm in June, 2015. "The codes of the educational robots are based on online game-like graphics enabled by drag-and-drop programming language, not on complicated texts. Hence, seven-year-old boys can easily make changes to its codes to remotely control them with mobile phones, tablets or laptops." Kamibot has sensors so that it can roam around. When programmed, it can carry out autonomous missions. Equipped with wheels connected to motors, it also moves its heads through a rotating pad on top. Currently, it has six cartoon character skins and the number will grow to roughly 30 in the near future, which can be downloaded from the website of 3.14. The robots debuted last August and the 35-year-old chief executive said that Amazon contacted his company soon after its launch to sell them at the U.S. giant's online platform. Recently, a Mexican entity proposed that the Korean company ink contracts on exclusive sales rights in all Latin American states. Negotiations are currently underway. "We tested kamibot in local schools last year to receive good feedback from all parties involved including students, teachers and parents," said Chae who previously worked at an enterprise on automotive simulators. "Thus far, we have signed contracts with some 40 kindergartens and we plan to more than double the figure to 100 this year under business alliances with toy companies." Kamibots' target audiences are kindergarten and elementary school students as well as teenagers. But Chae said that even adults including robot enthusiasts have shown interest in the new-concept products. "Our eventual goal is to emulate great companies like Lego, which brings fun and education together. Toward that end, we will continue to put forth our best efforts," Chae said. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, a potential presidential hopeful from the main opposition Democratic Party, on Monday criticized fellow party member Moon Jae-in after he seemed to indicate a willingness to backtrack on the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system. Moon earlier said South Korea may face challenges in canceling the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as the agreement has already been reached by Seoul and Washington, hinting that his campaign may refrain from taking aggressive opposition. In the past, Moon voiced opposition to the stationing of the anti-missile defense system. The opposition bloc opposes the plan to install the system in the country by May, citing concerns that such a move will hurt Seoul's ties with Beijing. "Can a leader who becomes timid in the face of the Washington protect the national interest?" Park said through his social media account. "The U.S. is our biggest ally and it should continue remain so," Park said. "But we should be able to say no if needed. "(Moon) should not change words because he wants more votes," Park continued, adding decisions should only be made by looking into the best interests for the people and the country. Park claimed the THAAD system will not effectively protect the Seoul metropolitan area with a population of 25 million, demanding a full reexamination. Citing the adverse impact on the economy due to protest from China, Park said the economy is also an important aspect of national security. (Yonhap) A group of lawmakers from the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee headed to the United States on Monday to attend the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. The ruling and opposition lawmakers, headed by Rep. Sim Jae-kwon of the Democratic Party, will stay in the U.S. through Sunday to meet officials from the new administration as well. Along with attending the inauguration ceremony slated for Friday, they will meet with Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and other figures to discuss North Korea and Seoul-Washington ties. The Bareun Party, which was spun off from the ruling Saenuri Party, did not join the trip as the U.S. Embassy in Seoul did not give it an invitation because the party has not yet been officially launched. (Yonhap) An opposition lawmaker on Monday challenged the electoral watchdog's decision that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is eligible to run for president despite his lengthy residence outside the country. Under presidential election law, South Koreans who are at least 40 years old and have lived in the country at least five years before election day can become candidates. Periods of working overseas for official duties and staying abroad while maintaining a residence registration at home are recognized as domestic residence. The 72-year-old lived in the United States since 2007 when he became the U.N. helmsman before he returned home last week. The National Election Commission issued an interpretation of the law last week acknowledging his eligibility because he lived in the country for more than five years in the past. The commission said late former President Kim Dae-jung was also allowed to run in the December 1997 election though he lived in London for one year after 1993. Rep. Lee Seok-hyun of the main opposition Democratic Party said on a Facebook post the law should be interpreted as requiring five years of continuous residence as of election day. He argued Kim's case is different, as he maintained his residence registration in South Korea. Ban currently stands as the biggest threat to opposition presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in who is leading in opinion polls. Ban also faces criticism for breaking the tradition of former U.N. heads keeping away from domestic politics. Ban has not yet announced his presidential bid, although he has suggested he may run in the election. (Yonhap) By Yi Whan-woo Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a phone call to impeached President Park Geun-hye, Monday, four days after returning to Korea. The call came amid speculation that Ban is distancing himself from Park in his apparent preparation for a bid for the presidency this year. Ban's supporters said he has no plan yet to visit Park. During the two-minute conversation, Ban wished her to "cope well" with the situation, referring to the Constitutional Court's ongoing trial over the impeachment motion approved by the parliament, according to Lee Do-woon, a Ban supporter. The belated and short conversation was in stark contrast to their seven meetings in September 2015 alone when Park visited New York City for a U.N. General Assembly session. Ban said, "I should have met you face-to-face to offer my greeting but find it regretful (that I can't do so)." In return, Park congratulated Ban for his 10 years of service at the U.N. and offered him New Year's wishes, saying "I heard you're on a busy schedule since your return." Analysts said Ban is apparently burdened by his previous ties with the President and wants to ensure his followers it will not prevent him from wooing voters who are mostly against Park. The experts pointed out that Ban is scheduled to visit three sites that are considered crucial in winning support from the progressive-minded voters. They are Bongha Village, the hometown of late President Roh Moo-hyun in South Gyeongsang Province, the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju and Paengmok Port in Jindo, South Jeolla Province, which is close to the site of the Sewol Ferry disaster in April 2014. "I think Ban gave it a lot of thought before deciding whether he should call Park and also for how long he should talk to her if they had a telephone conversation," said Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Myongji University. "It seems Ban does not want to lose support from the liberals as well as the conservatives who are against Park. He, however, does not want to lose support from Park's supporters, either." Meanwhile, the minor opposition People's Party's chairman Rep. Park Jie-won, criticized Ban for calling the President, saying "They go really well together." Park Jie-won also warned that the party will have to distance itself from Ban if he continues to associate with Park. The People's Party is seen as crucial for Ban, a career diplomat, to join forces with the politicians, especially with members of the center-right, against Moon Jae-in, a presidential hopeful from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). The DPK contender has been outpacing Ban in the latest polls. There has been an attempt to hack into a laptop belonging to the special investigation team probing President Park Geun-hye's political scandal. / Screencaptured from YouTube By Hong Dam-young There has been an attempt to hack into a laptop belonging to the special investigation team probing President Park Geun-hye's political scandal. The attempt, which originated overseas, was blocked before it inflicted any damage or leaked data. The team led by special prosecutor Park Young-soo suspects the attempt was made by far-right groups to disrupt the probe into the corruption scandal involving Park, government officials and executives of Korea's top conglomerates. The team recently stepped up its investigation into Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong on suspicion of bribery. On Monday, the team requested an arrest warrant. "The attempt was made through one of our prosecutors' email account on Naver, Korea's largest internet portal," said an official from the special prosecutors' team. "It seems the hacker tried to extract information from the team's intranet by gaining access to the prosecutor's account and installing a malicious code in the laptop." The team has been maintaining cyber security by using its own intranet and separate messenger program and operating desktops and laptops for different purposes. Desktops are used for making records of statements and reports on investigations or sharing data within the team. When connecting to the Internet, the prosecutors used security-certified individual laptops or devices. After the hacking alert, the team sought extra measures to tighten security, including activating anti-wiretap devices from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office or strengthening security walls on each computer. The team's office building in Daechi-dong, Seoul, has been guarded by security personnel around the elevator on ground level and at the main gate around-the-clock. A fingerprint recognition system keeps the emergency staircases shut. "The prosecutors were asked not to use intranet and the Internet at the same time, and to be more careful when using individual phones, USB drivers and external data storage devices," the official said. Korean has been designated an official foreign language subject for college entrance exam in France. / Yonhap By Hong Dam-young Korean has been designated an official foreign language subject for college entrance exam in France, according to the French Embassy in Korea. An embassy official said on Sunday that France's Ministry of Education included Korean among foreign languages for the Baccalaureat an academic qualification test that French high school students must pass to graduate and enter university late last year. Korean is Baccalaureat's 23rd language to be selected as an official exam subject. Other languages include English, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Japanese. A Chinese woman delivers a baby on a flight from Incheon to Qingdao on Wednesday evening. / Screen Capture from SBS News By Lee Jin-a A Chinese woman gave birth to a girl on a flight from Incheon to Qingdao on Wednesday evening. According to Yonhap News Agency on Saturday, a Chinese woman in her 20s went into labor on Shandong Airlines flight SC4778, five minutes after the plane left Incheon International Airport at 8:10 p.m. Even though no doctor on board, two passengers with experience as nurses helped the woman. After 30 minutes, the woman gave birth to a premature but healthy girl. About 150 passengers gave a big round of applause. The plane made an emergency landing in Incheon at about 8: 55 p.m., and the woman and the baby were taken to hospital. They were reportedly in good condition. By Kang Seung-woo The independent counsel team led by Park Young-soo is investigating whether Choi Soon-sil, confidant of impeached President Park Geun-hye's, exerted her influence on the selection of suppliers for a new police uniform. In June 2016, the National Police Agency (NPA) introduced a new uniform for the first time in 10 years, but it faced heavy criticism after many of the uniforms bleached in the wash. The poor fabric for the uniforms was provided by Bogwang Textile, a small Daegu-based company whose CEO Cha Soon-ja has close ties to Choi. The company earned 2.3 billion won ($1.94 million) from the 22.8 billion won project. In addition, the Bogwang CEO accompanied President Park on 10 overseas trips as part of an economic delegation. "There are suspicions Choi may have exercised her influence in the uniform selection, so we are doing a basic investigation," an official of the independent counsel team said. The investigation came as a former retired police officer claimed the NPA had pushed ahead with making the tens of millions of uniforms without proper planning. "It rejected one model favored by 90 percent of the police in a survey before the final decision, and selected one made with defective material," said Jang Sin-joong, Sunday in a radio interview, Monday, raising a bigger question about Choi's possible influence on the selection process. "There must be an obvious reason to do so," added Jang, the former chief of the Gangneung Police Station in Gangwon Province. He now heads the Cyber Human Rights Center for police officers. The probe team is particularly focused on whether An Bong-geun, one of Park's three key secretaries, pressured former NPA chief Kang Shin-myung to giver preferable treatment to Bogwang as An has been suspected of involvement in appointments of police officers. However, it has no plans yet to raid the textile company. Separately, the independent counsel questioned a renowned Korean-Japanese scholar who is well-versed in regional diplomatic issues, Saturday, to check for Choi's possible involvement and former presidential chief of staff Lee Byung-kee's secretive role in the historic comfort women agreement made on Dec. 28, 2015. The interrogation was carried out after obtaining information from an unnamed source that Choi and the scholar had pulled strings from behind the scenes regarding the comfort women deal. The source reportedly told the independent counsel it had witnessed Lee and the scholar talking about Choi's intervention during their meeting. However, its spokesman Lee Kyu-chul said at a briefing Monday that the team did not uncover evidence of Choi's involvement in the deal. It is known that ex-chief of staff Lee, a former ambassador to Japan, and Shotaro Yachi, a national security adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, played a leading role in reaching the agreement instead of the two nations' foreign ministries. Seoul and Tokyo inked the deal to end their dispute over Japan's enslavement of Korean women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels during World War II. Some of the surviving victims as well as opposition politicians and the people, however, are demanding renegotiation of the deal or its cancellation, claiming it fell short of fully restoring the dignity and honor of the ex-comfort women. By Lee Jin-a A foreign worker fired for taking a leave without notice can return to work, after a court ruled in his favor on Sunday. Seoul Administrative Court ruled that it is unfair to dismiss a foreign employee for his "poor work conduct" and "unexcused absence" without going through legal procedures. According to the court, an Uzbek laborer who began work for a ship parts manufacturer in North Jeolla Province in September, 2014, was fired for having a poor attitude to work and for an unexcused absence on June 30, 2015. Claiming that the man did not come to work for 15 days without notice, the company filed a report to the labor office and submitted a form to terminate his contract. The Uzbek man asked the National Labor Relations Commission to nullify the company's unilateral dismissal. "I took a rest at the company-owned dormitory because the employer told me not to come to the office until June 30," he said. When the commission rejected his application, the worker filed a suit against the commission. The administrative court then ruled in his favor. The court said that even though a Korean staff member phoned the plaintiff before the dismissal to ask him to return, the company should have made more efforts to communicate clearly with the worker by asking other Uzbek employees to translate what the company was saying. The court also said: "The company did not send to the worker any document that states the date and reason for the dismissal. "Therefore, without considering the fairness of the dismissal reasons, we judge that the dismissal is unfair because it violated the Labor Standards Act." Under Article 27, an employer must notify a worker in writing of the reasons for the dismissal and when the offence happened, and when he or she (the employer) intends to dismiss the worker. A dismissal is not effective when the employer does not follow this rule. By Kim Se-jeong The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has come under fire for indifference to the safety of Korean citizens abroad, after a tourist in Taiwan was raped last week. A Korean woman was allegedly raped by a taxi driver Thursday night after being drugged, during a visit to Taipei with her friends. The unidentified woman claimed on a Taiwan tourism online community that she called the Korean Mission in Taipei for help, but the response was: "Why are you calling so late, I was sleeping?" The ministry denied this was what happened Monday. "The official who was on the phone didn't say that," said another official who refused to disclose his name. The ministry said in a statement that the official who received the call at 3:40 a.m. Saturday, told the victim to decide whether to report the case to the local police, telling her to let him know if she reported it. It said as the victim did not call again, they attempted to contact her multiple times before finally reaching her. "After learning she was at a police station, officials at the mission went there to meet her," the ministry said. The victim could not be reached for comment. The incident happened around 8 p.m. on Thursday in Taipei. Three girls in a local tour taxi arrived at the popular Shilin Night Market. Earlier, the driver, Chan Yuju, had given them yogurt drinks that apparently contained a sleep-inducing drug and two of them fell asleep on the backseat. When the third woman got off the taxi to take a look around the market, Chan allegedly drove the taxi to a secluded spot near the market and assaulted one of the two who were sleeping. The third tourist returned to the taxi after one hour, and they were driven to the hotel. The next morning, the two realized something was wrong. On Friday, they left a message on the online community for help and called the Korean Mission at 3:40 a.m. Saturday. By Saturday evening, the 41-year-old suspect turned himself in, admitting that he drugged them. The suspected was detained Sunday afternoon, according to the China Post, a local English news outlet. The suspect was married and had no previous criminal record. The local police were quoted as saying that he could face up to 17 years in prison if convicted. Sexual assault is a crime punishable with up to 10 years in prison in Taiwan. Drugging someone can be punished with up to seven years in prison. By Rachel Lee Azerbaijan and Korea have successfully risen from the ashes of invasion to become the fastest-growing countries in their regions, Azerbaijan Ambassador to Korea Ramzi Teymurov says. This year marks the 27th anniversary of Baku's "Black January" massacre of Jan. 20, 1990. Hundreds of people died when Soviet troops unleashed a violent two-day crackdown on independence demonstrations. On Tuesday, the embassy is hosting an event at its office in Seoul to remember the tragedy. Azerbaijan, in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, with access to the Caspian Sea, is well known for its oil and natural gas resources, but few Koreans are aware of the country's other achievements and challenges, Teymurov told The Korea Times. "Therefore, this is a good opportunity to share the historical background and the sacrifices for the establishment of state independence of Azerbaijan with Korean people." The diplomat said the two nations have similar historical backgrounds _ invasions and wars, but "fortunately both could preserve their tangible and intangible cultural heritage." During the "Black January" massacre, hundreds of Azerbaijani civilians were killed or injured by Soviet troops, on a direct order from the USSR, which was trying to maintain control of Azerbaijan. During the night of Jan. 19-20, about 26,000 Soviet troops entered the capital Baku and committed atrocities against the Azerbaijani people who were struggling for freedom and sovereignty. Some 133 civilians lost their lives and 700 were wounded. The Soviet army also attacked the state TV building to prevent news reaching the international community. The massacre evoked a deep sense of anger and indignation across the world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan regained its independence and became a sovereign state. The country has marked the anniversary of the Jan. 20 tragedy every year. Thousands of people, including the President and members of Cabinet and Parliament and highly ranked government officials, visit the Alley of Martyrs to commemorate the heroism of Azerbaijan's people who perished for the sake of freedom and independence. "We hope this kind of tragedy never happens again with Azerbaijan or any other country of the world," the ambassador said. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Korea. Teymurov said the embassy is planning cultural and educational events and political and diplomatic functions to celebrate. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Khojaly Genocide of Feb. 26, 1992. "The embassy will do its best to get more Koreans informed about this historical shame," Teymurov said. Ethnic Azerbaijanis of Khojaly town, in the Daghlyq Garabagh (Nagorno-Karabakh) region, faced the armed forces of Armenia and the Motorized-Infantry Battalion No.366 of the former Soviet Union, which led to the killing of 613 civilians. Additionally, 1,275 people were taken hostage, 150 went missing and 487 people were disabled, 76 of whom were teenagers. Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Joo Hyung-hwan, third from left, poses with the trade ministers of six Central American countries after concluding negotiations over the Korea-Central America free trade agreement at the Hilton Princess Managua Hotel in Managua, Nicaragua, on Nov. 17. The six countries are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras. Korea is the first Asian country to sign an FTA with all six Central American countries. / Courtesy of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy By Rachel Lee Ambassador of Costa Rica to Korea Rodolfo Solano Quiros / Courtesy of the Embassy of Costa Rica Ambassador of Panama to Korea Ruben Eloy Arosemena Valdes / Courtesy of the Embassy of Panama Amid a spreading global trend toward trade protectionism, Korea recently managed to reach a free trade deal (FTA) with six Central American countries, which is expected to bring more than 70 percent growth in trade balance from the 3 percent now, the region's top envoys say. In November last year, Korea became the first Asian country to sign a FTA with all six Central American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama and Honduras after 17 months of negotiations. "Certainly, it was a very complex negotiation taking into account that the Central American countries needed to find regional consensus and then be able to present the positions and negotiation stances to Korea," Panamanian Ambassador to Korea Ruben Eloy Arosemena Valdes told The Korea Times. The agreement, which will take effect as soon as the National Assembly approves it, will cut tariffs on more than 95 percent of goods. Korea promised to scrap tariffs on major export items from the region, including coffee, sugar, bananas, pineapples and mangos. Central America agreed to cut tariffs on cars and home electronics. The deal also paves the way for Korean companies to advance into the region's government procurement market, including the energy, infrastructure and construction sectors. With each negotiation different as per interests, Costa Rican Ambassador to Korea Rodolfo Solano Quiros said his country focused on cooperating in developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and audiovisual services in particular. "In relation to commerce, fresh fruits, processed fruits, concentrate and fruit juices, as well as coffee and cocoa, are the main Costa Rican agricultural products that have potential for export to Korea; a developed country with sophisticated and demanding consumers, requesting the highest standards of quality and security," Quiros said. Korea was the third country to sign a FTA with Costa Rica after China and Singapore. With Seoul granted an immediate opening for 80 percent of tariff lines, which represents 85.5 percent of Panama's exports to here, Panama gained immediate access to rum, palm oil, and tomato paste. "Korea is one of the top 10 users of the Panama Canal by cargo flow and the agreement set the basis for using Panama as a hub for Korea's trade with Latin America," Valdes said. According to the Panamanian Embassy, its exports to Korea do not exceed $7 million just yet, but there is potential to grow from its Colon Free Zone. "It is a commercial instrument of great importance for our country," Valdes said. "The Certificate of Re-export was negotiated in this agreement, with which we seek to continue to consolidate Panama as a logistics center to store and distribute goods at the service of international trade, through the recognition of this certificate issued by the Panamanian customs authorities." The re-export certificate "ensures that the logistics operations carried out in the Colon Free Zone do not make it lose its tariff preference for Korean goods with non-party trading partners," Valdes added. According to the Secretariat for Economic Integration (SIECA), trade between Central America and Korea maintained an average growth of 5 percent between 2005 and 2009. The figure increased to 11.7 percent between 2010 and 2014. SIECA is the regional body that facilitates the economic integration of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, members of the Central American Integration System. "During the last few years, the commercial balance between Central American countries and Korea has increased at 3.8 percent annually, the Costa Rican ambassador said. "After the FTA signing, we expect this to increase by about 70 percent." With Korean textile and automobile companies already strongly present in Costa Rica, the country is looking forward to attract more investment in other promising sectors including technology, green energy and education. "Costa Rica firmly believes that this new FTA signing will become an important economic bridge to create more business opportunities for trade between our countries and regions," Quiros said. Quiros added that the results were of "great satisfaction because the FTA not only creates more business, investment and cooperation possibilities with Korea, but it also provides an opportunity to develop stronger integration mechanisms between the Central American countries." The Panamanian ambassador said: "Panama is a small, service-oriented economy, and the Republic of Korea represents a strategic partner for our service platform, mainly in sectors such as, logistics, shipping, tourism, distribution and redistribution of goods, and our international air transport platform for cargo and passengers, what we call the Hub' of the Americas." According to the Korea International Trade Association, Korea takes up 2.3 percent of exports from the six Central American countries. Trade between Korea and region has decreased during the past few years, mostly due to fewer exports of Korean ships. Korea Times President-Publisher Lee Chang-sup, right, and Soonsoo Education CEO Gu Geun-hoe shake hands after signing a contract to develop a joint education program at the newspaper company's office in central Seoul, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul By Jung Min-ho The Korea Times, the nation's oldest active English daily, will collaborate with Soonsoo Education to develop a convenient and effective education program for English learners. Soonsoo, a private English education firm based in Seoul, will release The Korea Times Tab, a device that will enable people to improve their English through the latest news articles, in early April. The program includes online lectures about how to read English articles, a translation service and apps that will help learners practice important expressions and evaluate their English proficiency levels. "Learning English through real news is the best way to develop real English skills, which can be used in professional meetings and in-depth conversations about current issues," Soonsoo Education CEO Gu Geun-hoe said, Monday, after signing the contract with Lee Chang-sup, president and publisher of The Korea Times, at the newspaper company's office in central Seoul. "News articles are the living content that users can constantly learn from. And the best part is that they are not boring." The goal is to help people master 10,000 essential English words so they can use them at their command in all four areas speaking, writing, reading and listening not only in casual conversations but also business communications. With the program, Koreans are also expected to learn how to explain Korea's unique culture and issues to people from different parts of the world in English. With the growing appeal of Korean culture, an increasing number of foreigners are developing interest in the country. The program will help people develop communication skills, which are becoming more important in the interrelated world. "Our partnership with Soonsoo Education is a marriage of the best English content and the latest technology," Lee said. "It will use news from The Korea Times and help even novices learn English just by using their tablets." By Choi Ha-young National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun said Monday he will push for talks with parliamentary leaders from the six nations involved in the stalled six-party negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program this year. "The parliamentary talks, if realized, will be an opportunity to make a breakthrough on the North Korean issue," Chung said in a speech at the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum held in Fiji. "The parliamentary talks can exert flexibility compared to governmental diplomacy. We need to vitalize parliamentary-level talks on politics and security, on the aspect of supplementing and facilitating intergovernmental talks." The six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan have remained stalled since 2007. Calling for "creativity," Chung proposed a two-track approach involving both sanctions and engagement in handling North Korea. "Sanctions are tools, not an ultimate purpose," he said. Chung has called for dialogue with North Korea to find solutions to the nuclear issue. In his Constitution Day speech last July 17, Chung demanded the Park Geun-hye administration drop its hostile policy toward North Korea. Following the proposal, the Assembly formed the Inter-Parliamentary Dialogue for Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, composed of six lawmakers across the conservative and liberal parties. Rep. Chung Dong-young of the People's Party, an ex-unification minister, heads the group. In September, the group sent letters to the legislative bodies of the other countries except North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly. "The four countries' legislatures are interested in our proposal," an aide to Chung told The Korea Times. "It is not clear yet what kind of agreement in the Assembly is required for the talks." The lawmakers visited Washington, D.C. and New York in November to meet President-elect Trump's diplomatic aides and dispel worries about a leadership vacancy after President Park's impeachment. By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS Calling for a major reappraisal of how the international community responds to a widening series of conflicts, and challenging policymakers to take a courageous look at a new template to maintain global peace and security, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, made a bold and far reaching appeal for Conflict Prevention initiatives. "We spend far more time and resources responding to crises rather than preventing them," the Secretary General told the Security Council, "People are paying too high a pricewe need a whole new approach." He stressed that while "conflict prevention must be the priority," he conceded "conflict prevention does not attract attention. The television cameras are not there when a crisis is avoided." Conflict Prevention is emerging as a signature issue for the new Guterres Administration. Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom of Sweden, the country sponsoring the debate stated, "The UN's humanitarian and peacekeeping instruments have come under immense pressure. $22 billion USD in humanitarian appeals. Over 100,000 UN peacekeepers. Meanwhile, research shows that measures to peacefully prevent conflict cost, on average, just a tenth of post-conflict recovery efforts. Investing in prevention is not only morally right. It is the smart, economically sound and sustainable thing to do." In other words given the human and economic cost of widening and often seemingly endless UN Peacekeeping operations, it's far less costly to prevent a conflict in the first place rather than picking up the pieces after its bloody aftermath. Wallstrom advised, "Prevention requires addressing the root causes of conflict and instability before they reach the front pages or this Council's agenda." Again Secretary General Guterres set the agenda, "We must rebalance our approach to peace and security. For decades, this has been determined by responding to conflict. For the future, we need to do far more to prevent war and sustain peace." Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski advised that the current global conflicts and the worst humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II have led to a "particularly fragile security landscape in many regions of the world." It's imperative that the "international community identifies and tackles the root causes of conflicts." More specifically Italy's Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano advised, "We need to encourage the effective use of early warning indicators of violence, radicalization, extremism and assaults on human rights, religion and culture." Yet he warned,"Terrorism attacks our fundamental values and spreads fears. We shall not be fearful, because people in fear are not free. Fighting terror and fear means fighting for our freedom." Israel's Ambassador David Roet stated, "While it is clear that courage is needed in the conflicts that take place on the battlefield, courage is even more important for actually preventing conflicts." He added, "Courage should mean, not turning a blind eye to actions that are setting the grounds for future conflict." He gave the example, "Inorder to prevent the next conflict between Israel and Hezbollah the Security Council must acknowledge the dangerous buildup ofHezbollah in southern Lebanon." He urged the Council, "to put an end to Iran's destabilizing actions in our region and throughout the world." "The primary work of conflict prevention lies with Member States," Guterres advised. Thus given the 193 UN members with often conflicting interests, such noble sentiments are easier said than done. Given the incoming Trump Administration in the USA, the opportunity presents itself to the UN to cooperate, for mutual benefit, with Washington on its Conflict Prevention initiative. As Antonio Guterres stressed, "War is never inevitable. It is always a matter of choiceBut peace, too, is never inevitable. It is the result of difficult decisions, hard work and compromise." The new Secretary General's stoical realism is confronted by a chaotic and combustable global order. Yet trying to defuse these smoldering trouble spots, be they regional ethnic conflicts or great power rivalries, through preventive diplomacy remains a noble and lofty aim as success will be measured in tangible but quiet victories. John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China." Contact jjmcolumn@earthlink.net By Andrew Salmon The placement of a comfort woman statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan was, in a way and from the perspective of those who did it a brilliant tactic. Custom-designed by a minority interest group to humiliate and provoke Tokyo and to reignite a dying controversy, it did exactly that. Let's backtrack. In December 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, through his foreign minister, made a public apology about the Korean comfort women. It was unequivocal, and widely reported in global media. He also promised governmental compensation which was subsequently paid, no strings attached. In response, Seoul agreed to "consult with related organizations" on the possible relocation of a comfort woman statue outside the Japanese Embassy (contrary to local press reports, this was not a condition of the deal; although Tokyo apologized and paid, the statue remains to this day). With this done, Seoul and Tokyo agreed, on the governmental level, to end bilateral animosity over the comfort women issue. The agreement held the potential to lay history to rest and refocus Seoul-Tokyo relations on the future, freeing the two nations to proceed on various diplomatic, economic and strategic initiatives. Win-win. It had been a clever move by Abe. In one fell swoop, Tokyo had given the comfort women what they had long demanded: an official apology and official compensation. The majority of then-living comfort women 34 out of 46 accepted both the apology and the deal. Even so, a small, vocal group of comfort women and their supportive NGOs were unwilling to let the issue go. Abe was "insincere," they insisted, and his wording did not admit Japan's "legal responsibility." Still, they had lost their two key messages. And they were a minority. Protester numbers outside the Japanese Embassy dwindled. Media attention dropped off. It looked as if an issue that had bedeviled bilateral relations since the early 1990s had been laid to rest. Fast forward one year. A civic group suddenly appeared, attempting to place a second comfort woman statue outside Busan's Japanese consulate. From my perspective, this looked like a desperate move to reignite an almost-extinguished issue. With the national government paralyzed, they had chosen their timing well. The group had not sought permission, and police removed the statue: Private groups cannot simply establish monuments in public spaces. Then, Busan authorities reversed course and permitted it to be re-placed outside the consulate. While the placement of further statues was not expressly forbidden in the December 2015 agreement, it is obviously in breach of its spirit. It is arguably also in breach of Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention (which requires host states to prevent "impairment of the dignity" of foreign missions). Faced with blatant provocation, Tokyo could have acted as they did with the non-removal of the statue outside their Seoul embassy: Use back channels to discuss, while remaining publically mum. Or, Tokyo could have maintained a dignified silence, before raising the issue with Korea's next administration. Abe must know that, in Korea, public opinion, when it comes to emotive issues, has colossal force. He must also know that the country is mired in crisis, with the government headless. Yet he reacted publicly and furiously. He recalled his ambassador and halted currency swap talks. With this response, Abe fell headlong into the civic group's ambush, and gave those who questioned his "insincerity" additional ammunition. Naturally, the Korean establishment sided with the interest group. Media and politicians laid into Abe. Japan-bashing is back in vogue. The entire issue has flared up again. The December 2015 agreement teeters on the brink. Antagonistic emotions both Korean (in action) and Japanese (in reaction) may scupper this promising deal. This is bad news for Korea. At a time when China is unashamedly bullying Korea over THAAD, and when incoming President Donald Trump's Asia policy is far from clear, Korea needs friends. Japan a neighbor and fellow democracy which shares a very similar culture to Korea would be an ideal partner. That now looks impossible. Between them, an interest group, Busan authorities and the Japanese prime minister have delinked Seoul-Tokyo relations from the future and re-shackled them to a highly contentious history. Lose-lose. Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk. Electronics maker seeking M&As for AI home appliance biz By Yoon Sung-won LG Electronics Home Appliance & Air Solution (H&A) Company President Dan Song, left, poses with the company's domestic marketing division President Choi Sang-kyu during a product launch for the LG Whisen Dual Air Conditioner at LG Electronics headquarters on Yeouido, Monday. / Courtesy of LG Electronics LG Electronics pledged to expand its artificial intelligence (AI)-based home appliance business, the company said Monday. Launching its AI-based LG Whisen Dual Air Conditioner, the nation's second-largest electronics maker said it will also release voice-recognizing home appliances next year. "We will lead the global premium air conditioner market based on AI systems that understand customers, and mixed air solutions that can be used during all seasons," LG Electronics Home Appliance & Air Solution Company President Dan Song said in a press conference in Seoul, Monday. Song stressed that future home appliances will be more interconnected. "So far, each home appliance such as a refrigerator or washing machine has been used separately," he said. "With the advancement of AI technologies, they will be expanded into space-oriented packages and mixed systems in the future. In light of such a trend, we will start introducing Wi-Fi connection to all products released this year." The new Whisen Dual Air Conditioner is capable of learning user patterns and surrounding spaces, based on deep learning technology, which allows an AI system to "learn" from unstructured data collected from cloud networks as well as sensors and cameras attached to the device. LG Electronics also said the company will also boost cooperation with the world's leading AI companies like Amazon, Google and Apple on platform technologies. "We are also ready to push for mergers and acquisitions should we find possible partners who understand our vision and strategic directions," Song said. The electronics maker said its progress in AI technologies for home appliances will advance to voice recognition next year from the application of deep learning technology so far. "Though voice-recognizing air conditioners have been released years ago as infant-stage products, we focused on introducing deep learning technology for them," LG Electronics' air solution business head Lee Kam-kyu said. "We believe the combination of voice recognition and deep learning technologies will complete the AI system for home appliances and will release more voice-recognizing products next year." As the company targets over 10 percent growth in the global air conditioner market, LG Electronics said it is eyeing the domestic system air conditioner sector to meet increased demand from new apartments scheduled to be completed this year. By Yoon Sung-won Samsung Electronics will release the investigation results over the cause of the Galaxy Note 7's fire problems, Jan. 23, according to industry sources Monday. Although the company has tested multiple possible causes from the smartphone's design to its software for the last three months, expectations are that the world's largest smartphone maker will maintain that flaws in the battery cell's internal structure are the major cause. Samsung Electronics' mobile business chief Koh Dong-jin is likely to reveal the results, as he announced the launch of the Note 7 and its global recall and discontinuance. "We plan to announce the cause of the Galaxy Note 7's fire problem," a source from Samsung Electronics said, adding the major cause was the "battery cell." Since October last year, Samsung Electronics has mounted the investigation and pledged to reveal the cause of the fire regardless of discontinuing the handset. This has been seen as a move to restore customer confidence to some extent before launching its new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, this year. After the launch of the Note 7 in August, Samsung Electronics halted selling the smartphone in September due to the unexpected fire problem. The first batch of Note 7s, available in the market at the time of the first selling suspension, used batteries made by Samsung SDI. Samsung Electronics had said the cause was the battery cell. Afterwards, Samsung Electronics stopped using Samsung SDI-made batteries and started using ones made by China's ATL. But the fire problems continued to be reported around the globe, forcing the company to discontinue manufacturing and sales of the Note 7 worldwide. According to industry sources, the Samsung Electronics' investigation has failed to specify the conditions that cause the fire. This has made the company acknowledge that the fire problem is caused by flaws in the battery, not the whole handset. Samsung Electronics has introduced new features such as iris recognition, waterproofing and dust proofing for the Note 7 and this elevated the density of components inside the handset. The company also used a 3,500mAh battery, which has a significantly larger capacity compared to the Note 5's 3,000mAh. But even with the increase in battery capacity, the company applied the same battery process verification. "It is possible that the adoption of outdated battery process verifications for new battery structures caused unexpected flaws, which consequently led to fire problem," an industry insider said. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics has separately requested a third-party investigation from the U.S. safety consulting and certification company UL for the Note 7 fire problems. In Korea, the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) has delegated another investigation to the Korea Testing Laboratory (KTL). Samsung Electronics' upcoming announcement will be based on its own investigation as well as on one by the Illinois-based safety certification company as the two separate investigation results pointed to the battery cells as the main cause of the fire problem. KATS said the investigation by KTL is still underway regardless of what Samsung Electronics has to say in its announcement. By Lee Min-hyung Stock prices of Samsung Electronics have fluctuated Monday amid the uncertain future of the firm's control tower, after the nation's prosecution requested an arrest warrant for Vice Chairman and Samsung Group heir apparent Lee Jae-yong. Shares of the nation's largest technology firm closed at 1.833 million won ($1,550) on the Seoul bourse, down 40,000 won or 2.14 percent from the previous trading day. The stock price fell to 1.816 million won at one time amid lingering uncertainty over whether the prosecution will arrest Lee over the firm's alleged involvement in the recent political upheaval surrounding President Park Geun-hye and her close confidant Choi Soon-sil. Expectations were that the prosecution's decision may drive down Samsung shares by a huge margin, in the face of Samsung's alleged links to the nation's worst-ever political crisis. But market insiders said the decline is not as grave as they had expected, and the firm will not suffer long-term effects over the arrest warrant issued for Lee. This is because the months-long controversy has tarnished the firm's brand value to some extent, but its stock price has shown upward momentum. On Thursday, Samsung Electronics shares hit a record high, closing at 1.94 million won, up 26,000 won from a day earlier. This was due to the firm's robust outlook for the fourth-quarter earnings despite its involvement in the political scandal. Earlier this month, the company posted 9.2 trillion won in the fourth-quarter estimated operating profit, up 49.84 percent from a year ago, backed by rosy expectations for its semiconductor unit. "The Choi gate scandal is not breaking Samsung's systems in the short run," Daishin Investment and Securities analyst Park Gang-ho said. "The firm's fundamentals will remain in place." The woman whose body was in the debris of a burned home likely was Donna Lou Rollins, 56, who lived in the home outside Mountain Home. Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery released her name on Monday afternoon after her closest relatives were notified. The fire at 78 County Road 496 was reported by a 9-1-1 call about 11:15 p.m. Sunday. Mountain Home, Midway, and Clarkridge firefighters fought the fire but it was nearly burned down before they arrived. A second call at 11:21 reported Rollins' car was at the home. After the fire was out, firefighters found a woman's body in the rubble. They summoned sheriffs investigators and the Baxter County coroner, who sent the body to the Arkansas State Medical Examiners Office in Little Rock for an autopsy to determine cause of death and verify that the body belonged to Rollins. Investigators haven't determined the cause of the fire. Gov. Eric Greitens decided Monday to withhold $146 million of planned state spending for this fiscal year, including tens of millions of dollars to public colleges and universities. The Republican governor said the cuts are necessary to keep the budget in balance because of lower than expected tax revenues and rising costs in certain programs such as Medicaid. (You can see the complete list of cuts in the document in the right column.) The cuts came just one week after Greitens took office and a day before he delivers his first State of the State address. They come on top of about $200 million of spending restrictions made by former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. The latest cuts include $56 million from the core budgets of public universities, nearly $12 million from community colleges and almost $9 million in busing aid for K-12 school districts. (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) Edited news release from Governor's Office: Gov. Eric Greitens announced $146.4 million of spending restrictions constitutionally required to balance Missouri's budget. Missouri's budget is suffering from reduced revenue due to poor economic growth. That revenue is being drained by special interest tax credits and the faster-than-projected growth in healthcare expenditures, driven in part by the national impact of Obamacare. These restrictions are an initial step towards fiscal responsibility. Over the next 18 months, more than $700 million in budget cuts will be necessary just to make the budget balance and retain Missouri's AAA credit rating. Despite the dismal situation inherited from the previous administration, Greitens reiterated his commitment to funding Missouri families' priorities like K-12 education and public safety. "Not a single penny will be taken out of K-12 classrooms," Greitens promised in a social media video accompanying the announcement. The restrictions announced include no cuts to the Foundation Formula that funds K-12 classroom education. There were no cuts to programs essential to public safety, and all of the state's pension and health care obligations will also be honored. The restrictions were targeted, to the extent possible, at rolling back earmarks, new spending items, programs with no established track record of success, and services that are duplicated elsewhere in government. "You elected me because Ill always tell it like it is, and more hard choices lie ahead. But as Missourians, I believe that we must come together, tighten our belts, be smart and wise with our tax dollars, and work our way out of this hole by bringing more jobs with higher pay to the people of Missouri," said Greitens. Greitens also reiterated that the answer to the dire budget situation is smaller government and an improved private-sector economy. "I do not believe the answer to unwise budgeting is to raise taxes on hardworking families who are struggling just to make it by. The answer is simple: government must become more efficient, and we must build a thriving economy with more jobs and higher pay." Greitens will detail his plans to reduce government waste and grow the economy during his State of the State address on Tuesday. Lawrence County Highway M is closed south of Highway Z between Halltown and Everton as crews clean up an oil pipeline spill. The Missouri Department of Transportation says the closure will last until Thursday. Drivers will have to find an alternate route around the closing. Drivers will be able to get to driveways and other entrances on both sides of the closing but will not be able to travel through the work zone. Weather and/or work scheduling conflicts could postpone the project. Enbridge Energy said Sunday that nearly 200 barrels of oil leaked out of a pipeline at its pump station. A spokesman for the company said a detection alarm went off alerting workers that there was a leak. He said 8,400 gallons of oil leaked, with most of it staying on the company's property, but some reached a drainage ditch near Highway M. The company said the oil in that area was contained and will be vacuumed out. The spokesman said the company is investigating what led to the leak. An Enbridge spokeswoman says the pipeline was built about 1950. Enbridge acquired it in 2005 when it bought Shell Pipeline company. Enbridge calls it Line 51 but says it is also called the Ozark Pipeline. It's a 22-inch diameter pipeline that carries light crude oil from Cushing, Okla., to Wood River, Ill.. The abductors of students and members of staff of the Nigeria Turkish International College (NTIC) have demanded N1.2bn ransom for the victims to be released. Reports say the abductors called a family member of one of the victims on Sunday to make the demand. The police authorities confirmed that the gunmen invaded the school now changed to Tulip International School, and took the students and the teachers away in a white Toyota Hilux vehicle. They were abducted at about 9:30pm on Friday, when the kidnappers dug through the fence and entered through a back door. A source who confirmed the demand for ransome said, They have been using the victims phone numbers to call their families . Each time the families try to negotiate, they would end the call. Daily Trust learnt that footage of the CCTV Cameras at the school hostel indicated that the kidnappers wore masks when they stormed the hostel. One of them reportedly wore skirt but he is suspected to be a man. Among the victims were two Junior Secondary School (JSS) students, one Senior Secondary School (SSS) student, three Nigerian workers and two Turkish staff . Representative of Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris, AIG Zone 2, Aderanti Kayode and Commissioner of Police, Ogun Command, llliyasu Ahmed had visited the school, saying the police authorities are on top of the situation. The Ogun State government has also assured parents and relatives of the students and staff of the school of prompt action to ensure safe and immediate release of the kidnapped victims. Deputy Governor, Mrs. Yetunde Onanuga also visited the school. Pm news Follow Us on Facebook @LadunLiadi; Instagram @LadunLiadi; Twitter @LadunLiadi; Youtube @LadunLiadiTV for updates A 50-year-old Lake Geneva man was arrested early Monday after police discovered that he had started a fire at The Cove of Lake Geneva, 111 Center St., while cooking up methamphetamine in a hotel room, Lake Geneva police reported. Patrick M. McBean was arrested at the scene and booked into the Walworth County Jail. He is facing charges of possession of methamphetamine waste products, possession of drug paraphernalia related to methamphetamine and bail jumping. According to a police press release, at 3:14 a.m. officers responded to The Cove for a fire alarm. While enroute, officers got a call about a woman yelling for help in front of the Mill Creek Hotel, 123 Center St. When police arrived to assist, they discovered the woman had suffered serious burns inside a room at The Cove and had walked to the Mill Creek Hotel seeking assistance. The woman was transported to St. Marys Hospital, Milwaukee. Police reported that she is in serious condition. Police officers and fire department personnel determined that The Cove room fire was caused by a chemical reaction that occurred while methamphetamine was being cooked. Police, deputies, firefighters, and hotel security evacuated guests from the area. Two Lake Geneva police officers and a firefighter, along with two Walworth County Sheriffs deputies and a security officer at The Cove were treated for smoke inhalation at Lakeland Medical Center and released. Also assisting with securing the area were the Drug Enforcement Administration, town of Linn Police Department, the Racine County Hazardous Material Team, Walworth County Public Health and the Lake Geneva Public Works Department. During a bond hearing on Tuesday, McBean was given a $10,000 cash bond. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Leusink told Judge David Reddy that McBean was dangerous and needed a high cash bond. Leusink cited McBeans two alleged methamphetamine cooks and his failure to show up for a court hearing back in 2009 as reasons for the $10,000 cash bond. He also requested that McBean not have contact with the other cooks involved in the Cove incident as well as no contact with the woman who received serious burns during the Cove fire. He asked that McBean not be allowed to have any of the materials that can be used to produce methamphetamine. McBeans attorney Stephen Kramer asked that McBean be released on a signature bond, stating that McBean lives in the area and only missed one court hearing and made all of his other hearings in the past. Reddy, however, chose to take the states suggestion, leaving McBean with a $10,000 cash bond. McBean is next due in court on Friday, Jan. 13 at 1:15 p.m. GENOA CITY -- The search for two girls reported missing yesterday ended happily. Earlier this morning, Katie and Jenna Brick, ages 6 and 8, respectively, were found safe in a hotel in Overland Park, Kansas. Genoa City Police Chief Joe Balog said the girls were with their mother, Tiffany A. Brick, 28. Tiffany Brick was not taken into custody, but she is scheduled to appear in Walworth County Circuit Court tomorrow for five charges of misappropriating ID information to obtain money and one charge of forgery. According to a Genoa City police statement, the search for the Brick girls began Jan. 10 after 6:30 a.m. Tiffany and her daughters were staying at a residence on Sumner Court, and had a signed agreement with a county agency not to leave with her children unless supervised by one of the other adults at the home. Police suspect she violated the agreement and put out an attempt to locate for Tiffany, who was suspected of driving a black GMC 1500 pickup truck. Attempts to contact Tiffany and her boyfriend were not successful. However, at 3:58 a.m., police in Mission, Kansas, made contact with an incoherent male subject with no shoes. About 45 minutes later, the man was identified as Tiffanys boyfriend, Scott Hogel. A check with the National Crime Information Center showed Hogel was connected to the missing girls, and he led police to the hotel where Tiffany and her daughters were located. Balog was grateful to those who spread the word about the case, and the numerous departments which assisted in the search, including the county sheriffs offices in Walworth and McHenry, Illinois, and the U.S. Marshalls Office in Milwaukee. More details about the search will appear in next weeks Regional News. Lake Genevas new police lieutenant doesnt mind the pressures of the job. Its stressful, but its a good stress, said Lt. Bridgett Way in a recent interview. With the retirement of Assistant Police Chief Michael Reuss in March 2017, the Lake Geneva Police Department will go to a chief and two lieutenants structure. Lt. Ed Gritzner, who was promoted in 2013, handles the administrative end of the department. Way, who was promoted about a week ago from sergeant, will handle patrol, training reserve officers and hiring. I didnt think, way back when I was in college, that I would be a lieutenant in a police department, she said. A New Berlin native who graduated from New Berlin Eisenhower High school in 1986, Way worked as a trainer at the Cottonwood Farms horse farm. She traveled the country showing horses for the farm. It was a lot of fun, but there was no retirement, Way said. At 23, she went back to college, attending Gateway. I actually selected to be a DNR warden, said Way. But while in school, what she learned about law enforcement caught her interest. Best friend And then she met her best friend, Jenny Schmidt, who is a deputy sheriff in Walworth County. Schmidt persuaded Way to take courses in law enforcement at Gateway. Schmidt and Way, who are now neighbors in Elkhorn, are still early morning coffee buddies. Jane Martin, an Elkhorn police officer, lives nearby and they often visit. We got a little cop corner going, joked Way. Way said after Gateway, she got a security job at Lakeland Hospital. She also worked part time with the city of Elkhorn and the town of Geneva police departments. While working for Geneva, she met officers from the Lake Geneva department. I really liked the department, she said. She worked in law enforcement for three and a half years before she was able to apply for a full-time position in Lake Geneva. Way said she finally got an opportunity to apply in Lake Geneva in 1999. She started as a Lake Geneva patrol officer on Nov. 1, 1999, she said. Starting in the town of Geneva, Way worked in sensitive crimes for 12 years. She was one of only seven female officers in the county at the time, and in many of the sensitive crimes, which involve sexual abuse or rape, a female officer was needed. Sometimes it really hits you, she said of sensitive crimes investigations. Some days it rips your heart out. But when it involved children, said Way, she kept in mind that she was the victims guardian. You are the one who will bring the person who hurt them to justice, she said. That can be hard, especially when interviewing the person who committed the crime, Way said. Negotiations To improve her interpersonal communications skills, while a Lake Geneva officer, she took classes in negotiations. Intended for hostage negotiations, the negotiation lessons helped her to talk down subjects who barricaded themselves in buildings, sometimes with weapons. She said the negotiation process is very stressful at first, but once you get talking to them, you can get them some help. Way said the Lake Geneva Police Department has helped her expand her career, sending her to special training classes, such as Staff and Command School in Evanston, Illinois, and Leadership and Police Organization classes in Shawano. In addition, Way served on the county SWAT team for four years. And since being hired by Lake Geneva, Way has been able to earn a bachelors degree in law enforcement. Way said she and other officers want to give back to the community. This year the department created a community outreach committee, which conducted a food drive and a coat drive to help the less fortunate residents. Way said her father, Andrew Melotik, is a retired Wisconsin Natural Gas employee. Her mother is Barbara Melotik. She has one brother, Andrew. Her husband, Robert Way, owns a construction company. He is a retired firefighter and EMT, which is how they met, Way said. They have three children. The oldest, a son, is a University of Wisconsin Stevens Point student. Their daughters are 15 and 10. Way said Walworth County has come a long way since she first started her career. More women are joining law enforcement, she said. And thats great. Dear W.C., My daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren are living in a terrible rental. They have been trying to get the landlord to repair the tiny home they rent for quite some time. My son-in-law is currently unable to work due to a heart valve problem. He recently had surgery and there were complications. He has been too ill to deal with the plumbing, mold and other problems the landlord refuses to repair. My daughter has been trying to get the landlord to fix the many problems but he just ignores her. He is taking advantage of them, knowing they have too much to deal with right now. That is why I am turning to you. My daughter works very hard at her full-time job and caring for her husband and family. My son-in-law is going in for another surgery soon and I know it would help for them to not have the stress of this in their lives. Dear Readers, I work with many, many landlords as we provide our assistance. Most landlords I work with are caring and willing to help when possible. I have had landlords forgive overdue rent, provide improvements and even help with handicap modifications. I do not intend to make them out to be the bad guy in our weekly column as most are very supportive of our efforts to improve the lives of our fellow creations. The landlord in this weeks column unfortunately was not supportive or even a very nice person. I had a feeling his lack of compassion for his fellow creations extended to all areas of his life, not just the landlord part. I visited this family to find out more details and see for myself the condition of the home they were renting. When I pulled up to the tiny home it was easy to see the many repairs that had been neglected by the landlord. There were cracks in the front window, the roof was in terrible disrepair and the sidewalks were heaving. If it was this bad on the outside I could just imagine how bad it was inside. I walked carefully over the broken sidewalk and knocked on the front door. In a moment the door was opened by who I assumed was the wife followed by two children that looked to be around 10 and possibly 12 years old. They all listened as I explained who I was and why I was there. The woman said, My mother told me she had written to you but I did not believe you would come. Please come inside. After I showed my identification I entered the home. The woman introduced me to her two daughters that were close to the ages I had guessed at. They were polite and after greeting me they went to a room adjoining the front hall. In that small room I was introduced to the husband/father. I told him about why I was there and he said, You really think you can help? My wife has been trying to get that landlord to fix some of these problems for the past few years. He knows Im sick but doesnt seem to care. We have rented this house for 10 years now and we have one more year on our five-year lease. He will not let us out of our lease and we cannot afford another security deposit and first months rent. We feel trapped and this stress is not helping me with my upcoming surgery. I asked to look around the house to see what repairs it was in need of. The wife showed me the mold growing in the bathrooms and in areas of the ceiling where the roof had leaked. She opened cabinets and showed me where there were bowls and buckets under leaking pipes. I looked into the refrigerator that was not even working properly and saw little food. The cabinets were in the same condition. The wife showed me the clothing strung over the shower rod and chairs to dry because the dryer did not work. She showed me where the broken front window was leaking down the wall and causing more mold. I asked how long the home had been in that condition and learned it had fallen further and further into disrepair over the past few years. She said the landlord had never been nice but had worked with them in the past for repairs. She said, It seems as soon as he found out my husband was sick and no longer working he became harder and harder to work with. I finally asked to be released from our lease but he said he would take legal action if we did that. We really did not know what to do. I have enough to take care of with my husband sick, working full-time and two children. He is just taking advantage of us. We went over their budget and I saw the hit their income had taken with the husband being unable to work. The wife told me about her husbands upcoming second procedure that they hoped would fix his heart so he could return to work. She said, Its just been a much longer recovery than either of us thought and we were not prepared financially for something like this. We just made it paycheck to paycheck. Now with only my paycheck we have had to cut back even more by lowering our thermostat and eating less food. I knew by looking at all of them that they had probably been doing all those things for a while. They were all thin and dressed in jackets and thick sweaters indoors. I asked the wife if she would mind if I called the landlord. She was happy I offered to try and speak to the stubborn landlord. I called the landlord on the phone number she provided. He answered in an argumentative manner and the conversation went downhill from there. When I was through talking to the rude man I felt my own heart pounding so I could see why the husband was unable to talk to him. We did resolve one thing though and that was that the family would be moving out of the disgusting rental and moving into an apartment that was not full of mold and disrepair. I informed the landlord that the family would no longer be renting the home as it was uninhabitable. I had to threaten him with sharing several code violations with the proper authorities in order to have him free the family of their lease and I informed him they better be repaired before I see anyone else living in this nearly condemned home. After the landlord shouted several profanities he hung up the phone. I turned to the husband and wife in disbelief and said, I dont know how you dealt with that man for so long. I usually get along with most landlords and they are most times willing to work with our charity. I am happy to tell you he will be releasing you from your lease and we can now work on finding you a hospitable rental. I made several phone calls to landlords I have good working relationships with and found a reasonably priced, just remodeled rental that the landlord would rent to this struggling family. When I hung up the phone this time there were smiles, not stressful frowns on the faces of all of us. The wife then looked concerned as she asked, How will we be able to pay for the first months rent and move all this with my husband so sick and going in for surgery soon? I realized I had not told them what we would be doing to help them. I answered, I just happen to know several good volunteers that would be happy to help you pack and move. We also have a caring group of donors that allow The Time is Now to Help to give assistance with rent and utilities. Thanks to all of them we will be able to provide you with first months rent and security deposit. I watched as the look of shock and then relief washed over the womans face. The husband looked down and tried to hide the fact that he was crying tears of relief. Then they hugged each other and both began to cry. Our heartfelt assistance was given just as promised. The husband was able to go through his surgery and return to their new rental that was not filled with mold and disrepair. Their working refrigerator contained good food and their rooms were warm. They all also received new beds as we discovered old worn mattresses when the volunteers helped them move. At my last visit the family greeted me at the door with a hug and were proud to show me around their clean and fresh rental. The father was making progress and hoping to return to work in six weeks. Our assistance provided the help they needed to change their lives from stressful and struggling to a good working relationship with their new landlord that left them relieved and healthy. There are many of our fellow creations turning to us for help or being referred by others. The children, the handicapped, the elderly, those that cannot fend for themselves, those living in desperate need will be crying happy tears of relief thanks to all of you, the Fox Charities New Year Wish $25,000 Matching Grant and The Time Is Now to Help working together to provide poverty relief. Together we make a difference removing the pains of poverty for our fellow creations. Thank you and God bless you. Health & Happiness, Love & God Bless Everyone, W.C./Sal To the Editor: RE: Former Alderman Ed Yaegers many attempts over the years to recognize and preserve the former railroad terminus along Sage Street. Question: Why should the city even consider this forgotten and useless vacant property? Answer: It just may be Lake Genevas most historically significant property and the genesis of how we, all of us, managed to discover this crown jewel of a community. Yaegers concept to locate and mark ghost turntable imprints is brilliant! How exciting it could be to walk around the path of our forbearers. We recently had a chance to exit Interstate 39 on our frequent trip to the Northwoods and, for the first time, visit the charming city of Wausau. Even though Wausau has a water presence, like Lake Geneva, along its Wisconsin River, I-39 does not pass directly through the city. Walking the citys streets with its decorative and colorful aerial panels was reminiscent of walks through Paris. I wonder why the two destination communities can be so politically different. Could we possibly affect an exchange of alderpersons with Wausau and begin to recognize and feature our communitys features to benefit visitors and citizens alike? Recognizing long standing problems in 10 states of my licensure as well as similar community problems working on projects in Russia and Japan, we were able to suggest effective resolutions (saving a mountaintop lake in North Carolina and solving a pollution problem in Sarasota Bay, Florida). I witnessed the citys serious traffic problems many years ago upon returning to my home town. I could not believe that busy Wisconsin State Highway 50 still passed directly through downtown Main Street, carrying a high percentage of auto and truck traffic having no interest in stopping to shop. I proposed rerouting the highway north around the city and closing Main Street to any vehicular traffic. I could envision a real exciting interface people magnet of benches, trees, reflecting pools (fire pits, music and skaters in the winter) and pedestrian traffic for the shop owners. A circular helix parking structure was also proposed with easy access for shoppers. The top floor could contain the Chamber of Commerce offices as well as observation decks with expansive views of the lake and environs. I just think of all the cities around the world that preserve their antiquities and create excitement for their visitors and citizens! Just wondering. Why not in Lake Geneva? Sincerely, D. Thomas Kincaid Linn Township Sri Lanka said that it supports the establishment of a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) in 2017, within the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and to elevate the dialogue on LAWS to a State driven formal process. Addressing the 5th Review Conference of the Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) on Monday (12th December) Mrs. Mafusa Lafir, Second Secretary of the Sri Lanka Mission in Geneva and Sri Lankas delegate to the Session said that despite the assurance given by many key countries that fully autonomous weapons would not be developed, given precursors for such weapons are already in existence, the international community has raised legitimate concerns that failure to take pre-emptive actions at this point carries the risk of such weapons being developed in the future. She further added that this particular concern of the international community provides the rationale behind the call for a pre-emptive ban on LAWS, before these weapons change the current nature of conflicts by removing the human control from the command and operation of weapons. She further said that a GGE could be mandated to discuss issues such as the definition of LAWS, understanding on existing systems to agree on the limits need to be set regarding the autonomy in weapons, and to address the challenges of compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL). During the session, Sri Lanka also stressed that the GGEshould also engage on securing the rights for States to continue to have unhindered access to the dual use autonomous technology for peaceful purposes, given the benefits it could offer for the mankind. A call for an establishment of a GGE was a result of the recommendation made by the Informal Meeting of Experts held in April 2016, for which the mandate was given by the 2015 Meeting of High Contracting Parties to the CCW presided by Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka in Geneva. LAWS also commonly known as 'Killer Robots', is being broadly categorized as an emerging type of autonomous technology with potential use in lethal weapons systems, that will once activated, have the ability to select, engage, and use force at targets, without any human intervention. Following three years of informal expert meetings on LAWS and a dedicated session at the 2015 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW, States and civil society called for a formal discussion on LAWS within the framework of the CCW, to establish pre-emptive action on development and deployment of these weapons systems, with a future prospect for a legally binding protocol to the CCW. Earlier on Monday (12th December), Ms. Shashika Somaratne, Charge d'Affaires of the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka in Geneva, opened the 5th Review Conference of the CCW, on behalf of the Chairperson of the 2015 Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW, Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinhaand handed over the presidency to Ambassador Tehmina Janjua of Pakistan. The Review Conference is being held from 12 16 December 2016 in Geneva. The CCW restricts or prohibits conventional weapons that have been deemed excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects. Review Conferences of the CCW is being held every five years, to review the implementation of the Convention as well as to make decisions to strengthen it, taking into account the developments in the field of conventional weapons. The ongoing 5thReview Conference is expected to make decision by consensus to establish a GGE on LAWS for 2017. Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka Geneva 13thDecember 2016 GENEVA (ILO News) On 12 January 2016, the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka deposited with the International Labour Office the instrument of ratification of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006). Sri Lanka is the 81st ILO member State and the 16th Asian State to have ratified the Convention. In depositing the instrument of ratification, the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, stated: Sri Lanka is committed to the creation of new job opportunities in sustainable manner as envisaged in the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and particularly, in line with the Governments commitment to eradicate poverty and promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. Ambassador Aryasinha also stated that Sri Lanka looks forward to working closely with the ILO for capacity building, in particular, training in the areas of labour standards and labour inspection, for officers in the Ministry of Labour of Sri Lanka. In receiving the instrument of ratification, Mr Guy Ryder, Director-General of the ILO stated: The ratification of Sri Lanka, located in a key position within the global liner shipping network, brings one more important player in the Asia Pacific region within the scope of the MLC, 2006. Such ratification proves once more that the Convention has sparked a new dynamic, as countries now realize that the MLC, 2006 unavoidably impacts on the manner in which they carry out maritime trade and that they have to align their laws and practice with the provisions of the Convention. This ratification is all the more timely as it will allow Sri Lanka to improve labour conditions for its more than 22,000 seafarers and ensure that ships calling at its ports are inspected in compliance with the requirements of the Convention thereby promoting quality shipping and providing additional protection for seafarers transiting within its waters. The MLC, 2006 entered into force on 20 August 2013 for the first 30 member States that had registered their ratification by 20 August 2012. The MLC, 2006 will enter into force for Sri Lanka on 12 January 2018, that is, one year after its ratification. For more background information, please visit the dedicated MLC, 2006 webpage. Please see the press release of the ILO titled 'Sri Lanka ratifies the ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006) http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/maritime-labour-convention/news/WCMS_541429/lang--en/index.htm Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka Geneva 16th January 2017 PRESS RELEASE Major Breakthrough on Kra Canal Potential Jan. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)The coming to power of the new King of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn Rama X, after the death of his father last year, has created a new opening for the launching of the Kra Canal. EIRs ally Pakdee Tanapura has led the campaign for the canal since he helped organize conferences in 1983 and 1984 in Bangkok featuring Lyndon LaRouche, government officials and representatives from several nations, especially the Mitsubishi Global Infrastructure Fund (GIF). Now, the new King is reported to be favorable to building the canal, and several leading figures on the Privy Council are fully behind it. A Chinese company has recently completed a feasibility study, deciding on the best route for the canal. While China will not openly back the project unless and until the Thai government officially endorses it, the potential for Thai government support is now high. A book has been prepared, to be released this coming week, promoting the Kra Canal, with articles by Tanapura and several others, including leading retired generals and admirals with ties to the government and the Privy Council. It is being published in 10,000 copies, with 1,200 copies being distributed to leading government officials, royalty, and institutional figures, as well as members of Parliament. One article written by Tanapura is titled "From Mumbai to Shanghai in 48 Hours," the length of time to travel via the Kra Canal. The article discusses this connection between the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins, India and China, through the Canal, and the vast network of high-speed rail connections now being built across the region a part of the new Silk Road process. This reflects a document by Lyndon LaRouche from 1983, titled "A 50-Year Development Policy for the Indian-Pacific Oceans Basin" The Kra Canal would become the hub of an ongoing transformation of the entire region. The potential that China and Japan would join forces with Thailand to build the Canal, and perhaps with others including the United States under its new leadership, be a major strike for peace through development for Asia and the world. PRESS RELEASE Nearly 19 Million Yemenis Are in Need of Humanitarian Aid, Says UN Jan. 15, 2017 (EIRNS)While the world looks away, Saudi Arabia continues to bombard, kill, and maim Yemenis at will. Today, as on any other day since March of 2015, Saudi planes raided and injured a number of people in the provinces al-Maton District, Yemens Al Masirah TV reported. Fighter planes also bombed the Haydan district in the neighboring province of Saada, as well as the port city of Mokha in the southwestern province of Taiz. While the Saudi attackers have killed more than 12,800 Yemenis, displacing more than 3 million others, a UN report pointed out that "nearly 19 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian aid, but the worst of the civilian impact of the two-year civil war in the country has fallen on the district of Tuhayat on the Red Sea coast," RT reported today. RT cited Jamal Wakeem, professor of history and international relations at the Lebanese University in Beirut, saying the Saudis are purposefully worsening the humanitarian crisis to achieve their political aims. "This is a conscious strategy of the Saudis, they have been trying to exert economic pressure," he told RT from Beirut, saying that it equates to "genocide." A Time to Kill Review - Mississippi Justice A gripping adaptation of acclaimed novelist John Greshams bestseller, A TIME TO KILL was adapted for the stage by Rupert Holmes. This controversial tale explores explosive interactions inherent in a story about race, rape, and murder. The gripping play is Theatre 68s inaugural production at their new site in North Hollywood. Directed by Ronnie Marmo, A TIME TO KILL proved so popular that it was extended for an extra three weekends in January 2017. Jake Brigance (Ian Robert Peterson), a white lawyer from Ford County, Mississippi, gets swept into the biggest case of his young career. An innocent ten-year-old black girl is raped and beaten almost to death by two drunken white racists as she is walking home from the grocery store. Almost immediately, the two men responsible are arrested and brought to court. It is there that Jake is moved by the pain and sorrow of her father, Carl Lee Hailey (Derek Shaun), who sits vigil at his daughters hospital bed when not watching the proceedings in court. Then the unthinkable happens. As the two handcuffed men are being led from the courtroom to jail to await trial, Carl Lee lies in wait and fatally shoots both men, accidentally wounding a sheriffs deputy in the process. Carl Lee cannot afford a high-priced attorney but manages to talk idealistic Jake Brigance into representing him. Little does Jake know that his efforts will lead to danger, not only for Carl Lee, but also for himself and his own family. Unexpected help emerges as Jake pulls out all the stops to defend Carl Lee in the form of his disgraced, frequently inebriated mentor Lucien Willbanks (Paul Thomas Arnold) and Ellen Roark (Mercedes Manning), a sexy law student from a privileged Southern family. The two provide support and ideas in his battle with the ever-smiling District Attorney Rufus R. Buckley (Gregory Thirloway), who hopes to turn his probable victory in this case into a run for governor. Was Carl Lee insane at the time of the crime? Was he justified in murdering two men? Is murder ever justified for any reason? Will the verdict serve justice? The entire talented cast does a spot-on job of defining Greshams quirky characters, each a link in the long chain of Southern justice. Director Ronnie Marmo masterfully orchestrates the plays many characters to create harmony and cohesion. Danny Cistones set design is brilliant, turning a small space into a universe of possibilities. The entire production team does a stand-up job of moving the audience right into the heart of Mississippi justice. A TIME TO KILL is a provocative production which remains as relevant today as it was when initially written. It asks questions with no simple answers and does it in an entertaining and occasionally amusing way. This is a must-see play, and it is no wonder that it has been extended. Especially in todays political climate, it offers some refreshing insights and ongoing conundrums. A TIME TO KILL runs through January 26, 2017, with performances at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays. A performance has been added on Thursday, January 26. Theatre 68 is located at 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. Tickets are $30. For information and reservations, call 323-960-5068 or go online. The jaw-dropping speed at which certain stocks have moved in response to Donald Trumps tweets about corporate America makes it seem as if Wall Street already was waiting for the president-elects words. It was. Some sophisticated traders with automated programs are using computer algorithms that instantly capture Trumps Twitter remarks and then immediately buy or sell the affected stocks, analysts said. Its in the algorithms. Theyve done it, said Joe Gits, chief executive of Social Market Analytics Inc. Advertisement Gits firm isnt among those traders, he said. Instead, the company culls the 500 million tweets issued daily on Twitter to find comments from influential people such as Trump that could affect stocks and then immediately relays that sentiment data to traders. Wall Street is tight-lipped about which firms use the automatic trading programs in their bid to profit from Trumps tweets, and its unclear how much of the stocks trading volume reflects the automated trades. Representatives from venerable investment firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley Co. and Bank of Americas Merrill Lynch all declined comment. So did Citadel Securities, a well-known automated trading firm that also operates a hedge fund. Gits likewise said he was not at liberty to disclose the names of traders using such automated programs. The secrecy isnt surprising because firms employing the programs, which try to profit from even modest point spreads on high-volume trades, dont want to reveal their advantage, said Josh Brown, chief executive of Ritholtz Wealth Management who also runs the Reformed Broker website. Nobody would share this publicly, Brown said. Who would say, Yeah, this is how were doing this, and its working great? But its obvious thats not human traders. For average investors, the instant post-Trump market moves can largely be ignored, analysts said. Thats because the stocks that have quickly dropped in response to Trump soon bounce back, a trend thats likely to continue, they said. If youre a day trader, you want to know about it, but if youre the average 401(k) investor, it doesnt make any difference in the long run, Gits said. Nonetheless, theres surging interest even among investors who dont rapidly trade stocks to be immediately notified when a new Trump tweet appears. At Bloomberg a major provider of market data and news, with about 325,000 of its computer terminals used by traders and others worldwide Trump tweet notifications are one of the fastest-growing alerts for a news product that we have ever launched, Ted Merz, Bloombergs global head of news product, said in a statement. There also are new phone apps from firms such as Trigger Finance Inc. and IFTTT Inc. that quickly alert users if Trump tweets about any companies in which they own stock. Trump, who will be sworn into office Friday, is a prolific Twitter user who in recent weeks has taken to the social media platform to criticize corporate giants such as defense firms Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. and automakers Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. Trump attacked the defense firms for the high costs of certain aerospace programs, and he railed against the car companies for building cars in Mexico that are sold in the U.S. In each case, the companies stocks dropped immediately after Trumps comments appeared on his Twitter feed. The almost instantaneous movement in stock prices following some Trump tweets, most notably for Toyota, suggest to us that traders are using algorithms that execute trades immediately, Merz said. Trump jumped on Toyota on Jan. 5, tweeting his displeasure that the company plans to build Corolla cars for U.S. sale at a new plant in Mexico. NO WAY! he said. Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax. Toyotas U.S.-traded shares quickly fell nearly 1%, wiping $2 billion from Toyotas total market value, then soon recovered some of those losses. The software and algorithms that enable Wall Streets high-speed traders to respond automatically to Trumps outbursts werent developed specifically in the aftermath of Trumps defeat of Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8, analysts said. Its been around for a time predating Trump, Brown said. He pointed to how past tweets by Clinton, billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk, among others, have sparked immediate moves in stocks of companies they mentioned. Clinton, for instance, sent biotech stocks tumbling in September 2015 after she tweeted about wanting to lower outrageous prices in the specialty drug market. Trumps market moves are getting press now because of our next presidents propensity to tweet and Trumps upcoming ability to actually change the business climate, Gits said. But it really started a couple of years ago. There are several ways traders could profit from Trumps tweets. They simply could buy or sell the individual stocks involved, or they could simultaneously do both on different exchanges as an arbitrage play, whereby they profit from small discrepancies in the stocks price. They also could simultaneously buy the stock and short it that is, sell the stock in hopes it drops and then buy it back later at a lower price as a hedge maneuver. Theres another contrarian tactic: If a stock suddenly falls in response to Trumps comments, traders can buy the shares with the expectation theyll soon rebound, said Zachary David, a senior analyst and automated-trading expert at the markets consultant KOR Group. Its a strategy a lot of traders employ, to trade on overreactions, David said. So how do Trumps tweets and Wall Streets immediate response affect investors who dont watch the market every hour? CNBC markets analyst Jim Cramer said on his TheStreet.com website that if you decide to make a strategy on [Trumps] tweets, you better make it a buy strategy because [Trumps criticism] clearly hasnt had any lasting effect on stocks he mentions. Otherwise, Brown said, the only way to beat a high-frequency trader is to be a low-frequency trader. The longer your time horizon, and the more you own stocks for fundamental reasons, the less short-term price fluctuations matter to you. He noted billionaire Warren Buffett, whos famous for holding solid investments for years. Can you imagine Warren Buffett trading on someone elses tweet? Brown said. It would never occur to him. james.peltz@latimes.com Twitter: @PeltzLATimes ALSO Marijuana shops are trying to look like the Apple store Lockheed Martin CEO tells Trump the cost of F-35 will be significantly lower How to invest for the Age of Trump On a bustling stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard lined by vintage stores and eateries, the MedMen shop looks right at home. Sunlight streams in through the stores floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, salespeople in bright red T-shirts greet shoppers. Merchandise is carefully arranged on sleek wooden tables lined with iPads. For the record: An earlier version of the story incorrectly said that seven states have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Eight states have done so. Its a retail scene reminiscent of an Apple store, but the high-tech gadgets on sale are vape pens. Advertisement After years of bullet-proof glass and burglar bars, marijuana shops are starting to get a makeover. There is no statute that requires tinted windows or bars. Adam Bierman, co-founder and chief executive of MedMen Cannabis entrepreneurs, borrowing from successful retailers such as Apple and Whole Foods, are opening dispensaries with natural light, spacious displays and open-floor plans. With weed now legal for recreational use in California and seven other states, such amenities could attract an anticipated glut of new customers who are less familiar with cannabis and may be put off by the industrys generally dingy shopping experience. There is an upscale revolution in cannabis retailing, said Troy Dayton, chief executive of Arcview Group, a marijuana research and investment firm. It now makes sense to invest in your property and make it awesome for the long haul. As more states ease restrictions on marijuana for medical and recreational use, pot is losing its stigma bringing new consumers into a legal market forecast to grow to $50 billion in 2026 from $6 billion last year, according to a report from Cowen & Co. The biggest source of potential growth is older customers who have disposable income but are more reluctant to patronize the types of shops that have traditionally sold marijuana, said Vivien Azer, a managing director at Cowen who analyzes the cannabis industry. So-called bud pods enable customers to smell marijuana strains and look at them under a magnifying glass at the MedMen shop in West Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) From 2011 to 2015, marijuana users 26 years old and up grew by more than 30%, while those ages 18 to 25 climbed only about 4% (young people still represent the bulk of those who admit to using pot), Azer said. The guy ripping bong hits every day is not buying higher-end, Azer said. It is women and wealthier consumers that under-index for cannabis use representing a huge potential market ripe for a retail experience, she said, that is less drug dealer and more legitimate. MedMen co-founder and Chief Executive Adam Bierman has a nickname for what he considers the biggest untapped demographic: the Chardonnay mom. These are well-to-do customers who dont currently use pot, but might be introduced to it by friends at a party or peek in while walking past an attractive boutique. They see this store and say, Oh, Ill try those breath mints, Bierman said. They start becoming someone who is substituting marijuana for alcohol or something else. The company also manages growing and manufacturing operations, including a dispensary and cultivation facility in L.As Sun Valley neighborhood. Cultivation facilities are in the works outside Reno, in Desert Hot Springs and in Utica, N.Y. (MedMen is managing four dispensaries in New York, including one in Manhattan.) But key to its success is an in-store experience that offers the same operational savvy and attention to detail common in more vanilla businesses, Bierman said. There is no statute that requires tinted windows or bars its because of that feeling that this is an illicit product, Bierman said. Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Modlin said he looked to retailers such as Apple and even restaurants for ideas. Instead of queuing up, shoppers are encouraged to browse the store on their own. Against one wall, refrigerators contain edibles such as marijuana-infused lemon bars. On the other, open shelves and hooks hold a variety of products, including cannabis patches for pets. On custom-built wooden tables, cannabis strains are displayed in clear circular containers dubbed bud pods with built-in magnifying glasses allowing for closer inspection. By pulling a small tab. shoppers can take a sniff (Modlin said sanitation is his pet peeve at old-school dispensaries, where customers shove their hands into open jars of product). Each pod is stealthily secured by a cable, like the laptops at an Apple store. An upscale retail experience is key to MedMens business model. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) The processing room, where gloved employees prepare orders from shelves of stainless steel bowls, is sheathed in clear glass similar to the open kitchens at trendy restaurants such as Trois Mec and Bestia. I have been in so many dispensaries, and you go into the back and there are bags of product on the floor and a used bong right next to it, Modlin said. Thats not the environment we want to create. Retail analysts said weed entrepreneurs are embracing a strategy familiar to anyone who has spent $5 for a cup of coffee: its easy to persuade shoppers to spend more at a store with upscale ambience. Creating an attractive retail experience will become increasingly vital as marijuana prices drop in coming years as more growers jump into the market. Im more inclined to go to a store that looks better, said Ron Friedman, a retail expert at Marcum in Los Angeles. Its more than just going in to buy a product, its creating an environment where somebody enjoys just being in the store. Shoppers at MedMen such as Ira Levine, a 64-year-old editor and writer, are happy that the industry is moving past security doors and fluorescent lighting. Its a legal product this is how it should be, said the MacArthur Park resident, who spends about $400 every two weeks on pot to help relieve symptoms from a nerve condition. Some pot entrepreneurs are eyeing older Americans as a prime business opportunity. Ray Taylor, who opened the Healing Center in March in San Diego, initially expected the majority of customers to be young stoners, the 20-year-olds looking for a buzz, the Rastafarians. Instead, he said, about 60% of his customers are age 40 and up. Product processor and regional retail manager Ari Roughton fills an order for a customer at the MedMen shop. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) Most of them are professionals, your normal everyday people you see at Vons grocery store, Taylor said. Inspiration to open a decent pot shop came after Taylor brought a relative with epilepsy to a dispensary that he thought looked unsafe. He leased a storefront in a building owned by a pain management doctor who now send him referrals. Taylor rakes in an average of $15,000 in sales a day, he said. Hes looking to expand into the space next door and hopes to start giving presentations at nursing homes and senior living facilities on the medical benefits of pot. Seniors and people in that category are going to start using it more and more, he said. I think there is a huge market. Taylor attributes part of the stores success to its look a mix of silver accents, a purple wall inspired by his favorite Rainbow Kush bud, and the feel of a bakery. He ended up hiring High Road Design Studio, a design firm that specialized in pot shops, to make over the 335-square-foot space. I want it to be the Rolls Royce of dispensaries, he said. I didnt want to open a psychedelic orange place with posters. For years, dispensaries had a signature look of tinted windows, security doors and sometimes graffiti murals. A green cross outside was often the only clear sign of what was sold. Operating in a legal gray area and serving a demographic consciously seeking out their wares, few opted to sink money into aesthetics. Many shoppers, such as Jonathan Smith, 30, remain partial to these no-frills stores. The West Hollywood resident said he cares much more about quality and price, and would feel uncomfortable in a dispensary that caters to a wealthier clientele. If youre someone into the L.A. lifestyle, with money, of course youd want to go somewhere nice, Smith said. If youre a regular Joe, youd feel kind of out of place. Megan Stone, the owner of High Road, said she started the pot-specific design firm in 2013, the year after Colorado and Washington passed bills legalizing recreational pot use. Stone had worked as a budtender at a Santa Ana dispensary while she went to design school. After becoming general manager, she got the chance to do a low-budget remodel, replacing the carpet with wood-like vinyl and painting the walls a dark brown, a nod to high-end jewelry stores and clothing boutiques, she said. Those few changes thrilled customers burnishing the shops reputation and enabling it to charge premium prices. People used to walk in and call us the Tiffanys of dispensaries, she said. When the bar is set so low it takes very little effort to have a dramatic impact on peoples perception. Her design business has grown to about 15 clients last year from three in 2014, Stone said. This month, she hired a design assistant to help with the workload. Stone said shes seen the industry and her clients evolve from mom-and-pop shops to multi-store chains with more investment backing. Thats just par for the course for an industry that has become increasingly sophisticated as it emerges from the shadows, she said. The future of this industry is geared toward a demographic that looks like mainstream society, she said. It looks like the customers at Starbucks or Whole Foods or Apple. Follow Shan on Twitter @ByShanLi ALSO Marijuana brands can trademark almost anything, except marijuana Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to pull pot shops out of banking limbo Pot ads along highways? Lawmakers wrangle over legalizations consequences Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business Section. Im Business columnist David Lazarus, and heres a rundown of upcoming stories this week and the highlights of last week. On Friday, we learned that auto buying and online shopping rose in December. The spending likely was fueled by rising consumer confidence, which has climbed since the election to the highest level in nearly a decade. Also, average hourly pay rose 2.9% in December from a year earlier, the most in seven years. Advertisement LOOKING AHEAD Only to be with you: Tickets for U2s Joshua Tree tour go on sale Tuesday. The tour is timed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree, the bands landmark 1987 album. U2 will roll into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on May 20. The groups tours have been among the most lucrative in music history. Its 360 Tour, from 2009 to 2011, is ranked as the highest-grossing concert tour of all time. Auto auction: Cars owned by music stars Steven Tyler and Justin Bieber, as well as other celebrities, will be up for sale in Arizona this week at Barrett-Jacksons annual Scottsdale vehicle auction, one of the years biggest collector auto sales events. The event, which began Saturday, will run all week, ending Sunday. Tylers 2012 Hennessey Venom GT Spyder will be auctioned Friday. Biebers 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia will be up for sale Saturday. Cabinet nominees: Donald Trumps pick to be the next secretary of the Department of Commerce, billionaire financier Wilbur Ross, will go before a Senate committee on Wednesday for a confirmation hearing. Treasury pick Steven Mnuchin will have his confirmation hearing Thursday. Other Cabinet nominees who have hearings this week are Ryan Zinke (Interior), Betsy DeVos (Education) and Scott Pruitt (EPA). Jobs report: The latest report on the states jobs picture will be released Friday by the California Employment Development Department. One closely watched figure will be Californias unemployment rate, which in November dropped to 5.3% after four months at 5.5%. A Jan. 6 Labor Department report showed that the U.S. economy finished 2016 with a slowdown in job growth but a surge in wage gains. Light it up: About a decade after the Main Street Electrical Parade left Disneyland, the cavalcade of lights and music will return to the Anaheim park on Friday. The Electrical Parade was a fan favorite at Disneyland from 1972 until 1996. When the parade was discontinued, Disneyland launched a promotion urging fans to see the parade before it glows away forever. This version of the parade will run until June 18. THE AGENDA Mondays Business section looks into the jaw-dropping speed at which certain stocks have moved in response to Donald Trumps tweets. Turns out sophisticated traders are using computer algorithms that instantly capture and process Trumps Twitter remarks and then immediately buy or sell the affected stocks. Its in the algorithms, said Joe Gits, chief executive of Social Market Analytics. His firm culls the 500 million tweets issued daily on Twitter to find remarks from influential people such as Trump that could affect stocks and then relays that sentiment data to traders. STORY LINES Here are some of the other stories that ran in the Times Business section in recent days that were continuing to follow: Tax the rich? Income growth is slowing for the highest-earning Californians. Thats the single biggest driver of the $1.6-billion deficit projected by Gov. Jerry Brown for the states 2017-2018 fiscal year budget. And once again it is raising the question of whether California has grown too reliant on taxing rich people with often wildly fluctuating incomes. Industry woes: It was a bad week for the auto industry. Six Volkswagen executives were indicted on federal charges tied to the automakers emissions scandal, and the company agreed to plead guilty to violating U.S. air quality laws. Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler allegedly failed to disclose software in some of its pickups and SUVs that enabled them to emit more pollution than allowed. And Takata agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge and pay $1 billion in fines and restitution for concealing a deadly defect in its air bag inflators. Bowels of bureaucracy: William B. Gould IV, California Gov. Jerry Browns appointee to lead the board charged with protecting the rights of the states farmworkers, announced his resignation. Gould, appointed by Brown to chair the Agricultural Labor Relations Board in March 2014, said a board proposal to send educators to farms to inform workers of their rights has languished in the bowels of state bureaucracy for the past 14 months. Canadian Apparel: American Apparel once proudly touted its Made in Los Angeles motto. With its sale to a Canadian sportswear firm, neither American Apparels name nor its motto will ring so true. Gildan Activewear agreed to pay $88 million in a winning auction bid for the American Apparel brand and some manufacturing equipment. Gildan did not buy any of the companys 110 retail stores in the U.S. Those stores are likely to close within a few months. Very Gehry: For more than a decade, the prospect that another Frank Gehry development might rise across from the architects signature Walt Disney Concert Hall has tantalized downtown Los Angeles. Now, the elaborate Related Cos. commercial and residential development designed by Gehry finally could get off the ground after a Chinese builder has put $290 million into the venture. WHAT WERE READING And some recent stories from other publications that caught our eye: Trump conflicts: The Atlantic scrutinizes Trumps plans to deal with his business conflicts or not. Steps revealed last week do almost nothing to substantively address concerns that his business entanglements will undermine his ability to faithfully execute the office of the presidency. Here we go again: The Wall Street Journal casts a wary eye at a fast-growing lending practice that has eerie echoes of the subprime crisis, with loans going to people who may not be able to repay them. The war on Cohen: The New Yorker tees off on a federal investigation into hedge-fund legend Steven A. Cohen, a nearly 10-year battle against one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. Guacamole galore: Have we reached peak avocado? Quartz spotlights an avocado-only restaurant in Amsterdam, set to open next month, that has only one rule: The dishes need to contain the green super fruit in one way or another. Furry finance: From Bloomberg, a look at the high-cost, high-risk world of modern pet care. Were all kind of crazy about our pets. Its why the business is so resilient. SPARE CHANGE In honor of that story on pricey pet care, some fave songs with critters in the title. As a Beatles backer, Ill top my list with Blackbird. Cant ignore Americas Horse With No Name. Special shoutouts to the B-52s for Rock Lobster and David Bowie for Cat People. But top prize goes to either the Stones Wild Horses or Led Zeps Black Dog. For the latest money news, go to www.latimes.com/business. Until next time, Ill see you in the Business section. 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. Casting a film is a challenging endeavor in itself, but finding the right child actor for a lead role is especially difficult. In recent films like Lion, Moonlight and A Monster Calls, young actors are at the forefront of the story. Its the children who shoulder much of the weight in these narratives, each of which is demanding and dramatic, and locating the best person for the roles took a lot of leg work from the directors and casting directors. Casting a kid is always a challenge, says J.A. Bayona, who directed A Monster Calls. The film centers on a 12-year-old boy named Conor, played by newcomer Lewis MacDougall, who turns to fantasy to deal with his grief as his mother dies of cancer. That story, based on a book by Patrick Ness, required a very specific actor. Most kids are not professional actors, so you really need to find someone who fits perfectly, Bayona notes. I was looking for a kid who was somehow able to portray all that emotion without being predictable. What Lewis brings to the cast is a sense of rage and this feeling of being angry with reality. He really matched what I was looking for in that sense. The process of casting Conor spanned about three months. Casting director Shaheen Baig watched nearly 1,000 self-taped auditions, eventually narrowing the search down to 200 children, both professional actors and unknowns from schools across Britain and Spain. After auditioning the selected 200, Bayona reduced his selection down again. It was a long audition process, he says. At the end we had five very good options and we did a camera test. Lewis was always very special from the very beginning. Advertisement For Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins and casting director Yesi Ramirez wanted to cast the young versions of lead characters Chiron and Kevin with local children in Miami, where the film is set. The production distributed flyers and reached out to local schools, hoping to find young actors who understood the community where the film takes place and felt believable within it. Moonlight follows a boy coming of age in a poor neighborhood where life is tough and his mother is addicted to drugs meaning the aesthetic and tone are specific to the city. The filmmakers held a small open casting and Alex Hibbert, who plays the 9-year-old version of Chiron, who goes by Little, and Jaden Piner, who plays his schoolmate Kevin, both attended with their parents. Neither had any prior acting experience outside of their school theater program. I think its more difficult to cast children than it is to cast adults, Ramirez says. A lot of them, if they have it, they have it and its easier in that sense. But you have to see a lot more kids to find the right one because its more about who they are than what their skills are. Its about who they are and what their natural instincts are. With Alex there was something I started to realize was a common thread between the three versions of the character. It was his eyes. It was something behind his eyes. He was giving us so much more than anyone else had at that point. Alex just stood with how he could convey so much without really saying much. Kirsty McGregor, casting director for Lion a true story about a 5-year-old Indian boy named Saroo who becomes lost from his family wanted to find a child actor the audience would immediately fall in love with. We needed a young boy who had an inner fire, a beautiful light, who at the same time was not precocious, she says. The actor playing little Saroo not only has to carry the first half of the film for the audience, he had to carry the crew though a very long and arduous shoot. That is a huge call for a 5-, 6-year-old boy. We needed a boy with focus, patience and joy. That casting process lasted nearly a year. McGregor and director Garth Davis spent five months looking at children in India. Initially, though, they found themselves faced with an unusual hurdle. They wanted a child from a rural area rather than a city but couldnt cast anyone from a slum because of the visa process in India. That limited which children they could actually audition. They ended up working with a casting director in Mumbai named Tess Joseph, who sent assistants to schools in Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune to tape any child who was interested. In the end, there were about 2,000 tapes, all of which got seen. Every day I would be sent about 100-200 new children to watch, McGregor says. We gave each kid a color code red was for kids both Garth and I thought were definitely worth meeting in person, orange was for Garth selects and Blue were for my selects if they didnt overlap. We narrowed it down from 2,000 to 200 kids and we traveled to India to do callbacks, which was just incredible. I fell in love at least 100 times. Sunny Pawar ends up carrying the first half of Lion, appearing in every single scene. The crew was impressed by his work, even though he had never acted before. He had that almost indefinable thing charisma, McGregor says. He could be still. He could listen. The camera loved him. We saw some wonderful children who could act. But many of them were very precocious. We needed a child who wasnt aware of the camera. There is very little dialogue in the first half of the film we needed someone to hold his own in that space. Someone who would draw the audience into the film. There is a delight that comes with watching the right children embody dramatic roles like these, but there is also a concern with whether these young actors can sustain a career after such a project. Ten-year-old Jacob Tremblay did much of the heavy dramatic lifting in last years Room (and delighted fans throughout awards season with his love for Star Wars and his tiny tuxedos). Like with Tremblay or Macaulay Culkin or Natalie Portman or Haley Joel Osment before him the right support is necessary to help a child actor prepare and transition into future roles. Bayona, who worked with Tom Holland on The Impossible and continues to mentor him as he embarks on his role as the new Spider-Man, feels responsible for his child actors. I try to make them understand that to make a film is a unique experience, the director says. Its something professional. Its not their life. Their life is about school and finishing their studies. Maybe in the future, if theyre lucky, theyll keep going in this industry and make a living of it. But I want to make them understand what it is theyre doing and what is going to happen afterwards. I love casting children, McGregor adds. They have a very different sensibility to adults. They havent figured out life yet. They are raw. You have to be very, very careful not to exploit that, but when you find some magic it is an absolute joy. Australian activewear brand Lorna Jane launched a new campaign Friday thats aimed at empowering its customer base as the company looks to test new experiences in store. The company, with more than 200 stores of which 40 are in the U.S., is calling the campaign She is You with messaging centered around self-love. One component of the marketing effort is a five-part speaker series, the first of which featured Lorna Jane Clarkson the companys founder and chief creative officer along with author, blogger and speaker Danielle LaPorte. Its the companys first campaign focused solely on the U.S. market. Advertisement The message that I want to get out to the customer in the U.S.A. is that you can take control of your lives. You can make a difference looking after yourself, Clarkson said citing what she said is a general unrest in the country as it relates to the political landscape and on down into peoples personal lives. Clarkson, who was on hand in the Santa Monica, Calif., flagship store Friday for the campaigns launch, and LaPorte kicked off the speaker series Saturday when they talked New Years resolutions along with personal challenges they faced and how they overcame them. The campaign also includes more experiences added to the Santa Monica store in addition to the live speakers in hopes of enticing people through the door and also remaining relevant in a changing retail landscape. Santa Monica is officially our flagship store and I feel that with the trend toward online shopping, we have to develop our in-store experience so that its an experience that you could do not online, Clarkson said, ticking off the punching bags and mini trampoline among other elements introduced to the store. We want to have an interactive environment. If the additions do well, she said, then they could be considered for other Lorna Jane stores. ALSO J. Crew gets active with New Balance These new fitness fashion looks work at the gym -- and on Instagram Tommy Hilfiger teams up with Rossignol on skiwear capsule collection The 45th president has yet to take office, but downtown New York is already primed to rage against the Trump machine. In the fallout from the election, bands of liberal creatives many of them prominent members of the fashion, art and music communities have begun establishing parties, rallies and gatherings as safe venues to express their frustrations. Fashion designers, gallerists, artists and writers from Rob Pruitt and Nate Lowman to Tavi Gevinson and Stella Schnabel have in the last few months attended SoHo protests, late-night dance parties and one-off dinners, with many such events benefiting charities that flout far-right values. New York Democrats have found themselves in a frenzied state of discussion, commiseration and unbridled moments, their brooding initiating a larger shift in party culture. For the first time in a long while, there is more of a hankering to head to a bar after work, than to yoga or the gym. It is something of an about-face from the recent health craze, in which tandem Class Pass bookings had become the new status quo happy hour. At a recent evening at Sophies bar on East Fifth Street, this renewed interest in buzzed chatter was evident with the dive bars gruff patrons eager to share ideas, cliques be damned. As such, New York has found itself in a moment of community that, only a few months ago, was mitigated by the small handheld devices in each participants pocket. A melange of Instagram, Tinder and text had rendered individuals as social islands, and hindered the type of face-to-face discussion that has long sparked creativity and thought-provoking design. In trading $10 juices for equally priced highball glasses of vodka probing debates and creative exchanges are occurring at an accelerated rate. Such congenial behavior has also reverberated at key below-14th Street anti-Trump events, where iPhones took a back seat to personal interaction. I feel like I dont want to use my phone, I dont want to be promoting pictures of myself even though thats what we have been taught, filmmaker and shoe designer Arden Wohl said at the Dear Ivanka protest held in SoHo in November, a demonstration that gave an anti-Trump voice to the arts community. It seems to me that social media is not the answer. Someone said to me, I dont think [the Internet] is the way to bring people together, we need to congregate in groups and physical spaces more collectively. Leftist cultural institutions are looking to foster this type of constructive conversation, too, with the Whitney Museum saying last week that its entrance fees would be pay-as-you wish on Inauguration Day. On Jan. 20, the Whitney will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. on a pay-what-you-wish basis to affirm our commitment to open dialogue, civic engagement and the diversity of American art and culture. Throughout the day, the museum will offer special programming, including My America guided tours, exploring immigration, ethnicity, race and the complexity of American identity through the Whitneys collection, Kathryn Potts, associate director, Helena Rubinstein chair of education, said in a statement. As reported by WWD in September, key members of the citys cultural scene felt, preelection, that a Trump victory could elicit emotionally charged, visceral works from fashion designers and artists yielding a counterculture period of creative enlightenment. Now that same group is coming to terms with what this could mean. Really good art comes out of anger and pain, artist Marilyn Minter said at Dear Ivanka. We will be the Tea Party on steroids, she said of the creative class reaction to Trumpian ideology. Trumps win has driven these crowds to watering holes such as Dimes, Max Fish and China Chalet places that, while culturally resonant before the election, have adopted a pseudo-political importance in its aftermath. They have become liberal clubhouses, to which below-Houston Street moppets clad in high-waisted white denim, broad-shouldered overcoats and anxious strides carry their political wounds for refuge. New York may have overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton (with 87.2 percent of Manhattans votes cast going her way), but the citys nightlife scene has been left harried and divided. On a recent jaunt to Dorrians Red Hand on Second Avenue, WWD witnessed a blonde collegiate gyrating atop a table, with a Make America Great Again hat atop her head its fabric cast in white as an apparent show of feminism. The partisan sign drew snide remarks from her fellow Dewars-swilling patrons nearly inciting a brawl. Such potential run-ins have left New Yorks dark hours in a state of uncertainty. For those in need of a fail-safe liberal experience such as the many designers and artists involved in the progressive gender-fluidity movement it is now up to community-builders such as David Moses and Dese Escobar to provide a nurturing environment in which to unfurl. The duo Moses of the fashion label Vaquera and Escobar, an artist throw a politically tinged monthly party called Glam, at the makeshift boite China Chalet. Since the Eighties the gilded, gaudy, multiroom Chinese restaurant located above a TGI Fridays in the Financial District has served as a location for underground dance parties in the after-dinner-service hours. Said Escobar of the event: We have this space for people of color and queer people; its very necessary to have a space to come together. We cant really go out to many places that make us feel welcome and comfortable. Held one Friday each month, Glam like many parties at China Chalet yields a hazy blowout, melding newly incepted elements of fashion, music and identity. While absolved of gender-related judgment, attendees are subject to ample sartorial scans. Such side-eye is par for the course, according to Moses, who said that: Glam is as much about fashion as it is partying. On a recent Friday, a crowd largely dressed in Eckhaus Latta denim and Margiela beanies was interspersed with original ideas that combined early Aughts relics (Bebe tube tops, Dior saddle bags) with found wearable objects (a seersucker pajama set), and kitsch (tiaras, dog collars). Simultaneously sulking and ecstatic, revelers careened in and out of booths in the venues middle room to dance in a humid and dark chamber overlooking Trinity Place. At the Glam event held three days after the election, excerpted audio from protests at Trump Tower were integrated into DJ sets. Glam began its run in May, but, as Escobar said: Ever since the election happened, we feel a responsibility to acknowledge it because we want people to stay aware while we are having a good time. Thus a portion of proceeds from the parties is donated to charity previously benefiting the White Helmets and the National Center for Transgender Equality. Moses and Escobar also circulate politically informed event flyers on Instagram in the partys lead-up. While Glam drew a boisterous crowd, a more subdued scene of artists, gallerists and cachet-inclined fashionistas convened on an evening in late November outside the Kushner Properties-owned Puck Building at the intersection of Houston and Lafayette Streets for a protest. The peaceful display was organized by the self-proclaimed Halt Action Group, a collective of mostly anonymous art community kingpins. Curator Alison M. Gingeras and artist Jonathan Horowitz have identified themselves as key leaders in the movement. They created the Instagram account Dear Ivanka a social media page that calls out various discrepancies by President-elect Trump in an attempt to draw the attention of his daughter. She is the reasonable one we feel she is the reasonable one and we are pleading with her, Minter said of the evenings purpose. The demonstration was flush with highly aesthetic signs and placards a curated version of the general populous assaults on Trump Tower. Wohl described the scene attended by the likes of Bill Powers, Nate Lowman, Erin Goldberger and Sam McKinniss as political theater. In the weeks after the protest, the Dear Ivanka Instagram account drew more than 17,000 followers for its pointed messages and oft-unsettling images. It has also drawn hate mail from strident Trump supporters. A follow-up demonstration is to occur this afternoon at Trump Tower, where political hats will be handed out to passersby. Its first outing appears to have resonated. Many of the artists who attended have created works purchased by Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. Ivanka and Jared are interested in contemporary art they want to show their sophistication by building a collection of noteworthy young artists. All of the people that hang on their walls are us and our friends. If we come forward and say, We object to the hatred of your father and father-in-law, I think that will have an effect on Ivanka, said Rob Pruitt. Such sentiment was echoed last week when Richard Prince disavowed a painting he made in 2014, depicting Ivankas likeness as part of his hotly contested Instagram series he labeled it fake art. Soon after, he returned $34,000 to an art adviser who had commissioned the piece though it remains unclear if it had been commissioned for Ivankas collection specifically. At the Canal Street restaurant Dimes founded by Sabrina de Sousa and Alissa Wagner a late-November dinner event called ... Brunch was thrown to benefit Planned Parenthood. The three-course menu devised in collaboration with Salad for Presidents Julia Sherman drew a collection of stylists, artists, writers and editors seeking quiet proactivity. Hushed, worried discussion filled the Memphis movement-inspired space as patrons delicately sipped from bowls of mushroom broth. Allison Rodman, the communications director for the Gladstone Gallery, was among the dinners attendees. I have consistently been looking for reasonable activist activities, and this was the perfect opportunity to bridge my social world with my politics, she said. Rodman, who also attended the Dear Ivanka protest, and like many will travel to Washington, D.C., for the Womens March on Jan. 21, feels that joining in such gatherings reminds us of the larger collective consciousness that could be absent should we choose not to partake in things. Moses along with his Vaquera codesigners Patric DiCaprio, Bryn Taubensee and Claire Sully will also attend the Womens March. I am almost a little worried about it, I worry whats going to happen, said Moses. Im interested to see what people are wearing there. I think people shouldnt stop protesting, they should continue to fight whats going on. Its nerve-racking. Added Gingeras: This is a great opportunity to build coalitions that perhaps complacency and status quo didnt motivate us to do. Rodman concurred: Art is a progressive force that reacts to any situation at hand, and New York is an enclave of liberal thinking and progressivism, but its too soon to know what will happen. Good art takes a long time. As seen at China Chalet in New York, members of the fashion and art worlds have been gathering post-election. The inauguration for President-elect Donald Trump is on Friday in Washington, D.C. (Amy Lombard / WWD) ALSO How the fashion industry is preparing for Trump's inauguration Melania Trumps makeup artist Nicole Bryl talks about skin care, beauty and the future first lady Ivanka Trump goes public about exiting fashion label and Trump Organization Editors note: This 2004 profile about California historian Kevin Starr was published in The Times Calendar section. Starr died Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017, at 76. Kevin Starrs series of books on the history of California, Americans and the California Dream, weighs in at 29 pounds, 10 ounces. The almost 10,000 pages in the seven books begin in 1850 and end with Starrs latest volume, Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003. Theres just one thing missing from what Atlantic Monthly and others have called the breathtaking scope of the books: the author himself. For the record: Canters deli -- In an article about historian Kevin Starr in Wednesdays Calendar section, Canters deli was misspelled as Cantors. Like most historians, Starr doesnt believe in the first person. That doesnt mean Im not an egomaniac or that it doesnt take a certain amount of ego to write, he explains, sitting in his modest corner office in the social sciences building at USC, where he has been teaching for the last two years. Advertisement First person or not, future historians of the state most likely will include Starr in their works: for his role as state librarian from 1994 to 2003; for his efforts to fund and found the Institute for Researching California and the West (a joint project of USC and the Huntington Library); for his support of Proposition 14, garnering $350 million for libraries throughout California; for his role as author, teacher and all-around public believer in California. He has, in effect, written himself into our history. Who is he? What will he look like on the page? One hundred years ago, in a small Western town, Starr would have been the man to go to with land-use problems involving a neighbor. Hes calm and trustworthy. He respects privacy and likes facts. With his fancy education (which includes a masters from UC Berkeley and a doctorate from Harvard), it is also easy to imagine him coming west with Clarence King or John Muir to survey the Sierra. With his round, jovial manner, he could have been a newspaperman in San Francisco, circa 1873, or, in the pinstriped double-breasted suit and wine-colored cravat he wears on this sparkling September day, a railroad speculator in the style of Mr. Huntington. He could, in other words, be slipped into any one of those sepia-toned photos of early California history and fit right in. This book was a living experience, says Starr of the final volume. I had to live the book and write it at the same time. It was almost like a diary-memoir that took about 13 years to write and to live. This volume, perhaps more than any other, can make a reader feel as though he or she is strapped to the wings of some giant prehistoric bird flying back and forth across the state, swooping down to examine corners of Malibu and the Silicon Valley, flying up to survey the entire landscape as it is shaken by earthquakes. It reminds a reader of Borges famous story, The Aleph, in which an observer is given access to a tiny hole in a wall through which he can view everything in the world all at once. Water, oil, wine, drugs; the death of bohemia in San Francisco, gang violence in Los Angeles, Tibetan Buddhism; Willie Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Gehry; the gubernatorial recall -- it all flies by, propelled by Starrs unique brand of cinematic history and his lightning-quick sense of understated humor (The LAPD was not amused, begins one chapter). But where Starr really shines is in his use of individual histories to illustrate the larger forces of history at work. Take Veronic Kay, a junior at Newport Harbor High and a crackerjack surfer who manages to pull herself up after her parents divorce and her mother and two siblings are left impoverished. These are the Californians you want to read about, and they are the people Starr loves. Historians who write across a period of time are, in a number of ways, trying to hold the world together, Starr says. But he is wary of using what he refers to briefly in the preface to the current volume as his neglected and incoherent youth as any kind of explanation for his life as it has been lived these 64 years, or to explain why he chose to spend 30 years of that life writing this series. Starr spent four of the best years of his life in the Albertina Orphanage in Ukiah under the watchful, kind care of the Dominican sisters. At 6, he and his younger brother were sent there after his parents divorced and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown. Starrs father was not part of our support system, he says. When his brother was asked to leave because of behavior problems, Starrs mother brought them back to live in the Portrero Hill housing project in San Francisco and the family went on relief. The check, Starr remembers without missing a beat, was $130 a month. Does this life qualify as a version of the California Dream? In a scenario like this, the historian postulates, children either go bad or they grow up fast. I emancipated myself in those years with two paper routes. I had to consolidate my own identity, my own narrative, a narrative that I assembled. Starr went to St. Boniface School in the Tenderloin district. His routes, A7 and A11, which he still remembers block for block, took him all over San Francisco. The city was instructing me, he says of the business offices and stores he passed every day. I benefited from the superb educational tradition of the Catholic school system. Ive never been analyzed and I dont want to be. It takes a certain kind of engagement with life to want to write. And writing, he says, is part of my mental hygiene. Indeed, there are very few victims in Starrs version of California history, as he teaches it in History 458. Not the Mexicans, not the Native Americans, nor even most of the Chinese laborers. With the exception of horrific historical events like the lynchings of some Chinese workers in the early 1870s, Starrs focus in class is on the dignity and contributions of each addition to the dream. Starr loves to teach, and hes good at it. Theres something old-fashioned about me, he says, clearly puzzled by it. One student asked if she could call me abuelo, which means grandfather in Spanish. The students today remind him of the students in the 1950s, hardworking with a very slight sense of irony. He interrupts his lecture with anecdotes about figures like Arabella Huntington, Henrys second wife. In a period when other single or impoverished women in literature who became pregnant would drown themselves, Arabella reinvented herself and married a millionaire. Its the kind of story he loves. He paces across the front of the room, pulls out his pocket watch, rubs his forehead. He does slight, physical imitations of figures like Denis Carrey, a member of the hickory pick-ax vigilantes and a leader of working mens movements in the 1870s. He loves the ones who fade from the spotlight without a trace. Starr is a fourth-generation San Franciscan. His paternal great-grandfather was a Protestant pharmacist with a drugstore on 3rd Street in San Francisco. His maternal great-grandfather, an Irish Catholic, had a hansom cab and stables business. His maternal grandfather was a fireman who fought the San Francisco fire after the earthquake of 1906. His fondest memories are of his maternal grandmother, Nana, born in San Francisco in 1888, who told him stories about historic events she had lived through. She had lots of living artifacts to illustrate her stories, Starr recalls, like a banana plant she bought at the [1915] Pacific Panama Exposition that was still alive in the 1940s. Starr also collects artifacts. The teaching assistant for his undergraduate class brings a picture of her father as a young boy holding a giant, fresh-caught salmon before the Friant Dam in Northern California was built. Starr brings it up close to his face: Thats exactly the way we dressed as young boys. He grins at the striped T-shirt and belt cinched high on the waist. He has never had anyone do his research for him and shivers with horror at the trials and tribulations of authors like Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin. I examine everything myself. I never take notes without first translating them into my own language. Until two years ago, most of his time was spent between San Francisco and his office in Sacramento. Nowadays, he spends at least part of each week in Los Angeles, around USC and in South L.A. where he and his wife of 42 years, Sheila Gordon, have an apartment. His favorite places in California? The Eureka Public Library, the Bohemian Grove of redwoods, San Luis Obispo, Yosemite, the Russian River, Monterey, San Juan Capistrano, Orange County, Old Town in San Diego. In Los Angeles, he loves Tays restaurant just blocks from USC, Musso & Frank, Patina, Cantors and Chez Mimi in Santa Monica. In San Francisco, its Sams and Jacks, the California Club and the Olympic Club; in Sacramento, Waterbys, where you can hear the hum of state government. In college, Starr fell in love with the great American historians like Edmund Wilson, Washington Irving, W.H. Prescott and others who practiced history as a literary art. Starr is a man who believes in institutions and speaks about them with a kind of lofty, creative reverence. The office of state librarian, for example, expressed the dignity of the state. USC is an ark that lifts all boats. He talks about being a citizen and about civility with the same almost innocent, 19th century passion. He is a self-described centrist, a conservative Democrat of the old school. The current election, because it is so divisive, seems to have already slammed a door in Kevin Starrs face. We need liberals to point out where power relationships might be going wrong and conservatives to remind us that there are cycles in history, he says. I wont go to either camp. A supporter of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Starr is a firm believer in the importance of business vitality. But he leans toward a liberal social democracy on issues such as day-care for children, healthcare and housing. Democracy depends, Starr warns, on a de-escalation of the cultural agendas of both parties. Starrs next book, which he hopes to finish in 18 months, is called Lift Up Your Hearts and is about the history of Catholicism in America. As a Catholic, he is extremely protective of his religious faith and suspicious of Americans who deny each other basic rights on the basis of religion. The abortion issue, for example, throws him into a kind of agony from which he emerges saying, I accept my churchs position on this matter. It is in this way, an observer might conclude, that institutions protect the private feelings and opinions of their members. Civility, he reminds, lies in not denigrating people who think differently than you do. Starr also has a script up his sleeve, a film version of Frank Norris 1901 classic, The Octopus, about the birth of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Theres so much life, so much texture in his historical landscape that one wonders if he has the venom necessary to create heroes and demons in a battle of good versus evil. In his classroom, Starr leans against the blackboard, creating a white chalk outline on the back of his suit. His students range from a tattooed young man just back from Iraq to statuesque blonds with laptops. He remembers that one student has to leave early and practically shoos her out of the room for a midterm review in another class. He shows a series of evocative slides and demands brilliant statements from his students at the end of the class. He makes you want to study history. More notable deaths Salter Reynolds is a former Times staff writer. Fifteen years ago, a controversial question about Americas schools dominated headlines, prompted ballot measures in California and other states and led wealthy philanthropists to dig deep into their pockets in the name of educational reform. Should government money pay for students to attend private even religious schools? Betsy DeVos, Donald Trumps pick for Education secretary, whose confirmation hearings begin Tuesday, was one of the biggest backers of the yes camp. Advertisement But after voters in some states, including California, gave vouchers a resounding no, the issue fizzled in all but a few, mostly conservative places. DeVos nomination and the president-elects backing could put vouchers back on the map in a major way. DeVos, a Republican fundraiser from Michigan, has backed school vouchers across the country. And although Trump said little about education on the campaign trail, he did at one point suggest legislation to create a major school voucher program as one of his priorities for his first 100 days. The plan calls for $20 billion in federal money combined with $110 billion from the states to give the nations poor students $12,000 each toward private school tuition, provided enough funding is collected, according to Trumps team. The tuition could pay for religious schools as well as boarding schools and academies that focus on a specific subject areas or philosophies. Vouchers have long been a political wedge issue. Advocates, who are largely conservative, describe them as a chance to break up a failing education system and give students more options, as well as a way to strike back at court decisions that keep religion out of schools. Foes fear vouchers will destroy traditional public schools and erode the separation of church and state. And there are questions about regulations: Private schools arent required to offer bilingual education, classes for English learners or the same level of services as public schools for students with disabilities. As of 2017, only 14 states and Washington, D.C., had voucher programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. There are 61 programs at the state and district level, according to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, a pro-voucher group. California has none. Getting more states to jump on the vouchers bandwagon likely would be a tough sell. Mike Kirst, president of the California State Board of Education, said any such presidential push is going to cause a lot of tension. Because there has yet to be a major voucher program that approaches the size of Trumps proposal, research on school vouchers is inconclusive. At best, it has found small gains for some groups of students and the public school systems they leave and at worst, studies show that students who used vouchers have lost ground academically. But we have no idea what would happen if those voucher programs get big, said David Figlio, an education and social policy professor at Northwestern University who has evaluated voucher systems. In Florida, he said, students who move to private schools as part of a statewide voucher program dont do better or worse, but the schools they leave improve a little because the voucher program inspires them to compete. In Ohio and Louisiana, students who use vouchers sometimes score worse than their public school peers on state tests. DeVos got involved with vouchers in the 1990s, when she and her husband, a billionaire investor who is the son of Amways founder, began managing a small national organization that gave scholarships to low-income children to attend their schools of choice. Religion was a draw. DeVos told the Philanthropy Roundtable in 2013 how a visit when her own children were school-aged to Potters House, a private Christian school in Grand Rapids, Mich., that served low-income families, led her to start supporting the school. To DeVos, vouchers offered not just help for the disadvantaged but a way to advance Gods kingdom, she told a group of evangelicals 15 years ago at a meeting called the Gathering, as Politico first reported. A Wall Street Journal article in 2000 described her as a political volunteer who spent time crisscrossing Michigan in a huge Lincoln Navigator with a Bible in the seat pocket. She started and ended some meetings with voucher supporters in prayer. The Rev. Robert Sirico met DeVos through her husband, who invited him to a fundraiser for a group that screened Christian films. Over the years, Sirico saw DeVos in many personals settings when her father died as well as at family weddings. The Roman Catholic priest described DeVos political work as guided or contextualized by faith, but added that shes not this jihadist. Shes not a fundamentalist who wants to withdraw from the world and condemn everybody else. To advance her educational causes, DeVos founded in 2000 the Great Lakes Education Project, a nonprofit and advocacy group that advances school choice. In 2010, DeVos created the American Federation for Children, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that gave Trump advice on his voucher plan. The group has poured money into the coffers of voucher-friendly candidates in such states as Louisiana and Indiana. In 2014, it reported spending $4.5 million on 243 races. It probably would not be difficult for DeVos, as Education secretary, to spur the growth of existing voucher programs, such as those in Milwaukee, Ohio, Florida or Louisiana. Some experts say DeVos might be able to find a way to adjust funding regulations to allow money earmarked for educating poor children to pay for private school, although thats an idea that has bounced around Congress without action for decades. Still, regardless of the relatively large size of the Title I fund, given current funding levels, distribution per child likely would be less than the average private school tuition and thus unlikely to cause a major national shift. With the election of Donald Trump and his support of school choice, school vouchers will move in states where people want to have them, said Gerard Robinson, a former Florida and Virginia schools chief who served on the Trump transition team and is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. But what about states that are less-hospitable to vouchers? California like DeVos has been here before. On two occasions, initiatives to start school voucher programs have appeared on state ballots. Twice, residents have voted no. The most recent attempt was in 2000, when Menlo Park venture capitalist Timothy Draper pushed a proposal that would have given school-aged children about $4,000 each toward private school tuitions. He found an ally in DeVos, who that year was bankrolling and stumping for a similar initiative in Michigan. DeVos and Draper fed each other tips on how to convince voters. We helped each other to the extent we could. We each had a mission, Draper said, recalling phone conversations with DeVos and her husband. In California, 71.3% voted against vouchers; in Michigan, 69.1% said no. In promoting the Michigan initiative, DeVos faced a setback. A longtime ally, then-Gov. John Engler, did not support the measure, leading DeVos to resign from her party chairmanship. He said the ideas time had not yet come, and he didnt think the public was ready to vote yes. Now, DeVos may get to float the idea again on a much bigger scale. You can reach Joy Resmovits on Twitter @Joy_Resmovits and by email at Joy.Resmovits@LATimes.com. ALSO Supreme Court likely to boost public schools responsibilities to children with disabilities Why California parents will soon have a new way to think about test scores Op-Ed: Forget charter schools and vouchers here are five business ideas school reformers should adopt When Goodwin Liu joined the seven-member California Supreme Court in 2011, he became its fourth sitting member of Asian descent. The number is remarkable. The other state supreme courts in the U.S. combined have a handful of Asian American justices. And Asian American representation on other state courts, the federal bench and among the countrys top prosecutors is similarly scant. Those findings emerged from a new study by Liu and law students at Yale University that provides a portrait of Asian Americans in the legal profession. The conclusion: They are well-represented among the nations attorneys but still missing from some of the highest posts. Advertisement They have a foot in the door in virtually every sector of the legal profession, Liu said during a recent interview. The question now is how wide that doors going to swing open for them. They have a foot in the door in virtually every sector of the legal profession. The question now is how wide that doors going to swing open for them. Goodwin Liu, California Supreme Court justice For Liu, the study is personal. His parents were doctors who came to the U.S. in the late 1960s from Taiwan. Nothing in his childhood was a conduit for a legal career. His parents encouraged him to study math and science. He didnt know any attorneys growing up and almost became a doctor. Liu said the difference for him was mentorship. He had two Asian American leaders as role models: U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui and former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh. Liu became a law professor and associate dean at UC Berkeley, before President Obama nominated him in 2010 for a prestigious federal appeals court seat. His name was even mentioned as a potential U.S. Supreme Court candidate, but Republicans derailed his nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They called him a liberal ideologue and took exception to his outspoken opposition to Samuel Alitos 2006 appointment to the high court. Liu withdrew his name. Soon afterward, California Gov. Jerry Brown swore him in for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Liu said the Asian American representation on the California high court does not carry through to lower courts in the state. As of 2015, only two of 97 appellate court judges were Asian American. The California Supreme Court now has three Asian American justices after one of those of Asian descent retired in 2014. People may have certain perceptions of what a judge should look like, and Asian Americans being fairly new to this field are bursting that mold, Liu said. Asians are the nations fastest-growing racial group and make up more than 5% of the population. They make up an even larger percentage of law school students, with a significant number graduating from top institutions. But Liu said their ranks in leadership positions are disconcerting, seen in some of the numbers the study compiled from research in recent years: Three of the 94 U.S. attorneys and four of the countrys nearly 2,500 elected state prosecutors were Asian American. There were 26 active Asian American judges among more than 850 federal judicial positions. Two percent of almost 10,300 state trial and appellate court judges who were surveyed were Asian American. Asian-Americans were the largest minority group at major law firms but had the highest attrition rates and lowest ratio of partners to associates among all racial groups. Now we understand whats happening, said Charles Huang, a California prosecutor who co-founded the National Asian Pacific Islander Prosecutors Assn. We dont know whats causing it, but we know what the empirical results are. The study surveyed more than 600 Asian American lawyers, and their responses pointed to factors that may serve as barriers. A relatively small percentage had a parent who was a lawyer. Those who expressed a desire to change their careers said getting a job as a judge or prosecutor was low on the list. More than 80% reported experiencing implicit bias in the workplace. Many respondents said Asian American attorneys were considered hard-working and responsible, but far fewer said the legal profession associated them with empathy, creativity or assertiveness. Liu encourages law students to develop their confidence and identity through public speaking and break from what came before them, though he warns that the weight of stereotypes might not go away. Liu said he still struggles with how people might perceive him as an Asian American judge. I think for people who feel like they are going into places that are unfamiliar to them and who defy what perhaps is conventional expectation, you always feel like youre an impostor, he said. Theres always that feeling like, Oh, one day theyre going to find me out. ALSO 13.5 million Californians are covered by Medi-Cal. Heres how Trumps plan could cost the state How the UC system is bracing for an escalation of political clashes ahead of Trump Kevin Starr, author of California histories and former state librarian, dies at 76 There was a sense of relief on Martin Luther King Jr. Day among the surfers at Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes Estates, a heavily localized point break where outsiders have not been welcome for decades. Gone were the so-called Bay Boys, known for intimidating and harassing visitors in order to keep the well-shaped waves all to themselves. I was forbidden from surfing here, said Dave Leuck, who grew up in Redondo Beach, as he prepared to get into the water. This is a necessary exercise. Advertisement Leuck was among the scores who gathered Monday at Lunada Bay to celebrate the civil rights icon and protest the intense localism that has dominated the scenic surf spot. For years, surfers have complained of harassment, intimidation and vandalism of their vehicles at the hands of Bay Boys. But on Monday, the rocky shore and bluffs of Lunada Bay were visited by a steady stream of surfers and beachgoers from across Southern California, under the watchful eye of local police. Its a pretty good turnout, said Christopher Taloa of Los Angeles, a former professional bodyboarder and actor who helped to organize the event. I didnt think it would take all this effort to get to this beach. Three years ago, Taloa planned a similar event to honor King. But as he took to the ocean, he said, members of the Bay Boys kicked him and forced him underwater. One person who confronted him wore blackface and an Afro wig, Taloa said, and told him: You dont pay enough taxes to be here. Complaints about the Bay Boys have become well-known over the last few decades: incidents of slashed tires and assaults in the water sometimes coordinated by walkie-talkies from a stone structure adjacent to the break. That kind of harassment should not happen anymore, said Taloa, who on Monday helped people get down the bluffs and greeted surfers at the top after they got out of the water. A guy should be able to have fun without an issue. In lawsuits filed in state and federal court last year against Palos Verdes Estates and 10 people alleged to be members of the Bay Boys, a group of petitioners claimed the surfers had intimidated and accosted outsiders for years and that the city had done virtually nothing to stop it. A court hearing scheduled for next month will determine whether the federal case becomes a class-action lawsuit, which would allow more people to join the claims against the defendants. This is the safest day to surf here in 35 years, said El Segundo Police Officer Cory Spencer, who jointly filed the lawsuits. He added that he knew many of the Bay Boys by sight but didnt see any of them Monday. On the bluff above the surf spot, the Coastal Protection Rangers a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving public beach access sold T-shirts and handed out brochures. At the table was Justin Massey, the mayor pro tem of Hermosa Beach. Lunada Bay is public coastline that should be accessible, Massey said. This is a small step to ensuring safe public access to the bay. Last month, at the urging of the California Coastal Commission, the city hired a wrecking crew to dismantle the stone fort that local surfers had built without permits at the base of the steep cliffs. During the demolition, vandals damaged equipment and trucks used by the contractor. City officials say they also have increased the police presence in the area. I heard it was open today, so we had to come, said Maki Namikawa of Torrance after climbing back up the cliff, carrying a surf board with white polka dots. This is amazing. With the waves improving as the morning wore on, Spencer asked Theo Encarnado of Redondo Beach if he was going to surf. Absolutely, said Encarnado, who recalled that he had been harassed by surfers at the spot 12 years ago and encircled by them on the way back to his car. It was a weird vibe. dan.weikel@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter @LADeadline16 ALSO Martin Luther King Jr. fought for more than civil rights. This was the protest less remembered South L.A. Kingdom Day Parade celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy and teachings A fort built by accused Lunada Bay surf bullies has been demolished will it end their localism? It was the biggest political showdown at UC Davis in years: Hundreds of students and activists turned out last week with protest signs and noisy chants, ultimately shutting down a planned talk by provocative conservative Milo Yiannopoulos. Get ready for more like it. As Donald Trump prepares to be inaugurated Friday as the nations 45th president, university students and officials are bracing for an escalation in campus political clashes and the sticky free-speech issues they present. Yiannopoulos who is scheduled to speak at UCLA, UC Berkeley and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo over the next three weeks as part of his national Dangerous Faggot tour may be the firebrand of the moment, but university officials believe that Trumps election has emboldened more voices like his. Advertisement People feel enabled and at more liberty to push each others buttons. Its arguably now politically correct to be politically incorrect, Jerry Kang, UCLA vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, said Sunday. There will be greater stress. UC Davis Interim Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter said he worries that outside groups are using college campuses to stage conflicts intended for the national stage, and he is struggling to protect open speech in that field of landmines. I get very, very alarmed with folks who dont treat [freedom of speech] for the treasure that it is, he said. The university is a place for reasoned debate, he said, not one group screaming at another. The question, campus officials say, is what should universities do about it. So far, the UC system has resisted calls to cancel the Yiannopoulos talks. UC President Janet Napolitano and the Board of Regents advocacy of fighting offensive speech with more speech rather than censorship was included in Principles Against Intolerance approved by UC regents last year as guidelines for the 10-campus system. Campus administrators are counseling a similar approach to those urging a ban on Yiannopoulos. Conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in 2015. (David Ng / Los Angeles Times) At UC Berkeley, administrators have received hundreds of letters from faculty, students and others demanding they bar Yiannopoulos from speaking on Feb. 1. One letter from a dozen faculty members argued that his talk could be canceled on the grounds that his actions which they called harassment, slander, defamation, and hate speech violated UC Berkeleys code of conduct. But Nils Gilman, associate chancellor, said they would safeguard Yiannopoulos right to speak as they would for anyone else. It is not just a responsibility but really an operational necessity that we maintain an environment where free expression of ideas can take place, he said. Gilman also said university officials will serve as referees trying to maintain a level playing field in accommodating Yiannopoulos. For instance, the College Republicans, the student club sponsoring the talk, will be charged the same fees for security as other groups for other speakers even though Yiannopoulos visit will entail higher costs, Gilman said. Berkeleys Robert Dudley, a professor of integrative biology who recently served on a faculty committee on campus demonstrations, said that preemptively barring a speaker or physically disrupting events to stop them feeds into a dangerous cycle of escalation. Protest is one thing; disruption is another, he said. It is antithetical to political discourse. Dudley pointed out that Berkeley allowed African American student organizations to sponsor a 2012 campus visit by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has been widely accused of anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia. The UC president at the time, Mark Yudof, denounced Farrakhans message, but defended his right to speak. The concept of prior restraint has a long history in this country, and there are very good reasons why it isnt allowed, Dudley said. And it could just as easily be used against ideas on the left. I am a little surprised why some of my colleagues dont see that. Ralph Washington Jr., UC Student Assn. president, said students had the right to protest and called on administrators not to defend oppression in the name of free speech. He said some students believe their complaints about racist, sexist or homophobic remarks by other students, faculty and staff members have been dismissed by administrators. Its unreasonable to expect people to silently accept someone espousing viewpoints that perpetuate a culture that oppresses them, Washington said. And its enraging and hurtful to know that your institution supports the presence of someone expressing those views. Kang, whose diversity office was created at UCLA in 2015 to address such issues, said universities can and should speak out to voice values of equity and inclusion. When an outside provocateur plastered the campus with posters last year calling students and faculty members murderers, terrorists and Jew-haters, Kang and other administrators denounced him. Kang has not decided what he will do about Yiannopoulos scheduled visit to UCLA on Feb. 2. But, bracing for more free-speech conflicts, Kang said his office hopes to plan both large forums and small gatherings to promote more student connections and encourage diverse perspectives through peaceful protest and civil discourse rather than the brute force of loudness or physical threats to shut up. He said the benefits of free speech also carry costs such as allowing repugnant viewpoints to be voiced and students who want safe spaces should also be willing to enter brave spaces with those they disagree with. Im appealing to the community for intellectual and political maturity, Kang said. As campuses prepare for walkouts and other actions on Friday to protest Trumps inauguration, some UC Irvine faculty members have planned an alternative inauguration to celebrate inclusiveness and social justice. The campus also will host a discussion Thursday to find common ground in the midst of political divisiveness. Meanwhile, UC Davis officials sought to clarify what happened Friday at the Yiannopoulos event. College Republicans have claimed they were pressured to shut down the event; but university spokesman Andy Fell said the student group made the final call after police determined that there was a strong possibility of escalating violence because protesters took away barricades and were pressing up against the police line. One student protester was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police officer and battery on an officer whose hand was scraped. No property was damaged. UC Davis, a campus of 35,000 students built on flat farmland between the liberal Bay Area and more conservative Sacramento, has struggled with incidents of hate speech in the rising heat of national rhetoric. In February, three men were charged with public intoxication, and two of them charged with hate crimes, after an African American student said they assaulted her as she walked near her campus residence early one morning. All three were from Sacramento. The year before, a Jewish fraternity was defaced with red swastikas. In a separate incident, tires were slashed and anti-Jewish religious slurs were scratched into the paint of nearly a dozen vehicles on a campus parking lot. Five years ago, UC Davis officers pepper-sprayed seated demonstrators during an Occupy movement protest. Hexter said the security protocols that developed from that much-publicized incident better equipped campus officers to handle Fridays protests without incident. By Sunday, things seemed to have settled down at UC Davis. Three students studying at an outdoor table said they had not participated in the protests but monitored them on social media. Cecilia Plascencia, 19, a psychology major, said protests serve a positive purpose, though they should not be violent. It builds unity, she said. We are entering a period with a controversial president. It will show people that others are not afraid. But Carlos Novoa, 21, said no one should be shut down from speaking. Were a college where we ought to be able to listen to other peoples opinions, said Novoa, a history major from Fresno. We wouldnt like it if someone was silencing us. paige.stjohn@latimes.com joel.rubin@latimes.com teresa.watanabe@latimes.com ALSO 13.5 million Californians are covered by Medi-Cal. Heres how Trumps plan could cost the state Kevin Starr, author of California histories and former state librarian, dies at 76 Parade, service projects to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day in L.A. County Along with his vow to repeal Obamacare, President-elect Donald Trump has promised to restructure Medicaid, the nations low-income health program a move that could be acutely felt in California, where 1 in 3 residents receive health coverage through the state version, experts say. Medi-Cal enrollment surged by 5 million over the last three years to a total of 13.5 million under President Obamas Affordable Care Act. Some of those Californians could lose portions of their benefits or possibly be dropped from coverage altogether if Trump carries out his plan, which would likely cost the state billions. Even residents who relied on the program long before the current expansion could be affected. Advertisement The cuts in federal funding could be quite significant, and California would have to make a lot of hard choices, said UC Berkeley Labor Center healthcare program manager Laurel Lucia. Theres no way California could maintain the program it currently has. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government offered states money to let more people into their Medicaid programs, which are jointly funded by state and federal governments. California is one of 31 states that took the deal, prompting the Medi-Cal enrollment surge over the last three years. Now anyone in California can sign up if their annual income is low enough: $16,395 or less for a single person or $22,108 or less for a couple. Medi-Cal is free for participants. Jason Rector, 32, was able to join Medi-Cal because of the expansion. Hes an actor who juggles part-time jobs so he can still make time for auditions. Jason Rector, 32, is an actor who was able to qualify for Medi-Cal because of its expansion under the Affordable Care Act. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times ) Medi-Cal has been a huge lifesaver for so many of us, because we can pursue what were pursuing and not have to have a panic attack if we start to come down with a cold, said Rector, who lives in Culver City. Its just the unknown of what comes next that worries me. Experts say that an immediate repeal of the Affordable Care Act is unlikely and that Congress will probably slowly dismantle the law while devising replacement plans. California would lose $15.3 billion in federal funding if the Medicaid expansion is fully undone, according to the states Legislative Analysts Office. The Medicaid program in general, which now covers 73 million Americans, has been criticized for being unsustainable and inefficient, with an annual price tag of more than $500 billion and growing. Medi-Cal alone is a $90-billion program, with roughly 65% of that cost shouldered by the federal government. Under the current funding model for Medicaid, the federal government reimburses states for their programs expenses regardless of how big they are. President Johnson created the program in 1965 with this flexible funding model so it could serve as a safety net that could accommodate periods of greater need, such as during economic downturns. Trump and his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), have said they want to limit spending by giving states a fixed amount of money each year. States will then have an incentive to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, according to Trumps website. But the federal government contribution will probably be less than what states are currently receiving and wont increase enough over time to keep pace with rising costs, forcing states to either reallocate funds to fill the gap or make cuts, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund report. Such a change would effectively reverse a 50-year trend of expanding Medicaid in order to protect the most vulnerable Americans, the report said. Dylan Roby, assistant professor of health services administration at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, said California would probably be faced with a multibillion-dollar shortfall too large to fill with state funds. He said state officials could consider limiting who can join the program and what benefits they receive, areas where California has historically been generous. They could also reevaluate payment rates for doctors, which already took a hit during the recession and are now among the lowest in the nation. It just creates more fights around resources at the state level than we currently have, Roby said. Roby said Congress could pass changes to Medicaid funding in the first few months of 2017 in a process known as reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority in the Senate. However, the restructuring likely wouldnt take effect for a few years, he said. Officials in California say they will fight to keep Medi-Cal as it is, but its too early to know what theyll be faced with. There are lots of open questions, said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), who chairs that chambers health committee. As long as Im in the Legislature I will do everything I can to ensure that residents in the state of California have access to healthcare. Its inhumane if we put people in the streets without health insurance. Pam Gross, 54, has relied on Medi-Cal for decades to afford treatment for lupus and fibromyalgia. Shes worried any changes to Medi-Cal will disrupt her healthcare regimen, which includes several doctors appointments each week and treatment from 10 Pam Gross, 54, has relied on Medi-Cal for decades to afford treatment for lupus and fibromyalgia. Shes worried any changes to Medi-Cal will disrupt her healthcare regimen, which includes several doctors appointments each week and treatment from 10 specialists. I actually talked to my doctors about the whole thing, and I said, OK what can I go without? and theyre like, Nothing, said Gross, who lives in Carpinteria. The structural changes to Medicaid would likely also give states more autonomy over their programs, a welcome change for state officials who want to trim benefits or restrict eligibility. Strict federal laws currently prohibit states from limiting Medicaid enrollment. The state of Montana, for example, wasnt allowed to make job training classes mandatory for people who signed up for Medicaid. In a sign of support for loosening these restrictions, Trump chose Seema Verma to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Verma is the architect of an unusual Medicaid expansion model in Indiana where Vice President-elect Mike Pence was governor at the time that requires enrollees to pay a small fee to join. This idea of fiscal responsibility, but also allowing states to make decisions from a policy perspective about their Medicaid population, that currently isnt allowed in federal statute, Roby said. California, however, has long been committed to providing coverage to as many people as possible without restrictions. The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in California is generally considered a success, with the state cutting its uninsured population by half. A group of legislators has launched a campaign to extend coverage even further to immigrants in the country illegally who arent allowed to sign up under the law. In one of the movements first successes, such immigrants under 19 were able to sign up for Medi-Cal starting in May. UC Berkeleys Lucia said that such efforts to further expand coverage could stop if California has to begin considering ways to reduce Medi-Cal spending. We have a lot of forward momentum in California, and this really threatens that, she said. soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com Twitter: @skarlamangla ALSO These Republicans hate Obamacare, but arent ready to give it up just yet Here are the lies Paul Ryan told about Obamacare during his town hall meeting Whats in Browns new budget? A $65 vehicle fee, more Medi-Cal spending, a bigger rainy-day fund and more In January 1967, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. packed several suitcases and secluded himself on the coast of Jamaica, far from the telephone, far from the crises roiling America. It would not go down in history as one of his most famous trips. King was trying to finish writing a new book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? But the answer King found would change the course of his activism until his death. Back in the U.S., tensions were rising. Congress had passed civil-rights protections after his campaigns in the South, but many black Americans remained crushed under poverty. Younger black activists were beginning to question Kings strategy of nonviolence, which had won him a Nobel Peace Prize three years earlier. Advertisement And the nation was at war. While flipping through Ramparts, a leftist literary and political magazine, at a Jamaican restaurant, King came across a 28-page photographic essay documenting children who had been scorched by U.S. military napalm attacks in Vietnam. King pushed a plate of food away. I looked up and said, Doesnt it taste any good? Bernard Lee, an associate, later recalled to one of Kings biographers. King replied, Nothing will ever taste any good for me until I do everything I can to end that war. Fifty years ago this year, King began agitating against the Vietnam War, a lesser-remembered chapter of his career in which the preacher once again launched an unpopular battle against the prevailing opinions of the establishment, the broader public and even some allies. The war is now widely viewed as a catastrophic mistake. But in remembrances today, on the national holiday bearing his name, its likely that few public figures will hearken back to Kings solemn Beyond Vietnam speech at the Riverside Church in New York, where he said, If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. If Americas soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. Martin Luther King Jr. Americas entanglement in Vietnam dated back to the end of World War II, when France wanted to keep control of its Indochina possessions and the Vietnamese rebelled. The U.S. had provided advisors for Frances failed effort to quell the rebellion. In the 1960s, the United States allied itself with South Vietnam, claiming that a takeover by communist-led North Vietnam would pave the way for communism to spread throughout Southeast Asia. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. began an escalation of bombings and troop deployments. In the beginning, the public had largely accepted politicians arguments that the war was necessary, though a growing number of protesters were starting to raise their voices. King was not the first black activist to take a bold public stand against the war. His wife, Coretta, spoke at an antiwar rally in Washington in 1965. Stokely Carmichael, in his famous Black Power speech in October 1966, given after stepping down as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, called the Vietnam conflict an illegal and immoral war. And while King was in Jamaica in January 1967, James Bevel, a fellow leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, made a surprise visit to tell King hed had a revelation: Why are you teaching nonviolence to Negroes in Mississippi but not to Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam? Bevel said, according to historian Taylor Branch in his book At Canaans Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68. King had previously publicly expressed some concerns about the war, but Johnson posed a major strategic conundrum. Johnson had been one of Kings greatest allies in Washington and had helped shepherd through Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Democratic president also had championed antipoverty programs, another of Kings signature causes. But the growing war also had come under Johnsons leadership. There was a strong feeling that to get the antipoverty programs the support they needed King should not publicly oppose Lyndon Johnsons policies, because that would push him out of the circle of people who Johnson relied on for supporting his domestic agenda, said Clayborne Carson, an editor of Kings papers and the director of the Martin Luther King Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. King pushed ahead. His aides began drafting a speech. Clarence Jones prepared one of the earliest drafts, which King rejected. He said, Clarence, I thought you were my radical, Jones recalled in an interview with the journalist Tavis Smiley, adding that he told King, I dont quite understand what you mean. King said the speech was too wishy-washy. The Vietnam War is either morally right or morally wrong its not on the one hand or on the other hand, King told Jones. The speech was refined, and on April 4, 1967, in front of a packed audience at the Riverside Church, King called the war an enemy of the poor that was swallowing the nations young men and its resources for antipoverty programs like a demonic, destructive suction tube. King complained that black soldiers who couldnt get their full rights at home were doing a disproportionate amount of the fighting in Vietnam. He also said that it was becoming difficult to tell young radicals in America not to pursue their agendas using violence when thats what the nation was doing abroad. Above all, the war in Vietnam symptomized a larger problem with American society, King said, calling for a rapid shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered, King said. Public condemnation came quickly, especially in the news media. Many who have listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same confidence, the Washington Post said in an editorial. He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country and to his people. An April 16 news article in the Los Angeles Times described Kings antiwar views as extreme, and the next day, the newspaper ran an editorial cartoon captioned Dr. King takes the plunge, showing him diving head-first into an empty swimming pool labeled, Vietnam criticism. One opinion poll from that spring showed that 73% of Americans disagreed with Kings denunciations of the war. King also caught flack from his own allies. The NAACPs board of directors unanimously voted that combining the civil rights and antiwar movements was a serious tactical mistake. One professor at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama wrote to King: For many years I have considered you one of the greatest living Americans indeed, one of the greatest living men. Now, however, that you have joined the anti-Vietnam War movement, I am ashamed of you. Donations to Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference began to drop. King also lost his biggest ally in Washington. Once he took the stand against the war, he was really not welcome at the White House anymore, Carson said. Ultimately, Kings speeches and rallies were not instrumental in ending the war, at least not in the way they undermined Jim Crow laws across the South. He was assassinated in Memphis by a small-time criminal in 1968 on April 4, one year to the day after the Beyond Vietnam speech. His antipoverty and job campaigns had minimal effect, and the war didnt end until 1975. The last three years of his life, he failed, Carson said, noting that poverty and war remain ongoing issues for America today. The importance of Kings book Where Do We Go From Here? we still havent answered that question, Carson said. The I have a dream speech is played 100 times as much as the Riverside speech. Probably every American knows the words I have a dream, Free at last those phrases. But when Americans listen to King speeches and see his memorials, Carson said, You dont see that phrase where hes talking about the United States as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. matt.pearce@latimes.com @mattdpearce ALSO Parade, service projects to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day in L.A. County America just spent 8 years with a black president. For many African Americans, it meant one big thing: freedom to dream 13.5 million Californians are covered by Medi-Cal. Heres how Trumps plan could cost the state Twenty years ago, Dwayne Anthony Woods was convicted of murdering two women, sentenced to die and sent to Washingtons death row at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. Claiming he was innocent, he launched a series of appeals that kept him alive and denied the victims families the justice they wanted. The appeals came to an end this month when Woods, 46, died of a heart attack. It was the only death on death row since Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium on executions in 2014. At the time of his edict, there were nine inmates on death row. Advertisement If Inslee has his way, the eight who remain will also die of disease or old age. In the broadening fight against capital punishment, his strategy for clearing death row now plays a key role, with similar moratoriums in place in Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania. Opposition to the death penalty has grown in recent years amid concerns over whether some innocent people have been put to death, discrimination against African Americans in sentencing, the costs of appeals, and the methods states use to carry out killings. The fact is that the death penalty is not anywhere close to being used in an equitable measure, Inslee said at the time he announced the moratorium. One person gets life, the other person gets death it depends on which side of the county line you are. Nationwide, the number of executions has fallen dramatically, from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 20 last year, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. There are about 2,900 people on death rows across the country, down from a peak of nearly 3,600 in the year 2000. Over the last decade, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, New Mexico, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware have abolished capital punishment, placing them among the 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, where the most severe punishment is life in prison without the possibility of parole. The moratoriums are a way for governors to halt executions without putting the issue directly to voters in a referendum or to state legislatures. Although public support for the death penalty is at a 40-year low, 56% of U.S. residents are still in favor of it, according to a poll last year by the Pew Research Center. Despite Californias liberal credentials, voters there narrowly rejected one ballot proposition in November to abolish capital punishment and approved another to speed up executions. Washington, where appeals can take 20 years, has executed just five people in the last 54 years, most recently in 2010. Nonetheless, Inslee has failed to persuade the Legislature where Republicans narrowly control the Senate and Democrats narrowly control the House to abolish capital punishment. The political risks of his stance became apparent as Inslee faced reelection last year. His Republican challenger, Bill Bryant, made the death penalty an issue, saying that a governor shouldnt choose which laws to enforce and vowing that if he were elected, so as long as it is the law in Washington state, I will enforce it. Inslee won with almost 55% of the vote. The victory will allow him to delay executions through 2020, when his term expires. It has also made him optimistic that the next governor would keep his moratorium in place. That the state has not elected a Republican governor in more than 30 years only bolsters that hope. Any Dem who follows Jay will be hard put to coming in and reversing the moratorium, Nick Brown, Inslees general counsel, said. My sense is we have ended the death penalty and will not see another execution in Washington state, he said. A similar dynamic is in play in Oregon, which has had only Democratic governors over the last three decades. Gov. John Kitzhaber, a doctor who saw the death penalty as a perversion of justice that went against his medical oath, imposed a moratorium in 2011, and his successor elected last year, Gov. Kate Brown, continued it. Currently, 34 inmates are on death row there. In Colorado, where there are only three inmates on death row, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, citing costs and concerns about fairness, imposed a moratorium in 2013 and extended it upon reelection the following year. In Pennsylvania, where Gov. Tom Wolf suspended the penalty in 2015 for the same reasons, 186 inmates are on death row, but there have been only three executions in the last 40 years, the most recent in 1999. As effective as moratoriums can be, death penalty opponents view them as a stepping stone to laws that offer a more permanent end to executions. That happened in Illinois, which eliminated the death penalty in 2011 after a long moratorium. The moratoriums do not prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, though given the difficulties of carrying out executions, some have backed away from it. Inslees effort to clear death row is a race against mortality. Six of the eight inmates on Washingtons death row were born in the 1950s. The youngest inmate there is 35-year-old Conner Michael Cross, who was convicted in 2010 of killing a woman, her sister and two young sons. The oldest is 65-year-old Clark Richard Elmore, who was convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl after she threatened to report him for having molested her. His appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court in October. It chose not to hear the case despite concerns from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who pointed out that his defense lawyer never investigated his questionable mental state or told the jury about his life growing up around pesticides or handling Agent Orange in Vietnam. With his appeals run out, Elmore was sentenced to die this month. Under the moratorium, the governor must act to stop each execution. Inslee has said he will not commute sentences or pardon death row inmates, and instead will issue reprieves that keep inmates on death row but delay their executions as long as he remains in office. That is what he did in the case of Elmore. Dave McEachran, the Whatcom County prosecutor who handled Elmores case and met with Inslee in hopes of changing his mind, said he was disappointed that after 21 years of appeals in which the sentence of death has been upheld by the highest courts in the state and the United States, the governor has derailed the sentence. Inslee issued a statement assuring that Elmore will remain in the State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for the rest of his life. That will be true even if the next governor lifts the moratorium. Anderson is a special correspondent. ALSO Arrest warrant sought for head of Samsung Electronics in South Korean political scandal 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. turned his activism against the Vietnam War, and lost allies as a result UC Davis protest spurs concerns about free speech and more political clashes ahead Neil Gorsuch could fall somewhere between his hero, Justice Scalia, and former boss, centrist Justice Kennedy By David Savage Judge Neil M. Gorsuch was resting midway down a Colorado ski slope last year when his cellphone rang with the news that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had died. I immediately lost what breath I had left, Gorsuch recalled in an April speech, and I am not embarrassed to admit that I couldnt see the rest of the way down the mountain for the tears. Now, as President Trumps pick to replace Scalia on the high court, Gorsuch is seen by many on the right as a fitting replacement for the iconic jurist that Gorsuch considered a lion of the law. Like Scalia, Gorsuch, 49, who serves on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, is a well-respected conservative who believes judges should decide cases based on the law as it was understood when passed, not on how they think it should be. Hes a clear, impassioned writer, albeit without Scalias flare for biting sarcasm. But Gorsuch also evokes the qualities of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch worked as a law clerk. (If confirmed, Gorsuch would join three justices who previously clerked on the high court, but he would be the first ever to serve alongside the justice he or she worked for.) Like Kennedy, 80, Gorsuch is a Westerner with a polite, congenial manner who at times has won praise from liberals. He may be more conservative than Kennedy when it comes to expanding individual rights, but he seems to lack Scalias fervor for overturning liberal precedents from decades past. Which way Gorsuch skews could be pivotal for the future of the court. Conservatives clearly hope hell be more like Scalia than Kennedy, a centrist swing vote who has often joined liberals on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Some conservatives have even expressed hope that Gorsuchs personal history with Kennedy might enable him to draw the Reagan-appointee back toward the right. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump chooses Neil Gorsuch, a conservative seen as likely to be confirmed, for Supreme Court By Michael A. Memoli President Trump nominated federal Judge Neil M. Gorsuch on Tuesday to the Supreme Court to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia, choosing from his short list an appeals court judge from Denver seen as most likely to win Senate confirmation. Because Scalia was a stalwart conservative, Trumps choice is not likely to change the balance of the court. But it does set the stage for a bruising partisan fight over a man who could help determine law on gun rights, immigration, police use of force and transgender rights. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump administration is radicalizing Democratic voters, creating a challenge for the party, Rep. Adam Schiff says By Sarah D. Wire (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) As protests spread over policy announcements from the Trump administration, Democrats must work to encourage participation in politics, but face a danger of the party becoming too radicalized, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said Tuesday. The radical nature of this government is radicalizing Democrats, and thats going to pose a real challenge to the Democratic Party, which is to draw on the energy and the activism and the passion that is out there, but not let it turn us into what we despised about the tea party, Schiff said. During a meeting with reporters and editors in the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, Schiff also discussed his role as the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Select Intelligence Committee under a Trump administration and how Democrats will manage in the minority. Ever since the election, party leaders have been debating: Did we lose because we were too far to the left and we had too small a tent, or did we lose because we are too mainstream and didnt energize the base? Schiff asked. We are obviously having that debate, but theres a whole new element, which is the reaction to the Trump administration that makes this different in kind, certainly different in intensity, than I think weve ever seen after an election, he said. The more radical the administration is, the more radicalized our base becomes, which just feeds the Breitbart crowd, and who knows where that ends. Democratic leaders have to channel public reaction to Trumps actions into progress, rather than deadlock, Schiff said. Reaction to Democrats seen as working with the Trump administration has been strong. Monday night, for example, protesters marched on Sen. Dianne Feinsteins home and office voicing fears she would back Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general. The senator from California announced Tuesday that she would oppose Sessions. Several groups calling themselves indivisible have popped up in cities across the country as focal points for efforts to organize. We have two of the most capable strategists as the head of our House and Senate Democrats, Schiff added, referring to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Senate Democratic leader Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York. If anybody can grapple with this, they can, but its going to be a challenging and moving target day to day. I just hope that we can channel that energy in a way where we can provide a check on this administration because Ive never been more worried about the countrys future than I am right now, he said. Schiff said part of his role as the ranking Democrat on the House Select Intelligence Committee will be pushing back when the Trump administration puts out inaccurate information about the intelligence community and its findings. Trump has repeatedly dismissed or sought to minimize the intelligence communitys findings that Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 election to benefit him. Schiff said hes concerned about what else the administration might be willing to dismiss. I think that will be kind of a new frontier, he said. How do we contradict a president making representations about what the intelligence community has to say when the information is classified? Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump administration signals that some temporary bans on entry into the U.S. could become permanent By Brian Bennett Trumps orders put a greater emphasis on deporting those convicted of crimes and those in the country illegally who were charged with crimes not yet adjudicated The Trump administration doubled down Tuesday on its commitment to transforming the nations border law enforcement, signaling that some of the temporary bans on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries are likely to be made permanent and elevating a deportations official to run the top immigration enforcement agency. Administration officials, led by newly sworn-in Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, moved to allay the havoc that marked the roll-out of the ban and another on refugees. They briefed reporters and planned to head to Capitol Hill later today in an apparent effort to smooth relations after reports that lawmakers and other stakeholders were left out of the crafting of the executive order on toughened vetting at border entry points. In a news conference, Kelly and other top Homeland Security officials conceded some problems, including poor communication. But they insisted that all court orders were followed over the weekend, rebutted reports that some legal residents were denied access to attorneys at airports and said they everyone detained by border agents was treated with dignity and respect. The vast majority of the 1.7 billion Muslims that live on this planet, the vast majority of them have, all other things being equal, have access to the United States, Kelly told reporters. And a relatively small number right now are being held up for a period of time until we can take a look at what their procedures are, he said, seeming to acknowledge that mostly Muslims have been affected by the ban. The moves signaled that the White House remained committed to remaking border law enforcement even in the face of widespread confusion and condemnation of President Trumps order. Kelly said for the first time that the some of the restrictions that caused confusion and sparked protests over the weekend could be extended well into the future. Some of those countries that are currently on the list may not be taken off the list anytime soon, he said. Trump also named a longtime deportation officer, Thomas D. Homan, as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homan, who will oversee the execution of Trumps immigration enforcement order, was most recently in charge of the agencys 5,000 deportation officers, a force Trump said he would triple to 15,000. Trumps orders put a greater emphasis on deporting not only those convicted of crimes, but also people in the country illegally who were charged with crimes not yet adjudicated, those who receive an improper welfare benefit and even those who have not been charged but are believed to have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print White House tries to ban the word ban, hours after president uses it himself By Noah Bierman This is not a ban, spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in a fiery news briefing. (Alex Wong / Getty Images) President Trump used the word ban in a tweet as recently as Monday to describe his new executive order suspending travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and halting the refugee program for several months. But facing backlash from many directions, the White House adamantly insisted Tuesday that the word is verboten. This is not a ban, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters in a fiery news briefing. When we use words like travel ban, he said later, that misrepresents what it is. Its seven countries previously identified by the Obama administration, where, frankly, we dont get the information that we need for people coming into this country. In fact, people from the seven banned countries Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Libya cannot enter the United States under the order. Spicer appeared to be making a renewed effort to distinguish the order from the all-out ban on Muslims entering the country that Trump proposed during the campaign. Many around the world see the newest policy as an outgrowth of that proposal. Trump himself conceded a religious connection when he said in an interview on Friday that he wanted to make it easier for Syrian Christians to enter the country. And former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the order sprang from a group he formed at Trumps request to create a legal framework that would accomplish the campaign goal of a Muslim ban. But amid confusion and worldwide criticism in recent days, the Trump administration has tried to temper some of the more incendiary rhetoric around the proposal. Even the words extreme vetting, a favorite Trump slogan, were called into question by Spicer on Tuesday. Calling for tougher vetting [of] individual travelers from seven nations is not extreme, he said. It is reasonable and necessary to protect our country. But changing the ban branding around the program at this point will be difficult. Heres Trumps tweet from Monday: If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the "bad" would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad "dudes" out there! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017 And Spicer himself used the term ban as recently as Sunday: Sean Spiceer today: This is not a Muslim ban. It is not a travel ban. Sean Spicer in White House press release, Jan. 29: pic.twitter.com/axTM1m66nM Dominic Holden (@dominicholden) January 31, 2017 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Senate confirms Elaine Chao as secretary of Transportation By Associated Press Elaine Chao testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on Jan. 11, 2017. (Zach Gibson / AP) The Senate has confirmed Elaine Chao to serve as Transportation secretary in the Trump administration. The vote was 93 to 6 on Tuesday. Chao is an experienced Washington hand. She was Labor secretary under President George W. Bush and is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Chao would be a lead actor in pursuing Trumps promise to invest $1 trillion to improve highways, rail service and other infrastructure projects. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Speaker Paul Ryan defends Trumps immigrant and refugee ban, as Congress grumbles about being left out By Lisa Mascaro "What is happening is something we support... we need to make sure that the vetting standards are up to snuff," Paul Ryan says of travel ban pic.twitter.com/iX6YkOLkLl CBS News (@CBSNews) January 31, 2017 House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Tuesday stood by President Trumps temporary ban on refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations and indicated that he was confident the administration could fix the confusing rollout without action from Congress. What is happening is something we support, said Ryan, whose office was the target of a sit-in by protesters opposed to Trumps order. We need to pause and we need to make sure that the vetting standards are up to snuff so we can guarantee the safety and security of our country. Congress was blindsided by Trumps executive action -- Ryan learned about it as the public did when the White House announced it Friday afternoon. Many GOP lawmakers have raised concerns. During a private meeting in the Capitol basement Tuesday, Republican lawmakers were counseled on how to handle protesters and office sit-ins happening across the country. Its regrettable that there was some confusion on the rollout of this, Ryan said. No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas, like translators, get caught up in all of this. Ryan also said he was concerned the ban could be used as propaganda by terrorist groups. The rhetoric surrounding this could be used as a recruiting tool, and I think thats dangerous, he said. Still, Republicans leaders as well as rank-and-file GOP lawmakers largely agreed with the presidents move to halt refugee admissions for 120 days, and to temporarily ban citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, unless they are Christians or other religious minorities. The president was well within his right to issue an executive order, said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), chairman of the House Rules Committee. Do I feel let out? I feel like everybody was left out, he said. I wish they communicated it. I wish they had gotten more information to people. I wish they had measured three times and sawed once. Lawmakers have shown little appetite for Congress to get involved, and suggested the chaos that erupted at airports over the weekend was just part of a learning curve at the White House. I support the thrust of the executive order, said Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), who nevertheless said the administration should have been better prepared and will need to get your act together. Last year, Ryan had strongly condemned Trumps campaign-trail call for a Muslim ban. In recent days, Ryan, like other congressional leaders, was forced to dial up the administration with his questions and concerns about the order, conferring Monday with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. I am very pleased and confident that he is, on a going-forward basis, going to make sure that things are done correctly, Ryan said. Pressed on whether Congress would have a role, Ryan did not indicate any immediate legislative action. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrats boycott Senate committee votes on Price, Mnuchin By Jim Puzzanghera Senate Democrats speak with reporters after boycotting Finance Committee confirmation votes. (JIM WATSON / AFP/Getty Images) Senate Democrats on Tuesday boycotted a committee vote on two of President Trumps top Cabinet nominees -- Tom Price to lead Health and Human Services and Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary. Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blasted the Democratic move as he sat in a hearing room with only Republicans on the dais. They ought to be embarrassed. Its the most pathetic treatment Ive seen in my 40 years in the United States Senate, Hatch said. I think they should stop posturing and acting like idiots, he said. At least one Democrat needs to be present for the committee to vote on the nominations, Hatch said. He recessed the hearing until further notice, saying he hoped a vote could take place later Tuesday. But asked mid-afternoon if he thought the committee would be able to meet Tuesday, Hatch said it doesnt look like it. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committees top Democrat, said Price and Mnuchin have misled the public and held back important information about their backgrounds. Until questions are answered, Democrats believe the committee should not move forward with either nomination, Wyden said. This is about getting answers to questions, plain and simple, he said. Ethics laws are not optional, and nominees do not have a right to treat disclosure like a shell game. Today @SenateFinance Democrats refused to move forward with nominations of Mnuchin & Price. Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2017 The litany of ethics revelations regarding @RepTomPrice are strong evidence that he cannot be allowed to have control of #Medicare. Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2017 Mr. Mnuchin continued to fail to come clean on shady foreclosure practices that hurt Americans. Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2017 Liberal groups cheered the boycott while Senate Republican leaders decried it as Democratic obstructionism. They are manufacturing issues on a daily basis to drag this process out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) said of the confirmations of Trumps nominees. I dont see how they can explain to the American people how it is appropriate to prevent the administration from getting up and getting started, he said. Democrats have said Mnuchin, a wealthy Wall Street executive, misled the committee in his response to a written question about foreclosures at Pasadenas OneWest Bank while he ran it from 2009-15. Democrats pointed to a report Sunday by the Columbus Dispatch that Mnuchin denied that OneWest engaged in so-called robo-signing of mortgage documents. The paper said its analysis of nearly four dozen foreclosure cases in Ohios Franklin County in 2010 showed that the bank frequently used robo-signers. The Columbus Dispatch cited a foreclosure involving a mortgage signed by Erica Johnson-Seck, a OneWest vice president who said in a deposition in a 2009 Florida case that she signed an average of 750 documents a week. Barney Keller, a spokesman for Mnuchin, said Monday that several courts had dismissed cases involving allegations of robo-signing by Johnson-Seck. The media is picking on a hardworking bank employee whose reputation has been maligned but whose work has been upheld by numerous courts all around the country in the face of scurrilous and false allegations, Keller said. Democrats also have problems with Price, a six-term congressman and former orthopedic surgeon who has distinguished himself in conservative circles for his staunch opposition to the Affordable Care Act and his plans to slash federal healthcare spending. His nomination has become among Trumps most controversial, in part because of his hostility to government safety net programs, including Medicaid and Medicare. Democrats have also been increasingly critical of Prices extensive trading in healthcare stocks while he has been in Congress, and in some cases while he has pushed legislation that would benefit his portfolio. Price has denied any wrongdoing. Also drawing criticism is Prices purchase of discounted shares in an Australian biotech firm, Innate Immunotherapeutics, which he was offered through a private deal not available to general shareholders. Price also denied that this was improper, and Senate Republicans have rallied to his side, saying he did not violate any ethics rules. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he and the other Democrats on the committee want Mnuchin and Price to explain their lies either in person before the committee or in new written answers. I want them to disclose this information that they seem not to want to disclose, Brown said. 12:10 p.m.: This post was updated with additional comments from Hatch as well as from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Sherrod Brown. 8:00 a.m.: This post has been updated with additional information and background. 8:07 a.m.: This post has been updated with additional information. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print White House aides who wrote Trumps travel ban see it as just the start By Brian Bennett (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) Even as confusion, internal dissent and widespread condemnation greeted President Trumps travel ban and crackdown on refugees this weekend, senior White House aides say they are only getting started. Trump and his aides justified Fridays executive order, which blocked travel from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days and halted refugees from around the world for 120, on security grounds an issue that they say they take seriously. But their ultimate goal is far broader. Trumps top advisors on immigration, including chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, see themselves as launching a radical experiment to fundamentally transform how the U.S. decides who is allowed into the country and to block a generation of people who, in their view, wont assimilate into American society. That project may live or die in the next three months, as the Trump administration reviews whether and how to expand the visa ban and alter vetting procedures. White House aides are considering new, onerous security checks that could effectively limit travel into the U.S. by people from majority-Muslim countries to a trickle. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Why corporations cant risk keeping silent about Trumps immigration ban By David Pierson Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz said the Seattle coffee company is developing plans to hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years. (Richard Drew / Associated Press) Corporate America generally prefers to stay quiet about partisan politics. Pick one side of a hot-button issue, the thinking goes, and youll risk losing customers on the other side. But like so many norms before it, President Trump has turned this one on its head. A growing number of companies are deciding its a bigger risk to their investors and bottom line to stay quiet than it is to protest Trumps ban on refugees and travel from seven Muslim-majority nations, betting vocal opposition to the executive order scores them a moral and fiscal victory. While it was possible for companies to take a wait-and-see approach leading up to Trumps inauguration, many firms can no longer ignore the White Houses policy given the effect the order is already having on employees either stranded or fearful of traveling. Only a week ago it seemed foolish to speak out against a president who has admonished individual companies on social media such as Carrier, Boeing and General Motors. Now the pendulum has swung the other way. Companies, mostly in technology but increasingly in other sectors, have decided that its not enough just to speak out against the immigration order. They believe that they must also take headline-grabbing action. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Op-Ed: Trump is taking the Bannon Way, and it will end in disaster By Jonah Goldberg Bannon has said hes a Leninist' but hes really more of a Trotskyist because he fancies himself the leader of an international populist-nationalist right wing movement, exporting anti-'globalist' revolution. In that role, his status as an enabler of Trumps instinct to shoot or tweet from the hip seems especially ominous. The Bannon way might work on the campaign trail, but it doesnt translate into good governance. Its possible and one must hope that Trump can learn this fact on the job. But what if he doesnt? He could put the country in serious peril. Jonah Goldberg Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump will leave LGBTQ protections in place By Associated Press (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The White House says President Trump will leave intact a 2014 executive order that protects federal workers from anti-LGBTQ discrimination. In a statement released early Tuesday, the White House said Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community and that he continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The Trump administration has vowed to roll back much of President Obamas work from the last eight years and had been scrutinizing the 2014 order. The directive protects people from LGBTQ discrimination while working for federal contractors. The recent statement says the protections will remain intact at the direction of Trump. Here is the text of Obamas executive order, signed on July 21, 2014: By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including 40 U.S.C. 121, and in order to provide for a uniform policy for the Federal Government to prohibit discrimination and take further steps to promote economy and efficiency in Federal Government procurement by prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Amending Executive Order 11478 . The first sentence of section 1 of Executive Order 11478 of August 8, 1969, as amended, is revised by substituting sexual orientation, gender identity for sexual orientation. Sec. 2. Amending Executive Order 11246 . Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965, as amended, is hereby further amended as follows: (a) The first sentence of numbered paragraph (1) of section 202 is revised by substituting sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin for sex, or national origin. (b) The second sentence of numbered paragraph (1) of section 202 is revised by substituting sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin for sex or national origin. (c) Numbered paragraph (2) of section 202 is revised by substituting sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin for sex or national origin. (d) Paragraph (d) of section 203 is revised by substituting sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin for sex or national origin. Sec. 3. Regulations . Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Labor shall prepare regulations to implement the requirements of section 2 of this order. Sec. 4. General Provisions . (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) the authority granted by law to an agency or the head thereof; or (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. (b) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. Sec. 5. Effective Date . This order shall become effective immediately, and section 2 of this order shall apply to contracts entered into on or after the effective date of the rules promulgated by the Department of Labor under section 3 of this order. Update 6:45 a.m.: This article was updated with the text of the 2014 executive order. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump fires Justice Departments top official after she refuses to defend his refugee ban By David Lauter Sally Yates. (J. David Ake / Associated Press) President Trump fired acting Atty. Gen. Sally Yates on Monday, just hours after she announced that the department would not defend his controversial executive order banning refugees and travelers from certain countries. Yates has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States, the White House said in a statement. It is time to get serious about protecting our country. The move came after Yates sent a letter to Justice Department lawyers saying that she questioned the lawfulness of Trumps executive order. My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts, Yates wrote. At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities, nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful, she wrote. Consequently, for as long as I am the acting attorney general, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so. Yates was a holdover from the Obama administration. But because Trumps nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has not been confirmed and no other senior Justice Department officials have been appointed, firing her was expected to cause significant problems within the department. Among other issues, Yates is the only person in the department currently authorized to sign warrants for wiretapping in foreign espionage cases involving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Trump replaced Yates with Dana J. Boente, a three-decade veteran of the Justice Department who was appointed in 2015 by former President Obama as U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. 6:37 p.m.: The story was updated with Trumps decision to fire Yates. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print U.S. service member killed in Yemen identified as Navy SEAL from Illinois By Jeanette Steele The Pentagon on Sunday confirmed the death of a U.S. servicemember in a raid in Yemen targeting al-Qaeda, marking the first American combat death under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. A Navy SEAL from the Virginia-based elite unit known as SEAL Team 6 was killed Sunday during an unusual nighttime raid that put U.S. troops on the ground against Al Qaeda leaders in the middle of war-torn Yemen. The fallen sailor was identified Monday as Chief Special Warfare Operator William Ryan Owens, 36, of Peoria, Ill.. Three other Americans were wounded in the raid and an MV-22 Osprey had to be destroyed after the aircraft suffered a hard landing and couldnt fly. Another U.S. service member was injured in that crash. The raid marked the first known counter-terrorism operation and first confirmed combat fatality under President Trump. Steele writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Protests against Trumps ban on certain immigrants continue across the country By Ann M. Simmons Protesters rally at Los Angeles International Airport on Jan. 29, demonstrating against the immigration ban imposed by President Trump. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) After a weekend of turmoil at many of the nations airports following President Trumps executive order to suspend the U.S. refugee program and temporarily prohibit entry to citizens of seven predominantly Muslim nations, federal officials said all people being detained on arrival to the U.S. had been released. But that hasnt put a stop to demands to lift the travel ban. Protests continued to be held and organized throughout the country incluidng in New York, New Orleans, Colorado and Connecticut. According to Ground Game, an online platform for organizing, at least a dozen demonstrations were planned for this week in what the group described as a fight against Islamophobia and Fascism. Calls to rally, demonstrate and protest swept social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. In Louisville, Ky., a rally was planned for Monday evening at the Muhammad Ali Center, in what organizers said would be a gathering for American values and to voice support for our nation and our city, which was founded and is strengthened by immigrants. In Hattiesburg, Miss., there was call to join a peaceful vigil in solidarity with refugees, immigrants, and Muslims on the University of Southern Mississippi campus on Monday evening. Declaring that Jersey City stands with our Muslim and immigrant community, organizers in that New Jersey city called on people to come to a pedestrian mall on Monday to stand in solidarity and peace as we show our strength in diversity as one of the most diverse cities in the nation. Other demonstrations were planned for later in the week in cities nationwide, including Tuesday in Tuscon, where organizers encouraged people to stand in solidarity with Senator (John) McCains strong public statement opposing the executive order banning refugees and Legal Permanent Residents from Muslim countries! Similar actions were planned on Tuesday at the South Carolina State House in Columbia and at the Worchester City Hall and Common in Massachusetts, while organizers in San Francisco, under the banner #NoBanNoWallSF, urged residents to join the resistance against Donald Trumps racist and exclusionary Executive Orders on Saturday. We will not allow our country to be divided by hate and religious persecution, read a statement from #NoBanNoWallSF posted on Facebook. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Obama carefully weighs in on refugee ban, says he is heartened by public response By Michael A. Memoli (Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images) Former President Obama has offered his first public comment on the conduct of his successor, saying through a spokesman that he is heartened by public demonstrations against the Trump administrations controversial move to temporarily ban refugees and block all admissions from seven countries. President Obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country, Kevin Lewis, a spokesperson for the former president, said in a statement emailed to reporters Monday. In his final official speech as President, he spoke about the important role of citizen and how all Americans have a responsibility to be the guardians of our democracy--not just during an election but every day. Citizens exercising their constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake. Lewis also said in the statement that Obama fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion. Trump aides deny that his executive order, released Friday, involves religious discrimination. The order temporarily blocked travel to the U.S. by residents of seven predominantly Muslim nations, but left many of the Islamic worlds largest population centers unaffected, they note. The order also included an exception for believers of minority religions in those countries, a provision that Trump explicitly said would help Christians. Obamas statement is notable less for its content than for the fact that it was issued at all. It reflected the delicate balance he feels he must strike between showing a degree of deference to the new president and speaking out on issues he sees as critically important. The statement tiptoed around the content of the order, focusing more on the former presidents interest in citizen engagement. Obama said before leaving office that he expected to choose carefully when to comment on the actions of his successor and would focus less on normal functioning of politics and more on certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake, as he put it in his final news conference. Mondays statement did point, though, to comments Obama made at a news conference in November 2015, when he called the idea of a religious test for immigration policy shameful and not American. We dont have religious tests to our compassion, he said at the time. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement GOP-led Congress worries about its role in the Trump era By Lisa Mascaro Its what congressional Republicans had long dreamed about: a majority in both chambers to advance conservative policies and a president from the same party to sign them into law. But the Trump White House isnt turning out exactly the way they envisioned. The GOP establishment is experiencing whiplash after a week of President Trump bulldozing through the norms of policy and protocol dashing off executive orders without warning, escalating a diplomatic crisis with the countrys closest southern neighbor, triggering global confusion with a new refugee policy and generally hijacking party leaders agenda and replacing it with his own. Rather than the hoped-for collaborative new relationship between the White House and Congress, GOP officials complain that Trump is brushing aside their advice, failing to fully engage on drafting tough legislative packages like tax reform and Obamacare, and bypassing Congress by relying on executive actions, something they frequently complained about under President Obama. At the same time, Trumps unilateral moves continue to blindside Republicans and direct the national focus toward topics many in the party would rather avoid, whether thats how to pay for building the border wall with Mexico, warming ties with Russia, investigating false claims about voter fraud or, most recently, implementing sweeping new policies on refugees and visas. In the name of party unity, many Republicans so far have refrained from publicly attacking the new president. But for some, the new refugee policy crossed the line, signaling the first major rift in their already fraught partnership. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Washington state sues Trump over immigration order By Mark Z. Barabak President Trump signed an executive order Friday that suspends all immigration for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Opening a new legal front, lawyers for the state of Washington filed suit Monday seeking to block President Trumps executive order temporarily banning foreign refugees from entering the United States. No one is above the law, not even the president, Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson said in announcing the federal lawsuit. And in the courtroom, it is not the loudest voice that prevails. Its the Constitution. Over the weekend, a federal judge in Brooklyn issued an order curtailing portions of Trumps executive order, issued Friday, which temporary halts migration from seven predominantly Muslim countries for at least 90 days and also closed the nation to refugees for at least the next four months. Other challenges are pending. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle was the first taken by a state attorney general, and its provenance was no surprise. Washington state and others along the West Coast voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Hillary Clinton in November and have emerged as a hotbed of anti-Trump sentiment. We will not yield, said Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who joined Ferguson at a Seattle news conference. We will not be leveraged. We will not be threatened. We will not be intimidated. We will not be bullied by this. Trumps order, which has sparked demonstrations across the country, brought an outpouring of objection from Insleys Democratic colleagues around the country. President Trumps recent executive orders that divide and discriminate do not reflect the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution or the principles we stand for as Oregonians, said Gov. Kate Brown. A single executive order does not define who we are as a country, said Connecticut Gov. Daniel P. Malloy. We are a nation of immigrants and must continue to fight for the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breath free. In Massachusetts, another state that voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker joined the chorus of Democratic criticism, saying the travel ban would undermine the international relations forged by the states business, academic and healthcare communities. The confusion for families is real. The unexpected disruption for law-abiding people is real, Baker said. Thankfully, the federal courts will have an opportunity to straighten this out and it is my hope they do so, and do so quickly. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print How a top conservative radio host took on Trump, lost his audience and faith, but gained a new perspective By Mark Z. Barabak Charlie Sykes, right, interviews Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) before Wisconsins 2016 primary (Morry Gash/Associated Press) For nearly 25 years, Charlie Sykes was one of the most powerful and influential voices in Wisconsin. He cheer-led policies that turned this historically progressive state into a model of conservative governance. He made and destroyed political careers, using his perch on Milwaukee talk radio to help vault figures such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker to national prominence. But for the moment Sykes was speechless. He sank into the brown leather banquette of a suburban steakhouse. He stammered. He sighed. When youve devoted your whole life to certain beliefs and you think now they have been undermined and that you might have been deluded about things, he began. So. So. Um... In 2016 Sykes emerged as one of Donald Trumps most prominent critics, a stance that outraged listeners, strained longstanding friendships and left him questioning much of what he once held true. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Pentagon compiling a list of Iraqis who aided the U.S. military and wants them shielded from Trumps travel ban By W.J. Hennigan The Pentagon is compiling a list of Iraqi citizens who have worked with the U.S. military and is recommending that they be exempt from President Trumps temporary ban on entry to the U.S. by people from Iraq and six other predominantly Muslim countries, according to the U.S. military. The move could potentially shield tens of thousands of Iraqi interpreters, advisors, and others who have assisted the American military from the presidents controversial executive action that blocked visitors from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen. Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Monday that the list will include names of individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to helping the United States. Even people that are doing seemingly benign things in support of us whether as a linguist, a driver, anything else they often do that at great personal risk, he said. So people who take these risks are really making a tangible signal of support to the United States, and thats something that will, and should be, recognized. The list would not require any changes to the presidents order, but rather serve as guidance to the Department of Homeland Security and the White House in implementing the new policy. White House spokesman Sean Spicer later pushed back against blanket exemptions. We recognize that people have served this country, we should make sure that in those cases theyre helped out, he said. But that doesnt mean that we just give them a pass. Trump, who signed the order at the Pentagon on Friday, did not consult Defense Secretary James N. Mattis or Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the temporary suspensions of entry to visitors from the seven nations, according to U.S. officials. The executive action put the U.S. military in a difficult position because it works closely with the Iraqi government on a range of issues, including the fight against Islamic State, which necessitates travel between the two countries. For instance, Iraqi military pilots train to fly F-16 fighter jets at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. Its not clear those pilots, who are active in the fight against Islamic State, could arrive in the U.S. for the training. 1:10 p.m.: This post was updated with White House response. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Trump signs order on rulemaking: For every regulation added, agencies have to cut 2 others By Noah Bierman (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) President Trump signed an executive order Monday designed to fulfill his campaign pledge reduce red tape for businesses. The two-page order requires that when a federal agency proposes new regulations, it shall identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed. We want to make the life easier for small businesses and big business, Trump said Monday from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where he met with nine representatives of the small-business sector. Trump said he hoped to see up to 75% of federal regulations eliminated during his presidency. Regulation has been horrible for big business, but its been worse for small business, Trump said. He also reiterated his promise to gut the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial regulatory overhaul that was passed after the financial crisis. Dodd-Frank is a disaster, he said. Were going to be doing a big number on Dodd-Frank. Consumer advocates who backed the law say that eliminating it would help Wall Street and other players in the financial sector at the expense of consumers. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print U.S. diplomats to protest Trumps travel ban order By Tracy Wilkinson Protesters of President Trumps immigration order block traffic at LAX. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) A number of U.S. diplomats are condemning President Trumps ban on some Muslim immigrants and visitors, saying the abrupt order does not make the U.S. safer and will only stoke anti-American fervor overseas. The complaint, being made through the State Departments so-called dissent channel, echoes criticism coming from human rights attorneys, legal experts and lawmakers from both political parties, as well as world leaders. It is significant because it represents the viewpoint of the men and women who must carry out Trumps unconventional and often provocative foreign policy. A policy which closes our doors to over 200-million legitimate travelers in the hopes of preventing a small number of travelers who intend to harm Americans ... will not achieve its aim of making our country safer, said a draft version of the memo that was circulating Monday and was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. It was first reported by ABC News. Moreover, such a policy runs counter to core American values of non-discrimination, fair play and extending a warm welcome to foreign visitors and immigrants. The White House was quickly dismissive of the dissent and seemed to suggest the diplomats should quit if they disagree with a policy. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said the diplomats raising of opposition does call into question whether or not they should continue to work in the State Department. It was not clear how many officials would sign the memo. Dissent channel memos are in theory not made public. The mechanism is designed to allow diplomats to offer an alternative policy without fear of retaliation. Acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed the existence of the memo but declined to comment on its contents. The dissent channel is a longstanding official vehicle for State Department employees to convey alternative views and perspectives on policy issues, he said. "... It allows State employees to express divergent policy views candidly and privately to senior leadership. The agency is still waiting for a boss. Trumps pick for secretary of State, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this week. The last time a dissent-channel memo was reported publicly was last year, when about 50 diplomats protested Obama administration policy in Syria, which they described as inaction. 12:20 p.m.: This story was updated with White House comment. 8:40 a.m.: This story was updated with comment from a State Department spokesman. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Trump to announce his Supreme Court choice Tuesday -- in prime time By Michael A. Memoli (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump will announce his first Supreme Court nomination in prime time on Tuesday, he tweeted this morning. I have made my decision on who I will nominate for The United States Supreme Court. It will be announced live on Tuesday at 8:00 P.M. (W.H.) Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2017 The announcement was moved up two days amid the continued fallout from the executive action Trump signed temporarily banning refugee admissions from some countries. Trump had tweeted last week that he would announce his high-court decision Thursday. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on Friday, Trump said his administration was doing some final vetting of his choice to replace the late Antonin Scalia, and that the pick would be from among the list of 20 names he issued during the election campaign. I think the person I pick will be big, big, he said. I think people are going to love it. I think evangelicals, Christians will love my pick. And will be represented very fairly. Times Supreme Court reporter David Savage profiled each of the leading contenders: Judge Thomas Hardiman of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The move could prompt a major clash with Senate Democrats, who have warned the president against a choice outside what they consider the mainstream. Some are threatening to block any choice in retaliation for Senate Republicans refusal to even hold hearings on President Obamas choice to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland. Democrats 2013 change to Senate rules that allowed most nominations to advance with a simple majority vote exempted Supreme Court nominations, meaning that Democrats could potentially filibuster the choice. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to rule out any further rule change in an interview last week, though Trump urged him to consider doing so. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print As Hollywood gathered at the SAG Awards, some entertainers joined LAX protest Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Advertisement This New York doctor went to visit family in Sudan, and now hes stuck By Molly Hennessy-Fiske Dr. Kamal Fadlalla (Dr. Kamal Fadlalla / For The Times) Dr. Kamal Fadlalla, a hospital resident who has been working in New York for the last 20 months, was stuck in Sudan on Sunday, having gone there to see his family earlier this month. He had left Jan. 13, was due to return Feb. 4 but tried to return on Friday after hearing about President Trumps executive order on immigration, which suspended entry for people from seven countries, including Sudan. He made it past passport control, all the way to the gate at the airport in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. One hour before departure they called my name, he said, and summoned him to the ticket counter, along with other New York-bound Sudanese passengers. When I got to the counter, they said there was a notice from Customs and Border Protection that ... they had to offload us from the flight. I was shocked. Fadlalla, 33, hoped for a reprieve as other passengers gathered, all stuck. One family, they came back from Dubai, she was a mother of three or four kids. She was waiting overnight at the Dubai airport. There were also two passengers turned back from New York, he said. It was a very tough night on me, He stayed for several hours, then returned to his mothers home in Madani, two hours south. Fadlalla is a second-year resident in internal medicine at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn. He is hoping to specialize in hematology and oncology. The Committee for Interns and Residents found an attorney to represent him, he said, but he had not received any news about how a New York federal judges ruling late Saturday, which halted the deportations of people who had arrived in the U.S. with valid visas, could affect him. I dont know what Im going to do. My vacation is going to end and I have to join the hospital next week. Its going to be tough on me, Fadlalla said. I dont know for how long Im going to stay here. I dont know what Im going to do. My visa is valid for three months. Im really stuck. I have my house there, my utilities, my work, my patients, my colleagues. It was my life for the past 20 months. And Im stuck here. Fadlalla is from northern Sudan, and describes himself as a moderate Muslim. He said the executive order wont make the U.S. safer by barring valid visa holders like him because, Ive been through the whole process of visa interviews. He had planned to take board exams next year, and if he misses them, his schooling will be delayed. He had wanted to stay and work in New York, too. All my life is there. Now Im stuck here. I dont know what to do, he said. Its going to really affect my life, my patients, my colleagues and their work schedule. He said the executive order has shocked others in Sudan, too. Theyre talking about human rights. Everybody knows the United States is about freedom, he said. Everybody knows America is a free country, a country of chances for everybody. Still, people have hope in those protesting at airports all over the United States and attorneys who have volunteered to help immigrants and refugees, he said. He said the order is especially worrying for aspiring Sudanese medical residents who have been preparing to match with a hospital in March to study in the United States. A lot of my colleagues who are preparing for exams are really, really worried about this, Fadlalla said. Im really worried about the future of these young people. They study a lot and spend a lot of money, a lot of effort to enter the United States. Im concerned about my future and my colleagues future. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Californias congressional Republicans hold their fire on Trumps refugee order By Sarah D. Wire Only a few of the states 14 Republican representatives have publicly commented on an executive order signed by President Trump on Friday that barred refugees and green card holders from seven countries from entering the country. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) released a statement Sunday night saying that some tweaks are needed, but that his background as chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee leads him to support the executive order. In light of attempts by jihadist groups to infiltrate fighters into refugee flows to the West, along with Europes tragic experience coping with this problem, the Trump administrations executive order on refugees is a common-sense security measure to prevent terror attacks on the homeland, Nunes said. While accommodations should be made for green card holders and those whove assisted the U.S. armed forces, this is a useful temporary measure on seven nations of concern until we can verify who is entering the United States. Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) told the Washington Post that the executive order is the right call to keep America safe, but he hopes the cases of people traveling on visas who were prevented from reentering the country are resolved quickly. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) said Sunday on Twitter that the rollout has created confusion, and that executive orders arent the way to fix the countrys long-term problems. View Twitter post View Twitter post Several of Californias 38 Democratic congressional representatives and the states two senators were out in force over the weekend demanding the release of refugees and green card holders as well as an end to the executive order. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced she would file two pieces of legislation in response. One would immediately rescind the presidents order. The second would limit executive authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to prevent a president from unilaterally banning groups of immigrants. Its clear that the president gave little consideration to the chaos and heartbreak that would result from this order, she said in a statement. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) joined protesters outside the White House on Sunday afternoon. We will fight against racism. We will fight against anti-Muslim rhetoric. We will fight against those who will marginalize who we are. pic.twitter.com/R54f3MDhvo Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 29, 2017 In Los Angeles, Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) joined protesters at Los Angeles International Airport. On Saturday, Reps. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro) and Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) joined the initial protests at the airport, and worked to get some of those being held released. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) accompanied protesters at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday. Congresswoman @MaxineWaters is here at LAX protest leading the crowd in the chant "no ban, no wall, you build it up we'll tear it down" pic.twitter.com/iNEmkVVkmW Javier Panzar (@jpanzar) January 29, 2017 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Legal moves come too late for Iranian man who arrived at LAX after Trumps order By Matt Hamilton Ali Vayeghan arrived at 7:15 p.m. Friday from Tehran. He was going to stay with relatives, then go to Indiana, to join his wife, who arrived in the U.S. four months ahead of him, and his son. But he never emerged from customs. His niece said he was put on a plane to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at 3:15 p.m. Saturday. The ACLU was trying to prevent his deportation but arrived with paperwork 45 minutes too late. The family spoke to him by phone after he landed in Dubai, where he was waiting to be put on a flight to Tehran. Hes literally crying in the airport in Dubai, Ali Vayeghans niece, Marjan Vayghan, said. On Sunday afternoon, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered authorities to transport Vayeghan back to the U.S. and admit him under the terms of his visa, which is set to expire Feb. 14. U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said in her order that Vayeghan had demonstrated a strong likelihood of success in establishing that removal violates the Establishment Clause, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and his rights to Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution. But by the time the order came down, Vayeghan was on a plane bound for Tehran. Federal judge in LA has issued order allowing Iranian man deported from LAX yesterday to be admitted to US pic.twitter.com/yPth0xEQpv Matt Hamilton (@MattHjourno) January 29, 2017 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print The political climate is a hot topic at the Screen Actors Guild awards The Actor statue watches over the red carpet at the Shrine Auditorium. (Matt Sayles / Invision / Associated Press) Stars on the red carpet and at the winners podium tonight in Los Angeles are not keeping their mouths shut on current affairs. The 23rd Screen Actors Guild awards are being held at the Shrine Auditorium. Heres what they have had to say so far: I want you all to know that I am the daughter of an immigrant. My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France, and Im an American patriot, and I love this country, and because I love this country, I am horrified by its blemishes and this immigrant ban is a blemish and it is un-American. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, accepting her award for her role in Veep We need to vote. Had we all voted, we wouldnt be here. You dont like it, you dont have nothing to say if you didnt vote. Get a clipboard, get organized and get in it. Dont sit back on the sidelines. Get in it. This is a fight for the country right now. Its worth fighting for. Courtney B. Vance, nominated for his performance in The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story For the first time ever in my lifetime, Ive been concerned about where its going to go. It doesnt seem to be that its going to go in a very positive direction. Claire Foy, nominated for her role as Queen Elizabeth in the Netflix series The Crown Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Green card holders will not be blocked by Trumps order, Homeland Security says By David Lauter (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) The Trump administration backed away from one of the most controversial parts of its new executive order on immigration Sunday evening, saying that permanent U.S. residents in most cases will not be affected by the new rules. Since the president issued the order Friday, confusion has been rampant over the effects on permanent residents, noncitizens who hold so-called green cards that allow them to live and work legally in the U.S. Many were stopped and detained at airports for many hours on Friday and Saturday and, in some cases, reported that they had been threatened with being returned to their home countries. An undetermined number of other green card holders were stopped from boarding U.S.-bound planes. Late Sunday, however, the secretary of Homeland Security, retired Gen. John Kelly, issued a statement changing the policy. Statement By Secretary John Kelly On The Entry Of Lawful Permanent Residents Into The United States https://t.co/Es1qivoR3J pic.twitter.com/hffMK2MOQC Homeland Security (@DHSgov) January 29, 2017 I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest, Kelly wrote. Green card holders from one of the seven countries covered by the 90-day ban will still need to request a waiver to gain reentry to the U.S. if they have traveled abroad. But unless officials have significant derogatory information about a green card holder that indicates a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in deciding the case, Kellys statement said. A White House official, briefing reporters about the change in policy, said that about 170 people have applied for a waiver to the ban so far, and all 170 have received a waiver and have been allowed to enter the U.S. The seven countries affected by the ban are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Uber fights immigration order -- and #DeleteUber hashtag -- with $3-million legal fund for drivers By Tracey Lien Hours after Lyfts co-founders announced a $1-million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union to defend the Constitution, Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick pulled out his pocket book as well. Kalanick promised in a Facebook post that the company would create a $3-million legal defense fund to help drivers affected by the Trump administrations move to restrict immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. The fund will help drivers with immigration and translation services. Kalanick also said the San Francisco ride-hailing company will provide 24/7 legal support to drivers stuck outside the country and compensate them for lost earnings. Drivers eligible for assistance were directed to contact the company via an online form. Although the announcement was greeted with some support on Facebook and Twitter, many saw it as too little too late. The company had come under fire a day earlier for advertising on Twitter that it was operating at New Yorks Kennedy International Airport during a taxi strike protesting the executive order. That gaffe, coupled with Kalanicks involvement in a panel advising President Trump on economic issues, helped spawn the Twitter hashtag #DeleteUber, which encouraged customers to delete the app from their phones in protest. You are 20 hours too late, one person wrote in response to Kalanicks Facebook post. Still deleted my account today, wrote another. Though Kalanick issued a statement on Saturday opposing the executive order, it didnt stop thousands of Twitter users from adopting the trending the #DeleteUber hashtag to decry Ubers actions. They accused the company of attempting to profit from the strike and prioritizing business interests over a moral imperative. Celebrities also jumped on the bandwagon, with actor and activist George Takei on Sunday tweeting to his 2.9 million followers: Lyft donates $1mil to ACLU while Uber doubles down on its support for Trump. #DeleteUber. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 75-year-old grandmother from Iran tells the story of her detention at LAX By Alene Tchekmedyian Siavosh Naji-Talakar of Phoenix hugs his grandmother Marzieh Moosavizadeh after she was released from detention at LAX early Sunday morning. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Marzieh Moosavizadeh and her grandson follow a routine when she visits almost every year from Iran. The 75-year-old, who travels in a wheelchair and speaks little English, struggles to find direct flights to Phoenix, where he and his family live. So they meet in Los Angeles and he escorts her on the last leg of her trip. This time was different. Moosavizadeh landed at Los Angeles International Airport a day after President Trump signed an executive order banning citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, from entering the United States. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement GOP senators call executive order a self-inflicted wound. Trump calls them wrong and weak By Matt Ballinger McCain and Graham in 2013. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona released a statement Sunday saying that confusion at U.S. airports shows that President Trumps executive order on immigration was not properly vetted. Such a hasty process risks harmful results, the Republicans statement read. We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. We should not stop those who have served as interpreters for our military and diplomats from seeking refuge in the country they risked their lives to help. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation. It went on: Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. The president responded on Twitter: The joint statement of former presidential candidates John McCain & Lindsey Graham is wrong - they are sadly weak on immigration. The two... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017 ...Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print At least 600 people wait to greet Syrians arriving in Phoenix By Nigel Duara Elijah Chavez and Brandi Hernandez protest in Phoenix (Nigel Duara/Los Angeles Times) A Phoenix-bound British Airways flight was scheduled to arrive from London at Sunday evening carrying several Syrians. A protest of about 600 people was waiting at a Phoenix international airport terminal for the flight to arrive. The outcome when these people arrive is uncertain at best, said Tanveer Shah, an Arizona attorney in private practice who volunteers with the ACLU. Shah said Syrians on board the flight would, in the best case, walk off the plane without a problem. But given the outcomes in other cities on Saturday and Sunday, Shah said it was incumbent on civil liberties attorneys to be there when the plane arrives. We have staff attorneys here ... who are prepared to file emergency pleadings, Shah said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print When Muslims got blocked at American airports, U.S. veterans rushed to help By Matt Pearce (G. Morty Ortega / Getty Images) Jeffrey Buchalter was reflooring his foyer in Chesapeake Beach, Md., and listening to MSNBC over the weekend when he heard the news: An Iraqi who had worked with American forces as an interpreter had been stopped from entering the U.S. under a new executive order on immigration from President Trump. The story stopped him cold. Buchalter, an Army veteran who works as a law-enforcement instructor at the Department of Homeland Security, had served multiple tours of duty as a military policeman in Iraq, service that cost him dearly. He was decorated for injuries sustained from gunfire and improvised explosive devices. Exams revealed hed suffered herniated discs, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, and he spent 2 years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center trying to get right. But he was still alive, and now the married father of two children. And he believes thats thanks in part to the work of Iraqi interpreters who acted as guides during his work in their country. So he told his younger daughter and son they were going to take a trip: a two-hour drive to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., where, for the first time in his life, Buchalter would join a protest. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Demonstrators against Trumps immigration limits and a few who like them surge through LAX By Javier Panzar The crowd at LAX is getting bigger and bigger. pic.twitter.com/dJ281TETXj Javier Panzar (@jpanzar) January 29, 2017 Thousands of people filled the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday afternoon to call for the release of an unknown number of people being detained by immigration authorities. Filling the arrivals section of the terminal and spilling into the street outside, the throng chanted, Let them in, and Love, not hate, makes America great. Jacob Kemper, a 35-year-old Army veteran who fought two tours in Iraq, said he was infuriated to think soldiers he fought alongside might be denied entry to the country. I really dont care about religion, but I really hate oppression, he said, holding a sign that read, I Fought Next To Muslims. Shay Soltani, a network engineer, fled the Iranian revolution 40 years ago and still has family members in Iran. She doesnt know if she will be able to see them again. As she and hundreds of others marched through the airport, she said she was horrified by Trumps order. I am so hurt by this, she said. He is against freedom of speech and the constitution and everything I believe in as an American. Meanwhile, about a dozen counter-protesters popped up on the other side of the street, holding signs that said X-treme vetting and Keep Refugees Out. They said they were tired of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally, which they said jeopardizes the safety of American citizens. Chanell Temple, 63, of Los Angeles said she was sick of watching immigrants here illegally steal benefits and services from American citizens, specifically veterans and homeless people who need aid. I worked out here for 40 years and they are coming here and taking everything away, said Temple, a former bookkeeper who said she lost her job and healthcare after she was fired for an inability to speak Spanish. Raul Rodriguez Jr., coordinator of a group called America First Latinos, said he was concerned about what he considers a surge in crimes committed against Americans by those who are in the country illegally. They are lawbreakers. They have violated federal law and they need to be deported, he said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Silicon Valley execs speak out against immigration ban By Tracey Lien Technology executives are speaking out against President Trumps executive order on immigration, highlighting how the ban hurts their businesses. Leaders of companies that include Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Dropbox and Twitter denounced it over the weekend. Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do, said Apple chief executive Tim Cook in a memo to employees. In my conversations with officials here in Washington this week, Ive made it clear that Apple believes deeply in the importance of immigration both to our company and to our nations future. General Electric Co. chief executive Jeff Immelt said Sunday that businesses with global operations must balance working with the new administration while also supporting their workers and partners. We have many employees from the named countries and we do business all over the region, Immelt said in a statement. These employees and customers are critical to our success and they are our friends and partners. We stand with them and will work with the U.S. administration to strive to find the balance between the need for security and the movement of law abiding people. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print LAX protest grows as families wait Meg Heatherly, 27, of Los Angeles holds a Shame sign during a protest at the Tom Bradley International Terminal. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement L.A. city attorney barred from seeing detainees at LAX By James Queally Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer said he was repeatedly denied access to federal detainees or an attorney who could discuss the situation with him at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Federal officials have declined to discuss the LAX detentions or respond to Feuers criticisms. While he was at the airport, Feuer said he was approached by a woman who claimed her father, suffering from Parkinsons disease, was among the detainees. It is those kind of real stories that are at stake because of this outrageous action by the feds. It is time not only for officials in my position, but all Americans, should find this a breathtaking violation of rights. Mike Feuer Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democratic attorneys general from 15 states condemn Trump immigration order By Ann M. Simmons California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) More than a dozen Democratic attorneys general from states across the country have condemned the Trump administrations executive order suspending acceptance of refugees and have vowed to oppose it to ensure that as few people as possible suffer from the chaotic situation that it has created. In a communique Sunday, the group said: As the chief legal officers for over 130 million Americans and foreign residents of our states, we condemn President Trumps unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful Executive Order and will work together to ensure the federal government obeys the Constitution, respects our history as a nation of immigrants, and does not unlawfully target anyone because of their national origin or faith. The executive order places an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria and prohibits citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering as refugees for four months. It also places a suspension on admissions of other citizens of those countries. The legal officials represent 15 states. They include California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and his contemporaries in Washington, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia. Religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country, and no president can change that truth, the attorneys general said in the statement. They praised the decision of multiple federal courts to order a stay on some aspects of the order. We are confident that the Executive Order will ultimately be struck down by the courts, the statement said. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 13 people who had been detained at LAX have been released, source says By James Queally Protesters at LAX on Sunday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Thirteen people who were detained Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airports Terminal 2 were eventually released, a law enforcement source told The Times. Each of them held green cards, which grant permanent residency in the U.S. The source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation at the airport, could not provide detention figures for the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which has been the center of protest activity. Thats where protesters were gathering Sunday. Nurse Jamie Shoemaker, 51, of Los Angeles held an American flag in one hand and carried a sign that read, Muslims are welcome here, racists and fascists are not. She called Trumps order un-American. This is not the country I want, she said. This is not the country I grew up in. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrats in Congress drafting legislation to repeal Trumps refugee ban, pressuring GOP for support By Lisa Mascaro Sen. Chuck Schumer becomes emotional speaking against Pres. Trump's immigration order, calling it "mean-spirited and un-American." pic.twitter.com/NkhUdpaNyV ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 29, 2017 Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Democrats will introduce legislation as soon as Monday to stop President Trumps actions temporarily banning refugees and arrivals from certain Muslim countries. House Democrats are taking similar legislative action, and lawmakers from both chambers will rally Monday evening at the Supreme Court to protest Trumps orders. This executive order was mean-spirited and un-American, said Schumer, the New York Democrat, choking up as he stood with immigrants and refugees at a press conference Sunday. It must be reversed immediately. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said House Democrats are exploring legal options, including an amicus brief in support of the ACLU lawsuit against the actions. The chances of passing a bill through the Republican-controlled Congress are slim, as most GOP leaders and lawmakers have not objected to Trumps ban. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Sunday that while he was personally opposed to a religious test on admissions, it was best left to the courts to resolve the issue. Its hopefully going to be decided in the courts as to whether or not this has gone too far, McConnell said on ABCs This Week. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) expressed his support Friday for Trumps action. A handful of Republicans, though, are uneasy with Trumps orders, and have spoken against them. Schumer noted that just few more Republicans would be needed to reach the 60-vote threshold for advancing Senate legislation. Maybe we can pass something in Congress, Schumer said. Its up to Republicans. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Emotional reunion at JFK airport after release of elderly Sudanese man from immigration detention By Barbara Demick Tears and hugs at JFK's international arrivals as a detainee is released, reuniting father with son. More families wait, cheering. pic.twitter.com/WrVpoocWjY Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) January 29, 2017 For those immigrants temporarily detained under a new Trump administration executive order at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport, attorneys have put a priority on getting some of the older detainees released to their families. One small victory for the lawyers was the case of Yassin Abdelrhman, a 76-year-old green card holder from Sudan who had been detained after a trip home to visit family. He was released about noon on Sunday after being detained for 30 hours. Soon, he was reunited with his sons. He is a strong individual, but he has some health challenges, said U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who had been working on their case. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Iranian director Asghar Farhadi will not attend Oscars Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi after winning an Oscar in 2012. ((Allen J. Schaben/ Los Angeles Times) ) In a statement to the New York Times today, Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi said he no longer planned to attend this years ceremony. Farhadis film The Salesman is nominated in the foreign language film category. Farhadi had initially hoped to attend despite the prohibition on visitors from Iran. But he said he had decided the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print How an Iranian Fulbright scholar got into the U.S.: We found a lawyer who found a lawyer who found a lawyer By Barbara Demick Iranian students in front of a makeshift law office in JFKs Terminal 4. (Barbara Demick / Los Angeles Times) Perhaps nothing encapsulates the chaos emanating from President Trumps executive order better than what happened with Ukrainian Airlines Flight 232. The regularly scheduled flight to Kiev had to turn around on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy Airport early Sunday after a federal judge issued a stay of a deportation order of dozens of foreigners, including a 32-year-old Iranian linguist who is a doctoral candidate and former Fulbright scholar. With just minutes to spare, Vahideh Rasekhi -- helped by volunteer lawyers and her smart phone managed to prevent the flight from taking off. She had arrived Saturday afternoon, but was blocked from entering the United States by the executive order barring arrivals of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia and Libya. Around midnight, she was put on the Ukrainian Air flight to return to Tehran, via Kiev. We found a lawyer who found a lawyer who found a lawyer, said Mehdi Namazi, 29, a friend who has been waiting for her at the airport. The lawyers were showing officials a copy of the order issued a few hours earlier by U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn. It was all very confusing. They were arguing as the plane was taxiing, Namazi said. According to one lawyer, Melissa Trent, Rasekhi herself was walking up and down the aisles arguing for the plane not to take off. She knew that if the plane left she would never get back to the United States again, Trent said. Rasekhi spent most of Sunday in detention with other Iranians, but was released into the United States at around 3 p.m.. A dozen Iranian friends had been waiting inside the airports Terminal 4 amid a clutter of discarded coffee cups and half-eaten donuts in front of a diner that had been turned into a makeshift law office. Another Iranian student was waiting for her parents, who were taken into detention after arriving on another flight I havent seen them in 3-1/2 years. They dont speak English. But Im hopeful, said the student, who gave her name as Sahar. The students were both furious at the way their country had been targeted by Trumps order and touched by the outpouring of support from the volunteer lawyers. We see two different Americas here. There is this order banning us, and than there are all these people here who came to the airport. If it werent for these volunteers, she would have been deported, said Namazi. Im very depressed. We feel betrayed by this country that we invested so much energy and hope into. We are all graduate students, professors, PhDs, engineers. To say this is for national security, it doesnt add up, said Tahmineh Tabrizian, 33, another friend of Rasekhis. She said her own parents had planned to come to the United States and had spent $14,000 on tickets and visas and would now have to cancel their trip. Rasekhi, who has lived in the United States for a decade, was a Fulbright scholar at UC Santa Barbara and received a masters degree at Fresno State University, according to a resume supplied by one of her friends. She had been studying for a PhD at Stony Brook University on Long Island. She had gone to Tehran over the Christmas break to visit her parents and was on her way back to resume her studies when she was detained. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Protests begin again at LAX on Sunday morning By Genaro Molina Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Protesters in Tel Aviv compare Trump immigration order to Israeli refugee policies By Joshua Mitnick Demonstrators in Tel Aviv protest U.S. President Trumps new immigration order. (Joshua Mitnick / Los Angeles Times) Holding signs reading Refugees Welcome and chanting No Ban, No Wall, Sanctuary for All, several dozen demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday to join protests in the U.S. against President Trumps new immigration policy. Mia Zur Szpiro, a 36-year-old filmmaker, said she felt compelled to demonstrate because her parents survived the Holocaust. We are a country of immigrants, and to me it was astounding that this [order] was passed on Holocaust Memorial Day, she said. Its wrong to stereotype, and its wrong to send people who are in need back into the face of danger and the risk of death. Elliot Vaisbrub Glassenberg, a protest organizer and migrant rights activist, compared the new U.S. policy to Israeli policies toward tens of thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants who crossed into the country illegally from Egypts Sinai desert. The policies that Trump has enacted are no worse than the policies that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has enacted for years here such as not allowing any non-Jews to be given refugee status in Israel, except for a select few. Togod Omar, a native of Sudan who was at the protest, said he applied for political asylum in Israel three years ago, and is still waiting. He said Sudanese friends hoping to be resettled in the U.S. were upset by the new executive order. Trump doesnt understand whats going on in Sudan, Omar said. You cant punish the Sudanese people for what the Islamic government is doing. You cant banish someone because of their religion. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print President Trump hits majority disapproval in record time, Gallup finds By David Lauter Days until achieving MAJORITY disapproval from @Gallup Reagan: 727 Bush I: 1336 Clinton: 573 Bush II: 1205 Obama: 936 Trump: 8. days. pic.twitter.com/kv2fy0Qsbp Will Jordan (@williamjordann) January 29, 2017 President Trumps actions during his first week in office have appeared to be aimed at the voters who already supported him, not at reaching out to the rest, and thats taken a rapid toll on his support, which was already historically low. Gallup, which has measured job approval for presidents for decades, shows Trumps approval so far at 45%, with 48% disapproving. Thats an average of several days polling. The daily trend lines are not kind to the new administration. As of Saturday, 51% of Americans disapproved of Trumps performance. Thats a record for the speed of getting to majority disapproval. By comparison, President George W. Bush hit majority disapproval six months into his second term, in June 2005, and remained in negative territory for the rest of his tenure. President Obama did not hit 51% disapproval until August of 2011, during the crisis over the federal debt ceiling that summer. His approval rebounded later that year, but he had a second period of majority disapproval during late 2013 and much of 2014. He ended his term with widespread approval and 37% of Americans disapproving. Trump Job Approval: Approve 45% (-1); Disapprove 48% (+3). Get the full trend https://t.co/BjTUhf0NAM. GallupNews (@GallupNews) January 27, 2017 Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Hundreds of travelers were caught in limbo over rushed visa ban By Brian Bennett (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Hundreds of travelers were blocked from entering the U.S. or prevented from boarding flights in the hours after President Trump signed his order banning arrivals from seven predominantly Muslim countries, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In the order, Trump temporarily suspended refugee admissions and banned travelers from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Scores of people from those countries were aboard airplanes flying toward the U.S. when Trump signed his executive order on Friday afternoon, setting off waves of confusion among border officials and the traveling public. Upon landing at U.S. airports, 109 people from the listed countries were detained by immigration officials and prevented from entering the U.S., officials said. The department had approved 81 waivers to the new travel ban by Saturday afternoon, the official said, but at least some of the people detained on arrival were sent back to their countries of origin. Court orders issued Saturday evening required U.S. border officials to stop returning people who had already arrived with valid visas. It is unclear how many people were deported before the orders were issued. It is also unclear if the Trump administration has fully complied with those orders. In addition to the people who arrived in the U.S. and were detained, as of 3 p.m. on Saturday, an additional 173 travelers from the listed countries had been stopped from boarding flights to the U.S., a Homeland Security official said in a statement. The department did not make an official available to describe the actions and the agencys response. As many as 3,250 travelers may have been inconvenienced by the new visa restrictions, officials for the department said in a statement Sunday. Yesterday, less than 1% of the more than 325,000 international air travelers who arrive every day were inconvenienced while enhanced security measures were implemented, the statement read. The department will comply with court orders, the statement said. But no evidence was given to confirm this. Lawyers seeking to meet with detainees at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington and at San Francisco have said that they were blocked by officials on Sunday. The Department of Homeland Security will comply with judicial orders, faithfully enforce our immigration laws, and implement President Trumps executive orders to ensure that those entering the United States do not pose a threat to our country or the American people, according to the departments statement. All of the visa holders and travelers from the listed countries blocked from entering the U.S. since Friday already had gone through multiple steps of security screening that checked their biographical information and travel history against U.S. terrorism databases. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print White House seems to back down on part of new vetting policy By Christi Parsons The White House on Sunday appeared to back down on a key part of President Trumps tough new immigration order, signaling that travelers trying to enter the country from seven banned countries will be allowed in if they hold green cards. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said that these legal permanent residents are exempt from the travel ban moving forward, even though over the weekend other administration officials said the rule did apply to them. The apparent reversal came amid a national controversy over the new Trump order that temporarily halts the entry of all refugees to the U.S. and any traveler from seven majority Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Federal judges across the country have blocked parts of the presidents executive actions since they came down on Friday, mostly preventing the deportation of some travelers who ran into the first wave of implementation over the weekend. The back-and-forth over the green-card holders reflected a generalized confusion about the new order, which also bars Syrian refugees from entering the United States indefinitely. Lawyers for some of the affected immigrants said border agents seemed uncertain about the new rules and were disagreeing with one another about which travelers were affected and which were not. Further complicating the picture was a statement from the Department of Homeland Security asserting that its agents would enforce all of Trumps orders while also complying with judicial orders. As some of the orders block deportation, that left individual officers to try to figure out which priorities to honor. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Op-Ed: Trumps cruel, illegal refugee executive order By Erwin Chemerinsky Protesters demonstrate at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Saturday. (Stephanie Keith / Getty Images) Barring individuals fleeing persecution from entering the United States is simply inhumane. Adding irony to injury, Trumps executive order was issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which should have been an occasion to atone for turning away refugees during the 1930ssome of whom then died in concentration camps. For example, in 1939, the United States turned away the St. Louis, a boat filled with refugees, many of them German Jews. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 254 passengers from the St. Louis died in the Holocaust. Erwin Chemerinsky Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Lyft pledges to donate $1 million to ACLU following Trumps immigration order By Tracey Lien (Richard Vogel / Associated Press) Tech executives had been mostly quiet for the first week of Donald Trumps presidency but that changed after his controversial executive order restricting refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Executive after executive spent Saturday tweeting and posting messages to Facebook decrying the administrations actions. Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green went a step further: On Sunday, they announced they would donate $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union over the next four years. Banning people of a particular faith or creed, race or identity, sexuality or ethnicity, from entering the U.S. is antithetical to both Lyft and our nations core values, the co-founders wrote in an email to Lyft customers. We stand firmly against the actions, and will no Good morning. Its Monday, Jan. 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and heres whats going on across California: TOP STORIES Border tunnels At least six previously discovered border tunnels have been reactivated by Mexican drug trafficking groups in recent years, exposing a recurring large-scale smuggling threat, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials. The breaches of border defenses, most recently in December, occur because Mexican authorities, unlike those on the American side, do not fill the tunnels with concrete once they have been discovered. Mexican authorities say they lack the funds. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Mall curfews For generations, shopping malls have served as second homes for teenagers, and merchants were happy to have them. But at some shopping centers, the teens have worn out their welcome. After a series of high-profile incidents in recent years, more than 100 shopping centers have instituted curfews or bans on unaccompanied minors, according to a trade group. The restrictions often are on Friday and Saturday nights. Los Angeles Times Campus debate Inside the new free speech debate at the University of California. Oh sure, Milo Yiannopoulos was silenced at UC Davis. All the way to the bank, writes Robin Abcarian. Los Angeles Times Plus: The UC system had better get used to more of Yiannopoulos and his likes in the Donald Trump era. Los Angeles Times REMEMBERING KEVIN STARR The chronicler: For half a century, Kevin Starr chronicled the greed, cruelty, enlightenment, innovation, vanity and sacrifice that took California from a place of Native American hamlets through Spanish colonization, entry into the United States and growth into a diverse powerhouse of technology, culture and trade. His lifes work made him the states foremost historian and one of its most revered public intellectuals. He died this week, but he left a road map of California like no other. Los Angeles Times Verbatim: Starr was particularly adept at seeing where California was going -- politically, economically, culturally -- before most others. Heres a look at his view of the Golden State over the decades in his own words. Los Angeles Times An appreciation: Starr did much to redefine how we think about our history as Californians, filling essential gaps between the easy mythology. Los Angeles Times L.A. STORIES The new city order: Los Angeles is rediscovering its sense of civic ambition even as Trump seems ready to turn the country inward and exploit, if not provoke, tensions with foreign powers. L.A. is a city on the verge in a nation that may begin to feel consistently on the brink. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne on this moment in the city. Los Angeles Times What a relief: Our long (well, several-day) regional nightmare is over. Parts of Laurel Canyon Boulevard have reopened after a landslide high above in the Hollywood Hills. Los Angeles Times Lasting effects: For Japanese Americans interned during World War II, the damage lingers on for decades. Daily News POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Been there, done that? Before Trump, there was Arnold Schwarzenegger. How the California governor might offer clues to the future. Los Angeles Times Whats at stake: Running down the many issues -- from climate change and healthcare to immigration and police -- at stake as California and Trump begin their shotgun marriage. Mercury News To attend or not to attend? Some California politicians are going to the Trump inauguration, but a growing number will not. Los Angeles Times New math: If this sentence leaves you confused, youre not alone: Education spending rises under Gov. Jerry Browns proposed state budget, but some California schools are bracing for cuts. Los Angeles Times CRIME AND COURTS Hate investigation: Parents of a Laguna Beach High School student said their son was the target of a hate crime two days after Christmas when a watermelon was tossed toward the familys home and splattered on the concrete driveway. Los Angeles Times PCH and Diamond: Officials in Redondo Beach need to figure how to fix an intersection that resulted in a $27.5-million verdict over a car accident that badly hurt a UCLA athlete. Daily Breeze Trying to rebuild trust: The man tasked with fixing the Sacramento Police Departments image. Sacramento Bee CLIMATE AND DROUGHT Whitewater: The extraordinary story of how one California river went from drought to deluge. Los Angeles Times No rainy tea parties: When rains hit, crowds dont stay away from Disneyland. So what rides are forced to shut down when the atmospheric river arrives? Orange County Register CALIFORNIA CULTURE Canyon country: Amid the crush of suburban subdivisions that line Orange County, several canyon communities have managed to maintain a rural existence. But that is now threatened, and canyon residents are fighting back. This place is a step back in time. Orange County Register Back in business: Four months after a launch pad explosion, SpaceX returned to flight Saturday morning, delivering 10 satellites into orbit and landing its first-stage booster on a floating drone ship. Los Angeles Times Fashion statement: How an L.A. womans fancy hat became a symbol for the womens protest against Trump. Los Angeles Times CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles area: Sunny with highs in the upper 60s. San Diego: Partly sunny with highs in the lower 60s. San Francisco area: Partly cloudy with highs in the mid-50s. Sacramento: Foggy in the morning, partly cloudy in the afternoon, with highs in the low 50s. More weather is here. AND FINALLY This weeks birthdays for those who have called California home: Betty White (Jan. 17, 1922) and Buzz Aldrin (Jan. 20, 1930). If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Shelby Grad. Editors note: This 2009 interview with Kevin Starr was published in The Times Opinion section. Starr died Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017, at 76. I made the acquaintance of Kevin Starrs books long before I made the acquaintance of Kevin Starr. Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963, the eighth volume in his serial love letter to California, is arriving in bookstores this weekend. I have them all. When you fall in love, you try to find out all you can about the object of your affection. Once I fell for California, Starrs history books, with their cinematic and journalistic sweep, ensnared me in a way that no monograph, no memoir could do. Clear-eyed but ultimately hopeful, theyve sold well, but, as he says, People arent going to the beach with an Oxford University Press book. Advertisement Starr and I have shared a table at a book group for about 10 years. I know that hes been the states librarian, where he also coordinated the search for a design for this states official two-bit coin. I know hes been a history professor for years, currently at USC. I know hes got a memory like some California-specific Google software. But not until I interviewed him did I know he lived, for a time, on welfare with his mother and brother in San Franciscos Potrero Hill housing projects -- the same place O.J. Simpson grew up. I didnt know hes trying his hand at a screen treatment. And though I know he plays pool, I didnt know he learned how in a Ukiah orphanage. You grew up in an orphanage? My mother had a nervous breakdown, and my parents separated. Roman Catholic Social Services put us [Starr and his brother] in an orphanage for five years. I loved the place. It was a tremendous education, great nurturing. There was a great pool table, a great library, a camp up in the mountains. My experience was very different from some of these horror stories you hear. Whats your personal history with history? My great-grandfather came to San Francisco in the early 1850s. My other great-grandfather came in the early 1870s. My grandmother would tell me about going to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. She had a banana plant she bought there -- 30 years later, it [was] still growing. She told me about the [1906] fire and earthquake. So from her I absorbed this tremendous sense of the San Francisco story. Youve said that in some ways you didnt discover California until you got to graduate school at Harvard. This Yankee institution had a tremendous sense of the history of the West. I started to browse on the fourth floor of the Widener Library in the California section, and suddenly it dawned on me. I thought, Theres all kinds of wonderful books on California, but they dont seem to have the point of view were encouraged to look at the social drama of the imagination. So I started the first volume, writing it for my thesis. So it was California, the untold dream? Ive always tried to write California history as American history. The paradox is that New England history is by definition national history, Mid-Atlantic history is national history. Were still suffering from that. Did you have a hard time initially getting others to take California seriously? Oh, absolutely. I think we still have that. As a San Franciscan, did it kill you to have to say nice things about L.A.? I came down here on vacation in the late 50s, early 60s, and I fell in love with Southern California. I think that divide has been out of date since the 1960s. A tremendous anxiety overcame San Francisco in the early 1920s when Los Angeles became the most populous city in the state. Cities tend to get twinned: Boston and New York, Kyoto and Tokyo. One is more open, assimilative, growing, exuberant; the other becomes more self-reflective. By 1855 (eight years after the city became Americanized), San Francisco is publishing The Annals of San Francisco, an 800-page book. Sheila, your wife to whom you dedicate this book with we met in this time and began our life together has said you tell history like youre holding forth at the bar at the Bohemian Club. I like narrative, and I ultimately am in love with the men and women I write about, most of them. My editor eliminated 350 to 400 pages. But she also suggested that narrative history takes room. How do you keep all your research organized? They talk about San Francisco sourdough bread, that the yeast in the bread is alive since 1849. I started a bibliography of California that I have kept alive for over 45 years, every time I come across a reference. Ill read something by you, and thats a reference. It seems like you keep most of it in your head too. The Irish didnt read and write for a couple of thousand years, and I think we developed good memories and recall. We have a sense of the revelatory detail. I look for them. Its a funny thing when I go blah, blah, blah argumentatively, thats when my editor cuts me the most. One reviewer said, Oh, hes got great description, great narrative, but he doesnt give us the great explanation. I try to let the reader get his own explanation. That becomes part of the discourse the book engenders. But if you tie yourself up with a big explanation, its dated in six months. Is there a part of this book you especially liked doing? For the chapter on my own generation, I went through hundreds and hundreds of yearbooks, from the late 40s until 63, 64. Its not scientific research; its very impressionistic. I always thought the women of my age group got short shrift because the womens liberation movement came slightly after. You look at the yearbooks and you see the future homemakers of America hurray for that but you also see them in the engineers club. You see minority kids as student body presidents at a time when everyone was supposed to be terminally racist. Yearbooks are genres; theyre also folk art, folk documentation. If we had our own currency in California, whose faces should be on it? Josiah Royce, the great Grass Valley-born philosopher who first formulated what California would be about. Isadora Duncan her grandparents came here in a covered wagon. The young Native American woman stranded on San Nicolas Island, the Island of the Blue Dolphins story. Gov. [Jose] Figueroa, who died trying to redistribute land to the Native Americans. Theres all kinds of wonderful people. If we had living people, Id put Joan Didion there. And John Muir? John Muirs on our California quarter. [Gov. Schwarzenegger] chose the John Muir/Half Dome [design] and put the condor in. Then Maria Shriver said, Youve got to put some redwoods off to the side. They liked that back at the mint. It balanced the coin. The mints very strict. If youre going to make a couple of million quarters, theyve got to be able to stack! A Times reviewer once wrote that there are few victims in your histories. Are there victims in California history? You mean permanent victims? There are people who were victim-ized, but they didnt stay permanent victims. Native Americans were enslaved; they were hunted down like vermin. Thats pretty intense victimization. Ishi does not become a victim. He was victim-ized, but he becomes triumphant. If by victim you mean someone whos permanently deformed, forever having their humanity marred I dont believe it. In fact, I believe thats a form of dangerous stereotyping, to ascribe permanent victimhood to any group. Groups have suffered powerful injustice, and yet when you say that, you also have to say that they triumphed, that they prevailed. I dont reverberate to victimhood, probably because of my own life. I refused to become a victim myself, so its not one of my big stories. So in a way, your books have a personal resonance. There you have it. This is a projection of interior landscape as much as if I wrote a novel. From a historians viewpoint, is California manageable now? In our public life, were on the verge of being a failed state, and no state has failed in the history of this country. In Sacramento, this dysfunction, this end of politics the people in my book, the good old boys and girls, they may have stayed up late at the Hotel Senator and drunk Makers Mark, and some of them may have consorted with loose women occasionally, but when it came down to it, they understood the art of the deal, they understood politics as the art of the possible. I am just appalled by [whats going on now]. I think were playing a game of brinkmanship thats very dangerous. Why is it 50 or 60 years ago we had the capacity to lay down the physical, psychological, cultural, public infrastructure of a global mega-state, and today we are on the verge of being Honduras? You still dress like Harvard, not Hermosa Beach. When I was a boy, I delivered newspapers to Brooks Brothers. I looked in the windows and saw those things. At Harvard, when my professors came to class, it was showtime. So possibly that was it. Could you ever live anywhere else? In terms of everyday real life, I prefer being here. I belong to the Harvard Club of New York and always love to go there and have a Manhattan in Manhattan. We need a drink named after California. Some people say the Martini was invented in Martinez. I think thats a stretch. What are the canards about California that you hate most? That everybodys just sitting around being sloppy and a slacker. Seventy percent of the population is between San Diego and Marin County, and 70 miles from the coast. Thats an extraordinarily prized and privileged Riviera of universities, homes, etc. Its got its problems, and its not perfect; theres lots of poverty too. Its highly competitive to be here. People dont come to California to drop out anymore. Its a very striving place. Youve got a screenplay in the works? Screen treatment. How can you survive in L.A. if you didnt have a screen treatment? The Octopus, by Frank Norris, is the single greatest novel, well, running neck and neck with The Grapes of Wrath, ever written about California. The themes of industrialism and minorities and womens rights and the environment anyway, its fun to have done it. Is this the last Dream volume? I dont know. My God, Im 68. Ive got this [other] beautiful book about Catholic culture coming to a Protestant nation, and Ill get criticized because Im emphasizing how nice the Protestants were to us! Someone else will have to write the 60s, although I can give them the title: That would be Smoking the Dream. This interview was edited and excerpted from a longer taped transcript. patt.morrison@latimes.com For many years, Donald Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon, our country has been divided, angry and untrusting. Many say it will never change, the hatred is too deep. IT WILL CHANGE!!!! As persuasive as the ALL CAPS are, I have my doubts. For the record: This article originally stated that more congressional Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. A greater percentage of Republicans did, but in absolute numbers there were more Democrats. Put aside Trumps specific shortcomings for the moment. The presidency has become ill-suited to the task of unifying the country, because the presidency has become the biggest prize and totem in the culture war. Like the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in England, if one side controls the throne, it is seen as an insult and threat to the other. And whoever holds the throne is seen as a kind of personal Protector of the Realm. The political parties have been utterly complicit in the process. Exploiting social media and other technologies, Republicans and Democrats shape their messages around the assumption that they and they alone have legitimate ownership of Americas authentic best self. Thats why whichever party is out of power promises to take back America as if the other side were foreign invaders. Advertisement Trump will be the third president in a row to promise to unite the country, and he will almost certainly be the third in a row to fail. Barack Obama was elected in 2008 in no small part to fulfill the promise of his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address: to banish the slicing and dicing of America into Red States and Blue States. The colors of the electoral map may have been smudged and scrambled over the last eight years, but the underlying polarization Obama inherited from George W. Bush only intensified on his watch. Trump will be the third president in a row to promise to unite the country, and he will almost certainly be the third in a row to fail. The ugly squabble between the president-elect and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) over the weekend offers a glimpse into how bad things will get. Lewis earned his icon status on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala. But over the years, hes traded some of his moral capital for partisan chips, insinuating that only the Democratic Party has ownership of the civil rights era and its victories, despite the fact that a greater share of congressional Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. Indeed, the goons who cracked Lewis skull on the Edmund Pettus Bridge were acting at the behest of a Democratic governor and Democratic local officials. Even the bridge was named after a Democrat. In 2008, Lewis saw nothing wrong with comparing Sen. John McCain to the segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace, adding: Sen. McCain and Gov. [Sarah] Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division. He did it again in 2012, insinuating that voting for Mitt Romney might lead America to go back to the days of fire hoses, police dogs and church bombings. This was not idealism, but poisonous cynicism, and it helped contribute to the feelings of resentment that were so essential to Trumps victory. Now Lewis is going further still, refusing to attend Trumps inauguration and arguing that Trump cannot be a legitimate president because of Russian meddling in the election. Lewis may have reason to believe that Trump did not win fair and square, but questioning Trumps legitimacy is actually exactly what the Russians probably wanted from the beginning: to undermine Western and American faith and confidence in democracy. Of course Trump made things worse. He attacked Lewis, saying the congressman should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. instead of falsely complaining about the election results. Predictably, Democrats rallied behind Lewis, whos basically the partys living saint, and theyre already fundraising off the spectacle. The Democrats will stop baiting Trump when he shows he can refuse the bait. Which means they wont stop. Theres an almost literary quality to Trumps insecurities; he craves respect more than almost anything else and yet respect remains agonizingly elusive in part because he takes everything too personally. The presidency, normally a job for people with thick skins and a nose for insincere flattery, promises to only heighten Trumps sense of entitlement to respect and exacerbate his inevitable resentment when he doesnt receive it. So well continue on divided, angry and untrusting. jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook With just days left before his inauguration at the nations 45th president, President-elect Donald Trump kicked off Martin Luther King Jr. weekend by attacking civil rights legend Rep. John Lewis. Trump took to Twitter early Saturday to say the Georgia congressman is all talk no action following Lewis assertion Friday that he doesnt see Trump as a legitimate president because of Russian involvement in the election. Lewis was beaten repeatedly by police during Southern protests for civil rights and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington. Im California delegation reporter Sarah Wire. Welcome to the Monday edition of Essential Politics. Over the weekend, we saw several Democrats point to Trumps criticism of Lewis as the reason they are skipping Fridays inauguration. So far, 12 of Californias 55 members say they plan to stay home, and five more are trying to make up their minds. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), who is among the undecideds, is using a poll on Twitter to help her decide. Advertisement It will be a busy few days before the inauguration, so keep an eye on our Essential Politics news feed, get the latest about the Trump transition on Trail Guide and follow @latimespolitics. RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT Over the weekend, members of Congress continued to question what effect Russias attempts to influence the election may have had and what communication occurred between Trumps team and the Russian government. Trumps aides said they want to focus on the inauguration. Democrats on Friday were frustrated with FBI Director James B. Comey after a confidential briefing on Russian influence in the election and said he used differing standards to determine whether to release information to the public about potential investigations of the presidential candidates. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday classified briefings have laid out a very sophisticated effort by Moscow to impede Hillary Clintons presidential campaign and she believes Clinton lost because of it. And CIA Director John Brennan took issue with Trumps criticism of the intelligence community, questioning whether the incoming president has a grasp of Russias capabilities and intentions. PINK HATS MAKING A STATEMENT Ahead of Saturdays planned Womens March on Washington, knitters mostly women are crafting thousands handmade pink caps with cat ears, a reference to Trumps vulgar statements about grabbing womens genitals that were revealed in a leaked video shortly before the election. Seema Mehta has the story on the California creators of the pussyhat project and why people across the world have worked to knit what they hope will end up as a sea of pink hats on the National Mall this Saturday. A SALTY SUCCESS STORY California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton has a well-earned reputation as an outspoken disciple of liberal activism and for spraying vulgarities. The 84-year-old San Francisco power broker and former congressman and state Senate president has helped turn California deep blue during his nearly eight years as party chairman. Phil Willon detailed how Burton and the party helped the Democrats win a powerful supermajority in the California Legislature, and every election for statewide office since 2010. STATE STILL FIGURING OUT POLICE BODY CAMERAS Over the last two years, lawmakers have tried and failed to pass major legislation outlining how police officers should handle body worn cameras and when the public should see the footage. The bills failure reveals the deep divide among Democratic legislators over privacy and technology issues raised by the cameras, Liam Dillon reports. In the absence of statewide rules, local departments up and down California have filled in the gaps. PLANNED PARENTHOOD PREPARES Planned Parenthood is no stranger to bruising political battles across the country, but the latest effort to defund the healthcare provider has even affiliates in the friendly territory of California feeling nervous. Melanie Mason reports how advocates and sympathetic politicians are grappling with what role the state should play if Congress successfully defunds the organization, resulting in a $260 million hit to Planned Parenthood California alone. CONFIRMING AN ATTORNEY GENERAL The state Senate will begin considering Rep. Xavier Becerras nomination for Californias new attorney general this week after the Los Angeles congressman was approved by a near party line 56-to-23 vote in the Assembly on Friday. Patrick McGreevy reports that the Senate is expected to confirm Becerra before weeks end. Though a special election to replace Becerra hasnt been called yet, 16 people have now said they plan to run to represent the 34th Congressional District. William Rodriguez Morrison, a Republican, and Tenaya Wallace, a Democrat, are the latest to say theyre in the running for the downtown Los Angeles seat Becerra has held for 24 years. BUDGET MOVES The Times Sacramento bureau has been pouring through the $179.5-billion budget Gov. Jerry Brown proposed last week. Browns budget proposes more money for education, but some school districts are expecting theyll have to make cuts. If that sounds contradictory, then consider the confusing rules that govern school funding. Also, California expects to spend $8 billion next year on pensions for government workers and teachers. And Browns budget gave a glimpse into the costs and challenges ahead for Californias huge overhaul of prison parole reform. Brown asked lawmakers to help him safeguard the states cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of Californias climate agenda, and lawmakers put down a marker last week, introducing the first bill to do exactly that. Expect intense negotiations over the controversial program. PODCAST: DECODING BROWNS BUDGET During this weeks California Politics Podcast, John Myers leads a discussion on the fiscal and political hurdles facing the budget. The key, it seems, will be how Brown and Democrats in Sacramento view the need to stash cash for any changes coming from Washington. TODAYS ESSENTIALS Healthcare advocates rallied in Los Angeles on Sunday to protest Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 14 other House members will hold another rally today in downtown Los Angeles. Congress passed a law Friday that will allow retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, Trumps pick to lead the Pentagon, to serve in the job if he is confirmed in the Senate. Brown issued a terse but pointed response Friday to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthys request for input on repealing the Affordable Care Act, warning it would cause spiraling damage to healthcare coverage, premium costs and the state budget. His response comes on the heels of a similar letter from Californias legislative leaders. Mark your calendar for Browns State of the State speech, scheduled for Jan. 24. After losing a race for Congress in November, former state Sen. Isadore Hall was appointed on Friday to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Can lawmakers do anything about so-called fake news? Two Democratic legislators have introduced measures to help teach students to better evaluate the information they read online. Sen. Kamala Harris picked a former Hillary Clinton staffer to be her press secretary. Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside) has filed legislation to overturn a 1986 ban on diacritical marks such as accents, umlauts and tildes used in birth, death and marriage certificates. LOGISTICS Essential Politics is published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day for the latest and greatest. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics? Miss Fridays newsletter? Here you go. Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com. Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox. Its a recurring nightmare: You get busted, perhaps for drunk driving and causing an injury accident, or maybe on a bum rap. Youre jailed and cant make bail. Youre shoved behind bars with a scummy cellmate. You cant go to work. Bills go unpaid. And you dont have any mobility to plan your defense. Youre locked up solely because you dont have enough money to arrange bail. Advertisement But some wealthy guy booked on a more serious charge than you waltzes out onto the street the next day after writing a check and posting bail. Is that fair? Not by any stretch. It reeks of extortion, medieval practices and being un-American. If youre a threat to public safety, stay in jail, says state Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys). If youre a flight risk, stay in jail. But if youre just poor, is that justice? Come on, man! Poor people get stuck in jail because they dont have the few thousand dollars to get out on bail, the veteran lawmaker continues. And their whole life is turned upside down even though theyre not a public threat. Hertzberg and Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) are sponsoring legislation to reform Californias archaic bail system. Some other states and the federal government are way ahead of normally progressive California on this. Even Mississippi, among the reddest of red states, has been enacting reforms. Our blue state is still in the Dark Ages. Justice shouldnt be based on how much money youve got in your pocket, Bonta says. We have a profit-based bail system where a whole industry makes money off of posting bail. Only two countries in the world allow a for-profit bail system: us and the Philippines. Its a wealth-based system, not a just system. Naturally, the bail bond industry doesnt share that view. There might be room to look at how bail is set. We might want to tinker around the edges, says Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney for the California Bail Agents Assn. Nobody says it shouldnt be changed. But bail has served a purpose for 100 years. It ensures a defendants attendance at trial. Weve also found that having a monetary security is more effective than costly and ineffective devices like monitoring or ankle bracelets. Its fair, she continues, because the same bail is applied to you whether youre poor or a billionaire. It doesnt discriminate on the basis of poverty or wealth. Its like a utility bill. And the current system is constitutional. Updates from Sacramento Yes, theres plenty in those comments to incite argument. A reform outfit, Equal Justice Under Law, has filed several lawsuits around the country challenging the constitutionality of bail systems, including San Franciscos. Dhillon, a leading California Republican Party activist, is participating in the San Francisco defense, representing the bail agents organization. This issue has been around the Legislature for decades, but the bail agents lobby is strong and has blocked major changes. There hasnt been much serious action in years. Now Hertzberg and Bonta are trying to elevate the issue to high-priority status up there with crumbling highways, homelessness, Obamacare replacement and Donald Trump resistance. Its tough, says Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker. But we can get it done this year. He and Bonta arent sure what they want to get done, or realistically can. Their current legislation lists the problem, but is blank on the solution. Late last year, Hertzberg briefly proposed just adopting the federal system. It involves a quick court hearing to determine whether a defendant is a public safety danger or a flight risk. If neither, hes released awaiting trial. Hertzberg says he didnt press the issue last year because it would have interfered with Gov. Jerry Browns successful efforts to pass a sentencing reform ballot initiative. Now he and Bonta are trying to weave together a coalition to pass a bill. Lots of things are being considered: ankle bracelets, probation-like monitoring, trial date reminder calls like the ones from a dentist. The legislators say research has found defendants show up for trial at about the same rate whether theyre free on bail or not. In California, counties pretty much set their own bail rates. Typically, the agent charges a nonrefundable 10% fee for posting the bail. And the bail is forfeited making the fugitives family financially responsible if the defendant flees. Were talking big money. The Public Policy Institute of California two years ago estimated that the median bail amount in this state was $50,000 five times higher than the rest of the nation. That reaps $5,000 for a bail agent. A recent federal survey found that 46% of Americans dont even have $400 for an emergency. The policy institute reported that roughly 63% of inmates in crowded county jails are there awaiting trial, largely because they cant afford bail. Taxpayers are paying $116 a day to house and feed them. Why do we need bail at all? Keep the dangerous characters locked up. Release the rest. If they stray, call out a bounty hunter. That might work in Maine or somewhere, Dhillon says. But in a state like California with a very large population of transients, it doesnt support the assumption that people are just going to come back and stand trial. There should be ample room for compromise. Sure, life often is unfair. But when government can do something to make it a little less unfair, it should. george.skelton@latimes.com Follow @LATimesSkelton on Twitter ALSO California lawmakers want to reform a bail system they say punishes the poor for being poor Obama administration challenges the money bail system: Can people be kept in jail just because they are poor? Updates from Sacramento Weve already looked ahead to 2017. The Travel sections alphabetical list of places to go included Bordeaux and Yosemite. Events that got us excited: Canadas 150th birthday party and the celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of San Franciscos summer of love. And things to know included continued (we hope) low airfares, especially to Asia and Europe, and myriad ways to get around the airline bag fee, none of them involving lame excuses that the traveler didnt know it wouldnt fit in the overhead bin. Today we turn to where youre going to stay when you go. We sometimes forget that, unless you are bunking with excellent friends or tolerant family, you may spend more on a week of accommodations than you will on a plane ticket. Here are some trends to help you as you size up your stay, both in terms of money and in dreams fulfilled. Advertisement Join hotel loyalty programs To get a little more for your money, join a hotels loyalty program. You get perks for being a member of that club, said John Hach, a senior industry analyst for TravelClick, which analyzes trends with data from 35,000 hotels in 130 countries. Joining means you may get offers from hotels that sometimes will give you 5% to 15% off rates, Hach said. Youll almost certainly get free Wi-Fi, which often has been an annoying and costly add-on (and, in some cases, still is when its hidden inside a resort fee). If you dont want your inbox cluttered with promotional emails that come with membership, create an email address for those loyalty programs. Just dont forget to check it from time to time to see if theres something that might spur you to travel. Pay in advance Hotel rates are inching up, so to keep your prices down, think about paying for your stay in advance, Hach said. Hotels offer discounts for pay-in-advance guests who are betting on being able to make the trip and thus lock in their rate. The downside: If you must cancel, you may not get your money back or, if you do, you may pay a sizable cancellation penalty. Paying in advance is an option tailor-made for the leisure traveler whose plans are not governed by the vagaries of business travel or bosses who need them to go someplace else on a moments notice. Make sure you read the fine print to find out what youre risking if you choose to pay ahead. And remember, if things do go sideways and you must delay, you can always ask, in your sweetest voice, if you could swap the week you reserved for the time you now have. You wont know if you dont ask, and it just might work once. But just once. Consider a home rental If its privacy you want, consider a vacation home rental. Thats one of the drivers of the growing home rental market, said Melanie Fish, a representative for HomeAway, which has more than a million vacation rental properties in 190 countries. Other attributes that define that traveler, Fish said: Their vacations last a little longer, and theyre willing to travel a little farther. If you dont mind sharing, Airbnb may be right for you, although it also has rent-the-whole-house options. Renting someones vacation home (which often helps the owner afford the vacation home) gives you a place to spread out and relax to the max. More timeshares Youll find new ways to book these other lodgings. Marriott, for instance, has added some of its timeshare properties to its website. I was looking at listings for Orlando, Fla., for instance, when I came across the Cypress Harbour Villas, which says it has space for up to eight in its stylish, two-bedroom villages. (Rates started, the day I looked, at $250 a night, but Marriott Rewards club members started at $204 a night. Its free to join, as are most loyalty programs.) Expedia, which is snapping up all sorts of travel companies, acquired HomeAway last year. Expedia now has a vacation rental tab on its home page that directed me to numerous places at Lake Tahoe, where I looked to see if the voluminous snowfall had depressed the number of offerings as people rush to schuss. (Answer: Doesnt appear so.) Other types of home rentals If youre looking for something a bit different, vacation home rentals may also be for you. I asked Fish about unique properties, and she quickly directed me to: A rehabbed 727 jetliner in Costa Rica that sleeps six above the treetops (but only just above, not airborne) in Manuel Antonio park (average: $464 a night) A converted windmill in Greece that sleeps five on Santorini (average: $301 a night). It has a pool and a sea view. A private resort that sleeps 46 in Clermont, Fla., that averages $1,985 a night and claims that its larger than the Magic Kingdom. On that last, I could think only about the economy of it: If you divide $1,985 a night by 46, you come up with $43.17, which is the cost per person if you happened to want to have 45 other people along on your vacation. The shared cost was definitely a plus, one of the advantages of renting a larger space that might be shared with friends. These offerings give you a chance to dream a little, which we should be doing more of. To wit: Treat yourself Millennials dont delay travel gratification, so why should you? If you have a lot of awards points for hotels, for instance, consider spending them now before the rules dont work in your favor. Maybe its a splurge, in which case enjoy it. Baby boomers would accrue 100,000 points before [they] stay in luxury hotel, Hach said. Tom Brokaws Greatest Generation deferred gratification, Hach said. Baby boomers accept it, but millennials embrace gratification with a passion. Millennials want to live their lives, Hach said. You dont see [them] putting off trips. They say, I want a suite at the Four Seasons, and Im willing to pay for it. We dont advocate spending foolishly, of course, but the same theory that spurs the life-is-short-so-eat-dessert-first philosophy may be an incentive to treat yourself when and if you can. If youre hoarding points, what are you waiting for? Isnt that like saying, Im saving the good china for a special occasion? I once had a boss whose response was always the same when we asked him when he wanted something. With barely concealed disdain, he would reply, Now would be a good time. He may have been a tyrant, but maybe he was right after all. Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry. travel@latimes.com @latimestravel The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, including Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, anti-poverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. Oxfam is urging leaders to do more than pay lip service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last years election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britains vote to leave the European Union. Advertisement It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the meeting in Davos. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy. It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day. Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International A report last year said the richest 62 people on the planet in 2015 owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the population. Oxfam has since revised that figure down to eight. Oxfam used Forbes billionaires list, which was last published in March 2016, to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion. The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex; financier Warren Buffett; Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu; Amazon boss Jeff Bezos; Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg; Oracles Larry Ellison; and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. The recommendations include higher taxes on both wealth and income to ensure a more level playing field and to fund investments in public services and jobs, as well as greater international cooperation by governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich dont dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfams policy advisor, urged billionaires to do the right thing, and to do what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes. The ability of the rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called Panama Papers, a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary, Lawson said. Thats crazy. ALSO What we know about Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who wrote the controversial Trump dossier Paris peace conference agrees on two-state solution in Mideast but neither Israel nor Palestinians take part When Obama dropped the wet foot, dry foot policy, he also snuffed out another program few Americans knew about When a Mumbai real estate developer acquired a crumbling, 80-year-old apartment building and announced plans to replace it with a luxury skyscraper, two dozen families accepted buyouts and moved. But one tenant refused. Prasad Panvalkar, an ink salesman, argued that city regulations required the builder to resettle his family in the new development, which the company said it wouldnt do. Panvalkars case was not unusual in Mumbai, a dense seaside metropolis where construction companies routinely intimidate residents, flout codes and bribe authorities. But it stood out for one reason: The builders business partner was Donald Trump, who had sold the rights for branding the high-rise as Indias first Trump Tower. Advertisement Panvalkar fought a six-year battle before the developer, Rohan Lifescapes, agreed in June to house his family in the revamped property less than a quarter-mile from the Arabian Sea. By then, regulators had cited the project for multiple legal and building violations, delaying construction and prompting the Trump Organization to walk away from the deal. Trump has since signed agreements to stamp his name on several other properties in India, expanding his involvement in a lucrative but ill-regulated real estate industry that experts say is notorious for graft and trampling on peoples rights. The entire housing industry in India survives and thrives on corruption and bribe money, said Chandrashekhar Prabhu, a former Mumbai housing official. No approvals are given, nothing gets built without giving bribes. Trump has hailed the tremendous amount of growth potential in Indian real estate, but its opaque nature presents complications for the president-elect. His Trump Organization has attached itself to five projects reportedly worth a total of $1.5 billion in India, one of its largest real-estate portfolios in any country outside the United States. In most cases Trump has not invested his own money but licensed the use of his name in exchange for a fee, a percentage of sales or both. I dont think he gets involved too much in the details, Prabhu said. He signs on with existing projects, so it would be difficult for him to know if bribes were paid or illegalities were done. Current and past Trump-branded projects in India have run into legal troubles that offer a window into this fast-growing countrys often dirty world of real estate one his company seems eager to exploit. The entire housing industry in India survives and thrives on corruption and bribe money. Chandrashekhar Prabhu, former housing official Trump, who has described Indians as amazing people and said in October that the U.S. and India would be best friends if he were president, visited the country in 2014 for a ritzy party to unveil a 23-story Trump Towers residential complex in the western city of Pune. That project is now under police investigation after a local activist alleged the land was acquired with fraudulent documents. The developer, Panchshil Realty, has denied wrongdoing. Company director Sagar Chordia, who made headlines when he and his partners traveled to New York to visit Trump days after his election victory, did not respond to requests for comment. Fittingly for a New York tycoon, Trump chose the financial hub of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, for his first foray into India. The city is filled with decrepit colonial-era buildings that sit atop some of the most expensive land in Asia. In 2011, Trump reached a licensing agreement with Rohan Lifescapes, which was planning a 45- to 60-story monolith of 4,500-square-foot apartments with sweeping sea views. Occupying part of the half-acre site was the four-story building where Panvalkar lived with his wife, son and brother-in-law. Constructed in 1929, it belonged to a charitable trust that provides housing for the Pathare Prabhu community, descendants of Hindu aristocrats from northern India who settled in Mumbai beginning in the 12th century. The buildings paint was corroding in the salt air, its walls pocked by water damage. By law, the trust could not sell the property to a commercial developer, but such provisions have been systematically ignored in the rush to redevelop Mumbais aging urban landscape. The trust ceded the land to Rohan Lifescapes, which in 2010 sent a representative to tell Panvalkar that he and his family would need to leave the one-bedroom apartment they rented on the second floor. They said all you old residents must vacate, recalled the stout, bespectacled Panvalkar, now 57. They were creating a high-end building. Panvalkar said the company paid each tenant a few thousand dollars to move. But he pointed to a Mumbai regulation that said that developers seeking to tear down pre-1960 buildings must offer residents housing on the same property. His wife, Smita, urged him to hold out. Her father had been one of the buildings first occupants; she was born there. It was a short walk to the shop where Panvalkar sold printer ink, a business started by his grandfather. She was attached to the place, Panvalkar said. But it was also a question of our rights. She was determined. They, their son and her brother were the last family living in the building in May 2011, when a fire broke out early one morning in the meter room on the ground floor. Panvalkar crawled through a side window and onto the parapet of the adjacent building, climbing down to the ground as fire engines arrived to extinguish the blaze. The building sustained minimal damage. Mysteriously, however, electricity wasnt restored for six weeks in what Panvalkar suspected was an effort to force the family out. But they stayed, sweating through the oppressive summer humidity without fans, a refrigerator or a washing machine, his wife rising early every morning to wash clothes by hand. This is how it goes in India, Panvalkar said. There are always ways of putting pressure on tenants. Panvalkar began investigating the project, using Indias freedom of information laws to obtain documents and sharing them with the state urban development department. In December 2011, the state froze the project because of multiple irregularities. The state said city authorities had approved building plans even though the site lay in the path of a proposed freeway and the size of the apartments far exceeded what was allowed in Mumbais protected coastal zone, where there are square-footage restrictions on new construction. We built beyond what was permitted, Haresh Mehta, chairman of Rohan Lifescapes, acknowledged to the Times of India in a 2012 interview. Mehta did not respond to questions sent through a spokesperson. The new apartments would be less than half the size promised, denting their luxury appeal. According to multiple reports, Trumps son, Donald Trump Jr., traveled to Mumbai to ask the states top official to allow the project to proceed, but was rebuffed. Soon after that, Trump ended his involvement. In 2013, Donald Trump Jr. told a Mumbai newspaper that the company only brands the highest-end luxury developments in each market that we enter. That year Trump signed on to create a new Trump Tower in Mumbai, 75 stories high, with a golden facade and three-bedroom apartments starting at $1.3 million. The developer, Lodha Group, was founded by a vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which is led by Narendra Modi, Indias prime minister. Our collaboration has been raising the bar in every sense of luxury and services and setting a new benchmark for luxury living in India, the Lodha Group said of the building, due to open in 2018. Other Trump-branded developments underway in India include offices and a residential complex in the New Delhi satellite city of Gurgaon, and a high-rise in the eastern city of Kolkata, formerly Calcutta. Trump has rejected concerns that his business deals involving politicians in other countries, including the Philippines and Turkey, present possible conflicts of interest. In India, political leaders are deeply entangled in a construction business that can produce eye-popping profits. There is an unholy nexus, Prabhu said. Your investment of x becomes 20x in two to three years time. There is no business in the world other than drug cartels and perhaps terrorism which gives you these kinds of returns. In 2014, the BJP took over the state government and eased the restrictions that had held up demolition of Panvalkars building. The freeway plans were scrapped and coastal development rules were eased. Rohan Lifescapes resumed the project with an Indian partner, announcing that instead of one expansive skyscraper, it would build a pair of smaller towers. In June, Panvalkar and the company reached a settlement that guarantees his family an apartment in one of the new buildings, clearing the way for the old structure to be razed. The victory came at a cost. His wife died of a heart attack in November 2011, six months after the fire. In a small office behind his store, he keeps a framed picture of her, surrounded by a collection of idols depicting Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god, revered as the remover of obstacles. We had nothing against Trump. Let him make his money however he wants, Panvalkar said. My wife was only saying it should be fair. Special correspondent Parth M.N. contributed to this report. shashank.bengali@latimes.com Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia ALSO Trumps pick for secretary of State raises concern with aggressive comments about China Arrest warrant sought for head of Samsung Electronics in South Korean political scandal India to Amazon: Were not your doormat How To Get The New Generic Epipen For Just $9.99? staff@latinoshealth.com By Rruchi Shrimalli Jan 16, 2017 09:09 AM EST CVS, the US's largest drug-store chain, offers a cheaper, generic version of the EpiPen. Called Adrenaclick, this is an authorized auto-injector to dispense ephinephrine. A package of two pens of Adrenaclick costs $109.99. The Huffington Post reports that the two-pack EpiPen costs $649.99 while a generic version of the two-pack EpiPen introduced by Mylan costs $339.99. The manufacturers of Adrenaclick - Impax Laboratories - are also offering a discount coupon worth $100 per pack for up to three packs to most people who qualify for it. Such people will be able to get their first three packs of Adrenaclick for just $9.99. This drug price cut war is the result of the public outrage over rising prices of critical lifesaving medicines, and the fresh attacks made on it by Donald Trump. It seems that the health care industry has begun to self-regulate itself. Some pharmaceutical companies have announced that their price increase on medication will be limited to be under 10 per cent. Om the other hand, some Medicaid programs have announced that only authorized patients will get coverage of epinephrine auto-injectors like Adrenaclick and EpiPen. However, the US Food and Drug Administration warns that the different brands of epinephrine auto-injectors may not be therapeutically equivalent to each other - even if they administer the same active ingredients in the same dosage. EpiPen and Adrenaclick work a bit differently from each other. Hence, not all states allow the patients to make the switch. If doctors prescribe 'epinephrine auto-injector' instead of a specific brand name, patients will be able to buy the cheaper pen easily. On the patient's request, CVS is also offering to reach out to his or her doctor and ask for permission to change the prescription as needed. According the USA Today, the President-elect Donald Trump had recently attacked drug manufacturers over steep increases in life-saving medicines. "They're getting away with murder," Trump said on drug companies on January 11, 2017. The CVS had also been criticized for the 'absurdly high' rise in the price of EpiPen. The National Community Pharmacists Association had called for a Congressional hearing on investigating how the pharmacy benefit managers are in lieu with the drug makers over such price rises. CVS owns more than 9,600 pharmacies and handles prescription drugs through more than 68,000 retail pharmacies. It is also into mail-order operations. Some experts think that the move to challenge Mylan will help CVS garner publicity for siding with the aggrieved customers and will also allow it to negotiate rebates and discounts from other pharmaceutical companies. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! Nutella Uses Palm Oil Considered As Dangerous To Health staff@latinoshealth.com By Marnelle Joyce Jan 16, 2017 03:02 PM EST Palm oil is acquired from the fruits and kernels of palm plants. It is deliberated as superior among vegetable fat since it makes food easy to spread. This vegetable oil is used all over the world in baked goods, candy and convenience foods such as chips, snacks and frozen foods. It is also used as shortening or margarine supplement. Palm oil is also used in making the greatly well-liked hazelnut spread, Nutella, which yields its creamy consistency. According to Nutella website, palm oil is the optimum ingredient for guaranteeing its exceptional spreadability. In addition, use of palm oil is escaping from a hydrogenation process that particularly generates unhealthy trans fats. However, the European Food Safety Authority said that palm oil is a "potential health concern" when processed incorrectly and this issue leaked out last May. The safety authority released last year a scientific opinion about the current degrees of glycerol-based process contaminants that are discovered in palm oil. Palm oil was known to contain the highest levels of the contaminants among all vegetable oils. These contaminants are produced when the vegetable oils are heated to an extensive temperature. Animal studies detected the contaminants as both genotoxic and carcinogenic. The significant statement of EFSA arises from the existence of contaminants in palm oil. It is not the characteristics of palm oil itself, said Doug Boucher, an ecologist and scientific adviser for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Ferrero, the maker of Nutella released a promotional advertisement in October to give feedback on the EFSA. The ad expounds that palm oil in Nutella products is heated only under an acceptable level of heating temperatures. This means a safe heating and does not result in the build-up of contaminants. Beth M. Kotran, general counsel for Ferrero U.S.A. Inc., wrote in an email saying that Nutella and other Ferrero products containing palm oil are safe. Subscribe to the latinos health newsletter! After Kim Jung Un gave statement that the launching of intercontinental ballistic missile is in its final stage. Trump tweeted in January 2 claiming North Korea can't do that. But then recently a US defense official said that the Pentagon has deployed high-tech radar to keep watch for a potential North Korean long-range- missile launch in the coming months. This is a defensive US military response with Kim's threat. The said high-tech radar is called sea-based X-band radar (SB-X). It can track long-range launches and give crucial data. It has homeport in Hawaii and generally sent halfway to Alaska, CNN reported. The North Korean missile activity has been long monitored by the radar which some details about it are confidentially reserved including other surveillance assets operating in Korean Peninsula. Officials said that if the missile is threatening, it will be intercepted but if not it might not be shot down by US missile defense system. In connection to this, is the president-elect still up for a meeting with the man building nuclear weapons to turn Washington into a "sea of fire"? This question was asked by BBC of what Trump could possibly do against the volatile North Korean leader Kim Jung Un after he answered during campaign that he might do talking over hamburger with the North Korean leader. Recently, seven North Korean government officials' US property interests and assets were froze by the US Treasury. The reason is because North Korea continues to engage in grave human rights abuses and conceal those abuses through the use of censorship policies. This is just very few of US can do, CNN has listed four options Trump might do during his assumption of office, one suggested direct confrontation and the other suggested friendly negotiation. These are the four: pulling strings with China, tightening sanctions, launching military action and sitting down with Kim. The first is using China to undermine North Korea's interests elsewhere. The second is again using China to implement harsh sanctions. The third is direct confrontation but Delury said, it is not a viable option. And the last one is having a peaceful talk with Kim but again Delury said, it's unlikely because how can you imagine the forerunner of democracy in the world will make agreement to a leader of a rogue regime known for its massive human rights abuses. Although these are just assumption but we may really know what would happen when Trump sit in the Presidential chair. Who really is unpredictable Kim Jung Un or Donald Trump? The final part of Obama administration gave eroding support for the long-time ally Saudi Arabia. But since the US election the situation slowly shifted until recently. According to The Tower, when the JASTA law had won in the Congress, Saudi Arabia was hurt. When the Arab states of the Gulf felt that US seems abandoning them as had been manifested with Obama administration the Gulf states made alternative alliance to carry on their own the challenges. But when Donald Trump elected as the US President the situation shifted. America's usual alliance to Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt has returned like it was before. US, Canada, and Germany might realize how important Saudi Arabia is in terms of being a vital ally and as a substantial market. Recently, they made favorable actions toward Saudi Arabia. These can be noticed when liberal Canadian government defended Saudi Arabia in a federal court judge in Montreal in its $15 billion arms deal, also when Germany's Defense Minister visited Saudi to finalize a training deal for Saudi military officers, US is helping the training of Saudi Air Force, and the UK as being adamant to continue selling weapons to Saudi. UK Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her gratitude to Saudi by saying that it has saved Britain from large scale terrorist attacks, Observer reported. Not just these countries but as well as Muslims. Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov just visited the kingdom and warmly received by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Tunisia did not tolerate their own Religious Affairs Minister when he made critical remarks on Saudi's Wahhabism. Lebanon new President courted the kingdom so that billions of dollars of military aid would be restored. Egypt made efforts to decrease tension with the kingdom. In fact Egypt agreed to give control of two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. Oman joined now Saudi-led coalition against terrorism. Recalling the victory of Iran over Saudi Arabia during the Obama administration, this time it is obvious that they don't get Trump's favor. Other countries adding the turn of tide are Italy and Algeria. Italy recently has decided to resuscitate a 2007 dormant security pact with Saudi, interestingly Italy was a close ally of Iran. More interesting is Algeria which now seems to engage friendship with the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia may now again stronger as it is surrounded by some of the powerful countries of the world. Amazon.com has recently confirmed it shipped over a billion items this holiday season. Recent estimates are predicting that the online retail juggernaut post its 2016 revenue of roughly $137 billion, good for year-over-year growth of 28%. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon just confirmed its best-selling product in 2016 was one of its own making: its none other than the new Alexa-enabled Echo Dot. Alexa-enabled Echo Dot According to Electronic House, "Echo Dot is the best-selling, most gifted item on Amazon.com with millions sold worldwide since launch." "Echo and Echo Dot were the best-selling products across Amazon this year," elaborated Amazon Worldwide Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke, "and we're thrilled that millions of new customers will be introduced to Alexa as a result. Despite our best efforts and ramped-up production, we still had trouble keeping them in stock." One of the most attractive details about Echo Dot was its affordable price point of $49.99, and helped steer Amazon towards its estimated 2016 revenue of roughly $137 billion. Which amounts to impressive year-over-year growth of 28%, Business Insider has learned. Alexa is Amazon's virtual personal assistant, or as Amazon puts it, "the brain behind Echo Dot." With the help of far-field voice-recognition technology and an array of seven microphones in Echo Dot, a delightfully small, hands-free device that can be placed anywhere in your home, consumers can perform a staggering array of tasks using only voice commands, such as playing music, ordering a pizza, requesting virtually any information, calling a ride from Uber, controlling compatible smart-home devices, and of course, ordering items from Amazon.com. Amazon's Alexa-enabled Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that uses Alexa to play music, control smart home devices, provide information, read the news, set alarms, and more Amazon.com (often simply Amazon) is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company, founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos and based in Seattle, Washington. Soap, one of most important thing in daily life. From kitchen sink to washroom soap is the most common thing to see. For those who use soaps, dishwashers or handwashes bubbles are not so uncommon to them. It is hard to find any kid who doesnt play with soap bubbles. Now, this playing stuff took attention of scientists. A team of Scientists from the Imperial College London started examining on the soap bubble, With a very high-speed camera. They zoomed in on the surface of a soap bubble and shoot it until it popped out. The captures footage was amazing, shimmering rainbows were visible in the thicker bubble skin and in the thinnest region while clusters of dark spots appeared. Those rainbow colors were determined by the thickness of soap film. According to Science News, when light rays pass through the top and bottom surface of the film then the film combines those rays to amplify in a certain wavelength according to thickness. This kind of optical effect is known as constructive interference. Thicker areas of the film reflect the longer wavelengths of colors and thin film layer reflects short wavelengths of colors, this changing of thickness gives a rainbow-like pattern. When a bubble comes into existence, it gets popped after a certain amount of time because the changing pattern of soap film makes the moisture of bubble to evaporate. As the film gets thinner, the shortest wavelength of visible light pass through it but, after a certain amount of thickness it gets out of the visible light range and dark spots take those place. Physicist Li Shen named this phenomenon as destructive interference which cancels out light reflection off the bubbles surface. Those dark spots grow and merge with each other. Dr. Shen and his colleagues first reported about their observation on Nov 22 at the American Physical Societys Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Portland, Oregon and it was officially published in the press release of APSphysics . This effect is known as coarsening effect. Dr. Shen Said in that conference that, it is the first time the effect was observed in a soap bubble with just a help of dishwasher and camera. However, those bubbles were popped just after the picture was taken. For years, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico acquired more than $70 billion of credit that has been accumulated for over 10 years by issuing civil securities. It utilizes the assets to compensate for declining government income and avoid profound cuts in services and unemployment of public workers. However, Puerto Rico can no longer manage to pay the costs of what it owes and the island is reeling under more than a billion of obligation as the officials have warned about its inability to pay back. The local government's reckless issuance of bonds and the decision by the U.S. Congress to cut its allied tax breaks have been added to the current fiscal crisis and successive departure of U.S. companies and Puerto Rican residents from the island. The White House had picked seven specialists in finance and the law who will supervise Puerto Rico's fiscal issues under a law institutes that is intended to help the island to rebuild its debt obligation. The U.S. government plan drew a lot of feedback from both sides of the political aisle, and the passage of the law draw out protests among the island's residents, as The New York Times reports. The previous Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla intensely campaigned for the bill's passage and he recognized that the district has far to go to recover financially. For a considerable length of time, Obama administration has pressed Congress to assemble together a solution for Puerto Rico. Gov. Garcia Padilla established a law that let him block debt installments and protect the island's dwindling money. As part of its new monetary improvement plan, Puerto Rico officials are looking forward to Technology and entrepreneurship to help the economy revitalize. In addition, Tech Crunch reported that the plan can attract brilliant personalities back to the island and solve the maintainability issues upsetting the district. In terms of the technology sector, Puerto Rico is attempting to re-examine itself as a knowledge-based economy that will contend globally to some part by making a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 2012-2013, Puerto Rico ranked on third in the accessibility of researchers and engineers of the Global Competitiveness Report from the World Economic Forum. The CEO of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology, and Research Trust, Lucy Crespo aims to transform the island into a tech hub by 2020. The Technology Transfer and Commercialization Office has been recently established to create and popularize protected innovation from the island's of colleges and give income tax for researchers working in their given program. Jan 16, 2017, 10:19am ET Trump's latest tariff threats focus on BMW, Mercedes-Benz The President-elect argues that German automakers should face a 35-percent tax on every car imported to the US. President-elect Donald Trump has turned his tariff threats to German automakers, apparently threatening BMW and Mercedes-Benz. "Car companies and others, if they want to do business in our country, have to start making things here again," he wrote in a Twitter rant. "WIN!" [emphasis in original] Speaking to German outlet Bild, Trump suggested everyone on Fifth Avenue has a "Mercedes-Benz parked in front of his house," however "it isn't mutual" and the Germans were "very unfair to the USA," according to excerpts translated by The Wall Street Journal. "How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany?" he asked rhetorically. "Not very many, maybe none at all it's a one-way street." General Motors pulled Chevrolet from the European market several years ago due to poor sales and overlap with the company's Opel brand. Aside from special-order vehicles, the upcoming Opel Ampera-e will be built alongside its stablemate, the Chevy Bolt, at GM's Orion Assembly Plant. BMW in June broke ground at its $1 billion factory site in Mexico's state of San Luis Potosi, where up to 150,000 3-Series sedans will eventually roll off the assembly line each year. Germany's economic minister, Sigmar Gabriel, fired back at Trump's comments, arguing that BMW's biggest factory is already located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and any tariffs would cause the industry to experience a "bad awakening" due to global supply chains. "I would wait and see what the Congress has to say about that, which is mostly full of people who want the opposite of Trump," Gabriel added. The big three German automakers -- BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen -- all have made significant investments for factories in Mexico. Despite Trump's threats, BMW expects its Mexico factory to begin building cars on schedule in 2019. When Lafayette College students return to Easton to start spring semester classes on Jan. 23, some will be living in the same dorm rooms their predecessors called home in the 1950s. But campus living, judging by these vintage photos catalogued in the Library of Congress, is much different today than it was more than 60 years ago on College Hill. In 1950, what is now called Kirby House opened on the campus as the Jessie A. Kirby Residence Hall, according to college archives on its website. Jessie was the mother of Allan Price Kirby, a longtime college trustee and philanthropist who died in 1973. Kirby, whose father was also a Lafayette benefactor, attended only one semester at Lafayette in 1915, college archives say. "However, his commitment to Lafayette College was not constricted by the short amount of time he spent here," the archives say. "Instead, after taking control of his father's business ventures ... Kirby began a life-long affiliation with the college." The construction of the dorm was just one of several major college projects credited to Kirby's financial contributions. At the time, Lafayette accepted only men as students; its first female student enrolled in 1970. The Kirby House remains a male-only residence hall and houses 69 men including 12 first-year students, resident advisers and a faculty resident, Lafayette says in a description of the residence hall on its website. The Kirby House was renovated in 2001 and now includes Gilbert's, a coffeehouse serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. "Features include a large library, formal living room, kitchen, multipurpose lounge and laundry facilities," the description says. The amenities when it first opened in 1950 were also impressive. Scroll through the photos above to see the layouts of individual rooms, the original kitchen, a "rumpus room" with a ping-pong table and other features. Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A 42-year-old Lower Mount Bethel Township man, who faces theft-related charges out of Easton, is wanted in a more serious crime in Florida, according to a published report. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department has requested Zane Nathan Smith be returned to answer to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident involving the death of a 38-year-old man, court records show. It's unclear if he face further counts. Zane Nathan Smith, 42, of Lower Mount Bethel Township, was arraigned Jan. 13, 2016, on theft-related charges in Easton but he was also wanted in a Florida case involving a fatal crash, authorities say. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Chauncey Williams on Sept. 2 was crossing Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach when a white pickup "truck's front passenger side struck him," according to the Palm Beach Post. The truck didn't stop and "Williams was pronounced dead where he fell," the newspaper said Monday on its website. The sheriff's office, which didn't return phone calls on Friday from lehighvalleylive.com, told the Florida newspaper that it couldn't immediately comment on what led the department to Smith or provide further details. The department was closed Monday because of the holiday. Smith is being held without bail and faces extradition to Florida. It wasn't immediately clear if he would be returned before facing the Northampton County court action. He has a preliminary hearing tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. Jan. 23 in District Judge Antonia Grifo's Downtown court on charges of theft by deception and receiving stolen property. He remained Monday afternoon in Northampton County Prison, records show. Smith, who was living in the 6500 block of Martins Creek-Belvidere Highway, sold a Husqvarna 760 saw for $300 on Nov. 7 at Two Rivers Trading Post on Centre Square in Easton, city police said. The tool had been reported stolen to Washington Township, Warren County, police, who reached out to Two Rivers Trading Post, city police said. An Easton officer on Dec. 5 filed charges against Smith and he was arraigned Friday morning before Grifo. Bail in that case was set at $10,000 before the Palm Beach County detainer was considered, court records show. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A man was flown to an area hospital after a one-vehicle crash about 6 p.m. Sunday on Route 57 in Washington Township, Warren County, police said. A westbound 2013 Honda CRV struck a tree just west of Butler Park Road. The driver, Gerald Iorio, 83, of the Succasunna section of Roxbury Township in Morris County, had to be freed from the wreckage by rescue personnel, authorities said. Iorio was taken by the Washington Rescue Squad and paramedics to the Albea parking lot in Washington, where Atlantic Air One flew him to Morristown Medical Center, township police said. The road was closed for nearly an hour in both directions from Butler Park Road to McCullough Road, township police said. The township and borough fire companies assisted on the call along with paramedics from Hunterdon Medical Center. Mansfield Township police helped with traffic control. Township police are investigating the wreck. Iorio hasn't been cited, police said. Freelance photographer Rich Maxwell provided information for this report. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. freezing rain.jpg The freezing rain advisory (purple section) is currently well north of the Lehigh Valley, which has a hazardous weather outlook (tan section). (National Weather Service graphic) UPDATE: National Weather Service alters its freezing-rain forecast When the National Weather Service requests residents "please continue to monitor the latest forecast," it's a reasonable bet that the current forecast could change. As of Monday morning, the weather service is saying a period of light freezing rain late Monday into Tuesday is "most likely" bound for the southern Poconos and "far" northwestern New Jersey. "Confidence in icing is much lower father south toward Interstate 78," the weather service said in a hazardous weather outlook. "There is also uncertainty regarding the onset timing of freezing rain." There is a "slight chance" of rain between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. in the Lehigh Valley and a "slight chance" of light freezing rain after 2 a.m., the weather service said in its local forecast. The slight chance of freezing rain remains in the forecast until 8 a.m. The chance at 9 a.m. is less than 10 percent, the weather service said. Total accumulation would be 0.01 of an inch, the weather service said. The chance of precipitation overnight is 20 percent, the weather service said. The overnight low -- which usually arrives between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., is expected to be 30 degrees, well above Monday's low of 13. The hourly forecast sees the temperature dipping below freezing at 1 a.m. It will rise to 39 and there is a 100 percent chance of rain, the weather service said. "Advisories were not issued at 3:30 a.m. Monday due to the uncertainty regarding freezing temperatures occurring during the time is is raining," the weather service concluded. If you're heading north in Pennsylvania, "there is the potential for a period of freezing rain lingering into Tuesday morning at elevations above 1,000 feet north of Interstate 80," the weather service said. In a rarity over past months, the region actually has a precipitation excess so far in January, with 1.82 inches measured, including 2.1 inches of snow. Normally there would be 1.54 inches, including 4.9 inches of snow, the weather service said. In short, it's rained more than normal but not snowed as much as an average January. As for seasonal snowfall, normally by Jan. 17, 10.8 inches have fallen, compared to the 2.8 inches so far since July 1, 2016, the weather service said. With an average high of 36 on Monday, much of the rest of the week will be well above normal, with a sunny Thursday topping out at 49 degrees. So far this month, the average temperature is about 4 degrees above normal, the weather service said. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Something went wrong, please try again later. Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Subscribe today to get the latest headlines straight to your inbox with our free email updates Curve has announced its production of a new national tour of an award-winning Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and revealed its 2017 Christmas show. Tonight's season launch revealed the 2017 Christmas musical will be Leslie Bricusse's Scrooge, based on the 1970 film which starred Albert Finney. And Welsh West End star Ria Jones who hit the headlines last year when she stepped in to replace Hollywood star Glenn Close at the London Coliseum, will return to the role of Norma Desmond in Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard. Curve artistic director Nikolai Foster will direct both shows. Jones first played the role at a workshop for the show almost 26 years ago but knew she was too young to perform 50-year-old Norma Desmond in a fully-staged production. Last year she was understudying the role for English National Opera when Glenn Close, star of films including Fatal Attraction, was taken ill. Jones took to the stage with only a few hours' notice, having had no run through with the orchestra or full rehearsal with other cast members, and won national acclaim for her performance, leading to Andrew Lloyd Webber requesting she take on the lead in the new tour. "It's just incredible," she said. "To think I first workshopped the part aged 24 and now get to play her properly at the right age. Some parts just fulfil you and feel right emotionally and musically, and that's how I feel about Norma. Perhaps it's because I've had such a long association with her, but I can't wait to play her again and work with Nikolai again." Foster added: "Sunset Boulevard is an astonishingly intelligent, complex score, probably Lloyd Webber's most sophisticated piece, but he's always wanted a Hollywood legend to play the role. "Ria is a phenomenal leading lady in her own right, but when she took over from Glenn Close at the Coliseum he realised we had the right ingredients to make something really special. Norma is a monstrous, vulnerable, tragic character and the show is truly theatrical big, ballsy, epic and a visceral experience. I can't wait." He also described Scrooge as the perfect Christmas show for Leicester . "Never was the time more relevant to do a show about the importance of looking after people who are worse off than you. It's a gorgeous story with fantastic songs and there's no better Christmas story, whatever your faith, religion or beliefs." Further casting for both shows will be released in due course. Sunset Boulevard runs from September 16-30 Scrooge runs from 18 November 18, 2017 to January 7, 2018. Tickets go on sale on January 23 (open now for members). A Portlaoise man has won the International Engineer of the Year 2016. Anthony (Tony) O'Neill has been working as Chief Resident Engineer in Vranje, Serbia for more than five years. Prior to emigrating with his wife Angela and daughter Alana Marie) Tony was employed by Arup Consulting Engineers as the Authoritys Site Representative on the M7/M8 Portlaoise By-Pass Public Private Partnership (PPP) Scheme. Tony grew up in Clonkeen and attended the Oak National School just down the road from his home. He then attended Patrician College Ballyfin (as a boarder), got his Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Degree from University College, Galway and then finished his educational career with a Masters of Engineering Science (MEngSc) Degree in University College, Cork. Tony hails from a family of 13 (seven brothers and five sisters). His parents, Eddie and Mary, are both deceased. Tony was nominated by a friend and colleague, Conor Ryle. Conor's citation for Tony noted that he graduated in 1984 as a Civil Engineer and has spent more than 25 of those on site construction supervision. I worked with him on the wishbone shaped 41 km M7 Portlaoise-Castletown/M8 Portlaoise-Cullahill PPP Project as a Senior Resident Engineer for a period of approximately two years. Tony was the Authoritys Site Representative (and an Associate Director with Arup Consulting Engineers) on this Scheme. Leading a Site Team of up to 12 people, Tony displayed excellent management and liaison skills which, together with his ability to deal with the complex construction and contractual difficulties, and the emphasis he attributed to safety on site, was vital to the success of the Project which opened some four months ahead of Schedule on 28 May 2010. He was retained by the NRA until the end of August 2011 to deploy these skills in negotiating with the Concessionaire to resolve certain financial issues relating to the 27 year Operation and Maintenance (O & M) phase and to write up a comprehensive Handover Report. With no Projects underway in Ireland - due to the economic circumstances - he emigrated (together with his wife and young daughter) in November 2011 to Vranje in Serbia where he assumed the role of Chief Resident Engineer on the Construction Works on Highway E75 (Grabovnica - Levosoje). Vranje is a small city in a rural backwater and the experience of living here was particularly stressful for his wife and child with the language barrier compounding their difficulties. Almost on a daily basis they wondered what they were doing here and if they could survive. But they persisted and they did. Against this backdrop, Tonys contribution as Team Leader/Chief Resident Engineer to the infrastructural development of Serbias roads network has been quite remarkable as set out hereunder: - Grabovnica - Grdelica Section: 5.6 kms long, costing 2,389,176,954.08 RSD, funded by the World Bank and opened to traffic on 11 April 2016 - Vladicin HanPrevalac Section: 10.09 kms long, costing 2,596,099,684.02 RSD, funded by the World Bank and opened to traffic on 28 November, 2015 - Prevalac - Suvi Dol Section: 9.00 kms long, costing 2,551,571,834.69 RSD, funded by the World Bank and opened to traffic on 28 November, 2015 - Suvi Dol - Donji Neradovac Section: 7.16 kms long, costing 2,268,910,221.64 RSD, funded by the World Bank and opened to traffic on 28 November 2015 - Donji Neradovac Srpska Kuca Section, 7.95 kms long, costing 21,847,837.71 Euro, funded by a donation from the Hellenic Plan for the Economic Reconstruction of the Balkans (HiPERB) and opened to traffic on 14 November 2013 - Tunel Manajle - Vladicin Han Section: 5.77 kms long, costing 6,003,914,857.45 RSD, funded by the World Bank and currently under construction. In conclusion, I believe this award should acknowledge, not alone his contribution and successes, but also his familys resilience and courage in a very different and difficult environment. The pressure for admission to Portlaoise's hospital has jumped again with more than 30 patients waiting for a bed. Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation Trolley watch figures reveal that a total of 31 people were waiting on Monday, January 16 at the Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Of these 24 were on trolleys in the Emergency Department (ED/A&E) and seven were on wards. Since December the Laois hospital has been near the top of the daily trolley count list published by the INMO. This week's figures is no differant. The has the joint highest number of patients in the country waiting for trolleys - the Midlands Regional Hospital, Mullingar also has 24 waiting in its A&E. The Westmeath hospital has 10 patients on spread around its wards. Portlaoise is part of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group (DMHG). This is the country's biggest hospital group and Portlaoise has the highest number of patients on trolleys in the group. Other hospitals in the group are: Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore, St James and Tallaght hospitals in Dublin, Naas General. Of the 417 people on trolleys around the country, more than a quarter or 93 are waiting for admission in the DMHG. Minister for Health Simon Harris visited Portlaoise last week where he said he thanked staff for their efforts in dealing with the trolley crisis. 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. Sinn Fein Laois TD Brian Stanley is called for a 5 to 10 Year Plan for Portlaoise Hospital to recruit and attract qualified staff and to secure the necessary capital investment. He said the preferred bed capacity in a hospital is 80%, i.e. 20% of the beds are free, with 90% capacity the accepted limit. He said that at present Portlaoise Hospital is working at 110% capacity by using trolleys in the Emergency Department and along the corridors and this "poses a serious risk to patients health". However, he said simply supplying extra beds will not solve the problem as extra staff will also be required and these are not available. Without a structured, cohesive Plan in place the Hospital will not be adequately resourced and will find it impossible to attract the required staff which are so badly needed. This is already a problem," he said. The TD said that without a long term plan the Maternity Unit will not be upgraded, the proposed new Out Patients Department on the Block Road will not be built and the future of the Emergency Department will not be secured. Dep Stanley said the preferred bed capacity in a hospital is 80%, i.e. 20% of the beds are free, with 90% capacity the accepted limit. "At present Portlaoise Hospital is working at 110% capacity by using trolleys in the ED and along the corridors and this poses a serious risk to patients health. However simply supplying extra beds will not solve the problem as extra staff will also be required and these are not available," he said. With regard to staffing levels, Portlaoise currently has 660 WTEs (Whole Time Equivalents). He claimed this includes almost 60 agency staff. "There are a number of vacant maternity posts and general nursing posts as well as another temporary ED Consultant to be filled but the Hospital is finding it difficult to recruit because of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the hospital," he said. "It is vital that Health Minister, Simon Harris, immediately removes all the long standing uncertainty surrounding Portlaoise Hospital and announces a long term plan to secure its future and to upgrade services appropriate to a Model 3 Hospital. He received that message loud and clear when he visited the Hospital recently, concluded the TD. A man has been released on bail after he bing charged with the serious stabbing of another young man in Birr. Barry Hehir, aged 21, of McAuley Drive, Birr was brought before Judge Anthony Halpin at Dublin District Court on Monday afternoon. The assault at McAuley Drive, took place in the early hours of last Sunday morning. Darragh Daly, who is also aged in his twenties, suffered serious stab wounds and is in a critical condition in hospital. The court heard that Hehir made no reply when charged. The bail conditions demand that the accused must reside with an aunt in Edenderry while on bail. He as told not to consume alcohol, and abide by 8pm and 8am daily curfew. He must stay out of Birr and not have any contact with with witnesses. Gardai have appealed for witnesses and anyone with information, particularly those who reside at or were in the McAuley Drive, Townsend Street, New Road and Pound Street areas between 12.30am and 1.30am on Sunday. Just over 3,000 patients were admitted to Naas Hospital on trolleys during 2016. And while this represents a slight improvement on the figure for 2015 (3210) there was an overall increase in levels of overcrowding at hospitals in the State during last year. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, which monitors the number of patients admitted to hospitals on trolleys, said almost 94,000 patients were treated on trolleys nationally in 2016 - a 68% increase between 2006 and 2016. The worst year for overcrowding at Naas Hospital was in 2011 when 4409 patients were admitted trolleys while the year with the lowest number of such admissions was 2007 (1323). In general hospitals in the Eastern region, which include the major facilities in Dublin, fared better last year and all saw the number of delays fall when compared with last year. But elsewhere there were increases including at Portlaoise Hospital where the figure rose from 2162 to 3364 in twelve months. INMO General Secretary Liam Doran said that admitting patients for care for whom there is no bed can compromise care and result in a loss of dignity and privacy. This cannot go unchallenged and must be addressed by health management, said Mr Doran. He said successive governments have failed to address overcrowding. He added there is a fear that a combination of closed beds and an outbreak of influenza may cause the situation to deteriorate further. An immediate emergency response is required, he said. Sallins-based cultural group Sult na Sollan is looking ahead to the coming year with a number of events being planned. The group was formed over seven years ago by a group of like minded people who wished to promote the Irish language, Irish music and Irish culture. It has staged an annual festival Feile na Sollan in October for the past four years. The Feile, also known as the Sallins Trad Fest, has been pencilled in for October 20 to 22 this year. In the meantime the groups monthly music sessions take place at the Railway Inn, generally on the third Friday of each month, starting at 9.30pm, with musicians arriving at 9pm. Irish language classes (ciorcai comhra) are held at the local primary school . A course in conversational Irish which runs for eight weeks will start on January 18. The cost is 60 (50 for Sult na Sollan members, OAPs and unwaged) and it's aimed at beginners and improvers. Sult is supporting the Sallins Novel Book Club, which organised a talk with author Declan Power about the Siege of Jadotville, which has been made into a film; at the Sallins Community Centre last night. Official statistics released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that new car registrations for the year 2016 (146,672) finished 17.5% ahead of 2015 (124,804). The month of December registrations were up 45% (499) compared with the same month in 2015 (344). Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) for 2016 recorded an increase of 18.3% (28,180) when compared to 2015 (23,829). Despite the month of December registering a decrease of -23% (179) in comparison to December 2015 (235). Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) registrations in 2016 were up 31.3% (2,873) on the previous year (2,188). Alan Nolan, Director General, SIMI, New car registrations for 2016 finished at 146,600 for the full year, making it the highest year for new car registrations since 2008. Despite some slowing in the second half of the year, the numbers are in line with expectations at the start of 2016 and underline the continued growth and buoyancy in the economy. Used car imports have also seen growth, partly due to the strong economic recovery, but also driven by short supply of 2009-2013 Irish used cars and the strengthening of the Euro against sterling following the Brexit Referendum. Almost 50% of imported used cars were in this age profile, between three and five years old, and almost another 40% are over six years old." Commercial vehicle registrations, which perhaps best reflect the level of activity in the economy, were also significantly up on 2015, with Light Commercial Vehicle registrations finishing 18.3% up and Heavy Commercial Vehicle Registrations 31.3% ahead of last year. "As we move into 2017 and the new 171 registration period the Industry is anticipating a continuation of the strong performance seen during 2016 and is projecting similar registration numbers to last year," Mr Nolan concluded. The LibDems might explore the possibility of a policy of putting the fire service into the independent sector. There are various models which could be considered. One is that of the LifeBoats (RNLI), a charity which works under a Royal Charter and is run by volunteers on the front line but with paid headquarters staff. Another is that of mutualisation, the John Lewis model. The need for reform is highlighted by the practice of firemen taking second jobs, which is not a trope of the right-wing media but a fact about a self-serving, over-politicised and reactionary labour force. In November 2015 the Fire Brigades Union re-affiliated with the UK Labour Party due to the unions backing of the partys new leader Jeremy Corbyn and his commitment to so-called anti-austerity politics. John McDonnell, Corbyns far-left shadow chancellor, lends the FBU support in Parliament. The fire service staff have a right to strike which they do not scruple to exercise. The FBU routinely campaigns not only against financial austerity but Government measures in the field of fire safety. It may claim to have expertise in such matters but, like the transport unions disruptive action purporting to be on grounds of safety, there will always be questions about the credibility of the FBUs stance. For example, the FBU has denounced the apparently dangerous policy of not requiring the installing of sprinklers in new schools, but the Governments own policy on fire safety in schools puts a different complexion on the matter. There is a conflict of interest at the heart of the FBU, because though its members are charged with advancing fire prevention, their interest as a labour force rests in there being fires to extinguish. The FBU contrasts with the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA). This is the professional voice of the UK fire and rescue service, supporting members to fulfil their leadership role in protecting local communities and making life safer through improved service delivery. While Home Secretary, Theresa May drew attention to the poor culture in the fire service. She said the diversity of the 96% white, 95% male workforce should be transformed. In at least one fire service there is an intimidatory culture. The public financing of the service means there is a hidden subsidy to the private sector. In historic days, the service was paid for by the insurance companies. Perhaps there is a case for reviving this model in a modern form with, for example, a levy on insurance policies. In addition to adopting the RNLI and John Lewis models, other possible measures could include separating fire prevention from extinguishment, and de-unionisation, turning the union into a professional body to monitor and raise standards like the CFOA. Re-modelling the fire service could also be a step towards integrating the fire with the ambulance service so that paramedics and fire service staff were one and the same. This is how things works in some overseas countries and would be an efficiency gain. * Mark Frankel joined the LibDems in the wake of the Brexit vote and was able to cast a vote in the Richmond Park by-election. He has a degree in philosophy and retired in 2014 from a career in public finance. THE internationally acclaimed and award-winning author Colum McCann has described Limerick as a city that is witnessing a revolution in how it perceives itself. McCann is the co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4 which officially opened in Limerick in 2016. The author was speaking in Limerick last Friday night where he hosted a special literary celebration as part of Nollaig na mBan at the Narrative 4 headquarters on OConnell St. Attendees at Friday evenings event were treated to a special reading of excerpts from James Joyces famous short story The Dead by young participants of the Narrative 4 programme. Speaking at the event McCann said: We embarked on the Narrative 4 journey just over three years ago. We continue to spread our reach to countries such as South Africa, Mexico, Palestine, Israel, Costa Rica and the US. McCann added that the focus of what Narrative 4 have been doing has been primarily in Limerick. I came here last summer and saw the bones of our building and am now returning to see what is happening. I think it is truly, truly extraordinary, he added. It is an evolving story in itself. The people of Limerick and the City and County Council deserve a grand round of applause. We are witnessing a revolution of how we perceive ourselves. it seems that something is bubbling up through Limerick. I dont know what it is but we are hoping to tap into it, McCann said. This isnt the first time McCann has spoken of the new Limerick confidence. Speaking at the launch of Narrative 4 in 2016 McCann described Limerick people as having the fire, the guts and the desire for change and described Limerick as a model city for how to fundamentally shift perception. It feels like the time has come for Limerick, McCann added. Its vibrant and edgy and new, and I feel aligned with the city. The city has a story to tell the world. McCann is the author of six novels and three collections of stories. He has been the recipient of many international honours, including the National Book Award and the International Dublin Impac Prize. McCann received a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, has been elected to the Irish arts academy and was awarded the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China as well as an Oscar nomination. Since the global charitys HQ was established in Limerick last year its city centre space has hosted the international Narrative 4 summit as well as playing host to numerous story exchanges and open house events. The new space is an excellent example of the versatility of the Georgian Townhouse which, following a renovation project led by Feeney McMahon Architects, now provides an exciting educational space in the heart of Limerick city. With the Limerick centre now open, it is planned that students from all over Ireland and further afield will come to Limerick city in order to conduct workshops in storytelling, art and creative writing using a cutting edge curriculum designed by some of the biggest literary talents in the world. IFI link launches in Belltable It was great to see the first night of the Belltables new relationship with the Irish Film Institute. The partnership will bring new Irish and international cinema to the citys cultural hub. Every week, audiences will be able to enjoy the best in cultural cinema drawn directly from the IFIs monthly slate. The programme launched on Monday evening with a screening of Ken Loachs critically acclaimed social drama I, Daniel Blake. The introduction of the IFIs programme to Belltable signals an expansion of the venues hugely popular film programme, which has grown since Marketa Dowlings appointment as programme manager in April 2016. Speaking at the launch Dowling said: We are really excited about this new partnership. Our audiences will benefit hugely from IFIs expertise and experience of programming top quality arthouse cinema. We are proud to be presenting the best in cultural cinema to the Mid-West. Positive coverage from the BBC The new Limerick vision was once again at the receiving end of positive national and international media coverage recently. Shane Harrison of BBC NI described Limerick as already a city transformed and looking towards a future that it hopes will be bright whilst suggesting we were perfectly positioned for post-Brexit investment. Harrisons piece included interviews with key local players like Conn Murray, Denis Brosnan and Northern Trusts Catherine Duffy. This was followed by a feature in the Sunday Independent posing the question, Could Limerick become our second city? The piece comes on the back of similar suggestions made by John Moran in 2016. There is still a lot of work to be done if Limerick is to live up to its new-found ingratiation with national media. However, what we all must take note of is the fact that by having a plan, sticking to that plan and selling that plan confidently we have the potential to convince investors that the Limerick offer is one worth considering. A MAJOR public meeting in opposition to Irish Cements 10m plans to change process in Mungret takes place this Tuesday night. Limerick Against Pollution (Lap), which is against the companys plans to burn waste including old tyres and plastic, will host the meeting at St Pauls School in Dooradoyle. All are welcome to the meeting, which starts at 8pm. Meanwhile, the group has also welcomed the fact that planners from Limerick City and County Council have sought more information on the companys proposals, which they say will secure the jobs of the 80 staff working on site. The council has delayed making a decision on the firms application for a second time. It has asked Irish Cement to start monitoring heavy metal emissions from its site shortly, and include these findings in its further information submission. This comes after many objectors to the plans expressed concerns at the impact on the environment of burning used tyres and solid recovered fuels. Once March 28 passes, the council will then set in train the decision making process for the application, which has been opposed by scores of local people. Irish Cement has always insisted there will be no increase in the number of emissions coming from the site if the new plans are waved through, due to the extremely high temperature the burning will take place at. A spokesperson for Lap said: We are happy that the council is applying scrutiny to the proposal which has caused concern to many people across the city and county. Lap made its own response to Irish Cements submissions pointing to what it described as a lack of proper monitoring of noise and emissions, as well as flat out refusal to acknowledge certain risks involved with the proposal. Meanwhile, at Monday's metropolitan district council meeting, Cllr Cian Prendiville will seek answers from the executive on whether they will be submitting a formal objection to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on this project. While the council will decide on the physical infrastructure around the scheme, it will be the EPA which decides whether Irish Cement is given a licence to operate in Mungret. The local authority is under huge pressure from its members to formally oppose the plans by the firm. Cllr Prendiville had previously asked whether such an objection had been made to the EPA, which has heard from 1,400 people in relation to the project. Metropolitan district boss Kieran Lehane confirmed consultants had been appointed to carry out an appraisal of the air quality, health and climate change elements of the applications and further submissions. Their report was expected to be completed last month. Irish Cement was not immediately available for comment. FOR Roxboro Road native, Aisling Quinn, it is her dream to be a nurse in her home country. Unfortunately, she cannot see it improving enough for me to return to pursue her career. All I can do is wish that I am wrong and that in years to come it will improve enough that I would come back and continue my profession at home, said the Limerick student. Aisling, 21, studies nursing at University of Southampton, and has been finding it upsetting to hear of stories of mass overcrowding at hospitals, such as UHL. Having so much of a workload is exhausting for anyone and in the profession of nursing it is not good practice to expect nurses to carry out as much work as they are at the moment. This is not an environment that I would like to work in and it is for that reason I plan on staying in the UK to continue my nursing when qualified, she said. But it was the video of an ambulance pile-up outside the emergency department at UHL that prompted the former Colaiste Nano Nagle pupils frustration, last week. This angered me because it has been common knowledge for years that the healthcare system in Ireland is failing and nothing has been done to improve this to the standards necessary. The healthcare system has not been improving and is getting worse every year. Having 16 ambulances outside an A&E in 2017 waiting to offload patients, simply, is not okay. This needs to be an eye-opener for our Government to finally realise that the healthcare system is a priority in Ireland. I also think the way they are dealing with supplying beds for patients is unfair, one of the first questions they ask when you go to A&E is if you have private health insurance or not. If you do have health insurance, you will get a bed a lot faster than someone who doesnt have it. We are expected as nurses to prioritise patient care by the terms of their illnesses not by who has health insurance or not. She commended the staff in Limerick, but said that there are not enough frontine medics and equipment for the reflux of patients. They are overworking themselves on every shift to try and help as many patients as they can. They are working in horrendous conditions in A&E, it is a health hazard, overcrowded and understaffed. The work they are carrying out in A&E is to the best of their ability and this should be recognised. Ms Quinn said that people she knows working in the HSE are telling her that if it is possible stay away as long as I can, adding that after working in three NHS hospitals, she has never seen patients sleeping on corridors. When I have previously told nurses in the hospitals Ive been placed what the Irish healthcare system is like, they could not believe what I was telling them. Ireland is a first world country but our healthcare system certainly isnt of the standard necessary for first world country hospitals. A SERIES of aerial photographs of Curraghchase House has captured the hearts of many in Limerick, with the set raking in more than 1,000 likes on Facebook. The pictures, taken by photographer Liam McNamara from Castleconnell, show the historical house from a rarely seen perspective. But the photographs have sparked comments on the houses state of disrepair, with many expressing disappointment. Over recent years Coillte has undertaken significant remedial works to the structural remains of Curraghchase House, said a Coillte spokesperson. More recently, overgrown ivy was removed from the interior of the building to ensure it remains in a safe condition. There are plans for additional ivy removal later this year, which will also allow for an updated inspection of the building to take place, he continued. The photographer didnt have to take to the skies himself to get the shots, instead, taking advantage of drone technology. I love Irish history and I try promote Ireland as best I can by covering our hidden gems that are off the well-known tourist tracks, said Liam. I've been covering these sites for the last two years on foot, but I added a drone to my photography equipment last summer. Its a great addition to show a birds eye view of these sites, especially ones like Curraghchase as the inside of the house hasnt been seen in many years, and any time youre down there youll hear someone say, I wonder what the inside looks like, he added. Liam is passionate about sites of historical relevance, and manages his photography hobby around his day job in metal fabrication. I was overwhelmed by the response to the photos. When I got into the hobby, I set out to promote Ireland as best I could through my pictures and travels around our historic sites, he said. Since posting the pictures and history of Curraghchase Ive had endless messages sent in from people all over Ireland and people from overseas who have an Irish holiday planned, asking me to advise them on planning a trip to see the site and asking what else is around Limerick to see, he added. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. 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Actors want to play gangsters because of the characters sex appeal: Rahul Dholakia Rahul Dholakia on his new film 'Raees', and his fondness for the gangster genre /news/talking-point/actors-want-to-play-gangsters-because-of-the-characters-sex-appeal-rahul-dholakia-111646911612499.html 111646911612499 story Rahul Dholakia read Mario Puzos The Godfather when he was in school. After finishing the book, he wanted to become a gangster. The fascination with the world of dons continued as he devoured films made by Martin Scorsese. It was simply a matter of time before a larger-than-life don took the spotlight in one of his scripts. Dholakias Raees, which releases on 25 January, is set in the Gujarat of the 1970s and 1980s and follows the life of a powerful bootlegger Raees, played by Shah Rukh Khan. Edited excerpts from an interview: What drew you to this genre? While finishing the script of Lamhaa, I was living in America, and many of my (New) Jersey friends had liquor stores or dealerships. They suggested that if I did something on prohibition or alcohol, they would get me the financing. Around the same time, the TV series Boardwalk Empire was coming out, which is also about prohibition, and it got me thinking about doing something like this. But if its about prohibition and set in India, then it had to be Gujarat. Since I am a Gujarati, I said, lets try it. I began the research with some journalist friends. In the initial draft there was no gangster. It was about prohibition, and at one point it was more like a social drama. But when you talk about bootlegging it means gangsters and the nexus between politics and the police. Also read: Gangs of Bollywood How did the character played by Shah Rukh Khan, Raees, come about? Al Capone is a great inspiration as far as any film on prohibition or gangsters is concernedalso Lucky Luciano. So we thought we would try to make Raees something like that. We wrote a lot of draftsfrom the cops point of view, one very serious draft from the prohibition point of view, one which was more of a spoof, called Car-O-Bar". Yet, somehow, the gangster attracted me more. We had also met a lot of interesting cops during our research, so I decided to do a cop and gangster story with prohibition as the backdrop. Which gangster-themed films have you enjoyed? I am a big Martin Scorsese fan; I love his work. And I am also a huge fan of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. In my adult life the only person whose autograph I have waited to take is Pacinos. I had just seen his play on Broadway (Hughie) and after the show I stood outside the door with the plays poster and got it signed. The Untouchables, Casino, Goodfellas, The Godfather, Scarface are some of the classics I grew up with. I also loved watching Heat, Carlitos Way, Jean-Luc Godard films such as Breathlessso somewhere down the line I have had a fascination with the bad guy. From the Indian film industry, Deewaar, Sholay, Company, Satya, Gangs Of Wasseypur and Mukul Anands Agneepath come to mind. Also, more recently, Narcos. Rahul Dholakia (left) directing Nawazuddin Siddiqui on the set of Raees. How do you build sympathy for a gangster character? Gangsters do a lot of good in their community because they need people on their side. They become popular because politicians support them as they need the vote bank and the goons to do stuff for them. Also, the world of the gangster has mystery, which cinema has glamourized. As a viewer, you dont want to only see goody-goody characters. Its a rags-to-riches story. Most people are common and helpless and when they see someone taking on a system and defying it, these people become their heroes. You have to have shades of Robin Hood in the character. Gangsters are unpredictable. And for a writer, its superb, because you can do whatever you want with the character. You create a whole imagined world and thats the fun of writing. Does a romantic track help build sympathy for the character? Gangster films usually have a moll, but in our film there is no Mona darling. We have a wife. Its not important to have a romantic track but the nicer, lighter, human side comes out through the woman, which helps keep the audience connected. Also, gangster films are very macho, so you need elements to balance it out. Besides writing and casting, what other elements are intrinsic to bringing the underworld to the screen? Production design plays a big part. We have to create Raees world, which is set in the 1970s and 1980s. The costumes are important to give a particular texture. The background music and sound design are crucial. And while the dialogues are flowery, they have been played very normally and realistically, within the requirements of a commercial film. And, of course, theres the cinematographythe way its shot, the lensing, lighting and style of shooting. Why do actors want to play gangsters? They are sexy, no? Men want to be them; women love them. All dons beat up a bad guy only, someone worse than them. In school we would say all the good-looking girls go to the bad guys, even if they were ugly as hell. Human migration (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) Conservation scientist Sacha Dench has completed a 4,500-mile (7,240 kilometers) paramotor journey from the Russian Arctic to the west of England, tracking the annual southward migration of an endangered species of swan. Dench set off from the Nenets region of northern Russia in mid-September 2016, along with two support crew, in a microlight aircraft to track and document the movements and behaviors of Bewick's swans as they make their way south for the winter. [Read full story about the three-month migration] Losing numbers (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) Bewick's swans are a frequent visitor to the wetlands reserve at Slimbridge in the west of England, where Dench works for the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust (WWT) conservation group. The number of swans making the annual migration has fallen sharply over the last 20 years, from around 30,000 in 1995 to around 18,000 since 2010. Study the route (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) As the scientists followed the swans along their southward migration route, or "flyway," Dench and her colleagues looked for evidence of the causes of the decline in numbers, such as the draining of wetland habitats for use as farmland. A long journey (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) The swan migration route took Dench and her support team from the north of Russia through Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France to the United Kingdom. Live maps of her movements, and of five Bewick's swans equipped with GPS collars, were published during the journey on the WWT's website. Untouched land (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) At the start of the journey, Dench and her support crew flew over remote tundra grasslands and taiga forests in northern Russia without roads or human settlements. Helpful viewpoint (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) The flyers were joined later in the journey by a ground team that included scientific researchers and hundreds of volunteers from the countries along the migration route. The foot-launched paramotor allowed Dench to observe Bewick's swans at "stopover" sites in wetlands along the migration route that couldn't be reached any other way. Setting records (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) Dench became the first woman to cross the English Channel by paramotor, and began the last stages of her journey west across England to the headquarters of the WWT at the Slimbridge Wetland Centre in Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom. Protections needed (Image credit: WWT Flight of the Swans) Slimbridge is a winter home for thousands of Bewick's swans, but the WWT says urgent action is needed to protect the wetland habitats used by the swans on their migration route. The group has called on European governments along the migration route to work together to protect Bewick's swan and other species, by restoring lost wetlands and preventing illegal hunting. President Tran Dai Quang meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Hanoi on January 16th (Photo: VNA) Welcoming Abes official visit to Vietnam, President Quang noted with satisfaction the strong, comprehensive and substantive development of the extensive strategic partnership with high political trust. Vietnam attaches importance to all-round cooperation with Japan and considers this a priority in its foreign policy, he said. He added his country warmly welcomes the first State visit by the Japanese Emperor and Queen and regards the trip as an important symbol of bilateral ties. Vietnamese agencies are working closely with the Japanese side to prepare for the visit. The host also repeated an invitation to PM Abe to attend the APEC Summit slated for November 2017 in Vietnam. He highly valued the outcomes of the talks between the Vietnamese and Japanese PMs, adding that the common perceptions they reached at this event will be a new driving force for the extensive strategic partnership. The two countries should maintain high-level visits and meetings, increase delegation exchanges between ministries, sectors and localities, and enhance people-to-people links, he noted. They should also bolster result-oriented cooperation in defence-security, such as the Japanese Governments assistance to Vietnam to improve the capacity of its law enforcement force at sea. President Quang asked both sides to beef up partnership in investment, trade, ODA provision and in the fields they have potential in and can support each other like labour, agriculture, education-training, locality-to-locality cooperation, and tourism. They need to continue close coordination and mutual support at international and regional forums such as the United Nations, the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Plus, APEC, and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). At the meeting, PM Shinzo Abe reiterated his Governments wish to intensify the extensive strategic partnership with Vietnam. He agreed with the Vietnamese Presidents opinions on measures to augment bilateral relations. He thanked the Southeast Asian nation for actively preparing for the State visit by the Japanese Emperor and Queen, stressing that his country also considers this visit as a symbol of their friendship and all-faceted cooperation. The Japanese Government is ready and pledges to cooperate comprehensively with Vietnam in APEC initiatives. It will also give wholehearted support to the country to successfully organise APEC events throughout 2017, he added./. A paragliding scientist dubbed the "Human Swan" touched down in the west of England after flying 4,500 miles to document the annual winter migrations of an endangered species of swan. Tens of thousands of endangered Bewicks swans leave their breeding grounds in northern Russia every fall, heading south for milder wetlands across the northwest of Europe where they can wait out the winter. Late last year, as the days on the Russian tundra grew shorter and groups of swans began to take wing for the annual migration, a bird of a different feather set out with the flocks on their route to the south a human scientist, piloting a paraglider. Australian-born biologist Sacha Dench, dubbed the Human Swan, set out in mid-September 2016 to track the migration journey of the birds from the remote Nenets region of Russia's northwestern coast, inside the Arctic Circle. Flying a paramotor a foot-launched paraglider equipped with a motorized propeller Dench took advantage of her bird's-eye view to document the swan migration for its entire length, 4,500 miles (7,240 kilometers) south and west through 10 countries in Europe to the west of England, where she arrived in mid-December after a three-month journey. [See Photos from the "Human Swan's" Three-Month Journey] Dench told Live Science her aim was to learn about the environmental threats that the birds face along their migration route, and to highlight a campaign to protect their wetland habitats led by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), the conservation charity in the United Kingdom where she is the head of media production. She explained that she always stayed a safe distance from the flying and resting swans she encountered during the journey, but she was sometimes able to fly beneath large flocks in a high "V" formation. "They just ignored me, which is a great thing. I wouldn't kid myself that they accepted me I just didn't look like a threat to them," she said. For the first 370 miles (600 kilometers), the migration route took Dench across remote parts of the Russian tundra without roads or human settlements, accompanied by two support crew in a microlight aircraft. The fliers were joined later in the journey by a ground team that included scientific researchers and hundreds of volunteers from communities along the swans' migration route, through parts of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Human threats Dench endured frequent bouts of bad flying weather as the European winter set in during the three-month voyage, including heavy snow and thunderstorms, and at one point she suffered a dislocated knee after stumbling during a takeoff near St. Petersburg in Russia. In early December she became the first woman to cross the English Channel by paramotor, and on December 16 she completed her migration journey when she landed at WWT's headquarters at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, a wetlands reserve about 120 miles (200 km) west of London, where thousands of Bewick's swans spend each winter. The number of Bewick's swans making the annual migration from Arctic Russia to northern Europe has fallen sharply in recent years, from around 29,000 birds in 1995 to around 18,000 in 2010, according to research by WWT and other conservation groups across Europe. Illegal hunting and the draining of wetland habitats for use as farmland are thought to be the main threats to the swans. [Top 10 Most Incredible Animal Journeys] "A lot of the problems involve people," Dench said. "We need to somehow get through to the farmers, hunting associations and politicians in each country, and we have to do this across quite a lot of different countries so we've got quite a challenge." By flying the same route as the migrating swans, Dench and her research team were able to make first-hand observations about why fewer swans are surviving the migration each year. Using a paraglider allowed Dench to document the many different landscapes encountered by the swans along their migration route, and to record the numbers and behaviors of swans resting at "stopover" sites in major wetland areas along the way, she said. Flight of the swans The expedition also focused on the travels of five swans nicknamed Leho, Maisie, Eileen, Hope and Daisy Clarke that were fitted with GPS-tracking collars during earlier migrations to the south, Dench said. Live maps of the movements of the tracked swans over the migration period were published on the project's website, so birdwatchers and other conservation volunteers in each country could look for them and report any sightings through social media, she said. Dench said that the Bewick's swan is an iconic species for the WWT, whose founder, the British ornithologist and conservationist Peter Scott, was the first to note that individual Bewick's swans could be identified by the markings on their beaks. "So we now know individuals and families, and we've been tracking some of them for decades we know exactly how many cygnets they've had in their entire life, and how dominant they are, and all the rest of it," she said. That historical data could now be placed in the context of the information gathered about the migration route, she said. The paramotor expedition brought together hundreds of scientific researchers and conservation volunteers across Europe, she said, and helped to promote the WWTs online petition for measures to protect Bewick's swans, such as restoring lost wetlands and preventing illegal hunting along the migration route. Dench said the expedition was also a rare chance for researchers from the swans' southern range to learn more about their remote breeding grounds in Arctic Russia. "I would go back and fly again over the tundra in a heartbeat," she said. "From the air, as far as you could see, there is no sign of human beings, and that's really quite rare. It was absolutely stunning." Original article on Live Science. Harmony Science Academy held over the weekend its science fair, which showcased 86 projects. Harmony Science Academy is proud of its large and diverse student body as well as the exchange of new ideas that come with having such a diverse group, a news release states. Consequently, with the new growth to the school in both student population and resources, our Science Fair was considerably larger this year with a wider variety of projects than it has seen in previous years. The science fair was one-day event held Saturday. Each middle and high school student had a mentor. Fifty of the projects will be advancing to the regional science fair, which will take place at the University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville on Feb. 11. Our science fair proved to be a great occasion for our campus to provide our students with the opportunity to showcase their interests applied to the real world in a meaningful way and it becomes a more enriching experience when members of the community offer their support to the students, the news release states. The professional Laredo community is to be commentated for their commitment. We had in attendance 25 community professionals all with higher education or experience in STEM-related fields who graciously accepted our invitation to be our students science fair judges. Courtesy/Laredo Police Department A 27-year-old man was killed and another was seriously injured in a shooting Sunday in central Laredo, police said. Guillermo Capetillo, 28, was arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury with a firearm in connection with the shooting, according to the Laredo Police Department. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Photo: VNA) Prime Minister Abe and his spouse are visiting Vietnam at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc after touring three other Asia Pacific countries the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia. The visit reflects the importance that Japan attaches to the extensive strategic partnership between the two countries and reaffirms Vietnams view of Japan as a key partner in the long term. The two countries will work together to strengthen political trust and push for further cooperation in various fields, including economy, trade, investment, official development assistance (ODA), as well as agriculture, education, human resources together with adaptation to climate change, labour, national defence and security./. NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Source: VNA) NA Chairwoman Ngan spoke highly of the Japanese PMs efforts to bring about a Japanese society and global community in which women could shine. She also expressed her delight at the outcomes of talks between the guest and the Vietnamese PM, during which, the Japanese side pledged the continued supply of official development assistance and other additional support programmes to Vietnam, especially in coping with saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta. Japan is currently the top economic partner, fourth largest ODA provider, second largest investor and fourth largest trade partner of Vietnam, she said. The host said she is satisfied with progressing ties between the two legislatures, including the exchange of delegations and meetings on the sidelines of international conferences, and increased exchanges between the friendship parliamentarians alliances and young parliamentarians of the two nations. In order to reinforce bilateral friendship and cooperation, NA Chairwoman Ngan asked for maintaining high-level contacts between the two governments and parliaments, and wished that Japan would help Vietnam with personnel training, climate change response, investment and trade while increasing ties across culture, education and people-to-people exchange. Abe, in reply, called for further strengthening collaboration in many levels, including between the two law-making bodies. As the largest ODA provider to Vietnam, Japan wants to make maximum contributions to Vietnams socio-economic development, with a focus on high-quality infrastructure construction, he said, adding that he agrees with the hosts proposal to elevate cooperation between localities. On the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he informed that Japan has ratified the deal. The Vietnamese NA Chairwoman said Vietnam is actively making preparations and expects other member states to promptly adopt the pact. Host and guest also underscored the importance of ensuring peace, security and safety in the region, saying that parties concerned need to accelerate the settlement of disputes by peaceful means and fully respect diplomatic process and international law./. Culture / Art Republik Art Republik takes a Skype call with Guillaume Levy Lambert to find out more about Art Porters and how he juggles the many roles in the art industry Jan 16, 2017 | By Nadya Wang Maybe a painting can save a life. One changed mine. this is the tagline of the MaGMA collection belonging to collector, gallerist and artist Guillaume Levy Lambert and his partner, Mark Goh. The collection was exhibited at Opera Gallery in 2010 in Fairy Tales: Selections from the MaGMA Collection and at Sothebys Paris in 2014 in The Calendar Story Collection MaGMA a Paris. In 2014, Levy Lambert founded the gallery Art Porters. Most recently, he revealed his first artwork as an artist, Evidence, at the Art World Forum, held in Singapore in October 2016. The work is currently on show at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco as part of the Yud Video Project, which called for submissions that explored how memory is portrayed using video as art form. Commenting on the selection of Evidence for the exhibition out of 700 entries, CJM Assistant Curator Pierre-Francois Galpin says, Evidence immediately struck us for the powerful story it tells and the multiple human connections and memories it generated. Using recordings of Skype calls in the work speaks to the genuine potential of global networks; and the works originality and humour convinced us to include it in the final selections of 25 works. The artwork is based on Desk Calendar, a painting by Roy Lichtenstein made in 1962. It was a work that Levy Lambert and Goh encountered shortly after theyd met, and which sealed their fate, so to speak, as it included both their birthdays. The painting comes with the invitation, call 212-288-4820, and the number belonged to Leo Castelli, then Lichtensteins gallerist. Levy Lambert acquired the number in 2011. Often, people who came in contact with the painting, whether at its home at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles or in travelling exhibitions, would call the number out of curiosity. Levy Lambert would answer, and explain the fortuitous events that had transpired since his encounter with the painting. Evidence is a video work of five minutes condensed from over 30 hours of Skype and FaceTime conversations he has had with these callers. Art Republik talks to Levy Lambert to find out more about his artwork, the different hats he dons in his multifaceted relationship with art, and his future plans. How did you decide which calls to include in the video work? I looked for a diversity of callers and their reactions to the astonishing series of events that we call The Calendar Story. There was also an effort to manage the rhythm and construction of the whole piece. What other challenges did you meet with in making the work? Well we had many late nights and very early mornings as most of the callers were in the USA and we worked from Singapore. The editing was a Herculean task particularly for the video editor, the Israeli artist Romy Engel, who was looking to reconstruct a seamless telling of my story, repeated dozens of times over a few weeks. What has the journey been like transitioning from collector to gallery owner to artist? I bought my first artwork when I was 20. The decision to become serious collectors was a natural one for my life partner Mark and I as we looked for a way to leave a trace of our story, and to express our gratitude to the world of art for the most romantic incident ever our serendipitous encounter with Desk Calendar just a few weeks after wed met. Art Porters the gallery with its mission of sharing happiness with art is born of the same desire of letting others experience the power of art to transform lives for the better. Our focus on accessible art is borne out of responding to many a friends request for assistance in starting to collect. Coming out as an artist was a longer process. And what is it like being all three at once? Now being all three at the same time feels natural. We avoid conflicts by not collecting actively the artists we represent, and Art Porters is not representing me. I have learnt a lot from the artists we work with. Laure Hatchuel-Becker, who will be with us at Art Stage this year also, had insisted that I must get my art process kick-started, leading to the creation of Evidence. And our sculptor friend Arnaud Nazare-Aga who brought his Little Prince concept to life in a matter of months is a role model. Could you describe how you felt as an artist at the opening of The Yud Video Project at the CJM? On arrival at the CJM, I was given a name tag stating artist. I was delighted, and also in awe when I discovered the buildings architecture, including the room where the video is shown, designed by Daniel Libeskind. What have been the reactions to your artwork? The impact of the project is deep. One of the callers asked me to connect her with the other participants; this is how the Evidence (of Divine Providence) Facebook page was born. Another caller travelled from the UK for a day just to have lunch with me in Paris. Three others flew from Texas to meet me in San Francisco. I have also received heart-warming reactions from both friends and visitors to the exhibition. Whats next for Guillaume, the artist? Reflection. Art Porters has been very active in the past three years though it has not had a permanent space. Whats in store for the gallery in 2017? For the past three years we were very happy to participate in various art fairs including Art Stage in Singapore and Jakarta as well as the Affordable Art Fair in Singapore. We also organised specific art projects such as Svetlana Petrova at The Fullerton Hotel. Clients and artists kept asking us about more regular exhibitions and a permanent space. An opportunity arose in a beautiful conserved Peranakan house on Spottiswoode Park Road, Singapore, and together with Sean Soh, Art Porters co-Founder, we decided to take this opportunity. We have invested in a major renovation conceived by Wynk Collaborative as we want a space that is not just a white box but where visitors will feel the unique characteristics of the Peranakan shophouse. The gallery is divided in two spaces. We are opening the front gallery space with a solo exhibition Is this fate? by one of our emerging Indonesian artists Naufal Abshar, and the other room will be an art and event space. We are also plotting a few surprises for the remainder of the year. This article was first published in Art Republik. Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Source: VNA) During a reception in Hanoi on January 16th for visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Party leader suggested the two sides continue to strengthen political trust via the maintenance of regular exchanges and meetings at all levels, especially visits between senior leaders of the two States, governments and legislatures, as well as intensify people-to-people exchanges. He spoke highly of the practical and effective support that Japan has provided for Vietnams socio-economic development over the past years, especially its official development assistance to Vietnam in the fields of high-quality infrastructure and human resources training, support industry, agriculture, and climate change response. The Vietnamese leaders and people highly value the upcoming visit by the Japanese Emperor and Empress, he said, adding that it will mark a new milestone that further deepens bilateral ties and friendship between the two peoples. Abe, for his part, informed the host about the outcomes of talks with his Vietnamese counterpart. He affirmed that Japan continues prioritising ODA to Vietnam and wishes to enhance coordination in infrastructure development and high-quality human resources training. He said he also wants to enhance collaboration with Vietnam to contribute to maintain peace, stability, security, safety, development and prosperity in the region and the world. The guest believed that the visit between the two countries leaders, especially the upcoming one by the Japanese Emperor and Empress will lift Japan-Vietnam ties to a new height./. Vietnamese tourists in Japan. (Photo: VNA) In 2021, around 7.5 million Vietnamese will travel abroad, compared to 4.8 million in 2016, said the report. Myanmar is expected to rank first with a 10.6% growth per year over the next five years. The rate is 8.6% for Indonesia, 8.5% for China and 8.2% for India. Meanwhile, growth will be 6.1% for Sri Lanka, 4.8% for Thailand, 4.4% for the Philippines and 3.8% for the Republic of Korea. Australia, Singapore and Malaysia are expected to have a 3.5% growth. Eric Schneider, senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific at Mastercard Advisors, said, The burgeoning middle class is driving the growth of outbound travel in the Asia-Pacific, along with other trends such as the emergence of the Asian millennial traveller and on the other end of the spectrum the senior traveller, as well as new technology and infrastructure developments. Asia-Pacific travellers will continue to fuel global tourism growth in years to come, providing vast opportunities for businesses to benefit through the development of products and solutions that seek to improve their overall travel experiences. According to the study, outbound travel is forecast to grow faster than real GDP. Outbound travel growth tends to be higher than real GDP growth for emerging markets compared to developed markets (except for Japan) where outbound travel growth is much closer to their forecasted real GDP growth. In emerging markets outbound travel is expected to grow faster than real GDP, including Myanmar (10.6% vs. 7.7%), Vietnam (9.5% vs. 6.2%), Indonesia (8.6% vs. 5.7%), Thailand (4.8% vs. 3.1%) and China (8.5% vs. 6%). The report updates the Asia-Pacifics regional outlook for outbound travel from 2016 to 2021 at various household income ranges, combined with a five-year forecast of household growth. The data is taken from the 2011 to 2016 editions of the Mastercard Survey on Consumer Purchasing PrioritiesTravel. Data for outbound travel from 2013 to 2015 was taken from the national statistics boards of markets, and for 2015 and 2016 were calculated using estimates from the 2016 edition of the Mastercard Asia-Pacific Destinations Index./. If the Republicans get a majority in the US House of Representatives, as is expected, theyll focus on lawsuit investment transparency and Chinas IP practices Cecilia Falconi Cecilia Falconi Cecilia Falconi describes herself as a latecomer to the IP profession having joined as a 29 year old, a wife and a mother to young children in 1987. Now, she is partner and a multidisciplinary lawyer at Falconi Puig Abogados, a firm founded by her father and fellow owner of the firm, Miguel Falconi. She describes heritage and passion as her main motivations for stepping into the IP profession. When I was studying law at university, the IP area of the firm had already started, says Falconi. Although I knew nothing about the field, I started travelling to different conferences. I started learning more about the topics I had heard about. While Falconis practice mostly consisted of trade mark searches and patents in the early days, she had a passion for geographical indications (GIs). Being objective, in those days, GIs were not a profitable IP field so I started looking in trade mark, distinctive signs and copyright, says Falconi. After completing a course in copyright law at the University of Buenos Aires, Falconi developed an interest in IP litigation. Legacy For 10 years, Falconi worked alongside her late brother, also called Miguel. Remembering her brother and mentor in IP who died in 1997, Falconi says: He was a brilliant and well-recognised young attorney. In only 10 years of practice and in addition to founding the firms IP practice, Miguel taught at the local university and wrote several publications on topics such as software protection, which was then considered as an emerging area of expertise in Ecuador and neighbouring countries. After 20 years, Falconi still cherishes her brothers legacy in a way that has influenced her own practice: Miguel taught me how to understand IP law, interpret regulations and norms and be successful in litigation. He was a very bright guy. I am very proud to have had him not only as a brother, but as a boss and a mentor. Today, Falconi Puig Abogados, traditionally known as a corporate law firm, has developed a notable IP department. Falconi works on a range on IP issues with support from her team, comprising fellow partners and junior associates. Her main areas of expertise are patent, trade mark, design and regulatory law. Changes in IP landscape In over 25 years in practice, Falconi remains amazed by how things have changed. To better her practice, Falconi likes to stay abreast of issues in global IP: Although Im very conscious that Ecuador is not a huge country, the strategy of multinationals is very important for me to understand - where they are, where they want to be and where their competitors are. Since the signing of the TRIPs Agreement in Ecuador, Falconi says that she has witnessed the gradual fortification of trade mark law through a chain of reforms including those related to community regulations, the Paris and Berne conventions. Mostly recently, the Organic Code of Social Economic Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation also known as the Code of Knowledge or Codigo Ingenios was introduced in November 2016 to simplify IP law in Ecuador. While the Codigo Ingenios has introduced changes that will influence copyright law, collective rights societies and the burden of proof in counterfeit cases, Falconi does not predict that the Ecuadorian landscape will change too drastically. However she says that the new laws indicate that the IP rights in the constitution are well recognised and a step towards innovation in our country". She continues: This is nice because we have a solid court of law that establishes and recognises IP rights. New challenges Last year, Falconi took on a brand new challenge, moving to Paris to support her husband who had been appointed as the Ecuadorian ambassador at UNESCO. She did this all while remaining an active partner at the firm. Speaking on the move, Falconi says: It hasnt been easy, but it has been fun! She adds: It was a difficult decision to move from Ecuador and leave my family behind, but when it came to my profession, I was always determined to work out of office. Falconi says she has not felt any negative impacts of working abroad: Technology helps a lot. If it were 20 years ago, I would not be in the same scenario. Falconi says that Paris has given her several opportunities including admission into the French society of patent and trade mark lawyers, APRAM, and the opportunity to study French, a language she has always loved. To those who are considering a similar adventure or breaking new ground in their career, Falconi says: Take opportunity as it comes, life is too short and its perfectly doable. Though sometimes changes bring us a sense of insecurity, Falconi urges women to rise to step up and out of their comfort zones: Women are a very important part of society right now. I see them being more active and having leading roles every day, both in the industry and law firms. One China Policy Nonnegotiable, Says Beijing The one China policy was first mentioned in the Shanghai Communique on February 28, 1972 during Nixons visit to China - stressing the importance for both countries to normalize relations. On January 1, 1979, the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations agreed to by Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping formally established bilateral relations, ending official recognition of Taiwan, announced by Carter in December 1978. The (1992 Consensus) one China principle affirms a single sovereign China comprised of the mainland and Taiwan. Trump saying (e)verything is under negotiation including one China didnt go down well in Beijing. On Saturday, its Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said its nonnegotiable. One China alone exists, Taiwan an inalienable part of it, he stressed. The Peoples Republic of China is its only legitimate government, an internationally recognized fact, and no one can change it, he explained. We urge the relevant party in the United States to realize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue and abide by commitments made by previous US governments to the one China policy and the principles of the three joint communiques. Normalized relations depend on it. If Trump demands Beijing play by Washington rules, trouble in the Pacific awaits him, perhaps undermining chances for improving relations with Moscow. Sino/Russian ties stress unity. Each nation strategically supports the other. Together theyre a powerful counterweight to US hegemonic aims. Harming the interests of one affects the other. Both countries will rally to defend each others mutual interests. Antagonizing Beijing by using the one China policy as a bargaining chip is sure to adversely affect Sino-Russia/US relations. Trump has to decide if he wants mutual cooperation with other nations or continuation of adversarial relations with sovereign independent ones. Will he be a bully or responsible leader? Its his call for good or ill. Much depends on what he decides. Chinas credibility at home and abroad depends on the one China policy. Its fundamentally important. Challenging or in any way disrupting it assures continuing Obamas adversarial policy, maybe recklessly escalating it. By Stephen Lendman http://sjlendman.blogspot.com His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening. 2016 Copyright Stephen Lendman - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Trumps First Foreign Visit to Meet Putin? Citing a London Sunday Times report, The Hill and Bloomberg said Trumps first foreign trip as president is expected to be a summit with Vladimir Putin within weeks of his inauguration. If the report is accurate, both leaders will meet in Reykjavik, Iceland. Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer denied it, tweeting not true - report is 100% false. A second tweet said Nope, not true. According to the Sunday Times, Trump will meet with Putin at a neutral venue very soon to begin working on a deal to reduce numbers of nuclear weapons by both countries. Reykjavik is symbolic, where Reagan and Gorbachev met on October 11 and 12, 1986. Though talks ended with no agreement, progress achieved led to the bilateral 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a significant achievement. Reversing enormous damage in Russian/US relations by Bush/Cheney and Obama would be a historic achievement if accomplished. Rapprochement with Russia, China and Iran is essential to have any chance for world peace and stability. Trumps geopolitical agenda wont be known until it begins unfolding once in office. If America wont to live in peace with all other countries, especially key ones, were all doomed. A Russia/US summit early in Trumps first year in office, easing tensions and indicating a desire for mutual cooperation, would be a major step back from the brink. Hopefully its in the works. A Final Comment Icelandic Foreign Minister Godhlaugur Thor Thordharson said his government has not yet received a request regarding this meeting. If officials in Washington turn to the Icelandic government with a formal request to organize a summit in Reykjavik, we will take it positively and turn it to our contribution to the improvement of relations between the US and Russia as it was at the Hofdi house in 1986. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." By Stephen Lendman http://sjlendman.blogspot.com His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening. 2016 Copyright Stephen Lendman - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. China RMB Currency Interventions Paving Way for Reforms Recently, Chinese renminbi has depreciated substantially. In the short-term, interventions will prevail; in the longer-term, the currency will stabilize. In the past quarter, Chinese renminbi (RMB) decreased by 4%, which is significantly faster than anticipated, due to rising tensions in foreign-exchange markets over Chinas rising debt and bubbling property markets. China has managed to stabilize growth, but not without capital controls, hefty lending and decisive interventions. Recently, the RMB soared against the US dollar. By encouraging Chinese banks to withhold funds from other banks, the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) tightened liquidity in Hong Kong, which led the overnight lending market to surge from 17% to 61% in 2 days which, in turn, caused the RMB to soar in offshore market.Due to efforts to stabilize the currency, Chinas foreign-exchange reserves fell to $3 trillion last month; the lowest since spring 2011. In the past 17 months, PBOC actions have penalized the reserves by $1 trillion. The Trump-Fed challenge Three years ago, the RMB was still close to 6.00 per US dollar. As Chinese growth decelerated, debt-taking continued and the Feds rate hikes began, RMB weakened to 6.95 in 2016. As it recently got close to 7.00 per dollar, the PBOC moved to support the currency. As Chinese companies and investors have tried to reduce their RMB stakes and diversify risk, the exchange rate has faced further pressure, which has led authorities to ratchet up controls on Chinese companies and investors investing offshore. Thanks to these measures, Chinas growth has been stabilizing, but at cost. During the global financial crisis, Chinas huge stimulus package boosted confidence, supported the infrastructure drive, and prevented global depression. But excessive liquidity led to speculation in equity and property markets. The current credit target of 13% remains twice the growth rate. China can no longer rely on credit-fueled growth. Now Beijing must manage its rebalancing, while deleveraging huge local debt. In practice, that means balancing between RMB depreciation and actions to defend the currency. After January 20, Beijing must also respond to a dual challenge of escalating trade friction with the Trump administration and rate increases by the Fed. Pro-market economists have urged PBoC to permit the RMB to weaken to an equilibrium level before Trumps inauguration. Otherwise, they argue, PBOC will exhaust reserves to boost the RMB, which will only contribute to destabilization and capital outflows. Timing of reforms However, the proposed reforms will contest the tacit guarantees on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and state-owned banks, which will cause a fair amount of unease and distress in the short- to medium-term. Nevertheless, the reforms are necessary to achieve Chinas rebalancing, which is central governments explicit long-term economic objective, and to double GDP per capita by 2020, which is vital for long-term social stability. The real question is the timing of the reform implementation. Currently, analysts expect the RMB to trade at close to 7.10 by the end of this quarter and closer to 7.35 at the year-end. By the same logic, RMB per dollar could exceed 7.50 by 2018 and 8.00 by 2019. These projections are predicated on economic trends, which downplay the impact of government interventions, however. While the impending economic reforms have been designed by the 18th Central Committee in the past five years, they will be implemented by the new Committee, which will be elected in the fall and which will govern until the early 2020s. Since economic change will not be sustained without political consolidation, leadership transition is likely to precede reform implementation. In a benign scenario, within 2-3 years, the property markets will be on a more solid footing, credit target is expected to be significantly lower and quality of growth substantially higher. Thats when the landscape will be more favorable for reform implementation. Meanwhile, the authorities are likely to continue the balancing act between short-term interventions and long-term objectives. Ironically, RMB interventions are paving way for reforms. Strong dollar or elevated volatility At the same time, the relationship between Chinese renminbi and US dollar is shifting. In the past, the markets used the volatility index (VIX) as the barometer for risk appetite and leverage. After the Great Recession, US dollar has replaced the VIX as the new fear index. Indeed, the RMB is not just coping with a strong dollar but with elevated volatility induced by the US dollar. Consequently, the RMB challenges will intensify in the short-term but stabilize in the medium-term. With the US dollar, the trends may be precisely the reverse. Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognised expert of the nascent multipolar world. He is the CEO of Difference Group and has served as Research Director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see www.differencegroup.net 2016 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. The Story of the U.S. Regime Change Plan in the Philippines As long-needed economic reforms are taking off in the Philippines, regime change plans have been prepared in the US State Department against a democratically-elected president who enjoys very high popular support. During the Philippine presidential campaigns in spring 2016, U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg sided visibly with anti-Duterte forces, which led to several high-profile confrontations. After the controversial Ambassador left the Philippines, he wrote a blueprint to undermine Duterte within 18 months. Last month, the plan was leaked to The Manila Times, the oldest English-language daily in the Philippines. It is not the first time Goldberg is associated with regime change efforts. In 2008 President Evo Morales and the Bolivian government gave him three days to leave the country after declaring him persona non grata following Goldbergs efforts to fund the opposition leaders, separatists and think-tanks with millions of dollars.Yet, President Obama rewarded Goldberg by appointing him assistant secretary of state for Intelligence and Research; one of the 16 elements of the US Intelligence Community (IC). Thereafter he was sent to the Philippines, which he left in less than three years after efforts to intervene with the elections. From Obamas pivot to Goldbergs regime change plan After former President Benigno Aquino IIIs designated successor former interior minister Manuel Roxas, an ex-investment banker and Liberal Party leader who supports neoliberal policies and the U.S. pivot failed to deliver a victory in the election, Goldberg began to devise his regime change plan. The latter seeks to foster public discontent with Duterte by isolating the Philippines through military assistance and economic blackmail relative to other ASEAN member countries. Goldbergs "divide and rule" plan seeks to split Philippine congressmen and senators, ASEAN states, and international multilateral organizations. He also advocates strengtheningthe pro-U.S. opposition through aids and grants. The plan calls on Washington to deploy economic, political and military forces against Duterte, to bring him to his knees and eventually remove him from office. According to Daniel Russel, State Departments assistance secretary for East Asian affairs, the allegations of a blueprint are false. However, Russels credibility is overshadowed by the fact that he remains a key figure in the U.S. pivot towards Asia. U.S.-based sources have also tried to discredit the blueprint as coming from Chinas Philippine Ambassador Zhao Jianhua, which the executive editor of The Manila Times Dr. Dante Ang calls a fantasy. As Washington sees it, the close ties between the two countries are rooted in the U.S. colonial regime in the Philippines between 1898 and 1946, broad military cooperation, a bilateral security alliance, and common strategic and economic interests. After these ties were cemented with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), Washington and Manila in March 2016 chose half a dozen sites in the Philippines to host the rotation of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) military units. It was the first time that US military returned to the country since 1992 after the end of the Marcos era (1965-86), when close bilateral cooperation left many Filipinos infuriated. However, the alliance was predicated on smooth post-Obama continuity (but Clinton lost the U.S. election), the confirmation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which Trump pledged to bury), and the victory of Aquinos preferred successor Manuel Mar Roxas in the Philippines 2016 election (Roxas came second). After elections, questions about a Mexico-style narco state and its cooperation with military leaders during Roxas watch as interior minister led Duterte to order the investigation of five former and incumbent police generals led by retired general Marcelo Garbo Jr., a vocal supporter of Roxas, for involvement in illegal drugs. Following his election triumph, Duterte has initiated a series of economic reforms, which are likely to accelerate growth to 7-7.5%, while recalibrating Manilas relations away from Washington and toward Beijing and Moscow. In turn, the long-delayed Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea may be completed by mid-year. Today, the State Department may see the Goldbergs regime change plan as a way to undermine the outcome of democratic elections - in the name of democracy. Exploiting political opposition, human rights and NGOs Goldbergs regime change plan builds on that stance by exploiting political opposition, human rights, non-governmental organizations, and international media. He advises restraint in expressing public support for former President Fidel Ramos and Vice President Leni Robredo, and other opposition leaders so as not to alarm the Duterte administration of an impending destabilization or a coup. Ramoss ties with the U.S. go back to his training at West Point in 1960. In the 1980s, he was in President Marcoss inner circle of national police and military. Following the fall of Marcos, he served as President Corazon Aquinos military chief and subsequently as president. After serving Duterte as early emissary to China, he has criticized the administrations efforts to weaken U.S. military ties. In turn, Robredo is a lawyer and social activist, who the Duterte administration sees more loyal to Aquinos Liberal coalition. Her relationship with the Cabinet fell apart on December 4, 2016, when she was informed by Cabinet Secretary to desist from attending all Cabinet meetings. Robredo won vice-presidency with a narrow margin against former senator Ferdinand Marcos. In his electoral protest, Marcos, former President Marcoss son, alleged that the Liberal Party rigged the elections in favor of Robredo. The case is lingering in courts. In the public debate, the point person has been Senator Leila de Lima, Aquinos former Secretary of Justice, who chaired a senate inquiry into the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects. She has been glorified by the BBC as the woman who dares to defy Philippine president Duterte, which is also the reason that she was invited to and awarded in the U.S. last month as one of the leading 100 global thinkers by the influential Democratic Foreign Policy. In the Philippines, many see de Limas awards as perversions of justice, however. Through the Aquino era, she had a 7-year affair with her lucratively-rewarded driver Ronnie Dayan who served as her money collector for drug protection and campaign financing. During her watch, prison gangs still exerted control over the New Bilibid Prisons, while being coddled by incumbent political leaders, as evidenced by a Discovery Channel documentary. Last September, de Lima was removed from the Senate committee. Oddly enough, her international accolades ensued after the disclosure of the true nature of her activities as international media has ignored the pile of evidence of her abuse of public office and public funds. The Goldberg plan also relies on NGOs, particularly a handful wealthy U.S. Filipinos linked with the Aquino circles, including billionaire philanthropist Loida Nicolas-Lewis and her sister, former chairwoman of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. Both are Vice President Robredo's supporters who have urged the members of the Global Filipino Diaspora Council (GFDC) "to ask Duterte to resign. A more influential source of funds is billionaire George Soros, who Duterte says has bankrolled local NGOs against him as he has been portrayed as a mass murderer in the West. International coverage has relied on these NGOs and think-tanks. Yet, in the Aquino III era, complacency with drug lords and narco politicians went hand in hand with the rise of some 3.7 million addicts, while international media was quiet about both. However, when Duterte started war against drugs, which has cost 6,000 lives, international concern escalated rapidly. "America First" via regime change? Another signal came in mid-December, when the U.S.-based Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) did not renew its $430 million aid grant to the Philippines. While Manilas criticism about aid conditions was reported as tirades against America," the MCC is hardly independent. It is chaired by State Secretary John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and tens to precondition aid on neoliberal policies. The MCC debacle is overshadowed by the economic implications of U.S.-Philippine military ties. Until 2010, the countrys military expenditures decreased two decades from 1.6% to 0.8% of GDP. During the Aquino era, which coincides with the U.S. pivot to Asia, the expenditures soared to almost 1.4%, according to SIPRI research - which in dollar terms is over five times the proposed aid package in just one year. If a Ramos-Robredo scenario were to fail, Golberg plan advises exploiting possible rifts among Duterte supporters, or assisting Robredo-led opposition groups coupled with the Catholic Church, business sector and NGOs. Yet, Duterte's support remains very high across all classes nationally, while the ratings of opposition figures have been declining. According to the latest Pulse Asia survey, Duterte approval and trust ratings in the Philippines is 83%. Only 5% of the nation disapproves his actions. As a result, any US-led regime change effort in the Philippines would face firm domestic, regional and international opposition. Stability in the Philippines is also supported by Beijing. Amid the news about the ouster plot, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China was confident on Dutertes leadership and would continue to support his policies. In turn, both Trump and Duterte have portrayed each other as good friends. After January, Trump must reassess Goldbergs regime-change plan scenarios in light of his own pledges, which are no longer subject to Obamas pivot, shun US Interventionism abroad but hope to redefine America First policies in Asia. Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognised expert of the nascent multipolar world. He is the CEO of Difference Group and has served as Research Director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see www.differencegroup.net 2016 Copyright Dan Steinbock - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. After 16 years of civil war, the banking system did not provide the Lebanese economy with adequate access to credit. "We founded Kafalat in 1999 after observing a phenomenon of real distortion of the banking sector. At the time, the main beneficiaries of loans had their headquarters within or near Beirut. Only the trading and service sectors could benefit from access to credit. For the sake of inclusiveness, we also wanted to help all the remaining SMEs in the country. Since its creation, Kafalat has defined priority sectors: industry, agriculture, tourism, crafts and new technologies ", says Khater Abi Habib, Chairman of Kafalat and of the National Institute for the Guarantee of Deposits and shareholder at 75%. About 25% of the capital of Kafalat belongs to 40 Lebanese companies. Kafalat examines entrepreneurial projects that are transmitted to it by banks. "In 88% of the cases we agree on providing a guarantee after a pre-emptive analysis. Our 30 experts then re-examine the projects and we respond within ten days, "said Khater Abi Habib. In recent years, Kafalat has adapted its programs through partnerships with the European Union and the World Bank. Kafalat Innovant, is aimed at innovative start-ups of less than two years. "We provide a guarantee of up to 90%. In fact, the bank reduces its exposure to 10%. The ceiling is $ 200,000, but the average loan is generally under $ 75,000. We have helped create an enabling environment for innovation. Many start-ups are joining the country's incubators, "says Khater Abi Habib. It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the dial-a-lawyer Attorneys participate in the semi-annual Western Massachusetts Dial-A-Lawyer program, answering legal questions ranging from real estate to personal injury concerns. The next Dial-A-Lawyer is May 19. (Photo provided) SPRINGFIELD -- The Hampden County Bar Association's Legal Help Hotline call-in program is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. on Feb. 16. Volunteer lawyers from the Hampden County Bar Association will answer phone calls. To use the hotline, call 413-796-2057. "This program can assist people who have fallen through the cracks of the legal and criminal justice system," Noreen Nardi, executive director of the Hampden County Bar Association, said in a press release. "It helps provide equal access to justice for all segments of our diverse community." The association holds the event twice each years. The volunteer lawyers operate out of space at the Western New England School of Law. The most frequent types of calls are questions about criminal matters, domestic relations, consumer protection, housing and employment law. Callers may remain anonymous. HARTFORD, Conn. In 2009, Chihan Eric Chyung shot and killed his wife of three weeks. He said the gun went off accidentally while Norwich police said he shot her intentionally. Bizarrely, a jury found both arguments to be true in 2014 when it convicted Chyung of both murder and manslaughter. The trial judge threw out the manslaughter charge, saying Chyung could not be convicted of two homicide charges for one act. The New Haven Register reported the Connecticut Supreme Court has agreed to hear Chyung's case for a new trial, based on the argument that the jury should decide if Paige Anne Bennett's death was intentional or due to negligence. Chyung testified at the trial that he was holding a 9mm handgun as he and his wife argued, but that the gun went off accidentally. The single round hit Bennett and she died soon after. Chyung's appeal states that the original jury's verdict of both murder and manslaughter was contradictory. According to statute murder is an intentional act, while manslaughter is unintentional due to recklessness or negligence. Justices will begin to hear arguments Wednesday. Officials in a tiny Berkshire hilltown needed to seek legal advice last week on how to handle a member of the Finance Committee who is now in jail. John L. Smith, 52, of Hinsdale, pled guilty to masterminding a 2012 heist of his former employer's Pittsfield home in which the thieves -- recruited by Smith -- stole firearms, jewelry and family heirlooms. Even videos of the first steps of the business owner's children were taken in the break-in. Last week, Berkshire Superior Court Judge John Agostini sentenced Smith to a 2 1/2 year jail sentence and three years probation. The sentence raised a legal question in the town, as Smith was in the middle of stints on Hinsdale's Planning Board and Finance Committee. Smith won his seats on both bodies in 2015 despite details of his arrest and the charges against him hitting town circles and various media in 2012 and after. Smith never resigned his posts. Last week, MassLive learned Hinsdale officials had received and were seeking additional legal guidance on how to handle the circumstance. A year-and-a-half was remaining in both of Smith's terms. "We are still waiting on the definitive word from town counsel," Ryan Aylesworth, Hinsdale town administrator said in an interview Friday. He added, "Our understanding is, from the moment of his sentencing, he was no longer eligible to serve on the Planning Board or Finance Committee. His seats are now vacated." The stickiest question -- which Aylesworth said the town had to prepare for -- proved moot. That was, in the case of any delay before Smith's incarceration, could he have continued serving in his official capacities after being sentenced? Aylesworth said the town didn't end up needing an answer to the question, because Smith was led out of the court Monday in handcuffs. His incarceration began immediately. Located in central Berkshire County, Hinsdale is home to just over 2,000 residents. According to police reports, in 2011, Smith's former employer cut off his unemployment benefits and Smith hatched a plot. Smith allegedly left screws in the business owner's driveway and threatening messages on his phone line before enlisting two prolific burglars -- Aaron and James "Jamie" Tarjick Jr. -- in a serious plot: he enticed them to burglarize his former boss's home. The subsequent robbery of the business owner's Pittsfield home was hardly typical of similar crimes. The thieves took items of no monetary and much family value, in addition to valuable items. Some of what was stolen "had no value to (the burglars), but they were priceless to us," one of the victims said in court last Monday, according to a The Berkshire Eagle. Smith had lost two appeals seeking renewal of his unemployment benefits after walking off a job site, where he was working as a foreman for an electrical contracting company. He offered up the house as a target to Jamie Tarjick, promising it contained a large safe holding firearms, valuable coins and, potentially, a lot of cash. The brothers easily penetrated the safe, cleaned out its contents, packed them into Smith's former employer's favorite car and drove off, stealing that too. Hinsdale Town Moderator James Sullivan, who served on the Planning Board alongside Smith, said he knew of the allegations against his colleague. "I read the papers," Sullivan said. He added, "I don't think anyone judged him one way or the other. He had his opinions and I had mine. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes not." In the vast majority of cases, incarceration does not change a person's status as a resident, but it does revoke one's status as a registered voter -- needed to serve in public office -- in most states, including Massachusetts. "We read the state statutes, and it looks like that's what the situation is," Laurel Scialabba, a member of the town's three-person Select Board, told MassLive. Scialabba said the Select Board plans to assist both the Planing Board and Finance Committee appoint new members to serve out the remainder of Smith's two terms. The proceedings should begin at the next meetings of each body. Said Aylesworth, "With the amount of information on the public record about this, we became aware that obviously a possible outcome would be (Smith getting incarcerated). In anticipation of that, we did start to find out answers to some pertinent questions, I would say shortly after the trial commenced this fall. He added, "We were just waiting to see what happened. We were not an active participant in any way." Meanwhile, Sullivan said he planned to vote against any move to appoint someone to the Planning Board to finish Smith's term. "I believe in the democratic process," Sullivan said. "The people had their voice in the election. I'm not in favor of choosing an appointee." The town's Finance Committee includes seven members at full strength, its Planning Board five, but both could operate down one person in the absence of appointments. Smith will serve out his sentence at the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction. The Tarjick brothers too are presently serving time in prison. Both admitted to a three-year burglary spree in which they targeted hundreds of homes in Hampshire County. SPRINGFIELD -- When history is amended to include new information, it can sometimes be frustrating and confusing, but also inspiring. Inspiration was one of the feelings many women had after seeing "Hidden Figures," a movie detailing the contribution of women, particularly African-American women, to NASA. "During a time when the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields were dominated by white males, Mrs. Dorothy Vaughn, Mrs. Katherine Johnson and Mrs. Mary Jackson, all members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and graduates of historically black colleges and universities, throughout their careers at NASA had significant impact on the success of Americans' travel into space," said Rhonda M. Brace, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority's Xi Xi Omega Chapter of Western and Central Massachusetts and Connecticut. The chapter recently gathered at Rave Cinemas at the Eastfield Mall in Springfield for a private screening of the movie, based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. The book and film tell the untold story of the many women, including African-American women of Langley's West Computing Unit, who worked together to help launch astronaut John Glenn into space, propelling the U.S. position in the space race of the 1960s. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, is the oldest Greek-lettered organization established by African-American, college-educated women. The organization's event was sold out with 200 people from Hampden, Hampshire and Berkshire counties attending. Brace said the film can inspire more than just women and girls. "(The movie) is important to all people regardless of race, creed, color or sex. It confirms for each of us that we have the ability to be great in whatever we do and that we have the ability to make significant contributions in the world in which we live," she said. Brace cited the work of women like Adrienne Smith, dean of engineering technologies and mathematics at Springfield Technical Community College. "... It is equally important that women, like Dr. Adrienne Smith, be celebrated for their accomplishments as they continue the legacy of the three remarkable women whose story is shared in 'Hidden Figures,'" she said. Locally, Xi Xi Omega Chapter members support women with a variety of community service programs and activities, including initiatives focusing on STEM for girls, Community Impact Days and the sorority's signature enrichment program, ASCEND Youth Enrichment Program. Attendees were asked to bring new backpacks, school supplies, hats or gloves that will be donated to a youth serving agency in the Greater Springfield community. Greenfield Women Standing Our Ground Rally Organizers Mary McClintock Cynthia Bleil 3.JPG Mary McClintock and Cynthia Bleil are co-organizers of the Greenfield Women Standing Our Ground Rally. (Courtesy Mary McClintock) Around 200,000 women plan to rally in the nation's capital on Jan. 21, the day after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office. Eight to ten thousand are expected from Massachusetts, with many from the western counties. A Facebook page -- 413 to the Women's March -- gives more information, as does the statewide women's march website and Facebook page. Note that backpacks and large bags are not allowed at the Washington march. Those who can't make it to D.C. are invited to attend affiliated "sister events" in communities across the nation and around the world. A "Women Standing Our Ground" speakout and gathering will be held at Court Square in downtown Greenfield Saturday, to be followed by "Rock Your Rights" at the nearby Arts Block. The rally starts at 11:30; and the Arts Block opens at noon for a 2 p.m. show. Participants are advised to dress warmly and in layers. Lindsay Sabadosa and Sabine Merz are with the Massachusetts chapter of the Women's March on Washington. They say they hope the national and local rallies "leave people energized and angry -- angry at the current situation our country is in, and angry enough to do something about it." People are using the social media hashtag #WhyIMarch to explain why they are getting involved. Here are some of the events planned in Western Massachusetts over the next several days: Mon., Jan. 16: Official Women's March information session; part of MLK Jr. Day. Edwards Church, 297 Main St., Northampton; 3-3:30 p.m. Tues., Jan. 17: Women's March Bar Takeover Hope & Olive, 44 Hope St., Greenfield; 7-10 p.m. Meet fellow marchers and supporters, make a pin for the march, and participate in the #WhyIMarch campaign. Sign-making workshop Northfield Library, Northfield; 4-8 p.m. Pantsuit Reading and Gathering Click Workspace, Market Street, Northampton; 7-8:30 p.m Nerissa Nields reads from "The Pantsuit in the Back of the Closet: Elegy for November 2016." Wine-and-cheese fundraiser for the Women's Fund of Western Mass. Wed., Jan. 18: Sign-making workshop World War II Club, Conz Street, Northampton; 6-9 p.m. Sat., Jan. 21: Greenfield Sister March: Women Standing Our Ground Court Square, Greenfield; 12:30-2 p.m. Rock Your Rights Arts Block, 289 Main St., Greenfield Doors open at noon. A lineup of female musicians will play live-streamed 25-minute sets starting at 2 p.m. The Washington march will be broadcast in a separate area. Food and drink available. Suggested donation $5 - $10. Pittsfield Women's March Gathering Colonial Theater, 11 South St., 10 a.m. Boston Women's March for America 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Boston Common An off-duty Springfield police officer was allegedly assaulted during an early December visit to the Mardi Gras strip club. Early in the morning of Dec. 6, a suspect identified by police as a "gang member with an extensive history" allegedly struck the off-duty officer at the club, Springfield Police Sgt. John Delaney told MassLive. The officer sustained a laceration to his lip and security removed three alleged assailants from the club, Delaney wrote in a text message. Delaney did not identify the officer involved or the suspect, but wrote that the officer had previous dealings with the suspect, who had allegedly threatened him. The timing of the incident was the subject of some initial confusion. While a security video time stamp showed the fight starting at 2:45 a.m., the incident actually began at 1:45 a.m., Mardi Gras' attorney Daniel D. Kelly said; the camera had not been changed to account for daylight savings time. No arrests had been made in the case as of Jan. 4, Delaney wrote. MassLive has reached out to the department for updates on the case. Requests for additional information were denied by city officials. The city's law office rejected a public records request for the police report on the incident, saying they were investigatory materials exempt from disclosure. The Springfield Police Department has opened up an internal investigation into the incident, Police Commissioner John Barbieri wrote in an email. "I cannot comment because there is an ongoing internal investigation, as a precautionary measure," Barbieri wrote. "There have been no citizen's complaints filed in regards to this incident." A source familiar with the incident, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said that investigators had taken security camera footage of the fight from Mardi Gras. Last year Mayor Domenic Sarno described Springfield's strip clubs as a haven for violence and gang activity after shots were fired outside the Fifth Alarm strip club on Worthington Street. And in June the Showbar club's licenses were temporarily suspended following a city review of a stabbing at the club in March. Mardi Gras has been the recipient of city sanctions before relating to violence and violations of its security plan -- most recently in September, when it received a one-day suspension after a customer alleged he was assaulted by bouncers. On Sept. 2, a man was shot dead in the parking lot outside the club Kelly said video showed the shooter was never in the club that night and approached from a city sidewalk. And two weeks before the officer was allegedly attacked, two people were shot just outside the Worthington Street entrance to the club, prompting Sarno to order a review of the club's security plan. The alleged assault on an off-duty officer has not led to any allegations against the club so far. Kelly said Monday that Mardi Gras has not received any notice of violations in connection with the December incident. Correction: While police said the officer was struck at 2:45 a.m., an attorney for the club said that was an error due to a security camera time stamp that had not been corrected for daylight savings time. This story has been updated to make the timing clear. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Jan, 15, 1929 in Atlanta and gunned down in Memphis on April 4, 1968, yet the slain civil rights leader was no stranger to Massachusetts. King earned his doctorate from Boston University in 1955 and received an honorary degree in 1964 from Springfield College, where he spoke at the commencement. The June 14, 1964 speech took place despite pressure put on Springfield College President Glenn A. Olds from the FBI and others. Olds held his ground, even though it cost the college a potential $1 million contribution. (A recording of King's speech can be heard online at the Springfield College Digital Collection.) Three months later, King visited Boston to announce the donation of his personal papers to his alma mater, Boston University. On April 22, 1965, King addressed a joint session of the Massachusetts Legislature. Later, he led a march from the South End to the Boston Common, where some 22,000 people gathered to hear him speak. King returned to Boston on April 24, 1967 to speak at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in opposition to the Vietnam War. His anti-war stance cost him support at the White House and with leadership of the NAACP, which felt it was a mistake to tie civil rights and anti-war efforts together. The Nobel Peace Prize winner's appearance at Jordan Hall was marred by a number of threats against his safety. Police had to sweep the building for bombs. A musical tribute to King, now in its 14th year, will be staged tonight at Jordan Hall. efp.photo.jpg A new branch library in East Forest Park in Springfield is proposed to replace a storefront leased site on Island Pond Road, seen here. (File photo / The Republican) SPRINGFIELD -- At $9.5 million, city officials concede the cost of a planned branch library in East Forest Park is high. But they hope a state grant could take away some of the sting, as has occurred in many communities across Massachusetts. After not awarding new grants since 2012, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has set aside up to $110 million for this year's grant applicants, which will include Springfield. "We're expecting 33 applications and in the last grant round we received 30," said Celeste Bruno, a spokeswoman for the state commission. "So interest in the program remains strong." The new branch in East Forest Park is planned on the city-owned grounds of the Mary Dryden Veterans Memorial Elementary School on Surrey Road. The library will be 16,801 square feet, more than four times the size of the existing leased branch in a shopping plaza on Island Pond Road. And it will have a large community room, cafe and assorted program spaces for all ages, according to City Library Director Molly Fogarty. The new branch would be similar in size to the Sixteen Acres branch, she said. A $23 million library opened in Shrewsbury in October, funded in part through a $7.9 million grant from the state commission, Bruno said. In addition, a $18.3 million library opened in October in Reading, funded in part by a $5.1 million grant from the commission. A library will be dedicated in Eastham in February, and libraries are under construction in Scituate, Sherborn, Stoughton, Leicester, Woburn and Webster, aided by past state grants, Bruno said. Closer to Springfield, a $4.6 million public library was constructed in Granby in 2013, aided by a $2.6 million grant from the state commission. Under a separate renovation grant program, the West Springfield Public Library reopened last January after a $16.1 million conversion-expansion project that included $6.2 million from the state commission. Under the guidelines, the state may cover 40 percent of the cost of the new branch library in Springfield if the application is approved, but the amount varies depending on the cost and other factors. There are eligible costs such as construction and fixed equipment, and ineligible costs. The city's Library Department is preparing its grant application, due Jan. 26, and awards will be announced in July. The $9.5 million estimate includes furniture, fixtures and equipment, said Timothy J. Plante, the city's chief administrative and financial officer. "However, we will be working with our financial advisers to look at affordability and sustainability of the project," Plante said. "We will pare down this budget as necessary to ensure it fits into the long-term financial plan of the city." Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, however, said the city is committed to a "first-class facility." "First of all, I'm happy that my administration has been able to deliver to the residents of East Forest Park their long, many years request of a stand-alone library," Sarno said. The city, he said, will be "efficient and effective and live within our budget and pare down where necessary to still be able to build a first-class facility." Many city councilors have praised the project, saying that neighborhood residents have been underserved by a very small, leased storefront for their branch library the past 20 years. Councilor Timothy Rooke raised concerns about the cost, saying a $9.5 million library equates to $565 per square foot. "It seems excessive when some of the other branch libraries in neighborhoods where children have much greater needs are not even open enough hours," Rooke said. Ward 7 City Councilor Timothy Allen said he is a "strong supporter" of a new library, saying it was listed by residents as a top priority during meetings and community surveys following the tornado of 2011. Libraries are more critical than ever in the education process and in family activity, including helping students get the resources they need and helping address literacy rates, Allen said. "We know East Forest Park is a strong neighborhood but it doesn't have a community center, doesn't have a library except a little storefront," Allen said. "It's a logical thing to build." Bruno said the importance of libraries has not dimmed in any way in Massachusetts. "Libraries are busier than ever," Bruno said. "Massachusetts residents borrowed more than 55 million items last year and visited Massachusetts libraries more than 35 million times." In addition, Bruno said, a state resident sits down at a public library computer to access the internet every 5.5 seconds. Attendance continues to increase in a wide assortment of library programs across all ages, including computer and technology, language and financial literacy classes, she said. "Libraries provide online databases with reliable information, and there's no one better than a librarian to help residents find what they are looking for and get the best possible information," Bruno said. The city has a central library on State Street and eight branches. WESTFIELD - Police are investigating the discovery Saturday of a body in a yard on Orange Street but do not believe the death to be suspicious, police said. Sgt. Robert Saunders said the 21-year-old man, identified as Peter Yurovskiyh, was found outside Saturday morning. Yurovskiyh lived near where his body was found, Saunders said. The death is not considered suspicious, but Westfield police and Massachusetts State Police are investigating. Orange Street runs parallel to Franklin Street near Whitney Playground. Luis Santos Luis Santos was arraigned on human trafficking charges in Worcester Central District Court on Jan. 17 with a Spanish interpreter. (Melissa Hanson | MassLive.com) A Worcester man is accused of paying $5,000 to have a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador smuggled across the United States border, then keeping her locked inside an apartment for weeks while allegedly sexually assaulting her. Officials at the Worcester County District Attorney's office contacted Special Crimes Detectives from the Worcester Police Department Friday regarding a possible human trafficking case. Worcester Police said officials from the Worcester Public Schools filed an initial report after a 14-year-old girl enrolled in school had not been attending class regularly. The girl had been in school for several weeks, police said. Detectives spoke to the 14-year-old girl and witnesses. They learned the girl met a man, identified by police as 22-year-old Luis Santos of Worcester, online. The two talked on Facebook while the girl was living in El Salvador, police said. "Through the investigation, police learned that the suspect eventually paid $5,000 to have the victim illegally smuggled across the border and into the United States," Worcester Police said. The girl arrived in the United States in mid-December 2016 and began living with Santos inside a Kingsbury Street apartment in Worcester, authorities said. "Police learned that the victim told Santos that she did not want a romantic relationship with him," police said. "However, Santos forced the victim to sleep in the same bed as him, and on more than one occasion sexually touched the victim against her will." Authorities said Santos did not let the girl go to school, kept her locked in a bedroom and didn't let her use the phone. After about three weeks, the teen was allowed to attend school. She reached out to family and friends who are from El Salvador, but now live in Worcester and stayed with them, police said. Santos spoke to investigators at police headquarters and was arrested. He was charged with kidnapping, rape of a child with force, human trafficking of a minor, three counts of incident assault and battery on a person 14 or older. There's a not-so-exclusive club that thousands of Worcester property owners, some unwittingly, have found their way into called the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System, or MACRIS, for short. MACRIS is a statewide database that tracks properties with historic or architectural value. It features properties on the National Registry of Historic Places, of which there are over 75,000 entries. Sometimes, bizarre properties can show up on the list. For example, there are at least two McDonald's restaurants built in 1995 that appear on the statewide MACRIS database. Over 2,850 properties in Worcester appear on the MACRIS database, which, depending on your perspective, is either a testament to the city's devotion to preservation, or a major headache for property owners and developers. That's because if your property is MACRIS listed, you must appear before the Historical Commission nearly every time you want to change an external feature of the home. That means windows, shingles, siding and more. "Currently, everybody on MACRIS has to appear, and that's been recognized as an issue," Deborah Packard of Preservation Worcester, a group that protects historic properties, said. Occasionally, a property owner will appear before the commission in regards to a building that is so irrevocably modified from its original historic architecture because there were no preservation protections when it was cataloged. This happened in 2014 when the commission voted to approve the demolition of the former Webster House Restaurant, which was originally the historic Knowlton House. Fires, renovations and the passing of time had eroded the historical bones of the Knowlton House, so the commission agreed to allow the new owners to raze it. "A lot of properties were put on in the 1970s by preservation Worcester, but there was no demolition delay ordinance in place at that point," Packard said. "There might have been already substantial alterations to them because there wasn't a demolition delay ordinance at the time." In order to alter the exterior of a historic property, the Historical Commission has to vote on whether the feature the property owner is trying to renovate would damage the historic or architectural significance of the property. Most of the time, the Historical Commission signs off on the renovations, but occasionally property owners are confused as to why the commission needs to vote on whether they modify their property. "It certainly not unheard that during a hearing for an item a resident will state that they don't understand why work on their home is subject to review," Rolle said. "You hear folks grumbling more than complaining." Some of that is due to the fact that there is no mechanism in place to inform someone that they are purchasing a historic property. "Many people do not know they're buying a MACRIS property... There isn't a way to inform that they are listed in MACRIS, other than encouraging realtors," Rolle said. According to voting records recorded on Historical Commission agendas, in a majority of cases over the past couple of years, the commission and property owners either agreed to preserve the historical and architectural features of the property or the owner is granted permission to follow through with the demolition. "The commission has a purpose and that is to protect historic resources," Rolle said. According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the MACRIS system is not widely used by other communities. Just about 45 communities in Massachusetts report that they use MACRIS, and only one community, Middleton, officially has MACRIS written into their demolition bylaw. "We're in the minority in terms of relying on the list," Rolle said. It's a system that Rolle said the city is interested in changing. With nearly 3,000 properties on the list and renaissance of dining and development sweeping through Worcester, the MACRIS database could slow down or even hold back the city's explosive growth. "There are two sides to this: we want to make sure the preservation regulations in place are effective, but we don't want them to be needlessly onerous if that's the case," Rolle said. "If there are aspects that are precluding desirable development, we want to stop that." Rolle has been working with other members of the city to draft a review of every process the city uses to preserve historical properties. Because it's not just that MACRIS is cumbersome, but it also may be broken. As Deborah Packard of Preservation Worcester recalls, the city has not funded a large-scale MACRIS survey since 1974. Back then, Packard said, the cut off to get on MACRIS was that a building had to be over 50 years old. That means hundreds of buildings and dozens of neighborhoods that groups consider historically significant were ignored back then. For example, the beautiful homes of Drury Lane are kept off the list most likely because they were built in the 1930s. First Baptist Church is also not on the list. "You have to keep current with the survey, and its a struggle to do that," Packard said. "And I think that's why the Historical Commission is looking to have a different standard for why properties end up at the Historical Commission are subject to the demolition delay ordinance." That's not the only broken aspect of MACRIS. "Here's the kicker: You can survey any property you want," Rolle said. "They will accept a properly completed form on any property, then it will go into the system." That's because, as Brian McNiff of the Massachusetts Historical Commission wrote, "'Historic significance' is not a threshold for inclusion in MACRIS." Rolle said a report will be released soon that will recommend changes to the Worcester's preservation strategy. The hope is to analyze how tools like MACRIS will fit into the burgeoning development in Worcester, if at all. "We want to make sure that the processes are as streamlined and painless as possible," Rolle said. "What can we do to make sure we're acheiving all of our desired outcomes? Let's start by making sure there's not anymore red tape than there needs to be." WORCESTER -- The Vietnamese Lunar New Year was celebrated during a Tet in Worcester event inside the DCU Center Sunday and the event was so popular people were waiting in line to get inside. The year of the Rooster celebration took place Sunday afternoon and was one of the largest of its kind in Central Massachusetts. Worcester has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in New England and people were welcomed to celebrate the New Year at the free event, which was open to the public. Four-time New England Lion Dance Competition champions, the Imperial Lion Dance Team, performed with groups from the Nhu Thanh Youth Group, Southeast Asian Coalition, Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Society and Vovinam Le Lai Martial Arts Academy. A main gate greeted people with 12 kiosks dedicated to each Zodiac animal. The organizing committee, the Nhu Thanh Group, wanted to educate people during the celebration and had information about the Vietnamese New Year at the event. A variety of authentic Vietnamese foods such as Pho noodle soup and Banh Mi sandwiches were served. Woff Senatus Woff Senatus, 26, of Miami, writes his support for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at an exhibit featuring portraits of U.S. presidential candidates Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at the gallery of Miami artist Huong, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Miami Beach, Fla. Huong encourages the public to write down their thoughts on the candidates. She sees this dialog as a form of public education and a way to bring people together to talk in a peaceful way. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) By Setti Warren My two kids probably could not think of anything more torturous than being forced to watch a boring speech by the President of the United States, but I made them watch President Obama's farewell address last Tuesday, anyway. I told them the things parents usually say: You might learn something. You're witnessing history. When the president addresses the nation, everyone should listen. But the truth is, making them watch our first African-American president say goodbye was more about me than them. I didn't even care if they paid attention; this was a moment I wanted to experience with my arms around them. As I sat there, a beaming parent and proud Democrat, listening to him once again articulating the progressive themes of his presidency, I started clapping along with applause breaks. Then I heard something that almost made me fall off the couch. "If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life," President Obama said. Earlier that night, before I settled in to relive Obama's list of accomplishments with partisan appreciation, I had convened diverse group of people from my city of Newton for just the kind of frank and friendly conversation the president was suggesting. A couple of weeks after Election Day last November, I received an email from a fellow veteran and self-described "deplorable" supporter of President-elect Trump. Some days later we sat down to talk, not debate or argue or yell, just talk. It was an eye opening experience and I wanted more. Along with that Trump-backer, I decided to do a little experiment. I invited three folks who voted for Trump, and three who supported Hilary Clinton to dinner at a popular local restaurant. Every one of them was a little apprehensive, and I'll admit that I was a little worried about how things would go. But once we started talking and listening to each other, the evening exceeded my highest expectations. We sat together and talked about where we came from, our backgrounds, and what led us to vote the way we did. Most people in the group did not know one another. As President Obama would suggest hours later, these were strangers who came together in real life to talk. I ate my Cobb Salad and watched as people with diametrically opposed political views exchanged small talk instead of angry tweets and swapped childhood stories instead of stale talking points. If you gave a quick look to our table, it would have looked like any other group of friends having a warm conversation on a brisk and rainy evening. It was the routine normalness of the conversation that gave me hope. After an extraordinary election that exposed the white hot fissures in our national political discourse, watching these new friends smile and laugh together reminded me of how much we can achieve when we start to see each others as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens instead of members of rival camps. The decorated Vietnam veteran who likes Trump and the High School principal who was alarmed by the President-elect's rhetoric both agree that America is a country where opportunity should be open for all. The pro-life nursery school teacher and the devoted Democrat who regretted not having more time to volunteer to help elect the first woman agree on the importance of national security, and keeping every citizen safe, both at home and abroad. We have a lot of work to do to get our nation back on track, but our first priority as engaged citizens should be to start breaking the bubble too many of us have created around ourselves by listening only to those with whom we agree. It's an important project, but it does not have to be a complicated one. As President Obama reminded us, sometimes you sit down for dinner with a stranger and leave with a friend. Setti Warren is the mayor of Newton. hodgson.jpg.jpg Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson offered inmate laborers to build President-elect Donald Trump's desired border wall with Mexico and also wants them to pay a daily incarceration fee. (Bristol County Sheriff's Department Facebook) (FB) Immigrant advocates are launching a protest after Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson offered up inmates as builders of Donald Trump's wall on the US-Mexico border. The advocates said they are taking aim at what they call the sheriff's "racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions." The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition sent an email to supporters saying they plan to protest the sheriff on Thursday, Jan. 19, at 4 p.m., across the street from the Bristol County Jail House in New Bedford. Earlier this month Hodgson said he's making a "formal offer" of free inmate labor to the president-elect, and argued the inmates would learn construction skills. "I can think of no other project that would have such a positive impact on our inmates and our country than building this wall," he said. Sheriff offers Massachusetts inmates to build wall along U.S.-Mexico border At the protest, members of the MIRA Coalition hope to present Hodgson with a letter. "This particular plan is outrageous when one considers the many improvements needed in the incarceration process," a copy of the letter said. "If the system had as its basic premise that each person has some capability to reform their lives then there would be serious, consistent, efforts made to provide positive learning opportunities in every area of life. Many of these inmates, from birth, never had a chance for a productive life due to various circumstances." Advocates also vowed to oppose Trump's plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. "Sheriff Hodgson, as you enter into your fourth term, envision the kind of inmate you want to see moving back into society as a productive citizen," the letter added. "Then use your creative imagination and design a process to make this happen. Not all can be saved; but all can be treated with dignity." Charles Baker Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) (Associated Press) BOSTON - Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker reiterated that he plans to attend fellow Republican Donald Trump's inauguration later this week, but defended Rep. John Lewis, a critic of the president-elect, as an "American hero." Lewis, D-Georgia, said on NBC last week he plans to skip the inauguration and questioned the legitimacy of Trump's election, citing Russian interference. That prompted Trump to fire up his Twitter account, writing that Lewis is all "talk, talk, talk - no action or results." Asked about the back and forth at a Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast, Baker called Lewis an "American hero" and a patriot. "And anybody who's followed the history associated with what he went through as a very young man, 22, 23, 24 years old back in the 1960s, knows that this is somebody who has devoted his life to civil rights here in this country," Baker said. "And anything suggesting that he's all talk is just simply A. not true and B. unfortunate." Baker said he is attending the inauguration because he was invited as the governor of Massachusetts, and he would have attended regardless of the winner of the presidential election. Massachusetts has relationships with the federal government, tied to health care, education, technology and medical research issues, he added. Baker said he remains disappointed with the "rhetoric" at the national level. Sen. Warren says John Lewis has right to question Trump's legitimacy "I plan to speak respectfully with folks at the federal level about issues I disagree with them on as well as issues I agree with them on," he said, noting that he penned a letter to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggesting House GOP members preserve parts of the health care reform law they're seeking to repeal. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Massachusetts Democrats, plan to attend the inauguration. Warren spoke at the Monday morning breakfast, and called for people, not just elected officials on Capitol Hill, to cause "necessary trouble" as Trump takes office. The quote was a reference to a phrase Lewis often uses when pointing to the actions he took as part of a push to ensure civil rights. Asked about Warren's remarks, Baker said, "I think everybody has a role to play here. I view mine as to represent the interests of the Commonwealth and the people of Massachusetts and I intend to do that, and I intend to do it in a way that builds on what I consider to be the foundation we've developed here, which for the most part has been collaborative, when it makes sense, and respectful in disagreement." An amazing farm has sprouted in an unlikely placethe rooftop of Israels oldest mall in the heart of Tel Aviv. Hidden between high-rises, "Green in the City" is a rooftop farm that produces 10,000 heads of leafy greens a month year-round using organic and hydroponic methodsno dirt required. This thriving example of urban agriculture is one of many surprising sustainable initiatives at the Dizengoff Center shopping mall, which includes bird habitats, a tree nursery, a rooftop apiary, and even a bat cave for native fruit bats to call home. by Lucy Wang Full Story: http://inhabitat.com/incredible-rooftop-farm-takes-over-israels-oldest-mall-to-grow-thousands-of-organic-vegetables/ "The goal is to basically see the business through the eyes of an investor," Overholt said. "How could someone buy my business and then get a steady paycheck as the business continues to perform and allows a new owner to take a salary but not have to work 80 hours a week?" Many small-business owners are in the same boat. Figuring out how to pass along a family business you have spent your life building is not easy. How do you put a value on it? How do you extract that value? Do you sell it to your children? An employee? Employees? Or do you hold on to it, pull back and collect a dividend while you sail into retirement? By Thomas Heath Full Story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/turning-your-business-into-an-asset-that-funds-your-retirement/2017/01/15/731b5f28-d45a-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html?utm_term=.3768ea7958f2 *** A record number of small business owners are selling their companies http://www.matr.net/article-75174.html Since its launch in 2009, Graduation Matters Montana http://opi.mt.gov/graduation_matters/ has taken root in 58 communities and helped drive the states graduation rate to historically high levels over the last three years. But its not clear yet whether the states new superintendent, Elsie Arntzen (you can email her at [email protected]) , will offer her support to the program, which gets most of its funding from the private sector. In an interview Friday, Arntzen said no decision had been made on whether the program, created by her predecessor Denise Juneau, will continue in its current form. PERRY BACKUS and MICHELLE McCONNAHA [email protected] Full Story: http://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/new-schools-chief-may-end-privately-funded-program-that-boosted/article_1c149451-35b5-5cf7-9a85-f88ea46a7c5f.html *** Montanas Graduation Rate Reaches Record High More Montana students are graduating from high school than ever before. That translates into a stronger economy, higher wages, and more opportunities for Montanas young people. The 2015 Graduation and Dropout Report shows Montanas graduation rate reached another historic high in 2014-2015, 86 percent, breaking the previous record of 85.4 percent. Im proud to say the community-building work of Graduation Matters Montana is making a difference. Now, 53 Montana communities place an emphasis on the importance of graduating from high school and its clear that students across this state understand that a diploma is their key to a successful future. http://opi.mt.gov/graduation_matters/ Big Sky Economic Development is looking for an innovative, driven , forward thinker who loves our community and is ready to tackle Workforce Development for Yellowstone County . The position manages the BillingsWorks Program under the direction of the Director of Marketing & Member Investors. The Director of BillingsWorks will manage and support a collaboration of over 80+ private businesses as well as civic, non -profit, city and county leaders , which make up the BillingsWork s Workforce Council . Full Opportunity Information: http://www.bigskyeconomicdevelopment.org/wp-content/uploads/Click-Here-to-Read-the-Full-Job-Description-and-Apply.pdf As the third generation of his family born in Big Sky Country, Scott Billadeaus Montana roots run deep and his visionary business ideas are helping to stimulate future economic growth in Missoula. Scott grew up in the small western Montana town of Superior, and attended the University of Montana (UM) in Missoula, where he majored in both business and music composition. It was early in his days on campus as an undergraduate student that Scott partnered with another student and started his first business venture, Java Bus; a van kitted out with an espresso maker and coffee machine that catered to a customer base of UM students and faculty, as well as the local Missoula Farmers Market. "It was the early nineties, and the specialty coffee and espresso craze was in full swing, with very few places meeting that demand in Missoulawe were so successful I essentially paid my way through school with coffee sales." Scott ultimately earned a Masters degree in music composition from UM, and sold Java Bus to the university before beginning a five-year career as a music composition professor on campus. In 2002, he decided he wanted to get back into business and asked himself the critical question all entrepreneurs face: "whats next?" Given his background and success in the specialty coffee world, Scott decided to open a retail store and coffee shop that would bring all the best in the specialty beverage world into one place. He opened the doors of his Missoula shop Liquid Planet in 2003, out of which he now sells an impressive selection of coffees, teas, wines, sodas, and an entire line of beverage accessories like coffee makers and barware. The deeper level of exposure to the specialty beverage industry spurred Scott to think about how he could improve upon the customer experience, and his research led him to local Missoula inventor Mark Porter. Mark had developed and patented a new kid of French press mug that made it possible for coffee connoisseurs to enjoy great coffee and tea while traveling. Scott and his main partner and investor Lee Poole of Bozeman, bought the rights to the product, and in 2004 used it as the foundation for a new venture, Planetary Design http://planetarydesign.com/ . Since Planetary Designs launch in 2004, Scott has been consistently expanding and innovating the product line often working with Montana-based product design and development firms like Salient Technologies in Bozeman to bring new inventions like the patented Airscape container to market. For Scott, one of the most interesting aspects of being an entrepreneur is bringing these new ideas to light and watching them take form. He compares the process of bringing a new product to market to the process of composing music: "Innovating an idea or product follows the same process as music composition in terms of taking a small idea and developing it into something really rich and dynamicyoure expanding into a territory no one else has seen or heard before." Over the last few years Planetary Design has received some key support from State resources, including Trade Show Assistance Program funds that helped cover costs at key marketing events like the Chicago Housewares Show and Outdoor Retailer. Scotts entrepreneurial success has also gained federal recognition; last fall U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stopped by Liquid Planet to learn more about his story. Today, Planetary Design employs 15 full-time team members at their 20,000 sq ft warehouse-style headquarters in Missoula, and is working with major retailers like REI, Williams & Sonoma, and Crate & Barrel. The 10-year old company sells their products in 20 different countries. Scott insists: "Theres absolutely no reason you cant build a global brand from Montanathe caliber of people you find in employees here is unlike anywhere else. And, our governor, senators, and leadership from our Department of Commerce are all just a phone call away and they actually answer their phones." When asked what key piece of advice he would give other Montana entrepreneurs, Scott responded: "Put a lot of focus on innovation. Its incredibly important to continually innovate your products and services. In our business, buyers at trade shows are always asking whats new, and we make sure we always have an answer." http://planetarydesign.com/ He loved his work and was always ready and willing to help anyone, in any way he possibly could. Dave loved all his customers and everyone loved him. Aside from his work, Dave was a very loving family man who was totally devoted to taking care of his wife, "Minnie". He loved his entire family unconditionally. In his younger days, Dave had a great love for his many Paso Fino horses. He won many ribbons and trophies showing. He was a big Jeff Gordon fan and an avid trout fisherman. There was nothing he enjoyed more than taking a fishing trip to Cherokee and camping with Shirley. When at home, Dave enjoyed playing pool with his friends and family. If you played him, you "Better be prepared to lose!" Dave will be truly missed! by Jess Nelson , January 16, 2017 A new phishing scam is impersonating the emails of a legitimate UK-based refugee nonprofit in order to steal banking information from unsuspecting victims. Cybercriminals have imitated an email from Migrant Help, a real nonprofit offering support to migrants from afflicted regions, by sending a phishing message with the subject line Thank you for choosing to donate to Migrant helpline. Founded in 1963, Migrant Help also manages Asylum Help, a free service that offers independent advice to asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. Our vision is for a global society that protects vulnerable migrants, treats them with respect and enables them to become successful members of their communities, is listed as the organizations goal online. The email scam contains a fake donation receipt, with the intended victims correct name listed alongside their correct phone number. A clickable reference number inviting email recipients to ask questions about their donation, which they likely would click on if they hadnt in fact donated, leads to an online Word document that downloads the Ramnit banking Trojan malware developed to steal online banking credentials. advertisement advertisement Using real, identifiable information often accessed via previous data hacks is a tactic cybercriminals use to make phishing emails appear more authentic. It is currently unknown, however, how the phishers in this case accessed the information. Dont click on links or open any attachments you receive in unsolicited emails or SMS messages, advises Action Fraud, the UKs cybercrime center online. Remember that fraudsters can spoof an email address to make it look like one used by someone you trust. If you are unsure, check the email header to identify the true source of communication. Action Fraud is requesting any phishing victims to report it by calling 0300 123 2040 or visiting www.actionfraud.police.uk. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, January 16, 2017 Under strong pressure from the German government, Facebook is testing a new mechanism to filter fake news distributed on its platform in Germany, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the news. German legislators hope to have an effective system for combating fake news in place before upcoming national elections. In the new system being tested by Facebook, users can flag news stories they believe are fake, and the social network will then label the stories as disputed and refer them to Correctiv, an automatic fact checker. Stories deemed false or seriously inaccurate by Correctiv will receive a lower ranking from the algorithm that determines which stories people see in their news feeds, so far fewer users will end up seeing the story. Its unclear whether German officials will consider the new fake news filter sufficient: German legislators had demanded that Facebook remove fake news items entirely, whereas the filter would apparently allow them to remain, but with a lower profile. advertisement advertisement Concern about the potential impact of fake news in Germany is mounting following the spread of a story, originally attributed to Breitbart, falsely reporting that a mob of Muslim immigrants had set fire to a church in Dortmund on New Years Eve. In fact, a stray firework set fire to a small piece of protective netting outside the church. As noted in a previous post, in December the German Ministry of Justice threatened big fines for online platforms that fail to quickly delete fake news, as well as hate speech and other kinds of illegal content. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas proposed a fine of 500,000 euros, or $522,000, for every fake news item that isnt removed within 24 hours of being flagged. The same fine would apply to items deemed hate speech, including racism or statements inciting violence, which is illegal in Germany. The measures under consideration would also require online platforms to distribute corrections calling out fake news to at least the same people who saw the original bogus report. Individuals who are harmed by fake news stories would also be due compensation. Finally, foreign-owned companies would be required to maintain offices in Germany to handle these requests. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 16, 2017 Google evangelist Avinash Kaushik has been talking for years about the benefits of failure. The quicker marketers fail, the better. Now Google has published a road map in the white paper "The Surprising Benefits of Failure," in which Casey Carey, director of Google Analytics, provides reasons why marketers should create quarterly failure reports. He describes the quarterly failure report as having two goals: share what has been learned, and reinforce the culture of failure and learning. He calls failure a byproduct of good testing. "An experiment gone wrong doesn't have to mean someone goofed," Carey wrote. "In a culture of growth, it should mean that you tried something new, measured the results, and learned that the change didn't help the bottom line. If your tests are always successful, you're probably not testing often enough or aggressively enough." Failure is important, but before reports go out through the email system, Carey says, everyone should be trained in best practices for driving growth through testing and experimentation and marketers should have a clear, repeatable framework and method for testing that everyone follows. advertisement advertisement The post ties into a white paper called "How to build a culture of growth: Optimize the customer experience." Google Analytics processes half a trillion digital moments daily. Hopefully, those moments create growth. A growth culture means that everyone tests everything, from call-to-action buttons to personalized home pages. Marketers should pay attention to numbers, run well-planned experiments, and fail often and fast. Even with the willingness to fail, challenges exist. Some of those challenges involve finding resources and dealing with the "strikeouts." It takes time and effort and dedicated people to run tests, but most don't want to commit resources until they see results, per Google's white paper. "The failure report highlights the biggest, most miserable test fails people have had recently, and crucially what theyve learned from them," per Google's white paper, but the problem with success arises when everyone wants to test, but no knows how. Google suggests beginning a training program and creating a testing council with one representative from each area of the business. Marketers should create a basic framework that everyone on the team can follow, and teach everyone what to test with that framework. The Washington Post, Monday, January 16, 2017 12:14 PM President Obama will hold his final press conference on Wednesday, capping off a farewell tour that culminated with this speech in Chicago last week. On his last foreign trip, the President went to Germany, Greece and Peru back in November. He also presented his last Presidential Medal of Freedom to Vice President Joe Biden in a touching ceremony last week. Read the whole story at The Washington Post by Sara Guaglione , January 16, 2017 Conde Nast Internationals president Nicholas Coleridge is stepping down and will be replaced by the company's current digital officer Wolfgang Blau, the company announced this morning. Albert Read will be promoted from his current position as GM and deputy managing director of Conde Nast Britain and take on Coleridges responsibilities as managing director of Conde Nast Britain.Coleridge held the title for 26 years and is one of the longest-serving managing directors of a British media group. He was responsible for the launch of UK editions of Conde Nast Traveller, Glamour, GQ Style,Wired and British Vanity Fair during his tenure, as well as oversaw the company's expansion into Russia, China, Japan, India and Eastern Europe. advertisement advertisement Blau and Read will step into their new positions on August 1, when Coleridge officially leaves the company. Blau joined Conde Nast in December 2015 after two years as The Guardians director of digital strategy. The company will harness Blaus digital experience going forward. Conde Nast has also created two new executive roles. Jamie Jouning has been appointed to the position of Vogue digital director and will be responsible for the brand's digital business across 21 markets, not including American Vogue. Jouning is currently publisher of British Glamour. "Jouning's appointment as international Vogue digital director will make it easier for our advertising partners to harness Vogue's enormous digital strengths around the world," stated Jonathan Newhouse, chairman and chief executive of Conde Nast International. James Woolhouse will become the first EVP/COO of Conde Nast International. After stepping down in August, Coleridge will become chairman of Conde Nast Britain until at least the end of 2019, according to a statement published by Vogue. In the U.S., Conde Nast is preparing for staff cuts. Last Thursday, a handful of employees were let go when the creative teams were consolidated, according to a report from WWD. Some copy editors were also let go. suggests that a big cut is just around the corner. Although they look less like cigarettes than first-generation e-cigarettes, a new study found that the newer generation e-cigarette vape pens (also known as vaporizers) stimulate the urge to smoke as powerfully as watching someone smoke a "combustible" tobacco cigarette. The study, published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, found that young adult smokers exposed to the use of traditional cigarettes, first-generation e-cigarettes or second generation vape pens experienced an immediate, significant and lasting increase in the desire to smoke. This extended even to subjects who had never used the newer devices. "The new e-cigarettes, known as vape pens, are now larger and more powerful devices," said study director Andrea King, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience and director of the clinical addictions research laboratory at the University of Chicago. "They have low resemblance to cigarettes, so some people were hoping they might not produce the same urge to smoke." "But we found that they do stimulate the urge," she said. "Vape pens look different but they share too many salient features of the act of smoking - including inhalation, exhalation and hand-to-mouth behaviors. This makes them a potent trigger, encouraging people to smoke. Their impact is roughly equal to watching someone light up a cigarette. They made the young adults in our study want to smoke." E-cigarettes entered the U.S. market in 2007. Vape pens, a second-generation electronic nicotine-delivery system (ENDS), are more recent. Despite initial hopes that e-cigarettes, and now vape pens, could help smokers break away from tobacco, studies have not been able definitively to confirm that they contribute to smoking cessation efforts. In 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) found that about one in six current cigarette smokers (15.9%) and nearly one in four recent (past year) former cigarette smokers (22%) were regular e-cigarette users, compared with 2.3 percent of long-term former cigarette smokers and 0.4 percent of never smokers. According to the survey, e-cigarette use is "strongly associated with the use of other tobacco products among youth and young adults, including combustible tobacco products." King and colleagues designed an experiment to test the vape pen's effects on the urge to smoke in young adults, men and women aged 18 to 35, a highly susceptible group. They recruited volunteers though online advertisements for a study they described as "assessing mood response to commons tasks." They were able to enroll 108 volunteers. These ranged from very light to pack-a-day smokers. On average, they smoked 8.7 cigarettes a day on six to seven days each week. More than 80 percent had used e-cigarettes and almost 30 percent had used one in the past month. Over an hour-long session - involving a number of disparate tasks and interactions designed to mask the primary goals of the study - the volunteers conversed with a member of the research team who pretended to be a fellow volunteer "randomly assigned" to consume different products as study tasks. During these interactions, the pretending volunteer smoked either a combustible cigarette or a vape pen. Both cues increased desire among research subjects for a cigarette or an e-cigarette. The level and duration of desire to smoke among volunteers was the same whether they observed their "colleague" smoking a cigarette or using a vape pen. When the colleague drank bottled water, volunteers had no change in desire to smoke or vape. Late in the study, the researchers added a behavioral component to measure the ability of 26 of the daily smokers to resist or postpone smoking about twenty minutes after they were exposed to their partners' vaping or smoking. At this time, one cigarette was placed on a tray, along with a lighter and an ash tray. Volunteers were told they could smoke the cigarette, or receive 20 cents for every five minute they resisted, a $2.00 value over 50 minutes. Most could hold out for only 20 minutes (80 cents worth), and this delay was the same whether their partner had been previously using a vape pen or a cigarette. "We've made real progress on reducing smoking in our country," King said. "We've done a good job banning indoor smoking. We rarely see two-pack-a-day smokers like we used to. Yet seeing people smoke in public remains common. Our study focused on a classical Pavlovian trigger, as seeing someone smoke is a known potent cue that can induce others to smoke. We did not expect that the vape pen would be as potent a cue as the regular cigarette, but it was as potent." "The regulations in the U.S. on when and where somebody can use an e-cigarette are not yet standard," she added. "But we do know that, so far, the use of e-cigarettes has not had a major direct impact on smoking cessation efforts above and beyond public health messages and taxes. The sight of someone using a vape pen bumps up the urge to smoke, so this may play a role in dual use of cigarettes and e-cigarettes, but future studies are needed." Strengths of the study included a wide range of smoking levels, a controlled environment, ethnic and racial diversity, and the ability to gather the desired data without tipping their hand. Only 20 percent of the study volunteers were able to guess correctly about the goals of the study. Weaknesses included a relatively small sample size, reliance on a laboratory environment and the inability to rearrange the order of the smoking-related cues presented to the subjects. Additional authors were Lia J. Smith, Patrick J. McNamara, Dingcai Cao from the University of Chicago. The National Institutes of Health and the University of Chicago Department of Psychiatry funded the study. Article: Second Generation Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Vape Pen Exposure Generalizes as a Smoking Cue, Andrea C. King, PhD Lia J. Smith, BA Patrick J. McNamara, BS Dingcai Cao, PhD, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntw327, published 12 January 2017. Despite increased demand for counseling centers on college campuses, students aren't necessarily getting sicker. Instead, it's likely student mental health needs across the country have increased due to national prevention and awareness efforts over the past decade. "The results we are seeing are the outcomes we would expect to see from suicide prevention efforts over the last decade," said Ben Locke, executive director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State. "We've been asked if students are sicker today, and this doesn't seem to be supported by the data. Over the last six years, the rate at which students report prior mental health treatment has not increased, but with communities being primed to say 'that's a problem, let's find you help,' more students are being referred." In response to growing demand, university counseling centers also have experienced operational changes over the last six years. They are providing 28 percent more "rapid-access" service hours per client and 7.6 percent fewer "routine" service hours per client. With more resources going into "rapid-access" services - first-time and emergency appointments - counseling centers' routine treatment capacities are likely being impacted, especially when funding is flat. "Counseling centers always make sure to provide emergency services in a short time period - that's our priority," said Locke, who also directs Penn State's Center for Counseling and Psychological Services. Moving forward, he said, counseling centers need to ensure students in need - not just those experiencing a crisis - get follow-up treatment to heal. Locke compared the scenario to other forms of health care. "If you have strep throat, and go into a health center, they won't tell you to come back in two weeks because they're fully booked," he said, "and they won't give you a half prescription; you'll get a full prescription for the medication you need." These are some of the findings in the 2016 Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) Annual Report - the largest and most comprehensive report on college students seeking mental health treatment to date. A sample of other findings include: Counseling centers are evaluating and managing increasing numbers of students who may also represent "threat-to-self." Trends in students' thoughts or actions related to harming others continue to be infrequent. Anxiety and depression continue to be the most common presenting concerns for college students as identified by counseling center staff. The report describes 150,483 unique college students seeking mental health treatment; 3,419 clinicians; and more than 1,034,510 appointments from the 2015-16 academic year. This is the eighth year the report has been produced. Advertisement The biobeads would be used to provide a new platform where a large combination of antigenic components would be expressed It could be compared with live vaccines It will have the safety levels of non-infectious material There is an absence of genetic material in the biobeads The production costs will be cost effective Tuberculosis 10.4 million people were infected with TB 1.8 million died due to the disease 0.4 million people had HIV Over 95% of TB related deaths occurs among people in low and middle income families. 1 million children became infected with TB 170 000 children died due to TB infection A very bad cough that lasts for atleast 3 weeks Drastic weight loss Blood or mucous while coughing Loss of appetite Sweating at night Fever The research team had worked on antigen presentation on the biobeads during an earlier study and found that it elicited a cell mediated immune response. The scientists used E.coli to assemble the biobeads. When the scientists studied the antigen presentation in the biobeads, they found that E.coli proteins were also presented on them.Primary author Dr. Axel Heiser, who is a research scientist at AgResearch Ltd situated at Palmerston North, New Zealand, said that from the findings of the study, the scientists hypothesized that these proteins of E.coli that were presented on the surface of the biobeads, could also function as antigens. The scientists further stated that if these biobeads were synthesized byspecies instead of E.coli, then many antigens ofwould be represented on the biobeads and this would offer a protective immunity.However, the main hitch is that E.coli have the necessary enzymes that are required to assemble biobeads stated Dr. Heiser. This encouraged the scientists to clone the bacterium, which allowed the expression of enzymes in, athat could not cause tuberculosis. Since this species could not cause the infection, the use of this bacterium in the development of the vaccine will prevent inadvertent infection.When biobeads were purified and the bacteria killed, the scientists found that they were completely natural and bio-degradable. The Mycobacterial biobeads were then injected into mice and their immune response were studied. The team found that the mice produced an immune response that could potentially prevent TB infection. The scientists would next be introducing TB infection into mice which have been vaccinated to understand the level of protection. They would also be working on better methods of purification of the vaccine and efficient production.Tuberculosis is a lung infection caused by the bacteriumandand is one of the top 10 causes of death across the world.In the year 2015,The highest incidence of TB occurs in India and is also high in Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, China and Nigeria. Tuberculosis is especially life-threatening among people who are infected with HIV with 35% of HIV deaths associated with TB.The major limiting factor about TB infection and disease control is the development of multi-drug resistance, which occurred among an estimated 480 000 people in 2015. The development of this vaccine could soon improve control and spread of the disease.Mycobacteria usually affect the lungs but they are also found to affect other parts of the body. The infection spreads when an infected individual coughs or sneezes or sometimes even while talking. The infection is most likely to spread to another individual who has a weak immune system.The symptoms of the lung infection caused due to TB are:The previous vaccine for TB was developed in 1921, but it had the risk of causing infection, especially among people who were immune-compromised. The current study that focuses on the development of a TB vaccine would aid in treating people with multi-drug resistance and also in providing immunity for people who are at high risk of developing this disease, like nurses or caregivers.Source: Medindia Advertisement The ongoing study "Children and Parents in Focus" was launched in Uppsala, Sweden, in 2013. The study evaluated a method to enhance communication between parents, preschool and child healthcare, regarding children's mental health.When the parents of all three-, four-, and five-year-olds in Uppsala receive the invitation letter for the child's annual visit to the child health center, they also receive an additional form with 25 questions. This form, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), is widely used internationally and contains questions about the child's behavior, emotions, and social relationships.The parents receive three SDQ forms. If the family agrees to participate in the study, the parents each complete a separate form and take the third questionnaire to their child's preschool for the teachers to complete. The completed forms are then returned to the CHC nurse and reviewed during the child's regular visits to the CHC.All stakeholders were in favor of the new procedure, though all stakeholders also noted some problems.* CHC nurses think the forms are important for their assessment and constitute a good basis for a more complete evaluation of the child. CHC nurses acknowledge that they gain knowledge of the child that they would probably have missed without the form. They also feel that it is valuable to get information from both parents and preschool teachers, since they see the child in different environments that make different demands. Unfortunately, CHC nurses finds that socially vulnerable families, and families with a child where problems are suspected, refrain from completing the forms more often than other families.* Preschool teachers want to identify and help children with difficulties and most preschool teachers think that the transfer of information using the SDQ can be a good tool for that. But the interviews also showed that the use of structured forms to assess children's social and emotional development is a controversial issue among preschool teachers."They argue that the use of structured (normative) forms is regarded as outdated in preschool and that such tools are contradictory to preschool's policy documents. They fear the children might be labelled and thus affected negatively in the future if they are assessed with standardized forms. Nevertheless, preschools have a responsibility to offer all children adequate support in their development and to collaborate with parents, so there is a conflict there," says Elizabeth Falt.The preschool teachers also feel worried about parents' reactions to the preschool assessment. At the same time, they acknowledge that the information transfer benefits the preschool, as the new routine can contribute by giving the preschool a more detailed picture of each child and can result in good collegial discussions.- Parents look forward to learning about part of the preschool's assessment at the child healthcare center visit. They think that the forms get them to reflect on their child's situation and behavior, which they perceive as positive. They also think that the questionnaire can lead to valuable discussions with the other parent, as the points initiate discussions they would not otherwise have. Nevertheless, parents have some concerns about how personal information is handled and used; like the preschool teachers, they are afraid that the information they provide through SDQ might have negative consequences for the child in the long run.Source: Eurekalert Advertisement These "totipotent-like" stem cells are able to generate not only all cell types within a developing embryo, but also cell types that facilitate nutrient exchange between the embryo and the mother.For now, the new stem cell lines UC Berkeley researchers have created will help scientists understand the first molecular decisions made in the early embryo. Ultimately, however, these insights could broaden the repertoire of tissues that can be generated from stem cells, with significant implications for regenerative medicine and stem cell-based therapy."Studies on embryonic development greatly benefit from the culture system of embryonic stem cells and, more recently, induced pluripotent stem cells. These experimental systems allow scientists to dissect key molecular pathways that specify cell fate decisions in embryonic development," said team leader Lin He, a UC Berkeley associate professor of molecular and cell biology. "But the unique developmental potential of a zygote, formed right after the sperm and egg meet, is very, very difficult to study, due to limited materials and the lack of a cell-culture experimental system."He's new study not only reveals a novel mechanism regulating the "totipotent-like" stem cell state, but also provides a powerful cell-culture system to further study totipotency.She and her colleagues reported their research online Jan. 12 in advance of print publication in the journalEmbryonic stem (ES) cells, harvested from three-and-a-half-day-old mouse embryos or five-and-a-half-day-old human embryos, are referred to as pluripotent because they can become any of the thousands of cell types in the body. They have generated excitement over the past few decades because scientists can study them in the laboratory to discover the genetic switches that control the development of specialized tissues in the embryo and fetus, and also because of their potential to replace body tissues that have broken down, such as pancreatic cells in those with diabetes or heart muscle cells in those with congestive heart failure. These stem cells can also let researchers study the early stages of genetic disease.As an alternative to harvesting them from embryos, scientists can also obtain pluripotent stem cells by treating mature somatic cells with a cocktail of transcription factors to regress them so that they are nearly as flexible as embryonic stem cells. These artificially derived stem cells are called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.Neither ES nor iPS cells, however, are as flexible as the original fertilized egg, which can form extra-embryonic as well as embryonic tissues. By the time embryonic stem cells are harvested from a mouse or human embryo, the cells have already committed to either an embryonic or an extra-embryonic lineage.MicroRNAs are small, non-coding RNAs that do not translate into proteins, yet have a profound impact on gene expression regulation. He and her colleagues found that a microRNA called miR-34a appears to be a brake preventing both ES and iPS cells from producing extra-embryonic tissues. When this microRNA was genetically removed, both ES and iPS cells were able to expand their developmental decisions to generate embryo cell types as well as placenta and yolk sac linages. In their experiments, about 20 percent of embryonic stem cells lacking the microRNA exhibited expanded fate potential. Furthermore, this effect could be maintained for up to a month in cell culture."What is quite amazing is that manipulating just a single microRNA was able to greatly expand cell fate decisions of embryonic stem cells," He said. "This finding not only identifies a new mechanism that regulates totipotent stem cells, but also reveals the importance of non-coding RNAs in stem cell fate."Additionally, in this study, He's group discovered an unexpected link between miR-34a and a specific class of mouse retrotransposons. Long regarded as "junk DNA," retrotransposons are pieces of ancient foreign DNA that make up a large fraction of the mammalian genome. For decades, biologists assumed that these retrotransposons serve no purpose during normal development, but He's findings suggest they may be closely tied to the decision-making of early embryos."An important open question is whether these retrotransposons are real drivers of developmental decision making," said Todd MacFanlan, a co-author of the current study and a researcher at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland.Co-authors with He are graduate student Yong Jin Choi, postdoctoral fellows Chao-Po Lin and Davide Risso, graduate student Sean Chen and undergraduate Thomas Aquinas Kim, along with statistics professor Terence Speed of UC Berkeley. Meng How Tan and Jin Li of Stanford University, Yalei Wu of Thermo Fisher Scientific in South San Francisco, Caifu Chen of Integrated DNA Technologies in Redwood City, Zhenyu Xuan of the University of Texas at Dallas, Weiqun Peng of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Kent Lloyd of UC Davis and Sang Yong Kim of the New York University School of Medicine, all contributed to this work.Source: Eurekalert Last nights Koffee With Karan was mostly forgettable , thanks to Sonam Kapoor being pretentious AF and Kareena simply refusing to give us much scoop but theres one thing that was hard to look over Kareena Kapoor constantly throwing shade on Sonam Kapoor throughout the show. If it had to be explained in a picture, itd be this. Hotstar Mean things are always nice to revisit, so heres a breakdown of each and every time Kareena Kapoor (not so) lowkey snubbed Sonam Kapoor without her getting to know of it. 1. The eye-rolling began even before the show actually started. 2. When Sonam said she absolutely loves Kareena and Kareena couldnt care less. She was literally just sitting there, flicking her hair while Sonam went on and on praising her. 3. Karan Johar and Kareena Kapoor were having a conversation about Kareena and Saifs blue blood attitude. Sonam Kapoor butt in for no reason and lets just say Kareena burned her down with this glare for interrupting. 4. Most people would be flattered with someone praising them but Bebo had Err...can you not? written on her forehead the whole time Sonam was trying to be her self-appointed PR. 5. Karan Johar asked both of them, Sonam first, and Kareena later if being fashionistas ever takes away from being recognized as actors of substance. Kareena agreed but then quickly declared herself the actor on the couch. Now come on, read between the lines! 6. When Sonam Kapoor spoke of being her only competition, Kareena Kapoor was internally rolling her eyes and it was QUITE evident. 7. Kapoor thought it was a good opportunity to announce her Hollywood debut and forget a congratulatory hug, Kareena Kapoor poured molten lava over it. 8. Basically, every time Sonam opened her mouth, Kareena looked for fucks to give. 9. Karan asked if Sonam would like to be set up with Ranbir Kapoor and become Kareena Kapoors sister-in-law and Kareena pulled off, well, a Kareena. 10. She threw diplomacy out of the window when it came to competing against Alia and Sonam in a GK test. She couldnt resist rubbing it in Sonams face. 11. Kara asked her to rank Sonam, Deepika, Alia, Anushka and Katrina and she killed em all with her sarcasm. Not even kidding. She didnt even care about the fact that Sonam was right there! 12. When Karan asked what Sonam Kapoors worst performance was, Kareena was quick to answer Thank You. She literally couldnt believe she was sharing the couch with Sonam Kapoor. 13. Sonam Kapoor turned the show into a snooze-fest with her irrelevant, almost senseless and pretentious answers and Kareena Kapoor called her out on it. She tried to cut it short so people could move on and Sonam would shut up. 14. This time Sonam Kapoor tried to mock Kareena Kapoor and Kareena refused to even react to it. 15. Karan ended the show by mocking Sonam Kapoors lifestyle changes and Kareena had the bitchiest laugh ever! Thai military inspectorate to accept new batch of Oplot tanks in Ukraine on Jan 16 The inspectorate of the Royal Thai Army on January 16 will start accepting the new batch of Oplot combat tanks in Ukraine made at Malyshev Plant (Kharkiv) under a contract to supply 49 tanks to Thailand signed in 2011, the press service of state-run enterprise Ukrspecexport has reported. "The Thai delegation accepting the new batch of Oplot tanks will start on Monday [January 16]. The customers will look at the tanks at the various stages of production," the company said. Ukrspecexport said that under the mutual agreement of the sides the terms of completing the contract were moved to autumn 2017. "The decision was made due to military actions in eastern Ukraine," the press service said. The contract to supply promising Ukrainian next generation armed vehicles to Thailand is being implemented in the conditions of tough competition on the global market. Ukrspecexport said that Oplot tanks are competitive vehicles. Potential buyers from various countries showed their interest to buy them. "Unfair rivals are hindering the arrival of the vehicles to the international market," the company said. Recently Thailand's Bangkok Post reported with the reference to Commander-In-Chief of Thailand Armed Forces General Chalermchai Sittisat that Bangkok and Beijing are discussing expansion of defense cooperation. Among promising directions is purchase of armored vehicles from China to replace U.S. M-41 tanks bought in the United States in 1957. Thailand has signed a contract to buy 28 Chinese VT-4 tanks and seeks to boost the supplies in 2017. Gen Chalermchai said that after problems with the delivery of 49 Oplot tanks ordered from Ukraine, the army committee which decides on military hardware procurements has opted to cut the number of tanks to be bought from Ukraine. The problem facing the Ukrainian supplier was due mainly to Ukraine's internal situation, he said. However, the Ukrainian tank maker should be able to deliver all 49 tanks to the Thai army by October, 2017, according to Gen Chalermchai. Some foreign media spread information that Thailand allegedly refused to buy Ukrainian Oplot tanks in favor of Chinese VT-4 tanks. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Terens Quick, will be in Imbros tomorrow, 17 January, to attend the ceremony of the cutting of the New Years Cake for the islands Hellenic schools by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. On this occasion, the Deputy Minister will visit the Middle School/High School of Agridion, as well as the Primary School of Saints Theodore, he will meet with members of the Greek community in other villages of the island, as well as with representatives from the Imbrian Associations of Athens and Thessaloniki. Furthermore, in the morning on the same day, he will attend a formal meeting with the Prefect of Imbros, Mr. Muhittin Gurel. Mr. Quick will be accompanied by the Consul General of Greece to Istanbul, Mr. George Sekeris, and his Diplomatic Counselor, Mr. Victor Maligoudis. Finally, on 18 January, prior to his return to Athens, Mr. Quick will attend the Holy Liturgy to the Virgin Mary, which will be celebrated at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Dormition of the Theotokos, officiated by Metropolitan Cyril of Imbros and Tenedos, who also celebrates his name day that day. Ukraine gas stocks down 25% in three months of heating season Gas stocks in Ukraine's underground storage facilities declined by 25% or 3.677 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 11.055 bcm since October 13, when the current heating season began, through January 14. Ukraine withdrew 52.84 million cubic meters (mcm) from underground storage on January 14 and a total of 930.98 mcm on January 1 through January 14 (66.5 mcm/day on average), Ukrtransgaz, which operates the country's pipelines and storage facilities, said in a statement. Withdrawals amounted to 1.569 bcm in December (50.6 mcm/day on average) and 909.42 mcm in November (30.31 mcm/day). Pumping of gas from underground storage facilities a year ago on January 14, 2016 was 72.69 mcm with stocks of 12.468 bcm and two years ago on January 14, 2015 61.17 mcm with stocks of 10.361 bcm. As of January 14, 2017, daily imports of gas were 46.285 mcm, of which 39.827 mcm from Slovakia, 2.531 mcm from Hungary and 3.927 mcm from Poland. Ukraine has not imported gas from Russia since November 26, 2015. Gas production in Ukraine on January 14 was 56.69 mcm, of which Ukrgazvydobuvannia produced 40.656 mcm, Ukrnafta 3.499 mcm and other companies 12.535 mcm. Transit via Ukraine's gas transportation system was 3.896 bcm in the period January 1-14, corresponding to a monthly rate of about 8.6 bcm. Naftogaz Ukrainy officials believe the gas stocks are sufficient to make it through the heating season and, if the winter is more severe than expected, Ukraine has the capacity to increase imports. Naftogaz calculates that stocks will end the heating season in the range 7-8 bcm, compared with the minimum allowable level of 5 bcm. Withdrawals in 2016 exceeded injections by 2 bcm: 8.391 bcm was withdrawn and 6.389 bcm was injected. Naftogaz signs contract for $6.31 mln with Covington & Burling to accompany Crimea loss lawsuit against Russia National joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy on January 11 signed a contract for $6.31 million with Covington & Burling LLP (New York, the United States). The company will represent the interest of the Ukrainian company in arbitration against Russia under a claim to refund losses over the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Naftogaz said in a report in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the contract expires on December 31, 2017. Earlier Naftogaz Ukrainy Head Andriy Kobolev predicted that hearing of a lawsuit against Russia where Naftogaz demands to refund losses of around $2.6 billion caused by the unlawful seizure of the holding's assets due to the annexation of Crimea would last two or three years. "I think that we have high chances to win," he said on Channel 5 TV. Naftogaz earlier declared its plans to seek to regain control over its assets lost because of Russia's occupying Crimea and have all losses compensated for through international judicial institutions. Naftogaz in February 2016 initiated a negotiating process regarding the loss of its assets in Crimea by formally notifying Russia of an investment dispute under the bilateral investment protection agreement. The six-month negotiating period ended in August 2016. Thus, the negotiating process produced no results, which entitles Ukraine to start arbitration proceedings against Russia regarding the investment agreement. Naftogaz contracted Covington & Burling LLP (New York, the United States) to protect its interests in the litigation concerning the lost Crimean assets. Naftogaz Ukrainy is wholly owned by the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers and consolidates the country's largest oil and gas producing facilities. It holds a monopoly on the transportation and storage of natural gas in underground storage facilities and on the transportation of oil through pipelines across the country. A local business aided by a group of exceptional community volunteers recently donated a charitable contribution to United Hospice Service (UHS) of Marlette Regional Hospital. Over the course of many months, Eddie G's restaurant has hosted a very popular Burger and Bike Night and euchre tournament where a portion of the proceeds and a 50/50 raffle has benefitted the local hospice program. Special thanks are extended to volunteers Leslie and Roger Ballard, Brad and Bonnie Firmingham, the Eddie G's staff, Ryan Lambert, and Mikkel Creason for their help in making these events and fundraisers successful. Pictured, on behalf of Eddie G's, co-owner Eddie Gerstenberger presents UHS Director Shelli Greschaw with a donation of $2,000 that will be used to financially assist patients with their hospice care. (Submitted photo) PIGEON In FFA, there are many awards that can be achieved with hard work and dedication, and one of the top awards is Star Farmer. This year, two Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker FFA members are finalists for this state-level recognition in the Agricultural Placement category. Only three finalists are being interviewed statewide. Aaron Maust and Jake Bushey, both seniors, were interviewed Jan. 10 in Lansing by a panel of judges, and they'll find out who receives the Star Farmer in Agricultural Placement in March at the FFA State Convention. The pair submitted applications for the Star Farmer award at the end of November and were judged against students from across the entire state of Michigan. The two were selected as semi-finalists in early December, along with fellow FFA member Collin Kohn. They were interviewed by a Michigan FFA representative. The interview included time at the school to talk with the students, their FFA advisor Haley Schulz, Principal Jon Good and Superintendent Brian Keim. The three semi-finalists also were interviewed at their respective job sites. The Laker students found out they were chosen as finalists in late December, and they're both very excited to have this opportunity. Maust, son of Brent and Emily Maust, of Bay Port, works at Bay Horizon Farm, which is his father's farm. He's worked there for nine years. The farm has crops and 1,200 hogs. His favorite things to do on the farm are operating the combine and driving semi trucks. He has been an FFA officer for the Laker chapter for two years. Last year, he was the sentinel, and this year, he is treasurer. "Being on the officer team really gets you involved," Aaron Maust said. "It shows what goes on behind the scenes." Some of his proudest moments in FFA, other than being a Star Farmer finalist, include receiving a silver award in agronomy at the FFA National Convention and competing at the state level in parliamentary procedure. Aaron Maust's future plans include attending Iowa State University to pursue an agriculture degree. He said he'd like to continue working on the family farm. Bushey, son of T.L. and Kelly Bushey, of Caseville, works on his family's cash crop farm and at Bushey Farm Tiling, a drainage tile business owned by his grandfather, Louis, and Jake's brother, Jed. He enjoys operating the combine at his family's farm and running the tile plow for the drainage tile business. Jake Bushey said FFA has really helped improve his public speaking skills and increase his knowledge of the agriculture industry. "I see how FFA has changed me and I'm seeing the effects FFA has on fellow members," he said. "It's made me a better person. The things I've done in FFA have been incredible." He currently is the Laker FFA chapter president and is the Region III president. He hopes to be a state officer in the future. Some of Jake Bushey's proudest moments in FFA include competing at the national level in agronomy and competing at the state level in parliamentary procedure. He also recently played in the National FFA Band. "It was an amazing experience," he said. After high school, Jake Bushey will attend Michigan State University to major in crop and soil science. "I'd like to come back to farm it's always going to be a part of my life," he said. "I want to be more involved with the farm." Jake Bushey and Aaron Maust also are members of the Michigan Youth Sugar Beet Project, during which they participated in various activities that helped them learn about the sugar beet production and the agriculture industry. Grain harvest in Ukraine 2016 has broken a record being 66 million tonnes (in standard weight) and it was 5.9 million tonnes more than in 2015. Ukraine's Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry reported that in 2016 grain yield records were hit: wheat 42.1 centners per ha, rye 27.3 centners per ha, corn 66 centners per ha and peas 31.3 centners per ha. In general last year Ukraine threshed 26 million tonnes of wheat, around 28 million tonnes of corn, 9.4 million tonnes of barley, 391,500 tonnes of rye, 499,000 tonnes of oats, 176,400 tonnes of buckwheat, 745,600 tonnes of peas and 64,800 tonnes of rice. Average yield of grain crops was 46.1 centners per ha. The country also harvested 13.9 million tonnes of sugar beets (the yield is 482.4 centners per ha), 13.6 million tonnes of sunflower seeds (22.4 centners per ha), 4.3 million tonnes of soybeans (23.1 centners per ha), 20.9 million tonnes of potatoes (160.7 centners per ha), 9 million tonnes of vegetables (208.2 centners per ha) and 400,000 tonnes of grapes (95.7 centners per ha). Fabrinet provides optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical, and electronic manufacturing services in North America, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe. The company offers a range of advanced optical and electro-mechanical capabilities in the manufacturing process, including process design and engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, printed circuit board assembly, advanced packaging, integration, final assembly, and testing. Its products include switching products, including reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers, optical amplifiers, modulators, and other optical components and modules that enable network managers to route voice, video, and data communications traffic through fiber optic cables at various wavelengths, speeds, and over various distances. The company's products also comprise tunable lasers, transceivers, and transponders; and active optical cables, which provide high-speed interconnect capabilities for data centers and computing clusters, as well as Infiniband, Ethernet, fiber channel, and optical backplane connectivity. In addition, it provides solid state, diode-pumped, gas, and fiber lasers used in semiconductor processing, biotechnology and medical device, metrology, and material processing industries; and differential pressure, micro-gyro, fuel, and other sensors used in automobiles, as well as non-contact temperature measurement sensors for the medical industry. Further, the company designs and fabricates application-specific crystals, lenses, prisms, mirrors, laser components, and substrates; and other custom and standard borosilicate, clear fused quartz, and synthetic fused silica glass products. It serves original equipment manufacturers of optical communication components, modules and sub-systems, industrial lasers, automotive components, medical devices, and sensors. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is based in George Town, the Cayman Islands. EC will issue EUR3 mln to Ukraine to bring certification of Ukrainian aviation goods in compliance with EU norms The State Aviation Service of Ukraine has signed an agreement with the European Commission (EC) under which Ukraine undertakes to bring the system of certification of Ukrainian aviation industry products in compliance with European standards, for which the EC will issue EUR3 million. "We want all of our certification standards to meet EU norms. The agreement provides for the implementation of these objectives within five years. We are likely to finish faster," Deputy Infrastructure Minister for European Integration Viktor Dovhan told reporters. According to him, the signing of this agreement will result in the EU's recognizing Ukrainian certificates, first of all, for the produce of Antonov, as well as other enterprises. Associated Banc-Corp, a bank holding company, provides various banking and nonbanking products to individuals and businesses in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. The company operates through three segments: Corporate and Commercial Specialty; Community, Consumer, and Business; and Risk Management and Shared Services. Its Corporate and Commercial Specialty segment offers lending solutions, including commercial loans and lines of credit, commercial real estate financing, construction loans, letters of credit, leasing, asset based lending, and loan syndications; deposit and cash management solutions, such as commercial checking and interest-bearing deposit products, cash vault and night depository services, liquidity solutions, payables and receivables solutions, and information services; specialized financial services such as interest rate risk management, foreign exchange solutions, and commodity hedging; fiduciary services such as administration of pension, profit-sharing and other employee benefit plans, fiduciary and corporate agency services, and institutional asset management; and investable funds solutions such as savings, money market deposit accounts, IRA accounts, CDs, fixed and variable annuities, full-service, discount and online investment brokerage; investment advisory services; and trust and investment management accounts. The company's Community, Consumer, and Business segment offers lending solutions, such as residential mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, personal and installment loans, auto loans, business loans, and business lines of credit; and deposit and transactional solutions such as checking, credit, debit and pre-paid cards, online banking and bill pay; and money transfer services. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 215 banking branches. Associated Banc-Corp was founded in 1861 and is headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden has arrived in Kyiv. His plane landed at Boryspil Airport on Monday morning. Biden is due to have bilateral meetings with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. According to earlier reports, the Biden visit aims at underlining the U.S. support to Ukraine and marking the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. After that, Biden will go to Switzerland for a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Bro. Ken JP Stuczynski is a member of West Seneca Lodge No.1111 and recently served as Master of Ken-Ton Lodge No.1186. As webmaster for NYMasons.Org, he is on the Communications and Technology Committees for the Grand Lodge of the State of New York. He is also a High Priest in Royal Arch Masonry, 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason (Past Sovereign Prince), and Cryptic Mason. He and his wife served as Patron and Matron of Pond Chapter No.853 Order of the Eastern Star and considers himself a Masonic Feminist. As a masonic speaker throughout New York State, he primarily speaks regarding the use of technology in the Craft. Some of his numerous Empire State Mason articles have been republished in Arizona and New Jersey. To aid in his outreach on these topics, he authored Webmastering the Craft: Fraternity in a Digital World, available worldwide in softcover and eBook. He also regularly gives his "Astronomical Tour of the Lodge" at various Lodges. Having lifelong interests in world religions, science, and other fields, his degree is in Philosophy with a concentration in Ethics and a minor In Psychology. He has written articles and essays on the topics of science and religion, culture and politics, business and economics, technology and futurism, as well as various aspects of social psychology. Usually, with interdisciplinary contexts, many of these focus on the ideals of intellectual honesty and tolerance in all forms. Having edited and contributed to Books of Transactions as a member of the Western New York Lodge of Research, he is writing a book on MAsonic research bodies. Slowly transitioning to writing and publishing, he continues working on his primary business, Kentropolis Web Development, and Design. He works from home, living in Buffalo, New York with his wife and numerous pets. In addition to various community service projects, he is also an independent interfaith minister with hospital chaplain credentials which aid him in visiting Brethren at health facilities. He also enjoys carpentry, martial arts, and beekeeping Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go. Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune... U.S. President Barack Obama who is leaving his post has extended sanctions imposed on Russia in March 2014 over the situation in Ukraine for one year, the White House has reported. "In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13660 of March 6, 2014, is to continue in effect beyond March 6, 2017," Obama said in a letter. The president's notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect is to be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. Obama wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate that the sanctions against Russia are extended. "The actions and policies of persons that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets, as well as the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation, including its purported annexation of Crimea and its use of force in Ukraine, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13660 with respect to Ukraine," the U.S. president said. First executive order 13660 blocking property of certain persons contributing to the situation in Ukraine was published on March 6, 2014. The second order 13661 was signed on March 16, 2014. It expanded sanctions against some Russian officials contributing to the situation in Ukraine. The third order (13662) was signed on March 20, 2014. It also expanded the sanctions. Executive Order 13685 was signed on December 19, 2014 blocking property of certain persons and prohibiting certain transactions with respect to the Crimea region of Ukraine. Slow's BBQ MLive photo of Slows Bar Bq on Michigan Avenue in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood. DETROIT, MI - The Detroit food scene just received some major recognition from a giant in the magazine world. National Geographic is out with a neighborhood guide of the "best eats on (almost) every continent." It named Detroit as the most surprising food destination in North America. National Geographic says "the city better known as a center for automakers and manufacturing is revving its culinary motors." Corktown: The magazine recommends a number of restaurants in Detroit's oldest neighborbood as the "best neighborhood for a food frenzy," including Brooklyn Street Local, Dime Store, Slow's Bar BQ and a "newish and trendy Southeast Asian spot," Katoi. See what else it had to say about Corktown here. Greektown, Hamtramck & Dearborn: National Geographic also lists some of the "best neighborhoods for ethnic eats," naming Greektown's New Parthenon as "a staple." It also mentioned Hamtramck's Polish Village Cafe and Krakus. In Dearborn, it gives a shout-out to Al Ameer. See what it had to say about all of these places here. Midtown: The magazine lists Midtown Detroit as the "best neighborhood for a night out." It gives props to Grey Ghost, La Feria and Selden Standard. Here's what the magazine had to say about those. The other continents: So, where did National Geographic say are the most surprising food destinations on the other five continents (Antarctica not included)? Europe: Budapest, Hungary Asia: Yerevan, Armenia South America: Santiago, Chile Africa: Dakar, Senegal Australia and Oceania: Wellington, New Zealand You can see the entire article by clicking here. YPSILANTI, MI - More than 200 people joined a peace march through downtown Ypsilanti to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 16, 2017. Led by Rosa Parks' niece Rhea McCauley, the silent march started at Ypsilanti's water tower and ended at the site on North Washington Street where Frederick Douglass gave a speech 150 years ago. The space is now occupied by Mix Clothing and Ypsilanti Experimental Space. Ypsilanti Community High School teacher Lynne Settles and her students helped plan the march and created art exhibits on display at Go! Ice Cream and the Ypsilanti Experimental Space, where the march ended. Mark Tucker, a professor at University of Michigan in the Lloyd Hall Scholars program, and Nick Azzaro, photographer at The Learning Studio, a professional photography studio running out of YCHS, also assisted students with producing and documenting the art. A photography project and video art display highlighted the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Another video installation paid tribute to Douglass, portrayed by YCHS educator Herbert Francois for the exhibit, according to a press release from Ypsilanti Community Schools. HOWELL, MI - A small jet airplane crash-landed at the Livingston County Airport in Howell just before noon, Monday, Jan. 16 after skidding off a runway and barreling through a fence, according to Livingston County Sheriff's officials. The pilot of the plane, a 60-year-old male from Batavia, New York, lost control while attempting to land, skidding off the runway and continuing through the fence, officials said. The plane reportedly traveled across Tooley Road, whereupon its wings were torn from the fuselage and caught fire after striking various small trees. Sheriff's officials said the pilot -- the sole occupant of the plane -- was assisted from the overturned cockpit of the aircraft by a witness prior to the arrival of emergency personnel. Howell-area radio station WHMI reported Mayor Nick Proctor was among witnesses that lent a hand to the downed pilot. The pilot was transferred to the University of Michigan Hospital for minor injuries after being removed from the upside-down plane, sheriff's officials said. A report from the Aviation Safety Network said that the pilot had departed from Genesee County Airport in Batavia, New York, slightly prior to 11 a.m. Monday. The plane, identified as a Cessna 525C Citation CJ4 under the operation of Zeliff Aviation, LLC, was damaged beyond repair in the incident, the ASN reported. The Howell Fire Department and Livingston County EMS were among emergency responders on the scene. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the accident. ANN ARBOR, MI - On a whim, Grace Shackman decided to take a walk over to Hill Auditorium on the fall afternoon of Nov. 5, 1962, not knowing what to expect from a civil rights speaker who had been gaining some traction across the country. Little did Shackman know - or the thousands of other U-M students who attended, for that matter - she would be witnessing one of the most epochal figures to ever visit campus in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "I do remember going, but I remember thinking that it wasn't going to be a big deal," said Shackman, a local author and historian who graduated from U-M in 1965. "I must have read about it in the Michigan Daily. Shackman, who later went on to witness King's "I Have a Dream" speech and March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, said King's visit introduced her to his powerful, charismatic speaking cadence as he spoke on moral issues in discrimination. "He spoke the same way he spoke during his 'I Have a Dream' speech," Shackman recalls. "He didn't speak like a U-M professor. It's his style of speaking, almost like he is preaching, that stood out to me. I don't remember everything he said, just that I agreed with a lot of what he was saying and it made sense to me." In recognition of the University of Michigan's Bicentennial, in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day, The Ann Arbor News revisited King's 1962 visit through collecting photos with the help of the Bentley Historical Library while speaking with those responsible for bringing him to campus and preserving the history of his visit. Uncovering history For decades, the U-M student newspaper's article on the visit was the only record of King's appearance in Ann Arbor until images from King's visit were discovered in 2012 by then-Bentley Historical Library Digital Curator David Erdody. A couple of years later, Bentley Historical Library Lead Bicentennial Archivist Brian Williams began to research the origins of King's visit, tracking down former U-M Office of Religious Affairs Program Director Harold Duerksen, who had extended the invite to King to visit the campus as part of the office's fall speaker series. King would speak to packed audiences inside Hill Auditoriums on two separate occasions. He also met with university leaders for a luncheon and fielded questions into the early hours of the morning from students inside the Michigan Union, Duerksen said. "I think one thing that was noteworthy was (King) had an attitude of persuasion that was very convincing," he said. "The students recognized that and pursued it very strongly; and they got their answers from him. "He was just that kind of person," he added. "He said that these were questions people were asking from the heart. He was a wonderful person to give a speech like that." During his speech about civil rights, the Michigan Daily's article quoted King as believing "the American dream is as yet unfulfilled." King later explained that the American dream involved the world's dream of brotherhood, stating that "We must learn to live together as brothers or we will die together as fools." When King directly addressed the students at U-M, he urged them to join the growing student movement, despite an address given by then-U-M President Harlan Hatcher, who had encouraged students to limit their involvement in student movements and restrict their activities to the campus. King said "students have a responsibility to participate in the movement," and that students should be "true to studies yet devoting oneself to a significant cause like integration," according to the Michigan Daily article. Duerksen, who is now 91 and living in Tuscon, Arizona, said one of King's greatest gifts was his ability to galvanize students to get on board with his message. "I had heard him give a speech myself (prior to his visit to U-M) and realized he had a tremendous feeling about how to live without hating," Duerksen said. "That was his catchphrase because there were so many groups on campus coming out at that time either for or against something." Bringing the visit back to life After Bentley unearthed images from King's visit and made contact with Duerksen, Williams said he was interested to learn more about the context of his visit to U-M. Although he would go on to become the face of the civil rights movement a year later, Williams said learning about King's visit at a time he was coming into his own as a public figure was intriguing. "It was an interesting time, because King was known to a lot of people in the civil rights movement, but wasn't a huge national figure at that time," Williams said. "Shortly after that his career really took off and he got the Nobel Peace Prize and led the March on Washington." Reexamining King's visit in the context of U-M's Bicentennial this year, Williams said he is constantly surprised to uncover visits from notable historical figures -- often before they made it big. "The Bicentennial has been a great time to surface all of these things and look back at who has been here," he said. "I think it's just about having the foresight to invite some of these people early on and recognizing they are going to be an important talent or a national figure. "Looking at King at the time, some people might not have seen that as a significant event, but with the passage of time, it does become significant," he added. "The Bicentennial has helped us look back at our heritage and bring these types of stories to the front." King's message 55 years later U-M Chief Diversity Officer Robert Sellers has long believed that King should be celebrated as a person and as an edifice, rather than putting him on a pedestal or giving him superhuman qualities. "I think when we do that, we let ourselves off the hook and assume he was never afraid or that he must have been perfect," Sellers said. "When you think in that way, I think you tend to believe, 'I don't have to do anything,' because it seems so daunting to live up to that. "To really understand his story and experience, you need to realize it was never him alone," he added. "His most effective efforts to move forward and push for civil rights were always done within a much larger organization or series of organizations with a lot of people involved in grassroots efforts who often paid large prices." Sellers began in his new role as chief diversity officer this fall amid some tumultuous incidents involving racial flyers being posted on multiple occasions on the U-M campus. The incidents led to a number of protests on the U-M campus with students asking for administrators to denounce the flyers and meet the demands of students of color. Sellers views U-M's recently unveiled Diversity Equity and Inclusion Plan as a starting point to address those demands and concerns of students. Much like King, however, Sellers warned that change doesn't come overnight. "I see the plan as an attempt to address the conditions that underlie those experiences and feelings," Sellers said. "In some ways, because the plan is designed to have a change on a large scale, change is not going to happen overnight, by any stretch of the imagination." For black students on campus, change hasn't come quickly enough in addressing racial tensions, U-M student D'Kari Wilson said. Wilson, a senior movement science major who also is president of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Epsilon Chapter, said while he believes U-M is "more empathetic than most" universities regarding incidents involving race, he believes it is at times reactive when those incidents come up. "There's no intent to be overly dramatic or exaggerate when those incidents happen, but it does impact the mental well being of students of color," Wilson said. "It's a difficult position to be in to want to scream out and demand that we be respected or valued in those situations, but there often seems to be the feeling that our concerns aren't a big deal. We feel discredited in our concerns." Wilson said the university-wide Diversity Equity and Inclusion plan unveiled this fall addresses some concerns of black students, but there is frustration for students like him who have been seeking a more concrete response from the university when racist incidents occur on campus since he arrived in 2013. Keeping in mind Dr. King's message, Wilson said black students and students of color need to advocate and be supportive of each other to make progress in regards to race relations on campus. "The university responds as much as we push them to," he said. "It took rallies and multiple protests and marches to get them to raise an eyebrow (this fall). "(King's message) is still important, because no matter how frustrated you get or how hurt you feel, you still have to continue to fight," he added. "If you don't stand up for yourself and others, no one will. You have to fight whatever is in front of you and live out what you hope to see in terms of change, which is by showing love, being educated and showing patience." BAY CITY, MI - Nikki O'Rourke-Hoyt learned the basics of hair care from her mother and grandmother. Growing up in Bay City, she would help her friends -- primarily African-American and Hispanic -- with their hair. So, becoming a hair stylist made sense. "Why wouldn't I?" O'Rourke-Hoyt said. Being a hair stylist who focuses on African-American women, while challenging to learn, isn't exactly unique. But in a community where minorities make up only 11 percent of the total population, O'Rourke-Hoyt is one of the few with skills to serve that small group. Before she laid her roots at a Bay City barbershop in 2010, black women in Bay City had to travel to Saginaw, Flint or Detroit for a new hair style. "We had trouble finding people to do hair," said Stella Macheso, a Bay City resident. She used to drive to Saginaw for straightening and Flint for braiding before O'Rourke-Hoyt, a graduate of the Bayshire Beauty Academy, started leasing a chair at Good Life Barbershop & Salon at 120 Washington Ave. in downtown Bay City. According to U.S. Census numbers, Bay City is 85 percent white, 8.5 percent Hispanic and 3.5 percent black. O'Rourke-Hoyt slowly built her clientele at the academy when classmates would turn away African-American women because they were unable to work with their hair. "I didn't wake up and just say I should do black hair," said O'Rourke-Hoyt. "It kind of happened naturally." In Bay City, most of the black hair stylists operate unlicensed in their home, O'Rourke-Hoyt said, and a handful of salon stylists can braid hair, but provide limited options for clients. If an African-American woman wants to get Bantu knots, Ghana braids, fishbones, sewins or a weave they might have to leave the city for a decent hairstyle. Creona Berry, of Bay City, is one of those women who appreciate having O'Rourke-Hoyt in town. "I just walk around looking crazy till she's available," she said. Denisha DeLeon has known O'Rourke-Hoyt since they were 15 but began seeing her for hair when she started working at Good Life Barbershop & Salon. Before, DeLeon would travel to a black hair salon more than 100 miles away in Detroit. "I would ask around but there wasn't anybody I would really trust with my hair," DeLeon said. "There was never really anybody in this area that could do black hair." O'Rourke-Hoyt didn't intend to be one of the only black hair stylists in Bay City, but understands the unique responsibilities of being in that position. She wants to make sure girls who come to see her feel good about themselves when they leave. "I want to make sure young girls who come in here really love their hair and curls," she said. The representative of Ukraine in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for the settlement of the situation in Donbas region, the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma has left for Minsk (Belarus) for the TCG meeting, his spokeswoman Darka Olifer has said. "Leonid Kuchma has left for Minsk," Olifer told in her comments to Interfax-Ukraine on Monday morning. This will be the first in this year meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the situation in Donbas. The TCG meeting is preceded by subgroups' meetings. Thus, on January 12, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group's political subgroup Olha Aivazovska said the Trilateral Contact Group's political subgroup would meet on Monday, January 16. ROCHESTER, MI -- A transgender professor who filed a federal sex discrimination lawsuit against Saginaw Valley State University has found new teaching digs, but says the move comes with a cost. Charin Davenport, August 2016 Charin Davenport, 61, made the move to Oakland University in the fall of 2016, teaching writing and rhetoric classes at the Rochester school as an adjunct professor. She left behind her previous employer, SVSU, after she said she "no longer felt safe" at the school she loved. "It's been very welcoming, very affirming experience," Davenport said of her move to Oakland University. "But what's difficult is having to uproot my life, having to move when I don't really know anyone here. I loved teaching at SVSU, I really did. And I'm not unique in all of this -- this upheaval happens to trans people all the time." According to statistics from the Human Rights Campaign, at least one in five transgender Americans report experiencing workplace discrimination. In April 2016, Davenport sued SVSU, alleging in the suit that she was removed from her position as assistant to the director of Academic Programs Support due to "sex-based considerations," shortly after informing her supervisor that she was undergoing a gender transition. Davenport, who began presenting as female in March 2014, remained in her role as an adjunct English professor until May 2016 at SVSU, until she said she "no longer felt safe" at the school. Her position within Academic Programs Support was eliminated in 2013, "allegedly for budget concerns" -- months after she announced her transition, the lawsuit claims. Davenport, a Bay City native who now resides in Hazel Park, alleges violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. She is asking the court to reinstate her to her former position and seeking financial damages from a jury. SVSU spokesperson J.J. Boehm previously told MLive that the university "does not tolerate discrimination of any kind" and that school officials are "confident that we will prevail in court as all the facts come out." "We support all our students, faculty and staff, including those who are members of the LGBT community," Boehm said. "We have a Pride Center on campus to serve those individuals and to contribute toward an inclusive campus environment. Since this is pending litigation, we can have no further comment at this time." Specifically, the lawsuit points to alleged discrimination from Davenport's former Academic Programs Support supervisor and "close colleague," Ann Coburn-Collins. According to the suit, after Davenport announced her transition, Coburn-Collins "stopped talking to her or even acknowledging her in public places." "A few months later," the lawsuit alleges, when Davenport went to her former supervisor's office to discuss the elimination of the position, Coburn-Collins called Davenport a "liar" and "disgusting." "You're a liar. You lied to me, to your family, to your friends, to this university, and to everyone you know. Your entire life is just one big lie," Coburn-Collins allegedly told the professor. The lawsuit alleges that Coburn-Collins then yelled at Davenport, "You disgust me. I can't even stand to look at you. This is not about your so-called 'gender identity.' This is about you being a liar." "Based on this conversation," the lawsuit states, "it was clear to Davenport why her administrative position had been eliminated." Davenport said that being in metro Detroit area and working at OU -- which recently instated a preferred name policy and is ranked as one of Michigan's most LGBTQIA+-inclusive schools -- "opens a lot of doors." "I think part of living in this area is that people are less likely to question you about your gender identity, which is good. I might've run into a couple issues, but that comes with the territory." But Davenport stressed that the move to OU has come at the price of separation from her friends, family and hometown community. "I really loved teaching at SVSU, but I just didn't feel safe," she said. "I'm very fortunate to have been hired by Oakland University, but now I'm starting from the ground-up again. I have to scramble -- and it's because of discrimination." "You read about discrimination and injustices. It's always the other person, but then one day you wake up and it's happening to you." A trial on the lawsuit, said Davenport, is expected to move forward later this year. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Against his attorneys' strong advice, Marvin Gabrion took the witness stand at his trial for the 1997 murder of Rachel Timmerman. He testified that the teenage mother he was accused of killing - her body was found chained and bound in a remote Newaygo County lake - had actually committed suicide with the help of two other people who left evidence at Gabrion's campsite. He called government witnesses in the case "pedophiles," and claimed he'd set up a charitable trust for missing children - a startling assertion given that Timmerman's daughter, 11-month-old Shannon Verhage, had disappeared at the same time as her mother. Authorities have said they believe Gabrion killed her, too. Now long-convicted in the murder case and staring down the death penalty, Gabrion, 63, contends he was mentally ill when Timmerman was slain, and that he should not be executed, as ordered by a federal jury. He is trying to have his conviction or sentence vacated, or get a new trial. Michigan law does not allow the death penalty but it is permitted under federal law. Gabrion has filed a civil appeal after his direct appeals were exhausted. Assistant U.S. attorneys Timothy VerHey, Jennifer McManus and Sally Berens said Gabrion's latest appeals mirror those addressed at his trial in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, and before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The appeals court found "overwhelming" evidence of Gabrion's guilt. He is now seeking an evidentiary hearing on several issues, including his mental health, adequacy of his trial attorneys and rulings at trial by the judge. Gabrion contends his violent family history, multiple head injuries, mental health and substance abuse should be weighed against the decision to execute him. Prosecutors say he should be put to death. "Assuming, (for the sake of argument) (and against all of the evidence), Gabrion displayed any form of mental illness at the time of the Timmerman murder, its manner of execution, as found by the jury, required substantial planning and premeditation, and was not impulsive or the product of some diminished ability to understand or process the situation. "This is precisely the type of conduct and thinking that deserves the ultimate punishment and is intended to be deterred with the federal death penalty," prosecutors wrote in court documents. The 'overwhelming' evidence Gabrion killed Timmerman, 19, in June 1997, about a year after she said he raped her. She was abducted two days before his rape trial was to begin in Newaygo County Circuit Court. Her body was found a month later in Oxford Lake in the Manistee National Forest in Newaygo County. She was found bound, chained with cinder blocks. Prosecutors think Gabrion also killed her daughter, whose body has not been found. He is suspected of killing three others, including two whose bodies have not been recovered. Prosecutors say Gabrion's defense has asked that a judge establish a new "blanket exemption" from the death penalty for those with mental illness. Gabrion did not try an insanity defense. At the time of his murder case, he was found competent to stand trial. Mental-health experts who examined Gabrion found evidence of histrionic, anti-social and narcissistic behavior, the prosecutors said. Timmerman and her daughter were going to dinner with John Weeks, an associate of Gabrion, on June 3, 1997. She did not return to her father's home in Cedar Springs, but she sent letters to him, the prosecutor and judge retracting her rape allegation against Gabrion. She said she had moved to Arkansas with the man of her dreams. The prosecution said she wrote the letters under duress, at Gabion's behest. Timmerman had feared that Gabrion would kill her before she could testify against him. "She repeatedly said that he had raped her the summer before, and that the court case was coming up and he was going to kill her for it," prosecutors wrote. Witnesses later said they saw Gabrion with a blond woman who looked like Timmerman on the shore of Oxford Lake in June 1997. On June 6, witnesses saw Gabrion unloading a boat. He removed blocks and chains, rinsed it out and used a grinder on it. Neighbors said he later put the small aluminum fishing boat up for sale. The registration was ground off. Rachel Timmerman's body was found a month later, chained to cinderblocks secured by a padlock. The blocks, and spray paint and adhesives on the blocks, were chemically indistinguishable from similar items at Gabrion's Altona home. Police also found the key to the padlock there. Timmerman had been reluctant to report the 1996 rape because Gabrion had threatened to kill her baby, Shannon, while she watched, before killing her, if she talked to police, records showed. About three months after Timmerman's body was found, Gabrion met a man at an Indiana truck stop to interview him for a carpenter's job. He had the man fill out an application and asked for his parents' names, Social Security number and driver's license. Gabrion later used the information to obtain a Virginia driver's license in the man's name. He allegedly told a friend: "It's not hard to get rid of somebody. You just weigh them down and throw 'em in the lake." He explained to another longtime friend that he "got rid of" his girlfriend "permanently," prosecutors said in court records. He told a newspaper reporter that baby items found at the campsite where he lived were for his dog. He also worked to distinguish boundary lines of Oxford Lake to determine where private property met federal land. "While at another jail, Gabrion told another inmate that he'd killed Timmerman because she screamed rape and he 'had to take care of business,' " court records show. He killed the baby because he didn't know what to do with her, Gabrion allegedly told a witness. Jurors heard about his sex assaults of girls and women, assaults on neighbors, threats to kill them, and his several violent assaults of others in community. In one instance, while playing cards with friends, he got upset when one of the players got up to get heart medication for an uncle. It turned into a large fight: He beat and kicked a man, punched the man's wife in the face, slammed her head into the ground three times, beat her 10-year-old son and threw him across the room onto the floor and threw the family dog against the wall. He set other neighbors' houses on fire, fired a rifle in the direction of other homes, pointed a rifle from an upstairs window at a woman as she helped her child into a car's back seat, then followed her in his own car when she fled. He assumed the identity of Robert Allen, a homeless man, to get his Social Security disability benefits. Allen and Wayne Davis, a witness in Timmerman's rape case, both went missing. John Weeks, who set up a date with Timmerman at Gabrion's urging, also disappeared. The body of Davis was eventually found in a lake near Gabrion's home. The others remain missing. While locked up in a federal prison in Milan, Gabrion threw urine and feces at prison workers and started a fire in his cell. He also managed to pose as a U.S. District Court clerk and tried to arrange a transfer from Milan, the government said. Gabrion's case is before U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, who presided at his trial. He is retiring at the end of the month, however. Gabrion's attorneys - Joseph Cleary, Monica Foster and Scott Graham - have asked that the judge recuse himself over statements he made to The Grand Rapids Press and MLive and WOOD TV8 about Gabrion. The prosecutor did not agree with the request and Bell has yet to respond. He will be on senior status, inactive, but is not expected to continue with the case after he retires. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- As Washington D.C. prepares for the inauguration of Donald Trump on Friday, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is spending part of the week in Grand Rapids meeting with his constituents. The GOP congressman will host a town hall meeting on Tuesday evening at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, at 303 Pearl St. NW., in downtown Grand Rapids. The Jan. 17 public gathering will be from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Traditionally, Amash gives a Washington, D.C., update before opening the floor to questions. In recent months, Amash has generated attention for standing up to the president-elect on social media. Most recently, he called Trump out for his retaliatory barrage of tweets on U.S. Rep. John Lewis, claiming the Civil Rights leader was "all talk" and "no action." Trump lashed out at the Democratic lawmaker for saying he didn't see the Republican leader as a "legitimate president" and planned to skip his inauguration. "Dude, just stop," Amash tweeted on Saturday evening, linking to a tweet from Trump. A number of Democrat and Republican lawmakers also criticized Trump's Twitter frenzy, but Amash's succinct missive resonated in the Twitter-sphere, with more than 17,000 liking the post. x-default Eugene A. Cernan, Commander, Apollo 17 salutes the flag on the lunar surface during extravehicular activity (EVA) on NASA's final lunar landing mission. The Lunar Module "Challenger" is in the left background behind the flag and the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) also in background behind him. While astronauts Cernan and Schmitt descended in the Challenger to explore the Taurus-Littrow region of the Moon, astronaut Ronald E. Evans, Command Module pilot, remained with the Command/Service Module (CSM) "America" in lunar-orbit. (NASA/ Johnson Space Center) GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The last person to walk on the moon has died. Capt. Eugene Cernan was the commander of Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission which took place in December 1972. He was the last member of the crew to re-enter the lunar module following the landing. NASA announced his death in a tweet on Monday, Jan. 16. We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. https://t.co/Q9OSdRewI5 pic.twitter.com/gPdFTnXF2C NASA (@NASA) January 16, 2017 Cernan was 82. He died following ongoing heath issues, his family said in a statement released by NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs. NASA said Cernan was surrounded by his family at the time of his passing. "It is with very deep sadness that we share the loss of our beloved husband and father," said Cernan's family in the release. "Our family is heartbroken, of course, and we truly appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers. Gene, as he was known by so many, was a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend." "Even at the age of 82," the statement reads. "Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation's leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon." Capt. Eugene Cernan Cernan traveled to space three different times. In addition to leading the Apollo 17 mission, he served as a pilot on Gemini 9A in 1966 and as Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1976. Cernan was a close friend of Grand Rapids astronaut Roger B. Chaffee, who was killed with two others in a flash fire aboard the Apollo 1 module on Jan. 27, 1967. The incident, which occurred during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at the then-Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, marked the first time astronauts were killed in space-related activities. Cernan was close with Chaffee until his death. He dedicated the Grand Rapids Public Museum's Planetarium as the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium in honor of his close friend on May 19, 1967, a day that has since been designated as Roger B. Chaffee Day. We mourn the loss of our friend Gene Cernan, the Last Man on the Moon and a hero for the ages. Godspeed the Commander of Apollo 17. pic.twitter.com/pRQtpkQkW6 National Air and Space Museum (@airandspace) January 16, 2017 Cernan is survived by his wife, Jan Nanna Cernan, his daughter and son-in-law, Tracy Cernan Woolie and Marion Woolie, step-daughters Kelly Nanna Taff and husband, Michael, and Danielle Nanna Ellis and nine grandchildren. Details regarding services will be announced in the coming days, according to a news release from NASA. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Grand Rapids police are investigating the scene where a man was shot in the leg Sunday night. The victim arrived at Mercy Health St. Mary's around 8:32 p.m. with a non-fatal gunshot wound. Lt. John Dorer said a report of shots fired was received five minutes earlier near the intersection of Franklin Street and Geneva Avenue SE, where police later found shell casings. Dorer said a "good samaritan" brought the man to the hospital, where he is being treated for the non life-threatening injury. Police are working to uncover the circumstances surrounding the shooting. No suspects are in custody as of Sunday evening. "(The victim) isn't very talkative right now," Dorer said. "He said he was walking down the street and was shot." GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Flights in and out of Grand Rapids will likely be delayed for the remainder of the day due to icy conditions in West Michigan. The Gerald R. Ford International Airport temporarily closed all of its runways and taxiways shortly after 11 a.m. Monday, Jan. 16 as a safety precaution while airport crews worked to treat ice on the runways. After about an hour, the main runway was deemed safe and was reopened. The brief closure did create a chain reaction of delays for flights to Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and Minneapolis. "Because we had to close the runways for treatment, that delayed both inbound and outbound flights," said Tara Hernandez, the airport's marketing and communications director. "We'll likely see a domino effect throughout the day." A freezing rain advisory was put into effect Monday morning by the National Weather Service for Allegan, Barry, Clinton, Eaton, Ingham, Ionia, Kent, Muskegon and Ottawa counties. It is expected to stay in effect until 2 a.m. Tuesday. For details on specific flight times and delays, visit the airport's website. Our crews are still treating the runways, we'll keep you updated when they re-open. #wxmiwx #safetyfirst FlyGRFord (@FlyGRFord) January 16, 2017 A graph shows the change in total Kent County property values over the last 13 years. Courtesy | Kent County Top 12 taxpayers If you add up the value of all taxable property both real and personal in Kent County during 2016, it totaled about $21.1 billion worth of land and equipment. But did you know $1 billion (nearly 5 percent) of that total is controlled by just 12 different owners? Here are those giant property owners, listed as the "top taxpayers" of Kent County as part of the county government's 2016 apportionment report. Don't Edit Spectrum Health has greatly expanded on Michigan Street with the additions of the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, Meijer Heart Center and Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion. Chris Clark | MLive.com #12 - Spectrum Health Hospitals Total taxable value: $27.2 million 2015 taxable value: $29.3 million Change: -7.2 percent Number of parcels: 69 Don't Edit #11 - Foremost Insurance Co. Total taxable value: $27.6 million 2015 taxable value: N/A Change: N/A Number of parcels: 26 Don't Edit The entrance to Centerpointe Mall on Oct. 21, 2013. Lauren Petracca | MLive.com #10 - Centerpoint Owner LLC Total taxable value: $30 million 2015 taxable value: $31 million Change: -4.9 percent Number of parcels: 6 Don't Edit Lowell Quist, a resident of Holland Home's Fulton Manor assisted living facility on East Fulton Street, relaxes after lunch in the dining hall. Rex Larsen | MLive.com #9 - Holland Home Total taxable value: $44 million 2015 taxable value: $43 million Change: +1.8 percent Number of parcels: 26 Don't Edit Don't Edit Black Friday shoppers get an early start on their holiday shopping at RiverTown Crossings Mall in Grandville, Mich., on Thursday, November 26, 2015. Alex McDougall | MLive.com #8 - GGP LP Total taxable value: $46 million 2015 taxable value: $45 million Change: 1.5 percent Number of parcels: 12 Don't Edit Employees of Hearthside Food Solutions tend the ovens as snack bars roll out. Courtesy | Right Place Inc. #7 - Hearthside Food Solutions Inc. Total taxable value: $47 million 2015 taxable value: N/A Change: N/A Number of parcels: 15 Don't Edit The Steelcase headquarters in Grand Rapids. File | MLive.com #6 - Steelcase Total taxable value: $50 million 2015 taxable value: $71 million Change: -29.3 percent Number of parcels: 27 Don't Edit Woodland Mall is located in Kentwood, Michigan. Emily Rose Bennett | MLive #5 - PR Woodland LP Total taxable value: $60 million 2015 taxable value: $60 million Change: -0.2 percent Number of parcels: 6 Don't Edit A view of Meijer Store #312 on 3757 Plainfield Ave NE in Grand Rapids. Tom Brenner | MLive.com #4 - Meijer/Goodwill Total taxable value: $103 million 2015 taxable value: $127 million Change: -24.4 percent Number of parcels: 64 Don't Edit Don't Edit The DTE Energy headquarters in Detroit. File | MLive.com #3 - DTE Energy Total taxable value: $110 million 2015 taxable value: $105 million Change: +4.4 percent Number of parcels: 79 Don't Edit Amway's headquarters in Ada. Chad Jackson | MLive.com #2 - Amway/AltiCor/Access Business Total taxable value: $168 million 2015 taxable value: $204 million Change: -17.6 percent Number of parcels: 63 Don't Edit Crews from Consumer Energy work on the power lines in front of a substation at the corner of Four Mile Road and Bristol Avenue. Paul L. Newby II | MLive.com #1 - Consumers Energy Total taxable value: $302 million 2015 taxable value: $299 million Change: +1.2 percent Number of parcels: 570 Don't Edit Keebler, now a subsidiary of Kellog's, has been associated in the past with the plant at 310 28th Street SE. File | MLive.com Two drop off Two Kent County property owners have fallen off the county's list of top property taxpayers: Keebler: Total value was $44.8 million in 2015 Fifth Third Bank: Total value was $28 million in 2015 Don't Edit Courtesy photos Two new additions Two property owners appearing on Kent County's list of top taxpayers did not appear on the list in 2015: Foremost Insurance Co. Hearthside Food Solutions Inc. Don't Edit Don't Edit Matthew Busch | MLive.com Looking back Curious how things have changed over the last few years? Check out the list of the top 20 taxpayers in Grand Rapids from 2012. Roughly half of the city's top 12 taxpayers on that list also appear within the county's top 12 in 2016, but the rest are different. MLK Day_Cham.jpg In this Aug. 28, 1963, black-and-white file photo Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. ( (AP Photo/File)) GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. Today, Jan. 16, we celebrate that dream. Organizations, communities and individuals around the United States are celebrating the civil rights leader and his wish to create a better life for all people. Staff at Creston Brewery, 1504 Plainfield Ave. NE, in Grand Rapids, is one of those celebrating MLK Day and, of course, they are doing it in their own unique way. In honor of the life and legacy of King Jr., the brewery is asking guests to share their "dream" for their community and their plan for making it a reality. Those who do so will receive a $1 off pints today, Jan. 16. Simply hashtag #CrestonBrewery in any social media 'dream' post, then show that post to your server to receive the discount. The brewery shared their dream for Grand Rapids as part of a Facebook post. Today we invite you to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Creston Brewery! Share your 'dream'... Posted by Creston Brewery on Monday, January 16, 2017 "Creston Brewery's dream is to see more individuals with access to gainful employment," the post reads. "We are engaging to make that dream a reality by donating 10 percent of today's sales to the Grand Rapids Urban League." This isn't the first time Creston Brewery has offered a promotion like this. The brewery also offered $2 off pints to teachers during a snow day on Dec.12. weath.jpg Current freezing rain advisory and winter weather advisory. Winter weather advisory is for more of a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain instead of mostly freezing rain. (NOAA/Mark Torregrossa) IONIA COUNTY, MI - Schools in Belding, Greenville and Ionia are among those closing early because roads are icing up. Ionia issued a statement saying Ionia middle and high schools, Welch High School and Rather Elementary will release students early at 2:15 p.m. For other school closings, go here. The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids is reporting light freezing rain in West Michigan. It has issued a freezing-rain advisory, in effect until 2 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, for the counties of Kent, Muskegon, Allegan, Ottawa, Ionia, Eaton and Ingham and areas to the east. Freezing rain and sleet have developed between I-94 and I-96 heading north. The freezing rain is expected to change to rain from southwest to northeast later this afternoon and tonight, the National Weather Service said. Colder surfaces could be covered with up to one-quarter inch of ice, causing icy roads with scattered power outages expected, meteorologists said. A flood advisory remains in effect for the Grand River in Grand Rapids and Ionia and Thornapple River above Hastings. Leaders of Ukraine hope for further fruitful cooperation with the U.S. under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump and also hope that Washington's support of Kyiv will remain at the current level, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said. "Today we have also thoroughly exchanged our thoughts with Mr. Vice-President on the further establishment of the U.S.-Ukrainian strategic partnership. We respect the democratic choice of the American people and are ready for effective and fruitful cooperation with the new administration," he said at a joint briefing with U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden in Kyiv on Monday. 'The present-day aggressive Russia' is a threat to the U.S. and Ukraine, he said. "Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied a part of Donbas and Crimea. Crimea is Ukraine, and we are grateful to representatives of the next administration for firmly maintaining this stance," he said. In this light, the Ukrainian president said that members of the Trump team had sent inspiring messages regarding their stance on Ukraine. "I welcome the first inspiring messages sent during Senate hearings of nominees for the positions of state secretary, [Rex] Tillerson, and defense secretary, [James] Mattis," Poroshenko said. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Health care costs and a talent shortage continue to be top concerns on its members' minds, according to the results of a survey by the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. For the first time, fears of a talent shortage surpassed worries about the cost of healthcare which had been the top issue for the last four years, according to the survey of nearly 600 members. Locally, members say they are also troubled about rising parking costs for employees as downtown development swallows up lots. The annual survey results are intended to steer the chamber's top legislative priorities. "Hearing directly from our members is a critical aspect to shaping a business climate that will sustain growth in the region," Chamber CEO Rick Baker said. Despite concerns, most members are optimistic about the local economy. More than 93 percent of chamber members reported a favorable or very favorable perception of West Michigan's business climate. More than 77 percent responded their firms had hired or added new positions in the last 12 months. That business growth trend that has been inching up for the past 3 years. But 72 percent of respondents also noted difficulty finding qualified applicants, steadily increasing from 51 percent in 2014. More money needed for training Availability of skilled labor, general talent retention and federal government regulations were cited as the three top impediments to business sustainability or growth. "Our community is in dire need of talent to build on our momentum, and we must have short-term and long-term plans to improve our talent system," said Allie Bush, the chamber's director of government affairs. The chamber wants the state legislature to double the funding for the skilled Trades Training Fund that would provide dollars for workers to learn welding, CNC operation and IT, among other skills. The fund provides competitive awards for training that enhances talent, productivity and employment retention, but it requires employers to have positions available. "It has helped ensure Michigan employers have the talent they need to compete and grow, and individuals have the skills they need for in-demand jobs," said Andy Johnston, the chamber's vice president of government affairs. Parking is becoming an issue Health care and its rising cost has been a top issue for members for the last decade. If costs were contained, almost half reported that they would increase wages, nearly one-third would invest in expansion and a quarter said they would hire more employees. "Policymakers need to take note of the impact this continues to have on job providers and workforce, especially given the current discussion in Washington," Johnston said. "At the state level, the chamber will remain fiercely opposed to additional health care mandates and fight for the repeal of the uncompetitive Health Insurance Claims Assessment Tax." At the local level, issues related to parking were highlighted in the comments of many members for the first time. "The growth of our city, is creating new pressures on the movement of goods and people, including the availability of parking, particularly for employees," said Josh Lunger, director of government affairs. Other top issues and impediments to business sustainability and growth include: reducing the regulatory burden - including compliance with the Affordable Care Act. "The issues identified in the survey and through our policy development processes shape the core of our aggressive policy agenda at the chamber," said Johnston. "The influence our region has on the policy direction for the rest of the state continues to rise." In the 2015-2016 legislative session, the chamber had major legislative wins - energy reform, allowing ride-sharing companies to compete in Michigan, and flexibility for Michigan's community college districts, he said. ST. MARY'S RIVER -- The U.S. Coast Guard responded to -- and freed -- a 1,000-foot freighter stuck in the icy St. Mary's River this weekend. On Saturday, the Cutter Mackinaw assisted the James R. Barker -- a 40-year-old freighter that traverses the Great Lakes -- which was stuck for about an hour, according to crew member Kevin Davis. To free the ship, the Cutter Mackinaw traveled back and forth along one side of the vessel, widening the opening by crushing ice along the St. Mary's River. The river is located between Michigan and Ontario, flowing from Lake Superior into Lake Huron. "They were ahead of us making a track and they came back and made a relief cut, then backed up again and continued," Davis said. From there, the freighter followed the Coast Guard ship as it cleared a path in the ice. The crew got stuck a second time for about 30 minutes, before arriving at its destination in the Indiana Harbor. Crew members aboard the James R. Barker documented the rescue through photos and a time-lapse video. The footage was then shared on the U.S. Coast Guard Great Lakes Facebook page. Help us Mighty Mac! We be beset!! Posted by Benjamin Feinman on Saturday, January 14, 2017 A second time lapse, shared on Instagram by crew member Jake Kopras, showed extended footage of the journey through the icy river. After a mild 2015-16 winter, Davis said this year has been particularly icy. As a result, freighters have needed more help from the Coast Guard. The crew of the James R. Barker is on its way back to Sturgeon Bay, Wisc. for layup. Members will be on break until the locks reopen in late March, while the ship undergoes scheduled repairs and maintenance. Republicans in Congress took the first step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act last week, amid promises by President-Elect Donald Trump that the law will be replaced by "insurance for everybody." Trump told the Washington Post that Americans "can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better," according to an interview posted Sunday. Michigan Republicans in Congress say repealing and replacing Obamacare is a top priority. "ObamaCare as it stands is failing and will soon collapse under its own weight, which is why we must leave behind this failed policy and promote solutions that empower patients and care providers," U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Holland, said in a press release. Meanwhile, rallies across Michigan to save the ACA drew thousands of people Sunday. "Repealing the Affordable Care Act will have real consequences for Americans," U.S. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, said in a statement. "No law is perfect, including Obamacare, and I have always maintained I will work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, to improve the law. But repealing the ACA without a clear alternative to provide life-saving care to Americans is irresponsible and dangerous." Since the ACA became law, the number of Michigan residents without health insurance has dropped from 1.2 million in 2010 to about 600,000 in 2015, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. But the sweeping law has had an impacted on all Americans, including senior citizens on Medicare and those who get their health-care through an employer. Republicans have yet to coalesce around a replacement plan for the ACA, so it's hard to say exactly what will happen. However, it seems almost certain the changes will end the federal mandate to purchase insurance, as well as ACA's minimum standards for health-care plans. That could help younger and healthier Americans, who could opt for more bare-bones policies or decide to go without any coverage at all. The trade-off is that older Americans and/or those with health problems could pay more for insurance. Below are 14 ways in which the repeal of Obamacare could impact Michigan residents. 1. Low-income residents' access to Medicaid. Michigan is one of 31 states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA, opening the program to most people between the ages of 19 and 64 who have an income less than 133 percent below the poverty level -- about $16,000 for a single person. Currently, about 630,000 Michiganders are enrolled in the Healthy Michigan plan. The federal Department of Health and Human Services Department estimates 181,000 of those enrollees gained coverage through the expansion. It's unclear whether Congress will continue funding the Medicaid expansion. House Speaker Paul Ryan and some other Republicans are pushing for Medicaid block grants: Rather than cover a percentage of Medicaid costs, states would get a set amount of dollars to spend on Medicaid. Democrats fear that block grants would force rollbacks in Medicaid coverage. Gov. Rick Snyder is among the Republican governors pushing to maintain the Medicaid expansion. In addition to reducing the number of uninsured, "there has also been a huge drop in the number of people showing up at hospitals without insurance, which is a positive trend that has saved millions of dollars in Michigan's health-care system," Snyder has said in a statement. "The program has been a great success and a model for other states to follow." 2. Access to subsidized insurance for people not insured through an employer. In December 2016, about 313,000 Michigan residents had private insurance purchased through the marketplaces established by the ACA, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. About 275,000 of those policyholders -- 88 percent -- qualified for tax credits that subsidized the cost. The average Michigan subsidy was $233 a month in 2016, according to HHS. In 2016, Americans who purchased a plan through the ACA marketplace paid an average of $3,200 out of pocket for premiums, deductibles and co-pays, according to a 2016 study by the Commonwealth Fund and Rand Corp. Repealing the subsidies without a replacement would increase those out-of-pocket costs to an average of $4,700 a year, the study estimates. It appears the Republicans are likely to maintain some sort of subsidy, but it's unclear whether it will be at the same level, and it likely would be structured differently. 3. Ability for Michiganders to be covered on their parents' insurance up to age 26. An estimated 73,000 young adults in Michigan have benefited from the ACA provision that allows them to stay on their parents' health insurance up to age 26, according to the HHS. In 2009, before that ACA provision kicked in, 30 percent of Michiganders age 18 to 24 lacked health insurance. In 2015, it was 8.6 percent. Trump has indicated this is one ACA provision he would like to maintain. 4. Access to insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. About 28 percent of Michigan residents under age 65 have a pre-existing condition that could limit their ability to buy health insurance, according to a December 2016 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Trump and other Republicans have said they want to make sure that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to insurance. However, it's unclear how that would work since the requirement to sell insurance to people with pre-existing conditions was paired with a mandate that required most Americans to be insured. Without a mandate, the fear is that only sick people will purchase insurance and premium costs will soar. One option floated by Republicans: High-risk insurance pools operated by states, although it's unclear how to fund such pools. Another option: Allowing people with pre-existing conditions to buy insurance as long as they maintain continuous coverage. But that means people who let their insurance lapse because they can't afford it are out of luck. Bottom line: While people with pre-existing conditions may still have access to insurance, it seems very likely they will be paying more for coverage and may have fewer options in terms of health-care plans. 5. Closing of the "donut hole" for Medicare recipients. Before the ACA, Medicare Part D drug plans covered 75 percent of the first $2,700 of expenditures, but policyholders than had to pay the next $3,400 out of pocket -- a gap known as "the donut hole." The ACA has been phasing out that gap. This year, the gap begins at $3,700, and 40 percent of costs are covered during the gap period. As a result of this provision, 212,075 Michigan seniors saved $249 million on drugs in 2015, an average of $1,176 per beneficiary, according to HHS. 6. Access to free preventative services. The ACA requires insurance plans to provide an annual physical and other preventative care services, such as cancer screenings and vaccinations, without a deductible or co-pay. About 4.5 million Michigan residents, most of whom have employer coverage, took advantage of these services, according to HHS. In addition, the ACA eliminated deductibles and co-pays for an annual physical, cancer screenings and other preventative services for Medicare recipients. In 2015, 949,718 Michigan seniors, or 74 percent of all Michigan seniors enrolled in Medicare Part B, took advantage of at least one free preventive service, the HHS says. Republicans seem likely to eliminate Obamacare requirements on what insurance plans must offer. That will lower the cost of insurance, but for consumers who use those services, it will increase their out-of-pocket costs. 7. Access to free contraceptives. Under the ACA, insurance plans must provide contraceptives without a deductible or co-pay. About 99 percent of women who are sexually active use a contraceptive at some point during their lifetime, according to a 2015 federal study. The ACA has led to higher use of IUDs and other long-term forms of contraceptives, which have a lower failure rate but also a higher upfront cost. It seems probable the Republicans will eliminate the mandate to provide free contraceptives. 8. Access to mental-health services and substance-abuse treatment. The ACA requires insurance plans to cover mental-health services and substance-abuse treament. The HHS estimated that 17,000 fewer Michigan residents are experiencing symptoms of depression as a result of the ACA, and has helped Michigan deal with the upsurge in opiod addiction. 9. Dealing with lifetime caps on insurance coverage. Before the ACA, 3.5 million Michiganders with employer or individual private coverage had a lifetime limit on their insurance policy, according to HHS. "That meant their coverage could end exactly when they needed it most," says the HHS. Those lifetime caps are banned by the ACA. It seems probable the GOP's replacement plan will allow such caps, based on their promise to allow Americans the option to buy more bare-bones health-care plans. 10. End of the insurance mandate. About 6.5 million Americans -- comprising about 4.4 percent of 2015 tax returns -- paid a penalty for not having at least nine months of insurance coverage in 2015, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That's about 20 percent fewer than the year before, the IRS said. The average penalty was $470, and the median payment was $300. On 2016 tax returns, the penalty is increasing to 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income or a maximum of $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, with a maximum household penalty of $2,085. About 12.7 million taxpayers did not have insurance coverage, but met one of the ACA exemptions, the IRS said. Republicans have said they will end the insurance mandate. 11. Obtaining rebates for insurance company over-charges. The ACA requires insurance companies to spend 80 percent of revenue from premiums on health-care services as compared to the company's overhead. When companies do not met that minimum, they are required to rebate money to their policyholders. Michiganians with employer coverage have received $63 million in insurance refunds since 2012, according to the HHS. 12. Impact on costs of uncompensated care for hospitals and health-care providers. In 2013, about 8 percent of Michigan hospital inpatients between the ages of 19 and 64 were uninsured, compared to 2 percent in 2015, according to federal data. The HHS estimates the ACA has saved Michigan's health-care providers $190 million on uncompensated care. 13. Impact on state economy. Michigan's Medicaid expansion has more than paid for itself, according to two recent studies. A University of Michigan study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found the expansion's "ripple effects generate more than 30,000 new jobs every year -- one-third of them in health care and 85 percent of them in the private sector. These jobs yield about $2.3 billion more in personal spending power for Michigan residents." "The new jobs and related personal spending are generating approximately $150 million in income and sales tax revenue annually for the state. The state will also continue to save money it would have spent on other safety net programs if Medicaid had not expanded," the U-M study says. The U-M economists estimate the state budget ends up with a net gain of $432 million because of new tax revenue and costs being covered by the federal government. The researchers accounted for $20 million that the state spends to administer the Healthy Michiganprogram, and the $235 million a year that it saves on selected health services that it previously funded but are now covered through the Healthy Michigan Plan, according to the study. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit that studies health care, estimates that repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement could result in the loss of 101,000 jobs in Michigan. That includes job losses in health care as well as industries such as construction and retail that have benefited from consumers who have more spending power because they have subsidized health-care coverage. 14. Impact on federal budget. Repealing the Affordable Care Act could increase the federal budget deficit by eliminating the taxes that fund the law, as well as provisions meant to keep health-care costs in check, according to the Congressional Budget Office. "While it acknowledged some uncertainty, the CBO estimated that over a 10-year period, repealing the law would increase federal budget deficits by $353 billion. A more recent estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget mirrored what the CBO found -- $350 billion over 10 years," PolitiFact wrote in a Jan. 5 post. "According to the group's calculations, the revenue losses would be driven by rolling back tax increases on the wealthy. About half of the $800 billion in revenue losses would come from payroll and investments surtaxes on wages and income above $200,000 -- a tax windfall that very few Americans could take advantage of after a repeal. Another quarter of the revenue losses would come from repealing fees on insurers, medical-device companies and drugmakers." capitol.JPG The Michigan Capitol building (Emily Lawler | MLive.com) As thousands of women and supporters prepare to converge on Washington, D.C. Jan. 21 for the Women's March on Washington, other opportunities to participate a bit closer to home are also underway. The Women's March on Washington is a grassroots event scheduled on the first day of President-elect Donald Trump's term in the Oval Office to protest the "rhetoric of the past election cycle" and stand up for the protection of women's rights, safety, health and families, according to its mission statement. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend the D.C. event, but sister events and other grassroots organizing efforts are being scheduled throughout the state in tandem with the national march. At the Michigan state Capitol, organizers are hosting a Women's March on Lansing, one of several sister events to the Women's March on Washington. The event is scheduled from 1-3 p.m. at the steps of the Capitol building. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer is at the top of the event's roster of speakers. Other speakers lined up for the Lansing march include: former state Rep. Gretchen Driskell Farha Abbasi of the Michigan Muslim Community Council Lavonia Perryman, former chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum Planned Parenthood patient advocate Jessica Lumbreras Enroll Michigan Executive Director Dizzy Warren Oakland County Clerk and former state Rep. Lisa Brown Julia Pulver, director of Women Organize Michigan As of Monday afternoon, the event's Facebook page showed roughly 5,800 people planning to attend, with another 9,900 interested. Another march is scheduled from 2-4 p.m. in Ann Arbor outside the Federal building at the corner of 5th and Liberty. The march will end at the Diag at the University of Michigan around 3 p.m., where a rally will take place. Speakers at the Ann Arbor event include: Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn Labor Organizer & UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada Community and Civil Rights Activist Michelle Elizabeth Brown Ashley Wilson of UM Students for Choice Racial Justice & Immigration Rights Activist Maria Ibarra-Frayre Claire Ceupran & Robert Joseph, Co-Founders of Progressives at the University of Michigan Michelle Regalado Deatrick, Founder of the progressive group Michigan to Believe In & Vice Chair of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners In West Michigan, Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids is hosting an event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, at its social hall at 24 Fountain St. NE in Grand Rapids. The Apartment Lounge at 33 Sheldon Boulevard SE in Grand Rapids will also be hosting an event from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday in conjunction with the Women's March. 21651511-mmmain.jpg (MLive File Photo) Hey look at that, gas prices went down. For the first time in 2017, statewide prices have fallen across Michigan. According to AAA Michigan, they're down 10 cents per gallon in the past week. The Dearborn-based auto club told the Associated Press late Sunday, Jan. 15, that the average price for self-serve regular unleaded gasoline was about $2.40 per gallon. And while that's lower than last week, it's still 61 cents more than it was at the same point last year. Prices in Grand Rapids are following the statewide trend, having fallen 10.1 cents per gallon in the past week, according to GasBuddy.com. Grand Rapids prices averaged $2.37/g on Sunday. Kalamazoo was down 13.9 cents to $2.30/g and Lansing was down 8 cents to $2.39/g. The lowest average price was about $2.30 per gallon in the Flint area, while the highest average was about $2.52 in the Marquette area. The Detroit area's average daily gas price decreased about 10 cents to about $2.41 per gallon. The national average has fallen 2.5 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.34/g, according to GasBuddy.com. AAA Michigan surveys daily fuel prices at 2,800 gas stations across the state "For the first time since November, the national average price for gasoline has fallen over the last week, helped by weak demand and rising gasoline inventories," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. "This downward trend is evident in over two-thirds of states but may take additional time to materialize in others, yet is a familiar pattern for late winter as refiners build inventories prior to the late-February start of refinery maintenance season and thanks to the year's weakest demand occurring over the next four weeks." However, motorists should enjoy the brief decrease in prices while they can, according to DeHaan. "Motorists shouldn't expect the trend to last long," he said. "After the sweetness of Valentine's Day roses and chocolates is gone, they will be in store for a jump at the pump as maintenance season begins and the long transition to summer gasoline becomes a pinch point, leading to gas prices that will mostly trend higher for two to three months." conyers1.JPG Congressman John Conyers speaks to the crowd assembled before Hillary Clinton's scheduled stop in Detroit at Eastern Market on Friday, November 4, 2016. Melanie Maxwell | MLive.com (ANN ARBOR NEWS) U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, has decided to skip President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony in protest, according to multiple news reports. A report from CNN listed Conyers among 25 Democratic representatives who have announced plans to be anywhere but the inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C. Jan. 20. In a statement to The Detroit News Monday, Conyers said he is not attending "due to my concern over a number of divisive and inflammatory statements made by the president-elect." So far, no other members of Michigan's Congressional delegation on either side of the aisle have made plans to skip the inauguration. Conyers' decision comes shortly after a public spat between U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Trump made headlines over the weekend. In a recent interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press," Lewis said he doesn't see Trump as a "legitimate president" following allegations of Russian hacking that he believes "helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton." Lewis said in the same interview that he didn't plan to attend the inauguration. Trump soon fired back, arguing Lewis should "spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart." He tweeted again 11 hours later: "Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get!" In a series of tweets Friday, Conyers stuck up for Lewis and said he was very concerned Trump was spending time attacking Lewis instead of preparing for the presidency. My good friend @repjohnlewis has dedicated his life to fighting for freedom & equality in his district & across this nation. (1/3) John Conyers, Jr. (@RepJohnConyers) January 14, 2017 Very concerned that Trump would spend time attacking John Lewis instead of preparing to start his Presidency. (2/3) John Conyers, Jr. (@RepJohnConyers) January 14, 2017 Agree with VP Biden that it's time for Trump to grow up. Being POTUS is a serious matter - not child's play. I stand w/ @repjohnlewis (3/3) John Conyers, Jr. (@RepJohnConyers) January 14, 2017 U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade-Twp., also got involved in the Twitter conversation, tweeting to Trump: "Dude, just stop." Amash is planning to attend the inauguration, his spokesperson confirmed Monday. Cows.jpg (MLive file photo) OAKLAND, CA -- Got Milk? Or rather, have you bought milk? Thanks to a class-action settlement involving residents of several states against a handful of companies involved in the dairy industry, Michigan residents are eligible to receive compensation if they bought milk or other dairy products at any point since 2003. The settlement calls for the defendants in the case National Milk Producers Federation, aka Cooperatives Working Together (CWT), Dairy Farmers of America, Inc., Land O'Lakes, Inc., Dairylea Cooperative Inc., and Agri-Mark, Inc. to pay out $52 million to refund consumers after an antitrust lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court. "This antitrust lawsuit alleges a nationwide conspiracy by CWT and its members to limit the production of raw farm milk by prematurely slaughtering cows, in order to illegally increase the price of milk and other fresh milk products. Defendants deny any wrongdoing or liability for the claims alleged," reads the notice of settlement. However, since the CWT and the other members have agreed to pay out the $52 million residents in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin may file a claim for payment. Along with milk, you may be entitled to a settlement if you've purchased cream, half & half, yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese, or sour cream. To file your claim, you must submit your name and email address while also confirming you've bought dairy products at a store since 2003 via an online form. No proof of purchase is necessary to file your claim. Click here to visit the settlement website. The deadline to file a claim is Jan. 31, 2017. After all claims have been filed, you will be contacted with details on how to receive your claim. The amount awarded will depend on how many people file claims. According to the website, individuals will receive somewhere between $45-$70. Entities that purchased milk in bulk may receive between $1,260-$1,960. For more information on the settlement and the history of the case, visit the BoughtMilk website. 20161207-EB011 About 10 percent of Michigan adults between the ages of 18 and 64 are enrolled in the Healthy Michigan plan. (MLive file photo) More than 600,000 Michigan adults are currently enrolled in Healthy Michigan, the Medicaid expansion plan funded by the Affordable Care Act. Many of those adults could lose their health care if Republicans repeal the ACA. Healthy Michigan is targeted for adults age 19 to 64 who have an income that is 133 percent or less below the poverty line -- about $16,000 for a single adult. (Low-income children are eligible for MiChild, a program that predates the ACA, and those 65 and older receive Medicare.) Below is a database that shows the enrollment by county and the percentage of 19-to-64-year-olds who get their health insurance through the Medicaid expansion. The data is from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy Michigan enrollment by county detroitwater 12 (MLive file photo) DETROIT -- For nearly a week, residents in the downriver communities of southeastern Michigan have been complaining about foul smelling water and an off taste, but the Great Lakes Water Authority says there's nothing wrong with the water. "The Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) recognizes downriver residents' concerns regarding water taste and odor issues. The Authority wants to assure our customer communities that it is committed to providing water of unquestionable quality. The GLWA continuously tests the water it produces to ensure that it meets regulatory standards. When taste and odor issues were raised in a number of downriver communities, GLWA expanded its testing, increasing the number of samples being taken at the Southwest Water Treatment Facility, which serves these communities. Results of this scaled up testing reinforce that regulatory water standards are being achieved, and that the water is safe." wrote Cheryl Porter, COO of the GLWA in a statement released Monday. Last week, residents in communities like Woodhaven and Melvindale began raising concerns about the water and at that time, the GLWA said it would correct the issue within 12 hours. "The Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) is committed to providing water of unquestionable quality for all of its customer communities," Porter wrote on Jan. 12. "In regard to the concerns about water quality in a number of downriver communities, the Authority has conducted extensive testing of its water at its Southwest Treatment Plant and in locations where odor is being detected. Tests confirm that all regulatory water quality standards are being achieved, and that the water is safe. At this time, we are working with our local community partners to continue to assure water of unquestionable quality, and have put into operation at our treatment plant our activated carbon system, which will assist with the taste and odor issues. We expect the taste and odor issues to be resolved within the next 12 hours. In the meantime, we continue to expand testing to determine factors that might contribute to the detected odors." However, that does not appear to be the case. According to a report from Fox 2 Detroit, some residents have been complaining about their animals getting sick and that the water still has a foul smell. On Monday, the City of Woodhaven released results from an independent sampling of its water supply conducted by Paragon Laboratories. That test showed the water was absent of any traces of E Coli and Coliform Bacteria. Woodhaven officials say they will be updating residents once they have more information from the GLWA. power lines full size.jpg Power lines and substations will get an upgrade. (MLive.com file) SCHOOLCRAFT, MI- Indiana Michigan Power, an operating unit of American Electric Power, unveiled an approximately $30 million investment to improve the electric transmission system in Kalamazoo County Monday. The Vicksburg-Schoolcraft Area Improvements Project plans include constructing a new Kalamazoo substation, retiring the existing Schoolcraft Substation, expanding and upgrading the Vicksburg Substation and constructing a new approximately 5-mile, 69- kilovolt transmission line. I&M will host a public open house from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, at Schoolcraft Middle School, 747 E. Clay St. in Schoolcraft to gather information from the public and affected landowners,. Improving the transmission infrastructure in the area is essential to improve reliability for the region, according to a news release about the project. Improvements to modernize and upgrade the 1970s substation will reduce power interruptions and outages. Constructing a new line creates a redundant connection and a looped service. This configure ensures a reliable flow of electricity to customers. Project representatives will be available at the Jan. 26 meeting to answer questions and obtain local community input; there is no formal meeting or agenda. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Additional information about the project, including a project timeline, fact sheet and map can be found here. CORRECTION:11:44 a.m. Jan. 16 Confirmed with utility which substation is to be retired, which one is to be upgraded. Ukraine, Canada and Denmark are planning to carry out an inspection on the territory of Russia from January 16 until January 19 in accordance with the Vienna Document dated 2011 year, in particular paragraph nine on measures to strengthen confidence and security, spokesman for the Defense Ministry for ATO matters Oleksandr Motuzianyk has said. "An inspection team is expected to include two representatives from Ukraine, one representative from Canada, and one - from the Kingdom of Denmark. The specified area in the Rostov region of Russia, which is immediately adjacent to the state border of Ukraine, is to be inspected," Motuzianyk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Sunday. According to him, within the framework of the inspection it is planned to obtain information from the commanders of Russian troops, a helicopter overflight and check of the land in the specified area on the presence or absence of military activity, which should be subject to prior notification. Motuzianyk noted that an official report will follow the results of the inspection and the OSCE participating states will be notified of its results. KALAMAZOO, MI -- What's in your water? If you're on city water in Kalamazoo, a 187-page report on the public water supply system provides the answer. While the Department of Public Services remains compliant with federal and state regulations, the report shows its efforts to replace service lines composed of lead and identify thousands of pipes that contain unknown materials. Though there is no detectable lead in the city's water supply system when it leaves 16 pumping stations, small amounts of lead can dissolve into drinking water if it sits for several hours in plumbing fixtures containing the toxic element. Roughly 130,000 people are hooked up to the system. The city replaced 120 lead service lines in 2016, however, at least 2,917 still remain. According to the report, 7,308 lines connecting customers to the city water main are unidentified, meaning the city doesn't know what they are made out of. The city has been removing lead services since 1992, but Director of Public Services James Baker said the effort was increased following the Flint water crisis. Replacements are coordinated with road and infrastructure projects; this week crews are replacing lead service lines on West Main Street in anticipation of a repaving project in 2017. "To stay fiscally responsible we don't want to put a new road down then come dig it up a few years later," Baker said. "We want to be more responsive to the citizens and we recognize the greater problem of having lead in the ground." Baker said he expects between 30 and 65 percent of the unidentified services are made with lead. Most of the service lines in Kalamazoo's water system are copper, brass, galvanized or other materials. Water mains that service lines hook up to are made of ductile iron or cast iron. A high concentration of lead services are in the city's oldest neighborhoods. Kalamazoo Township East contains a quarter of the lead lines at 754 addresses. Twenty percent are in 608 Edison neighborhood addresses and 12 percent lie in 348 locations in the Northside neighborhood. The majority of undefined lead lines are in the heart of the city, focused in a band between Vine Street and Patterson Street. A heat map shows the locations with the highest density of lead services in Kalamazoo. (Courtesy | City of Kalamazoo) Identifying undocumented pipes At one point, hollow logs transported water throughout the city. Though the city knows this was abandoned before 1870, information like material type, diameter, and installation dates was not routinely documented until recently. The Department of Public Services now uses a digital database to log similar kinds of information. Research indicates lead service pipes were most likely used from 1900 to 1950, however, a visual inspection is the only sure way to determine what the pipes are made of. By comparing the location of unidentified lines to a map of known lead service areas, along with other research methods, the city targets areas to perform field tests. A total of 120 lead services were removed last year through November 2016, for roughly $3,500 each. It would take approximately 40 years to replace all of them at this pace, so several plans to expedite the process were presented in the report. It would take just 10 years if the city increased its pace to replace 474 each year -- assuming only a quarter of undefined services were found to contain lead. It would cost $1.7 million each year, $16.89 million total. If half of the unidentified pipes were revealed to contain lead, it would increase the cost to $2.3 million per year, for a total of $30 million during 10 years. Another option is to only remove services known to be at or above 15 ppb for lead, the federal action level. In 2016, approximately 2 percent of homes sampled had lead levels at or above 15 ppb. A similar alternative is given to replace those at or above 5 ppb, which represents 9 percent of homes sampled last year. This was listed as the preferred method. Baker said several agencies are lobbying EPA and DEQ reduce the action level to 5 ppb, so this would keep Kalamazoo protected if the change is made. The final alternative is to replace lead services during a street construction project or when maintenance is needed on a service. The city already coordinates replacements with infrastructure projects. Baker said staffing and funding will drive the speed of replacement. Funds for lead service removals are budgeted within the Water Capital Improvement Program. In 2015, $120,000 was budgeted. In 2016, $390,000 was budgeted. It is proposed in the report that in 2017, 2018, and 2019 budgets for lead service removals be increased to $400,000, $1.7 million, and $2.7 million, respectively. The city is also considering participating in the State of Michigan Drinking Water Revolving Fund Program to assist in funding its lead water service removal program, and could use funding from the Foundation for Excellence once its established. What's in your water? Here's something you probably already know. Kalamazoo's groundwater source has elevated levels of iron, manganese, and hardness. This largely poses aesthetic issues and not health concerns. Here's something you probably don't know: Since 1956, sodium hexa-metaphosphate has been pumped into the system for iron sequestration and to reduce corrosion. It also helps prevent possible color, taste and staining issues in the water distribution system. Results for 1999 are estimated. (Courtesy | City of Kalamazoo) California-based company Tetra-Tech was hired to find ways to reduce the corrosive strength of the city's drinking water by adding chemicals to the water distribution system. Reducing corrosion would also reduce the chance of lead and copper leeching into drinking water. It was the highly corrosive nature of the Flint River which contributed to lead entering the city's drinking water. "We are looking to see if there is a possibility to move to a different chemical to kick up that level (of) corrosion control," Baker said. The city will evaluate Tetra-Tech's recommendation after it issues a final report later this year. Nine tests of city drinking water have been conducted since 1992, in compliance with the EPA Lead and Copper Rule. If the 90th percentile of concentrations are at or exceed 15 ppb, or 1300 ppb for copper, the EPA requires the system to undertake a number of actions to control corrosion. Due to the public concern expressed over the Flint water system lead problem, the city collected lead and copper monitoring data a year early. In 2016, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality required the city to increase the number of water quality sampling locations, number of water quality parameters, and total number of water quality samples within the distribution system. Last year's results were the best yet. Of samples from 148 homes, 90 percent were at or below 4 parts per billion for lead and 896 parts per billion for copper. In 2014, metal contamination was at its highest since the federal and state required testing two decades ago, at 13 ppb for lead and 1200 ppb for copper. Another water quality report is due in the first quarter of 2017. Efforts related to public education and outreach included the creation of a hotline where customers can schedule free water testing, receive point of use filters and be connected to educational information concerning lead in drinking water. While the city remains compliant with state and federal laws, Baker said the laws could change at any time. Currently the Lead and Copper Rule does not require municipalities to replace lead services. "It's a big issue. We're not the only city that is facing it," Baker said. "Cities that developed in early 1900s are all facing the same issue we are." LUDINGTON, MI -- A place to play. A place to learn. A place to imagine. A place to create. A place to socialize. That's what the Makers Market of Ludington provides for its community, members and drop-in clients. "The goal is to give access to tools, space and other people for whatever project they have in mind," said Erica Karmeisool, director and founder of the market. The space, which opened March 22, 2016, is aimed to inspire creation and curiosity in everyone, but particularly attracts inventors, artists and carpenters. "It's like a gym, but with power tools," says the chalkboard sign regularly seen outside the front door. It's exercise for your mind. Makers Market offers annual, monthly and daily memberships; classes, workshops and pop-in projects. Classes are instructed by market members or members of the community, Karmeisool said. Pop-in projects can be assembled in less than a day, and include a kit and use of low-risk tools. Nearly everything in the shop was donated, from materials to tools to the space, Karmeisool said. "It's great to see how the community has responded in support," she said. Karmeisool is relatively new to the Ludington community, having moved to the town during 2010. She had trouble storing her tools at first. As she got to know the community, Karmeisool realized the "variety and extent of talent" in the area. "It really seemed like all the pieces were here to support a community workshop," she said. She had been to a makers market before, and it "blew my mind," she said. "The artistic world and technical world are cross-sectioned (at the markets)," Karmeisool said. "When we keep them separate, it's to our detriment." The Ludington market offers wood-cutting tools, sewing machines, paint, metal cutting, carpentry projects, various bits of what some might call junk, and so much more. One feature is the Take Apart Table, which includes a piece of machinery or technology that visitors can crack open. "We like to let members play - it's a very important thing that we don't let ourselves do as adults - and see what comes of it," Karmeisool said. "We make messes, and we make mistakes. Both of those things are OK. They're an important part of the learning process." In addition to members, the space is used by local schools, Sandcastles Children's Museum, the soon-to-open Ludington Maritime Museum and others. "It feels good to be that space that helps other organizations do what they do best," Karmeisool said. Karmeisool plans to transition the market to a nonprofit model during 2017. SAGINAW, MI -- Elizabeth G. Ross grew up in Alabama where she witnessed Martin Luther King Jr.'s march from Selma to Montgomery, an iconic civil rights moment in our country's history that stuck with her for the next five decades. On Monday, Jan. 16, Ross, the wife of George E. Ross, Central Michigan University's first black president, called on the more than 150 people in attendance at Saginaw's 21st annual MLK Day Unity Luncheon to continue moving King's vision forward in their day-to-day lives. "Martin Luther King Jr. spoke truth in hopes that the future for all Americans would be brighter," she said. "Each year, we stop to honor this great hero. Nevertheless, what are we doing the other 364 days of the year to continue to move his vision forward? And what would you say to him about your life's work as a drum major for social justice?" The event, held annually on Martin Luther King Day, included a march from Franklin and Hayden streets to the Dow Event Center in downtown Saginaw, a scholarship presentation and the presentation of the prestigious Dr. MLK Unity Award. Ross, a former educator, used her keynote address to highlight the importance of education. She said King's achievements "were not overnight successes." Instead, she said, they were due to education and hard work. "Education is the equalizer," she said. "With a good education, one can think for himself. You will acquire the necessary abilities to make decisions about your life and write your own history." Four students received scholarships to further their education, including Tyler Brewer, Kendrick Davis, Jacari Moultrie and Theondre Peoples. The Saginaw Community Foundation was awarded with the event's Dr. MLK Unity Award. Other awards given out include the Spirit of Dr. King, Jr. Award, the Dr. MLK Service Award, the Iota Chi Lambda Chapter Merit Award and the Iota Chi Lambda Chapter Service Award. Sherwood Spells, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, which helps put on the event, said the gathering is a way to keep "King's dream alive and move it forward." "It's a lot of work, but we do it because we think it's important." Spells said the Dow Event Center has already been reserved for next year's MLK Day event. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden has said that the political part of the Minsk agreements must be performed in full only after the implementation of Russia's commitments in the field of security. Biden said that the political part of the agreement can not be implemented until Russia ceases its violation. Only after Russia and its followers in the east fulfill their obligations regarding the cessation of hostilities and provide Donbas an opportunity to establish peace and security, it will be possible to expect Ukraine's full implementation of its political commitments, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden said at a joint briefing with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on Monday. Close "Hawaii Five-0" Season 7 has recently seen the departure of Masi Oka as Dr. Max Bergman. While the CBS drama remains as one of the top performing shows on the network, many fans are worried that Alex O'Loughlin will be leaving the show next. Will Steve McGarrett be the next one to leave the team? This article contains spoilers. Continue reading if you wish to learn more about the story. "Hawaii Five-0" Season 7 cast news reveals that the latest exit of Masi Oka may not be the last fans will see of a major character's departure. There have been speculations that Alex O'Loughlin, who plays Steve McGarrett, will be leaving the show following his interview with TVLine. O'Loughlin explained the difficulties he encountered while playing his role in "Hawaii Five-0." The actor also teased that he may ultimately decide to leave the show after Season 8, but he is barely getting through the end of Season 7. "The whole show has been extremely physically daunting," he said. "I don't know how much longer I can do it." This made a lot of fans wonder if O'Loughlin will exit "H50" Season 7 or if his possible departure in Season 8 will lead to the show's cancellation. While this remains uncertain as of writing, fans and viewers will be treated to the appearance of a guest star in the upcoming episode, reports Carter Matt. "Hawaii Five-0" Season 7 spoilers tease that in the episode entitled, "Ka lain ma ke one," which translates to "Line in the Sand," Lou Diamond Phillips will be playing the role of a US Marshall. The team will be collaborating with another unit to solve a murder case whose suspect is on the run in Hawaii. Do you think Alex O'Loughlin will be leaving "Hawaii Five-0" Season 7? Can the show survive without Steve McGarrett? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below! Copyright 2020 Mobile & Apps, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden has called on Ukrainians to intensify the fight against corruption in the country, as Russia uses corruption as a foreign policy instrument of pressure on Ukraine. Biden said at a joint briefing with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on Monday that he wants to encourage Ukrainians to continue the fight against corruption, insist on transparency, investigate and prosecute officials who squander public money for their own enrichment. In this context Biden said that Russia for the past ten years uses another weapon of foreign policy: corruption as a tool against Ukraine to keep Ukraine vulnerable and dependent. He said implementation of reforms is necessary to eradicate corruption. At the same time, U.S. vice president stressed that these issues are crucial to the preservation of the Ukrainian state. This is an extremely important issue of national security, not just a matter of good governance, he said. The Motor City is obviously known for producing cars, and has the wide boulevards to prove it. But if Maurice Cox, director of the City of Detroit's Planning Department, has anything to do with it, bikes will also become an important consideration of the city's infrastructure. Bike lanes are common across the country and world. Model D recently spoke with Cox and City of Detroit mobility specialist Jeffrey Nolish about the city's plans to get Detroit's neighborhoods, in particular the Live6 area, onto two wheels. Here are three things we learned from those conversations. 1. Bike lanes have a learning curve While bike lanes may be standard in other big cities, they can still give some Detroiters pause, particularly when seen outside of the Downtown/Midtown area where bike-use is less common. "I'm very sensitive to the fact that there's a learning process that communities are undergoing," says Cox. The city has has already held a few meetings in the Livernois/McNichols neighborhoods to get community members to discuss how mobility will play a part in the development of the area. Cox notes that in neighborhoods used to only one mode of transportation, there are always questions when bike lanes are put down. But, he adds, engaging residents on the topic provides the opportunity to address these concerns and illustrate their myriad benefits. 2. A bike culture already exists in Detroit Anyone who has been on the Riverfront in the summer has seen scores of Detroiters riding impressively customized bikes replete with blinking lights, specialized handlebars, and makeshift boomboxes. One small bonus of the city's work to bring bike lanes to Live6 is that the area is home to the the city's oldest bike shop, "Bicycle culture in Detroit is many decades old," says Cox. Biking continues to be a popular pastime in Motown, with events like "There's actually over 48 neighborhood, community, and church based bike groups in the city," says Nolish. "Each group is different, but each group is excited about this mode of transportation." The city is working to educate residents and business owners, especially since the roll out of protected bike lanes on Michigan, Livernois, and Jefferson Avenues. That means collaboration with various departments on signage and on-the-ground education. Nolish says they city is also connecting with organizations like the 3. Bike Lanes improve quality of life According to Cox, bike lanes add a ton of value to a city and neighborhood. For starters, they save lives. "The data shows that when you add protected bike lanes on streets that carry cars, it reduces the speed of which those cars move," Cox says. He emphasizes that bike lanes are good for business as well. A Mr. Cox's office continues to weigh the data they've gathered on outcomes from the installation of bike lanes on Livernois. He says that through community meetings, Live6 residents have options for weighing in on how they want the streetscape to look. "In the end, the community will decide where we get the best bang for our buck," Cox says. Ultimately, bike lanes are a piece of the puzzle for healthy development outside of the city center. "It's one element of our comprehensive neighborhood strategy for the Livernois/McNichols area," Cox says. As resources continue to pour into neighborhoods like those along Livernois and McNichols, it will require both city officials and community members to work together to respect the cultures that already exists while taking a chance on new ways of moving, even if it means making space for people on two wheels instead of four. This story is part of Model D's "On the Ground" series, which In Copenhagen, for example, 37 percent of residents bike to work biking is a major part of Denmark's national culture. While Detroit may never reach that level of usage, Cox is taking steps to prioritize bikes and believes they should be a part of Detroit's strategy for revitalization. Slow Roll , a weekly bike tour that's gained national prominence, regularly attracting hundreds of bikers, as well as the more local Soul Roll . While Detroit cyclists may not be the rolled-up-cuff-messenger-bag types, they are still active and must be considered as the a new type of bike culture is introduced to the city. Detroit Greenways Coalition , local bike shops, and community groups to help people understand the importance of diverse modes of mobility. report issued by PeopleForBikes and the Alliance for Biking and Walking points to bike lanes as a way for neighborhoods to increase foot traffic to businesses, with biking customers more likely to spend small amounts during frequent visits to local shops. This is good news for small business owners in Live6, as it would give more visibility to the shops along the Livernois and McNichols corridors.gives voice to the community members, businesses, and developers who make the Live6 neighborhood come alive. Support for this series is provided by the Kresge Foundation Sanctions against Russia should stay in place until implementation of Minsk agreements, return of Crimea - Biden The international sanctions against the Russian Federation should stay in place until it fulfills the obligations it assumed under the Minsk agreements and also the return of Crimea to Ukraine, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden said. Along with its partners from the U.S. and G7, the U.S. made it clear that the sanctions should continue until Russia fully fulfills its obligations under the Minsk agreements, he said at a joint briefing with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on Monday. Biden also said the sanctions against Russia associated with Crimea should stay in place until Russia returns Crimea to Ukraine. you are here: Russia trying to destabilize situation in Ukraine, escape responsibility for its actions in Donbas Poroshenko President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that Russia continues its attempts to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. "This year marks three years since Russia has launched a real war against our country. It is a war, where 10,000 Ukrainians - civil and military have been killed. And this war continues today," he said during a joint briefing with the U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden in Kyiv on Monday. According to him, over the past three days, the Ukrainian military were fired more than 250 times. "Ukraine is aware that we are not the only enemy of Moscow. All, who profess democratic values, are the enemies of the Kremlin. That is why Ukraine's protection today is the protection of the values of free world," Poroshenko said. The president of Ukraine noted that Russia is trying to avoid responsibility and working to destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine, as well as to split transatlantic and European unity. "We are able to oppose these plans, primarily by launching the 'road map' of implementation of the Minsk agreements and the continuation of successful internal reforms," he said. business RBI must be autonomous, but also accountable: Ahluwalia Speaking to CNBC-TV18 note economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that central banks need to have credibility. The impact of a central bank in peoples minds depends on this credibility. business RIL may correct but not substantially, say experts SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com expects the stock to correct to about 2-3 percentage points in the next couple of days but does not expect it to fall substantially. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden hopes the administration of new U.S. President Donald Trump will be a supporter of Ukraine. The Americans, including almost one million of them who are of Ukrainian origin, understand that Ukraine's success is crucial not only to Ukrainians but also to Europe and the U.S., he said at a joint briefing with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on Monday. If Ukraine continues moving in this direction, it will have not only the more open, more democratic and better future that its people deserve, but will also secure the support and unity of international community, he said. Hopefully, the next administration will also be a supporter and partner of Ukraine's future progress, he said. At the same time Biden noted that it is primarily up to Ukraine itself and its people to fulfill their goals. Education Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu. Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu. Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events: International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu. EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu. Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets June Homecoming: Participant $18 per person; Sustainer $25 per person; Benefactor $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary. The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events: SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available for information call 610-275-1960 Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above) SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m. Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. 4 p.m. computers are available during those hours. Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863. Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376. Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com. The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes: Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020. CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313. The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events: Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m. Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m. Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m. Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30. Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301. For Kids & Families The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443. Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950. Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required. The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950. Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus. Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage. Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun. Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train. Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world! Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class. Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org. Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583. Community Events at the Ambler Y: -YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register. Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org. Health Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot. The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863. The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information. Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245. Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net. Spring Aquatic Programs UDHS Pool: -Summer is just around the corner Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required. Shallow Water Aerobics Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR. Adult Swim Instructions Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR -Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21. -Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m. -Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons. -Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates. Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994. SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com. Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org. Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs: FITNESS CLASSES Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month. Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30 9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly. SUPPORT GROUPS Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000. Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30 7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047. New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m. 12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30 4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931. Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325. Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes. Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com. Librarytalk Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744 www.upperdublinlibrary.org APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS: Storytimes: Please register in the library. o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m. o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m. o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6. APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS: North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS: NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org. One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register contact info above. Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744. o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register. Meetings: Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m. Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m. Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org. For children and teens at Blue Bell: * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m. * May 14 Despicable Me * June 11 Alpha and Omega * Special Events * April watch for date of spring/Easter events * April 14 at 4:30 p.m. Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children. * April 14 at 7 p.m. Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided. * April 16 at 1 p.m. Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King. * April 16 at 1:30 p.m. Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes? * April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button. * April 30 through May 3 Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults. * May sign up for Science in the Summer * June sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children * June sign up for Summer Reading, all ages For adults at Blue Bell: * Daytime Book Discussion Group fourth Tuesday, Jan April at 1:30 p.m. * April 26 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Night-time Book Discussion Group third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. o April 19 The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester * Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked? *Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs * Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class. * Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class. * Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m. * Giant Book Sale, April 29 May 3 o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults! o Held during library hours. o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m. o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join. * Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series o May 11 at 1 p.m. Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society * Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room. * Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read. * Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome. * Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome. *Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older. * Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours * Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours * Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday! Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library. * Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian. * Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages. * Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages. * For adults: * Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn. * Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net * Special Events: * April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian. * April 19 at 7 p.m. Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m. * April 21 at 7 p.m. Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades. *May 2 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. *May 10 Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *May 12 at 1:30p.m. Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. *May 17 Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m. *June 13 at 6:30 p.m. Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time. Meetings and Lectures The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833. The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313. Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200. The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/. LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings. Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org. Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org) -Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them. The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter. For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps. Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin. Special Events The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County. The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065. Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org. The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members. Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex. The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com. The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348. The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org. Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163. The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu. The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com. The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net. Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd. The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages. 13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries. Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler. The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family. The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler. JPRN Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike. Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies. Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately. Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways. Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table. Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday Friday from 9 a.m. 4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374 Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall: -Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store. Music and Theater The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html. Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free. The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org Religious News The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276. Reunions St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net. Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572. Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779. Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411. Support New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149. PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931. The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296. Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656. Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group every other Wednesday, 7 8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information. CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7 8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided. The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich, Send items for Worship News to religion@thereporteronline.com. Address questions to Nancy March, editor, at nmarch@thereporteronline.com. Deadline is noon Thursday to appear in the Saturday Worship News and Notes. Presentation of Our Lord Ukrainian Catholic Church has one more Sidewalk Ukrainian... The process of freeing the hostages remains blocked by representatives of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (ORDLO), they still hold in prisons minors, who are accused of sabotage, First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbas Iryna Gerashchenko has said. "Despite the promise to free teenagers accused of sabotage by Christmas holidays, ORDLO still holds juveniles in prison. This is what militants' promise is worth. Despite the appeal of leaders of the Normandy format and the trilateral contact group to free hostages before the New Year holidays, and a gesture of goodwill by the Ukrainian side a unilateral handover of 15 people, the release of the hostages is still blocked," Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page on Monday after a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk. At the same time, representatives of the self-proclaimed Donbas republics said that their gesture of goodwill was the transfer of Taras Kolodiy and two women, whose fate was discussed in Minsk. "And now they are again pushing for an immediate amnesty as a prerequisite for the release and transfer of nearly 700 people in exchange for 50 hostages," Gerashchenko said. "The Ukrainian side insists on the immediate unlocking of the talks on the release of the hostages. We noted those realistic compromises proposed a few months ago, which could unlock the release process," Gerashchenko. January 16, 2017 Libya - How U.S.-Russian Cooperation May (Re-)Unite The Country By Richard Galustian On January 20th Trump will be sworn in as President. US Foreign Policy will crystallize when the full cabinet is approved by the U.S. Congress. The Russians will try and make their moves on the world chess board during this transition period to further their interests. As far as Libya is concerned will Russias now overt support for the LNA (Libyan National Army) and 74 years old General Khalifa Haftar, a former(?) CIA asset, cause a problem? The U.S. has up to now supported the UN installed GNA (Government of National Accord) which has little following in the country. Could Russia's LNA support put it at odds with the incoming Trump administration or will this be a welcome and calculated play from Trump's perspective? Haftar and the LNA are also supported by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Last week Blackwater founder Erik Prince allegedly provided private mercenary pilots in armed agricultural aircraft to bomb Western Libya's Islamist extremists. Prince's mercenary air force is paid by the UAE. He is a brother Betsy DeVos, the U.S. president-elect Donald Trumps nominee to be secretary of education. What will change as a result in the complicated ground war in Libya between the various warring factions in south, east and west Libya? What of ISIS relatively small presence in the Sirte and Sabratha regions? What of the tentative potential thawing of US/Russia relations put on edge by last week's inevitably doubtful allegations of Trump's being blackmailed by Russia. The first three months following the inauguration will be the most telling. Until then, let us hazard a guess as to what will unfold: One indication is certain. Washington interests now favor a military solution to the quagmire in Libya that involves Khalifa Hafter who would become part of some sort of leadership coalition or council. But that does not mean that it would favor the mercurial Haftar. He is not pliable enough to be a reliable (U.S. proxy-)leader. Serious Libyan commentators agree that talks now must include all ground players, even former Gaddafi officials, if the country is to be united. However, the eradication of ISIS in Libya is still paramount. That joint desire could put America and Russia on the same side in Libya. Russia has shown her strong willingness to support Hafter on two recent occasions; at the Moscow foreign ministry in mid December, and again, last week when Hafter was helicoptered to the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea, outside Libyan territorial boundaries, by Russian military, for a video conference call with Moscow's senior officials on board a Russian Warship. This behavior indicates a clear willingness to support Hafter's Libyan National Army, as the legitimate military force of the elected Parliament, the House of Representatives (HOR) in Tobruk. For some it's even indicative of Russian support to Hafter with or without the HOR's backing. Signs now seem to indicate an imminent military attempt by the LNA and Hafter to move West and take Tripoli. Russias rationale for involvement was summarized by Foreign Minister Lavrovs categorical statement on December 2 that it does not want Libya to end up like Syria, as a failed state. But the motivation undoubtedly is one of self-interest. As with Syria, Russia sees an opportunity to gain new increased and important influence in an Arab state and I judge that this is better achieved before President Trump takes the full reigns of power; out trumping Trump so to speak. That's why I think internal fighting in Libya will escalate very soon. Obamas self professed greatest foreign policy mistake in office was the failure to quell the post-revolution chaos in Libya. What better way for Trump to truly legitimize his position and silence the naysayers than strategically achieving peace in Libya and an end to ISIS's influence in Libya via a Russian alliance? It is no secret Trump has announced his desire to cooperate with Putin, and he actually may view Russias very public support of Hafter as an asset rather than a liability, securing the region, making an unlikely ally and increasing the popularity of his administration in one stroke. This position assumes that the West will abandon its failed attempt to shore up the UNs puppet government (GNA). It and its leader Serraj are viewed as wholly illegitimate and inept by the country's populace. It is time for EU/UN diplomats and politicians to recognize this as so and adapt to change and quickly. Russian made helicopters and arms were delivered to LNA indirectly and covertly via Russia's ally's the UAE and Egypt and they proved crucial in repelling attacks by militias at the key central oil ports, seized by LNA in September 2016. Earlier this month, Russia publicly supported lifting the UN arms embargo. The West up until recently only wanted the embargo lifted for GNA militias. Presumably, if Western Powers attempted to lift sanctions for only the GNA, Russias UNSC vote would be "Njet." Therefore the LNA would appear to be the only entity that will be supported by the international community including Russia. On the other hand another critical factor is Oil. Russia has an option of buying directly from Cyrenaica, (the historic entity of what is now east Libya), challenging western powers to intercept its tankers. A potential superpower flashpoint. Cyrenica also wants its own flag as well as a new national anthem. This would in my opinion certainly lead to Libya becoming two (or three) separate countries, east and west (and south) Libya. This would follow historic precedence back to the former Greek and Roman provinces. Structural and mismanagement issues remain and heighten internal tensions. For example GECOL (General Electricity Company of Libya) has all but collapsed as has electricity to the entire country, Combined with water distribution shortages and an unusually intense cold spell, the people's patience is at an end. The country could now completed dissolve and fall into even deeper chaos. A wild card remains - the US to drop support for the GNA in its current form and shift it to the LNA making it the undoubtedly strongest force in the country. US good relations with Putin and Moscow could well see Russia gaining a chunk of influence in Libya at presumably the expense of the Italians and British with the French seemingly solely interested in southern Libya. All will be clear very soon as, I believe, internal fighting will escalate considerably. A peaceful negotiated settlement between the warring Libyan parties seems now very remote. Posted by b on January 16, 2017 at 10:27 UTC | Permalink Comments Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will go to the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), but he will not attend the Davos Ukrainian Lunch to be arranged by businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk, presidential press secretary Svyatoslav Tsegolko has said. "The President of Ukraine will travel to Davos, Switzerland, where [he] will have an extensive agenda at the World Economic Forum. However, he will not attend the lunch to be organized by Victor Pinchuk," he wrote on Facebook on Monday. Further, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze also decided to skip the Ukrainian Lunch, although he earlier planned to attend the event. "In fact, I planned to go to Davos and attend in the Ukrainian Lunch, organized by the Pinchuk Foundation. The decision to go there had many reasons. The first and foremost was that if there is a high-level platform where Ukraine's position could be declared, it should be made most of it," she wrote on Facebook on Monday. According to her, she wanted to once again clearly express the position of the Ukrainian authorities and society in Davos regarding the so-called "painful compromises" for the sake of the settlement of the Donbas conflict with Russia, which was previously voiced by Pinchuk. "But then it became clear that the theses of the so-called "peace plan" have already been grabbed by Russian propagandists. They're trying to demonstrate that part of the Ukrainian elite is ready to let both Crimea and Donbas go; give up integration into the EU and NATO for the sake of reconciliation with the aggressor. This is being done in order to call our unity into question," she wrote. She says she thinks such idea became possible pending an expected meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, "perhaps in order to show that Ukraine may consider such an option, and even agree to it." "Given all this, the Ukrainian Lunch could be used to legitimize the issue. Therefore, the very fact of my participation in it may look like part of this process. And most importantly - my feeling is that the vast majority of Ukrainian civil society does not give me the mandate to represent the position of Ukraine at this event. Having considered the matter, I've decided not to go there," she added. New Ratings Mathieu Caquineau The fund is managed by an eight-person team with decades of experience. They also run the same strategy sold in the United States under the American Funds brand. Each of the managers works independently, but in ways that dovetail with this fund's dual growth and income mandate. The resulting portfolio usually offers a bit more yield than the S&P 500 without sacrificing much quality. It serves up a mix of conservative dividend payers and underappreciated growth stocks that mutes overall volatility, but not performance. The fund has delivered strong peer-relative returns. Its style will lag at times, but thanks to strong management, a sound process, and reasonable fees, we have the confidence that it will serve investors well in the long run. Legg Mason Brandywine Global Opportunistic Fixed Income Silver Carlos Lucar Veteran fixed income investors Steve Smith and David Hoffman have been at the helm of this fund since its inception. Their philosophy hinges on disregarding the guideposts of issuance-weighted indexes and instead they look to identify high real yields and currencies in countries with strong or improving fundamentals. They have employed the same valuation-conscious approach to global fixed-income investing for over two decades. The fund focuses on sovereign debt, but the flexibility afforded to the managers may see them bulk up on corporate and securitized sectors opportunistically. In our view, the experienced managers and growing support team, in addition to the long-running disciplined approach here, make this fund a compelling long-term choice for investors who can endure short-term volatility. Downgrades Mark Laidlaw Our conviction in the Aberdeen Asia Pacific team has wavered, whilst peer competition has been getting stronger, resulting in an overall drop in our conviction levels. Both the Asian equities and the Japan equities teams have seen some turnover within the ranks over the last few years. That said, Flavia Cheong still leads a quality outfit, which is well resourced and flat structured, with many of the team having spent their whole investment career at the firm. Nonetheless, we feel they are no longer seen as one of the elite groups in this space. The investment process is tried and tested quality and valuation the major keys. Aberdeen is a patient investor who is willing to back quality businesses that are well managed. A potential criticism is that the team hasnt always been critical enough when looking at the continued merits of some long-term holdings where the investment thesis has started to deteriorate. We are encouraged by the measures put in place by the team to help potentially alleviate this issue. Significant outflows, which are down from peak levels, has lessened previous capacity concerns. Whilst we retain conviction in the funds, we do feel there are more compelling choices available. 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 Ukrainian side issued a reminder at the Trilateral Contact Group meeting of the need for implementing the entire Package of Measures of the Minsk Agreements, calls settlement of the range of security issues a priority. "We are insisting on the observance of the entire package of the Minsk Agreements, including the reaching of the line as on September 19, 2014, including Debaltseve," Darka Olifer, the spokesperson of Ukraine's envoy in the Trilateral Contact Group, second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, said on her Facebook page following the first meeting in Minsk this year. The settlement of the range of security issues is a pivotal component of the entire Minsk process, Olifer said. "Without a complete and stable ceasefire, without withdrawal of all foreign military units and military hardware from Ukraine, without control over the border, there can be no elections in separate districts in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," she said. According to a report from one of the countrys leading brokerages, Canadian residential real estate markets saw a 13.0 per cent year-over-year increase (up to $558,153) in Q4 2016the greatest such appreciation in over a decade.Royal LePage announced in its latest National House Price Composite that the average sale price of two-storey homes nationwide grew by 14.3 per cent over the same timeframe, up to $661,730. Meanwhile, the average price of condominiums rose by 7.4 per cent, up to $356,307.In the same report, the brokerage predicted that aggregate home prices across the country will increase by 2.8 per cent in 2017 when compared to the levels at the end of 2016.However, the Vancouver market should brace itself for a possible home price correction this year.Eroding affordability in B.C.s Lower Mainland has reached unsustainable ground. This, coupled with recently introduced public policy measures and lower sales volumes, has put visible downward pressure on home prices, Royal LePage president and CEO Phil Soper stated.While the cost of a home in Greater Vancouver will remain the highest in the country, a modest price reset will provide much needed relief in the Lower Mainland and help reignite overall buyer activity in the region.On the other hand, the Greater Toronto Area saw a 16.1 per cent year-over-year increase in Q4 2016, and Soper warned that this pace of growth will not end any time soon.Unlike Vancouver where a price correction is underway, there is no relief in sight for the GTA forward momentum and supporting fundamentals in the region are that strong. And it is worth noting, Toronto area home prices are much lower than those on the west coast.Gradual upward trends in Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and Alberta home prices will help greatly in offsetting the sharp performance disparities between regions, Soper assured.In 2017, we anticipate a movement away from the regional extremes of real estate feast and famine and that is a very good thing. A report about the growing reliance on bundling mortgages may be overblown, according to one veteran. That story at least today is blown out of proportion, James Laird, president of CanWise financial, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca in response to a recent Reuters report about the growth of privately bundled mortgages. We have not seen enough of the new environment to see how people are making arrangements. Canadas subprime mortgage lenders are increasingly relying on bundling their mortgages with private MICs in response to new mortgage rules intended to clamp down on high risk lending, a Reuters report claimed. According to the report, these types of arrangements have proliferated, though no actual stats are given. OSFI told Reuters it is monitoring co-lending. This is what happens at the late stage of a housing bubble - the quality of lending goes down, David Madani, an economist with Capital Markets, told Reuters. This, however, hasnt been the case, according to Laird. At least not within his brokerage. Whenever we tighten regulation or rates go up or qualification becomes more difficult, its going to push a certain group to no longer be able to qualify, Laird said. That happens every time. Its just a question of what those people are doing. Laird said the new rules have forced potential buyers to consider three alternative options, none of which involve bundling regulated and non-regulated loans. What were seeing so far is one of three things happening; the number one thing is more help from the 'bank of mom and dad' from first-time homebuyers. We find that mom and dad just help to the point of qualification, which is a little further than before the regulation, Laird said. The second thing is people are buying less house than they planned on. Finally, were seeing some people saying 'I need to rent a little longer, save a little more and my income climbs a bit before I can get the house that I want.' Laird said CanWise neither recommends nor facilitates bundling loans. If someone is near qualifying, we dont suggest they stretch themselves, we suggest something more prudent, he said. Still, bundling loans is a solution lenders can offer and its quite likely an uptick in that type of lending would occur after a round of mortgage rule changes that make qualifying for difficult. Just how much that market is growing remains to be seen, however. Fresh data from Equifax Inc. revealed that instances of mortgage fraud in Canada have risen along with the runaway prices in the countrys hottest real estate markets.The credit reporting agency stated that the number of potentially dishonest mortgage applications has grown by 52 per cent over the past 4 years. Many of these flagged applications have originated from Ontario and British Columbia, both of which play host to Canadas most expensive housing markets.It could be investing in the market as a way to cleanse money. It could be: I really want that home and Im getting into a bidding war and even though I make $60,000, Im going to say that I make $90, 000, Equifax vice-president of customer insight Tara Zecevic stated in the report, as quoted by The Globe and Mail.Banks provided around 90 per cent of the red flags. The most prevalent incidences of fraud involved identity theft and money laundering. Many would-be buyers have also been found providing falsified or tampered tax returns, bank statements, and employment documents to qualify for mortgages larger than they are actually entitled to, Zecevic explained.In a related online survey, Equifax found that 8 per cent of Canadians actually falsified information on their own credit applications. Meanwhile, 13 per cent believed it was okay to tell little white lies on their mortgage applications, while 16 per cent considered mortgage fraud a victimless crime.What ends up happening is consumers think: Im not really doing anybody any harm, Zecevic said.Canadas long-running affordability crisis is largely responsible for kick-starting the trend, she added.I definitely think there is this fear of a continuous rise in the cost of homes, that home ownership is starting to become out of reach. Mount Pleasant, SC (29464) Today Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 68F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 68F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. On Tuesday, January 17, at 12.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "The Catastrophe of Domestic Medicine. Who is to blame?" The participants will include Director General of Heart Center of the Health Ministry Borys Todurov; Chief Pediatric Hematologist at the Health Ministry Svitlana Donska; Head of the National Children's Specialized Hospital Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation Center of Children's Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation "Okhmatdet", Honored Doctor of Ukraine Oleh Ryzhak; President of the Fund of assistance to children with cancer, PhD Valentyna Markevych; Chairman of the charity fund "Crab" Larysa Lavreniuk; President of the All-Ukrainian Council of protection of patients' rights and safety Viktor Serdiuk (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation. Noble Energy is hitting the accelerator as it snapped up Midlands Clayton Williams Energy in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $2.7 billion, significantly expanding its Delaware position. Deena McMullen, spokesperson for Noble, told the Reporter-Telegram by email We are very excited about the Clayton Williams Energy acreage given it is highly contiguous and adjacent to our existing position. Through this acquisition, Noble Energy will achieve an industry-leading position in the Southern Delaware. The acquisition involves Clayton Williams Energys 71,000 net acres in Reeves and Ward counties, which are adjacent to Nobles existing 47,200 net acres. Nobles Delaware Basin operations are focused in Reeves County, McMullen said. The announcement comes on the heels of Nobles purchase of drilling rights on 7,200 acres in the Delaware for $300 million. I am very proud of the company we have built over the past 25 years and I am pleased that Noble Energy will be leading the development of our properties going forward. Noble Energys long track record of operational excellence and value creation, as well as its reputation as a tremendous corporate citizen, make it the ideal partner for us. We look forward to being shareholders of Noble Energy and benefiting from its world class asset portfolio, Clayton W. Williams Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Clayton Williams Energy, stated in the release announcing the deal. Investment Banker Grant Swartzwelder, founder and managing director of Dallas-based Wilcox-Swartzwelder & Co., told the Reporter-Telegram by email, Clayton Williams Energy has some really good acreage and established infrastructure. The pricing is consistent with what others have paid. Noble is clearly creating critical mass in the Permian with their recent activities and now Clayton Williams. As part of the companys valuation assessment, Noble Energy identified significant value relating to existing production and midstream opportunities. After adjusting for these items and net debt assumed, the purchase price represents approximately $32,000 per core Southern Delaware acre. Clayton Williams Energy shareholders will receive 2.7874 shares of Noble Energy common stock and $34.75 in cash for each share of common stock held. In the aggregate, this totals 55 million shares of Noble Energy stock and $665 million in cash. While the aggregate amount of cash and stock in the transaction will not change, on an individual basis shareholders will be able to elect to receive cash or stock, subject to proration. The value of the transaction, based on Noble Energys closing stock price as of January 13, 2017, is approximately $139 per Clayton Williams Energy share, or $3.2 billion in the aggregate, including the assumption of approximately $500 million in net debt. The per share consideration represents a 21 percent premium to the average closing share price of Clayton Williams Energy over the past 30 days, and a 34 percent premium to the price on January 13, 2017, the last day of trading prior to the transaction. Funds managed by Ares Management, L.P., which owned approximately 35 percent of the outstanding shares of Clayton Williams Energy as of December 31, 2016, have agreed to vote in favor of the transaction. Following completion of the acquisition, Clayton Williams Energy shareholders are expected to own approximately 11 percent of Nobles outstanding shares. Noble Energy intends to fund the cash portion of the acquisition through a draw on its revolving credit facility. As of the end of 2016, the companys $4 billion facility was completely undrawn. Noble officials say the combination of the two companies will create the industrys second largest acreage position in the Southern Delaware subbasin. The combined 120,000 acres will contain more than 4,200 drilling locations with more than 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in what Noble officials call net unrisked resources. Closing is expected in the second quarter, subject to customary regulatory approvals, approval by the holders of a majority of Clayton Williams Energy common stock, and certain other conditions. As part of the deal, Noble will also receive an additional 100,000 net acres elsewhere in the Permian Basin. Houston-based Noble entered the Delaware in 2015 with the acquisition of Rosetta Resources. McMullen told the Reporter-Telegram the properties are being managed out of the companys Houston offices, with a field location in Pecos. Asked if the acquisition could lead to a regional office in Midland, she said staffing needs will be evaluated during the process of integrating the properties prior to closing in the second quarter. David L. Stover, Noble Energys chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in the announcement of the acquisition that the company is rapidly accelerating its activity plans for 2017, operating three rigs on its Southern Delaware acreage and one on the Clayton Williams Energy position, with a second rig to be added to the new acreage following the closing of the deal. Noble will then add a third rig later in the year with the intent of ending 2017 with six rigs operating on Nobles Delaware Basin acreage. Clayton Williams Energy brings to Noble 2,400 gross drilling locations targeting the upper and lower Wolfcamp A zones as well as the Wolfcamp B and C zones. Noble sees significant upside potential from other zones. Future horizontal drilling plans will include laterals averaging 8,000 feet. By 2020, Noble hopes to increase production on the new acreage from 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to between 60,000 and 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The deal also includes existing midstream assets of over 300 miles of oil, natural gas and produced water gathering pipelines over 100 miles for each product. Noble now expects to spend an additional $150 million in the Delaware Basin, bringing reported Delaware Basin spending to approximately $500 million in 2017. Highlights: - Noble will gain 2,400 Delaware Basin gross drilling locations targeting lower and upper Wolfcamp A - Noble now expects to spend an additional $150 million in the Delaware Basin, bringing reported Delaware Basin spending to approximately $500 million in 2017 - Net resource potential of the acreage being acquired is over 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the Wolfcamp alone - Noble plans to increase the production on the new acreage from 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to between 60,000 and 70,000 BOE by the end of 2020 After two years of being battered by low commodity prices, the Permian Basin oil and gas industry is showing increased signs of recovery. Although Novembers Texas Permian Basin Petroleum Index figures came in 17.5 percent below November 2015 levels, Amarillo Economist Karr Ingham, who prepares the index, said the index was higher than October levels and has shown month-over-month increases three out of the last four months. Strengthening commodity prices have helped lift the areas oil and gas economy in recent months. The November crude price average of $42.06 a barrel is 7.2 percent higher than November 2015s average of $39.23. Still, the year-to-date average of $39.01 is 15.9 percent below the 2015 year-to-date average of $46.41 a barrel. Natural gas prices followed a similar trend, with the November average of $2.28 per Mcf 14.6 percent higher than the November 2015 average of $1.99 per Mcf. The year-to-date average of $2.23 per Mcf is 13.2 percent lower than the 2015 year-to-date average of $2.57 per Mcf. Ingham said the rig count has continued to positively respond to the higher prices, nearly doubling from its low point reached in late April 2016. Even so, Ingham said the average rig count in November in the Railroad Commissions West Texas districts averaged 190, down 1 percent from 192 last November. The year-to-date average of 151 rigs is down 34.7 percent from 231 averaged in the first 11 months of 2015. Permian Basin crude volumes continue to rise, but the increase has shrunk from around 12 percent year-over-year to just 5.4 percent in November over November 2015 volumes. For the year, volumes are up 8.3 percent compared to the previous year. Natural gas volume growth was even sharper, soaring 18.2 percent in November over November 2015 but shrinking 4.5 percent in the first 11 months of 2016 compared to the first 11 months of 2015. Future oil field activity looks positive, as Ingham reported the number of drilling permits issued for the West Texas regions was up by double digits for a second consecutive month. The Railroad Commission issued 409 drilling permits in November, up 21.4 percent from 337 last November. The commission issued 4,187 permits through November, down 9.5 percent from the 4,627 issued in the same time frame of 2015. Producers reported 155 oil well completions in November, down 62.7 percent from 416 in November 2015. Through November, producers had completed 3,910 oil wells, down 60.9 percent from 10,008 a year earlier. There were 14 natural gas well completions reported in November, up 75 percent from eight the previous November. Year-to-date, producers completed 184 natural gas wells, down 21 percent from 233 the previous year. Ingham said the index would have been higher had he not revised it to reflect what he described as a more realistic industry employment picture. His new figures show November oil and gas employment was down 6.6 percent from November 2015 levels. For the year, employment was down by about 4,500 jobs or 14.7 percent, to an average 26,040, from the year-ago average of 30,510. While industry employment levels are lower than previous estimates had suggested, it does appear as though oil and gas employment in Midland and Odessa may have its low point in September, and a handful of jobs have been added in October and November, he said. Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton is ready for the 85th legislative session with a message to lawmakers similar to what RRC Chairman Christi Craddick offered last week when she spoke in Midland: Give the cash-strapped agency revenues from the natural gas utility tax it already collects. The RRC is funded largely by fees paid by the oil and gas industry, not the state, though lawmakers determine how much the agency can spend. Sitton spoke with the Reporter-Telegram on Thursday about the RRCs funding issues, the protesters in Balmorhea and other topics, including why Midland is the best place when it comes to dressing for events. Here are highlights from the conversation. MRT: RRC Chairman Christi Craddick recently talked with us about the severe employment issues the states oil and gas regulator faces. The commission is understaffed by 100 people and has 150 employees at or near retirement age. How do you address the issue? SITTON: I applaud Chairman Craddick for bringing that to light. Were understaffed by about 100 people, and thats being driven by our revenues being down substantially this year. The Legislature granted us the authority to spend about $80 million, but we only had about $64 million to spend because our revenues were down. We didnt have layoffs, but when people left, we didnt hire the people we needed to replace them, except in very rare cases. What we are all conscientious of is that in the next few years, at $60 a barrel, theres a lot of profitable oil and gas to be developed in this state. We know permits are going to be ramped back up again, and were going to see capital being deployed in new development. There will be rule questions, and I have to have staff to do that. While weve managed through the downturn, we have to be positioning for the next year and the year after that. So while were not asking for more money, we need more of the money youve authorized us to spend, and we will be building that staff back to support the state going forward. MRT: How detrimental will it be losing 150 employees to retirement? SITTON: We need to build the staff and the expertise to support the commission and the state for the next 20 years. So when I have 150 employees at near or retirement age, yes, its about the number of employees, but its more about the experience. If I have 100 employees leave over the next few years, its 100 of almost 700 employees but probably 50 to 60 percent of my experience. So thats really the piece that is so vital to us: bringing in people we can train to be technical experts five to 10 years from now. MRT: Craddick also mentioned that there wont be many if any information technology upgrades at the commission. SITTON: Weve had made some notable investments in IT development over the past three years, but we still have a long way to go. Chairman Craddick is correct. From a state budget perspective, were limited. The Legislature is saying we can only fund the things that absolutely need to be done. The governor, lieutenant governor and speaker have all been very public that Child Protective Services, school finance and health care are the big priorities that touch all Texans today. I agree with Craddick that the odds are were not going to get much in the way of funding new projects this year. It doesnt mean we dont need to do them, but its not going to be the highest priority for the Legislature. MRT: If you had the Legislatures undivided attention, what would you ask them for? SITTON: Increase the mechanism to give us the revenue that we need. I dont need authority to spend more money; I need to be able to bring in the money that youve given us the authority to spend. Theres a gas utility tax that the RRC already collects, and we turn around and give it to the general revenue fund. If they would let us keep those revenues, it would almost match up with the shortfall we have and wed be in great shape. MRT: Protesters are gathering at a site near Balmorhea State Park in Toyahvale in opposition to future Apache Corp. drilling in the area and pipelines for fear theyre pollute the springs there. Whats your message to them? SITTON: Pipelines are the safest way to move this product; theyre very reliable over long periods of time. When you talk more broadly about oil and gas anywhere, this industry does not utilize the same practices it did 40, 50 years ago. The track record over the past 10 years is exceptional. ... While everyone has room to improve, our track record is really, really strong. I try to tell everybody that nothing is 100 percent in life. We look at the world and ask how we can minimize risks to a level where all of us feel good that were protecting our communities and land, and I feel very good about that these days. So to the protesters, I understand no one wants this in their backyard, but at the same time, it is very good for our state, and the risks are very, very low for these things to do any sort of damage. MRT: You recently had a strong response to the EPAs settlement with environmental groups concerning its own review of regulations. SITTON: This is one of those instances where aside from your stance on the EPA versus the RRC, the federal government versus states rights, this was such a clear example of political gamesmanship. The EPA did not want to follow its own rulemaking process, so they settled a lawsuit with environmental agencies saying they would evaluate their rules as a way of pushing through rule changes. Its a shame that stuff has gone on and is acceptable, no matter what your political stance is. Its an example of bureaucracy and political gamesmanship at its worst. Hopefully its going to be over and we see the EPA work as a regulatory agency should. MRT: Have you picked up on the fashion trend among businessmen in Midland that no tie is required? SITTON: When I first started fundraising to run for political office, I dressed the part. Im going to be a statewide elected official, so Im going to be in a suit and tie. Pretty much anywhere I go these days in a Railroad Commission capacity, I wear a suit in tie. When I started coming to Midland, I was in a suit and tie, and by the third for fourth trip up there, I stopped wearing a tie because I realized that anywhere else in this state Houston, Dallas, anywhere you go to the big cities, the tie fits. Im not a tie guy. I hate ties, and I hate them with a passion. I love coming to Midland because I wear a dress shirt and jacket but no tie. I love it. Like Trevor on Facebook and follow him on Twitter at @HowdyHawes. Did you catch that footnote in the early budget numbers for the state of Texas? In the midst of all the weeks gloomy state budget news, this stuck out like a gold nugget in a cow patty: Rising property values in the states school districts translate into higher local tax revenue and a reduced need for state money for education. Thats another way of saying the state will spend $3.2 billion less in the next budget than it would have in large measure because property values are up and local taxpayers are unwittingly subsidizing the state. That frees state officials to spend their time talking about things like limiting local school districts ability to collect more taxes. Feel like everyone is giving you the straight scoop on this? Its not that everybody in state government is lying, its that its hard to change one thing in school finance without wrecking something else. Public schools in Texas will get 51.5 percent of their money from local property taxes in 2017, according to the Legislative Budget Board. Theyll get 38.4 percent from the state and the rest from the federal government. The local/state part of that equation works like a waterbed: When one side goes up, the other side goes down. When property values rise, local tax revenue tends to rise with it. That eases the need for more money from the state for public education. When the state budget is tight its tight now thats one big-ticket item the Legislatures budget writers can cross off their lists. Education remains, alongside health and human services, the biggest item in the state budget. But this keeps the lid on increases its $3.2 billion that lawmakers wont have to spend on education in the next budget. That couldnt come at a better time for the states budget writers. Comptroller Glenn Hegar told lawmakers this week that theyll have less money to spend in the next budget than they had for the current one. The states economic growth last year, expected to be 3.0 percent, turned out to be just 0.2 percent. Hegar has downgraded his original forecast of 4.1 percent growth for this fiscal year to 2.5 percent. Texas lawmakers are starting their session with $1.5 billion left in their accounts, but they expect to need at least that much and probably more just to cover some unanticipated costs in the current budget cycle that ends in August. Theyll be looking for places to save money, for programs and services that can be cut without too much harm and for sources of money from the states $11.9 billion rainy day fund to accounting tricks to favorable changes in federal spending to make up what some say is a $5 billion to $6 billion shortfall. Further squeezing budget writers options: Lawmakers, with the agreement of voters, dedicated up to $5 billion in sales taxes to transportation in 2015, taking a big bite out of what would have been available for general spending. Had property values around the state remained flat, your property tax bill might be the same next year but the state would be on the hook for $3.2 billion more for public schools or to cut education spending. Instead, local property taxpayers will cover that part of the shortfall, or about a third of what might have been without a continuing rise in real estate values. Your own legislators probably agree that youre getting thumped on local property taxes especially school taxes. The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit that keeps track of such things, says Texas has the sixth-highest property taxes in the United States (and 39th in combined state and local taxes paid per capita). They probably agree that your tax bill has been climbing too quickly the subject of legislative hearings and reports during the time between this session and the last one. They might be less willing to admit that rising property values are making a tight budget year a little easier to handle. They might not even be aware of it. Surely, theyd thank you for the help if they knew. In the last few weeks, the big news in Texas education circles is the new accountability ratings. We are preparing now for an A-F rating system in 2018. I have read article after article about the nonsense of how these ratings were established. I am sure that the majority of stakeholders are also aware of these new ratings and are just as curious as I was to see how our local schools fared. And, overwhelmingly, our little spot in Texas didnt do well at all. But it wasnt just Midland ISD. Schools that were traditionally considered to be top-notch also had troubles in the new system. The Texas Education Agency released last week a list of schools that are nominated for the National Blue Ribbon award: the best of the best schools in Texas. And, surprisingly multiple schools on that list had ratings of C or lower. In fact, 14 of the 26 schools had at least one C or D. This just shines an even brighter light on the flawed system. But, this rating system isnt the only flawed system in education. When this system was released, my first thought was: Wow, this new accountability rating system for schools is exactly what we do to children every, single day. And, not just children, but little children; 5- and 6-year-olds. We grade our students day in and day out with not much more than a thought to what we are doing to our youngest learners. So, please feel free to be outraged at the new school rating system. But please also be outraged at the grades we slap on our students every day. It might seem petty, and it might seem that I am delusional, but I promise that I am not. I am a practitioner. I work daily with students, teachers and parents. Until you have sat with a crying mom who is looking at her first-graders report card with an F for reading, you cant fully understand what this does to a child. How do you explain that a first- grader, a 6-year-old, failed reading? What does that even mean? And, does that mean the same thing in every classroom? Does it mean that the child cant read or cant memorize site words assigned for homework? Does it mean the child cant sit still during small group? Does it mean the child is still nonverbal? Does it mean that homework is rarely completed? What does an F mean? When searching for the meaning of our newest school ratings, lets also have a conversation about the ratings we give our students because there is most definitely a connection between the two. I understand that grades are important for high school students and college applications, top 10, scholarships, etc. I have now worked at all levels of education -- from pre-K through graduate-level courses, so I get that grades are necessary sometimes. I also understand that grades are one way to measure performance and are somewhat of a necessity in schools. There has to be accountability, and grades help to give structure for that. But what worries me is that we are grading students based on inconsistent systems and labeling them before they even have the opportunity to grow. By giving a first-grader an F for reading or math, we are selecting that child as a high school dropout at least 9 times out of 10. By lining up A honor roll students in front of peers during assemblies, we are highlighting the idea that early success is the only acceptable success. This honor roll system is no different than the state of Texas sending out lists of grades for all Texas schools. When our imperfections are highlighted across the state, it causes doom and gloom. It causes teachers to want to give up. This is no different than what it does to our students. Failing students want to give up. So, be horrified at the thought of the Texas Education Agency sending out a press release with grades for our schools, but be equally horrified at how we have become entrenched in publicly highlighting students for grades. Because, highlighting the As also shines a very bright light on the Fs. I would love a total overhaul of the grading of students and schools. I would love to see developing and mastered as words used on report cards instead of A and F -- for both schools and students. So, from my standpoint as a school leader, this makes our PLCs (professional learning communities) so very important. The conversations that our teachers have during this sacred time with each other can be used to create mastery standards for students and to discuss how students will be measured and graded based on a common standard. Conversations within PLCs can help with standardization of grading, intervention ideas for struggling students, brainstorming for new and innovative methods and techniques and collaboration with colleagues. We must continue as school leaders to keep this time sacred for our teachers because the success of students depends on allowing our teachers to have time with each other. What this also means is that when thinking about how we can get better and improve performance, lets think at the student level instead of the school level. Lets look at individual learners and their potential versus worrying about global school grades that really dont mean much. The grades that TEA slapped on us mean one thing: We must continue to work at reaching our students and help each one, individually, grow as learners. There is no other way. Jennifer Seybert is principal of Abell Junior High School. On Friday, January 20, at 12.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "Agenda 2017: Trump, World, Ukraine." The participants will include Director of the Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov, expert of the Gardarica Strategic Consulting Corporation Kostiantyn Matviyenko, and director of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological service Viktor Nebozhenko (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation. AUSTIN, Texas This could be the year Texas raises the smoking age to 21. For a decade, the concept has been a pipe dream of Democrats and doctors bent on finding ways to keep Texans, especially kids, from picking up the habit. But this year it has backing from some powerful Republicans whose support could mean Texas will become just the third state to hike its smoking age above 19. We can move this bill forward, said Rep. John Zerwas, a Richmond Republican and physician who will champion the effort in the House. He will be joined by Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, and Sens. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, and Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, who will each file a bill. Raising the minimum legal age to buy products like cigarettes and chewing tobacco has been the goal of Texas Democrats for at least a decade. But with Republicans decrying the effort as an infringement on personal liberty that could cost the state millions of dollars in lost tax revenue, the wish went up in smoke every time it was proposed. Five times, Uresti has tried to convince fellow lawmakers that hiking the smoking age will save lives and reduce the states health care costs in the long term. He started small in 2007, proposing Texas raise the tobacco purchase age to 19. He failed. In 2009, he got his bill through the Senate, but it died in the House. In 2011, 2013 and 2015, the proposal never made it off the starting block. This year, with bipartisan support, Uresti said hes excited about possibly realizing this longtime goal. We have as good a chance as weve ever had, said Uresti. Im just glad. I welcome all the support we can get. Raising the smoking age will save lives and money, according to Dr. Ernest Hawk, vice president of cancer prevention at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. This is a high priority for us as an institution because its exactly what were here to do, Hawk said. This directly aligns with our mission of eliminating cancer in Texas and the world because this is one of the best ways to do that. Tobacco use in Texas and nationally is down, thanks in large part to anti-smoking campaigns and increased cigarette taxes, Hawk said. And smoking rates are lower in Texas than the countrys average, with just 15.9 percent of adults admitting to the habit in 2013. But raising the tobacco purchase age to 21 could result in an additional 12 percent decrease in tobacco use among adults, according to a 2015 report from the National Academy of Medicine, and a 33 percent reduction in the use of all tobacco products by 18- to 20-year-old Texans, according to a 2013 analysis by the Texas comptrollers office. Thats because people who dont start smoking when theyre teenagers are less likely to pick up the habit when they get older. Raising the smoking age, Hawk added, means theres more distance between the population most curious about cigarettes teens and those who could legally buy the product for them. The state will also save money in the long run because it wont have to care for as many people beset by tobacco-related illnesses, like cancer and emphysema, and fewer babies with tobacco-linked ailments would be born if the smoking rate decreases. The savings could be as much as $406 million over five years, according to an analysis from the Department of State Health Services. Texas could save nearly $5.6 billion in health care costs over 25 years, the department estimates, and preterm births would reduce by 11.6 percent over 20 years. Reductions in tobacco-related illnesses will take decades to realize, the state analysis reads. But there would be immediate reduction in adverse physiological effects and poor infant health outcomes. While the long-term benefits are clear, the four lawmakers who want to raise the smoking age are likely to have to fight against those who argue that doing so will cost Texas in the short term. Every smoker knows the state taxes every pack of cigarette, tin of dip and can of snuff. Raising the minimum age to buy these products by three years would mean a loss of nearly $100 million in taxes over five years, according to a 2013 analysis of one of Urestis past bills. Some Republicans might also have a problem with Texas throwing its lot in with the likes of Hawaii and California, the only other states that have raised the smoking age above 19. Hawk who said he was pleasantly surprised this idea has Republican support for the first time in a decade said the club wont be so small for long. More than a dozen other states are considering raising the smoking age, he said, pointing again to the long-term cost benefits, which far outweigh the short-term costs. I would love for Texas to be on this end of it, he said. Its a really important investment. Zerwas also shrugged off both potential criticisms. Theres obviously some people who are going to see this as an infringement on rights and stuff, and those voices need to be heard, Zerwas said. And yeah, thats a loss of potential revenue, but one we can probably make up somewhere else. Whats more important than the health of our youth and future generations? Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Michigan Technological University is one of 85 partners in a US Department of Energy-funded $70 million energy-saving project called the REMADE (Reducing Embodied-energy and Decreasing Emissions) Institute. The projects goal is to drive down the cost of technologies needed to reuse, recycle and remanufacture materials such as metals, fibers, polymers and electronic waste. Ultimately REMADE hopes to achieve a 50 percent improvement in overall energy efficiency by 2027. The REMADE Institute will be led by the Rochester Institute of Technologys Golisano Institute for Sustainability in Rochester, New York. It is the fifth Department of Energy institute in a multiagency network called Manufacturing USA or the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. Michigan Techs Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI) is coordinating the involvement of Michigan Tech faculty and staff in this multidisciplinary research initiative. Research projects will focus on improving the ways that materials like plastics, metals, woody fibers and e-waste can be recycled and re-utilized in current or new product systems. SFI staff will also help industry partners evaluate the sustainability impacts of these new technology improvements, to ensure that US manufacturing industries are focused on making changes that are good for people and good for the planet, as well as offering economic advantages to the businesses making these improvements. "The DOE REMADE institute will be a great opportunity for Michigan Tech to be involved in important new developments across the manufacturing industry, says SFI Operations Manager Robert Handler. We look forward to developing projects with Michigan Tech faculty and industry partners to support the overall REMADE focus on more sustainable manufacturing systems." Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigans flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure. New members inducted into Institute of ... (Xinhua) 08:16, January 16, 2017 Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st L) are received by Swiss President Doris Leuthard (2nd R) and her husband Roland Hausin at the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a welcome ceremony held by all members of the Swiss Federal Council in Bern on Sunday. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday that he is looking forward to consolidating friendship and boosting cooperation between China and Switzerland at a welcome ceremony hosted by the seven members of the Swiss Federal Council. Xi arrived in the Swiss financial hub of Zurich Sunday noon to pay a four-day state visit to the Alpine country, the first by a Chinese president in the 21st century. Before traveling by train to the capital city of Bern, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan were greeted by Swiss President Doris Leuthard and her husband Roland Hausin at the airport in Zurich. The two heads of state had a brief talk in the journey. "My visit is aimed at consolidating our friendship, boosting our cooperation and promoting peace and development together with the Swiss side," the Chinese president told the seven Swiss Federal Councillors at the welcome ceremony held at the Federal Palace in the historical Old Town of Bern. "I am looking forward to having talks with the Swiss side on deepening our practical cooperation in various areas and enriching the meaning of our innovative strategic partnership," Xi said. During his Switzerland trip, the president is also scheduled to attend the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the ski resort of Davos, and to visit the headquarters of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the World Health Organization in Geneva and the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne. Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Davos meeting on Jan. 17 and another one at the UNOG on Jan. 18. The president will be the first Chinese head of state to attend the Davos meeting. "I hope to, through attending the WEF annual meeting and visiting the international organizations, gather consensus with all sides on maintaining world peace, promoting common development and settling major global issues under the current situation, thus delivering positive energies to the international community," the president said. Speaking at the welcome ceremony, Leuthard said Switzerland is a trustworthy partner for China. She lauded the bilateral relations as being full of life, noting that the relations had reached the highest level in history last year when the two countries established an innovative strategic partnership. Stressing that Xi's visit will deepen the bilateral relations, Leuthard said the Swiss side is willing to discuss cooperation with the Chinese side in promoting China's Belt and Road Initiative and other areas, and strengthening communication and coordination within the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. The Swiss president also extended festival greetings to President Xi and the Chinese people on the approaching traditional Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, which falls on Jan. 28 this year. The two heads of state will hold an official talk on Monday. New Melones Reservoir View Photos Sonora, CA While New Melones Reservoir is only at 62% of its historical average, there is currently two-times as much water than this point a year ago. New Melones was hit amongst the hardest during the drought due to its steeper requirements for downstream water releases. It is a controversial issue. Click here to read an earlier story from last week detailing the latest on that situation. New Melones is currently holding 865,466 acre ft. of water and it has a total capacity for 2.4 million acre ft., according to the California Department of Water Resources. At this point in 2016, it was 24% of its historical average and holding 339,186 acre ft. You can see in the photo a boat traveling across New Melones this past Saturday, a positive sign for the tourism industry. Meanwhile, Don Pedro Reservoir is now at 133% of average and 90% capacity. Water managers stepped up flow releases prior to last weeks storm systems to avoid flooding. Lake McClure, which is utilized by the Lake Don Pedro Community Services District, is at 146% of its historical average and 67% of capacity. Other major reservoirs, like Lake Shasta are at 126% of average and 81% of capacity, and Lake Oroville is 126% of average and 80% of capacity. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan enjoy tea and conversation with Swiss President Doris Leuthard and her husband Roland Hausin in a special train on their way to Bern, capital of Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. After the welcome ceremony at the Zurich airport, Xi traveled to the Swiss capital of Bern by a special train of the Swiss government. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke highly of the China-Switzerland partnership here on Sunday, saying it has become a paradigm of relations between countries of different sizes. Accompanied by his Swiss counterpart Doris Leuthard, Xi made the remarks during a tea chat on a special train of the Swiss government running from Zurich to Bern, during his ongoing visit to the European country. Appreciating the years' commitment of Leuthard to deepening the two countries' cooperation in all areas, Xi said he is glad to visit Switzerland at the beginning of 2017 and attend the World Economic Forum (WEF). As one of the first Western countries to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the People' s Republic of China, Switzerland has taken the lead in developing cooperation with China, recording a trove of "firsts" in this process, Xi said. He cited Switzerland's lead on the continental Europe to sign and implement a free trade agreement with China, and join the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In 2016, Switzerland became the first and only country to set up a strategic partnership with China featuring innovation. "During this visit, I would like to engage in in-depth talks with President Leuthard and other Swiss leaders, to enrich our partnership, and boost our cooperation in all areas," Xi said. He added that China, sharing similar views with Switzerland on many international issues, wishes to work with the European nation to enhance their coordination in international affairs. Noting that China encourages more and more Chinese tourists to travel to Switzerland, Xi said China, which is to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, stands ready to promote cooperation with Switzerland on developing winter sports. For her part, Leuthard thanked Xi for choosing her country as the destination of his first state visit in 2017, saying the decision represents the importance China has attached to Switzerland. Switzerland stands ready to push forward cooperation with China on various fields, said Leuthard. China is an influential country in the world, said Leuthard, adding that the international community looks forward to hearing Xi's exposition of China's policies at the WEF as the world is facing many uncertainties right now, said the Swiss leader. Xi will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the WEF annual meeting on Tuesday to share the views of the world's second largest economy on charting the course for globalization. During the chat, the two leaders also exchanged views on such issues as Belt and Road Initiative and green development. They agreed to propel the two countries' cooperation in science and technology, innovation, connectivity, infrastructure construction, clean energy and regional-level exchanges. A shooting attack at an electronic music festival in Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen on Monday left five people dead, including two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian, authorities said. Five dead, including two Canadians Officials say the shooting was not a terrorist attack Female victim killed in stampede following shots fired The attorney general of Quintana Roo state said that three of the dead were part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival. The fourth and fifth victims have not been identified. Miguel Angel Pech said the shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m. outside the Blue Parrot nightclub, one of the BPM Festival's venues in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. It was apparently the festival's closing event. Pech said a lone gunman apparently tried to enter the nightclub, but was denied access because he had a gun. The gunman began to exchange fire with another person inside, he said, and festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire. Pech said it was not a terrorist attack, and said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. "We know of another shooting incident that occurred near the nightclub, but we are investigating whether that is related" to the nightclub shootings," Pech said. He said 20 bullet casings from three different pistols had been found at the scene, and said it was unclear if the security detail had been armed or fired any of the weapons. The government of the township that includes Playa de Carmen referred in a statement to "attackers who fired shots," but did not provide further details. The shooting apparently caused a rush of people heading for the exits at the beach-side club, and the lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. Pech said 15 people were injured, included one Mexican woman who was seriously injured. He said eight of the injured -including two U.S. citizens and one Canadian -had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. He said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of "a disagreement between people inside" the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. The BPM Festival posted a statement saying four people had been killed and 12 injured in an attack that involved "a lone shooter." BPM wrote that "the violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue." Playa del Carmen has largely been spared the violence that has hit other parts of Mexico. Canada's Global Affairs office confirmed the death of one Canadian and said it was investigating reports of another. Italy's Foreign Ministry confirmed one its citizens died. 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. The wife of the man behind the deadly terrorist attack at Pulse nightclub in Orlando has been arrested on charges stemming from the mass shooting that killed 49 people, federal authorities said Monday. Noor Salman taken into custody at her home near San Francisco Salman is the wife of Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen Investigators did not believe she was truthful about Mateen's attack plans RELATED: Full coverage of the deadly attack at Pulse nightclub Noor Salman was taken into custody by FBI agents Monday at her home outside of San Francisco. Prosecutors had been weighing charges against her in the aftermath of the June 12, 2016, attack that killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others. Salman's husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with police during the rampage in the gay club located just south of downtown Orlando. Orlando Police Chief John Mina in a statement said Salman was taken into custody on charges of aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization and obstruction of justice. "I am glad to see that Omar Mateen's wife has been charged with aiding her husband in the commission of the brutal attack on the Pulse nightclub," Mina said. "Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months, and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served in this act of terror that has affected our community so deeply." Continued Mina: "Nothing can erase the pain we all feel about the senseless and brutal murders of 49 of our neighbors, friends, family members and loved ones. But today, there is some relief in knowing that someone will be held accountable for that horrific crime." FBI agents questioned Salman in the aftermath of the shooting about whether she had advance knowledge of her husband's attack. Salman told The New York Times in an interview published last fall that she knew her husband had watched jihadist videos but that she was "unaware of everything" regarding his plans to shoot up the nightclub. She also said he physically abused her. "Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night," her attorney, Linda Moreno, said in a statement reported by The Associated Press. "Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person." Salman is expected to make her initial appearance at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Oakland, California. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. HART -- David Cox, Hart ISD superintendent, told the Hart School Board during its January meeting that the new A through F grades levied on school districts by the Texas Education Agency needs a lot of work. The new system is preliminary and wont kick in until 2018. The early grades, when applied to the 2016 accountability ratings that are based on four performance indices, would give Hart ISD two Fs (Student Achievement and Postsecondary Readiness); a C for Student Progress and a D for Closing Performance Gaps. Hart ISD scored 57 on Student Achievement (target score is 60); a 26 on Student Progress (target score is 17); a 29 on Closing Performance Gaps (target score is 30); and 55 on Postsecondary Readiness (target score is 60). TEA says that a letter grade has an advantage because parents and taxpayers can more easily understand the system. These early grades are designed to allow districts to ramp up to the ones that count. Critics have been advised to tell the Texas Legislature and TEA how the grading system can be improved in 2017. Cox told the board during the Jan. 9 session that he would have a resolution for it to consider approving, asking the Texas commissioner of education not to roll out the grading system because it needs a lot of work. In addressing Postsecondary Readiness, Cox told the board that he would like to bring back dual-credit classes for juniors and seniors. Its been a number of years since these classes have been offered at Hart ISD. The classes allow students to earn high school and college credit at the same time. Cox said that classes would include U.S. History, English, Government and Economics and College Algebra. He said that the classes could be offered long-distance using technology through either Amarillo College or West Texas A&M University. The classes not only would help with college readiness, but students would have a leg up on having earned several college credits before graduating from high school. Cox said that the classes would cost $150 and if the students did not pay, they would not be able to graduate from high school. In other business, Cox told the board that he had mailed a funding resolution asking the Legislature to remove the small school penalty in funding. He reported that it was sent to State Sen. Kel Seliger and State Rep. King. Cox said that a bill addressing this is sponsored by Sen. Nichols and Rep. Ashby. The small school formula of .00025 multiplier, compared to a .0004 multiplier for larger schools, brought in $2,664,642 for fiscal year 2016 for Hart ISD. If the large-school multiplier had been used, Hart ISD would have received $398,999 more in funding. The multipliers are based on a formula adopted by the Legislature in 1975 that was passed because many legislators at that time felt there were too many small districts that needed to be consolidated, and thus the lower-yielding formula was adopted for small districts covering fewer than 300 square-miles. Hart ISD covers 144 square-miles in its district, according to Cox. In discussing Coxs appraisal evaluation, it was decided that the board wanted the longer-evaluation form. Board member Angelica Ramirez said she is familiar with the longer form, and prefers that. Cox had included a shorter, two-page evaluation, in the board packet of information. January is School Board Recognition Month; Cox praised Harts board at the meeting. The board is comprised of Board President Erasmo Mata and members Steven Reyna, Martha Gonzales, Angelica Ramirez and Mary Ann Carrasco. There are two board vacancies. After a closed session, the board accepted the resignation of Xiong Chen as high school science teacher, and the employment of Alexah Riley, middle school math teacher. (Global Times) 09:17, January 16, 2017 China and Vietnam have issued a joint communique pledging to manage maritime differences and protect peace and stability in the South China Sea, as the four-day visit of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong to China came to an end. The two countries vowed to seek basic and long-term solutions acceptable to both sides through negotiations, and discuss transitional solutions that will not affect each other's stance, including research on joint development, the communique said. Both sides agreed to manage sea differences and avoid any act that may complicate the situation and escalate tensions, so as to protect peace and stability in the South China Sea, it said. "China and Vietnam have achieved a major breakthrough in controlling maritime conflicts, as the specific contingency plans and communication mechanism rolled out in the communique will prevent fishing disputes from escalating into military confrontations," Zhuang Guotu, head of the Center of Southeast Asian Studies at Xiamen University, told the Global Times. Zhuang said previous agreements reached by the two sides over dispute control were sometimes difficult to implement. "The joint communique is the most comprehensive and highest-level agreement reached by China and Vietnam in recent years, since officials from the Vietnamese party, government and military accompanying Trong all had exchanges with their Chinese counterparts," Zhuang said. Trong met with five of the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, including General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiangand top legislator Zhang Dejiang. Separately, Chinese Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Fan Changlongand Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquanmet with Vietnamese Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich on Friday. The two defense ministries issued a joint statement on defense cooperation before 2025. As differences on the South China Sea issue subside, frequent exchanges between the two sides can consolidate favorable external conditions for China, Xu Liping, a research fellow at the National Institute of International Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. Resolving Beibu Gulf conflict A sovereignty dispute on waters beyond the Beibu Gulf remains a major obstacle for both sides, following the resolution of the boundary dispute in the gulf, Zhuang said. Tensions between the two countries were heightened in May 2014 after China engaged in oil drilling activities to explore waters to the South of Zhongjian Island of the Xisha Islands. In mid-May, riots broke out against Chinese people and companies. At least two Chinese nationals were killed and over 100 injured, which led to the evacuation of Chinese nationals working in Vietnam. Vietnam, which realized confrontation with China yields nothing, has gained by cooperating with China, Xu said. "Such cooperation will become more significant after US President-elect Donald Trumptakes office and US influence [on the South China Sea issue] diminishes," Xu added. Zhuang stressed regional economic cooperation, such as connectivity projects within the gulf, will not only improve bilateral ties but enhance mutual trust over waters outside the gulf, paving the way for a lasting solution to the South China Sea disputes. The Beibu Gulf Port in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region now sends 26 ships a week to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar - almost all the major ports in Southeast Asia. Xu said military cooperation and joint inspections should continue to increase mutual trust, a prerequisite to resolving sovereignty disputes. China and Vietnam completed a joint inspection of waters outside Beibu Gulf in April 2016. The inspection focused on geological conditions outside the mouth of the Beibu Gulf, an area potentially rich in mineral resource. On Jan. 4, on a 76-72 party-line vote, Democrats in the Connecticut House reaffirmed their position that theres no need for members to vote on contracts with state employee unions. House Republicans have proposed such a rule change several times in recent years, and did so again at the beginning of this session, hoping to require lawmakers to go on record on all contracts with state employee unions. Nothing prevents us from doing it tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said of the rule change, but there has been no indication that such a change may actually happen. For now, contract approval by default remains in place. And why shouldnt state lawmakers have to go on record when they tacitly approve a contract especially now that fulfilling the terms of past union contracts has proved to be such a strain on the states finances? Our lawmakers in Hartford should follow the lead of Connecticuts town and city councils, which generally have to vote on all major contracts into which their municipalities enter. That would make the process more transparent and give state legislators an opportunity to thoroughly review the contracts. Instead, they emulate Congress, where legislators have found ways to have their own pay raises go through without a recorded vote. With the General Assembly facing a deficit of around $3 billion over the next two fiscal years, this would seem to be the time to make such a change. Its a role of the legislature to be part of such a decision-making process, said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby. While the Democratic majority already has the ability to call any contract for a vote, they have little motivation to do so when the labor deal has been handed down to them by a Democratic governor, Dannel P. Malloy. Things are different in the Senate, and thats an encouraging sign. After Republicans reached parity with Democrats in the last election, the membership is split evenly between the major parties, allowing a power-sharing agreement under which either side could bring a labor contract to a vote. This strikes us as an improvement, in that it brings more transparency to a process that may remind the average voter of the smoke-filled rooms of yore, where so many important decisions were made behind closed doors. I heard the minority leaders comments, new House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, told The CT Mirror. Aresimowicz, who works for AFSCME, a major public-sector union, said he would act in the best interest of the state. It seems to us that its in the best interest of the state to conduct its business with more openness, more transparency. Ritter, although he opposed the change this time, said, Our rules can be changed. The conversation needs to continue. We hope it will. One year after opening with 57 charter members, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank would still welcome the US to join its ranks, the bank's president Jin Liqun has said. "The door will remain open," Jin said in a television interview, when asked whether he expected the US to reconsider becoming a member. He said: "We maintain a consistent policy. The AIIB is a multilateral development institution." Approximately 30 economies are waiting to join, Jin said at the bank's headquarters in Beijing. The lender, with $100 billion of pledged capitalpart of China's push to expand the nation's economic benefits to others, backed nine projects in seven countries last year. Before it opened in January 2016, US President Barack Obama rejected joining, only to see several of its closest allies sign up. Now Beijing is preparing for the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, who's already straining ties before taking office on Jan 20. Jin, a former deputy finance minister who also has worked at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank on China's behalf, is still optimistic despite recent tensions. He said: "We can work very well together." He added that senior officials in the US government, including both Democrats and Republicans, have shared with him their praise for the new institution. He said: "I'm encouraged by the very positive comments on the AIIB." The AIIB got a boost last year when the UK, Germany, France and Italy became members. Other US allies such as Australia, South Korea and Canada also joined, leaving the US and Japan as the only nations to hold off joining. The AIIB's inaugural projects ranged from a slum upgrading project in Indonesia to a new pipeline linking gas fields in Azerbaijan to markets in southern Europe, via Turkey. The bank lent $1.73 billion in 2016, exceeding an earlier target of $1.2 billion. Jin said 75 percent of the bank's projects so far are proposed and co-financed with existing lenders, including the Washington-based World Bank, Manila-based ADB and London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, while AIIB staff selected the remainder. The AIIB will continue to collaborate closely with those other multilateral lenders while beefing up its own capability and working to increase its disbursements, according to Jin. "The pipeline is getting bigger," and the bank's priority is to "have a better balance across the regions, countries and sectors," he said. Jin, one of the first postgraduate students to study English literature after China's cultural revolution (196676), is fluent in English and French and translated The House of Morgan, a book on the JP Morgan empire by US author Ron Chernow, into Chinese in 1996. He also served as supervisory chairman of the country's sovereign wealth fund. Now, he said, he's confident the country's economy will fare well during its transition to new drivers of growth. He said: "China is faced with a number of challenges, particularly restructuring the economy, moving from excessive dependence on external sectors to domestic consumption, and improving the efficiency of the Chinese economy, not aiming at simply the numbers of the growth." Factories and services activities capped a year of strengthening across several indicators. But under the hood, risks remain: Increasing pressure on the yuan, rising capital outflows and concern Trump may make good on threats of punitive measures against China's exports. Foreign reserves fell for a sixth month in December, bringing the 2016 drop to $320 billion. The government has recently announced new measures, including extra requirements for citizens converting yuan into foreign currencies. Jin said: "Some measure to address this issue in my view probably is necessary. I hope things would stabilize very soon, and panicking on part of investors would disappear." He said the global economic outlook this year is more positive than last year. "If you look at the short-term cyclical recovery, and long-term trend, these two factors seem to be doing pretty well," Jin said. "That would in my view favor infrastructure investment both in emerging market economies and in developed countries, which in turn will help sustain growth. It is gratifying to learn that even in the US, they would like to spend more money on infrastructure." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Plastics, chemical and refining company LyondellBasell has donated $100,000 toward specialized emergency training for six Houston-area fire departments. The money will cover scholarships for firefighters in Houston, Channelview, La Porte, Mont Belvieu, Pasadena and Sheldon to undergo 1,200 hours of training given by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service. Those departments handle incidents in the metro area's main industrial corridors. "We recognize the challenges fire departments in Houston and smaller outlying communities face in obtaining this unique type of training," LyondellBasell CEO Bob Patel said in a statement. "We believe in being a responsible, good neighbor where we operate and are pleased we can help in saving lives and protecting our communities." RELATED: LyondellBasell to build $700M plastics plant in Houston area In statements, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Fire Chief Samuel Pena said the donation will help the city's emergency readiness. "With Houston being the 'energy capital of the world,' it is important that we stay up to date with the dynamic arena that is hazardous materials," Pena said. Brett Coomer/HC staff Rice Universitys Jones Graduate School of Business will host a public conference Jan. 20 that will explore diversity and inclusion in business. Keynote and panel themes will cover such topics as Houstons changing demographics, diversity in business leadership and workplace collaboration among different generations. There also will be a networking session. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Five convenience stores, a Starbucks coffee shop and a 54th Street restaurant are among new businesses slated to hit the San Antonio area in the coming months, state filings show. Stripes Convenience Stores is set to open two stores in January one at 4038 E. Houston St. on the citys East Side and one at 2215 SE Military Drive on the citys Southeast Side, according to a news release. This brings the Corpus Christi-based convenience store operators San Antonio footprint to five locations. Each store will also have a Laredo Taco Co. restaurant, the company said in the release. The Stripes stores arent alone. CST Brands Inc., the San Antonio-based operator of Corner Stores, plans to break ground on a $1.5 million convenience store at 9130 W. Loop 1604 N. on the citys Northwest Side in April, according to filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Construction is expected to end in December. CST currently has 65 Corner Store locations in San Antonio, according to a store locator on its website. CST is currently undergoing a $4.4 billion cash merger with Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which operates the Circle K brand of convenience stores. The merger is expected to be finalized early this year after clearing regulatory hurdles in the United States and Canada. San Antonio-based Nooners Convenience Stores plans to add a 5,000-square-foot store at the intersection of Judson Road and Independence Avenue on the citys Northeast Side, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation filings show. Expected construction costs are tallied at $600,000 and construction will last from March to December, according to online filings. Northwest Petroleum, a Houston-based convenience store operator, is adding a convenience store and restaurant at 8922 Airport Blvd. just outside the San Antonio International Airport, filings show. The filing doesnt name the brand of the store or restaurant, but Northwest Petroleum operates the Q Mart brand of convenience stores that have restaurant presences from Burger King, Churchs Chicken, Steak n Shake and Dennys, according to its website. Convenience stores arent the only retail segment beefing up their San Antonio presence. Dollar General Corp. plans to build two $650,000 stores this year, according to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The Tennessee-based discount retailer will begin construction on a store at Landmark 35 Drive and Randolph Boulevard on the citys Northeast Side in February and another at New Sulphur Springs Road on the citys far East Side in March. Both stores are slated to be finished by July. Dollar General recently completed its $100 million, 1 million-square-foot distribution center at 6601 Cal Turner Drive. The center is expected to employ more than 530 workers with an estimated annual payroll of $19.2 million as it receives a 10-year, 75 percent abatement of Bexar County taxes on qualified real and personal property. Starbucks fans will soon have another spot to grab their Frappuccinos and flat whites from. The Seattle coffee giant plans to start construction on a $700,000 store at 8110 W. Loop 1604 N. this month, state construction filings show. Its scheduled to end in June. 54th Street Restaurant & Drafthouse will add a fourth San Antonio-area location at 880 E. Rector St. on the citys North Side, filings show. Construction on the $1.8 million restaurant will last six months from March to September, according to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. 54th Street already has three Grill & Bar restaurants in the San Antonio area, according to its website. Have a scoop about store and restaurant openings or local retail? Questions, complaints, tips? Email Joshua Fechter or follow him on Twitter. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The futuristic fun doesn't stop at the annual North American International Auto Show, now under way in Detroit. On Saturday, this year's first day of full public access, Chevrolet and some students from Detroit's Cody Rouge community unveiled a life-size Batmobile made entirely of LEGO blocks. Measuring 17 feet long, the race-car-style vehicle was inspired by Batman's "Speedwagon" featured in "The LEGO Batman Movie," opening Feb. 10 in U.S. theaters. BATMAN MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Trucks, SUVs take spotlight at Detroit 2017 auto show Although Batman prefers to work alone as a super hero, in this Warner Bros. animation, he must learn to cooperate and connect with others to save Gotham City from The Joker, Chevrolet said in a release. "To work on the LEGO Batmobile with Warner Bros. is an absolute thrill for us at Chevy," Paul Edwards, U.S. vice president of Chevrolet marketing, said in a statement. "Many of the themes in "The LEGO Batman Movie," like imagination, family and community, align perfectly with our Chevy brand values and add to the value of the partnership." NOSTALGIA NOTE: Ford Bronco, other classics make comeback at auto show LEGO Batmobile fast facts: - It's 83 inches (6.92 feet) high, 204 inches (17 feet) long and 111 inches (9.25 feet) wide. - It's total weight is 1,695.5 pounds. Each tire is just over 100 pounds. - The interior frame is made from more than 86 feet of square-tube aluminum and weighs 282.5 pounds. - LEGO Master Builders used 344,187 LEGO bricks in 17 colors to make the Batmobile - The LEGO Batmobile took 222 hours to design and 1,833 hours to build. - It was designed and assembled in the LEGO Model Shop in Enfield, Conn. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A Wisconsin man and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted showed up in a surprising place - El Paso, Texas. FBI Agents and El Paso police officers arrested 24-year-old Terry A.D. Strickland on Sunday morning on warrants stemming from the shooting of two men in Milwaukee on July 17. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail. In a statement, the FBI said they received a tip in the last several days that Strickland was temporarily living in El Paso. Investigators tracked him down from there. Milwaukee police found two men, ages 38 and 39, shot outside the home where Strickland was believed to be living at with his daughter, officials said. TEXAS FUGITIVE: Man sought for 1983 slaying in Austin added to FBI list Witnesses said the shooting grew out of a group of seven or eight men arguing in front of the home, the FBI said. Strickland is charged with using a .40-caliber handgun and shooting into the group. FBI Strickland allegedly then stood over one man and repeatedly shot him. He then turned around and shot the other victim in the head, officials said. He then fled the scene and left his daughter at the home, officials said. Strickland, who is originally from Illinois, was charged with two counts of first degree intentional homicide with the use of a dangerous weapon. An arrest warrant was issued for him on July 28. SOUGHT: Fugitive last seen in Houston added to most wanted sex offender list A charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution was added against Strickland and a federal warrant was then issued for his arrest by the U.S. Eastern District of Wisconsin. Strickland had a $100,000 reward offered for any information leading to his arrest. Strickland was the 512th fugitive to be placed on the FBIs Most Wanted list which was established in 1950. >>>Click through the gallery to see the most wanted fugitives in Texas. SAN ANTONIO Texas Tornados drummer Ernie Durawa credits jazz violinist and music teacher Sebastian Campesi for his music career. Campesi died Jan. 13 from complications of emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 95. He opened the door to my musical career, and I will always be grateful for that, said Durawa, who attended Edgewood High School, where Campesi was musical director. Durawa was student there from 1958 to 1961. In 1995, Durawa returned the favor by lining up professional musicians, a recording engineer and a mobile recording unit for a session at Campesis near-North Side home to cut an album. I pretty much got him out of retirement, Durawa said about the 15-song recording. Campesi, known as Campi, moved to San Antonio in 1955. Over his long career, he performed with the San Antonio Symphony, Jim Cullum and Small World. He even once jammed with Benny Goodman. The recording was issued as an indie CD, I Want to Be Happy. The album was credited as Sebastian Campesi and the Ernie Durawa Trio. Campesis death hit Durawa hard. They were close friends. Im truly heartbroken as we had a close releationship, he said. Every year, he was the first one to call to wish me a happy birthday. I knew something was wrong when I didnt hear from him this year. I will forever cherish his memory and his mentoring. Recorded in August 1995, the album included such songs as Stars Fell on Alabama, Tea For Two, Satin Doll, Wave, Body and Soul, Just a Closer Walk With Thee and On the Sunny Side of the Street. Joining Campesi and Durawa were bassist Dan Hall and guitarist Russ Scanlon. They were world class, Durawa said. Musician Hank Harrison and Jerry Lindermann helped with the CDs graphics. Photographer Dave Haussner shot the cover. And even the legendary George Chambers lent a hand in getting the music out in the CD format. Harrison also studied under Campesi. When he learned about his death, he located a copy of the symphony booket Meet the Orchestra 1975-1976, which contained a brief biography of the violinist who loved jazz violin and Texas swing fiddle. Campesi was born into a musical family in Jamestwon, New York, and his earliest training came from his father and uncles. He was known for the violin but could play clarinet and piano, too. He was proud of his private teachers: Joe Knitzer, Samuel Applebaum, Thaddeus Rich and Kark Grossman. He attended Temple University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Case-Western Reserve University, Emory University and Trinity University and did his doctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin. Campesis musical experiences were as rich as his education. He worked at Radio City Music Hall and with the Meyer Davis Orchestra and Essex County Orchestra. In the public school system, he worked as a music director, band and orchestra director, fine arts cooridinator and principal. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America, the Lions Club and the Optimist Club. It should be noted that Campesi also is among the elite musicians whose solos and musicianship were captured over the years on Jim Cullums Riverwalk Jazz Collection, a live music series broadcast live on public radio for decades at the Landing nightclub on the River Walk, and now maintained by Stanford University Libraries. hsaldana@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Lucas Davis, who grew up in San Antonio, nabbed a thriller of a guest spot in tonight's CBS drama "Scorpion." His proud mom, Cindy Lerma Martinez, reports that Davis -- a Corpus Christi native who moved to San Antonio when he was 5 and attended Nimitz Middle School, Lee High and San Antonio College -- portrays a killer named Martin. "It was an exciting shoot for him because they actually let him drive the car in the getaway scene, with the camera attached to it," his mom said. The episode airs locally at 9 tonight on KENS. The episode, featuring Lea Thompson once again as the con artist mom of Paige (Katharine McPhee), is titled "Faux Money Maux Problems." It's described on the CBS site this way: When Team Scorpion is duped into producing counterfeit money for a foreign entity intent on ruining the U.S. economy, Paige must rely on her mother's skills as a grifter to save them. In case you're unfamiliar with "Scorpion," the high-octane drama inspired by a true story revolves around eccentric genius Walter O'Brien (Elyes Gabel) and his team of brilliant misfits who join up with the U.S. government to fight high-tech, complex threats of this modern age. Davis, 29, has a sturdy resume. The S.A. actor guest-starred in too many TV series to count, including "Brooklyn Nine Nine," and "Grandfathered." In the latter, he portrayed John Stamos' hairdresser. He's also featured as Wilmer Valderrama's brother in a CBS pilot in the works, "Four Stars," about rival military families. "He's been an extra on 'Shameless,' 'Westworld,' lots of other shows," his mom said. "He also had a very risque bit on 'American Horror Story.' He loves what he's doing and is very passionate about it," Martinez added. "Lucas continues to mentor San Antonio students; one of his classmates is now a teacher at Madison High, and every year on Career Day, he speaks to her classes," she said. OK? So why not make an Alamo City mom happy and tune in. It's always a good idea to support one of our own talented locals. jjakle@express-news.net The Bang Bang Bars first anniversary took San Antonio by storm Sunday, starting with an epic brunch and ending with a semi-secret Girl in a Coma show. GIAC rockers and bar owners Phanie Diaz and Jenn Alva joined Nina Diaz to play a fun set to a packed house, the bars Facebook page said. Albany If you're a recent college graduate living upstate and you have yet to buy a home, you're hardly alone. Millennials nationwide have delayed purchasing a first home, and this is something Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to change. On Friday, the governor proposed a $5 million Graduate to Homeownership Program aimed at getting recent graduates to make that first purchase, so long as it's upstate and in or near a "downtown center." "Upstate colleges and universities have world-class programs that produce highly skilled graduates who then leave for opportunities elsewhere," Cuomo said. "This program will incentivize recent graduates to put down roots in upstate communities, helping to bring new energy into their downtown centers, spur their development and increase their economic vitality." The program will target current students and recent graduates, and incentivize homeownership with subsidized low interest loans, down payment assistance and online or on-campus homebuyer education courses. The loans would come from the State Of New York Mortgage Agency, which has served more than 8,000 residents over the past six years. The upstate component of the program is rooted in statistics from the governor's office showing that New York City leads the nation with more than 71 percent of college students remaining in the area after they graduate. Upstate communities like Rochester and Buffalo, on the other hand, haven't fared so well. The downtown component is part and parcel of the governor's downtown revitalization initiative a $100 million program that helps downtown communities across upstate become places people would want to live and work. It's unclear what constitutes a downtown center and just how far from it the homes could be located. It's also unclear what age limits apply for recent graduates. The governor's office did not respond to request for comment Friday. The homebuyer program is a pilot, but could be expanded if it proves successful, the governor's office said. bbump@timesunion.com 518-454-5387 @bethanybump A national nature reserve for Chinese white dolphins, a first-class protected species in China, was established in Zhuhai, Guangdong province on Jan. 15. The reserve will also serve as a national science education base. Four Chinese white dolphins from a Singaporean ocean park were on display at the opening ceremony. The species is mainly distributed around southeastern coastal areas of China. Due to their high intelligence, the dolphins are sometimes hailed as the "pandas of the sea." The reserve covers an area of 460 square kilometers. It aims to protect not only the endangered species, but also the area's biodiversity. "It is urgent for us to protect and rescue the marine world and Chinese white dolphins," said Gu Xichun, head of the reserve. Currently, only 2,133 Chinese white dolphins exist in the world. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is planning to give private briefings to legislators Tuesday on his proposed state budget, but it's unclear whether he will give any sort of public address on the multi-billion dollar document. The majority Senate Republicans are slated to receive a lunchtime briefing, while the majority Assembly Democrats are set to get one in the evening. Cohoes Assemblyman John McDonald, a Democrat, said that he did not expect there to be a public presentation, as nothing about such an event had been put on Assembly members' radar for this week. "I'm not concerned with how I receive it, I'm concerned with what's in it," McDonald said. A Cuomo spokesman did not respond to a question about whether a public event would occur to unveil the budget. Republican state Sen. Jim Tedisco, who until recently was a member of the minority Assembly Republicans, has been a vocal Cuomo critic over the years. Tedisco tweeted on Saturday that for Tuesday's lunch meeting at the governor's office he was, "Looking for volunteers to be food testers!!!!" Last year, Cuomo delivered both his "State of the State" and budget addresses in the same January speech. This year, instead of giving his State of the State before the Legislature, Cuomo delivered six different speeches around the state, which brought criticism from some Republicans that he was grandstanding. Cuomo's aides said he was simply trying to push his policy agenda. By law, the governor's budget must be submitted by Tuesday. There is no constitutional requirement, however, to give a budget speech. In fact, public budget speeches are relatively new, Bennett Liebman, government lawyer in residence at Albany Law School, wrote in a blog post last year. For years, governors would simply hold off-the-record briefings with reporters and editorial writers about the budget before its release, starting in 1929 with Gov. Franklin Roosevelt, which was known as "budget school." The day the budget was released, such briefings would also be held with legislators. The big speeches at the Empire State Plaza only began under Gov. George Pataki in the 1990s. In order to be considered on time, the budget must be passed by the Legislature by the end of March. The budget talks at the governor's mansion could be an effort to cool tensions between the governor and the Legislature. Members of the Assembly in particular were angered by Cuomo for his help spiking an opportunity last year for legislators to receive a long-awaited pay increase. Few lawmakers attended Cuomo's Albany State of the State speech last week at the state University at Albany's Performing Arts Center. Though Cuomo outlined some of his budgetary requests thus far, there are a number of questions about what he will and will not choose to fund. For example, Cuomo said broadly that he is planning another record increase in K-12 education funding this year but has yet to offer specific details. "We're very happy to hear ... that it will be another record year for funding for education," New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee said Wednesday after Cuomo's Albany speech. "The progress we're making is tremendous. We're looking forward to keep going. (But) the devil's always in the details, so obviously the concerns are how will this be funded?" Those who provide direct support services to those with physical and mental handicaps also are wondering if Cuomo will include funding to help them address the increasing minimum wage. Nonprofits in that sector remain concerned that they will be unable to cover increases of the wage long term without funding. They say they also are battling wage compression and the availability of less strenuous jobs that offer similar or better pay. "When caregivers leave their jobs because they cannot live on the pay, it is our most vulnerable population who suffer," former Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, who backs the bFair2DirectCare coalition, said in a statement Thursday. Then there is the city of Albany, which again is seeking $12.5 million from the state to fill a budget gap. "We are hopeful that it will be in the governor's budget (proposal), and we continue to make the case," Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said Wednesday. Some of the flashier agenda items the governor touted last week do already have price tags. They include an estimated $163 million program to fund tuition fees at SUNY and CUNY schools for New Yorkers who come from families who earn up to $125,000 annually. That program would begin in the fall if it is approved this year. It would be fully implemented by 2019. Cuomo also is seeking a $500 million second phase of the Buffalo Billion program, $750 million for another round of his Regional Economic Development Council competition and a $2 billion investment in drinking water infrastructure, among other things. cbragg@timesunion.com 518-454-5303 @chrisbragg1 STAMFORD An organization created more than two decades ago to introduce high school students to historically black colleges and universities across the country is seeking applicants for its annual spring tour. WEE-ACT, or William E. Edwards Academic College Tours, has brought hundreds of local students on school visits since it was first launched in 1986. Its important to give students choices when it comes to making one of the most important decisions in their lives, said Stamford resident Angela Edwards, who named the organization after her father. They need to know the history of historically black colleges, and they need choices when theyre making decisions. Edwards ran the project as a social worker in the 1980s and re-launched it as its own organization in the early 1990s. She said more than half of students who go on her tour enroll at one of the institutions. Historically black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs, were created to provide higher education opportunities for blacks in a time of great discrimination. The first degree-granting HBCU was Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, founded in 1854. There are now more than 100 schools with the designation and students of all races attend them. Edwards attended one of the countrys oldest HBCUs Shaw University, in Raleigh, N.C. After returning home, she learned other students didnt know much about those institutions. Students were not aware of the opportunities, she said. Edwards said its crucial to learn about a specific campus, its programs, location, environment and lifestyle. Its also an opportunity to network, she said. We consider it a business trip, said Edwards, noting students are not allowed to wear sneakers, jeans or other casual attire. The 2017 tour is scheduled for April 8 to 14. The tentative, multistate itinerary includes Benedict College, Bowie State University, Claflin University, Clark Atlanta University, Johnson C. Smith University, Lincoln University, Morehouse College, Spelman College, North Carolina Central University, South Carolina State University and Tuskegee University. The $800 cost covers bus transportation, hotel, most meals and printed materials. Edwards encourages students to apply even if they dont believe they can afford it. She said the program tries to seek sponsors to provide financial assistance to low-income students. The deadline for applications is Feb. 1 and 45 spots are available. For more information, call 203-570-2328 or 203-249-6933. noliveira@hearstmediact.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson From nearly the moment Kamiyah Mobley entered the world, her life was defined by two women who cradled her in their arms. One was her biological mother, Shanara Mobley, who was only 16 when she gave birth to Kamiyah early on a hot Florida morning on July 10, 1998. The other was a mysterious stranger who appeared in Jacksonville hospital's newborn ward that same day, dressed as a nurse in a blue floral smock and green scrub pants. She carried a pocketbook. For about five hours, the supposed nurse stayed with Shanara Mobley and her newborn in their room, helping take care of the baby. Around 3 p.m., the woman said Kamiyah needed to be checked for a fever and whisked her away, still swaddled in her white hospital blanket. For more than 18 years, that would be the last Shanara Mobley saw of her baby. Devastated, she pleaded tearfully with whomever had taken Kamiyah. "Will you please, please bring me back my child?" The brazen abduction of Kamiyah Mobley - and the fruitless search for her over nearly two decades - would grip the attention of Florida and much of the nation. It would later lead to a lawsuit and prompt several hospitals to tighten security procedures for newborns. For Kamiyah's parents and family, it would spawn years upon years of compounded heartache. The child's paternal grandmother called police minutes after the supposed nurse disappeared with the baby. For at least a decade, Velma Aiken would blame herself for not acting on her suspicions: Why had that nurse been carrying a pocketbook? she said she had wondered after passing her in the hospital. Police said the impostor had been roaming the Jacksonville hospital for 14 hours, asking about the Mobley baby. The abduction was so sudden - Kamiyah was only eight hours old when she disappeared - that missing posters had to use an artist's conception of the baby. Authorities sealed the hospital, stopped every visitor, halted buses and put airport police on alert for a baby. Row by row, trains leaving Jacksonville were searched. Room by room, the hospital was combed. The tiny child and her abductor were never found. Still, officials maintained an optimistic outlook. "There's a high percentage in getting these babies back," a Jacksonville sheriff's spokesman told reporters the day of the kidnapping. "We want to put our hands on that baby." Posters of Kamiyah Mobley were plastered all over Jacksonville in the first year of her disappearance. And the next year. And the next, and the next. Authorities never managed to locate Kamiyah - despite a $250,000 reward for her recovery, at least three appearances on "America's Most Wanted" and a search across multiple countries. "Investigators have traveled as far as Puerto Rico, Seattle and Nova Scotia checking leads," the Associated Press reported after the baby had been gone a year. "They've taken footprints from 15 babies and have done DNA testing on two others. None matched." "We can't give up hope," a case manager for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children told the wire service then. --- As each day passed, Kamiyah's biological family never stopped wondering whether she was alive. Craig Aiken was in jail during his daughter's birth and abduction. He served an eight-month sentence for impregnating Shanara Mobley when she was 15 and he was an adult, according to the Florida Times-Union. "I wonder what she would look like," he told the paper from lockup in 1999. He had recurring dreams of holding his baby, playing with her, but could never attach a face to his child. "The only thing I have to remember her by is her name," he told the paper at the time. "Kamiyah." The child's family sued the hospital, later settling in 2000 in a case that prompted hospitals across central Florida to tighten security for newborns, the Orlando Sentinel reported in 2000. Meanwhile, the bereaved teenage mother worked babysitting jobs between conversations with detectives - her dreams alternating between nightmares and visions of Kamiyah's return, she told the Times-Union around what would have been Kamiyah's first birthday. An unbearable number of birthdays would march by. "Shanara Mobley spends part of every birthday of her firstborn cutting a piece of sheet cake, putting it on a paper plate, wrapping it in aluminum foil and sticking it in the freezer of her Jacksonville home," the Florida Times-Union wrote July 10, 2008 - the 10th anniversary of the child's abduction. "Kamiyah Mobley has never been around to take a bite." A decade later, Shanara Mobley had three more children but could never stop wondering about her first. "What does she like? What kind of food?" Mobley told the paper then. "What kind of colors? How smart is she? Does she have long pretty hair? Does she have my eyelashes?" She said she prayed to God every day. Please send me a sign that my baby is still alive. --- A little over 18 years after the disappearance, authorities visited Craig Aiken's home with a shocking update, WJXT News reported. They had found Kamiyah, 200 miles away. She was alive. "It's a case like we have not seen in this country in a long time," Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams told reporters Friday. Last year, tips led authorities from Florida to South Carolina, where they found a young woman with Kamiyah's birth date but a different name. Investigators realized that the teen's identification papers were fake, the sheriff said, and called in other agencies for help. On Thursday, DNA tests confirmed that an 18-year-old in Walterboro, South Carolina., was in fact Kamiyah Mobley. To protect her privacy, authorities won't release her other name. She had been living with her accused kidnapper, 51-year-old Gloria Williams, who was arrested on charges of kidnapping and interference with custody. Mobley had thought Gloria Williams was her mother, the sheriff said. Only this week, he said, did she learn who she was - and what the woman she called mother is accused of doing. The sheriff did not elaborate on how long Kamiyah had been aware of the investigation but said she had an "inkling" from about a couple months ago that she might have been involved in the case. "She's taking it as well as you could imagine," he said. "She has a lot to process. She has a lot to think about, as you can imagine. I can't even begin to comprehend it." Velma Aiken, Kamiyah's paternal grandmother, was overcome with emotion and the feeling the family's prayers had been answered when authorities delivered the news, she told First Coast News. "I prayed and said, 'Lord, let them be that they found the baby in good health,'" she said. Craig Aiken told the news station he had never given up hope that his daughter was still alive. "Every day you get up, there's always hope," he said. "When I wake up, I believe she's awake, too. There's always hope." Nearly two decades later, that hope was borne out on a tiny screen. Kamiyah Mobley met her biological mother, father and paternal grandmother though FaceTime on Friday, according to the New York Daily News. They marveled at how intelligent and respectful she sounded. She "doesn't act like we're brand-new people," Velma Aiken said, according to the newspaper. "She acts like she's been talking to us for a long time." The sheriff said authorities had also made some other calls after the DNA test confirmed Kamiyah's identity: to detectives who had first worked on the case 18 years ago but who had since left the department. "This case has been passed off. It's been so long since this it was really active," he said. "There's been a lot of people who were heavily invested on Day One that are not here anymore. They're retired." He described Kamiyah as "clearly a victim in this case" who was otherwise in good health and living as a "normal 18-year-old woman." It would be her decision to reunite with her biological family, he added. "A lot of that is up to them. The ability is there for that to happen," the sheriff said. "Again, imagine the gravity of what she's dealing with." --- As her biological parents celebrated the news, the teenager born as Kamiyah Mobley sat Friday in a stark jailhouse courtroom in South Carolina. In front of her was a judge. Next to the judge, on the other side of a caged window, was the woman Kamiyah knew as "Momma." Gloria Williams quietly acknowledged the judge as she described the crimes alleged against her. Williams waived her extradition rights. The judge did not set a bond. After the hearing, Kamiyah broke down in a wailing sob and was consoled by those around her. Amid the tearful scene, the judge allowed the teenager to walk behind her desk and up to the window so that she and Williams could hold hands through the screen, WJXT News reported. Williams blew Kamiyah a kiss. The teenager said she would pray for her. "I love you, Mom." --- On Saturday, Craig Aiken and Shanara Mobley made the drive from Jacksonville to Walterboro, South Carolina. This was the day they had hoped and prayed for over so many years. At the Walterboro Police Department, they saw their daughter again in real life in a private reunion that lasted about 45 minutes. Emerging from the police station, Aiken told reporters he was still in shock - and that he had told Kamiyah he loved and missed her. "First meeting was beautiful, it was wonderful, couldn't went no better," Aiken said, according to WSCS News. "She was glad to meet us." Shanara Mobley still could not comment. "It's a feeling that you can't explain - it's hard to put it in words right now," Aiken told the news station. "We're trying to process it. Eighteen years. It's going to be hard to make that up." -- Amy B Wang is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Anson Rigby Arena in Dayton recently was transformed into a castle stable for hundreds of school children from E. R. Richter Elementary on Tuesday afternoon as they witnessed the Tournament of Champions sponsored by The Knights of the Guild in conjunction with the kickoff of the EarlyAct FirstKnight character education program at the school. Sir James, Lady Amber, Sir Cass and a cast of supporting staff yielded an action-packed live dramatic presentation for students that involved sword fighting, target challenges with a lance, and a spirited armed sword duel that involved cutting cabbage heads in half, in mid-air while full speed on their horses. All set to dramatic music, the program was to reinforce the virtues befitting a knight. Themed around the adventurous and exciting world of gallant knights and chivalry, EarlyAct FirstKnight introduces the character traits of honesty, trustworthiness, discipline, compassion, citizenship, respect, responsibility among others to the students. The program was created by Dr. Randall Parr and is sponsored by local Rotary Clubs and teaches students to become more civic-minded and service-oriented people during their most formative years. "We had a lot of positive energy here today! We can walk onto a campus and tell when kids are excited about the program," said Sir Cass Garcia. Garcia has taken on more responsibility as the head knight trainer for the organization, but will continue to serve as a knight and run the shows when called upon, he said. "I'm humbled to be in this role and be able to serve however I'm needed," he said. Garcia has been with the organization now for seven years and has found a home. "It's a wonderful opportunity to work with communities across Texas and the nation," he said. "Watching kids' light come on when they get it, is truly fun for me." For Lady Amber, the wife to Dr. Randall Parr, it's a lifelong commitment. "It's teaching ethics to school aged children, but teaching them in a way that they want to learn. They want to be a part of it. We're acknowledging good behavior and rewarding how they take good care of those around them as well," she said. "They also learn what it feels like to participate in the community and to make things better." Dayton ISD joins a list of schools that have already added the program to their curriculum including Klein ISD, Huffman ISD, Galena Park ISD and a total of 18 schools in the Houston area. There are already 74 schools across Texas that have the program and Parr said they are looking to expand. "We're just trying to find the right people to put into place to help us with expansion," she said to maintain it. The cast will be back again in February for two more performances and launches of the EarlyAct FirstKnight program in area schools. "Unfortunately, they didn't have covered arenas like Dayton and the weather forced cancellation of those performances on this trip, but we'll be back," Parr said. As general manager, she helps oversee most aspects of the program, including responding to schools or teachers who may have questions. "We're not just here to do a performance and that's it," she said. "We're available by phone, email, text whenever. If anyone has a problem, we're available to help," Parr said. For Sir James Lehman, KTJ, it's all about children. "The kids. They are our future. They are the ones who need the most help," he said. "I've been doing this for almost eight years and I've seen kids from elementary school all the way up to college who remember me and tell me what the Rotary, and the Four-Way test and the knight life has influenced them." It's a full-time job for the staff members who not only do dramatic performances, but also return to lead the school knighting ceremonies. "I'm thrilled about the program. It's going to be fantastic for the children," said Lecia Eubanks, principal of E. R. Richter Elementary School. "I've seen the program in action and I know the positives that can come out of it with the children." Eubanks, who was in Galena Park ISD when they launched the program, said she has seen how their discipline referrals dropped and students became better citizens and grades improved dramatically. "That includes their home life and the community," she said. Eubanks said she believes character education is important in schools. "Everything students do begins with good character. Having good character teaches them that they can do just about anything they set their mind to, and support each other, especially during the good and bad times that will come and require them to use that character," she said. Teachers at Richter have begun using the program spending the first five to 10 minutes of the day going over the curriculum. Members of the Dayton Rotary Club were present to witness the launch. One of the components of the program is the tie to student service project guidance from local Rotarians including learning how to run service club meetings. Rotarians also volunteer to attend the knighting ceremonies for students nominated to be knighted for their accomplishing their character task better than their peers. Dr. Jessica Johnson, superintendent for DISD, said this was a test school for the program and fully expects to expand the character education district-wide. Hope and empathy. Those are words Gene Johnson and his wife, Gail, use often when they talk about their work. As leaders of the nondenominational Pleasant Hill Church of Deliverance at 312 North Sixth St. in La Porte and another branch of the church, the Divine Connection at 1718 Fry Road in Katy, the Johnsons believe ministries often have the most impact far outside the walls of a church building. Through their church, the pastor and his wife run an outreach program for low-income youths who live at an apartment complex in a southeast Houston neighborhood plagued by crime and poverty. The Johnsons are raising funds to provide 100 of those youths with a night out at the movies. But this night out is about more than popcorn and escapism. "Exit to Freedom" is the story of Randy Harden, a pastor who tells of finding redemption after being incarcerated six times. On Jan. 29, the docudrama will be presented at the City Centre Studio Movie Grill in Houston. "He (Harden) is a living witness to individuals in the same situation, letting them know there is hope and that you can come out of it," Gene Johnson said. The Johnsons estimate it will cost at least $3,000 to achieve their goal. They want to buy hoodies bearing the words "I have a story to tell" for each youth that goes on the outing. After the Trayvon Martin shooting, the hoodie became a way for some to protest injustice. But the Johnsons want to send a more life-affirming message. "We want to turn that negative into a positive for these kids," said Gail Johnson, known as "Lady Gail." "We want to take the kids out of their environment, to see something different." Turning negatives into positives is what the Johnsons say they have been trying to achieve throughout their 19-year ministry. Working in the streets, neighborhoods, apartment complexes and prisons, as well as in counseling workshops and recovery programs, the Johnsons say they are on a mission to give hope to underserved youths, survivors of sexual or domestic violence and those struggling with addiction. In addition to leading their congregation, in 2010, the Johnsons turned an abandoned day-care facility that had been destroyed during Hurricane Ike into the High Achievers Learning Center in La Porte, a faith-based early education program. In 2011 High Achievers were recognized as a Texas Rising Star School, exceeding state childcare licensing standards. The Johnsons partner with community agencies such as the La Porte Police Department, the Cenikor drug-counseling facility, The Bridge Over Troubled Water in Pasadena and Houston's Star of Hope and other nonprofits. They say they are driven by faith and their personal histories. Gene Johnson grew up as one of eight siblings raised by a hard-working single mother in an apartment complex in Houston. He speaks openly of his past struggle with alcoholism. "My mother worked two and three jobs; so I know what can happen when that kid is there and the only thing he has as an example is that environment. And with no guidance, it's easy to get caught up," he said. Said his wife: "Oftentimes, when people don't have necessities - like shoes - they do things, like sell drugs or steal, because it's human nature to be a part or to be the same." Her husband tells of a man who was released from prison with a changed perspective. The man earned a degree only to be held back by the stigma of incarceration. 'Getting that second chance' "The great challenge to a lot of young men who have made that change is in getting that second chance," he said. Gail Johnson works with victims and survivors of sexual violence and domestic violence, something that has touched her own life. Like her husband, she uses her story to inspire others. "We really work with along with those who have had those same challenges," she said. "Most of these individuals in these places - whether it's domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse - have come from dysfunctional homes." It's the personal connection that makes the Johnsons work a life-affirming mission. "This is isn't about sympathy, but empathy and compassion," said Gail Johnson. She remembers when they first visited the South Houston apartment complex and how her husband didn't want to leave the kids behind. "He went back, drove around and later told me what a burden it was on him because he too was raised in that environment," she said. "He never forgets that he could have been a statistic." Because they've overcome their own obstacles, the Johnsons know what hopelessness can feel like. In "Exit to Freedom," Randy Harden tells his story. The Johnsons believe everyone has a story to tell. "It's about hope, we want to give them hope," Gene Johnson said. For information on the Johnsons' effort to fund youths to attend the film on Jan. 29, call 281-471-4021 or visit www.stopbythehill.org. While The Woodlands Township board recently learned of a potential roadblock in the construction of the proposed Woodlands Parkway extension, board Chairman Gordy Bunch said he was surprised to learn last week that Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley had moved the project south to align with Mansions Way. The Courier learned last week of a possible letter to the township from the County Engineer's Office regarding radio towers in the area of Woodlands Parkway and FM 2978. Those towers may hinder the Parkway extension on property owned by The Woodlands Development Corporation just west of FM 2978 across from Woodlands Parkway, according to a source within county government. The original plan, which was voted down along with the proposed $350 million road bond in May 2015, called for connecting Woodlands Parkway from FM 2978 to Dobbin-Huffsmith. That road, with help from residential developers ultimately would have connected with Texas 249. Bunch said he "could not confirm or deny" the township received the letter because the item was part of an executive session discussion during a previous meeting. He added that the board would revisit the issue Jan. 25. A Freedom of Information Act request for that letter by The Courier was submitted Monday. However, county offices were closed due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the request was unanswered by press time. With no discussion during their Jan. 10 meeting, Montgomery County commissioners approved two contracts for Precinct 2 related to a project that would connect FM 2978 to Dobbin-Huffsmith. That still would open the door for private developers to connect the road all the way to Texas 249. Commissioners awarded land surveying services to Tomball-based Arborleaf Engineering and Surveying Inc. for $264,855 and engineering services for the project to Houston-based R.G. Miller Engineers Inc. in the amount of $264,477. While Riley said the project is not an amended Woodlands Parkway extension, it would connect FM 2978 at Mansions Way to Dobbin-Huffsmith. Mansions Way is a quarter-mile south of Woodlands Parkway. Developers who own property in the area already have committed to building the connector from Dobbin-Huffsmith to Texas 249, Riley said in a previous Courier article. Bunch said he was surprised to hear about the connector project. "It goes against the communications we had with Commissioner Riley and Judge (Craig) Doyal," said Bunch, adding that there was supposed to be discussion before any movement on the connection. "No one was notified that I was aware of. "So to go forward with a project is disappointing, that's the nice word." Bunch questioned the cost of the contracts approved by commissioners, the reason for the relocation, and what happens to the rights of way already purchased for the project. When Doyal was Precinct 2 commissioner (2001-14), funds were used to purchase right of way in anticipation of building the extension. Riley could not be reached for comment. Doyal said Riley is using his budget for the engineering of the project and added that the rights of way still would be used for the project. No timeline on the project was available, and it is unclear whether funds are available to construct the road. The Woodlands Parkway extension issue arose in early 2015 when residents learned Riley was planning to extend Woodlands Parkway from FM 2978 to Texas 249. Concerned about the increase in traffic in the community, residents of The Woodlands urged the court to remove the project from the May bond. But the court, specifically Riley, refused to take the project off his list. And on May 9, 2015, voters rejected the bond, with 57.19 percent of more than 28,300 votes countywide against it. In August 2015, the court agreed to move forward with another road bond for the Nov. 3 ballot in the amount of $280 million. That referendum excluded several projects, including the Woodlands Parkway extension. Voters passed the $280 million referendum easily, with 63.36 percent of the more than 45,500 votes for it. The extension of Woodlands Parkway has been part of the thoroughfare plan since the original draft in the late 1980s. However, it wasn't until last year when the project was included on the May $350 million road bond that residents and community leaders divided themselves over the issue. The majority of the opposition came from Precinct 3 in The Woodlands, where residents said they didn't want the project, which is within Precinct 2. They were concerned it would increase traffic through The Woodlands on an already-congested parkway. Riley maintains his community wants and needs the road and that it would be unlikely motorists would use the route through The Woodlands as a way east to Interstate 45. Community leaders in The Woodlands, including Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack, pushed for Riley to go farther south with a connector, possibly widening Hardin Store Road to allow more through traffic between FM 2978 and Texas 249. Bunch also favors widening Hardin Store Road, noting it makes "more sense" to widen an existing road rather than build a new one. "You can straighten out that goofy 90-degree turn on Hardin Store and widen it before you get around to building a one-lane road between Mansions Drive and Dobbin-Huffsmith Road," Bunch said. But Riley, along with Doyal, say Hardin Store is not a viable option because of the difficulty in obtaining rights of way to widen the current two-lane road. According to Doyal, one of the main reasons he purchased the majority of rights of way for the future extension of Woodlands Parkway while he served as Precinct 2 Commissioner was due to the fact that it was more difficult to purchase those rights of way along Hardin Store Road. He also said the railroad tracks that cross Hardin Store Road would be a challenge. The township board approved a resolution opposing the extension of Woodlands Parkway, Branch Crossing north, Gosling Road north and Grogan's Mill north in February. However, Bunch said he probably will put the item on the next township meeting to have the board, with its new members, reaffirm that resolution. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Two John Cooper School students were chosen to attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump Jan. 18-22. Senior Grace Reagan and freshman Pablo Flower, along with other high school students across the nation, were selected to participate in the ninth Envision Presidential Inauguration Leadership Summit, provided through Envision Impact Series. The students will spend five days participating in various leadership programs and listening to renowned guest speakers, including Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Carly Fiorina, Martin O'Malley, Spike Lee, Gen. Colin Powell, Abby Wambach, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. Both students have been involved with the Envision Impact program for many years and have plans to continue pursuing political involvement in the future. For Reagan, this will be her second presidential inauguration to attend, as she witnessed President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2008. For this summit, she will focus on "Conflict and Compromise in a Global Age," debating the role the U.S. has in the world. "I am extremely excited to gain new perspectives and ideas from students all over the country as we debate this heated topic of the upcoming presidency," Reagan wrote in an email. Summit scholars from across the U.S. will form small-group delegations focusing on national and global solutions to current and future challenges faced by the nation. The six topics students will choose from are Drones, Clones & Genomes, Curing the Future, Racing Extinction, Imagining Peace, A Smarter Planet and Pathways to Power. Flower was nominated for the Envision Impact program as a sixth-grade student and said it is important to witness the transition of power from one president to the next. At the summit, he will focus on "generating solutions" and improving education. "I will be focusing on debating inequalities in education and building ways to ensure that quality and affordable education is available for all humankind," he wrote in an email. Visit the website www.johncooper.org for more information about The John Cooper School in The Woodlands. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate More than 360 people filled the community room at Texan Drive Stadium in Porter to celebrate the success of a beloved longtime member of the East Montgomery County community - Porter's own soulful country music artist Sundance Head. The Sundance Head Appreciation Dinner on Jan. 7 was a ticketed event with a guest list packed with community VIPs, including Montgomery County officials, law enforcement officers, community leaders, business owners and local celebrities. The event's guest of honor was recent winner of NBC's "The Voice" season 11 Sundance Head, who was accompanied by friends, family and devoted fans, whom he refers to as his "Fambase." The event was the brainchild of community member and friend of Sundance, Allen Rhoden, who said requests for tickets to the Sundance Head Appreciation Dinner continued rolling in well after they made the announcement that tickets were sold-out. "We started putting this together Dec. 13," Rhoden said. "In the two weeks before Christmas and two weeks after, we were able to sell out a 360-seat venue, and we could have sold out the whole stadium." Rhoden was among those in the community who helped the Heads with repairs and restorations after the 2016 Memorial weekend floods damaged a significant amount of their property, including musical equipment and priceless family heirlooms. The appreciation dinner was originally intended to serve as a fundraiser to help with the cost of repairs for Heads' home in Porter. "Insurance will pay for some stuff, and then hard work pays for a lot of it, but you can't replace a sentimental item, just like we can't replace Sundance," Rhoden said. "He's very sentimental to us, and he always helps others. If somebody has a problem, burden or need, he is always the first one to volunteer to use his talents to help other people." At the request of Sundance and his wife Misty, the event served instead as a fundraiser to benefit causes in the community. "I approached Sundance about doing this and said, 'I think I can get a dinner together to help raise money for fixing your house,'" Rhoden said. "He said, 'Don't worry about that. I've got my house taken care of. I'd rather give the money to an animal shelter or scholarship or something.' That's just the kind of guy he is." The initiative raised $1,500 to go toward Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Metro Go Texan scholarships, as well as $7,307.97 for the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. Honoring Sundance for his victory on "The Voice" and his family for their vital role in his success was the focus of the event. After a barbecue dinner provided by the Rusty Buckle BBQ Company, Sundance and his family were surprised with an outpouring of gifts, honors and congratulatory gestures from the community. Flags that had flown over the state and U.S. capitols were presented to Sundance on behalf of the offices of U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady and Texas Rep. Cecil Bell in honor of Sundance's accomplishment. Additionally, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sent a certificate congratulating Sundance to be presented at the event. Rick Hatcher, president of the Greater East Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, awarded him a commemorative wooden plaque, which Sundance dedicated to Misty. New Caney ISD school board president Alan Moreau commended Sundance's efforts and recognized him as a Distinguished Graduate of New Caney High School and New Caney ISD. "Dedication, commitment to hard work and a yes-minded attitude has helped you achieve great things," Moreau said. "Putting forth that kind of work ethic and commitment, you are a role model for young people in this community also working towards something great in their lives." Montgomery County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jim Clark and Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal also delivered speeches congratulating Sundance on his accomplishment. "Most entertainers will tell you that it's a little bit of talent and a lot of luck," Clark said. "(For Sundance), it's hard work, dedication, his commitment to his family and to his God. You hear a lot of people doing the right thing while nobody's looking. Well, Sundance Head has done the right thing and everybody was looking." Several other gifts and surprises were given to Sundance and his family during the event, including a set of binary stars that Rhoden and others who helped plan the event had registered in Misty and Sundance's names. As Sundance was overcome with emotion from the kind gestures of his friends and community, Misty thanked everyone on his behalf. "This wasn't just a win for us," Misty said. "Sundance had to do what he needed to do on the stage, but you all did everything that needed to be done at home: getting the word out, sharing it, spreading it - and this was a win for all of us." Later, as he signed autographs with a big smile on his face, Sundance expressed what the night's events meant to him. "It was a surprise - and a great surprise," Sundance said. "I'm really grateful that the community would show up and show support like this. It means a lot to me and my family." Rhoden remarked on the progression of Sundance's career from local musician to national celebrity. "He's played in our backyards," Rhoden said. "He's played at birthday parties, barbecues and crawfish boils. Well, we're proud to say we can't afford him anymore. His life is going to change; it already has. We just wanted to be able to show him how much his friends appreciate and honor him." The concept of building a community of common destiny for mankind, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the UN summit in 2015, is a solution China is offering to the world in light of interlinked global destiny, the Peoples Daily said in a commentary published on Sunday. The article comes ahead of Xis visit to Switzerland, during which he will be elaborating on his concept at a speech at the UN Office at Geneva. In the article, The concept of a community of common destiny for mankind illuminates future,the Peoples Daily discussed the origin, implications, development and significance of the concept. The concept of community of common destiny, which is rooted in Chinas traditional culture, also forms the foundation of Chinas diplomatic philosophy, the commentary said. In todays world where the interests and destiny of each country are intertwined, China, by proposing to build a new type of international relations based on win-win cooperation and to create a community of common destiny for mankind, presents the globe a prescription with oriental wisdom after it analyzed the pulse of times and historic trajectory, the paper explained. Xi has expounded on the concepton several domestic and international occasions since 2012, hoping to influence the world on Chinas views on the future of human civilization. China has reaped the harvests of building a community of shared destiny among its neighbors and in the region by seeking to maximize the common interests of all stakeholders through a gradual approach, the article emphasized. The international community praisedsuch accomplishments as a reflection of Chinas strong sense of responsibility in helping the world through its own development, it added. When he addressed the UNs 70th anniversary in September 2015, Xi expounded on how to build a community of common destiny for mankind through his five-point proposal. According to the article, building a partnership in which countries treat each other as equals, engage in consultations and show mutual understanding serves as the main pathway to realize the goal. A security architecture involving and shared by nations based on fairness and justiceserves as the key, while an open, innovative and inclusive development outlook that benefits all is a basic principle that must be followed. Whats more, the increasing inter-civilization exchanges with a respect for differences will help tighten the communitys bond, while an ecosystem that puts nature and green development first will ensure a more sustained community. The article said that it believes Chinas efforts can enlighten the world when building a community of common destiny for mankind. It shows that China, by sharing its experiences on state governance with the rest of the world, has driven societys progress with its own development. Over the past 30-plus years since China launched its reform and opening-up policies, the country has grown into the worlds second largest economy and lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty, which took the developed world hundreds of years to accomplish. Last years G20 Hangzhou Summit also generated more fruits, the paper added, saying that foreign media and scholars attributed all successes to Chinas globalized vision while formulating development and reform policies. China, at the same time, injects new impetus to the global governance principle of shared growth through discussion and collaboration by providing the world with constructive initiatives, the paper said, citing the Belt and Road initiative, APEC meeting and G20 Summit as examples. More than 100 countries and international bodies have been involved in the Belt and Road initiative since it was put forward in 2013, the article explained, adding that about 30 countries have signed agreements with China to jointly build the initiative, and more than 20 countries along the routes have entered into industrial cooperation with China. In addition, the Beijing-hosted APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting contributed to a more open, prosperous and integrated regional economy by playing a pioneering role in building the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific and advancing negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. China also contributed to the adoption of the landmark Global Trade Growth Strategy by the G20 Hangzhou Summit, reduction of trade costs as well as coordination on trade and investment policies. As a series of Chinese solutions are now propelling the reform of the global governance system, China is shouldering its responsibility as a major country in global governance, the paper concluded. WESTPORT The community came together Sunday afternoon to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.s legacy and to ask itself what he would do if he were here today? For the second year in a row the Westport Country Playhouse played host to the event, which was done in partnership with TEAM Westport and the Westport-Weston Interfaith Council. FAIRFIELD The19th century French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville noted during a lengthy tour of America that philanthropy is a uniquely American tradition and goes beyond giving funds. It is building community, being an advocate, organizing for effective change and investing in the future, according to Fiona Hodgson, vice president for Development and Philanthropic Services for the Fairfield County Community Foundation. Hodgson was one of four local philanthropic leaders who served as panelists Thursday at the Pequot Library to discuss how women are changing the face of philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. Bianna Golodryga, news and finance anchor at Yahoo!, served as moderator for the Women in Philanthropy program, presented by Save the Children and the library. We are the most philanthropic country in the world, she said. Through philanthropy we make the world a better place, said Susan Friedlander Calzone, CEO of Foundation Source in Fairfield, who was joined on the panel by Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Fairfield-based Save the Children and Emily Tow Jackson, president and executive director of the Tow Foundation in New Canaan. Although incoming president Donald Trump was not a focus of the discussion some people tacitly and some directly expressed concern about his personal philosophies and proposed policies on illegal immigrants, Syrian refugees, Muslims entering the country, the current healthcare system, education, and how his presidency could impact non-profit organizations and social causes. I am a refugee myself from the former Soviet Union so I know what its like to grow up when youre considered the enemy in a country that is now your own and youve come to love, Golodryga said. This is a very important topic at a very important time, said Fairfield First Selectman Mike Tetreau, referring to the current political turmoil and economic turmoil. Tetreau was one of a handful of men in the audience of more than 200 people. He said local residents are very generous to charitable causes, which was especially in evidence after Hurricane Sandy and the tragedy in Sandy Hook. Miles said its important to do something, maybe now more than ever. Although she wonders if there will be some push-back from the incoming administration, Miles said If there was ever a bi-partisan issue its children and their future. There was some discussion of gender roles in philanthropy. Calzone said one man told her that women think with their head and their heart and they are good listeners. Hodgson said many women are mothers and as such they are multi-taskers. According to Miles, Women are better at thinking about the whole picture, but added that all points of view are necessary in the philanthropic equation. Were stronger when we bring many people together to achieve a goal, Jackson said. The panelists concluded with recommendations for getting involved to make change locally and globally. Through her organization Hodgson suggested women can mentor and tutor, teach financial literacy, support Giving Day - a 24-hour online fund-raiser and attend a legislative forum to better understand local issues. Hodgson said there is a large disparity in Fairfield County most glaringly in academic achievement and income levels. Lack of opportunities and education just kills hope and thats just wrong, she said. The way to make real change is through philanthropy, she said. Jackson asked people to support their trusted news sources and Golodryga quickly added and abolish fake news. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Judy and Mike Nichols gassed up the family RV and took off late last week on a 1,325-mile road trip to Washington, D.C. The Nichols are a part of a group of about 60 Southeast Texans who will witness President-elect Donald Trump take the oath of office on Friday. The Mid-County couple hitched their car to the back of their motor home and left their house in the care of their daughter and son-in-law. "We thought it would be nice to take our time and sightsee on our way to D.C.," said Judy Nichols, vice chair for the Jefferson County Republican Party. "Plus, we'll have the convenience of having our car with us while we're up there." Traveling with the Nichols is Jeff Sadighi, who chairs the Southeast Texas Tea Party. "It's an opportunity I won't ever have again," he said. Friends Janet Brown and Linda Brown began booking flights and making hotel arrangements a month ago. On Wednesday, the two will fly to witness what Janet Brown described as a turning point for the country. "I have my clothes laid out and all packed up," Linda Brown said a week before the two were to depart. The two women became friends while volunteering with the Republican Party and working together for Port Neches-Groves ISD. Since 2010, Linda Brown has served as the Jefferson County GOP event chair. "This one excited me more than any other," Janet Brown said of Trump's inauguration. While the local Republicans are making their own travel plans, they have a shared schedule of events to attend in D.C. The four-day itinerary is full of dinners, receptions and luncheons - and, of course, the 10th Quadrennial Black Tie & Boots Ball, hosted by the Texas State Society of Washington on Thursday night. "I've never worn a tux before," Sadighi said. Linda Brown said she has never heard of a group this large from Southeast Texas attending a Republican's inauguration. She credits the large turnout to Jefferson County GOP Chair Dr. Garrett Peel, who she said organized everything. "We're going to have a fun four days in Washington D.C.," said Linda Brown. Mike Fuljenz, president of Universal Coin and Bullion, is traveling to D.C. to attend events organized by Peel but is also attending NRA events. "From a coin standpoint, I'm excited to see the Inaugural Medal. From a historical standpoint, I'm excited about all the pomp and circumstance," Fuljenz said. It's the first time he will attend a presidential inauguration, but Fuljenz said he got to experience the 2009 inauguration vicariously through his daughter, who had the opportunity to attend. While she was not old enough to vote in the November 2016 general election, Morgan Brown, a 16-year-old junior from Kelly High School, will be in D.C. for Trump's inauguration. "I'm excited about having the opportunity to learn about our government firsthand," said Morgan Brown, who won the opportunity to attend the inauguration through the Envision Career & Leadership Program in August. Morgan Brown plans to visit the D.C. monuments and attend a semi-formal event at the Smithsonian while in town. Michael Truncale,an active member of the Jefferson County Republican Party, said he can't make it to D.C. for the inauguration because of professional obligations but will be watching on TV with his wife, Denise, former president of the Golden Triangle Republican Women. Truncale said the election between Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was "heated." "But it's time for America to get over the election. There will be another one in four years," Truncale said. "Now, it's time to give the man a chance, and that's what we should be celebrating on Friday." SFlores@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/_saraeflores (Global Times) 14:29, January 16, 2017 Chinese President Xi Jinpingis paying a state visit to Switzerland from Sunday to Wednesday and will attend the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos. He is also expected to visit the UN headquarters in Geneva, the World Health Organization and the International Olympic Committee. This is the first time that a Chinese head of state will attend the Davos forum, which has raised people's eyebrows around the world, attracting a great deal of media coverage. The importance of China's engagement with the world has become more and more prominent. Now China is the world's second-largest economy. The outside world cares about China's future trajectory, what China's downward economic trend means and whether the new round of economic reforms can succeed. Given that globalization is facing multifaceted challenges, what China's attitude is and whether it can offer new impetus to economic globalization is the focus of attention. China's political system and the way society functions differ from that of the West, which makes it a bit difficult for both sides to understand each other. The Davos forum provides the global economic sphere with an attractive opportunity to get closer to the top Chinese leadership. But the outside world needs to form a basic and impartial understanding of China if it is to acknowledge the significance of Xi's trip and Xi's speech at the forum. China is a diligent and low-profile power and its rise is attributed to Chinese people's hard work. The Chinese economy has great potential, because China still lags behind Western countries and the whole of society would like to strive to better their lives. Moreover, Chinese people are willing to share prosperity with those in other parts of the world. China does not want to challenge the US, nor is it inclined to overturn the existing international order. China is willing to contribute to free trade and globalization. But if the US, under Donald Trump's leadership, retreats from globalization, China is not able to, or does not aim to, lead the world into globalization and confront the US together with some countries. Rather, China can be the most vigorous force in the powerful trend of globalization. In recent years, China and the West have frictions from time to time. Some believe China has become arrogant. However, China's core interests remain in its geographically adjacent regions and where China's political stability lies. In addition, China has never interfered in the internal affairs of any small Western country. China has borne the most criticism from the West in terms of the South China Sea disputes. But China built infrastructure on islands that it controls. In the past 30 years, China has not waged a war. Is this a country that forcefully changes the global rules? In this changing international landscape, China is a partner of all countries and a constructive power in maintaining the well-being of all mankind. The Chinese leadership has placed high importance and respect to the Davos forum, and this is the epitome of Beijing's attitude toward the world. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The annual Martin Luther King Jr. march in San Antonio takes place today, honoring the civil rights hero. The march begins at 10 a.m. today at MLK Jr. Academy, 3501 MLK Jr. Dr., and ends at Pittman-Sullivan Park, 1101 Iowa. It's estimated that as many as 100,000 people have joined in the peaceful walk on the East Side in recent years. Some longtime East Side residents say there have been marches to honor King for half a century; the massive city-organized event of today is in its 30th year. Our reporters will provide live updates from the march, and this post will be updated throughout the day. You can also follow along on Twitter by following @SilviaElenaFF, @LaurenCaruba, @vincentdavis, @mySA and the hashtag #MLKSA. 12:12 p.m. Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert, the first African-American Bexar County commissioner and the youngest, rallied the crowd to action. "All of us must demand that we are still enfranchised," said Calvert. "You are not here because you're a foot soldier of the dream, you are here because you are a soldier. ... You have to be ready, for a battle is at hand it's not tomorrow, it's on today," he added. The crowd burst into applause, a noise that sustained itself as he left and Mayor Ivy Taylor took the podium after him. Taylor said that she will continue to make My Brother's Keeper, an initiative started by President Barack Obama to empower boys and men of color, a priority "no matter who's in the White House." She emphasized that the call to fight for all people's rights should not just occur on Martin Luther King Day, but every day. Following her remarks was Bexar County Democratic Chairman Manuel Medina, who called out to the crowd: "Are there any San Antonio spurs fans in the house? Any Martin Luther King fans in the house?" Throughout all of the speakers, Cheryl Morton, a travel consultant, laughed and raised her hands in support of their words. As the march began she started searching the crowd for her friends with a large smile on her face, exhilarated from the speeches she had just witnessed. "This is incredible. Just, awe-inspiring," she said. "There's so many people here to continue the legacy of Martin Luther King." "It's just a powerful movement," she added. "And I feel so fortunate to be a part of it." Morton said she hopes the march inspires people to get involved in human rights efforts, to continue helping others. "There are so many people that are displaced, dishonored and not being remembered," she said. "It's time for every person to be treated like a human being." 11:50 a.m. At Pittman-Sullivan Park, where the march ended, speakers and church choirs took the stage throughout the morning, framed by a backdrop of photos of Martin Luther King Jr. Even as rain began to fall, spectators filtered into the park, huddling under hoods and umbrellas. A line of stands advertised chicken wings, turkey legs, fried catfish and Oreos, meat on sticks and other delicacies. Nearby on the street were parked trucks for the San Antonio Metro Health Mobile Clinic, Workforce on Wheels and the South Texas Blood and Tissue Center. In his remarks, Pastor Paul Wilkinson from nearby New Light Baptist Church spoke about the importance of building a peaceful society. "Peace cannot be bought or sold. We cannot market peace," Wilkinson said. "But peace can be made." After 11 a.m., the first marchers began to filter into the park as the rain picked up. They stood under tents and umbrellas as the music group Like Minded took the stage. "I got to thank the Lord upstairs for blessing me," they sang. 11:45 a.m. The marchers are reaching Pittman-Sullivan Park on the East Side, walking steadily under a gentle rain. Umbrellas came out as the thousands of people approached the Coleman Underpass. Lee Dawson, 72, sat in a wheelchair on her front porch watching as the marchers passed by her home near the railroad tracks, lamenting that she couldn't take part in the march herself as she has in years past. "I just hate that I missed it," Dawson said, noting that in previous years she has been in the march in her motorized scooter but she wasn't feeling up to the trip Monday. 10 a.m. After an audience-wide countdown, the march commenced on schedule at 10 a.m. Crowds of people representing universities, organizations and companies moved slowly en masse. Just behind them, at the start of the route, was Greater Faith Institutional Church's mural of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his words "The most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?''" Those words were echoed by the keynote speakers that came shortly before the march. Congressman Lloyd Doggett spoke to the crowds about these "troubled times" and about met this Friday with Congressman John Lewis, who still bears the scars on his head from his activism as a Freedom Rider. He referenced President-Elect Donald Trump's tweet criticizing the congressmen, and said "I don't think John is going to (show) a mark from a tweet. He's going to stand up for what's right and say what's right." 9:08 a.m. Some speakers got political, denouncing President-Elect Donald Trump, others said it's important to remember the role of women in the civil rights movement. All called for action, rallying the crowd to do their part to improve race relations in the United States. With blue glasses, dress pants and a tie, 8-year-old Malachi Venson took the stage to read excerpts of Martin Luther King, Jr.s "I Have a Dream" speech. He dropped his paper off the stage when he began, and at the end he squinted at his paper before saying into the microphone "I'm done," but the crowd hollered and cheered as if he was the famed civil rights activist himself. "He was a good man and his speech was real good and he helped people," said Malachi after he left the stage, about why he volunteered to read King's speech. He said he struggled to pronounce the words "interposition" "nullification" and "oppression" when he was practicing for today. He and his mother listened to the speech over and over again in preparation. Malachi said he wants to be like King and help people, "so (the people he helps) can know what love is." 8:10 a.m. Up on stage at the pre-march worship, Pastor Rosa Wilson of the Greater Faith Institutional Church introduced more than 10 people on stage, ranging from pastors to attorneys to board members of local foundations. "We're praying that God's presence is here and violence is absent," Wilson said. 7:30 a.m. Martin Luther King Day has already started for some San Antonioans. A small group with balloons huddles at the stage at the start of the route. Orange cones and horse saws line the streets, an elaborately decorated car is parked nearby, and music from the speakers is already blasting. It's been a rough start for the audio manager, Pastor Lois Souvenir of City of Refuge in Seguin. "We really don't know what the day is going to bring with all this moisture," she said. Breakers were popping this morning, she said, and there's been a few outtages. Souvenir said she came out here from Seguin with her whole family because Martin Luther King Day means a lot to her. "I feel like we still have so many mountains to climb," she said. "There's a whole lot of people still struggling. It'd be a better place in this world if we worked together as neighbors. We need to propel Martin Luther King's vision even though he's gone." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A week before thousands of San Antonians of different skin hues and denominations flow past the Rev. Geoffrey Stirrups church for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. march, Stirrup was sitting on the pulpit, clapping along as his congregation made a joyful noise. A young organist and drummer played an uptempo hymn with 89-year-old Mother Lilian Harris keeping time on the piano. The pastor bowed his head as members rose from purple cloth-covered pews in the sanctuary, lit by sunlight pouring through an overhead window. A young girl joined several others shaking tambourines as members testified and sang about Jesus. The 2.75-mile march starts at Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy, travels along Martin Luther King Drive and ends at Pittman Sullivan Park Then Stirrup, clad in a black robe, preached about having an unchanging faith in a changing world. He asked the assembled to pray for San Antonios children after the past year of record-breaking homicides and a divisive presidential election. Were facing so many changes in the world, but our faith should not be compromised, he said to shouts of amens. When things were more challenging we found ourselves worshiping more. Even though were going through trials, a good father will hear his childs cry. The members of Dominion Church of God in Christ are among those who line the sidewalks along the march route offering refreshments, friendly waves and words of hope to the throng that walks 2.75 miles to honor the legacy of the slain civil rights leader. The march begins at 10 a.m. today at MLK Jr. Academy, 3501 MLK Jr. Dr., and ends at Pittman-Sullivan Park, 1101 Iowa. Its estimated that as many as 100,000 people have joined in the peaceful walk on the East Side in recent years. Some longtime East Side residents say there have been marches to honor King for half a century; the massive city-organized event of today is in its 30th year. More Information Good to know Free VIA bus service Rides to the march are available 8 a.m.-10 a.m. from two stops: Lot 1, Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St.; and Lot 22, at Montana and Mittman streets Return rides depart from Pittman-Sullivan Park, 1101 Iowa St., noon-3 p.m. For more information, go to www.VIAinfo.net or call 210-362-2020 Other activities Several are planned at Pittman-Sullivan Park, all 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Donate blood at the Bloodmobile, sponsored by Psi Alpha Chapter of Omega Psi Psi Fraternity and South Texas Blood and Tissue Center Visit the mobile classroom stocked with educational resources, presented by the San Antonio Library Foundation Register to vote and/or pick up voting information, provided by The Neighborhoods First Alliance. Compiled by staff See More Collapse Stirrup said many in his congregation live in other parts of the city, but they choose to worship in the heart of the East Side. He wants the area along the route to be as safe year round as it is during the march. He said the church has bought and cleared property to give people an alternative to loitering. Investing in the community can run away a lot of the activity thats causing crime, death and shootings, he said. It gives us a voice of how much can be done in the community. I let people know, even people who may be on the streets, drinking, on drugs and part of high crime, that were claiming them as members of this church. Theyre people and thats the greatest asset in the world people. First on the route As city crews collected trash and cleared fallen leaves from the route last week, Walter Rodgers Jr. watched breaking news about a deadly shooting at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. Rodgers leaned back in a brown leather chair in his living room, watching the story unfold on his TV. Receiving news in a flash is a far cry from 1960, when he had the one-story home built for his wife, Calara, and two daughters, on what was then called Nebraska Street. Nebraska became MLK Drive in 1975. Its a new world, Rodgers, 85, said, as Socks, his 16-year-old cat, curled up alongside his weathered cowboy boots. Rodgers owns the first house on the march route. It sits next door to his construction business in the Wheatley Heights neighborhood. As crowds swarm the East Side corridor today, hell be sitting on the tailgate of his truck at his home until the last marchers pass by. His grandson, Tilmon King, 32, plans to be at his side, as he and other family members have been for past marches. Its something to see, King said. I like to see everyone united for one purpose, all races and walks of life. Neighbors and family members said Rodgers embodies the ways of King, known to offer help to anyone in need. A Bible-quoting man, he grew up in La Vernia, helped raise his siblings and didnt finish school, relying on scripture to steer him through life. I think its a fine thing, Rodgers said of the march, as he recalled the early processions along New Braunfels Avenue, led by one of the founders of the march, the Rev. R. A. Callies. Im for peace, anything peaceful Im for that. Steady presence Residents of the Mt. Zion Sheltering Arms, 3238 MLK Jr. Dr., have had a presence on the route for many years. Erma Kidsy, 86, Eva Mae Jackson, 92 and Dorothy Green, 71, recalled their years watching the crowd veer on the bend of the road toward the Interstate 10 overpass. They sit in rows of chairs outside the apartment complex, holding photos of King and signs written by staff members. Theyre greeted by friends they havent seen in years and strangers who thank them for paving the way for an inclusive life that the women never had. Two years ago, Kidsy held a poster that read, God allowed me to go to the Mountaintop and Ive seen the promised land. Over the years she has clipped out news articles, including stories about Kings I Have a Dream, speech for her daughter and granddaughter so theyll know about historical events. She didnt save any clippings from recent political events, such as Donald Trump being elected as the nations 45th president. I leave Mr. Trump in the hands of the Lord, Kidsy said. Hes my least worry because he doesnt have the power. Youll get sick worrying about Mr. Trump. If you have a strong enough belief, the Bible tells us the Lord will fight your battles. Let Him lead you. Green said the holiday and procession are more than just a day off from work and a healthy walk. We need to have the march for the young people, Green said. They need to know what happened back in those days. Apartment manager Mary Lou Kasberg and her staff provide the residents with a hearty breakfast of tacos and coffee before they take part in the peaceful event. The manager said shes proud of the thousands that make the pilgrimage to their neighborhood. She hopes marchers will learn about and appreciate the sacrifice many people made for equality decades ago. We still need the march, Kasberg said. I hope it continues and hopefully it will sink in. News Researcher Mike Knoop contributed to this report. vtdavis@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, he said our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Those words rode on the wave of Americas largest civil rights movement, and propelled that movement further, terminating some of the most blatant, legal discrimination against African-Americans in our history. The phrase enacted the same thing it proclaimed that language matters, that words themselves are a form of activism. And now, 88 years to the day after the famed civil-rights activist was born, San Antonio community members came together on Sunday at the Alamo Beer brewery to empower and strengthen writers amid a tumultuous and polarizing election. More and more, I feel that every one of our voices matters. Every one of our voices makes a difference. We all need to keep writing, to keep speaking out, and to gather together like this to know were not alone, said Wendy Barker, a poet-in-residence at the University of Texas in San Antonio and one of the organizers of the event. As she and dozens of poets following her spoke to a crowd of more than 70 people, residents just two miles away lay wreaths in honor of Martin Luther King both events halfway through San Antonios two-week-long Dream Week summit. Writers Resist in San Antonio was one of more than 90 events held throughout the world where writers each read a piece of literature addressing the ideals of democracy for three minutes at a time. Language does matter, and today were making sure thats not forgotten. Were re-energizing and reminding people of the power of language that none of it is just talk, said Alexandra van de Kamp, an organizer of the event and creative writing program director for Gemini Ink. Anyone who cares about speaking the truth was probably alarmed about this election. Professional poets and first-timers alike each addressed their reaction to the upcoming presidential administration in different ways. Some, like Anthony the Poet Flores, delivered poems with positive messages on writing imbued with a social justice tone: Write your own dream from beginning to end. And it doesnt matter that you havent been a writer in a while, your refusal to remain silent will be your renaissance of resonance, he proclaimed, tapping his foot to the rhythm of his poem, Writers Write. Meanwhile others delivered more pointed poems addressing their political inclinations, like Jo Reyes Boitel, who read a series of poem-tweets directed at the orange elephant in the room. Christopher Rooster Martinez, a young, local spoken word poet, delivered a poem about using the word abrasive to describe the work of a person of color a testament to the real harm words can cause. And many of the older poets related their misgivings with the outcome of the election to the tumult and fear in the 1960s Barker said it was a terrifying time, one that she cant stop remembering as President-Elect Donald Trump prepares to take office. Our words can heal, and this is an opportunity to heal, she said. All these voices have energized me, they really have. We can hear each other. We can give each other energy. We can keep each other going. sfosterfrau@express-news.net Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the first head of state of China to attend Davos economic forum, will discuss the latest developments in the Chinese economy and introduce a more inclusive plan on globalization during the forum. Xi will attend the 47th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 17. It will be the first time a Chinese president will attend the summit, an influential political and economic gathering. Several Chinese premiers have attended the forum since 1992. Xi's presence in Davos shows China's strong and firm support to economic globalization, Jin Canrong, associate dean of the Department of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. "It delivers a message to WEF that China treats WEF as a very influential and important platform for international economic affairs," Jin said. Most countries can't survive without globalization, so when the biggest economy has an anti-globalization president-elect, the world will surely turn their eyes to China, the second largest economy, Jin said. "China opposes trade protectionism, and supports solutions to trade disputes with an open and inclusive attitude and a reciprocal spirit," said China's Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong at an earlier press briefing. The president will help all parties have in-depth understanding of China's economic situation and prospects, as well as China's experience and views on economic development, Li said. Li added that China expects Xi's Davos trip to identify the deeper causes of sluggish world economic growth and find a solution, as well as reinforce confidence in global economic development. Xi will deliver a speech at the opening ceremony of WEF, and hold discussions with WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab and guests from business, media and the academe. At last year's APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Peru, Xi already delivered a strong message in support of free trade and globalization when US president-elect Donald Trump announced he would scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). "So after the world heard China's message, the international community expects China to introduce a more detailed plan in support of free trade and globalization, especially as protectionism and an anti-globalization gains support in the West, Jin said. Xi's mission in Davos is to "reduce uncertainties" by injecting confidence and solidarity into the international business community, Chen Xulong, an expert at the China Institute of International Studies, said. WEF is a symbol of economic globalization, but the recent globalization guided by neo-liberalism and Western norms has encountered serious problems and challenges, even in the most developed parts of the West, like the US and Europe, Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for International Studies at Renmin University of China. "In 2017, Europe will face many important events, such as France's presidential election and Germany's general election, and the anti-globalization group's power is rising among key EU states," Wang said. Xi will also express his gratitude to Switzerland and bring confidence and encouragement to the European countries. Talks with Trump advisers Xi will hold his first state visit to Switzerland from January 15 to 18, at the invitation of the country's Federal Council. While there, he will hold talks with Swiss Confederation President Doris Leuthard. The two heads of state will witness the signing of several cooperation deals covering politics, free trade, culture, customs, energy and sports, according to Li. Switzerland was the first European country to sign a Free Trade Agreement with China and to recognize China's market economy status. President Xi will also go to Geneva and Lausanne, where he will visit the United Nations office in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters, and the International Olympic Committee headquarters. Li said Xi will deliver a speech on establishing a "community of shared destiny" at the Palace of Nations and meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, their first meeting since the latter took office on January 1. With regard to whether Xi will meet with the US delegation on the sidelines of the summit, Li said the Chinese side maintains a smooth communication channel with Trump's team and does not rule out the possibility, according to Xinhua News Agency. "The Chinese side is willing to contact various parties to arrange some meetings, as long as there is willingness and a convenient time," Li said. SAN ANTONIO A young man was shot and killed Monday morning near an elementary school on the far Northwest Side, according to the Bexar County Sheriffs Office. The incident occurred sometime before 3:10 a.m. Monday near the intersection of Raw Silver and Mexican Silver roads, where neighbors reportedly heard gunshots but did not look outside, a sergeant said at the scene. SAN ANTONIO A former Uber driver was arrested Sunday for allegedly sexually assaulting a drunken female passenger he drove home in October, according to court documents. Gabriel Vazquez, 40, faces a second-degree felony charge of sexual assault. He is currently being held on a $50,000 bond at the Bexar County jail. RELATED: Report: Fired BCSO deputy pushed girlfriend, cut her with his fingernails On Oct. 12, the 22-year-old woman requested a ride using the Uber app after having drinks at a local bar. The woman later called police and told them she was sexually assaulted, according to an arrest affidavit. She said she was intoxicated to the point that she needed help walking, and said an unknown man followed her inside her residence. The woman said the man, later identified as Vazquez, walked her to her bedroom and started undressing her, but left her underwear on. She told him No several times but the man continued and allegedly sexually assaulted her, the affidavit said. The victim went to an area hospital for a rape kit exam. RELATED: Affidavit: Driver fled accident leaving teenage boy dead Investigators subpoenaed Ubers transportation records and determined that Vazquez was a possible suspect. The victim later identified Vazquez from a photo lineup as the suspect who allegedly raped her, according to the affidavit. Investigators learned the victim was highly intoxicated at the bar she was at, having passed out in the bathroom. She was escorted out of the bar onto the patio and employees at the bar helped her setup a ride home, the affidavit said. Vazquez, who primarily speaks Spanish, initially denied having sex with the woman, but later confessed to sexually assaulting her, according to the affidavit. RELATED: BCSO: Young man found dead near elementary school on far Northwest Side An Uber spokeswoman said Vazquez was on the Uber app as a driver for a short time and had never received complaints similar to the alleged incident that occurred in October. Whats been described is greatly concerning and has no place anywhere, Uber said in a statement. As soon as the rider reported this to us in October, we immediately removed this drivers access to the app. We assisted the San Antonio Police Department and provided any information to them that would be useful for their investigation. We appreciate all of their diligent work on this case. If convicted, Vazquez faces up to 20 years in prison. Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com twhite@mysa.com Twitter: @tylerlwhite SAN ANTONIO -- A man was fatally shot around 1 p.m. this afternoon in the city's South side near Old Pearsall Road by an unidentified suspect who had a child in the car with him. According to San Antonio police Sgt. Don Gatten, a man believed to be in his mid-30's was walking down the sidewalk in the 8600 block of Five Palms Dr. when he was approached by another man who began shooting his gun toward the victim from a black sedan. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Courtesy New Braunfels Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Courtesy New Braunfels Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Two women were arrested Sunday morning on drug charges after their car slammed into a natural gas line hub and utility pole in New Braunfels, and the pair left the scene of the single-vehicle crash. Authorities from the New Braunfels Police Department were dispatched to the 500 block of South Union Avenue at about 9:10 a.m., when they found a red Toyota Camry lodged into a pole. Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on January 17, which shows China's support for globalization and multilateralism. As deglobalization seems to be gaining more support in the US and Europe, China hopes to raise a different voice. For Beijing, the question is not whether we need globalization, but how to make globalization more inclusive. The WEF was founded in 1971, and Davos has become a symbol for globalization. As early as 1979 when China just started its reform and opening-up policies, it dispatched representatives to the forum, which marked China's endeavor to integrate into the international system. Thirty-eight years later, as China becomes the second largest economy in the world, the country's top leader's first attendance at the forum has a significant symbolic meaning. There is no denying that globalization is suffering a setback. International trade and investment are weakening. According to statistics of the World Bank, the proportion of global trade value in GDP dropped from the approximately 52 percent in 2008 to about 45 percent in 2015. The demands of developed economies for imported products have reduced and emerging markets are caught in the economic plights. Globalization now lacks powerful momentum. In addition, the refugee crisis in Europe is becoming even more severe. Free movement of people, which was once a goal of globalization, now comes under serious suspicion. The political forces which supported exclusivism and racism have gained momentum in France, Germany and Austria. US President-elect Donald Trump believes in "America first" rather than "globalism." He has successfully stopped the Ford Motor Company's plan to invest $1.6 billion to build factories in Mexico. Moreover, global governance institutions are unable to adapt to the changing reality. The United Nations has been widely criticized, and the importance of the World Trade Organization is being challenged. Trump's passive attitude toward climate change makes people worry whether the Paris Agreement would be upheld if the US refuses to play its part. Obviously, the world economy will never be saved by protectionism. International trade, cross-border investment and increased mobility of people are the preconditions for economic growth. Globalization has provided momentum for the progress of human society in the past decades, including a reduction of 660 million in China's poverty-stricken population. Globalization has promoted the establishment of market-oriented economy and technology transfer in many countries, and greatly heightened the connectedness of the world. Of course, we cannot deny the double-edged effect of globalization. Believing that their jobs have been stolen, angry blue-collar American workers accuse immigrants for taking away the social benefits that they could have been able to enjoy. The theme of this year's WEF is "Responsive and responsible leadership." It has attracted worldwide attention whether China will exert its leadership over global affairs. For China, trade protectionism must be firmly opposed, and it is crucial to maintain the openness of the world economy. Global connectivity in infrastructure should be promoted, which is also the primary goal of the Belt and Road Initiative. Moreover, both developing and developed countries need to push forward structural reforms and create jobs through innovative industries. If globalization in the past few decades is believed to be focusing on "growth," globalization 2.0 should deal with the politics of "distribution" and reduce economic and social inequality. International institutions such as the IMF also need to be further reformed, and new international organizations should be established to boost global investment. Apparently, as China goes global, its participation in and support for globalization is also on the rise. According to a report released by the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies and the New York-based Rhodium Group, China's overseas investment increased 30 percent on average annually from 2005 to 2015. According to a People's Daily Online article, China's outbound direct investment in 2016 could be more than $170 billion. Furthermore, China will host an international cooperation summit on the Belt and Road Initiative in May, and a summit for leaders from BRICS countries in September in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province. The remarks that President Xi will make at Davos are carefully choreographed. They will predict major upcoming changes in China's global diplomacy. (The author is a research fellow at the Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.) County Judge Craig Doyal and Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley are forceful and hubristic in their intent to destroy the community with the Woodlands Parkway extension. Doyal has wasted your tax dollars on a project many never wanted. He then used the fact the he had already secured the rights of way as a reason to build the extension. These elected men even tried to convince you that no one would use the extension to get to The Woodlands or I-45 and that it would not increase traffic in the neighborhoods, where children walk and bike to school. These two men held the May 2015 road bond hostage when they doomed a much-needed bond to failure by arrogantly including the controversial extension. After suffering a humiliating defeat, instead of exercising good judgment and vowing to listen to the people, they doubled down. Riley stated that he would oppose a November 2015 road bond and that "I will include Woodlands Parkway extension on any bond that I agree to." Doyal claimed he didn't know why the bond referendum failed and stated that it isn't clear what project or issue caused its failure. Both Doyal and Riley blamed the loss on "misinformation" instead of recognizing and accepting responsibility for the epic failure. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A developer is seeking city approval to rehabilitate two dilapidated downtown buildings, including a 10-story tower, into apartments, retail and office space. The city Historic and Design Review Commission on Wednesday will consider a proposal by local residential developer Craig Glendenning to turn the 10-story tower at 601 N. St. Marys St. into apartments with commercial space on the ground floor, according to the meetings agenda. Glendenning plans to remove a facade attached to the building in 1963, exposing the original 1928 exterior. RELATED: Austin company buys vacant buildings on River Walk Glendenning also plans to rehabilitate a two-story building at 611 N. St. Marys St. into retail on the ground level, office space on the second floor and a bar with performance space on the rooftop, according to the agenda. A fire-damaged one-story building in between the two structures would be demolished to make way for a paved courtyard. The buildings are about a block north of the Weston Centre office tower and GrayStreet Partners Travis Park Plaza. Glendenning plans to apply for state and federal historic tax credits, according to the HDRC agenda. RELATED: Photos: Downtown Phipps building boasts beautiful office space, rooftop views from Paramour Glendenning has developed residential subdivisions through his company Post Oak Development of Texas, according to media reports. Hes applying for historic approval through UC210 LLC, a company he created in September with another San Antonio resident named Uriel Villarreal. They couldnt immediately be reached for comment. rwebner@express-news.net @rwebner 1 Syria aid: The heads of major U.N. organizations on Monday called for access to civilians cut off from humanitarian aid in Syria. The joint appeal from the U.N. refugee agency, humanitarian aid coordinator OCHA, childrens agency UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization urged for an immediate, unconditional and safe access to all Syrian families and children in need. According to the statement, up to 700,000 people nearly half of them children live in 15 besieged areas of Syria. Many lack the most basic elements to sustain their lives and face continued risk of violence, said the statement. 2 Embassy move: European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday opposed any plan by President-elect Donald Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and warned that it could raise tensions with the Arab world. Trump hasnt yet outlined a clear policy for the Middle East, but he has signaled he will be more sympathetic to Israels hard-line right than previous administrations. He has vowed to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, part of which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state. In an article titled "A Shared Commitment to Practical Cooperation and Peaceful Development," which is written by Chinese President Xi Jinping for NeueZurcherZeitung of Switzerland before his very first overseas trip this year from Sunday to Wednesday, he said "In a complex and fast-changing world beset by weak economic recovery, China and Switzerland need to work together to deepen the innovative strategic partnership across the board." Innovative cooperation is the theme of Xi's tour this time. Not only that, the rapid development of the bilateral relationship is also an achievement of cooperative collaboration between the two sides. China and Switzerland are so different in their stage of development, size, industrial structure, history, culture and system. In light of the old saying "birds of a feather flock together," it could be hard for Beijing and Bern to carry out in-depth and substantial joint projects. However, the two have successfully initiated a number of pragmatic cooperation in political, economic and diplomatic fields amid all the differences, becoming a model of innovative collaboration and making their "innovative strategic partnership" worthy of the name. Similar judgment on the current international situation as well as their common interests is what has been pushing the two to the front line of innovation. So far, the sluggish global economy is derived from a slow-down in technological innovation, which leads to a lack of economic growth. More importantly, this trend comes from some nations' fear of globalization. They refuse to cooperate due to worries over the loss of their economic and technological advantages, or the fear of being economically controlled by other civilizations. Worry is often the first response toward new ideas. But innovative cooperation between China and Switzerland showed that numerous opportunities would be lost if we constantly turn our backs on change and innovation because of such worries. After Switzerland became one of the first countries to recognize China as a full market economy and the first country on the European continent to sign a free trade agreement with Beijing, Bern did not lose its competitiveness, nor did its market drown in Chinese products. On the contrary, the volume of Sino-Swiss trade and investment has been rising while the two keep exploring new cooperative fields. Both sides come out as the winner of this new type of teamwork. The joint pursuit of innovative spirit is what made the two easily get along in innovative collaboration. Switzerland is known for its innovative capacity. Given its citizens' pursuance in craftsman's spirit, the nation is home to a series of world-class brands such as precision machinery, clocks and watches. Striving for perfection is also highly praised in Chinese history and culture. Moreover, innovation is prioritized in the first place in China's 13th Five-Year Plan in order to create a favorable environment to boost craftsman's spirit. How to promote one's competitiveness to safeguard its status in the world economy has been a heated topic in Europe lately. Different answers to it can be heard, including protectionism. Since the Cold War has long gone and the globe has been enjoying the benefits of integration for quite some time, European nations have gradually lost their impetus for innovation. This is the root cause of Europe's declining competitive edge. Nonetheless, protectionism obviously cannot resolve the problem. Therefore, much can be learned from the Sino-Swiss innovative cooperation, including being open to each other, learning and drawing on the experiences of one another on the basis of pursuing common interests. A specific task of Xi's visit is to further implement and promote China-Switzerland innovative strategic partnership with goals such as upgrading the bilateral free trade agreement, breaking new ground on collaboration in the fields of energy, finance and tourism. Other European nations may feel regretful about it in the near future - when they will have to face more uncertainties in 2017 like Brexit negotiations and the French presidential election. China and Switzerland are going forward steadily on a clear path with few significant issues. Of course, as long as other countries in Europe can change their mindset and abandon protectionism, joining in the innovative cooperation with China will not be hard. After all, there is already a certain level of common sense in innovative joint work between China and European economies. (The author is director of the Department of European Studies, China Institute of International Studies.) Jerri-Lynn here: President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday discussed how he proposes to manage conflicts of interest between his business empire and his role as President. In the following Real News Network interview, Bill Black shreds the adequacy of this proposed solution. Trumps business interests pose an obvious constitutional problem. But as Ive written in this post, US Constitutions Emoluments Clause: a Nothingburger for Trump, Just because somethings unconstitutional, doesnt mean that any such unconstitutional activity will necessarily be prevented, precluded, or punished. I continue to stand by that earlier analysis (much as I might wish otherwise). And I think Ill go so far as to say that Professor Black notwithstanding the justifiable outrage he expresses toward Trumps position in the interview below appears equally flummoxed by the question of what can be done to force Trump to address the obvious conflicts and thereby defuse the constitutional concern. SHARMINI PERIES: Its The Real News Network. Im Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. On Wednesday, Donald Trump held a press conference. He dealt with many issues, but one very important among them, is what he plans to do with his business empire. Lets take a brief look at what he and his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, had to say. (video clip) DONALD TRUMP: But I have no conflict of interest provision as president. It was many, many years old - this is for presidents. Because they dont want presidents getting I I understand. They dont want Presidents getting tangled up in minutiae. They want a president to run the company. So, I could actually run my business. I could actually run my business and run government at the same time. I dont like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that, if I wanted to. Id be the only one that would be able to do that. You cant do that in any other capacity. But as a president, I could run the Trump organization great, great company. And I could run the company the country. Id do a very good job. But I dont want to do that. What Im going to be doing is my two sons who are right here, Don and Eric are going to be running the company. They are going to be running it in a very professional manner. Theyre not going to discuss it with me. Again, I dont have to do this. Theyre not going to discuss it with me. And with that, Im going to bring up Sheri Dillon, and shes going to go these papers are just some of the many documents that Ive signed turning over complete and total control REPORTER: Sir is there? SHERI DILLON: he said hes voluntarily taking this on. The conflicts of interest laws simply do not apply to the President, or the Vice President, and they are not required to separate themselves from their financial assets. Even so, President-elect Trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the American public that he is completely isolating himself from his business interests. He instructed us to take all steps realistically possible, to make it clear that he is not exploiting the office of the presidency for his- (audio gap) first, President-elect Trump investments and business assets, commonly known as the form as the Trump Organization, comprising hundreds of entities which, again, if you all go and take a look at his financial disclosure statement, the pages and pages and pages of entities, have all been, or will be conveyed to a trust prior to January 20th. (end video clip) SHARMINI PERIES: The President-elect is separating himself from his business empire by apparently transferring assets into a trust, and putting his two sons, Eric and Don, in charge of it all. So, then the question remains, will the trust deal with his conflict of interest that he is all tangled up in? Joining us today to examine this, is Bill Black. Bill is a white-collar criminologist, and former financial regulator. Hes the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. He is also a regular contributor here at The Real News Network. Bill, welcome back. BILL BLACK: Thank you. SHARMINI PERIES: So, Bill, lets start with what Trump plans to do with his business empire, and whether it actually deals with the problem. BILL BLACK: (laughs) He has three obvious problems, in terms of the business. One is, continuing this kind of business ownership violates the Constitution. The second is, it creates immense conflicts of interest. And the third is, that running the presidency of the United States is supposed to be more than a full-time business. And its clear that Trump is really far more interested in doing business deals than the business of the nation. And, no, this doesnt solve any of these three problems. Doesnt solve the constitutional problem, because he is going to be taking money, perhaps vast amounts of money, from foreign governments in his business entities. It doesnt solve the conflict of interest, because its not a true blind trust at all. And even in a supposed blind trust, he would obviously know what his assets were, unless he divested, which is what he is refusing to do. So, theres nothing blind about the trust. SHARMINI PERIES: Bill, lets unpack that for a moment. Now, yesterday in the press conference, he said that one way he plans to deal with this issue is to Any funds that his hotels receive from the foreign governments by way of, say, holding events for example, one of the things that have been cited is if, lets say, the government of Saudi Arabia wants to hold an event in Washington and they use the Trump Hotel in Washington to hold that event he would then take that income and give it to the public treasury. Now, how feasible is all that? And how do we track any of that, and what do you think of his measure of allowing this to go to the public treasury? BILL BLACK: Well, first, again, we dont know how any of this would be done. And he is someone who is the opposite of transparent, the only person in modern times who has refused to release his tax returns. (video clip) DONALD TRUMP: Well, Im not releasing the tax returns, because as you know, theyre under audit. REPORTER: But every President since the 70s has been required an audit from the IRS DONALD TRUMP: Oh gee, never heard that Oh gee, Ive never heard that REPORTER: the last six have released them. But as President, sir DONALD TRUMP: Ive never heard that You know the only one that cares about my tax returns is you reporters REPORTER: You dont think the American public is concerned about that? DONALD TRUMP: No, I dont think so. I won. (end video clip) BILL BLACK: Under this completely bogus explanation that hes under audit, as if that meant he couldnt release his tax returns. With my law hat on, theres absolutely no such clause. In terms of the government, they have every incentive to curry interest with Trump. Its abundantly apparent that Trump cares enormous amounts of money amounts about having money, and of course, they wouldnt have to do it in the name of the Saudi government. They could do it in the name of any of literally over a thousand Saudi princes, and such. Or their supposed charitable funds, or their lobbyists could do it. So, no, none of this does anything other than cause you to use a cutout, and the Saudis are expert at using cutouts nothing unique about the Saudis. Everybody understands how to do this to curry favor, and to appear to comply with some laws. So, again, thats why the head of the Office of Government Ethics - now, people may recall that theres a Congressional Ethics, and that their very first act, literally, of the Republicans upon constituting the new Congress, was to try to take a whack at those folks. And that that lasted one day before public opinion caused them to back off. But theres an Office of Government Ethics, more generally, and this is not a particularly stringent-type entity. But back in the past, for example, they made criminal referrals when Charles Keating was trying to put a mole - Charles Keating was the most infamous fraud of the Savings and Loan debacle - and through the Reagan administration he got a presidential appointee who was, you know, literally as intelligence agents used the term, a mole for this leading fraud running the agency. The Office of Government Ethics, once I blew the whistle to them, was instrumental in getting Lee Henkel, that mole, to resign in disgrace. So, you know, they have their moments. Well, the head of the Office of Government Ethics just came out, flat out, and said, this is outrageous, you should not do this, divestment is the only effort that can work. And the claim that its a sacrifice, everybody else to serve in the federal government, including, of course, all the people in the armed services, make vastly greater sacrifices than this. So, he just took a hammer and hit it right in Donald Trumps forehead, figuratively, on this issue. And then the former head of ethics for the Bush administration, Richard Painter, who, in disclosures a colleague of mine, wife on the faculty of the U Minnesota Law School has been increasingly, clear. This flatly violates the Constitution, and of course, is a terrible act in terms of conflicts of interest that youre supposed to avoid. Lets be clear: the framers of the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, is blessedly short, so there arent that many specific, You cant do this, is in it. One of the things they explicitly put in, because of real world experience, was in No, were going to make sure the President of the United States cannot be influenced by foreign governments through these means. We have this prohibition, and in its day, just a flat prohibition. So, Trumps lawyers are absolutely wrong in saying, Well, you know, if you just do business in the normal course, as the Saudis or the Russians, with the Trump Empire, that cant be problem. No, thats forbidden. SHARMINI PERIES:Wow. So, what do you make of the type of trust thats been established? Now, theres been a lot of talk about whether its a blind trust, or just a trust. I think he was in just, established a trust that he would just hand over to Don and Eric to run. Does it matter what kind of trust? BILL BLACK: Yes. If you did real divestment, you wouldnt then know what you owned, in a blind trust. And there would be less concern that you were doing things as a president that might make you rich. If its not a blind trust, youd know what your assets are intimately. You know exactly what will help those assets in terms of policies, and in lobbyists and friends and foreign parties, like weve been talking about, and it brings government into disrepute. So, he could have created a blind trust. It wouldve required divestment. Hes absolutely refused to do what all Presidents have done in the modern era. Hes flatly refused to follow the advice of the Office of Government Ethics. Hes flatly refused to follow the advice of people where this is their specialty area, the ethics in finances of the government. He has created blatant conflicts of interest, and he has made it farcical by putting his two sons so, this isnt the Ford Foundation running something this is his kids. And, you know, he even said at the end of the conference, Well, what would you do if these kids did a bad job of running it? He said, Id fire them. So, hes retaining control. So, its a farce, and its an outrage, and its unconstitutional. It needs to be stopped. And as I said, on top of that, he has a more than full-time job trying to learn to be President of the United States. The last thing in the world someone as lazy as Donald Trump is, who cant be bothered to read a memo, because it interferes with his ability to be touting his towers. Someone who constantly takes the press to do photo opportunities, as his own businesses, to make himself richer, he is the last person in the world that needs these conflicts of interest, and these distractions. So, on all three grounds, it simply should be completely unacceptable. SHARMINI PERIES:Bill, you travel these circles. Some of your colleagues youve mentioned, others many people are talking about this big, huge elephant in the room that he keeps trying to deflect as a non-issue. In fact, at the beginning of the conference he says, Im not required by law to do any of this. But youre a lawyer. What are people saying about it? When you say this is constitutional conflict here why isnt that registering with Donald Trump? BILL BLACK: (laughs) Because he could care less about these kinds of things, hes a rich guy, born not with a silver spoon, but with a platinum spoon, and then when he screwed that up, he got another serving from dad. All his life hes been able to skate. All his life hes been made rich by the government. David Cay Johnstons book can explain this to you in great detail, how he was bailed out twice, by the federal, and then the state government combination, through his taxes. He has contempt for all normal rules. He Its of a piece with his refusal to disclose his tax returns, and hes flat out wrong on the constitutional part. That is a law, and hes going to take an oath to defend and protect the very Constitution that hes going to start out massively violating. Now, he is correct that in addition to the Constitution, there is something that isnt a legal mandate. It is simply what all modern Presidents have done, in the view that it is essential to the dignity of the office, to respect for the office, that Americans should know that there arent conflicts of interest, and Donald Trump is saying, Screw you, on that. Now, that isnt a law, that second part, nor is it a law that says, Hey, youve got more than a full-time job being president. But anyone responsible would not do what hes doing. Now, of course, no surprise to us that hes going to act irresponsibly, but he needs to be hammered when he does these kinds of things, we cannot simply accept this progressive destruction of ethics as being inevitable. SHARMINI PERIES:Bill, theres some rumors on the Hill that some congress people are possibly calling for, enquiring, into the direct conflicts that are going on. Are there any legal courses that Congress, or anyone else, could take in terms of these obvious cases of conflict of interest youre talking about? BILL BLACK: Oh, certainly. Congress can hold hearings. Congress can have the GAO investigate. But, only the majority party can call hearings, subpoena witnesses, subpoena documents, and it would be extraordinary - I mean, it would be a good thing but no one expects thats going to be done by any Republican Chair, any time remotely soon. Individual members of Congress can ask the GAO to investigate. But when the GAO, for example, sought to investigate - remember when Dick Cheney was vice-president and he had his secret Energy Commission that was overwhelmingly top executives, like of Exxon, secretly making our policy? And the GAO sought to investigate? Well, there was even a court case, and then the GAO gave up that court case. And the reason is, it was threatened with massive reduction in its budget. Should it take on the President in those kinds of actions, and the Vice President, Dick Cheney? Of course, the absolute most influential group of that secret group of energy companies with Dick Cheney? That was Enron. SHARMINI PERIES: Right. And obviously theres a similar conflict going on as the hearings unfold. Were coming to know that Tillerson, and a number of other appointees that are getting confirmed as we speak, have similar conflicts of interest. And then theres not possibility of Congress or Senate putting any of these concerns into any sort of inquiry going on. Its a done deal, it seems. BILL BLACK: And theres simply no candor. So, he testified in his confirmation hearing that Exxon, to his knowledge, had not directly lobbied to try to get out of the Russian sanctions. In fact, it lobbied extensively, and then he said, when he was confronted with the evidence that theyd lobbied, Well, how do you know we lobbied against the sanctions, that cost us tens of billions of dollars? You know, its just theyre not even trying to create a good cover-up. Its just, We can get away with anything. SHARMINI PERIES: Right. And why do you think the Democrats are going along with it? I mean, theyre asking the most, lame questions in this hearings one could imagine. The odd congressman, or senator, is asking some tough questions, but its rare. BILL BLACK: Yes! So, Marco Rubio was by far the toughest questioner (laughs) in any of the hearings. Will Rogers, I think, said it best, now, maybe 80 years ago, Im not a member of any organized party. Im a Democrat. SHARMINI PERIES: (laughs) All right, Bill. I thank you so much for joining us today. BILL BLACK: Thank you. SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. Nanotechnology-based antimicrobial packaging to enhance food safety and reduce waste (Nanowerk News) The European Union (EU) has awarded the international NanoPack consortium 7.7 million to develop and demonstrate a solution for extending food shelf life by using novel antimicrobial surfaces. The three-year project is aimed at demonstrating, validating and testing food-packaging products with antimicrobial surfaces based upon natural materials. NanoPack will address scientific, technological, economic, safety and regulatory challenges. NanoPack, which is led by the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, is funded as part of HORIZON 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. "NanoPack will demonstrate a solution for extending food shelf life by using novel smart antimicrobial surfaces, applied in active food packaging products," said Dr. Ester Segal, NanoPack's coordinator and associate professor at the Technion. "NanoPack will enhance food safety for consumers by significant growth inhibition of food-borne microbes, which in turn will prevent food-borne illness outbreaks and early spoilage." She added that NanoPack would help reduce the staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted each year, which cause major economic loss and significant harm to the world's natural resources. "We intend to present better performing, safer and smarter products that will position Europe as the leader in food nanotechnology and smart antimicrobial packaging while increasing competitiveness and growth," Dr. Segal added. The active polymer films developed by NanoPack exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties unmet by existing state-of-the-art materials, which include currently used nanomaterials such as silver particles, which have raised health concerns of toxicity and microbial resistance. Applying the power of nanotechnology, the project will employ polymer composites based on natural Halloysite Nanotubes (HNTs) as reliable and safe carriers, capable of tailored release of bioactive payloads. Due to their size, HNTs are unable to migrate from the food packaging into food. Maximizing safety, HNTs in the NanoPack food packaging slowly release minute amounts of potent, volatile, natural and EU-approved essential oils into the packaging headspace. The oils exhibit both antimicrobial and anti-fungal properties and can be tailored to inhibit growth of most food-borne microbes. The NanoPack consortium is comprised of 18 partner organizations - leading industrial and research institutes - from Belgium, Austria, Norway, Spain, Israel, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, France, Germany and the Netherlands. NanoPack will hold its opening conference at the facilities of Bio Base Europe (BBEU) in Ghent, Belgium on January 24-26, 2017. About NanoPack NanoPack is an EU-funded project, which aims to develop and demonstrate a solution for extending food shelf life by using novel antimicrobial surfaces applied in active food packaging products. Find the newest releases to watch from National Geographic on Disney+, including favourite documentary series and films Free Solo, The Rescue, Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth and The World According to Jeff Goldblum. NATO Liaison Officer in Central Asia Alexander Vinnikov visited Kyrgyzstan from 9 to 11 July. It was the fourth visit to the country since his appointment in 2013. During his visit Mr Vinnikov met with senior representatives of Kyrgyzstans Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy to review bilateral NATO-Kyrgyzstan dialogue and cooperation. The sides discussed ongoing and planned activities implemented under the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme, as well as the situation and prospects in Afghanistan. Mr Vinnikov also held talks with implementing partners of the NATO-Kyrgyzstan resettlement and retraining programme for released military personnel. Launched in 2009, this programme has trained around 500 security sector personnel in English, IT and management skills to help them adapt to employment in civilian life. The NATO-funded programme is currently implemented in the cities of Bishkek and Osh and, with strong support from the Kyrgyzstan authorities, is soon to be expanded to Karakol. While in Bishkek, the NATO Liaison Officer attended a regional workshop on Engaging the Media in Countering Terrorism in Central Asia, organised by the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia. Mr Vinnikov also met with resident NATO Ambassadors and with representatives of other international organisations accredited in Kyrgyzstan. English language version: http://www.akipress.com/news:544511 Russian language version (http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_111736.htm?selectedLocale=ru): http://www.vb.kg/doc/280090_zamministra_oborony_poblagodaril_nato_za_podderjky.html http://www.gazeta.kg/news/kyrgyzstan/policy/5009-pervyy-zamministra-oborony-kyrgyzstana-prinyal-oficera-svyazi-nato.html A conference entitled 25 Years of Independence: Energy Security Issues in Central Asia and Beyond took place in Ashgabat on 14-15 December 2016 with the participation of experts from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The event in Turkmenistan provided an opportunity to reflect on security challenges and regional cooperation strategies in particular in the energy sector. The conference was organised by the NATO Liaison Office to Central Asia, the UK Embassy in Ashgabat and the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. Speakers remarked that while regional cooperation is essential to guarantee the security of energy infrastructures, oil and gas pipelines can be built as means to promote peace and stability. Pointing to the expertise of the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, represented at the conference by its Deputy Director Col Jean-Marc Bouillet and its Head of Strategic Analysis and Research Division Arturas Petkus, the NATO Liaison Officer to Central Asia Rosaria Puglisi emphasised NATOs support to enhance partners security and defence capacity also in the energy sector. (Jia Yueting (second from left) addresses a press conference on Jan. 15 Source: Thepaper.cn) Facing an alleged capital crunch, the CEO of Chinese technology group LeEco, Jia Yueting, for the first time responded to comments calling the company a Ponzi scheme, saying at a press conference on Jan. 15 that only fools and backstage manipulators would make such an argument. According to Jia, the Ponzi scheme rhetoric originally came from a Chinese competitor, and was later adopted by U.S. politicians for political purposes. The now famous criticism was leveled against LeEco in November by Nevada state treasurer Dan Schwartz, when construction of the companys ambitious $1 billion electric vehicle factory in Nevada halted in response to the companys financial difficulties. Jia added that the Ponzi scheme rumors originated from a competitor who spent so much time plotting against us, which is actually a good thing for LeEco." He went on to explain that LeEco does not see this rival as a threat, since the latter already lags far behind in "ambition and vision. I am sure you all know who I am referring to, he said, without offering any names. Jia wrote on Sina Weibo last November that this unidentified company was the infamous backstage manipulator. The same day as Jia published his post, the companys official Weibo posted a snapshot picture of what looked like a WeChat conversation between Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun and another user. Based on the photo, the user appeared to write that LeEco had unpaid debt of over 15 billion RMB, including more than 1 billion RMB due to suppliers, according to Thepaper.cn. Xiaomi later denied participating in the dialogue, though some suppliers have reportedly accused LeEco of delaying payments. Society should create a friendly environment for entrepreneurs. This is an age for heroes not to mock, question or bring them down, Jia said at the press conference. Meanwhile, the company announced that it has received a strategic investment of 16.8 billion RMB from a consortium led by property developer Sunac China Holdings, which is expected to ease the companys financial problems. Sunday, January 15, 2017 by: Jonathan Landsman Tags: CDC , mandatory vaccinations , vaccines This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) At the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, the mood is bleak. President-elect Donald Trumps surprise victory over Hillary Clinton has generated agency-wide anxiety, with employees reportedly worried about the impact of a Trump presidency on job safety, funding and public health policies. CDC employees are literally falling apart and becoming emotionally disturbed over their future with Trump. Specifically, CDC employees fear that Trump appointed public leaders may not support mandatory vaccinations especially in light of the most recent meeting between Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry. Employees are also worried that the policies of a Trump presidency will create a general atmosphere of scientific regression. According to a representative of the radio station WABE, one microbiologist (at the CDC) said her colleagues were crying in the hallways. Trump has been outspoken about his personal beliefs regarding vaccination, saying that he not only has never had a flu shot in his life, but that he has never suffered from the flu in any form. State health agencies gone wild: Pumping toxic poisons into our children, in the name of public safety Although there are no U.S. federal vaccination laws, all 50 states require that infants must receive vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella within the first 18 months of life. Additionally, they must be vaccinated for tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, pertussis and Haemophilus Influenza Type B within their first three years, with a mandatory vaccination for Hepatitis B before starting school. The growing number of vaccines required and its frequency (within a short period of time) have many integrative healthcare providers and parents concerned. Many childhood vaccines, including the DTap (diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis), contain aluminum a known neurotoxin. Injected aluminum has been shown to cause behavioral problems, cognitive deficits and increased aggression; it has also been linked with the development of Alzheimers disease. In addition, common vaccines contain toxins such as formaldehyde and mercury. And, according to recent research, many popular vaccines have been found to be contaminated with the toxic herbicide glyphosate. Natural health experts have long warned of a link between vaccines and the soaring national rates of autism spectrum disorder. Some authorities place the current autism rate among children at 1 in 45, and warn that if the trend continues, an almost-unimaginable one out of two children will eventually be diagnosed with the disorder. 5 doctors reveal lifesaving news about vaccines, infectious diseases and immunity. Click here to register now for the worlds first FREE, online summit dedicated to vaccine safety news, infectious disease solutions and the latest advances in immune protective protocols. Will the CDC still have its power to quarantine American citizens and force vaccinate the population? The atmosphere of worry at the CDC stands in sharp contrast to the authoritative tone of an NPRM or Notice of Proposed Rule Making released a mere three months ago. In the NPRM, the CDC and the Health and Human Services Department alarmed natural health and personal freedom advocates with a proposal for an unprecedented expansion of powers, claiming the ability to detain, force vaccinate and even quarantine American citizens without due process if they are believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage. Expansion of the definition of qualifying stage to extend to people showing no visible symptoms has led to fears of forced quarantines and medical witch hunts in which the government could round up troublesome or unpopular individuals and detain them indefinitely under the guise of protecting public health. Will Trump protect us from the grip of big pharma? Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had taken a so-called tough public stance against the pharmaceutical industry. In 2015 she unveiled her plan to combat rising drug prices, and called drug companies the enemies she is most proud to have made. This defiant rhetoric is undercut, however, by the fact that Clinton received more campaign cash from drug companies than any other candidate, accepting $164,315 in the first six months of the campaign alone. (In other words, Clinton never intended to really go after big pharma) In response to Trumps win, the CDC released a standard, boilerplate statement, saying the agency stands ready to work with the new administration to protect and advance Americas health security. In spite of the unworried tone of the official announcement, employees of the federal agency are anxious to say the least. And, when Trump takes office, we may finally see justice served to such a criminal organization that has failed to protect the American population from toxic vaccines. 5 doctors reveal lifesaving news about vaccines, infectious diseases and immunity. Click here to register now for the worlds first FREE, online summit dedicated to vaccine safety news, infectious disease solutions and the latest advances in immune protective protocols. References: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/257234-clinton-brings-in-most-big-pharma-money-of-2016-field http://news.wabe.org/post/atlanta-cdc-employees-express-anxiety-over-trumps-win http://www.naturalhealth365.com/cdc-quarantine-1963.html http://vaccineworldsummit.com (Natural News) Theres no worse karma than betraying your fellow human beings, including children and babies, so that they take the wrong medicines and eat the wrong foods that cause sickness, cell disorder, central nervous system maladies and even death, all in the name of power, control and money. That is why the following 10 Big Food and Bad Medicine shills deserve nothing more than the Science Ass-Hat Award for being the ultimate hucksters, liars, losers and science scammers on the planet. These insidious hacks know exactly what theyre doing when they regurgitate chemical industry lies, sell the public on eating GMOs and trusting in dangerous chemotherapy, inject carcinogenic vaccines, kill healthy babies that are still in the womb, and worst of all, act like theyre actually worth something in this world. Their outright arrogance and immoral, utterly unethical-to-the-core characters simply cant be measured on any kind of scale, but we can rank them and give them the medal of dishonor they so self-righteously deserve. (RELATED: Find real news about science at Scientific.news, and read the truth about medicine at Medicine.news) Starting from the top and working our way down to the bottom of the sellout barrel, here come the top performing science-sellout posers and clowns of the year: #1. Bill Nye: the science fraud guy What a total sellout goon this freak of nature has become. He went from totally questioning everything about GMOs to saying he was literally in love with them after visiting Monsanto headquarters where he tried on several shades of brown lipstick and learned how to pray to the most evil company on the planet now owned by Bayer, a behemoth that not only manufactures bad medicine and chemical pesticides for agriculture, but also controls a large portion of the worlds seeds, hoping to create a monopoly and turn them all into genetic mutations. Thanks Bill Nye, you science fraud guy, for selling out like the shill you are. We know now exactly what films, books and videos to never show the kids in school. #2. Neil DeGrasse Tyson: the mascot of the fraudulent scientific industrial complex Yes, we know, you like his narration of space exploration and intellectual star talk, but its all been undermined and ruined by his complete and utter ignorance of GMOs, while acting like hes an expert about anything that leaps from his mouth. Tysons mostly successful career recently took a nose dive and his public persona jumped off a steep cliff when the for-profit science industry found a new shill and mascot to spit out their usual jargon and propaganda about genetically modified food (GMOs). Tyson must be broke and in need of some quick cash, as he has taken to spewing out lies about biotechnology being the same as traditional cross-breeding thats been occurring for thousands of years. By the way, Neil, scientists have not been in laboratories splicing the genes of toxic pesticides into Americas most popular crop seeds for millennia (only for the past 30 years). Stick to your star talk and quit pushing cancer food on the masses for quick cash. GMOs are not safe and do not occur naturally. The irony is that so many celebrities today are uneducated about the foods we eat, so for endorsements, they model the worst of all habits and sell innocent people their own slow, miserable death. Tysons ramped-up promotion of GMO foods is suspect, to say the least, considering he is comparing GM corn and soy that contain carcinogens to seedless watermelons and long-stem roses. #3. Senator Richard Pan: Californias mercury joker The Eli Lilly shill, a.k.a. the Mercury Joker has cornered the market on chemical-based child abuse in California. What easier way is there to make a fortune as an unethical doctor than to force-vaccinate millions of children, including black boys who, according to the lead CDC scientist, Dr. William Thompson, are more susceptible to getting autism from mercury injections, and then pretending to treat them with other dangerous drugs their whole lives? Pan is a huckster and propagandist who takes big money from big pharma for his political campaigns, while promoting dangerous chemical medicine and laws to jab it all into humans, including infants and pregnant women. Thanks Joker, youve won third place in the science shill Ass-Hat competition of 2016. #4. David H. Gorski, a.k.a. Orac: the psycho-blogger This internet clown abuses people online, especially anyone who questions vaccines or chemotherapy. He takes breaks from surgery and runs to his computer like a little rat, typing thousands of words, blogs, replies and rants on medical message boards, all while his patients lie on operating tables waiting for him to finish sewing them up. Do his patients even really have cancer? Gorski has been reported to the FBI for suspicious activity, and features some of the worst reviews from patients you will ever read. He may be the most arrogant doctor alive today whos somehow still practicing medicine. He may have been named as a co-conspirator by Dr. Farid Fata, who worked under the same institution umbrella of Karmanos Cancer Care in Detroit. Fata is serving 45 years in federal prison for dosing patients to death with high doses of chemotherapy, even when they didnt have cancer. Fata is next on the list of top science Ass-Hats of the year. Dr. Orac, the mentally deranged surgeon, cyber bully and surgical quack, is now linked to a skeptics kingpin (James Randi amateur magician) and pervert caught on tape soliciting sex from a young man, according to sources. #5. Dr. Farid Fata: the most insidious and evil cancer doctor ever This story is so insane youd think its a horror movie theme instead of real life. On July 10th, 2015, Detroit area oncologist Farid Fata, M.D., was sentenced to only 45 years in prison for administering chemotherapy to healthy patients, some of whom died, and for defrauding Medicare and private insurance companies out of more than $30 million. The freak pleaded guilty to 13 counts of healthcare fraud, two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy involving kickbacks. He even injected his dying patients during their last few days of life with more of his massively intense European Protocol mixture of intravenously-fed chemo drugs. Heres the rub: Fata operated from multiple locations in and around Detroit, where one of his cohorts (who has since denied knowing him) may have been named as a co-conspirator. Orac the psycho-blogger has been reported to the FBI. If you are aware of any misconduct or misdiagnoses by one David H. Gorski, surgical oncologist at Karmanos, be sure to report it! #6. Bill Gates master of the Zika virus hoax No, Bill Gates is not just a computer whiz who wants the best technology for the world. Gates is a globalist who wants to get rid of billions of people in the next two decades using vaccines and GMOs as weapons of mass destruction. Pretending to be a philanthropist who cares about third world countries, Gates is actually one of many rich white dudes whose ultimate goal is to sterilize minorities and wipe them off the face of the earth with cancer-causing, genetically mutated corn and soy. If you are not aware that toxic vaccines and GMOs are bio-weapons of the 21st century, start doing some homework. Watch out for a fake Zika vaccine that might come out soon! Thats why Bill Gates ranks in at number 6 in the science-shill Ass-Hat awards of 2016. #7. Kevin Folta: the ultimate Monsanto shill If Folta had his way, hed have the whole country believing that hes just an honest horticulture scientist and academic at the University of Florida who cares about people, food and farming. This clown poses on talk radio as a geek who interviews himself, asking himself Monsanto-fed questions and answering using scripted lines to promote everything GMO as safe and beneficial, so that he can take his shill vacations in Hawaii paid for by Monsanto. Folta uses organic words like sustainability when talking about dangerous chemical-based pesticides. Just like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Folta wants Americans to believe that GMOs are just another step in traditional breeding. The US Right to Know Group exposed Folta for the shill he really is when they dredged up FOIA paperwork and emails showing discussions with Monsanto reps about how he would say anything they wanted him to say. Thats why the sad, geeky Folta is ranked number 7 for the Ass-Hat science shill awards of 2016. #8. Robert Santella: the demonic, psycho abortion doctor Yes, there are doctors in America who love killing children and babies. This freak got caught on video in a rant that went viral and got him fired. Coming in at number 8 for the ultimate Science Ass-Hat of the Year award is psycho abortion doctor Santella, who may be still be killing babies at a new, different institution. Beware! #9. Dr. Julie Gerberding: former CDC director and current Merck shill This evil nut-job was a key conspirator in covering up the vaccine-autism link that was later completely exposed by Dr. William Thompson, head CDC scientist, who had already alerted Gerberding to the evil data manipulation going on at the CDC. Now, she heads up Mercks evil vaccine marketing and promotions division. Congratulations Gerberding, youre ranked number 9 in the science shilling Ass-Hat competition of 2016. #10. Jon Entine: the ultimate GMO apologist, corporate propagandist and alleged violent wife-beater A former favorite GMO propagandist for Forbes.com, this chemical-pesticide huckster and charlatan dragged his now ex-wife and teenaged daughter through courts for years while he allegedly abused them time and time again, actually choking his wife in front of the daughter. Entine shills for Monsanto and Syngenta, publishing false information in mainstream publications to con Americans into eating cancer food. Entine also won the Corrupt Journalist Award for being a low-life scoundrel and pushing multiple corporate lies at Forbes.com. Also, 2016 was such a special year for science Ass-Hats, that a bonus ass-clown award goes out, at number 11, to Paul Offit, the science muppet! This clown and vaccine-pushing puppet invented and patented the most dangerous vaccine known to mankind: RotaTeq, the rotavirus vaccine. Chock full of neurotoxins that cause autism, the rotavirus vaccine was invented by the same man who pretends to care about autistic children. Imagine the arrogance and hypocrisy. The only reason Offit cares about autistic children is because they serve as more cash in his bank account, as the CDC has put Offits toxic vaccine on its schedule of mandatory vaccinations for children. Unbelievable. That is why Offit the Muppet is number 11 on the 2016 science Ass-Hat of the Year award list. Congratulations you sellout hucksters. You all deserve exactly whats coming your way: bad karma. Sources for this article include: TruthWiki.org TruthWiki.org NaturalNews.com UnmaskingOrac.Blogspot.co.za NaturalNews.com TruthWiki.org TruthWiki.org TruthWiki.org NaturalNews.com TruthWiki.org NaturalNews.com TruthWiki.org A new study may have finally uncovered the mystery behind why female killer whales experience menopause, just like humans, when they get older. The study, published in the Current Biology, showed that older female orcas tend to put off their reproduction to give way for younger females that were more likely to mate and reproduce. Additionally, the researchers found that the level of relatedness of killer whales in a single pod might also be a driving factor in the menopause of older females. "When females are born, they have a relatively low relatedness to the males in their group, because their father isn't around," explained Darren Croft, a professor of animal behavior at the University of Exeter in England and one of the authors of the study, in a report from New York Times. "But as a female starts to reproduce, her relatedness to males increases, because her sons stay with her." Killer whales are just one of the three species of mammals that are known to undergo menopause, the other two are humans and short-finned pilot whales. Orcas could live for 90 years or even longer. However, female orcas experience menopause between 30 and 40 years old. For the study, the researchers analyzed over 43 years of demographic data of two killer whale populations in the northwest Pacific. Killer whale groups are matriarchal, which means sons and daughter live with their mother throughout their life. Due to this, older females in the pod become more related with the other members, while younger females are less related with the pod. This could mean that younger females could secure more resources for herself and her future offspring, while the older females are more likely to cooperate, sharing resources and knowledge. If by chance an older female in the pod gives birth simultaneously with a younger member, their calves will be 1.7 times as likely to die in the first 15 years of life compared to those calves that are born to the younger mothers. It sounds like a magical but made-up creature, but it's the ruby seadragon is a charming ruby-colored animal that was only just classified as a species in 2015. Now, researchers manage to capture it on video, marking the first time this kind of seadragon has been spotted in the wild. According to a report from Eurekalert, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the Western Australian Museum went hunting for the elusive ruby seadragon in its natural habitat. It turned out to be a successful expedition in the waters by Western Australia's Recherche Archipelago as the team managed to get footage as well as new knowledge on the elusive creature. The trip down under confirmed that the ruby seadragons do not possess the leaf-like appendages that the two other known seadragon species possess. Both the common and leafy seadragons are known for this distinguishing feature that allows them to camouflage in the rich underwater landscape. However, scientists suspect the ruby seadragon shed this trait through evolution as its red hue acts as its camouflage in its dimly-lit habitat in deeper waters. Another special feature of this relatively new species is a prehensile, also known as a curled tail that is often seen in seahorses. This is absent in other seadragons, but seadragons may use theirs during stronger currents to grab onto objects underwater. Ruby seadragons were also observed to strike at prey for food and live in areas where there are a lot of sponges, unlike other seadragons who are known to live in areas dominated by kelp and seagrass. "It was really quite an amazing moment," co-author and Scripps graduate student Josefin Stiller said. "It never occurred to me that a seadragon could lack appendages because they are characterized by their beautiful camouflage leaves." The team published their findings in the Marine Biodiversity Records. A report from National Geographic revealed that it took four dives with a remote-controlled mini submarine to finally find and film two ruby seadragons at a depth of 167 feet underwater. A dead zebra that cropped up along a Central California beach has some scratching their heads and wondering how the animal, which was found without most of its hide, died, NBC affiliate KSBY reported. Authorities on Saturday were alerted about the washed-up carcass. California State Parks and sheriff's officials told KSBY that the zebra may have died from natural causes before being swept into the ocean by a recent round of winter weather. A majority of the animal's hide was missing as of Sunday afternoon, leaving some to wonder if the animal was skinned at some point, KSBY reported. "I have not taken a picture of (the zebra) and I think that tells you a lot," Andreas Zetzche, a visitor to San Simeon, said. Officials with Hearst Castle own the zebra, but they have not yet asked for an investigation into a possible skinning, according to KSBY. A herd of zebras is a frequent spectacle along Highway 1 near Hearst Castle. Officials told KSBY that this instance isn't the first time a dead zebra belonging to Hearst Castle has died before being found near the Pacific Ocean. The carcass was still nestled along the rocks as of Sunday afternoon, according to KSBY. Officials do not plan to remove the dead animal because there is no smell. Democrats nationwide are launching a stand against changes to President Barack Obama's health care law. On Sunday, they held rallies, including one in San Francisco, calling for a day of action before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. At the City Hall rally, which lasted about an hour and a half, Democrats pledged to make this "first stand" in what's expected to be a long, bitter battle over health care. Carrying handmade signs and wearing miniature American flags, hundreds gathered at Civic Center Plaza. Local elected officials led the rally. "Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress want to tear down the ACA, destroy Medicare and Medicaid and defund Planned Parenthood," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said. "Their plan is to make America sick again." San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee also was on hand and said it's a shame that so much progress might be wiped out by politically motivated Republicans. "Sadly today, we find ourselves in a place where we need to worry whether our lowest income residents will have insurance," he said. "We have to worry about our moderate income families who might start forgoing insurance to help pay for groceries." Trump has vowed to overturn and replace Obamacare, and Republicans have already taken the first steps in the process. "Republicans don't have a plan," Pelosi said. "You know what their plan is? Cut and run. Cut the health coverage for working families and run. Bernie Miller of Concord came to show his support. "My stepson three years ago died of leukemia just before Obamacare went into effect, and if he'd had Obamacare, perhaps he wouldn't have died," Miller said. Salamah Locks, a nurse for 35 years, said she's seen firsthand how the Affordable Care Act can help. "It appalls me that we would take away insurance from those who need it," she said. "Insurance that has actually saved lives." The Other Avenues food cooperative in San Francisco will not be open this Friday, Jan. 20. The reason: Donald Trump. A sign posted on the Outer Sunset shop's front door reads: "Other Avenues will be CLOSED in the spirit of passive resistance on Inauguration Day, Friday, January 20." Steven Watson, a collective member at the store, says customer reaction to the closure has been mostly positive. "They really enjoy that we're taking a stance against someone who is so diametrically opposed to what we are a business," Watson said. Regulars who support the decision appreciate that the business is taking an anti-Trump stance. Some also applaud the store for speaking out for certain communities and freedoms that could come into question when the president-elect takes office. "I'm kind of surprised, but it's nice to see that sort of freedom of speech taking place," customer Carolina Sheridan said. On the other side of the spectrum, one frustrated customer didn't take kindly to the store's announcement. "I don't like any store to close, whether it's pro-Trump or against him," the man said. When the store is closed on Friday, Watson said several employees will be taking part in various Trump-related protests or rallies slated to take place around San Francisco. The Other Avenues shop every year only closes for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and International Workers' Day. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a last foreign trip before leaving office, has met with Ukraine's president and called on the impending Donald Trump administration to retain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia. Biden's comments Monday at a briefing with President Petro Poroshenko came after Trump indicated in a Times of London interview that he could end sanctions imposed in the aftermath Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal. "The Crimea-related sanctions against Russia must remain in place until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine," Biden said. Other U.S. sanctions are connected to Russia's involvement in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine. Biden said that Russia must fulfill its obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement on ending that conflict. The visit came days after President Barack Obama awarded a teary-eyed Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In surprising Biden with the nation's highest civilian honor, Obama praised the vice president on Thursday as an "extraordinary man with an extraordinary career in public service." A Massachusetts man is facing human trafficking and rape accusations, according to police. Luis Santos, 22, of Worcester, was arrested for allegedly kidnapping, raping, and human trafficking a minor. Worcester police say the 14-year-old female victim met Santos online and began communicating with him via Facebook, when Santos allegedly paid $5,000 to have the victim illegally smuggled across the border from El Salvador to the United States in mid-December. The victim moved into an apartment with Santos on Kingsbury Street in Worcester, and despite informing Santos she did not want a romantic relationship with him, she was forced to sleep in the same bed and was sexually touched on numerous occasions by him, according to police. Santos allegedly keep the victim from attending school, locked her in the bedroom, and refused to let her use the phone. After three weeks, the victim was able to leave the apartment and informed family friends of the incident, police said. Police were notified by Worcester Public Schools that the victim was not attending class on a regular basis. Eventually, police say officers were able to get in touch with Santos over the phone and was later arrested. "It's extremely troubling, on a number of levels" Worcester Police Sgt. Michael Hanlon said, adding "Obviously the 14-year-old female had no idea where to go when she became a victim. She doesn't speak English, she didn't really know anyone here, so I'm sure she was in fear and had nowhere to run." Santos is charged with kidnapping, rape of a child with force, human trafficking of a minor, and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older. It's not clear if he has an attorney. A 12-year-old boy died in suburban Barrington Saturday after sustaining a severe head injury during a bicycle accident, authorities confirmed Monday. Police and fire personnel were called to the 300 block of Sharon Drive about 3:40 p.m. Saturday for an unresponsive male. The responders began to treat the boy for his injuries at the scene. The boy was then transported to Lutheran General Hospital where he died, officials said in a news release. The boy was injured in the 400 block of North Lake Zurich Road, according to officials. An investigation determined the boys death was accidental. The Barrington Police and Fire Department would like to extend our deepest condolences to the victims friends and family, the news release read. No other details were immediately available. (Xinhua) 15:34, January 16, 2017 U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday night listed "thick skin" and "stamina" as important qualities for the top person in the White House to have, in an ironic reference to his successor Donald Trump who will be sworn in on Friday. "Thick skin helps" to get the complex presidential job done, Obama said in his final interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" aired Sunday night. He also recommended that a U.S. president has to be physically strong enough and must not get distracted by critics in government and the media. "Stamina. There is a greater physical element to this job than you would think, just being able to grind it out. And I think your ability to -- not just mentally and emotionally but physically be able to say, 'We got this. We're going to be okay,'" is important, said Obama. Throughout the 2016 election campaign, Trump was repeatedly painted as having "thin skin" and being reckless. At the time, then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton often warned that Trump's 'thin skin' would set off war or an economic crisis. During their first presidential TV debate in September, Trump and Clinton clashed in unusually personal terms. The former secretary of state slammed Trump's "racist lies" about Obama's birthplace, and Trump accused Clinton of lacking stamina to be president. In Sunday's interview, Obama also warned that people shouldn't underestimate Trump, saying the president-elect was able to tap into people's grievances. Though Trump was able to run an "improvisational campaign," "now he's in the process of building up an organization. And we'll have to see how that works. And it'll be a test, I think, for him and the people that he's designated to be able to execute on his vision," Obama said. Politicians, community leaders and activists will come together Monday for Chicagos annual interfaith breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Cardinal Blase Cupich plans to speak at the annual breakfast celebrating the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr., and is expected to spark conversation on present day issues such as immigration, poverty, and violence. Rev. Jesse Jacksons Rainbow PUSH Coalition will be raising money for college scholarships at the event. It comes as another civil rights hero, John Lewis, was attacked over the weekend by President-elect Donald Trump. Lewis member of Congress, Freedom Rider, top organizer of the 1963 March on Washington said he will not attend the inauguration and doesnt believe Trump is a legitimate president. Trump responded on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart," prompting backlash. The war of words has become a national controversy that will likely be discussed by many attending the annual breakfast in Chicago. Gov. Bruce Rauner and Sen. Tammy Duckworth attended the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service at Chicagos Curie High School Monday. The event, hosted by non-profit City Year Chicago, looks to honor Dr. Kings birthday by commemorating his legacy of service. Today, I had the privilege of honoring Dr. Kings legacy by joining dedicated young Americans serving with City Year Chicago and other civically engaged volunteers to help improve schools as part of a national day of service, Duckworth said in a statement. I consider myself lucky to have been born into a family that valued service to ones country and community, and thats why I have always tried to give back what I can." The work being done today by volunteers and City Year Chicago members is an example of the best our nation has to offer, Duckworth added. Chicago Deputy Mayor Andrea Zopp was also on hand for Mondays event. Zopp lost to Duckworth in last years Democratic Senate primary. Earlier Monday, Rauner signed a lead testing bill to protect Illinois children alongside Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson and Rauner both credited Kings advocacy for lead protections. It is especially important that we sign this bill on the birthday of one of our greatest Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who fought for a quality of life for every American, making sure the American dream could become a reality for every American, Rauner said. The governor also attended a service at Chicagos Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church Sunday, honoring Dr. Kings memory in a speech to the congregation. This weekend we celebrate the life, the legacy of one of the greatest Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rauner said. A true man of faith, a man of peace, but a man who knew that we can use peaceful means to advocate, to work, dare I say to fight for what is right, for what is just and what will truly make the world a better place. Let us all learn from him, let us respect his legacy, let us come together and advocate together for a better future for all our families, he added. Despite rain and cold weather, marchers filled several blocks in Washington on Saturday as they rallied in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march that was at times also a rally against President-elect Donald Trump. Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton had organized Saturday's "We Shall Not Be Moved" march and rally ahead of Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. But Trump, whose inauguration will take place in less than a week, was also on marchers' minds. Holding umbrellas and bundled against temperatures in the mid-30s the crowd chanted "No justice, no peace" and "We will not be moved" but also "We will not be Trumped" and "Love Trumps hate." They cheered when one speaker referenced the comments of Georgia Rep. John Lewis, who has said he will not attend Trump's inauguration and, an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" set to air Sunday, that he doesn't consider Trump a "legitimate president." "We come not to appeal to Donald Trump, because he's made it clear what his policies are and what his nominations are. We come to say to the Democrats in the Senate and in the House and to the moderate Republicans to `Get some backbone. Get some guts.' We didn't send you down here to be weak-kneed," Sharpton told marchers at a rally after they walked from the Washington Monument to a park near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Sharpton called on marchers to oppose Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, and asked the crowd if they were willing to visit their senators' offices to oppose the nomination. He told them: "We need to make some house calls. We need to stay a little while.'' He later told The Associated Press those visits, involving a number of groups, would begin within the next 10 days. Joining Sharpton were family members of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Walter Scott, black men whose names have become rallying cries following their deaths. "When we leave here we have work to do," said Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 on Staten Island, New York, after a white officer placed him in a chokehold. Carr and Sharpton talked about voting rights, criminal justice reform, health care and "a living wage" as issues marchers should care about. Sybrina Fulton, whose son Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012, asked marchers to "stand up and make a difference in your community." Marchers themselves expressed a range of emotions about Trump. Debra Conyers of East Orange, New Jersey, said she was a toddler in 1963 when Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. She said Obama "helped Wall Street" and "helped Main Street." As for Trump: "I'm waiting to see how it unfolds," she said. Alicia James, a 48-year-old marketing consultant from New York City, said eight years ago she stood with her then 12-year-old son on the National Mall for Obama's first inauguration. She said she doesn't want to see Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act or undo other parts of Obama's legacy, but, she said, if it happens: "You can't erase the impact he has had on this country." Police have arrested a man in connection with a stabbing in New London that badly injured a man on Sunday evening and the victim is still in the hospital. Police responded to 200 Montauk Ave. at 7:42 p.m. after receiving a 911 call reporting a stabbing and found 51-year-old Terry Pipkin trying to leave and saw traces of blood on him, police said, so officers detained him. Inside the apartment, police found 48-year-old Leonard Fraiter, who had severe cuts on his face, neck and stomach. He was transported to Lawrence & Memorial Hospital and then moved to Yale-New Haven Hospital because of his serious condition. Fraiter remains hospitalized as of Tuesday. Police charged Pipkin with first-degree assault and carrying a dangerous weapon. Anyone with information should call the New London Police Department's Detective Division at 860-447-1481. You can leave anonymous information through the New London Tips 411 system. Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo died in prison at the age of 87, according to his attorney. Scarfos attorney told NBC10 his client passed away Friday at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina. He was serving a 55-year prison sentence at the center. His attorney believes he died from cancer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Scarfo was an amateur boxer before joining the Bruno crime family in Philly in the 1950s. He spent years as a soldier in the family and also helped run operations in Atlantic City. Scarfo became the head of the Philadelphia crime family in the 1980s following the deaths of crime bosses Angelo Bruno and Philip Testa. Scarfo was arrested in 1987 and later convicted on extortion and conspiracy charges and sentenced to 14 years in prison. In 1988, while serving the extortion sentence, he and 16 associates were tried on federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charges. Scarfo was found guilty on 32 counts that included eight murders. He received a 55 year prison sentence and was serving that sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Butner at the time of his death. Scarfo's attorney David Bahuriak told NBC10 he was trying to get his client released on parole before he died. "Mr. Scarfo was definitely an infamous character. No doubt about that," Bahuriak said. "You know when we first met he said to me, 'Dave, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot of nice things about you.' And I said, 'Mr. Scarfo, it's a pleasure to meet you too. I wish I could say the same.'" Scarfo had three children, including Nicky Scarfo Jr., who was sentenced to 30 years in jail on racketeering charges. Kim Kardashian West told Paris police in the hours after she was attacked in her luxury hotel room in October that one of the robbers had pulled out a gun, demanded to know where her diamond engagement ring was, then grabbed her, tied her up and carried her to her bathtub. The "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star detailed her terrifying ordeal in a police statement obtained by the French Sunday newspaper Journal du Dimanche. A spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor's office confirmed to NBC News the authenticity of the statement. Kardashian West told police that the violence began while she was working on her computer in the early morning of Oct. 3, a couple hours after her sister Kourtney, her assistant and some friends had left her hotel room. Kardashian was in Paris for fashion week. "I heard noises at the door, like footsteps, and I asked shouting who was there, no one answered," she said, according to the account. Kardashian West said she called for her bodyguard at 2:56 a.m. then saw coming through a sliding door two intruders as well as a worker from guest reception who "was strapped." Both men were wearing hoods, as well as caps and jackets that had police written on them. One of the men was wearing ski goggles. "Its the one with the ski goggles who stayed with me," she told police. The man, who Kardashian West described as a "European-type individual" with a strong French accent, ripped her BlackBerry phone away from her and asked where her engagement ring was. "It was placed on the bedside table. It costs 4 million dollars," Kardashian West told police. "I answer him that I dont know. He takes out a weapon and I show him the ring. He pointed the weapon toward me. He takes the ring, he wears gloves. He asked me where the jewels and the money are." Kardashian West went on to say: "They catched me and took me in the lobby. I was wearing a bathrobe, naked underneath. Then we went in the room again and they pushed me on the bed. And, at this time, they strapped me with plastic cables and tape on my hands, then they taped my mouth and my legs. They carried me in my bathroom, more specifically in my bathtub." She added that while she was on the bed they "cleared everything" from her handbag. Among the $5 million in jewelry that she said was stolen were two diamond Cartier bracelets, three necklaces by Jacob all in gold and diamond, diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz and Yanina, a gold Rolex watch, two gold rings and another necklace with her sons name Saint in diamonds. The men also took two phones, she said. "During the heist, they had the hotels mobile phone which didnt stop ringing and they were speaking in French. I thought they said they got to leave," she said. Kardashian West said that she realized her robbers were "a bit young" because of the way she was able to remove the tape from her hands and mouth. She said she eventually ran to stylist Simone Harouche's room and used her phone to call her sister Kourtney. The document ends with Kardashian West telling police that she wanted to file a complaint and leave soon on a private plane "to go back to my children in the United States." Prosecutors in Paris have charged 10 people in connection with the robbery. All but one of the suspects are men, including at least one previously known to police for robbery and money forgery. Preliminary charges were filed Friday against six suspects ranging in age from 29 to 72 that covered an array of alleged crimes. They included: armed robbery in an organized gang; kidnapping; criminal association; illegal possession of firearms including a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition; use of forged papers and a fake identity, and complicity. Preliminary charges the first in the case were earlier filed against four other people on Thursday. The robbery is being investigated as a possible inside job. On Thursday, Kardashian West's sister, Khloe Kardashian, welcomed the filing of charges as a "kind of closure" and denounced the robbery as "a disgusting act." Rich or poor, nobody deserves "anything to be taken from them," she told The Associated Press. So the Chargers said they are going to move to Los Angeles. Now they actually have to move to Los Angeles. Anyone who has ever moved before understands what an undertaking this is. You have to pack up the boxes, prepare the furniture, finally address all the junk thats been accumulating in the garage its not a small endeavor, and thats just for a house. The Chargers are moving offices and a practice facility. That means they have to pack up and transport all the tackling sleds, all the computers, all the files basically 55 years-worth of stuff. For that they will have to hire a moving company. Finding one, however, has proven to be a problem. We were just sitting there thinking about the physical move of the Chargers, said Ryan Charles, head of sales and marketing for www.HireAHelper.com. We were thinking we would not want to be a part of that, having been born and raised here and being a lifelong Chargers fan. Charles asked the companies within the Hire A Helper network if they would refuse to help the Chargers move and they all said yes. But the movement did not stop there. Other moving companies, our peers, might not want to, either, said Charles, and wouldnt it be cool if we all banded together to say that we wouldnt? So Charles started cold-calling his fellow moving companies to float the idea by them. The response was a bit surprising in a good way. The feedback was immediately positive, said Charles. I got chuckles, people were laughing, there were guys saying I wouldnt move them for X amount of dollars. That variable is likely in excess of $100,000, by the way. With all the offices and training equipment, plus the likelihood of having staff and players jump on board, this is a monster payday these companies are turning down to stick to their principles. As of Sunday night 22 movers based in San Diego had vowed not to move the Chargers north and more are expected to sign on in the coming days. An email is being sent to as many movers as Charles can think of. Its almost like the last line of defense. We were making this last statement of loyalty to the SAN DIEGO Chargers, said Charles. From parades to community service, there are plenty of ways to honor the legacy of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Arlington 9 a.m. - MLK Day of Service Location: Volunteers will meet at Mission Arlington/Mission Metroplex, 400 W. South St. for assignments and tools. 10 a.m. - MLK Service Fest Location: Levitt Pavilion, downtown Arlington, 100 W. Abram St. From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., live performances, art, food trucks and more. Dallas 10 a.m. - Parade begins at MLK Boulevard at Holmes St. and will proceed east down MLK Boulevard to Fair Park. Participants include local high school bands, floats, community/civic groups and churches. Grand Prairie 10 a.m. - Parade begins at the Liberty Bell at City Hall Plaza, 317 College. St. It ends at David Daniels Elementary, 801 SW 19th Street, followed by a program at Dalworth Recreation Center, 2012 Spikes Street. Plano Canceled - The Unity Walk scheduled to begin at Hobby Lobby at 10 a.m. and end at McCall Plaza in Downtown Plano has been canceled due to weather conditions. Fort Worth 11 a.m. - Parade begins at Ninth and Commerce streets, heads west on Ninth Street, north on Houston Street, east on Belknap Street, south on Commerce Street, west on Weatherford Street and south on Main Street before ending with a rally at Sundance Square Plaza. Denton 4:30 p.m. - March begins at the University of North Texas goes to Fred Moore Park, then to MLK Jr. Rec Center. Dallas police said a man's killing along Zeb Street is due to a drug transaction. Officers responded to a home in the 900 block of Zeb Street around 7:00 p.m. Saturday night. Police found the man who called police, 37-year-old Tom Parker dead in the front yard of a home. Officers said Parker tried to rob the suspect during a drug transaction. Guns were fired and Parker was shot and killed at the scene. Police have not released the suspect's identity. Officers seized money, drugs and guns from a nearby home. The National Weather Service confirms at least four tornadoes touched down Sunday in North Texas, and that number could climb with additional storm surveys this week. The four confirmed tornadoes including two EF-1 tornadoes, an EF-0 and one other that is yet to be rated were spawned from a single long-track super cell thunderstorm that moved across Coryell, Bosque, Hill and Tarrant counties, according to the NWS. Storm assessments are expected Tuesday in Limestone County and Dallas County, where damage from additional tornadoes may be confirmed. Tornadoes rated as EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale have winds between 86 and 110 miles per hour. 8:47 PM: Confirmed tornado near Grand Prairie airport moving NE at 35 mph. SEEK SHELTER NOW!!! #dfwwx NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) January 16, 2017 The storms that began Sunday afternoon and continued through the evening across North Texas caused power flashes to light up the sky and flash flooding to cover the ground in many places. An entire neighborhood in Frisco suffered significant damage. Fences were completely leveled, windows shattered and flying debris narrowly missed some residents. 614pm- Tornado WATCH in effect thru midnight for parts of North and Central TX. #dfwwx #ctxwx #etxwx pic.twitter.com/R56Zr0nu4u NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) January 16, 2017 Severe storms that moved through North Texas Sunday spawned several tornadoes. Power outages and flash flooding were also reported across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Travelers at D/FW International Airport were told to take cover in storm shelter areas, but the severe weather alert there has expired. Flights were delayed an average of almost three hours at DFW, according to an airport alert. [[410792925,C]] Intense storm rolling through #Joshua right now. A whole lot of lightning and heavy rain. @TXThunderTruck #dfwwx pic.twitter.com/t2kQYHGEOS Brian James (@BrianJamesNBC5) January 15, 2017 A tornado warning after Green Bay's victory over Dallas in an NFC divisional playoff kept some fans, the entire Packers contingent and a few Cowboys players inside AT&T Stadium for more than two hours after the game Sunday night before officials gave the all-clear. The message on every screen at AT&T Stadium right now... @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/SzaxeTfD8E Pat Doney (@PatDoneyNBC5) January 16, 2017 A tornado watch has been issued for parts of Texas until 12 AM CST pic.twitter.com/jX48GFwDCz NWS Tornado (@NWStornado) January 15, 2017 Authorities said at least 30 homes were damaged by the storm, and about 33,000 customers were without power Sunday night, according to Oncor. "Right over here we found shingles inside of the house that came from a roof," said Frisco resident Shawn Prendergast. He was in the living room when even more dangerous debris came barreling through the yard. "You can see it's not a board, it's a post. The wind was so strong that it picked it up and flew it to within three feet from the living room window from where I was sitting," he said. Emergency responders spent Monday assessing the damage and assisting families with clean-up efforts. Amazingly, no injuries were reported. "Most people have gotten really smart. Technology is really better about alerting folks about when to seek shelter and make sure they're out of harm's way, and the damage was mostly cosmetic," said Frisco Fire Department Capt. Kevin Haines. One home that suffered the brunt of the damage was about seven miles north in Prosper. The home, which was under construction, was completely leveled. It certainly made for some terrifying moments for people who live nearby. "Wild, it's amazing what straight line winds can do," said Tyrone Patterson. Prendergast says he's just relieved he and his bulldog, Decker, made it out safely. "I just feel like God's blanket was over us at the house and took care of us," he said. The Associated Press and NBC 5's Cory Minderhout and Ashleigh Barry contributed to this report. A New Year's party was held by Diplomat magazine on Jan. 15, China News reported. Diplomats from countries including Belarus, Pakistan and Syria, together with their family members, learned to make dumplings and enjoyed delicious food to welcome the arrival of the Chinese New Year. Monday, the nation pauses to remember the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While schools across North Texas are closed for the observance, many students in Arlington Independent School District worked on art projects for weeks to express their interpretation of Dr. Kings dream and their hopes for the future. "Connect with Dr. King's vision and from that vision turn it into a visual piece," Linh Nguyen, Arlington ISD Visual Arts Coordinator said. "It's about them. It's about the kids. It's about Dr. King." More than 500 students in every junior high and high school in the district were tasked with capturing the theme of advancing the dream. They are feeling the angst that's happening now and you can really see that," Nguyen said. With the times now, you can see the kids really start to understand what's happening in the world and to see them depict that in their artwork was incredible. The artwork of Martin High School freshman Kaylee Kim was chosen the best in the district. "There is a black man and a white man grabbing a chain," she said as she explained her work. The chain means the restriction of freedom and injustice in the world and together, united they are breaking the chain." Kim said she was even surprised at the realism she was able to capture. "My emotions are just shown on the paper and even if I don't really get it quite right," she added. At the center of her project are ideas of unity and hope. "Just like hope for the future," Kim said. All my friends who are of different colors. They mean a lot to me." "We hope for a better future for our kids, for our students. I think it gives them a sense of hope," Nguyen added. As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation's first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters. King's daughter on Monday encouraged Americans to fight for the slain civil rights leader's vision of love and justice "no matter who is in the White House." In Atlanta, Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her father's Ebenezer Baptist Church four days before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration. She spoke hours before her brother, Martin Luther King III, is scheduled to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 black voters in November after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, and tensions have flared anew with his recent criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, whom the president-elect called "all talk" and "no action." Bernice King avoided a detailed critique of Trump, but said the nation still has a choice between "chaos and community," as her father once said. "At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go," Bernice King said. But, she added "we still have to find a way to create" what her father called "the beloved community." Sen. Bernie Sanders, a failed presidential candidate, brought the Ebenezer assembly to its feet with his reminder that the slain civil rights leader was not just an advocate for racial equality, but a radical proponent for economic justice a mission that put him at odds with the political establishment. "If you think governors and senators and mayors were standing up and saying what a great man Dr. King was, read history, because you are sorely mistaken," Sanders roared from the Ebenezer dais. Sanders, who struggled to attract black voters in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Clinton, recalled King opposing the Vietnam War as exploiting the poor. He also noted King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he'd gone to rally striking sanitation workers, white and black. Truly honoring King, Sanders said, means bringing that "spirit and courage into the arena in 2017." The Rev. Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer's senior pastor, didn't call Trump by name, but blasted the president-elect for his treatment of Lewis, now a Georgia congressman whose Atlanta-based congressional district includes Ebenezer. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he views Trump as an "illegitimate president" because of alleged Russian interference in the campaign. Trump retorted Saturday on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his district is "falling apart" and "crime infested." "Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history," Warnock said. As a young man, Lewis was arrested many times and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Warnock called him "the hero of Bloody Sunday and the conscience of the Congress." Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed piled on, quoting Trump when he was in Lewis's district a decade ago to open a Trump Tower project that would later fail. Trump, recalled the mayor, said Atlanta, at least then, was doing "a great job" and he was "glad to be here." "I don't know what changed," Reed said mockingly before praising Lewis as a personal hero. Lewis was in Miami at King Day events. Warnock, meanwhile, praised outgoing President Barack Obama as a model for the office. "Thank you, Barack Obama. I'm sad to see you leave," he said. But, he said, Trump's inauguration will mean "one less brother experiences racial profiling." Some Republicans have defended Trump's criticism of Lewis, arguing it is inappropriate for a congressman to question an incoming president's legitimacy. Clara Smith, an Atlanta resident who came Monday to Ebenezer, scoffed at any GOP indignation, remembering that Trump for years questioned whether President Barack Obama was a "natural-born citizen," as required by the Constitution to serve as president. "He carried on with that knowing full well what he was doing" to the nation's first black president, Smith said. Smith, 66, recalled joining sit-ins and lunch counters of segregated restaurants in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She said she tries to "ignore" Trump and "his foolishness with the Twitter," but "with everything that's happening around us" she said "we have to pass along that history." Susan Minsk, 48, came to Ebenezer with her 17-year-old daughter Sophie from Sandy Springs, a Republican-leaning suburb just outside of Atlanta and Lewis's district. As the white mother and daughter waited outside, unsure if they'd be able to get in, Sophie said she worries that Trump's rhetoric will make social tensions worse. "He just burns so many bridges," she said. "Why make everyone feel more segregated than they do already?" There are celebrations around the country to honor the slain civil rights leader. In Memphis, Tennessee, residents of the city where King was killed are honoring his legacy with neighborhood clean-up events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked the day by pedaling to sites connected to a historic visit the slain civil rights leader made to the city. About 300 bicyclists participated in Monday's free 10-mile ride, which took in such sites as downtown Detroit's Cobo Center. One person has died after their car hit a curb and went airborne, flying 80 to 100 feet before rolling and landing upside down, Oceanside Police said. The crash happened at approximately 10:55 p.m. Saturday near State Route 76 and Canyon Drive, Oceanside police Sgt. Richard Schickel said. Police first rushed to the scene to respond to 911 reports of a collision in the area. When they arrived, they found a single car off the roadway north of the intersection, Schickel said. The 2008 Honda Civic was heading north on Canyon Drive and went through the intersection, Schickel said. The car hit a curb and then a retaining wall, Schickel said. The impact sent the car airborne. The Honda flew 80 to 100 feet into the air before landing on the bike path and rolling over and landing upside down, Schickel said. The driver, who has not been identified, was found dead inside the car. The cause of the crash and other factors involved are not known. An investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information regarding this collision is asked to call Accident Investigator David Paul at (760) 435-4431. A Contra Costa County Sheriff's deputy is facing five counts of attempted murder in Sacramento for opening fire inside of a home filled with multiple people early Friday morning, according to Sacramento police. The officer, who has been identified as 23-year-old Kyle Rowland of Sacramento, was attending the gathering along with roughly 10 other people in the 1100 block of G Street before he left at some point, police said. About 2 a.m., Rowland returned to the house with a gun, prompting a scuffle with people inside the residence. Several people tried to seize the gun from Rowland, but he managed to fire an undisclosed amount of shots. Sacramento police officers arrived at the house and arrested Rowland, police said. They recovered two firearms at the scene. Rowland was booked on attempted murder charges at the Sacramento County Main Jail. Rowland, who joined the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department in October, has been terminated, according to sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee. Rowland also was an accomplished blues artist who performed regularly at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco's Union Square. People at the club described Rowland as a baby-face kid with a mountain of talent who has never shown any signs of aggression. Steven Suen has booked Rowland and his band at Biscuits and Blues since before Rowland was old enough to legally drink. He was stunned to hear about the shooting. "I totally don't believe that is case," Suen said. "I mean, you know, he's such a nice kid. You know, every time I see him, he's friends with so many people. I have never seen this side of him at all." Witnesses said Rowland was acting strange at the house party and was asked to leave. He came back armed with a gun and started shooting, they said. Rowland had fresh cuts, bruises and swelling around his right eye that resulted from the struggle with partygoers. No one else was injured during the shooting, police said. Witness Joseph Lozoya saw the shooting and scuffle happen right in front of him. "I just told everybody, get down he has a gun, and one of my friends was bold enough, brave enough to jump on him and diffuse the issue," Lozoya said. A man was shot and killed by a police officer Monday morning in Azusa, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's said. The shooting was reported just before 11:30 p.m. in the 200 block of Windsong Court, according to a department news release. The man's wife also called police and said he had a gun, according to authorities. Officers were speaking with the woman at the home when her husband, armed with the gun, appeared outside the residence, said Lt. Joe Mendoza, of the LA County Sheriff's Department. He pointed the handgun at officers, one of whom shot the man in the upper body, Mendoza said. The subject, identified only as a 49-year-old man, died at the scene. Art, it has long been said, at least since art and sayings have existed, has a knack for broadening vistas, deepening understanding of all cultures, encouraging imagination, and taking us out of our day-to-day, briefly. Which makes an opportunity to engage with sculptures and paintings and the chance to create a work of our own all the more important when we find we have an extra few hours in the week. Those hours, for many Southern Californians, will arrive on Monday, Jan. 16, the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Once again, Target will host a Free Holiday Monday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, meaning you won't need to pay admission to enter the galleries and dream/think/draw away. Well... The special exhibits will still require a ticket on that day, thus admission, but definitely check out the permanent pieces on view, as well as some of the activities at the Miracle Mile art institution. If you don't want to stroll on your own, but instead crave a tour of some of the museum's best-known paintings, hop on a tour (there are bilingual tours, do note). Also happening? Flamenco music by Mark Towns around midday and early afternoon times are here as well as a "family sketching activity" which'll give your whole crew a chance to exercise your art-making longings. Hours? It all begins at 11 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 16. The southbound side of Laurel Canyon Boulevard is open to traffic, but drivers headed north on the heavily traveled road through the Hollywood Hills will have to take detours as a result of damage from last week's heavy rainfall. The road was closed Wednesday after a deck partially collapsed at a home above the canyon road. On Saturday, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety and geologists evaluated the property and hillside and determined it is safe to allow limited traffic through Laurel Canyon, department officials said. Concrete K-rails were installed in the mudslide area and the property owner's contractor removed what was left of a deck that was undermined by a slide, the city said. Northbound traffic will be detoured to Laurel Canyon Road between Kirkwood and Mount Olympus drives and parking will be restricted. Southbound traffic, however, can now use the affected stretch of Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Trucks over 6,000 pounds are prohibited and people who don't live in the area are urged to take alternative routes. The slide was reported early Wednesday afternoon at a residence perched above Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the 8100 block of West Gould Avenue. It resulted in the closure of the road from Gould Avenue to Kirkwood Drive as a precaution. Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a heavily used artery for motorists traveling between the San Fernando Valley and L.A.'s Westside. Los Angeles City Councilman David Ryu introduced an emergency motion at Friday's council meeting that authorized funding for city staff to work as needed over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The couple who rent the endangered home, which was built in 1925, was safely evacuated after the ground on which the house stands was seen to have weakened. Then, around 2:40 p.m. Wednesday, a 9,000-pound slab of concrete from the foundation and retaining wall, which was attached to a patio, slid down the hillside and landed below near Laurel Canyon Boulevard, which became blocked by debris. No one was hurt, but the home was red-tagged, meaning it is unsafe to enter. Neighboring homes, one to the south and another to the north, were yellow-tagged, meaning access is allowed with caution advised, and those residents were told to stay out of their backyards. A shooting attack at an electronic music festival in Mexico's Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen on Monday left five people dead, including two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian, authorities said. The attorney general of Quintana Roo state said that several of the dead appear to have been part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival. Miguel Angel Pech said the shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m. at the Blue Parrot nightclub, one of the BPM Festival's venues in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. Pech said a lone gunman apparently entered the nightclub and began to exchange fire with another person inside. Festival security personnel tried to stop the shooting and came under fire. Pech said it was not any kind of terrorist attack. But the shooting apparently caused a rush of people heading for the exits at the beach-side club, and the lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. Pech said 15 people were injured, one seriously. He said five of the injured had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. He said three people had been detained nearby, but it was unclear if they had been involved in the shooting. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in the state of Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of "a disagreement between people inside" the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. The BPM Festival posted a statement saying four people had been killed and 12 injured in an attack that involved "a lone shooter." BPM wrote that "the violence began on 12th street in front of the club and three members of the BPM security team were among those whose lives were lost while trying to protect patrons inside the venue." Playa del Carmen has largely been spared the violence that has hit other parts of Mexico. Canadian officials could not immediately confirm if any of their citizens were among the victims in the shooting. The wife of Orlando mass shooting gunman Omar Mateen was arrested on Monday in the San Francisco Bay Area in connection to helping her now-dead husband, thought to be behind the country's deadliest gun massacre this summer. The New York Times first reported, citing a law enforcement official, that 30-year-old Noor Salman was arrested at her family's home outside San Francisco in connection with the June 2016 attack at at the Pulse nightclub. Orlando police later clarified that she was arrested on charges of aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization and obstruction of justice. In June, a source close to the family told NBC News that Mateen sent his wife a text message during the rampage, asking her, "Do you see what's happening?" After swapping texts, she tried to call him. NBC Bay Area obtained exclusive surveillance footage taken in the neighborhood of the moments before her arrest. The black-and-white video shot at 7:36 a.m. Monday shows two Alameda County sheriff's deputies standing on the sidewalk as at least three men in plain clothes walk by quickly on the sidewalk. The case is being handled by the U.S. Central District Court in Florida. Neither charging documents nor federal affidavits were online on Monday. Alameda County jail records, however, show Salman was being held on a witness tampering "etc." charge. Online records indicate she was arrested Monday at 8:13 a.m. and was being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail. Before heading to Florida, Salman is expected to appear in federal court in Oakland on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. "I am glad to see that Omar Mateen's wife has been charged with aiding her husband in the commission of the brutal attack on the Pulse nightclub," Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a tweet. "Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served in this act of terror that has affected our community so deeply." Salman's relative declined through a screen door to comment when a reporter knocked on her home in Rodeo, California, on Monday morning. Neighbors told NBC Bay Area that the family didn't appear to be at home on Sunday, and there was no sign of police presence on Monday morning. "I'm not really surprised because I felt like something might transpire," neighbor Catherine Lawrence said. "If she was connected with this guy, then she may have known more than what she was saying." Forty nine people were killed and 53 wounded in the June 12 attack at the Orlando gay nightclub. Mateen, who pledged allegiance to ISIS during the attack, was killed in a firefight with police. Salman told the Times in an interview in November that she was "unaware of everything." I dont condone what he has done," she said then. "I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people. Since the massacre, Salman was said to have been cooperating with the FBI. Salman's parents live in Rodeo, California, and the FBI has previously visited that location to interview her, NBC News reported. Rodeo is a small city, with a population of 8,600, in Contra Costa County near the San Pablo Bay about 45 minutes from San Francisco. Her mothers neighbors in Rodeo have told NBC Bay Area that Salman was the daughter of Ekbal Zahi and Bassam Abdallah Salman, who died of a heart attack several years ago. The couple has three other daughters the youngest is 14. Salman's mother still lives at the home with her youngest but has not spoken out publicly about the shooting. According to neighbors, Salman attended John Swett High School in nearby Crockett, California. Salman married Mateen, neighbors said, and moved to Florida about five years ago. Salman has a 4-year-old child and has filed court documents to change the boy's name. A hearing is scheduled for February. NBC News' Andrew Blankstein and NBC Bay Area's Lisa Fernandez, Pete Suratos and Jodi Hernandez contributed to this report. Initiated by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, the world's first alliance to fight fakes using big data was launched in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on Jan. 16. The first 20 members issued a joint action plan to cut down on counterfeit products. According to Zheng Junfang, Alibaba's chief platform governance officer, the traditional way of cracking down on fake goods offline does not remove the source of copycat products. "We have to have everybody involved and work together to do it," Zheng announced. Alibaba is willing to share its experience, skills, technology and resources with people all around the work in the anti-counterfeit battle, she said. Only invited brands can join the alliance, and membership is limited to 20. The first batch of members include Dulux, LV, Swarovski, Trendy Group, DAZZLE, Shiseido, Bioderma, Amway, Mars, Pernod Ricard, Huawei, SUPOR, Joyoung, Sony, Samsung, Western Digital (Western Digital and SanDisk), Canon and Ford. Alibaba has long cooperated on anti-counterfeiting initiatives. By the end of 2016, the company had cooperated with more than 18, 000 brands to fight against fake goods. A Huawei manager pointed out that by using big data, Alibaba is playing a leading role in anti-counterfeiting efforts. "We are fully expecting an IPR protection blueprint outlined by the big data anti-fake alliance," the manager said. Zheng made four promises at the launch of the campaign: continue to provide data and technology support, promote cooperation on anti-counterfeiting efforts, provide priority service for alliance members, and invite alliance members to work on policy-making and amendments. The establishment of the anti-fake alliance is only the first step. Alibaba will use big data to build anti-counterfeiting tools and consolidate social consensus, regularly releasing reports on anti-counterfeiting efforts. As a new president is about to take office, some say our country appears divided more than ever. A Muslim-American woman in Arizona is using stylish, heart-shaped sunglasses to send a message of tolerance - called the love glasses revolution. This grass roots love glasses revolution was launched by Tara Ijai. A Muslim-American, Tara has experienced negativity and hate - but she chooses to see love. "Its really hard to be mad at someone wearing heart glasses," Ijai said. So last year, she started distributing her vision, as her idea has been catching on all over the world. Cassie Tolman is a love ambassador of sorts. Her restaurant is spreading a simple message - one pair of heart shaped sunglasses at a time. "When I wear my love glasses out and about, I have an awesome connection with people. Tolman said. Thousands have already sold while thousands more have been given away with each pair coming with a special power. "We always joke, and we say glasses block out the harmful you me rays," said Ijai. If you would like a pair of the glasses, click on this link. Three workers were killed at a construction site in Key Largo Monday morning, authorities said. Crews responded to the scene near mile marker 106 at 175 Long Key Drive around 8:30 a.m. Monroe County Sheriffs deputies say workers became trapped when they went underneath the newly paved road to see why it was settling. Multiple people began to rescue the workers from the manhole. The three workers who were killed were identified as Elway Gray, Louis O'Keefe and Robert Wilson. A volunteer firefighter, identified as Leonardo Moreno, who was part of the rescue effort was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He was expected to be sedated for a few days. Two deputies were also taken to the hospital for observation. Homes in the area were evacuated as a precaution as HAZMAT teams from Miami-Dade County were called in to help. Sheriff's office officials said it's likely a mixture of methane and hydrogen sulfite gas that killed the men. "It's horrific, I wouldn't want to see this no matter where I was at. I feel bad for the workers and families that had to go through it," witness Linda Seymour said. The incident remains under investigation. One South Florida driver escaped injury after their vehicle crashed into a Deerfield Beach souvenir shop. Police say the SUV got stuck in reverse and accelerated into the store off Ocean Drive and Northeast 2nd Street around 12:15 PM. Four people were inside, but no injuries were reported from either the shoppers or the driver. The car missed a nearby restaurant, where BSO Fire Rescue said 50 people were sitting outside eating. No one there reported any injuries. Police are continuing to investigate and there have been no reports on any possible charges for the crash. Eight people were injured after a shooting near Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park in northwest Miami-Dade Monday, police said. The shooting happened on Northwest 62nd Street and 32nd Avenue around 3:40 p.m. Miami-Dade Police said the shooting victims range from ages 11 to 30 years old, five of them are juveniles. Officials released the identities of the shooting victims. Jerome Battle, 20, was rushed to the hospital in critical condition after he was shot in the leg. His family said he underwent two surgeries. Five other victims were in stable condition: Michael Clarke, 30, Shawnteri Wilson, 18, Alfanesha Times, 17, Nakya-Senat Butler, 15 and Lajada Benson, 14. Two other girls, 13-year-old Keionna Green and 11-year-old Ciara Johnson were grazed by a bullet. They were treated on scene. NBC 6 spoke with a family member of one of the teen victims injured. She said when shots were fired, people started running in a panic. One of the victim's mother also described the sheer terror. "He was running and had the gun in back of him shooting. He let out three shots." The mother of one of victims condemned the shooting. "How many innocent kids getting shot for nothing," said the mother. Police confirmed two people were being questioned. Officers also said two guns were recovered. The Pan-African & Caribbean Family Festival was happening at the park Monday to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Chopper 6 footage showed a police perimeter in the area as Miami-Dade officers searched for possible suspects shortly after the shooting. Officers were seen entering a home, which appeared to be abandoned, near 31st Avenue. Across South Florida, residents are celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and doing his work by giving back to the community. Both Miami-Dade and Broward counties will be holding their annual parades in honor of the civil rights icon giving residents a chance to celebrate the equality he fought for. At the same time, YMCA chapters are doing their part to honor his legacy, as volunteers took time to pick up, paint and beautify a local school in Miami-Dade. Its supposed to be about giving back to the community and serving the community, said South Florida YMCA CEO Cheryl Woods. The Allapattah YMCA partnering with FPL, Ocean Bank as well as the Miami Heat and city leaders are all supporting the annual day of service. Former Miami Heat star Glen Rice was one of those helping out, saying he views King as an idol. Follow in his footsteps and lead by example and try and do the right thing, Rice said. Around 1,500 volunteers from across South Florida are lending a helping hand. As they work on service projects at neighboring schools like Comstock Elementary and nearby senior centers. The B Street Band, a Bruce Springsteen tribute band from New Jersey, has announced it is withdrawing from performing at Donald Trump's inauguration gala. The band announced its withdrawal from the event on its Facebook page Monday afternoon, citing its respect for Bruce himself. "With deepest apologies to our fans and the New Jersey Inaugural Ball committee, the B Street Band is withdrawing from performing at this year's inauguration Gala," it said. "Our decision is based solely on the respect and gratitude we have for Bruce and the E Street Band." "The Boss" is a high profile Democrat who appeared with Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. In a recent interview he questioned whether the president-elect was ready to take office. During the interview on Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, Springsteen said he questioned whether Trump "is simply competent enough to do this particular job." The B Street Band said it would not exist without the talents of Springsteen and his primary backing band the E Street Band, and it looked forward to performing their music for years to come. A hairstylist on a cigarette break fainted and fell into traffic outside the midtown hair salon where he works Monday morning, and was hit by a van that fled the scene, police say. The 51-year-old hairstylist, Luis Melendez, had stepped out of the salon on West 35th Street near 7th Avenue at about 11:30 a.m., co-workers told NBC 4 New York. He was having a cigarette with a customer when he got dizzy and passed out. A black van hit the man and took off, police said. Witnesses described a bloody scene. "When I saw the guy on the ground, he looked like he smashed his face on the ground," said Jimmy King. "He looked like he was in bad shape. There was a lot of blood." Melendez was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition. King said the victim apparently stumbled into the street as he fainted, and it's possible the van driver didn't realize what happened: "Maybe he doesn't even know he hit him." Melendez's co-workers described him as bubbly and an energetic, hard worker, and say he had been working there for less than a year. His ex-wife, who was visiting him at the hospital Monday night, told NBC 4 New York in Spanish that Melendez will have to undergo reconstructive surgery, having broken every bone in his face. Police are looking for the driver of the van, described as a black Ford Econoline conversion van. New York hip hop personality Taxstone has been arrested in relation to a shooting that killed a man at concert venue Irving Plaza just before rapper T.I. was scheduled to perform, sources say. Rapper Ronald Collins, known as Troy Ave, and two others were wounded in the May 2016 shooting that saw Collins' friend and bodyguard Ronald McPhatter shot dead, police said. On Monday, law enforcement sources told NBC 4 New York they had arrested Daryl Campbell aka Taxstone in Brooklyn. Campbell is a hip hop personality and hosts his own "Tax Season" podcast. Gunshots just went off at the T.I concert, never been so scared in my life pic.twitter.com/rn0CjpAuaU Marco (@markygeezy) May 26, 2016 Sources said he was wanted on a federal warrant charging him with being a felon in possession of firearm and was also being sought by the NYPD in relation to the Irving Plaza shooting. U.S. Marshals New York and New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force and NYPD arrested Campbell Monday morning without incident, sources said. Massive police,ambulance and fire department presence on scene now at @IrvingPlaza pic.twitter.com/frMspPs61U PopTrashMoviee (@l8dyice85) May 26, 2016 Last year's shooting happened in a third-floor green room as about 950 people shuffled into the concert shortly after 10 p.m., police said. The melee began as a fist fight, but quickly devolved into a shooting. Rapper T.I. does not appear to have played any part in the shooting, officials said. Video shot inside the 1,025-person venue showed a chaotic scene as concertgoers rushed to the sides trying to leave the area as a group of people tended to a person on the floor. https://www.instagram.com/p/BF2o_JSHGu4 Afterwards, Troy Ave was arraigned for the shooting on charges including attempted murder. He pleaded not guilty. Since then, he has been shot again in his car while driving in East Flatbush. [File photo] A metro project evaluated at $270 million in the U.S. state of Massachusetts has been awarded to CRRC Corp., a conglomerate formed by the merger of China's top two high-speed rail makers, China North Railway (CNR) and China South Railway (CSR). A total of 134 trains will be purchased for the project, according to a Caixin report on Jan. 10. An insider disclosed that the contract was signed between CRRC and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in December 2016. CRRC is the only qualified provider of metro trains to meet the MBTA's requirements. As a result, the MBTA decided not to solicit additional bids, the insider said, emphasizing that the decision was entirely legal. China North Railway (CNR) won a contract worth $567 million for the Boston metro in October 2014, necessitating the purchase of 284 trains, according to earlier reports. This marked China's first batch of rail transit equipment to enter the U.S. market. The 134 new trains will be put into operation in 2023, according to the Boston Globe. Jeffrey Gonneville, CEO of the MBTA, said the vehicles are expected to cut intervals between trains from between four and five minutes to just three. This change will facilitate the transport over 10,000 passengers per hour. Ahmer Abbasi speaks softly as he describes the strip searches, the extra shoves, the curses that he endured in a federal jail in Brooklyn following the Sept. 11 attacks. "I don't think I deserved it," Abbasi said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in Karachi, Pakistan. Abbasi's quiet, matter-of-fact tone belies his determination, even after 15 years, to seek justice in American courts - provided the Supreme Court will let him. The justices on Wednesday are hearing an appeal from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former FBI Director Robert Mueller and other former U.S. officials that seeks to shut down the lawsuit that human rights lawyers have filed on behalf of Abbasi and others over their harsh treatment and prolonged detention. "Somebody has to be accountable, somebody has to be responsible," said Abbasi, 42, who works in real estate in Pakistan. The former officials, including the top immigration enforcement officer and the warden and deputy warden at the New York City jail, say it should not be them. "Senior government officials should not be regularly second-guessed by lawsuits seeking money damages from them in their personal capacity," said Richard Samp, chief counsel at the Washington Legal Foundation and author of a brief from four former attorneys general. Abbasi was among more than 80 men who were picked up in the days and weeks following Sept. 11 on immigration violations. Until then, he said he had been "living the American dream" since coming from Pakistan in 1993. He was living in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan and driving a taxi in New York. He acknowledges he remained in the United States after he should have left and that he entered into a fraudulent marriage so he could get a coveted "green card" that would allow him to stay in the U.S. legally. He might never have been caught except for the terrorist attacks and the aggressive response of officials who wanted to be sure there would be no follow-on strikes. When he was arrested in late September 2001, Abbasi said he readily admitted he was in the country illegally and assumed he would be quickly deported. Instead, he was held for nearly 11 months, including more than four months in the most restrictive conditions. He was strip-searched frequently and allowed out of his cell for no more than a couple of hours a day. He was deported in August 2002. The Justice Department's inspector general produced two reports detailing problems with the detentions. The government settled an earlier suit involving five other men for $1.2 million. Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights will argue the Supreme Court case. Meeropol said the men she is representing were arrested without any evidence linking them to terrorism because they fit a profile in law enforcement's eyes. "They were a group of individuals who looked how they imagined the hijackers looked," Meeropol said. A divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the men were detained "as if they were terrorists, in the most restrictive conditions of confinement available, simply because these individuals were, or appeared to be, Arab or Muslim." The appeals court said that the suit could go forward because "the suffering endured by those who were imprisoned merely because they were caught up in the hysteria of the days immediately following 9/11 is not without a remedy." The case stems from a class-action suit originally filed in 2002. It's the third time the court has intervened in lawsuits against Ashcroft and others from Muslims who were arrested in the U.S. following the 2001 attacks. The justices have twice sided with Ashcroft. The odds that the court will come out differently this time are long, especially because only six justices will take part. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the New York-based federal appeals court that heard an earlier version of the case and Justice Elena Kagan worked on the issue when she served in the Justice Department. One seat on the nine-member high court has been empty since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February. Four justices - a majority of those taking part on Wednesday - voted to limit the ability to sue Ashcroft in the two earlier cases. Abbasi said he harbors no anger toward the United States. If anything, he misses his time there. His brother is an American citizen and his nephew recently graduated from Penn State. He said he tried to get a visa to attend the high court hearing. "I was denied for some reason," Abbasi said. So, too, were others who sought visas, Meeropol said. When Lyndsay and Matthew Brentlinger took home their newborn twins a few days after Christmas, they knew that baby Williams days would be short. Even though he looked perfect and healthy, he had a severe heart defect, identified in the womb doctors had told his parents that he would likely be stillborn, the Today Show reported. William defied the odds to go home with his family, with hospice care. He died just 11 days after birth. While they didnt have long with William, his parents and his twin sister Reagan will always have the memories of those 11 days thanks to a stunning photo shoot thats now being shared around the world. A Claymont man is facing sentencing this week after pleading guilty to receipt of child pornography. Fifty-one-year-old Carl McBride is scheduled to appear in federal court in Wilmington on Thursday. According to court documents, a federal agent identified McBride in 2013 while conducting an undercover investigation into child pornography trafficking networks. Authorities say McBride used a hidden peer-to-peer computer network to distribute child pornography to over 150 people from his home, which also was the site of a home daycare business called Little Tykes Day Care. State officials suspended the daycare operator's license when McBride was arrested. McBride faces a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years behind bars. The owner of a New Jersey truck company was arrested at Newark Airport as he was about to board a flight to Aruba Thursday, accused of racking up more than $1 million in unpaid E-ZPass tolls and fees, authorities say. Lester Morales, 34, of Little Ferry, owns EAB Transport LLC/Do It Right Trucking in Jersey City, and had about 100 trucks going through tolls more than 100 times a day with a delinquent E-ZPass account for 13 months, according to New Jersey State Police. After the two-month investigation, troopers learned that Morales was about to fly to Aruba on Thursday, and they alerted Port Authority police, who arrested him at Newark Airport, police said. Morales was charged with theft of services and remanded to Middlesex County Jail without bail. Attorney information for him was not immediately available. Friends and family are mourning a teen boy who was shot and killed inside the West Philadelphia store where his father works Sunday afternoon. Sean D. Jones, 16, was inside the Gary Global Links Video Productions store on the 200 block of N. 52nd Street shortly before 1 p.m. when a gunman went inside and opened fire. Jones was struck once in the head. Witnesses say his father, who works at the store, found Jones on the floor moments after the shooting. "My dad was around the back and came and saw my brother on the floor lying down on his face," Sean's brother, Shaquille Jones, told NBC10. "They shot my brother in his head." Jones was taken to the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia where he was pronounced dead at 3:14 p.m. A weapon has not been recovered and no arrests have been made. Police told NBC10 they have access to surveillance video which should show the gunman entering the store though they are not releasing it at this time. Jones was a student at Overbrook High School. His family had moved to Philadelphia from Jamaica in order to give the teen a good education. Loved ones say Jones was a quiet, nice boy who loved school and often did his homework inside the very same store where he was killed. "My nephew is innocent," said Jones' aunt Diane Esty. "Why did they have to take his life?" The incident was the second fatal shooting in West Philadelphia Sunday. A 27-year-old man was shot six to seven times in the face and chest on the 5700 block of Spruce Street. He was taken to Presbyterian Hospital by police and pronounced dead at 2:02 p.m. No arrests have been made. Stefani McMahon says she is living in fear. Her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter has cancer, and McMahon says without the Affordable Care Act shes not sure her daughter would be alive today. "Complete fear, McMahon tells NBC 7. Complete fear for my daughter's life, fear for our family not being able to afford treatment, being turned down for treatment. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as Obamacare, patients cannot be turned down for pre-existing conditions, but if Republicans repeal the law without any replacement insurance companies would be able to turn away care for people with cancer including McMahons daughter. NBC 7 Because of the fears of so many people like McMahon, local Democratic Congressman Scott Peters and Congresswoman Susan Davis held a rally in San Diego Sunday to save Obamacare. They joined nationwide efforts to save the ACA, including a packed Michigan rally held by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. In keeping with a promise theyve held since President Obama signed the law into effect, Republicans took key steps last week toward repealing it despite not yet having a replacement. They are scared to death of losing their care! Rep. Davis exclaimed at the rally of the 128,000 people who they say could lose their coverage. Another 246,000 Medi-Cal recipients could also lose their coverage if the law is repealed. My constituent Tim is a cancer survivor and fears he will lose his health coverage if the ACA is repealed. #SavetheACA pic.twitter.com/A4gdJdkwqZ Rep. Susan Davis (@RepSusanDavis) January 15, 2017 "They should help Americans, not hurt Americans!" Rep. Peters said of Republicans who voted to repeal the law. Congressman Peters joined the other Democrats and even a few Republicans who voted against last week's budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Peters and Davis called on bipartisan efforts to save the law Sunday. During the rally they met with health leaders and patients to discuss how repealing the ACA would hurt San Diegans. The Affordable Care Act has given approximately 20 million more people health insurance, but has been plagued by rising premiums and large co-payments. Republicans say the law is too costly, and they want to end the fines that enforce people to buy coverage. They also want to end requirements that companies must provide coverage to their workers. President-elect Trump has vowed to repeal and replace the law with something terrific, which leaves mothers like Stefani McMahon wondering what the future will look like for her family and her daughter. I mean shes three and a half years old, she said in frustration. A new push for Congress to lead by example in getting more people of color in top staff positions on Capitol Hill takes cues from corporate America. The effort comes after a News4 I-Team report highlighted the fact that lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate don't have to follow the same rules they require for almost every other employer on diversity and inclusion. The Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus rolled out a draft resolution to create the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer of the Senate. Similar roles already exist within major corporations and local governments, and supporters say it would be a necessary step toward putting elected officials in the best position to represent the interests of all voters in government. "Having people with diverse experiences and backgrounds in the decision-making room is necessary from a policy perspective and good politics for Senators," the SBLSC's Don Bell told the I-Team in a statement. The resolution also has the support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told the I-Team, "The more diverse the Senate is, the better it can serve the American people." Former congressional Chief of Staff Don Cravins Jr. is another supporter of the move. "When senators are making decisions that affect the country and senators that represent states with large minority populations, I don't know that they can truly make wise decisions without having people of all backgrounds in those discussions," Cravins told the I-Team ahead of an Urban League panel discussion on the apparent dearth of diversity among U.S. Senate staffers. Part of the problem is the fact that no one in Congress keeps track of how many minorities get hired to work for senators or representatives, as shown by in the I-Team's reporting, said Cravins, who now heads the Urban League's Washington Bureau. "You're right, there's no accountability," Cravins said. "There's no fear." The I-Team went digging in late 2016 for numbers on how many staffers in the local congressional offices identify as women, people of color and LGBTQ and came up with a scattered snapshot of who was working on the Hill at the time. It turns out the numbers don't exist in any formal or centralized capacity. And even though Congress requires diversity employment tracking, everyone else, including the rest of the federal workforce, nobody is required to track those numbers within Congress -- and no one does. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has undertaken a broader project to find data on how many minorities work in top legislative roles in the U.S. Senate, and found what its president, Spencer Overton, called "a huge disparity." "Although people of color make up about 36 percent of the U.S. population," Overton said, "they only account for 7 percent of top Senate staff." The Joint Center first published its findings in early 2015, and is now planning to take a look at staff demographics on the U.S. House side, too. In addition to establishing an office to oversee diversity in Congress, there are also calls to institute the NFL's Rooney Rule in hiring for open positions on the Hill. The rule wouldn't force any office to hire a person of color, but it would require them to interview at least one minority for each for open job. Sen. Schumer, the SBLSC, the Urban League, and the Joint Center all say it would be another important step. "[The Rooney Rule] allows men and women of color to get in the pipeline to find out what they're missing, so they can go and find those skills," Cravins said. "So maybe the next job opening that becomes available, they can apply for that." The Joint Center is also applauding new signs of progress with the hiring of minorities to top positions this month. In a press release, the Joint Center noted: House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) hired Jonathan Burks as chief of staff Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) hired Rey Benitez as communications director Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) hired Steve Haro as chief of staff Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) hired Clint Odom as legislative director Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) hired Virgillio Barerra as legislative director Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) hired Courtney Temple as legislative director In December, Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) announced one of his staff's first hires was Director of External Relations and Community Outreach Yvette Lewis. Still, Overton pointed to an urgency in continuing the push for more diverse hires in both chambers. "People of color need to be at the table," he said. "This isn't just a situation where you can outsource representation or defer to others or wait for four years to pass." Reported by Scott MacFarlane, produced by Ashley Brown and Rick Yarborough, with shooting and editing by Jeff Piper. Thousands of people across the country paid homage Monday to Martin Luther King Jr., marking the 31st anniversary of the federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. Events celebrating King's life were held across the country. In Washington, D.C., a wreath-laying ceremony was held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial at 9 a.m. At the end of the ceremony, the crowd gathered around the wreath and sang, "We Shall Overcome." Actor Nick Cannon led the 11th annual MLK Peace Walk and Parade in Southeast Washington. The walk began at 10 a.m. at 2500 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. People gather in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial to honor him on Martin Luther King day on January 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) During the walk, there will be rolling street closures along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue before it ends at the RISE Center. A parade will follow the walk at noon. The parade will begin on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and continue to Anacostia Park, where the MLK Holiday Festival and Health Fair will be held. Events, celebrations and tributes for King will also be held in other parts of the D.C. area. The All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) remembered King's legacy with a march at the Leesburg courthouse at 10 a.m. After the walk, a reception will be held at the Douglas Community Center. The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is expecting a huge turnout along the Anacostia for its annual cleanup of the river. The event, which is free and open to the public, began at 9:30 a.m. Update: In May, the Fairfax Co. commonwealth's attorney said there would be no charges filed against the officer. Fairfax County police have identified the man killed by an officer after he allegedly shot two men and kept a hostage barricaded inside a burning home. Two brothers called 911 about 2:40 p.m. Monday and said they had been shot at a home in Herndon and were driving themselves to a hospital, Fairfax County police Chief Col. Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said. Officers arriving at the townhouse on the 13300 block of Covered Wagon Lane heard gunshots inside and saw smoke coming from its third floor, the chief said at a news conference. Roessler said a man saying he was being held hostage called 911 to report that he couldn't breathe, but firefighters weren't able to enter the house because someone kept shooting a gun inside. Police negotiators were talking to the 32-year-old Mohammad Azim Doudzai by phone, but the chief said he refused to cooperate with them. "The fire meanwhile is growing more intense, but keep in mind that the fire department cannot make entry when there is someone inside shooting, and now there have been multiple gunshots from inside this house," police spokeswoman Julie Parker said on the scene Monday evening. Video shot from Chopper4 appeared to show police throw a flash grenade into the home. The devices are used to stun the targets. Doudzai opened the front door and was holding what appeared to be a knife, Roessler said. That's when an officer shot Doudzai, who died at a hospital. Officers then were able to help the man who was being held hostage. The man held hostage amid the blaze suffered from smoke inhalation. The two brothers who were shot took themselves to a hospital before police arrived. They had life-threatening injuries. All victims and witnesses were being interviewed Monday night, Roessler said. Police have not released information about the relationship of the people involved. Another D.C.-area Congressman says he'll skip the Trump inauguration, joining a number of Democratic representatives who say they'll stay home. The latest is Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who issued a statement Wednesday. "I cannot attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump on Friday," the statement reads. "His behavior and harmful words during and after the campaign have left the country I love with open, bleeding wounds. Instead of binding those wounds, he has poured salt on them." Earlier in the week, U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Md., U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin said they will not be attending the inauguration, citing, among other things, tweets by Trump in response to Rep. John Lewis. In an exclusive interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Friday, Lewis, D-Ga., said he does not believe Trump is a "legitimate president," citing Russian interference in last year's election. When pressed to explain why, he cited allegations of Russian hacks during the campaign that led to the release of internal documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign co-chairman, John Podesta. On Saturday, Trump slammed Lewis and his congressional district, writing on Twitter that Lewis should focus on "fixing" his district rather than questioning Trump's presidency. "Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart," Trump responded on Twitter. He continued: "(not to......mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!" Lewis' Democratic colleagues and supporters, including Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., quickly came to his defense Saturday. More than two dozen lawmakers said they are skipping the inauguration. Brown, Beyer, and Raskin said they would voice their support for Lewis by not attending in addition to making a statement about the potiential foreign intervention into the presidental election process. Connolly's statement also referenced what he called Trump's "repugnant attack on civil rights hero John Lewis." In a Facebook post, Brown said, The march on Bloody Sunday, led by John Lewis who humbly carries the indelible physical and emotional scars of that day and that era, resulted in finally passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And Congressman Lewis has been fighting for civil and human rights ever since. Because of his actions as a Civil Rights hero, John Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Navy ship was recently named the USNS John Lewis. President-elect Trump, you have the undeniable right to take issue and disagree with John Lewis opinion about the legitimacy of the election results. But Mr. Trump, you need to think carefully about disparaging a Civil Rights icon such as John Lewis, let alone anyone exercising their freedom of expression that many of us fought for. Mr. Trump, you no longer are Candidate Trump. The enormous responsibility and weight of the Office of the President demands restraint where others might speak and constraint where others might act. On Twitter, Beyer said he would not "be part of normalizing or legitimizing a man whose election may well have depended on the malicious foreign interference of Russia's leaders..." "(Trump's) values and his actions are the antitheses of those I hold dear," Beyer said. "It would be the height of hypocrisy for me to pretend to be part of this inaugural celebration." In a statement released Tuesday, Raskin said he originally was going to attend the inauguration as "a gesture of constitutionalism, simply to wirness the peaseful transfer of power from President (Barack) Obama to the new administration." However, he said as the date of the inauguration drew closer, he didn't want his attendance to be seen as "any kind of endorsment of the normality of our situation." "I wish that these were normal times and that I could sit and applaud the normal workings of government as I did when Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan was inaugurated in 2015 in Annapolis," Raskin said. But these are not normal times, and I cannot pretend as if they are. The moral and political legitimacy of this presidency are in the gravest doubt," listing out Trump's business entanglements, Russia's alleged influence on the election, and Trump's social media words toward Lewis. Some Democrats had said they were boycotting the event before the weekend, but more Democratic members of the House said they wouldn't attend after Trump attacked Lewis in a series of tweets. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.; U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.; Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.; and U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md.; told News4 they will be attending the inauguration. Other D.C., Maryland and Virginia representatives and senators have not responded to requests on their attendance. Call them rebels with a cause. Or two. Or three. Or 10. When throngs of women from around the nation converge on Washington for a march on the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, they will arrive driven by a multitude of motivations. Gay rights, gun control, immigrant rights, equal pay, reproductive freedom, racial justice, worker rights, climate change, support for vaccinations: They all make the list of progressive causes that are attracting people to the Women's March on Washington and its sister marches across the country and the world this coming Saturday. "We are not going to give the next president that much focus,'' says Linda Sarsour, a national march organizer and executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. "What we want from him is to see us in focus.'' But while Trump's name may not literally appear in the march's "mission and vision'' statement, the common denominator uniting the marchers appears to be a loathing for the president-elect and dismay that so much of the country voted for him. "This march feels like a chance to be part of something that isn't pity, isn't powerlessness,'' says Leslie Rutkowski, an American living in Norway who plans to fly back for the march. "I hope it is unifying. I hope it flies in the face of Trump's platform of hate and divisiveness.'' Adds Kelsey Wadman, a new mom in California who's helping to organize a parallel march in San Diego: "It's not just about Donald Trump the person. It's about what he evoked out of the country.'' The march in Washington is set to start with a program near the Capitol and then move toward the White House. It probably will be the largest of a number of inauguration-related protests. Christopher Geldart, the District of Columbia's homeland security director, said he expected the march to draw more than the 200,000 people organizers are planning for, based on bus registrations and train bookings. The focus of the march has been a work in progress since the idea of a Washington mobilization first bubbled up from a number of women's social media posts in the hours after Trump's election. The group's November application for a march permit summed up its purpose as to "come together in solidarity to express to the new administration & Congress that women's rights are human rights and our power cannot be ignored.'' That phrasing rankled some who thought it was tied too closely to Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee, whose famous Beijing speech as first lady declared that "women's rights are human rights.'' The fact that the initial march organizers were mostly white women also generated grumbling, this time from minorities. Gradually, the march's leadership and its mission statements have become more all-inclusive. Recent releases from march organizers state the event "intends to send a bold message to the incoming presidential administration on their first day in office, to leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, and to the world, that we stand together in solidarity and expect elected leaders to act to protect the rights of women, their families and their communities.'' America Ferrera, leading the celebrity contingent for the march, rolled out a long list of concerns in a statement announcing her role. "Immigrant rights, worker rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, racial justice and environmental rights are not special interests, they affect us all and should be every American's concerns,'' she wrote. Other prominent names involved with the march have put a spotlight on one concern - or another. Actress Scarlett Johansson, who plans to participate, put her focus on the incoming administration's intentions of "reducing the availability of women's health care and attacking her reproductive rights.'' Actress Debra Messing, listed as a supporter of the march, wrote of the need to protect Planned Parenthood. Expect thousands of the marchers to turn up wearing hand-knitted pink "pussyhats'' - sending a message of female empowerment and pushing back against Trump's demeaning comments about women. Scan #WhyIMarch posts on social media, and you'll find a wide-ranging list of reasons. A sampling: equal pay for women veterans, fighting chauvinism, empowering daughters, renouncing racism, higher pay for women who are college presidents. Wadman, the California mom, tweeted a #WhyIMarch photo with her 4-month-old son and this note: "Because when my son asks me about this era of American history I don't want to tell him that I did nothing.'' Rutkowski, the American living in Norway, emailed that she's "not completely satisfied'' with the mixed messages attached to the march. "I also don't like - from what I've seen in the news and on Facebook - the proclivity for infighting,'' she wrote. "But I believe that a quarter of a million female bodies - hopefully more, hopefully men, as well - will make the incoming administration and new Congress aware that we are watching, we are listening and we will resist.'' Carmen Perez, one of the march's national organizers, sees beauty in the many messages attached to the march: "Women don't live single-issue lives and we are thrilled to be joined by women who understand and reflect the intersecting issues for which we stand.'' State troopers say six puppies and their mother are dead after a mobile home burst into flames in Randolph Center, Vermont. The blaze broke out early Friday. State police say 29-year-old Allysa Ashline escaped the burning mobile home with just a blanket and the clothes she was wearing. She told investigators she could barely see inside the house and narrowly escaped. Randolph Center fire officials have requested an investigation into the cause of the blaze. The Rutland Herald reports a preliminary source of the fire has been traced to near the front door. Police say the fire isn't considered suspicious. After decades of conservation efforts, the bald eagle population is soaring in Maine. "In the 1970s, we were at an all-time low, with under 30 bald eagle nesting pairs in the entire state," said Maine Audubon biologist Susan Gallo. "Now we have over 500 nesting pairs, and we have around 300 eaglets produced each year in Maine." Biologists call it a conservation success story. But is the resurgence of the bald eagle now a threat to other, endangered birds? "They do prey on a couple of our treasured species," said Gallo. "Loons is the big one that comes to mind." Gallo said bald eagles take "a lot" of loon chicks in Maine, but she predicts the two species will find a balance. "Eventually common loons will figure it out and theyll protect their chicks and keep them from those eagles," she said. Some farmers who raise chickens and sheep have complained that bald eagles are a threat to their livestock, but because the bird is still protected, their hands are tied, according to the Associated Press. Gallo said rolling back protections could pose a risk to the eagle, despite its seemingly strong population now. "I think with the change in the administration, and potential weakening of the Environmental Protection Agency, we dont want to take any steps backward," she said. A Connecticut man is headed to jail after admitting he fled from a Massachusetts police officer who was trying to pull him over and crashed following a pursuit. The Berkshire Eagle reported Saturday that 29-year-old Luis Minaya pleaded guilty last week to charges including failing to stop for police and negligent operation of a motor vehicle. He has been sentenced to three months in jail. Police said Minaya and another suspect stole from a Wal-Mart store in December 2013. An Adams, Massachusetts police officer recognized his vehicle and tried to pull him over. A chase ended when Minaya hit a guard rail and crashed. Court records indicate Minaya is serving a five-year prison sentence in Connecticut for sexual assault. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Seba Aghayeva Trend: Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Jan Mladek arrives in Azerbaijan for a visit Jan. 16. During the visit, the minister will be accompanied by a delegation of representatives of several ministries and agencies of the Czech Republic, as well as representatives of big Czech companies, the Azerbaijani embassy in Prague told Trend. The next meeting of the Azerbaijani-Czech intergovernmental commission and a business forum will be held as part of the Baku visit. Jan Mladek also plans to hold several meetings in the Azerbaijani government and parliament. Czech companies intend to offer new projects to the Azerbaijani side on cooperation in the spheres of construction, pharmaceutics, as well as financial sector. Earlier, Azerbaijani Ambassador to the Czech Republic Farid Shafiyev told Trend that prospects of cooperation in these spheres, as well as the strengthening of trade and economic relations in general will be discussed during the next meeting of the Azerbaijani-Czech intergovernmental commission. The ambassador noted that during the visit, the Czech delegation will be accompanied by representatives of big Czech companies operating in the spheres of agriculture and food industry, finance, insurance, energy, logistics, construction, law, petrochemistry, engineering and various fields of economy. The Czech Republic ranks 12th among major importers from Azerbaijan. Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic amounted to $312.02 million in January-November 2016 and $214.17 million of this amount accounted for the export of Azerbaijani products to the Czech Republic. The specific weight of the Czech Republic in Azerbaijans total export was 2.58 percent in 11 months of 2016. Vermont activists opposed to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump are pledging to speak up for human rights, environmental issues, and other causes at protests this weekend and long after the inauguration. A group of friends gathered at the South Burlington home of Susan French Church Monday to make signs they will use to amplify their voices at the Women's March on Washington, D.C. the day after Trump takes office. "I need to get involved; I need to stay involved," French Church said, describing how she could not sit on the sidelines with major issues facing the country. The women making the trip from Vermont to the huge D.C. demonstration said they will stand up for health care access, the environment, economic and racial justice, human rights, and other causes. "Democracy relies on participation, so we have to go do our part," Liisa Reimann said of trip to Washington this weekend. "Seeing how many people do show upit will help impassion others," predicted Tara Tighe, who is also heading to D.C. for the Womens March on Washington. Rallies and protests of the incoming administration have been picking up in recent days. This weekend in the Burlington area, one demonstration denounced Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and another pushed back against Donalds Trumps style and urged others to get involved with grassroots activism. On the Martin Luther King Junior holiday, Martin Luther King III attended a closed-door meeting with Trump in his office in New York City, NBC News reported. King told reporters after the meeting that his late father would be concerned about voting access and the number of Americans who remain in poverty. King said it is "insanity" that in a country as wealthy as the United States that some are still hungry. The son of the civil rights leader also told reporters the meeting with Trump was "constructive" when discussing issues of concern to King. Monday morning, Trump tweeted "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for." "Honor him for being the great man that he was!" Trump's tweet continued. A group of Vermont high schoolers calling themselves Muslim Girls Making Change performed slam poetry at a Martin Luther King Day observance at Burlington's ECHO lake aquarium & science center Monday. The students told necn after their performance that they are looking forward to attending this Saturday's Women's March on Montpelier. That event, held in solidarity with the one in Washington, aims to send a message to the Trump administration that America's diversity is its strength. "Everyone has a voice, its just your choice whether or not to use it," said Lena Ginawi, a South Burlington High School junior who is a member of Muslim Girls Making Change. "Thats our choice we chose to use it." "Everyone is human," added Kiran Waqar, another member of Muslim Girl Making Change from South Burlington. "Everyone is entitled to equal rights, whether youre a white straight man or a Muslim female." The activists necn talked to said they will keep speaking up publicly for their values, long after the inaugural weekend protests. A man died at the scene and his grandson died the next day from injuries after a head-on crash in Windham, Maine, last week. Police say a minivan driven by 65-year-old Dennis Brackley, of New Gloucester, crossed the centerline of U.S. Route 202 on Friday night and smashed into an SUV driven by 33-year-old Adrian King, of Windham. Police say Brackley died at the scene. Two young children in his van, identified by WCSH as his grandchildren, were critically hurt. Four-year-old Gavin Goad died at a hospital Saturday morning, a family friend told WCSH. His 5-year-old sister is still recovering from her injuries. A Maine Medical Center nursing supervisor says King and 27-year-old Samantha-Jo Brink, who was a passenger in King's vehicle, were in satisfactory condition. Police said Brink was in serious condition on Friday night. Windham Police Sgt. William Andrew tells the Portland Press Herald no charges are pending. An investigation is ongoing. Massachusetts State Police have arrested a group of men suspected of training roosters to cockfight. State Trooper Sergio Figueiredo stopped a car on Route 84 in Sturbridge around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday for refusing to move for an ambulance. When Trooper Figueiredo approached the car he noticed the four men inside were shoving something underneath the seats. He also noticed a large sticker on the back of the car that said TRABA 24K next to the silhouette of a rooster. The trooper called for backup after hearing noises coming from the back and noticed the bags moving. In total, three roosters were found inside the car. Two were placed in laundry bags and one was inside a plastic trash bag. Police also found several rolls of medical tape, nail files, wax, sharp acrylic talon, and a container of styptic powder which is used to stop bleeding. After further investigation, officials discovered the suspects were participating in a cockfight in New Jersey. The four men, all from Lawrence, have been identified as 26-year-old Winton Hernandez, 23-year-old Erick Lora-Lopez, 22-year-old William Morales, and 54-year-old Cesareo Ruiz. Additionally, all suspects face charges of animal cruelty, keeping or promoting animal fight, and conspiracy. A Providence man will remain jailed as he faces a murder charge in the stabbing death of another man last month in East Providence, Rhode Island. A judge on Friday ordered 29-year-old James Stevens held without bail on charges he stabbed 24-year-old Jasper Williams, who died at a hospital. Authorities say Stevens stabbed Williams repeatedly in the torso, head and leg outside the home Williams shared with his girlfriend following an argument. U.S. Marshals apprehended Stevens in El Paso, Texas, after 18 days on the run. Stevens hasn't entered a plea. His attorney declined comment. Williams' mother says Stevens is in a relationship with her son's ex-girlfriend. Williams was found guilty in 2014 of stabbing two brothers. He was released about two weeks before he was slain. Police in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, say a man who has been arrested in the city 18 times has been arrested again on firearm charges. In a Facebook post, Woonsocket police say Jarett OHagan, 29, would surely be one of our best customers if they had a rewards card program for number of arrests. OHagan was arrested over the weekend after police responded to a dangerous call on Ascension Street. The exact details of the arrest have not been released, but police say they found a .45 Ruger that was discarded by OHagan. OHagan was charged with several crimes, including assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of a weapon by a felon, possession of a weapon while intoxicated and possession of a firearm without a permit. Senator Elizabeth Warren gathered with demonstrators in Boston today to express show support for the Affordable Care Act. Warren hosted the Save Health Care Rally at Faneuil Hall along with Senator Ed Markey. Both senators are at the forefront of the fight against Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation along with Bostons Mayor Marty Walsh showed their support by attending todays event. Previous talk of dismantling the Affordable Care Act has consistently been met with a promise of veto from President Barack Obama. Now, ahead of a Trump presidency, Warren wants to make sure these services remain in effect. If Republicans try to rip healthcare out of the hands of millions of Americans we will fight them every step of the way, Warren said. Carla Lievano, a single-mother, is worried about losing her health benefits if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. I could lose my health benefits, Lievano said. Im very low income. I dont know how I would take care of [my daughter]. Shes on MassHealth. The uncertainty of coverage, even among those using MassHealth, is augmented by stories from Sarah Grow. Grows mother exhausted her insurance policy during her battle with cancer. She spoke at the rally and told the crowds that the Affordable Care Act saved her mothers life. My mom was able to be released from her current policy and buy a hefty plan to cover all she needed, Grow explained. The cost of the Affordable Care Act is still a concern for many, something Congressman Richard Neal says Democrats acknowledge. We all knew there would be bumps, Neal said. But it has also been very successful so lets smooth out the bumps and sand out the edges. Todays rally was just one of the dozens held around the United States supporting the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security. St Peter Mancroft Church Norwich Presents The Leaves of the Trees an installation by sculptor Peter Walker which provides a memorial for those who died of Covid-19 St Peter Mancroft Church Norwich Presents The Leaves of the Trees an installation by sculptor Peter Walker which provides a memorial for those who died of Covid-19 Community Chaplaincy Norfolk begins a new chapter Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) celebrated the beginning of a new chapter this week, as the new chair of trustees Chris Tomlinson led his first annual meeting. Read more Lowestoft Christians launch on-line bible helps app The Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth branch of Good News for Everyone (GNFE), formerly the Gideons, have introduced a new mobile phone app called On-line Bible Helps. Read more Addicts' rehabilitation centre plan for Drayton Hall Christian addiction charity Teen Challenge London is planning to turn Drayton Hall near Norwich into its headquarters and a rehabilitation centre for men, after it was gifted the freehold of the hall by its owner, the Lind Trust. Read more The power of positive protest Philip Young encourages us to take a stand for what we believe, and has just written to Therese Coffey regarding climate change and the forthcoming COP 27. He explains why we should be prepared to protest. Read more Norwich church celebrates with cribs and trees Rosebery Road Methodist Church in Norwich will be holding its annual Cribs and Trees Festival in December. Read more Transforming Norwich lunch offers ministry tips Ex-Brighton vicar, Rev Phil Moon, will offer tips on how to keep going in ministry to the Transforming Norwich leaders lunch on Wednesday November 16. Read more Quiet Waters in Bungay offers healing retreat Quiet Waters Christian Retreat in Bungay is holding a gentle day retreat exploring healing in the Kingdom of God. Read more Latest Norfolk Christian community events Events of interest to the Norwich and Norfolk Christian community happening over the next few weeks are listed. Read more Norfolk ministry coaching duo are guest speakers Former church leaders and now freelance ministry coaches, Jonathan and Paige Squirrell, are the guest speakers at the next dinner of Norwich FGB on Monday, November 21. Read more Bringing light to Halloween Anna Price encourages Christians to engage positively with Halloween rather than hide away, on what many see as the darkest night of the year. Read more First service takes place at Norwich church site SOUL Church hosted around 400 people for a special service on the site of their new building on Heartsease Lane. Read more Dereham draws up list of warm places for winter As rising energy prices make it harder to heat homes, churches in Dereham are leading the way in creating warm spaces where people can go. Read more South Norfolk church scoops national award A medieval Anglican church in a tiny hamlet in South Norfolk has won a national award and a 10,000 boost. Read more Dereham churches help people to help themselves A group of churches in Dereham have launched an ambitious project which aims to meet needs in the town, including the provision of food and skills training. Read more Executive assistant and nursery manager jobs SOUL Church is a vibrant, welcoming and growing church in Norwich. They are seeking an organised and versatile Executive Assistant to provide key support to the churchs Senior Pastors, as well as a qualified Nursery Manager to head up SOUL Nursery. Read more Halloween light in Gorleston church On Halloween this year, St Mary Magdalene Church in Gorleston will be preparing to welcome around 200 families to experience their Light on a Dark Night event. Read more An opportunity for Norwich to pray for the nation Rev Nigel Fox, who has served as a Methodist Minister for 15 years in Norwich, shares an open invitation to pray for the nation at a crucial moment. Read more AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson met with President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday to talk jobs and investment, but the company's multi-billion takeover of Time Warner was not on the table. The company didn't say much about the meeting, which took place at Trump Tower in New York, but characterized it as wide ranging. "As the countrys leading investor of capital for each of the last five years, the conversation focused on how AT&T can work with the Trump administration to increase investment in the U.S., stimulate job creation in America, and make American companies more competitive globally," AT&T said in a statement. Stephenson is one of several CEOs to have met with Trump in recent weeks. Many of the meetings have been focused on similar issues, although in many cases the job and investment commitments announced after the meetings were already in place. AT&T has a good reason to cozy up to Trump. The president-elect has pledged a major push in infrastructure building and AT&T owns one of the largest telecommunications networks in the country, so it could benefit from any government investment in that area. And while AT&T said the proposed merger with Time Warner wasn't discussed, it's sure to be a keen area of concern for the company. Before the election, Trump pledged it is "a deal we will not approve," citing media concentration concerns. The deal includes CNN, which is currently in Trump's crosshairs for breaking the news on concerns that Russian spies have compromising information about him. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenias Armed Forces have 42 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops by using 60, 82 and 120-millimeter mortars, said Azerbaijans Defense Ministry Jan. 16. The Azerbaijani army positions located in Alibayli, Aghbulag and Kokhanabi villages of the Tovuz district underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located in Aygepar, Chinari villages and on the nameless heights of Armenias Berd district. Moreover, the Azerbaijani army underwent fire from the Armenian positions located near the Armenian-occupied Qaraqashli village of the Aghdam district, Kuropatkino village of the Khojavand district, Horadiz, Qarakhanbayli villages of the Fuzuli district, as well as from the nameless heights in the Goygol, Goranboy, Tartar, Khojavand and Fuzuli districts. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. David Thompson, 80, was one of 30 British people killed in Sousse THE terrorist attack on a Tunisian beach that led to the deaths of 30 British tourists including 80-year-old Tadley man David Thompson could have been stopped sooner, an inquest has heard. In total, 38 people were killed when a gunman opened fire near Sousse in June 2015. After his death, friends and neighbours paid tribute to Mr Thompson, describing him as "friendly, kind and thoughtful". Today, an inquest heard how nearby security forces "had an ability to put an end to the attack" before the police arrived. Samantha Leek, counsel to the inquest, said they "deliberately and unjustifiably slowed down to delay their arrival at the hotel". The hearings are taking place at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, presided over by judge and coroner Nicholas Loraine-Smith. They are expected to last around seven weeks. For more, see this week's Newbury Weekly News, out Thursday. Details added (first version posted on 12:14) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Suma Chakrabarti as part of his visit to the Swiss Confederation to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. Chakrabarti thanked President Aliyev for supporting his re-election as the president of the EBRD, and expressed hope that Azerbaijan-EBRD interaction will be fruitful in the coming years. Describing Azerbaijan-EBRD relations as excellent, President Aliyev hailed this cooperation. He noted that the productive relations were established for the implementation of various projects. Touching upon the economic reforms carried out in Azerbaijan, President Aliyev underlined that special attention is paid to the development of the private sector in the country. It was stressed that there are good prospects for cooperation in implementing projects in Azerbaijan in agriculture, transportation, infrastructure and other areas, adding these projects paved the way for the bilateral cooperation. The sides also exchanged views on a number of other issues of mutual interest. By Reuters SEOUL: The friend at the center of a corruption scandal engulfing South Korean President Park Geun-hye's administration, said on Monday she had no prior knowledge of Samsung Group's plans for a controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. "Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place," the friend, Choi Soon-sil, told a public hearing at South Korea's Constitutional Court on Monday. South Korea's Constitutional Court began hearing arguments this month on whether to uphold parliament's vote last month to impeach President Park. SEOUL: The friend at the center of a corruption scandal engulfing South Korean President Park Geun-hye's administration, said on Monday she had no prior knowledge of Samsung Group's plans for a controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. "Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place," the friend, Choi Soon-sil, told a public hearing at South Korea's Constitutional Court on Monday. South Korea's Constitutional Court began hearing arguments this month on whether to uphold parliament's vote last month to impeach President Park. Ram M Sundaram By Express News Service CHENNAI: It has been six years since a sum of Rs 32 crore was earmarked for the construction of two bridges at Thiruvottiyur. But the State government agencies have not made much progress on the projects for varying reasons, a delay that has caused great inconvenience for the local residents. While the one under construction by the Highways Department at Sadayankuppam is getting delayed due to land acquisition issues, the other one by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) replacing the 40-year-old foot over iron bridge at Burma Nagar has not even commenced. Delay in these infrastructural facilities has forced people to walk miles to reach out even for emergency services including ambulances. Bringing in boats to rescue people from flooded areas was a matter of routine for nearly 30,000 people residing in and around Sadayankuppam at Thiruvottiyur in November-December every year, the period when maximum rainfall is recorded in the State. To put an end to the connectivity woes, the Tamil Nadu government in 2010 laid the foundation stone for construction of a two-lane bridge more than one km long at a cost of Rs 16.46 crore. The bridge connecting Sadayankuppam with Manali Oil Refinery Road would reduce at least four km of travel. But even today, locals can be seen using a narrow rickety wooden structure to cross the river. Unable to complete the project, the Highways Department recently installed temporary iron ramps to support pedestrian movement. Construction which began a year later was put on hold after acquisition of necessary land for the project turned problematic. A Highways official said that out of the 10,286 sq.metre (3,862 sq.m in Thiruvottiyur and 6,424 sq.m in Sadayankuppam) of land required, payments were pending only for 20 per cent of land owners. The five pending cases will be resolved soon and construction of approach road will begin at the earliest, the official added. The optimism, however, is not shared by local residents, who are forced to use the unfinished structure. S Mahalakshmi, a resident, said that without approach roads in place, they had to trudge through sludge and slime to reach the ramps connecting the bridge whenever it rained. Its dangerous to walk at the night as there were no street lights on this path, she added. Residents also said they were forced to use the narrow causeway to reach the main road and this was congested during rush hour. We otherwise have to take a detour of three km through Burma Colony to reach the arterial road, said R Paechiselvam, another resident. However, this route also didnt come to their rescue during the 2015 December floods leaving the entire locality disconnected. An iron bridge constructed four decades ago across Puzhal lake surplus water canal at Burma Nagar got flooded. Only two-wheelers and autorickshaws can travel along this 1.4-metre-wide riveted structure with rust and wear. Following a series of protests and petitions from the locals, the Greater Chennai Corporation announced that a Rs 15-crore overbridge would be constructed replacing the 10-metre bridge. While the Corporation would shell out Rs 9 crore, a private agency will bear the remaining cost, said a Corporation official. Senior civic body officials and former Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy visited the locality last year after funds were sanctioned. No progress was reported following this. Even ambulances or fire tenders cant enter inside our area during emergencies through this narrow bridge. We had to either take the detour through Manali New Town or carry sick patients in stretchers for two to three km to reach the main road, said N Pazhani from Burma Nagar. A Corporation official said that works were in progress and construction would begin soon. CHENNAI: It has been six years since a sum of Rs 32 crore was earmarked for the construction of two bridges at Thiruvottiyur. But the State government agencies have not made much progress on the projects for varying reasons, a delay that has caused great inconvenience for the local residents. While the one under construction by the Highways Department at Sadayankuppam is getting delayed due to land acquisition issues, the other one by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) replacing the 40-year-old foot over iron bridge at Burma Nagar has not even commenced. Delay in these infrastructural facilities has forced people to walk miles to reach out even for emergency services including ambulances. Bringing in boats to rescue people from flooded areas was a matter of routine for nearly 30,000 people residing in and around Sadayankuppam at Thiruvottiyur in November-December every year, the period when maximum rainfall is recorded in the State. To put an end to the connectivity woes, the Tamil Nadu government in 2010 laid the foundation stone for construction of a two-lane bridge more than one km long at a cost of Rs 16.46 crore. The bridge connecting Sadayankuppam with Manali Oil Refinery Road would reduce at least four km of travel. But even today, locals can be seen using a narrow rickety wooden structure to cross the river. Unable to complete the project, the Highways Department recently installed temporary iron ramps to support pedestrian movement. Construction which began a year later was put on hold after acquisition of necessary land for the project turned problematic. A Highways official said that out of the 10,286 sq.metre (3,862 sq.m in Thiruvottiyur and 6,424 sq.m in Sadayankuppam) of land required, payments were pending only for 20 per cent of land owners. The five pending cases will be resolved soon and construction of approach road will begin at the earliest, the official added. The optimism, however, is not shared by local residents, who are forced to use the unfinished structure. S Mahalakshmi, a resident, said that without approach roads in place, they had to trudge through sludge and slime to reach the ramps connecting the bridge whenever it rained. Its dangerous to walk at the night as there were no street lights on this path, she added. Residents also said they were forced to use the narrow causeway to reach the main road and this was congested during rush hour. We otherwise have to take a detour of three km through Burma Colony to reach the arterial road, said R Paechiselvam, another resident. However, this route also didnt come to their rescue during the 2015 December floods leaving the entire locality disconnected. An iron bridge constructed four decades ago across Puzhal lake surplus water canal at Burma Nagar got flooded. Only two-wheelers and autorickshaws can travel along this 1.4-metre-wide riveted structure with rust and wear. Following a series of protests and petitions from the locals, the Greater Chennai Corporation announced that a Rs 15-crore overbridge would be constructed replacing the 10-metre bridge. While the Corporation would shell out Rs 9 crore, a private agency will bear the remaining cost, said a Corporation official. Senior civic body officials and former Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy visited the locality last year after funds were sanctioned. No progress was reported following this. Even ambulances or fire tenders cant enter inside our area during emergencies through this narrow bridge. We had to either take the detour through Manali New Town or carry sick patients in stretchers for two to three km to reach the main road, said N Pazhani from Burma Nagar. A Corporation official said that works were in progress and construction would begin soon. By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The Cyberabad police on Sunday arrested five persons, including a jeweller from Mumbai, in connection with the recent robbery at Muthoot Finance in RC Puram on the outskirts of the city. However, out of the 42-kg gold stolen, police could recover only 3.50-kg gold as the rest of it had been converted to rods and transported to different places by the robbers. Cyberabad police commissioner Sandeep Shandilya said at a press conference at his office here on Sunday that the kingpin of the gang, Laxman alias Bhayya of Mumbai, along with Ganesh Bhonsle alias Patil and Vijay Kumar was held at Holekatte village, when the trio went to collect the car and change its colour to erase the evidences. Six persons _ Laxman, Patil, Subhash, Sundar, Kaala alias Lambu of Tamil Nadu and Tukaram Gaikwad of Mumbai _ participated in the robbery. Two persons, Vijay Kumar and Roshan Yadav, did piloting on a bike for the SUV in which the robbers were moving. They relayed information on police movement by travelling 2 km ahead and gave clearance for the SUV to proceed to the destination. The commissioner said that Subhash Pujari of Kanyakumari, who supplied logistics to the gang, selected the escape route and supplied the mobile phones that were to be used during and after committing the offence. Meticulous plan The gang planned the robbery for eight months. They visited Hyderabad several times to identify a potential spot for committing robbery. Patil, who was earlier doing liquor smuggling in Mumbai, is a very skilful driver and drove the SUV to Halakatta in two and a half hours, a distance which generally takes about four hours. The accused also erased the engine and chassis numbers, and we do not know whose vehicle exactly it is, he said. The police commissioner said that the accused used a car with Maharashtra registration and changed its number plate about half an hour before committing the crime. They stayed on the outskirts of Sangareddy on the night of December 27, and robbed Muthoot Finance on the next day. Easy target The gang selected the RC Puram branch of Muthoot as their target after confirming that it had more women and young employees. They thought that they could frighten the staff easily. From there they travelled via Vikarabad, Parigi, Kodangal, Ribbanplly, Sedam and Chittapur before stopping at Vijays house in Halakatta. Later, they went to Nasik for having the gold melted and then dispersed, the commissioner said. The gang was being financed by Kumar Pal Trilokchand Shah, a jeweller in Mumbai. He buys stolen gold at half the market price. He purchased 12 kg of gold stolen from Gulbarga and 5 kg of gold stolen from RC Puram. The police team nabbed Shah when he was handing over `5 lakh in cash to Subhash in Mumbai. Subhash went to Madurai and went back to Mumbai to collect gold. He called up Shah three times to confirm that he would collect the gold in Mumbai. Only 3.50-kg of gold ornaments were recovered from Shah while the rest of the 37-kilo gold ornaments was converted into gold rods at Patils house in Nasik. From there the gold disappeared. We will take the accused into custody to find about the gold, he said, adding that Tukaram, Roshan, Pulari, Yuvaraj and Sunder were still at large. HYDERABAD: The Cyberabad police on Sunday arrested five persons, including a jeweller from Mumbai, in connection with the recent robbery at Muthoot Finance in RC Puram on the outskirts of the city. However, out of the 42-kg gold stolen, police could recover only 3.50-kg gold as the rest of it had been converted to rods and transported to different places by the robbers. Cyberabad police commissioner Sandeep Shandilya said at a press conference at his office here on Sunday that the kingpin of the gang, Laxman alias Bhayya of Mumbai, along with Ganesh Bhonsle alias Patil and Vijay Kumar was held at Holekatte village, when the trio went to collect the car and change its colour to erase the evidences. Six persons _ Laxman, Patil, Subhash, Sundar, Kaala alias Lambu of Tamil Nadu and Tukaram Gaikwad of Mumbai _ participated in the robbery. Two persons, Vijay Kumar and Roshan Yadav, did piloting on a bike for the SUV in which the robbers were moving. They relayed information on police movement by travelling 2 km ahead and gave clearance for the SUV to proceed to the destination. The commissioner said that Subhash Pujari of Kanyakumari, who supplied logistics to the gang, selected the escape route and supplied the mobile phones that were to be used during and after committing the offence. Meticulous plan The gang planned the robbery for eight months. They visited Hyderabad several times to identify a potential spot for committing robbery. Patil, who was earlier doing liquor smuggling in Mumbai, is a very skilful driver and drove the SUV to Halakatta in two and a half hours, a distance which generally takes about four hours. The accused also erased the engine and chassis numbers, and we do not know whose vehicle exactly it is, he said. The police commissioner said that the accused used a car with Maharashtra registration and changed its number plate about half an hour before committing the crime. They stayed on the outskirts of Sangareddy on the night of December 27, and robbed Muthoot Finance on the next day. Easy target The gang selected the RC Puram branch of Muthoot as their target after confirming that it had more women and young employees. They thought that they could frighten the staff easily. From there they travelled via Vikarabad, Parigi, Kodangal, Ribbanplly, Sedam and Chittapur before stopping at Vijays house in Halakatta. Later, they went to Nasik for having the gold melted and then dispersed, the commissioner said. The gang was being financed by Kumar Pal Trilokchand Shah, a jeweller in Mumbai. He buys stolen gold at half the market price. He purchased 12 kg of gold stolen from Gulbarga and 5 kg of gold stolen from RC Puram. The police team nabbed Shah when he was handing over `5 lakh in cash to Subhash in Mumbai. Subhash went to Madurai and went back to Mumbai to collect gold. He called up Shah three times to confirm that he would collect the gold in Mumbai. Only 3.50-kg of gold ornaments were recovered from Shah while the rest of the 37-kilo gold ornaments was converted into gold rods at Patils house in Nasik. From there the gold disappeared. We will take the accused into custody to find about the gold, he said, adding that Tukaram, Roshan, Pulari, Yuvaraj and Sunder were still at large. By PTI HYDERABAD: A stage seems to have set for confrontation between students of University of Hyderabad and its authorities over organisation of "Shahadat Din" tomorrow in memory of dalit scholar Rohit Vemula whose alleged suicide last year had raised a political firestorm. Clarifying that no permission was given to students who are planning to hold a series of programmes, the varsity authorities today clamped restrictions on the movement of outsiders on the campus. A section of students under the aegis of Joint Action Committee for Social Justice - UOH has said they would gather at 'Rohit Stupa' to remember his legacy and take a vow that fight will go on against casteism and communalism. aed by Rohit's mother Radhika Vemula, family of Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student who has been missing, Jaan Mohammed, brother of Mohammad Akhlaq who was lynched in September 2015 on suspicion that his family stored and ate beef at their house, a few dalits who were thrashed by 'cow vigilantes' at Una in Gujarat last year. Vemula was found hanging in a hostel room on the UoH campus on January 17, 2016, sparking a huge controversy and political tug-of-war. "The University cannot be used as a platform for outsiders to participate in the activities called by insiders or outsiders when there was no permission," stated a circular issued by UoH Registrar P S Singh. It warned of appropriate disciplinary action against those who violate the directions. "Announcements were made through media and wall posters that some activities are being taken up on January 17 at University of Hyderabad campus. University has not issued any permission to such activities," it said. Singh said the cooperation of entire varsity community is needed for maintaining peace and tranquil academic atmosphere. University authorities had last year issued a notification banning entry of outsiders, political parties, media and social/student groups. The JAC members, who are planning a series of programmes under the banner of 'Justice for Rohit Vemula', said his portraits in all hostels will be garlanded and a remembrance rally will also be held tomorrow. UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor- 1 Prof Vipin Srivastava told PTI, "they (JAC) have not sought any permission from University officials..If they go ahead with their programmes it will be unofficial." Asked if the varsity authorities had sought for enhancing security, Srivastava said "We will monitor the situation and act accordingly." The Dean of Students' Welfare of UoH also advised all the students unions, forums, associations, JAC on the campus not to involve directly or indirectly in inviting or entertaining outsiders and cited prevailing ban on the campus on allowing outsiders into the campus. HYDERABAD: A stage seems to have set for confrontation between students of University of Hyderabad and its authorities over organisation of "Shahadat Din" tomorrow in memory of dalit scholar Rohit Vemula whose alleged suicide last year had raised a political firestorm. Clarifying that no permission was given to students who are planning to hold a series of programmes, the varsity authorities today clamped restrictions on the movement of outsiders on the campus. A section of students under the aegis of Joint Action Committee for Social Justice - UOH has said they would gather at 'Rohit Stupa' to remember his legacy and take a vow that fight will go on against casteism and communalism. aed by Rohit's mother Radhika Vemula, family of Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student who has been missing, Jaan Mohammed, brother of Mohammad Akhlaq who was lynched in September 2015 on suspicion that his family stored and ate beef at their house, a few dalits who were thrashed by 'cow vigilantes' at Una in Gujarat last year. Vemula was found hanging in a hostel room on the UoH campus on January 17, 2016, sparking a huge controversy and political tug-of-war. "The University cannot be used as a platform for outsiders to participate in the activities called by insiders or outsiders when there was no permission," stated a circular issued by UoH Registrar P S Singh. It warned of appropriate disciplinary action against those who violate the directions. "Announcements were made through media and wall posters that some activities are being taken up on January 17 at University of Hyderabad campus. University has not issued any permission to such activities," it said. Singh said the cooperation of entire varsity community is needed for maintaining peace and tranquil academic atmosphere. University authorities had last year issued a notification banning entry of outsiders, political parties, media and social/student groups. The JAC members, who are planning a series of programmes under the banner of 'Justice for Rohit Vemula', said his portraits in all hostels will be garlanded and a remembrance rally will also be held tomorrow. UoH Pro Vice-Chancellor- 1 Prof Vipin Srivastava told PTI, "they (JAC) have not sought any permission from University officials..If they go ahead with their programmes it will be unofficial." Asked if the varsity authorities had sought for enhancing security, Srivastava said "We will monitor the situation and act accordingly." The Dean of Students' Welfare of UoH also advised all the students unions, forums, associations, JAC on the campus not to involve directly or indirectly in inviting or entertaining outsiders and cited prevailing ban on the campus on allowing outsiders into the campus. By Express News Service KOCHI: It will be twin treat for city folks as Bharat Bhavan is hosting two grand events on January 17, Tuesday as part of its international cultural exchange programme. Tomomi Paromita from Japan will present a Baul evening at Semmankudi Smrithi Mandapam at 6 pm, to be followed by the Vietnam Fest that will start at Tagore Theatre at 6.45 pm. Tomomi Paromita, a disciple of Parvathy Baul, came to Kerala smitten by the music cult of the Bauls. She is also proficient in linguistics, Sanskrit, martial arts and painting. Baul music is considered a sacred fusion of music, spirituality and yoga. The lyrics of Baul songs are written in ancient Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and Maithili languages. There are fifty four ethnic minority groups living in Vietnam and with 54 different languages Vietnam has enough richness and diversity in its culture. Moreover, thousands of folk songs and hundreds of musical instruments are part of Vietnamese life, all preserved and passed down from generations through centuries. At the Vetnam Fest at Tagore the audience will get a taste of folk art forms of the land deeply connected to the Vietnamese culture. Entry is free for both the events. KOCHI: It will be twin treat for city folks as Bharat Bhavan is hosting two grand events on January 17, Tuesday as part of its international cultural exchange programme. Tomomi Paromita from Japan will present a Baul evening at Semmankudi Smrithi Mandapam at 6 pm, to be followed by the Vietnam Fest that will start at Tagore Theatre at 6.45 pm. Tomomi Paromita, a disciple of Parvathy Baul, came to Kerala smitten by the music cult of the Bauls. She is also proficient in linguistics, Sanskrit, martial arts and painting. Baul music is considered a sacred fusion of music, spirituality and yoga. The lyrics of Baul songs are written in ancient Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and Maithili languages. There are fifty four ethnic minority groups living in Vietnam and with 54 different languages Vietnam has enough richness and diversity in its culture. Moreover, thousands of folk songs and hundreds of musical instruments are part of Vietnamese life, all preserved and passed down from generations through centuries. At the Vetnam Fest at Tagore the audience will get a taste of folk art forms of the land deeply connected to the Vietnamese culture. Entry is free for both the events. By Express News Service KOCHI: The district administration on Sunday issued an order banning parking of cargo lorries on the sides of Container Road, which links Kalamassery with Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), with effect from January 26. District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla issued the order after BPCL promised to provide three acres of land for parking trucks transporting cargo to and from ICTT. BPCL will be providing three acres of land near ICCT, before Republic Day, for setting up parking lot for container trucks. The pay-and-park facility will have space for parking around 150 lorries, said the Collector after visiting the proposed parking area along with BPCL officials. Efforts will be made to expand the parking area in the coming days, and a complete prohibition on parking will be imposed in a phased manner. Currently, a complete ban cannot be imposed due to dearth of sufficient parking space, said the Collector. Earlier, the district administration had issued an ultimatum to the Cochin Port Trust (CPT) to set up parking area, which, however, failed to elicit positive response. The order was issued in the wake of unregulated parking, which posed a serious threat to motorists, especially during night. Condemning the lacklustre attitude of the CPT, a senior government official had said the onus of providing parking facility was on the Port, the sole beneficiary of cargo movement along the road. Similarly, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is yet to act on a directive by district administration to install No Parking signs along the road. The district administration will convene a meeting of all the agencies concerned to discuss safety issues and measures to curb accident on the stretch, said the Collector. The Port Trust authorities were unavailable for comments. KOCHI: The district administration on Sunday issued an order banning parking of cargo lorries on the sides of Container Road, which links Kalamassery with Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), with effect from January 26. District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla issued the order after BPCL promised to provide three acres of land for parking trucks transporting cargo to and from ICTT. BPCL will be providing three acres of land near ICCT, before Republic Day, for setting up parking lot for container trucks. The pay-and-park facility will have space for parking around 150 lorries, said the Collector after visiting the proposed parking area along with BPCL officials. Efforts will be made to expand the parking area in the coming days, and a complete prohibition on parking will be imposed in a phased manner. Currently, a complete ban cannot be imposed due to dearth of sufficient parking space, said the Collector. Earlier, the district administration had issued an ultimatum to the Cochin Port Trust (CPT) to set up parking area, which, however, failed to elicit positive response. The order was issued in the wake of unregulated parking, which posed a serious threat to motorists, especially during night. Condemning the lacklustre attitude of the CPT, a senior government official had said the onus of providing parking facility was on the Port, the sole beneficiary of cargo movement along the road. Similarly, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is yet to act on a directive by district administration to install No Parking signs along the road. The district administration will convene a meeting of all the agencies concerned to discuss safety issues and measures to curb accident on the stretch, said the Collector. The Port Trust authorities were unavailable for comments. Express News Service About two years ago, I conducted an informal survey among those whose proficiency in English is fairly good to find out which aspect of English they found difficult to master. Those who took part in the survey included students, teachers, soft skills trainers, and engineers in India. Over eighty per cent of them said that mastering prepositions was tough for them. I was not surprised by the result of the survey. When I shared the survey result with a friend in Sweden, who worked in Africa for a few years, she said, Even students at the intermediate level make mistakes in prepositions. Prepositions present problems not only for learners but also for teachers. Prepositions (on, in, at, under, for, with, up) have been tricky for those who have learnt English as a second/foreign language. In the past, I have responded to a number of queries related to the use of prepositions. Here are some of the queries: On the campus or in the campus? On a train or in a train? Admitted to or admitted in the hospital? Scheduled on 16th January or scheduled for 16th January? Advanced to 14th June or advanced for 14th June? Prepositions play a vital role in conveying the meaning of a sentence. They are familiar words yet they are difficult for learners to master. Why do learners find it difficult to use prepositions correctly? Most prepositions have multiple meanings and they have different functions. For example, for has twelve different meanings. No literal translations for many prepositions are possible. Consider the preposition about. When Tamil speakers try to translate about to their language, they make these mistakes: I discussed about the movie. We had a discussion about the topic. The correct sentences are: I discussed the movie. We had a discussion on the topic. It is not easy to decide which word goes with a particular preposition or which preposition goes with a particular word. That is why learners raise queries similar to the ones listed above. It is not necessary for learners to know the meanings of all content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) but it is essential for them to know all the grammatical words (prepositions, articles, pronouns and auxiliary verbs) in order to communicate effectively. Instead of learning words in isolation, it is good to learn the words in chunks like on TV, on Facebook, on the internet, on the left/right, on the list. Below are examples of easy-to-remember preposition chunks. Adjective+preposition: accustomed to, allergic to, attached to, beneficial to, bored with, certain about, crazy about, doubtful about, etc. Noun+preposition: addiction to, advantage of, belief in, devotion to, experience in, etc. Verb+preposition: approve of, arrive in,comment on, compete with, count on, cope with, etc. Prepositions of time: on days (on Monday), in months/seasons/year (in June/winter/2017), at night, etc. Dr Albert p Rayan is an ELT Resource Person and Professor of English. He can be contacted at rayanal@yahoo.co.uk About two years ago, I conducted an informal survey among those whose proficiency in English is fairly good to find out which aspect of English they found difficult to master. Those who took part in the survey included students, teachers, soft skills trainers, and engineers in India. Over eighty per cent of them said that mastering prepositions was tough for them. I was not surprised by the result of the survey. When I shared the survey result with a friend in Sweden, who worked in Africa for a few years, she said, Even students at the intermediate level make mistakes in prepositions. Prepositions present problems not only for learners but also for teachers. Prepositions (on, in, at, under, for, with, up) have been tricky for those who have learnt English as a second/foreign language. In the past, I have responded to a number of queries related to the use of prepositions. Here are some of the queries: On the campus or in the campus? On a train or in a train? Admitted to or admitted in the hospital? Scheduled on 16th January or scheduled for 16th January? Advanced to 14th June or advanced for 14th June? Prepositions play a vital role in conveying the meaning of a sentence. They are familiar words yet they are difficult for learners to master. Why do learners find it difficult to use prepositions correctly? Most prepositions have multiple meanings and they have different functions. For example, for has twelve different meanings. No literal translations for many prepositions are possible. Consider the preposition about. When Tamil speakers try to translate about to their language, they make these mistakes: I discussed about the movie. We had a discussion about the topic. The correct sentences are: I discussed the movie. We had a discussion on the topic. It is not easy to decide which word goes with a particular preposition or which preposition goes with a particular word. That is why learners raise queries similar to the ones listed above. It is not necessary for learners to know the meanings of all content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) but it is essential for them to know all the grammatical words (prepositions, articles, pronouns and auxiliary verbs) in order to communicate effectively. Instead of learning words in isolation, it is good to learn the words in chunks like on TV, on Facebook, on the internet, on the left/right, on the list. Below are examples of easy-to-remember preposition chunks. Adjective+preposition: accustomed to, allergic to, attached to, beneficial to, bored with, certain about, crazy about, doubtful about, etc. Noun+preposition: addiction to, advantage of, belief in, devotion to, experience in, etc. Verb+preposition: approve of, arrive in,comment on, compete with, count on, cope with, etc. Prepositions of time: on days (on Monday), in months/seasons/year (in June/winter/2017), at night, etc. Dr Albert p Rayan is an ELT Resource Person and Professor of English. He can be contacted at rayanal@yahoo.co.uk By Express News Service Anupama Parameswaran, whose recent outing Joemonte Suvisesangal will hit the screens this week, has already signed her next in Telugu. The pretty actress will be seen playing the lead lady to none other than Tollywood sensation Ram Charan Teja, which will be directed by Sukumar. Though actresses like Raashi Khanna, Amala Paul and Samantha were considered for the role, finally the Premam girl bagged it. She took to Twitter and wrote, Happy to announce my next Telugu film with director Sukumar sir, Ram Charan, Ratnavelu sir & Mythri movies. Touted to be a romantic story set in a village backdrop, we hear, the director was particular about the choice of his leading lady, and had zeroed in on Anupama. Sources inform that look tests were also done. This yet-to-be-titled flick will have music by Devi Sri Prasad and is likely to be shot in different parts of India. The rest of the details about the crew will be finalised in four days, added the source. Anupama Parameswaran, whose recent outing Joemonte Suvisesangal will hit the screens this week, has already signed her next in Telugu. The pretty actress will be seen playing the lead lady to none other than Tollywood sensation Ram Charan Teja, which will be directed by Sukumar. Though actresses like Raashi Khanna, Amala Paul and Samantha were considered for the role, finally the Premam girl bagged it. She took to Twitter and wrote, Happy to announce my next Telugu film with director Sukumar sir, Ram Charan, Ratnavelu sir & Mythri movies. Touted to be a romantic story set in a village backdrop, we hear, the director was particular about the choice of his leading lady, and had zeroed in on Anupama. Sources inform that look tests were also done. This yet-to-be-titled flick will have music by Devi Sri Prasad and is likely to be shot in different parts of India. The rest of the details about the crew will be finalised in four days, added the source. Sujatha Narayanan By Express News Service I dont remember the last time a film teaser made me look forward to the whole movie with as much promise! Gautham Menons Dhruva Natchathirams photo campaign online which led to the big reveal two nights ago was one of the best campaigns for a film in recent times. Ive always wondered why most of our movies have only knee-jerk publicity campaigns and seldom do we have films announcing the release month even while shoot is in progress. Kamal Haasan, Mani Ratnam, Shankar have had a plan with regard to film titles, ad-campaigns and release timelines but in general, despite the professionalism that abounds in the south film industry in various departments of film-making, print and publicity is almost always an after-thought. It is something we think of when the master CD of the audio track is ready and posters and advertisements have to be given. Usually the announcement of a film has a poster or print ad, then the ads appear after a gap, during audio launch and then about a week prior to release, all media is on high-alert! In this context, it was heartening to watch each character from Dhruva Natchathiram (which is one of the most interesting titles for an espionage film) wave out to you every day at 6pm for a week ahead of the teaser release. Coming to the teaser itself it was time to rejoice again because one of my favourite actors shines bright in every frame. My eyes didnt move from his polished looks he appears dapper in his suits and snappy as the New York snow. Vikram just fits in to play a RAW agent and how! The blue-grey tones and falling snowflakes transport you into a film whose angles and shots (Cameraman Joemon is one of the brightest talents around) look like Gautham is making a Bond film right from the Tamil heartland. The teaser talks about a hero, who in a series of Menon movies, is in public service (cop/army/special agent bring them on!). Vikram, who can be anything a role demands, seems so much at ease here. The director-actor team have struck gold at that word which is usually reserved for heroes and heroines chemistry. Whatever formula is being cooked up in Gauthams lab for this magnum opus looks fresh and the pursuit of Mr K is the agenda. I liked that aspect of revealing the storyline in the teaser. Gautham has set us up for what we are going to watch and then goes about showing us how he will take us there. This teaser also has a vibrant background score from Harris Jeyaraj (yes, that cliche word springs up here too chemistry) Some comments on social media have lines that echo my thoughts on how Dhruva Natchathiramis perhaps Vikrams best big project yet. A neat aesthetically mounted thriller which captures his good-looks (yup the salt and pepper look works big time!) his immensely appealing screen-presence and the superlative action and acting from him which we await to see on-screen. Sujatha Narayanan @n_sujatha08 I dont remember the last time a film teaser made me look forward to the whole movie with as much promise! Gautham Menons Dhruva Natchathirams photo campaign online which led to the big reveal two nights ago was one of the best campaigns for a film in recent times. Ive always wondered why most of our movies have only knee-jerk publicity campaigns and seldom do we have films announcing the release month even while shoot is in progress. Kamal Haasan, Mani Ratnam, Shankar have had a plan with regard to film titles, ad-campaigns and release timelines but in general, despite the professionalism that abounds in the south film industry in various departments of film-making, print and publicity is almost always an after-thought. It is something we think of when the master CD of the audio track is ready and posters and advertisements have to be given. Usually the announcement of a film has a poster or print ad, then the ads appear after a gap, during audio launch and then about a week prior to release, all media is on high-alert! In this context, it was heartening to watch each character from Dhruva Natchathiram (which is one of the most interesting titles for an espionage film) wave out to you every day at 6pm for a week ahead of the teaser release. Coming to the teaser itself it was time to rejoice again because one of my favourite actors shines bright in every frame. My eyes didnt move from his polished looks he appears dapper in his suits and snappy as the New York snow. Vikram just fits in to play a RAW agent and how! The blue-grey tones and falling snowflakes transport you into a film whose angles and shots (Cameraman Joemon is one of the brightest talents around) look like Gautham is making a Bond film right from the Tamil heartland. The teaser talks about a hero, who in a series of Menon movies, is in public service (cop/army/special agent bring them on!). Vikram, who can be anything a role demands, seems so much at ease here. The director-actor team have struck gold at that word which is usually reserved for heroes and heroines chemistry. Whatever formula is being cooked up in Gauthams lab for this magnum opus looks fresh and the pursuit of Mr K is the agenda. I liked that aspect of revealing the storyline in the teaser. Gautham has set us up for what we are going to watch and then goes about showing us how he will take us there. This teaser also has a vibrant background score from Harris Jeyaraj (yes, that cliche word springs up here too chemistry) Some comments on social media have lines that echo my thoughts on how Dhruva Natchathiramis perhaps Vikrams best big project yet. A neat aesthetically mounted thriller which captures his good-looks (yup the salt and pepper look works big time!) his immensely appealing screen-presence and the superlative action and acting from him which we await to see on-screen. Sujatha Narayanan @n_sujatha08 Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has offered condolences to the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Almazbek Atambayev over the plane crash near Bishkek which killed scores. I was deeply saddened by the news of tragic death of people as a result of plane crash near Bishkek, President Aliyev said in his letter of condolence. On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, the bereaved families, loved ones of those who died and wish the injured the swiftest possible recovery, added the president. By Express News Service Trisha faced a lot of flak from Jallikattu supporters on social media on Saturday as shes been associated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had obtained a Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu a couple of years ago. Despite saying she never spoke against the popular bull-taming sport, around 8 pm, there was a Tweet that read: I am a Tamilian and I support PETA; cruelty to animals no matter how old the traditions are no justification. Trisha later clarified that she didnt post it. After the actors account was allegedly hacked by an anonymous person, she announced that shed deactivate it until she decides further course of action. Also, she had to leave the shooting location of her upcoming film Garjanai, after a few protested against her for endorsing PETA. Kamal Haasan, Arvind Swami, Simbu, Radikaa Sarath Kumar, were among the many, who extended their support to Trisha. Trisha faced a lot of flak from Jallikattu supporters on social media on Saturday as shes been associated with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which had obtained a Supreme Court ban on Jallikattu a couple of years ago. Despite saying she never spoke against the popular bull-taming sport, around 8 pm, there was a Tweet that read: I am a Tamilian and I support PETA; cruelty to animals no matter how old the traditions are no justification. Trisha later clarified that she didnt post it. After the actors account was allegedly hacked by an anonymous person, she announced that shed deactivate it until she decides further course of action. Also, she had to leave the shooting location of her upcoming film Garjanai, after a few protested against her for endorsing PETA. Kamal Haasan, Arvind Swami, Simbu, Radikaa Sarath Kumar, were among the many, who extended their support to Trisha. By PTI NEW DELHI: Vice President M Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan expressed their condolences over the Bihar boat tragedy in which 24 people have lost their lives. In a message Ansari said he prayed to the Almighty to give the bereaved families of the victims the strength and fortitude to withstand this immense loss. "It is with profound grief that I have learnt of the loss of lives caused by the boat tragedy in Bihar. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I'm informed that the central and state government agencies have been carrying out relief and rescue work," he added. Mahajan also condoled the loss of lives of several passengers. "I'm pained to learn that a boat carrying several persons capsized in river Ganga in Patna. It is tragic news that more than 20 passengers have lost their lives. I convey condolences to the bereaved members of their families," she said in a message. NEW DELHI: Vice President M Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan expressed their condolences over the Bihar boat tragedy in which 24 people have lost their lives. In a message Ansari said he prayed to the Almighty to give the bereaved families of the victims the strength and fortitude to withstand this immense loss. "It is with profound grief that I have learnt of the loss of lives caused by the boat tragedy in Bihar. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. I'm informed that the central and state government agencies have been carrying out relief and rescue work," he added. Mahajan also condoled the loss of lives of several passengers. "I'm pained to learn that a boat carrying several persons capsized in river Ganga in Patna. It is tragic news that more than 20 passengers have lost their lives. I convey condolences to the bereaved members of their families," she said in a message. Anand ST Das By Express News Service PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday pooh-poohed the Opposition BJPs suggestion that the statewide human chain programme being organised by the state government be postponed till a later date on account of the Patna boat tragedy in which 24 people were killed. The human chain would be a historic event that will reflect the overwhelming support of Bihars people for the statewide total prohibition implemented by our government, said Kumar as he accused BJP of adopting double standards. Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had suggested Sunday that the government should put off the statewide human chain programme scheduled for January 21. When the train derailment took place in Kanpur, had they (BJP) postponed their programme in Uttar Pradesh? I had cancelled the scheduled programme of issuing the annual report card of the state government after that incident, asked Kumar. Derailment of the Indore-Patna Express at Pukhrayan in Kanpur Dehat on November 21 had caused the death of 150 people. Slamming Sushil Kumar Modi for insinuating that the state government did not spend enough for the Makar Sankranti kite-flying festival, Kumar said, without naming the BJP leader, Pehle statement dijiyega kuchh, aur bhitar se pench lagaiyega kuchh aur! (You say something first, and then you secretly adopt a different ploy!) Modi had said that the Bihar government spent Rs 200 crore for Prakashotsav but did not spend even a phuti kauri for the Makar Sankranti festival. Did not he (Modi) take credit for Prakashotsav saying the Centre had helped it with funds? asked Kumar. This Makar Sankranti programme was started when we were running the NDA government in Bihar. As far as I remember, these BJP people were very eager about organising this programme, said Kumar, adding, This is no such important programme like Chhath. The CM, however, declined to comment on Modis charge a day before that Kumars three-party coalition government had been neglecting festivals of the Hindus though it made grand preparations to celebrate festivals of Sikhs and Buddhists earlier this month. Sushil Modi on Monday excoriated the government for its visible disinterest in a probe into the boat mishap and demanded that an all-party probe committee be formed to conduct a serious investigation. Instead of taking any action against officials responsible for the massive neglect that led to the boat tragedy, the government is merely speaking evasively. We want responsibility to be fixed and action taken, added Modi. PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday pooh-poohed the Opposition BJPs suggestion that the statewide human chain programme being organised by the state government be postponed till a later date on account of the Patna boat tragedy in which 24 people were killed. The human chain would be a historic event that will reflect the overwhelming support of Bihars people for the statewide total prohibition implemented by our government, said Kumar as he accused BJP of adopting double standards. Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had suggested Sunday that the government should put off the statewide human chain programme scheduled for January 21. When the train derailment took place in Kanpur, had they (BJP) postponed their programme in Uttar Pradesh? I had cancelled the scheduled programme of issuing the annual report card of the state government after that incident, asked Kumar. Derailment of the Indore-Patna Express at Pukhrayan in Kanpur Dehat on November 21 had caused the death of 150 people. Slamming Sushil Kumar Modi for insinuating that the state government did not spend enough for the Makar Sankranti kite-flying festival, Kumar said, without naming the BJP leader, Pehle statement dijiyega kuchh, aur bhitar se pench lagaiyega kuchh aur! (You say something first, and then you secretly adopt a different ploy!) Modi had said that the Bihar government spent Rs 200 crore for Prakashotsav but did not spend even a phuti kauri for the Makar Sankranti festival. Did not he (Modi) take credit for Prakashotsav saying the Centre had helped it with funds? asked Kumar. This Makar Sankranti programme was started when we were running the NDA government in Bihar. As far as I remember, these BJP people were very eager about organising this programme, said Kumar, adding, This is no such important programme like Chhath. The CM, however, declined to comment on Modis charge a day before that Kumars three-party coalition government had been neglecting festivals of the Hindus though it made grand preparations to celebrate festivals of Sikhs and Buddhists earlier this month. Sushil Modi on Monday excoriated the government for its visible disinterest in a probe into the boat mishap and demanded that an all-party probe committee be formed to conduct a serious investigation. Instead of taking any action against officials responsible for the massive neglect that led to the boat tragedy, the government is merely speaking evasively. We want responsibility to be fixed and action taken, added Modi. Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGAR: Asserting that Article 370, which grants special status to J&K, secures States pluralistic ethos, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday announced exgratia relief to those people who were killed during Amarnath land row agitation in 2008. Her announcement about the compensation of Amarnath land row victims came barely a week after she announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for people killed during over five-month long unrest in the Valley last year. Article 370 is not any other entry in the rule book but it has to be understood in depth and with perspective. Its not only about securing the geography of Jammu & Kashmir alone but the pluralistic ethos and cultural diversity of the State as well, Mehbooba said while winding up discussion on Motion of Thanks on Governors address in Legislative Council in Jammu, the winter capital of the State. She said unique examples of this pluralistic ethos were witnessed during the unrest of last year when despite curfew Amarnath yatris injured in an accident were rescued and treated by local people, a Pandit marriage was solemnized by Muslim neighbors when nobody could dare to venture out or when many of Kashmiri parents sent their wards to Jammu for studying. She appealed the members to rise above party lines and work to minimise the mistrust and discord between regions and people in the State. The need of the hour is that Jammu & Kashmir remains united as a single entity so that it approaches the issues confronting it with singular attention and focus. This was the biggest objective with her party while forming Government in the State in 2015. Mehbooba said a large number of those killed, blinded, injured or affected in any way during the five-month-long unrest in the Valley belonged to very poor families and many of them were orphans who had nobody to guide. As such the rehabilitation of their kin or these injured lies with the government. I announced setting up of Special Investigating Teams to probe these killing besides announcing the ex gratia relief of Rs 5 lakhs for the next of kin of the deceased, she said. According to government figures, at 76 civilian and two policemen were killed during the over five-month long unrest triggered by killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8 last year. However, unofficial reports said that 94 people including two policemen were killed during the unrest. Mehbooba announced that victims of 2008 Amarnath land row agitation in the State would also be paid ex gratia and other financial compensation as will be paid to Kashmir unrest victims. Similarly, the kin of Chamail Singh, a civilian from Paragwal area of Jammu province killed in Pakistan in 2013, would also be duly compensated, she said adding her Government wont differentiate on the basis of caste, creed or colour when it comes to the rehabilitation of its people. After she announced compensation of Rs 5 lakhs and jobs to families of next of killed and blinded during the unrest in Kashmir in Legislative Assembly last week, the BJP and Jammu-based parties had demanded compensation for the victims, who died during Amarnath land row agitation in the State in 2008 when Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was heading Congress-PDP coalition government in the State. The Legislative Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta, who is also a BJP member, had also urged the government to consider granting compensation to the next of kin of those who lost their lives or were injured during the Amarnath land row agitation in the State in 2008. Over 60 people were killed during the Amarnath land row agitation in Valley while State BJP president MLA Sat Paul Sharma said 12 persons were also killed during the agitation in Jammu. SRINAGAR: Asserting that Article 370, which grants special status to J&K, secures States pluralistic ethos, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday announced exgratia relief to those people who were killed during Amarnath land row agitation in 2008. Her announcement about the compensation of Amarnath land row victims came barely a week after she announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for people killed during over five-month long unrest in the Valley last year. Article 370 is not any other entry in the rule book but it has to be understood in depth and with perspective. Its not only about securing the geography of Jammu & Kashmir alone but the pluralistic ethos and cultural diversity of the State as well, Mehbooba said while winding up discussion on Motion of Thanks on Governors address in Legislative Council in Jammu, the winter capital of the State. She said unique examples of this pluralistic ethos were witnessed during the unrest of last year when despite curfew Amarnath yatris injured in an accident were rescued and treated by local people, a Pandit marriage was solemnized by Muslim neighbors when nobody could dare to venture out or when many of Kashmiri parents sent their wards to Jammu for studying. She appealed the members to rise above party lines and work to minimise the mistrust and discord between regions and people in the State. The need of the hour is that Jammu & Kashmir remains united as a single entity so that it approaches the issues confronting it with singular attention and focus. This was the biggest objective with her party while forming Government in the State in 2015. Mehbooba said a large number of those killed, blinded, injured or affected in any way during the five-month-long unrest in the Valley belonged to very poor families and many of them were orphans who had nobody to guide. As such the rehabilitation of their kin or these injured lies with the government. I announced setting up of Special Investigating Teams to probe these killing besides announcing the ex gratia relief of Rs 5 lakhs for the next of kin of the deceased, she said. According to government figures, at 76 civilian and two policemen were killed during the over five-month long unrest triggered by killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8 last year. However, unofficial reports said that 94 people including two policemen were killed during the unrest. Mehbooba announced that victims of 2008 Amarnath land row agitation in the State would also be paid ex gratia and other financial compensation as will be paid to Kashmir unrest victims. Similarly, the kin of Chamail Singh, a civilian from Paragwal area of Jammu province killed in Pakistan in 2013, would also be duly compensated, she said adding her Government wont differentiate on the basis of caste, creed or colour when it comes to the rehabilitation of its people. After she announced compensation of Rs 5 lakhs and jobs to families of next of killed and blinded during the unrest in Kashmir in Legislative Assembly last week, the BJP and Jammu-based parties had demanded compensation for the victims, who died during Amarnath land row agitation in the State in 2008 when Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was heading Congress-PDP coalition government in the State. The Legislative Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta, who is also a BJP member, had also urged the government to consider granting compensation to the next of kin of those who lost their lives or were injured during the Amarnath land row agitation in the State in 2008. Over 60 people were killed during the Amarnath land row agitation in Valley while State BJP president MLA Sat Paul Sharma said 12 persons were also killed during the agitation in Jammu. By Online Desk Delhis former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, who was seemingly the target of a witch hunt by Najeeb Jung, has written a scathing blog post dripping with sarcasm, levelling several allegations against the man who recently resigned as the union territorys Lieutenant Governor. Chief among those allegations are that Jung tried to teach Kumar a lesson using the CBI, and that the former Lt Governor had tried to victimise a Vice-Chancellor of a Delhi Government university, with whom he had some personal rivalry. Kumar, who had held several key positions in the previous Sheila Dikshit government, had allegedly been seen by the Centre as being close to the Aam Aadmi Party government. In his letter titled, To Sir With Regards, Rajendra Kumar said, I met you a few times during the 49-day Government and you had been kind to me. After that government fell, you called me to your office and told me that many people have informed you that I have identified myself too closely with Aam Aadmi Party. When I asked you about your opinion, you kept quiet. Probably I was stupid enough not to understand that the many people was you. Complexity of english language has been my shortcoming. I accept it. Kumar goes on to say that he was targeted for his alleged closeness to the AAP government, and that Jung tried to educate him about what was good for him. You were always concerned about me, my welfare and my education. You spoke to a senior officer of CBI and sought his help to educate me. He was not wise and he politely excused himself. After sometime he retired. But your desire to help and reform me continued. You later met a top officer of MHA and a top officer of CBI and stressed upon them the urgent national interest issue of helping and educating me. You have extraordinary oratory skills and they got convinced. Then my education started. People visited my house and my office and I was called many times to country's premier educational and transformational institution. Umpteen number of other people were also called for that education. Some were given special lessons, the blog post reads. Kumar was charged by the CBI with corruption and criminal conspiracy for favouring a private IT firm in awarding government contracts worth Rs 9.5 crore. His arrest in July last year was among the most visible effects of the power play over the tussle between the Centre, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the AAP government ruling the national capital. Delhis Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had lashed out at the Centre. All this has been done to paralyse the Chief Ministers office, he said and challenged the Centre adding, Mr. Modi, even if you leave us with just peons, we will run the government. Jung resigned last month in a surprise move, referring to which Kumar, in his blog, says the former governor should not have left as the lessons were left incomplete. Sir you left too early. There was so much to be done. You left me. You went away from your responsibility to educate me. I remained ignorant. I could not get the light of knowledge and wisdom, Kumar says. The former principal secretary on January 4 sought voluntary retirement, addressing a 26-page letter to the Chief Minister for his request to be accepted within 3 weeks. An IAS officer of 1989 batch, Kumar is an IIT Kharagpur alumni, and also a recipient of the Prime Ministerss Award for Excellence in Public Administration for 2006-07. Delhis former Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar, who was seemingly the target of a witch hunt by Najeeb Jung, has written a scathing blog post dripping with sarcasm, levelling several allegations against the man who recently resigned as the union territorys Lieutenant Governor. Chief among those allegations are that Jung tried to teach Kumar a lesson using the CBI, and that the former Lt Governor had tried to victimise a Vice-Chancellor of a Delhi Government university, with whom he had some personal rivalry. Kumar, who had held several key positions in the previous Sheila Dikshit government, had allegedly been seen by the Centre as being close to the Aam Aadmi Party government. In his letter titled, To Sir With Regards, Rajendra Kumar said, I met you a few times during the 49-day Government and you had been kind to me. After that government fell, you called me to your office and told me that many people have informed you that I have identified myself too closely with Aam Aadmi Party. When I asked you about your opinion, you kept quiet. Probably I was stupid enough not to understand that the many people was you. Complexity of english language has been my shortcoming. I accept it. Kumar goes on to say that he was targeted for his alleged closeness to the AAP government, and that Jung tried to educate him about what was good for him. You were always concerned about me, my welfare and my education. You spoke to a senior officer of CBI and sought his help to educate me. He was not wise and he politely excused himself. After sometime he retired. But your desire to help and reform me continued. You later met a top officer of MHA and a top officer of CBI and stressed upon them the urgent national interest issue of helping and educating me. You have extraordinary oratory skills and they got convinced. Then my education started. People visited my house and my office and I was called many times to country's premier educational and transformational institution. Umpteen number of other people were also called for that education. Some were given special lessons, the blog post reads. Kumar was charged by the CBI with corruption and criminal conspiracy for favouring a private IT firm in awarding government contracts worth Rs 9.5 crore. His arrest in July last year was among the most visible effects of the power play over the tussle between the Centre, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the AAP government ruling the national capital. Delhis Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had lashed out at the Centre. All this has been done to paralyse the Chief Ministers office, he said and challenged the Centre adding, Mr. Modi, even if you leave us with just peons, we will run the government. Jung resigned last month in a surprise move, referring to which Kumar, in his blog, says the former governor should not have left as the lessons were left incomplete. Sir you left too early. There was so much to be done. You left me. You went away from your responsibility to educate me. I remained ignorant. I could not get the light of knowledge and wisdom, Kumar says. The former principal secretary on January 4 sought voluntary retirement, addressing a 26-page letter to the Chief Minister for his request to be accepted within 3 weeks. An IAS officer of 1989 batch, Kumar is an IIT Kharagpur alumni, and also a recipient of the Prime Ministerss Award for Excellence in Public Administration for 2006-07. Fayaz Wani By Express News Service SRINAGAR: Contradicting Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars statement that demonetization ended stone pelting in Kashmir, the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday said there was no impact of demonetization on unrest in the Valley. The State government has not received any report so far on effects of demonetization on the recent unrest in the Valley, J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who also holds the Home portfolio, said in a written reply in States Legislative Assembly in Jammu, winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir. She was responding to a question by State BJP president and MLA Sat Paul Sharma. The MLA had sought information from government on the effects of the demonetization on the recent unrest in the Valley. The CM in her written reply also revealed that no case has been received about fake currency being used for generating violence during the unrest. Kashmir witnessed over five months long unrest after killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces in South Kashmirs Kokernag area on July 8. After his killing, the Kashmir used to witness dozens of incidents of protests and stone pelting every day. At least 94 people including two policemen were killed and over 13000 injured during the five month long unrest. On the call of separatists, Valley observed continuously shutdown for over four months. However, with the improvement in situation, the protests and stone pelting subsided and separatists scaled down the protest and shutdown calendar. The State governments todays statement is contrary to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. On November 14, a week after Prime Minister announced scrapping of Rs 500 and 1000 notes, Parrikar had stated that since the demonetization, terror funding has come down to zero and there hasnt been stone-pelting on security forces in Kashmir. In the last few days after PMs daring move, there hasnt been stone pelting on security forces. Earlier, there were rates: Rs 500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs 1,000 for doing something else. PM has brought terror funding to zero, Parrikar had said. Meanwhile, the State government informed the Legislative Assembly today that hawala money was being used to fund militant activities and 173 hawala cases were registered in the State in last 15 years. "As per reports from CID, hawala channels are being used to fund militant violence in the state. Since 2001, 173 hawala cases have been registered, the government disclosed. It stated that of the 173 cases, 90 cases have been challaned, 45 cases are under investigation, nine cases were untraced and six not admitted The sanction is awaited in 23 cases, added the government. SRINAGAR: Contradicting Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars statement that demonetization ended stone pelting in Kashmir, the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday said there was no impact of demonetization on unrest in the Valley. The State government has not received any report so far on effects of demonetization on the recent unrest in the Valley, J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who also holds the Home portfolio, said in a written reply in States Legislative Assembly in Jammu, winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir. She was responding to a question by State BJP president and MLA Sat Paul Sharma. The MLA had sought information from government on the effects of the demonetization on the recent unrest in the Valley. The CM in her written reply also revealed that no case has been received about fake currency being used for generating violence during the unrest. Kashmir witnessed over five months long unrest after killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces in South Kashmirs Kokernag area on July 8. After his killing, the Kashmir used to witness dozens of incidents of protests and stone pelting every day. At least 94 people including two policemen were killed and over 13000 injured during the five month long unrest. On the call of separatists, Valley observed continuously shutdown for over four months. However, with the improvement in situation, the protests and stone pelting subsided and separatists scaled down the protest and shutdown calendar. The State governments todays statement is contrary to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. On November 14, a week after Prime Minister announced scrapping of Rs 500 and 1000 notes, Parrikar had stated that since the demonetization, terror funding has come down to zero and there hasnt been stone-pelting on security forces in Kashmir. In the last few days after PMs daring move, there hasnt been stone pelting on security forces. Earlier, there were rates: Rs 500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs 1,000 for doing something else. PM has brought terror funding to zero, Parrikar had said. Meanwhile, the State government informed the Legislative Assembly today that hawala money was being used to fund militant activities and 173 hawala cases were registered in the State in last 15 years. "As per reports from CID, hawala channels are being used to fund militant violence in the state. Since 2001, 173 hawala cases have been registered, the government disclosed. It stated that of the 173 cases, 90 cases have been challaned, 45 cases are under investigation, nine cases were untraced and six not admitted The sanction is awaited in 23 cases, added the government. By Express News Service RAIPUR: Citing good governance and development as the key to fight Maoist menace, the union home minister Rajnath Singh on Monday assured the Chhattisgarh -- one of the worst affected states by left-wing extremism -- of greater road connectivity, new police stations and mobile towers in the affected districts. Chairing a review meeting on anti-Maoist campaign and development at the chief minister residence here, Singh approved 50 new police stations, installation of 35 additional mobile towers and improving the road network. 850 km new roads will be constructed in Maoist-hit zones of Chhattisgarh. Sixteen out of the 27 districts of Chhattisgarh have the presence of rebels. The year 2016 has been the year of significant achievements for Chhattisgarh state against the outlawed CPI (Maoist), the union minister said. "I congratulate the state government and the security forces, Singh conveyed during the meeting. Later, the union home minister during his brief interaction with the media remain tight-lipped to a query on the National Human Rights Commission having served a notice to the state government on the tribal women raped and physically assaulted by the security personnel in Bastar. The chief minister Raman Singh intervened to respond that the investigation is in progress. In the affected areas every basic amenities are being rapidly expanded. Education, healthcare, road construction and telecommunication remains top priority for the government, the chief minister said and further added that the villagers in Maoist-affected districts too will be connected with the cashless economic system. RAIPUR: Citing good governance and development as the key to fight Maoist menace, the union home minister Rajnath Singh on Monday assured the Chhattisgarh -- one of the worst affected states by left-wing extremism -- of greater road connectivity, new police stations and mobile towers in the affected districts. Chairing a review meeting on anti-Maoist campaign and development at the chief minister residence here, Singh approved 50 new police stations, installation of 35 additional mobile towers and improving the road network. 850 km new roads will be constructed in Maoist-hit zones of Chhattisgarh. Sixteen out of the 27 districts of Chhattisgarh have the presence of rebels. The year 2016 has been the year of significant achievements for Chhattisgarh state against the outlawed CPI (Maoist), the union minister said. "I congratulate the state government and the security forces, Singh conveyed during the meeting. Later, the union home minister during his brief interaction with the media remain tight-lipped to a query on the National Human Rights Commission having served a notice to the state government on the tribal women raped and physically assaulted by the security personnel in Bastar. The chief minister Raman Singh intervened to respond that the investigation is in progress. In the affected areas every basic amenities are being rapidly expanded. Education, healthcare, road construction and telecommunication remains top priority for the government, the chief minister said and further added that the villagers in Maoist-affected districts too will be connected with the cashless economic system. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday attached assets worth about Rs 20 crore in a money laundering case against tainted former Uttar Pradesh engineer Yadav Singh. ED attaches assets worth Rs 19.92 crores under PMLA in Yadav singh case, former Chief Engineer NOIDA, the agency said in a tweet. The attachment order was made under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and the properties of three construction companies and a firm allegedly owned by Singh's wife have been attached, official sources said. The ED had booked Singh under the PMLA in two separate cases in 2015 and the recent proceedings are a result of the ongoing probe into these cases. The provision of attachment of assets of an accused under the PMLA is intended to deprive the person from deriving any benefits from tainted wealth. The attachment order can be challenged before the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA within 180 days of the ordered action, The ED has registered the cases against Singh after taking cognisance of the CBI FIR relating to possession of disproportionate assets by him and his family members. NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday attached assets worth about Rs 20 crore in a money laundering case against tainted former Uttar Pradesh engineer Yadav Singh. ED attaches assets worth Rs 19.92 crores under PMLA in Yadav singh case, former Chief Engineer NOIDA, the agency said in a tweet. The attachment order was made under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and the properties of three construction companies and a firm allegedly owned by Singh's wife have been attached, official sources said. The ED had booked Singh under the PMLA in two separate cases in 2015 and the recent proceedings are a result of the ongoing probe into these cases. The provision of attachment of assets of an accused under the PMLA is intended to deprive the person from deriving any benefits from tainted wealth. The attachment order can be challenged before the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA within 180 days of the ordered action, The ED has registered the cases against Singh after taking cognisance of the CBI FIR relating to possession of disproportionate assets by him and his family members. By Express News Service TUMAKURU: AN assistant police sub-inspector (ASI) attached to the Tumakuru Rural police station is alleged of raping a mentally unstable woman in the wee hours of Sunday. The accused officer, identified as Umesh (57), has been taken into police custody and placed under suspension. The vehicle was also seized. Central Range IGP Seemanth Kumar Singh visited the scene of crime and took stock of the situation. The incident is demoralising for the police force, he told mediapersons later. The victim remained in the womens police station till late in the night. District Women and Child Welfare Deputy Director Nanje Gowda was also waiting at the station to check whether she would be handed over to the departments reception centre or shifted to a special ward in the district hospital. According to the victims family, she had separated from her husband was mentally ill. At times, she would roam around at night and return home. Some time back, she was found wandering in Bengaluru and had been rescued. But nothing like this happened in the past, rued her mother. TUMAKURU: AN assistant police sub-inspector (ASI) attached to the Tumakuru Rural police station is alleged of raping a mentally unstable woman in the wee hours of Sunday. The accused officer, identified as Umesh (57), has been taken into police custody and placed under suspension. The vehicle was also seized. Central Range IGP Seemanth Kumar Singh visited the scene of crime and took stock of the situation. The incident is demoralising for the police force, he told mediapersons later. The victim remained in the womens police station till late in the night. District Women and Child Welfare Deputy Director Nanje Gowda was also waiting at the station to check whether she would be handed over to the departments reception centre or shifted to a special ward in the district hospital. According to the victims family, she had separated from her husband was mentally ill. At times, she would roam around at night and return home. Some time back, she was found wandering in Bengaluru and had been rescued. But nothing like this happened in the past, rued her mother. Kaushik Kannan By Express News Service MADURAI: With protests being staged in the State urging the Central and State governments to grant permission to conduct Jallikattu, the bull-taming sport was conducted, in violation of the Supreme Court ban, at several places in the district, on Sunday. In Madurai district, Alanganallur, Palamedu and Avaniyapuram are famous, as thousands including foreigners witness man test his might against the bulls. The event at Palamedu is said to present a beautiful look as there is a straight and long ground from the vadi vasal. According to sources, six temple bulls were brought near the vadi vasal after performing poojas at Palamedu. Heavy police forces were deployed and barricades were placed around the vadi vasal. As the bulls were released, hundreds who gathered near the vadi vasal began cheering. A tense situation prevailed in the area. Hundreds of police officials were deployed in the area. All shops remained closed and black flags were hoisted at houses, condemning the ban. Speaking to Express, S Machavel, a Palamedu resident said We held a meeting with the locals on Saturday evening and planned to conduct Jallikattu. People are sad and are not celebrating Pongal due to the ban, added Machavel. D Alagupillai, an elderly woman, said that she has been witnessing Jallikattu for the past 25 years. The main occupation of people from Palamedu and surrounding areas is agriculture. Jallikattu is a traditional sport and if it is not conducted, then there are problems. Several years ago, Jallikattu was not conducted at Palamedu, due to which there was a severe drought. Since the sport has not been conducted for the past three years, the region has seen deficient rainfall, due to which the farmers have suffered losses, said Alagupillai. SP Vijayendra S Bidari said six bulls were brought to the place for pooja. At first, three bulls were released by the organisers. The event cannot be really called Jallikattu as no bulls were released through the vadi vasal. He said that a total of six checkpoints were set up to restrict the entry. Additionally, 600 policemen were deployed at Palamedu and 2,000 policemen were deployed across the district. Collector K Veera Raghava Rao inspected Palamedu and surrounding villages to ensure protection. Meanwhile, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan said in Nagercoil that he felt ashamed to talk about PETA. He added that the people of the State assembly and Parliament members know about the efforts he took regarding Jallikattu. Without blaming each other among us, we should have worked jointly, he said. MADURAI: With protests being staged in the State urging the Central and State governments to grant permission to conduct Jallikattu, the bull-taming sport was conducted, in violation of the Supreme Court ban, at several places in the district, on Sunday. In Madurai district, Alanganallur, Palamedu and Avaniyapuram are famous, as thousands including foreigners witness man test his might against the bulls. The event at Palamedu is said to present a beautiful look as there is a straight and long ground from the vadi vasal. According to sources, six temple bulls were brought near the vadi vasal after performing poojas at Palamedu. Heavy police forces were deployed and barricades were placed around the vadi vasal. As the bulls were released, hundreds who gathered near the vadi vasal began cheering. A tense situation prevailed in the area. Hundreds of police officials were deployed in the area. All shops remained closed and black flags were hoisted at houses, condemning the ban. Speaking to Express, S Machavel, a Palamedu resident said We held a meeting with the locals on Saturday evening and planned to conduct Jallikattu. People are sad and are not celebrating Pongal due to the ban, added Machavel. D Alagupillai, an elderly woman, said that she has been witnessing Jallikattu for the past 25 years. The main occupation of people from Palamedu and surrounding areas is agriculture. Jallikattu is a traditional sport and if it is not conducted, then there are problems. Several years ago, Jallikattu was not conducted at Palamedu, due to which there was a severe drought. Since the sport has not been conducted for the past three years, the region has seen deficient rainfall, due to which the farmers have suffered losses, said Alagupillai. SP Vijayendra S Bidari said six bulls were brought to the place for pooja. At first, three bulls were released by the organisers. The event cannot be really called Jallikattu as no bulls were released through the vadi vasal. He said that a total of six checkpoints were set up to restrict the entry. Additionally, 600 policemen were deployed at Palamedu and 2,000 policemen were deployed across the district. Collector K Veera Raghava Rao inspected Palamedu and surrounding villages to ensure protection. Meanwhile, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan said in Nagercoil that he felt ashamed to talk about PETA. He added that the people of the State assembly and Parliament members know about the efforts he took regarding Jallikattu. Without blaming each other among us, we should have worked jointly, he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: A reception was hosted on behalf of Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab for leaders who participated in the World Economic Forum more than 10 times. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the reception. President Ilham Aliyev met with Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab. Last year Klaus Schwab presented a badge of Davos club of honorary members to President Ilham Aliyev, marking his tenth participation in the World Economic Forum. By AFP NATAL: The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said Sunday. The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could -- even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. Prisoners armed At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Drug gang war Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead -- many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33. It was thought to be a backlash by the PCC's rivals for its violent expansion. The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade. Prisons there -- and throughout Brazil -- are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates. Overcrowding Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say. Brazil's inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade. The country's jails hold 622,000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed. Brazil has the world's fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report. Temer is under pressure over the issue. After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons. But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer. Brazil needs "medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression," sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo told AFP after the previous prison massacres. NATAL: The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials said Sunday. The bloodbath erupted Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could -- even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. Prisoners armed At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light Sunday to storm the site with armored vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Drug gang war Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead -- many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disemboweled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. A second bout of violence in Roraima state killed 33. It was thought to be a backlash by the PCC's rivals for its violent expansion. The states of northern Brazil, which border top cocaine producers Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, are battle zones in the drug trade. Prisons there -- and throughout Brazil -- are often under the de facto control of drug gangs, whose turf wars on the outside play out among inmates. Overcrowding Overcrowding exacerbates the problem, activists say. Brazil's inmate population has been swollen by efforts to crack down on the drug trade. The country's jails hold 622,000 inmates, mostly young black men, according to a 2014 justice ministry report. It found that 50 percent more capacity was needed. Brazil has the world's fourth-largest prison population after the United States, China and Russia, according to the report. Temer is under pressure over the issue. After the two riots earlier this month, he announced the federal government would spend $250 million to build new prisons. But human rights activists and experts questioned whether more prisons are the answer. Brazil needs "medium- and long-term policies to reduce the vulnerability of certain social groups, to prioritize prevention rather than repression," sociologist Camila Nunes of the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo told AFP after the previous prison massacres. By Associated Press BEIJING: Donald Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established U.S. policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: ___ TRADE Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. The pact was the centerpiece of the Obama administration's outreach policy to America's Asian partners known as "the pivot," which also involves a greater military commitment to the region. Obama said the TPP would allow the U.S. to impose higher labor, environmental and human-rights standards, as well as give U.S. businesses access to some of the fastest-growing economies. The deal would have slashed 18,000 taxes that other countries impose on American goods and services, but Congress failed to act amid skepticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Trump's opposition to free-trade agreements has fueled fears of protectionism and puts him at odds not only with U.S. trading partners but also with many in the Republican Party. Killing the TPP may open the way for other regional free-trade initiatives, including those pushed by rival China. "With the U.S. withdrawing from TPP, Japan will have to redesign its external economic policy," said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Other options "may not be easy," Takenaka said. ___ CHINA Trump raised China in speech after speech during his campaign, at times accusing the country of ripping America off in trade and threatening a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese imports. Things turned far more serious after his election win when he took a phone call from the president of self-governing Taiwan, upending four decades of diplomatic protocol barring such direct contacts. Critics accused him of ignoring the "one-China policy," long considered unassailable in China-U.S. relations, to which Trump responded by questioning why the U.S. should be bound by such an arrangement without economic incentives. He again touched on the issue in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, saying "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" While the Chinese government's response was muted, the official China Daily newspaper said he was "playing with fire." Trump has also criticized the Chinese military's island-building program in the South China Sea, and accused it of blocking U.S. imports through high taxes and manipulating its currency to the detriment of American exports. ___ ALLIANCES WITH JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA Trump raised eyebrows during the campaign when he appeared to question the inviolability of long-standing U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea, seen as bulwarks against North Korea's military threats and China's push for regional dominance. The two were included in a list of countries that Trump said he would be "respectfully asking ... to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them." During the campaign, Trump suggested Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons so the U.S. would no longer be burdened with the costs of defending them, a disquieting notion in many Asian capitals. But after Trump's election win, Japan's Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him, sitting down in Trump Tower with the business mogul and his daughter, Ivanka. Japan is concerned about how spill-over from China-U.S. conflicts might affect its economy and foreign relations, possibly compelling it to play a larger role in regional security, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. "Trump measures would be the top priority for Prime Minister Abe this year. The biggest question is that Trump is unpredictable," he said. ___ NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT Trump's approach to North Korea probably offers the least divergence from previous administrations, but he faces stark choices on countering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's missile threat. After Kim, announced in his annual New Year's address that the country had reached the "final stages" of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump responded by Twitter: "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!" Trump has not said how his approach to the North might differ from Barack Obama's, although his campaign's position paper talked of more "modern destroyers to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea." That would appear to indicate continued support for deploying the advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea, despite Chinese and Russian objections. Trump appears to be a firm believer that North Korea could be reined-in if only its sole significant ally China would tighten the screws. ___ INDIA AND PAKISTAN During the campaign, Trump was largely positive toward both India and Pakistan, even while he piled negative rhetoric on China and other nations. However, his threat to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has raised accusations of Islamophobia. In the days after his win, Trump appeared to follow in the well-trodden path of seeking a balance between the nuclear rivals albeit in his unorthodox style. A phone call between Trump and Pakistan's prime minister was remarkable mainly for the effusive praise he reportedly lavished on the struggling state. Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the battle against Islamic extremism but is also close to U.S. rival in Asia, China. In its readout of that call, Pakistan said Trump described the country as "amazing" and expressed a desire to visit something President Barack Obama did not do. India's national security adviser followed the Pakistan exchange with a low-key visit to Washington to meet with a senior Trump aide in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration. BEIJING: Donald Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. Yet, in other areas, including North Korea, India and Pakistan, Trump appears ready to carry forward well-established U.S. policy. As Trump prepares to be sworn-in as president on Friday, here is a look at some of the stand-out issues and how developments might play out: ___ TRADE Trump says he plans to scrap the 12-nation trade pact known as the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, or TPP. The pact was the centerpiece of the Obama administration's outreach policy to America's Asian partners known as "the pivot," which also involves a greater military commitment to the region. Obama said the TPP would allow the U.S. to impose higher labor, environmental and human-rights standards, as well as give U.S. businesses access to some of the fastest-growing economies. The deal would have slashed 18,000 taxes that other countries impose on American goods and services, but Congress failed to act amid skepticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Trump's opposition to free-trade agreements has fueled fears of protectionism and puts him at odds not only with U.S. trading partners but also with many in the Republican Party. Killing the TPP may open the way for other regional free-trade initiatives, including those pushed by rival China. "With the U.S. withdrawing from TPP, Japan will have to redesign its external economic policy," said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. Other options "may not be easy," Takenaka said. ___ CHINA Trump raised China in speech after speech during his campaign, at times accusing the country of ripping America off in trade and threatening a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese imports. Things turned far more serious after his election win when he took a phone call from the president of self-governing Taiwan, upending four decades of diplomatic protocol barring such direct contacts. Critics accused him of ignoring the "one-China policy," long considered unassailable in China-U.S. relations, to which Trump responded by questioning why the U.S. should be bound by such an arrangement without economic incentives. He again touched on the issue in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, saying "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" While the Chinese government's response was muted, the official China Daily newspaper said he was "playing with fire." Trump has also criticized the Chinese military's island-building program in the South China Sea, and accused it of blocking U.S. imports through high taxes and manipulating its currency to the detriment of American exports. ___ ALLIANCES WITH JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA Trump raised eyebrows during the campaign when he appeared to question the inviolability of long-standing U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea, seen as bulwarks against North Korea's military threats and China's push for regional dominance. The two were included in a list of countries that Trump said he would be "respectfully asking ... to pay more for the tremendous security we provide them." During the campaign, Trump suggested Japan and South Korea should obtain nuclear weapons so the U.S. would no longer be burdened with the costs of defending them, a disquieting notion in many Asian capitals. But after Trump's election win, Japan's Shinzo Abe became the first foreign leader to meet with him, sitting down in Trump Tower with the business mogul and his daughter, Ivanka. Japan is concerned about how spill-over from China-U.S. conflicts might affect its economy and foreign relations, possibly compelling it to play a larger role in regional security, said Harukata Takenaka, politics professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. "Trump measures would be the top priority for Prime Minister Abe this year. The biggest question is that Trump is unpredictable," he said. ___ NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT Trump's approach to North Korea probably offers the least divergence from previous administrations, but he faces stark choices on countering North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's missile threat. After Kim, announced in his annual New Year's address that the country had reached the "final stages" of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump responded by Twitter: "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!" Trump has not said how his approach to the North might differ from Barack Obama's, although his campaign's position paper talked of more "modern destroyers to counter the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea." That would appear to indicate continued support for deploying the advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile system in South Korea, despite Chinese and Russian objections. Trump appears to be a firm believer that North Korea could be reined-in if only its sole significant ally China would tighten the screws. ___ INDIA AND PAKISTAN During the campaign, Trump was largely positive toward both India and Pakistan, even while he piled negative rhetoric on China and other nations. However, his threat to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. has raised accusations of Islamophobia. In the days after his win, Trump appeared to follow in the well-trodden path of seeking a balance between the nuclear rivals albeit in his unorthodox style. A phone call between Trump and Pakistan's prime minister was remarkable mainly for the effusive praise he reportedly lavished on the struggling state. Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the battle against Islamic extremism but is also close to U.S. rival in Asia, China. In its readout of that call, Pakistan said Trump described the country as "amazing" and expressed a desire to visit something President Barack Obama did not do. India's national security adviser followed the Pakistan exchange with a low-key visit to Washington to meet with a senior Trump aide in a sign of New Delhi's desire to forge close ties with the incoming U.S. administration. By AFP BRUSSELS: EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini on Monday insisted the bloc will stand by the Iran nuclear accord, bluntly condemned by US President-elect Donald Trump, because it serves Europe's security needs. "It is proof that diplomacy works and delivers... The European Union will continue to work for the respect and implementation of this extremely important deal, most of all for our security," Mogherini told reporters as she went into an EU foreign ministers meeting. Trump has repeatedly blasted the nuclear accord with Iran as "one of the dumbest deals I have ever seen", claiming it will not stop Tehran getting atomic weapons. He repeated the charge in interviews with top European newspapers on Sunday when he also cast fresh doubt on NATO's role and the EU's future after Brexit. Mogherini said she would not comment on Trump's remarks, but claimed -- on the first anniversary of the accord she helped negotiate -- that much had been accomplished. The agreement "has delivered both on the nuclear-related commitments Iran took and on the firm determination of the international community to fully implement this deal", she said. As far as the EU was concerned, the accord had resulted in increased trade and economic ties, "which is really significant", she added. British foreign minister Boris Johnson, who spoke to the press ahead of the EU ministers meeting, also said the accord must be maintained. He said it had been "a difficult and controversial deal, but one which has stopped the Iranians from acquiring nuclear technology they might otherwise have acquired, and it is a deal which we think has great merit and we want to keep going." The accord was finally sealed in 2015, before being implemented in January 2016, with Tehran agreeing to rein in its nuclear programme in return for an easing of punishing Western economic sanctions. US President Barack Obama hailed the accord as one of his major achievements, preventing Iran getting nuclear weapons without having to go to war, but Trump has said repeatedly he will ditch it. The UN atomic watchdog said meanwhile on Monday that Iran had completed the removal of all "excess" equipment at its Fordo site by January 15, 2017, one year after the agreement was implemented, as set out in the deal. Before the accord the Fordo facility, built into a mountainside to make it impregable to attack, was a source of major international concern, with Iran using it "enrich" uranium to purities close to those used in nuclear weapons. Under the deal Iran agreed not to enrich uranium or do related research work at Fordo, nor to have any nuclear material there, for 15 years, and to convert the site into a "nuclear, physics and technology centre". BRUSSELS: EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini on Monday insisted the bloc will stand by the Iran nuclear accord, bluntly condemned by US President-elect Donald Trump, because it serves Europe's security needs. "It is proof that diplomacy works and delivers... The European Union will continue to work for the respect and implementation of this extremely important deal, most of all for our security," Mogherini told reporters as she went into an EU foreign ministers meeting. Trump has repeatedly blasted the nuclear accord with Iran as "one of the dumbest deals I have ever seen", claiming it will not stop Tehran getting atomic weapons. He repeated the charge in interviews with top European newspapers on Sunday when he also cast fresh doubt on NATO's role and the EU's future after Brexit. Mogherini said she would not comment on Trump's remarks, but claimed -- on the first anniversary of the accord she helped negotiate -- that much had been accomplished. The agreement "has delivered both on the nuclear-related commitments Iran took and on the firm determination of the international community to fully implement this deal", she said. As far as the EU was concerned, the accord had resulted in increased trade and economic ties, "which is really significant", she added. British foreign minister Boris Johnson, who spoke to the press ahead of the EU ministers meeting, also said the accord must be maintained. He said it had been "a difficult and controversial deal, but one which has stopped the Iranians from acquiring nuclear technology they might otherwise have acquired, and it is a deal which we think has great merit and we want to keep going." The accord was finally sealed in 2015, before being implemented in January 2016, with Tehran agreeing to rein in its nuclear programme in return for an easing of punishing Western economic sanctions. US President Barack Obama hailed the accord as one of his major achievements, preventing Iran getting nuclear weapons without having to go to war, but Trump has said repeatedly he will ditch it. The UN atomic watchdog said meanwhile on Monday that Iran had completed the removal of all "excess" equipment at its Fordo site by January 15, 2017, one year after the agreement was implemented, as set out in the deal. Before the accord the Fordo facility, built into a mountainside to make it impregable to attack, was a source of major international concern, with Iran using it "enrich" uranium to purities close to those used in nuclear weapons. Under the deal Iran agreed not to enrich uranium or do related research work at Fordo, nor to have any nuclear material there, for 15 years, and to convert the site into a "nuclear, physics and technology centre". By AFP NEW YORK: She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police -- designers refusing to dress her because of her husband's politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. "It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration," Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. From Mamie Eisenhower's pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama's white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America's first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favorites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a "traditional" first lady like Jackie Kennedy -- famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isn't their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband's insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. - Incompatible - "The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by," Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. "Personally, I'd rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters," Marc Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Women's Wear Daily that anyone should be "proud" to dress the new first lady and Trump's daughter Ivanka -- who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Year's Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a "thank you." Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. "Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity," von Furstenberg has said. - Buy American - But what is Melania's style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman -- manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman -- Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. She's already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the country's huge fashion industry. "The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors," Vera Wang told Women's Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. "Don't underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved," Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. "She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up." NEW YORK: She may be tall, slim and a former model, but incoming first lady Melania Trump faces a new kind of fashion police -- designers refusing to dress her because of her husband's politics. She has posed nude for GQ, modeled in Paris and graced the cover of Vogue, yet what Melania wears to the inaugural balls on Friday night could be the most important sartorial decision of her life. "It's hard to find a great dress for this inauguration," Donald Trump told The New York Times, trying to present the event as a society sell-out, though whether that is true remains to be seen. From Mamie Eisenhower's pink peau de soie gown to Michelle Obama's white Jason Wu confection in 2009, inaugural gowns worn by America's first ladies have wound up in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Melania has high heels to fill. Not only is she the only first lady to come from the fashion world, she succeeds one of the most stylish and beloved first ladies of all. Obama seduced the fashion world with her deft mix of high street favorites and high fashion, championing young and minority designers, managing to look both relatable and effortlessly chic at the same time. It remains unclear what path Melania will take. Years ago, she said she would like to be a "traditional" first lady like Jackie Kennedy -- famed for her timeless elegance and love of French as well as American fashion. But she comes into the role at a time when an unprecedented number of designers are saying she simply isn't their style or urging each other not to dress her because of her husband's insult-dishing, divisive campaign. Sophie Theallet was the first. - Incompatible - "The rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by," Theallet announced last November. Emotions were raw. Much of the largely Democratic-leaning fashion industry backed Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton and poured money into her campaign. "Personally, I'd rather put my energy into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters," Marc Jacobs told Women's Wear Daily. But top designers such as Carolina Herrera, Diane von Furstenberg and Tommy Hilfiger all said they would be honored to dress Melania. Hilfiger, who has an office in Trump Tower, told Women's Wear Daily that anyone should be "proud" to dress the new first lady and Trump's daughter Ivanka -- who is also expected to take on a prominent role in Washington. But in some ways, the debate is irrelevant. Melania, known to shop online, can snap up any fashion piece she wants without asking permission. When she wore a Dolce & Gabbana black dress on New Year's Eve, the first Stefano Gabbana heard about it was when he stumbled across a picture online. He took to Instagram with pride, tapping out five hearts and a "thank you." Others say refusing to dress Melania stoops to the lowest denominator of the campaign. "Our role as part of the fashion industry is to promote beauty, inclusiveness, diversity," von Furstenberg has said. - Buy American - But what is Melania's style? Campaign and post-election appearances are rare, but she favors the sleek, figure-hugging and glossy look of a wealthy New York woman -- manicured within an inch of her life but not particularly individual. She buys expensive and she buys European, perhaps hardly surprising for a Slovenian-born woman -- Christian Dior for her wedding, but also Emilia Wickstead and a $2,200 Roksanda Ilincic dress on the campaign trail. Famously there was also a hot pink Gucci pussy-bow blouse at a presidential debate as her husband was under fire for lewd remarks about groping women. But on election night, she shopped locally: glowing with pride in a one-shoulder Ralph Lauren white jumpsuit, bought off the rack. She's already under pressure to shrug off her European taste and, if not mix it up with cheaper outfits to appear more in touch, then become a poster girl for the country's huge fashion industry. "The first lady-elect should support American fashion as did her predecessors," Vera Wang told Women's Wear Daily. But she does have one powerful advocate in her corner: long-time friend and former Vogue director turned inauguration planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. "Don't underestimate (Melania) just because she is quiet and reserved," Wolkoff told luxury lifestyle publication DuJour before the election. "She has always said, when and if the time comes, she will step up." By Associated Press DACHA SUU: A cargo plane attempting to land in thick fog crashed Monday into a village near Kyrgyzstan's main airport and killed at least 37 people, with authorities blaming "pilot error". A massive section of the aircraft's tail billowed smoke as rescuers searched for victims among the wreckage in the village of Dacha-Suu, home to the majority of the victims. "According to preliminary information, the plane crashed due to a pilot error," Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziev said at a briefing broadcast on state television. A minimum of 37 people, including the plane's four pilots, were killed and the toll may rise, said a spokesman for the emergency services, Muhammed Svarov. The plane, operated by a Turkish cargo airline, was attempting a landing at the Manas airport in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in thick fog. Crushed cars, shattered homes and huge chunks of burnt debris littered the village, which was hit by the plane at around 7:30 am (0130 GMT), as many residents were still at home in bed. "Our grandson said something was burning," Tajikan, a Dacha Suu resident who identified herself only by her first name, told AFP. "We heard a roar and (what felt) like an earthquake. Many people were sleeping, everything around was burning. One of the parts of the aircraft fell on our neighbour's house. She and her whole family died," the pensioner said. Zumriyat Rezakhanova, another resident of Dacha Suu, said the plane fell "right on the homes" where residents were sleeping. "My sister's home is badly damaged. Luckily she and her family survived," Rezakhanova told AFP. The flight was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek. One of the plane's black boxes was recovered from the crash site, the government said a statement without specifying how long it would take to decipher it. International aviation experts and representatives of the company who flew the plane, ACT Airlines, will arrive at the crash site Tuesday, Abulgaziev said at a late briefing, adding that search operation will resume in the morning in areas where the largest pieces of the plane fell. The Turkish cargo airline, said in a statement that its Boeing 747-400 was involved in the crash. ACT Airlines said it was "deeply saddened" by the crash and noted that "the cause of the accident is unknown." Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, meanwhile extended its "deepest condolences" over the crash and offered to assist Kyrgyz authorities with the investigation. Elmira Sheripova, a spokeswoman for the emergency services ministry, told AFP that 17 houses had been "completely destroyed" by the plane. The country's Manas airport has since reopened despite air authorities initially saying that the hub would remain shut until the evening. Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was heading a specially-appointed government commission to probe the crash and the country's state prosecutor also opened an investigation. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev cancelled his visit to China to return to Bishkek, according to Kyrgyz media. Authorities said the country will observe a day of mourning on Tuesday. DACHA SUU: A cargo plane attempting to land in thick fog crashed Monday into a village near Kyrgyzstan's main airport and killed at least 37 people, with authorities blaming "pilot error". A massive section of the aircraft's tail billowed smoke as rescuers searched for victims among the wreckage in the village of Dacha-Suu, home to the majority of the victims. "According to preliminary information, the plane crashed due to a pilot error," Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziev said at a briefing broadcast on state television. A minimum of 37 people, including the plane's four pilots, were killed and the toll may rise, said a spokesman for the emergency services, Muhammed Svarov. The plane, operated by a Turkish cargo airline, was attempting a landing at the Manas airport in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in thick fog. Crushed cars, shattered homes and huge chunks of burnt debris littered the village, which was hit by the plane at around 7:30 am (0130 GMT), as many residents were still at home in bed. "Our grandson said something was burning," Tajikan, a Dacha Suu resident who identified herself only by her first name, told AFP. "We heard a roar and (what felt) like an earthquake. Many people were sleeping, everything around was burning. One of the parts of the aircraft fell on our neighbour's house. She and her whole family died," the pensioner said. Zumriyat Rezakhanova, another resident of Dacha Suu, said the plane fell "right on the homes" where residents were sleeping. "My sister's home is badly damaged. Luckily she and her family survived," Rezakhanova told AFP. The flight was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek. One of the plane's black boxes was recovered from the crash site, the government said a statement without specifying how long it would take to decipher it. International aviation experts and representatives of the company who flew the plane, ACT Airlines, will arrive at the crash site Tuesday, Abulgaziev said at a late briefing, adding that search operation will resume in the morning in areas where the largest pieces of the plane fell. The Turkish cargo airline, said in a statement that its Boeing 747-400 was involved in the crash. ACT Airlines said it was "deeply saddened" by the crash and noted that "the cause of the accident is unknown." Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, meanwhile extended its "deepest condolences" over the crash and offered to assist Kyrgyz authorities with the investigation. Elmira Sheripova, a spokeswoman for the emergency services ministry, told AFP that 17 houses had been "completely destroyed" by the plane. The country's Manas airport has since reopened despite air authorities initially saying that the hub would remain shut until the evening. Prime Minister Sooronbai Jeenbekov was heading a specially-appointed government commission to probe the crash and the country's state prosecutor also opened an investigation. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev cancelled his visit to China to return to Bishkek, according to Kyrgyz media. Authorities said the country will observe a day of mourning on Tuesday. By AFP FRANKFURT AM MAIN: President-elect Donald Trump, in remarks published on Sunday, described NATO as "obsolete" and suggested a deal with Russia that would reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions on Moscow. He also hailed Britain's exit from the EU and backed a speedy trade deal with the UK, but condemned as "catastrophic" Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open Germany's doors to a flood of refugees. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily. "Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said. "Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay." "I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." He added, though, "NATO is very important to me." On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States were not "reasonably reimbursed" for the costs of defending them. His comments caused consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. After Trump's victory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had been a bedrock of transatlantic security for "almost 70 years" and was especially needed at a time of new challenges. "This is no time to question the partnership between Europe and the United States," Stoltenberg said. Spending has been a common source of friction within the 28-nation alliance over recent years. The core military contributor to the alliance is the United States, which accounts for about 70 percent of spending. In 2014, stung into action by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, NATO leaders agreed to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence. "The countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries," Trump said in Sunday's interview. "There's five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. It's not much." Nuclear deal In other remarks carried by The Times, Trump suggested cutting a deal with Russia in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased. "They have sanctions on Russia -- let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," Trump said. "But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There were no details about the specific sanctions that Trump had in mind, or their range. Under Barack Obama, the US applied various sanctions against Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Washington's European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. 'Great' Brexit In other remarks, Trump said Brexit "is going to end up as a great thing" and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be "good for both sides." "Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. "Other countries will leave" the European Union in future, Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant uptick in migrants and refugees arriving. "If they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back," he said. 'Catastrophic' Merkel move But he also criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants enter the country, insinuating that this posed a security risk. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," Trump said, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Merkel took flak at home after her open-door policy aimed at desperate Syrian refugees brought 890,000 asylum seekers to Europe's biggest economy in 2015, contributing to the rise of an anti-migrant movement. But in 2016, that figure dropped back sharply, to 280,000 arrivals the government said last Wednesday. FRANKFURT AM MAIN: President-elect Donald Trump, in remarks published on Sunday, described NATO as "obsolete" and suggested a deal with Russia that would reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions on Moscow. He also hailed Britain's exit from the EU and backed a speedy trade deal with the UK, but condemned as "catastrophic" Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open Germany's doors to a flood of refugees. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told The Times of London and Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily. "Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said. "Number two, the countries arent paying what theyre supposed to pay." "I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete. Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." He added, though, "NATO is very important to me." On the campaign trail, Trump said he would think twice about helping NATO allies if the United States were not "reasonably reimbursed" for the costs of defending them. His comments caused consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russia's annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. After Trump's victory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had been a bedrock of transatlantic security for "almost 70 years" and was especially needed at a time of new challenges. "This is no time to question the partnership between Europe and the United States," Stoltenberg said. Spending has been a common source of friction within the 28-nation alliance over recent years. The core military contributor to the alliance is the United States, which accounts for about 70 percent of spending. In 2014, stung into action by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, NATO leaders agreed to reverse years of defence cuts and devote the equivalent of two percent of economic output to defence. "The countries arent paying their fair share so were supposed to protect countries," Trump said in Sunday's interview. "There's five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. It's not much." Nuclear deal In other remarks carried by The Times, Trump suggested cutting a deal with Russia in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased. "They have sanctions on Russia -- let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it," Trump said. "But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit," said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There were no details about the specific sanctions that Trump had in mind, or their range. Under Barack Obama, the US applied various sanctions against Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Washington's European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. 'Great' Brexit In other remarks, Trump said Brexit "is going to end up as a great thing" and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be "good for both sides." "Were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly," said Trump, confirming he will meet British Prime Minister Theresa May soon after his inauguration on January 20. "Other countries will leave" the European Union in future, Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant uptick in migrants and refugees arriving. "If they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it... entails, I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back," he said. 'Catastrophic' Merkel move But he also criticised Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants enter the country, insinuating that this posed a security risk. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from," Trump said, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Merkel took flak at home after her open-door policy aimed at desperate Syrian refugees brought 890,000 asylum seekers to Europe's biggest economy in 2015, contributing to the rise of an anti-migrant movement. But in 2016, that figure dropped back sharply, to 280,000 arrivals the government said last Wednesday. By Associated Press BEIJING: Responding to remarks by Donald Trump, China's Foreign Ministry on Monday said the country's "one-China principle" regarding Taiwan is not negotiable and any attempt to reconsider the issue would be self-defeating. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that anyone attempting to use Taiwan's status in a negotiation would be "smashing their feet by lifting a rock." "Not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. "Whoever attempts to harm the one-China principle out of any motive or uses the principle as a bargaining chip will definitely be facing broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community," Hua said. Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" It was the latest sign that Trump could shake up the U.S.-China relationship, particularly regarding Taiwan, which China considers a core national interest. The one-China principle holds that Taiwan is part of China and the Communist government in Beijing is China's sole legitimate government. The U.S. acknowledged that stance when it formalized diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, but continues to maintain robust unofficial ties with Taiwan. Washington also provides weaponry to the self-governing island democracy to help it guard against China's threat to use force to end their division dating from a civil war in 1949. Trump has repeatedly threatened to upend that status quo since winning the November election. Also Monday, the Chinese nationalist tabloid Global Times published an editorial blasting Trump's strategy and saying China would have a strong response to any reconsideration of Washington's long-standing "one-China policy." "In the past, Trump infuriated us, but now we find him risible," said the tabloid, which is published by the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's newspaper. "With a skyrocketing ascent in his political life, he has been stunningly confident in his ostensible knowledge of the job, though he speaks like a rookie." The English-language China Daily ran an editorial Monday accusing Trump of "playing with fire." "If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves," the newspaper said. China was already angered by Trump's Dec. 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader in nearly four decades. Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult. Trump then said in a television interview that he didn't feel "bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade." On Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff, said that "there are no plans to change the one-China policy." "But certainly that policy is on the table if China doesn't also come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and what's happening there," Priebus said on ABC's "This Week." After attacking China repeatedly during his campaign, Trump has continued to disparage China on his Twitter account over its military buildup in disputed areas of the South China Sea, its alleged currency manipulation to put American companies at a disadvantage, and what he says are its inadequate efforts to curb North Korea's nuclear program. He has also announced that a new White House trade council will be led by economist Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of Chinese economic policy who wrote a book titled "Death By China." Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he would not label China a currency manipulator as soon as he takes office, though he repeated his contention that China is manipulating its currency, the yuan. So far, Beijing has reiterated its refusal to negotiate on Taiwan and has pushed for positive cooperation with the U.S., though state-run media have printed several strongly worded editorials attacking Trump. Chinese political observers said Sunday that they expect Beijing's response to change once Trump is inaugurated next week. "Trump has not taken office yet, so he is an ordinary person now," said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. "Therefore, there's no need for China to take his remarks seriously or further respond to what he said." BEIJING: Responding to remarks by Donald Trump, China's Foreign Ministry on Monday said the country's "one-China principle" regarding Taiwan is not negotiable and any attempt to reconsider the issue would be self-defeating. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that anyone attempting to use Taiwan's status in a negotiation would be "smashing their feet by lifting a rock." "Not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. "Whoever attempts to harm the one-China principle out of any motive or uses the principle as a bargaining chip will definitely be facing broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community," Hua said. Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that "everything is under negotiation, including 'one China.'" It was the latest sign that Trump could shake up the U.S.-China relationship, particularly regarding Taiwan, which China considers a core national interest. The one-China principle holds that Taiwan is part of China and the Communist government in Beijing is China's sole legitimate government. The U.S. acknowledged that stance when it formalized diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, but continues to maintain robust unofficial ties with Taiwan. Washington also provides weaponry to the self-governing island democracy to help it guard against China's threat to use force to end their division dating from a civil war in 1949. Trump has repeatedly threatened to upend that status quo since winning the November election. Also Monday, the Chinese nationalist tabloid Global Times published an editorial blasting Trump's strategy and saying China would have a strong response to any reconsideration of Washington's long-standing "one-China policy." "In the past, Trump infuriated us, but now we find him risible," said the tabloid, which is published by the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's newspaper. "With a skyrocketing ascent in his political life, he has been stunningly confident in his ostensible knowledge of the job, though he speaks like a rookie." The English-language China Daily ran an editorial Monday accusing Trump of "playing with fire." "If Trump is determined to use this gambit on taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves," the newspaper said. China was already angered by Trump's Dec. 2 phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the first time an American president or president-elect has publicly spoken to Taiwan's leader in nearly four decades. Beijing considers any reference to a separate Taiwanese head of state to be a grave insult. Trump then said in a television interview that he didn't feel "bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade." On Sunday, Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming chief of staff, said that "there are no plans to change the one-China policy." "But certainly that policy is on the table if China doesn't also come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and what's happening there," Priebus said on ABC's "This Week." After attacking China repeatedly during his campaign, Trump has continued to disparage China on his Twitter account over its military buildup in disputed areas of the South China Sea, its alleged currency manipulation to put American companies at a disadvantage, and what he says are its inadequate efforts to curb North Korea's nuclear program. He has also announced that a new White House trade council will be led by economist Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of Chinese economic policy who wrote a book titled "Death By China." Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he would not label China a currency manipulator as soon as he takes office, though he repeated his contention that China is manipulating its currency, the yuan. So far, Beijing has reiterated its refusal to negotiate on Taiwan and has pushed for positive cooperation with the U.S., though state-run media have printed several strongly worded editorials attacking Trump. Chinese political observers said Sunday that they expect Beijing's response to change once Trump is inaugurated next week. "Trump has not taken office yet, so he is an ordinary person now," said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. "Therefore, there's no need for China to take his remarks seriously or further respond to what he said." By ANI DERA GHAZI KHAN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's regime is going to end soon as his corruption has been exposed by the Panama Paper leaks. "Allah has taken suo motu notice against Nawaz Sharif on Panama scandal," the Daily Times quoted Khan as saying while addressing a gathering. The PTI leader said that the Prime Minister's corruption was exposed in the Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. "Nawaz's counsel says the Sharif family purchased Mayfair apartments in 2006 but the BBC has revealed that the properties were purchased in 1990s," he added. "If Nawaz failed to prove London flats were owned by the Qatari prince in 1993 then he would leave and if he failed to prove Maryam was not the beneficial owner of London properties he would still have to leave, he said. Khan briefed the audience on the Panama case and conducted an informal audience poll asking attendees whether they believed the Sharif would be proven guilty in the case. He added that the entire country was fed up of 'Sharif rule' and that the PTI would attempt to shape Pakistan in light of the Islamic teachings. Terming the ongoing Panama case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children a 'war against corruption', Imran Khan said the country would soon be rid of the 'Sharif mafia'. DERA GHAZI KHAN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's regime is going to end soon as his corruption has been exposed by the Panama Paper leaks. "Allah has taken suo motu notice against Nawaz Sharif on Panama scandal," the Daily Times quoted Khan as saying while addressing a gathering. The PTI leader said that the Prime Minister's corruption was exposed in the Panama leak, however, he is trying to escape the investigation in the Supreme Court. "Nawaz's counsel says the Sharif family purchased Mayfair apartments in 2006 but the BBC has revealed that the properties were purchased in 1990s," he added. "If Nawaz failed to prove London flats were owned by the Qatari prince in 1993 then he would leave and if he failed to prove Maryam was not the beneficial owner of London properties he would still have to leave, he said. Khan briefed the audience on the Panama case and conducted an informal audience poll asking attendees whether they believed the Sharif would be proven guilty in the case. He added that the entire country was fed up of 'Sharif rule' and that the PTI would attempt to shape Pakistan in light of the Islamic teachings. Terming the ongoing Panama case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children a 'war against corruption', Imran Khan said the country would soon be rid of the 'Sharif mafia'. Express News Service COLOMBO: The report of the European Commissions technical team which examined Sri Lankas application for the restoration of General System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) duty concessions has concluded that the island nation now meets the eligibility criteria as set out in Art 9 (1) of the GSP regulations. Subsequent to the submission of the report, the European Commission recommended to the European Union parliament that GSP+ be granted to Sri Lanka. The EU parliament was expected to take it up on Monday. However, any decision on the restoration of GSP+ will have to be accepted by the parliament of every EU member country. Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva told Sunday Observer that the entire process could take two to four months to be completed. Though Sri Lankan opposition parties and some Tamil parties say that EU parliaments could still deny GSP+ to Sri Lanka, the general view in the West and the UN is that Sri Lanka is returning to democracy and restoring ethnic harmony and that it would be appropriate to support the trend in every way possible. Details of EU Report While noting that there are still shortcomings, these do not amount to a serious failure to effectively implement the Convention that would prevent Sri Lanka from joining the GSP +, the report said. Since 2010, there are significant elements of progress. In this respect, Sri Lanka has implemented several important actions to address observed shortcomings and respond to recommendations made in the report of the CESCR (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). A new independent Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) and several other Commissions have been appointed following the enactment of the 19th Constitutional Amendment in May 2015. The National Plan of Action for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights 2011-2016 was adopted and a process is underway for a new Action Plan 2017-2021. In October 2015, Sri Lanka co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution 30/1 and steps are being taken to implement it. For example, a decision has been taken to establish an Office of Missing Persons. In January 2016 a Victim and Witness Protection Authority was established. The Registration of Deaths Act has been amended to enable the issuance of Certificates of Absence. The Human Rights Council of Sri Lanka is mandated to visit prisons and has issued Directives to be followed by the police to ensure that the fundamental rights and humane treatment of persons arrested or detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act are respected. The Commanders of the Army, Navy and the Air Force have issued instructions to all service personnel in March and April 2016, that strict action will be taken against any human rights violations. Furthermore, the President of Sri Lanka, as Commander of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense, issued in June 2016, directions requiring all armed forces and police to ensure that the fundamental rights and human treatment of persons arrested or detained are respected and assist the HRCSL to perform its functions and duties. The Government has made available a complete list of detainees and those released from detention to family members. Furthermore, detainees held under Emergency Regulations and the PTA are being released. In November 2016 Policy Framework and National Action Plan to address sexual and gender-based violence (2016-2020) was launched. The Penal Code (Amendment) Act No. 16, was adopted in 2006 and has, inter alia, made it a penal offence to engage and recruit a child for use in armed conflict and in child labor, child trafficking and child pornography. Furthermore, Sri Lanka has ratified a number of international instruments, including the Convention on Enforced Disappearances (2016), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2016) and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2006). In particular, the Government has committed to replace the PTA with a new Bill on counter-terrorism, to be presented to the Parliament in January 2017. The new Bill has to be compatible with international human rights and counter-terrorism standards. In July 2016 an inter-institutional Committee to take preventive measures against torture was established. In view of the fact that salient shortcomings have been identified in a relatively low number of areas and of the significant elements of progress, it is considered that there is no serious failure to effectively implement the Convention, the EU committees report said. Social and Economic Rights On ensuring social and economic rights, the report said that the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children (Amendment) Act (2003) has been adopted, raising the minimum age of employment from 12 to 14 years. In addition, the age of compulsory schooling has been raised from 14 to 16 years. In order to improve freedom of association in EPZs, two more free facilitation centers have been established in Wathupitiwala and Kandy in addition to the three existing ones, to allow trade union leaders to meet their members. Furthermore, a strengthened labor administration system is in place in respect of EPZs, whereby Labor Inspectors visit the Zones with a view to address the concerns of workers. The National Human Resources and Employment Policy for Sri Lanka sets eliminating child labor in hazardous activities as a priority and a goal of zero tolerance for the worst forms of child labor by 2016. Sri Lanka has established the Ministry of Foreign Employment and adopted the Sri Lanka National Policy on Labor Migration which focuses on concerns of migrant women workers. It should also be noted that Sri Lanka has achieved or almost achieved Millennium Development Goals, especially in health, education, gender equality and child mortality (Sri Lanka Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2014). A Committee has been appointed in June 2016, which is working on amendments under Muslim law regarding the minimum age of marriage. The Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (2005) is being amended to provide safeguarding measures for children and women. GSP plus duty free concession will be close to ten percent. In a competitive market it is a huge amount. Over a thousand different items can be exported to Europe without any duty at all, if we qualify for GSP plus. Since the facility was withdrawn in 2010, Sri Lanka had lost export potential worth US$ 1 billion, Deputy Foreign Minister Dr.Harsha de Silva told Sunday Observer. COLOMBO: The report of the European Commissions technical team which examined Sri Lankas application for the restoration of General System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) duty concessions has concluded that the island nation now meets the eligibility criteria as set out in Art 9 (1) of the GSP regulations. Subsequent to the submission of the report, the European Commission recommended to the European Union parliament that GSP+ be granted to Sri Lanka. The EU parliament was expected to take it up on Monday. However, any decision on the restoration of GSP+ will have to be accepted by the parliament of every EU member country. Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva told Sunday Observer that the entire process could take two to four months to be completed. Though Sri Lankan opposition parties and some Tamil parties say that EU parliaments could still deny GSP+ to Sri Lanka, the general view in the West and the UN is that Sri Lanka is returning to democracy and restoring ethnic harmony and that it would be appropriate to support the trend in every way possible. Details of EU Report While noting that there are still shortcomings, these do not amount to a serious failure to effectively implement the Convention that would prevent Sri Lanka from joining the GSP +, the report said. Since 2010, there are significant elements of progress. In this respect, Sri Lanka has implemented several important actions to address observed shortcomings and respond to recommendations made in the report of the CESCR (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). A new independent Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) and several other Commissions have been appointed following the enactment of the 19th Constitutional Amendment in May 2015. The National Plan of Action for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights 2011-2016 was adopted and a process is underway for a new Action Plan 2017-2021. In October 2015, Sri Lanka co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution 30/1 and steps are being taken to implement it. For example, a decision has been taken to establish an Office of Missing Persons. In January 2016 a Victim and Witness Protection Authority was established. The Registration of Deaths Act has been amended to enable the issuance of Certificates of Absence. The Human Rights Council of Sri Lanka is mandated to visit prisons and has issued Directives to be followed by the police to ensure that the fundamental rights and humane treatment of persons arrested or detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act are respected. The Commanders of the Army, Navy and the Air Force have issued instructions to all service personnel in March and April 2016, that strict action will be taken against any human rights violations. Furthermore, the President of Sri Lanka, as Commander of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defense, issued in June 2016, directions requiring all armed forces and police to ensure that the fundamental rights and human treatment of persons arrested or detained are respected and assist the HRCSL to perform its functions and duties. The Government has made available a complete list of detainees and those released from detention to family members. Furthermore, detainees held under Emergency Regulations and the PTA are being released. In November 2016 Policy Framework and National Action Plan to address sexual and gender-based violence (2016-2020) was launched. The Penal Code (Amendment) Act No. 16, was adopted in 2006 and has, inter alia, made it a penal offence to engage and recruit a child for use in armed conflict and in child labor, child trafficking and child pornography. Furthermore, Sri Lanka has ratified a number of international instruments, including the Convention on Enforced Disappearances (2016), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2016) and the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2006). In particular, the Government has committed to replace the PTA with a new Bill on counter-terrorism, to be presented to the Parliament in January 2017. The new Bill has to be compatible with international human rights and counter-terrorism standards. In July 2016 an inter-institutional Committee to take preventive measures against torture was established. In view of the fact that salient shortcomings have been identified in a relatively low number of areas and of the significant elements of progress, it is considered that there is no serious failure to effectively implement the Convention, the EU committees report said. Social and Economic Rights On ensuring social and economic rights, the report said that the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children (Amendment) Act (2003) has been adopted, raising the minimum age of employment from 12 to 14 years. In addition, the age of compulsory schooling has been raised from 14 to 16 years. In order to improve freedom of association in EPZs, two more free facilitation centers have been established in Wathupitiwala and Kandy in addition to the three existing ones, to allow trade union leaders to meet their members. Furthermore, a strengthened labor administration system is in place in respect of EPZs, whereby Labor Inspectors visit the Zones with a view to address the concerns of workers. The National Human Resources and Employment Policy for Sri Lanka sets eliminating child labor in hazardous activities as a priority and a goal of zero tolerance for the worst forms of child labor by 2016. Sri Lanka has established the Ministry of Foreign Employment and adopted the Sri Lanka National Policy on Labor Migration which focuses on concerns of migrant women workers. It should also be noted that Sri Lanka has achieved or almost achieved Millennium Development Goals, especially in health, education, gender equality and child mortality (Sri Lanka Millennium Development Goals Country Report 2014). A Committee has been appointed in June 2016, which is working on amendments under Muslim law regarding the minimum age of marriage. The Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (2005) is being amended to provide safeguarding measures for children and women. GSP plus duty free concession will be close to ten percent. In a competitive market it is a huge amount. Over a thousand different items can be exported to Europe without any duty at all, if we qualify for GSP plus. Since the facility was withdrawn in 2010, Sri Lanka had lost export potential worth US$ 1 billion, Deputy Foreign Minister Dr.Harsha de Silva told Sunday Observer. By PTI LONDON: Donald Trump has said that he has no plans to quit Twitter even after becoming US President this week, saying a "dishonest" media has forced him to continue tweeting to vent out his views. "I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and it's not 140, it's now 280 I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out....," the President-elect told The Times newspaper. Trump, who will become the 45th US President on Friday told the paper that he does not intend to lay off Twitter once he is in the Oval Office of the White House and will keep his @realDonaldTrump account. Trump, who has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter, said that he had considered cutting down his Twitter use. But his reach has become so large that he feels the media are so unkind to him that he will continue to send out updates, he said. "@realDonaldTrump I think, I'll keep it," he said. "So I've got 46 million people right now that's a lot, that's really a lot but 46 million including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you're 46 million there, I'd rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it's working....," he said. Trump's Twitter feed to conduct international diplomacy and attack on media and his rivals had become a source of concern and confusion since he won the election, with many of the posts that come from it changing stock markets and attacking his political enemies. Some had thought that he would give up the account when he became President or turn it over to his team, but he has promised not to. A handle exists for the President @POTUS, which is currently used by President Barack Obama's team but Trump will apparently use both accounts during his time in the White House. Chinese state media had recently condemned his obsession with Twitter, asking him to lay off from the social media platform. Trump has often departed from long-standing US policies and made several controversial comments about China on Twitter. "The obsession with 'Twitter diplomacy' is undesirable," said a commentary by China's state-run Xinhua news agency had said after Trump made some anti-Beijing comments. LONDON: Donald Trump has said that he has no plans to quit Twitter even after becoming US President this week, saying a "dishonest" media has forced him to continue tweeting to vent out his views. "I thought I'd do less of it, but I'm covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and it's not 140, it's now 280 I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out....," the President-elect told The Times newspaper. Trump, who will become the 45th US President on Friday told the paper that he does not intend to lay off Twitter once he is in the Oval Office of the White House and will keep his @realDonaldTrump account. Trump, who has earned a reputation for making unpredictable statements on Twitter, said that he had considered cutting down his Twitter use. But his reach has become so large that he feels the media are so unkind to him that he will continue to send out updates, he said. "@realDonaldTrump I think, I'll keep it," he said. "So I've got 46 million people right now that's a lot, that's really a lot but 46 million including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you're 46 million there, I'd rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it's working....," he said. Trump's Twitter feed to conduct international diplomacy and attack on media and his rivals had become a source of concern and confusion since he won the election, with many of the posts that come from it changing stock markets and attacking his political enemies. Some had thought that he would give up the account when he became President or turn it over to his team, but he has promised not to. A handle exists for the President @POTUS, which is currently used by President Barack Obama's team but Trump will apparently use both accounts during his time in the White House. Chinese state media had recently condemned his obsession with Twitter, asking him to lay off from the social media platform. Trump has often departed from long-standing US policies and made several controversial comments about China on Twitter. "The obsession with 'Twitter diplomacy' is undesirable," said a commentary by China's state-run Xinhua news agency had said after Trump made some anti-Beijing comments. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: The project initiated by Public Relations department of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) and entitled 10 questions to Presidential Scholar at BHOS, Process Automation Engineering student Ramil Huseynov is answering our questions. Please, tell about yourself. I was born in Raduzny city of the Russian Federation in 2000. I received my secondary education at the school 2 in Udjar town. Up to seventh grade, I had studied in Russian-language sector, and from then on I continued studying in the Azerbaijani-language sector. After graduation from the secondary school, I successfully passed entrance exams to university and entered Baku Higher Oil School to study Process Automation Engineering. I am first-year student awarded with Presidential Scholarship. The exams are in the past now. What were your impressions? To be honest, it was tough time. I was overtired. All my thoughts were about the goal I wanted to achieve. So, I recall those days as a bit difficult for me. What was your score at the entrance exams? I got 695 points. Why have you chosen BHOS? Actually, this is not a careful choice as such. It did not take me long to decide where to study. When I received high score and looked for a technical university, I chose BHOS. But even if I spent a lot of time to make a choice, it would be the Higher School anyway, no doubt about it. What role has your family played in your education? Surely, my family has greatly supported me in my efforts to get education, especially my Mom and grandma. As I fully concentrated on the preparations for exams, I can tell I was not doing anything else. What is your biggest dream? Since my childhood, my biggest dream has been to become a scriptwriter. I still cherish this dream in my mind and my heart. What would you like to tell about your future profession? I would say this profession requires strong logical thinking and a lot of creativity. I believe that even if robots will take over many jobs, our field will remain among the few to be operated by humans. What are your hobbies? I like listening to music. I am also very interested in social networks, and I like watching videos on Youtube and Facebook. What else are you interested in? I am interested in psychology and economics. Besides of that, I am into the exergaming, i.e., fitness games, albeit as an amateur. What literary genres do you prefer? Frankly, I do not read literature apart from textbooks. By PTI WASHINGTON: Donald Trump appeared to suggest that outgoing CIA Director John Brennan may have been behind the publication of an unverified intelligence dossier connecting the president-elect to Russia. "Was this the leaker of Fake News?," Trump said at the end of two tweets in which he attacked Brennan for being critical of him in an interview to Fox News earlier yesterday. In his interview, the outgoing CIA Director slammed Trump for equating the actions of intelligence community with that of Nazi Germany, describing it as "outrageous". "What I find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly," Brennan told Fox News. Brennan was responding to questions on a tweet by the President-elect after media reports about an alleged intelligence community document which claimed that the Russian intelligence agencies have compromised Trump's personal and financial information. "I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out be so false and fake out. I think it's a disgrace, and I say that and I say that, and that something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do," Trump had said after the document was published. Retweeting a Fox News headline, Trump wrote: "@FoxNews 'Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand.' Oh really, couldnt do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?". WASHINGTON: Donald Trump appeared to suggest that outgoing CIA Director John Brennan may have been behind the publication of an unverified intelligence dossier connecting the president-elect to Russia. "Was this the leaker of Fake News?," Trump said at the end of two tweets in which he attacked Brennan for being critical of him in an interview to Fox News earlier yesterday. In his interview, the outgoing CIA Director slammed Trump for equating the actions of intelligence community with that of Nazi Germany, describing it as "outrageous". "What I find outrageous is equating the intelligence community with Nazi Germany. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly," Brennan told Fox News. Brennan was responding to questions on a tweet by the President-elect after media reports about an alleged intelligence community document which claimed that the Russian intelligence agencies have compromised Trump's personal and financial information. "I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out be so false and fake out. I think it's a disgrace, and I say that and I say that, and that something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do," Trump had said after the document was published. Retweeting a Fox News headline, Trump wrote: "@FoxNews 'Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand.' Oh really, couldnt do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?". By Online Desk The FBI has arrested the wife of Omar Mateen, who carried out a mass shooting in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub in June 2016, media reports said on Monday. The shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse that killed 49 people was one of the deadliest in recent times in the US. The woman Noor Salman was arrested at her home outside of San Francisco, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said Salman was charged with obstruction in the case. ABC News quoted her lawyer saying she was arrested for aiding and abetting. Salman told the New York Times in November that she had been "unaware of everything" that her husband Omar Mateen was going to do on the day of the shooting. Mateen was killed in a police shootout after he carried out the massacre. She is expected to appear in federal court on Tuesday for a first appearance, ABC News said, and could be extradited to Tampa, Florida, where she was indicted. The FBI has arrested the wife of Omar Mateen, who carried out a mass shooting in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub in June 2016, media reports said on Monday. The shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse that killed 49 people was one of the deadliest in recent times in the US. The woman Noor Salman was arrested at her home outside of San Francisco, the New York Times reported. The newspaper said Salman was charged with obstruction in the case. ABC News quoted her lawyer saying she was arrested for aiding and abetting. Salman told the New York Times in November that she had been "unaware of everything" that her husband Omar Mateen was going to do on the day of the shooting. Mateen was killed in a police shootout after he carried out the massacre. She is expected to appear in federal court on Tuesday for a first appearance, ABC News said, and could be extradited to Tampa, Florida, where she was indicted. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Azad Hasanli Trend: A groundbreaking ceremony of Caspian Pharmed, an Azerbaijan-Iran joint pharmaceutical plant, was held in the Pirallahi Industrial Park in Baku Jan. 16. Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev and Irans Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ali Rabiei attended the ceremony. Azerbaijani Deputy Economy Minister Niyazi Safarov, Director General of Azersun Holding Savas Uzan, Executive Director of the Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Najaf also attended the ceremony. In the joint plant, 49 percent of the shares belong to Irans Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company, while 25 percent go to the Azerbaijan Investment Company and 26 percent to Azersun Holding. Iran's Darou Pakhsh Holding Company inked a memorandum of understanding with the Azerbaijan Investment Company and Azersun Holding in Baku April 21, 2016. Over $30 million has been invested in the establishment of the joint plant. The plant will be commissioned within two years. At the first stage, 200 million tablets and capsules, as well as 84 drugs, including essential ones for treatment of heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers are expected to be produced at the plant annually. Bengal Chamber of Commerce launched West Bengal weekend destinations website, app to come soon Kolkata, Jan 14 : Kolkata-based Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries (BCCI), who has been taking a keen interest in promoting tourism in West Bengal for sometime, launched a special weekend destination website (www.bengalweekend.com) on Friday. (Posted on 14 January 2017, 1667594834 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/west-bengal-news.php (Posted on 14 January 2017, 1667594834 173O212O198O32) Inaugurating the website, the states Tourism Minister Goutam Deb said, The website built by Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries will complement the state tourism departments bid to make West Bengal a favourite destination for travellers.He pointed out that tourism is a broad-based job generator. With the proliferation of community tourism, we can we uplift the local economy, the minister said.The website, which lists over 40 weekend destinations from 20 districts of West Bengal, contains information about the place, how to go, accommodation and tariff, and specialities, if any.{image_1}The website provides complete contact details of the properties so that travellers can directly contact them for booking accommodation, said Subhodip Ghosh, Director General of Bengal Chambers.The website not only lists popular destinations but also some lesser known ones such as Telkupi in Purulia, Kingfisher Island in North 24 Parganas, Gopegarh in West Mindapore, Ichhe Gaon in Darjeeling, etc.According to Sutanu Ghosh, President of Bengal Chamber, said that in recent years, there has been a rise in peoples interest for rural tourism. He said, therefore, the in-house research team led by Soma Mitra Mukherjee, emphasised on selecting properties that were trying to promote village tourism.Destinations that lie within an hour to two-and-a-half hours distance away from leading cities and towns of West Bengal have been chosen, he said.Anil Punjabi, Chairperson of the Chambers Tourism Committee and President of the Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), said that while people in Kolkata and other major cities in West Bengal will find it very convenient to zero in on a weekend destination in a jiffy, the website will also help travellers from outside the state to study in detail the options available in West Bengal for an experiential visit.Bengal Chambers is also planning to bring out an App for the weekend destination website so that the information is just a click or a tap away.Reporting by Uttara Gangopadhyay PM Modi mourns former Punjab CM Surjit Singh Barnala's demise New Delhi, Jan 14 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday mourned the death of former Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala. (Posted on 14 January 2017, 1667594835 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/punjab-news.php (Posted on 14 January 2017, 1667594835 173O212O198O32) Modi tweeted: Pained by demise of Shri Surjit Singh Barnala. His rich service contribution to the nation will be remembered. Condolences to his family.He was 91.He passed away after prolonged illness.He died at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh where he was admitted recently.The leader had also served as the Union Minister and Governor of Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh.Image:wikimediacomons Punjab polls: Ex CM Beant Singh's daughter joins BJP, says Cong never 'recognised' her New Delhi , Jan. 14 : In a major jolt to the Congress ahead of Punjab assembly polls, former Punjab chief minister late Beant Singh's daughter Gurkanwal Kaur on Saturday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594835 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/punjab-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594835 173O212O198O32) Kaur was in New Delhi today at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's residence, where she announced her decision.Kaur, who served as a minister in the Punjab Government, expressed her discontent upon being neglected by the Congress Party for years."I have worked a lot in Congress and served them with my utmost dedication, but they never recognised my work. I used to be a Minister and head the Congress' women's wing for 11 years, but they never recognised my work. The Congress even failed to recognise my father's work who sacrificed himself for Punjab," Kaur told ANI.The former minister added that she was impressed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's policies which is why she joined the BJP.Welcoming Kaur, Jaitley said the party would gain immense benefit with her inclusion and made sure that she would be handed a responsible post within the party functionary."Their family played an important role in Punjab politics, and everyone recognises that. I am sure that the party will benefit with their inclusion. BJP will make sure she gets her due," Jaitley said.Gurkanwal Kaur was an MLA from Jalandhar Cantonment from 2002 to 2007.She is the sister of former minister Tej Pratap Singh and Gurkeerat Kotli and aunt of Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu. Sorry, that page not found! Please visit our Home Page for latest updates Prasar Bharti hosts International Television Dance Festival in Hyderabad Hyderabad (Telangana) , Jan. 15 : The first edition of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) International Television Dance Festival is scheduled to be held in Hyderabad; the city with royal patronage for arts, literature and architecture, on January 15. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594837 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/andhra-pradesh-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594837 173O212O198O32) Prasar Bharati is hosting the event.The Dance Festival is conceptualised so as to bring the cultural diversities from across the world into limelight, by breaking cultural barriers.Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu will inaugurate the festival whereas Chief Minister of Telangana, K. Chandrashekar Rao will be present as the guest of honour. Tourism and Culture Minister of Telanagana, Azmeera Chandulal and Chairman of Prasar Bharti, Dr. A. Surya Prakash will also be present at the event.The festival will showcase dancers from various countries which include Maldives, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Philippines, Fiji, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.The finalists from each country will participate in the grand finale of the first (ABU) International Television Dance Festival. All the participants are between the age group of 18-25 years.The festival's objective is to create a "bridge" between young people from different parts of the world through dance.Prasar Bharti started with the selection process in June 2016 to select the teams that will represent India in the grand finale. The artists were asked to submit DVDs of their work in traditional or contemporary dance, for selection purpose.A total of 453 entries were received. Of these entries, 210 videos were selected by the first Screen Committee while after the final screening, 29 entries were chosen from the two categories. Two finalists, namely "Aamad" group and "Sadhya" group will perform in the grand finale. Lucknow Airport director says everything functioning normally now Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) , Jan. 15 : In a sigh of relief to the passengers stranded at the Lucknow Airport, the radar failure has been rectified and normal functioning has begun. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594837 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594837 173O212O198O32) Lucknow Airport director P. K. Srivastava informed that the damaged cards have been replaced adding that everything is functioning normally now.He also told that the no-term, which was issued earlier, has been withdrawn and the airlines along with the catering facility have been informed of the same."Four cards were damaged in DVOR. We got them replaced and we checked their serviceability with the help of over flying aircrafts. We withdrew the no term once the aircrafts gave confirmation of cards serviceability. DVOR facility has been made available since 12.30 a.m. No term was issued and the catering facility, apart from the airlines has now been informed of its withdrawal. Everything is functioning normally now," Srivastava told ANI."Jet Airways flight is to arrive at the airport at 7.30 a.m.," he added.All flight operations were suspended at the Lucknow Airport yesterday following the failure of the radar frequency system, which affected the landing and takeoff of all aircrafts.Almost 16 flights were affected due to the Radar DVOR failure which was reported at 4:30 p.m. yesterday. Narendra Modi wishes Indian Army on 'Army Day New Delhi, Jan 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday wished soldiers, veterans and their families on the ocassion of the 'Army Day'. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594839 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594839 173O212O198O32) Greetings to all soldiers, veterans their families on Army Day. We salute the courage invaluable service of the Indian Army, Narendra Modi tweeted.Indian Army always leads from the front, be it in protecting the sovereignty of our nation or helping citizens during natural disasters, he said.Modi said the country remembers with pride the sacrifice made by the Army.He said: We remember with great pride all the sacrifices made by our Army. They put their lives at risk so that 125 crore Indians live peacefully. Patna boat tragedy: PM Modi announces ex gratia of Rs. 2 lakh New Delhi , Jan. 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced an ex-gratia from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF) of Rs 2 lakh for next of kin of those deceased in the horrific Patna boat tragedy, and Rs.50, 000 for those seriously injured in the incident. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594839 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594839 173O212O198O32) At least 21 people were killed when two country boats capsized in river Ganga near NIT ghat at Patna in Bihar yesteraday.Over 40 people were returning from diara area after participating Kite festival on occasion Makar Sankranti. This festival was organized by the state government. NDRF and SDRF teams have been pressed into relief and rescue operations.Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has ordered inquiry into the boat tragedy. A three member inquiry team has been constituted headed by Principal Secretary of State Disaster Department Pratya Amrit.The state government has also announced rupees four lakh ex-gratia payment to the family of each of the deceased.Also, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) Director General R.K. Pachnanda has said that twenty one bodies have been recovered so far, after two boats carrying about 40 people turned turtle in Ganga river in Patna.Pachnanda told ANI that three NDRF team are at the site to recover more bodies and the rescue operation is underway."21 bodies have been recovered so far, search and rescue operation is underway. 3 NDRF teams are at the spot. We are trying our best. We have deported three teams for the operation. It is extremely tragic incident. People were taking boats one after another. When the people realised that their boat was capsizing they tried to jump to the other boat then both the boats capsized due to over load," he added.Earlier, Prime Minister Modi also expressed his grief over the loss of lives in Patna boat tragedy.The Prime Minister's Office tweeted that PM has extended condolences to the bereaved families. Details added (first version posted on 12:45) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Azad Hasanli Trend: Construction of the Caspian Pharmed, an Azerbaijan-Iran joint pharmaceutical plant, which is the second one in Azerbaijan, will be completed in the third quarter of 2018, Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev told reporters in Baku Jan. 16. He made the remarks following the groundbreaking ceremony of the Caspian Pharmed plant held in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, in Pirallahi district of Baku Jan. 16. Azerbaijani Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev and Irans Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ali Rabiei attended the ceremony. Azerbaijani Deputy Economy Minister Niyazi Safarov, Director General of Azersun Holding Savas Uzan, Executive Director of the Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Najaf, Director General of Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park Nazim Talibov also attended the ceremony. Over $20 million will be invested in the new plant, Azerbaijans economy minister said. It will have German and Italian equipment installed. Construction of the plant will take around a year and a half, and the plant will start producing 84 kinds of medicines in the third quarter of the next year. Mustafayev added that the drugs produced at the plant will meet the highest standards, as well as the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standard. The main part of the drugs is intended to be sold on Azerbaijans domestic market, but a certain part of them will be exported, he noted. The business plan envisages supplying drugs to Russia, Kazakhstan and Georgia. At the first stage, 90 employees will work at the plant, and their minimum wage will be 700 Azerbaijani manats. Mustafayev added that since the plant will be built in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, it will receive the same benefits the residents of other industrial parks. The minister said that the payback period of investments in the plant will amount to seven years and two months, and the internal rate of return will amount to 17.24 percent, which is quite a high indicator. In the joint plant, 49 percent of the shares belong to Irans Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company, while 25 percent go to the Azerbaijan Investment Company and 26 percent to Azersun Holding. Iran's Darou Pakhsh Holding Company inked a memorandum of understanding with the Azerbaijan Investment Company and Azersun Holding in Baku April 21, 2016. At the first stage, 200 million tablets and capsules, as well as 84 drugs, including essential ones for treatment of heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers are expected to be produced at the plant annually. Patna boat tragedy probe will expose loopholes: Ravi Shankar Prasad New Delhi , Jan 15 : Expressing grief over loss of lives in the Patna boat tragedy, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday hoped that the inquiry instigated in the matter will expose the loopholes and the defaulter responsible for the hapless incident. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594840 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594840 173O212O198O32) "I am really saddened by the unfortunate incident. Such incidents should not take place; the arrangements should have been more robust. I firmly believe that the inquiry, which has been instigated, will expose loopholes and bring out at what level the fault took place," he told ANI.Meanwhile, an FIR has been lodged against the operator of the boat which capsized yesterday in the river Ganga, in Bihar's Patna city, killing 24 people.The operator, who was also on the boat at the time tragedy struck, was one of the lucky survivors.The FIR was registered against him as the number of the people onboard was reportedly more than the vessel's capacity.Amateur footage of the tragedy confirmed that the boat was carrying passengers, from a kite flying event, well over its intended capacity.The dramatic visuals of the capsizing boat show several passengers swimming towards safety and a few seem to have been pulled into the waters along with the sinking boat.The Bihar Government has constituted a three-member inquiry team headed by Principal Secretary of State Disaster Department Pratya Amrit to look into the matter.The state government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs. four lakh to the family of the deceased.In the wake of the tragedy, a programme to mark the start of redevelopment work of Mahatma Gandhi Setu in Patna which the Prime Minister was to address via video conferencing has been postponed. PM Modi greets soldiers, veterans on Army Day New Delhi , Jan. 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday wished all soldiers, veterans and their families on the occasion of Army Day. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594841 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594841 173O212O198O32) "Greetings to all soldiers, veterans & their families on Army Day. We salute the courage & invaluable service of the Indian Army," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.Applauding the Indian Army for its courage and valour, the Prime Minister said it has always protected the sovereignty of India."Indian Army always leads from the front, be it in protecting the sovereignty of our nation or helping citizens during natural disasters," he tweeted.Remember the sacrifices made by the army, Prime Minister Modi said they put their lives at risk so that the citizens can live peacefully."We remember with great pride all the sacrifices made by our Army. They put their lives at risk so that 125 crore Indians live peacefully," his tweet read.Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year, in recognition of Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa's taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India, on 15 January 1949. RIL plans to invest another Rs. 30,000 crore into Jio Infocomm New Delhi , Jan. 15 : Reliance Industries is planning to invest a sum of Rs. 30,000 crore into Reliance Jio Infocomm to further its development and improve its signal strength. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594842 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/telecom-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594842 173O212O198O32) The company in its board meeting held earlier on Friday decided to invest another Rs. 30,000 crore into its telecom unit and sell 600 crore preference shares to raise the amount. These preference shares will be sold through a rights issue and will be nine percent non-cumulative optionally convertible (OCPS) available at Rs. 50 each including a premium of Rs. 40.RIL had already invested Rs. 1.71 lakh crore while setting up its telecom venture Jio Infocomm. Ever since its launch on September 5, 2016, Jio has amassed more than 70 million users, owing to its free voice calls and data plans. The subscriber addition rate is said to be one of the highest, thereby, raising Rs. 30,000 crore last year and rights issue in two tranches in January and September.The telecom major, however, has been suffering from lack of network coverage and call drop, which it now looks to overcome with the new investment.The company's board has forwarded a statement in this regard to the National Stock Exchange.RIL is also expected to launch Jio's VoLTE feature phones with prices staring at Rs. 999. PM Modi to deliver inaugural address at second Raisina Dialogue New Delhi , Jan. 15 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address at the opening session of the second edition of the three-day Raisina Dialogue, which will begin in New Delhi from Tuesday. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594843 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594843 173O212O198O32) The theme of the dialogue, this year, is The New Normal-Multilateralism with Multi-Polarity.The Prime Minister's address will be attended by former Heads of State and governments, foreign ministers and senior ministers from a number of countries and prominent foreign policy thinkers from around the world.The Raisina Dialogue is India's flagship geo-political conference organized by Ministry of External Affairs in partnership with the Observer research foundation.The second edition is expected to feature participation from about 65 countries and more than 250 foreign participants. RSS should not pose itself as spokesperson of Hindu community: JD (U) New Delhi , Jan 15 : The Janata Dal (United) on Sunday lashed out at Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat over his remark that 'Hindus cannot live freely in parts of India' and dubbed it as an attempt to enthral electorates ahead of crucial Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594843 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594843 173O212O198O32) Describing Bhagwat's speech as an effort to create divide amongst different communities, JD (U) leader Pawan Verma asserted that the RSS does not have to pose itself as the spokesperson of the Hindu community."I don't think that RSS has been given the authority to speak for all Hindus. The RSS presumes that it can speak for all Hindus, but in reality Hindus can take care of themselves and this attempt by Mohan Bhagwat ji suddenly to show Hindus being denied the permission to live freely in India is rather a transparent attempt to strike a communal divide before the forthcoming elections is quite condemnable, it falls in the same genre of speech made recently by Sakshi Maharaj. Such attempts by the BJP, the RSS and its affiliates should stop forthwith," Verma told ANI.Addressing a gathering of swayamsevaks at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground, Bhagwat yesterday said Hindus cannot live freely in different parts of India, adding their rights are not protected because they are not united."This organisation of Hindus is not opposed to anyone. It is for protection of Hindutva. The Hindu Samaj has a glorious history in this country. But despite such a glorious history, is the condition of Hindu Samaj the way it should have been? Are Hindus able to perform their religious rites and activities freely and fairly across India? Are the human rights of Hindus well established in this country?" Bhagwat said.The RSS chief's remark was construed by many swayamsevaks as a veiled dig at the Mamata Banerjee-led government. China hands over two ships to Pakistan for security along CPEC sea route Gwadar, Jan 15 : China has handed over two ships to the Pakistan Navy in an attempt to provide joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), media reports said. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594844 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/world-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594844 173O212O198O32) On Saturday, the Chinese vessels were handed over to the Commander of the Pakistan Navy Vice-Admiral Arifullah Hussaini, Dawn reported.Recently built in China, the ships will be part of the Pakistani navy.The ships have been named after two nearby rivers Hingol and Basol. President of India extends his greetings on the occasion of Army Day 2017 New Delhi, Jan 15 : President Pranab Mukherjee on Sundya extended his greetings and felicitations to all officers, soldiers, veterans, civilians, ex-servicemen and their families on the occasion of Army Day 2017. (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594845 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/more-news.php (Posted on 15 January 2017, 1667594845 173O212O198O32) In his message, the President has said, I am happy to learn that the Army Day is being celebrated on 15th January, 2017.The Indian Army plays a pivotal role in ensuring the national security of India, whilst defending our borders across some of the most perilous terrain in the world. It provides stability during internal security challenges and is often called upon to provide assistance during natural calamities. The Indian Army is known for its professionalism, selfless commitment and the unparalleled bravery of its rank and file, he said.Mukherjee said: Today, we remember our bravehearts who have made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. The nation is indebted to them and their families. I wish to place on record our deepest appreciation for the dedication and devotion of our soldiers in their service to the nation.I am confident the Indian Army will continue to acquit itself as a robust and vital instrument of national power in the coming years, he said.Mukherjee said: I wish the Army Day celebrations all success. Headline changed, details added (first version posted on 12:30) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: The construction of the third pharmaceutical plant will be launched in Azerbaijan in March 2017, Shahin Mustafayev, Azerbaijani economy minister, told reporters in Baku Jan. 16. The minister added that the plant will be built by a private investor, but part of the share will be owned by the Azerbaijan Investment Company. "In general, a number of pharmaceutical plants will begin to operate in Azerbaijan during three years, the minister added. At present, Azerbaijan imports almost 100 percent of the pharmaceutical products from abroad, but theres a turning point coming up in three years. The important actions will be taken to ensure medicine availability in the country. Import of medicine in Azerbaijan increased by 20 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. Some 80 percent of drugs were imported from European and other developed countries in 2016. The rest import accounted for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. A groundbreaking ceremony of Caspian Pharmed, the second Azerbaijan-Iran joint pharmaceutical plant, was held in the Pirallahi Industrial Park in Baku Jan. 16. The plant will be built together with Irans Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company. The plant will be commissioned within two years. At the first stage it is planned to annually produce medication for treating heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers. Commerce Ministry launches 'SEZ' app under e-governance initiative New Delhi , Jan. 16 : A mobile app called 'SEZ India' has been launched by the Commerce Ministry that provides detailed information about the country's special economic zones, an official statement said yesterday. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594847 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/business-india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594847 173O212O198O32) The SEZ Division, Department of Commerce under its broader e-governance initiative that is, SEZ online System, has developed mobile app earlier this month for Special Economic Zones (SEZs).The Commerce Ministry launched the app and mentioned that the app would help the SEZ units and developers to find information easily and track their transactions on SEZ online System.With the help of the app, the SEZ developers and units can file all their transactions digitally through SEZ online system and track the status.The app is available on Android Platform for use by SEZ developers, units, officials and others. The app has four sections including SEZ Information, SEZ Online Transaction, Trade Information, and Contact details.The salient features of the four sections are as under:SEZ Information: This is a compendium of the SEZ Act, 2005, SEZ Rules, 2006, MOCI Circulars, details of SEZs and Units etc. It gives up to date comprehensive details on all the above aspects.Trade Information: This provision gives access to important information / tools such as Foreign Trade Policy, Hand Book of procedure , Duty Calculator , Customs & Excise Notification and MEIS Rates.Contact Details: We see that the contact details of all Development Commissioners Office, DGFT, DG System, DGCI & S and SEZ online.SEZ Online Transaction: This is a dynamic submenu that tracks the Bill of Entry / Shipping Bill processing status and also does verification. The app also helps the Importers / Exporters to track the status of 'Bill of Entry / Shipping Bill" integration and processing in the EDI system of the ICEGATE. Mayawati is not daughter of 'Dalit' but wealth: BJP Lucknow(Uttar Pradesh), Jan. 16: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday launched a scathing attack on Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) supremo Mayawati, saying that she is a daughter of money and added that by blaming the saffron party she is trying to gain sympathy among voters. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594848 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594848 173O212O198O32) "Everyone in Uttar Pradesh knows that Mayawati is not daughter of 'Dalit' but of wealth. By putting allegations on the Bharatiya Janata Party just before the elections, she is just trying to garner sympathy from voters," BJP MP Jagdambika Pal told ANI.Earlier BSP chief Mayawati cautioned voters that neither an Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance nor a united SP can check BJP and that only her party would render a crushing blow to Modi government by defeating the saffron party in UP so that it does not take "immature" steps like the note ban.Stressing that BJP has no moral right to level allegations against opponents and their family members and their business, she said its has crossed all limits of decency following political rivalry and started making such allegations just before the Assembly electionMayawati said her family members had been doing their small business since the past several years but BJP found the shortcomings in them only at election time although they had been at the helm at the Centre for the past over two years. Zardari likely to attend Trump's swearing-in ceremony Karachi [Pakistan], Jan. 16 : Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader and former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari is likely to attend U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's swearing-in ceremony on January 20. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594848 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/world-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594848 173O212O198O32) He left for Dubai on Sunday, where he would stay for a few days before proceeding to the United States, reports the Dawn.Zardari is also expected to undergo a medical check-up during his stay in the U.S.Surendar Valasai, the spokesman for the media cell at Bilawal House, confirmed that Zardari had left for the UAE, but expressed ignorance about his plans for visiting the U.S.Meanwhile, according to sources PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would also be leaving for the U.S. in the last week of this month. He would stay in the U.S. for about two weeks.He is expected to meet officials of the American administration as well as Congress members to exchange views on affairs of mutual interest, according to the sources. 'So proud of you': Daddy Anil showers praise on Sonam Kapoor after her Filmfare Award win New Delhi , Jan. 16 : Anil Kapoor showered a load praise and appreciation on daughter Sonam Kapoor, who was awarded 'Filmfare Best Actor (Female) Critics' Choice' last night for her performance in 'Neerja'. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594849 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/bollywood-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594849 173O212O198O32) The 60-year-old veteran actor took to social media to post a lovely black and white picture of young Sonam, dressed in a white frock."So proud of you," the father captioned the Instagram post.".not just for the award, but also for your choices & decisions... You know who you are & you've never backed down from a challenge and that's amazing to watch as a father and actor... Congratulations beta...," the '24' actor wrote.Other members of the '31-year-old star's family also took to their social media handles to congratulate the stylish actor.The 'Khoobsurat' actress played the role of Pan Am flight attendant late Neerja Bhanot in the Ram Madhvani directed film, which is adapted from true life event of the flight hijacking in 1986. Asif Ali Zardari leaves for Dubai Islamabad, Jan 16 : Former Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has left for Dubai, media reports said. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594850 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/world-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594850 173O212O198O32) The Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians chief is expected to leave for the US later.The former president, who returned to the country late last month after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, is likely to reach Washington before Jan 20 to attend the swearing-in ceremony of US president-elect Donald Trump, Dawn News reported quoting sources.The Pakistani leader is expected to undergo medical check-up while staying in the US.Image: Wikimedia Commons Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Azad Hasanli Trend: Azerbaijan and Iran are discussing the construction of a joint plant for production of agriculture equipment and buses, Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev told reporters in Baku Jan. 16. He made the remarks following the groundbreaking ceremony of the Caspian Pharmed plant held in the Pirallahi Industrial Park, in Pirallahi district of Baku Jan. 16. Azerbaijans economy minister said that the prospects of the Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are very good and in the future, the sides may discuss joint projects in other areas as well. Thanks to the efforts of the Azerbaijani and Iranian heads of states, the relations between the two countries are at the highest level, the minister said. We are very successfully cooperating in all spheres, including political, economic and humanitarian one. Mustafayev added that the pharmaceutical plant, the foundation of which was laid Jan. 16, is the second Azerbaijani-Iranian joint plant. Construction of the first joint car plant began last year in the Neftchala Industrial Quarter, he added. Azerbaijans AzEuroCar LLC and Irans giant automaker, Iran Khodro, will produce four Iranian car brands Dena, Runna, Soren and Samand at the new plant with a capacity of about 10,000 cars per year. The project is estimated to cost $15 million. The car factory jointly founded by Iran and Azerbaijan will launch in May 2017. Chhattisgarh: 29 pilgrims injured after bus overturns in Kanker Kanker (Chhattisgarh) , Jan. 16 : At least twenty nine pilgrims suffered serious injuries after a bus overturned near Telgara village in Kanker district last night. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594852 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594852 173O212O198O32) Those who sustained injuries were immediately rushed to the nearby hospital for medical aid. Out of which five are under critical condition.Further details are awaited. ZingHR wins CIO CHOICE 2017 Honor and Recognition in HR and Global Payroll Services for SMEs Mumbai , Jan.16: ZingHR, the new age employee-centric cloud HCM Platform, announced on 6th January, 2017, that it was honored with CIO CHOICE 2017 Award in HR and Global Payroll Services for the SME category. CIO CHOICE celebrated its 5th Anniversary, the only independent ICT Vendor Recognition platform - Voice of CIOs in India. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594854 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/business-india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594854 173O212O198O32) The marquee 5th Annual CIO CHOICE Recognition landmark event saw a gathering of 400+ CIOs and ICT Business Leaders. This exclusive Red Carpet Night, presented Honor and Recognitions in 52 categories, recognizing 28 distinct ICT Brands.The event focused on companies based or operating in India, and was by far the most competitive in its history this year as well, with the highest number of nominations and entry submissions to date with a distinguished CIO Advisory. More than 200 entries were received this year, from a wide array of public and private ICT Vendor companies, both Large as well as small and medium enterprises and from a variety of geographic regions in India.The Winners of CIO CHOICE 2017 were determined by an independent CIO voting survey from across the country on product performance, customer satisfaction and continued customer service. KPMG is the knowledge partner for CIO CHOICE 2017."By being voted by CIOs, ZingHR has proven its expertise in specific technology areas, places them among the top percentile of enterprise ICT vendors in India" said Anoop Mathur President at Centre Of Recognition & Excellence.On receiving the award, Mr. Prasad Rajappan, Founder and CEO, ZingHR said, "It is truly rewarding to receive a recognition at such a grand platform, and having won the trust of CIOs across industries and geographies. ZingHR's capabilities in providing cloud based HRMS solutions for SMEs and large enterprises across geographies, and continuous innovation in technology has helped achieve this feat.What set us apart was our vision and endeavour to deliver real business value, going far beyond offering a mere HR processes automation tool. ZingHR leads the HR Tech space with innovations like Machine Learning for Recruitment, AI enabled Chatbot for Support, Mobile Onboarding, Aadhaar integrated e-KYC, Power BI for data visualization, Geo-fencing and geo-tagging, for the Mobile workforce." Hopeful CPSE ETF will attract investors' imagination: DIPAM Secy New Delhi , Jan. 16 : Commenting on the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management's (DIPAM) plans to divest through a Further Fund Offer (FFO) of Central Public Sector Enterprises Exchange Traded Fund (CPSE ETF) on January 17, Neeraj Kumar Gupta, Secretary, DIPAM, has said he is hopeful of a positive response from all kinds of investors. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594855 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/business-india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594855 173O212O198O32) "The response is likely to be very positive because in the developed markets, the ETF is a very popular product. As much as 40 percent of the daily traded market is in ETF and it gives the advantage of equity as well as mutual funds. Like equity, you can trade it daily and it gives you the stability and risk management like mutual funds. And there are good yields and upside. So, I am very hopeful that it will attract the imagination of investors," Gupta told ANI.DIPAM intends to raise Rs. 6,000 crore from the CPSE ETF fund offer with a basic issue size of Rs. 4,500 crore with a green shoe option of Rs. 1,500 crore. As part of the FFO, an upfront discount of five percent will be offered to all category of investors."We are giving an upfront discount of five percent. But besides that, the allotment will be on the basis of priority for the retail investors. Retail investors are more interested in firm allotment and that has been envisaged in this scheme of things. Thus, retail investors will get the priority over other applicants," Gupta said."CPC ETF was opened first time in 2013 and New Fund Offer of Rs. 3,000 crore was raised in 2014. Now, we are coming with FFO of Rs. 6,000 crore for the ETF. This ETF is a tested product in the market and hence is very popular. This ETF is giving a return of 14.4 percent in terms of CGAR. When you compare it with NIFTY, ETF is much higher. NIFTY gives a return of 8.9 percent. If we talk about dividend, it has given about 14.07 percent and for the corresponding period, NIFTY gave a dividend of 1.3 percent. This is a very attractive investment option for investors, who want to have stability and better risk management than equity," he added.At the time of the NFO, investors were given a five percent discount in price. There was also a loyalty bonus built into the fund.The FFO will be open for all category of investors including anchor investors, retail investors, retirement funds, non-institutional investors and foreign portfolio investors. The offer remains open until January 20. YourTravelSecretary receives the India Travel Awards North for 'Best Customised Tour Operator' 2016-17 New Delhi , Jan. 16 : 'YourTravelSecretary' won the most coveted India Travel Awards North for the year 2016-17 for the category 'Best Customised Tour Operator'. Held recently at Hyatt Regency, Gurgaon, the awards were a recognition to the stalwarts and those behind the success of the travel industry, region-wise. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594856 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/business-india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594856 173O212O198O32) The event was attended by more than 200 members of the fraternity including Chief Guest Om Prakash Singh, along with Gladrags Mrs India Dr. Tanushree Pandey, Dr. Jyotsna Suri, CMD, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group and Parvez Dewan, Advisor to the Governor of J&K, along with a host of other distinguished guests.Muzahid Khan, Marketing Manager, said, "It's a proud moment for the company who believes in redefining the customised travel services and taking the travel service to a whole new level."Rohan Grover, Managing Director, YourTravelSecretary, "Moreover, the authenticity of the award makes one feel happier as these awards are non-biased and adopted an online nomination and voting system which received over 4,38,909 votes from all over the world, from 21 countries like Russia, Singapore, USA and UK. This distinction reaffirms our efforts to offer nothing but the best and will continue to do so."Gunjan Hans, Business Travels said, "YourTravelSecretary is a professionally managed travel service company which provides quality travel solutions wherever and whenever one needs. It's an end to end solution provider which takes into care the minutest of its client's preferences along with price considerations and delivers the best. Be it a personal holiday or a Corporate travel, be it a tour or a solo adventure, last minute upgrades, changes and cancellations, etc, the company has successfully managed to serve its clients and match their expectation levels." Australian museum returns three objects of Indian antiquity New Delhi, Jan 16 : Canberra-based National Gallery of Australia has returned three antiquities of Indian origin, which will be displayed at the National Museum in New Delhi, according to a release by the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594856 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594856 173O212O198O32) The Government of India has been working with various nations to repatriate Indian cultural wealth that been illegally exported and later found to surface in other countries, including UK, US and Australia.The National Gallery of Australia agreed to send back three such objects after those were examined by Indian experts and found to be genuine, the MEA said.The objects are a stone image of Pratyangira from Tamil Nadu, a marble stele (upright stone slab) from Andhra Pradesh showing devotees of Buddha, and a stone image of the Buddha from the Mathura region.{image_1}The Pratyangira image, made of grey-coloured granite stone, is said to be an example of later Chola art dating back to circa 13th century. The image, a Tantric deity, a female version of the god Narasimha, was being worshipped at the Vriddhachalam Temple near Chennai before it was stolen. This image, being a case property of Tamil Nadu Police, will be returned to them after the exhibition.The marble stele is said to be an example of the Andhra School of sculpture and is said to be date back to the third century AD, when the Satvahanas ruled. According to the MEA note, the piece was unearthed in the 1970s during the excavation of a Buddhist Stupa in Chandavaram, Andhra Pradesh.The red sandstone image of a seated Buddha in the Abhaya Mudra pose is believed to date back to the early Kushana Period or the last quarter of First Century AD.The antiquities, which reached India in December 2016 are now kept at the Central Antiquities Collection in Purana Qila, New Delhi.Images: MEA Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Azad Hasanli Trend: The Azerbaijan-Iran joint pharmaceutical plant will annually export medicines worth up to $100 million, Ali Rabiei, Iranian minister of labor and social welfare, told reporters in Baku Jan. 16. The minister made the remarks after the ceremony of laying the foundation of the Caspian Pharmed plant in Baku. Rabiei said that medicines are planned to be initially exported to Russia, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Azerbaijan will be able to fully meet its medicine demand, he noted. The Iranian side invests more than $11 million in the plants construction, while the projects total cost is $20.6 million. In April 2016, Irans Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company inked a memorandum of understanding with the Azerbaijan Investment Company and Azersun Holding in Baku as part of the project. Rabiei also spoke about further plans on development of cooperation with Azerbaijan. We will expand cooperation with Azerbaijan in industry, tourism, transportation and other areas, added the Iranian minister. I would like to note that Azerbaijan is not only a neighbor for us; we have a common culture, religion and our cooperation has a strategic nature. Actors Prosenjit, Dev and Paoli Dam launch Ram Kamal Mukherjee's book 'Long Island Iced Tea' Kolkata, Jan 16 : Tollywood actors Prosenjit Chatterjee, Dev and Paoli Dam launched journalist-turned writer Ram Kamal Mukherjee's fictional book, 'Long Island Iced Tea' here on Saturday. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594857 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/west-bengal-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594857 173O212O198O32) Long Island Iced Tea named after the cocktail (which consists of eight ingredients) contains eight short stories dwelling on relationships.Mukherjee, a film journalist before he turned author, said: The book is targeted at the young generation through its easy and lucid language.The present generation is much more eager to visualise things than read, so the book is written keeping that in mind, said the author.{image_1}Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, looking dapper and extremely fit, said: I am like an elder brother to Ram and came here today as a well wisher. It is always important to reinvent oneself, which Ram is doing and I am sure that his passion will be reflected in this book.Paoli, who appeared in a beige and gold outfit, said she first met Mukherjee during a photo-shoot. She said: I am sure that there is going to be a lot of spice in this book and am very eager to finish off reading this book within a night.{image_2}Ram Kamal Mukherjee, as the then editor of Stardust magazine, had leaked Bollywood stars Ranbir-Katrinas holiday beach photos that created quite a flutter in the media, a few years back.The stars and the journalist-author shared anecdotes and discussed censorship and secrets with a fair bit of good humoured leg pulling,Tollywood superstar Dev who, incidentally, not a book worm, said: This book is ideal during long flight journeys that I undertake.{image_3}Set to debut in Bengali films this year, model Rukmini Maitra, attired in a pastel green dress, read out a small excerpt from one of the stories, Broken Frame, and said how it touched a chord with her, and left her deeply disturbed.Swarup Nanda, MD, Leadstart Publishing, was also present.One a more sombre note, journalist-author Chandrima Pal asked Mukherjee about why many of his female characters conveyed their emotions through handwritten letters.{image_4}Mukherjee replied: Women in our families never get a chance to speak. Even when they try to speak out they are cut short, dismissed. Letter writing is a dying art form that helps women express themselves, have the last word literally.He also quoted is former employer, senior media person Pritish Nandy who cherishes his collection of handwritten letters, and a beautiful verse by Gulzar that mourns the lost art of meaningful, thoughtful conversations and letters in the age of smartphone technology.{image_5}The book published by Leadstart Publishing consists of 154 pages and is available online and also in stores at Rs.199.(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh) Nameplate sporting Akhilesh as national president seen at SP headquarters Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) , Jan. 16 : In a development bound to boost the ongoing tussle of power between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav to a whole new level, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's supporters on Monday placed a nameplate proclaiming him as the party's national president just below his father and party founder's nameplate with the same designation at the party office here. (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594857 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/india-news.php (Posted on 16 January 2017, 1667594857 173O212O198O32) The recent development has not only added a state of confusion over the post but also indicated that the dismissed report of a rift between Mulayam and his son has actually turned bitterer.Akhilesh was declared the Samajwadi Party's national president at a convention held on January 1st, which was attended by the majority of Uttar Pradesh chief minister's loyalists as well as most MLAs and MLCs.However, Mulayam Singh had called the convention unconstitutional and refused to recognise his son as the president of the party.Meanwhile, the Election Commission pronounced its order regarding the Samajwadi Party factions i.e. of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and the other of his son Akhilesh Yadav, staking claims over the party symbol 'cycle'.The cycle symbol was allotted to Akhilesh.Earlier, Ram Gopal submitted a dossier containing signed affidavits of support for the Akhilesh faction from party delegates, MPs, MLAs and MLCs. The Akhilesh camp urged the poll body to decide on the matter at the earliest.Nominations for the first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh start in few days, but the Samajwadi Party is yet to finalise candidates, with both Mulayam and Akhilesh releasing separate lists.Elections will be held in seven phases in Uttar Pradesh starting February 11, and nominations for the first phase begin on January 17. Votes will be counted on March 11. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Windy. Thunderstorms becoming likely late. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Windy. Thunderstorms becoming likely late. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 25 to 35 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Higher wind gusts possible. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: Kazakhstans trade turnover with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) amounted to $11.95 billion in January-November 2016, which is by 21.1 percent less than the same period of 2015, Kazakh Statistics Committee said. Kazakhstans exports to fellow EAEU countries decreased by 26.8 percent to $3.48 billion in this period, while imports were down by 18.5 percent hitting $8.47 billion, said the committee. A lions share $11.11 billion of Kazakhstans trade turnover with the EAEU countries accounted for the trade with Russia. Despite this, Kazakhstans exports to Russia decreased to $3.11 billion in January-November 2016 as compared to $4.21 in the same period of 2015. The countrys imports from Russia amounted to $7.99 billion in the reporting period as compared to $9.75 billion in the same period of 2015. Kazakhstan exports mineral products (33.5 percent of the total volume of the country's export to the EAEU), metals and metal products (25.6 percent), chemicals (18.7 percent), products of animal and vegetable origin and ready foodstuff (10.8 percent) to the EAEU countries. The country mainly imports vehicles and equipment (24.7 percent of the total volume of the country's imports from the EAEU), chemicals (17.1 percent), mineral products (16.6 percent), products of animal and vegetable origin and ready foodstuff (14.1 percent), metals and metal products (12.5 percent) from the EAEU countries. In 2015, Kazakhstan's trade turnover with the EEU countries decreased by 28.6 percent to $15.77 billion as compared to 2014. The Eurasian Economic Union is an international organization for regional economic integration. Its members are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Follow the author on Twitter:@E_Kosolapova With the worlds population projected to hit 9.9 billion by 2050, experts are continuing to look for sustainable food sources to feed the masses. Over the past two years, the food-tech industry has seen a huge movement in alternative protein development. The big question is, will we ever see plant and algae-based protein consumption overtake animal-based foods? According to Minh Tsai, Founder, Hodo Soy Beanery, manufacturers need to harness their efforts towards some key priorities in order for plant-based protein to be successful: Focusing on education, transparency and taste will be paramount. Impact on the environment is an area where many plant-based food companies must focus too. Its not just population growth that has triggered a movement towards alternative proteins. A good for you food movement where tech meets food is on the rise, says Vishal Vasishth, Co-Founder of Obvious Ventures. Millennials are becoming the biggest consumers. Im a huge believer that they will shape and help build brands. Technology has seeped into the mainstream and generated personalisation and transparency, providing a differentiator compared to 50 years ago, he says. Having invested in Beyond Meat, Obvious Ventures continues to scope out innovative alternative protein companies. However, Vishal suggests that large-scale conversion to plant-based proteins will depend on the industrys ability to build consumer demand by creating delicious, healthy products. The challenge is that the product must be desirable in order to make it a great consumer brand. Asked how global demand for plant and algae-based proteins differs around the world, Minh believes tofu is an often-overlooked source of protein. The increased interest and demand for plant-based foods is allowing tofu to play a role in the conversation. Korea, Taiwan, and China are leading countries with product innovation for retail products. In the US, Hodo Soy Beanery is leading the conversation and education with consumers and chefs. In the next three years, tofu will have its second renaissance in the US. Minh and Vishal join a 40-strong speaking faculty at Future Food-Tech San Francisco on March 29- 30, 2017. This years summit focuses on transforming investment and innovation in food: from cultivated proteins to personalised nutrition and the microbiome. An interview with Professor Maura Corsetti, MD PhD, conducted by April Cashin-Garbutt, MA (Cantab) What did the recent IBS Global Impact Report reveal about the personal and economic impact of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)? This report reveals a quite alarming situation about the economic impact of IBS on healthcare system, society and patients themselves. In particular, it disclosed that there are a lot of hidden costs related to the utilization of healthcare resources by means of patients, frequently not recognized as IBS, undergoing many unnecessary investigations and even surgical operations, and not receiving appropriate treatments. IBS represents also a frequently unrecognized relevant burden for the society in terms of loss of work productivity both for absenteeism (missed days at work) and presenteeism (decreased work productivity). In my own experience it is indeed not infrequent that these patients are off work for months because of their symptoms. IBS finally significantly impaired the quality of life of these patients who avoid their social activities, as, for example, afraid of not being able to control their diarrhea. This social impairment also impacts on the quality of life of relatives and partners of these patients who are forced to live a restricted life. Were you surprised by the findings? As gastroenterologist with specific interest in these functional disorders of course I was aware of many of these aspects. However, many findings still surprised me a lot. In particular, the fact that in general these patients can wait up to 4 years to receive a proper diagnosis; the relevance of IBS impact on health care systems across different countries and how this economic burden is currently underestimated; the IBS impact on society and quality of life of this patients and their relatives and once again how this aspect is not appreciated. Why can it take up to an average of 4 years for a patient to receive a positive diagnosis of IBS? The main reason is because most of the clinicians are not aware of the different aspects of IBS and in particular about the fact it can present with multiple symptoms and associate with many gastrointestinal and other disorders (such as fibromyalgia). Moreover, as most of the clinicians are not trained to deal with these patients, they feel uncomfortable to make a positive diagnosis of IBS and continue to request investigations to avoid the risk of missing an organic disease (i.e. cancer). Is there a universally accepted standard of care upon diagnosis? Why not? No there isnt and this is the consequences of different aspects. First of all, until recently, we have not been able to offer these patients effective treatments, the efficacy of the available drugs was unclear and the criteria to evaluate new drugs varied a lot across different countries. In the last years there have been an extensive effort in revising the efficacy of available treatments according to evidence based methodology and also in evaluating the efficacy of new drugs according to similar criteria across different countries. It is now probably the moment to start collaboration to create a universally accepted standard of care, even though this needs to be accompanied by the support of regulatory agencies of different countries in order to make possible to offer the effective drugs to all the patients who need them. At the moment for example in UK patients with IBS can get drugs reimbursed by the healthcare while in Italy or other countries this is not the case. What changes do you think need to be made to the care of patients with IBS? I honestly think it is time the government realise that IBS is a real disease, which of course represents a relevant problem for patients and their family (how do you cope with having about 10 diarrhea episodes per day and being, for example, a business man who has to fly frequently or a teacher who has to work with other people and use public toilets being afraid you wont have them free as soon as you need?). Lab Diagnostics & Automation eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today However, this represent a bigger, even if not yet realized in its real burden, problem for healthcare system and society too. These people are indeed using resources, costing money, and they are also not able to perform properly in their job. This affects a lot the pockets of the entire society. I think the direction should be to create an integrated system where all the players involved in the treatment of these patients seat together to decide a common diagnostic and therapeutic pathway based on evidences. The specific aim should be to fill the gaps of knowledge with high-quality multicentre studies where necessary and to improve the management of this patients, also in a cost-effective way. How useful are the Rome IV Diagnostic Criteria and do you think any additional guidelines are needed? The Rome criteria have been quite useful to allow the enrolment of a homogeneous population of IBS patients for clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety of treatments. The update Rome IV version recently released has made an effort to further simplify the criteria in order to make more useful their application also in clinical practice. I definitely think these criteria are useful also in clinical settings even though we probably need to be more effective in communicating how simple they are. And of course there is room to improve them but I dont think we need to waste all the important work has been done in the years to develop these criteria. Is there a lot of variation in patient experience of IBS? How can this be accounted for? Of course each patients is different from another as he/she has her/his own history. However, all these patients share the same terrible burden of a disease that has been so long considered as a psychological disturb, ignored by doctors themselves and by the society, and that now represent one of the major causes of consultation in gastroenterology department and I suspect also in other field where these patients are frequently treated or even operated as not properly diagnosed. Moreover, it should be underlined that IBS can also overlap with many other organic disease, like ulcerative colitis and post-surgical conditions. Indeed we are finally recognizing that it is quite possible that IBS could be the reason of many cases of refractory symptoms in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases in remission. What additional research is needed to further understand IBS? In the last years there have been a great progress in the understanding the possible mechanisms of IBS. We are becoming aware of the possible effect of different foods in the modulation of gut function and we now have new techniques to study also factors like gut secretion. I think we have to continue in this direction and in particular try to aim to develop better instruments to measure the burden and economic costs of IBS and to assess gut function, its response to physiological stimuli and how to assess the effect of drugs to modulate these aspects. What do you think the future holds for people with IBS? I think we are going in the right direction and luckily in this field there a lot of passionate clinicians and researchers who have been trained in the management of IBS, continue to enjoy studying to improve their knowledge and develop better diagnostic and therapeutic approach for this disorders. Patients should be reassured.we are working for them! Where can readers find more information? They can start reading the report. Then I am in the process of writing together with other international experts a further commentary on this topic making a proposal on how the management of these patients could be improved. However I am also more than happy to suggest other sources of information personally. I am quite busy, but I always find time to inform and discuss with my patients their doubts. About Professor Corsetti Prof Maura Corsetti, MD PhD, Clinical associate Professor in Gastroenterology. Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, University of Nottingham. Maura obtained her Specialization (2000) and PhD (2004) in Italy, where she then worked for eight years as referral consultant for functional bowl disorders (i.e. IBS) and lead of the Motility Unit of one of the most important university hospital in Milan, the San Raffaele University Hospital. She then moved to Belgium, where she spent also part of her PhD, to work in the lab of Prof Jan Tack as Senior Research Supervisor (2012-2016). During this period she acquired the expertise, unique in Europe, to study the colonic motility in adults by means of a new technique, the colonic high-resolution manometry. She recently moved to UK to join, as Associate Professor in Gastroenterology, the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre. She is now the referral consultant for functional bowel disorders, lead the Motility Unit at Queens Medical Centre of Nottingham and continues her research focusing on the role of altered motility in the pathophysiology of symptoms of functional disorders. Combining her expertise in the study of gut motility with that of the team working on the Nobel Prize winning MRI center of Nottingham, she is now working together with Prof Robin Spiller to develop a non-invasive technique to study gut function and to assess the effect of new treatments. Immunotherapy has proven to be effective against many serious diseases. But to treat diseases in the brain, the antibodies must first get past the obstacle of the blood-brain barrier. In a new study, a research group at Uppsala University describes their development of a new antibody design that increases brain uptake of antibodies almost 100-fold. Immunotherapy entails treatment with antibodies; it is the fastest growing field in pharmaceutical development. In recent years, immunotherapy has successfully been used to treat cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, and the results of clinical studies look very promising for several other diseases. Antibodies are unique in that they can be modified to strongly bind to almost any disease-causing protein. In other words, major potential exists for new antibody-based medicines. The problem with immunotherapy for diseases affecting the brain is that the brain is protected by a very tight layer of cells, called the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier effectively prevents large molecules, such as antibodies, from passing from the bloodstream into the brain. It has therefore been difficult to use immunotherapy to treat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, which affect the brain, as well as cancerous tumours in the brain. It has been known for a long time that some large proteins are actively transported across the blood-brain barrier. These include a protein called transferrin, whose primary task is to bind to iron in the blood and then transport it to the brain. The research group behind this new study has taken advantage of this process and modified the antibodies they want to transport into the brain using components that bind to the transferrin receptor. Then, like a Trojan horse, the receptor transports antibodies into the brain. The number of modifications to and placement of the antibodies have proven to be important factors for making this process as effective as possible. Lab Diagnostics & Automation eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today "We've placed them so that each antibody only binds with one modification at a time, despite being modified in two places. Our design thus doubles the chances of the antibody binding to the transferrin receptor compared with only one modification. We've successfully increased the amount of antibodies in the brain almost 100-fold, which is the largest uptake improvement that has ever been shown," says Greta Hultqvist, researcher at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. To try out the new format, researchers have used it on an antibody that binds to a protein involved in the course of Alzheimer's disease. Without the modification, they could only detect very small quantities of antibody in the brain in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, while they could detect high levels of the modified antibody in the same mice. "From a long-term perspective, it's likely that the new format can be used to effectively treat not only Alzheimer's disease, but also other diseases affecting the brain," says Dag Sehlin, researcher at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. Nearly 20 percent of older Americans experience depression and the highest rate of suicide is among older adult Caucasian males. Despite the anticipated growth of mental health needs as the U.S. population ages, there is only one geriatric psychiatrist for every 23,000 older Americans. By 2030, there will only be one geriatric psychiatrist for every 27,000 adults 65 and older. How is the health care system expected to rapidly close this gap for the mental health needs of older adults? A new pocket guide to elder mental health has been written with the express purpose of rapidly teaching all health care professionals the basics of diagnosing and treating mental health disorders in individuals over age 65. The easy to navigate volume is written for primary care doctors and mental health professionals, as well as those in various internal medicine specialties, surgery, nursing and pharmacy. It is also designed to be accessible to family members and caregivers. The book's main purpose is to ensure information critical to the diagnosis and treatment of older adult is accessible to everyone who is involved in caring for an older adult--not just to those with geriatrics training. Is the elder mentally altered due to prescription or over-the-counter drugs which negatively impact the aging brain? Are there sleep problems? Is the elder suffering from post-hospitalization delirium? Does he or she have dementia? "Most older adults are seen by primary care physicians. Too often these busy physicians are juggling the patient's multiple physical problems, and incorrectly diagnose mental health issues as irreversible cognitive impairment," said Sophia Wang, MD, an implementation scientist with the Indiana University Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at IU School of Medicine. "Because dementia is so common in older adults, clinicians may incorrectly diagnose it without ruling out other problems that we know can be reversed -- for example depression, sleep disorders, drug effects or alcohol. Dementia should be the last mental health condition they consider only after ruling out reversible causes of mental illness." "www.hii.iu.edu="">DSM-5 Pocket Guide for Elder Mental Health" by Dr. Wang, a geriatric psychiatrist, and co-author psychiatrist Abraham M. Nussbaum, MD, of Denver Health and University of Colorado, puts easy-to-read information on elder mental health problems and treatment at the fingertips of primary care and other physicians, physician assistants, nurses, social workers as well as family members familiar with the day-to-day activities of the older adult to help secure the correct diagnosis and treatment. The DSM-5, short for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, contains the diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder currently recognized by the U.S. health care system and is considered the bible of mental health diagnosis. The "DSM-5 Pocket Guide for Elder Mental Health," designed to make all healthcare providers comfortable with treating mental health, offers detailed guidance on approaching older adults about mental health issues -- a taboo topic for many seniors. The 400-page, 4.5 by 8-inch guide provides step-by-step instructions on beginning dialogues on depression, substance abuse and suicide as well as diagnostics on these conditions and others including delirium and dementia. It is published by American Psychiatric Association Publishing, a division of the American Psychiatric Association. "Implementation science has shown that dissemination of evidence-based knowledge can influence patient care so that clinicians provide their patients the best possible care," Dr. Wang said. "Ultimately they implement best practices." "Many health care professionals do not receive adequate training in geriatrics mental health. This book closes this gap for busy professionals," said Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, founding director of the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and associate director of the IU Center for Aging Research. "There needs to be increased awareness of geriatric issues in all health care professionals and family members to improve current diagnosis and treatment to the latest standards." Soroka Hospital-Led Study Shows Under-the-Mattress Device Has Accuracy Comparable to Patient-Connected Sleep Testing. EarlySense, the market leader in contact-free continuous monitoring solutions, announced today new research that confirms high accuracy of its home consumer sensor when compared to polysomnography (PSG), the testing process used in clinics around the world to detect sleeping disorders. The peer-reviewed study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, found 92.5% agreement between LIVE by EarlySense and the PSG system. The study, led by Prof. Asher Tal, Head (Emeritus) and founder of the Pediatric Pulmonary Unit and Sleep Center at Soroka Medical Center - Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, evaluated EarlySenses Contact-Free technology for sleep monitoring. Eighty-five nights were compared using both EarlySense and a PSG system, in the sleep lab and at the subjects' homes. "The results of this study confirm that the tested sensor is highly accurate in detecting sleep and wake states relative to polysomnography," said Prof. Tal. "Even under the most challenging conditions, with the subject sharing his or her bed with a partner, the sensor was able to accurately detect individual vital signs and sleep cycles in a non-invasive manner. This technology is well suited for continuous observation of patients in their natural environment. The study noted the advantages of Contact-Free Monitoring when compared to other solutions, including smartphone-based apps that lack validation and actigraphy, which requires a device to be worn on the wrist. Furthermore, the study found that the EarlySense sensor, which is placed under a mattress, was not impaired by environmental factors such as mattress type or having a second person in bed. The results of this study are remarkable, highlighting the clinical accuracy of EarlySenses monitoring technology, which has been previously used by hospitals and is now being adapted for home use. Our technology empowers people to learn more about their sleep and monitor themselves at home in the most comfortable manner, without having to be hooked up to uncomfortable wires. Dr. Zvika Shinar, Chief Scientist Officer of EarlySense This latest study adds to the growing body of research that supports the accuracy of Contact-Free Continuous Monitoring. In addition to its medical solutions for hospitals and nursing homes, EarlySense recently launched LIVE, the first clinically-proven contact free health tracker to be made available to American consumers. Quality of life of patients doing yoga improved, according to the conclusions of Results of a Pilot Yoga Intervention to Improve Pediatric Cancer Patients Quality of Life and Physical Activity and Parents' Well-being. This study, published in the January 2017 issue of Rehabilitation Oncology, concluded: Our findings support the notion that yoga for pediatric cancer patients during active treatment is feasible and potentially helpful in improving both patients' and parents' well-being. It was undertaken by Dr. Andrea D. Orsey and her researcher-colleagues from Connecticut Children's Medical Center, University of Connecticut Hartford School of Medicine, University of Connecticut Storrs, Denmark's LEGO Foundation and Connecticut's Center for Public Health and Health Policy. The yoga sessions in the study were reportedly designed to teach yoga as a form of integrative therapy for pain management, fatigue, stress, anxiety, and overall helpfulness to improve the quality of life. These included breathing, yoga asanas, relaxation, meditation and savasana. The authors wrote: We found preliminary evidence that participating in yoga was associated with increased social and emotional health-related quality of life. Yoga is desired by many patients and their parents, and it appears that it may be helpful. Our study contributes to the growing body of literature suggesting the helpfulness of yoga in the context of pediatric cancer patients. Meanwhile, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, called this study, undertaken by Connecticut and Denmark researchers looking into the possible usage of yoga for pediatric cancer patients, a step in the positive direction. Zed urged all major world schools of medicine to explore various benefits yoga offered. Yoga, referred as a living fossil, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted. Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical. According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a 2016 Yoga in America Study, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added. Writing about the purpose of this study, authors wrote: Yoga is increasingly proving beneficial in improving distress, pain, physical activity, and health-related quality of life in adult patients with cancer. We aimed to study the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a yoga intervention for pediatric cancer patients in active treatment and for their families. Authors also wrote: According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 10,380 children living in the United States younger than 15 years receive a diagnosis of cancer annually. Yoga may be especially helpful for cancer patients, given that it can be practiced anywhere and is easily modifiable to physical limitations by accommodating yoga in a hospital bed, chair, or wheelchair. The growing body of literature suggests that yoga may be helpful for pediatric cancer patients in active treatment. These are the key deals in the Indian banking sector in the recent past, according to data culled from the India Brand Equity Foundation. RBL Bank Limited, an Indian private sector bank, has raised Rs 330 crore ($49.6 million) from a UK-based development finance institution CDC Group Plc, which will help RBL strengthen its capital base to meet future requirements. State Bank of India (SBI), Indias largest bank, signed an agreement with the World Bank for a Rs 4,200 crore ($625 million) credit facility, aimed at financing grid connected rooftop solar photovoltaic (GRPV) projects in India. JP Morgan Chase, the largest bank in United States by assets, plans to expand its operations in India by opening three new branches in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai in addition to its existing branch in Mumbai. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), an investment management company, has bought a large stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd from Japan-based Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Indias first small finance bank called the Capital Small Finance Bank has started its operations by launching 10 branch offices in Punjab, and aims to increase the number of branches to 29. FreeCharge, the wallet company owned by online retailer Snapdeal, has partnered with Yes Bank and MasterCard to launch FreeCharge Go, a virtual card that allows users to pay for goods and services at online shops and offline retailers. Exim Bank of India and the Government of Andhra Pradesh have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote exports in the state. Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited has bought 19.9 per cent stake in Airtel M Commerce Services Limited (AMSL) for Rs 98.38 crore ($14.43 million) to set up a payments bank. AMSL provides semi-closed prepaid instrument and offers services under the Airtel Money brand name. Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd, a microfinance services company, has raised Rs 312.4 crore ($ 45.84 million) in a private placement from 33 domestic investors including mutual funds, insurance firms, family offices and High Net Worth Individuals (HNIs)). India's largest public sector bank, State Bank of India (SBI), has opened its first branch dedicated to serving start-up companies, in Bengaluru. Global rating agency Moody's has upgraded its outlook for the Indian banking system to stable from negative based on its assessment of five drivers including improvement in operating environment and stable asset risk and capital scenario. Lok Capital, a private equity investor backed by US-based non-profit organisation Rockefeller Foundation, plans to invest up to $15 million in two proposed small finance banks in India over the next one year. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted in-principle licences to 10 applicants to open small finance banks, which will help expanding access to financial services in rural and semi-urban areas. IDFC Bank has become the latest new bank to start operations with 23 branches, including 15 branches in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh. The RBI has given in-principle approval to 11 applicants to establish payment banks. These banks can accept deposits and remittances, but are not allowed to extend any loans. The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTMU), a Japanese financial services group, aims to double its branch count in India to 10 over the next three years and also target a 10 per cent credit growth during FY16. The RBI has allowed third-party white label automated teller machines (ATM) to accept international cards, including international prepaid cards, and said white label ATMs can now tie up with any commercial bank for cash supply. New Delhi: Lance Naik Yagya Pratap, who had uploaded a video talking about some jawans allegedly being made to do menial duties in the Army, has been shifted to Bareilly Military Hospital after he abstained from food and was showing "aggressive behaviour". The army also said Pratap has spoken to his wife on mobile on Monday and that he is free to use mobile. They added that Rajput Regimental Centre, where he is posted since December 21 last year, has reached out to the wife of the individual asking her to reach Bareilly Military Hospital so as to confirm welfare of her husband. Army authorities have made arrangements for her stay and interaction with her husband, it said. "The individual since January 14 had abstained from food and was showing aggressive behaviour. With a view to monitor his parameters the individual has been shifted to Bareilly Military Hospital on January 16, as requisite medical facilities do not exist at Fategarh," a statement by the Army said. The development came a day after Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat warned soldiers of possible action if they air their grievances on social media. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 16 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Under an agreement, signed between Georgian and Turkmenistan, the annual transportation of 1.5 million tons of Turkmen oil will be carried out via the Georgian railway corridor, the Georgian media reported. Reporters were informed about the issue by David Chiradze, director of Georgia Transit, a subsidiary of Georgian Railway LLC, and CEO of Caspian Transit Rati Ghvamberia, lenta.ge reported. The agreement was signed for a period of three years and will help for employment at terminals and transport infrastructure in Georgia. A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise & that too allegedly for meeting @MehboobaMufti. What are we coming to!!!!! https://t.co/MFz3ZKykV1 Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) January 16, 2017 : Kashmiri actor Zaira Wasim, who played the younger version of wrestler Geeta Phogat in the Aamir Khan-starrer 'Dangal', apologised on Monday after she was trolled on social media for meeting state Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.Forgive me, I am just sixteen... I want to apologise to all those people who I have unintentionally hurt. People have been hurt by who I meet, she said.The actor has come into the limelight following her role in wrestling drama 'Dangal'.Following her meeting with Mufti, Wasim was trolled online by a group of people who blamed the chief minister over recent unrest in the Valley and demanded that she should apologise for her actions.Former Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah took to twitter to express solidarity with Wasim. "A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise & that too allegedly for meeting @MehboobaMufti. What are we coming to!!!!!," he wrote on twitter."I'm being projected as a role model for Kashmiri youth... I don't want anyone to follow my footsteps. I am not proud of what I am doing," she said.Wasim is going to play the role of a Muslim girl in Aamir Khan's next production 'Secret Superstar'. She wears a burqa to conceal her identity in the film because her father is against her pursuing a career in music. Washington: Indian-American Congresswoman from Seattle, Pramila Jayapal, has announced that she won't attend Donald Trump's inauguration this week, saying the President-elect's "language and actions" undermine America's democracy and its history. "I did not undertake the decision lightly," Jayapal said in a statement yesterday. So far two dozen US lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting Trump's inauguration. "I had hoped in the days following the election that we would see a President-elect who broke from his campaign rhetoric and worked to unite the American people. Instead, we have seen this President-elect continue to use language and take actions that demean our history and our heroes, and undermine our democracy," she said. The only lawmaker to oppose Trump's presidential victory confirmation during the joint session of the Congress early this month, Jayapal alleged that his Cabinet appointments underscore the grave threat to the country that his presidency represents. "Appointments of people such as Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Andrew Pudzer threaten the very fabric of our country and the institutions that these men and women will lead. The continued promises to create a Muslim registry, to repeal DACA, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and punish women for abortions, fly in the face of our 7th District values," she said. Instead of being in Washington DC attending the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump, Jayapal said she would be with her constituents attending a seminar on immigration. "My decision to be here in the district with my constituents who are truly terrified that they will no longer have a home in this city and country was not, at the time, a boycott of the inauguration...I believe my first responsibility is to listen to my constituents and to be with them, through the darkest of times," she said. "If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trump's response to one of our country's great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis. With Donald Trump's tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott," she said. Jayapal said she does understands that she and others are breaking from long-standing tradition of bipartisan attendance at the Presidential inauguration. However, these are not normal times and one cannot pretend it is so, she argued. "If we are worried about breaking from long-standing tradition, let us focus on the fact that when this President is sworn in on January 20, he will be in violation of the Constitution, the very document that he will swear to protect and defend. His disregard for the conflicts of interest he brings into this office, and his refusal to address those conflicts are the break from tradition on which we should focus," Jayapal said. Mumbai: Three people accused in the murder of a Pune techie in 2014 in the aftermath of the controversy over morphed pictures of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray were granted bail by the Bombay High Court last week on grounds that they had no personal enmity against the deceased and that the fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. Mohsin Sadiq Sheikh was killed by a mob allegedly made up of a right-wing group called Hindu Rashtra Sena. On the day of the murder, police say Hindu Rashtra Sena organized a meeting to discuss alleged morphed pictures of Shivaji that were in circulation on social media. HRS leader Dhananjay Desai allegedly incited those present to go on a rampage. As per the prosecution the accused armed with wooden sticks went out on the streets and on spotting Mohsin and his colleague Riyaz on a bike, assaulted them. Riyaz who escaped later said Mohsin was attacked because he was wearing a skull cap and sported a beard. Neither Mohsin nor Riyaz was linked to the alleged derogatory content on social media. The trial in the case is yet to begin and HRS leader Desai has been refused bail. While granting bail to Vikaj Gambhire, Ganesh Yadav and Ajay Lalge, the court observed that the accused had no personal enmity against the deceased. "The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the accused. Moreover the accused do not have any criminal record and it appears that in the name of religion they were provoked and have committed murder," HC judge Mridula Bhatkar observed. "It is apparent that the accused were present at the time of the incident. There are statements of the witnesses and police officer that the accused attended a meeting of Hindu Rashtra Sena on the same day half an hour before the actual incident of assault, the court said. The court, while earlier rejecting Desais bail, had referred to his speech and stated that it was sufficient to incite the feelings of religious discrimination in the crowd. Madurai: The police on Monday lathicharged protesters who organised a Jallikattu (a bull taming event) on the third day of the Pongal festival in Tamil Nadus Madurai district, defying the Supreme Court ban. Violent clashes also erupted between supporters and police after police tried to stop the event in Alanganallur. Police personnel were seen holding the bulls used for the event. According to reports, people gathered in large numbers in the area since morning and carried black flags against the Supreme Court judgment banning the event. The protesters including men and women, have assembled in the town well known for conducting Jallikattu. A large contingent of police personnel have been deployed at the venue to prevent any untoward incidents. In Jallikattu, a bull vaulter is expected to hang on to the bull's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The Supreme Court in May 2014 banned the conduct of Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The court also held that bulls cannot be used as performing animals either for Jallikattu events or for bullock cart races in the Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. Ever since the ban order people have been demanding the central government take necessary legal steps to conduct the sport. (With IANS input) New Delhi: Do Harappan settlements on the Indian side go back as early as 7000 BC or more? National Museum of India, in a first, will start digging at Kunal in Haryana's Fatehabad district to know for sure whether the civilisation there is more ancient than previously believed. National Museum Director General Buddha Rashmi Mani told News18 that they have been motivated by the excavations in Haryana's Bhirana and Pakistan's Mehergarh which showed that settlements in the area were nearly 9000 years old. India's premier museum will take part in the excavations along with Indian Archeological Society (IAS), which is a non-profit organization for archeologists set up by Professor AK Narain and other eminent Indologists in 1967. For the first time, the National Museum will be part of excavations, said Mani, who is also the general secretary of IAS. The two organisations together have signed an MoU with the archeological department of Haryana. Our national museum has never done excavations in the past, but this time we are going to Kunal because Bhirana has given the early dates and the same material has been found in Kunal, it goes back 7000 BC or more. The material is same and excavations further here will confirm the dates, Mani said. He added that Kunal is normally known as Hakra ware culture, which is a Pre-Harappan culture. We would like to find linkages between the Pre-Harappan cultures with the Neolithic Age culture. Earlier excavations in Haryanas other regions have given early dates and excavations in new site will confirm it, he said. Mani, who was also part of Ayodhya excavation, wants to put his experience of archaeology to good use as the DG of National Museum. If you see the list then 2004 onwards this post has been occupied by administrative people. There were no art historians and archaeologists. I am an archaeologist and now our duty is to educate the people. The approval has been given by the Director General Archeological Survey of India and the procedure involves formation of a committee called Central Advisory Board of Archeology that meets every year, even twice a year. It will be funded by IAS. We wrote about this project to the authorities to excavate Kunal, which is the earliest settlement in Harayana. Now that Dr Mani, who is our member, has been transferred to the national museum we have the institute with us too in this task. We will fund it. Money is not a problem and it is going to be a full-fledged excavations, IAS chairman KN Dixit said. It will start with a couple of trenches and expand till March. The main purpose is to find that our civilization is 7000 BC. From the excavations at some areas like Bhirana, we are getting the dates of 7500 BC. So the question is, we want to touch few other sites because with one or two excavations we cannot confirm it, Dixit said. Excavations in Kunal were supposed to start in January 15, but have been delayed till the end of the month due to lack of preparations. The site is large and some parts of it have already been excavated. In Kumal, three successive phases of occupation from pit dwelling to that of square and rectangular mud brick houses came to light and were supposed to be the earliest remains of pre-Harappan culture in India. According to the state archaeology department website there were a hoard of regalia item including six gold beads of a necklace, an armlet and a few bangle pieces and 12445 beads of semi-precious stones. It makes the whole gamut of luxury items as richest when seen in the context of rural nature of settlement of 3000 BC. One of the important contributions of this site is the discovery of steatite and shell seals, which are the earliest example of seal manufacturing in India so far. The results of these excavations were extremely significant given its connect to the Harappan culture of which the world knows precious little. Hyderabad: The students at Hyderabad University campus on Monday commemorated the first death anniversary of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula as 'Rohith Shahadath Din'. The students gathered at the campus under the banner of Joint action Committee (JAC). Various organisations and individuals will also assemble at the "Rohith Stupa" in Veliwada at 2pm, followed by a remembrance rally in the campus. Leading the rally will be Radhika Vemula, Rohith's mother. The event will be a common platform for all the movements that vowed to fight injustice and caste discrimination recently. Also joining the rally will be Mohammad Saifi, brother of Mohammad Akhlaq who was lynched in Dadri for allegedly storing and consuming beef at home, Fatima Nafees, mother of missing JNU student Najeeb who has been missing for months and other dalit families who were thrashed in Una, Gujarat for skinning dead cow. Statement released by Joint action committee said, "On January 17, all those who have suffered at the hands of casteist and communal goons will assemble at the Rohith Stupa to remember his legacy and to vow that the fight will go on. We will gather to let out a collective slogan saying no to caste and communalism." Rohith Vemula's suicide on January 17, 2016 sparked massive protest in the university campus, followed by top political leaders from all parties converging on campus demanding justice. The University administration led by Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile along with central BJP led government were accused of being anti-Dalit and discriminatory that led to Rohith's suicide. The confrontation aggravated on March 22 last year, after Appa Rao returned to campus and angry protesters ransacked his house, after which many students were arrested by police. The Cyberabad police had registered cases against the Vice Chancellor, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and others under SC/ST act. Speaking to media, the Cyberabad police Commissioner said that they are still awaiting for reply from Guntur Collector on Rohith's caste status to finalise investigation in the case. No official permission was granted to students to hold commemorating program. The University administration has also barred entry of outsiders in the campus. Joint action Committee member Munna said, "Students want the entire program to be very peaceful. However, if University administration will not co-operate, there will be a reaction from students." Srinagar: Three terrorist were killed in an encounter by the security forces after an exchange of fire in Pahalgam area of Anantnag district in south Kashmir on Monday morning. Three AK rifles and a large cache of ammunition were recovered from the slain terrorists. On Sunday evening, three men were found roaming suspiciously in the area. The Army was immediately alerted and the area was cordoned off the Awoora village on specific input about presence of terrorists. In an attempt to escape, the terrorists hiding in village fired on security forces, which led to the gunfight. "The jawans managed to kill all three terrorists hiding in the village after 12 hours of gunfight," police said. Bengaluru: At least two people suffered minor injuries as part of a wall collapsed on the rear side of Mantri Mall in Bengaluru on Monday afternoon. The injured were rushed to a nearby hospital for first-aid. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials received a call at 3 pm stating that a portion of a wall had come down on the second floor of the mall. The mall was immediately evacuated and all the shops were shut inside the mall. The BBMP officials and Bangalore police swung into action to take stock of the situation. Bettegowda, BBMP Chief Engineer, West Division, said "The wall may have collapsed due to structural problem. We are yet to investigate the issue. The portion of the wall is not inside the mall but in the rear side of the building." Speaking on the incident, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Monday said, "The occupancy certificate (OC) given to the mall by BBMP has been taken back. The mall owners will have to prove the safety precautions taken by them to obtain the certificate once again. The mall will be shut from now on. Meanwhile, the BBMP has asked for an enquiry about the quality of materials used in the construction of the mall. There is no need for senior leadership to monitor routine administrative issues. It will only encourage more Tej Bahadur Yadavs, says Lieutenant General DS Hooda, the Northern Commander of Indian Army, under whose watch India had carried out the surgical strikes against terror camps in Pak-Occupied Kashmir in September 2016. Last week, the power of the social media struck the Indian Army with a sort of vengeance. Starting with the watery dal episode, video after video appeared of jawans accusing their officers of all kinds of dishonest and belittling behaviour. Media channels jumped in with enthusiasm as they brought in retired jawans to spew venom against a retired Chief of Army Staff. Having recently hung up my uniform, I watched bewildered as media discussions made it known to us, that as officers we had not understood how Dal, Chai, Sahayaks and boot polishing were critical elements of the military character. What about what I have seen and experienced in my 40 years of service? The ethos where officers and men share everything together? The captain who lives, sleeps and eats with his soldiers. He leads patrols and ambushes and dies at their head. He is the first person to step into the dark corridor of the EDI Pampore building, and die in a burst of terrorist fire. Undeterred, the second young officer does the same, and dies. The commanding officer of a Rashtriya Rifles unit, Colonel Santosh Yashwant Mahadik, is killed while leading his men in an operation in North Kashmir. His wife Swati Mahadik decides to continue his legacy. Nine years overage, she seeks exemption, leaves her young children behind and joins as a cadet in OTA. Nobody has seen more sacrifices than we have. A JCO and soldier rush into a volley of AK 47 bullets to rescue an injured comrade. The soldier is martyred and the JCO is today in R&R Hospital, paralysed below the waist. These are stories which define our character. We have great and motivated soldiers because we genuinely care for them. Their food, comfort and welfare is our primary concern. Army life is very, very tough. In Kargil, a soldier walks up to his 19,000 feet-high post in November, gets snowed under, and comes down only in the month of May next year. In these six months he battles the most treacherous of conditions 40 feet snow, -40 degree temperature and the huge sense of isolation. We make sure that he remains motivated and comes down in good shape because he is the most valuable asset of our Army and we need him. Military virtues and values are an indispensable part of our lives because without them, the Army will be unable to function. General John Hackett, in his book The Profession of Arms, has put it very appropriately that military virtues include such qualities as courage, fortitude and loyalty. What is important about such qualities is that they acquire in the military context, in addition to their moral significance, a functional significance as well... Thus while you may indeed hope to meet these virtues in every walk of life in the profession of arms they are functionally indispensable. The program, the group organizations, the whole pattern of life of the professional man-at-arms is designed in a deliberate effort to foster them, not just because they are morally desirable in themselves, but because they are essential to military efficiency. The media story, after having made its TRPs, will disappear into a cloud of Jallikattu. Let it not scar our character. There is no real need for senior leadership to personally monitor routine administrative issues. It will only encourage more Tej Bahadur Yadavs. I am not suggesting that there are no problem areas, but let these be handled at the appropriate level of leadership. Our young officers have done us proud in looking after the needs of our soldiers. Let us also assure the citizens of the country that the organisation is stronger than a few individuals. Have faith in it. (Editors Note: The author recently retired as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, which had launched the surgical strikes against terror camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. Views are personal) @aliaa08 Once u become fearless life becomes limitless. Congratulations to u my little big girl!! pic.twitter.com/Ypn63hPyXp Mahesh Bhatt (@MaheshNBhatt) January 15, 2017 Bravo gorgeous,brave one! This,@aliaa08 is the beginning of many more to come! https://t.co/3Hrmvri7EI Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) January 15, 2017 Veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt congratulated his 'little big girl' Alia Bhatt for her big win at the Filmfare Awards, and gave her some words of wisdom.Alia won the Filmfare Best Actor Award (Female) for her performance as a Bihari immigrant in Udta Punjab. The 62nd Jio Filmfare Awards was held here on Saturday night.Mahesh tweeted: "Alia, once you become fearless life becomes limitless. Congratulations to you my little big girl!"Her sisters Pooja and Shaheen also lauded her skills as an actor, and said that it is the "beginning of many more to come"."Bravo gorgeous, brave one! This Alia is the beginning of many more to come," tweeted the actor-filmmaker Pooja.Besides her family, Alia's colleagues also congratulated her fo the big win.Actress Athiya Shetty posted: "Congratulations to this bundle of talent Alia! Every time I see her perform, I message her saying 'But how?!'. May there be many more."Her Udta Punjab co-star Shahid Kapoor, who won the Best Actor (Male) award, also said that she deserved the award. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.16 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo has arrived in Venezuela, according to the Twitter page of the countrys Ministry of the People's Power of Petroleum and Mining. Barkindo will meet with Venezuelan authorities to exchange views on the oil market, said the ministry. Earlier, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he intends to put forward a new proposal on stabilizing the oil prices. During the Vienna meeting held Nov.30, OPEC members decided to implement a new OPEC-14 production target of 32.5 million barrels per day. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to cut the oil output by 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec.10. Eleven non-OPEC countries agreed to reduce the oil output: Azerbaijan, Kingdom of Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Sultanate of Oman, the Russian Federation, Republic of Sudan, and Republic of South Sudan. OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to implement the reached deal from Jan.1, 2017. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn New Delhi: Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor has opened up about the colourful life of his father, filmmaker Raj Kapoor in his soon-to-be released autobiography, saying he loved his cinema, booze, and his leading ladies. Titled, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored, the tell-all book sees the Bobby actor talking about his father's affairs with co-actors and his passion for films, besides capturing the evolution of their father-son relationship. Rishi practically begins the book talking about his father's affair with yesteryears' actor Nargis Dutt, who together, he writes, continue to be widely acknowledged as the most iconic pair onscreen. "My father, Raj Kapoor, was twenty-eight years old and had already been hailed as the 'showman of Hindi cinema' four years before. "He was also a man in love at the time, unfortunately, with someone other than my mother. His girlfriend was the leading lady of some of his biggest hits of the time, including Aag (1948), Barsaat (1949) and Awara (1951)." Rishi writes that Nargis was Raj Kapoor's "in-house heroine" and was understandably immortalised in the RK Studios emblem. The 64-year-old actor has also shed light on the relationship his father shared with co-star Vyajanthimala, who had denied having an affair with the actor. He writes, "I remember moving into the Natraj Hotel on Marine Drive with my mom during the time Papa was involved with Vyjayanthimala. "From the hotel, we shifted for two months into an apartment in Chitrakoot. My father had bought the apartment for Mom and us. He did all he could to woo her back, but my mother wouldn't give in until he had ended that chapter of his life." He remembers getting "livid" when Vyjayanthimala claimed that his father had "manufactured the romance because of his hunger for publicity". "She had no right to distort facts just because he was no longer around to defend the truth...But I can say with absolute certainty that if Papa had been alive, she wouldn't have denied the affair so blatantly or called him publicity hungry," Rishi writes in the book. In a cheek-in-tongue observation, the Karz actor also reveals his father's fascination for a particular brand of whisky, which he refused to share. "My father loved his cinema, his booze, his leading ladies and his work. But for a man legendary for his hospitality, he was very possessive of his whisky. "When we started drinking together, for him it was always Johnny Walker Black Label bought in London, while we were served locally procured whisky," he writes, adding that "heaps of unopened Black Label bottles stashed away in his cupboards" were recovered after Raj Kapoor passed away. Much like his own relationship with son Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi too shared a bond with his father that was one of reverence. He says that it evolved from being driven by fear to one laden with "an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing". "When I finally got over the fear of my father, it was replaced by an indescribable love and respect that just kept growing, especially after I had the opportunity to work closely with him. "For me, Raj Kapoor was both father and guru, the person who taught me everything I know about my craft. I worked with him in three movies the most for any actor after Nargis-ji," he writes in the book. A little while later, Akhilesh came up with a grand statement. Mulayamji is still my leader. We will contest polls in his name, he said. Their contention is that Mulayam was getting increasingly wary of his brother Shivpal Yadavs political ambitions and had decided to settle things once and for all in the party. Now with Akhilesh emerging organically as the undisputed leader of SP, his image as a forward-looking young leader breaking the shackles of old satraps, the present and the future of SP is settled for once and all. Also, just why didnt Mulayam question the numbers claimed by Ram Gopal Yadav before the EC while they openly challenged it in the public will remain a million dollar question for all those who sat through the twists and turns of this family drama. Immediately after he won the war for Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav walked into 5, Kalidas Marg, along with his Lok Sabha MP wife Dimple Yadav, to meet his father Mulayam Yadav. While what transpired in their conversation is not known, it was in line with the image that Akhilesh had kept up all through the months of the bitter war: that of an obedient son who sincerely felt his father was being misled by outsiders.Soon, Mulayam returned the compliment by congratulating Akhilesh.Incidentally, only a few hours ago, while addressing party workers in Lucknow, Mulayam had thrown the ultimate challenge that he will contest against Akhilesh if need be. He (Akhilesh) is hobnobbing with BJP and our other rivals. We will contest polls, we will seek peoples help against Akhilesh. I tried to convince him but he is not realizing his mistakes, Mulayam had said.The jury is out on what shape the father-son relationship will take now given the cinematic twists and turns in the last three months, but the goings-on have lend credence to one of the many conspiracies: that Mulayam had war-gamed it all from the beginning so that his son will get complete command of the party.The argument that its proponents throw in to buttress their theory lies in the last few paras of the official Election Commission notification handing over the Cycle symbol to Akhilesh.Except for the above vague allegation Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav group despite repeated opportunities given it to it as above, neither filed any affidavit from any member nor indicated even the name of one member whose affidavit was considered by him to be suspect, or questioned the above numbers claimed by Shri Ram Gopal Yadav either on 13th January, 2017 at the time of hearing or at any time thereafter.At the hearing, the learned counsel for his group wanted to make a mountain of a mole hill by referring to the typographical mistake of the word 'help' instead of the word 'held' in some of the affidavits filed by the other groups. But he had no answer when a more glaring mistake was pointed out to him by the learned counsel for the other group in the letter dated 3rd January, 2017 of Shri Amar Singh where he had stated in the concluding para that I refute my point on the illegibility of January 01, 2017 convention of Samajwadi Party and unconstitutionality of the resolution passed thereby.Did Amar Singh really meant refute, in which case, there is no argument left because it would mean the Mulayam faction had no issue whatsoever with the January 1 convention where Akhilesh captured the party. Or was it a typo as the EC seems to be hinting?The Mulayam faction has indicated they will go to court challenging the EC order, but we may not have heard the last of the out-of-court twists in this intriguing family soap opera. Lucknow: In a new twist to the Samajwadi Party drama, patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav told SP workers that he will field candidates against rebelling son Akhilesh Yadav's candidates in the state assembly polls slated to begin next month. Mulayam made this statement at a meeting with party workers in Lucknow with the media in attendance. "He (Akhilesh) is hobnobbing with BJP and our other rivals. We will contest polls, we will seek peoples help against Akhilesh. I tried to convince him but he is not realizing his mistakes, Mulayam said. And in what could hurt the political prospects of the Akhilesh faction that is gearing up to face the polls in a coalition with Congress and Ajit Singhs RLD, Mulayam also said that Akhilesh is now reaching out to BJP and because of him people have started thinking SP is anti-Muslim. Muslims constitute 19% of the states population and is one of the biggest votebases for SP even earning Mulayam the nickname Maulana Mulayam. The Akhilesh faction had earlier accused Mulayam faction leaders Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh of trying to create fissures within the SP on instructions from BJP president Amit Shah. The Akhilesh faction hoping that an alliance with Congress will bring the community en masse into their fold, brightening their prospects in the polls. New Delhi: A day before the Elections Commission is to adjudicate on Samajwadi Party feud for party symbol, a key protagonist in the drama has left the country for a good two and a half months. Amar Singh, the "outsider" who has been blamed by UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav for the intra-party divisions has left for Singapore and London. In a terse statement before departure, the close aide of Mulayam Singh Yadav said he was "undergoing treatment in London but was summoned due to the developments here, now going back to complete my treatment". Interestingly, during over the last one week, as the warring factions took the fight to the election commission laying claims for the symbol Amar Singh was conspicuous by his absence. Mulayam on the day of hearing at the commission was accompanied instead by his brother Shivpal Yadav and his old time aide and former Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ambika Chawdhary. A section in the SP feels that Mulayam Singh has asked Amar Singh to maintain a low profile for now. Keeping RS MP away from the fray during elections can help Mulayam to neutralize the intra party discourse in which Akhilesh camp has projected Singh as the chief architect of the family feud. Singh's departure has also raised a few eyebrows in the CM camp as the last time around, Singh left for London, Mulayam unanimously announced candidates for 325 seats ignoring any claims by his son. Interestingly, before his trip to London, Amar Singh had dashed down to Lucknow for a day and had held talks with both Mulayam and Shivpal Yadav. He was back in Delhi after Akhilesh camp retaliated sacking him from the party at the emergency national convention held on the new-year day in Lucknow. A resolution in the convention also removed Shivpal as state president while replacing Mulayam as party head with Akhilesh Yadav himself. Amar Singh has since believed to have played a crucial role in arranging the legal aid for the beleaguered patriarch in his fight for the party symbol. During a regular visit 2 DSTPS, DurgapurAs usual, aggressive TMC goons stone pelting&trying to break my car @amitshah @rajnathsingh Babul Supriyo (@SuPriyoBabul) January 16, 2017 BJP MP and Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Babul Supriyo's convoy came under attack from "TMC goons" during his visit to Durgapur Steel and Thermal Power station, alleged the MP in a tweet.The minister escaped unhurt.Supriyo alleged there was no response from the local police though a CISF senior official had informed them after seeing the "huge gathering of aggressive TMC supporters at the gate"."The CISF commander had requested local police for help but there was no response from the police," Supriyo alleged.District police officials did not elaborate on the incident but said they are looking into the matter.On January 4, over 100 Trinamool Congress workers had staged a protest outside the house of Supriyo in Kolkata demanding his arrest in the Rose Valley chit fund scam.He was targeted for the second time after Trinamool Congress MPs Tapas Paul and Sudip Bandyopadhyay were arrested for their alleged involvement in the scam. Paul had dragged Supriyo's name into the investigation, saying "he was very close to Kundu (Rose Valley boss)".Angry TMC workers also carried out an attack on an office of the BJP in Hooghly after Paul and Bandyopadhyay's arrest. Bengaluru: A Congress MP arguing on behalf of a BJP MP, in a case against a Congress-ruled government, will probably be something thats quite rare. Yet thats exactly what has happened in a trial in the Supreme Court a trial that has embarrassed the Congress government in Karnataka, the largest state where it is in power. (Of course, it may reinforce our collective belief that all is well with Indian politics!) On a serious note, the case is a rather sensitive one one related to the akrama-sakrama scheme of the government, a scheme that allows regularisation of construction violations and building bye-laws to a particular extent by paying a penalty. Its also a scheme that the High Court has given a go-ahead to, and which was earlier proposed and supposed by Opposition parties in the State like the BJP and the JDS. The case has been taken to the Supreme Court by Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrashekar, whose organisation the Namma Bengaluru Foundation filed a special leave petition in the SC. Chandrashekar is also vice-chairman of the BJP-led NDA in Kerala. The legal eagle representing him in the apex court was AICC spokesperson and Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Singhvis pleadings ensured the case was converted to a civil appeal. The SC also granted interim protection that no applications made under Sakrama shall be processed, in effect granting a stay on the operation of the scheme until the appeal is heard by the court, says a message from Chandrashekars office. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike and the Karnataka government requested that hearings be expedited, but that was not allowed. What has taken aback the Congressmen in the State is that their own MP represented against them. AICC spokesperson and working president in the Karnataka Congress Dinesh Gundu Rao, who says he wasnt aware Singhvi was representing the opposite party until Sunday, is on the defensive: As a lawyer, a professional, they can take up issues, its between him and the client. And it is not against the party or any political leader here. Its about a scheme. But we didnt know he was representing in this case until we read about it in the papers. We will discuss with him now, says Rao. Calling it not a serious offence, Rao says the petition coming from Chandrashekar is more confusing as the BJP had supported this scheme all along. We dont know whether this is his personal stand or that of his party, he says. Some background: In 2010, Singhvi had faced flak for appearing in a case related to a lottery scam that the Kerala Congress had taken up a campaign against. He had been reprimanded by the party high-command at the time, even barred by being spokesperson briefly. He later withdrew from the case. Congressman Brijesh Kalappa, who used to be legal advisor to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah until last week, also says the party never realised they were up against their own MP in the Supreme Court. He is not barred from taking up cases, but he perhaps didnt know it is such a sensitive case. If we had known earlier, we would have requested him to not appear, says Kalappa. The damage though, is already done, with an order thats not favourable to the State. And this is just one of a long series of legal setbacks -- it has not got favourable verdicts in the Cauvery and Mahadayi river water-sharing issues in different courts, it's steel flyover project has suffered a stay these past two months, and this one on 'Sakrama' looks to be another long-haul legal battle. Last weekend, poll-bound Amritsar was home to a family reunion.Harshita and Pulkit along with their mother Sunita joined their father Arvind Kejriwal in Punjabs holy city as he gears up for one of his biggest political battles yet.Harshita, a third year student of chemical engineering in IIT Delhi, and brother Pulkit, a class Xth student, joined AAPs footsoldiers for their door-to-door campaign in Amritsar. They arrived in Amritsar on Friday night with their mother Sunita.Arvind Kejriwal's daughter Harshita interacts with a party worker in Amritsar. (Photo: CNN-News18)After a six-hour push on the streets for AAP, Pulkit feels the response is good. Sabhi bol rahe the jhadu, jhadu, aap ko toh bolne ke zaroorat nahi... Sabhi change ke liye hope kar rahen hai... jitwayenge majority se, badlenge Punjab (Every one was chanting AAP-AAP, all seem to want change. They were saying we will make AAP win with majority, change Punjab).At the house of Dr Inderbir Singh Gujjar, AAP candidate from Amritsar (South) where Kejriwal's family will be staying the night, the conversation is all about the campaign.Harshita feels that a few were pessimistic but if you generally say the truth they agree.On Sunday, Harshita, Sunita and Pulkit, were with Kejriwa as he hit the road traversing the border areas and addressed nukkad sabhas in Amritsar. (Photo: CNN-News18)If you refer to Delhi Government and give examples of initiatives taken, they seem to agree and get convinced. They are willing to give chance to a new party, she tells News18.Kejriwals hectic schedule leaves him with little time for his family but Pulkit has no complaints. Whenever he gets time, he spends it with us, we make good use of it. We go to see movies, he says.Like his father and sister, Pulkit too hopes to make it to the IIT. But he says he is wary of politics. It is a very dirty thing, Pulkit says.An elderly person interacts with Harshita Kejriwal in Amritsar on Monday. (Photo: CNN-News18)But has deep respect for his fathers choice. Speaking of his father as a father would speak of a son, We are proud of him that he has taken the initiative and is giving it all. Everyone says we need change, but no one makes the effort ...he has taken a start of bringing honest people together and make India better, says the son.Is politics an option? Harshita says: No, I like campaigning, I like following things but have no intention of joining politics.On Sunday, Harshita, Sunita and Pulkit, were with Kejriwal as he hit the road traversing the border areas and addressed nukkad sabhas. As election dates draw close, Pulkit admits he feels tense hoping Papa will be able to make a change. New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has upstaged his father Mulayam Singh and won the battle for party symbol, with the Election Commission deciding Cycle in favour of Akhilesh. Election Commission says group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use the Bicycle symbol There is a now a possible talk of alliance with Congress. As it happened. Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here. The Akhilesh faction, led by Ram Gopal Yadav had submitted signed affidavits of 212 MLAs, 15 MPs and 56 MLCs to the EC supporting the Uttar Pradesh chief minister as their leader. Mulayam had alleged the signatures were forged, but he couldnt substantiate his charges before the EC. The Commission now applied the test of majority to determine whom to give the symbol as propounded in Sadiq Alis case (A 1972 case in which the Supreme Court had held that in matters of disputes among splinter groups of a party, the test of majority support among the members of the organizational and legislature wing of the party is the critical test to decide the dispute.) After hearing arguments from both sides of the Samajwadi factions represented by some of the finest legal brains in the country the Election Commission zeroed in on just one factor: the numbers. And Akhilesh Yadav bicycled home comfortably.Eminent lawyer Mohan Parasaran while appearing for Mulayam Singh Yadav, had submitted that EC should apply the test of functionality to authenticate which faction was adhering to the party constitution.However, the EC held that neither faction had adhered to the party constitution while taking decisions, and rejected Parasarans plea.From here on, it was shoo-in for Akhilesh given the brutal majority he enjoyed within SP.The only way out for the Mulayam faction was to prove that the signatures submitted before EC were forged. However, Mulayams army of lawyers could not present any proof in support of the SP patriarchs arguments.Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav, with his reply dated 9th January, 2017, did not file any affidavit (except his own affidavit) of any member of Parliament or State Legislature or of any delegates; nor did he make claim of any support among the aforesaid category of members for his group, inspite of the fact that he had been specifically directed by the above said letter dated 4th January 2017 to file all such affidavits in support of his claim, said the EC notification.According to EC, Akhilesh won the test of majority with the support of 205 out of 228 MLAs, 56 out of 68 MLCs, and 15 out of 24 MPs (both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha). The UP CM also enjoyed the support of 28 out of 46 National Executive members of the SP, 4,400 out of 5731 national convention delegates and 4716 out of 5731 total delegates. Amazon will create well over 7,500 temporary jobs for its upcoming sale, and these positions will mostly be in logistics to ensure smooth deliveries.Amazon.in will host its 'Great Indian Sale' between January 20-22, 2017."We have opened more than 7,500 seasonal roles for our upcoming Great Indian Sale. These roles will be available at 27 Fulfilment Centres, over 100 delivery stations and close to 15 sort centres across the country," Amazon India Vice President India Customer Fulfilment Akhil Saxena told .Read more: After Indian Flag Doormat, Amazon Now Sells Mahatma Gandhi Chappal He added that throughout the year, Amazon.in generates thousands of seasonal job opportunities, as well as opportunities for long-term career development."Recruitment for seasonal roles is now underway and will be trained for the upcoming sale. We are excited to welcome these new personnel," he said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.16 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Proof of cuts to oil production by OPEC and non-OPEC countries, or the lack thereof, will likely only become available in February, according to the analysis of the US JP Morgan bank. Three OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria have reportedly cut production below the level required by the November agreement, said JP Morgan. Arguably these states were crucial to the negotiations that forged the deal last year and are keen to demonstrate not just compliance but production cuts that go beyond the agreed level. Notably, JP Morgan Emerging Markets research estimates that Saudi Arabia has the fiscal capacity to lower production beyond that which was agreed with OPEC in November for 2017. More broadly, comments from producers, both within OPEC and those countries that have committed to concurrent production cuts, indicate that progress is being made to reduce output in line with our expectations, said the analysts. On Jan.21-22, there will be the first meeting of the monitoring committee in Vienna and JP Morgan expects the focus of the meeting will be to assess what additional measures of oversight are needed, and or possible, to supplement reporting by national governments, rather than assessing the actual level of production. During the Vienna meeting held Nov.30, OPEC members decided to implement a new OPEC-14 production target of 32.5 million barrels per day. It was also decided to establish a High-level Monitoring Committee, consisting of oil ministers, and assisted by the OPEC Secretariat, to monitor the implementation of the agreement. Later, non-OPEC countries agreed to cut the oil output by 558,000 barrels per day during the meeting held Dec.10. Eleven non-OPEC countries agreed to reduce the oil output: Azerbaijan, Kingdom of Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Sultanate of Oman, the Russian Federation, Republic of Sudan, and Republic of South Sudan. OPEC and non-OPEC countries pledged to implement the reached deal from Jan.1, 2017. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn The government has launched a mobile app called 'SEZ India' that provides detailed information about the country's special economic zones, an official statement said on Sunday.Launched earlier this month under the Centre's e-Governance initiatives, "the app would help the SEZ units and developers to find information easily and track their transactions on SEZ Online System," a Commerce Ministry release here said."Developers and units can now file all their transactions digitally through SEZ Online system and track the status through the SEZ India mobile app," it said.The app, which is available on Android platform, has four sections - SEZ Information, SEZ Online Transaction, Trade Information and Contact Details.The SEZ online transaction is a dynamic submenu that tracks the Bill of Entry and Shipping Bill processing status, besides performing verification."The app also helps the Importers/Exporters track the status of Bill of Entry/Shipping Bill integration and processing," the statement said. Washington: Donald Trump enters the White House embroiled in scandal, in a pitched battle with the intelligence services and news media, and facing a world on fire. Among the many challenges the president-elect will face after his inauguration on Friday, the most urgent may be to steady the ship. Even before being sworn in, he is facing a Congressional investigation into possible collusion between Russia and his election campaign. Fearing an asterisk is being painted next to his historic victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump has gone on the offensive. The incoming Republican leader has lashed out at "sleazebag political operatives," the intelligence services -- whom he compared to Nazis -- and the media, reprising campaign tactics that played well with his base. But add to that serious allegations of nepotism, legal problems over his business interests, the ill-preparedness of some of his cabinet nominees and a fracas over health care reform that has left Republicans in disarray, and the picture gets even bleaker. The image of "Teflon Don" -- who as a candidate rode out scandal like no one else in modern political history -- is taking on water. Quite aside from the cost in time and energy of fighting on multiple fronts, the crises appear to be eroding his credibility, the base currency of any presidency. His approval rating stands at 44 percent, according to a Gallup poll -- the lowest level of support for any incoming president since the organization began doing the surveys in the Clinton era. In the corresponding period before his presidency, Barack Obama enjoyed an 83 percent rating. That unpopularity will make it much easier for allies to bolt. Republican lawmakers up for re-election or in moderate states and districts are unlikely to go to bat for a deeply unpopular president. Senator Marco Rubio -- a former Trump rival for the Republican presidential nomination -- is already openly raising the prospect he could oppose Trump's pick for secretary of state, oil executive Rex Tillerson. Republican governors are also balking at plans to repeal Obamacare, and all the time Trump's victory is being called into question. A massive "Women's March on Washington" is planned for Saturday, the day after his inauguration. With this kind of sentiment swirling, Trump may be the first president to enter the White House with a bunker mentality. Peppering the first 100 days of his administration with populist legislation and executive actions would help stem the bleeding -- as would avoiding unnecessary fights. - Keep the band together - To help him run the country, Trump has turned to a disparate group of family members, generals, billionaires and establishment Republicans -- few of whom have any White House experience. The CEO-turned-commander-in-chief sees his freewheeling style as an asset. It will have a massive impact on how his decisions are framed. A variety of opinions inside the White House can be constructive, or fuel turf wars and jockeying for influence that can split the house asunder. Will Trump's daughter Ivanka or her husband Jared Kushner be the last person in the room? Will it be conservatives like Vice President Mike Pence or hard-right ideologues like chief strategist Steve Bannon? - Strongmen - Trump, like Obama, will take office at a time when rival regional powers are gaining more clout and are not afraid to use it. Preserving US primacy will be a full-time job. In Russia, Vladimir Putin may be the strongest leader since Leonid Brezhnev, as he aggressively tries to renegotiate the terms of the end of the Cold War. Putin's effort to re-establish Moscow's influence in Syria already hobbled the Obama administration. A similar Russian drive in Afghanistan, Libya or eastern Europe could pose serious problems for Trump's bid to smooth relations. Meanwhile, the president-elect has taken a more bellicose stance toward China, at just the time Beijing is feeling more assertive. Whereas Mao Zedong transformed Chinese society, and Deng Xiaoping made the country an economic power, current leader Xi Jinping wants to make China a diplomatic and military force. Trump and Xi's rival ambitions dramatically raise the possibility that various disputes -- from Taiwan to currency rates to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea -- could become flashpoints. - Allies - Few have been more perturbed by Trump's election than America's traditional allies. Trump has questioned the value of both NATO -- calling it "obsolete" in an interview with the German tabloid Bild and The Times of London published Sunday -- and Washington's treaty obligations to help secure allies in Asia, which underpin the global order. "Trump has long believed the United States is being taken advantage of by its allies," said Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution. "He would prefer that the United States not have to defend other nations, but, if it does, he wants to get paid as much as possible for it." So far, most -- including Britain and Japan -- have adopted a strategy of engagement, getting close to Trump in order to win his ear. - Situation room - Every president will endure surprise national security crises, but perhaps the biggest foreign crisis facing Trump is well known -- North Korea. The country has been working feverishly to fuse two lethal technologies, a ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States and a miniaturized nuclear device to be its apocalyptic payload. Trump has already painted that as a red line. "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It won't happen!" he tweeted. Making sure of that will be far more difficult. Sanctions against North Korea have had limited impact and Trump's hostility to China would seem to forestall any help from Beijing in squeezing Pyongyang. He could turn to more dramatic responses, from disabling North Korean weapons systems by cyberattack, airstrikes or invasion. "Trump will hear siren calls to launch a preventive war," said Leon Sigal of the Social Science Research Council. But that would mean trusting US intelligence. "For a president who, as a candidate, repeatedly criticized US military intervention abroad and was skeptical of alliances," Sigal said, "that option might be particularly unpalatable." The new first family is a tight-knit celebrity clan, wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most Americans and well used to the public eye.Here is a breakdown on the 45th US president's nearest and dearest:Brought up in Slovenia, Donald Trump's third wife is the first foreign-born US first lady in two centuries: England's Louisa Adams was the last from 1825-1829.A former model who speaks five languages, Melania makes only fleeting public appearances but has stood by her man, dismissing as "boy talk" his boasts of groping women just months into their marriage. Melania Trump, right, looks on as her husband President-elect Donald Trump talks to reporters during a New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago (Photo: AP)Unusually she is not moving straight into the White House, staying in New York at least until the couple's 10-year-old son Barron finishes the school year.It is unclear how public a role she will play, though she promises to be a "traditional" first lady "like Jackie Kennedy" and says she wants to advocate against internet bullying and to help women in poverty.She came under fire for plagiarizing Michelle Obama in a speech last July and suffers lackluster approval ratings compared to the sky-high popularity of the outgoing first lady.Eyebrows were also raised over nude modeling in the past and US media have questioned whether she worked illegally after first arriving in America. She was mocked for her strong accent at the American Music Awards.Born Melanija Knavs in then Yugoslavia, she modeled in Paris and Milan before becoming a US citizen in 2006, a year after marrying Trump.Trump's 35-year-old daughter Ivanka is moving to Washington, suggesting that America can expect a prominent first daughter: businesswoman, mother-of-three and favorite child of the incoming president.No formal role has been announced, but with husband Jared heading to the White House as special advisor and the couple swapping Park Avenue for the capital's swanky Kalorama district, expect her to take on hostessing duties and first lady style causes.During the campaign she was a key surrogate among women and called for affordable childcare and equal pay -- championing traditionally Democratic Party causes.She is a conduit to her father, particularly across the aisle, but has come under fire for sitting in on a meeting with the Japanese prime minister and for conflict of interest fears since the election.Lawyers say she will step down as vice president of the Trump Organization and from direct running of her eponymous fashion company to focus on settling her young children into Washington.Beautiful, well-dressed and polished, she posts glossy photographs of her family to 2.1 million Instagram followers, maintaining a carefully curated public image.Considered charming and intelligent with a degree from the Wharton School of Finance, she has been one half of a New York power couple for years. Even Chelsea Clinton is, or at least was, a friend.Ivanka's husband, the 36-year-old baby-faced property developer and magazine publisher has risen stratospherically to become one of the most powerful men in government with a starring role in his father-in-law's White House.The Jewish Orthodox grandson of Holocaust survivors, he is considered a calming influence on Trump. Despite concerns about nepotism, his lawyer says he will "divest substantial assets" to comply with federal guidelines.Credited with being the brains behind Trump's election, the multi-millionaire scion of a New Jersey family of Democrats married Ivanka in 2009.Discreet and unflinchingly loyal, Kushner says he underwent a political transformation after seeing Trump's groundswell of support, defending him against alleged racism and anti-Semitism.He moved the family real estate business into Manhattan after his father was jailed for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.Trump's two eldest sons are officially staying in New York and running the Trump Organization in their father's absence. Technically they are not supposed to discuss business with their father but his refusal to divest completely from the sprawling group has been slammed by an ethics watchdog.Don Jr., 39, has described his father as his best friend and like his sister studied at the Wharton School of Finance.His speech at the Republican National Convention sparked speculation that the father of five may seek a political career of his own one day.Eric, 33, has griped about having to cease fundraising for his charitable foundation over fears about impropriety and conflict of interest.The brothers have courted controversy as hunters, after posing for photographs with dead animals during a trip to Zimbabwe.Their wives, Vanessa and Lara respectively, also worked the campaign trail, particularly Lara who put in the hours in her home state of North Carolina.Tiffany, 23, is Trump's daughter from his second marriage and reportedly named after Tiffany & Co. the jewelry store next door to Trump Tower. Son of Donald Trump, Barron Trump (R) and half sister Tiffany Trump (Reuters)She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and released music track "Like a Bird" in 2011, listened to on YouTube by nearly one million people.Brought up in California, she has modeled and is reportedly eying up Harvard Law School.Youngest child Barron lives at home and goes to school in New York.Trump is America's first twice-divorced president.Trump began an affair with actress Marla Maples, 53, while still married. They wed in 1993 and divorced six years later. Maples moved to California.Ivana, his Czech-born first wife, is a former model, skier and businesswoman, who divides her time between New York and Europe.The 67-year-old is best known for coming up with Trump's nickname "The Donald." They divorced in a blaze of tabloid scandal in 1992. Paris: Sending a forceful message to Israel's prime minister and the incoming Trump administration, dozens of countries called on Israel and the Palestinians to revive work toward long-elusive peace, including an independent Palestinian state. The closing declaration at a Mideast peace conference in Paris urged both sides to "officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution" and disassociate from voices that reject this. It also warned them against taking one-sided actions that could hurt talks, an apparent reference to Israeli settlement building. While the Palestinians welcomed Sunday's declaration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the conference "rigged" and cooked up behind Israel's back to force it to accept conditions against national interests. The French organisers argued the conference was necessary to keep hopes alive for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, the solution favoured by the international community for the past two decades. Many members of Netanyahu's coalition want to abandon the two-state solution and expand settlements, and some have even called for annexing parts of the West Bank. Trump's campaign platform made no mention of Palestinian independence. In a nod to Israel, the final declaration of today's conference included criticism of incitement and "terror", a reference to Palestinian attacks. And some of the pro-Palestinian language in an earlier draft was removed after diplomats huddled in Paris today. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been increasingly critical of Netanyahu, represented the US at today's talks and defended the effort. He rejected Israeli criticism of the conference, saying the concept of a two-state solution to the conflict is "threatened" and must be reinforced if it is ever to happen. The communique, he said, endorses that without imposing a resolution. "Given where things are going and what is happening, that is particularly important," he said. He also warned that it's too early to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem, as proposed by US President-elect Donald Trump. "This is not the right time," he said. "We think it's ill-advised." Trump's administration did not take part in the meeting. While Netanyahu has voiced support for a two-state solution, his critics, including Kerry, have said that continued settlement construction on occupied territories raises questions about his commitment to pursuing a peace deal. Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said today's statement amounted to a rejection of Israel's occupation and settlement construction in captured territories. He said it sent a message that Israel "cannot achieve peace and stability" without ending its occupation. Washington: The wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter was arrested Monday by the FBI, a U.S. law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official said Noor Salman was taken into custody Monday morning in the San Francisco area and is due in court Tuesday in California. She's facing charges in Florida including obstruction of justice. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Noor Salman moved to the San Francisco area after her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. He was the only shooter, and by the time a three-hour standoff between Mateen and law enforcement had ended, 49 patrons were killed and another 53 people required hospitalization. Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group during the standoff. Prior to the attack on Pulse, a handful of other U.S. gay bars had been targeted, including Neighbours, a popular gay nightclub in Seattle. It was packed with New Year's Eve revelers on Dec. 31, 2013, when a man poured gasoline on a carpeted stairway and set it ablaze. No one was injured; Masub Masmari was sentenced to 10 years in prison for arson. Channeling the oratory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a celebration held Sunday in the iconic civil rights activists honor became a rousing sermon on the need to move forward in the face of challenges. Dr. King was a man of action, Oneal C. Sandidge said. He moved so we could be where we are today. But we cannot stop. We cannot end right now. We have to keep moving. The Amherst County Branch NAACP and Scott Zion Baptist Church in Madison Heights presented the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration event Sunday. Sandidge, a Christian educator who has a long relationship with the Amherst County NAACP, was the event's keynote speaker. According to the events program, Sandidge was commissioned as a child by the organization to attend a predominately white elementary school in the county during the 1960s. He would be the only black student in his class at Elon Elementary School and one of less than 20 black children in the entire school, the program states. In a speech laced with biographical information about Kings life, Sandidges message was the need to keep moving in spite of adversity, and God has a plan for people. A Baptist minister, King led the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955. The boycott was sparked by the arrest of seamstress and secretary of the Montgomery NAACP Rosa Parks, famously known for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. In 1957, King was a founder and served as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a position he held until his death. After his arrest in 1963 for ignoring an injunction barring protests, King penned his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written in response to a group of white clergymen who described the demonstrations as unwise and untimely. In the letter, he explained he was in Birmingham because injustice is here. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed, King wrote. The same year as the letter, King and other civil rights activists, led the iconic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech. King was gunned down in 1968 at age 39. Kings motto was we shall not be moved, Sandidge said. Dr. Kings mandate was first to preach the gospel. What we call a radical social gospel a gospel changing the world, he said. Among those attending Sundays event was Amherst County Sheriff E.W. Viar Jr. and Ned Kable, chairman of the Amherst County Democrats. The NAACP is here for one reason only, and that is to eradicate racial barriers and seek equality for all people, Amherst County Branch NAACP President Gloria Witt said. Witt spoke to any lingering disappointments concerning the U.S. presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump will be the president, she said, and we need to step up, and take care of ourselves, and help him move the agenda forward. Booing is not going to solve the problem. Checking out is definitely not going to solve the problem. If you ever wanted to stand, this is it. This is the moment to stand. A member of the Amherst County School Board and the Amherst County NAACP, Priscilla Liggon said after the event King is still alive in her spirit because if it hadnt been for him, some of these things were enjoying now wouldnt have happened. According to the Rev. Gary Lee, pastor of Scott Zion Baptist Church, Kings mission and dream still is unfinished. Weve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go He gave us a powerful blueprint on how to make change in our country, Lee said. Oil prices were down on Monday due to doubts that large crude producers will reduce production as promised and on expectations that U.S. production would increase again this year, Reuters reported. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 32.5 million bpd from Jan. 1 in an attempt to clear global oversupply that has depressed prices for more than two years. Russia and other key exporters outside OPEC have said they will also cut output. But global oil production remains high and, with inventories near record levels in many areas, investors doubt that OPEC and its allies can trim output enough to push up prices. Benchmark Brent crude oil LCOc1 was down 4 cents a barrel at $55.41 by 11:14 a.m. EST and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 was down 10 cents at $52.27 a barrel. BAD DRIVE MURDER Bachan was shot several times. Her distraught husband, of eight years, Vidal Lutchman, barely escaped with his life - having been shot in his right arm - but now has to live as a widower. In an interview with Newsday yesterday Lutchman said the only thing that is on his mind at the moment is that neither he, nor their two children, ages, one and seven, would ever see Bachan again. I just want my wife back, said an emotional Lutchman, If I could get my wife back, I would be the happiest man in the world. Right now, I am the saddest man in the world. I am thankful that I could still come home and see my two children, because if I did not accelerate while we were being shot at, I would have been dead as well. Newsday was told yesterday that Bachan and Lutchman had left their Chandee Lane, El Socorro home at about 11 pm on Saturday to take a late night bath in Carenage, then on their way back home, get something to eat. Newsday understands that this was a common practice for the couple, however on Saturday Bachan complained of feeling ill. Lutchman told Newsday yesterday that while they were on their way home, driving along the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, they almost came into contact with a silver Audi vehicle, which stopped suddenly in front Lutchmans vehicle. Lutchman then overtook the vehicle and proceeded along the highway. However, moments after they heard gunshots ring out. Bullets just started to pass, said Lutchman, At first we thought that it was our car, because it was giving trouble, then we heard more bullets hit the trunk of our car. The car pulled up alongside us and someone started shooting the glass of the left back door. I sped up and went straight to the hospital. He rushed Bachan to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, but despite the best efforts of the medical staff on duty, she succumbed to her wounds. Lutchman was also treated by doctors at the hospital, having suffered a gunshot wound to his right arm. Newsday understands that Lutchman was interviewed by homicide detectives during the course of yesterday. Relatives yesterday described Bachan as a loving and caring child, and the youngest of seven children. They also described the relationship between Bachan and Lutchman as a strong and loving one. Relatives expressed shock while speaking to Newsday. I didnt believe it when I heard that she had been shot, said Gobin Bachan, the father of the deceased. I didnt think that she would have been shot while driving in a car. I just find this very strange. We want justice, but we are leaving things in the Lords hands, because we are Christians. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 Trend: Azerbaijani Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms & Communications (IITKM) and Microsoft Azerbaijan signed a memorandum of cooperation on Jan. 16. The document was signed by the Centers Executive Director Vusal Gasimli and Sarkhan Hashimov, head of Microsoft Azerbaijan. The memorandum envisages cooperation in creating a unified database of the goods produced in Azerbaijan, holding trainings in ICT, assessment and analysis. The parties will also conduct joint research in the application of ICT in the national economy, develop proposals on promotion of e-commerce in Azerbaijan. The parties start to cooperate in order to contribute to the realization of the Strategic Road Map for the development of communication and information technologies in Azerbaijan, Gasimli said commenting on the memorandum. Trump: 'I'll Very, Very, Very Probably Do It Again' China is apparently concerned that its boys are becoming too effeminate. The country's solution: a masculinity-promoting school textbook called Little Men, aimed for use in grades 4 and 5. The illustrated book talks about fathers and sons, and it encourages boys to stress their masculine side, with money management and other ostensibly guy-geared topics thrown in. NBC News reports the concern is widespread and that citizens blame the "gender crisis" on everything from too much homework (and too little physical activity), to to being spoiled rotten by parents allowed just one child. "Girls are becoming more like boys while the boys are becoming more like girls, introvert[ed] and shy," one parent complains. An English-language newspaper in China blamed the perceived problem on "effeminate" actors and pop stars in Japanese and Korean culture. The new six-chapter textbook was printed in December by Shanghai Educational Publishing House and has already been given a test drive in some schools. The idea is that boys will be taught from the book during class, while girls won't take the course, reports the South China Morning Post. Anthropologist Tiantian Zheng tells NBC the concern about masculinity is seen as a priority among government officials, and she suggests that all-male middle schools could result. She rejects the idea of a problem, however, complaining that "entrenched cultural notions of femininity and masculinity ... imprison us all." (Dozens of boys in Malaysia, where homosexuality is illegal, were selected for re-education for being "too effeminate.") When Candace Derksen went missing on her way home from school in Winnipeg in the fall of 1984, it took six weeks for volunteers to find her bodyjust a few hundred yards from her home, in a storage shed, where the 13-year-old who loved horses had been bound with twine and left to die of exposure. That desperate wait would prove to be the blink of an eye compared to how long it's taken for her family to see justice. Now, almost exactly 32 years since Candace was found, her parents are bracing for another trial of the man whose DNA was linked to the twine and at the scene, reports Winnipeg TV News. Mark Edward Grant was arrested and charged with the killing in 2007, then convicted in 2011, but the verdict was overturned two years later. The Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge should have let the defense present evidence that a similar case had occurred nearby in 1985, where someone used the same knots to tie up another girl and leave her for dead in a shedwhile Grant was in custody for another crime, reports the CBC. No suspect has been charged in that case, but the new trial is expected to include evidence of a third person involved in both crimes. Grant, who is in his 50s, insists he's innocent. "I have a hope that we'll get to the bottom of it this time," Derkson's mother, Wilma, tells the Winnipeg Free Press. The trial starts Monday and is expected to last 34 days. "It's very surreal, having to go [through] a rerun of a trial," she says. "We have no clue what this will do to us." (A teen witness may help solve a murder at sea in 1978.) Human encroachment typically means bad news for a given species (recent examples include giraffes and cheetahs), but one mammal appears to be fighting back. Researchers say the hairy-legged vampire bat has adapted surprisingly fast from drinking the blood of birds to that of humans to survive, reports the Telegraph. In the journal Acta Chiropterologica, scientists report that that they extracted DNA from 15 samples of feces at a colony in Catimbau National Park in Brazil and discovered human blood in three of them. "We were quite surprised," says one researcher, per New Scientist. "They are adapting to their environment." Vampire bats have evolved to process bird blood, which is higher in fat than mammalian blood. They've even been found to fast and starve when only pig and goat blood is available, but their main prey of guans and tinamous are dying off thanks to hunting and deforestation. The research team says it expects the bats feast at night, entering bedrooms through open windows and holes in roofs, and say it's time to monitor them for diseases they are known to carry, including rabies and hantavirus. For now, they're reaching out to nearby residents for more information on how, when, and where they're being bitten. (This man died of rabies in the US after a vampire bat bit him in the heel.) The biological family of an 18-year-old snatched when she was a newborn is rejoicing at her discovery, but one person who's not celebrating is Charles Manigo. The baby he named Alexis Kellythe baby he thought was his daughterwas really Kamiyah Mobley, who was allegedly abducted by his ex-girlfriend, Gloria Williams, from a Florida hospital room in 1998 right after she was born, ABC News reports. Williams allegedly pretended she was a nurse taking baby Mobley for tests, News4Jax reports. Williams reportedly told Manigo she had had the baby while he was away, and for nearly two decades, the two co-parented Mobley, even after they ended their relationship in 2003. "The person she called dad for 18 years isn't her dad," Manigo tells ABC, adding that she told him, "Dad, I love you," at Williams' bond hearing Friday in South Carolina. On the other side of the feelings spectrum is Craig Aiken, Mobley's birth father, who, along with her birth mom, reunited with his long-lost daughter Saturday at a South Carolina police station and called the meeting "beautiful," per the New York Daily News. "I told her I was glad to see her and that I loved her," he told reporters. As for Manigo, he's still trying to take all of these new developments in, calling the attention "overwhelming," per ABC. "She was the love of my life," he says, adding that while he recognizes the situation, "she's still my child." Probably struggling the most with her emotions in this case is Mobley herself, who's said to have posted on her Facebook page, "My mother is no felon. The ignorant ones won't understand." Williams has been charged with kidnapping and interference of custody. (A heartbreaking scene at Williams' hearing.) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates signed a number of documents within the talks of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in expanded format on Jan. 15, the presidential press-service reported. Nursultan Nazarbayev is on official visit to Abu Dhabi. In particular the two governments signed an agreement on mutual provision of land for free use in Astana and Abu Dhabi for the needs of the Kazakhstan Embassy in the UAE and the UAE Embassy in Kazakhstan. Moreover the parties signed a protocol to amend the Agreement between two governments on mutual visa-free regime for diplomatic passports holders. Kazakhstans Religious Affairs and Civil Society Ministry and the General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments of the UAE signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Moreover a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation was signed between "ASTANA EXPO 2017" and "EXPO DUBAI 2020" Bureau and between the regional authorities of Mangistau region and UAE DP World FZE company. Foreign Ministries of the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on establishing a joint commission on consular issues; Kazakhstans Investment and Development Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UAE Economy Ministry on tourism cooperation; and Kazakhstans Investment and Development Ministry signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE Federal Agency for Land and Water Transport on international road transportation of passengers and cargo. Within the meeting Nursultan Nazarbayev the Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed the issues of bilateral cooperation in trade, economic, investment, energy, cultural and humanitarian spheres and topical international issues. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May plans to make a big speech on Brexit on Tuesday and the country's currency is taking a beating amid signs she will set out plans for a "hard Brexit"meaning a clean break from the European Union's single market. British newspapers briefed on the upcoming speech say May is intent on leaving behind the EU's rules on free movement of goods, services, and workers, though the government says this is "speculation" and stresses that May's speech will be about how "to make a success of Brexit and build a truly global Britain," the New York Times reports. The BBC reports that the pound, which has lost around 20% of its value since June's Brexit vote, fell to a three-month low on Monday. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has also signaled a hard line, saying the UK won't stand for any EU punishment for leaving the club, and will move away from "European-style" taxation models if need be. "We will change our model and we will come back, and we will be competitively engaged," the top financial official told a German newspaper. Donald Trump, meanwhile, praised Brexit in an interview with Conservative MP Michael Gove, the Guardian reports. He blamed German policy on refugees for anti-EU sentiment, said Britain had been "so smart" to vote to leave, and promised to press ahead with US-UK trade talks. "Absolutely, very quickly. Im a big fan of the UK," he said. "We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly." (Read more Brexit stories.) A man placed on the FBI's list of 10 most-wanted fugitives after allegedly killing two men in Milwaukee was arrested Sunday in Texas, the FBI says. Terry Strickland, 24, was arrested in El Paso and booked into jail, the AP reports. He has been charged in Milwaukee with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Authorities say Strickland was among a group of men arguing in front of a Milwaukee home July 17. Witnesses saw him go inside the house, emerge with a gun, and fire into the small crowd. Authorities say Strickland fatally shot Maurice Brown Jr., 38, who was on the ground, then turned to Michael Allen Reed, 39, and shot him in the head. "It was vicious," Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said when Strickland was added to the FBI's most-wanted list last month. "It was unnecessary. Neither individual posed the slightest threat to Mr. Strickland, but they paid with their lives for occupying the same space." Authorities say Strickland fled from the shooting in a black SUV, abandoning his 18-month-old daughter inside the house, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The FBI says agents were led to Strickland after receiving a tip that he may be temporarily living in El Paso. The FBI in El Paso and the El Paso Police Department arrested Strickland early Sunday during a traffic stop and he was taken into custody without incident. (Read more Most Wanted stories.) Soon-to-be-former CIA Director John Brennan strongly criticized Donald Trump on Sunday for reckless tweeting and for failing to understand the threat from Russiaand the president-elect took to his communication medium of choice to react. "'Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand,'" Trump tweeted, quoting a Fox headline. "Oh really, couldn't do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?" Trump wondered. In an earlier tweet about the Russia dossier, Trump said intelligence chiefs and the media should "APOLOGIZE" for making "a mistake." Brennan had told Fox News Sunday that Trump needs to be a lot more disciplined about his "talking and tweeting" when he becomes president, the Hill reports. "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests and so therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound," he said. Brennanwho leaves office Friday, along with other Obama administration officialsalso warned Trump against "absolving Russia of various actions that it's taken in the past number of years" and said it was "outrageous" that Trump had compared the intelligence community to Nazi Germany, the BBC reports. (Trump also tweeted criticism of Saturday Night Live after the "really bad" show's latest portrayal of him.) Dozens of people in a village just outside Kyrgyzstan's Bishkek airport died in a horrific crash early Monday when a Boeing 747 cargo plane apparently missed the runway. The plane plowed for hundreds of yards through the village, breaking into pieces and destroying at least 15 buildings, Reuters reports. Authorities say the death toll is at least 37, most of them villagers. The plane, which belonged to Turkish cargo operator ACT Airlines, was arriving from Hong Kong amid poor visibility caused by dense fog. The airline says it "crashed on landing at Bishkek at the end of the runway for an unknown reason." The fuselage of the destroyed plane could be seen jutting out of the wreckage of the village of Zhang-Zhang, CNN reports. At least 15 people, including children, were hospitalized. "I woke up because of a bright red light outside," an injured villager told local television, per the AP. "I couldn't understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. I was so scared, but I managed to cover my son's face with my hands so that debris would not fall on him." In a statement, Boeing offered its "deepest condolences" to the families of victims and said a technical team is ready to provide assistance as required. (Read more plane crash stories.) In a departure from the leniency typically given South Korean big businesses, prosecutors on Monday requested the arrest of the de facto head of Samsung Electronics, the country's most valuable company, in an influence-peddling scandal that has toppled the country's president, the AP reports. Lee Jae-yong, the 48-year-old vice chairman at the company, faces allegations of embezzlement, of lying under oath during a parliamentary hearing, and of offering a bribe of $36 million to a longtime friend of impeached President Park Geun-hye, according to a spokesman for a special prosecutors' team investigating the political scandal. It will surprise many that prosecutors requested the arrest of the man who symbolizes the future of South Korea's most important chaebol, as family-controlled conglomerates are known. Such leaders tend to be treated as vital for the national economy. Prosecutors understood worries that Lee's arrest could hurt the economy, but "we believed that it was even more important to carry out justice," the prosecutors' spokesman told reporters. Samsung allegedly donated funds to various entities controlled by Choi Soon-sil, the jailed secretive confidante of the president, including two nonprofit foundations. Part of the money given to Choi allegedly was embezzled by the Samsung vice chairman, the spokesman for the prosecutors said. (Choi's daughter has been arrested in Denmark.) Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 88 on Sunday, and as America celebrates his legacy Monday during the national holiday named for him, a tweet his daughter posted on his birthday is making the rounds, Mashable reports. "Happy birthday dad, I miss you! #MLK," Bernice King tweeted Sunday, including a photo of her leaning her head into the head of her father's monument in Washington, DC. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of King and his wife, the late Coretta Scott King, also appeared on Good Morning America Monday to talk about her mother's new posthumous memoir, calling her "the architect of this King legacy," per ABC News. "What we know of my father really came from her resilience, her determination, her faith, her courage," Bernice King told Robin Roberts. (The city of Biloxi renamed MLK Dayand people weren't happy.) Anissa Weier, now 15, is one of the two girls accused of stabbing a friend 19 times in a 2014 attack that, the girls said, was an attempt to get in the good graces of "Slender Man," a fictional internet character. Her parents say that while they knew their daughter spent a lot of time on the internet, and they were aware of the character, they didn't realize Anissa12 at the time of the attackbelieved he was real. "It was really kind of surreal from the time I got the phone call to the time that we realized there were more things going on than what we were initially led to believe," Bill Weier tells Good Morning America. "I think surreal is the best way to describe it." Wife Kristi adds that, during the interrogation, it became clear her daughter and fellow suspect Morgan Geyser "thoroughly believed Slender Man was real," but says she and her husband had no idea of that. "She was just ... typical," Kristi Weier says of her daughter. Both parents say Anissa is "absolutely" remorseful about the attack. "We did not raise her to do this action," Kristi tells People. "I cry practically ever day since the incident." "We do not know 'why'" it happened, Bill adds to People. The Weiers took part in an HBO documentary Beware the Slenderman, debuting next Monday, that looks at juvenile brain development in an attempt to uncover why the girls allegedly attacked Payton Leutner; Kristi Weier says she hopes it helps other parents to be aware of what their kids are looking at online. And to the parents of Payton (who, a 2015 People article noted, was still dealing with the aftereffects of the "emotional trauma" she endured), Bill Weier says he's sorry, and adds, "for as much as they are struggling with trying to process this and what happened to their daughter, we are struggling, equally, trying to process this with what happened not only to their daughter but to our daughter." (Click for an in-depth look at the friendship between the three girls.) The Obamas are heading to Palm Springs after Donald Trump's inauguration Friday, sources tell TMZ. They'll take a helicopter (not Marine One since President Obama won't be President Obama anymore by that point) from the Capitol to Andrews Air Force Base, and from there, Special Air Mission 29,000the same plane that is currently known as Air Force One, but won't be called that anymorewill fly them to California. When they head back to DC, where they'll continue to live until Sasha Obama graduates high school, they won't be taking a government plane. (Read more President Obama stories.) Nokia had been well-known in the recent years for pairing up with Windows until it was time then for the company to bid goodbye. However, determination pushed them to bring back the glory they have lost through their latest yet first android phone ever made. People around the world may be excited now to finally use this. Unfortunately, only people from China will be the first one to grab the units of Nokia 6. After Microsoft's era on Nokia which made the company then more known in producing Windows phones, HMD Global will establish now their first dynasty in its first ever smartphone. The company originates from Finland and is the company who has acquired the rights to manufacture phones under the Nokia brand. The HMD Global, from the same article of Engadget, had shared about their goal to release the new gadgets first in China which is to meet the demands of more than five hundred million smartphone users and also the goal of possible bigger returns. The specs of Nokia 6, it consists of a 16 megapixel rear camera, one thing that is a bang for its first release. Moreover, it has a 3,000 mAh battery and it can last up to 10 hours on standby mode. The handset boasts of a 5.5 inch screen and a 1920x1080 HD display. This indeed makes the phone very suitable for games requiring high resolution or wide screens or even movie watching. And since Nokia 6 is Android-run, its first operating system will be Nougat. Being in the world of Android enables the user of Nokia 6 to enjoy more variety of applications which others cannot. As for the same article at Forbes, it is perceived that releasing the new phones in China is a good one than having it released to the previous places it flourished like North America and in Europe. No matter what happens, Nokia will still remain its reputation around the globe being one of the most-known brands in the phone industry, as what CCS Insight Technology Consultancy's Ben Wood shared to BBC. And, one of the challenges that Nokia should be able to surpass is to be able to flourish among the many smartphones which are now very identical to one another. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Elena Kosolapova Trend: Former head of Presidential Administration Baglan Mailybaev has been arrested for a period of two months in Kazakhstan, the National Security Committee said Jan. 16. Mailybaev is charged with Illegal collection, dissemination and disclosure of state secrets. The investigation on his case is ongoing. Mailybaev was serving as a head of Kazakh President Administration since Oct. 2011. On Jan. 12 2017 he was dismissed from this post by presidential order. Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova Hyderabad: Amazon India announced on Monday the launch of regional language support services for sellers in three Indian languages - Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. Extending its support service offered currently in Hindi & English, sellers will now have the flexibility to opt for a callback option from Amazon India's seller support associates in these regional languages, it said in a statement. "The initiative will enable sellers to comfortably and efficiently receive guidance and resolve their business queries with speed & ease, aiding them to prepare better for the upcoming 'Great Indian Sale' on the marketplace from January 20 to 22, 2016," it said. In addition to states in India with predominantly Hindi speaking population, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana have emerged as the top three states in the country with a huge seller base, who prefer support services in their local languages, the company said. New Delhi: Private equity group Warburg Pincus is planning to invest USD 8 billion in India over the next 10 years, twice of what it did in two decades as the frm is quiote bullish on one of its most important markets in the world. Warburg, which has deployed USD 3.8 billion in 51 companies as diverse as Kotak Mahindra Bank, Alliance Tire, Ambuja Cement and Laurus Labs in India since 1997, is looking to deepen its involvement, Co-Chief Executives Charles R Kaye and Joseph P Landy told Economic Times in an interview. We never believe in numerical targets and do not set investment allocations by region. But frankly, if we couldnt deploy more than double that amount within half the time, I would say, all of us will be disappointed. This is one of the most prolific regions for us. Warburg Pincus has represented approximately 4% of PE-type money in India over the last 20 years and 10% of returns, making India an extremely successful market for us, Landy said. As mavericks instrumental in establishing the PE cult in India in the 1990s, Kaye and Landy are modest. New Delhi: Delhi Government has asked private schools in the national capital to not follow the recent CBSE circular on appointment of principals as the new clauses are contrary to the provisions of Delhi School Education Rules. The government has also clarified that any "bye-laws of affiliation of CBSE or any other Board can't override the provisions of the Act passed by Parliament". The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had last month notified that private schools affiliated to it will no longer be able to appoint principals or heads on their own as the board has empowered itself to monitor such appointments in schools that fall under its ambit. "CBSE has amended existing affiliation Bye-Laws of the Board, relating to constitution of the Selection Committee in the case of recruitment of the Head of the Private Unaided recognized schools. The said constitution of Selection Committee is contrary to the provisions of Delhi School Education Rules, 1973," Directorate of Education (DoE) has said in a communication to schools. "There is no provision in the act to induct the member nominated by CBSE in the managing committee of private schools. "Since private schools in Delhi are bound to follow the provisions of Delhi School Education Act and rules, 1973, which has been enacted by the Parliament, therefore, any Bye-laws of affiliation of CBSE or any other Board can't override the provisions of the act passed by the Parliament," it added. The communication also mentions a 2015 ruling of Delhi High Court stating "schools in Delhi are governed by its act, hence the CBSE bye-Laws will not apply and the Delhi School Education Act and rules and the applicable circulars as issued by DoE will be applicable". "All heads of schools are directed to strictly comply with the provisions of the Delhi Act with regard to constitution of selection committee for recruitment of principals," it added. Members of the government of Kyrgyzstan left for Turkish aircraft crash site nearby Manas airport. Press service of the airport informed 24.kg news agency. It is noted that the first Vice Prime Minister Mukhammetkaliy Abulgaziev, the Minister of Transport and Roads Zhamshit Kalilov and the Minister of Emergency Situations Kubatbek Boronov are, reportedly, at the scene. Turkish aircraft performed regular air transportation from Istanbul to Bishkek. There is no information about the victims so far. New Delhi: At first, it was leading to nowhere. Then, a pattern emerged and the Delhi Police started following a trail left by a psychopath who allegedly sexually assaulted scores of minor girls in the Delhi-NCR region. Sunil Rastogi, who as arrested on Sunday, used to assault school girls by luring them on some pretext or the other but in a similar manner. According to reports, Rastogi used to wear red jacket and blue jeans while trying to assault minor girls. He believed that such kind of attire would be lucky for him and would protect him from getting caught. Delhi Police personnel, who arrested the 38-year-old man, said that the accused has confessed to his crimes and also revealed he committed similar offences with other girls in New Ashok Nagar, Delhi, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), and Rudrapur (Uttarakhand). Rastogi was held for allegedly sexually assaulting minor girls by trapping them by saying that he has been sent by their parents for giving them some items or others in east Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area, police said. Watch | Delhi: Serial rapist believed red jackets would protect him from getting caught while assaulting minor girls Rastogi was arrested on the basis of tip off, DCP(East) Omvir Singh said. "The accused told police whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place," he added. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station wherein complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9, said the officer. The accused allegedly took them on the stairs of a building and fled when they raised an alarm, he said. Earlier, on December 13 also, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl, said the officer. He said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. "In all the three cases, victims were minors in the age group of 9-10 and it was also revealed that the accused first misled the minors by telling them that their father had given some clothes or articles for them and then he took them to isolated place where he allegedly tried to sexually assault them," said the officer. A team took up the investigation. CCTV footages from cameras installed near the places of incidents were obtained and some images of the accused were developed, said Singh. It has also been revealed from interrogation that many cases including under NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act) and of theft and molestation were registered against the accused at various police stations in Rudrapur, Delhi and Ghaziabad. Rastogi is a permanent resident of Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and came to Delhi in 1990 with his family and left Delhi in 2004. "He resides in Rudrapur now. He studied up to fifth standard at government school in his village. He is being interrogated regarding other offences committed by him at different places," added the officer. Noteworthy, the accused works as a tailor and is married with five children, including three girls, said another officer, adding that his daughters are being counselled to know whether he had also targeted them. (With inputs from PTI) Panaji: With State Assembly elections just round the corner, voters of one of the Goas main industry-tourism, are seeking solutions to long pending problems that are plaguing the tourism sector. Voters on the coastal belt up North are expecting some real solutions to their various problems like infrastructure. Tourism sector of Goa is its main financial sector but it lacks basic infrastructure. While state government brags of building bridges and constructing highways across Goa, the beach belt of Sinquerim-Candolim-Calangute-Baga upto Morjim and Ashwem up North is congested, Sadanand Malik, who owns a restaurant in the busy lane of Candolim said. The business community in tourism hotbed is looking forward to quick redressal to their grievances. Malik says during last five years, some of the issues were settled but much remains to be done. The state government set up a garbage treatment plant that takes care of the waste generated in this belt. It is a big respite, he said referring to the state-of-the-art plant that has been constructed at Saligao treating more than 100 metric tonnes of garbage daily. But issues like proper roads, cleanliness on beaches, proper toilets and changing rooms on beaches, prostitution in this area and narcotics trade still remains untouched. They plague tourism industry in a big way, he said. Local BJP MLA Michael Lobo had gone on hunger strike in his own constituency three years back to get rid of prostitution and drugs from this place. But few police raids later, the issue skipped media attention and both these things continued to flourish here. There are so many things to be done on the infrastructure front . You cant change the face of the area overnight when it was neglected for decades, Lobo said admitting that lot needs to be done here. While Sinquerim to Baga belt remains to be lucky as far garbage processing is concerned, the treatment of the waste generated on the beaches across the 105 kilometre long coastline still remains an issue. There is no waste collection in South Goas beaches and shoreline up North Goa. Government needs to work out a solution for that too like the one worked out for Calangute belt, Cruz Cardoso, President, Goa Shack Owners Welfare Society said. He said the new government should look at problems faced by shack owners, which are getting worsened with every passing year. New Delhi: Former Bigg Boss 10 contestant Om Swami has become the talk of the town ever since he was thrown out of the house. Post his forceful eviction, the self-proclaimed godman has been blabbering about the show, its host Salman Khan and the housemates. He not just threatened to sabotage the BB finale, but also called Salman as an ISI agent and claimed to have slapped him during his stay inside the Bigg Boss house. While Om has been making several controversial statements, Salman has finally opened up on Swamis obnoxious remarks. According to the media reports, during the recent Weekend Ka Vaar episode, Salman stated Swami has gone out of the house and now, hes making India crazy. Bawla ho gaya hai woh (He has gone insane). For the uninitiated, Om Swami was thrown out of Bigg Boss 10 after he spilled urine on Bani J and Rohan Mehra. Notably, Salman has been with Om Swami following his notorious antics inside the house and has always targeted him during the Weekend Ka Vaar episodes. Videos: 15 'shocking' statements by ex-Bigg Boss 10 contestant Om Swami during his show 'Baba Bawali' on News Nation In fact, he has also ordered the Bigg Boss makers to make sure not to have Om Swami and Priyanka Jagga to the finale. We wonder, if there is more drama coming up on Bigg Boss 10, post Om Swami controversial statements. Videos | Ex-Bigg Boss 10 contestant Swami Om indulges in scuffle, faces protests in studio Mumbai : The Supreme Courts order to ban all liquor shops on national and state highways across the country and licenses of existing shops not be renewed after March 31, has prompted a unique demand for diversion of routes of highways that pass through some towns and villages. The Supreme Court had on December 15, 2016, ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and made it clear that licenses of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 this year. The offices of the national highway division of state Public Works Department as well as National Highway Authorities of India, have been getting such demands from the villages which are likely to be affected by the court order. The liquor shops are there since a long time and their business is set with dedicated customers and demand. Suddenly the SC decision has come. This will not just be revenue loss but a change in local market as not all customers of the shops go on state or national highway and drive recklessly. It is a pressure tactic by the villagers opposing the decision, said a senior PWD officer, who has been dealing with villagers for construction of national and state highways across the state. Some resolutions have cited excuses like traffic congestion, village safety or some religious fair getting affected. But the real reason is ban on liquor shops, he said. Before the SC took the decision, rest of the things (like traffic congestions, safety issues) were happening from time to time, still there was no objection. Some of the village representatives admitted privately that liquor shop ban has created pressure on them to come up with the demand for diversion of state/ national highway, the officer said. Around 15,000 bars and liquor shops in Maharashtra are likely to be closed with the implementation of the SC order. A delegation of hotel and restaurant operators across the state has also sought intervention of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the matter. State PWD minister Chandrakant Patil told that there have been some demands from villagers for diverting the state or national highways. I have been informed about such demands and I have asked the officers to prepare a proper report of the demands. I am on a state tour and will look into it once I return to Mumbai, Patil said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: Congress, the main opposition party in poll-bound Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, on Monday ridiculed ruling Shiv Senas likely punchline #Didyouknow? and alleged that multiple scams have taken place under the watch of the ruling party in the last two decades. Kick-starting its first phase of the campaign for civic polls, slated February 21, a 17-minute skit was performed at the Congress headquarter here in front of party leaders and workers. The spoof depicted the anguish and difficulties faced by citizens in the wake of demonetisation as well as various other problems. The play mocked #Didyouknow question tweeted by Yuva Sena chief Aditya Thackeray to highlight achievements of the civic body. Sena has put up posters and hoardings with a question in English: #Didyouknow? in most frequented places in the city to kick-start a campaign to gauge peoples reaction to the idea. Addressing reporters on the occasion, Mumbai unit Congress president Sanjay Nirupam said, Everyone knows about corruption and how many scams have taken place in cash-rich municipal corporation (BMC) ranging from road scam to desilting of nullas. There is no electricity in many schools; shortfall of teachers; civic toilets are in bad shape.. Nirupam said the tablet phones distributed to students of the BMC-run schools are not functional for want of internet facility, which is also the fallout of a huge scam. He said the Congress wanted Mumbaikars to know about these issues. The Congress leader said though his party will contest upcoming elections on its own strength, they are in talks with dalit leader Jogendra Kawade, president of the Peoples Republic Party, for exploring possibility of alliance for few seats. Ten municipal corporations including Mumbai, 25 Zilla Parishads and 283 Panchayat Samitis in state are scheduled to go to polls next month. Nirupam, a former MP, also pitched for free water for Mumbaikars, beside good roads. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a clear case of a psychopath, a man named Sunil Rastogi, who is also father of 5 children, used to allegedly rape minor girls in New Delhi. Interesting facts were revealed when Police interrogated him. It came to the fore that Rastogi used to wear red jacket and blue jeans while trying to assault minor girls. He believed that such kind of attire would be lucky for him and would protect him from getting caught. Accused paedophile Sunil Rastogi was sent to judicial custody for 14 days by a Delhi court on Monday. The 38-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting school girls by trapping them by saying that he has been sent by their parents for giving them some items or others in east Delhi's New Ashok Nagar area, police said on Sunday. Sunil Rastogi was arrested on Saturday on the basis of tip off, DCP(East) Omvir Singh said. "The accused told police that he used to target minor girls. Whenever he would find any minor girl going to home from school, he used to mislead her on the pretext that her father had sent some clothes or some other articles to give her and take her to an isolated place," he added. The accused works as a tailor and is married with five children, including three girls, said another officer, adding that his daughters are being counselled to know whether he had also targeted them. On January 10, two cases of kidnapping were registered in New Ashok Nagar police station wherein complainants alleged a man misled their daughters, aged 10 and 9, said the officer. The accused allegedly took them on the stairs of a building and fled when they raised an alarm, he said. Earlier, on December 13 also, a case under sections 376 (Punishment for rape) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC and section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act was registered on the statement of a minor girl, said the officer. He said since all the three cases had a similar pattern, it was suspected that the same person was involved in all of them and investigations were taken up. "In all the three cases, victims were minors in the age group of 9-10 and it was also revealed that the accused first misled the minors by telling them that their father had given some clothes or articles for them and then he took them to isolated place where he allegedly tried to sexually assault them," said the officer. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: India has taken notice of the issue of non-payment of salary to Indian workers in Bahrain, the External Affairs Ministry said on Monday. M/s G. P. Zachariadis Overseas Ltd., a construction company which employs nearly 1,500 Indian workers has been faced with severe financial hardship. This has resulted in non-payment of salary/dues to workers employed by the company. On 3rd January 2017, nearly 350 workers at a site went on strike due to non-payment of salary for nearly two months. After intervention of the Mission in association with the Labour Ministry, the company paid the pending salaries on 4th January, 2017, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. The matter has been taken up with Ministry of Labour, which had called the company management for a joint meeting the same day. When the company again failed to pay the next salary for January nearly 200 workers of the company started a protest on 15th January, due to non-payment. During the protests, one of the workers Narayanan Pitchai, an Indian national, fainted and was rushed to the hospital, where he was declared brought dead. The Spokesperson later clarified that police authorities have confirmed to the Embassy that since it was a peaceful protest, no police action was taken against them. The Embassy has taken up the matter at a high level. Bahraini authorities have expressed regret over the incident and have assured that safety and well-being of all workers, including Indian nationals, remains their first priority. They have also conveyed that they would do their best on this matter, Swarup said. With PTI Inputs For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led three-member met in New Delhi on Monday to decide on the chief of the country's premier probe agency CBI. The post of CBI director is lying vacant for over one month following Anil Sinha's retirement on December 2. There was no official word from the government as to what transpired during the meeting, official sources said. At present, Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana is the interim director of the investigating agency. The selection committee has Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India or his nominee as its other members. A list of about 45 eligible IPS officers has been sent to the Prime Minister's Office for consideration as the next CBI director, official sources said on Monday. The name of senior IPS officers Krishna Choudhary, Aruna Bahuguna and SC Mathur, among others are doing the rounds as strong contenders for the top post, they said. Choudhary and Bahuguna are 1979 batch IPS officers of Bihar and Telangana cadre respectively. Choudhary is Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force and Bahuguna is Director of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad. Mathur, a 1981 batch IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre, is Director General of Maharashtra Police. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Prime Ministers office refuted the allegations that it had purportedly written a letter to CBI in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam. This has reference to a report appearing in a section of the press regarding a letter purportedly written by the Prime Minister's Office to CBI on the Rose Valley case. The report alleges that PMO has issued certain instructions to CBI in the matter. A copy of the purported letter has also been displayed in print and social media. The said report is totally false and baseless. The said letter displayed is a forgery. No such letter has been issued by the Prime Minister's Office, the PMO said in a statement on Monday. Two of Trinamool Congress MPs Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Tapas Pal are in jail in the Rose Valley scam case. Rose Valley Group has been accused of duping investors of Rs 17,000 crore in different states including Odisha and West Bengal. ALSO READ | Rose Valley scam: TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhaya sent to jail TMC has been protesting over the arrest of two of its MPs in the chit fund scam, calling it a political vendetta. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had also dared the CBI to arrest her and all TMC MPs and MLAs. People cannot protest. If you protest Conspiracy Bureau of India (CBI) will arrest you. But don't get scared. Go on fighting, she said. ALSO READ | My husband is in custody of Modi, says TMC MLA Sudip Bandyopadhyay's wife With Inputs from PTI For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Jaipur: A man allegedly killed his four-month old baby in a fit of rage in Shiv vihar area in Jaipur, police said on Monday. Munshi Lal (25), an autorickshaw driver, was in inebriated state and had a heated argument with his wife, Rajni, last night follwing which he snatched the girl from his wife and threw her on the ground, leaving her dead, SHO Karni Vihar police station Mahaveer Singh said. The accused has been arrested, police said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has instructed to thoroughly investigate the crash of Boeing 747-400 Turkish cargo plane near the city of Bishkek, as well as to provide financial assistance to the families of those killed and injured, RIA Novosti news agency reported. The Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstans Manas International Airport Jan. 16, killing at least 32 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the jet as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said. According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to land in poor visibility at 7:31 a.m. (GMT +6). Kyrgyz transport ministry said there were five people on board. President Almazbek Atambayev expressed condolences to the relatives of those killed in the airplane crash and ordered to provide all possible support and assistance to the injured. New Delhi: The ongoing Samajwadi Party tussle is heading for a showdown between the warring factions of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh's most famous Yadav clan over party's control and its symbol. The Election Commission, which has reserved its order on the matter, is likely to announce its decision on Monday. The decision could result in a split between the Mulayam Singh Yadav faction and Akhilesh faction which are at loggerheads to get the reins of the ruling party. Here are the possible scenarios: EC freezes symbol There is a fair chance that the Election Commission decides to freeze the symbol considering the fast-approaching election dates. In this case, the EC could give separate symbols to both the factions. This will split the Samajwadi Party and both faction will go separate ways to fight the polls. Read | UP Polls: 3.8 crore young voters to decide fate of next Uttar Pradesh CM If Akhilesh faction gets symbol The Akhilesh faction of the ruling party has been flexing its muscles ever since the feud came to the fore in SP. After Akhilesh unseated Mulayam as party chief, he also approached EC to showcase the massive support he enjoys within the party folds. If Akhilesh faction gets the symbol, it will be a major victory for the young leader who has been seen advocating big policy changes within the party. If Mulayam gets to ride 'cycle' The third scenario is the least likely one. It is highly unlikely that party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav gets hold on the SP symbol. Just four days ago, after a hearing before the Election Commission, Mulayam had agreed to act as a 'Margdarshak' of the Samajwadi Party signaling a truce-like situation with his son. But when some reporters asked him as to who should get the symbol, he had said 'us'. It also means that Mulayam is not ready to make such sacrifices when it comes to the party symbol. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Lucknow: SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav today said he would contest against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the assembly elections if he does not "listen" to him, seeking to wield the stick after the chief ministership carrot failed to make his rebellious son fall in line. With chances of a rapprochement between the two warring factions in the party receding with each passing day, Mulayam accused Akhilesh of having a "negative approach" towards Muslims, a loyal vote bank of the Samajwadi Party for years. "Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ramgopal (Yadav). If he does not listen, I will fight against him," Mulayam, a Lok Sabha member from Azamgarh, told party workers. Ram Gopal, a member of the Rajya Sabha and Mulayam's cousin, has sided with Akhilesh in his fight for control over the party. Read | Samajwadi Party feud: What if Mulayam Singh Yadav doesn't get 'cycle'; a look at possible scenarios The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a "negative approach" towards Muslims and that he was playing into the hands of Ramgopal Yadav, who was working "on directions of BJP". "I will live for Muslims and die for them. When it comes to Muslims' interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh)", he said. "I have always stood for protecting the interest of the Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as the state's Director General of Police (DGP), Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. Read | If Samajwadi Party splits, will pick Akhilesh over Mulayam: NCP It sent an anti-Muslim message," Mulayam said. The Samajwadi Party supremo said he had made many sacrifices to build the party and Akhilesh sacked several ministers including a woman without valid reasons. Mulayam had sprung a surprise earlier this month when he said Akhilesh will be the chief minister if party retained power after the assembly elections, extending an olive branch to his recalcitrant son. However, Akhilesh and Ramgopal Yadav, a key stretegist of the party, have steadfastly rejected the overture. Akhilesh reportedly demanded that he be allowed to continue to lead the party for the next three months, a demand that was rejected by Mulayam. Read | UP assembly elections 2017: Stage is set, poll process to start rolling with notification on Tuesday Amid reports that the Akhilesh camp enjoyed support of a majority of party delegates, MPs and legislators, Mulayam indicated he may move the court if the party's name and election symbol was allotted to the rival camp by the Election Commission. Mulayam said it was upto the EC to decide on it but the fight will "reach the court". Earlier in the day, Mulayam reached the residence of his younger brother and state SP president Shivpal Yadav. Interestingly, he also called Naresh Uttam, who has been appointed party state president by Akhilesh, and he was present during Mulayam's address to partymen. Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for "not understanding things". Read | UP Polls: 3.8 crore young voters to decide fate of next Uttar Pradesh CM For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Twitter is buzzing with news alerts from India and rest of the world. Here are the latest updates from the micro-blogging site in one scroll:A 11:10 PM US official says wife of Orlando shooter has been arrested for obstruction - AP 10:50 PM Don't like word block. Issue to be processed by 1267 Comm based on solid evidence-China Foreign Ministry on resolution against Masood Azhar in UN - ANI 10:32 PM WB-TMC leader Subir Mukherjee files an FIR against Kailash Vijayvargiya for remarks made against CM Mamata Banerjee on Jan 11 in Kolkata -ANI 10:16 PM Britain can't negotiate US trade deal until after EU exit: Mogherini - AFP 9:21 PM "Cycle chalti jayegi, aage badhti jayegi": tweets Akhilesh Yadav after EC said group led by him is SP & is entitled to use 'Bicycle' symbol 9:12 PM Two Canadians, one Italian, one Colombian among dead in Mexico shooting (Source: AFP) 8:52 PM Mehbooba Mufti pitches for a South-Central Asia corridor with J&K as nucleus -PTI 8:28 PM Bombers at Nigeria's Maiduguri University kill professor: AP 8:12 PM Airports Authority of India plans to partially privatise two of its key airports -- Ahmedabad & Jaipur -- by this fiscal: Officials - PTI 8:02 PM EC issues notice to Arvind Kejriwal for violation of model code of conduct in Jan 8 speech in Goa,asked to give explanation by 1PM on Jan 19 7:50 PM IMF cuts fiscal 2017-18 forecast for India's growth to 7.2 percent from 7.6 percent- Reuters 7:40 PM Airport officials seize 700 g gold disguised as strip pasted b/w layers of paper of corrugated cardboard box from a person at Delhi airport - ANI 7:20 PM Captain Amarinder Singh to contest from Lambi, Pargat Singh from Jalandhar Cantonment and Navjot Singh Sidhu from Amritsar East. - ANI 6:40 PM Europe's fate 'in our own hands', says Merkel after Trump criticism - AP 6:34 PM Next GST Council meeting on Feb 18 to approve drafts of supplementary legislations; GST will now be rolled out from July 1: Arun Jaitley - PTI 6:24 PM BJP releases list of 149 candidates for the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh: Union Minister JP Nadda - ANI 6:18 PM BJP releases list of 64 candidates for upcoming elections in Uttarakhand - ANI 6:12 PM Mexican police officer says gunman kills at least 4 people, wounds 9 others at nightclub at Playa del Carmen resort - AP 6:02 PM All assesses with GST turnover of Rs 1.5 crore or less,90% of them will be assessed by States &10% by administrative machinery of Centre-FM - ANI 6:00 PM Saudi carrier flynas signs deal for 80 Airbus A320 planes - AFPA 5:51 PM Reliance Industries reports 3.6 pc rise in Q3 consolidated net profit at Rs 7,506 crore. - PTI 5:35 PM India at 60th place among 79 developing economies in wef inclusive development index; ranks below China(15), Pak(52) -PTI 5:32 PM CBI files a charge sheet against 4 accused in connection with Vyapam case. - ANI 5:23 PM Limit on withdrawal from current accounts has been enhanced from current limit of Rs 50,000 per week to Rs 1 lakh per week. - ANI 5:21 PM ATM withdrawal limits enhanced from current limit of Rs 4500 to Rs 10,000 per day, per card. - ANI 5:16 PM West Bengal: TMC workers stop BJP MP Babul Supriyo's convoy in Durgapur; show black flag, after he allegedly arrived late for an event. - ANI 5:05 PM No consensus between Centre and states on administering GST, Dual Control; states to get right to tax in territorial water: Kerala FM. - ANI 4:53 PM Minimum temperature in J-K less than 5AC; less than 10AC at most places over Himachal Pradesh, U'khand, Rajasthan,Uttar Pradesh & Delhi: IMD - ANI 4:42 PM Bihar: PIL filed in Patna High Court seeking directions for an independent inquiry into the Bihar Boat Tragedy. - ANI 4:31 PM Delhi: Member of insurgent group KCP P Meitei, Inugbam Sanatombi Devi's judicial custody extended till 31st January by Patiala House Court - ANI 4:27 PM 40 children injured as bus ferrying them to school skids off road & falls into pit in UP's Mathura: Officials - PTI 4:15 PM Uttar Pradesh: Police detains 4 people in Agra for carrying Rs 1 crore cash. IT dept informed. Probe underway. - ANI 4:02 PM 26 killed in latest Brazil jail bloodbath - AFP 4:00 PM Akhilesh Yadav's nameplate as National Pres put below Mulayam Singh Yadav's nameplate of the same designation at SP office in Lucknow 3:35 PM The way you took the decision of #Demonitization in a minute Modi Ji, you must also do the same for OROP: Rahul Gandhi in Rishikesh 3:20 PM Chhattisgarh: CRPF recovers IED weighing 10 kg in Bijapur district near an under construction bridge. Successfully defused. - ANI 3:09 PM After US' 'outlier' comment, China says admission of non-NPT signatories in NSG can't be farewell gift for countries to give each other. (PTI)A 3:03 PM Large police posse deployed to prevent youths from various parts of TamilNadu from taking part in Jallikattu defying SC ban. (PTI) Large police posse deployed to prevent youths from various parts of #TamilNadu from taking part in #Jallikattu defying SC ban (PTI) pic.twitter.com/GUL4mY1kG6 a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) January 16, 2017 2:56 PM India slips 3 places to 92nd on global talent competitiveness index; Switzerland tops (PTI)A 2:49 PM Chhattisgarh: CRPF recovers IED weighing 10 kg in Bijapur district near an under construction bridge. Successfully defused (ANI)A 2:44 PM Akhilesh was against appointment of a Muslim DGP: Mulayam Singh Yadav in Lucknow (ANI)A 2:40 PM 'Pilot error' caused Turkish cargo plane crash: Kyrgyzstan official (AFP)A 2:32 PM WhatsApp Case: SC issues a notice to Centre, TRAI & Facebook; sought reply in 2 weeks.Petitioner had raised questions regarding privacy on the app (ANI)A 2:17 PM The Govt will be responsible for education and rehabilitation of those affected by Kashmir unrest: J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti in Assembly (ANI)A 1:52 PM Three Indian-origin antiques, illegally exported from India, willingly returned by National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (ANI)A 1:44 PM Arvind Kejriwal has only one agenda that is to become CM of Punjab and to oppose everything PM Modi does: Sukhbir Badal, Dy CM Punjab (ANI)A 1:35 PM I am trying my best to save the party and cycle, and if he(Akhilesh) doesn't listen then I will fight against him: Mulayam Singh YadavA (ANI)A 1:20 PM We will accept whatever the Election Commission decides: Mulayam Singh Yadav to party workers in Lucknow (ANI)A 1:17 PM Supreme Court dismisses plea which sought video-recording of court proceedings (ANI)A 1:12 PM SC directs the centre to fill up vacancies of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes within three months from today (ANI)A 1:10 PM BJP releases second list of 7 candidates for Assembly elections in Goa (ANI)A 1:01 PM SC allows woman from Maharashtra to terminate 24 week pregnancy after board of specialists recommended abortion as fetus was underdeveloped (ANI)A 12:58 PM Finance Minister Arun Jaitley chairs 9th GST Council Meet in Delhi (ANI)A 12:54 PM Nearly 100 pigeons dead in Odisha's Kendrapara district in the wake of bird flu scare (PTI)A 12:46 PM Deeply saddened afterA Patna Boat Tragedy. Detailed probe will be done: Bihar CM Nitish KumarA (ANI)A 12:14 PM #A Secretaries of following states summoned by SC: Assam, Nagaland, Sikkim, TN, Delhi, Tripura, Bihar, Rajasthan, AP and MP. Next hearing: after 4 weeks- ANI 12:04 PM #A CISF jawan Suresh Gaikwad allegedly commits suicide by shooting himself with his service rifle at Kempe Gowda Airport in Bengaluru 11:55 AM # Delhi: Senior Uttarakhand Congress leader and state minister Yashpal Arya joined BJP in presence of Amit Shah 11:49 AM #A They are kind of person who always switch parties and make deals, public acknowledge this fact, says Parkash Singh Badal on Sidhu 11:47 AM # Will ppl forget what he said about Sonia&Rahul Gandhi? Used most derogatory words for Dr.Manmohan Singh sahab: Bikram Majithia,SAD on Sidhu- ANI 11:43 AM # Will contest elections wherever party says: Navjot Singh Sidhu at Press Conference 11:34 AM # BJP chose alliance, Sidhu chose Punjab: Navjot Singh Sidhu at Press Conference- ANI 11:27 AM # Chhattisgarh: 29 pilgrims injured after bus overturns near Telgara village in KankerA last night- ANI 11:23 AM #A Drugs are a reality in Punjab, lives of youth are being destroyed: Navjot Singh Sidhu- ANI 11:24 AM # I will fight redemption of Punjab: Navjot Singh Sidhu 11:14 AM # I am born Congressman, I have just come back to my roots- Navjot Singh Sidhu in Press Conference 10:55 AM # 1984 riots case: Supreme Court directs the Central Government to file a report regarding the status of the case 10:38 AM # 26 to hang for Bangladesh abductions and murders: court- AFP 10:27 AM # J-K: Train service on Baramulla-Banihal section suspended for today due to heavy snowfall- ANI 10:27 AM # Madurai (Tamil Nadu): Villagers protest in support of jallikattu inA Alanganallur. Police at the spot - ANI 10:10 AM # Kyrgyzstan says at least 32 dead after Turkish cargo plane hits houses (ANI) 10:02 AM # South Korea prosecutors seek arrest of Samsung heir in bribery scandal- AFP 10:00 AM # Mathura (UP): More than 40 school children injured after a school bus overturns on Surir-Sikandarpur road. All injured admitted to hospital-ANI 9:58 AM # Accused paedophile Sunil Rastogi has been sent to judicial custody for 14 days by a Delhi court-ANI 9:39 AM # Tamil Nadu: Villagers hold 'symbolic' jallikattu event in Alanganallur, Madurai after prayers- ANI 9:31 AM # Kyrgyzstan says up to 15 people dead in Bishkek plane crash- AFP 9:32 AM # Three injured in fire cracker celebration after rumours spread that local BJP MLA aspirant has got the ticket- ANI 9:00 AM # Kashmir University examinations scheduled to be held today and tomorrow, postponed due to heavy snowfall- ANI 8:50 AM # OPDs of all private hospitals in the state to remain closed from 10 am to 5pm in protest against assassination of Allahabad's Dr.AK Bansal 8:17 AM # J-K encounter: Three terrorists gunned down by security forces inA Pahalgam- ANI 8:15 AM # Despite SC ban we sought permission from authorities to atleast hold traditional prayers at temple:Sundar Raghvan, Associate Madurai on Jallikattu- ANI 7:46 AM # Ajay Maken, Asha Kumari and Navjot Singh Sidhu to address the media at 11 AM at Congress Headquarters- ANI 7:37 AM # Kolkata: Fire at Presidency University canteen, six fire tenders being used to douse the flames.The fire is now under control- ANI 6:43 AM #A Delhi fog: 17 trains delayed, 6 rescheduled and 2 cancelled- ANI Arvind Kejriwal has only one agenda that is to become CM of Punjab and to oppose everything PM Modi does: Sukhbir Badal, Dy CM Punjab For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. London : Scientists have discovered a group of microbes, named after Marvel characters Thor, Odin and Heimdall, that may explain how complex cellular life on the Earth emerged from simpler microbial ancestors billions of years ago. Life on our planet can be divided into three major groups. Two of these groups are represented by tiny microbes, the Bacteria and the Archaea. The third group of organisms comprises all visible life, such as humans, animals and fungi known as eukaryotes. While the cells of bacteria and archaea are small and simple, eukaryotes are made up of large and complex cells. The origin of these complex cell types has long been a mystery to the scientific community, but now researchers led by Uppsala University in Sweden have identified a group of microorganisms that provides a unique insight into the evolutionary transition from simple to complex cells. It is known that eukaryotes at some point shared a common ancestor with archaea. It was also clear that symbiosis - a process involving an intimate collaboration between two cell types played an important role in this process. Most scientists share the view that a symbiosis in which an archaeal host cell took up a bacterium ultimately gave rise to eukaryotes. Yet, whether this symbiosis was the cause or rather the consequence of the evolution of complex cells remained an open question. Researchers discovered of a new group of Archaea, the Asgard archaea, which reveal important details on how eukaryotic cells evolved their complexity. By using new methods to obtain genome data from microbes that cannot be grown in the laboratory, we identified a new archaeal group that is related to the host cell from which eukaryotic cells evolved, said Thijs Ettema at Uppsala University. In an earlier study, researchers described genomic data for Loki, an archaeon living in the ocean floor that represented the closest living micro-organism of complex cellular life. In the current study, which corroborates these previous findings, several new Loki-related archaea are described. These organisms are our closest microbial relatives, and we know next to nothing about them. Current methods allow us to take a first genetic sneak peek, said Ettema. Our findings are based on analysis of genetic material that was directly obtained from the environment. We have actually never seen these cells, said Jimmy Saw, researcher at Uppsala University. We named these new archaea Thor, Odin and Heimdall after the Norse gods, and together with Loki, they form the Asgard archaea, said Eva Fernandez-Caceres from Uppsala University. These new groups are found in various environments all over the world, and not only in the deep sea, as Loki. So far they are most abundant in sediments, said Fernandez-Caceres. The study provides strong evidence that eukaryotes evolved from a lineage that was related to these Asgard archaea. The study was published in the journal Nature. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Karachi: Media reports claim that Pakistan's former President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US on January 20. Zardari, co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was invited to the January 20 ceremony by the US government which he accepted. He will leave for the US on January 17, the Daily Times reported. Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late in December after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include ex-Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders. Also Read: Eighteen Democratic lawmakers set to boycott Donald Trump's inauguration It is also said that he would proceed to France from the US. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is expected to join him in the US on January 25 after the PPP's Lahore-Faisalabad rally, which is scheduled to be held on January 19. Also Read: Former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari finally returns to Pakistan Besides US-Pakistan ties, issues related to Pakistan-India relations, Afghan policy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will also come under discussion during one-on-one meetings with the US authorities, including the Congressmen and senators.Zardari, who is currently in Dubai, is expected to undergo a medical examination while in the US. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Beijing: China on Monday said it has sold two naval ships to Pakistan to protect the strategic Gwadar port and trade routes under the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, saying the sale of vessels was part of normal military and trade cooperation. I have learned that some reports said China has donated these vessels. This is not correct, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing here while replying to a question that Beijing has gifted two vessels to Pakistan. The report mentioned surveillance ships. It is normal military trade cooperation with the two countries and complies with the international commitments of the two countries, Hua said. So I want to clarify that it is not donation but it is military trade cooperation. Pakistani side bought these two ships from China, she said. China on Sunday handed over the two ships to the Pakistan Navy for joint security along the sea route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Gwadar port in Pakistans restive Balochistan province has been developed under CPEC linking western China through Pakistan with the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Recently built in China and equipped with state-of-the-art guns, the ships will be part of Pakistan Navy and also used to protect the sea-lanes in the Arabian Sea. A ceremony was held in Gwadar where Chinese officials, who reached Gwadar aboard the ships, handed them over to their Pakistani counterparts. In the past, China has shied away from saying that it plans to deploy its naval ships in Gwadar, a move which could raise alarm in the US and India. China has not only rebuilt the Gwadar port but also has its operational control. It is also building a network of roads and railways to link up its remote western region to Gwadar for easier access to the Arabian Sea. The revamped Gwadar port became operational in November last year after two cargo ships laden with containers set off for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the UAE and EU. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday condemned Indian security forces for killing three militants in south Kashmir, terming the encounter a continued act of state terrorism and urged the UNHCR and the international community to intervene. The Foreign Office said Pakistan condemns systematic and brutal killing of Kashmiris by Indian forces and urges UNHR organisations across the globe and the international community to act to stop blood-shed of Kashmiris by India. As a continued act of state terrorism, India is blatantly committing crimes against humanity in (Kashmir), it alleged. Indian security forces in an overnight operation killed three militants in south Kashmirs Anantnag district. An army official said the militants fired upon them during a search operation on Sunday and they retaliated killing the militants. It claimed hundreds of Kashmiris have been killed since the unrest began in Kashmir after the death of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8 last year. It further claimed the constant terrorist activities of the RSS and its affiliates in Kashmir with the states backing ... are highly deplorable and call for accountability of the perpetrators. The statement urged the international community to take steps to ensure independent investigations in Kashmir without further delay. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Frankfurt am Main: The NATO alliance is an obsolete organisation, US President-elect Donald Trump has said in an interview, complaining that the pact had not bothered about terrorism. I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, Trump told the Mondays editions of German tabloid Bild and the Times of London. While he said NATO remains very important to me, he returned to a favourite campaign-trail complaint that some NATO allies werent paying enough. Were supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much, he added. The US accounts for some 70 per cent of spending by NATO nations. Immediately after Trumps election victory, the organisations secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg recalled that NATO had been at the heart of transatlantic security since its founding in 1949. Members of NATO are pledged to defend one another if attacked, with the self-defence clause invoked only once in historyafter the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. In 2014, leaders of the 22-nation allianceoriginally founded in response to the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe -- agreed to return defence spending to their commitment of 2.0 per cent of GDP in the wake of Russian intervention in Ukraine and upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa. Trump calls for deal with Russia to reduce nuclear arsenal In a separate interview published by The Times, US President-elect Donald Trump has called for a deal with Russia that would very substantially reduce nuclear arsenals and ease sanctions against Moscow. They have sanctions on Russialets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it, Trump said on Sunday. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit, said the president-elect, who has previously expressed admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There were no details about the specific sanctions that Trump had in mind, or their range. Under Barack Obama, the US applied various sanctions against Moscow for its involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyber attacks to influence the US election. Washingtons European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19. Trumps comments were published hours after the outgoing CIA chief John Brennan warned the president-elect does not understand the challenges posed by Russia. I dont think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russias intentions and actions, Brennan told Fox News, prompting a swift rebuke from Trump. The president-elect has said it would be an asset if he gets along with Putin, while cautioning the duo may not become friendly. If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia, Trump told a press conference on January 11. I dont know that Im going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But theres a good chance I wont, he added. Trump was speaking in the wake of a report claiming Putin was behind a campaign of hacking and media manipulation aimed at boosting Trumps election bid. The Director of National Intelligence report released on January 6 came just days ahead of the leak of a separate and unsubstantiated report that Russia had gathered compromising personal and financial material on Trump. The report also alleged close links between Trump and Kremlin aides during the US presidential race, denied by both sides. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 16 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: GDP growth rate in Turkmenistan was maintained at 6.2 percent in 2016, the countrys Ministry of Economy and Development said Jan. 16. The growth rate has increased by 1.2 percent in the industrial sector, 4.4 percent construction, 10.5 percent transportation and communication sector, 14.3 percent trade, 11.6 percent agriculture and 10 percent sphere of services. The volume of retail trade turnover has increased by 16.9 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of the volume of natural gas reserves, according to the BP report. Currently, the country is able to export natural gas to China and Iran with the possibility of increasing the supply volume. This is while Russia has suspended the purchase of Turkmen gas. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 16 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: Deryaguly Bashimov has been appointed as Turkmenistans acting minister of railway transport, according to a decree of the Turkmen president. It was previously reported that the former Turkmen Minister of Railway Transport Bayram Annameredov has been appointed as the countrys deputy prime minister, responsible for transportation and communication. Regional transportation projects have intensified in recent years in Turkmenistan. In December 2014, a ceremony for launching a new railway route Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran was held. The North-South transportation corridor will link the Central Asian countries with the Persian Gulf and will open the way to Europe for them. Ashgabat is also involved in the implementation of another railway project on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan route. China, Kyrgyzstan and Iran may also join the project. Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Jan. 16 By Demir Azizov Trend: Uzbekistan plans to export products worth $10.8 billion in 2017, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said during a meeting of the countrys Cabinet of Ministers. He demanded that the members of the Uzbek government implement the agreements on supply of products totaling $7.7 billion concluded in 2016. The export of fruits and vegetables is another objective of the export capacity building, said the Uzbek president. We need to more actively continue the work to find new markets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as other countries, Mirziyoyev noted. At the same time, it should be noted that the instruction to establish such cooperation with Bulgaria brought no results. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate DANBURY - A multicultural and multigenerational crowd rose to its feet five times Monday to cheer songs and speeches inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. during a Baptist churchs celebration of the slain civil rights leader. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy, said Dr. Kelly Wood, quoting King during her keynote speech at the 15th annual King Day celebration at New Hope Baptist Church. My question to you today is during this time of challenge, where do you stand? Woods speech, which drew two standing ovations, was the highlight of an upbeat program of choral music, jazz and testimony to honor the civil rights martyr. Speakers stressed that interconnectedness was at the heart of Kings teaching. I just want to tell the young people here today that the dream Dr. King spoke of many years ago is a living dream and a lasting dream ... to have compassion for one another, to care for each other and to look for the weak around us and try to lift them up, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton told the crowd. Today in an era where we are sometimes overwhelmed with hate on social media or from anonymous sources, the reality is we need to take the one step each day to reach out and tell the person next to us that we love them, we care for them and we respect them. A 23-year-old real estate coordinator attending the program with his mother agreed. Even if I wasnt black, Dr. Martin Luther King, is a major inspirational figure in the world and in history - how in times of violence he could stick to his core values no matter what happened, said Marcel McCollough. Such a quest for justice is very inspirational. The youth in the church kept the crowd roused throughout the program, with musical numbers and short reflections about King. The crowd came to its feet in appreciation for a number by the New Hope Baptist Church Youth Choir called Freedom, Freedom, Dr. King, sung to the tune of Mary Had Little Lamb. I thought it was really good we could expand this to children so they can learn about the work of Dr. King as well, said Jonelle Rochester, 31, a member of the church. The church rose up from the pews in applause again after a lively rendition of Count Basies All of Me by the Danbury High School Jazz Band. The keynote speaker, an endocrinologist who was born in Barbados and considers New Hope her home away from home, gave the short version of Kings life story before relating his vision to todays reality. She told the story of a Baptist minister and student of non-violence who became the moral center of the civil rights movement and earned the Nobel Peace Prize before being assassinated. The whole world knows who Dr. King is but I think his significance and importance only struck me after I moved here and experienced what it is like to live as a black person in America, she said before the program began Monday morning. What he did for us really hit home for me and had most significance for me after I moved here. Wood told the crowd during her speech that the discrimination that oppressed blacks in housing, employment and criminal justice during Kings era in the 1950s and 1960s persists today. The response, she said, was for people of good will to: Seek out volunteer opportunities. Be better educated and informed. Be more involved at the local political level. Engage more in the conversation about racism. Yes, better days are coming, Wood said, referring to the title of Mondays program. But we must work together to change them. rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342 Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Emil Ilgar Trend: Irans Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has evaluated the situation in oil market as positive, saying the era of expensive oil has reached. Speaking in an interview with Irans state-run IRIB TV on Jan. 16, Zanganeh said, I am sure that OPEC and non-OPEC would commit to oil cut. OPEC members reached an agreement on November 30, 2016 to cut the oil production from January 2017 for six months. The move was backed by some non-OPEC oil producers on Dec. 10 last year. OPEC should cut 1.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) and non-OPEC producers nearly a half of this volume for six months. The biggest part of this figure would be realized, Irans oil minister said, adding that the rise in oil price is the psychological effect of oil output cut deal. The physical effect of the deal [realization of the deal] would increase oil price more by clearing the glut in markets, he added. Zanganeh said Irans revenues from oil and gas condensate export are expected to reach $40 billion in the current fiscal year, which started on March 21, 2016. He also said that during nine months of the current fiscal year Iran sold oil worth about $24.7 billion. The oil price in the beginning of 2016 plunged to below $30, but currently it is around $55, which is still half of the price recorded in 1H14. Zanganeh said the oil price in Irans next fiscal year budget was set at $55 per barrel. Answering a question that some countries still block Irans oil revenues, Zanganeh said no oil revenue is blocked abroad. Under the nuclear deal that came into force in January 2016, Irans frozen assets abroad were unblocked. MONTREAL, Jan. 16, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Keolis Canada is proud to announce the acquisition of Skyport, a bus transport company based near Montreal-Trudeau airport that specializes in airport services. Skyport handles crew transportation and manages and delivers lost and delayed luggage for most airlines, primarily in the Montreal, Tremblant, Quebec City and Ottawa regions. It also operates a shuttle service between the Concordia University campuses, and it offers charter bus services in Quebec, Ontario and the United States. "There is a clear synergy between Keolis Canada and Skyport, and we very much look forward to developing the services that Skyport has offered to date with the support of all of the personnel already in place," stated Patrick Gilloux, President and COO of Keolis Canada. "We are pleased to be joining the large Keolis family. There is no question that Skyport will benefit from its extensive knowledge and business experience as our company grows and progresses," said Mario Couture, General Manager and Chief CFO of Skyport. Keolis Canada views the acquisition as an ideal opportunity to consolidate its operations at Montreal-Trudeau airport and expand the territory served. In fact, Keolis Canada already operates airport shuttles as well as a shuttle between Quebec City and Montreal-Trudeau airport for the exclusive use of Air France and KLM passengers. This acquisition will enable it to deploy a new line of services, such as shuttles to Concordia University, crew transportation, and the delivery of luggage, and it will complement the company's existing charter services. About Skyport Autocars Skyport is a business specialized in bus passenger transportation that provides a wide array of services. For more than 20 years, Autocars Skyport has offered a full range of services, including chartered vehicles within Canada, primarily in the Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City regions, a shuttle between Montreal-Trudeau airport and Mont-Tremblant, crew transportation services for most airlines, and the delivery of delayed luggage. About Keolis Canada Keolis Canada, a Franco-Quebec company, specializes in passenger transportation in Quebec. Experts in intercity, urban, school, accessible, airport, charter and light rail transportation services, Keolis Canada offers safe and reliable high quality service thanks to a team of over 900 experienced employees. Keolis Canada operates a fleet of 396 vehicles. Every year, Keolis Canada transports almost 1 million passengers and over 1 million packages. Keolis Canada is part of the French firm Keolis Group. The Keolis Group develops customized mobility solutions adapted to the changing needs of passengers and to the requirements of the communities that it serves. A leader in urban transportation in France, Keolis Group is a major player in the public transportation of passengers in Europe and around the world. The Keolis Group is owned by SNCF (70%) and Caisse de depot et placements du Quebec (30%). SOURCE Keolis Canada For further information: (media only): Raphaelle Cyr-Lelievre, Senior Consultant, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Telephone: 418 425-0986, Cell: 418 580-0040, Email: [email protected]; Source: Marie Helene Cloutier, Vice-President, Passenger Experience, Marketing & Sales, Keolis Canada Inc. BRIDGEWATER, Conn. (AP) -- A New York man charged with shooting a 65-year-old during a home invasion in Connecticut last year has been jailed on more than $1 million bail. Dustin Holst-Grubbe of Millerton, New York, faces charges including home invasion, assault of an elderly person and assault with a deadly weapon in the Aug. 4 break-in and shooting in Bridgewater, Connecticut. Officials say 64-year-old Victor Compe was shot in the shoulder with a shotgun. He survived. Holst-Grubbe turned himself into New York State Police three days later. Police say he was moved to Connecticut on Friday and arraigned in Litchfield Superior Court. It's unclear whether he has an attorney who could respond to the allegations. The Oxfam Poverty and Wealth report has been getting a lot of coverage for a fact that it states that the top 85 billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the world. They also spin it with working for the few. They imply that the rich are making the poor work for them. The vast majority of the billionaires do not employ the poor. The Google guys employ about 80,000 well paid [in terms of upper middle class salaries and a thousand or more who have good stock options.] Bill Gates had employed a few hundred thousand and Microsoft. The poor were there before either company existed. Go back a few hundred years and pretty much everyone is poor. Bill Gates has predicted that there will be almost no poor countries by 2035. A few countries will be held back by war and politics, Gates said, citing North Korea, or geography, such as landlocked nations in central Africa. Still, he predicts that more than 70 percent of countries will have a higher per-person income than China now, and almost 90 percent of nations will be above todays India. The credit suisse report was based on the work of James Davies and Anthony Shorrocks. In 2009 on the Davies and Shorrocks papers notes, wealth of US$8,635 was needed to be in the top half of the global distribution, and US$518,364 to be in the top one per cent globally. They had a presentation to the World Forum in 2012. Global household wealth in mid-2012 totaled $223 trillion. So -0.2% is -$446 billion (total collective wealth of the bottom 10%, the bottom 720 billion) -0.1% is -$223 billion (total collective wealth of the bottom 20%, the bottom 1.44 billion) 0.0 (total collective wealth of the bottom 25%, the bottom 1.8 billion) The bottom 20% have negative wealth. The -0.2% of the bottom 10% is more than the +0.1% of the next 10%. It takes getting to the collective bottom 25% (the bottom 1.76 billion) to get to a combined net worth of zero. Not even the poorest person has negative $230 billion net worth. The poorest person might be a fallen billionaire (maybe Eike Batiste who racks up huge losses but cannot get to -5 billion, but then they are forced into bankruptcy. The bottom 1.5 billion who have a -$170 billion or so collectively. The bottom 20-25% of US households have negative net worth Oxfam has the wrong message Bill Gates correctly points out : Almost all countries will be what are now called lower-middle income or richer by 2035, Gates said in the letter. They will learn from their most productive neighbors and benefit from innovations such as new vaccines, better seeds and the digital revolution, he said. The belief that the world is getting worse, that we cant solve extreme poverty and disease, isnt just mistaken. It is harmful, Gates wrote. By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. In two decades it will be better still. Nextbigfuture has noted that extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2025. The World Bank has made this an objective as well. Oxfam has generally not been promoting the solutions that will actually work to lift people out of poverty. Some other observations 5 million people in Norway share in an $830 billion fund built from oil revenues. If Governments manage to a surplus then assets could be accumulated for a country instead of debt. Everyone in Norway has a $160,000 cut of the fund. The Norway fund is equal to about the top 85 billionaires wealth. The Swiss average out to being the wealthiest in the world and are close to becoming US dollar millionaires on average. Nextbigfuture also has an article about how Bill Gates is the Ultimate Robin Hood who has done more to help the bottom 50% than 100 Oxfams. Oxfam is again taking their class warfare spin on global wealth distribution. Comparing the collective wealth of billionaires to the bottom 50% poorest. The Oxfam report is based on the credit suisse wealth report which is based upon the James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas , and Anthony F. Shorrocks global wealth distribution analysis. The bottom 10% have a collective negative $1.05 trillion net worth (-0.4% of $263 trillion). Each of the poorest 720 million people have an average of -$1450 in net worth. The slightly positive wealth of the next 1.94 billion is needed to make up for the excess debt of the poorest. So the bottom 2.664 billion people collectively have $0 net worth. So the poorest person say with a larger negative net worth with more debt would have the equivalent of the poorest 2.66 billion. Not counting the positive wealth of 4 million people would mean the total would be -$4 billion. The person with the most debt still has less debt than the poorest 720 million and less debt even if the next 1.94 billion were to liquidate to help pay the debt of the poorest 720 million. It is also interesting to note that most of the people with the most debt exceeding their assets are people in the United States and not subsistence farmers in Africa. Poor people in the USA can rack up more debt. The debt estimate of the bottom 10% did increase from 2011 to 2013 The bottom 20% have negative wealth. The -0.2% of the bottom 10% is more than the +0.1% of the next 10%. It takes getting to the collective bottom 25% (the bottom 1.76 billion) to get to a combined net worth of zero. Not even the poorest person has negative $230 billion net worth. The poorest person might be a fallen billionaire (maybe Eike Batiste who racks up huge losses but cannot get to -5 billion, but then they are forced into bankruptcy. The bottom 1.5 billion who have a -$170 billion or so collectively. The bottom 20-25% of US households have negative net worth Oxfam has the wrong message Bill Gates correctly points out : Almost all countries will be what are now called lower-middle income or richer by 2035, Gates said in the letter. They will learn from their most productive neighbors and benefit from innovations such as new vaccines, better seeds and the digital revolution, he said. The belief that the world is getting worse, that we cant solve extreme poverty and disease, isnt just mistaken. It is harmful, Gates wrote. By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. In two decades it will be better still. Nextbigfuture has noted that extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2025. The World Bank has made this an objective as well. Oxfam has generally not been promoting the solutions that will actually work to lift people out of poverty. Some other observations 5 million people in Norway share in an $830 billion fund built from oil revenues. If Governments manage to a surplus then assets could be accumulated for a country instead of debt. Everyone in Norway has a $160,000 cut of the fund. The Norway fund is equal to about the top 85 billionaires wealth. The Swiss average out to being the wealthiest in the world and are close to becoming US dollar millionaires on average. Nextbigfuture also has an article about how Bill Gates is the Ultimate Robin Hood who has done more to help the bottom 50% than 100 Oxfams. Google Internet from drones and balloons can boost the wealth of the poorest and save millions of lives Expanding broadband access through wireless networks would be cheaper than building fixed wireline networks, however the benefits would be smaller, according to the Copenhagen Consensus latest study. Reaching 90% of the worlds people with wireless service by 2030, up from 32% now, would produce economic gains of $17 for every $1 spent, it estimated. Thats below the $21 in benefits from a building out fixed broadband networks. * this could provide over $22 trillion of GDP growth by 2030 ($2.2 trillion per year by getting to lifting developing world to the developed world 75% internet access) * 160 million people could be lifted from poverty and 120 million jobs could be provided Google internet balloons, drones and satellites could be the means to accelerate mobile internet deployment to the developing world. Facebook is also working on internet drones. Deloitte estimates that extending internet access in developing economies to the level seen in developed countries can raise living standards and incomes by up to $600 per person a year, thus lifting 160 million people out of extreme poverty in the regions covered by this study. The internet provides a route through which to improve awareness of diseases and provide information on health treatments. A number of free mobile-based and web-based applications exist in developing countries that provide information related to nutrition, hygiene and prevention of common illnesses. Evidence on the link between health literacy and mortality rates suggests that access to the internet has the potential to save nearly 2.5 million lives across the regions covered by this study, if they were to achieve the level of internet penetration seen in developed economies. In particular, Deloitte estimates that improved health information to expecting mothers and health workers could lead to a reduction of child mortality, saving 250,000 children who may otherwise have died during their first year of life. If developing countries were to catch up with levels of internet access in developed economies today, they would reach a penetration level of around 75%, more than tripling the number of internet users from 800 million to 3 billion. This means that an additional 2.2 billion people would receive internet access; of these, 700 million would be in Africa, 200 million in Latin America and 1.3 billion in the Asian regions. Deloitte estimates that increasing internet access to levels experienced in developed countries can increase the GDP of the regions considered by up to $2.2 trillion (an increase of 15%), with South and East Asia and India each gaining about $0.6 trillion in additional economic activity. Over ten years from 2020 to 2030 this would be a $22 trillion boost to GDP. Output in Africa could increase by over $0.5 trillion. Across the developing world, this represents an increase in the GDP growth rate of over 72%: in India GDP growth rates have the potential to double, in Africa to grow by 92% and in South and East Asia to rise by 75%. These differences are based on GDP forecasts for the next years obtained from the IMF. They further highlight the potential impacts of internet access as a catalyst for economic growth, especially for regions, such as India, which are forecast to grow at a slower pace in the next years. Googles offering is called Google Free Zone. Through this two-year-old initiative, the company makes deals with mobile carriers in specific countries and agrees to pay the data charges of people who use Google search, Gmail or Google+. Google Free Zone, as announced by Google on Nov. 8, 2012, operates in South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Nigeria and Kenya. Facebook Zero, Wikipedia Zero and Google Free Zone are great for the relatively small number of people who live in the right countries and use participating carriers. Subsidized data plans are possible only for people who live in areas where mobile connectivity exists. But billions of people live beyond the reach of any kind of Internet connection. Google Project Loon is planning to use balloons to deliver internet access across the southern hemisphere. Googles most recent test of Project Loon is taking place in Australia, where the company is partnering with Australian telecom Telstra. Its launching 20 balloons over Queensland this month. There are also tests underway in New Zealand, Californias Central Valley and northeast Brazil. There are about 75 Loon balloons in the air right now. By next year, Google intends to form a continuous, 50-mile-wide ring of Loon coverage that circles the Southern Hemisphere. The purpose of these tests is partly to demonstrate Project Loon to the telecommunications companies that may partner with Google on the management of local programs. Google also announced recently that its already reaching its goal of keeping balloons aloft for around 100 days in fact, one of its balloons remained airborne for 134 days Facebook is interested in using high-flying drones to blanket parts of the world without Internet access, beginning with Africa. Earlier this year, Facebook acquired a consultancy called Ascenta. It was mainly an aquihire to get the founders, who developed Zephyr, which is the record holder for solar-powered drone flight, having put a solar drone in the sky for two weeks back in 2010. Google acquired Titan Aerospace, a company originally sought by Facebook as a means to bring internet to remote parts of the globe. 11,000 of these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could provide internet to Africa. With Titans drones, Google could provide connectivity over longer distances, connecting their ring of internet balloons to other rings in remote areas. the Solera 60 deliver over 250 lbs / 100kg to atmospheric orbit. They will fly for 5 years at 65000 feet altitude In theory, a solar-powered drone capable of withstanding long flights at high altitudein what Titan executives call the sweet spot in the Earths atmosphere between 60,000 and 70,000 feet, above nearly all weather patterns in a zone where winds are typically less than 5 knots (5.75 miles/hour)would be able to perform tasks usually reserved for satellites at a much lower cost. A drone could be put up quickly, for much less initial capital. At the same time, it would provide targeted imagery at a cost of less than $5 per square kilometerversus $35 per square kilometer from a satellitewhile still offering the large area of coverage of a satellite Earlier studies by the center found that $1 spent to alleviate childhood malnutrition would do $45 of good, while $1 spent on malaria would produce $35 of benefit. Each $1 spent to treat and research vaccines for HIV would generate $11 of gains. This doesnt mean we should stop helping people with HIV and put all our money into broadband. But it suggests where the most development money should be focused, said Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Comparisons between the benefits of HIV research and broadband access infuriate a lot of people, Lomborg admitted. But the goal of such studies is to influence debate on how an estimated $2.5 trillion of global development aid will be spent between 2015 and 2030, he added. A basic amount of electricity and lighting could be rolled out in two years and not 20 years to help the poorest In 2010, some 2.8 billion people relied on traditional fuels such as wood, charcoal and animal and crop waste to cook and heat their homes; three-quarters of them lived in just 20 countries in Asia and Africa; 1.2 billion, or 17% of the worlds population still have no electricity. Achieving universal access to modern energy (electricity and clean and modern cooking) is one of three objectives of the UNs Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative, alongside greater energy efficiency and increased use of renewables. The initiative is led by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency (IEA). Its first report, released on May 28th, compiled global data from 15 agencies. The IEA reckons that nearly $50 billion a year will be needed to achieve the first goal (universal electricity and clean cooking) by 2030. My Proposal solar power for LED and clean cooking and give the carbon credit offset in unused kerosene to donating country or company Although small scale solar power and LED lighting could provide basic electrification for $100 billion for all of the 1.6 billion people. Clean cooking for another $50 billion for all of those that need it. People are currently burning wood and kerosene. Provide the offset in carbon credits to those who donate the solar panels, LED lighting and clean cooking equipment. Universal electricity, lighting and clean cooking who be a huge boost to the extremely poor. They would have better health from less pollution exposure. They would not need to spend time looking for and gathering wood or actual crap to burn. They would be able to study at night. They would have power for low cost smartphones and tablets. Instead of paying 10-30% of income for kerosene even the extremely poor could buy a $20 tablet. They could start climbing out of poverty by being connected and having some basics. Nokero has a $5 solar powered bulb. They have produced over 1 million of them In some areas of Africa, people spend from 10 to 30 percent of their income on refilling kerosene lamps, which are little more than tin cans with an open flame. Burning them releases millions of tons of carbon dioxide per year and contributes to climate change. And igniting them in a closed home can equate to smoking a couple of packs a cigarettes a day. Smoke from burning kerosene irritates the eyes, so students extinguish them instead of doing homework. Some nonprofits, such the Light Up the World Foundation, pair solar panels with LEDs. The organization Solar Sister provides women in Africa with training, marketing, and an inventory of solar-powered light bulbs. M-Kopa in Kenya provides a financing scheme along with the requisite technology; the organization sells an entire home system with solar panels, lights, and a cellphone charger, for about $200. Customers pay as little as about 45 cents a day and can pay off the debt in a year. South Asia and Subsaharan Africa are the main places with gaps in electrification. Clean cooking is not available there either but also has a large gap in East Asia China recorded the largest energy savings and greatest expansion in renewable energy globally. India has electrified an annual average of 24 million people and provided 20 million a year with access to modern cooking and heating fuels since 1990. The experience of these fast-moving countries offers lessons for the high-impact countries in tackling the goals. China and India are in both categories. The Worldbank plan Countries, international organizations, private sector and civil society need to more than double existing energy investments of $409 billion. They need to add at least $600 billion more every year until 2030. The additional $600 billion would include $45 billion for electricity expansion, $4.4 billion on modern cooking, $394 billion in energy efficiency, and $174 billion on renewable energy. SOURCES Computer World, Copenhagen Consensus, Forbes, Deloitte, Google Loon, economist, Credit Suisse, Oxfam, James Davies Rodrigo Lluberas and Anthony F. Shorrocks global wealth distribution 2014 presentation Airbus Group plans to test a prototype for a self-piloted flying car as a way of avoiding gridlock on city roads by the end of the year, the aerospace groups chief executive said on Monday. Airbus last year formed a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring concepts such as a vehicle to transport individuals or a helicopter-style vehicle that can carry multiple riders. The aim would be for people to book the vehicle using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes. One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground, Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year. We are in an experimentation phase, we take this development very seriously, he said, adding that Airbus recognized such technologies would have to be clean to avoid further polluting congested cities. He said using the skies could also reduce costs for city infrastructure planners. With flying, you dont need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads, he said. Enders said Airbus, as the worlds largest maker of commercial helicopters, wanted to invest to make the most of new technologies such as autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, to usher in what amounts to an era of flying cars. For the last two years, Airbus Helicopters has been working on a breakthrough design that could soon become reality without having to wait for too many regulatory changes. So far, it has been kept under wraps. Developers in France and Germany are working on an electrically operated platform concept for multiple passengers. The aerial vehicle, which goes by the working title of CityAirbus, would have multiple propellers and also resemble a small drone in its basic design. While initially it would be operated by a pilot similarly to a helicopter to allow for quick entry into the market, it would switch over to full autonomous operations once regulations are in place, directly benefitting from Skyways and Vahanas contribution. The feasibility study has already been completed and the conclusion is favorable. For the moment, those in charge do not wish to reveal any further technical details. However, one thing that Marius Bebesel, head of helicopter demonstrators at Airbus Helicopters, can talk about is how CityAirbus would work in practice: customers use an app to book a seat on a CityAirbus, proceed to the nearest helipad, and climb aboard to be whisked away to their destination. Unlike Vahana, several passengers share the aircraft. Nextbigfuture covered the initial rollout of the Airbus plans about 6 months ago Airbus wants to make flying taxis for city commuters.Rush-hour traffic is unbearable for many commuters today and the problem is growing. By 2030, 60% of the worlds population will live in cities, which is 10% more than today. To address this rising concern, Airbus Group is harnessing its experience to make the dream of all commuters and travelers come true one day: to fly over traffic jams at the push of a button. Flight tests of the first vehicle prototype are slated for the end of 2017. As ambitious as that sounds, Lyasoff insists that it is feasible. Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there, explains the engineer. However, Vahana will likely also need reliable sense-and-avoid technology. While this is just starting to be introduced in cars, no mature airborne solutions currently exist. Thats one of the bigger challenges we aim to resolve as early as possible, says Lyasoff. In as little as ten years, we could have products on the market that revolutionize urban travel for millions of people. says Rodin Lyasoff, A3 project executive. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Khalid Kazimov Trend: Iran Khodro, the Islamic Republics largest carmaker, has unveiled two new products, Peugeot A 207 and Dena Plus. Keivan Zargar, an official with the company, has said that Peugeot A 207 is the upgraded model of Peugeot 207 in order to meet the needs of Iranian families, ILNA news agency reported. He forecasted that the first Peugeot A 207 cars will hit the market by September. While speaking about Dena Plus, the official said that Dena Plus is an upgraded model of Dena with improved safety standards. Zargar added that the company plans to supply the first Dena Plus cars by April. Some 233,000 Peugeot vehicles were produced in Iran over the last year under a license by the French carmaker. Iran Khodro is Iran's major automaker, producing about 600,000 cars a year. Even without meaning to, by words, actions and inactions, President Muhammadu Buhari has greatly aided the cause of Biafra much more than a thousand Nnamdi Kanu could ever have done within such a very short space of time. What is happening with regards to Buhari and the Biafran issue vis-a-vis the arrest and detention of the IPOB leader as well as the continued killing of IPOB activists across the country is beginning to seem as though some unseen hand is using the poorly lettered highly vindictive Daura-born quota system ex-soldier called Muhammadu Buhari to speed up the Biafran agitation even without the knowledge of Buhari himself. So far, if anything has proven that this government is bankrupt in a way that defies reason, it is the way it has handled the Biafran issue. After years of running his Radio Biafra from abroad and exposing the many grave injustices of the Nigerian state, the Abia state born Prince Kanu publicly announced he was coming to Nigeria and even gave date of his arrival. If this govt and her not-so-intelligent Intelligence Outfit, the DSS werent holidaying in Mars the day this thing called common sense was created, they would have known that Mazi Kanu actually wanted them to arrest him in order to help bring international recognition to his struggle. But like I implied, common-sense is the rarest commodity when it comes to this Shiites and IPOB-killing govt. The DSS didnt just arrest Kanu, they behaved like the quota system security agency that they are by keeping Kanu with them for so long without taking him to court. When they finally took him to a magistrate court, they charged him with belonging to a secret and illegal organisation even when IPOB was duly registered with the CAC. When the Magistrate court granted bail to Kanu, instead of allowing him enjoy his bail, the DSS defied the court ruling and took Kanu before another Magistrate court where they charged him with sponsoring terrorism even when they ought to have known that the magistrate court had no jurisdiction to entertain such a matter. When the magistrate court expectedly threw out the case for lack of jurisdiction, the same DSS while still in violation of the first judgment of the magistrate court to release Kanu on bail, still took the IPOB leader to ABUJA high court presided over by Justice Adeniyi Ademola. On December 17, 2015, Justice Ademola ordered the DSS to release Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally since he had previously been granted bail by another court. Again, this court order was defied by the Lawal Daura headed DSS. To further prove that this country is a jungle, not a zoo, President Buhari came on national Television to swear that he would never release Kanu. It is settled in law that even if a judge delivers a ruling while visibly high on alcohol or drug, that ruling must either be obeyed or appealed at a higher court. Sadly, this simple legal fact was lost on the DSS. Nnamdi Kanu called Nigeria a zoo. He later came to the same Nigeria and defeated her government right there in her own court and even forced the president to treat the judgment of his own court with disdain. Now, do pray tell, between President Buhari and Nnamdi Kanu, who actually proved that Nigeria is far worse than a zoo? Quite frankly, if I was a man of means, Id sue anyone who dares to insult the beautiful animal place called zoo by mentioning it in the same sentence as Nigeria with a view to comparing the two. This country is not even a jungle because in a jungle, the head of the jungle does not use the instrumentalities of the jungle to aide one specie of animal in killing off species as Buhari is doing with the murderous Fulani monsters. Kanus arrest gifted the Biafran agitation with global attention. The continued breaking of Nigerian law and flouting of court judgments by the Buhari government in a desperate bid to keep the IPOB leader in detention has only won more sympathizers to the cause of Biafra. Whether we believe it or not, Nnamdi Kanu is now the most influential Igbo Biafran man alive! The IPOB leader is more like a god among millions of Igbo Biafran youth today. For him, millions of people staged protest in different countries calling for his release. For Nnamdi Kanu, thousands of Igbo Biafra youths marched on the streets of Nigeria demanding his release. Even when the uninformed thugs masquerading as the Nigerian army used live bullets on the Youths and killed many of them, they still continued their protest. Even when a joint team of the police and army massacred hundreds of them while praying inside Ngwa high school, Aba on February 9, they yet continued. No Igbo man nor any other Nigerian alive today can draw up to a thousand youths to the street without paying them! But Kanu did this and much more. Today, Nnamdi Kanu is a hero and Biafra is now on the lips of millions of people both here in Nigeria and beyond. Even some foreign media houses that never talked about Biafra are now discussing Biafra. All thanks to Buhari and his criminally inept DSS. Now, the court has finally cancelled secret trial for the IPOB leader. I dont need to look into my crystal ball to know that however this Kanus court case ends, it is a win-win for him and the Biafra struggle. If the government keep holding him, the Biafra agitation will keep rising like the wild fire. If the government releases him, he will walk triumphantly to a thunderous and an earthquake welcome from his followers who are swelling in their numbers and continue his agitation with more street credibility. Even in the unlikely event that he is killed in detention, it will still gift the Biafra struggle with more sympathizers and paint the Buhari government as more devilish than the devil and even give his followers the moral right to resort to violence which it would seem is the only language Nigeria understands. And most importantly, this govt has already created a million and one Nnamdi Kanus out there. Indeed, it is such a crying shame that president Buhari allowed his quest for vendetta against a people who have done him no wrong to cloud his sense of judgment. Even Jack my two-day old puppy knows that it is foolish to try to use force to silence a people who only ask to be treated like every other people or be allowed to go. Biafra is an ideology. And this ideology is getting its nutrients from the injustices of the Nigerian state. If you want Biafra to die a natural death, dont bother fighting Nnamdi Kanu. Fight those devilish policies of the Nigerian state, stop the clandestine war which Nigeria is still carrying out against the Igbo Biafrans, give justice to millions of Igbo Biafran children and civilians starved to death by the Nigerian state during the Biafran war. Targeting civilians during conflict and starving them of food and medicine as Nigeria did to Biafra, then, is nothing short of war crime. We remember! This government has boxed itself into a corner. Whatever happens, it is a win-win for Nnamdi Kanu and Biafra! Charles Ogbu is a social media activist. Connect with him on Facebook The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Amid allegations of embezzlement of emblem funds and non-payment of pension arrears, the grand finale of the 2017 Armed Forces Remembrance Day was celebrated across the country yesterday.At the celebration in Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari who led Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and other top government officials to the Eagle Square, venue of the event commended the armed forces for their contribution to the survival and development of the country.These allegations have thrown up the need for the government to pay more attention to the welfare of its former military personnel. This would boost the morale of those who are currently in service and are faced with risks in a bid to protect the country or as peacekeepers outside the nation.He particularly expressed satisfaction with the performance of Nigerian troops in foreign missions, and commended them for the honour their various adventures have brought to the country, even as he urged them to maintain the standard. Buhari, through a satellite video-conferencing medium, interacted with Nigerian troops of Operation Lafiya Dole fighting in Sambisa forest, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) as well as the Air Force base in Yola as part of activities for the event.The president spoke through Major General Victor Ezugwu, Acting GOC, 7 Division, Nigerian Army (Sambisa Forest); Major General Salihu Uba, Force Commander for the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL); and Air Commodore Charles Owoh, Air Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Air Force Base Yola. Buhari lauded the courage and gallantry of the troops, and said Nigerians were proud of them.Also present at the event were the Senate President, Bukola Saraki; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen; service chiefs; and the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.The president laid the traditional wreath at the foot of the statue of the unknown soldier, followed by the vice president and other top government officials.Other activities included the inspection parade carried out by the president, traditional 21-gun salute, signing of anniversary register, and release of white pigeons.At the celebration in Kano, retired soldiers expressed displeasure with the management of monies being generated on armed forces emblem and accused the leadership of the Nigerian Legion in the state of embezzling the annual donation.The ex-service men who spoke at Mallam Kato Square, venue of the celebration, expressed regret that those primarily meant to benefit from the emblem funds never had the opportunity.The Spokesman of the Retired Army, Navy and Air forces Association (RANAO), Captain Abdulmaliq Yusuf, called for the abolition of the yearly ritual, describing the celebration as a waste of resources which ought to have been deployed to take care of retired soldiers.The call came after Governor Abdullahi Ganduje applauded the patriotism, commitment and sacrifice of Nigerian Armed Forces in tackling internal and external threats.One of the retired soldiers, Abubakar Aminu told journalists that he never benefitted from the yearly donations just as he questioned the credibility of those entrusted to manage the funds.We only hear millions of naira every year, we dont know where the money goes. Nobody, not even the leadership of the legion would tell us where the money is going and when you ask the chairman, no serious response, Abubakar explained.Another ex-service man, Iliasu Tsoho said: The purpose of the money being generated we were told is to be used to assist families of the late soldiers. Many children who lost their fathers on active service dont have any source of finance now. If you go to the state secretariat of the legion you will see how many of the retired soldiers who cannot feed themselves left alone send their children to school. Honestly so many soldiers are suffering because they were unable to receive their pension for several years.In Plateau State, the Chairman of the Nigerian Legion, Col. Danladi Rwang (rtd) appealed to the Federal Government to pay them their nine-month pension arrears.Speaking yesterday at the wreath laying ceremony at the J.D. Gomwalk Secretariat Round About Cenotaph, Jos , Rwang commended Governor Simon Bako Lalong for donating N3million to the legionaries.The governor had earlier in the week given them a new bus to convey them to wherever they want to go. He also donated a tractor to the ex-service men to help them engage in farming.Former Vice President and chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar charged the armed forces to emulate their counterparts abroad by inventing arms required to defend the nation. In a statement, Atiku said he was looking forward to the day Nigerian military personnel would join the list of military inventors and designers such as Mikhail Kalashnikov of Russia, the designer of the famous AK-47 assault rifles.While congratulating the armed forces, the former vice president advised the military leadership to create special units for research to help Nigeria produce its weapons, among others, locally to reduce the dependence on foreign countries for arms.He expressed optimism that the Defence Industries Corporation (DIC), Kaduna would one day showcase the inventiveness, and technical acumen of the Nigerian military. On January 13, 2017, a military former head of state, General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar and members of his National Peace Committee were in Sir Kashim Ibrahim House Kaduna. His team comprised eminent Nigerians like Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah, Commodore Ebitu Ikiwe, and the Sultan of Sokoto. The peacemakers had a three hours closed door interface with Governor Nasir El Rufai, Deputy Governor Barnabas Yusuf Bala, and other top Kaduna government functionaries. The former Head of Nigeria junta stated their mission to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House thus: We are here due to the recent happenings in Southern Kaduna. And from here within the week, we are going to meet with other stakeholders, religious leaders, the chiefs in the area, and also visit the site where these problems are and discuss with the people. After which we will now sit down and see what we think should be done. After their almost late visitation to Southern Kaduna, and after listening to tribulations of victims, and tour of the genocide spots the head of self-appointed National Peace Committee informed the world of their next line of action in this fashion after which we will now sit down and see what we think should be done. Then we come back to the governor and if necessary to the federal government. From their mission statement, its clear that they are going to Southern Kaduna to see political, spiritual and feudal lords of victims. Except they are telling us that they are living in some far off planets, they know what has happened and still happening in Southern Kaduna. Sequel to that, why go to Southern Kaduna? The peace committee knows who has failed in protecting lives and property of indigenous people of Southern Kaduna via his/their actions, inactions, and pronouncements. Nasir El-Rufai, the Kaduna governor, and President Muhammadu Buhari, the commander-in-chief, have woefully failed to secure the people of Southern Kaduna in what is obviously appearing to be a genocidal scheme locally hatched, and commissioned to foreign barbarians to execute it. Wait a minute, are they going to Southern Kaduna to make peace or just see the scale of inhumanity and barbarism perpetrated by some hell-bound territorial expansionists? Lets yield to the temptation that they are going to talk and promote peace. Now, let me ask; is Southern Kaduna at war within or other communities in Nigeria? No. If its incontrovertible and irrefutable that Southern Kaduna people are not at war with any local or external community, why waste time visiting them and seeing Nigerias version of Sabibo? General Abdulsalamis team are mere attention-seekers whose interest is not to see to the end of the genocide in Southern Kaduna but gained national prominence. Come on, are these mixed grill team ignorance of Governor El-Rufais statement of 2nd December 2016 and his chat claims of 21st December 2016? Governor El-rufai claimed he knows the barbarians and vandals killing people, burning houses and running over farmlands in Southern Kaduna. He said, they are foreigners living in Niger, Cameroon, Mali, Chad and Senegal. The chief occupant of Sir Kashim Ibrahim House went further by telling us that he has paid some of them compensation to cease the killings in Southern Kaduna. With Mr. El-Rufais shameful and felonious revelation, are the National Peace Committee not to head to the countries Mr. El-Rufai enumerated and sue for peace? Heading to the direction victims of the mindless killings and arsons amounts to wobbling effort and charting a wrong directions. Let them get the contact of the killers from Mr. El-Rufai and head to their foreign climes and import them from their countries for a peace conference. It will be easy for them to achieve that because the compensator of killers Mr. El-Rufai knows their whereabout. If the gerontocratic clustered in the national peace committee are serious, let them head to Aso Rock and report Mr. El-rufais foreign policy action of linking and negotiating with terrorists. If they want us to take them serious let them openly condemned Mr. El-rufais action of compensating foreign killers of Southern Kaduna people because there is no local and global tradition that purified compensation of terrorists. Terrorist are killed and in milder cases arrested and prosecuted. But Mr. El-rufai has introduced a boomeranging angle into the way terrorists are handled. Do General Abdulsalami and his team members desire we take them serious? Let them insist that victims of known foreign killers be compensated. Let them insist that Mr. El-Rufai should explain why the village of Goska in Kaninkon Chiefdom of Jemaa Local Government that was under 24-hours curfew was attacked on 24th December 2016 with impunity. Let them, if they are sincere, inquire reasons why Governor El-Rufai and President Muhammadu Buhari have not created an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)? Or direct them to set-go the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) moving with relief materials to Southern Kaduna? Are members of National Peace Committee saying they are unaware of Governor El-rufais tweet in 2012 that told people that whosoever kill a Fulani man takes a repayable loan? On 2nd and 21st December 2016 he told us that he is Fulani. A simple linking of the dots and reading the thin blue lines in between his 2012 tweet and what is happening today will reveal that when he used the word We put it to whosever he told us the resolve of his genocidal and barbaric groups. This is logic. No special wisdom is needed to connect the dots. Gen. Abdulsalami must have heard of the imperial decree of an aspiring maximum leader Governor El-Rufai that anybody that counsel victims of genocide in Southern Kaduna to defend themselves is hate speech. And, that, he will arrest and prosecute such people or person. His tantrum and megalamomic resolve contracted provisos of the countrys 1999 constitution and Geneva Convention of Peoples Rights that clearly stated that, self-defense is a human right to a person or people under assaults, specially in a situation where government has vividly demonstrated its incapability in safeguarding them from reckless terminators. From this, its clear that Mr. El-rufai is telling the people of Southern Kaduna to hold their hands while janjaweeds he knows and have been communing with commits dastardly acts. Some of us are outrageously elated that patriotic citizens like Governors Ishaku Darius of Taraba, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Bishop Oyedepo of Winners Chapel, Senator Danjuma Tella Laah, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have advanced the position of self-defense. We live to see how Mr. El-Rufai will walk his threats by arresting and prosecuting these people that directly challenged his wicked and satanic philosophy. Let him demonstrate to Nigerians his awesome power by arresting these men of timber and caliber and men he cant even stand in their front and talk. Preying on people like Dr. John Danfulani of Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy, (CEDRA) and Jacob Dickson of Authentic News Daily is not the best way of showcasing his executive recklessness and dictatorial disposition. History confirms that bullies are cowards. This is my counsel to the people of Southern Kaduna and their socio-political group, distance yourselves from the men of the National Peace Committee. They are on a time-wasting and energy-consuming scheme of elites that are malnourished of the capacity to call a spade by its name. People who hardly look the powers that be in the eye and tell them some quinine-tasting truth. Should the targeted groups ignore this divine advice of steering clear and rejecting the invitation, they will sooner or later be confronted with the repercussions of their intransigency because nothing good will come from their interface. Let them invest the time they will waste meeting these people who dont share their aspirations or feel their pains in prayers and designing of strategy of how to defend their lands from unabashed land grabbers and 21st century inquisitors. John Danfulani, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy (CEDRA), a leading human rights activist organisation. He can be reached by email HERE The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Fatih Karimov Trend: Secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani rejected the notion that Tehran is after the collapse of the Saudi Arabia government. The Islamic Republic has always defended the national sovereignty of all regional countries, Shamkhani said, Tasnim news agency reported Jan. 16. Contrary to some perceptions, the Islamic Republic not only not after the collapse of Saudi government, but also is willing to contain efforts to overthrow it, he added. The collapse of Saudi government will not necessarily mean that the current government in the Arab country would be replaced by a better one, Shamkhani said. He further said that following the possible collapse of Saudi government, it is most likely that Saudi Arabia would be split up and a decadent and extremist thinking, like the Islamic State terrorist group, would rule major parts of the country. Relations between Tehran and Riyadh have strained over the past years after their conflicting views on regional developments, particularly on Yemen and Syria, became more noticeable. Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran after protesters stormed the kingdom's embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad on January 2, 2016, in response to Riyadh's execution of a prominent Saudi Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. January 19, 2017 following his loss of the December 1, 2016 presidential election to the coalition of opposition parties candidate, Mr. Adam Barrow, has left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders with no other option than to eject him from office by military force. The refusal of out going President Yaya Jammeh of The Gambia to agree to step down honourably onfollowing his loss of the December 1, 2016 presidential election to the coalition of opposition parties candidate, Mr. Adam Barrow, has left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders with no other option than to eject him from office by military force. THISDAY sources said yesterday that after the last minute efforts by the ECOWAS delegation led by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday hit the rocks with Jammeh insisting he would not step down until May when the Supreme Court of The Gambia reviewed his petition, challenging the election, the ECOWAS leaders decided to activate the military option of forcing him out of office and installing Barrow. Preparatory to the military action, ECOWAS service chiefs met last Saturday in Abuja with Nigerias Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin, presiding. Top on the agenda, THISDAY was told, was the inauguration of ECOWAS Military Intervention Group (ECOMIG), which would escort Barrow from Senegal to The Gambia for inauguration on Thursday . ECOWAS leaders had quartered Barrow in Senegal for his safety, pending his inauguration as the president of The Gambia. Jammeh had filed a motion with the countrys apex court to prevent Barrow from being sworn into office on Thursday . But the court could not sit because it could not form a quorum. Meanwhile the defeated president is insisting that he will not step down until the countrys Supreme Court delivers the final judgment on the dispute. Thousands of Gambians are said to have fled their country over fears of possible military confrontation between forces loyal to Jammeh and the sub-regional military forces. ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) have insisted that Jammeh, whose tenure ends on January 19 , would cease to be the President of Gambia by January 20 . ECOWAS had also pledged to send troops to ensure a peaceful transition of power if Jammeh, who had ruled for over 20 years, refused to cede power. State-owned Senegalese news agency, APS reported yesterday that Senegal will host Barrow until his swearing-in ceremony due to take place on Thursday . The agency said Senegalese President Macky Sall accepted to host Barrow in line with the request of the ECOWAS at a Franco-African summit in the Malian capital Bamako on Saturday . Radio France Internationale had earlier quoted Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbe as saying that ECOWAS had set Thursday as a deadline to try to resolve the crisis. In his welcome address to the sub-regional defence chiefs in Abuja, Olonisakin said the regional leaders and military commanders were ready to continue with the option of dialogue with the political leaders of The Gambia to ensure peaceful transition of power. The meeting was also said to have resolved that each member country of ECOWAS should assembly troops that would be deployed in The Gambia and install the new president in accordance with the will of the people, which they expressed with their ballot on December 1, 2016 as well as The Gambias constitution. Though no communique was issued at the end of the meeting, the Defence Headquarters, in a statement published on its website, listed military chiefs at the event to include: the chairperson of ECOWAS Chief of Defence Staffs, Brig. Gen. Daniel Ziankahn of Liberia; CH Gueye of Senegal; ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Hajiya Salamatu; Vice President of the Commission; the Ghanian Chief of Defence Staff and principal staff officers from Defence, Army, Navy, and Air Force Headquarters. On Friday , Barrow attended the Franco-African summit, while Mr. Jammeh was absent. A statement by Barrows office said Jammehs meeting with Buhari and other ECOWAS representatives was unproductive. Buhari had led a three-nation delegation to Banjul, but Nigerias Foreign Minister, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, said the delegation could not persuade Jammeh to relinquish power. Briefing the UN Security Council on the crisis, the Head of UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mr. Mohamed Chambas, had admitted that some countries in the region had witnessed political uncertainty or significant security challenges. We were saddened by the quickly unfolding political crisis resulting from President Jammeh changing his mind and deciding to reject the results, he said. The University of Ilorin said that adequate security has been put in place, in and around its campus to prevent any incident that might af... The University of Ilorin said that adequate security has been put in place, in and around its campus to prevent any incident that might affect peace and tranquillity in the university.Mr Kunle Akogun, Deputy Director of the Corporate Affairs Department of the University said this in an interview with newsmen on Monday in Ilorin.Akogun said that following the bomb blast that took place in University of Maiduguri, the university was leaving no stone unturned to protect the school.Adequate security measures have been put in place and staff and students of the Institutions have been advised to report any suspicious movement around the campus. Everyone on the campus is advice to be vigilant, even though it is only God who gives ultimate protection. But the University has ensured 24 hours security all over the campus, he said.Akogun also said that the university has not recorded any skirmishes with herdsmen, adding that grazing around the campus had reduced. Recall that Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Olushola Amore, in a statement warned Kwara residents to be security conscious following threat posed by recent flushing out of Boko Haram from Sambisa forest.According to him, there is the possibility of the insurgents group infiltrating Kwara.Recall also that the statement said residents of the state should watch out for person or persons seeking asylum or shelter in different communities in the state. Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District has again launched fresh attack on Governor Nasir El-Rufai. Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District has again launched fresh attack on Governor Nasir El-Rufai.Reacting to the claim that Sheik Uba Abdulaziz Sani defected from his political camp to join forces with El-Rufai, the Senator told newsmen, I do not know Shiek Abdulaziz and he never belonged to my camp as he claimed.Governor El-rufai invited him and few others through his S. A Political Affairs, Mallam Uba Sani and gave each of them N200,000, a plot of land and a contract for defecting from my camp. Honestly they dont belong to my camp, hence, Mr. governor has been duped, Sani said. Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, has expressed dissatisfaction with the way the current administration is treating former Presi... Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, has expressed dissatisfaction with the way the current administration is treating former President Goodluck Jonathan, whom he described as his elder brother.According to reports, Dickson said this when he received some journalists in Yenagoa, the state capital.Commenting on the recent invasion of the house of the former first family in Abuja, Dickson advised security agencies to tread softly and treat Jonathan with the decorum and the respect he deserves.He said the treatment being meted out to Jonathans family is sending the wrong signal about the anti-corruption war of the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.President Jonathan is from my state and no doubt an elder brother. Someone we regard as a leader and former president of our country deserves every respect and to be given a fair treatment even as the private citizen that he has now become, he said.As President Jonathan said, we need to be careful about commenting on some of these processes because a number of them are just unfolding, a number of them have not really been taken to their logical conclusion for things to be proven in one way or the other so we should be very careful about that.Talking generally now, not just about President Jonathan and his family, I feel that the perception that some of the policies of the present government are selective or are targeted at some persons or some sections is inimical to a number of reforms that the federal government is pursuing and that is not helpful; that perception should be addressed.It may just be a perception and probably it is not real but perceptions are also as important as realities. That should be addressed. Like every leader, he and his family should be treated with decorum and respect that he rightly deserves. Let us see how things play out, there should be less sensationalism.Recalling the unfolding events in Gambia, Dickson said with time, Nigerians will appreciate the kind of sacrifice made by Jonathan.While Jonathan did not wait for the result of the 2015 election to be announced before congratulating Buhari, President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, hailed Adama Barrow, his opponent, for his victory but later recanted, alleging that the election was fraught with irregularities.West African leaders are still trying to talk Jammeh into stepping down in order to avoid a crisis.Dickson said Jonathan did not use power in a crude manner.This country, with time, will appreciate the kind of sacrifice and service that Jonathans presidency gave, he said.Jonathan as a person tried his best and particularly in the area of the use of power and authority. He never used his public authority to harm anybody and the democratic process.You can see what is happening in Gambia now. Gambia is in crisis and for some of us when with time our memoirs come out, people will know some of the difficult decisions that people had to take in the national interest. Persecution watchdog and aid organization International Christian Concern (ICC) recently released its annual Hall of Shame report for 20... Persecution watchdog and aid organization International Christian Concern (ICC) recently released its annual Hall of Shame report for 2016, highlighting the worlds 12 countries that are the worst persecutors of Christians.Published by Religion News Service, the report divides countries into three categories Worst of the Worst, Core Countries and New and Noteworthy, which includes the United States, as well as Russia and Mexico. This is the first time the Washington D.C.-based organization, which has assisted persecuted Christians since 1995, has included the United States in its annual Hall of Shame.ICCs 15-page report also highlights conditions for Christians in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, North Korea, Egypt, and Pakistan, among others.Featured prominently in the report, Saudi Arabia takes the lead place in the core of the Hall of Shame largely due to its decades-long funding of radical Islamic movements globally. According to the report, Saudi textbooks can be found in schools across the Muslim world and teach discrimination against Christians and Jews while encouraging the spread of Islam through jihad as a religious duty.According to ICC, that ranked Nigeria 'Worst of the Worst' Countries persecuting Christians, Christians in central and northern Nigeria face brutal persecution from two armed Islamic militias. Boko Haram terrorizes northern and central Nigeria while Fulani militants wipe Christian farming villages off the map in central Nigeria. Christians are murdered, their churches burned, and their daughters are abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam. Over 30,000 Christians were killed in the last 15 years.According to ICC President, Jeff King,The amount of violence, imprisonment and discrimination against Christians being reported to us by our networks around the world is simply catastrophic.The report calls out and shames governments who allow rampant attacks on believers to take place or are directly involved in prosecuting Christians for their faith. It also warns of countries where religious freedom is deteriorating rapidly and serves as a wake-up call for churches around the world, regardless of denomination, to come to the aid of our brothers and sisters who suffer so much for the cause of Christ.Again, the list include:Nigeria,United States,Mexico,Iraq and Syria,Egypt,Russia,India,North Korea,China,Saudi Arabia,Pakistan. Prof. Aliyu Usman Mani was born in Katsina town on Thursday 11 April, 1957. He attended Kayalwa Primary School, Katsina (1964-1970), then ... Prof. Aliyu Usman Mani was born in Katsina town on Thursday 11 April, 1957. He attended Kayalwa Primary School, Katsina (1964-1970), then he proceeded to Government college Kaduna (1971-1975) from there he went to School of Basic Studies (SBS) ABU Zaria (1975-1976).After passing he got admission into the faculty of veterinary medicine ABU, Zaria and graduated with the award of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine DVM in 1981.He did his NYSC with school of Agriculture in Asaba, Bendel state. He worked briefly with Niger Basin Development Authority in Ilorin Kwara state before proceeding to University of Maiduguri as an Assistant Lecturer Department of Veterinary Medicine in October, 1982. Later he attended the center for Tropical Veterinary studies Edinburgh UK (1984-1985) where he got his Masters and at the same school he later got his PhD.He returned to Maiduguri in 1994. He is also a Fellow of the College of Veterinary Surgeons (2010) and through pair reviewer. He is one time Director of Unimaid Veterinary Teaching Hospital (1997-2000). Head of Department (2005-2010). Acting Dean of vet faculty (2008-2010).Before his death, he was again the Director of Unimaid Veterinary Teaching Hospital. He held several positions in committees both within and outside the University.He also held a number of positions in the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA). Professor Aliyu Usman Mani is Happily Married with two children. He is one of the peaceful Lecturers in his Faculty.Prof. Aliyu Usman Mani died to bomb blast on Monday (16th January, 2017) in the Mosque inside University of Maiduguri while observing the dawn (fajr) prayer. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace, Ameen! Amnesty International has called on the federal government to immediately release Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement of Ni... Amnesty International has called on the federal government to immediately release Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and his wife.On December 2, 2016, Gabriel Kolawole, justice of the federal high court, Abuja, had directed the Department of State Services (DSS) to release the detainees within 45 days.He also ordered the government to pay a compensation of N50m to them, declaring their detention as illegal and unconstitutional.The 45-day deadline expires on Monday, but the cleric and his wife have not been released.A statement issued by Isa Sanusi, media manager of the human rights watchdog, said: The Nigerian authorities must immediately comply with a high court order and release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife from detention.El-Zakzaky, and his wife Malama Zeenah Ibraheem, have been in detention without charge for more than a year following a clash between his supporters and the Nigerian military in which soldiers slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children. The authorities claim he is being held in protective custody.It quoted Makmid Kamara, its interim Nigeria head, as saying: The 45-day deadline given for their release expires today. If the government deliberately disregards the orders of its own courts, it will demonstrate a flagrant and dangerous contempt for the rule of law.El-Zakzaky is being unlawfully detained. This might be part of a wider effort to cover up the gruesome crimes committed by members of the security forces in Zaria in December 2015 that left hundreds dead.Amnesty International is also calling on the authorities to release other IMN supporters arrested at the same time as El Zakzaky and his wife, who likewise remain in detention without charge. The Coalition of Yoruba Youths, CYY, yesterday stormed the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, urging it to conduct a thorough ... The Coalition of Yoruba Youths, CYY, yesterday stormed the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, urging it to conduct a thorough investigation on the former embattled First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan before smearing her name.Staging a peaceful protest at the Lagos office of the EFCC in Ikoyi, Lagos, the Yoruba group said the campaign of calumny against the former First Lady was uncalled for.Addressing newsmen in Lagos, yesterday, leader of the group, Prince Usman Oyekan argued that the EFCC has gone contrary to its claim of commitment to the principles of rule of law.In a petition, the group said: An Open petition by the Coalition of Yoruba Youths on the sinister plot by the EFCC to manufacture evidence against Dame Patience Jonathan, Nigerias former First Lady and President Africa First Lady Peace Mission.Alleging that there is an elaborate political scheme to silence Mrs Jonathan, Oyekan said: For the sake of records, Dame Patience Jonathan does not engage in fraudulent or corrupt practices as she is being portrayed by some individuals with vested interest in President Buharis government. This is for no other reason than to envy the rising profile of former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, within and outside the shores of the country.In his response, Executive Chairman, Head of Economic Governance of the EFCC, Mohammad Issa Rabo, denied the allegation that the commission was out on a smear campaign against the former First Lady even as he assured that the commission would do its job thoroughly without witch-hunting or persecuting anyone.Rabo said: We are talking about Patience Jonathan, we are on it and we are investigating. We do not just call somebody for calling sake, we must have carried out our investigation thoroughly, so we assure you that we shall do as you have asked, we shall look into your complaints and we shall address the issue. We shall investigate thoroughly, before investigating anybody, no enemies carried of justice, no stone will be left unturned when it comes to issues of corruption. Your petition will also be forwarded to the executive chairman. A third suicide bomber was caught by Borno state villagers while she was trying to make her way towards the University of Maiduguri. A third suicide bomber was caught by Borno state villagers while she was trying to make her way towards the University of Maiduguri.Borno State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Victor Isuku made this known to journalists in a statement.According to him, At about 0800hrs, a third female suicide bomber of about 12yrs with IED strapped to her body, was intercepted at Bara Karaya village behind University of Maiduguri, in Muna Garage general area.The suicide bomber was sighted by villagers who promptly alerted the military, the statement said.The statement said she was gunned down, while EOD personnel of the Borno State Police Command secured and rendered safe the unexploded IED vest.Four people, including a professor of Veterinary Medicine identified as Aliyu Mani, were killed in a suicide attack that occurred on Monday morning at the University of Maiduguri.Survivors say the attack was carried out by a seven-year-old boy who detonated his bomb while Muslim worshippers were praying at the junior staff quarters mosque. A seven-year-old male suicide bomber has been identified as the one of those who detonated his explosives at the Senior staff quarters of ... A seven-year-old male suicide bomber has been identified as the one of those who detonated his explosives at the Senior staff quarters of the University of Maiduguri in Borno state killing a Professor, four others.Emergency workers have evacuated bodies of the Professor and others to mortuary after twin bomb-blast.The incident occurred near Gate 1, not the main Central Mosque, while the other explosion occurred around Gate 5 of the same university. The late professor has been identified as Prof. Aliyu Usman Mani, the Director of Veterinary of the University, according to Alhaji Satomi Ahmed, the Chairman of State Emergency Management Agency(SEMA). The Commissioner of Police(CP), Damian Chukwu, confirmed the incident to newsmen in Maiduguri.Chukwu said that 15 persons, who sustained various degrees of injuries were rushed to a hospital. At about 5:45 a.m. a mobile police officer who is on duty sighted a suicide bomber who was trying to scale the fence at Gate Five of the university. Suspicious of his movement, the mobile police officer instantly gunned him down and his bomb exploded and killed him instantly.The second suicide bomber, a seven year-old detonated the second explosive at the senior staff quarters mosque in the university where a professor, and four persons were killed and 15 persons sustained various degrees of injuries and were rushed to the hospital,said Chukwu.Chairman State Emergency Management Agency, Alhaji Satomi Ahmed said; All I can say is to appeal to the people to be vigilant and ensure proper watch because, like we have said, the insurgents are in disarray and employing any tactic to cause havoc.The people must be vigilant at all time, said Satomi. Tehran, Iran, Jan. 16 By Mehdi Sepahvand Trend: Tehraners climbed to rooftops around 17:00 local time to watch continued air defense shooting around Enqelab Square, where there is a no-fly zone encompassing the headquarters of the supreme leader and the president, Trend correspondent reported January 16. Local sources reported Tehrans Deputy Governor General for Security Ali Asqar Nasserbakht as having said during the operation that an unmanned aerial vehicle had been shot down. There have been no reports so far about the operators of the UAV. This is the second unleashing of air defense in downtown Tehran in less than a month. On December 23, Irans Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base said that its forces had shot down an unmanned aircraft in the same area. Your browser doesn't support video. Please download the file: video/mp4 Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, has made it very clear that he will not sell striker Diego Chelsea to any Chinese club, because it will make every other Premier League club vulnerable to the riches from the Far East.Costa was left out of the Blues squad for their trip to Leicester City on Saturday, after he reportedly clashed with manager Antonio Conte in training.The Spain international complained about a back injury and Contes backroom staff were not convinced about it, especially with news that he was being offered 30million a year from an unnamed Chinese club.Abramovich has however taken a stand and will not be pressured into selling the 28-year-old.He is adamant about it, a source at Stamford Bridge told the UK MirrorThe Russian billionaire has reportedly told Costas agent, Jorge Mendes, that there is no deal to negotiate.The owner is going to play hard-ball, added the source.Abramovich may however change his stance in the summer. Florence-fatal A male driver was killed in a crash on I-295 in Florence Township (Courtesy of 6ABC) FLORENCE -- State Police are investigating a fatal crash on I-295 in Florence Monday morning. A man was killed in the 9:10 a.m. crash, Trooper Alejandro Goez said. No one else was in the car and no other cars were involved. The crash occurred in the northbound lanes of the highway around mile marker 49.9, Goez said. Aerial photos from 6ABC show a destroyed car in the woods. The left and center lanes remain closed while police continue to investigate. Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find NJ.com on Facebook. boozle building permits mcnish(2).JPG Nancy Wells of Hasbrouk Heights says the borough won't let her sell her two-family home as a two-family home because proof of the home's status was destroyed in a municipal fire. (Nancy Wells) New Jersey is bloated with hundreds of little fiefdoms. Local governments allow red tape to rule the day, and they forget they're supposed to serve their constituents. They display no common sense. Nancy Wells, 57, of Hasbrouck Heights has been drowning in deep bureaucracy for nearly two years. Her story is simple. She's been the owner of a two-family home in the 1.5-square-mile, 12,000 resident borough since 1996, when she bought the property with her then-husband. All she wants to do is sell her two-family home as the two-family home it's been since it was built in 1949. But the borough won't let her, saying she lacks the necessary documents to prove her home is a two-family residence. Why? There was a fire at the municipal building in 1999, and town officials told Wells decades of building permits were destroyed, she said. Among them, she noted, were documents that would prove the home was a two-family and grandfathered in when the area was rezoned for one-families. And even though the home has always had two entrances, two kitchens, two electric meters, two gas meters and that according to county tax rolls, the home has always been a two-family home and has always been taxed as a two-family home, the zoning board won't listen to reason. Or common sense. Or the 13 long-time local residents who always knew the home as a two-family and put in writing that they're just fine if it remains a two-family. "I made an investment in a two-family so I'd like to get my two-family investment back," Wells said. "Selling as a one-family downgrades the value of the house." It all started when Wells put her home on the market in April 2015. Wells' real estate agent went to borough hall and spoke to Dorothy Bernice of the borough's planning board to confirm the property was a two-family. Bernice looked in a book and confirmed to the real estate agent it was a non-conforming two-family, according to an affidavit later filed with the Superior Court in Bergen County as part of Wells' lawsuit against the borough. Even though the street later became a single family zone, older two-families were grandfathered in, the real estate agent said she was told. So the house went on the market, and it sold for the full price that same day. Part of the affidavit by Nancy Wells' real estate agent, explaining the borough told her the home was a two-family. But while the sale was in attorney review, according to the affidavit, the real estate agent got a call from Bernice's boss, Nicholas Melfi, who serves as the borough's construction code and zoning enforcement officer. He said Wells' home was not a two-family and that Bernice made a mistake. "I asked, 'How can that be since she looked it up in the book while I was standing there,'" the agent's affadavit said. "He told me he would not give a Certificate of Occupancy..." The deal was dead, and Wells had to withdraw the listing. What followed was a battle that's isn't over yet. ASKING FOR REASON Wells said she called Melfi, the zoning official, several times, but he never returned her calls. So she filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request on May 18, 2015, requesting all tax records, deeds, permits and all documents related to the history of the home. Wells followed up with the clerk, Rose Marie Sees. "She told me that she was only allowed to give me what the borough thinks I need to see," Wells said. "When I went back to the borough, Rose Marie Sees told me that my public records were missing." Wells asked an attorney to write a letter to Sees, requesting the records. The next day, Wells received a call saying the records were ready to be picked up. "The only records the borough made available to me were the tax records," Wells said. She was given Property Record Cards, which the borough said were not destroyed in the fire. It identifies the home as a mother/daughter. A Property Record Card that says Nancy Wells' home is a mother/daughter. "I asked about the building records and was told no, I can't have them," Wells said. The next day, Wells said, she contacted the county tax assessor, George Reggo. "George pulled the file up on his computer and said, 'Yes, this is a two-family,'" Wells said. "I asked, 'Are you sure?'" She said Reggo pulled the files and showed her the paperwork. "He asked, 'Are you going to be selling?' I said yes. George said, 'You purchased the home as a two-family and you can sell it as a two-family,'" Wells said. No one at the borough wanted to hear it, so Wells took them to court. During the proceedings, the borough was suddenly able to present a certificate of occupancy (CO) from 1996, when Wells purchased the house. It didn't have COs from other years, saying they were all destroyed in the fire, Wells said. The redacted certificate of occupancy presented to the judge by the borough. It wasn't given to Wells as part of her OPRA request and she believes it's a fake. "I don't know how they came up with only that one in thin air," Wells said. "If all the records burned, how is that CO the only paperwork that's been saved?" She believes the CO, which says the home is a one-family, is a fake. Wells told the judge the document wasn't handed over with her OPRA request and that she was told all her documents were destroyed. The judge said she had to go back to the borough's zoning board, which she did. But, Wells said, zoning board attorney Joe Rotolo told her the board couldn't help because Wells couldn't produce any building permits -- the building permits that were lost in the 1999 fire. "I would have to spend lots of money on a land-use planner and show that it will not impact the neighborhood," Wells said. That's when she asked her neighbors to sign a petition to allow the two-family to remain a two-family. Thirteen families. They all signed, records show, but the board still said no. "All the people on the street that have been here the longest all said that it is a two-family," Wells said. "The zoning board said they don't care about the tax records. All Property Record Cards show that it was built as a two-family. It has maintained the two-family status for the last 50 years." While the zoning board had no documents to prove it is not a two-family, it said the burden of proof was on the homeowner to prove that it was. After three zoning meetings, Wells' requests were denied. The board voted down Wells' request. NO PROGRESS With so many borough employees involved, we reached out to Mayor Jack DeLorenzo to see if he could cut through the red tape and help this resident. After leaving several phone messages and sending several emails, DeLorenzo replied. "I'm sure you are aware the matter is under litigation," he said, promising to speak to the borough's attorney. "We all want this situation rectified." More time passed, and we didn't hear anything, so we left more messages for the mayor. Finally, the borough attorney said Wells had 45 days after the board's decision to appeal. Time would run out later this week, on Jan. 26. "Until such time, the Borough stands on the decision of the Superior Court dated Aug. 29, 2016 and the decision of the Board of Adjustment," attorney Ralph Chandless Jr. said. Wells feels she's left with no alternative but to sell her home as a one-family and lose money because the new owner couldn't legally rent out the upstairs apartment. "They claim the borough's paperwork was burned in the fire, but no homeowners were ever notified of that fact," Wells said. "They can easily do this to the next person if they don't want someone to sell their home as a two-family." "It's very unfair," she added. "I'm being penalized for something the borough should responsible for." We don't get it, either. Come on, Hasbrouck Heights. What gives? Have you been Bamboozled? Reach Karin Price Mueller at Bamboozled@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KPMueller. Find Bamboozled on Facebook. Mueller is also the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Stay informed and sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter. BRIDGETON -- Police are continuing to investigate the death of a 21-year-old man who died in a one-car crash following a police chase. Devonte Brooks was the focus of a police chase after authorities say he struck a detective Friday evening who was conducting a traffic stop. The detective, Jeffrey Scull, was taken to Inspira Medical Center in Vineland where he was treated for minor injuries. Bridgeton police were unable to immediately locate Brooks, who sped away from the scene, and called State Police and surrounding police agencies to notify them of the incident, police said. A State Police trooper saw Brooks' vehicle on Greenwich Road and unsuccessfully attempted to pull him over, police said. Police said Brooks was evading authorities when he crashed into a utility pole on Route 49, just west of the intersection with Route 77, around 8:45 p.m. Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK -- About 150 people took to the streets of Newark Sunday in a march that was meant as both a tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday and a show of defiance against President-Elect Donald Trump five days ahead of his inauguration. "Trump says 'Get back,' We say 'Fight back!" went one of several call-and-response chants led by Lawrence Hamm, founder of the People's Organization for Progress, the march organizer. Hamm and the POP have been holding a King march to celebrate the slain civil rights leader's birthday since the group was founded in 1983. For the last dozen years the annual Jan. 15 event has stepped off from the bronze statue of King in front of the Essex County Hall of Records on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The march proceeded down Springfield Avenue and onto Market Street, before turning around at Broad Street. "Martin Luther King!" Hamm hollered through a megaphone. "Live like him!" the marchers chanted back. "Dare to struggle!" he continued. "Dare to win!" went the response. Two months after the election of Republican Donald Trump as president, this year's King march was as much a repudiation of what Hamm and others anticipate to be a Trump administration that seeks to reverse progressive policies, programs and legislation adopted since the Civil Rights movement led by King in the 1960's. Republicans in Congress have already begun taking steps to fulfill a Trump promise to repeal the signature initiative of the nation's first black president, the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare. And among the banners carried by Sunday's marchers was one reading, "Health Care for All." "Donald Trump is not my president," Hamm told the assembled marchers. Other signs and banners read, "Remember the Civil Rights Movement," "No more food stamp cuts," and "Hands off Social Security." Newark Police officers blocked automobile traffic as the march made its way under sunny skies from the King statue down Market Street toward the intersection with Broad Street. The marchers were young, old and in between, black, white and other races, male and female, Newarkers and people from surrounding areas. Some walked hand-in-hand, some with canes. Some carried signs, others carried children. A motorist waiting for the procession to pass, Patricia Eaton of Irvington, honked her horn in time with the marchers' chants. "I think it's a good idea," Eaton said at the wheel of her Toyota SUV. "Everybody together." Not everyone was a supporter. "It's too late! He's already in office!" shouted Carlos Cruz of Newark, a 34-year-old hair stylist with orange and blond braids. Unlike 2008, when he voted for Barack Obama, Cruz said he didn't vote in November because he didn't like the conservative Trump or the Washington insider Hillary Clinton. "But I'm going to give him a chance," Cruz said of the incoming president. "I mean, we knew what we were getting with Clinton, right?" New Jersey will elect a new governor later this year, and one of the Democratic hopefuls, Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), spoke before the rally of King's continued relevance today. "He was the first person to talk about black lives matter," Wisniewski said, "because back then, there were a lot of people who didn't think so." Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK -- Nearly a year after a contingent of state troopers were sent to some of Newark's toughest neighborhoods, officials are crediting the deployment with helping to drive down violence in New Jersey's largest city. Anthony Ambrose, Newark's public safety director, said he arrived in the post to find the city's department ranks depleted by layoffs and grappling with a surge in shootings. "We were in trouble," Ambrose said of his initial days as director early last year. It was a call for backup to State Police Colonel Rick Fuentes that Ambrose said helped the city fight violent crimes. Without hesitation, Fuentes approved the public safety director's request for troopers working in investigative and patrol assignments in Newark, he said. A total of 50 members of the State Police -- 25 investigators and 25 uniformed troopers -- were assigned to the bloodiest sections of Newark's South, West and Central Wards. Ambrose said the city's partnership with the state has proven its worth with less violent crime victims. In the South Ward, police reported 38 fewer shootings over 2015, three less homicides and almost 100 fewer robberies. The West Ward saw 23 fewer shooting victims, along with declines in robberies and murders, according to the director. "That was because of the partnership," he said. At a December news conference, city officials also touted declines in murders, robberies and shootings, and an overall crime rate at its lowest since 1967. The city reported a 13 percent drop in citywide crime over last year and a 10 percent decline in violent crimes in the same period. Newark saw its first homicide of the year 11 days into 2017, with a quadruple shooting that left a 16-year-old boy dead in the East Ward. Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose and Chief Darnell Henry in this file photo "The bottom line is we have progress," Ambrose added. "We didn't win and we have a lot of work ahead of us, but I will say last January when it was looking grim and very depleted here, Colonel Fuentes stepped in and helped us achieve our progress." In an interview, Fuentes said Ambrose and Newark Police Chief Darnell Henry take the lead in deciding where the troopers would work. Police deployments are fueled by crime analysis and are constantly being reviewed, he added. The troopers focus is on lowering violence, often by working gang and drug-related cases. "We want to quell those opportunities on the street and anywhere else for a person to use a weapon," Fuentes added. Varying numbers of State Police have previously been deployed in Newark and other hotspots of violent crime around the state, including Trenton and Camden. Fuentes said the agency's personnel go where the need is. "That's why the patch on our shoulder says State of New Jersey," Fuentes added. "We only go to places where we collaborate with our law enforcement partners...that is one of our missions." Troopers working in Newark last year logged 584 arrests, including 301 for drug-related offenses, according to Fuentes. Fifty-three weapons were confiscated by the State Police in specific neighborhoods. "When you take one gun off the street it can have broader implications in terms of the number crimes that you have prevented," said Fuentes. State Police investigators have long been assigned to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office homicide task force and also joined Newark's Shooting Response Team, which handles non-fatal shooting investigations. "You can't ignore those shooting hits just because they're not homicides," Fuentes said. Fuentes would not detail any possible timeframe for how long State Police would stay in Newark, but said the agency is committed to its investigative work in the city. The 25 uniformed troopers were pulled back in September as new Newark officers joined the force to take on patrol assignments. City officials on Monday welcomed 64 new officers to the ranks, bringing the department's strength to 1,035. Massive layoffs in 2010 cut more 160 Newark officers. Newark Fraternal Order of Police President James Stewart Jr. said the backup from troopers was helpful in boosting patrols and working on investigations. "As the mayor and the public safety director move to increase our ranks from within, the aid from other agencies, most notably the New Jersey State Police, has enabled us to keep a more sustained presence out on the streets than we would have otherwise been able to do," Stewart said. State Police working with the city's Real Time Crime Center, which provides intelligence to investigators on shootings and other incidents, have also helped city detectives close cases, he added. "[State troopers] bring a lot to the table, street work and investigative assistance, things that help us, and benefit the citizens of Newark, and that helps us all," Stewart said. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. WOODBURY HEIGHTS -- Chick-fil-A employees held a Day of Service on Sunday to assemble care packages for troops stationed in the Middle East and to present a $42,000 check to Operation Yellow Ribbon of South Jersey. Employees from 18 area Chick-fil-A restaurants gathered at the Woodbury Heights Community Center on Sunday afternoon to put together care packages. During the last two months of 2016, the region's Chick-fil-A restaurants donated $1 to the non-profit Operation Yellow Ribbon for every 6-pack of Chocolate Chunk Cookies sold. "We are thrilled by the amazing support that our guests showed for our local military by purchasing Chocolate Chunk Cookies during our holiday season fundraiser," said Jeff Price, franchise operator of Chick-fil-A Mantua Square. "We're thankful to be able to donate to such a wonderful cause and to lend our help in assembling care packages for our troops." Operation Yellow Ribbon collects and donates supplies to service members deployed overseas and will use the funds raised to send care packages. The organization also holds events for local veterans returning home to the South Jersey area. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. WASHINGTON TWP. -- Teresa, a 2-year-old dog, almost ended up as someone's dinner when she was attacked on the streets of Thailand in December. The fortunate pup was able to escape the grisly fate often suffered by many of the country's stray dogs -- but not before her snout was mutilated. Now, two New Jersey women-- Michelle Weirich and Karen Quigley, former owner of Elwood, who once held the title of World's Ugliest Dog -- are hoping to help her heal and find a new loving home. Quigley said after Teresa escaped, someone caught her and called a local animal rescue in Thailand. However, the rescue couldn't find her a home or a means to provide the extensive medical care she needed. That's where Weirich and Quigley come in. "Michelle made some really great connections with a dog rescue over there when she went to Thailand to visit an elephant sanctuary," said Quigley. "They asked if she would take this one dog, a deaf dog, since they don't have the means to care for so many dogs, and she did." The rescue contacted her again with Teresa's story but Weirich couldn't take another dog so she reached out to Quigley. "You know my Elwood," she added. "When I saw Teresa I just thought she was the most beautiful dog and we had to help her." The two women agreed to bring Teresa to the United States as soon as possible, splitting the duties to give Teresa a smooth transition. Quigley stepped up as Teresa's foster family and agreed to care for her during her procedures. Weirich secured Teresa's travel and has started a GoFundMe to try and raise money for her future procedures. After speaking to top-rated surgeons about the severe damage to Teresa's face, they determined that the first step of the pup's treatments would be an assessment of her overall condition and damages. More specifically surgeons will be looking at nerve exposure, removing broken teeth, accessing her nasal passage and tongue trauma, and performing a palate opening which would allow for surgeons to examine her nasal passages further. The assessment will also help the surgeons gauge what other procedures might be necessary in Teresa's future. "She's a gorgeous dog the way she is," Quigley said. "We aren't concerned with reconstructing her face for cosmetic purposes, we're only going the reconstructive route if it's for health benefits." Through the GoFundMe page, the women are trying to raise $7,000 to pay for the the first steps and her travel to United States. However, they anticipate Teresa will need additional surgeries once they see how bad the damage is. "We won't know for sure what she needs until she's evaluated," Quigley said. "I know the surgeons are concerned that so much of her nasal passage is visible." They explained to Quigley and Weirich that dogs breathe through their mouth while they're awake, playing, eating and panting, but when they sleep, dogs tend to breathe through their nose. "We want to make sure, since she is so young, that she'll have a long, good quality life without trouble breathing," she said. "After that point, we'll know what else she needs. If she needs reconstruction, we will need to do a second GoFundMe, but we'll cross that bridge when it's necessary." Teresa is set to land at the John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 28, around 8 a.m. "We are all just so excited to meet her," said Quigley. "They rescue in Thailand has been sending me updated photos of her eating and wagging her tail and that's such a wonderful thing." "She's happy," she added. "She's a happy girl and she doesn't know there's a thing wrong or different about her." Teresa is scheduled for an evaluation on Feb. 1 at NorthStar Vets, when Quigley and Weirich will learn what other procedures she might need. "This is just the beginning of her story," said Quigley. "She's learning to trust people again and she's happy, so this is just the beginning." Caitlyn Stulpin may be reached at cstulpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitstulpin. Find NJ.com on Facebook. JERSEY CITY -- Police raided a West Side Avenue bodega Sunday afternoon, days after two cops were assaulted issuing a ticket for loitering in the neighborhood. Plain clothes officers were inside Garcia Deli and Grocery at the Gautier Avenue intersection at about 3:30 p.m. Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said four people were arrested, including a customer who was carrying a gun. The city's Street Crimes Unit is investigating an illegal gambling operation inside the business, which Morrill said was first noticed by walking patrols assigned to West Side Avenue. On Wednesday night, two police officers were assaulted when they tried to issue a ticket to a man "yelling and acting erratically" near the business. Residents have voiced their concerns about large groups of people hanging out in front of businesses between Duncan and Gautier avenues. The night after the officers were assaulted, several walking post cops were stationed outside Garcia Deli and Grocery. Steve Lenox, a spokesman for the JCPOBA, issued a statement last week saying assaults like the one on Wednesday "cannot be tolerated." "All of us that appreciate the efforts of the JCPOBA, to build partnerships and keep our communities safe, must stand together and say enough is enough," Lenox said. Additional information was not immediately available about what brought the raid, arrests, charges or items recovered from the business. Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. zpopey2.JPG A third Popeyes locatioin is opening in Jersey City, on Garfield Avenue. (Journal file photo) The popular Popeyes fried chicken restaurant chain is adding another location in Jersey City. Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen franchise is moving into a 2,000-square-feet location at the Twin City Shopping Center, 2 Garfield Ave., and will join Aqui Market, a new Retro Fitness, Everything $.99, Wendy's and Dunkin Donuts, said Levin Management Corp.., which manages the property. "The addition of a nationally recognized brand like Popeyes adds an exciting new dining element to this property," said E.J. Moawad, LMC's leasing representative for Twin City Shopping Center. This will be the sixth Popeyes in Jersey City. Others are located at Hudson Mall on Route 440, 924 Bergen Ave., Newport Center Mall, 237 Monmouth St., and 125 18th St. There are also Popeyes locations in Hudson County in Bayonne and Harrison. Broadway Sunoco introduces U-Haul products The U-Haul has announced that the Broadway Sunoco signed on as a U-Haul neighborhood dealer to serve Jersey City. The deal allows Sunoco to offer U-Haul trucks, trailers, towing equipment, support, rental items. and in-store pick-up for boxes. Reserve U-Haul products at this dealer location by calling (201) 984-1801 or visiting http://bit.ly/2igWoI5 Original Hoboken Blimpie relocated The country's first Blimpie's sandwich shop is relocating to the corner of 14th Street and Willow Avenue next to the Malibu Diner. Blimpie was established in Hoboken in 1964 at Seventh and Washington streets, and later moved to First and Washington streets, where they are located now. The sandwich shop is relocating uptown because its lease is not being renewed, officials said. The downtown shop will stay open until November 2017. The new facility, expected to open this spring, will have parking. Ribbon Cutting honors new strategic plan Last month, Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack helped cut the ribbon on renovated lesson studios at Pastore Music, 507 32nd St. A separate ribbon cutting was also made for the Ronaldo Custom Guitar Gallery and Fuzion Recording Studios, both located at 3208 Bergenline Ave. Pastore Music, Ronaldo Custom, The Grace Theatre and Fuzion Recording are looking to help the community by hosting after-school events for youth such as music lessons, dance, acting, music recording as well as instructions on guitar building. Downtown Jersey City office recognized Regional Vice President of Weichert Realtors Robert Gavura announced the Downtown Jersey Office was recognized for outstanding performance in December. The office was the top office in the company for dollar volume, resales and resale dollar volume and led its Weichert sales region in new home dollar volume, resale listings, resales, resale revenue units and resale dollar volume. Sales associates Natalia Chebalina, who led the the region for resale listings, and Albert Ngai, were individually recognized for their success during the month. Jersey City Exchange Place office associate recognized for award Weichert Realtors Sales Associate Christopher Amberg of the Jersey City Exchange Place office was recognized for his success in December. Amberg is a top producer who led the sales region for resale dollar volume. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Elmira Tariverdiyeva Trend: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), in its recent report titled US policy on Turkey, has urged the President-elect Donald Trump to guarantee that the so-called Armenian genocide wont be recognized by the US Congress. The reports authors are former US Ambassador to Turkey James F. Jeffrey and Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute Soner Cagaptay. The US can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian genocide resolution in Congress will not pass, says the report posted on the WINEP website. This has always been critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the issue, noted the authors, who called on the Trump administration to revamp policy toward Turkey to emphasize a transactional approach to critical bilateral issues. A new approach, according to the authors, would restore focus to each sides most important interests. For Turkey, this includes the extradition of reputed coup plotter Fethullah Gulen; increased engagement on issues from Cyprus to Israel; and closer attention to Turkish equities in the Syria conflict, says the report. For the United States, a new approach would entail a stronger commitment to fighting the Islamic State; a return to peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party; closer cooperation on military moves, especially in Syria; and renewed respect for democratic freedoms. Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire allegedly carried out genocide against the Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915. Turkey in turn has always denied the genocide took place. While strengthening the efforts to promote the genocide in the world, Armenians have achieved its recognition by the parliaments of some countries. Pulaski Skyway shutdown 4/22/14 Jersey City police officers directing traffic at Communipaw Avenue and Routes 1&9 Truck on April 22, 2014. The FBI is reportedly probing whether Jersey City cops misused the city's off-duty jobs program for personal financial gain. Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal (Jersey Journal file photo) The Jersey City Police Department was rocked last week by news that 12 officers were stripped of their weapons and put on modified duty, an action the city linked to an ongoing federal probe of the city's off-duty jobs program for cops. The FBI investigation has been an open secret for months, and cops have been whispering about impending arrests. Sources with knowledge of the probe expect about a dozen arrests within the next month. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office have declined to comment. None of the 12 officers put on restricted duty last week have been charged with a crime. With the authorities tight-lipped about the investigation, what do we know? OFF-DUTY WORK If you've driven by a construction site or attended a big festival, you've probably seen a police officer directing traffic or acting as security. Those officers are typically working off-duty and being paid by a private company, either after their shifts or on their days off. There's nothing in Jersey City code that specifies when a company is required to hire an off-duty police officer, city officials said. For companies performing work that affects traffic, the city points them to federal regulations dictating when they should have someone managing traffic. When the company obtains a traffic permit, they reach out to a police "pick master" or job coordinator -- assigned to each of the four police precincts -- who then recruit officers looking for extra work. The city uses a voucher system to keep track of hours worked. The officer, the company and the job coordinator each fill out a portion and it is submitted to the city, which then pays the officer. It works differently on the other side of the Hudson River. In New York City, civilian workers perform some of these functions at construction sites, while at large parties like the annual New Year's Eve bash in Times Square, on-duty cops provide security. PAY A city law last amended in 2013 allows officers to make between $35 and $65 an hour depending on the type of work. Double time is available on Sundays and holidays for some work. The city pockets a $12 an hour administrative fee to cover administrative costs. The city says it brought in $1.1 million from that fee last year. In 2016 the hundreds of officers working off-duty jobs made more than $14.8 million total, payroll records show. One officer made $8,025 in a two-week period. Two officers earned more than their annual salaries working off-duty jobs. The law forbids officers from accepting payments from employers directly. When the law was amended in 2013, city officials said one of the aims was to take the decision-making process for awarding off-duty work away from cops and give it to civilian city employees. That doesn't appear to have happened and city officials haven't answered why. But at about this time ... Juan Romaniello, seen here in 2013, is at the center of a federal probe into Jersey City police officers' off-duty work. Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal ONE COP BUSTED Juan Romaniello was the job coordinator for the city's north police precinct from about December 2004 to December 2014, according to federal prosecutors. In Romaniello's indictment, prosecutors laid out the scheme that landed him in their crosshairs. The scheme went on from January 2009 to about November 2014, they said. Romaniello, who went by the first name John, told companies to call him when they required off-duty cops, cutting out the city as the middleman, prosecutors say. He would authorize companies to perform work without cops present or allow the companies to pay Romaniello "and other police officers" directly for work done off-duty, according to the indictment. Federal prosecutors say Romaniello collected over $230,000 directly from companies in cash, checks and money orders. Sometimes he took the full payments companies would have had to pay if they went through the city and sometimes he offered a "discount," prosecutors say. &amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3290880-Romaniello-Indictment/annotations/334771.html"&amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt; Romaniello pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and accept corrupt payments and to making false tax returns in November 2015. The U.S. attorney's office did not announce his plea until Sept. 14, 2016. No other officers have been charged. Romaniello is scheduled to be sentenced in April along with a man named Albert J. Flores. An email to U.S. attorney spokesman Matthew Reilly seeking information on Flores' connection to the Romaniello case was not returned. A phone call to Romaniello's attorney was not returned. FALLOUT After Romaniello's guilty plea was announced, the city took the power to assign off-duty jobs away from job coordinators, throwing the program into disarray. Officers told The Jersey Journal they started getting fewer and fewer calls about off-duty jobs. On-duty officers were sometimes pulled from their assignments to cover work typically done by off-duty cops, while other jobs weren't covered at all. At the time, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said changes would be made to the program "to increase oversight and accountability." She declined to specify the nature of the changes. Last week, the city announced it was taking administrative action against 12 officers. Aside from linking the move to the FBI probe, the city declined to say what the officers had done. Carmine Disbrow, president of the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association, last week asked the public "not to rush to judgment" until more facts are released. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. JERSEY CITY - Assemblyman John Wisniewski vowed to make health care a "human right" on Sunday afternoon during a town hall at Hudson County Community College. Wisniewski, D-Sayreville, and gubernatorial candidate, advocated for a single payer health care system during the Our First Stand meeting at 12:30 p.m. "Our immediate threat today, healthcare coverage for New Jerseyans, who face a statewide and nationwide crisis of uncertainty," he said. "And that crisis of uncertainty threatens our health and our economic future. That crisis of uncertainty has a name; it has a name: Donald Trump." The 54-year-old attorney -- who served as the chairman for Bernie Sanders' campaign in New Jersey -- was critical of plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a plan to replace coverage for the nearly 1 million New Jersey residents who received coverage. Wisniewski talked about the importance of affordable drugs, mentioning how his daughters need EpiPens for their allergies. If elected governor, he said he would meet individually with the CEOs of the state's pharmaceutical manufacturers to discuss how drug prices can be lowered. Yvonne Dallam, of Jersey City, attended the meeting with her 10-week-old son Jeffrey. She does freelance work for a living while her husband owns his own small business. Dallam has insurance for herself through the Affordable Care Act, but has not been able to get coverage for Jeffrey. "I can pre-qualify for a mortgage. How come I can't pre-qualify for health insurance for my son?" Dallam asked as more than 100 people cheered. Wisniewski in part blamed the current administration for one of the reasons why obtaining health insurance in New Jersey is so difficult, describing it as "user unfriendly." After the meeting, Dallam, who lives in the Heights, said health insurance and art education are two areas she is passionate about. "Right now, I have to keep postponing his pediatrician appointment because I can't get in to see him because the doctor won't see me if I don't have health insurance," she said. Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. New Jersey bail bondsmen may be looking for some bailing out of their own. A pair of Hudson County bondsmen and one from Bergen County told The Jersey Journal the bail reforms that took effect on Jan. 1 have decimated their businesses, leaving them with previously sold bonds to service but no money coming in. "So far we have zero business," Lou Turdo, of Big Lou's Bail Bonds on Newark Avenue in Jersey City said of the impact of the Speedy Trial and Bail Reform Act, which assumes virtually no defendants will have monetary bails. Kurt Shaw of Kurt Shaw Bail Bonds in Hackensack said he's had "no business, period, since the beginning of the year," while Al McCallen of Ace Bail Bonds on Newark Avenue in Jersey City echoed those comments. New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner was among the state and local officials to tout the bail reforms during a presentation in Jersey City in October. Rabner said the previous bail system was not fair to poor, often minority defendants, because they could not post bails set even at the lower end of the spectrum. Those types of defendants often wound up jailed pending trial, cut off from families and possibly losing their jobs, sometimes going without medication, Rabner said at the time. As a result, the poor faced tougher plea deals and pressure to plead guilty under the previous system because of the length of time they spend in jail. But Turdo has more than 900 existing bonds and it may take a couple of years for all those defendants to wind their way through the judicial system. He said he tracks his clients, keeps in touch with them and tries to ensure they show up for their court dates. Turdo said that if one of his clients doesn't show up for a court date his business can be fined. If the client disappears, he calls a bounty hunter to bring the person back. Turdo added that if the bounty hunter doesn't bring a client back within a specified period, he could be on the hook for the total amount of the bond. "I don't have the means and the income to catch these guys or monitor them anymore," Turdo said. "Once they get the word on the street, I think people will stop showing up in court ... It's really scary the types of defendants that are being released on their own recognizance." Shaw added: "There's no way we can keep an office and pay our employees to come in if there's no business." Ray Worrall, a spokesman for the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office, said there haven't been any monetary bails set in Hudson County Superior Court for people arrested after Jan. 1. Turdo also pointed another potential flaw under the new guidelines. People who consigned for a bond did so with the expectation that Turdo would be working to ensure the defendant shows up for court hearings and he would have the person tracked down if necessary. The government will have to foot the bill for tracking people down now, Turdo said. "The co-signers are left with their signatures out there thinking I was going to be checking on the people," Turdo said. "I'll be here until the money runs out and that won't take too long." Assemblyman John Wisniewski vowed to make health care a "human right" yesterday afternoon during a town hall at Hudson County Community College. Wisniewski, D-Sayreville, and gubernatorial candidate, advocated for a single payer health care system during the Our First Stand meeting at 12:30 p.m. "Our immediate threat today, healthcare coverage for New Jerseyans, who face a statewide and nationwide crisis of uncertainty," he said. "And that crisis of uncertainty threatens our health and our economic future. That crisis of uncertainty has a name; it has a name: Donald Trump." The 54-year-old attorney -- who served as the chairman for Bernie Sanders' campaign in New Jersey -- was critical of plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a plan to replace coverage for the nearly 1 million New Jersey residents who received coverage. Wisniewski talked about the importance of affordable drugs, mentioning how his daughters need EpiPens for their allergies. If elected governor, he said he would meet individually with the CEOs of the state's pharmaceutical manufacturers to discuss how drug prices can be lowered. Yvonne Dallam, of Jersey City, attended the meeting with her 10-week-old son Jeffrey. She does freelance work for a living while her husband owns his own small business. Dallam has insurance for herself through the Affordable Care Act, but has not been able to get coverage for Jeffrey. "I can pre-qualify for a mortgage. How come I can't pre-qualify for health insurance for my son?" Dallam asked as more than 100 people cheered. Wisniewski in part blamed the current administration for one of the reasons why obtaining health insurance in New Jersey is so difficult, describing it as "user unfriendly." After the meeting, Dallam, who lives in the Heights, said health insurance and art education are two areas she is passionate about. "Right now, I have to keep postponing his pediatrician appointment because I can't get in to see him because the doctor won't see me if I don't have health insurance," she said. MORRIS COUNTY -- Historic preservation grants awarded to local churches by county officials were not an endorsement of religion and did not violate constitutional protections, a judge has ruled. The county announced in a news release Sunday that Somerset County Superior Court Chancery Division Judge Margaret Goodzeit found the freeholders weren't promoting religion by providing grants to churches through the Historic Preservation Trust Fund. David Steketee, of Madison and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, filed suit against the freeholders in 2015, claiming the grants violate the New Jersey Constitution. The case was transferred from Morris County to Somerset County to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Goodzeit ruled the method by which the county awarded the grants to churches and secular buildings was neutral and didn't favor or endorse religious institutions. "Excluding historical churches from receipt of reimbursements available to all historical buildings would be tantamount to impermissibly withholding of general benefits to certain citizens on the basis of their religion...and would be inconsistent with the spirit of our state and federal Constitutions," Goodzeit wrote in her decision. "We remain confident that our historic preservation process, which includes a totally independent review of all historic preservation applications by a volunteer board of county resident with expertise in historic structures, clearly follows state and federal guidelines," the county freeholders board said in statement. It continued: "In voting to set aside grant money for historic preservation, county taxpayers overwhelmingly told us that they value that history. We look forward to a continued historic preservation program that targets our most valuable historic assets." The historic preservation grants program, which began in 2003, had awarded through 2014 a total of $22.6 million, including $7.3 million, or about 32 percent, to 24 religious groups. Daniel O'Mullan, then-counsel for the county, issued an opinion saying historic preservation grants may be used for historic churches. As long as the church receives a formal designation as historic, it is eligible to receive grants as long as a government agency uses "neutral criteria" that do not "endorse" a particular religion, he said. Prior reporting by Ben Horowitz was used in this article. Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. LAKEWOOD -- A Willingboro man, who became known as the "Fourteenth Street Burglar," was indicted Tuesday on a slew of charges in connection with a string of home burglaries in the summer and fall of 2015, including the home of the township's former police chief. Barry Walker, 37, of Willingboro, remains at the Ocean County Jail in lieu of $200,000 cash bail. (Courtesy of the Ocean County Jail) Barry E. Walker, 37, was charged with burglary, theft by unlawful taking and unlawful possession of a weapon for allegedly breaking into former police Chief Robert Lawson's Seton Circle home that he shared with his wife and stealing jewelry, electronics, cash, a revolver and computer laptops. The alleged burglary at Lawson's home was the first in an alleged crime spree that netted Walker an estimated $2.1 million worth of items, including electronics, clothing, cash and silverware, police have said. The indictment charges Walker with more than 30 counts of charges in connection with burglaries at 16 different homes in Lakewood starting with Lawson's on June 13, 2015, and ending on July 9, 2016. A bulk of the residential burglaries occurred from June 2015 to Nov 2015, authorities said. The indictment also charges Walker with one count of dealing in stolen property for allegedly selling silver and jewelry worth approximately $500 in Perth Amboy. Walker was arrested on July 9 as he was leaving an apartment on Mattison Avenue in Asbury Park, a spokesman for the Lakewood Police Department, Lt. Gregory Staffordsmith, said at the time. Walker had been spotted by a member of the Lakewood Civilian Safety Watch after an alarm was activated Nov. 6, 2015, at a residence on Pinemere Avenue, Staffordsmith said. The volunteer gave police information on Walker's getaway car, which led to his identification. Lawson, 65, retired on Aug. 1 after serving on the township's police force for 35 years, 10 of which he served as chief. He had reached the mandatory retirement age. Lawson told the Asbury Park Press in an interview that Walker had become known as the "Fourteenth Street Burglar." Walker earned the nickname because he targeted upscale homes in the area of Fourteenth Street in the northwest section of Lakewood. He also told the newspaper he was at a graduation with his wife the day Walker broke into his home. When they came home, Lawson said, he saw a screen to a door in the back of the house removed. Inside the home, Lawson found his wife's jewelry case empty. Also empty, he said, was the drawer where his wife kept a Smith & Wesson .357 caliber Magnum, once used as Lawson's off-duty weapon, and spots once occupied by three laptops. Jail records indicated Walker remains at the Ocean County Jail in lieu of $200,000 cash bail. Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff is a former New Jersey state treasurer, and has held cabinet-level appointive office in New York City and New York state as well as New Jersey. He is also a former member of the New York City Council. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Ernest Cleo Grant II Today, many colleges, civic organizations, churches, and schools will celebrate the enduring legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by participating in a national day of service. Answering the call of King who famously asked "life's most persistent question: what are you doing for others," many will flock to soup kitchens, homeless shelters, food banks, community centers, and more to participate in a day of action with the aim of making our communities and nation a better place for future generations. As a pastor in Camden, one of America's most dangerous cities, I encourage community service. In fact, my church has greatly benefited from the benevolence of gracious volunteers who have joined us in civic service projects. While noble in gesture, however, I've found that the annual "day of service" has seemingly sanitized his legacy, falling short of what King truly asks of us. Though he's enshrined in the pantheon of great American heroes -- alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson -- his legacy has been de-fanged. It's a phenomena Dr. Cornel West has called the "Santa Claus-ification" of King. It's a domesticated version of his message that makes him more of an affable civil rights caricature as opposed to an unflinchingly courageous leader. A recent Gallup poll showed that 94 percent of Americans viewed him in a positive light; but the King of the late '60s starkly contrasts the coloring-book MLK of today. At the time of his death, the FBI considered him to be the most dangerous man in America. After all, he preached the radical gospel of redistribution of wealth to the chagrin of the government's controlling arm. He challenged America's class and racial caste system, opposed U.S. imperialism and militarization, and even went so far as too call America the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world." He was a radical, who struggled for social justice, racial equality, worker's rights, and human dignity. Consequently, the more controversial his position, the more his popularity decreased. Many of his key advisers abandoned him, he slept poorly, gained weight, and began drinking and smoking more. King's nomadic lifestyle took a tremendous toll on his body, mind and soul; and at the time of his death he was exhausted, vulnerable and had been mulling a long sabbatical before giving it all up. While days of service in his honor appear benign, they only contribute to the domestication and mythologizing of his legacy -- that does not honor him at all. The problem with many of our days of service is that they directly contradict King's legacy. King gave his life to end legalized segregation in the Jim Crow south. He organized marches, sit ins, crisscrossed the country speaking at events, and staged protests. He engaged in action, not for short-term therapeutic benefit, but for a lasting heritage -- one that would see the advancement of oppressed minorities. Take the Montgomery bus boycott for example. The boycott lasted over a year and called for a citywide boycott of public transportation. Although his house was car bombed, the boycott proved to be effective, and it eventually lead to legislative action that would desegregate buses in Montgomery. Organized sitins during the Birmingham campaign of 1963 were hosted by Dr. King until segregated business changed their policies. Ultimately, when King sought to take action, he committed decades to serving the poor and marginalized, not just one day. While the self-sacrificing, service-oriented spirit of King -- who lived here in Camden -- will live on, we can honor his legacy by living self-sacrificially for the betterment of our cities, state, and nation. Yes, building homes for the homeless is good and noble, but committing your life to ending the housing shortage is far better. Feeding people one day of the year works, but demanding food is guaranteed as a matter of public policy is more helpful still. So, while it's fine to participate in this day of service, I hope and pray that some of you would commit to years and even decades of service that changes and advances the lives of others long-term. Ernest Cleo Grant II is a pastor at Epiphany Fellowship of Camden, community activist, writer, and Ed.D candidate at Stockton University in Galloway. Find him on Twitter @iamernestgrant. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, taking a more visible role in opposing President-elect Donald Trump, told the Rev. Al Sharpton's civil rights organization Monday to keep on fighting. "We are not powerless," Booker said. "We cannot allow our inability to do everything to undermine our determination to do something. We cannot get caught up in that state of sedentary agitation where we sit on our couch so upset about what's going on and fail to realize that we have to do something about it." Booker (D-N.J.) was in the nation's capital on the holiday memorializing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to receive an award from Sharpton and to deliver a speech that was part sermon, part call to action. The National Action Network held a protest against Trump in Washington two days earlier. "No action, no matter how small, in the cause of justice is ever wasted," Booker said. As he has in earlier appearances and in his book, Booker told the story of a young Newark teenager, Hassan Washington, who he started mentoring and then was too busy to help as he ran for mayor. Hassan was shot and killed at age 18, and Booker to this day regrets that he was not there for him. Booker said that as he walked through the Newark apartment building where he and Hassan lived, he ran into community leader Virginia Jones. He said she hugged him and gave him the same advice he now was delivering to this crowd: "Stay faithful." His appearance here came against the backdrop of a war of words between Trump and civil rights icon John Lewis. Now a Democratic U.S. representative from Georgia, Lewis was beaten at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Alabama as he and others attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. The protest led to the eventual passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. During the campaign, Trump endorsed voter identification laws designed to address in-person voter fraud, which studies say is virtually non-existent and federal courts have found prevent blacks and other minorities from casting ballots. He promised to nominate a U.S. Supreme Court justice with views similar to the late Antonin Scalia, who called the Voting Rights Act a "perpetuation of racial entitlement." Booker co-sponsored a resolution to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Lewis and the other marchers. The other Senate co-sponsor was Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), nominated by Trump to be U.S. attorney general. Booker broke with Senate precedent and testified with Lewis before the Senate Judiciary Committee against Sessions' nomination. "Real leaders make hard decisions and face hard consequences," Sharpton said in presenting Booker with the award, calling the senator "so representative of the spirit of Dr. King." Booker's increased visibility has stirred speculation that he is taking steps toward a 2020 presidential campaign. "He's getting exposure that is very, very valuable," Democratic consultant Glenn Totten said. "The more people who like you and see you, the better off you are." Still, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chair who also received an award from Sharpton Monday, cautioned, "We're a long way from 2020." And actions such as testifying against Sessions could backfire, Republican consultant Chris Russell said. "That was short-term play and not looking down the field," Russell said. "When you do things that fall out of bounds, you tend to get people to look at you cross-eyed." Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook Doug Palmer Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer greets the crowd before speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. (Amanda Brown | The Star-Ledger) The contentious race for the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee got a dose of New Jersey on Thursday -- when a former longtime Trenton mayor weighed in on which candidate he thinks should win. U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a top candidate running to become party leader, touted the endorsements of three ex-mayors of American cities, including Trenton's Doug Palmer. Palmer, the city's first black mayor, who served from 1990 to 2010, joined former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin in endorsing Perez. Palmer praised Perez -- a former councilman in Montgomery County, Maryland, whom President Barack Obama picked to lead the federal labor department in 2013 -- for having both local and national experience. "It's time for our party to get back to listening and being engaged at the local level," said Palmer, a former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "Tom has served on the local level with a proven record of organizing broad coalitions and that is what our party needs to rebuild and win for the American people." Palmer also noted the 2017 race to succeed Chris Christie, a Republican, as New Jersey's governor. "Tom Perez has what it takes to organize and rebuild the Democratic Party to help us win in New Jersey and to fight back against Donald Trump's disastrous agenda for working families in communities across the country," Palmer said. Perez said "it's an honor to have the support of proven leaders who have gotten real results for their communities across the country." Perez is running against U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley, and others for DNC chair in the wake of the crushing 2016 elections. The party will select a chairman in February. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16 By Orkhan Quluzade Trend: Turkeys Ministry of Transport, Maritime and Communication will send two experts to Kyrgyzstan to investigate the crash of a cargo plane, says a message from the ministry. The Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication Ahmet Arslan during a phone conversation with his Kyrgyz counterpart Jamshid Khalilov conveyed his condolences and expressed Ankaras readiness to provide assistance to investigate the causes of the accident. The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has earlier said in a phone conversation with the Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldaev that he is ready to provide any assistance in connection with the plane crash near Bishkek. Boeing 747-400 cargo plane on a flight from Hong-Kong crashed near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Jan. 16 morning. The plane crashed several kilometers from the Manas airport. The plane damaged 32 houses in the crash area. There were 5 crew members onboard aircraft. The death toll has risen up to 37. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade TRENTON -- The scenario goes like this: Donald Trump takes over the White House and finds that some of his picks for top aides and cabinet members -- many of whom have no government experience -- aren't working out as well as he expected. So he turns to seasoned Republicans to swoop in and save the day ... like Gov. Chris Chris Christie. That's the idea behind a pair of media reports in recent weeks citing anonymous sources who say Christie may still see a path to a prime spot in Trump's administration in the future. Christie, one of the first big-name politicians to endorse Trump's candidacy, was passed over for vice president, dumped as Trump's transition chairman, and not chosen for U.S. attorney general. The governor confirmed during a radio interview Friday he turned down numerous other positions under Trump to finish his final year in New Jersey, saying none were "worth leaving the governorship for." "If you're at the end of your term, you might have thought differently," Christie, whose tenure as governor is up next January, told sports-talk radio host Mike Francesa. Earlier Friday, though, Politico reported that Christie is one of a few Republicans left out of the incoming administration betting that Trump will eventually seek them out for help. After all, the report noted, Trump shuffled campaign managers numerous times over the last year. "I think he's one who feels that there will be a good amount of turnover and so Trump will be looking for a range of different people and talents as time goes on," an unidentified New Jersey GOP insider told the website. The New York Times reported something similar last month, citing anonymous sources who say Christie has been telling people Trump may look to him one day as a "skilled manager" -- a la David Gergen, the former Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan aide who helped President Bill Clinton after a troubled first year. But three sources close to Christie told NJ Advance Media that such reports are overblown. One said the talk has been taken out of context, noting Christie and Trump remain friends and talk on the phone, and that the governor visited Trump Tower in Manhattan recently. But, the source added, Christie turned down a half-dozen "very specific job offers" from Trump to stay in New Jersey. "He maintains a good relationship with Trump and will always be only a phone call away if he needs his advice on something," the source said. "I think people have made a mistake in insinuating that means he is hovering waiting for a job. He has already turned down six of them." Bill Palatucci, one of Christie's closest advisers, who worked with the governor on Trump's transition, also downplayed the reports. "All I know is that the governor remains a trusted friend and adviser to the president-elect," Palatucci told NJ Advance Media. "What the future holds after 2017 is known only to the governor." Christie told Francessa on Friday that his three criteria for his next job are that he has fun, makes money, and can spend more time with his family. He also hinted that he'd be interested in a career in broadcasting, possibly taking over Francessa's mic when the host departs his shot in December after 30 years. "I'm gonna have wide-open ears," Christie told him. "It's the first time I'm a free agent." Politico also reported that an unidentified senior Trump transition official cast doubt on the idea of Trump turning to Christie in the future because of strains between the governor and Jared Kushner, a New Jersey native who is Trump's son-in-law.Many reports cited such strain as a reason why Christie was booted as head of the transition team. When he was the U.S. attorney for New Jersey in the mid-2000s, Christie prosecuted Kushner's father, developer and major Democratic donor Charles Kushner, on charges of for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign donations. Charles Kushner was convicted and served two years in federal prison. Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, noted that Christie does have "skills that could be used if things aren't going well" -- but added that troubles like the shadow of the George Washington Bridge scandal won't "go away in a year." "If Trump is having problems draining the swamp, is Christie the alligator you really want to bring in to do that?" Hale questioned. Still, Christie spent the majority of his State of the State speech this week calling for more attention to be placed on New Jersey and the nation's drug abuse problem. And Hale said it's possible Trump could name Christie a drug czar or head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. "Christie has staked his last year on dealing with opioid addictions," the professor said. "And there's no doubt that no one on the Republican or Democratic side nationally has made this issue more important and more his own than Christie." Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. -6e2530c9c92a5527.jpg 3 / 9 Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th Dist.) speaks at a press conference in September, 2016. (File Photo) WASHINGTON -- Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, the first black woman elected to represent New Jersey in Congress, said she will not attend Friday's inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Watson Coleman (D-12th Dist.) made her decision known on Twitter on Sunday, a day after Trump used the same medium to criticize Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon who earlier had said he won't be at the inauguration. I do not intend to attend the inauguration of PE @realDonaldTrump. Instead, join me for an Interfaith Prayer Vigil. pic.twitter.com/c5aJYEQOUW Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (@RepBonnie) January 15, 2017 She is one of more than a dozen lawmakers planning to skip Friday's inaugural ceremonies at the Capitol. Lewis, a leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, said he didn't consider Trump a "legitimate president" in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press'' and was released Friday. "I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians and others to help him get elected," said Lewis, who was beaten at the Edmund Pettis Bridge at the start of the Alabama protest. "That's not right. That's not fair. That's not the open, democratic process." Trump fired back on Twitter, calling Lewis, "All talk, talk, talk - no action or results," and then suggresting he turn his attention elsewhere. Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017 Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Sunday called it "shocking" for Lewis to question Trump's legitimacy. "It's irresponsible for John Lewis, historic as he is, to have done this," Preibus said on NBC. "It's wrong what is happening. It's wrong how some of these Democrats are treating President-elect Trump." New Jersey's two other African American members of Congress, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-10th Dist.), were among lawmakers responding to Trump's attack on Lewis. .@repjohnlewis has made great sacrifices in the cause of civil rights. A truly honorable man. The same can't be said about @realDonaldTrump Rep. Donald Payne Jr (@RepDonaldPayne) January 14, 2017 Booker pointed out Trump's prominent role in spreading the false charge that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. I honor @repjohnlewis, a living legend & American hero. He's faced down some of history's most hateful: now & then his love & truth prevail. https://t.co/XVRahJYZsX Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) January 14, 2017 Anyone who attacks @repjohnlewis loses legitimacy in my eyes, especially someone who made such a craven effort to delegitmize @BarackObama Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) January 14, 2017 Watson Coleman and Payne were in the audience last Tuesday when Booker and Lewis testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against Trump's nomination of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general. Sessions in 1986 had been rejected by a Republican-controlled Senate for a federal judgeship over allegations of racism. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. UPDATE: Freezing rain advisory remains for 2 N.J. counties The National Weather Service has issued a freezing rain advisory for the northwestern region of New Jersey, as well as northern and eastern sections of Pennsylvania, effective from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesday. Light rain showers are expected to move into the area overnight Monday, but temperatures in Morris, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties, the Lehigh Valley region and the southern Poconos will be hovering just below the freezing mark, creating the risk of freezing rain, the weather service said. A period of light, but steady, freezing rain is forecast for the region around sunrise, and a light glaze of ice could form on some roads and sidewalks during the morning commute, the weather service said. "Be prepared for slippery roads," the weather service's Mount Holly office said in its advisory. "Slow down and use caution while driving." Temperatures in other parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania are expected to remain above freezing, so plain rain is in the forecast for areas outside of the advisory zone. However, a bit of light freezing rain could mix in with rain around sunrise in Hunterdon and Somerset counties, the weather service said. Aside from the light rain and wintry mix, the big weather trend this week will be another string of warmer-than-usual January days across New Jersey. Temperatures are forecast to rise into the low 40s and low 50s almost every day during this work week and into the weekend, and nighttime lows will likely range from the low 30s to the mid-30s. Temperatures on Thursday could run as high as 55 degrees in South Jersey, according to the weather service. The normal high for mid-January ranges from 37 in North Jersey to 41 in South Jersey, and the normal low ranges from 19 to 24 degrees. Last week, another wave of warm air set new daily temperature records for Jan. 12 in parts of New Jersey, including Atlantic City, Newark and Toms River. The highs last Thursday reached 70 degrees in Howell, Oceanport and Toms River, and 67 in Atlantic City, Jersey City, Newark and New Brunswick. A thin layer of ice could glaze the ground in some parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York early Tuesday, Jan. 17. These forecast maps, issued by the National Weather Service, were updated Monday afternoon. (National Weather Service) NOTE: This post was updated at 4:10 p.m. to include the fact that Morris County and Passaic County have been added to the freezing rain advisory areas. The advisory for Morris is effective from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesday, and the advisory for Passaic covers the western region of that county and is effective from 4 a.m. to noon on Tuesday. Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality or like him on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. 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. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed in a phone call on Monday the situation in Syria and the preparation for intra-Syrian peace talks in Astana, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, Sputnik reported. The intra-Syrian peace consultations in Kazakh capital, Astana, are expected to be held on January 23, with the opposition represented as a united bloc. "The sides continued the discussion of the situation in Syria. The ministers emphasized the need to coordinate efforts in the context of the upcoming intra-Syrian talks in Astana," the ministry said in a statement. Pay attention to Wisconsin's statute of limitations, or your property damage lawsuit could be over before it even gets started. In Wisconsin, as in every state, if you've had your property damaged as a result of someone else's careless or intentional action, you might be thinking about filing a civil lawsuit over the incident. If so, it's important to understand the statute of limitations and how it applies to your potential case. By way of background, a "statute of limitations" is a state law that (as the term suggests) limits your right to have a civil court consider your lawsuit, by setting a strictly-enforced deadline for getting the case started. Miss the deadline, and you effectively lose the right to bring your case to court. Every state has passed these kinds of laws, with time limits that vary depending on the kind of case being filed. In this article, we'll explain the statute of limitations that applies to property damage lawsuits in Wisconsin, the potential consequences of missing the deadline, and a few rare circumstances in which you might be able to extend the time limit. The Property Damage Lawsuit Filing Deadline in Wisconsin In Wisconsin, the statute of limitations that will apply to a lawsuit for property damage depends on whether a motor vehicle accident led to the alleged damage. First off, Wisconsin Statutes section 893.52 sets a six-year deadline for the filing of any lawsuit "to recover damages for an injury to real or personal property." Here, "real" property means a house, some other building, or physical land. Personal property includes things like equipment, jewelry, clothing, electronics, and most anything else that's not deemed "real property." But section 893.52 also says that if the property damage is caused by "an accident involving a motor vehicle," then a three-year filing deadline applies. So, a three-year deadline would apply to a lawsuit over vehicle damage caused by a car accident, and also to a lawsuit by a property owner whose house was struck by a vehicle. But a six-year filing deadline applies to a lawsuit filed by a homeowner claiming that physical damage to the exterior of her house was caused by a neighbor's negligence in allowing a dead tree to fall. Whichever deadline applies, the "clock" typically starts running on the day of the incident that led to the damage, although, in an attempt to push the filing deadline back, the property owner could argue that the damage -- or the cause of the damage -- could not reasonably have been discovered right away. Missing the Filing Deadline in Wisconsin At this point you might be wondering what will happen if you try to file your Wisconsin property damage lawsuit after the applicable time limit has passed. In that situation, you can count on the defendant (the person you're trying to sue) filing a motion with the court, asking that the case be dismissed. And the court is certain to grant the dismissal unless rare circumstances make an extension of the deadline appropriate (more on these rules in the next section). So it's crucial to pay attention to (and comply with) the Wisconsin statute of limitations for property damage cases, even if you're fairly certain you'll be able to resolve the situation without resorting to a lawsuit. Extending the Lawsuit Filing Deadline in Wisconsin For most kinds of lawsuits in Wisconsin, including civil cases over property damage, a number of situations could serve to extend the lawsuit filing deadline set by the statute of limitations. For example, special rules usually apply if, at the time the property damage occurs, the property owner is: under the age of 18, or mentally ill. In those situations, the property owner is considered under a "legal disability" according to Wisconsin Statutes section 893.16. Once the property owner turns 18, or is declared sane, he or she will have two years to get the lawsuit filed. But note that section 893.16 explicitly states that an extension for mental illness cannot be granted if more than five years have passed since the underlying property damage occurred. And by virtue of the statute's wording, the extension for minors will effectively expire on the property owner's 20th birthday. Another potential exception to strict application of the statute of limitations deadline exists when the defendant (the person who is alleged to have caused the property damage) "departs from and resides out of" the state of Wisconsin before the lawsuit can be filed. In that situation, the period of absence probably won't be counted as part of the three or six-year time period. This rule can be found at Wisconsin Statutes section 893.19. Other circumstances may affect the Wisconsin statute of limitations, and how the time window is calculated. If you have questions about the statute of limitations as it applies to your potential property damage lawsuit, an experienced Wisconsin attorney will have the answers. Learn more about Finding an Excellent Lawyer. 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. Reina nightclub attacker Abdulgadir Masharipov, who killed 39 people in nightclub attack in Istanbul on New Year's Eve, was captured by Turkish security forces late Monday, Daily Sabah reported. The Uzbek attacker was caught in his Kyrgyz friend's house in Esenyurt district of Istanbul. The Daesh terrorist is now being transferred to Istanbul Police Headquarters. An attacker killed at least 39 people, including a police officer, in a gun attack on Reina, a popular night club in Istanbul, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced on Jan. 1. Sixty-nine people were also wounded in the attack that was carried out before 1:30 a.m. ADS ADS Paul O'Neil - Vacheron Constantin, Les Cabinotiers Celestia Astronomical Grand Complication 3600 Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the entire week, this highly complicated piece boasts no fewer than 23 complications arranged on two dials one the front and another, more technical, on the back. Displays such as a tide height indicator and displays pour equinoxes and solstices, plus a detailed depiction of the night sky, suggest that this unique piece has been developed for a passionate collector who is fascinated by astronomy and its interface with how we measure the time here on earth. Yet the Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Celestia Astronomical Grand Complication 3600 remains surprisingly legible and understandable for such a complicated timepiece, even for those (like your editor-in-chief) who get a headache when they start to contemplate the infinite expanse of the universe. Furthermore, it is designed to be worn and used, with a full three weeks worth of power reserve when fully wound. Camille Gendre - Tonda 1950 Set Galaxy The Tonda 1950 Set Galaxy by Parmigiani is definitely my first love at first sight at SIHH 2017. The night sky above Fleurier, the village that the brand calls home, is honoured on the aventurine blue dial. Crushed and then put back together, the crystal glistens with inclusions of copper, like infinite particles of gold. The starry sky takes, highlighted by the diamond-set bezel, take me in. A milky-white opal on the crown like a tiny nebula shows of the luminosity of the piece. It's a real gem. Michele Brunner - Cartier, Rotonde de Cartier Heure Mysterieuse Squelette The mysterious movements of Cartier have been known for many years, since the principle was first since in mysterious clocks dating back to 1912. Since 2009 the skeleton movement has been a recurring theme at Cartier, with the bridges in the shape of Roman numerals. But the brand has never before combined these two signature elements. It does so for the first time with the Rotonde de Cartier Heure Mysterieuse Squelette and its Calibre 9983 MC, which for the first time reveals the gear train of the mysterious movement. It may be less ambitious than the Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Mysterieuse Double Tourbillon, unveiled today at the SIHH, but it has the advantage of matching elegance and sobriety with the magic of a time displayed by hands that seem to float in mid air. Seemingly lightweight because of its transparency, yet at the same time audacious because of its asymmetry and profound because of its architecture, this palladium-cased watch plays with tones of black and grey, accentuated by the blue cabochon on the crown. The patent application for a genome editing technology submitted by researchers from universities in China is considered as withdrawn by China's State Intellectual Property (IP) Office after the applicants failed to respond to a notice on time. Han Chunyu of Hebei University of Science and Technology (HUST) and Shen Xiao of Zhejiang University applied for a patent to a new genetic modification, or genome editing, technology called NgAgo. However, the IP authority said that they have not replied to a notice, resulting in a halt in the application. Advertisement The office said that the researchers were aware of the withdrawn status of their patent application, and according to the Implementing Rules of the Patent Law, Han and Shen can submit a request to restore their application. According to The Niche, NgAgo is a new genome editing technology which is different from the established technology in that it is based on DNA instead of RNA guides. The new tech utilizes the bacterial enzyme of Natronobacterium gregoryi Argonaute in replicating and editing DNA. The result of the research was weighed to possibly break the foreign monopoly in genetic modification technology. It is also the first invention in this field to be created by a Chinese, HUST said. The study by Han and Shen was published in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology on May 2, 2016. Some audience regarded the findings as deserving of a Nobel Prize. However, according to a Global Times report, scientists from China and abroad said that they could not reproduce the results released in July 2016 by Han's team. Some researchers from prestigious organizations requested that the raw data of Han's findings be publicized. A technician pushes a cart of semiconductor wafers at the Applied Materials Inc. facility in Santa Clara, California. (Photo : Getty Images) The U.S. has been urged to strengthen the protection of its semiconductor industry against threats posed by Chinese policies which seek to dominate the industry, according to a report by a White House advisory panel. Released on Friday, Jan. 13, by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the report said that the "concerted push by China to reshape the market in its favor, using industrial policies backed by over one hundred billion dollars in government-directed funds, threatens the competitiveness of the U.S. industry and the national and global benefits it brings." Advertisement "We found that Chinese policies are distorting markets in ways that undermine innovation, subtract from U.S. market share, and put U.S. national security at risk," it added. An article by Forbes said that as part of its strategy, China has spent about $150 billion in both public and private funds over a 10-year period to make technology investments and acquisitions, including access to its market to attract technology transfer. The report however, said that the U.S. government has initiated efforts to tackle the problem. President Obama blocked in August the proposed sale of German firm Aixtron SE to Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund, citing national security issues. To challenge the Chinese policies, the advisory panel presented steps that the U.S. government can take, which include enhancing transparency around the Chinese policy on technology and investment controls, taking individual transactions in line with Chinese policy and reacting immediately to Chinese policies that violate trade rules and the global market. According to the panel's report, the industry must be kept vital and competitive through policies that would nurture and attract talent, fund research, and reforms in corporate tax laws and permitting practices. The report said that the U.S. "will only succeed in mitigating the dangers posed by Chinese industrial policy if it innovates faster. Policy can, in principle, slow the diffusion of technology but it cannot stop the spread. The only way to retain leadership is to outpace the competition." A semiconductor working group that was launched in October last year, helped produced the report. One of the leaders of the group is John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The report said that the U.S. government is concerned about the rising Chinese investments in recent years. "Generally speaking, the level of anxiety within government and Congress about inbound investments has been rising over the past few years, particularly concerns relating to cyberspace, the transfer of personally identifying information or U.S. intellectual property," DJ Rosenthal, associate managing director at Kroll in Washington, D.C., said. Last year, Chinese investment in the U.S. has tripled, reaching about $46 billion, the Rhodium Group said. About 90 percent of these investments were related to services and advanced manufacturing sectors. Although many Chinese deals were examined by the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS), some U.S. lawmakers believed the action are not enough. Melania Trump's makeup artist gives hint of how she would look like upon entering the White House Melania Trump attends 2016 Time 100 Gala, Time's Most Influential People In The World red carpet at Jazz At Lincoln Center at the Times Warner Center on April 26, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images for Time/Dimitrios Kambouris) Just days to go until Donald Trump's inauguration, many wonder what Melanie Trump will wear and how her make-up will look like as she witnesses her husband be sworn in as president. Whether or not she plans to change her ladylike style and her pristine-conditioned beautiful hair upon entering the White House is still to be seen. However, her make-up artist Nicole Bryl insists not. Advertisement "Most certainly we will maintain a perfectly fresh face by adding beautiful warm contours," Bryl told The Telegraph. "Including peachy/rose blush and soft smoky browns to enhance her breathtaking steel blue eyes." Bryl has worked with Melania for the past 11 years on campaigns, interviews, red carpet events and photo shoots. She met Melania 17 years ago on a commercial when they talked for several hours while waiting for the shooting. She described Melania as "an incredible conversationalist and a very confident, positive person." The two women met again in Mrs. Trump's baby shower in an FAO Schwartz toy shop in New York after seven years. Working for the latter for several years has made the makeup artist comfortable and the change of her employer's title to first lady has not given her pressure. According to Bryl, Melania is more an eye than a lip woman who oftentimes opted for smokey eyes during the campaign trail. She added it would be overpowering if she would still get heavy handed with her mouth so she would just pick lip colors based on Melania's outfit. Bryl found it ironic for some high profile designers who publicly refused to dress Melania since all of the world's A-list designers were dying to dress her before politics. The creatives of the fashion world have always adored her but some had changed because of differences in political views. "Melania Trump is undeniably one of the most stunningly beautiful women on Earth," Bryl also told WWD. "Anyone who has ever met her in person or spent time with her also knows for a fact she is one of the sweetest, most elegant women, too." For Bryl, it is unkind for artists to boycott and thankful that Melania does not get upset. The makeup artist said that her boss is just the most self-confident, self-assured women she has known. Now in the world of politics, Melania opts for bright colored outfits to make her stand out in the crowd, so Bryl has to follow through with her make up. The first lady should have lighting on her makeup as her face could get lost in the shadow, Bryl shared. A former theater student who followed her mother's footsteps into the beauty industry, Bryl has worked on prominent faces. Among them are Sandra Bullock, Mel Gibson, Cindy Crawford, Hilary Rhoda, Jack Nicholson, Prince Albert II, Princess Charlene, Queen Noor, Harry Connick Jr., Tony Bennett and Snoop Dogg. Watch the video which features Melania: The American Friends Service Committee is celebrating 100 years of nonviolent activism with an exhibition, "Waging Peace," that showcases the group's accomplishments while also illustrating work that remains to be done. General Secretary Shan Cretin hopes both aspects of the exhibit inspire visitors. "We don't want to just be looking backward, (but) a lot of the issues that are so urgent today how we treat immigrants, racial justice issues are issues we have been working on for nearly our entire history," Cretin said. "We don't believe peace is a destination. We believe it's a path. We always have to be working toward peace and justice in our lives." Founded by Quakers during World War I, the organization has been promoting peace and justice as an expression of faith in action. The centennial exhibit, on display at the African American Museum of Philadelphia through April 30, is divided into four categories: "Ending Discrimination," ''Addressing Prisons," ''Just Economies," and "Immigrants Rights." "Ending Discrimination" includes two 8-by-8-foot photos, one showing a group of civil activists led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. facing a wall of police officers in the 1960s, the other taken in Baltimore in 2015 after Freddie Gray died in police custody. There's also a first-person account from a former committee staffer who resisted Japanese internment during World War II. In "Addressing Prisons," visitors can crowd onto a floor mat that mimics the size and shape of the 5-by-7-foot solitary confinement cell that committee employee Ojore Lutalo occupied for more than 20 years. "I really wanted to tell personal stories," said exhibit coordinator and content developer Elizabeth Tinker, an independent museum professional. "We want to encourage discussion," she said. One interactive feature highlights the challenges facing immigrants. Set up like a giant board game, visitors allow rolls of oversize dice to determine citizenship paths. Millionaires and star athletes have a much easier time than those who have family members already in the U.S. Asylum seekers with proof of persecution have a much easier time immigrating than those without proof but it's still not fast or easy. Tinker noted that this one category also illustrates why many people enter the U.S. illegally: What parent wouldn't risk violating the law and leaving their home country if they feared their children were in danger there? she asked. "This isn't telling people what they should think but giving them the information and opportunities to see videos of immigrants talking about why they're here and the challenges they face," Cretin said. One of the final displays invites visitors to use a magnet to mark places on a world or local map where they've taken positive action. Visitors are also encouraged to contact the Quaker group via social media later if they "wage peace" somewhere so the map can be updated. "It's not just about learning about the past," Tinker said. "It's about changing the future." CALUMET CITY Alderman Thaddeus Jones cannot run for mayor, an Election Board ruled last week in Calumet City. The board ruled that Jones was ineligible after residents approved a referendum on the November 2016 ballot limiting the terms for an elected official in Calumet City. An Illinois Supreme Court case filed recently in Broadview, Illinois, was cited in the boards ruling. The western Chicago suburb passed a similar referendum in November limiting mayoral terms. Jones was barred from the ballots in both the April 4 general election and the Feb. 28 primary. Jones, a Democrat who simultaneously represents the area in the state Legislature and the citys 3rd Ward, said Wednesday he believes that referendum question was unconstitutional. While I believe the Electoral Board got it wrong when it removed me from the ballot, I am confident that I will win on appeal to be on the ballot for mayor of Calumet City, Jones said in a statement for The Times. The voters of Calumet City should have a choice in who their next mayor should be. This process strips voters of that choice. Jones can appeal in the Cook County Circuit Court and further to the Illinois Appellate Court. The Electoral Board was appointed by Cook County Circuit Court Judge James R. Carroll on behalf of Judge Sharon M. Sullivan. Laura Jacksack, Ellen Raymond and Thomas Quinn replaced 6th Ward Alderman Nick Manousopoulos, Calumet City Clerk Nyota Figgs and 2nd Ward Alderman Leni Wosczynski. Jones asked for the original board to be replaced by members of the public. The statement of candidacy filed by Jones contained a portion stating that the filer is legally qualified to hold such office. The board ruled that Jones could not truthfully file for candidacy because the referendum was passed before Jones filed his candidacy, citing a 2008 case, Cinkus v. Village of Stickney municipal officers Electoral Board. VALPARAISO Former Porter County Auditor Bob Wichlinski said he knows nothing about the $2,038 in missing computer equipment and a briefcase that he is being held responsible for two years after leaving office. The Indiana State Board of Accounts claims in a newly released audit that the items were purchased in 2014 using a county credit card that drew from an auditor's office fund. The audit calls on Wichlinski to reimburse the county since the computer, memory card, software, three printers and briefcase cannot be located. "I didn't steal anything," Wichlinski said. "I don't have it." While the credit card was managed by the auditor's office, Wichlinski said it was in the hands of his chief financial person and was used by officials from various other departments in county government. "There's a lot of transactions I didn't know about," he said. "Someone's name had to be on it," Wichlinski said of the credit card. "The auditor's name was on the credit card, but I was never the custodian of it." Wichlinski said he returned all his computer equipment to the information technology department before leaving office at the end of his four-year term in 2014. He said the accusations don't make sense considering he has owned a computer company for nearly 24 years. "I don't need to steal computers and printers," he said. The audit claims Wichlinski did not respond when contacted by the state about the matter. But he said that is not true and that he stopped by the local office in September and spoke with someone there by telephone. "Someone's on a witch hunt," he said. Porter County Council President Dan Whitten, D-at-large, said he does not want to believe anyone stole the equipment. "I hope it's a mistake," he said. Porter County Auditor Vicki Urbanik, who unseated Wichlinski, said Monday her office has not received reimbursement for the funds flagged by the state. Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel said he has received a copy of the audit late last week and is reviewing it. Wichlinski questioned why anyone would want to run for public office when two years later they can be held responsible for something they know nothing about. Porter County is already unique in the state, he said, in that it has been through five auditors in as many terms. INDIANAPOLIS Gov. Eric Holcomb will deliver his first State of the State address Tuesday night at the Statehouse to a joint session of the Indiana General Assembly. The Republican, who succeeded former Gov. Mike Pence on Jan. 9, is expected to lay out his vision for the state over the next four years, as well as detail specific legislation he would like Hoosier lawmakers to enact during their four-month annual session. Holcomb's speech begins at 6 p.m. Region time and is expected to last approximately 30 minutes. It will be webcast live at iga.in.gov and broadcast on most Indiana public television and radio stations. Check back at nwi.com tomorrow for coverage. INDIANAPOLIS The Indiana bicentennial celebration may be over, but its focus on Hoosier accomplishments since achieving statehood in 1816 could continue for years to come. The Republican-controlled Indiana Senate is likely to vote later this month on Senate Bill 29, a plan to require all public, charter and private high schools in the state to annually offer students an elective course in Indiana history. Currently, just 11 of the state's 401 high schools teach Indiana history as a separate course. State Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, said the popularity of bicentennial events shows Hoosiers are hungry to know more about their past. "We want to keep that momentum going and recognize the importance of Indiana's history in being a good citizen here in our state," said Koch, the sponsor of the proposal. He expects schools would offer the course using existing teachers and classroom resources. Under the plan, if fewer than 15 students sign up for the class it could be treated as an independent study program. Andrea Neal, an Indianapolis history teacher and former member of the State Board of Education, noted the state already requires fourth-graders to learn Indiana history, which would not change. But she believes 9- and 10-year-olds are not fully capable of appreciating the subject. "Fourth-graders are not able to think critically or to draw broad inferences from specific examples. It must be taught in later grades to have an impact," she said. Neal suggested that emphasizing Indiana history to high school students might even encourage more of the state's best and brightest to seek their fortunes at home, rather than moving elsewhere. "Many of our young people do not have brand loyalty to Indiana. They are not proud of our state, because they don't know anything about it," Neal said. The Senate Education Committee last week unanimously endorsed the legislation. If approved by the full Senate, the measure still must also be passed by the Republican-controlled House and enacted by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb to take effect for the 2018-19 school year. CHICAGO A police officer confronted by a fleeing gunman suspected of shooting three people fatally shot the man early Sunday, Chicago police said. Officers were on routine patrol in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the city's West Side when they heard gunshots and began chasing a 34-year-old man, police said. "Officers initiated a foot pursuit during which the offender ran to an alley and confronted them with a weapon. As a result of this action, one of the pursuing officers discharged his weapon striking the offender multiple times," police said in a statement. Officers requested medical aid for the suspect, police said. The man was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the statement said. The man's name was not immediately released. Police did not release the race of the gunman or the officers. They recovered a weapon at the scene. No officers were injured. The Independent Police Review Authority is investigating the incident, police said. It said the officer who fired the shots will be placed on administrative duties for 30 days. Three people were found shot in the area where the officers initially heard the gunshots, police said. A 51-year-old female suffered a gunshot wound to her chest and was hospitalized in stable condition. A man, 30, who was shot in the buttocks was listed in stable condition. A 21-year-old woman was grazed on her left leg and listed in good condition. It was the first police-involved shooting since the U.S. Justice Department on Friday announced its findings of a yearlong investigation into the Chicago Police Department. The report found police had violated the constitutional rights of residents for years, including by frequently using excessive force, shooting at people who did not pose imminent threats and using stun guns on others only because they refused to follow commands. Searchers have learned a Siberian husky who slipped away from two drivers on the way to a rescue in Illinois Sunday was struck and killed on an Interstate 65 ramp, but they're still trying to determine what happened to her body. An Indiana Department of Transportation worker moved the dog's body to the side of the road with her pink collar still on, said Tammy Somers, of A Critter's Chance. When rescuers got to the scene, the dog's body was missing but her collar was still there, she said. People searching for the dog, named Breanna, are still hoping someone has information about what became of Breanna's body, Somers said. Breanna pulled out of her harness and ran away from two drivers in the area of the CVS at Broadway and U.S. 231 in Crown Point, Somers said. The drivers for Free Spirit Husky Rescue were attempting to transfer Breanna from one car to another to complete a trip from a shelter in Kentucky to a rescue facility in Illinois, she said. Anyone with information about the dog's body is asked to call Somers at 317-531-8164. EAST CHICAGO Councilman Lenny Franciski, D-2nd, has been chosen by the City Council to once again serve as council president. The City Council elected its officers for 2017 as it met recently for its first meeting of the new year. Franciski, who served as president in 2014 and 2015, was the only candidate nominated by the council and he was elected unanimously. "I thank them for having the faith in me to be the council president," Franciski said. Councilwoman Gilda Orange, D-6th, nominated Franciski and said he had done a good job previously in setting up council workshops and calling in department heads when the council had questions. "Lenny was a strong president when he was president before," Orange said. "He made sure that we kept informed." Franciski had served as council vice president since August, when he was chosen to replace Councilwoman Myrna Maldonado, D-1st, in that role. Maldonado became council president after former Council President Juda Parks resigned rather than continue to fight a state law that does not allow a municipal employee to also hold elected office in that same municipality. Maldonado said she told the council the time commitments required in her job as a full-time schoolteacher made it difficult to also serve as president. She said one of her accomplishments as president was opening up communication between the council and the EPA regarding health issues in the city. "Whatever questions were out there in the audience, they always got answered," Maldonado said. "And I made sure that they were answered at the next council meeting." Councilwoman Christine Vasquez, D-4th, was elected as vice president. She had served in that role during Franciski's previous stint as president. Councilman Robert Garcia, D-5th, was also nominated for the position of vice president but fell short when Vasquez won with a 6-3 vote. The council also approved a new employment contract with Council Attorney Stephen Bower, as well as a financial consultant service agreement with Cender & Co., L.L.C. Both were approved by 8-0 votes. Garcia left the meeting early so was not present for either vote. Franciski said both agreements are one-year deals and at the same compensation rate as the previous year. Davos World Economic Forum draws global industry chiefs. (Photo : Getty Images) For the first time, China will pay presence in the Davos World Economic Forum. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Zurich on Sunday. The Chinese president will speak at Davos about "a community of common destiny" and the importance of a globalized and open world market. The speech is expected to contradict the current strategy of the U.S which is leaned toward protectionism. Advertisement In late 2012, Xi also talked about China's approach to opening up the global economy and has launched changes in the world's trends on support growth and freeing up the world's economy. Along with the concept of "sharing the global destiny," Xi will also talk about cooperation on global security. Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs and the Center for EU Studies at the Renmin University of China, said, "The community of common destiny is a concept created by China." He added, "Although the West and the U.N. also had similar mottos, the community of common destiny is a greater and broader concept. Apart from environmental protection, it also covers the economy, politics, diplomacy and security." "When people from the West hear 'destiny' they might imagine that it is a religious concept so we've considered replacing 'destiny' with 'future.' "Some Europeans don't even believe that China will share the future with them, because they believe China's future is getting better and better by absorbing strength from globalization, but their future is not very optimistic due to the negative impact of globalization," Wang said. In a separate press briefing held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last year, Wang said: Since China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement came into effect, it has brought significant benefits to the two countries. We should take the discussion on the upgraded version of the agreement as an opportunity to jointly facilitate trade liberalization." CROWN POINT Calling it the "most successful year on record," the Lake County Sheriffs office said the department's Drug Task Force seized more than $1.2 million in illegal drugs, secured nearly 400 felony and misdemeanor charges against individuals and identified nearly 100 gang members in 2016. Lake County Sheriff John Buncich in a news release credited the 255 anonymous tips received from the public for the task forces successful year. Thats up from the 87 tips received in 2015, according to department data. Ninety-five gang members were identified and 43 search warrants and raids were carried out in 2016, roughly doubling the task force's operations from 2015, according to data. In all, police recovered about seven ounces of crack; 62 ounces of cocaine; 11,400 ecstasy pills; 68.8 ounces of heroin; 253 prescription pills; 5,000 Xanax pills; 7.6 ounces of synthetic marijuana and 250 marijuana plants. In light of the Region's heroin epidemic, the sheriff dedicated more personnel to the task force as part of the units strategy to target upper-level drug dealers, said Mark Back, spokesman for the Lake County Sheriffs Department. The uncovering of a drug trafficking operation near Crown Point High School marked the units most significant drug bust, Back said. The investigation led to the seizure of more than $65,000 in drugs and cash including 5,000 Xanax pills. Petar Velkov, 20, of Crown Point, was arrested Feb. 27 for his alleged involvement, believed to be working with a network of others, both juveniles and adults, to supply drugs to area students, and on university campuses statewide and in the Region. Velkov allegedly bought the drugs by mail order and drugs were shipped to Indiana from as far as Georgia, California and Washington, Buncich said. Back recently said the investigation is ongoing and could not provide further updates. A year-end narcotics warrant sweep carried out by the Lake County Drug Task Force and law enforcement partners resulted in 30 new arrest warrants issued for individuals possessing or selling controlled substances. SCHERERVILLE Fluctuating temperatures likely caused a valve to become stuck and release a natural gas smell Saturday in the area of a regulating station at 91st Avenue and Burr Street, a NIPSCO spokeswoman said. No natural gas was released, only the odorant NIPSCO adds to the system, company spokeswoman Tara McElmurry said Monday. The station regulates pipeline pressure, and a hydraulic system regularly adds a safety odor to natural gas to alert homeowners to leaks of otherwise odorless natural gas. About 30 business owners and residents called the utility Saturday to complain about the smell, a spokesman previously said. NIPSCO resolved the issue Saturday. Anyone who detects a possible natural gas leak should immediate leave, go to a safe place and call 800-634-3524. LAPORTE A minivan skidded across Clear Lake and crashed into a snow bank Saturday, but managed to stay dry even though the ice production has been low this year, according to authorities. Police said an empty 40-ounce container of beer and a liquor bottle were recovered from the abandoned vehicle. A woman who fit the description of the driver, according to police, was found less than a mile away, but told police she was not driving. She gave police the name of the alleged driver. Taylor Tuholski, 26, of LaPorte, was eating lunch with his wife a short distance away at Fox Park when the van hit the lake. "It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen," Tuholski said. Tuholski said the van traveled about 300 feet across the frozen water and as it approached the shoreline, the ice began cracking. Tuholski, about 50 feet away, rushed over to see if the woman was OK. "She got out of the car and walked away as if nothing was wrong," he said. Tyler Brock, a conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, said it's a wonder the van didn't crash through the ice. He said inland lakes had as much as 6 inches of ice, but there are pockets of open water in some places. DNR recommends ice be at least 8t inches thick to hold a car or light pickup truck. "It sounds like they got lucky, especially with the poor ice conditions we've had," Brock said. LaPorte County Police Capt. Mike Kellems said there have been cars that have ended up on the ice over the years. Depending on the situation, he said it's best for drivers to stay in their vehicles and call for help rather than attempt to drive back to shore and risk the ice being thinner. "If the vehicle is sitting on ice and you're stable, just stay with it. Sometimes, as long as it's not breaking through the ice or going down, the vehicle is your safest place until emergency services can get there," Kellems said. VALPARAISO Some 80 men have been part of the God Pod at the Porter County Jail since its inception nearly three years ago. The program, officially called Biblical Life Principles, is run by Jay Birky, chaplain and program director at the county jail. Background Birky and Porter County Sheriff Dave Reynolds initiated the program in June 2014 after visiting a similar program in Michigan. Inmates must apply for the program and, if accepted, live in the same jail pod as the other men in the God Pod. They undergo an intensive program, including spending five days a week, five hours a day, in classes and Bible study. The classes range from conflict resolution to financial management. Birky said the recidivism rate the return of inmates to the jail after their release is between 20 percent and 23 percent, nearly a third of the national average of 65 percent to 75 percent. There are 10 inmates in the pod presently with a waiting list of seven or eight. Recently Frontline Foundations, a faith-based addiction group, has begun providing services to the inmates in the pod, said Birky. The secret of the program, however, is that it doesn't end when inmates leave the jail after serving their time. A group of 15 area churches have combined efforts to help support the men. "We're still developing the house down south. The after-care component is still strong. We've got a pretty good community with more people willing to help," he said. The churches and graduates of the program work to help others after leaving the jail by helping find housing and jobs as well as providing support and counseling for each other. The program is funded through donations by the churches and other groups and individuals. What's next Within the next month, Birky said they plan on offering a God Pod-like program to female inmates in the jail. Because there is a smaller population of women in the jail, they won't be able to group the women together in a single pod. While it will operate differently, he said they hope to offer classes and programming two days a week initially and eventually expand it to five days a week. Have a story idea for us to update? Send tips to newstips@nwi.com with Follow-up File in the subject line. GARY Most people will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday by focusing on the powerful words and achievements of the late, great civil rights leader. But a local gathering Sunday took a unique and more personal approach to honoring King by recreating a meal made up of his favorite foods. The dinner was the creation of Junifer Hall, whose mother, the late U.S. Congresswoman Katie Hall, sponsored the legislation that resulted in the creation of the federal holiday honoring King. Hall said she came up with the idea while sharing a meal with one of King's daughters, Bernice King, during a visit to the Region last year. "We were discussing with her what types of food her dad liked to eat in his lifetime," Hall said. The answer was good old fashioned soul food, including fried chicken, black-eyed peas, collard greens and homemade cornbread. Those favorites made up Sunday's menu at Mama Pearl's BBQ Restaurant, 411 E. 5th Ave., and attracted paying diners such as Gary resident Dorothy Curtis. "We always celebrate with food," she said. "At home we always sat around the table and ate." A video of King's speeches played in the background during Sunday's meal and each visitor received a post card of the 1983 photograph of President Ronald Reagan signing the legislation creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day with several people looking on, including Katie Hall. The holiday was first celebrated in 1986. Curtis said at the time King was organizing nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama and delivering his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 march in Washington, D.C., she was confronting a lot of racism after the Fair Share Organization helped her secure a job at the local U.S. Steel plant. "When I was growing up, we couldn't find a job," said the 73-year-old. Her sister-in-law Daisy Curtis, also of Gary, said she was in Germany with her husband, who was in the military, when she received word that King had been assassinated on April 4, 1968. "It was shocking," she said. The 71-year-old said that despite progress made elsewhere, the economic conditions have not improved in Gary. "Our kids leave when they graduate from college," she said. "If you're not politically connected, you can't get a job." Gary resident Earmon Irons, 78, who was picking up food to go, said he liked the idea of honoring King by sharing in his favorite dishes. He referred to King's message as a clarion call that resonates as truthfully today as it did during his lifetime. "When we talk of standing on the shoulders of people, his shoulders are involved in that," Irons said. He said as divisions of various sorts ravage the country, King's message offers words of guidance and hope. "To me, in that vast space of life, of humanity as a whole, we need to seek those things that are common among us rather than the few things that divide us," Irons said. Gary City Councilwoman Rebecca Wyatt, who moved to the city 24 years ago and holds out hope for its revival, took part in Sunday's meal. "I think it's a clever idea to have Dr. King's favorite meal," she said. Dense fog this afternoon could reduce visibility to a quarter mile, so drivers should should use headlights, slow down and leave extra distance between vehicles, according to the National Weather Service. A dense fog advisory has been issued for Lake, Porter, Newton and Jasper counties until 6 p.m. Monday, and in LaPorte County until midnight. The heaviest fog has been observed south of Interstate 80, though conditions could improve as more rain moves in this afternoon, forecasters said. Heavy fog also is likely overnight into Tuesday morning, the weather service said. The advisories followed warnings earlier Monday of possible rain or freezing rain, especially in areas north of I-80. A chance of freezing rain in LaPorte County is expected to continue into Monday afternoon. With the rain comes a limited risk of isolated thunderstorms, but severe weather is not expected, the weather service said. As part of the MLK Day of Service, volunteers rolled up their sleeves to turn a space above a church into a soup kitchen in the south Bronx. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report. Four hundred volunteers spent the weekend scraping and painting, transforming a space above a church into a soup kitchen, which, when it opens, will be the only one in Hunts Point, a neighborhood where many families are hungry. "Hunts Point is really ground zero for persons who have been displaced and who are living in shelters. So our hope is that we will at least be able to provide a warm meal," said the Rev. Sherwin James, pastor at the Bright Temple AME Church. The project is organized by the Food Bank for New York City, and the volunteers are working in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. "We believe hunger is solvable," said Margarette Purvis, president of the Food Bank for NYC. "And sometimes, it's just something as simple as volunteers showing up and take a place that's maybe not in the best shape and put a little bit of elbow grease to it, a few resources, and now, there could be meals served right here in this neighborhood that needs it so much." Three years ago, the Food Bank developed a strategic plan to figure out where people are most hungry and don't have access to help. Hunts Point was at the top of the list. One in every four residents struggles to get enough to eat, yet the neighborhood is cut off from the nearest soup kitchen by the Bruckner Expressway. For 34 years, the Food Bank has had its warehouse in the Hunts Point Produce Market. "It's actually where the majority of New York City's food comes from. A lot of New Yorkers don't know that but this is where your food comes from," Purvis said. "Unfortunately, lots of trucks go through this community, no trucks were stopping." So two years ago, the Food Bank helped Bright Temple AME reopen its food pantry, which had been closed for seven years. And starting next month, the soup kitchen will be providing hot meals a few days a week. "It was in a state of disrepair for some period of time. And now, with the work Food Bank and others have done, I think we're on our way back. We're on our way back," James said. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Oman said Monday it accepted 10 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to questions about the transfer. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had accepted the prisoners at Obama's request. It did not name the prisoners. "In consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 persons have been released from detention and arrived in the sultanate today for a temporary residence," the statement said. The Omani Embassy in Washington said it had no other information about the transfer. The U.S. Embassy in Muscat declined to immediately comment. The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Neighboring Saudi Arabia took four prisoners earlier this month and the United Arab Emirates took 15 in the largest-single transfer during Obama's administration in August. Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, remains in the grip of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels making returning Guantanamo detainees there impossible. Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obama's presidency. Obama has been unable to fulfil promises to close the facility in part because of congressional opposition to transferring any of the detainees to U.S. prisons. Congress ultimately banned the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil for any reason. Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Friday as America's 45th president, said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but "load it up with some bad dudes." That's put pressure on the Obama administration to find places to send as many of the prisoners abroad as possible this week. The U.S. began using its military base on southeast Cuba's isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on Jan. 11, 2002. At its peak, 18 months later, the facility held nearly 680 detainees. There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge. A September report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said 122 of 693 detainees transferred out of the prison, or 17.6 percent, returned to fighting. An additional 86 detainees are suspected of having returned to the battlefield, according to the report. The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. MEXICO CITY After President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a C.I.A.-backed coup in 1954, the Guatemalan government reversed his policies and branded him a Communist, all but erasing his brief presidency from history. Nearly six decades later, a democratic Guatemala has promised to restore his legacy and treat him as a statesman. In an agreement signed with Mr. Arbenzs descendants last week, the government promised to revise the school curriculum and grant Mr. Arbenz the treatment afforded to historical heroes. It will name a main highway and a museum wing after the ousted president, prepare a biography of him, publish his widows memoir and mount an exhibition about him and his legacy in the National History Museum. The post office will even issue a series of stamps in his honor. When you say his name, my generation and older generations automatically pick sides, said Dr. Erick Arbenz, Mr. Arbenzs grandson, an anesthesiologist in Boston. The younger generation dont know who he was or how he shaped history. Part of that is the culture of silence created by the C.I.A. and the perpetrators. 'Arrow' Season 5 spoilers: Cast member wants Batman in the show; Talia al Ghul role in Oliver Queen in the flashback sequence! Arrow is CW Network series developed by writer/producers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg. (Photo : Facebook) The latest details and spoilers for "Arrow" season 5 will feature Talia al Ghul's role in the flashbacks and cast member wants Batman in the show. It seems that Talia al Ghul (Lexa Doig) will have an important role in Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) life during the flaschback sequences of "Arrow" season 5 as episode 11 synopsis titled "Second Chances" will reveal that Talia will help him in his fight against the Russian crime boss Konstantin Kovar (Dolph Lundgren). Advertisement According to the synopsis, Oliver will seek help from Talia in taking down Kovar, in exchange for a favor from him. However, when Oliver found out what Talia wants, he had second thoughts about seeking her help. The synopsis also features small arc for Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) attempts to hack the NSA to help free Diggle (David Ramsey) but when her online efforts are flagged, she faces off against an unknown adversary and Curtis Holt/Mister Terrific (Echo Kellum) tells Team Arrow about a new vigilante named Tina Boland (guest star Juliana Harkavay), which he uncovered online who has been wreaking havoc all over the country, Screenrant reported. It is unknown yet as to what kind of favor Talia demands from Oliver, but several reports claim that Talia knows the identity of season 5's big bad Prometheus. Showrunner Wendy Mericle stated in an interview that Talia will play a "crucial role" in season 5 in both past and present events and is revealed to be a a master of several forms of combat, but unlike her sister Nyssa (Katrina Law), Talia apparently opted not to choose sides in her father Ra's al Ghul's (Matt Nable) never-ending war with society, and instead created her own. It is also rumored that Talia could be responsible for training Prometheus in to a killer as the later wants to take out the Green Arrow. In other news, cast member David Ramsey wants to have Ben Affleck's version of Batman in "Arrow" TV series as he stated during the Wizard World Comic-con event that he wants both Batman and Green Arrow to "duke it out" when they meet, Batman News reported. Ramsey added that he would love to see Batman in the DC TV, the problem however, is that both DC TV series and movies are in a seperate universe unlike Marvel who wants both their movies and TV series connected. Although, several of "Arrow's" characters in the show used Batman characters, there is likely a chance that fans and viewers will see the Dark Knight could make it to the "Arrowverse", after all Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) appeared in "Supergirl" TV series, not to mention several reference related to Cape Crusader was mentioned in one episode. "Arrow" season 5 returns on Jan. 25 8PM EST on the CW Network. COMAYAGUA, Honduras The bodies of the inmates, shirtless and blackened by soot, lay on the ground in neat rows, belying the chaos from which they emerged. Outside the fence, hundreds of relatives rushed the gates of the burned-out prison on Wednesday, anguished and anxious for any word, clashing with soldiers and the police when they could not get in. As a prison officer stood on a balcony, reading out a roll call of the dead and survivors from a handwritten list, faces in the crowd turned away in tears. It was one of the worst prison fires in recent years in Latin America, with a death toll surpassing 300, most of the victims choking to death in their cells awaiting a rescue that never came. Guards with the keys were nowhere to be found, rescuers said. Some inmates bashed their way through the roof to escape, and kept running. They are now fugitives. Honduran prisons are rife with overcrowding, rioting and abuse on a normal day, but on Tuesday night, when officials say an inmate set fire to his mattress, things turned unimaginably worse, and this nation, already sinking into turmoil from a wave of drug trafficking, was staggered by yet another crisis. Libre, however, has rejected the official results as fraudulent. What happens next will hinge on decisions by the partys leader, former President Manuel Zelaya, who is Ms. Castros husband. It will depend, as well, on how supporters like those in lower-middle-class Colonia Kennedy, who have been loyal to Mr. Zelaya since he was ousted in a coup four years ago, respond to his summons. If Xiomara doesnt call us out onto the streets, were going to go anyway, Mr. Nunez said. Mr. Zelaya was defiant on Monday at a news conference that was packed with noisy Libre activists all except for Ms. Castro, who was absent. We dont accept the tribunals results until they show us otherwise, ballot box by ballot box, town by town, he said, as supporters blew horns and cheered. Mr. Zelaya promised, If it is necessary to take to the streets to defend our victory, then we will take to the streets. Almost a million people had voted for the partys proposal to rewrite the Constitution, he said, citing unconfirmed figures, and we do not expect, nor do we want, nor will we renounce, what people are demanding at the polls. International and national observers closely watched the election, and the parties themselves were in charge of the vote counting. Although Ricci Moncada, Libres secretary of electoral affairs, said Sunday night that at least 1,900 of the vote tally sheets showed irregularities, the party offered no additional proof of fraud on Monday. Rumored Nokia 8 (P) Android flagship phone will be introduced via MWC 2017 (Photo : GSM Arena) The leaked Nokia 8 Android flagship with Snapdragon 835 SoC that triggered an avalanche of speculations last week appears likely to get stuck on rumor zone as Qualcomm denied that it showcased the device at the CES 2017 trade show. But Nokia is still poised to introduce two new handsets at the start of the MWC 2017 this coming February. Advertisement When the MWC 2017 kicks off in Barcelona, Spain Nokia will reveal two handsets that are of the mid-range breed. According to DigiTimes, the Finnish mobile brand that HMD Global has resurrected will train the spotlight on the Nokia D1C or Nokia 6, which will be made available in two versions. The D1C, per the same report, will sell in two models separated by specifications and features. It is understood that the Nokia D1C will come in two screen sizes and memory configuration, and as expected different pricing. But to be clear, the Nokia D1C is far from the rumored flagship models that are said to originate from Finland. Rumors are widespread that Nokia is working on two possible mobile devices that will be at par with soon-to-deploy Android flagships this 2017. The labels that have been floating around were Nokia Edge and Nokia P. Last week, these handsets appear to be inching closer to reality as reports emerged that Qualcomm has actually demoed two Nokia flagship phones with SD 821 and 835 powering the devices. The claim was even supported by a YouTube clip showing off the two powerful smartphones that supposedly will shed their codenames soon in favor of the official Nokia 8 label. Qualcomm, however, has denied that the company was responsible for leaking the Nokia 8 (or rumored as Nokia Edge and P). What was filmed a reference device but certainly not any of the Nokia 8 variants, the company insisted. According to NokiaMob.net, "Nokia 8 reports are not accurate," pointing to the clarifying email sent by Nokia's PR department. The report added that Qualcomm refused to reveal the maker of the gadget that was showcased "but that the device is certainly not Nokia 8." So the rumors surrounding the Nokia flagship will only continue to swirl with nostalgic smartphone fans left with no choice but to hope that the exciting specs and features being attached the Nokia Edge and Nokia P will become real, eventually. As stated by DigiTimes on its report, Nokia will unveil the D1C or the Nokia 6 this coming February and will debut in two model. However, there will be more from Nokia as the company is supposed to stage a comeback in the mobile scene with up to seven smartphones and basic phones lined up for 2017 rollout. The same report indicated that Nokia will likely push out its flagship bet in the third quarter of the year, hinting that if the Nokia Edge or P will turn out as two flavors of the Nokia 8, the release date will happen as early as July 2017. Lucifer' Season 2 spoilers: Lucifer's dad God has been cast? Who will play the role of Johnson? Lucifer Season 2, episode 14 spoilers: Tom Ellis reveals what happens when show returns in May (Photo : YouTube/Promos and Previews) "Lucifer" Season 2 will soon introduce Lucifer's dad, God, in its upcoming episodes. On the show's Twitter account, it was revealed that the title for episode 16 is "God Johnson." Even though no other details were released, fans could not help but speculate on the possibility of God being introduced and named Johnson in the said installment. Advertisement In Season 2, Lucifer's mom, Charlotte (Tricia Helfer), was introduced. Charlotte is not the character's real name in Hell. Instead, when she went to visit her sons on Earth, she took on the body and the name of the one of the human beings named Charlotte. By the looks of it, a similar storyline will take place when God is introduced. Even though Lucifer and Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) calls him dad, he has to have a name when he is introduced to Lucifer's and Amenadiel's friends. Johnson could be the name of the person whose body God will take on in the upcoming episodes. Meanwhile, the role of God has not yet been cast, but there are already some names of actors being linked to the highly-anticipated role. For instance, "The Walking Dead" actor, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is being linked to the role, but his prior engagements with AMC could make this an impossibility. Benedict Cumberbatch is another actor who could play the role of God in "Lucifer" Season 2. But "Sherlock" is close to being cancelled on BBC One because of Cumberbatch's tight schedule. In other news, "Lucifer" Season 2 will return to FOX on Monday, Jan. 16. "Stewardess Interruptus" will serve as a crucial episode for Lucifer and Chloe Decker (Lauren German). Lucifer will find out the truth about Chloe, and Chloe will be confronted by Charlotte about Lucifer. It has been Charlotte's goal to send Lucifer back to hell, but he has been refusing to do so, and Chloe is one of his reasons. As such, Charlotte will try to separate the two on Earth by telling Chloe that she needs to help her get Lucifer back to his family. "Lucifer" Season 2 airs Mondays at 9 p.m. EST on FOX. The title of Ep. 216 is "God Johnson" written by @jkning -- Show him some love! #Lucifer pic.twitter.com/HhrpU3uYoC Lucifer Writers Room (@LUCIFERwriters) January 4, 2017 READING, England With its state-of-the-art robotics, Magal Engineerings factory in the colorless outskirts of this busy commercial town west of London is an important component of Britains booming car industry, churning out millions of sophisticated vehicle parts every year. Yet as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, Magal is having to rethink its operations here. The company has sister factories in France and Germany, imports components from them to assemble in Reading, and sends many finished products back across the English Channel all with minimal paperwork and no tariffs. Britains departure from the European Union could change all that, ending the tariff-free trade that Magal enjoys, potentially disrupting the hiring of crucial engineers from abroad and requiring new hires to keep up with the added paperwork. Britains exit is a big worry and ideally would be stopped, says Gamil Magal, Magal Engineerings chief executive. But as a realist, he is preparing to live with it. That means suspending investment in Britain and contemplating production cuts here, even as the company continues to put money into France. With Britain, the policy is wait and see, Magal said, speaking in his office above this bustling factory in a building that once produced World War II aircraft. Although Britains economy has so far not suffered the economic blowback that many predicted would follow the vote in a referendum last year to quit the bloc, British companies that import or export goods and services are anxiously assessing the potential costs of departure. Complicating matters is continuing uncertainty over the terms of departure that the government wants to negotiate. Prime Minister Theresa May plans to start two years of formal talks with the European Union on Britains withdrawal, widely known as Brexit, by the end of March, and on Tuesday she is expected to give some more detail about her objectives. We dont know what is going to happen, the government doesnt know what is going to happen, and I am not sure that the government even knows what it is asking for, said David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at Aston University. There are signs that British-based companies might be taking action already, ahead of the actual Brexit. In a survey of 233 financial services companies published in The Sunday Times of London last week, 39 said they would reduce staffing because of the Brexit vote, and half of that number had already started to do so. For British banks, a big worry is whether they will able to continue offering services to clients across the bloc. Most international banks now have project teams working out which operations they need to move to ensure they can continue serving customers, the date by which this must happen, and how best to do it, Anthony Browne, chief executive of the British Bankers Association, wrote in The Observer last year. Their hands are quivering over the relocate button, he added. Sectors like agriculture, hospitality and construction are worried about labor. They all rely heavily on workers from Southern or Eastern Europe, whose right to employment here may be curbed to achieve Mays objective of reducing immigration. It didnt take long for the local hospitality industry to take off in the new year. Irvine-based Pacifica Hotels announced last week it had assumed operations of an iconic hotel in Santa Monica; the Irvine Marriott introduced a redesign; and developers of a hotel in San Juan Capistrano said it would open by next summer. Pacifica has assumed management of The Georgian Hotel, a retro-style, blue-and-yellow building across the street from the Santa Monica Pier. The hotel has 84 rooms and a restaurant with sweeping ocean views. The hotel, at 1415 Ocean Ave., is being renovated. Upgrades to the restaurant, bar, common areas and meeting rooms will debut in the spring, the company said. Its architectural integrity, coastal location, boutique style and hospitality-first ethos makes it a model addition to Pacifica Hotels portfolio, Matt Marquis, president and CEO of Pacifica Hotels, said in a statement. Pacifica also sold the 80-room Sommerset Suites in San Diego for $19.5 million. The hotel was sold to Sentre Partners. The hotel was initially built as an apartment complex in 1986 and still has apartment amenities. Sentre will convert the hotel into high-end apartments, according to Irvine-based Atlas Hospitality Group. The Irvine Marriott, in the final phases of a $35million renovation, unveiled on Tuesday its new M Club Lounge. The semiprivate space is reserved for premier and Gold Club members. It includes complimentary food and drinks, Wi-Fi, printing and power supplies. Other renovations include a new front entrance, great room, 496 reimagined guestrooms, pool area and fitness center. Hotel Capistrano, a $40million boutique hotel that will be under management by Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, will open in downtown San Juan Capistrano in summer 2018. The hotel, which features Spanish colonial decor, will have 102 rooms, a restaurant, rooftop bar and pool. Kimpton, a boutique hotel operator based in San Francisco, also manages the Shorebreak Hotel in Huntington Beach, which is also undergoing a renovation. Contact the writer: hmadans@ocregister.com or Twitter: @HannahMadans PARIS An effort by France to give impetus to the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process through an international conference always faced long odds. But with an incoming U.S. president who has vowed to support Israel no matter what, the project seemed even more quixotic. As senior representatives from some 70 countries gathered in Paris Sunday and endorsed a new two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, what they had to offer was mostly symbolic. Still, that symbol was clear: Though peace efforts seemed doomed, the leaders, representing every European nation, were signaling that they still saw them as critical and putting President-elect Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on notice that the process could be ignored only at their peril. The two-state solution, which the international community has agreed on for many years, appears threatened, President Francois Hollande of France said as he opened the afternoon session. It is physically threatened on the ground by the acceleration of settlements, it is politically threatened by the progressive weakening of the peace camp, it is morally threatened by the distrust that has accumulated between the parties, and that has certainly been exploited by extremists. France held the first session of the conference in June, after the United States and others effectively gave up. Talks had broken down, and Netanyahus government had drawn international anger with its continued settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a red line for the process set out years before by Secretary of State John Kerry and other leaders. The idea was to prevent the peace process from disappearing entirely from the international agenda, which was dominated by Syria, Ukraine and Libya, among other hot spots. At the end of Sundays meeting, the countries issued a joint communique that reaffirmed support for a two-state solution a Palestinian state existing next to Israel and a return to the 1967 boundaries between the Israelis and Palestinians, including the removal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank. The statement referenced United Nations resolutions to that effect, including the condemnation of Israel in December, which the Obama administration declined to block, over its continuing settlement of the West Bank. Most of these goals seem starkly remote. Israel has continued to follow an aggressive policy of creating facts on the ground through continued settlement of land claimed by the Palestinians. The Palestinian side, at the same time, is hobbled by a divided leadership, with one wing, led by the militant group Hamas, still refusing to recognize Israel at all. In another sense, the meeting was also a last shot by a group of world leaders and diplomats who have driven the current peace process, fruitless though it has been, to preserve it in the face of major changes in the U.S. delegation at the heart of the effort. With Trumps inauguration days away, his foreign policy is still mostly a matter of conjecture. But he has repeatedly signaled his displeasure with Obamas approach toward Israel and the peace process. Israeli officials clearly expect that the pressure to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians will ease once Trump is in office. Some seem to be counting the hours: After Trumps election victory, Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party in Netanyahus coalition, exulted, The era of a Palestinian state is over! While Trump has expressed a desire to make what he called the ultimate deal between Israel and the Palestinians, his staff has also reached out to the organization that represents the West Bank settlers, the Yesha Council. The council received multiple invitations to Trumps Jan. 20 inauguration, according to a spokesman for the umbrella organization. A delegation led by Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy of the council and mayor of a large settlement, will be attending. Perhaps the clearest signs of a coming change from the Americans are Trumps personnel announcements: David M. Friedman, his nominee for ambassador to Israel and a bankruptcy lawyer aligned with Israels far right, has been an avid supporter of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. In Israel, Netanyahu asserts that he still supports the principle of a Palestinian state, but on his terms, not those of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, whom many Israelis view as too weak to deliver. Netanyahus terms are unacceptable to the Palestinians, who are looking to the U.N. and other international forums for intervention. Despite the resigned expressions on the faces of many of the representatives as they left Sundays meeting and Netanyahus declaration, according to Israeli news outlets, that the conference was the final palpitations of yesterdays world there has been no official death knell for a two-state solution. No one has yet put forward an alternative that seems likely to gain international support and offer both Israelis and Palestinians more safety. In tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., a dozen dancers dressed in black and wrapped in sky blue scarves stretch their arms toward the heavens and beam. Although King was gunned down before he could realize his dream a dream still unrealized the dancers joy at Irvines Christ Our Redeemer Church on Sunday is proof that Kings courage, perseverance and humanity endure. But more important for the dancers, this congregation and this nation, Kings legacy keeps alive hope that people of all races and religions will come together. RELATED: Laguna hike celebrates the words and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. A high school student, Ryan Wright Jr., steps up to the lectern and echoes King and the Declaration of Independence. I have a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, Wright says. That we will join hands and say, We are free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. As the teenager concludes, a rainbow of races applauds, hugs, connects. While some dreams remain fragile after an especially troublesome presidential election, there is more than hope in this church. There is happiness. Teach your children well Christ Our Redeemer is an African Methodist Episcopal Church and always welcomes everyone. Still, on this day, racial and religious diversity is the theme. The church is filled with hundreds of familiar faces as well as hundreds of new visitors. Most are here for a purpose: to help build bridges. The Rev. Mark Whitlock sets the stage: Today we celebrate racial diversity and come together as a family. Another pastor offers, We celebrate God and we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. One made the mountain. The other climbed to the mountaintop. Accordingly, there are two very different services. The first welcomes Latinos and the sermon is given by the Rev. Jason Aguilar of The Cloud Church in Irvine. The second joins with the Jewish community and the speaker is Rabbi Mark Borovitz of Beit TShuvah in Los Angeles. Just before 8 a.m., the Greene family of Orange settles into a row of chairs. If youve ever been a parent, youll appreciate the effort it took to shepherd the kids halfway across the county. Theres Mom, Linda, a former charter school principal. Theres Dad, Willy, a retired Navy veteran and recent nursing school graduate. And then there are the three children, Paloma, 4, and twins Joaquin and Guillermo, 2. Linda Greene explains that they made the early morning trip because she and her husband wanted to take their children to a church that emphasizes racial diversity to help show them whats possible. The political climate, Greene says, has created an atmosphere where tolerance needs nurturing. Pastor Jack Miranda, program director at the Jesse Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership, echoes Greene when he addresses the crowd. I pray that civility will reign in each of our hearts. The church, Miranda concludes, exists because justice exists. Spirit of nonviolence Above the altar, a video of Martin Luther King Jr. appears on two screens. Ive seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, King says. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! That speech was made April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. King was murdered the following day. Seeing this man still in his prime is jarring, sad and inspiring. When I was in Washington, D.C., several years ago, I visited Kings memorial, just a few hundred yards from the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his I Have a Dream speech during the 1963 March on Washington. Inscribed in stone is a quotation of Kings from that march, a quote my mother heard that day more than a half-century ago when she stood with hundreds of thousands asking for equality. Out of the mountain of despair, King said, a stone of hope. Of the anniversary of Kings birth, his widow, Coretta Scott King, has said, On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit. At Christ Our Redeemer, Whitlock turns over the altar to Aguilar. Martin Luther King Jr. said, We may have all come on different ships, Aguilar says, but we are on the same boat now. Quoting biblical verses, Aguilar digs deep in his heart and tells the gathering that God created all people from the same earth, that we all share a common bond. The pastor suggests people leave with two words in mind: empathy and inclusion. As the services wind down, Whitlock asks that people lock arms in song and prayer. Swaying together and singing as one voice, the words rise, We shall overcome. We shall overcome some day. This week, America says goodbye to one president and hands the baton to the next. The fires of hope burn. Contact the writer: dwhiting@scng.com Essilor of France said Monday it would merge with the Luxottica Group of Italy, owner of the Ray-Ban and Foothill Ranch-based Oakley brands, in a $49 billion deal that would create a giant in the eyewear industry. The combined company, to be known as EssilorLuxottica, would be the largest player in the eyewear market, manufacturing lenses for prescription glasses and sunglasses, as well as frames. It would have a presence online as well as in stores, with brands including Foster Grant, Oliver Peoples, Persol, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Sunglass Hut. The deal follows more than four years of talks. The new company would have more than 140,000 employees and sales in more than 150 countries. Based on 2015 results, it is forecast to have revenue of more than 15 billion euros, or about $16 billion, in 2016. Oakley founded 41 years ago by Jim Jannard and known for its sport sunglasses and goggles has been steadily shrinking over the past year as Luxottica, based in Milan, prepares to integrate several Oakley divisions outside of California. The Foothill Ranch operation in mid-2016 saw several key operations shift to join Luxottica in Ohio, New York and Italy. Oakley said in July that 15-20 percent of its Orange County workforce would be affected. Filings with the state in 2016 indicated 417 people in Foothill Ranch received layoff notices effective in October; another 119 in Mira Loma received layoff notices effective January 31. Luxottica, which makes prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses under a variety of brands, and Essilor, a maker of lenses, are the two largest companies in the sector, with Luxottica having a 14 percent market share and Essilor a 13 percent share, according to the market research firm Euromonitor International. Johnson & Johnson is the next largest, with a 3.9 percent share. The new group would be a clear leader in the optical industry, with a strong brand portfolio, global distribution capabilities and complementary expertise in ophthalmic lenses, prescription frames and sunglasses, Fred Speirs, a UBS analyst, said in a research report on Monday. The two companies were worth a combined 46.3 billion euros, based on their market capitalization at the end of trading on Friday, making the deal one of Europes largest cross-border transactions. They said they expected to save 400 million to 600 million euros in the medium term. More than half of revenue at the combined company would come from the United States, while Europe would account for about 22 percent and 18 percent would come from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. By joining forces today, these two international players can now accelerate their global expansion, Hubert Sagnieres, the Essilor chairman and chief executive, said in a news release. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of the year, but requires regulatory and shareholder approval. It comes at a time of significant growth and change in the global eyewear market, which had a value of about $121 billion last year, according to data from Euromonitor. Aging populations, greater access to health care, awareness of sun-related damage and a rising middle class in emerging markets has led to a surge in sales in eyewear, particularly for branded frames. Luxottica makes frames for luxury brands like Armani, Chanel and Prada, and it is the biggest retailer of eyewear in the world. Its largest rivals include Kering, which owns Gucci and Alexander McQueen, and Safilo, which holds the licenses for Dior, Fendi and Celine, brands owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the largest luxury conglomerate. Under the terms of the deal, Delfin, the family holding company of the Luxottica founder and executive chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio, would exchange its 62 percent stake in Luxottica for shares in Essilor, becoming the combined companys largest shareholder. Del Vecchio would serve as executive chairman and chief executive, while Sagnieres would serve as executive vice chairman and deputy chief executive. The companys 16-member board would consist of eight directors nominated by Essilor and eight nominated by Delfin. The merger resolves lingering concerns over a leadership succession plan at Luxottica. Del Vecchio, who is 81, founded the company in 1961 and has been chairman ever since. But the role of chief executive has been a revolving door. In 2014, Del Vecchio pledged to double the groups revenue over the next decade, and to look into mergers or acquisitions to secure Luxotticas future. Luca Solca, a luxury-sector analyst for Exane BNP Paribas, said the deal would be excellent news for both stocks. He added: It creates significant synergies, both in revenues and costs; it defuses the risk of heightened competition between the two and it removes uncertainty on succession at Luxottica. WASHINGTON The increase of Israeli settlements has gotten so substantial that it is inhibiting the possibility for an effective, contiguous Palestinian state, President Barack Obama said Sunday, in his final interview as president. Speaking to CBS 60 Minutes, Obama dismissed the idea that there is a major rupture in the relationship between the United States and Israel after last months decision by the U.S. to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israeli settlements. Because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think (the U.S.) has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, This is a problem, Obama said. It would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States. The outgoing president reflected on his legacy and his biggest challenges during his eight years in office during the hourlong interview. A number of his policies from health care to his contentious relationship with Israel could be short-lived as President-elect Donald Trump becomes the 45th president later this week and vows to reverse some of those policies. Trump has been vocal about his disapproval of many of Obamas policies, often voicing his disagreement or engaging in public disputes with the president on Twitter. Most recently, Trump lashed out over hypothetical comments Obama made that he would beat Trump if they ran against each other in a general election. Over the holidays, Trump accused Obama of throwing up inflammatory roadblocks during the transition of power and his administration of treating Israel with total disdain. Obama acknowledged its been an unusual transition, adding, I suspect the president-elect would agree with that. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and soundbites and some headline that comes over their phone, the president said. Theres a power in that. Theres also a danger what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isnt the same as the process required to actually solve the problem. He warned people not to underestimate the guy and urged congressional Republicans and Trump supporters around the country to be sure that as we go forward, certain norms, certain institutional traditions dont get eroded, because theres a reason theyre in place. Obama said there needs to be a focus on making sure that our democracy stays healthy, and making sure that we maintain that sense of solidarity. With that, he said hes been disturbed about intelligence reports over Russia hacking the U.S. election. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, youve seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government, he said. Youre not going to be able to make good decisions without building some relationship of trust between yourself and that community. Obama also reflected on his approach to the civil war in Syria, as it approaches its sixth year with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced around the world. The president acknowledged that his red line declaration about the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assads government wasnt in his 2012 speech and that he didnt have to use those words. They later prompted harsh criticism, since the U.S. did not follow through on the threat. I would have, I think, made a bigger mistake if I had said, Eh, chemical weapons. That doesnt really change my calculus, he said. And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think, in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons. Chinas campaign against climate change results in stricter rules in emission, and this equates in manufacturing more electric-driven automobiles due to increasing demand. (Photo : YouTube/NBRbizrpt) China's campaign against climate change results in stricter rules in emission and this equates in manufacturing more electric-driven automobiles due to increasing demand. In an annual car show held in Detroit last week, experts predicted a brighter outlook for electric cars beginning 2017. Advertisement According to Jacques Aschenbroich, Valeo's chief executive, "car electrification is an irreversible trend." Many of today's car manufacturers are equally seeing the upward trend in electric cars. "There is not a disagreement that the world is going electric," said Mary Nichols, Chairwoman of California Air Resources Board as quoted by Reuters. She added that all automobile manufacturers are now investing in building electric models in all their product lines. In Asia, China tops the list in emitting disastrous pollution and has since been intent in curbing the pollution it causes. Among the policies implemented in fighting off climate change are billions of worth of research and investment with subsidies as well as regulations to dissuade using cars powered by fossil fuels. A report from Yahoo! said that any car manufacturer that is non-Chinese and is interested in investing in electric autos may forge a joint venture with any Chinese car manufacturer. This move does not only meet an increasing demand in electric automobiles, but also solve the problem of China's poor quality of electric cars. With partnership or joint venture between Chinese businessmen and foreign investors, China can learn a lot in honing their skills. Brighter prospects on electric cars are especially seen in China which is predicted to produce a million cars in four years. In 2015, the country has already recorded an increase in sales by fourfold and 55 per cent more in 2016. Despite the uptrend in electric cars, experts are pessimistic about the United States' stand. Gerard Detourbet, executive officer of Renault-Nissan, said to "look to China rather than the U.S. for future of electric cars." Democrats and labor organizers spent Sunday at dozens of rallies across the country, pledging to fight in Congress against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and any attempt to change Medicare or Medicaid. The partys leaders faced crowds ranging in size from dozens to thousands of people, urging them to call Republicans and protest the push for repeal. Nobodys gonna shut us up! Nobodys gonna turn us around! said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the Democrats 2016 vice-presidential candidate, at a rally in Richmond that drew a crowd of at least 1,000. Were standing in the breach and battling for tens of millions of Americans! Our First Stand, the catchall theme for the protests, represents one of the the earliest protests by an opposition party against an incoming president. Brainstormed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic leaders in Congress, each rally introduced crowds to men and women who had faced death or bankruptcy before the ACA went into effect, then challenged Republicans to listen to their stories. Rattled during the ACAs passage by tea party protests and raucous congressional town hall meetings, Democrats were flipping the script. The immediate goal of the rallies is to show Republicans that the majority of people are against repealing the Affordable Care Act, Sanders said in an interview this week. I think people are waking up to the fact that the Affordable Care Act has been helping tens of millions of Americans, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., after a rally in Bowie, Md., organized by Maryland Democrats that drew 1,500 people. Energizing the public around a common goal can have an important result. In Bowie, a number of rally attendees said they were also planning to join the Womens March to be held in Washington, D.C., the day after Trumps inauguration. Some lifted unofficial signs from Sanders 2016 primary campaign; others said they had been galvanized by the election itself. Valencia Danner, 23, said that the Bowie rally was her first political event of any kind. Scott Gledhill, 73, said that hed voted for Gary Johnson for president but was worried about Republicans plans regarding the ACA and Medicare. Two months after aging into Medicare, I got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he said. My bill would have been half a million dollars. I would have lost everything I had, after a whole lifetime of work and saving. The rallies also demonstrated how the partys restive left is shaping its response to Trump. Some activists rallied while chastising the Democrats who had voted against an amendment to the Republicans repeal resolution that would have made it easier to import prescription drugs from Canada. In Bowie, some of the loudest cheers came when Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said he might end up voting to impeach Trump, and one activist interrupted House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and urged him to boycott the inauguration like Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. Sanders himself headlined a rally of more than 10,000 people in Michigans Macomb County. The county, made up of suburbs of Detroit that voted for Barack Obama twice and flipped to Donald Trump, has become an emblem of the shifts that shocked Democrats and lost them the presidency. Before and after Sanders spoke, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and leaders of local unions defended the ACA itself but then added that reform might mean something more progressive. How about a public option? Single-payer? said Stabenow, referring to two progressive plans that would effectively expand Medicare to younger people. Weve got things we can do. Sanders, who as a candidate called for on an ambitious, European-style reform of the health-care system, used his own speech to renew that call. Our job today is to defend the ACA, Sanders said. Our job tomorrow is to bring about a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. In Richmond, after the choir from Kaines church sang We Shall Overcome, the senator had the same message. He described the late-night drama of last weeks budget vote-a-rama, which saw Democrats lose vote after vote to defend the ACA. We wouldnt sit down! We wouldnt shut up! Because this isnt business as usual! Kaine said. Why dont we just jump off a cliff, then well figure out how to land while were in mid-air? Thats what theyre saying. At the rally in San Francisco, Silvia Pena, a 45-year-old nanny, said she had never had held insurance until she enrolled in the Affordable Care Act six years ago. I dont have health issues, but you can need insurance any time. We should all have access to health services, said Pena who held a sign that read Its our right and our body. Keep Planned Parenthood and Obamacare. Rallies in some other cities in support of the health law also were well attended. Police estimated about 600 people showed up in Portland, Maine. Hundreds also attended events in Newark, N.J.; Johnston, R.I.; Richmond, Va., and Boston. The Associated Press contributed to this report. SANTA ANA A man was arrested Monday after officers saw him smashing windows on a second-floor balcony at the South Coast Springs condo complex around 6 a.m., police said. As they approached the building in the 3600 block of South Bear Street, officers heard a fire alarm along with a male screaming and windows breaking, Santa Ana police Cmdr. Jeffrey Smith said. Police ordered the man, Burke Rowe, 54, who lived in the condo, to exit the building, Smith said. He did and was arrested. A shotgun and expended shells were found on the floor of the condo and officers stomped-out a flaming pile of miscellaneous papers that were also on the condos floor, Smith said. A 10-year-old boy emerged from the condo a few moments later and ran to officers, Smith said. He was unharmed, and investigators later determined that he was Rowes son. Rowe, who officers believe had recently fired the shotgun inside the apartment, was treated for multiple injuries mostly cuts and bruises that investigators believe he got while smashing the windows, Smith said. Investigators believe he might have been under the influence of some sort of narcotic, Smith said. Rowe was booked on suspicion of child endangerment, discharging a firearm in an occupied dwelling and arson, Smith said. Anyone with information about this incident can call Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS (855-847-6227). Contact the writer: 714-796-7802 or jsudock@scng.com BOULDER, Colo. The final play was drawn up something like this: Get the ball down low to lanky big man Chimezie Metu and let him do his thing. His team showed confidence in him. So he showed confidence in himself. Metu scored a career-high 24 points , including a go-ahead hook shot with 29 seconds remaining, and No. 25 USC held off slumping Colorado, 71-68, on Sunday night. It feels really good for them to have confidence in me, Metu said. Its not hard to see why the Trojans (16-3, 3-3 Pac-12) showed so much faith in him Metu scored 20 points in the opening half with an array of hook shots, mid-range jumpers and powerful dunks. His previous high for a game was 21 at UCLA last January. On his winner, Metu arched a shot over his defender moments after Xavier Johnson gave the Buffaloes a one-point lead on a 3-pointer. He played a terrific basketball game, USC coach Andy Enfield said. He was active, he got into a little foul trouble so we had to take him out, but in this altitude it was probably a blessing for him to sit on the bench for a few minutes. George King had a final chance to tie it at the buzzer, but the ball bounced off the rim. Those usually go in on a persons birthday, too. Supposed to, but it didnt this time, said King, who turned 23 on Sunday. It did in seventh grade, but not this time. USC trailed by 11 points midway through the opening half and rallied back, which seems to be nothing new for this team. The Trojans have eight comeback wins this season when falling behind by nine or more points. Weve been there before, Metu said. We just had to come out and execute and make some stops. King finished with 16 points and Johnson added 15 for the Buffaloes (10-8, 0-5). They have dropped five straight to begin conference play for the first time since 1995-96 when they were led by freshman Chauncey Billups. Our team is hurting right now, Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. This is the time were being tested and we have to believe in ourselves, believe in the process, believe in what were trying to get done. The bottom line is we werent good enough tonight. BIG PICTURE USC: This win probably wont be enough to keep USC in the Top 25 after a 22-point loss at Utah on Thursday night. The Trojans are a combined 2-6 on their higher elevation trips to Utah and Colorado since those teams joined the Pac-12 in 2011-12. Colorado: A disastrous start in league play has the Buffaloes in serious danger of missing the NCAA Tournament. Theyve made the tournament field in four of the last five seasons. THIS & THAT USC sophomore forward Bennie Boatwright (sprained left MCL) is about two weeks away from a return. He was hurt on Nov. 30 at San Diego. The Trojans co-captain is averaging 10.8 points in five games. The Trojans are 1-5 all-time in Boulder. King and sophomore guard Thomas Akyazili (20) both celebrated birthdays Sunday. Colorado is 2-3 against ranked teams this season. UP NEXT USC: Plays host to Arizona on Thursday night in the first of three straight home games. Colorado: At Washington on Wednesday night. Its hard to believe that a family with no construction experience could build a two-storey, five-bedroom house all by themselves, by watching tutorials on YouTube, but Cara Brookins and her four kids are living proof that it can be done. Their amazing story is now the subject of a book Rise, How a House Built a Family. In 2008, Cara Brookins took her four children (ages 7, 15, 11 and 2) and left her abusive husband in search of a better life. They moved into a tiny home outside of Little Rock, Arkansas, for a while, while they looked for place that could comfortably house her four kids. Her initial plan was to buy a house, but she quickly realized that they were either too expensive or too small for their needs. One day, they passed by a house ravaged by a tornado that had all of its inner workings exposed. It was this sight that inspired them to undertake a challenge that would change their lives. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook I had rented this cabin for a Thanksgiving getaway, Cara told CBS News. And driving there, we passed this house that had been ravaged by a tornado. It was this beautiful dream house and it was sort of wide open. You dont often get the opportunity to see the interior workings of a house, but looking at these 2x4s and these nails, it just looked so simple. I thought, I could put this wall back up if I really tried. Maybe I should just start from scratch.' Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook Cara did the math, and it turned out that if she sold a small property she owned, they had just enough money to buy an acre of land and the supplies needed to build their dream house. But despite the obvious risks, she decided they needed to take a leap of fate. She started by watching YouTube videos in the evening, after work, and making a list of all the tools and supplies they needed. Once I had bought all these supplies and they were all piled up, there was no way out, she recalls. There wasnt enough money to pay anyone to put them together. There was no plan B. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook YouTube also proved a great source of information on how to actually build the house. This was 2008, so YouTube was not then what it is now. There werent really comprehensive videos or channels devoted to this sort of thing, Brookins recalls. But theres a lot of ways to frame a window or to put a foundation together. So, we would watch three or four videos for each stage of construction and then think, Which one of these is going to work the best for us?' Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook Looking back at the nine months they spent building their beautiful house, Cara says she couldnt have done it without her kids. They were all in, the woman said proudly. My biggest fear was that my teenagers would wake up and say, No, Im not doing this. And it never happened. It was the first time they had felt any sort of power, any sort of control over their lives. And they knew how much they needed it. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook Her oldest son, Drew, helped Cara draw the blueprint to get approved by the city, her daughter Jada would haul water from the neighbors pond to mix the concrete for the foundation, while her other daughter, would cook for everyone. This are just of the things they did while working on the project, while at the same time keeping an eye on 2-year-old Roman who loved nothing more than to play around the construction site. The entire process brought our family closer together and we learned that nothing is impossible. We found new hope, Cara Brookins says. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook Surprisingly, despite their lack of knowledge or experience, the house still managed to pass every city building code inspection. They did such a good job on everything, from hand-mixing the mortar for the foundation to running gas lines and framing walls, that the inspectors were surprised to learn that Cara and her kids had done it all themselves. I think they thought I was crazy, Brookins joked. There wasnt a single person that thought this was a good idea aside from my kids. But to me, at the time, it felt like the only answer. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook In March 2009, after nine months of grueling work, Cara and her kids moved into their new stunning five-bedroom home they named Inkwell Manor. The property, which features a library, three-car garage, a workshop and a two-storey tree house in the backyard cost $130,000 to complete. The last time it was appraised, it was worth around $500,000. Photo: Cara Brookins/Facebook The Brookins amazing experience of building a house from the ground up is now the subject of a book written by Cara herself. I never intended to write a book, it was very private because we were very ashamed that we had got to this place. I didnt even tell my coworkers, she said. But eventually it became something I had to do to let go of this shame. Mike Eze-Nwalie Nwogu, co-owner of a nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria, was recently arrested for dehumanizing young girls by putting collars around their necks and parading them on a leash in public. Nwogu, who is known as Pretty Mike among the socialites of the African metropolis, has apparently been turning young girls into human puppies for at least a year. His first appearance as a human puppy handler was recorded last year, while attending a wedding, but the photos snapped at the event didnt attract much attention. He must have gotten quite a lot of attention for his stunt, because he has been pulling it regularly ever since. But as his controversial appearances became more frequent, they started causing a stir on the internet, with many users complaining that nothing was being done about his degrading treatment of women. The last straw was a photo of Pretty Mike holding two girls on a leash under the eyes of five police officers who seemed to be laughing at the bizarre sight. The growing number of photographic evidence showing Nwogu walking around with women on a leash recently caused massive outrage on social media, with many people expressing their disapproval of his actions through comments, and some even calling state authorities to take actions against him. Although at first there was no official response from the police concerning this case, the public outcry was so strong that they had no choice but to arrest him. Why are so many of us mute on this matter? Actors? Musicians, models and elected officials? Nollywood actress Georgina Onuoha wrote on social media. When did our society become numb to everything morally wrong and inexcusable? When did we as a nation and people degenerate to this level? I expect all to be shouting and using their place in the society to call out this folly? If this were to be a white man today on the streets of Lagos tying two black girls or boys on a leash; I bet we will all cry foul and call for his execution, so why do we all think its ok? Because he is a black man? she added. What Pretty Mike is doing may not be illegal, but it is disgusting on so many levels and anyone with a sense of decency will condemn it, another person commented. Girls really need to be empowered. They are worth more than being treated like dogs, one Mercy Okam said. The 30-year-old co-owner of Club UNO was arrested by police last Wednesday, on orders from the Lagos State Government. The Lagos State Government is committed to the protection of the rights of all citizens including children, women and all the vulnerable persons in the State, a Government representative said. The government will prosecute any individual or group of persons who violate any law of the State under any guise. Pretty Mike was released soon after his arrest, but only after being asked to sign an official statement that he would never put women on a leash, or otherwise treat them in a degrading manner, again. I, Mike Eze Nwalie, A.K.A Pretty Mike of 21A Magodo GRA, Luma Street, do hereby undertake to stop whatever act of putting girls on a leash or any other degrading treatment to ladies and guys, the undertaking read. I am aware that such act offends the law of the State of Lagos and if I repeat it again, there will be legal act towards me. I undertake to issue a letter of apology to the public effective from tomorrow on all my social media platforms. And all was right in the world again Sources: Buzz Nigeria, Daily Post, This Day 16/01/2017 - The proliferation of high-cost medicines and rising drug prices are increasing pressures on public health spending and calling into question the pharmaceutical industrys pricing strategies. Governments need to work with the industry and regulators to define a new approach to the development and use of new health technologies that encourages innovation while also delivering more affordable and value for money treatments, according to a new OECD report. New Health Technologies: Managing Access, Value and Sustainability says that pharmaceutical spending is increasingly skewed towards high-cost products. The launch prices of drugs for cancer and rare diseases are rising, sometimes without a commensurate increase in health benefits for patients. For instance in the United States, the launch price of oncology drugs per life-year gained has been multiplied by four in less than 20 years - in constant terms - and now exceeds USD 200 000. Payers, such as insurers or public health providers, are also increasingly struggling to pay for high-cost medicines targeting very small populations, which are expected to proliferate with the development of precision medicine. On the other side of spectrum, new treatments for hepatitis which are very effective and cost-effective in the long-term but target a wide population, are unaffordable to many who would benefit in almost all OECD countries because of their high budget impact. The prices paid for technologies must reflect their real-world health benefits compared to alternatives, and be adjusted based on evidence about their actual impact. Payers must be equipped with the necessary powers to adjust prices and withdraw payment for ineffective technologies. A rebalancing of the negotiating powers of payers and manufacturers is needed, says the report. This could be through increased transparency and co-operation between payers and international joint procurement initiatives, as tested in Europe and Latin America. Pricing agreements, which link the final price paid to the actual performance of the drug, as used in Italy and England, may also be effective if management and administration costs are controlled and the clinical data and evidence collected made widely available to the scientific community. The report, which will be discussed at an OECD meeting for Ministers of Health on The Next Generation of Health Reforms in Paris on 17 January, highlights other challenges facing the adoption of new technologies. Investment in R&D to treat neglected diseases, such as HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis, fight antimicrobial resistance and address dementia has also become less attractive as their profitability is lower. The incentives for private investment in these areas should be strengthened. Many biomedical technologies are today approved and adopted based on limited evidence of their safety and effectiveness. Assessment of their performance in real world conditions is rare. This compromises safety, is wasteful and no longer sustainable. More efforts are also needed to harness the potential of health data more effectively. Use of personal health data creates major opportunities for health system improvement, research and disease surveillance, but requires the right governance frameworks to realise these benefits while managing the privacy risks. For further information or comment, journalists should contact Valerie Paris, Senior Policy Analyst at the OECDs Health Division and main author of the report (tel. + 33 1 45 24 80 29). For a copy of the report, please contact the OECDs Media Division (+33 1 45 24 97 00). Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. Related Documents Chinese President Xi Jinping Meets Dignitaries In Beijing (Photo : Kenzaburo Fukuhara - Pool/Getty Images) Changes in politics across the globe and some challenges to China's economic policies will result in more problems and pressure in 2017 for the world's second largest economy, China's Premier Li Keqiang said. China's economic growth is expected to drop to 6.5 percent from last year's 6.7 percent. Its industrial output is set to grow by 5.9 percent from 6.1 percent in 2016. Advertisement In a meeting on Friday in Beijing, the customs agency in China said that in 2017, it will be hard to improve its foreign trade, especially if President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration as well as changes in politics will restrain China's export business. Trump vowed to pigeonhole Beijing as currency manipulator as soon as he takes his office. He also threatened to impose high tariffs on China's merchandises. Investors from around the world expressed their curiosity on whether the Chinese leaders are amenable to a moderate economic growth. An official estimate released on Sunday as reported by Fortune said it is expected that China's biggest cities will experience a continuation of economic slowdown in 2017. Chongqing's economic growth, for example, is predicted at 10 percent in the current year as compared from last year's 10.7 percent. Shanghai targeted a growth by 6.5 percent from 6.7 percent last year. Some provinces in China reported either "no growth" or "weak growth" last year mainly due to the government's policy on transition to consumer-oriented market. It was also reported that provinces and cities which have slow growth in heavy industry contributed to China's slow economic growth in 2016. But Premier Li, who was also present during the meeting, assured that the government is determined to have a smooth flow in economy and will endeavor to improve not just its growth quality, but also its growth efficiency. As reported by Reuters, Li insisted China will have reasonable rate of economic growth, adopt policies that would advance its employment rate and eliminate obsolete production capacity. Agricultural News Derrell Peel Reviews the Latest Wheat Pasture and Hay Stock Conditions Based on USDA Reports Mondays, Dr. Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, offers his economic analysis of the beef cattle industry. This analysis is a part of the weekly series known as the "Cow Calf Corner" published electronically by Dr. Peel and Dr. Glenn Selk. Today, Dr. Peel reviews the most up-to-date wheat pasture and hay stocks reports from USDA. "The storm this past weekend brought significant ice and damage to western and northwestern Oklahoma but the ice was generally less severe than expected in central Oklahoma. Most of the state, however, received very beneficial rain totaling one to three inches in many areas. The rain totals included record daily rainfall for several locations on Sunday, January 15, 2017. This moisture will help alleviate rapidly expanding drought conditions across the state. The latest Drought Monitor showed that 88 percent of the state had drought conditions ranging from D1-D4. This compares to just three months ago when 62 percent of the state had no dry conditions. Dry and cold conditions through December and early January slowed or stopped wheat growth and left wheat pastures in increasingly poor condition. Many stocked wheat pastures are very short which has forced producers to increase hay feeding or move cattle to other pastures or to market. "Amidst a slew of USDA reports last week was December 1 hay stocks, included in the January Crop Production report. Total U.S. hay stocks on December 1 were up 0.9 percent from one year ago; however, state totals differed widely. The report confirms the impact of drought in the southeast with Alabama hay stocks down 34.4 percent year over year, Georgia down 13.6 percent and Mississippi down 5.3 percent from one year ago. December hay stocks were lower as well in Tennessee and Kentucky compared to last year. Texas, which has typically had the largest state hay stocks in the past fifteen years, was up a whopping 25 percent to the largest state level since 2007. Nearby, Oklahoma, with the third largest December hay stocks, was up 4.6 percent year over year along with Arkansas, up 11.4 percent and Kansas (fifth largest state stocks), up 3.9 percent from last year. Farther north, December hay stocks were 9.1 percent lower year over year in South Dakota, with the second largest hay stocks, as were North Dakota, down 7.8 percent; Nebraska, down 9.8 percent; Missouri (fourth largest hay stocks), down 4.5 percent; and Iowa, down 19.2 percent. Hay stocks were larger year over year in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho along with Wisconsin and Minnesota. "Cash feeder cattle prices have started 2017 generally stronger, especially for calves. The combined Oklahoma weekly auction volume for the first full week of January was over 44,000 head, sharply higher than the 28,000 for the same week last year, which may reflect cattle sales due to poor wheat pasture conditions as well as cattle carried over from the end of 2016 for tax reasons. Some producers may be selling one set of stockers now, hoping to buy a second set for wheat graze-out, assuming wheat pasture conditions improve in the next few weeks. Cash fed cattle prices have carried end of year strength from 2016 into 2017. Immediate feedlot supplies may be relatively tight due to aggressive marketing in late 2016 and weather impacts that have slowed cattle performance in feedlots. Live and Feeder cattle futures have been extremely volatile so far in January with volatility likely to continue which will continue to hamper the usefulness of futures as risk management tools. Boxed beef prices dropped sharply in the first ten days of January as packers apparently flushed out the beef pipeline following the holidays. However, Choice boxed beef prices appeared to stabilize at the end of last week. The next couple of weeks will likely provide a better picture of underlying trends in boxed beef, as well as cattle markets, going forward." WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady NSI Top Agricultural News Miss Colombia Andrea Tovar Velasquez (Photo : YouTube/Pageant101) Miss Universe Colombia Andrea Tovar Velasquez vows to win back the crown for her home country. The rivalry between Colombia and Philippines will be at play on the forthcoming Miss Universe 2016. The rivalry began last year when host Steve Harvey announced Ariadna Gutierrez as the winner by mistake. Colombia and Philippines are both strong contenders in major beauty pageants. Their representatives are some of the candidates to watch out for in the four major beau-cons. Advertisement Tagged as one of the early favorites in the competition, Andrea has large shoes to fill since Paulina Vega won the title in 2014 and Ariadna Gutierrez almost won against the current Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach. However, she is already one of the early favorites in the pageant. Andrea Tovar Velasquez will represent Colombia at Miss Universe 2016. Andrea Tovar is the daughter of physician Antonio Tovar and business manager Xenia Rosa Velasquez. She is currently studying Industrial Design and Photographic Image Production at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota. Meanwhile, the Philippines is hoping for a back-to-back win with its bet Maxine Medina. Last week, the beauty teased Filipino fans of her signature walk that she will use in the pageant. The more than 80 candidates for Miss Universe, including Andrea, have arrived in the Philippines for the upcoming competition. Based on the publicized schedules of the Miss Universe delegates, the candidates will fly to different provinces for the different activities. Some of the provinces they will visit are Ilocos, Cebu, and Davao. The 65th Miss Universe pageant will be held in Manila, Philippines on Jan. 30. 'Making a Murderer' is a Netflix docuseries about Steven Avery, who has been convicted of raping and killing photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. (Photo : YouTube/What's Trending) "Making A Murderer" Season 2 is now underway, but definite details about the release of the critically-acclaimed Netflix docuseries have remained sealed. Spoilers revealed that Season 2 will feature more evidences, including a possible involvement of a Swedish scientist that would prove that the evidences against Steven Avery were planted. Advertisement In October 2016, a new hope to free Avery emerged after a Swedish scientist named Kirsty Spalding contacted Avery's lawyer Kathleen Zellner. Spalding, who is working at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, thought of the idea of using carbon dating technique that could possibly solve the case. She is still waiting for the court's decision, but this development may be seen when "Making A Murderer" Season 2 returns. "I don't really have an opinion of whether Steven Avery is innocent or guilty," Spalding told Radio Sweden, as cited by Post Crescent. "I have more of an opinion of whether I think there's been planted evidence or not and ultimately that's all this analysis will tell us is whether or not this evidence is planted." Previous reports have indicated that Zellner and Spalding have been in contact since then. If Spalding would be permitted to use the scientific technique by the court, authorities would know whether the blood stains found in Teresa Halbach's car were planted or not in 2005. These pieces of new developments are something that viewers should watch out in "Making A Murderer" Season 2. Meanwhile, "Making A Murderer" just received a Cinema Eye Honors award this week for nonfiction filmmaking for television. In September 2016, filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos received four Emmy awards, including best documentary or nonfiction series, best writing and best directing for nonfiction program, and best picture editing for nonfiction program. In an interview with Deadline, Ricciardi and Demos promised to document all the developments in the case of Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey. Dassey's recent appeal was overturned in court. The filmmakers confirmed that it is something that viewers would see in "Making A Murderer" Season 2, incluidng a mock trial in the courtroom. Zellner has not provided any update yet on Spalding's request to work on the case. Watch the video below about "Making a Murderer" Season 2: In 1960 an Air Force family stationed in England had twins, but one soon died and was buried in a church cemetery. The father later returned to the U.S. to complete his 20-year military career and became an electrician near Omaha, in Glenwood, Iowa, where Dallas and Faye Alley raised three children. The couple didnt talk much about their lost infant, Debra, but in time the lost location of her grave became a family mystery. After mom died in 2000, said son Steve Alley of nearby Tabor, Iowa, dad made a couple of trips back to England, but he couldnt find the grave. Dallas died in 2007. Steves older sister, Michelle, who lives in Florida, had a photo of their parents standing over the gravestone, but the family kept no record of the exact location. At about age 50, the twin who survived, Traca, was in failing health because of multiple system atrophy, a rare neurological disease of unknown origin. Her illness was terminal. If we could find Debra, Steve asked Traca, would you like us to rebury her remains next to your grave? Not necessary, Traca replied, because she would soon be next to her in heaven. Traca (pronounced TRAY-suh) Alley died in 2012 and was buried near her parents graves in West Liberty Cemetery, just north of Glenwood. The other side of Tracas tombstone shows the name of Debra, who died two days after their births in 1960. The cause of Debras death is unclear, but Faye spent two months in a hospital afterward and nearly died herself. She also had polio and Type 1 diabetes. Steve, born in 1963, didnt know the infant sister who died, but never let go of the idea of finding her grave. Meanwhile his son, Staff Sgt. Drew Alley, joined the Air Force seven years ago. He later married, and was assigned to Royal Lakenheath Air Force Base in England by coincidence, the base where his grandfather had been stationed long ago. Drew and his wife, Jessica, searched nearly 20 cemeteries without finding the grave. Last year the couple had a baby daughter, Everly. Steve and his wife, Angie, decided to visit their healthy granddaughter and to look for the forgotten grave of a baby that was too weak to survive. When they arrived last June they carried the photo of his parents at the grave, with a church in the background. Five miles from Lakenheath sits RAF Mildenhall, another British base with U.S. operations though plans are to move 3,200 U.S. personnel out as part of a cost-saving consolidation announced two years ago. The Alleys checked out Mildenhall, and near the entrance saw a church that looked like the one in the photo. They entered a small adjoining cemetery, which was in disarray headstones had been moved off to the side against a hedgerow for easier mowing. As Steve walked around, Angie peered at the headstones, one by one. Steve, she eventually called out, come here! Come here! Her eyes were big, he said, and he got down on his hands and knees, pulling grass away from the stone. And then, line by line, it came into view: In loving memory of DEBORAH GAIL ALLEY I had gotten on my belly to see it, Steve said. It was pretty emotional. I just lay there for a while. And when I got up, I was pretty excited. He and Angie embraced, and then posed for a photo over the gravestone, mimicking the pose of his parents 56 years earlier. What different emotions mom and dad must have had compared to mine, he said. I was finding a sister. But they had buried a daughter. The name on the tombstone, Deborah, was different from Debra, the way his parents always spelled it. (And Traca was misspelled Traci.) But what was important to Steve Alley was that he had found the weather-worn, broken monument. With help from a caretaker, he determined the approximate location of the grave, about 15 feet from where the tombstone was found: row 10, grave 1. No, the grave would not be disturbed. England is where the baby was born and where she died. Said Steve: She belongs here. Great Britain also was the home of many of his ancestors, he noted, and he and Angie met English cousins while on their 11-day 2016 trip. Future generations of the Alley family, Steve said, now can visit the grave in England and feel the same exhilarating experience I did when I found it. Theres one more step, which he hopes to complete this winter: in the West Liberty Cemetery north of Glenwood, having the exact location of Debras grave in England added to the other side of Tracas tombstone. Something missing has been found, and the family has come full circle. We had a sister, but we didnt know where she was, Steve said. Now we know where everyone is. The family has always been close, but now weve closed that loop. This article was originally published in January 2017. * * * During Embers first winter, she learned a new trick: jumping. The Dalmatian puppy also discovered the betta fishs home. Ember grew fond of lapping water out of the fishbowl. To reach it, she had to be quite the acrobat. The puppy would jump onto the arm of the couch before launching herself ever so delicately atop the piano, where the fishbowl sat. Much to the betta fishs relief, Dawn Antoniak-Mitchell broke her pup of the bad habit. But Ember isnt the only dog to pick up pesky behavior as a result of pent-up winter energy. Cold snaps can leave dog owners scrambling for solutions to entertain and exercise their pets. Antoniak-Mitchell, owner of BonaFide Dog Academy in Ralston, said she sees plenty of clients whose dogs need extra help to stay active over the winter months. They get cabin fever just like people do, she said. And like humans, dogs can pack on extra winter weight if they become sedentary a hard habit to break when the weather warms up. Weight gain in puppies can be particularly dangerous because of their developing bones and joints. Older dogs that suffer from arthritis will also feel the effects of weight gain. Experts say it is possible to stave off weight gain and restlessness that can lead to bad behavior in the winter, though. Ember, now 6, has given up drinking from the fishbowl, but shes still full of energy. She and her owners have found ways to harness it. A lot of the key to cold weather maintenance is making the cold work for you, Antoniak-Mitchell said. On cold days, instead of one 30-minute walk, take three 10-minute walks. Or cut down on distance and find a hill to climb instead. Cathy Guinane, director of training at the Nebraska Humane Society, recommended giving your dog time to stop and sniff on walks. Thats the best part for the dog, she said. Letting dogs barrel through snow can also serve as a good form of outside exercise. While some breeds such as malamutes and Bernese mountain dogs are built for the cold, other dogs might need winter gear, such as coats, sweaters or booties, which help protect paws from the cold, ice melt and salt. Small dogs and dogs with short coats, in particular, can benefit from extra layers. Some experts say that when the temperature dips to 10 degrees or lower, prolonged outdoor activity could be life-threatening for dogs. Others think anything below freezing is too cold. That means winter is a good time to work on teaching tricks indoors. Guinane said mental exercise wears out pooches, too. Itll help curb some of those behaviors because they just get bored, she said. They get into stuff. They destroy stuff. Its kind of like us. We get all that pent-up energy, and we have to do something. Guinane had a client who was studying for a masters degree, and her small dog, who was recovering from knee surgery, was getting restless. So she put the dogs favorite toy inside a box and folded the flaps. She put that box inside two more boxes, and it kept the pooch entertained for hours. Antoniak-Mitchell taught her 15-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Lizzie B., how to call bingo. With the point of a hand, Lizzie B. grabs a bingo ball from a basket and hands it over to her owner. The pup picked up the trick to help during bingo day at a local assisted-living facility. She is, of course, rewarded with a small treat for the task. Owners can opt to use praise, toys or kibble instead of high-calorie treats. Lizzie B. isnt the only dog in the Antoniak-Mitchell household with special talent. Her border collie, Gabriel, struts his stuff on the dance floor. Canine freestyle is something owners can do with their dogs. Owners choreograph a routine to music, teaching dogs to strut, spin and weave around them. Tricks dont have to be so complicated, just something new. Play dead and shake work. Playtime activities can include toys, obstacle courses or a game of hide-and-seek. Dog owners can also put their pups meals in activity toys or feeder toys so dogs have to work to eat. In the winter months, Nathan Monicos husky, Vega, hits the treadmill. She eagerly hops up on the machine one made specifically for dogs and works her way up to a jog. In order for you to have a balanced dog, you have to challenge him mentally and physically with exercise, discipline and affection, said Monico, owner of Monico Dog Training Co. If these needs are not being met, your dog could develop behavioral problems. Vega isnt much of a problem dog, thanks to her regular exercise routine. Dogs should be introduced to the treadmill slowly and should never be unattended while walking on one. Vegas pal Jager, a husky and treadmill newbie, was hesitant. But the whirring sound and rolling motion of the machine piqued the dogs curiosity. Jager gave the treadmill a few good sniffs before being led onto it. Vega licked her friends ears to encourage him along. Another option is taking a class, which also keeps dogs social. On a bitterly cold Saturday morning, a handful of pups and their owners attended a winter workout class at BonaFide Dog Academy. Dogs strolled in, some wearing coats, others letting out yawns. For Christina and Mark Borcina, the class was a way to harness some of their dogs energy. Boomer, a 1-year-old German shepherd, still has a lot of puppy in him. Sometimes I cant get outside with him, Christina Borcina said. Letting him run around in the backyard isnt always the best solution. Slowly but surely, Boomer picked up on the days tasks, learning to sit on a rug on command and to put two paws up on a chair on command. Track, a 5-year-old Doberman, was a pro at the exercises. Dawn Jackson practices agility and balance training regularly in winter with Track and her two other Dobermans at home. If we dont go outside or do stuff inside, they get hyper and crabby. They pick on each other, kind of like little kids, Jackson said. After a solid chunk of exercise, either mental or physical, the three Dobermans are ready to curl up for some quiet time with a bone and that means quiet time for Jackson, too. The best dog breeds to train as running buddies An electric vehicle arrives at China's largest electric vehicle battery recharging station on May 30, 2012 in Beijing, China. (Photo : Getty Images) China is planning to quadruple the annual output to 2 million units by 2020. The government wants to reach a target by 2025, wherein one out of five cars sold in the country will be a new energy model. The country has been the world's top seller of these new energy vehicles since 2015. Last year, it has produced over 517,000 units. Advertisement The Chinese government is currently providing financial assistance to the manufacturers of these new energy vehicles. Instead of an incentive system, they provide subsidies of varying amounts, favoring the best performing carmaker. This is line with the government's program to build global leadership in cleaner energy. When the program ends in 2020, a point-based system will takeover to guide the production of new energy vehicles. "The government will continue to improve policies, boost research and development, invest in charging infrastructure construction, and promote international cooperation to help the sector grow," said Industry and Information Technology Minister Miao Wei. Along with the increase in the production, China also saw an increase in the number of charging infrastructure. The country has built over 100000 public charging poles last year, which is a ten-fold increase from the figure in 2015. Because of this, a comprehensive charging gird has started to take shape in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Beating Foreign Competition While foreign carmakers like Tesla and Nissan have their own electric vehicle models, it is still difficult for these manufacturers to compete in the Chinese market. Aside from the subsidies coming from the Chinese government, local manufacturers such as BYD and BAIC Motor offers their units at a much cheaper price even though they have a shorter range compared to their foreign counterparts. A Chery eQ would cost around 60,000 yuan ($12,400) after subsidies. This is a far cry from a General Motors Bolt EV which would cost around $30,000 after a $7,500 federal tax credit. Because of their success in the local market, carmakers like BYD have a great potential in dominating the electric vehicle market abroad. Just last month, it signed up A-list Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio as its brand ambassador. The Warren Buffer-backed company currently has 65 percent of the market share in Chinese plug-in vehicles. "Because Chinese companies have this large Chinese market, when they have big enough scale and their power grows, their products improve and they increasingly understand foreign markets," said Lin Yufei, BYD's deputy chief of branding and public relations. With the growing popularity of environment friendly products, the prospects are high for these Chinese companies to dominate the world market. Kim Reynolds is the rare politician who comes across as totally believable when she says she never aspired to higher office before she was plucked from relative political obscurity in 2010 to become Iowa Gov. Terry Branstads running mate. Reynolds, who didnt finish college until three weeks ago and who stumbled into politics while working in a county treasurers office in rural Iowa, said her original plan in life was to be a teacher. It was never in my wildest dreams to be governor, said Reynolds, laughing. The 57-year old is tall and lean with an unassuming demeanor. Reynolds is expected to become Iowas first female governor in a month or two after Branstads expected confirmation as this nations ambassador to China. She began stepping out of Branstads shadow last week as she toured parts of western Iowa, introducing herself to Iowans on her own terms. The Republican declined to talk specifically about her priorities or vision for the state, saying Branstad is still governor and he is still in charge. Ill have an opportunity (later) to talk about my vision moving forward, Reynolds said during a one-on-one interview with The World-Herald. She did talk, however, about her commitment to rural economic development. She also sought to reassure Iowans that she expects there to be plenty of consistency and continuity after she takes over, saying she shares Branstads approach to governing. Reynolds vows to continue Branstads commitment to visiting each of the states 99 counties every year and to ensuring that all Iowans have a chance to express their concerns or frustrations to the governor. Im a pretty good listener, she said. Im a convener (of meetings) and a collaborator. It is not clear exactly when Reynolds will become governor because that depends on when Branstad is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Confirmation hearings for ambassadors typically are not held until Cabinet-level offices are filled. That means it could be February or March before Reynolds can move into Terrace Hill, the governors residence. In the meantime, Iowans can expect Reynolds to take a more visible role in state government. It has long been known Reynolds was Branstads chosen successor, ever since he tabbed the former state lawmaker from Osceola as his running mate. At that point she had served less than two years in the Iowa Senate. Since then Reynolds has been a constant presence on the trail with Branstad, attending meetings and campaign events with the governor. She is expected to seek her own full four-year term as governor in the 2018 election. Reynolds path to the Governors Office has been anything but normal. She is a small-town girl who grew up in St. Charles, a city of about 700 in Madison County, famed for its covered bridges. Her father was a farmer who also worked at the John Deere factory in Ankeny, helping to build cotton-picking machines. She went to college after high school but didnt stay long. In her retelling of those college years, Reynolds doesnt pull any punches. She wasnt focused, she said, and she was partying too much. Over the years she tried to go back to college and earn a degree, but life kept getting in the way. In recent years Reynolds redoubled her efforts with the governorship on the horizon and finally earned a degree last month, with the help of online classes. She now holds a bachelors degree in liberal studies from Iowa State University, with a concentration on political science, communications and business management. Reynolds and her husband, Kevin, who is a soil conservation officer, lived in Oakland and Mount Pleasant earlier in their married life. In about 1990 they moved to Osceola in south-central Iowa to be closer to family. Kim Reynolds, who had worked at a pharmacy in Mount Pleasant, soon landed a job with the Clarke County Treasurers Office. She said her husband urged her to run for treasurer when the position came open. She won and began to make a name for herself in county government circles for using technology to streamline the office and convincing the state to allow county treasurers offices to issue drivers licenses. It was during her years as a county official that Reynolds met Branstad, who appointed her to the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System board in 1996. Her budding political career almost came to an end, however, in 1999 and 2000 when Reynolds was convicted twice of driving under the influence. She calls it the toughest time in her life, saying she came to the realization that she was an alcoholic and needed treatment. Reynolds said she fully expected to lose her job and was stunned when many in the community made it clear they were still in her corner. How do you say thank you to a community who gave you a second chance? A lot of people dont get a second chance, said Reynolds, with tears pooling in her eyes. Today, Reynolds story of sobriety is well-known to others who have faced their own struggles with alcohol. She said people frequently come up and whisper in her ear the number of years or months they have remained sober. They dont make a big deal of it, Reynolds said. They just give me a hug and whisper. Two years after a controversial La Vista rental inspection program quietly went on hiatus, enforcement is back in full swing, though not everyone is happy about it. Its a benefit for the overall good of the city to have properties that are kept up and not deteriorating, said Mayor Doug Kindig. In 2008 the housing inspection program was launched to hold landlords accountable for substandard properties. But in 2014, inspections nearly stopped. At the time, the city blamed personnel turnover in its community development department, which is responsible for the program. The city also put some aspects of the program on hold because of litigation. In 2013 the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the ordinance that created the program. The programs stumbles frustrated Kindig at the time. I think its made us look inept, he said at a public budget meeting in summer 2014. I think some of the people who took us to task are laughing at us. The inspections resumed in October of that year, said Mitch Beaumont, La Vistas spokesman. The city has performed almost 900 inspections and re-inspections and collected $88,468 in revenue from registration fees and re-inspection fees since then, according to city data. We didnt add any staff, Kindig said. We just made more of a specific effort to make sure we were able to get the program back up. La Vista has 300 single-family properties and 14 apartment complexes, with a total of 2,513 units in those complexes. The programs stated goal is to prevent substandard housing and preserve property values and neighborhoods. But initiating the program caused a stir among some property owners. The Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association has opposed the program since its inception. I dont think its a positive, welcoming thing for a city to do, association President John Chatelain said in a recent interview. Why dont they do it for owner-occupant houses? Why are tenants singled out for harassment? Code enforcement is already in place to keep properties safe and in check, he said. Kindig said rental properties are businesses, and the city inspects businesses. The inspections serve a purpose different from existing code enforcement, he said. The program requires a registration application, fee and proof of a pest control inspection, according to the citys website. Inspections are free, except when violations are noted during the inspection and havent been corrected when the property is inspected again. In that case, property owners must pay a $50 re-inspection fee. While the majority of landlords take very good care of their properties, the intent is to ensure that all renters have safe living spaces, Kindig said. Its important that we protect the renters that are in our city, he said. Last year 34 properties needed re-inspections after city inspectors found major violations in initial inspections. In 2015 that number was 49. Chatelain said the additional fees and inspections raise the cost of managing properties and that added cost ends up passed on to tenants. Landlords may also decide to sell their rental properties and get out of the business in La Vista altogether, he said. Theres no rationale for treating rental occupants differently than owner occupants, Chatelain said. Kindig said the city only wants to ensure that renters are living in conditions that provide for basic, safe living spaces. Inspectors are most concerned with major health and life safety violations, the citys website says. If a property has minor or no code violations, it wont be inspected again for two years. If the property has major code violations but passes a follow-up inspection, it wont be inspected again for one year. Newly constructed rental properties need not be inspected for three years. The city has the authority to seek a court order or warrant for properties refusing to comply. Beaumont said the city has done so only three times since the programs inception. The city is going to do what they have to do to protect our tenants, Kindig said. Like any good gambler, a major player in a push to develop casinos in Nebraska is seeking to offset its losses. Ho-Chunk Inc. the economic development arm of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska has filed a $1 million-plus lawsuit against an Omaha polling and campaign management company over failed efforts to put expanded gambling on the Nebraska ballot in November. The lawsuit blames Omaha-based Northstar Campaign Systems for failing to garner enough signatures to place expanded gambling on the ballot. Northstar says it did nothing wrong and will fight the lawsuit. The lawsuit gives a peek into the high-stakes fight to put casinos in Nebraska including allegations that the signature-gathering operation was slipshod and that petitions ended up in a dumpster in downtown Omaha. Ho-Chunk, which runs a casino near Sloan, Iowa, says it paid more than $1.29 million to Northstar to run a petition effort to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to allow casino gambling in Nebraska. Had those efforts succeeded and the measure passed Ho-Chunk said it had an agreement with Nebraska horse-racing industry leaders that Ho-Chunk would be able to operate casinos at licensed racetracks in Omaha, Lincoln and elsewhere in Nebraska. Ho-Chunk using a suborganization called Keep the Money in Nebraska said it put its faith in Northstar based on this premise: The Omaha company had conducted a survey that found that 57 percent of likely voters would either vote for, or lean towards voting for, expanded gambling. In the end, voters never got a chance: The petition effort led by Northstar fell far short of getting the required 117,000 signatures, in part because more than 41,000 signatures were disqualified because they were either duplicates or the petition signers werent registered voters in the county listed. Lance Morgan, head of Ho-Chunk, has called that error rate ridiculously high. The lawsuit says Northstar should have to repay Ho-Chunk out of fairness and justice. But for (Northstars) false overstatements to (Ho-Chunk) of the number of signatures gathered and the validation rate of said signatures, (Ho-Chunk) would have terminated the service agreement and would not have continued to make ... payments to Northstar, Ho-Chunk attorney Conly Schulte wrote in the lawsuit. Scott Lautenbaugh, an attorney and spokesman for Northstar, said the Omaha company will fight the lawsuit and stands by its efforts to put gambling on the ballot. We think well be vindicated, he said. Lautenbaugh noted that the company has run several successful political campaigns as well as bond-issue campaigns for area school districts. Lautenbaugh said the survey used to measure Nebraskans gambling appetite was conducted by the book. But like any polling, it doesnt come with guarantees. Ask Hillary Clinton about that, Lautenbaugh said. Ho-Chunks lawsuit alleges major problems with Northstars signature-gathering efforts: The number of invalid signatures was high about 35 percent. Some have questioned whether that was because petition circulators were paid per signature, giving ground-level circulators motive to elicit duplicate or questionable signatures. Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale called the error rate quite stunning. Along the way, the lawsuit alleges, Northstar founder Jeremy Northwall and Northstar falsely over-reported the number of signatures gathered and the validation rate of said signatures for the purpose of inducing Ho-Chunk to continue making payments to Northstar. In June, Northstar sent a request for more money. When Ho-Chunk asked if they would get enough signatures, Northwall confirmed that Northstar would gather the required signatures if the additional amount demanded by defendants was paid. Lautenbaugh said any requests for payments were based on services rendered. And, Lautenbaugh said, Northwall and Northstar never made any guarantees. That didnt happen, Lautenbaugh said. How could anyone (guarantee a result)? If you could say for certain, youd be able to predict the future, for Gods sakes. Copies of petitions, perhaps dozens, were found in the dumpster of a condominium community in downtown Omaha. Upon information and belief, a Northstar representative deliberately discarded or mishandled thousands of original and duplicate petition signatures and failed to deliver all of the original and duplicate petition signatures to (Ho-Chunk) and-or the Nebraska secretary of state, the lawsuit says. Not so, Lautenbaugh said. All of the papers found in the dumpster were yellow copies reprinted on yellow paper to distinguish them from the original white petitions. Further, he said, Northstar has no idea how the copies got in the dumpster, which sits in a private parking garage. No Northstar employees live in that condominium complex. And Lautenbaugh noted that the dumped petitions were discovered in late September two months after Northstar had turned in the petitions to the state and the copies to Ho-Chunk. Lautenbaugh said there are tangible reasons why the petition effort failed. One problem: The effort required people to sign three petitions one to expand gambling, one to set up a regulatory commission and one to tax gambling operations. Another: It took awhile for pro-gambling groups to finalize the petition language, so petition organizers didnt get started circulating petitions until after Oct. 15, 2015. We had missed most of the Husker home games and the State Fair and everything else, Lautenbaugh said. And we decided to get three petitions signed instead of one, which is much harder to do. Anti-gambling groups have cited another reason for the petition efforts failure: a lack of appetite for expanded gambling in Nebraska. In contrast to the failed, nine-month-long gambling petition effort, a 2015 petition effort to reinstate Nebraskas death penalty took just two months to garner 114,000 required signatures, roughly the same amount that pro-gambling groups needed. Ho-Chunk thinks Nebraska is ready for an expansion of gambling. Since the petition effort failed, the economic development company has had to go back to the drawing board on its $30 million to $40 million plan to renovate the former Atokad racetrack in South Sioux City, Nebraska, into a casino complex. The proposed gambling initiative would have been a boon for our local economy and local residents due to the increased tax revenue, Ho-Chunk said in a statement. Our efforts to promote our gambling initiative and generate revenue for Nebraska were unduly harmed by Northstar. The lawsuit names Northstar and founder Northwall as defendants. Both have 30 days to file formal responses. The case then will proceed to pretrial hearings. People will give eloquent speeches today about Martin Luther King Jr.s messages of freedom, hope and equality. But another part of his message should also ring out, from Nebraskas Capitol to the classrooms across the state: Kings zealous call for a better, fuller education for every child. The civil rights leader stressed the need for all children to learn not only facts and figures but also how to interpret them critical thought. Here are his words, from the Morehouse College student newspaper in February 1947: Education has a two-fold function ... in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life. Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. Decades later, in a 1964 speech to teachers, according to the Washington Post, he said, The walling off of Negroes from equal education is part of the historical design to submerge him in second-class status. Therefore as Negroes have struggled to be free they have had to fight for the opportunity for a decent education. King emphasized that the number of whites in poverty outnumbered blacks. He said often that he cared as much for the poor, white child in Appalachia as the poor black child in Alabama. In Nebraska, educating children in poverty, of every color and creed, is a challenge for districts of every size, in cities, towns and rural areas. Kings words should linger with Nebraska lawmakers as they consider K-12 educations place in the state budget and adjust the state aid formula in ways that respect the interests of all the states schools, urban and rural. Heres why: Nebraskas public schools are chipping away at the academic achievement gap between white students and students of color, between students who speak English and students who dont. State test scores in reading are an example. White students proficiency scores rose from 85 percent to 87 percent, while black students scores increased faster, climbing from 60 percent to 64 percent. Over the past six years, Omaha Public Schools Latino and Native American students narrowed academic achievement gaps with white students on state reading tests by 9 percentage points. Black students reduced their gap by 7 points. Lexington Public Schools have received similar acclaim from education experts for their efforts working with students learning English. But disparities in support persist for schools in poorer parts of our state: A double-digit achievement gap remains in several subjects. The state aid formula rightly seeks to balance the needs of all Nebraska schools. The formula recognizes, for example, that it costs more to educate students in poverty and students learning English. Additional aid now provided to such schools is a big reason why a coalition of schools stopped suing the state over equitable funding. Increased aid for poor students has contributed to progress in districts from Scottsbluff to South Sioux City. Such assistance is helping those schools teach a new crop of critical thinkers, young people who can sift through the noise of information and find the truth. Among them might be the Nebraskans who help fulfill Kings dream of a better, fuller education for every child. The writer is CEO of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. At the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, 2016 was a year of continuous improvements, sustainable progress and helping people live better lives. A commitment by Gov. Pete Ricketts to stabilize and improve services for the states most vulnerable citizens resulted in advances, ranging from improving call wait times for critical services to releasing a first-ever business plan. The 25 initiatives in our business plan serve as a road map to achieve Gov. Ricketts goal of improving state government through strategic actions and measurable outcomes, creating a more effective and efficient agency, reducing regulatory burden and improving customer service. Progress is evident in continued improvements to AccessNebraska. Last month, the Legislatures Access- Nebraska Oversight Committee commended the department and recommended that full oversight be returned to the agency. Average call wait times for economic assistance decreased from 14 minutes in August 2015 to under five, and wait times for the Medicaid call centers have been consistently under five minutes. Timely processing of 94.44 percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program applications ranks Nebraska 17th in the nation compared with 48th in April 2015. We improved our application process for developmental disability services. The agency consistently heard that the process was confusing and cumbersome and worked in partnership with families, individuals and stakeholders to create efficiencies. Time to determine eligibility was slashed from an average of 69 days to 14. The application was streamlined from 14 pages to three, and developmental disability services were added to the AccessNebraska website to access information any time. We prioritized a customer- friendly process for the approximately 176,000 health care professionals the department licenses annually. Simplified applications, streamlined screening and faster turnaround times are improvements made to nurse, medication aide and other licensing processes. Turnaround time for nursing applications is 38 days, down from 96. For medication aides, its nine days instead of 39. More improvement projects are underway. The department also launched the Nebraska Behavioral Health System of Care for children. This statewide, public-private partnership builds on existing behavioral health resources and relationships and realigns existing dollars so families can more easily navigate the behavioral health system. It gives children and families a voice and a meaningful role in the decision-making process which positively impacts their care. Our Medicaid program received federal approval to cover behavioral modification services to support the needs of children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental services, and their families. These services will help many of the children we serve through Medicaid lead more fulfilling lives. We stabilized the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney. With a focus on treatment and safety of youth, staff and the community, changes resulted in reduced walkaways and assaults. From October 2015 to May 2016, walkaways totaled 51; since then, walkaways have totaled five. Staff assaults decreased 20 percent, and youth-on-youth assaults decreased 29 percent. Another highlight was achieving national public health accreditation, showing we have high-performing public health programs and services that meet the needs of Nebraska communities and citizens. Looking briefly at 2017, Medicaids new managed care program, Heritage Health, began operations Jan. 1, integrating physical health, behavioral health and pharmacy services into a single, comprehensive and coordinated system. Having one health plan responsible for a more complete range of services encourages better health outcomes and more cost-effective services. Also on Jan. 1, the department and the Nebraska Health Information Initiative launched an enhanced prescription drug monitoring program as part of our prescription drug overdose prevention initiatives. Health care professionals who prescribe and dispense medications now have online access to patients controlled substance medication histories, and all dispensed prescriptions for controlled substances must be reported to the system. Everything we accomplished this past year and hope to accomplish in 2017 is due to our dedicated team. We have embraced a can-do culture that is transforming the Department of Health and Human Services. Well maintain our momentum and strive for continuous improvements to help Nebraskans live better lives. Slightly warmer weather than expected and calm winds allowed the Omaha metro area to dodge the worst of the ice storm moving across the region, but meteorologists urge caution until the storm has fully moved eastward. As the back side of the storm moves through, temperatures are forecast to drop and winds pick up, according to the National Weather Service. With that, rain is expected to transition back to freezing rain after sundown tonight before coming to an end around midnight. Winds also are expected to pick up slightly after dark, too. With the dropping temperatures, Tuesday mornings commute still could be icy, leading Omaha-area school districts to cancel all Tuesday classes. The storm wouldn't be done unwinding until tonight, so there's still time for problems to develop, said Cathy Zapotocny, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Valley said. At the peak of the daytime outages today, about 1,500 customers of the Omaha Public Power District were without power. Power to those customers has been restored. Scattered outages continue to occur across the metro area, and the utility says its crews will remain on alert tonight. Temperatures today have been above freezing and in the morning dropped no lower than 31 degrees in Omaha, easing the amount of freezing rain that accumulated. Freezing rain is just that rain that freezes on contact with cold surfaces. For freezing rain to occur, there has to be a shallow layer of cold air at the surface, and a degree or two change in temperature over several thousand feet of atmosphere determines whether or not it occurs. Some areas werent as lucky as the Omaha metro. Near Fairbury, Nebraska, enough ice has fallen that 10-inch branches are cracking off trees, Zapotocny said. Elsewhere across the Midwest and Great Plains, at least five deaths have been attributed to the storm. Once the storm moves out of Omaha, warmer, sunnier weather moves in. Sunshine and highs in the upper 40s to near 50 are forecast for Wednesday and Thursday. SCHOOLS The Omaha, Bellevue, Council Bluffs, Millard, Westside, Papillion-La Vista, Lincoln, Elkhorn, Gretna, Ralston, Bennington, Douglas County West, Lewis Central and Springfield Platteview school districts, plus Omaha Catholic schools and Duchesne Academy, canceled all Tuesday classes, as did the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. (Full closings list) INJURIES Douglas County 911 dispatchers reported several ground-level falls throughout the morning. Lakeside Hospital reported 17 people treated by 3 p.m. for fall-related injuries. Bergan Mercy Medical Center reported 13 such patients, Creighton University Medical Center had 12, Immanuel Medical Center had seven, Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs had four and Midlands Hospital in Papillion, two. Methodist Hospital reported 10 weather-related cases and Methodist Jennie Edmundson, six. Nebraska Medical Center had 12 weather-related injuries, a spokesman said. EMERGENCY SERVICE First responders in the metro area had minor problems driving to emergency calls, but most chalked it up to dealing with winter weather. Omaha Police Capt. Scott Gray said there were "occasional instances" Monday morning when patrol officers' cruisers were stuck because of the ice. "They've had to call for sand trucks, but they responded and took care of it," Gray wrote in an email. Gray said officers in all four precincts didn't have major problems getting sand trucks to help them. Omaha Fire Department spokesman Steve Thornburg said a few firefighters might have walked up a hill or on a block to respond to 911 calls, but Thornburg said that's so they park their truck in a safe place in order to not get stranded. Plus, dealing with the weather is part of the job, he said. "Theyre going to do what they need to get the job done, and they're not going to put themselves, the truck or anybody else at risk by putting the truck into position where it could slide and cause damage," Thornburg said. POWER Scattered outages have continued to occur across the region. In Omaha, utility officials say that once the storm moves out, about midnight, they'll be breathing easier. The highest number of OPPD outages at any one time was the 1,500 customers without power for 2 1/2 hours Monday in Midtown. An area bounded by 40th and 37th Streets from Jones to Webster Streets lost power just after 11:30 a.m., said Jason Kuiper, an OPPD spokesman. A tree had become tangled in electrical wires, he said. OPPD crews trimmed the tree and made repairs, and power was restored by 2 p.m. Other utilities across the area continue to respond to scattered outages, with the higher outages further south in the state. In Columbus, falling branches caused at least two brief power outages on Monday but by late afternoon, the rain had stopped. We're going to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, said Neal Suess of Loup Public Power. Lincoln Electric Systems had about 182 customers without power Monday morning, said Kelley Porter, spokeswoman for the utility. Norris Public Power District reported nearly 600 customers were without electricity as of mid-afternoon Monday. The district serves parts of Lancaster County along with four other counties southwest of Lincoln. STREET CONDITIONS Morning commuters across Omaha found that the walk from the front door to the car or from the car into work was worse than the drive. James Maakestad had no problem driving from his Gifford Park home to his downtown workplace. "It was OK because no one was around," he said. Maakestad's driveway was slippery, he said, but his neighborhood streets were fine and major streets even better. Untreated side streets across the city were posing problems for motorists, including police officers, whose cruisers were getting stuck. Temperatures remained in the low-to-mid 30s Monday afternoon, lessening worries about icy streets. As temperatures drop tonight, wet roads could freeze, make driving potentially treacherous again on Tuesday morning. At 40th and Cuming Streets, 54-year-old Sylvia Brown used her cane for extra help as she gingerly walked to a bus stop. She was trying to get to her job at a Carter Lake motel. She reached the bus stop safely, only to learn Metro buses are not running. "Be careful while walking," Brown said. "I had to walk in the street because the sidewalks were too icy and slippery. I used the grass, too." Victoria Wagner was fueling her car at 40th and Cuming after driving her wife to work at 6:30 a.m. at the Nebraska Medical Center. She said they had slid in their car to the end of their midtown side street, but it was smooth sailing after that. "The side streets are horrendous, but the city's done a wonderful job on the main drags," Wagner said. "I was really impressed." Unlike others who might be stuck at home Monday, Rebecca Kerwin found herself stuck at work. Kerwin, who works an overnight shift at Doctor John's Lingerie & Novelty Boutique, near 72nd and Pacific Streets, was supposed to leave work at 8 a.m. But her co-worker called to say she couldn't come in after her husband slipped and hit his head while attempting to warm up the car. Kerwin, 21, said there had been only a few customers by midmorning. Usually, she said, five times as many stop in. Kerwin said she forgot to bring food, so she's surviving on snacks her co-workers left behind. Her dad plans to order a pizza from Domino's. "Hopefully they're open, because I'm starving," Kerwin said. She should have more help soon her manager started walking to the store. "We're open 24 hours. ... We're not closing," Kerwin said. ICE TOTALS The Omaha metro area had received one to two tenths of an inch of ice by Monday morning, with an additional tenth of an inch possible, said Corey Mead, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Valley. A band of heavier precipitation is expected Monday afternoon, but with above-freezing temperatures, Mead said much of it likely will fall as rain. Until the evening, that is, when colder air will bring a mix of freezing rain, light snow and sleet. "The roads will still by wet Tuesday, and with low temperatures, things are still going to be very slippery," Mead said. CITY OF OMAHA RESPONSE The city's main roadways were in decent shape mainly just wet but side streets were mostly icy, said Austin Rowser, Omaha's street maintenance engineer, early Monday. Crews attacked major and secondary roads with salt Sunday and Monday, he said. You go through a lot of salt when you have to go back over streets because rain washed away earlier efforts, Rowser said. Crews had covered about half of Omahas side streets with salt, but city trucks couldnt keep up with the rain on those neighborhood streets. Weve been trying to get back into the residential streets, Rowser said, but the salt is just washed away. Weve hit the streets with about everything weve got at this point, he said. But I dont see the side streets improving much before Tuesday morning. Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert was answering calls to the Mayor's Hotline on Monday afternoon, with most callers asking when city trucks would be out to salt their residential streets. Because of rain, those trucks delayed the start of their routes until noon Monday, Stothert said. "It's still really difficult in some of the residential areas," she said. Stothert said she had heard reports that some of the city's contracted vehicles had even been sliding around. "I know I had trouble getting out of my driveway this morning," Stothert said. The mayor said she was happy with the city's preparation and response to the storm and would give her staff an A+. "We had a plan -- we knew what we were going to do and we knew we had to be flexible." Most of that flexibility, she said, has been reapplying salt as rain has continued to wash it away. The city applied a pre-treatment of brine starting on Friday, but even that was washed away by rain hours before the freezing began Sunday evening. Stothert also praised residents for heeding warnings and staying home. "We've had very few accidents on the main or secondary (roads)," she said. The closings related to the Martin Luther King holiday likely helped, she said. The storm isn't over yet. Stothert cautioned Omahans to continue to stay home if they can. With the possibility of falling temperatures overnight, the Tuesday morning's commute may be slick. "Tomorrow is going to be another thing," she said. SARPY COUNTY In Sarpy County, officials said roads were in good shape Monday, but there still were slick spots in neighborhoods. Crews were working on side streets. Sidewalks and parking lots also were slick, said Fred Uhe, a Sarpy County spokesman. Street crews in Papillion said they felt pretty good about the condition of the main roads on Monday after pre-treating them Sunday, said Trent Albers, spokesman for the City of Papillion. The crews continued to monitor the streets throughout the day. Crews in Bellevue were hitting spots that typically give them trouble during winter weather, but overall, the city's main roads were in pretty good condition, said Phil Davidson, a city spokesman. LINCOLN In Lincoln, lighter-than-normal traffic flowed on main streets that public works officials said were in good condition, thanks to frequent applications of salt and de-icing brine. Lincoln police responded to fewer than 10 traffic accidents overnight and through the early morning hours. Throughout the morning, Douglas County 911 dispatchers were hearing such phrases as That street is like a sheet of ice, We cant get up there, its a sheet of ice, and Thats a sheet of ice, well never make it. NEBRASKA ROADS Miranda Roode, a clerk at Loves Travel Center in Aurora, said several trucking companies have told their drivers to stay put because of the slick roads. She said, however, that she was surprised by the amount of traffic that is moving. It sounds like it gets hairier the further west you go, Roode said. Side roads are much worse than Interstate 80, she said. The Nebraska Department of Roads website said that U.S. Highway 81 was completely covered with ice in the area just south of Yankton, South Dakota. The temperature there was 24 degrees. Farther south, near Madison and Columbus, Nebraska, the same highway was reported partially covered with ice. In the east-central Nebraska town of Fullerton, a dispatcher at the Nance County Sheriffs Office said she slipped and slid to work on icy roads there, and that drivers of semitrailer trucks had reported they could not move on the slick roads. About 8 a.m. Monday, Hamilton County Emergency Management Director Kirt Smith measured a quarter-inch of ice on tree branches. Untreated roads were "a solid sheet of ice, basically," Smith said. Treated roads and highways were wet and slick in spots, he said. At the Pilot Truck Stop on Interstate 80 at Elm Creek, west of Kearney, many trucks were parked. Its slick, icy slick, said clerk Mary Coble. Trucks are waiting on the temperature to go up or the roads to get cleared. People seem to be heeding the warnings to stay off the roads. Traffic was noticeably less in the Kearney area, according to Sgt. Dan Schleusener of the Buffalo County Sheriffs Office. Were fortunate, he said. It's been hovering just around freezing (here), so the treated roads, for the most part, are clear. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts spoke on the Weather Channel on Monday morning, urging residents to stay inside if they don't have to be anywhere. Ricketts praised the road and power crews who have been working throughout the night to battle the ice storm. He said he's thankful there haven't been many power outages. TRAVEL CONDITIONS Eppley Airfield remained open Monday morning, and flights were arriving and departing, although some airlines canceled flights. The Nebraska Department of Roads website showed roadways in eastern, north-central and south-central parts of the state were partially covered to completely covered, with some southeast Nebraska roads partially covered. In Iowa, roads in the western, west-central and eastern parts of the state were partially covered, and roadways in north-central and northeast Iowa were completely covered. BUS SERVICE Metro buses and MOBY canceled service Monday. Moby will resume operations at 10 a.m. Tuesday. As of late Monday afternoon, Metro had not yet announced when bus service will resume. Latest information: http://www.ometro.com/index.php/announcements/weather-alerts/ World-Herald staff writers Kevin Cole, Nancy Gaarder, Steve Jordon, Emily Nitcher, Mike Reilly and Paul Hammel contributed to this report. Information from the World-Herald News Service was used in this report. MORE COVERAGE Road cameras: Live look at streets across the metro Closings and cancellations: Business, schools and local events Nebraska road conditions: Interstate and highways map Reasons Why Alibabas Promise to Create One Million US Jobs May Not Be Possible President-elect Donald Trump and Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, emerge from the elevators to speak to reporters following their meeting at Trump Tower, Jan. 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images) The promise made by Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma to create one million jobs in the U.S. may sound virtuous, but for some people, the possibility that it will be fulfilled could be far-fetched. Advertisement An article in the dailycaller.com said that this huge task may not be completed since the U.S.-China bilateral relationship is not conducive at present. The report added that Ma did not give details about his promise and Alibaba also appeared to have no plans to build new factories, establish new operations centers or open new investments. According to an expert, all that Ma wanted was to move business onto the Alibaba platform. "He's basically saying, 'Route your trade through me,'" Dr. Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The report said that Ma's promise to Trump has been made before as the Alibaba founder has been trying to sell American products to Chinese consumers for about two years. "We want to help U.S. entrepreneurs, small business owners, and brands and companies of all sizes sell their goods to the growing Chinese consumer class. Chinese consumers will get to buy the American products they want. This, in turn, will help create American jobs and increase U.S. exports," Ma said in a 2015 op-ed outlining his business strategy. According to the report, the presence of American trade on Alibaba's platform is currently small. Rico Ngai, Alibaba spokesperson, told CNN Money that in 2016, about 7,000 U.S. brands have sold nearly $15 billion worth of goods to Chinese consumers. The report said that in order to create one million U.S. jobs, Alibaba has to increase U.S. business on its platform 142 times over. As Ma has been making efforts to achieve his goals, the U.S. has not been so successful at trying to increase its exports to China. "If it were so easy that one guy could do it, it would have happened a long time ago," Scissors added. Some observers however, pointed out that there factors that help create an environment for Alibaba to fulfill its pledge to the administration of President-elect Donald Trump. By 2021, China's e-commerce industry is estimated to reach $840 billion while cross-border trade may exceed $150 billion by 2020. Although the country is poorer than the U.S., China's middle class is estimated to be about 300 million. But currently, the trend in U.S. trade and export seem to contradict Alibaba's visions, according to the report. Except for popular brands, Chinese consumers show little interest in U.S. goods. In addition, consumers are also not keen on spending money on U.S. products as the economy is slowing and the yuan depreciation has made them more expensive. Aside from these reasons, if Trump makes good on his previous threats to charge Chinese exports with high tariffs, it would make China dislike U.S. products even more. With the present situation, Alibaba would find it very difficult to expand and create one million jobs in the U.S., as Jack Ma promised. 50 Indians in Islamic States Afghanistan camp: IB India oi-Vicky By Vicky The Interpol has been alerted after Intelligence Bureau officials found that at least 50 persons from India had allegedly joined the Islamic State in Afghanistan. The IS camp in Nagrahar in Afghanistan is said to have at least 2,000 recruits from different parts of the world. However, Indian agencies are hot on the trail of Shajeer Abdullah, from Kerala, believed to be the prime recruiter for the IS in Kerala. [Also read:21 missing youth from Kerala traced to IS camp in Afghanistan] Out of these 2,000, the IB suspects that there may be 50 Indians. The intelligence has already confirmed that the 21 persons who went missing from Kerala are part of this camp. Agencies say that the recruitment had taken place through social media. The social media account of Shajeer Abdullah from Kerala had come under the scanner. Abdullah, who is also in Afghanistan currently, is said to have used the social media to radicalise and recruit youth from Kerala. His posts had called for a 'Holy War against the infidels'. He goes on to state that in order to serve Islam correctly, one needs to be part of the IS. He goes on to give tips on Jihad. The IB says that there is a two-pronged strategy adopted by Abdullah. "He gives youth the option of joining the outfit or staying back home and carrying out attacks. He repeatedly says that those who are unable to come to Afghanistan could stay back and carry out attacks. He says that those wishing to serve the IS should carry out lone-wolf attacks. It is very easy to make a petrol bomb. Make one and target the Hindus in your city, he further advises the recruits," informed an IB official. One India News Akhilesh Yadav camp celebrates after EC allots it 'cycle' symbol India oi-IANS By Ians English Lucknow, Jan 16: Celebrations broke out in the Akhilesh Yadav faction of the Samajwadi Party (SP) here on Monday evening after the Election Commission declared the 43-year-old Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh as the rightful owner of the party symbol and name. Hundreds of party workers took to the streets with party flags and raised slogans hailing Akhilesh Yadav and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav, who mentored the faction in the power struggle within the ruling party. "This is a great moment for us and we will go out to the elections with full confidence now and win more seats than last time to form the next government," said young party worker Anubhav Singh. Happy at the verdict, Ram Gopal Yadav, the estranged cousin of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, said he was thankful to the poll panel for its just and timely decision and added that he was with truth and not against any person. "This was a 'dharma yudh' like the epic Mahabharata, in which relatives were split between right and wrong," he said. He also said the verdict was the first step towards his resolve to get Akhilesh Yadav back as the Chief Minister again. "I had made this commitment to myself and hundreds of our supporters and I am happy that we are heading in that very direction," he said. Ram Gopal Yadav also said that while he had no "definitive information" on any alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties, the Akhilesh Yadav faction had all its options open. There are talks about the Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh and some regional parties like the Peace Party coming together to take on the BJP in the state assembly polls. IANS Amid SPs cycle wars, Amar Singh jets to London India oi-Vicky By Vicky The sudden departure by Amar Singh to London for two-and-a-half months has raised eyebrows in political circles. His departure comes at a stage when the warring factions of the Samajwadi Party await the verdict of the Election Commission which will decide on the party symbol. Prior to his departure, Singh issued a statement in which he said that he was flying to London for treatment. He said that his treatment was underway, but he came down to Uttar Pradesh as he had been summoned by Mulayam Singh Yadav. While Singh claims that there is nothing political behind his sudden departure, party insiders feel that this was done at the insistence of Mulayam. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly referred to Singh as the 'outsider,' and also pointed out that his exit from the party would ensure truce. Mulayam has however backed Singh to the hilt and says that he will not be removed from the party. One India News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 13:27 [IST] TRS, BJP are two sides of same coin: Rahul Gandhi in Telangana As justice eludes Rohith Vemula, family, friends, Dalit groups to mark his 1st death anniversary India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Hyderabad, Jan 16: On Tuesday, family, friends and Dalit organisations from across the country will come together to commemorate the first death anniversary of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad. Rohith committed suicide inside the campus of the University of Hyderabad -- his alma mater -- on January 17 last year. The members of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), seeking justice for Rohith at UOH, are going to mark the day as Rohith Shahadath Din (Rohith's Martyrdom Day) inside the campus of the institute. Speaking to reporters, mother of Rohith, Radhika, appealed to students, rights activists and sympathisers to extend their solidarity by visiting the university campus to mark his death anniversary. "The University administration has denied me the permission to enter the university. Help me pay tributes at Rohith's memorial in the university campus by joining me at the entrance gate," Radhika told reporters on Sunday. The family and friends of Rohith allege that the 26-year-old committed suicide because of the harassment he faced at the hands of the university's vice chancellor Appa Rao and senior BJP leaders, including former Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani. A huge pan-India movement, demanding justice for Rohith, broke out across the country, within days after he committed suicide. "It has been a year now, but justice still eludes Rohith. We are not going to stop our struggle till the people responsible for his death are punished," Rohith's friend Syed Riyaz said. On his death anniversary, friends and family of Rohith will participate in Chalo HCU programme and will stage a protest to demand the Central government to bring a Rohith Vemula Act to stop discrimination against Dalit students in the universities. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 13:21 [IST] Bengaluru molestation: Congress threatens legal action against NCW India oi-Anusha The legal cell of the Karnataka Congress has hit back at the National Commission for Women over its notice to Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwar in the aftermath of allegations of molestation during New Year Eve's revelry. Deeming the notice improper and unwarranted, the Congress has asked the NCW to withdraw the same and tender an unconditional apology to Parameshwar, failing which the party has threatened to initiate legal action for defamation. "You have issued the notice blindly to gain political mileage to yourself and to please the BJP government who nominated you. The notice itself is defamatory in nature and amounts to undermining the prestige and dignity if the leader", accused the notice addressed to NCW Chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam. The NCW had issued notices to the Karnataka Home Minister following media reports on his allegedly insensitive statements over the molestation incidents in Bengaluru, a charge that Parameshwar has vehemently rejected time and again. It is to be noted that while the NCW served the notice to Parameshwar, his party instead of the government, has chosen to reply to the notice. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 15:36 [IST] Actor Matthew Modine attends the premiere of 'Stranger Things' at Mack Sennett Studios on July 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo : Getty Images/ Jason LaVeris) "Stranger Things" star Matthew Modine is the newest addition to the cast of "Soldado," the sequel to the hit drug thriller "Sicario." She will join original cast members Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Donovan, who will reprise their roles as Matt Graver and Steve Forsing, respectively. According to Deadline, Modine will play Secretary of Defense Director James Ridley and will share a lot of screen time with Catherine Keener, who will play the Deputy Director of Ridley. Aside from them, also joining the cast are Elijah Rodriguez as Miguel Hernandez, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Isabel Moner and David Castaneda. In the story, their characters will be significantly involved in the drug war in the south. Advertisement In "Stranger Things," Modine plays Dr. Martin Brenner, the one in charge of the experiments being conducted inside the Hawkins Laboratory, including testing the full power of the popular telekinetic girl, Eleven. The actor also previously appeared in "The Knight Rises," "Jobs," "Army of One" and "Weeds." "Sicario" was one of the most critically-acclaimed movies of 2015, earning three Academy Award nominations. While the first film left everyone pleased, it did not exactly call for a sequel. However, fans were surprised and thrilled when "Soldado" was confirmed. Tarylor Sheridan is back to write the script for the sequel, while Stefano Sollima is back in the director's chair. In his interview with We Got This Covered, Sheridan talked about the upcoming sequel and described it as "'Sicario' on steroids." "They trusted me to just go do it, and with 'Sicario,' which I'm really proud of, it really approaches some difficult subjects. I didn't want to demean that with the second one. So I really wrote something I double dared them to actually make," said Sheridan. Sheridan revealed that compared with "Sicario," "Soldado" is ten times more unsentimental, more spiteful and reflective. He also said he finds it funny that a lot of people think "Sicario" is about drug wars and drug cartels, when in fact it is not. The writer said the movie is about American policy and the way people police. Production for "Soldado" is currently under way. The film is expected to premiere in the latter part of 2017. Watch the official trailer for "Sicario" here: Prashant Kishor claims Nitish Kumar in touch with BJP says don't be surprised if he joins hands with it again Bihar: Nitish rejects BJP demand to postpone human chain event India oi-PTI Patna, Jan 16: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday rejected BJP's demand to postpone its programme of forming the world's longest human chain on January 21 in support of prohibition in the state in view of the boat tragedy that claimed 24 lives. "The world's longest human chain will take place as per its programme on January 21," Nitish Kumar said in reply to senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's demand to postpone the programme following Saturday evening's boat tragedy. "Human chain in support of prohibition is part of a social campaign and sponsored by the state government. It will make history," the Janata Dal-United chief added. He recalled that after a major train accident last year in November near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, the Bihar government cancelled its function of presenting its report card but the BJP went ahead with its programme in UP. Nitish Kumar said he has been appealing to people and all political parties to join the human chain in support of prohibition in the state. Three satellites, including one foreign and two of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), four aircraft, two helicopters and 40 drones will be used to click images of the "world's longest human chain" stretching over 11,000-km on January 21 in support of prohibition in Bihar, officials said. According to government officials, nearly 20 million people will join the human chain across the state. "They will hold their hands together for 45 minutes from 12.15 p.m. to 1 p.m.," an official added. Nitish Kumar imposed a total liquor ban in Bihar on April 5, last year. After this, more than 16,000 people have been arrested on charges of either consuming or transporting liquor in the state. IANS For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 18:17 [IST] Delhi serial rapist arrested, says lost count of his victims India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Jan 16: Delhi Police on Saturday arrested a tailor and father of five for sexually assaulting many girls for the past 14 years. The accused, Sunil Rastogi, worked as a tailor and was arrested on Saturday after investigations led police officials to him. According to latest reports, Rastogi has been sent to judicial custody for 14. The accused was arrested from Delhi's Kondli Village and is said to have confessed to his crime. His confession has baffled officials who say that he would target young girls and would tell them that their father had sent something for them and would then take them to an isolated place. He told police officials that he would prey on young girls and enjoyed it for sexual satisfaction. Rastogi has three daughters and two sons and is said to have committed similar crimes in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Preliminary inquiry shows that he was beaten and thrown out of his home in 2004 after he attacked a neighbour's daughter. He has also been charged with drugs, theft and molestation. First two instances when he assaulted girls, no complaint was filed against him. Thinking that he could get away with his crime, he continued assaulting minor girls. OneIndia News Goa Assembly elections 2017: All you need to know India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Election for the 40 seat Goa Assembly are set to be held in one phase on February 4. The recent events in Goa politics and AAP's entry have made the elections in this small state an interesting affair. Apart from Congress and BJP, other major contenders for the assembly are AAP, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and Goa Suraksha Manch. Schedule: Notification date: January 11 Last date of nomination: January 18 Scrutiny date: January 19 Last date for withdrawal of candidature: January 22 Polling date: February 4 One of the 40 seats in Goa is reserved for Schedule Caste candidate. Assembly after 2012 polls: In the last assembly elections, which was held on March 12, 2012, BJP won 21 seats and formed the government with MGP. MGP won three seats while the Congress could bag just nine seats. Independent candidates won five seats in 2012, while Goa Vikas Party won two. BJP got 34.98% of the vote share and the Congress got 30.78%. Manohar Parrikar was made the Chief Minister of Goa following 2012's win, but had to make way for Laxmikant Parsekar after Parrikar was made Union Defence Minister. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, both seats were won by BJP. It is being said that BJP's popularity has taken a dip since Parrikar left the post of Chief Minister. Latest developments and AAP's entry: The perception is that the rate of development in Goa has slowed since Parrikar, who is a popular leader in the state, left for New Delhi. Under Parsekar, the alliance between BJP and MGP became shaky and the chief minister even sacked two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party ministers from Goa Cabinet. MGP ministers Sudin Dhavalikar and Dipak Dhavalikar were sacked for expressing dissent against Parsekar. On the other hand, Shiv Sena, which is an ally of BJP in Maharashtra and Centre, has forged an alliance with Goa Suraksha Manch, which is a party floated by rebel RSS leader Subhash Velingkar. After success in Delhi, AAP has now turned its focus on Goa and Punjab. Party convener Arvind Kejriwal made several trips to Goa last year to garner support for the party. AAP has projected former bureaucrat Elvis Gomes as Goa CM candidate. AAP, in its manifesto, has made several promises to people of Goa, including a civilian airport at Dabolim and upgrading Hopsicio and the Asilo Hospitals to AIIMS like infrastructure. AAP has said that it would set up 400 Vaddo clinics, like Mohalla clinics, across the state where free annual health check-ups for women and senior citizens would be held. AAP also raked up the issue of women empowerment in the state and promised to restore the dignity of Goan women and senior citizens. All these factors make Goa Assembly polls 2017 an event to watch for keenly, not only for Goans but for political commentators across the country. Will BJP be able to retain its hold on the state without Parrikar or is there some other outcome in the waiting? We will have to wait till March 11 for the answers. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 14:56 [IST] Gujarat govt's primary school assessment drive 'Gunotsav' begins India oi-PTI Ahmedabad, Jan 16: Gujarat Government's annual 'Gunotsav' drive wherein each and every primary school in the state is evaluated and given grades began today with Chief Minister Vijay Rupani visiting a school in Kalasar village. Under "Gunotsav", authorities ranging from the CM to all class-II officers are supposed to visit each and every primary school for assessment and list them in grade scale from A to D. During his visit to the school in Surendranagar district, Rupani reviewed the performance and also had a mid-day meal with students. Addressing villagers later, he said, "the state government is committed to make all the primary schools of the state as smart schools." He called upon retired teachers and village elders to take interest in the development of primary schools. Rupani said his government is concerned about education of the underprivileged children and runs many schemes for their welfare. Rupani will visit two different villages in other parts of state during remaining two days of the three-day drive, stated an official release. Similarly, all ministers, top police officials as well as bureaucrats will also visit various schools. PTI Indifference will be at your own peril: Shaktikanta Das warns Amazon India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 16: Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Sunday asked e-tailer Amazon to refrain from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons and warned the American e-commerce giant that "indifference will be at your own peril". "Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet. "Remain committed to economic reforms, ease of doing business and open trade. Sometimes get touchy when our icons are involved," he said in a separate tweet. In a third tweet, however, he added: "Comment on Amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it." Amazon,better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 Comment on amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it. Shaktikanta Das (@DasShaktikanta) January 15, 2017 The Secretary's comments came days after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received a complaint about doormats portraying the Indian flag being listed for sale on Amazon's Canada website. Two days after Amazon's Canada portal removed the article with doormats depicting the Indian flag after India objected to it, the online company, on its US portal, put up another article of slippers with Mahatma Gandhi's image on it. This provoked the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to say on Saturday that the company should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments. "As a follow-up to the matter regarding the sale of doormats with the Indian flag on Amazon, our Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third-party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments," said MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup. Amazon describes the products as 'Gandhi flip flops' as a pair of "foam rubber flip flops". It costs $16.99, or about Rs 1,200. Soon after India threatened it won't grant visas to any Amazon official if the company did not withdraw the Indian flag-themed doormat from its Canadian platform, the e-commerce website removed the article from the online marketplace, a media report said on Thursday. "Amazon must tender the unconditional apology. They must withdraw all products insulting our national flag immediately," Swaraj had said in a tweet. IANS ISI meddling helped Kandahar hijackers: Ajit Doval India oi-Vicky New Delhi, Jan 16: Had the ISI not meddled, then India could have solved the Kandahar hijack issue on its own. Ajit Doval says that India could have solved the predicament if the hijackers were not aided by the ISI. These statements appear in a new book by Myra Macdonald, 'Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan lost the Great South Asian War. Macdonald was the former India Bureau chief for Reuters. Doval who is today National Security Advisor, was part of the negotiating team after the Kathmandu-Delhi flight was hijacked by five people on December 24, 1999. The hijackers had demanded the release of terrorists Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar. They were released to defuse the situation. Quoting Doval, the book says that when they landed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, they learnt that two ISI men, a Lieutenant Colonel and a major, were there along with Taliban on the tarmac. The situation worsened as the hijackers were directly communicating with the ISI men, Doval says. "We were getting very good intelligence about all that was happening. If these people were not getting active ISI support in Kandahar, we could have got the hijacking vacated," Doval further states. He further adds that the ISI had eliminated all the pressure on the hijackers. They even got a safe exit. "Even their safe exit was guaranteed, so they had no need to negotiate an escape route. That is not the way hijackers talk. Normally the biggest fear is how to get out," Doval also says. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 8:23 [IST] Jallikattu: Defiant supporters continue protests; organisers defy SC ban India oi-Anusha Despite all efforts by the Tamil Nadu government, Jallikattu is being organised at various places in the state. Massive protests were also seen in regular Jalikattu venues especially in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. For the fifth day in a row, the Supreme Court's order banning the sport was violated with events being organised even as police tried to detain organisers of owners of bulls. While many villages continued to observe a day of protests with black flags and posters against PETA, in prominent Jallikattu venues in Madurai, symbolic prayers were offered but no sport was entertained. Decorated temple bulls were offered prayers at the village deity's temples and led through the vadivasal, the gateway through which Jallikattu bulls are released for the sport. This time hundreds of people thronged venues not to tame bulls but to protest against the police, the state and union governments as well as the Supreme Court for stalling Jallikattu. Anger was evident against animal right organisations for their stand against the 'traditional sport'. Since last Thursday scores of people who have either assembled at venues or have taken part in the sport have been detained by the police. There have also been instances of bulls being taken away by the police in an attempt to stop people from organising the currently banned sport. After waiting for either a legal recourse or an ordinance from the Centre that never came, hundreds decided to protest through the weekend and protests spilt on to the streets on Monday as well. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 11:30 [IST] Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth! Jallikattu row: After targetted on social media, actress Trisha clarifies her stand on bull fight India oi-PTI Chennai, Jan 16: Leading Tamil actress Trisha, who was targeted by pro-jallikattu groups for posting comments on the bull taming sport, on Sunday said she was never against or opposed to it and that she had deactivated her Twitter account after it was hacked and a comment sent, putting her in insensitive light. Trisha said she was deeply troubled and defamed for no fault of hers over the last week on the jallikattu issue. "I made my stance very clear on my social networking account on Saturday that I have never been against or opposed to jallikattu," she said in a statement. "I'm a proud Tamilian by birth and I believe and respect the Tamil culture and tradition and I will never go against the sentiments of my own people who have been instrumental in my growth and stature," she said. She said she was "deeply" hurt at the "disrespect" and abusive language aimed at her and to those who supported her by "some vested interests". "In the midst of this, to make my stance clear, my Twitter account was hacked and a tweet (from twitter handle @trishtrashers) was sent out, putting me in very insensitive light and hurting my fellow Tamilians," she said. "This effort by them to detach me from the Tamil audience whom I value much will not happen. I'm confident about this," she said. Considering the gravity of the issue, she said she had deactivated her account and had taken it up with the higher authorities. "I type this (statement) out with a lot of hurt and pain. I assure from the bottom of my heart that I am never against my own people and keep wondering why anyone would go through such an extent to defame and put me in bad light," she said. Thanking her fellow colleagues and well-wishers who had rallied to her support, including Tamil film icon Kamal Hassan, she said, "This (statement) makes my stance very clear, once and for all". Kamal Haasan and actor Simbu had come out in support of Trisha, targeted by pro-Jallikattu groups for her association with animal rights group, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, which opposes the sport. An animal lover, she had appeared in advertisements of PETA, supporting adoption of homeless dogs. Some Jallikattu supporters had on January 13 picketed the site of the shooting of Tamil film, Garjanai, starring Trisha, in Sivaganga district. She was not present there at that time. Abusive text messages accompanied with images of Trisha wearing a PETA T-shirt have gone viral on social media. PETA has been opposing Jallikattu and had written to the President and Prime Minister, arguing against any ordinance for holding Jallikattu in the state as demanded by the state government and others. The group has come under severe attack from Jallikattu supporters who even demanded that PETA be banned. PTI Madurai's mystery bomb blasts: NIA cracks case, blames Base Movement India oi-Vicky By Vicky After five years, investigators have finally managed to solve the mysterious Madurai blasts case. Between 2011 and 2014 there were four blasts in Madurai, and National Investigation Agency sources say that they were all carried out by the Base Movement - an off-shoot of the Al-Ummah. In May 2011, bomb exploded in a dustbin near the Mattuthavani bus stand at 9.15 pm, but no one was in jured. On September 29 2011, a bomb was planted in the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation bus. The blast was aimed at marking the death of Al-Umma operative Imam Ali who was killed by the police in 2002. The police however managed to defuse the bomb. On September 29, 2012, a bomb was planted outside a TASMAC wine shop in Theni, again to mark the of Imam Ali's death anniversary. There were no casualties in the blast. The fourth blast took place at the venue of an AIADMK meeting in Madurai on February 9 2014. The blast was aimed at marking the hanging of Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru. The bomb placed under the stage exploded when none was around. During the course of the probe, it was found that one Abbas Ali was the one who coordinated these blasts. It may be recalled that the police had arrested five persons in connection with the court blasts that had taken place in Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ali told the NIA that he was behind these blasts in Madurai. In all there have been 17 blasts between 2011 and 2016. The NIA say that four cases have been solved and the rest were being looked into. OneIndia News Mamata congratulates Akhilesh for getting SP symbol India oi-PTI Kolkata, Jan 16: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today congratulated Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for getting Samajwadi Party's 'bicycle' symbol for contesting the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. "Congratulations @yadavakhilesh for getting SP symbol. You deserve it," Banerjee said in a tweet. In a major boost to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Election Commission today recognised the faction headed by him as the Samajwadi Party and alloted the reserved symbol 'bicycle' to it for contesting the coming assembly polls. During the ongoing rift in the Samajwadi Party family, the TMC leadership had extended support to Akhilesh by terming him as the "most popular leader" of the state. Banerjee and several top TMC leaders share a very cordial relationship with Akhilesh Yadav. PTI Progressive icon Jin Xing hosts the first episode of "Chinese Dating." (Photo : YouTube/China DragonTV Official) Progressive icon Jin Xing has made headlines for being Chinas first openly transgender celebrity. Jin has been celebrated for her accomplishments, but now, the Internet is divided over their opinion of the celebrity, who has recently started hosting a controversial dating show. On Christmas Eve, the first episode of Chines Dating aired in the country, and it created quite a stir in the online community. The show takes its cues from traditional blind dates arranged by parents, wherein a female candidate is questioned by the families of five bachelors. Advertisement Parents ask questions and determine whether the lady is a good match while the bachelors wait backstage. According to Open Democracy, the parents who appeared on the show expressed their criteria for the ideal match for their sons, with much emphasis on youth, good looks, a good career, and ideal family values. Quartz has released a video on its official Facebook page which reveals how the show demeans its contestants. In the clip, a parent asked a lady, who happens to have one PhD and two Masters degrees under her belt, if she knows how to do housework. Speechless, the contestant could only smile and nod her head to acknowledge the question. The cringefest continued as a successful entrepreneur who holds two Masters degrees was also asked if shes open to doing any housework. Apparently, another top criteria for being deemed marriageable by parents is if a woman is able to reproduce. In the clip, Jin asked a parent why she doesnt approve of women with cold holds. The parent replied, Im a certified nutritionist. [So I know] women with cold hands have a cold womb. Meanwhile, women who are divorced, deemed to be too old, or have children are often met with disapproval on the show. When an attractive contestant made her way to the stage, the bachelors were visibly delighted, but they were shocked when it was revealed that she was a 40-year-old single mother. Many people are aghast at how Jin, who has been called the Oprah Winfrey of China, seems accepting of all that has been going on in the show. Peoples Daily released an article defending Chinese Dating, and Jin has been quoted on saying that she approves of the shows matchmaking aspect because marriage is different from dating, it concerns two families. It appears that though Jin has become an icon of change in China, she is a traditionalist at heart when it comes to marriage. Only time will tell if Chinese Dating will be wholeheartedly accepted by the public, or if the call for the sexism to cease ends the shows run. Manipur Assembly elections 2017: All you need to know India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Election for the 60 seat Manipur Assembly are set to be held in two phases on March 4 and 8. Manipur currently has a Congress government with Okram Ibobi Singh as Chief Minister. Congress won 42 out of the 60 seats in 2012 assembly polls and even in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, both seats were won by Congress. There are 18,07,843 voters listed in the state. Schedule: First phase of polling in 38 assembly constituencies: Notification date: February 8 Last date of nomination: February 15 Scrutiny date: February 16 Last date for withdrawal of candidature: February 18 Polling date: March 4 Second phase of voting for 22 assembly constituencies: Notification date: February 11 Last date of nomination: February 18 Scrutiny date: February 20 Last date for withdrawal of candidature: February 22 Polling date: March 8. 34 of these 60 seats in Manipur are reserved Assembly poll of 2012: In 2012, Congress swept the Manipur assembly polls by7 winning 42 seats and getting 42.42% vote share. Trinamool Congress stood second by winning 7 seats and getting 17 % vote share. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress won both the seats. Other parties in the fray were Naga Peoples Front, which won 4 seats, and Manipur State Congress Party, which won 5 seats. 2017 scenario: Manipur is an insurgency prone state where law and order has always been an issue. Manipur is one of few states in India where AFSPA has been enforced to keep insurgent groups under check. Irom Sharmila, who went on 16 long years of hunger strike demanding AFSPA's revocation, ended her fast on August 9 and announced that she would contest state elections in Manipur. Sharmila launched a political party named Peoples' Resurgence and Justice Alliance and will contest from two assembly constituencies of Khurai and Khangabok, the home constituency of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh. OneIndia News No Goa for Manohar Parrikar after polls, will stay in Delhi India oi-Vicky New Delhi, Jan 16: At a recent event, union minister Nitin Gadkari had pointed out that a leader from Delhi is likely to be the next Chief Minister of Goa. The statement had an obvious reference to Manohar Parrikar, the former chief minister of Goa, who is now the Defence Minister of India. [Also Read: Manohar Parrikar mum on his return to Goa politics] However, BJP sources in Delhi say that they are not in favour of disturbing the Union Cabinet. He has been described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as one of the brightest gems in the Cabinet and the party would not like to move him back to Goa, the BJP source adds. There have been calls to send Parrikar back to Goa. Several MLAs fighting the Goa assembly elections 2017 want Parrikar back, but the party's central leadership is not in favour of that. BJP leaders say that Parikkar would be the star campaigner in Goa. He is also the main strategist for the party in the state. He would spend time campaigning and ensuring that the BJP retains power in the state. He would be back in Delhi and continue to function as the Defence Minister once his Goa duties are over, BJP leaders say. The same would apply to the three former chief ministers of Uttarakhand. BS Koshiyari, Ramesh Nishank and BC Khanduri, who were chief ministers of Uttarakhand are currently members of Parliament. The BJP is not in favour of sending them back to the state and would like them to continue as MPs in Delhi. BJP leaders say those who are MPs will remain MPs. For the Uttarkhand assembly elections 2017, the BJP will chose its CM from the list of MLAs who win the polls. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 7:10 [IST] Pahalgam: Amid disruptions by locals, security forces gun down 3 militants India oi-Vicky Srinangar, Jan 16: The people were back on the streets of Awoora village in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, to help two militants belonging to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen trapped in a house escape. The security forces had a tough time in controlling the mob as well as fighting the terrorists. The encounter began at 4 am on Monday and the security forces had successfully managed to trap the militants and also kill them. However, once the news about the encounter broke out, people in large numbers came to the encounter site to help the terrorists escape. Slogan shouting and stone pelting incidents took place to distract the forces. However the security forces resorted to tear gas shelling to disperse the mob. The people then tried to march towards Awoora, but were stopped. Further protests broke out in Bijbehara and youth resorted to stone pelting. Clashes between the locals and the security forces continued even as the latter tried smoking the militants out of the house. The security forces had surrounded the house and also carried out sustained explosions to smoke the militants out of the house. This is not for the first time that the locals have protested an encounter with militants. Over the past year, there have been several incidents when locals have pelted stones at the security forces in a bid to distract them from the ongoing operation. Further the locals have also gathered in large numbers to attend funerals of militants. OneIndia News No comment on Pranab Mukherjee book before reading it: Former Union Minister Pranab Mukherjee to inaugurate Bengal Global Business Summit India oi-PTI Kolkata, Jan 16: President Pranab Mukherjee will be inaugurating this year's Bengal Global Business Summit during his three-day visit to the state starting on January 18. On Wednesday, Mukherjee is schedule to inaugurate the Exhibition Hall and the 100th year celebrations of Jhalda Satyabhama Vidyapith in Purulia, state secretariat officials said today. Next morning, the President will be inaugurating the 28th Datan Gramin Mela and attend the 35th Anniversary of Aajkal, a vernacular daily, at its office here in the city. On January 20, Mukherjee is scheduled to participate in a series of functions starting with the inauguration of the state government's business summit at Milan Mela ground, the official said. In the evening, the President will inaugurate the Bicentenary celebrations of Hindu School and will also be present at the Bicentennial Celebration of Presidency University, he said. Before leaving for New Delhi, Mukherjee will be inaugurating the 1st Annual ArtsAcre Arts Fair and visit the Arts Acre Museum in New Town, the official added. PTI Punjab Assembly elections 2017: All you need to know India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Chandigarh, Jan 16: The environment in Punjab is electrifying and the state is all geared up for the upcoming Assembly elections. All these there it used to be a close contest between SAD-BJP and Congress. However, this year things changed after AAP declared to contest the polls in the state. With big leaders such as Capt Amarinder Singh, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Parkash Singh Badal and AAP's Bhagwant Mann, this political fight is surely to fire up the contest. The election in the state will be held on February 4 in a single phase across 117 Assembly seats. The results will be announced on March 11. Here are some more details about the upcoming elections in the state: How Punjab fared in 2012 Assembly poll: Total seat- 117 Partywise seats: Congress won 46 seats BJP won 12 seats SAD won 56 seats Others won 3 seats SAD-BJP alliance then went on to form the government with Parkash Singh Badal as their chief minister. Star campaigners in Punjab: With Navjot Singh Sidhu joining Congress, the party is likely to ride high on Sidhu's popularity. With Sidhu's induction into the party, Congress will be looking to overthrow the BJP-SAD government. Capt. Amarinder Singh, Congress chief of the state is also a well-known face here. BJP, on the other hand, alongwith SAD will try to replicate its 2012 success. AAP meanwhile, is trying its best to make inroads in the state. The party will be looking to replicate its Delhi success here. With rigorous campaigning and rallies, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders are yet to come up with their chief ministerial candidate. Issues that will dominate the polls: Demonetisation, drug menace, farmers suicide are some of the issues that will be discussed by parties while they campaign in the state. While Congress will be looking to attack the SAD-BJP over farmers suicide and demonetisation, AAP will target both the Congress and the BJP. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 14:52 [IST] Ramgopal Yadav hints at grand alliance in UP India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 16: Hailing as "just", the Election Commission verdict recognising the Akhilesh Yadav faction as Samajwadi Party and allotting it the reserved symbol 'bicyle', Ramgopal Yadav said he was "hopeful" the party will forge an alliance with Congress for the high-stakes Uttar Pradesh elections. Speaking to reporters immediately after the Commission's decision, SP General Secretary Ramgopal Yadav urged party men to work harder now to ensure see the young leader gets another term as the Chief Minister. "We are thankful to the EC, it has given a just order. I congratulate workers and leaders of Samajwadi Party and urge them to work towards electing Akhilesh as Chief Minister yet another time," Yadav, who has been a staunch supporter of the Chief Minister through the intra-party conflict, said. Ramgopal said the final decision regarding forging alliance with Congress will be taken by Akhilesh, but he expressed hopes that it will happen. "It is Akhilesh Yadav who will decide on the alliance. But I am hopeful it will happen," he added. The SP general secretary also said the list of party candidates will be released in a day or two. In a major boost to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Election Commission today recognised the faction headed by him as the Samajwadi Party and alloted the reserved symbol 'bicycle' to it for contesting the coming Assembly elections. The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and reserved symbol Bicycle, the three-member Election Commission headed by Nasim Zaidi said in its order. PTI Rebellion brews within AIADMK cadre against Sasikala India oi-Anusha Weeks after Sasikala Natarajan took over the leadership of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as its general secretary, a rebellion is brewing with dissent making its way through the party cadre. A former AIADMK minister accused Sasikala and her family of trying to usurp power. "V K Sasikala's family members are trying to become power centre within the party," said AIADMK MLA K P Munusamy. He issued a stern warning to the AIADMK General Secretary's family against attempting to take over the party and the state. This statement from the senior leader of the party comes at a time when AIADMK is doing all it can to project Sasikala Natarajan as the future chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Other leaders of the AIADMK were quick to react to the situation and indulged in some fire fighting, even if it meant criticising their own leaders. AIADMK minister C V Shanmugam called Munusamy a traitor who betrayed the party. "If he had any problems he should have raised it with party headquarters rather than talking to the media. Sasikala's family is not interfering in party affairs," he said Munusamy's statement came in response to Sasikala's brother, Divakaran's statement during a Pongal event. "We are not new to politics, everyone has their right in AIADMK's progress over the years. M Natarajan contributed a lot for the party and saved the party after M G Ramachandran. He was instrumental in getting back the 'two leaves' symbol of the AIADMK which was blocked by the Election commission," Divakaran said in Thanjavur. Sasikala's family alleges threat Sasikala Natarajan's brother alleged threat to her life while addressing a gathering on Monday. "There is a conspiracy to destroy AIADMK by some forces. There is a threat to the life of AIADMK general secretary and second line leaders. Even now there is a conspiracy being hatched against the AIADMK. How to break the party and how to divide the party into two. but that can happen only after our death," he said. He reiterated that his family had always worked for the party. It may be noted that when J Jayalalithaa was alive, she had consciously kept away from Sasikala Natarajan's family. The internal oppositions anger against Sasikala's family stems from the fact that it is taking credit for the party that was built by the cadre under MGR and Jayalalithaa's leadership. OneIndia News SC to hear Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Bhat on Tuesday India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 16: The Supreme Court will, on Tuesday, hear a plea by Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Bhat raising several issues including that he was not being heard by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on the matters affecting him and his family. While telling Bhat - a moderate face of Hurriyat leadership - that it would hear him on his plea on Tuesday, the bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice D.Y.Chandrachud told him that he should refrain from making any political statements and confine himself to the pleading in his two petitions. "You can make political speeches in the state assembly, in the parliament or sit on 'dharna' outside it but in the court yu will limit yourself to whatever you have said in your petition," he said. Beside other issues, Bhat, who appeared in person, told the court that he was not being heard by the High Court. "They don't even list my cases saying that there is no judge to listen to your cases," he said. Asking Bhat to explain his grievance to the court orally instead of in writing, the court said: "You explain to us, we will understand you." As Bhat tried to referr to the recent incidents wherein normal life was paralysed for in the Kashmir "four months", and tried to eulogise some extremists, the bench said that he was in a court and there was no place for politics in it. Telling Bhat that they would go through his pleas, the bench asked him to come prepared to address the court and not to digress from his issue raised by him. IANS Sheila Dikshit ready to step down as UP CM candidate India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 16: Congress party's chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dikshit on Monday said that she will step down if asked to. Her remarks came amid talks of the Congress likely entering into an alliance with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party to fight the assembly elections. "If I am asked to step down then I will do it... there can't be two chief ministerial candidates," Dikshit told news channels while commenting on Akhilesh Yadav getting the 'cycle' symbol from the Election Commission (EC). IANS Slump in girl students in IITs: Panel suggests special reservation India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 16: A panel has recommended reservation for girl students in Indian Institutes of Technology to address the issue of slump in the number of female students entering the prestigious institutes. The committee is learnt to have suggested creating up to 20 percent supernumerary seats for girls out of the total number of seats. The recommendation of the committee will be taken up in the meeting of the joint admission board for a final decision, which will decide whether the reservation will come in effect from this year or from 2018. Concerned by the slump in number of girl students entering IITs, the JAB has set up a sub-committee under the chairmanship of professor Timothy Gonsalves to find ways to rectify the situation in the institutes. The number of seats for male candidates will not be affected and this will help IITs achieve the 1 lakh target by 2020. Also, only candidates who have already qualified in JEE-Advanced will be considered. PTI Chinese Factory Produces Donald Trump Masks (Photo : Getty Images) Some of the Donald Trump masks in the U.S. selling for $9.50 are actually made in China. The masks with the likeness of Trump who would become the next U.S. president in four days as the top products of Molezu, a factory in Shenzhen. So far, the factory has sold more than 200,000 Trump masks, Time reported. Besides Trumps mask, Molezu also manufactures bloodied arms and legs and rubber cadavers popular during Halloween. Advertisement Orange Spray Paint The factory runs seven days a week, and some factory hands work up to 10 hours a day making the Trump masks and Molezus other products. Production begins with workers pouring liquid latex into molds of Trumps inside-out face. Once the mask has taken shape, employees peel off the mask from the mold and placed on drying racks. Once dry, the masks are spray-painted orange and then polished to trim the masks imperfections. For their work, the employees are paid $400 a month. Trumps colorful personality and outlandish hairstyle has made him a perfect mold to make masks, video games and a giant rooster displayed in a mall. SNL Parody But even in the U.S., where Americans would have to get used to seeing him in the Oval Office, Trump continues to be the subject of Saturday Night Lives parody by actor Alec Baldwin of the incoming presidents first news conference on Wednesday. The sketch mocked Trump on several issues such as the expected sparse attendees and performers at his inaugural, his unclear plan to divest from his businesses and Russias alleged compromising information on the 45th president of the U.S., the New York Times reported. Baldwin, as Trump, even reenacted the refusal by the president-elect to take questions from Jim Acosta, White House correspondent of CNN whom Trump accused of spreading fake news. With China, Trump could always accused the country of making his fake faces. Bhaag Badal, bhaag: Sidhu after joining Congress India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Jan 16: Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday said that he was a born Congressman and he had come back to his roots. "This is my 'gharwapsi,' he said. [Also read: Punjab elections: The importance of being Navjot Singh Sidhu] Sidhu addressing a press conference said: "Drugs are a reality in Punjab. You cannot have an Ostrich mentality about it. Drugs in the state is ruining the lives of the youth. Films are being made on the drug issue in Punjab. I have come here to tell the truth. This is not my personal fight. I will fight for Punjab's rights." Attacking the BJP-SAD government in the state, Sidhu said: "Bhaag Badal, bhaag!(Run Badal Run) I will tell people where you have sold the state. I will reveal all details." Making a note of the current state of Punjab, Sidhu said: "Punjab was once known as the wheat bowl of India. It has been reduced to a poor state due to the political apathy." Taking potshots at the Akali Dal, Sidhu said that the party was now reduced to dynasty politics. "Akali Dal has now reduced to a dynasty. On asking where would he contest elections from, Sidhu said: "Will contest elections from whereever the party asks me to." OneIndia News Praises and brickbats for Mamata Banerjee's video playing drums in Chennai Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth! TN: Public holiday declared for MG Ramachandran's birth centenary tomorrow India oi-PTI Chennai, Jan 16: The Tamil Nadu government declared former Chief Minister and AIADMK founder MG Ramachandran's birth centenary on January 17 as a public holiday for the State. The holiday is applicable to all State government offices, corporations, local and cooperative bodies, boards constituted by the government and all banks, including cooperative, schools, colleges and all other educational institutions. In a Government Order, Chief Secretary Girija Vaithiyanathan declared the holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act and asked private companies to consider declaring January 17 as a holiday for their employees in view of the centenary event. AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala had already said that the birth centenary would be celebrated in a befitting manner. She will garland the statue of MGR at the party office in Chennai and participate in the centenary celebrations. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue a commermorative coin and a special postage stamp to honour the late leader. MG Ramachandran, affectionately called 'MGR', was Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu between 1977 and 1987 and founded the ruling AIADMK in 1972. A top ranked actor of yesteryears, MGR was also a popular DMK leader and a legislator before he founded the AIADMK following a feud with DMK chief M Karunanidhi. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 8:12 [IST] TRS, BJP are two sides of same coin: Rahul Gandhi in Telangana Congress will bring back old pension scheme in Gujarat, if voted to power: Rahul Gandhi Ready, get set, go: Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo speeds up in Telangana Udta Rahul Gandhi: SAD claims Congress vice president is a drug addict India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Chandigarh, Jan 16: The Punjab election season is heating up as the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal and the opposition Congress on Monday engaged in a war of words. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, union minister and senior leader of SAD, alleged that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was a drug addict. "I think Rahul Gandhi himself is a drug addict. That is why he says 70% of the people in Punjab are suffering from substance abuse. (Ye Rahul Gandhi, mujhe lagta hai khud sabse zyada nashe karte honge jo inhe Punjab ke 70% log nashedi lagte hain)," Kaur told ANI. Ye Rahul Gandhi, mujhe lagta hai khud sabse zyada nashe karte honge jo inhe Punjab ke 70% log nashedi lagte hain: Harsimrat Kaur Badal, SAD pic.twitter.com/07xFg1vaz3 ANI (@ANI_news) January 16, 2017 It has been a while since the Congress VP is running a campaign in the state, alleging that under the current regime in Punjab, 70% of the people have become victims of drug addiction, majority of which are youngsters. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the SAD are currently running a coalition government in the state. Earlier, on Monday former BJP politician Najvot Singh Sidhu, who has joined the Congress recently, addressed a press meet. Sidhu said: "Drugs are a reality in Punjab. You cannot have an Ostrich mentality about it. Drugs in the state are ruining the lives of the youth. Films are being made on the drug issue in Punjab. I have come here to tell the truth. This is not my personal fight. I will fight for Punjab's rights." OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 14:00 [IST] UP elections 2017: Why SP holds the key to a three-way political slugfest India oi-Anusha The political future of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh lies in the hands of the warring Samajwadi Party. Two factors will influence what happens in the assembly polls, believe political analysts. One, if the SP splits or remains a united force, two, in the case of a split, will the votes be divided downright to the middle or will Akhilesh Yadav take away most votes. The contest is a multi-corned one in Uttar Pradesh with votes in a three-way split between the SP, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Most opinion polls have projected favourable results for a united Samajwadi party and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Polls say that Dalit votes are sure for Mayawati's BS while adding that the BJP is sure to rope in the upper class and Other Backward Classes in the state. The SP enjoys the support of Yadav community but in the case of a split, it will not be able to bank on its core vote bank. "In the case of Uttar Pradesh, there is no straight contest. The BJP, the SP and the BSP have created a multi-cornered contest. I am ruling out the Congress party. What becomes of the SP is critical. In the case of a split it is evident that it will be advantage BJP," says political analyst Professor Sandeep Shastry. As far as the voting factor is concerned there is a clear division with Dalit votes going to the BSP, the OBC and other upper caste votes to the BJP and the Yadav votes to the SP. In the case of a split in the SP, their natural voters will have to choose and SP will lose its united vote bank. Why minorities matter Minority voters in Uttar Pradesh had looked at the SP as a formidable force against the BJP but with a split in the former, the status quo is bound to change. "We should remember that the BJP got only eight per cent of Muslim votes in the 2014 elections as against the national percentage of 28. Nothing has changed now too. I won't be surprised if the minority votes become crucial. Surveys show that Muslims support SP but in the case of a split, BSP becomes their only option. Add to it what Mayawati had to say about BSP being the only force to stop BJP in Uttar Pradesh. In the case of a split, Muslim votes in Uttar Pradesh will be split three way. One each in support of both factions of the SP and one to the BSP," he added The mind of a voter Political analysts believe that the voters go with a party and not necessarily an individual. Even if it is the case of an individual it would be in terms of a leadership or leader who leads the party. Label has become king in recent times, is the belief and the same applies to Uttar Pradesh. "More than caste and community, it is the similarity in the experience that matter to a voter," says Professor Shastry. He also adds that similar perception and experience that the voters go through decide their choices. "It is not herd mentality but the way people have experienced or perceived events," he added. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 13:04 [IST] Uttar Pradesh assembly election 2017- BJP announces 149 candidates India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 16: Former Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Laxmikant Vajpayee, grandson of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and the party's national secretary Shrikant Sharma are among the 149 candidates whose names the BJP announced today for the state assembly polls. Most of the seats will go to the polls in the first two phases on February 11 and 15. Vajpayee has been fielded from Meerut, from where he is the sitting MLA, Singh's grandson Sandeep Singh and Sharma will make their maiden entry in electoral fray from Atrauli and Mathura respectively. Releasing the list, the party's Central Election Committee's Secretary J P Nadda said it has accommodated various sections of society. The CEC had met last night to finalise candidates. It has retained sitting MLAs, including Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, both accused in Muzaffarnagar riot cases, dismissed as a conspiracy by them, in the list. However, mystery remained over the fate of Union Home Minister and UP heavyweight Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh whose name did not figure in the list. BJP has withheld announcement of its candidates for some seats, including Sahibabad and Noida-- two seats from where Pankaj Singh's name has been doing the rounds. Seven-phase polls for the 403 seats are taking place in UP on February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8. The party's CEC will meet again tomorrow to announce names of more candidates. While it is buoyant about its prospects in a state where it has been out of power since 2002 and has seen the arrival of sitting MLAs and leaders from various rival parties into its fold, there is speculation that Swami Prasad Maurya, a top BSP leader who had joined the saffron party months back, is unhappy with the leadership over its choice of probable candidates. The party has been pulling out all stops to capture power in UP, which in terms of political implications is more important than all other four poll-bound states combined. PTI Uttar Pradesh assembly election 2017- Congress wants to contest on at least 100 seats India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, Jan 16: With the Election Commission on Monday recognising the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led faction as the Samajwadi Party and allotting it the 'cycle' symbol, the Congress says it is keen to contest at least 100 seats in a pre-poll grand alliance in the state. A pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh is being envisaged on the lines of the grand alliance in Bihar, with the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led SP, Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) as its constituents. A Congress leader said that the party is keen on contesting at least 100 seats if a grand alliance takes shape in Uttar Pradesh. Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav after the EC decision said that while he has no "definitive information" on any alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties, the Akhilesh Yadav faction has all its options open. The Samajwadi Party formally split on January 1 when the Akhilesh faction ousted Mulayam Singh as its President. Both factions then petitioned the Election Commission claiming the 'cycle' symbol. After some two weeks of bitter fighting, the poll panel -- which heard both sides for hours on Friday -- on Monday decided in favour of Akhilesh Yadav. Congress party's chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dikshit on Monday said she would step down if asked to. IANS Uttarakhand Assembly elections 2017: All you need to know India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, Jan 16: Congress will be looking to retain power in Uttarakhand in the upcoming assembly elections. Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who is currently embroiled in a sting operation would also be looking forward to a fresh start in the state. Star campaigners like Harish Rawat, BJP leaders Vijay Bahuguna and Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri are fighting it out in the state, that was under President's rule from 27 March 2016 to 12 May 2016. The President's rule was revoked following which Rawat resumed office. The election in the state will be held on February 15 in a single phase across 70 Assembly seats. The results will be announced on March 11. Here are some more details about the upcoming elections in the state: How Uttarakhand fared in 2012 Assembly poll: Total seat- 117 Partywise seats: Congress won 32 seats BJP won 31 seats BSP won 3 seats Independent- 3 seats Uttarakhand Kranti Dal- 1 seat Star campaigners in Uttarakhand: Harish Rawat will be looking to continue the party's rule in the State whereas BJP is looking forward to pull an Assam in Uttarakhand. When compared to Rawat, BJP's Khanduri is also a popular choice among people for the CM post from the saffron party. BJP is also likely to cash in on prime minister Narendra Modi's image while campaigning for the party in the state. It would be interesting to see whether BSP or any of the independents will join forces with the other bigger parties to for the government. Issues that will dominate the polls: Demonetisation, development in the state, unemployment factor are some of the issues that will be discussed by parties while they campaign in the state. Another key issue likely to come up is the illegal mining in the state that has left the state being more prone to floods. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 15:07 [IST] Why Alanganallur is the hotbed of Jallikattu protests India oi-Anusha Hundreds gathered at Alanganallur in Madurai to protest against the ban on Jallikattu. The situation turned tense as the gathering went on to hold Jallikattu, resulting in a showdown with the police. For over four days now, Alanganallur has been seeing massive protests against PETA, the state and the Central government. For centuries, Alanganallur in Madurai has been the primary venue for Jallikattu. The town sees hundreds of visitors every year for this very event. Primarily an agrarian town, Alanganallur has turned into a battlefield of 'Tamil Pride' ever since the controversy on Jallikattu broke out. The Periyar sub-canal makes the land extremely fertile with yields all around the year. Rice, sugarcane, coconuts and plantains are grown in the town making it heavily agriculture-dependent. With agriculture comes the rearing of cattle.'Alanganallur Jallikattu Kalai', is directly equated to the best breed of bulls in Tamil Nadu. Bulls in Alanganallur are trained year after year for this very event. The largely agrarian town depends on Jallikattu to decide on the bulls that will help take forward the progeny. The strongest of the bulls are chosen to keep the breed alive. Bulls that were initially used for agriculture-related labour have very little to do with the advent of technology. The very job of these bulls is now limited to keeping the breed alive. For a state that has already lost its indigenous breeds of cattle, Jallikattu is looked at as the only way to save the indigenous cattle. Taking off from Alanganallur, nearby towns of Palamedu etc began organising Jallikattu events of their own. Slowly and steadily the sport made inroads into other districts of Tamil Nadu. The village deity temple in Alanganallur is where the event begins from every year. Prayers are offered at the temple following which the bulls are let into the sporting fray through the 'Vadivasal'. These gateways have been dismantled this time around by the police and a state government that is compelled to follow the Supreme Court's ban. With celebrities openly endorsing Jallikattu and inviting people to take part or be an audience to the event across the state has only made matters worse. While for the people of Tamil Nadu it is a way to reclaim 'Tamil Pride' that they had let go since 2014 when the sport was banned, for the state government it is a matter of avoiding being held in contempt of court. The seat of Jallikattu, Alanganallur, has turned into a battlefield in an attempt to reclaim a 'traditional sport'. OneIndia News Why Padanna in Kerala is known as the Islamic State hub India oi-Vicky Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16: Padanna a village in Kasargod, Kerala boasts of a high social development especially when it comes to women. Several successful careers were made here and many have high paying jobs in West Asia. All that has changed today and this village is now being referred to as a hub for Islamic State related activities. Out of the 21 persons suspected to have joined the IS, a majority are from Padanna and the people of this village are unable to come to terms with it. Have they really joined or are just missing, the residents of Padanna ask. The parents of these youth are distraught. When the news first broke out in July 2016, Hakeem whose son Hafeesudheen had gone missing said, "If he is with some extremist outfit, then I do not want to see even his dead body." The statement by Hakeem makes it clear that there is a great deal of anger in Padanna which is today referred to an IS hub. What changed in Padanna? Going by the investigation documents which are over 1,000 in number, one gets the impression that there were attempts being made for long to target the youth in this village. The radicalisation did not take place directly in this village. The youth who had a normal childhood, perfect education had left for Saudi Arabia in search of jobs. They may have been targeted there, investigators say. Many from the village spoke about a changed behaviour when these people came back on a holiday. Some of these youth, who had never visited a mosque had become regulars. They would spend a lot of time at the mosque. The manner in which they spoke had also changed. From the way they spoke, it had become evident that joining the IS was the only way to serve Islam. After they had left their homes they called their parents and told them that they were in the land of Islam. The residents of this village are hurt and say that for the wrong doing by a few Padanna today is labelled as an IS den. These boys were clearly radicalised and misguided. They had no monetary issues and neither was their upbringing bad. They grew up like any other normal child and to see them in this state today hurts, the residents of this village lament. On January 5 2016, the police raided several schools run by an Islamic preacher M M Akbar. Akbar was accused of having links with Indian nationals who had joined the IS. Investigators found that the schools run by Akbar was imparting education that was outside the curriculum. Text books which had radical content too had been seized by the police. The police feel that it is this brand of education that was being imparted which may have led to the radicalisation of several youth. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 8:00 [IST] Fact Check: Is this viral image from the Nepal plane wreckage 32 dead in Turkish cargo plane crash in Kyrgyzstan International oi-IANS By Ians English Bishkek, Jan 16 : At least 32 people were killed on Monday when a Turkish cargo plane crashed into a residential area close to the airport in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. The crash involved a Boeing 747 cargo plane, which plunged into a residential area close to the airport, destroying at least 15 houses, Efe news reported. At least eight people have also been injured and taken to hospitals in the capital, said Health Minister Talantbek Batyraliyev. Reports suggest that four pilots are also dead. The plane crashed while it was trying to land due to poor visibility. So far the bodies of a pilot and 15 villagers have been recovered. IANS A train decorated with characters of popular manga 'One Piece' departs at the JR Sendai Station on July 23, 2016 in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. (Photo : Getty Images/The Asahi Shimbun) Portgas D. Ace is taking Sanji's place in "One Piece," as confirmed by Shonen Jump. Shonen Jump is a weekly manga anthology in Japan where "One Piece" is serialized. In celebration of the manga's 20th anniversary, Shonen Jump plans on developing a narrative particularly focused on Ace. The Japanese publication noted that one of their big plans for "One Piece" involves the character, who is one of those closest to Luffy. Along with the announcement was the confirmation that the "One Piece" kabuki play would make its return on Oct. 6, Crunchyroll reported. Advertisement As of this writing, there is no word yet on what the spinoff story will include but this does not stop fans from being excited about seeing the return of Ace. There are speculations that the project will be adapted into a novel and approved of by "One Piece" creator Eiichiro Oda, so another item can be affixed to the lengthy list of the popular manga's canon content. In the manga, Portgas D. Ace, also known as "Fire Fist" or simply Ace, is the adopted older brother of Luffy. He helped raise Luffy, along with a blond-headed lad named Sabo. Being the 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, Ace is recognized for his fierce loyalty and hot temper and is his younger brother's role model when it comes to the seas. How Ace left the series has served as a chief catalyst for Luffy and his training, Comicbook reported. Before he died, Ace was hunted by the World Government and was sentenced to death just because he was the son of the most famous pirate in the series, Gol D. Roger. Unable to accept the fact that his brother would be executed, Luffy interfered and paved the way for the Battle of Marineford. Ultimately, Ace ended up sacrificing his own life to save Luffy from Akainu while he was helping him escape. In "One Piece," Ace's death inspired Luffy to train a lot more seriously to achieve his dream of becoming Pirate King. The character has also been referenced several times throughout the manga. Watch Ace's death here: Bangladesh: 26 awarded death penalty for Narayanganj killings International oi-PTI Dhaka, Jan 15: Twenty six people, including a former city councillor extradited from India, were on Monday sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court for brutal murders of seven persons in Narayanganj in 2014. Former Narayanganj councillor Nur Hossain and former Bangladesh Army Lt Col Tarek Sayeed are among the 26 persons given the death penalty for the 2014 Narayanganj multiple murders. Nine others have been given various terms in prison. The court of Narayanganj's district and sessions judge delivered the verdict in the murders of seven men, including Narayanganj city councillor Nazrul Islam and lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, who were abducted from Dhaka-Narayanganj link road in April 2014, bdnews reported. Their bodies were found floating in the Shitalakkhya River several days later. Hossain was extradited from India. He had fled the country to evade the trial. He is believed to be the mastermind of the murder of seven persons including a fellow councilor and a lawyer. West Bengal police arrested Hossain shortly after he fled the country. Border Security Force men handed Hossain over to Border Guard Bangladesh on November 12, 2015 after he was freed from a jail in West Bengal on a court order. Hossain allegedly bribed several officers of Rapid Action Battilion, which is mainly commanded by army officers on deputation, for carrying out the murders. Subsequent investigations disclosed that 23 RAB personnel, including a Lt Col and two navy officers, were involved in abduction and killing of the seven persons. The slain councillor's family claimed that Hossain had paid 60 million Taka to senior officers of the local RAB unit to carry out the murders. Both Islam and Hossain belonged to the ruling Awami League. After the investigation, which took almost a year, police pressed charges against Nur Hossain, three senior officers of the Narayanganj-based RAB battalion and 31 others. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 12:05 [IST] Donald Trump accuses Merkel of 'catastrophic mistake' over migrants International oi-PTI Berlin, Jan 16: Chancellor Angela Merkel made a "catastrophic mistake" in letting migrants flood into Germany, US President-elect Donald Trump has said in a newspaper interview. He blamed the refugee crisis for being the "straw that broke the camel's back" and triggered Britain's vote last year to leave the European Union. "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they come from," Trump said on Sunday in an interview with The Times of London and Germany's Bild, adding he had "great respect" for the chancellor. Some 890,000 migrants, many of them fleeing war in Syria, entered Germany in 2015 after Merkel opened her country's doors in response to massive pressure on countries along the so-called "Balkan route" into western Europe. The mass arrivals prompted an initial mass outpouring of support, but fear about the consequences has also driven anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany to between 10 and 15 per cent in polls. One MP deserted Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union this weekend over her refugee policy, as the Chancellor tees up a re-election bid later this year. Trump said that he would start out "trusting both" Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Let's see how long that lasts, may not last long at all," he went on. While he allowed that Merkel was a "fantastic leader," the Republican said that Germany had "got a clear impression" of the consequences of her policy from a deadly December 19 terrorist attack in Berlin in which a hijacked truck was used to mow down Christmas market patrons, killing 12. Berlin suspect Anis Amri, a Tunisian national, entered Europe via Italy in 2011 and served a four-year prison sentence there before allegedly carrying out the attack. Trump also argued that the mass arrivals in 2015 were "the final straw that broke the camel's back" in convincing British voters to back leaving the European Union in a June 24 referendum. Pro-Leave campaigners warned in the wake of the crisis that refugees would flood into the UK, producing a poster showing a crowd of Middle Eastern men under the words "Breaking Point". Britons were wise to choose to leave the 28-member union, Trump said, arguing that it was a "basically a vehicle for Germany." "Other countries will leave" the European Union in future, Trump prophesied. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 9:15 [IST] Gang war: Massacre in Brazil jail; 26 killed International oi-PTI Natal (Brazil), Jan 16: The latest in a string of brutal prison massacres involving suspected gang members in Brazil has killed 26 inmates, most of whom were beheaded, officials have said. The bloodbath erupted on Saturday night in the overcrowded Alcacuz prison in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. Similar violence at other jails in Brazil left around 100 inmates dead in early January. "Twenty-six deaths have been verified," the state's public safety manager, Caio Bezerra, told a news conference on Sunday. The authorities had earlier estimated around 30 were killed as they gathered bodies and body parts, he said. Security forces stormed the prison at dawn and restored order after 14 hours of violence, the local authorities said. Officials said members of two drug gangs clashed violently after coming out of different parts of the prison. One family member said the authorities did not seem to be doing everything they could -- even after she warned the prison director. "The (prison) director even said he could not do anything" when told an uprising was looming, said Adriana Feliz, the sister an inmate. "I told the director they were going to go in and kill everyone in Pavillion 4," she added. "So why didn't they do anything?" President Michel Temer said on Twitter that the federal government stood ready to provide "all assistance necessary." Separately, officials in the southern state of Parana said 28 prisoners escaped from a jail in the city of Curitiba after inmates blew up a wall and fired on police. At Alcacuz, security forces surrounded the prison but had to wait until first light on Sunday to storm the site with armoured vehicles, officials said. Prisoners had cut off the electricity and were said to have firearms. The prison, just outside the state capital Natal, was built for a maximum of 620 inmates, but currently houses 1,083, the state justice department said. The riot was thought to have been a clash between Brazil's biggest drug gang, the First Capital Command (PCC), and a group allied to its main rival Red Command, Brazilian media said. Experts say the violence is part of a war between drug gangs battling for control of one of the world's most important cocaine markets and trafficking routes. Violence in the first week of January left around 100 prisoners dead -- many of them active gang members, the authorities said. Many of the victims were beheaded, disembowelled or dismembered, officials said. The biggest bloodbath, in the northwestern city of Manaus, left about 60 inmates dead. It appeared to be an orchestrated mass killing targeting members of the PCC. Dozens of inmates are still missing. PTI Zardari to attend Trump's swearing in International oi-PTI Karachi, Jan 16: Pakistan's former President Asif Ali Zardari will attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the US on January 20, according to media reports. Zardari, co-chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), was invited to the January 20 ceremony by the US government which he accepted. He will leave for the US on January 17, the Daily Times reported. Zardari, who returned to Pakistan late last month after spending about 18 months in a self-imposed exile, would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include ex-Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders. It is also said that he would proceed to France from the US. His son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is expected to join him in the US on January 25 after the PPP's Lahore-Faisalabad rally, which is scheduled to be held on January 19. Besides US-Pakistan ties, issues related to Pakistan-India relations, Afghan policy and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will also come under discussion during one-on-one meetings with the US authorities, including the Congressmen and senators. Zardari, who is currently in Dubai, is expected to undergo a medical examination while in the US. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, January 16, 2017, 18:03 [IST] Euronews spoke to an expert at WHO Europe as COVID-19 and flu cases increase throughout the continent. euronews (in English) 04 Nov 2022 The residents of the terror-stricken city, including parents of those killed, have called on their North Sinai MPs to resign in protest Tens of residents of North Sinais Al-Arish City met Saturday demanded an independent investigation over the Egyptian interior ministrys killing of 10 people in a police raid, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported. On Friday, Egypt's interior ministry released a statement saying it had killed 10 terrorists in an apartment raid, who targeted and killed policemen in the governorate." The ministry said the 10 were involved in an attack last week on a security checkpoint that left eight policemen and one civilian dead. The statement included video footage of the 10 killed as well as their names. Representatives from the families of those killed -- including the El-Sawarka, Ayoub, and El Nekhlawy families -- who attended Saturday's meeting, said that some of those killed had previously been arrested and were being held in police custody, with their whereabouts unknown, at the time of the alleged raid, head of Al-Ahram bureau in North Sinai reported. The bodies of the 10 killed were transferred to Ismailias public hospital for further examination and DNA tests as the ministry of interior said four of the bodies had yet to be identified. Family members of the deceased who met on Saturday have demanded access to the bodies of their relatives. Egypt has been waging a war over the past three years against an Islamist militant insurgency in North Sinai that has seen hundreds of security personnel as well as hundreds of terrorists killed. The Al-Arish residents have called for North Sinais parliamentary representatives to submit their resignations in protest. In an immediate reaction to the citizens statement, North Sinai MP Hossam Refaei El-Kashef wrote in a post on his Facebook account that he would be willing to resign. However, El-Kashef asked the residents to allow him time to reach out to officials, in order to learn more about Friday's incident so that he could better represent his constituents in parliament. He added that a series of meetings between officials and Sinai constituents scheduled for Sunday have been cancelled, in respect for the residents' demands. The interior ministry has not yet officially commented, however local media quoted "unnamed sources in the ministry" denying all accusations. North Sinai has been under a state of emergency since August 2013 a curfew imposed on Al-Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and other parts of North Sinai. Search Keywords: Short link: The visit by Belaruss President Alexander Lukashenko to Cairo celebrates 25 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries Egypt and Belarus agreed to boost cooperation in the spheres of security, trade, cultural exchange and defence, according to a joint declaration signed between Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during the latter's visit to Cairo on Sunday. During a press conference for the two leaders, Lukashenko invited his Egyptian counterpart to visit Belarus at the soonest possible opportunity, stressing that the amount of mutual agreements signed between the two countries reflect a mutual desire to enhance future cooperation. Lukashenko affirmed his country's support for Egypt's international policies, aiming to impose security and stability in the region. The heads of states also noted that terrorism and extremism represent an imminent threat to regional and international security and stability, confirming the need to step up cooperation in the fight against terrorist organisations. President Lukashenko arrived in Cairo on a two-day visit on Sunday to meet his Egyptian counterpart President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for bilateral talks. President Lukashenko is accompanied by a trade delegation representing 40 major Belarusian companies, aiming to look into investment opportunities in Egypt. The Belarusian president is also scheduled to meet with Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and other state officials. Lukashenko will also take part in the opening of the Belarusian-Egyptian business forum that will coincide with his visit. Search Keywords: Short link: Essex Chronicle 12 Oct 2022 After the killing, McCarthy fled to Ireland and was arrested almost eight months later under a European arrest warrant Belfast is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom and the second-largest in Ireland. It had a population of 345,418 in 2021. Cover Video STUDIO 13 Oct 2020 A wrist-cuff worn by the last man on the moon is up for auction. On Dec. 14, 1972, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan delivered some.. Rumble 18 Jan 2022 What better way to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day than to visit a school that not only bears his name, but whos curriculum.. DNA 22 Aug 2022 AAP and BJP have been embroiled in a political tussle in the midst of the Rohingya Muslim housing row in Delhi. For the first time since 2009, the 400 richest people in America lost money this year as a group, according to Forbes magazine. Rumble 30 Sep 2022 GlobeNewswire 07 Oct 2022 Increase in use of LED displays for video wall, TVs, and digital signage applications, surge in internet penetration, rise in.. Egypts High Administrative Court upheld on Monday a June decision by an administrative court that affirmed Egyptian sovereignty over the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, rejecting a government appeal against the lower court ruling. Today's High Administrative Court's ruling cannot be appealed. The government had asked the High Administrative Court to overturn the June decision which anulled an April 2016 maritime demarcation agreement between Cairo and Riyadh that would have placed the two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba under Saudi Arabian sovereignty. The judge who issued the ruling, Ahmed El-Shazly, said in his preamble that Egypts sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir is absolute; the government did not present a document that changes this fact. El-Shazly said that the "Egyptian army has never been an occupation force," in reference to previous arguments by government lawyers that suggested Egypt was securing the islands since the 1950s based on a request by the Saudi authorities. The court has issued a 59-page document explaining its reasons for the verdict, the judge added. After the ruling was announced, a series of chants broke inside the court session, with opponents of the deal singing the Egyptian national anthem. On Monday morning, police tightened security measures around the State Council in Dokki, Giza where the court session was held, blocking surrounding roads and allowing only lawyers and journalists with permits access to the proceedings. Tens of other people who attempted to attend the session to express solidarity with lawyers who filed the case against the deal were not allowed in. Since the June decision, the government has challenged the ruling before administrative courts, the court for urgent matters and the Supreme Constitutional Court. In late December, Egypt's State Lawsuits Authority the body which represents the government in legal cases won a lawsuit in front of a court for urgent matters to suspend the execution of the June decision. Earlier in November, an administrative court rejected the government's appeal to suspend the execution of the June ruling and accepted the defence's request to compel the state to execute the June verdict. The Supreme Constitutional Court has yet to announce whether it would hear a government case. In December, the cabinet approved the re-demarcation deal and sent it to the parliament for a vote. The parliament has not voted on the deal yet. The decision to transfer the two strategic islands at the southern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia has sparked widespread public outcry in the country including several protests. Dozens of protesters have been arrested and stood trial for demonstrating against the deal without permission; most have been released after paying hefty fines. Search Keywords: Short link: Rumble 09 Oct 2022 I captured some aerial photographs and video of the take-off during my trip from Istanbul to Abuja with Turkish Airlines on board a.. ACCORDING to Google Trends, which monitors Internet search requests, Papua New Guinea is ranked number one in the world as the country with the most searches of the word "porn" in the Google search engine.Behind PNG are African nations Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda and Nigeria. Fiji sits in ninth spot.Social media has also played a major role in the distribution of pornography for school-aged children, and adults who share and collect this illicit material.Chief Censor Steven Mala in a statement during the announcement of the internet filter last year said children with access to a smart phone were able to access these sites which were available freely on the internet."These sites are spoiling the mindsets of our young generations," said Mala.He confirmed that the Censorship Office was still trying to control whats coming through the internet.Mother of three, Jennifer Lau from Central Province, expressed anger at the Governments slackness in implementing cyber laws."We must put a stop to this now, PNG is a Christian country and such things as pornography is damaging for the young ones," said Mrs Lau."We have the laws already in place, we have to toughen up and start implementing the laws now before everything gets out of control," she added."Pornography is freely available on the internet and some people are making money from it in this country."Josh (not his real name) is your average Papua New Guinean youth. He enjoys sports, is employed and is very social but Josh also makes money by selling pirated pornography CDs."I started viewing porn in primary school when a classmate brought a stash of pictures belonging to his brother to school, it really opened my eyes then," said Josh."For me, its a way of earning an income. Dirty money for my beer, smoke and buai."I use my phone to download the movies, transfer them on to a laptop and then burn them on to a CD. This is then distributed to peddlers who sell them at K10 a pop," said Josh.He added that most of his CDs are sold by street vendors and because of constant raids by police, the CDs are sold at a cheap rate.Josh is well aware of the laws involved if caught with pornography but said he is "always careful not to be caught. I erase all material from my phone and laptop once I have burnt the CDs."He added that working class men of all age groups buy his products as they are cheap and accessible. Source: Post Courier THE Opposition has demanded explanation from Prime Minister, Peter ONeill, on the handling of millions of kina budgeted for security operations in the Hela province.The Opposition questioned why Chief Secretary to government, Issac Lupari is handling the funds over-looking established institutions mandated to handle such funds.Opposition Leader, Don Polye questioned why established institutions such as the police department and PNGDF which are in the forefront of the operations are not handling these funds.Millions of kina in tax payers money set aside for the operations must be handled by established institutions and not an individual, in this case, Issac Lupari, said Mr Polye.Speaking from Goroko, Eastern Highlands Province, Polye said for purposes of transparency and accountability, the functions of handling these funds must be handed over to both the police and PNGDF administration.We have seen massive corruption within the government system involving millions of kina and we cannot trust an individual and few selected officers handling these funds, said the Opposition Leader.Polye said Prime Minister Peter ONeill and Lupari are continuously breaking the constitution, influencing and interfering with police and army operations in the Hela province.Both ONeill and Lupari must keep their sticky fingers away from this K11 million set aside for the security operations, said Polye.The Opposition leader accused both ONeill and Lupari of interfering with security operations in Hela.He described the Hela Operations as another smoke screen by Lupari and ONeill to make money for themselves.Polye said Opposition will not sit by and watch public funds being squandered.He said Opposition in its effort to fight corruption will raise this issue. Exodus from Australia Continues with 888poker Published January 16, 2017 by Ivan P 888poker withdraws from the Australian market in light of expected changes to the gambling regulation in the country. 888poker is ceasing its operation in Australia today. Australian players were sent email notifications, explaining their accounts will become suspended as of today, Monday, January 16. The move doesn't come as a surprise as it's been in the cards for a while now, ever since Australian officials announced their plans to change existing gaming laws, creating a hostile environment for foreign companies. Another gaming giant, Vera&John Casino, was the first to bid farewell to their players Down Under late last year, and more exits are expected to come shortly. Playing It Safe After Australia had announced they'd be introducing amendments to the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001, many online gambling companies realized that exiting the market is their best strategy for the time being. All businesses without proper Australian licenses accepting wagers from country's residents will be subject to severe fines, up to AU$6.75 million. Additionally, executives of the said companies could face prospects of being arrested upon entering the territory of Australia. Who's Next? It is expected more companies will follow the suite, leaving Australia until they've had time to reconsider their strategies. One of these is Amaya, the gaming giant behind the best-known online poker brand PokerStars. Although Amaya hinted at the possibility of leaving the market soon, given the fact Australia accounts for a significant percentage of total players on the site (around 2.5%), the company will probably stick around for as long as possible before pulling out just in time to avoid penalties. From Smirking Chimp It's devastating, and potentially lethal, when Americans can't afford life-saving drugs because their elected representatives are in thrall to Big Pharma. It's disappointing when Democrats offer implausible excuses for their votes, as Sen. Cory Booker and 12 other senators did this week. And it's downright outrageous when those same Democrats claim their votes were driven by drug safety concerns, since all 12 voted to lower drug safety standards when they supported the 21st Century Cures Act. If Booker and the others hadn't broken with their party and ignored the needs of the American people, a budget amendment from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar would have paved the way for the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, where they cost far less than they do in the United States. This was a rare opportunity for bipartisan progress. Twelve Republicans broke with their party to support the amendment. If these Democrats hadn't moved the other way, it would have passed. Their betrayal crushed one of the few remaining rays of hope for the millions of Americans whose health and financial security are endangered by the new Republican Congress. Booker attempted to defend his vote in a statement to Jezebel's Ellie Schechet in which he said: "Any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn't meet this test." Nonsense. Canadian testing is as strong as its American equivalent, and most Canadian drugs are manufactured in the same locations as their U.S. counterparts. And note the use of the word "foreign." It seems designed to trigger xenophobic fears, and to hide the fact that drugs would only have been imported from one country: Canada. What's more, the Sanders/Klobuchar amendment was only a first step, so there was plenty of time to address any lingering concerns. Sen. Klobuchar has already co-sponsored a bill with Sen. John McCain called the "Safe and Affordable Drugs From Canada Act" that specifies how the process could work safely and efficiently. But here's the big question: If Booker and the other Democrats are so concerned about drug safety, why did they vote for the 21st Century Cures Act? Sold as a path to innovation, the bill was actually a massive giveaway to drug companies that wanted an end-run around safety regulations. It came with promises to spend more on public health needs, but those promises were designed to be easily broken. As Public Citizen noted, the bill's passage "comes at the expense of patient safety by undermining requirements for ensuring safe and effective medications and medical devices." Every vote in favor of the 21st Century Cures Act was misguided. But it takes a special kind of hypocrisy to vote for a measure that demonstrably lowers safety standards, and then cite safety as a reason for voting against the Sanders/Klobuchar amendment, which doesn't. There's only one way to explain these seemingly inconsistent votes: They both benefit Big Pharma. Schechet reports that, perhaps not coincidentally, the Democrats who voted against the Sanders/Klobuchar amendment included some of biggest recipients of pharma cash on their side of the aisle. Booker tops that list with $267,338. Sen. Patty Murray was close behind with $254,649, while Robert Casey received $250,730 and Michael Bennet netted $222,000. Booker deserves special attention, since he appears to be positioning himself for a 2020 presidential run. Booker received nearly two million dollars from Wall Street for his 2014 Senate race. The financial industry also heavily backed his Newark mayoral campaign, and he has received large sums from law firms and real estate. When Barack Obama took a rhetorical jab against opponent Mitt Romney's investment firm, Booker rabbit-punched him from the right by calling his remarks "nauseating." "Stop attacking private equity," Booker added. 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 Paul Craig Roberts Website If Trump intends to survive, he must break the CIA into a thousand pieces as President John F. Kennedy intended before the CIA assassinated him. Trump must arrest for treason the neoconservatives and put them on trial. Trump must curtail NSA's spying, which is in complete violation of the US Constitution, on all communications of all Americans. Trump's oath of office is to the Constitution, not to war on the American public. Trump must ban all presstitute print and TV media from White House press conferences and only give credentials to the alternative Internet media. The print and TV media are operatives of the CIA and are totally devoid of integrity. Indeed, perhaps the presstitutes should be arrested for treason and put on trial along with the neoconservatives and the CIA. If Trump fails to take these decisive actions, he is too weak to achieve any change. The McClatchy news service is the only element in the mainstream media that sometimes reports honestly. Below is a McClatchy report that a Russian tech expert, whose name was used to give credibility to the notorious fake news dossier, says the dossier is a fake report. "A Russian tech expert whose name and company are mentioned in the now-notorious document alleging connections between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian hackers says no intelligence officers have ever contacted him about the accusations, which he says are false." January 11, 2016 Russian tech expert named in Trump report says US intelligence never contacted him By Kevin G. Hall And Tim Johnson McClatchy Washington Bureau A Russian venture capitalist and tech expert whose name and company are mentioned in the now-notorious document alleging connections between the Donald Trump campaign and Russian hackers says no intelligence officers have ever contacted him about the accusations, which he says are false. A report compiled by a former Western intelligence official as opposition research against Trump was made public Tuesday when BuzzFeed posted its 35 pages. The document included unsubstantiated claims of collusion between the Trump campaign team and the Kremlin. It also alleged that global tech firm XBT Holding, with operations in Dallas, was instrumental in the hack of leaked Democratic Party emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton and fellow Democrats. XBT, owner of Dallas-based enterprise-hosting company Webzilla, is run by a successful Russian tech startup expert, Aleksej Gubarev. In a phone interview from Cyprus, where he said he'd lived since 2002, Gubarev said he was surprised to see his name in the report. "I don't know why I was there," Gubarev said, adding that perhaps a competitor sought to discredit him. "I still don't understand the true reason for this report." The salacious innuendoes in the periodic reports about Trump's personal life dominated social media headlines. The mention of Webzilla and Gubarev was among the more specific allegations: that XBT and affiliates "had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership." Gubarev said he operated 75,000 servers across the globe and got real-time information if there had been hacking or illicit activity tied to his businesses. There is no evidence of that, he said, adding that no one has contacted him. "I have a physical office in Dallas. Nobody contacted me," said Gubarev, adding that 40 percent of his business is handled over the servers it runs in Dallas and the United States accounts for about 27 percent of his global business. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). FULL SPEECH: This is Justin Trudeau's first address to the United Nations General Assembly as Canada seeks to be given a seat on the Security Council. To read more: cbc.ca/1.3759656 [Trudeau is an excellent example of a leader developing trust between a population and a government responsive to their wants and needs. This is what Machiavelli would consider forming a "gratitude" relationship between the government and the people. This speech is from September 20, 2016, but is timeless in the sense of exemplifying what Machiavelli meant by Trusting, as compared to the rest of the world's leaders. The better to discuss this I premise that the vice of ingratitude* arises either from avarice or from suspicion." Discourse 29 *ingratitude means lack of trust A summary of Discourses 28 -- 32 If a government has been able to maintain the liberties for its population, the people and the government tend to trust and appreciate each other. The two basic reasons for a lack of trust between governments and populations are avarice on the part of the leaders and the suspicion of wrong-doing by the government or the population. There is no excuse for avarice since it is without redeeming aspects for the general good and destroys trust. Lack of trust in the government or population is excusable when there is a well founded suspicion of wrong-doing. Whenever there is a failure in trust, the government must maintain sufficient power to keep the civil order. The collapse of trust by either the population or the government can lead to tyranny or anarchy. A prince can not allow a citizen to acquire greater power with the population than the prince. Therefore the prince, instead of being grateful for the citizen's good works, must demean or destroy that individual. However, when there are so many leaders working for the good of the state that none stands out strongly, there is no threat to the government. They all should be honored for their accomplishments but not punished for their failures lest that discourage others from taking necessary risks. Where a failure is caused by ego enhancement, the failure should not be punished but the leaders held responsible for their failures. The popular support of a government in times of difficulty is dependent upon how the government has treated the population during good times. When there is a history of the government supporting the people, the people will trust and support the government. In cases where a strongman has risen from the population to take away those liberties, even after liberties have been restored, the government will not trust the population to maintain order. Contemporary Reflections: Machiavelli believed that a lack of trust in the government is excusable while the corruption of avarice is not excusable. The population of the United States is starting to recognize the corruption of the government through avarice and trust has waned. Gratitude, as a concept, is disappearing in today's social context, often there is a dollar value attached to "gratitude." We give a gratuity to reimburse a speaker for the costs of coming to speak and are expected to show our gratitude for bribes received. In individual relations "thank yous" are becoming less common. The social focus over the years has changed and where Machiavelli uses the word "ingratitude," often it will be better to think of it as "a lack of trust." Distrust in national governments has been spreading throughout Europe and the United States during the twenty-first Century. Its underlying cause is corporate and personal avarice with the related corporate and individual accumulation of wealth. Wealth and power are concentrating in corporations that are "too large to fail." The top five percent of the world's population holds well over half the world's wealth and U.S. corporations control fifty percent of the world's wealth. This has produced a suspicion of wrong-doing in the European and U. S. populations. 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). Santa Fe Mayor on sanctuary cities on The Kelly File Mayor Javier Gonzales spoke at a town hall meeting two days ago concerning his idea to develop preschool and Kindergarten programs in Santa Fe with his idea to levy a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on beverages containing sugar, a way of solving deep sociological and economic woes when funding from the state of New Mexico is dwindling. Mayor Gonzales stated that pre-K educators have been "screaming at the top of their lungs that if we want to find a game-changing policy that will truly assure every child has access to the American Dream, you invest in them at their earliest years." The backing for pre-K must involve visits with new parents in their homes, decent child care, etc. He pointed out that most of a child's brain development begins for the age of 5. Gonzales informed about thirty early childhood education activists and workers and activists that this plan could bring in almost $8 million a year to support programs for 1,000 children, all dependent on City Council approval for a special March election and then subsequent voter acceptance. The speech this weekend was the kickoff in a series of public discussions to coalesce and build upon the present public support. At the state level, funding bills never were passed and devolved into ugly partisan skirmishing with lofty bloviating speeches, and bills being trashed in fatuous glutinous committee meetings with grandiloquent grandstanding under the worshipful gazes of the corporate lobbyists. Having watched for almost all of the fifty years that his author has lived in New Mexico while hundreds of millions of dollars are thrown at public education, with little improvement to speak of and with New Mexico firmly and seeming permanently located in the bottom 5 states in the US for Education, I genuinely welcome Javier's efforts. He told the activists and educations that this commitment must start before the child is born, and must include for expectant mothers decent prenatal health care. No new buildings would need to be built, and the Mayor envisions just expanding existing programs, including 200 new jobs at the Santa Fe Public Schools, United Way of Santa Fe County, and others. The $8 million that the sugar tax would raise would be administered by a brand new early childhood commission, with Santa Fe Community College overseeing these newly focused projects. How refreshing as we look at federal level plans that are brewing to turn much public education over to charter schools and to private profit-making entities. Gonzales used statistics that show that a majority of New Mexico children are not progressing in reading and therefore have been unable to meet third grade reading expectations. He did, however, make sure that all present understood that he opposed New Mexico's Governor's plan to retain 3rd graders who can't read at the expected grade level quality. However, I can see both of their points of view, and think such questions should be resolved on an individual basis. The Mayor said this: "We won't have to be talking about these social promotion policies that the governor keeps throwing out as a way to solve our education problems. The way to solve our education challenges in New Mexico is to divert public education dollars earliest in the development of our children." Republican Governor Susana Martinez in a recent email defended her administration and particularly her Secretary of Education, Hanna Skandera, stating that they "dramatically increased classroom spending, and more than tripled our investment and doubled the amount of students enrolled in pre-K." Skandera is being considered for some as yet unnamed position in Trump's Department of Education, which I think might be one of a very good ideas... The New Mexico Legislature interim committee on Education has carried out studies showing that only 1/3 of our state's eligible low income children are being served. 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). From Empire Burlesque I keep trying to get my head around the much-bruited notion that Trump and the Establishment (or the Deep State) are at war with one another. While lurid headlines might give that impression, in actual fact, Trump has appointed the most "Establishment" cabinet imaginable, pandering to every aspect of our elites' agendas. He's put an oil man in the State Department. He's put rabidly pro-war figures in charge of the Pentagon and national security. He's given control the economy and most domestic policy to that avatar of the Establishment, Goldman Sachs (at current count, six GS executives or alumni hold top spots in his inner circle). He's given control of the Energy Department to one of the energy corporations' most faithful courtesans. He's given control of the intelligence agencies to people who have long advocated draconian expansions of the agencies' powers. He's promised the techno-lords of Apple and Facebook and Google (and others) that they will reap billions upon billions of dollars in a "tax holiday" that will let them bring home the loot they've stashed in overseas tax havens. He's promised to vastly expand military spending, pleasing the all-powerful war profiteering lobby. He's promised to lift environmental restrictions on industry, pleasing the Koch Brothers to no end. Even the mainstream media -- much of which is ostensibly opposed to Trump -- knows it will go on reaping bumper profits from his fulminations, as they have done since the beginning of his campaign. The list goes on and on. I would like to see demonstrated in what way Trump is at war with -- or poses the slightest threat to -- the Establishment, the Deep State, the ruling class, or whatever you want to call the power structures on the commanding heights of American society. No doubt there are factions within the seething morass of the military-industrial-intelligence complex with various motives for undermining Trump; this is the case with every presidency now. (Recall how the Pentagon rolled Obama into a large "surge" in Afghanistan by pushing their agenda in public beforehand, forcing him to either go along or look "weak" in the first days of his presidency.) Some factions might be protecting their turf against the newcomers that any new president inevitably brings in; some factions might be trying to bring Trump to heel in case he might oppose or curtail their activities; some factions just might not like the cut of his jib; there are, as always, myriad reasons for factional infighting and rodent-rogering and sinister gamesmanship among the vast intelligence "community." But the idea that Trump, of all people -- and his appointees, of all people -- are going to somehow attack or damage or seek to undermine in any way the Establishment seems fairly ludicrous to me, given the actual appointments he has made and the actual policies he has consistently proposed. But as long as we all keep chasing every burp of his twitter feed or spit-spewing bluster of his public statements -- while treating every nocturnal emission of the intelligence factions as gospel truth -- we'll stay lost in the fog of this phony war ... even as our elites (Trump very much included) continue to devour the world and take us further into darkness, division, ruin and strife. Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121 "We need a more Open digital world -- that's good for business, the economy and the future of humanity. To get there is going to take "bottom-up" effort and Rob Kall's book is an exciting roadmap for how that can happen." Rufus Pollock, author of "The Open Revolution", Founder of Open Knowledge, and formerly Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge Quicklink Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them. To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here. 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. Reprinted from www.emptywheel.net I've been getting into multiple Twitter fights about the term "fake news" of late, a topic about which I feel strongly but which I don't have time to reargue over and over. So here are the reasons I find the term "fake news" to be counterproductive, even aside from the way Washington Post magnified it with the PropOrNot campaign amidst a series of badly reported articles on Russia that failed WaPo's own standards of "fake news." Most people who use the term "fake news" seem to be fetishizing something they call "news." By that, they usually mean the pursuit of "the truth" within an editor-and-reporter system of "professional" news reporting. Even in 2017, they treat that term "news" as if it escapes all biases, with some still endorsing the idea that "objectivity" is the best route to "truth," even in spite of the way "objectivity" has increasingly imposed a kind of both-sides false equivalence that the right has used to move the Overton window in recent years. I've got news (heh) for you America. What we call "news" is one temporally and geographically contingent genre of what gets packaged as "news." Much of the world doesn't produce the kind of news we do, and for good parts of our own history, we didn't either. Objectivity was invented as a marketing ploy. It is true that during a period of elite consensus, news that we treated as objective succeeded in creating a unifying national narrative of what most white people believed to be true, and that narrative was tremendously valuable to ensure the working of our democracy. But even there, "objectivity" had a way of enforcing centrism. It excluded most women and people of color and often excluded working class people. It excluded the "truth" of what the US did overseas. It thrived in a world of limited broadcast news outlets. In that sense, the golden age of objective news depended on a great deal of limits to the marketplace of ideas, largely chosen by the gatekeeping function of white male elitism. And, probably starting at the moment Walter Cronkite figured out the Vietnam War was a big myth, that elite narrative started developing cracks. front pages from Newspapers 1784, 1804, 1821-- they mainly reported shipping activity (Image by Rob Kall) Details DMCA But several things have disrupted what we fetishize as news since them. Importantly, news outlets started demanding major profits, which changed both the emphasis on reporting and the measure of success. Cable news, starting especially with Fox but definitely extending to MSNBC, aspired to achieve buzz, and even explicitly political outcomes, bringing US news much closer to what a lot of advanced democracies have -- politicized news. And all that's before 2002, what I regard as a key year in this history. Not only was traditional news struggling in the face of heightened profit expectations even as the Internet undercut the press' traditional revenue model. But at a time of crisis in the financial model of the "news," the press catastrophically blew the Iraq War, and did so at a time when people like me were able to write "news" outside of the strictures of the reporter-and-editor arrangement. I actually think, in an earlier era, the government would have been able to get away with its Iraq War lies, because there wouldn't be outlets documenting the errors, and there wouldn't have been ready alternatives to a model that proved susceptible to manipulation. There might eventually have been a Cronkite moment in the Iraq War, too, but it would have been about the conduct of the war, not also about the gaming of the "news" process to create the war. But because there was competition, we saw the Iraq War as a journalistic failure when we didn't see earlier journalistic complicity in American foreign policy as such. Since then, of course, the underlying market has continued to change. Optimistically, new outlets have arisen. Some of them -- perhaps most notably HuffPo and BuzzFeed and Gawker before Peter Thiel killed it -- have catered to the financial opportunities of the Internet, paying for real journalism in part with clickbait stories that draw traffic (which is just a different kind of subsidy than the family-owned project that traditional newspapers often relied on, and these outlets also rely on other subsidies). I'm pretty excited by some of the journalism BuzzFeed is doing right now, but it's worth reflecting their very name nods to clickbait. More importantly, the "center" of our national -- indeed, global -- discourse shifted from elite reporter-and-editor newspapers to social media, and various companies -- almost entirely American -- came to occupy dominant positions in that economy. That comes with the good and the bad. It permits the formulation of broader networks; it permits crisis on the other side of the globe to become news over here, in some but not all spaces, it permits women and people of color to engage on an equal footing with people previously deemed the elite (though very urgent digital divide issues still leave billions outside this discussion). It allows our spooks to access information that Russia needs to hack to get with a few clicks of a button. It also means the former elite narrative has to compete with other bubbles, most of which are not healthy and many of which are downright destructive. It fosters abuse. But the really important thing is that the elite reporter-and-editor oligopoly was replaced with a marketplace driven by a perverse marriage of our human psychology and data manipulation (and often, secret algorithms). Even assuming net neutrality, most existing discourse exists in that marketplace. That reality has negative effects on everything, from financially strapped reporter-and-editor outlets increasingly chasing clicks to Macedonian teenagers inventing stories to make money to attention spans that no longer get trained for long reads and critical thinking. The other thing to remember about this historical narrative is that there have always been stories pretending to present the real world that were not in fact the real world. Always. Always always always. Indeed, there are academic arguments that our concept of "fiction" actually arises out of a necessary legal classification for what gets published in the newspaper. "Facts" were insults of the king you could go to prison for. "Fiction" was stories about kings that weren't true and therefore wouldn't get you prison time (obviously, really authoritarian regimes don't honor this distinction, which is an important lesson in their contingency). I have been told that fact/fiction moment didn't happen in all countries, and it happened at different times in different countries (roughly tied, in my opinion, to the moment when the government had to sustain legitimacy via the press). But even after that fact/fiction moment, you would always see factual stories intermingling with stuff so sensational that we would never regard it as true. But such sensational not-true stories definitely helped to sell newspapers. Most people don't know this because we generally learn a story via which our fetishized objective news is the end result of a process of earlier news, but news outlets -- at least in the absence of heavy state censorship -- have always been very heterogeneous. As many of you know, a big part of my dissertation covered actual fiction in newspapers. The Count of Monte-Cristo, for example, was published in France's then equivalent of the WSJ. It wasn't the only story about an all powerful figure with ties to Napoleon Bonaparte that delivered justice that appeared in newspapers of the day. Every newspaper offered competing versions, and those sold newspapers at a moment of increasing industrialization of the press in France. But even at a time when the "news" section of the newspaper presented largely curations of parliamentary debates, everything else ran the gamut from "fiction," to sensational stuff (often reporting on technology or colonies), to columns to advertisements pretending to be news. After 1848 and 1851, the literary establishment put out alarmed calls to discipline the literary sphere, which led to changes that made such narratives less accessible to the kind of people who might overthrow a king. That was the "fictional narrative" panic of the time, one justified by events of 1848. 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). From Smirking Chimp Senator Jeff Sessions speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC on October 7, 2011 (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr) (Image by (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)) Details DMCA Although Jeff Sessions' confirmation as attorney general of the United States by the GOP-controlled Senate is a foregone conclusion, it is still important to analyze his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Thus far, the hearing has shed a troubling light on his positions. In his responses to the senators' questions, Sessions loudly protested the idea that he has ever embraced racism, homophobia or sexism. Calling allegations of racism "incredibly painful," Sessions assured the senators, "I abhor the Klan and all it represents." However, that has not always been the case. He once joked that he thought the KKK was "OK until I found out that they smoked pot." Sessions' record speaks louder than his testimony. Sessions' Racism and Opposition to Voting Rights When Trump announced his nomination of Sessions for attorney general, David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted his support. Sessions is notorious for calling a Black attorney "boy" and prosecuting three civil rights organizers, including a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., for voter fraud in 1985. The bogus prosecution of the "Marion Three" was designed to discourage voting rights for poor and elderly people in several "black belt" Alabama counties. The three were acquitted by a jury after just three hours of deliberation. Their charges could have garnered them 100 years in prison. The Marion Three case and other examples of Sessions' racism figured prominently in the refusal of the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee to confirm Ronald Reagan's nomination of Sessions for federal district court judge in 1986. After Sessions testified Tuesday, The New York Times editorial board wrote: "[Sessions'] defense against charges of racism that caused the Senate to reject him for a federal judgeship in 1986 was largely to say it hurt his feelings to be called a racist, but his two decades in the Senate provide little hope that he has changed." During his testimony, Sessions admitted he had called the Voting Rights Act "intrusive." In 2013, after the Supreme Court issued a decision in Shelby County v. Holder, that struck down the section of the act that established a formula for preclearance of jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, Sessions called it "a good day for the South." NAACP president Cornell Brooks testified at Sessions' hearing that the Voting Rights Act "is regarded as the crown jewel of civil rights." Since the Shelby decision, Brooks added, "we've seen nothing less than a Machiavellian frenzy of voter disenfranchisement from one end of the country to the other." Brooks noted that violations of the act are litigated after they occur, citing the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that North Carolina had "targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision." Sessions is a strong supporter of voter ID laws that disenfranchise many otherwise eligible voters. When Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) asked, "Do you agree with Trump that millions of fraudulent votes were cast?" Sessions replied, "I do believe we regularly have fraud." But, as Franken correctly noted, "Bogus claims of voter fraud are routinely used to uphold voter suppression." As President Barack Obama said in his farewell address to the nation, "We should be making it easier, not harder, to vote." 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). Actors, in a word, act. They don't play themselves. They portray other people. Bryan Cranston is not really a dentist (Seinfeld) or a chemist who makes methamphetamine (Breaking Bad). Christina Hendricks is not really a con artist in space (Firefly) or the office manager of an advertising firm in the 1960s (Mad Men). They're actors. They act. Joseph Fiennes acts, too. He's not really Michael Jackson. He's just an actor who plays Michael Jackson in an episode of the British comedy show Urban Myths. That episode was pulled from play by Sky TV after much-publicized outrage (from, among others, the late pop star's family) over a white actor playing a black character. The cast of the Broadway musical Hamilton aren't really heroes of the American Revolution and founders of the United States. They're just a bunch of black actors playing a bunch of white characters. They've enjoyed popular success and critical acclaim for doing so. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is not like the dream of the man whose namesake holiday Americans celebrate on the third Monday of each January. That dream: "[T]hat my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." No one doubts that Fiennes is a master of his craft. He's performed as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He's won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. IMdb credits him with 37 film and television roles and single turns as director and producer. He's appeared on screens big and small as a Soviet commissar, a Catholic clergyman, Merlin, and of course as Shakespeare himself. But for some reason casting him as an African-American musician is beyond the pale. Michael Jackson's daughter tweets that she's "incredibly offended" and that it makes her "want to vomit." Jackson's nephew refers to the casting decision as "blatant disrespect." Fiennes isn't being judged on his acting skills, on whether or not he captures the essence of Michael Jackson's personality and successfully conveys that essence to viewers. He's being judged on the color of his skin, and the show's creators are being judged on their decision to ignore his skin color. Racism, by any other name (to butcher Juliet's line), is just as repugnant. Two face vase (Image by Edward L) Details DMCA All the people that have the hashtag "Not my president", are deluding themselves because guess what: he will your president because on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be sworn in as be the president of the United States. I know this pains many progresses but this is the deal we got. Now that we have a Republican house and Senate, and a Republican president, it's up to us and everyone with any common sense to watch these people and make sure they don't destroy what we have left of a Republic. I just want to illustrate that this election showed many people in the United States that they really don't have a choice of who runs for president. We have two parties in the United States that are totally off the rails. The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. Most people that read this article will probably agree with me. I'd like to talk about the nomination of Sen. Jeff sessions as Atty. Gen. of the United States. If this is an example of Donald Trump "draining the swamp" in Washington, it is also something that I can't get my head around. This is in the right wing or left wing debate, this isn't about conservatism or liberalism,this is about right and wrong. This is man couldn't even get a federal judgeship back in the 1980's. This is a man who has stood against almost everything in the American Constitution. He is repeatedly called the NAACP a communist organization. He said he was for the Ku Klux Klan until he found out they smoke pot. This is a man who will do more to harm to American democracy than anyone could possibly imagine. The head of the NAACP said this was never about left or right this is about authoritarianism versus freedom and I completely agree with them. We must stand up as a people and tell our elected representatives that we will not accept or condone a nominee like Sen. Jeff sessions as Atty. Gen. If you think that writing your Congressman or your Sen. will not do any good look what happened when the Republicans tried to gut the Senate Ethics Committee last week, and the American people sent a flood of letters to the Congressman telling them to back off. You know what? They backed off. These are people who face election every two years and they can be manipulated by the American people which is the way our democracy is supposed to work. The same thing can be done against hare-brained and irresponsible nominations of people against the very agencies that are called on to head. I'm talking about the EPA and HUD and the Department of Education. If you look at the nominees closely you will see that they are against the very agencies there called on to represent. If this is draining the swamp the maybe we a should just let the water stand. You don't fix your democracy by destroying it. Democrats and Republicans are both at fault and they have been for years. The appointment of Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee almost destroyed the Democratic Party. This is because of people who support the corporations run the Democratic Party and people noticed and will not put up with it anymore. Donald Trump didn't get elected because people like him. Donald Trump got elected because people hated Hillary Clinton more than him. This is a time of great change, and we need to understand that it is the people of the United States that called for great change. This doesn't mean that everybody who voted for Donald Trump is a right-wing fanatic and Donald Trump need to realize this too. Donald Trump need to understand that people in United States don't want authoritarian government they want a government that works for the people. This is not a left or right question or conservative or liberal question this is a question of whether or not the people of the United States are represented by the government. Now the Republicans love Wikileaks and Julianne Assange because he released all of the emails from the DNC to the public, ruining Hillary Clinton's chance of the presidency. In 2010 they hated Wikileaks, they hated Edward Snowden, and they called for imprisonment or execution. Now, there are the heroes of the Republicans and the Democrats who used to support whistle-blowers are now trying to put them in jail. Is this not something that is just incredible? Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Intel Network Graph (Image by George Eliason) Details DMCA In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016, about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this. The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch's claims, which are reflected in JAR-1620296, and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. It makes it easier when it's an old known version. Another interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine . How did Crowdstrike miss this when it's their business to know Later in this article, you'll meet and know a little more about the real "Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear." The bar for identification set by has never been able to get beyond words like probably, may be, could be, or should be in their attribution. The article is lengthy because the facts need to be in one place. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement? The December 29th JAR adds a flowchart that shows how a basic phishing hack is performed. It doesn't add anything substantial beyond that. Noticeably, they use both their designation APT 28 and APT 29 as well as the CrowdStrike labels of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear separately. This is important because information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early '90s that every private actor in the information game was radically political. The Hill.com article about Russia hacking the electric grid is a perfect example of why this intelligence is political and not taken seriously. If any proof of Russian involvement existed, the US would be at war. Under current laws of war, there would be no difference between an attack on the power grid or a missile strike. According to the Hill, "Private security firms provided more detailed forensic analysis, which the FBI and DHS said Thursday correlated with the IC's findings. "The Joint Analysis Report recognizes the excellent work undertaken by security companies and private-sector network owners and operators, and provides new indicators of compromise and malicious infrastructure identified during the course of investigations and incident response," read a statement. The report identifies two Russian intelligence groups already named by CrowdStrike and other private security firms. In an interview with Washington's blog, William Binney, the creator of the NSA global surveillance system, said, "I expected to see the IPs or other signatures of APT's 28/29 [the entities which the U.S. claims hacked the Democratic emails] and where they were located and how/when the data got transferred to them from DNC/HRC [i.e., Hillary Rodham Clinton]/etc. They seem to have been following APT 28/29 since at least 2015, so, where are they?" According to the latest Washington Post story, CrowdStrike's CTO tied a group his company dubbed "Fancy Bear" to targeting Ukrainian artillery positions in Debaltsevo as well as across the Ukrainian civil war front for the past 2 years. Alperovitch states in many articles the Ukrainians were using an Android app to target the self-proclaimed Republics' positions and that hacking this app was what gave targeting data to the armies in Donbass instead. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Development Systems Debuggers Market 2016 Global Trend and 2020 Forecast Research Report http://orbisresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/175994 http://orbisresearch.com/reports/index/global-development-systems-debuggers-market-research-report-and-forecast-to-2016-2020 http://www.orbisresearch.com/contact/purchase/175994 https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbis-research https://twitter.com/orbisresearch 2016 Global Development Systems Debuggers Industry Report is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions of the Development Systems Debuggers industry, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia) and the main countries (United States, Germany, Japan and China).Request a Sample of this Report @The report firstly introduced the Development Systems Debuggers 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.Browse the Full Report @The report includes six parts, dealing with : Basic information; The Asia Development Systems Debuggers industry; Tthe North American Development Systems Debuggers industry; The European Development Systems Debuggers industry; Market entry and investment feasibility; The report conclusion.Purchase a Copy of this Report @. For more information contact sales@orbisresearch.com .Some of the Points from Table of ContentsPart I Development Systems Debuggers Industry OverviewChapter One Development Systems Debuggers Industry Overview1.1 Development Systems Debuggers Definition1.2 Development Systems Debuggers Classification Analysis1.2.1 Development Systems Debuggers Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 Development Systems Debuggers Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 Development Systems Debuggers Application Analysis1.3.1 Development Systems Debuggers Main Application Analysis1.3.2 Development Systems Debuggers Main Application Share Analysis1.4 Development Systems Debuggers Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 Development Systems Debuggers Industry Development Overview1.5.1 Development Systems Debuggers Product History Development Overview1.5.1 Development Systems Debuggers Product Market Development Overview1.6 Development Systems Debuggers Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.1 Development Systems Debuggers Global Import Market Analysis1.6.2 Development Systems Debuggers Global Export Market Analysis1.6.3 Development Systems Debuggers Global Main Region Market Analysis1.6.4 Development Systems Debuggers Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.5 Development Systems Debuggers Global Market Development Trend AnalysisChapter Two Development Systems Debuggers Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend AnalysisFor any enquires before buying, connect with us @ enquiry@orbisresearch.com .About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter: Currency Trading with FX Brokers Australia Union Standard International Group Pty Ltd https://www.usgfx.com/ Those are the main things that you have to do. To be gruffly legitimate, nothing is even close to this level of simplicity and solace in the currency trading world. The comfort is the reason many individuals utilize a trading signal administration. Along these lines, on the off chance that you are prepared to run with this way, there are a few tips that can help you boost the utilization of the trading signal administration:The Manager of USGFX, says Before you can profit or hope to do any examination you should first acclimate yourself with the new environment. Learn as much as you can about the terms utilized as a part of the business and attempt to comprehend the fundamentals of how the market functions. You don't need to dive too deep similarly the length of you knows how things function. A great part of the data you need, can be discovered basically by utilizing Google and enter Forex glossary as the catchphrases or term. Likewise, you have to acclimate yourself with the trading stage that is generally utilized as a part of the Forex world. Meta Trader 4 (frequently contracted as MT4) is doubtlessly the most well known trading stage in Forex trading. Meta Trader 5 is as of now available yet the fundamental capacity is the same and MT5 is still not generally utilized contrasted with MT4. To acclimate yourself with MT4!It is basic that you utilize a similar value nourish that the Forex trading signal administration employments. Obviously the reason is on the grounds that there is no focal server firm that sustains FX brokers Australia with costs.This is additionally critical. There are three principle conveyance strategies utilized by Forex trading signal administrations: email, instant message (SMS) and fly up alarm by means of your trading stage. You can envision what will happen when you are not close to your PC or phone, isn't that so? Odds are you will miss a decent trading opportunity or two. Additionally, you should be careful on the off chance that you utilize a portable workstation or a note pad on the grounds that quite possibly your tablet will come up short on battery so ensure you plug the rope. A power outage is uncommon yet it is likewise great on the off chance that you have an UPS. Sound is likewise vital so you can hear any approaching email or instant message. Last however not the minimum is to try to screen the battery of your wireless or savvy phones.USGFX is an award-winning Australian forex broker allowing clients to trade forex, CFDs and commodities safely and securely online. It alsoprovides traders with the best market research, trading tools & signals and a structured educational program. USGFX is regulated by ASIC and is headquartered in Sydney.Union Standard International Group Pty Ltd (USGFX)Address: G03, 135 Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW, AustraliaZip: 2000public email id: joyce@usgfx.comPhone No. : +61 2 9251 1395Fax: +61 2 6147 7151Website: Electrical Market in Saudi Arabia to Exceed US$ 11 Billion by 2024 https://www.marketresearchengine.com/requestsample/electrical-market-saudi-arabia https://www.marketresearchengine.com/reportdetails/electrical-market-saudi-arabia https://www.marketresearchengine.com/ New York, January 16: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Electrical Market - Saudi Arabia Industry Analysis and Forecast by 2024The electrical market includes product to secure cables, to produce association points and low voltage product used in applications rated less than one kilovolt. The high level of construction activities in Saudi Arabia and growing consumer expenditure are projected to continue driving the Saudi Arabia electrical market. The Saudi Arabia electrical market is additionally expected to considerably gain from the rising energy demand within the Middle-east.How Big is the Saudi Arabia Electrical Market?The electrical market is expected to exceed more than US$ 11 Billion by 2024; Growing at a CAGR of more than 10% in the given forecast period.Download Free Sample Report:The electrical market is segmented on the lines of its solutions, electrical solutions by product, lighting solutions by technology, lighting solutions by application, lighting control systems market by application and regional. Based on solution segmentation it covers electrical solutions and lighting solutions.Under electrical solutions by product segmentation it covers metallic cable management systems, low voltage (LV) systems, wiring devices, lighting control systems and lightning protection systems.A metallic cable management system is further segmented into cable tray systems, cable conduit systems and raceway systems and others. Low voltage system contains LV switchgears, isolators, automatic transfer switch, LV panel boards and others. Wiring devices covers sockets & extension leads, connectors and switches. Lighting protection system covers lighting protection and earthing protection. Lighting protection system further segmented into conventional systems and non conventional systems. Earthing protection covers earthing systems, surge protection devices and others. Saudi Arabia lighting solutions by technology segmentation covers LED lighting and other lighting.Saudi Arabia lighting solutions by applications segmentation covers solar lighting, cinema and theater, lighting, area lighting, pool lighting, tunnel lighting, street lighting, hospital lighting, flood lighting, decorative lighting and commercial lighting. Saudi Arabia lighting control systems market by application covers commercial applications and residential applications. Commercial application is further segmented into hospitality applications and other commercial application. Hospitality applications cover home automation systems, sensor automation systems and wireless automation systems. Residential application covers home automation systems, sensor automation systems and wireless automation systems. Home automation system is further segmented into villas and others.The electrical marketis geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geographic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.Browse Full Report:This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for electrical and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2024.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for electrical.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Electrical Market for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Legrand S.A., ABB Ltd., Atkore International Holdings Ltd., Eaton Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Honeywell International, Inc., Panasonic Corporation, GE Co., Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SA, TE Connectivity Ltd., Johnson Controls, Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Emerson Electric Co., Wipro Limited, Al Fanar, Hesham El-Sewedy Ent, Hager, TECON, Lutron, Debbas, Leviton, Al-Abdulkarim Holdings Co., SESCO, Waha Electric Co., Electric House, K.S.C Limited, and Al Fozan.. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary,business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Electrical Market has been segmented as below:By Solutions Segment AnalysisElectrical solutionsLighting solutionsElectrical Solutions by Product Metallic Cable Management SystemsCable Tray SystemsCable Conduit SystemsRaceway SystemsOthers (Floor Ducts & Junction Boxes, etc.) Low Voltage (LV) SystemsLV SwitchgearsIsolatorsAutomatic Transfer Switch (ATS)LV Panel BoardsOthers (LV Components, etc.) Wiring DevicesSockets & Extension LeadsConnectorsSwitchesOthers (Electrical Accessories, etc.) Lighting Control Systems Lightning Protection Systemso Lightning ProtectionConventional SystemsNon-conventional Systems (ESE)o Earthing ProtectionEarthing SystemsSurge Protection DevicesOthers (UPS Systems, etc.)Saudi Arabia Lighting Solutions by TechnologyLED LightingOther LightingSaudi Arabia Lighting Solutions by ApplicationsSolar LightingCinema and Theater LightingArea LightingPool LightingTunnel LightingStreet LightingHospital LightingFlood LightingDecorative LightingCommercial LightingSaudi Arabia Lighting Control Systems Market by Application Commercial Applicationso Hospitality Applications (Including GRMS)Home Automation SystemsSensor Automation SystemsWireless Automation Systemso Other Commercial ApplicationsHome Automation SystemsSensor Automation SystemsWireless Automation Systems Residential Applicationso Home Automation SystemsVillasOtherso Sensor Automation Systemso Wireless Automation SystemsAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States Composites in Oil and Gas Market - Global Industry Analysis 2016 -2024 Composites in Oil and Gas Market http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=17315 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ The oil & gas industry needs to meet certain technical, technological, and economic requirements. This is especially observed in materials employed in construction, which are expected to withstand corrosion, fatigue, and weight. These factors contribute to increased risk and cost of offshore projects.Composites are used due to their unique properties, which make them suitable for demanding applications in the oil & gas industry. They have the advantage of being low in weight, which eliminates the need for large and exorbitant buoyancy tanks. Composites are inexpensive to install, extremely corrosion-resistant, and well-suited to increased operating pressures.Composites are made by matrix combination of different materials. The most commonly used composites are formed by combining epoxy, phenolic, or polymer (polyethylene, poly-vinyl-denefluoride, and polyamide) matrix with glass fibers, carbon fibers, or aramid fibers.GET PDF BROCHURE FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:Composites in Oil and Gas Market: ApplicationsGlass-fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites are used in piping systems for applications such as oil exploration, desalination, chemical plants, fire mains, dredging, and portable water. They enable the piping systems to withstand highly corrosive fluids at various temperatures, pressures, and in adverse weather and soil conditions.Composite grinds/gratings perform better than traditional, metallic grinds/gratings, due to their superior properties under harsh environments in the chemical process industry. They are preferred due to their ability to overcome limitations with respect to weight, corrosion resistance, durability, and lifecycle costs.Composite ladders are stronger than wood or aluminum and they do not rot, corrode, or absorb water.During the construction of a riser (a pipeline that connects the rig of water surface to the well bore at seabed), thermoplastic polymer matrix reinforced with glass or carbon fibers is used. This matrix is wound around its steel reinforcement, which drastically reduces its weight. In some cases, epoxy matrix reinforced with carbon fibers may be used.In the construction of pipe systems for fluid transport and storage tanks, fiberglass composites are used. They are formed by combining polymer matrix (generally, epoxy matrix and vinyl ester matrix) with glass fibers. Tubings are usually produced from GRE pipes or GRE pipes reinforced with carbon steel, which provide resistance to high pressure in down-hole applications.Composites in Oil and Gas Market: TrendsThere has been major advances in the fields of composite pipe work and fluid handling. Cost-cutting due to composites replacing steel piping in retrofit applications is a major driver for the market. Cost advantage can also be witnessed during the manufacturing process of risers, tubings, and storage and transport systems in offshore platforms when composites are used in place of expensive corrosion-resistant metals. Another important propellant for the market is amplified longevity of new, reliable, safe, and cost-effective construction, which can withstand severe conditions anticipated in an offshore environment.Composites in Oil and Gas Market: SegmentationIn terms of matrix materials, the composites in oil and gas market can be segmented into six segments: epoxy, phenolic, polymers, glass fibers, carbon fibers, and aramid fibers.Based on product type, the market has been divided into: glass reinforced plastic (GRP), glass reinforced epoxy resin (GRER), glass reinforced vinyl ester (GRVE), and reinforced thermoplastic (RTP).In terms of application, the market has been segmented into: piping systems, grinds/gratings, ladders, flexible tubes, composite risers, and caissons & pull tubes.Composites in Oil and Gas Market: Region-wise OutlookIn terms of volume, the U.S. and China are prominent consumers of composites. North America is likely to remain the key region owing to the rising number of natural gas infrastructure projects and growing awareness about advantages of composite materials in the region. The market in the region is expanding also due to the rise in demand for high-performance lightweight materials and new products developed using them.Composites in Oil and Gas Market: Key PlayersKey players operating in the composites in oil and gas market include Creative Composites Ltd., National Composites Center, Pipex Limited, and Solent Composite Systems Ltd., CIP Composites, Magnum Oil Tools, Forum Energy Technologies, GE Oil & Gas, and Magma Global Limited.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.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Russias food import ban and the implications for the global food economy https://www.reportsworldwide.com/report/russias-food-import-ban-and-the-implications-for-the-global-food-economy https://www.reportsworldwide.com/enquiry?report_id=2738 ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Russias food import ban and the implications for the global food economy to its growing collection of premium market research reports.This timely report examines all aspects of Russias move in early August 2014 to impose an embargo on imports of a wide variety of agri-food products from major western suppliers, notably the EU.It reviews what is at stake for both Russia and the EU, assessing whether, or to what extent, Europe can cope without its Russian exports, or whether Russia can get by without European agri-food products.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:As well as the immediate market implications, the report also takes a close look at the longer-term agri-political fall-out from the EU-Russian stand-off, and considers how Russias virtual full-stop on European imports is likely to affect the global geopolitics of foodTo Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com Membrane Separation Market Worth US$ 39.2 Bn by 2019 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/membrane-separation-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/2888 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/2888 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com the global membrane separation market was valued at USD 19.0 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2013 to 2019, to reach an estimated value of USD 39.2 billion in 2019.Mandatory government regulation and increasing demand for clean processed drinking water is propelling the water processing industry to provide the public with clean processed drinking water free of impurity. Providing growth opportunity for water treatment industry among which, Membrane separation technology is one of the most popular methods used for cleaning water. Mandatory adherence of certain environmental standards by the national government such as the Clean Water Act especially in areas with water scarcity have influenced the demand for better water treatment technology, including membrane separation technology. Shifting from chemical to physical treatments of water is also a major driver as chemical treatments are perceived as an environmentally unclean technology with associated disposal costs. Additional awareness of water scarcity has influenced the demand for water reuse in water stressed areas.Request to view table of content @Governments and municipal authorities are increasingly waking up to the effects of environmental degradation on the economy. Worldwide industrial expansion and growing population are propelling the demand for better water treatment technology, providing growth opportunity for the global market of membrane separation technology. Additionally, the oil and petroleum industry is well established in the gulf and European countries such as Italy and Germany which involve membrane separation technology for liquid separation. Expansion of such industry is expected to increase the overall demand for membrane separation technology. Membrane separation technology is bifurcated into four major processes, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. Microfiltration dominates the market with more than 35% global market share in 2012. Whereas water & wastewater dominates the end-user market with 36% global market shares in 2012. The global membrane separation market grew from USD 19.0 billion in 2010 to USD 21.2 billion in 2013.A sample of this report is available upon request @European membrane market (largest in 2013) is expected to reach USD 13.8 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 9.6%. In 2012 water & wastewater sector was the major end-user of membrane separation technology and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 11.1% during 2013-19. The membrane separation market is fragmented with several players in the market supplying membrane separation products to the end-users (water and wastewater, industrial and healthcare) in the market. Most of the companies produce different types of membrane products such as microfiltration, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis and sell them globally. Major companies operating globally and manufacturing all four products are Evoqua Water Technologies, Pall Corporation, Koch Membrane Systems Inc., Merck Millipore, Degremont SA, Dow Chemical Company, GEA Filtration, 3M Company, Nitto Denko Corporation and Veolia Environnement.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @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: Shavers Market Worth US$30 Bn by 2020, Globally http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/shavers-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4922 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/4922 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com On the basis of product type, the global shavers market is broadly segmented into electric and non-electric. Non-electric shavers account for the bulk of the demand for shavers globally. The non-electric shaver segment had a share of 73.6% in 2014, which is anticipated to increase to 79.9% by 2020.The global shavers market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 7.9% during the period 2015-2020 and reach a valuation of US$ 30 Bn by 2020, according to a new research titled, Global Market Study on Shavers: Latin America to Witness Highest Growth by 2020 by Persistence Market Research (PMR).Focus on personal grooming is one of the key drivers for the global shavers market. Emphasis on clean-shaven look among men in urban areas is creating demand for shaving products.The global shavers market is also fuelled by the increasing trend of body hair removal among women. Shaving is an economical method of removing body hair as compared to waxing. PMR estimates this trend to fuel the shavers market during the forecast period.One of the key restraints for the shavers market is the recent trend of sporting facial hair. Whether it is a moustache, stubble or full-grown beard, men are expressing themselves through their facial hair. PMR opines that this trend can adversely impact the prospects of the shavers market during the forecast period. Low adoption of shavers by women in developing countries can also pose challenges for the global shavers market.The non-electric shaver is further sub segmented into blades & accessories, safety razors, and cartridge razors. Blades & accessories dominated the non-electric shaver segment in 2014, and it is anticipated to remain the most dominant segment through 2020 as well. PMR estimates blades and accessories sub-segment to be worth US$ 10.8 Bn by 2020.Electric shavers accounted for a market share of 26.4% in 2014, however, due to the high cost of electric shavers, it is anticipated that this segment will lose some of its market share to non-electric segment.On the basis of end-users, the global shavers market is broadly segmented into male and female. Shaving products are predominantly used by males, and this segment was worth US$ 16.1 Bn in 2014. PMR estimates this segment to expand at a CAGR of 7.5% through 2020 and reach a valuation of US$ 24.6 Bn. The female segment, on the other hand, is projected to expand at a CAGR of 9.8%. This is due to the growing inclination among females towards shaving various body parts, such as legs and armpits.Latin America is anticipated to be the most lucrative region for the global shavers market in terms of compound annual growth rate. The shavers market in Latin America is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 17% through 2020 and reach a valuation of US$ 10.8 Bn. Latin Americas market share, which was around 22% in 2014, is anticipated to increase to 36.2% by 2020. Robust demand for shaving products from Brazil is driving the shavers market in Latin America.Europe is the most lucrative market for the global shavers market in terms of market value. The shavers market in Europe is anticipated to be worth US$ 8.1 Bn by 2020. Other key regions include North America and Asia Pacific.Request to view table of content @On the basis of distribution channel, the shavers market is segmented into supermarkets and hypermarkets, online retail, and others (drugstores, beauty specialists, and department stores). The others segment is the dominant distribution channel for shavers market and it accounted for 68.7% market share in 2014. Owing to the proliferation of smartphones and attractive offers, the online retail segment is anticipated to witness the fastest CAGR of 12.5%.A sample of this report is available upon request @The key players in the global shavers market include Panasonic Corporation, Conair Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., The Procter & Gamble Company, Energizer Holdings, Inc., Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc., Wahl Clipper Corporation, Super-Max Group, and SOCIETE BIC.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @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: Men's Underwear Market on track to US$ 11 Bn by 2020 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3465 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/underwear-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/3465 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com The men's underwear market is projected to account for US$ 8,420.8 Mn by the end of 2015 at a CAGR of 5.8% from 2015 to 2020, to reach US$ 11 Bn by 2020.There are generally two types of men's undergarments; one type covers the torso and the other covers the waist and legs. For undershirt, we include vest, sleeved vest and muscle vest. For briefs, we include regular briefs, trunk and boxer shorts. Long underwear is preferred to offer extra warmth to wearers during winters.Growing disposable income, preference for branded underwear that offer better fit and comfort are major factors fuelling demand for premium underwear, thereby driving the growth of the men's underwear market. However, a high degree of competition and unorganised market in developing countries are major factors hampering the growth of the overall men's underwear market. The men's underwear market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 5.8 % from 2015 to 2020, to reach US$ 11,167.6 Mn by 2020.A sample of this report is available upon request @By region, BRIC dominated the market with over 35% market share and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period. Europe was the second dominant region with 17.4% share in 2014. The men's underwear market in Europe and North America is expected to expand at CAGRs of 5.1% and 3.9% respectively during the forecast period. On the basis of age group, the market has been segmented into 1525, 2635, 3645, 4655 and 56 and above. The 3645 segment accounted for 24.2% share of the global men's underwear market in 2014 and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.8% over the forecast period. On the basis of distribution channel, the market has been segmented into online sales and offline sales, where offline sales are further sub-segmented into the mass merchant, speciality store, mono-brand store and others. The online sales segment accounted for 7.7% share of the global men's underwear market in 2014 and is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 12.8% over the forecast period. Mass merchant sub-segment accounted for a dominant market share of around 58.5% in 2014.Request to view table of content @Key market players covered in this report are Hanesbrands Inc., Philips-Van Heusen Corporation, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Jockey International Inc., American Eagle Outfitter Inc., Iconix Brand Group Inc., J.C. Penny Corporation, Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Major players in men's underwear market focus on enhancing their global and regional presence through acquisitions and mergers and operational expansion.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @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: Cellulose Paints Market Estimated to Grow Strongly by 2021 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4276 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4276 Cellulose paints are plant based coatings which carry the advantage of being painted in layers as compared to conventional distemper paints. Cellulose paints have a mixture of pigments which exhibit their aesthetics due to the ability of the pigments to show light refraction. These paints are easy to remove during the coating of another paint as its temporary in nature. It is not high in opacity or hiding power. Large scale corporations such as AkzoNobel N.V. are significantly involved in the production of cellulose paints through their product Bermocoll. These paints contain a range of non-ionic cellulose ethers which are use as water retaining agent, stabilizers, and thickeners for water based paints for decorative applications. During the production of these paints, cellulose reacts with various substituents such as ethyl, methyl and hydroxyethyl or hydrophobic groups, which is called etherification that makes Bermocoll water soluble in nature. Cellulose paints are regarded as active agents with polymeric surface and exhibit the ability to contribute to disperse the pigments by enhancing the flow during grinding. Cellulose paints are manufactured in a broad range of viscosities which enable consumers to choose the specific viscosity required for the application of the paint. In order to avoid the lump formation during addition of water to cellulose paints, manufacturers treat all the paint grades with a controlled amount of glyoxal.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global market for cellulose paints has been witnessing a significant increase on account of growth from its well established end user industries such as automotive, construction and industrial. Significant investments from certain large scale companies such as BASF SE, AkzoNobel, and Eastman Chemical Company among others to expand in quite a few countries of Asia-Pacific and Latin America have been witnessed. Demand for green coatings in these regions have still been in the development and are anticipated to have a huge potential in the near future. Moreover, focus on R&D activities for developing low VOC coatings industry coupled with product innovation has also contributed to the growth of the market. Asia Pacific currently dominates the global market for cellulose paints, with emerging economies such as China and India dominating the region. It was followed by North America where demand for these paints has been witnessing a noticeable increase with the presence of the large automotive industry in the region. Future market growth is expected to be from Asia Pacific as well owing to several new renovation and construction projects in South Asia, specifically in China thereby boosting the demand for cellulose paints.Growing demand for non-hazardous, low VOC green paints from various end-user industries are expected to boost the demand for cellulose paints over the next few years. In addition, growth of the automotive and construction industry has also been the current growth factors for cellulose paints. However, increasing use of other better performing green substrates such as powder coatings is expected to hamper the growth of the cellulose paints market. Focus on product innovations to manufacture non hazardous paints with low VOC content is expected to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market.Request to view Table of content @AkzoNobel N.V., BASF SE, Eastman Chemical Company, PPG Asian Paints, and The Dow Chemical Company are some of the key players present in the cellulose paints industry.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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Chloromethane Expected to Be Biggest Emerging Market by 2021 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4282 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4282 Chloromethane, also known as methyl chloride, HCC-40 or R-40 belongs to a group of organic compounds called haloalkanes. It is an extremely flammable colorless gas which is usually detected at toxic levels. Chloromethane is synthesized by boiling a mixture of sodium chloride, sulfuric acid and methanol. Significant amount of chloromethane is produced naturally in the oceans by the action of sunlight on chlorine and biomass in sea foam. It is majorly used in manufacturing silicone polymers, butyl rubber and in petroleum refining. Chloromethane was initially used as a refrigerant, but was discontinued on account of its flammability and toxicity. Due to its substantial toxic effects, it is no longer used in consumer products. Different types of chloromethanes such as methyl chloride, methylene chloride, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride are produced in the industry. Methyl chloride is the largest segment and is also the most important type of chloromethane, largely used in medical and pharmaceutical industries. In terms of application, the silicone industry is expected to witness the fastest growing application segment over the forecast period due to the rising demand from medical and personal care industries. Moreover, growing household incomes, rising living standards and an ever-expanding middle class in Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW) are contributing to the boost in demand for high quality products containing silicone. China has been the most attractive market in Asia Pacific for chloromethane with a significant potential for massive growth in certain end-user industries such as automotives and pharmaceuticals.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global market for chloromethane is expected to witness a moderate growth with leading manufacturers such as AkzoNobel N.V. and The Dow Chemical Company implementing strategies to balance the demand-supply issues. Various regulations supporting the production of chloromethane across different regions, as well as new application development across the vertical industries are expected to be important growth factors in the chloromethane market. Asia Pacific accounts for the largest market for chloromethane on account of minimal regulations and rising industrial activities in end-user industries such as pharmaceuticals. In addition, significant population demand and improving infrastructure are also expected to contribute towards the growth of the market. Various emerging and developed economies such as China, India and Japan are anticipated to witness significant growth on account of high-growth potential for chemical intermediates, foam blowing agents and pharmaceuticals. The market for chloromethane in other regions such as Europe is highly regulated owing to growing environmental concerns related to industrial toxic gas emissions.Growing demand for chloromethane from the silicone industry in various applications such as transportation, automotive, medical and personal care is expected to be one of the major drivers for the chloromethane market. Strong performance attributes of silicone has enabled its application across a host of industries thereby contributing towards the growth of chloromethane market. However, growing health concerns regarding the hazardous use of chloromethane owing to its toxicity and flammability is expected to slow down the growth of the market. Focus on research and development (R&D) activities towards developing innovative techniques used for the production of chloromethanes are expected to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market.Request to view Table of content @Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar, Akzonobel N.V., Ercros S.A, Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd., INEOS Group, Kem One, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd., Solvay, SRF Ltd., The Dow Chemical Company and Tokuyama Corporation are some of the key players present in the industry.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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Global Diabetic Gastroparesis Treatment Market Worth US$ 3,769.3 Mn by 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10082 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/diabetic-gastroparesis-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/10082 According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Diabetic Gastroparesis Treatment Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016 2024, revenue from the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market is projected to register a CAGR of 4.1% during the forecast period (20162024). Diabetic gastroparesis is the symptom of delayed gastric emptying affecting patients suffering from Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes. The disease primarily has no cure but its symptoms are treatable via various types of drugs and devices. The global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market was valued at US$ 2,650 Mn in 2015, which is expected to increase to US$ 3,769.3 Mn by 2024. The report analyzes the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market in terms of market value on the basis of product type, disease indication, and distribution channel; and provides information regarding regional market dynamics, regulations, current trends, market estimations, and forecast.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Rising prevalence of Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes with high unmet medical needs, growing demand for minimally invasive treatment for refractory gastroparesis, and availability of reimbursement for in-patient hospital stays are driving growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market. Increasing use of diabetic gastroparesis drugs to control symptoms such as nausea and vomiting is anticipated to fuel growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market over the forecast period. However, usage of non-prescription drugs to control the symptoms restricts diagnosis of stage 1 and stage 2 gastroparesis. Lack of clinical evidence on improvement offered by prescription drugs and termination of clinical trials are factors expected to hamper growth of the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market over the forecast period.The global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market has been segmented on the basis of product type into drugs and surgical treatment products; on the basis of disease indication into compensated gastroparesis and gastric failure; and on the basis of distribution channel into hospital pharmacies, private clinics, drug stores, retail pharmacies, and e-commerce. Among product types, the drugs segment dominated the market with maximum revenue share of 66% in 2015 followed by the surgical treatment product segment with 34% share. Enhanced development of novel products such as the domperidone drug for the treatment of gastric motility disorder are expected to fuel the growth of the drugs segment over the forecast period. The hospital pharmacies segment is estimated to account for the highest market revenue share of 48.0% in the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market by the end of 2016.The report covers the global diabetic gastroparesis treatment market across five key regions namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and Middle East & Africa (MEA). North America is expected to remain the dominant market throughout the forecast period, driven by rise in healthcare expenditure, increasing demand for metoclopramide agents in the management of diabetic gastroparesis disease, increasing research on antibodies and other innovative prokinetics drug delivery formats, and technological advancements. Revenue from the diabetic gastroparesis treatment market in North America is expected to register a CAGR of 4.4% over the forecast period. Asia Pacific is expected to remain the second-most lucrative market for diabetic gastroparesis treatment, with an estimated CAGR of 4.5% over the forecast period.Request to View Tables of Content @Some of the top companies profiled in the report are Janssen Global Services, LLC, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic, C. R. Bard, Inc., Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cardinal Health, Inc., Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Evoke Pharma, and Alfa Wassermann SPA. Leading market players are continuously introducing novel products to enhance their product portfolio, increase market share, and expand customer base.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated re-search, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Con-sumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs en-gagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Global Remote Patient Monitoring Device Market to Exceed US$ 1,502.9 Mn by 2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3287 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/remote-patient-monitoring-device-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/3287 According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Remote Patient Monitoring Device Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the global remote patient monitoring device market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.7% and is estimated to reach US$ 1,502.9 Mn by 2024, creating incremental opportunity of US$ 657.1 Mn between 2016 and 2024. Persistence Market Research analyzes the overall performance of the global remote patient monitoring device market and provides key insights on the factors and trends likely to influence the market during this eight-year period.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Rising prevalence of cardio vascular diseases, respiratory disorders, and diabetes in the general population are major factors driving the growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Increasing healthcare expenditure and increasing availability of effective treatment solutions for chronic diseases is also projected to boost revenue growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Other factors boosting market growth include an increasing awareness among people to self-monitor before disease advancement and government reimbursement issued on homecare settings facilities.Lack of trained professionals to help with remote patient monitoring devices is expected to hinder market growth of the global remote patient monitoring device market. Insufficiency in maintaining the privacy and security of the stored data, lack of uniformity in device functionality, and lack of general awareness on patient monitoring devices are the key restraints challenging the market.The global remote patient monitoring device market is segmented on the basis of Product Type (Cardiac Monitors, Respiratory Monitors, Hematological Monitors), Application (Cardiac Arrhythmia, Diabetes, Ischemic diseases, Hypertension, Sleep apnea, Chronic respiratory diseases, Hyperlipidemia), End User (Hospitals, Homecare Settings, Long-term Care Centers, Others), and Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, APEJ, and MEA).By product type, the cardiac monitors segment is expected to remain the largest segment and is anticipated to reach US$ 765.4 Mn by the end of 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.9% over the forecast period. By the end of 2024, the respiratory monitors segment is projected to reach US$ 435.0 Mn, expanding at a CAGR of 6.5% over the forecast period. By application, the cardiac arrhythmia segment is estimated to reach US$ 307.7 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.8% over the forecast period. The diabetes segment is projected to reach US$ 196.8 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 5.6% over the forecast period. By end user, the hospitals segment is anticipated to reach US$ 690.1 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.6% over the forecast period. The homecare settings segment is anticipated to reach US$ 347.3 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.2% over the forecast period.Among regions, North America is estimated to dominate the global remote patient monitoring device market with 31.4% revenue share of the overall market by the end of 2016. The Europe remote patient monitoring device market is anticipated to reach US$ 341.1 Mn by 2024. By 2024, North America and Europe markets are expected to account for over four-fifth share of the global remote patient monitoring device market revenue.Request to View Tables of Content @Some key companies covered in the report include Boston Scientific Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Abbott Laboratories, Nihon Kohden Corporation, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., LifeWatch AG, Medtronic, and St. Jude Medical. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their product portfolio through research and development initiatives and through the introduction of innovative technologies in order to gain higher market share and to strengthen their respective positions in the global market.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated re-search, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Con-sumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs en-gagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Chromium Phosphate Market Set for Expansive Growth Over Next 10 Years http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4284 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4284 Chromium phosphate is a polyatomic ionic compound which either receives or donates electrons. The compound is also termed as orthophosphate of phosphoric acid or chromium salt which is insoluble in water. Different raw materials are used for manufacturing chromium salt such as ammonium dichromate, ethanol, orthophosphoric acid, and chromium trioxide. On account of its benefits, they are used in certain applications such as production of paints for coatings applied in corrosion protection and architectural purposes, and medical applications among others.A sample of this report is available upon request @The market for medical applications has been been gaining market share where chromium phosphates are used for treating leukemia and difficulties arising due to ailments including rheumatoid arthritis and hemophilia. Factors such as increasing demand for architectural coatings are expected to majorly drive the chromium phosphate market. Chromium phosphate based coatings are used as a paint base for exterior applications and extrusions in doors and windows. Other factors such as the growth of the corrosion inhibitor industry are expected to provide growth to the market.Corrosion inhibitors have been witnessing significant adoption owing to their properties that avoid contamination, prevention of system shutdown and preserving cosmetic appearance. However, owing to growing demand for chromium phosphate in other applications, sourcing of raw materials has been a primary concern for the industry. Due to this, prices of raw materials are expected to hamper the profit margin of chromium phosphate manufactures. Increasing number of research and development (R&D) activities in the medical industry for chromium phosphate is expected to provide new opportunities for the growth of the market.Asia Pacific was the largest consumer for chromium phosphate and is expected to witness the fastest growth with the growing number of industrial activities for corrosion inhibitors and construction.Request to view Table of content @American Elements, Bayer AG, Brenntag AG, CHEMOS GmbH, Chemetall GmbH, Oxkem, Service Chemical Inc. and Sigma-Aldrich Corporation are some of the key manufacturers for chromium phosphate dominating the market.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Article 151 of constitution gives parliament the final say on the Red Sea island agreement, says Abu Shoqa, the head of parliament committee of legislation and constitutional affairs Head of the Egyptian parliament's committee of legislative and constitutional affairs Bahaaeddin Abu Shoqa told reporters Monday that he has no comment on today's High Administrative Court ruling, which upheld a June 2016 decision by an administrative court voiding the April 2016 maritime re-demarcation deal between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "However, we will deal with the agreement related to these two islands in accordance with the constitution and the law," said Abu Shoqa. The cabinet referred on 1 January the controversial agreement, which would place the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Gulf of Aqaba under Saudi soveirgnty, to parliament for voting. Abu Shoqa said "article 151 of the constitution states that the president of the republic represents the state in its foreign relations and signs deals which will be ratified only after being approved by the House of Representatives." This article, Abu Shoqa added, gives parliament the final say on the agreement. Reactions from other MPs differed. Alaa Abdel-Moneim, a leading member of the legislative and constitutional affairs committee, told reporters that parliament should respect final judicial rulings. "This is a final judicial ruling and it has clearly stated that the two islands are Egyptian; parliament should respect this," said Abdel-Moneim. Abdel-Moneim, however, said the government still has the right to appeal the ruling before the Supreme Constitutional Court. "They could resort to the Constitutional Court to decide whether article 151 of the constitution applies to this deal," said Abdel Moneim. Mohamed Abu Hamed, an independent MP, said that as long as the agreement is referred to parliament, it would be put to discussion. "Parliament has the final say on the maritime border demarcation deal between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in accordance with article 151 of the constitution," said Abu Hamed, adding that Saudi Arabia could resort to international arbitration to get a final resolution on whether the two islands of Tiran and Sanafir are Egyptian. In a statement to reporters, the pro-government parliamentary bloc "Support Egypt" said the ruling cannot change the fact that parliament has the sovereign right to decide on the border agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Head of the bloc Mohamed El-Sewedy told reporters that "while there should be a separation among powers, parliament still has the absolute right of giving a final say on foreign agreements signed by the president of the republic." Search Keywords: Short link: Trends in theHalal Pharmaceuticals Market 2016-2026 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1251 http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1251 www.futuremarketinsights.com Halal pharmaceuticals are those medicines that stringently adhere to Shariah law. More specifically, halal pharmaceuticals refer to medicines that should not contain any parts of animals (dogs, pigs and ones particularly with pointed teeth), insects (bees), alcohol and other substances prohibited as haram under the Shariah law. Competent religious local regulatory bodies in countries generally provide a better segregation regarding the classification of drugs as halal or haram (unlawful) across the world. Halal pharmaceuticals are subject to normal pre-marketing and post-marketing controls by the relevant national pharmaceutical regulators such as the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau in case of Malaysia. Halal medicines market has vast potential globally in terms of revenue generation supported by growing demand for faith-compliant medicines from an expanding Muslim population. Drugs approved by halal drug certifiying agencies such as Lembaga Pengkajian Pangan Obatobatan dan Kosmetika Majelis Ulama Indonesia (LPPOM MUI) of Indonesia and Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia are expected to witness rising consumption globally. Currently, halal medicines are estimated to have contributed close to one-third of the total revenue from the global halal market, posing an extremely attractive opportunity for Shariah compliant drugs. This is supported by the fact that demand outstrips supply of halal medicines by a significant margin, creating potential for future economic value added in the industry.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Drivers and RestraintsDrivers of the halal pharmaceuticals market include a growing Muslim population. Given that Muslims have been estimated to account for close to 25% of the global population in 2015~1.6 billion people (PewResearch) the annual growth rate of the Muslim population has been estimated to be ~1.6%, which is higher than the growth rate of the world population (1.1% per annum). Increasing awareness among Muslims regarding wellness and medicines is propagating mainly through increased education. This is another prime factor contributing to growth of the halal medicine market. Other socio-economic factors driving the need and uptake of halal medicines include rising purchasing power parity, increasing access to critical medicines in resource-constrained nations supported by public organizations such as World Health Organization, safety of consumption, assurance of product efficacy and hygienic processing among others. Increasing need to get medicines certified from an approved regulatory body is driving regulatory convergence in the halal medicines market among countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, Turkey, France and others.Request Free Report Sample@Key restraints include lack of adequate infrastructure in non-Islamic countries to avoid cross-contamination between halal and non-halal production lines, and lack of sufficient halal advisory and certification agencies to approve medical products. Other restraints include dearth of sufficient R&D for halal medicines globally and omission of critical medicine classes such as vaccines and biologics as they do not comply with Shariah norms. Ban on use of forbidden components such as porcine excipients also limit the number of drugs that can be produced. Industry experts have noted that formation of a proper, well-regulated and harmonized accreditation and halal management system could serve a long way in raising demand for halal medicines.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: SegmentationHalal pharmaceuticals market can be segmented as indicated below:Segmentation by drug classesRespiratory drugsCardiovascular drugsEndocrine drugsPain medicationsAllergies (cough &cold)OthersSegmentation by product typeTabletsSyrupsCapsulesOthersSegmentation by source materialPlant and plant derivativesAnimals (compliant under religious laws)Synthetic and semi-synthetic sourcesRecombinant DNASegmentation by regionsHalal Pharmaceuticals Market: OverviewUptake of Halal medicines is gaining major traction globally, primarily due to two reasons. Firstly, these medicines are fully compliant with faith and so are readily acceptable under religious laws. Secondly, these medicines are very well assessed for quality and certification before being released into the market and are mostly made using herbal and synthetic materials. The market for halal pharmaceuticals is expected to register a significant CAGR as well as annual growth rates over the forecast period. Regulatory harmonization and regional regulatory convergence is expected to emerge as the key market trends in the near future.Request For TOC@Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of geographic regions, halal drug market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa.In terms of geography, Asia Pacific region is the main region exhibiting development and uptake of halal medicines, particularly in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. However, R&D activities related to halal medicines are gaining traction in the European and North American regions. Discussion on formation of halal medicine certification agencies and guidelines are key features found in the traditionally pharmaceutically developed markets. Companies producing halal medicines are expected to enter Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Russia, France, Libya, Algeria and Singapore as well as the UAE to cater to the high demand base for better revenue generation, either through distributor route or via tie-ups with established players.Halal Pharmaceuticals Market: Key PlayersSome key accredited players in the halal medicine market include Chemical Company of Malaysia Berhad (CCM Pharmaceuticals Sdn Bhd), Pharmaniaga Bhd, Simpor Pharma Sdn Bhd, EMBIL Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Nutramedica Incorporated, etc. among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: Alternators Market (Voltage Range - Low Voltage (0 V - 1,000 V), Medium Voltage (1,000V - 4,160 V), and High Voltage (4,161V 15,000 V) - Outlook 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=6814 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Global Alternators Market: OverviewThis report provides strategic study of the global alternators market, and the growth forecast for the period 2016 to 2024. The scope of the report includes competitive analysis of various market segments based on voltage range, rotor type, application industry, and in-depth cross-sectional scrutiny of the alternators market across different geographical segments. Alternators are generators that convert mechanical energy or direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The growing application of alternators in automobiles, coupled with the growth of automotive sector, is primarily driving growth of the alternators market.Additionally, the growing demand for power, from both conventional and non-conventional sources, has been boosting the application of alternators in the power generation sector. This in turn is also steadily boosting growth of the global alternators market. Furthermore, the growth of telecommunication industry has been promoting the use of stand-by power equipment for telecommunication towers, which has again aided in increased application of alternators. Considering the positive impacts of the factors mentioned previously, the alternators market can be anticipated to grow steadily during the forecast period.For Technological breakthroughs, Value chain and stakeholder analysis Get Brochure:Global Alternators Market: SegmentationOn the basis of voltage range, the alternators market has been segmented into different voltage levels including low voltage (0V 1,000V), medium voltage (1,000V 4,160V) and high voltage (4,161V 15,000V). On the basis of rotor type, the global alternators market has been segmented into salient pole, smooth cylindrical and others. Others segment primarily covers claw pole type alternators, which is mostly used in the automotive sector. The market revenue for alternators has been provided in terms of USD million and market volume has been provided in terms of thousand units, along with the CAGR for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. Application industries covered under this report includes oil & gas, marine, power plant, stand-by power, mining and others. Others segment of application industry covers industries such as automotive, railways and manufacturing among others. Furthermore, each application industry segment also contains data by voltage range. The regional market analysis gives in-depth analysis of the current trends in different regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America and Middle-East & Africa (MEA).Global Alternators Market: Competitive LandscapeTo aid in strategic decision-making, the report also includes competitive profiling of leading players in the industry, overview, their market share, SWOT analysis, business segments, various business strategies adopted by them, and revenue. The SWOT analysis, provided for each of the companies profiled, discusses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for those companies, thus providing a better understanding of the major players in this market. The key trends analysis, provided in the report for each region, details the current trends of the alternators market for that region. The market attractiveness analysis, for each segment, and Porters five forces analysis included in the report provide insight into industry competition, market dynamics and the most profitable segments in the alternators market.Global Alternators Market: Drivers and TrendsThe report also provides breakdown and assessment of various factors impacting the global alternators market growth, which are suitably described as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. These factors determine various existing trends and their impact on market growth. Overall, taking into consideration the various factors affecting the alternators market, the report includes a holistic analysis of the global alternators market, and provides an estimate of growth for the forecast period 2016 to 2024.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: Digital Banking Market Expected to Grow at CAGR of 8% from 2016 to 2022: Industry Trends and Forecast Digital Banking Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1986 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/digital-banking-market Market HighlightsMarket Research Future published a Half Cooked Research Report on Digital Banking Market. The Global Digital Banking Market is majorly driven by factors such as easy access, convenience, fast and efficient operation among others.The Global Market of Digital Banking around the world is growing rapidly. The Digital Banking Market is expected to grow at CAGR of around 8% between years 2016 to 2022. High technology proliferation and support heavy investment by the companies operating in the technology service are helping in the development of efficient cashless system. Many banks around the world are adopting cashless policies for various areas such as payments, transfers among other things. Increasing use of internet and smartphones to do the banking transaction are result of digital banking which makes the task easy and more transparent.Digital Banking is also helping the banking system in the management of records, data and retrieval of them. One of the major trends in this field is adoption of cloud for the management of data and use of it. Going digital helps the banks to monitor the each and every customers details and records more easily. Communication with customers for any announcement and revive feedback have become easy because of digital banking.Request a Sample Copy of Report @Whereas factors such as need of technical knowledge, growing security proliferation in BFIS industry among others are some of the restraints which is expected to slow the growth of overall market.Key Players:The prominent players in the Digital Banking Market includes- Urban FT, Inc. (U.S.), Misys (U.K.), Kony, Inc. (U.S.), Backbase (Netherlands), Technisys (Subsidiary of FMC Technologies) (U.S), Infosys (Bangalore), Cachet Financial Solutions, Inc. (U.S), Innofis (Spain), Mobilearth (Canada), among otherThe other players operating in this market are- Nymbus, NLS Banking, IDEALINVENT Technologies, Capital Banking Solutions and among others.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 40 market data tables and 25 figures spread over 110 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Digital Banking Market Research Report- Forecast to 2022Access Report Details @Market Research Future Analysis:Market Research Future analysis shows that the global market of digital banking is estimated to grow at compound annual growth rate of ~8 % between forecast years. High adoption of cloud based services by the major banks around the world and increasing the number of internet and mobile phone consumers are playing role of major growth factor. In the regional market, North America is leading the market due to the high growth of on cloud adoption in banking and other BFSI industries. Also presence of technology and service providers in U.S. and Canada is giving competitive advantage to North America. Europe and Asia-Pacific digital banking market is expected to grow rapidly due to the green initiative by the government and owing to high number of smartphone users in this region.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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com Laser Processing Market -Witness High Demand during the forecast period http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3297 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Laser technology is used for different industrial processes including cutting, welding, drilling, marking and engraving. Laser processing market is expected to witness high demand during the forecast period owing to the wide applications of laser technology. Laser technology offers high speed and accurate industrial processes as compared to conventional industrial processing techniques. In addition, laser processing provides clean and a damage free operation as it is a non-contact process.This is one of the most important factors responsible for growing adoption of laser technology in manufacturing processes across the world. Rising demand for efficient material processing techniques in manufacturing industries is another driving factor for laser processing market. Additionally, miniaturization of electronics goods is another factor encouraging the adoption of laser technology for production of circuit boards, integrated circuits (ICs) and other electronics components. Laser technology is useful for processes such as cutting and marking in small dimensions.Request A Sample Of This ReportThus, laser technology plays an important role in marking process for small electronic components. Moreover, government regulations about clear and permanent marking on food and pharmaceutical products mandates the use of laser technology for marking processes. This may fuel the adoption of laser technology in marking during the forecast period. Growing industries in Asia Pacific region is another important factor driving the laser processing market in this region. Countries such as China, Japan and South Korea are expected to show strong growth in laser processing market during the forecast period. This is majorly due to the rising automobile and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) industries in these countries.The research study titled Laser Processing (By Process Material Processing, Marking and Engraving and Micro-processing) Market Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 2020 provides in-depth analysis of the market and related sub-segments. The report strategically focuses on market segments based on product types, processes and end-use industries and provides market insights and data about the size and growth of each segment. The report includes detailed analysis of the prevalent market trends and company profiles. To provide better understanding of the competition in market, the report also includes Porters five force model analysis, value chain analysis, and market attractiveness analysis. The study on the global laser processing market has been conducted with an objective of providing a thorough coverage of underlying technological and economic issues driving the laser processing market. The report provides market data and forecast for the laser product types, processes and end-use industry segments with an in-depth analysis of the global market, which has been further segmented on the basis of major geographical regions, from 2012 to 2020. The segmentation has been done to provide strategic insights for each category, enabling stakeholders across the value chain to gain considerable business intelligence.The report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of market data and trends in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW) for emerging laser processing instruments. In addition, the report identifies factors driving and restraining growth and future business opportunities in the laser processing systems market. The competitive landscape section in the report provides market share analysis of major players in the global market in 2012.Besides analyzing the global laser processing market segment-wise, the report includes profiles of major players along with their market positions, business strategies and various recent developments. Companies profiled in the report include Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG, Coherent Inc., Rofin-Sinar Technologies Inc., Newport Corporation, IPG Photonics Corporation, Universal Laser Inc., LaserStar Technologies Corporation, Eurolaser GmbH, Epilog Laser Inc., Hans Laser Technology Co. Ltd., Bystronic Laser AG, Prima Industrie S.p.A. and Jenoptik Laser GmbH.About TMRTMR is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: Silent Cancer Therapeutic Market Headed for Growth and Global Expansion By 2021 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4215 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4215 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com The global silent cancer therapeutic market is categorized based on type, and mode of treatment. Based on type, the report covers tumors, brain, mouth and larynx, esophagus, liver, renal, pancreatic, cervix, and ovarian cancer. Based on mode of treatment, the report covers chemotherapy, targeted therapy, pharmaceutical drugs, surgery, and radiotherapy.A sample of this report is available upon request @Silent cancer refers to those types of cancer which are undiagnosed in early stages. This is due to asymptomatic nature of the disease which makes it difficult to identify the disease till it progresses to advanced stages. Major silent types of cancer include brain, cervix, esophagus, mouth and larynx, ovarian, pancreatic, kidney, and liver cancer. Some silent types of cancer such as ovarian cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer show symptoms in their early stages. Ovarian cancer occurs in epithelium or lining cells of the ovary. Major signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer include pain or cramps in the belly, nausea, abnormal vaginal bleeding, and bloating. Pancreatic cancer is one of the fastest growing types of cancer worldwide. Esophagus cancer is more common among the older population, compared to adults. This cancer is mainly treated by chemotherapy, surgery, and radiosurgery. Moreover, physicians also use combination therapy for the treatment of silent cancer. For instance, the combination of radiation therapy and chemotherapy is very effective in the treatment of silent cancer.North America has the largest market for silent cancer therapeutic, followed by Europe. This is due to technological advancements in cancer treatment devices, increasing prevalence of cancer, rise in aging population and improved healthcare infrastructure in the region. The silent cancer therapeutic market in Asia is expected to experience high growth rate over the next few years. This is due to evolving R&D activities in the field of cancer, increasing government support for research, rise in number of cancer patients, growing awareness about various types of silent cancer, increasing elderly population and developing healthcare infrastructure in the region. Moreover, growing demographics and economies in developing countries such as India and China are expected to drive the silent cancer therapeutics market in Asia.Technological advancements such as non-invasive radiation therapy and increasing prevalence of cancer are key drivers for the global silent cancer therapeutics market. Also, increasing government support in the form of funding and research in oncology has fueled the market growth. Furthermore, growing aging population and rising obesity are driving the growth of the silent cancer therapeutics market.However, high costs involved in research activities and the expiry of patents of some blockbuster drugs (drugs that have an annual sale of USD 1.0 million and above) are hindering the growth of the market. Despite the high costs involved in R&D, pharmaceutical companies are showing interest in this field, which, in turn, has increased investment in the development of novel therapeutics for silent cancer.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Increasing number of mergers and acquisitions and rapid product launches are some of the latest trends in the global silent cancer therapeutic market. Some of the major companies operating in the market are Abbott Laboratories, Amgen Inc., Bayer AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, GE Healthcare, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., GlaxoSmithKline plc, CTI BioPharma Corp. and AstraZeneca plc.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: High Pressure Pumps Market to Grow by 3% from 2017 to 2022: Industry Analysis and Forecast High Pressure Pumps Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1880 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/high-pressure-pumps-market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1880 Market Overview and HighlightsMarket Research Future published a Half Cooked Research Report on High Pressure Pumps Market. The Global High Pressure Pumps Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 3% during the forecast period, 2017 to 2022.High Pressure Pumps is a pump that is designed to withstand a pressure above normal pressure. Development in the manufacturing sector is the major driving factor for the High Pressure Pumps Market. Growing green chemical industry and focusing on water & wastewater treatment sector is also another driving factor for the High pressure pump market. Slowdown in the Oil & Gas industry will hinder the growth of High Pressure Pumps Market and it is expected to register a significant growth of 3% in the next five years.High Pressure Pumps Market Key Players: Andritz GEA Group Grundfos Sulzer Ltd. The Weir Group Plc. KSB Pumps Danfoss and HammelmannGet a Sample Copy of Report for Brief Overview @Scope of the ReportThis study provides an overview of the High Pressure Pumps industry, tracking market segments across the categorized five geographic regions. The report provides a five-year forecast for the market size in terms of value for North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. The scope of the study segments the High Pressure Pumps Market based on Types, Pressure Range, and End Users.Asia-Pacific Region held the Major Share within the High Pressure Pumps MarketThe High Pressure Pumps Market is dominated by the Asia-Pacific region. Asian market is primarily driven by the countries like China, India, Japan where manufacturing & others sector are increasing rapidly which ultimately increase the High Pressure Pumps Market.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 40 market data tables and figures spread in 100 pages of the report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on High Pressure Pumps Market Research Report- Global Forecast to 2022"Access Report Details @Brief Table of Contents for High Pressure Pumps Market1. Report Prologue2. Introduction2.1. Definition2.2. Scope of the Study2.2.1. Research Objective2.2.2. Assumptions2.2.3. Limitations2.3. Market Structure2.4. Market Segmentation3. Research Methodology3.1. Research Process3.2. Primary Research3.3. Secondary Research3.4. Market Size Estimation3.5. Forecast Model4. Market Dynamics4.1. Drivers & Opportunities4.2. Challenges & Restraints4.3. Value Chain Analysis4.4. Porters Five Forces Analysis5. High Pressure Pumps Market, By Types6. High Pressure Pumps Market, By Pressure Range7. High Pressure Pumps Market, By End Users8. High Pressure Pumps Market, By RegionCONTINUEDMake an Enquiry for this Report @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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com Single-Use Technologies for the Biologic Market Is Expected to Witness a Steady Growth By 2021 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4220 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4220 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com The global single-use technologies market is categorized based on technology and application. Based on technology, the report covers membrane adsorber, bioreactors, disposable mixing systems, tangential flow filtration, tubing and connectors, depth filtration, buffer containers, waste containers and media bags, and filter cartridges. The application segment is further sub-segmented into monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, gene therapy, recombinant proteins, and blood derivativesA sample of this report is available upon request @Single-use, also known as disposable, refers to products that are intended for one-time use. These products are made from a plastic (polyamide {PA}, polyethylene {PE}, polycarbonate {PC}, polyethersulfone {PESU}, polypropylene {PP}, polyvinyl chloride {PVC}, polytetrafluorethylene {PTFE}, cellulose acetate {CA}, and ethylene vinyl acetate {EVA}) and are disposed after use. Single-use products have revolutionized the field of bioproduction. These products are becoming popular in the biopharmaceutical arena as they reduce the risk of contamination during development and production. Various disposable products such as laboratory instruments, including petri plates, flasks, filling and tubing systems, cell culture apparatus, filters, pumps, bioreactors, are used in bioproduction.Single-use technologies are mainly used in bio-therapeutic development and manufacturing processes. These technologies facilitate the development of small amounts of drug products for use in preclinical and clinical testing procedures.In terms of geography, North America dominates the global single-use technologies market. This is due to improved biopharmaceutical industry in the region. Moreover, increased awareness about therapeutic applications of biotherapeutics has also fueled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for single-use technologies in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold major shares of the single-use technologies market. The single-use technologies market in Asia too, is expected to experience high growth rate over the next five years. This is due to improving Life Sciences arena in the region. Furthermore, increased foreign investment in this field is also supporting the growth of the single-use technologies market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest growing markets for single-use technologies in Asia.Rising awareness about therapeutic applications of biotherapeutics is a key driver for the global single-use technologies market. Also, increasing demand of biologics and advancements in medical technology are fuelling the growth of this market. Low manufacturing and maintenance costs of single-use products and instruments attract end-users to adopt this technology in bioproduction. Increasing research on cell biology and stem cell is propelling the demand for single-use products.Moreover, drug pricing control is forcing large and emerging biotech companies to change their overall approach in development and production of bioproducts. This is leading to rise in demand for improved process optimization and more efficient operations such as single-use technologies and bioengineering. This is creating growth opportunities for single use-use technologies market.However, stringent regulations imposed by various governments hamper the growth of global single-use technologies market. Increasing number of mergers and acquisitions of biotech and pharmaceutical companies and rapid product launches are key trends in the global single-use technologies market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @The major companies operating in this market are Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, Applikon Biotechnology B.V., GE Healthcare, Pall Corporation, NewAge Industries, Inc., Saint-Gobain S.A., BioPure Technology Limited, Sartorius AG, RENOLIT, Novasep, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., EMD Millipore, and Dow Corning Corporation.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: Global Breast Implants Market Worth US$ 1,482.1 Mn by 2024 End http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10972 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/breast-implant-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/10972 The global breast implants market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.1% during the forecast period 20162024. In a new report titled Breast Implants Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, Persistence Market Research analyzes the factors and trends impacting the growth of the global breast implants market during the aforementioned period.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Greater emphasis on physical appearance and rise in global disposable per capita income of women are the key factors expected to boost the growth of the global breast implants market during the forecast period. Other prominent growth drivers are a growing prevalence of breast cancer and the availability of an expanded product line with premium pricing leading to greater sales. However, factors such as increased risk of developing serious complications including deflation, capsular contracture, infection, and breast and nipple sensitivity; and high costs of the implant procedure are expected to restrain the growth of the global breast implants market over the forecast period.The global breast implants market has been segmented on the basis of Product Type (Silicone Breast Implants, Saline Breast Implants); Shape (Round Breast Implants, Anatomical Breast Implants); Application (Cosmetic Surgery, Reconstructive Surgery); End User (Hospitals, Cosmetology Clinics); and Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and MEA). The Silicone Breast Implants product type segment is expected to account for 90.4% revenue share of the global breast implants market by 2016 end. The Round Breast Implants shape segment is anticipated to reach a market valuation of US$ 1,225.6 Mn by the end of 2024, registering a CAGR of 4.2% over the forecast period. The Cosmetic Surgery application segment is estimated to hold 79.4% revenue share of the global breast implants market by the end of 2016. The Hospitals end user segment is projected to account for 64.0% revenue share of the global breast implants market by the end of 2016. The Hospitals segment is expected to emerge as the most attractive end user segment in the global breast implants market as women increasingly prefer being treated by a plastic surgeon in hospitals rather than cosmetic clinics.Among regions, the North America breast implants market is estimated to represent absolute $ opportunity of US$ 20.31 Mn in 2023 over 2022. The North America market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.0% during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific market is slated to witness high market growth in terms of revenue owing to a rapidly ageing baby boomer population and rising disposable income. However, the breast implants market in the MEA region is likely to witness restricted growth owing to a lack of awareness and other restrictions prevalent in the region. The Latin America breast implants market is projected to register a CAGR of 4.3% during the forecast period. Growing medical tourism in Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico is driving the growth of the global breast implants market.Request to View Tables of Content @The report on the global breast implants market profiles some of the leading market players dominating the global breast implants market. The companies featured in the report are Allergan Plc., Mentor Worldwide LLC., GC Aesthetics Plc., Sientra Inc., Groupe Sebbin SAS, Polytech Health & Aesthetics GmbH, Establishment Labs S.A., HansBiomed Co. Ltd., and CEREPLAS. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their product portfolio through strategic investments in technology research and development initiatives and are focusing on the introduction of innovative and cost-effective treatment procedures in order to gain higher market share and to strengthen their respective positions in the global breast implants market.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated re-search, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Con-sumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs en-gagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Market Study on Expected Growth Irritable Bowel Syndrome Treatment 2016 - 2022 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/9938 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/9938 Irritable bowel syndrome is a functional gastrointestinal disorder of gut that may be characterized by colon muscle contractions. Irritable bowel syndrome affects the large intestine. Irritable bowel syndrome is associated with malfunctioning of the bowel and majorly occurs in elder population. Constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, alteration and discomfort in bowel function and bloating are some of the common symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Blood test and endoscopy are normally performed to detect this syndrome. Irritable bowel syndrome is a common disorder. There is no complete cure for the irritable bowel syndrome. Medicines used in irritable bowel syndrome are effective in decreasing the symptoms.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @The market of irritable bowel syndrome treatment is witnessing positive growth owing to establishment of well-defined diagnosis criteria and exploration of novel therapeutic classes by the key market players. Additionally, change in lifestyle and eating habits increases the incidence of this disorder that may escalate the use of this treatment and hence drive the market growth. However, lack of specific treatment which treat all the symptoms of this disorder may restrain the growth of this market. In addition, higher competition among the key players in terms of pricing is anticipated to hamper overall growth of this market.Depending on geographic regions, global irritable bowel syndrome treatment market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Geographically, North America dominates the global irritable bowel syndrome treatment market. High degree of therapeutic needs and penetration of generic drugs in North American market is anticipated to drive the growth of this market. Meanwhile, Europe is considered as the second largest market owing to the large patient population undergoing diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome coupled with the increasing demand for treatment. Launch of novel drugs with improved efficacy which provide sustained relief from irritable bowel syndrome in APAC region primarily drives the growth of this market. In addition, growing awareness regarding chronic nature of irritable bowel syndrome among the people will further drive the growth of this market in APAC region.Increased awareness about available treatment among the patients, medical community is one of the major driver in global irritable bowel syndrome treatment market.Increase in the number of patients, rise in the aging population, increasing demand for efficiency, increase in the incidence and prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome cases and increase in awareness, the global irritable bowel syndrome market is expected to have a healthy growth rate in the forecast period.Request to View Tables of Content @Various key players dominating the global irritable bowel syndrome treatment market comprise Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc. Allergan Plc. among others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated re-search, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Con-sumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs en-gagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Bromine Market to Exceed by 4.1% Revenue CAGR During the Forecast Period, 2016-2024 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4274 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/bromine-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/4274 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Global demand for bromine market will reach 483 kilo metric tons (KMT) in 2016, up from 470 KMT in 2015. Demand will be impeded by growing regulation and legislation, especially in the European Union (EU), where the use of certain brominated flame retardants is banned or restricted.A sample of this report is available upon request:Flame retardants will continue to remain the largest application segment, accounting for 203 KMT volume in 2016, a y-o-y increase of 2.8% over 2015. Use of bromine in oil and gas drilling will continue its upward momentum in 2016, growing at 4.3% in terms of volume the fastest among all the application segments.The chemicals industry will remain the largest consumer of bromine, accounting for 292 KMT volume in 2016, representing market value worth 1,284 Mn. Use of bromine in the oil and gas sector will also continue to witness steady growth, as clear brine fluids gain traction for drilling purposes. Demand will be offset by sluggish adoption in the electronics industry, as use of brominated flame retardants continues to face stricter regulations. Demand for bromine from electronics sector will witness a growth rate of 2.1% in 2016 over 2015.Asia Pacific will remain the largest market for bromine, representing annual revenues worth US$ 1,087 Mn in 2016, up from 895 Mn in 2015. This is primarily due to expansion of end-use industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and electronic in APAC. Latin America will continue to offer growth opportunities to manufacturers, with global demand witnessing a 2.0% volume growth in 2016 over 2015. Demand will face constraints in the mature markets of North America and Western Europe in 2016 as well.Israel Chemicals Limited, Chemtura Corporation, Albemarle Corporation, Gulf Resources Inc., Tosoh Corporation, Tetra Technologies Inc., Tata Chemicals Limited and Hindustan Salts Limited are the key players in the market. Top players are continuously focusing on expanding their product offerings, especially in flame retardants segments. Collaborations and joint ventures are key business strategies to develop green brominated flame retardants.Request to view Table of Content:Long-term Outlook: PMR projects the global bromine market to witness moderate growth during the forecast period 2016-2024. APAC will continue to remain the largest market for bromine, growing at 4.1% revenue CAGR during the forecast period.To Buy Full Report for a Single User:About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: Cancer Stem Cells Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends And Forecast 2014 - 2020 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=213267 http://www.researchmoz.us/stem-cell-market-reports-34.html http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG http://healthcare-research-report.blogspot.in/ ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Cancer Stem Cells Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends And Forecast 2014 - 2020 " to it's Large Report database.Cancer stem cells (CSCs) refer to the cells obtained from tumor that posses potential to reproduce all types of cancer cells found in a cancer sample. Cancer stem cells are planned to grow in tumors as a separate population and thereby cause deterioration and metastasis of existing tumor through generation of new tumor. Thus, with advancement in technology especially in cancer stem cells research area, therapies specific to targeting cancer stem cells are expected to improve quality of life and survival cases of cancer patients with metastatic diseases.Morbidity and mortality rate of cancer is rising at a faster speed worldwide and thus prevention of cancer and cancer treatment is grabbing attention of cancer researchers globally. Stem cells and cell therapy have shown significant potential to treat cancer effectively. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been tested on animal models and have also shown satisfactory results. However, human testing of cancer stem cells is still in its developing stage owing to stringent regulations and ethical issues associated with the same.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Worldwide cancer research activities are increasing rapidly owing to rising burden of mortality rate of cancer. Cancer stem cells are under research for various types of cancers such as lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, skin cancer, brain cancer and bone cancer. Government initiative to boost the cancer research activities and availability of funds are some of the factors that are driving the global cancer stem cells (CSCs) market towards growth. While on the other hand, ethical issues involved in the stem cells research and stringent regulations to perform human trials are some of the factors that are restraining the growth of the global cancer stem cells (CSCs) market.Geographically, global cancer stem cells market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world (RoW) regions. Currently, North America is leading the global cancer stem cells (CSCs) market and is followed by Europe. Factors such as highly developed research infrastructure, well defined regulatory norms, availability of research funds, availability of skilled research and healthcare professionals and supportive economy are driving the North American cancer stem cells market towards growth. Asia Pacific is lucrative market for cancer stem cells. Governments in the Asia Pacific countries mainly, India and China are taking initiative to boost the healthcare and biotechnology industry in the respective countries and thus, research and development activities in these countries are swiftly increasing.Read All Stem Cell Market Research Reports @Apart from India and China, Japan will play a significant role in the cancer stem cells market. Japanese government is heavily investing in healthcare industry in order to improve the healthcare facilities in the country and thus rising cancer treatment are expected to escalate the cancer stem cells treatment market in Japan. Latin American countries namely, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are expected to contribute more to cancer stem cells market than other countries in the rest of the world region. While on the other hand, African countries and Middle Eastern countries are expected to show slow or no growth rate in the global cancer stem cells (CSCs) market.Some of the major players in the global cancer stem cells market are AdnaGen GmbH, Advanced Cell Diagnostics, Inc., AVIVA Biosciences Corporation, Celula, Inc., Epic Sciences, Inc., Fluxion Biosciences, Inc., Rarecells USA, Inc. and Silicon Biosystems, S.p.A.This research report analyzes this market on the basis of its market segments, major geographies, and current market trends. Geographies analyzed under this research report includeNorth AmericaAsia PacificEuropeRest of the WorldThis report provides comprehensive analysis ofMarket growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for upcoming yearsThis report is a complete study of current trends in the market, industry growth drivers, and restraints. It provides market projections for the coming years. It includes analysis of recent developments in technology, Porters five force model analysis and detailed profiles of top industry players. The report also includes a review of micro and macro factors essential for the existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis.About 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. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany 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: Thermal Imaging Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Forecast and Opportunities 2013 - 2019 http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=212754 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 " Thermal Imaging Market (By Applications-Surveillance and Security, Maintenance and Monitoring, Traffic Monitoring, Healthcare, Automobiles, Research and Development, and Others (Firefighting and Personal Vision); By End-users - Defense and Military, Industrial, Commercial and Residential Sector) -Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019 " to it's Large Report database.The global market for thermal imaging continues to grow owing to the increasing adoption of thermal imaging devices in new applications. Thermal imaging cameras are being increasingly used in emerging applications such as manufacturing process monitoring and maintenance and for commercial security purpose. In addition, increasing investment by governments of countries such as UK, China, India and Japan on up gradation of weapons and battle equipment is driving the growth of thermal imaging market.This report analyzes the thermal imaging market on a global basis, with further breakdown into various sub-segments. It provides thorough analysis and forecast of the global thermal imaging market, based on its applications, end-users and geography for the period from 2013 to 2019. The market overview section of the report demonstrates the market dynamics and trends such as the drivers, restraints and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this field. Impact factors such as market attractiveness and Porters five forces analysis have also been explained in the market overview section of the report, in order to give a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global thermal imaging market. Moreover, the report gives better understanding of the market with the help of insights on the different levels of value chain.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:The study emphasizes advancement in thermal imaging technology as it has immense influence on the decision making process in almost all socioeconomic and business aspects. Furthermore, the report provides a detailed analysis of the global thermal imaging market along with the market forecast in terms of revenue growth (USD million) for all segments from 2013 to 2019.The global thermal imaging market is categorized on the basis of various applications and end-users. The application segment includes surveillance and security, maintenance and monitoring, traffic monitoring, healthcare, automobiles, research and development, and others (firefighting and personal Vision), while end-users segment can be classified into four major categories namely, defense and military, industrial, commercial and residential sector. A detailed market analysis and forecast for these segments has been provided in this study, in terms of market revenue (USD million) for the period 2011 to 2019. The market revenue has been forecast for the period 2013 to 2019, considering 2012 as the base year.Read All ICT Market Research Reports @Table of ContentsChapter 1 Preface1.1 Report description and scope1.1.1 Market segmentation1.2 Research methodologyChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Global thermal imaging market snapshot, 2012 & 20192.2 Global thermal imaging market size and forecast, 2011 2019 (USD million) and Y-o-Y growth (%)Chapter 3 Market Overview3.1 Introduction3.2 Market dynamics3.2.1 Drivers3.2.2 Impact analysis of drivers3.2.2.1 Increased investment on armed forces modernization3.2.2.2 Fall in price of thermal imaging cameras due to mass production3.2.2.3 Proliferation of thermal imaging devices in new applications3.2.3 Restraints3.2.4 Impact analysis of restraints3.2.4.1 Budgetary cut by defense in developed regions3.2.5 Opportunities3.2.5.1 Thermal imaging in PCs and smart-phones3.3 Market trends and future outlook3.4 Supply chain analysis3.5 Porters five force analysis3.5.1 Bargaining power of suppliers3.5.2 Bargaining power of buyers3.5.3 Threat of substitutes3.5.4 Threat of new entrants3.5.5 Competitive rivalryAbout 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. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany 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 Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film Consumption 2016 Market Research Report Emerging Trends, Future Outlook and Opportunities http://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=717192 http://www.researchmoz.us/chemicals-market-reports-57.html http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG http://deep-research-report.blogspot.com/ ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Global Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film Consumption 2016 Market Research Report " to it's Large Report database.The Global Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Secondly, the report states the global Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Third, the Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film market analysis is provided for major regions including USA, Europe, China and Japan, and other regions can be added. For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Read All Chemicals Market Research Reports @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.1 Definition and Specifications of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.1.1 Definition of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.1.2 Specifications of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.2 Classification of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.3 Applications of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.5.1 Industry Overview of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film1.7 Industry News Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film3 3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales and Sale Price Analysis of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film3.1 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) and Growth Rate of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film 2011-20163.2 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film by Regions 2011-20163.3 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film by Types 2011-20163.4 Global Market Size (Volume and Value) of Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film by Applications 2011-2016About 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. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany 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 Bismuth Market is Expected to Touch US$ 400.0 Mn by 2024 End PMR Report http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4398 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/bismuth-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/4398 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Global demand for bismuth is expected to grow at a Y-o-Y growth rate of 4.9% by 2016 end. China is a major consumer, producer, and exporter of bismuth and is anticipated to maintain its dominance in the global market in the near future. The country is estimated to account for 27.0% share of overall bismuth sales by the end of 2016. The increasing use of bismuth oxide in growing manufacturing industries is anticipated to drive consumption in the region. The rapid growth of the automobile end-use industry is expected to drive further market growth.A sample of this report is available upon request:Increasing environmental regulations regarding lead usage in various end-use industries would drive demand for bismuth and bismuth derived compounds. Stringent regulations and initiatives by leading manufacturers in end-use industries to phase out lead production is expected to spur bismuth market growth. Major paints & coatings manufacturers such as BASF SE and PPG Inc. are actively offering bismuth-based products replacing their lead based portfolio, in order to provide environmentally-friendly product offerings.The bismuth market in APAC is anticipated to witness higher growth rates due to increasing manufacturing activities in China and India. Demand in Europe is also anticipated to be above average due to stringent lead restricting directives in the region, while demand in North America, Latin America, and MEA is expected to be moderate. Declining lead production due to regulations and declining consumption of lead-acid batteries is anticipated to be a major restricting factor for the global market. The increasing use of bismuth alternatives in pharmaceuticals and alloys is also a major obstacle to market growth.Hunan Jinwang Bismuth Industry Co. Ltd., Hunan Bismuth Co. Ltd., and Nui Phao Mining Company Limited are some of the top producers of bismuth, with a cumulative annual production capacity of 11,000 metric tons.Request to view Table of Content:PMR Long-term Outlook on Global Bismuth Market: The global bismuth market is expected to reach US$ 400.0 Mn expanding at a CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period (20162024). Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest market for bismuth, with a market share of 46% in overall sales by the end of 2024.To Buy Full Report for a Single User:About Us:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact Us:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: Global Magnesium Oxide Market is expected to reach $5.08 Billion with Stable CAGR of 2.10% by 2022 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1983 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/phosphate-market Market Research Future published a half cooked research report on magnesium oxide market. The global magnesium oxide market is expected to grow at the CAGR of more than 2.10 % from 2016 to 2022. with this it is predictable to cross USD 5.08 Billion by 2022Market HighlightsGlobal Magnesium Oxide Market is increasing due to various industrial applications such as agriculture industry application, construction industry application and many others. The growing segments are fertilizer, animal feed, and water treatment and construction industry-related applications. In-addition to these industries including iron & steel, glass & ceramics is expected to grow during the forecasted period.Key Players RHI AG Magnesita Refrat`rios, Magnezit Group SMZ Jelsava Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties Grecian Magnesite Premier Magnesia LLC Ube Industries Ltd. Israel Chemical Ltd Imerys Qinghua Refractory GroupRequest a Sample Copy @As per analysis, emerging economies like China and U.S are increasing production with rise in use of Magnesium Oxide. APAC has been seen as a key market player in economy followed by North America, Europe and Row.Audience Manufacturers and distributors of Magnesium Oxide Suppliers and traders of Magnesium Oxide Government, associations and industrial bodies Investors and trade experts Consultants in chemical expertsTaste the market data and market information presented through more than 50 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 Global Magnesium Oxide Market Research Report- Forecast to 2022APAC will be the leading marketAPAC will rule the market for Global Magnesium Oxide, which is accounting USD of 5.08 Billion and is expected to grow over $XX Billion by 2022. With rise in development of emerging economies like China, India and Brazil contribute more share in the market.North America, Europe and RoW are the growing market for Global Magnesium Oxide Market and are expected to grow at CAGR of 2.10% respectively from 2016 to 2022.Economically developed countries like China and U.S have innovated technology which will allow Magnesium Oxide Market to grow in future. The Global Magnesium Oxide market is expected to reach USD of 8.02 Billion at the end of the forecasted period and is expected to grow at CAGR of more than 8.12% from 2016 to 2022.Table of Content1. Executive Summary2 Subjects of Report2.1 Market Definition2.2 Objective of Study2.2.1 Research Objectives2.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations2.3 Markets Structure3 Market Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Secondary Research3.3 Primary Research3.4 Forecast Model4 About Market4.1 Five Forces Analysis4.1.1 Threat of New Entrants4.1.2 Bargaining Power Of Buyers4.1.3 Threat Of Substitutes4.1.4 Segment Rivalry4.2 Value Chain/Supply Chain of Global Magnesium Oxide Market5 Overview of Global Magnesium Oxide MarketContinue.List of TablesTable 1 World Population by Major Regions (2015 To 2030) (Million)Table 2 Global Magnesium Oxide Markets: By Regions, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 3 North America Magnesium Oxide Market: By Countries, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 4 European Magnesium Oxide Market: 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 5 Asia-Pacific Magnesium Oxide Market: By Countries, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Continue..List of FiguresFigure 1 Global Magnesium Oxide Market SegmentationFigure 2 Forecast MethodologyFigure 3 Five Forces Analysis Of Global Magnesium Oxide MarketFigure 4 Value Chain Of Global Magnesium Oxide MarketFigure 5 Share Of Global Magnesium Oxide Market In 2014, By Countries (In %)ContinueKey questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2022 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?Related ReportsPhosphate Market Research Report, By Product Types (Rock, Acid, and Fertilizer), By Application (Agriculture, Animal Feed Supplements and others) by Production method (Wet Process and furnace process) - Forecast To 2022.Know more about this report @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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com Global Adult Diaper Market Overview and Analysis 2021: Market Study Report https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/?search=global-adult-diaper-market-research-report-2016/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-adult-diaper-market-research-report-2016/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/enquiry-before-buying/?search=global-adult-diaper-market-research-report-2016/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/adult-diapers-market-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-2016-2020/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-adult-diaper-machine-market-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2021/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com Global Adult Diaper Industry 2021 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current trends and Future Forecast.This report studies Adult Diaper Market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with Production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering -Kimberly Clark, SCA, Unicharm, First Quality Enterprises, Domtar, Covidien, Tranquility, Medline, Hengan Group, Coco, Chiaus, FuburgRequest a sample copy @Global Adult Diaper Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Adult Diaper in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like - North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, IndiaGlobal Adult Diaper Market Split by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into -Type I, Type II, Type IIIGlobal Adult Diaper Market Split by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Adult Diaper in each application, can be divided into -Application 1, Application 2, Application 3Browse full table of contents and data tables For Global Adult Diaper Market Report @Table of Contents in Global Adult Diaper Market Report1 Global Adult Diaper Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Adult Diaper1.2 Adult Diaper Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Adult Diaper by Type in 20151.2.2 Type I1.2.3 Type II1.2.4 Type III1.3 Adult Diaper Segment by Application1.3.1 Adult Diaper Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 Application 11.3.3 Application 21.3.4 Application 31.4 Adult Diaper Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Adult Diaper (2011-2021)2 Global Adult Diaper Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Adult Diaper Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Adult Diaper Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Adult Diaper Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Adult Diaper Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Adult Diaper Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Adult Diaper Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Adult Diaper Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Adult Diaper Market Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)3.1 Global Adult Diaper Production and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.2 Global Adult Diaper Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.3 Global Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.4 North America Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.5 Europe Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.6 China Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.7 Japan Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.8 Southeast Asia Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.9 India Adult Diaper Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)4 Global Adult Diaper Market Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.1 Global Adult Diaper Consumption by Regions (2011-2016)4.2 North America Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.3 Europe Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.4 China Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.5 Japan Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.6 Southeast Asia Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.7 India Adult Diaper Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)Inquiry Before Buying @Related Reports: - Adult Diapers Market in the Middle East and Africa 2016-2020The adult diaper market in MEA is still in its nascent stage. The social stigma related to adult diapers is still prevalent in this region. Adults diagnosed with urinary incontinence often feel embarrassed to wear diapers and are uncomfortable discussing their problems with physicians. However, manufacturers are collaborating with hospitals in the region to educate consumers about adult diapers. Global Adult Diaper Machine Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2021Adult Diaper Machine is basically a larger version of the baby diaper machine. Adult Diaper Machine mainly produces disposable diaper and economic diaper products used by mild, moderate or severe incontinence patient. Depending on the type of machine, it should be operated by 1 to 4 persons. Adult Diaper Machine may be classified full-automatic and semi-automatic type.Centralize market research purchases across your entire organization in one place.Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter Using mathematics to hunt for computer errors https://ist.ac.at/ http://scilog.fwf.ac.at http://www.fwf.ac.at http://www.prd.at/en Improving the security of computer software and hardware requires mathematical analytic methods. Thanks to research by a team of computer scientists led by Krishnendu Chatterjee in a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, these methods will work significantly faster in the future.Security gap in application discovered, update urgently recommended. Alerts like that can confront us every week. Often, a comprehensive update that addresses teething troubles is already offered when a new programme is launched. This creates manifold problems, and public entities as well as businesses are often exposed to attacks by hackers. Software is used in a growing number of sensitive areas where a computer failure might even be life threatening. It has to be noted that not all fields are affected in the same way, many computer systems run as unfailingly as the proverbial Swiss clockwork. While hardware is usually very reliable, it is the software component that may create problems.Mathematics improve computer systemsComplex programmes actually make it very difficult to foresee every eventuality. While computer methods for testing software exist, the complexity of applications has been steadily increasing in recent years. The performance of test methods lags behind, particularly in terms of their speed a good incentive to invest in basic research in this field. In a recently completed project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, the computer scientist Krishnendu Chatterjee analysed computer systems with the help of mathematical methods with hope of providing significant improvements in this sector.Graph theory"This field has a long-standing tradition", says Chatterjee. "Researchers have long been trying to find a formal basis for designing correct systems. Fundamental developments in this area go back to the 1960s, like the work by Alonzo Church, one of the founding fathers of computer sciences." For the mathematical analysis of computer systems, scientists use what is called 'graph theory', which deals with objects that can be characterised as networks of interconnected points or vertices. Computer systems can be mathematically described as graphs, with a vertex representing a certain state of the system and an edge representing a transition between two states. A computer displaying this text, for instance, is in a defined state represented as a vertex. When the user clicks on a link, the system changes to another state, and this transition is shown as an edge.Improved graph algorithmsThis method is particularly suited for the verification of computer systems. Chatterjee was interested in how fast these verification algorithms work. "Computer systems are getting more complex all the time", the computer scientist notes. "In some algorithmic problems in verification development has been stagnating since the 1990s. A new aspect of this project was to use cutting-edge approaches from graph theory to improve the algorithms. That was a completely new line of attack." Chatterjee emphasises the significance of his cooperation with his project partner Monika Henzinger from the University of Vienna. "For me, that was an intensive learning process. It was intriguing to see how the methods of graph algorithms need to be adapted and expanded in order to arrive at better algorithms for the problems we studied."Limits, conditions, successesIn that respect, the project was very successful: several speed limits for certain verification algorithms were broken for the first time since the 1990s, for instance involving so-called 'Markov decision processes', which are models containing several options and an element of randomness. "One example for that would be the development of robots", explains Chatterjee. "A robot interacts with an environment which includes uncertainties and it has several options, such as veering to the left or to the right. Markov decision processes provide a model for that." For many applications it is essential to predict in such a model what events will occur with certainty. "The most efficient algorithm for addressing that problem available till now dated back to 1995 and had quadratic complexity", notes Chatterjee. This means that the runtime of the algorithm increases quadratically with the size of the system being verified hence, a system double in size requires fourfold runtime. "In our project we were able to overcome this limit by using graph algorithm techniques."Chatterjee is very pleased with the success of the project. "Our two doctoral students, Sebastian Krinninger and Martin Chmelik, also did excellent work, both received prizes for their dissertations", notes Chatterjee. Despite the topical relevance of the subject he underlines that his was a pure basic research project. "Our first project was very theoretical. Now we are trying to explore limits or conditions to see how hard it is going to be to improve our algorithms further. At the same time we want to see how these approaches can be translated into practice."FWF Austrian Science FundThe Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is Austria's central funding organization for basic research.The purpose of the FWF is to support the ongoing development of Austrian science and basic research at a high international level. In this way, the FWF makes a significant contribution to cultural development, to the advancement of our knowledge-based society, and thus to the creation of value and wealth in Austria.Scientific ContactProf. Krishnendu ChatterjeeIST AustriaAm Campus 1A-3400 KlosterneuburgT +43 / 2243 / 9000 3201E Krishnendu.Chatterjee@ist.ac.atAustrian Science Fund FWFIngrid LadnerHaus der ForschungSensengasse 11090 Vienna, AustriaT +43 / 1 / 505 67 40 - 8111E ingrid.ladner@fwf.ac.atDistributionPR&D Public Relations for Research and EducationMariannengasse 81090 Vienna, AustriaT +43 / 1 / 505 70 44E contact@prd.at Automatic recognition of emotions: The next generation of speech assistants www.audeering.com Since the introduction of speech assistants like Apples SIRI, Google Now, and Microsofts Cortana, the automatic recognition of spoken text has revolutionized the way we interact with computers. Yet, speech recognition is only the first step towards natural communication: The start-up Audeering GmbH founded by Prof. Bjorn Schuller (University of Passau and Imperial College London) develops methods for recognition of information beyond spoken text, such as emotion, personality, age, gender, or interest.Gilching/Oberpfaffenhofen, January 16th 2017. An intelligent machine needs great perceptive abilities this is how Prof. Schuller starts his talk at the Summer Davos annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China. His start-up Audeering GmbH, which was founded in 2012, has specialized on the computational perception of information in human speech. The company does not focus on the spoken text but on the state of the speaker: An intelligent speech assistant should not be limited to understanding what has been spoken it should also recognize how it was spoken. Audeering has developed techniques that allow for analyzing a speech signal with respect to various characteristics, like emotion, personality, or age of the speaker. It even supports recognition of drunkenness, depression, or interest. Using its own awarded toolkit openSMILE and deep learning methods, Audeering obtains robust results using thousands of computed speech features.The applied methodology for extracting speech features is the result of more than a decade of research effort which the founders of Audeering invested mostly at the Technische Universitat Munchen. Typical applications can not only be found within dialog systems but also in areas such as speech data analysis in call centers, clinical voice analysis (for example for detection of burn-out or depression), customer satisfaction studies, or gaming. Similar methods are also applied in the domain of music signal processing: By using modern strategies for machine learning it is possible to automatically recognize meter, genre, dance style, key, chords, and tempo and use it for DJ applications, for example.In cooperation with the world-famous emotion researcher Prof. Klaus Scherer (University of Geneva and LMU Munich), Audeering is currently developing a novel approach towards automatic emotion recognition which allows for detecting finer distinctions of speaker states, like doubt, admiration, or fascination. Based on latest findings in voice physiology and psychology this shall enable accurate and language-independent emotion recognition without the need for acquiring large speech data collections for training the recognizer.This approach shall lead to improved methods for recognition and possibly also therapy, especially in the areas of consumer research and health/wellbeing., says CEO Prof. Bjorn Schuller. Because of its importance, the project is being funded by a proof-of-concept grant of the European Commission since 2015.About Audeering GmbHAudeering GmbH was founded in 2012 and is a leading company in the area of intelligent audio analysis. Its product portfolio comprises software systems for automatic emotion and speaker state recognition from speech signals and methods for music signal analysis. Furthermore, Audeering offers custom solutions for audio analysis based on its awarded software toolkit openSMILE. The companys headquarter is located in Gilching near Munich. Major customers of Audeering are Huawei, Deutsche Telekom, BMW, GfK-Verein, and Red Bull Media House. For further information visitContact:Dr. Martin WollmeraudEERING GmbHOffice:Friedrichshafener Str. 382205 GilchingGermanymw@audeering.com+49-8105-7756150+49-175-5112554 Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft set to use IVU.rail for planning IVU Traffic Technologies AG concludes the cooperation agreement with AVG Managing Directors (Image: AVG) www.avg.info www.ivu.com Cooperation agreement for IT-based vehicle and staff dispatching signedBerlin/Karlsruhe, 16 January 2017 Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG) is to use software solutions from IVU Traffic Technologies AG for planning and dispatching of vehicles and staff. The two companies have signed a corresponding cooperation agreement in Karlsruhe.IVU has more than 40 years of experience in the planning and dispatching software sector. We are delighted to have this strong partner on board helping us to further optimise our operations, explained AVG Managing Director Ascan Egerer. From now on, AVG will be handling all its operational planning with the IVU.rail software: from vehicle working scheduling and vehicle usage planning of all trams and trains to duty scheduling and personnel dispatch of its drivers. We were impressed by this holistic package and its wide range of functions. With this move, we are concentrating most of the data relevant to our dispatchers in one system, enabling us to accelerate our planning processes, added Egerer.The efficient use of the key resources employees and vehicles is a key part of AVGs railway operations and constitutes a major challenge to dispatchers. In recent years, the opportunities for IT support have increased significantly in terms of the volumes of data to be processed as well as functional complexity, and AVG is not the only company where this has resulted in a diverse system landscape comprising many individual software solutions with a large number of interfaces. The information relevant to dispatchers is now bundled for them and accessible from a single source.With IVU.rail, IVU provides a modular standard product that combines all planning processes in one system and one database. The agreement also includes the mobile IVU.pad for electronic communication with train drivers, which creates the possibility to receive duty information and work documents via tablet in the future. We are very much looking forward to working with AVG. This agreement underlines the confidence in our company and our product, with which we are creating a foundation for reliable decisions in railway operations, explained IVU CEO Martin Muller-Elschner.IVUs software solution enables continuous data flow between the individual planning steps and other systems in use at AVG for instance in the area of HR management or workshop management. Numerous automation functions such as the extensive suggestion system and intelligent variant calculation accelerate planning and give optimum assistance to dispatchers. The IVU solution takes all operational rules and quality requirements of AVG into account. Our systems show dispatchers what resources are in use where at a glance, enabling them to respond quickly, flexibly and appropriately. This is a crucial factor in ensuring service quality for passengers, said Muller-Elschner.IVU.rail was developed in close collaboration with leading European rail operators. Users of the Berlin-based IT specialists dispatching system include the state railway companies or their successors in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Hungary and Canada.IVU Traffic Technologies AG has been working for over 40 years with more than 400 engineers to ensure punctual and reliable transport in the worlds metropolises. In growing cities, people and vehicles are constantly on the move a logistical challenge that calls for intelligent and secure software systems. The integrated standard products of the IVU.suite work to plan, optimise and control the deployment of buses and trains, provide passengers with real-time information, create routes for parcel delivery services, and support businesses in choosing branch locations.IVU. FACILITATING PUBLIC TRANSPORT.Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft carries over 73 million passengers on its trains and buses each year. AVG will celebrate its 60th anniversary in April 2017. Since being founded, it has gone on to become one of the largest railway companies for passenger and goods transportation in Germany. AVG is a key pillar in the "Karlsruhe model", the tram and train system that links Karlsruhe's inner-city tram network with the railway lines in the region. Further information:Press contact:Dr Stefan SteckCorporate CommunicationsIVU Traffic Technologies AGBundesallee 88, 12161 Berlin, GermanyT +49.30.85906-386Stefan.Steck@ivu.com Electrical Stimulation Devices (Esds) Market : Technological Breakthroughs, Value Chain And Stakeholder Analysis By 2023 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=7075 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/electrical-stimulation-devices-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ Electrical stimulation devices deliver alternating, direct, or pulsating waveform forms of energy for providing a therapeutic effect to the body. This study provides market analysis for various electrical stimulation devices that are used within home care and hospital settings. The stakeholders of this market study comprise established electrical stimulators product manufacturers, and distributors as well as new participants who wish to enter the global electrical stimulation devices market.For Any Queries Get Solutions With A PDF Sample :This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the global electrical stimulation devices market and helps in identifying the market governing factors. The market overview section provides exhaustive information on trends in the usage of electrical stimulation devices, market trends such as drivers, restraints, and growth opportunities that presently regulate the dynamics of the overall market. Competitive analysis tools such as Porters Five Forces analysis and market attractiveness analysis have also been incorporated in this report to provide analysis about the level of competition within the global electrical stimulation devices market. Competitive intelligence tools such as market share analysis have also been included in the market overview section of the report to deliver a broad spectrum of the overall scenario of the market at global level. Market share analysis thus provided in this study is in context with the major product manufacturers operating in the market which would help new players to understand the key business models and frameworks to identify the specific product lines of existing companies to establish a strong position in the electrical stimulation devices market.The executive summary of the study summarizes comprehensive insights about every segment considered in this study. It includes a market snapshot offering an insight into the current scenario of the electrical stimulation devices market in terms of current and future market size along with the respective growth rate.The global electrical stimulation devices market has been segmented based on various device type and application. The electrical stimulation devices market has been categorized into major device types that are used as external or implantable stimulators such as spinal cord stimulation (SCS) devices, deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) devices, sacral nerve stimulation (SNS) devices, gastric electric stimulation (GES) devices, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) devices, neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES/EMS) devices, and other electrical stimulation devices (electrotherapy devices, combination devices, TNS, TMS, etc.). Based on application, the market has been segmented into pain management, neurological and movement disorder management, musculoskeletal disorders management, metabolism & GIT management (stomach, intestine, pancreas, digestion, blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, gastroparesis, etc.), incontinence management (fecal incontinence, urinary incontinence, urinary retention), and others (aesthetics, training, cosmetics, etc.). The market size for the period from 2013 to 2023 has been provided for each of the device type and applications mentioned above in terms of USD million. Along with the market size that were projected considering 2014 as the base year and 2013 as the historical year, the CAGR (%) of each market segment for the forecast period from 2015 to 2023 has also been provided.Geographically, the electrical stimulation devices market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East & North Africa and Rest of the World. North America has been further segmented into the U.S. and Canada; Europe into Germany, France, the U.K. and Rest of Europe; Asia Pacific into China, Japan, India and Rest of Asia Pacific; Latin America into Brazil and Rest of Latin America; and Middle East & Africa (MEA) into South Africa and Rest of MEA. The market revenue of electrical stimulation devices for each geographical region for 2014 and 2023 along with forecast from 2015 to 2023 in respective regions in terms of USD million, has been explained in the geography section of the study.View exclusive Global strategic Business report :This report concludes with profiles of key players in the global electrical stimulation devices market. The market study outlines the companies in terms of overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, and recent developments. Major organizations profiled in this study include Boston Scientific Corporation, BTL Industries, Inc., Cyberonics, Inc., DJO Global, EnteroMedics Inc., Medtronic plc, Nevro Corp., NeuroMetrix, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., Uroplasty, Inc. (Cogentix Medical), and Zynex, Inc., amongst others.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.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: MPs drafting the report said timing was perfect, with US President-elect Trump soon to be inaugurated, to see the group listed as a terrorist organisation A number of Egyptian MPs told reporters Monday that several parliamentary committees are currently finalising a report on the "crimes of the Muslim Brotherhood" to be submitted to US Congressmen and officials next week. The report will be presented by an Egyptian delegation arriving in Washington 21 January one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the new president of the United States. The 15-member delegation includes MPs from the foreign relations committee and representatives from civil society organisations. Tarek Hassanein Ramadan, an MP from Giza governorate, said "the report will come at a very important time." "There will be a new US president who is highly hostile to all political Islam movements, and at the same time a number of republican Congress members aiming to legislate designating the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation," said Hassanein. Abdel-Reheim Ali, an independent MP, also said in a statement that "the dossier which is being prepared by Egypt's parliament on the 'Muslim Brotherhood's crimes' comes at the right time." "I think the Egyptian delegation which will visit America next week should meet with Senator - and former US presidential candidate - Ted Cruz and other republican congress members who approve legislation to list the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation," said Ali, adding that "when the delegation submits a complete dossier supported by documents and videotapes on the Brotherhood this will be key to pushing the Cruz legislation forward." Tarek El-Khouli, deputy chairman of the foreign relations committee and a member of the delegation, confirmed that a report is already being prepared by the committee to document the Brotherhood's crimes. "While some MPs wanted this report to be prepared by committees on national security, defence, legislative affairs, human rights and foreign affairs, we see that there will be short time to do this," said El-Khouli, indicating that "two [separate] reports on political Islam by parliament's foreign affairs committee and the Egyptian Centre of Free Democracy Studies will be submitted to US Congress members and officials during the visit." El-Khouli revealed that the report the delegation will present to US Congress members and Trump administration officials includes a dossier of documents and videotapes that leave no doubt about the Brotherhood's long record of terrorism and violence. "We have videotapes which feature Brotherhood leaders calling for violence after 30 June 2013" El-Khouli said, referencing the mass protests that took place in Cairo one year after the inauguration of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi to protest his rule. El-Khouli said the committee also had video footage showing Brotherhood leaders calling for "supporting the US-designated terrorist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis in Sinai and its attacks against the Egyptian army." The MP recalled that while an Egyptian parliamentary delegation was visiting New York last September, it received assurances from Trump's Middle East affairs advisor Walid Phares that if elected, Trump would do his best to list the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. "Now with the election of Donald Trump, who has selected a number of highly anti-radical Islam theorists [to serve] in his new administration, and with republicans in control of the Senate and the House, the proposed Cruz-drafted Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act has a good chance of passing and being signed into law," said El-Khouli. El-Khouli also cited what he termed a positive development in Washington - something Rex Tillerson Trump's pick for secretary of state told the Senate Relations Committee last week. Tillerson said "the US needs to be honest about political Islam and that the demise of ISIS will allow the US to increase its attention on other agents of radical Islam like Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood." "This is the first time a high-ranking US official has used such strong language against the Brotherhood and we must exploit this," El-Khouli. El-Khouli also said the Egyptian delegation will be keen to stress that in addition to Egypt, three major Arab Muslim countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in addition to Russia labeled the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in 2014 and 2015. Ali said "there is a strategic shift in the mentality of the US political leadership and it is very important to exploit this in our war against political Islam in general and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular." Search Keywords: Short link: We guarantee, that Hotel Justus is the best stay in Riga! Four-star boutique Hotel Justus is located in the heart of the old town of Riga within the architectural area protected by UNESCO as a part of world heritage. Now the hotel belongs to a small group of friends that has spotted an empty run-down building and revived it with artistic energy, so that it became comfy and cozy and perfect to stay at when you are in Riga.The hotels site is of a high historical value was first mentioned back in 1210. Despite the building was destroyed by fire in the 17th century, it was renovated in 1874 with major alterations. In the 19-20th centuries a tavern, typography and lithography services, artisan workshops, pharmaceutical laboratories, cinema gallery and offices had been using the building.Today Hotel Justus consists of 45 cosy rooms for families, couples and solo-travellers. All of them are uniquely designed to create a perfect harmony between the ancient charm of authentic brickwork and inspiring art objects. Attractive and affordable prices combined with personalised service make Hotel Justus of great interest for a wide range of guests.Festive halls for banquets and events are available at Hotel Justus. There are two premises that can accommodate up to 65 guests. Combining innovative European cuisine, modern design, and friendly waiters aesthetic and gastronomical pleasure is created. Atmosphere of the restaurant that immerses you in the world of delicious food made of the high quality Latvian products, individual approach and hospitality are always waiting for you at Hotel Justus restaurant!We guarantee, that Hotel Justus is the best stay in Riga.Four-star boutique Hotel Justus. Hotel Justus consists of 45 cosy rooms for families, couples and solo-travellers. We guarantee, that Hotel Justus is the best stay in Riga!Hotel JustusJauniela 24, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia+371 67212404hoteljustus@hoteljustus.lvVeronika B. IoT Vulnerabilities Open Up New Possibilties to Hackers Vinod Vasudevan, Co-founder and CTO at Paladion Internet of Things is a revolution that has suddenly captured our imagination. As a technology, IoT is unique since it has a role to play in consumer, enterprise and industrial worlds. At the consumer level, the adoption of IoT for areas including home monitoring & control, wearable tech, and connected cars has already started. At the enterprise level building management, fleet management, hospital management, retail, telecom, and energy sectors are already adopting it for various benefits.According to Markets and Markets, the IoT market size is estimated to grow from $157.05 Billion in 2016 to $661.74 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 33.3% from 2016 to 2021. All industry verticals are undergoing a huge transformation in a bid to move toward affordable, accessible, and quality services to their customers. New applications and use cases, a result of cutting edge technology innovations, are being developed to address the changing industry needs. IoT, in combination with cloud computing and big data, is creating lucrative opportunities for organizations."However, the ubiquitous use of a technology in wide ranging areas brings forth risks that range from significant to catastrophic. Nuclear facilities can be damaged overnight by compromising the IoT infrastructure. We have already seen an early avatar of this in the form of Stuxnet," explained Vinod Vasudevan, Co-founder and CTO at Paladion. "Similarly, nation state attacks are expected to target IoT used in power grids and other utilities. Smart cities can get paralysed in minutes if the IoT infrastructure that automates the processes here gets compromised. IoT risks are complex since IoT technology stack has many new components including IoT sensors, protocols, gateways, and management platforms."Thus, IoT security includes many new risk areas that cybersecurity industry is still learning to resolve including cloud & mobility. As an example, there are many IOT protocols in the market today including Zigbee, CoAP, Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), Digital Data service (DDS), and Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT). These protocols are either new or derived for IOT from an earlier version used for generic purposes. As a result, they are vulnerable unless special effort is taken to secure them."In addition, IOT management platforms have web interfaces and related protocols enabled. Therefore, they are exposed to common web application attacks. The impact of such web based attacks on IoT management platform is high since it can be used to subvert millions of sensors for a malicious purpose. Imagine impact of power grid sensors taken off the grid with a successful web based attack on the IoT management platform," added Vasudevan.There are three key challenges for the future of IoT. This includes ubiquitous data collection, potential for unexpected uses of consumer data, and heightened security risks. Hence, companies need to enhance privacy and build secure IoT devices by adopting a security-focused approach, reducing the amount of data collected by IoT devices, and increasing transparency and providing consumers with a choice to opt-out of data collection."Developers of IoT devices have not spent time thinking about how to secure their devices and services from cyberattacks. The small size and limited processing power of many connected devices could inhibit encryption and other robust security measures, said Vasudevan. Moreover, some connected devices are low-cost and essentially disposable. If vulnerability is discovered on that type of device, it may be difficult to update the software or apply a patch or even to get news of a fix to consumers.Thus, securing IOT infrastructure requires collaboration between industry, and academia, government for "secure by design" roll out of IOT protocols. Such initiatives are still at nascent stages but have started. "There should be certification of the safety of IoT products and components from central authorities backed by government. This can be treated very similar to car safety and certification that we are all used to. IoT security movement has started but there is still a long way to go. Good news is that we can still do things to enhance the barrier to attacks while we wait for industry to accelerate the act," concluded Vasudevan.About Paladion:Paladion is a specialized partner for information risk management to organizations across industries in Asia, US, and the Middle East. Paladion is rated as a pure-play information risk management partner in Asia and is also a Gartner rated managed security provider in the Middle East.For over a decade, Paladion has been actively managing information risks for over 700 customers. Paladion provides a complete spectrum of information risk management comprising security assurance, compliance, governance, monitoring, security analytics and security management services to large and medium-sized organizations. Paladion also offers a suite of security intelligence products for global enterprises and Cloud Managed Security Services for mid-market organizations. Paladions offerings have been recognized and awarded by Gartner, Asian Banker, and Red Herring amongst others. Paladion is also actively involved in several information risk management research forums and has published many books on the topic.628, Business VillageTower B, DeiraDubai, UAE CERATIZIT Group acquires majority share of Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC CERATIZIT Group acquires majority share of Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC CERATIZIT S.A., Mamer, Luxembourg (headquarters) and Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC, Rancho Dominguez, California, January 16, 2017CERATIZIT announces that its wholly-owned subsidiary CERATIZIT USA, Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake of the Californian solid carbide round cutting tool manufacturer Best Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC.Jacques Lanners, Co-Chairman of the CERATIZIT Executive Board: Best Carbide Cutting Tools gives CERATIZIT an exceptional chance to strengthen our network in the USA and build on nationwide top distributors. Best Carbide is known for the quality of its tools, with a strong focus on high-end micro tools.Mark Nunez, President of Best Carbide: Through this partnership, Best Carbide will have access to CERATIZIT technologies and expertise that will help the company to improve its manufacturing process, technical capabilities and quality of tooling with the goal of ultimately adding greater value for our customers. For the first time in its 37-year history, Best Carbide becomes part of a global cutting tool organization. We believe this will have substantial benefit for Best Carbides stability, growth and advancement. The agreement is a win for both companies. Best Carbide Cutting Tools will continue to operate as it does today, but now with full support from the CERATIZIT Group.Both private companies have agreed not to disclose any financial details.About Best Carbide Cutting ToolsBest Carbide Cutting Tools, LLC is a premium manufacturer of solid carbide round cutting tools located in Rancho Dominguez, California. The company is housed in a 46,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility and currently has about 90 employees.For over 95 years, CERATIZIT has been a pioneer developing exceptional hard material products for cutting tools and wear protection. The privately owned company, headquartered in Mamer, Luxembourg, develops and manufactures highly specialized tungsten carbide cutting tools, inserts, rods and wear parts. The CERATIZIT Group is the market leader in several wear part application areas and develops successful new types of hard metal, cermet and ceramic grades used for instance in the wood and stone working industry.CERATIZIT S.A.101, Route de HolzemLU-8232 MamerLuxembourgT. +352 31 20 85-1F. +352 31 19 11E. info@ceratizit.com TEAM Energy - What you've missed in 2016 Here at TEAM we have had a great year with a multitude of improvements to our software and services and we would like to share our achievements with you. We have been reaping the benefits of our next generation of Hosted Services - TEAM Sigma Cloud with superfast Gigabit internet connectivity and the highest level of security also brings a host of benefits including the TEAM Sigma Energy Viewer which is assisting many multisite organisations to reduce their energy consumption. We've also been busy developing our new Reporting tools and Bill Entry Screen. In addition to our very successful NHS SBS Framework for our Outsourced Bill Validation Service, TEAM have gained supplier status on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) G Cloud 8 Framework Agreement Software as a Service (Saas) and have held a series of customer events and upgraded our Customer Support Portal. 2016 at a glance... * One of the big topics for us this has been the Water Market Reform, which will have a huge impact on how businesses acquire their water supply. The good news is that most water suppliers will be able to provide TRADACOMS Industry Standard EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) billing from April 1st 2017. So, to get one consolidated electronic bill for all your sites and reduce your processing costs make sure you stipulate TRADACOMS in your tenders. * We were privileged to assist ESTA (Energy Services and Technology Association) in producing an updated 'Best Practice Guide' which contains suggested text to ensure your supplier provides TRADACOMS Industry Standard EDI Billing. * Many of our customers are now enjoying the benefits of TEAM Sigma Cloud, which has now become the new home for our Hosted Services. They like the fact it can be accessed from anywhere, it works faster and has enabled us to build a new reporting system for them based on industry leading technology, this has been a great success for TEAM and our customers. * In February, we held a very successful and helpful training course designed to help businesses manage their utility supplier. * In August, we were successful in gaining supplier status on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) G-Cloud 8 Framework Agreement Software as a Service (Saas). The G-Cloud 8 Framework offers a faster and cheaper route for public sector organisations to subscribe to TEAM Sigma Software without going out to competitive tender. In summary, it is a more cost effective procurement process for public sector buyers. * New courses were added to our free online Training Academy including; Meter Readings How to add, upload, export and delete. Regression analysis and CUSUM training. * We also held a series of webinars to help customers improve their knowledge of TEAM Sigma which was very beneficial for them to make the most of what TEAM Sigma can offer and assist them with and any updates we have made. * Our popular series of Regional Support Groups took place in April and May with events in London, Belfast, Durham, Manchester, Sheffield, Milton Keynes, Bristol and Scotland. Feedback was extremely positive with many describing the groups as a great opportunity to network, share ideas and meet other users of the system. * In October, we launched our new TEAM Support Help Centre. It has a brand new look and feel which is extremely easy to navigate and has all the functionality of the former Customer Portal. Customers also benefit from the following features; - Knowledge Base Where you can access self-help - Community A customer forum where you can share ideas, ask each other questions and have discussions * In November, we held our annual User Group Conference at the Jurys Inn, Milton Keynes. The 29th annual event featured an exciting line-up of case study guest speakers from Arriva Rail North, Greggs and Plymouth City Council. Along with networking chairs from Cornwall Council & BT. Other highlights of the day included training sessions, a demonstration of TEAM's new Sigma Cloud reporting tools. The customer feedback made TEAM feel very proud, one comment was 'my highlights of the day was the presentation from Plymouth council, great networking lunch and a good opportunity to look at the new reporting tools'. What's coming in 2017 * We will be releasing our exciting new Reporting tools allowing more simplicity and flexibility for users in generating their own reports. * Our new Bill Entry Screen will be released. * Early in 2017 we will be announcing the Regional Support Group dates in various venues throughout May and June. * More courses will be added to our online training academy. We will also continue to hold a series of webinars to help customers improve their knowledge of TEAM Sigma. * We will be keeping all customers up to date on the latest legislation and Government initiatives. Want to speak to us? Are you looking for some expert help and advice on your energy management requirements? Contact us at http://www.teamenergy.com/contact-us/ TEAM is the UKs leading supplier of carbon and energy management solutions. With over 500 customers in the UK and worldwide we specialise in energy management software, outsourced energy management services and energy consultancy. TEAM has customers from all sectors including Commerce, Industry and Government. TEAM (Energy Auditing Agency Ltd.) 34 The Forum Rockingham Drive, Linford Wood Milton Keynes MK14 6LY This release was published on openPR. Permanent link to this press release: Copy Please set a link in the press area of your homepage to this press release on openPR. openPR disclaims liability for any content contained in this release. Hollywood seeking writers www.scriptapalooza.com 19th Annual Scriptapalooza Screenwriting CompetitionIts not about how many scripts we receive, its about how many writers we can help, said Mark Andrushko, President at Scriptapalooza.Many writers have already benefited from entering the competition. Obviously, not all will snag the first place prize of $10,000 but Scriptapalooza has always prided itself on helping many of the writers that place in the competition. The moment the winners are announced, in any given year, the company makes the top 100 script loglines available to its judges. Production companies make requests throughout the year for genre specific screenplays.Bohemia Group Originals, a management company, recently optioned two scripts. The 2016 winning script, a historical drama, Battle, by Aaron Brophy as well runner-up, The Clock Maker, a fun action packed script by Dan Schmidt.We are thrilled to be working with Aaron and Daniel on these amazing projects. Hats off to Mark, his Scriptapalooza team and the judges panel for helping bring these stories to the forefront, stated Susan Ferris, CEO of Bohemia Group Originals.The Scriptapalooza commitment to promote and create opportunities has remained its number one priority for nearly 20 years.Founded in 1998, Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition is the worldwide leader in the movie industry. The company offers a wide range of opportunities and services designed to lift up and help the undiscovered writer.Next deadline February 1, 2017info@scriptapalooza.com310.594.5384International Screenplay Competition that helps writers get their screenplays into the hands of Hollywood.Scriptapalooza Inc.3119 Deer Creek DriveSugar Land, TX 77478310-594-5384Mark Andrushko Automation in the Oil and Gas Industry helps in improving the safety and enhancing the efficiency of various operations. Oil and Gas Automation Market http://goo.gl/FLf2fy http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/oil-gas-automation-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/ The market study offers an in-depth analysis of the global oil and gas automation industry, studying it by segmenting the market based on various key criteria. It provides an executive-level blueprint of the global oil and gas automation market using Porters five forces, market attractiveness analysis, and value chain analysis. It discusses the degree of competition, bargaining power of buyer and supplier, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes. In addition to this, the report discusses the company market share and market attractiveness analysis. The report assesses industry policies that influence the global oil and gas automation market.Download the Exclusive Report sample Here :Oil and Gas Automation Market: OverviewAutomation in the oil and gas industry refers to the completion of tasks by the use of control systems, with minimal human intervention. Automation in the oil and gas industry helps in improving the safety and enhancing the efficiency of various operations. Work-related fatalities in the oil and gas industry is increasing every year and thus, automation in the industry helps in avoiding accidents and ensuring safety for the workforce. Automation in the oil and gas industry has applications such as retailing and distribution of petroleum products, start-up, commissioning, and processing and production of plants.The global oil and gas automation market can be segmented on the basis of technology, sector, petroleum derivative products, and by geography. On the basis of technology, the market can be segmented into distributed control systems (DCS), programmable logic controller (PLC), human machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and real-time optimization and simulation (RTOS). By derivative products, the market can be segmented into liquefied petroleum gas, petrol, and diesel.Oil and Gas Automation Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe key factors driving the global oil and gas automation market include effective and easy maintenance made possible by automation, enhanced safety and security, and effective exploration from aging reservoirs. In order to satisfy the increasing demand of oil and gas by both domestic and international consumers, there is a need for a delivery system that is both efficient and accurate. Thus, different products such as DCS, PLC, HMI, and SCADA can be used to ensure adequate safety. The oil and gas companies are chiefly aiming at automation systems so as to achieve a higher level of transparency which subsequently leads to profits by complying with stringent regulations regarding carbon emissions. This is expected to continue to drive the market in the coming years.Browse the Full Brochure at :Technological advancements and innovations in automation of both software and hardware are aiding the growth of the oil and gas automation market. On the other hand, factors impacting the growth of the global oil and gas automation market negatively include high initial investments and challenges regarding system upgrades. In short, configuration and consistency are among key concerns for players in the market.Oil and Gas Automation Market: Region-wise OutlookThe report segments the global oil and gas automation market on the basis of geography, into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Owing to the availability of coal and oil reserves, the oil and gas automation market is expected to be concentrated in South East Asia. In addition to this, North America is expected to be a lucrative regional segment in the coming years.Key Players Mentioned in the ReportThe report profiles key players operating in the global oil and gas automation market. They are ABB, Mitsubishi Electric, Siemens, Emersion, Honeywell, and Rockwell Automation. The recent developments and growth strategies adopted by each of the players have been included in the report. The report also provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the companies profiled. The opportunities and challenges that these companies face are also elaborated upon.Global Oil and Gas Automation Market is segmented as:Global oil and gas automation market: By geography-North America-Asia Pacific-Europe-Rest of the WorldTransparency 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 Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog : http://cmfeglobalreports.blogspot.com/ "Ciao" Italy: SMITTY has arrived in Vale di Susa www.mobinteg.com https://www.facebook.com/smyityapp/ http://www.instagram.com/smiityapp www.mobinteg.com Lisbon, January 16th 2017: After Portugal and United States, SMIITY - Smart Interactive cITY, an app developed by Portuguese company mobinteg and that seeks to make cities more communicative and interactive with citizens and tourists, now comes to the Italian market. With the implementation in Vale di Susa, the goal is to help local authorities and organizations to promote the culture and heritage of that Italian region.Tourist routes with geolocation, historical immersion through intelligent optical devices, personalized experiences in museums and online promotion of the most representative sights of the destination are the main functionalities provided by SMIITY Vale di Susa.Smart cities require an innovative approach and the main challenge for Italian cities is to integrate SMIITY's infrastructure and technology sensors with existing structures in order to take full advantage of synergies and interoperability with existing systems in Vale di Susa.According to Guillermo Rosingana, mobinteg's Country Manager for Spain and Italy, the implementation of SMIITY in Vale di Susa will allow the exploration of large volumes of data for tourism innovation in that Italian region: "Available data sources allow to measure, segment, understand and predict tourist flows in real-time, as well as defining strategies and promoting investments, in order to optimize tourism management."SMIITY Vale di Susa will adapt all digital content to existing international standards, including the Web Accessibility 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) guidelines and the Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Mobile Web Application Best Practices W3C Wide Web Consortium)", adds the Country Manager. All to make tourism more accessible and interactive to visitors and residents.SMIITY is free and compatible with iOS and Android devices. There is also a version for Apple Smartwatch. In addition, SMIITY allows you to convert text to audio files in a language of your choice. A tool that makes tourism experiences more inclusive, especially for visually impaired visitors.About mobinteg:Located in Lisbon, mobinteg () is a company specialized in the development of mobile and Internet for Things (IoT) solutions. mobinteg develops solutions in both corporate and consumer segments, seeking to respond to the real needs of customers and valuing the speed, efficiency and safety in the relationship with the consumer.About SMIITY - SMART Interactive cITY:FreeCategory: NewsFB:Instagram:Promotional Material / Images: http://mobinteg.eu/oc/index.php/s/7uOVzaMHaPjZulwFor more information, please contact:Raquel Santosrsantos@mobinteg.comRua Castilho, 39 - 8 C Edificio Castil 1250-068 Lisboa Artsyl Technologies Levels Up Its Partnership with Acumatica http://www.artsyltech.com ONTARIO, CANADA (January 16, 2017) Artsyl Technologies, Inc., a leading global provider of smart process technology for data capture and document workflow processing, today announced that it has increased its involvement in the Acumatica Developer Network Community and enlisted as a Gold Sponsor of the 2017 Acumatica Summit to be held January 30-February 3 in San Diego, CA.The companys recent release of docAlpha 5.0, the companys flagship smart process platform, delivering intelligent capture and workflow functionality and integration with Acumatica for end-to-end business process automation, prompted the companys expanded role as an Acumatica partner and business process automation thought leader.We are proud to elevate our role within Acumaticas vibrant and innovative community of customers and partners as part of our mission to deliver smart process technology and business automation to the middle market, said Jeff Moore, Chief Sales Officer of Artsyl Technologies. The docAlpha smart process platform is a perfect fit for Acumatica partners and customers who want to make the most of their investment in cloud ERP technology and business process automation.The Artsyl docAlpha platforms ERP and ECM integrations allow companies to quickly and easily implement automated processes to extract data from business documents, input that data into Acumatica and launch approval workflows.Integration with docAlpha will empower Acumatica customers to cost-effectively automate business processes and realize a greater return on their investment from their core business systems, adds Moore. We look forward to adding the domain expertise of our community to the collective knowledge of the Acumatica family.Platform capabilities provided by docAlpha 5.0 will allow Acumatica customers to: Automate A/P, A/R and other business processes end-to-end, eliminating manual data entry and driving approval workflows and transaction entry within Acumatica Transform existing documents and files into transaction data to inform business rules for process automation Gain control and visibility over your AP/AR and other processes while reducing cycle times Create and share reports to deliver business intelligence that creates greater visibility to processes and key performance indicators.Artsyl Technologies, Inc. is the innovative company behind the docAlpha Smart Process Platform. For over 10 years Artsyl has been designing, building and innovating technology used by companies globally to reduce their document processing burdens. Whether you have Accounts Payable Invoices, Sales Orders or Remittances docAlpha is designed to make their processing easy. docAlpha can be used in any business process to automate the classification, data extraction, validation and routing of mission critical information to its proper line-of-business application. docAlpha is a state-of-the-art IDR platform designed using Microsoft .NET and a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) which allows it to scale up for Enterprise level On-Premise deployment or be used as a CLOUD based SaaS solution. docAlpha is sold through distributors and VARs globally. Visitfor more information.14 Citron Court, Unit # 14 Concord, ON Canada Qixas opens new U.S Office in Boston www.qixas.com Qixas Group has announced the opening of our new U.S office in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is becoming a growing tech hub for innovation and business enterprise. Our team is thrilled to be part of a community that is passionate about technology and thrives on generating revolutionary ideas. "It's an exciting time for Qixas. This is something we always envisioned doing and has been part of our long-term growth strategy said Floyd Chan, President of Qixas Group. With over 60% of Fortune 500 companies using Microsoft Dynamics, the demand for services is increasing rapidly throughout the U.S. Having a proficient and reliable partner is essential to users of Microsoft Dynamics software. Our goal is to better support our expanding U.S client base and develop new relationships with customers and partners that use or sell Microsoft Dynamics NAV and CRM.Qixas Group is a leading Microsoft Gold ERP Partner in North America specializing in the development, implementation, training and support for Microsoft Dynamics NAV and CRM.Qixas Group is a top Microsoft Gold Partner that specializes in development, implementations, upgrades, performance turning and training for Microsoft Dynamics NAV and CRM.Qixas Group1 Dundas St. W., Ste. 2500Toronto, ON M5G 1Z3Toll free: 888-467-7101 Microbiology Culture Market by Regional Analysis - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/microbiology-culture-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3232 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/global-microbiology-culture-market.htm http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com North America to Retain Dominance in Terms of RevenueOn the basis of region, the global microbiology culture market is segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Rest of the World. North America emerged as the leading regional market in 2014 with a revenue of US$1.6 bn. The presence of a large pool of biopharmaceutical firms and research institutes played a significant role in driving the market for microbiology culture in North America.Analysts expect this region to retain its lead over the forecast period. However, Asia Pacific is likely to present the most promising opportunities and register the fastest CAGR of 6.80% from 2015 to 2023. The unmet medical needs of people, coupled with the growing prevalence of infectious diseases, the surge in the healthcare expenditure, the rising focus on food safety, and the increasing demand for antibiotics, are likely to provide an opportunity-rich market for participants in the near future.Browse the full Microbiology Culture Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2015 - 2023 report atThe market overview section of the report explores market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities that have strong impact on the current microbiology culture market and are likely to influence the market in the future as well. Market attractiveness analysis has been provided in the market overview section to explain the intensity of competition in the market in different geographies. Porters Five Forces Analysis is also provided in this section to understand the microbiology culture market considering different parameters that have an impact on the sustainability of the companies operating in the microbiology culture market. The competitive scenario between different market players is evaluated through market share analysis in the competitive landscape section of the report. All these factors would help the market players to take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and expand their market share in the global market.The report also profiles major players in the microbiology culture market on the basis of various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Becton, Dickinson and Company, bioMerieux S.A., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Eiken Chemical Co, Ltd., EMD (Merck) Millipore, Hi-Media Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Neogen Corporation, Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, Scharlab S.L., and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.Asia Pacific to Exhibit Fastest Growth RateOn account of the increased funding by several governments in the field of microbiology, North America and Europe has acquired the first two positions in the global microbiology culture market. In 2014, North America topped the list with a share of 35.4%, whereas Europe closely followed with 32.0%. Analysts expect North America to remain the key regional market; however, Asia Pacific is likely to report the growth at the fastest cumulative average rate of 6.80% between 2015 and 2023.Download Sample Copy of Report at :Bacterial culture headed the global market in 2014 and is expected to continue to lead in the near future. Complex media is likely to remain the most preferred culture media over the next few years.On the whole, the opportunity in the global market for microbial culture is likely to rise at a CAGR of 5.90% between 2015 and 2023, increasing from US$4.5 bn in 2014 to an estimated value of US$7.6 bn by the end of the forecast period.The analysis presented here is based on a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) titled Microbiology Culture Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2015 - 2023.Key TakeawaysThe top three players held a market share of 52.7% in 2014North America led the global market with a share of 35.4% in 2014The opportunity for microbiology culture at the global level is likely to reach US$7.6 bn by 2023Key Segments of the Global Microbiology Culture MarketBy Culture TypeBacterial CultureEukaryotic CultureBy Media TypeSimple MediaComplex MediaSynthetic MediaSpecial MediaBy RegionNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificLatin AmericaMiddle EastRest of the WorldBrowse : Our new press releasesAbout 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.ContactMr.Sudip S90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: One civilian was killed and two were injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish on Monday, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported, citing medical sources. According to Al-Ahram, the IED was planted in piles of garbage on Ahmed Oraby Street in the city's center. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes a day after Egyptian police said they were able to kill a leading figure in the terrorist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis during a house raid in Al-Arish. In a separate incident, a security source told Al-Ahram that unknown gunmen seized on Monday a general tax authority car at gunpoint in the North Sinai city. The security source said the car was taken to an unknown location. They added that security forces were currently combing the area to arrest the culprits. Egypts army and police forces have been waging a war over the past three years against an Islamist militant insurgency in North Sinai that has seen hundreds of security personnel, as well as hundreds of militants killed. Last week, two separate terrorist attacks on checkpoints in North Sinai killed eight policemen and one civilian and injured 11 policemen and 10 civilians. Search Keywords: Short link: Corporate Wellness Market to Cross US$7.4 bn by 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/asia-pacific-corporate-wellness-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=13988 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/asia-pacific-corporate-wellness-market.htm http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific is led by a slew of global and local companies, such as Central Corporate Wellness, ComPsych Corporation, Optum, Inc., JLT Australia (Recovre Group), Truworth Wellness, SOL Wellness, Sodexo, ConneXions Asia, and Bupa Wellness Pty Ltd. Transparency Market Research has observed that the number of companies venturing into this avenue has been steadily rising owing to the growing presence of MNCs in several developing countries.The opportunity in the corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific was pegged at US$3.4 bn in 2015 and is expected to be worth US$7.4 bn by the end of 2024 at a strong CAGR of 9.0%. Geographical expansions, expansion of product portfolio, mergers and acquisitions, and investing in extensive wellness programs are some of the key growth strategies adopted by the leading players in the Asia Pacific. For instance, in March 2016, Sodexo signed a 10-year contract with Rio Tinto to expand its operations in Australia.Browse the full Corporate Wellness Market: (Service Type - Health Risk Assessment, Fitness, Smoking Cessation, Health Screening, Weight Management, Nutrition) - Asia Pacific Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2016 - 2024 report atCorporate wellness services such as fitness, health risk assessment, weight management, and health screening have witnessed significant growth in revenue in the past few years. Corporate wellness programs are designed to support employees in understanding their health risk and accepting healthy behavior at workplace and to reduce their health care expenditure. These programs reduce the cost of hospitalization, emergency room visits, specialist visits, and surgeries. Moreover, corporate wellness programs result in decrease in absenteeism, increase in productivity, and improvement in quality of life of employees. Increase in non-communicable diseases, government support and initiatives, growingnumber of white collar employees, rising health consciousness among the population, willingness of employers to incorporate wellness programs, and mandatory laws to implement wellness programs in organizations are the factors likely to drive the corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific. However, high cost of services andinefficient execution of corporate wellness services are anticipated to hamper the growth of the corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific.The executive summary of the report comprises a market snapshot of the corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific and comparative analysis by geography in terms of value % for 2015 and 2024. Based on service type, the corporate wellness market in the region has been segmented intohealth risk assessment, fitness, smoking cessation, health screening, weight management, nutrition, and others.Market revenue analysis of all the segments mentioned abovehas been provided for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year and 2014 as historical year. The executive summary also comprises majordrivers and restraints along with key trends likely to drive the growth of the corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific.Download Sample Copy of Report at :High Cost of Implementation Restricting Widespread AdoptionImplementing corporate wellness programs in organizations is a costly affair and companies need to utilize a certain portion of their budget from the revenue generated, the author of the study comments. Services such as fitness and health risk assessment need high investments and as a result, are cut down by the companies. This restricts the growth of the corporate wellness market.In addition, the inefficient execution of corporate wellness services is a major restraint to the market and is likely to increase costs for the companies.China to Lead APAC Corporate Wellness Market throughout Forecast PeriodBy type of service, the fitness segment led the overall corporate wellness market, accounting for a 38.6% share in 2015, reaching US$2,793.5 mn by 2024. The smoking cessation segment, although the smallest in terms of revenue in 2015, is anticipated to register a strong CAGR of 9.6% during the forecast period. By country, China emerged as the leading revenue generator in 2015 and is projected to retain its position throughout the forecast period. India, on the other hand, is expected to expand at the fastest pace by 2024.This review is based on the findings of a TMR report titled Corporate Wellness Market - Asia Pacific Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024.Asia Pacific Corporate Wellness Market, by ServiceHealth Risk AssessmentFitnessSmoking CessationHealth ScreeningWeight ManagementNutritionOthers (stress management, diabetes management, and vaccinations)Asia Pacific Corporate Wellness Market, by CountryChinaJapanIndiaAustraliaSingaporeHong KongMalaysiaThailandRest of Asia PacificBrowse : Our new press releasesAbout 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.ContactMr.Sudip S90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: New study on Global Ultra-fine ATH Market 2021 industry trends & forecast just published Global Ultra-fine ATH Market 2021 http://www.marketintelreports.com/report/qyr0246/global-ultrafine-ath-market-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2021 http://www.marketintelreports.com/pdfdownload.php?id=qyr0246 http://www.marketintelreports.com/purchase.php?id=qyr0246 www.marketintelreports.com The Global Ultra-fine ATH Consumption 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Ultra-fine ATH market.First, the report provides a basic overview of the Ultra-fine ATH industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. And development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures.Check Complete Report @Secondly, the report states the global Ultra-fine ATH market size (volume and value), and the segment markets by regions, types, applications and companies are also discussed.Third, the Ultra-fine ATH market analysis is provided for major regions including USA, Europe, China and Japan, and other regions can be added. For each region, market size and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information. Whats more, the Ultra-fine ATH industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Ultra-fine ATH in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Get Sample Brochure of the Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Huber Albemarl Nabaltec Shandong Aluminium KC Corp Showa Denko MAL Magyar Aluminium Zibo Pengfeng Jianzhan Aluminium AL-TECH Sumitomo R.J. Marshall Shibang Chem Nippon Light Metal Almatis Zhongzhou AluminiumMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) South America, Middle East and AfricaMarket Segment by Type, covers Type I Type II Type IIIMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Application 1 Application 2 Application 3Order a copy of Global Ultra-fine ATH Market Report now @About us:MarketIntelReports (MIR) aim to empower our clients to successfully manage and outperform in their business decisions, we do this by providing Premium Market Intelligence, Strategic Insights and Databases from a range of Global Publishers.A group of industry veterans who are well experienced in reputed international consulting firms after identifying the sourcing needs of MNCs for market intelligence, have together started this business savior MarketIntelReports.MIR intends to be a one-stop shop with an intuitive design, exhaustive database, expert assistance, secure cart checkout and data privacy integrated. It curates the list of reports, publishers and studies to ensure that the database is constantly updated to dynamically meet the targeted, specific needs of our clients.MarketIntelReports currently has more than 10,000 plus titles and 35+ publishers on our platform and growing consistently to fill the Global Intelligence Demand Supply Gap. We cover more than 15 industry verticals being: Automotive, Electronics, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Chemicals, Building & Construction, Agriculture, Food & Beverages, Banking & Finance, Media and Government, Public Sector Studies.Contact us:Mayur SSales Manager2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400,Wilmington,Delaware,19808United Statespr@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-261-5343 New Market Study on Handhelds in Healthcare - Global Industry Analysis has been Published http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/handhelds-healthcare-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4471 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com The global handhelds in healthcare market is witnessing an admirable growth due to the growing aging population, rising demand for medical process automation technologies and continuing product innovations. Furthermore, hospital supply cost limiting policies along with increased demand for error reduction in the healthcare industry are expected to boost the growth of overall handhelds in healthcare market in the near future. The major usage various handhelds devices lies within the established healthcare facilities that demands, rapid, accurate and biased free point-of-care tests results. In addition, the use of portable handheld mobile devices in hospitals and pharmaceutical industry decreases human biases and enables easy data control and monitoring. Additionally, increasing usage of various mobile administrative devices such as PDAs and tablets is further driving the growth of this market. These highly precise instruments are also extensively used in the patient data management process within the healthcare facility for maintaining the quality and uniformity. Thus, it has been expected that owing to the preciseness and accurate results of the handheld devices, these devices have the potential to revolutionize the work process of the overall healthcare industry. However, low commercial availability of product, low adoption rate and high pricing are few of the important factors that might act as hindrances for the growth of this market.Browse the full Handhelds in Healthcare Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023 report atThe major types of handheld devices used in the healthcare industry are as follows:Patient information management devicesPersonal digital assistants (PDAs)Tablet computersSmartphonesPatient monitoring devicesPulse oximetersElectrocardiogram (ECG/EKG)Multiparameter monitorsFetal heart monitorsContinuous glucose monitorsBlood pressure monitorsPortable ultrasound deviesOthersSome of the end-users of the handhelds in healthcare are as follows:HospitalsPharmaciesAmbulatory care centersHome healthcareNursing HomesIn terms of geographical analysis, North America followed by Europe account for the largest market share of handhelds in healthcare market due to the high adoption rate of mobile handheld devices in healthcare facilities and hospitals. Moreover, rising geriatric population in developed nations such as the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Canada would further push the market growth of handheld devices in healthcare. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, the global geriatric population would reach around 2 billion (22% of the global population) by 2050, which was around 524 million in 2010. Moreover, according to the United Nations, the number of people aged 60 years and above is likely to increase from 841 million in 2013 to over 2 billion by 2050. Thus, the increasing base of geriatric population it is expected to drive the sales of handheld patient monitoring devices in the near future. Moreover, other regions such as Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia are expected to be the prospective markets in the near future. Due to the high adoption rate of handheld monitoring devices and highly developing healthcare industry, these regions are expected to be the potential market in the near future.Download Sample Copy of Report at :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.ContactMr.Sudip S90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite: After parachuting into subzero-temperature skies around Mount St. Helens, skyjacker D.B. Cooper landed safely in the wilderness on Thanksgiving eve in 1971. As he counted the $200,000 in cash that had been strapped to his body, the bushes rustled and parted. He froze. It was not a co-conspirator, the FBI or the police meeting him. It was Bigfoot. Angry. Cooper fought the monster, but during the attack the man was bitten, and soon Cooper himself grew huge, hairy and ferocious. Yes, hed transformed into another Pacific Northwest legend, a beast that still roams the woods to this day. Native Oregonians have our favorite theories about D.B. Cooper. The above hypothesis (apologies for the spoilers) from Portland filmmaker David DeCoteau's "Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper" is about as plausible as any out there. Playwright Tommy Smith steers clear of any Bigfoot tie-ins in "db," his survey of possible identities and outcomes for the mysterious passenger in dark sunglasses. That's a very good thing. Smith clearly has his hands full juggling the storylines, characters and time-hops he's set up. (On the weekend "db" debuted at the CoHo Theater, another theory made headlines, this one suggesting Cooper was a Boeing Co. employee.) Smith and the show's director and co-producer, Isaac Lamb, work out three principal possibilities, all of which gained traction at some point during the 45 years since the crime and Cooper's vanishing. Was Cooper really Duane Weber, who said on his deathbed that he was "Dan Cooper"? Was Cooper actually Lynn Doyle Cooper ("LD" in the play), whose niece unmasked the mythical man in 2011? Or could he have been she, Barb Dayton, a biological male who, in a plot akin to that of "Dog Day Afternoon," needed the cash to complete sex reassignment surgery? If you don't have some grounding in the facts of the Cooper case, following these speculative fictions could be challenging. And these segments fly faster than the Concorde. (The play runs 73 minutes, or about as long as a flight from Portland to Sacramento.) Smith also attempts to flush out the delicate relationship between Cooper and Tina Mucklow, the Northwest Orient Airlines stewardess who added hostage negotiating to her in-flight duties. Their connection truly propels and stabilizes the wild ride, so it's a shame she's frequently pushed aside in favor of the speculative stories. There's no denying, though, that the author delivers a D.B. Cooper tale with "the momentum of a highjacking," as promised during the play's genesis at the 2014 Just Add Water playwrights festival. Buckle in for a gut-level deconstruction that's riveting, unexpectedly funny and as ambitious as Cooper's 10,000-foot high-dive from flight 305. Line of the night: "That's why I want to be a stewardess. I want to meet strangers," Tina says during her job interview. Strengths: Lamb, a serious thespian who is also a giant goofball, comfortably pilots "db" through its supersonic humor on the ground and suspenseful scenes in the air. The three identity scenarios -- "Duane," "Barb" and "LD" -- rely on stock characters and race to their conclusions, as if Lamb is pulling inspiration from those formulaic re-enactments from "Unsolved Mysteries" and "America's Most Wanted." But, taken together, these segments mean to create a collage exploring the idea of identity. Smith grew up in Washington's Puget Sound area and says he has had "a lifelong fascination" with Cooper (and Bigfoot), and "db" is excruciatingly researched. Whatever fictional elements Smith added blend in seamlessly. From the play, here are three things that seem incontrovertible: Cooper loved bourbon and maybe morphine. He planned his caper with military precision. Northwest Orient stewardesses had the fiercest uniforms in the skies: four-button scarlet jackets with matching skirts and knee-high black boots. Weaknesses: "db" does feel over-conceived, right down to the cagey cast listing in the program: "Actor As Male 1," "Actor As Female 2." Please. Another over-cooked element? Abrupt time jumps leapfrogging over the 1970s into the '80s and 2000s. Trimming some of the characters wouldn't hurt, either, and wouldn't affect the go-for-broke tone of the production. The script is almost too whip-smart for its own good. The first two segments veer perilously toward parody. There might as well be a scene with the cockpit crew bandying, "We have clearance, Clarence," "Roger, Roger," "What's our vector, Victor?" Most significant performances: Of the various actors portraying Cooper, Duffy Epstein is the most successful. His flirty, cocky, paranoid skirt-chaser is a great fit for his obnoxiously plaid, slightly flared '70s slacks. "db" co-producer Rebecca Lingafelter handily presents Tina's eagerness, fear and transformation -- but, to be fair, the stewardess is the only fully written role. Additional strengths: This is first-class world-building from set and lighting designer Peter Ksander and costumer designer Brynne Oster-Bainnson. And it's a brutally beige, burnt orange and Botany 500 world for sure. Exit lights in the carpet form the center aisle of the plane and a large wooden replica of a commercial jet hangs ominously over everything. Take-away: Even with an erratic, fussy flight plan, "db" is full-throttle thrills. --Lee Williams, for The Oregonian/OregonLive *** "db" When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Feb. 4 Where: CoHo Theater, 2257 N.W. Raleigh St. Tickets: $22.50-$28, cohoproductions.org or 503-220-2646 Ty Segall and the Muggers at Sasquatch! 2016 Oddball rockers Ty Segall and the Muggers perform a heavy set at the Sasquatch! music festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington, on May 28, 2016. (David Greenwald/The Oregonian) (David Greenwald/The Oregonian) It's going be an electric summer at Pickathon. The annual festival, held at Happy Valley's Pendarvis Farm, has announced its initial lineup: more than 40 acts ranging from indie heavy hitters Dinosaur Jr to UK icon Robyn Hitchcock. Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis is also booked as a solo artist, in case you were worried about Pickathon's guitar solo quota. On the rock front, Ty Segall, Drive-By Truckers, Deer Tick, Wolf People, Pinegrove and psych favorites Dungen will be among the weekend's noise-makers. The eclectic fest will offer more hip-hop and soul than usual, with Portland's own The Last Artful, Dodgr and TYuS joined on the bill by Black Milk & Nat Turner, R&B trio KING, and soul man Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires. "This year's lineup reflects a spirit of inclusion," the fest announced in a press release, "with close to 50% featuring women, as well as international artists from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden, Thailand, Tuva, and the UK." Pickathon will stay true to its roots origins with songwriters such as Andy Shauf and Courtney Marie Andrews, the Washington artist who made one of our favorite albums of the year in "Honest Life." And look for a return performance by Jonathan Richman, the former Modern Lovers musician--a festival rarity, and a stand-out of Pickathon's 2014 weekend. Y La Bamba, Cat Hoch and the 1939 Ensemble will also represent Portland on the bill. As it did in 2016, the fest kicked off the year with an announcement event at Revolution Hall on Sunday night that delivered the lineup and saw a handful of its bands perform. The 2017 edition will be the 19th Pickathon. It's scheduled for Aug. 3-6, with tickets on sale now at pickathon.com/tickets. They range from $125 single-day passes to $310 weekend admission, with "Carefree Camping" and other options, in addition to weekend or daily parking. Expect the fest's usual array of local food, beer and other beverages, as well as kid-friendly programming, yoga, and more. -- David Greenwald dgreenwald@oregonian.com 503-294-7625; @davidegreenwald Instagram: Oregonianmusic VACCINE.JPG (AP Photo/File) By Faye Flam It's easy to assume from reading the news that scientists have reflexively pooh-poohed concerns about a vaccine-autism link. Here's the BBC: "Medical experts have overwhelmingly rejected any link between vaccines and autism, warning that promoting such a theory endangers public health." The Wall Street Journal said that the preservative thimerosal was "wrongly accused of causing autism." This glosses over an important sequence of events. Scientists didn't reject the idea out of hand, when the theory was first floated. They conducted a mountain of research, and then the wrongness of the theory became clear. This old accusation about vaccines is back in the news because of President-elect Donald Trump's tweets claiming that children became autistic after receiving "massive shots." He is said to have discussed vaccine safety not with any scientists but with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer who has written books arguing for a link between autism and thimerosal, which is used in some vaccines. Some news accounts dismissed these concerns by stating that there's no evidence for a link between childhood vaccines and autism. But parents want more than just absence of evidence; they rightly expect evidence of absence. That's accepted public policy. Even if there's no evidence of danger, new drugs can't be unleashed on the public until they pass a series of safety studies. Childhood vaccines have undergone dozens of studies on four continents conducted by hundreds of researchers. That's yielded evidence that the potential risk of autism is so small that it's dwarfed by the risk of the diseases the vaccines protect against. The diseases may be mild in some cases, but not always. There's a measurable risk of permanent brain damage from measles, for example. The saga of vaccine fears is compounded by the erroneous idea that scientists should be able to prove that vaccines are safe. What is "prove"? What is "safe"? Science deals in probabilities. The best that we can hope for is what we have: reasonable certainty that these drugs are reasonably safe. People on both sides are spreading confusion, said UCLA epidemiologist and statistician Sander Greenland. Those who oppose vaccines by demanding absolute proof of safety are asking more than science can deliver. They should take a philosophy class on epistemology. And scientists who claim they've proven vaccines safe are expressing overconfidence. They should join the class. As Greenland said, "the only thing science can do is establish a margin of safety." Science can offer risk-benefit ratios. And here, the bottom line is that any potential risks in taking the vaccines are much smaller than those posed by skipping them, said Stanford epidemiology professor Steven Goodman. There are some documented risks, which are rare, and then there's autism, which is probably a non-risk, or at worst a very unlikely one. Think of it as a small risk of incurring a small risk: Science can't absolutely rule out the autism link, but it can show that the risk, if there is one, is much lower than the risk of death or brain damage posed by remaining vulnerable to measles, pertussis and other preventable diseases. Goodman has served on an Institute of Medicine panel examining vaccine risks, as well as another panel on drug safety. The vaccine panel, which met from 2001 to 2004, took autism concerns so seriously, he said, that they produced nine reports to address different hypotheses. Those included the notion that the preservative caused harm, which has been raised by Kennedy, and the fear Trump has expressed in his tweets -- that doctors might be putting kids at risk by giving them too many vaccines at once. The reports all concluded that vaccines can't be more than a very small risk factor. Goodman said he's met with activist parents who were worried their autistic kids were harmed by vaccines, and was impressed with how much they knew about science. The problem, he said, is that many hold a very narrow view of what science entails. To them, science included only laboratory tests that could give specific information on individual kids. The science of studying large populations ... well, he calls it epidemiology, but they call it junk science. The term "junk science" is so ill-defined that it can be invoked to dismiss anything people happen to disagree with. Still, he said he's sympathetic to the fact that science can't explain why their kids developed autism. Before anyone raised suspicion of vaccines, some researchers promoted another wrong and pernicious idea known as the "refrigerator mother" theory, blaming women for working or just not being attentive enough. Recent work in genetics has tied some cases of autism to combinations of common genes, and others to "de novo" mutations that can occur in eggs or sperm and are therefore not carried by the parents. But genes don't offer a full explanation, and scientists haven't ruled out the possibility that genes make some people more vulnerable than others to environmental triggers. No potential trigger has been explored as thoroughly as vaccines. It would be nice if scientists could give us proof that they are 100 percent safe, but that's not realistic. In discussing the trouble with proof, physicist Richard Feynman once explained that he couldn't prove that there were no flying saucers; he could only argue that they were very unlikely. Scientists took vaccine safety seriously. They found that an autism risk is extremely unlikely. Now it's time for Kennedy and Trump to take science seriously. Faye Flam is a Bloomberg View columnist. She was a staff writer for Science magazine and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and she is the author of "The Score: How the Quest for Sex Has Shaped the Modern Man." (c) 2016, Bloomberg View By Ruth Marcus WASHINGTON -- The hallmark of a democracy is the peaceful transfer of power following an election. An essential, if painful, corollary of that rule is to accept the outcome of the election even when its conduct may have been marred, even when questions linger about the nature of the victory. That was the difficult lesson of the 2000 campaign. But for a flawed butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County that diverted confused voters to Pat Buchanan, Al Gore would likely have been declared the winner in Florida and thus the 43rd president. But there are no do-overs in elections, especially presidential ones. There may be flaws and disputes. But at some point, after the procedures established by the rule of law have run their course, the country needs to accept the result, however difficult it may be. So for all of John Lewis' heroic service to his country, the Georgia congressman's assertion that Donald Trump is not a "legitimate" president was not appropriate or helpful. Indeed, it is not even the right way to think about the question. Trump is a legitimate president because our system demands finality and acceptance even in the presence of uncertainty. Posting an asterisk next to an election result is not healthy for democracy. Yet there is a difference between debating whether Trump is a legitimate president and continuing to express concerns about the legitimacy of the election. Exactly what factors produced Trump's victory can never be measured with precision: Hillary Clinton's flaws or miscalculations? FBI director James Comey's improper intervention? Russian meddling? Any or all of these could have made the difference. We will never know. We never can know. Trump, however reluctantly and belatedly, acknowledges the undeniable, the existence of Russian interference. But much as Trump and his team insistently proclaim a nonexistent landslide, they peddle the fiction that the absence of Russian hacking directly into voting machines equates to the absence of worry about the influence of other Russian mischief. The two are not the same. Russia meddled. Trump himself eagerly seized on the fruits of its hacking. "I love WikiLeaks," he announced during the campaign. He cannot now be taken seriously in asserting its irrelevance. "Donald Trump won this election fair and square," vice president-elect Mike Pence kept saying, as he made the rounds of Sunday shows. Yes, Trump won. It was not necessarily fair and square. Trump can blame the victim -- it was the sloppy Democratic National Committee. He can obfuscate -- other countries have hacked into other systems, for other purposes. But nothing can change the reality that a hostile foreign power sought to affect the result of the election that made him president. Thus California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, former ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made important and somewhat spine-chilling news when she told NBC's "Meet the Press" that she believes Russian intervention altered the outcome. Whether Feinstein is correct is less important than the unpleasant fact that she might be. And that is the flip side of accepting Trump's legitimacy: to insist on investigation and accountability. Feinstein put it in appropriately apocalyptic terms. "We cannot ignore what has happened. To ignore it is really to commit ourselves to a very bad future," she said. "This is the future of America. It's the future of democracy. And if we can't carry out an election without disinformation being pumped into it by another country, we've got a huge destruction of our system going on." A searching inquiry into what happened and how to prevent it from recurring is essential. That should not be a matter for partisan debate, as hard as it may be for Trump, especially, to accept. Whether that happens will not determine the legitimacy of Trump's election. It will shape history's judgment of his presidency. Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcuswashpost.com. (c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group By Emiko Badillo, Jennifer Phung and John Hyunwook Joo For some of our Asian and Asian-American communities, the end of January will mark the Lunar New Year. It's a time to remember our ancestors and roots, wish each other good fortune, health, and prosperity, and connect with family and community. Lunar New Year 2017 begins soon after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and we, Asians4BlackLives PDX, are mobilizing to honor the legacy of Dr. King, black leaders and activists from the civil rights movement, and the ongoing fight for black lives and liberation. Asian communities have benefited from rights won through black struggles, including voting rights protections and an end to immigration bans. We grow from a legacy of black-Asian solidarity and have the responsibility to stand with black communities, knowing our paths to liberation are intertwined. The Lunar New Year is an opportunity to broaden the meaning of family and community to include all people who experience discrimination and state sanctioned violence in this country. Black families in Portland are hurting from the loss of their loved ones to police violence. January 28 marks the one-year anniversary of Christopher Kalonji, a young man struggling with mental illness who was killed by the police in Oak Grove. January 29 marks seven years since Portland police killed Aaron Campbell, an unarmed man with his hands up and behind his head. In this time of reflection, we acknowledge their lives and families, along with many others, including Keaton Otis, James Jahar Perez, Kendra James, and Deontae J. Keller--all black folks targeted and killed by Portland police. Asians are often framed as a "model minority," a harmful myth that pits us against other communities of color, particularly black communities. It distracts us from the systemic violence and inequality that black folks experience every day. We push back against this idea, starting with calling out anti-black racism within our own families and communities while acting in solidarity with black folks in their fights for justice. In a state like Oregon, founded on black exclusion laws, and where black communities disproportionately bear the brunt of gentrification, incarceration and targeted by acts of violence, there's more work ahead to ensure black lives matter. So, as we welcome the lunar new year, we call on our Asian communities to affirm, in the words of Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, the "lives of black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all black lives along the gender spectrum, centering all those who are marginalized within black liberation movements." Only when all black people have justice and liberation can we all move closer to real freedom. Join Asians 4 Black Lives PDX as we host conversations with our communities at local black-owned restaurants and fundraise for local black organizations during the week leading up to Lunar New Year. To learn more, visit us at www.facebook.com/PDXAsians4BlackLives. And join us on Jan. 28 at the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Justice and Police Reform's March and Rally for Justice and Equality. Emiko Badillo, Jennifer Phung and John Hyunwook Joo are Portland activists who organize with Asians4BlackLives PDX. The second wave of defendants set for trial next month in the armed seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge want occupation leaders Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne to testify in their defense. Bundy and Payne are both in custody in Nevada, scheduled to face trial themselves this spring in another federal case. The seven defendants in the second Oregon standoff trial have proposed that Bundy and Payne be transferred to Oregon to testify sometime in March and then return to Nevada by April for their trial in the 2014 standoff with federal land management agents near Bunkerville, Nevada. They anticipate Bundy, who testified over three days last fall and was acquitted of all charges in the refuge takeover case, would take the stand on two trial days. "In my opinion, his testimony cannot be replicated by any other witness or even group of witnesses. Mr. Bundy also has personal knowledge of facts related to the misdemeanor charges presently facing these defendants that were not at issue in the first trial and to which Mr. Bundy's prior testimony did not apply,'' wrote defense lawyer Andrew Kohlmetz, standby lawyer for defendant Jason Patrick. "It is the unanimous judgment of all defense counsel that Ammon Bundy is a critical witness for the defendants in this case.'' Twenty-six people faced federal conspiracy charges stemming from the 41-day occupation of the federal bird sanctuary in southeastern Oregon. Bundy and six co-defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy, weapons and other charges after a five-week trial last fall. Eleven others pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge. Prosecutors dismissed charges against another. The rest will go to trial on Feb. 14, on both felony conspiracy and weapons charges and additional misdemeanor charges, including trespass, tampering with equipment and destruction of property. The defense lawyers for Bundy and Payne in Nevada don't object to their clients testifying in the Oregon case, yet Payne wants to talk to Patrick's defense investigator before deciding if he would. He's set to meet with the investigator on Feb. 16. "Mr. Patrick recognizes that Mr. Payne has a 5th Amendment privilege not to testify,'' Kohlmetz wrote. If Payne chooses to invoke his right not to testify, Patrick will withdraw the request to call him as a witness. Prosecutors argue that no mention of the acquittal of Ammon Bundy and his six co-defendants be allowed during the second trial, saying it would be irrelevant and "wildly prejudicial.'' If the court were to allow mention of the acquittals, then the court also should mention the defendants who have pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge as well, but ask the jury in the second trial to disregard both, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight wrote in a court filing. Defendants want the court to allow evidence that the seven defendants tried last fall were acquitted on the federal conspiracy charge. "It's probably fair to say that the initial default rule is Jury 2 doesn't hear about what Jury 1 decided, but there are situations where that does happen,'' said criminal defense lawyer Kevin Sali, who is not involved in this case. While prosecutors can't prevent Bundy or Payne from taking the stand for the defense, the court could instruct them not to discuss the prior verdicts in their Oregon case. "Mr. Patrick contends that the failure of the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the first seven defendants tried were members of the conspiracy charged herein, has at least some tendency to make the existence of the conspiracy itself, and these defendants' participation in it, less probable,'' his lawyer Kohlmetz wrote in a motion. "This is particularly true when the government seek to introduce the statements and actions of acquitted defendants as made in furtherance of said conspiracy.'' In a flurry of other pretrial motions, the defendants also urged the court to dismiss the trespass charge against them, saying it's too broad and arbitrarily enforced. "Hundreds of people traveled to and from the refuge during the protest. Of that group of individuals, only 27 people were arrested, and only 7 of the arrested individuals were charged with trespass...despite the fact that the majority of the people who came to the refuge engaged in similar, if not identical, conduct,'' wrote defense lawyer Matthew McHenry, who represents Sean Anderson. To prove trespassing, prosecutors said they must show only that the defendants entered the refuge without authorization and "should have reasonably recognized that their conduct would cause an invasion of an interest of another,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow wrote in a response. The defense also shouldn't be allowed to argue that the refuge isn't federal property, Barrow said. "Defendants have asserted that the federal government cannot permanently own property or that the state of Oregon did not consent to the transfer of the land to the federal government. If such beliefs were a cognizable defense to trespass on federal lands, it would render the charge unenforceable,'' Barrow wrote. "Finally, as this Court has noted, there is no genuine dispute that the federal government owns the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and that it owned and controlled the property at the time of the occupation.'' If the misdemeanor charges stand, the defense teams also argue for the right to a jury trial on those charges. Prosecutors counter that federal law says a judge decides the lesser charges. Prosecutors would prefer to hold a jury trial on the federal conspiracy and weapons charges, and while the jury is deliberating, present further evidence on the misdemeanor charges solely to the judge. The next status hearing in the case is set for Friday. Several of the defendants will be formally arraigned on the new misdemeanor charges. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonian Egypt and Belarus are working to reach a free trade agreement between Egypt and the Economic Belarusian Union to facilitate and increase trade exchange between two countries, the Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi said on Monday. "The two countries are exerting all efforts to establish an economic and investment environment encouraging businessmen from both sides to take advantage of investment opportunities to promote growth," El-Sisi said in his speech during the opening of the Belarusian-Egyptian business forum in Cairo. The Egyptian President added that the two countries are exploring opportunities adding that they aim to create Free trade between Egypt and Belarus. "We hope that this forum would have significant outcome that encourages joint investment and promotes growth and trade in order to achieve the common interests of the two countries," he said. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in his opening speech at the forum that his country that plans to activate all agreed upon projects in the next few years. There are significant economic horizons between the two countries, including mechanization of operations, as well as petrochemical industries, food industries and the timber industry, building materials, pharmaceuticals and microbiological projects. "Egypt is our [Belarus'] window to Africa,"" Lukashenko said adding that Belarus wants to cooperate in more fields such as culture, military production and science. He further expressed Belarus' willingness to collaborate in the military production saying that they have some projects ready to be implemented. The Belarusian President called on businessmen from the two countries to work on opening more horizons for cooperation noting that the first joint committee meeting between the two countries will take place in the first quarter of this year, of activating relations. The Business Forum was attended by Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, and a number of Egyptian ministers and senior state officials in addition to the Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister and Belarusian10 ministers. A delegation of 40 major Belarusian companies looking to invest in Egypt are also taking part in the forum. On Sunday, Egypt and Belarus agreed to boost cooperation in the spheres of security, trade, cultural exchange and defence, according to a joint declaration signed between Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during his two-day visit to Cairo. Search Keywords: Short link: The High Administrative Court rejected on Monday an appeal by the government against voiding the Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea island deal; pro-government Support Egypt block vows to continue discussing the matter in Parliament A bloc of Egyptian MPs welcomed a High Administrative Court verdict on Monday that upheld a June decision by an administrative court which voided the April 2016 Egyptian-Saudi Red Sea island deal. The opposition 25/30 bloc said that the parliament does not now have the right to discuss the controversial maritime re-demarcation deal, which would hand the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudia Arabia, and called on state institutions to respect the court ruling. In a short statement issued on Monday afternoon, the bloc described today's court ruling as "a death sentence" that ended the deal forever. The bloc also demanded the release of protesters who were recently arrested for demonstrating against the deal. The cabinet had referred on 1 January the agreement on the two Red Sea islands to parliament for voting. Parliament has not yet voted on the deal. In a statement to journalists following today's ruling, the head of the parliament's committee for legislative and constitutional affairs, MP Bahaaeddin Abu Shoqa, said that the House of Representatives would continue to discuss the deal and has the final say on the matter. Independent MP Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat urged the parliament not to discuss the demarcation deal to avoid "a clash between the legislative and judicial branches." "This is a final verdict that should be respected," El-Sadat said in a statement he issued hours following the courts decision. El-Sadat also called on the Egyptian government to respect the "public will" and "the judicial rulings" as well as to "stop challenging the verdict in front the Supreme Constitutional Court." "The Egyptian government should also re-open a dialogue with Saudi Arabia about the two islands." He said also invited fellow MPs to go to Tiran and Sanafir to raise the Egyptian flag. Leftist MP Samir Ghattas slammed Monday statements from the pro-government majority Support Egypt bloc that said parliament would continue to discuss the deal, insisting that parliament has the final say on the matter in spite of the court ruling. "The [Support Egypt] bloc do not respect the constitution because if they do they would have rejected the [2016] IMF loan deal, which did not pass first through the House of Representatives in accordance to article 127 of the Constitution," Ghattas told Ahram Arabic news website. "Those MPs used to say that we should wait until the court's verdict and when the High Administrative Court issued its decision, they then said that the verdict is a judicial encroachment on the House of Representatives' powers," MP Ghattas said. "Our patriotism is being tested -- all Egyptians approve of the High Administrative Court's verdict and not just MPs," he added. Search Keywords: Short link: In a year that set new records for severe and devastating weather, the American Red Cross provided more assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people impacted by these disasters all across the United States than in the past two years combined. In 2016, 32,000 Red Cross volunteers responded to 180 significant disasters in 45 states and two U.S. territories including wildfires, flooding, Hurricane Matthew and other emergencies. Here in the Michigan region, the Red Cross launched relief operations after it was discovered that the Flint municipal water system was compromised. The Flint water crisis became the largest Red Cross disaster response in Michigan history. As the Red Cross turns a page in its disaster response efforts surrounding the many challenges associated with the Flint water crisis, our community-focused humanitarian work continues to positively assist residents. More than 4,855 volunteers and staff were able to provide 111,846 cases of water to impacted communities, equaling at least 2.7 million bottles. In addition, the Red Cross conducted 79,265 home visits, 45,845 water filters and cartridges, 9,868 water testing kits and helped establish the ongoing Flint Recovery Group, with more than 500 active members representing more than 180 partner organizations. One of our oldest communities was severely impacted by this man-made disaster and Red Cross workers helped around the clock, making sure people had safe water to drink and that the people impacted by this crisis received help in their time of need, said Kimberly Burton, regional chief executive officer for the American Red Cross of Michigan. Families impacted by disaster face what can be their darkest days. This year a seemingly endless chain of disasters affected hundreds of thousands of people and the Red Cross was there, wherever called upon, helping. During 2016, the Red Cross provided the following help to people impacted by disasters across the country: Opened nearly 800 emergency shelters, providing 206,000 overnight shelter stays to people forced from their homes Served more than 4.1 million meals and snacks Distributed more than 2.1 million relief items Home fires continued to be the largest disaster threat in the U.S. During 2016, the Red Cross provided casework assistance to help 79,000 families recover after a home fire left them with nowhere else to turn. The Red Cross and thousands of local partners are also working to help prevent home fires, deaths and injuries. Since 2014, at least 118 alarms have been installed, and 625,000 youth have been taught about fire safety. Michigan Region home fire campaign stats: 10,000 smoke alarms were installed 3,800 in-home visits were conducted 2,800 evacuation plans were created Nearly 10,000 residents in communities across Michigan were positively impacted 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 The Isabella County Sheriffs Office is seeking help from the public to identify two men who walked out of the Union Township Walmart with a shopping cart of stolen merchandise. The theft occurred at 8:38 p.m. Friday at the store, 4730 Encore Blvd. After the pair took the items into the parking lot without paying for them, store personnel saw the suspects place the items into the trunk of a black or dark green Pontiac Grand Prix, a media release states. Iran's anti-aircraft forces fired shots at a drone in central Tehran on Monday, the governor of Tehran Province was quoted as saying by Tansim news agency, but he said the unmanned aircraft was not military. "It has not been a military drone. It entered the no-fly zone...We do not know where it belonged to," Isa Farhadi said. Fars news agency reported that the drone has been shot down Search Keywords: Short link: From exploring new ways to extend the life of Midland County roads to saving money by using automatic vehicle location (AVL) devices on winter maintenance vehicles, the Midland County Road Commission is using new innovations to improve operations. That much was clear from two recent stories in the Midland Daily News. The first story looked at the AVL devices, which are being installed on all new vehicles. We currently have three trucks equipped with AVL devices and will continue with each new truck entering the fleet. Our system can show us where the trucks have been and at what time they were there. It will tell us if the truck was blading or salting or both and also the rate of speed it was traveling, Terry Palmer, MCRC managing director, said. Knowing where the trucks have been, what type of work was performed and how fast the vehicles were traveling can help improve the efficiency of road commission snow removal operations and save taxpayers dollars. The second story talked about new methods of extending the life of roads. One new technology is called paving fabric, which can bring to mind landscape fabric but for road projects. The paving fabric seals imperfect road surfaces against water in a way that strengthens the road surface as opposed to the traditional chip-seal method. I thought someone has got to try it, Palmer said. Anytime we can try to extend the life of our pavement at the same cost of your traditional fixes we like to try it. Palmer said the road commission also is using two other methods to improve local roads. One involves micromilling a road surface to perfect it, putting down a fiber mat, and then either topping it with a thin three-quarter inch overlay of asphalt or using asphalt emulsions and chip stones as a cover. The second is what Palmer has coined the Sanford underbody. This technique involves milling off 2 inches of the road surface, then applying a standard chip-seal and 1.5 inches of asphalt. After one year, the Sanford underbody has no cracks, according to Palmer. Well review it year after year, but it would be a nice easy treatment for road commissions to do. It is about 20 percent more expensive, but I expect it to last 50 percent longer. Work being done by the Midland County Road Commission was featured in a recent edition of Crossroads, the magazine of the County Road Association of Michigan. For Midland County taxpayers, thats evidence that when it comes to looking for new ways to improve road maintenance operations, the Midland County Road Commission is helping lead the way. Verndale Family Life Church grows exponentially by reaching inward and outward. Cody and Cheyenne McManigle were on the verge of divorce. Then, they accepted their friends invitation to visit his church one Sunday. It was a last-ditch effort to save their marriageand it worked. God used Verndale Family Life Church in Verndale, Minnesota, to transform their lives. Now the couple, who has several kids, is serving in the churchs ministries and sharing their testimony with other men and women there. The McManigles are just one of many families whove helped the churchs attendance skyrocket from a dozen people to about 260 in just six years. It began in 2010, when the church had dwindled to 12 members. The pastor and most members had left. The environment that remained was unhealthy. When now-Lead Pastor Amos Self arrived with his family to lead the church that May, he knew the only direction to go was up. The old church cliche says that its easier to give birth than to raise the dead, Self says, but in this case we really did try to raise the dead. The church started by looking inward: modernizing their building decor, website and services to appeal to a younger demographic. In those first couple of years we tried to reshape our churchs culture, Self says. We didnt want to do things the way wed always done them. We needed to be different, because normal wasnt working. Then, they looked outward. Self knew he wanted to reach the 15,000 to 20,000 people who live within a 45-minute drive from the church, since Verndale itself has just 600 people. So the church started participating in community events like the Verndale Summer Festival and a Thanksgathering with its sister church, where the fire and police chiefs judge a pie contest. The mens ministry serves the community with tasks like chopping firewood for families. The congregation ran a shoe drive and built a playground for kids whose neighborhood didnt have one. They even bought fire-resistant flashlights for the fire department and a stun gun for the police department. We wanted to undo our churchs bad reputation and bring our community together, Self says. And we wanted to make fully devoted followers of Christ. We really put an emphasis on serving and taking ownership of whats here. But things took a turn in November 2012, when an electrical fire destroyed the churchs newly renovated building. But that disaster turned out to be a blessing. Against the advice of contractors, the church voted unanimously to buy an old, vacant factory nearby and make it their new church home. We knew God wanted us to do this, although it didnt make any sense at the time, Self says. Now we dont know what wed do without this space. The building not only better accommodates the growing congregation, but it has allowed the church to operate a food pantry that serves 50 to 70 families and gives out 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of food each month. The attitude toward our church has been great, Self says. You often hear the question, If your church shut down, would the city miss it? I think were there: This town would miss us. I dont say that to brag, but thats been our heart. Weve wanted to make God indispensible, where our community really wants what were offering. VERNDALE FAMILY LIFE CHURCH Verndale, Minnesota VerndaleFamilyLifeChurch.com Islamic State group has launched its fiercest assault in a year against a besieged Syrian government enclave in the city of Deir Ezzor, trying to cut it off from a nearby military air base in a battle that has killed dozens. A Syrian military source said the fighting was intense. "This attack is one of the most fierce attempts by Daesh on the airport and the area," the source told Reuters, using an Arabic term for the group. "It seems Daesh has mobilised a big force." Describing the fighting as the fiercest in the eastern city for a year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that at least 82 people had been killed. It also reported that Islamic State had cut the road linking the air base to the rest of the government enclave, meaning the army would be able to supply the city only by air drops, but this was denied by the military source. The governor of Deir Ezzor, Mohammad Ibrahim Samra, said in a telephone interview on state television that clashes were taking place on the air base road. The fiercest fighting was around the Deir Ezzor cemetery and a road junction known locally as the Panorama Roundabout, the Observatory said. The dead comprised 28 from the army and allied militia, at least 40 Islamic State fighters, and 14 civilians, the British-based monitoring group said. Syrian state news agency SANA said the army had killed dozens of Islamic State fighters in attacks on the group's positions around Deir Ezzor. Islamic State advanced into Deir Ezzor and the surrounding area in 2015 and managed to besiege it last year, but the army retained control of the airport and neighbouring districts in the city, which lies on the Euphrates river. A U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias and rival Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups have pushed Islamic State from much of its territory in northern Syria, but it remains embedded in the eastern desert and Euphrates basin. Last month it recaptured the city of Palmyra, 185 km (115 miles) southwest of Deir Ezzor, from the government in an unexpected advance that demonstrated its continuing military threat. Search Keywords: Short link: BLOOMINGTON Martin Luther King Jr. has been honored through the compassion and empathy of students at Bent Elementary School. Bent students joined forces with the McLean County YWCA and community volunteers on Friday to write notes and doodle pictures on cards for Twin City cancer patients and nursing home residents. The event was part of the Martin Luther King Day of Service, a day of volunteer work celebrated across the country. Our big vision for this event is to teach a love for community service at a young age, said Kimberly McCormick, YWCA RSVP volunteer coordinator. The students are challenged to think outside of themselves and help others. Marilea White of Normal helped children spell heartfelt messages and press stickers onto cards. Im a retired school social worker. I love kids. Im here to have fun and its for a good cause, said White. While considering the cause, Whites thoughts shifted to a day nearly 60 years ago when she picketed for civil rights and marched in stride with King in Atlanta, Ga. In 1961, White was a student at Illinois Wesleyan University when she and a friend decided to study for a semester at Spelman College in Atlanta to support the community there. Because so many Spelman students were picketing, the school canceled classes. Before we marched, we stood in a circle with him (King), folded our arms together and sang, We Shall Overcome. He told us to keep our feet moving so we couldnt be arrested for loitering, said White. We knew King was a great leader at the time, but I dont think we truly understood his greatness. White said she tries to always be a friend to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin or what language they speak. Beth Newton of Bloomington also gave her time to volunteer with children Friday. Its great seeing the excitement of the kids. They dont quite understand who its for but they still want to color and write a note. They know it is helping others, said Newton. Newton said she remembers King because of the ideas he instilled in so many people. He taught that were all in this together, were all the same and not to judge others, said Newton. She said she saw those actions in the children. Some of them are speaking to me in Spanish and we probably dont understand each other, but were having a good time, she said with a laugh. Its good to break barriers. By doing something like this together, there arent any barriers. Older children helped spell-check the cards and pass out crayons. Its good to give back to people, said fifth-grader Camron Meriweather. Some of these people need somebody there to comfort them. Its nice to support people you dont know. Breanna Thomas, a YWCA RSVP member, said its important for children to do work for others and think about people other than themselves. She said people should never forget Kings legacy. Its great to see not only as an African American woman how far everybody has come from then to know, said Thomas. Things have changed for the better. Kids need to remember him (King), and we should always keep him in the schools because the children are our future. BLOOMINGTON A 2013 plan to ramp up Bloomington police and fire pension contributions appears to be on track to fully fund the obligations by 2041 while taking advantage of $87 million in earned interest. We are on course not only to meet state legal requirements but we're on course to meet our 100 percent funding and get rid of our $117 million liability, said Bloomington Finance Director Patti-Lynn Silva. She will present a report with those findings when the City Council meets in a non-voting committee-of-the-whole session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. The meeting was moved from Monday because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In 2013, the city had earmarked $1.5 million annually for five years of accelerated payments, along with maintaining state-mandated minimum pension payments and previously planned supplemental payments, to support a council policy of 100 percent funding by 2041. At that time, the citys police and fire pension funds were funded at only about 60 percent and 50 percent, respectively. The city's new payment schedule would have doubled the pension funds' total annual contribution from $6 million in fiscal year 2014 to nearly $12 million by fiscal year 2018. But when the city factored in $1.5 million in annual contribution savings in 2016 based on revised actuarial projections of pension costs, the 2018 figure dropped to $10 million. After 2018, the city could see a couple of decades of more gradually increasing contributions to bring the pensions up to 100 percent funding. State law requires 90 percent funding by 2041, but the states formula for reaching that results in exponentially higher costs in later years, city officials have said. By raising contributions earlier, the city hopes to gain $87 million in interest earnings to help eliminate the funding gap. Utility tax increases in 2014 fully funded the pension funds' additional contribution, but there was an estimated $350,000 shortfall for the second year of funding. The city closed that shortfall with a property tax levy increase of $500,000 for 2014 taxes that were payable in 2015. On Tuesday, Silva also will present projections of budget balances when the fiscal year ends April 30. The city's general fund, which is the city's main operating fund, is expected to break even with expenditures revised from $105 million to $104.3 million. The balance includes a pending $1.3 million budget transfer to pay for a land purchase, a public works temporary equipment storage building and a boiler for the police department. The $7.4 million solid waste program, which has run structural deficits for several years, is anticipated to end the year with a balance of $810,543. UPDATE 1/17, 1 p.m.: Following yesterday's deadly shooting, Playa Del Carmen's mayor, Cristina Torres Gomez, said in the press conference that the city would be cancelling all future electronic music festivals, including next month's Arena Festival. "We want these types of events to go," she said. "We won't allow one more." -- UPDATE 1/16, 12:20 pm: Quintana Roo Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech said that five are dead and fifteen are injured following this morning's shooting. However, he said it was not a terrorist attack, and that three people have been detained nearby. -- Early this morning, four people were killed and twelve were injured when a gunman opened fire at Mexico's BPM Festival. Someone has come into the club in Playa Del Carmen and opened fire. 4-5 dead and many wounded. Stay in ur fuckin hotel if you're here at BPM JACKMASTER (@jackmaster) January 16, 2017 "It is with great sadness to share that police have confirmed reports of a lone shooter outside the Blue Parrot nightclub in Playa Del Carmen earlier today," a statement on BPM's Facebook page reads. The organizers have also confirmed that three of the victims were members of the festival's security team who were attempting to protect partygoers after violence erupted outside the club. The event last night, which was hosted by Ibiza Space residents elrow, was the closing party for the ten-day festival. "We are overcome with grief over this senseless act of violence and we are cooperating fully with local law enforcement and government officials as they continue their investigation," BPM says. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims and their families and all those affected by these tragic events." Read the entire statement below. [h/t NBC] In spite of the Brexit vote bringing deterrent effect on both higher education students and staff enrolling or working at the higher education institutions in the United Kingdom, the recent presidential election is said to cause a similar impact on the decision of international students to stop studying in the U.S. The report is an econometric analysis that provided forecasts about future demands based on historic trends. A major analysis of future international students' demand in the U.K. through London Economics published by the Higher Education Policy Institute showed the possibility of a decline in international students after Donald Trump's election. Trump's tone on immigration was also reportedly leading to a potential tightening of visa policy. Martha J. Kanter, President Barack Obama's former higher education leader and Department of Education undersecretary, told Times Higher Education that the potential banning of foreign student enrollment was one of the key themes for higher education. Such theme was feared to be a threat to international relationships, as expressed by several college students in the U.S. Trump reportedly angered China over Taiwan because of such controversy in education. One-third of international students in the United States were from China and such issue could possibly build a wall between the two nations in the future. The implications from the tone of the election campaign do not just rest in the deterioration of international relationships but also the abolishment of some dreams of students from overseas, as reported by CNBC. Some students choose to study in the U.S. because of their desire to have an international experience that gives them the ability to engage with the larger community. Allan Goodman, president of the U.S.-based Institute of International Education, said that many American institutions provide their own foreign policy. This way, many campus representatives could continue to reach out to students while letting them know that they are welcome. What are the odds that twins who get adopted by different families will meet each other again after ten years? Such was the case of Gracie Rainsberry and Audrey Doering who were separated in China from birth. The 10-year old identical Chinese twins have been adopted by two different American families, who did not have a clue about each other's existence until now. Audrey and Gracie cried and embraced each other when they met on the set of "Good Morning America." The twins lived far from each other as Gracie's family is from Richland, Washington and Audrey's family is from Wausau, Wisconsin. However, the miles and years did not matter when the twins met as they seemed to have quickly developed a rapport. The discovery of the twins happened after Jennifer Doering tried to look for a Christmas gift for her daughter Aubrey and decided on giving her a photo of her finding advertisement, according to The Straits Times. Since photos of babies placed in a Chinese orphanage were usually published in newspapers as advertisements, Jennifer discovered a photo of Aubrey with her Chinese foster mom. What really took Jennifer by surprise, however, was the fact of seeing another baby who looked just like her adopted daughter Audrey. Jennifer then immediately asked the help of a Chinese researcher. "As soon as I had that picture, I was desperate to find out... who that other child was," Doering said. And when she did find out that her daughter has a twin, she said, "Oh, it was unbelievable. I'm like, 'How?' I mean, this is stuff you read about." Doering checked out Facebook and found Nicole Rainsberry who turned out to be Gracie's mom, as per The Sun. Rainsberry said it was surreal to look at someone who looked like her daughter but who is not really Gracie. Moreover, it was revealed the twins both had heart problems when they were babies. Audrey had one heart surgery while Gracie had two when she arrived in the United States. Before meeting her twin sister, Audrey said she felt like something was missing, but now it's complete. Initially, Audrey thought her parents were playing a joke on her until she had the chance to video chat with her twin sister. Meanwhile, ABC News revealed the twins have a lot in common including their love for mac and cheese and chicken Alfredo. Binge drinking among teenagers may seem like a norm but research revealed the trend should be minimized or stopped. It was found that too much alcohol consumption does not only affect one's judgment, but it also has long-term effects that can highly impact the future generation. Twenty-one percent of children in the United States admitted that they underwent binge drinking within the past 30 days. Some teenagers who took part of the binge drinking session were said to be under 21 and more than 90 percent of alcohol were consumed by the drinkers per session, according to Kowridge. Researchers revealed too much alcohol consumption does not only impact the individual's brain capacity and judgment but it was mentioned that adolescents who binge drink are putting their children at risk for slow brain function. Too much alcohol consumption also placed the drinker's future offsprings at risk of depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders, according to a study done by the researchers from the Loyola University in Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. "Adolescent binge drinking not only is dangerous to the brain development of teenagers, but also may impact the brains of their children," senior author of the study, Toni R. Pak, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Physiology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, explained during an interview. The study, which was based on an animal model, reveals that adolescents who consume too much alcohol are putting their children at risk. Binge drinking reportedly alters the said "on-off" switches of multiple genes in the brains of the drinkers' future children. "Clinical research has long shown that children of alcoholic parents are at a higher risk for developing mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, as well as alcohol abuse," study author AnnaDorothea Asime said, as mentioned in Forbes. Contrary to popular belief, small class sizes, increased standards and an influx of capital do not always maximize the quality of education. These widely accepted solutions are often not the way to get rid of the problems in school and of learning, according to an education researcher and Australia's University of Melbourne professor, John Hattie. After an intense research and scrutiny, Hattie concluded five major ideas in the improvement of education, which surprisingly were not very effective despite being appreciated by the masses. Contrary to what is popularly believed, Hattie rejected the idea that these factors play a part in enhancing child's creativity and educational performance. Achievement standards were the first complaint of the renowned educationist, Hattie, who explained that even though setting minimum goals and targets apparently help students but in reality, it has the exact opposite effect. Schools that simply admit exceptional students were viewed as successful while the ones taking in struggling kids were looked down upon, without the consideration of the amount of hard work each school puts into helping the children. Standardized tests were also criticized as schools with students who perform relatively better than others do not give many achievement tests. According to NPR Ed, schools should target those types of test that allow instant feedback for teachers in order to enhance their skills. Even though private schools are believed to produce more knowledgeable and skilled individuals, News OK argues that a child's performance is more dependent on his teacher rather than the institute. Furthermore, small classes do not necessarily help students improve their performance. This is only possible if coupled with individualized teacher attention. Hattie also explained that statistics prove that not all countries spending immensely on their students yield the best test scores and academic results. As no distinct relation could be deduced between the expenditure per student and academic performance, the notion was shunned that more money leads to better results. Do you agree with John Hattie's conclusion on the major ideas in education that don't work? Share your thoughts below. A high school dating assignment has parents crying foul as it supposedly proliferates gender bias and sends a sexist message. Parents whose 16-year-old kids attended the Highland High School in Utah posted parts of the homework on social media, which have already gone viral. Jenn Oxborro shared the $5.00 Date material for her daughter on her Facebook. It cited that, among other things, girls shouldn't correct or comment on their date's personal habits, or waste his money, or worry about feeling fat. It also emphasized on showing respect for the guy. Jo Robinson, on the other hand, posted the $5.00 Date material her son on Facebook as well. The bullet points didn't list physical tips similar to the girls' list. It did, however, emphasize the role of the guy as the alpha. Oxborrow told Fox 13 that her daughter took a photo of the assignment and sent it to her because she had concerns about classmates who "might not identify with traditional gender roles." The mom agreed and also thought that the dating tips for girls were "old-school thinking." "The girls' assignment was essentially based around how to please boys," Oxborrow's daughter Lucy told The Guardian. Oxborrow, who is a therapist and the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition executive director, also said the assignment, which was distributed online from the school district's website, pushed for male entitlement that can bring serious consequences among impressionable teenagers. Oxborrow took the matter to the State Board of Education who agreed that it was a mistake. The materials were supposed to be part of adult roles and financial literacy class and the handouts have since been taken down online. "We really don't have business whether or not boys and girls should be kissing on a date in a financial literacy class," Mark Peterson of the school board told Fox 13. "[We] are looking into how it got in there so we don't repeat the same mistake again," he said further. Allie Dowdle, an 18-year-old student from Memphis, has set up a college fund for the most unlikely reason. Her parents allegedly refused to pay for her education because she has been dating an African-American named Michael. The high school senior told her parents about her boyfriend over a year ago and they were not pleased about her choice. Since then, Dowdle's parents allegedly made things difficult for her but things got worse when Michael apparently sat down with Allie's parents face-to-face last Christmas. That's when the parents decided to strip her off her luxuries and privileges, including her college tuition, according to Cosmopolitan. Dowdle was able to win scholarships and loans to fund for college, however, these weren't enough. She was pushed to set up a GoFund Me page illustrating her plight for the public to help her raise money. She indicated that her parents also meddled in her school affairs, "to get me removed from the organizations I've been a part of," she wrote on the crowdsourcing page. "I still need at least $10,000 to cover the first year of my remaining out of pocket tuition for college by May 1," she further said. The GoFund Me page has reached over $30,532 as of press time with 1,233 people sending in their donations to the teenager. The fund drive is less than five days old. Not all netizens, however, are impressed. Some accuse Dowdle of having white privileges and her predicament is not about fighting racism. Stop making this girl out to be some sort of hero for dating a black kid. Sending a privileged white girl to college isn't fighting racism! https://t.co/qr2t5f2Dmm Alexandra. (@Lixnessmonster) January 14, 2017 Her parents, on the other hand, deny that they are being racist for refusing to accept the boy their daughter chose to date. They told New York Daily News that they cut off the teen's resources because she has been seeing her boyfriend in secret and the same thing has happened with a previous boyfriend. "It became obvious that she needed to go out in the world and grow up," dad Bill Dowdle said. He also said that they still love Allie and would want to see her finish her studies. Do you think that Allie's was right to withdraw her college fund? What do you think of this situation? Share your thoughts in the comments! Bahrain's foreign ministry summoned Iraq's ambassador in Manama to protest against remarks by Iraqi officials denouncing the execution of men convicted of a 2014 bomb attack, state news agency BNA said on Monday. The execution on Sunday of three men, whose attack killed three policemen, has drawn condemnation from rights groups. Iran called it a "reckless" act. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain opposes the death penalty and he "raised the issue with the Bahraini Government." Iraqi Vice President Nouri al-Maliki called the execution "an ugly crime" and said it put the Bahraini government in a position of being accused by the international community of systematic killing of its opponents. The Bahrain foreign ministry said Maliki's remarks and comments by the Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman amounted to an "unacceptable interference" in Manama's internal affairs. Bahrain says the execution was carried out after a lengthy judicial process that had convicted the three men - Abbas al-Samea, 27, Sami Mushaima, 42, and Ali al-Singace, 21. The attack killed an Emirati police officer and two Bahraini policemen. "The undersecretary of Regional and GCC Affairs, Ambassador Waheed Mubarak Sayyar, asserted the Kingdom of Bahrain's condemnation and its deep rejection of the remarks ... and demanded they be conveyed to the Iraqi government," BNA said. Bahrain, facing demands by its Shia Muslim majority for political and economic reforms, has recently accused Iraqi groups of providing military training and support for militants behind bomb attacks that have killed several policemen in recent years. Relations between Baghdad and Iraq's Sunni Muslim Arab neighbours, including Bahrain, have been frosty since U.S. forces toppled Sunni President Saddam Hussein in 2003 and replaced him with a Shia-led government. Search Keywords: Short link: Social anxiety is common among children and people in their 30s. It is when the individual feels like the walls are closing in, which is then triggered by panic attacks and shortness of breath. Though there are countless reasons as to why social anxiety develops, it was mentioned that cognitive therapy can positively treat social anxiety. Social anxiety is a result of a person diagnosed with social phobia as explained by the Mayo Clinic. A group of researchers has been working their way into providing a positive and effective treatment among people suffering from social anxiety. According to Knowridge, a team of doctors and psychologists from NTNU and the University of Manchester in England are focused on a research where they keenly examined the effect of cognitive therapy among patients with social anxiety disorder. "We've set a new world record in effectively treating social anxiety disorders," Hans M. Nordahl, a professor of behavioral medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology stated. "This is one of the best studies on social anxiety disorders ever. It's taken ten years to carry out and has been challenging both academically and in terms of logistics, but the result is really encouraging." As a result of the study, it was mentioned that one of the most effective treatments for social anxiety does not only focus on the cognitive treatment sessions but it requires a support group from the family and loved ones as well. Aside from cognitive therapy, some doctors would give patients medications and some would pertain to it as a "happy pill." It was explained that pills can effectively help a person suffering from depression but Nordahl explain that people with social anxiety do not positively respond to happy pills. "Happy pills," like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), is often equipped with very strong side effects that can greatly affect a person's mental health. A Maryland school district employee was fired after she responded to the tweet of one student. In the tweet, she joked about the student, who was asking for classes to be suspended, on how will he know to spell the word tomorrow if he will not be coming to class. News 4 San Antonio reported the employee, identified as Katie Nash from Frederick, Maryland, was fired on Friday. Her job, which pays $44,000 annually, was with the Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) and a spokesman for the district confirmed the news that Nash was removed from the system. They did not, however, provide the details. Nash was in charge of the district's Twitter account. The exchange of tweets took place on January 5 after a student asked for classes to be suspended "tammarow." Nash's full response read, "But then how would you learn how to spell 'tomorrow?'" After the tweet was sent out, Nash said that she was advised to no longer tweet. New York Daily News added the student did not take offense in the reply of Nash but that did not have any bearing as the district still terminated her from her job. The boss of Nash, Michael Doerrer, gave her a letter of her termination on Jan. 13 then they asked her to hand her badge and ID to them. Students and other Twitter users have defended Nash as they made the hashtags "#KatiefromFCPS" and "#freekatie" trended online. A Care2 petition was also created for Nash that aimed to have her be reinstated on her previous job. Around 2,000 people have signed online to show support for Nash. The petition added they hope if Nash will not get her job back at FCPS, she should be employed somewhere else. In a tweet from Nash's personal account, she said that she wishes success for FCPS and that the students deserve only the best. She added that she does not regret the tweet. She did say in a statement, however, that because she was hired for the job only last November, she was hoping to be guided as to how to handle such tweets rather than be dismissed. The school system has not yet commented on whether she will be getting her job back due to the petition and support from students. Below is a related video of the person involved in the reports. The video shows Nash talking about mediation: The new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, will be having her first Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday and it is believed that after that, the billionaire Republican activist might push for private school voucher programs as she argued in the past that she believes the public school system is not helping anyone. However, many are questioning if her decision to push for school vouchers will help students, especially those in high-poverty areas, to have access to a better education. As per a 2013 study in Washington, D.C., Detroit Free Press revealed students who made use of federally funded vouchers to attend private schools were more likely to graduate from high school on time and had better reading scores. However, another finding in 2015 and 2016 in Louisiana, stated that students who used these vouchers to attend private schools did not perform well on state examinations. More on the research and their findings, Michael Petrilli, the president of Teducation reform advocacy organization Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said that in the early research since school vouchers were introduced, they found compelling evidence that children attending private schools were making progress. However, in the recent years, the studies had negative findings. DeVos and other groups believe that vouchers and other forms of school choice give parents the power to choose. DeVos said in a letter to the editor last year that she believes parents are in the best position to determine what is in the best interest of their children. With that statement of DeVos, many believe that she, together with the Donald Trump administration, will dismantle public schools by not funding them and will rather benefit private schools. Watertown Daily Times also reported that the Plattsburgh City School District Board of Education expressed their disapproval of DeVos. School voucher programs were also the main point of the board meeting, noting that these programs remove resources form already struggling school districts. School vouchers were expected to be among the key issues in the Trump administration. Trump said that he will invest $20 billion toward school choice and expect states to bring in around $110 million to provide money for the 11 million school-age children living in poverty. As of today, there are 25 voucher programs in operation in the 14 states across the country, as well as the District of Columbia. Do you think school vouchers are better than the public school system? Sound off below. Amid the growing fears over the possible policies of the Trump administration, there are new investments in the United States such as that from a Japanese billionaire named Masayoshi Son, who promised to bring back jobs in the United States. With these investments, more jobs will be created across the country, which leads to the question whether educational or economic policies will help in creating new opportunities for occupations. According to Ahwatukee Foothill News, Son's investment alone will create 50,000 more jobs but this was not in line with what the last election has been promoting, saying educational policies of the Trump administration will bring back jobs in the country. Voters were told that restoring education funding will create more jobs. Research, however, revealed one in two college graduates (specifically in Arizona) have to leave the state and to find work somewhere else because there are no enough opportunities. Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide added that there might be another setback in terms of the economy due to Donald J. Trump being the president. He was against free-trade deals in the past and promised to impose possible tariffs on China, Mexico and other countries. Just after Trump was elected, Chinese president Xi Jinping said in a statement that whatever happens in the United States, Beijing will be taking the lead on promoting global economic ties. The statements from the Chinese president came during a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum last year. Moreover, Trump promised that he will withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and many countries said that it will be meaningless without the U.S. Australia, Malaysia and other nations then embraced an agreement led by China, which is known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which excluded the U.S. Meanwhile, it's a given fact that tax and regulation policies will be the determining factor regarding the economy of the country. So, what do you think about the economic future of the United States in the coming years? Let us know what you think below! Earlier today we posted a report titled "The Official Results of the Cause behind the Note7 Fires to be made Public Next Monday, January 23. A few tech sites are trying to get the jump on the story by claiming that Samsung will blame the Note7 fires on the battery. Officially we won't know until next week what caused the fires but the battery would take the blame away from any Samsung's engineers so that the future Galaxy S8 and Note8 won't be suspect in any way. Though to be fair, we'll know next week exactly what spin Samsung will put on this disaster. LG on the other hand is going out of their way to play right into their competitor's weakness of unsafe smartphones. A new report today reveals that LG Electronics has come out and said that it "is adopting a new technology and conducting tougher tests to improve the safety of its new flagship smartphone G6 to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in February. The reinforced safety measures come on the heels of battery-related explosions of smartphones made by its rivals Samsung and Apple, and safety concerns among consumers. " How the Korean press keeps putting a few minor Apple iPhone fires into the same league as Samsung's Note7 disaster is amusing as they play up their marketing for their hometown crowd. The report further noted LG stating that "We will significantly improve the safety and quality of our new flagship smartphones as more consumers seek safe smartphones," said Lee Seok-jong, LG Electronics' mobile communication operation group. The Korean tech firm said it would start to use 'heat pipes' -- made of copper, which conducts heat away quickly -- for the G6. Heat pipes are a cooling device mainly used in laptops and personal computers to stop their application processors overheating. They can reduce temperatures by 6-10 percent by dispersing the internal heat. The G6's design keeps the parts that heat up most as far apart as possible to stop heat concentrating in one area. Apart from adopting the new technology, the G6 is undergoing safety tests that are tougher than international standards. 'We are conducting battery heat exposure tests to a temperature 15 percent higher than the temperature set by the international standards of the US and Europe,' a LG official said. 'The battery also undergoes diverse tests such as piercing it with a sharp nail or dropping a heavy object on it from a high place,' he added. LG said the G6 is also undergoing a new, more complex accelerated-life test. The accelerated life test is a process of testing in which it is subject to harsh treatment such as repeatedly dropping the phone or exposing it to high voltages, to simulate a lifetime of excess wear and tear and uncover faults and potential failures. The tests are done for smartphone parts including the application processor, display, camera and fingerprint scanner." It's a little difficult to see what LG's angle really other than to blur the reality line. Samsung's high-end Galaxy S7 introduced liquid cooling last year at the Mobile World Congress unveiling as noted in the graphic above from the Samsung presentation. So in reality it's LG who is miles behind and only catching up now. But like all marketing teams, they're out to blur the lines for consumers who only remember that a-Samsung smartphone caught fire and therefore all Samsung phones are unsafe so choose the new and improved LG blah-blah-blah. You have to wonder if this move by LG is going to be an industry trend with Android smartphones. I'm sure some will wonder if Apple will go this route to play it safe as displays get larger and more high-end features are introduced. Apple to date has relied on their engineers to use smaller, proven industry standard batteries and tweak them for an added measure of safety. With Apple's fanaticism of thinner designs, I'm not sure Apple will be adding liquid cooling anytime soon. Android players on the other hand are implementing much larger batteries to their top smartphones and adding quick-charging which could play into overheating. For now, LG has decided to play up their marking strategy known as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) leading into the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona in late February. In the end, it's like dirty political ads. Supposedly everyone hates them and yet they've been proven to work more effectively than being nice. As for LG, we'll see if this strategy moves their market share needle to the upside though I wouldn't hold my breath as the Galaxy S8 is going to be jammed with new technology and features. In fact, last week it was reported in Korea that Samsung Electronics has set a shipment goal of 60 million this year for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone, higher than that of its previous flagship models. The report further noted that Samsung had "requested its partners to supply (parts) based on the tech giant's 60 million shipment goal" according to inside sources. They also added that Samsung has confirmed that the release schedule has been postponed to mid-April, a month later than the usual March release. Like any Apple event, the media circus is starting to ramp up going into the big show in Barcelona next month and all of the bigger players are going to be trying to outdo their competitors, pounding their chest and howling like Tarzan. Though most of the time, consumers are smart enough to know that it's not the bravado of Tarzan that we're hearing but rather the silly monkeys running loose. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. Patna: Central Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, like his party colleague Sushil Kumar Modi, blamed the Nitish administration for the Saturday boat tragedy in the Ganga that resulted in the death of 25 people including many children. While visiting the survivors of the accident being treated at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) on Sunday, the Central Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad held Chief Minister Nitish Kumar responsible for the loss of over two dozen lives insisting the state government failed to make proper arrangement for the visitors' transportation. "The Chief Minister must assume moral responsibility of the tragedy and take stern actions against those who were found guilty of failing to make safety their number one priority. It has been reported that only 20 boats were arranged by the administration to ferry nearly a lakh visitors between Patna and the diara area. If this is true then the Chief Minister must be held accountable for failing to micro-manage the event like he did during the Prakash Utsav," the Union Minister said. Prasad accused the Nitish administration of failing to learn lessons from other recent tragedies like the Chhath tragedy in Patna when 24 people died after a bamboo makeshift bridge at the Adalatganj Ghat collapsed in 2012, and the 2014 Gandhi Maidan tragedy during Durga Puja Ravan Vadh when a stampede resulted in the death of 32 people. "You would think that the Chief Minister would have learnt lessons from these tragedies but with yet another disaster under Nitish Kumar's watch, it is evident that he has no interest in such 'small things'," the BJP leader said. Other BJP leaders including Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Ram Kripal Yadav also met with the family members of the victims at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) ghat and the PMCH and demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister on moral grounds. "Nitish Kumar had once resigned from his Railway Ministry post following a train accident. That was when he was part of the NDA but now we are dealing with a different person who is only hungry for power and self-glorification," Choubey said. Patna: With search for more victims of the Makar Sankranti boat tragedy in Patna continuing on Sunday, the death toll rose to 25 after four more bodies were fished out by the divers a day after an overloaded boat capsized in the Ganges while returning to Patna from the diara area. Patna District Magistrate Sanjay Agrawal, confirming the recovery of four more bodies, including that of a 12-year old girl, said divers were still trying to search for more victims as at least 16 more were believed to be missing or unaccounted for. All 25 victims had been identified, Agrawal said adding the government had announced a high-level probe into the tragedy to determine the cause of the disaster. Earlier the Chief Minister had announced a compensation of Rs. 4 lakh to the victims' families. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also announced a compensation of Rs. 2 lakh to the family members of the survivors and Rs. 50,000 to the survivors with injuries. As reported, more than one lakh people had gathered at the diara area in Patna to participate in a kite-flying competition to mark the festival of Makar Sankranti on Saturday. Sources said only 20 boats were pressed into service to ferry the fun-seekers from Patna to the diara and back a number believed to be far from adequate to accommodate 1 lakh revelers. Meanwhile, a number of groups organized a candlelight vigil near the Kargil Chowk in remembrance of the boat accident victims. Patna: A day after a boat tragedy in the Ganges took lives of over two dozen people, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday held a meeting of top bureaucrats to deal with the public relations nightmare that threatens to undermine his brand coming out of a highly successful Prakash Utsav celebration that earned him worldwide accolade. Besides directing the officials to lodge FIR against a private amusement company that was also running an unlicensed boat service in the river, Kumar talked with Bihar Tourism officials who had sponsored the kite flying event at the diara to mark the festival of Makar Sankranti. Ordering a high-level probe in the boat accident, Kumar sought full report from the Disaster Management Principal Secretary to determine who should be held accountable for the disaster when accusations were flying from all directions holding the Nitish administration responsible for the lack of adequate safety arrangement at the diara. As reported, more than 70 people were returning to Patna on a boat after a fun-filled day at the diara when the boat capsized in the river throwing all the passengers in the water. While some people were able to swim back to safety, at least 24 died in the accident. Acting swiftly to avoid any negative publicity, the Chief Minister wasted no time in announcing Rs. 4 lakh in compensation to the family of the victims. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while also expressing his grief over the tragedy, announced Rs. 2 lakh to the family members of the victims. Iranian Air Defense Forces fire at drone in central Tehran 01/16/17 Source: Press TV Iranian Air Defense Forces have identified and shot at an unmanned aerial vehicle that had neared a no-fly zone in central Tehran, an army official says. Tehran Air Defense Forces (photo by Mehr News Agency) "This afternoon, a quadcopter that was approaching the no-fly zone in Tehran from the Valiasr Square district was identified," an official with Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base told Tasnim news agency on Monday. He added that it was as of yet unclear who owned the drone. "But, because the drone had approached the no-fly zone region, it was shot at with the timely vigilance of the Army's Air Defense Base," the official said. Meanwhile, the deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base for operations, Alireza Elhami, said the quadcopter entered the no-fly zone in central Tehran and the base did its routine task. "After initial shots at the flying [object], it left the area and went away," he added. He said the base's forces stopped firing at the flying object because safety of residential areas must also be observed and "everything is calm now." "What we witnessed was not regarded as a specific threat," Elhami said, reiterating full alertness of the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base forces to counter any challenge. "Shooting and anxiety in the capital" Iranian daily Tamashagaran Emrouz reporting on the December 23rd incident On December 23, 2016, Iranian Air Defense Forces shot down a flying object which was being operated by a film crew in central Tehran, recording aerial footage for a documentary for state television. The flying object had reportedly entered the no-fly zone in central Tehran by accident. mSecure password manager review TechRadar Pro Updated In our mSecure password manager review, we take an in-depth look at this password manager to help you decide if its the most secure way to handle your sensitive data. Forces loyal to Marshal Khalifa Haftar on Monday retook a district in Libya's Benghazi from Islamist militants after fighting that killed nine soldiers in two days, a military source said. "We now control the district of Abu Sneib" in the southwest of the city, said a commanding officer in the army headed by Haftar, who backs the parliament in the country's east. "Our forces now completely surround the Qanfuda area" nearby, the same source said. The source said 52 troops had died in fighting since January 1 in and around Benghazi. Haftar has managed to retake a large part of the eastern coastal city from Islamist militants since Benghazi came under their control in 2014. But Islamist militants still control the central districts of Al-Saberi and Souq al-Hout. These militant groups include the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, an alliance of Islamist militias that includes the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sharia. Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libya has since fallen into chaos, with a UN-backed unity government failing to assert its authority over the country. The parliament based in the eastern city of Tobruk has refused to recognise the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. Search Keywords: Short link: China is requiring that all app stores operating in the country register with its Cyberspace Administration in an effort to battle malware but also to tighten control over uncensored content. The rules took effect Monday, in a country where domestic third-party app stores not from Apple or Google are serving billions of downloads to Android smartphones. Chinese internet companies such as Baidu, Tencent and a host of smaller, shadier local app stores have been feeding the demand, at a time when Google has largely pulled out of the market. The government, however, has problems with the proliferation of app stores and the lack of industry oversight, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement on Friday. Some app stores have been offering products that violate users rights, contain security vulnerabilities or spread illegal information, it said. The new rules intend to force the stores to better audit their products. Cyberspace Administration officials will keep records on the app stores and investigate those that fail to register or which are found falsifying information. The new rules are hardly a surprise. China has been heavily censoring the internet for years. Foreign websites such as Facebook and Twitter have been blocked from the country, and local internet services are often required to delete comments or shut down user accounts found posting antigovernment content. However, in some cases, apps have provided one way for users to circumvent the strict controls. That happened with The New York Times, whose main website was blocked in the country in 2012. Despite the censorship, the companys news app was offered on Apples app store until China ordered its takedown earlier this month. Third-party app stores in China have also been known to spread malware. Last year, a mobile Trojan likely sourced from the country managed to infect millions of devices across China, India and Indonesia by imitating Android apps. The country has over 650 million mobile internet users, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. The huge user base has made its app stores some of the biggest in the world. Rancho Cucamonga Republican Paul Chabot, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 and 2016, is moving to the Lone Star State but not before dispensing some harsh words for California progressives. Chabot recently used Facebook to announce his familys move to McKinney, Texas, lamenting that liberals have degraded the State of Reagan to but a shell of its former self. Shortly after the November election Brenda and I took a long hard look at our state of California and agreed it was time to move to America, to find a region of our nation that embraces the values and morals we cherish, wrote Chabot, a 42-year-old married father of four. Chabot said his battles for Congress were a fight to bring back conservative principles. But voters had other ideas, selecting Hillary (Clinton) by 30-points, voting to legalize drugs, let more felons out of prison, while the super-majority liberals in Sacramento push farther left in radical ideals that simply dont make sense or align with who we are as Americans. The Chabots visited McKinney, north of Dallas, over Thanksgiving. We fell in love with the city, its people and the values that guide Texas, Chabot said. Great plans In an email, Chabot wrote that he ran for Congress to fight for the American family to return family values and safe streets to a region that is looking more like a Third World country. We had great plans, if elected, to destroy gangs, bring back a (military) base to San Bernardino, fix the broken Loma Linda VA hospital, and advocate for values that would have restored the Inland Empire. All that is not to be and my wife and I refuse to remain in such a state, Chabot wrote. You cant help people who dont want the help. He described California as overrun by illegals, drug addicts and violent criminals under the umbrella of a radical liberal ideology that has destroyed the state. Chabot wrote that he and a few partners are launching a website that will help families and businesses in liberal areas of the nation identify conservative states and cities to relocate to, working in both residential and commercial real estate. I will continue to serve in the Navy, but my number one job is being a husband and father, he wrote. I have no intentions of running for office. Texas has plenty of conservatives in office doing the work I would have done in California We are in great hands! McKinney is currently represented by a Republican in Congress. A naval reserve intelligence officer and Iraq War veteran, Chabot first made a name for himself as a vocal opponent of drug legalization. He ran for the open seat representing the 31st Congressional District Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, San Bernardino, Colton, Loma Linda, Rialto and Grand Terrace in 2014. He overcame a crowded field to face Democrat Pete Aguilar in the general election. Chabot came within 3,500 votes of beating Aguilar, a former Redlands mayor who enjoyed substantial support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In an election postmortem, Chabot blamed his loss on a lack of support from the GOP establishment. He soon launched his 2016 bid to unseat Aguilar and rose above better-funded competition to finish second to Aguilar in the June 2016 primary. GOP FLIGHT But in the general election, Chabot struggled to keep pace with Aguilars fund-raising in what became an increasingly personal and negative contest. Aguilars campaign scrutinized Chabots financial disclosures and compared him to Donald Trump, while Chabot posted campaign signs calling Aguilar Agu-Liar. Aguilar finished more than 26,000 votes ahead of Chabot in November, and Chabot again faulted the GOP for not giving his campaign more support. Chabot joins other California Republicans who left the state after unsuccessful campaigns, including 2010 U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 and now lives in Virginia, and 2014 gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari, who moved to Minnesota. Contact the writer: 951-368-9547 or jhorseman@scng.com Alcohol or drugs were not a factor in a Sunday morning standoff the culmination of a pursuit involving a motor home that closed the 10 freeway west of Eagle Mountain Road, according to a California Highway Patrol news release. About 9:05 a.m. Sunday, CHP dispatch was alerted to a motor home being driven recklessly eastbound on the 10 in Cabazon. At the wheel was a woman later identified as Imelda Sortino, 53, of San Diego, the news release states. When an officer tried to pull over Sortino west of State Route 62 she kept going. She didnt stop until she ran over a spike strip officers had placed in the roadway east of Dillon Road. With multiple tires deflated, the motor home came to a stop in the right lane of the 10 west of Eagle Mountain Road. Sortino refused to exit the vehicle, and a standoff commenced, the news release said. Tactics were used in an attempt to remove Sortino from the motor home, but she remained inside. Meanwhile, eastbound lanes of the 10 were closed and westbound lanes were closed on occasion as Sortino defied officers. Officers eventually entered the motor home and arrested Sortino on suspicion of failing to yield, the news release states. She was not injured. The 10 was opened at 1:42 p.m. Thousands of community college students across the Inland area and the country who are military veterans will benefit from a streamlined system for getting their education benefits, officials say. President Barack Obama recently signed into law a bipartisan bill by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, intended to eliminate delays for veterans who take classes at more than one college in the same community college district. Previous rules required each college to write letters to the other colleges in the district to verify that classes met regulations before benefits could be dispersed. The delays sometimes meant that students couldnt enroll in classes that filled up while paperwork was being shuffled. Riverside Community College District officials approached Calverts office about the problem several years ago. Calvert said he was surprised it required an act of Congress to correct something that appeared to be an administrative fix. Its common sense, but sometimes common sense around here is in short supply, Calvert said. The law, part of a separate bill that Obama signed Dec. 16, is specific to community college districts that have multiple schools. Of Californias 72 community college districts, 23 have multiple schools. In the Inland area, the law applies to the Riverside Community College District, which has Norco College, Moreno Valley College and Riverside City College, as well as the San Bernardino Community College District, which has San Bernardino Valley College and Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa. Single college districts with multiple campuses, such as Chaffey College and Mt. San Jacinto College, arent affected. Riverside district officials say the old rules for veteran benefits were unnecessary because all three colleges operate under a uniform curriculum. The registration system allows students to enroll at any college in the same term and all course information is on one record. Official transcripts include courses at all three colleges. The bill fixes the problem by allowing each college to certify veterans for all classes attended in the district rather than just for classes taken at a particular school. Its a zero-cost solution thats seamless so veterans get their benefits at the same efficiency as other federal aid programs for college students, said Chris Carlson, chief of staff in district Chancellor Michael Burkes office. Riverside district colleges served more than 1,740 student veterans in 2015-16. The district became a multi-college district in 2010, when Norco and Moreno Valley went from being campuses to their own separately accredited colleges. Melissa Hooper, a Riverside resident who has served in the U.S. Army Reserve since 2007, said the law allows veterans to get classes where they need them, when they need them and to finish and transfer and be successful. In summer 2014, all the English classes at Riverside City College, her home school, were full, so Hooper went to Moreno Valley College. She registered but had to pay up front because her benefits were delayed. Hooper, who was a single mom, didnt have a job or a stable place to live at the time. She withdrew her infant daughter from the day care program at RCC so she could afford the class at Moreno Valley. These kinds of things frustrate us and are a hardship, said Hooper, 27. Its difficult and its annoying. Carla Thornton, Crafton Hills veterans coordinator, applauded lawmakers efforts to address issues that serve as barriers for veterans as they transition to the academic environment. More than 600 veterans took classes at Crafton Hills and San Bernardino Valley colleges in spring 2016, officials say. This will be very beneficial for that special population of heroes, said Thornton, a U.S. Air Force reservist who Gov. Jerry Brown appointed last year to the California Veterans Board. Contact the writer: 951-368-9292, stwall@scng.com, @pe_swall There is not enough immediate evidence to charge the man sheriffs detectives identified as the shooter in a double fatal homicide that happened Saturday evening in Highland, authorities say. Investigators hope the public can help them find people they believe witnessed the shooting or a fight leading up to it, but left soon after. The incident was being looked at Sunday by San Bernardino County sheriffs detectives and the District Attorneys office. Numerous reports of two men shot and lying outside a home sent deputies to the 7000 block of Newcomb Street at 6:51 p.m. Saturday, according to a sheriffs news release. They found Miguel Martinez, 22, and Joaquin Martinez, 38, suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators believe the shooting was preceded earlier in the afternoon by an argument between the two Martinez men, whom a sheriffs spokesperson believes are brothers, and Tyler Vaile, 30, that took place at Vailes home, the news release states. The argument did not get physical and the brothers left. The argument apparently reignited shortly before 6:51 p.m., again at Vailes home and this time involving other people in addition to Vaile and the Martinez brothers. The news release does not provide details about the other people. This argument resulted in Miguel and Joaquin Martinez chasing Vaile and the other subjects into Vailes residence, the news release states. Vaile attempted to shut and secure the front door of his residence but was overcome by the Martinez brothers. The brothers were joined by several other members of their family and assaulted several subjects inside of Vailes residence, the news release continues. Vaile armed himself with a rifle, and shot Miguel and Joaquin Martinez while they were inside the residence. Someone moved the two Martinez men outside to the front yard after the shooting. Deputies said family members in the release, but did not say which family. Two women inside the home at the time of the fracas were injured, the news release states. One was shot in the right forearm, the other suffered contusions and lacerations as a result of the assault. Both were hospitalized. At the request of sheriffs homicide detectives, the San Bernardino County District Attorneys Office responded to the scene. Sheriffs investigators and the District Attorneys Office determined the current known circumstances of the investigation did not support the filing of charges against Vaile, at this time, the news release states. Both agencies believe several subjects from both residences who left just prior to or immediately following the assault and shooting may have information crucial to the ongoing investigation. Investigators are currently attempting to locate these subjects and ask that they contact investigators as soon as possible. The crime scene was taped off until about 3 p.m. Sunday, when a throng of people, some pushing children in baby strollers, returned to their homes after investigators wrapped up interviews and deputies providing traffic control returned to their vehicles and left the scene. About two dozen people gathered in front of a house mid-block, where a wailing woman was consoled by another woman and men gazed at a Toyota sedan with what appeared to be spattered blood on the drivers side door. The Sheriffs Department asks anyone with information about the shooting to call Detective Brian Chambers or Sgt. Jason Radeleff at 909-387-3589 or the anonymous WeTip hotline at 800-782-7463. Tipsters can also anonymously leave information at www.wetip.com. One African-American student was optimistic about the future, as he reflected on Martin Luther King Jr.s legacy. Another senior at Moreno Valleys Canyon Springs High School was more pessimistic. White people they put themselves above everybody else, said Tywon Evans, during a discussion of President Barack Obamas farewell speech last week in a government-economics class taught by Don Davis. Thats why we are still talking about Black Lives Matter in 2017, Evans said. It will never change. Then he pointedly asked classmate William Beach, also African-American, if he believes he has the same opportunity as whites. No, not at all, Beach responded. Do I believe we can be successful? Yes. Beach said significant progress has been made in the United States in the nearly half century since Kings death. A black person can be president, he said. Thats change. As the nation marks another King holiday, Beach and Evans represent the celebration of the progress, and frustration with problems that persist. Yes, much has been accomplished, said Jody Armour, a USC professor of law and expert on law enforcement relations with minorities. But more much more must be done, she said. To really get rid of inequality, weve got to go beyond being able to drink at the same water fountain, Armour said. Born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, King was a Baptist minister who led a movement of nonviolent civil disobedience that generated profound advances in civil rights. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. On Monday, Jan. 16, Southern Californians will honor the civil-rights leader with parades and rallies, on the holiday that occurs every year around his birthday. Thoughts will turn to those turbulent days of the 1960s when King advocated forcefully, but peacefully, for change. Thoughts will turn to Kings historic, stirring speeches. Shown the door References undoubtedly will be made to one particular address made from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. The amount of times that the I Have a Dream speech is referenced in public discourse today only goes to show how powerful those values are, said Tim Plummer, a Claremont McKenna College senior who serves as student manager of the colleges Rose Institute of State and Local Government. Indeed, said Plummer, who is white, values King expressed are more than a dream, they are an expectation. Those values have led in part to a society that is significantly more integrated, especially across Southern California, said Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardinos Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. Like many Southern California youths, Plummer grew up in an integrated community. As a boy being raised in Upland, he said he attended schools and played on soccer teams with minorities and thought nothing of it. We just were always surrounded by people who were different, he said. Plummer, 21, added that many his age would be offended if someone walked into a conversation and talked negatively about African-Americans or other minorities. Theyd be shown the door, he said. Millennials, Levin said, value diversity more, and are more tolerant of different lifestyles, than their grandparents were. By the same token, they are less tolerant of problems such as police shootings of minorities. For young people today, its a question of, Why is this still happening at all? he said. At the same time, youths see progress. Beach, the high school senior from Moreno Valley, said Obamas presidency is an example, especially when he considers that his ancestors came into this world with shackles on their feet. Plummer suggested Obamas eight years in the White House constitute a great symbol of racial progress. And even in darkness, there is light. Beach said he is encouraged when he sees television cameras panning crowds at Black Lives Matter rallies and there are white protestors walking and carrying signs alongside African-Americans. Heres another example: Cops are going to the hood, giving kids snacks, playing basketball with them, Beach said. King wasnt a savior, he said. He didnt die for black people. Hes not Jesus, Beach said. But he had his voice. And his voice was heard. And his voice changed a lot. The new Jim Crow To be sure, USCs Armour said, the civil rights movement changed a lot. That would put the silver bullet through the heart of intentional segregation, no doubt about that, he said. But once you take care of the indignity of segregation, what about the indignity of skid row? Armour said many African-Americans still have limited economic opportunity, and either live in poverty or on the street. Then theres the string of dozens of fatal shootings of unarmed young black men by police officers in recent years, he said. We have the nightmare of the procession of hashtags that has spawned the Black Lives Matter movement, Armour said, adding, This all happened during the tenure of the first black president. As well, there has been an explosion in the nations prison population over the last half century, he said, and a disproportionate number of inmates are blacks and other minorities. At the same time that we have been reveling in very progressive, rosy rhetoric, the mass incarceration crisis has emerged the advent of the new Jim Crow, Armour said. King, he said, wasnt fighting only to end segregation. He was fighting for equality in opportunity for every citizen, Armour said. Contact the writer: 951-368-9699 orddowney@scng.comTwitter: PE_DavidDowney PASSAGE OF THE RTI LEGISLATION IN GHANA: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR THE 6th PARLIAMENT AND H.E PRESIDENT JOHN MAHAMA The age-long Right to Information (RTI) Bill, which has been described by many as the oldest Bill in Parliament, suffered a major defeat when the Sixth Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana under the NDC-led administration failed to pass the Bill into law before its tenure lapsed on 7th January, 2016. The Bill had undergone a thorough review process initiated by a bi-partisan Select Committee of Parliament (the Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs), including a review of all the concerns raised by the public on the Bill, but Parliament still could not pass the Bill into law despite several calls by CSOs and other well-meaning Ghanaians. Observations in Parliament indicated that the Bill was stalled when Members of Parliament from the opposition (NPP) raised the issue of lack of quorum, making it difficult for proceedings to continue. Some MPs from the Majority side argued that their colleagues from the opposition deliberately frustrated the process so that their administration, having won the 2016 elections, would be the government to pass the Bill into law. But some MPs from the opposition argued that the NDC administration could have used their majority in Parliament to pass the law if indeed they were committed to passing the legislation. Whether or not Ghanaians are persuaded by these arguments depends on which side of the political divide one belongs to. In the year 2012, the NDC government came into power with a promise in their Manifesto that the RTI Bill will be passed into law. The promises did not end only in the Manifesto but were also re-echoed in the State of the Nations address, on the floor of Parliament, at various international (UN) programmes and events as well as on discussion programmes in the media both locally and internationally. President Mahama categorically stated in one of his many speeches that my government will be reckoned for passing the oldest Bill in Parliament but after eight years in leadership, the government could not deliver on this promise. Many observers both at home and abroad have expressed their disappointment at the failure by the past government to pass this legislation particularly because the administration had several opportunities to pass the Bill but preferred to wait till the dying minutes. Speaking on News file on 24th December, 2016, about his low points for the year 2016, the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide Newspaper, Mr. Kweku Baako Jnr. stated, I will be damn damn disappointed if the RTI Bill is not passed by this Parliament Similarly at the Fourth Global Summit of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) held in Paris, France from 7th 9th December, 2016, it was observed rather sadly, that Ghanas five year participation in the OGP process could not deliver the passage of the RTI law unlike in Kenya and Tanzania. The failure to pass this legislation by the outgoing administration is particularly disheartening given the amount of resources, time and energy that was committed to its review and consideration processes by the 6th Parliament, in addition to the fact that a new Parliament under the new administration will have to commence fresh processes to enable the passage of the Bill; processes which may not be completed within the first four years. The adoption of Access to Information (ATI) legislation has become a global movement with more than 100 countries (including countries from every region) having FOI laws in place. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) only a small minority of countries around the world (Africa and Arab Regions) still lack FOI recognition in their legislation. Africa joined the bandwagon when in the year 2000 South Africa became the first country to pass the law, followed by Angola in 2002 and Uganda in 2005. Since then, seventeen other countries have put in place the law including, Niger, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan to mention but a few. The advocacy became even more visible and strengthened with the official recognition by UNESCO on 17th November, 2015, of 28th September, as the International Day of Universal Access to Information (IDUAI). In most African countries that have adopted the law, civil society actors played a key role in ensuring the adoption of the law/policies on ATI as well as in the review of such laws where they were already in existence. One such country that witnessed strong civil society advocacy is the Federal Republic of Nigeria, where after thirteen years of rigorous campaign, President Goodluck Jonathan before exiting office in 2011 signed the age long Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill into Law after it was passed by the then National Assembly. By passing the law, the former president together with the outgoing National Assembly opened up the democratic space for the involvement of Nigerian citizens in their governance. Today, one cannot refer to the FOI Act in Nigerian without the name Goodluck Jonathan. Another country which saw relentless struggle by CSOs to ensure the passage of the law is the Republic of Kenya. His Excellency, President Uhuru Kenyatta on 31st August, 2016, signed the ATI Bill into law bringing an end to the fifteen year struggle by CSOs to see greater access and transparency to government decision-making. The two leaders, unlike President Mahama, have left a legacy that will forever be remembered in Africas quest for open and transparent governance. The Mahama-led administration was criticized for the many scandals that bedeviled the administration including the public perception that the 6th Parliament may not have effectively exercised its oversight role over the work of the Executive due to undue party partisanship. One would have thought that efforts by the administration to clear this strong negative perception would include the passage of a key anti-corruption tool - the RTI Bill. But unfortunately, the NDC administration led by President Mahama missed the opportunity of proving to the world and convincing some, if not all Ghanaians that their anti-corruption agenda was genuine. On 12th May, 2016, the global torchlight was shown on corruption with the Anti-Corruption Summit held in London, United Kingdom. The Summit provided an opportunity for world leaders to showcase their commitment to the fight against corruption. Despite the proclaimed commitment to this fight, Ghanas participation at the summit could not deliver the passage of the RTI Law back home. In the month of September, the world again turned its attention to openness and transparency when on 26th September, 2016, the UNESCO, as part of the events to mark the first International Day for Universal Access to Information (officially 28th September) organized series of inspiring talks International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) Talks on Access to Information. The main aim, as stated by UNESCO, of marking the IDUAI was to promote universal access to information through all platforms, as an essential means to achieving the 2030 Development Agenda and the Sustainable development Goals (SDGs). Interestingly, H.E President Mahama delivered the keynote speech at the event, however, his attendance and participation could not inspire Parliament to pass the RTI Bill. In the midst of all these activities, the expectation by the international community and of course many Ghanaians was that the NDC-led administration would have passed the law having been actively engaged in these platforms, including signing on to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Ghanas involvement and participation in these international events and initiatives kept the country in the limelight and enabled the world to put its searchlight on the countrys efforts to pass the RTI legislation. Indeed, President John Dramani Mahama missed the opportunity to inscribe his name in the annals of Open Governments. To better appreciate the efforts by the 6th Parliament and the NDC led administration to pass the RTI Bill into law, it will be useful to recount the events that took place from 2013, after the NDC won the 2012 elections. On 12th November, 2013, President Mahama tabled the RTI Bill, 2013 before the 6th Parliament. Upon introduction in Parliament, the Bill was referred to the Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. The Committee held two meetings (in May and September 2014) with key stakeholders to review the content of the Bill and make recommendations for consideration by Parliament. Three months later, precisely on 17th December, 2014, the Select Committee tabled its report in Parliament with proposals for the amendment of all the problematic clauses identified by stakeholders. Following pressure from civil society, the Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Mrs. Marrieta Brew Appiah-Opong, on 25th June, 2015 (Six months after the Committee tabled its report) moved the motion for the second reading of the Bill. The second reading was concluded on 24th July, 2015 and the Bill was referred to the next stage in the Parliamentary process - the Consideration stage. The consideration of the Bill witnessed even slower progress than previous stages. Parliament could not commence the consideration process until March 2016, (Eight months after the conclusion of the second reading). Discussions on the Bill witnessed several distractions and setbacks including the introduction by government of a new Bill The Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunication Messages Bill 2016 (otherwise known as Spy Bill); a Bill which was nearly passed but for the public outcry. Consideration of the RTI Bill continued in May and October 2016 during the second and third sessions of Parliament respectively. In October specifically, the AG withdrew the old Bill and tabled a revised Bill (RTI Bill 2016) making the consideration and passage of the Bill much easier than it previously was. The AG specifically requested in writing to Parliament to consider the Bill under a certificate of urgency. Following her request, the new Bill was immediately referred to the Parliamentary Select Committee and the Committee with a sense of urgency completed its review processes and submitted its report within three days. But these notwithstanding, Parliament could not complete the consideration processes to enable the passage of the Bill before 7th January 2017. These commendable efforts by the 6th Parliament should ordinarily have been commended by all Ghanaians particularly those who have been following the discourse and advocacy on RTI, but this is not the case. The failure to pass the Bill for eight years and the last minute push by MPs from the majority side, including the first ever public plea by the outgoing President for the passage of the Bill appeared to have irritated many, particularly MPs from the opposition, who suddenly realized that having won the 2016 elections, they now have an opportunity to make global history and therefore became very unwilling to let their opponents take that glory. Having had the opportunity for eight years to pass the most valuable anti-corruption tool without success, how will anti-corruption crusaders and the international community rate President Mahamas performance as one time President of Ghana? In discussing Ghanas anti-corruption agenda and achievements, what will the 6th Parliament and the NDC led administration be remembered for? Clearly, it will not be as they had promised the government that passed the oldest Bill in Parliament Written by Ugonna Ukaigwe January 2017 The author is a lawyer and a Project Consultant who consults for international, regional and national NGOs. She currently coordinates the work of the Right to Information Coalition, Ghana Source: Ugonna Ukaigwe/ Lawyer & Project Consultant 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 THEM SHTS LOOK LIKE THE BATMAN SIGNAL AND THAT HOE AINT NO SUPER HERO Said a Louisiana man who was arrested for murder last night. Rocky Washington was arrested for murder after neighbors called the police once they heard a loud gunshot at their apartment home. Police arrived and found Rockys girlfriend dead where he admitted to shooting her, because her eyebrows repeatedly gave him nightmares. Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> : 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 Former Attorney General Martin Amidu has warned President Nana Akufo-Addo to be wary of sycophants as well as tread with caution as far as trusting so many people without any reservations is concerned. The anti-graft campaigner, who used his epistles to campaign against the Mahama administration in the lead-up to the 7 December 2016 on corruption grounds, offered the advice to Mr Akufo-Addo in his latest article in which he said: Your Excellency, I have read several written statements by fellow citizens showing the usual euphoria of victory in trying to deify you even before you can execute any of your promised developmental plans, adherence to the rule of law and good governance systems. Such unintended sycophancy is the greatest danger facing African leaders including Ghana with numerous examples of the halleluiah, halleluiah today and cries of crucify him, crucify him tomorrow. Remember always that governance as a human enterprise is susceptible to unforeseen natural contingencies that affect every human endeavor whatever ones good intentions and wishes. It works like applying quantum mechanics theory in social and political interactions. Mr. President, you have been in office for a week already and in the process of forming your Government. Ghanaians exhibit a great deal of good will for you to succeed as President. But make haste slowly and be fairly sure of each step you take, he cauationed. Mr Amidu further advised: My humble observation from some of your recent pronouncements and acts as President, however, is that you appear to trust so many people without any reservations. In my experience, that has been the undoing of many an honest statesman. Duncan, King of Scotland, in Macbeth after describing Macbeth as: O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman! and declaring Great happiness! to the news of victory also said of his hitherto trusted Thane of Cawdor who had turned traitor and rebel that: Theres no art To find the minds construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust. But as fate had it Duncan immediately placed his unreserved trust in the valiant cousin and worthy gentleman, Macbeth, and that became his undoing. A word to the wise is enough or as some of us from northern Ghana playfully like putting it, a word to the wise is in the north. Mr. President, your fate for the next four years is entirely in your own hands. God helps those who help themselves. Read full letter below: Your Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana! We travelled the same path as fellow travellers and citizens seeking free and fair elections at the 7th December 2016 Presidential and General elections when you were the Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). That auditions journey, by the will of the electorate, resulted in the potentiality for positive and lasting democratic change for our great country Ghana when you overwhelmingly won the elections for President. Ghanaians have since been waiting with bated breath for their votes to be reciprocated with the transformation of the potential into real, concrete, and above all positive changes as you assured the nation. At midnight on 6th January 2017 Parliament was convoked with a majority of members belonging to the NPP which sponsored your candidature for President. The next day, 7th January 2017 upon your taking the solemn oath of office and assuming office as a popularly elected President and Commander-in-Chief of our dear Republic in recent memory we, your fellow travellers parted company with you as citizen travellers to remain citizens only while you took your additional and rightful place as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of Ghana for the next four years. In these coming four years, your fate for the success or failure of the management of the enterprise called Corporate Ghana is solely in your own and exclusive hands. Mr. President there is no gain saying that the experiences of the majority of Ghanaians in the immediate past few years have generated tremendous support and enthusiasm for your professed cause of action to save our dear country within the next four years. In whatever you do for the next four years, remember that unlike your predecessor whose mandate was based on a casting vote of the Supreme Court, you received the overwhelming vote of the entire nation in spite of deliberate attempts by the incumbent to rig the elections. Electoral Commission and cohort member, it does not now matter to us whether the margin between the winner and incumbent stood at 1.5 million when you succumbed and declared the results or at your revised figure of 984,570 votes as you caused to be published on Starrfm on 12th January 2017 Gambian style we the citizens thwarted the rigging machine, period! Your Excellency Mr. President, in this new presidential journey upon which you have embarked, remember at all times during your tenure that your massive victory and thrashing of the incumbent, and the majority parliamentary seats your political party gained was not the exclusive work of members of the political party that sponsored your candidature. Indeed, it was the collective work of millions of ordinary Ghanaians including some frustrated supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), our brothers and sisters in uniform, retired persons on the reserve list, and retired persons generally who had committed their lives to fighting the machinery which the incumbent had put in place to facilitate rigging the elections against the winning candidate. Your Excellency, these ordinary Ghanaians are not looking for appointments or positions in your Government neither do they care about the usual diplomatic political correctness of the international community in pretending that these citizens did not actively thwart the incumbents rigging machine that forced the acceptance of defeat and the symbolic arrangements for conceding defeat before the results were finally announced by the Electoral Commission. All that these ordinary and committed citizens care about is that you never repeat the mistakes of your immediate predecessors government which simply took Ghanaians for granted as undiscerning and looted them to pulp. ECOWAS and the other international political establishments did not commission Ghanaians to defend their own country and its democratic credentials. This is Ghana, and John Dramani Mahama and his cohorts could not have refused to concede defeat when the victory was so overwhelming let alone to have done what Yahaya Jammeh did in The Gambia. Thank God! The facts and social and political interactions from 7th December 2016 to the formal declaration of the results will forever be preserved in cyberspace to support the fact that there were active malicious attempts to rig the elections in Ghana by the incumbent and his cohorts. And no amount of reframing of the facts by any external bodies to give the appearance that John Mahama voluntarily conceded defeat to the winner can ever change what really happened. The prime credit for successfully managing last years elections goes first and foremost to the Supreme Court of Ghana for narrowing the windows for rigging and secondly to the vigilance of ordinary Ghanaians against that type of looting which must be acknowledged by the international community and not reframed. Your Excellency, I have read several written statements by fellow citizens showing the usual euphoria of victory in trying to deify you even before you can execute any of your promised developmental plans, adherence to the rule of law and good governance systems. Such unintended sycophancy is the greatest danger facing African leaders including Ghana with numerous examples of the halleluiah, halleluiah today and cries of crucify him, crucify him tomorrow. Remember always that governance as a human enterprise is susceptible to unforeseen natural contingencies that affect every human endeavor whatever ones good intentions and wishes. It works like applying quantum mechanics theory in social and political interactions. Mr. President, you have been in office for a week already and in the process of forming your Government. Ghanaians exhibit a great deal of good will for you to succeed as President. But make haste slowly and be fairly sure of each step you take. The John Mahama retirement residence and office saga nearly cost you well-meaning supporters both in your political party and amongst ordinary citizens of good will. The ordinary Ghanaian was quick to see that Mahama had with preconceived malice planned for years to take the Vice Presidents residence for himself as his life-long retirement home right after Professor Mills demise. Even the ordinary Ghanaian sitting in the Madina tro tro bus realized that Mahamas scheme of remaining in the Vice Presidents official residence instead of moving to the Presidential residence at the Flagg Staff House was part of his pre-meditated and internalized looting behavior of state assets. Mr. President, you need no reminder that an experience and eminent lawyer and statesman of your caliber ought to be wary when dealing with public purse looters of any hue. I thank God that like the monkey which says the mango at the tip of the branch of the tree top which he cannot reach and pluck smells badly, and therefore he does not want it, so too John Mahama with his tail between his legs seeing that Ghanaians were overwhelmingly against his looting of the official residence and office as his retirement award for life, has ingeniously made a face-saving by writing to withdraw his earlier letter of request with a curious copy to the King of Asante. Manasseh Azure Awunis beautiful article Manassehs Folder: of a greedy nation and a homeless president should be a must read for citizens seeking a fair analysis of the Bungalow No. 3 Prestige Link (residence) and Bungalow No. 6 on 3rd Avenue, Ridge (office) premeditated looting saga (see myjoyonline.com). Mr. President, your anti-corruption promise and agenda in my view was your winning manifesto item at the elections whose actualisation we are expecting you to implement without fear or favour, affection or ill will, no matter whose ass is gored. I agree entirely with former President Rawlings that it is the high anti-corruption moral ground you occupied over the NDC which made your victory a foregone conclusion. Many Ghanaians, like me, are not followers of your political party but I dare say that as long as you continue occupying that high moral ground and fight corruption in deeds you will succeed and your first four-year tenure will usher in the golden age of Ghana again. I also have no reason to doubt that as long as you always put Ghana First in your administration the present goodwill you enjoy will endure throughout your tenure. My humble observation from some of your recent pronouncements and acts as President, however, is that you appear to trust so many people without any reservations. In my experience, that has been the undoing of many an honest statesman. Duncan, King of Scotland, in Macbeth after describing Macbeth as: O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman! and declaring Great happiness! to the news of victory also said of his hitherto trusted Thane of Cawdor who had turned traitor and rebel that: Theres no art To find the minds construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust. But as fate had it Duncan immediately placed his unreserved trust in the valiant cousin and worthy gentleman, Macbeth, and that became his undoing. A word to the wise is enough or as some of us from northern Ghana playfully like putting it, a word to the wise is in the north. Mr. President, your fate for the next four years is entirely in your own hands. God helps those who help themselves. May God, Allah, help you Good luck! Put Ghana First! Martin A. B. K. Amidu Accra, 15th January 2017 Source: Classfmonline 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 A security backdoor that can be used to allow Facebook and others to intercept and read encrypted messages has been found within its WhatsApp messaging service. Facebook claims that no one can intercept WhatsApp messages, not even the company and its staff, ensuring privacy for its billion-plus users. But new research shows that the company could in fact read messages due to the way WhatsApphas implemented its end-to-end encryption protocol. Privacy campaigners said the vulnerability is a huge threat to freedom of speech and warned it can be used by government agencies to snoop on users who believe their messages to be secure. WhatsApp has made privacy and security a primary selling point, and has become a go to communications tool of activists, dissidents and diplomats. WhatsApps end-to-end encryption relies on the generation of unique security keys, using the acclaimed Signal protocol, developed by Open Whisper Systems, that are traded and verified between users to guarantee communications are secure and cannot be intercepted by a middleman. However, WhatsApp has the ability to force the generation of new encryption keys for offline users, unbeknown to the sender and recipient of the messages, and to make the sender re-encrypt messages with new keys and send them again for any messages that have not been marked as delivered. The recipient is not made aware of this change in encryption, while the sender is only notified if they have opted-in to encryption warnings in settings, and only after the messages have been resent. This re-encryption and rebroadcasting effectively allows WhatsApp to intercept and read users messages. The security backdoor was discovered by Tobias Boelter, a cryptography and security researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He told the Guardian: If WhatsApp is asked by a government agency to disclose its messaging records, it can effectively grant access due to the change in keys. The backdoor is not inherent to the Signal protocol. Open Whisper Systems messaging app, Signal, the app used and recommended by whistleblower Edward Snowden, does not suffer from the same vulnerability. If a recipient changes the security key while offline, for instance, a sent message will fail to be delivered and the sender will be notified of the change in security keys without automatically resending the message. WhatsApps implementation automatically resends an undelivered message with a new key without warning the user in advance or giving them the ability to prevent it. Boelter reported the backdoor vulnerability to Facebook in April 2016, but was told that Facebook was aware of the issue, that it was expected behaviour and wasnt being actively worked on. The Guardian has verified the backdoor still exists. FacebookTwitterPinterest The WhatsApp vulnerability calls into question the privacy of messages sent across the service used around the world, including by people living in oppressive regimes. Photograph: Marcelo Sayao/EPA Steffen Tor Jensen, head of information security and digital counter-surveillance at the European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights, verified Boelters findings. He said: WhatsApp can effectively continue flipping the security keys when devices are offline and re-sending the message, without letting users know of the change till after it has been made, providing an extremely insecure platform. Boelter said: [Some] might say that this vulnerability could only be abused to snoop on single targeted messages, not entire conversations. This is not true if you consider that the WhatsApp server can just forward messages without sending the message was received by recipient notification (or the double tick), which users might not notice. Using the retransmission vulnerability, the WhatsApp server can then later get a transcript of the whole conversation, not just a single message. The vulnerability calls into question the privacy of messages sent across the service, which is used around the world, including by people living in oppressive regimes. Professor Kirstie Ball, co-director and founder of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy, called the existence of a backdoor within WhatsApps encryption a gold mine for security agencies and a huge betrayal of user trust. She added: It is a huge threat to freedom of speech, for it to be able to look at what youre saying if it wants to. Consumers will say, Ive got nothing to hide, but you dont know what information is looked for and what connections are being made. In the UK, the recently passed Investigatory Powers Act allows the government to intercept bulk data of users held by private companies, without suspicion of criminal activity, similar to the activity of the US National Security Agency uncovered by the Snowden revelations. The government also has the power to force companies to maintain technical capabilities that allow data collection through hacking and interception, and requires companies to remove electronic protection from data. Intentional or not, WhatsApps backdoor to the end-to-end encryption could be used in such a way to facilitate government interception. Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group, said: If companies claim to offer end-to-end encryption, they should come clean if it is found to be compromised whether through deliberately installed backdoors or security flaws. In the UK, the Investigatory Powers Act means that technical capability notices could be used to compel companies to introduce flaws which could leave peoples data vulnerable. A WhatsApp spokesperson told the Guardian: Over 1 billion people use WhatsApp today because it is simple, fast, reliable and secure. At WhatsApp, weve always believed that peoples conversations should be secure and private. Last year, we gave all our users a better level of security by making every message, photo, video, file and call end-to-end encrypted by default. As we introduce features like end-to-end encryption, we focus on keeping the product simple and take into consideration how its used every day around the world. In WhatsApps implementation of the Signal protocol, we have a Show Security Notifications setting (option under Settings > Account > Security) that notifies you when a contacts security code has changed. We know the most common reasons this happens are because someone has switched phones or reinstalled WhatsApp. This is because in many parts of the world, people frequently change devices and sim cards. In these situations, we want to make sure peoples messages are delivered, not lost in transit. Asked to comment specifically on whether Facebook/WhatApps had accessed users messages and whether it had done so at the request of government agencies or other third parties, it directed the Guardian to its site that details aggregate data on government requests by country. Concerns over the privacy of WhatsApp users has been repeatedly highlighted since Facebook acquired the company for $22bn in 2014. In August 2015, Facebook announced a change to the privacy policy governing WhatsApp that allowed the social network to merge data from WhatsApp users and Facebook, including phone numbers and app usage, for advertising and development purposes. Facebook halted the use of the shared user data for advertising purposes in November after pressure from the pan-European data protection agency groupArticle 29 Working Party in October. The European commission then filed charges against Facebook for providing misleading information in the run-up to the social networks acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp, following its data-sharing change. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Domination of social media was a key weapon in Donald Trump's rise to the US presidency, and now France's far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, is looking to follow suit, analysts say. Le Pen has more than a million followers on both Twitter and Facebook, giving her a bigger social media platform than any other candidate for the French presidency. Her party, the National Front (FN), is a veteran presence on the internet -- it was the first political group in France to launch a website, back in 1996. Now the party is trying to use the digital world to trump mainstream rivals and bypass the traditional media, "to speak directly to the public." "The advantage of social media", says political communication expert Christian Delporte, "is that you don't have any opposition. You have your say, and you're not bothered by a journalist who may contradict you." FN supporters are already highly active on Twitter, Facebook and other digital vectors, targeting especially the conservatives' champion, Francois Fillon. One method is to undermine Fillion by alleging he has Islamist leanings -- a "fake news" tactic of a kind that was all too familiar in the US presidential campaign. Two hashtags in this regard have been #LeVraiFillon ("#the real Fillon") and #FaridFillon. They are campaigns where trolls try to tie the former prime minister -- who has written a book called "Beating Islamic Fundamentalism" -- to the Islamist cause. The FN denied being behind the hashtags but when asked about it, Le Pen added fuel to the fire: "The real question is, what is Francois Fillon's relationship with Islamist fundamentalists?" - 'Change the narrative' Also in the far-right sights is former economy minister and centrist independent candidate Emmanuel Macron. He and Fillon are expected to be key challengers to Le Pen's hopes of winning the presidency in the April and May election rounds. "#Macron minister of the economy that's 400,000 more homeless," the FN's general secretary, Nicolas Bay, tweeted on Thursday. Social media bombardment circumvents the mainstream media, thus avoiding negative or allegedly unfair treatment in that sphere. Trump was largely vilified in the traditional press but used Twitter, where he has around 20 million followers, to share his message and attack his opponents. "Trump had a way of taking to Twitter and could literally change the narrative because he had such a large following," digital analyst Alan Rosenblatt said after the November election. "It became possible for him to construct an alternate narrative, I would say an alternate reality," said another commentator, Gabriel Kahn. The FN's approach is somewhat different, firing out its message across several different social media accounts at the same time. But, like Trump's, it seeks to craft the image of a movement that is supported by the majority and whose ideas are mainstream, not fringe. It also skilfully taps into online support from hardline rightwingers by using "better-chosen words" to convey extremist views, said Dominique Albertini, author of a book called the "Fachosphere". - Steamroller- As election time looms, commentators expect the FN and its supporters to mount a crescendo of tweets and hashtags, creating "trending topics" intended to lure other users. The barrage will polish Le Pen's image, denigrate her rivals and hound critics -- and make her appear to be the vanguard of an unstoppable movement. The steamroller tactic is a hallmark of Trump's stunning political upset. The FN revels in its digital strength, describing it as an ability to reach directly to hearts and minds. "It's working like a dream, the others are really struggling to respond," said Le Pen's campaign director, David Rachline. But dominating social media is no guarantee of success at the ballot box. Digital and political cultures vary, as Austria's presidential elections last month showed. Far-right Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer was beaten by Alexander Van der Bellen of the Greens, even though Hofer flooded social media in the runup to the vote. Search Keywords: Short link: 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. President Akufo-Addos nominee for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway has said she will make the process of acquiring passports in the country easy if cleared by Parliament to be the minister. There have been several complaints about the difficulties in processing a passport which has recently led to the introduction of an online processing portal. But speaking to Citi news, the Anyaa-Sowutuom Member of Parliament said she will work towards ensuring that the institution runs effectively. Well be ensuring that processes that Ghanaians go through that has something to do with the foreign ministry will be smooth processes such as the acquisition of passports and visas and all of that, there is a lot of work there than needs to be done and we are going to do our best, she said. The Director of the Passports office, Alexander Ntrakwa recently complained about massive bribery and corruption that bedevils the office. Many applicants in their desperation to acquire passports in the country, illegally pay huge sums of money to unauthorized facilitators, popularly known as Goro Boys, to by-pass the tedious bureaucratic processes in acquiring the national identification document. But applicants have also accused passport officials of deliberately making the process cumbersome, a situation that compels applicants to pay bribes. Mr. Alexander Ntrakwa, who assumed office as the Director in August 2014, said he was once threatened by a goro boy who said his only means of survival that takes care of his family was that business. [Goro boys phenomenon] has been so over the years and they dont see any reason why somebody will come and rock the boat. When I came here, some of them were so confident to come and tell me that this is the business that they have done to take care of their children through University education so why have I come to destabilize them. That is why we have the hue and cry about the passports office. Most Ghanaians seeking to acquire passports especially in the capital, Accra, queue at the passport office at dawn and spend long hours before being attended to. It sometimes take more than two months before applicants receive their passports. Ghana in December 2016 launched an online passport application service, aimed at easing the mode of application of passports for Ghanaians while ensuring maximum security for applicants. The introduction of the system was also to prevent the activities of goro boys in the passport application process that often results in defrauding of innocent Ghanaians. Ms Hanna S. Tetteh, the then Foreign Affairs Minister, said the service was inherent in the e-Government strategy. Source: Citi News 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 body of late Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Serwaa Kobi Ampem, is to lie in state starting today, Monday, 16 January till her burial on Thursday, as part of final funeral rites being organised in her honour by Asanteman. All the chiefs and traditional leaders in Asanteman will today, Monday, 16 January, pay their last respects to the longest-serving queenmother who died in November last year at 109 years. The Asantehemaas 4-day funeral ceremony started at Midnight of Sunday at the Manhyia Palace. The late mother of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II will be buried on Thursday. On Monday, after the filing past by the traditional leaders and chiefs, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II himself will file past his mother's body and later receive consolations from well-wishers. Many more traditional leaders outside Asanteman will also file past the Asantehemaas body on Tuesday and Wednesday. President Nana Akufo-Addo as well as former Presidents, Ministers, Government officials and other dignitaries are also scheduled to file past the queen mothers body on Tuesday. On Wednesday, dignitaries from African countries such as Swaziland, Seychelles, La Cote DIvoire, Burkina Faso and others will also file past the body. At 11:00 am on Thursday, the queen mothers body will be taken to St. Cyprians Anglican Church for a Burial Mass. Source: starr FM 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 Kyebi Zonal Council in the East Akyem Municipal Assembly in the Eastern region has seized over 40 jackpot machines being operated by Chinese nationals at Kyebi. The machine according to the Zonal council is causing petty stealing and absenteeism among school children in the area. The operation which took place last night led to the seizure to all unauthorized jackpot machines operating illegally in Kyebi and its environs. Even though some of the operators have business operation permit, the assembly say they have gone contrary to the rules governing their operation. Joe Kingsley Oware is the Assemblyman for Kyebi New town electoral area and a member of the Kyebi zonal counsel. "The parents complain that children steal their coins to come and play these machines. The parents are very worried. The zonal council chairman called for a meeting to look for the way forward to stop the operation of the machines at various places. "We met and the resolution was that there should be an operation this after comprising a special taskforce," he explained. According to him, they started the operation across Kyebi township seizing the machines. "When we get to where the machines are operated we consult the caretaker and then we take the machines into our vehicle. He said the owners are later encouraged to come for them but are told to operate them within the parameters set by the Council. "If they go against the law, next time when we get there we will seize it and burn it into ashes," he stated. Source: JFM 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 Former Deputy Minister of Transport Joyce Bawa-Mogtari has asked Ghanaians who travel in and out of the country using the Kotoka International Airport to credit former president John Dramani Mahama with the massive transformation the airport has seen. According to her, the transformation, which includes a modern baggage carousel, is a legacy of Mr Mahama, although he lost the 2016 elections. The National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by Mr Mahama, lost last years presidential and parliamentary elections to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The defeat of the NDC came as a surprise to several members of the party due owing to what they termed massive infrastructural development in all sectors across the country carried out by the Mahama administration. To that end, Mrs Mogatri Bawa tweeted on Sunday January 15: When you arrive at the Kotoka International Airport and see all the improvements, remember #MahamaLegacy. 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 Kwesi Pratt, Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper, has implored President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to keep all his promises to Ghanaians. According to Mr. Pratt, President Akufo-Addo has no excuse but to ensure that he completely delivers on his promises. Speaking on Radio Gold's 'Alhaji and Alhaji', he alluded to some of Nana Addo's campaign promises, calling on the President to surely create a dam in every village, establish a factory in very district, disburse 1 million cedis to all the 275 constituencies among others. Im exceedingly happy that he will keep all the promises he made in the campaign and that should be gratifying. That should make every Ghanaian very [very] happy. Because if the President keeps his word and theres no reason why the President should not keep his word, corporate taxes will be reduced from 25% to 20%. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!! If the President keeps his word and theres no reason why he shouldnt keep his word, 17.5% VAT on Local Air Travel tickets will be abolished. Who would not want this? If the President keeps his word, VAT on Real Estate sales will be abolished. If the President keeps his word, import duty on machinery and raw materials for manufacturing in Ghana will abolished. If the President keeps his word and theres no reason why he shouldnt keep his word, Senior Secondary Schools will be free, he said. Kwesi Pratt wished the current administration good luck in improving the economy. I am so [so] happy and I see a very [very] prosperous Ghana under the leadership of His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo if he keeps all his promises, he added. 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 President Nana Akufo Addo has expressed the countrys gratitude to ex President John Dramani Mahama for supervising a peaceful transition of power to his (Akufo Addo) government which assumed power on January 7, 2017. According to him, irrespective of all the settlement issues surrounding ex President Mahama, he must be commended for seeing to a smooth transfer of power, a development which is not common on the African continent. The Ghanaian media space was last week filled with news relating to the retirement settlement of ex President John Mahama following news that hed requested that the residence in which he lived as the sitting president should be given to him as part of his retirement package. The issue sparked agitation among a section of the public who urged President Akufo Addo to decline ex President Mahamas request as it will set a bad precedence. Following the controversy, Mr Mahama in a letter to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo rescinded his interests in his current place of residence, No. 3 Prestige Link, Cantonments and his proposed office, No. 6, 3rd Avenue , Ridge, all in Accra. He explained that the requests have threatened the relationships between the current New Patriotic Party government and his former government. It would appear that these requests threaten to mar the spirit of cooperation with which we as co-chairs of the joint transition team have managed the smooth transfer of power from my administration to yours. I believe that this controversy is absolutely not needed in these early days as the government settles into office, Mr Mahama wrote. I do recognise that these are facilities that are conventionally extended to presidents that leave office and I am also mindful of the approval by the Parliament of the republic of Ghana on Wednesday, January 4, 2017, at its 22nd sitting of the third meeting of the 4th session. In the letter which was copied to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Mr Mahama also accused some persons in government of creating the false impression that he requested to purchase the property. But President Akufo Addo while speaking at a thanksgiving service organized for him by his chirch, the Accra Ridge Church on Sunday January 15, to thank God for his election and successful swearing in as the Fifth 5th President of the Fourth Republic said ex President Mahama must be celebrated for his statemanship. Our thanks on this occasion goes to my predessessor the President John Mahama, who followed in the worthy footsteps of his illustrous predessessors, the President Jerry John Rawlings, the President John Agyekum Kufour and supervised a peaceful transmission of power. Despite the controversies surrounding his settlement, his conduct has been a credit to the nation and we must all give thanks to the Almight God. Source: kasapafmonline.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 One person has died and more than 20 people were hospitalised in Melbournes Chapel Street over the weekend after apparently taking what police fear is a bad batch of MDMA. Detective Senior Sergeant David Newman said that people aged from their teens to their mid-thirties began to fall ill on Friday night, and that a 30-year-old man died on Saturday. One person is in a stable condition, all of the others did require different levels of hospitalisation, and theres also an investigation into a fatality that occurred on the Saturday morning in relation to a drug overdose, he said. Police are now warning the public to think twice before taking drugs. (If only there was a way to keep the public safe by testing drugs beforehand) There is always a risk whenever someone chooses to take drugs on a night out but clearly this risk is particularly heightened at the moment with what weve seen this weekend, said Newman. Drugs such as MDMA are dangerous and manufactured by criminals with absolutely no regard for the safety of the people who take them. Its important that people realise theyre putting themselves in danger of not just hospitalisation, but permanent disability or even death by consuming these drugs. We want people to come and have a fun and safe night out, and the last thing police want to be doing is knocking on your familys door because a tragedy has happened. It is a completely avoidable risk. A 30-year-old man was arrested on Sunday morning and later charged with trafficking and possession MDMA and possessing the proceeds of crime. PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to Victoria Police for more information on the drug, but a report on PillReports.net describes a Beige Pacman pill in the Melbourne area that recently left three people violently ill and vomiting. Photo: Wikipedia. Ill be the first to admit it: Im no poet. I dont have the language to describe love in all of its forms. But I can tell you this: somehow, against all odds, so slowly that I myself could not identify it, I have fallen in love with Rod Culleton. Our romance was very much not written in the stars: Im 26, in Queensland, and already in a relationship, hes 52, in Western Australia, married, and, up until very recently, was a senator for the party heavily favoured by Australias racists. He is, in the strongest possible sense of the word, a character. He seems to have no real plan but throws himself into everything he does, before shortly and explosively fucking it up. He didnt espouse One Nations party line at any point, he mostly seemed interested in using his new-found political power to try and sort out of his own personal problems, which did not at all happen. Before politics, his public life was punctuated by scandal. After politics, his public life was entirely scandal, punctuated occasionally by the times that the media was asleep or had the day off. His exit from politics has arguably been even more exciting than that. Culleton, who was elected to his seat in 2016, had a short but very colourful run in the senate, which was categorised largely by a series of gaffes, legal battles and interpersonal altercations with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Almost ousted over the fact that he was technically ineligible to run at the time he was elected due to a larceny charge, he ended up getting booted from the Senate thanks to an untimely court-ordered bankruptcy filing, which also makes you ineligible to hold a seat. Although many people would be very upset, Culleton has taken the development with dignity and grace. Haha, just kidding, no he hasnt. His first course of action was to try and write to the Queen to get her to intervene (note: it did not work). Now, hes taken the bold strategy of just sort of pretending he wasnt fired? He told a press conference that he will continue to occupy his office in his electorate but will be taking a period of absence of his own volition: I am not going anywhere. Im actually going to concede to a self-imposed moratorium, myself, as a senator. I will not be attending any functions, although I havent had time to do that. I have been working very hard, and I see that as not a priority in the first three years to become a senator, in my duty to serve Western Australians. When asked by reporters whether his salary or the salary of his staff would continue to be paid by the Senate, he refused to answer their questions and promptly left. What a man. Source: ABC. Photo: Channel 9. After arriving on the shores of NSWs Ulladulla last Wednesday, New Zealand man Alan Langdon is facing charges for taking his daughter Que on the three-week-long trip across the Tasman Sea. The pair departed from Kawhia and intended to travel to Bay of Islands over Christmas, only for Langdon to change course after a rudder broke on his vessel. According to him, travelling to Australia was safer than returning at that point. A wide-scale search for the pair was under operation after Ques mum, Ariane Wyler, reported them missing. Wyler flew to Australia and hired child recovery expert Col Chapman to assist in reuniting with Que. After Que and her mother met again, Chapman compared the event to a TV scene: The mum had become a little bit frustrated in not seeing her daughter for so long so she went down to the marina at Ulladulla harbour where her daughter was in the hope of just seeing her or just being able to look at her. Que looked up at her mum, her mum looked at her and Que just rushed over and grabbed mummys leg and just didnt let it go. That went on for a little while. There were tears, there was crying. Que jumped up in her mums arms, they were hugging each other. According to Chapman, Que left with Wyler of her own volition and is now in her care. He also claimed Langdons trip to Australia breaches NZ Family Court orders not to take Que out of the country. Earlier, Langdon denied taking Que from New Zealand as part of a custody issue. Langdon has been charged with taking a child from New Zealand, and is due to appear in court on January 25. Source: ABC / NZ Herald. Photo: Facebook. Bahgoury is one of the most prominent Egyptian painters and caricaturists Prominent Egyptian artist George Bahgourys exhibition is set to open on 29 January at Picasso East Art Gallery and will run until 6 February. Abstract painter and former culture minister Farouk Hosny will attend the opening. The painter and sculptor George Bahgoury is among the most celebrated contemporary Egyptian artists. Born in Luxor in 1932, he began work as a political cartoonist in 1953. The artist then went on to study at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Zamalek in 1955, under the guidance of Egyptian artist Hussein Bikar. In 1970, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, in Paris, where he has been living for over 35 years. Among his various influences, the painter cites renowned twentieth century artist Pablo Picasso, Egyptian modernist Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar, German expressionist Paul Klee, and Egyptian Fayoum portraits. His works have been exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world, including the Louvre museum in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Amman and the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo. Bahgoury is also a caricaturist for Al Ahram Weekly. Programme: 29 January-6 February Picasso East Art Gallery Villa(39) El -Narges(3) 5th Settlement 90 st, in front of Lake View compound 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: In the latest instalment of our ongoing series, dont go into the water, ever, even if youre on fire, north-easterly winds have brought a plague of bluebottles to Queensland beaches, with more than 2,000 people stung over the weekend. The Sunshine Coast copped its worst stinger weekend in recent memory, with 1,504 people stung. The Gold Coast contributed another 914 victims and thats only at surf lifesaver-patrolled beaches. Surf Life Saving Queensland surf communications co-ordinator Tim Wilson spoke to the Brisbane Times about the unusual season of pain. Its been a pretty heavy year for the stingers. Last year we didnt have many stings. The year before there was probably the odd day when youd maybe get 200 stings for the day, and that was probably one day out of the whole summer. But yeah, nothing like 700 in one day. That hasnt happened for a few years at least. The wave of Bad Time Sea Bags coincides with yet another crocodile ruining the lives of north Queenslanders. Mission Beach, a popular swimming spot south of Innisfail, had to be closed over the weekend after locals spotted a croc swimming out to sea, presumably to escape the incoming tide of irukandji. All of which the bluebottles, the irukandji, the crocodiles, the multitude of snakes trying to crawl into bed with us, and the heatwaves that are genuinely trying to kill us combines to make a pretty strong case for 2017 being the year in which we Space X the hell up and get the hell off the planet, because it clearly doesnt want us here. Source: Brisbane Times. Image: Jack Reynolds / Getty. I only know one thing about the natural world for certain: its fucking crazy. Crazy fucking shit happens all the time like you wouldnt believe. Weird insects are doing weird shit. Weird birds are doing weird shit. There are things on the ocean floor doing weirder shit than you can imagine, every goddamn day. Youd think marine biologists would have a pretty good grip on what shit is or is not crazy, but even they are stumped by a Queensland leopard shark named Leonie who managed to reproduce asexually. Leonie, who calls Townsvilles Reef HQ home, managed to poop out (scientific term) three eggs in April of last year, despite not having had any contact with any male sharks since 2013. Findings published in Scientific Reports (it sounds fake but its a real journal, I promise) only just confirmed that Leonie managed to this incredible feat without any assistance from any dude, much like as described in the song Independent Women by Destinys Child. All of Leonies bits were completely free from male shark sperm throughout the entire babymaking process, which marks the first time that a shark has ever been observed switching to asexual reproduction after having previously given birth to shark pups as part of a two-shark job. Half a dozen other cases of asexual reproduction (also known as parthenogenesis) in sharks have been observed, but only in sharks that have never before mated and live in an environment without a breeding partner. In a process that I dont even pretend to understand at all, the pups have only half the genetic material of their mother, meaning the other half comes from whatever the shark equivalent of God is? I guess? What Im saying is, Leonies children are all Shark Jesus. Understandably, the folks at the aquarium are pretty chuffed. From senior aquarist (a real word) Hamish Tristram: We are absolutely stunned that it happened and so excited by the whole process. Wouldnt you be? Source: ABC Photo: Matthew Field. After the news that Shannon Noll was arrested after an alleged altercation outside an Adelaide strip club last night, Snapchat footage has emerged of what appears to be Noll attempting re-entry into the Crazy Horse venue before being subdued by security guards and police officiers It was previously reported that it took four policemen and one security guard to take Nollsie down, which goes to show that he really, really wanted to get back into the Hindley Street venue. Onlookers described Noll as aggressive. They brought out this intoxicated man and I was like, thats Shannon Noll, 19-year-old onlooker Alastair Longmuir told News Corp He was intoxicated and screaming. He kept saying Im Shannon Noll, let me back in. Heres your footage, via Snapchat: Yeesh. Theyre really putting the boot in. Noll will face Adelaide Magistrates Court next month. Source: Ten. Photo: Shannon Noll. Banning the burqa is religious discrimination. Whatever the justification, a push to ban the garment is rooted in the idea of persecuting Muslim women, and by and large the discourse around the issue unjustly conflates the (relatively tiny) number of people choosing to wear the burqa with terrorism. With that in mind, youll never guess whos advocating for the seemingly-unconsitutional ban now. Speaking to Sky News about her invite to Donald Trumps inauguration and MP Steve Dicksons decision to ditch the LNP for One Nation, Senator and noted racist Pauline Hanson let slip, with a terrifying level of giddiness, what she plans to do if her party wins enough seats at the upcoming Queensland state election: You know what Im going to do, going to investigate? Ban the burqa in government buildings, banks and schools. Were going to lead the way in Queensland. Now, Hanson has here conflated the phrase leading the way with target already-persecuted minorities and entrench Islamophobia. Particularly galling is her idea of cracking down on Muslim children through that school ban, who have clearly had it too good for too long. Give the happily racist clip a squiz below. .@PaulineHansonOz: One Nation will ban the burqa in all official buildings if it wins the Qld election. MORE https://t.co/TWMgzMITdL pic.twitter.com/9rvEtudDim Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) January 16, 2017 Source and photo: Sky News. A new documentary series is soon coming out regarding the vicious and gory murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Yep, we know theres been heaps in the past year, beginning with drama series American Crime Story: The People Vs OJ Simpson, and also including the absolutely fantastic documentary series OJ Simpson: Made in America (highly recommended, that series is legit incredible). But this series is different this is about OJ Simpsons innocence. Its called Is OJ Innocent? The Missing Evidence, and its created by private investigator William C Dear, who has obsessed over the case for more than 20 years. Hes even written a book called OJ Is Innocent and I Can Prove It. Uh huh. Dear has long claimed that the evidence against OJ didnt add up. He says that blood was found in OJs car, but only on the passenger side, plus alibis werent extensively checked. He says it wouldve been impossible for one person to carry out the murders. He even has a knife that he suspects is the real murder weapon. Over six episodes, Dear investigates his hypothesis with LAPD forensic psychologist Kris Mohandie and Rhode Island police sergeant Derrick Levasseur. They test new evidence and theories about who couldve committed the murders. Marcia Clark, who was the lead prosecutor in the Simpson trial, has already slammed the doco series, calling it very offensive: I actually know the theory and what theyre basing it on, and its nonsense, she said on The Today Show last year. Theres nothing to it. Watch the trailer below: Woooooooooooooooah. Is O.J. Innocent? The Missing Evidence started in the US Sunday, but in Australia, well get it Feb 5th itll be on Foxtels Discovery Channel. Source: News.com.au. Photo: Lee Celano / Getty. Eyewitnesses report as many as five people have been shot dead at a BPM Festival event in Mexico. Attendees and artists at the electronic music fests closing event, held at the Blue Parrot venue in Playa Del Carmen, say a gunman opened fire on a crowd of revelers during a set. Someone has come into the club in Playa Del Carmen and opened fire. 4-5 dead and many wounded. Stay in ur fuckin hotel if youre here at BPM JACKMASTER (@jackmaster) January 16, 2017 Shots were fired at Blue Parrot while we were in the building. We got out okay and are finding out more details ?alerie (@valerie___lee) January 16, 2017 People reporting at least five bodies were spotted on the ground. Head is spinning. Friends please check in if you were there. ?alerie (@valerie___lee) January 16, 2017 100% civilians / tourists were shot in front of Blue Parrot. Waiting to hear about The Jungle. ?alerie (@valerie___lee) January 16, 2017 Shooting at Blue Parrot during BPM. We were all there but we got out and are now safe. Carre Orenstein (@CarreMixmag) January 16, 2017 i was at the shooting at #blueparrot at #bpmfestival i heard 5 rounds of a .22 semi auto then a pause then 3 more rounds donslens (@DonsLens) January 16, 2017 the #blueparrot security at #bpmfestival stood up for us when there was gunfire they are the real heroes donslens (@DonsLens) January 16, 2017 In tweets (which have now been deleted), festival organisers urged punters to stay away from the area while police investigate the matter. BPM Festival is a ten day-long event, billing itself as a global gathering of DJs, producers, revelers and industry professionals. Well update this story as it develops. Source: Mixmag. Photo: @blueparrotplaya / Instagram. The longlist includes 16 novels chosen from 186 entries by authors from 19 countries The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) announced on Monday the longlist of candidates for the 2017 prize known as the Arabic Booker including Egyptian authors Youssef Rakha, for his novel Paolo, and Mohammed Abdel Nabi for his novel In the Spider's Chamber. Also included on the list were renowned Arab novelists Elias Khoury (Lebanon), Sinan Antoon (Iraq), and Amir Tag ElSir (Sudan). The longlist included 16 novels chosen from 186 entries from 19 countries, all published within the last 12 months. Selections were made by a panel of five judges, chaired by Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifa. Of the 16 authors chosen, three have been shortlisted for the Prize previously, including Mohammed Hasan Alwan, Sinan Antoon and Amir Tag Elsir, and a further five previously longlisted, including Renee Hayek, Ismail Fahd Ismail, Abdul-Kareem Jouaity, Elias Khoury and Mohammed Abdel Nabi. IPAF said in a statement that these authors' "repeated recognition by the Prize demonstrates the enduring quality of their writing." Yassin Adnan, although a well-known poet, made his first appearance on the list with his debut novel, Hot Maroc. Sultan Al-Ameemi began writing his longlisted book, One Room Is Not Enough, at the 2014 Nadwa an annual writing workshop for talented, emerging writers organised and supported by the Prize. Other Nadwa attendees on the list included Ali Ghadeer and Mohammed Hasan Alwan the youngest writer to be selected. This years successful authors represent 10 countries across the Arab world and range in age from 37 to 76. The full 2017 longlist, with author names in alphabetical order, is as follows: Yassin Adnan , Hot Maroc, Morocco Sultan Al Ameemi , One Room Is Not Enough, UAE Mohammed Hasan Alwan, A Small Death, Saudi Arabia Sinan Antoon, Index, Iraq Najwa Binshatwan, The Slaves' Pens, Libya Amir Tag Elsir, The Resort of the Enchantress, Sudan Ali Ghadeer, Swastika, Iraq Renee Hayek, The Year of the Radio, Lebanon Zuheir al-Hiti, Days of Dust, Iraq Ismail Fahd Ismail, Al-Sabiliat, Kuwait Abdul-Kareem Jouaity, The North Africans, Morocco Tayseer Khalf, The Slaughter of the Philosophers, Syria Elias Khoury, Children of the Ghetto My Name is Adam, Lebanon Mohammed Abdel Nabi, In the Spider's Chamber, Egypt Saad Mohammed Rahim, The Bookseller's Murder, Iraq Youssef Rakha, Paolo, Egypt The 2017 judges are: Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifa (Chair); Palestinian translator Saleh Almani; Libyan academic, novelist and broadcaster Fatima al-Haji; Egyptian novelist and academic Sahar ElMougy; and Greek academic and translator Sophia Vasalou. Khalifa said "The longlist novels are hugely varied in their subject matter and imagined worlds, embracing history, political and social themes and fantasy. As a whole they express the interactions, struggles and defeats, as well as the hopes and dreams, of the Arab world today." The Arabic Booker recognised as the leading prize for literary fiction in the Arab world is now in its tenth year. Professor Yasir Suleiman CBE, chair of IPAF's board of trustees, said in a statement after the revelation of the longlist "this tenth anniversary longlist presents new writers and established ones who have reached the longlist before. This combination is testimony to the Prize in its search for creative voices whose provenance extends from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf." "The longlist novels for this year speak to the pressing concerns of the Arab World, doing so in different voices and styles that give texture and nuance to their narrative material," Suleiman added. The 2017 shortlist will be announced at the Palace of Culture in Algiers, Algeria on Thursday 16 February. The winner of the prize will be announced at an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 25 April, the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. The six shortlisted finalists will receive $10,000, with a further $50,000 going to the winner. Last years winner of the Prize was Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba by Rabai al-Madhoun. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is an annual literary prize for prose fiction in Arabic. It is run with the support of the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funded by the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) in the UAE. Search Keywords: Short link: Former astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last person to walk on the moon who returned to Earth with a message of "peace and hope for all mankind," died on Monday in Texas following ongoing heath issues, his family said. He was 82. Cernan was surrounded by relatives when he died at a Houston hospital, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his passion for lunar exploration never waned. "Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation's leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the moon," his family said in a statement released by NASA. Cernan was commander of NASA's Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface in December 1972. He became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972 -- tracing his only child's initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own. "Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. "I didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while." Cernan called it "perhaps the brightest moment of my life. ... It's like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can't." NASA Administrator Charles Bolden reflects on the life and legacy of Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon: https://t.co/FSFKgvM2Xd pic.twitter.com/aBTbiKzWmB NASA (@NASA) January 16, 2017 Decades later, Cernan tried to ensure he wasn't the last person to walk on the moon, testifying before Congress to push for a return. But as the years went by he realized he wouldn't live to witness someone follow in his footsteps -- still visible on the moon more than 40 years later. "Neil (Armstrong, who died in 2012) and I aren't going to see those next young Americans who walk on the moon. And God help us if they're not Americans," Cernan testified before Congress in 2011. "When I leave this planet, I want to know where we are headed as a nation. That's my big goal." Cernan died less than six weeks after another American space hero, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. Their flights weren't the first or last of the Mercury and Apollo eras. Yet to the public they were the bookends of America's space age glory, starting with Godspeed John Glenn and ending with Cernan's footprints on the moon. On Dec. 11, 1972, Cernan guided the lander, named Challenger, into a lunar valley called Taurus-Littrow, with Harrison "Jack" Schmitt at his side. He recalled the silence after the lunar lander's engine shut down. "That's where you experience the most quiet moment a human being can experience in his lifetime," Cernan said in 2007. "There's no vibration. There's no noise. The ground quit talking. Your partner is mesmerized. He can't say anything. "The dust is gone. It's a realization, a reality, all of a sudden you have just landed in another world on another body out there (somewhere in the) universe, and what you are seeing is being seen by human beings -- human eyes -- for the first time." Three days earlier, Cernan, Schmitt and Ronald Evans had blasted off atop a Saturn rocket in the first manned nighttime launch from Kennedy Space Center. Evans remained behind as pilot of the command module that orbited the moon while the other two landed on the moon's surface. Cernan and Schmitt, a geologist, spent more than three days on the moon, including more than 22 hours outside the lander, and collected 249 pounds of lunar samples. Completing their third moon walk on Dec. 14, Schmitt returned to the lunar module and was followed by Cernan. "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," Cernan said. He later acknowledged that he had grasped for words to leave behind, knowing how the world remembered Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" on stepping on the moon in 1969. Before heading home, Cernan said he drew the letters "TDC" -- the initials of his then 9-year-old daughter, Teresa Dawn -- with his finger on the dusty gray lunar surface. He said he imagined someone in the distant future would find "our lunar rover and our footprints and those initials and say, 'I wonder who was here? Some ancient civilization was here back in the 20th century, and look at the funny marks they made.'" The Apollo 17 landing site, including tracks made by Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt, as seen from orbit by @LRO_NASA: https://t.co/U2Zr1Ge8uf pic.twitter.com/VF56tcytNT NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) January 16, 2017 Eugene A. Cernan was born in 1934 in Chicago and graduated from Indiana's Purdue University in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering. (Armstrong also was a Purdue grad.) He had been a Navy attack pilot and earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering when NASA selected him in October 1963 as one of 14 members of its third astronaut class. In 1966, he was pilot of Gemini 9, a three-day flight with command pilot Tom Stafford where they used different techniques to rendezvous with a docking adapter that was previously launched. On the flight, Cernan became the second American to walk in space, spending more than two hours outside the Gemini spacecraft. With the Apollo program under way, Cernan flew on Apollo 10 in May 1969. It was a dress rehearsal for the lunar landing on the next flight and took Cernan and Stafford, aboard the lunar module Snoopy, to within 91/2 miles of the moon's surface. The mission was marked by a glitch when the wrong guidance system was turned on and the lunar module went out of control before Stafford righted it by taking manual control. Cernan often joked that his job was to paint a white line to the moon that Armstrong and the rest of the Apollo 11 crew could follow. Yet Cernan was one of only three people to voyage twice to the moon -- either to its surface or in moon orbit. James Lovell and John Young are the others. In 1973, Cernan became special assistant to the program manager of the Apollo program at Johnson Space Center in Houston, assisting in planning and development of the U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission. He was senior U.S. negotiator with the Soviets on the test project. He retired from NASA three years later. He worked for a Houston energy firm, Coral Petroleum, then in 1981 began his own aerospace consulting company. He eventually became chairman of an engineering firm that worked on NASA projects. He also worked as a network television analyst during shuttle flights in the 1980s. A documentary about his life, "The Last Man on the Moon" was released in 2016. Teresa was Cernan's only child with his wife Barbara. The couple married in 1961 and divorced 20 years later. In 1987, he married again, to Jan Nanna, and they lived in Houston. FotorCreated.jpg A necklace pendant possibly belonging to a family member of Anne Frank was found by excavators of a notorious Nazi extermination camp in that claimed the lives of 250,000 Jews during World War II. (Photos by Yoram Haimi, Israel Antiquities Authority) A necklace pendant possibly belonging to a family member of Anne Frank was found by excavators of a notorious Nazi extermination camp in that claimed the lives of 250,000 Jews during World War II. Archaeologists found the pendant among other items while digging through sections of Sobibor, an extermination camp in Poland that operated between 1941 and 1943. An inscribed pendant recently found may have a connection to Frank, whose famed diary documented her hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Frank was killed in 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Researches believe the pendent probably belonged to Karoline Cohn, who was born on July 3, 1929. Research performed by the Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center in Jerusalem, indicates that the pendant discovered in Sobibor bears close resemblance to one owned by Frank. Research revealed that aside from similarities between the pendants, both Frank and Karoline Cohn were born in Frankfurt. Yad Vashem said in a prepared release that this suggests a possible familial connection between the two. The pendant has "Mazal Tov" in Hebrew written on one side. On the other side, there are three Stars of David along with a Hebrew letter "h." Cohn was deported from Frankfurt to Minsk on Nov. 11, 1941. While it is not known if Cohn survived the harsh conditions in the Minsk ghetto, her pendant reached Sobibor sometime between November 1941 and September 1943. Researchers are currently trying to locate relatives of the two families to further explore this avenue. The discovery was made by archaeologists Wojciech Mazurek, Yoram Haimi and Ivar Schute A Newmanstown man was cited for disorderly conduct after he was accused of fighting with a student at 2:48 p.m. Jan. 9 at Lebanon County Career and Technology Center. Charged was Shawn Foesig, 41, of the first block of Cardinal Run Road, South Lebanon Township police said. Foesig refused to obey staff requests to stop the fight, police said, and was pulled off the student by staff. The student had minor injuries. Information was not available on what Foesig was doing at the school or what prompted the incident. A state appeals court panel is showing no mercy to a man convicted of blowing up a friend's lemon of an SUV. The recent Superior Court ruling upholds Daniel Fobes' conviction and prison term for the fiery 2014 incident in a remote patch of woods in Lancaster County. State police said Fobes, 58, of Media, swung into illegal action when his pal, 53-year-old Kim Stretch of Havertown, complained about the chronic mechanical problems with a Ford Explorer she had just purchased. The car was registered in the name of Stretch's husband. Fobes' solution was to take the SUV to an out-of-the way spot in Elizabeth Township and set it on fire. According to court records, another woman who drove Fobes and Stretch from the scene heard a "boom!" as the pair got into her car. Investigators said Fobes yelled, "Get out of here, hit it!" as the flames spread. Fobes left the scene while the Explorer was still burning. Fobes was sentenced to 6 to 23 months in prison after a Lancaster County jury convicted him of reckless burning, criminal mischief and conspiracy. President Judge Emeritus Kate Ford Elloitt concluded in the Superior Court ruling that, contrary to Fobes' arguments, the evidence against him was solid. Court records show Stretch pleaded guilty to failing to report the fire and was sentenced to 3 years on probation. MLK March Civil rights advocates on Saturday marched in Washington to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The National Action Network, a group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, sponsored the "We Shall Not Be Moved" march and rally ahead of Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) The way the Rev. Frank Hairston-Allen sees it when a race has endured slavery, lynchings and Jim Crow, one seemingly intolerant leader has little impact on a community's resoluteness. That's the context in which Hairston-Allen, the new head of Harrisburg's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, puts the current conversation on race in this country. In the waning days of Barack Obama's presidency that conversation has been underscored with concerns, even fear, that the gains and progress made in this country along racial lines will deteriorate under Donald Trump. The president-elect has been widely criticized for divisive rhetoric that some say fuels racist and anti-Semitic sentiments of some of his followers. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks at a Selma, Ala., church in this January 1965 photo. Black leaders across Harrisburg say the black community must guard to ensure gains made over the decades are not diminished in the years to come. "We are very thick skin," said Hairston-Allen, pastor of the First Zion Baptist Church in Harrisburg. "We've come through 400 years in this country. We've been through slavery....So many barriers have been cleared and overcome by people of on both sides of the street. Once you've been through a hurricane of segregation...for one or two things to pop up, either in policing or politics, you are not going to fall off the fence. It's not going to happen." Hairston-Allen's assurances come as the nation today marks the national holiday commemorating the work of the country's greatest civil rights leader - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For leaders in the black community, the national holiday has historically afforded an opportunity to take stock of racial progress and equality. Over the past eight years, even with the nation's first black president in the White House, that conversation has been focused on deepening gulfs across racial lines. Amid a succession of high-profile police shootings of black men, a national movement - Black Lives Matter - resonated of the perennial struggle for equality, even as a series of ambushes of police officers produced a backlash. The Rev. Frank Hairston-Allen Now, just days away from the inauguration, Trump is the subject of scathing rebuke from leaders across the racial spectrum after he tore into civil rights legend Congressman John Lewis on Saturday. Lewis had questioned the legitimacy of Trumps election, prompting Trump to tweet that Lewis, D-Ga., "should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results." Such rhetoric has deepened the rift between Trump and communities of color across the country. Still, leaders across the Harrisburg black community largely say that progress and the forward momentum gained in the decades since the Civil Rights Movement lies not in the tenor set by the billionaire businessman, but the determination of the black community itself. "We need not reinvent wheel," Hairston-Allen said. "What we need to do is make sure the wheel is inflated sufficiently enough to carry the load. It's not the offering plate. It is the plight of our people. That's what we need to be concerned about. We need not forecast by playing musical chairs with our people that the gain is over. What we need to do is educate." Education, jobs and violence are the three main areas, Hairston-Allen said, in which the nation's black community must continue to forge through barriers and obstacles. President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office on Friday, Jan. 20. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) "If you attack, remove or diminish the head of the home, which is the male, and there is no gainful employment, no outlook because of incarceration, against this background you have a platform for domestic violence and there is no forwarding of the family," he said. Homer Floyd, a former longtime head of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and considered a dean of civil rights, said he was fearful of the proverbial two steps back. "I'm a little fearful that we will take some steps backwards," said Floyd, who during his 50-year stint as a civil rights leader headed the Kansas Commission on Civil Rights and shared the stage with King. "Certainly progress has been made. There are minorities, women and members of the LGBT community who are in positions that had never been held before but on the other hand, there is a vast majority that has not felt the progress that has been made." Floyd said he was critical of the negative tenor and tone with which Trump waged his campaign. Although Trump vehemently denies being a racist (his company was twice sued by the U.S. Justice Department for racial bias practices), he has not shaken the specter in light of his rhetoric, including having led the birther movement against Obama and his propensity for referring to "the blacks" and "the Hispanics" in his speeches. Trump famously appealed to black voters with what was seen as a gross and outdated stereotype that portrayed blacks as uneducated, violent and unproductive: "You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed -- what the hell do you have to lose?" With the exception of of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who Trump tapped as secretary of housing and urban development, the president-elect to date has put one of the least diverse cabinets in recent history. With a few exceptions, his cabinet is made up of older, white and affluent males. Floyd said the negative tenor that Trump had given to racial issues during the campaign had been worrisome. "While still hopeful, I certainly did not appreciate the nastiness," Floyd said. Joseph Robinson, president of Harrisburg's Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Development Institute, said he is specifically troubled by some of Trump's picks for his cabinet, including Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos, who has been tapped to lead Education. "Unless he has recanted his views, and anyone can evolve," Robinson said of Sessions. "Unless he has evolved, then I think it's counter intuitive to appoint someone who is not committed to protecting the rights and gains that were so hard fought. Robinson said he is worried that DeVos will further deteriorate the quality of public education by reducing funding to schools. He fears children in poor, urban areas will continue to bear the brunt of a declining public school system. In the days after the election, Tina Nixon found herself jotting down thoughts on how she saw the next four years playing out. Nixon, a senior vice president and chief diversity officer at Pinnacle Health, found herself writing about a hope for change and a hope for unity. Those imperatives, she said, are not only central to her work, they must play a critical role in this country going forward. "People fear the things they don't know," she said. "I'm committed to provide opportunities and safe places where people can learn and understand from one another and learn about their culture differences and the differences in their lives, which on the surface can be different but when you have a conversation, you realize the things we do are very similar." Nixon laid out a tall order for the country to reclaim civility while protecting the gains it had made. "We can't take two steps backwards," she said. "I have faith we won't if people will let down their guard and begin to listen and respect that people are going to be different," she said. "It's ok. It's not a battle. We can compromise. It's ok if we don't get everything we want but can we compromise to get justice?" At 21, Kenshay Kerr, a student at Penn State Harrisburg, admits he is concerned that Trump will fail in a more personal area. "President Obama has been a great role model," said Kerr, president of the Student Government Association. "He has shown to be a family man. He has been a great influence to our black community and a great role model. Moving forward I'm afraid that will go to waste...I want this country to continue on the path of strong leaders. That is my only fear." Civil rights advocates demonstrate on the Washington Monument grounds before marching to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) Kerr, a business major, said he is able to put politics aside and assess Trump by his business acumen. "As a business major, I'm not always looking at politics," he said. "However I do want to work with someone who I consider reliable and trustworthy." Kerr notes that Trump has made sound business decisions, as well as thanked his opponent in the wake of his election win. "I had a nice feeling after hearing that," Kerr said. "I saw a side to Trump that I had not seen on social media. He was considerate. That's what you take into consideration. People aren't always what they seem to be on social media. That's what college students are looking at." The Rev. Earl Harris said he is looking ahead with prayer in his heart. "As a Christian and as a pastor, I pray for the president-elect and his family and encourage our congregation to pray for him because he is in a leadership position and we need him to be successful so this country is successful," said Harris, president of the Interdenominational Ministers Conference of Greater Harrisburg. "We are in this together." HARRISBURG -- In a weekend full of services, memorials and tributes to the preeminent figure of the civil rights movement, a Philadelphia pastor implored people to remember the true spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King rather than the meek figure he has been molded into since his assassination. "His roar as a lion has been muted, and what we have now is the soft purring of a kitten," said the Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, "so that we remember him by a weekend of doing kind things, leaving unchallenged the basic evil structure of the things against which he fought." Shaw delivered the keynote address as a part of the 39th Martin Luther King Weekend celebration in Harrisburg. His sermon of more than 30 minutes carried a serious but humorous tone as he weighed in on the current social climate while managing to throw in quick quips about delivering a "brief" address. In preaching on the activist icon, Shaw reminded those in attendance that King fought fiercely until his death -- not only to end segregation but for an end to poverty and for equal participation for all Americans. The people of faith gathered for more than three hours to worship, fellowship and remember King's legacy of having a tough mind and tender heart Sunday evening at St. Paul Baptist Church in Harrisburg. Pastors from various local churches joined in the call for a nonpartisan, faith-based approach that looks to bridge cultural and racial differences. Shaw said the nation is in a familiar place, looking at a situation where some its people are fighting for complete rights and to be afforded the humanity the Constitution guarantees. He pointed to historical steps forward that were followed by a return to the status quo, using three examples: Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and subsequent assassination; King's work, ensuing assassination and a refusal by some to honor his legacy with a holiday; and, most recently, President Barack Obama's historic election, the false notion that all historic issues of inequality were gone and the continued desire of some to tear apart the outgoing leader's legacy. Denouncing President-elect Donald Trump's message of making America great again, Shaw said the message is problematic, because it looks back instead of forward. The implicit message, he added, hearkens back to a time where people of color had fewer rights and representation. Shaw called for Christians of all denominations and races to stop supporting Republicans or Democrats but to support instead fairness, justice and equality. Pulling his message from the fourth chapter of Hebrews, Shaw urged those in attendance to rest as God has commanded -- but only when the work is done -- as God did after creating the universe. Shaw's words pushing parishioners to remain diligent also came with words of caution, asking them not to put themselves in the role of God, but instead to pray and work to hold the government accountable. In addition to the worship service and program, Stanley Lawson, the former Harrisburg-area NAACP president, was given the MLK Leadership Development Institute's Rosa Parks Award. The organization also bestowed its Drum Major Award on several others: Glenn Williams, the Rev. James Lyles, the Rev. Dr. Roland, the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Gadsden, Brandon Flood, Lester Bowman, Leslie Malachi, and Sandra Thompson. Opponents of the proposed Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline joined a community bonfire protest event Sunday hosted by Lancaster Against Pipelines at the site of one of two stands the group has built in protest of the pipeline. Taking a cue from the tactics Native American groups deployed in opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline, a group of protesters have erected two stands to block the Atlantic Sunrise's path. Once completed, the pipeline will transport 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day from shale fields to the north and west across central Pennsylvania. Sunday's event was a response to the Final Environmental Impact Statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which maintained there would be no significant impact on the community, according to the event page on Facebook. It won't take much effort to tear the wooden structures down, but their builders hope the stands will be the focal point for a protest in Lancaster County. "It's not that these structures are going to stop them," said Mark Clatterbuck, of the group Lancaster Against Pipelines, according to Pennlive archives. "They will serve as the center of an encampment of people who will be there permanently." The second stand structure in Conestoga, where the Sunday protest was held, lies directly in the alternative route announced by Williams Partners LP, the Oklahoma-based energy company behind the $3 billion project. The alternative route was announced after the group built a stand in the initially proposed route. Pennsylvania state police have approved the sale of T-shirts in memory of the late Trooper Landon Weaver to raise funds for his widow. The shirts will be sold from 1 to 3 p.m. Jan. 21 at Martinsburg Fire Company, 205 S. Market St., Martinsburg; and Smithfield Fire Company, 10 Firehouse Lane, Huntingdon. Orders may also be placed online at TrooperWeaver.com. The website says retired Trooper Charles Banks is operating the fundraiser with approval from the Weaver family. Weaver, 23, was shot and killed Dec. 30, 2016, by Jason Robison while investigating a protection from abuse order violation in Huntingdon County. Robison was shot and killed the next day in a confrontation with state police. All proceeds will go to Macy Weaver, the trooper's widow, said state police. Last week state police urged the public to use caution when solicited for fund-raising in Weaver's name. Under state regulations, state police are prohibited from permitting an organization to use a member's title, position or other information without approval from the state police commissioner. In the case of the T-shirts, permission was received from command, said state police. Funds for Weaver's family are also being accepted at Altoona First Savings Bank . The Troopers Helping Troopers Foundation also accepts donations in Weaver's memory online or mailed to 3625 Vartan Way, Harrisburg, PA 17110. Pamela Gay.jpg Pamela Gay (submitted) York County Coroner Pamela Gay is seeking re-election in the May 16 primary. Gay, 55, a Republican from Springettsbury Township, has been a registered nurse for 35 years and was elected coroner in 2013. A co-founder of the York County heroin task force, Gay said she will continue to focus on educating the public on the heroin/opioid epidemic while improving access to treatment. She said she will also work to provide more coverage for the additional caseload in the coroner's office due to the opioid epidemic, obtain national accreditation for the office, and work toward establishing a morgue and forensic facility for York County. Under her leadership the office obtained grants for opioid and suicide prevention programs, and Gay and her deputy led public education programs on these and other topics. Gay said she will continue work on building a Compassion and Care Team volunteer program, and in ensuring a smooth transition as the office moves to a county-owned property near the prison this year. Prior to becoming coroner, Gay operated her own nurse consulting business and was a member of York Hospital's Forensic Nurse Examiner Team. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Broken glasses and other materials are scattered on the floor of a room in a building where a bomb exploded at Nigeria's northeastern University of Maiduguri in Maiduguri, Nigeria, Monday, Jan. 16, 2016. Two bombs exploded at dawn Monday at the university. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola) FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2017 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Trump has offered views on U.S. relations with Asia that could indicate radical shifts in long-standing policy toward the region. From opposing free trade agreements to confronting China and questioning Japan-South Korea alliances, he appears set to be charting a course far different from previous administrations. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) Boyne City Middle School to host viewing of new Rambler Fieldhouse From 3-5 p.m. Sunday, Boyne City Public Schools will welcome students and community members to an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new facility. It was a tough day out on the course for the first day of practice, with scorching temps, unbearable humidity and barely any breeze; riders took it very easy scoping out lines on all the technical sections of the trail. YT Industries had a good weekend for the first round, with one of their riders Harry Parsons taking out 3rd place in Junior Men's. Peak's mini bus hire stayed strong in the summer heat. First day racing the new Canyon Sender, Brosnan looking as comfortable as ever. Locals out and about on the trails Shuttle service ran seamlessly all weekend. SRAM mechanic tweaking Baxter Maiwald's Canyon Sender ready for his next run. Fun times in the shuttle lines. Blake Nielsen bike check game on point. His Intense M16 with Zelvy wheels looking good! Scoping lines Baxter Maiwald taking advantage of the late afternoon practice times. Correct tyre pressure was paramount in Awaba's multiple rock gardens. Jake Newell put in a fantastic effort this weekend. 100% shackers Day 1 in the heat saw riders taking their time to check out race lines. Graeme Mudd was unfortunately unable to compete in the DH final on his home track due to being unwell. Get well soon Muddy! Danielle Beecroft looks to be on her A game this season and happy to be racing bikes. Danni easily navigating "Half Way Downs" rockdrop. The Mondraker team were out in force for the first round, posting some solid results. One of the fast sections of the trail, a wide open berm that started out loose and dusty, transforming into a perfect turn for racing. Classic Australian start gate - dappled sun light, gumtrees and 40 degree heat The heat didn't slow Pacey Stockton down. The heat scarcely let up for day two so again riders battled with the heat as they worked hard to finalise their lines ready for the seeding run in the afternoon. Many riders found it a challenge to navigate Awaba's notorious rock gardens. This course can be brutal, if you don't get it right you pay the price New bike, new kit, same speed: fast. Oliver Zwar one of the top competitors for this year, he unfortunately did not have the speed this weekend to get onto the podium. Tegan Molloy looking comfortable getting her lines dialled in the rock garden Kelly Weirnert unfortunately suffered a crash in her race run taking her out of contention for the top spot. Sarah Booth always a consistent rider pushing the younger competitors. Another National podium place to add to the collection. Danni looked fast all weekend and her hard work paid off as she took the Elite Women's Win. Kye A'hern is definitely one of the under 17 Men's riders to keep an eye on in years to come. Pat Butler one of the fastest riders all weekend. Expect to see much more of him during the coming National Season. Remy Morton navigating the upper rock garden in 40 degree heat. Tom Crimmins looked comfortable on the Awaba track all weekend. Joel Willis put in a solid effort to claim 5th place in Elite Men's DH. Troy flying on his new Canyon Sender. Jake Newell keeping it low over Wombat Log. Jackson Frew had a great start to his first year in Elite Men's taking out 3rd place. Troy making number 1 spot look easy as he crosses the finish line Brosnan stoked after his race win. Kye A'hern under-17s Men winner, looking pretty pleased on the hot seat. Danni Beecroft very happy to take the win. Elite Men's Podium: Troy Brosnan, Jake Newell, Jackson Frew, Brent Smith, Joel Willis. Elite Women's Podium: Danielle Beecroft, Tegan Molloy, Sarah Booth, Kelly Weirnert. Awaba Mountain Bike Park proved to meet the National Downhill course standard. A great, if not sweaty start to the National racing season in Australia. The Australian National Downhill series has well and truly kicked off here in Oz. Round 1 saw racers heading to Awaba Mountain Bike park, located in NSW about an hours drive north of Sydney. This would be the first time National racing has been back in Awaba since 2012 and what a way to come back!With this first round being in the peak of the Australian summer and temps soaring to a top of 41 degrees during practice it was sure to be an interesting weekend of racing. The trail has had a fair bit of work done with some major upgrades to bring it up to what is said to be a world class standard. The track has steep pitch, some classic dust through the gum trees and what seems to be a never ending supply of granite boulders to make sure nothing about the place is smooth. Home to some of Australias best, Awaba has previously hosted a number of state races over the past years, but has come into its own for this year's first National Downhill Series.After the big news of Troy Brosnans move to Canyon Bikes, all eyes were on the Aussie champ to see how hed perform on the new ride. He didnt disappoint, steering the Sender into the top spot for seeding. Jake Newell put in a solid effort on his Mondraker to seed second with Joel Willis coming in third.Danni Beecroft, who had been looking fast throughout practice lay down the fastest time in seeding for the women ahead of Tegan Molloy and Kellie Weinert. In the Junior Men Pat Butler threw down a killer seeding time which overall was the third fastest for the day.Saturday night brought with it a nice bit of rain which cooled the temperatures to something manageable and wet the track just enough to make it fast and grippy.The extra traction showed up right away with junior rider Kye Ahern putting in a sub 4 minute to take the win in under 17s. Pat Butler backed up his awesome seeding performance to take the win with a 3:34.16 time in the Junior Mens over Josh Clarke and Harry Parsons. In the Elite Womens it was Danni Beecroft who was unstoppable taking out the win over Tegan Molloy and Sarah Booth.The times in the Elite mens field got even faster as the day wore on and in the end Brosnan smashed it on his new Canyon to take the win with a time of 3:30.91 Jake Newell lay down another speedy run to land himself in second followed by Jackson Frew in third. Burger and Lobster at SkyAvenue Genting Highlands Review Remember our promise of a proper review for Burger and Lobster at SkyAvene in Genting Highlands. Well, instead of we doing the review, our celebrity friend, Mynn Lee will do a guest post on this. She is currently blogged at www.shewalkstheworld.com, a cool travel blog and this is her review. Who doesnt love a combination of burgers, and lobsters? I was excited when I heard that the popular Burger and Lobster was making its way to our shores, and even more excited when I found out I was going to have a chance to dine here. Founded in 2011 in the UK, and after opening several chains in London and around the world, they are finally here in Asia! I like that despite serving premium food like the lobster; the restaurant practices a laid-back atmosphere, where family and friends can gather for a casual get-together. It is the same here in Malaysia. Burger and Lobster Malaysia is located on the first floor of Gentings new mall, SkyAvenue. Burger and Lobster currently has a 150-person capacity; but once the new Twentieth Century Fox World theme park opens, it will not only offer views of the park, but also alfresco seating (despite not having a terrace), and more spaces for up to 170 diners. During my visit, the line was extremely long and snaking pass the corner, and all the way down the new mall. Everyone was queueing up just to try the delicious fresh lobsters, specially flown in from Nova Scotia, Canada; as well as the burgers made with 100 percent Australian beef (the other chains use beef from Nebraska, USA). The interior of Burger and Lobster is casual, with mellow lighting and up-tempo songs to sing along to; creating a fun dining atmosphere. I love the cheery murals on the walls, as well as the feature wall with replicas of traditional lobster crates. We were seated in a dining booth; but there are also dining banquettes available for bigger groups. And now the food! Heres the menu with the prices of the dishes. Its divided into Genting members and non-members prices. Theres also a menu in Chinese. Lets start with the burgers. There are three types of burgers available The Mayfair is the entry-level 168 grams burger; the Original has 224 grams of patty; and of course, I had to order the B&L, which combines a 224 gram burger with lobster meat. The B&L burger is served with salad and fries; and is topped with beef bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and a secret sauce. I have to specially mention the charcoal baked sesame seed brioche bun it just added that extra uhmmp! to the already amazing burger. I could almost taste that light hint of charcoal! And because it was so good we ended up ordering one more. The lobsters come in three styles the Original, the Big Boy and the Chili Lobster. The Chili Lobster recipe is specially designed for the Burger and Lobster chain here in Malaysia, to suit the local Asian taste (we just love our spices, dont we?). And I loved it! The lobster is served in a claypot, and the chili is semi-thick, with a sweet and savory taste. It isnt too spicy. The dish comes with buns for us to lap up all those extra sauce. The Big Boy style is for extra large lobsters; but unfortunately was not available for us to try. However, my favorite style has got to be the Original steamed lobster with lemon and garlic butter. Its the best way to truly taste the sweetness of the lobster and all its juicy meat. I could tell it was extremely fresh from how the flesh just slid off the shell. The dish can also be grilled. And if youre lazy to put on the plastic bib and go all barbaric with your hands; you can always opt for the lobster rolls. The rolls are filled with fresh chunks of lobster meat, and comes in 3 different styles Chilli (same as the Chili lobster), the Original and the Seven Samurai, with its 7 spices sauce. I tried the latter and especially loved that the entire roll was packed up with loads of lobster, and the toasted brioche roll was yummy too. I definitely must mention the drinks. We decided to order the Genting Opulence to share amongst 2-4 people; and it comes in an elevated container with 4 baby taps. How cute! It is an alcoholic drink that has gin, raspberry liquer, pineapple, basil and ginger in it. Another signature drink has got to be the Time Keeper, a classic Malaysian drink served ikat-tepi style (tied with raffia string at the side of a plastic bag). Its actually a fancy schmancy name for the Teh-o-Ais Limau; and it costs RM24 here. And finally, if burgers and lobsters are still not enough to fill your tummy there is dessert. There are 4 choices to choose from; durian tempura, creme brulee, banana mousse and ice cream. They cost about RM28 per dish for non-members. I had a fantastic meal at Burger and Lobster. I have to say that its living up to the hype that its currently causing. I have yet to try the original restaurant in London, but if the one here in Malaysian is anything like it - it is a definite must-visit the next time Im in the UK. My meal of burgers and lobsters is definitely one of the best meals Ive had uhmmm, this year? Thank you Mynn Lee for the amazing review, cant wait to travel with you again. Remember to check out her cool travel blog at www.shewalkstheworld.com 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 A high school student's painting that depicts police officers as pigs and evoked a national controversy last week will be taken down after it was officially deemed to violate the House Office Building Commission's rules, according to a congressman who objected to the artwork, reports CNN. Rep. Dave Reichert had sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol with his concerns about the painting. House Speaker Paul Ryan also took a stand against the art, which hung in a tunnel at the US Capitol, calling it "disgusting." Friday, Reichert said Ryan's office informed him the painting will be taken down after the federal holiday. The painting won Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay's congressional art competition in May and was created by 18-year-old David Pulphus. Clay, of Missouri, said congressional members have no role in judging the competition, and he called the saga of the painting a "manufactured controversy." Reichert, a Washington Republican, said the painting violated the rules on artwork at the Capitol. "The Congressional Art Competition is an opportunity to celebrate the creativity of students in every corner of our country -- and visitors from around the world see their talents on display when they walk through the halls of our Capitol," Reichert said in a statement. "However, with any competition there are rules, and these rules exist for a reason. This painting hung in clear defiance to those rules and was a slap in the face to the countless men and women who put their lives on the line everyday on behalf of our safety and freedom." Ryan told the congressman that the Architect of the Capitol made the determination, Reichert's office said. The rules of the art competition state: "Exhibits depicting subjects of contemporary political controversy or a sensationalistic or gruesome nature are not allowed," according to the statement from Reichert. Federal prosecutors say they will not charge a deputy who was videotaped using force against a South Carolina high school student in a classroom after she refused to give him her cellphone, reports the Associated Press. The U.S. Justice Department said in a news release that Richland County deputy Ben Fields did not intend to violate the Spring Valley High School students civil rights during the October 2015 confrontation. State prosecutors also decided not to charge Fields, who was the police officer assigned to the Columbia high school. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott fired Fields. The South Carolina deputy is suing the sheriff for defamation. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print In a matter of days, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the next President Of The United States, so Trump is preparing for this epic responsibility by whining about Saturday Night Live. SNL opened up their show with a parody of Trumps press conference: The man who is going to be the next president responded with a tantrum on Twitter about SNL: .@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017 SNL sucks. Got it? Everything about SNLs parodies of Trump is not funny. In fact, according to Trump, the show is nothing more than a complete hit job. Trump stopped just short of labeling the late night comedy program an enemy of the state, but he isnt president yet. There is time for him to sign an executive order sending Alec Baldwin to GITMO on his first day in office. Anyone who criticizes the president-elect or makes fun of the president-elect is risking earning the wrath of the person who soon will be the most powerful man in the world. Individuals who are fit to be president dont waste their time bitterly throwing fits on Twitter over satire. The things that obsess the mind of Donald Trump are not those of a president. At heart, Trump remains a low-level reality television star who wants nothing more than all forms of media to send him endless streams of love and validation. Donald Trump cant laugh at himself, and in the finest of banana dictator traditions, he cant handle anyone else laughing at him either. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print *The following is an opinion column by R Muse* Despite Americas guarantee of fundamental human rights enshrined in the Constitution, this nation has never been a leader in providing basic human rights to all citizens. However, over the past eight years the country improved in spite of religious and racist Republicans who did their best to make America a major human rights violator. Republicans have fought, tooth and nail, to prohibit various segments of the population from enjoying equal and basic human rights based on their racism, religion, and shameless malevolence toward other Americans. Now, with a callous Republican Congress, a fervent evangelical theocrat setting domestic policy, and a ruthless supreme leader renowned around the globe as a racist and misogynist, for the first time America has been designated as one of the biggest threats to human rights around the world. That this nation is a threat to its own citizens human rights in 2017 is indisputable. The advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, released its annual report for 2017 on the global threats to human rights as it has for the past 27 years, and this year due to the rise of Donald Trump et al, HRW declared that the United States is now a leading global threat to human rights. The ranking should please the Republican Congress, alt-right Nazis, neo-conservatives, evangelical fanatics and their substantial cabal of nativist diehards because they have worked tirelessly for eight years to put an anti-human rights government in place to tyrannize and oppress the American people. They must be thrilled to orgasm that their cruel and inhumane reach now extends worldwide. America has not had such an atrocious distinction in its history even though global human rights groups have cited Americas violations in the past eight years over criminalizing homelessness and Republican cuts to basic services like clean water, healthcare, food and housing as well as keeping nearly a quarter of Americas children in dire poverty. The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, noted this is not the first time America was cast as a bad actor on the world stage. But he said that George W. Bushs use of water boarding and other illegal interrogation techniques (torture) were mild compared to the threat from an America under a Trump administration. Mr. Roth said, This is a more fundamental threat to human rights than George Bush after 9/11. I see Trump treating human rights as a constraint on the will of the majority in a way that Bush never did. I wouldnt say Trump is a trendsetter as much as riding the populist wave set by other authoritarian leaders and strongmen in Russia, Egypt, Turkey and China. One would add that Trump is frighteningly enamored with Philippine president and confessed murderer Rodrigo Duterte who regularly boasts about ordering the summary execution of thousands of suspected drug dealers; what deadly Donny said is the right way to run a country. As Americans have witnessed before Trump is even in the White House, Roth notes that there are no laws, regulations or respect for human life with tyrants like Trump and his ilk because they revel in their flouting of rules and norms. Another issue for HRW with a Trump in the White House is its attempt to promote human rights around the globe. According to Roth Trumps ascendancy eliminates any hope of America using its human rights record to curb abuses abroad. Lets face it, Trump and his cabal have already targeted several demographics for abuse in America, so any hope of the nasty administration being sympathetic to targeted groups in other nations will cease to exist. Since HRW realizes there will be no sympathetic or compassionate mindset in the White House going forward, the human rights advocacy group will shift its emphasis from the White House and government to the public. Roth also said that HRW planned to be more aggressive with congressional lobbying efforts, but that will be about as effective as lobbying the Koch brothers to stop buying Republicans. Mr. Roth said, Our recommendations are not so much to governments as to people. Were trying to issue a wake-up call to Western publics to stand up. Sad to say, it is too late and Mr. Roth likely knows his organization is fighting a for a losing cause in America. Because the incoming administration, like the Koch-Republican Congress and soon-to-be evangelical Supreme Court, has no more regard for the will of the people standing up than they do for human rights in America or around the world. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print On ABCs This Week President-elect Trumps incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, demanded that President Obama forget about the years of Republican birther attacks and step up to legitimize Trumps presidency. Video: Transcript via ABCs This Week: STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the president-elect has stirred up quite a firestorm with his latest tweet. Was this the right fight for him to pick? PRIEBUS: Well, look, heres the issue I and we look up to John Lewis and his historic contribution to civil rights. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the president-elect said he was all talk, no action. PRIEBUS: But let me answer but heres the problem, we need folks like John Lewis and others who, I think, have been champions of voter rights, to actually recognize the fact that Donald Trump was duly elected. Hes going to put his hand on the bible in five days. And I think its incredibly disappointing, and I think its irresponsible for people like himself to question the legitimacy of the next United States president. I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does. And so look, I think, in fact, I think President Obama could step up. We have had a great relationship with the White House, George. We just had every cabinet person designee of ours meet with the cabinet members of the Obama administration on Friday. Ive met numerous times with Denis McDonough, theyve been nothing but helpful. So, I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on their side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democrat side, but its time to come together. Priebus was asked about birtherism, and he called it old news, The point is not where Barack Obama was born, the point is is that weve got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect Trump who won in an electoral landslide. Thats the issue. Thats where the outrage should be, not old news, but the fact that we are preparing for the transfer of power. and we have been working with President Obama, hand in glove, and I think that they including the president should step up and get his people in line and tell them to grow up and accept the fact that they lost the election. The Republican argument is basically that when a Democrat wins the White House, it is perfectly fine for them to spend eight years floating baseless conspiracy theory, but when a Republican wins the White House under circumstances that raised questions with 17 intelligence agencies, the country must rally around Trump. Obamas response to the GOP calls for him to legitimize the current president-elect should be a firm middle finger raised highly in the air. Republicans created this mess by using racism and delegitimization as political tactics. Trump created his own problem by fighting with the US intelligence community while cozying up with Putin. If Trump wants legitimacy, he can earn it by coming clean on Russia. The outgoing and popular president shouldnt lift a finger to legitimize a man who spent years trying to ruin his presidency with a racist conspiracy. Trumps lack of credibility in the eyes of the nation is not Barack Obamas problem. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Reince Priebus joined Jason Chaffetzs efforts to silence those sounding the warning against Trumps ethics violations by telling OGE Director Walter Shaub to be careful about criticizing the president-elect. The head of the government ethics ought to be careful, because that person is becoming extremely political, Priebus told ABCs This Week. Apparently, may have made a publicly supported Hillary Clinton as calling out troops with info on Twitter about our disentangling of the business over a month ago. So Im not so sure what this person at Government Ethics, what sort of standing he has anymore in giving these opinions. Which begs the question: if the governments ethics watchdog has no standing to speak out about ethics violations from the incoming president, who does? There is nothing political here other than Priebuss attempt to make this not about very real concerns about Trumps proven lack of ethics but about imagined partisan persecution. There was nothing revolutionary in Shaubs words, and the care Republicans ought to be showing would not be a whit more than they demanded of President Obama: The plan the president-elect has announced doesnt meet the standards that the best of his nominees are meeting and that every president in the last four decades have met, Shaub had said. Stepping back from running his business is meaningless from a conflict of interest perspective. Priebus told George Staphanopolous that it was incredibly irresponsible for Lewis to question Trumps legitimacy, but that only means that Lewis is doing what Trump did four years ago, when he sent out these tweets questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama: Priebus and his master in Trump Tower are hypocrites of the worst sort, but thats not the biggest problem. That would be the threat to free speech, the suppression of all dissent, posed by the words of Trump himself, Jason Chaffetz, Newt Gingrich, and now, Reince Priebus. Republicans dont want to hear this though they were very careful to press the letter of the law where Obama was concerned. What is being demanded of Trump is no less than has been demanded of any other incoming president in recent history, and Trumps assertion that he is somehow and uniquely above the law when combined with his autocratic outbursts, is troubling, to say the least. Donald Trump has spent a lifetime silencing critics and is about to occupy the most powerful bully pulpit in the world, where his thin-skin gives him unprecedented power to punish anyone who speaks out. Priebus is Trumps incoming White House chief of staff and this is, therefore, a warning from Trump to those who dare speak out. Priebuss words must be taken as a dire warning to all others that Trump intends to govern not as a president, but as a dictator. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print *The following is an opinion column by R Muse* It seems like each new day is another sign that the incoming administration is Hell-bent and duty-bound to inflict some serious short- and long-term damage on America. It is true that a substantial number of American citizens are going to die unnecessarily as a result of making America great, but it is the really long-term damage that Americans should be concerned about and it involves todays children. There is no doubt that civil rights, womens rights and human rights are going to take a hit from the new government and although it will be severe, the damage is nothing compared to what Trumps education secretary designee, Betsy DeVos, will inflict on the nation for a generation. If DeVos has her way, and there is every reason to believe she will, the damage on the next generation of Americans will be substantial and lifelong. Without a well-educated and informed populace, Americas crumbling democracy will not survive although Republicans will thrive beyond their wildest dreams. Nothing is as terrifying to Republicans as an informed electorate and because Americas public school students excel around the world if adequately funded, Republicans want public schools replaced with woefully underperforming for-profit charter and private religious schools paid for by taxpayers. This week Betsy DeVos attends Senate confirmation hearings that were postponed from last week. Republicans wanted to ram through as many un-vetted cabinet appointees as possible and DeVos was a special case. However, Senate Republicans were pressured by Democrats to delay DeVos confirmation by a week over the fact that the Office of Government Ethics did not have adequate time, or requested information, to complete its review of DeVos financial holdings and potential conflicts of interest. Among other things, there are some Senate Democrats demanding that the good Christian DeVos finally pay of a delinquent (2006) $5.3 million dollar fine incurred by Ms. DeVos charter-privatization PAC levied in Ohio ten years ago. The fine is for illegally giving $870,000 to an Ohio school-choice organization in a clear violation of well-known state election law. It is a portent of the kind of woman DeVos is if she willingly violated a neighboring states election laws to push her privatization failure in Michigan on Ohio students and taxpayers to profit corporate and religious schools. Republicans in Congress who are intent on privatizing the entire government believe that DeVos, an extreme right-wing bigot with no experience whatsoever as an educator, is the ideal person to dismantle public schools. It is noteworthy that not only has DeVos zero experience in public education, she has never attended a public school or sent her own children to public schools. The sum total of her public education experience is spending outrageous sums of money to destroy them to make room for taxpayer-funded corporate and religious schools. DeVos is a right-wing fanatic in the mold of the Koch brothers who promotes giving parents coupons for religious and corporate charter schools paid for with public school money. Despite DeVos efforts in Michigan where there is an over-abundance of her failed school choice projects, including the disastrous effort to spread charters in Detroit, Republicans still want her running the nations education department. Not only has DeVos Michigan experiment failed to increase student achievement while allowing charters to operate with little to no accountability or oversight, she funded a very costly lobbying effort to defeat Michigan legislation holding taxpayer-funded, for-profit charters, accountable to the public. DeVos doesnt want her education vision to face accountability and public scrutiny because she knows it is the definition of substandard, fails students, and is simply profit generator for private and religious schools funded by American taxpayer dollars. DeVos also poses a threat to eliminate students civil rights as CREDO points out: DeVos has an appalling record on civil rights, which indicates she will be a threat to LGBTQ children, especially transgender students, who face prejudice, harassment and bullying in schools and suffer from higher rates of depression and suicide than non-LGBTQ classmates. It is noteworthy that DeVos has personally funded a number of anti-gay organizations that oppose marriage equality, and she supported the case to overturn affirmative action in Michigan that went all the way to the Supreme Court and resulted in sweeping limits on race-based admissions policies at universities across the country. DeVos work to promote charters extends across the nation, but her real damage has thus far been most severely felt in her home state of Michigan. The results of charter school expansion in Michigan, and especially in Detroit, have been, by any measure, worse than dismal. Still, billionaire DeVos and her billionaire family continue pushing to eliminate accountability and oversight of charter scams even as most other states monitor charters results, hold them accountable for poor performance, and require them to renew their charters. Because of DeVos handiwork, and unlimited funding money, Michigan charters can operate as long as they want, and the state is restricted from providing even minimal oversight. Ms. DeVos has no better record on charters than she does on pushing the education coupon agenda that forces individual states to use public school taxpayer dollars to pay for religious children to attend private and religious schools Not only does the data not show that this evangelical abomination does nothing whatsoever to improve the achievement of mostly poor and minority children in underfunded public schools, it obliterates the line of separation between church and state. A line, by the way, that is going to be attacked on several fronts by religious Republicans because they now have an evangelical domestic chief, Mike Pence, setting policy according to his religious beliefs. The damage an extremist like DeVos can wreak on the next generation is significant and arguably longer-lasting than anything a one-term administration can inflict. There is a petition here to block DeVos confirmation that may influence a wayward Democrat thinking of supporting DeVos, but without a monumental flood of constituent pushback, Republicans will install the cretin as education secretary. Unfortunately, that means the idiotic morons that keep electing Republicans will be joined by yet another generation of uninformed and uneducated religious bigots because they attended for-profit corporate charter and religious schools to profit corporations and keep Republicans running the government. Image: CredoAction Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Its anyones guess if well see free elections come 2020. It is best admitted right now we should not get ahead of ourselves. As we are assured in the Sermon on the Mount, Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Put another way, in the same gospel, do not borrow trouble from tomorrow. Right now, keeping ahead of Donald Trumps lies and knee-jerk reactions to every perceived slight is the sort of full-time job that kept Toronto Star writer Daniel Dale busy during the election. However, culture writer Dana Schwartz is here to lend us a hand to at least predict the sort of responses we can expect from Trump over the next four years (eight ifwell, you know): How to predict Donald Trump's response every single time: pic.twitter.com/qSvSuqzDjp Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) January 15, 2017 It seems full-proof. It can be tested against Trumps existing reactions to stimuli. It certainly stands in stark contrast to Reinhold Niebuhrs Serenity Prayer. You dont have to subscribe to Niebuhrs theology to see that one approach is far healthier than the other. If is often said that actor Christopher Walken is a genre unto his own. Donald Trump is at least that. It is possible the world has never seen such an example of ego, hate, disregard for others, dishonesty, hypocrisy, insecurity, and complete lack of self-awareness in one person before. One has to reach back to some of the great tyrants of history to even get an idea of what a man like this can do to others when in a position of power. Scary thought, even if the worst of what has been written is an exaggeration. Trumps type is not unfamiliar, however, as David shows in Pslam 5, where he is definitely speaking of the Trump-type when he says, The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood. If that were true, Donald Trump would disappear in a puff of divine retribution on the day of his inauguration, if he had not been beamed up already. But the sentiment is sweet, all the same. Prayers wont save us from Trump, or from the Republican Party that created him. Only we can save ourselves. The old saw, God helps those who help themselves is not in the Bible or Quran (though similar thoughts are expressed) and predates it (you have to look to the Greek playwright Sophocles for the earliest example) but it is a good thought to have in the back of your mind whatever your religion (or lack of it). Our own action is required first and foremost, whatever thoughts you have of divinities. The key is that we do know by now what to expect from Donald Trump, and his reactions are never healthy or intended for the common good. They will benefit Trump and those who cater to his every whim and no one else. Democrats, however disheartened they may be by the events of this election, by Russian hacking and the FBIs interference and Republican voter suppression and the medias tacit approval of Trumps lies, must get up and return to the fight, or the struggle for our freedom is over before it began. There is no great mystery here and the stakes are simplicity itself: this is good against evil and that Edmund Burke probably did not say All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, does not make it less true. If you havent yet, get up now, and fight. ...I say 'home', but Khoo Kongsi is less of a literal 'place to stay' and more of an abstract concept along the lines of 'home is where the heart is'. The Overseas Chinese built clan mansions in the states they settled in - a member's club of sorts for others with the same surname. Clan mansions are grand affairs; with elaborate designs, ceremonial altars and temples, and the names of prominent descendants proudly inscribed in gold all of which fiercely preserve the Chinese diaspora's traditions and customs even as they're scattered across the Asia Pacific. Built in 1851, Khoo Kongsi is the grandest of the clan mansions in Penang and certainly the largest in Malaysia. Its congregation of buildings guards its clansmen's heritage as fiercely as a dragon would its gold. Inside, life-sized tableaus of turn-of-the-century life in Penang and art exhibitions proudly illustrate the history of the Khoos. And what pride. My friend, who is a Khoo, said of Yap Kongsi: "Your clan house in Penang is so small and insignificant that visitors don't even have to buy a ticket to visit". YOU WOT M8? Despite still being in use neither love nor money will get you room & board in Khoo Kongsi, not even if you're a Khoo, although the mansion is still used for certain occasions such as coming of age ceremonies. *jokes on him - my friends and I (all of us from other clans lovingly mocked by Mr Khoo) are going to form a super-exclusive and highly-coveted members club. Khoos will be banned. Burn! The Charleston-based Carnival Ecstasy docks at a 1970s-era cruise ship terminal. The State Ports Authority wants to redevelop a warehouse into a new terminal just north of the current site at Union Pier. File/Staff The money, status and fame that came with being a professional baseball player couldn't save Daryl Strawberry from the woes of life that would bring him to rock bottom. Read moreFormer pro baseball player Darryl Strawberry to keynote annual Charleston Prayer Breakfast Sports Reporter Derrek Asberry is sports reporter with the Post and Courier. He joined the newsroom in March 2016, after three years at the Aiken Standard where he covered the Savannah River Site. He enjoys New York Yankee baseball and poker. Astronomers have discovered the closest known black hole to Earth, just 1,600 light-years away. Scientists reported Friday that this black hole is 10 times more massive than our sun. And it's three times closer than the previous record-holder. Read moreClosest known black hole to Earth spotted by astronomers As parts of South Carolina continue to struggle with the effects of one of the strongest, costliest American storms on record, some automakers appear poised to destabilize one of the most important and effective public safety tools being used in the states recovery efforts. Read moreCommentary: Hurricane Ian a reminder of the importance of AM car radios The pandemic stressed us all, but its impact was compounded among pregnant women and those who had just given birth; their rates of mood and anxiety problems doubled during that time. That should not come as a major surprise, given how the stresses around this life-giving, life-changing even Read moreEditorial: Important outreach to SC's expectant and new mothers Nearly 13 percent of registered voters in South Carolina have already cast ballots for the 2022 general election after the state opened up no excuse early voting to all for the first time. More than 438,000 votes were in as of the end of Thursday, which was the 10th day of early voting, according to statistics from the South Carolina Election Commission. Read more13% in SC have already cast ballots with new early voting Repealing the Affordable Care Act could be a disaster for individuals who need health insurance, and possibly for the local economy. That's what Dr. Mark Liebow, a Mayo Clinic physician, told a group of about 50 people who gathered Sunday at Peace United Church of Christ in support of health care programs now threatened by a new administration and Congress in Washington. "Repeal (of the ACA) is bad." said Liebow, an associate professor at Mayo who specializes in health policy. "Repeal and delay is not much better." Noting that Republicans who want to eliminate the ACA have not been able to come up with a replacement plan, Liebow said, "Repeal is repeal and then God knows what." If the Republicans proposals become law, he said, "Lots and lots of people will not be able to afford health insurance." ADVERTISEMENT Liebow, who is also a local DFL Party official, said Republican plans to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, along with proposed changes in Medicare and Medicaid, are projected to cost at least two million health care jobs nationwide. In Rochester, he said, Mayo Clinic is far and away the biggest employer. "This town could collapse if all of these things happen," he said. "The Affordable Care Act has problems," he said. "But this is like burning down the house to get rid of the mice." Also speaking at the event was Rep. Duane Sauke (DFL-Rochester), who outlined proposed insurance premium rebate proposals being debated in St. Paul. Sauke said he generally supports Gov. Mark Dayton's $312-million rebate plan. That plan, according to printed materials Sauke handed out, would let consumers know immediately how much of a premium rebate they will receive. By contrast, the Republicans' $276-million proposal would delay relief for consumers until 2018. Rallies and information sessions in support of health care programs were held in numerous places nationwide Sunday at the urging of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). PRESTON With a special hunt in Fillmore County entering its last days Saturday and Sunday, hunters were out in force to harvest deer to provide samples for Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' chronic wasting disease management zone 603. "The weather is helping with the hunters," DNR Wildlife Health Specialist Erik Hildebrand said. Wildlife Specialist Margaret Dexter with the DNR's wildlife health program, said the special CWD hunt had, as of Thursday, yielded 550 deer with the initial goal of 900 deer. That goal will likely be increased since more deer with CWD have been found in zone 603, Hildebrand said. That new goal has yet to be determined, but with five confirmed cases of CWD and one suspected case that was discovered Friday it will be confirmed or cleared either Wednesday or Thursday the 900 goal will certainly rise. The new suspect deer, he said, was found in the same 3-square-mile area where four of the five other deer have been found. Those deer were all found just north of Preston, and the last two confirmed deer, plus the suspect deer are all does, he said. ADVERTISEMENT The one deer that was found out of that area was harvested about 3 miles north of Eagle Bluff, he said. That deer was a mature buck. The landowner shooting program begins today, Hildebrand said. So far, 260 landowner permits had been written as of Friday night, and the DNR will continue to write permits through Feb. 12. "Talking with the landowners, there will be a lot of participation with this hunt," Hildebrand said. "We had folks getting on the list before the big public meeting." Hildebrand said he appreciates all the hunters showing up to help the DNR in its efforts to survey and contain CWD in Minnesota. "They've provided a lot of samples," he said. "We can't thank them enough." Any firearm that is legal for shooting deer in Minnesota will be allowed during the landowner shooting program, he said, though landowners will determine which weapons will be allowed on their own land. The hunt will go each day from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset. One hunter who has been back several times to help harvest sample deer is Michael Hulburt, who has driven down from his home near Rock Dell to shoot on private land during the Dec. 31 to Jan. 15 hunt. "I got two today, and one during the first weekend (of the special hunt)," he said. "It needs to be done. What happens if it spreads and wipes out the herds?" With so many deer harvested this year, Hulburt said he plans to give a lot of meat to his friends. "I love doing it." Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is helping lead the charge to allow Americans to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Klobuchar and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced the "Safe and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act" last week. The bill would allow individuals to import prescription drugs from Canada into the United States. "Canadian families right across our northern border pay on average half as much for their prescription drugs, but laws currently on the books prevent American families from buying these cheaper alternatives," Klobuchar said in a statement. The act would require imported drugs be purchased from an approved Canadian pharmacy and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist. The bill is likely to face a tough road in the Senate based on a recent vote. On Wednesday, Klobuchar and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, introduced a budget-resolution amendment that would have pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacists to important drugs from Canada. The resolution failed by a vote of 46 to 52. Twelve Republicans voted for the amendment and 13 Democrats opposed it. Amendment opponents cited safety concerns. The move is also opposed by pharmaceutical companies. ADVERTISEMENT Lewis introduces first bill Newly sworn-in 2nd District Rep. Jason Lewis introduced his first bill last week. Called the "Reforming Executive Guidance Act," Lewis' bill seeks to crack down on federal agencies' ability to expand their authority. His bill requires congressional review of the guidance documents that accompany new agency rules and regulations. Lewis said the bill will increase transparency and hold federal agencies accountable. "For too long these regulators have run rampant, hurting our small businesses, stifling job growth and hurting our economy," Lewis said in a speech on the House floor. Inauguration alternatives Republican Donald Trump will be sworn in at 11 a.m. Friday as the 45th president of the United States. An estimated 700,000 to 900,000 people are expected to turn out for the event. But not everyone is excited about the inauguration. Olmsted County Democrats are sponsoring their own event on Jan. 20 with the theme "Thanks, Obama, and welcome to the resistance." The event begins with a potluck at 5:30 p.m. at the Rochester DFL office, 1500 1st Ave. NE. At 7 p.m. there will be a screening of the movie "The American President." In Winona, an event dubbed "The Peoples' Inauguration" will run from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Jan. 20 at Broken World Records, 265 E. Third Street. It begins with a community potluck from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. It will feature live music and poetry readings. Participants are invited to dress up as their favorite American hero. DULUTH The U.S. Forest Service has officially begun a process that could lead to a 20-year ban on new copper-nickel mines in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The move would be a major victory for environmental groups that have fought to keep new mines away from the crown jewel of Minnesota wilderness, but a blow to communities in northeast Minnesota hungry for the hundreds of new jobs mining could bring. The action by the Forest Service opens up a 90-day comment period on the proposed "withdrawal of federal minerals" that would ban new mineral development over about 230,000 acres in the Rainy River watershed, which flows into the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs National Park and Quetico Provincial Park. The Forest Service will then complete an environmental impact statement of the proposed mineral withdrawal, a process that's expected to last two years. No new mining activity in the region will be allowed while the study is underway. The Forest Service first called for the ban last month at the same time it decided against renewing the expired mineral leases of Twin Metals, a company that has been exploring near Ely to build a potential new underground copper-nickel mine. ADVERTISEMENT In proposing the moratorium, the Forest Service wrote that future potential mines in the Boundary Waters watershed "could lead to irreversible impacts upon natural resources," and also expressed concern over "the perpetual treatment of water discharge" that "would likely be required" at potential future mines. "Sulfide-ore copper mining near the Boundary Waters is a grave threat," said Becky Rom, national chair of Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, which has pushed for the federal mining ban near the wilderness area. The scoping period will identify what issues the Forest Service should examine in its preparation of an environmental impact statement, Rom said. The environmental review will then guide the decision by the next Interior Secretary on whether to approve the U.S. Forest Service's application for a 20-year withdrawal. In a statement, Twin Metals Minnesota said the government's proposed mining moratorium in the BWCA watershed "will have a devastating impact on the region's economy, eliminating the promise of thousands of good-paying jobs and billions of dollars in local investment." The company also argues the proposal runs counter to the Superior National Forest's long-running policy to allow mine development outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. "Make no mistake, this is an anti-mining tactic and waste of taxpayer dollars," said DFL Rep. Rick Nolan, who represents the 8th District. "Without being able to assess an actual project, the Forest Service's plan is harmful to the environmental review process and should be rejected by new U.S. Department of Agriculture leadership." The U.S. Forest Service will hold a public meeting in Duluth on March 16 to gather public comments on the proposed mineral withdrawal. ADVERTISEMENT In a statement the agency also said it will hold additional meetings in "various regions of the state" during the 90-day period. On a trip to Manila in 2014, President Barack Obama was pressed by reporters about the "weakness" of his foreign policy, especially in Syria and Ukraine. He responded sharply, "Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force after we've just gone through a decade of war? Many who were proponents of a disastrous decision to go into Iraq haven't really learned the lesson of the last decade, and they keep on just playing the same note over and over." That response (later abbreviated into "don't do stupid stuff") summarizes the core of Obama's foreign policy and where it went wrong. Whether the problem was Syria, Ukraine or the South China Sea, the task was to avoid the mistakes George W. Bush made by sending troops to Baghdad. Americans elected Obama because they were tired of foreign conflicts. So far, so good, but the premise was insufficient. A robust foreign policy didn't have to repeat the military adventures of the Bush years, and projecting strength didn't require sending in the Marines. ADVERTISEMENT Instead, the way Obama chose to retrench convinced friends and adversaries that America was in retreat and bad actors rushed to fill the vacuum. The results weren't what Obama intended or expected. But, then, the world of 2017 isn't the world he envisioned in 2008. Ironically, Obama was never opposed to using force abroad if there was no other option. Indeed, he shocked the crowd at his (premature) Nobel Peace Prize ceremony by making that clear. But the new president sought to offload the global policing role America had been carrying. He assumed that allies would and could take on some of those duties. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," he advised in his first address to the U.N. General Assembly in 2009. He also assumed that, if he engaged longtime adversaries, including Russia, Iran and China, he could convince them it was in their interest to play by global rules. Both of Obama's key assumptions proved incorrect. Allies proved incapable of taking on the role Obama hoped for, without a firmer U.S. leadership component. In Iraq, the president's eagerness to withdraw on a 2011 deadline (set by the Bush team) meant the Obama administration paid too little attention to a budding Islamic State insurgency in Mosul that might have been nipped early. In Afghanistan, Obama was so frustrated by the Karzai government that he set a public deadline for troop withdrawal which inspired the Taliban to resist a peace deal. In both cases, the administration has had to return U.S. military trainers and special forces to deal with continuing terrorist threats. Then, in Libya, the president's hope that NATO allies would do the nation-building after the removal of Moammar Gadhafi, proved unfounded. After Libya, Obama concluded that intervention urged on him by the Europeans and Arab allies was a mistake that shouldn't be repeated in Syria. ADVERTISEMENT Fast forward to the bleeding Syrian disaster, which may define Obama's foreign policy legacy. We will never know whether U.S. help to (still existent) moderate Syrian rebels in 2012 might have forced Bashar Assad to the negotiating table. (I still believe so). But we do know that Obama's last-minute failure in October 2013 to follow through on his own red line to punish Assad for the use of chemical weapons convinced the world, the Russians and Iran, that he was weak-kneed. Even his use of drones, and the belated U.S. buildup of Iraqi forces to take on the Islamic State, hasn't changed that impression. Vladimir Putin no doubt included that in his calculations when invading Crimea in February 2014. While Obama should get credit for mobilizing sanctions on Moscow, he might have forestalled Putin's incursion into eastern Ukraine with immediate defensive aid to Kiev. A stronger U.S. stand in Ukraine might have made the Russian leader think twice before starting his massive military involvement in Syria. And so on. The bottom line: Obama's dream of an interconnected, rules-based world adhered to by allies and adversaries, proved to be mostly a fantasy. I say "mostly," since Obama made headway on a climate-change treaty and Asian nations lined up with Washington on the TPP trade deal, which was meant to buffer them against Beijing. Both these gains will disappear under President Trump. However, that rules-based world is crumbling under pressures of globalization and a return of geopolitics. China took notice of Russia's successful aggression and built up shoals in the South China Seas. Iran has signed a (useful) nuclear accord but won't stop destabilizing the Middle East. Terrorism will not die after the Islamic State does. Yet allies in Europe, the Mideast and Asia are now desperately looking to Washington to help them fight back against Russian, Chinese and Iranian pressures. They may finally be ready to share more of the burden, militarily and financially, because the world has become so scary. It will be tragic if Trump handed this opportunity continues to disdain the European Union, rebuff NATO and embrace Russia in the illusion that Moscow will act as an ally. Obama's error was to draw the wrong lesson from the Iraq disaster, interpreting it as a sign the United States must withdraw from paramount global leadership. But a Trump America First strategy will compound that error. Washington is doomed to lead or if it no longer has the will or wallet suffer the consequences at home and abroad. Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. "For instance, there's a provision that says if there is a delay that might be caused by GDOE, we would hold (GEFF) harmless. The (AG's office) is suggesting that we change that so (GEFF) will have to prove that the delay was unreasonably made by the department." Taling Taitano, deputy superintendent in charge of finances, GDOE Costs to the education department and other concerns from the Office of the Attorney General continue to delay solar energy integration at some Guam public schools. It has been nearly a year since the Guam Power Authority concurred with a power purchase agreement for the installation and use of solar energy systems at Okkodo High School, Adacao Elementary School, Liguan Elementary School and Astumbo Middle School. The leased schools are owned by the Guam Education Financing Foundation. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The matter was submitted to the OAG for additional review but despite some initial optimism on the quick integration of these systems, there has been little movement on the actual installations. A better contract Officials from the Guam Department of Education and the AG's office met Jan. 10 for a preliminary discussion on contract provisions of the agreement. According to Taling Taitano, deputy superintendent in charge of finances, the AG's office is finalizing recommendations for changes to the agreement in order to better suit the department. "For instance, there's a provision that says if there is a delay that might be caused by GDOE, we would hold (GEFF) harmless," Taitano told the Post. "The (AG's office) is suggesting that we change that so (GEFF) will have to prove that the delay was unreasonably made by the department." Once the recommendations are finalized, GDOE will take the matter to GEFF for consideration. How quickly issues can be resolved will depend on how fast the two sides are able to negotiate potential changes, Taitano added. Other concerns from the AG's office involve the annual escalator in the agreement. The amount GDOE pays to GEFF would increase by about 1.5 percent every year, based on the current contract's language. Taitano said the AG's office is suggesting to revisit that amount. GDOE submitted a version of the agreement to the power utility for review in November 2015 under direction from the AG's office. GPA rejected the contract due to concerns with cost. Local law allows GDOE to enter into power purchase agreements provided that it not exceed 80 percent of the department's utility costs. These agreements are to be done through the General Services Agency, with the exception of leased schools. Four GEFF-owned schools were anticipated to be the first to have solar installations. A renegotiated PPA was submitted to GPA for review in February 2016. Utility officials approved the contract in March 2016 although the cost escalator remained an issue. GPA General Manager John Benavente said at the time that the common market rate hovered around 0.5 percent per year. Superintendent Jon Fernandez said later that month that the education department hoped to begin installations during the summer, but the agreement had remained under AG's office review. 'No appetite for new debt' The landlord for John F. Kennedy High School is also pursuing solar energy systems, but is looking to obtain financing for the project. This would require working with the Guam Economic Development Authority. "At this point, my understanding is that there's no appetite for new debt," Taitano said. Meanwhile, GSA continues to work on procuring solar providers for non-leased schools. The law allowing GDOE to engage in power purchase agreements with solar providers was enacted in 2013. As part of our diversification goal, we still want to attract the higher, more affluent market of China to Guam and that was the original plan. Monte Mesa, board vice chairman, Guam Visitors Bureau With new leadership recently elected, the Guam Visitors Bureaus board of directors is looking to continue its approach toward attracting 2 million visitors to Guam by 2020. At its annual meeting held on Jan. 12, the GVB board met to elect new leadership. Board members elected Milton Morinaga, managing director for PHR Ken Micronesia Inc., as board chairman and Monte Mesa, general manager of the Guam Premier Outlets, as the vice chairman and 12th member. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. The other members of the GVB board of directors include Therese Arriola, Sam Shinohara, Bart Jackson, Young Hong, Eduardo Calvo, Katarina Sgro, Sinajana Mayor Robert Hofmann, Brad Kloppenburg, Tak Takano, Satoru Murata and William Nault. Morinaga replaced three-year GVB Chairman Mark Baldyga, who vacated the position last year. Morinaga brings more than 38 years of executive tourism experience from neighboring markets in Hawaii, Saipan and Guam and has spent most of his career developing, managing and supporting international marketing efforts in various destinations, but most notably in Japan. Mesa, a former GVB chairman chairman himself, brings to the board 28 years of experience in the tourism industry, with a specialty in the Japanese market, he said. Initiatives of strategic plan Mesa said the board would continue to work toward the tourism agencys four initiatives under GVBs 2020 strategic plan, which include growing airline seat capacity out of Japan carriers, continuing marketing efforts mainly in Japan and other major markets, exploring possible visa-waiver partnerships with other countries using Singapore as a model, and looking at establishing a cruise ship component for Guams ports as an added tourism venture. To achieve their 2020 goals, Mesa said another approach involves pursuing Chinese citizens who received visas for travel to the United States. According to Post files, GVB President and CEO Nathan Denight said that under the leadership of President-elect Donald Trump, a China visa waiver would likely not happen, and thus motivated the agency to reduce its original goal of 2 million visitors by 2020, down to 1.7 million. While Mesa said that he agreed that a visa waiver was unlikely, he believes that pursuing Chinese citizens who already have U.S. visas will make up for the shortfall. 'Our greatest opportunity' According to Mesa, 2 million U.S. visas were issued to Chinese citizens, and GVB is hoping to focus its marketing on those individuals alone. As part of our diversification goal, we still want to attract the higher, more affluent market of China to Guam and that was the original plan, Mesa said. We cant get everybody, but we can accommodate people who have the (U.S.) visas. That market is our greatest opportunity at this time. With Japans tourism market shrinking, Denight said regaining the market would be the main challenge for the industry and for the board to tackle. Citing their various backgrounds in business and tourism, and Morinaga and Mesa's experience with Japan markets, the GVB head said he is confident in the collective experience of the board. Its going to take all of us in the industry working together, thats the key, Mesa said. If everybody in the tourism industry continues to work together cohesively to bring visitors to Guam, then everybody will win. We all have to go in the same direction and be synchronized in the effort to market and offer our campaigns. We need to continue to organize the industry as a whole in order to market Guam as a whole. Power Line readers who mischievously pull for Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison to emerge victorious in his bid for the chairmanship of the DNC are not alone. We have noted that former Obama administration green jobs commissar and Mao man Van Jones is with you. We have noted that juicebox Mafioso Matthew Yglesias is with you as well. We may have reached the reductio ad absurdum of this trend. The JTA reports that 300 US Jewish leaders sign letter supporting Ellison. Why would they do that? They are devout leftists, of course, and above all useful idiots in the sense of the term attributed to Lenin. One hundred of the useful idiots are rabbis; the JTA story notes that most of them [are] noted liberals. Im going to go out on a limb and guess that those who are not noted liberals are unnoted liberals. All are nevertheless idiots in the spirit of the Leninist term. Among Ellisons useful non-rabbinical idiots is Minneapolis city council member Lisa Goodman. Minneapolis Jews have been chief among Ellisons useful idiots since 2006. Goodman assures that the tradition continues as Ellison seeks to climb the greasy pole and get out of town. President-elect Trump has started meeting with potential Supreme Court nominees. Trump says he has met with numerous candidates and will announce his selection probably within two weeks after the inauguration. Trump is said to have met on Saturday with William Pryor, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Readers may recall that Pryor was one of two judges Trump mentioned during a primary debate as a fantastic potential Justice. The other was Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit. Sykes is on the rumored short list for Supreme Court nominees, along with Pryor. Others on that list are Raymond Kethledge of the Sixth Circuit, Steve Colloton of the Eighth Circuit, Neal Gorsuch of the Tenth Circuit, Thomas Hardiman of the Third Circuit, and Joan Larsen of the Michigan Supreme Court. Of this group, Im most familiar with Judge Pryor, and have long been a fan. At Power Line, we strongly supported him during the bitter confirmation battle over his court of appeals nomination. Sen. Susan Collins voted against Pryors confirmation all those years ago. If she remains opposed, there wont be much margin for error even if, as expected, the Senate eventually votes to abolish the filibuster of Supreme Court nominees. Its possible that social conservatives will not be pleased with Trumps nominee. Andy Schlafly, son of the late Phyllis, produced a letter criticizing short list members Sykes, Kethledge, Colloton, Gorsuch, and Larsen. Ed Whelan defended the judges and attacked the letter here and elsewhere. Pryor was not among those criticized by Schlafly. However, he has critics among social conservatives. The criticism stems from joining one or more opinions written by the Eleventh Circuits leading liberal (Judge Burkett) involving gay and/or transgender rights and religious freedom. The cases are discussed in this article on ScotusBlog under the heading LBGTQ rights. I havent yet read these decisions just the summary on ScotusBlog so I wont discuss them now. Instead, I will note that (1) the positions Pryor took probably make him more, not less attractive, to the new president and (2) if conservatives want a judge with a long track record, as I think we do, we should not expect a nominee never to have joined, or written, an opinion with which we disagree. My sense is that Judge Pryor has an excellent overall record when it comes to issues involving religious freedom. Back in the days before 241OCU was destroyed, we started doing 'C-to-K' courses for 10 Sqn's first AAR crews as their C1s were converted to C1Ks. Which meant we had to convert back to the VC10C1, as well as flying the VC10K2, K3 and anticipating the delivery of the K4. There were minor differences between the C1 and C1K, but the checklists and SOPs were different for the -C and the -K. As if that wasn't bad enough, the simulators weren't fully representative of either variant. At least the checklists and SOPs were subsequently harmonised though, as far as possible. Then the decision was made to metricate all VC10C1 aircraft. So at one point we had to cope with some which were metric and others which were imperial; I'm not sure, but I don't think that the metrication programme was part of the C1K conversion? At least all the K2/3/4 were metric. I'm still amazed that there wasn't a serious lb / kg cock-up. If a lb load turned up for a metric aircraft on an AT/AAR task, we had to do the conversion manually - on the flight deck with a 'chocks time' to make... Which was great if the load sheet arrived late. Fortunately everyone coped but eventually all VC10s ended up as either tanker transports or pure tankers - all with metric units. But we also had to cope with receivers using lb, or kg - or even litres, in the case of the Mirage F1. It didn't help when, for example, an F-4 would ask for '4K' meaning 4000 lb rather than 4000 kg - the quaintly British unit of the 'kilopound' being the normal unit used by our AD mates at the time! Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77 had done his duty to his long suffering country, Brazil. His origins were rough,... Two men Odinaka Nwananwa and Arinze Ozoemena who allegedly gang-raped a 13-year-old girl, were on Monday brought before a Surulere Magistrates Court in Lagos. The accused Nwananwa, 24, and Ozoemena, 22 whose addresses were not provided, are facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and rape. The two accused with another man still at large committed the offences on December 22 at School Bus Stop along Ojo-Igbede Road in Ajangbadi on Lagos-Badagry Expressway, according to Police Prosecutor Anthonia Osayande. She alleged that the accused lured the girl to an uncompleted building when she was returning home on an errand for her mother. They took her to the uncompleted building and raped her. It was her screaming that attracted neighbours, who rescued her and reported the matter at the police station. The offences contravened Sections 137 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges. Magistrate Ipaye Nwachukwu granted the accused bail in the sum of N500,000 each with two sureties each in like sum. She said one of the sureties must be a blood relation of the accused, while the other should be a community leader. In addition, she said the sureties should provide evidence of tax payment to the Lagos State Government and adjourned the case to March 14 for mention. (NAN) The Isa Kaita College of Education, Dustinma in Katsina State said it dismissed six of its academic staff for gross misconduct. The College said it had also demoted two academic staff and cautioned one person for misconduct against the rules of the institution. The Provost of the College, Maigari Abu, disclosed these on Monday in Dustinma, Katsina State at a news conference. Mr. Abu said that the dismissal was part of recommendations of a disciplinary committee set up to investigate alleged offences committed by the affected staff. The provost added that the demoted staff and those issued warning letters contravened the rules and regulations of the College. The college has its rules and regulations and any staff that violates them will be punished. We have a committee that monitors the conduct of staff and students as the college will not allow any staff to compromise laid-down standards, Mr. Abu said. He said the college sponsored 26 staff to study for doctorate degrees, while 38 were studying for their Masters degrees in various institution in the country. Mr. Abu explained that recently, the college signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, to commence degree programme in 2017 in some selected subjects. He said 330 students had been admitted and would be awarded with degrees after the completion of their programmes by the college in the next four years. The provost commended the Katsina State Government for providing funds which assisted in full accreditation of 23 courses by the National Council for Colleges of Education for the institution. (NAN) The National Industrial Court on Monday adopted the terms of reinstatement of Francis Johnson, a sacked worker of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Justice Edith Agbakoba in her judgment also ordered NNPC to offer Mr. Johnson a new contract. Ms. Agbakobas judgment followed the courts adoption of the terms of settlement endorsed by counsel to both parties in a suit instituted by Mr. Johnson against NNPC. At the resumed hearing on Monday, claimants counsel, Emmanuel Okaegbu, informed the court that the parties had amicably settled the case out of court. My Lord, the matter is for mention today, however, we are very pleased to inform the court that we have settled. To that effect, we have filed the terms of settlement; If my Lord be pleased, we want to adopt this as the courts judgment, he said. Chike Maduekwe, the respondents counsel, corroborated Mr. Okaegbu submission, saying: we are happy that we did not waste the time of the court. We adopt this settlement as the judgment of the court, he said. Justice Agbakoba, then ordered the counsel to endorse the terms of settlement for adoption. Reacting to the settlement, Mr. Okaegbu told NAN that the claimant had been offered a new contract with NNPC, adding that the claimant had also been reinstated. The resolution of the court is that the court has accepted the terms of settlement, he said. Mr. Johnson had in August 2016 dragged NNPC to court and sought for an interim injunction to restrain the respondent from giving effect to its letter of May 10, 2016. The letter seeks to compulsorily terminate the claimants appointment from public service with effect from August 26, 2016. The court in Johnsons motion ex parte restrained NNPC from giving any effect to the letter which allegedly terminated the services of Johnson. The court then ruled that the interim injunction would subsist pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook A Lagos Federal High Court on Monday gave former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayodes new lawyer, Norrison Quakers, 24 hours to study the case file and proceed with trial. Mr. Fani-Kayode is being tried for alleged money laundering of over N3.8 billion. Mr. Fani-Kayode, who was also former Director of Media and Publicity, campaign committee of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, is being prosecuted alongside a former Minister of Finance, Nenadi Usman, and Danjuma Yusuf. They are charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on 17-count bordering on alleged money laundering. All defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges. At the resumed hearing of the case on Monday, while Nkereuwem Anana, announced appearance for the prosecution, Mr. Quakers announced appearance for Fani-Kayode. Mr. Quakers, who told the court that because he had just been briefed by his client, pleaded for time to properly study the case file before he could proceed with the case. He also sought leave to meet with the judge in chambers to confer on some issues but said the prosecutor could join in the meeting, adding that there was nothing secretive in the planned meeting. Mr. Quakers, thereafter, sought for adjournment of the case. However, Mr. Anana objected to Quakers request for adjournment, arguing that it was a ground design to delay trial in the case. Mr. Anana informed the court that the business of the day was for continuation of trial, adding that his witnesses were already in court. He said: This is a technical way of asking for an adjournment; I have seniors in this matter and so I dont think I am the proper person to come for any meeting in the chambers. I said earlier that we are ready to go on and I did not ask for any adjournment, so if there is a call for any meeting, I will not be a part of that meeting. He pleaded with the court to continue with the trial. However, the Counsel to the second accused, Ferdinand Orbih, while lending voice to Mr. Quakers, prayer, urged the court to allow the new counsel ample time to study the case file. According to him, it is in line with the principle of fairness as enshrined in the constitution, especially in relation to criminal matters, to grant the prayers of Mr. Quakers. He stated that Mr. Quakers had just been briefed about the case. Mr. Orbih further said that the entire provisions of the administration of Criminal Justice Act, taken as a whole, could not supersede constitutional provisions on fair hearing. He reminded the court that the suit was a criminal one, adding that the goal of the court must be to attain justice in every respect. He, therefore, urged the court to give the application a favourable consideration. Mr. Orbih also drew the courts attention to two of his application seeking a release of the international passport of the second and for a more convenient venue for trial. Justice Muslim Hassan, in his ruling, said that he would grant an adjournment for one day to enable the new counsel study the case file before proceeding with trial. He recalled that the matter was earlier fixed for three days: Jan. 16, 17 and 19, but said that January16 would be vacated to enable the new counsel get acquainted with the facts of the case. On the request to see the judge in chambers, Mr. Hassan said, On the request to meet the court in chambers, with respect to learned counsel, I cannot grant same. The judge, therefore, urged counsel to make a formal application and put forward his thoughts in writing. He adjourned the case to January 17 for hearing. In the charge, the accused were alleged to have committed the offences between January and March 2015. In count one to seven, they were alleged to have unlawfully retained over N3.8 billion which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful act of stealing and corruption. In count eight to 14, the accused were also alleged to have unlawfully used over N970 million which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of an unlawful act of corruption. Meanwhile in count 15 to17, Mr. Fani-Kayode and one Olubode Oke, said to be at large, were alleged to have made cash payments of about N30 million. The cash payments, the prosecution added, were in excess of the amount allowed by law, without going through a financial institution. Mr. Fani-Kayode was also alleged to have made payments to one Paste Poster Co (PPC) of No. 125 Lewis St., Lagos, in excess of amounts allowed by law. All offences were said to have contravened the provisions of Sections 15 (3) (4), 16 (2) (b), and 16 (5) of the Money laundering (prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook A former member of the House of Representatives, Chidi Duru, was arraigned Monday before a chief magistrate court at Tinubu, Lagos, on a four-count charge of conspiracy and stealing. Mr. Duru, who represented Ahiazu-Ezinihitte Mbaise Federal Constituency between 1999 and 2003, was arraigned alongside a lawyer, Smart Iheazor. According to the police prosecutor, both men on January 11, 2017, allegedly invaded the head office of the First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL), in the company of others still at large, with the intent to forcefully take over the management and assets of the Pension Fund Administrator. Messrs Duru and Iheazor, who are lawyers with 28 and 30 post-Bar experience respectively, were also accused of carting away valuables from the companys premises at 65, Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja Lagos. The charge sheet marked No. 12/02/2017read: That you, Nze Chidi Duru M, Smart Iheazor, M and others now at large, on the 11th day of January 2017, at No. 65 Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos, in the Lagos Magistrate District, did conspire among yourselves to commit felony to wit stealing and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 409 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State of Nigeria, 2011. That you, Nze Chidi Duru M, Smart Iheazor M and others now at large, on the same date, and place in the aforementioned Magistrate District, did steal (3) three office files, (1) one HP Laptop valued at the sum of 250,000 (Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) property of First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL) and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 285 of Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2011. That you, Nze Chidi Duru M, Smart Iheazor M and others now at large, on the same date, and place in the aforementioned Magistrate District, did conduct yourselves in a manner likely to cause breach of the peace by wilfully and unlawfully invading First Guarantee Pension Limited (FGPL) offices with an intent to forcefully takeover the management and assets of the company and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 111(d) of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2011. That you Nze Chidi Duru M and Smart Iheazor M on the same time, date, and place in the aforementioned Magistrate District, with intent to defraud, did introduce yourselves as Vice Chairman/Secretary, respectively, of First Guarantee pension Limited (FGPL) and acted same in an attempt to takeover the management and assets of the company and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 378(1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos state, 2011. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the offences. Mr. Duru reportedly collapsed in police custody on Friday night. Before his arraignment on Monday, his lawyer, Emeka Etiaba, told the court that his client was still ill having just been discharged from the hospital a few hours before attending the court proceedings. The police prosecutor, however, objected to Mr. Etiabas claim, noting that the doctor at the police hospital, where Mr. Duru was hospitalised, had certified him fit. After listening to both counsels, Ade Adefulire, the magistrate, ordered the defendants to take their pleas. Afterwards, Mr. Etiaba urged the court to grant the accused bail on own recognisance, noting that both were senior lawyers, and that Mr. Duru was a former member of the House of Representatives. The defence lawyer also said their offences were bailable ones. The prosecutor, however, objected to the bail on own recognisance, insisting that they should be given sureties as they reside in Abuja, and not Lagos. The magistrate granted the accused bail in the sum of N500,000 each with one surety each in like sum. The matter was adjourned till March 9, 2017 for trial. Mr. Duru, one of the key founders of FGPL, has been having a running battles with fellow shareholders, a development that led the pension commission to appoint an interim management for the firm. The pension commission had sidelined the former lawmaker from the company after his colleagues accused him of defrauding the company, an allegation the police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigated. The businessman strongly rejected the allegations. A few months ago, the EFCC dropped charges against Mr. Duru, in what the former lawmaker interpreted as clearance to return to his post as vice chairman of FGPL. He had told PREMIUM TIMES that he was returning to work since the anti-graft commission had withdrawn charges against him. Read details of Mr. Durus case with FGPL here. Share this: Twitter Facebook Presidential couple on their way to Israel and Palestine (photo by Andrzej Hrechorowicz / KPRP) President Andrzej Duda and his wife on Monday begin a several-day visit to Israel and Palestine. The Polish president will meet with Israel's president and prime minister and with the Palestinian president as well as visiting the Yad Vashem Institute. "The programme of Andrzej Duda's visit in its Israeli part includes talks with all of Israel's leading politicians. On Wednesday president will be invited to a private dinner with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu", presidential aide Krzysztof Szczerski has told PAP. President Duda will also meet with President Reuven Rivlin and the speaker of the Knesset, he added. The Polish president "will also deliver two important speeches. The first one, at the Menachem Begin Centre, will focus on historical and contemporary Polish-Jewish relations", according to Krzysztof Szczerski. The other address, on geopolitics, threats and challenges to security and peace, will be presented at the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations as part of a conference organised jointly with the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM). In Jerusalem, President Duda will present former Speaker of the Knesset and Ambassador to Poland Shevach Weiss with the Order of the White Eagle. President Duda is also to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who visited Warsaw last year. The Polish president's visit to Israel and Palestine is part of "Poland's policy of a presence and interest in problems of peace in the world as well as security", Szczerski told PAP, adding that "it is also a part of showing Poland's interest in these issues in its drive to win non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council for 2018-2019". A group of representatives of Polish start-ups will travel to Israel with President Duda. They will have a separate programme of meetings with prospective business partners, minister Szczerski also said. (PAP, own information) Despite continued complaints over the weekend, representatives of the Great Lakes Water Authority said the quality of the water going to the Downriver area and Dearborn Heights is safe to drink. Throughout the whole ordeal, there has not been a boil water advisory officially issued in any Downriver community relating to this issue. The GLWA recognizes Downriver residents concerns regarding water taste and odor issues, GLWA Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Porter said in a statement Sunday. The authority wants to assure our customer communities that it is committed to providing water of unquestionable quality. The GLWA continuously tests the water it produces to ensure that it meets regulatory standards. That statement came nearly three days after another statement that said the odor and taste complaints across communities in the region were only aesthetic issues and the water was safe to drink. In that statement, Porter said the problems should be rectified within 12 hours. Taste and odor are associated with a spike in turbidity in the source water. When taste and odor issues were raised in a number of Downriver communities, the GLWA expanded its testing, increasing the number of samples being taken at the Southwest Water Treatment Facility (in Allen Park) and within the distribution system, she said Monday night. Results of this increased testing have all shown that the water meets the EPAs Safe Drinking Water Act regulatory standards and is safe. Illnesses reported in pets Despite that assurance, several 8-week-old puppies in Melvindale got sick over the weekend. Their veterinarian blamed water quality for the bacterial infection they each got. All 10 puppies are expected to recover after their treatment. In Rockwood, three cats were reported to have the same symptoms as the puppies in Melvindale. The cats owner also became ill Friday after drinking tap water. No actual evidence links the water to the animal illness though. Despite assurances from Porter, Taylor Mayor Rick Sollars, state Reps. Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) and Frank Liberati (D-Allen Park) and other officials in Taylor are telling people to use common sense with their water or to use bottled water until the situation can be rectified. In an open letter to their constituents, the group wrote: In lieu of recommendations from the GLWA, and after much discussion together, we are making the following suggestions (based upon logic not science, since none of us are water experts or scientists) for concerned, affected residents: Allow your water to run periodically for a few short minutes so that whatever is causing the issue isnt lingering in your pipes and can dissipate. If you have concerns about consuming the water, bottled water could be used in the meantime for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth. As taste and odor complaints increased, the treatment plant began feeding powdered activated carbon to mitigate taste and odor issues according to Porter. Over the weekend, officials in Dearborn Heights, Gibraltar, Trenton, Riverview and Woodhaven sent their water to be tested independently from the GLWA tests. Tim Neighbors, director of public service and water in Woodhaven, said when concerns were expressed the city did its own testing and those results returned negative for any harmful contaminants. The test showed it is safe to drink. We had a decent amount of calls about the odor and some taste issues as well, Neighbors said. Samples also were sent to the Great Lakes Water Authority for testing there. Neighbors said he intends to get with the mayor when those results come back to review the findings and take things from there. Water complaints have been far-reaching, starting with the area near the wastewater treatment facility in Allen Park and going south to the county line. Some residents in the south end of Dearborn Heights have reported a sulfur taste in their water since last week. The area reporting the odor is serviced by the Downriver Water Treatment Plant, and nothing has been reported north of Michigan Avenue, according to Dearborn Heights Councilwoman Lisa Hicks-Clayton. The city is conducting an independent review and has sent samples of its water for testing by an independent lab, she added. I was informed (Monday) water samples were taken and sent for testing with an independent lab, Hicks-Clayton said Monday. Results should be received early this week. Reports were sporadic Not everyone in each community that has issues has been affected. The number of complaints has varied. Riverview City Manager Douglas Drysdale said the city has received six complaints about water odor. Weve had a number of residents calling to ask if the water is safe, Drysdale said. Everything weve been told by GLWA is that it is. However, we are sending samples to Wyandotte Municipal Services today to confirm the safety of the water locally. Wyandottes system is separate from the GLWA. According to Mayor Joseph Peterson, the citys water is fine. No one in Wyandotte has complained since the issue has been going on in the rest of the region. Grosse Ile Township Supervisor Brian Loftus said there were only two formal complaints on the island. The two residents are widely separated, with one well into the north end and the other on the middle west side. Loftus said complaints from the two residents are that the water has a chlorine odor. Loftus was upset, though, that the GLWA didnt notify him of the potential water quality issues. I was never officially notified of the developing situation, so I am forced to play catch-up with the rumor mill, he said. That will be fixed. I see and hear a lot of media and elected officials desperately searching for a scandal. Unfortunately, I cant fix that. Samples also were taken from the drinking water in Trenton. Results showed the water is safe to drink, according to City Administrator Jim Wagner. Wagner said Monday that the complaints about the water couldnt be pinpointed to one particular area in the community. Some residents in Allen Park, Brownstown Township, Flat Rock, Gibraltar, Grosse Ile Township, Huron Township, Lincoln Park, Melvindale, Romulus, Riverview, Taylor and Woodhaven have contacted The News-Herald Newspapers or commented on various social media posts to complain about their water quality. The first reported complaint was from Jan. 10 in Gibraltar. Two days later the problems increased to many other communities. Multimedia journalists Andrea Blum, Jackie Harrison-Martin and Jim Kasuba contributed to this report. ( Read Times) 01 Jan 70 Share | Print This Page This Article/News is also avaliable in following categories : Your Comments ! Share Your Openion A German no-frills supermarket chain will open three stores in Cumberland County this year and could likely compete with similar discount grocers in South Jersey. The Lidl company has local approvals for stores in Millville, Vineland and Upper Deerfield Township, and construction of the Vineland facility is already underway. Lidl, pronounced LEE-del, will join other discount supermarkets in South Jersey. They include Aldi, another German-run operation, which has stores in Middle Township, Cape May County, and Vineland and will open another store in Egg Harbor Township in Atlantic County. The domestic no-frills supermarket chain Save-A-Lot also operates six stores in Atlantic, Cumberland and Cape May counties. The three stores are part of Lidls plan to open as many as 150 stores on the East Coast by the end of 2017. Matthew P. Casey, who runs the North Jersey-based supermarket consulting company Matthew P. Casey and Associates, said Lidl will likely compete with Aldi for cost-conscious shoppers in Cumberland County. They like the demographics of the county, Casey said of Lidle. They like very price-conscious shoppers (who) watch their pennies very carefully. U.S. Census Bureau data show the countys median household income at $49,984, significantly less than the states median household income of $72,093. The Vineland store is located across West Landis Avenue from a Walmart with a full grocery market and next to a ShopRite. Vineland Economic Development Director Sandy Forosisky said she doesnt think that will cause any problems. When you do something in mass like that, it makes it more of a draw for customers, she said. Its very convenient for them to be all there. But Casey isnt so sure. I think theyre going to be in for a rude awakening, Casey said of Lidl. ShopRite is a very, very, very strong competitor. They dont give up market share easily. I think Lidl is underestimating that company. Lidle runs more than 10,000 stores across Europe. Those stores, like the ones being planned for the United States, are about 36,000 square feet. Aldi operates about 1,600 stores in the United States. Those stores are also around 36,000 square feet. Both chains no-frills operations involve customers selecting products from cartons or pallets. Customers must bring their own grocery bags. The Upper Deerfield Township store will be built in the 1000 block of North Pearl Street on property that houses the former Highway 77 motel. Its also a short distance from Carlls Corner, which Mayor James Crilley called the heart of the townships commercial district. We welcome any business to come into that area, he said. We think it will be an asset to the community at once. Crilley said he visited a Lidl supermarket when he was in Ireland last year. Theyre a different type of store, and youll find anything from groceries to clothing, Crilley said. Theyre pretty impressive. The big thing is theyre talking about 40 jobs (at the Upper Deerfield Township store,) he said. Thats very important to me. Information about the number of employees who will work at the Millville store, to be built in the 2100 block of North Second Street, wasnt available. Lidl officials didnt respond to email and phone requests by The Press of Atlantic City for comment. Cumberland County has lost some supermarkets over the past few years, with Acme supermarkets closing in Millville and Upper Deerfield Township. Forosisky said Lidls Vineland store adds another business enterprise to the West Landis Avenue commercial district that city officials have wanted to develop for years. The area around Cumberland Mall, the citys main business district on Route 47, has pretty much reached capacity, she said. We think this is going to be the next growth area, Forosisky said of West Landis Avenue. MILLVILLE A Martin Luther King Jr. biographical play will make its way from Virginia to Cumberland County later this month. The Levoy Theatre will present I Have A Dream on Jan. 25, with two performances, at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The show follows the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from early childhood to his famous speech at the March on Washington. The morning show will host more than 650 children from local schools. The afternoon show already has 250 kids set to attend. Grades three through 12 are recommended for the content of the show. I think that (this play) is important, especially with whats going on in the world today, said Andrew Rivenbark, general manager of the theater. These kids have the opportunity and are smart enough to know whats going on, and they have the ability to make the change if they want to. The dramatization will be performed by the Virginia Repertory Theatre. The actors will arrive the prior night and work on sound check and setup the morning before the show, Rivenbark said. The theater likes to focus on educational and cultural components with its daytime plays, he said. The show was booked months prior in what is a four-day series the Levoy has with Virginia Repertory Theatre. This particular play was selected due to its proximity to Kings birthday but also for students as a lead-in for Black History Month in February. This is part of these schools entire curriculum, said Rivenbark, 27, of Sicklerville. But the play itself, Rivenbark said, may do more service to the students than a textbook could. Kids are very visual and very auditory. Theyd rather learn from Hamilton rapping on Broadway and have that visual representation to connect with those people in a way that they couldnt with a book, he said. Tickets for the show are $8 plus fees. The 10:30 a.m. show is sold out, but tickets for the 12:30 p.m. showing are available at the theaters website, levoy.net, or by telephone at 856-327-6400. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that everyone can be great, because anyone has the ability to serve. Since 1994, more than 10 years after Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday, the day has become synonymous with humanitarian service at the behest of Kings wife, Coretta Scott King. For those who embrace the holidays spirit of charity, Kings holiday has become a day on, rather than a day off. He worked so hard at what he was doing and so many strides were being made in the country, across all classes and across all races, said Christina Hatcher, president of the Cape May County unit for the state NAACP. Once he had met such an untimely end, they didnt want to just see it fall apart. In some towns, such as Ocean City, residents have been coming together for about a decade to improve their community. On the holiday, public information officer for the city Doug Bergen said plenty of student groups and a core of volunteers turn out to help. Stockton University also has been spearheading multiple service-day projects for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Over the last 13 years, the Stockton projects have become one of the regions biggest annual service day events, and drew more than 1,000 volunteers last year. King, a civil rights activist, was always actively engaging the community and worked to meet people where theyre at, said Daniel Tome, director of service learning and co-chair of the Martin Luther King Day of Service event at Stockton University. The community service and charitable events are done in honor of, and recognizing the legacy, of King, Tome said. Even the universitys president and his wife will be rolling up their sleeves Monday, he added. Dedication to service is one of Stocktons founding missions a shared passion that has grown the universitys Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service into the regions largest such event, university President Harvey Kesselman said in a statement. Dr. Kings question: What are you doing for others? is an integral part of the curriculum here, Kesselman continued. Our students gain valuable experience and also give back while working on community-based projects, and our faculty and staff offer their time and expertise to many groups and agencies, not only on MLK Day of Service, but all throughout the year. The day isnt just about doing one good deed for many students, Tome said. For some, he said it has been an eye-opening experience and students walk away with the knowledge of what it means to be an active citizens in their communities. It has been a day where they recognize its a seed to start doing service. So its not one day out of the year, but an opportunity for them to be engaging with the community through hands-on experiences, he said. Were not looking for this just to be a day where someone is making a PB&J (sandwiches) but being trained on how to be an advocate to others. Alder Avenue Middle School in Egg Harbor Township among the local schools that also take a day on approach. Its also a place where the seeds for community involvement are being planted. The nice thing about service learning is you get them learning without realizing it, said John Jones, a sixth-grade teacher at Alder Avenue who has been organizing a project for the students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for the last 10 years. From start to finish, Jones said the six classes of sixth grade students are completely responsible for organizing their day of service. Some of his former students return to lend a hand as well. Last year, they collected nearly 1,500 pounds of clothing. Some students, said Jones, are anxious to find their place in society and how they can make a difference. Taking ownership of such projects doesnt just build self-esteem, but helps the students to see theyre more than just kids, he said. Rather, the students start to see themselves as members of the community, he added. It helps make connections between what theyre learning in school and how thats going to make a difference in the real world, Jones said. Giving back to the community doesnt need to happen just once a year. Over time, Hatcher said, shes seen the day of service evolve into year-round involvement, with communities coming together for common causes. Its wonderful to get the community together but what I found over the years its no longer just a one time thing, she said. I think thats wonderful and I see that as growing. ATLANTIC CITY Thousands of people flocked to the Atlantic City Convention Center this weekend for the annual Beast of the East spirit competition. Throughout the convention center lobby, cheerleaders practiced their routines, helped each other put on makeup, curled their hair and paced nervously as they prepared for one of the largest competitions in the northeast. The competition, which wrapped up late Sunday afternoon, was a time for the cheerleaders to showcase their hard work. It was also time for Atlantic City to showcase what it has to offer to tourists during the slow winter months. This is a big one for Atlantic City, said Chris Adams, an employee of Meet AC. Adams sat next to a cart full of brochures and menus of restaurants throughout the city and helped people schedule reservations. She said there were two carts like this at the event and she had helped about 100 people as of early Sunday afternoon. Were the first line of defense for the city, she said. We promote the city and tell people about all the wonderful restaurants, shops and everything the city has to offer. Meet AC expected 16,000 people to attend the competition throughout the weekend, according to its website. About 2,300 hotel rooms were reserved throughout the city because of the competition, said Jim Wood, President and CEO of Meet AC. This is a big show because you have parents, grandparents and friends coming to watch, Wood said. Its always great for the city to have a convention this time of year. Families attending the event were spread out throughout the city. Some cheer teams stayed all together in one hotel, while others found hotels separately, according to Stacy Lucas, who was with her two daughters Stephanie and Kierstin at competition. Staying all over the city gave families an opportunity to experience different things. We go out to eat, walk the boardwalk and shop at the outlets, said Lucas, of Hazlet, Monmouth County. Restaurants and the boardwalk were favorites of many families. Billi Jo Klauss, of Lewistown, Pennsylvania, said that she was surprised to see so many things open on the boardwalk this time of year. I had no idea all the shops were still open this time of year, she said, standing next to her daughter Clarissa, a cheerleader in the competition, and her friend Kelsi Lynn, also of Lewistown. It was nice to walk around up there and go eat at Ruby Tuesdays. Connie Maughan, of Long Island, New York, said her family doesnt get down to Atlantic City during the summer. They do enjoy their time in the city when theyre here for the competition. We go to Applebees a lot and we eat too much, she said laughing. Walking on the boardwalk here is a lot better now than Ocean City when everything is closed. MILLVILLE For Rio and Chase, its not a job, just playtime. But playtime for the two four-legged members of the Police Departments K-9 unit helped sniff out almost $5.2 million worth of illegal drugs last year at post offices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including some right in their hometown. Those drugs 446 pounds of marijuana, 61 pounds of cocaine, 21 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 4.25 ounces of heroin were being shipped through the mail. The drugs would have been distributed throughout the Delaware Valley if not detected by the two dogs, according to the U.S. Postal Service. For their handlers, Patrolmen Mike Calchi and John Butschky, the work they and Rio and Chase performed last year didnt occur on a whim. Rio, a 4-year-old German shepherd, and Chase, a 6-year-old Belgian malinois, began their police work several years ago with 16 weeks of training for basic duties such as crowd control and suspect apprehension, followed by an additional 12 weeks of specialty training that included learning to detect narcotics. Each dog also goes through monthly refresher training. Lawsuits target Cumberland jail for assaults, deaths, retaliation BRIDGETON A former Cumberland County jail inmate alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Jan. 9 The training comes with a physical price for the dogs handlers, police Chief Jody Farabella said. If they would pull up their shirts, youd see the bite marks and scratches, Farabella said of Calchi and Butschky, You dont have to look there, said Butschky as he held out a scratched and scarred right hand. Calchi, who is in charge of Chance, said the training also resulted in a significant bond between officer and dog. For instance, he said, Chance reacts differently when Calchi leaves his home in uniform or in civilian clothes. He said Chance seems to have a heightened sense of awareness when Calchi is in uniform. Farabella said he didnt have an exact figure of how much the K-9 unit costs the Police Department but contends the results are worth the outlay, citing the amount of drugs the dogs helped take out of circulation last year. Farabella said the dogs also provide significant help in different kinds of situations. Gunshots in Millville hit SUV with 2 adults, baby inside, report says Gunshots fired in Millville and hit a car that had three people and a baby inside, according Calchi said the appearance of one police dog can help control a crowd of about 100 people. A dog also can search a building in about half the time it would take several officers to do the job, Butschky said. You really cant beat what the dogs can produce, Butschky said. As for the work with the Postal Service, Farabella said the agency calls for the K-9s when they find a package that seems suspicious. That suspicion could be based on a number of variables, including addresses on the parcels or a hunch on behalf of Postal Service narcotics investigators, he said. Nationally, 36,000 pounds of marijuana were seized from the mail in the past fiscal year, said Reginald Wade Jr., a U.S. postal inspector team leader. Nearly 200,000 pounds of the drug were detected in the past five years, he said. John Crockett, who supervises Postal Service narcotics investigations for the Philadelphia-South Jersey area, said the work by Butschky, Calchi, Rio and Chance was directly responsible for the drugs that were confiscated last year locally. Thank you again for your assistance, and I look forward to another successful year working with your department, Crockett states in a letter sent to Farabella last month. Millville isnt the only law-enforcement agency in Cumberland County to have a K-9 unit. The Vineland Police Department and the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office also use dogs. Millville native killed in Ft. Lauderdale airport shooting A Virginia Beach man who graduated from Millville High school was killed in the shooting Fri According to dogsforlawenforcement.org, law-enforcement agencies have used dogs for more than a century. Police in the United Kingdom used bloodhounds to search for Jack the Ripper in 1888, according to the website. Law-enforcement agencies in Ghent, Belgium, started formally training dogs for police work in 1899. The use of dogs in law enforcement in the United States became popular in the 1970s, according to the website. An estimated 15,000 dogs work with federal, state, county and local law-enforcement agencies in the United States. ATLANTIC CITY Mayor Don Guardian took a swipe at Gov. Chris Christie Monday morning in the latest potshot in the dispute between the city and the state. Speaking at the Atlantic City NAACP service at St. James AME Church, Guardian said the enemy of civil rights has always been governors. "But we thought that the state governors were the southern state governors in the '60s," he told the crowd. "Never did we think that the enemy of civil rights would be the governor of New Jersey in 2016." Guardian and Christie have repeatedly clashed in the past over the state's decision to take over the city. Last January, both Guardian and Council President Marty Small called the bill a civil rights violation and questioned the constitutionality of such a takeover. In February Guardian also called Christie's decision to consider a state takeover, "facist". Christie has taken shots at Guardian's leadership and management of the struggling city. During his June session of 'Ask the Governor', Christie mocked Guardian and the idea that the city would be able to develop a fiscal plan to avoid the state takeover. I cant wait to see Don Guardians plan. Believe me. Great American. Cant wait to see his plan, Christie concluded. This past week was also the unofficial beginning of the 2018 mayoral election campaign. Guardian, a Republican, already has three Democratic opponents running against him. Small, Councilman Frank Gilliam and former city council candidate Fareed Abdullah have all declared their intention to run. Guardian: "Never did we think the enemy of civil rights would be the governor of New Jersey in 2016" pic.twitter.com/q6uJNEaBjL Lauren Carroll (@ACPress_LC) January 16, 2017 ATLANTIC CITY Before he read the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s words out loud in public the other day, Kaleem Shabazz knew he had to practice them on his own. And as he worked on one of the civil-rights leaders speeches for the annual Martin Luther King Read-In at the Atlantic City Free Public Library, what struck him was that even though the words were almost half a century old, they were anything but ancient history. To Shabazz, an Atlantic City Council member, Kings Ive Been to the Mountaintop speech was as current as this week. I think this has such a great significance with the (inauguration of President-Elect Donald) Trump and what he may try to do to social justice and civil rights, Shabazz said. That really spoke to me. Shabazz was the last of more than a dozen local residents, known and unknown, old and young, to bring Kings eloquence briefly back to life at the librarys fourth annual version of the read-in. The readers ranged from Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian to a 9-year-old student. And most said they found plenty of modern relevance in the historic words. Isaiah Logan, 18, was the oldest of three Atlantic City brothers to do a reading he followed Jonathan, 9, and Benjamin, 13. To me, its a symbol of what Martin Luther King did for us, and what he had to go through, said Isaiah, an Atlantic City High School student. When I started reading about it, it was a little surprising. I was born in the 90s and understanding how it was (in Kings era) makes me appreciate more what I have now. The mayor also practiced his King speech, which was directed at young people junior-high students in Philadelphia, just six months before King was assassinated. Guardian said he personally related to a section about street-sweeping, since before he was mayor, Guardian headed the Atlantic City Special Improvement District, whose mission includes keeping streets clean. So does being mayor. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michaelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera, King advised the students, before adding a few more examples. He could speak to every group, and speak their language, Guardian said later. And 50 or 60 years later, his words can still move us. Nicole Agosto, 22, goes to St. Johns University in New York now, but she used to work at her hometown Atlantic City library. She was happy to be part of the King Read-In, one of her favorite local events of the year. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life, she read, from a 1959 speech. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. To Agosto, that means no matter what path you choose in life, being selfless and caring for your fellow human makes ... your life better, and helps achieve a better world, she said. Shes still in town on her winter school break, and she enjoys being part of this Atlantic City tradition. I love the passion people bring out in the readings. I love hearing the music the readings were broken up by such civil-rights anthems as We Shall Overcome, People Get Ready and more. And I love that at least one day a year, everyone comes together to (honor) the memory of what people had to go through to give us better world. New Jersey suffered a disappointing loss when it wasnt chosen to house the new F-35 fighter jets late last year. But a new decision on next-generation fuel tankers has given the state a big reason to cheer. Last week, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Ocean County learned it would receive the C-46s, a new military aircraft made by Boeing that refuels other military planes in the air. Officials around New Jersey praised the decision to bring the tankers to the state, calling it the logical place to house the planes. This is the nearest airbase to Europe and an ideal location for the deployment of forces overseas and the Middle East, Ocean County Freeholder Gerry Little said in a statement. Our Joint Base has a long history and has played a vital role in maintaining our forces around the world. It is critical to our national defense. The KC-46s are intended to replace the aging KC-135 Stratotankers and the KC-10 Extender Aircraft, both of which have been used for over 50 years. The news of the base getting the tankers was good news for its employees. Currently, the base is the second largest employer in the state and contributes more than $6.9 billion to the local economy each year, said Freeholder John Bartlett. The only larger employer in New Jersey is the state government. The effort to get the tankers to the base was led by Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, both D-N.J., as well as U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross and Tom MacArthur. JBMDLs strong track record in tanker and airlift operations, its prime location and the thousands of military flight hours our service men and women perform each year ensures the base is the right choice for the KC-46, Booker said in a statement. I was proud to work with my colleagues in advocating for this designation that will provide the Air Force with critical capability and bring jobs and economic opportunity to JBMDL and New Jersey. Philadelphia and Atlantic City Mafia boss Nicodemo Little Nicky Scarfo was able to insert himself into construction of the resorts casinos right after gambling legalization in 1978 through his Scarf Inc. cement company and other businesses. His concrete company laid the foundation for many of the casinos in the late 70s and early 80s, said Atlantic City criminal defense attorney James Leonard, who has his own firm in the resort and once represented Scarfos son, Nicodemo Scarfo. They included the first casino Donald Trump built here, what became Trump Plaza, he said.(tncms-asset)145d55a4-dc20-11e6-b876-00163ec2aa77(/tncms-asset) Their footprint in building Atlantic City is undeniable in that sense, Leonard said of Scarfo and his business partner and nephew, Philip Crazy Phil Leonetti, also of Atlantic City. Leonetti testified against his uncle and is now in the federal Witness Protection Program. Leonard maintains contact with some family members, he said. Hes obviously a very colorful, important part of Atlantic City history, Leonard said of Scarfo, calling him a legendary figure. Not necessarily for all the right reasons. But Scarfo never had a say in how casinos or the city were run, said former mayor and current state Sen. Jim Whelan. Whelan was first elected an Atlantic City councilman in 1981, and won his first race for mayor in 1989, a year after Scarfo was convicted. He was only able to take so much casino business because people were in such a rush to get buildings built, Whelan said. Scarfos death in federal prison was announced this weekend by Mafia expert and author George Anastasia, who covered the mob for years for The Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote several books. Anastasia has described Scarfo as a diminutive, 5-foot-3 mob boss. Scarfos death doesnt signify the end of an era the Mafia era was already long in the past, Whelan said. You go back to the first generation of godfathers ... they were living in a time of limited opportunity for Italian Americans, Whelan said of the early 20th century. Thats not the case anymore. Scarfo had choices. This was his choice to live the life he lived and ultimately die in prison, Whelan said. Scarfo was convicted in 1988 with 16 co-defendants after eight years of running the Philadelphia mob. He had taken over the Philadelphia operations in 1981 after mob boss Philip Chicken Man Testa was killed by a bomb. Scarfo was a Testa ally, and Anastasia has said his reign of violence was in part an attempt to avenge Testas death. Testa had taken over just a year before, after former mob boss Angelo Bruno was shot to death in his car in 1980. Brunos killing ended about 20 years of relative peace and set off a power struggle that lasted for another 20 years, Anastasia has said. About 25 mob members and associates were killed during the Scarfo era, and another two dozen indicted and jailed, according to Anastasia. Leonard said he met with Scarfo in prison about a decade ago. He seemed to be optimistic that one day perhaps his case would be overturned, Leonard said, and he would regain his freedom. Public servants must serve public, not selves What does volunteerism mean? Apparently, the people who voted to give themselves a bonus of $3,000 for sitting on the Atlantic City MUA board dont have a clue. It is bad enough that CRDA, an arm of the state of New Jersey, has gotten away without paying taxes on the property it owns. It is bad enough that the casinos were never appraised at full value and they got away without being taxed properly. Does it ever make the property owner, the small business owner, wonder why they always have to pay their supposedly fair share? I think that it is time to demand that public servants, whether paid or volunteers, do what they should do. If they want to get paid, they should get a job, do the job and stop trying to get over. If they want to volunteer, they should do it out of the goodness of their hearts. When is it going to be about somebody other than self? Alma Johnson Atlantic City Concealed carry needed for safety in Atlantic City Ive been working in Atlantic City since 1971 as a merchant and the police force has always provided a good response. Over the last three years I have asked for help from the department for drug dealers loitering in front of the business and have gotten limited response. Now that we are getting cuts in the police department issued by the state, its time to reinstate a legal concealed weapon carry in New Jersey. Im on my own now and I want to be able to enter and leave my business with at least a chance to do it alive. I have customers who are afraid and need to escort them to and from their vehicles. Ed Pullman Egg Harbor Township Late rockers neglected A recent article on 2016 deaths mentioned musical icons such as Glenn Frey, Prince, David Bowie and George Michael. But where was the mention of Keith Emerson and Greg Lake? They were founding members of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, a huge musical influence in the 1970s in the world of progressive rock along such such groups as Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd. Then again, where was the mention of Chris Squire, bassist for Yes? They deserved mention just as much, if not more so, than the other musical celebrities who were mentioned, for their huge impact and contributions to the musical world without which some groups and artists would not exist today. Glenn Kirms Northfield Some EHT businesses not paying for licenses The neighborhood in Egg Harbor Township that I live in is rife with code violations, businesses operating on residential properties, seemingly without benefit of appropriate licensing, thereby depriving township administration of revenues that could reduce property taxes. Property values are plunging. One would hope township leaders would take action to minimize violations, capture lost revenue sources and provide minimal service. Ludwig Jaros Egg Harbor Township 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. LONDON, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb today announced the appointment of Alf Muller to the role of Property and Technical Lines Director for Continental Europe, as it continues to evolve its client offering in the property, powergen and construction insurance markets. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160121/324916LOGO In his new role, Alf will be responsible for the development and profitable growth of Chubb's portfolio in each of these business lines, leading a team of line managers and underwriters across the continent. Alf will be based in Paris. His appointment is effective immediately. Alf has over 18 years of insurance industry experience specifically in the energy, property and construction markets, having held a series of management and underwriting positions in Germany, France and the UK. He joins Chubb from Allied World Assurance Company Europe, where he most recently held the role of Senior Vice President and Global Head of Onshore Construction, responsible for developing the company's global onshore construction book of business. Prior to his insurance career, Alf worked for six years as an engineer for non-destructive testing and engineering of nuclear power plants worldwide at ABB Reaktor GmbH. Jeff Moghrabi, Regional President, Continental Europe for Chubb, said: "The first new appointment we announce for 2017 is a great addition to our Continental Europe team. Alf has a wealth of technical and underwriting experience, gained across a number of key European markets. He will play a key role in further developing our client solutions and capabilities across Continental Europe. I welcome him to our team and am very much looking forward to working with him." About Chubb Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 31,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: chubb.com/uk SOURCE Chubb FRANKFURT, Germany, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CMS, one of the top international law firms, has significantly expanded its presence in Latin America. From today, Carey & Allende (Chile), GRAU Abogados (Peru) and Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados (Colombia), all well-known, high-quality firms in their respective markets, have become part of CMS. The firm has been active in the region for a number of years, with well-established offices in Brazil and Mexico. CMS now has 65 offices in 38 countries and more than 880 partners and 6,000 total staff. The new firms will trade as CMS under the names CMS Carey & Allende, CMS Grau and CMS Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados. As a result of this expansion, CMS will be able to link clients in the region with leading legal experts worldwide, supporting their internationalisation and participation in cross-border transactions. At the same time, the CMS offices in five of Latin America's most dynamic economies will be connected to offer a seamless regional solution. With this move, CMS, already the largest law firm in Europe, continues to extend its global reach. Recently, the firm opened offices in Hong Kong and Tehran. In the UK, CMS will merge with the law firms Nabarro and Olswang, creating a new firm that will be the sixth largest in the UK by revenue. Additionally, CMS has a well-established presence in Africa, China and the Middle East, and is growing in Asia. Cornelius Brandi, Executive Chairman of CMS, commented, "Geographic expansion is often a part of our clients' growth strategy. So, we move primarily into regions where we expect that there will be future opportunities for them. Latin America is a region with great potential and steady growth, making it attractive for international business." Ramon Valdivieso, Managing Partner at CMS Carey & Allende, added, "Globalisation has also manifested itself in the legal services market, which is only beginning to be experienced in Chile. In the face of this, Carey & Allende has made the strategic decision to be part of a global firm that provides us with the best practices worldwide for the benefit of our existing clients. At the same time, we continue to drive our growth through work from the huge number of jurisdictions where CMS is present. This gives us an unmatched competitive advantage in Chile and is also a very attractive proposition for our lawyers." Juan Carlos Escudero, Managing Partner at CMS Grau, added, "This is an excellent opportunity for our firm. We are developing strong ties with our natural partners in the region (Chile and Colombia) and will be part of a top tier global firm with a presence in new regions such as Europe and Asia." Sergio Rodriguez Azuero and Guillermo Villegas, partners at CMS Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados, added, "Latin American clients are expanding their businesses into different jurisdictions all over the world and a significant number of foreign clients are increasingly entering the Latin American market. Joining CMS and becoming part of this impressive global firm allows us to better serve our clients' global needs." Duncan Weston, CMS Executive Partner for Global Development, concluded, "Our aim is to integrate leading firms that share our strategic vision which is based on a client-centric approach - in-depth knowledge of our clients' businesses and an understanding of their specific needs. We are very pleased to welcome our colleagues from Carey & Allende, GRAU Abogados and Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados to CMS. With our combined expertise, we will offer our clients high-quality service, across all sectors and around the world." CMS is a full-service top 10 global law firm that provides clients with specialist, business focused advice in law and tax matters. is a full-service top 10 global law firm that provides clients with specialist, business focused advice in law and tax matters. CMS Carey & Allende currently has a 70-person team with more than 13 practice areas and has received industry recognition for its transactions and high quality service. currently has a 70-person team with more than 13 practice areas and has received industry recognition for its transactions and high quality service. CMS Grau currently has more than 100 lawyers covering over 17 practice areas with a team that provides advice on all legal matters, including regulatory issues, transactional work and project development. currently has more than 100 lawyers covering over 17 practice areas with a team that provides advice on all legal matters, including regulatory issues, transactional work and project development. CMS Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados currently has a 65-person team, based in Bogota and Medellin . Their expertise in Banking and Finance Law is widely recognised, not only nationally but throughout Latin America . For more information, please visit cms.law Contact CMS: Amanda Lietz Senior Communications Manager +49-69-71701-5109 amanda.lietz@cmslegal.com Contact CMS Carey & Allende: Ramon Valdivieso Rios Managing Partner + 56-2-24852038 rvaldivieso@careyallende.com Contact CMS Grau: Juan Carlos Escudero Managing Partner +511-513-9430 jcescudero@estudiograu.com Michelle Barclay Partner +511-513-9430 mbarclay@estudiograu.com Contact CMS Rodriguez Azuero Contexto Legal Abogados: Sergio Rodriguez Azuero Partner and Chair of the Board +571-3218910 srodriguez@racla.com.co Guillermo Villegas Managing Partner +574-6040433 ghvillegas@racla.com.co Daniel Rodriguez Bravo Partner +571-3218910 drodriguez@racla.com.co SOURCE CMS Legal Services EEIG Meet us at Robodex, Tokyo, JAPAN 2017, 18-20 January, West hall 4 Booth W27-40 Elmo, a global market leader in motion control technology, is proud to announce that it is expanding its market presence in Japan, where it aims to empower motion applications with high intelligence servo drives and multi-axis motion controllers. Elmo's motion control solutions effectively answer the needs for smart manufacturing. Elmo's family of Servo Drives offers highest power and Intelligence density, Ultra high current, Ultra Small, Ultra-Light, Ultra Efficient, and negligible EMI. Elmo's motion control solutions address diverse challenges for motion control and are adopted in a wide range of applications; these include automation, robotics, AGVs and any motion control application that requires high performance servo operation Weighing in at just ~20grams and with a volume of less than 13 cm3, Elmo's new Gold Twitter servo drive is ideal for applications with extreme space, "Tough" Environment, and high power constraints. The newest addition to the Gold Twitter family, G-TWI 80A/80V, is capable of delivering over 5000w of qualitative power, making it ideal for the most demanding industrial applications. It's STO (IEC 61800-5-2, SIL-3) certified making it the world's smallest STO certified servo drive. Elmo's compact, rugged and efficient servo drives can be placed on the moving load, on the motor, or in the motor thus improving performance, saving space, reducing cables and almost eliminating electrical cabinets "Designing and manufacturing a powerful drive such as the GOLD Twitter requires lots of innovation to accomplish the challenges of creating the most advance servo performance, very efficient power conversion, and thermal and heat smart control, meet severe EMI needs, high ruggedness to withstand tough environmental conditions, comply with very tough safety STDs and with utmost Quality and Reliability. Such an ultra-tiny servo drive serves Elmo's philosophy for leaner machinery that performs with the highest speed and accuracy. It really demonstrates Elmo's approach of "Cutting Costs by Technology," explained Haim Monhait, Elmo motion control CEO. "Our robust motion control solutions are integrated at the heart of machines enabling highest speed and precision. Elmo's solutions facilitate support for todays and tomorrow's advanced motion systems," Monhait concluded. About Elmo Elmo offers a wide range of high performance motion and servo control innovative solutions that are very attractive for any motion application. With the best-in-class Servo performance at the core of the technology, accompanied with the highest power and intelligence density, Elmo drives and controllers are ideal for today's demanding industrial requirements. Meet us at Robodex, Tokyo, JAPAN 2017, 18-20 January, West hall 4 Booth W27-40 For more information, please contact: Mr. Moshe Poolat, Director of Sales - APAC E-mail: MosheP@elmomc.com SOURCE Elmo NEW YORK, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuously expanding automobile production and fleet size, coupled with growing sales of automobiles to drive Hungary tire market through 2021 According to TechSci Research report, "Hungary Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2021", Hungary tire market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of over 9%, in value terms, during 2016-2021, on account of growing automobile sales and expanding automobile fleet size. Growing demand for tires and increasing vehicle fleet in the country is anticipated to encourage new flagship tire manufacturers to enter the country in order to capitalize on the bolstering demand for tires in Hungary. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 ) Browse 12 market data Tables and 44 Figures spread through 103 Pages and an in-depth TOC on "Hungary Tire Market" https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/hungary-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities/870.html In 2015, Hungary recorded GDP per capita of around USD12,259. Government of Hungary has initiated several infrastructural projects and developments and this has propelled demand for commercial vehicles as well as related tires in the country. Moreover, growing demand for radial tires in Hungary can be attributed to benefits such as high fuel efficiency, improved mileage, etc. Few of the prominent tire manufacturing companies that have a strong presence in the country include Michelin, Hankook, Continental, Goodyear, Bridgestone, etc. Download Sample Report @ https://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=870 Customers can also request for 10% free customization on this report. "Hungary's strategic geographical location in Central Europe, and supportive investment policies has made the country a prominent investment destination for various automotive companies. Robust growth in production of vehicles in the country is further forecast to boost the country's automotive industry in the coming years. Further, rising penetration of internet and smartphones in the country from 68% in 2011 to about 72.8% in 2015 is projected to drive sales of tires through online channels due to benefits such as availability of various flagship tire brands, discounts and other value-added features including fitment of tires at their preferred tire stores. These factors are anticipated to augur well for the country's tire market through 2021.", said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm. "Hungary Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of Hungary tire market and provides statistics and information on market size, structure and future market growth. The report intends to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes the emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities in Hungary tire market. Browse Related Reports Brazil Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/brazil-tire-market-forecast-opportunities/859.html Singapore Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/singapore-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities/861.html APAC Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/apac-tire-market-forecast-opportunities/855.html About TechSci Research TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends. Contact Mr. Ken Mathews 708 Third Avenue, Manhattan, NY, New York - 10017 Tel: +1-646-360-1656 Email: sales@techsciresearch.com Connect with us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TechSciResearch Connect with us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsci-research SOURCE TechSci Research SAN FRANCISCO, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The global insulating glass market is expected to reach USD 4.26 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The rising awareness about energy efficient buildings is expected to drive demand for insulating glass. Insulating glass is a special type of value added product which is installed to keep the environment warmer in winters and cooler during the summer season. The presence of two window panes in one unit aids in providing heat insulation. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 ) The heat transfer by convection, radiation and conduction are decreased by the extra window and air void present in an insulated glass. Nowadays, manufacturers have developed insulation glass with advanced properties such as noise control and enhanced thermal insulation. The rising demand for green buildings is expected to drive demand for the product. The energy efficiency provided by insulating glass is the major factor driving the demand for this product. The market is majorly concentrated in certain regions around the world. The demand for the product is high particularly in the developing economies of India and Thailand. Browse full research report with TOC on "Insulating Glass Market Analysis By Application (Non-residential construction, Residential Construction, Industrial), By Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America, Middle East & Africa), And Segment Forecasts, 2014 - 2025" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/insulating-glass-market Further key findings from the report suggest Non-residential construction is the largest application segment growing at a CAGR of 8.0% from 2016 to 2024. The demand in this application segment is expected to reach USD 1.65 billion by 2024. by 2024. Residential construction is the fastest growing segment in the market as is growing at a CAGR of 8.1%. The demand for reduced air conditioning costs is driving the demand for this product in residential application The demand in Asia Pacific was USD 841.6 million in 2015, accounting for over 40$ of the overall market. Growing demand for the product in China and demand due to its superior properties as well as its ability to reduce air conditioning cost is likely to propel demand was in 2015, accounting for over 40$ of the overall market. Growing demand for the product in and demand due to its superior properties as well as its ability to reduce air conditioning cost is likely to propel demand The competitive environment is highly consolidated with a few major players dominating the industry. The industry is dominated by major flat glass manufacturers such as NSG (Pilkington), Saint-Gobain and Viracon. The industry participants are engaged in rapid new product development to gain market share as the industry growth is still in its nascent stage. Saint-Gobain recently launched various products such as SGG Nano, SGG Antelio Plus, SGG Cool-Lite. Browse related reports by Grand View Research: Abrasives Market- http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/abrasives-market Coated Paper Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/coated-paper-market Float Glass Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/float-glass-market Fire Clay Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/fire-clay-market Grand View Research has segmented the global insulating glass market on the basis of application and region: Application Outlook (Volume, Million Square Meters; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Non-residential construction Residential construction Industrial Others Regional Outlook (Volume, Million Square Meters; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Europe UK Germany France Asia Pacific China Japan Central & South America Brazil Middle East & Africa Read Our Blogs - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/blog/insulating-glass-market-size-share About Grand View Research Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@grandviewresearch.com Web: http://www.grandviewresearch.com SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Advanced FM Announces its Expansion Into the Saudi Market Advanced Facilities Management along with Saudi FM Expo debuted in the Kingdom this week featuring insightful seminars and workshops with major thought leaders in the region. (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/457691/Advanced_FM_Saleh_Al_Rajhi.jpg ) Established in the UAE, Advanced FM has rapidly grown into a market leader and is bringing to Saudi Arabia their wealth of experience in the field. Advanced FM contributed its knowledge of best practice and experience with a seminar on the benefits of integrated facilities management followed by a workshop on the importance of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The discussions provided invaluable insights to attendees, many of whom were there to source FM services for their projects. Saleh Al Rajhi, General Manager of Advanced FM spoke about the benefits of outsourcing FM services, highlighting the cost-savings that can be achieved through operational efficiencies. Continuing in the spirit of sharing knowledge, Yousef Al Rousan, Operations Manager, Advanced Facilities Management led a workshop highlighting the importance of service level agreement (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) in order to track, monitor and improve performance on sites while providing an accurate guideline of the service requirements. "We look forward to collaborating on projects in the public and private sector in the Kingdom. Seeing the enthusiasm in the Saudi market and being able to share our expertise with potential clients at the Summit has proved to be one of the most valuable benefits of participating in Saudi FM Expo. Clients moving from single service provision to an integrated facilities management can maintain asset value over a long period of time and benefit from significant cost efficiencies," Al Rajhi said. Advanced Facilities Management along with Advanced Employment and other Advanced subsidiaries are exhibitors at the Saudi FM Expo being held by DMG Events till the 17th January 2017 at the Jeddah Centre for Forums and Events. Advanced Facilities Management delivers both soft and hard FM services with a portfolio of blue-chip clients across the oil and gas, defense and education sectors. Additionally, Advanced Facilities Management specializes in mobile expertise to serve remote sites both onshore and offshore. Established in 2008, Advanced Facilities Management has rapidly grown to become one of the leading from providers in the UAE. Advanced Facilities Management has recently launched its services in Saudi Arabia. SOURCE Advanced FM HONG KONG and LONDON, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- $30 Million Invested in Gilo Industries Group Kuang-Chi Group ('Kuang-Chi'), a Chinese disruptive technology group, announced the launch of its UK investment strategy today, as well as its investment of $30 million in Gilo Industries Group ('Gilo'), an advanced aerospace technology company based in Dorset, Kuang-Chi's first UK investment to date. Kuang-Chi, based in Shenzhen, China, launched an international innovation fund in 2016, known as the Kuang-Chi GCI Fund (GCI Fund), to invest in companies worldwide. The fund is planned to grow to $300 million within the next three years, with a large focus on the UK, and Kuang-Chi expects the size of overall investments in the UK to be even larger in subsequent years. With Gilo as a new member of Kuang-Chi's GCI portfolio companies, Kuang-Chi's investment is intended to improve and further commercialize its aviation technology and will help the company expand its business in the Asia-Pacific market and establish relationships with global market leaders across multiple industries. Gilo will continue to be headquartered in Shaftsbury, Dorset and all its manufacturing facilities will remain in the UK. Dr. Ruopeng Liu, Chairman of Kuang-Chi, said, "The UK has a very attractive atmosphere for innovation with great potential for further growth. We are delighted to make our first UK investment in Gilo, which we hope to be the first of many investments in the coming years. Gilo is a fantastic company that is a leader in innovation, with breakthrough aerospace engineering technologies and products. We look forward to working with them to develop our visionary aviation technology." He further explained, "This is only the start of Kuang-Chi's UK investment plans. Despite some fears surrounding Brexit, innovation is booming in the UK and Kuang-Chi has confidence in the UK market, which has a long history and a good reputation for innovation that will not fade away easily. Investing in British startups and technology companies in the growth stage is a key part of our long term strategic plan to invest in the most exciting, disruptive and innovative technologies around the world." Gilo Cardozo, Founder of Gilo, said, "The support from Kuang-Chi is exactly what we need to continue to expand our production capabilities and embrace exciting new manufacturing technologies to help us grow and succeed in the global marketplace. It is a really clear example of how international organizations look to all areas of Britain for innovation and entrepreneurship and how they can boost regional, national and global industries." In addition, Kuang-Chi launched the GCI Fund II at the end of last year, which will invest up to $250 million in companies developing technology in industries including robotics, IoT, telecommunications, and digital health, with a strong focus on the UK. About Kuang-Chi Group Founded in 2010 as a five-person team, Kuang-Chi has created a Global Community of Innovation of more than 2,600 employees in 18 countries and regions which is dedicated to disruptive innovation and principal investment in cutting-edge technology sectors including communications, metamaterials, and space technology. Kuang-Chi's subsidiary company KuangChi Science Limited (00439.HK) is concentrated on the development of future technology. The Group also operates through Shenzhen-traded Zhejiang Longsheng (002625.SZ) and Martin Aircraft Company (ASX: MJP), as well as research institutes and private companies. For additional information, please visit: http://www.kuang-chi.com/en/ Twitter: @KuangChiGCI About the GCI Fund Kuang-Chi launched the Kuang-Chi GCI Fund, an international innovation fund in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2016, to invest in companies worldwide. As the first Chinese fund of its kind, it combines investment in early to mid-stage global companies with Kuang-Chi's resources and has an investment amount up to $300 million. The first tranche of $50 million has been invested in Israeli computer vision pioneer eyeSight; Israeli voice analytics developer Beyond Verbal; Israeli video intelligence and analytics provider AgentVi; Norwegian biometric authorization innovator Zwipe; Canadian aviation company SkyX, and British aviation-focused company Gilo. GCI Fund II will invest $250 million in global technology companies active in the areas of: smart city/smart home, IoT, artificial intelligence, VR/AR, and robotics, and will be supported by a new China-based incubator that has been established by Kuang-Chi to help bring its portfolio companies to the Chinese market. About Gilo Industries Group Limited Gilo Industries Group is a technology-led company with highly competent and professional aerospace engineering capabilities and considerable experience in aeronautical vehicle and propulsion system design. The company designs, develops and manufactures groundbreaking solutions that advance technology and discovery while meeting customer needs with high impact, best value aerospace products, systems and services. From world-class foot-launched powered paragliders to extreme ultra-lightweight propulsion systems for some of the world's most innovative aircraft and applications, Gilo Industries Group is at the forefront of aerospace engineering. For more information, please visit http://www.giloindustriesgroup.com Contact for Media: Marc Cohen Raj Aujla Kate Turner t: +44 (0) 20 7284 6969 m: +44 (0) 7919 887 036 e: kuang-chi@theproffice.com yuyan.liu@kuang-chi.com SOURCE The PR Office Limited POINT COMFORT, Texas, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lloyds Energy Group LLC (http://www.lloyds-energy.com) announced today it has submitted a formal application with the Department of Energy (DOE) to export Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to countries which have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US from its proposed facility in Calhoun County, Texas. (Link to DOE Application Filing) Lloyds Texas project will be commonly known as Point Comfort LNG. The FTA application is expected to be approved by Spring of 2017. This is one of the first steps in developing the LNG project, which would bring significant and lasting benefits to the South Central Texas Coastal region. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/457656/Lloyds_Energy_Logo.jpg ) "Lloyds Energy is strongly positioned to meet client demand, and submitting our Point Comfort LNG FTA application is an important first step towards making the final investment decision," said Philip Holland, Lloyds Energy CEO. "The U.S. has an abundant supply of natural gas and the international market has a growing demand for cleaner, more-efficient fuel." Calhoun County Port Authority Board Chairman Randy Boyd, stated: "Our mission at the Calhoun County Port Authority is to stimulate economic development. Point Comfort LNG will bring hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue to the county and state as well as provide hundreds of long-term jobs." Lloyds Energy will utilize two (2) 4.5 MTPA Near Shore Floating LNG vessels, each about the size of an aircraft carrier, as well as additional support barges and on shore facilities. In addition to the jobs created during the construction phase, the project will create approximately 700 direct, long-term jobs and thousands of indirect jobs and additional economic benefits. Lloyds Energy Group LLC is a subsidiary of LE Group Holding Pte Ltd Lloyds Energy was established in 2013 with the strategic aim of delivering LNG to the global market through the efficient processing of significant pipeline gas supplies. This aim is achieved by utilizing a near shore LNG concept. Over the course of three years, Lloyds Energy has grown rapidly in the fields of Near Shore LNG, creating a rich quality gas supply and midstream pipeline connection for 1.25 Bcf/d, which is approximately equivalent to 9, MTPA or 468 million mmBtu per year, establishing strong international alliances with off takers and two major engineering groups specializing in LNG, and building a team of experts. Lloyds Energy continues to expand its activities in the LNG supply chain sector through broad and innovative service offerings. SOURCE Lloyds Energy DUBLIN, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market Analysis, Market Size, Test Analysis, Country Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts: 2017 - 2021" report to their offering. More than 2.5 Million tests will be conducted by the 11 major NIPT test by the year end of 2021. The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, country wise actual and potential market, NIPT test analysis with volume and market revenue and competitive landscape. The report also covers market growth drivers, challenges, current and upcoming trends of the NIPT test market. Market growth can be attributed to factors such as high incidence rate of babies born with Down syndrome, no risk of miscarriage with NIPT and shifting trend towards child bearing at advanced maternal age (35 years or older). With increased patient access to NIPT test, the NIPT test market is anticipated to have a positive outlook in the coming years. High test cost, strict regulatory requirements and ethical hurdles is restraining the growth of NIPT test market. Natera Panorama test will lead the NIPT test market with the market share of more than 25% by the year end of 2021. MaterniT21 Plus and Bambini test have shown its potential to become 2nd and 3rd popular NIPT test. Harmony test is the fourth leading test in the NIPT test market. NIFTY and Verifi test hold the fifth and sixth highest share of the NIPT test market. Other emerging tests such as Prena, IONA, VisibiliT, Veracity and informaseq NIPT test which is likely to affect the market share during the forecast period. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market By Test Type: - MaterniT21 PLUS - Harmony - NIFTY - Verifi - Panorama - PrenaTest - BambniTest - informaSeq - VisibiliT - Veracity - IONA Test Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market Analysis (2011-2021) 3. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market Share Analysis (2011-2021) 4. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market Geographical Segment (2013-2021) 5. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Market By Test (2011-2021) 6. Competitive Landscape 7. Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Implementation 8. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing Market-Growth Drivers 9. Global Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing Market-Challenges Companies Mentioned - Ariosa Diagnostics - Berry Genomics - BGI Diagnosis Co. Ltd - Illumina - Integrated Genetics - Lifecodexx - Natera - NIPD Genetics - Premaitha Health - Sequenom For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rbld4h/noninvasive 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 Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com SOURCE Research and Markets PORTLAND, Oregon and PUNE, India, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, "Global Nondestructive Testing Equipment Market: Opportunities and Forecast, 2014 - 2022", suggests that the global nondestructive testing (NDT) equipment market is expected to garner $3 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 9% from 2016 to 2022. In the year 2015, North America contributed major share in the market, and is projected to continue its dominance throughout the forecast period. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 ) Summary of the Report Nondestructive Testing Equipment Market can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/nondestructive-testing-equipment-market NDT refers to the method of examining materials/components to detect the defects/discontinuity in component or material to avoid equipment failure. In addition, it is used to ensure the safe utilization of engineering structures, product quality, and performance upon production. Increase in stringent government regulations across different geographical regions due to rise in incidence of infrastructure failures, need for extending the life of obsolete infrastructure, and maintenance optimization by various industries for efficient operations & quality/safety assurance are the factors that drive the growth of NDT market. The market is classified on the basis of NDT testing method into ultrasonic testing, radiography testing, visual inspection testing, magnetic particle testing & electromagnetic testing, eddy-current testing, liquid penetrant testing, and others. Ultrasonic testing is expected to hold the largest market share owing to its ability to detect internal and hidden defect/discontinuity along with its high penetrating power and accuracy. However, liquid penetrant testing is anticipated to show significant growth in the coming years, owing to its low cost and user-friendly approach. Among the industry verticals, energy & power was the foremost industry in 2015, owing to growth in number of power plants and equipment involved in the same. In the same year, oil and gas industry contributed a significant revenue share of over 20% in the overall market. However, automotive & transportation is expected to witness the fastest growth during the forecast period. North America generated the highest revenue in this market, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. Among the countries of North America, U.S. is the largest market with nearly 80% revenue share of the overall North American market due to significant spending in oil & gas and energy & power infrastructure. However, the market in Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit the highest growth, registering a CAGR of about 11%. Rise in infrastructural projects and power plants fuels the demand for NDT equipment in Asia-Pacific. NDT equipment industry displays fair degree of consolidation, with top five industry participants occupying a significant market share. Other key players in the industry include Olympus Corporation, Zetec Inc., and Sonatest among others. The key strategies adopted by these leading players are product launch, expansion, acquisition, partnership, and agreement to strengthen their market position and expand their geographical presence. "The nondestructive testing industry is undergoing rapid change and traditional NDT equipment are evolving in significant ways, providing new advantages and additional value to end-users. Maintenance optimization by various industries to ensure safety and efficient performance of the machines is driving the need for NDT equipment. The increasing cost and challenges involved in building new infrastructure has resulted in significant aging of existing infrastructure. In addition, a wave of consolidations and mergers has recently swept over the NDT industry." states Rachna Singh, Sr. Research Associate, Semiconductor and Electronics at AMR. Key findings of the study: In 2015, ultrasonic testing was the highest revenue-generating segment, accounting for almost 30% of the overall market size, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of over 7% during the forecast period Liquid penetrant testing is likely to grow at a remarkable CAGR of 11.5%, owing to their low cost and user-friendly approach Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit the highest growth, registering a CAGR of almost 11% during the forecast period is anticipated to exhibit the highest growth, registering a CAGR of almost 11% during the forecast period North America generated the highest revenue in this market, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific . generated the highest revenue in this market, followed by and . The U.S. is projected to maintain its lead in the NDT equipment market in terms of revenue generation until 2022. Energy & power and oil & gas industry contributed a significant revenue share in the overall market in 2015. Read similar market research reports on Semiconductor and Electronics at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/semiconductor-and-electronics-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 SOURCE Allied Market Research DUBAI, UAE, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Shell today announced that it has been chosen by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd as the exclusive manufacturer and supplier of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Genuine Engine Oil. From October 2016, this oil has started to become available to Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Dealers around the world. The new passenger vehicle engine oil has been developed and rigorously tested to meet the latest Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. passenger vehicle engine specifications and to work perfectly with their V12 engines. Shell PurePlus Technology, present in Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Genuine Engine Oil, helps protect the engine from power-robbing deposits and sludge. In addition, its properties enable the oil to reach peak operating efficiency sooner in challenging conditions with low oil consumption and long engine service life. "We are delighted to have been chosen to develop and supply the new passenger vehicle engine oil for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd., using our most recent innovation - Shell PurePlus Technology," said Richard Jory, Shell's Global Vice President for Lubricants Key Accounts. Shell PurePlus Technology is a breakthrough in how passenger vehicle engine oils are formulated. It is a patented gas-to-liquid (GTL) process, developed over 40 years of research, which converts natural gas into crystal clear base oil. Base oil, usually made from crude oil, is the main component of finished oils and plays a vital role in the quality of the finished passenger vehicle engine oil. The base oil is produced at the Pearl GTL plant in Qatar, a partnership between Shell and Qatar Petroleum. Notes to Editors Genuine (part) Oils are OEM-owned branded oils. They are specially formulated by lubricant suppliers such as Shell to meet specific needs of a given OEM's different vehicle components. Aftermarket or service-fill oils refer to any oils put in any passenger vehicle such as a car or motorcycle, during the after-sales service for the general upkeep of a vehicle in its lifetime. Shell's world-class engine oil technology has enabled the development of engine oils that improve performance, help to improve fuel economy and extend engine life. Premium engine oils, containing Shell PurePlus Technology and proprietary advanced additive technology, are specifically designed to allow drivers to get the most from their modern engines. The passenger vehicle engine oil industry is increasingly moving towards synthetic oils over mineral oils because of the improved performance benefits offered in line with stringent emission regulations and fuel efficiency demands. Synthetic oils are manufactured from crude oil or gas using advanced chemical processes. This is in contrast to mineral base oils, which are complex mixtures of naturally occurring hydrocarbons found in crude oil. Shell provides global accessibility to its leading products with a strong global lubricants supply chain network of 7 base oil manufacturing plants, over 40 lubricant blending plants and 15 specialist grease plants. To provide Shell PurePlus Technology enabled engine oils around the world, Shell integrated its supply chain with its gas value chain in Pearl GTL, Qatar . This world-scale facility is the largest source of GTL products and the only commercial source of GTL base oil today. About Shell Lubricants The term "Shell Lubricants" collectively refers to Shell Group companies engaged in the lubricants business. Shell sells a wide variety of lubricants to meet customer needs across a range of applications. These include consumer motoring, heavy-duty transport, mining, power generation and general engineering. Shell's portfolio of lubricant brands includes Pennzoil, Quaker State, Shell Helix, Shell Rotella, Shell Tellus and Shell Rimula. We are active across the full lubricant supply chain. We manufacture base oils in seven plants; blend base oils with additives to make lubricants in over 40 plants; distribute, market and sell lubricants in over 100 countries. We also provide technical and business support to customers. We offer lubricant-related services in addition to our product range. These include: Shell LubeMatch -the market leading product on-line recommendation tool, Shell LubeAdvisor - helps customers to select the right lubricant through highly trained Shell technical staff as well as online tools, and Shell LubeAnalyst - an early warning system that enables customers to monitor the condition of their equipment and lubricant, helping to save money on maintenance and avoid potential lost business through equipment failure. Shell's world-class technology works to deliver value to our customers. Innovation, product application and technical collaboration are at the heart of Shell lubricants. We have leading lubricants research centres in China, Germany, Japan (in a joint venture with Showa Shell), and the USA. We invest significantly in technology and work closely with our customers to develop innovative lubricants. We have a patent portfolio with 150 + patent series for lubricants, base oils and greases; more than 200 scientists and lubricants engineers dedicated to lubricants research and development. Customer benefits include lower maintenance costs, longer equipment life and reduced energy consumption. One of the ways we push the boundaries of lubricant technology is by working closely with top motor racing teams such as Scuderia Ferrari and BMW Motorsport. These technical partnerships enable us to expand our knowledge of lubrication science and transfer cutting-edge technology from the racetrack to our commercial products. Royal Dutch Shell plc Royal Dutch Shell plc is incorporated in England and Wales, has its headquarters in The Hague and is listed on the London, Amsterdam, and New York stock exchanges. Shell companies have operations in more than 70 countries and territories with businesses including oil and gas exploration and production; production and marketing of liquefied natural gas and gas to liquids; manufacturing, marketing and shipping of oil products and chemicals and renewable energy projects. For further information, visit http://www.shell.com Cautionary Note The companies in which Royal Dutch Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this press release "Shell", "Shell group" and "Royal Dutch Shell" are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Royal Dutch Shell plc and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies. 'Subsidiaries', "Shell subsidiaries" and "Shell companies" as used in this press release refer to companies over which Royal Dutch Shell plc either directly or indirectly has control. Entities and unincorporated arrangements over which Shell has joint control are generally referred to "joint ventures" and "joint operations" respectively. Entities over which Shell has significant influence but neither control nor joint control are referred to as "associates". The term "Shell interest" is used for convenience to indicate the direct and/or indirect ownership interest held by Shell in a venture, partnership or company, after exclusion of all third-party interest. This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of Royal Dutch Shell. All statements other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations that are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements concerning the potential exposure of Royal Dutch Shell to market risks and statements expressing management's expectations, beliefs, estimates, forecasts, projections and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as 'anticipate', 'believe', 'could', 'estimate', 'expect', 'goals', 'intend', 'may', 'objectives', 'outlook', 'plan', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', "schedule", 'seek', 'should', 'target', 'will' and similar terms and phrases. There are a number of factors that could affect the future operations of Royal Dutch Shell and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements included in this press release, including (without limitation): (a) price fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas; (b) changes in demand for Shell's products; (c) currency fluctuations; (d) drilling and production results; (e) reserves estimates; (f) loss of market share and industry competition; (g) environmental and physical risks; (h) risks associated with the identification of suitable potential acquisition properties and targets, and successful negotiation and completion of such transactions; (i) the risk of doing business in developing countries and countries subject to international sanctions; (j) legislative, fiscal and regulatory developments including regulatory measures addressing climate change; (k) economic and financial market conditions in various countries and regions; (l) political risks, including the risks of expropriation and renegotiation of the terms of contracts with governmental entities, delays or advancements in the approval of projects and delays in the reimbursement for shared costs; and (m) changes in trading conditions. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional risk factors that may affect future results are contained in Royal Dutch Shell's 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2015 (available at http://www.shell.com/investor and http://www.sec.gov ). These risk factors also expressly qualify all forward looking statements contained in this press release and should be considered by the reader. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this press release, 30 November 2016. Neither Royal Dutch Shell plc nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. In light of these risks, results could differ materially from those stated, implied or inferred from the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. We may have used certain terms, such as resources, in this press release that United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) strictly prohibits us from including in our filings with the SEC. U.S. Investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our Form 20-F, File No 1-32575, available on the SEC website http://www.sec.gov . SOURCE Shell Lubricants Global DUBLIN, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of SurgaColl Technologies Ltd, the developer of innovative collagen based products for the regeneration of human tissue, announces the appointment of William (Bill) Allan as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect. Bill is an internationally experienced medical device industry executive who has held a number of general management and leadership positions with global medical device companies, including Smith & Nephew, Angiodynamics, Orthovita and Stryker. He has a strong track record of launching new products and building successful businesses in the sector and has worked in Europe, Africa and North America. Educated at the University of Edinburgh (Dental Surgery), University of Capetown (MBA) and Insead Business School (AMP), Bill is a member of the council of ABHI (Association of British Healthcare Industries). An energetic and highly commercially focused business leader, Bill has experience in a wide range of Medical Device industry sectors - Ophthalmology, Capital and consumables, Orthopaedics, Wound Care, Vascular and Oncology. Notes to Editors About SurgaColl SurgaColl Technologies Ltd is a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine. A spin out from the RCSI, the company is developing highly innovative tissue repair implants designed to enable cartilage and bone regeneration improving outcomes and standard of care for patients worldwide. SurgaColl has two products - HydroxyColl is a 'next generation' bone graft substitute and ChondroColl is a bio-mimetic three layer Cartilage repair implant. For more press information contact: Bill Allan: T +44(0)920-143-030, E bill.allan@surgacoll.com SOURCE SurgaColl Technologies Ltd. Avoid surprises. About 91 percent of adults in the United States are confused about what their benefits cover, according to a recent Harris poll. The best starting point is to review your plan so you understand the care and services covered. If you have a high-deductible plan, you will need to pay for most or a percentage of the health costs until reaching the individual or family deductible. Be prepared to pay any copayments or deductibles the plan requires before receiving care. Also, before scheduling appointments, ask for a cost estimate for the appointment, tests or service. Preventive dental and vision. Many voluntary plans, such as dental and vision, offer preventive exams, such as routine cleanings and vision exams, that are fully covered. That's because these preventive exams help to maintain and improve overall health and help reduce health costs. Voluntary coverage is affordable and many plans offer added incentives. For example, coverage for LASIK, dental, vision and hearing benefits can increase from one year to the next for those who continue to enroll and use their benefits. Members could earn monetary rewards to use for dental, vision, LASIK, orthodontia and hearing benefits, care materials and services simply by using their benefits and keeping the benefits paid out under a specified amount. Medical screenings. Routine health screenings, such as mammograms, immunizations, colonoscopy procedures and prostate cancer screenings, which may be covered fully or in part by your medical coverage, can help you stay healthy and lower health care costs. Get paid to save. Many employers encourage employees to save money by matching a percentage of the amount the employee contributes to the plan. If available, enroll in a Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account to set aside money to pay for health care costs. Remember that these accounts are not a substitute for the coverage provided by voluntary benefits. Learn more about the questions to ask when reviewing benefit plans at ameritasinsight.com. Michael French [email protected] 1-888-824-3337 editors.familyfeatures.com About Family Features Editorial Syndicate Established in 1974, Family Features is a leading provider of free food and lifestyle content for print and online publications. Our articles, photos, videos and web content solutions save you time, money and help create advertising opportunities. Registration is fast and free with absolutely no obligation. Visit editors.familyfeatures.com for more information. SOURCE Family Features Editorial Syndicate Related Links http://www.familyfeatures.com NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the official U.S. launch of Azoya, an integrated turnkey e-commerce solution provider, which will help U.S. retailers break into the Chinese market with less risk in 2017 through fully-managed cross-border e-commerce. Azoya made the announcement to open the National Retail Federation (NRF) annual Big Show, January 15-17, 2017, at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City, Booth #344. Franklin Chu, Managing Director, Azoya International As the world's largest e-commerce market, China is lucrative, growing and ravenous for U.S. products. In 2015, cross-border consumer e-commerce reached $40 billion in 2015 with an annual growth rate of 50 percent.1 Top-selling categories include cosmetics and skincare, baby and mom products, healthcare products, fashion apparel, and groceries.23 "To simplify foreign expansion and ensure long-term growth in China, we build an e-commerce ecosystem for U.S. retail companies," says Franklin Chu, Managing Director, Azoya International. "Our behind-the-scenes work means Azoya is invisible to Chinese customers who prefer to buy products directly from the U.S. retail company. Established in 2013, Azoya International is a leading solutions provider in cross-border e-commerce to China. To date, over 35 retailers in 12 countries have partnered with Azoya to expand into China with ease, including French fashion retailer La Redoute and Feelunique, the largest online beauty retailer in Europe. About Azoya As a 'bridge to China retail,' Azoya International is an integrated turnkey e-commerce solutions provider that helps overseas retailers expand into China efficiently and with less risk through cross-border e-commerce. Azoya has signed exclusive partnership agreements with more than 35 major overseas retailers in 12 countries, including La Redoute, the largest online retailer of women's apparel in France and Feelunique, the largest online beauty retailer in Europe. Contact: Dan Dyer Tier1pr For Azoya Ph: 513-478-7818 E-mail: [email protected] 1Xia, Chenan. Cross-border e-commerce is luring Chinesehoppers. McKinsey & Company. February 2016. 2What are the most attractive U.S. products to Chinese consumers? Marketing to China. February 12, 2015. 3Osawa, Juro and Rick Carew. Chinese Baby-Goods Market Grows Up Fast. The Wall Street Journal. November 15, 2015. SOURCE Azoya Related Links http://www.azoyagroup.com LONDON, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Blasting News (http://www.blastingnews.com) is very excited to welcome Mark Wright as Vice President of Sales EMEA. Mark will be responsible for leading and growing the sales team in Europe, driving revenue and building strong and lasting supply-side partnerships with the biggest agencies and advertising groups. Mark comes with a wealth of knowledge within the industry and brings over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and media sales. Prior to joining Blasting News, Mark was VP of Sales at ad tech firm Viant, lead the award winning A&Ny Media sales team, as well as founded and managed one of the original UK media sales houses, GMW Media. "I am very excited to be part of this unbelievable team" says Mark, "Their accomplishments to date are nothing short of remarkable, reaching more than 90 million monthly unique readers and 120 million video views per month in less than four years is tremendous. I look forward to adding my commercial knowledge to the business and to see us develop long lasting partnerships." "Mark is a rock star in this industry with a deep knowledge in digital advertising and media sales," founder and CEO Andrea Manfredi "We love his entrepreneurial approach, which fits very well with our culture, and are thrilled to have him lead our sales team. In 2016, we have more than tripled our 2015 revenues: Mark will help us build on our momentum and enable Blasting News to sustain this rapid growth." About Blasting News Blasting News is the largest global social news publisher - set up in mid-2013, in just three years it has entered the 150th most visited websites in the world (Alexa Ranking), thanks to 90+ million monthly unique on-site visitors, and 120+ million monthly video views. Blasting News has readers in five continents, publishes 22,000 news articles each month in 25 languages, and has offices in London, New York, Sao Paulo, Rome, and soon Singapore. Blasting News is the new disruptive concept of journalism, being made by the people, for the people. News is produced by freelance contributors and fact-checked and curated by a quality team of senior professionals. Furthermore, news is distributed by Social Blasters, a global team of top digital influencers. For more information, contact [email protected] or visit the Blasting News website SOURCE Blasting News "Burns & McDonnell is committing resources to mitigation bank development in order to offer more cost-effective restoration opportunities to clients," says Mark Van Dyne, vice president of the firm's Environmental Studies & Permitting group. "Whether it's a turn-key solution, bank credit or an experienced consultant team, we can offer the resources clients need at every stage of a project, while also protecting and conserving a variety of important habitats." As project manager, Sherman is responsible for project acquisition and coordinating large-scale restoration initiatives. He also leads the development of financial underwriting requirements, regional market and project-specific pro formas, property negotiation and acquisition, project budget and timeline oversight, land use entitlements, environmental liability resolution, and identifying and resolving property rights issues. "Paul is an incredible addition to our diverse team of professionals," says Renita Mollman, Burns & McDonnell vice president and general manager of the Southern California office. "He is leading the way in the industry with mitigation bank acquisition and planning an ever-growing need for our clients." Sherman has more than 20 years of experience with managing complex acquisition, land use entitlement and construction projects. Within the past three years, he has successfully helped achieve a range of terrestrial and aquatic restoration objectives valued at more than $100 million. "I am focused on the critical path items that need to meet environmental regulations and an investor's requirements," says Sherman. "As those regulations continue evolving, our team is ready to partner with clients to help move their essential infrastructure and construction projects along, while preserving our wetlands." Sherman received a bachelor's degree in environmental policy analysis and planning from UC Davis. He also is the co-inventor of the Organic Waste Material Treatment System (United States Patent 7316921) a multi-stage process and system for treating organic waste materials. About Burns & McDonnell Burns & McDonnell is a family of companies made up of more than 5,700 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned and is proud to be No. 16 on Fortune's 2016 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information, visit burnsmcd.com. For photos and support materials, please visit our MEDIA KIT. Contact: Elle Jenkins, Burns & McDonnell 816-822-3147 [email protected] SOURCE Burns & McDonnell Related Links http://www.burnsmcd.com BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CBDRx, the world's premiere nutraceutical hemp company, is set to donate large amounts of phyto-nutrient rich hemp extract to Veteran's groups across the country. CBDRx announces the donation of their proprietary hemp extract to Veteran's groups across the United States. Passion is what makes CBDRx the best hemp company in the world and through their passion, CBDRx honors our Veterans with the best, most nutritious, full spectrum phyto-nutrient rich hemp extract available. "It's a true honor to serve our Veterans," said Tim Gordon, CEO at CBDRx. "This opportunity to donate to our Veteran heroes is truly a feeling of gratitude and greatness!" said Gordon speaking on the donation. The Veteran groups receiving the hemp extract are more than pleased. "CBDRX is an outstanding company! What a tremendous act of kindness and gratitude," said Tom Schultz, founder of P&B/420 Supply, speaking of the donation. Schultz a proud service-disabled Veteran of the United States Army Vietnam, and a Veterans advocate helped coordinate the donations. The Veterans groups receiving the CBDRx hemp extract include: Grow for Vets. Roger Martin 720-724-8387 www.growforvets.org 720-724-8387 www.growforvets.org Veteran Farmers Alliance. Stephanie Davis 720-998-6454 www.veteranfarmersalliance.org 720-998-6454 www.veteranfarmersalliance.org Colorado Veterans Association. Paul Apodaca 720-276-4186 720-276-4186 My Compassion. Heidi Parikh 844-226-6200 ext 420 www.mycompassion.org 844-226-6200 ext 420 www.mycompassion.org Trek2Freedom. Susan Thompson www.trek2freedom.org About CBDRx, LLC: Founded in Colorado in 2014, CBDRx grows broad-spectrum proprietary hemp strains and specializes in the development, processing, and wholesale distribution of medicinal-grade CBD rich hemp, pure hemp oils and whole plant- extracted hemp products for the wellness, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries. To learn more, please visit: www.cbdrx.com or contact: Tim Gordon, CEO [email protected] Office: (970) 238-0969 Preston Whitfield, Head of Sales [email protected] Office: (720) 987-3737 Jason Ballard, CFO [email protected] Office: (720) 668-5334 SOURCE CBDRx, LLC Related Links http://www.cbdrx.com NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Report Details Cell assaying for pharma prospects for technologies shaping that medical testing Visiongain's new report, Cell-Based Assays World Industry and Market Prospects 2016-2026: Products, Services, Drug Discovery, ADME and Basic Research, examines those companies, trends, products, services and technologies. It investigates how those forces will shape that bioassays industry over the next ten years. To support that analysis with data, our study shows revenue forecasts at overall world, submarket and national level. Its purpose is to help companies and other organisations understand the potential of that cellular testing for medicine. Use of cell lines in bioassays becomes more important in drug discovery and development. The cost of developing a new drug is now estimated to be around $2.6bn. Set against that background of rising costs, cell-based assays have become a vital tool for drug discovery, development and basic research. Those assays provide many advantages over traditional biochemical assays and animal models, and are continuing to improve owing to advances in high-throughput screening (HTS) technology, automation and miniaturisation. Cell-based assays can provide a more-accurate representation of human in vivo conditions; they are reliable and, most important for drug development companies, they have high efficiency. Increasing prominence of technologies such as microfluidics, label-free systems, 3D cell-based assays and IPSC cell lines will stimulate revenue growth in the cellular testing market from 2015. As with any other market, it holds challenges. These include high initial set-up costs, high complexity, need for skilled staff to run and analyse tests, and long developmental times for new products. However, visiongain predicts the cell-based assays market will grow strongly from 2016 to 2026, presenting many opportunities for assay product developers and suppliers, large CROs and specialist service providers, as well as many benefits for pharmaceutical companies. Our work segments that bioassaying industry and market into two broad categories, with revenue forecasts to 2026 and discussions: - Products - Services We also divide that medical testing industry into three main applications, again with sales forecasting: - Drug discovery uses - ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion) testing - Basic research purposes Besides forecasting revenues for the previous submarkets, our study also breaks its overall world market prediction into these 11 leading national markets, to 2026: - United States (US) - Japan - Germany, United Kingdom (UK), France, Spain, Italy (EU5 countries) - Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC nations) And here lie technologies and trends we cover, among others, showing how they shape that worldwide market to 2026: - Stem cells (including IPSCs) for bioassays - 3D cell-based systems - Cell-based assaying for toxicity testing - Increased outsourcing for that cellular screening - Label-free technology - GPCRs (G-protein-coupled receptors) - Miniaturisation and automation - Microfluidics and multiplexing - High-content screening (HCS) - Cell lines for pharma in vitro assays - Cellular tests for the development of biologics (biological drugs) Our 185 page report provides 48 tables and 66 figures covering different market segments categorized by application: drug discovery, ADME, and basic research; as well as by sector: products and services. Moreover, 11 individual national markets are covered in addition to 20 leading companies which sell products and provide services. Cell-Based Assays World Industry and Market Prospects 2016-2026: Products, Services, Drug Discovery, ADME and Basic Research, published in May 2016, adds to visiongain's range of reports on industries and markets in healthcare. Its portfolio includes studies on pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostic tests and outsourced services, including contract researchers, manufacturers and sellers. Ways Cell-Based Assays World Industry and Market Prospects 2016-2026: Products, Services, Drug Discovery, ADME and Basic Research helps: In particular, our new investigation gives you this knowledge to benefit your research, analyses and planning: - Revenues for cellular assays, to 2026, at world level and for five submarkets explore the prospects for design, production, sales, marketing, demand and spending - Forecasts, to 2026, for 11 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia assess the developed and developing national markets for demand and predicted revenues - Prospects for established firms, rising companies and new entrants examine the product and service portfolios, results, strategies and outlooks for success - Analyses of what stimulates and restrains that industry's participants investigate the challenges, strengths and competition affecting organisations' actions - Interviews with authorities in that field discover what participants from the industry think, say and do, helping you stay ahead in business knowledge. Information found nowhere else, benefiting your insight, work and influence Our study, produced in-house by our UK-based analysts, provides independent knowledge. You will gain competitive intelligence found only in our report, finding where the progress and business prospects exist. With our definitive market data you're less likely to fall behind in information or miss an opportunity. See how you could save time and effort. And, through your choice, benefit your plans, decisions and authority, helping you gain competitive advantages. Data to help your knowledge of pharma R&D benefit from our study now Our new analysis is for everyone investigating pharmaceutical research and development. For cellular assaying systems, you can explore the trends, results and revenue forecasts. So avoid missing out please get that report here now. Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03971694-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 MIAMI, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Miami-headquartered global law firm Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP expands with new offices in San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Washington, D.C., increasing the firm's footprint to 18 domestic and international offices in key commercial centers. "Our global clients have expanding interests in Central America, making our presence in Honduras and the Dominican Republic critical to serving them effectively," says Diaz Reus Global Managing Partner Michael Diaz, Jr. "Further, an increasing number need a local voice in D.C., where we provide counsel in dealings with the highest levels of U.S. government and law enforcement agencies." Joining the San Pedro Sula office are partners Angel R. Herrera and Karla M. Andonie in affiliation with Herrera Andonie law firm. Herrera has 26 years' experience advising commercial enterprises, financial institutions, and insurance companies in transactional and contentious matters. Andonie has 24 years' experience in civil law, commercial, banking, and insurance matters, counseling companies in establishment, structure, and operations. Jose A. Rizek joins the firm as a partner in Santo Domingo in affiliation with Rizek Abogados. A skilled litigator and arbitrator, Rizek advises clients and negotiates complex international commercial disputes related to WTO safeguards regime, social security partnerships, securities, real estate fraud, contracts, telecommunications, information technology, international arbitration, and domestic and international award enforcements. Partner Richard N. Wiedis heads the new Washington, D.C., office. Prior to joining the firm, Wiedis was Executive Vice President of Risk Management and Human Resources and Associate General Counsel at MicroStrategy and served 15 years as a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Fraud Section. "We continue to expand our reach according to the needs of our clients," explains Administrative Managing Partner Marta Colomar-Garcia. "Our growth is very client driven. We are always seeking opportunities for our international client base and more efficient ways to serve them in key local markets." About Diaz Reus Diaz Reus offers a global practice centered around national and transnational parallel proceedings and transactions in sovereign, trade, commerce, finance, and fraud; civil litigation and arbitration; asset identification, location, tracing, and recovery; white collar crime, regulatory, and criminal investigations and defense in corruption, bribery, money laundering, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, OFAC, Specially Designated Nationals, and the Bank Secrecy Act; and politically sensitive investigations including the recovery of U.S. immigration status and visas. www.diazreus.com. Media Contact: Jayne L. Navarre Director Media & Marketing Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP 305-375-9220 [email protected] SOURCE Diaz, Reus & Targ, LLP Related Links http://diazreus.com LONDON, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DoubleVerify (DV), the recognised leader in digital quality solutions, today announced it has received certification from ABC for the third consecutive year for its IQ Viewability Advanced solution. The accreditation further validates the effectiveness of DV solutions to optimise digital media investments by ensuring an ad is viewable to a consumer. DV solutions successfully met all the criteria of the rigorous ABC testing performed, including tracking ad viewability within multiple cross-domain iFrames on all four of the audited browsers, which has historically been an industry blind spot. "The latest ABC certification provides independent validation of the strength and value of the DV ad viewability solution, especially as the industry moves towards increased measurement and transparency," said Wayne Gattinella, CEO of DoubleVerify. "Continued certification is another testament to our full commitment to delivering the highest levels of brand-safe, fraud-free, highly-engaging media for the world's largest advertisers." Simon Redlich, CEO at ABC, said, "We are delighted to verify the DoubleVerify IQ Viewability Advanced solution against the JICWEBS Viewability Principles. ABC's Viewability Certification delivers reassurance to buyers that the company has met robust, industry-agreed standards. It also shows a commitment to transparency that is essential for the continued growth of trust and confidence within the digital ad trading industry." IQ Viewability Advanced is part of the DoubleVerify Impression Quality Advanced suite of services, offering brands the ability to ensure their digital media is authentic. DV also received ABC certification for content verification for the fourth year in a row in May 2016. About DoubleVerify DoubleVerify (DV) is the marketing technology and services company that authenticates the quality and performance of marketing investments across digital and social platforms. DoubleVerify authenticates the quality of digital media for the world's largest brands, and publishers alike. The DV Authentic Impression delivers a precise and holistic view of value across media placements, consumer engagement and consumer profiles. Since 2008, DV has been focused on building a better industry and driving results for hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. Learn more at doubleverify.com. About ABC ABC delivers a stamp of trust for the media industry. We are owned and developed jointly by media owners, advertisers and agencies to set industry-agreed standards for media brand measurement across print, digital and events. ABC is also a trusted verification provider. We audit media brand measurement data and the adoption of best practice and processes to industry-agreed standards. Established in 1931, ABC was the first UK Joint Industry Currency (JIC) and is a founder member of the International Federation of ABCs. SOURCE DoubleVerify Related Links http://www.doubleverify.com NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the National Retail Federation's 105th Annual Convention and Expo, Epson America, Inc., a leading supplier of value-added Point of Sale (POS) solutions, and TransactionTree Inc., a leading provider of digital receipt solutions for the retail industry and other transaction-oriented enterprise, announced a partnership allowing TransactionTree to source data from Epson's OmniLink Merchant Services (OMS) platform. The joint solution, which will deliver turnkey digital receipt solutions that help engage the customer after the purchase and provide them with personalized content, will be demonstrated at NRF, January 15- 17 at the Javits Convention Center, NYC, booth # 3343. The partnership will allow TransactionTree customers to take advantage of the real-time, actionable data generated by Epson's OMS, which enhances the digital receipts by giving business owners more dynamic, personalized content on their customers' contact information and preferences. Epson's OMS platform offers an integrated solution that will work across tablets, mobile devices, multiple locations, and with virtually any POS system that might be sitting on their counters. "By collaborating with TransactionTree, we deliver the ability for almost unlimited customization and integration of digital receipts, helping businesses gather accurate customer information, build brand awareness, and develop targeted marketing strategies," said Joel Doherty, global business development leader for Epson's Business Systems Division. "Brands and marketing stakeholders will have the ability to leverage advanced analytics and drive personalized promotions in real time, sourced from the Epson OmniLink receipt printer data, independent of their POS system." "Our partnership with Epson provides merchants with an invaluable data resource on consumers and on consumers' transactional information," said Jason Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of TransactionTree. "Together we enable retailers to connect more effectively with customers and better understand shopping behavior. When retailers understand and communicate effectively with their customers, they can expect higher satisfaction and sales rates, ultimately increasing their return on investment." About OMS Epson's OMS platform addresses the fundamental market challenge of disparate POS solutions and the lack of a common data language in the industry. Epson's intelligent receipt printers provide a data gateway which drives cloud and mobile solutions to manage inventory, staffing, loss/prevention, merchandising, logistics, analytics, loyalty, online ordering and more without having to worry about costly POS integration. To date, 13 Epson partners have adopted the OMS platform, which opens up the options and choices for brands and restaurant operators to access a global network of cloud and mobile-based tools, best practices, business data and expertise. Partners include DTT Surveillance, Expensify, Fishbowl, GuestDNA, GuestMetrics Livelenz, Mobivity, NimbleSchedule, PnP Loyalty, 7Shifts, Spendgo, Tacit Innovations and TransactionTree. To learn more about Epson OMS, please visit Epson.com/omnilinkmerchantservices. About Transaction Tree, Inc. TransactionTree is the leading provider of electronic receipt solutions for the retail industry and other transaction-oriented enterprises. Based in Dunwoody Georgia, TransactionTree was established in 2008 by forward-thinking, green innovators seeking technological solutions to common environmental business challenges. Today, TransactionTree's groundbreaking e-Receipts solution improves the human experience by incorporating new eco-practices into everyday consumer activities. Our technology recognizes transaction events, validates customer information, and sends a copy of the receipt to the shopper, along with relevant content from the retailer. For more information about TransactionTree, visit www.transactiontree.com. About Epson America, Inc. Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Long Beach, CA, Epson America, Inc. is the U.S. affiliate of Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, a global manufacturer and supplier of high-quality technology products that meet customer demands for increased functionality, compactness, systems integration and energy efficiency. For over 40 years, Epson's advanced technology has been at work in millions of POS systems around the world. Today Epson's Business Systems Division continues to bring industry-leading, open architecture, smart technologies to the point of service. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (http://twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), and YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/EpsonAmerica). EPSON is a registered trademark and EPSON Exceed Your Vision is a registered logomark of Seiko Epson Corporation. OmniLink is a registered trademark of Epson America. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners. SOURCE Epson America, Inc. Related Links http://www.epson.com DUBLIN, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Xylitol - A Global Market Overview" report to their offering. Global market for xylitol is estimated at 190.9 thousand metric tons, valued at US$725.9 million in 2016 and expected to reach 266.5 thousand metric tons valued at just above US$1 billion by 2022, by growing at robust CAGRs of around 5.7% in terms of both volume and value. Main growth driver for xylitol, is the growing number of diabetes people around the globe. Number of studies reveals that intake of high caloric sweeteners may increase the risk of obesity and leads to diabetes. Attributed this reason, low-calorie sweeteners usage is expected to increase in specific foods targeted at diabetic people and also at consumers concerning over their weight. Moreover, xylitol market is expected to grow above the average CAGR as it expands its usage in chewing gum and other applications, where it benefits from a unique profile in adding sweetness, enhancing minty flavors and actually improving dental health apart from being a low-calorie sweetener. The global markets for the above-mentioned end-use sectors are analyzed in terms of volume in metric tons and value in USD for 2014-2022 analysis period. Driven by increasingly health and weight conscious consumers, xylitol demand is expected to grow in sugar-free and low-calorie food products. The global market for xylitol is segmented into four major regions namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of World. The regional markets further analyzed for 15 more independent countries across North America - United States, Canada and Mexico; Europe - France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the United Kingdom; Asia-Pacific - Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The market is analyzed in all of these major regions by key countries and by major end-use sectors in terms of both volume and value. This report profiles 17 key global players. The research also provides the listing of the companies engaged in R&D, manufacturing and supply of xylitol. The global list of companies covers the address, contact numbers and the website addresses of 52 companies. Key Highlights Prospects for Low-Calorie Sweeteners Brightened by Escalating Incidences of Obesity and Diabetes Overweight and Obesity: Some Statistics of Prevalence Burden of Diabetes and Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) on a Global Level Key Business Trends S2G Biochemicals and Mondelez International Collaborated to Build Xylitol Plant in the USA Anti-Caries Effect of Xylitol Confirmed by DuPont Study DFI Corp and Mitr Phol Group Inks Strategic Investment and Partnership Deal to Produce Erythritol and Xylitol Xylitol Sweetener Can Kill or Poison Dogs - FDA Warns Key Topics Covered: Part A: Global Market Perspective 1. Introduction 2. Key Market Trends 3. Regulatory Landscape 4. Industry Landscape 5. Key Business Trends 6. Global Market Overview Part B: Regional Market Perspective 1. North America 2. Europe 3. Asia-Pacific 4. Rest Of World Part C: Xylitol Patent Landscape 1. Major Patents in Chemical Processes 2. Major Patents in Microbial Processes 3. List of Other Major Patents in Chemical and Microbial Processes Part D: Guide To The Industry Part E: Annexure Companies Mentioned - CSPC Shengxue Glucose Co., Ltd. - Cargill, Inc. - DFI Corporation - Dupont Nutrition & Health (Dupont Danisco) - Ingredion Inc. - Mitsubishi Shoji Foodtech Co., Ltd. - Novagreen Inc. - O'laughlin Industries Co., Ltd. - Roquette Freres - S2G Biochem - Shandong Futaste Co., Ltd. - Shandong Longlive Bio-Technology Co., Ltd. - Shandong Lujian Biological Technology Co. Ltd. - Thomson Biotech (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. - Xylitol Canada, Inc. - Zhejiang Huakang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. - Zuchem Inc. For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/j373mr/xylitol_a Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com ALBANY, New York, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The leading players operating in the Global Dental Consumables Market held a share of 62% in the overall market. Danaher Corporation, Dentsply Sirona, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., and Henry Schein Inc. have been leading the market due to their low pricing strategy and excellent brand recognition, states Transparency Market Research. These players are expected to focus on mergers and acquisitions to improve their presence in the global market. According to Transparency Market Research, the global dental consumables market is expected to be worth US$33.4 bn by the end of 2024 as compared to US$19.6 bn in 2015. During the forecast years of 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to surge at a CAGR of 6.1%. Europe to Acquire a Share of 41.1% by 2024 The various products available in the global market are crowns and bridges, dental implants, orthodontics, retail dental care essentials, periodontics, endodontics, and dental biomaterials among others. Amongst all of these products, the crowns and bridges segment is expected to show remarkable progress in the coming years. This segment alone is expected to rise at a CAGR of 7.2% between 2016 and 2024. Geographically, this market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Europe is anticipated to lead the global market in the coming years due to improving oral health care facilities across countries such as Norway, Greece, Spain, and the U.K. By the end of 2024, Europe is projected to acquire a share of 41.1% in the global dental consumables market by 2024. Download PDF Brochure of Research Report: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=554 Improvements in Dental Implants Assure Uptake The emergence of services such as dental tourism in developing countries of India, Turkey, and Hungary have triggered a massive demand for dental consumables over the past few years. The low cost of oral health care services provided in these emerging economies has lured in several consumers over the past few years for treatment. The low labor cost, effective treatment methods, and minimum government intervention pertaining to healthcare industries in developing countries are expected to boost dental tourism, which in turn is expected to have a positive reflection on the demand for dental consumables. The improving success rates of dental implants, especially for the upper jaw is also likely to play a crucial role in the development of the global market. This has led to increased uptake of several procedures that use dental implants. The market is also thriving due to the growing incidence of dental diseases such as tooth decay, gum diseases, tooth erosion, and mouth sores. Furthermore, high prevalence of periodontal diseases have also fueled the growth of the global dental consumables market. The rising disposable incomes in emerging economies and changing lifestyles, which have inclined patients toward improved oral health care, are expected to drive the demand for dental consumables. High Cost of Treatment and Poor Reimbursement Policies Restrain Market Growth The increasing expenditure on the research and development of dental consumables has spiked the prices of products. Thus, the high cost of products has also made the treatment costlier, which is likely to have a negative impact on the sales. The poor reimbursement policies of in developed countries of France, the U.S., Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, and Japan is also hampering the growth of the overall market as it is coaxing patients to migrate to cheaper places to seek treatment. Request For Report Customization: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=554 This review is based on Transparency Market Research's report, titled "Dental Consumables Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024." The global dental consumables market has been segmented as follows: Global Dental Consumables Market, by Product Dental implants Dental Crowns and Bridges Dental Biomaterials Orthodontics Endodontics Periodontics Retail Dental Care Essentials Other Dental Consumables Global Dental Consumables Market, by Geography North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East and Africa Browse Related Research Report: Dental Implants Market (Products - Endosteal Implants, Subperiosteal Implants, Transosteal Implants, and Intramucosal Implants; Materials - Titanium Implants and Zirconium Implants; End Users - Hospitals, Dental Clinics, and Academic and Research Institutes) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/dental-implants-market.html Dental Laboratories Market (Geography - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/dental-laboratories-market.html Dental Membrane and Bone Graft Substitutes Market (Product - Dental Membrane (Resorbable and Non-resorbable Membranes) and Bone Graft Substitutes (Demineralized Bone Matrix (DBM), Autograft, Allograft, Xenograft, and Synthetic Bone Graft Substitute); Material - Hydrogel, Collagen, Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), Human Cells Source, Hydroxyapatite (HA), and Tricalcium Phosphate (TCP); End User - Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgical Centers, and Dental Clinics) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/dental-membrane-bone-graft-substitutes-market.html About Us: Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S. based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMR's global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations. Contact Us: 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 Blog: http://www.tmrblog.com/ SOURCE Transparency Market Research CLEVELAND, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, has announced the 2017 recipients of Harrington Scholar-Innovator Awards. The awards support breakthrough discoveries of physician-scientists whose research shows promise to advance the standard of care. The Harrington Discovery Institute part of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development fulfills an unmet need in academic medicine: to advance early breakthroughs into the clinical realm. Its focus on physician-scientist innovators from across the country and the UK creates opportunity to transform the best innovation regardless of institution affiliation. In addition to financial support awarded to the winners, the Institute provides direction from leaders in the pharmaceutical industry who are charged with overseeing therapeutic development of Scholar programs. While working with the Institute, physician-scientists (and their institutions) retain the intellectual property for their work. "Our scholars tell us that the guidance they receive from members of the Harrington Innovation Support Center is absolutely the most valuable part of their time with usof even greater value than the money," said Jonathan Stamler, MD, President of the Harrington Discovery Institute. "Research institutions and non-profit endeavors do not typically provide strong pharmaceutical capability. Technology languishes for lack of know-how. We believe that if we can marry the best science with the best practices, we should be able to more effectively advance discovery." The selected scholars have access to several rounds of capital (up to a total of $700,000) through their affiliation with the Harrington Discovery Institute to support the transition of their work into the private sector. Scholars are then free to approach investors of their choice to underwrite the commercialization of their work or they can have facilitated access to BioMotiv, the mission-aligned development company that also is part of The Harrington Project. However, there are no obligations on either side. The 2017 Harrington Scholar-Innovator grant recipients are: Paul Bollyky, MD, PhD Stanford University A novel drug for Type I Diabetes Ambrose Cheung, MD Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth A novel treatment against MRSA and other Gram+ bacterial infections Giulio Draetta, MD, PhD The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center A new therapy and first in-human trials for pancreatic cancer Seth Field, MD, PhD University of California San Diego A novel pathway causing cancer Todd Gould, MD University of Maryland A new medicine for depression John Letterio, MD Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals A promising drug for Alzheimer's disease, stroke and cancer David Lombard, MD, PhD University of Michigan A new strategy in melanoma therapy Daruka Mahadevan, MD, PhD University of Arizona A novel class of cancer drugs and radiation sensitizers Deepak Nijhawan, MD, PhD University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center A first-in-class immunotherapy for cancer Stuart Orkin, MD Harvard University A novel treatment for sickle cell disease Daniel Ory, MD Washington University A breakthrough treatment for Niemann-Pick C disease, a rare neurological disease SOURCE Harrington Discovery Institute Related Links http://www.uhhospitals.org/services/harrington-discovery-institute According to TechSci Research report, "Hungary Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2021", Hungary tire market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of over 9%, in value terms, during 2016-2021, on account of growing automobile sales and expanding automobile fleet size. Growing demand for tires and increasing vehicle fleet in the country is anticipated to encourage new flagship tire manufacturers to enter the country in order to capitalize on the bolstering demand for tires in Hungary. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 ) Browse 12 market data Tables and 44 Figures spread through 103 Pages and an in-depth TOC on "Hungary Tire Market" https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/hungary-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities/870.html In 2015, Hungary recorded GDP per capita of around USD12,259. Government of Hungary has initiated several infrastructural projects and developments and this has propelled demand for commercial vehicles as well as related tires in the country. Moreover, growing demand for radial tires in Hungary can be attributed to benefits such as high fuel efficiency, improved mileage, etc. Few of the prominent tire manufacturing companies that have a strong presence in the country include Michelin, Hankook, Continental, Goodyear, Bridgestone, etc. Download Sample Report @ https://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=870 Customers can also request for 10% free customization on this report. "Hungary's strategic geographical location in Central Europe, and supportive investment policies has made the country a prominent investment destination for various automotive companies. Robust growth in production of vehicles in the country is further forecast to boost the country's automotive industry in the coming years. Further, rising penetration of internet and smartphones in the country from 68% in 2011 to about 72.8% in 2015 is projected to drive sales of tires through online channels due to benefits such as availability of various flagship tire brands, discounts and other value-added features including fitment of tires at their preferred tire stores. These factors are anticipated to augur well for the country's tire market through 2021.", said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm. "Hungary Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of Hungary tire market and provides statistics and information on market size, structure and future market growth. The report intends to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes the emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities in Hungary tire market. Browse Related Reports Brazil Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/brazil-tire-market-forecast-opportunities/859.html Singapore Tire Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/singapore-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities/861.html APAC Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/apac-tire-market-forecast-opportunities/855.html About TechSci Research TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends. Contact Mr. Ken Mathews 708 Third Avenue, Manhattan, NY, New York - 10017 Tel: +1-646-360-1656 Email: [email protected] Connect with us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TechSciResearch Connect with us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsci-research SOURCE TechSci Research Urges Shareholders to Vote FOR the Value-Creating Transaction with ExxonMobil Special Meeting scheduled for February 14, 2017 SINGAPORE and PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- InterOil Corporation (NYSE: IOC, POMSox: IOC) today announced that it has filed and commenced mailing a management information circular (the "Circular") in relation to the proposed transaction with Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) ("ExxonMobil"). The special meeting of holders of InterOil's common shares, options and restricted share units (the "Meeting") to vote on the proposed transaction with ExxonMobil is scheduled to be held on February 14, 2017 in New York City. Shareholders of record as of January 10, 2017 will be entitled to vote at the Meeting. To be counted, all proxies must be received by 12:00 PM ET on February 10, 2017 . If the requisite approval of InterOil's securityholders is obtained, InterOil will seek court approval of the transaction. InterOil Board Recommends Shareholders Vote FOR the Transaction As previously announced on December 15, 2016, InterOil and ExxonMobil have entered into an Amended and Restated Arrangement Agreement. Following receipt of the unanimous recommendation of an independent Transaction Committee ("the Committee") of the InterOil Board of Directors, the InterOil Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that InterOil shareholders vote FOR the proposed transaction with ExxonMobil. The Circular, which includes a letter to shareholders from InterOil Chairman, Chris Finlayson, provides important information about the background of the transaction, the Committee's review process, the reasons for the Committee's and the Board's recommendation and the value-creating benefits of the transaction. The Circular and other materials regarding the proposed transaction with ExxonMobil can be found at http://www.interoil.com/exxonmobil-transaction, or in InterOil's filings on www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov. VOTE TODAY Shareholders are encouraged to vote FOR the ExxonMobil transaction TODAY, but no later than the deadline, online at www.proxyvote.com, by telephone at 1-800-454-8683 in the U.S. or 1-800-474-7493 in Canada or by completing, signing and dating the enclosed proxy and returning it in the enclosed postage-paid envelope by 12:00PM ET on February 10, 2017. For assistance, contact Mackenzie Partners, Inc. at U.S. (800) 322-2885 and International +1 (212) 929-5500, or [email protected]. About InterOil InterOil Corporation is an independent oil and gas business with a sole focus on Papua New Guinea. InterOil's assets include one of Asia's largest undeveloped gas fields, Elk-Antelope, in the Gulf Province, and exploration licenses covering about 16,000sqkm. Its main offices are in Singapore and Port Moresby. InterOil is listed on the New York and Port Moresby stock exchanges. Investor Contacts Singapore United States David Wu Senior Vice President Investor Relations Cynthia Black Investor Relations North America T: +65 6507 0222 E: [email protected] T: +1 212 653 9778 E: [email protected] Media Contacts James Golden / Aaron Palash Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher T: +1 212 355 4449 E: [email protected] Forward Looking Statements This communication includes "forward-looking statements". All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this communication are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding the pending transaction with ExxonMobil, the holding of the Meeting and the timing of such Meeting, the timing to consummate the proposed transaction with ExxonMobil, the ability to satisfy the conditions to consummation of the proposed transaction (including, but not limited to, approval by InterOil shareholders and the required approvals from the Yukon courts), the timing or outcome of the resource certification process for the Elk-Antelope field as applicable to the contingent resource payment. These statements are based on the current belief of InterOil, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to InterOil. No assurances can be given however, that these events will occur. Such statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of InterOil, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the forward-looking statements. These include in particular assumptions, risks and uncertainties relating to the risk that a condition to closing of the proposed acquisition may not be satisfied (including obtaining required approval of InterOil shareholders and the required orders from the Yukon court with respect to the transaction), the timing or outcome of the resource certification process for the Elk-Antelope field as applicable to the contingent resource payment, the size of the resources in the Elk-Antelope field or any change in the estimate or calculation of such resource size, the outcome of the drilling of the Antelope-7 well, and other risk factors discussed in the Circular, InterOil's annual report for the year ended December 31, 2015 on Form 40-F and its Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2015, and under the heading "Factors Affecting Future Results" available through the "Investors" section on ExxonMobil's website and in Item 1A of ExxonMobil's 2015 Form 10-K. InterOil 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 laws. Legal Notice None of the securities anticipated to be issued pursuant to the ExxonMobil transaction have been or will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and any securities issued pursuant to the ExxonMobil transaction are anticipated to be issued in reliance upon available exemptions from such registration requirements pursuant to Section 3(a)(10) of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable exemptions under state securities laws. This document does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. There can be no assurance that the transaction with ExxonMobil will occur. The ExxonMobil transaction is subject to certain approvals and the fulfillment of certain conditions, and there can be no assurance that any such approvals will be obtained and/or any such conditions will be met. SOURCE InterOil Corporation Related Links http://www.interoil.com ROCKVILLE, Md., Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Kalorama Information, the global medical computed tomography (CT) systems market is valued at $4.9 billion for 2016. The growing number of clinical applications for CT, coupled with an aging population with significant diagnostic needs, along with a growing incidence of chronic disease, is propelling the market for the modality. The healthcare market research firm's report, Computed Tomography Markets, focuses on the worldwide market, providing market size and forecasts. Computed Tomography (CT) Markets can be found at Kalorama Information: http://www.kaloramainformation.com/Computed-Tomography-CT-10559414/. "Among all medical imaging systems, CT scanners are expected to be the fastest growing imaging equipment segment," said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. "Technological developments in the last decade have made it possible to acquire very high quality images in a very short time." Among recent developments in the CT market are the following: a currently low rate in false-positive findings the fact that children are receiving fewer CT scans now than a decade ago the substantial growth in the ordering of computed tomography angiography (CTA) examinations in the Medicare population the recent development of the coming next-generation of CT scanners that substantially reduce potentially harmful radiation while still improving overall image quality the increased role of CT in patients with advanced prostate cancer CT offers a number of advantages over traditional x-rays. The modality's high-contrast resolution makes it possible to visualize differences between tissues that differ in physical density by less than 1%. Data from one CT procedure consisting of either multiple contiguous scans or one helical or spiral scan can be viewed as images in multiple different planes. Recent advances in CT focus on image quality, speed, new and improved applications, and dose reduction. Manufacturers of CT systems have developed new technologies in an effort to reduce the amount of emitted radiation and the number of unnecessary scans. In addition, recent studies on the use of CT on select patient populations and the modality's benefits in detecting certain cancers are showing that the risks of CT imaging can be both good and bad. These improvements in technology have enabled CT to become mainstream in medical care. The speed of CT makes it possible for clinicians to locate internal bleeding and injuries rapidly enough to save lives. Also, the continuous need for rapid and early diagnosis is driving the demand for CT, notably in the fields of cardiology and oncology, among other chronic illnesses. Portable CT units will continue to appear as the importance of rapid diagnosis and treatment plays into improving patients' health outcomes and cutting health care costs. Specifically, portable head CT imaging is becoming important in facilitating the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cranial pathology. In general, bringing the modality to the patient can increase the speed and safety of imaging, which is critical, particularly for many neurologic emergencies. It is likely that portable CT will become a standard of care in the next decade. Computed Tomography Markets includes the following market information: CT scanner market by slice, 2014 and 2016; world market for medical CT systems, 2016-2021; key players' percentage share world market for medical CT systems, 2016; US, European, Chinese, Brazilian, Asia Pacific (APAC), and rest of world markets for medical CT systems, 2016-2021; future CT geographic sales growth trends; and CT testing procedures (scans), 2016 and 2021 (US, world, total). The report also covers significant trends and recent market developments. Market competitors profiled in the report include GE Healthcare, Hitachi, Philips, and Siemens. Kalorama's report, Computed Tomography (CT) Markets, provides market forecasts covering CT segments and is based on an examination of current market conditions and on investigations into the development of new products by key companies. The market data provide multiple year forecasts for the different product segments covered. Please link any media or news references to our reports or data to http://www.kaloramainformation.com/. About Kalorama Information Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. Reports can be purchased through Kalorama's website and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com. We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog on our company website. Press Contact: Bruce Carlson 212 807 2262 [email protected] SOURCE Kalorama Information Related Links http://www.kaloramainformation.com/ NAZARETH, Pa., Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kitchen Magic has earned the home service industry's coveted Angie's List Super Service Award, reflecting an exemplary year of customer service to members of the local services marketplace and consumer review site in 2016. This achievement is particularly significant as Angie's List experienced unprecedented member growth in 2016. More than 1.6 million consumers, many of whom were eager to quickly hire highly qualified service pros, joined Angie's List after the company added a new, free membership tier. "Companies that can meet higher demands without missing a beat in their exemplary performance standards truly do stand apart from their peers," said Angie's List Founder Angie Hicks. "Only a fraction of the Cabinet Refacing/Restoration and Kitchen & Bath companies in the Tri-State & Philadelphia markets were able to do it." Angie's List Super Service Award 2016 winners have met strict eligibility requirements, which include an "A" rating in overall grade, recent grade, and review period grade. The SSA winners must also be in good standing with Angie's List, pass a background check and abide by Angie's List operational guidelines. "Our team is always finding ways to improve our efforts and processes. We question everything, small and large. The Angie's List Super Service Award speaks to that effort and that's a great feeling," said Renate Sprung, Kitchen Magic's VP of Marketing. "We want our customers to have the best home improvement experience ever. High five and back to work!" Service company ratings are updated daily on Angie's List as new, verified consumer reviews are submitted. Companies are graded on an A through F scale in areas ranging from price to professionalism to punctuality. For more than 21 years, Angie's List restricted access to its verified reviews to consumers who paid membership fees. When the company removed that barrier, some companies worried that the new, non-paying members would not be as engaged as members of the past. Experience has shown, however, that these newly added members are just as engaged across all age groups as prior members. Also, because the company continues to adhere to its review verification process, there has been no degradation of review quality. "The biggest change at Angie's List is that we are connecting even more consumers to high quality service professionals," Hicks said. "And that's good for everyone." SOURCE Kitchen Magic VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS), (OTCQB: LDSYF), and Borse Frankfurt Exchange (XETR: LD6) ("LDS" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has begun outlining the protocols for clinical trials of its patent pending CannaStrips formula. LDS' Chief Medical Officer, John Sanderson MD, having over 30 years of clinical research, clinical trial coordination and analysis experience, will oversee the protocols and operational aspects of the trials. The trials will be conducted in Canada with the specific goal of substantiating the efficacy of the CannaStrip delivery system. The Company intends to submit the results of the clinical trials for consideration to Canadian health officials as an alternative delivery method for medicinal marijuana in Canada. The clinical trials' primary focus will be on three specific aspects of the delivery system. First, the time required from application onto the buccal membrane to the introduction of active ingredients into the blood stream. Second, the volume or percentage of active ingredients delivered into the blood stream and the length of time that those ingredients become bioavailable in the blood stream to the patient. Third, to determine the extent to which the ingredients can be directed to specific areas of the body and brain. Brad Eckenweiler, CEO of Lifestyle Delivery Systems, states, "The value of these trials goes far beyond the Canadian marijuana market. The Company believes that clinical evidence supporting the goals for LDS technology will set regulatory expectations significantly higher for the control, effectiveness and safety of all marijuana products worldwide." The patent pending CannaStrips formula is unlike any other delivery method currently available. The current market has lookalike strips that in truth are simple sheeted material that act more like edibles and have little if any sublingual delivery capabilities. CannaStrips nano-engineered technology addresses the challenge of efficient transport of therapeutic molecules, including cannabis-derived bioactives, across the oral mucous barrier for systemic delivery into the bloodstream. Low viscosity pores or temporary channels are created which foster the rapid transfer of cannabis nanoparticles from the buccal surface into the circulation. Each particle is coated with a nano-envelope which chaperones its cargo to target tissues within the body. The net effect is improved bioavailability as well as enhanced efficacy. Dr. Sanderson, states, "While edibles overcome the health and safety issues of inhalation as a method of cannabis delivery, they are inherently far less efficient, as much of the therapeutic effect of the plant is lost to incomplete absorption and early liver disposal. These clinical investigations are an exciting next step that takes us from the laboratory trials to a more rigorous examination of the incremental benefits of this unique system of delivery which provides a third option that addresses concerns about both safety and efficacy." 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, resulting in a delivery system that is safe, consistent and effective. 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. Starting January 1st, Mr. Bruno A. Melzi has joined the Lima organization as an Advisory Board Member. Mr. Melzi joined Zimmer Inc. in 1990 as Managing Director for Italy, from 1997 to 2000 he served as Vice President Europe to become President for EMEA from 2000 to 2003. From this year till 2005 he was Chairman International EMEA & Japan with the direct report of finance, human resources, legal and communications functions. From 2005 to 2013 Mr. Melzi was Chairman for Zimmer EMEA. Mr. Melzi also played a key role in the integration of the international businesses of Zimmer Holdings Inc. and Centerpulse. Mr. Melzi has over 40 years of experience in the orthopaedics and medical device industry, having also worked with Johnson & Johnson Italy as well as Smith & Nephew; he holds a degree in Law from the Pavia University (Italy). (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150417/739765 ) "I am very proud that Mr. Melzi has decided to join Lima's Advisory Board and believes in this exciting project," said Luigi Ferrari, CEO of Lima Corporate. "His strong background, deep expertise in orthopaedics and wide range of competencies will surely increase Lima Corporate's position in the market," Mr. Ferrari added. "I am thrilled about another industry veteran with an impressive track record complementing the Advisory Board reflecting Lima's strong momentum. The Advisory Board is very much looking forward to further supporting Lima's management together with Bruno," commented Valentin Chapero, Chairman of the Advisory Board. About Lima Corporate Lima Corporate is a global medical device company providing reconstructive orthopaedic solutions to surgeons who face the challenges of improving the quality of life of their patients. Based in Italy, Lima Corporate is committed to the development of innovative products and procedures to enable surgeons to select ideal solution for every individual patient. Lima Corporate's product range includes large joint revision and primary implants and complete extremities solutions including fixation. For additional information on the Company, please visit http://www.limacorporate.com . Limacorporate spa Via Nazionale, 52 33038 Villanova di San Daniele Udine - Italy t: +39-0432-945511 e.: [email protected] http://www.limacorporate.com SOURCE Lima Corporate DALLAS, Jan. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas-based financial mogul and entrepreneur with a community-centric vision, Marcus Hiles, the CEO of Western Rim Property Services has always taken a stand for children with poor economic background, tirelessly advocating for the right of every youngster to receive the highest quality of education, with no discrimination to their family's socioeconomic status. Putting words into action, Hiles purchased over 3,000 backpacks - filled with binders, pencils, note cards and other school supplies - which he personally donated to children in need throughout the Dallas/Forth Worth area. Charitable actions akin to Hiles' have become increasingly vital in recent years, as the city's inner-city school districts have struggled to overcome a 2011 decision by the state Legislature to cut $5.4 billion in education funding. Hit the hardest by the cuts were schools in low-income, urban communities, where minimal property taxes were unable to compensate for the budget loss. Since the controversial 2011 decision, these schools have lost an average of 12 percent of their full-time teachers, leaving students overcrowded and with less individual attention. As reported in the New York Times, the state of Texas considers 66 percent of students in the Dallas district at considerable risk of dropping out, and Marcus Hiles believes the city's youth must be afforded better opportunities. "For these children hailing from lower income families, a quality education plays a pivotal role in improving social mobility," Hiles elaborated. "Kindergarten through 6th grade is essential to the next generation's success." Marcus Hiles is a renowned real estate investor and the CEO & Chairman of Western Rim Property Services, Texas' leading supplier of affordable luxury apartments and townhomes. The son of an inner city minister, Hiles' urban upbringing led to a passion for philanthropy, and he has worked hard to alleviate hardships for economically disadvantaged women and children. Hiles charitable works include over $2.5 million in donations to education initiatives, the construction of two large churches, and the improvement of public parks, lakes, streams and green spaces throughout Texas. Marcus Hiles - Chairman & CEO of Western Rim Property Services: http://www.MarcusHiles-News.com Western Rim Property Services- Marcus Hiles - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Western-Rim-Property-Services-Marcus-Hiles-1013270532051763/ Marcus Hiles (@marcus_hiles) - Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcus_hiles Marcus Hiles - New Luxury Apartments in Frisco, TX - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmsJNbfOh-g SOURCE Marcus Hiles Related Links http://www.marcushiles-news.com NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "We offer instant access to the nation's most distinguished and skilled mesothelioma attorneys for a Navy Veteran diagnosed with this rare cancer because these attorneys consistently better financial compensation results for their clients. The last thing we want to see happen to a Navy Veteran is for them to play mesothelioma lawyer roulette and place their potential financial compensation at risk. Navy Veteran Asbestos Warning Sign "If a Navy Veteran with mesothelioma or their family are concerned about getting the very best possible financial compensation settlement-please call us anytime at 800-714-0303 for peace of mind in knowing you really are dealing with the most capable and experienced mesothelioma attorneys in the United States." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com Vital compensation tips for a Navy Veteran with mesothelioma or their family from the Mesothelioma Victims Center: The lawyer/law firm needs to provide family references that prove they were directly responsible for obtaining a million-dollar compensation settlement for a Navy Veteran within the last twelve months Call the Mesothelioma Victims Center anytime at 800-714-0303 for on-the-spot access to some of the nation's most experienced mesothelioma lawyers who consistently get the best compensation results for Navy Veterans with mesothelioma. Think nationwide when it comes to hiring a lawyer/law firm for a mesothelioma compensation claim for a US Navy Veteran with a confirmed diagnosis. Do not, under any circumstance, hire a lawyer/law firm that does not have experience representing US Navy Veterans with their mesothelioma compensation claim Visit our website for more information: http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com Each year about 3000 US citizens will be diagnosed with mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos. High risk work groups for exposure to asbestos include US Navy Veterans, power plant workers, shipyard workers, oil refinery workers, steel mill workers, miners, manufacturing workers, pulp or paper mill workers, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, machinists, construction workers, rail road workers, and firemen. Typically, the exposure to asbestos for these types of workers occurred in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's. The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma is about 70 years old. Frequently victims of mesothelioma are initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia. http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.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, based on the calls the Mesothelioma Victims Center receives a Navy Veteran with confirmed mesothelioma could live in any state including New York, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska. The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "As we would like to explain anytime at 800-714-0303 if a person who has been diagnosed with mesothelioma wants the best possible compensation it is vital they have the nation's most skilled, and experienced mesothelioma lawyers." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.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 Contact: Thomas Martin 800-714-0303 [email protected] SOURCE Mesothelioma Victims Center Related Links http://mesotheliomavictimscenter.com GRAZ, Austria, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ARM founder Hermann Hauser invests via eQventure into the Austrian audio startup The Austrian micro speaker pioneer USound (http://www.usound.com) secures a growth investment of 12 million Euro. Lead investor is eQventure, an Austrian venture capital firm based in Graz, who also brought in ARM founder Hermann Hauser as a USound angel investor. The investment qualifies as one of the biggest financing rounds for an Austrian startup these past years. Double the team The new capital will serve to accelerate organizational growth and to hire additional staff. "Several well-known hardware producers have expressed interest in our product. First customer orders have been booked. Our current priority is the serial production, and for this we aim to increase our personnel from roughly 30 engineers to almost 50," explains USound CEO Ferruccio Bottoni. Smallest speaker in the world In a project that stretched across several years, USound developed the smallest speaker in the world. It is now ready for market-entry and safeguarded by numerous patents. This first digital version of a micro speaker is based on innovative MEMS technology (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) that enables the extreme miniaturization as well as highest levels of energy efficiency. The founders believe that the micro speakers can be deployed in a vast array of applications. "Headphones are only a starting point," reveals Bottoni, "our product is set to have an impact across all aspects of life as it enables a new paradigm for audio smart systems in portable devices." Bottoni concludes: "With the fresh capital we can swiftly start mass production." eQventure brings Hermann Hauser on board The lead investor eQventure offers USound financing, support in corporate development and a worldwide business network. It was through their doing that Hermann Hauser could be won as an eQventure investor. The entrepreneur, venture capital investor and ARM founder Hauser contributes capital as well as strategic industry know-how. There are several reasons for why this undertaking is attractive to Hauser. "The company is led by an excellent management team with a wealth of experience and impressive track record in microsystem technology. I am convinced that USound can soon lead the billion dollar micro speaker market into the digital age." USound USound GmbH is a fast growing audio start-up, founded with the mission of developing and producing the most advanced audio systems for mobile applications based on MEMS technology. The technological platform developed by USound is enabling the production of a revolutionary generation of MEMS micro speakers that are to be deployed in the world's top mobile applications. USound is a fabless company: process R&D and manufacturing operations are outsourced to world class industrial partners. Hermann Hauser The entrepreneur and venture capital investor Hermann Hauser has been active in the global tech industry for more than four decades. One of his biggest successes is the British chip developer ARM, whose chip design is nowadays found in every smartphone. In September 2016 ARM was sold for 31,4 billion dollars to the Japanese tech giant Softbank. eQventure eQventure is based in Graz (Austria) and offers young tech companies and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) financing, a strong business network and fast, dynamic support in all phases of corporate development. eQventure is driven by a group of successful entrepreneurs and angel investors. Press contact Thomas Reiter, Reiter PR Tel.: +43-676-66-88-611 Email: [email protected] SOURCE USound GmbH DETROIT, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and The Kroger Co. of Michigan are teaming up to provide complimentary auto show access to active military and veterans as part of Military Day at NAIAS on Tuesday, Jan. 17. The Kroger Co. of Michigan is the Presenting Sponsor of this special day at the show, which runs from 9 a.m. 10 p.m. "It gives us great pleasure to partner with The Kroger Co. of Michigan in honoring the men and women who serve or have served our great country in the military," said 2017 NAIAS Chairman Sam Slaughter. "Military Day at NAIAS is a small, but heartfelt, way for us to salute these brave and selfless individuals." The complimentary access is available to active military and veterans in uniform or with military ID. Military and veterans will also have the opportunity to purchase tickets for family members at a discounted rate of $9 each (a maximum of two family members). The special show access is available through Hall C of Cobo Center. "We are proud to support our military as they support our freedom," said President of The Kroger Co. of Michigan Jayne Homco. "Through our support of USO, our veterans' hiring events and our employment of active military and veterans, we stand beside our military. We thank them for all they have done and continue to do for our country." About the North American International Auto Show Now in its 29th year as an international event, the NAIAS is among the most prestigious auto shows in the world, providing unparalleled access to the automotive products, technologies, people and ideas that matter most up close and in one place. Administered by executive director Rod Alberts, the NAIAS is one of the largest media events in North America, and the only auto show in the United States to earn an annual distinguished sanction of the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles, the Paris-based alliance of automotive trade associations and manufacturers from around the world. For more information, visit naias.com. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for highlights and updates. 2017 NAIAS Dates: The Gallery Saturday, January 7, 2017 AutoMobili-D Sunday-Thursday, January 8-12, 2017 Press Preview Monday-Tuesday, January 9-10, 2017 Industry Preview Wednesday-Thursday, January 11-12, 2017 Charity Preview Friday, January 13, 2017 Public Show Saturday-Sunday, January 14-22, 2017 SOURCE North American International Auto Show Related Links http://naias.com NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology has been an integral part of police departments and has shaped it in many important ways. Advancements in technology have created enormous potential for enhancing police work. Often technologies have been adapted from the commercial marketplace as in the case of radios, cars, and computers among others. Crime control can be strengthened by using technology, for example, enhancing the ability of the police in identifying and monitoring offenders and also facilitate in identifying the places and conditions that can contribute disproportionately to crime. Enhancement in technology has also resulted in improving evidence collection, speeding up of the detection process, and also response to crimes. Furthermore, technological advancements pertaining to weapons, protective gear, and surveillance capabilities has reduced fatalities and deaths of officers, bystanders, and suspects drastically. The policing technologies market on the basis of type has been segmented into five segments; aviation technology, communication technology, detection and surveillance technology, less lethal technology and others. The policing technologies market in Europe is primarily driven by factors such as increase in terrorist attacks coupled with increasing crime rates. Europe has been a victim of several terrorist attacks in recent years which have positively impacted the policing technologies market in the region. There has been increasing demand to make law enforcement departments more efficient in order to counter the terrorist attacks. Moreover, there has been an increase in crime rate across various countries in Europe. Issues such as drug related crimes are on the rise and countries such as Greece have been a victim of the same. For example, Omonoia Square in Greece has been an epicenter for drug-related activities. However, lack of proper training is one of the major restraints hindering the growth of the policing technologies market. The rapid growth in technology has resulted in an overwhelming number of products, services, and requirements which further results in additional staff training. The incorporation of new technology into police work also requires the need to thoroughly test, develop policy, investigate, and train. There are varied complexities associated with the adoption and use of various new policing technologies as a result of which there is often a long time gap in the adoption of these technologies. Police agencies need extensive training to become familiar with latest technologies such as facial recognition software, DNA testing, driverless cars, and gunshot locating detection systems among others. The competitive profiling of the key players in the Europe policing technologies market and their market shares across six countries which include U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Russia and others have been exhaustively covered under the purview of the study. Moreover, the distinct business strategies that have been adopted by the major players in the market have also been included in the report. For providing a detailed insight into the Europe policing technologies market, the market attractive analysis has been provided in the report. A comprehensive analysis of market dynamics, which include the market drivers, restraints and opportunities, is included under the scope of the report. Market dynamics are the distinctive factors that influence the growth of the specific market and therefore help to study the current trends in the global market. Additionally, Porter's Five Forces analysis has also been included under the scope of the research. Thus, this report provides an inclusive study of the Europe policing technologies market and also provides the forecast of the market for the period from 2016-2024. Some of the major players in the market are: PredPol, Inc., Aventura Technologies, Inc, Reveal Media Ltd., Zepcam B.V., Basler AG, SmartWater Technology Limited, Computer Sciences Corporation, Brite-Strike Tactical Illumination Products Inc., Aeryon Labs Inc. and Taser International Inc. The Europe policing technologies market has been segmented into: Europe policing technologies market, by Type Aviation Technology Communication Technology Detection and Surveillance Technology Less Lethal Technology Others Europe policing technologies market, by Country: The market is broadly segmented on the basis of country into: U.K. France Germany Italy Russia Others Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04201037-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 WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Former White House Spokesman Robert Weiner, former Director of the House Aging Committee, and senior policy analyst Ben Lasky argue in an op-ed just released in the Springfield Republican that the battle over Social Security is now Trump and congressional Democrats against congressional Republicans. Richard Neal (D-MA), the new Democratic leader ("Ranking Minority Member") on the House Ways and Means Committee, told the National Press Club that he has a new challenge: "Keep Social Security safe." Weiner and Lasky argue, "Democrats and President-elect Donald Trump, who made promises not to cut Social Security in the campaign and the transition, must fight Congressional Republicans to keep Social Security safe and keep millions of elderly Americans out of poverty." The article was ranked #2 in the nation (H2) by OpedNews when published. "Whoever wins the fight will determine whether or not the elderly, now and in decades to come, live in poverty," the authors contend. Article: http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/01/us_rep_richard_neal_now_in_lea.html OpedNews ranking: http://www.weinerpublic.com/20170114.html Weiner and Lasky began, "U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, the new Democratic leader of the House Ways and Means Committee, at the National Press Club on Thursday, called Social Security a 'bedrock issue' and said, 'Social security is safe.' What Neal says matters, since his committee oversees Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, trade, and taxes. President-elect Donald Trump, both during his presidential campaign and in the transition, agreed with Neal, promising that he would not make any cuts to Social Security. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-WI, and U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-GA, Trump's pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, have been proposing privatization of Social Security and reductions in benefits. No one knows who Trump will listen to last in his "art of the deal" with Congress." They continued, "Neal said Thursday to the National Press Club, 'People have paid in. It's paid for 25 years. The idea that there is a dire immediate threat is not based on fact.'" They wrote, "Neal is right. The Ronald Reagan-Tip O'Neill-Claude Pepper deal of 1983 guaranteed Social Security's solvency at least through the middle of this century." Neal added, 'I'm for mandating savings (as Social Security provides) for retirement. The authors of the 401k's have told me that the 401k is supplemental income,' whereas Social Security is guaranteed." They explained, "Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders recently brought a giant print out of a 2015 tweet by Trump to the Senate floor proclaiming his insistence that he would not touch Social Security. 'Right now, before Congress wastes an enormous amount of time, Donald Trump has got to come forward - maybe through one of his tweets - and say clearly that Donald Trump will veto any legislation that cuts Medicare, that cuts Medicaid or that cuts Social Security,' Sanders said." Weiner and Lasky argued, "Looking at who the President-elect has put on his transition team to handle Social Security, it is obvious why Sanders and most Democrats are not convinced that Trump will keep his promise not to make cuts. It's not even just McConnell, Ryan, and Price. When Tom Leppert, the transition team's top Social Security advisor, ran for U.S. Senate in Texas in 2012, he ran on a platform of cutting and privatizing and raising the retirement age for Social Security. According to the Huffington Post, in the '90s, Mike Korbey, who is heading the Social Security Administration transition team, called Social Security 'a failed system, broken and bankrupt.'" They went on, "In reality, Social Security has not been a failed system. Far from it. There is a myth in some quarters that the social safety net has failed. Here are the facts: two out of three senior citizens depend on Social Security for most of their income. Without it, 45 percent of seniors would live in poverty. With it, that number is 10 percent. The goal of Social Security is to keep people out of poverty. The Center on Budget Priorities says that Social Security keeps 22 million Americans out of poverty. Any cuts in Social Security will drive people below the poverty line." Weiner and Lasky concluded, "If we've learned anything about Trump, it's that not only doesn't he shy away from fights, he embraces them. One of the first fights he has as president will be with his own party over Social Security. On one side are Congressional Republicans who have control of both bodies. On the other is one of the key promises of Trump's campaign, actually supported by Democrats. Whoever wins the fight will determine whether or not the elderly, now and in decades to come, live in poverty." Robert Weiner, a former Amherst resident, was a spokesman for the Clinton White House, Chief of Staff of the U.S. House Aging Committee, spokesman for the House Government Operations Committee, and a political aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy. Ben Lasky is a senior policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates and Solutions for Change. Contact: Bob Weiner/Ben Lasky 301-283-0821/cell 202-306-1200 [email protected] SOURCE Robert Weiner Associates and Solutions for Change "We know substance abuse causes damage to the brain. Alcoholism, for example, causes significant gray matter loss, and that can affect decision-making processes," said Dr. Sharma. "With cognitive remediation therapy, our goal is to bolster and teach compensatory strategies. We can target certain functions, like attention or memory issues, and it has shown to help people stay in treatment longer." As noted in the article, Sovereign is one of the few treatment centers in the country that not only studies the cognitive deficits caused by drugs and alcohol, but also offers cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) as part of its behavioral health treatment programs. CRT utilizes brain-training activities to exercise specific cognitive functions. The use of CRT in addiction treatment is still in the early stages. But as addiction experts increasingly treat addiction as a mental health issue rather than a conscious choice, neurological tools such as CRT are becoming more common. "Overcoming addiction is more than just wanting to stop," said Dr. Kumari. "There are underlying brain issues that drive addiction, and once that becomes more accepted, CRT should become more widespread in addiction care." Dr. Sharma has been recognized with numerous awards and honors for his work in advancing mental health treatment in the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia. In 2009, he helped found Sovereign Health, which now operates nine treatment facilities throughout the United States. For more information about Dr. Sharma, click here. Dr. Kumari is a leader in the psychiatric and neuroscience research fields. She obtained her Ph.D. in psychology from Banaras Hindu University, India, in 1993 before moving to the Institute of Psychiatry in London, U.K., to continue her research. Dr. Kumari has over 250 publications in reputable psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience journals. About Sovereign Health One factor that differentiates Sovereign from other treatment providers has been its ability to offer separate mental health and addiction or dual diagnosis treatment programs at its facilities. Patients seek its services to receive treatment for mental health issues, including trauma, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Sovereign also offers treatment for cognitive deficits and eating disorders. For more information, visit www.sovhealth.com. SOURCE Sovereign Health Related Links http://www.sovhealth.com ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, St. George's University formally marked Dr. G. Richard Olds's appointment as President in an investiture ceremony, a highlight of the university's 40th anniversary celebration. "I feel privileged to lead St. George's at a time when we are doing more than ever to address the shortage of doctors worldwide," Olds said. "Our graduates are fulfilling St. George's mission to shape the future of our world -- especially in communities worldwide that most need quality health care." Investiture is a centuries-old academic tradition wherein a new university president receives the symbols of the office. Dr. Olds was appointed President of St. George's in August 2015. The Chancellor of the California State University system, Dr. Timothy White, also spoke during the investiture ceremony. He applauded St. George's for expanding access to medical education among historically underrepresented minorities and recruiting a geographically, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse student body. Dr. White was previously chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, where he worked with Dr. Olds to establish the university's School of Medicine, the first LCME-accredited medical school in California in more than four decades. As its founding dean, Dr. Olds focused on addressing the shortage of primary care physicians in the school's backyard, California's Inland Empire, where there are only 120 physicians per 100,000 people. That's 38 percent fewer than the state average. Dr. Olds has carried that same passion for serving the needy to St. George's, which is already the largest provider of new doctors to the U.S. healthcare system. Under Dr. Olds's leadership, St. George's has expanded several scholarship initiatives that encourage students to work in underserved areas, including the CityDoctors program and the Keith B. Taylor Global Scholars Program. "Over our next 40 years and beyond, St. George's will continue to expand opportunity to more students from geographically, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds -- because they are the ones who will make a difference," said Dr. Olds. "Whether they're filling the global need for high-quality providers of primary care or solving public health crises, I am excited to see the impact that our students will have on the world." About St. George's University St. George's University is a center of international education, drawing students and faculty from 140 countries to the island of Grenada, in the West Indies, to its programs in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, science, and business. St. George's is affiliated with educational institutions worldwide, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. The University's over 17,000 graduates include physicians, veterinarians, scientists, and public health and business professionals across the world. The University programs are accredited and approved by many governing authorities and repeatedly recognized as the best in the region. For more information, visit www.sgu.edu. MEDIA CONTACT: Miriam Cho 202-471-4228 ext 101 [email protected] SOURCE St. George's University Related Links http://www.sgu.edu SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters employed as auditors, cashiers and office personnel have voted unanimously to reject a final contract offer from the parking facility operator at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). "Every worker voted against the company proposal," said Mark Gleason, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 665, which represents the 110 workers at SFO's domestic and international parking facility. "There was zero support for the operator's terms." The union described the primary issue being large increases in out-of-pocket costs or benefit cuts to the workers' health plan. "These workers are asking that their health benefit package be maintained, and the company proposal clearly jeopardizes that," Gleason said. The workers authorized a strike and the Teamsters are requesting strike sanction from area Central Labor Councils, but a strike date has not been set yet. Additionally, union leadership is requesting assistance from regional officials of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). The union hopes that contract negotiations could resume during the week of Jan. 16 through 20. Contact: Mark Gleason, (415) 828-6394, [email protected] SOURCE Teamsters Joint Council 7 The Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) system will allow the trailer to serve as the hub for communication transmissions during disaster relief efforts and general ministry outreach throughout the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan area, a first for this region. The trailer can accommodate two to three staff people at any given time. Following the dedication event, the trailer will be based out of Eagle River. The trailer will make its first appearance at the IronLine Sled Dog Race on Fri., Jan. 27, in Iron County, Mich., where it will be used for dispensing hydration products to event staff and participants. "This trailer is the first of its kind for The Salvation Army in this territory that provides a dual purpose in terms of support and outreach at an event," said Major Steven Merritt, Divisional Commander of the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan Division, one of 10 divisions that make up the Central Territory of The Salvation Army. "Not only are we going to be able to communicate effectively to the residents of a particular community during an emergency, but also help sustain them with supplies of hydration products and other necessities. This trailer really allows us to broaden our reach in terms of the number of people we can now serve in this area." The idea for the trailer donation originated when the two companies joined efforts to help storm victims in Baton Rouge, La., following the historic flooding there this past August. Sqwincher had donated 47 pallets of hydrating drinks and other products to the ongoing relief effort. At the time, Salvation Army volunteers were utilizing numerous drink coolers to store the products as they were being distributed to the Baton Rouge residents. "We realized immediately how much more effective a product dispensary and vending trailer would be in assisting during a disaster and community outreach situations like this, and we wanted to help," said Dan Rosado, vice president of sales and marketing at Sqwincher. "The Salvation Army provides a critical support system for people in need and we are thrilled to be able to help in this effort." Rosado said Sqwincher had completed its mission of promoting proper hydration through a nationwide taste tour of industrial plants and decided to donate the unit to The Salvation Army. The trailer will soon be outfitted with the emergency radio communications system. Unique to this trailer, is the ability for staff to dispense products from three sides simultaneously, the rear and both sides. About Kent Corporation The Sqwincher Corporation, a subsidiary of Kent Precision Foods Group and Kent Corporation, was founded in 1975. Sqwincher manufactures a line of hydration products that feature a unique distribution strategy and a distinctive approach to formulation. Sqwincher was acquired in 2015 by Kent Corporation. Kent Corporation is a diversified family owned corporation with subsidiary companies developing science and nutrition-based finished food products, food and beverage ingredients, nutraceutical and personal care applications, animal nutrition and companion animal products. The subsidiary companies consist of Grain Processing Corporation (GPC), Kent Nutrition Group, Kent Pet Group, headquartered in Muscatine, Iowa, and Kent Precision Foods Group headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. The company has approximately 2,000 employees and does business in the U.S., Canada, and around the world. For more information, please visit www.sqwincher.com and www.kentww.com. About The Salvation Army The Salvation Army, an evangelical part of the universal Christian church established in 1865, has been supporting those in need in His name without discrimination for 130 years in the United States. Nearly 30 million Americans receive assistance from The Salvation Army each year through the broadest array of social services that range from providing food for the hungry, relief for disaster victims, assistance for the disabled, outreach to the elderly and ill, clothing and shelter to the homeless and opportunities for underprivileged children. Eighty-two cents of every dollar spent is used to carry out those services in 5,000 communities nationwide. For more information, please visit www.salvationarmyusa.org. SOURCE Sqwincher Corporation A new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, " Vital Signs Monitoring Devices Market by Type and End User: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2014-2022", projects that the global vital signs monitoring devices market size was worth $3,694 million in 2015 and is expected to reach $5,491 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 5.8% from 2016 to 2022. North America was the leading regional market in global vital signs monitoring devices industry. The blood pressure monitoring devices segment is expected to maintain its lead throughout the forecast period. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 ) Summary of the Vital Signs Monitoring Devices Market Report can be accessed on the website at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/vital-signs-monitoring-market Factors such as increase in geriatric population, growth of inclination towards home monitoring, and rise in incidence rate of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disorders and obesity, are expected to drive the growth of the market. Moreover, introduction of innovative and technologically advanced digital blood pressure monitors and finger pulse oximeters is set to further drive the market growth. However, lack of awareness about these devices in low- and middle-income economies hampers the market growth. According to Hemali Narkhede, Manager, Healthcare Research at Allied Market Research, "Increase in inclination toward home care monitoring is set to increase the demand for vital signs monitoring devices worldwide. With technological advancements (such as Bluetooth facility) the devices have become user-friendly, which has led to the increased use of these devices in the home-care settings." Among the vital signs monitoring devices, BP monitoring devices is anticipated to uphold the dominating position in the global market in the upcoming years, owing to increase in incidences of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and other lifestyle disorders. Pulse oximetry devices are projected to be the fastest growing segment, with CAGR of 6.3%, due to increase in incidences of respiratory disorders (such as COPD) across the globe. In the end-user segment, hospitals & clinics occupied the major share of the vital signs monitoring devices market, as these devices facilitate early detection of a patient's deteriorating health condition; thereby, enabling speedy intervention and diagnosis of the disease. Home environments was the other dominant end-user segment, expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.1%. Key findings of the study: Based on product type, BP monitoring devices segment accounted for more than half of the total market in 2015. Digital BP monitors segment accounted for more than one-third share of the BP monitoring devices market; while ambulatory BP monitors is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. Amongst the pulse oximeters devices, fingertip pulse oximeters are expected to grow at a high rate as they can be easily used in home environments and do not require trained professional for operation of the device. Digital thermometers accounted for major chunk of the temperature monitoring devices market in 2015; while infrared thermometers segment is poised to grow at the highest CAGR of 5.7% during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region throughout the analysis period, owing to presence of ample growth opportunities in terms of unmet medical needs for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders in this region and high disposable income of the population. is expected to be the fastest growing region throughout the analysis period, owing to presence of ample growth opportunities in terms of unmet medical needs for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders in this region and high disposable income of the population. Germany and France jointly accounted for almost one-third of the European vital signs monitoring devices market in 2015. North America generated the highest revenue, accounting for approximately two-fifth share of the overall vital signs monitoring devices market in 2015, and is expected to maintain this trend throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to the rise in the prevalence of respiratory disorders, growth in awareness among patients regarding cost-effective vital signs monitoring devices, and availability of advanced healthcare facilities in the North American countries. The key players profiled in this report include Welch Allyn (a subsidiary of Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc.), SunTech Medical Inc. (a subsidiary of Halma plc), Nonin Medical, Inc., Omron Corporation, Masimo Corporation, General Electric Company, Medtronic plc, Nihon Kohden Corporation, Koninklijke Philips N.V., and A&D Company, Limited. Read similar market research reports on Medical Devices at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/life-sciences/medical-devices-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 New Delhi, Jan 11 : The Delhi government on Wednesday opposed the union Transport Ministry's move hiking the driving licence fee by up to five times and said it should have been increased gradually. Delhi Transport Minister Satyendar Jain said he will talk to the central government on the fee hike. "The driving licence fee has been increased by the central government. The Delhi government has nothing to do with it. We don't want it to be increased to such levels," Jain told reporters here. According to a notification issued by the Union Transport Ministry in December, the central government amended the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, increasing the fee charged for issuing a new driving licence across different categories of vehicles by up to five times. Accordingly, the Delhi government on Monday notified the new rates to all the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs). Jain said the central government should have increased the fee gradually instead of increasing it by up to five times in one go. "Even if it had to be increased, it should have been done in a gradual fashion. A five-fold hike is not right," he said. New Delhi, Jan 13 : The Delhi High Court on Friday directed parents to fill up the application forms for nursery admission based on the criteria set by the schools as well as the state government. Justice Manmohan, issuing notice to the Directorate of Education (DoE) of the Delhi government, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Lieutenant Governor, directed parents to fill up the forms in the prescribed format and as per the criteria mentioned therein to avoid any ambiguity. The court was hearing the pleas of two school bodies and some parents who challenged the DoE's recent circulars that laid down the guidelines for nursery admission for the 2017-18 session. The notifications have made "distance" the primary criteria for tiny tots' admissions. However, the court said that since the scrutiny of forms for admissions is scheduled to take place after January 31, the final decision on the pleas will be taken before that date. The court fixed the matter for January 19 for further hearing. The Action Committee of Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for Promotion of Quality Education has challenged the DDA's condition for allotting land to some private unaided schools that requires them to reserve 75 per cent seats for students in the neighbourhood. The circular has enforced the land allotment clause and thereby restricted admissions to schools on DDA land to their locality. Justice Manmohan directed that the forms being issued by the private schools will also include the "distance from the school" clause. The matter came up for hearing before Justice Manmohan after Justice V.K. Rao recused himself from hearing it earlier in the day on the ground that he has a schoolgoing son. Jerusalem, Jan 16 : The Prime Minister of Israel criticized the international peace conference taking place in Paris in support of the two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, describing it as "useless". Benjamin Netanyahu again slammed the Paris talks on Sunday, in which representatives from 70 countries are slated to approach the complex conflict that has engulfed the Middle East for the past seven decades, Efe news reports. "The conference is being coordinated between the French and the Palestinians. Its goal is to try and force terms on Israel that conflict with our national needs," the Jewish leader said during his weekly cabinet meeting. "It is a useless conference," he added. Netanyahu went on to say that the summit was "among the last twitches of yesterday's world". The experienced right-wing politician claimed the Paris talks would push peace further away "because it hardens the Palestinian positions and it also pushes them away from direct negotiations without preconditions". Israel has declined to participate in the conference and has said it would not feel bound by any decision adopted in Paris. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Israeli Prime Minister that the ongoing Paris peace conference would not have irreversible consequences for Israel. Kerry phoned Benjamin Netanyahu to assure him that the talks, organised by France, would not lead to a United Nations resolution condemning Israel or to any kind of sanction. Islamabad, Jan 16 : Former President and Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has left for Dubai from where he will fly to Washington to attend the inauguration ceremony of US president-elect Donald Trump. He left for Dubai on Sunday evening after returning to Pakistan last month following 18 months in a self-imposed exile, Dawn news reported. Besides attending the swearing-in ceremony, Zardari will undergo a medical check-up during his stay in the US. According to a report in the Daily Times, Trump had invited the former President for his inauguration which will take place on Saturday. Zardari would be accompanied by a delegation, which would include former Pakistani ambassador to US Sherry Rehman, former interior minister Rehman Malik and other party leaders and ministers. Washington, Jan 16 : CIA Director John Brennan implored US President-elect Donald Trump to put his confidence in the intelligence community and develop an "appreciation" for national security. The Central Intelligence Agency chief defended his agency and said in a Sunday interview that the CIA was not trying to harm the incoming president or his team, CNN reported. "There is no interest in undermining the President-elect and the team coming in. It's our responsibility to make sure they understand exactly the dangers that are out there," Brennan said. Trump has slammed the intelligence community repeatedly over the past few weeks in response to what he said was unfair coverage caused by leaked information from intelligence officials. First on Twitter and then at his first news conference since July, Trump likened the leaks to "Nazi Germany". Brennan called the Nazi reference "outrageous". "I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community or leaking information that was already available publicly," Brennan said. The CIA chief and formal deputy national security adviser to US President Barack Obama bristled at Trump's public displays of contempt for the intelligence community and said Trump needed to understand his words could undermine national security, CNN reported. "If he doesn't have confidence in the intelligence community, what signal does that send to our partners and allies, as well as our adversaries?" Brennan said. Brennan also warned Trump on Russia, saying he did not believe the real-estate mogul understood the threat of Moscow, while also saying he hoped the Trump administration would be able to see an improvement in the US-Russia relationship. New Delhi : Title: Lanka's Princess; Author: Kavita Kane; Publisher: Rupa Publications India; Pages: 280; Price: Rs 295 Like the space-time it is set in, Hindu mythology too seems to trace a circular course -- in fiction. Its once unmitigated villains are being re-evaluated, their motives and actions re-assessed, and epics retold from their perspective. But while the great "demon" king, the Pandavas' unknown brother and "jealous" cousin have had their say, what about a calamitous woman long-perceived as a cause of the war that destroyed Lanka? But it was time that Surpanakha got her chance to tell her story of repression, rage, revenge -- and eventual redemption. We have long known her as Ravana's younger sister, a "wanton" asura whose advances to Ram and Lakshman, the exiled princes of Ayodhya, were spurned and earned her horrific mutilation from Lakshman's swift sword. Her subsequent complaint to her brother set in motion a chain of events that led to the death of almost every male relative. But do we know anything else about her -- her past, her thoughts, her future? Remedying the deficiency is author Kavita Kane, who has long been trying to give the overshadowed women -- wives, mothers and sisters -- of the great mythological epics a voice -- and their due. And after Karna's wife Uruvi, Sita's sister Urmila and the apsara Menaka, it is time for Meenakshi, the youngest child and only daughter of sage Vishravas and asura princess Kaikesi. It was her mother who named her Surpanakha, because of long sharp nails and equally sharp and destructive temper. Meenakshi's story cannot, however, be seen in isolation from her family, especially her brothers, the powerful and ambitious Ravana, the slow but solid (and unexpectedly perspicacious) Kumbha, and the righteous Vibhisana, and the growing tensions between her parents, and her father and eldest son. But this is not where Kane begins her tale, which starts in another, later age, where a young prince, raised as a cowherd, returns to Mathura to reclaim his heritage. Among the crowd, Krishna immediately identifies an old, hunchbacked woman, who makes her living by making sandalwood paste, as an "acquaintance" from an earlier life and approaches her. She is discomfitted by the attention of "an eerily familiar" but unrecognisable interlocutor, who seeks a favour, and promises to return. He does after fulfilling his primary mission, restores to proper form and reminds her of her previous life. It is then a flashback to the hermitage of Vishravas as she is being born, and her mother's disappointment at giving birth to a daughter. From then we follow the childhood of Meenakshi and her elder siblings, which give us insights into their latter, more-known selves. It also, through their examples, shows us how some human traits and social issues have been part of our lives in the ages. And before the events segue into those we know as the Ramayana, we learn how Meenakshi's bids at happiness in her trying life fail and what an elaborate revenge she plans and implements -- though there are times when she balks at the cost it demands. Her campaign doesn't end on the battlefields of Lanka but continues well into Ram's Ayodhya, though she finds herself unable to carry out the final part of her revenge due to the unexpected reactions from her prospective victims. It is then she finally understands the patterns of her life and fate. The narrative returns to Mathura, where Krishna, who has comforted her with her eventual redemption, foresees -- but forbears to tell her -- her future (setting the stage for the next book?) But, Kane's fourth book is not just a mere retelling of the epic from the viewpoint of a significant but minor character, and providing more space to the likes of Ravana's mother, wife Mandodari, and brothers as well as Sita, though it is her sister, who has a more vital role. It also may not lead us to view Surpanakha more sympathetically (though we can understand her) but shows how epics are not about the struggles between "good" and "evil", but of and between humans, of their choices, aspirations, their different social systems and outlooks. We read them not to find god but to know more about ourselves. (Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in) New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Supreme Court on Monday sought a comprehensive status report on the probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases being investigated by the SIT set up in 2014. A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice R. Banumathi sought the report as petitioner S. Gurlad Singh Kahlon told the court that the Special Investigation Team has utterly failed in carrying out the probe. The Centre earlier told the court that further investigation was on in 21 out of the total of 221 cases. The court has adjourned the matter for next hearing on February 20. New Delhi, Jan 16 : Projecting a bright picture of tiger conservation, the number of big cats in the Terai region has grown significantly with at least 71 new adults roaring, say reports from the latest Phase-IV of monitoring. The highest rise so far has been recorded in Uttarakhand's Western Circle -- a huge part of the vast Terai region of the state located outside the tiger and forest reserves -- where the figures went up from 79 in 2014 (last census) to at least 119 adults till last year, officials said. Meanwhile, at Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Dudhwa National Park of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, situated in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh bordering Nepal, the number of tigers has increased from 53 in 2014 to at least 79 adults. The numbers in Assam's Manas National Park, also part of the Terai landscape, have also risen though the final results are awaited, officials said. The Phase-IV monitoring was conducted in a few forest divisions including the West Circle of Uttarakhand and parts of the Dudhwa Tiger reserve in 2016. The monitoring is under way in some reserve forests including Corbett and Manas, and yet to be conducted in several other parts of the country. "The number of tigers has increased significantly. Over 50 adults have been identified for the first time," Dr Parag Madhukar Dhakate, Conservator of Forests, Western Circle, told IANS. A good number of cubs were also counted but officials requested that the numbers be not disclosed. "All tigers and cubs were healthy. It projects a good prey-predator ratio," Dhakate said. The western circle spreads over 2,573.6 sq km (from Haldwani to Ramnagar) comprising 60 per cent natural forests and 40 per cent plantations. The figure projects distribution of a breeding population of tigers living outside reserve forests in a complex landscape which also include agricultural fields and human encroachments. The Phase IV monitoring of the western circle is an independent census (self-initiated) and one of the firsts in the country conducted over a large area. It started in Janaury 2016, officials said. "The monitoring was carried out for 214 days using 250 camera traps used at 393 locations. A total of 16,457 images were obtained," Dhakate told IANS, adding that the mission included 500 people. Images obtained from camera traps were fed into a software; manual identification was also done to estimate the numbers. Like the finger prints of humans, every tiger has unique stripes, which is now the modern method for counting and distinguishing tigers. "We now have a baseline... earlier we were not sure of the actual number of animals but now we know areas where tigers are present. This will help us modify the protection strategies," Dhakate said. Experts believe that the reason for such a boom is the "heterogeneous and complex landscape" of the western circle that supports the species better because of automatic "niche construction". Niche construction or ecosystem engineering is a process in which organisms modify their environment for survival. "In such complex landscapes, unlike homogeneous landscape of a typical forest, prey density for animals is good because a niche for different animals is automatically created," said Dhakate. Meanwhile at Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, a healthy tiger population, along with some cubs, was seen during Phase IV monitoring from October to December 2016. "With 51 tigers in a small area of 227 square km, Kishanpur Sanctuary has one of the most dense populations of felines," Sunil Choudhary, Field Director, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, told IANS. Narendra Upadhay, Wildlife Warden at Dudhwa, however, believes that the number of tigers in the national park is under-reported as its dense landscape minimises visibility. Manas National Park in Assam has also seen a slight increase so far, as the number of tigers in two of the three regions of the reserve forests has gone up from 11 in 2014 census to at least 16 in November 2016. "This time we are also doing census in the western division of Panvari, which was left out in 2014. We expect a good result in the final count," H.K Sharma, Field Director, Manas, told IANS. India is home to 70 per cent of the world's free-ranging tigers, estimated at 2,226 in 2014, of which at least 640 dwell outside tiger reserves. The boom in population is believed to be a good sign for 2017, as 129 tigers died in 2016 due to poaching or accidents, the highest in a decade. The Terai arc landscape includes the fertile lowlands of the southern Himalayan and Shivalik foothills and north of Indo-Gangetic plains in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. It spreads over 49,500 sq.km and is home to 86 species of mammals, over 600 species of birds, 47 species of reptiles and amphibians, 126 species of fish and over eight million human beings. (Kushara Dixit can be contacted at kushagra.d@ians.in) New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced its second list of seven candidates for the Goa assembly elections to be held on February 4. The candidates were finalised by the Central Election Committee of the BJP during its meeting on Sunday, which was presided over by party president Amit Shah and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior cabinet ministers including Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley. The committee has announced the names of Pravin Zantye from Mayem assembly seat, Vishwajit K. Rane from Poriem, Satyavijay S. Naik from Valpoi, Sunil N. Desai from Ponda, Arthur D'Silva from Curtorim, Vinay Tari from Velim and Vijay A. Pai Khot from Canacona assembly seat. The BJP had on January 12 released its first list of 29 candidates for Goa, which included the names of 18 sitting legislators. The Goa assembly has 40 seats, of which the BJP has already announced its candidates for 36 seats. It may soon announce candidates for the rest of four seats. New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Union Ministry of Culture will showcase at the National Museum here three of India's antique idols which were illegally exported to Australia and brought back recently, it was announced on Monday. A stone image of Buddha from Mathura region, a marble stele showing devotees of Buddha from Andhra Pradesh, and stone image of Pratyangira from Tamil Nadu were moved back to India on December 7 from Australia, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. Except Pratyangira, other two antiques are presently kept at the Central Antiquities Collection, at the Purana Qila here. The Pratyangira idol is a case property of the Tamil Nadu Police and will be handed over after the temporary display at the National Museum. The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), which was in the possession of these antiquities, returned them in a repatriation ceremony to the Indian Ministry of Culture on September 19 at Canberra, Australia. All three statues were found to be genuine, after a team from Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) visited the NGA last year for inspection. The Buddha image is carved in red sand stone, representing him in Abhay Mudra and belongs to the early Kushana period in the last quarter of the first century CE. The marble stele depicting the worship of Buddhist symbols is a remarkable example of Andhra school of sculptural art and belongs to the third century CE, during the Satavahana regime. The Pratyangira, the female aspect of Narsimha, a grey coloured granite stone image, dates back to the 13th century Chola art, and was under worship in Vriddhachalam temple near Chennai before it was stolen and smuggled away. The government through its missions in various countries is monitoring the cases of illegally exported Indian antiquities and is making efforts for their repatriation. During the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel last year, the 10th century statue of Durga in her Mahishasurmardini avatar from Jammu and Kashmir, was returned to India. Bengaluru, Jan 16 : Global inequality in sharing resources and wealth distribution is widening the gap between the rich and the poor worldwide, said the British international confederation Oxfam on Monday. "The richest one per cent have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege are being used to skew the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest," the confederation said in a report ahead of the four-day World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland from Tuesday. Noting that a global network of tax havens enables the richest individuals to hide $7.6 trillion, the report said the fight against poverty would not be won until the inequality crisis was tackled. "A huge gap between the super rich and poor across the world traps millions in poverty, fracturing societies and undermining democracy," said the report. Cautioning the world leaders about the inequality crisis, Oxfam said large corporations and world's top leaders play a key role in widening the rich-poor gap globally. "Super-rich people use tax havens to avoid paying fair share of tax, drive down wages for workers and the prices paid to producers and investing less in their business," claimed the world body, which is focused on poverty alleviation. Observing that eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, the report observed that none of them had earned fortune through talent or hard work, but by inheritance or accumulation through industries, prone to corruption and cronyism. "Seven out of 10 people in a country have seen a rise in inequality over the last 30 years. The richest are accumulating wealth at such an astonishing rate that the world could see its first trillionaire in 25 years," said the release. Admitting that global inequality was having a huge impact on women's lives, the study found that women, facing discrimination in the work place often find themselves at the bottom of the pile. On current trends, it will take 170 years for women to be paid the same as men. "Corporate tax dodging costs poor countries at least $100 billion every year. The amount is enough to provide education for 124 million children who are not in school,a pointed out the report. The per capita income of the top one per cent increased from over $38,000 in 2005 purchasing power parity to $49,800 while that of the bottom 10 percent increased from $196 to $261. Although both groups experienced the same percentage of income growth over the period, the $65 per capita increase for the bottom 10 per cent was dwarfed by the increase for the top 1 per cent, which was 182 times greater. "The average wealth of each adult belonging to the richest 1 per cent is $1.7 million i.e., 300 times greater than the wealth of the average person in the poorest 90 per cent, although for many people in the bottom 10 per cent their wealth is zero or negative," revealed the report. Asserting that it was not in rich countries that Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are rewarded with salaries that far outstrip average incomes, the report highlighted that law makers in India passed a disclosure mandate in 2013 which required CEO-pay ratios to be made public, an important step towards informing the public about the level of inequality within companies. "According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the top executive in the largest cigarette manufacturer, for example, is being paid 439 times the median salary for employees at his company, while his counterpart at the top IT services firm receives 416 times as much as the average employee of that company," cited the report. Calling to reverse the trends through progressive policies that share economic rewards between people, rather than concentrating returns to capital the report said income and wealth invested in public services and infrastructure could be used to improve social and economic opportunities. "We need a human economy that works for the 99 per cent of the world population and benefits everyone, not just the privileged few. A new human economy that will create better and fairer societies where workers receive decent wages, women and men get treated equally, children will have opportunities," added the report. New Delhi : Mumbai: There are about 12 million to 14 million kirana shops -- family-run corner-shops/mom-and-pop or convenience stores selling groceries and other products -- across India (according to a 2015 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, with India Retail Forum), and they are vulnerable to losses from 'notebandi -- as demonetisation is called colloquially. A population, roughly speaking, equivalent to that of France or Thailand, depends on these stores for a living. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an address to the nation six days after the original notebandi announcement, requested 50 days (up to December 30, 2016) to restore normalcy. On days 54 and 55, IndiaSpend visited 24 mom-and-pop shops in Mumbai and semi-urban, peri-urban and rural areas north to it, to assess notebandi's impact on small retail stores. We found that across Palghar, Thane and Mumbai districts of the Mumbai metropolitan region: Nearly 80 per cent of all respondents reported losses between 50 per cent and 60 per cent or greater. Less than 38 per cent of all stores -- predominantly located in urban areas -- have adapted to point-of-sale (PoS) machines or mobile-wallets, while kirana shops in rural parts still depend only on cash. Half of those we surveyed supported notebandi, while a greater proportion (58 per cent) continues to view Modi favourably. The retail trade has been one of India's economic and employment bright spots, and Mumbai is its hub. The Mumbai metropolitan region is home to 18.3 million people, the world's sixth largest urban agglomeration, according to a 2016 Demographia World Urban Areas report. These 18.3 million make up no more than 1.5 per cent of India's 1.2 billion people, but they account for almost a third (29 per cent) of India's retail spending, followed by the National Capital Region (25 per cent) and Bengaluru (15 per cent), according to a 2015 report by international property consultants Knight Frank with the Retailers Association of India. India's retail market is presently over $600 billion. Expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 5.8 per cent, it is regarded as the "world's fastest growing major developing retail market", ranking 15 on the Global Retail Development Index, in a 2015 A.T. Kearney report. The retail sector employs 8 per cent, or 35 million Indians and is the country's third largest source of employment after agriculture and construction, with deep penetration into rural India, said a 2013 Planning Commission report. It contributes to about 15 per cent of the gross domestic product and unorganised kirana stores comprise 94 per cent of the industry. Food and groceries occupy more than half the sector, according to a 2014 Deloitte study. The Mumbai metropolitan region also has the highest potential for modern retail in India, with its reach predicted to increase to 50 per cent (presently 13.5 per cent) of the population by 2036, particularly for daily-needs supermarkets, Knight Frank said. "Business is now slowly recovering" was the conclusion of 60 per cent of respondents in Mumbai district and its peripheral areas of Ghodbunder and Mira-Bhayander of Thane district. As many as 75 per cent of respondents in the semi-urban and peri-urban areas between Virar and Vasai in Palghar district said there was no significant improvement. Kirana shops we visited in the rural areas of Thane and Palghar districts said business had fallen after notebandi and has been sluggish ever since. Store-owners across the board identified tendering change to customers for the new Rs 2,000 notes as their primary hurdle post-notebandi. With no other means to do business, all shopkeepers said they were still extending credit lines to regular customers, affecting their own ability to tide over the initial distress caused by notebandi. Going cashless: Urban kirana shops reluctant; rural ones clueless Responding to the government's call to go cashless, in urban and semi-urban areas, 8 per cent of shopkeepers admitted to accepting cheques, only from regular customers. Nearly 17 per cent said they now used PoS machines in their stores, while 21 per cent said they had or will apply to banks for the device. Of the 20 per cent of stores that have opened mobile-wallets, all reported that customers were reluctant to use them. In rural Thane and Palghar, IndiaSpend found that none of the kirana store owners surveyed owned or intended to own a PoS device or mobile wallet. In 50 per cent of the interviews, respondents had never heard of these cashless modes. After being told how these worked, kirana owners dismissed the technology. Among all store owners interviewed, we found nearly 60 per cent shared the same view: That either their stores were too small and the purchases made of too little value for mobile wallets and PoS machines, or their customers, like the store-owners, were not educated enough to go cashless-or both. All 24 respondents further admitted that while, over the past few years, mom-and-pop stores were already losing significant business to modern retail shops, such as supermarket chains, the trend has accelerated since notebandi. Indicative of the flip-flops in policy post-demonetisation, the Reserve Bank of India issued 74 notifications in 50 days according to a December 2016 report in The Indian Express. Does organised retail going cashless? By 2020, India's retail market is expected to more than double its current size to reach $1.3 trillion, according to the 2015 A.T. Kearney report. Organised retail means trading activities that are undertaken by licensed retailers who pay taxes, whether sales tax, income tax, VAT, and now, the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Unorganised retailing, on the other hand, refers to the traditional formats of low-cost retailing -- for example, the family-run kirana store, paan/beedi shops, convenience stores, hand cart and pavement vendors, who do not issue any or proper receipts for transactions and do not pay taxes. A mainstay of India's retail trade for centuries, these small shops are more sources of livelihood and a refuge for the educated unemployed and underemployed, said a 2014 research paper from Pondicherry University. They are rarely larger than 500 sq ft, their costs are low and margins slender, they pay few taxes and know their customers, said the study. The GST could change this, said a financial-inclusion expert, requesting anonymity, from an international private foundation, which also funds an Indian digital-inclusion programme, if the supply chain is encouraged to do away with informal receipts. "So, a retailer can accept cash payments despite being organised," said this expert. "The mode of payment accepted by a retailer has nothing to do with the retailer being unorganised or organised." Despite losses, majority still support Modi & notebandi Traditionally, small traders and family-run kirana stores form a core vote-bank for Mod''s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although notebandi has brought adversity, half the shopkeepers we surveyed across urban, semi-urban and rural areas expressed their support for demonetisation. They believed their hardship was a by-product of""punishing the guilty ric"", a sacrifice for the good for the nation. (In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Alison Saldanha is an assistant editor. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org) New Delhi, Jan 16 : Actress Jessica Chastain starrer "Miss Sloane" will release in India on February 3. The movie, in which she plays Elizabeth Sloane -- a character of a powerful Washington lobbyist -- is being released in the country by PVR Pictures, read a statement. Chastain's performance has already earned her a Golden Globe nomination and she is likely to land an Oscar nomination too in the Best Actress category. In the film, her character is that of a cut-throat lobbyist on the verge of personal and professional burnout, who pushes legal and ethical boundaries to ensure the passage of a controversial law. "Miss Sloane" takes the audience inside the soundproof conference rooms of a multi-billion dollar industry that traditionally keeps a low public profile. Talking about her character, Chastain said: "She's incredibly intelligent and ambitious and compulsive in her desire to win, but she's also really vulnerable. It was a beautiful character to embark on. The script has such intelligence. "It never talks down to the audience. It explains what's going on simply and beautifully. You're watching an incredible story about a woman who risks everything to win." "Miss Sloane" is directed by John Madden of "Shakespeare in Love" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" fame. Mumbai, Jan 16 : Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani on Monday urged the youths and students to help India realise its true potential and make this "an Indian century" with a humane touch, despite being surrounded by machines and technologies. Delivering the 160th Annual Convocation Address at the University of Mumbai, Ambani said the world has entered a fundamentally new phase in human history. While the first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production, the second utilised electricity to create mass production. The third industrial revolution deployed electronics and IT to automate production, while the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. "It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and the biological spheres, a new world is emerging before our eyes, fundamentally different from the old," Ambani said. The leading industrialist and a distinguished alumnus of University of Mumbai pointed out, "We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work and relate to one another, and the transformation will be unlike anything mankind has experienced before in terms of its scale, scope and complexity." For instance, new technologies have rendered many businesses obsolete overnight and those that didn't exist less than a decade ago are now multinational giants dominating global economies. "65 per cent of the global GDP growth in the future is expected to be fuelled by some form of technology that is less than two decades old. In the next 30 years we shall collectively achieve more than what has been achieved in the past 300 years of civilisation," Ambani said. "The present generation is graduating at a truly historic period in human history, it is the most educated generation, most connected without any barriers of time and geography and with billions of minds getting connected, there is potential for tremendous breakthroughs," he said. "The world is at your fingertips, the opportunities are limitless, but simultaneously you have grave responsibilities on your shoulders, and each one of you is responsible for shaping the future of our country, humanity," Ambani urged the students. He said there are millions who still have no access to food, water, housing, electricity, transport, jobs and these challenges for equitable and sustainable development demand creative responses from the scientists, artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and global citizens. "Will you be able to rise to the occasion? Your generation will lead this movement to create an equitable and sustainable world. Step out into this world of possibilities to become productive citizens, bearing in mind that people are the biggest assets," Ambani exhorted the fresh graduates. At the same time, the students must ensure that they preserve their good character and righteous conduct, with compassion and empathy for the fellow beings, and make it their second nature. Present on the occasion were Maharashtra Governor and Chancellor C.V. Rao, Vice-Chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh, the university faculty, students, parents and other invitees. A Chemical Engineering student who graduated from the University of Mumbai in its 120th year, Ambani admitted he never imagined to be the chief guest at its convocation ceremony after four decades. One of the largest educational institutions in the world, the University of Mumbai has over 782,000 students through 755 affiliated colleges spanning Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts. Istanbul, Jan 16 : Turkish authorities are looking into possible financial motives behind a gunman's deadly attack on a nightclub in Istanbul as about $150,000 believed to be belonging to the militant were seized, the media reported on Monday. The money was found in an operation launched by the security forces at an apartment in the outlying district of Silivri on January 5, Xinhua news agency reported. Police determined that the money could not be delivered to the attacker due to strict security measures enforced in the wake of the attack on Reina nightclub early on New Year's day, in which 39 persons died. A manhunt continues as the gunman managed to escape following the shooting spree, for which the Islamic State (IS) militant group has claimed responsibility. In light of the cash seizure, police believe the militant launched the attack for financial gains rather than usual ideological reasons behind most of the IS assaults. The Turkish authorities are also looking into possible roles of secret services in the attack. Turkish police have identified the attacker as Abdulgadir Masharipov, a man of Uzbek origin who is also known as Abu Muhammed Horasan. Abuja, Jan 16 : At least five persons were killed and over 15 injured when two suicide bombers attacked a university in Nigeria's Borno state on Monday, police said. A seven-year-old boy detonated his improvised explosive device at a mosque inside the University of Maiduguri, Xinhua news agency quoted police chief Damian Chukwu as saying. An official from the state Emergency Management Agency said a professor was among those killed. Terror group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million people since the current insurgency started in 2009, is believed to be responsible for the attack. Nigeria has made considerable gain on the Boko Haram front, with its security forces operating in the restive region dislodging the group's fighters from the Sambisa Forest, their last enclave in the country. Lucknow, Jan 16 : Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said he was prepared to contest against his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav if attempts to keep the party united fail. "Akhilesh is being misled by Ram Gopal (Yadav). He is not even ready to listen to me. I invited him today (Monday) to discuss matters but he didn't come. If he doesn't listen to me, I will contest against him," Mulayam Singh said. His remarks came as later in the day the Election Commission allotted the party symbol of 'cycle' to the Akhilesh Yadav faction. Mulayam Singh made the remarks during a visit in the morning to the party office where he interacted with party members, including state Samajwadi Party chief Naresh Uttam, who was appointed state party chief by the faction led by Akhilesh Yadav. Mulayam Singh is learnt to have told party members that he tried to speak to Akhilesh for rapprochement thrice but the son did not respond properly. During the meeting, the 77-year-old former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh said the Muslim community was "angry" as the Akhilesh government "had not worked for them" in the last five years. "There is no Muslim name in the list issued by Akhilesh Yadav. Is this the way he wants to chalk out his political future," the patriarch said. "Muslims make our government but Akhilesh Yadav is not even a little worried about them," he said. Uttar Pradesh will go to assembly elections in seven phases from February 11 for 403 seats. Mulayam Singh appealed to party members to support him as "Akhilesh was not listening" to him. The party founder also blamed Akhilesh for removal of some senior leaders from the party "at the behest" of Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav. Islamabad, Jan 16 : US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Joseph Votel and Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday pledged to support "inclusive reconciliation" in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The CENTCOM chief, who arrived in Pakistan for a visit, discussed matters of mutual professional interest with special focus on security situation in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army said in a statement. "Pakistan supports and looks forward to an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process," General Bajwa told the US commander. With reference to recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and follow up rhetoric from certain factions implicating Pakistan, he said that blame game was detrimental to enduring peace and stability. "The army chief highlighted that Pakistan has undertaken operations against terrorists of all hue and colour and there are no safe havens inside Pakistan to be used against Afghanistan," said the statement. The Pakistani General was referring to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's statement that stated: "Those who recently launched attacks in Afghanistan lived, were recruited and operated freely in Pakistan and no action was taken against them." General Bajwa expressed his commitment to work in close coordination with Afghanistan and US's Resolute Support Mission for improved security environment in Pakistan-Afghan border region. In this regard, he emphasised requirement of Pakistan-Afghan bilateral border security and intelligence sharing mechanisms, statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations said. Bajwa also highlighted the importance of Pakistan accords to its relations with the US, particularly cooperation in counter-terrorism and regional stability. General Votel acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army's successes in fight against terrorism and continued efforts for bringing peace and stability in the region. He supported the views of the Pakistan Army chief on inclusive reconciliation in Afghanistan through an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process. The US General laid a floral wreath at "Yadgar-e-Shuhada" (martyrs monument) to pay homage to martyrs of the anti-terror war. Rishikesh (Uttarakhand), Jan 16 : Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Gandhi scion said the central bank was not given due importance while implementing demonetisation. Speaking at 'Vijay Sankalp' convention of party workers here in Rishikesh, Gandhi alleged: "The RBI governor got a letter a day before that PM Modi took the decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. The soul of the financial RBI, which is roughly 60-70 years old, was killed in a minute. Now, only one person will run the country." The employee unions of the RBI last week on Friday had expressed their deep concern over alleged interference by the central government in the affairs of the apex bank by appointing its officer to oversee chest currency operations in view of demonetisation. Referring to the recent controversy over the Khadi and Village Industries Commission's (KVIC) decision to replace Modi with Mahatma Gandhi on its calendars and diaries, the Congress leader said Modi wanted to run the country on his own by suppressing everyone's voice. "PM Modi does everything that happens nowadays. Next year, you will not find Lord Ram in Ramleela but Modi instead. Lord Ram will appear in Ramleela sporting Modi's mask. Such kind of Ramleela will happen across the country," the Congress Vice President said. "He (Modi) wants one-man rule in the country. He wants others to vanish, their voice to fall silent, and people should listen to his Mann Ki Baat only. However, one cannot govern this way," he added. He further alleged that Modi worked for industrialists. "A suit of Rs 15 lakh and spinning wheel -- there is a contradiction. Spinning wheel represents poor people, weaker section, which connect them with economic progress. On one hand, Modi clicks photo with a spinning wheel while on another, he works for top 50 industrialists," Gandhi said. "PM Modi always talks of the poor but have you seen him clicked with any poor, its only the rich and powerful who are seen by his side in frames," he told the gathering. He also took on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and said while brave soldiers of the Indian Army were sacrificing their lives, the RSS and BJP refuse to salute the tricolour. The Congress leader alleged that RSS had never unfurled national flag 'Tiranga' at its headquarter in Nagpur in 52 years "The BJP and the RSS still salute a 'bhagwa' (saffron) flag," he added. Kolkata, Jan 16 : West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Monday condoled the loss of lives of pilgrims in West Bengal's Sagar Island during their return from the Gangasagar Mela. "Hon'ble Governor expressed his heartfelt condolences over the loss of lives of pilgrims in the Sagar Islands in South 24 Parganas," said a message from the Governor's office. The Governor also wished a speedy recovery to the injured. According to state Sundarbans Development Minister Manturam Pakhira, six pilgrims, all women, died due to suffocation during a mad rush by people to board a vessel at Kachuberia on their way home from Gangasagar fair after taking a holy dip on Sunday. Ahmedabad, Jan 16 : After spending six months in exile, firebrand Patidar agitation spearhead Hardik Patel is set to return to Gujarat to a hero's welcome on Tuesday. Patel starts early Tuesday morning from his residence in Rajasthan's Udaipur where he stayed while being away and is expected to reach the Gujarat border at Ratanpur checkpost in a cavalcade of around 1,000 vehicles, said his Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS). The PAAS has organised a mega welcome at the entry point to the state where his supporters in as many as 2,000 cars will converge, while there will be hundreds of others to greet him with garlands. According to PAAS spokesperson M.J. Panara, Patel will address a mammoth rally of nearly two lakh Patidars in Himmatnagar in North Gujarat. Significantly, after his rally he will drive down straight to the residence of former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel "to seek his blessings". The veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader was ejected as Chief Minister by (now Prime Minister Narendra Modi) in October 2001 and he is known to be an arch rival of Modi. Hardik Patel will leave Ahmedabad for Pune on Tuesday to attend a students' parliament in Pune where Vice President Hamid Ansari, Rajasthan State Assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal, film producer Prakash Jha and NDTV anchor Ravish Kumar would also be present. Ranchi, Jan 16 : The Jharkhand government on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sampark Foundation to launch 'Sampark Smart Shala Programme' that aims at providing Maths and English tuitions in 26,000 primary government schools across the state. Under the programme, Sampark Foundation will invest up to Rs 40 crore to reach over 40 lakh students. "The objective of this joint initiative is to ensure that 80 per cent of the children are able to do basic Maths operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and use 500 new words to speak and write in English after a year of implementation," a statement said. "Sampark Smart Shala is a path breaking initiative, which will make our schools interactive, innovative and imaginative. I am sure our young state Jharkhand will see significant improvement in quality of primary education with such a strategic partnership," the release quoted Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das as saying. Sampark Foundation will not receive any financial support for this change from the government. Vineet Nayar, Founder Chairman, Sampark Foundation said he was confident of success in Jharkhand, based on the tremendous success in Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan 16 : In a development that may have deep ramifications on the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday recognised the faction led by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the Samajwadi Party and allotted it the 'cycle' symbol. Leaders like Lalu Prasad and Mamata Banerjee, who had expressed sympathy and support for Akhilesh Yadav in the family feud, expressed satisfaction with the development while the Congress spoke of a possible alliance with the state's ruling party - a sentiment reciprocated by a vocal Samajwadi Party MP. The EC decided in favour of the Akhilesh-led faction after hearing both parties through their lawyers for several hours on January 13. "The Commission hereby holds that the group led by Shri Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol 'cycle'," it said. Soon after the EC pronounced its verdict, Akhilesh went to meet father Mulayam Singh at his residence and sought his blessings. It was not known exactly what transpired in the father-son meeting. The EC noted that while the Akhilesh faction submitted individual affidavits of the members of the legislature and organisational wings in support of its claim of the majority support, the Mulayam faction failed to provide any such affidavit despite repeated calls. The Akhilesh faction claimed the support of -- and backed it with individual affidavits -- 205 (out of 228) MLAs, 56 (out of 68) MLCs, 15 (out of 24) MPs, 28 (out of 46) national executive members and 4,400 (out of 5,731) national convention delegates. "On the other hand, Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav, with his reply dated January 9, 2017, did not file any affidavit (except his own affidavit) of any Member of Parliament or state legislature or of any delegate," the EC noted in its order. "Nor did he (Mulayam Singh) make claim of any support among the aforesaid category of members for his group, in spite of the fact that he had been specifically directed to file all such affidavits in support of his claim," it added. The EC said "a mere look at the figures given above" would suffice to conclude that "Akhilesh Yadav enjoys overwhelming majority support, both among legislators and organisational wing of the party". In a related development, Congress's UP Chief Ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit said that she will step down if asked to. "If I am asked to step down then I will do it... there can't be two chief ministerial candidates," Dikshit told reporters. The Congress sentiment was reciprocated by Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Aggarwal who said that he supports his party forming an alliance with the Congress in the upcoming assembly elections. Speaking to news channel Times Now, Aggarwal said: "This (alliance) is to be decided by the Chief Minister and I also support it." Reacting to the development, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad advised SP patriarch Mulayam Singh to bless his son and mend the broken bonds. Advising both Mulayam and Akhilesh not to fight, he said that its very important for them to unite to stop the "communal forces". Banerjee congratulated Akhilesh Yadav, saying he "deserved" the Samajwadi Party's bicycle symbol. "Congratulations @yadavakhilesh for getting SP symbol. You deserve it," the Trinamool Congress supremo tweeted. The EC announcement triggered wild celebrations by Akhilesh supporters in Lucknow. A beaming Ram Gopal Yadav, who led his faction's fight at the EC, told reporters: "This is a just decision. The Election Commission will get the blessings of crores of people of Uttar Pradesh." The Samajwadi Party formally split on January 1 when Ram Gopal Yadav, as the party's General Secretary, called the national convention of the party where Akhilesh Yadav was declared the party chief in place of his father Mulayam Singh. Subsequently, both factions then petitioned the Election Commission to allot it the party symbol. New Delhi, Jan 16 : The Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Monday informed that it plans to "handover" the terminal management of Jaipur and Ahmedabad airport to a private operators within the current financial year. AAI had earlier invited a request for proposal (RFP) from interested parties for operation and maintenance of 'select areas' at the two airports. According to AAI Chairman Guruprasad Mohaptara, the state-owned enterprise will hold a pre-bid meet next month. Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon returns to Korea on Thursday afternoon as a team working for his presidential ambitions begins to take shape. Ban will make a short statement on arrival before heading home to Sadang-dong in southern Seoul. On Friday, he pays a visit to the National Cemetery. On Saturday, he will travel to his home town of Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province and visit his mother's home in Chungju, where he will also meet locals. Ban's election camp swung into operation on Wednesday, with former ambassador to the UN Kim Sook in a key role. Some members of the team have ties to former president Lee Myung-bak and President Park Geun-hye, suggesting Ban has not yet abandoned the conservative ship. One member of the election camp said, "We're going to visit various parts of the country and listen to the voices of the public. We expect the detailed lineup after the Lunar New Year's holiday." Lee Do-woon, Ban's spokesman, held the camp's first media briefing at an office in Mapo on Wednesday. The purpose was to explain Ban's itinerary, but reporters were more interested in the composition of his election camp. But Lee was cagey, naming besides Kim Sook only Korea University professor Kwak Seung-jun and former lawmaker Lee Sang-il. Kim is thought to have played d a pivotal role in Ban's rise to the top UN job and was ambassador to the world body from 2011 to 2013. Once that was over, he shuttled back and forth between Seoul and New York to prepare for Ban's next political move. New Delhi, Jan 16 : With the Election Commission on Monday recognising the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led faction as the Samajwadi Party and allotting it the 'cycle' symbol, the Congress says it is keen to contest at least 100 seats in a pre-poll grand alliance in the state. A pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh is being envisaged on the lines of the grand alliance in Bihar, with the Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav-led SP, Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) as its constituents. A Congress leader said that the party is keen on contesting at least 100 seats if a grand alliance takes shape in Uttar Pradesh. Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav after the EC decision said that while he has no "definitive information" on any alliance with the Congress and other like-minded parties, the Akhilesh Yadav faction has all its options open. The Samajwadi Party formally split on January 1 when the Akhilesh faction ousted Mulayam Singh as its President. Both factions then petitioned the Election Commission claiming the 'cycle' symbol. After some two weeks of bitter fighting, the poll panel -- which heard both sides for hours on Friday -- on Monday decided in favour of Akhilesh Yadav. Congress party's chief ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh Sheila Dikshit on Monday said she would step down if asked to. New Delhi, Jan 16 : Indian consumers remain the most optimistic in the Asia-Pacific region and their outlook on economy and stock market showed highest levels of confidence even after their government's recent demonetisation measure, a report said on Monday. "Consumers in India remain extremely optimistic in their outlook for the next six months," said the Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence for the second half of 2016, released on Monday. India topped the Asia-Pacific region as the most optimistic market despite recording a slight dip of 2.4 points in the overall consumer confidence, to 95.3 points, it said. "Consumers in India are 'extremely optimistic' about all five components measured in the index, with their outlook on the economy (96.3) and stock market (96.2) showing the highest levels of confidence," it added. The latest report is based on a survey conducted across 17 markets in Asia Pacific, between November 2016 and December 2016, Mastercard said. Moreover, countries like Myanmar (92.8), Vietnam (92.3) and Philippines (91.6) also remained extremely optimistic in their outlook. Across Asia Pacific, while Bangladesh (82.8, gain of 11.2), Hong Kong (42.2, gain of 10.1) and Thailand (68.3, gain of 10.1) saw more than 10-point improvements, Taiwan (34.2) and Malaysia (31.2) saw more than 10 point decreases. "It is very encouraging that India's confidence in the economic outlook remains optimistic amid various economic developments in the country," Mastercard South Asia Division President Porush Singh said in the statement. "This result is particularly interesting in light of the recent demonetisation drive that has brought significant change to people's lives as they navigate from a cash intensive economy to a less-cash economy," he added. According to the report, recent initiatives such as Make in India and Digital India are driving investments across sectors and propelling confidence in the business landscape. Kolkata, Jan 17 : Cashless transactions in petrol pumps of Indian Oil Corporation in West Bengal have increased by more than double after demonetisation, a company official said on Monday. "Cashless transaction is now ranges to 20-27 per cent of sales while before demonetisation, it was around 10 per cent. All the retail outlets are having some sort of facilities for cashless transactions," said R.K. Mohapatra, State Level Coordinator, Oil Industry West Bengal and General Manager, Indian Oil Corporation. Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), the target was to provide 30 lakh LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) connections in the state. Already, 19.5 lakh LPG connections has been release so far, Mohapatra said on the sidelines of Saksham 2017 here. The scheme which is being implemented across 35 states and UTs has a target of releasing 5 crore LPG connections to poor families over a period of three years. The target of providing 1.5 crore connections for the current financial year has already been achieved. Asked about the project of distributing natural gas to Kolkata, GAIL (India) Ltd's Zonal General Manager Vinay Parshad said: "GAIL's responsibility is to lay pipeline from UP's Jagdishpur to West Bengal's Haldia. And then, it is upto the state. We have given a proposal to the state to consider GAIL as a part of the project." London, Jan 17 : "Suits" actress Meghan Markle's half-brother Thomas Markle Jr has apologised after he reportedly held a gun to a woman's head during a drunken row. Thomas was arrested by police in US and charged with a number of gun offences late last week, reports mirror.co.uk. "I am incredibly sorry for my actions and I'm especially sorry to everyone affected by my drinking. I am seeking help and I promise I will be the best person I can be going forward. Thank you for understanding," Thomas said. Meghan is said to be dating Prince Harry for several months. His son Tyler told The Sun newspaper: "He knows it is an embarrassment to Meghan and the family. He is very sorry and is apologising to everyone. He just needs some time to heal and reflect on life. But he wants to apologise for everything. He is in the spotlight now and everyone gets to see his flaws." Thomas was arrested at a home in Grants Pass, Oregon, on Thursday night and booked into Josephine County Jail on three charges. He was charged with menacing, pointing a firearm at another person and unlawful use of a weapon. Kiev, Jan 17 : Ukraine's President said he hoped United States President-elect Donald Trump would maintain his support for Kiev regarding the conflict with Russia. Speaking alongside US Vice President Joe Biden, Petro Poroshenko said on Monday that Ukraine backed the democratic election of the US and was ready to cooperate with the new administration, Efe news reports. "I hope the Ukrainian question continues to be a priority," Poroshenko said. Russia had invaded Ukrainian territory, occupying part of Donbass in the east and Crimea, he said. Incoming US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that Russia "has invaded Ukraine, including the taking of Crimea". Before taking on the top diplomatic post, the former ExxonMobil chief had criticized Washington sanctions against Moscow. Last week, Trump said he was willing to negotiate with Russia on lifting economic sanctions in exchange for the Kremlin agreeing to reduce its nuclear weapons stockpiles. Meanwhile, Biden reiterated the US backing of political and economic reforms undertaken by the Ukrainian government in recent years. The common good had to be placed above local interests, Biden said, adding that this applied to members of the government, the Supreme Council of Ukraine, judges, media and citizens. Ukraine has been locked in a bloody conflict with a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in the east since February 2014. Washington, Jan 17 : Lawyers for two lower-level detainees from the wartime prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, are urgently asking a court to send them home before Trump takes office, specially after 10 such prisoners were released, media reports said. Lawyers for the two men, who are on the transfer list but are set to be left behind, are trying to get their clients out through federal court orders on Monday, while President-elect Donald Trump has called for a halt to any more transfers, New York Times reported. Though all these detainees were from a list of those approved for transfer, many after about 15 years of detention without trial, they remained stranded because they come from unstable countries. Sufyian Barhoumi, hailing from Algeria and a Moroccan named Abdul Latif Nasir, both belong to countries that are deemed fit for repatriations. Both were added to the transfer list last year by a parole-like board, but Secretary of Defense, Ashton B. Carter did not sign off on a repatriation arrangement for them by the deadline. On Friday, however, lawyers for the two men filed an "emergency motion" before two judges in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the judges should order their release without any delay, lest their clients be imprisoned for at least another four years "because of administrative delays in filing paperwork". While Barhoumi's judge has ordered the government to respond to the motion by Tuesday, Nasir's judge has not yet responded to the motion. If the Obama administration's Justice Department decides not to fight the requests and one or both judges do issue a transfer order, it will raise the question of whether the executive branch may carry out such a transfer without telling Congress and waiting 30 days first - by which time the Trump administration will have taken over. Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been for 68 years, to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israels capital despite international objections. But, just five days before Trump is sworn in, the conference provides a platform for countries to send a strong signal to the future American leader. About 70 countries, including key European and Arab states as well as the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, are due in Paris for a meeting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected as futile and rigged. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will be represented. Major powers will send a message to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump Sunday that a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians is the only way forward, and warn that his plan to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could derail peace efforts. Direct Talks Urged "It would be a unilateral decision that could escalate tensions on the ground," a senior French diplomat said. France has said the meeting does not intend to impose anything on Israel or the Palestinians and that, ultimately, only direct negotiations between the two can resolve the conflict. "There is no time to waste," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told delegates at the opening of the all-day conference. "We are not sheltered from an explosion of violence." A draft communique seen by Reuters reaffirms existing international resolutions, urges both sides to restate their commitment to the two-state solution and disavow officials who reject it, and asks the protagonists to "refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations." Diplomats said the communique could be toughened up with an allusion to Trump's plans for Jerusalem and whether to have a follow-up to the French initiative intensely debated. Relations Low Point Relations between the United States and Israel have soured during President Barack Obama's administration, reaching a low point late last month when Washington declined to veto a UN resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory. Obama's secretary of state, John Kerry, said the settlement program threatened Middle East peace, and that the two-state solution was in serious jeopardy. Palestinian President Authority Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that he had written to Trump warning that a move to Jerusalem would kill the peace process and strip the United States of its role as honest broker -- and could lead to the Palestinians going back on their recognition of Israel. Home to Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish communities, France has tried to breathe new life into the peace process over the past year. It believes that, with the uncertainty surrounding how the next U.S. administration will handle the issue, it is important to push the sides back to talks rather than allowing a fragile status quo to fester. But with elections coming this year in France and Germany, and Britain appearing to align itself more closely with the Trump administration on the issue, the prospects of the European Union, the largest economic partner for both Israel and the Palestinians, taking a lead on the matter appear unlikely. Arab states have their own concerns about how Trump's relationship with them will turn out, and have taken a cautious line. "All this is premature. We need to give the new U.S. administration time to assess what they want to do," said a Middle Eastern diplomat based in Paris. The Delaware Valley Safety Council seeks to provide world-class safety training to contractors and employees working in industrial facilities in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. DVSC continually adds best-in-class training programs to meet the safety-training needs of diverse industrial environments. DVSCs ultimate goal is to have every worker return home safely from work every day. DVSC is proud to announce the addition of our latest course, Fire Extinguishers in the Workplace. The 90 minute class is taught by John Hoffman, a fire and emergency services professional for more than 40 years. As a long time fire chief, Mr. Hoffman has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry that is simply unmatched. The course, designed for general employees across all working environments under OSHA law 29CFR1910.157, helps students distinguish the different types of fires, the different types of fire extinguishers and of course, how to use them. The course leaves students with the practical skill of operating a fire extinguisher, necessary in any workplace, and concludes with the use of an actual fire simulator and an associated fire extinguisher with the BullsEye Extinguisher System! At only $53 a person, this course teaches students the required skills useful in any workplace fire scenario that can help prevent or limit the damage done by any potential fire. The Delaware Valley Safety Council holds these two courses at our facilities in Swedesboro, NJ for Friday morning sessions as well as on-site training. To register for Fire Extinguishers in the Workplace, or to gain more information please visit our website at http://dvsconline.org/public/fire-extinguisher-training/ and always remember to think and stay safe! The Delaware Valley Safety Council 510 Heron Drive, Suite 210 Swedesboro, NJ 08085 We look forward to a successful relationship with LightEdge. They are a unique, high-touch provider for our enterprise clients that need IT assets in the Midwest StrataCore is proud to announce a new partnership with LightEdge, a cutting-edge cloud, colocation, and managed service provider headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Through this partnership, LightEdge can deliver highly customized infrastructure services based out of its state-of-the-art data center facilities in Des Moines, IA and Kansas City, Mo. StrataCore recognizes enterprise companies are looking to meet an increasing need for greater flexibility when it comes to their infrastructure services. However, many organizations encounter challenges with migrations or management of services due to a lack of internal resources. These challenges inhibit critical infrastructure changes needed for businesses to stay ahead in todays economy. This new partnership will allow for the expansion of StrataCore's service offering in the Midwest for clients needing fully integrated cloud, colocation, or managed services. LightEdge serves customers that demand compliant, secure, and highly available solutions. StrataCore is committed to expanding services in an effort to help clients meet their business goals, now and into the future. We look forward to a successful relationship with LightEdge. They are a unique, high-touch provider for our enterprise clients that need IT assets in the Midwest, said Jay Schwartz, COO and General Counsel at StrataCore. Our partnership with StrataCore makes sense based on their client relationships, industry intel, and common business practices, said Jim Masterson, CEO of LightEdge. About StrataCore: StrataCore is the premier Data Center, IT Infrastructure, Network Connectivity, and Cloud Services agent in the Pacific Northwest. We partner with the industrys top service providers to save you time and money - while maximizing business results. We offer unbiased, custom solutions while maintaining a clear view of the competitive landscape to optimize contract terms and pricing. Our market intelligence, tools, and detailed vendor selection process provides clients with the necessary insight to make informed IT decisions. For more information, visit http://www.stratacore.com/ About LightEdge: LightEdge is an enterprise-grade cloud service provider, colocation, and consulting company focused on the needs of businesses with sophisticated, critical IT requirements. LightEdge services are backed by industry-leading security, end-to-end customer care, and a 24/7/365 monitored NOC. Our comprehensive product and service portfolio provides top notch cloud, on-premise, and hybrid offerings through our state-of the-art local Data Center facilities in Altoona, IA, Kansas City, MO and (coming soon) Omaha, NE. For more information, visit https://www.lightedge.com/ The switch from SSAE 16 to SSAE 18 will have an impact on companies who currently perform the SSAE 16 audit, but will have an even greater impact on those companies who are considered third party vendors to other businesses, and currently do not perform the SSAE 16 audit. Through the development of two new position papers, SSAE 16 Professionals breaks down the changes and provides insight to how it will impact your companys compliance programs. In 2016, the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) released the results of its clarity project. The results are known as Concepts Common to all Attestation Engagements. SSAE 18 encompasses all attestation engagements and focuses on 3 primary changes: third party vendor management, data validation, and risk assessment. Jim Jimenez, Managing Partner of SSAE 16 Professionals, states Although most reputable CPA firms have already taken into account these changes as part of normal audit procedures, some low-cost CPA firms have been cutting corners for too long, and placing their clients at risk. SSAE 16 Professionals has developed two whitepapers developed to clarify the changes and provide guidance on how best to adapt to the changes from SSAE 18. These two position papers can be downloaded at https://www.ssae16professionals.com/services/ssae-18/. Increasingly, compliance is taking on an even more important role in the operations of your business. Is your company ready to tackle these changes? About SSAE 16 Professionals SSAE 16 Professionals is based in the United States, but serves clients around the globe. The firms leadership team has over 150 years of combined business management, operations and related information technology (IT) experience. SSAE 16 Professionals has performed over 1,000 SOC audits, and unlike most traditional CPA firms which focus on financial statement auditing and tax compliance, SSAE 16 Professionals focuses on information security (InfoSEC) and compliance related engagement programs. These engagements include, but are not limited to, SSAE 16 Audits, SOC 2 Audits, SOC 3 Audits, SOC Readiness Assessments, ISO 27001 Assessments, PCI Compliance, HIPAA Compliance, HITRUST Compliance, Vulnerability Assessments, and Penetration Testing. SSAE 16 Professionals was founded with the goal of providing clients with top professional talent from a boutique-style professional services firm. Each of their professionals has over 10 years of relevant experience at Big 4 and other large international or regional accounting firms, and most carry the designation of Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Systems Manager (CISM), or Certified Internal Auditor (CIA). SSAE 16 Professionals treats its staff as valued and highly talented peers, while omitting avoidable layers of management and associated costs. For more information, please visit https://www.SSAE16Professionals.com President of Avitus, Inc. Don Reile Awards Employee of the Quarter Meghan Hopwood Avitus Group Legal Administrative Assistant Meghan Hopwood was nominated by her co-workers and selected by the company's Employee of the Quarter Committee for making significant contributions to the company, clients and co-workers. The committee selected Hopwood after multiple nominations from co-workers that all pointed to her drive for perfection, attention to detail and ability to make her co-workers jobs easier. While reading the nomination forms it was clear that Meghan does go above and beyond to help her team and her department, says Employee of the Quarter Committee Chair and Payroll Team Lead Tana Erickson. "Meghans nominations all had similar comments about her meticulous attention to detail, which greatly aids her co-workers and helps operations run smoothly on a daily basis at the office, says Avitus Group Public Relations Manager Dianne Parker. "Meghan certainly represents our staff at Avitus Group well, and we're fortunate to have her on the team." Avitus Group's employee of the quarter program is designed to recognize an employee who has made a significant contribution to the company and its clients. Avitus Group awards the employee of the quarter with a paid day off, a $75.00 gift card and $50.00 in Avitus Group apparel. In addition, the employee receives a certificate signed by the president of Avitus Group, Inc. "Our Employee of the Quarter Committee received many deserving nominations, but Meghan's stood out. Meghan reports to three in-house attorneys and assists them in all their paperwork and deadlines. This position, as well as her previous position in payroll prior to her promotion, require a high level of attention to detail. Meghan continues to excel in her daily duties, and the team has recognized her as a vital member that is greatly missed when she is on vacation," commented Avitus Group, Inc. President Don Reile. "I am truly honored to be nominated as the employee of the quarter. Thank you to all of my co-workers who saw the potential that I strive for each day. Avitus Group has been a great asset to my life and I look forward to years to come," says Avitus Group Legal Administrative Assistant and Employee of the Quarter Meghan Hopwood. Hopwood joined Avitus Group in 2015 as a Payroll Administrative Assistant and has since been promoted to her current position within the corporate legal department. "As our company continues to grow at a rapid pace, we're looking for talented members to join our team nationwide. Avitus Group makes it a priority to promote from within, and the sky is the limit when it comes to career growth and opportunity," says Avitus Group Director of Talent Acquisitions Anne Arrowsmith. Avitus Group is a worldwide company that simplifies, strengthens and grows businesses by providing 'back office' support (Payroll, accounting, taxes, recruiting, information technology, human resources and much more.) When a business uses Avitus Group, all of the necessary yet burdensome functions of the business become Avitus Group's responsibility, so the business can focus on what it does best. Avitus Group serves clients nationwide through regional office locations from coast to coast. The company also serves international clients through partner locations in Europe, Canada, China, England, India, Japan and Singapore. David joins a growing company which is already a leader in the market Infovisa, today announced that David Batrich has joined the company as a National Sales Executive. Mr. Batrich will report to Michael Dinges, Infovisas President and CEO, and is based in his Chicago home office. Mr. Batrich has been in the industry for over 30 years with LPL Financial, FIS/SunGard, ASI, Northern Trust, Bank of America/LaSalle National Bank and Chase/Bank of Ravenswood. Prior to joining Infovisa, Mr. Batrich served as was Vice President of Business Consulting at LPL, where he had responsibility for over 100 financial advisors in five states. David joins a growing company which is already a leader in the market, commented Mr. Dinges. We are excited to benefit from Davids experience and knowledge as we continue our growth in the community bank, independent trust company, and not-for-profit foundation markets, Mr. Dinges went on to say. The wealth management industry is challenged by a lack of focused, integrated technology solutions that embrace user needs. I am most impressed with how successfully Infovisa has managed state of the art technology for the benefit of the end client, said Mr. Batrich. He added I am excited about the opportunity to join a company that is well positioned for growth! About Infovisa: A FRIEND IN THE BUSINESS Being a trust professional is all about relationships; taking the time to listen, consult, advise and guide. Its true for you, and its true for us. We forge relationships with clients. You talk, we listen. And we build software solutions that meet your needs today, and anticipate what youll need tomorrow. As you grow, we grow right alongside you, and support you. Learn more at http://www.infovisa.com Marc Teerlink, chief business strategist for IBM Watson Group, joins the VitusVet advisory board. "I have been an avid user of the VitusVet app learning more about my cats treatment, test results and medical data across vets and providers, watching them grow healthier and more resilient, says Teerlink. VitusVet announced today that Dr. Marc Teerlink MBA/MBI, chief business strategist at IBM Watson Group, would join their advisory board. In his advisory capacity, Teerlink will provide strategic guidance to VitusVet on innovation through artificial intelligence and cognitive intelligence for their mobile solution designed for veterinary practices and pet parents. We are excited to have Marc on our advisory board, says Mark Olcott, DVM, MBA, CEO/Co-Founder of VitusVet. He brings a wealth of innovative ideas and skills to the table and can help us leverage cognitive intelligence on our platform to drive our goal of helping pets live longer lives. Teerlinks guidance will help VitusVet to deploy artificial intelligence to provide a richer health context to all of their pet data, including dog and cat records, breeds and ages, to create a more personalized communication platform for pet parents in the future. In my role as leader of innovation, I am always seeking for opportunities that combine improving the quality of life whilst creating value. I am professionally intrigued by applying the experience of cognitive intelligence in human healthcare to the animal health space. To not only witness, yet also to assist this pioneering company, I am honored to be part of VitusVets journey as they make this a reality, says Marc Teerlink, chief business strategist at IBM Watson. Lastly, as a pet owner, I have been an avid user of the VitusVet app learning more about my cats treatment, test results and medical data across vets and providers, watching them grow healthier and more resilient. Marc is truly an asset to have on our team. His experience with artificial intelligence and cognitive intelligence will give us the capability to provide pet parents more knowledgeable information and communication at their fingertips through the VitusVet mobile app, says Kalpesh Raval, MBA, CTO/ Co-Founder. We have so much data about pets, so now we can analyze it better and give our findings back to the pet parents so they can make wiser, more informative decisions about their pets health. Teerlink will be the fourth member of the VitusVet advisory board, joining Jonathan Vassil, Dr. Steven Wolchinsky and Gary Cohen. VitusVet was founded by Mark Olcott, DVM, MBA and Kalpesh Raval, MBA, in 2013 as a solution to better share medical information among general practitioners, emergency veterinarians, specialists and pet owners. The consumer-facing mobile application allows pet owners to access to their pets complete medical information from their smart devices, helps veterinary practices grow, saves pet parents time and money and improves the wellbeing of all pets. For more information about VitusVet, please visit http://www.vitusvet.com, or contact Kodi Churchill at 321-945-4897 or kchurchill@vitusvet.com. To download the free VitusVet app, please visit: http://vitusvet.com/download-the-free-app/. Specialty Technical Consultants Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) and Specialty Technical Consultants (STC) announce the availability of the newly updated International Audit Protocol Consortium (IAPC) EHS audit protocol for Singapore. Leading companies around the world use IAPC EHS audit protocols to understand the scope of their EHS regulatory obligations and rapidly collect, share, archive, and export audit findings in a cost effective manner. IAPC EHS audit protocols are now prepared by STC in partnership with STP and continue to focus on those national (plus, in some cases, regional or provincial) EHS requirements that have site-specific application for manufacturing operations. As a leading EHS management consulting firm with a global network of experienced EHS teaming partners, STC has indepth knowledge and technical expertise of local/regional EHS requirements. STP and STC maintain leading-edge EHS audit protocols for more than 30 jurisdictions. The protocol documents are written in English and are available in MS Word, Adobe Acrobat and Excel formats, as well as through STPs web-based portal or can be integrated into an existing company platform. Using the protocols custom templates and advanced functionality features, auditors can easily track audit findings and manage data over time to improve compliance, risk management and safety performance. In addition, STPs formatting is compatible with leading risk management and sustainability platform providers. Highlights of selected legislation covered in the newly updated protocol include: The "Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014 (Act No. 24 of 2014)" and its subsidiary legislation was added to the protocol. The "Act" enables regulators to prosecute companies and individuals that cause severe air pollution in Singapore through slash-and-burn agricultural practices. It also contains provisions for the Director-General of Environmental Protection to issue preventive measures notice to prevent, reduce or control haze pollution. The "Transboundary Haze Pollution (Air Quality) Regulations 2014 (No. S. 622/2014), 2014" designated the air quality index that constitutes a poor air quality episode for purposes of the "Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014." "SS 554:2009 Code of Practice for Indoor Air Quality for Air-Conditioned Buildings" was updated to "SS 554:2016 Code of Practice for Indoor Air Quality for Air-Conditioned Buildings." This Standard specifies indoor air quality that will be acceptable to building occupants and minimizes the potential of adverse health effects. The 2009 version was update in 2016 to align acceptable limits of indoor air quality parameters to national and international standards, specify reference methods, provide information on filter use, and to specify the number of sampling points per floor sizes and ventilation types, in addition to number of floors. The "Sewerage and Drainage (Sanitary Works) Regulations" were amended with minor updates on obtaining permission to carry out certain sanitary works. The "Building Maintenance and Strata Management (Lift, Escalator and Building Maintenance) Regulations 2016 (No. S. 348/2016)" was added to the protocol because it establishes new provisions on building maintenance, lift maintenance and escalator maintenance. The majority of requirements regarding lift and escalator maintenance apply to the owner, lessee or occupier of the building or structure where the lift of escalator is used. Several standards and associated requirements were removed from the protocol due to copyright issues. The summary of changes appendices further details the standards that have been removed. For more information on all International EHS audit protocols offered by STP and STC click here. About Specialty Technical Publishers Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) produces technical resource guides covering environmental, health & safety, transportation, accounting, business practices, standards and law, offering comprehensive guidance on key compliance and regulatory issues. STP is a division of Glacier Media Inc., a Canadian information communications company that provides primary and essential information in print, electronic and online media. Glaciers Business and Professional Information Group publishes directories, technical manuals, research and development materials, medical education, electronic databases, investment information and specialty websites. About Specialty Technical Consultants Specialty Technical Consultants, Inc. (STC) is a specialized management consulting firm working to enhance environmental health and safety (EHS) performance. Through its consulting services, STC partners with clients to strengthen management systems' design and implementation, and identifies needs and implements solutions to meet business objectives. Services provided include: EHS compliance support; risk assessment; EHS auditing; corporate responsibility and sustainability; EHS management systems development and implementation; EHS regulatory information tools; and EHS training. STC is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and the Supplier Clearinghouse for the California Public Utilities Commission, and as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program. I am both honored and profoundly humbled to accept this position. I was drawn to CalSouthern by its student-centered culture and its commitment to academic excellence" California Southern University has named Dr. Steven Beazley University President. Since 2014, Dr. Beazley has served on CalSoutherns Board of Trustees and as a core faculty member, teaching masters and doctoral courses in the universitys School of Behavioral Sciences. In addition, he has been a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, where he earned his Doctor of Psychology degree in 1998. Dr. Beazley also has worked as a psychotherapist. Dr. Beazleys extensive business experience includes executive leadership positions with a variety of prominent non-profit organizations. Most notably, he was President and CEO of the Orange County Fair and Pacific Amphitheatre, both of which experienced dramatic revenue and attendance growth during his tenure. He has also provided business and organizational development services for the Pacific Symphony, the Simon Foundation for Education and Housing, the Discovery Science Foundation and the Orange County Great Park. CalSouthern has entered into a period of significant growth, not only in terms of enrollment, but also in terms of new degree programs, academic resources and student services, says Dr. Donald Hecht, CalSoutherns founder. Dr. Beazley is a dynamic and innovative leader who will help the university manage this growth and fully realize its potential, for the benefit of its students, alumni and the worldwide community it serves. I am both honored and profoundly humbled to accept this position, says Dr. Beazley. I was drawn to CalSouthern by its student-centered culture and its commitment to academic excellence, affordability, and to meeting the unique needs of working adult learners. It will be my great pleasure to expand the universitys global reach and influence while remaining true to these core values. To learn more about Dr. Steven Beazley, visit: University President About CalSouthern: Located in coastal Orange County, California, California Southern University is a regionally accredited university, offering undergraduate and graduate online degree programs in law, business, criminal justice, psychology, education and nursing to a nationwide and international student body. CalSouthern is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), 985 Atlantic Avenue, #100, Alameda, CA 94501, (510) 748-9001. To learn more about online education at CalSouthern, please visit http://www.calsouthern.edu. Contact: University Communications California Southern University 3330 Harbor Blvd. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (800) 477-2254, ext. 4286. media(at)calsouthern(dot)edu The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the largest manufacturing association in the United States, has named Marlin Steel CEO Drew Greenblatt of Baltimore, Md., chair of the Small and Medium Manufacturers (SMM) Group. Following an election in which manufacturing issues and manufacturing voters were front and center, the NAM is at the forefront of fighting for policies in Washington that will strengthen modern manufacturing, create and upscale more jobs and provide more pathways of opportunity for all Americans. This is manufacturings moment, and were ready to lead, said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons. Manufacturers have an incredible opportunity before us, and, with our new Board Leadership and Drews ability to rally manufactures who are the backbone of economy, the NAM is in a strong place to seize it. Among the NAMs nationwide membership, ninety percent of its members are small and medium-sized firms, giving the association a critical voice to influence the change Americans sought in this past election. And the NAM is committed to working with the Trump Administration and new Congress to advance manufacturing priorities. Greenblatt was selected because of his proven history as champions of manufacturers in the United States. When he first took over Marlin Steel in the late nineties, Greenblatt was faced with a crisis from foreign competition/dumping in a dying market. However, by focusing on Quality Engineering Quick and implementing aggressive approaches in automation, education and innovation, Greenblatt turned the situation around, saving the jobs of his factory workers and greatly improving their quality of life. Greenblatt has long been an advocate for manufacturers in the United States. He joined and helped found several manufacturing advocacy groups; in an interview in the NAMs Member Focus magazine, he said: I am passionate about manufacturing because it creates a path for people to go from poverty to the middle class My mission, as a part of the NAM, is to improve the climate in Washington so that small manufacturers can grow into medium-sized manufacturers and medium-sized manufacturers can become big manufacturers. By working as the SMM group chair, Marlin Steels CEO will advance the cause of manufacturers in the United States who are struggling under excessive regulatory burdens and an oppressive tax environment. Over the next two years, Greenblatt will join the rest of the NAM Board in working to bolster cooperation between the business community and Capitol Hill so, as Greenblatt states, The USA can create more middle class jobs and raise people from poverty. Give people dignity of a great job with solid wages and rich benefits. This is a critical point in history when U.S. manufacturers have an opportunity to help reshape future policy and keep our nation competitive in the global marketplace. About Marlin Steel Marlin Steel is a Baltimore, MD-based manufacturing company that specializes in using advanced factory automation, robotics, software, and highly-educated & trained mechanical engineers to create custom steel baskets and wire forms for a broad industrial clientele including Automotive, Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Aerospace customers. At one time, Marlin focused on making commodity bagel basketsuntil government-subsidized competitors from China started selling baskets for less than the cost of the steel needed to make them. Marlin adapted by changing markets and tactics to become leaner and more profitablesimultaneously saving the jobs of Marlins factory workers and improving their working conditions. From this experience, the company has grown stronger, and become an avid proponent forand example ofhow American manufacturers can overcome foreign competition through technology and innovation. Danish police will question the daughter of President Park Geun-hye's longtime crony Choi Soon-sil starting Monday. Chung Yoo-ra was arrested in the northern Danish city of Aalborg on Jan. 1. Danish prosecutors have spent last week reviewing an extradition request from the Korean independent counsel investigating the massive corruption scandal surrounding Park. Chung faces charges of money laundering, bribery, and illegal admission to Ewha Womans University. Prosecutors handed Aalborg police a list of questions, and police are expected to interrogate her for three days. Violence, economics, education these forces push people around our globe. About 244 million people live outside their birth country; together, they would qualify as the fifth-largest nation on earth. The United States and Canada have welcomed more than 50 million of these immigrants, many of them from countries where Western missionaries cannot live. Seeing this great opportunity to reach the unreached, SEND has launched a new field: Diaspora North America. Diaspora comes from the Greek verb to scatter. The term describes the millions of refugees, economic migrants, international students and government workers who now live far from home. SENDs Diaspora North America effort helps believers connect with the unreached who have become their neighbors through praying, giving and going. Pray. To help people pray specifically, SEND is launching a quarterly enewsletter with updates and prayer requests from our teams serving diaspora communities. Give. Support specific projects that engage diaspora communities. Go. SEND is recruiting for two of our four teams living among diaspora communities, with more opportunities coming in the future. We have paths to service for short-term and long-term workers. People can explore these opportunities, find educational resources and sign up for the Diaspora North America newsletter at http://www.send.org/diasporaNA. SEND International is an interdenominational faith mission agency with around 600 missionaries in more than 20 areas of Asia, Eurasia, Europe and North America. SENDs mission is to mobilize Gods people and engage the unreached in order to establish reproducing churches. SEND members are multinational and are recruited and sent from sending offices and partner agencies around the world. For more information on SENDs mission and ministries, visit http://www.send.org. Contact information Amy Walters awalters(at)send(dot)org We are proud and honored to be included in the 2017 Edition of the Best Law Firms in the United States Tenn And Tenn, P.A. is proud to receive and to be included in the 2017 Edition of the Best Law Firms in the United States. The publication U.S. News and World Report together with Best Lawyers have publicly announced the inclusion of Tenn And Tenn, P.A. in the areas of Family Law, Family Law Mediation and Personal Injury Litigation on behalf of plaintiffs. Award Winning Law Firm in New Hampshire: Tenn And Tenn, P.A. is a boutique litigation law firm in New Hampshire that is dedicated to helping clients navigate the complexities of the legal system. With uncompromising persistent and professionalism, their lawyers work hard to obtain the best results possible for their clients and fight to protect their rights. Tenn And Tenn has been consistently recognized over the years as proving high quality legal representation in the areas of personal injury, criminal defense and family law matters, among other areas of law. Awards Received by Tenn And Tenn: Three of the senior lawyers of Tenn And Tenn, P.A. were selected for inclusion in the Best Lawyers of America, 2017 Edition. They are attorneys Mary Tenn, John Tenn and James Tenn. The three were selected by their peers for inclusion in this august group of lawyers in America. We are proud to be recognized by our peers for delivering top-notch legal services to our clients, said John Tenn, Tenn And Tenns managing partner and one of the 2017 Best Lawyer selected. Mary E. Tenn was recognized for her work in Family Law, while John J. Tenn was recognized for his work in Personal Injury Litigation, and James J. Tenn, Jr. was recognized for his work in Personal Injury Litigation, Family Law Mediation and Family Law. Legal Services Provided by Tenn And Tenn, P.A. Here is a partial list of the legal services that the lawyers of this firm provide their clients. Whale's Tail According to Mary Alice Cerrito Fetts, President of Fisherman's Wharf Association, "We invite people of all ages to come enjoy this fun event and learn more about protecting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary!" Dont miss this free fun and educational, interactive family event for all ages that celebrates the migration of the gray whales and much more! The event also benefits many local and national marine organizations that educate, inspire, and empower the public to protect the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The Monterey Old Fisherman's Wharf Association will sponsor and hold the 7th Annual Whalefest Monterey at and around Old Fishermans Wharf, Monterey, California, The Whale Watching Capital of the World on Saturday, January 28 and Sunday, January 29, 2017 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The event celebrates the migration of the gray whales, and benefits the many local and national marine organizations that build awareness about the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary which educate, inspire, and empower the public to protect it. Among the highlights will be a Symposium with lectures and documentaries related to ocean and marine life conservation presented at the Dali17/Museum of Monterey at the Stanton Center Auditorium, musical performances, and many educational displays by participating organizations. Thousands of attendees are expected again this year that range from local families and school children who want to learn more about our maritime environment to visitors from near and far who want to explore the annual whale migration. Whale watchers come from around the world to view hundreds of whales, orcas, dolphins and pelicans who continue to feast on a krill and anchovy buffet in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Throughout the year, this Whale Watching Capital of the World offers sightings of 15 species of whales, 10 species of dolphins, 2 species of porpoise, 6 species of pinnipeds and 1 species of Fissiped (sea otter). Weather permitting, whale watching tours, fishing, sailing and glass bottom boats will be operating from the Wharf (for a fee), and Wharf restaurants will be serving lunch and dinner. Wharf shops will also be featuring marine-themed merchandise. The two-day event will feature a wide array of fun and informative activities including: New this year! Dee, a huge female Humpback whale model provided by the non-profit Save the Whales (43'x15'x8' in size) will display her organs. Visitors can walk through this whale model and experience the similiarities of whale and humans and the immensity of a Humpback. A 60-foot model whale Humphrey the Humpback Whale (attendees can climb inside) provided by MAOS, will be on site in front of the Custom House both days to honor the migration of his friends, the gray whales. There will be squid dissection by scientists from the Hopkins Marine station and interactive displays from the Pacific Shark Research Center. Learn more about the Whale Entanglement Team (WET) Marine Life Studies who help rescue the increasing number of entangled whales. Gyutaku, the Japanese art of stenciling fish, will be a fun activity for kids from Noon to 4:00 pm both days in front of Abalonetti Bar & Grill as well as scrimshaw-making with soap. MY Museum will bring Wheelie Mobilee with lots of interactive activities for kids (Saturday only) sponsored by First 5 Monterey County. There will also be the very popular Abalone Races with abalone donated by the Monterey Abalone Company. The Abalone Races will be held 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. near the Big Fish Grill. On the California Dock, the Shoreline Operations Fire Boat and U. S. Coast Guard 47 Surf Boat will be on hand. The 29 Response Boat from the The U.S. Coast Guard Station Monterey will be on display on the Causeway next to the Custom House Plaza. Their popular animatronic Coastie the Safety Boat, a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Flotilla 64 Monterey, will roam and talk with attendees. Seafloor Science ROV Day Camp will have underwater robotic kits to build and drive, Boe Bots to program, plus other ocean tech equipment to tinker with. Marine Life Studies Take it to the Streets is partnering with Save Our Shores and Surfrider for the Whalefest Community Cleanup (beach and streets). Meet 11:00 am on Sunday, January 29, 2017 at the Marine Life Studies Booth. Plus many other interactive displays and activities on both days! The event will feature an array of great live music including the Monterey High School Jazz Band, Kuumbwa Honor Jazz Band, Nick Fettis & His "Orca" stra, Bill Minor & Richard Rosen, Richard Carr, Michael Brautovich, John Tallon and the Ragtime Stompers, Mark Richardson with "Mountain Dulcimer of an Eclectic Kind" and Jonah and the Whale Watchers There will be Whalefest Monterey commemorative t-shirts and with a $15 donation to MAOS, attendees will receive a t-shirt. Special Whalefest Monterey aprons will also be available for sale. There will also be many colorful photo ops with costumed animals roaming the Wharf area including a whale, leatherback turtle, mola-mola, shark and the Bag Monster. The SS-ROV (Seafloor Science Remotely Operated Vehicle) Camp delivers a week-long STEM summer day camp. Camps are offered for two age groups: children ages 8-10 (entering grades 3-5) and ages 11-14 (entering grades 6-9). STEM activities focus on ocean exploration and the science, technology, and operations that enable it. Hands-on STEM activities focus on the scientific method and ocean technologies in a real-world framework of discovery. Activities incorporate electronics, rovers, designing, building and driving underwater ROVs, sensors, seafloor geology, and biology. The 6-9th grade camp, one of the two age appropriate camps, includes programing rovers. The events sponsors include Monterey State Historic Park, Marine Life Studies, MAOS, Monterey History and Art Association, Dali17, Monterey Signs, Fashion Streaks, Pepsi, U. S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Catalina Photography and the Wecker Group. Media sponsors include KRML Radio, KSBW TV, Central Coast ABC, Estrella TV, Santa Cruz Waves and the Monterey Herald. The array of participating non-profit organizations can be seen here: https://goo.gl/WSlFMt (subject to change). The outstanding Symposium expert presenters and their presentation synopses, subject to change, can be seen here and the schedule is below: Whalefest Symposium Program Synopses: https://goo.gl/BXp1V4 Whalefest Symposium Speaker Biographies: https://goo.gl/SQGUqb For more information and updates, continue to check the website: http://www.montereywharf.com or call 831-238-0777. 7th Annual Whalefest Monterey Symposium Schedule (subject to change) Saturday, January 28, 2017 10:30 Introduction, Steve Ellzey, M.C. 10:35 - 11:15 Paul Michel, Superintendent of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, will provide an update on the latest developments concerning the Sanctuary 11:30 - 12:15 Mark McLaughlin, President of the Artichoke Research Association and of Kleen Globe Inc. Castroville, California, will share his insights into the current relationship between agriculture and the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. 12:15 - 1:30 BREAK 1:30 - 2:15 Jeremy Goldbogen from Stanford Universitys Hopkins Marine Lab will share some new exciting results from their latest round of camera tags attached to a number of species. 2:30 - 3:15 Peggy Stap, Founding Director of the Whale Entanglement Team (WET) and Marine Life Studies, Rescuing Whales One at a Time 3:30 - 4:10 Bill Gilly, Stanford University Hopkins Marine Lab, Squid Research "Ask the Marine Science Researcher". 4:15 - 5:00 Lisa Emanuelson, Volunteer Monitoring Coordinator, will talk about "Getting Your Feet Wet in Your Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary" Sunday, January 29, 2017 10:30 Introduction, Steve Ellzey, M.C. 10:30 - 11:15 Tim Thomas History of Japanese Abalone Fishing in Monterey 11:30 - 12:30 Art Seavey of the Monterey Abalone Company and Michael Graham of Monterey Bay Seaweeds will talk about sustainability, shellfish and seaweed aquaculture in California. 12:30 - 2:00 BREAK 2:00 - 2:45 Dan Costa, Elephant Seals 3:00 - 3:45 Dave Jessup, State of California wildlife veterinarian, will present the latest findings on the ever changing picture of sea otter health and biology. 4:00 - 4:45 Ted Cheeseman, Founder, Happywhale, will discuss ways to identify whales you may spot on your whale watching trips Live Music Schedule Stanton Center Terrace: Saturday, January 28, 2017 Kuumbwa Honor Jazz Band 12:15-1:30 and 2:30-3:30 Wharf Entrance 10:00-11:00 Nick Fettis and His "Orca"-stra 11:00- 12:00 Mark Richardson and his "Mountain Dulcimer of an Eclectic Kind" 12:00-1:00 Richard Carr, Creator/performer of piano/keyboard soundtracks for the soul, mind & body 1:00- 2:00 Bill Minor on keyboards and Richard Rosen on Harmonica 2:00-3:00 John Tallon and the Ragtime Stompers 3:00-5:00 Jonah and the Whale Watcher Sunday, January 29 10:00-11:30 Nick Fettis and His "Orca-"stra 11:30-1:00 Michael Brautovich and HIs Saxophone 1:00-1:45 Monterey High School Jazz Band 1:45-3:00 Bill Minor on keyboards and Richard Rosen on Harmonica 3:00-4:00 Mark Richardson and his "Mountain Dulcimer of an Eclectic Kind" 4:00-5:00 Richard Carr, Creator/performer of piano/keyboard soundtracks for the soul, mind & body IT Glue has announced that Phil Sansom is joining IT Glue as Managing Director, EMEA effective February 1, 2017. As the companys first key hire in the UK, Mr. Sansom will help accelerate IT Glues growth throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). This will include setting up local offices in the UK and creating a network of distributors and resellers in the EMEA region. Sansom joins IT Glue with extensive experience in both the IT Service Provider/VAR/MSP and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses. Most recently, Mr. Sansom worked at Datto where he served as the Channel Development Director for the past two years. Prior to that, Phil spent 11 years with Kaseya, starting in 2004 as VP of EMEA Sales, working through a number of progressive positions, including building the UK operation from the ground up. In his new role as Managing Director, Sansom will be responsible for the growth and success of IT Glues UK and EMEA business. Phil will also dedicate a significant amount of time to working with other vendor partners throughout the region -- attending, sponsoring and hosting industry events to drive value for both IT Glue partners and prospects. We are thrilled to have Phil aboard to help us launch our European operation, said Chris Day, IT Glue CEO. We have seen tremendous growth in the UK over the past several years, and we're excited to bring in strong, local executive leadership to help shape our programs and achieve our goals in the UK and across Europe. Im very excited to join IT Glue and build their first office in Europe. IT Glue is emerging as one of the most respected vendors in the space, and I see tremendous opportunities to grow our business within the region, said Sansom. About IT Glue: IT Glue is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company based in Vancouver, Canada that provides an IT documentation platform for MSPs. This solution allows MSPs to document applications, devices, passwords and other IT assets centrally and in a standardized way, enabling critical information to be stored securely yet easily accessible by those who need it, whenever they need it. For further information, contact: Karla Byrnes, Director, Marketing and Community IT Glue press(at)itglue(dot)com +1-844-235-4583 Website: https://www.itglue.com As one of our top selling themes, we knew that Must See was a favorite among real estate agents and brokers. But to be recognized by a blog, that we read every day, is something very special. We are proud to announce that Agent Evolutions Must See theme has, once again, been named on WPBeginner.coms Best Real Estate WordPress Themes for Realtors 2017. Each year, this WordPress authority recognizes the best real estate themes for REALTORS . Agent Evolutions VP of Operations, Chad Johnson says, As one of our top selling themes, we knew that Must See was a favorite among real estate agents and brokers. But to be recognized by a blog, that we read every day, is something very special. The classically designed theme offers the following benefits: Mobile responsive, fitting all screen sizes whether desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. It has 4 color schemes to choose from, with the option to use your own custom colors. Optimized for IDX Broker Platinum service ensuring clean integration. Must See is one of seven themes offered for the Equity framework. Currently, agents and brokers can try all seven by signing up for a TurnKey website free 30-day trial. The trial is a live site complete with Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data. Having live MLS data makes the trial more authentic. It is, after all, the same site you will have for the life of your subscription. says Chad. The complete website also comes with IDX Broker Platinum home search, easy drag-and-drop page creation and exceptional support. Real estate professionals can explore Must See and all the themes built for the Equity framework by visiting http://www.agentevolution.com. About Agent Evolution, LLC Agent Evolution, a division of IDX, LLC, is recognized as a leading WordPress theme developer. Focusing exclusively on the needs of the real estate professionals, Agent Evolution themes are used on thousands of websites worldwide. In addition to themes, Agent Evolution produces plugins that add real estate specific functionality to WordPress websites. For more information on all the services provided by Agent Evolution, please visit http://www.AgentEvolution.com. Medellin, Colombia Is it possible to get medical treatment as good as whats available in the U.S. and Canada? One of the main concerns of anyone looking to retire overseas is the quality of healthcare. Is it possible to get medical treatment as good as whats available in the U.S. and Canada? The answer in many places isa resounding yes. Sometimes the care, in fact, is even better than whats on offer at home, and at a more affordable price too. The cost and quality of medical procedures overseas helped determine the score of each of the 24 countries in the healthcare category of International Livings 2017 Global Retirement Index. The four countries that top the healthcare category in the 2017 Global Retirement Index all feature the availability of clean, excellent hospitals, highly trained doctors, and very affordable care. Malaysia Malaysia has some of the best-trained doctors in Asia--and the majority of them were trained in the U.S., Australia, or the UK. All of them speak English too, and that takes a lot of the stress away from what can be an already stressful situation. Western accreditation is also a vital component for confidence in undergoing foreign medical treatments. Numerous hospitals in Penang and Kuala Lumpur are among Southeast Asias first recipients of the United States prestigious Joint Commission International (JCI) certification. Seen as the gold standard for healthcare service providers around the world, Malaysia has no less than eight JCI-accredited hospitals. The most popular areas of treatment across the board in Malaysia include cosmetic surgery, dental work, and dermatology. In 2016 Malaysia was visited by more than 1 million medical tourists from around the globe, a figure that is predicted to rise in 2017. One can understand the values on offer when you consider that a hip replacement that typically costs $39,000 in the States can be had for $5,200 in Malaysia, for example. Costa Rica More than 40,000 Americans travel each year to Costa Rica to seek medical and dental treatment. These medical tourists have discovered that this little Central American country has high-quality healthcare available at a very low cost. One American who recently traveled to Costa Rica as a medical tourist reported a saving of $15,000 for dental implants, even after paying for airfare and accommodation. And expats who live in Costa Rica are able to take advantage of this benefit every day of the year, paying a fraction of what they did back home for doctors visits, surgeries, prescriptions, and any other care they need. There are two medical systems in Costa Rica, both of which expats have access to. First is the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, known as Caja for short. This is universal healthcare, provided and managed by the government. Its available to citizens and legal residents, including foreigners with the retiree visa, for example. There is also an extensive private medical system in Costa Rica, with doctors, clinics, and hospitals throughout the country. Expats often can also use insurance, either international policies or those provided by Costa Rican companies. Most private hospitals have international patient departments to help arrange financial matters. Often expats mix and match private and public medical care. They might see a private doctor and pay cash and then have their prescription filled in the Caja pharmacy for free. Or if a procedure is taking too long to schedule at a public clinic, they might go private. Colombia The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Colombias healthcare system as number 22 out of the 191 countries they review. That is better than Canada, which ranks 30th, and better than the U.S. too, which ranks 37th. There are many excellent hospitals and clinics located throughout Colombia that provide both general and specialized medical services. Half of the top 43 hospitals in Latin America are in Colombia (22 out of 43). The larger cities of Bogota, Medellin, and Bucaramanga have hospitals that have received the Joint Commission International accreditation. Any expat not over the age of 60 with a resident cedula (national ID card) can apply for the government health insurance EPS (Entidades Promotoras de Salud). Even if you have pre-existing conditions, you can be accepted into the plan. These conditions may be excluded for a short period of timesix months or sobut then will be covered in full. To participate in the program, retirees pay a premium equal to 12% of their income. Many expats report monthly premiums in the $70 to $85 range for a couple. Private health insurance is an option for people over the age of 60 or as a supplemental plan to EPS public coverage. Coomeva, for example, offers a private health insurance plan for people up to the age of 85. Premiums will be significantly lower than what a couple would pay in the U.S. Of course they vary depending on the carrier choose, the level of coverage, and age and health at time of application. And here again, the cost for medical procedures is much lower than what is typical in the States. In most cases, Americans are able to save 40% on healthcare in Colombia, and in many cases, even more. The daughter of an expat living in Salento has come to Colombia many times for extensive dental work and Lasik eye surgery on both eyes, which cost her around $1,000, instead of the $4,000 to $5,000 she would have paid in the States, reports Nancy Kiernan, International Livings Colombia correspondent. Mexico Thousands of Americans visit Mexico each year for medical treatment and dental care. The facilities, even in medium-sized cities, are top notch. And physicians have usually received at least some training in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. If not medical school, they receive ongoing training abroad. All the latest technology, techniques, and prescription medications are available in Mexico. And having major surgery or treatment for serious medical conditions is not a problem. Expats also enjoy access to this top medical care, of course, and overall they can expect to pay about halfor lessof U.S. prices, including prices for prescription drugs. Legal residents have access to two systems. The government-run system operates clinics and hospitals throughout the country and most expats say it offers good basic care at a low pricewith costs running to just a few hundred dollars per year. Many expats also use private healthcare, for which they pay cash or use insurance. It is much cheaper than the U.S. For example, a visit to the doctor is about $30 to $40. For lab testing, expect to pay about a third of the U.S. cost. To read more about the top four countries with the worlds best healthcare, see here: "4 Countries with the Best Healthcare in the World." Editors Note: Members of the media have permission to reproduce the article linked above once credit is given to InternationalLiving.com. For information about InternationalLiving.com content republishing, source material or to book an interview with one of our experts, contact Associate Editor Carol Barron, 772-678-0287 (US), CBarron(at)InternationalLiving.com. For 36 years, InternationalLiving.com has been the leading authority for anyone looking for global retirement or relocation opportunities. Through its monthly magazine and related e-letters, extensive website, podcasts, online bookstore, and events held around the world, InternationalLiving.com provides information and services to help its readers live better, travel farther, have more fun, save more money, and find better business opportunities when they expand their world beyond their own shores. InternationalLiving.com has more than 200 correspondents traveling the globe, investigating the best opportunities for travel, retirement, real estate, and investment. We believe investing in our employees is important, and ultimately it impacts the outcomes our residents, guests, family members and clients receive. -Larry Bradshaw, NLCS' President & CEO National Lutheran Communities & Services (NLCS) is partnering with American Public University (APU) so employees can take full advantage of NLCS tuition reimbursement program, earning an online degree or certificate from APU. NLCS values lifelong learning, not only for the seniors it serves, but for its employees too. Full-time and part-time employees are eligible for up to $4,000 per year; currently five percent of employees take advantage of this benefit. We believe investing in our employees is important, and ultimately it impacts the outcomes our residents, guests, family members and clients receive. One way we do that is by offering ongoing training and tuition reimbursement so we can support employees passions and growth, NLCS President & CEO Larry Bradshaw said. Several employees raised concerns about paying out of pocket for coursework prior to reimbursement, so this new program with APU allows employees to directly access their benefit without paying out of pocket. APUs program will direct bill NLCS for any approved employee taking coursework. This means that an employee pursuing a degree or certification will not have to pay out of pocket for tuition costs. Through this partnership, employees are eligible for a book grant that would provide books/e-books at no charge if pursuing an undergraduate degree, as well as a five percent tuition grant. We are excited to be partnering with NLCS and look forward to providing a flexible and affordable option for each employee to pursue their educational goals. Our dedicated strategic partnership admissions team is eager to assist employees as they explore their options, said Eric Morris, APUs manager of client services. NLCS employs approximately 600 individuals spanning across the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, including both full-time and part-time positions. To discover a career with NLCS, visit http://www.nationallutheran.org/careers About National Lutheran Communities & Services (NLCS) Based in Rockville, Md., NLCS is a not-for-profit, faith-based ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Americas (ELCA) Delaware-Maryland, Metropolitan Washington, D.C. and Virginia Synods, serving people of all beliefs. With more than 125-years experience, NLCS provides seniors with a variety of lifestyle, residential and health care options through retirement communities and services in Maryland and Virginia. Other communities and services sponsored by National Lutheran include The Village at Rockville in Rockville, Md., The Legacy at North Augusta in Staunton, Va., The Village at Orchard Ridge and myPotential at Home in Winchester, Va., and The Village at Crystal Spring in Annapolis, Md., subject to Maryland Department of Aging approval. For more information, visit http://www.nationallutheran.org/ About American Public University (APU) American Public University is one of the largest providers of online higher education offering more than 190 academic programs to students enrolled worldwide. The APU student body is full of ambitious professionals from all fields sharing a common motivation for continuing their education and preparing to reach their career potential. American Public University is part of the American Public University System (APUS), which is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). To learn more visit http://www.apu.apus.edu. The American Loggers Council (ALC) today outlined key priorities for the 115th United States Congress and the Trump Administrations first two years. As the national organization representing Americas professional timber harvesters, ALC believes the new Congress and President should take advantage of an historic opportunity to protect and create family-wage jobs. Voters sent a clear message that its time to put Americans back to work, and strengthening the forest products industry is one way to accomplish that goal in communities across the country, said Daniel Dructor, ALC Executive Vice President. Professional timber harvesters provide the raw materials that supports manufacturing jobs in many sectors, from lumber to renewable energy. Many logging companies are small, family-owned businesses. To keep American loggers working in the woods, President Trump and Congress should pursue reforms in federal regulations and land management, as well as labor, transportation and energy policies. ALCs top priorities include: Regulatory Accountability Act: The American Loggers Council joins the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in supporting swift action on Regulatory Accountability Act that has already been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 5). The legislation builds on established principles of fair regulatory process and review that have been embodied in bipartisan executive orders dating to at least the Clinton administration. The Act would make the regulatory process more transparent, agencies more accountable for their decisions, and regulations better-tailored to achieve their purpose without unnecessary burdens on stakeholders. Federal Forest Management Reform: Much of Americas forest land is controlled by the federal government. While a large portion of federally-owned forests are non-reserved and suitable for sustainable timber production, harvest levels on federal lands remain low. With up to 80 million acres of federal forest land vulnerable to wildfire, insects and disease, and in need of treatment, ALC supports reforms to increase the pace and scale of forest projects. ALC supports sensible reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act, and supports giving the U.S. Forest Service adequate resources to prepare and implement forest projects. Future Careers in Logging: Like farming and ranching, the timber harvesting profession is often a family run business where the practice and techniques of harvesting and transporting forest products from the forest to receiving mills is passed down from one generation to the next. Timber harvesting operations are very similar to family farms with sophisticated and expensive harvesting equipment that requires young men and women to learn how to run the business, including equipment operation and maintenance, prior to obtaining the age of eighteen. Currently, there are no on-the-ground programs in place to facilitate that training and ensure the sustainability of the timber harvesting industrys next generation of family members who choose to enter the profession. ALC supports extending the agricultural exemption now enjoyed by family farmers and ranchers to train their sixteen- and seventeen-year-old sons and daughters to carry on the family business to mechanical timber harvesters. Carbon Neutrality of Biomass: Congress must pass legislation formally recognizing the renewability and carbon benefits of biomass energy derived from wood and plant material, putting biomass in the same category as wind, solar, and other renewables. Often derived from bark, sawdust, treetops, and low-quality wood unsuitable for home building or furniture, biomass can be used instead of fossil fuels to produce heat and electricity, resulting in significantly fewer emissions than conventional energy sources. Science recognizes biomass is a well-established way to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. As the federal government mandates the production and use of renewable energies, recognizing the carbon neutrality of biomass would provide certainty and increase investments in biomass facilities. Predictable and Uniform State-Federal Transportation Standards: Across state lines, loggers and truck drivers often encounter patchwork and inconsistent transportation laws and regulations. ALC supports more predictable weight limit standards for hauling forest products, and other measures to improve efficiency and safety. The American Loggers Council is the only national organization solely dedicated to representing the independent contract logger on the national level. We have the combined forces of independent contractors and state and regional logging associations around the country to impact our industry positively and pro-actively by sharing the benefits of education and training opportunities, networking, research, promotion and legislative coordination. The Council is committed to enhancing the logging profession, establishing a more level playing field for professional loggers and providing accurate information about the logging profession to the forest products companies, landowners and the public. It serves as a national network and communication center, linking local, state and regional organizations around the country. Contact: Daniel Dructor, 409-625-0206, americanlogger(at)aol(dot)com The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, the landmark Nob Hill hotel, invites guests and locals alike to celebrate Chinese New Year with a variety of unique offerings. From a luxurious overnight package and indulgent food and beverage offerings including an eight-course Chinese New Year menu at Parallel 37 to a curated walking tour of neighboring Chinatown by award-winning Chef Michael Rotondo, the beloved hotel encourages guests to celebrate luck this Lunar New Year. Year of the Rooster Package January 22 February 12, 2017 Offering a convenient way to partake in the many Lunar New Year festivities at the hotel and in neighboring Chinatown, including the world-renowned Chinese New Year Festival and Parade on Saturday, February 11, the award-winning hotel will offer a Year of the Rooster Package in commemoration. This special package includes overnight accommodations, a welcome green tea upon arrival, and a Gumps silver fortune cookie box to take home as a memento. The Year of the Rooster Package starts from $429 USD per night. Chinese New Year Menu at Parallel 37 Saturday, January 28, 2017 6 to 9:15 p.m. On Chinese New Year day, Chef Michael Rotondo will present a special Chinese-inspired multi-course menu at Parallel 37. Paying tribute to the lucky number eight in Chinese culture, the tasting menu will feature eight courses and will include Liberty Farms Duck-Infused Wonton Soup, Foie Gras Dumplings, Shaved Vegetables and Geoduck Clam, Fermented Black Bean, Candied Kumquat. The Chinese New Year menu at Parallel 37 will be served on Saturday, January 28 during dinner beginning at 6 p.m. $180 per guest with an optional wine pairing at $85 per guest. Prices are exclusive of tax and gratuity. An A la carte menu will also be available. Chinese Afternoon Tea in The Lounge Saturday, February 4 and 18, 2017 Seatings between 2 and 3 p.m. Renowned for their traditional afternoon tea offered every first and third Saturday of the month in The Lounge, the luxury hotel will honor the momentous holiday with a Chinese Afternoon Tea in February. While sipping their favorite pot of tea, guests will indulge in Chinese-inspired tea sandwiches including Cucumber, Ricotta, Green Oolong; Egg Salad, Black Tea, Star Anise; Turnip Cake, Shitake, Bresaola and Duck Confit, Winter Citrus, and Scallion. Accompanying pastries will include Green Tea, White Chocolate Madeleines; Black Sesame Macaron; Raspberry, Lychee Layer Cake and Passion Fruit Egg Custard Tart. Chinese Afternoon Tea in The Lounge is offered Saturday, February 4 and 18, with seatings between 2 and 3 p.m. $75 per guest for Traditional Tea. Additional options include a Premier Tea at $85 per guest featuring sparkling wine and a Royal Tea at $95 per guest featuring Champagne, chocolate truffles and strawberries and cream. Prices are exclusive of tax and gratuity. Sip the 60 Year Chinese New Year Cocktail Available January 28 February 18, 2017 Parallel 37, Tuesday Saturday, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The Lounge daily, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Hotel guests and locals alike are invited to the bar at Parallel 37 and in The Lounge to raise a toast to Chinese New Year with the special 60 Year Cocktail. Inspired by the Chinese calendar naming years based on a 60-year cycle, this special handcrafted cocktail created by the hotels mixologist Camber Lay features Red Breast Irish Whiskey, amaro, blood orange, lemon and fire bitters. The 60 Year Cocktail is available for $16, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Explore Chef Michael Rotondos Chinatown Located right next door to The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia, abundant with gift shops, teahouses, dining, bakeries and homeware shops. Take a self-guided walking tour curated by Chef Michael Rotondo of Parallel 37 featuring his top eight spots including the Wok Shop, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory and the Chinese Historical Society of America. The Chef Michael Rotondos Chinatown guide is available at ritzcarlton.com/sanfrancisco or at the Concierge Desk beginning Chinese New Year, January 28, 2017. For more information and to place a reservation at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, please visit http://www.ritzcarlton.com/sanfrancisco or follow the hotel on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ritzcarltonsanfrancisco and join the conversation using #RCMemories. About The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco Completely transformed and reimagined, The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco sets a new standard of excellence in the City by the Bay, drawing inspiration from the alluring designs of couture and the citys iconic architecture. Set within a 1909 Neoclassical landmark building in the prestigious Nob Hill neighborhood, The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco is the citys only AAA Five Diamond hotel and was recently named the #1 hotel in San Francisco by the readers of Travel + Leisure for their 2016 Worlds Best Awards. Conveniently located in the heart of the city, the iconic hotel is nearby San Franciscos most visited attractions and the historic cable car is accessible right outside its doors. Offering globally-inspired California cuisine and seasonal cocktails at the award-winning Parallel 37, the largest luxury Club Level experience in San Francisco, and more than 24,000 sq. ft. of grand event spaces, the 336-room Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco provides the ultimate in personalized Ritz-Carlton service, comfort and luxury. Access Photography (ISC) will exhibit at the RSA USA Conference, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA from February 13 17, 2017. (ISC) will be in booth S-342. The organization will also present the much-anticipated findings of its 2017 Global Information Security Workforce Study at a panel discussion on February 16. In addition, an (ISC) executive will deliver the opening remarks at the Cloud Security Alliance Summit on Monday, February 13th. Attendees visiting Booth S-342 will learn about (ISC), its acclaimed cybersecurity industry certifications, and the benefits of membership. There will also be two-day exam-prep courses for the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) and the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certifications. Executives from (ISC), the Center for Cyber Safety and Education, SunTrust Bank and Booz Allen Hamilton will present findings from the 2017 (ISC) Global Information Security Workforce Study at a panel discussion entitled, Empower, Encourage, Recruit: Changing Our Approach to Building the Workforce, on Thursday, February 16th from 1:30-2:15 p.m. (ISC) has been a long-time supporter of the RSA Conference, said Dan Waddell, (ISC) managing director, North America. The event is one of the largest in the industry, and it presents an ideal opportunity for learning, exchanging ideas and networking. I look forward to greeting our members and hope they will stop by our booth to see whats new at (ISC). Dan Waddell will also present opening remarks at the Cloud Security Alliance Summit on Monday, February 13th. RSA 2017 provides an opportunity to learn about new approaches to information security, discover the latest technology and interact with top security leaders and pioneers. For more information about (ISC)s participation in the RSA Conference, and discounts for members, please visit http://www.cvent.com/d/5vq29j. For more information on the RSA Conference, please visit https://www.rsaconference.com/events/us17. About (ISC) (ISC) is an international nonprofit membership association focused on inspiring a safe and secure cyber world. Best known for the acclaimed Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, (ISC)2 offers a portfolio of credentials that are part of a holistic, programmatic approach to security. Our membership, over 123,000 strong, is made up of certified cyber, information, software and infrastructure security professionals who are making a difference and helping to advance the industry. Our vision is supported by our commitment to educate and reach the general public through our charitable foundation The Center for Cyber Safety and EducationTM. For more information on (ISC), visit http://www.isc2.org, follow us on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook. 2017, (ISC) Inc., (ISC), CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, ISSEP, CSSLP, CAP, CCFP, CCSP, HCISPP, SSCP and CBK are registered marks, of (ISC), Inc. A Korean skipper was freed in the Philippines on Saturday after being held by Muslim militants for 86 days, the Foreign Ministry here said on Sunday. He had been kidnapped in waters near Malaysia. The ministry said about a dozen members of the Abu Sayyaf group of armed militants boarded the Dongbang Giant, an 11,391-ton Korean cargo ship, in waters 14 km southeast of Malaysian Borneo on Oct. 20 last year and kidnapped captain Park Chul-hong and a Philippine crewman. The other 18 crew, three Koreans and 15 Filipinos, escaped because they hid in a safe room in the ship. The kidnappers took the hostages to Jolo Island in Mindanao and demanded a ransom for their release. After lengthy negotiations and consultations with the ministry, the ship's owner won their freedom. Ode to the Lotus The film "Ode to the Lotus" will start up---the shining Neo-Confucianism of Zhou Dunyi "Ode to the Lotus," produced by Light and Shadow Magic Science Co, Ltd., will start up in Dao County in Hunan province, the hometown of Zhou Dunyi, on January 17, 2017. The well-known verses "How stainless it rises from its slimy bed! How modestly it reposes on the clear pool--an emblem of purity and truth!" comes from "Ode to the Lotus," written by Zhou Duyi, the famous Song Dynasty Neo-Confucianist . Zhou Duyi (1017-1073), also named Lian Xi, came from Dao County in Hunan province. His Neo-Confucianism has influenced a large number of Chinese at home and abroad since the Song Dynasty. During his recent speech at the Symposium on Philosophy and Social Sciences, General Secretary Xi mentioned the famous scholar Zhou Dunyi and his political deeds in the Song Dynasty. From Zhou's "Ode to the Lotus" to Zhou's parental instructions to Premier Zhou Enlai's noble character, all came down in one continuous line. In the verse of "Ode to the Lotus," Zhou compared the water-lily to "incorruption," writing, "How stainless it rises from its slimy bed! How modestly it reposes on the clear pool--an emblem of purity and truth!" General Secretary Xi concluded the verses as metaphors for officials' morality, which carried forward the incorruptible culture from an independent form, and influenced generation after generation of government officials. May 30, 2017 is the one thousandth anniversary of the birth of Zhou Dunyi. "Ode to the Lotus," produced by Light and Shadow Magic Science Co, Ltd., will start up in Dao County in Hunan province on January 17, 2017 Zhou Dunyi's hometown. The film "Ode to the Lotus" is centered on the imparting education of traditional Chinese culture. It represents the impact of Zhou's parental instructions on the young Zhou Dunyi under the traditional education system in China. Such education laid a foundation for the Neo-Confucianism thought of his life and his noble and incorruptible personality, which became the example of government officials in ancient society. The producer Mr. Shao Yong said: "The film is a carrier and also a way of expression. It is an embodiment of spirit and belief. As a filmmaker, it is our duty to expand positive energy. The film 'Ode to the Lotus' is a good subject that has far-reaching significance on social education, which is our original intention with this project. Under the premise of strictly complying with the historical facts, the organizers reproduce the Song Dynasty in which Zhou lived through CG special effects, which lead the audience into Zhou Dunyi's life journey, to feel the charm of the sages." The publisher Mr. He Shenhua introduced: "Zhou was born in Dao County. His life was just and upright, which is my role model. As a person from Dao County, I feel very proud to make such a film and make some contributions to our county's cultural industry! It's really my pleasure to invest in this film." The film showing at home and abroad will further promote the dissemination and development of Neo-Confucianism represented by Zhou Dunyi in the cultural field. It will also provide reference and help in promoting China's primary and middle school students' cultural education and China's clean government construction. Ill work to grow our agent population in Marin and Sonoma by 25 percent over the next 12 to 18 months. With an eye toward continued growth in 2017, Alain Pinel Realtors (APR) today announces the appointment of Tim Freeman as the brokerages new vice president and office manager for its Marin and Sonoma county offices. Freemans selection, along with that of Joanne Zavlaris as the new assistant manager for the Marin offices, is part of a larger commitment to the brands planned agent expansion in the region. Marin and Sonoma are two of the most desirable counties for luxury home buyers in all of Northern California, and as the real estate market continues to evolve and change, we remain committed to adapting and expanding the reach of our brand to match the situation, explained Paul Hulme, president, founder and CEO of APR. Tim is an extremely accomplished professional whose business acumen and talent development skills are top notch. He and his team will make a powerful contribution to APRs continued success. Freeman most recently served as a director of Career Development for APR in the North Bay, and will apply that experience in the brokerages efforts to recruit and expand its sphere of influence in both counties. Prior to joining APR, Freeman was a managing broker for luxury real estate brands in Chicago as well as in Californias wine country where he successfully expanded each brands market share. His earlier work includes time in the financial sector for several Fortune 500 companies. He was also the founder and principal of a successful boutique investment banking company in San Francisco that catered to technology clients. Im proud to apply my career development and entrepreneurial experience to this new endeavor on behalf of APR, said Freeman. As a new generation of home buyers and sellers not to mention Realtors come into the market, its imperative to have a growth strategy ready to meet the challenges of the market. As Ive been fortunate to do in the past, Ill work with a great team to expand our brand presence and grow our agent population in Marin and Sonoma by 25 percent over the next 12 to 18 months. Freeman, a graduate of California State University Hayward with a degree in business administration, will be supported in this new role by Zavlaris, who brings to her new role an extensive knowledge of the Marin real estate market. She previously served as a top-producing Realtor in the region. Having worked with Freeman in her previous roles as a director of Career Development for APR, as well as an assistant manager in San Francisco, Zavlaris and Freeman have built distinguished reputations for their ability to attract and develop talent. About Alain Pinel Realtors Alain Pinel Realtors (APR) is the sixth largest residential real estate firm in the United States and the largest privately owned residential real estate company in Northern California based on its closed-sales volume. The firm has 1,400 agents in more than 30 offices throughout Northern California. APR was founded in 1990 by CEO and President Paul L. Hulme, and is based in Saratoga, Calif. Visit us at apr.com, china.apr.com, facebook.com/AlainPinelRealtors, and @AlainPinel. Sasco Products we wanted to make sure they have a smooth experience on our website because of the consumer trend towards using e-commerce. This redesign guarantees a fast and painless browsing and ordering experience. Consumers' Choice Products, Inc., a distributor of quality SASCO Products in distribution since 1978, recently completed its website redesign in partnership with Southlake internet marking company i5 Web Works. The company prides itself in selling only quality aloe products, including real and certifiable aloe vera as an ingredient. The new design makes viewing and ordering the quality products simpler, faster, and easier for customers than ever before. Our top priority has always been to sell only quality products, including aloe products that do in fact have the aloe content claimed on our labels. Our long tenure selling to our customers is proof and testament that our customers are getting the health benefits they want, said Consumers Choice Products President Bill Taylor. Along with that, we wanted to make sure they have a smooth experience on our website because of the consumer trend towards using e-commerce. This redesign guarantees a fast and painless browsing and ordering experience. The new website is also a responsive design, which means it displays and functions properly on all devices laptop and desktop computers, tablet PCs, and smartphones. Additionally, the company chose i5ww as its internet web host, which reduces administrative responsibilities and keeps contact at just one source. Small businesses dont have time to learn complex website design in-depth, said Carita Weaver, co-owner at i5ww. So we set up the quality SASCO product line on WordPress. WordPress is simple and fast to learn, which makes basic website administration tasks a cinch for the typical time-strapped small business owner. The plugins make it easy to add more functionality when necessary. And when more complex tasks need to be completed, then they can reach out to i5ww for help. The company now has a simple, scalable, and modern approach to serving its SASCO products customers.Persons interested in quality products, including aloeproducts with certified aloe content,and small business owners interested in the new website design,are invited to visit the companys website at https://www.sascoproducts.com/. Those small business owners interested in learning more about i5 Web Works and its website design services should visit http://www.i5ww.com. About SASCO Products The SASCO products label has been a trusted name for quality products including aloe products since 1978, making it one of the first labels to offer the health benefits of the aloe plant to the public. The company's practice is to obtain an official Certificate of Analysis certifying the aloe used in all its aloe products. About i5 Web Works Since 2001, i5 web works has been a trusted leader in providing end-to-end online marketing services to help local and national companies stake their claim in cyberland. Headquartered in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area, the digital marketing agency offers both a la carte services and its specialized Whole Shebang package that includes SEO, site design, Internet marketing, pay-per-click advertising, social media management, hosting, ecommerce, content creation, and more. Dedicated to the company motto Be Found!, i5 web works empowers B2C and B2B companies, across a wide range of industries, to enhance visibility via outbound and inbound strategies. For more information, visit http://www.i5ww.com/ or call 855.367.4599. Eugene Katz, M.D. of SGF's Towson, MD location When individuals think about fertility treatment, there are a number of myths and misconceptions about the risk of multiples, the affordability of treatment, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) being the only treatment option. Shady Grove Fertility, the largest fertility center in the nation with more than 40,000 babies born, continues to play an active role in educating the community about overcoming infertility. SGFs events provide attendees with the latest information in regards to fertility health, treatment options, exclusive financial programs, and how to get started growing your family. All of the events, both in person and virtual, include a question and answer opportunity with SGF physician and presenter experts. When individuals think about fertility treatment, there are a number of myths and misconceptions about the risk of multiples, the affordability of treatment, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) being the only treatment option. These myths often prevent individuals from taking that first step to seek the help they need, says Eugene Katz, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Towson, MD office. Dr. Katz will host an in-person Getting Started event on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 6:30 p.m., in Towson, MD. Attendees will hear about Shady Grove Fertilitys stepped-care approach to treatment, its unique financial programs that make treatment affordable, and how advancements in technology, including increased use of elective single embryo transfers (eSET), have improved pregnancy rates while reduced the risk of multiples. The Patient Financial Team at Shady Grove Fertility will present a Financial Webinar on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 12:00 p.m. The webinar will cover how to afford fertility treatment through insurance, Shady Grove Fertilitys discount and guarantee programs, treatment financing, and grants. The webinar will also cover the importance of working directly with a dedicated financial counselor throughout your journey at Shady Grove Fertility. The start of the new year marks new insurance plans and benefits for many individuals. In fact, nearly 90 percent of Shady Grove Fertility patients have coverage for the initial fertility consult with a physician, and nearly 70 percent have at least some coverage for fertility treatment. For those who dont have insurance coverage, Shady Grove Fertility offers unique discount and guarantee programs that make treatment more affordable and accessible to more people. Shady Grove Fertilitys flagship Shared Risk 100% Refund Program provides patients with six IVF cycles for a flat fee. If the individual does not take home a baby, they will receive 100% of their money back. Of the total Shared Risk 100% participants, 82 percent take home a baby, and the rest receive a full refund to pursue other family building options. Patients can now pursue treatment without the worry of cost versus chances of success, and without sacrificing high-quality medical care. Next month, Shady Grove Fertility will be launching a brand new series, Do I Need to See a Fertility Specialist? For all in-person and online events in January and beyond, free registration is required. View the Shady Grove Fertility calendar of events for details. Upcoming January In-Person Events: January 18 | Towson, MD | Getting Started January 19 | Woodbridge, VA | Getting Started January 25 | Rockville, MD | Mind and Body Health for Fertility January 31 | Annapolis, MD | Fertility Options Upcoming January Virtual Events: January 17 | Online | Getting Started Webinar January 18 | Online | Financial Options Webinar January 19 | Online | Become An Egg Donor Webinar January 19 | Online | UK Donor Egg Treatment Webinar January 25 | Online | Egg Freezing Webinar January 26 | Online | Fertility Q&A Webinar To learn more about the benefits of attending an SGF event, read Top Five Reasons to Attend an SGF Educational Event. About Shady Grove Fertility Shady Grove Fertility is a leading fertility and IVF center of excellence offering patients individualized care, innovative financial options, and pregnancy rates among the highest of all national centers. 2016 commemorated 25 years of Shady Grove Fertility providing medical and service excellence to patients from all 50 states and 35 countries around the world, and over 40,000 babies bornmore than any other center in the nation. Today, 39 physicians, supported by a highly specialized team of more than 700 Ph.D. scientists, geneticists, and staff care for patients in 19 full-service offices and six satellite sites throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Shady Grove Fertility physicians actively train residents and reproductive endocrinology fellows and invest in continuous clinical research and education to advance the field of reproductive medicine through numerous academic appointments and partnerships such as Georgetown Medical School, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the University of Maryland, and the National Institutes of Health. More than 1,700 physicians refer their patients to Shady Grove Fertility each year. For more information, call 1-888-761-1967 or visit ShadyGroveFertility.com. The Vixiar solution is a convergence of the best of digital health with a truly unique and reliable diagnostic tool for addressing heart failure. Vixiar Medical, Inc. announced today that Kevin Thibodeau has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the medical device company, effective immediately. This is perfect timing for Kevin to come on board, said Vixiar Chairman Robert Storey. Kevin has a strong track record in medical device market development and revenue growth, particularly in building new standards of care and disruptive technologies. Kevin has a stellar relationship with the clinical community and global hospital ecosystem and excels at educating, and collaborating with, users and payers when it comes to pioneering technology. We are at a tipping point in dealing with chronic disease, where the current trajectory simply isnt sustainable for patients, providers or payers. Readmissions, in particular, place a great economic strain on the system and are proven to increase morbidity and mortality in patients. The opportunity we have in front of us is to improve the efficiency of care, by monitoring patients more closely through the continuum of care and doing a better job at diagnosing problems sooner to allow for earlier intervention. This is particularly true with heart failure, where hospitalizations are so high and where the existing diagnostic solutions are either too invasive, too expensive, or inconvenient. Our mission at Vixiar is to provide solutions that overcome these obstacles and improve care while bringing dramatic cost savings to the system. I cant think of a better person to lead this effort. Vixiar Medical has developed a non-invasive, cost effective and accurate device for point-of-care early detection of worsening heart failure, the Indicor, based on technology developed at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The device is coupled with a digital health platform that includes a patient app and cloud-based clinical analytics for continuous disease management. Mr. Thibodeau has spent his career in the medical device and medical information industries, most recently with Vapotherm, Inc., where he led the market development of what has become a new global standard of care in non-invasive respiratory support. I am excited to be leading Vixiar and building a business that brings such a clear clinical and economic value proposition to the health care system and heart failure patients. The Vixiar solution is a convergence of the best of digital health with a truly unique and reliable diagnostic tool for addressing heart failure. Vixiars technology was originally developed by Johns Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Harry Silber, with whom the company was co-founded with VIC Technology Venture Development (offices in Annapolis, Boston, Fayetteville, and San Diego). It is a an excellent example of collaboration between private, public and institutional interests, having been a recipient of funds from the Maryland Department of Commerce and TEDCO Innovation Initiative, clinical research from the Johns Hopkins Coulter Partnership and Discovery Funds, the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corporation and private equity investment. The Company has its business offices in Anne Arundel County, has recruited executives from the State, and is in discussion to establish manufacturing and offices within the city of Baltimore. About Vixiar Medical Vixiar Medical, Inc., develops non-invasive, cost effective devices and systems for monitoring cardiopulmonary diseases, particularly those with significant clinical and economic burden. The Companys first product, Indicor, is a handheld point of care device for monitoring worsening heart failure. Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, it is a portfolio company of VIC Technology Venture Development. Japanese Ambassador to Korea Yasumasa Nagamine is expected to return to Korea this week. Nagamine was recalled last week in protest over a statue in honor of sex slavery victims in front of Japanese consulate in Busan. The consul in Busan, Yasuhiro Morimoto, is also coming back. According to Japanese media, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will make the final decision after returning from a trip of four Pacific-rim countries on Tuesday. The news comes after Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se caused outrage by saying at a National Assembly committee meeting that he will make efforts to abide by a 2015 pact with Japan. Under the deal Korea promised to take down any statues to the victims near Japanese diplomatic missions in return for indirect compensation for the victims and a noncommittal apology. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said both governments are aware of the "importance of abiding by the agreement." Abe last week called on Korea to "show sincerity," since Japan has already paid 1 billion yen as part of the deal. The National Election Commission on Sunday said former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is eligible to run for president despite not having lived here for the last decade. Ban's critics have pointed to a clause in the election law that says candidates must be over 40 years old and have lived in Korea for at least five years before the date of an election. But the NEC said the requirement was scrapped in 1987. Former president Kim Dae-jung lived in the U.K. for six months after 1993 but was elected president in 1997. Cookies What are cookies ? How do we use cookies? How to control cookies? 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You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services. Voters on Chicago's South Side didn't have a choice last year in the race for the 27th House district. Longtime Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, briefly faced a challenge from Justin Slaughter, but he dropped out before the primary. Davis ran unopposed in the November election. Then just before Christmas, she filed paperwork to retire from the seat she has held since 1987. But voters won't pick her replacement. Local Democratic leaders did it for them. A handful of Chicago aldermen and suburban township committeemen met privately and selected Slaughter, a Chicago resident who works for the Cook County Board, to fill Davis' seat. Surprise, 27th District voters! You have a new state rep. It's a maddening pattern repeated by lawmakers from both parties: They resign midterm or just before or after an election when it's too late for someone else to compete for the seat. The timing triggers a process that allows local power brokers to choose the next lawmaker. Roughly one-third of the 177 lawmakers serving in the House and Senate first got their seats in the General Assembly because they were appointed, not elected. An appointed lawmaker still has to run for the seat in the next election cycle, but he or she gets a head start, sometimes nearly a full term, in Springfield. They gain access to staff, campaign donors and special interest groups. Their political patrons prop them up by giving them popular, noncontroversial bills to sponsor. They have all the benefits of incumbency, including campaign lawyers, advice and money. That is, they have a built-in advantage over challengers. Which is why more than half of states require a special election when a lawmaker steps down. That gives voters the opportunity to choose their representatives, and it discourages elected officials from stepping down midterm. Switching to that system in Illinois would require a change to the state constitution. Fat chance. Legislative leaders and insiders have influence over who gets appointed, and they aren't eager to cede that power to voters. That's why they've refused to let voters weigh in on other constitutional changes, such as term limits or redistricting reform. One legendary example of the state's appointment process gone awry was a 1997 case. Larry Walsh, a local Democratic official who is now Will County Executive, held the heaviest weighted vote to fill a vacancy in the state Senate. He chose himself. Walsh served in the Senate until 2005. The Tribune story describing the appointment began this way: "Will County Democratic Chairman Larry Walsh stands before the mirror and points to his reflection. The figure in the mirror smiles and thanks Walsh for his confidence, and the 43rd District has a new state senator." During the past two years, nearly a dozen lawmakers have stepped down from their seats. Some sought new jobs. A few decided to retire. One was under criminal investigation. In each case, local political leaders got to choose their replacements. The handoff is rarely fair or transparent. Some party organizations accept applications, interview candidates and conduct the appointment process in the open. Others only pretend to. Too often, the selection of a new lawmaker is a backroom transaction. Slaughter may well be a fine representative, but did anyone else have a chance to compete? Did local Democratic officials openly and transparently advertise the job opening and interview candidates? No. The result is a General Assembly populated by so-called representatives who owe their jobs to party bosses, not to voters. No one should be surprised when they act like it. SYCAMORE, Ill. (AP) The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office wants the public's help to solve a 5-month-old double slaying. They are seeking information about the killings of 85-year-old Patricia Wilson and her son, 64-year-old Robert Wilson. They were found dead Aug. 15 in their home near the city of Sycamore. Autopsy results showed they were beaten with a blunt object. The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle reports there is a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Authorities say they have ruled out the Wilsons' immediate family members. Investigators have asked the state crime lab to analyze more than 100 items. They've viewed surveillance camera video from businesses located between Sycamore and Chicago where Patricia Wilson's stolen car was found. Some video shows the car, but no frames captured the face of the driver. ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL First Army will host the Rock Island Arsenals Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Observance at 1 p.m. Jan. 18 at Heritage Hall. The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Joseph D. Williamson III, pastor at the Second Baptist Church, Rock Island. Rev. Williamson is a graduate of East St. Louis Lincoln High School. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois State University. His law degree is from Thurgood Marshall School of Law and his Jurist Doctorate is from Texas Southern University both located in Houston, Texas. He also graduated from the Heibert Institute and is currently attending St Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa as a Candidate for Masters of Pastoral studies. He has also attended Eden Theological Seminary. He currently is a member of the Rock Island Housing Authority, Skip-A-Long Child Development Board of Directors. Trinity Medical Center- Ethics Committee; he is president, WGVV Community Advisory Board and President, Board of Directors for the Second Baptist Church Music and Arts Academy which he founded at the church to help fill a gap that current elementary and secondary school families are facing with the elimination of Fine Arts in many school districts in the Quad Cities area. First Army Deputy Commanding General-Support Brig. Gen. Chris Gentry is the presiding official for the ceremony. This month, the Army also joins the nation in recognizing the 32nd annual national observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. This year's national theme is "The Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday: A Day On, Not a Day Off." During this observance, the Army honors Dr. King's memory, remembering the strength of his leadership, the power of his words, and the inspiration of his call for justice. The Army celebrates his legacy of freedom and equality for all. The Army recognize the timeless values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, respect, humility and service. The Army remains mindful of the endeavor to promote diversity, foster inclusive behavior and demonstrate respect for others. In celebrating Dr. King's dream, the Army celebrates the American dream. PASADENA, Calif. (AP) Broadway star Jennifer Holliday has backed out as a performer at next week's presidential inaugural following protests from her gay and black fans, further dimming the event's already low celebrity wattage. Holliday, best known for her Tony-winning role in Broadway's "Dreamgirls," said in an interview Saturday she hadn't considered that singing at a Thursday concert by Washington's Lincoln Memorial would be judged a statement of support for President-elect Donald Trump. She decided to withdraw at 3 a.m. after reading commentary about how her participation was being seen. She apologized for a lack of judgment. "It just really hit home for me," she said. "The gay community has been a big part of my life and my career. I feel there really wouldn't be a Jennifer Holliday or a 'Dreamgirls' in the 21st Century without them. I needed to at least hear them out and learn why it would be such a great disappointment for them." Several prominent entertainers have declined to perform at Trump inaugural festivities. Country star Toby Keith, the rock band 3 Doors Down and actor Jon Voight are in the lineup Thursday. Jackie Evancho will sing the national anthem at the inauguration Friday. Holliday said it was painful to read racial epithets, insults such as "Uncle Tom" and people wishing that she were dead "just for singing a song." She had been scheduled to sing the Stephen Foster song "Hard Times Come Again No More." "I had no idea it would be interpreted as a political statement," she said. "That's my fault for not paying attention to what the climate is like in the country right now." She cited an article by Kevin Fallon in The Daily Beast, which explained why Holliday's role as Effie in "Dreamgirls" made her an icon in the gay and lesbian community during the initial AIDS outbreak in the 1980s. In that context, learning Holliday was performing at the inaugural "feels like a betrayal," Fallon wrote. "It is heartbreaking." Holliday said she wasn't concerned about a social media backlash from Trump supporters, or the president-elect himself. It couldn't be worse than what she had already read from her supporters, she said. President Barack Obama's inaugurations attracted top names like Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and others, in sharp contrast to those Trump has gathered. But Trump has insisted that's how he wants it, saying the swearing-in festivities should be about the people, not the A-list. Star-studded inaugural events for Obama at the Lincoln Memorial in 2009, and for Bill Clinton in 1993, were televised at the time by HBO, but the network's chairman said Saturday that won't be the case this year. HBO had been contacted shortly after Obama's election to discuss its interest in the inaugural show, and top talent had already committed to the project, said Richard Plepler, the network's chairman and CEO, on Saturday. By contrast, he said the Trump transition team contacted him two weeks ago and wasn't saying anything about performers. "I didn't know what the show would be," Plepler said. "In order to do one of these things you must have the time and planning and coordination for the kind of production that would make it a good show." He stressed that politics had nothing to do with HBO's decision. Trump's team has made the concert available to air at no cost but no network has publicly come forth to say it would. CNN said Saturday it would cover the event, but it wasn't clear how much will be shown on the air. ____ Associated Press writer Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report. Huawei's P9, priced at some W600,000 and sold by LG Uplus, was developed with German camera maker Leica and features color and black-and-white cameras on its rear side. TLC Alcatel's Sol Prime, priced at W433,000, is a follow-up to the Sol that was a minor success in Korea last year. Customers signing up for a W50,000 monthly flat rate can buy the Sol Prime for less than W200,000. ZTE's new phone will be the company's first to be sold here under a tie-up with a Korean telecom. The Chinese smartphone maker has yet to come up with a name, but it will apparently have a five-inch screen and cost W300,000-500,000 (US$1=W1,176). SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile provider, has already started selling TCL's Sol Prime, and KT plans to begin sales next month of a cheap ZTE phone. Last month, LG Uplus started to offer Huawei's P9 and P9 Plus, which are equipped with premium camera functions. So far the success of cheap Chinese phones here has been mixed. Pundits say success depends on whether they can shake of the trashy image of Chinese products, regardless of how much value for money they offer. For instance, TG & Co. and SK Telecom joined hands to sell the Luna smartphone here last September and racked up sales of 200,000. The Luna is actually made in China by Taiwan's Foxconn, but it was released here under a solid Korean aegis. Huawei's Be Y smartphone, by contrast, which was launched here under a tie-up with KT at the same time, has sold only 50,000 so far. Average sales in the first month after release boil down to 2,500 for the Luna and just 300 to 400 for the Be Y. The difference is that the Be Y wore its Chinese origin on its sleeve. While SK Telecom advertised the handset as the brainchild of a Korean company, the Be Y was just a Huawei P9 Light being sold under a different label. Sales of Huawei's affordable H also totaled only around 20,000 units since its release here last September. The only one that is doing well is the ultra-cheap Y6, priced at just W130,000 and unveiled in December, around 130,000 of which have been sold so far. Kim Young-jun at Sungkyunkwan University said, "Korean consumers still have a negative bias against Chinese products, so it's difficult to just import them and sell them here. We're going to see more tie-ups between Korean and Chinese companies in order to overcome this obstacle." G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now! The new Australian Singles Report is the first in Australia to combine radio and streaming plays , digital sales and video plays. Every Monday morning at 9am The Music Networks new Australian Singles Report will feature on Radio Today. Our new Radio Wrap features The Top 20, Most Added, New To Radio and new Nova, Hit, KIIS, triple J and Triple M Top Spins of the Week. Clean Bandit returns to #1 with Rockabye ft. Sean Paul & Anne-Marie after being knocked off the top spot by Neikeds Sexual at the end of last year. The groups last #1 was their 2014 hit Rather Be ft. Jess Glynne, which was also the #1 Single of the Year in TMNs Year End Chart. Support for Rockabye is starting to wane howerver, with none of the major commercial networks accumulating enough airtime for the track to feature in their top spins list. ZAYN & Taylor Swifts new cut I Dont Wanna Live Forever makes some serious gains on its second week in the Hot 100, now at #3 from #31. At this rate, the track is well on its way to #1. I Dont Wanna Live Forever is also making waves on the Hot 100 Heatseekers chart where it placed at #3. Topping the chart is PNAUs now undeniable crossover hit Chameleon. The track shot to #20 from #82 and features in the Top 5 of triple j, Hit and Novas spins charts thats adoption across alternative AND commercial radio. Big Sean tops the Breakers chart with Bounce Back and is tailed by Skegss at #2 with Spring Has Sprung which also comes in at #3 on triple js spins chart. Starleys Call On Me is experiencing plenty of love on commercial, and currently sits at #1 in Nova Networks spins chart while ranking at #2 for Hit. Triple M are still right behind Bernard Fanning on Reckless, while triple j are putting most of their support behind Thundamentals Think About It. After years of pushing out a generic weekend network show, The Hit Network is moving to local breakfast shows each Saturday in their metro city markets. Head of the Hit Network Gemma Fordham said, We are excited to bring local Saturday breakfast shows to each metro market on the Hit Network, whilst we have incredible network shows, locality is also very important to us as a network. Im really looking forward to what each show will bring we have a fantastic bunch of talented people enhancing the Hit family. Sydney Ryan and Tanya Ryan Jon and Tanya Hennessy will host Sydneys Saturday breakfast from Saturday January 28, in addition to Breakfast on Canberras hit104.7. Melbourne Will and Woody Originating from Melbourne, Will McMahon and Woody Whitelaw will cook up Saturday breakfast down south from Saturday January 28. They will continue with their Perth based weekday show Heidi, Will & Woody on hit92.9. Brisbane Those Two Girls Lise and Sarah Lise Carlaw and Sarah Wills, better known as Those Two Girls, will bring their take on breakfast risbane each Saturday morning from January 21. Lise and Sarah said, Were so excited to be bringing our friendship and banter to hit105 and waking up with Brisbane every weekend. Its a terrifying privilege and were currently procuring an impressive yoga pant and ugg boot collection in preparation for our radio debut. Local weekend breakfast shows are also slated for Perth and Adelaide and will be announced soon. 97.3s Bianca, Terry & Bob debut in Brisbane this morning as ARN also pushed the button on a chunky marketing push. ARN National Content Director, Duncan Campbell said: Were extremely excited to have Bianca Dye on board for our 2017 Breakfast show. Weve developed a strong marketing campaign that captures the charisma and chemistry of Bianca, Terry and Bob, as well as their unique personalities. Branded scooters hit the streets of Brisbane across the weekend and this morning. This is the first stage of the new campaign, featuring Bianca, Terry & Bob, across Adshel street furniture, Media V branded scooters, and a targeted digital campaign including display and social. Its our biggest and best Brisbane marketing campaign to date, with an aim to further strengthen our engagement with our Brisbane audience, added Duncan. The project, which is the first expansion of the Rabat-Sale Tramway since it opened in 2011, involves extending Line T2 at both ends of the route, adding 7km to the network. In Rabat, a 2.4km extension will continue the line south from Moulay Youssef Hospital in Akkari to Al Kifah Avenue in Yaacoub Al Mansour. In Sale, Line T2 will be extended 4.6km from the current terminus at Hassan II to Zarbia Avenue and the new provincial hospital in the district of Al Hssaine. The Moroccan government will contribute Dirhams 592m towards the project through the Fund for Urban Road Transport Reform. For more information on African light rail projects subscribe to IRJ Pro. Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies on your device as described in our privacy policy unless you have disabled them. You can change your cookie settings at any time but parts of our site will not function correctly without them. [Close] We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on the website. The purposes of using cookies are defined in the Privacy Policy of RAPSI If you agree to continue using cookies, please click the "Confirm" button. If you do not agree, you can change your browser settings. IWPR, January 15, 2017 Yagana spends her days and nights on the streets of Herat city, begging passersby for money to feed her drug addiction. She doesnt know her exact age, although thinks she might be around 18 years old. She looks well into her thirties. When I got married, I was very young, maybe 12 years old, she told IWPR. I did all the work around the house and got very tired. My brother-in-law noticed this and told me that if smoked some opium I would feel better. As I was so innocent, I started to smoke and eventually became addicted. When my husband realised this, he fought with his brother but it was useless as I was already an addict. That was at least six years ago. Cast out of her house, she now sleeps rough and is constantly at risk of abuse. I am on the streets most nights and sometimes I fight with people passing by because they abuse me, and even tell me to go with them, which means they want me for sex. Her husband has taken her for treatment at an addiction six times, but after each attempt she has gone back to using drugs. I told my husband and children not to try again because I cant stop while I am still alive, Yagana concluded. Officials in Herat province warn that rates of female addiction are rising, with one estimate putting the current rate of drug use as high as one in every three women. Health professionals say that a major reason is the influence of a husband or other male authority figure within the family. Poverty is also a factor, as drugs are cheap and easily available, fuelled by the influx of returning refugees from neighbouring Iran where addiction rates are also high. Officials have registered between 60,000 and 70,000 addicts in Herat, out of which nearly 8,000 are women, although the real numbers may be much higher. One of the problems is that accurate figures are hard to come by, although those working in the field say that anecdotal evidence clearly points to a growing problem. Asif Kabir, head of Herats public health department, estimated that addiction rates amongst women could be as high as 35 per cent. An extensive survey was needed to properly assess the situation, he noted, as the last ministry of public health study had been carried out in 2010. Kabir said that 886 people had come to the Herat treatment centre during the last solar year, 240 of them women. We can compare the first six months of this [solar] year with the first six months of last year when 785 patients were admitted, of whom 120 were women. Ghulam Jilani Daqiq, head of counter-narcotics in Herat province, also said he believed addiction rates among women were rising, highlighting the Kuhsan and Ghoriyan districts as areas of particular concern. The most recent figures his department could draw on were from a 2012 UN study, which found a female addiction rate of 13 per cent. However, counternarcotic officials said they had themselves witnessed rising rates of addiction in the field, even though budgetary problems meant that they had been unable to carry out their own research. Herat police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said that his forces carried out arrests each day in the provincial capital, but most visible drug use was by men. Police investigations dont often lead to female addicts being brought in, he said. Many woman use drugs at home, and this is cause for major research to be carried out. Lack of Treatment Facilities Photo: Afghanistan Times Photo: Afghanistan Times Fatima (not her real name) began using drugs five years ago. My husband was a drug addict, she said. One day he gave me some drugs, so I too became addicted. Fatima, however, is one of the lucky ones. Having divorced her husband, she is now 20 days into an addiction treatment programme in an attempt to turn her life around. Monizha Wahedi, head of the Shahamat addiction treatment centre, noted that women usually began using drugs due to a male addict in their immediate family circle. Once addicted, it was particularly hard for women to seek help as they were so often mostly confined to the domestic sphere. She also said that rates were rising year on year. We have had 20 to 30 female patients and 10 to 12 child patients each month this year, which is more than the numbers last year, unfortunately, she said. While 58 women and 43 children had been successfully treated at Shahamat in the first six months of this year, she noted that many others found it hard to give up drugs completely. We have had patients who have become addicted again after their treatment and have returned for even the third or fourth time, she said. One of the issues is the scarcity of drug treatment facilities available for women. Ghulam Jilani Daqiq, the head of counter-narcotics in Herat, told IWPR that there were four clinics and two hospitals treating addicts in the province. Just two of the clinics accepted women, each with capacity for 50 beds. Officials say that this provision will increase when a new addiction treatment centre, currently under construction, is completed in the next few months. Asif Kabir, head of public health in Herat, said that 510 places will then be made available, with almost half allocated for women. But Herat provincial council member Mehdi Hadid still accused the government of dragging their heels when it came to action against drug addiction. More treatment facilities were needed for women, as well as greater public awareness about the dangers and consequences of drug use, he said. Hadid agreed that the main cause of addiction amongst women was the influence of their husbands, adding, Husbands get their wives addicted to drugs so that they share the burden of blame and so their wives dont ask for a divorce. Dad Mohammad Wahedi, acting director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in the western zone, said the problem among women was fuelled by the easy access to drugs in the province and the lack of targeted government action. The AIHRC had done some work to try and raise awareness of the problem, but had had little impact, he continued. The government should arrest and punish those who sell drugs, he said. If they ignore it the way they have done so far, its not only the number of female addicts that will rise but also young people and adults in general. Originally published on Jan. 12, 2017 TOLOnews.com, January 16, 2017 By Mirabed Joyenda Photo: UNAMA Photo: UNAMA Reiterating calls for humanitarian assistance, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR) said on Sunday that out of 550,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) registered in the country, only 72,000 of them have been resettled in their regions. This comes amid a harsh winter, with temperatures expected to continue to drop. As the weather deteriorates, the plight of IDPs worsens, said the ministry. Thousands of IDPs are currently housed in flimsy tents in Kabul and other regions after being forced to flee to safety due to ongoing violence. Mohammad Noor is IDPs who fled Kunduz three months ago and along with his wife and eight children are living in desperate conditions. We are here and praying to God, no one is there to help us, we lost everything we had and our children are suffering from a food shortage, he said. We go out and collect plastic and paper and burn them to keep ourselves warm, said Noors daughter Kalima. If government does not help IDPs, their tents will fill up with water and they will face more problems, said another IDP Anzor Safai, referring to the heavy snowfalls recorded in Kabul in the past two days. Based on MoRR statistics, only 72,000 of the IDPs from the total of 550,000 have been resettled. We have around 7,000 IDPs only in Kabul and the majority of them were provided with cash, clothes and food, said MoRR spokesman Islamuddin Juraat. The majority of IDPs come from a number of war-hit regions such as Kunduz, Helmand, Nangarhar, Farah, Uruzgan, Faryab, Ghazni, Sar-e-Pul, Paktia, Baghlan and Badghis provinces. According to MoRR, the overall number of IDPs in the country is estimated to be around 1.3 million. Martin Luther King proclaimed that he had a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. His dream was far more powerful than it is given credit for. It is a general call for freedom and free-market prosperity. People can not be free unless they are free from the constraints of government and can choose where to work, what to do, where to travel and reside, what to purchase, what school to attend, and so on, on the basis of what they perceive is best for them and their families. There is no freedom without without a free market system and the ability to own what you want and to keep what you own. Through his work to expand freedom, Martin Luther King aided out market economys ability to create wealth for all Americans. To prove to oneself that freedom and free markets are necessary for prosperity, one only needs to look around the world and ask why some nations are rich and others dirt poor. The Index of Economic Liberty produced by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Organization or the Freedom of the World, by the Fraser Institute document that the freest nations are also the wealthiest nations. How and why does this occur? Market prices communicate information on what people desire most as consumers, and on how they can, as producers, develop and use their talents to best serve consumers. These market pries and the incentives they provide are distorted when some are denied opportunities to get a good education, take jobs for which they are qualified, and shop where they choose. Our market economy and the opportunities and prosperity it provides depend on freedom. But freedom also depends on markets. Freedom is more easily accepted when market prices are motivating people to use their freedom in ways that serve the interests of others. Markets also disperse authority, making it less likely that power will become concentrated in the hands of a few elite who can use it to perpetuate their control by suppressing the freedom of others. No one argues that the market economy always works perfectly, or that it eliminates restrictions on freedom motivated by prejudice and those wiling to pay the cost of that prejudice. If it did, there would have been no need for the civil-rights movement and few would have heard of Martin Luther King. Freedom is best protected and extended in economies relying on markets. Freedoms taken for granted in market economies are routinely, and often brutally, suppressed in economies relying on state ownership and central planning. How successful would a champion of freedom for an oppressed group have been in the former Soviet Union or China during the 1950s and 1960s, or be today in North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Sudan or Zimbabwe? Fortunately, Martin Luther King was born in America. And through his eloquence, heroic action and sacrifice he led a civil-rights movement that extended the freedom that most Americans had long enjoyed to African Americans the freedom to pursue their goals and dreams by making the fullest use od their talents and energies. The value of our own freedom is something we all understand. But, it is often overlooked that in a market economy the value of our freedom is increased as more people share in that freedom. As the great economist Friedrich Hayek pointed out in his 1960 book, The Constitution of Liberty, most of the value we receive from expanding freedoms are not from those we take advantage of ourselves but from the freedoms taken advantage from others. When African Americans have the freedom to get the educations, work in the jobs, and start the businesses that improve their lives they are also improving the lives, and prosperity of all of us. Of course, its not just the additional wealth that we realize from expanding freedom that defines the legacy of Martin Luther King. Freedom is valuable for reasons that cannot be measured in strictly economic terms, and the blessings of freedom can be fully realized only when they are available to all. We are all diminished morally, as well as economically, when some are denied the freedom to realize their full potential. Martin Luther King made an enormous contribution to the economic well-being of all Americans. In market economies, freedom and prosperity reinforce each other and Martin Luther King deserves the gratitude of all Americans for his contribution to both expanding our freedom and increasing our free-market prosperity. 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Volunteer activities might not make the cut when all other time and energy is directed towards making money and pursuing future careers. It is unfortunate that giving back to our communities has to be put on hold. We should all look for ways to make volunteering more accessible and manageable for ourselves and others. So maybe you didn't get a seat to that other big event last week, but for all of you who missed out on witnessing President Obama's farewell address in person, get ready for the next historically significant affair rolling into town: Bono, Drumming Bono, Bass Bono and The Edge Bono will all be here for two shows this June. Heck, even Barack is a fanhe entered the stage to "City of Blinding Lights" before taking the podium. And that's not where the overlap ends. Both events are throwbacks. 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While tickets to Obama's speech were free, tickets to the upcoming concerts will be not free. The shows themselves will probably be lacking the somber tone that cast a pall over McCormick Place. After all, U2 was able to spend 30 more years (and counting) writing, playing and touring after the release of "Joshua Tree." As far as the exit of POTUS No. 44 goes, we're still not sure if Earth will still exist in June. Either way, both events are worth celebrating. Whether you're a 27-year-old former community organizer who said "Yes we can" or you're a 44-year-old Notre Dame grad who still mouths the words to "With or Without You," you know that squeezing as hard as you can onto a cherished past helps summon the will to power through, even when so much in the world has changed. As fans and Americans, perhaps we still haven't found what we're looking for but we can keep searching together. See you at Soldier Field. Get more from The Second City at secondcity.com 'I expect a demand stimulus in the Budget." 'There has been such a shock to the economy that such a stimulus would be needed.' Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com Leo Puri, managing director, UTI Mutual Fund, tells Sheetal Agarwal that the effects of demonetisation should wear out by March. What is your outlook for 2017? It will be a better year for the equity markets. Though demonetisation has deferred earnings, that is a deferral of demand and not destruction. This deferral could be priced back in the next two quarters. I see that as a positive driver in 2017. We know much more about where the world is headed and a lot of uncertainty has been discounted. This is not to say that there will not be some continued volatility in 2017, but there is the likelihood of a stimulus in US spending, which could act as a locomotive for the global economy. You will have stress on global trade, but that affects India less because we are still relatively a domestic-demand story. So if we stay focused on our own reforms, we have an opportunity to separate ourselves as a very attractive fast-growing economy. People could once again go overweight on India from the neutral position that they have reverted to in the last few months. I don't think debt markets will see the low to mid teen gains that we saw in 2016. I don't anticipate the same room for rate cuts in FY18. I think we should still see flows coming into debt and balanced products because some amount of reallocation towards security and safety is also happening. What will be the impact of demonetisation and when will it start phasing out? Clearly, demonetisation has impacted consumer spending, real estate and the non-bank and small bank finance sectors. This impact should in my view be mitigated by the end of the financial year, which is three months from now. The phasing out will depend on the speed at which cash is replaced in the economy and how quickly digital cash is adopted. I think we will get at least 75% of the cash back in the system in the next two, three months. Are further measures necessary to turn demonetisation into a success? Two things often talked about are electoral funding reforms and reforms in the real estate sector. The prime minister has alluded to the fact that there will be some consensus on election reforms. They should move quickly on that because it will not be politically wise to drag one's feet on this. Beyond that I expect a demand stimulus in the Budget because there has been such a shock to the economy that such a stimulus would be needed. And later in the year I also expect an infrastructure spending stimulus. Do you think the goods and services tax will be passed in FY18? That's a political call. It is disappointing that some politicians are using demonetisation as a means to hold up the GST. I hope they relent on that. But even if not, you have the process in September. I think the Budget will assume that the GST is going to happen during FY18. I would be surprised if it made any other assumptions. We should expect teething problems even after its implementation. It will take one or maybe two years for things to settle down. The GST is based on the principle of value add and it will be a major dent in the whole process of inventory fudging, which has been the root cause of much of the black economy in the country. It will be much harder to do under invoicing/over invoicing. To that extent there will be greater transparency. What are your expectations from the Budget? The Budget will have two elements to it. One, there will be some demand stimulus in terms of a moderation in direct tax rates, whether that happens through a change in the threshold or a direct impact on levels of corporate and personal tax. I also think there will be a well-defined commitment to infrastructure spending as part of the theme on economic reforms and good governance. One other element I hope finds space is the continued focus on the financial sector, which received a lot of attention last year. I hope we return to the task of early recapitalisation and enhancement of governance in those institutions. Ashley Furniture Industries, which made a debut in India last month in Bengaluru, planning to open 100 stores in India over the next few years. American brand Ashley, considered to be among the biggest furniture brands globally, is planning to open 100 stores in India over the next few years. The company, which made a debut in India last month in Bengaluru, has tied up with Pune-based Deepak Fertiliser for its Ishanya property. Unlike IKEA, the Swedish multinational group that is setting up outlets in India, Ashley has opted for the licensing route to enter the market. Wisconsin-based Ashley Furniture Industries is one of the largest manufacturers of furniture in the world with 12 manufacturing facilities, eight of which are in the United States and four in Asia. Though Ashley came to India about 14 years ago to source products such as furnishings, rugs and dining tables, it is now keen to tap the Indian market. Globally, it supplies furniture to more than 6,000 retail partners in 123 countries, delivering more than 30 million pieces every year. Robin Lim, vice president, sales, Asia, Ashley HomeStore, told Business Standard that the firm had not finalised the timeline for more stores in India. It will depend on the capability of our licensees in different cities. We are looking at Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and other cities, he said. Lim said that the company would offer lifestyles such as Urbanology, Vintage Casual, Traditional, Contemporary and New Traditions in India. The Pune store, which opened on January 14, will be a major boost to Deepak Fertiliser-owned Ishanya, which is spread over 400,000 square feet of retail space in the Yerawada area. The Ishanya property has positioned itself as a concept mall for home interiors and design, and has brands like @Home, HomeTown, blueFROG, Bose, Rawat Kitchens, Muslin, Masper, Natural Living, In Living and Accessories. It also launched an exquisite home lifestyle concept -- Houslife. According to Mahesh M, chief executive officer, Ishanya, about 60 per cent of the space is for home and interior lifestyle. Another 30-35 per cent is for food and beverages while the remaining space is for the co-working sectors and design education. At Ishanya, our theme is to inspire joy of creation in every customer we serve, he said. According to Mahesh, Ashley and Ishanya will share sales margins while the management at the front-end and back-end, along with product support and merchandising, will be done by Ashley itself. The sourcing for India would be largely from Ashleys Vietnam manufacturing facility, said Mahesh. Lim said the American company entered Asia five years ago and now had a presence in countries such as China, Indonesia and South Korea with over 150 stores. Furniture is about five per cent of the total organised retail market in India. We are seeing important trends here. We should be able to provide products, whether from the design, comfort or price point of view, said Lim. For Ishanya, the group is aiming to attract customers not just from Pune but adjoining places as well. We want to create destination for people from six cities including Mumbai, Satara and Kolhapur. It should have everything for everyone, therefore, we curate our brands, said Mahesh. Image used for representational purposes only. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images Two stock market experts discuss their wishlist for Union Budget 2017 with Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com. Deven Choksey, managing director, K R Choksey, a Mumbai brokerage firm. What are your expectations from Union Budget 2017 for the stock market? The stock market is definitely wanting to see some profound reforms which could possibly come (in this years Union Budget). The reforms can be in the areas of direct taxes; these may include personal tax like removal or concessions and at the same time this would mean a lowering of income tax rates, so more money is left in the hands of individuals for spending as well as for saving purpose. I think this could drive the economy to a higher growth level and the stock market would be happy with it if it happens. Do you have a Budget wishlist? 1. Implementation of indirect taxes reforms, which are out of the purview of the Budget now; but that is definitely finding mention in the Budget 2. Bringing direct tax reforms to phase out personal income tax, and stay focused on two taxes in the country, that is, goods and services tax and corporate tax. 3. Giving a thrust to the infrastructure-related growth and improving upon ease of doing business further. What sectors should investors focus on before the Budget? My investments never happen because of the budget, honestly. I look at the business, its ultimate strength and put my money into that business; so honestly, for the sake of Budget or for budgetary proposals, that doesnt mean anything. The company's business would be more important beyond the Budget itself, which helps in the long run. Ambareesh Baliga, Independent Market Analyst. What are your expectations from Budget 2017 for the stock market? Infrastructure sector has to be given a major boost for this is the only sector which can kickstart the economy and other sectors like auto. The major issue is the funds for the infra sector, for the government doesnt have much funds to invest. It is a different thing to announce the Budget, but on the other hand, the government will need international long-term funds to get the sector going. Your budget wishlist? Infrastructure sector needs a big boost, and clarity on how various big-ticket infra projects will achieve financial closure. The domestic area where we can move in fast is housing and construction. I am expecting further boosts for affordable housingswhich should also include sops for the economically weaker sections. These two sectors will ensure enough employment is generated and ultimately provide a boost to the Indian economy. Demonetisation was a sentiment spoiler, so I think there should be enough sops for the common man so that he ends up getting more than what he has been spending in last two months, so that spending is brought back to normal. I am looking for some tax sops in the form of direct taxes and tax benefits in the affordable housing segment. What sectors should investors focus on before the Union Budget? Sectors to focus on before the Budget will be housing, cement and related ones like automobiles. Complete coverage: Union Budget 2017 5.6 per cent of Infosyss revenues came from such platforms and software products at the end of December last year, and the company has a revenue target of $20 billion by 2020. Infosys, Indias second-largest software exporter, is planning to take its software platforms to a larger set of customers and earn 10 per cent of its revenues from them by 2020. Infosys earns nearly 95 per cent of its revenues from traditional services and has been pushing software-led services to clients, using platforms such as the artificial intelligence tool Mana and cloud-based commerce platforms like Skava, Edge and Panaya. The company has a revenue target of $20 billion by 2020. At the end of December last year, 5.6 per cent of Infosyss revenues (nearly Rs 2,876 crore of Rs 51,364 crore) came from such platforms and software products. The platforms business offers us to scale disproportionately unlike increment growth in traditional services. We have used it internally, taking it as a service to our customers, Pravin Rao, chief operating officer, Infosys, told Business Standard in an interview. We have around 1,000 customers. But the universe is huge. For example, Mana, an artificial intelligence-based platform or software, helps enterprises automate its processes using data from machine and human experience. Industry experts say Mana, while it is offered to its clients within the main software service to enhance productivity, can be sold also as individual software through a licence-fee model. Infosyss Skava is a mobile-first platform that helps retail businesses in digital marketing and customer engagement using cloud-based applications. Given its guidance, announced on Friday, to grow between 8.4 per cent and 8.8 per cent, the company should add $800 million to its 2015-16 revenue of $9.5 billion. This suggests Infosys has to achieve faster growth to add another $10 billion in three years. While Mana can be used as an automation tool across the companys verticals, it can potentially grow as individual automation-based software too, thereby giving additional revenue. I dont think any other tier-I IT services player is working on such a model, said Pareekh Jain of HfS Research, a global information technology research firm. Jain, however, says Infosys has a long way to go. If such a software-only model is followed, there should not be limitations for third-party implementation on the clients side. IT services players say that legacy software maintenance services, which continue to be the core business of Indias four big firms, are seeing continuous pricing pressure. The digital-technology business, led by cloud-based services and artificial intelligence, is seeing faster growth. But, for Indian players, digital-technology growth is not offsetting the pressure on traditional side. As the company chalks out a go-to-market strategy to monetise the digital-technology platforms as independent software, Rao says it will need more such platforms. We cant just have four platforms, we need more. There are thoughts on this and we will formalise in our strategy meet in March on how to take this in a bigger way. Ever since Vishal Sikka took charge as chief executive officer, an analyst said the companys repeated position has been that only traditional services will not help it achieve growth. Productised services will allow Infosys earn revenues beyond the per employee per hour model, thereby impacting the overall growth. Market regulator also announces measures for mutual funds sector. Capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India has introduced more checks and balances for mergers and acquisitions involving unlisted companies to curb manipulation. The move comes in the wake of instances where unlisted companies are merged with listed companies with ulterior motives. Sebi also announced a number of measures pertaining to the mutual fund sector, allowing it to invest in newer instruments, such as real estate investment trusts (ReITs) and permitting fund houses to use celebrities for industry-level advertisements. Besides these, Sebi also cut turnover fees by 25 per cent paid by brokers. This will result in reduction of overall cost of transactions and will benefit the investors and promote the development of securities market, Sebi said in a release. It also eased the eligibility criteria for municipalities to issue municipal bonds and enabled digital payment to Sebi by intermediaries. The tightening of M&A rules is aimed at further safeguarding the interest of public shareholders in listed companies. Under the new guidelines, the public shareholding of the resultant entity created by the merger of an unlisted and a listed company has to be more than 25 per cent. The objective is to have wider public shareholding and to prevent a very large unlisted company to get listed by merging with a very small company, said Sebi. Further, the unlisted entity will only be allowed to merge with companies listed on exchanges that have a nationwide terminal, such as the National Stock Exchange and BSE. The market regulator also clarified that the pricing formula specified under the Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements regulations shall be applicable in cases where shares are being issued to select a group of shareholders instead of all shareholders pursuant to the scheme. The move comes after a recent merger involving insurance companies HDFC Life and Max Life had raised questions over non-compete fees paid to the promoters of the Max group. The regulations attempt to ensure the rights of the public shareholders are protected and also give them a greater look-in on merger with unlisted subsidiaries, said Sanjeev Krishan, partner and leader (deals), PwC India. Sebi further said that companies would be required to submit a compliance report confirming compliance with the circular and accounting standards duly certified by company secretary, chief financial officer and managing director. Now Sebi would be able to effectively intervene by raising objections in a scheme, before a high court approves such schemes, said Sumit Agrawal, partner, Suvan Law Advisors. Sebi permitted the Rs 16.5-lakh crore domestic mutual fund sector to use celebrities for endorsements. The rider is celebrities can only be used for industry-level ads and not at the fund house or the scheme level. Sebi also tweaked the way MFs publish their scheme performance in advertisements. Performance of MF schemes shall be advertised in terms of CAGR for the past one year, three years, five years and since inception; in place of current requirement to publish schemes returns for as many twelve-month periods as possible for the past three years, Sebi said. The move was widely expected. It will actually simplify the communication better, unlike earlier when it was very complicated and difficult for investors to absorb the information on particular schemes, said Dhirendra Kumar, CEO, Value Research. On allowing celebrity endorsements, A Balasubramanian, CEO, Birla Sun Life AMC, said, The move will help in the growth of the MF industry. MFs deserve bigger endorsement opportunity and celebrities have a better connect. The MF industry has a great potential to grow. Added Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance MF, Given the poor penetration of the MF industry, an additional push to reach out to more investors was needed. Besides, Sebi has allowed MFs invest instruments such as ReITs and infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) with riders. Sebi said an MF scheme cannot own more than 10 per cent of units issued by a single issuer of ReITs and InvITs. A scheme cannot invest more than five per cent of its assets in a single ReIT or InvIT. The proposal is in line with investments in unlisted securities where open-ended funds cannot invest more than five per cent. This is to reduce the exposure to relatively illiquid investments, said Dhirendra Kumar. When Nitin Gadkari took charge as Road Transport and Highways Minister in 2014, he had set a target of constructing 40 km a day in two years. But construction at this point is a mere 16 km a day. Megha Manchanda on what ails the road sector. IMAGE: Nitin Gadkari recently hinted at the government scaling down its target of awarding 25,000 km of highway contracts in 2016-17. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters . The Ghaziabad section of the National Highway-24 from Delhi to Meerut recently became a metaphor for what ails the roads sector. At a press conference last month, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said, "I am approached only by people who want to stop the construction of some road or the other. No one asks me when a project will start." The National Highway-24 project has been delayed by at least five years because the National Green Tribunal's (NGT's) approval nod on some constructions was awaited. In November, the Tribunal approved the construction of the two bridges on Yamuna and two flyovers on each side of the existing one near the Commonwealth Games Village. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was indignant at the slow pace of the Rs 6,700-crore project, aimed at reducing the travel time from Meerut to Delhi by 30-45 minutes, during a review meeting in October. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) says about 90 per cent of the project land has been acquired. When Gadkari took charge of his ministry in 2014, he had set for himself a target of constructing 40 km a day in two years. The length of the highways awarded and constructed between April and November 2016 is 5,688 km and 4,021 km, respectively. This means the construction is a mere 16 km a day. It is not that the government has not taken initiatives to spur investment. One such initiative was the exit policy framework permitting concessionaires or developers to divest 100 per cent equity two years after the completion of construction. In May 2015, the government allowed developers to exit highway projects two years after completion mainly to unlock investments worth Rs 4,500 crore and provide a renewed thrust to the sector. These projects were in advanced stages of completion but were stuck due to lack of additional equity or the lenders' inability to further disburse. The decision was taken because the sector was struggling to attract investment under the PPP (public-private partnership) model. The government's effort to unlock investment in the highways sector may have taken off with a hybrid annuity model, with some 33 national highway projects costing around Rs 29,450 crore being awarded under this mode, but litigation surrounding land acquisition and environment issues is still keeping the sector in the slow lane. There are many such contracts hanging fire, including the Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu) to Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) project. An official in the road ministry said land was acquired for the Kanyakumari-Thiruvananthapuram project with much difficulty. The EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract on connecting the two states is expected to be of Rs 1,200 crore, and will be executed by the NHAI. Many projects get stuck because of contractors approaching the NGT, according to the official. Infrastructure experts say the government should be responsible for finishing projects in time. "This is not the first time that one arm of the government is blaming the other for delays. Judicial issues come up when the construction norms are not met by the concessionaire," said Vishwas Udgirkar, senior director, Deloitte India. He said the responsibility for ironing out issues like land acquisition, environment clearances and legal hurdles lay with the government. "These (land acquisition, environment clearances, legal issues) are not unexpected issues, but if they are taken care of, finance will automatically come," Udgirkar said. These delays have a cascading effect on the overall progress of the infrastructure sector as the government stares at a slower pace of road construction, bundled with lowering highway contract awards during the current financial year (2016-17). Gadkari recently hinted at the government scaling down its target of awarding 25,000 km of highway contracts in 2016-17. With a downswing in the award of road contracts, the pace of highway construction will take a hit. 'I've been the first transgender to step out of my community.' 'Indians are far more broad-minded and receptive.' Anjali Lama, 32, was born as a boy (Nabin Wabia) in Nuwakot, Nepal. Her childhood days were spent struggling to come to terms with her identity. Once she moved to Kathmandu for higher studies, she decided to embrace her true self. Anjali underwent a sex change surgery much to her family's reluctance. Today, at 32, she has come a long way in the modelling world and her struggle has been the subject of a documentary on the lives of transsexuals, Anjali: Living Inside Someone Else's Skin. She will be one of five new faces to walk at the coming Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017. In an e-mail interview with Rediff.com's Anita Aikara, Anjai talks about her struggle, growing up as a boy and facing difficulties as a transgender model. Photograph: Kind courtesy Anjali Lama/Instagram Height: 5'9" Weight: 54 kg Are you excited to be a part of the Lakme Fashion Week? How did you prepare for the model auditions? I'm very thrilled. This is indeed the highest recognition in my career till date. Lakme Fashion Week is not a cakewalk. This has come to me after two strong denials. I first heard about the model auditions from their Instagram handle. Living in the hinterland of Nepal, I found digital and social media as the best way to connect with the outside world. I then e-mailed them, confirming my eligibility criteria. After receiving the confirmation, I started doing secondary research on models dynamics and gestures to participate at the auditions. Will you be the first transgender model to walk the ramp at LFW? I am not the first one. LFW has been working on our inclusivity since years; season after season. I certainly believe I've been the first transgender to step out of my community and society. Indians in general are far more broad-minded and receptive to witness this inclusivity constructively. IMAGE: Anjali, second from left, with celebrity judge Pooja Hegde (in red) and the other winners of the Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017 model auditions. Photograph: Kind Courtesy Lakme Fashion Week Did you always want to be a model? Yes, like every other girl, I grew up flipping through glossy magazines dreaming of becoming a model one day. At what age did you get your first break? My first break was a photo shoot for a cover page of a magazine. It was in 2009 and I must have been in my early twenties. What is the biggest criticism you had to deal with? What did you do about it? Criticism is (faced) everywhere, irrespective of gender and community, race, religion, caste and creed. Being a transgender got me criticism and rejection too. But I took it as a challenge. I never let myself get bogged down by criticism. I could either forgive or forget -- both worked for me. IMAGE: Anjali on the cover of Movers &Shakers - The Kathmandu Post. Photograph: Kind courtesy Anjali Lama/Instagram The best thing about being a model? Models are public figures. We mostly get appreciated. But we also carry a sensible responsibility (on our shoulders) when we associate or endorse any brand. Our work makes us credible. Unlike other professions, here you don't have the freedom to eat or wear anything as you can be photographed without your knowledge. Have you ever faced difficulties modelling as a transgender model? I faced immense difficulties as a transgender model. Despite better performances and credible work, rejections came my way. I am happy that platforms like Lakme Fashion Week exist in India. What were your growing up years like? When did you decide to change your gender? How did your parents react? My growing years in Nuwakot had been the period of self-contemplation coupled with self-doubt and living under the immense pressure of societal sexual standards. I was a boy, but my behaviour was always questioned under the rules of gender stereotypes. My limitless closeness with my mother and befriending girls in the school brought me huge criticism and inner-confusion. The most shocking part was the urban experience, which was exactly similar even with broader understanding. It was during my college years that I decided to live the identity of my heart. Unfortunately, my parents weren't supportive after the gender change. Did you face any societal pressure? Were your friends supportive of your decision? During my early years, I realised that males are still a favourable sex, by and large. Turning from a boy to a girl is blasphemous to some minds. My family, friends and relatives were not supportive. So, I preferred to disconnect myself from them. IMAGE: Anjali, second from right, with the winner of the Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2017 model auditions. Photograph: Kind Courtesy Lakme Fashion Week How easy/tough was the sex change process? Keeping aside the financial part, which was undoubtedly tough to manage, there was a fair amount of pain for a month. However, the pain was worth it as I knew the experience was going to get me closer to my true and real self. What was the biggest fear before making the big decision? I believed in God and hence, was not scared. Has your fame changed people's opinions now? I think fame and hard work go hand-in-hand. When your hard work fetches fame for you, you must work even harder to retain and nurture it. I certainly believe that fame changes people's perception. It brings respect and appreciation for you. My win at the Lakme Fashion Week got me tremendous appreciation from my community as well as friends. I'm continuously trying to change the overall self-evaluation criteria of individuals like me in my community. I have always listened to my heart and would request everyone to do the same. IMAGE: Anjali is extremely content with her modelling success, but there are times she misses her family too. Photograph: Kind courtesy Anjali Lama/Instagram Do you feel more at peace with yourself now? It's sometimes scary to be alone, but I feel happy with the success I have got. I always keep myself busy. It helps me be at peace with myself. I certainly miss my family and friends. Had they been here, the fun and excitement would have quadrupled. Who inspires you? My mother. She is my support system and she gives me my determination and strength. Professionally, I am a great fan of Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima. What's your success mantra? Hard work is my only mantra. I describe myself as a person with strong self-determination, an attitude to never give up and an ability to choose people wisely, who will encourage me to prosper. What's your advice to aspiring models? Is there any message you'd want to send out to transgender models who are struggling to break free? Be confident and be yourself. Prepare a lot; prepare thoroughly. Be natural and simple. Understand your body and work accordingly. How do you like to unwind? I like to travel to natural landscapes and watch movies. Indian-American Congresswoman from Seattle Pramila Jayapal has announced that she won't attend Donald Trump's inauguration this week, saying the President-elect's 'language and actions' undermine America's democracy and its history. 'I did not undertake the decision lightly, Jayapal said in a statement. So far two dozen United States lawmakers have announced that they are boycotting Trumps inauguration. 'I had hoped in the days following the election that we would see a President-elect who broke from his campaign rhetoric and worked to unite the American people. Instead, we have seen this President-elect continue to use language and take actions that demean our history and our heroes, and undermine our democracy,' she said. The only lawmaker to oppose Trump's presidential victory confirmation during the joint session of the Congress early this month, Jayapal alleged that his Cabinet appointments underscore the grave threat to the country that his presidency represents. Appointments of people such as Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions and Andrew Pudzer threaten the very fabric of our country and the institutions that these men and women will lead. The continued promises to create a Muslim registry, to repeal DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and punish women for abortions, fly in the face of our 7th District values, she said. Instead of being in Washington, DC attending the swearing-in ceremony of Donald Trump, Jayapal said she would be with her constituents attending a seminar on immigration. My decision to be here in the district with my constituents who are truly terrified that they will no longer have a home in this city and country was not, at the time, a boycott of the inauguration...I believe my first responsibility is to listen to my constituents and to be with them, through the darkest of times,' she said. If I had any doubts about my decision, however, my resolve has only strengthened in the past few days as I watched Donald Trump's response to one of our countrys great civil rights icons and a personal hero of mine, Congressman John Lewis. With Donald Trumps tweet, he himself has inflamed the situation and now two dozen of my colleagues will also not be attending the inauguration. It has become a boycott, she said. Jayapal said she understands that she and others are breaking from long-standing tradition of bipartisan attendance at the Presidential inauguration. However, these are not normal times and one cannot pretend it is so, she argued. If we are worried about breaking from long-standing tradition, let us focus on the fact that when this President is sworn in on January 20, he will be in violation of the Constitution, the very document that he will swear to protect and defend. His disregard for the conflicts of interest he brings into this office and refusal to address those conflicts are the break from tradition on which we should focus, Jayapal said. Events that shaped the nation in the past 48 hours in images. Farmers from Siddalingapura village in Mysore celebrate Sankaranthi (Pongal) festival by jumping bulls on the fire, on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo School boys look at a gun mounted on a tank during a "Know Our Forces" exhibition organised by the Indian Army on the occasion of Army Day at Rashtriya Military School in Ajmer. Photograph: Himanshu Sharma/Reuters Activists of the youth wing of the Congress take part in a protest against the government's demonetisation policy and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's replacement of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi as the 2017 face of the government's traditional handloom and cotton industry, in Chandigarh. Photograph: Ajay Verma/Reuters Folk artists performing during the 24th International Camel Festival, in Bikaner on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo RJD Cheif Lalu Yadav serves Tilkut, a traditional dish, to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during on the occasion of Makar Sankranti festival in Patna. Photograph: PTI Photo Family members mourn the death of their relatives who died after a boat capsized in river Ganga, in Patna on Saturday night. Photograph: PTI Photo Tourists enjoying snow at Mahasu Peak following heavy snowfall at Kufri in Shimla. Photograph: PTI Photo Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani flying a kite during the kite festival of Uttarayan, in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo Traffic police giving tilgul, a sesame sweet, to motorists for not wearing helmets, to spread awareness about traffic rules and safety on Makar Sankranti, at a traffic signal near Nerul in Mumbai on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo People from the Sikh community taking out a religious procession and displaying Sikh martial arts at Beltola Gurdwara in Guwahati to mark 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo The Election Commission is likely to pronounce its order on Monday about which of the two Samajwadi Party factions -- one backing Mulayam Singh Yadav and the other his son Akhilesh will be allotted the party symbol cycle. The three-member poll body, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, on Friday heard the arguments put forward by the two factions. The Commissions order is expected on Monday as the notification for the first phase of the seven-phase assembly elections in the state will be issued on Tuesday. The Samajwadi Party fight refuses to subside, as the current stalemate between Akhilesh and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav over the post of the party president, failed to reach a conclusion. According to sources, Mulayam told Akhilesh to step down from the post saying that he would remain to be the partys face for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. But Akhilesh refused the offer, saying he would pass on the baton once the elections are over. The sources further state that the meeting is likely to take place again to discuss about the same. Claiming that India did not want to continue the process of negotiations with Islamabad and reduce tensions, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday warned India of severe consequences in case of a surgical strike on his country. "If India conducts a surgical strike such a response would be given that the country would not even dream of it," Asif said in a fiery speech during the Senate session. He was speaking on a motion moved by Senator Sehar Kamran regarding the situation arising out of the alleged Indian violations of the Line of Control and ceasefire on the working boundary, resulting in the loss of precious lives. "A befitting response would be given if India dared to carry out surgical strikes inside Pakistan," he said, adding India's claims of surgical strikes were "baseless and false." He claimed that India was making failed attempts to link the Kashmir insurgency with cross border infiltration and terrorism, Radio Pakistan reported. The minister claimed that India carried out 330 ceasefire violations including 290 on LoC and 40 on the Working Boundaries till December last. He said 45 Pakistani civilians were killed and 138 injured in the violations. He said the frequency of the violations have been reduced after December. The minister said the violations were effectively responded by the armed forces of the country. He said these violations were reported to United Nations Military Observer Group at the Line of Control and Working Boundaries to appraise the UN for investigations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also raised the issue at the diplomatic and bilateral levels, he added. He said that Pakistan would continue "extending political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris in their struggle for their right to self-determination." Earlier this month, Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa had said his forces are fully geared to respond to "any aggression" by India. "Pakistan's armed forces are fully geared to respond to any aggression by India," army spokesperson Major Gen Asif Ghafoor had quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. Ghafoor also tweeted that Gen Bajwa rejected the "self defeating claims" of Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat about 'so called surgical strikes' and its possible recurrence. India maintains that its forces in September last year conducted surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, targetting terrorists and destroying their training camps. Gen Rawat, who took over as the 27th chief of Indian army on December 31, had said India will give a calibrated "hard" response to terror activities that will compel Pakistan to completely rethink its strategy on supporting insurgency and terrorism. Gen Rawat was actively involved in the surgical strikes on terror camps across the LoC. At least 37 people were killed when a Turkish cargo plane crashed near Kyrgyzstans Manas airport, south of capital Bishkek, while attempting to land in thick fog. The majority of the dead are from the village of Dacha-Suu, near the airport, where the plane crashed at around 7.30 am local time, news agencies reported. The BBC said several children are reported to have been among those killed. Agency reports say that around 43 houses were damaged by the crash, according to the emergency services ministry, which said that the accident sparked fires. The cargo plane, belonging to the Istanbul-based ACT Airlines, was en route to Istanbul from Hong Kong via Kyrgyzstans capital Bishkek. Four pilots of the plane also died in the incident. The Kyrgyz government was considering pilot error as a possible cause, but it is still too early to draw a conclusion, First Deputy Prime Minister Mukhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said in comments carried by state news agency Kabar. Visibility was poor because of thick fog at the time, but the cause of the crash has not yet been confirmed, said the BBC. The airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening, airport authorities said. Image: Debris is seen at the crash site of a Turkish cargo jet near Kyrgyzstan's Manas airport outside Bishkek. Photograph: Reuters 'I will live for Muslims and die for them also. If it comes to Muslims' interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh),' said Mulayam, stressing that Akhilesh has a 'negative approach' towards the community. Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday stunned party workers by declaring he would fight against son Akhilesh Yadav if he did not shed his negative approach towards the Muslims, in an apparent effort to keep the community glued to him after a split. With the party he founded 25 years ago in a quandary following the revolt by his chief minister son and a split in the Muslim votes appearing a foregone conclusion, Mulayam, in a bid to get the backing of the community, which has stood solidly behind him for years, minced no words in accusing Akhilesh of nurturing a negative approach towards them. The hard-hitting remarks by the 77-year-old leader came when he addressed party workers at the SP headquarters amid the battle for supremacy in the states ruling party, just a day before filing of nominations starts for 73 seats in western UP having considerable presence of Muslims. Apparently resigned to admitting the split in the party, Mulayam said he was helpless in preventing it but made it clear he would move court if the Election Commissions decision on partys name and election symbol bicycle went against him. I always advocated the interest of Muslims. When I ensured appointment of a Muslim as states Director General of Police, Akhilesh did not talk to me for 15 days. He did not want any Muslim on this post. It sent out an anti-Muslim message, he alleged. The SP founder alleged that Akhilesh had a negative approach towards Muslims and that he was playing into the hands of Ram Gopal Yadav, who was working on directions of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Akhilesh is acting at the behest of Ram Gopal. If he does not listen, I will fight against him, he said, adding Ram Gopal has been giving instructions to Akhilesh from Delhi over phone. Mulayams cousin and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav has stood by Akhilesh in the fight for control over the party. I will live for Muslims and die for them. If it comes to Muslims interest, I will also fight against him (Akhilesh), he said. Mulayam currently represents Azamgarh in the Lok Sabha. Dont you know how I took a stand to prevent demolition of Babri Masjid? We were in crisis then too, Mulayam told a crowd of party workers, most of them Muslims. Mulayam had earned the sobriquet of Mullah after the police firing on Karsevaks (Hindu volunteers) in Ayodhya to protect the Babri mosque. I have made a lot of sacrifices to build the party. He (Akhilesh) is not adhering to me and sacked a number of ministers including a woman. Senior ministers were sacked without any reasons, Mulayam said. What can I do when my son has turned against me by playing into hands of Ram Gopal Yadav? he asked SP workers. Look my son has gone against me. I could never imagine that Akhilesh will ever do this to me, he lamented. Naresh Uttam, who was appointed state party chief by Akhilesh, replacing Shivpal, Mulayams younger brother, was present during the address. Interestingly, outside the office of SP president, a new name plate of Akhilesh Yadav, National President was put up below his fathers name plate Mulayam Singh Yadav, National President. Earlier, Mulayam visited brother Shivpals residence before addressing the SP workers at the party office. This was the first time since the family feud erupted that Mulayam came to the party office without Shivpal. The meeting was out of bounds for media and some workers also claimed that Mulayam used Shahjahan and Aurangzeb analogy to refer to his ouster as SP president by Akhilesh. Mulayam said he was trying his best to save the party and slammed Akhilesh for not understanding things. The state goes to the polls in seven phases beginning February 11 and analysts say the factional fight will hurt the SP. 'There were many, even in the BJP, who were not only eager to disown him, but also desired the termination of his political career.' 'Whilst I was busy defending him on television, I received a phone call one morning.' 'I couldn't identify the caller immediately, but the voice seemed to be that of an OSD in Prime Minister Vajpayee's office...' In Fly Me To The Moon, former MP Prafull Goradia provides fascinating insights into Narendra Modi: IMAGE: Once Shankersinh Vaghela had been eased out from the BJP, Narendra Modi ceased to be Keshubhai Patel's favourite. Photograph: Kind courtesy narendramodi.co.in It was evident even in those early days that Modi had enormous leadership potential. That, however, lent him no early advantage and his ride in politics was far from smooth. While his organisational capabilities and grasp of the nitty-gritty of political work was much in demand, his persona and spontaneous influence over the rank and file of the party was a niggling worry to the entrenched satrapy. Former chief minister of Gujarat Keshubhai Patel made good use of Modi, though, to keep his arch rival in state politics Shankersinh Vaghela down. A bitter struggle eventually ensued, in which Vaghela's machinations first forced Keshubhai Patel to quit office and finally, Vaghela himself formed his own Gujarat Janata Party and became chief minister with Congress support from outside. Eventually, he merged his party with the Congress. Once Vaghela had been eased out from the BJP, Narendra Modi ceased to be Keshubhai's favourite. Modi had outlived his utility for Patel. Keshubhai wasn't content with merely sidelining Modi, though; he had him transferred to Delhi as organising general secretary of the BJP. This was no ordinary political transfer. Keshubhai had enforced a stipulation that if ever Modi visited his home state, he would not meet any politician or journalist and would confine himself only to personal matters. Modi was cut up indeed, but swallowed the humiliation. * * * IMAGE: Modi, second from left, and Keshubhai Patel, fourth from left, listen as L K Advani makes a speech. Photograph: Kind courtesy narendramodi.co.in Keshubhai's machinations and the alien Delhi environs weren't the only issues Modi had to contend with. He had no proper residence in the capital and had to stay on an ad hoc basis with his friends who were members of Parliament. When I was elected to the Rajya Sabha, an apartment would be allotted to me, which I suggested Modi use as his residence. Several weeks passed before I finally obtained possession of an apartment in the capital's North Avenue, but it was a not very satisfactory one. 'Aa to bahu saro nathi (this one is not very nice),' I said to Modi, telling him that I was putting in a request for a better flat. In a few weeks, I did get a more pleasing apartment allotted to me. Narendrabhai and I went to see the place together. He seemed happy with the place. I then said I would have the flat painted and cleaned and equip it with some furniture. When leaving, we put a lock to the apartment. I gave one key to Narendrabhai and kept the other with me. IMAGE: Modi as a young RSS pracharak. Photograph: Kind courtesy narendramodi.co.in Before the renovation could take place, however, I had a phone call from the RSS chief K S Sudarshan. 'Namaskar Prafullji!' he said. 'You must have by now been allotted a new apartment.' 'Yes, sir,' I said. 'I have been allotted an apartment in North Avenue.' 'Bahut accha,' he said. 'You can then kindly pass it on to Seshadri Chari.' 'Chari?' I asked. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'the editor of The Organiser. He is a good man and in need of accommodation. I know you will not move out of your Sunder Nagar bungalow.' 'Yes,' I said. 'I am not planning to move out of Sunder Nagar, but Sudarshanji, I have promised to give my flat to Narendra Modi.' 'Narendra?' the RSS chief said. 'That is not a problem. No problem.' 'Narendra is a bachelor. He can be given one room. Chari is a family man, so he can have two. There are three rooms after all.' The Sarsanghchalak was determined to press for his protege. I held my ground and said, 'I have given my promise to Narendrabhai.' After promising to ring back in two days I got back to Modi. I told him categorically, 'I can call and tell Sudarshanji that I have already given my word and now cannot go back.' Modi said, 'No let it be.' I said, 'I have no inhibitions. I can easily give my regrets.' But Modi advised me to drop the matter. He was clear in his mind that he did not want me to take up cudgels on his behalf with the RSS chief. Thus my apartment went to Seshadri Chari. * * * IMAGE: After the horrific riots in 2002, protests against Modi erupted all over the country. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/Reuters It was the day of March 3, 2002. I happened to pay a visit to Chief Minister Modi at his bungalow. Before that, I had sat with a few BJP MPs and others for about an hour; they were clearly anxious about the rioting. They were of the opinion that the Hindu retaliation should be controlled forthwith. They and others might have been pressing Modi to do so. When I asked how, no one had an answer. Little wonder the chief minister appeared preoccupied. My meeting with the CM lasted not more than 10 minutes, during which he asked me point-blank, 'Kern lage chhe? ('How do things look?') My reply was: The situation looked explosive. * * * Back in Delhi, I was Chief Minister Narendra Modi's most vociferous defender in the electronic media, when he had virtually none. The entire secular media was gunning for him and clamoured for his ouster, with vitriol being poured on him in a manner unprecedented as far as any Indian politician is concerned. Among other programmes on the subject, I appeared on the television channel NDTV in its weekly feature called The Big Fight less than a month after the Godhra incident. * * * IMAGE: Prafull Goradia, frst from right, seen here with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Modi. Photograph: Kind courtesy narendramodi.co.in To the assertion that Modi should be dismissed, my loud and stinging riposte was: 'Narendra Modi is not your branch manager; he is the elected chief minister of Gujarat.' This is even today remembered in Gujarat among television-watchers. Modi later told me that though he'd missed watching that particular episode on NDTV, he had heard about it from others. That was believed to have been among the strongest and most vociferous defence of Narendra Modi on the English language television channel. It bears iteration here that there were many, even in the BJP, who were not only eager to disown him, but also desired the termination of his political career. Whilst I was busy defending him on television, I received a phone call one morning. I couldn't identify the caller immediately, but the voice seemed to be that of an Officer on Special Duty in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's office. He told me, 'Modi is no bhai or bhatija, no brother or nephew, of yours; why are you sticking up for him?' In other words, this was a warning from the topmost echelons of the party that I was jeopardising my political future by siding with Modi. There was an impression in Ahmedabad as well as Modi's sympathisers in Delhi that Pramod Mahajan was antagonistic towards the lion of Gujarat. This is perhaps natural for someone who dreads future competition. I do not know if Mahajan had a hand in instigating the prime minister. In any case, Vajpayee, in his penchant for appearing fair and 'secular', did want to chide Modi for his commitment to nationalism. * * * IMAGE: Vajpayee, in his penchant for appearing fair and 'secular', did want to chide Modi for his commitment to nationalism, says Prafull Goradia. Photograph: Kind courtesy narendramodi.co.in There is no one I have met who is as wholly focused on the future and does not appear to dwell on the past. The fixation with the future is of enormous advantage to Modi and to the country as long as he is PM. While Modi has some outstanding qualities, his judgement of human character is uneven. I doubt if he ever suspected that Keshubhai Patel would use and then discard him so pitilessly as to send him out on political vanvaas. Nevertheless, I am convinced that Modi as prime minister will manage India better than any other before him. He follows the federal principle in spirit. Among one of his administrative measures is to allow the states ample leeway to manage their own finances. No Indian PM has taken cognizance of the fact that no country with central planning has ever prospered. Modi realised that long back, and central planning was consigned to the archives as soon as he took over as the head of government. Narendra Modi is an introvert and does what he wills. Being a thinker, there is a great deal that he wills and does so with total conviction. And when he is forced to deviate from that, he makes his embarrassment apparent. However much an introvert Narendrabhai might be, he is also outward-looking enough to have a remarkable finger on the pulse of mass psyche. His oratory and political victories are proof of his sense of the people's mind. He can be aptly called an ambi-vert. I rate him as a political genius; the only one I have met. I wish he had an equally sharp nose for the economic as he has for the political. Excerpted from Fly Me To The Moon by Prafull Goradia, with the kind permission of the publishers, Bloomsbury. 'Cyprus can be symbol of hope' the world badly needs, says UN chief Guterres as conference opens Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, 'Cyprus can be symbol of hope' the world badly needs, says UN chief Guterres as conference opens, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c86d240e.html [accessed 4 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. 12 January 2017 - A United Nations-supported conference on Cyprus opened in Geneva today, bringing together the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leaders in a dialogue chaired by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Speaking at a press conference during a recess, the UN chief said it is my hope that there will be a breakthrough that the people of Cyprus deserve and the world needs. We are facing so many situations of disasters. We badly need a symbol of hope. I strongly believe Cyprus can be the symbol of hope at the beginning of 2017, he added. The conference brought together not only the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, but also the so-called guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom for the first time. Mr. Guterres paid tribute to the statesmanship displayed by Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci for about 20 months of negotiations toward a united Cyprus. The Secretary-General described the opening session of today's talks as "extremely constructive," adding that during lunchtime, the participants had open debate and brainstorming, in which "it was possible to identify, not only the very important progress that was made in the negotiations, as taken in the last few days on the first five chapters, but also to identify the complexity of the problems related to security and guarantees that need to be addressed and resolved." In that lunch, he continued, "it was possible to clearly come to the conclusion that we need to find instruments, instruments that allow for the implementation of the settlement that would be achieved in a way that guarantees simultaneously the response to the security concerns of the Turkish Cypriot community and the security concerns of the Greek Cypriot community." Mr. Guterres said the goal is neither a calendar nor a vanity fair, but to get the necessary results. VIDEO: Addressing reporters during a meeting break, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underscores that the conference was seeking "a solid and sustainable solution," not "a quick fix" for the Republic of Cyprus. Credit: UN News AUDIO: Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that "enormous progress" had been made on all of the contentious subjects that divide Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Credit: UN News Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (centre) briefs journalists during a recess between meetings held during a United Nations-supported conference on Cyprus. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (right) with Nicos Anastasiades (centre right) and Mustafa Akinci (left). Also pictured is Didier Burkhalter, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland. UN Photo/Violaine Martin Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (centre) at the opening of the conference flanked by Jeffrey Feltman (left) Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Espen Barth Eide UN Special Adviser on Cyprus. Also pictured are Mustafa Akinci (2nd left) and Nicos Anastasiades (2nd right). UN Photo/Amanda Voisard Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is greeted by Federica Mogherini, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, at the conference. UN Photo/Amanda Voisard "We are not looking for a quick fix. We are looking for a solid and sustainable solution," he said, noting that the conference will continue for "the amount of time necessary." He stressed that the role of the United Nations is to support the parties so that they can come to the necessary agreement. At the end of today's discussions, the UN commended Mr. Anastasiades and Mr. Akinci for the remarkable progress made over the past 20 months in the Cyprus talks and for their dedicated work that had made it possible to Conference, which, for the first time, had brought all together to discuss the chapter of security and guarantees, the sixth and last chapter of the negotiations. The world body said that the participants recognized that this is the time to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion. "This is a historic opportunity that should not be missed, said the UN adding that the participants therefore committed to supporting the process towards a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus. Noting that those common objectives will require concerted efforts by all concerned over the course of the next days, they decided to continue the Conference, in line with established precedent, with the following steps: Inter-communal tensions in Darfur threaten return of millions of displaced people, Security Council told Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 January 2017 Related Document(s) Report of the Secretary-General on the African Union United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur Cite as UN News Service, Inter-communal tensions in Darfur threaten return of millions of displaced people, Security Council told, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c8706412.html [accessed 4 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. 12 January 2017 - Armed fighting over land, water and other natural resources in Sudan's Darfur region continues to put civilians at risk, the top United Nations peacekeeping official told the Security Council today, calling for long-term solutions that would allow 2.6 million displaced people to return or resettle. Civilians remain exposed to significant sources of insecurity such as inter-communal conflict and criminality, including the activities of armed militias, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, told the Council presenting the latest report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Darfur. He added that despite a significant decrease in overall armed conflict, particularly as a result of the Government's military successes against armed movements, the situation in the region is further exacerbated by a widespread proliferation of weapons and the inadequacy of rule of law and justice institutions. Tensions between the various communities recur due to long-standing disputes over access to land and the control of water and other resources, according to information cited from the report. For example, at least 70 people were killed in the past few months in clashes between farmers and herders in seasonal migration underway in the southern part of Darfur. Such violence is raising concerns for the millions of displaced people living in bases and camps under the protection of the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). Long-term comprehensive solutions remain necessary to create the necessary conditions for the return or resettlement of the 2.6 million people who remain in displacement in the region, Mr. Ladsous said, and the resolution of the underlying causes of inter-communal conflict related to access to land, water and other natural resources. Among other points raised in his briefing, Mr. Ladsous noted that despite efforts by UNAMID and the African Union High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) and international initiatives, little tangible progress has been made in the peace efforts in Darfur. At issue are delays over agreement on the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian assistance. UN mission in South Sudan confirms discussions on regional protection force continuing Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 15 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN mission in South Sudan confirms discussions on regional protection force continuing, 15 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c87a340c.html [accessed 4 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. 15 January 2017 - The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan has confirmed that it continues its discussions with the transitional national unity Government on a 4,000-strong regional protection force, which was authorized by the Security Council last August but has yet to be deployed. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) confirms that in preparation for the arrival of the Regional Protection Force, it continues to be engaged in discussions with the Transitional Government of National Unity as to the various modalities for the new Force, including where they will be deployed in Juba, said a statement issued by the Mission's Office of the Spokesperson. The confirmation followed various media reports, including those suggesting that the Government may have changed its position on the deployment of the Force. The Mission's attention has been drawn to recent statements reported in the media concerning the deployment of the Regional Protection Force, said the spokesperson's statement. It may be recalled that the United Nations Security Council in its Resolution 2304 decided that UNMISS force levels should be increased to a ceiling of 17,000 troops, including 4,000 for a Regional Protection Force. This was reaffirmed by the Security Council in its recent Resolution 2327, renewing the United Nations Mission in South Sudan for one year, the spokesperson's statement added. Further in the statement, the Mission noted that the Transitional Government of National Unity confirmed its unconditional consent to the deployment of the Regional Protection Force by communique to the Security Council on 30 November 2016, and in renewing the UNMISS mandate, including the deployment of the Regional Protection Force, the Council reaffirmed that the security situation in South Sudan remains fragile, with serious consequences for the civilian population. In early July last year, close to the fifth anniversary of the country's independence, the youngest nation was plunged into fresh violence due to clashes between rival forces the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), loyal to President Salva Kiir, and the SPLA in Opposition, backing former First Vice-President Riek Machar. That led to deaths and injuries, including many civilians and several UNMISS peacekeepers, jeopardizing the peace agreement between the political rivals in August 2015, which formally ended their differences. More than 90 per cent of children reaching Italy's shores are separated or unaccompanied UNICEF Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, More than 90 per cent of children reaching Italy's shores are separated or unaccompanied UNICEF, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c87d640e.html [accessed 4 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. 13 January 2017 - Noting that the number of children arriving in Italy by themselves via the sea in 2016 more than doubled over the previous year, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today called for urgent and special measures to protect them from trafficking, exploitation and abuse. "These figures indicate an alarming trend of an increasing number of highly vulnerable children risking their lives to get to Europe," said Lucio Melandri, the Senior Emergency Manager at UNICEF. "Current systems in place are failing to protect [them as they] find themselves alone in a [completely] unfamiliar environment," he added, calling for a coordinated European response, given that the children are on the move. "Apart from addressing the factors that are forcing children to travel alone, a comprehensive protection, monitoring system needs to be developed to protect them," he stressed. In 2016, some 25,800 unaccompanied or separated children arrived in the European country - compared to the 12,360 who arrived in 2015. These children, arriving by themselves, also accounted for a staggering 91 per cent of all the 28,200 children who reached Italy's shores last year as refugees or migrants. A majority among of such arrivals were from Eritrea, Egypt, Gambia and Nigeria. Adding to the complex challenges, the Central Mediterranean route from North Africa to Italy also has an incredibly high ratio of unaccompanied and separated children among the refugees and migrants. Compared to other routes, only 17 per cent of the child refugees and migrants who arrived to Greece by sea in 2016, came without adult family members or guardians. "The presence of so many unaccompanied or separated children along the central Mediterranean route is unprecedented," said Mr. Melandri. "It is obviously clear that we have a serious and growing problem on our hands." Girls most at risk According to UNICEF, though most of the children were boys aged 15-17 years, younger children and girls were also among the arrivals. Girls are at a particular risk of sexual exploitation and abuse, including commercial sexual exploitation by criminal gangs. It further stated that several of the girls who were interviewed by its staff earlier this year in Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily, reported that they were forced into prostitution in Libya as a means to 'pay off' the cost of the boat travel across the Mediterranean. Most of the boys spoke of being forced into manual labour. In addition to protecting child refugees and migrants - particularly unaccompanied children - from exploitation and violence, UNICEF urged stopping the detention of refugee or migrant children; keeping families together; providing quality, learning, healthcare and other related services to all refugee and migrant children; addressing underlying causes of large-scale movements; and combatting xenophobia, discrimination and marginalization. International conference is 'watershed moment' for Cyprus negotiations UN envoy Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, International conference is 'watershed moment' for Cyprus negotiations UN envoy, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c87fd40c.html [accessed 4 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. 13 January 2017 - Speaking in Geneva a day after the start of a United Nations-supported Conference on Cyprus, a UN advisor said the open and frank exchanges at the meeting's opening confirmed two things: "first that there are difficult issues to overcome; and second that there is a will to overcome them." "The last days have been a watershed moment for the Cyprus negotiations," Espen Barth Eide, the UN Special Adviser Cyprus, told reporters today. Recalling the statements made at the Conference's opening, Mr. Eide said they conveyed a strong message of hope that the long-standing dispute "can now finally be laid to rest and a united federal Cyprus can emerge and can be embraced in a security arrangement that is mutually acceptable for all sides." He further informed the journalists that the next event in this Conference is a meeting which will take place next Wednesday (18 January), and will see senior civil servants come together to start working on specific ideas, options, proposals to prepare the ground for a structured final discussion between the principals at the very high political level, which will take place later. Noting that the meeting will not be negotiations, Mr. Eide added that while a date is not set for the principles to come together, "it is going to be soon." He went on to say that while "not everything is new under the sun," the fact that the guarantors - Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom - are in the meeting with the Cypriots, and "the fact that we now are setting up this structured conversation about security itself, is new, it has not happened in this forum. All this, Mr. Eide stressed was thanks to the leadership of Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci. Thanking all participants at the conference for their support, he called on everyone to reflect and prepare themselves for the upcoming meeting. "The idea now is that rather than just rehearsing the old scripts and reading from notes that have been around for decades, we will now try to decompose these different elements together, not to negotiate them but to try to look into the different components," and find ways to address the concerns of all Cypriots, he explained. "I think that there is a momentum now. Larger political developments remind us that it is probably, or quite surely, very important to use these days as effectively as we can and in as constructive spirit as possible," concluded Mr. Eide. At the end of yesterday's discussions, which were opened and chaired by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the UN announced that the participants in the Conference had decided to take the following steps: Central African Republic: UN-backed humanitarian plan aims to save 2.2 million lives Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Central African Republic: UN-backed humanitarian plan aims to save 2.2 million lives, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c882140d.html [accessed 4 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. 13 January 2017 - The Government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the United Nations humanitarian country team today launched the nearly $400 million response plan for the 2017-2019 period to meet the basic needs of 2.2 million Central Africans. According to a press release from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the response plan, with a budget of $399.5 million, covers three strategic objectives: save more lives; strengthen the protection of affected populations; and preserve human dignity by restoring access to basic social services and livelihoods. The security situation has deteriorated markedly, particularly in the second half of 2016, with a growing number of hot spots. This degradation has generated new humanitarian emergencies and exacerbated the vulnerability of more than 70,000 newly displaced people. Dr. Michel N'da Konan Yao, Acting Humanitarian Coordinator, said this situation came at a time of an already unfavourable international economic situation for financing humanitarian action. "New crises arise elsewhere in the world and attract the attention of donors because of their acuity and their dreadful effects on civilian populations," he said. Against this background, Virginie Baikoua, the Minister for Social Affairs and National Reconciliation of CAR and Mr. Yao called on donors to increase their engagement with the country in order to consolidate the achievements made during previous years and respond to new emergencies. A strong advocacy campaign is also under way to ensure that CAR is not a forgotten or neglected crisis. In 2016, as of December only 36.2 per cent of the Humanitarian Response Plan amounting $531.5 million was not funded. In 2017, $128.5 million will be dedicated to food security. Clashes between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian, plunged the country of 4.5 million people into civil conflict in 2013. Despite significant progress and successful elections, CAR has remained in the grip of instability and sporadic unrest. Amid progress in West Africa and the Sahel, UN envoy warns of region's political challenges Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Amid progress in West Africa and the Sahel, UN envoy warns of region's political challenges, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c883340c.html [accessed 4 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. 13 January 2017 - Briefing the Security Council on the situation in West Africa and the Sahel region, a senior United Nations official cited a "rising tide of democracy" throughout the continent, noting that a number of countries had recently held elections which largely complied with electoral norms and standards, upholding their status a model in the region and beyond. However, some countries in the region had witnessed political uncertainty or significant security challenges, noted the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the head of the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mohamed Ibn Chambas. "We were saddened by the quickly unfolding political crisis resulting from President Jammeh changing his mind and deciding to reject the results," said Mr. Chambas, referring to the presidential elections in Gambia and the ensuing crisis. He further updated the 15-member Council on the initiatives - to resolve the situation there - taken by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), that agreed to uphold the elections results and decided to take all necessary actions to enforce the results. "UNOWAS is fully involved in supporting the ECOWAS-led mediation, which continues to explore all avenues towards a peaceful transfer of power," the UN envoy added. He also informed Council members of elections in Cabo Verde and Ghana as well as in Guinea, where polls anticipated to be held in February have been postponed. In his briefing, Mr. Chambas also spoke of the continuing security and humanitarian challenges in Nigeria due to frequent attacks perpetrated by the Boko Haram militant group and appealed for more funding and support for relief programmes in the country. He further updated the Council on UNOWAS' close collaboration with other UN missions in the region and, in the context of the drawdown of the UN missions in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) and Liberia (UNMIL), as well as its work on issues related to regional stabilization, technical support as well as in the implementation of its Resolution 2282 (2016) and the General Assembly Resolution on Sustaining Peace. UN agencies assess dire hygiene, protection needs for women in Syria's war-ravaged Aleppo Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN agencies assess dire hygiene, protection needs for women in Syria's war-ravaged Aleppo, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c884c412.html [accessed 4 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. 13 January 2017 - The health, hygiene and protection needs of women and girls displaced in Aleppo are staggering, the United Nations has observed, voicing concern for civilians in the Syrian city that has endured intense fighting for about four years. "The destruction is beyond imagination," described Ruba Farah, security assistant at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), who accompanied an interagency convoy to eastern Aleppo from 1 to 12 January. "Schools, hospitals, roads and houses were destroyed." Ms. Farah, who grew up in Aleppo, said she could not recognize the streets or neighbourhoods "although I used to play there every day when I was a kid." According to findings from the UN interagency assessment mission, "many residents have long been deprived of health services" with facilities "stretched beyond limits." Sexual and reproductive health services have been "severely strained" as a result of too few obstetricians and gynaecologists. Even simply supplies such as menstrual pads and soap are difficult to find. In addition, women and girls are vulnerable to gender-based violence in "overwhelmed and under-resourced" shelters lacking electricity, streetlights, and privacy. The UN agency and partners reached about 13,000 people in Aleppo during the latest mission, providing reproductive health care and emergency obstetric and neonatal services. This number is part of about 400,000 people whom UN agencies have been able to assist, out of an estimated 1.5 million displaced people in need. Bahrain: First executions in more than six years a shocking blow to human rights Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 January 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Bahrain: First executions in more than six years a shocking blow to human rights, 15 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c89964.html [accessed 4 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. In response to the execution today of three men accused of killing three police officers in Bahrain Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Campaigns in Beirut, Samah Hadid said: "This is a dark day for human rights in Bahrain. These executions - the first to be carried out since 2010 - are a deeply regressive step for a country whose authorities' have repeatedly trumpeted their commitment to human rights. "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and the fact that this execution was carried out after an unfair trial and despite claims from the men that they were tortured in custody makes this news even more shocking. Instead of stepping up executions Bahrain's authorities should establish an immediate moratorium on executions and work on abolishing the death penalty once and for all." On 9 January Bahrain's Court of Cassation in Bahrain upheld death sentences for Ali Abdulshaheed al-Sankis, Sami Mirza Mshaima' and Abbas Jamil Taher Mhammad al-Samea. It also upheld life sentences against seven others and the revocation of the nationality of eight of them. All 10 men were convicted following an unfair trial in relation to the March 2014 killing of three policemen. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Nigeria: Comply with court order to release Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 16 January 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Nigeria: Comply with court order to release Sheik Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c89dd4.html [accessed 4 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 Nigerian authorities must immediately comply with a High Court order and release the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife from detention, said Amnesty International. El-Zakzaky, and his wife Malama Zeenah Ibraheem, have been in detention without charge for more than a year following a clash between his supporters and the Nigerian military in which soldiers slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children. The authorities claim he is being held in "protective custody". "The 45 day deadline given for their release expires today. If the government deliberately disregards the orders of its own courts, it will demonstrate a flagrant - and dangerous - contempt for the rule of law," said Makmid Kamara, Interim Director of Amnesty International Nigeria. "El-Zakzaky is being unlawfully detained. This might be part of a wider effort to cover up the gruesome crimes committed by members of the security forces in Zaria in December 2015 that left hundreds dead." On 2 December 2016 the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that El Zakzaky and Malama Zeenah Ibraheem should be released within 45 days. The court described their detention, which began in December 2015, as illegal and unconstitutional. The deadline for the court order expires on Monday 16 January. Amnesty International is also calling on the authorities to release other IMN supporters arrested at the same time as El Zakzaky and his wife, who likewise remain in detention without charge. Background According to Amnesty International's research, more than 350 IMN members were killed by security forces between 12 and 14 December 2015 in Zaria, Kaduna State. The IMN is a shi'a religious and political organization whose leader, Ibraheem Yaqub Al-Zakzaky, has been a proponent of Shi'a Islam in Nigeria since the 1980s. Processions, demonstrations and other activities organized by the IMN, usually without obtaining the necessary permits and at times blocking public roads, have resulted in confrontation with the Nigerian authorities and strained relations with other communities. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Chechnya: Leading Politician Threatens Editor Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 16 January 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Chechnya: Leading Politician Threatens Editor, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c8ae04.html [accessed 4 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 speaker of Chechnya's parliament has made serious threats against Gregory Shvedov, the editor of a critical online media outlet, placing him at great risk, Human Rights Watch said today. Russian authorities should publicly condemn these threats, ensure that no harm comes to Shvedov, and put an end to threats against and attacks on independent media in Chechnya. On January 4, 2017, Magomed Daudov, the parliament speaker, publicly threatened Shvedov, editor-in-chief of Caucasian Knot. The prominent Russian media portal's coverage of current developments in the Caucasus includes extensive reporting on abuses by Chechen authorities. Daudov is widely known as the right-hand man of Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic. "The threats by the speaker of the parliament, Chechnya's leading politician, are clearly meant to intimidate the Caucasian Knot team and hinder their dedicated reporting on egregious abuses by Chechen officials," said Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director at Human Rights Watch. On his Instagram account, Daudov mockingly described Shvedov as a "mongrel dog Shved" and threatened to "tame his tongue to a standard size" and "pull his wisdom teeth out." He titled the designated post "How to untie the Caucasian Knot ? " On January 9, Shvedov filed a complaint against Daudov with Russia's chief investigative agency for "impeding legitimate and professional work of the press," a criminal offense under Russian law. Shvedov emphasized that he viewed Daudov's remarks as a direct threat not only against him, but also against all journalists working in the North Caucasus. Chechnya's human rights commissioner, Nurdi Nukhajiev, who has a record of promoting the interests and public image of the Chechen leadership, immediately accused Shvedov of using the situation to promote his "scandalous internet publication." Notably, last year Daudov posted to his Instagram account a photograph of Kadyrov with a fierce Caucasian sheepdog, and wrote that the dog's "fangs are itching" for opposition activists, journalists, and human rights defenders. He provided disparaging descriptions of several people the Chechen leadership apparently thought particularly irritating, portraying them as dogs. Approximately two months later, a group of mobsters who appear to be acting as Chechen authorities' proxies physically attacked one of those people, a prominent Russian human rights defender, when he was in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on a work trip. On January 10, a group of leading Russian activists issued a joint statement in support of Shvedov. In the statement, they say that the Kremlin's systematic disregard of threats and abuses by the Chechen leadership perpetuates impunity, call for a prompt and effective investigation into the threats against Shvedov, and press for resolute measures to provide a safe environment for journalists and human rights defenders in the North Caucasus. "Russian authorities should make it clear to Chechnya's leadership that attacks on and threats against journalists and other independent critics will not be tolerated," Lokshina said. During the past year, there have been numerous severe attacks on independent journalists and human rights defenders in Chechnya. In March 2016, a group of masked men believed to be Chechen officials' proxies attacked a minibus carrying Russian and foreign journalists traveling to Chechnya, beat the journalists, and burned the bus. The following week, thugs apparently acting as Chechen authorities' proxies physically attacked activists, who were with the Joint Mobile Group for Human Rights Defenders in Chechnya, and ransacked their Grozny office. In May, Chechen police arbitrarily detained and threatened a Russian journalist researching a punitive house-burning. In September, following an unfair trial, a Chechnya court sentenced a 23-year-old local journalist, Zhalaudi Geriev, to three years in prison on fabricated drug possession charges, apparently in retaliation for his work for Caucasian Knot. Geriev is currently serving his sentence. Russia's leadership should publicly condemn Daudov's actions, ensure an effective investigation into Shvedov's complaint, and guarantee safe working conditions for journalists in Chechnya, Human Rights Watch said. "The authorities have already fabricated a criminal case against a young local journalist to punish him for his work for the Caucasian Knot, and now the right-hand man of Chechnya's ruthless strongman is going after the editor," Lokshina said. "The Russian authorities at the highest level should end this." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch China: Drop Charges Against Tibetan Education Activist Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 15 January 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, China: Drop Charges Against Tibetan Education Activist, 15 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c97144.html [accessed 4 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. Chinese authorities should immediately drop the politically motivated case against a Tibetan shopkeeper who has publicly supported education in the Tibetan language, Human Rights Watch said today. A trial is expected to take place soon. "Tashi Wangchuk has joined the ranks of those prosecuted in China by simply calling for rights to be respected and the law to be upheld," said Sophie Richardson, China director. "Cultural rights, which include the right to use one's own language, are protected under both the Chinese Constitution and international human rights law." Tashi Wangchuk ran a small shop in Kyegundo (also spelt Jekundo and in Chinese, Yushu), in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, selling Tibetan products such as caterpillar fungus, which he also marketed online. He began voicing concern publicly about the lack of Tibetan-language education after the authorities in Kyegundo stopped local monasteries and a private school in the area from teaching Tibetan to laypeople, according to the Times. Since 2012, public schools in Tibetan areas of Qinghai and neighboring Gansu Province, although nominally offering bilingual education in Chinese and Tibetan, had stopped using Tibetan as a medium of education and offered it only as a standalone subject, if at all. China has set up a bilingual education system in minority schools, but in practice, teaching of Mandarin Chinese increasingly predominates or is exclusive. Regulations on the implementation of bilingual education in "ethnic minority areas," issued by China's State Council in August 2015, ordered authorities in those areas to "unswervingly implement the national common language and writing education to ensure that minority students master and use the basic national common language," referring to Mandarin Chinese (putonghua). But the regulations state only that the right of ethnic minorities to receive education in their own languages be "respected and guaranteed," and does not explicitly require the government to provide minority language education. Tashi Wangchuk traveled to Beijing in May 2015 to explore filing a formal complaint against officials in his home area for failing to support Tibetan language education. On that visit, he met with Times journalists and "insisted of doing on-the-record interviews," according to the paper. In September 2015, the Times' journalists traveled to Yushu to meet him, and in November 2015, the paper published articles about his efforts in English and Chinese, together with a nine-minute video in both languages. The video shows Tashi Wangchuk traveling from Yushu to Beijing in September 2015, in an unsuccessful attempt to file a lawsuit against Yushu officials and to get Chinese media to take up the language issue. He is shown discussing his plans with a Times journalist before leaving Yushu, having a photograph of the Dalai Lama in his home, traveling with the journalist to Beijing, being accompanied by the journalist in Beijing during his efforts there, and answering a question as to whether he planned to self-immolate actions that did not violate any Chinese laws but which would have been especially sensitive given the involvement of foreigners. A defense lawyer for Tashi Wangchuk later told the New York Times that the case against his client focused on the interviews with the paper and that "the police were especially incensed by the video." Tashi Wangchuk told the Times that he was not advocating Tibetan independence, and that he was mainly concerned about cultural preservation. "My goal is to change things a little bit, to push to preserve some of our nation's culture," he told the Times, adding that he was thankful to "all the Chinese people who truly protect minorities" and praising President Xi Jinping for having "promoted a democratic and law-abiding country these last few years." Tashi Wangchuk had also posted messages on his Sina Weibo or microblog account that expressed concerns about what he referred to as the "systematic slaughter of our culture." His last microblog message, posted on January 24, 2016, called on the local people's congress in Qinghai Province to enhance bilingual education and to hire more bilingual officials. After being detained in January 2016, Tashi Wangchuk was held in secret in a detention center in Yushu while his case was investigated by the guobao, the section of China's police force that deals with internal security. Although Chinese law requires that a detainee's family be informed of a detention within 24 hours, such a requirement can be waived in cases involving "national security" and "terrorism" and when the police believe that such notification could "impede the investigation." His family was not provided such notice until March 24. At that time, police notified his family that they intended to charge him with "inciting separatism." The case was referred by police to the Yushu procuratorate, which for unknown reasons requested the police to conduct an additional investigation into the case, which concluded on August 25. The procuratorate handed the case over to the court for trial in September, but in December asked the court to delay the trial while the second re-investigation was carried out. This concluded in early January 2017, when the case was sent back to the court for trial. The indictment has not yet been made public, and there is no publicly available evidence of his "inciting separatism." The Chinese government has a long record of using article 103(2) of China's Criminal Law, which details this charge, to prosecute critics from ethnic minority communities. Tashi Wangchuk had been detained briefly in around 2006, for "trying to travel illegally to India," and again in 2012, for posting online comments that criticized local officials about land seizures in his area. "Chinese authorities are bound by law to allow Tibetan language education precisely as Tashi Wangchuk advocated," Richardson said. "By prosecuting him, rather than dropping the charges and releasing him, the authorities are putting their own constitution on trial." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Iraq: ISIS Bombings Are Crimes Against Humanity Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 15 January 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Iraq: ISIS Bombings Are Crimes Against Humanity, 15 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c977d4.html [accessed 4 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. Recent car and suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) targeting crowded markets and hospitals in Baghdad amount to crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said today. The Iraqi authorities should improve its implementation of the law to compensate victims of "military mistakes and terrorist actions" as part of its efforts against ISIS. "ISIS has routinely carried out devastating attacks that appear designed to inflict maximum death and suffering on ordinary Iraqis," said Nadim Houry, director of the terrorism and counterterrorism program at Human Rights Watch. "The Iraqi and international strategy against ISIS should not ignore the victims of these and other unlawful attacks by all sides." Governments have the responsibility under international law to protect the lives of all those under their jurisdiction and to bring those who commit criminal offenses to justice. They should consider establishing mechanisms to address the needs of victims, including but not limited to reparations. In recent weeks, several deadly attacks have mainly targeted Baghdad's Shia-majority eastern districts. On December 31, 2016, two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a central market of Baghdad, killing at least 25 people and wounding 50, according to Iraqi police. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. On January 2, 2017, a car bomb claimed by ISIS exploded in a busy square in Baghdad's Sadr city, killing at least 39 people and wounding at least 61, according to the Interior Ministry. The media reported that the bomber lured laborers to his car by promising them work, then blew himself up. Nine of the victims were women in a minibus passing through the square at the time, Reuters said. A short while later, another car bomb detonated in the parking lot of the nearby al-Kindi hospital, killing three people. On January 5, a car bomb exploded in al-Obeidi neighborhood, also in eastern Baghdad, during the morning rush hour, killing five people and injuring seven, according to the Interior Ministry. ISIS said in an online statement it had targeted a gathering of Shia Muslims. A second explosion that day hit the central district of Bab al-Moadham near a security checkpoint, killing eight. Both bombs had been left in parked vehicles. ISIS claimed two attacks on January 8 on busy markets in eastern Baghdad. Media reported that in the first blast, the assailant drove an explosives-rigged car into a large vegetable market in the Jamila district, and detonated it, killing 13. Security forces had opened fire on the car to try to stop it. A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up a few hours later at a market in the Baladiyat district, killing at least seven. Murder, when carried out as part of a widespread or systematic "attack against a civilian population" that is, as part of a policy of a state or organized group to commit murder can constitute a crime against humanity, whether committed in the context of armed conflict, political unrest, or peace. "It is usually Iraqi civilians who bear the brunt of ISIS bombings," Houry said. "These victims often remain nameless and faceless, yet their well-being and those of their families is a critical element in the fight against ISIS." The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted by the General Assembly in 2006, and reviewed every two years by the assembly, recognizes the importance of supporting, and showing solidarity with terrorism victims. While there is no recognized international instrument outlining countries' specific obligations toward terrorism victims, there has been growing recognition that countries should develop national assistance systems that promote the needs of victims and their families and facilitate the normalization of their lives. The UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Ben Emmerson, in 2012 outlined 14 framework principles for securing the human rights of terrorism victims and urged that countries provide full and effective reparations to all victims of terrorism, regardless of who is responsible for an attack. Since then, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly adopted resolutions stressing the need to promote and protect the rights of terrorism victims. The UN Conference on Human Rights of Victims of Terrorism held in February 2016 recommended that all member states "mainstream victims' rights into States' counter-terrorism measures and ensure that all efforts and approaches of Member States to this effect remain centered on victims." Iraq has taken some measures to compensate victims of "terrorism and military errors" through a 2009 law, amended in 2015. Under this law, a committee was formed to compensate those affected by terrorism, military operations, and military errors, through providing material compensation for physical or psychological harm, a pension, and an apartment or land or a financial grant to the family to build a house. The committee noted that it processed 15,000 claims by citizens whose property was destroyed due to "terrorist acts or military errors" in 2016, spending a total of 70 billion Iraqi dinars (US$59 million). However, Iraqi victims of violence have repeatedly complained of neglect and slow procedures, Human Rights Watch said. An Iraqi lawyer who regularly assists families in filing for compensation said that it took the authorities on average two years to process claims and that the situation was particularly difficult for Iraqis living in governorates with active military fighting as they had a very difficult time collecting the needed documents from the authorities to file claims. "While the Iraqi authorities have set up compensation mechanisms for victims, it is essential to develop a more comprehensive national plan," Houry said. "The government should ensure that victims feel they are effectively supported psychologically and medically, and are able, if they wish, to participate in legal proceedings against those who attacked them." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Gambians seek refuge in Senegal amid political tension Publisher Human Rights Watch Author Helene Caux Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Gambians seek refuge in Senegal amid political tension, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c99404.html [accessed 4 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. Several thousand people, mainly children, have crossed into Senegal from the Gambia in the last 10 days to escape growing tension over the results of last month's presidential election. While some people have decided to stay in the Gambia, many have begun sending their children to Senegal as a precautionary measure amid the political impasse, fearing potential unrest. "UNHCR teams report seeing buses filled with children, accompanied by women, cross the border," said Liz Ahua, the regional representative for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Gambian President Yaya Jammeh narrowly lost to rival Adama Barrow in the country's December 1 election. After initially conceding defeat, Jammeh is now contesting the result. UNHCR, other aid agencies and the Senegalese authorities have been monitoring the borders since the political crisis erupted, deploying joint field missions last week and this week to southern Senegal's Casamance, bordering Gambia, and its surroundings. Much of the daily border crossing is regular traffic, but preliminary findings also suggest that several thousand people have crossed to Senegal to seek shelter, mainly in the Ziguinchor, Sedhiou, Kaolack and Kolda areas. Senegalese authorities, with the support of UNHCR, are working to strengthen registration systems, which will help clarify figures. Most arrivals in Senegal are Gambians and Senegalese who have been working or living in the Gambia. The teams also report Ghanaians, Guineans, Liberians, Mauritanians and Lebanese among the arrivals. "Most are staying with relatives or host families. Some households have more than doubled or tripled in size, which risks putting a strain on their resources, especially food," UNHCR's Ahua noted. UNHCR is working closely with the Senegalese authorities and aid agencies to establish contingency plans in case of future influxes. These include identifying and preparing transit and hosting sites near existing facilities providing basic services. A UNHCR team left yesterday (Thursday) to Casamance's Zinguichor area to assess existing protection capacity. The UNHCR office and the authorities in Guinea Bissau are also sending a team to Cacheu in the north-west of that country, where some 400 people have reportedly arrived from the Gambia in recent days. In addition to UNHCR and Senegal's National Committee for Refugees, Returnees and Displaced People, interagency missions also included OCHA, UNICEF, the World Food Programme, IOM and other stakeholders Diplomatic efforts from various international actors, including ECOWAS, the African Union and the UN, are under way to convince President Jammeh to step down and allow Barrow to assume his new functions on January 19. Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Rights Groups Demand Justice for journalist Mehman Huseynov Tortured in Azerbaijan Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as Article 19, Rights Groups Demand Justice for journalist Mehman Huseynov Tortured in Azerbaijan, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c99d14.html [accessed 4 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 undersigned organisations strongly condemn the abduction and torture of Azerbaijani journalist Mehman Huseynov and call on Azerbaijan's authorities to immediately investigate the case and to hold those responsible accountable. Moreover, Huseynov's conviction should be overturned and the travel ban against him lifted. We further call upon the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists, bloggers and activists currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan solely for exercising the right to freedom of expression. Mehman Huseynov, Azerbaijan's top political blogger and chairman of the local press freedom group, Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), the country's leading press freedom group, was abducted in Central Baku at around 8 pm local time on Monday 9 January. He was pushed into a vehicle by unknown assailants and driven away. His whereabouts were unknown until early afternoon on Tuesday, when it emerged that Huseynov had been apprehended by unidentified police agents. On 10 January, Huseynov was taken to Nasimi District Court, where he was tried on charges of disobeying the police (Article 535.1 of the Administrative Offences Code), which carries a sentence of up to 30 days in jail. The Court released him; however, he was fined 200 AZN (approx. 100 EUR). Huseynov said he was tortured while in police custody. He reported being driven around for several hours, blindfolded and suffocated with a bag. He also said that he was given electric shocks in the car. On being brought to Nasimi District Police Department he lost consciousness and collapsed. An ambulance was called, and he was given painkillers and sleep-inducers by way of injection. His lawyers confirmed that his injuries were visible during the court hearing. The court also ordered that Nasimi district prosecutor's office conduct investigation into Mehman Huseynov's torture reports. "We resolutely denounce this act of torture and wish Mehman Huseynov a rapid recovery," said Gulnara Akhundova, the Head of Department at International Media Support. "All charges against Huseynov must be dropped unconditionally, and those responsible for his torture should be tried in an independent and impartial manner, as should those in the chain of command who are implicated". 'The fact the Mehman Huseynov was convicted of disobeying the police for refusing to get into the car of his abductors beggars belief. We know that the Azerbaijan authorities have a long history of bringing trumped up charges against writers and activists. His conviction should be overturned immediately' said Salil Tripathi, Chair of PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee. "This is another example of continued repression against journalists in Azerbaijan, which is why RSF considers Aliyev a predator of press freedom. Huseynov is one of dozens of journalists and citizen journalists who remain under politically motivated travel bans. Although he has been released, he remains at serious risk. The international community must act now to protect him and other critical voices in Azerbaijan." said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. Although Huseynov's family and colleagues had repeatedly contacted the police since his disappearance on 9 January 2017, they were not informed about his arrest until early afternoon the following day when he was brought to court. Hence, the undersigned organisations consider Huseynov's abduction as an enforced disappearance, defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials, or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty, or to reveal the person's fate or whereabouts. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has repeatedly clarified that 'there is no time limit, not matter how short, for an enforced disappearance to occur'. As a signatory of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), Azerbaijan is obliged to refrain from acts that would defeat or undermine the ICPPED's objective and purpose. Despite the much-lauded release of political prisoners in March 2016, the persecution of critical voices in Azerbaijan has accelerated in recent months. Currently, there are dozens of journalists and activists behind bars for exercising their right to free expression in Azerbaijan. "The government has sought to destroy civil society and the media in Azerbaijan, while developing relations with Western states to secure lucrative oil and gas deals", said Katie Morris, Head of the Europe and Central Asia Programme at ARTICLE 19. "While the government may release a journalist one day, the following day they will arrest or harass others, creating a climate of fear to prevent people speaking out. The international community must clearly condemn this behaviour and apply pressure for systemic reform", she added. "We must stop the sense of impunity on attacks against journalists and human rights defenders in Azerbaijan, of which this attack against Mehman Huseynov is a sad illustration. The international community must seriously address this climate of impunity and take concrete actions, through the Council of Europe and the United Nations Human Rights Council, to regularly monitor the human rights situation in Azerbaijan and hold the authorities to their commitments in this regard," said Ane Tusvik Bonde, Regional Manager for Eastern Europe and Caucasus at the Human Rights House Foundation. The undersigned organisations call on the authorities to take the necessary measures to put an end to vicious cycle of impunity for wide-spread human rights violations in the country. We call on the international community to undertake an immediate review of their relations with Azerbaijan to ensure that human rights are at more consistently placed at the heart of all on-going negotiations with the government. Immediate and concrete action must be taken to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its international obligations and encourage meaningful human rights reform in law and practice. Supporting organisations: ARTICLE 19 Civil Rights Defenders English PEN Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights Human Rights House Foundation IFEX Index on Censorship International Media Support International Partnership for Human Rights Netherlands Helsinki Committee Norwegian Helsinki Committee PEN America PEN International Reporters Without Borders Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Paris demo demands truth about murders of two journalists in Mali Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Paris demo demands truth about murders of two journalists in Mali, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9a584.html [accessed 4 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 demonstration was held outside the main law courts in central Paris at 9 a.m. today to urge the French and Malian judicial authorities to do much more to shed light on the murders of Radio France Internationale journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon in Mali more than three years ago. With press photographers in attendance, more than 20 people took part in the protest organized by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Association of Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, and RFI's Society of Journalists. Limited judicial cooperation between the French and Malian governments have blocked progress in the investigation into the double murder of the RFI journalists in Kidal, in northern Mali, on 2 November 2013. The French government has classified many relevant documents as "defence secrets," thereby preventing their use by the judicial authorities, while the security situation in northern Mali has prevented officials from ever visiting the crime scene. No witness as so far been questioned. "This inertia is unacceptable," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. "We demand answers and more transparency in the handling of this investigation. There are people who have information. It must be possible for them to be questioned by the judicial authorities so that we can finally learn the truth." RSF, which defends freedom of information, has registered as interested civil party in the case in order to be able to play an active role in support of the Association of Friends of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon. Mali is ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. France is ranked 45th. Bahrain urged to drop charges against correspondent Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Bahrain urged to drop charges against correspondent, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9aeb4.html [accessed 4 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) and French public radio broadcaster France Medias Monde (FMM) call on the Bahraini authorities to abandon their prosecution of Nazeeha Saeed on a charge of working as a correspondent for foreign media outlets without a permit. Nazeeha Saeed is facing a possible fine of up to 1,000 dinars (2,400 euros) as a result of the complaint that an information ministry official brought against her last summer. She is to be tried in Manama on 16 January. Her situation has been delicate since last June, when she learned that the authorities refused to renew her accreditation as the Bahraini correspondent of France 24 and Radio Monte-Carlo Doualiya (both part of FMM). "We reiterate our support for Nazeeha Saeed and urge the authorities to immediately drop the charges against her so that she can work freely as a journalist again," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. "The persecution of Saeed is unwarranted and just confirms that the kingdom's authorities are bent on silencing independent media voices." Saeed's lawyer, Hameed Mullah, told RSF that her conviction would constitute a grave violation of media freedom. He also reported that he had tried in vain with the court authorities last October to gain access to the prosecution case against her. FMM president and CEO Marie-Christine Saragosse said: "We welcome the supportive campaigning by international media freedom NGOs such as RSF since last July, and we ask the Bahraini authorities to cancel these groundless proceedings against Nazeeha Saeed and let her resume her job of freely reporting the news in her country as soon as possible." When summoned by the public prosecutor's office last July, Saeed was told that she was being investigated for working as foreign correspondent without authorization. She received the summons shortly after being banned from travelling abroad. No explanation was given for the ban at the time. Saeed enjoys a great deal of international support. More than 40 NGOs issued a joint appeal on 28 July condemning the orchestrated harassment to which she is being subjected by the Bahraini authorities. This is far from being her first run-in with the regime. She has for years been fighting for justice after being tortured by police officers for 13 hours in 2011 in Rifa'a police station, to which she was summoned because of her coverage of pro-democracy demonstrations in Manama. In November 2015, the judicial authorities decided that the police officers responsible for torturing Saeed would not be prosecuted. Insufficient evidence was given as grounds for the decision. One of the world's biggest prisons for media personnel, with 14 journalists and bloggers currently detained, the Kingdom of Bahrain is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Hungary: Symbolic posthumous victory for Nepszabadsag journalists Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 January 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Hungary: Symbolic posthumous victory for Nepszabadsag journalists, 14 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9b924.html [accessed 4 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) hails a Hungarian court's ruling that the leading opposition daily Nepszabadsag's sudden closure last October was illegal because its owners and management should have consulted with the employee committee in a bid to keep publishing and avoid laying off all the staff. Employees learned of the closure when they arrived at the newspaper on 9 October to start preparing the next day's issue and were denied entry. The owners, the Hungarian group Mediaworks, had decided in the space of a few hours and without any prior announcement to suspend operations because sales were plummeting. Founded 60 years ago when the Soviet yoke was lifted, the independent and outspoken newspaper was much loved by Hungarians and its closure caused an outcry, with thousands taking to the streets in a show of support for media freedom. A few weeks later, Mediaworks' Austrian owner nonetheless sold Nepszabadsag to Opimus Press, a media group owned by an associate of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It was the manner of the closure and the way the dismissal of the staff was initially disguised as temporary layoffs that led the court, in the ruling issued last week, to condemn Mediaworks for failing to respect the prescribed procedures and time frame for dismissals. "This is a moral victory for the staff of Nepszabadsag, even if the ruling unfortunately has no criminal or financial consequences for the newspaper's owner," said Pauline Ades-Mevel, the head of the RSF's European Union-Balkans desk. "The judge's ruling made it clear that, if the procedures had been respected, the newspaper would not have had to close and fire its 90 employees." Democracy has been in steady retreat since Fidesz won the 2010 election and Hungary is ranked 67th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index, after falling 48 places in just five years. Ukraine bans independent Russian TV channel Dozhd Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 16 January 2017 Other Languages / Attachments Russian Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Ukraine bans independent Russian TV channel Dozhd, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9d7e4.html [accessed 4 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 condemns yesterday's decision by the National Radio and TV Council (NRTC) to ban Russian independent TV channel Dozhd from being retransmitted in Ukraine. Ukrainian broadcasters will have to comply with the ban within one month of its official publication, expected on 16 January. The NRTC, which regulates broadcasting in Ukraine, accuses Dozhd of violating the country's territorial integrity by treating Crimea as part of Russia, and of violating a restrictions on advertising on certain foreign TV channels. Dozhd is nonetheless very outspoken in its criticism of the Kremlin and until now has been widely retransmitted in Ukraine, where it has as much as a quarter of its entire audience. "Even if the regulator has identified breaches of Ukraine's laws, there are no grounds for such a drastic sanction as banning Dozhd," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "This is a media freedom violation, a measure that - judged by international standards - it is neither necessary nor proportionate. "Independent media have a key role to play in maintaining a link between population groups that have been separated by war and propaganda. We ask the Ukrainian authorities to rescind this decision without delay." According to article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Ukraine has ratified, any restrictions on freedom of expression in a democratic society must not only be legal but also legitimate and necessary. Dozhd - hounded in Russia Russia's only independent national TV channel, Dozhd has been much persecuted in its own country. Dropped by the main Russian satellite and cable TV providers and evicted from its offices in 2014, it has lost a large part of its public and advertisers. Describing Crimea as Ukrainian territory is punishable by imprisonment under Russia's recently toughened legislation on "separatism." Dozhd had to comply, but that has not stopped it from referring to Russia's "annexation" of the Crimean peninsula or continuing to provide critical coverage of Russian policy in Ukraine. Bihr said: "You cannot help smiling at the Kremlin's virulent protests about Ukraine's ban on Dozhd, given that this TV channel can no longer be viewed by most Russians. If Moscow really cared about media freedom, it would start by lifting the restrictions on Dozhd and all the other independent media outlets in Russia." "Information war" abuses in Ukraine RSF has often condemned media freedom violations in Ukraine that have been committed in the name of combatting Russian propaganda. Last week, uniformed members of the "Rapira" veterans association stormed into the offices of Klen, a cable TV provider in Chernomorsk, in the south of the country, and, using threats, forced it to suspend local retransmission of Dozhd's programming. On 30 December, President Petro Poroshenko promulgated a law under which a prior permit is now required to import any Russian books. The law introduced the concept of "aggressor state promotion or propaganda" into Ukraine's legislation. "We expect the Ukrainian authorities to defend media freedom against activist minorities, not to join them in their excesses," Bihr added. "Combatting Russian propaganda is legitimate but does not under any circumstances justify intolerance or limiting pluralism." Even when no longer available via satellite and cable TV services, Dozhd will still be available online in Ukraine to subscribers. Ukraine is ranked 107th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Russia is ranked 148th. Colombia: two newspaper reporters narrowly escape murder attempt Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Colombia: two newspaper reporters narrowly escape murder attempt, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9e774.html [accessed 4 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) condemns yesterday evening's shooting attack on two newspaper reporters in the northeastern city of Cucuta, an attack that is all the most serious because one of the two reporters is getting state protection. The attack took place after Cristian Herrera, a crime reporter for the daily Q'Hubo, received a tip-off from one of his sources that a murder had just taken place in a dangerous part of the city frequented by criminal gangs, smugglers and traffickers. Herrera, who has two bodyguards assigned by the National Protection Unit (UNP), set off at once with his bodyguards and one of his colleagues, Andres Gonzalez, in a UNP pickup. On arriving at the scene, the pickup was surrounded by gunmen on motorcycles who insulted the reporters, used force in an attempt to open its doors and then opened fire. The pickup took off at great speed and fortunately none of its four occupants sustained any injury. Herrera began getting state protection in October 2014, after receiving many death threats and warnings to stop covering crime. He reported getting more threats in November. "We condemn what was both an act of extreme cowardliness and a grave violation of the freedom to report the news," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau. "This murder attempt against a working journalist guarded by the National Protection Unit is indicative of the ineffectiveness of the protective mechanisms in place in a country that is still badly affected by the violence of criminal groups, a country where investigative reporting continues to be very dangerous." Herrera told RSF he has been getting threats in connection with his work since 2004, when he began covering crime in Cucuta. He had an earlier spell under UNP protection at the time and even fled to Chile for a year as a safety measure. The threats resumed in 2014, when he received leaflets signed by Los Rastrojos, an armed paramilitary group, naming him as a "military target" and giving him 24 hours to leave the city. The UNP told RSF that measures have now been taken to step up protection for Herrera, including assigning him an armour-plated car for work use. The UNP - the subject of a joint report by RSF, FECOLPER and FLIP last year on the 15th anniversary of its creation - needs an urgent overhaul in order to be able to provide more effective protection for Colombia's journalists, especially crime reporters, who are exposed to the threat of extreme violence by organized crime in many parts of the country including Cucuta. In the peace process that has been under way with the FARC guerrillas for several years, the Colombian government must not turn a blind eye to the presence of other armed groups such as the ELN and the various paramilitary groups that often target journalists and continue to sow terror. Colombia is ranked 134th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. First convictions in Kurdish newspaper solidarity campaign trials Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 January 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, First convictions in Kurdish newspaper solidarity campaign trials, 14 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587c9ef94.html [accessed 4 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) is appalled by the first two convictions yesterday in a series of trials in Istanbul of well-known participants in solidarity campaign with the persecuted Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem, and the intimidatory nature of the suspended prison sentences handed down by the court. RSF's representative in Turkey, Erol Onderoglu, is currently on trial for the same reason - for being one of the 56 people who acted as the newspaper's "editor for a day" in a campaign than ran from May to August last year. Thirty-six of them are being tried. The two convicted yesterday were the well-known human rights defender Sanar Yurdatapan and the publisher Ibrahim Aydn Bodur. They were given 15-month suspended jail terms and fines of 6,000 lira (1,500 euros) on charges of "terrorist propaganda" and "publishing a terrorist organization's communiques." Onderoglu is being tried with two other participants in the same campaign in defence of media pluralism, the human rights defender Sebnem Korur Fincanc and the writer Ahmet Nesin. All three were jailed for 10 days last June. "The conviction of Sanar Yurdatapan and Ibrahim Aydn Bodur sends an unacceptable intimidatory message to Turkey's civil society," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We demand their acquittal on appeal and the withdrawal of the proceedings against all the other participants in the solidarity campaign with Ozgur Gundem. The speed with which pluralism has been dismantled in Turkey during the past six month shows how right they were to wage this campaign." Yurdatapan was convicted on the basis of two articles published by Ozgur Gundem on 18 June. One described the actions of the Turkish armed forces in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country. The other referred to the deaths of three members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in armed clashes. Yurdatapan is also a well-known musician who was responsible for major civil disobedience campaigns against the persecution of intellectuals in the 1990s along with the writer Yasar Kemal and the composer Zulfu Livaneli, and for a long time was the spokesman of the Initiative against Crimes of Conscience. A big RSF delegation in Istanbul The trial of Onderoglu, Fincanc and Nesin meanwhile continued on 11 January with a large RSF delegation in attendance. The court limited itself to announcing that Ozgur Gundem's real editor, Inan Kzlkaya, will be tried separately, instead of with these three. The next hearing in the case of Onderoglu, Fincanc and Nesin has been set for 21 March. The RSF delegation also visited the headquarters of the newspaper Cumhuriyet, 11 of whose employees have been in prison since the start of November, and met with relatives of the imprisoned journalists. At the end of the hearing, Onderoglu and RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire took part in a news conference outside the law courts in the Istanbul district of Caglayan together with Fincanc and Cumhuriyet's Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul. In a separate case on 11 January, the prosecutor requested ten-year jail terms for Gul and former Cumhuriyet editor Can Dundar (now living in self-imposed exile), for their revelations about Turkish arms deliveries to Islamist groups in Syria. He requested life imprisonment for their alleged source, opposition parliamentarian Enis Berberoglu. The court's verdict is expected on 1 March. Turkey is ranked 151st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. The already disturbing media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency declared in the wake of last July's failed coup. Ozgur Gundem's offices were placed under seal in August and it was dissolved by decree on 29 October. A total of 176 other media outlets have been shut down in the same way and more than 100 journalists are currently detained. 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. Russian Federation: Threats against Caucasian Knot Editor by Chechnya's Parliament Speaker Must Be Investigated Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, Russian Federation: Threats against Caucasian Knot Editor by Chechnya's Parliament Speaker Must Be Investigated, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cb0594.html [accessed 4 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 Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, an FIDH-OMCT partnership, together with the Anti-Discrimination Centre (ADC) "Memorial", strongly denounce the threats made by the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov via Instagram against the team of the independent news portal Caucasian Knot, including Grigorii Shvedov, human rights journalist and Editor-in-chief. On January 5, 2017, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov published a post on his Instagram account entitled "How to untie the Caucasian Knot?". The post refers to Grigorii Shvedov as a dog nicknamed "Shved" whose "wisdom teeth must be pulled out" and "long tongue shortened" for "prattling" in the Caucasian Knot. On January 9, 2017, Grigorii Shvedov filed a complaint to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. The Caucasian Knot is an independent Russian media portal founded in 2001 known for reporting on human rights abuses in the Caucasus region, including Chechnya. The post implicitly calls for acts of violence against the Caucasian Knot team, including in particular Mr. Shvedov. The fact that it has already gathered close to 2,000 "likes" and numerous hateful comments show that the message "has been accepted", creating a climate for a possible crime. Our organisations recall that human rights defenders, including in particular human rights journalists, have been targets of violence and criminalisation in Chechnya. Last year, Chechnya-based Caucasian Knot journalist Zhalaudi Geriev was sentenced to three years in prison on trumped up charges [1] . On December 28, 2016, the Supreme Court of Chechnya rejected his appeal. Moreover, on January 10, 2017, five unidentified masked men attacked and beat Caucasian Knot journalist Vladislav Ryazantsev in Rostov-na-Donu. "It is inadmissible and irresponsible for a representative of the Chechen authorities to publicly threaten a human rights defender and editor-in-chief of a news portal. State authorities should ensure and promote a conducive environment for human rights defenders", stated Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). "The authorities of the Russian Federation should investigate the threats which, in the context of impunity prevailing in the Chechen Republic, constitutes a real danger for Mr. Shvedov and the news portal team", added Stefania Kulaeva, Director of ADC Memorial, FIDH member organisation. Background information In a context where human rights groups have been facing increasing difficulties in reporting on the human rights situation in Chechnya, the Caucasian Knot has become one of the last sources providing daily reports on the human rights situation. For this reason, the Chechnya's leadership has been particularly targeting the new portal with a smear and stigmatisation campaign. Many journalists have been murdered for investigating war crimes and human rights violations in Chechnya. The killings of Anna Politkovsklaya, Natalia Estemirova and Stanislav Markelov are the most illustrious cases. All these cases remain in impunity. On March 9, 2016, several journalists and human rights workers of the Joint Mobile Group, who were on a press tour in North Caucasus, were brutally attacked at the border between Ingushetia and Chechnya [2]. The Joint Mobile Group led by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, an OMCT member organisation, was attacked several times over the last years, including their office and their head Igor Kalyapin in person [3]. The attacks have never been duly investigated and those responsible have never been brought to justice. Attacks even intensified following a post on Instagram by the Head of the Chechen Republic, Mr. Ramzan Kadyrov on December 10, 2014, accusing Mr. Kalyapin of supporting terrorist attacks in Chechnya. Magomed Daudov is known for his recurrent acts of violence. On October 6, 2016, he beat up the President of the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic and repeated open threats to the critics in his social network accounts. He is known for his unconditional support to Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov. Footnotes [1] See Observatory Joint Press Release, September 9, 2016. [2] See Observatory Press Release, March 14, 2016. [3] See Observatory Urgent Appeal RUS 004 / 1214 / OBS 093.1, issued on March 23, 2016. Egypt: An Intensifying Problem With Islamist Militancy Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Alexander Sehmer Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Egypt: An Intensifying Problem With Islamist Militancy, 13 January 2017, Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cb1274.html [accessed 4 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 A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Cairo church close to the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in December, killing at least 25 people, wounding scores more and putting Egypt's Coptic community on edge heading into their Christmas celebrations on January 7 (Ahram, January 6). The real target of Egypt's militants, however, is the state itself. Following the December 11 attack, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has been publicly supportive of Egypt's Copts, announced three days of mourning and ordered the church to be renovated (which it was) in time for the holiday (al-Bawaba, December 12, 2016). Islamic State (IS), meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed to continue its "war against apostates" (Egypt Independent, December 14, 2016). Egypt's Christians are an obvious target for Islamist militants the church attack was the deadliest on Egypt's Christian community since a blast in Alexandria in 2011 that killed 23 worshipers but the government's primary concern remains the political aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the days following the blast, Egyptian security forces rounded up four of the attack's alleged plotters (Ahram, December 13, 2016). Egypt's interior ministry also named the mastermind of the attack as Mohab Mostafa el-Sayed Kassem, and in so doing raked over a long-running political dispute with Qatar, which has been at odds with Sisi over its backing for the Muslim Brotherhood administration of former-president Mohamed Morsi. The interior ministry announced that Kassem, a militant known as "The Doctor" with links to IS' Egyptian affiliate Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM), had travelled to Qatar in 2015. It claimed that while there he met Brotherhood officials who encouraged him to join ABM and carry out attacks. Qatar reacted angrily, calling the accusations an attempt to "sully" its name and a "cover up" for the failures of the Egyptian security services (al-Bawaba, December 15, 2016). Egypt also received a reprimand from Qatar's Gulf allies (Khaleej Times, December 16, 2016). There is truth on both sides, but Egypt's problems go beyond these established Brotherhood links. Militant attacks have intensified since the 2013 coup. ABM had been a relatively fringe group up until Sisi came to power. Little over a year later, ABM declared allegiance to IS as Wilayat Sinai and stepped up its campaign against the security force. Although based in Sinai, its operations can reach Cairo, as the church bombing and other attacks make clear. More recently the Hasam movement, a relatively new group, mounted an assassination campaign against state and security officials. The group claimed the failed attempted assassination last year on Egypts former grand mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, an establishment figure (New Arab, August 5, 2016). As 2017 gets under way, it will be the Egyptian establishment that comes under continued attack from violent Islamists. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Cameroon: Volunteer Forces Work to Combat Boko Haram Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Alexander Sehmer Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Cameroon: Volunteer Forces Work to Combat Boko Haram, 13 January 2017, Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cb1b84.html [accessed 4 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 Northern Cameroon has seen a stepped-up campaign of attempted suicide attacks attributed to Boko Haram in recent weeks. While local vigilance committees have helped to combat the threat, with the militant group apparently under pressure across the border in Nigeria, they will likely have their work cut out for them in the coming months. At least two people were killed and several others injured on December 25 by a suicide bomber who blew himself up close to the entrance to a Christmas market in the northern town of Mora (Cameroon Info, December 25, 2016; K'mer SAGA, December 25, 2016). According to local media, the bomber was heading toward the market on a bicycle when members of the local vigilance committee stopped and tried to search him, at which point he detonated his explosives (Cameroon Info, December 28, 2016). In November, two young female suicide bombers also targeted the market in Mora, but only one was able to detonate her device, causing injures to bystanders, while the other was killed before she could blow herself up (Africa News, November 25, 2016). Members of the local vigilance committee were again responsible for disrupting the bombing attempt; committee members in northern towns thwarted two other attempted suicide attacks earlier this month (Camer, January 11). The committees are in effect state-sanctioned vigilante groups. They are comprised of volunteers operating with the blessing of the government, but some complain they are under-resourced and many are armed with only rudimentary, homemade weapons (Africa News, April, 4, 2016). While Cameroonian troops battle Boko Haram alongside their Nigerian counterparts as part of a regional military force, and have made significant gains in the last few years, they have struggled to deal with suicide bombers. The local committees have enjoyed greater success in this regard. Across the border, recent Nigerian military successes appear to have put Boko Haram under pressure. As 2016 drew to a close, the Nigerian military claimed to have vanquished Boko Haram in the Sambisa forest, taking a key base known as Camp Zero (Vanguard, December 24, 2016). Nigeria has made similar claims about the defeat of Boko Haram before, which have later proved to be overblown. However, if militants in the forest are being displaced, then Cameroon's far north can expect to see further disruption in coming months. Suicide bombers often infiltrate Cameroon's northern towns from across the border (Cameroon Info, August 23, 2016). But poor economic conditions and cultural similarities with northern Nigeria make Cameroon's north a potential recruiting ground for Boko Haram in its own right. In the long term, this is where the problem lies. The government must focus on economic development and deradicalization initiatives as much as on military strategy. Without that there will be little let up for either the military or the local vigilance committees. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation India Tackles Terror Financing Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Sudha Ramachandran Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, India Tackles Terror Financing, 13 January 2017, Terrorism Monitor Volume: 15 Issue: 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cb25d4.html [accessed 4 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 November 8, 2016, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetization of the country's two highest denomination bills, the Rs 1,000 and the Rs 500 notes, equivalent to $15 and $7.5 respectively. The notes, which accounted for almost 86 percent of the total value of all banknotes in circulation in the country, were declared illegal tender with immediate effect. Demonetization of these notes, Modi said, would help the government fight "black money," corruption and terrorism. [1] It would help tackle terrorism by rendering useless counterfeit currency notes, which "enemies from across the border" (read Pakistan) use to run their anti-India terrorist operations. "This has been going on for years," Modi said, pointing to the many instances of terrorists caught with a large number of fake 500 and 1,000 rupee notes (Economic Times, November 9, 2016). In the two months since the demonetization of India's high denomination notes, Modi and his ministers have made grand claims on its impact on terror funding. Within days of the announcement, Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar said that it had undermined the "core of terror funding" in the country (Indian Express, November 13, 2016). On December 27, Modi declared "the world of terrorism" had been "destroyed due to demonetization" (The Hindu, December 27, 2016). An examination of the financing of terrorist groups active in India, however, reveals a more complex picture. Terrorist groups have been hit some harder than others but whether demonetization will weaken terrorist outfits' finances in the long term is doubtful. How Terrorist Groups Are Funded Currency notes, genuine and counterfeit, constitute an important part of the assets held by terrorist groups active in India. The bulk of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) are printed abroad, mainly in Pakistan. India alleges that printing of FICN enjoys Pakistani state support; the paper used is the same as that used for Pakistani currency, and the printing of notes is undertaken using Pakistani government presses (India Today, November 6, 2013). These notes are then pumped into India through criminal networks and terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Indian Mujahideen. Besides the militants, traders and travelers between the two countries are conduits for fake notes. Counterfeit currency is also sent via couriers through India's porous borders with Nepal and Bangladesh, or over air and sea routes via West Asian and Southeast Asian countries (India Today, November 10, 2016). Among illegal channels for the transfer of funds, the Hawala route, a form of money transfer, is the most popular and plays a key role in sustaining terrorism and financing terror attacks (Outlook, November 24, 2011). [2] Militants also use legal channels to route their funds. JeM, for instance, favors sending money via bank accounts of Kashmiris based in Arab countries to their relatives in Kashmir, who then hand over the amount to JeM operatives in Kashmir (India Today, January 18, 2016). The HM is said to have routed Rs 800 million ($12 million) through a Pakistan-based front organization to India mainly using conventional banking channels (Economic Times, August 26, 2016). It is also reported to be using the cross-Line of Control barter trade to fund its operations in Indian Kashmir. Goods from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are under-invoiced and the excess money generated is collected by its fighters in India (Economic Times, August 27, 2016). Several Saudi "charity" organizations also use bank transfers to send funds to madrassas in India that are radicalizing young Muslims (NDTV, September 25, 2016). In addition, terrorist groups raise their own funds. Front organizations for LeT and JeM collect donations from the Pakistani public for use in their anti-India jihad (Indian Express, July 5, 2016). Terrorist groups also raise funds by collecting protection money from local businesses and contractors, as well as "taxing" profits from illicit businesses such as narcotics smuggling and illegal mining (Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses [IDSA], December 27, 2013). Limited Financial Impact Although terror groups do hold some of their assets in the form of investment in real estate, gold or stock shares, most is held as currency notes. Demonetization would, then, have converted any stashed counterfeit notes into scraps of valueless paper. However, militants would likely have already deposited as much of their illegally amassed wealth the "black money" as possible into bank accounts. In the Maoist strongholds in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, fighters appear to be forcing local villagers to deposit the rebels' black money into their own bank accounts, with officials reporting an unusual rise in the balances of the accounts of poor villagers (NDTV, November 30, 2016). Despite such efforts to preserve some of the value of black money, demonetization has had an immediate impact on terrorists' funding. Hawala traders, who after demonetization were left holding large volumes of cash rendered suddenly valueless, have been hit. Several hawala businesses have been forced to close, crippling an important channel for terrorist funding (Mail Today, December 25, 2016). However, the impact of demonetization on terrorists' finances is at best temporary. Indian officials claim the security features of the new Rs 2,000 and the Rs 500 notes that have replaced the demonetized notes are almost impossible to replicate, but it seems only a matter of time before counterfeiters copy the new notes (Times of India, November 10, 2016). By some accounts, fake notes printed in India are already in circulation. Furthermore, as Pakistan government presses are used to print FICN, replicating the new notes will not be all that difficult (Deccan Herald, December 27, 2016; The Wire, November 11, 2016). That could mean the coffers of terrorist groups will be replenished with new fake high-denomination bills within a matter of months. As for those sending money via the hawala channels, agents are already finding new ways to launder black money (New Indian Express, November 19, 2016). Transfer of funds to terrorist groups can therefore be expected to normalize in a few months as cash in circulation increases, making demonetization only a temporary impediment to terrorist finances (Hindustan Times, November 10, 2016). Recovering From the Blow Just how demonetization will hit different terrorist outfits will depend on their cash reserves, the liquidity of the businesses in which they have invested and the ease with which they are able to reconvert assets into cash. The Maoists and insurgent groups in India's Northeast which keep the bulk of their assets in cash have been hardest hit, and it will take them longest to recover. Their existing stashes of cash have been rendered redundant. Likewise, their ability to raise money through extortion from locals has been weakened, as those from whom they raise such funds are unable to pay immediately. So too they will be unable to sell real estate and gold (IDSA, November 18, 2016 and Sunday Guardian, December 4, 2016). In contrast, terrorist groups active in Jammu and Kashmir, and Islamist outfits operating elsewhere in India, will be able to recover much faster, as they have access to sources of financing, including funds from the Pakistani state and rich donors in West Asia who have not been impacted by demonetization (IDSA, November 18, 2016). Additionally, as well as the Hawala system, these groups draw their finances from remittances sent by the Indian diaspora in West Asia, payments that are routed via legal banking channels and so will not be affected. Demonetization will not provide a long-term solution to India's problems with foreign-funded terrorists nor, contrary to the government's claims, will it break the back of terrorist finances. Any setback it inflicts will be temporary at best, with Pakistan-backed groups likely to quickly recover. NOTES [1] Black money refers to the illicit proceeds of tax evasion, criminal activity and corruption, which are often held in the form of high denomination bills, as well as in real estate and gold. [2] Hawala is a money transfer system popular in Arab countries and South Asia, in which money is paid to an agent who instructs an associate in the relevant country to pay the sum to the final recipient. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Arunachal Pradesh: Cultural and Strategic Flashpoint For Sino-Indian Relations Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Sudha Ramachandran Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Arunachal Pradesh: Cultural and Strategic Flashpoint For Sino-Indian Relations, 13 January 2017, China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cc4224.html [accessed 4 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 Sino-Indian relations are likely to become strained in early 2017. The Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Tawang in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh in March. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, by granting the Dalai Lama permission to visit Tawang, India is providing "a stage for anti-China separatist forces," further warning that it would "only damage peace and stability of the border areas and bilateral relations" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, [PRC], October 29, 2016). China views the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang, an area of cultural and political significance to Tibetans, as potentially destabilizing. His previous visit to Tawang in 2009, which came close on the heels of violent unrest in Tibet, was similarly criticized by Beijing (Economic Times, November 4, 2009). In the run-up to that visit, tension between India and China escalated. The Indian media reported build-up of troops on both sides of the disputed Sino-Indian border (Greater Kashmir, September 23, 2009 and Rediff.com, November 4, 2009). Other visits to Arunachal Pradesh by Indian leaders and foreign officials have drawn Beijing's ire. When India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tawang in February 2015 to participate in celebrations marking 29 years of Arunachal Pradesh's full integration into the Indian Union, the Chinese government summoned the Indian ambassador in Beijing to express "strong dissatisfaction and staunch opposition" to his trip. The visit has "undermined China's territorial sovereignty, rights and interests," Beijing said (Times of India, February 21, 2015). More recently, it objected to U.S. ambassador to India, Richard Verma, visiting Tawang and accused Washington of trying to "disturb peace and tranquility of border areas and sabotage peaceful development of [the] region" (Hindustan Times, October 24, 2016). China claims 90,000 square kilometers in the eastern sector of the Sino-Indian border, which roughly corresponds to Arunachal Pradesh. But Tawang is the "focal point" of its demands in the eastern sector. Indeed, China regards Tawang as "the central question at the heart of the boundary dispute" (The Telegraph, April 22, 2012 and The Hindu, October 22, 2012). Underlying China's territorial claims in the eastern sector are its apprehensions over Tibet. The Dalai Lama is ageing; he is 81 years old. China, which is keen to control the Dalai Lama institution and can be expected to appoint a successor when the present Dalai Lama dies. There is growing concern in Beijing over instability in Tibet and the role that Tawang could play in resisting the Dalai Lama Beijing imposes and in fueling unrest in the post-Dalai Lama era. China's prickliness over the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Tawang must be seen in this context. Tawang's Significance Located on the southern slopes of the Eastern Himalayas, Arunachal Pradesh is India's eastern-most state. It shares international borders with Bhutan, China and Myanmar. Tawang is at the southwest edge of Arunachal Pradesh (See map). Arunachal Pradesh's significance for India lies in its geography; the state extends a protective arm around much of India's northeast. Control over Arunachal Pradesh is essential for India's defense of the Northeast, and Tawang plays a key role in this defense. Tawang is a critical corridor between Tibet and the Brahmaputra Valley. During the 1962 border war Chinese troops invaded India through the Bum La pass, located north of Tawang town, before going on to occupy a large swath of territory in the Northeast. Indian military officials warn that ceding control over Tawang to China could culminate in India losing control of the Assam plains (Force India, January 2015). [1] Worryingly for India, the Chinese garrison town of Nyingchi, which is home to two People's Liberation Army (PLA) mountain infantry brigades, is located near Arunachal Pradesh. China's road and rail network here would enable it to deploy soldiers along the McMahon Line very quickly (Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses [IDSA], November 2008) Tawang's significance goes beyond geo-strategic concerns; it has strong historical, cultural and ecclesiastical links with Tibet. Its predominantly Monpa tribal population practices Tibetan Buddhism and speaks a language similar to Tibetan. Tawang is an important center of Tibetan Buddhism. The 6th Dalai Lama was born here. The town is home to the Tawang monastery, the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa (Times of India, October 17, 2012). Tawang is also politically significant. When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 in the wake of China's suppression of the uprising there, he crossed into India through the Bum La pass and stayed at the Tawang monastery for some weeks. Thus, Tawang figures prominently in the history of Tibetan resistance against Chinese rule. Growing Stridence of Chinese Claims Historically a part of Tibet, Tawang became a part of British India only in 1914 when the rulers in Lhasa agreed to the McMahon Line as the border between Tibet and British India. The Simla Convention put Tawang south of the McMahon Line and thus in British India. Yet, Tibet continued to administer Tawang for several decades. It was only after China annexed Tibet that India took administrative control of Tawang in 1951. [2] China rejects the legality of the McMahon Line and claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of "South Tibet." It maintains that that its position on the McMahon Line is "consistent and clear" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 29, 2016). However, "its assertive claim to Arunachal Pradesh is relatively recent" (The Wire, May 20, 2015). From the signing of the Simla Convention in 1914 till January 1959, "the Chinese never raised any formal objections to the McMahon Line; although they had many opportunities to do so." Their main quarrel with the Simla Convention was with its Article 9, which laid out the boundaries between Inner and Outer Tibet. It was only in a letter dated January 23, 1959 that Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in a letter to his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru, for the first time formally raised China's differences with India on the border. "The Sino-Indian boundary had never been formally delimited," Zhou said. He clarified this further in a letter dated September 8, 1959 where he said that the McMahon Line "has never been recognized by any Chinese Central Government and is therefore decidedly illegal" (IDSA, July 3, 2014). Since then, China has made several U-turns. During the 1962 war, it occupied much of the North East Frontier Agency as Arunachal Pradesh was known then, but withdrew from it soon after, leaving it again in India's control. [3] Indeed, it was even willing to give up its claims over Arunachal Pradesh. Under a package deal it offered India in 1960 and 1980 (the offer was withdrawn thereafter), China suggested that in return for India recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Aksai Chin in the western sector, Beijing would recognize the McMahon Line as the border in the eastern sector. But in 1985, during the sixth round of the Sino-Indian border talks, China for the first time pressed claims south of the McMahon Line. [4] In 1986, when India granted full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh, repeated Chinese intrusions at the Sumdorong Chu Valley culminated in serious skirmishes between the two sides. Then in 2005, China signaled willingness to accommodate Indian concerns. Under the "Agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of the India-China Boundary Question," India and China decided that a settlement to the border dispute would not involve exchange of areas with "settled populations" (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, April 11, 2005). In effect, China was willing to give up its claims over Tawang, an area with a large settled population (The Wire, May 24, 2015). But a significant turnaround in China's position became evident soon after. In 2006, days ahead of President Hu Jintao's visit to India, China's ambassador in Delhi, Sun Yuxi, said that "the whole of the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory. And Tawang is only one of the places in it. We are claiming all of that" (Hindustan Times, November 19, 2006). China has also refused to issue visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh or issued them stapled visas on the grounds that they are in fact Chinese citizens (The Hindu, June 1, 2015). In 2009, for the first time ever it blocked an Indian application for loans from the Asian Development Bank for development projects in Arunachal Pradesh (Indian Express, April 14, 2009). China is also buttressing its claims by strengthening its military muscle and access near the McMahon Line. This has prompted India to step up its own military preparedness and border infrastructure in Arunachal Pradesh (China Brief, September 13, 2016). Chinese Anxieties So what lies behind China's increasingly strident demands in the eastern sector of its border with India? The Sino-Indian border dispute is entwined with China's concerns over the stability of its control over Tibet. Its claims over Aksai Chin in the western sector of the LAC, for instance, were linked to its need "to assert and uphold authority over Tibet." Following its annexation of Tibet in 1950, China needed to send in a large number of troops and civil administration to quell unrest and establish control over the region. Of the three available routes into Tibet, the route via Aksai Chin was the most convenient. It provided all-weather access to Tibet and, being unpopulated, was free from attacks by Tibetan insurgents. [5] If China's claims over Aksai Chin were aimed at establishing military and administrative control over Tibet, its demands on Tawang are linked to concerns over Tibet's stability. Such concerns have grown since the 2008 unrest in Tibet (Business Standard, May 14, 2015). China is anxious that when the present Dalai Lama dies, resistance to a Beijing-appointed successor could trigger an uprising in Tibet similar in intensity to the one in the 1950s (Outlook, May 30, 2007). A Beijing-appointed Dalai Lama would be all the more unacceptable to Tibetans if the present Dalai Lama determines who his successor will be. He has said that his "reincarnation" could happen "outside Tibet, away from the control of the Chinese authorities" (His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet). Should the next Dalai Lama be "discovered" in Tawang, "a Chinese rival may not enjoy the same legitimacy" (Business Standard, April 13, 2014). Additionally, like the present Dalai Lama, he would be outside China's control and Tawang would emerge as another rallying point for Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule. [6] In the months ahead of the Dalai Lama's 2009 visit, discussion on the succession issue gathered momentum, triggering speculation that he would announce a successor in Tawang (Indian Express, September 3, 2008; Open, October 31, 2009 and Economic Times, November 04, 2009). There is similar speculation among Tibetan exiles about the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit (Tehelka, July 11, 2015). Although India has consistently denied backing Tibetan insurgents and does not allow Tibetan exiles to engage in political activity on its soil, China believes it does (Hindustan Times, August 7, 2012; Hindustan Times, September 21). China's fears are growing as India-U.S. has increased since 2005, including in Arunachal Pradesh. In May 2016, China strongly protested a statement by the U.S. Consulate-General in Kolkata that Washington regards Arunachal Pradesh as part of India (Business Standard, May 14, 2015; Arunachal Times, April 13, 2016 and Indian Express, May 4, 2016). Conclusion China's concern over instability in Tibet underlies its claims on Tawang, which have grown increasingly strident over the past decade. This demand is likely to grow, as uncertainty over the Dalai Lama's succession and the likely unrest in Tibet mounts. The growing proximity of India and the U.S. compounds China's anxieties over Tibet. Under these circumstances, relations between India and China, which are already fraying, can be expected to deteriorate further. A settlement of their border dispute is unlikely in the near future. Dr. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent researcher and journalist based in Bangalore, India. She has written extensively on South Asian peace and conflict, political and security issues for The Diplomat, Asia Times Online, Geopolitics, etc. She can be contacted at [email protected] Notes Sino-Indian Competition in the Maritime Domain Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Jonathan Ward Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Sino-Indian Competition in the Maritime Domain, 13 January 2017, China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cc49a4.html [accessed 4 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 naval build-up of the world's two most populous nations, China and India, will contribute to a new era in the importance of naval power. Owing in part to a collapse in relations in the late 1950s and early 1960s which culminated in the China-India Border War of 1962, relations between China and India continue to be marked by distrust. In the past, geopolitical tensions between China and India were largely confined to the Himalayas, where the border dispute between the two nations remains unresolved. In this century, however, the geopolitics of China-India relations are increasingly defined by the maritime domain. The Himalayan territories of the disputed China-India border were once considered a "life-line" by Chinese leaders, important to the CCP's consolidation of control over Tibet following the founding of the PRC. Today, Chinese interests and activities have expanded significantly beyond the regions that defined China-India relations in the past. As the world's leading nation in trade, surpassing the United States in 2013, owning the fourth largest commercial shipping fleet, and many of the world's largest deep water ports, including Shanghai and Shenzhen, the Chinese economy, and the imperative for Chinese leaders to sustain economic growth, is defined by maritime engagement with the globe. With this comes great vulnerabilities, and a new dimension to China-India relations in which naval power will be paramount. Both China and India are dependent on sea-borne trade and shipping routes. Hemmed in by the Himalayas to its north and gaining little economically from its neighbor Pakistan, India's natural geography is maritime. The South Asian nation depends on the sea for 90 percent of its trade by volume and for 90 percent of its oil imports, with the majority of its imported oil coming from the nearby Persian Gulf (MEA, March 20, 2015). India's maritime geography is hospitable as the nation dominates the Indian Ocean region with easy access to some of the world's most vital sea lanes. China's economic life-lines, by contrast, pass through much more difficult terrain. China's Indian Ocean Dependency: the "Malacca Dilemma", the South China Sea, and China's Growing Presence in the Indian Ocean As China's global economic footprint increases, its Indian Ocean dependency is increasing in kind. Chinese access to vital African resources, Persian Gulf oil and gas, and sea-borne trade with Europe all depends on the passage of these goods across the Indian Ocean. To reach the People's Republic, all of this must then pass through the Straits of Malacca, a narrow, pirate-infested waterway which is less than two miles across at its narrowest point. The Straits of Malacca is one of the world's most significant maritime chokepoints: 25 percent of the world's traded goods and 25 percent of all sea-borne oil pass through it. According to the US Energy Information Agency, roughly 80 percent of China's imported oil passes through the Straits, leading President Hu Jintao to label this strategic bottleneck the "Malacca Dilemma" (), in 2003. [1] The phrase encapsulates two problems: on one hand the fact that the lifeblood of China's economy must pass through a two mile wide channel after transiting the Indian Ocean, and on the other hand, the concern that, as President Hu phrased it, "certain powers" could control the Straits and put China at risk with comparative ease. Importantly, China's dependence on the Indian Ocean is likely to be long-standing. As Professor Zhang Li, director of security and diplomatic studies at Sichuan University's Institute of South Asian Studies explained to this author in 2014, the Indian Ocean would be the region which most of China's energy imports would transit "for the next forty years", also explaining that "There is a very strong fear in India about China's intentions in the Indian Ocean" (China Brief, June 19, 2014). Indeed, as China takes steps to offset its Malacca dilemma by building both military and industrial infrastructure in the Indian Ocean region, frictions with India are likely to increase. Chinese infrastructure building in the Indian Ocean region is taking place under the framework of "One Belt, One Road", (OBOR) an initiative to build up ports, pipelines, roads and railways that will link Eurasia, Africa, and the Indian Ocean more closely to China, facilitating the transport of goods and natural resources to and from the People's Republic. Chinese or Chinese-funded port building is underway or under contract in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Myanmar, and along the East African coast. The heart of OBOR's Indian Ocean initiatives is arguably the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, (CPEC) a $46 billion investment plan by the PRC to build port and overland infrastructure links that would give China access to the Arabian Sea just to the east of the Persian Gulf. Along with existing port-to-rail facilities in Myanmar that link the Bay of Bengal to China's southern Yunnan province, CPEC provides a major potential offset to the "Malacca Dilemma". Importantly for India, however, China's infrastructure building in the Indian Ocean is not purely for economic purposes. China's 2015 Defense White Paper, made clear that "[T]he security of overseas interests concerning energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communications (SLOCs), as well as institutions, personnel and assets abroad, has become an imminent issue" (SCIO, May 29, 2015). The document tasks the People's Liberation Army with "safeguard[ing] the security of China's overseas interests" and tasks the PLA Navy (PLAN) with "gradually shift[ing] its focus from "offshore waters defense" to the combination of "offshore waters defense" with "open seas protection" (China Brief, June 19, 2015). The first signs of this shift in naval focus are taking place in the Indian Ocean region. While the PLAN has been participating in multi-national anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa since 2008, signs of a more permanent Indian Ocean presence, as well as the use of China's OBOR architecture and relationships for military purposes have emerged. In 2016, the PRC began construction on its first overseas military base, in Djibouti. In 2014, a PLAN nuclear submarine and military support ship docked in Colombo, Sri Lanka, alarming New Delhi, and in 2015, a Chinese submarine docked in Karachi, demonstrating that the long-standing China-Pakistan partnership also has value for the projection of naval power (Times of India, June 27, 2015). Chinese island building in the South China Sea should also be viewed in an Indian Ocean context. Taken together with a new overseas military base in Djibouti, China is effectively building up military infrastructure at both ends of the Indian Ocean, on both ends of the sea-lanes which the Chinese economy has come to depend on. Additionally, military infrastructure in the South China Sea offers China protection for its major submarine base at Sanya on Hainan island. South China Sea military infrastructure also offers China an advantage in the event of any military blockade of Malacca such as that which concerned President Hu in 2003. A pattern may therefore be emerging, of South China Sea military infrastructure as a basing point for PLAN patrolling in the Indian Ocean Region. While OBOR-related infrastructure has been used militarily, China is also expanding its Indian Ocean naval presence by proxy, supplying Pakistan with eight diesel electric submarines, and thus giving India's neighbor a transformative boost in its undersea capabilities (Tribune [Pakistan], August 31, 2016). Chinese rhetoric has likely done little to allay Indian concerns about either China's growing Indian Ocean presence or China's use of strategic relationships in the region. As Professor Shen Dingli of Fudan University stated earlier this year: "China actually has many ways to hurt India. China could send an aircraft carrier to the Gwadar port in Pakistan. China turned down Pakistan's offer to station military units in the country. If India forces China to do that, of course we can put a navy at your doorstep." Gwadar port, of course, is at the heart of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative. China's Maritime Power and India's Growing Navy The Indian Navy, in its 2015 maritime security strategy, shows that India's "Primary Areas of Interest" cover the entire Indian Ocean, from the Cape of Good Hope to Indonesia's Lombok Straits, including the Straits of Malacca (see map). Chinese fears of Indian naval capabilities are subtle, but long-standing. While Indian analysts and planners have long had their concerns about Chinese port building in the Indian Ocean, fearing encirclement by a "string of pearls", Chinese analysis has pointed out a further complication to the "Malacca dilemma" presented by India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, just west of Malacca. One Chinese naval analyst has suggested that India could fortify these islands into a "metal chain" () that could blockade Malacca, and others have suggested that the Andamans could be used as a "strategic springboard" () for India's "Look East" policy, or for forward basing to reach into the South China Sea. [3] Chinese strategic concerns aside, India is engaged in a significant naval build up, aiming to have a 200 ship navy by 2027 (Economic Times [India], July 16, 2015). Moreover, the South Asian nation is actively coordinating with other major democracies that are embroiled in maritime disputes due to Chinese claims in the East and South China Seas in the West Pacific. In 2015, the annual Malabar naval exercises between India and the United States were upgraded to include Japan as a permanent member. India and Australia also began conducting bilateral naval exercises in 2015. India and the US have established a Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology, and India may receive advanced carrier technology from the United States, including use of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) created for America's Gerald R. Ford class carriers, on its second indigenous aircraft carrier (The Diplomat, February 24, 2016). This year, India and the United States discussed cooperation on anti-submarine warfare, and also signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) which allows India and the US to use each other's military facilities for supplies and repairs, all of which demonstrates that US-India defense cooperation is moving forward (Indian Express, August 31, 2016). The two nations issued a statement called "Joint Strategic Vision for Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region" in 2015, which mentioned "safeguarding maritime security and ensuring freedom of navigationespecially in the South China Sea" (Whitehouse.gov, January 1, 2015). The joint vision also mentioned "support for regional economic integration" and "accelerated infrastructure connectivity", suggesting that it could be further developed as a counter-point to China's OBOR initiative. Sensitive technology sharing, establishment of new naval partnerships, and assistance in the build-up of India's naval capacity all show an embrace of Indian aspirations as a naval power by major maritime democracies. However, India's naval presence goes beyond the U.S.-Japan-India trilateral. Indian naval outreach in Southeast Asia has also intensified. In 2015, India signed the Joint Vision Statement on Defence Cooperation with Vietnam, and this year two Indian warships, a stealth frigate and a corvette, visited Cam Ranh Bay (Indian Navy, May 30, 2016). India inaugurated naval exercises with Indonesia in 2015, and the Indian Navy has trained Vietnamese submariners at Visakhapatnam (Indian Navy, May 10, 2015; Times of India, October 28, 2014). Indian maritime security outreach in the Indian Ocean itself is also underway, with Modi's visit to the Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka in 2015, where an Indian-led initiative on maritime surveillance has begun, which is meant to establish radar stations in these Indian Ocean island nations. Conclusions China's geopolitical challenge is breaking out of what it sees as encirclement or containment, both by foreign militaries and by geography itself. As the country is economically dependent on global sea-borne trade, and as its interests proliferate to every continent, the importance of naval power will be paramount. Liu Huaqing, China's most influential naval strategist, envisioned a Chinese navy capable of reaching the First Island Chain by 2000 and the Second Island Chain by 2020. The corresponding rise of the Chinese navy and the proliferation of anti-access/area-denial capabilities that threaten the US Navy in the West Pacific continues to occupy the attention of the US defense and policy-makers. However, China's most vital economic interests may in fact lie in the Indian Ocean Region, and here, China expands its military footprint both at far greater risk geographically than it does in pursuing "near seas" operations, and also in the presence of another major power engaged in its own determined naval rise. The PRC will continue to do all it can to circumvent its confounding geographical puzzle in Malacca, including showing great interest in a future waterwaythe Arctic's Northern Sea Route. As Chinese leaders employ the full range of the nation's resources: diplomacy, financial power, engineering capabilities, and of course the building of a substantial blue-water navy and submarine fleet, China's strategic presence in the Indian Ocean will continue to grow, contributing in turn to India's own emphasis on naval power. There is little doubt that sea power in this century will be defined by the rise of the Chinese and Indian navies. Jonathan Ward has recently completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, specializing in China-India relations, with a dissertation on the China-India Border War of 1962. He studied Philosophy, Russian and Chinese at Columbia University in New York City as an undergraduate, and continued his language studies at Beijing University in China and St. Petersburg State University in Russia. From 2006 2011 he lived and traveled extensively in Russia, China, Latin America, and the Middle East, and speaks Russian, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic. He consults on China-India relations, the Indian Ocean Region, and Maritime Asia for Oxford Analytica, and is a Research Associate at Oxfords Changing Character of War Programme. Notes China's Lukewarm Response to Indian Military Modernization Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Oriana Skylar Mastro Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, China's Lukewarm Response to Indian Military Modernization, 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cc50d4.html [accessed 4 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 Between September 1427, the United States and India conducted a joint military training exercise in Uttarakhand, an area less than 100 km from the Chinese border (Global Times, September 12). This combined exercise, known as Yudh Abhyas, or "training for war," started as an army training cooperation event in 2004 and has since evolved to include the air force as well (U.S. Army Pacific, March 12, 2012). Until 2008, the main focus had been sharing logistics and tactics. Between 2009 and 2012, the exercise focused on the UN-style peacekeeping missions (U.S. Army Pacific, March 12, 2012). Since then, the main theme has shifted to counter-insurgency and more recently, counter-terrorism (U.S. Army, September 12, 2015; The Diplomat, September 16). Each year, the United States and India takes turn in hosting the exercise. China tends to be strident in its criticism of U.S. military operations and presence in the Asia-Pacific, to include U.S. increased cooperation with allies and partners as a result of the rebalancing (State Council Information Office, May 2015). The Chinese government and media repeatedly emphasizes that the "rebalance" ended the tranquilization and peace in the region (Xinhua, June 2; Global Times, September 30) Official media often directly accuses the United States for replaying the Cold War politics and the arms competition (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 29). Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan echoed President Xi Jinping, denounced the US and its increasingly military cooperation with allies as "seeking its own security by scarifying the others," and is bringing "instability" to international security (People's Daily, May 21; Xinhua, June 26; Global Times, June 26). But strangely, China's response to Yudh Abhyas did not follow this pattern. The Chinese government did not publish any statement on the exercise and official media sources did not regularly report on it. This year, Huanqiu expected a criticism from Beijing for holding the exercise too close to the border with China (Global Times, September 12). However, neither an official statement nor an article followed up on the exercise. Even in the years the official media has reported on the exercise, the articles have been very short and limited to reporting basic information such as the date, location and purpose (Xinhua, May 20, 2013; Global Times, September 12; Global Times, September 16). There is one minor exceptionin 2009 two major media outlets, Xinhua and Huanqiu, did report on the exercise in detail, probably because the purpose of the exercise shifted from training to combat simulation that year (Global Times, October 13, 2009; Xinhua, October 27, 2009). Chinese Response to Indian Border and Maritime Exercises China's lack of attention to this combined exercise is not surprising China tends to respond mildly, if at all, to Indian military training and exercises. India conducted 29 military exercises in 2016, four of which were with China and 22 were with other foreign states. [1] Of all of these, Chinese reporting covered only eight of India's exercises, with information mostly being conveyed through online outlets instead of printed papers (Huanqiu, February 9; PLA News, April 13; Huanqiu, May 5; Global Times, June 12; Global Times, July 7; Global Times, September 12; China.com, October 20; Global Times, October 24; Ministry of Defense, November 15). The low level of interest is also evident from the RIMPAC exercise; China only focused on its participation and entirely overlooked India's presence (Xinhua, August 4; PLA News, August 7). This is the case even when those exercises have direct application to the Sino-Indian border dispute, which has been heating up since 2007 (China Brief, December 21, 2015). In February 2016 India's new mountain corps conducted an exercise designed to prepare them for combat along the whole border. The Indian parliament also approved a 9.4-billion-dollar worth of budget to recruit 80,000 soldiers for these troops. The government approved several social projects to rebuild infrastructure in the Sino-Indian region (Global Times, March 9). The Global Times, known for its over the top nationalistic coverage, mentioned matter-of-factly on July 5, 2016 that India announced a plan to enhance defense and combat capabilities in Arunachal Pradesh in response to the intrusion of 250 Chinese soldiers the month before. The Indians also conducted an exercise there and issued a stern warning to China that they are learning Chinese to prepare to chase out the Chinese the next time. [2] Even in the case of the maritime sphere, in which there seems to be a budding rivalry between the two countries in the Indian Ocean, China's media coverage of Indian exercises is still balanced (Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, February 15, 2015; Global Times, April 11; Global Times, July 29; China News, September 8). For example, in June 2016, Japan, India and the United States conducted an exercise together in the East China Sea as part of the annual naval Malabar exercise. One would expect a strong PRC response to India interfering in Chinese sovereignty disputes, but instead Chinese media coverage rationalized away Indian participation. One article mentioned India wants to be a Pacific power with its Look East Policy, but it is not trying to flex its muscles like Japan and the U.S. With this exercise, India merely wants an opportunity to flush out its submarines (People's Daily, June 16). India wants closer relations with Japan to facilitate its Look East policy, but India's visit to China after the exercises shows Delhi wants to maintain good relations with Beijing as well (China Youth Daily, June 23). In February 2016 India dispatched four vessels to Vietnam and the Philippines to, in the words of a Chinese official, demonstrate their growing military capability and implement the Act East policy. The article concludes only that military activities are good diplomatic activities, but perhaps India should have been more careful about their timing (Global Times, June 2). The harshest treatment was a Global Times article that said for India Malabar was a good way to pursue alliance diplomacy without entering into an alliance or losing strategic autonomy, and India welcomed a greater U.S. role to facilitate its economic rise and prevent Chinese dominance of the region. Why does China respond in such a relatively neutral, balanced way? One possibility is that Indian military activities remains insignificant, and therefore does not require a Chinese response. But Indian bilateral and multilateral defense cooperation with other regional actors such as Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam, has increased in unprecedented ways in recent years ( Center for a New American Security , June 2013). [3] Just this year, India hosted its first multilateral military exercise entitled "Force 18" with ten Asian nations and eight dialogue partners, including China, Australia, Japan, and the United States (The Diplomat, February 28). Indian forces also regularly participate in the Malabar series of tri-lateral naval exercises with the U.S. and Japan, and in 2016, 12 Indian Air Force aircraft participated in the multinational "Red Flag" exercises held by the US Air Force in the United States (People's Daily, June 16; Global Times, May 7). On the bilateral level, Indian troops conducted counter-terrorism exercises in 2015 with Russia (INDRA-2015), while Indian Air Force aircraft exercised with Russian aircraft in Aviva Indra-2014 in 2014, and flew with fighters from the British Royal Air Force in Exercise Indradhranush in 2015 (Global Times, November 6, 2015; The New Indian Express , August 25, 2014; Aviation Week , July 31). In June 2016, the United States, Japan, and India conducted the Malabar naval exercises off the coast of Okinawa. Chinese ships monitored the exercises, tracking Indian and U.S. vessels with intelligence platforms to gather information ( The Hindu , June 16; People's Daily , June 16). China Responds Strongly to Other Countries Another possibility is that this neutral coverage of Indian military modernization and activities is merely the result of Chinese reporting. There may be a desire in general to avoid stoking nationalism, or ignore external threats to Chinese national interests. But Chinese coverage of other countries casts doubt on this alternative hypothesis. Coverage on Japan is clear that about the threat Japan's military buildup poses to China (China Daily, December 18, 2013; Xinhua, April 30, 2015; Xinhua, July 21, 2015). The media responses strongly to every movefor example when Japan moved radar equipment to Yonaguni Island (east of Taiwan), China called the move "concerning" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 23, 2014) and indirectly criticized the move, stating "we hope the Japanese side learns from the hard lessons of history [and] sticks to the path of peaceful development" (Sina News, March 29). Additionally, Chinese entities consistently suggest that this alliance is a Cold War relic and should not be directed against China (Xinhua, April 30, 2015; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 30, 2015; People's Daily Overseas Edition , April 25, 2014). Xinhua railed, "Washington has simply signed a Faustian pact with a Tokyo that has a knack of alienating its neighbors," and that the U.S. "is actually emboldening a warmonger whose martial zeal had been proved by history repeatedly" (Xinhua, April 28, 2015). China is also quick to point out the challenge of Vietnamese and Philippine military modernization. On the Vietnamese acquisition of submarines, a Chinese vice admiral's commented in 2010 that "is naturally becoming a challenge to neighboring countries, including China" (China News, February 27, 2010). When Vietnam uses its military to protect its territorial claims, as India does on the border, China holds no punches. In June 2012 when Vietnam's Su-27 fighter jets flew patrols over the Spratly Islands and Hanoi passed a law placing disputed islands under Vietnamese sovereignty, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei proclaimed the Vietnamese actions to be "illegal and invalid," and they "complicate and magnify the issue" (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 21, 2012). Likewise, when Vietnam sent Israeli-made EXTRA rocket launchers to its outposts in the Spratly Islands in August 2016, the Foreign Ministry stated "China resolutely opposes the relevant country illegally occupying parts of China's Spratly Islands [and] illegal construction and military deployments" (Global Times, August 10). The Global Times opined that this deployment was "a terrible mistake," and that Vietnam should "draw some lessons from history" (Global Times, August 11). On the Philippines, even though China spends approximately 59 times more on its defense and military than the Philippines (Xinhua, March 5), when Major-General Raul de Rosario unveiled a plan to spend $22.11 billion on the Filipino military through 2028 (The Diplomat, July 8, 2015), Chinese media outlets suggested Manila was contributing to an escalating regional arms race. Expectedly, China takes serious issue with the Philippines' efforts to bolster its alliance with the U.S. In response to the 2016 Balikatan exercises, a commentary in Xinhua remonstrated, "the exercises caps Manila's recent attempts to involve outsiders in (a) regional row," proceeding to castigate the U.S for "unscrupulous inconsistency between fear-mongering deeds and peace-loving words" (Xinhua, April 4). In response to the 2016 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (ECDA) allowing American forces access to five additional military bases in the Philippines, Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun reverted to the common Cold War refrain regarding U.S. allies in Asia. He warned, "to strengthen military alliances is a reflection of a Cold War mentality (State Council Information Office, March 31). China also lashes out when the U.S. and Philippines conduct joint patrols in the South China Sea, with the Defense Ministry depicting these activities as "militarization in the region, which is harmful to regional peace and stability" (Xinhua, April 15). Conclusion While Beijing is quick to jump to conclusions about other countries modernization efforts being directed at China and undermining Chinese security, China surprisingly responds calmly to Indian military activities. Even when India spends more resources on its military, many that have a direct application to a conflict against China along the border, Chinese media and official statements either ignores these developments or rationalizes that these developments are directed at other actors. This provides a strategic window of opportunity for expanding U.S.-Indian relationswe will have to wait and see whether President-Elect Trump capitalizes on it. Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Her recent publications include "The Vulnerability of Rising Powers: The Logic Behind China's Low Military Transparency" in Asian Security and "A Global People's Liberation Army: Possibilities, Challenges, and Opportunities" with Kristen Gunness in Asia Policy. Her full bio can be found here. Dr. Mastro would like to thank Lynn for her expert research assistance. Notes: How Al-Qaeda Will Benefit From Islamic State's 'Greater Sahara Province' Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Jacob Zenn & Abdou Cisse Publication Date 13 January 2017 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, How Al-Qaeda Will Benefit From Islamic State's 'Greater Sahara Province', 13 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cc5734.html [accessed 4 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 Under increasing pressure in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Libya, Islamic State (IS) is activating and reorganizing its networks elsewhere, observably in Europe and Turkey, and, less conspicuously, in West Africa. On October 30, 2016, IS confirmed via its Amaq news agency that it had recognized a militant faction led by Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, a former Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and al-Murabitun commander, releasing a video of al-Sahrawi and 40 of his fighters giving the pledge of allegiance, or baya, to IS leader Abubakr al-Baghdadi. Although this did not receive the same level of fanfare in IS circles as the pledge Boko Haram made in March 2015, IS ensured its followers were made aware of al-Sahrawi's pledge. The mentions were brief, but the 53rd edition of Islamic State's al-Naba newsletter and the 3rd issue of IS' multilingual magazine, Rumiyah, both hailed the integration of al-Sahrawi's faction of al-Murabitun into the "Islamic Caliphate." However, al-Sahrawi's faction of al-Murabitun or as he terms it the "Greater Sahara Division" first made its pledge to al-Baghdadi in May 2015. Why then did it take more than a year for IS to grant the group recognition? Further, how will al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) respond to the existence of a newly recognized IS faction in the Sahel where until now (despite Boko Haram further south in the Lake Chad region) it has had a virtual monopoly on jihadism? Most likely al-Sahrawi had to first prove himself in order to win IS recognition, but his faction provides a useful case study to explain new trends in IS' expansionist strategy. As for AQIM, the group will be able to manage and possibly even benefit from the rise of al-Sahrawi's faction in several important ways. The Importance of Timing The timing of the Amaq, al-Naba and Rumiyah publications show that IS coordinated the confirmation of al-Sahrawi's pledge across its media outlets, but what is notable is the delay in recognizing al-Sahrawi's faction. Al-Sahrawi had released an audio as early as May 2015 calling on al-Murabitun to join IS "for the good of the Muslim community," but IS ignored the announcement (France24, May 14, 2015). In contrast, immediately after the release of the audio recording, the historical leader of al-Murabitun, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, declared that al-Sahrawi's al-Murabitun faction had gone against the "Shurah Council," and reasserted that he and (his faction of) al-Murabitun were still loyal to al-Qaeda (rfi.fr, May 16, 2015). One theory behind IS' delay in recognizing al-Sahrawi's pledge is that al-Sahrawi had to first prove himself. On May 4, 2016, about one year after the release of al-Sahrawi's first audio recording, another recording attributed to al-Sahrawi threatened Morocco and the UN mission in Western Sahara (al-Sahrawi's native land) in the name of "Islamic State in the Greater Sahara," but nothing resulted from the threat (al-Jazeera Arabic, May 4, 2016). Shortly after the recording was released, however, Morocco broke up an IS cell planning attacks in Tangiers. The cell was led by a Chadian national, which would be consistent with al-Sahrawi's sub-Saharan support base. The foiled attack may have been planned by al-Sahrawi in an attempt to impress IS, although information on the cell is scarce and Morocco has not released any further details of the arrests. On September 1, 2016, al-Sahrawi carried out his first attack, striking a Burkinabe customs post in Markoye, not far from the border with Mali and Niger, killing a customs officer and a civilian. He claimed that attack three days later (al-Akhbar, September 3, 2016). Al-Sahrawi then carried out his second attack and claimed it in the name of IS in Greater Sahara on October 12, in Intangom, northern Burkina Faso (al-Akhbar, October 14, 2016). In this attack, four Burkinabe soldiers and two civilians were killed. A third attack, also claimed it in the name of IS in the Greater Sahara, came on October 17 at the Koutoukale prison in Niamey, where many jihadists are imprisoned. This attack, however, was repelled by the Nigerien security forces (rfi.fr, October 19, 2016). Less than two weeks after this attack, IS confirmed al-Sahrawi's pledge from 2015, promoting the video of al-Sahrawi and his fighters pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi. This suggests the attacks gave IS the confidence that al-Sahrawi's brigade could become a "legitimate" operational branch of IS, unlike several Algerian groups that broke from AQIM in 2014 and 2015 to join IS, but which were largely inactive and quickly destroyed by Algerian security forces. Supporting this is the experience of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the leader of IS in West Africa Province (formerly known as Boko Haram), whose faction operates further southeast from al-Sahrawi's area of operations in the Lake Chad region. Before IS announced in its al-Naba newsletter that al-Barnawi had replaced Abubakar Shekau as leader of its West Africa Province in August 2016, the militants, then still formally under Shekau's leadership, carried out a string of raids on towns and military barracks in Bosso and Diffa, southeastern Niger. These were actively promoted by IS media. Given al-Barnawi's historic focus on the Nigeria-Niger (Nigeria-Chad and Nigeria-Cameroon) border areas, and the style of the videos showing the raids, it is likely al-Barnawi's faction (not Shekau's) commanded those raids. Al-Barnawi likely carried out the raids to establish his credibility and capabilities to IS before the group would name him as Shekau's replacement (see Terrorism Monitor, August 19, 2016). AQIM and Ansaroul Islam IS' recognition of al-Sahrawi's faction will likely lead to competition with AQIM and its network of branches (Sahara Branch); allies (Belmokhtar, Katibat Uqba ibn Nafi); sub-affiliates (Ansar Dine); and front groups (Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia and Macina Liberation Front (MLF)) in the broader Sahel region. Indeed, AQIM already appears set to encroach on al-Sahrawi's main area of operations in Burkina Faso, which had limited experience of jihadist attacks until AQIM's large-scale hotel and cafe attacks in Ouagadougou in January 2016. These had been preceded by similar attacks by AQIM on hotels in Bamako and near Abdijan in late 2015. AQIM's most recent front group, Ansaroul Islam, is based in Burkina Faso, and reportedly is a sub-group of the Malian MLF which, like MLF, exploits historical Fulani jihadist narratives to recruit among Fulanis on the Burkina side of the Mali border (menastream.com, January 3). If Ansaroul Islam takes after the MLF, it will have the grassroots networks and intelligence to be able to eliminate local clan, tribal and government officials who oppose AQIM and jihadist preaching more generally. Al-Sahrawi, whose main support base has historically been around Gao in Mali, is unlikely to have such a grassroots base in northern Burkina Faso, given the diverse backgrounds of his fighters. This holds true even if al-Sahrawi receives some of the sub-Saharan African IS foreign fighters who have recently fled Libya. AQIM may seek to prioritize Ansaroul Islam in response to al-Sahrawi. AQIM has paid close attention to the former al-Murabitun leader. Not only did Belmokhtar respond immediately to al-Sahrawi's audio pledge in 2015, but also after that same audio pledge from al-Sahrawi, AQIM released a video of a Romanian hostage, who was abducted on April 4, 2015 from a mine in northern Burkina Faso (voaafrique, May 19, 2015). Until then, the man had not featured in any hostage video. AQIM made clear that its branch of al-Murabitun, rather than al-Sahrawi's, had the Romanian hostage. It is unlikely this was a coincidence. Instead it was likely a rebuttal to al-Sahrawi and intended to show AQIM was the stronger faction. Now with Ansaroul Islam AQIM has part of its network in the same geographic area of al-Sahrawi and can more effectively operate and recruit in his terrain. Possible AQIM Responses Although there have been reports of clashes between al-Sahrawi's fighters and Belmokhtar's fighters, such as in Gao in mid-2015, AQIM can likely use "non-violent" measures to deal with the emergence of al-Sahrawi's Greater Sahara Province (maliactu.net, June 17, 2015). The leader of AQIM's Sahara Branch, Yahya Abu el Hammam Okacha, for example, said in an interview with al-Akhbar in January 2016 that there was still communication with al-Sahrawi, suggesting cooperation was an option (al-Akhbar, January 10). More generally, despite infrequent crackdowns on defectors, AQIM has adapted its messaging to cater to IS interest among its foot-soldiers, including using IS nasheeds and "talking points" such as promising to conquer Rome aimed at keeping IS-inspired youths in AQIM's orbit. At the same time, however, AQIM's overall leadership has employed more sophisticated theological arguments to counter IS and cater to more "intellectual" (likely experienced) jihadists. It has, for example, condemned IS for its killing of Muslims in Libya and elsewhere (Libyaschannel, July 9, 2015). There are other non-violent measures AQIM can take to manage interest in al-Sahrawi's faction and IS in the Sahel more generally: AQIM, like other al-Qaeda affiliates, may develop "rehabilitation" programs for IS fighters who are disaffected by the group's mass killings and the loss of the Caliphate, and who seek to rejoin al-Qaeda and accept its more methodological approach to Caliphate-building. AQIM may use double agents to infiltrate al-Sahrawi's faction and sow discord within it to cause defections something AQIM may already be doing to West Africa Province in coordination with al-Qaedas reviving Ansaru as an alternative to both West Africa Province and Shekaus faction in Nigeria (al-Risalah Issue 4, January 11). Indeed, on January 1, 2017, a high profile and credible al-Qaeda media official announced on Twitter that members of al-Sahrawi's faction "split from Daesh [IS]" (and presumably joined with AQIM), although no evidence was provided to validate the claim (@Nourdine_1991, January 1). AQIM could expend more of its resources to consolidate its hold on the insurgency in Mali, including staging recent attacks on Timbuktu and Gao airports, especially via Ansar Dine and MLF, both of which have escalated attacks in central Mali in recent months. Mali is a geographic lynchpin of West Africa; as long as AQIM controls that space for insurgency, it will make it difficult for IS to send reinforcements from Libya to either Burkina Faso or further south to al-Barnawi in the Lake Chad region. AQIM may be more likely to seek these "non-violent" alternative avenues to deal with al-Saharawi, now that he is a competitor, rather than engaging him directly in battle because of AQIM's longstanding "organizational psychology." Having experienced the IS-like ultra-takfiri Armed Islamic Group (GIA) during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, veteran AQIM leaders will well remember the infighting, death and destruction that defined its confrontations with the GIA and the Algerian government during that era. Al-Qaeda vs Islamic State The relative slowness with which IS recognized al-Sahrawi's pledge shows the group is becoming more deliberate about acknowledging new factions. It has abandoned the earlier model of expeditiously declaring new "provinces" as the subsequent inability of those provinces to grow harms the reputation of IS. Although IS has been promoting its fighters in the Philippines in recent months, it has as yet avoided declaring a "province" in the region, for example. Notably, neither al-Sahrawi nor al-Barnawi in the case of West Africa Province continued their momentum after IS recognized them. Al-Sahrawi is yet to claim another significant attack in the Burkina Faso-Niger-Mali axis since October 2016, and West Africa Province has slowed down the pace of attacks in Niger (and Nigeria) since mid-2016. It could be that the al-Sahrawi and al-Barnawi carried out their string of attacks to impress IS enough to receive recognition simply in order to improve their own localized recruitment and legitimacy. On the other hand, it is possible that both al-Sahrawi and al-Barnawi exhausted their resources in these attacks before receiving recognition from IS and have since been replenishing or awaiting further funds or IS reinforcements before launching new campaigns. If al-Sahrawi and al-Barnawi do not continue to carry out attacks for IS, they could end up further diminishing IS' Africa brand, especially following the underperformance of IS' Algeria Province and its Libyan Province's loss of Sirte, which was its African "capital." Despite IS' recognition for al-Sahrawi, and its promotion of al-Barnawi to lead West Africa Province, AQIM remains a greater threat to West Africa than IS. AQIM has carried out the higher profile attacks and has the deepest-rooted insurgency in the region in Mali (Shekau's faction of Boko Haram is also deep-rooted in Nigeria but left IS in August 2016). AQIM also continues to maintain its cadre of core leaders in the Sahel and North Africa and is making significant efforts to respond to interest in IS from among its foot soldiers. AQIM can also count on the support of the global al-Qaeda affiliates, which have stayed loyal to al-Qaeda throughout the rise (and now decline) of the IS Caliphate project. But, perhaps most importantly, AQIM has a well-developed and multi-layered insurgency structure in West Africa that can withstand the limited expansion of IS in the region. AQIM may even benefit from the insecurity brought to the region by al-Sahrawi, as it further exhausts national security forces and creates a greater market for jihadism in West Africa from which AQIM can pull new recruits. Copyright notice: 2010 The Jamestown Foundation Search Refworld and / or country All countries Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau (Special Administrative Region of China) Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island North Macedonia Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine, State of Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste (East Timor) Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkiye Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu U.S. Virgin Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Territory Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Schools Focus of Conflict in Afghan Province Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Mohammad Hamid Hashimi Publication Date 13 January 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 563 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Schools Focus of Conflict in Afghan Province, 13 January 2017, ARR 563, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cc9ca4.html [accessed 4 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. Children are being denied access to education in the central Afghanistan province of Maidan Wardak by a combination of conflict, poverty and conservative tradition, according to speakers at an IWPR event in the provincial capital Maidan Shahr. Around 100 local people had the chance to question education officials and activists at the debate, held at Tabish private university on December 31. "Schools have become the focus of conflict in Maidan Wardak province and this has caused a staggering amount of damage to the education system," said provincial council deputy head, Sharifullah Hotak, adding, "The department of education is making all possible efforts to keep the schools active and open, but because of fighting and the lack of security, many girls don't want to go to school. Children were at risk of being caught in crossfire, he continued. "When a girl leaves her home to go to school, there are no guarantees that she will arrive safely and not be shot by either the Taleban or the security forces," he said, adding, "If the government doesn't build security checkpoints near schools, the insurgents will not set up ambushes at schools. Every day the insurgents lay in wait near schools." The director of Maidan Wardak's education department, Fazal-ul-Rahman Tariq, acknowledged that progress had been limited. "Over the last 15 years, our department was not able to open a high school for girls in many areas of Maidan Wardak," he said. "There isn't a single girls' high school in three out of the nine districts in Maidan Wardak, although other districts have one or two girls' high schools." Tariq said that there were a total of 481 schools in the province. Nearly 17,000 students were enrolled, including just over 5,000 girls. He added that there were around 5,000 teachers, although only some 300 of these were female. Maidan Wardak, 30 kilometers west of Kabul, has a population of around 900,000. Some debate participants criticized the provincial education department for failing to reach out to people in more remote districts. University student Rafeullah Arman said, "It's the responsibility of the education department to meet people in those areas where people don't have access to education." Tariq replied that the local community in turn needed to engage with officials in order to increase educational provision in their area. "Our policies mean that we are not allowed to simply build a school by ourselves, but if somebody approaches us we are ready to fully cooperate and provide all the facilities that we have available," he said. "It is the moral and ethical responsibility of people to support and help their government, so that we can add primary schools to secondary schools and high schools in the region. We have our procedures and if people apply to the department of education, I can assure you that their voice will be heard. We have accepted the requests of all those people who have asked us to build schools." Mirwais Hashimi, the chancellor of Tabish private university, also argued that local people needed to take action. "We cannot just hold the department of education responsible for all the current problems in the education system," he said, adding that poverty, a lack of security and conservative social traditions also had an impact. "We should not ignore these truths. It's not only the department of education that is to blame. There are many other factors which have restricted people's access to education." He noted that girls in particular were excluded from even basic educational facilities in many areas of Maidan Wardak province. Where schools existed and girls were able to graduate from high school, security, economic and cultural obstacles meant they did not go on to take university entrance exams. Human rights activist Qudratullah Zwak said that girls were expected to get married as soon as they left school and that this was the major obstacle for them continuing in education. There were also concerns surrounding studying in mixed groups with members of the opposite sex. Another issue was the difficulties students faced in parts of the province under insurgent rule. "In areas controlled by the Taleban, students are not allowed to study government textbooks," Hotak said. "The Taleban have ordered school officials to implement the curriculum according to their own suggestions." This went beyond excluding girls from education, he continued. "The Taleban also interfere in the affairs of boys' schools and don't permit the teachers to teach modern or social subjects." Rahman disputed this, adding, "The Taleban don't have a special school curriculum. They have ordered that a subject called Islamic Teaching must be taught at schools, but the governmental curriculum is more advanced, modern and improved." This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan. Copyright notice: Institute for War & Peace Reporting UN says Rohingya malnutrition rates rising during Myanmar military operations Publisher IRIN Author Emanuel Stoakes Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as IRIN, UN says Rohingya malnutrition rates rising during Myanmar military operations, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587ccab04.html [accessed 4 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. Military counterinsurgency operations are causing widespread hunger and malnutrition among Myanmar's oppressed Rohingya minority, according to internal UN reports that directly contradict government statements. Most of Myanmar's approximately one million ethnic Rohingya Muslims live in northern Rakhine State, which has been almost completely off limits to journalists and aid workers since insurgents launched deadly attacks on police posts on 9 October. There have been widespread reports of abuses of Rohingya civilians during military "clearing operations", which have also disrupted harvests and markets, as well as nutrition programmes. The UN and rights groups have repeatedly urged the government to allow an independent investigation into alleged atrocities, and to give full access to humanitarian agencies. The government has instead formed its own commission, which said in its interim report that it could find no evidence of alleged abuses, including widespread reports of rape. The report also gave a positive assessment of the food security situation. "No cases of malnutrition were found in the area, due to the area's favourable fishing and farming conditions," the commission said last week. Two UN assessments, which have not been released publicly but were provided to IRIN, found precisely the opposite. A 29 December update by the UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, was based partly on findings in parts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships where aid workers were allowed. In the preceding week, about 5,000 people were able to access nutrition programmes, it said. "Despite a low overall turnout, a number of severely malnourished patients is proportionately higher than the pre-9 October intake," said the update, which sourced information from the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, and World Food Programme. A seperate "remote emergency assessment" carried out over the phone by WFP found that "severe food insecurity appears highly widespread" and has worsened since October in Maungdaw, a Rohingya-majority township on the Bangladesh border. "The main source of food for most of the households have been neighbors or relatives lending or gifting food." "The main source of food for most of the households 94 percent in the north and 71 percent in the south have been neighbors or relatives lending or gifting food," said the WFP report. *Silke Buhr, a WFP spokeswoman, told IRIN that the organization is encouraged by recent negotiations with Rakhine State authorities who have agreed to allow programmes to resume. "WFP is hopeful that it will be able to begin food distributions imminently," she said. People surveyed by WFP said that markets in southern areas of Maungdaw were functioning, although supplies were low, and the price of rice shot up by 21 percent even though it is right after the harvest. Market "access appears safe only to the population living nearby", the report said. In northern Maungdaw, where military operations have been concentrated, the picture was far bleaker. "Markets appear not to function with nearly all respondents reporting serious damages to market infrastructure or exhausted food stocks," said the report. Government unconvinced Myanmar's government was unimpressed by those findings. "I am asking now: 'what is their proof?'" said Zaw Htay, a government spokesman. "What is their data?" He said the health ministry needs more time to conduct a nationwide survey on nutrition rates, in coordination with the UN. "We need concrete, sound, and reliable data about malnutrition around the country," he said in a phone interview. Last month, the Rakhine State government secretary, Tin Maung Shwe, also questioned reports on hunger. "We have a survey of every village, and there is no starvation and no malnutrition," he told IRIN. Yet, malnutrition in northern Rakhine State has been a longstanding problem and one previously acknowledged by the government. Pierre Peron, an OCHA spokesman, noted that programmes to treat malnutrition have been "implemented by the UN and International NGOs in northern Rakhine State for many years, under MOUs (memorandums of understanding) agreed with their relevant line ministries." 'Alarming malnutrition rates' A 2015 survey in the northern Rakhine townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung "showed alarming rates of global acute malnutrition", according to the UN children's agency, UNICEF. Aid agencies measure the weight and height of young children to assess Global Acute Malnutrition and compare those rates to a population with normal levels of nutrition. The survey found GAM rates of 19 percent and in Maungdaw and 15 percent in Buthidaung. The rates of Severe Acute Malnutrition, in which children become skeletal and require urgent treatment to survive, were 3.9 percent in Maungdaw and 2 percent in Buthidaung, according to the 2015 survey. The situation in Maungdaw deteriorated even further after the 9 October attacks by a group called Harakah al-Yakin ["Faith Movement" in Arabic], which formed after hundreds were killed and 140,000 forced into displacement camps during violence between minority Rohingya and majority ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. The vast majority of victims were Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Myanmar and live under an apartheid system. SEE: The roots and risks of Myanmar's new Rohingya insurgency Rohingya communities suffered even more as aid groups lost access to the area. "Approximately 3,400 children in northern part of Rakhine State were being treated for Severe Acute Malnutrition prior to 9 October and are at serious risk due to the disruption to their assistance," OCHA said in a 13 December report. In addition, the report noted that 7,600 pregnant women were unable to access healthcare, while more than 10,800 people could no longer receive nutrition treatment. Despite such warnings, Myanmar government statements, and articles in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper, have consistently downplayed the crisis. For example, an article that appeared one day after the OCHA warning stated: "All residents of Maungdaw region were provided with humanitarian assistance in the form of food and supplies." Promises of access The government has made repeated promises that aid groups will be allowed full access to northern Rakhine State, but that has yet to happen as military operations continue. Meanwhile, reports of military rapes, killings, and disappearances continue to emerge from Maungdaw, and Rohingya keep fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. The UN reported that 22,000 people arrived in Bangladesh between 3 and 9 January, bringing the total to more than 65,000 since October. SEE: Myanmar says Rohingya rape and abuse allegations "made-up", despite mounting evidence Yet, some aid workers are hopeful the promises on future access might soon turn into reality. Health Ministry officials were presented with data on malnutrition at a meeting this week with senior representatives of aid agencies. Sources who attended the meeting told IRIN that the ministry accepted that malnourishment was a widespread problem and expressed a willingness to fight it. "I feel much more hopeful that we can help children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition," said Bertrand Bainvel, the country representative for UNICEF. Kenyan slum activists build climate change resilience from the bottom up Publisher IRIN Author Lou del Bello Publication Date 12 January 2017 Cite as IRIN, Kenyan slum activists build climate change resilience from the bottom up, 12 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587ccb2a4.html [accessed 4 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. Living in the Kenyan slum of Mukuru is hard enough, but when it rains it's downright miserable. Streets flood, sewage overflows, homes are inundated. After each bout of torrential rain, Nairobi's largest informal settlement is left a little shabbier, a little poorer, the community more insecure. Climate projections for East Africa suggests parts of the region will receive heavier rains in the future, which will impact the most vulnerable. In the case of the Kenyan capital, that means the 60 percent of its residents currently living in informal settlements. A walk through Mukuru is enough to appreciate the magnitude of the challenges. A courtyard turned into a pond by recent flash floods reflects the metal shacks surrounding it, now inaccessible until the water dries up. That could take weeks. Residents cross, tiptoeing on the rocks just visible above the water to reach the main street. A short walk ahead, a bridge over the nearby river leads to the other side of the slum, where the local school is. When the river bursts its banks, the bridge becomes inaccessible, sometimes for months, and kids miss their classes. Insecurity Finding solutions in Mukuru is especially difficult because it is built partially on private land, which traps residents in chronic land tenure insecurity: they could be evicted and lose what little they have at any time. This doesn't encourage them to plan for the long-term. Aware that climate change will magnify risks, slum activists from local universities and research institutions are teaming up to take action in Mukuru, working with the residents to build resilience, and develop legal and financial tools to force accountability from public authorities. Shadrack Mbaka, of Slum Dwellers International, is one of the brains behind the project spurred on by the fact that "informal settlements [have] been cut out of the development plans" of the Nairobi City Council. SDI is partnering with Strathmore University, the International Development Research Centre, Nairobi University, the Katiba Institute and Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a slum dwellers' network, to develop the research and come up with recommendations for upgrading Mukuru. The lack of pipe-borne water and sanitation is one major issue. Of more than 800 households surveyed in Mukuru, just four percent had access to adequate bathrooms, only seven percent had proper toilets, and just 29 percent had adequate water provision. Christine Wayua makes a living for herself and her family by threading beads into colourful jewellery. She works from a bench outside her home in a narrow passage, off one of the main roads in Mukuru. "Whenever it rains it's a disaster for the communities living here," she told IRIN. "There will be a lot of flooding and it's not just rainwater: it's water mixed with sewage, and the water gets into the homes." That can lead to the spread of waterborne diseases, like cholera, which is common in Kenya's slums. Profiling SDI and its partners are trying to tackle the community's vulnerability from the bottom up, with the help of people like Wayua. First they "profiled" Mukuru, counting people and households. Then they sat down with the residents to imagine a new, better design for the community's infrastructure. With an agreed plan, they can engage the politicians, who had previously ignored their needs. Wayua is aware of climate change, and recognises it may exacerbate the problems the community already faces. But she is pragmatic, looking to focus instead on how to prepare for the future. In the case of Mukuru, she feels the issue boils down to land tenure. "We need more guarantees that we will be able to occupy this land in the future," she explained. Mukuru's coalition of activists are exploring a range of strategies to improve land tenure and property rights including converting private holdings into community land, and then establishing a Community Land Trust. The CLT will help defend constitutional rights to housing, water, health, and sanitation. Another approach is to foster liveability, safety and affordability. This includes initiatives to improve service delivery through "community partnerships" and "community-based management structures". One target is the cartels, whose control means prices for services in Makuru, as in other slums, is higher than in Nairobi's middle-class suburbs. "It's fundamental that people realise that the community is theirs to protect and upgrade," said Wayua. She gave the example of a garbage point, designated as a place where the community could collectively dispose of their rubbish: "But still you will find that no one really wants to carry their garbage there, so the nearest open space they see is where they are going to dump it." Mbaka says that engagement is growing, and will lead to behavioral change. Even garbage collection could, eventually, be a success. Lou del Bello/IRIN Trying to make ends meet in Mukuru Urban poor Responding to the "complex realities in Mukuru" could help develop the "long-term solutions" to benefit the rest of Kenya's informal settlements, says a Strathmore University study. There are 158 overcrowded informal settlements dotting Nairobi. They host the majority of the city's population, but take up just 1.6 percent of the city's land area. The land is marginal and disaster prone, and houses are typically flimsy. But what really drives vulnerability for the urban poor is "the lack of risk preparedness, and the capacity to respond when something bad happens", said David Dodman, an expert on resilience with the International Institute for Environment and Development. "You can't separate the process of rapid urban population growth, which means that more people are located in increasingly hazardous sites, from the actual changes in the climate that may be making those sites even more risky." SARC and ICRC finalise evacuation of some 35,000 people from devastated Aleppo neighbourhoods Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 22 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), SARC and ICRC finalise evacuation of some 35,000 people from devastated Aleppo neighbourhoods, 22 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587ccddc4.html [accessed 4 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 operation to evacuate civilians and fighters from East Aleppo was finalized this evening, after a week marked by stops and starts and increasingly bad weather. Some 35,000 people were evacuated to neighbouring rural areas by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). One hundred critically wounded and sick patients were amongst the evacuees. "Our priority, aside from helping the most vulnerable, was to ensure that civilians were leaving of their own free will", said ICRC's Head of Delegation Marianne Gasser from Aleppo. "These are communities whose neighbourhoods have been devastated by violence, and families have been struggling for months to find safety, food, medical care or appropriate shelter. They appeared desperate to leave, even though the situation was extremely painful and confusing." With temperatures below freezing, people were burning whatever they could find, including blankets and clothes, to keep themselves and their children warm while they waited to leave. More than 100 SARC volunteers and ICRC staff remained by their side day and night over the past week to ensure their safety and try to provide some guidance and reassurance. The evacuation, which began last Thursday, was stalled several times because of ongoing negotiations between different parties on the ground. It was intricately linked to a parallel operation from the besieged towns of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib, in which more than 1,200 people, the majority women, children and the elderly, were temporarily evacuated in the other direction to the city of Aleppo by SARC and ICRC. "Civilians who, like these thousands of families from Aleppo and Foua and Kefraya, chose to leave must be able to return to their homes when they want to", said Ms Gasser. "Many will one day want to come back." SARC and ICRC were not part of the negotiations but were called upon by the different sides to act as a neutral humanitarian intermediary and implement their agreement. Afghanistan: Abducted ICRC staff member released Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 15 January 2017 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Afghanistan: Abducted ICRC staff member released, 15 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd0684.html [accessed 4 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. An ICRC staff member who was abducted on 19 December 2016 in Kunduz province, has been released and is now with the ICRC team in Kunduz. The ICRC would like to thank the authorities and the communities who have mobilized and played a role in facilitating our colleague's release. The staff member was abducted while travelling from the ICRC office in Kunduz to the Sub-delegation in Mazar-i-Sharif. While three other colleagues were left unharmed, he was taken and held for almost 4 weeks. "We are relieved and grateful that Juan Carlos is now back with us, safe and sound," said the ICRC head of delegation in Afghanistan, Monica Zanarelli. "His abduction was a terrible ordeal for him, as well as for his family, friends and colleagues." "Our priority now is Juan Carlos' well-being and getting him home to his family. We would ask everyone to respect his, and his family's, privacy at this time." The ICRC will not comment on the identity of the abductors, their motives or the details of the release. Present in Afghanistan for 30 years, the ICRC provides medical care, supports water and sanitation services, visits places of detention and acts as a neutral intermediary to enable humanitarian work to take place throughout the country. Pakistan: Karachi motorists won over by ambulance campaign Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 11 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pakistan: Karachi motorists won over by ambulance campaign, 11 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd0d44.html [accessed 4 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 public awareness campaign on respecting ambulances' right of way, entitled RastaDein, was launched in Karachi in 2016 as part of the Health Care in Danger project. A marked improvement has since been noted in motorists' behaviour. The mid-term results of the project were presented at a ceremony co-hosted by the ICRC and the Sindh provincial authorities. Minister of Health Sikandar Ali Mandhro praised the efforts of the ICRC in highlighting the issue of violence against health-care workers and facilities. He said: "Let us work to create an environment where patients and care providers are respected, and to provide the best health-care facilities for our citizen". The Sindh Department of Health planned to implement further measures - including a working group with representatives of the medical community - to foster respect for medical standards and staff. Mr Giovani Trambaiolo, Healthcare in Danger Project Advisor of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), praised the initiative: "What distinguishes the Karachi project is the home-grown nature of the solutions developed, based on credible research. These solutions are also inspiring initiatives in other countries." He stressed the ICRC's ongoing commitment to making Karachi safe for health-care staff and patients. As part of the broader Health Care in Danger project, in 2015 the ICRC together with APPNA Institute of Public Health of Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Indus Hospital, Edhi Foundation and Aman Foundation carried out a study on patterns of violence against health-care staff and facilities in Karachi and analysed the legal framework safeguarding health care, with a view to developing a state-wide strategy. Manuals on de-escalating violence in health-care facilities and caring for victims were tested in training sessions attended by more than 450 health-care professionals in Karachi. Course materials were developed for medical students and a preparedness study to identify safety recommendations was conducted in five hospitals. The ICRC and its partners will continue to work together to safeguard health care in Karachi. Nigeria: ICRC surgical teams treat bomb-blast victims in Madagali and Maiduguri Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 16 January 2017 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Nigeria: ICRC surgical teams treat bomb-blast victims in Madagali and Maiduguri, 16 January 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd1384.html [accessed 4 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. In recent days, surgical teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have treated over 90 people wounded in the bomb blasts in Madagali and Maiduguri in north-eastern Nigeria. Nigerian Red Cross volunteers administered first aid to the wounded in both incidents. "An ICRC surgical team, together with surgeons from Michika Hospital, treated 76 victims of the blast in Madagali market, while another ICRC surgical team treated 15 people injured in Maiduguri on Sunday morning," said Dr Hashemi Said Padshah, an ICRC health coordinator in Nigeria. The ICRC currently has two surgical teams in Nigeria, both based in the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri, in Borno state. They treat people wounded in the conflict and internally displaced people in need of surgical care. They are also ready to help other hospitals cope with a sudden influx of mass casualties at a moment's notice. Each team consists of a surgeon, an anaesthetist and a nurse, all of whom are experienced in dealing with wounds of this kind. The ICRC's medical teams have significant experience acquired in many different armed conflict situations around the world. The organization shares this expertise and knowledge of dealing with conflict wounds by providing training and manuals for medical practitioners. "In the last seven years, the ICRC has trained nearly 400 Nigerian doctors and nurses to treat weapon-wounded patients," said Dr Padshah. "We aim to equip Nigerian practitioners with these extra skills because everyone has a right to health care in armed conflict, regardless of what side they are on or their political or any other affiliation." ICRC surgical teams have treated over 1,800 weapon-wounded patients in north-eastern Nigeria this year. The ICRC also supports 16 primary health-care centres and nine mobile clinics providing primary health-care services to internally displaced people, returnees and residents in the north-east, where 436,000 patients have been seen since the beginning of the year. Also in 2016, 13,000 children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition were treated and 15,500 babies were delivered in ICRC-supported clinics. ICRC plea to all sides to spare human life in eastern Aleppo Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 13 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ICRC plea to all sides to spare human life in eastern Aleppo, 13 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd1724.html [accessed 4 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. Thousands of civilians' lives are in danger as frontlines close in around them in eastern Aleppo. As the battle reaches new peaks and the area is plunged into chaos, thousands with no part in the violence have literally nowhere safe to run. A deepening humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of life can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare - and of humanity - are applied. We urge the parties to consider the fate of civilians trapped by the ongoing fighting and do their utmost to spare and protect them. This may be the last chance to save lives. For more than a week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been in touch with all sides to find a humanitarian solution that could prevent further human suffering. These efforts have so far failed to yield results, and time is running out. For the sake of civilians, the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) remain committed to act as a neutral and impartial humanitarian intermediary. "In order for this to happen, we appeal to the parties to put humanity ahead of military objectives", said ICRC's Head of Delegation in Syria, Marianne Gasser, currently in Aleppo. "We stand ready to oversee the implementation of any mutual agreement that puts civilians first. We cannot urge this strongly enough: this must happen now." Philippines: Armed clashes in Basilan displace nearly 7,000 people Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 13 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Philippines: Armed clashes in Basilan displace nearly 7,000 people, 13 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd1bb4.html [accessed 4 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. Nearly 7,000 people have been displaced for more than a month following armed clashes between government security forces and armed groups in Basilan province, southern Philippines. "These families left their homes and sources of livelihood after the hostilities started in November. The residents of six villages in the conflict-affected municipalities of Al-Barka and Tuburan chose to stay with relatives or in evacuation centers for fear of being caught in the crossfire. The ICRC's distribution is in response to their basic needs for food," said Nezar Tamine, deputy head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Mindanao. To support their needs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provided food rations and hygiene items on December 7 and 9 for the affected families in Al-Barka and Tuburan, with the support of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Basilan chapter. Each family received 25 kilograms of rice, 2 litres of oil, 1 kilogram of sugar, kilogram of salt, 12 tins of sardines, 1 liter of soy sauce, and a hygiene kit containing shampoo, bath and laundry soaps, toothbrushes and toothpaste. In July, the ICRC through the PRC provided essential household items and hygiene kits to 17,000 displaced people in Tipo-Tipo, Al-Barka and Ungkaya Pukan municipalities. Also recently, the ICRC arranged for 12 emergency health kits to be delivered to hospitals and rural health units in Sulu and Basilan provinces to support the medical needs of the affected civilians. These kits also contain dressing materials to treat the weapon-wounded. Together with the PRC Zamboanga City chapter, 113 health workers from six rural health units of Basilan were trained on first aid and basic life support to boost the capacity and readiness of health workers and the community to help save lives during armed fighting and other emergencies. As part of its mandate to raise awareness of and respect for international humanitarian law, the ICRC continues to remind all parties to the conflict about the need to protect civilians and those who are not or no longer participating in the hostilities. The ICRC is a neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian organization whose mandate is to protect and assist people affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence. It has had an established presence in the Philippines for more than 70 years and a permanent presence in Mindanao since 1982. Aleppo: 'Evacuation could take days - thousands of people in need' Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 15 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Aleppo: 'Evacuation could take days - thousands of people in need', 15 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd2c14.html [accessed 4 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 head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria, Marianne Gasser, has said it could take days to complete the evacuation operation in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The first two evacuations, led by the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, went ahead on Thursday. In total, some three thousand civilians and more than 40 wounded, including children, were brought out. Darkness had already set in when the third convoy set off to evacuate more people. "There was firing before we entered East Aleppo for the first evacuation. Right up until the last minute, it wasn't clear we'd get in. A crane was used to remove some of the debris from the street so the ambulances and buses could get through. There were burnt out cars. Smoke rising from nearby buildings. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty," said Ms Gasser. "When we arrived, the scene was heart-breaking. People are faced with impossible choices. You see their eyes filled with sadness. It was very moving. No-one knows how many people are left in the east, and the evacuation could take days. Working alongside the Red Crescent, we will continue to act as a neutral intermediary, and help as many people as possible who are in need," said Ms Gasser. The evacuation operation marked the first time since April that ICRC teams have been allowed into opposition-held areas of east Aleppo, despite numerous attempts. The wounded, some critically, were taken out by ambulance to healthcare facilities in rural areas of Aleppo and Idlib. Around 200 other wounded and sick people are still awaiting evacuation. At the same time, around three thousand civilians, including children and the elderly, were evacuated by bus. More than 100 SARC and ICRC workers were involved in the operation. The ICRC Regional Director for the Middle East, Robert Mardini, says this is just the start: "The humanitarian space must be kept open so that this operation can continue. It's been a positive start, but there is so much more to do. The needs are huge. Time is short and we call on all parties to show continued goodwill so that we can help all those who are suffering at this time," said Mr Mardini. Georgia/South Ossetia: Tenth meeting held to seek ways forward on issue of missing persons from conflicts of 1990s and 2008 Publisher International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Publication Date 16 December 2016 Cite as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Georgia/South Ossetia: Tenth meeting held to seek ways forward on issue of missing persons from conflicts of 1990s and 2008, 16 December 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/587cd2fc4.html [accessed 4 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 tenth meeting of the coordination mechanism for clarifying the fate and whereabouts of people who have been missing since the conflicts of the 1990s and August 2008 and their aftermath took place under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on 15 December 2016 in Versoix, Switzerland. Georgian, South Ossetian and Russian participants gathered at the meeting, chaired by the ICRC in its capacity as neutral intermediary, to discuss future steps to be taken to provide the families of the missing with answers about what happened to their loved ones. According to the ICRC, 126 people remain missing as a result of the armed conflict that took place in the 1990s, and 42 as a result of the 2008 armed conflict. "It is very encouraging to see the progress that has been made since the mechanism's work resumed in February," said Severine Chappaz from the ICRC, who chairs the coordination mechanism. "This has enabled the participants to make plans today to excavate some potential gravesites in 2017," she continued, highlighting that the meeting took place in a very constructive atmosphere. Middle East Peace Conference held in Paris From:chinadaily | 2017-01-16 09:46 French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault addresses delegates at the opening of the Mideast peace conference in Paris, January 15, 2017. Around 70 countries and international organisations are making a new push for a two-state solution in the Middle East at the conference in Paris. [Photo/Agencies] PARIS - France on Sunday held an international meeting to seek ways to revive the stranded Middle East peace negotiations and to push for the implementation of a two-state solution to restore security in the region after decades of conflict.The Middle East Peace Conference held here brought together representatives from about 70 countries, including the UN Security Council permanent members, key European countries and major Arab states.However, neither Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are represented in the meeting. Israelis called the meeting a "rigged conference" aiming to adopt additional anti-Israel stances.French President Francois Hollande addressed the gathering, saying the two-state solution is being threatened by multiple factors including Israeli settlements and increasing mistrust between the two sides.He stressed that the solution of two states is still the objective of the international community for the future.French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who chairs the Paris gathering, also urged for a resumption of the peace talks at the opening speech."Peace cannot be found in hate. The aim of the conference is precisely to allow a resumption of dialogue," Ayrault said.France affirmed that the meeting wouldn't impose conditions on the two rival camps to reach a lasting a peace accord.US President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to move US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem also was mentioned here on Sunday.As uncertainty clouding the new US administration's handling of the Middle East conflict, Hollande called on everyone to understand that "nothing can be improvised, or disrupted."Despite international community objection, Trump pledged to relocate US embassy from Tel Aviv, where it has been for more than six decades, to Jerusalem, a flashpoint in the long conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians.On the sidelines of the conference, Ayrault called Trump's move a "provocation" and warned about "extremely serious consequences.""When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a clear-cut, unilateral position on this issue. You have to try to create the conditions for peace," he said.The last round of peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinian authorities broke down in April 2014 after the two sides failed to resolve their deep disputes on issues, such as Israeli settlements, Palestinian state borders and security. Japanese whaling boat caught operating illegally in Australian waters From:chinadaily | 2017-01-16 10:46 A handout photo made available by activist group Sea Shepherd allegedly shows a dead Antarctic mink whale onboard the Japanese vessel Nisshin Maru in Antarctic waters in the Australian Whale Sanctury, January 15, 2017. [Photo/IC] SYDNEY - A Japanese whaling ship has allegedly been caught operating illegally in Australian waters.The Nisshin Maru, a Japanese vessel, was caught in Australian waters between Tasmania and Antarctica with a dead whale on board by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) helicopter.The group released images taken by the helicopter of the vessel with a dead protected minke whale on board and two harpoon ships nearby.Josh Frydenberg, Australia's Environment Minister, said the Australian government was "deeply disappointed" that Japan had resumed whaling.In a statement issued on Monday Frydenberg said that Australia was "opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called 'scientific' whaling.""It is not necessary to kill whales in order to study them," he said."We will continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission to strongly oppose commercial whaling and so-called 'scientific' whaling, uphold the moratorium on commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation."Tony Burke, Frydenberg's Opposition counterpart, also issued a statement, criticizing the "slaughter under the guise of scientific research'.""Japanese whaling ships have been sighted with their harpoons uncovered in the Southern Ocean, where a moratorium on whaling in currently in effect," he said."This is happening in areas Australia recognises as being protected."Jeff Hansen, a member of Sea Shepherd, said that crew on board the Nisshin Maru quickly covered the whale with a tarpaulin once they spotted the helicopter."They're hit with an explosive harpoon that goes straight into their body, hooks come out and shrapnel is sent through their body, it's a terrible bloody death... these whales can take up to 30 or 40 minutes to die," Hansen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)."A soon as the whaling fleet saw that Sea Shepherd on the scene, they were scrambling to cover up their illegal operations, they were covering up their harpoons"This is all happening deep in Australia's whale sanctuary off the Antarctic coast."The incident occurred as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Australia to meet with Australia's PM Malcolm Turnbull about the two nations' relationship."It shows that even with the Japan Prime Minister on Australian soil, Japan is going about their bloody business ignoring the Australian Federal Court ruling, ignoring the wishes of the International Court of Justice," Hansen said. Premier Li Keqiang issued an instruction to promote environmental protection, as a two-day national work conference began on Jan 10. According to Premier Li, the year 2016 recorded new achievements in promoting environmental protection supervision, reform, and pollution control in key areas. For the new year, addressing environmental problems as a priority, related departments should continue to promote reform in environmental protection, create innovation in management, enhance environmental responsibilities, strengthen supervision, and respond promptly to public concerns, the Premier said. Besides, he urged efforts to improve air, water and soil conditions, and especially to carry out research and roll out targeted measures to address smog issue. A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017 Beijing evictee Wang Ling arrived in Thailand on Monday to apply for political asylum with the United Nations in Bangkok, citing years of persecution from the authorities in her home country after she pursued complaints against local officials. Wang, who began seeking redress after her family home was demolished in 2003, arrived in the Thai capital in the earlier hours of Monda morning, to be greeted by her son, Miao Juyou, who arrived there last month. "I have been in and out of jail, sometimes formally, sometimes with no formal procedures," Wang told RFA. "I was sentenced to a year and three months in labor camp in 2008, but I never thought that I'd keep going back to prison after I got out." "I have never stopped petitioning ... I have now been detained a total of 11 times, and I have had to rent a place to live after my home was demolished [by the government]," she said. She said she had received death threats from the police, which she took seriously. "They told me that if I carried on petitioning, that they would kill me," she said. "Wherever my son tried to get a job, the police would go there and make trouble for him, so that his boss had no option [but to fire him]." She said recent deaths in police custody, including that of environmental consultant Lei Yang and two petitioners in Hunan's Luoyang city had made her fear for her life. "Those women in Luoyang were beaten to death and then set on fire," she said. "We are running for our lives." Years of constant police harassment Petitioners Wang Shetao and Li Xiaocui, of Luoyang's Liangzhai village, reportedly burned to death in murky circumstances last Monday after a fire at a police station, official media reported. Activists say cases like that of Lei Yang, whose death in police custody led to the firing of several police officers last year, are constantly emerging, fueling public anger with the government and growing fear among any who complain about their treatment. Wang said she has endured many years of constant police harassment even after the Beijing police department ruled in her favor after she complained. "Wherever I tried to rent a place, the police would catch up with me and force to me to leave that place," Wang said. "If I refused, they would send a gang of men round to smash down the door and take everything in our home, so there was nothing left," she said. Wang said the most recent attack on her home was Dec. 3, when a gang of thugs smashed in the door and cut off her electricity. "They took everything and pushed me out onto the street," she said. Political asylum Wang, whose labor camp sentence and petitioning activities have been documented by the Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, said it was impossible to live a normal life because she was forced to keep moving to hide from the police. Thailand-based political refugee Xing Jiang said he plans to help the pair lodge their applications with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Bangkok. "They are planning ... to seek political asylum, on the basis of ... their 2003 eviction and the 2008 forced demolition, their repeated attempts to seek redress, her detention [in labor camp] in 2008 and her detention during the G20 summit [last September in Hangzhou]," Xing told RFA. "She told me that she has had her home turned over [by thugs] five times during 2016," he said. Wang's son Miao said he had landed in Bangkok on Dec. 18 ahead of his mother to maximize the chances of their both getting through Chinese border controls. "Luckily she got here safely, but she couldn't sleep before she left, because she was so scared of getting stopped," Miao told RFA. He said life back in China had become untenable for him, too, as a result of his mother's petitioning. "The police were forever terrorizing me and threatening me," Miao said. "I had no way to hold down a job because whenever I found a job, they would come and cause trouble for me with my employers, for sure." China's army of petitioners are routinely detained by "interceptors," law enforcement officers from their hometowns, if they try to take a complaint to a higher level of government. They also frequently report beatings, harassment of landlords and employers, and incarceration in psychiatric hospitals when they have no mental illness. Deaths and "disappearances" in unofficial detention centers, or "black jails," are also not uncommon, but evidence of police wrong-doing is hard to come by when the authorities typically refuse to allow independent autopsies. Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. At least 13 teachers at a religious school have been abducted in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Afghan officials say Islamic State (IS) militants took the lecturers hostage at a madrasah in the Haska Mina district on January 15. "The teachers were busy with exams at the madrasah when [the Islamic State] militants kidnapped 13 of them and took them to an unknown place," Ataullah Khugyani, a spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, told RFE/RL. "We have already taken comprehensive efforts to free the teachers of religion and assure their safe return to their families," he said. Khugyani said that for security reasons and the safety of the abducted teachers he could not provide details about how the government was working to free the hostages. On January 15, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic sounded like a leader whose country had just averted mortal danger. "If I had not asked the Serbs to stop the train, we would have had war," Vucic told Belgrade's Pink TV, reflecting on the "train crisis" that threatened to disrupt the fragile peace between Serbia and its former territory Kosovo. A train dispatched from the Serbian capital toward Mitrovica -- an ethnically divided city in predominantly Serb northern Kosovo -- had stopped just before reaching those countries' shared border on January 14 and then returned to Belgrade a few hours later. Its abortive journey unleashed a torrent of nationalist anger and a flurry of diplomacy to avoid conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who represent a majority in Kosovo. Why all the fuss? Vucic says he didn't see the train before its departure. But it was unusual in conspicuous ways. Its interior was decorated with images of icons from medieval Serbian monasteries (many of them located in Kosovo), while the exterior was painted in the red, white, and blue of the Serbian flag with the slogan "Kosovo is Serbia" written in 21 languages. Many locals have dubbed it a "promotional train," others a "Russian train," as it was manufactured in Russia, which has staunchly sided with Serbia in the dispute over Kosovar independence. Ethnically Charged Symbols Such a marked display of Serbian heritage bearing words questioning the territorial integrity of Kosovo, unsurprisingly, was unwelcome in the eyes of Kosovar authorities. Kosovo President Hashim Thaci had ordered a Rosu special-police unit to halt the train at the border, prompting local Serbs in Mitrovica to come out to protest his move. There is already a daily train route between Kraljevo, in Serbia, and Mitrovica, so the special train bearing ethnically charged symbols did not appear to have been meant as a bridge between the two countries. But whatever the intention, increased tensions were the result -- the Belgrade daily Blic reported that only a single passenger boarded the scheduled train from Kraljevo the following day. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic emerged from a January 15 meeting of his council for national security saying, "We don't want war, but if it is necessary to protect Serbs from being killed, we will send an army to Kosovo. We will send soldiers; we'll all go. I'll go, and it won't be the first time that I go [to defend Serbs]. Serbia will act in line with the Serbian Constitution." Nikolic was critical of the outgoing U.S. administration over its support for Kosovo's independence, which was recognized in Washington and many other Western capitals within days of its enactment in February 2008 and currently has the support of more than 100 UN member states. "I think these are the lasts gasps of the current U.S. administration, whose members have had streets [in Kosovo] named after them," Nikolic said, adding that "neither the EU nor NATO reacted as they should have to [the January 14] events." From Bad To Worse Relations between Kosovo and Serbia have proceeded from bad to worse since the detention of former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj in France, based on an arrest warrant from Serbia over allegations of wrongdoing in a 1998-99 war in its former province. The Hague war-crimes tribunal has twice cleared the former Kosovo Liberation Army officer of charges, but Belgrade insists he should be extradited and has protested a French appellate court's release of Haradinaj pending a review. Borko Stefanovic, a former head of Serbia's negotiating team for Belgrade-Pristina talks mediated by Brussels, saw Nikolic's comments in the context of the Serbian presidential election, scheduled for this spring. "Regarding Nikolic's claim that this [halting of the train] was the last gasp of the outgoing U.S. administration," Stefanovic said, "I cannot escape the conclusion that it was in fact the last spasm of his own political career." Dusan Janjic, an author on Balkan history and coordinator of the Belgrade-based Forum for Ethnic Relations, warned of the risk of summoning the ghosts of the 1990s, when multiple wars broke out as former Yugoslavia fell apart. "Stop playing with trains like little kids," Janjic told Blic. "One may ask whether those who organized the departure of this train were aiming to strengthen their negotiating position or in fact to break off negotiations with Brussels," he said, in a reference to Serbia's ongoing efforts to join the European Union. In an interview with RFE/RL's Balkan Service, former Serbian politician Vesna Pesic also questioned the motives of the train's sponsors: "I think it all boils down to the fact that the Serbian Progressive Party does not currently have a viable candidate for the presidential election. They have no one. This is how I interpret the fact that both Vucic and Nikolic have been appearing on TV to vow that no one will kill Serbs -- and yet no one is killing Serbs." In the end, both sides may have gotten what they wanted from confrontations surrounding the "promo train." Vucic and Nikolic have burnished their nationalist credentials as protectors of Serbs, while Pristina has reiterated its sovereignty over all of Kosovo, including heavily Serb northern provinces. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL KYIV -- Making his final visit to Kyiv in eight years as U.S. vice president, Joe Biden urged the international community to stand against what he called Russian aggression and urged the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump to be a strong supporter of Ukraine. Bidens visit, his sixth during President Barack Obama's eight years in office and fifth since Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych fled in the face of the Euromaidan protests in February 2014 and a pro-Western government came to power, came four days before Trump's January 20 inauguration. Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, whom he described as his "good friend," Biden said U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia for its seizure of the Crimean Peninsula and its involvement in a war between government forces and pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine must remain in place until Moscow fully implements its commitments under a 2015 peace deal known as the Minsk accords. WATCH: Biden Urges Ukraine To 'Root Out' Corruption Biden said he knows it is hard to find faith in the Minsk process when Russia refuses to hold up its end of the deal, in his words, but he emphasized that it is "Ukraines best hope to move forward as a united country." The outgoing U.S. vice president urged Ukraine to keep demonstrating its commitment to the rule of law and fighting corruption. He said Ukrainians must insist on transparency and "investigate and prosecute government officials who siphon off funds for their own enrichment." Russia, Biden said, has used corruption as a "tool of coercion" to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence. Fighting corruption is not just a matter of good governance, it is essential for self-preservation and security, he said. Poroshenko expressed gratitude to Biden for his unwavering support for Ukraine and invited him back to Kyiv as a private citizen. He also thanked the United States for Obama's January 13 decision extending sanctions against Russia over its seizure of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine for a year, through March 2018 -- a move that means Trump will have to cancel them rather than just letting them expire in a few weeks if he wants to abandon them, as he has indicated he might. In the future, Poroshenko said, he hopes the "Ukrainian issue will unite all American politicians and will remain among their top priorities. "Everyone who shares democratic values is Russia's adversary," he said. The Ukrainian president also welcomed what he called "encouraging signals delivered during Senate hearings by the candidates for secretary of state and secretary of defense, he added, referring to former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson and retired General James Mattis, respectively. During hours of questioning last week, the nominees took tougher positions on Russia than Trump has, both regarding Moscow's interference in Ukraine and allegations of interference in the U.S. presidential election. 'Uncle Joe' Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that U.S. support could wane following the inauguration of Trump, who has spoken admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and expressed a desire to improve ties with Moscow. In an interview with The Times of London and the German magazine Bild published on January 16, Trump suggested he may offer to roll back sanctions against Russia in return for a deal with Moscow to reduce nuclear arms. Ukrainians have become fond of Biden, who has become known in political circles in Kyiv as "Uncle Joe" for what Taras Berezovets, a political consultant and founder of the Kyiv-based think tank Ukrainian Institute for the Future said was his ability to intervene and quash spats between Ukrainian officials before they spiraled out of control. "[Biden] would always show up at the right moment with the right words and always stop internal political crises," he told RFE/RL. Berezovets also said that "Bidens intervention in Ukrainian [affairs] was absolutely vital for defending our independence, because in 2014 there was a clear and present danger of a full-scale Russian offensive against Ukraine...and I think the intervention of Biden and Obama in terms of political and diplomatic pressure was significant enough to stop that escalation." During his visits and frequent phone calls, Biden has pressed Ukrainian leaders to tackle deep-seated corruption that he has frequently warned weakens Kyiv's ability to protect itself against Russian interference. In a speech to parliament in Kyiv in December 2015, he told lawmakers they needed to do more in "a historic battle against corruption." "The world is watching you. This is your moment," he said at the time. "Please, for the sake of the rest of us, dont waste it." He reiterated that message a little more than one year later on January 16, saying: "I believe the Ukrainian people are no longer willing to postpone a free, democratic, prosperous Ukraine. So seize it." After reading his statement, Biden was asked by a reporter if he had received any assurances that the Trump administration would place a similar priority on Ukraine. "Hope springs eternal," he replied before flashing a thumbs up, turning, and walking away. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump floats a deal with Russia and outgoing Vice President Joe Biden makes his last official visit to Ukraine. On this week's Power Vertical Briefing, we look at what is about to change in U.S.-Russian relations as the Trump administration prepares to take office amid all the mixed signals. Also on The Briefing, Steve and I discuss what Biden is hoping to accomplish during his visit to Kyiv. Joining me is RFE/RL's News Editor Steve Gutterman. Enjoy... NOTE: The Power Vertical Briefing is a short look ahead to the stories expected to make news in Russia in the coming week. It is hosted by Brian Whitmore, author of The Power Vertical blog, and appears on Mondays. Premier Li Keqiang held a symposium on Jan 13 to seek more suggestions from experts and business leaders on the draft government work report for 2017. Over the past year, Chinas economy has remained stable, reaching a relatively high rate of employment, transforming driving forces and upgrading economic structures, making progress in improving peoples livelihoods, and playing a more important role in driving the global economy, Premier Li said. However, facing more economic and political challenges and uncertainty this year at home and abroad, Premier Li said it was important to maintain confidence, take precautions and grasp opportunities to keep Chinas economy stable with enhanced quality and efficiency. Premier Li Keqiang holds a symposium on Jan 13 to seek more suggestions from experts and business leaders on the draft government work report for 2017. [Photo/China News Service] At the symposium, Chinese Academy of Social Science professor Gao Peiyong called for more efforts to deepen reforms on finance and tax such as reducing taxes and fees. Renmin University of China professor Zeng Xiangquan suggested that targeted measures should be rolled out to promote employment according to different regions, industries and groups. Tsinghua University professor Zhu Min said the finance sector should prevent and control risks to better serve the real economy. China Railway Rolling Stock Corp general manager Liu Hualong told the gathering that the government should make continuous efforts to create a favorable environment for growth of the real economy, with major enterprises. Zhao Shuanglian, chairman of COFCO Corp, Chinas leading foodstuffs import and export group, said efforts should be made to strengthen supply-side structural reform in agriculture to improve agricultural comprehensive production capacity. Chairman of electronics company TCL, Li Dongsheng, said the government should increase support to strategic emerging industries and research basic and core technology to ease enterprises burden. Founder of Mobike Hu Weiwei called for the government to encourage and support technological innovation and promote the sharing economy and new business modes. Premier Li Keqiang holds a symposium on Jan 13 to seek more suggestions from experts and business leaders on the draft government work report for 2017. [Photo/China News Service] Premier Li said stability would be key to this years economic work, calling for improved predictability and accuracy of macroeconomic regulation. He also noted the need to adopt powerful measures to keep the economy operating at a reasonable level. Efforts should also be made to create a favorable environment for enterprises, promote administrative reform and cut institutional costs through improving lists of government power and responsibility, the Premier said. Governments at all levels should continue to cut down general expenses and provide nontax benefits to market players, such as fee reductions. The State Council should also carry out related supervision. Also on the agenda is enhancing the transfer of economic drivers, weeding out backward production capacity, implementing more positive employment policies, promoting mass entrepreneurship and innovation and developing prosperous new industries and businesses that are employment-friendly. In his speech Premier Li also stressed the need to upgrade traditional industries, speed up development of advanced manufacturing, promote real economy upgrades, and increase effectiveness. Meanwhile, work to improve peoples livelihoods should continue, including more research into the publics major concerns, such as smog, Premier Li added. Premier Li Keqiang holds a symposium on Jan 13 to seek more suggestions from experts and business leaders on the draft government work report for 2017. [Photo/China News Service] The Premier also expressed hope that experts could put forward more practical and professional proposals and entrepreneurs could scale new heights in market competition. Joint efforts will be required to carry out the social and economic development tasks and resolve the publics concerns, Premier Li said. Vice-Premiers Zhang Gaoli, Liu Yandong and Wang Yang and State Councilors Yang Jing and Wang Yong also attended the symposium. There's a very simple reason why a new reset won't work. There's a very simple reason why any grand bargain with Vladimir Putin's Kremlin regime is doomed to failure. There's a very simple reason why a new detente with Moscow would probably make matters much worse. And that's the simple fact that Russia wants something from the West that the West is simply incapable of giving it. Putin wants a sphere of influence in the former Soviet space, which is just a polite way of saying it wants imperial domination over his neighbors. Now, even if it were morally acceptable, which it's not, and even if this were geopolitically wise, which it's not, the fact of the matter is it would be practically impossible. It would be practically impossible because such thinking assumes that former Soviet countries like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova have no agency of their own. It would be practically impossible because the futures of tens of millions of people are not peace offerings that can be served up to Russia on a silver platter in exchange for peace in our time. It may come as a surprise to some that Ukrainians, Georgians, and Moldovans have their own ideas about their political futures. And a not insignificant number of them would resist domination by Moscow, regardless of what kind of new Yalta or new Munich agreement is reached between Russia and the West. And for that reason, any new reset, new detente, or new grand bargain is a recipe for conflict and instability on Europe's doorstep. Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that Gulnara Karimova, the elder daughter of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov, was questioned by Swiss prosecutors in December over money-laundering accusations. The WSJ quoted a Geneva-based lawyer for Karimova, Gregoire Mangeat, as saying that two Swiss prosecutors were allowed to question Karimova for a total of 23 hours on December 9-10 in Uzbekistan's capital, Tashkent. Karimova, once seen as a possible successor to her father, has been tied to ongoing money-laundering investigations in Sweden and Switzerland and is at the center of a financial-crimes probe in Uzbekistan in which many of her associates have been jailed. She has been under house arrest in Tashkent since 2014. The January 15 WSJ report was among the most tangible information on Karimovas situation since her disappearance from public. According to Mangeat, Karimova is "in relative good health but her security is not at all guaranteed." Neither Karimova nor her children were present at her father's funeral on September 3, 2016. Based on reporting by The Wall Street Journal Turkish authorities say they have captured the man they believe gunned down 39 people at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Day. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on January 17 that the suspect was being questioned by police and expressed hope that the interrogation would unveil "powers" behind the attack, which also left dozens of people wounded. He did not provide further details. Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin identified the suspect as Abdulkadir Masharipov and said he was born in Uzbekistan in 1983 and had trained in Afghanistan. Sahin said that Masharipov had confessed to carrying out the massacre, adding that his fingerprints matched prints found at the scene of the attack. Authorities say the lone gunman arrived in a taxi and shot two people on the street before entering the upscale Reina nightclub early on January 1 and opening fire on revelers. Sahin described Masharipov, who he said operated under the cover name Abu Muhammed Horasani, as "a well-educated terrorist who speaks four languages." The governor also said there were strong indications the suspect entered Turkey illegally through its eastern borders in January 2016. He added that he had clearly carried out the nightclub massacre in the name of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said it was too early to say whether the suspect was trained in Afghanistan, but he insisted that "all terrorist networks are based outside Afghanistan's territory." "We have always done the maximum in order to prevent terrorists from having training centers and safe havens inside of Afghanistan," Sediqi told RFE/RLs Radio Free Afghanistan. "But unfortunately the Taliban and terrorist groups have training centers and safe havens inside Pakistan's territory." Turkish media reported earlier that police detained the alleged attacker late on January 16 in a police raid on an apartment in Istanbul's Esenyurt district. Police released a photo of the suspect, showing a man with a bloodstained shirt and cuts and bruises on his face. One Iraqi man and three women from Egypt and Africa were also detained at the same apartment, Sahin said. He also said the main suspect's 4-year-old son was not with him when he was caught, contradicting earlier reports. Police also seized two firearms, ammunition, and $197,000 in the raid, Sahin added. The alleged attacker was being questioned at Istanbul police headquarters, while other people were detained in raids across the city targeting Uzbek IS cells, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. A total of 50 people had now been detained in the investigation, Sahin said. In Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the arrest and thanked Turkey's security and intelligence agencies for their efforts. "In this country, nobody will get away with what they have done," Erdogan said. "Everyone will be brought to account within the rule of law." The IS group has been blamed for at least six major attacks in Turkey since mid-2015, including an attack on a peace rally in October 2015 that killed more than 100 in Ankara. The victims of the nightclub attack included citizens of Israel, France, Tunisia, Lebanon, India, Belgium, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and The Guardian A former deputy chief of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's administration has been arrested, two days after his dismissal. The Central Asian nation's National Security Committee (KNB) said on January 16 that Baghlan Mailybaev was arrested on January 14 and charged with disclosing classified information. It said a former deputy chief of the presidential administration's domestic policy department, Nikolai Galikhin, was arrested on the same charges. Both were sent to pretrial detention for two months, according to the KNB, which did not reveal details about the suspicions against them. Nazarbaev fired Mailybaev on January 12. The arrests were the latest in a series of detentions of high-level officials in Kazhakhstan, which Nazarbaev has ruled since before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Economy Minister Quandyq Bishimbaev was detained on suspicion of bribe-taking last week. On January 11, the head of Kazakhstan's main pension fund, Ruslan Erdenaev, and the director of the fund's financial department, Musa Bakhtov, were arrested on embezzlement charges. Based on reporting by KazTAG and Kazinform Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci has accused Belgrade of seeking to provoke a crisis by sending a Serbian train painted with the slogan "Kosovo is Serbia" toward Kosovo, halting it only at the last moment before it entered the country. Thaci told RFE/RL on January 16 that what he termed the Serbian "provocations" were "part of old scenarios for Kosovo's partition." "Serbia is ready to sacrifice and victimize Serbian citizens of Kosovo, just so it can achieve its own political and military goals, as it did in Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina," Thaci said. He spoke two days after the train, which bore the words "Kosovo is Serbia" in 21 languages, stopped just short of Serb-dominated northern Kosovo as Belgrade charged that ethnic Albanians were planning to attack it. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic accused Kosovo on January 14 of seeking to provoke "war" by authorizing its security forces to block the train if it crossed the border. Nikolic said in a press conference in Raska, where the train stopped, that "[Kosovo's] special units mined the railway and other special units were sent to the border to arrest the train driver and the passengers." NATO said it was monitoring the situation "closely" while urging both sides to show restraint. "This is an issue between Belgrade and Pristina. We call for all parties to exercise restraint and engage in dialogue. This is in the interest of regional stability and security," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in a statement to RFE/RL. Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO air strikes forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops after they had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians. Around 5,000 NATO troops are stationed in Kosovo to keep the fragile peace. The train, which Serbia bought from Russia, would have been the first from Belgrade to the town of Mitrovica in Kosovo since the 1998-99 war between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian separatists. Serbia had said the train could turn into a regular service after a trial period from January 20 to February 26. Serbia and Kosovo, a former province that declared independence from Belgrade in 2008, have been locked in EU-facilitated talks since 2011 to normalize ties. More than 100 countries have recognized Kosovos independence. With reporting by APand Reuters Outgoing U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden urged the incoming Trump administration to continue to be a strong supporter of Ukraine. During a visit to Kyiv, Biden was asked if he expected President-elect Donald Trump's administration to spend as much effort in supporting Ukraine as he had done. "Hope springs eternal," was his response. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service) 3 At least 37 people have been confirmed killed, with that number likely to rise. According to RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, all but four of the fatalities were people on the ground when the aircraft slammed into the village at around 7:30 in the morning. CHISINAU -- Moldovan parliament speaker Andrian Candu has published the complete text of a controversial audit report into the disappearance of some $1 billion from three banks. The confidential report by the independent U.S. investigative consultancy Kroll documents in detail how companies and individuals tied to 28-year-old businessman Ilan Shor took control of three Moldovan banks during 2012-14 and then allegedly issued massive loans to Shor-connected companies during a three-day period in November. Moldova has been rocked by the apparent theft of nearly one-fifth of its annual gross domestic product, based on current exchange rates. The central bank was forced to issue the three banks some 16 billion lei ($870 million) in emergency loans to keep the economy from collapsing. Adrian Lupusor, executive director of the Expert-Grup think tank in Chisinau, says the report describes a sweeping network of illicit financial transactions. "It seems to be a money-laundering scheme with a transnational character, a cross-border character, because it involved several banks and companies from different countries and it definitely involved a large number of people," he says. On May 3, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital, Chisinau, calling for the release of the audit report and for the resignations of the prosecutor-general, several Supreme Court justices, and several political figures they hold accountable for the disappearance of the money. Does The Report Matter? Kroll had resisted the release of the confidential report, but Candu wrote on Facebook on May 5 that he decided to make the complete 83-page document public because the government had "a responsibility to be transparent with our citizens." In comments to RFE/RL's Moldovan Service, Eduard Harunjen, head of the anticorruption division of the Prosecutor-General's Office, noted that the report did not have legal standing. "We do not doubt the objectivity of the report and we are not criticizing it," Harunjen said. "But the Kroll experts don't represent an investigating authority." He added that the authorities did not feel they have grounds at present to arrest Shor. The Kroll report was commissioned by the Moldovan central bank and sought to establish exactly what happened to the missing money. The auditors reviewed transactions at the three banks -- Unibank, Banca de Economii, and Banca Sociala -- in November 2014. It concluded the three banks transferred at least 13.5 billion lei to five Moldovan companies affiliated with the Shor group, controlled by Ilan Shor, between November 24 and 26. A spokeswoman for the Shor Group said a statement will be issued on May 6. The website of the Moldovan edition of the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda posted a brief statement by Shor denying earlier Moldovan media reports that he had left the country. "We are studying the report and in many respects it confirms what we said earlier about what occurred before the arrival of the private investor and how we were forced to cover it," Shor said, suggesting that he had worked to save the banks from earlier mismanagement. He asserted that he is in Chisinau and is cooperating with the investigation. Coordinated Moves Funding for the massive increase in lending was, according to the report, "enabled by deposits from external financial institutions, including [three Russian banks] Gazprombank, Interprombank, and Alef Bank." The Moldovan companies allegedly then immediately sent the money on to accounts controlled by offshore companies based in Latvia and registered in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The Kroll report indicates a plan to steal the money was likely initiated as early as 2012, when ownership of Unibank was transferred to 21 new shareholders, including "political figures and individuals which appear closely connected to Ilan Shor." Each of the individuals concerned allegedly acquired Unibank stakes of between 4.58 percent and 4.97 percent. Several of the individuals allegedly involved were Ukrainian or Russian citizens working through Latvia's Latvijas Pasta Banka. During 2013, companies and individuals associated with Shor also acquired stakes in the other two banks. In all three cases, groups of companies and individuals each acquired small stakes, "which had the effect of transferring ownership to a series of apparently unconnected individuals and entities." "The structure of the share acquisitions appears to be a deliberate attempt within both banks to conceal the true identity of the beneficiaries," the report states about the takeovers of Banca de Economii and Banca Sociala. It concludes that the "significant level of interrelated lending within three, apparently independent banks would have required a significant level of coordination and control of each of them." "A preliminary review of the transactions undertaken in each bank suggest [sic] a deliberate intention to extract as much benefit as possible for entities connected to Mr. Shor and to the detriment of the banks," the report states. No Single Actor The report also states it is undetermined whether Shor acted alone "or in concert with other as yet unidentified parties." Analyst Lupusor says it is likely more people will be implicated as the investigation continues. "The level of transactions is too complicated to be conducted simply by some businessman," he says. "They definitely involved a large number of financial and legal consultants." Shor is one of the richest people in Moldova. The Kroll report includes a profile of the Shor Group, which has grown from 10 companies at the end of 2011 to 39 by late 2014. It controls the Dufremol duty-free company. Over the course of 2013-14, the Shor companies increased their total debt from about 2 billion lei to nearly 14 billion, with the loans coming "almost exclusively" from the three banks under investigation. Shor was questioned by Moldovan authorities for about eight hours in March in connection with the money transfers. According to Moldovan media, his private plane left Chisinau on April 30 in the direction of Moscow. The scandal has rocked Moldova's fragile ruling coalition as the country tries to pursue closer ties with the European Union. At the May 3 demonstration in Chisinau, blogger Alexandru Cozer called on the authorities to answer for the disappearance of a fortune he said rightfully belonged to Moldovans who work in the poor country or labor beyond its borders and send money home. "Why has the money earned by the calloused hands of our farmers been stolen?" Cozer asked. "Why has the money that was earned abroad through the tears of our mothers, sisters, and parents been stolen? I am asking you criminals who are in power -- why?" Thousands of people calling for Moldova's reunification with Romania took to the streets of Chisinau on March 27 in a so-called "march of reunion." The rally organizers say some 50,000 people took part in the protests while police put the number at 5,000-6,000 people. The protesters say unification with EU-member Romania is the way forward for corruption-ridden Moldova to move forward and join the European Union. The protest is meant to mark 98 years since the former Romanian province of Bessarabia -- which covers the region of Moldova and Ukraine today -- was unified with Romania on March 27, 1918. Later on, during World War II, Bessarabia was incorporated into the former U.S.S.R., with most of its territory becoming the Soviet republic of Moldova. With reporting by Interfax Laurence Francis Breffni ORourke, a former senior editor and correspondent for RFE/RL who was known for his dry wit, gentle demeanor, and elegant writing, has died. He was 72. Breffni, as he was known to everyone, died in Prague on January 12, 2017, from complications of Parkinsons disease. Born in England, Breffni began a globe-trotting life quite early, when he moved as a young boy to Milan with his mother, sister, and father, a Manchester wool merchant. The family later relocated to Canberra, Australia. Breffni graduated from Australian National University with a bachelors degree in English literature and political science. He soon began what would become a distinguished, distinctive, and peripatetic career in journalism, working as a writer and editor for The Canberra Times, The Star in Johannesburg (taking one of the last steam liners, the Angelino Lauro, from Australia to South Africa), The Times of London, The Sydney Morning Herald, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation in Bern, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Munich and Prague. He met his future wife, Elfrieda, while traveling in Antwerp, Belgium. They married in 1978 and had two sons. Breffni was among a number of talented veteran expats who worked in the Central Newsroom of RFE/RL in Munich before the radios moved to Prague in 1995. Soft-voiced and congenial, he was especially solicitous toward younger colleagues, walking them through the paces of a sometimes quirky office. As both a supervising editor and writer of news copy, he was known for his steady work ethic, attention to detail, and rigorous sourcing. Breffni also had a disarming dry wit. He was fond of recounting experiences from his wide-ranging travels and his many jobs, including picking hops and apples in England. After the closing of RFE/RLs Munich offices, Breffni took a newspaper job in Australia but returned to the radios relocated headquarters in Prague in 1995 to help new hires, many of them with newspaper backgrounds, learn the ropes of writing for the ear. "At a time of rebuilding and renewal with a very young staff, Breffni had the perfect balance of even temperament and professionalism to bring to the Prague news team," said former Central Newsroom Director Bob McMahon, who was also a colleague of Breffni's in Munich. "He never lost sight of the mission of the radios to be a credible source of information for its many audiences." Jay Tolson, who was the director of the Central Newsroom when Breffni retired in 2011, recalled the unique place that he held among the newsroom staff. Breffni always seemed like the wise older brother who had seen and experienced everything yet never became jaded or cynical and had even preserved a quiet, sacred idealism from which, in large part, his devotion to the art and craft of our shared profession flowed, Tolson remembered. He never seemed to know how much we all relied on him for what he did and what he represented. But we knew, and we loved him all the more for that innocent, instinctive generosity. As a correspondent, Breffni had an uncanny ability to take the driest of topics and turn them into compelling prose, injecting a bit of humor, a literary reference, or a wink of the eye into his opening sentences. His ledes were especially deft. Knowing he had only one chance to grab the listeners interest, Breffni never missed the mark. For example: Whether one cuts one's own throat slowly or quickly, the end result is the same. That seems to be the choice facing the European Union's fishermen. Titles like the European Free Trade Area or the European Common Market are difficult to make interesting. Probably only an economist's pulse beats faster after hearing such names. Amid the mainstream languages of modern Europe, the continent's many minority languages sound a subtle chord hinting at lost worlds. Swimmers entering a wide and swift-flowing river usually select a spot where they wish to land on the opposite shore. But then they have to battle the current, and if they make it across at all, they often land in a different and unforeseen place. European Union summits are somewhat similar. Let's imagine we have the good fortune to be flying around the world in search of fine wines. Ocean travel today is a pastime for the wealthy. If you want to see the dawn break over the Indian Ocean, if you want to glimpse the edge of the ice pack in Antarctica, or to see emerald islands dotting an azure sea, a cruise liner is the way to do it. His talents as a writer were not limited to journalistic reports. In a personal essay he wrote upon leaving Prague for Australia in October 1995, and which he shared with some of his colleagues, Breffni wrote: On a cold, gusty autumn night, one of my last in Prague, I heard the full tones of a violin playing in the street called Celetna. Under a street lamp, a young man was playing Mozart, Bach, many things I half-recognized. I stood for some time in the cutting wind as he went through an accomplished repertoire. A few tourists hurried by with turned-up collars, like leaves swept along. Then I walked down the darkened street alone, reflecting that most great romances end that way. In the end, he couldnt stay away from Prague that mistress of rare charm, as he called the city returning to RFE/RL a year later and staying put until his retirement. Unbeknownst to most of his Prague colleagues, Breffni was a former member of the Australian Parachute Federation. In addition to jumping out of airplanes, he also enjoyed walking, sailing, opera, theater, poetry, antiques, and vintage motorcycles and cars. He is survived by his wife, Elfrieda; two sons, Ryan and Tyrone; a daughter-in-law Viki ORourke; and one granddaughter, Sofie. A memorial service will be held at 1:15 p.m. on January 20, 2017, at Krematorium Motol in Prague. Written by Grant Podelco Pakistani military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that his troops have destroyed "all safe havens" for terrorists in Pakistan. Bajwa also told Ghani in a telephone call on January 15 that the two countries must cooperate on security issues to deter cross-border infiltration of militant groups. Pakistani Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said Bajwa also conveyed to Ghani his condolences for a recent string of deadly bombings in Afghanistan that killed more than 50 people and wounded dozens of others. Afghan officials have accused Pakistan's military and ISI intelligence agency of aiding Taliban insurgents and other militants operating in Afghanistan and of providing sanctuary to them in Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charges. Ghafoor said that Bajwa told Ghani that elements that oppose regional peace are "strengthened by the blame game." "[General Bajwa] emphasized that Pakistan has come a long way in its fight against terrorism...and has eliminated all safe havens in the process," Ghafoor added. Ghafoor also said Bajwa had reiterated a call by Islamabad to install a "robust" border security system to prevent terrorists to cross and operate on both sides of the two countries' nearly 2,600-kilometer border. With reporting by VOA and Dawn.com It appears Turkmenistan is about to lose its second-best customer for natural gas, Iran. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on August 11 that his country no longer needed gas from Turkmenistan. Zanganeh went so far as to say, "Iran is importing Turkmen gas just because it is important to promote political and economic relations with Turkmenistan." The oil minister's comments could be bargaining tactics, as Iran has frequently sought to convince Turkmenistan to lower the price for its gas, or it could reflect a potential shift in Iran's role in the international gas market. Zanganeh said that with Iran about to boost domestic gas production by some 200 million additional cubic meters starting in March next year, the country could "abandon completely gas imports from Turkmenistan." This contrasts with his statements in May that Iran would continue to import Turkmen gas at existing levels. It is quite a turn of events for Turkmenistan. In early 2010 a new, second pipeline bringing Turkmen gas to Iran was launched. At that time leaders in the two countries spoke about gas imports to Iran reaching up to 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually. A new gas-compressor station started operation in western Turkmenistan in December 2013, built specifically to export more gas to Iran. The first gas pipeline connecting the two countries -- the 200-kilometer Korpedzhe-Kurdkui pipeline -- was launched at the end of 1997. It was also the first pipeline that gave Turkmenistan an export route to somewhere outside the former Soviet Union. Iran funded construction of the pipeline to import some 8 bcm of gas a year, mainly to areas of northern Iran that were not well connected to the gas fields of the south. Russia remained the biggest purchaser of Turkmen gas until a suspicious explosion along the pipeline connecting the two countries occurred in April 2009, amid tense negotiations between the two over the price for Turkmen gas. The ruptured pipeline cut off gas flows entirely for months. Iran then became for a brief time the main buyer of Turkmen gas, until the new pipeline from Turkmenistan to China started operation at the end of 2009. Supplies of Turkmen gas to Russia were eventually renewed, but in greatly diminished volumes, leaving Iran the No. 2 customer for Turkmen gas, after China. International sanctions on Iran have hindered the country from developing its gas sector and from constructing an infrastructure to distribute gas for domestic use. Iran has the second-largest proven gas reserves in the world (Russia has the most) but again, due to sanctions there has been little opportunity to take advantage of that resource. As talks progress between Tehran and major world powers about Iran's nuclear program, and sanctions are slowly eased, there are new prospects on the horizon for Iran and gas exports are a big part of that. The same day Zanganeh spoke of the end of Turkmen gas imports, the deputy oil minister in charge of international affairs, Ali Majedi, told journalists Iran was ready to supply Europe with gas via the Nabucco pipeline project. Nabucco was recently shelved after more than a decade of shareholders trying to get potential gas suppliers to sign contracts for supplies, which gas suppliers were hesitant to do since it was unclear how soon, or even if, Nabucco would be built. Nabucco was originally envisioned to bring gas from Caspian Basin countries -- Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, possibly Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- and also possibly from Iraq to Europe by way of a 3,300-kilometer pipeline. Nabucco was all but scrapped after Azerbaijan opted last year to use the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline to feed into the Trans-Adriatic pipeline across Southern Europe. Majedi claimed two European countries had already shown interest in reviving the Nabucco scheme and that "Iran with its major gas fields could supply gas to Europe via Nabucco." And Nabucco's map of its proposed route envisioned the possible inclusion of Iran, so the route is already set. In such a scenario Turkmenistan changes from Iran's gas supplier into Iran's competitor for a space in a pipeline across northern Iran into Turkey and on, eventually, to Austria. If Oil Minister Zanganeh was sincere in his remarks, this is very bad news for Turkmenistan. It leaves Turkmenistan with two customers for its gas China and Russia. China is a guaranteed long-term and virtually insatiable customer. Russia has always mixed politics with business in gas dealings with Turkmenistan, an arrangement Ashgabat hoped it was breaking as the Central Asian state showed it was diversifying its export markets. -- Bruce Pannier, with contributions from Toymyrat Bugayev of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service MOSCOW -- First she was jailed for reposting a graphic child-abuse video in order to draw public attention to the crime. Then she claimed she was sent to a punishment cell -- known by her jailors as "the hole" -- for trying to warm up her feet by covering them with a blanket. The startling misfortune of Yevgenia Chudnovets, a jailed kindergarten teacher from the Urals, has won her public support across the political divide -- from opposition leader Aleksei Navalny all the way to lawmakers from Vladimir Putin's United Russia ruling party. It comes with Russia's penitentiary system in the spotlight after Ildar Dadin, a jailed opposition activist, last year made allegations of widespread torture in a prison facility in the northern Karelia region. Chudnovets was convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment in November for disseminating a child-abuse video on social media. The three-second clip shows the abuse of a naked 10-year-old boy. Chudnovets spotted the video online and reposted it in August, 2015, to a closed group on VKontakte where she and others discuss local news. The reposting of the video helped police catch a young man and woman from Kurgan Oblast who were jailed for three and six years, respectively, for the abuse. Chudnovets, however, was subsequently charged herself with disseminating pornographic material and found guilty in November, despite her widely accepted explanation that she was trying to draw attention to the incident. The harsh judgment prompted the country's human rights ombudsman, Anna Kuznetsova, to voice "alarm," protesting that: "This is a person who helped the police solve this crime." Pro-Kremlin lawmakers Sergei Shargunov and Oksana Pushkina appealed to the Prosecutor-General's Office to examine the case. 'Wild Accusation' Investigative Committee chief Aleksandr Bastrykin ordered a probe into her sentencing, while state newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta wrote: "She wanted to draw the attention of her friends to a wild incident, and as a result was brought to account over a wild accusation." Chudnovets' case was even raised by a journalist at Putin's December press conference in which the president promised to look into the case. Following the outcry, a Kurgan regional court in December reduced her jail sentence -- but only by one month. After the holiday period, her case came back into the headlines when, on January 12, her partner Andrei Myasnikov wrote on Facebook that Chudnovets had been placed in a punishment cell for 15 days. He suggested the harsh treatment was revenge for the attention her case had attracted. On January 14, the Urals news portal Znak.com interviewed Sergei Zykov, a Public Monitoring Commission activist, who said he had spoken directly to Chudnovets. She told him she had been given 10 days in the punishment cell for covering her feet with a blanket. When she expressed surprise she was given another five days, he said, adding that jailors call the cell "the hole." Former lawmaker and opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov, writing on Facebook, said the case shows the need for radical reform of the penitentiary service. "Of course we really need reform," Gudkov said. "But we have already seen the 'militsiya [the former name of the Russian police force] reform', which led to absolutely nothing. So that this does not happen again we need to first of all destroy the [penitentiary] 'system' at its root. Then we can start creating something from scratch on entirely different principles." Ultimately, Chudovnets reportedly only spent one day in the punishment cell, her lawyer told Znak.com on January 16, because she was transferred to a women's prison facility in Nizhny Tagil in Sverdlovsk Oblast. PRAGUE -- Russian protest-performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky says he has fled Russia after authorities there questioned him regarding allegations that he attempted to rape a woman. Pavlensky told Current Time TV on January 16 that he and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, left Russia for France with their two children after they were questioned by investigators on their arrival from Warsaw on December 14. Pavlensky said investigators had told him and Shalygina that a Moscow actress, Anastasia Slonina, had filed a legal claim against them accusing them of attempting to rape her. Pavlensky denied the allegation, saying that Slonina herself had sought relations with him and his partner. "There was no rape, there was nothing that can described as something similar to violence.... We stand on the position of free relations. That position is about different forms of relations but we, in principle, are against any violence in the sphere of personal relations," Pavlensky said. He described the accusations as blackmail aimed at preventing him from carrying out political activities in Russia. "The first charges against me were just administrative, then they became criminal probes envisioning minor limitations of freedom and later with more serious freedom limitations and in parallel there was a psychological pressure. Then it turned to a real arrest, which ended with a fine so that everybody would say, 'Look how kind the Russian government is,'" Pavlensky said. "But in fact, that dialogue with authorities can be interpreted as their intention to put me in jail, not as a person who fought against the regime, who did not agree with the regime, but as a person who is dangerous for society." Slonina's lawyer, Yury Lysenko, told Current Time TV, a Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, that no formal investigation into the accusation was under way. Pavlensky said he would seek political asylum in France if an investigation was officially launched. "They want to launch the probe and now both of us, I and Oksana [Shalygina] are being persecuted. Actually the persecution is of four people, because two others, the children, will then -- if we are jailed -- be sent to orphanages to learn the life," Pavlensky said. Pavlensky, who is known for startling protests that sometimes involve self-mutilation, says his performances draw attention to the indifference of many Russians to what he says is widespread Federal Security Service (FSB) control over society. He spent more than six months in pretrial detention after he doused a large wooden door at the FSB's Moscow headquarters with gasoline and set it on fire in November 2015. He was released in June and ordered to pay a hefty fine, which he refused to do. Pavlensky has also nailed his scrotum to Red Square, sewn his lips together, wrapped himself in barbed wire, and chopped off part of his ear. Russia has announced that it will deploy attack and military-transport helicopters to beef up its military presence in Tajikistan amid rising insecurity in northern Afghanistan. A Defense Ministry official was quoted by Russian media as saying on October 7 that an unspecified number of Mi-24P attack and Mi-8MTV transport and combat helicopters will be stationed at the base of the Russian military's 201st Motorized Rifle Division. The aircraft will be used to provide air cover for military columns, deliver airborne forces and cargo, carry out reconnaissance missions, and evacuate the sick and wounded, according to Interfax. The helicopters are to be stationed at the division's air base located about 10 kilometers west of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, and 170 kilometers north of the country's border with Afghanistan. The announcement by Yaroslav Roschupkin, the official representative of Russia's Central Military District, comes a day after Tajik President Emomali Rahmon expressed concern about the "increasingly deteriorating situation" in northern Afghanistan. "Fighting is going on along more than 60 percent of the Tajik border with Afghanistan," Rahmon said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on October 6. "The Tajik border with Afghanistan is in fact the Commonwealth of Independent States' [CIS] southern border, and any threat to the Tajik border is a threat to the CIS, too," Rahmon said. The Tajik president's office said that Rahmon and Putin discussed "military and technical cooperation and steps to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked on October 7 whether the two presidents had agreed to expand the Russian military presence in Tajikistan, said no such agreement was made. Peskov noted, however, that Putin and Rahmon shared the opinion that "current events in the region cased concern," according to Interfax. Tajikistan shares a more than 1,400-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan, including along Afghanistan's volatile Kunduz and Badakhshan provinces, where Taliban activity has flared up in recent months. Recently, the militant group briefly captured the provincial capital, Kunduz, just 70 kilometers from the Tajik border. Some Tajik villagers living alongside the border say they have been following the developments in the neighboring country with "anxiety." "Sometimes we can hear gunfire at close proximity, and it causes panic among people," said Muhammad Ismoilov, a resident of the southern Tajik village of Kokul, which borders Afghanistan's Kunduz Province. Ismoilov told RFE/RL by telephone that "helicopters can be heard flying overhead during the night, although it's unclear on which side of the border they are flying." He said that in recent days a nearby border crossing to Afghanistan was closed. The 7,000-strong 201st Motorized Rifle Division is stationed at three different facilities in Tajikistan; the air base outside Dushanbe, and two others in southern Khatlon Province. Under an agreement signed in October 2012, Russian troops are allowed to remain stationed in Tajikistan until 2042. Russian officials have announced plans to increase the number of troops stationed in Tajikistan to 9,000 over the next five years and to provide more military equipment through 2020. Russian media have reported that Moscow is also prepared to grant Tajikistan $1.2 billion in military aid over the next few years. With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and Sputniknews.com Moscow has welcomed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump calling NATO "obsolete," as key NATO ally Germany reacted with concern to his remarks. Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on January 16 that "NATO is indeed a vestige [of the past] and we agree with that." Peskov also said that "considering that [NATO] is focused on confrontation and its entire structure is devoted to the ideals of confrontation, then, of course, this can hardly be called a modern structure meeting the ideas of stability, sustainable development, and security." NATO has repeatedly rejected Russian claims that it wants confrontation, saying that moves to bolster its strength in Eastern Europe are a response to Russian actions that have rattled members in the area, including Moscow's seizure of Crimea and its support for separatists in a war in eastern Ukraine. Germany, one of the United States' closest NATO partners, expressed concern over Trump's remarks. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that "this is in contradiction" with what Trump's nominee to lead the Pentagon, James Mattis, said during his Senate confirmation hearing last week. Mattis on January 12 called NATO "the most successful military alliance probably in modern history, maybe ever" and said Russia posed a threat to it. NATO reacted on January 16 to Trump's statement by saying it has full confidence in the U.S. security commitment to Europe. NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg was looking forward to working with Trump and his team. Trump said in a wide-ranging interview with the British daily The Times and the German daily Bild published on January 15 that NATO was "obsolete" for not doing more to fight terrorism but added that the alliance was still "very important to me." "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," Trump told the newspapers. "It's obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago. Secondly, a lot of [NATO member] countries aren't paying what they should." Trump called that "unfair" to the United States but added that the United States had to protect the other countries in the 28-member alliance. Sanctions Deal? The U.S. president-elect's comments about NATO came as Trump also suggested that he may offer to end some economic sanctions against Russia in return for a deal to reduce nuclear arms. He said he wanted the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia to be "reduced very substantially." The United States currently has 1,367 deployed nuclear warheads and Russia 1,796, according to the latest count mandated by the 2010 New START treaty. The Kremlin said on January 16 that it was too early to comment on Trump's statement. However, a senior Russian lawmaker said Moscow would reject any link between the lifting of U.S. sanctions and arms reductions. State-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted the upper house of parliament's International Relations Committee head, Konstantin Kosachyov, as saying that getting the sanctions annulled was not a goal in itself and not worth making security concessions for. The United States and other Western powers imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. Brexit 'A Great Thing' Turning to other subjects, Trump used his January 15 remarks to praise Britain for voting to leave the European Union. He said that "Brexit is going to end up being a great thing" and that he was eager to get a trade deal done with the United Kingdom. The remark was welcomed on January 16 by British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, who called it "good news" that the United States wants "a good free-trade deal with us." British Prime Minister Theresa May also welcomed Trump's commitment to working on a trade deal with Britain, her spokesperson said. Britain's impending exit from the EU means that it cannot be part of the free-trade deal Washington is currently negotiating with Brussels and the two countries will have to strike their own bilateral accord. Some EU officials on January 16 rejected Trump's description of Brexit as a "great thing" and his statement that other EU members may follow Britain's example. European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the cost of Brexit would be "considerable" and that it would deter other countries from following suit. "Brexit is not a great thing," Moscovici said and warned Trump that comments advocating a break-up of the European Union would not get the transatlantic relationship off to the best start. 'Twitter Diplomacy' German Chancellor Angela Merkel also reacted negatively to Trump's prediction that other countries may leave the EU after Britain. "I think we Europeans have our fate in our own hands," she said on January 16. Merkel also brushed off criticism from Trump over her migrants policy. Trump said in the newspaper interviews that she was a "fantastic leader" but that Germany had "got a clear impression" of the consequences of her policy from the December 19 terrorist attack in Berlin, when 12 people were mowed down by a hijacked truck at a Christmas market. "I am personally waiting for the inauguration of the U.S. president," Merkel said regarding Trump's statement. "Then of course we will work with him on all levels." With Trump due to be inaugurated as U.S. president on January 20, some other observers also said the best course is to see what he does once he takes office rather than react to his statements now. "I think the most important thing is that we play it cool at the moment and wait until they all actually start working," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said. "I think we have to wait and move away from Twitter diplomacy to real politics and that is what have to relate to." With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and TASS. A top Sunni cleric in Iran has called for an immediate referendum with the presence of international observers to "change policies based on the wishes of the people." In his Friday Prayers sermon on November 4 in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, Molavi Abdulhamid Ismaeelzah asked the Qom seminary and the country's authorities to listen to the voices of the people who have been protesting for the past 50 days. The cleric, who is known across the country as Molavi Abdolhamid, has previously called on the countrys rulers to respond to the demands of the protesters. There has been no comment from the Iranian government on his call for a referendum. The cleric, regarded as a spiritual leader for Irans Sunni Muslim population, is the director of main Sunni seminary in Iran. He is a vocal critic of the Iranian government and has been under pressure for his comments against the Islamic republic. Earlier this month in his Friday Prayers sermon, he said senior officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were "responsible" for the killings in Zahedan on September 30. At the same time, people in different cities of Sistan and Baluchistan Province demonstrated in the streets for the fifth consecutive week after the September 30 massacre in Zahedan. According to the videos published on social media on November 4, the security forces shot directly at protesters in the city of Khash, near Zahedan. Reports also indicate clashes and shooting at protesters in some other cities of Sistan and Baluchistan Province, including Saravan, Zahedan, and Iranshahr. It was not possible to independently verify the social media posts and the reports of violence at protests across Iran. Gatherings took place on November 3 in the cities of Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, Rasht, and many other cities of Kurdistan Province in western Iran. According to the videos published on social media, in the central Iranian city of Arak hundreds of mourners gathered at the grave of Mehrshad Shahidinejad, a 19-year-old aspiring chef who reportedly was killed after being arrested during a protest. Reports also indicate that on November 3 in the city of Isfahan state security forces fired tear gas as mourners gathered at the grave of Mahsa Mougoei, an 18-year-old woman who was killed on September 22 during the nationwide protests against the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. At least one woman was shot in Isfahan on November 3, a video published on Twitter indicates. The woman is shown on the ground with blood on her face, apparently shot in the head. The video also shows people trying to revive her. Theres no report about her condition. In the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, security agents prevented the memorial of late RFE/RL journalist Reza Haghighatnejad. People who had gone to the location of the ceremony protested the security agents' move, chanting slogans in memory of Haghighatnejad and in protest of the government. Iranian authorities secretly buried Haghighatnejad on October 30 at a location near Shiraz after seizing his body upon repatriation to Iran, angering his family. Meanwhile, domestic and international reactions to the suppression of protesters in Iran continue. Iranian wrestling legend and Olympic gold medalist Rasoul Khadem addressed President Ebrahim Raisi on his Instagram account and criticized him for suppressing the protests. Also, more than 100 professors at Tehran University protested the October 29 attack on the university in a statement describing the attack of the security forces on the students as "barbaric." The statement says the continuation of security approaches and actions such as the "terrible attack" of the plainclothes security forces on the university is disastrous. The signatories said that all detained students should be released unconditionally. The antigovernment protests have been met by a harsh crackdown that the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says has killed at least 277 people, including 40 children. The Iranian government has not taken responsibility for the killing of protesters and in most cases has attributed their deaths to reasons such as suicide, illness, and accidents. Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda Tajik authorities say they are probing gunfights that killed at least four people and sparked antigovernment protests in the remote Gorno-Badakhshan Province. The government in Dushanbe blames the violence on local drug dealers. Protest leaders, however, say the latest crisis has much deeper roots in the autonomous region that was the scene of deadly clashes in 2012.Known in Tajikistan as "The Rooftop of the World," Gorno-Badakhshan is an autonomous, mountainous province in eastern Tajikistan.Gorno-Badakhshan makes up nearly 45 percent of Tajikistan's territory but only 3 percent of the country's population lives there.Most of Gorno-Badakhshan's population of 250,000 are followers of Ismailism, a branch of Shi'ite Islam, while most people in the rest of Tajikistan consider themselves Sunni Muslims.Gorno-Badakhshan is home to a number of languages and dialects that belong to the Pamiri language group. While Tajik is the official language in the province, Pamiri languages -- such as Shughni, Rushani, Bartangi, and Yazgulyami -- remain the local population's common, everyday languages.Khorugh, the administrative center of Gorno-Badakhshan, was the scene of a deadly gunfight on May 21 that killed four people and sparked antigovernment protests.Tajik authorities say a police operation against a small group of drug dealers led to the shoot-out that killed a policeman, two alleged drug traffickers, and a civilian bystander. Several people, including civilians, were injured and taken to the hospital.The gunfight led to protests by local residents who condemned the police's handling of the operation in a downtown residential area. Several buildings, including the provincial police headquarters, were set on fire by angry protesters.Protesters are demanding a thorough and fair probe into the May 21 events. They also want the authorities to dismiss the heads of regional law enforcement agencies, and not to prosecute those involved in setting fire to administrative buildings.Officials have rejected the demand to release those believed to be responsible for setting the buildings ablaze.Besides concrete demands connected to the latest events, Gorno-Badakhshan residents have more long-standing grievances that have led to the crisis, says protest leader Alim Sherzamonov.Dozens, including many civilians, were killed and injured in clashes between government forces and local militants in June 2012 sparked by the fatal stabbing of a high-level security official.Sherzamonov accuses the government of continuously fabricating "pretexts to eliminate those the authorities believe were involved in the 2012 clashes."Protesters say they believe the authorities "have blacklisted up to 200 Gorno-Badakhshan residents, mostly young men, in connection with the 2012 events." Sherzamonov says protesters demand that the authorities "fully pardon" them.The crisis in Gorno-Badakhshan is described by protest leaders as "long-standing and deep-rooted."While everyone insists there is no mood of outright separatism among protesters, they have reiterated demands for "more autonomy."Sherzamonov says the local population is suspicious of Dushanbe's policies in Gorno-Badakhshan, especially the appointment of people from other regions to high-level government posts in the province.They want all governors -- provincial and district -- in Gorno-Badakhshan to be elected by the local population.They are demanding that high government positions, including heads of law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system, be given to residents of Gorno-Badakhshan.Language issues remain another sensitive topic. A lack of programs in Pamiri languages on national television and radio has long caused discontent in Gorno-Badakhshan.Many in Dushanbe, in turn, regard the region with some suspicion.People in Gorno-Badakhshan have more loyalty to Ismaili spiritual leaderthan to President Emomali Rahmon, says Dushanbe-based analyst Saimuddin Dustov.The Aga Khan Foundation has been involved in multimillion-dollar investment and charity projects in Gorno-Badakhshan and other parts of Tajikistan, but the Ismaili spiritual leader has stayed out of politics there.Dustov says that while there is mutual respect between the Aga Khan and the Tajik government, there has never been real trust between them. Nabijon spends nearly 10 hours a day inside his one-room barbershop on a dusty backstreet in Khujand, Tajikistan's second-largest city. He has no shortage of customers. "Business has never been this good," says the third-generation barber, who politely declines to give his full name. "Before, people would mostly come for a haircut. Now many customers come to trim their beard," he says. "You don't see long, bushy beards on the streets anymore." Seeing the rise of Islamic State and other extremist groups in recent years, Tajik authorities have done their best to eliminate outward displays of what they see as dangerous, imported aspects of Islam in recent years. This has put women who dress in Islamic attire not traditionally worn in Tajikistan, as well as men with heavy beards, in the spotlight. Men have been detained on the street and forcibly shaved at police stations. And when President Emomali Rahmon used a Women's Day speech in March to publicly chastise those who wear "foreign" dress, saying that outsiders were using clothing to develop an "extremist" trend in Tajikistan, it was taken as a warning. The look of Dushanbe's streets has changed as a result. Whereas solid-colored black or brown hijabs had become a common sight, today anything but officially acceptable and traditional Tajik head scarves -- colorful and tied behind the head -- are a rarity. But even if the government's approach has succeeded in preventing Tajiks from displaying their religiosity in public, it has also raised fears that it risks deepening divides between secular Dushanbe and conservative Muslims. Rather than deterring Tajik Muslims from turning to brands of Islam outside the state's control, observers note, repression could have the opposite effect -- and even push them onto a dangerous path. "The kind of repressive measures they are using both deter and encourage radicalization," says John Heathershaw, an expert on Tajikistan at the University of Exeter. He warns that, just as some people may be intimidated by the measures and fall into line with state-sanctioned guidelines for Islam, others could respond by going underground and becoming militant. Fears of Islamic militancy run particularly high in Tajikistan, a country still scarred by a civil war in which Islamists, allied with democrats, fought pro-Soviet authoritarian forces just 20 years ago. The war killed as many as 100,000 people. "After the war, the situation has still not entirely stabilized," says Helene Thibault, who researches Central Asia at the University of Montreal in Canada. "There are always some fault lines, some regions, where political antagonism, regional antagonism, are still there." She notes that, in 2010, Islamic militants who had been given lengthy sentences broke out of jail in the Rasht Valley in north-central Tajikistan, prompting a yearlong government operation to kill or capture them. More recently, in 2012 and 2014, local groups which the government accused of being Islamic militants fought with security forces in Gorno Badakhshan, in eastern Tajikistan. Banning Tajikistan's Islamic Party Since the 1992-97 civil war, moderates have held the upper hand among politically active Muslims after a peace deal resulted in the country's only Islamic party having a place in government. But Dushanbe's banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) earlier this year, and the arrest of its moderate leadership, has raised the danger that the moderates could now be sidelined, allowing more extremist elements to take their place. Faridun Hodizoda, a Dushanbe-based expert on religious issues, says that "some radical" members of the party had previously criticized the leadership for being too moderate. "They used to put enormous pressure on the party's leadership for making peace with the government," he says. "Now they say: 'We told you so.'" He says that could mean trouble for the future. "I don't rule out the possibility of the IRPT continuing its operation as an underground movement," Hodizoda notes. "If they go underground, they would be more radical." With the banning of the IRPT, which had been the only officially registered Islamic party in the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan's religious opposition no longer has any representation in government. The IPRT, which composed the largest faction in the opposition coalition during the war, lost its two seats in parliament in flawed elections in March. President Rahmon has argued that rolling back Islamic influence in Tajikistan is necessary to stop growing militancy among Islamists. Tajikistan's Prosecutor-General's Office said in July that it has opened more than 420 cases against Tajik citizens "fighting alongside foreign, extremist groups in Syria and Iraq." But the mounting pressure over the past couple of years also appears to be part of a concentrated effort to keep Islam in Tajikistan from slipping out of the control of the state, particularly as influences from elsewhere in the Islamic world make themselves felt. "There is a continuation of Soviet practices in terms of portraying religion in a negative way, as contrary to progress," says Thibault. "And also in the Soviet tradition, there is a fear that Islam from outside is also dangerous." Rahmon has controlled Islam by keeping the nominally independent Muftiat, which appoints the country's Muslim clerics, directly under the presidential office. Imported Islam, however, has lines of authority that are outside the country and cannot be so easily controlled, making Dushanbe visibly nervous. The country was shocked when in May the commander of the Tajik Interior Ministry's Special Forces, Gulmurod Halimov, appeared in a video clip saying he had joined the Islamic State extremist group to protest the government's ban on Islamic dress in schools and offices, and limitations on public prayer. At the same time, there has been an uptick in violence in Tajikistan. In September, attacks against police units in and near Dushanbe left more than 20 people dead, just days after the banning of the IRPT. The reasons behind the incident were not immediately clear, though the government blamed militant Islamists, specifically Deputy Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda. Nazarzoda, who was killed in a police operation before he could make any public statements, had once been an IRPT member but was not generally considered to be an active party member. Personal Freedom And Dilemmas On Dushanbe's streets, the decrease in the number of people in Islamic dress is much to secularists' delight. Many conservative Muslims, however, see it as an unnecessary meddling in their personal freedom. Manzura, a practicing Muslim who owns a small perfume shop in Dushanbe, says she had to invent a dress code to "please both Allah and the authorities." After officials dropped by earlier this year and made it clear that she should not wear foreign attire, Manzura says, she stopped wearing the dark-colored hijab that covered her head and clothes for fear she would lose her license to work. Now she wears a high-collared, long-sleeved shirt over long trousers. Her upswept hair is covered by a vivid red fabric reminiscent of an African head wrap. "My body is still fully covered in compliance with Islam," says Manzura, who in her high heels and colorful garb is every bit the fashion-conscience urbanite. The government's campaign to limit Islam comes as Rahmon has targeted not just the IRPT but also secular opponents, marginalizing moderates and potentially destabilizing the country by reintroducing ingredients present during the civil war. Umarali Kuvatov, who founded the secular political group Group 24, was shot dead under mysterious circumstances in March in Istanbul. His family blames Tajik authorities for the killing. Another opposition party, the New Tajikistan movement, was crushed shortly after its founding in 2013 when its leader, Zayd Saidov, was sentenced to 29 years in jail on a string of charges ranging from rape to financial crimes. "Ten or 12 years ago, there was a bit more space," says Heathershaw. "There was more space for the press to be a little bit critical and for multiple opposition parties to think that they could make comments that were critical. But it is different now." Discontent over the increasingly authoritarian governing style is made potentially more dangerous considering widespread unhappiness over the dire economic situation in Tajikistan. One-in-six working age Tajiks cannot find employment in country and instead go to Russia to earn money to send home. A recent World Bank report called Tajikistan the world's most remittance-dependent country, noting that the country's economic growth has dropped significantly along with Russia's slowdown and the depreciation of the ruble. The report noted that growth in Tajikistan's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slowed to 6.7 percent last year from 7.4 percent in 2013 and that it could drop to 3.2 percent in 2015. Discontent over the economy, charges of regionalism, and political Islam all played their role in sparking civil war immediately after Tajikistan's independence. At that time, grievances centered upon the monopoly over power and the economy by one region and old-guard former Soviet bosses. A common complaint in Tajikistan today is that all the best jobs are held by people from Rahmon's region and that people from other regions have no choice but to work as migrant laborers abroad. All this makes for a dangerous cocktail as Rahmon appears intent on pursuing an increasingly authoritarian line that particularly marginalizes conservative Muslims. However, he appears to be betting that his country is unlikely to slip into armed conflict again and that he has sufficient support from secularists to continue. Back in the barber shop in Khujand, Nabijon is satisfied with his booming business. He charges an equivalent of $0.75 for trimming a beard, the same amount customers pay for a haircut. An average customer comes in three times in two weeks, making a tidy extra income for the barber. He says he is quite content with Rahmon's policies. ON MY MIND Europe no longer just views Russia as just a potential troublemaker on its periphery. Two recently published policy documents, the EU's foreign policy concept and a German whitepaper on security policy (reviewed in a piece by Olga Gulina in a blog post featured below), make it clear that the EU now views Russia as a troublemaker in the heart of Europe itself. This has really been the story of the past several years. Vladimir Putin's Russia has forced itself to the top of the West's agenda. It has done so not just by being uncooperative on the margins (see two pieces featured below on Moscow's efforts to derail the Cyprus reunification talks), but by threatening the West at its very core. Whether it is through hacking, interfering in Western elections, the weaponization of corruption to establish networks of influence, or backing xenophobic, Eurosceptic, or separatist forces, Russia has made it impossible for the West to not pay attention to it. It's a temper tantrum and it's blackmail. Moscow is essentially saying: "give us a free hand in our neighborhood, or we will menace you where you live. IN THE NEWS In an interview with the Times of London, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump suggested he may offer to end some economic sanctions against Russia in return for a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to reduce nuclear arms. Top aides to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have denied a published report he plans to hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Iceland as his first foreign trip in office. At least eight U.S. members of Congress have said they will boycott the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, with some citing evidence that Russian may have helped Trump get elected. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in Kyiv today that the international community must stand together against what he called Russian aggression. Dissident artist Petr Pavlensky has fled Russia and will seek asylum in France, Russian media are reporting. Ukrainian authorities should "immediately" cancel an order banning a prominent independent Russian television station from broadcasting in the country, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says. The Committee to Protect Journalists is also calling on Belarusian authorities to "unconditionally" release Aleksandr Lapshin, a Russian-Israeli blogger who is wanted in Baku on separatism charges. Polish leaders welcomed U.S. troops to their country on January 14, with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo saying it was a "great day" that would help ensure the region's security. LATEST POWER VERTICAL PODCAST On the latest Power Vertical Podcast, I explored the Russian tactic of Honey Traps And Money Traps with guests Donald Jensen, a former U.S. State Department official and currently a fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations in the Nitze School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins University; and Peter Pomerantsev, author of the widely acclaimed book Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible: Inside The Surreal Heart Of The New Russia. NEW POWER VERTICAL BRIEFING On the new Power Vertical Briefing, I look ahead to Russian-U.S. relations in the age of Donald Trump. WHAT I'M READING Russia Through Europe's Eyes On The Kennan Institute's Russia Files blog, Olga Gulina explains how Germany and the EU see Vladimir Putin's Russia In the post, Gulina reviews both the EU's foreign policy concept paper and a German government whitepaper on security policy. Ukraine As An Info War Testing Lab On Hromadske Radio's Ukraine Calling Podcast, host Marta Dyczok speaks to StopFakes Yevhen Fedchenko about "how Ukraine was the testing lab for Russias information war against the United States." Russia's Cyprus Shenanigans Politico has a piece on how fears are mounting in Cyprus that Russia could wreck reunification talks. And in his column for Bloomberg News, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky explains why Putin may want the Cyprus talks to fail. Russia's California Shenanigans Casey Michel has a piece in Politico on why Russia loves CalExit. The Baltic Front Deep Baltic has an interview with veteran Kremlin-watcher Edward Lucas, author of the book The New Cold War, on what could happen to the Baltic states in a post-NATO Europe. Trump And Russia In her column for The Washington Post, Anne Applebaum argues that everybody should "stop obsessing over 'secrets' about Trump and Russia. What we already know is bad enough." The Estonian newspaper Posttimes has a piece on how the Trump-Russia dossier has put Estonia's foreign intelligence service in the international spotlight. And Business Insider has a report claiming that the dossier suggests that a quid-pro-quo was at the heart of the Trump campaign's decision to change the Republican platform regarding support for Ukraine. Imagining A NATO-Russia War How messy would a Russia-NATO war be? The National Interest takes a look. Ukraine And Dozhd-TV Oleg Kashin has a column in Republic.ru on why Dozhd-TV and Ukraine don't understand each other. KYIV -- Ukraine has sued Russia at the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing Moscow of acts of "terrorism" and "discrimination" related to its backing separatists in eastern Ukraine and its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula The Foreign Ministry filed the lawsuit late on January 16 at the request of President Petro Poroshenko. It claims that Russia has violated the UN Convention For The Suppression Of The Financing Of Terrorism by supporting separatists fighting government forces in a war that has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014. It also claims that Russia has oppressed Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority whose homeland is Crimea. "For three years, Russia has been committing the illegal annexation of Crimea, illegal occupation of the east of our country in the territory of [the] Donetsk and Luhansk regions, [and] implementing the policy of elimination and discrimination in Crimea," Poroshenko said at a meeting with Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev and three other top officials. Armed Russians "have committed numerous terrorist attacks affecting hundreds of thousands of innocent people forced to leave their home," he said. "Russia must pay the price for its aggression," Poroshenko said. Ukrainian authorities call the nearly three-year-old conflict in eastern Ukraine an "antiterrorist operation," and often refer to those fighting against government forces as "terrorists." Neither Kyiv nor Russia, which denies it has backed the separatists with troops or weapons despite mounting evidence, has formally declared war. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa told RFE/RL that the lawsuit was the result of three years of "titanic work" by Ukrainian authorities. It is the first lawsuit filed with the ICJ by Kyiv, which has sent at least four lawsuits against Russia to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Ukraine is aware that the ICJ may not consider the lawsuit for years, if ever, Betsa said. "But we have hope," she said, adding that it is "inevitable" that Russia will bear responsibility "for crimes it has committed." Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. After giving a talk on the history of African-Americans fight for equality to volunteers assembled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sharon Burton of The Valentine museum asked the crowd in what areas of society the struggle continued for liberty, brotherhood and equality. All of them, came the near unanimous response from the audience gathered at United Methodist Family Services at 3900 W. Broad St. In addition to the people off from work, children, AmeriCorps volunteers and two companies of soldiers from Fort Lee, the assembled included members of Richmonds political scene, including City Council members Kim Gray, Andreas Addison and Kristen Larson, along with Police Chief Alfred Durham. When Mayor Levar Stoney got behind the podium to give a keynote address, he had some questions of his own mixed in with his tribute to Kings legacy of service. Would we have the gun violence and the crime weve had in the past year if those in need received just a little more of what they needed? Stoney asked. Would this damaging reality befuddle us if those giving into anger and seeking revenge turned the other cheek and sought reconciliation instead? Stoney called for Kings talk of love to be brought back into a national conversation focused on Inauguration Day. I think that is a word that has gone missing in the dialogue and discourse over the last few months, particularly after the 2016 presidential election, Stoney said of love. When you have a national leader who has used words that dont follow those same values of dignity and love, what kind of role model is that for the people that we surround ourselves with? Stoney concluded his speech imploring the city to unite to help the less fortunate and continue the dream King died for. It is up to us to make ourselves one Richmond, Stoney said. Not nine Richmonds, not two Richmonds, but one Richmond; a Richmond of service, a Richmond of compassion and a Richmond of dignity. The struggle continues, but the dream shall never die. The dream must live on in all of us. Bills pending in the General Assembly would award $1.45 million in compensation to a man wrongly convicted of a 1982 rape and murder in Newport News and $1 million to a man convicted of two 1987 arson deaths in Roanoke. Keith Allen Harward, 60, was exonerated by the Virginia Supreme Court in April after DNA testing not only excluded him of the savage beating death of a Newport News man and the rape of his wife in the couples home, but also implicated the real killer. Harward, a resident of Greensboro, N.C., was convicted in large part on the now-discredited testimony of two forensic odontologists who said bite marks left on the rape victim matched Harwards teeth. It would be nice if it was more than that, said Harward, reached by telephone Monday. According to the bill, if Harward accepts the money, he must waive any further claims against the state. He and his lawyers had been weighing a lawsuit, but he said that might take years to resolve. Considering my age if I was 40 years old and was financially able to, I would sit back and spank em, Harward said. The compensation bill was introduced by state Del. Richard C. Rip Sullivan Jr., D-Fairfax. Im very hopeful that we will get this claims bill through this session. Theres nothing we can do to give him back his 33 years but the General Assembly does have a process in place and as far as Im concerned, this is a debt of the commonwealth. Weve just got to find room in the budget to pay it, Sullivan said. At the time of the crimes, Harward was a sailor of the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier under construction at the shipyard near the home where the attack occurred. He was convicted twice. He was convicted of capital murder the first time but escaped a death sentence. He was tried a second time for first-degree murder and was sentenced to life. The Innocence Project took up Harwards case, and DNA testing in recent years cleared Harward and implicated another Carl Vinson sailor, Jerry Crotty, who died a decade ago in an Ohio prison where he was being held for unrelated crimes. If the proposal is made law, Harward would receive an initial lump sum payment of $290,000, with $1.16 million set aside to purchase an annuity for his benefit. A bill introduced by state Sen. Scott A. Surovell, D-Fairfax, would provide $1,032,293 to Davey Reedy, who was imprisoned from 1988 until 2009 for two counts of first-degree murder and arson stemming from the death of his two children. They died of smoke inhalation after their house caught fire. Gov. Terry McAuliffe granted Reedy an absolute pardon in December 2015, saying the convictions were not supported by the forensic evidence introduced at his trial. If the bill is approved, Reedy would receive an initial lump sum of $206,459, and $825,834 would be used to purchase an annuity. Police said on Sunday evening that the man suspected of robbing the First Citizens Bank on Thursday is now in his second stolen vehicle, this time a Ford Escape. The man, who police said had been in a stolen Lexus SUV when the robbery happened, is suspected of stealing the Escape at about 6 p.m. Friday at the 7-Eleven at 905 Lafayette Blvd., according to a Sunday news release from the Fredericksburg Police Department. The black 2013 Escape (with a license of JLU-2050) has a circular black-and-white sticker with 718 Venue on the rear window. Police said surveillance video shows the man wearing a pink knitted stocking cap and a grey sweatshirt at the 7-Eleven. The gold Lexus RX-300 police say the man had been driving was found in the parking lot of Brock's Bar and Grill at 503 Sophia St. Police said the man is considered armed and dangerous and that he should not be approached. The apparent crime spree started on Thursday morning, according to police, who say the man started by stealing the Lexus in Hanover County. The next point where police pick up the suspect is at a Hanover County 7-Eleven later Thursday morning, where surveillance video shows a man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing a black jacket and olive cargo pants. Police say he is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and in his 40s or 50s. Fredericksburg police spokeswoman Sarah Kirkpatrick said investigators also have video from the CVS next to the bank at Cowan Crossing on U.S. 1 prior to the Thursday afternoon robbery showing the man enter the pharmacy and then leave and drive off in the Lexus. The bank, which is near Cowan Boulevard, was robbed just before 4 p.m. Thursday. A man entered the bank and handed a teller a note saying he had a weapon and demanded cash. The teller complied, and the man left on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash, Kirkpatrick said. Police released a still video image of the smiling robber, who was last seen headed toward the nearby CVS. Technology News Oracle Opens Start Up Accelerator In Israel For Cloud Innovation | RobinsPost News & Noticias Google has opened its new Cloud ... fuel innovation and digital transformation across every sector of the economy. "Israel is known as the startup nation, and has long been a hub of technology ... Read More Oracle on Wednesday said that it is opening up its ERP ... toward high tech and manufacturing industry sectors. The service, which will be offered as part of Oracle Cloud Fusion Applications ... Read More Israel is known for its talent. So the Start-Up Nation is ... Israeli med-tech has it all. One of the more bizarre-in-a-good-way start-ups offering a medical innovation is SpotitEarly, a ... Read More Today, we are excited to announce that the new Google Cloud region in Israel is open, the statement added, noting that Israel has long been a hub of technology innovation for startups and ... Read More the launch of the new region will give local groups the ability to connect with global users and customers and stimulate innovation in the economy. Maoz noted that Israel selected Google Cloud to ... Read More The MarketWatch News Department was not ... places on fostering creativity and innovation. Startup companies accepted into the CoreWeave Accelerator Program will join CoreWeaves vast ... Read More Showcase your company news with guaranteed exposure both in print and online The San Francisco Business Times' STEAM breakfast event will look at the state of science Most Admired CEOs were ... Read More Innovation is a key factor in charting out the growth trajectory for Indias technology ... actively setting up incubators, accelerators and partner programmes to drive open innovation in ... Read More SPRINGFIELD, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider ... fostering creativity and innovation. Startup companies accepted into the CoreWeave Accelerator Program will ... Read More Accepted companies will be welcomed into the specialized cloud provider CoreWeaves growing network of cutting-edge technology ... innovation." Startup companies accepted into the CoreWeave ... Read More As the global diamond producing club has become increasing fractured, an interesting phenomenon has emerged of a large number of small and medium-size diamond producers with the investment capacity to develop new mines. In an industry once dominated by De Beers which, until around 20 years ago, accounted for 80 percent of global supply, the change is all the more intriguing. Today, De Beers itself says it is responsible for only around 35-38% of global supply. Meanwhile, number two producer, Russia's Alrosa, accounts for more than 25%. As a result, smaller miners are playing a growing role. These include, for example, Petra Diamonds, which has emerged and developed after acquiring several of De Beers former mines. The grand master of the diamond industry decided around a decade ago that it needed the cash available from the sale of some of its old mines. In addition, it came to the conclusion that it did not regard the investment of tens, and perhaps hundreds, of millions of dollars in the operations as a wise investment strategy. Petra Diamonds It was in 1997 that Petra listed on Londons Alternative Investment market with a market capitalization of around $16 million. But it was in 2007 that Petra really put down its marker when it acquired the Koffiefontein mine in South Africa. And in 2008, it acquired an initial 37% interest in the Cullinan mine in South Africa. Petra also bought De Beers 75-percent stake in the Williamson mine in Tanzania, but withdrew from exploration activities in Angola further to the global economic downturn and a strategic decision to focus on cash generative production. Those developments allowed it in 2009 to raise $120 million via a share issue and the new funds enabled Petra to increase its ownership in Cullinan to 74%. The following year was also a landmark one because Petras annual production rose to over 1 million carats. It was also the year that Petra acquired the Kimberley Underground mine in South Africa. And in 2011, Petra raised $325 million via a share issue. The majority of the funds raised were used to acquire the Finsch mine in South Africa for $210 million, and Petra stepped up from AIM to the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. In 2016, Petra announced the completion of a joint venture agreement with Ekapa Mining (Pty) Ltd, whereby the two companies would combine their respective operations in Kimberley. Kimberley Ekapa Mining Joint Venture houses the Kimberley Underground mine, numerous tailings retreatment programs and the Central Treatment Plant. Petras production is forecast to be around 4.5 million carats in 2017. Petra sells all rough diamond production by the method of open tender. Tenders last between four to six working days, during which participants view the assortments and place a confidential electronic bid on the parcel of their choice. At the end of the tender, the highest bidder wins the parcel. Petras South African production is sold in Johannesburg and its Tanzanian production is sold in Antwerp. Dominion Diamond Corp Canadian diamond miner Dominion Diamond Corp, which owns the Ekati mine and 40% of the Diavik mine, both in Canadas Northwest Territories in the Arctic Circle, has become the worlds third largest producer of rough diamonds by value. Formerly known as Harry Winston Diamond Corporation and before that Aber, it produces around seven million carats annually. Gem Diamonds Another mid-size miner that has made waves in recent years is Gem Diamonds, which describes itself as a leading global producer of high-value diamonds. The company owns 70% of the Letseng mine in Lesotho and is developing the 100% owned Ghaghoo mine in Botswana. The Letseng mine is famous for its production of large, top color, exceptional white diamonds, making it the highest average dollar per carat kimberlite diamond mine in the world. Since Gem Diamonds acquisition of Letseng in 2006, the mine has produced four of the 20 largest white gem quality diamonds ever recorded. These include the 550-carat white diamond, the Letseng Star, recovered at Letseng in August 2011, and currently ranked as the 14th largest white diamond ever recorded and the second largest white diamond to be recovered at Letseng. The name was given to signify the growing number of "stars" in Letseng's growing constellation of large diamonds recovered. Then there was the Light of Letseng, a 478-carat D color white diamond that was recovered in September 2008. The name reflects the diamonds remarkable color and clarity, the highest possible quality for a white diamond. The diamond is currently ranked as the 17th largest rough white diamond ever to be recovered and was the third significant recovery from Letseng in as many years. The 493-carat Letseng Legacy is currently ranked as the 16th largest rough white diamond ever recovered and was named to reflect the growing legacy that the Letseng mine in Lesotho is creating as a producer of significant diamonds. Meanwhile, Gem Diamonds recovered the 603-carat Lesotho Promise at the Letseng mine in August 2006. It is ranked as the world's 12th largest white diamond and the largest diamond from the Letseng mine and the largest rough white diamond to be recovered this century. The Lesotho Promise was sold for $12.4 million in 2006. The Lesotho Promise was subsequently polished into 26 D flawless diamonds, the largest of which was a 76.4 carat pear-shaped diamond, and the diamonds were fashioned into a single necklace. Lucara Diamond Corp Lucara Diamond Corp. is a relatively new diamond producer, with its key asset being the Karowe mine in Botswana. The firm is perhaps best known for finding the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond which it tried and failed to sell at auction last June. The 100% owned Karowe mine is newly built and was fully commissioned only in the second quarter of 2012. Lucara has consistently recovered large, Type IIA stones at the mine. The company forecasts revenue, from regular and exceptional tenders, of $200 million to $220 million for the 2016 calendar year. That doesn't include the sale of the 813-carat Constellation diamond, which sold for $63.1 million earlier this year. Grib Diamond Corp Recently in the news, the Grib diamond project was sold to Russian investment group Otkritie Holding by owner Lukoil for $1.45 billion. Located in Russia's Arkhangelsk region, production at Grib was launched in September 2014. It soon became Russia's largest diamond mining operation outside of ALROSA's huge production, with more than 4 million carats annually. Sales in 2015 were in excess of $160 million, and more than $232 million in the first three-quarters of 2016 alone. The majority of its output is sold using the tender system via its Antwerp-based unit Grib Diamonds. Clearly, it is unlikely that a large diamond group is going to monopolize the diamond industry ever again. De Beers' decline as far as production is concerned came about because of anti-monopoly legislation and rules. Senior De Beers' executives were not allowed to set foot in the United States for decades until the miner resolved charges against it in the U.S. courts relating to monopoly practices. And then, around a decade ago, the European Union also began to take an interest in De Beers' operations, particularly its purchase of goods from Russia which had allowed it to retain the lion's share of global output. The upshot is that room has been created for smaller firms to build up their operations and production of rough goods. Although their share of worldwide supply is considerably smaller than that of either De Beers and Alrosa, these smaller and medium-sized firm are consistently building up and refining their operations which will enable them to remain players in the global trade for the foreseeable future. By our Israel correspondent Abraham Dayan AngloGold Ashanti mulls 30% reduction of carbon emissions by 2030 AngloGold Ashanti has come up with a new carbon emissions reduction target which seeks to achieve a 30% absolute reduction in its Scope 1 and Scope 2 Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2030, as compared to 2021. This will be achieved through a combination... Lucara Q3 revenue, output drop Lucara Diamond, which wholly owns the Karowe mine in Botswana, realised $49.9 million in revenues in the third quarter of 2022 compared to $72.7 million in the comparative quarter. The revenue includes $46.5 million from the sale of 99,301 carats and... Gemfields to auction 187,775-carat cluster of emeralds Gemfields is set to auction a 187,775-carat cluster of emeralds discovered at its 75%-owned Kagem mine in Zambia in March 2020. Viewing of the Kafubu Cluster commenced on 31 October and bidding will close on 17 November. Tiffany jewellery pieces to highlight Jewels & Jadeite auction in Hong Kong Jewellery pieces by Tiffany & Co, including those by renowned designer Jean Schlumberger, are among the highlights of Bonhams Jewels and Jadeite auction in Hong Kong on November 26, 2022. Gem International said it recently entered into discussions with Global Gems for amendments of its existing arrangement for the earn-in of an interest in the diamond exploration Dala project in the Lunda Sul Province in Angola. Global Gems holds a 45 percent interest in the Dala project. The company said in a statement that it would, under the proposal not yet agreed to, acquire 88 percent of Global Gems interest in the restructured Dala project by paying $300,000 upon TSX Venture approval, $300,000 on or before the second anniversary of such approval and $400,000 on or before the third anniversary of such approval. It said the project would be enlarged to include exploration and exploitation rights for six known kimberlite pipes. Meanwhile, Gem said it intends to carry out a private placement raising proceeds of C$400,000 for the sale of up to 8,000,000 units at a price of C$0.05 per unit. The funds shall be used for the companys working capital and related to the preparation of documents for regulatory approval of the foregoing proposed arrangement as well as the payment. Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished U.S. retailer The Limited has closed all 250 stores and has moved all sales to its online platform, reflecting an increasingly challenging environment for bricks-and-mortar retailers. Were sad to say that all The Limited stores nationwide have officially closed their doors, the company, which counts jewelry among its products, said in a notice to customers on its website. But this isnt goodbye. The styles you love are still available online were just a quick click away, 24 hours a day. The move follows mixed holiday sales across the retail industry, characterized by declines at physical stores but a jump in online shopping. We have worked very hard and made significant investments over nine years in operations to create a sustainable business at The Limited, says Sun Capital Partners, a private-equity owner of The Limited. In an increasingly challenging environment for mall-based retail and women's apparel, we are very disappointed that the company has had to make the difficult decision to close its retail locations. Japan's producer prices continued to decline at the end of the year, though at a slower-than-expected pace, preliminary figures from the Bank of Japan showed Monday. The producer price index fell 1.2 percent year-over-year in December, just below economists' expectations for a 1.4 percent decline. That was also slower than the 2.2 percent decrease in the previous month. On a monthly basis, producer prices rose 0.6 percent from November, when it increased by 0.4 percent. Data also shower that import prices slid 10.0 percent annually in December, while it rose 5.6 percent from a month ago. Similarly, export prices dipped 7.8 percent on year, while it grew 3.1 percent over the month. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Economic News What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more. Yanni "John" Alexis Mardas, a friend and employee of the Beatles also known as "Magic Alex" has died in Greece at the age of 74. Madras was one of the first employees of the band's Apple Records and served primarily as a designer for their Apple Electronics brand, creating gadgets and lighting displays for the band and label. He initially came into the fold after befriending John Lennon, who enjoyed an art installation that Madras created that simulated an LSD trip. He went on to travel extensively with the band including on their legendary retreat to India. He was later accused of being a fraudulent designer to which he told the New York Times: "I invented a large number of electronic devices, none of which had anything to do with music of the of the Beatles," Mardas said in a 2010. "It must be remembered that none of these had even been thought about by others at the time, although most of them are now in common use." Madras made claims to have been an early developer of voice recognition devices and speed dial . For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Entertainment News Donald Trump pointed fingers at CIA Director John Brennan over the leaked intelligence report alleging the President-elect's Russian connection. The incoming President on Twitter Sunday made a dig at the outgoing intelligence chief, who has been critical of Trump in an interview to Fox News. In his interview, the outgoing CIA Director admonished Trump for 'talking and tweeting' without fully understanding Russia's threat to the United States' national security. Brennan slammed Trump for likening the U.S. intelligence agencies biased against him to Hitler's Nazi Germany, describing it as "outrageous." Last week, US media published an unverified letter containing salacious allegations against the United States' incoming President. The letter, purportedly from a former British intelligence agent, alleges that Russians have been feeding Trump intelligence on his opponents, including Hillary Clinton, for years. It also details Trump's alleged "personal obsessions and sexual perversion." Trump has denied it. "Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand. Oh really, couldn't do much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?," Trump said on Twitter Sunday, in an apparent reference to Brennan's role in the publication of the intelligence dossier targeting him. In an earlier tweet thanking Bob Woodward who described the intelligence dossier as "a garbage document that never should have been presented," Trump demanded apology from media and "those Intelligence chiefs who made a mistake." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News The South Korea stock market has finished lower in back-to-back sessions, sliding more than 20 points or 1 percent along the way. The KOSPI now rests just shy of the 2,065-point plateau, and the market is in line for continued consolidation on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian is soft over concerns of a hard Brexit, although a bump in the price of crude oil should limit the downside. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were closed, and the Asian markets also figure to open in the red. The KOSPI finished modestly lower on Monday s losses from the stocks were tempered by support from the financial shares and automobile producers. For the day, the index shed 12.62 points or 0.61 percent to finish at 2064.17 after trading between 2,058.93 and 2,080.05. Among the actives, Samsung Electronics skidded 2.14 percent, while LG Electronics shed 0.19 percent, SK Hynix dropped 1.99 percent, Shinhan Financial spiked 1.90 percent, Woori Bank collected 1.19 percent, Hyundai Motor climbed 1.01 percent, Naver added 0.51 percent and POSCO was unchanged. Wall Street was shuttered on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, although the European markets all moved lower, Investors figure to be cautious on growing concerns about a hard Brexit, awaiting a speech later today from U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May - who will outline her Brexit plans. Financial stocks also may weigh after Canadian rating agency DBRS cut Italy's sovereign credit rating. Brent crude oil was up 41 cents a barrel on Monday, or 0.7 percent, to $55.86. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude added 27 cents or 0.5 percent to $52.64 a barrel. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis SPC President meets Sana'a, Dhamar, Baidha governors SANA'A, Jan. 16 (Saba) The president of the Supreme Political Council (SPC) Saleh al-Sammad, his deputy Dr. Qasim Labuza and the member of the Council Sultan al-Samee met on Monday with Governors of Sana'a, Dhamar and Baidha provinces. During the meeting, they discussed the situation in the three provinces and what have been achieved by the local authority to face the US-Saudi aggression and the blockade and its consequences on the citizens, particularly the continuous escalation of the aggression off the west coast of the Republic. The president praised the role played by the army and popular forces in confronting the aggression in several military fronts, especially imposing firearms control on the west coast of Yemen which will be studied at military sciences and humanities colleges. He stressed the need of working as a team at various levels and re-double efforts to face the US-Saudi aggression against Yemen as well as working in a unique and district management style like the previous phase when the US-Saudi aggression started to attack Yemen's institutions in all provinces. The US-Saudi aggression aims to divide Yemen not only geography but also demography, the president said. He added that a unity of the Yemeni people in one line and national strength make everybody confident of victory and the bright future for Yemen and for its people. He pointed out what will be experienced by the National Salvation Government on level of crisis management so as to alleviate the suffering of the people and develop solutions by putting legal and exceptional treatments in the light of stability of Yemen's institutions. The President affirmed to continue resilience and to preserve of the social unity which face the fiercest war campaigns against Yemen's community by the aggression and its tools inside the country. HA Saba Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Telegram Email Email Print Print [16/January/2017] Three militants were killed on Monday during a gunfight with security forces in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, police said. The bodies were recovered from Awoora village. "An operation against the militants resumed on Monday morning after it was suspended on Sunday evening," a senior police officer said. The gunfight erupted on Sunday following information about the presence of the militants hiding in a house in the village. Six pilgrims, all women, suffocated to death during a mad rush to board a vessel from the crowded jetty on their way home from Gangasagar fair in West Bengal on Sunday after taking the holy dip, a state minister said. "Six aged women died at Kachuberia temporary hospital due to heart attack. They had fallen senseless due to suffocation," state Sundarbans Development Minister Manturam Pakhira, told media. "The mishap occurred as the pilgrims got imapatient due to the long queue at jetty number five in Kachuberi and tried to outdo others in boarding the vessel," he said. Naval divers have been deployed to search for anyone who may have fallen into Muriganga river (distributor of the Hooghly river) during the mad rush, officials said. State Panchayat and Public Health Engineering Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the pilgrims were involved in a mad rush to board the vessels in view of the approaching low tide which would have halted launch movement on the river for hours. Around 1.6 million pilgrims from across India and abroad had gathered at Sagar island, around 150 km from Kolkata in South 24 Parganas district, this year for the annual Gangsagar Mela on Makar Sankranti. The bathing had started from Friday night. This island is considered auspicious by the Hindus, who converge here at this time of the year to take the holy dip and pray by offering a coconut at the Kapil Muni temple. The Ganga Sagar Mela is rated as the second largest assembly of people after the quadrennial Kumbha Mela (fair). Thousands of people on Monday took to the streets in Madurai's Alanganallur town in Tamil Nadu protesting a ban against Jallikattu, the ancient and popular bull-taming sport. The protestors including men and women, have assembled in the town well known for conducting Jallikattu. A large contingent of police personnel have been deployed at the venue to prevent any untoward incidents. In Jallikattu, a bull vaulter is expected to hang on to the bull's hump for a stipulated distance or hold on to the hump for a minimum of three jumps made by the bull. The Supreme Court in May 2014 banned the conduct of Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu. The court also held that bulls cannot be used as performing animals either for Jallikattu events or for bullock cart races in the Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country. Ever since the ban order people have been demanding the central government take necessary legal steps to conduct the sport. At least 40 school children were injured early on Monday when a bus carrying them turned turtle in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, a police officer said. The condition of 10 injured children was said to be "serious". According to district officials, the accident prima facie appeared to have taken place due to the failure of the steering wheel. The children were sent to a nearby medical facility, an official told media. The Election Commission is expected to announce on Monday its decision on the demand for 'cycle' symbol by the two warring factions of the Samajwadi Party. The EC, after hearing both the sides on Friday, had reserved its verdict on the issue. Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav have been asserting their respective claims over the party's election symbol 'cycle'. Mulayam Singh has been insisting on his right to the symbol being the party founder and also its "present President". Meanwhile, Akhilesh was appointed the "President" of the party at an "emergency national convention" called on January 1 in Lucknow. The meeting was convened by Akhilesh's confidant and Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav. The Akhilesh-led faction has been claiming ownership to the symbol, saying that it enjoyed the support of the majority of the party's members of Parliament and the legislators. Schmidt ad says Democrats helping Pyle "trying to steal" governor's race Attorney General Derek Schmidt's campaign has hit out with a radio ad saying "national Democrats are trying to steal the Kansas governor's race." Everyone meet Lia Tavita. He is from American Samoa but he is in the country visiting his family at Saleaumua. Lia told the Village Voice that he will be spending two weeks here before going back home. For Lia, being in Samoa is one of his favourite things in life. I am here for two weeks before going back to Pago. I always love coming here because I get to spend time with my families and loved ones. No matter where we go and what we do in this life, family always comes first. And that is why I am here. He went on to say that time spent with families and loved ones is always the best. I try my hardest every time to come visit my family. The main idea is to never break this bond and connection we have with families. This is because they will always be there for you no matter what. Family is where you find love and warmth. I also try my best to send them money to help out with all the family contributions and other stuff here in Samoa. Lia said he was raised by his grandmother. And I am really close to her. I grew up in her loving arms; she taught me how to love unconditionally and to always value our families and loved ones. And those words never left my mind. Even though shes no longer here with us, but her good lessons still remain in my heart. Sometimes I wish she was still here so she can see the fruit she planted in us, her children. However, thats why we value and always put our families first in all that we do. Moreover, Lia said he draws his inspiration from his family. It is the main reason he works hard each day. To me, my main goal is to work hard to provide for my family here in Samoa. And I know a lot of people residing overseas have the same goal. We all want to help our families and that is why we sacrifice a lot for the people we love. I always try my best to send them money and help them out whenever they need anything with all that I have. And I will continue to do this for as long as I shall live with the help of God. Every family has its own rhythm and every family has its own set of circumstances. However, Exodus 20 verse 12 clearly states that children should always honor and respect their parents no matter what. That is the firm opinion of Pita Ioane from the village of Vaitele-Uta. Pita is a Year 11 student at Faleata College. Speaking to the Village Voice, Pita said he truly understands that children should always respect their parents. Moreover, Pita said he is sad to see that this is starting to change in Samoa. We always hear about this verse from the bible to honour and love our parents but one thing we see that is common in Samoa is the children losing respect for their parents. And that is just sad because we live in a country where respect is a very strong aspect of our culture. The culture has been influenced by western ways. However, said Pita, he will try his best not to let this influence him and his siblings. We all love our parents. But some of us dont really mean this. I say this because Ive seen a lot of them talk back and disrespect their parents. Its tempting sometime to say something to them when they scold me, but I always think of what the Bible says and then it shuts me up. Moreover, Pita also said that he truly believes in the saying Actions speak louder than words. You cant say you love your parents when you let them do all the chores while you go and hang out with your friends. For me, I always help out and do all the chores at home. My siblings are young at the moment so I do most of the chores. I love my parents and that is why I do all the chores. Especially now that school is yet to start. Ive been spending time helping out my parents and doing all the chores at home all throughout this holiday. I help out with cooking the food, in the morning and evening, and I am also learning a lot about all the different Samoan chores just by helping them out. Looking ahead, Pita said he will do his best this year in school to make his parents proud. I want to be a teacher when I grow up, said Pita. Ive been thinking a lot about what I should do when I grow up and I finally decided to become a teacher. They teach all the students who grow up to be lawyers, doctors, I.T.s and others. Its a very interesting career and I know I still have a long way to go before that. But I will keep striving for the best and do well in school. I also believe that respecting and honouring my parents is one thing I will do so that I can be blessed in this life. Pita said he is ready to go back to school this year. Re: Do thy eyes deceive thee? He is just a failure that H.R.P.P spokesman. There is a failed economy under his leadership which is creating poverty and social problems in modern Samoa. He is responsible for a one point something billion dollars foreign debt he will never be able to pay back in his lifetime in fact, he is increasing it every year. So that alone doesnt really exude thoughtfulness and intelligence, he also seeks endless foreign assistances to help his government stay afloat so he is not exactly in any level above an idiot. Lets just say he woke up on the wrong side of the bed and poor reporter Sarafina Sanerivi seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. All the white elephants dotting around the place was his sorry attempt at deceiving the common villager and it seemed to work (PS Jeff). Little did they know that its their children, not Stuis children that will suffer from these unscrupulous, unethical and highly questionable practices. Remember the O.P.C Report 2010? Money wasted or lost in those projects are in the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Mind you all dictators (present and past) never see themselves as failures because of that mind numbing disease called Narcissism. It creates an illusion of invincibility in the dictators thinking process so no amount of reasoning can help them see logic or common sense. What we can do though is to keep reminding them day in day out of what failure means, if they cant change themselves then the people around them can and may help them bring about some changes - I hope. I dont think exorcism by any Church minister in Samoa will do any good because Christian churches in Samoa are just as corrupt, they dont give to the poor or help curtail immorality like government corruption, they take from the poor and ignore government corruption. Wake up people and fight evil in Samoan society right now! Le Mafa P The life of the owner of Ceces Bingo, Augustine Fuiavailili Feesago, who is one of the biggest contributors to the Samoa Observers Save the Child Fund, was celebrated yesterday evening at Siusega. Families, friends and all those who knew the lovable father, grandfather and businessman gathered there to pay tribute to his life and work during his final service at the Catholic Church. Father Fereti Tautunu conducted the service. Born on 10 September 1947 in Tula American Samoa, Mr. Feesago passed away last week. He was 69. Augustines older brother Uli Feesago paid tribute to a hard working man who loved his family. He was a family man, he recalled. He loved his family very much especially his wife and his children. He loves anyone and everyone who comes to him for help. In his eyes, everyone is the same to him. Uli said his brother spent a large part of his life in the United States where he developed real knack for hard work and to help people. When they were in the States, he helped out the Non Profitable Organisations and even when they moved here, he contributed a lot to his church and the Home of the Elderly at Mapuifagalele. But Mr. Feesago was not just a man with a good heart. He was also an astute businessman. He established Ceces Bingo in Samoa in 1994. The company has grown to play a major role in church fundraising activities over the years. He also owns fashion stores like Big n Small of Samoa as well as Charter Service in Los Angeles which provides tours for tourists between the states, especially to Las Vegas. Mr. Feesago was married to Margean who remembered him as someone who was passionate about helping people. During her eulogy, she said their journey was not always a smooth one. My relationship with Aukuso was no smooth ride, she said. But we tried our best to develop our family. When I married Aukuso, I had no idea about any faasamoa because I was living in the States and so I didnt really learn any faasamoa. So when I married him and we went to his family, I saw that his family was a hundred percent Samoan style. I was worried because I didnt know how I was going to cope. But then his mother taught me how to do the ietoga (fine mats) and all the Samoan culture, so I want to thank his parents, his brothers and sisters for the knowledge that I now know of the faasamoa. Mrs. Feesago also recalled the time when they moved to Samoa in 1994. In 1994, we moved Samoa because when Aukuso came here to visit he came back and told me that there were no bingo papers here in Samoa, she said. We didnt have any plans about moving to Samoa until he came back after his visit and told me that he wanted to come here. It was difficult during those times. My husband would sleep on those bingo papers, my children were being teased and people called them bonanza but it didnt bother us because we were working so hard to get to where we are right now. When my children were hungry, they would go Muliaga Jean for (aitalafu) for food until the end of the week then I will go and pay it off. That was the life we lived for three years and the struggle we went through during those times until the business was successful. Margean acknowledged many people who have helped their family over the years. Thank you very much for helping me, my husband and our children during those difficult times, she said. I also want to thank especially to my employees, I dont call them my employees but I refer to them as my children. Thank you for being there for me during this difficult time. Lastly, to her husband, she said: To my beloved husband Aukuso Feesago. I love you with all of my heart. Wait for me until the day I come then we will meet again, with love from me your wife, children and great grandchildren. Augustine is the 3rd child of the late Uliefu Savaiinaea Iosefo and the late Siapotagai Feesagos five children. His siblings are Ioana Renfro (sister), Uli Feesago Jr (brother), Iosefo Feesago (brother) Palepa Ili (sister-deceased) and Sisilia Feesago (sister). He married Margean Petersen in 1977 in California, U.S.A and they have nine children, seven biological children and two adopted. ATLANTA (AP) As Americans celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leaders and activists are trying to reconcile the transition from the nation's first black president to a president-elect still struggling to connect with most non-white voters. King's daughter on Monday encouraged Americans to fight for the slain civil rights leader's vision of love and justice "no matter who is in the White House." In Atlanta, Bernice King addressed more than 2,000 people gathered at her father's Ebenezer Baptist Church four days before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration. She spoke on the same day that her brother, Martin Luther King III, met privately with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. Trump won fewer than 1 out of 10 black voters in November after a campaign of racially charged rhetoric, and tensions have flared anew with his recent criticism of civil rights icon John Lewis, whom the president-elect called "all talk" and "no action." Bernice King avoided a detailed critique of Trump, but said the nation still has a choice between "chaos and community," as her father once said. "At the end of the day, the Donald Trumps come and go," Bernice King said. But, she added "we still have to find a way to create" what her father called "the beloved community." The current Ebenezer pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, avoiding calling Trump by name, but praised his predecessor. "Thank you, Barack Obama," he said. "I'm sad to see you go." In South Carolina, speakers at a state Capitol rally reminded attendees that minority voters' power at the ballot box has never been more important, while some attendees expressed unease about Trump joining the Republican majorities that control Capitol Hill. "It's going to be different, that's for sure," said Diamond Moore, a Benedict College senior who came to the Capitol. "I'm going to give Trump a chance. But I'm also ready to march." Martin Luther King III told reporters in New York that his meeting with Trump was "productive." He said Trump pledged to be a president for all Americans, but King III added "we also have to consistently engage with pressure, public pressure" because "it doesn't happen automatically." Back in Atlanta, Sen. Bernie Sanders brought the Ebenezer assembly to its feet with his reminder that King was not just an advocate for racial equality, but a radical proponent for economic justice a mission that put him at odds with the political establishment. "If you think governors and senators and mayors were standing up and saying what a great man Dr. King was, read history, because you are sorely mistaken," roared Sanders, who invoked the same themes from his failed presidential campaign. Sanders, who struggled to attract black voters in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Clinton, recalled King opposing the Vietnam War as exploiting the poor. He also noted King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he'd gone to rally striking sanitation workers, white and black. Truly honoring King, Sanders said, means bringing that "spirit and courage into the arena in 2017." Activist priest Michael Pfleger, himself a self-described radical, built on Sanders' message with a 45-minute keynote message indicting the nation's social and economic order a structure he said would get worse under Trump. The Chicago priest said "white hoods" of the Ku Klux Klan "have been replaced by three-piece suits." He bemoaned high incarceration rates, a "militarized, stop-and-frisk police state," profligate spending on war, and a substandard education system. Pfleger said many Americans too quickly dismiss violence in cities as the fault of those who live there, when the real culprit is poverty. "If you put two lions in a cage and you don't feed them," he said, "one will kill the other in the pursuit of survival." Warnock, meanwhile, zeroed in on Trump for his treatment of Lewis, now a Georgia congressman who represents most of Atlanta. Lewis angered Trump when he told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he views Trump as "illegitimate" because of alleged Russian interference in the campaign. Trump retorted on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk" and said his district is "falling apart" and "crime infested." "Anybody who suggests that John Lewis is all talk and no action needs a lesson in American history," Warnock said, notably declining to say the president-elect's name. As a young man, Lewis was arrested and beaten by authorities as he demonstrated for civil and voting rights for black Americans. Lewis was in Miami at King Day events. Some Republicans have defended Trump's criticism of Lewis, arguing it is inappropriate for a congressman to question an incoming president's legitimacy. Clara Smith, an Atlanta resident who came Monday to Ebenezer, scoffed at any GOP indignation, remembering that Trump for years questioned whether Obama was a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution requires. "He carried on with that knowing full well what he was doing" to the first black president, Smith said. Smith, 66, recalled joining sit-ins and lunch counters of segregated restaurants in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She said she tries to "ignore" Trump and "his foolishness with the Twitter," but "with everything that's happening around us ... we have to pass along that history." Elsewhere, residents in Memphis are honoring King with neighborhood clean-up events and a daylong celebration at the National Civil Rights Museum. Bicyclists in Detroit have marked the day by pedaling to sites connected to a historic visit King made to the city. BRUSSELS (AP) The European Union wants to host a conference on the future of Syria this spring and is hoping that it can focus on rebuilding the war-torn country. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday that the preferred date for the meeting, to be held in tandem with the United Nations, would be in April. Mogherini said that the conference would come after the planned restart of the Geneva peace talks and "could be a moment for the international community to turn the page and start the reconstruction of Syria." CANCUN, Mexico (AP) Gunfire broke out at a crowded beachfront nightclub throbbing with electronic music on Monday, leaving five people dead and setting off a bloody stampede by screaming concertgoers at an international festival in the Caribbean resort of Playa del Carmen. Quintana Roo state Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech ruled out any terror attack, but said the shooting erupted when festival security personnel tried to stop a man from entering the Blue Parrot club with a gun. Three of those killed were part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival, Pech said. State officials said the dead included two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian. The gunman apparently fled. "I was thinking it was the same thing that happened in Paris, some guy just walking in and shooting people at a restaurant, bang bang bang, a terrorist attack," said New Zealand tourist Tyler Klee, who was outside the club when shots rang out. "Everyone run, everyone was terrified, looking for their friends ... We were running away and then you hear more shots fired, like you don't know if you're going to shot in the back or not." His friend Ben Forbes, from Australia, said "it happened pretty quickly as well ... You still didn't know where they were, how many there were." The shots set off a rush for the exits that accounted for at least some of the injuries. The lone female victim was apparently killed during the stampede. Rescue workers tended to bloodied survivors and Pech said 15 people were injured, included one Mexican woman who was seriously injured. Pech said eight of the injured including two U.S. citizens had been treated for less serious injuries at local hospitals and released. Canada's Global Affairs office confirmed at least one Canadian died, said it was investigating the other reported fatality, and said at least two Canadians were injured. Italy's Foreign Ministry confirmed one its citizens died. The attorney general said a lone gunman apparently tried to enter the nightclub at about 2:30 a.m., but was denied access because he had a gun. The gunman began to exchange fire with another person inside, he said, and festival security personnel who tried to stop the shooting came under fire. He said 20 bullet casings from three different pistols had been found at the scene, and said it was unclear if the security detail had been armed or fired any of the weapons. Pech said the gunman himself apparently escaped, though three people had been detained nearby. It was not known if they had been involved in the shooting. "We know of another shooting incident that occurred near the nightclub, but we are investigating whether that is related" to the nightclub shootings," Pech said. The government of the township that includes Playa de Carmen referred in a statement to "attackers who fired shots," but did not provide further details. Rodolfo Del Angel, director of police in Quintana Roo, told the Milenio TV station that he shooting was the result of "a disagreement between people inside" the nightclub and said security guards had come under fire when they tried to contain the dispute. Playa del Carmen has largely been spared the violence that has hit other parts of Mexico. Thousands of Tijuana residents protesting Mexicos gasoline price hike marched through the citys streets at midday Sunday, while later in the day crowds of demonstrators swarmed the citys main port of entry across from San Ysidro at El Chaparral, with a smaller group at the secondary port of Otay Mesa. As they did during protests last week, U.S. authorities for several hours diverted southbound traffic from Interstates 5 and 805 away from the San Ysidro crossing and urged motorists to head to the Otay port. The regular flow of traffic was re-established by 7:40 p.m., according to Caltrans. In Tijuana, municipal police estimated the total number of demonstrators at close to 15,000. A larger group of more than 40,000 gathered at the Civic Center in Mexicali, Baja Californias state capital; late in the day, protesters managed to block both entrances and exits to the main state government office building and to a federal office building, the newspaper La Cronica reported. Advertisement The protests, which have been largely peaceful, are unprecedented in the region, both in size and tone, longtime observers said. Participants voiced wide-ranging dissatisfaction with Mexicos political and economic status quo, and demanded change. Baja Californias demonstrators joined similar groups across Mexico who on Sunday called for President Enrique Pena Nietos resignation and for abolishing the system of political parties they charge has led to cronyism, corruption and social injustice. In Tijuana, they sang Mexicos national anthem and shouted Fuera Pena Out with Pena. But the Mexican president was not the sole object of their wrath. Also targeted was Baja Californias governor, Francisco Vega de Lamadrid. Participants carried signs calling for Vegas ouster and opposing Baja Californias Ley del Agua, a new water law that raised water rates and for the first time has opened the possibility for the private sector to take over traditionally public functions such as distribution of water, and sewage and storm drain services. By midday, traffic was closed for blocks on some of Tijuanas major thoroughfares, Agua Caliente Boulevard and Paseo de los Heroes. Groups of demonstrators coming from various directions converged in the heart of the citys Rio Zone at the foot of a giant statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc. Protesters included doctors and nurses in uniform, members of a Tijuana bar association, Veracruz-style musicians improvising protest lyrics, and residents of Playas de Tijuana who have been waging a battle against paying tolls on the coastal highway. Gasoline was the last straw, but we were already fed up with so many things, said Tijuana resident Jaime Paramo, 64. The government is totally corrupt, continued Paramo, who holds dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship and works as a bird-keeper at the San Diego Zoo. Whats important is that we all have the basics education, health, food and the majority dont have this. Many participants said word of the protests was spread through social media by various civic organizations, and said that they were not supporting any political party. This fills me with joy, seeing so many people participating, said Fernando Ocegueda Flores, president of Asociacion Unidos por los Desaparecidos, whose members are searching for relatives who have disappeared. Protests across Mexico have spread since the countrys Jan. 1 gasoline price hikes of up to 20 percent, as Mexicos government has moved to end subsidies in an effort to deregulate the countrys energy sector. On Thursday in Mexicali, some 10,000 demonstrators gathered outside the state capital building to protest both the gasoline price hike and the state water law. On Friday, Gov. Vega said there would be no reversal to the Ley del Agua. But he announced a 20 percent discount for small users who pay their water bills on time a move to shield the states poorest residents from the price increases. The governor announced a series of other measures aimed at softening the economic blow on the states most vulnerable organizations, and said that altruistic nonprofit groups in Tijuana, Ensenada, Rosarito Beach and Tecate would be not be charged for water use under a certain limit. sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com @sandradibble Bright skies greeted the dancers, brass bands and long lines of dignitaries who joined the 32nd annual Kingdom Day Parade in Los Angeles on Monday to honor the life and achievements of Martin Luther King Jr. The groups that marched including a New Orleans-style brass band and brightly clad performers from the Los Angeles Korean Dance Academy drew cheers from the spectators who packed curbs along the parade route in South L.A. Billed as the nations oldest and largest parade of its kind, the Kingdom Day celebration was expected to draw at least 200,000 people. The impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump focused some officials attention on how they would push back against the new administrations policies and decisions. Others referenced the parades theme: Now more than ever, we all must work together. Advertisement We are confronting a dichotomy of democracy something that is unique in our history, state Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said at a breakfast before the parade. More than ever, California must remain a beacon of hope and opportunity in an uncertain world. He added: California will never appease anyone who seeks to undermine our economic prosperity and fundamental human rights. 1 / 11 L.A. County fire chiefs march during the 32nd annual Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 Maria Ariel Dante, center, and her family watch the Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 11 People wave to the crowd as they ride a classic Metro bus. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 11 A woman dressed as Lady Liberty does the splits as she performs to promote Liberty Tax Service. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 11 The Los Angeles Unified School District All City Honor Marching Band performs at the parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 11 Performers march at the Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 11 LA County Sheriff Jim McDonnell waves to onlookers during the 32nd annual Kingdom Day Parade in South L.A. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 11 A mural of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the American flag are draped over a balcony. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 11 Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) cheers to onlookers at the Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 11 The crowd at the 32nd annual Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 11 Sister Meredith Bell, of the Golden State Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, during the Kingdom Day Parade. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles County health workers, including nurses and technicians, marched in protest of a possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act, President Obamas landmark healthcare legislation. And L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas marched with them, holding a sign that read, Obamacare Works. You cannot be silent in the face of tyranny, in the face of racism and discrimination, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), the parades grand marshal, said during a televised interview. Get together, march, organize, protest, fight for our rights. Riding on a float with other Los Angeles City Council members, Council President Herb Wesson said city leaders would continue to push against hate, intolerance and division. Other groups celebrating at the parade Monday included representatives from local labor unions and law enforcement agencies, as well as high school marching bands and the Omega Psi Phi fraternity the first predominately black fraternity to be founded at a historically black university. Another float, sponsored by Dennys and adorned in gold and green tinsel, displayed a large photo of the slain civil rights leader. We stand with him, and with the community, in trying to support all the things that he stood for, Ronald Smothers, who owns a Dennys restaurant on Crenshaw Boulevard, said in an interview with ABC 7. Other events and service projects were held throughout Southern California Monday to honor King, including group volunteer programs and a public reading of the civil rights leaders speeches in Exposition Park. laura.nelson@latimes.com For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter. ALSO After a feud with a civil rights leader, Donald Trump meets with Martin Luther King III Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birmingham war room is the heart of a new national monument Just in time for Martin Luther King Day, Rep. John Lewis books sales soar after harsh words from Donald Trump A trial began last week in the case of a black San Diego police sergeant who sued the city, claiming the department retaliated against him when he complained about racial discrimination or insensitivity, including the use of a racist cartoon in training. Arthur Scott, who has been with the department for more than a decade, filed the lawsuit in January 2015. In it, he contends that he was subjected to a hostile work environment, was passed over for a promotion and was pressured to transfer to a new division against his wishes. Attorneys in the case delivered their opening statements Thursday morning in San Diego Superior Court. The jury trial is expected to continue through the rest of this month. Advertisement Judge Kevin Enright is presiding over the case. Lawyers for the city have denied the allegations. In a brief filed before the start of the trial, they note that the city adamantly denies any wrongdoing. Scott, 45, has been with the department since 2004 and was promoted to sergeant in 2013. According to court documents, the trouble began for Scott after he reported several incidents of racial discrimination and harassment within the department. One incident happened in February 2011, when he saw racist and offensive images, including some that depicted President Barack Obama, on officers lockers. He told his supervisor about the pictures, but was told he was being hypersensitive. The supervisor spoke with a captain about the images, and together they concluded the officers had a right to express their political views. Even so, the images were removed. In May 2014, Scott learned from the then-commander of the departments Southeastern Division that he had been told to stop a mural project at the substation because some officers said it depicted too many black faces. Scott requested an investigation into the comments, which he believed were offensive. Then in August of that year, Scott attended a training session at the San Diego Police Museum during which a speaker talked about Frank McCarter, the departments first black officer. The speaker passed around a copy of a 1909 clipping from a long-defunct newspaper, The San Diego Sun. The clipping contained a cartoon depicting McCarter as an ape-like caricature as well as Chinese men in pigtails running away from the officer. According to the lawsuit, the cartoon was presented without any historical context of race-relations at the time the image was published. Scott told his supervisor he thought the cartoon was offensive to black and Asian people. The supervisor agreed, and the cartoon was pulled from training. But that wasnt the end of the matter. The next month, an assistant chief told Scott he did not believe the cartoon was racist or offensive, according to court documents. After that meeting, Scott sensed he would be paying a price for speaking out, Sgt. Scotts fear was well-founded, the lawsuit said. Later, Scott said he was forced to accept a lateral transfer from the Southeastern Division to the Central Division in January 2015, when members of the command staff accused him of mishandling an incident involving a mentally disturbed man who was armed with a sword. Scott contends he handled the situation appropriately when he determined during the incident that there should be a non-lethal option, a Taser, available to subdue the suspect along with lethal cover, a gun. Initially, three officers who responded to the scene had their guns drawn. Two of them questioned the order to use Tasers but complied. Scott reprimanded those officers. In a meeting in January 2015, a couple of weeks after the sword incident, he was told he had to accept the transfer or be investigated for conduct unbecoming an officer, according to court documents. He claims he was also told he was engaging in too much activity on behalf of the Black Police Officers Association, which recruits and advocates on behalf of minority officers. Scott is vice president of the local chapter. The city contends there is no proof that Scott was the victim of harassment or discrimination. In their trial brief, the citys lawyers argue that none of the anti-Obama posters were placed on Scotts locker and no one ever spoke directly to him about them. This was an isolated incident and the images (were) removed within days, the lawyers wrote in the document. They also say Scott did not suffer any discrimination because of issues with the mural. As for the transfer, the attorneys say the move was not based on retaliation but because of issues that arose from the sword incident. There is no evidence, they say, that the decision was based on anything having to do with his complaint about the cartoon or other incidents related to race. dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @danalittlefield The former Pakistan PM, who survived an assassination attempt on Thursday, delivered an address from a Lahore hospital on Friday. A district-wide science fair, an arts council, and Celebrate Science were among topics discussed at the Sun Valley Council PTAs first meeting of 2017. The group, comprised of representatives of each school PTA in the Ramona Unified School District, meets the first Wednesday of each month in the Wilson Administrative Center Board Room, 720 Ninth St., at 5:30 p.m. Meetings start with dinner provided by alternating PTAs, with the formal meeting at 6. In roundtable fashion, a representative from each school PTA provides updates from that organization. Advertisement During the Jan. 4 meeting, Superintendent Anne Staffieri, Ed.D., distributed information about the Speak Up Survey on the district website, ramonausd.net. She asked them to spread the word about the survey, which ended Jan. 13, saying it will provide the school district with valuable information and insight and will help with the districts Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). Its important to get a solid parent voice, she said. Principals likely will use all-calls or newsletters to let parents know about the survey, she said. The national Speak Up Project for Digital Learning, prepared by Project Tomorrow, provides students, parents, educators, and other community members with an opportunity to answer multiple choice questions about education, particularly concerning digital learning and the use of technology to prepare students for the future, states the survey introduction. Those taking the survey may choose one of four options -- students, parents, educators, community. Survey results will be available to the district in February and are shared each year with state and national policy makers. Project Tomorrows vision is to ensure that todays students are well prepared to be tomorrows innovators, leaders and engaged citizens of the world, states its website, www.tomorrow.org. Staffieri also shared information about the Palomar College Open House on the colleges satellite campus at Ramona Community School, 1010 Ramona St., held Jan. 12. She called it a one-stop shopping opportunity, where students could meet the instructors and register for spring classes. Barnett Elementarys Birthday Bash on March 10 to celebrate the schools 25th anniversary was among topics discussed, as were Family Movie Night and Science Night at James Dukes Elementary, Game Night and Father/Daughter Dance at Ramona Elementary, Box Top competition at Hanson Elementary, Father/Daughter Dance at Mt. Woodson Elementary, and Ninth District PTAs Founders Day celebration in the Scottish Rite Center in San Diego on Feb. 22 from 8 to 11:30 a.m. PTAs throughout San Diego and Imperial counties are members of the Ninth District PTA. Student artwork selected from each school district for the regional Reflections Contest will be displayed during Founders Day, an annual meeting to honor PTAs three founders, elect Ninth District officers for the coming term, celebrate San Diego County Teachers of the Year, and present honorary service awards to community members. Additional topics of discussion included the need for more parent volunteers at school events and the establishment of an arts council with representatives from each school to research and apply for grants to support art programs. Celebrate Science, a program that previously was in Ramona schools, sends high school science students to the elementary schools to share interactive biology and chemistry demonstrations and experiments with the younger students. The program, initiated by former school board member Christopher Smith in 2005, benefits both age groups. The older students plan, prepare and present their demonstrations, and the younger students are inspired by their teenage teachers, who show them the possibilities that science offers. California School Boards Association awarded Ramona Unified a Golden Bell award in 2011 for its Celebrate Science program. The consensus of PTA members at the meeting was to investigate the possibility of returning the program to the schools. Sun Valley Council PTA plans to hold a districtwide science fair next year. Planning will start this year, said Lori Stevens, council president. Nearly 150 volunteers, including San Diego City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, picked up trash and debris in the San Diego River estuary area near SeaWorld over the weekend as part of the San Diego River Park Foundations ninth annual kayak cleanup. There was so much trash, said Zapf, holding up a plethora of items from the kayak she shared with Conrad Wear, who represents Zapf in Point Loma and Ocean Beach. Alcohol bottles, aerosol cans, a full bottle of lighter fluidThe number of aerosol cans and lighters were off the charts, she said. I wish we could do this more than once a year. Advertisement Saturdays event, from 8 a.m. to noon, marks the only day kayaks are allowed to be in that part of the river, an estuary that meanders down to Ocean Beach. The area is normally not accessible because it is a protected habitat area. More than 100 species of birds use the estuary area as a resting place along the Pacific Flyway during their yearly migrations between Alaska and Mexico. The estuary is a 330-acre wildlife area with habitat for sensitive species, including endangered birds like the Ridgways Rail and the California Least Tern that nest in the area. Ed Henry, past president of the board of directors for the San Diego Audubon Society, oversaw activities to ensure endangered birds were not disturbed. Volunteers worked in teams of two on kayaks or walked along the path and through the rocks above the river collecting debris. Nearly 2,100 pounds of trash everything from plastic bags to hubcaps to rugs was cleared out. Carol Sniegoski of Mission Beach and Kirk Belles of North Park, members of the San Diego Kayaking Club, said the opportunity to paddle out in the area was one they couldnt pass up. Among the items Sniegoski and Belles found were old shoes, a 4-foot iron rod and a gasket from a washing machine. The kayaking event kicked off the foundations 2017 schedule of community cleanups. Last year volunteers removed 224,000 pounds of trash from the river. San Diego city officials are seeking $481,379 in unpaid hotel taxes and $67,602 in unpaid rent and penalties from the owners of the Four Points Sheraton on Aero Drive, who declared bankruptcy last May. According to court records, the hotels owners also owe back taxes and other fees to the county, state and federal governments, and the states tourism board. The total of taxes owed is $552,000. Additional creditors participating in ongoing bankruptcy proceedings include tree trimmers, supply companies, San Diego Gas & Electric and many others. The total in claims is $653,000. Advertisement A plan for reorganization of the business was presented in federal court in December. The City Council met on Tuesday with members of City Attorney Mara Elliotts staff to discuss the citys options in a session that was closed to the public. The owners of the hotel, Luz Burni and the Burni Trust, blamed a slow season last winter and other factors when they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last spring. Their attorney, William Rathbone of the Gordon and Rees law firm in downtown San Diego, did not return a phone call last week. The 225-room hotel near Montgomery Field is valued at $16.8 million. Its on city-owned land and the owners are in the fifth year of a 40-year lease that runs through 2052. Thats why the city is owed rent in addition to hotel taxes, which are officially known as transient occupancy taxes. The court documents indicate problems arose when the hotel got a series of low satisfaction scores from guests, prompting Sheraton to request $1.3 million in upgrades to carpet, lighting and other amenities. Eventually a receiver was appointed to take over the hotel when the owners missed some payments, and the owners blame the receivers mismanagement for some of the revenue problems. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 1 in the case. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Eugene Cernan, the cool-as-a-breeze San Diego Navy aviator who went on to become one of NASAs most accomplished astronauts and the last man to walk on the moon, died on Monday at 82, the space agency said. Cernan, who was nearly killed during his first spaceflight in 1966, died at a Houston hospital of on-going health problems, his family said in a statement. With Cernans death, only six of the 12 Americans who walked on the moon from 1969 to 1972 remain alive. His passing comes five weeks after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, died. He was 95. Advertisement Cernan is best known for his third and final spaceflight, when he and fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt soared to the moon and used a peppy rover to explore the eerie landscape of Earths only natural satellite. Project Apollo had placed the first men on the moon only three years earlier. But by late 1972, the program was reaching its end, and a reflective Cernan took time to kneel down and use his finger to write a note to his daughter, Teresa, in the lunar dust. The day was coming to an end, Cernan told the Orange County Register in 1999. Id driven the lunar rover about a mile away from Challenger (landing module) so its camera could catch our lift-off. I was filthy and tired. But I stopped a minute to try to capture the moment of where I was in time and space and history. It was just an impulsive thing that I took my finger and scratched T.D.C. (Teresa Dawn Cernan) in the dust. At least shed be able to say her initials were on the moon, and shed tell her kids, and theyd tell their kids someday. That final flight and Cernans skill and courage as an explorer defined him as a person. As the last person to stand on the surface of the moon, Gene Cernan spent the rest of his life conveying his vivid experiences in ways that brought a tear to the eye of most audience members, said Francis French, education director of the San Diego Air & Space Museum, and a space historian. He felt a responsibility not only to share his memories, but also to inspire young people to become explorers. He dearly hoped that he would live to see someone else take his unwanted title of the last person to stand on the moon: it is very saddening that he did not live to see this happen. I hope that when someone finally does make that step in the decades to come, they will remember Gene. Cernan was born in Chicago on March 14, 1934. He mostly grew up in the nearby towns of Bellwood and Maywood, where he excelled early in life. He became a Boy Scout, earning the rank Second Class. Unable to afford MIT, he went on to attend Purdue University, an Indiana school that became an astronaut factory. More than 20 Purdue grads have served as astronauts, including the late Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon. That period of Cernans life is heavily covered in the book, In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility: 1965-69, co-authored by French and Colin Burgess. (Cernan) says he came from an average blue-collar family, the authors write. He was an unplanned Depression baby, with a father who lost his job soon after his wife gave birth. It was not a luxurious upbringing. During World War II, Cernan began to make plans for his future while watching newsreels of at his local movie theater; the idea of being a fighter pilot greatly appealed to him. Cernan who had yet to fly in an airplane enrolled in the ROTC program at Purdue, earned his commission and joined the U.S. Navy as an ensign in the 1950s. He took flight training and became a Naval Aviator in 1958. He was assigned to Attack Squadrons 112 and 126 at Miramar, in San Diego, where he specialized in flying FJ-4 Fury and the A-4 Skyhawk jets. Cernan later told French and Burgess: San Diego is sort of a second home for me. It is where I spent most of my Navy life. Its also where be began to think of becoming an astronaut. He told the two authors: I remember the day well: It was 5 May 1961. I was stationed at Miramar, just back from my second cruise. I was getting married the next day, but I was not sure what I was going to do with my life at that point in time. That day, Alan Shepard, first American in space, flew little more than 15, 16 minutes. And Al became my hero. The whole world was watching Americas response to the Soviets then, and I remember after Al went up someone said, Gene, how would you like to do that? And I said, Id love it. Boy, just give me a chance! He got that chance in 1963 when he was accepted into NASAs astronaut training program. It was a doorway to both the Gemini and Apollo programs. Cernans first spaceflight arose from tragic circumstances. He and astronaut Thomas Stafford were the backup crew for Gemini 9 in 1966. They had to step in when the first crew, astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett II, died in a plane crash. The flight, renamed Apollo 9A, turned out to be a difficult one. Cernan and Stafford experienced technical problems during a planned rendezvous operation, and Cernans spacewalk was bedeviled by similar challenges. His spacesuit overheated and he nearly died. About three years later, Cernan served as the lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, a mission that proved that the method for placing men on the moon was correct. Cernan came within eight miles of the lunar surface during that flight. Cernan later told a NASA historian, I keep telling Neil Armstrong that we painted that white line in the sky all the way to the Moon down to 47,000 feet so he wouldnt get lost, and all he had to do was land. Made it sort of easy for him. Cernans final flight and the final flight of Project Apollo came in December 1972. The crew of Apollo 17 bolted off a launchpad in Florida and headed for the moon. Along the way, the crew took a deeply moving picture of Earth. Many people began calling it the blue marble. NASA officials recalled on Monday that Apollo 17 established several new records for human space flight, including the longest lunar landing flight (301 hours, 51 minutes); longest lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours, 6 minutes); largest lunar sample return (nearly 249 pounds); and longest time in lunar orbit (147 hours, 48 minutes). Cernan and crewmate Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt completed three highly successful excursions to the nearby craters and the Taurus-Littrow mountains, making the moon their home for more than three days. Cernan recalled the rover drives in the interview with the Register, saying: The rover had wire wheels which actually cushioned bumps when we hit something. It drove tremendously. There was so little gravity on the moon we could actually pick up the rover and turn it around. When you traveled on a hill, you felt like you were going to tip over. Thats why I made sure to keep (crew mate Jack) Schmitt on the bottom. If we did tip, itd fall on him (laughs). Jack would actually lean toward me when we were on the hills, which made things more comfortable and balanced. The other thing I remember is that we spent a lot of time driving directly toward the sun. The sunlight washed things out so bad it was hard to see holes and craters. But we were fine, and the rover performed flawlessly. When it was time to leave the moon, Cernan said: As we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Cernan told the Register: Those words werent planned. They came to me as I was leaving. I was trying to capture the essence of the Apollo generation, of the challenge laid down by John F. Kennedy to be first to the moon. A challenge that was met. Before our launch, the press kept asking how it felt to be the last crew to go to the moon. I said Apollo 17 was the beginning of a new era for mankind, a stepping stone, that it was our destiny to explore space, and that I felt wed be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century. That destiny has not yet been fulfilled. Neil Armstrongs first step on the moon was a giant leap but its almost as if we crawled out of a cradle with Neils first step, only to crawl back in. Science Playlist On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds Twitter: @grobbins gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com Theres a lot Rep. Jared Huffman would rather do than go to Donald Trumps inauguration on Friday. So hes going to stay home. Ill spend that day, and actually several days, in my district doing service events and community events to try to send a positive message with my time rather than sitting passively and applauding while something that I think is very dark and dangerous for our country begins, said Huffman, a Democrat from San Rafael. Among other things, Huffman plans to spend the weekend helping with a river cleanup, participating in a naturalization ceremony for new citizens and joining a local womens march against the Republican president-elect. Advertisement Im going to be far busier in my district and in my community doing positive things than I ever would have been coming to Washington for that ceremony, Huffman said. As of Wednesday, 37 of Californias 55-member delegation said they planned to attend the inauguration, where members of Congress have some of the best seats to view the peaceful transfer of power. That includes all 14 of the delegations Republicans. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) said: I attended both of Obamas. You better believe Ill be attending Trumps! But at least 16 California House Democrats are skipping the inauguration. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), who is under consideration to be Californias next attorney general, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who recently had a pacemaker installed, have not decided. Some told The Times last week they are they being motivated to stay home by outcry from constituents in a state that overwhelmingly picked Democrat Hillary Clinton for president. Others said Trumps comments and the moves hes made since building his Cabinet drove them to take a pass. Most of the members who arent going made up their minds not to attend even before Trump criticized civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who announced on Friday he wouldnt be going and said he believed Trump wouldnt be a legitimate president. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) said last week that her conscience wont permit her to attend. An inauguration for me is a celebratory event, and while I appreciate and honor the peaceful transition of power, for me to celebrate someone who wants to build a wall, who wants to establish a Muslim registry, who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and who has appointed a person as attorney general such as Jeff Sessions ... I cant celebrate that, Lee said. I acknowledge the fact that he is the incoming president, but Im not in the mood to celebrate that fact, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) said he struggled with the decision and sought advice from colleagues and constituents before ultimately deciding not to go. Hes shown such disrespect for some of the people I represent and its a hard thing for me to get over, and hes not really dialed it back or tried to show that hes going to be different, Takano said. I want to be respectful of the office, but at the same time I also want to represent my constituents. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) is using his week free of House votes to do his Air Force Reserve duty on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hell be done before Fridays ceremony, but said he doesnt see the point of coming back for it. Lieu and Trump will find topics to agree on, but that doesnt mean I need to be at his inauguration, he said. Ill watch it on television, but do I want to ... spend taxpayer money to fly me here to watch it? Multiple members who had been wavering made up their minds on Tuesday not to go. Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Los Angeles), who isnt going, said last week he was struggling to give Trump the deference he would normally extend a president regardless of party. I think about all the people that he has offended, over and over, past and present, and its painful to think that I would bring myself to actually go out there and sit there and subject myself to him just 50 feet away, Cardenas said. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), who had wanted to say goodbye to President Obama, ultimately chose to stay home. Her constituents voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, and she asked them to weigh in on a Twitter poll over the weekend. The majority of the nearly 13,000 responses told her not to go. Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), a former Jesuit missionary, on Tuesday said hell spend the time praying for the country and for Trump. I have a great deal of respect for the office of the president, but after the things that the president-elect has said I dont want to be a hypocrite and pretend like I have respect for him, Vargas said last week. I studied to be a priest for a long time and we all make mistakes, but the things that he has said, the mocking of disabled people in particular, the things hes said about Mexicans, it would be very hard for me to be in a place like that celebrating. Several Democrats who have decided to go said their choice was made easier because theyll also attend the Womens March on Washington, a protest expected to draw many thousands to the National Mall the day after the inauguration. Many members who are not attending the inauguration said they will participate in associated womens marches in California. Freshman Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) said he struggled with whether to go before deciding it was more important to make a statement by attending than to make a statement by staying home. I was trying to reconcile everything that happened during the election. Clearly, with President-elect Trump its not just a difference on policy. His behavior, the hateful things he said about many people, including myself somebody who is Mexican veterans, the disabled, really touched me in a very profound way, he said. Carbajal was born in Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. He says joining some constituents for the womens march afterward is a way to be present, to symbolize that I will be at least one member of Congress among many that he will have to deal with as he implements his agenda. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) said attending the march after going to the inauguration is a chance to exercise his rights as a citizen. To respect the office of the presidency and yet be able to turn around the next day and to say that not everything that hes said represents the values of San Bernardino County or this country thats America, he said. House Republicans YES Rep. Ken Calvert (Corona) YES Rep. Paul Cook (Yucca Valley) YES Rep. Jeff Denham (Turlock) YES Rep. Duncan Hunter (Alpine) YES Rep. Darrell Issa (Vista) YES Rep. Steve Knight (Palmdale) YES Rep. Doug LaMalfa (Richvale) YES Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Bakersfield) YES Rep. Tom McClintock (Elk Grove) YES Rep. Devin Nunes (Tulare) YES Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Costa Mesa) YES Rep. Ed Royce (Fullerton) YES Rep. David Valadao (Hanford) YES Rep. Mimi Walters (Irvine) House Democrats YES Rep. Pete Aguilar (Redlands) YES Rep. Nanette Barragan (San Pedro) NO Rep. Karen Bass (Los Angeles) NOT SURE Rep. Xavier Becerra (Los Angeles) YES Rep. Ami Bera (Elk Grove) YES Rep. Julia Brownley (Westlake Village) YES Rep. Salud Carbajal (Santa Barbara) NO Rep. Tony Cardenas (Los Angeles) NO Rep. Judy Chu (Monterey Park) YES Rep. Lou Correa (Santa Ana) YES Rep. Jim Costa (Fresno) YES Rep. Susan A. Davis (San Diego) NO Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (Concord) YES Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (Menlo Park) YES Rep. John Garamendi (Walnut Grove) NO Rep. Jared Huffman (San Rafael) YES Rep. Ro Khanna (Fremont) NO Rep. Barbara Lee (Oakland) NO Rep. Ted Lieu (Torrance) NO Rep. Zoe Lofgren (San Jose) NO Rep. Alan Lowenthal (Long Beach) YES Rep. Doris Matsui (Sacramento) NO Rep. Jerry McNerney (Stockton) NO Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (Norwalk) YES Rep. Jimmy Panetta (Carmel) YES Rep. Nancy Pelosi (San Francisco) YES Rep. Scott Peters (San Diego) NO Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (Downey) NO Rep. Raul Ruiz (Palm Desert) YES Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (Whittier) YES Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Burbank) YES Rep. Brad Sherman (Sherman Oaks) YES Rep. Jackie Speier (Hillsborough) YES Rep. Eric Swalwell (Dublin) NO Rep. Mark Takano (Riverside) YES Rep. Mike Thompson (St. Helena) YES Rep. Norma J. Torres (Pomona) NO Rep. Juan Vargas (San Diego) NO Rep. Maxine Waters (Los Angeles) Senate Democrats NOT SURE Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) YES Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) sarah.wire@latimes.com Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics ALSO: Republican-led Senate takes first step to repeal Obamacare Obama delivers emotional final speech to the nation: Yes, we did. Yes, we can. Updates on California politics UPDATES: Jan. 18, 1 p.m.: This article was updated with Rep. Lowenthals decision. Jan. 17, 9:50 a.m.: This article was updated with more members of Congress who have decided not to attend the inauguration. This article was originally posted Jan. 15 at 3 a.m. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has criticized the California bullet train boondoggle so many times that weve become a broken record. But thats because there continues to be bad news about a project initially pegged, before voters approved bonds for it in 2008, at $33 billion. Over time, the project ballooned to $68 billion before being estimated at $64 billion. That was before Fridays latest revelation. Advertisement According to a confidential risk analysis prepared by the Federal Railroad Administration and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the first installment of the bullet train, a 118-mile track from Merced to Shafter through the Central Valley, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, up from its original $6.4 billion budget, and could push the project seven years behind schedule. Per the Times, the California High-Speed Rail Authority planned to complete the Central Valley section by this year, but the Federal Railroad Administration doesnt expect that to happen until 2024. While the authority CEO questioned the estimate and a federal spokesman called the risk analysis a standard oversight tool used on major capital projects, the Times characterized it as the most critical official assessment of the project yet. The report, an aspect of government review tied to two federal grants that contributed $3.5 billion for the Central Valley part of the project, has spurred the chairman of the House rail subcommittee, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, to hold an oversight hearing and oppose additional federal funding. Stop us if youve heard this one before. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: UTOpinion [YAOUNDE, CAMEROON] A newly established regional forum on cassava for Central African countries aims to facilitate dialogue to improve how to add value to cassava farming. Ministers of agriculture and rural development from Cameroun, Central African Republic and Gabon are optimistic that agriculture could transform the region into a semi-industrial economy, with cassava being at the centre of the sector. They were speaking with agricultural experts, policymakers and smallholder farmers during the inaugural biennial Cassava forum held in Cameroon last month (6-9 December). This forum is very important in helping us address the challenges facing a crop that is important especially to the rural poor. Ananga Messina, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cameroon The biennial forum aims at bringing together relevant individuals and institutions in cassava value chain to discuss the challenges and opportunities in cassava farming, especially in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. The forum was organised by Netherlands-headquartered Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) in partnership with UNs Food and Agriculture Organization and Nigerian-headquartered International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. The Ministers, speaking at different sessions during the forum, noted that cassava is a very important crop that could help the region boosts its food security through increased production. They urged researchers and the private sector to help the transfer and adoption of new technologies by smallholder farmers to enable them overcome challenges such as climate change. This forum is very important in helping us address the challenges facing a crop that is important, especially to the rural poor, says Ananga Messina, minister delegate to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Cameroon. Mesina urges hospitality industries to ensure that cassava meals are served in their restaurants and hotels to help increase markets for farmers. She adds that the next forum to be held in 2018 at the Central African Republic should address post-harvest losses in processing of cassava, which is still a major challenge in the region. But, Mesina is asking the participating countries to have national forums prior to the regional one to discuss national challenges and opportunities. She says that this would make the regional forum sustainable. Vincent Fautrel, a senior programme coordinator agricultural value chains at CTA, tells SciDev.Net: Cassava has been associated with the rural poor for a long time yet it has the potential to transform economies.Fautrel urges the region to increase investments in the crop because it has helped boost agricultural production in Ghana and Nigeria. He added that the forum could help change the perception towards cassava and how to improve its value chain. [NAIROBI] A new research tool genomics array developed specifically for genomic and epidemiological research in Africa could enable researchers efficiently look at genetic diversity of African populations. Africa is the birthplace of human evolution, and has the highest amount of genetic variation but most existing genotyping tools are for European populations, according to Julie Collens, who is responsible for market development within Illumina, a US-based organisation involved in genomics research and the development of the tool. This tool will not only be critical for understanding African diversity and how that correlates to disease [in Africa], but could potentially improve our understanding of disease and diversity in other global populations, Collens adds. Collens told SciDev.Net last month (16 December) that members of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) consortium selected content from samples previously obtained from Africa and evaluated with more comprehensive genome sequencing with support from UKs Wellcome Trust and the US National Institutes of Health. This array will be an important step forward in filling the present gap in our understanding of genomic diversity in Africa. Julie Collens, Illumina The objective, she said, was to characterise genomic diversity in African populations and to try to understand how the genomics relates to diseases and disorders that affect these populations. The application of genomics in Africa has been underrepresented, says Colleen, noting that the array is expected to be available later in 2017. Because of the differences between global populations in rates of infectious disease risk, having the ability to link genetic findings in African populations specifically to the diseases that are most likely to affect those same populations will be key in understanding how genetics and the environment contribute to diseases, according to Collens. Understanding disease and genomics in the context of specific populations affected allows researchers to develop specific interventions, preventative measures, and treatments, she explains. This array will be an important step forward in filling the present gap in our understanding of genomic diversity in Africa and in understanding the genetic factors contributing to disease. Michele Ramsay, a professor at the division of human genetics, University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, says African populations are genetically diverse and the tool will be very useful for African researchers in conducting genome-wide association studies in multiple African populations for many different traits and diseases. It will be the best array developed to date for this purpose and I hope it will be widely used, not only by members of the H3Africa consortium, says Ramsay, who is exploring genomics and environmental health risks as a project within the H3Africa consortium. It will take some time for the research findings and new knowledge to have an impact on healthcare provision, but we are always keeping our eyes open for important discoveries that can be translated into a clinical setting. But Ramsay tells SciDev.Net that the development of the H3Africa array is still expensive. The appropriate implementation of tests in a healthcare setting requires additional funds and skills, so it can be a long process.This is the reason that we need to develop more capacity for genomic and molecular research in Africa, Ramsay adds.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk. Does life exist on Venus? The answer to the question is not known at the moment. But the prospect is intriguing enough for scientists from the American space agency, NASA, and Russian space agency, Rosmoscos, to work on a new mission for Venus, called Venera-D. One of the proposed goals for the mission would be to search for alien life, albeit in microbial form. According to Space.com, if the joint mission of NASA and Roscosmos is approved, then an orbiter will be launched for Venus in 2025. The aim of the mission will be to conduct remote-sensing observations of the second planet from the Sun and its atmosphere. Subsequently, the probe will deploy a lander on the surface of Venus and look for future landing sites. Additionally, the probable Venera-D mission to Venus could also include a small sub-orbiter to study the planet's magnetosphere, and either an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or a balloon could take measurements of the atmosphere over a long period. The thick, sulfuric-acid clouds of Venus have dark streaks that seem to absorb ultraviolet radiation and could be evidence of microbial life. However, astronomers do not know how the dark streaks originated or what are they composed of. Also, neither is it clear why the streaks have not mixed with the atmosphere or absorbing ultraviolet light. "These are questions that have not been fully explored yet, and I'm shouting as loud as I can, saying that we need to explore them," said Sanjay Limaye, an atmospheric scientist and a former chair of NASA's Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG), according to Astrobiology. Microbial life is "a possibility we can't overlook." Other explanations for the dark streaks in the atmospheric clouds of Venus could be particulate matter mixed in it, or a substance dissolved by sulfuric acid droplets, or the presence of iron chloride. However, according to the scientific community, finding life at high altitude in the atmosphere of Venus would make sense, because microbes have been found at similar heights in planet Earth's atmosphere. A team of international researchers published a new study that includes Iowa State University scientists. The research suggests that if there will be a change in the population densities in urban areas worldwide, it can have major implications for building energy use and sustainability in the incoming decades. In a report by Phys.org, an assistant professor of geological and atmospheric sciences and also the co-author of the study, Yuyu Zhou, said that their research investigated the global urban population densities and associated the energy consumption through the computer models that interpret multiple scenarios. The researchers claim that their study is the first to conduct a global-scale analysis of future urban population densities and associated it to the building energy use. Zhou shared that, "Getting a handle on building energy use in the decades to come will help to answer questions about sustainable urban development." The models reach projection until 2050 and found that the evolving urban densities will have the highest effect in indicating building energy use in the developing regions. In general, as urban areas become less dense, it requires higher energy to heat and cool. As for the developed nations, the adoption of new energy efficient technology will play almost an equal role in urban building energy use. Zhou added that, "Ideally, we want to save energy in the future, and studies like this one can show us how building energy use changes as our cities grow." In the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it says that in North America, the annual energy use for heating and cooling increases between 25 to 30 percent. They also found that the regions including China, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Korea and Vietnam have an increase of 35 to 50 percent, overtaking North American energy use across nearly all of the scenarios examined in the study. However, the region also has the largest potential for savings. According to Iowa State University, the study revealed that retrofitting aging urban infrastructure with updated and energy efficient technology plays a role in improving the global energy outlook. However, the study suggested that waiting to retrofit buildings until the energy-saving technology becomes more widely accessible could come to greater long-term energy savings. Bruce Paulsen, partner at New York firm Seward & Kissel, explained to Seatrade Maritime News that: Shipowners knew that they owed somebody money for bunkers taken aboard, but they were not sure whether they owed it to an OW company, or, instead, to the physical suppliers of the fuel. Under the Interpleader Actions commenced during 2015- 2016, shipowners owing money for fuel taken in a late 2014, just prior to the demise of OW, paid money into the court, similar to an escrow fund. Paulsen further explained that the ruling concerned four test cases (out of 24 cases in front of this Judge), concerned fuel supplied by Nustar Energy Services in the US Gulf (to vessels controlled by NYK and by Clearlake) and by US Oil Trading LLC on the US West Coast (to vessels controlled by Hapag Lloyd). Though legal complexities abound in the lengthy opinion rendered by Judge Caproni, the essence of the ruling is that the physical suppliers do not have a lien on vessels for the payments due for bunkers provided. According to Paulsen, Suppliers of necessaries, such as bunker fuel, to vessel can obtain a maritime lien if they are following the order of owner, or a party authorized by owner. The judge decided that the physical suppliers did not receive their orders from the shipowners, so they do not have the lien. The Judge conducted a thorough study of the four vessel fuelings, and noted that The uncontradicted testimony from the Vessel Interests is that they saw the choice of physical supplier as essentially OWs to make.In short, the inclusion of the Physical Suppliers on the confirmations provided by O.W. and the Vessel Interests does not amount to a selection by the Vessel Interests of NuStar or US Oil Trading. In these 24 cases, the court has not yet released the money being held. Paulsen explained that Judge Capronis decision brightens the outlook for Seward & Kissels client, ING Bank- the security agent under a $700m credit facility that had been extended to OW. He said, For our client, this is a very important milestone. Lawyers representing OWs US companies also looked favorably at the decision. Robert OConnor, a Litigator in the New York office of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, told Seatrade Maritime News: Our client, OW Bunker USA Inc, is certainly pleased with the result; we believe that the Judge properly applied the Lien statutes, and we are pleased that the decision comports with the decisions rendered by other District courts. OConnor, who specializes in maritime matters, explained that the first decisions were rendered in late 2015 by a court in Texas, when an effort to assert a maritime lien by a supplier, in this case Valero, was denied in the Almi Sun case. In talking about the January, 2017 decision, he said, Theres definitely momentum now, referring to cases in Washington State, Alabama and earlier cases decided in the New York court by a different Judge. The implications of the ruling could well go beyond the 24 cases before Judge Caproni; the detailed decision may also set a pattern for additional cases still to be decided by elsewhere in the US District Courts system, as well, according to Paulsen. The New York Southern District ruling is not binding on the other courts, but it is persuasive authority, he explained. ICTSIs flagship operation and the Philippines largest, the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) has an annual capacity of 2.75m teu. The two millionth teu container was offloaded from boxship SITC Osaka, operated by Chinas SITC Container Lines. The MICT reached its first one millionth teu move back in December 2002. Terminal utilization at the MICT has significantly improved since the completion of Yard 7 late in November 2015. Yard 7, which is part of MICTs PHP5bn ($100.3m) expansion project, raised the terminals capacity by 18% from 2.5m teu to 2.75m teu. MICTs 2m teu milestone helped trigger a multi-billion peso capacity improvement commitment with the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) that requires ICTSI to commission five additional post-panamax quay cranes along with corresponding yard equipment, and build at least another berth by 2019. The key to achieving the 2m teu milestone was also attributed to the roll-out of the Terminal Appointment Booking System (TABS), an online container booking platform, in October 2015, which improved and optimized the flow of trucks in and out of the terminal. The construction of Yard 7 and the implementation of TABS last year gave us the flexibility and efficiency we need to perform optimally. We have more projects in the pipeline like the revival of the rail line which will link MICT with Laguna Gateway Inland Container Terminal, said Christian R. Gonzalez, ICTSI senior vice president and regional head of Asia-Pacific and MICT. Apart from establishing an intermodal link between its Manila and Laguna terminals, ICTSI also submitted a proposal to the Philippine Department of Transportation to build the Cavite Gateway Terminal (CGT), a $30m common-user barge and roll onroll off terminal in Tanza, Cavite. The 115,000-teu facility, which will be built in a six-hectare property, will also be directly linked with MICT. The transhipping of cargo from MICT to CGT and vice-versa will serve the economic activity of Cavite, and lessen the number of truck trips in Manila by approximately 140,000 annually, according to ICTSI. MMC said in stock market announcement that the deal would see it take over the stake in KMB Seaport from Seaport Management Services, making it a related party transaction as the latter's ultimate parent company, Seaport Terminal (Johore), is also MMCs major shareholder, with a 51.76% stake. KMB Seaport had last year sealed a deal from the Federal government and Malacca Port Authority to privatise Tanjung Bruas Port, a small terminal with two jetties that can accommodate small to medium-sized vessels, but is strategically located at the most central and narrowest part of the Straits of Malacca. It has a 30-year concession to operate the port. KMB Seaport plans to expand the ports capacity as well as modernise equipment and facilities. The purchase bodes well for MMC Groups effort in maintaining its position as a key player in the ports industry in Malaysia, MMC said. The proposed acquisition is expected to be completed in the first half of this year. This article is one of a series of stories about Michigans agricultural economy. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development . Read more in the series here It might be frosty outside. But just because it's January, doesn't mean you can't enjoy homegrown Michigan produce this time of year. In fact, it could be as close as your neighborhood grocery aisle.Mastronardi Produce is a Canadian grower, headquartered in Kingsville, Ontario, that specializes in hydroponic greenhouse cultivation, a form of growing that makes use of mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil. Because it grows indoors, the company is able to offer its SUNSET brand of produce year-round at Michigan grocers like Meijer, Whole Foods, Aldi, Costco, Sams Club, Trader Joes, Walmart, and Target.What's more, since it operates a greenhouse in Coldwater the grower is also able to provide consumers with Michigan-grown produce. The Coldwater facility supplies state retailers with SUNSET tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, and cucumbers, and during the chilly months it also grows it's WOW (Wonders of Winter) line of strawberries.Due to its south central Michigan location, the Coldwater operation allows the grower to harvest, pack and deliver its produce to customers throughout the Midwest in a timely fashion, often on the same day it's picked.Completed in 2014 (and operational since 2012), the 60-acre Coldwater facility is Mastronardi Produce's most state-of-the-art indoor growing operation. The greenhouse relies on a variety of technologies including grow lights (and LED research lighting) to control temperature, humidity, water, and light conditions, allowing for optimal crop growth. Automated harvest carts, and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are also used to increase efficiency and to keep track of produce."Compared to field farming, greenhouse growing is much more efficient, yielding 12 to 20 times more produce in the same area. It also reduces water consumption drastically, and allows us to use natural, integrated pest management instead of chemical pesticides to manage any harmful insects," says Daniela Ferro, a spokesperson for Mastronardi Produce. "Of course, this also means that frigid Michigan winters wont harm our protected crop, so consumers can enjoy local produce all year long.In addition to providing consumers with Michigan produce, the company has also been a boon to the state's workforce, hiring local workers at all levels of employment at its Coldwater greenhouse and Livonia distribution center, the company's largest depot in North America.As for the relationship with the state's retailers, it's been a mutually beneficial one: the embrace of grocers have allowed the Coldwater operation to flourish while keeping store shelves stocked with the local produce their customers value. Due to the high interest in keeping things local, it's also worth noting that Mastronardi Produce goes the extra mile when it comes to guaranteeing where their fruits and vegetables come from."Because were greenhouse grown, we also have an enhanced food safety and traceability program, which allows us to trace product back to exactly where it came from," says Ferro. "Our proactive approach to food safety, paired with our innovative products and dedication to flavor and quality means that retailers have the satisfaction of knowing theyre providing their consumers with safe, high-quality produce year-round.The Michigan-based grocery chain Meijer has been purchasing Mastronardi Produce for over 40 years and offers Michigan-grown tomatoes at each of its 230 stores, which are spread over six states."Meijer offers our customers fresh, vine-ripened Michigan-grown tomatoes year-round, thanks to Mastronardi Produce's state-of-the-art hydroponic greenhouse in Coldwater, Mich.," says Meijer spokesperson Christina Fecher. "We also offer locally-grown sweet peppers in colder months grown at that greenhouse.The grocery chain ensures that Mastronardi Produce and other growers meet their own high corporate standards by sending in a team of experienced buyers to check out their suppliers' farms and growing facilities.Keeping things local has been a priority for Meijer since the chain opened its first store in Greenville back in 1934. And the local produce options that the SUNSET line allows the grocer to offer are really appreciated by shoppers."Not only is buying local produce the right thing to do, it's what our customers want and deserve. Today, Meijer works with more than 125 local growers, which we define as growers within our six-state footprint," says Fecher. "Of those, 92 are located in Michigan. We are also currently one of the largest purchasers of local produce in the markets we serve.Peter Anastor, Director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's (MDARD) Agriculture Development Division, has seen Mastronardi Produce's Coldwater facility and he's impressed."Mastronardi is sort of a driver of what's going on in Michigan as far as hydroponics now, pretty amazing facilities," he says, "and I think it's definitely a good glimpse at what the potential future of agricultural growing is going to be.Right now, this type of indoor growing is only a small component of the state's agricultural economy; the only other facility that MDARD is regularly involved with is Kilbourn Produce, a family-owned hydroponic operation in Marshall, Michigan that grows red bell peppers.But the prospects are promising. Anastor thinks the attraction of locally grown produce, in terms of environmental sustainability and the desire to support Michigan jobs, combined with the efficiencies of hydroponic growing, like being able to control the growing conditions and harvest crops year-round, represent a wonderful economic opportunity.While the indoor ag industry is still in its early stages, MDARD has been talking with possible investors. For its part, Anastor says his agency is happy to talk to potential business operators and help connect them with prospective employees, identify a good location and work with the MEDC and other state departments on permitting and incentives.And as technology makes the field more efficient, he expects interest in setting up new operations in the state will grow."Looking out at the next decade, I think we're going to see more of this type of growing," says Anastor. "It's something we are keeping an eye on and are very interested in." Forty-eight years after his death, Martin Luther King Jr. still stands as one of the most symbolic, most loved and most tragic of figures of the Civil Rights Movement. This year, the home where the civil rights leader was born in some 88 years ago, will reopen after being closed since August for repairs. The modest Atlanta, Ga. home at at 450 Auburn Ave. N.E., was originally built in 1895. The historic site typically draws up to 20,000 visitors on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which caused some wear and tear. After repairs to the first floor of the house, where King lived until age 12, it will open again to the public in time for the MLK holiday. Across the country, Americans are honoring King through rallies, services and days of service. Here, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, take a look back at his life and some of his greatest accomplishments. Son of a Preacher Man King was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Ga., to Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King. He studied theology, eventually earning a Ph.D. and following in his father's footsteps, becoming a preacher. Eventually, the two Rev. Kings would co-pastor Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta until the younger King's death in 1968. In the photo below, Martin Luther King Jr. looks on as his father delivers a sermon. Press Release January 16, 2017 Drilon urges Duterte admin: Observe prudence in making public statements Senate President Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon cautioned the Duterte administration against making statements capable of causing fear and tension. Drilon was referring to the President's recent statements regarding the declaration of a martial law in the country. "We call on the administration to exercise prudence in making public statements that are very disturbing and could create undue fear and tension in the country," Drilon said. In his speech, the President said: "I have to protect the Filipino people. It's my duty. And I tell you now, if I have to declare martial law, I will declare it. Not about invasion, insurrection, not about danger. I will declare martial law to preserve my nation, period. Wala akong pakialam diyan sa Supreme Court. Because the right to preserve one's life, and my nation, my country, transcends everything else, even the limitations." Drilon said such pronouncements only strengthen the people's perception that "the rule of law plays second fiddle to the administration's campaign against drugs." A lawyer and former justice secretary, Drilon explained the 1987 Constitution only allows the declaration of martial law, upon the concurrence of two requisites: one, when there is actual invasion or rebellion and two, when public safety requires it. These two requisites must be present, he noted. Drilon also defended the media who were again accused by the President's communication team of misreporting the President's remarks. "The way I see it, the news reports were devoid of any interpretation by the media," Drilon said. "The reports were based on the President's speech and the statements were quoted verbatim. We should not blame the press for reporting what the President said," Drilon emphasized. Drilon said a clarification from the Palace would have been unnecessary if prudence was exercised in the first place. "The truth is, mere talk of martial law is enough to send chills to the spine of any Filipino. Therefore, it is something that should not be taken lightly," said Drilon, adding that the recent Pulse Asia survey showing that 74 percent of Filipinos are against the imposition of martial law would confirm it. Press Release January 16, 2017 OLONGAPO HONORS MAYOR JAMES L. GORDON ON HIS 100TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mayor James (Jimmy) Leonard Gordon, Olongapo's first elected mayor, Olongapenos and thousands of volunteers will hold activities that would give recognition to the late mayor. Mayor James Gordon was born on January 17, 1917 of an American father, John Jacob Gordon, and a Filipina mother, Veronica Tagle Gordon. He was Mayor of Olongapo City from December 30, 1963 to February 20, 1967. Instead of electing American Citizenship and residing in the United States like his four brothers, he chose to stay in the Philippines as a Filipino Citizen. He raised his children as Filipino Citizens and brought them up according to Filipino values; Mayor Jimmy Gordon, known as the Father of Olongapo, led the move to free Olongapo from the United States (US). When the rest of the Philippine had been declared independent of the US on July 4, 1946, Olongapo remained under US Government jurisdiction having been declared a US Naval Reservation in the early 1900s). Gordon, though an American himself, having an American father, could not stomach the strict military regulations that limited the movements of the residents of Olongapo. He exposed and fought the abuses and harassments suffered by Olongapo residents under US military rule. He was also like David trying to defeat Goliath, which symbolized the rampant corruption and abuses in the governing authority. As part of the celebration, simultaneous wreath-laying activities will be held in four significant areas in Olongapo, particularly: Marikit Park, which will be led by the Balikatan Ladies; Kalalake Elementary School; Gordon Park/Kalaklan; and Tappan Park, site of the hospital where Mayor Jimmy Gordon was born. Activities also include a photo exhibit, which will show the late mayor's achievements and contributions to Olongapo's development. Aside from the Gordon family, expected to attend are officials of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority; Subic Bay Freeport Zone investors; socio-civic groups such as the Jaycess of Olongapo City, Rotary Club of Olongapo City, James L. Gordon Council of the Olongapo City Boy Scout of the Philippines, BALIKATAN Ladies of Olongapo Movement, SUGPO, Businessmen/Civic groups participants; Philippine Red Cross Olongapo City Chapter Board, Staff and 143 volunteers; PRC Board of Governors; and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; and officials and volunteers of the Bagumbayan Volunteers for a New Philippines Party. Press Release January 16, 2017 Hontiveros to investigate incident that led to woman giving birth in cab The Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Health vowed on Monday to investigate possible violations to the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law after a woman reportedly gave birth last week inside a taxicab in Quezon City after being refused by two hospitals. Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros said that the incident will be on the agenda at the second hearing of her bill that aims to strengthen Republic Act No. 8344, a law that prohibits hospitals from asking for deposits first before treating patients with emergency needs. According to the initial field investigation conducted by Hontiveros' office, a certain Aira Arellano was turned away by a public hospital in Caloocan City last January 11 after its staff allegedly assessed that she went into labor prematurely. They said that they had no incubator for the baby. Arellano proceeded to the next nearest hospital but eventually gave birth inside a taxicab. Rescuers and media on the scene then brought her to a private hospital in Fairview, Quezon City. However, the attending staff allegedly only cut the umbilical cord of the infant and said that Arellano could not afford their fees prompting them to transfer to the East Avenue Medical Center (EAMC). The EAMC staff that admitted Arellano and her infant, however, said that she had a regular childbirth. Hontiveros said that based on these accounts, it is worth investigating if the hospital in Fairview, Quezon City, violated the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law. The Senator also said that Arellano and her child were twice victimized. "She was a victim of a private hospital that refused to admit her because she couldn't afford the deposit demanded of her, and a public hospital that lacked facilities. We cannot tolerate hospitals denying mothers and their children health services in their time of urgent need. Where will our people go if they can't get medical help from either public and private hospitals?" Hontiveros said. Hontiveros said that she will mobilize the resources of her committee to get to the bottom of this matter. She will also coordinate with the Department of Health (DoH) to get an inventory of the facilities at public hospitals and determine legislative and budgetary interventions that can improve health services. "No life should be unnecessarily put at risk, no person should be denied adequate and quality medical care just because they are poor and our government-run hospitals cannot adequately respond to their emergency medical needs. We have heard this unfortunate story so many times already. It's time we put an end to it," Hontiveros added. Hontiveros filed Senate Bill No. 216 otherwise known as "The Amendments to the Anti-Hospital Deposit Act" that seek heavier penalties on hospitals that continue to demand any deposit or other form of advance payment, as a prerequisite for admission or medical treatment of an emergency patient. Koko: Senate supports Duterte's ASEAN priorities Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel lll today praised President Rodrigo Duterte's commitment for a "strong and resilient" ASEAN in 2017, as the Philippines assumed this year's chairmanship of the 10-member alliance. At the same time, Pimentel said he would support the President's priorities to promote regional peace and stability and pursue maritime security. "These are key issues that the ASEAN must continually strive to maintain. He has articulated what the ASEAN could do to its citizens in this time of great change. It is to ensure stability and security, which will enhance opportunities of its citizens for a better life," Pimentel said in a statement. "The regional bloc is focused on growth and centered on ASEAN citizens. Nothing could be more important to the ASEAN in a region that is the most economically dynamic in the world," Pimentel said. The President's statement that life in the ASEAN has broken the "bonds of dependence and ignorance" enhances its founding spirit to become a vehicle for peace and progress, the senator from Mindanao said. ASEAN turns fifty this year, coinciding with the Philippine chairmanship of the alliance months after Duterte announced that he would chart an independent foreign policy. The country plays host to the ASEAN Summit late this year. Its theme, "Partnering for Change, Engaging the World," perfectly highlights the Philippines' enhanced role in the region, said Pimentel, who is also the president of the administration party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan (PDP Laban). He said the leadership of both chambers of Congress has already identified priority measures aimed at improving people's lives and enhancing Philippine role in the ASEAN. Among the non-controversial bills are the provisions of free tuition in state universities and colleges, free irrigation for farmers, universal health insurance coverage and nutritious meals for students in public elementary schools. Press Release January 16, 2017 Transcript of Ambush Interview of Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III Q: Ano pong tingin niyo dun sa sinasabi ni President Duterte about Martial Law? SP Pimentel: I have read the declaration. He is legally correct that the power belongs to the President. But of course, we have a constitution. Everything that the President does conform to the requirements of the Constitution. Anyway, we are discussing a hypothetical situation. If the question is 'Can the President declare Martial Law on his own?', then the answer is yes. Q: Sir, walk us through dun sa process. Saan papasok yung Senate? SP: Its found in the Constitution. There will be a written report to be submitted to Congress within 48 hours. Congress will have to review. It will recommend the extension or shortening of the declaration. Andun naman lahat but this will be proper for law school discussion because it is all theory and it is found in the Constitution. Don't be too alarmed about a lawyer president discussing his power which is clear also under the Constitution. What is so alarming about that? Q: Pero hindi na acceptable sa public yung Martial Law based dun sa survey SP: That's a political decision naman. Sinabi lang naman niya na he has the power to declare it. Tama po yun. Q: Sir, enough safeguard po ba yun na upon the review of Congress? SP: Don't worry. The statement that the President has the power on his own to declare Martial Law is found in the Constitution and all other safeguards are also found in the Constitution. Susunod lang po tayo sa ating Constitution. Don't worry too much about that legally correct statement of the President. Q: Sir, yun po bang drug problem enough basis ba yun? SP: Saka na po 'yan. Saka na tayo pupunta sa basis. Wala pa naman declaration so okay lang yun. Q: Last na po on death penalty, sa House daw ipapasa na on third reading. Dito ba sa Senate ano ba yung tinitignan niyong timeline? SP: Sa ngayon, a couple of bills have been filed relating to the death penalty and the Justice committee has started hearing at least one of those bills. Its also moving here in the Senate but there is no timetable for the death penalty. I think that is realistic. The House target of June is realistic. That should be sufficient time for the Senate to have its own recommendation whether to approve or not to approve. Q: Kasama ba yun sa priority ng Senate? SP: We have 41 session days. I think that's good enough time for us to discuss the death penalty and also come up with a decision by June. I think that's a realistic timetable. No Basis to Consider ML Declaration - Recto We should know by now that such theatrical bombast is part of the President's oratorical repertoire. His bluster should be likened to a dog that always barks but seldom bites. This thing about Martial Law should be filed under outlandish threats like riding a Jetski to the Spratlys, or feeding the fish of Manila Bay with bodies of salvage victims. There is no basis to declare Martial Law. Rebellion has been tamed. No foreign army is steaming towards our shores to invade us. And as the President himself likes to brag, crime is down and the people are safe in their homes and communities. And as to the real enemies of the people - joblessness, hunger, poor social services - these cannot by suppressed by the armed forces. Another claim which has no legal leg to stand on is the assertion that the declaration of Martial Law is a unilateral act of the chief executive. The Constitution, which the President had sworn to uphold in his oath of office, empowers Congress to revoke it, to cite one of many safeguards. It is also subject to Supreme Court review, and if to last more than 60 days, to congressional concurrence. Martial Law is a cure worse than the perceived disease. At a time when we project stability to reel in tourists and investors, a Martial Law declaration will show the opposite, of how unstable we are. The problems we face today do not require the calling in of the army. We do not burn the house down to kill a few rats. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Its been nearly a year since Nilofer Jafari fled her home in Afghanistan with her husband and three young children, racing into an uncertain future in an unfamiliar land to escape the Taliban. After a tumultuous journey, fraught with peril, took them to Iran and then Turkey, they braved rough seas on a small, rickety boat packed with other refugees from war-torn regions and arrived in Greece, settling in a makeshift camp crowded with thousands of asylum-seekers like themselves. As the family waits to hear if their request for asylum status in Germany will be approved, Jafari was able to find her daughters some semblance of stability thanks to Belle Sweeney, a Bay Area alpaca farmer who created safe spaces for children to seek refuge at the Elliniko refugee camp in Athens. We are happy that there is something like this for the kids, Jafari told The Chronicle in Farsi in a phone interview from the camp. Its better than having kids gather and get into fights. They play there. Sweeney, a Sebastopol resident, founded the Schoolbox Project in 2016. The nonprofit organization converts old shipping containers in Greece into a safe haven for children in the midst of turmoil and offers sessions seven days a week in art, music, math and English, and also distributes food, toys and clothing. Leah Millis/The Chronicle Jafaris 8-year-old and 4-year-old daughters paint, knit, and are sometimes treated to ice cream at the Schoolbox Project. Her youngest, at 1, is too young to be separated from her mother, Jafari said. Life is very difficult, the 29-year-old Jafari said. But it will pass. Sweeney, 33, combined her experience as a volunteer at refugee camps in Greece with her background as a foster parent, and thats how the Schoolbox Project was born. When she first visited the camps in Greece in 2015 to work as a volunteer with some of the millions of refugees who had escaped their war-ravaged homelands of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, what stood out to her were the children who arrived by boat. Some were angry. Some were quiet. And some were aggressive. What is far more difficult is to support a child to find his place in the world who has invisible and hard-to-understand challenges, said Sweeney, whos been a foster parent for 10 years. The children all feel like my children. But they all had one thing in common in Sweeneys eyes. They acted like some of the children she cared for through the Bay Area foster care system. She felt a kinship with the kids arriving by boats on the shores of Lesbos, in Greece, who had survived displacement, atrocious living conditions and recurring violence. A mother of four, two of whom were adopted through the foster-care system, Sweeney said one of the first children who started coming to the Schoolbox Project was a boy who was continuously kicked out of the program for being violent and doing unlovable things. That child reminded her of one of her own. I have a child whos hard to be with, and you have to dig deep to figure out what they need in that moment, Sweeney said, adding that the boy became a representation of the children she wanted to reach through her project. These children ask you to dig deep and find new wells of patience you didnt know you had, to look at distress as communication and undesirable behavior as a symptom of an unmet need. Leah Millis/The Chronicle Close to 175,000 refugees arrived in Greece by sea in 2016 37 percent of whom were children, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. There have been over 430 arrivals so far in 2017. People who have been forced to flee their homeland to stay alive, to escape violence and war and conflict its a very traumatizing experience for any human being. Young refugees suffer uniquely, said Chris Boian, a spokesman for the UNHCR. Nearly 90 percent of refugee children have expressed feelings of stress to camp volunteers, said Amy Richmond, a child protection adviser with Save the Children, an international organization that promotes childrens rights and provides relief and support to children in developing countries. Not only have refugee children from Syria and elsewhere in the region witnessed family members and friends being killed, but the instability of living in a camp and lack of information on ones legal status can intensify the initial stress and trauma that kids experience, Richmond said. Programs like the Schoolbox Project are crucial in providing kids with a stable environment where they can establish healthy coping mechanisms, she added. Even though children have experienced traumatic events, children are remarkably resilient, Richmond said, adding that with the right tools and child-friendly spaces, they are able to bounce back. Sweeney, who works as an alpaca farmer and beekeeper in the Bay Area, bought the first shipping container in Greece in April 2016, before the Schoolbox Project officially existed. I realized I needed something tangible. I walked past a shipping container with some Greek writing on it and a phone number and took a picture of it, Sweeney recalled. I called them and tried to find someone who spoke English. Each container costs about $3,200, she said; they are purchased through donations to the Schoolbox Project. Leah Millis/The Chronicle The next day, a truck with a crane appeared at the port near Athens with one large delivery for Sweeney, a shipment that was was met with a great deal of resistance from the port police. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Whos in charge? Whose box is this? Sweeney recalled police asking. It took about two hours before [the police] ultimately let us put [the shipping container] down. Within hours, muralists were decorating the exterior of the shipping container with pink and red flowers, blue skies, and thick, luscious trees. Meanwhile, volunteers were being recruited from Facebook to staff the office-style box, which is temperature-controlled and has windows. Now the Schoolbox Project has a total of four shipping containers with various activities staffed by volunteers at two camps: LM Village, a summer resort operating as a refugee camp, and the Elliniko camp, a former airport, in Athens, both of which are largely made up of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Monica Julian, a child protection specialist for the Schoolbox Project, returned from a trip to Elliniko several weeks ago and said she was especially concerned by how kids under age 3 were coping with the stress. One child about 18 months old caught her attention in particular. You would normally engage them by smiling and they smile back. But this kid was just deadpan. No emotion at all, Julian said. Other signs of trauma that Schoolbox Project volunteers are on the lookout for are hoarding of toys and food, acting out, bullying, and isolation. Many children have a fear of loud noises and often hit the deck when planes fly overheard, Julian added. They are often short-tempered, explosive and aggressive, and in some cases the stress can be too much. Back in the spring, there was a teenage boy who tried to light himself on fire, Julian said, emphasizing that the most effective help for children was having a safe place that offered consistent care. For Sweeney, working with children who exhibit poor impulse control, aggression and post-traumatic stress hits close to home. Its her parenting background that has made the Schoolbox Project so personal for her. This crisis is too big for anybody to get to opt out from participating, Sweeney said. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani Schoolbox Project fundraiser The Schoolbox Project is holding a Dine and Donate event on Jan. 25 at the Ramen Gaijin restaurant, 6948 Sebastopol Ave. in Sebastopol. Sweeney is also hosting a booth on Jan. 29 at the Community Engagement Fair in Santa Rosa. Fresh out of law school at UC Berkeley, Thelton Henderson traveled south as the Justice Departments first black Civil Rights Division lawyer, assigned to keep an eye on local law enforcement for the Kennedy administration. It was 1962, and it was hazardous duty in hostile territory. But there were others, he soon found out, who were putting themselves in greater peril in the fight against white supremacy in the Jim Crow South. I would see these kids come to Birmingham with a toothbrush and toothpaste, wrapped in a face towel, ready to go to jail and take their beatings, Henderson, 83, recalled in an interview last week after announcing his retirement as a federal judge in San Francisco. He met Martin Luther King Jr., who knew he wasnt going to live to old age. With his government ID, Henderson said, I felt like a coward. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press He crossed paths with King a year later after the Justice Department had assigned the young lawyer to investigate the lethal bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. King needed to travel to Selma, more than 70 miles away, and had a car with a flat tire. Henderson lent him his government car, setting off an uproar from supporters of segregationist Gov. George Wallace. It cost Henderson his job the most crushing blow of his life, he said, but still a decision he doesnt regret. The route to Selma was a mean stretch of road, and with a breakdown he would have been a dead man, Henderson explained. I was torn between whether my job was just taking down the reports and following cases, or something bigger. He eventually found a job that led to expanded horizons, an appointment on the federal bench where he would oversee historic cases on prisons, police conduct and civil rights. The appointment by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 followed many years in private law practice, in Legal Aid and at Stanford, where he recruited minority students to a virtually all-white law school. Perhaps more than any other public figure, Henderson has brought about change in Californias huge prison system. Soon after becoming the courts chief judge in 1990, he said, he started getting petitions on yellow paper from inmates of the supermax Pelican Bay State Prison on the North Coast, an institution hed never heard of, complaining of mistreatment. In a meeting arranged by Henderson, the warden told the courts judges that Pelican Bay was a new era prison for the worst of the worst, Henderson recalled, and he described what techniques were used to keep the inmates under control. The judges reacted in shocked silence, Henderson said. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press Assigned the case by random draw, Henderson issued a scathing decision in 1995 finding that inmates were being brutalized beaten, hogtied, caged naked in cold and rainy weather. And he ordered changes and court monitoring that lasted for 16 years. The case laid the foundation for a settlement that imposed the first restrictions on Californias use of solitary confinement. Another breakthrough came in 2006, when Henderson, in a case challenging the adequacy of health care in California prisons, ruled that the state was violating constitutional standards with medical treatment so shoddy that more than one inmate per day was dying needlessly. He appointed a receiver to manage the health care system. Three years later, a panel that included Henderson and two other judges found that prison overcrowding was the primary cause of poor health care and ordered population reductions. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the order in 2011, and the result has been 40,000 fewer inmates in California prisons and changes in state sentencing laws to prevent the numbers from rising again. Another judge will be needed to replace Henderson on the prison panel and, in another major case, as overseer of the Oakland Police Department. The case involved a 2000 lawsuit by 119 people who accused a group of veteran officers, nicknamed the Riders, of beatings and evidence-planting, and it exposed disproportionate arrests of racial minorities in the city. Henderson presided over a $10.5 million settlement in 2003 and has been overseeing the departments slow, painful compliance with the terms of the agreement ever since. Hes appointed a series of monitors to enforce the settlement and keep him informed. I see light at the end of the tunnel, Henderson said of Oaklands efforts to improve police practices. He said he hasnt met the citys incoming police chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, formerly a top police official in Chicago, but she talks the way Id like to hear a chief talk. Police should be accountable. He said some of the cases hes proudest of involved civil rights challenges by individuals, like the woman who sued State Farm Insurance Co. in the early 1980s, when the company had virtually no female insurance agents. In a 1985 ruling, Henderson found intentional sex discrimination, and in 1992, State Farm agreed to pay $157 million to 814 California women who had been turned down for jobs. The company also agreed to hire at least 50 percent female agents in the state over the next 10 years. Jeff Chiu/Associated Press In 1987 Henderson ruled that the Defense Department had discriminated in its decades-old practice of denying security clearances to gay or lesbian applicants. It was only a year after the Supreme Court had upheld a Georgia criminal law against gay sex, and Henderson said last week he wasnt surprised when an appeals court overturned his ruling in 1990. But as public attitudes on gay rights evolved over the years, so did government policies and court rulings. President Bill Clinton outlawed antigay discrimination on security clearances in 1995, and the Supreme Court reversed its ruling on gay sex in 2003, 12 years before legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Time has proven me right, Henderson said. Racial issues took a different course. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. When California voters banned affirmative action in 1996 based on race or gender in public education, employment or contracting, Henderson blocked enforcement of the measure, which appeared on the ballot as Proposition 209. He said it was likely to be ruled unconstitutional. He noted that the state still allowed preferred treatment in university admissions for veterans and the disabled, for example, while banning it for minorities and women. But a federal appeals court overruled Henderson in a scornfully worded decision. The Supreme Court denied review of the case and in 2014 upheld a similar law approved by voters in Michigan. Prop. 209 remains in effect. Some congressional Republicans called for Hendersons impeachment after his ruling. Death threats arrived in the mail, and U.S. marshals were assigned to guard his home. I can take the taunts, the judge said. The death threats were a little scary. But Henderson has endured. He served as the districts chief judge from 1990 to 1997, then transferred to senior status in 1998, with a reduced caseload, creating a vacancy for Clinton to fill. But he has kept a substantial calendar and presided over the recent criminal trial of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., convicted by a jury of violating pipeline-safety laws. The case stemmed from the deadly gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno in September 2010. Henderson said he is retiring in August because of a progressive muscle disease that first afflicted him 30 years ago. The disease has forced him into a wheelchair and limited his movements and energy level. The normally amiable and soft-spoken judge said hes also found himself getting grumpier on the bench. I dont like the judge Ive sometimes become, he said. I love the job, but its time to go. Henderson said he plans to take car and train trips with his wife, Maria Alaniz, when she retires as a San Jose State sociology professor next year. Reflecting on what shaped his outlook, he recalled his childhood in South Central Los Angeles, where two of his uncles were in and out of jail and his mother regularly put up her house as security to bail them out. On sentencing days, I see families of defendants waiting to be sentenced, he said, and I think of my family, wondering whats going to happen to my uncles. Its humbling. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko In his final public address as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler implored the incoming Trump administration to press ahead with efforts to preserve and strengthen net neutrality amid increasingly strong signals that the policy designed to keep the Internet fair and open may be in jeopardy. Before a crowd gathered at the Aspen Institute, the think tank Wheeler will be joining after formally relinquishing his post this week, Wheeler said Friday that the country stands at a crossroads when it comes to Internet policy. One path leads forward; the other leads back to re-litigating solutions that are demonstrably working, Wheeler said. All the press reports seem to indicate that the new commission will choose an ideologically based course. Passed in 2015, net neutrality, which requires that Internet service providers treat all Web traffic equally, is the hallmark of Wheelers three-year tenure at the helm of the FCC. The regulations were widely praised by open-Internet advocates as crucial to keeping the access to the Internet on a level playing field. But the rules have been assailed by critics who see it as needless regulation that will prevent investment and innovation in Internet technologies. Some of net neutralitys most vocal detractors have come from within the FCC itself. Commissioner Ajit Pai, widely considered to be on President-elect Donald Trumps short list of candidates to replace Wheeler as chairman, has been outspoken about his desire to revisit many of the policies enacted under Wheelers watch. In a Dec. 7 speech delivered to the Free State Foundation think tank, Pai pledged to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation and job creation. On the day that (net neutrality rules were) adopted, I said that I dont know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future commission. But I do believe that its days are numbered. Several advisers that the incoming Trump administration has brought on to help manage transitional matters at the commission have been outspoken critics of net neutrality. Mark Jamison, for example, wrote a post for the American Enterprise Institute in which he said that the rules were backfiring and frequently work against the entrepreneurs and consumers the rules are intended to help. In his speech, Wheeler fought back against the idea that net neutrality had hobbled Internet service providers. Network investment is up, investment in innovative services is up, and ISPs revenues and stock prices are at record levels, Wheeler said. So, wheres the fire? Other than the desires of a few (providers) to be free of meaningful oversight, why the sudden rush to undo something that is demonstrably working? Many net neutrality advocates have vowed to fight against dismantling the policy. Chris Lewis, a vice president at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge and former deputy legislative affairs director at the commission, attended Wheelers farewell address Friday, and praised his efforts to protect consumers during his time as chairman. Looking ahead to the incoming administrations antagonistic posturing toward net neutrality, Lewis said his organization and others were on guard: Were certainly concerned, but at the same time this is why our organization exists. Well be there working to preserve those protections that are working for the American people right now. Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that while his group is anticipating an aggressive effort to roll back the scope of net neutrality, he remains optimistic that the broad public support behind the regulations will help to shape the president-elects selection for the next FCC chair. Ajit Pai represents a clear establishment Republican mind-set, that all regulations are bad in the FCC space, Falcon said. But its worth remembering from the campaign that Trump ran against Republicans on a handful of issues, and he defeated the entire Republican establishment. Wheelers appointment in 2013 touched off a firestorm of criticism over his long career as a top lobbyist for the cable and cell phone industries. But critics who decried what seemed like a fox guarding the henhouse nominee were quickly silenced by the pro-consumer issues Wheeler took up once in office. They thought he would be a cable stooge, and he ended up being the exact opposite. He was an extreme adversary of the cable industry, said Bruce Leichtman, the president and principal analyst at Leichtman Research Group, which conducts research on the broadband and media industries. George Foote, the lead telecommunications attorney at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney, has known Wheeler since the two crossed paths at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, where Wheeler served as president and CEO from 1992 to 2004. Foote dismissed the initial backlash against Wheeler as the knee-jerk reaction of a polarized public. He struck a balance between protecting the public good and advancing the good through these technologies without overburdening business, and I think his vision has been proved out, Foote said. He believes in government, and he believes that governments should make things work, he said. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa The model and tv actor Vin Rana who tied the knot with Miss Indonesia considers himself lucky to have Nita Sofiani as his wife. The handsome guy never imagined that he will find his soul mate from Indonesia. The actor stated, Few years back there was a trend of using BBM and few Indonesian women added me on that application. At that time I used to wonder which country is this and never really gave importance to find out about them and that country. But as they say God has planned everything for you well in advance. I never thought that one day I will marry an Indonesian girl and the country will become my sasural. He added further, After my first visit to Indonesia, my perspective changed. People over there are so warm, calm and polite. Nobody has the habit of honking while driving; thats why the place is so peaceful. They are very patient and humble. In fact, initially it was difficult for my wife to adapt to Mumbais lifestyle. My wife is super excited, as soon we are travelling to Indonesia to meet her parents. Also Read: Television actor Sanjay Kaushik joins the cast of 'Meri Durga' Tele actress 'Ratan Rajpoot' is missing someone! Nitibha Kaul wants Manveer Gurjar to win Bigg Boss While racism against Middle Eastern Americans has reached ugly levels in our nation, the response of historically progressive Americans has been meek. Even worse, though racism is unpatriotic when viewed, for example, in the context of African American rights, Islamophobia is espoused by alleged patriots. President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to monitor Muslim Americans, bar Middle Eastern refugees from entering our borders, and carpet bomb Islamic State-held communities, despite overwhelming civilian deaths. Indeed, this won him many votes in the presidential election. Middle Eastern Americans are removed from U.S. airlines ostensibly for speaking Arabic on board. Muslims are attacked outside U.S. mosques. Whispers and sometimes shouts of terrorist follow them in their daily lives. Their ethnicity is used against them in their jobs, in the courts, in relationships, in everyday business transactions. The stereotype is that they are dangerous, hateful and backward. Ugly epithets are flung at them. Where is the community outrage? In response, some Middle Eastern Americans become so Americanized that they lose their heritage and change their names. Others complain among friends. A minuscule and deranged fraction becomes militant. The us-versus-them dialectic allows us to minimize and forget the pain of Middle Eastern Americans much as Americans did for centuries with other minorities until they were forced to do otherwise. Lets not let it to get to that. Unlike some minorities, Middle Eastern Americans have no widespread support system. How many Persian or Arab politicians, CEOs, or entertainers can you name? Of the few that exist, how many are not so Americanized that were allowed to forgive their Middle Eastern culture? The Middle East has been the target of concerted Western aggression for hundreds of years, even well into the 20th century via CIA operations in Iran that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, and in recent decades with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the intense support given to Israel by U.S. politicians on all sides of the political spectrum, despite the virtual concentration camp that are the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the West overlooks the Arab body count as much as it does the hundreds of thousands who perish in Middle Eastern nations. When Iranians boldly marched for democracy in the 2009 Green Revolution, where was Western intervention then? Hateful policies and racism are not the answer. Middle Eastern Americans have learned everything about American culture because its a matter of survival. It must become more than a luxury for Americans to learn about them. More than just putting the onus on schools and the media, individuals must make an effort to understand Middle Eastern culture, history and religion, and no longer view such a notion as anathema. Middle Eastern Americans must form an outspoken community against such hatred on both sides. At the same time, it is the civic and moral duty of all Americans to think of Middle Eastern Americans beyond the veiled or bearded images, beyond the anger and bloodshed we see in the Middle East. It is incumbent upon us all to oppose the role the West plays in creating hellfire in the Middle East, and to stop attacks on Middle Easterners here where they have sought refuge. Last week, West Virginia school officials placed a teacher on paid leave for her racist and anti-Muslim tweets, including several posts that targeted President Obama. [N]o more political correctness after 1/20 cant wait finally liberated, social studies teacher Mary Durstein wrote, referring to Fridays inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Durstein had earlier tweeted her approval of a post calling Obama a douchebag Muslim (Exactly! she added); she also retweeted an Ann Coulter post demanding the deportation of Muslims. We want the message to our students to be that all kinds are welcome, a school spokesman said, defending Dursteins suspension. Inclusion is essential to everything that we do. Fair enough. But suppose youre a pro-Trump student in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the teachers union has called for a citywide protest on the day before the inauguration. Are you going to feel welcome and included, too? I doubt it. Trumps inauguration is highlighting not just the racial prejudice that infects some of our teachers, but also the political prejudice that affects others. And theyre both inimical to a truly democratic education, which requires adults of every mind to let our students make up their own. Listen to the statement by the Los Angeles teachers union, which reeks of hostility toward Trump and his supporters. On Jan. 19 ... we will stand up for our values as public school educators with actions at school sites citywide, the union declared. We will show that educators are united with our students and our communities against Trumps racially charged and anti-immigrant proposals and that we will continue to fight attempts to privatize education. The statement went on to denounce the Trump/DeVos/Broad agenda, condemning efforts by Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos and billionaire Eli Broad to promote school choice. Surely teachers like all other citizens have the right to express their views about Trump, education reform and everything else. But they have no right to impose these opinions on the young people in their charge or to demonize students who might disagree with them. And thats what the union statement does, at least implicitly. If teachers and students are supposed to stand united against Trump, then where does that leave a kid who likes him? Los Angeles isnt the only offender here. The teachers union in New York state issued a similar declaration, calling for a day of action on the day before the inauguration to say NO! to a President who preaches intolerance, bigotry, and bullying and to an Education Secretary with a clear record of hostility toward public schools. It would be one thing if the teachers were simply staging these rallies on their own. But theyre soliciting students to join in, which raises the potential for indoctrination to a whole other level. Do you want to to get in my good graces, kid, and get a good grade to boot? Then walk out of school with me! To be fair, some of the anti-Trump protests seem to have been initiated by students rather than by teachers. And surely some of the teachers who have denounced Trump run truly inclusive classrooms, where every point of view can be expressed and debated. But the more that teachers berate Trump outside of schools, the harder it will be to generate real dialogue inside of them. Who wants to be the kid who goes against the grain, standing up for a candidate whom teachers have reviled as a racist and an ignoramus? Yes, there are racists in the Trump camp. And some of them are teachers in our schools. A few weeks before Mary Durstein was suspended, an Arkansas science teacher posted remarks calling President Obama a spider monkey and Michelle Obama Americas First Chimp. He also said that President Obama was born in Kenya, echoing the birther lie that Donald Trump did so much to promote. The teacher resigned, acknowledging that his posts had been disrespectful and offensive. But the same goes for the statements by the teacher unions in Los Angeles and New York, which vilify people for their politics rather than for their race. That makes it harder to engage in the civil, respectful discussions that democracy demands. Here we might take a cue from President Obama himself, whose final speech last Tuesday called on Americans to communicate across their differences. If youre tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking to one of them in real life, Obama urged. School is where we learn how to do that. So teachers need to model it, in everything they do. And if they cant, they need to think about getting another job. Theres way too much hate already. Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press). Leaflet-strewn tables promoting the ACLU, the Womens March and the Living Wage Coalition greeted audience members streaming into the YBCA Theater on Friday, Jan. 13. Its hard to imagine a more apt prelude to two-plus hours of fiercely political, feminist performance celebrating Dance Brigade and Artistic Director Krissy Keefer, who founded her first feminist dance company 40 years ago. Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time combined five past works and an epic world premiere. They all bore Keefers indelible stamp, an alchemy of ballet, modern, hip-hop, jazz, taiko drumming, the theatrics of a revival meeting and unabashed female power. Feminism, for me, is a worldview about what is just and what is fair, Keefer, 63, said by phone a few days earlier. For not only women, but for everyone. That has been the driving force of my work. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 JOSH EDELSON/JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Show More Show Less 2 of 3 JOSH EDELSON/JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Show More Show Less 3 of 3 JOSH EDELSON/JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Show More Show Less Keefer trained in ballet as a child in Columbia, S.C., but found her calling in Eugene, Ore., in 1975, when she co-founded the feminist dance company Wallflower Order. Wallflower took political performance on tour internationally. It was the first time that people had seen a bold and brazen and self-proclaiming group of women, with no uncertain terms, make declarations about their female strength ... within the dance world, Keefer said. Resettled in the Bay Area, Keefer co-founded Dance Brigade in 1984 with fellow Wallflower alumna Nina Fichter. (Fichter died in 2003.) Their most famous creation was The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie, a sharp, witty and festive referendum on the dominant paradigm. In 1998, Keefer established Dance Mission in the Mission. Technically a nonprofit studio and performance space, at heart it is a multicultural home and a hub for women and girls of all ages, straight and LGBTQ people, and the disenfranchised and gentrified to express themselves without fear and to speak their truth to power. About 1,500 kids and adults take classes at Dance Mission every week, and select teens join the junior company Grrrl Brigade. The 140-seat theater is booked roughly 45 weeks per year with visiting performers and local artists like Nol Simonse, Micaya and Ramon Ramos Alayo. JOSH EDELSON/JOSH EDELSON / SAN FRANCISCO CHR Sarah Bush, 40, is among the many artists Keefer has supported. I feel so fortunate, says Bush, a 16-year Dance Brigade member and head of her own eponymous dance company. Krissys lasting legacy is of creating this institution based on her values: feminism, diversity, inclusion, celebration of cultures, standing your ground when its not easy. On Friday night, Bush was a marvel of gangly intensity in Break It on Down; women in prairie dresses pounded brooms on the stage floor, incanting Longfellows There was a little girl like frenzied witches, declaiming their right to self-definition. In Swan Song, she was among the black-clad women mourning the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and undulating their arms like Odette/Odile. Keefer invited three men to perform: Adonis Martin, Edisnel Rodriguez and Delvis Frinon, who defected from Cuba and were brought to Dance Mission by Alayo. In Defection, Deflection, Devotion, they conjured sorrow, fear and brotherhood through emotive solos and a remarkable interweaving of acrobatic flips, falls and leveraged balances. Keefer examined current events in 2016s Sin Palabras, about Edward Snowden and press freedom. The work was strongest when Lena Gatchalians video montage of Snowden gave way to TV-fuzz and abstract, high-velocity dancing in a blizzard of foam packing pellets. Spoken word is a defining component of Keefers work, and her 25-year-old daughter, Fredrika, opened the contemporary Tribe with definitive proclamations about women: I am not a pearl, I am the Atlantic Ocean. New generations of girls are finding their voices through Dance Mission. We had very feminist, activist teachers who really trained us to become independent thinkers, says Marivel Mendoza, 20, who first enrolled at age 7 and now teaches there. To be asked as a young girl what your opinion is, is really big and important. I try to implement those ideas into my (students) as well. Unfortunately, rising rents are forcing Dance Mission out of its historic home. A potential new location, at 16th and Mission streets, would offer a 99-year lease, but Keefer describes the renovation costs as exorbitant. As soon as this show is over, I have to go into capital-campaign mode, she laments. After four decades, raising money still daunts her the most. I tell people I have PTSD from running an arts organization in the United States, because its so difficult. That trauma was far from her mind in the second half of the show, when Gracias a la Vida premiered. Holly Near and Christelle Durandy sang in English and Spanish, while the full company pounded joyously on taiko drums and alternated mournful solos with exuberant salsa-inflected hip-hop. They shouted about freedom and justice, Chile, El Salvador and chemical warfare. They performed it with purpose. As Keefer said in her narration, What good is our beauty if it does not serve our people? Claudia Bauer is a Bay Area critic. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com Gracias a la Vida: Love in a Bitter Time continues 3 p.m. (sold out online, limited tickets at the door) and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14. YBCA Theater, 700 Howard St., S.F. $5-$40. www.dancebrigade.org To see a promo for Gracias a la Vida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E70ISqFLE6Q To see the montage From Wallflower Order to Dance Brigade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h39F11aQ3p8 To watch Dance Brigades 2011 work, The Great Liberation Upon Hearing at YBCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvKVldT15I8 One of president-elect Donald Trump's biggest supporters is taking it upon himself and his group of bikers to make sure the inauguration event goes smoothly, promising to form a "wall of meat" to guard against any protestors. Chris Cox is founder of the pro-Trump organization "Bikers for Trump," and is expecting more than 5,000 bikers from his group to be in attendance at the inauguration. On Sunday, Cox spoke with news show "Fox & Friends" and said that should there be any rowdy protesters in attendance, his group will be there to back up security. "In the event that we are needed, we certainly will form a wall of meat," Cox told the show. "What does that mean?" interrupted co-host Abby Huntsman. "What does that mean, 'A wall of meat'?" "We'll be shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and we'll be toe-to-toe with anyone that is going to break through any police barriers, that's going to be assaulting women, spitting on them, throwing things at them," Cox explained. "We are anticipating a peaceful transition of power." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Spencer Platt/Getty Images Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Spencer Platt/Getty Images Show More Show Less The group obtained a permit and will hold what is likely to be the largest pro-Trump rally put on by a private organization during the same time as the inauguration, the Washington Post reported. The rally will have speakers and musical performances, as well as a ceremony to honor veterans. Bikers for Trump was featured in a New York Times video piece, covering its participation in the Republican National Convention in July. Cox told the New York Times his group has boasted as many as 200,000 members since its start supporting Trump back in October 2015. Bay Area filmmaker Tiffany Shlain was planning for months to attend the presidential inauguration. The timing seemed perfect. Two weeks before the election, she debuted her latest film, 50/50: The Past, Present & Future of Women + Power, about the struggle for women to achieve equality. The plan was to screen the film over the inauguration weekend as a celebration of the first female president but that didnt happen. Nevertheless, Shlain is one of thousands of California progressives who are going to Washington this week. While she still plans on screening her film, Shlain is one of many going to protest President-elect Donald Trumps administration as part of a growing movement called the resistance. Throughout the week there will be many protests, the centerpiece being Saturdays Womens March on Washington. Upward of 200,000 people are expected to participate, many wearing pink, hand-knitted, cat-eared caps as a show of pride and defiance to Trump and his attitudes toward women. California organizers say 6,000 people from the state signed up through Facebook to attend the Washington demonstration, but that estimate doesnt include thousands expected to attend who havent expressed their intentions through the social media site to travel east for the gathering. The California delegation is expected to meet at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in front of the Department of Education (400 Maryland Ave. S.W.) and march together under 20 state flags. While there are 12 sister Womens March events across California, including in the Bay Area, many Californians want to make a larger statement in the city where Trump assumes the presidency. Few women will forget seeing anti-Hillary Clinton buttons sold outside the Republican National Convention featuring Clintons photo over the words, Lifes a bitch. Dont vote for one. California organizers say about 150,000 people have signed up through social media to attend Womens March events in the state, including approximately 25,000 in San Francisco, 24,000 in Oakland and 5,000 in San Jose. They expect more to attend as 91,000 others have signaled via Facebook they might attend, and many others not connected to social media are likely to show up, too, organizers said. Nationwide, nearly 700,000 people have signed up to attend 370 events. Three Democratic Bay Area members of Congress, representatives Jared Huffman of San Rafael, Mark DeSaulnier of Concord and Barbara Lee of Oakland are among the seven California House members and 24 overall as of Sunday who say they wont attend the inauguration. Ive been thinking about this for a long time, going back and forth in my mind. said Lee, who also didnt attend former President George W. Bushs 2001 inauguration. While I applaud and support the peaceful transfer of power, this is a celebratory occasion. And Im not going to participate and celebrate him or his agenda or his campaign, which was based on bigotry. Other Californians express their opposition to Trump in more aggressive ways. Organized under the name the Disrupt J20, activists calling themselves the DC Counter-Inaugural Welcoming Committee have been working for weeks, as they described in a fundraising email, to make sure that (Trump) and his supporters wont be able to celebrate the aspiring dictator in peace. Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle More than 300 organizers met in Washington last week to plan how to protest events like the morning prayer breakfasts and the Deploraball, a gala at the National Press Club on Thursday night. Its scheduled to feature bold-faced names such as Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart News editor who was banned from Twitter for repeatedly breaking harassment and abuse policies. We want to cause as much disruption as possible, said Samantha Miller, a former Los Angeles resident who now lives in Washington, D.C., and is an organizer for the Disrupt J20 protests. We completely oppose everything (Trump) stands for. Other Californians are going to Washington for more personal reasons. Palo Alto resident and Clinton donor Christine Suppes was in the Javits Center in New York on election night, standing 20 feet from where she expected to see Clinton claim victory. But when (campaign manager) John Podesta told us at about 2 a.m. to go home, I looked at my friend and said, Oh, no. This is not about going home. I know theres going to be a march in Washington, and Im going, Suppes said. Im a 63-year-old woman, and I havent protested anything since the Vietnam War. But Im going to (Washington) to show my outrage for this election. Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans said she hasnt seen this kind of street energy since the run-up to the Iraq War. Code Pink weve been engaged for 14 years, so its nice to feel everybody wake up again, said the Los Angeles resident, who co-founded the peace group with San Franciscan Medea Benjamin. Evans demonstrated at President George W. Bushs 2001 inauguration just weeks after he like Trump won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Shell be out there in Washington this week too, at permitted demonstrations and spontaneous street blockades. This is a lot more organized, a lot more groups involved, she said. Alameda resident Sarah Jo Neubauer wasnt planning to attend the inauguration if Clinton had won. But after experiencing an out-of-body experience for a few days after the election, she and her wife knew they had to go to Washington. They fear that if Trump appoints more than one Supreme Court justice, the high court could overturn decisions protecting same-sex marriage and a womans right to abortion. Being in a mass rally like the Womens March will help Neubauer feel like shes not alone in harboring those worries. Its important to see such wide support from all sorts of communities outside the liberal Bay Area, Neubauer said. Its important to know that were not alone, and we can overcome any threats to our democracy. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli Donald Trump wasnt Hilary Hagenbuchs first choice for president. The San Franciscan was, admittedly, a Romney girl. But even though the former Massachusetts governors 2016 campaign didnt materialize, Hagenbuch wasnt a never-Trumper and eventually supported her partys nominee. Her reward: She is packing four at least swanky gowns for the inaugural balls and events she plans to attend this week in Washington, D.C. Those include one soiree shes organizing. Not surprisingly, there wont be a lot of Bay Area residents joining her. Trump got 9 percent of the vote in San Francisco, around 15 percent in Alameda and Marin counties, close to 20 percent in the South Bay and 32 percent statewide. San Francisco Republican Party Chairman Jason Clark knows of maybe a dozen San Franciscans going he isnt one of them. But that also explains the joy of those heading to Washington, even people like Hagenbuch who didnt ride the campaign on the Trump train. Being in Washington this week for a Bay Area Republican is about the joys of spending a rare few days among kindred political spirits. About not being afraid to wear your campaign gear in public or telling someone you meet in a bar that youre a Republican. I grew up behind enemy lines here in San Francisco, said Hagenbuch, who leads the local Young Republicans group and is active in the state party, too. It will be very exciting to be among other people like me, politically. But a Republican from San Francisco stands out among her fellow party members. Hagenbuch served as the witness when her two godfathers got married at San Francisco City Hall after being together for 40 years. The old joke you hear is that a Republican from here, she said, is like a Democrat anywhere else. Megan Range wasnt initially a Trump supporter, either, but shes headed to Washington. As the executive director of the Lincoln Club of Northern California a moderate, pro-business group whose members have donated $50 million to mostly California GOP candidates over the past decade Range knows how lonely it can be for Republicans in this part of the state. Thats why shes excited to see friends from Texas, Arkansas and elsewhere. For her, being at the inauguration will pack the same joys as being at Julys Republican National Committee in Cleveland. I get to go into a bar and see someone I know and not get into a fight with people over politics, she said. John Taggart/Bloomberg Among the hot tickets for Californians this week will be the Liberty Ball, hosted by 13-term California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who was on Trumps short list to be secretary of state. Tickets at $250 apiece for the Friday event featuring guitarist Dave Mason at the Library of Congress are sold out. People feel there has been this dark cloud over us for eight years, and now the sun is shining, said Jason Pitkin, a Orange County fundraiser and political consultant who is helping to produce the Liberty Ball. Other Californians will be seeking red state refuge at the $300-a-ticket Black Tie and Boots Ball, sponsored by the Texas State Society. It will provide them a few hours of respite before they return home to a state where Republicans hold no statewide offices and are a minority in the state Legislature. As a Republican in California, we dont get a lot of opportunity to celebrate victories. So Ill travel all the way across the country to celebrate a victory, said Harmeet Dhillon, the San Francisco attorney who is a national committeewoman to the Republican National Committee. Trumps victory was a repudiation of the direction that our country was going in. The victory meant something extra special to Santa Clara resident Juan Hernandez. Mark Wilson/Getty Images While wearing a red Make America Great Again cap, protesters beat him up as he left a June 2 Trump campaign rally at the San Jose Convention Center. After he went public with his complaints about how San Jose police handled the situation he and several others have sued the city for failing to protect them many people approached him and, often in a hushed voice, confided to Hernandez that they were voting for Trump. It felt so liberating to say that I was a Republican Trump supporter, said Hernandez, 38. It felt even more liberating to him when people found out he was a gay Latino Republican Trump supporter. The vast majority of Latinos, largely because of Trumps desire to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, supported Clinton. But going public with his political beliefs also created a lot of personal blowback for Hernandez. Many people told him they couldnt believe a gay person or a Latino could support Trump. That said, Hernandez was somewhat surprised that he received so much more acceptance in my own party than I thought I would, from around the nation. He looks forward to reconnecting with many of those people he sees this week in Washington. And thats why after all the blood, sweat and tears that its going to be even sweeter to see Mr. Trump put his hand on that Bible and take the oath of office, he said. It will make it all worthwhile. Corrin Rankin will appreciate that camaraderie, too, when she travels to the inauguration. The Redwood City resident supported Trump from the moment he announced his candidacy. As the owner of a bail-bond company, she wanted to see a business executive in the White House. And while she acknowledged that it can be lonely for Trump supporters in the Bay Area, she said she didnt feel any particular isolation being the California state chairwoman for African Americans for Trump. Nearly 9 of 10 black voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton. I dont see it as being any different, Rankin said. Everywhere you go around here whether people are black or white or Hispanic chances are most people are Democrats. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli An off-duty Contra Costa County sheriffs deputy and blues musician was arrested and later fired after shooting a handgun outside a party in Sacramento, authorities said Monday. Kyle Rowland, 23, a rookie deputy who lives in Sacramento and recently started commuting to his new job in the Bay Area, was attending a small gathering late Thursday at a home in his downtown neighborhood. He left the party briefly, possibly after a dispute, only to return after midnight with two firearms, according to the Sacramento Police Department. His return to the party created a disturbance and a confrontation ensued between Rowland and others at the house, police said. During the ruckus, Rowland fired a handgun multiple times, police said. Thankfully no one was struck by the gunfire, said Officer Matthew McPhail. One of the people at the party immediately intervened and attempted to physically restrain him, which is a pretty courageous thing to do if youre not armed. When Sacramento police arrived at the home on the 1100 block of G Street, Rowland was being held down by the man who intervened. His mugshot taken after his arrest showed his face, particularly his right eye, bruised and bloodied. Rowland was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and was still being held Monday in Sacramento Countys main jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Sacramento County Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon. The Contra Costa County Sheriffs Office said Sunday that Rowland was terminated after the arrest. He had been on the job since October. Detectives were looking into whether the guns he allegedly brought to the party belonged to him or the sheriffs office. Rowland is a harmonica player and frontman for the Kyle Rowland Blues Band. The band is popular on Californias blues festival circuit and regularly plays gigs in the Sacramento and San Francisco areas. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander By the time the sun rose on March 28, 1965, the crowds were already gathering at Grace Cathedral. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., took to the pulpit at 10, there were 5,000 people packed in the cathedral, the plaza and even the parking lot. San Francisco's most famous church had never seen a bigger gathering. King's sermon was part of the church's consecration celebration; the year before, its current French Gothic reconstruction was finished after nearly four decades of work. The invitation came courtesy of Bishop James Pike, a friend of King's and civil rights advocate himself, and when King had accepted it, he had no idea how taxing the engagement would be. Just days before, the third of three marches from Selma to Montgomery had taken place, capping off a month of marches. King's weariness is evident; he accidentally starts to address the crowd as Los Angeles before quickly correcting himself to say San Francisco. But despite the slow start, King quickly falls into his signature, powerful oratorial style. You can watch his sermon in the YouTube clips below. The most beautiful part comes during the second half when he speaks on the mission of mankind. "He must seek to develop his inner power in a brilliant manner. No matter how small it may be according to the world's standards, he must see that it has cosmic significance if it is for the building of humanity," King says. "He must come to see that whatever he is called to do has significance if it is for the making of a better world. "So if you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley. But be the best little scrub on the side of the hill. Be a bush, if you can, be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or you fail. "Be the best of whatever you are." King was no stranger to the Bay Area. Over the years, he spoke at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond. In 1956, he attended the NAACP's national convention at Civic Auditorium in SF. And in 1964, he was a speaker at the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace. But the weight of King's weariness and the unshaken strength of his convictions in the Grace Cathedral sermon make it one of his most powerful and enduring Bay Area speeches. "Before the victory is won, some of us will get scarred up a bit. Before the victory for brotherhood is won, we will have to face more crowded and frustrated jail cells. Before the victory is won, maybe somebody else will have to face physical death," King ends the sermon. "But a physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children and their white brothers from a permanent death of the spirit. Then nothing can be more redemptive. "We shall overcome." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate John Gonzales made the drive from his Napa home to San Francisco on Sunday to show support for the Affordable Care Act. For him just like it was for hundreds who turned out at City Hall to protest President-elect Donald Trumps pledge to undo the health care law it was personal. Three years ago, the 40-year-old engineer lost his job and was paying for medical insurance out of his own pocket when he learned that his son had an immune system deficiency. The 2-year-old would need a bone marrow transplant as well pricey medication, and their insurance company didnt want to go forward with coverage. But under President Obamas signature legislation, which doesnt allow insurers to drop customers because of health conditions, his son got the requisite surgery as well as the antirejection drugs that he takes to this day, Gonzales said. I dont know how I would have done it without Obamacare, said Gonzales, who now runs his own company. My sons basically cured, but he needs medication once a month, and its pretty expensive. Almost 2,000 people, including such notables as recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Joan Baez, rallied Sunday afternoon in Civic Center Plaza behind the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. The demonstration was among several coordinated nationwide, from Los Angeles to Detroit, to fend off a Republican-led dismantling of the 2010 law, one of outgoing President Obamas signature achievements. On Friday, a week before Trump takes office, Congress voted to begin the repeal process. While the legislation has added millions of Americans to the health care rolls, critics have decried its costs. Headlining Sundays show of speakers, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, panned her Republican counterparts for acting to take away peoples health insurance. Their plan is to make America sick again, she said to loud cheers. Signs with such slogans as Trump makes me sick and Health care is a human right were ubiquitous in the crowd. While Trump and his congressional allies have said they will come up with a policy to replace Obamacare one that is better, according to the president-elect they have yet to offer details. The Republicans dont have a plan, Pelosi said. They want to cut and run. Pelosi was joined at the podium by several in Californias Congressional delegation, including Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, as well as San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. A repeal vote will start us down the path toward the road to chaos, Lee said. It means turning our backs on the most vulnerable. Perhaps the most popular to take to the makeshift stage Sunday was Baez, who performed an a cappella version of the classic hymn Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. With an afternoon full of personal and passionate calls to save Obamacare, and no opposition in the vicinity, Baez was figuratively singing to the choir. Californias widespread support of the law isnt likely to be enough to stop what will amount to a procedural budget vote in Washington soon to can the program, experts say. The Affordable Care Act is credited with expanding health coverage to more than 20 million people, including about 4 million in California. But its had problems. Premiums and co-payments for many of the newly insured are rising, and subsidies to help them are testing the budgets of states and the federal government, which are having to cough up more funding to insurance companies. The process of developing an alternative policy, as Republicans have promised, is complicated by the fact that popular parts of the Affordable Care Act are paid for by its less favorable components, like special taxes and a mandate that everyone must buy insurance. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander Crack open a book at the San Francisco Public Library, and you can find tales about dragons and castles, ancient cultures and traditions, mysteries and romances. But heres the thing: The characters will probably be white. Despite a push by book lovers for more ethnic diversity in published books, library shelves have remained largely uniform, with white authors penning tales about white people, statistics show. Those books fail to reflect the rich diversity of San Francisco, and point to a persistent problem across the country, librarians say. But a San Francisco Public Library program running this month seeks less homogeneity within the pages of books. The citywide We Love Diverse Books program includes 50 events during January to broaden the scope of what patrons read, including author discussions, cooking lessons and manga art workshops. The program emphasizes the importance of literary mirrors, where readers see themselves and their identities reflected in the books they read. We are the place that supports the values of equity and inclusion the bedrock of American democratic values, said City Librarian Luis Herrera. We work hard to ensure that the books and resources on our shelves mirror the diversity of our city. We believe it is important for everyone, especially children, to see themselves reflected in literature. In recent years, the number of books featuring diverse characters, everything from skin color to sexual orientation or family makeup, has stagnated. Less than 10 percent of books published each year feature characters who break from tradition, showed a 2015 study from the Cooperative Childrens Book Center, a research arm of the University of Wisconsin-Madisons School of Education. Homogeneity can be particularly damaging to children, studies reveal. Diverse literature helps young readers build pride in their community and opens them up to other cultures, a 2010 University of Chicago study found. That exposure begins with what literature is available on library shelves, said Meredith Steiner, a childrens librarian at the West Portal Branch Library. But when Steiner is creating seasonal book displays or picking a picture book to read during story time, the options are limited. She often cycles through the same books, she said. There are few books about race, which is pretty egregious, Steiner said. And there are very few books about kids with disabilities or books about children who come from families with two moms or dads. One of the fundamental pieces of childhood is building empathy and being able to put yourself in another persons shoes. That is the beauty of really good writing and illustrations. During the program, local authors, including Robert Liu-Trujillo, Katrina Goldsaito and Maya Gonzalez, will read from their books and teach children how to write and illustrate their own short stories. Janine Macbeth, who runs Oakland publishing house Blood Orange Press, will also explain the process that takes a book goes from writing desk to library shelf. Macbeth, 37, opened the press in 2013 after she noticed her community wasnt reflected in the books sold in Oakland bookshops and lining library displays. I first started looking and noticing that authors and illustrators werent reflected in the books in my school library, she said. Growing up in Oakland, there was such a broad diversity of my classmates and peers and people I lived around. I started to think that, oh, this is an industry that you have to be white to play in and to succeed in. We need more books that show what our city is actually like. And the program is timely, given the issues playing out at a national level, said Naomi Jelks, the adult engagement coordinator for the Main Library. With the political changes we are seeing, its a very timely program, she said. As a library system, its important for us to highlight and elevate authors of merit, writers of color, women and the LGBTQIA community. We need to catch up. Besides, she added, a region like the Bay Area should reflect everyone that lives there and the acceptance it is known for. She said, Thats just part of the fabric of San Francisco. Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn Literary diversity program The We Love Diverse Books program runs through January. More information can be found at http://bit.ly/2jkUzut or by calling (415) 557-4400. DAVOS, Switzerland The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday. Presenting its findings on the dawn of the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, antipoverty organization Oxfam says the gap between the very rich and poor is far greater than just a year ago. Its urging leaders to do more than pay lip service to the problem. If not, it warns, public anger against this kind of inequality will continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last years election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britains vote to leave the European Union. It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International. Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; it is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy. The same report a year earlier said that the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. However, Oxfam has revised that figure down to eight following new information gathered by Swiss bank Credit Suisse. Oxfam used Forbes billionaires list that was last published in March to make its headline claim. According to the Forbes list, Microsoft founder Gates is the richest individual with a net worth of $75 billion. The others, in order of ranking, are Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex; financier Warren Buffett; Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim Helu; Amazon boss Jeff Bezos; Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg; Oracles Larry Ellison; and Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York. Oxfam outlined measures that it hopes will be enacted to help reduce the inequality. They include higher taxes on wealth and income to ensure more fairness and to fund investments in public services and jobs, greater cooperation among governments on ensuring workers are paid decently and the rich dont dodge their taxes. And business leaders should commit to paying their fair share of taxes and a living wage to employees. Max Lawson, Oxfams policy adviser, urged billionaires to do the right thing, and to do what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is pay their taxes. The ability of the rich to avoid paying taxes was vividly exposed last year in the so-called Panama Papers, a leaked trove of data that revealed details on offshore accounts that helped individuals shelter their wealth. We have a situation where billionaires are paying less tax often than their cleaner or their secretary, Lawson told the Associated Press. Thats crazy. Its because of this kind of inequality that trust in institutions has fallen sharply since the global financial crisis of 2008, according to Edelman, one of the worlds biggest marketing firms. In its own pre-Davos survey of more than 33,000 people across 28 markets, Edelman found the largest-ever drop in trust across government, business, media and even non-governmental organizations. CEO credibility is at an all-time low and government leaders are the least trusted group, according to the survey. The firms 2017 Trust Barometer found that 53 percent of respondents believe the current system has failed them in that it is unfair and offers few hopes for the future, with only 15 percent believing it is working. That belief was evident for both the general population and those with college education. The implications of the global trust crisis are deep and wide-ranging, said Richard Edelman, the firms president and CEO. It began with the Great Recession of 2008, but like the second and third waves of a tsunami, globalization and technological change have further weakened peoples trust in global institutions. The consequence is virulent populism and nationalism as the mass population has taken control away from the elites. Edelman highlighted how the emergence of a media echo chamber that reinforces personal beliefs while shutting out opposing views has magnified this cycle of distrust. According to the survey, search engines are trusted more as an information tool than traditional news editors, 59 percent to 41 percent. People now view media as part of the elite, said Edelman. The result is a proclivity for self-referential media and reliance on peers. The lack of trust in media has also given rise to the fake news phenomenon and politicians speaking directly to the masses. Edelman said business may be best-placed to help improve trust. Companies need to be transparent and honest with their employees about the changes taking place in the work-place, improve skills and pay fairly, he said. The online survey was conducted between Oct. 13 and Nov. 16. Pan Pylas is an Associated Press writer. Rich getting richer The wealthy eight, left to right, starting at the top: Bill Gates $75 billion Gates co-founded Microsoft in the 1970s. He quit as CEO in 2000 and now devotes much of his fortune to his philanthropic activities in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has reduced his ownership in Microsoft to less than 3 percent. Amancio Ortega $67 billion The richest person in Europe, Ortega opened the first Zara fashion shop in Spain in 1975. Now the chain, part of his Inditex group, has 7,000 shops globally. Its boom is largely due to a low-cost model that competes with the likes of H&M. Warren Buffett $60.8 billion The Oracle of Omaha began investing as a teenager in the 1940s and gradually grew his firm, Berkshire Hathaway. He is notoriously frugal and favors investing in companies with proven business models over new industries, such as tech. Carlos Slim Helu $50 billion The Mexican tycoon has a major ownership in America Movil, a telecommunications multinational worth $42 billion. He was ranked as the richest person three years ago, but saw his net worth hit by a downturn in Latin American economies. Jeff Bezos $45.2 billion The founder and CEO of Amazon.com now is trying his hand in other industries. Hes bought the Washington Post and set up an aerospace company, Blue Origin, that aims to make space accessible to tourists and paying customers. Mark Zuckerberg $44.6 billion He founded Facebook in 2004 as a college student to connect other Harvard students. Now 32, Zuckerberg has managed to make Facebook profitable where rivals like Twitter have lagged, and expanded it with targeted acquisitions. Larry Ellison $43.6 billion As a young programmer, Ellisons first big client was the CIA. The name of the project was Oracle. In 1977, Ellison and associates used that name for their company, which creates software that helps manage databases. Michael Bloomberg $40 billion He created the eponymous financial information provider in 1981 after getting laid off from an investment bank. Bloomberg made it a lucrative business in particular by selling data terminals to financial services firms. He later became the mayor of New York. Researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago recently conducted "the first nationwide study of positive relationships." Bill Chopik, an assistant psychology professor who studies relationships and their effects, and Matt Motyl of the University of Illinois at Chicago studied survey data of 127,070 adults from all states to find the best and worst states for romantic relationships. 1 Base shooting: U.S. Air Force investigators have determined that post-traumatic stress disorder and the unraveling of a distinguished military career led an airman to fatally shoot his commander last year at a San Antonio base before killing himself, according to Air Force documents. Investigators determined Tech. Sgt. Steven Bellino confronted Lt. Col. William Schroeder at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland last April before the two struggled and Schroeder was shot multiple times. Both men were veterans of U.S. Special Operations Command. 2 Ocean search: The Coast Guard on Monday suspended its search for a father and his son who were swept into the sea by a wave along an Oregon beach. The agency searched unsuccessfully Sunday and Monday for Jayson Dean Thomas, 31, of Elmira and his 3-year-old son. Thomas and the boy had been walking Sunday on a beach about 2 miles north of Cape Blanco when the wave struck. The boys mother saw it happen and called authorities. The ocean was rough due to an approaching storm. Party General Secretary successfully wraps up China visit Party chief sends thank-you message to top Chinese leader Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping Party General Secretary successfully wraps up China visit Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has sent a message of thanks to Chinese Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, right after he concluded a four-day official visit to China on January 15.In the message, the Vietnamese Party chief appreciated General Secretary Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders for their warm reception for the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation.He said a beautiful China with strong development and hospitable people has left a very profound impression on him and other Vietnamese delegates.General Secretary Trong expressed his belief that positive outcomes of the visit would contribute significantly to strengthening the friendship, political trust and comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China for the development of the two nations, for the sake of their people, as well as for peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity in the region and in the world.He wished that the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and comrade Xi Jinping, would reap greater successes in the cause of building a well-off society and developing China into a modern socialist nation with prosperity, democracy, civilisation and harmony.The Vietnamese Party chief also extended his Lunar New Year greetings to comrade Xi Jinping and other top Chinese officials, wishing them good health, happiness and success.Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation arrived in Hanoi on January 15 afternoon, concluding their four-day official visit to China at the invitation of Chinese General Secretary and President Xi Jinping. During the visit, Party General Secretary Trong held talks with Party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, and had meetings with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Yu Zhengsheng, and Secretary of the Party Central Committees Commission for Discipline Inspection Wang Qishan. The Vietnamese Party leader also attended a function celebrating the 67th anniversary of Vietnam-China diplomatic relations and the Lunar New Year 2017. The two sides signed 15 cooperation documents in various fields and issued a 10-point joint communique. Through the talks and meetings, the two sides informed each other of the situation in each country, exchanged opinions and reached consensus on deepening the relationship between the two Parties and countries in the new era. They also exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern. The two sides held that Vietnam and China are two neighbouring countries with long traditional friendship; both are socialist nations led by the Communist Party; and the sustainable development of each country and the friendship and good cooperation are of great importance to both nations. The two sides consented that the Vietnam-China traditional relationship nurtured by Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong and generations of leaders is a precious asset of the two Parties, States, and peoples and need to be inherited, preserved and promoted in the new situation. The two sides agreed to maintain and increase the traditional exchanges of Vietnam-China high-ranking visits and contact, and make the best of the coordination role of exchange and cooperation mechanisms between the two Parties and countries and deepen exchanges and cooperation in diplomacy, defence, security and law enforcement. The two sides agreed to further boost practical cooperation in economy, trade, agriculture, environment, science-technology and transport, and encourage Chinas major enterprises to invest in projects suitable with Vietnams demand and sustainable development. Vietnam recommended China to increase the import of highly competitive Vietnamese goods and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to invest and do business in China. The two sides highlighted the need to promote exchanges between the Vietnamese and Chinese people, especially young generations, to enhance their mutual understanding and friendship. The two sides also frankly and sincerely discussed sea-related issues and agreed to boost coordination and cooperation at multilateral frameworks, together preserving peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. Official: Party chiefs China visit ends successfully Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trongs official visit to China from January 12-15 has been successful and achieved important results, Head of the Party Central Committees Commission for External Relations Hoang Binh Quan said in an interview to the press at the end of the trip. Quan said the top leaders of the two Parties and countries reached common important perceptions of relations between Vietnam and China as well as major orientations to strengthen political trust, friendship and cooperation, maintain a peaceful and friendly environment and the trend of healthy and stable development in the bilateral ties. The two sides agreed to release a 10-point Joint Communique which highlights the need to increase high-level meetings, cooperation and exchanges between the two Parties, promote strategic connectivity, foster trade-investment ties, expand national defence-security cooperation, enhance people-to-people exchanges, and strengthen social foundations. Chinese President Xi Jinping accepted the Vietnamese leaders invitation to visit Vietnam and attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit slated for late 2017. During the visit, 15 important documents were signed between agencies of the two Parties and nations in order to intensify cooperation in different areas, besides other economic deals inked between businesses. The leaders also straightforwardly, sincerely, openly discussed existing matters in bilateral ties, especially the East Sea issue, and emphasised the necessity to abide by the Agreement on Basic Principles Guiding the Settlement of Issues at Sea, fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and promptly formulate a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC), well control disputes at sea, and refrain from actions that further complicate and extend disputes for peace and stability in the East Sea. They also agreed to expand and promote people-to-people exchanges, especially among young generations, localities and the media to enhance mutual understanding between the two peoples, thus laying a social foundation for bilateral relations. During the trip, Quan noted, the Vietnamese Party chief held talks and meetings with five out of seven permanent members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China. General Secretary Trong also attended a get-together celebrating the 67th anniversary of Vietnam-China diplomatic ties, met Chinese patriotic personalities, intellectuals, officials and relatives of Chinese families who contributed to Vietnams revolutionary cause and Vietnam-China friendship; visited Hangzhou city of Zhejiang province; and talked with Chinese leading businesses operating in Vietnam. In conclusion, Quan expressed his belief that the visit would mark a significant milestone to further develop the relationship between the two Parties and nations in a healthy, positive and steady way in the future. Party chief highlights firms role in Vietnam-China relations Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has affirmed that Vietnam attaches importance to its economic, trade and investment ties with China, and creates favourable conditions for businesses of both countries to enhance their cooperation for the development of each nation as well as the bilateral relationship. During a meeting with representatives of Chinese businesses in Hangzhou city of Zhejiang province on January 15, the Vietnamese Party chief said he was delighted to visit Zhejiang, one of the most outstanding Chinese localities in terms of start-up movements, dynamism and innovation. He noted Vietnam and China are the largest trade partners of each other, adding that as an emerging market with a population of 92 million and an annual average growth rate of 6-7 percent, Vietnam is considered one of the most potential and attractive markets in terms of foreign investment attraction. General Secretary Trong welcomed Chinese enterprises investing in Vietnam with projects using advanced and environmentally-friendly technologies, with a priority given to projects in the fields of agriculture, high technology, supporting industry, clean and renewable energy, technological transfer and high-quality human resource development. The Vietnamese leader hoped that the two countries businesses would further contribute to the development of increasingly balanced and healthy bilateral trade as well as promoting tourism to enhance mutual understanding and friendship between the Vietnamese and Chinese people. He expected that Chinese firms would improve the efficiency of cooperation with Vietnamese partners for mutual benefits in the foreseeable future. Vice Governor of Zhejiang province Liang Liming, expressed her hope that the meeting will help increase partnerships among Chinese and Vietnamese enterprises and localities in different fields such as high technology, logistics, agricultural production, processing and export while enhancing the friendship and exchanges between the two nations peoples, especially young generations. She told her guests that Zhejiang has long partnered with Vietnams central province of Thua Thien-Hue and other localities. As many as 26 Vietnamese companies have so far invested in Zhejiang while Zhejiang firms have poured more than 1.6 billion USD in more than 180 projects in Vietnam. Liang believed that with the guidance of the two governments and market economy regulations, cooperative ties between Chinese and Vietnamese businesses and localities will be more bustling and effective. On this occasion, Vietnams Thu Ha company and Chinas Huaxia Xingfu signed a contract to develop an ecological urban area in Hoa Lac of Hanoi. In the morning of the same day, the Party leader met staff of the Vietnamese Consulate General in Shanghai and visited Wan Shi Li Corporation in Zhejiang. Party leader calls at Chinas Zhejiang province General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong enjoys Long Jing tea at the Ha Fang ancient town in Hangzhou city. Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has urged leaders of Zhejiang province to boost exchanges and cooperation with Vietnamese localities, making practical contributions to the development of the Vietnam-China friendly and cooperative relations. The Vietnamese Party leader made the recommendation while receiving Xia Baolong, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee of Zhejiang province, which is a stopover of his official visit to China from January 12-15. Party General Secretary Trong said he was delighted to visit Zhejiang province where boasts beautiful landscapes and cultural traditions and President Ho Chi Minh visited many times. He congratulated leaders and people of Zhejiang on outstanding achievements in reform process, especially in pursuing a harmony of social and economic development, developing State-owned enterprises, protecting the environment, preserving and promoting cultural traditions, improving living conditions for local people and accelerating international integration. For his part, Xia briefed the Vietnamese delegation about the provinces socio-economic development achievements and major orientations for the coming time as well as its cooperative ties with Vietnamese ministries, sectors and localities. He stressed that economic, trade, tourism and educational cooperation between Zhejiang and Vietnamese localities are developing fruitfully, adding the provincial authorities are willing to facilitate these cooperative relations. While in Hangzhou city, Party General Secretary Trong and the Vietnamese high-ranking delegation visited the ancient town of He Fang, one of the citys oldest and best preserved with unique characteristics at the end of Qing Dynasty. General Secretary Trong and the delegation enjoyed the famous Long Jing tea before taking a boat trip on the West Lake, one of five most beautiful lakes in China and was recognised as world cultural heritage in 2011 by UNESCO. VNA RIO DE JANEIRO The death toll from a riot in a penitentiary in northeastern Brazil rose Sunday to at least 26 prisoners, increasing the number of prison killings this year in the country to more than 120. Decapitations and mutilations are common in Brazils violent, overcrowded prisons, in which 40 percent of inmates have yet to be sentenced. But the latest wave of brutality has appalled many. The riot began Saturday at the State Penitentiary of Alcacuz, 13 miles from Natal, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, and continued until Sunday morning when riot police took control. The situation of the rebellion is controlled, said Maj. Eduardo Franco of the Rio Grande do Norte police. Authorities confirmed a total of 26 bodies, many mutilated. The prison has a capacity of 620 but was holding around 1,100 prisoners. Wilma Batista, director of the prison agents union in Rio Grande do Norte, sent a photograph of two headless, mutilated corpses and said she had seen many others. We are shocked, she said. With Brazil swamped in recession, President Michel Temers government reeling from one graft scandal after another, and a wave of seemingly uncontrollable prison violence, many Brazilians feel they are going back to a darker recent past when crime, corruption and the economy were out of control. We thought we had turned that page, and now it is coming back, said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. The killings marked the escalation of a gang war that exploded when 56 prisoners were slain in a prison in Manaus in Amazonas state on Jan. 1. State authorities ascribed blame to the Family of the North, an Amazon drug gang that had attacked prisoners connected to a rival gang, First Capital Command, a Sao Paulo gang known by its Portuguese acronym, PCC. The gangs were believed to be fighting for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes. On Jan. 6, 33 prisoners were found butchered at a prison in Boa Vista in Roraima state. State authorities said the PCC was behind the killings. Dom Phillips is a New York Times writer. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan A Turkish cargo plane crashed Monday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Boeing 747 crashed at 7:40 a.m. while approaching Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek, in the Central Asian nation. Footage from the scene showed the planes nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. A dozen body bags were laid out in the yard of one home. A car parked nearby was mangled in the crash. The bodies of 15 victims, including five children, all of them Kyrgyz citizens, had been identified by Monday evening, the Kyrgyz government said on its website. Another 15 people, including six children, were hospitalized in the disaster, according to the health ministry. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 of the 43 houses in the village were destroyed. Several dozen homes were near the fence surrounding the runway. The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to the Istanbul cargo company ACT Airlines, which said the dead included the planes four Turkish crew members: two pilots, a freight expert and a flight technician. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Emergency Situations Minister Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical. One of the planes two flight recorders was recovered at the scene, according to the Kyrgyz prime ministers office. I woke up because of a bright red light outside, resident Baktygul Kurbatova, who was slightly injured, told local television. I couldnt understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. I was so scared, but I managed to cover my sons face with my hands so debris would not fall on him. The Manas airport has been considerably expanded since the United States began to operate a military installation there, using it primarily for its military operations in Afghanistan. The U.S. handed the base over to the Kyrgyz military in 2014. ACT Airlines said Monday that the crash wasnt the result of technical reasons or factors linked to the freight on the plane. It did not specify the planes cargo. It said the planes records book had no history of technical faults and said the plane had not encountered any mishaps during its journey or as it proceeded to land at Bishkek. Turkeys transportation ministry sent two experts from its accident investigation board to Bishkek to assist Kyrgyz authorities. Leila Saralayeva is an Associated Press writer. CAIRO An Egyptian court on Monday ruled against the governments attempt to transfer two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, an embarrassment for President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that could deepen tensions with his onetime gulf patron. The decision to transfer the uninhabited islands of Tiran and Sanafir, announced alongside a Saudi aid package last year, fueled accusations of a sell-off and sparked the largest protests of el-Sissis 2-year rule. The deal was signed last April during a visit by Saudi King Salman, who announced billions of dollars in Saudi loans and investment. The government insists the islands always belonged to Saudi Arabia and were merely placed under Egypts protection in the 1950s. But the Supreme Administrative Court, in a unanimous verdict, upheld a lower courts ruling that the move was unconstitutional. It said the islands were Egyptian and that the government provided no documents to prove otherwise. The ruling marks a major setback for el-Sissi, who rode to power on a surge of nationalism after leading the 2013 military overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and Egypts first freely elected president. El-Sissi has since presided over a crackdown on dissent, banning all unauthorized protests and jailing thousands. But the islands deal galvanized opposition among many of his former supporters, and hundreds took to the streets last April after it was announced. Mondays verdict was met with an eruption of cheers from activists and lawyers in the Cairo courtroom. Khaled Ali, a former presidential candidate and the head lawyer contesting the deal, was lifted onto the shoulders of supporters while flashing the V-for-victory sign and chanting: The land is Egyptian. The governments options are now limited. It can appeal to the Supreme Constitutional Court, arguing that the president has the right to conclude such a deal, or submit the entire agreement to international arbitration. Maggie Michael is an Associated Press writer. VALLETTA, Malta Tens of thousands of people seeking better lives are expected to trek across deserts and board unseaworthy boats in war-torn Libya this year in a desperate effort to reach European shores by way of Italy. More than 181,000 people, most considered economic migrants with little chance of being allowed to stay in Europe, attempted to cross the central Mediterranean last year from Libya, Africas nearest stretch of coast to Italy. About 4,500 died or disappeared. Hundreds already have taken to the sea this month, braving the winter weather. In the latest reminder of the journeys perils, more than 100 people were missing off Libyas coast over the weekend after a migrant boat sank. Some European leaders are warning of a fresh migration crisis when sea waters warm again and more people choose to put their lives in the hands of smugglers. Come next spring, the number of people crossing over the Mediterranean will reach record levels, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the European Unions presidency, predicted. The 28-nation EU already has a controversial deal to stem the flow of migrants from Turkey, which has agreed to try to stop the number of migrants leaving the country and to take back thousands more. In exchange, Turkey is supposed to receive billions of euros, visa-free travel for its citizens, and fast-tracked EU membership talks. Now, the EU wants to adapt this outsourcing pact to African nations that migrants are leaving to reach Europe, despite criticism that the agreement sends asylum-seekers back to countries that could be unsafe for them. The bottom line is that the Turkey deal works. The number of people arriving in the Greek islands, for instance, plunged over the last year despite political wrangling over whether Turkeys government was meeting the conditions for securing the visa-free travel incentive. EU nations have even fewer scruples about turning away migrants who take the central Mediterranean route to Italy since they mostly are job seekers who would be ineligible for asylum. Libya and Egypt are the main migrant departure points, and pacts with them would probably have the biggest immediate impact. Muscat wants to build on a deal Italy is trying to reach with Libya by adding EU funds and other support. But Libya has no central authority with the stability to negotiate a long-term agreement. Lorne Cook is an Associated Press writer. PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico Gunfire broke out in a crowded beachfront nightclub throbbing with electronic music before dawn Monday, causing five deaths and setting off a bloody stampede by screaming concertgoers at an international festival in this Caribbean resort. At least one person died in the crush to escape and some of the 15 people wounded or injured were hurt in the rush, authorities said. Quintana Roo state Attorney General Miguel Angel Pech ruled out any terror attack, and the states governor said it involved a personal dispute. Pech said the shooting erupted when security personnel tried to stop a man from entering the Blue Parrot club with a gun. Three of those killed were part of the security detail at the 10-day BPM electronic music festival, Pech said. State officials said the dead included two Canadians, an Italian and a Colombian. The gunman apparently fled. Officials released a list of the dead, who included one Canadian, one American, two Mexicans and an Italian. The Quintana Roo state prosecutors office identified the American as Alejandra Villanueva Ibarra. The office said she died in the crush to escape the shooting. Media reports indicated she was from Denver. I was thinking it was the same thing that happened in Paris, some guy just walking in and shooting people at a restaurant, bang bang bang, a terrorist attack, said New Zealand tourist Tyler Klee, who was outside the club when shots rang out. Everyone ran, everyone was terrified, looking for their friends. ... We were running away and then you hear more shots fired, like you dont know if youre going to be shot in the back or not. Pech said eight of the injured, including two U.S. citizens, were treated at hospitals and released. The shooting occurred near the largest exit, setting off chaos as concertgoers had to scramble over a metal fence to escape to the beach. Pech said the shooter apparently tried to enter the nightclub about 2:30 a.m. but was denied access because he had a gun. He then began to exchange fire with another person, and festival security personnel who tried to stop the shooting came under fire, Pech said. He said 20 bullet casings from three different pistols were found at the scene, but it was unclear if the security detail was armed or fired any of the weapons. Pech said the gunman himself apparently escaped, though three people had been detained nearby. Christopher Sherman is an Associated Press writer. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Oman said Monday it accepted 10 detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close. Omans Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it had accepted the prisoners at Obamas request. It did not name the prisoners. In consideration of their humanitarian situation, 10 persons have been released from detention and arrived in the sultanate today for a temporary residence, the statement said. The sultanate of Oman previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Neighboring Saudi Arabia took four prisoners this month, and the United Arab Emirates took 15 in the largest single transfer during Obamas administration in August. Oman has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries. Authorities recently said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obamas presidency. Obama has been unable to close the facility in part because of congressional opposition to transferring any of the detainees to U.S. prisons. Congress ultimately banned the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil for any reason. Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Friday as Americas 45th president, said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but load it up with some bad dudes. There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism. Jon Gambrell is an Associated Press writer. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Bullit Marquez/Associated Press Show More Show Less 2 of 3 NICKEE BUTLANGAN/AFP/Getty Images Show More Show Less 3 of 3 MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he has ordered his troops to bomb extremists who flee with their captives in a bid to stop a wave of kidnappings at sea, calling the loss of civilian lives in such an attack collateral damage. Duterte has previously stated that he had told his Indonesian and Malaysian counterparts their forces can blast away as they pursue militants who abduct sailors in waters where the three countries converge and bring their kidnap victims to the southern Philippines. He said in a speech late Saturday that he had given the same orders to Filipino forces. ANZ Bank New Zealand has agreed to extend the deadline for Veritas Investments to either sell or begin winding up its Nosh food supermarkets until the end of the month. In a statement to the NZX, Veritas said it had "received a number of approaches from potential purchasers of Nosh" and the board is in discussions with several parties about a potential sale of Nosh. The owner of the Nosh franchise on Constellation Drive in Auckland's Mairangi Bay has dropped the Nosh brand from its store. Veritas said the franchisee has indicated that he will operate independently of the Nosh franchise and "has purported to terminate its franchise agreement. Veritas does not accept that termination, and the parties are in dispute over the matter." The food and beverage investor took on a $5 million funding line with ANZ to buy the Nosh stores in 2014 but has struggled to turn the gourmet supermarkets into a profitable business. Veritas renegotiated its banking arrangements in October to reduce its repayments and reschedule its debt, as its Mad Butcher and Nosh businesses weighed on the group. In December, the company said it had until Jan. 15 to deliver either an unconditional contract for the sale of Nosh or a proposal to close and wind it down by the end of March. It now has until Jan. 31 to deliver a proposal to the bank. The shares were unchanged at 20 cents, and have fallen 60 percent from a year earlier. 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: SKC - ADDITIONAL US PRIVATE PLACEMENT FUNDING SECURED Spark New Zealand Limited's Annual Meeting Results 2022 Fonterra Australia settles class action proceedings PFI - Q3 Dividend, Development and Divestment Update November 4th Morning Report FPH to announce half year results on 29 November 2022 ATM - FDA approval to supply infant milk formula to United States Steel & Tube - Adopts ESG World Platform BGP - 3rd Quarter Sales to 30 October 2022 GEO - Quarterly Operating Update The number of visitors from South Africa in November last year rose by more than a quarter, despite the ending of the visa waiver agreement between the two countries. Figures published by Statistics New Zealand show 2,144 South African nationals visited the country in November, an increase of 448, or 26 percent, on the same month a year earlier. On Nov. 21, 2016, Immigration New Zealand ended its visa waiver programme for South Africans, citing the increased number who had been refused entry to New Zealand because they were not genuine visitors. All South African citizens must now apply for a visa prior to travel. South Africa then introduced the requirement for New Zealand citizens to obtain a visitor's visa a month later. The South African High Commission's website shows that a visitor's visa costs $95. The biggest growth in visitor numbers in November came from the United States, with 33,888 visiting New Zealand that month, a rise of 7,136, or 27 percent. Other established tourist markets for New Zealand saw strong growth, with visitor numbers from Japan and Korea rising 25 percent and 27 percent respectively. The number of visitors from China, a growing source of tourists, was more stable, with 38,752 arriving in New Zealand in November, an increase of 5.5 percent, or 2,016. The strongest growth in visitor numbers in percentage terms came from Argentina. Tourists from there rose to 1,344, an increase of 928, or 223 percent. In December 2015, Air New Zealand introduced a new direct route between Auckland and Buenos Aires, upgrading the plane to a Dreamliner and lifting the frequency of flights from Oct. 30 last 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: SKC - ADDITIONAL US PRIVATE PLACEMENT FUNDING SECURED Spark New Zealand Limited's Annual Meeting Results 2022 Fonterra Australia settles class action proceedings PFI - Q3 Dividend, Development and Divestment Update November 4th Morning Report FPH to announce half year results on 29 November 2022 ATM - FDA approval to supply infant milk formula to United States Steel & Tube - Adopts ESG World Platform BGP - 3rd Quarter Sales to 30 October 2022 GEO - Quarterly Operating Update BEIJING: Chinese internet and technology conglomerate LeEco has secured over $2 billion in investment from real estate developer Sunac China Holdings, media reports said. Through this investment Sunac would acquire 8.61 per cent stake in LeEco's Shenzhen-listed unit Leshi Internet Information and Technology Corp, Beijing. "The company believes that the investment will bring a better return on capital for the company and will have greater room for cooperation with Leshi in the field of industrial real estate, and will also bring continued benefits to the further growth of the company's property business," South China Morning Post quoted Sunac Chairman Sun Hongbin, as saying. Sunac also plans to acquire a 33.5 per cent stake by investing $1.15 billion in LeEco's television hardware subsidiary Leshi Zhixin Electronic Technology. In November 2016, LeEco announced receiving $600 million in funding from Chinese institutional investors. Read Also: TCS Posts Robust Net, Revenue Growth In Q3 Infosys Q3 Profit Up 7 Pct To 3,708 Cr, Revises Rev Guidance Jaitley Puts Disputes To Rest With Double-Digit Rise In Tax Collections BENGALURU: Budget carrier AirAsia India on Saturday announced special low fares one way to select destinations across its network in the country. "Starting at Rs 99 one-way, the special fares can be booked between January 16 and January 22 for travelling from May 1 to February 6, 2018," said the airline in a statement here. The airline operates services to 11 destinations -- Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur, Kochi, New Delhi, Pune and Vizag, with Bengaluru and New Delhi as its hubs. It has a fleet of eight Airbus A320 aircraft. The carrier's parent company AirAsia is also offering promotional fares to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Bangkok in Thailand from India on its Southeast Asia network, with one-way tickets priced at Rs 999. "The travel period for overseas destinations is from January 16 to July 31, and tickets can be booked between January 16 and January 22," said the statement. The three-year-old low-cost airline is a joint venture between Tata Sons Ltd and AirAsia Berhad, with each holding 49 per cent equity stake, while its Chairman S. Ramadorai and Director R. Venkataraman hold 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding respectively. Read Also: Airbus France To Set Up Aerospace, Defence Cluster At Dholera Adani To Invest 49,000 Cr In Gujarat, Ambani Unveils Jio's Digital Plans MUMBAI: Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCBL), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in India, is setting up two greenfield plants at Ahmedabad and Nellore with an investment of 1,000 crore, a top official said. HCCBL currently operates 26 bottling plants and covers about 65 pct of bottling operations for Coca-Cola in the country. "We are setting up two greenfield plants at Ahmedabadand Nellore. Sanand (Ahmedabad) will be commissioned this year and Nellore next year," HCCBL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer T Krishnakumar told PTI here. "Between the two plants, over the next three years the investment would be at least 1,000 crore. The two plants would add 4-5 pct of our capacity," he added. Besides these, the company will invest 750 crore to set up a plant at Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. It recently laid the foundation stone for the 110-acre plant which is likely to be commissioned by 2018. Krishnakumar, however, said it would be difficult to estimate the capacity addition from the Madhya Pradesh plant at present. The greenfield plants would house multiple bottling lines for carbonated beverages such as Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Thums Up and Limca, juices and juice-based drinks like Minute Maid and Maaza, packaged water, as well as Kinley soda. In 2012, the Atlanta-based beverages major Coca-Cola announced investment of $5 billion along with its partners in India by 2020 on various activities, including setting up of new bottling plants. Last year, HCCBL had suspended manufacturing at a few of its plants. Krishnakumar said the closure or opening of new plants is to establish a supply chain that meets the demand from consumers. "Our supply chain was set up in 1997-98, with certain geographical thought process, with a certain portfolio thought process. "From 1997 to 2016, the whole landscape has changed. We have a different mix, we have a larger portfolio, we have a larger choice. We constantly need to re-engineer our supply chain to match that demand pattern that we have established," he said. Read Also: Airbus France To Set Up Aerospace, Defence Cluster At Dholera After Airtel, Now Idea Rolls Out 'Free' 4G Data For 12 Months NEW DELHI: The government has launched a mobile app called 'SEZ India' that provides detailed information about the country's special economic zones, an official statement said on Sunday. Launched earlier this month under the Centre's e-Governance initiatives, "the app would help the SEZ units and developers to find information easily and track their transactions on SEZ Online System," a Commerce Ministry release here said. "Developers and units can now file all their transactions digitally through SEZ Online system and track the status through the SEZ India mobile app," it said. The app, which is available on android platform, has four sections - SEZ Information, SEZ Online Transaction, Trade Information and Contact Details. The SEZ online transaction is a dynamic submenu that tracks the Bill of Entry and Shipping Bill processing status, besides doing verification. "The app also helps the Importers/Exporters track the status of Bill of Entry/Shipping Bill integration and processing," the statement said. Read Also: India's Contribution To World GDP To Reach 17 Pct This Year U.S. Exploring New Partnership In Smart Cities In India NEW DELHI: Siachen braveheart Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, who survived miraculously for six days under a huge ice-and-snow debris after an avalanche hit his post before losing life to multiple organ failure, was today awarded the Sena Medal here. The doughty soldier's wife Mahadevi Ashok Bilebal received the medal from Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat at Army Day parade here. A resident of village Betadur in Dharwad district of Karnataka, the Madras regiment soldier was pulled out alive from under 30 ft of ice-and-snow debris where he lay buried for six days on the unforgiving Siachen glacier. Dubbed as the 'miracle man', the soldier had managed to stay alive for six days in minus 45 degrees Celsius temperature, buried under ice and snow after an avalanche struck his post on February 3. 10 Army personnel, including Koppad, were were buried alive on February 3 in an avalanche in Siachen, the world's highest battlefield. In a miraculous turn of events, Koppad was found alive buried under snow in critical condition after six days of rescue efforts. The Lance Naik was flown to Delhi's Army Referral and Research Hospital for treatment where he died on February 11 due to multiple organ failure, after waging a grim battle for life for nine days. Among others, his death was deeply condoled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the whole nation paid glowing tributes to the 33-year-old soldier. He had served for 10 years in difficult and challenging areas out of his 13 years of service. He had also served in the north-east in 2010-2012 where he participated in operations against NDFB and ULFA. Read Also: India's Contribution To World GDP To Reach 17 Pct This Year U.S. Exploring New Partnership In Smart Cities In India Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Beginning this summer, drivers will no longer go through toll booths to pay for crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge due to cashless tolling. (Staten Island Advance File Photo) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- While construction began last week at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to make the transition from toll booths to cashless tolling, many Staten Island motorists are wondering what the new system will entail when it debuts this summer. The initiative, also known as open road tolling, was pushed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and began at the Gov. Hugh L. Carey (Brooklyn Battery) Tunnel on Jan. 4. The MTA has stated that it believes cashless tolling will enhance traffic flow, reduce congestion and decrease commute times, making it easier for New Yorkers to get where they need to go. As the MTA continued to roll out the system at the Queens Midtown Tunnel this past week, Staten Island motorists raised various questions regarding the new tolling system. So we reached out to the MTA for the answers. How does cashless tolling work? Tolls are collected from motorists without any toll barriers, tollbooths or dedicated toll lanes in the cashless tolling system. Sensors and cameras are suspended over the highway on structures called "gantries" and vehicles are not required to stop. Nothing will change for existing E-Z Pass customers. Vehicles with E-ZPass will be automatically charged the discount toll rate and account replenishment options will remain the same. Non-E-ZPass customers will have their vehicle's license plate recorded, and a bill will be mailed to the registered owner. You can pay the bill by mail, phone or in-person at the E-Z Pass Customer Service Center at 1150 South Ave., using a check, credit card, bank account or cash. What do I do if I use the Carpool Ticket Program? According to the MTA, the Verrazano Bridge is the only one of its crossings where there is a carpool plan. Staten Island residents in the current Resident Discount Program will have their carpool tickets replaced with E-tickets, which will require those who are eligible to use an E-ZPass tag in an eligible Staten Island-registered vehicle. The E-ZPass tag will have an HOV mode that will be selected by the Staten Islander when he or she has three or more occupants in the vehicle. The HOV mode can be turned off when there are fewer than three occupants. Additional details are still being finalized and will be in place for when the Verrazano goes cashless this summer. Can I refund my unused carpool tickets? The Staten Island Resident Carpool Ticket Program is administered by MTA Bridges and Tunnels (not the E-ZPass Customer Service Center). Requests for refunds of unused carpool tickets can be made by mailing unused tickets, along with your name, address, contact phone number, and number of tickets (not books) being returned to: TBTA Staten Island Resident Carpool Ticket Refund, Revenue Management, 2 Broadway, 23rd Floor, New York, NY 10004 The refund request will be processed within four weeks. What if I forget my E-Z Pass? E-ZPass tags should always be mounted in vehicles using one of the toll facilities. At a cashless tolling facility, if an E-ZPass tag is not present in a vehicle or if the tag is not read by the tag reader, an image of the vehicle license plate will be captured. If that license plate is associated with an E-ZPass account, the toll will post to that account. If the license plate is not associated with an E-ZPass account, the registered owner of the vehicle will be billed for the toll transaction at the cash rate, not the discounted E-ZPass rate, through the MTA's Tolls by Mail program, according to the MTA. In order to avoid receiving Toll Bills or violation notices, E-ZPass customers should ensure that the E-ZPass account is funded, that the tag is always mounted in the vehicle, and that the license plates are updated on the E-ZPass account. The MTA also advises motorists to be sure that their address is updated with the Department of Motor Vehicles. If customers need tag mounting strips or if they need to update their vehicles and license plates on their E-ZPass account, they can access their account through the E-ZPass New York website or by calling the E-ZPass New York Customer Service Center at 1-800-333-8655. What will happen to toll dodgers? Customers who do not pay an initial, and then an overdue toll bill, will receive a Notice of Violation. If the violation notice is unpaid, the violator is referred to the collections agency for recovery of tolls and fees due. Some egregious violators will be pursued through civil lawsuits. Beginning this month, a vehicle owner's registration will be suspended for three toll violations over the course of five years. In mid-February, MTA regulations that increase fines for skipping tolls will go into effect. Beginning in February, the violation fee will be increased to $100 at the Robert F. Kennedy, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck and Verrazano-Narrows bridges and the Queens Midtown and Hugh L. Carey tunnels. The violation fee will remain $50 at the Marine Parkway, Cross Bay and Henry Hudson bridges. For commercial vehicles, failure to pay toll fees in the amount of $200 or more within five-year period will also result in registration suspensions. Those looking to get an E-Z pass, can sign up online at the ezpassny.com website. police tape.jpeg STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An Oakwood man, who works for the Department of Sanitation, was arrested Saturday for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, according to a spokesman for the NYPD. Robert Ackrish, 38, allegedly crashed his 2016 Nissan Altima into the rear of another occupied vehicle on New Dorp Lane near Richmond Road, and walked away from the scene, police said. The driver of the other vehicle suffered back and neck pain from the incident, and was taken to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze. He was found a few blocks away with a "moderate odor of alcohol" on his breath and a flushed face, police said. He refused a breathalyzer test, and was arrested by police. He is charged with driving while intoxicated and refusing a breath test. He was previously convicted for drunk driving in June 2008 when he blew a .208 after being stopped by police. He was also arrested in April 2010 with his father and 37 others for illegally running online sports-gambling rings that brought in $178 million in wagers over three years. Police charged him with several crimes, including money laundering, promoting gambling, enterprise corruption and conspiracy. He served almost two years in prison for those charges, records show. nws borelli Councilman Joseph Borelli was selected as part of the Lindsay Fellowship Program. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Island Council Member Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) was selected as part of the inaugural class of the Lindsay Fellowship Program, the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance has announced. The program, named after former Mayor John Lindsay, engages newly elected Council Members and State Legislators to broaden and deepen their understanding of different constituencies they represent as elected officials. It also recognizes the pressures and concerns that impact government deliberations and decision-making. The fellowship seeks young talent to encourage growth and build necessary skills to both advance their careers and make an impact in New York City. "I'm glad to have been selected for this fellowship, which will give a few elected officials the opportunity to learn collectively from past government officials and industry leaders," said Borelli. "The goal is to understand what worked and what didn't, and use that now to move our cities and states forward." The Lindsay Fellows meet approximately 10 times annually to exchange ideas with leaders from various sectors including business, civic, academic, media, technology and former government. Borelli said the fellows will meet once a month on a Friday morning at 8 a.m. He explained that the meetings will not take him away from his duties and responsibilities as a council member. "It's a one morning a month commitment so it's not going to interfere with anything," Borelli said. New members of the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature elected within the past four years are invited to apply in the fall to become Lindsay Fellows for the next year. In addition to becoming a fellow, Borelli was also named a contributor to the national political newspaper, The Hill, this past November. Borelli was cleared by the city's Conflict of Interest Board to become a contributor and receives no compensation. pjimage (22).jpg President Obama joins special assistant Robert Diamond, far right, and his family in the White House. From left are Diamond's mother, Sheryl; wife, Victoria, and daughters, Eleanor and Charlotte. (Photo courtesy of the Diamond family) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When Robert Diamond was appointed special assistant to President Obama in March 2015, he knew the job would be his for a predetermined period of time. Still, the 39-year-old Great Kills native couldn't help but feel wistful as he left his office in the Eisenhower Executive Building on Pennsylvania Avenue for the last time on Jan. 6. "It was an honor and a privilege" to serve in the Obama administration, he said. "A kid from Staten Island made it all the way to the West Wing." As Obama's special assistant and director of private sector engagement, Diamond helped the administration partner with entrepreneurs, small business owners and corporate leaders. He encouraged businesses to support a minimum wage raise and helped tourism and manufacturing companies take root in Cuba as relations with the U.S. normalized. He is proud of progress made in the areas of criminal justice reform and fair chance hiring. As special assistant, he worked with more than 300 companies across the country to ease restrictions on job applicants with criminal records. "One of the first questions asked on an application is, 'do you have a criminal record?'" Diamond pointed out. "Even a low-level drug offense from 20 years ago" can prevent an applicant from earning a living and staying out of jail, he added. "It's a make or break issue." Diamond met with the president at least once a week, and as liaison to the business community was frequently included in staff meetings, conference calls and special events. Obama was always prepared, engaged and focused in meetings, he said. Diamond joined hundreds of Obama staffers last Tuesday in Chicago for the president's farewell speech, describing it as "intellectual, inspirational and emotional - vintage Obama." The speech in Chicago "was very much a reunion for campaign workers and staff," he said, adding it was "an emotional day marking the last time he would speak to us as president." SOUTH SHORE EDUCATION Diamond is a graduate of PS 36 in Annadale, Bernstein Intermediate (IS 7) in Huguenot and Monsignor Farrell High School in Oakwood He served as a correspondent on the Advance Teenage Press Corps while attending Farrell and still recalls the excitement of seeing his byline in print. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Diamond was trained as a surface warfare officer and was stationed on the guided missile destroyer USS Bulkeley (DDG-84). He completed deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Robert Diamond, a Navy veteran who served two years in the Obama White House, was a teenage correspondent for the Advance as a student at Monsignor Farrell High School. (Photo courtesy of the Diamond family) He served in the Navy for seven years, attaining the rank of lieutenant. Diamond was a finance-industry executive in Manhattan before joining Obama's re-election campaign in 2011 as national veterans and military families vote director. He also served as New York State director of Obama for America, overseeing campaign operations across the state. He served in Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's administration as the downstate director of intergovernmental affairs before his White House appointment. Diamond and his wife, Victoria, have two daughters, Charlotte, 4 1/2, and Eleanor, 18 months. He recalled when his eldest daughter met the president for the first time in the Oval Office. Charlotte Diamond, 4 1/2, meets President Obama in the White House, accompanied by her father, Robert Diamond, who served as special assistant to the president. (Photo courtesy of the Diamond family) "We practiced shaking hands for a week before that meeting," he said, smiling. The president wondered what grade Charlotte was in, and asked her, "First grade?" "She's only in preschool," Diamond said. "She's tall for her age." Her height is no surprise since Diamond stands at 6 feet 6 -- five inches taller than the outgoing president. The family is leaving their home in historic Georgetown for a return to New York, where Diamond will soon begin a position with a prominent Manhattan real estate firm. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An iconic print of Marilyn Monroe by pop artist Andy Warhol remains missing more than two weeks after it was stolen from a home in Pleasant Plains. Police have made no arrests in connection with the incident, in which someone entered an "open garage" on Woodvale Avenue at about 2:20 a.m. on New Year's Day and removed the $7,000 print, an NYPD spokesman said Monday. No other property was taken from the 43-year-old male victim's garage, police said. A police spokesman was unable to provide a description of the suspect. The 123rd Precinct tweeted about the stolen print in the hopes of obtaining tips from the public. Anyone with information also can visit the NYPD's Crime Stoppers website, call the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS) or 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA) for Spanish, or text their tips to 274637 (CRIMES), then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential. 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 #PM-trapped miners PM urges utmost efforts to rescue 2 trapped miners Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Friday called for utmost efforts to rescue two miners trapped underground for 10 days. They have been isolated in a vertical shaft about 190 mete... It was Christmas when the parents of cheeky little Annabelle Potts realised something was wrong. Mother Kathie and father Adam noticed their three-year-old daughter was clumsier than usual, bumping into walls and stumbling as she walked. Three-year-old Annabelle Potts (right) has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive brain tumour. She is pictured with brother William (left) mother Kathie (second from left) and father Adam (second from right). In a matter of days the couple, from Evatt, were told Annabelle had an aggressive tumour at the base of her brain. Her family admitted her outlook was "grim". Last week it emerged from a trading halt to slash profit forecasts and embark on a sweeping restructure of the business, including losing chief executive Laura McBain. More than 70 per cent has been wiped off its market value since its 2016 peak, and the company is frantically trying to run down excess stock without further damaging its brand. Former Bellamy's CEO Laura McBain is back in the saddle as a business leader, and will start as MD of the parent company which owns a 48 per cent stake in Maggie Beer Products. Credit:Bret Salinger And while many of the problems with Bellamy's are specific to the company, it is also the latest in a string of Australian businesses that have run into challenges trying to crack the lucrative Chinese consumer market. Blackmores, the vitamin business, has also had a volatile time, albeit slightly less dramatic than the Bellamy's rollercoaster. Blackmores chief executive Christine Holgate says Chinese commerce is not for the faint-hearted. Credit:Wayne Taylor Its share price has tumbled 47 per cent from last year's record high of some $220, as sales have slowed. It has faced changing regulations in China, with chief executive Christine Holgate in October saying doing business in the country was "not for the faint-hearted". Cheese sliced Bega Cheese is another Australian exporter targeting Chinese consumers, whose share price has fallen 45 per cent from last year's $7.93 peak after problems in the infant formula market. These are all businesses that have had success in the much-hyped next phase of the China boom after the mining bonanza: selling to the middle class. Yet there's clearly been plenty of turbulence along the way. So, why is the next phase of our China boom proving such a bumpy ride? Well, to some extent Australia could rely on the hand it was dealt during the first stage of China's industrialisation, when it wanted minerals we had in abundance. We happen to have extensive and high-quality reserves of coal and iron ore, the key ingredients for making steel, which is crucial for mass urbanisation. Our location on Asia's doorstep is also extremely handy. In the economic jargon, Australia has a clear "comparative advantage" as a commodity exporter. Consumer goods like infant formula are also helped by Australia's reputation for clean, high-quality produce, but selling to the masses comes with a range of risks that aren't there for the miners. Tricky customer "The level of difficulty and complexity for Australian businesses from mining compared to consumer are vastly different," says the director of AsiaLink Business' China practice, Nick Henderson. "The closer you get to the consumer, the more complex the whole environment for Australian companies gets." One big difference is the customers. While an iron ore miner can build up long-term relationships with its handful of steel mill customers, selling infant formula means staying in touch with the wants of millions of parents buying the stuff. Fast-changing rules have created another headache for foreign businesses eyeing off China's massive consumer market. Speculation that China would crack down on the "daigou" trade where Australian-based buyers bought up local formula and send it back to China was one reason for Bellamy's ill-fated move to sell more of its product through online portals. And of course, trying to sell to Chinese consumers is "hypercompetitive." Companies everywhere have spotted the huge potential, so we're up against them too. What might we do to curb some of these risks from the next phase in the China boom? Skills for risk Henderson says there's no silver bullet when it comes to avoiding these challenges. Venturing into less-developed but fast growing economies can be lucrative, but it's riskier: that's the trade-off. Even so, there are things businesses can do to manage these extra risks, such as having carefully thought-out Asia strategies, and directors with experience in the region. As more companies are likely to look overseas for growth including those in services where most of us work there are also implications for the broader skills base of the Australian workforce. A man has been jailed for stealing more than $100,000 from a business consultancy in order to fuel his gambling habit. Shane Lloyd Vincent Comiskey, 49, was ordered to serve nine months of a three- year sentence on Monday after pleading guilty in Brisbane District Court to four counts of fraud as a director. Gambling addiction no excuse for fraud, judge tells businessman. Credit:Erin Jonasson The court heard Comiskey was working for CDI Pinnacle Management in 2011 when he started sending invoices to clients providing his own bank details instead of a company account. He used this system to siphon off $108,000 from CDI through 29 separate transactions in 2011. Former health minister Sussan Ley's self-inflicted travails are relatively unsurprising. Over the past two decades, indulgent spending has undone the careers of too many politicians to detail here. John Howard took office in 1996 promising new heights of ministerial integrity, in the form of a tough code of conduct. His ambitions were cruelled within a year as he was forced to sack three ministers, each of whom had contributed to the "travel rorts" scandals of that era. In the same year, disgraced independent senator Mal Colston faced 28 charges of defrauding the Commonwealth by allegedly misusing his travel allowance. The prosecution was only dropped because his failing health meant he was unlikely to be fit enough for a trial. Sussan Ley has resigned as health minster. Credit:Mark Jesser The great surprise is that neither main party in the years since has been able to exercise enough restraint over its members to prevent similar abuses. Politicians from both sides have been tempted to use taxpayers' money to pay for personal trips or to further personal ends. Indeed, the main parties refrain from pursuing the opposing side too aggressively over such issues, knowing they are equally likely to be embarrassed by a greedy rat amid their own ranks. Most (though likely not all) of those who cross the line are caught, because parliamentarians' spending details are published by default. It takes time, but a journalist or interested citizen committed to scrutinising politicians' trips will eventually discover those whose personal indulgences coincide with the use of public funds. The same is true for politicians' conflicts of interests, given they are required to update a public list of their financial and other interests. In that, he stands alone. The last eight years have been a sharp refutation of Obama's theory of politics, that reason and consensus-building can override partisan divisions. But if Obama 2004 embodied the audacity of hope, Obama 2017 demonstrates the paucity of it. His speech spoke to the moral arc of history, but it did not speak to the present. During a time of uncertainty and anxiety, Obama closed his speech telling the crowd, "I leave this stage tonight even more optimistic about this country than I was when we started." Speaking less than a fortnight before Donald Trump takes the oath of office, the Obama of 2017 sounded a lot like the Obama of 2004. Then, he spoke out against division, declaring "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There's the United States of America." The speech, built around the theme of unity and hope, launched a candidacy and then a presidency built around the same. "Reality has a way of catching up with you," Barack Obama told the crowd gathered to hear his farewell address to the nation. It was something his mother had told him, and he used it to rail against the increasingly fact-free environment of public debate. But as his speech meandered through familiar themes of compromise, reason, optimism, and empathy, it seemed as though reality had not yet caught up with Obama. US President Barack Obama gives his farewell address at McCormick Place in Chicago. Credit:Pablo Martinez Monsivais Part of the problem was that Obama expected Republicans to compromise in ways that advanced Obama's agenda. Now, Obama was willing to compromise as well. His signature policy, the core of his campaign and his presidency, was healthcare reform. Rather than pushing for a single-payer system the left's preferred plan he signed off on a version of the public-private partnership developed at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. But whether it was health care or financial reforms or gun control, Obama sustained a belief that political opponents could be reasoned into agreeing with him. So that was part of the problem. But a much larger part was that he was facing a Republican Party ready to shred the norms of governance. Once Republicans took control of the House in the 2010 midterms Obama didn't just meet obstruction but destruction. Fiscal cliffs, sequestration, government shutdowns: once the financial crisis that accompanied Obama into office had eased, the GOP started ginning up crises of their own. And Obama talked and reasoned and made Very Good Arguments for why he was right. And Rome burned. Not only did Obama's calls for unity and understanding fail to fix politics, they now feel out of step with the national mood, even among his supporters. At a moment when many Americans see ominous clouds gathering on the horizon, Obama used his speech to urge more listening and more understanding. And while that is of a piece with his message throughout his career, it failed to acknowledge that unity is difficult to forge when the threat is internal rather than external. When one side is offering a fundamentally exclusionary vision banning Muslims, slamming immigrants then calls for unity have an unsettling feel. Because they raise the question of who, exactly, is being united. Here, Obama's penchant for history is instructive. He often looks to Abraham Lincoln for inspiration, a president who entered office with the country on the brink of civil war, whose rhetorical gifts and theory of politics align neatly with Obama's. In both his first and second inaugural addresses, Lincoln called for unity, in the first case to forestall war and in the second to knit the nation back together as the war came to an end. After this was successfully accomplished, the Queen asked him to take photographs of Prince Charles for his eighth birthday, and a year later he found himself commissioned to take the official portraits of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh before their tour of Canada. The courtship with Princess Margaret was not easy. There had been some who had thought that Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, were too "common" to marry royalty. The former was the daughter of an earl, the latter of a duke. Snobbish courtiers those to whom Princess Margaret liked to refer waspishly as "the men with moustaches" persisted in referring to Tony Armstrong-Jones as "a man called Jones". His penchant for flashy, rather camp clothing and high-powered motorcycles did not help. Neither, of course, did Princess Margaret's ill-starred love affair with Group Captain Peter Townsend, equerry to her father, George VI. The two had wished to marry, but the group captain, eminently eligible in every other way, was a divorcee. The times were such that the pair were forced to abandon the relationship. It was a final victory for "the men with moustaches", and one which the Princess never forgave. But the episode meant that all future romances real or imagined were regarded with an even beadier scrutiny than might have been expected. Much of the Princess's courtship with Armstrong-Jones was conducted in "the little white room" in London's East End, which he rented from a friend. It had magnificent views over the Thames to Tower Bridge and the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. The two had much in common: a keen, rather seditious sense of humour, aided by a shared gift for mimicry; a love of the arts, especially theatre; and a taste for mildly raffish friends and late hours. It even helped that Armstrong-Jones was hardly any taller than his diminutive Princess. Despite his unconventionality (in royal terms), Armstrong-Jones always had real charm and immaculate manners, and he quickly won over the Queen, and even the Duke of Edinburgh. On February 26, 1960, the engagement was announced, and on May 6 the couple married in Westminster Abbey in the most spectacular royal occasion since the Coronation. The groom was created a peer as Earl of Snowdon, a title which went back to the 13th century, and the honeymoon was spent on the royal yacht, Britannia. The euphoria was not universal. It was widely felt that the new earl was too free a spirit to conform to the disciplines of royal life, and that Princess Margaret would never be able to break free of its constraints. Snowdon's old friend Jocelyn Stevens even went so far as to send a cable with the words: "Never has there been a more ill-fated assignment." At first, all seemed to be well. The young couple settled into apartments at Kensington Palace. A son, Viscount Linley, was born in 1961, and a daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, in 1964. While continuing to work as a photographer he was under contract to The Sunday Times magazine he also acted as a consultant with the Council of Industrial Design and designed a great aviary for London Zoo. (This was referred to as "the birdcage" by his detractors.) He was also responsible for the "Snowdon Chair Trolley", a motorised platform for wheel-chairs, and began to make award-winning television documentaries with a BBC friend, Derek Hart one of these, Don't Count the Candles (1968), about ageing, won two Hollywood Emmys, the St George Prize at Venice and awards at the Prague and Barcelona film festivals. By the 1970s the evident tension between the royal couple was the subject of public speculation. In 1976, after much unfavourable publicity concerning the Princess's relationship with Roddy Llewellyn, a statement was issued saying that the Snowdons were to separate and that the Princess would carry out her public duties unaccompanied. There were, at that time, no plans for a divorce; but in May 1978 the marriage was dissolved, and in December the same year Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg. Their daughter, Lady Frances, was born the following year. After his divorce Snowdon remained on cordial terms with the Queen and the Queen Mother, and was regularly invited to take official family photographs. He continued with The Sunday Times, where his official title was "artistic adviser", until 1987; he joined the Telegraph magazine in 1990, though he stayed only until 1994. His concern for the disabled increased with the passing of time. He fought a successful campaign against British Rail on behalf of wheelchair passengers, and in 1980 instituted the Snowdon Award Scheme (now the Snowdon Trust) for helping disabled students in further education. Every year the scheme distributes grants to students with physical disabilities to help defray the high costs of being a student or trainee. "It's not that one is making a special case of disabled people," he once said. "It's just trying to ensure that they enjoy some of the same rights as the able-bodied." He remained an essentially private figure, much preferring to be behind the camera rather than in front of it. His work was exhibited throughout the world. He published some 20 books of his photography, and, despite growing physical incapacity, remained restless and inquisitive to the end. With the exception of a few high-quality Australian universities, what often amounts to the criminal irrelevance of our massively expensive tertiary sector is something that urgently needs to be brought to light and, more importantly, remedied. It was actually in a better state when it was free. Secondary education in Australia is not doing well either but the situation with tertiary education is even worse and threatens the future standing and prosperity of the country. It's getting more expensive by the minute but is tertiary education worth the money? Our students are slogging through years of often meaningless secondary education only to go to university where they are generally achieving outcomes that are well below those of previous generations. They attain often worthless degrees, then go and work in casual jobs, in retail for example, burdened by debts of tens of thousands of dollars, angry and resentful that the prize they thought they'd been promised is not within reach. This unfortunate process benefits only entrenched educational providers and wastes vast sums. It's basically a big business ripping off its customers. If this situation were rectified, the fiscal outcome would be more than enough to leave budgets massively in surplus and hence solve one of our major political and economic problems. Yet instead of being part of the solution, our current crop of educators are more often than not the equivalent to the priesthood of the Middle Ages. This usually means that the prevailing state of play is that we must not question their validity but keep providing tertiary educators with vast treasure, closing our eyes to the meaninglessness of much of what they do. Meanwhile vice-chancellors are currently paid huge amounts to perpetuate this system and they are often completely out of touch with the reality of life lived by ordinary Australians. Today's tertiary education sector urgently needs to be made fit for purpose or we could start going down the gurgler, fast. Australians will need to batten down the hatches with more intense rain storms predicted as a result of higher humidity driven by a rise in global temperatures. New findings from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, published in Nature Climate Change on Tuesday, reveal that a two-degree rise in average global temperatures would lead to a 10-30 per cent increase in extreme downpours. The study's authors predict that while some parts of the continent will become wetter, others will experience increasing drought. Steve Sherwood, a professor at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW who contributed to the research, said global warming would have a clear impact on rainfall. At least half of Australia's special intake of 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees will be settled in one part of western Sydney within 12 months, prompting community leaders to plead for more federal government support to deal with the unusually high intake. Fairfield City Council, which welcomed 3000 humanitarian arrivals from the two war-torn countries in 2016, has been told by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to expect the same again. Overall, the council area took in triple their usual annual humanitarian intake last year. Stephen Bali, the president of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils and mayor of nearby Blacktown City Council, said local governments need to be properly equipped to meet their settlement and social cohesion responsibilities. Mr Bali called for detailed demographic information "to ensure councils are investing their efforts in the right kinds of services". Japan was caught killing a whale deep inside Antarctic waters declared by Australia to be a protected whale sanctuary. Sea Shepherd activists tracked the Japanese whaling fleet on Sunday, capturing the first images of Japan hunting whales in the Southern Ocean since Tokyo defied an international court ruling that declared the hunt to be illegal. But the activists have since suffered a setback in their hope to disrupt the whale slaughter when heavy fog set in overnight and they lost track of the main abattoir ship, Nisshin Maru. The hunt was several hundred miles from Casey Station in Antarctica. One of the Japanese harpoon ships sought to delay the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin, allowing the slower Nisshin Maru to escape radar range. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has distanced the Turnbull government from a communique agreed by ministers and diplomats of 70 nations, including Australia, concerning the pathways to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The concluding statement called on both sides to "take urgent steps in order to reverse the current negative trends on the ground", including acts of violence and the construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories. The communique specifically welcomed resolution 2334, passed by the UN Security Council last month, which declared the settlements violated international law and called on Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity. Following the conference, Ms Bishop distanced the Australian government from the contents of the concluding statement, insisting the government did not necessarily agree with everything its diplomats had agreed to in Paris. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull could wait until Wednesday to reveal the shape of his rejigged cabinet as he weighs up whether to return the post of cabinet secretary to a public servant or political staffer. Expectation continued to firm on Monday that Mr Turnbull would promote his confidant, Arthur Sinodinos, the current cabinet secretary, to the key post of health minister to replace Sussan Ley. The promotion of Senator Sinodinos would allow the Prime Minister to avoid a wider reshuffle just six months after he made deep changes to the frontbench. Industry Minister Greg Hunt's name is also in the frame for health but a number of Liberal MPs said they expected Senator Sinodinos to replace Ms Ley, who fell on her sword over the expenses scandal. One Nation senator Brian Burston will attend the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump after his party was specially invited by the Trump Inaugural Committee. Senator Burston told Fairfax Media two tickets were arranged through Darren Brady Nelson, a former Team Trump adviser who now works for fellow One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson revealed the gift on Twitter on Monday, but said she would not attend due to domestic commitments, including the upcoming Western Australia election. "I thought about it for a minute, it would be a fantastic opportunity, but I've got too much happening in Australia," she told News Corp. In an incident that echoes Donald Trump's "pussy-grabbing" controversy, a Republican politician has been arrested and charged with sexual assault after an altercation with a woman ended with him grabbing her crotch. Christopher von Keyserling, a 71-year-old member of the Representative Town Meeting in Connecticut (a form of local government), is accused of insulting and then assaulting a staffer during a disagreement over none other than Donald Trump himself. According to local media, the arrest warrant alleged von Keyserling responded to the woman's comment that it's "a new world politically" by telling her "I love this new world, I no longer have to be politically correct." The conversation descended into name-calling, and von Keyserling followed the woman into her office where he allegedly reached between her legs and "pinched her groin area". Two paramedics unions have been dragged before the Industrial Relations Commission for recommending members shed part of their hot and heavy uniforms during the recent heatwaves. The Australian Paramedics Association (APA) and the Health Services Union NSW (HSU) were hauled into court this week by NSW Ambulance for advising paramedics not to wear long-sleeved over-shirts during the recent weeks of soaring temperatures across NSW. APA NSW president Steve Pearce said he had received complaints about the heavy uniform from across the state, particularly the west and north-west, where temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees. Some paramedics became soaked in sweat "from collar to waist" in the polyester blend, forcing them to change their saturated shirt several times a shift, while others suffered rashes and skin irritations, Mr Pearce said. An Australian woman and her three sons who spent a night in bitter cold at a Japanese ski field have been sent to hospital for health checks. An employee at the Nozawa Onsen Snow Resort, west of Tokyo, says he understands the family were found about 8.45am (local time) after skiing in back country over Kenashi mountain, which is outside official ski routes. Daisuke Tozawa says 20 centimetres of snow fell at the top of the mountain between 3pm Monday and 7am Tuesday and there was also risks of an avalanche. The woman, believed to be in her 50s, and her sons were found by an emergency ski patrol, according to a local tour company. Hundreds of Australian holidaymakers stranded in Bali after Tigerair was forced to cancel flights to and from the tourist island will be flown home on Tuesday. Virgin Australia, which owns Tigerair, confirmed it will operate two replacement flights from Denpasar to Brisbane, with passengers then put on connecting flights to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Tigerair, which begins flights between Canberra and Brisbane on Thursday. Credit:Jon Hewson The first flight is scheduled to arrive in Brisbane about 6am and the second flight is expected later on Tuesday. Each plane has a capacity of about 170 passengers. Tigerair cancelled flights to and from Bali on Thursday and temporarily suspended sales of flights from Australia after the Indonesian government cancelled an agreement with the budget airline. Sydney's Australia Day ambassadors have unveiled this year's program, which will celebrate "mateship" and what it means to be Australian. The NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, John Ajaka, said: "It's a time for everyone to come together and celebrate which make up our values, our common goals, and our shared commitment for a free and tolerant society." Indigenous artists perform the WugulOra morning ceremony at Barangaroo Reserve on Australia Day last year. Credit:Mark Metcalfe The 2017 Australia Day program includes activities across the state and around Sydney as an "open day for everyone to enjoy", said Mr Ajaka. This program includes the WugulOra Indigenous Morning Ceremony at Barangaroo, a Children's Festival at Darling Harbour, and the Australia Day Regatta. A seven-year-old boy has died after a quad bike accident in the NSW Riverina on Sunday afternoon. The boy was riding the bike with a nine-year-old boy as a pillion passenger on a property on Irvins Road, Barellan, about 12.30pm. Police were told the pair were turning the bike when they fell off. The bike then fell on the younger boy. He was taken to Griffith Base Hospital with head injuries, before being flown in a critical condition to Canberra Hospital, where he died. A 38-year-old man has died after he was fatally stabbed in Sydney's inner east on Monday morning. Emergency services were called to Talbot Place, Woolloomooloo shortly after 9am following reports of the stabbing. The victim treated at the scene for stab wounds to his abdomen, before he was transported to St Vincent's Hospital. He died a short time later. The Woolloomooloo crime scene where a 38-year-old man stabbed to death. Credit:NSW Police Kings Cross Police commenced investigations and arrested a man in a Potts Point mall just after 11.30am. The 40-year old was charged with murder and taken to Kings Cross police station where he is assisting police with their inquiries. Three teenage boys charged over the alleged gang rape of a woman in the toilets of a pizza shop have been granted strict conditional bail. Two 17-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 38-year-old man allegedly attacked the woman, 18, in the restaurant at Lugarno in southern Sydney in October last year. Family members wept in Parramatta Children's Court on Monday as the teens were granted bail with conditions that they report daily to police, not talk to each other or the woman and only leave their homes with their parents. The Crown alleges that the woman had consensual sex with one of the 17-year-olds in the toilet of the pizza shop on Forest Road, before he told her that "the others want to have sex with you". She was then allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulted by the other two teens and the man, Ricardo Audish, before she was dropped off in Riverwood CBD. A woman has died following a crash on Logan Road at Underwood. Police said a car hit a concrete barrier before crashing into a power pole, bringing the power pole down as well. The crash happened just before 5pm Powerlines have been taken out, and four lanes of traffic have been closed. Credit:7 News The 67-year-old female passenger of the car was pronounced dead at the scene, and the 69-year-old male driver was taken to Princess Alexandra Hospital in a serious condition. The forensic crash unit are now investigating the crash, with Logan Road still closed to traffic. Drivers are urged to avoid the area if possible. Passengers were left stranded on a ride at Movie World on Monday, just days after patrons were rescued from one of the theme park's roller-coasters. People on the Wild West Falls Adventure Ride were left stuck for 20 minutes after the ride stopped on Monday afternoon. The Wild West Falls Adventure Ride stopped for 20 minutes on Monday. Credit:Nine News Brisbane/Twitter A Village Roadshow Theme Parks spokesman said in a statement the incident was a "generic ride stoppage". "Ride stoppages and evacuations are a part of regular operating procedures and are an essential part of ride safety systems," he said. Brisbane commuters are set for a small nugget of good news, with the Queensland Rail train timetable for next week finally confirmed. The summer school holiday timetable, which featured 11 per cent fewer services, was due to expire on Sunday - six days' time - but the timetable to follow had not yet been announced. The Queensland Rail timetable for January 23 has been confirmed. Credit:Jorge Branco But after 5.30pm on Monday, a Queensland Rail spokeswoman confirmed the timetable would revert back to the November 7 timetable on January 23. That is, the interim timetable in place immediately preceding the summer school holiday timetable. After a 12-year-old US girl's death was broadcast on social media, police could do little to keep the disturbing footage from spreading online. The video immediately appeared on various sites, including Facebook and YouTube, both of which have since made efforts to remove the footage. YouTube took the video down, saying it violated the website's policy on violent or graphic content. Marketing executives have criticised Facebook for failing to ensure that the digital ads distributed to its more than 2 billion active users reach their intended audience. Credit:Bloomberg But, according to media reports, the video lingered on Facebook for nearly two weeks before the social media giant started removing versions of the footage from its pages. By then, people as far away as the United Kingdom had seen it. "When I got to the car I tried asking the woman, 'Is there anyone in the car?' She didn't even respond or look at me," he said in a statement tendered to court. A firefighter told police Guode never asked about her children as bystanders and emergency services workers looked for them in the water. "I'm a father myself and the way she was acting, it may have just been shock, but considering what happened it just didn't sit right with me," the firefighter said. What happened at Lake Gladman will never sit right. In the days after the deaths, Guode was charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Police allege she drove five laps of the lake in her Toyota Kluger before she deliberately steered into the water, did not brake and then accelerated. As Melbourne's Sudanese community and the broader Wyndham Vale community rocked with grief, Guode's family members and supporters said the mother of seven would never deliberately harm her children. "She was happy. I don't think she planned to do something ... she loved the kids very well," the children's father, Joseph Manyang, told the media. Last year in court, witnesses described Guode as being under physical, emotional and financial strain at the time. One of her daughters and an aunt told the court Guode lost a lot of blood giving birth to Bol, and had never fully physically recovered. She spoke of dizzy spells and a constant headache. The financial pressures were due to sending money back to relatives in South Sudan, the court heard. After weeks of evidence, a magistrate ruled the children's deaths would be a question for a jury, and Guode was committed to trial. But on Monday in the Supreme Court, about a fortnight before the trial was due to begin, Guode, 37, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder, one of attempted murder and one of infanticide. The rare charge of infanticide - related to Bol - applies to women who kill their own children [younger than two years] in instances where they have either not fully recovered from childbirth, or while affected by a mental disorder related to childbirth. It carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail. The charge of murder carries a maximum of life in prison without parole. During her committal hearing last year, Melbourne Magistrates Court heard Guode had an affair with Mr Manyang, who was still married to another woman when Hanger, Madit and Bol were born. One of Guode's older daughters said Mr Manyang's wife threatened to kill Guode after the twins were born, though the woman denied this. Another witness told the court she overheard Guode say on the day of the tragedy that she would rather end her life and those of her children than see the children live with Mr Manyang and his wife. After their deaths, the witness said, Guode told her she drove the car into the lake, but that the husband's wife had used witchcraft on her. The harrowing deaths of the three children will rekindle memories of the deaths of Jai, Tyler and Bailey Farquharson, who drowned when their father, Robert Farquharson, drove into a Winchelsea dam on Fathers Day 2005. Farquharson was found guilty of murder. He had his convictions quashed on appeal and was sent to a retrial, but was again found guilty of three counts of murder. In 2010 he was sentenced to spend at least 33 years in jail. Farquharson never assisted rescuers in searching for his sons and later claimed he suffered a coughing fit and blacked out, resulting in his car veering off the road and into the dam. But Justice Lex Lasry said the jury had rejected Farquharson's defence and found he had deliberately murdered his sons as revenge against his former wife. Guode last year sobbed and collapsed in court after hearing the triple-zero caller recall the dramatic scene of her children's deaths. Ophthalmologist Dr Andrew Turner discovered a growth on Jess' eyelid in the middle of 2015. Although it was considered harmless at the time, the growth recently flared up, requiring surgery. The elderly eagle has starred in television commercials, graced wine labels, appeared on a postage stamp and made a cameo appearance in the Australian film Healing. Jess, a male 46-year-old wedge-tailed eagle, has lived at the sanctuary since 1974. Specialists hope that Healesville Sanctuary's oldest animal will make a full recovery following surgery to remove a cancerous growth. Jess the wedge-tailed eagle has an operation on a tumour that is growing above his eye. Credit:Justin McManus Jess was sedated using isoflurane, an anaesthetic dispersed from a mask that the eagle breathed into. With Jess safely anaesthetised, Dr Turner was able to reduce the size of the mass. Radiotherapist Faye Tuchton then applied radiotherapy directly to the deepest layer of the cancer. Healesville Sanctuary senior veterinarian Leanne Wicker said Jess was recovering "really well". "He has pain relief on board and his keeper said that Jess was bright and perky. He's already taken himself down for a bath so he seems to be feeling alright," she said. Four inmates at Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre will be transferred to the adult prison system for allegedly causing $65,000 damage to the centre during a riot last week. Van Uk, 19, James Nunn, 18, Grayson Toilolo, 18, and Joshua Keuth, 18, were held on remand at the Grevillea Unit at Barwon Prison over the weekend while a magistrate considered whether to permanently move them to the adult system. Teenagers at the Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre during the riot. Credit:Courtesy of Nine News Their matter was heard before the Bendigo Magistrates Court on Monday. The court heard the four inmates, along with two minors, allegedly covered CCTV cameras before jumping over a duty point counter and stealing the metal legs from tables at 1.15pm on Thursday. The Victorian Greens have come under fire for their "do-gooder" approach to crime, after pushing to decriminalise begging on Melbourne's streets. Beggars can be jailed for a maximum of 12 months in Victoria, with hundreds charged in the past five years, including a man who had 15 cents in his hat, and a woman fleeing family violence. The Greens are hoping to decriminalise begging on the streets of Melbourne. Ellen Sandell, the Greens MP for Melbourne, said responses from the Victorian Labor Party and the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, in which they said they did not support the decriminalisation push, were "disappointing". "The Labor Party and Lord Mayor want to keep begging a crime and keep throwing people in jail or fining them just for asking for help. That doesn't do a thing to solve the problem," Ms Sandell said. Three people died from drug overdoses across Melbourne at the weekend, a court has heard, as police investigate the distribution of a bad batch of ecstasy. More than 20 people were treated in hospitals after overdosing on drugs, Melbourne Magistrates Court heard on Monday, and the fatalities included one man who overdosed at a home in Elwood. Five people overdosed at Revolver Upstairs in Chapel Street, Prahran, but none of those wasfatal. Police are now investigating potential links to the bad batch of drugs. As the probe continued, French national Sebastien Verger-Giambelluco fronted court on Monday following his arrest in connection to one of the overdoses at Revolver Upstairs. By the time a baby born in 2017 graduates from a government school in Victoria, their parents would have spent $77,000 on their education, new figures show. The Australian Scholarships Group's report, released on Tuesday, predicts that Victoria's public education system will be more expensive than any other state by 2034, costing parents a total of $77,371. Teachers warn the proposal will lead to more stress for our youngest students. Melbourne's state schools are expected be 13 per cent above the national metropolitan average of $68,613, exceeding Sydney ($75,080) and Brisbane ($60,135). The Planning for Education Index, which includes the cost of uniforms, excursions and transport in addition to school fees, also predicts that public education in regional Victoria will be the highest in the country, costing $53,245. Two years ago, Erelle Mason and her partner Scott Martin experienced the unimaginable pain of losing a child to sudden infant death syndrome. Baby Mason Martin was just three-weeks-old when he passed, and his death prompted calls for a review of WA's forensic services system. A childhood photo of Erelle Mason. Credit:Graham Hood His grieving family was forced to delay his funeral three weeks due to WA's only forensic neuropathologist taking leave during the holiday period, and Erelle was only able to hold her child three weeks after his body had been kept in the mortuary fridge. Baby Mason's family has now been forced to endure a second tragedy. People outside the Blue Parrot nightclub after the shooting. Credit:Por Esto! de Quintana Roo The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said there were no reports of Australians being injured or killed in the shooting, although a number of Australians were inside the club at the time. The attorney general for the state of Quintana Roo, Miguel Angel Pech Cen, said the shooting was not an act of terrorism, but police were still investigating a motive. Police guard the exit of the Blue Parrot nightclub in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. A deadly shooting occurred in the early morning hours outside the nightclub while it was hosting part of the BPM electronic music festival, according to police. (AP Photo) Credit:AP He said initial investigations suggested the gunman attempted to enter the club when another person tried to stop him, sparking a gunfight that drew in security staff. During the struggle, shots were fired in different directions. Four people have been arrested on suspicion of being involved in the incident. Tim Mullen was in the Blue Parrot nightclub at the time of the shooting. Credit:Facebook Mr Cohen, who is travelling with a group of 12 friends from Melbourne, said his friends were near the club's stage and he was in the line for the toilets when all of a sudden he heard what he initially thought were bursts of fireworks for 10-15 seconds. "I saw a few different flashes. I actually thought there were gunmen coming from both directions, from the beach and from the entrance. I'm not sure, it happened very fast, other people are saying it was just one gunman," he said. A woman is treated by paramedics after being show at the nightclub. Credit:Esto de Quintana Roo, via AP Mr Cohen said he and the British man who had been shot in the arm stuck together in their attempt to escape. First they located Mr Cohen's friends near the stage, but they could not physically reach them. "They didn't know what was happening, because the firing was from the other end of the stage. I screamed out to them 'Someone has got a gun, we need to get out right now!'." A group of Perth friends celebrate in Playa del Carmen in Mexico just hours before the shooting. Credit:Trent Cray, Facebook Mr Cohen and the injured man, from London, then clambered over a large fence onto the beach and sprinted up the sand to safety. They eventually hailed a cab in a nearby street, and Mr Cohen put the injured man into the cab to go to hospital. In the chaos of the situation, he never found out the man's name. "I could see the bullet hole straight through his arm. It wasn't bleeding that much, and he was actually OK, he was doing quite well," Mr Cohen said. Mr Cohen then went back to his apartment, where he reunited with his friends. "As soon as I got home I called my dad," he said. "It was not in the back of my mind at all that something like this could happen." Another Australian tourist, Trent Cray, was also in the club at the time and posted on social media: "OMG the whole club just got shot up!!!" "We all had to get on floor and wait. The gunman ran around then everyone legged it. I filmed the whole thing. We all ok." Tim Mullen, from Perth, was with friends at a VIP table at the centre of the club when they heard a series of "pops" going off, he said. "At first we thought it was part of the production of a show. We were looking for some pyrotechnics or some fireworks, but as the screams started around the pops, we sort of felt that something a little more sinister was going on," he told Sky News. "We all just got as low as quickly as we could, we kept our heads down and heard the pops progressively move closer towards us, and then kind of behind us, with all the music off and the lights on. The organisers did quite a good job of getting everyone to safety as quickly as they could." Mr Mullen said one of his friends provided first aid to one of the shooting victims. That friend, Jhana Green, wrote on Facebook that he used his singlet to apply pressure to a victim's gunshot wound. "Certainly he [Mr Green] deserves commendation for putting himself into that situation, to help whoever it was that went down, and we had to rush past a number of what looked like victims on the way out of the club," Mr Mullen said. Mr Mullen said the tragedy occurred on the final day of what had been an "incredible music festival" that was well run. "We have felt safe and well informed the whole week," he said. He and his group of friends planned to continue their trip in Mexico. Loading Beijing: China will "take off the gloves" and take strong action if US President-elect Donald Trump continues to provoke Beijing over Taiwan once he assumes office, two leading state-run newspapers said on Monday. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Trump said the "One China" policy was up for negotiation. China's foreign ministry, in response, said "One China" was the foundation of China-US ties and was non-negotiable. Trump broke with decades of precedent last month by taking a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, angering Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of China. "If Trump is determined to use this gambit in taking office, a period of fierce, damaging interactions will be unavoidable, as Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves," the English-language China Daily said. The decision to charge her is not without risks for prosecutors. If the case goes to trial, prosecutors will have to contend with a jury that could be sympathetic to Salman, who said she was in an abusive relationship and living in fear. In an interview last year with The New York Times, Salman said she was "unaware of everything" in connection with the attack. Salman said she had accompanied her husband to Orlando with their child once when he scouted the club but did not know the purpose of the trip. On the day her husband drove to Orlando, she claimed he said he was going to visit a friend, named Nemo, who lived in Florida. But Nemo was not living in Florida at the time, a fact Salman said she did not know. She also said she had no reason to suspect that ammunition he bought in the days leading up to the attack was to be used in the shooting, given that her husband was a security guard who frequently purchased ammunition. On the day of the shooting, she bought her husband a Father's Day card, expecting him to return that evening. Her lawyers believe that supports her story that she did not know about the attack. During his rampage, Mateen used Facebook to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State. President Barack Obama has said that Mateen "took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet and became radicalized." Belgrade: Serbia's president said on Sunday that Kosovo had shown it wanted war with after it deployed special forces to prevent a train painted with Serbia's national colours and the words "Kosovo is Serbia" from entering its territory. President Tomislav Nikolic said the neighbours had been "on the brink of conflict" on Saturday, while Kosovo's prime minister told reporters the train, a project of the Serbian government, sent "a message of occupation". The first train decorated with letters that read "Kosovo is Serbian" written in 20 languages departing from Belgrade for Mitrovica on January 14. Credit:AP Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 - a move recognised by Australia - but Serbia still considers it part of its territory and supports a Serb minority there. NATO air strikes on Serbia forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops in 1999, having killed 10,000 Albanian civilians there. NATO still has around 5000 troops stationed in Kosovo to keep the fragile peace. The train left Belgrade for Kosovo's northern town of Mitrovica on Saturday, but stopped while still in Serbia after Pristina said it had deployed special forces to prevent the train from crossing its border. Washington: Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus has said news conferences traditionally held in the White House briefing room could be moved to a larger space, not in the White House, to allow for "more press, more coverage from all over the country". Priebus, spoke on television on Sunday hours after Esquire magazine published a report suggesting the media could be permanently evicted from their longtime space in the White House to other buildings nearby. In that report, incoming White House communications director Sean Spicer acknowledged there had been "some discussion about how to do it". "The only thing that's been discussed is whether or not the initial press conferences are going to be in that small press room," Priebus said, calling the 49-seat briefing room "very, very tiny" and suggesting a larger space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building - located just west of the White House - could better accommodate scores of reporters who want to cover the Trump administration. "You can fit four times the amount of people in the press conference, allowing more press, more coverage from all over the country," he said. "Some of this is getting way out of whack, and I think people should be encouraged that we have so many people who want to participate." 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/The Valley Anguilla:---I was humbled by the experience to pay my final respect to a man of such stature and esteem. The accounts of his life again brought to the fore, the common and intertwined history shared by Anguilla, St. Maarten and St. Martin. A history that I am proud to be a product of. It brought back memories of how the Anguilla diaspora experienced the revolution and the subsequent developments on Anguilla. The late J. Ronald Webster and many of his contemporaries , including my deceased mother, had to leave their land of birth at an early age to seek a livelihood abroad. For many, St. Maarten offered that opportunity and the Anguillians in turn contributed to St. Maarten/St. Martin's development. I recall how my mother and fellow Windward Islanders shared the news about the developments on Anguilla and what they called its liberation in 1967. I knew of Ronald Webster, long before I came to know him. As a young girl on Aruba, I fantasized what those days on Anguilla must have been like from the accounts reaching us. I was in admiration of the heroes and heroines of the time, especially the women folks. The reverence by the government and people of Anguilla during this period of mourning the passing of James Ronald Webster is testimony to the indelible legacy left behind by this great statesman, the Father of the Anguilla Nation. On behalf of the Democratic Party of St. Maarten, my family and myself, I extend our profound condolences to the government and people of Anguilla. Rest In Peace, Honorable James Ronald Webster. POINTE BLANCHE:--- Representatives from Port St. Maarten attended in early January the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) Platinum Associate Membership Advisory Council Conference (PAMAC) meeting which took place on board Carnival Victory cruise ship, where Port St. Maarten received the Distinguished Strategic Partner Marketing Award 2016 from the FCCA and Cruise Line Executives. Port St. Maarten was represented by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Mingo. I must say thank you to all, especially the staff of Port St. Maarten, and stakeholders with respect to the recognition that we received from the cruise industry by receiving this award. Despite the challenges we went through in 2016, growth for 2017 and beyond looks very good. Port St. Maarten continues to rank Number 1 in the Region, and this is due to the hospitality of our local stakeholders and the people of this island. One of the key points discussed with cruise lines was extending the strategic agreements with cruise line partners and the destination in order to protect our long term economic stability especially taking into consideration the opening up of Cuba. This will not happen overnight, but we must deliver every year a premium product for our cruise passengers and crew. Regional competition is at hour heels and we need to continue to keep ahead and this can only be achieved by being innovative and reinventing our cruise sector. These meetings with key cruise industry leaders at the beginning of the year allow us to plan for 2017 and beyond. We are focused on strengthening our strategic agreements between the port and our cruise partners. This will result in increased numbers and quality passengers whose disposable income is higher. Based on our achievements in ratings as a destination, we are at the forefront and will continue to do what is necessary to protect our destination achievements which sustain our economy when we look at the impact the cruise industry has on our island. Discussions also took place with itinerary planners who determine cruise ship fleet deployments around the world including the Caribbean. 2020 is going to be a vital year for the Caribbean where the cruise industry is concerned and we have to be prepared. We are going to see a large number of new cruise ships being launched as cruise lines have made considerable investments in building new vessels as more people around the world plan to take a cruise as the industry continues to grow. Today, the Caribbean remains the top cruise destination with Sint Maarten Number 1. We have to continue to build upon our performance and satisfaction ratings. This is one of the key determinants for our destination. Marketing and promotions onboard cruise ships is still vital in order to make sure cruise line yields are met when they call at Port St. Maarten. New ventures and product developments must continue. Every year we must see something new being developed and opened. We welcome the new development of Rainforest which will come online later this year. As a cruise destination we have much to be thankful for, but we need to continue to make the necessary investments and offer new products and experiences in order to remain ahead and continue to grow, Mark Mingo, CEO of Port St. Maarten pointed out. Some of the executives that were present in one of the PAMAC meetings were: Carlos Torres de Navarra Vice President, Commercial Port operations Carnival Cruise Line (FCCA operations chairman); Russell Daya Executive Director, Global Port Operations & Development Itinerary and Strategic Planning Disney Cruise Line; Albino Di Lorenzo Vice President, Cruise Operations MSC Cruises (USA) Inc; Matthew Sams Vice President, Caribbean Relations & Private Island Operations; Colin Murphy Senior Vice President, Destination & Strategic Development Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings; Federico Gonzalez-Denton Associate Vice President, Government Relations, Latin America and the Caribbean Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.; and Michele M. Paige President Florida Caribbean Cruise Association. More than 100 attendees, including FCCA Platinum Members-key cruise tourism stakeholders-and over 30 high-ranking executives from the FCCAs 19 Member Lines, were onboard Carnival Victory for the FCCA PAMAC Conference. Adam Goldstein, President and Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. will be the incoming Chairman of FCCA. The three-day event that took place from Friday, January 13 to 16 featured a series of meetings, workshops and networking events connecting with senior cruise industry leaders to discuss industry trends and standards and develop relationships and mutual benefits for the cruise lines and members' companies and destinations. The PAMAC event is one of many that the FCCA coordinates for its Platinum Members and Member Lines to stay at the forefront of information about both the industry and destinations while finding ways to maximize the benefits for all. The FCCA is a not-for-profit trade organization composed of 19 Member Lines operating over 100 vessels in Floridian, Caribbean and Latin American waters. Created in 1972, the FCCAs mandate is to provide a forum for discussion on tourism development, ports, safety, security, and other cruise industry issue and to develop bilateral relationships with destinations private and public sectors. By fostering an understanding of the cruise industry and its operating practices, the FCCA works with governments, ports and private sector representatives to maximize cruise passenger, crew and cruise line spending, as well as enhance the destination experience and increase the amount of cruise passengers returning as stay-over visitors. Claim: The U.S. government was sued and found culpable for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., but the news media refused to report it. Rating: About this rating Mostly False Advertisment: Intermittently, rumors have circulated on social media holding that the United States government was found guilty in 1999 of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. Furthermore, according to these rumors, the reason this relatively new information (King was murdered on 4 April 1968) comes as a surprise to many is the "mainstream media" intentionally suppressed it after the government's role in King's death was exposed: It's common for exaggerated claims to contain a few elements of truth, and that factor comes into play in this conspiracy theory rumor for a few reasons. One is rudimentary research would confirm the claim's basics (i.e., the verdict in a wrongful death civil action did allow that "government agencies" participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King), leading readers to believe the entirety of the rumor was factual. Another is the shaky foundation on which the conspiracy theory rests is a matter of some nuance. As well, the gravity of the trial's supposed conclusion, when contrasted with the relatively little public discussion of that addendum to King's life, has lent credence to the belief the trial in question and its outcome were deliberately omitted from the news. Historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. tend to be the subject of complicated conspiracy theories, particularly when they are vectors for widespread societal change. The man who was charged with King's murder, James Earl Ray, confessed to the crime and pled guilty; he then recanted his confession, hinted at a conspiracy, and sought to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial. However, any claim made by Ray about his guilt or innocence should be weighed against his strong incentive to be freed from prison (where he died in 1998). Also at issue is the difference between Ray's guilty plea in 1969, which avoided his undergoing a criminal trial, and the case cited by the rumors, which was a civil trial heard in 1999. The latter (King vs. Jowers) was a civil suit brought by agents of King's estate (including his widow, Coretta Scott King) against a man named Loyd Jowers, who claimed to have taken part in a conspiracy to assassinate King. In a criminal trial the guilt of the defendant must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil suit the plaintiff need only support his claim with a preponderance of evidence to prevail. Loyd Jowers was a Memphis restaurant owner who inserted himself into the narrative about King's death in the course of a 1993 television interview during which he claimed to have been party to a larger conspiracy to assassinate King. However, Jowers had long asserted he had no involvement in the event before suddenly and bizarrely claiming, twenty-five years after the fact, he had been paid to hire a hit man to kill Martin Luther King. He then repudiated his claims when required to testify to them under oath: At the time of the assassination, Loyd Jowers owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern below the rooming house where James Earl Ray rented a room on April 4, 1968. Until 1993, Jowers maintained in several public statements that he was merely serving customers in his tavern when Dr. King was shot. He did not claim any involvement in the assassination or significant knowledge about it. In December 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC's Prime Time Live and radically changed his story, claiming he participated in a plot to assassinate Dr. King. According to Jowers, a Memphis produce dealer, who was involved with the Mafia, gave him $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him that the police would not be at the scene of the shooting. Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from someone with a name sounding like Raoul. Jowers further maintained that Ray did not shoot Dr. King and that he did not believe Ray knowingly participated in the conspiracy. Since his television appearance, Jowers and his attorney have given additional statements about the assassination to the media, the King family, Ray's defenders, law enforcement personnel, relatives, friends, and courts. Jowers, however, has never made his conspiracy claims under oath. In fact, he did not testify in King v. Jowers, despite the fact that he was the party being sued. The one time Jowers did testify under oath about his allegations in an earlier civil suit, Ray v. Jowers, he repudiated them. Further, he has also renounced his confessions in certain private conversations without his attorney. For example, in an impromptu, recorded conversation with a state investigator, Jowers characterized a central feature of his story that someone besides Ray shot Dr. King with a rifle other than the one recovered at the crime scene as "bullshit." Consequently, Jowers has only confessed in circumstances where candor has not been required by law or where he has not been required to reconcile his prior inconsistencies. The U.S. Department of Justice found Jowers' claims were without merit and explained that he'd never been able to provide any support for later assertions about his involvement in King's death: When Jowers has confessed, he has contradicted himself on virtually every key point about the alleged conspiracy. For example, he not only identified two different people as the assassin, but also most recently claimed that he saw the assassin and did not recognize him. Jowers also abandoned his initial allegation that he received $100,000 with which he hired a hit man to kill Dr. King, claiming instead that he merely held the money for the conspirators. Additionally, Jowers has been inconsistent about other aspects of the alleged conspiracy, including his role in it, Raoul's responsibilities, whether and how Memphis police officers were involved, and the disposal of the alleged murder weapon. Furthermore, the Justice Department's investigation determined no physical evidence whatsoever supported Jowers' multiple and conflicting accounts of his involvement in King's assassination, and Jowers stood to profit from his assertions: It was not until 1993, during a meeting with the producer of a televised mock trial of James Earl Ray, that Jowers first publicly disclosed the details of the alleged plot, including the names of the purported assassin and other co-conspirators. He also initially sought compensation for his story, and his friends and relatives acknowledge that he hoped to make money from his account. In summary, we have determined that Jowers' claims about an alleged conspiracy are materially contradictory and unsubstantiated. Moreover, Jowers' repudiations, even under oath, his failure to testify during King v. Jowers, his refusal to cooperate with our investigation, his reported motive to make money from his claims, and his efforts along with his friends to promote his story all suggest a lack of credibility. We do not believe that Jowers, or those he accuses, participated in the assassination of Dr. King. Unfortunately, the jury who heard the case of King vs. Jowers (in which the King family was represented by James Earl Ray's former lawyer, William Pepper) returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, holding that Loyd Jowers had participated in a conspiracy to kill King, and that "governmental agencies" were party to the conspiracy: THE COURT: In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict? THE JURY: Yes (In unison). However, the verdict was of no real significance given that virtually nothing was at stake (this was not a criminal trial, and the defendant was only being sued for a mere $100 and thus had little motivation for vigorously defending himself), allowing the King family to present a mostly unopposed version of events and guide the jury to return the verdict they desired. As noted in the New York Times' report of the verdict, the one-sided presentation of the case allowed for no other result: John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Memphis, who was not part of the civil proceedings but was part of the criminal case against Mr. Ray, said, "I'm not surprised by the verdict. This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept Mr. Pepper's version?" And Gerald Posner, whose recent book, "Killing the Dream" made the case that Mr. Ray was the killer, said, "It distresses me greatly that the legal system was used in such a callous and farcical manner in Memphis. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it." The Justice Department also found the evidence presented in the civil trial to be lacking in credibility: The evidence introduced in King v. Jowers to support various conspiracy allegations consisted of either inaccurate and incomplete information or unsubstantiated conjecture, supplied most often by sources, many unnamed, who did not testify. Important information from the historical record and our investigation contradicts and undermines it. When considered in light of all other available relevant facts, the trial's evidence fails to establish the existence of any conspiracy to kill Dr. King. The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard. All of this is therefore a very slender thread on which to hang the claim that the "U.S. government was proved responsible for King's assassination." (In the event, the verdict referred only to "governmental agencies" rather than the U.S. government specifically, a term that could include anything from local police to the CIA.) And contrary to the rumor's assertion, the 1999 civil case involving Jowers was widely reported by major news outlets at the time (including, as referenced above, the New York Times). More to the point, however, Jowers (who didn't even testify) was the only named party in the civil suit brought by the King family, and the judgment awarded in that case was a paltry $100, widely described as a token award to mark the trial's outcome. No other parties (including any branches or agents of the United States Government) were named as defendants in King v. Jowers, and no identification was provided by Jowers of the purported other parties with whom he colluded to assassinate King. By all accounts, the two main parties involved, the King family and Jowers, had disparate goals served by the civil suit's outcome; and no substantive evidence was presented to establish any of the claims made by Jowers had any merit. In a statement about the 1999 civil suit, Coretta Scott King cited several unrelated and unspecified agents in her description of the parties she believed were responsible for her husband's murder: There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. The one thing the conspiracy rumor correctly states is a 1999 civil trial reached a verdict that cited the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. What it neglects to mention is the relative worth of such a judgment: The verdict in question was civil rather than criminal, the sole named defendant was someone who stood to gain both publicity and money from repeating his claims, and the King family's motivation in bringing the suit was to validate their long-held suspicions a larger conspiracy was at play in the death of the civil rights leader. Given the minor sum of money awarded, a jury would have little incentive to not find in favor of an account supported by both sides of a flawed case. The U.S. Justice Department concluded in June 2000 the "allegations originating with Loyd Jowers ... are not credible": Jacksonville Orange Park SEO Inbound Marketing Web Design Service Wins Award Web904.com LLC, a digital marketing and web design company based in Orange Park, Florida, launched a wide variety of updated SEO and online marketing services for clients in Jacksonville, Orange Park and the rest of Clay County, and NE Florida. More information is available at [http://web904.com](http://web904.com/). Internet marketing has grown considerably over the past decade, with more and more businesses trying to leverage the immense marketing potential of the internet. Recent surveys show that more than 90% of all clients have used online reviews or Google searches to find both online and offline businesses and products, which makes online visibility an important overall business success factor. Google ranking is a particularly powerful aspect of digital marketing, as it is through the search giant that most people find online businesses. Traffic studies show that roughly two thirds of all keyword-specific traffic go to the top three search results, with more than 95% of all traffic going to the first results page. For local business, SEO services are particularly necessary as recent Google updates focus on local searches and local business relevance. With search algorithm updates constantly shifting the focus from industry giants to local businesses, professional SEO expertise is crucial for small businesses trying to increase their internet visibility. Web904.com has recently updated its digital marketing and SEO services to adapt to the most recent Google algorithm updates, as well as to meet the latest requirement in terms of inbound marketing, mobile website optimization, reputation marketing and more. The updated services have been formally acknowledged by the Clay County Chamber of Commerce, Web904.com being the latest recipient of the Small Business of the Month award for January 2017. The Orange Park digital marketing agency provides fully-customized SEO and digital marketing services including backlinking, inbound marketing, social media marketing, mobile website optimization, video creation and web hosting. In an effort to support the local community, parts of the companys profits go to local charities. Interested parties can find more information by visiting [http://web904.com](http://web904.com/). Local computer & laptop sales & repair shop launch network IT Support service In a slightly different approach to launching its new IT Support for networks and email services, Fast Computers, a IT Support company serving the Northampton and Milton Keynes area, has decided it will providing free external backup hard drives so that interested companies can make backups of their important data., and this is expected to take place January 2017. Where most businesses tend to just launch and keep it quiet and low key, Fast Computers has decided to be a little more proactive in promoting this Important and essential service to keep businesses trading smoothly with the start of its new IT Support for computer networks and email services. Peter Ravi, Director at Fast Computers, says: We wanted to provide an important and essential service to keep businesses trading smoothly with the launch of our new IT Support for networks and email services, because we think it is important to give something back to the local businesses struggling to trade in a difficult climate. http://www.fastcomputersuk.com It should be really worthwhile and were hoping it raises awareness of the potentially disastrous effect that losing your important data will impact on your business and prevent it from trading. It will be widely accepted and should go great unless Microsoft or Apple finally come up with an operating system that never fails, never locks up or never needs updating.! Fast Computers has always made a point of standing out when compared to other IT Support companies in the Northampton and Milton Keynes area. This launch celebration is just one of the many ways it wants to support local companies and residents. This is a great chance for Northampton and Milton Keynes residents to protect their businesses have one less thing to worry about from an ethical, long established and community focused. local business. Fast Computers has been serving the Northampton and Milton Keynes area since 1998. To date it has served over 15 thousand customers and has become recognized as reputable 5 star service. Local branches can be found on Weedon Road near Sixfields and Silbury Boulevard in central Milton Keynes. Peter Ravi also said: While Fast Computers may not be the only business with this kind of offering, local residents are choosing Fast Computers because we have a reputation to delight every customer with great service. When asked about the new IT Support for networks and email services. Peter Ravi said: We think its going to be a hit because from experience we know it is something that many businesses and users has been looking for but have been finding it hard to find a truly reliable company like ourselves. Further information about Fast Computers and the new IT Support for networks and email services can be discovered at http://www.fastcomputersuk.com. Yes, Enfin and Koala, I have been really busy for 3 days. I can fix most anything but automatic transmissions aren't one of them. Exhausted all my options including fluid and filter exchange but 3rd and 4th gear is out and who knows what else. Ruptured a cooling line on the way home Thursday and lost all my fluid. Dropped it off at the Transmission shop today. I was just sick about it. It's gonna cost a couple thousand $$$!!!! It crossed my mind for about a half second to drink my troubles away but I immediately laughed it off. Silly me would just wake up hungover, back on Day One and still have a bad transmission!!!! Can't change it so I'm gonna just deal with it. Nothing worth giving up my sobriety over. I am starting to enjoy life on its terms for the first time in my 54 years! Marshall Islands, Niger, Seychelles and Solomon Islands selected to receive funding for transformative, replicable and innovative renewable energy projects through IRENA/ADFD Project Facility. Four renewable energy projects in developing countries in the Pacific and Africa have been identified by Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to receive USD 44.5 million in funding. ADFDs funding will support a diverse set of projects including a hybrid micro-grid project employing solar PV and advanced lithium-ion batteries, a hydropower project, integrated wind and solar, and a combination project consisting of micro-grid and solar home kits. The announcement of this fourth round of funding by the IRENA/ADFDProject Facility was made today at the Seventh Session of the IRENA Assembly. Over the course of the last four years, the IRENA/ADFDProject Facility has identified path breaking renewable energy projects that are helping to expand access to energy, bolster energy security and provide sustainable, affordable energy for those who need it most, said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin.Importantly, this Facility is also putting in place an innovative process which supports transformational and replicable projects that can potentially bring sustainable energy to millions of people around the world. For his part, His Excellency Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director General of ADFD said: ADFD is committed towards steadfast development in the renewable energy sector; its a crucial industry for sustainable continuity, long-term growth and constructive evolution of developing nations. Over seven funding cycles, our USD 350 million partnership, IRENA/ADFDProject Facility, aims to support and enhance the developing worlds energy needs by tapping into their abundant renewable energy sources. This collaboration further exemplifies ADFDs mission and commitment to provide governments with the financial resources, tools, methods and instruments to safeguard against future unknowns, grasp opportunities and seize desired development goals. The UAEs commitment to advancing sustainable energy transitions in countries around the world has been unwavering. said His Excellency Ali Al Shafar, the Permanent Representative of the UAE to IRENA. Our renewable energy development aid has been growing significantly to more than USD 900 Million. This is a testament of our belief in the vital role of renewable energy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and universal access to modern energy. Through the IRENA/ADFDProject Facility, ADFD provides consessional loans ranging from USD 5 million to USD 15 million per project. Finance is offered at 1 to 2 per cent lending rates with a 20-year loan period, including a 5-year grace period. Loans for each project cover up to half of the estimated project cost, leveraging additional funding from other sources. To help facilitate additional sources of funding, project developers can register and seek financing sources from IRENAs Sustainable Energy Marketplace. The projects selected in this funding round are: Marshall Islands : A 4.6-megawatt (MW) hybrid micro-grid project, using solar PV and advanced lithium-ion batteries, that will provide renewable energy access to over 16,000 people. It will essentially eliminate fossil fuel based generation on three outer islands and reduce it by more than a third on a fourth island. : A 4.6-megawatt (MW) hybrid micro-grid project, using solar PV and advanced lithium-ion batteries, that will provide renewable energy access to over 16,000 people. It will essentially eliminate fossil fuel based generation on three outer islands and reduce it by more than a third on a fourth island. Niger : A project focused on rural electrification for over 150,000 people, using 2.1 MW solar PV micro-grids and solar home kits. 100 schools will be electrified, drinking water supplies will be improved, and several thousand jobs will be created. : A project focused on rural electrification for over 150,000 people, using 2.1 MW solar PV micro-grids and solar home kits. 100 schools will be electrified, drinking water supplies will be improved, and several thousand jobs will be created. Seychelles : A government supported solar PV utility scale project will integrate a 5-MW solar PV plant into an existing wind farm, demonstrating an innovative space-saving solution for this small island nation. The project will reduce the countrys dependence on fossil fuels, create almost 300, and supply renewable power to over 1,800 households benefiting the entire population of 90,000 people. : A government supported solar PV utility scale project will integrate a 5-MW solar PV plant into an existing wind farm, demonstrating an innovative space-saving solution for this small island nation. The project will reduce the countrys dependence on fossil fuels, create almost 300, and supply renewable power to over 1,800 households benefiting the entire population of 90,000 people. Solomon Islands: A government-backed 20 MW reservoir dam and hydropower facility will diversify the countrys energy mix, provide renewable energy access to 5,000 people, create around 400 jobs, and avoid 44,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. Applications were evaluated by an international panel of experts who reviewed the projects based on their technical feasibility, economic/commercial viability and socio-economic and environmental benefits. Since 2013, through the IRENA/ADFDProject Facility, USD 189 million has been allocated to 19 projects, and has attracted over USD 387 million in co-financing for a total of USD 576 million in new investment inflow. Selected projects thus far have included off-grid, mini-grid and on-grid projects using wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass sources. Selected projects over the first four cycles will bring more than 100 MW of renewable energy capacity online, and improve the livelihoods of over a million people. Applications for the next rounding of IRENA/ADFDProject Facility funding will be accepted until 15 February 2017. To learn more about the ADFD/IRENA Project Facility and how to apply visit: www.irena.org/adfd | To learn more or about the chosen projects, see the YouTube video announcement. Source International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) 2017 Mex Express Grill blends authenticity, value and speed Mex Express Grill recently opened in the spot that was occupied by a long-time neighborhood tavern in South Bend. 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 Eugene Cernan, the last Apollo astronaut to walk on the moon, is the focus of the documentary "Last Man on the Moon." Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon. He visited the moon's neighborhood twice, aboard Apollo 10 and Apollo 17, and also did a challenging spacewalk aboard Gemini 9. While he chose not to fly in the shuttle program, Cernan remained involved in space as a motivational speaker and sometime television commentator who worked on ABC broadcasts about the space shuttle. He died on January 16, 2017. Apollo Astronaut Eugene Cernan, Last Man to Walk on the Moon, Dies at 82 Remembering Gene Cernan - Singing and Hopeful On The Moon | Video Eugene Cernan Remembered: Photos of the Last Man to Walk on the Moon From sea cresting to moon cresting Cernan started his career as a basic flight trainee in the Navy, racking up hundreds of aircraft carrier landings and thousands of hours in the air on jet aircraft. His experience earned him a spot in NASA's astronaut corps in October 1963. His first spaceflight was Gemini 9, which had an ambitious agenda. Cernan was tasked to do one of the first American spacewalks, which ended up being immensely difficult as the spacecraft was not designed with enough handholds. Though exhausted, Cernan completed many of his tasks and provided valuable information for future missions. Cernan next flew into space on Apollo 10 in 1969. In the lunar module Snoopy, he and Tom Stafford skimmed within eight nautical miles on the moon to simulate a lunar landing. All went smoothly until Snoopy was preparing to head back to Charlie Brown. With Snoopy's guidance system inadvertently pointing the wrong way, the confused spacecraft began spinning above the surface. The startled crew fought to get the spacecraft under control, and succeeded in doing so within seconds. "We've got our marbles," Stafford told Mission Control in relief. The pilot's way Cernan was eager to walk on the moon on Apollo 17, his next assignment; his previous mission had come so close. This time, he was ready to bring his spacecraft all the way on pilot's terms, of course. "There's no way I'm going to go all the way to the moon, particularly for a second time, and let a computer land me on the moon. The arrogance of a pilot, particularly naval aviators, is too great to allow that to happen," Cernan quipped in a 2007 NASA oral interview. Cernan and Harrison Schmitt touched down safely on the moon to do three spacewalks while on the surface. With 22 hours and 6 minutes outside, Apollo 17 set the mark for longest extravehicular activity done by one mission on the surface of the moon. Meanwhile, Ron Evans, the command module pilot, set a record for most time orbiting the moon. The mission's greatest discovery came when Schmitt exclaimed that he had found orange regolith, or moon soil. Cernan joked in his autobiography that he feared his crewmate had "overdosed on rocks", but took a look despite his skepticism. The regolith was indeed orange. It turned out to be tiny bits of colored glass that likely came from a surface vent. The Apollo 17 mission commander checks out the rover prior to loadup. (Image credit: Harrison H. Schmitt.) Initials in the dust Just before going back into the lunar module, Cernan drove the lunar rover roughly a mile away so that the video camera could photograph the takeoff the next day. Next, he knelt and etched his daughter Tracy's initials T D C into the dust, according to his autobiography, "The Last Man on the Moon." Years later, Cernan was looking at a painting done by fellow astronaut Alan Bean. It showed the Apollo 17 crew working near a massive boulder they had encountered during their mission. According to Bean's book, "Painting Apollo," Cernan said he wished he had put his daughter's name on the side of the rock. Bean, therefore, included her name on the rock in the painting, which is called "Tracy's Boulder." For all mankind As Cernan prepared to climb up the lunar ladder for the last time, he paused and spoke these words: "As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come but we believe not too long into the future I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at TaurusLittrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17." He and his crewmates returned to Earth on Dec. 19, 1972. After Apollo Cernan recalled that he was tempted to fly on the shuttle, and he probably could have flown a couple of the early missions. But after being to the moon, he was not as inclined to do it. That's why he left the agency in 1976, he said. "You wouldn't get me up there to do that. Once you've gone to the moon, staying home just isn't good enough." Cernan left NASA for private business, which included starting the company The Cernan Co. for management and consulting in areas such as aerospace. While he did not fly the shuttle, he did report on it for ABC for a time. He also was chair of the board for Johnson Engineering, a company that specialized in space crew stations. Speaking in his NASA oral interview, Cernan recalled a speech he had given in 1973 about Apollo 17's legacy. Most of his feelings on that hadn't changed three decades later, he said. "I said, 'I've been tired of being called the end. Apollo 17 is not the end. It's just the beginning of a whole new era in the history of mankind.' Of course at that time I said, 'We're not only going to go back to the moon, we will be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century.' " Additional resource SPIEGEL: Trump may be very careful about Russia, but he can be extremely rough when it comes to other countries, especially Mexico. Do you think he will build the wall -- and that Mexico will really pay for it? Gingrich: I think the wall will be built, and Mexico will end up paying for it. SPIEGEL: Mexico's president has repeatedly stated that he won't. Gingrich: Well, there are a lot of ways to solve it. We could put a fee on all money going into Mexico. We could put a fee on all vehicles coming from Mexico into the United States. We could impound all the money of the Mexican drug cartels (eds: kept in the United States). That by itself will probably pay for it. SPIEGEL: With the imposition of tariffs and levies, you could start a trade war that would ultimately also harm the U.S. Gingrich: No. As the largest market on the planet, I'm not particularly worried about countries that want to start a trade war with us. I think they would end up losing. SPIEGEL: You have said that your biggest fear of a Trump presidency is that his team could lose its nerve. What do you mean exactly? Gingrich: I mean that there are lots of things that are going to come up to slow them down and stop them: the bureaucracy, the regulations, the lobbyists, the news media. The total weight of everything that tries to stop them from changing things will be so great that there is a danger that the Trump administration will back up and decide to be reasonable. If they decide to become reasonable, they will have failed. SPIEGEL: What do you mean by that? Gingrich: Anybody who has looked at Brussels knows what I'm talking about. You know, you try to move the Brussels bureaucracy, and unless you have some capacity to really break it, you can't move it. It just sits there and stares at you. Well, we have the same problem here in the U.S. Remember, most of the bureaucrats voted for Hillary Clinton. Most of the bureaucrats deeply dislike what Trump is trying to accomplish, and most of the bureaucrats think they can't be fired, so they can outlast you. SPIEGEL: You worked very close with Donald Trump during the campaign. Did he change personally in all those months? Gingrich: He learned a lot. He's more sobered by the responsibilities. I think that he's more aware of how big the challenge is going to be. I think he's learned a lot about the world. He's talked now, I think, to at least 75 foreign leaders, and I think that he's very concerned about finding the right way to be effective in a responsible way. And he wants to be effective. SPIEGEL: Several people said that he would become more presidential in office, but this hasn't happened so far. Gingrich: Donald Trump really is who he is, and I think, for example, he'll probably tweet his entire life -- and that's a fact. I just hope people get over it. Every president developed his own style. You know that we don't recruit them to a certain standard. SPIEGEL: Does Trump have something like a grand strategy? Gingrich: No. He has a grand direction. He doesn't have a grand strategy. He wants to re-establish American authority and power and to relaunch the American economy. SPIEGEL: Do you remember a specific moment when it became clear to you that he really could win this campaign? Gingrich: Oh yes, very early. There was this debate in August 2015 with the TV anchor Megyn Kelly, and everybody in the elite said he had lost that fight. But people on the internet, by about 60 to 70 percent, said he had won. I thought, If the gap between the elites and the average citizens is that big, something unusual is happening. The country is fed up with political correctness, and it is fed up with government that doesn't work. It's fed up with weakness being interpreted as wisdom. It's pretty straightforward. SPIEGEL: Who will be the most important adviser during his presidency? Gingrich: No one. He will have many advisers. He will never allow himself to get to a point where he only has one or two people. The Rothamsted Open Innovation Forum (ROIF), which will be held from 18-20 January 2017, is attracting industry leaders from around the world to try and provide solutions to global food challenges. Its clear from the range of pre-competitive pitches weve received that the breadth of topics the forum will cover will be extremely broad, says Chris Dunkley, chief executive of Rothamsted Centre for Research and Enterprise. Day three of the event will bring industry champions together to discuss everything from crop science to agronomy and data - giving everyone from farmers to scientists the chance to get involved with the big opportunities in global food security. Five key challenges will shape the day, kicking off with social acceptance of crop protection technologies; a key issue here in the UK. It will then move on to improving knowledge about African soils and landscapes to help focus agronomic advice on the most productive areas. A group of potential collaborators will work through each of the challenges. By bringing together international representatives from across the agri-food supply chain, ROIF 2017 is a game-changing way of fast-tracking answers to some of the biggest global questions, explains Mr Dunkley. With technology ever evolving, this unique event will be crucial for sharing knowledge and expertise across the entire agricultural community. The Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) is hoping to bring together an alliance of researchers at the event to boost understanding of the plant microbiome, leading to enhanced crop health and productivity. The move follows the departure of Jonathan Allright, after 29 years with the Group, and means that the two businesses through which Lloyds Banking Group serves the Agriculture sector, will now be under single leadership. Andrew Naylor will report into Paul Spencer, Chief Executive of AMC. The announcement relates only to the leadership of the two businesses. No changes are being made to the structure of the businesses, the nationwide network of Regional Agricultural Managers (RAM), or the products and services they offer to customers. Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media A Connecticut state senator has proposed extending to limited liability companies the concept of registering as a public benefit entity, more than two years after a similar bill failed to elicit widespread interest from entrepreneurs. In 2014, the General Assembly passed a law creating public benefit corporations in Connecticut, which freed businesses from the requirement that they act in the best interests of shareholders, instead being allowed to consider the organizations mission in providing a public benefit while recording profits for owners. The bill won broad support, including from the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, and disparate groups like the Connecticut Association of Nonprofits and the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Linda Kavanagh has not worked in the kitchen in two decades. But her work still revolves around the fare served at restaurant tables throughout the area. Kavanagh, 49, is marking this year the 20th anniversary of MaxEx Public Relations, her Stamford-based firm that has worked with some 300 clients in the dining industry in Connecticut and New York. She attributes MaxExs longevity to her experience in the culinary field before launching her own firm. Because I have a restaurant background, the way I deal with clients is probably different than another publicist, Kavanagh said in an interview last week in the cafe of Stamfords Franklin Street Works art center, one of her clients. A publicist is so geared on just the PR part and thats all they know. But I actually know food. I know restaurants. I know the industry. She gained that knowledge during a 10-year career in dining that included line cooking and, later, catering. I grew up in a family thats very food savvy, Kavanagh said. We were always cooking and going out to dinner. I was good at cooking and entertaining. Despite her passion for her work, Kavanagh would increasingly feel the physical demands of the job. Its hard on your body; its so labor intensive, Kavanagh said. Its a tough industry. Youre on your feet 12 to 14 hours at a time. Seeking a career change, Kavanagh broke into public relations at the firm of music industry publicist Gary Stromberg, whom she had met while catering. With Stromberg, she learned the basics of the business. The stint at Strombergs firm would last a few months. She launched MaxEx in 1997. Kavanagh landed her first client in the Barcelona Restaurant Group. Kavanaghs client list would quickly grow. She would benefit from the flourishing of the restaurant industry in southwestern Connecticut, a trend supported by the influx of millennials to Stamford, Norwalk and neighboring communities. Everyone knows each other in the restaurant industry, Kavanagh said. It can work for you just as much as it can work against you. It definitely worked for me other restaurateurs seeing what we were doing and wanting to do that. Clients cite her inventiveness and attention to detail. At Franklin Street Works, MaxEx promoted the June 2015 relaunch of the art organizations cafe with cocktail-style party events that drew representatives of major publications. The ensuing coverage produced a fourfold growth in the cafes traffic in a few weeks, said Franklin Street Works Executive Director Bonnie Wattles. We love working with Linda, Wattles said. She has a lot of cache with her clients. Her team is extraordinarily professional. They did just a tremendous job. MaxEx still focuses on hospitality, but it has added lifestyle clients such as Lord & Taylor and travel and tourism destinations such as New Yorks Woolworth Lobby Tours. The firm generally works with about a dozen clients at a time. Kavanagh works with two colleagues, senior associate Andrea Viscuso and social media director Julie Webel, a duo she credits for bringing original ideas and energy to her firm. Were the most effective weve ever been, Kavanagh said. I see it going on for a long time. Theres no wind down. We might hire more. Were enjoying it the most weve ever enjoyed it. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate STAMFORD Martin Luther King Jr. Day has always been an annual celebration of hope and a time to remember the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement. But as Americans come together to celebrate on Monday, there will be a palpable undercurrent of fear. Many civil rights leaders say theyre afraid President-elect Donald Trump will retreat from enforcement of civil rights laws, and they worry he has garnered the support of some who seem indifferent or hostile to black Americans. In the spirit of King, members of the black community are trying to unite against moves by Trump and a Republican-led Congress to reverse or erode President Barack Obamas social welfare policies like the Affordable Care Act and harm economically struggling Americans, said Jack Bryant, president of Stamford chapter of the NAACP. On this particular weekend as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we must go forward with the sentiment in mind to never give up, Bryant said. Never giving up was what Dr. King was about. While Trumps election might reverse some of the Democrats policies, Bryant said Obamas legacy as the first black president will remain an inspiration. Hes been a great role model for young people and he is not the type of person you witness often in your lifetime, Bryant said. I think people will be more involved politically now. This is an eye-opener about why it is important to be involved. King once brought his activist spirit to Stamford High School, where about 2,000 people filled the auditorium to hear him speak in 1964. It was a wonderful experience, said J. Ralph Murray, now 85, who was among those in attendance. You could tell when he was speaking the sincerity he had in his delivery, and how the people in the audience paid attention to what he was saying. Murray attended the event not as a student, but as a citizen an independent insurance agent who moved to Stamford in 1962. I can recall a lot of excitement by the public and the people wishing to attend, Murray said. Kings visit, documented in a Dec. 1, 1964 Advocate article, came a week before he went to Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. The article ran with a photo of King, then-Stamford Mayor Thomas Mayers and the pastor who chaired the event, organized by religious groups to raise money for Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They collected $3,500 more than $27,000 in todays dollars. In his speech, King praised the progress following the landmark Civil Rights Act passed earlier that year but said inequality still persisted. We know that brotherhood is not here yet, King was quoted saying. Look around. We have a long way to go, even in Connecticut. Blacks were being denied housing, job training, voter registration and equal pay and education, he told the audience. There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society where a segment of that society feels they have no stake in that society, King said. I am firmly convinced that if democracy is to live, then segregation must die. Kings speech was well-received by a diverse crowd, Murray said. We had people from every segment of the community every race, creed and color, young and old, he said. But he was not greeted with open arms by everyone. Police investigated a bomb threat as crowds entered the school. Outside the building a group denounced King as communist. At the time of his visit, King was sparring with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who criticized the civil rights activist for advising blacks not to report violations to the FBI in Georgia, according to the Advocate article. King believed the agency did not enforce civil rights laws in the South, and Hoover permitted racist law enforcement practices. Hoover called King the most notorious liar in the country. In Stamford, King announced his plans to request a meeting with Hoover to discuss the dispute. He was an incredibly powerful figure in 1964, but he still hadnt reached legendary status, said Stamford historian Tony Pavia, a history teacher who became Stamford High principal long after King set foot in the school auditorium. In the years following the civil rights movement, the legendary visit faded from the citys collective memory, until Pavia and Advocate columnist Angela Carella uncovered the 1964 article in the papers archive. This was the citys best kept secret for over 50 years, Pavia said. The thought that he was physically in that auditorium is such a powerful message to students, and the fact that he was in Stamford during an important time in his life is a very important thing for people to know, he said. Pavia has shared the story with students and others in the community. Its just another wonderful aspect of Stamford history that was very much overlooked, he said. It has not been forgotten by Herb Kohn, who attended Kings Stamford address with his wife and friends. It was an exciting time, said Kohn, 92, who owned a furniture store here for 40 years. He was such an outstanding gentleman and speaker who moved people whether you agreed with him or you didnt. Even back then, Kohn said, the crowd knew they were witnessing history. He was one of a kind, he said. To think that he was in our backyard is pretty special. Are small business owners too busy to think about retirement? Thats one take from a startling new report from BMO Wealth Management. It found only a fraction of the nations 28 million small business owners are prepared for retirement. For instance, 75 percent have saved less than $100,000 in retirement funds. Small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 employees, represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms -- employing almost half of all U.S. workers, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). So how is it that owners of these little engines that drive our economy are neglecting their own retirement? To answer that question, we need to understand a bit about these business owners. Most established, successful business owners and professionals tend to fit in one of two camps: Related: The Retirement Plan Strategy Small Business Owners Need to Know About Business owner type 1. Your business is your primary savings and retirement plan. You reinvest most of your profits into your business. You have confidence in your business, so you keep rolling the dice in the hopes of building your company and increasing your revenues. Many business owners are banking on selling their businesses to retire, but that is a very risky proposition. There's no guarantee you'll be able to sell your business for anything even close to what you think it's worth -- and you might not even be able to sell it at all. Industries and markets get disrupted -- sometimes overnight. The statistics about selling a business are sobering -- only 20 percent of businesses listed for sale ever sell, and if you're one of the lucky ones who gets it done, the IRS will take up to 45 percent of the sales price in taxes. Business owner type 2. These individuals are more diversified outside of their business. Some may hold conventional retirement accounts such as a 401(k), IRA or profit sharing, college savings, real estate investments or cash stashed in a savings or money market account for fast access to capital. Both types of business owners face risks associated with conventional investments and the risks of not being able to sell their business for what they expected. Related: 10 Flaws of Conventional Retirement Plans The reality is that you're doubling down on your risk by gambling with your money both inside and outside of your business. Regardless of which type best describes you, the critical question you should ask yourself is this -- What's my 'Plan B' for my business? How can you create a Plan B that will help you retire safely and securely? Start by asking what your retirement account be worth on the day you plan to tap into it? Most business owners cannot answer this question. The problem with conventional financial and retirement planning is that it's based on things you can't predict or control, like how much money you'll really have when you retire or how long it needs to last. If you dont know the value of your retirement savings when youre ready to tap into them, youre gambling, pure and simple. In his book, Predictably Irrational, behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains how we human investors typically forget about our losses and mentally exaggerate our successes. (Youve gotta love the name of Ariely's institute -- The Center for Advanced Hindsights.) So, let's pause for a stock market reality check. Most people saw their investment accounts plunge by 50 percent or more when the dot-com bubble burst. Many investors had moved their money into NASDAQ technology stocks, which plunged 78 percent between March 2000 and October 2002. Investors who diversified beyond tech stocks didn't fare much better. The S&P 500 lost 49 percent in that same period. After the S&P 500 peaked in October 2007, it proceeded to lose 57 percent by March 2009. That's two heart-stopping losses weve experienced -- just since the year 2000. But it's even worse than that for most of us. Since 1994, DALBAR, Inc., the leading independent, unbiased investment performance rating firm, has studied the actual long-term results investors get in the market. The DALBAR 2016 Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior includes some truly shocking findings. Consider that over the last 30 years: Investors in equity mutual funds have averaged 3.66 percent per year -- beating inflation by only 1 percent! (Was that worth the sleepless nights?) Asset allocation fund investors earned only 1.65 percent per year -- which didn't even come close to beating inflation. Pity those who invested in fixed-income funds -- they averaged only 0.59 percent per year. Related: Here's How Much a Millennial Needs to Save Each Month to Retire With $5 Million Clearly most investors, including millions of small business owners, have been digging themselves into a hole they may never be able to climb out of. Despite the big lie Wall Street tries to sell us, you dont have to risk your money to grow a sizeable nest egg. There are safe, predictable savings methods used by hundreds of thousands of Americans that can help small business owners take control of their financial futures and act as their own sources of financing. Related: Business Owners Need a 'Plan B' for Retirement The Retirement Plan Strategy Small-Business Owners Need to Know About 3 Gut-Wrenching Questions to Ask Your Spouse About Your Business Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved DARIEN Police arrested a 25-year-old man from the Bronx, N.Y., after they said he robbed the Darien CVS of high-end shampoo for the second time since last month. On Dec. 27, a suspect police later identified as Luis Medina took around $3,000 worth of salon shampoo from CVS, police said. A store employee provided police with the license plate number of the car Medina drove away in, allowing police to trace the vehicle. Around 8 a.m. on Jan. 13, the manager of CVS called police to report shampoo and hair products had been stolen from the store by a man. The manager gave a description of the suspect and said he had left the store, run across the street to the train station and entered a taxi. The first officer to respond to the station found several taxis in line, but only the first was occupied. The officer approached the right, rear passenger door of the taxi and saw the man inside matched the suspects description. Police identified the suspect as Medina, of Marion Avenue in the Bronx. CVS surveillance footage showed Medina taking around 15 hair products off a shelf and hiding them in his loose-fitting pants. Officers recovered the items in Medinas pants after searching and arresting him. Several other hair care products were recovered from Medinas backpack. It was determined the products were stolen from a CVS in the Bronx earlier on Jan. 13. Police found in the bag a tool to remove security devices from high-end merchandise. Police determined Medina was a suspect in shoplifting incidents in CVS stores in Stamford, Westport and New York City. He had stolen around $9,000 worth of hair products, police said. Medina stole around $3,500 worth of hair care products in Darien. While processing Medina, it was discovered he had an outstanding warrant out of Norwalk for failure to appear. Medina was charged with second-degree failure to appear, as well as sixth-degree larceny and possession of burglary tools. He was charged with third-degree larceny in the Dec. 27 shoplifting. Medina is being held by Darien police on $50,000 bond. ekayata@hearstmedia ct.com; @erin_kayata NORWALK As an intern for former Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, Raj Shah didnt really know which political party he identified with. He came from a mostly Democratic family, and having grown up in Norwalk as the son of immigrants from Mumbai, he had always felt like he fell somewhere in the middle in American politics. All it took was one summer, though, to realize he agreed with few of the people around him. A turning point in his political pathway, Shah said the summer opened his eyes to the issues that were important to him. I remember discussing issues with people that I interned with and didnt really agree with these folks, Shah said. I cast my first vote in 2004 for George W. Bush and I interned in the White House in 2005 ... 9/11 happened my senior year of high school, and thats always stuck with me. It was terrorism. It was how to handle the threat facing the United States and the approaches we took both when it came to civil liberties and how we handled things abroad. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the economy, how you handle an economic downturn. The role, size and scope of government ... those are the big issues I really found I didnt agree with people on. My family and friends were all Democrats so I kind of rolled with that, but once I kind of dug into the issues with a lot more depth it wasnt really a close call. Im a Republican. Shah, 32, will return to the White House next week as the deputy assistant to the president, deputy communications director and research director for the White House. He was selected by President-elect Donald Trump last week in the latest round of White House appointments. Im really honored and humbled to have this opportunity, Shah said Tuesday. Ive been working in politics for over a decade and this is sort of the dream job, a senior position in the White House. This is a dream ever since I was in high school in Norwalk. During the 2016 campaign, he served as the research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee where he specialized in opposition research essentially digging up information about candidates for use by their rivals. Hes also the co-founder of America Rising, a right-leaning political action committee that produces opposition research on Democratic candidates . Path to politics Shah characterized his childhood as pretty normal. He said he enjoyed growing up in Norwalk and thought it was the center of the world until he left for college. A 2002 graduate of Brien McMahon High School, Shah was named an Ettinger Scholar, reserved for top graduates of Norwalk high schools. He attended Cornell University where he studied government, earning his bachelors degree in 2006. Shahs father, Suresh Shah, said Raj Shahs interest in politics started in high school, though he was never involved in student government. In tenth grade I distinctly remember he used to come from school, he would have a snack, pull his backpack and he would go away, Suresh Shah said. Instead of hanging out with his friends, he was taking a bus and a train to go to Bridgeport to Congressman Chris Shays office and he would spend a couple hours there answering phones, picking up the mail, whatever. He was interested since then. Shah went on to moderate debates and hold several internships in Washington, D.C. Suresh Shah said once his son got a taste of D.C., there was no stopping him. Im an engineer and my wife, his mother, is a dentist, so we figured he would take a more traditional path of professional like a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or whatever, Suresh Shah laughed. Then he graduated high school in 2006 and he never looked back. He came home on Friday from school and on Monday he left to go to Washington and ever since hes been working hard. Building the playbook Shah previously served as a deputy research director at the RNC during the 2012 presidential election cycle. During that time, he said he learned what not to do in the 2016 election. The RNC website credits Shah with developing the organization's opposition research book on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a task he says he started with America Rising long before Clinton even announced her candidacy. The other side did it better than us then, Raj Shah said. We took that experience and used it as a case study for how we should handle the 2016 election. I was with some other folks including Mitt Romneys campaign manager following the 2012 election and among our primary mission was to begin the research and communication efforts targeting Hillary Clinton well before she even got in the race. That was when we kind of built the playbook. Its very deep, its very broad. We had the time and resources to dig through it all and kind of pick and choose how we wanted to go about the general election. I think it played to our benefit. When the email issue broke, we knew what buttons to push. When issues surrounding the foundation came up we knew where to look. We filed over 550 FOI requests and we sued the government half a dozen times to release records. All these sorts of things were years in the making. It was a huge coordinated effort. Shah said he enjoyed being a part of the support structure for all of the nominees, and wouldnt say who he supported in the early days of the campaign when there were more than a dozen candidates on the table. I think we built what I would call the best infrastructure the party has ev er seen, Shah said. From the opposition research perspective, its definitely the most comprehensive structure. Im very proud of it. I would have been proud whether we won or lost, and I would have been happy whether it was Donald trump or not. Proud parents Shahs parents, who still live in Norwalk but spend the winter in Florida, will attend Trumps inauguration this week to support their son. My wife and I were both very excited, Suresh said. It was somewhat anticipated as far he was going to get something because as soon as the chairman of the RNC, Reince Priebus, was announced to be the chief of staff ... they really adored my son. They really liked him so when they got into the White House it was obvious the would take him with them. KKrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt STAMFORD A Norwalk man was twice clocked going more than 70 mph before crashing two different cars in a span of several hours Saturday morning, police said. Sgt. Robert Shawinsky said Sgt. Mike Scatamacchia saw a car speeding eastbound on Broad Street about 2:30 a.m. Saturday. Scatamacchia followed the vehicle, when he found it stopped at a light on Greyrock Place. When the light turned green, the BMW remained stopped for several seconds before speeding down the street, Shawinsky said. Scatamacchia followed the car eastbound and clocked it going more than 70 mph, Shawinsky said. The car veered sharply and struck a curb near McDonalds, blowing out two tires before stopping in a nearby parking lot, Shawinsky said. The driver, Treshawn Phillips, 23, of Woodward Avenue, was eventually taken out of the car and searched. Phillips failed the sobriety tests and was charged with drunk driving, traveling unreasonably fast, reckless driving and driving under suspension, Shawinsky said. He was released after posting a promise to appear in court. A few hours later, Phillips took the keys to his cousins 2016 Dodge Charger rental car and was clocked going 79 mph in a 40-mph zone on Long Ridge Road shortly after 8:30 a.m. as he rushed to work in Pound Ridge, N.Y., Shawinsky said. Shawinsky said Phillips slammed on the brakes when he spotted an officer ahead. But Phillips sped up again when he passed the officer and realized he was going to get pulled over, Shawinsky said. Phillips steered over the double-yellow center line to pass a slower-moving car, but then crashed into the back of an SUV when he pulled back into the northbound side of the road, Shawinsky said. Phillips was charged with engaging police in pursuit, drunk driving, driving under suspension, failure to drive right and speeding. He was held over the weekend in lieu of a $50,000 court appearance bond. jnickerson@scni.com; STAMFORD As some minorities are fearful of President-elect Donald Trump taking office and many celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a city couple said their rights were violated this weekend. A common-law couple found a racial slur spray painted Saturday morning on the garage door outside their Bulls Head home. The residence is home to a black man and his white common-law wife in the generally white, middle-class neighborhood. It is disgusting and it is something we have under investigation, Assistant Police Chief Tom Wuennemann said. Police responded to the High Clear Drive home about 8:30 a.m. Saturday when resident Lexene Charles discovered the n-word painted on the white garage door. I cannot believe it. At this time, someone could write this? Those times were supposed to be way back in the 60s and I was born in 61, Charles said. Its 2017, and on Martin Luther King Day. And with President Obama, the first black president. Its ridiculous for those things to keep going on. Charles, 56, has lived in the home since 1999 with his common-law wife, Heather Lindsay, 59. Lindsay said she has lived in the home, which once belonged to her uncle, since 1990. Our civil rights are being violated, Lindsay said. Sgt. Robert Shawinsky said officers spoke with neighbors on Saturday, but could not find a witness who saw or heard anyone spray painting the wide, sheet-metal garage door. Shawinsky said there were few security cameras in the neighborhood. Capt. Richard Conklin sent investigators to the neighborhood on Sunday, but the residents were not home and no one else reported seeing anything suspicious Friday night into Saturday. Conklin said neighbors complained about seeing the slur and investigators on Sunday covered the door with a tarp. However, the tarp was removed Monday morning. Lindsay said there has been a history of trouble with the property. The garage door was once damaged while the couple was on vacation and they have been cited for violating the citys blight ordinance, she said. We arent going to let it bother us, because from what we are understanding as it sinks in, as we cry, and as we talk about it, this is just saying the way we have been treated, said Lindsay, who plans to speak with her attorney before removing the slur from the door. This is how Stamford, Conn. is treating us. jnickerson@scni.com; 1 6-year-old Iris Law has today been revealed as the new face of Burberry Beauty as she launches the brand's new lip colour. Starring in a video campaign alongside a series of images - which mark her first ever global campaign - the young daughter of Jude Law and Sadie Frost celebrates her role as the new global ambassador for Burberry Beauty. Hailing the arrival of Burberry's Liquid Lip Velvet, the campaign coincides with the launch of a dedicated Burberry Beauty Tumblr page which includes exclusive imagery of Iris on set. The brand are also hosting a series of 'colour stories' on Pinterest, highlighting the hero colours from the Liquid Lip Velvet collection which is available in 14 different shades from Light Nude through to Black Cherry. A matte cream product, the Liquid Lip Velvet has been carefully crafted with a combination of richly pigmented colour and a smooth, moisturising texture for a bold velvet finish that lasts for up to eight hours. Shot in London by Angelo Pennetta, the campaign video sees Iris model the new product and plays out to the soundtrack of Faded by Clare Maguire. As well as having two Hollywood stars for parents, Iris is also Goddaughter to Kate Moss and was a bridesmaid at the supermodel's wedding to Jamie Hince in 2011. But despite seemingly always having been destined for a life in the limelight, the 16-year-old recently revealed to Teen Vogue that she is interested in pursuing a more introverted career in either art or photography. "Ill shoot someone, usually a friend, and then Ill base a very intricate oil painting off of that picture," she explains. "I aim to show the realness of a person and really capture them as an individual - I like painting eyes and veins under the skin." Follow Lifestyle on Facebook and on Twitter @ESLifeandStyle A lliance Trust has hired a crack team of British and north American fund managers to fill the gaps left after the biggest shake-up in the firms 128-year history. The Dundee-based firm has hired eight best of the best fund managers to replace Katherine Garrett-Coxs former fund unit Alliance Trust Investment, which used to run the money and was sold last year. Were confident this will produce much more consistent outperformance. Some of them are more familiar than others and this is the first time retail investors can invest with them, Alliance board member Clare Dobie said. Consultant Willis Towers Watson picked the eight from 2800 on offer. The line-up includes three from London Jupiter, River and Mercantile, and Veritas. The rest are based in Toronto, LA, Florida, Connecticut and New York. Each will be given 400 million to manage. Alliance was overhauled last year after activists Elliott campaigned to ditch the investment arm and appoint outside managers. T his will be an important week for UK economic policy, providing greater clarity about the Governments Brexit strategy. Yesterday, however, comments by the Chancellor Philip Hammond were interpreted controversially. During an interview in Germany, he implied that if the UK was given a bad deal by the rest of the EU, we would change our domestic economic model, effectively becoming a corporate tax haven, even changing our social policy. Whatever politicians on the Continent may say or do, I see no reason why our domestic economic strategy should change. The Treasury needs to stop thinking Brexit is about making the best of a bad job. After all, its pre-referendum forecasts were very pessimistic. That might help to explain his comments. The Chancellor is right in observing that the UKs Brexit strategy needs to complement the Governments domestic economic and industrial thinking. The two should go hand in hand and reinforce each other. And they can, in a positive way. The focus should be on investment, infrastructure spending and increased innovation. The EU is not only a slow- growth region in the world economy but its rules and regulations ensure it is a low-innovation one too. All the more reason to be set apart from it. We need to compete, whatever type of deal we do with the EU. And the last thing we want is a change to our social model and a race to the bottom on workers rights. Outside the EU they would no longer be determined in Brussels but by MPs here, in response to what the British people want. Taxes can still head lower but that would depend upon how our economy performs. All this must be seen in the context of our overall approach to Brexit. There is much talk of hard Brexit versus soft Brexit. These labels add little value and are misleading. The terms clean Brexit and messy Brexit are more accurate. A clean Brexit means a clean break, under our complete control, with the UK leaving both the single market and the customs union. It would allow the UK to return sovereignty to Parliament and to have a sensible migration policy, controlling our laws and our borders. Also, it would allow us to position ourselves to succeed in a changing and growing global economy. In contrast, we should make clear that the UK does not want a tumultuous and potentially explosive, messy Brexit negotiation with the EU over freedom of movement and membership of the single market. A messy Brexit would give the Government no control over the central aspects of leaving. It would also maximise business uncertainty, seriously damage UK-EU relations and could even end in a disastrous stalemate. Even though we are leaving the EU we are still in Europe, sharing common agendas in areas such as defence and anti-terrorism. Theresa May denies 'muddled thinking' over Brexit The Government has much to gain from opting for a clean Brexit. The leading economic commentator Liam Halligan and I have co-authored a report, released today by the Policy Exchange think-tank, called Clean Brexit. In it we outline the approach we believe the Government should take. We need to rule out remaining in the EUs single market. Its economic benefits are exaggerated and it does little to help our service sector, which accounts for four-fifths of our economy and is dominant in London. Inside this market we remain liable for multi-billion-pound annual payments to the EU and remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. We couldnt control our laws or our borders. About eight per cent of UK firms export to the EU but because of our membership all firms even only those many small firms that sell only here at home have to abide by its rules and regulations. There is a big difference between being a member of the single market and having access to it. The UK will still have access to the single market. We also have to remember that it is firms and people that trade, not bureaucrats and politicians, and whichever economy we export to it is necessary to abide by that countrys rules and regulations. Outside the single market we can set a migration policy to suit domestic needs. Of course we still need migration; it helps economically and culturally but it needs to be part of a sensible overall strategy. We need higher wages and more spending on training our domestic workers, not unlimited migration. Then we need to leave the customs union too. Once the UK leaves, around 85 per cent of the world economy will be outside the EU. Inside the customs union we remain unable to cut our own UK-focused trade agreements with nations across the world. Leaving it opens up future opportunities and allows the UK to think globally, with a focus on free trade. Central to that will be the ability to reduce non-tariff barriers that often hold back trade in services. We will also need to focus on preparing to retake our seat at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Already we conduct around half of our trade under WTO rules with the rest of the world. Both the US and China trade heavily with the EU, under WTO rules, and we can do the same. But already, our WTO-rules trade is not only the biggest part, it is also fast-growing and registers a surplus. We need to position the UK for future free-trade agreements. Even the European Commission acknowledges that 90 per cent of global growth is set to come from outside the EU. Such global deals are a great opportunity. In addition, and as the Chancellor touched on yesterday, there is the scope for a bespoke or sector-specific trade agreement with the EU. This makes economic sense, for cars and the City. And in time, as part of our free-trade focus, we will have the ability to cut tariffs as part of our future trade deals. Tomorrow, at Lancaster House, the Prime Minister will outline her thinking on Brexit and on the direction of government policy. The message should be Global Britain, and it is one that she should then take to Davos and the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum later this week. There she will explain how Britain intends to seize the opportunity offered by Brexit, positioning us as both attractive as an economy to invest in and successful as a place from which to do business. This will be a positive message for London and the whole country. Dr Gerard Lyons is chief economic strategist at Netwealth Investments. The report, Clean Brexit, by Liam Halligan and Gerard Lyons, is available via the Policy Exchange website. I n response to your article [Sadiq Khans 10 pollution charge will cost Londoners 23 million a year but hardly improve air quality at all , January 12], two court rulings in two years have ordered the Government to take urgent action to meet legal air pollution limits, but it seems the penny still hasnt dropped. The toxicity charge will help protect peoples health in the short term and pave the way for the Mayors expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone, but it needs to go further and be applied to more diesel vehicles. The High Court made it crystal clear that protecting human health must take top priority, and Londoners back the Mayor taking bold action such as this. That is why the Government and political leaders should be working with Mr Khan to speed up the implementation of various measures and mitigate their impact on small businesses through a scrappage scheme, rather than holding him back. Alan Andrews, ClientEarth The Mayor is planning a new charge that will cost residents of London 23 million per year for a negligible impact on air pollution. This will hardly offset the pollution caused by the Mayors new bicycle lanes. Reducing the number of lanes on major arterial roads such as Bayswater Road causes long back-ups of traffic. It is well known that vehicles produce significant pollution while stuck in traffic. A more effective and zero-cost method to combat pollution in London would be to improve the flow of traffic, rather than create unnecessary road blocks. This new toxicity charge appears to be nothing more than a tax that will be spent on other projects at the whim of the Mayor. Roderick Hall As DR David Gutmann [Letters, January 12] says, it is not only the City of London where drivers run their engines while stationary. I live in Wandsworth, and I frequently sit in my car getting a first read of the paper. There are often half a dozen vans and minicabs sitting with their engines running that only move on when a traffic warden shows up. Our housekeeper, whose flat is on the ground floor, says he can no longer have his windows open because of the fumes produced by these vehicles. It would be nice if the incumbent Mayor would do more to deter drivers from doing this. Liz Denton Banning vehicle idling to help reduce pollution is futile and will only serve further to aggravate motorists, many of whom rarely park with their engine idling for a significant length of time and own relatively clean petrol or hybrid vehicles. The fairest way forward on the issue is to take a sensible approach and ban the worst culprit for toxic pollution: diesel vehicles. Jote Bassi Cyprus solution is long overdue It is safe to say most Cypriots want an end to the division in Cyprus, and the power-sharing model mentioned in Joe Murphys article [Reunion for Cyprus finally within reach, says Johnson, January 12] may be their best hope for reunification. However, the Cyprus problem is complicated by many factors, not least the strong ties with Greece and Turkey, the future of Turkish troops and the estimated 150,000 Turkish settlers on the island, and questions of lost property and loved ones unaccounted for on both sides. Though many concessions will need to be made, all parties must be given guarantees of legislative and economic stability, national security and a just approach towards any reparations and repatriations. That the 2004 referendum saw unity plans rejected by voters in the Republic of Cyprus should not lead people to think they are against a peace process. With Greece suffering from crippling debt and Turkey facing internal political strife, the people of Cyprus must work towards a solution for all. Negotiations will go back and forth but the goal of a viable and stable solution must remain in sight. Dr Nicholas Constantino Marylebone must support local pubs I read about the Marylebone pub The Bok Bar and how it is facing a licence review following noise complaints [Firehouse star-spotters upset neighbours, January 12]. I am very concerned about the rate of pub closures in London generally, but Marylebone seems to have been hit especially hard in recent times. The wonderful Windsor Castle was forced to shut after the owners refused to renew the lease and turned the building into luxury flats. The popular Tudor Rose and Duke of Wellington pubs have also closed. Marylebone is becoming a ghost town at night, and this will only get worse when business rates increase in April. Do local residents really want another popular pub to close? I would urge them to get behind this local business before it is too late. Steve Hanscomb Lammy gets it right on night schools I am grateful to David Lammy for raising the important issue of night schools [A new approach to adult education will help Londoners succeed, January 12]. As he says, Birkbeck has offered high-quality evening study for nearly 200 years. While the reported decline in part-time numbers is a concern, Birkbeck now offers three-year full-time degrees taught in the evening. These are proving increasingly popular because they allow students to work during the day as well as pursuing their studies. Professor David Latchman, Birkbeck, University of London Bank junction has to be made safer It is very disappointing that taxi drivers decided to protest about the closure of Bank junction to all except buses and cyclists [Bank junction: Black cab drivers bring City of London to a standstill, January 12]. The City of London is to be applauded for its decision to improve a dangerous, clogged junction where there have been too many deaths and injuries. The 18,000 pedestrians using the junction in the mornings will not only be safer but also benefit from better air quality and will be able to enjoy one of the finest public spaces in London. David Harrison, London Living Streets T he director of Sir Simon Rattles latest venture a modern opera which combines car horns with more traditional instruments says it is the perfect show for the Donald Trump era. Peter Sellars said he thought Le Grand Macabre was quite out there when it was written in the Seventies by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti but its cast of demented politicians and sinister nuclear scientists now seemed normal. The American director said: The piece speaks in an amazing way suddenly because of what we are living through right now. When the piece was new, we all said thats crazy and now you think he nailed it. It has that sense that nobody quite has anything under control and the thing veers in these wild extremes and something you think no one would take seriously suddenly turns into a genuine public menace. The Barbican production centres on a grim reaper stalking a stage littered with hospital beds and barrels supposed to be full of nuclear waste while he plans for the end of the world. Ligetis work calls for a percussion section that includes a wind machine, a saucepan and a large alarm clock while a big screen shows scenes from Chernobyl and violent street protests. Sellars said its writer, who died in 2006, made sure no one in the cast and crew takes an easy road. He said: It is totally demanding but it is virtuosic in the great tradition of classical music as you watch people accomplish superhuman feats. It creates a totally amazing picture of the world. Visit standard.co.uk/arts for the latest news and reviews from Londons arts scene. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout L ondon's future as one of the centres of the world art market depends upon the free movement of people and goods in the EU, according to dozens of major galleries. Businesses setting up shop for this weeks London Art Fair were quizzed about the industrys future with just under half (49%) saying maintaining free movement was the most important thing the government could do to help post-Brexit. The Prime Minister is expected to set out the Governments approach towards negotiations in a major speech tomorrow. This years fair is the most international yet with galleries from 18 different countries including China, Germany, South Korea and USA taking part. Its director Sarah Monk said dealers were not too worried about the immediate impact of the Brexit vote. She said: Uncertainty immediately following the referendum may have led some collectors to pause for thought last summer, but what we are hearing is that this has been balanced out in the latter half of the year by strong interest in quality Modern British art and international collectors taking advantage of the weakened pound. Experienced dealers know that good work will always sell. Whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, it is important that London maintains its competitiveness as a global art hub whether through providing the right conditions for import and export of goods or ensuring free movement of talented people who work in the sector. London Art Fair is at the Business Design Centre in Islington from Wednesday to Sunday. Visit standard.co.uk/arts for the latest news and reviews from Londons arts scene. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout O ne of Britains youngest and fastest rising culinary stars has won his first central London head chef role at Princess Dianas favourite restaurant. Ben Murphy, 26, has taken over the kitchen at Launceston Place in Kensington, charged with winning back the Michelin star it lost last year. He was previously head chef at The Woodford in east London, winning a series of accolades including Evening Standard Restaurant of the Year and a rare five-star rating from AA Gill. Murphy said his food would be simply cooked but strong on flavours and presentation. Were not going to be doing lots of sous vide and water bathing itll be pieces of meat and fish cooked really well with maximum flavour and looking very pretty on the plate, he added. Mains on the 55 three-course a la carte dinner menu include cod with ink, Jerusalem artichoke and lemon. There is also a seven-course tasting menu at 70 and a 30 three-course set lunch menu. The restaurant opened in 1986 and was a frequent destination for Diana, who had a cheese souffle named in her honour. Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from Londons food scene. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESGoingOut I ts no surprise that Ofcoms recent communications report shows that we now have more digital conversations than real ones. The ubiquity of connection through texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook and apps means conversation is being replaced by tech. We know how to connect. But are we forgetting how to talk to each other? The report notes that the shift away from traditional ways of keeping in touch was being led by people aged 16-24 and their infatuation with screens. As a result, some people in this demographic are showing a deficiency in real-world interpersonal skills. Looking down at smartphones, tablets and donning headphones while going about our daily business also means we can ward off unwanted attention and having to engage in personal interaction. I watched a girl in the supermarket recently, heavily wired with her earphones as she shunned the three queueless checkout tills in favour of the self-service area. Unexpected item in bagging area bellowed out. The look on her face as she searched for a human and unplugged her earphones to converse was painful. Sherry Turkle, professor of social psychology at MIT, has been researching reliance on devices that can isolate us under the auspices of connection. All of this comes at the expense of conversation, she concludes, with a situation where were constantly talking at each other rather than with each other. Adults are less likely to be conversation-phobic but they do seem to have become conversation-avoidant. Because its easier. Surveys typically show 70 per cent or more people prefer to text or email. They cite it as being less stressful and they can prepare you can edit, eliminating the risks of saying the wrong thing and present your best self. What were missing is the importance of spontaneity on the phone. Face-to-face we can take note of body language leaks, facial expressions as well as vocal clues. Its important to remember the flip side of any conversation: listening. A good listener uses encouragers and builds rapport. Theyll be aware of turn taking allowing a person to respond and enter the conversation. I heard this comment from a girl: Nice guy, nice date. Except that he got annoyed every time I interjected to respond to something he said. Conversation was impossible because it was really a monologue. Best books on mindfulness 1 /14 Best books on mindfulness Find your inner peace with our pick of the best mindfulness and meditation books... Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world This bestseller will get you in the right frame of mind for 2016. Based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) a successful form of brief meditation this book's success relies on the way in which authors Mark Williams and Danny Penman optimistically focus on adding joy to your life as opposed to ridding it of unhappiness. 10.50, Amazon, Buy it now Anti-Stress Dot-to-Dot Always thought that dot-to-dots were an activity for children? Apprently you're wrong be wrong the pictures in this book, featuring elegant buildings and nature scenes, will relax and focus your mind in a way you never thought a dot-to-dot book could. 5, Amazon, Buy it now I Am Here Now This will help enhance both your observation and creativity; with an audio track (featuring musings from mindfulness teacher Tara Brach) and a field notes page for recording purposes, I Am Here Now will enable your thoughts and emotions to take on a new lease of life. 7, Amazon, Buy it now The Mindful Workplace What better time to deploy the theories of mindfulness than at work? This book, filled with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques, provides an eight-week training course to keep your workplace attitude at its peak. 30.50, Amazon, Buy it now Get some headspace This book from Andy Puddicombe, founder of popular digital health platform Headspace, attempts to get people to take ten minutes out of their day for meditation purposes. Once the technique's been learned, these skills will stay with you for the rest of your life. 10, Amazon, Buy it now The Mindfulness Colouring Book Much like the dot-to-dot book above, this pocket-sized adult colouring book is the perfect activity for a 10-minute breather. Consider your stress and anxiety soothed. 4, Amazon, Buy it now The Little Book of Mindfulness In this day and age, it's more important to be in the moment than ever this book will help you with that. From Dr Patrizia Collard, these brief practices will rid your day of stress and have you feeling more optimistic. 4, Amazon, Buy it now Body Calm The saying mind over matter derives from the idea that our minds have the power to control our bodies if we really want them to. Equally, mental stress can have a damaging effect on our bodies. Newbigging teaches us a new self-healing meditation technique to help keep our bodies healthy and to understand the source of common stress and anxiety triggers. 11, Amazon, Buy it now The Power of Now The Power of Now has become one of the most famous mindfulness books out there. Helping us to tap into our innermost Being, Tolle guides us through various techniques to help us understand that the present moment is all that really matters. 8, Amazon, Buy it now A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled An ambassador for mental health awareness, Ruby Wax OBE has helped to make mindfulness accessible to all. Having suffered from depression herself, in this book she explores how modern living is causing us more stress and anxiety than ever as we know and see too much. Included are mindfulness exercises and tips for everyone from babies to adults; all with sound underlying scientific reasoning. 4, Amazon, Buy it now Whether its to build rapport/offer sympathy/apologise or any other of the countless reasons we need to engage in conversation, we should bear in mind that its at the emotional level that we connect more effectively. So you dont want just to present facts youre not a newspaper. You want to convey your feelings about the facts. Avoid resistance, bad feeling or diluting a compliment with the word but. We use it so much in everyday life both in and out of work, and it dilutes any good feeling. An animator working on Toy Story 3 showed her roughs to the director. He replied: I like Woodys eyes, and what if his eyes rolled left? Instead of criticising or giving a no he used what if as a suggestion and to encourage creativity. (Better than: Its good but I dont like the eyes). If we craft our words carefully we can encourage action. In classical times, when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said: How well he spoke. When Demosthenes finished speaking, the people said: Let us march. The last word goes to Barack Obama, who in his farewell speech urged Americans to engage more with each other: If youre tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life. Can we make that a New Years resolution for 2017? Yes we can! Award-winning author James Borgs new book, Talkability, is out now (Pearson) Young Progress Makers will be at the Roundhouse on January 25. For more details go to: standard.co.uk/ypm. To buy tickets for the event, go to: roundhouse.org.uk/ypm. #ESYPM A mid the somewhat scrappy, unloved streets at the very furthest tip of Lower Manhattan directly across from a Dunkin Donuts something rather magical has appeared. Step inside The Beekman and all notions of bad chain-store coffee or ropey hot-dog carts vanish as if in a particularly showy plume of smoke. An impeccably coiffed and mustachioed man stands in a low-lit, wood-panelled lobby, behind a desk draped in Persian rugs. Theres more than a touch of the Gothic fairy tale about it, like Ive just exited the wardrobe and found Narnia only my Narnia is a slightly spooky, if unquestionably stylish, boutique hotel. This new offering from luxury hotel group Thompson is making the most of its distinguished setting: one of New Yorks first-ever high-rises, Temple Court (or 5 Beekman Street). This storied building, created in the Queen Anne style in 1883, is an unabashedly dignified vision of pointy turrets and red Philadelphia brick, and once hosted a library and reading rooms frequented by Edgar Allan Poe. The macabre American writer was evidently on the minds of design studio Martin Brudnizki, responsible for the interiors of hot London venues: The Ivy, Dean Street Townhouse, J Sheekey, Sexy Fish and Scotts. The whole place, from top to toe, is cinematically whimsical, its studied quirks ranging from a large cabinet of curiosities screening off the main bar (which has a portrait of Poe) to a half-open suitcase in the lobby that emits a mysterious glow. The mustachioed man turns out to be a snooty fellow but I treat his chilly demeanour as befitting the fantastical surroundings. (The doormen and bellboys, however, couldnt have been friendlier.) Its an irritating reality of New York City that its hotels seldom bother with the niceties typical of American or even any hospitality, which extends to its flair for insultingly tiny rooms. What a refreshing surprise, then, that my Deluxe King turns out to be a decent size. The decor is largely the same whatever room category you choose, though: aged-oak floors, grey blinds and white sheets pepped up with energetic pops of yellow (cushions), purple (rug) and blue (the gargoyle-esque bedside lamp). The style overall is a hotchpotch of vintage, while the relatively spacious bathroom is all classic white tiles. In case you forgot you were spending the night in a highly stylised rendering of vaguely Victorian eeriness, when evening comes a Tarot card appears by the bed foretelling the next days weather. But the absence of an in-room coffee machine feels deliberately miserly, forcing me to brave Dunkin Donuts. The exterior The Beekman thoroughly redeems the caffeine hole, however, with its knockout bar room, set under the buildings pyramidal atrium. Theres something genuinely transportive about this feat of design, where nine floors of Victorian wrought-iron railings stretch theatrically above you. The bar itself is intimately arranged all leather armchairs and table lamps and is so damn inviting youll settle in despite the $18 cocktails. Theres a smart restaurant from TV chef Tom Colicchio, too, and another from renowned Downtown restaurateur Keith McNally. For the thoroughly loaded, there are two duplex penthouses with private rooftop terraces. A guest room The neighbourhood Its apt that the hotel is rejuvenating a landmark building that has been empty for decades, as this part of Manhattan is also beginning to emerge from years of neglect. Metres from the 9/11 memorial and museum and the new restaurants and bars of the redeveloped World Trade Center, theres more reason than ever to base yourself here. Particularly as its just steps from the Brooklyn Bridge, for my money the Big Apples best-looking icon and a total joy to wander across for unbeatable Manhattan views dont miss the scene from Brooklyn Heights Promenade on the other side. Details 123 Nassau St, New York, NY 10038 (00 1 855 880 1240; thompsonhotels.com/hotels/the-beekman). Double rooms start at $529 (433). Includes tax, excludes breakfast. Return flights from Gatwick to JFK cost from 304.30 with Norwegian (norwegian.com). Rooms: Service: Value: A carer for the elderly has been jailed for stealing more than 170,000 from a vulnerable 95-year-old pensioner. Nazneen Chattun, cashed 71 cheques and obtained power of attorney, which gave her control of the OAPs bank accounts. The pensioner, from Isleworth, gave evidence during the trial of Chattun, who was being paid by Hounslow council to care for her at home. Social services became involved after the woman was taken to West Middlesex Hospital casualty department in February 2012. They discovered she had been neglecting herself and living in sub-standard conditions. There was no heating in the house, it leaked and she was not eating or cleaning herself properly. Mauritius-born Chattun, 55, of Hounslow, was convicted of three counts of theft totalling 171,455 between June and August 2013. She gave more than 8,000 of the pensioners money to her children. Police were able to seize 130,000 held in Chattuns bank account. At Isleworth crown court she was sentenced to two years and four months in prison. Recorder Edward Jenkins QC said: You came to realise quickly she was to be an excellent source of money for your needs and you started to steal from her for a sustained period. You acted in breach of trust of your employers and the trust society has placed in you as a carer. You needed to take further steps to control her money and you got power of attorney over her financial affairs, showing a level of persistence and considerable sophistication. During the trial the OAP gave evidence via video link, but answered: I dont know, and I cant remember, to most of the questions. She said of Chattun: I dont know much about Naz. Shes someone that used to pop in every other day. She used to do a bit of shopping sometimes if I ever wanted any bread or whatever and sit and talk. I didnt take much notice. A man has been shot in an apparently targeted attack near a primary school. A large police presence was seen in the Penilee area of Glasgow after a 35-year-old man was shot near St George's Primary School shortly after 9am on Monday. The victim was rushed to hospital where he remains and his condition is described as stable. Chief Inspector Simon Jeacocke described the incident as highly unusual. The shooting happened in an suburb of Glasgow shortly after 9am (Lucinda Cameron/PA ) / Lucinda Cameron/PA He said: "Understandably parents, staff, pupils and people in the local community are all very alarmed by this. "We do believe it was a targeted attack but nonetheless this took place near to a local primary school at the start of the school day, when the area was busy with parents dropping off their children. "Although it would appear that there was an intended victim, anyone could have been injured as a result, putting young children and innocent people at risk. "The pupils are now safe at school and additional police patrols are in the area to provide extra reassurance over the next couple of days. Local councillor Alistair Watson added: "Parents are worried about the safety of their children and the kids are the number one priority, to make sure they are safe. "Penilee is a good area with lots of very good people here. "I have to commend the police for their operation. They have been very on the ball with this incident." Police Scotland firearms officers attended and extensive inquiries are under way. Roads leading to the school were cordoned off as police officers stood guard, while a forensics officer combed the pavement outside the building. T wo police officers who tackled an armed man wearing a suspected suicide vest near the Emirates Stadium are in line for a bravery award. The officers challenged the man after witnesses described him as shouting aggressively and waving what appeared to be a machete in the street. After he resisted they tackled him to the ground before spotting coloured electrical wires protruding from the suspects jacket - suggesting he was wearing a suicide vest. Scotland Yard said that fearing for the publics safety, Pcs Jason Hodgson and Alex Field made the selfless decision to tightly hug the suspect to prevent his movement from triggering what they feared to be a bomb. A third officer, who had military experience, searched the man in Avenell Road, Highbury and dismantled a contraption which included a circuit board, electrical wires and mobile phones. It was later found to be harmless. The suspect was found to have mental health problems and had strapped phones to himself with an intricate web of wires. The Met said firearms officers, who arrived at the scene near Arsenals stadium in January last year minutes after the mans arrest, would have had to engage the suspect who presented every visual indication of a terrorist threat. The officers are among several nominations for the Mets annual outstanding bravery of the year award which is chosen by public vote. Others in line for an award include a dog handler who tackled a dangerous man who had doused himself in petrol and officers who dashed into burning buildings to rescue people, in one case pulling 10 people, including a baby and a pregnant woman, to safety. Londoners can vote by going to the Mets website at www.met.police.uk/bravery-awards. A notorious sex beast who raped a string of women around London in the 1980s has been given a further three life sentences after he admitted terrifying attacks on two more women who fell into his clutches. Michael Chandler, 53, admitted he didnt care what he did as he attacked eight women in the space of two years, between 1985 and 1987, often invading their homes while masked and brandishing a knife. He was given six life sentences in 1988 after being convicted of six rapes on women around London, breaking into their homes as they got ready for bed and threatening to stab them if they did not comply with his sexual desires. The Old Bailey judge at the time recommended Chandler spend a minimum of 25-30 years behind bars, but the Home Secretary imposed a tariff of just 14 years. However, Chandler has not been considered fit for release and remains in prison to this day. In 2014, following a cold case DNA review, Chandler was charged with and admitted a seventh rape on a 30-year-old victim, having stalked her as she returned home from the pub on March 27 1986. The woman woke up to find she had been tied up and Chandler was on top and raping her, having climbed through a window into her Harrow home. The attack only ended when the womans husband burst into the bedroom and Chandler fled by jumping out of a window. Chandler admitted the attack in November 2014, but surprised police and prosecutors by also confessing to a rape which he had been acquitted of at his original trial. Wearing a balaclava, he jumped out on a 19-year-old woman in a West Harrow park while she was sat having a cigarette and thrust a knife at her. Chandler forced her to a secluded spot where he ordered that she strip naked and then he raped her. He pleaded guilty to the March 1 1986 attack on Friday, after prosecutors had to seek to overturn his original acquittal because of the confession. At the Old Bailey on Monday afternoon, Judge Mark Lucraft QC sentenced Chandler to three life sentences with five year minimum terms after he had admitted two rapes and one count of false imprisonment. Between 1985 and 1987 you carried out the most appalling series of rapes now in total we know you subjected eight women to the most frightening series of attacks, he said. The offences were committed at knife point, and both victims suffered physically and psychologically. These were the most appalling offences and will have had the most devastating impact on the victims. The court heard Chandler served his original minimum term by 2002, and in November 2008 he was first granted temporary home leave from prison. However, this was revoked in December 2009 when he was caught with a mobile phone at the place where he was working. In 2011, Chandler was again granted home leave, but this was revoked in July that year when one of his victims complained about him being free. Chandler displayed little emotion as his latest sentence was passed. Judge Lucraft warned he will not necessarily be free in five years time, and continues to pose a risk to the public. A model and her mother who helped seize control of a pensioners 3 million Kensington home in an audacious property fraud are facing jail. Laylah De Cruz, 31, enlisted her mother, Dianne Moorcroft, 62, to pose as the owner of a luxury mews home to fool solicitors and estate agents into believing she was putting it up for sale. They plotted to secure a 1.2 million bridging loan against the four-bed property, in Eagle Place, Kensington, sending the money to Dubai where it was withdrawn before the deal was flagged as fraud. Southwark crown court heard De Cruzs boyfriend, Karl Cronin, 50, orchestrated the fraud, offering 100,000 to Moorcroft to get involved. Moorcroft claimed she was unwittingly lured into the scam, believing she was acting within the law while trying to clear her daughters six-figure debts. But a jury convicted both women today at the end of a nine-day trial. They are due to be sentenced on March 10. Laylah De Cruz: The model is facing jail "The fraud was as simple as it was audacious", said prosecutor Teresa Hay. "Dianne Moorcroft changed her name by deed pool in summer 2014 solely for the purpose of participating in this fraud. "She was encouraged and supported in the endeavour by her daughter, Laylah De Cruz." Moorcroft, who lives in Blackpool, became Margaret Gwenllian Richards so she could pose as the legitimate owner of the Kensington home. Another member of the gang, calling himself Mark Armstrong, had already begun renting the property from the real Mrs Richards, but then went to solicitors claiming he was representing the owner and she wanted to sell up and move to Dubai. Fraud: The model in her police mugshot / Met Police On a second visit, Moorcroft posing as Mrs Richards joined Armstrong to back up his story that she was looking for a sale. She secured a UK passport and Dubai residency permit in Mrs Richards name, and then convinced loans firm Finance and Credit Corporation to transfer 1,196,108 to a bank account in Dubai as bridging loan. The money was swiftly withdrawn in cash before the Land Registry noticed the deal was suspicious and flagged it as a suspected fraud. De Cruzs role in the scam was revealed by texts she sent her mother, encouraging her to join in for a 30,000 fee which was then upped to 100,000. "It's 30k, you fly here for two days then back, you can change to your other name, it's only your passport not all your docs", she said. In a later message, De Cruz added: "It's now 100k for you." At trial De Cruz stayed silent while her mother told the jury she had gone to Dubai on three occasions to open a bank account in Mrs Richards name and complete the sale of two properties. She claimed Cronin told her Mrs Richards family had consented to the deal, and didn't think he was asking me to do anything illegal at the time. She also claimed to be intimidated by Cronin, who is wanted over a 5 million fraud on Chelsea and Fulham landlords more than eight years ago but remains on the run. However, the jury at Southwark crown court convicted Moorcroft and her daughter by a majority of 10-2 after deliberating for more than eight hours. Moorcroft, of Warley Road, Blackpool, and De Cruz, who currently lives in Dubai, both denied conspiracy to commit fraud. Moorcroft was found not guilty on the judges direction of possession of an identity document with improper intent. T wo men have been rushed to hospital after a stabbing in south London. Emergency services were called to reports of a fight outside a house in Morden at about 11.30pm on Sunday. Met Police officers and the London Ambulance Service attended the scene in Bayham Road and found two men, aged 20 and 21, had been stabbed. They were rushed to hospital by paramedics. A cordon was put in place at the scene while a police investigation took place. The 21-year-old remains in a south London hospital but his injuries are not thought to be life threatening or life changing. Following treatment he was arrested on suspicion of affray and was also wanted for common assault, breach of court order and failing to appear at court. The 20-year-old, who has been discharged from hospital, was arrested on suspicion of affray, failing to appear at court, breach of court order, and shoplifting and remains in custody at a south London police station. A 24-year-old man, a 20-year-old woman and a 17-year-old male were also arrested at the scene on suspicion of affray and remain in custody. A Met Police spokeswoman said: Officers from our CID are investigating and are appealing for witnesses and any others who were involved to come forward." Any witnesses should call police on 101. A mother has told of her anguish after her 16-year-old daughter went missing after telling her she had been robbed a week ago on a day trip to London. Schoolgirl Morgan Williams, who turned 16 in December, has not been seen since she spent the day in Elephant and Castle with her friends last Monday. Her mother Tania Findlay, 34, said Morgan had called her to ask for a lift home from the train station in High Wycombe, where she was due to arrive that evening. But her daughter did not turn up, and was not heard from again for 24 hours - at which point she sent her mother a message saying she had been robbed in Camberwell and was staying with a friend. Her phone has been switched off since. The teenager, who is studying for her GCSEs, was then spotted on CCTV outside the Birthdays bar in Dalston at about 8.45pm on Wednesday. CCTV: Morgan was spotted outside a bar in Dalston on Wednesday at about 1.45pm Ms Findlay, a project manager in market research, told the Standard she was at her wits end as she made an emotional plea for her daughter to return home. She said: I am absolutely going out of my mind with worry. We have had no contact with her for almost a week now. We dont know what she is doing or who she is with. She has only just turned 16. We havent had any arguments at all and she wasnt in any trouble. We think she might be worried to come home. We just need to find her. We want her to contact us so we know that she is safe. Morgan Williams (left) with her mother Tania Findlay / Handout Its freezing outside. She must be starving. She cant have any money left now after being gone for more than a week. Morgan had first travelled to London last Monday at about 11.40am to spend the day with some friends in Elephant and Castle. She had called her mum to ask for a lift home from High Wycombe station as she travelled on the 453 bus from Camberwell towards Marylebone station at about 6pm. Her mum added: We are not sure what happened or why she went. She said she would let me know when she got back to High Wycombe station so I could give her a lift. She had kept completely up to date with her movements until then. We then didnt hear from her again until the next day when she messaged me to say she had been robbed. All I can think is that she must have got distracted on the way home and its just spiralled out of control. Appeal: Morgan's family are desperate for her to return home / Handout Thames Valley Police has issued an appeal to help trace the teenager. Morgan is described as black, 5ft 2ins tall, and of slim build with dark brown, long curly hair with freckles on her cheeks. When she was last seen by her family, she wore a black tracksuit, a Nike jumper and black trainers. She carried a cream-coloured holdall. Investigating officer Sgt Hayley McEvoy, leading the search, said: I would like to hear from anyone who has any information about Morgans whereabouts as we are understandably concerned for her due to her age and the length of time she has been missing. If anyone recognises someone fitting Morgans description, please come forward and speak to officers. Morgan, if you see this appeal, you are not in any trouble however please call the police so we can check you are ok. Anyone with any information about Morgans whereabouts should contact the 24-hour Thames Valley Police enquiry centre on 101. A woman was grabbed by the neck and mugged during a homophobic attack outside a Nandos restaurant in south London, police said. The victim, a 37-year-old woman, was robbed outside the chicken restaurant in Denmark Hill late at night. Scotland Yard she was approached by a group outside the restaurant between 10.15pm and 11.15pm on Friday, December 30. Police said that one of the group, a woman, made homophobic slurs towards the victim before grabbing her around the neck and forcing her to hand over her belongings. The suspect then threatened the victim and fled the scene. Detectives from Lambeth Community Safety Unit are appealing for anyone who was in or around the area and may have seen the incident, or the suspect fleeing the scene, to contact police. A 36-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of robbery in connection with the investigation. She has been released on bail until late February pending further enquiries. Anyone who can assist police is urged to contact police in Lambeth via 101 or by tweeting @MetCC or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org. P arents are campaigning against education cutbacks which are forcing headteachers to ask families for cash donations. The Fair Funding for All Schools campaign launches tomorrow in response to the worsening finances facing schools across the capital. Higher staffing and running costs coupled with real-terms reductions in budgets have left many struggling to make savings. New government measures also mean money will shift from London schools to areas that have received less. Fair Funding co-founder Jo Yurky, 41, from Muswell Hill, said she and other parents are concerned. Her daughters Natalie, nine, and Suzie, five, go to school in Haringey. She said: No school should be underfunded. But parents are being asked to make up shortfalls. Where does that leave schools whose parents cant afford to do that? The Government is cutting funding for our schools but pretending theyre not. Primary and secondary schools in the capital are now resorting to asking for voluntary contributions from families. Muswell Hill school, for four- to 11-year-olds, has requested 30 a term. Its head, in a letter seen by the Standard, blamed testing times. He said the money would let the school continue to deliver the highest standards of education. Simon Wantman, chair of governors, said: Its not unusual for schools to ask for voluntary contributions towards school activities and our community have largely been very supportive. Fortismere School, also in Muswell Hill, has asked parents for 25 per family a term. Head Helen Glass and Mark Chapman, chair of governors, said it was faced with unprecedented financial challenges. In October, Latymer Grammar School in Enfield said it was asking for up to 50 from parents due to a significant financial shortfall. Haringey is particularly affected, with its primary and secondary schools facing real-term funding reductions of up to 17 per cent between 2013 and 2019. Fair Funding for All Schools backed by MP Catherine West, Haringey council chief Claire Kober and the National Union of Teachers has had reports of schools having to increase class sizes or not replacing staff who have left. A new government national funding formula is being introduced from 2018 to 2019, which increases money targeted at schools with additional needs including deprivation. The changes will mean more than 10,000 schools will gain funding, it has been suggested. Today, unions claimed every parliamentary constituency in England will see schools face funding cuts in the next few years. Some schools will lose more than 1,000 per pupil, according to an analysis based on government figures. The Department for Education said: These figures are fundamentally misleading. School funding is at its highest level B oxer David Haye is one of the icons seeking to tackle the taboo subject of the most common cancer in black men, prostate cancer, in a poster campaign. He features in Prostate Cancer UKs Stronger Knowing More campaign, which encourages black men to get checked by their doctors. One in four will be diagnosed with the disease double the risk for white men and one in 12 will die from it, but the charity says more must speak about it. Also taking part are poet Benjamin Zephaniah, Labour MP Chuka Umunna and Olympic sprinter Linford Christie. Zephaniah said: Prostate cancer has always been a bit hush hush. Ive started to lose friends to the disease. The fact that when Im sitting down with eight mates, two of them will get the disease is frightening. Not talking about it will not make it go away. The stars posed for Hackney photographer Dennis Morris, who said: I hope the images encourage men to think about their own prostate cancer risk and take steps to address it. A pedestrian is fighting for his life after being hit by a bus in south London. The man, in his 20s, was hit near Elephant and Castle station in the early hours of Monday morning. He was rushed to hospital where he remains in a critical condition. London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service and police rushed to the collision on Gladstone Street at 12:21am. Lambeth fire crew and tweeted: Crews from Lambeth are at an incident involving a male under a bus near #Elephant&Castle. London Rd Remains closed. The road reopened at 6am. T wo families in London are made homeless every hour, a charity claimed today. Shelter predicted that 1,260 families in the capital will lose their home in the next month and 7,370 over the next six months - the equivalent of a household every 34 and 35 minutes respectively. The housing charity, which based its predictions on government homeless statistics, said more affordable homes must be built. Latest figures for the capital show that there are 43,820 homeless families, including 88,040 homeless children, in temporary accommodation. Graeme Brown, Shelters interim chief executive, said: Every day, we speak to homeless parents desperate to escape cramped emergency accommodation, where the whole family is often forced to share one room. "With a chronic lack of affordable homes and welfare cuts continuing to take their toll, we expect to hear from even more families. The most recent government figures, from July to September last year, show that the number of households in temporary accommodation in Britain rose nine per cent on the same period in 2015. Of the 4,580 families accepted as becoming homeless in London, 40 per cent lost their home after a private tenancy came to an end. Mayor Sadiq Khan recently set out new planning rules to ease the housing crisis, by speeding up the building of more affordable housing, alongside 3.15 billion to support construction of 90,000 affordable homes. Shelter has called for Londoners to sign-up to its biggest fundraising event, the tower-running challenge Vertical Rush at Tower 42 on March 9. For more information, visit shelter.org.uk/verticalrush. L ondon home owners pay an average of almost 9,000 in commission to their estate agents for selling their property, it was claimed today. The average fee rose seven per cent last year to 8,860 as a total of 521 million was collected by agents, according to new analysis of Land Registry figures. Commissions were highest in the most expensive borough, Kensington & Chelsea, with an average of 24,600. Across inner London the average was 10,871, and in outer London it was 7,753. In the 12 months to September 2016 the total value of houses sold in Greater London - where the average property price was 474,475 - was 28.9 billion. Around 19 out of 20 sales are handled by traditional bricks and mortar estate agency branches charging a typical 1.5 per cent plus VAT, although the number of deals carried out by online agencies is rising. Falling numbers of transactions have also impacted on the profits of traditional agents with one of the biggest chains, Foxtons, revealing that revenues from sales commission almost halved in the final quarter of last year. Michael Bruce, chief executive of online agents Purplebricks, which carried out the analysis, said: People too often engage an estate agent without realising or thinking about whether there is a better alternative. "The service they receive is the same whether the house is valued at 100,000 or 1 million, therefore the fee paid for securing the sale should be the same. Most expensive fees: 1 Kensington and Chelsea 24,600 2 Westminster 18,795 3 Camden 14,100 4 Hammersmith and Fulham 12,750 5 Richmond 12,550 Cheapest fees: 1 Barking and Dagenham 5,160 2 Croydon 6,040 3 Newham 6,475 4 Hounslow 7,325 5 Lewisham 7,532 Source: Purplebricks The figures follow the launch of Purplebricks new ad campaign labelling estate agency fees "commisery". The campaign to raise awareness of how much commission householders often pay to traditional estate agents when moving home, and how to avoid, it is backed by property expert and TV presenter Amanda Lamb. She explains: This campaign will open peoples eyes to commisery the misery you feel when youve forked out thousands on commission and havent got anything more for your money. S upporters of a British-Iranian mother imprisoned in Iran have held a candlelit vigil outside the country's London embassy. The vigil for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, organised by Amnesty International UK, took place outside the Iranian Embassy, on the fringe of Hyde Park, on Monday. The charity worker, who has been detained for almost 300 days, was jailed for five years last September for allegedly plotting to topple the government in Tehran. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, from Hampstead, was arrested at Tehran Airport in April while she was with her two-year-old daughter Gabriella, and later jailed. Gabriella had her British passport confiscated and has been left stranded in Iran with her grandparents. Monday's vigil, held between 4pm and 6pm, was timed to mark one year since Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and other US-Iranian dual-nationals were released from prison in Iran. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, attended the vigil / AP Supporters posed for photographs holding candles and signs asking for the mother to be freed, while a banner depicting a child captioned "looking for mummy" was also hung from a nearby wall. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, also attended and delivered a letter to the Iranian Embassy addressed to President Hassan Rouhani. Mr Ratcliffe, 42, left the letter and a package of messages for his wife on the embassy doorstep after being assured via intercom it would be collected later. Mr Ratcliffe delivered a letter to the Iranian Embassy asking for help bringing his wife home / AP In the letter, he requested help to secure a visa so he can see his family, ensure letters to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe from supporters are delivered and that his wife receive a fair trial. Mr Ratcliffe wrote: "Notwithstanding my public criticism of the injustices visited on my family by Iranian authorities, my view is that Iran and the UK need to build better relations, grounded in mutual understanding, for Gabriella's future. "Arbitrarily holding Nazanin, denying Gabriella regular access to both her parents does not serve this." Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained for almost 300 days so far / PA He added: "I ask for your help in bringing Nazanin and Gabriella home because framing the innocent serves no one, not even those perpetrating it - it risks undermining the values Iran and Islam are proudest of." Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe appealed against her prison sentence earlier in January but no decision has been communicated by the Iranian authorities, Amnesty has said. The human rights charity said the mother has suffered a serious decline in her physical and mental health since being detained. O ne of Londons notoriously polluted streets has seen its toxic air levels drop by a third in just twelve months. The switch from diesel to electric buses and reducing deliveries to the streets hundreds of shops is said to be behind the fall in nitrogen dioxide levels. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has welcomed the clean-up but said there is still a long way to go until the street meets legal air quality levels. He said: The improvement in Oxford Streets air quality is welcome news and testament to the changes that we have been making not only in this area, but to the entire bus and taxi fleet in London. This is only the beginning and theres still a lot more work to be done in the battle against Londons toxic air. Around 262 buses travel down the busy route every hour and Transport for London have ensured 70 per cent of vehicles either have electric or greener engines. Readings taken by Kings College London and London Air monitors show nitrogen dioxide released by vehicles was 135 micrograms per cubic metre of air in 2015, compared to 86 micrograms per cubic metre in 2016 - a drop of around 30 percent. The street is still in breach of EU regulations on the number of hours each year it can surpass pollution levels, but it is making significant progress. In 2015 safe pollution levels were breached for 1391 hours, and in 2016 this dropped to 163 hours - a decrease of 88 per cent. In 2013 it was 1502 hours and in 2014 it was 1532 hours. Leon Daniels, TfLs managing director for surface transport, said: There is clearly a lot more to do. "Our ambition is to transform Oxford Street for pedestrians, and as a first step we are consulting on plans that could see the number of buses on Oxford Street reduced by 40 per cent. Were also helping to make Londons taxis much cleaner. From January next year all brand new taxis will have to be zero emission capable. Councillor Heather Acton, Cabinet Member for Sustainability and Parking for Westminster City Council, said they have been trying to improve air quality on Oxford Street for 15 years. But their projects to curtail building emissions, reduce freight deliveries and waste collections and stop engine idling, has made a big difference to traffic volumes. She said: Levels of particulates in the air remain a problem, posing a major public health issue, so we need to continue to improve practices to reduce emissions from both buildings and road vehicles, as well as encourage people to change behaviour if we are to become a truly healthier, greener more liveable city. Tim Baker from the Environmental Research Group at Kings College London said: "The data for Oxford Street for 2016 is still provisional and needs to be analysed very carefully to determine exactly which changes had an impact and when. A fall in pollution levels on Oxford Street would provide a great opportunity to study which changes to the traffic fleet have had an impact, an answer that will have value not just in London but across the UK and Europe." Mr Khan is also consulting on a T-charge, which is an emissions surcharge for older polluting vehicles entering the congestion charge zone, and has aims to pedestrianise Oxford Street by 2020. W hich came first, the news of the damehood or the Vogue cover? The Londoner was wondering after it was revealed this weekend that Theresa May had agreed with Anna Wintour to be photographed for American Vogue, after its editor was made a dame in the New Years Honours List. Mays photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz took place at Chequers last week. It will feature in the April issue, which arrives on newstands in March, just in time for the PMs expected visit to the States. The magazine has lead times of two to three months but the discussions between Vogue and No 10 are thought to have begun in the autumn, before Trumps victory. Wintours damehood, Downing Street reminded The Londoner this morning, was recommended by an independent panel but would have been rubber-stamped by May and signed off by the Queen. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said Wintours nomination would have come through the Foreign Office as she is a US citizen. I cant disclose who submitted the name, or any name, said the spokesperson. Wintour was likely to have known about the award well in advance of it being made public. However, this wont have been impromptu political positioning. May and Wintour have long respected each other and took tea together in September 2011. May is, of course, a subscriber to the British edition of Vogue and aware of the power of fashion. Meanwhile Wintours ability to cross on to the political catwalk is legendary: she knows Donald Trump and has helped broker a peace between him and Vanity Fair. It was too early to get through to US Vogue but British Vogue said: We look forward to seeing Mrs May in our sister publication. ----- A new era of straight talking at The Times? Perhaps spurred on by its Trump exclusive, the newspapers Times2 insert has printed a guide to a new management technique, advocating radical candour in office environments. We dont use it in Times offices, Times magazine supremo Nicola Jeal tweeted. Yet. Oh piss off, Nicola, her colleague Philip Collins retorted. That caught on quickly. Scotland heralds Trumps inauguration Flicking through the TV section of Scotlands Sunday Herald, The Londoner found an interesting entry in Fridays listings: After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. This huge interactive virtual-reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present ... Its a flawed piece but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into if were not careful. The show in question? President Trump: The Inauguration, 4pm on BBC1 and STV. Russians and Brits dig deep for charity Star-crossed lovers flocked to the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday for a charity concert featuring music from Prokofievs Romeo and Juliet. Actors Ralph Fiennes, below left, and Vanessa Redgrave gave readings from Shakespeares sonnets at the event, in aid of childrens cancer charity Gift of Life. Olga Kurylenko and Betty Bachz, below right, also attended the showcase of Russian and British culture. Restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, right, castigated The Londoner for checking their phone during the performance, despite doing the same himself. Its different for me, Im taking care of business, he claimed. If it had been another Shakespeare the Londoner might have asked: 3G or not 3G? Trumps a gift that keeps on binging Getty Images Michael Goves Times interview with Donald Trump was polite and positive. Also present at the interview was Kai Diekmann from the German paper Bild. Would he have a different take? The Londoner dusted off our best schoolboy German to find out. I think we should have set up secruity zones in Syria, which would have been much cheaper, Mr Trump said. And the Gulf states should have paid for it. Build now, someone else pays later, seemed to be a theme. And never mind security leaks to BuzzFeed and the like, it may be Trump who needs keeping in check. I just watched something... oh, Im not allowed to show it to you, because its secret... but I just watched something about Afghanistan, he said, pulling up short of showing classified security information to two journalists. But at least hes learning about the world. Though he claims Nato is obsolete he is engaging with its requirement that members spend two per cent of GDP on defence. Great Britain pays. There are five countries that pay what they should. Five. Thats not many, out of 22, he said. Only there are 28, Bild pointed out. Oops. But hell always have Twitter. I can go bing bing bing and just keep going, he said, though The Londoner rather prefers the German: Ich kann bing, bing, bing machen und mache einfach weiter. Viel Gluck, Amerika. ----- Prince Charles has co-authored a Ladybird book on climate change, out next week and part of a series for adults presented in traditional child-friendly form. Artist Miriam Elia, who first had the idea for the modern parody series, was surprised her books had HRH approval. What have I started? she wondered to The Londoner this morning. Does this mean I am official satirist to the Queen? Miriam cooks for Malta More knife-sharpening from Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, pictured, the lawyer and wife of Nick Clegg, who posted a delicious recipe for Maltese octopus on her food blog Mum and Sons this weekend, a culinary response to Bernard Jenkins attack on Malta, after its prime minister Joseph Muscat said Britain should stick to EU institutions during Brexit. Jenkin said Muscat was anxious to scoop for his tiny little island some of the spoils that he believes will fall out of Brexit. The recipe is for a stew of octopus in tomato, with capers and lemon zest, a common Maltese dish. It follows on from Miriams recipe for homemade Ferrero Rocher, after Nigel Farages Ritz party, and, after Isabel Oakeshott and Michael Ashcrofts biography of David Cameron, advice on how to cook a pigs head. ----- Row of the day: ex-Olympic gold medal-winner David Wilkie has cancelled his Virgin Active membership after being ticked off for swimming too fast. Old habits die hard. Follow The Londoner on Twitter and Facebook here. E x-Cabinet minister Michael Gove has showered Donald Trump with praise, calling him an electric figure after meeting the President-elect for his first UK interview. The former Tory leadership contender interviewed Mr Trump for the Times just days ahead of the billionaire businessmans inauguration on Friday. The former education secretary described Mr Trump as warm and charismatic with a soft spot and special place in his heart for Britain. He was warm, expansive, Mr Gove told ITVs Good Morning Britain on Monday morning after the interview was published. 'Warm and charismatic': President-elect Donald Trump / AP Id never met him before. The only impression that I had of Donald Trump is the impression most of us have from the TV screen, this big, bombastic personality. When you actually meet him, yes, he is an electric figure, charismatic but also hes warmer - as you know, Piers, youve met him - than youd imagine. 'Bombastic personality': Mr Gove said Mr Trump is warmer in real life / ITV/Good Morning Britain Even though the personality that you get from Twitter and the press conferences is aggressive, in person he has honeyed words for almost everyone. Mr Gove said despite Mr Trump criticising the policies of German chancellor Angela Merkel, the property tycoon was very complimentary about her as an individual. The MP for Surrey Heath, who used to be a journalist before his career in politics, also raved about Mr Trumps love of Britain. The other thing that is clear is that he is looking forward to meeting Theresa May, he had very warm words about her and about Britain generally, Mr Gove told presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid. Hes a businessman, Mr Gove said. The important thing about any world leader dealing with Donald Trump is how can I get a deal that suits us both. But there is an additional benefit for Britain. His mum comes from Scotland and he has a soft spot for Scotland particularly and Britain generally and that came through in the interview. He wants to make sure that America and Britain have a strong business relationship but he also wants to make sure that Britain flourishes because weve got a special place in his heart. Mr Gove, who was accused of betraying Boris Johnson during the leadership contest, revealed he spoke to PM Theresa Mays team only after he had conducted the interview. Asked whether he thinks the PM would be annoyed, Mr Gove said: I think that she will be pleased that the next president of the United States has such a high regard for her, her office and this country and really does want to be on the same page as her. A snap election is likely to be triggered in Northern Ireland this afternoon after power-sharing party Sinn Fein refused to re-nominate a deputy first minister. The country is said to be in political crisis and its coalition government which has united Catholic and Protestant politicians - on the brink of collapse. Sinn Feins Martin McGuinness was sharing power with first minister Arlene Foster of the Democratic Unionist Party. But Mr McGuinness quit as deputy first minister last week in protest at the DUPs handling of a government green energy scheme. Flaws in the scheme could cost taxpayers 400 million, it is claimed. Crisis: First Minister Arlene Foster and DUP members at Stormont on Monday. / AP The move plunged Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly, into crisis. Unless the Republican party Sinn Fein make a u-turn on their decision not to put up a new deputy first minister, from 5pm today the Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire will be legally obliged to call an election. Mrs Foster said the electorate did not want or need an election and accused Sinn Fein of triggering a poll because they did not like the outcome of last May's vote. T he ISIS-inspired gunman who killed 30 Britons in the 2015 Tunisian beach massacre was driven to the scene by an accomplice who remains at large, an inquest heard today. Thirty-eight people died when ISIS-inspired gunman Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire on sunbathers outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Sousse in June 2015. Among the dead were 30 Britons, including Sutton couple Janet and John Stocker and Watford engineer Chris Dyer, in the biggest loss of British life from terrorism since the 7/7 bombings. Samantha Leek QC, counsel for the inquest, said this morning Rezgui was seen being dropped off near to the beach, walking among tourists with guns and explosives hidden in a parasol before opening fire. "The gunman was assisted in getting to the hotel by an unknown accomplice in a white Peugeot van", she said. "This gunman walked south along the beach towards the hotel carrying a parasol concealing an automatic weapon. Massacre: A policeman patrols the beach after the terrorist attack in Sousse / Steve Parsons / PA Wire "As he reached the sunbeds, he removed the weapon from the parasol and opened fire. "Ballistics and witness evidence shows he also detonated a number of explosives as he later moved through the hotel. "He took 20 lives on the beach, eight inside the hotel, and ten in the hotel grounds." She said Rezgui "systematically took the lives of 38 people who had travelled to Tunisia for enjoyment, luxury, and relaxation. "Thirty eight people who had done nothing to provoke this attack, individually or collectively, 38 people who needlessly lost their lives." Ms Leek cautioned that the inquest is limited by its legal constraints and also by the fact the attack happened abroad, but said the seven-week hearing will help the relatives and the public "understand the circumstances around each one of these tragic deaths." Among the evidence will be a witness who followed Rezgui, filming him for 11 minutes, as he rampaged through the resort. Tunisia terror attack 1 /16 Tunisia terror attack Tunisia attack British tourists queue at the check-in at Enfidha International airport as they leave Tunisia Tunisia attack Holidaymakers stand around floral tributes to the deceased Tunisia attack Mourners grieve at the site where up to 30 Brits were killed Tunisia attack A man prays after planting flowers in the sand on the beach Getty Tunisia attack Gunman Seifeddine Rezgui who was shot dead AFP/Getty Images Tunisia attack Brits in their hotel in the wake of last week's attack Reuters/Amine Ben Aziza Tunisia attack Thousands of Britons fled Tunisia in the wake of the hotel beach massacre Reuters Tunisia attack Police officers in panicked scenes near the beach where tourists were slaughtered Reuters/Amine Ben Aziza Tunisia attack Suspect: Police surround a man believed to be involved in the Tunisia gun attack (Picture: Reuters) Tunisia attack The aftermath of the attack on a beach in Tunisia Twitter Tunisia attack The corpse of Seifeddine Rezgui after he was shot dead by police Tunisia attack Tourists were attacked on the beach at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Tunisia Ms Leek also warned relatives and friends of the dead that some of the evidence may be "distressing" but is essential to explore how the deaths happened. Judge Loraine-Smith, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice, this morning asked for all 38 names of those who died in the attack to be read out loud. Relatives of the victims wiped away tears as Judge Loraine-Smith asked everyone in court to observe a minute's silence at the start of the hearing. He told the court Tunisian witnesses cannot be compelled to give evidence to the inquest, but the Met Police has "collected as much evidence as they could from Tunisian authorities and attempted to reconstruct what happened on that day". "There is no link between the suspect and the UK, therefore there is no UK criminal investigation", he added All 30 Brits who were killed had booked their trip to Tunisia with travel company Tui, which owns Thomson holidays. Andrew Ritchie QC, representing 20 of the families, has called for a "full and fearless" investigation into security warnings issued by the government and Tui about traveling to Tunisia. In pre-inquest hearings, Mr Ritchie claimed the UK government failed in its duty of care by not preventing tour operators from sending tourists to Tunisia following an attack three months earlier. These inquests will seek to answer important questions for the families, in particular how their loved ones came to be exposed to terrorism at the 5 star hotel", he said. He called for the inquest to look at "whether Tui communicated FCO terrorism warnings to their customers before or after bookings; the security arrangements in place at the Imperial Hotel and whether the holiday insurance sold by TUI to customers covered terrorism. The families wish to see a better warning system in place to prevent future deaths and so that holidaymakers can make better-informed decisions when purchasing holidays abroad. Judge Loraine-Smith repeated the scope of the inquest, which includes "the adequacy of the travel advice offered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the travel companies. "This will address what, if anything, was known to Her Majesty's Government, the travel companies, and the hotel about the risk of an attack on Sousse and what was done as a result." In a statement issued before the inquest began, a spokesman for Tui said: Like others, we want to understand the specific circumstances that led to this atrocity. We are cooperating with the coroner and will continue to do so, in order to help ensure that the tragic deaths of those killed can be thoroughly investigated, the relevant facts determined and any lessons learned." The inquest will hear evidence from Foreign Office officials, the former General Manager of the hotel, and officials from Tui. O lympic gold medal-winning swimmer David Wilkie quit his local health club after the lifeguard told him to stop going so fast in the pool. Wilkie, 62, who won gold in the 200m breaststroke at the 1976 Montreal Games, was accused of swimming without care for other pool users. The lifeguard told Wilkie, who swam 60 lengths of the 25-metre pool every day, that another patron had complained about being bumped into in an adjoining lane. After the exchange of words with the lifeguard, Wilkie asked to speak to a senior staff member and then resigned his membership of the 190-a-month Royal Berkshire Virgin Active club in Bracknell. A Virgin Active spokeswoman said: We take any complaints we receive from our members seriously. We spoke with Mr Wilkie in 2015 to resolve his complaint and we were sorry to see him leave our club. Wilkie now runs Pets Kitchen, which provides specialist natural animal foods and supplements. A group of senior MPs will this week swap the cuisine of the Commons dining rooms for a meal made from surplus food to prove Britain is throwing away too much healthy produce. Members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee will eat at a Hackney centre that saves fresh food from the mulcher and turns it into tasty meals for the needy. The cross-party committee is holding an inquiry into the national scandal that Britain throws away around eight million tonnes of food each year, including nearly two million tonnes from the food and drink industry. The MPs are looking at ways to encourage businesses to donate their unused food, including proposals for a 100 per tonne subsidy or tax break to cover the extra costs of doing so. Volunteer Habi Racs, 31 helps to prepare meals at FoodCycle session at New Kingshold Community Centre, Hackney in October last year. / Lucy Young Tory chair Neil Parish organised the visit to charity FoodCycle, which has projects in Hackney, Lewisham, Peckham, Marylebone and cities outside London. Volunteers collect surplus food from supermarkets, cook it and serve it free to people in food poverty. Labour committee member Kerry McCarthy said the MPs were looking forward to the meal. We have no idea what we are getting because FoodCycle themselves do not know what food will be donated to them, she said. Tory colleague Chris Davies said: If society becomes as efficient as possible with food and energy, we will reap the rewards in decades to come. Justin Byam Shaw, the co-founder with wife Jane of The Felix Project the charity at the heart of the Evening Standards Food for London campaign said: FoodCycle does great things with surplus food so MPs will be in for a treat. A small annual incentive to the food industry to donate their surplus to charities could lead to a transformational solution to UK food poverty. On Wednesday, bosses from the Food and Drink Federation and supermarket chiefs will be quizzed by the MPs on why redistribution levels in the UK, at under two per cent, are so much lower than in countries like France. T he worlds eight richest billionaires have as much money as half of the earth's population, charity Oxfam has said. The richest men including Bill Gates, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have the same amount of money as the poorest 3.6 billion people in the world. Oxfam released its figures and claimed they show the gap between rich and poor is far greater than feared. The eight wealthy individuals also include Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of Inditex, which owns brands including Zara, and Michael Bloomberg, who owns Bloomberg LP. The eight billionaires worth more than half of the world's population 1. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft (net worth $75bn) 2. Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, which owns several brands (net worth $67bn) 3. Warren Buffett, businessman (net worth $60.8bn) 4. Carlos Slim Helu, owner of Grupo Carso (net worth $50bn) 5. Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon (net worth $45.2bn) 6. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook (net worth $44.6bn) 7. Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle (net worth $43.6bn) 8. Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg LP (net worth $40bn) Source: Forbes billionaires' list, March 2016 But some analysts questioned Oxfams research, which was released to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Swiss ski result Davos. UK economist Gerard Lyons said looking at extreme wealth does not always give the full picture," the BBC reported. Head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, Ben Southwood, said it was the welfare of the poor not the top richest peoples wealth which mattered. Mark Littlewood, director general of thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs said: "As an 'anti-poverty' charity, Oxfam seems to be strangely preoccupied with the rich." He said the charity should instead focus on encouraging economic growth. But the head of Oxfams global external affairs, Katy Wright, said the charitys report helps to challenge the political and economic elite. The World Economic Forum is due to be held in Davos / Shutterstock / Boris-B "We're under no illusions that Davos is anything other than a talking shop for the world's elite, but we try and use that focus. Oxfam wants governments to reduce executive pay and tax evasion and bring in higher taxes on the rich. F ormer WWE wrestling star Jimmy Superfly Snuka has died nearly two weeks after homicide charges were dropped against him. His lawyer said the wrestler died at his son-in-laws home in Florida surrounded by family and friends. The Fijian-born former wrestler had spent time in a hospice for several conditions including dementia. Dwayne The Rock Johnson, also a WWE star, called it sad news in a post on his Twitter page. Earlier this month a judge found he was not competent to stand trial over the death of his girlfriend in 1983. The defence said he had dementia, was in hospice care in Florida and had six months to live. Snuka was charged in 2015 with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Nancy Argentino, whose body was found more than three decades earlier in their hotel room. Prosecutors allege she was beaten, while Snuka maintained she died from a fall. A young jockey deliberately steered his mount into other horses to ensure his girlfriend won a race. Josh Cartwrights horse, Senior Council, veered across the track in an absolutely dreadful manoeuvre towards the closing stages of the Driving Handicap event in Adelaide. The 50-1 Australian outsider crashed into two rivals Go The Journey and House of Wax to stop them making ground on his Norwegian partner, Anna Jordsjo. She was leading on Murti and went on to win the 1,250m race by half a length. The couple have posted pictures on social media showing them enjoying glamorous holidays together. Cartwrights career now hangs in the balance after he admitted reckless riding during Saturdays race at South Australias Morphettville track. The 22-year-old has been suspended while his actions are investigated by stewards. His horse, Senior Council, crashed into two other riders The impact was so forceful that challenger House of Waxs jockey was momentarily dislodged from his saddle. John Peacock, trainer of Senior Council, said: I dont know what was going on at the time, but it is a shocking thing he has done. When he got off the horse he said it had just shied out and I just accepted what he said. Mr Peacock said Senior Council was a bit sore on the shoulder because he hit the other horse hard. Cartwright was fined 309 in 2015 after he tried to steal a rival riders whip during a race. Glamour couple: Anna Jordsjo and boyfriend Josh Cartwright His former trainer Jamie Edwards, with whom he was apprenticed for three years, said: It must have just been a brain fade. I cant work it out. He was a hard-working, very pleasant boy when he was down here and I just feel its totally out of character. Ive tried to ring him but hes appeared to have gone to ground and its probably best to close up shop for a little while.. The incident prompted a wave of criticism from Australias racing community. Melbourne Cup winning jockey Kerrin McEvoy said of Cartwrights handling of Senior Council thats as bad as Ive seen for a while. But John OConnor, trainer of House of Wax, urged critics to think about Cartwrights mental state. He said: I know that we get all sorts of interference in racing but this is way out of the realms that you would expect at any time. But its not an excuse to nail him to the cross. "Rather, shouldnt we be having a look at his mental state? Ive had a fair bit to do with him over the years and its out of character and thats why weve got to have a look at the place that hes in at the moment. S everal people are reportedly dead after a shooting at a music festival in Mexico. Shots were fired in the early hours of the morning at two nightspots in in Playa Del Carmen, British eyewitnesses claimed. Scottish DJ Jackmaster, who was performing at the BPM Festival, said on Monday morning UK time: Someone has come into the club in Playa Del Carmen and opened fire. 4-5 dead and many wounded. He urged people to stay in their hotels. Footage thought to be from near to the Blue Parrot nightclub - thought to be where the attack took place - shows people running away. Valerie Lee, who works at dance news website Mixmag, said she was inside the Blue Parrot club when the attack took place. She said on Twitter: "Shots were fired at Blue Parrot while we were in the building. We got out okay and are finding out more details "People reporting at least five bodies were spotted on the ground. Head is spinning. Friends please check in if you were there. One hour later Glasgow-based DJ Jackmaster said: "This is a very very sad situation. Tryna get my head around it still. Thoughts and condolences to all affected. The gunman reportedly stormed the Blue Parrot nightclub before another shooting at a party in The Jungle. DJs from across the world had come to the music festival. This story is being updated A mother today admitted murdering three of her children by driving them into a lake in Australia. Akon Guode, 37, killed one-year-old Bol and four-year-old twins Hanger and Madit in Melbourne in 2015. Another child, six-year-old Alual, was also in the car but survived. In the Victorian Supreme Court, Guode pleaded guilty to one count of infanticide, two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Guode arrived in Australia from South Sudan in 2008 and entered her pleas through an interpretor. She was remanded in custody until her next court appearance on 31 January. T he FBI has arrested the wife of the gunman who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Noor Salman, the widow of Omar Mateen, is expected to face charges of aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice after she was arrested at her home in San Francisco. Ms Salman - who texted her husband during the attack at Pulse nightclub - has previously given conflicting accounts about what she knew of his intentions. She has also told investigators that in the weeks before the attack Mateen spent thousands of dollars, including for the guns used in shooting, which killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others. Mateen was shot dead by police after a three-hour standoff. Salman is expected to make her initial appearance in court on Tuesday in San Francisco. D ozens of people were killed today when a Turkish cargo plane crashed into a village while trying to land at Kyrgyzstans main international airport. The Boeing 747 smashed into the settlement of Zhang-Zhang, flattening homes and leaving at least 37 dead, according to emergency services in the central Asian nation. At least 15 people, including six children, were taken to hospital following the disaster at 7.18am local time. More than a thousand rescuers were at the scene near Manas airport 15 miles north of capital Bishkek. The scene after the crash in Kyrgyzstan / EPA Images from the crash site showed the planes nose and tail stuck inside houses and huge chunks of debris scattered around rubble. Fires burned and smoke hung over the village. At least 15 homes in the village just outside a metal fence which separates it from the runway were destroyed. Resident Baktygul Kurbatova, who was slightly injured, told local TV: I woke up because of a bright red light outside. "I couldnt understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. The wreckage of the plane after the horrific crash / EPA I was so scared but I managed to cover my sons face with my hands so that debris would not fall on him. Another witness told news agency AFP: It killed entire families. Theres nothing left of the houses. Many people were sleeping. Kyrgyz emergency situations minister Kubatbek Boronov said it was foggy when the plane came down and poor visibility may have been a factor. Flight TK6491 was set to stop at Manas en route from Hong Kong to Istanbul. Manas has been massively expanded since the US began to use it as a military base for operations in Afghanistan. American troops vacated it and handed it to the Kyrgyz military in 2014. It was not clear how many people were on the plane, but it had seating for 10 people including two pilots. The aircraft belonged to Istanbul-based ACT Airlines, which operates under the name MyCargo, but was being flown for Turkish Airlines. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called his Kyrgyz counterpart Erlan Abdildaev to offer condolences. An investigation will be launched. The flight recorders are yet to be found. D onald Trump will officially become the President of the United States on Friday when he takes the oath of office. It is 10 weeks since the Republican pulled off one of the biggest shocks in US political history by beating Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. The millionaire businessman currently the President-elect will be sworn in on Friday, January 20 2017, known as Inauguration Day. President Obamas time in office comes to an end at noon on the day when Mr Trump will be sworn in as Americas 45th president. New leader: Donald Trump will officially become the US president on Friday (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) / Getty Images Heres everything you need to know about the events. What happens the day before? President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President elect Mike Pence will attend a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Ceremony on January 19. A Make America Great Again welcome concert will be held at the Lincoln Memorial. The Trump team have chosen to stick with the campaign slogan as the inaugural theme. Victory: Mr Trump during his acceptance speech after the US election result / Spencer Platt/Getty Images What happens on the day? President Obamas role Under the terms of the 20th Amendment, President Obamas second term will end at noon on Inauguration Day on January 20. The first term of his successor begins upon the swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol at that time Mr Trump puts his hand on the bible and take the oath of office. President Obama will welcome his successor for coffee at the White House before the ceremony. Thousands to march on Trump's inauguration day He will then escort Mr Trump to the US Capitol Building and watch him take the oath of office. President Obama will attend Mr Trumps swearing-in before the Obamas leave on the Marine One helicopter as part of a departure ceremony. Staff will be frantically moving out the Obama administration's belongings ready for the new First Familys things to move in during the ceremony. First meeting: President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump met at the White House / REUTERS The Oath of Office Chief Justice John Roberts of the US Supreme Court will administer the oath on the steps of the United States Capitol Building. Mr Trump will take the traditional oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Mike Pence, the Vice President-elect will take the oath shortly before Mr Trump. From that point on, the US government is officially in the hands of Mr Trump. Donald Trump - In pictures 1 /112 Donald Trump - In pictures President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife Melania Trump holds the bible and his son Barron Trump looks on, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Acceptance speech Republican president-elect Donald Trump gives a thumbs up to the crowd during his acceptance speech at his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 9 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Little Trump Donald Trump pictured when he was 4 years old Donald J Trump/Instagram The Trump Princess Donald Trump waves to reporters in 1988 with his first wife Ivana as they board their yacht 'The Trump Princess' in New York AP Donald Trump stands next to one of his three Sikorsky helicopters at New York Port Authority's West 30 Street Heliport in 1988 Out on the town Trump and his first wife Ivana arrive at a social engagement in New York in December 1989 AFP/Getty Images Surviving at the top Trump followed up his successful book The Art of the Deal with Surviving At The Top in 1990 Random House Meeting the King of Pop With Michael Jackson in 1990 FilmMagic Taking a break with Miss Universe contestants Donald Trump meets Miss Universe contestants during a break in rehearsals in the Imperial Ballroom at Atlantis, Paradise Island, Bahamas in 1990 Miss Universe Organization via AP Genie of the lamp Donald Trump stands next to a genie lamp in 1990 as the lights of his Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort mark its grand opening in Atlantic City AP Marla's wedding day Donald and Marla Trump at their wedding in 1993 AP Donald Trump with daughter Ivanka at a Harley Davidson Cafe Event, New York City on 9 October 1993 Rex Features New arival Marla and Donald Trump leave St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida with their newborn baby girl, Tiffany on 14 October 1993 AP Behind the lens Donald Trump takes a picture of Bridget Marks in 1993 after interviewing her for Playboy magazine's 40th anniversary playmate in New York AFP/Getty Images Top Trump New York real estate giant Donald Trump poses in his Trump Tower office on a giant letter "T" on 08 May 1996 AFP/Getty Images New love interest Donald Trump and Melania arrive for VH1's Divas Live concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City on 13 April 1999 Getty Images Toasting in the New Year Donald Trump and Melania toast the new year during Trump's gala bash in 2000 The Sun-Sentinel/AP Wax work A wax replica of Donald Trump stands ready to be put on display at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, New York City in 2000 Madame Tussaud's/Getty Images Rebuild call Donald Trump talks in 2005 to reporters where he presented a proposal that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center be rebuilt in New York Reuters Cracking prformance Amy Poehler, Tracy Morgan, Donald Trump, Seth Myers, Maya Rudolph perform on Saturday Night Live in 2002 Rex Features 'How To Get Rich' Donald Trump poses with a copy of his new book 'How To Get Rich' during a book signing on 24 March 2004 at Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Center in New York Getty Images Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka (left) and girlfriend Melania Knauss (right) attend the "Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century" Costume Institute benefit gala on April 26, 2004 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City Getty Images Fired up figure Donald Trump poses with the new Donald Trump 12-inch talking doll 29 September 2004 at the Toys "R" Us store in New York City Getty Images Olympic flame Donald Trump carries the Olympic flame during Day 15 of the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay on 19 June 19, 2004 in New York Getty Images Donald Trump on The Celebrity Apprentice (2005) Rex Features Anyone for golf? Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at the Old Course in St Andrews where he was meeting with the media to answer questions regarding Trump International Golf Links on 28 April 2005 in St Andrews, Scotland Getty Images Hollywod star Donald Trump, billionaire developer and producer of NBC's "The Apprentice," with his wife, Melania, and their son, Barron, pose for a photo after he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in 2007 AP In the Highlands U.S. property mogul Donald Trump gestures during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland on 27 May 2010 Reuters Donald Trump plays a round of golf after the opening of the The Trump International Golf Links Course in Scotland in 2012 Getty Images Family time Donald Trump, Barron Trump and Melania Trump attends Trump Invitational Grand Prix Mar-a-Lago Club at The Mar-a-Largo Club on 04 January 2015 in Palm Beach, Florida Getty Images Officially in the running U.S. Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump poses with his family after formally announcing his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event at Trump Tower in New York on 16 June 2015 Reuters Love, life and laughter Donald Trump sits with his wife Melania Trump while appearing at an NBC Town Hall at the Today Show on 21 April 2016 in New York City. Getty Images Thumbs up Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on 21 July 2016, in Cleveland, AFP/Getty Images Don't cry for me ... Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds babies at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado on 29 July 2016 Reuters Donald Trump eating KFC on his private jet in August 2016 Is this really the Oval Office? Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump views a replica of the Oval Office on a tour of the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 30 September 2016 Reuters Women for Trump Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump kisses a "Women for Trump" placard during a rally at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Lakeland, Florida on 12 October 2016 AFP/Getty Images In debate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speak during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, America on 09 October 2016 AP Love your country The future is orange: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump hugs a U.S. flag on 24 October 2016 Reuters U.S. President-elect U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on 09 November 2016 Reuters 60 Minutes Donald Trump and wife Melania being interviewed on 13 November 2016 by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes 60 Minutes/CBS At The Whiie House US President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump meet in the Oval Office of the White House on 10 November 2016 EPA Kiss-story Republican president-elect Donald Trump embraces his wife Melania Trump during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of 09 November 2016 in New York Getty Images Person of the Year U.S. President-elect Donald Trump poses on the cover of Time Magazine after being named its person of the year, in a picture provided by the publication in New York on 7 December 2016 Time Magazine Meeting Kanye U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and musician Kanye West pose for media at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York on 13 December 2016 Reuters First Press Conference President-elect Donald Trump stands with his son Eric Trump (left) daughter Ivanka and son Donald Trump Jr. (right) on 11 January 2017 Reuters US President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington,Virginia 19 on January 2017 AFP/Getty Images Big shoes to fill: US President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive to attend an inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on 19 January 2017 AFP/Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania arrive for a VIP reception and dinner with donors in Washington on 19 January 2017 AP British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk along The Colonnade of the West Wing at The White House on January 27, 2017 in Washington, DC Getty Images Pope Francis walks along with US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump during a private audience at the Vatican in May 2017 AFP/Getty Images US President Donald Trump inspects border wall prototypes in March 2018 AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump walk to a joint news conference at Chequers in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump takes the hand of Prime Minister Theresa May as they enter Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire in July 2018 PA A six-meter high cartoon baby blimp of US President Donald Trump is set to fly as a protest against his visit July 2018 AP Activists inflate a giant balloon depicting US President Donald Trump as an orange baby during a demonstration against Trump's visit to the UK in Parliament Square, London July 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump with The Queen in July 2018 AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel deliberates with US president Donald Trump on the sidelines of the official agenda on the second day of the G7 summit on June 9, 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada Getty Images President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island in Singapore on 12 June 2018 Evan Vucci/AP U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018 Reuters US President Donald Trump meets with rapper Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on 18th October 2018 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian posed for a photograph together at the White House meeting Donald Trump/Twitter A White House staff member reaches for the microphone held by CNN's Jim Acosta as he questions U.S. President Donald Trump during a news conference in November 2018 Reuters President Donald Trump looks over tables of fast food for the the college football playoff champion Clemson Tigers in the State Dining Room of the White House in January 2019 Reuters US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 27, 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump (left) with Nigel Farage when they met met face-to-face on 2nd March 2019 PA/White House President Donald Trump smiles at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, after signing a proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House in Washington, Monday, March 25, 2019 AP US President Donald Trump (L) First Lady Melania Trump (C) and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe' Akie Abe (R) watch a sumo battle during the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo on May 26, 2019 AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump gestures after receiving a prayer at McLean Bible Church on 2nd June 2019 AP US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump make their way to board Air Force One on 2nd June 2019 AFP/Getty Images Donald and Melania Trump arrive at Stansted Airport on 3rd June 2019 AP President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are pictured ahead a meeting in Helsinki on July 16, 2018 AFP/Getty Images Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg watches as Donald Trump enters the United Nations to speak with reporters on September 23, 2019 Reuters Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a welcoming ceremony at the NATO leaders summit in Watford on December 4, 2019 Reuters President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Milwauke AP US president Donald Trump delivers a speech at the Congres center during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 21, 2020 AFP via Getty Images US President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio AFP via Getty Images A car with US President Trump drives past supporters in a motorcade outside of Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland AFP via Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump works in the Presidential Suite while receiving treatment after testing positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland via Reuters U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a phone call with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley October 4, 2020, in his conference room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Not shown in the photo also in the room on the call is Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Reuters Donald Trump walks out of hospital after receiving treatment for Covid-19 AP Mr Trump boards Marine One to return to the White House after receiving treatment for coronavirus AP Donald Trump stands on the Truman Balcony after returning to the White House from hospital Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump removes his mask upon return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 05, 2020 in Washington Getty Images The inaugural address After the swearing-in ceremony, Mr Trump will give a speech. President Obamas previous inaugural addresses were about 20 minutes in length. Entertainment Americas Got Talent runner-up Jackie Evancho will sing the national anthem and the Radio City Rockettes dance troupe will also perform. Set to perform: Jackie Evancho / Getty Images for Capital Concert The Mormon Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake City is set to perform at its sixth inauguration in a row. The performances usually take place ahead of the swearing-in ceremony and in between that and the inaugural address. After the ceremony has ended, the inaugural parade will take place. This starts from the steps of the Capitol, proceeding to the White House via Pennsylvania Avenue. Mr Trumps motorcade will travel within the parade with well-wishers lining the streets. He will then attend a lunch held by Congress with Mr Pence. Dress rehearsal takes place ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration Three official inaugural balls are planned. Two of them will be held at the Walter E Washington Convention Centre and another, the Armed Services Ball will be held at the National Building Museum. Loading.... What happens the next day? The Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service will be held at Washington National Cathedral on January 21. It is a tradition dating back to Franklin Delano Roosevelts first inauguration in 1933. M y first must-have book of the year is Adventures of a Terribly Greedy Girl by London-based food and drinks writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge (Mitchell Beazley; February 2017, Pre-order now ). Its not a recipe book, although it has recipes, but more of a food memoir. Raised in Thailand with stints in New York City and LA as a modelling rep, Plunkett-Hogge is a born raconteur. The stories are hysterically funny one moment then tissue-reaching teary the next. Think of the late-great U.S. writer Nora Ephron and you get an idea of the pleasures in store. 2017 also sees a spate of cookbooks that explore lesser know culinary shores. First up is rising food star Zoe Adjonyoh who runs a packed pop-up in Brixton serving up Ghanaian cooking. Now shes got a cookbook, Zoes Ghana Kitchen (Mitchell Beazley; April 2017, Pre-order now ) to add to her CV. Expect lots of fish and seafood, hearty salads, all spiked with a heady hit of spice fun, casual food, full of sunshine. Also one to look out for is Kaukasis (Mitchell Beazley; August 2017), the second cookbook from Olia Hercules. Her first, Mamushka, was a heartfelt tribute to her native Ukraine that went beyond recipes to tell the stories of the people who cook them. Expect more culinary storytelling in her new book when she turns her eye to Georgia and the Caucasus region. The food of Georgia is the subject of another book, Supra: The Art of Georgian Feasting, by Tiko Tuskadze (Pavilion; July 2017) who is chef-owner of Little Georgia restaurant in London. Her focus is on the traditional foods found at family feasts, celebrations and seasonal gatherings. Staying in the East, is Wild Honey and Rye: Recipes from a Modern Polish Kitchen, the debut cookbook by Ren Behan (Pavilion; September 2017) which dishes up the foods of her native Poland. Im not alone in having a massive soft spot for the Medjool date butter served up at Turkish-Cypriot restaurant Oklava in Shoredith. Now restaurant founder Selin Kiazim shares this recipe as well as other Oklava classics in Oklava: Recipes from a Turkish-Cypriot Kitchen (Mitchell Beazley; May 2017, Pre-order now ). There isnt a dodgy late night kebab in sight instead expect loads of spices, dried fruits and nuts from Turkey paired with the bountiful fresh produce and citrus of Cyprus for a marriage made in heaven. Ive also made space on my shelves for two books on Italian food. The first is Two Kitchens by Rachel Roddy (Headline; July 2017). Roddy dazzled with her debut cookbook Five Quarters which told the story of how she visited Rome and ended up staying in love with a man and a city. In Two Kitchens she shares recipes for simple family fare from Rome (where she has lived now for ten years) as well as Sicily where she spends time cooking and eating in the home of her partners nonna. Her writing is elegant and her recipes tempting the perfect combination. Another second-time author with her eyes on Italian food is Emiko Davies. Her upcoming book, Acquacotta (Hardie Grant; March 2017) charts the largely unsung Silver Coast region of Tuscany. If its half as good as her first book, Florentine, then were in for a treat. Oklava: Recipes from a Turkish-Cypriot Kitchen As well, Ill find room for two books on Spain. Grape, Olive, Pig is by Matt Goulding (Hardie Grant; March 2017) who wrote Rice, Noodle, Fish about the food of Japan. Now he turns his eye to Spain and uncovers some hidden gems and regional treasures in another food-fuelled travel guide. The photography alone should be reason enough to nab a copy. My other pick is Sabor: My Spanish Cooking by Michelin-starred chef Nieves Barragan Mohacho (Fig Tree; July 2017). Id gladly eat anything (and everything) on the Barrafina menu where she is head chef so cant and wont resist this cookbook of favourite recipes from her native Basque region. Vegetarian cookbooks continue to get their day in the sun in 2017. Popular bloggers David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl bring out another in their Green Kitchen series with Green Kitchen at Home (Hardie Grant; April 2017, Pre-order now ). Luise creates the recipes and David photographs them; the results are vibrant dishes full of colour and crunch. Whole Food Heaven in a Bowl by David & Charlotte Bailey (Pavilion; April 2017) is the second cookbook from another husband and wife team. When theyre not busy serving up their signature Buddha Bowls on Whitecross Street in London, they can be found traveling the world from Brazil to Bali. It shows in flavour-packed and joyous vegetarian and vegan fare. If meat is on the menu then look out for Prime: The Beef Cookbook (Michell Beazley; March 2017, Pre-order now ) by Chef Richard H. Turner. Hes the man behind such meat-centric restaurants as Hawksmoor, Foxlow, and Pitt Cue Co. as well as one half of Turner & George Butchers, so he knows a thing or two about meat. Prime is all about the beef, from grilling to braising and smoking as well as the lowdown on breeds, butchery and buying. Its basically a big beefy bible of a book that promises to be a classic in the making. Red Rooster Cookbook by Marcus Samuelsson (Pavilion; May 2017, Pre-order now ) comes out this Spring to coincide with the opening of his new restaurant in the Curtain hotel in Shoreditch. Samuelssons cooking draws on his Ethiopian roots, Swedish upbringing and love of the food and vibe of Harlem in New York City. If reservations are hard to come by at his new London venue, then buy the book and give his dishes a spin at home. Citrus by Catherine Phipps My final favourite for 2017 is Citrus by Catherine Phipps (Quadrille; February 2017, Pre-order now ). She celebrates sweet and sour and how citrus can transform the flavour of a dish. Phipps is an experienced food writer and it shows her recipes are tested thoroughly so they really work and her voice is engaging. Her previous books, The Pressure Cooker Cookbook and Chicken were both must-haves, and Citrus should follow suit. Follow us on Twitter @ESLifeandStyle and on Facebook The Australian actress, who urged US citizens to get behind Trump during an interview with the BBCs Victoria Derbyshire, has said that her comments were misconstrued. I was trying to stress that I believe in democracy and the American Constitution, and it was that simple, she told Access Hollywood. Refusing to elaborate further, Kidman added: Im out of it now. Thats what I said and its that simple. The 49-year-old star provoked a mixed reaction on Twitter following her initial remarks about the President-elect. Im always reticent to start commenting politically; Ive never done it in terms of America or Australia. Im issue-based, she told Derbyshire. Kanye West meets Donald Trump - In pictures 1 /8 Kanye West meets Donald Trump - In pictures U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and musician Kanye West pose for media at Trump Tower in Manhattan Reuters President-elect Donald Trump and Kanye West stand together in the lobby at Trump Tower in New York Drew Angerer/Getty Images Singer Kanye West and President-elect Donald Trump leave the elevator after their meeting at Trump Tower Timothy A.Clary/AFP/Getty Images Singer Kanye West and President-elect Donald Trump arrive to speak with the press after their meetings at Trump Towe Timothy A.Clary/AFP/Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump pats Kanye West on the back in the lobby at Trump Tower Drew Angerer/Getty Images Kanye West arrives at Trump Tower in Manhattan Jihn Taggart/EPA So I just say, hes now elected, and we as a country need to support whosever the president because thats what the countrys based on. And whatever, however that happened, hes there, and lets go. Jeffrey Guterman wrote on Twitter: Kidman's suggestion we should support #Trump "because he's President" is an example of authority as a justification for subservience. I respect Nicole Kidman too much to criticize her supporting Trump, or how as a really rich person she's getting a massive tax cut. I won't, wrote John Fugelsang. Piers Morgan praised Kidman, saying: BOMBSHELL! Hollywood star shows mature, rational, unifying view towards Trump presidency. Kudos to Nicole Kidman. With one hand holding a bottle of champagne and the other an oversized certificate declaring him the winner of $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, Bruce Saunders stood on the front porch of his western Davie County Monday and rattled off a list of things he plans spend his spend money on medical bills, fixing his lawnmower and helping family members. ST. LOUIS A Missouri lawmaker who publicly accused a colleague of raping her last year and was sued for defamation after prosecutors declined criminal charges is fighting back with a claim that she was drugged and then assaulted. Both were then candidates for the Missouri House and have since been elected. Walker filed court documents Thursday denying Roberts defamation claim and counter-suing him for battery and infliction of emotional distress. Her response accuses Roberts specifically of giving her a date-rape drug to set her up for sexual assault at his Central West End apartment last summer. She called his suit false and malicious and an attempt to intimidate and distract from his conduct toward her and other women in the past. Roberts attorney, Jeremy Hollingshead, said Walkers claims are baseless; he claimed she filed the counter-claim to save her political career and to advance her false narrative. He said if Walker had a date-rape drug in her system it would have shown up in toxicology test results, which would have been available to the special prosecutor who declined charges. Its just smoke and mirrors, he said. Roberts and Walker, both Democrats, ran unopposed in the Nov. 8 election. Roberts represents a district in St. Louis. Walkers district covers an area of north St. Louis County. Walker first went public with her rape accusation in a letter sent Sept. 30 to Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, and other legislative leaders. Walker told the Post-Dispatch that she went to Roberts apartment the night of Aug. 26, discussed politics, passed out, then woke up and could not recall what had happened. She reported the alleged sexual assault to authorities about a month later, in late September, according to Roberts suit. In October, St. Charles County Prosecutor Tim Lohmar, who served as a special prosecutor in the case, declined to press charges against Roberts. Roberts civil suit claims the two had their first sexual contact at a political conference in Kansas City on Aug. 25, the day before Walker alleges she was raped. Roberts claims that Walker, who is married, initiated the contact in Kansas City by asking to keep her purse in Roberts hotel room while she attended an evening social function. His suit says that once in Roberts room, Walker asked to use his shower and then undressed in front of him. Roberts alleges that Walker posed for a nude photo and then the two had sexual contact. Walker left Roberts room about 2 a.m., the suit says. Sometimes, you dont know what you dont know. The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared in March 2014, proves that adage again and again. The jet vanished, seemingly into thin air, with 239 people aboard. There was no distress call, no plea for help from a frantic pilot. There wasnt even enough satellite data to identify exactly where the thing might be. Instead, there were rumors. Lots and lots of rumors. A high-tech hijacking? A Russian special ops mission, in which trained terrorists hid the plane in another planes shadow, then landed it in the former Soviet Union, to be used for an attack on a date to be determined? Did it become invisible? Well probably never know. Only a couple of pieces of debris and a handful of personal belongings have been found, washed up on beaches in places such as Madagascar. Eventually, though, scientists studied the available tracking information and came to a consensus. The plane had probably crashed into the Indian Ocean, one of the least hospitable search environments on Earth. In October 2014, the governments of Australia, China and Malaysia launched an investigation. A ship called the Equator used an autonomous underwater vehicle to scour the seafloor. Over 27 months, it searched 46,000 square miles at a cost of about $150 million. Twice, the crew identified large objects that later turned out to be unrelated shipwrecks. From the beginning, there were doubts. Some oceanographers said they thought the crash site was north of the search area. It turns out that the official investigators might have agreed. Last month, the Endeavor was moved at high speed to a new location more than 200 miles north. This diversion happened, they allege, as the search team was making its final sweeps in the area. Richard Cole, of the University College in London, detected the shift via satellite tracking; hes been following the operation for many months. He told the Daily Beast: Equator has re-centered the search to the north, away from the area originally identified in late 2014 by the Australian Defense Science and Technology Group. Using a sonar system, it is now checking sea floor not previously scanned. The search has only limited time left, but they are investing this remaining time in scanning the area they now believe is the most likely location of MH370. Many other scientists have pointed to the same spot. The Australian search team itself conceded a couple weeks ago that the identified search area is unlikely to contain the missing aircraft. They now think the plane is about 9,600 square miles north of the original search area. But officials say without credible evidence, a new search wont be approved. That decision has frustrated the families of passengers. Advocacy group Voice 370 has called on the search to continue. In a statement, they said, extending the search to the new area defined by experts is an inescapable duty owed to the flying public in the interest of aviation safety. HONG KONG, CHINA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/16/17 -- 2017 will be better than you think, according to Deloitte, who today released the first edition of their Voice of Asia series. Despite protectionist rhetoric from the US and gloomy forecasts from the IMF, three factors suggest global growth is about to surprise on the upside, with Asia leading the way. Chris Richardson, Deloitte Australia Economist explained that "first, the global economy is finally normalising after a decade of shocks, and a natural healing process is underpinning a more resilient recovery. Second, world trade is already lifting and the benefits of this are spilling into Asia. And third, Asia's mega-economies of India and China, are increasingly being powered by consumer booms, acting as a stabilising force in their economies and for the region." Global economy stabilising Following a series of shocks that began with the global financial crisis and then, in quick succession, the Eurozone debt crisis and the geopolitical shocks in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, the global economy is finally normalising. Deloitte's report predicts that global growth could in fact accelerate in 2017, with leading indicators already pointing to a lift in world trade. This will begin a virtuous circle in which global growth triggers an upsurge in trade which, in turn, fuels stronger growth. Asia's major markets of China and India are also powering ahead and growth in most other countries in the region are strengthening, aided by a buoyant US economy. Trade picking up World trade volumes were damaged by successive crises and shocks in recent years, but leading indicators suggest volumes are ready to lift. Of course, there will still be risks in 2017, the largest of which may be the anticipated depreciation of the Chinese Yuan, which could affect the region's nascent recovery. "The continuing devaluation of the Chinese Yuan is necessary, though how the Chinese government manages it will be key. If it's too aggressive, other Asian currencies may also fall -- which could tempt the incoming US President to follow through on his protectionist rhetoric and hit trade," said Sitao Xu, Deloitte China Economist. "Asia is increasingly plugged into China-centric value chains. Any impact on China from yuan devaluation or other policy changes could have a significant knock-on effect on other Asian economies. However, in the long run, most economies in Asia will benefit if China succeeds in rebalancing its economy." While President-elect Trump is still largely an unknown quantity, his influence on global trade may be overstated. Indicators point to Asian and global trade strengthening, despite the rise of nationalistic and protectionist voices globally. Consumers booming Asia's mega-economies, China and India, are increasingly being powered by consumer booms, providing Asia with an additional line of defence if global growth isn't as good as expected and trade tensions boil over. Sitao Xu, Deloitte China Economist commented, "A new and optimistic generation is taking the lead in driving the direction of their economies: one that is technologically savvy, comfortable with the borderless consumerism of the global middle class, and yet imbued with the consumption-smoothing instincts of its parents and grandparents." The new generation of consumer in Asia will be a stabilising force in their economies, meaning they are likely to play an anchor role for 2017, regardless of other developments. "Our Voice of Asia report points to a range of reasons for confidence in 2017 -- from growth to trade, culture to commerce -- that underpin Asia's current and future prosperity. The interdependence of our region reflects what's possible in the year ahead, also shaping a more positive overall global outlook," said Patrick Tsang, CEO, Deloitte China. For more analysis and details on the Voice of Asia, please visit Deloitte University Press. Local media contacts About Deloitte Global Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a more detailed description of DTTL and its member firms. Deloitte provides audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries. Deloitte serves four out of five Fortune Global 500 companies through a globally connected network of member firms in more than 150 countries bringing world-class capabilities, insights, and high-quality service to address clients' most complex business challenges. To learn more about how Deloitte's approximately 244,400 professionals make an impact that matters, please connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. About Deloitte China The Deloitte brand first came to China in 1917 when a Deloitte office was opened in Shanghai. Now the Deloitte China network of firms, backed by the global Deloitte network, deliver a full range of audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory and tax services to local, multinational and growth enterprise clients in China. We have considerable experience in China and have been a significant contributor to the development of China's accounting standards, taxation system and local professional accountants. To learn more about how Deloitte makes an impact that matters in the China marketplace, please connect with our Deloitte China social media platforms via www2.deloitte.com/cn/en/social-media. About Deloitte's Voice of Asia The Voice of Asia series brings to life the challenges and opportunities facing the Asia Pacific region today and tomorrow. There has never been a better time to create a cohesive narrative that reflects the interdependence of the region and provides a glimpse of what's possible across Asia. Edition one of the Voice of Asia includes three reports: - Four things you need to know about Asia in 2017 - Trade to trump protectionists and boost global growth - Asia's weapons of mass consumption This communication contains general information only, and none of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, its member firms, or their related entities (collectively the "Deloitte Network") is by means of this communication, rendering professional advice or services. None of the Deloitte Network shall be responsible for any loss whatsoever sustained by any person who relies on this communication. 2016. For information, contact Deloitte China. Wilfred Lee Title: Director Tel: +852 2852 1243 Fax: +852 2541 3726 Email: Email Contact Wayne Lui Title: Assistant Manager Tel: +852 2238 7046 Fax: +852 2541 3726 Email: Email Contact Source: Deloitte China GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/16/17 -- Alphamin's Bisie Mining Project in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo received official endorsement with a strong vote of Government support with the establishment of a North Kivu Government support committee for the development of the Bisie Tin Project. Alphamin Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE: AFM) ("Alphamin" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the establishment of a committee by the North Kivu Government to support Alphamin subsidiary, Alphamin Bisie Mining, S.A. (ABM), to develop its Bisie tin project (80.25% AFM ownership). ABM is developing the Bisie Tin Project with plans to begin full production in 2019. North Kivu Governor Julien Paluku Kahongya signed the legal order in Goma on 20 December, 2016 creating the Committee to Accompany ABM in Implementing its Mine at Bisie (CAIMB in French) in order to both support ABM and to inform the Provincial Authorities of potential impediments to the project. The CAIMB is composed of high-level technical and specialized services who will assist in guiding ABM for the three years of construction and initial operations. A branch of the CAIMB will be created in Walikale Territory to engage with local authorities in the same way. Confirming the Province's strong commitment to promoting private investment and public-private partnership in North Kivu, Governor Julien Paluku stated: "The provincial government is committed to providing a favourable environment for private investment in a win-win partnership. We affirmed this in two economic forums of the province held in 2010 and 2015. North Kivu has indeed an enormous economic potential to exploit for the benefit of its population. We must support Alphamin, so that other investors in the mining, agriculture, energy and tourism sectors are reassured to follow the example and invest responsibly." The North Kivu provincial minister in charge of mines, Professor Anselme Kitakya, who is responsible for the smooth operation of the CAIMB, adds: "Alphamin is already demonstrating the importance of partnership with the government of North Kivu by co-financing the rehabilitation of the Sake-Masisi-Walikale road for approximately 230 km and through the contribution to social development within the framework of the Lowa Alliance, a non-profit foundation initiated by the populations that will be supported by the mining project that develops ABM in the territory of Walikale. Socio-economic infrastructures will be erected in the area surrounding the Bisie mining site. We are committed to providing support and advice to investors such as ABM." Alphamin CEO Boris Kamstra commented, "North Kivu has many assets and remarkably industrious people, from which past events have diverted investors' attention. This is a very encouraging sign and helps us in our role as ambassadors for North Kivu to global investors to convey the support of government, nationally, provincially and locally which will assist Alphamin with the development of our Bisie Tin Project." Richard Robinson, Managing Director of ABM, echoed these sentiments: "As the Bisie Tin Project moves forward in road and preliminary construction activities, including the ventilation tunnel, we are seeing increasing support from local and national stakeholders through actions such as that of the North Kivu Governor. This reinforces the progress made by Alphamin in 2016 with the signing of a collaborative Memorandum of Understanding with the Walikale Community in April and June, 2016, followed by concrete social development projects such as the construction of the new Luuka Primary School and the formal founding and registration of the Lowa Alliance, as well as partnerships with North Kivu and the national road agency in rehabilitating the Masisi Walikale road." It is anticipated that ABM will employ approximately 700 people during construction and will create approximately 450 permanent local jobs during operations. As a result, significant economic benefits are expected in an area of the DRC that has seen little foreign investment while overcoming security and governance challenges for decades. The mine is estimated to produce 10,000 tonnes of tin in concentrate on average per year over the 12-year mine lifespan, which represents about 3% of the world's current production and will double the DRC's current tin exports. Alphamin and North-Kivu actors understand the project will serve as an example for foreign investment and will also serve as an infrastructure platform for other businesses to start, including service providers to the mine. Indirect job creation will be far higher than the mine's direct numbers and can be reasonably expected to achieve the 1:14 ratio of indirect jobs commonly reported in Africa for similar projects, resulting in potentially an additional 6,300 jobs. ABM S.A. is a Congolese commercial enterprise which holds a national exploitation permit for the Bisie concession until 2045 and, in addition to AFM's shareholding (80.25%), the balance of shares are held by the Governments of the DRC (5%) and the Republic of South Africa (15%) through its "Industrial Development Corporation." 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 News Release. ISSUED ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF ALPHAMIN RESOURCES CORP. BY Boris Kamstra, Chief Executive Officer MORE INFORMATION ON ALPHAMIN RESOURCES CORP.: Alphamin is a tin exploration and development company with the vision to be respected in the international tin sector by unleashing the full profit and potential of its world-class tin asset in North Kivu, DRC currently under development. Alphamin has the vision to become a premier tin producer by: -- Leading a world-class, profitable mining company in North Kivu, delivering results for the benefit of all stakeholders and viewed with respect by the communities and Government. -- Becoming a profitable tin producer, while continuing with exploration to increase life of mine. ABM intends to operate a profitable tin mine in a safe environment and uplifting the local community. Alphamin is striving to develop the first, low-cost per tonne tin, commercial mine in North Kivu, while at the same time making a marked, positive impact on the communities surrounding the mine. We intend to be a tin mining company that excels at the production of tin and provides leadership for the region in terms of safety, health, environment and community development. -- Delivering on the commitment to develop the first and large, commercial tin mine in that part of the country - giving Alphamin credibility locally and abroad - and becoming a business transformation reference in the tin mining industry. -- Creating value for both shareholders and the community. -- Committing, from the date of production, to spend 4% of its in-country operating and administrative expenses on community development. This investment will be governed with representative input from local communities and managed by the Lowa Alliance, a GDRC-regulated not-for- profit foundation. Alphamin will continue to preserve its legal rights to develop Bisie and explore ways to assist artisanal miners to transition from illegal to legal status, conflict-free sites elsewhere in the region. -- The community projects, supported by the Alliance, being selected following an in-depth survey of the 13500 households (approximately 80 000 residents) across the 44 communities closest to Bisie. Representative committees will prioritise a range of projects to promote social and economic development to which they, local authorities and potentially external donors, will also contribute. These projects would provide incentives for income beyond illegal artisanal mining while also providing educational and health infrastructure and services like potable water, malaria reduction and treatment and primary health care capacity building. CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Information in this news release that is not a statement of historical fact constitutes forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation, statements relating to costs of production, success of mining operations, the ranking of the project in terms of cash cost and production, economic return estimates, social, community and environmental impacts, and continued positive discussions and relationships with local communities and stakeholders. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable at the time such statements are made. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Although Alphamin has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expected results described in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: Alphamin's ability to secure sufficient financing to advance and complete the Bisie Tin Project, uncertainties associated with Alphamin's resource and reserve estimates, uncertainties regarding global supply and demand for tin and market and sales prices, uncertainties associated with securing off-take agreements and customer contracts, uncertainties with respect to social, community and environmental impacts, adverse political events, uncertainties with respect to optimization opportunities for the Bisie Tin Project, as well as those risk factors set out in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure documents available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and Alphamin disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws." Contacts: Alphamin Resources Corp. Boris Kamstra Chief Executive Officer Grand Baie, Mauritius +230 269 4166 [email protected] Alphamin Bisie Mining SA Richard Robinson Directeur General/Managing Director +243816065577 [email protected] No. 372/10, Avenue du Lac Quartier des Himbi Commune de Goma, Nord Kivu Republique Democratique du Congo Source: Alphamin Resources Corp. SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Virtual reality and artificial intelligence products took center stage at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the platform where the world's trends in scientific and technological innovations are put on display, with companies from China, which accounted for one third of the leading exhibitors at the event, visibly demonstrating their newfound stature. Suning, China's largest O2O (online to offline) ecommerce platform, showcased a comprehensive lineup of intelligent products from its zc.suning.com platform, including several smart home products and other novel solutions. Suning also hosted the "China Innovation North America Summit Forum", giving 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) home appliance makers around the world a presentation on how to fast track their products into the Chinese market. The organizer of the exhibition was extremely complimentary in his comments about Suning. In a chat with Suning's exhibition team, Consumer Technology Association president and CEO Gary Shapiro said CES is a platform that connects all the participants in the world of high tech, while Suning is an important sales platform for innovative technological products and services, and, as a result of the role that Suning plays, he looks forward to seeing further cooperation between the two parties. Executive vice president of IT at Suning Commerce Joshua Xiang explained: "With the success of its transition to e-commerce, Suning plans to introduce intelligence into the retail industry as a new driving force for the further development of online retail". Xiang further disclosed that in order to apply intelligent technologies in the business area, a strong IT team is developing a chat robot, which enables human-machine interactions, and can communicate with consumers in a cordial, natural and anthropomorphic way. "By engaging the consumer in a pleasant chat, gradually, the sale can be closed." While most brands at the event exhibited their own latest research results and achievements in smart home products, Suning was able to leverage its prominent position as China's largest retailer to help several manufacturers "break the ice" by facilitating conversations between different brands and products, through the application of artificial intelligence technologies. As further assistance to the manufacturers, the retailer also provides after-sale services as well as value-added services such as multi-screen audio and video, smart recipes, smart community and smart shopping mall. In order to strengthen research in cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, Suning set up a research institute in Silicon Valley in 2013, and now has four such research institutes worldwide. These institutes have demonstrated their worth, providing data cloud services to more than 6,000 companies. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chinese-retail-giant-suning-unveils-artificial-intelligence-strategy-at-ces-300391184.html SOURCE Suning Commerce Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) January 16, 2017 One of the main concerns of anyone looking to retire overseas is the quality of healthcare. Is it possible to get medical treatment as good as what's available in the U.S. and Canada? The answer in many places is&a resounding yes. Sometimes the care, in fact, is even better than what's on offer at home, and at a more affordable price too. The cost and quality of medical procedures overseas helped determine the score of each of the 24 countries in the healthcare category of International Living's 2017 Global Retirement Index. The four countries that top the healthcare category in the 2017 Global Retirement Index all feature the availability of clean, excellent hospitals, highly trained doctors, and very affordable care. Malaysia Malaysia has some of the best-trained doctors in Asia--and the majority of them were trained in the U.S., Australia, or the UK. All of them speak English too, and that takes a lot of the stress away from what can be an already stressful situation. Western accreditation is also a vital component for confidence in undergoing foreign medical treatments. Numerous hospitals in Penang and Kuala Lumpur are among Southeast Asia's first recipients of the United States' prestigious Joint Commission International (JCI) certification. Seen as the gold standard for healthcare service providers around the world, Malaysia has no less than eight JCI-accredited hospitals. The most popular areas of treatment across the board in Malaysia include cosmetic surgery, dental work, and dermatology. In 2016 Malaysia was visited by more than 1 million medical tourists from around the globe, a figure that is predicted to rise in 2017. One can understand the values on offer when you consider that a hip replacement that typically costs $39,000 in the States can be had for $5,200 in Malaysia, for example. Costa Rica More than 40,000 Americans travel each year to Costa Rica to seek medical and dental treatment. These "medical tourists" have discovered that this little Central American country has high-quality healthcare available at a very low cost. One American who recently traveled to Costa Rica as a medical tourist reported a saving of $15,000 for dental implants, even after paying for airfare and accommodation. And expats who live in Costa Rica are able to take advantage of this benefit every day of the year, paying a fraction of what they did back home for doctor's visits, surgeries, prescriptions, and any other care they need. There are two medical systems in Costa Rica, both of which expats have access to. First is the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, known as Caja for short. This is universal healthcare, provided and managed by the government. It's available to citizens and legal residents, including foreigners with the retiree visa, for example. There is also an extensive private medical system in Costa Rica, with doctors, clinics, and hospitals throughout the country. Expats often can also use insurance, either international policies or those provided by Costa Rican companies. Most private hospitals have international patient departments to help arrange financial matters. Often expats mix and match private and public medical care. They might see a private doctor and pay cash and then have their prescription filled in the Caja pharmacy for free. Or if a procedure is taking too long to schedule at a public clinic, they might go private. Colombia The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks Colombia's healthcare system as number 22 out of the 191 countries they review. That is better than Canada, which ranks 30th, and better than the U.S. too, which ranks 37th. There are many excellent hospitals and clinics located throughout Colombia that provide both general and specialized medical services. Half of the top 43 hospitals in Latin America are in Colombia (22 out of 43). The larger cities of Bogot, Medellin, and Bucaramanga have hospitals that have received the Joint Commission International accreditation. Any expat not over the age of 60 with a resident cedula (national ID card) can apply for the government health insurance EPS (Entidades Promotoras de Salud). Even if you have pre-existing conditions, you can be accepted into the plan. These conditions may be excluded for a short period of time--six months or so--but then will be covered in full. To participate in the program, retirees pay a premium equal to 12% of their income. Many expats report monthly premiums in the $70 to $85 range for a couple. Private health insurance is an option for people over the age of 60 or as a supplemental plan to EPS public coverage. Coomeva, for example, offers a private health insurance plan for people up to the age of 85. Premiums will be significantly lower than what a couple would pay in the U.S. Of course they vary depending on the carrier choose, the level of coverage, and age and health at time of application. And here again, the cost for medical procedures is much lower than what is typical in the States. In most cases, Americans are able to save 40% on healthcare in Colombia, and in many cases, even more. "The daughter of an expat living in Salento has come to Colombia many times for extensive dental work and Lasik eye surgery on both eyes, which cost her around $1,000, instead of the $4,000 to $5,000 she would have paid in the States," reports Nancy Kiernan, International Living's Colombia correspondent. Mexico Thousands of Americans visit Mexico each year for medical treatment and dental care. The facilities, even in medium-sized cities, are top notch. And physicians have usually received at least some training in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. If not medical school, they receive ongoing training abroad. All the latest technology, techniques, and prescription medications are available in Mexico. And having major surgery or treatment for serious medical conditions is not a problem. Expats also enjoy access to this top medical care, of course, and overall they can expect to pay about half--or less--of U.S. prices, including prices for prescription drugs. Legal residents have access to two systems. The government-run system operates clinics and hospitals throughout the country and most expats say it offers good basic care at a low price--with costs running to just a few hundred dollars per year. Many expats also use private healthcare, for which they pay cash or use insurance. It is much cheaper than the U.S. For example, a visit to the doctor is about $30 to $40. For lab testing, expect to pay about a third of the U.S. cost. To read more about the top four countries with the world's best healthcare, see here: "4 Countries with the Best Healthcare in the World." Editor's Note: Members of the media have permission to reproduce the article linked above once credit is given to InternationalLiving.com. For information about InternationalLiving.com content republishing, source material or to book an interview with one of our experts, contact Associate Editor Carol Barron, 772-678-0287 (US), CBarron(at)InternationalLiving.com. For 36 years, InternationalLiving.com has been the leading authority for anyone looking for global retirement or relocation opportunities. Through its monthly magazine and related e-letters, extensive website, podcasts, online bookstore, and events held around the world, InternationalLiving.com provides information and services to help its readers live better, travel farther, have more fun, save more money, and find better business opportunities when they expand their world beyond their own shores. InternationalLiving.com has more than 200 correspondents traveling the globe, investigating the best opportunities for travel, retirement, real estate, and investment. Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/01/prweb13983498.htm HONG KONG, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- JNA (Jewellery News Asia) is excited to announce the 2017 award categories and the judging criteria for the sixth annual JNA Awards. Online registration is now open to allow sufficient time for all interested parties from the jewellery and gemstone industry to review and choose the appropriate categories to enter. The JNA Awards is one of the most rigorous and prestigious international awards programmes, which aims to promote and uphold excellence in innovation, creativity, leadership, sustainability and best business practices with a focus on initiatives that have a positive impact on Asia's jewellery and gemstone sector. This year, the organiser has adjusted a few award categories to better respond to the needs of the industry and, at the same time, encourage wider participation. The award categories for 2017 are as follows:1. Lifetime Achievement Award (Nominated by the organiser)2. Brand of the Year -- Retail 3. Industry Innovation of the Year4. Manufacturer of the Year -- Jewellery 5. Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- ASEAN 6. Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- Greater China 7. Outstanding Enterprise of the Year -- India8. Retailer of the Year (450 outlets and below) 9. E-supplier of the Year10. Sustainability Initiative of the Year11. Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Age 40 and below) Wolfram Diener, Senior Vice President of UBM Asia, said, "Feedback from the industry is always appreciated as it allows us, as organisers, to improve the experience of entrants without compromising fairness. We are very encouraged to see many past entrants benefitting from early registration when it was first offered last year. We would like to keep up the momentum this year to enable interested parties to have enough time to study the categories prior to the entry process." Letitia Chow, Founder of JNA, Director of Business Development -- Jewellery Group at UBM Asia, and Chair of the JNA Awards judging panel, explained the changes on the affected categories. "We have expanded the scope of e-commerce through the E-supplier of the Year category, which is open to all businesses related to jewellery conducted on the electronic platform from mine to market. Moreover, the Industry Innovation of the Year and Sustainability Initiative of the Year categories will be judged separately as we recognise them as equally important, but different drivers to the future growth of the industry." A complete description of the award categories, as well as a detailed explanation of the judging criteria and entry rules, may be reviewed after registering online. Entries may be submitted starting from early March to early May. The JNA Awards 2017 is supported by Headline Partners Rio Tinto Diamonds and Chow Tai Fook (CTF), together with Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE), Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange, and Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (GDLAND) serving as Honoured Partners. Stay tuned for further announcements on the judging panel. For more information, visit http://www.JNAawards.com/ or contact: JNA Awards MarketingUBM Asia (Hong Kong) +852-2516-2184[email protected] Notes for Editors: 1. About JNA (www.jewellerynewsasia.com )JNA is the organiser of the JNA Awards and is the flagship publication of UBM Asia's Jewellery Group. First published in 1983, the title is the leader in providing up-to-date international jewellery trade news with an Asian insight. It features original, in-depth reports by experienced journalists covering the latest developments in the diamond, pearl, coloured gemstone, jewellery manufacturing, and equipment and supplies sectors. 2. About the Headline Partners2.1 Rio Tinto Diamonds (www.riotinto.com/diamondsandminerals ) Rio Tinto Diamonds is one of the world's leading diamond producers and operates a globally integrated mine-to-market diamond business. For over three decades, the company has been an important participant in the international diamond market with two world-class underground diamond mines in Australia (Argyle) and Canada (Diavik). Rio Tinto's diamond sales and marketing activities, headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium, are supported by a network of representative offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai and New York. Rio Tinto believes in supporting consumer confidence in its diamonds and plays an active role in addressing key industry issues surrounding product integrity and sustainable development. It is a leading supporter of the Kimberley Process, as well as a founding member of the Responsible Jewellery Council and the Diamond Producers Association. 2.2 Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited (www.chowtaifook.com )Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited (Stock Code: 1929) was listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in December 2011. The iconic brand "Chow Tai Fook" of the Group has been widely recognised for its trustworthiness and authenticity, and renowned for product design, quality and value. The acquisition of Hearts On Fire, an internationally acclaimed U.S. premium diamond brand, in August 2014 has further underpinned the Group's stature as a diamond expert in the industry. The Group boasts an extensive retail network comprising over 2,300 POS of Chow Tai Fook and Hearts On Fire spanning more than 500 cities in Greater China, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and the United States, as well as a fast growing e-tail network through operating its Chow Tai Fook e-shop and other e-tail accounts on major online shopping platforms. The Group's sophisticated vertically integrated business model provides it with an effective and tight control over the entire operation chain from raw material procurement, design, production, to marketing and sales through its extensive distribution channels. 3. About the Honoured Partners3.1 Shanghai Diamond Exchange (www.cnsde.com )Authorised by the State Council, the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE) is the only diamond exchange in China and provides diamond dealers a fair and safe transaction venue under close supervision. It also enjoys a favourable taxation policy and is operated in accordance with international best practices of the diamond industry. Established in 2000, the SDE is a non-profit, self-regulating membership organisation and a member of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses. 3.2 The Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange (http://en.gdgje.com/ )Founded in February 2016, the Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange is one of two provincial jewellery trading platforms authorised by the People's Government of Guangdong Province. Aggregating resources from key industrial hubs across Guangdong including Guangzhou, Pingzhou of Foshan, Yangmei of Jieyang and Sihui of Zhaoqing, the Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange joins hands with world-renowned jewellery brands in setting up an international supply chain integrated service platform that offers a secure and convenient trading experience for domestic and overseas jewellers. The Guangdong Gems & Jade Exchange is set to benefit China's jewellery industry in a variety of areas, such as the promotion of a healthier and more balanced international division of labour, foreign trade development, cross-border resource management and consumer market growth. As part of this effort, it will take full advantage of the base and influence of Guangdong's jewellery industry and the benefits stemming from the Belt and Road Initiative to establish linkages with national and global gemstone and jewellery markets. 3.3 The Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (www.gdland.com.hk )The Guangdong Land Holdings Limited (GDLAND), with its headquarters in Hong Kong, is listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, and is a subsidiary of GDH Limited, which is Guangdong Province's largest conglomerate operating outside Mainland China. The principal business of GDLAND is property development and investment, including but not limited to the development and operational management of the innovative commercial real estate, urban complex and industrial business complex. As the strategic arm of GDH Limited, GDLAND engages in the business development of commercial real estate, as well as the projects of urban and industrial complex. GDLAND's flagship project, namely the "Buxin Project", is planned to become the biggest and most advanced jewellery mart in the world, including a large-scale jewellery trading and exhibition centre along with other facilities, with a lot size of over 87,000 square metres and the construction scale (floor area) is expected to be more than 700,000 square metres. The Buxin Project, which is located in the Buxin area of Luohu district in Central Shenzhen, close to the Shuibei Gold and Jewellery Base, is expected to develop the area into one of the most influential gold and jewellery trading and exchange platforms in China and around the world. 4. 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 presence in 24 major cities with 32 offices and 1,300 staff. With a track record spanning over 30 years, UBM Asia operates in 19 market sectors with 230 events, 28 targeted trade publications, 18 round-the-clock online products for over 2,000,000 quality exhibitors, visitors, conference delegates, advertisers and subscribers from all over the world. We provide a one-stop diversified global service for high-value business matching, quality market news and online trading networks. UBM Asia has extensive office networks in China, Southeast Asia and India, three of the world's fastest growing B2B events markets. UBM China has 12 offices in the major cities in mainland China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Guzhen and Shenzhen, where we organise 90 events. In ASEAN, UBM Asia operates from its offices in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines with 70 events in this region. UBM India teams in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai organise over 20 events every year across the country. UBM Asia was awarded 'Asia's Most Reliable Trade Show Organizer Award' in Hong Kong's Most Valuable Companies Awards (HKMVCA) 2016. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jna-awards-unveils-2017-categories-and-judging-criteria-300391219.html SOURCE JNA STOCKHOLM and ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Jan.16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Telia Carrier today announced that it has established a new route stretching from Stockholm to St. Petersburg via Tallinn, and has upgraded multiple submarine cables to future proof its network, bringing lower latency and additional capacity. The new route further diversifies the wholesale carrier's network and the upgrade enables Telia Carrier to provide 100G+ services to carriers, content and cloud providers in the Baltics, Russia and beyond. The new network extension is the most direct route possible from Stockholm to St. Petersburg at just under 900 km. With a connection in Tallinn, Estonia, Telia Carrier's mesh network extends in different directions reaching multiple cities including Riga, Latvia or Helsinki, Finland. This added diversity and geographical reach extends the value of the top-two ranked global backbone, AS1299. As St. Petersburg and Moscow are important transit points for Asian traffic, the new route also allows Telia Carrier to service the increase in traffic coming into Europe from Asia via terrestrial cable routes from the East as well as directly from Russia. The subsea cables reaching across the Baltic Sea have been upgraded using the latest coherent Flex-Grid technology allowing Telia Carrier to offer 100G, and future 150G and 200G services leveraging the latest modulation formats. "As our network becomes more meshed throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltics, we are continuing to build out eastward to stay ahead of content demand and the resulting backbone traffic in the region," said Johan Godal, global product manager, wavelength and network outsourcing services at Telia Carrier. "By extending the route from Sweden to Russia and upgrading the submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, we can now offer high capacity and low latency services via a highly-meshed network throughout the region." Telia Carrier's global fiber backbone has grown organically, without acquisitions, and is the first to be 100G-enabled in both Europe and North America. It is also the first network to successfully transmit 1 Tb/s on its US network. According to Dyn Research's global backbone rankings, AS1299, Telia Carrier's global IP backbone is currently ranked top-two. Telia Carrier's rapid growth and ascension through the rankings was recently highlighted in Dyn's 'Baker's Dozen, 2015 edition' report. The company enables worldwide connectivity by connecting more than 220 Points of Presence (PoPs) across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East including over 70 PoPs in North America alone. Media Enquiries: Rickard Backlin, VP Brand & Marketing, Telia Carrier, +46-72-2368327, [email protected] About Telia CarrierTelia Carrier owns and operates one of the world's most extensive fiber backbones. Our mission is to provide exceptional network infrastructure and services empowering individuals, businesses and societies to execute their most critical activities. By working close to our customers, we make big ideas happen at the speed of fiber. Discover more at teliacarrier.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/telia-carrier-builds-new-unique-route-from-stockholm-to-st-petersburg-and-upgrades-submarine-cables-in-the-baltic-sea-300391057.html SOURCE Telia Carrier LONDON (Reuters) - Marco Gobbetti, recruited last year from French brand Celine to be the new chief executive of Burberry , will start work next week and take on full responsibilities in July, the British luxury goods company said on Monday. Italian Gobbetti was named as Christopher Bailey's successor as Burberry CEO last July but contractual obligations have prevented him from taking charge so far. Gobbetti arrives at a difficult time for Burberry which rebuffed a takeover approach from U.S. rival Coach (NYSE: COH) last year according to reports. Burberry, scheduled to update on Christmas trading on Wednesday, said Gobbetti would start at the firm on Jan. 27 as executive chairman, Asia Pacific and Middle East. He will not become CEO and join the board until July 5 when Bailey will take on the new role of president and chief creative officer. The Asia Pacific and Middle East position was created for him by Burberry to enable him to get to know the business before becoming CEO, the firm said. His arrival will allow Bailey to focus again on the design role that made his name. Burberry has suffered from depressed demand at U.S. department stores and is exposed to any slowdown in China, with the Chinese consumer accounting for 40 percent of its global retail sales. It has however been boosted by tourists taking advantage of the weaker pound to spend more in its London stores and the translation benefit when converting overseas revenues to sterling. Foreign exchange benefits have helped to drive a 46 percent rise in its shares over the last year. The stock was up 1.3 percent at 1,632 pence at 1145 GMT (6:45 a.m. ET), valuing the business at around 7.1 billion pounds ($8.6 billion). Last week analysts at Barclays upgraded their stance on Burberry to "overweight". They are forecasting a 25 percent rise in third quarter sales to 752 million pounds, with like-for-like sales up 2 percent. Barclays highlighted the social media success of a tie-up with pop star Kris Wu as auguring well for progress in China. (Reporting by James Davey; editing by Keith Weir) QUETTA, Pakistan/DOHA (Reuters) - A group of Pakistani villagers brandishing guns and knives attacked the convoy of a Qatar royal family member on an expedition to hunt the houbara bustard, a rare bird whose meat is prized by Arab sheikhs, officials said on Monday. The hunting party was unhurt, but three security guards were wounded during the attack on Sunday evening in Musakhel, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, district deputy commissioner Muhammad Yasar said. "A case has been registered against 25 people," he added. Police said the villagers turned violent after they were prevented from meeting the visiting royal to seek donations to build a mosque. A Qatari official involved in the sport of falconry confirmed the attack by a large group of men on a convoy of hunters that included a royal family member. He declined to identify the individual, but said the party was safe. "Qatari hunters apply and pay for government hunting permits and donate to local communities and wildlife conservation," the official said. "Unfortunately there have been attacks led by armed groups." The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the bustard as a vulnerable species with a global population ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. It has almost vanished on the Arabian peninsula. Last year, Pakistan's Supreme Court lifted a ban on hunting the bird after the government argued it hurt relations with Gulf states whose wealthy hunters traditionally travel to Pakistan to pursue the endangered species with falcons. To seek favor with communities on whose land they pursue prey, Arab hunters have built roads, schools and mosques in places like Baluchistan and the province of Helmand in neighboring Afghanistan, while residents also benefit from the international-standard airstrips that can spring up. New four-wheel-drive vehicles brought in for the hunt are sometimes left behind as gifts for regional leaders. But critics say that hunting with falcons, a practice Arab nomads used to survive life in the desert, is today a reckless hobby that threatens the houbara and funnels money into areas controlled by militias. In December 2015, about 100 gunmen kidnapped at least 26 Qataris from a desert hunting camp in Iraq near the Saudi border. A member of Qatar's ruling family was freed in April 2016, along with an accompanying Pakistani man. (Reporting by Gul Yousafzai in Quetta and Tom Finn in Doha; Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) A flight test engineer holds an Airbus Group flag after the first flight of the Airbus A320neo (New Engine Option) in Colomiers near Toulouse, France, September 25, 2014. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo By Nael Shyoukhi RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian budget carrier flynas is to buy 80 Airbus (NYSE: AIR) A320neo narrow body jets in a deal worth $8.6 billion that includes upgrading an earlier order, it said on Monday. The 80 A320neo order is valued at $8.6 billion, flynas Chairman Ayed Al Jeaid said at press conference in Riyadh on Monday. The order is for 60 A320neos and an upgrade of an existing order for 20 current model A320s to neos, an Airbus spokesman confirmed. The agreement also includes purchasing options for a further 40 A320neo jets, according to flynas. Reuters reported last week that Flynas, partly owned by Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal's investment vehicle, had agreed to buy more than 60 A320neos. Delivery of the 80 A320s will take eight years from 2018, according to an Airbus statement, likely to give flynas one of the largest Middle East budget airline fleets The order means Airbus has beat rival Boeing (NYSE: BA) to replace and expand flynas' fleet of 27 leased A320 jets. Flynas, which launched as Nas Air in 2007 and first turned a profit in 2015, is facing increasing competition in Saudi Arabia, its primary market. Start-up SaudiGulf Airlines and Saudi-owned, Egypt-based Nesma airline were granted domestic operating licenses in 2016. State-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines has announced plans for its own budget carrier, Flyadeal, to launch in mid-2017 with a target of 50 jets by 2020. Qatar Airways-owned Al Maha is waiting for a domestic Saudi operating license. (This story corrects number of A320neos in headline) (Reporting by Nael Shyoukhi in Riyadh, additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai. Editing by Jane Merriman) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Leader Naeemul Haq on Monday claimed that a historic decision on Panamagate case will come this week, which is being awaited eagerly by the nation. Talking to media outside the Supreme Court, Haq said that it had become clear the Prime Minister was an expert of hiding truth and facts. On the occasion, Fawad Chaudhry said that the Prime Ministers counsel was reading out from books in the court, adding that his arguments had nothing to do with the case. He added that the main submission of the counsel was that the Supreme Court should not hear the case in hand. United States defence secretary-designate James Mattis said he would look to build bridges with Pakistan, but at the same time urged Islamabad to neutralise militant groups that operate within its borders, sending mixed signals to India and Afghanistan. Mattis, providing a glimpse of the Trump administrations military policy towards Pakistan, said they would work hard to restore the trust that has sometimes eroded in recent years. Our relationship with Pakistan, including our military-to-military relationship, has had highs and lows. We have long faced a lack of trust within the Pakistani military and government about our goals in the region. If confirmed, I will work to build the trust that we need for an effective partnership, he told the Senate Armed Forces Committee. Known within the armed forces as Mad Dog Mattis for his aggression during his service days, Matis pointed out that for the relations to normalise, Pakistan would have to take further actions against the Taliban and the Haqqani network. Read more: US to incentivise Pakistans cooperation: Mattis He said it was necessary that Pakistan also collaborated with Afghanistan to quell the militant groups based in the country as it has learned some hard lessons by offering sanctuaries to terrorists on their soil. Afghanistan has long claimed that Islamabad has sheltered militants, notably the Afghan Taliban, who have launched a wave of deadly cross-border attacks in recent years. Mattis commitment to rebuild ties with Pakistan is likely to be of consternation to both India and Afghanistan, two nations who have pointed fingers at Islamabad for helping militants wage violent attacks in their countries. US plan to incentivise Pakistan cooperation in their bid to tackle terrorism in the region will be welcomed in the power corridors of Kabul and New Delhi, but the absence of a palpable change in strategy is likely to worry the two nations. The word is out against deforestation, but the Norwegian government has become the very first to take things to the very next level by placing a total ban on the menace. The government stated that the country will not permit the use of any product that can contribute in any way to deforestation. This is part of the Action Plan on Nature Diversity championed by the Norwegian Parliaments Standing Committee on Energy and Environment and it was lobbied mainly by the Rainforest Foundation Norway. This organization had persisted over the years to ensure that the pledge see the light of day. The earlier mentioned Action Plan also mandates the government to protect biodiversity in the rainforest via the Norways Government Pension Fund Global. Norway is not alone in this pledge; the United Kingdom and Germany were equally part of the pledge, which was first made in 2014 at that years UN Climate Summit. Purpose of the pledge was to further the idea of deforestation-free supply chains. Agriculture has been described as one of the main factors that lead to deforestation. Deforestation however increases the risk of carbon emission, as reported by Climate Action. This step taken by the Norwegian government is undoubtedly one of the boldest towards curtailing the scourge of deforestation. The anti-deforestation move by the government is however not limited to Norway; it has been taken beyond the borders and across the sea to other countries, like the South American country of Guyana. This move by the Norwegian Government is in support of the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative. Brazil too had enjoyed the anti-deforestation largesse doled out by the Norwegian government; the Brazilian government received $1 Billion in 2008 to prevent deforestation, especially in the Amazon Forest, which had reduced by more than 75% in size due to deforestation. The Brazilian National Geographical agency reported that up to 33,000 sq. miles of forest was saved as a result. Tauranga ratepayers face the prospect of forever paying for two separate council buildings in the same city, unless some way is found to get the two talking. Tauranga City Councillor Larry Baldock is currently preparing for the first city transformation committee meeting which in February will re-start the city councils project to replace its administration building. The first meeting will probably involve laying the groundwork getting the committee members agreed on its approach, but its too to say what that will be. They will be looking for partners to be involved in the project, says Larry. Weve got a lot of work to do to get moving forward on it all. He favours talking with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council about future plans, but he doesnt think the city council should build on the Elizabeth Street car park adjacent to the other councils Regional House. We would rather they could move down with us, because a lot of work was done last term about the location and keeping it in the central city and keeping it linked to the civic square, says Larry. I think unless they were going to build it for us - which would be an offer we would probably have to consider seriously - I think general agreement has been that it should be down here in the lower part of the city centre. We should be talking to the regional council because why have two separate offices. The horse might have bolted and they might be too far along with their plans. Regional Council chairman Doug Leeder says this week that work will begin this year on refurbishing No 1 Elizabeth Street, so the council can move staff currently in three Tauranga offices, under one roof. But it doesnt really make sense to me that we have got to be spending money on two buildings really, says Larry. I think if we asked all the ratepayers they would be saying; why cant we work together? Its a conversation that we will have, I think very shortly. It has to be something they are willing to look into. The idea of a one stop shop for ratepayers to go for consents, but in my opinion it would need to be a location that is linked into the civic square. There is still time to work on a joint venture if there was a willingness to get together and discuss it says Larry. The regional council is further along with its plans than is the city council, but even further down the track the regional council will still have a saleable, leasable building. The Western Bay of Plenty District council which also has its offices within city limits at Barkes Corner turned down a previous request to consider sharing a building with the city council. I am going through a divorce and will find myself in a position that could have a devastating effect. It was an email to SunLive a plaintive appeal for help or an ad for a business opportunity, but probably both. Andrew Matthews is going through a marriage break-up and, with it, the forced sale of his family home of 26 years. The email is a prayer, an appeal for what he calls an angel investor. I will not have the funds to start again from scratch and I want to reach out to an angel investor to help keep me in my home until I die. That angel investor would be required to put up about $250,000 to buy Andrews ex-wifes 50 per cent share of the family home when it goes to auction later this month. Thats where the head is, but the heart is elsewhere. He would rather it hadnt come to this, he still has deep feelings but hes dealing with it. The pragmatic Andrews grand plan is for the investor to become a sleeping partner and half-owner of the house until Andrew dies and the property is sold. They would then get a 50 per cent cut of the capital gains. The rest would go to Andrews kids. The house is worth $540,000 to $580,000 according to Andrew, a long-term ACC beneficiary after falling from a crane in a workplace accident a few years ago. In 10 years it could be worth $700,000. So the return for the investor could be $40,000 to $50,000. Just two per cent based on Andrews projections but, he says, a solid and safe investment. The entrepreneur in Andrew wants to explore his options. Is there something out there for people like him? Or is there someone out there, like him, who may want to invest in a property? Statistics confirm there must be many Andrews because there were 10,000 divorces last year. And few without collateral damage. Unfortunately, when a family breaks up there are consequences, says Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Diane Bruin. And it is not easy to try to manage on your own or be able to retain the assets you owned together. Dianne says its about examining all the options so people can think logically through the process. She wonders what would happen if there are disagreements between parties involved in the angel investor option? Or what would happen if one party wanted to sell early? Legal advice would be extremely important as it might not be easy to find the right person. Dianne says working with a financial mentor can open the door to ideas and choices. For every choice there is an outcome and some may be better than others. Andrew says finding the right help can move divorcees forward, to begin again. I do not want to become a liability; I want the dignity of being able to provide for myself, look after myself. Andrews been in the housing market ever since he and his family arrived from England in 1989. To be thrown on the scrapheap and having to start again at 63 or 64 is not easy and almost impossible. And while Andrew is holding out for divine intervention from just one angel, there is a whole chorus of angels right here in Tauranga investing in entrepreneurs and innovators. Enterprise Angels is a membership-based investment group drawing on each others business experience and expertise. Since 2008 it has invested more than $23 million in Information Technology, agri-tech, food, hort-tech and biotech companies. But they are straight-out financial investors looking for a return and Andrews housing enterprise falls wide of that criteria. But businesses come with risks, says Andrew. My house and I arent a risk. Pledgeme is another group. It deals with dollars and heart strings. It helps New Zealanders turn dreams into reality through crowdfunding. The website says think up a goal you want to achieve. Turn to your crowd of friends, family, customers and fans. Ask them to pledge to your campaign. If all that support equals more than your goal, youve made it. The Budget Advisory Service offers another option to people like Andrew. He is an ACC beneficiary so he has an income and if he found another property that was more affordable he could have one or two boarders to help with the mortgage. It would provide a roof but doesnt deal with Andrews emotional attachment to his home. I have prepared this house for retirement, says Andrew. I have focused on energy conservation for five or six years. I have installed LED lighting throughout, theres solar hotwater, theres cheaper bottle. I spend just $40 a month on electricity and the money I save on power I spend on firewood. Hes invested time and feeling. He just needs an angel to come to the party. I would cover the bills and general maintenance as a normal homeowner would do. All theyd do is cover the initial funding with no financial risk. Their input would be quite limited. They can sit on the fence and watch their asset appreciate long-term. He does rule out one substantial body of potential investors, those looking for romantic partners rather than business partners. Im a Christian who believes in marriage for life. Im one-woman man. I dont want to give my affection to somebody else. If youre interested in Andrews proposal or have another idea call him on 07 562 3328 or message him at: a.matthews@kinect.co.nz Bay of Plenty students are among thousands across the country logging in to see if their exam efforts have paid dividends. New Zealand Qualifications Authority released NCEA results this morning for more than 170,000 students nationwide following exams last November and December. Students can enter the Learner Login section of the website to view their results while marked NCEA examination papers are returned to students from late January. If students want a copy of their Record of Achievement, these can be requested tomorrow and will be mailed out to students, says NZQA communications spokesperson Lisa Gibbison. Marked NCEA exam papers are returned to students from late January. How it works Each year, students study a number of courses or subjects. In each subject, skills and knowledge are assessed against a number of standards. For example, a Mathematics standard could be: Apply numeric reasoning in solving problems. Schools use a range of internal and external assessments to measure how well students meet these standards. When a student achieves a standard, they gain a number of credits. Students must achieve a certain number of credits to gain an NCEA certificate. There are three levels of NCEA certificate, depending on the difficulty of the standards achieved. In general, students work through levels 1 to 3 in years 11 to 13 at school. Students are recognised for high achievement at each level by gaining NCEA with Merit or NCEA with Excellence. High achievement in a course is also recognised. Information from www.nzqa.govt.nz The 17th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, Food and Clothing Drive was held at at the Southwest Community Center in Syracuse, Jan. 16th 2017. Over 150 volunteers pitched in with sorting out clothing, making sandwiches and creating shoe boxes that would hold toiletry products. Many clothing items were donated and sorted for those in need and the big push was giving 5 winter coats to each of the 21 Syracuse elementary schools totaling 105 winter coats.. 300 sandwiches made for the Samaritan Center for the hungry. Some of the organizations and agencies receiving the donations are: Dorothy Day House Chadwick House YWCA My Sisters Closet Brady Faith Center Eastern Farm Workers St. Lucy's Holy Rosary Saint Josephs the Worker Church The event was sponsored by the United Way of Central New York and the Greater Syracuse Labor Council. Blog_2017-01-16-Jackson crop.jpg Official White House portrait of Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, by Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl (1785/88-1838). Jackson was a Westerner, a congressman, a senator, a populist and a hero of the War of 1812. He also was known for his impulsiveness. Jackson fought a number of duels. (Public domain image from Whitehouse.gov via Wikimedia Commons) James Roger Sharp is professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Sharp has written extensively about the political history of the early Republic, including the book "The Jacksonians Versus the Banks." By James Roger Sharp | Special to The Post-Standard Donald Trump's supporters are anxious to portray our incoming president as within the mainstream of American politics. As part of this, one of Trump's top advisers has compared his victory with Andrew Jackson's election in 1828, which is seen as a surge of democratic populism. Another sees Trump's victory as positive example of the "people beating the establishment." How valid are these analogies? It is true that both Jackson and Trump are seen as populist candidates running against the establishment: Trump as a billionaire reinventing himself as the champion of people, and Jackson, a westerner and newcomer, as the first president elected outside of the Eastern elite of the Founding Fathers. But the similarity ends there. Trump won an Electoral College victory, but lost the popular vote by almost 3 million -- the largest losing margin for a winning presidential candidate. Jackson won in a landslide, capturing 178 electoral votes to John Quincy Adams' 83, and winning 56 percent of the popular vote. Furthermore, Jackson's victory represented an expansion of suffrage in a number of states in the 1820s. Republicans did the opposite in 2016. They made it more difficult to vote in many states. Trump has had no public service or political experience. He will be the only president ever to serve without having first served as vice president, a member of Congress or the Cabinet, a governor, state legislator or high-ranking military officer. Trump has claimed that his years attending an exclusive military prep school (New York Military Academy), where his parents had sent him to correct his poor behavior, gave him "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military." Jackson, on the other hand, was orphaned in 1781 at the age of 14, after which he moved from North Carolina to Tennessee. He later served in the U.S. House of Representatives and briefly as a U.S. senator. As a major general in the army during the War of 1812, he became a national hero through leading a ragtag militia force to an improbable victory over a veteran, well-trained English army in New Orleans. After a series of humiliating defeats during the war (including the burning of Washington, D.C.), it was viewed by most Americans as nothing short of miraculous and a powerful signal that Jackson was endowed with God-given gifts. In contrast, Trump came to public prominence through his hosting of "The Celebrity Apprentice." In that show, with its trademark statement, "You're fired," Trump often entertained viewers by his humiliating, bullying and shaming of contestants. Trump skillfully used the same tactics against his competitors during the Republican debates i.e., "Little Marco," "Lying Ted Cruz" or belittling the appearance of Carly Fiorina. In the general election, he mocked his Democratic Party opponent as "Crooked Hillary." Jackson in 1832 proclaimed his view of democracy and the role of government in a powerful message vetoing the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States. As the largest corporation in the country, the bank was, he charged, a danger to democracy. "It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes," he warned in his veto message. Every American "is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake... to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice." Trump, with his cabinet nominees and close advisers from Wall Street and Washington D.C. insiders, hedge fund managers, and billionaires, would find Jackson's message threatening. Trump and his party want to do the opposite --- by stripping away restrictions now placed on Wall Street and giving tax breaks to the wealthy. Jackson was a racist and bigot as a slave owner and Indian fighter. Trump, too, exhibits these characteristics, with his years-long birther campaign to challenge Barack Obama's birthplace and his vilification of Mexicans and Muslims. Both men have also frequently been impulsive, rash and potentially violent. Jackson fought a number of duels and threatened to hang the South Carolina politicians who voted to nullify federal laws. Trump prefers to duel on Twitter. He has warned several times that he would indiscriminately bomb ISIS as well as reintroduce torture as a national policy. Thus, while there are some similarities between Jackson and Trump, they have to do mostly with their negative qualities -- impulsiveness, self-righteousness and narcissism. Here is an important difference: Jackson was president at a time when presidents had limited power and American enjoyed a geographic isolation. Today, we live in a globalized, interconnected world where the president has enormous power and the unchecked ability to launch a nuclear attack within four minutes, so the personal and temperament qualities of our president can have enormous consequences. Syracuse has rich history of compassion toward immigrants To the Editor: Thank you, Mayor Stephanie Miner, for your recent statement declaring Syracuse is a sanctuary city and will remain one for immigrants ("Mayor Miner: Syracuse will remain sanctuary city, won't enforce federal anti-immigrant," Jan. 12, 2017) policies. As a taxpayer, educator and parent, I wholeheartedly support you and stand in support of our neighbors and friends. Syracuse has a long rich history of extending sanctuary to individuals and we need to continue to honor this important part of our city's history. In addition, it is important that we model for other communities the importance of being open, loving, compassionate people. We are here to support others, and it is vital we extend that in offering shelter to those in need. I am proud to part of a community that recognizes the importance of sharing our resources with others, and am grateful for the immigrant and refugees that come to live and work in Syracuse. Our communities and neighborhoods are certainly richer for the diversity we share and honor in each other. Thank you again, Mayor Miner, for your statement. We all benefit from this action. Kathleen Barry Syracuse From abolition to refugees, Syracuse has long been a haven To the Editor: I strongly support Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner's commitment not to use the city's resources to enforce federal anti-immigrant policies. As a hub for abolitionists, a critical part of the Underground Railroad, and a haven for refugees to this day, Syracuse has long served as a safe harbor for people fleeing violence and oppression. We also have a proud history of resisting unjust, discriminatory laws. We must continue to do both. People who come here as refugees or without documentation leave their countries because they have no other options. They make the wrenching decision to flee their homes and communities and undertake incredibly dangerous journeys. They hope to escape political repression and violence and to find refuge from crushing poverty. What would any of us do in their position? We owe them empathy and help, not scorn and threats. Dan Moseson Syracuse Protecting undocumented immigrants 'is the right thing to do' To the Editor: Congratulations to Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner for her courageous stand to help protect the undocumented immigrants among us. Overall, immigrants are make important contributions to American communities. For example, they are more likely to start businesses and less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. In Syracuse, they have reinvigorated parts of our city. Many undocumented immigrants work hard in our community every day without the legal status and protections the rest of us take for granted. Coming together to protect them is the right thing to do. Mark Rupert Syracuse Ahead of their tour of Hamlet coming to the ADC on Tuesday, I sat down with Director Emma Blacklay-Piech and Business Manager Vanessa Upton to discuss the logistics of such an ambitious project, and how a wider idea of audience can be a benefit for getting the most out of Shakespeare. Its a bit weird taking the show back to Cambridge, Emma admits. Her vision of Hamlet has been designed specifically for tour, but the scope for innovation such a project enables seems to have lead to some interesting decisions. This production stands out due to its setting, a really claustrophobic war boat that emphasises the military aspect of the play whilst also playing on Hamlets mutiny against the state, and the consequences of his actions in putting a whole country in jeopardy. Yet taking this vision to different countries is no mean feat the struggle to fit a huge mast into a tour bus already filled with lighting and power equipment is just one of the many challenges the team has faced. Theo Haymann (the technical director) was amazing, says Emma. Id never done a tour before the technical aspect of it changed every time, and everyone was integral in keeping the show together. Some aspects of Hamlet are incredibly tech heavy the ghost appears three times. We didnt have space for smoke machines so finding creative ways around that was a fun aspect. The European Theatre Group has existed since 1957, and has always had innovation as one of its top priorities. Emma has followed in this vein, explaining her desire to illuminate some of the key relationships in Hamlet that are overshadowed Ophelia and her brother, for one in a play with some of Shakespeares most iconic and interesting characters. To do so, theyve incorporated a host of songs into the production, taking their composer (Toby Marlow) on tour with them. Music is so evocative people understood the dynamics of characters a lot easier, and it provided a nice break from the verse, Emma explains. Vanessa highlights the difference in target audience, 16-18 year olds from Europe whose first language isnt English. This meant most didnt know the plot of Hamlet, giving it the feel of a genuine Shakespeare audience. All this combines to make a refreshingly different take. We werent scared to be experimental, says Emma. We wanted to make it accessible and fun for people that havent really got into Shakespeare before. Many of the actors in Hamlet have a comedy background, with Hamlet himself (Sam Knights) coming from the Footlights. It worked really well for the kids, Vanessa explains. One key benefit of touring is a longer run date, which often makes for a more polished Cambridge show. Actors would try stuff out for certain shows. I could see the slightest nuance they changed, could discuss its effectiveness, and we were able to treat it as an experimental process, explains Emma. This is perhaps where the production sees its most marked difference Im not a director, I just really love this play, she states. Were just a group of creatives trying to put this show together, and that was a really interesting perspective. If you fancy seeing something sure to be very special, ETGs Hamlet plays at the ADC from Tuesday 17 Saturday 21 January, at 7.45pm 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. SSarkar Newbie Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Mumbai Posts: 13 Thanked: 29 Times Quote: VellVector Originally Posted by Unfortunately the OEM's are very expensive for replacement tires. And since these are tires not commonly available in the Indian market, these guys have a bit of a free run. Best option would be to contact a reputed tire store in Bombay and ask them. If you are fixated on only the same make of tire - they will probably be able to source you a grey market one for a cheaper price that Audi but not cheap. If that fails, I have used tirerack and mytyres.co.uk in the past for odd sizes and it worked out cheaper shipping those to India than buying them here. Another option to consider is changing all four or five tires to a series available in India. If I'm correct the Michelin Latitude Tour HP comes in the size you mentioned and should cost you 10-15k a piece. You will have to check the load index. Tried getting in touch with some big local guys, they flat out refuse. I did try tyrerack an mytyres. Rather surprisingly, even they don't have it! Got a random hit from a website called pennine service station in Blackburn. 100 pounds for the tyre, 150 for shipping ! Quote: GTO Originally Posted by 1. What about your spare? I always recommend buying tyres & wheels in a set of 5. Of course, with European cars going the space-saver route, this isn't always possible. 2. Call all the big tyre dealers (including Saifee Tyres) and see if they can source one for you. Tell them about your predicament and that you'll be willing to pay a premium. 3. Buy that single tyre online. This thread has a lot of information - If the other 3 tyres are nearing the end of their usable life, you might be in luck. But I have a feeling that's not the case. Sucks. You have the following options:1. What about your spare? I always recommend buying tyres & wheels in a set of 5. Of course, with European cars going the space-saver route, this isn't always possible.2. Call all the big tyre dealers (including Saifee Tyres) and see if they can source one for you. Tell them about your predicament and that you'll be willing to pay a premium.3. Buy that single tyre online. This thread has a lot of information - link If the other 3 tyres are nearing the end of their usable life, you might be in luck. But I have a feeling that's not the case. 1. Spare tyre is of a smaller size annoyingly, I don't understand why these guys would do this in a 40 L vehicle. 2. Spoke to Saifee yesterday, flat out refused, not even available on order. 3. I would, if it were available, most hits are from U.K. With amazingly foolish prices for shipping. Comes to the core pricing available from Audi. Why go through the trouble. 4. Overall mileage on the car is just about 18K. So the other tyres are almost new! This one tyre was a freak accident I guess. Quote: shankar.balan Originally Posted by Given their exorbitant quote, you would be better off buying another brand of tyre of the same size for around 25000 Rs for 4 tyres (online) and then fitting them! I'd do that, the problem is that, I'm just not able to find V rated tyres in that size. Alas, I think I'm left with just two options. 1. Trying the CST/Kurla salvage market - extremely uncomfortable buying a tyre from a yard that essentially deals with accident damage salvage parts. 2. Going for a similar model with a lower speed rating - check with a fairly big dealer in Mulund, this guy said he will give me a tyre by the same company, same tread albeit a lower speed rating, I think T or H Thoughts? Tried getting in touch with some big local guys, they flat out refuse. I did try tyrerack an mytyres. Rather surprisingly, even they don't have it! Got a random hit from a website called pennine service station in Blackburn. 100 pounds for the tyre, 150 for shipping !1. Spare tyre is of a smaller size annoyingly, I don't understand why these guys would do this in a 40 L vehicle.2. Spoke to Saifee yesterday, flat out refused, not even available on order.3. I would, if it were available, most hits are from U.K. With amazingly foolish prices for shipping. Comes to the core pricing available from Audi. Why go through the trouble.4. Overall mileage on the car is just about 18K. So the other tyres are almost new! This one tyre was a freak accident I guess.I'd do that, the problem is that, I'm just not able to find V rated tyres in that size.Alas, I think I'm left with just two options.1. Trying the CST/Kurla salvage market - extremely uncomfortable buying a tyre from a yard that essentially deals with accident damage salvage parts.2. Going for a similar model with a lower speed rating - check with a fairly big dealer in Mulund, this guy said he will give me a tyre by the same company, same tread albeit a lower speed rating, I think T or HThoughts? Ms. Jane Wan the Brand Marketing Head of OPPO PH who also joined us in Cebu posted photos of a curious new smartphone model from the company, the OPPO R9s Chinese New Year Limited Edition, on her Facebook account OPPO R9s is just 6.6 millimeters thin! Amazing, eh? Anyway, if they'd eventually decide to bring it here, I hope they'd price it below Php 20,000 to make it really competitive. TechPinas Smartphone Technical Specs Table (TSTST) Last Friday, I graced' invitation to fly to Cebu and experiencewith our friends from the company as well as our buds from the tech blogging scene and the local media.After landing, it didn't take long for us to realize that OPPO is actually one of the major brand partners for the festivities. The company's logo and the smartphone name 'OPPO F1s' were everywhere.Although it was released way back in August 2016, OPPO F1s remains to be at the center of the Chinese handset company's marketing efforts here in the Philippines. And why not? Many Pinoy consumers remain interested in the device.However, on Saturday,Seeing the shots, tech bloggers and members of the media immediately talked to Team OPPO and asked if they could take more photos of the said device.Thankfully, I was one of those who were handed a unit to play with.So for the big OPPO fans who are already very interested in this model, here are my exclusive photos of OPPO R9s Red Chinese New Year Limited Edition.Handsets under the OPPO R Series are crafted for discerning mobile consumers who are looking for a well-designed, slim daily driver that also has above average technical specifications and good low light imaging capabilities for a phone in its price bracket.The OPPO R9s merely continues this laudable tradition.Flaunting a thin and sleek unibody aluminum shell and a 2.5D Curved Gorilla Glass 5 face protecting the brilliant 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display panel, the OPPO R9s is a true stunner and head-turner --- even for those who has the iPhone 7 as the benchmark in terms of mobile device good looks.This description is accurate for the standard version but the OPPO R9s Chinese New Year Limited Edition takes it to a higher level as it comes in this more visually impactful sports-car Red hue, which I believe symbolizes good luck and great fortune.Personally, my favorite feature of OPPO R9s is its 16 MegaPixels phase detection autofocus rear camera with f/1.7 aperture, , 1/2.8" sensor size, and 1.12m pixel size thats easily one of the best shooters in this price bracket in terms of low light performance.The main shooter is complemented by the 16 MegaPixels f/2.0 selfie cam in front that delivers great-looking self-portraits, enough to reinforce OPPOs Selfie Expert moniker. OPPO's beautification mode instantly evens out your skin-tone and highlights your fine features to give you selfies that you'll be proud to share on Facebook and Instagram.Under the hood, OPPO R9s runs its ColorOS-flavored Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system with a 64-Bit Octa Core 2.0 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor incorporating Adreno 506 graphics, has 4GB of RAM for smooth multitasking, and comes with 64GB of internal storage that can easily be augmented using the secondary hybrid nanoSIM slot that supports microSD card memory expansion.As for its release and availability, it appears that this limited edition model will be arelease -- hitting4 store shelves there within the next few days. Our friends from OPPO didn't really tells us how much it would go for upon launch in that territory.Likewise, we didn't get any confirmation on the regular OPPO R9s' availability in the Philippines. Although, if you ask me, it's a bit suspect that our friends from the company brought these units on our trip. It's almost as if they wanted to create buzz around the model. But that's just me.Slate Form Factor (Full Touchscreen)Upper Midrange153 x 74.3 x 6.6 mm145 gramsRedAndroid 6.0 Marshmallow with Color OS5.5 inches (~73.4% screen-to-body ratio), 1080 x 1920 pixels (~401 ppi pixel density), AMOLED, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors, Corning Gorilla Glass 564-Bit Octa Core 2.0 GHz ARM Cortex-A53, Adreno 506 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8953 Snapdragon 625 chipset4GB RAM64GB ROM, expandable via hybrid secondary nanoSIM slot supporting up to 256GBBack: 16 MegaPixels, f/1.7 aperture, phase detection autofocus, 1/2.8" sensor size, 1.12m pixel size, LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama, HDRFront: 16 MegaPixels, f/2.04K 30 frames per second, Full HD 1080p 30 frames per secondMP3, WAV, eAAC+, FLAC, MP4, H.264microUSB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jackWi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, EDR, 3G HSPA+; LTE Cat6A-GPSYesAccelerometer, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyroscope, Fingerprint Scanner in Front2G bands GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 and SIM 2,3G HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 21004G bands LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 8(900), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500)Dual nanoSIMNon-removable 3,010 mAh Li-Po batteryTBDPremium Design, 16 MegaPixel f/1.7 main camera, AMOLED display, 16 MegaPixel selfie cam, Fingerprint Scanner, Color OSTBATBATBA Two weeks ago, it was reported that Samsung would soon reveal the results of its official investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 fires. While the report isn't due until next week, the company has concluded that the handset's battery was mainly responsible for the problems, according to Reuters. It's common knowledge that the fires were related to the battery, but it was assumed that other factors played a big part. Following the first recall, Samsung blamed its affiliate battery division, Samsung SDI, for supplying faulty components, assuring people that the replacements, from China's ATL, were fine. But they also started to explode, leading to a second recall and the Note 7's total demise. Reuters' source, who is said to be "a person familiar with the matter," said the results will be announced on January 23 - the day before Samsung reveals its detailed fourth-quarter earnings. The anonymous person added that the firm was able to replicate the fires during its investigation and the cause couldn't be attributed to hardware or software issues. If accurate, the official report contradicts the findings from manufacturing technology company Instrumental, which concluded that a "fundamental problem with the design" was the cause of the exploding Note 7s. It said that the battery was so tightly packed inside the handset, pressure from natural swelling and casing stress was damaging the separator layers that keep the positive and negative layers apart. Samsung will need to assure people that the Note 7 debacle was a one-off and that such a damaging incident will never occur again. "They've got to make sure they come clean and they've got to reassure buyers as to why this won't happen again," said Bryan Ma, a Singapore-based analyst for researcher IDC. Placing the blame almost entirely on the batteries seems strange, especially as the same problem occurred in batteries from different suppliers. Ma agrees with Instrumental's findings - that the overly aggressive design didn't leave enough room for the battery. "To me it'd be surprising if they said it was a supplier issue," he said. We'll just have to wait until next week to find out the full details of Samsung's report. Samsung's hopes of putting 2016 and the troubles it brought the company behind it in the New Year aren't panning out. South Korean prosecutors on Monday said they were seeking to arrest Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in relation to a national corruption scandal. As The New York Times reports, the executive is accused of instructing Samsung subsidiaries to make payments totaling $36 million to foundations run by Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of South Korean President Park Geun-hye. In exchange for the payments, Samsung would allegedly get the government's backing regarding a merger between two Samsung affiliates. Special prosecutor Park Young-soo labeled the monetary support as bribes from Samsung, adding that Jae-yong embezzled some of the funds from his own companies. The prosecutor, the report notes, has asked a court to issue an arrest warrant for Lee, a process that typically takes a few days to receive (if granted). A spokesperson for the special prosecutor, Lee Kyu-chul, said they have enough evident to establish South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Choi Soon-sil as co-conspirators sharing profits. The National Assembly voted last month to impeach President Park Geun-hye who is already being tried in the Constitutional Court. Prosecutors argue that Park Geun-hye and Choi Soon-sil worked together to collect millions from Samsung and other large businesses via coercion or political favors. The two have denied any wrongdoing. Pool photo by Ahn Young-joon The US Army has a new target and it's due to be seized next month. But unlike the usual suspects of military forces, these subjects did not violate the law - in fact, they're one of the government's subject for protection: animals and nature. The Department of Defense are currently in an effort to develop biodegradable ammunition that eventually turn into plants. The empty shells from fired bullets and ammunition contain components that do not completely biodegrade after a hundred or more years. During such time, a tree could already be an enormous line of defense against natural disasters as effects of climate change. This initiative will allow for future proving grounds and training grounds worldwide to become a haven for green trees more than green tanks and camouflage uniforms. Military Trained To Fire Bullets With Seeds They opened a solicitation in the Small Business Innovation Research program's website for "Biodegradable Composites with Embedded Seeds for Training Ammunition" in November last year and is due for February 8 this year. In an effort to combat the problems arising from the waste materials left from empty shells of the bullets used in training, the government is seeking proposals from business that can manufacture bullets with biodegradable components. Currently, the components in the training rounds take hundreds or more years to biodegrade with some posing risks to the environment where they are left off. These ammo are used for training not only in the United States proving grounds but also in other military training camps around the world. Joint-Forces In Developing Biodegradable Ammo The winning contractor will be joining forces with the the US Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). As stated in the proposal, the bioengineered seeds that only germinate until they have touched the ground have already been developed and demonstrated by the CRREL. These seeds will be embedded to the biodegradable composites. The winning contractor will be going through phases of developing the process or producing the biodegradable composites, manufacturing prototypes to demonstrate feasibility for industrial use and shall produce prototypes for ballistic examinations. The final phase is to the coordination between the contractor and the PEO Ammunition and other ammunition prime contractors for transitioning to use of Army training. The joint effort to revolutionize training rounds into less hazardous weapon - the fact this ammo could still kill doesn't completely remove the risks - by growing environmentally friendly plants that remove soil contaminants and consume the wastes of this project. To submit a proposal, visit the open solicitation from the Department of Defense. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Although Mark Zuckerberg has not said anything about running for president, his recent "personal challenge" has fueled speculation that he could be gunning for the top government position sometime in the future. Every year, the Facebook CEO announces a resolution in his page. Past resolutions have included running 365 miles, building an A.I. for his home, and learning Mandarin. What makes this year's personal challenge different? In a post, Zuckerberg says that he is planning to visit and meet people from all 50 states of the country by the end of the year. For some people, this has been perceived as a move to test the waters and see how people react to him. This has caused some people to wonder about his political aspirations. Quartz even published a to-do list for the Zuckerberg 2020 campaign. According to the article, here are some of the things that Zuckerberg needs to do, or has already done: Hire Top Democratic Campaign Manager Zuckerberg is hiring Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe to lead the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is the Facebook CEO's philanthropic organization. Promise To Visit All 50 States As previously mentioned, Zuckerberg will be making it his personal challenge to visit all states this year, just like a campaigning politician would. "After a tumultuous last year, my hope for this challenge is to get out and talk to more people about how they're living, working and thinking about the future," Zuckerberg says. Turn 35 The age requirement for the US presidency is 35. Zuckerberg will turn 35 by May of 2019, just in time for the start of the presidential election campaign. Hire Top Republican Campaign Manager Zuckerberg also hired Ken Mehlman, a former campaign manager for George W. Bush, to become one of the board members of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Zuckerberg's decision to hire from both sides of the political spectrum has been interesting. Donate Money Zuckerberg has previously announced that he and his wife will be donating 99% of their shares - equivalent to $45 million - in the charity initiative. Find Religion Atheism is not popular among US politicians and voters. Zuckerberg professed to being an atheist in the past, but then rescinded that statement by saying that "I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important." Take Control Of Largest News Dissemination Platform Facebook has had a starring and controversial role in the spread of fake news ahead of the recently-held election. The social media site has announced that it is taking steps by regulating the news being spread in the site and hiring third-party checkers. Mark Zuckerberg running as president does not seem so improbable these days, considering that a former reality TV star made it all the way to the top, and celebrities like Dwayne Johnson and Kanye West have also hinted about their interest on a presidential run. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Samsung Galaxy S8 leaks just keep on rolling out thanks to third-party case makers. New 3D renders provide the best look at the new design and features of the upcoming flagship smartphone. Case Makers Leak Galaxy S8 Design Samsung has been doing its best at attempting to keep the final design of its upcoming Galaxy S8 series under lock and key. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for third-party case makers who have published images of the supposed handset in a protective case. Although the Galaxy S8 is pictured inside a case, many of its features have been confirmed. Another accessory maker's Galaxy S8 leaked online and cutouts show the smartphone will retain its 3.5mm headphone port and gain a USB Type-C port. Now, a third-party case maker has supplied GSM Arena with 3D renders of the Samsung Galaxy S8 based off of accurate schematics of the smartphone. The images give us our best look at what the unannounced smartphone will reportedly look like. 3D Renders Provide Best Look At Samsung Galaxy S8 As you can see in the photo above, Samsung is using a new dual-curved edge display, which appears more pronounced with side bezels out of sight and the rumored "all screen-front" is as its name implies. Hardware navigation keys and home button/fingerprint scanner are nowhere in sight, further appearing to confirm the smartphone will feature on-screen "3D Touch-like" buttons and a fingerprint scanner that will be embedded directly into the curved Super AMOLED display. Another image shows there are speaker grills located above and below the display and are said to be stereo speakers, very likely high-end Harman stereo speakers. The standard 3.5mm headphone port is also intact, as is what is supposedly the USB Type-C port, which made its debut on the now recalled Galaxy Note 7. The third image shows the rear of the Galaxy S8 and its camera setup. The camera in the photo backs up the previously leaked third-party case maker's images, showing the smartphone will use a single rear camera and not the reported dual camera feature found on its main rival, iPhone 7 Plus. Samsung may show off the Galaxy S8 and S8 edge/Plus at Mobile World Congress 2017, according to a recent report, although the company is widely expected to hold its own event in March or April in NYC to officially launch the new flagship smartphones. The company expects its new handsets to be popular at launch and is reportedly building 10 million units of the Galaxy S8 series for its April release. Reports have suggested the smartphones will be released to the public in the third week of April, and since it typically schedules Fridays for its release dates, April 21 could be the exact day. We'll keep you posted on any additional Samsung Galaxy S8 details as they become available. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The already closed case of the 1971 mystery hijacking of a passenger jet by D.B. Cooper has taken a new turn. This follows after leads thrown up by an FBI-hired team of amateur scientists claim new clues allegedly linking the hijacker with aerospace company Boeing Inc. Hijack On Thanksgiving Eve In November 1971, on the Thanksgiving Eve, a man boarded a Northwest Orient passenger jet, which was flying the Portland to Seattle route. In the flight, he threatened a crew member that his suitcase had a bomb and sought a ransom of $200,000 and four parachutes to avoid any harm to the aircraft and passengers. The request was conceded and he was given the money and parachute at Sea-Tac Airport when the plane landed midway. When the jet was airborne again, the man identified as D.B. Cooper jumped off the Boeing 727 into the chilling night sky and remained untraced ever since. Probe By Amateur Scientists Though the lack of credible leads hampered the probe by FBI, it sought the support of a group of amateur scientists in digging new clues. The federal agency also gave liberal access to the evidence it had to the team led by Tom Kaye, representing "Citizen Sleuths," including the clip-on tie left behind by Cooper. The microscopic analysis of the tie, conducted by the team found evidence of particles numbering around 100,000 having traces of cerium, strontium sulfide, and pure titanium. "These are what they call rare earth elements. They're used in very narrow fields, for very specific things," said Kaye. According to Kaye, these rare earth elements are not commonplace materials. In the early 70s, they could have been in use for making Boeing's high-tech Super Sonic Transport plane. Kaye assumes that Boeing had been developing cutting-edge monitors including radar screens using some of the elements found on the tie. Kaye's hunch is that Cooper must have been a Boeing employee or a contractor and worn the tie to the workplace. Access to Private Sleuths Now, Kaye's team will continue to investigate the case, though FBI has folded up the case. Public support for the case is evidenced by the additional research funding Kaye's team got from the Travel Channel television show called "Expedition Unknown." The show footed the expenses in testing the particles of the tie at a Chicago laboratory. Public Feedback Sought To take the case forward, Kaye has urged the help of public especially old-timers who had exposure to the aerospace industry to volunteer useful information. His team will be posting the details of the particles found on Cooper's tie on the website. They are hoping possible clues from public will help in building a profile of the elusive man D.B. Cooper. People with useful information can use the "contact" tab on the Citizen Sleuth's website for sharing their leads. FBI Clarification The FBI has clarified that the tips it got were not adequate in establishing the culpability of suspects as they lacked the necessary proof. However, the FBI urged people that in case credible physical evidence regarding the parachutes or the money taken by the hijacker crops up, individuals should contact their local FBI field offices. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Britain's Prince Charles has co-written a Ladybird book on climate change with a Cambridge scientist and an environmentalist. Climate Change Book Not Just For Children Penguin Books said that the Prince of Wales, who has long been a critic of man-made climate change, co-authored the book together with former Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper and Cambridge University climate scientist Emily Shuckburgh. The book "Climate Change," which was launched on Sunday, is part of a Ladybird book series that traditionally targeted children readers but has recently expanded to cater to a broader audience. Other books in the series that use the original picture book style to better present challenging subjects include Evolution by Steve Jones and Quantum Mechanics by Jim Al-Khalili. Penguin Books said that Charles came to them first to present the idea. "It was a coincidence where we were thinking about a new series for adults after the huge success of the spoof books, but this time wanted some factual books by experts on science, history and arts subjects," publishing director Rowland White said. Prince Charles' View Of Climate Change The royal environmentalist has always been vocal about his views on climate issues and has said that those who doubt about climate change bring about a "corrosive" effect on public opinion. In 2015, Charles blamed environmental damage as one of the factors that led to the Syrian war. He said that there is evidence that the drought that persisted for five to six years was a major reason for the conflict in Syria. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences based on model simulations and observations implicated the drought that occurred in Syria between 2007 and 2010 in the conflict. The drought prompted people to leave the land because the crops failed and due to lack of water moving into cities where Iraqi refugees already established a wide population. A Legacy For The Future Generation Conflicts tend to happen when people begin to move because of events that pose threats to their survival. With this, Charles asked the public to deal with the root cause, which is climate change. The world's warming climate is largely blamed on human activities which include the burning of fossil fuels that generate heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Climate change is also being attributed for the extinction of and evolutionary changes observed in some animal species. "Some of us were saying 20 years ago that if we didn't tackle these issues, you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources and ever greater difficulties over drought, and the accumulating effect of climate change, which means that people have to move." Charles said in an interview with the Sky News. The heir to the throne said that he wanted to leave a positive legacy to his future grandchildren saying that he does not want to be confronted for doing nothing. Penguin said that figures within the environmental community already read and reviewed the 52-page book, which is set for release on Jan. 26. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. It seems that proactive government scrutiny is what will prompt Facebook to finally address the proliferation of fake and incendiary content in its network. The social media platform announced that a tool designed to combat fake news will now get tested in Germany. Why Choose Germany? The decision to choose the European country as the first test location was not made by chance. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, and a number of his cohorts have been under investigation in Germany since November for the charge that they have allowed hate speech to proliferate in Facebook. There is also the threat of prosecution indicated in the latest pronouncements issued out of Germany's Federal Justice Ministry and Consumer Protection. Facebook has been warned about fake news along with the reminder that punishment for defamation is harsher in the country than in the United States. With the proliferation of fake news and hate speech in social media, Germany is increasingly concerned about its role in the incidence of xenophobia and racism in the country. Facebook And Germany's Federal Election It also makes sense to say that Facebook must have scrambled to develop the fake news tool for Germany because federal election will be held there this year. According to BuzzFeed, pages in Facebook are already disseminating fake stories about German Chancellor Angela Merkel. If the role of fake content in Facebook at the recent U.S. presidential election is any indication, Facebook will most assuredly have cause for concern. Getting used as a tool to undermine a candidate's reputation will certainly expose the social media company and its leadership to lawsuit and regulatory investigation. Germany is also currently mulling the passage of a law that will slap organizations with huge fines if they fail to act on fake news published in their website. More About Facebook's Fake News Tool Facebook's fake news tool, which was already confirmed in a Financial Times report, involves a filtering process composed of user reports, third-party fact-checkers, and Facebook's own prioritization action of the flagged fake information. The tool's expansion to other countries is not yet certain at this point. However, in a statement released by the Facebook newsroom, the company stated that it is still working on the challenges entailed and sees a global rollout once those are addressed. The United Kingdom has taken a page from Germany's experience. Government officials are hauling executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter in an investigation to determine the possibility that fake news in social media undermine democracy. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A woman in Nevada who recently returned from India died in September last year from a superbug infection resistant to 26 antibiotics. No Available Treatment Randall Todd, the director of epidemiology and public health preparedness for the Washoe County Health District, who co-authored a report of the case that was published in the Jan. 13 issue of CDC's journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, said that there was basically nothing in the hospital's medicine cabinet that can treat the lady. "The Washoe County Health District in Reno, Nevada, was notified of a patient at an acute care hospital with carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) that was resistant to all available antimicrobial drugs," Todd and colleagues reported. "Antimicrobial susceptibility testing in the United States indicated that the isolate was resistant to 26 antibiotics." CDC tests later revealed that the woman was infected with New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM), a highly resistant form of the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" CRE that she has likely contracted when she was hospitalized in India. Growing Threat Posed By Drug Resistance The woman's case highlights the growing dangers of drug resistance. Antimicrobial agents, which include antibiotics, have been used for the last seven decades to treat patients with infectious diseases. The drugs, however, have been used so widely and for a long time now the pathogens that the antibiotics are designed to kill have evolved to adapt to them making the drugs less effective. Factors That Contribute To Antibiotic Resistance The growing problem of antibiotic resistance is being fueled by antibiotics misuse and poor infection control and prevention. One in three antibiotic prescriptions in the U.S., for instance, is considered unnecessary. Poor infection prevention and control are also to blame. In the case of the Nevada woman, for instance, doctors suspect that the facility, where the woman was admitted to overseas do not have good infection control or may not observe good hygiene. Impact Of Resistant Infections Doctors would have to resort to recommending second or third choice drugs for treatment when the bacteria responsible for a particular infection are resistant to the drug of choice, which makes it ineffective in treating the condition. Alternative drugs, however, could be more toxic, more expensive, and may even be less effective. Individuals who acquire resistant infection may also need longer recovery time, may incur more medical expenses, and may die from the infection. Figures from the World Health Organization, which has described antibiotic resistance as one of the biggest threats to global food security, health and development today, showed the extent of damages caused by resistant infections as about 700,000 people die every year because of antibiotic resistance. The number of cases, however, is predicted to increase to 10 million per year by 2050. A growing number of infections, which include pneumonia, blood poisoning, tuberculosis, and gonorrhea have now become more difficult and even sometimes impossible to treat because of the growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics. WHO warned that without urgent action, the world is headed to a post-antibiotic era wherein common infection and small injuries may once again become deadly. "Antibiotic resistance is putting the achievements of modern medicine at risk. Organ transplantations, chemotherapy and surgeries such as caesarean sections become much more dangerous without effective antibiotics for the prevention and treatment of infections," WHO said. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Japans space agency has aborted its mission to launch a mini-rocket for sending a satellite into orbit, as the spacecraft has stopped sending data to ground control shortly after it lifted off. Carrying a mini Earth-observation satellite, No. 4 vehicle of the SS-520 rocket series managed to lift off Sunday at 8:33 a.m. from Uchinoura Space Center when a communications malfunction forced the abortion of the rockets second stage, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Botched Launch Plan The rocket, supposedly one of the smallest ones in the world able to launch a satellite, was lugging the3-kilogram (6.6 pounds) TRICOM-1 observation satellite. Officials, however, aborted the mission shortly after takeoff after JAXA stopped receiving data from the rocket in an apparent communications system glitch. The rocket and its payload had a water landing off southeast Japans coast. The first stage of the rockets flight went as planned, said JAXA in a statement. However, we were unable to receive [data] from the unit as it continued the flight. The rocket, similar to a utility pole at 50 centimeters in diameter and 10 meters in length, stopped transmitting signals to the operations center just 20 seconds post-liftoff. It came into being as a likely transporter of mini-satellites, which enjoys growing interest in the space trade. The TRICOM-1 satellite, on the other hand, was developed by University of Tokyo students and designed for educational communications and as an Earth observation CubeSat to transmit Earths surface images for around one month before it reenters the atmosphere and eventually burns up. The satellite is equipped with five tiny cameras, communication equipment, and supposedly powered by solar cells and batteries, with an expected operational life of one to three months. Its very regrettable. Wed like to determine the cause, said JAXA associate professor Hiroto Habu, with the agency having no further plans to launch a rocket of the same size. The Future Of SS-520 The three-stage rocket type is about a fifth the size of JAXAs mainstay H-IIA rocket, and it is based on a two-stage model used by the agency. Its capacity is a satellite that weighs up to 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) in orbit at an altitude reaching up to 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles). Producing and launching this slender rocket cost about 500 million yen or $4.3 million. Shinya Matsuura, a writer who has followed rocket development, hoped Japan would not be discouraged by the failed launch, as mini-satellites continue to garner a growing demand around the world. All we can do is just analyze the data we got until communications were disrupted, he said, pointing to Chinas notable progress in producing rockets and urging more Japanese investment into research and development to keep up. JAXA hoped the experiment will showcase an affordable launch concept using commercially available technology already found in smartphones and home electronics. It sought to inspire private firms keen on pushing through in space launches. In a different part of the space-savvy world, SpaceX has been all set to launch 10 satellites of Iridium, a top mobile voice and data satellite communications firm, to low-Earth orbit. After the Sept. 1, 2016 explosion of Elon Musks rocket, the company has suspended flights and was waiting for the probe to get over and obtain fresh clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume. Last Jan. 6, the agency gave the license for the "Return to Flight" of the Falcon 9 mission. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Foxconn is scrambling to establish its foothold in the United States in a bid to secure its position as an Apple supplier amid Donald Trump's call for American companies to start building their products at home. This is recently demonstrated by Sharp's announcement that it is mulling the opening of an LCD plant in the country. Foxconn has acquired Sharp last year for $3.5 billion. The announcement, which was made by a Sharp executive last Jan. 13, is not yet set in stone as officials stress that they will be making the decision carefully. However, a possible entry to the United States could earn Foxconn a tremendous amount of goodwill from a president who has largely based his election campaign rhetoric on the creation of jobs. The company is currently facing the prospect of losing Apple as a client, which, for its part, must also contend with Trump's call to bring its manufacturing operation back from China to the United States. The new administration will purportedly slap a 35 percent tax on products made from other countries. Sharp's U.S. Investment It is not yet clear how Sharp's new U.S. facility is going to figure in the equation. One must remember, however, that Trump has indicated a business-like approach to governance wherein policies and governmental regulation governing private entities could be subject to negotiation and deals. Sharp's announced plan also seems part of Softbank's much publicized support for Trump's Make in America initiative. According to the Sharp official, the move to open an LCD facility was suggested by Masayoshi Son, who is Softbank's chairman. He has been recently seen paraded around Trump Tower as the president-elect trumpeted Softbank's planned U.S. investments. Son, Softbank, And Foxconn's Prospects In the convoluted world of business, Son's influential role at Sharp can be attributed to the fact that Softbank Group is Foxconn's Japanese partner. More specifically, the Taiwanese manufacturer relied heavily on Softbank to acquire Sharp. The financial organization is even said to hold 10 to 20 percent stake in the company. Sharp is not the only factor that binds Foxconn and Softbank. The former manufactures Softbank's Pepper robot and the chairmen of the two companies are also reportedly close to each other. The official talking point is that Sharp's new facility, which is being valued at $8 billion, is a strategic move for the company, as the United States remain home to a sizable number of its television customers. That is a valid argument, but there is also the possibility that Foxconn and Softbank will significantly gain in the entire affair. Foxconn, particularly, could be in a better position to improve its precarious footing as an Apple supplier. Cupertino still remains one of its largest sources of revenue, and it is at risk of losing a large chunk of revenue if Apple indeed starts reducing its reliance on the Taiwanese manufacturer. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. While NASA, Russia, China and even Elon Musk are looking at Mars, Moon Express, Inc. has its eyes on the moon. The company aims to land on the moon this 2017 to explore and photograph the lunar surface. The Florida-based company is the first private institution to secure a permission to fly beyond the Earth's orbit and to land on the moon. Moon Express recently announced that they now have enough funding for their first flight to the moon. "We now have all the resources in place to shoot for the Moon," Moon Express CEO Bob Richards said in a statement. Google Lunar X-Prize Landing on the Earth's satellite will get the company to win in the current Google Lunar X-prize competition. Winning guarantees an additional $20 million funds for the mission. The Google X-Prize lunar competition encourages competitors to get 90 percent of their funding from private institutions, according to TechCrunch. This way, the competition will also kick-start a lunar-based commercialization that is foreseen to benefit human kind. Resources On The Moon The company also has its eyes on mining "valuable" resources on the moon such as Helium-3. Last 2015, Moon Express announced that NASA is willing to share its knowledge to the private company in order to make moon mining a possibility. With the first MX-E1 mission, Moon Express will study the possibility of mining water from the moon that can be converted into fuel but that's not the only potentially valuable material on the lunar surface. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the moon might have a reserve of clean energy source. Moon Express also added that the moon could potentially become the "gas station" in the sky due to its ample mineral deposits that could be mined and converted into fuel to help propel spacecraft. The absence of atmosphere enables huge amounts of Helium-3 to accumulate on the moon. The solar winds produce Helium-3 that could potentially become a safer nuclear energy alternative. Safer in a sense that it won't produce waste products in the process. Aside from Moon Express, other scientists are already mulling on the idea of exploring the rich deposits of Helium-3 on the moon. Harrison Schmidt, an Apollo program geologist and Gerald Kulcinski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have long believed on mining Helium-3 on the moon, says ESA. The Moon As A Second Home Moon Express is also looking at the possibility of turning the Earth's satellite into human's second home. With the mission rolling as expected, a holiday on the moon may indeed happen in the next decade, as announced earlier by Moon Express. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. One hundred scientists from the United Kingdom have asked their prime minister to press U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to acknowledge climate change and its risks, as well as support international efforts to slow warming around the world. In a letter to PM Theresa May, the researchers including many of the countrys most renowned climate scientists warned that the incoming administration may hamper the world-class climate research now being performed in the United States, which includes data like Earth temperature records that international scientists and policymakers currently use. Help U.S. Scientists, Support NASA Research Trump has in the past dubbed global warming a hoax and threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. He appointed Scott Pruitt, a known climate skeptic, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, while he also installed Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Last Nov. 22, however, Trump expressed having an open mind on U.S. participation in the landmark climate deal. "We believe that the United Kingdom must be prepared to respond decisively to these developments, wrote the scientists in the letter sent on Monday. They also urged May to press Trump directly and via international platforms like the G-7 and G-20 forums to acknowledge the reality of climate change, as well as restate commitment to the Paris deal. Any opposite action is effectively disregarding the scientific advice of the expert bodies like the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, they added. They also bannered support for U.S. researchers on the matter, including through the proposed move to offer jobs to disaffected American scientists. If climate scientists in the US start to lose their jobs, we have to be ready to take up the slack, said professor Piers Forster of Leeds University and a signatory of the letter. In addition, the scientists found it critical to keep NASAs climate research program findings accessible, where satellite data track Earth and analyze rising sea levels as well as solar activity. The program at NASA is very extensive, said climate change science professor Corinne Le Quere, comparing its scope against those in Europe, the UK and China. For instance, one special focus of NASA this year is a unique Earth science probe that seeks to study greenhouse gases and vegetation health from space. The mission, which aims to better understand the natural exchanges of carbon between Earths land, atmosphere and ocean, has the satellite Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory at its heart. Act Fast, British PM Urged The signatories also asked May to respond decisively to the situation at hand, saying the UK has a massive opportunity to work with the United States in fortifying proof of climate change and develop new technologies and initiatives on the matter. Calling Trump a practical and pragmatic person who is focused on business opportunities, Le Quere cited plenty of job opportunities when one moves to using clean energy. The spotlight right now is on Trump appointees, who either reject the idea of man-made climate change or maintain links with the fossil fuel industry, she added in a Radio 4 interview. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Japan's biggest coral reef is facing disaster from rising ocean temperature with the bulk of it having gone dead due to coral bleaching. This was disclosed by the environment ministry of Japan, which said 70 percent of the corals in the Sekisei lagoon reef in Okinawa has been killed by bleaching and blamed the rising sea temperatures from global warming for the phenomenon. Sekisei is famous as a popular diving spot spread in 400 sq. km (154 sq. mi). Extremely Serious Experts affirmed that coral bleaching has expanded to 90 percent of this Japanese coral reef. Media reports also reinforced it by noting that the plight of the reef at the southernmost reaches of Japan is "extremely serious." The ministry updated that it conducted a survey of 35 locations in the lagoon in November 2015 and found 70.1 percent of the coral was dead. Now the color of dead corals has turned dark brown and are seen submerged under algae. Coral bleaching follows when coral loses the algae that live within it from the effects of rising water temperatures and pollution. Coral gets its color from the algae which supplies it nutrients. When bleaching happens, coral loses the supply of food and turns white, and then bleaching hastens. Effects Of Global Warming The Japan Meteorological Agency said sea surface temperatures around Japan had been up by an average of 1.07 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years, which is double the global average warming rate. It said that between June and August 2016, Okinawa island's southern part had experienced a temperature of 30.1 degrees Celsius, which was 1 to 2 degrees more than the highest average temperature recorded since 1982. Process Of Coral Bleaching According to some ministry officials, sea water temperatures have somewhat receded since autumn but there is no clarity when the reef is going to recover. Coral bleaching is not confined to Japan alone though its corals are in serious jeopardy. Globally, coral bleaching is destroying precious coral reefs. Scientists are blaming coral bleaching to the long-term trend of rising ocean temperatures with the damage exacerbated by the El Nino effect that started in 2015. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is also bearing the brunt of rising sea temperatures. Its faster bleaching has been highlighted in many studies. One recent study that examined the patterns in warming and coral bleaching between 1985 and 2012 found that 97 percent of the sites it studied had warming trends with 60 percent showing severe conditions. The study was conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Administration. It also noted that the frequency with which temperatures reached the threshold levels of bleaching had tripled during the period of study. Bleaching as such does not spell the end of corals as they can still recover if the right conditions prevail. However, persisting warming patterns across the globe are worrying scientists that corals will not get the needed time to replenish. Action Plan To Save Corals According to sources, the Japanese environment ministry has already taken some action in restoring the region's coral reef ecosystem by instituting a panel in 2007 to work on the task. The Sekisei lagoon had a severe bleaching in 1998, which was a severe El Nino year, and again in 2007. The action points to replenish the coral reefs include the removal of crown-of-thorns starfish that feed on corals and curbing of water pollution from agricultural activities, according to Mari Yamazaki, an expert member of the Environment Ministry's Nature Conservation Bureau. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Nokia 6 Registration Crosses 913,000 Before Its January 19 Flash Sale HMD Globals first Nokia-branded Android smartphone, Nokia 6 is breaking all records, as it has managed to garner more than 913,000 registrations ahead of its first flash sale on January 19. Nokia 6 is up for pre-order in the Chinese market only on JD.com at CNY 1699 (Approx Rs 17,000). It was reported on Friday that the Nokia 6 has been pre-ordered by over 250,000 people in the country within 24 hours of the announcement, which later doubled to more than 913,000. Each registration for Nokia 6 on JD.com is costing a user $9, which will be deducted from the final price at the time of purchase. The smartphone will be available for purchase via the flash sale. HMD Global is getting ready to unveil some more Nokia Android smartphones. According to India.com Nokia has begun sending out invites for an event scheduled to take place in Barcelona, Spain on February 26th, right before Mobile World Congress. It is hoped that Nokia will launch the Nokia 6 globally at the event. On the specs front, Nokia 6 features a 5.5-inch full-HD display with a 2.5D Gorilla Glass on top. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The dual-SIM Nokia 6 smartphone comes with a 3,000mAh non-removable battery. It has 16MP back camera with f/2.0 aperture, phase detection auto focus, and dual-tone flash, as well as an 8-megapixel front camera with f/2.0 aperture, which supports wide-angle selfies. Are you excited about Nokia 6? Do let us know what you think about it in the comments section below. Olaf Scholz is the first European leader to visit China after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. | Read More Applications are now open for The Grierson Trusts 2017 DocLab training scheme. Aimed at 18-25 year olds wanting to gain their first foothold in the documentary industry, The Grierson DocLab offers financial support for trainees, paid work placements and a programme of workshops, masterclasses and mentoring. From learning basic camera skills to pitching a concept, its billed as chance for 12 aspiring filmmakers to turn their documentary passion into reality. DocLab is run with support from leading UK independent factual production companies and in partnership with Bertha DocHouse. Century Films, Dragonfly, Lightbox, Renegade Pictures, Pulse, Testimony Films, True North, True Vision and Wall to Wall are all committing their assistance with additional support from Blueberry Media Consultants. Lorraine Heggessey, Chairman of The Grierson Trust said: "With support from across the documentary industry, the Grierson DocLab is one of the best ways for doc-passionate young people to enter the industry." Grierson DocLab 2016 alumna, Amy Sargeant said: "The Grierson Trust were so helpful to me after finishing university. I started working full time as a runner/ assistant at a TV production company who make programmes for Channel 4 and Sky. I was also given the chance over the summer to do a paid internship at Bertha DocHouse and Im hoping to do an internship at Century Films when my current contract ends." To apply for a place on this years Grierson DocLab and Mentoring Scheme, further details and an applications form are available from training@griersontrust.org or at www.griersontrust.org. The closing date for applications is 5pm, Tuesday 4 April 2017. Share this story City, parish and state law enforcement officials made a big splash 33 months ago when they announced the indictment and arrest of 19 alleged m City, parish and state law enforcement officials made a big splash 33 months ago when they announced the indictment and arrest of 19 alleged members and associates of the Gardere-area "Big Money Block Boyz" street gang on racketeering and other charges. The crackdown marked the largest roundup to date of gang associates in East Baton Rouge Parish and represented the first major prosecution related to the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination Project, or BRAVE. Crimes named in the 24-count indictment included attempted second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and drug and gun offenses, but it was the high-profile racketeering charge something typically reserved for federal prosecutors that drew the most attention. A racketeering conviction carries maximum penalties of 50 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Racketeering is a wide-ranging statute that encompasses acts of committing, attempting to commit, conspiring to commit or soliciting, coercing or intimidating another person to commit a range of crimes including murder, attempted murder, robbery, arson and many drug violations. Racketeering cases are not only complicated but also very expensive to prosecute and defend. Defending accused racketeers creates new stress on judiciary With increasing frequency over the past few years, prosecutors in East Baton Rouge and Orlea Nearly three years after that spring 2014 news conference and two funding-related delays later, the racketeering counts are no longer part of the case. Prosecutors dropped them Jan. 4. The original cast of 19 defendants has shrunk to eight, including what prosecutors call the seven major players. Six other defendants have pleaded guilty, either in the Block Boyz case or other cases, and another five defendants have been dismissed from the case. One of the guilty pleas came from Quinnton Walker, of Baton Rouge, who is serving a 10-year prison term. The eight remaining defendants will be tried separately. "This case is now almost three years old and the defense has been able to use the complex nature of the racketeering charge to prevent the prosecution from moving the case to trial," East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said Thursday. "Although we were eager to prosecute the racketeering charge, several of the other charges carry substantial penalties," he said. "It was the decision of our office that we could better protect the public by streamlining the charges to more efficiently and effectively prosecute the worst of these offenders." Those offenders, prosecutors say, are Christopher "Big Money" Finister, of St. Gabriel, and Demarcus Smith, Kydris Womack, John Goza, Davontay Ricks, Timothy Prater and Rasheedah Beloney, all of Baton Rouge. Prater's court-appointed attorney, Bo Rougeou, suggested the state bit off more than it could chew by initially pursuing racketeering charges and said he's "not sure the racketeering statute was the correct one to use in this instance in the first place." "The racketeering statute is a sword and shield for whichever side is shrewd enough to use it. Problem for the state is it is easy to charge a defendant with but hard to prove," Rougeou explained. "It is certainly easy to allege a crime because the people involved are making money and associating with each other. But showing what they actually did to be a criminal enterprise requires much more than just saying it is so," he said. Moore acknowledged the inherent difficulties in prosecuting a large racketeering case. "Not sure that there is anything that went wrong that led to our office to simplify the charges ... but it was a combination of racketeering cases being difficult to handle and move forward, especially with a large number of defendants ..., along with alleged funding issues and some rulings with regard to representation and funding," he said. Mike Mitchell, the chief public defender in East Baton Rouge Parish, said there is nothing "alleged" about his office's funding issues. "All you have to do is look at my budget. These are real issues," said Mitchell, who represents Goza. State District Judge Trudy White, who initially presided over the case, ordered the state in mid-2014 to set aside $3 million to pay for lawyers she appointed to represent seven of the original defendants. She also stayed the case. The state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal reversed her, calling the amount "exorbitant," and lifted the stay. White recused herself. After the case was randomly re-allotted to another 19th Judicial District Court judge, the court's chief criminal judge at the time determined the case was too large and complicated to add to the docket of any of the eight 19th Judicial District Court judges who handle criminal matters. The case was stayed for a second time in March by retired Orleans Parish Judge Jerome Winsberg, who was appointed to handle the case, after officials with the East Baton Rouge Parish Public Defenders Office and the Louisiana Public Defender Board complained there was no money to pay the court-appointed attorneys. Winsberg reduced the defendants' bail until every defendant not serving time on unrelated charges was released from custody. Judge halts gang trial for lack of funds; prosecutor claims state Public Defender board manipulating budget crisis The prosecution of alleged members and associates of the violent Gardere-area Big Money Bloc In November, Winsberg lifted the stay after the local public defender indicated resources had become available to pay the attorneys for the indigent defendants. The judge also instructed prosecutors to further simplify the charges. Mitchell pointed out that, even with the racketeering counts removed, defense lawyers still have to deal with their clients' conspiracy charges and a mountain of wiretap evidence. He said money for the defense may run dry again. "We may wind up coming back and asking for an additional stay," he cautioned. Moore doesn't apologize for going after the case as a conspiracy. "We never like to have racketeering cases as large as this one started out, but the facts led us to this number," he said. "These cases are rare and can be handled; however, these are difficult cases especially in district court compared to federal court." Moore said from the outset his office recognized there were varying levels of culpability and intended to handle the cases accordingly. "They were charged with racketeering in order to hold all individuals responsible for the actions of each when acting as a criminal enterprise," he said. Carson Marcantel, who represents Kydris Womack, said Friday he finds it odd that the case started out with the core defendants being accused of being major drug dealers, yet when some of them were apprehended they were riding "in the equivalent of a modern-day Ford Pinto." "The state was never able to show to us that the case fit the elements of racketeering and conspiracy," he added. "After two years we've yet to hear from the first substantive witness." Dana Cummings, who is prosecuting the defendants, stressed that the indictment and arrests "shut down" the Block Boyz organization. Cummings also noted that racketeering is considered a non-violent crime, so a person convicted of that crime would serve only 40 percent of his sentence. But some of the remaining defendants are charged with violent offenses, which require persons found guilty of such crimes to serve 85 percent of their sentences, she said. "We're holding the worst actors in this group responsible for their specific actions," she said. Christopher Finister is charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. The latter charge is punishable by up to 30 years. Demarcus Smith faces charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine, possession with intent to distribute marijuana and cocaine, and possession of a firearm with a controlled dangerous substance. Possession with intent to distribute cocaine carries a sentence of 10 to 30 years, Cummings said. Womack's remaining charges are attempted second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, felon in possession of a firearm and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Attempted second-degree murder carries a penalty of up to 50 years, she said. Goza is charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Ricks faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder and single counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Beloney is charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, accessory to second-degree murder, and obstruction of justice. Prater faces charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of a firearm with a controlled dangerous substance. Prater, Ricks, Goza and Womack were booked in November on charges unrelated to their 2014 arrests and are now being held without bail. The new charges stem from an alleged shooting incident in the Gardere area and include attempted second-degree murder, possession with intent to distribute drugs, obstruction of justice and weapons offenses. RIO DE JANEIRO - At least 32 prisoners are dead, several decapitated, and some 28 are on the lam following two separate incidents at Brazilian prisons, authorities reported on Sunday. In the latest incident, two prisoners were killed after a group of inmates blasted their way through a wall early Sunday at the Piraquara State Penitentiary in Curitiba, capital of south Parana state. The breakout occurred after a riot was presumably started to distract guards, the state prison management agency Depen said. Following the explosion, prison wardens opened fire on the escapees, killing two. Much of the recent violence within Brazil's prisons has been attributed to overcrowding, but the Depen said the facility designed to hold 647 inmates was holding 628. After-dawn on Sunday, members of a "militarized police" anti-riot unit took control of the Alcacuz State Penitentiary in Nisa Floresta, a city in northern Rio Grande do Norte state, after a riot Saturday left potentially as many as 30 inmates dead, the G1 news website reported. "The number of dead from the riot ... could surpass 30," G1 said, citing police sources. The state's largest penitentiary, located some 30 km from the state capital Natal, was built to house 620 inmates, but holds 1,150. However, in a statement, the state Secretariat of Public Security (Sesed) said the riot was "the outcome of a dispute between rival gangs." In video footage making the rounds online of inside the prison, several decapitated bodies can be seen in the yard. Already since the start of the year, more than 100 inmates have been killed in prison clashes, mainly at facilities in Brazil's poorer northern states, such as Amazonas and Roraima. Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration is struggling with a problem that has become all too common for Louisiana's governors: How do you pick the winners and losers among disaster victims as you divvy up federal aid? Louisiana's received $1.6 billion in federal block grant aid from Congress to help recover from the March and August floods that slammed the state, damaging tens of thousands of homes and causing billions in damage. The assistance is a hefty sum to be sure, but it's not enough to help every homeowner, renter, business owner and farmer with damage to rebuild. While the Democratic governor already faces Republican criticism because the recovery money won't start flowing until April or May, he's certain to take more hits when people with flood damage learn if they can count on receiving any of the aid themselves. The Edwards administration hammers home the idea during any talk of flood recovery that Louisiana hasn't received as much federal assistance as it needs. Administration officials say the state is about $2 billion short. The governor already is planning more trips to Washington in February to lobby President-elect Donald Trump's administration and Congress for more money. "We are grateful for the money we have received so far, but make no mistake, there are many needs left to meet," Edwards said. The governor intends to spend 80 percent of the flood recovery money, $1.3 billion, on homeowner aid. His leader on disaster recovery, Pat Forbes, said that amount will give rebuilding assistance to an estimated 36,000 homeowners, those who have major or severe damage from the flooding but didn't have flood insurance coverage. But that's only a fraction of the 112,000 homes estimated to have been damaged by last year's floods. The plan will leave out people whose homes were flooded with less than a foot of water or who had less than $8,000 in destruction, and it will snub those who doled out their own money to protect their homes with flood insurance even if that insurance didn't cover all the repair and reconstruction work. "No matter how we slice this, there will be people who should get assistance from us and will not be able to get assistance from us," Forbes said. "That's just the fact is that if we don't have enough money, we have to distribute the funds in different ways, with the ultimate goal being the large-scale recovery of the state." Can't see the video below? Click here. The priority for spending the combined $1.6 billion available, Forbes said, is on making sure the most heavily damaged communities and neighborhoods don't collapse, unable to recover. Besides the $1.3 billion for homeowners, Edwards wants to use $62 million for business and agriculture assistance, $105 million for state and local governments' recovery costs and $100 million for rental housing and homeless prevention programs. Right now, zero dollars are planned to pay for widespread infrastructure improvements aimed at making Louisiana a safer place to live or making a future flood less damaging. Edwards said that's a priority the state can't afford with the limited block grant aid, but he'd like to allocate $600 million to the work if Louisiana gets additional help from Congress. Louisiana is awaiting approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to start spending the first portion of congressional recovery money. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, both Republicans, have criticized Edwards as moving too slowly to dole out the aid. GOP officials also have raised concerns about the $66 million set aside for administrative costs. Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy said Louisiana needs to show it is wisely spending the disaster recovery money Congress has allocated before expecting more. Despite any disagreements, there appears to be little dispute between the Democratic governor and the majority-Republican congressional delegation that Louisiana could use more recovery aid. It also appears likely that similar to Louisiana's recovery after hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and Isaac some disaster victims will be left on their own. It's easy to think you can spot a scam email, with all the talk about spelling mistakes, "too good to be true" offers, and strange web addresses. But scammers have come a very long way. "It's rare to see poor spelling and grammar now, because these scammers are using original logos and content and only using a small part to take you to their own URL," said Craig McDonald, head of cybersecurity firm Mailguard. "They know what people are looking out for. They're doing what marketers are doing with A/B testing, sending two versions and seeing which one performs better." Mary Julian, a retiree from Glebe, recently received an email from the "Department of Human Services" about a subsidy benefit and an another from "AGL" regarding an $834 electricity bill. They both appeared genuine. But there is something else, something not in the tourist books, something I wasn't expecting. And yes, they are all here in their majestic beauty. What are the first things that come to mind for an Italian when they think of Australia? I landed here eight months ago on a working holiday visa to fulfil my young heart's adventurous streak. But what has happened is that I have completely and desperately fallen in love with Australia. To be more precise, I was infatuated with Melbourne. What is not to fall in love with in your city? The majesty of the parks, the houses with the typical English style in suburbs that surround the skyscrapers that seem to defy gravity's law, the CBD where you can breathe the business, the majestic Eureka Tower with its breathtaking views over the city, the appeal of the Aboriginal art and culture and the extraordinary graffiti art on laneway walls. And then there's Melbourne's suburbs, each with their own soul and character. Eclectic Fitzroy, "Italianissima" Carlton, exuberant St Kilda, and romantic South Yarra with its dreamy river walk. But what has hit this Italian girl most, what has absolutely struck me, is the multiculturalism of Melbourne, the mix of cultures, food, beliefs and habits that gives me a sense of freedom I've not felt in any other city of the world. I left my beloved Italy and family for this Great Southern Land, to explore, to travel, to expand my horizons as young generations should. I'm lucky I have the choice and capacity to do so. And some say I am brave to tackle such an adventure on my own. Donald Trump becoming President of the United States is unlikely to derail the "huge" technological advances in renewable energy that have sent prices of solar and wind power tumbling, the head of the International Energy Agency said. "The dynamics of the energy system are very clear policies are important, but the economic facts are stubborn," Fatih Birol, the IEA's director-general, told Fairfax Media. "The cheaper wind, cheaper solar, gains of energy efficiency have already gained a strong momentum." Dr Birol's comments, made on the sidelines of the annual summit of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi, were echoed by other attendees, including Amos Hochstein, the chief US delegate to the event. "This surge in investment in clean energy is about smart business," Mr Hochstein told the conference over the weekend. "It is not partisan, it is not political, and it is driven by the private sector." It was on a trip to Shenzhen in 2010 that I bought my first fake designer bag. After browsing with intent for a while, we motioned to the sale assistant to "show us more", which was code to take us out back to see the better quality fakes. Down the end of a long corridor, behind a false circuit board installed to fool police, was a small room, stacked floor to ceiling with bags of every label you could imagine. Balenciaga, Chloe, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Some were better copies than others. I walked away with a Jimmy Choo bag for $50. A new correctional facility, school and performing arts venue, are among the projects the Palaszczuk government has been asked to consider by Building Queensland. Building Queensland's Infrastructure Pipeline Report, released on Monday, recommends 20 projects for further development. A 1004-cell jail near Gatton is among the top infrastructure projects for Queensland, according to Building Queensland. Credit:Andy Zakeli The report is designed to inform the revision of the State Infrastructure Plan and the 2017-19 budget, and help the government make infrastructure decisions. The priority proposals include 10 in south-east Queensland, eight in regional Queensland and two have statewide implications. Party-goers should be able to submit illicit drugs to a government chemical testing regime that provides alerts on dangerous substances, the Victorian Greens say. Under the proposed program, people planning to take drugs would be able to anonymously post a sample to a forensic laboratory and receive information about the substances. There are calls for the testing of illicit drugs. Credit:Viki Yemettas Greens health spokeswoman Colleen Hartland said a government-backed testing regime would be able to issue public alerts about dangerous drugs that could save lives. The push for drug testing comes after a bad batch of ecstasy was blamed for up to 20 overdoses around Chapel Street over the weekend. An imam charged with forcing a child into marriage has been dumped from his suburban Melbourne mosque. Ibrahim Omerdic faced court on Friday charged with performing the marriage of a girl under the age of 16 to a 34-year-old man. Ibrahim Omerdic has been stood down from the Bosnian mosque in Noble Park. Credit:Facebook/Sead Jukic Mr Omerdic, 62, is alleged to have performed the ceremony on September 29 last year at the Bosnian mosque in Noble Park. In a statement on Monday, the Islamic Council of Victoria and the Bosnian Islamic Society of Noble Park said Mr Omerdic was immediately sacked following his November 2016 arrest. A police taskforce is investigating if eight armed robberies at Melbourne jewellery stores can be linked to a network of teenagers recruited through social media. There have been a spate of smash-and-grab-style robberies since October in the city's most prestigious suburbs including one Toorak jeweller who has been robbed twice - that has terrified employees and led to crisis talks with senior police. Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Rick Nugent said the latest armed robbery was particularly violent, brazen and cowardly. But he vowed a new taskforce, called Operation Fuller, would not rest until all the robbers were caught. London: This is not the first time that president-elect Trump has criticised either the EU or NATO. The latter especially was on high rotation in his campaign. But when German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Brussels on Monday to meet NATO secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, both were worried. Mr Trump's comments in an interview with The Times of London had "caused astonishment and commotion", Mr Steinmeier said, adding pointedly "not only in Brussels". The pair discussed it over breakfast. Germany's Foreign Office diplomatically tweeted that they were conferring over "current challenges". if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi... Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi... LL Beachwear Help fund TBW for as little as $3 Search This Blog Blog Archive Blog Archive October (17) September (9) August (6) July (8) June (5) May (2) April (7) March (10) February (5) January (7) December (12) November (12) October (16) September (20) August (29) July (18) June (12) May (4) April (14) March (21) February (27) January (56) December (27) November (43) October (43) September (48) August (39) July (37) June (27) May (12) April (41) March (49) February (89) January (106) December (72) November (67) October (21) September (28) August (29) July (45) June (56) May (27) April (28) March (32) February (36) January (45) December (37) November (53) October (45) September (40) August (63) July (54) June (46) May (51) April (54) March (64) February (62) January (94) December (71) November (75) October (87) September (84) August (72) July (82) June (71) May (69) April (103) March (126) February (108) January (80) December (72) November (57) October (3) September (54) August (74) July (107) June (66) My name is Mark Goodfield. Welcome to The Blunt Bean Counter , a blog that shares my thoughts on income taxes, finance and the psychology of money. I am a Chartered Professional Accountant. This blog is meant for everyone, but in particular for high net worth individuals and owners of private corporations. My posts are blunt, opinionated and even have a twist of humour/sarcasm. You've been warned. Please note the blog posts are time sensitive and subject to changes in legislation or law. With just five days to go until Donald Trump is inaugurated as president of the United States, he is still, unbelievably, complaining about his portrayal on Saturday Night Live. Using the occasion as an excuse to extend his war on the free press to yet another mainstream media outlet, Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon, @NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television! The hit job in question this time came the night before, when Alec Baldwin performed a relatively accurate version of Trumps first press conference as president-elect on SNLs first sketch of 2017. Like in real life, Baldwins Trump addressed directly the unverified accusations that he engaged in golden showers parties in Russia, but in SNLs version he was actually more polite to CNNs Jim Acosta. Trump has tweeted against SNL and Baldwin after nearly every single episode in which the actor has appeared, but as the inauguration approaches, it has become increasingly more unnerving and desperate. While he has previously tweeted during the show in the post-midnight hour, this time he waited until late afternoon on Sunday, leading some to imagine that he had perhaps come to realize how silly his outbursts seemed. Nope! It is also notable that Trump continues to tweet against NBC properties while he remains an executive producer of NBCs The New Celebrity Apprentice. Following that shows premiere this month, he tweeted that new host Arnold Schwarzenegger could never measure up to ratings machine, DJT. As for Baldwin, he did not take Trumps bait directly, but did follow his latest SNL tweet with one of his own about the president-elects other big Twitter battle of the weekend with Congressman John Lewis. After Lewis said he does not view Trump as a legitimate president, Trump fired back in a series of tweets that accused the Civil Rights icon of being All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. When African Americans felt abused/neglected, they turned to ppl like John Lewis, Julian Bond and MLK for leadership, Baldwin tweeted. MCWs chose Trump he added, in an apparent reference to middle-class whites. Speaking to Katie Couric in an interview earlier this week, Baldwin warned against simply whining and lampooning Trump and instead called on those who oppose him to take real action. Those comments, in response to Meryl Streeps Golden Globes speech, had more than a hint of irony coming from a man who parodies Trump on a weekly basis. While Baldwin said he believes its time for people to move on and accept reality, thats not so easy to do when the man whos about to be president cant stop whining about you on Twitter. With his latest comments, Baldwin is signaling that he might not think Trump is all that legitimate either. By Linda Qiu and Jon Greenberg President-elect Donald Trump kicked off Martin Luther King Jr. weekend by sparring with Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis, after the civil rights icon said he doesnt see Trump as a legitimate president. Lewis, in an interview with NBC, said he wouldnt attend the presidential inauguration because he thought the Russians had helped Trump win election. A few hours later, Trump hit back on Twitter, saying the place Lewis represents is crime infested. As many have noted, Lewis has had a long record of action, including dozens of arrests dozens of for protesting segregation, enduring violence at the hands of state troopers and leading the fight for racial justice in the 1960s. But is Trump right that Lewiss district today isnt doing so hot? A transition team spokesman referred us to the districts unemployment, poverty and crime rates. While they are higher than the national and state averages, theyre not much higher. Calling it crime infested is a stretch. The statement rates Mostly False. Georgias 5th congressional district, which Lewis has represented since 1987, consists of most of Atlanta (Fulton County) as well as parts of the surrounding suburbs (DeKalb and Clayton counties). To get a sense of how Georgias 5th is doing, we looked at the Census Bureaus My Congressional District service, which compiles federal demographic and socioeconomic data. The district has higher unemployment and poverty rates than the national and state averages and a lower median income, but not by that much. On the flip side, it also has a higher rate of education attainment. Atlanta, the heart of the district, is a major international transportation hub and one of the fastest growing places in the country. Forbes named the city the ninth best place in America for businesses and career development, and among the best for job growth and education. The Brookings Institutions Metro Monitor report which measures economic trends in 100 U.S. cities like job and wage growth, poverty and gross metropolitan product placed Atlanta at No. 32 for growth (though it ranked at No. 62 and 63 for prosperity and inclusion, respectively) in its January 2016 report. A separate analysis by PNC Financial Services noted Atlantas tech and corporate cluster and its economic dynamism. (Sixteen Atlanta companies, including Coca Cola and Delta Air Lines, made the Fortune 500 in 2016.) Longer term, the financial analysts concluded, the city will be an above-average performer. In sum, Trump is exaggerating when he says Georgias 5th is falling apart by some metrics and, by others, hes flat-out wrong. What about his parenthetical swipe at the dangers of living in Lewiss district? Crime is not reported by congressional district so well have to look at the Georgia 5ths constituent parts. As the Trump transition team accurately noted, Atlanta had the 14th highest violent crime rate in 2015 with 1,120 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Thats about triple the national average: 372.6 offenses per 100,000. (We should note the FBI cautions against ranking and comparing crime rates across cities.) But that ignores the fact that Atlantas violent crime rate, as well as property, has been decreasing over the past decade, mirroring the overall national trend. While Atlanta does make up most of the Georgias 5th, the district does contain parts of other towns with lower crime rates. For example, Brookhaven in the northern tip had a violent crime rate of 327.9 in 2015, and Morrow in the southern end 574.6, according to FBI statistics. Residents of Lewis district did not agree with Trumps depiction of their neighborhood, and rallied to defend it on social media. The Atlanta Journal Constitution highlighted the reactions on its front page Sunday morning, emblazoned with the headline: Atlanta to Trump: Wrong. And in 2007, when Trump was looking to add his name the citys skyline, he seemed to have a very different opinion of it, according to a 2015 Journal Constitution article. Atlanta is one of those cities that wont be suffering the real estate foibles. Atlanta is like New York. New York is as hot as it ever has been, Trump said. Its just going to get better. (That year, the violent crime rate was 1623.8, about 45 percent higher than it was in 2015.) A day after his initial tweets, Trump broadened his claim and said Lewis should focus on crime-infested inner cities of the U.S. Rand Paul on Medicaid On the Sunday shows over the weekend, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), discussed Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. One of the key issues is how to get rid of the sweeping health care law without creating chaos for an estimated 20 million people who gained insurance under the program. That includes many people who gained health care through more generous rules for Medicaid, a longstanding federal program for the very poor. Paul said dealing with people who got Medicaid is the big question. The vast majority of people that got insurance under President Obama's Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, got it through Medicaid, Paul said on CNNs State of the Union. Paul proposed that if any state wants to retain expanded Medicaid, it should be prepared to raise taxes to do so. Pauls federal plan emphasizes reducing insurance regulations to lower prices and promoting health savings accounts. Our focus is on his statement that the vast majority of the newly insured under Obamacare came through the Medicaid program. We were curious if that was accurate. More people became eligible for health insurance through Medicaid after passage of the Affordable Care Act. The law expanded eligibility for the poor, though states could choose not to participate in the expansion. We reached out to Pauls office for his source and did not hear back, but the U.S. Health and Human Services Department issued a report in March 2016 that at first glance gives some support to his claim. It said that Medicaid and CHIP (Childrens Health Insurance Program) added 14.5 million people by the end of 2015. (Thats the most recent data available.) Take that number at face value and about three-quarters of the newly insured came through the two closely linked programs. But the analysts we reached told us that a fair number of those new people were eligible for coverage under old rules that predated the Affordable Care Act, and that parsing the numbers is complicated. Pauls statement rates Half True. The Kaiser Family Foundation broke down Medicaid eligibility into about 10.7 million newly eligible and about 3.4 million who were eligible before but hadnt enrolled. Joan Alker, a research professor at Georgetown Universitys McCourt School of Public Policy, told us that most of that 3.4 million are children. She said Medicaid analysts explain this through the welcome mat effect. There was a lot of outreach and publicity, and people started coming in, Alker said. The parents might qualify for expanded Medicaid, but their kids were already eligible under Medicaid or CHIP. And the same could happen for parents who signed up through the marketplace. The marketplace was the way to sign up -- often through a government website -- for individual private insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It turns out, the impact of Obamacare on Medicaid is more complicated than simply more generous eligibility rules for adults. Benjamin Sommers at the Harvard School of Public Health said research he and his colleagues did showed that about half of the Medicaid increases came through eligibility changes and about a half through drawing in those who were eligible before. For Sommers, both effects are part of the Affordable Care Act. In that sense, he thinks Paul has a point. The majority of the national coverage gains are Medicaid, but not the vast majority, Sommers told us. In an op-ed, Sommers wrote that eligibility rules and the welcome mat effect are so intertwined, if parents lose their eligibility, very often coverage for their kids lapses as well, even though the children still qualify. If parents are disenrolled after an ACA repeal, many children will return to being uninsured, he wrote. A couple of other factors make it difficult to say precisely why Medicaid grew under Obamacare. Health care analyst John Holahan at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based academic center, noted that the Medicaid enrollment data is shaky. If all 50 states send in their numbers, 40 of them might do a good job and for 10, the data might be garbage. You try to impute and make estimates to account for the flawed and missing information, he said. And Laura Wherry, assistant professor of medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, said any model depends on some guesswork as to what would have happened if the Affordable Care Act hadnt happened at all. Oh really, Alison (Ruth Wilson) as a trainer for grief counselors? Of all the outlandish and strange things The Affair has tried to convince us of over the past three seasons, having the dramas most unstable, impulsive, miserable, and self-involved humanand that is some competition she is up againstnow elevated to such a position of responsibility seems laughable, even ludicrous. But then this was a really odd episode. Did anyone else think the opening scenes, from Alisons perspective, featuring Luisa (Catalina Sandino Moreno) suddenly painting Alison as a devoted, reformed mom who should be granted shared custody, was just plain weird? The last we saw, Luisa was undermining Alison at every opportunity, deriding her parenting skills, and menacing her into being as good a parent as she could be. And now, suddenly Luisa was casting Alison as parent of the year. Alison was as surprised by this as the viewers: I thought she still hated me, she said to her lawyer. So did we. As a result of Luisas intervention, Alison won shared custody of Joanie, and then popped over to see Cole (her ex-husband, Luisas present husband, played by Joshua Jackson). She went bearing coffee and muffins, but heworking on his new home, still a wooden skeletonwas not in the mood to see her, convinced that he couldnt trust her not to run off again, as she had before. Cole snidely congratulated her for her divorce from Noah (Dominic West), as she lied she had seen the latter for just five minutes to ratify their divorce. They hadnt. They spent a wild, sexy, intimate, moving, revelatory night together. And Noah doesnt know that Alison had just had sex with Cole either. Then came Alisons transformation into wise angel. Off she went to the therapy center she herself went to when she lost her mind where another young woman had just lost her baby like Alison had years before. (This young woman was black, the second black character in this episodea dual sighting so rare it reminded you how few black people there are on The Affair.) This young woman was poorer than Alison and had suicidal feelings. Alisons advice was to surround herself with her dead babys mementoes, accept things would not be the same again, and to choose to live because it was incredible to be alive. This all came from the lips of a person who has been a walking car wreck ever since we first met her, a masterclass in misery, dysfunction, and drippy self-absorption. Here she was, dispensing advice and wisdom like a breezy Yoda. Everyone assumes life is given, but you and I know that its not. You and I both know that breath can end, so we know life is a gift. Alison helped the grief-stricken young woman much more than she has ever helped herself. On her way back from the facility, Alison thought it would be a great idea to pop into the Lobster Roll restaurant to tell Cole that she was going to take up the facilitys offer to train other parents with her alleged expertise. Yes, great idea. A whole arena of unwitting couples for Alison to bring trauma too, either by giving them the benefit of her wisdom, or shagging whomsoever she chooses, then feeling terrible about it! Good going, mental health care facility! Cole, reasonably, noted that Alison brought chaos wherever she went. How would this workthe facility is in New Jersey, a four-hour daily commuteif she was sharing custody of Joanie, their daughter? Then, the best part of the episode: Alison and Helen (Maura Tierney) met at a bar. The last time we saw them together it was not pretty, so this was a scene to savor. Helen was presumably in town to see her parents, and the last time we saw her she was tearful after Noah had forcibly had sex with her. There was some needling from Helen about Joanie not being Noahs childI loved hearing thatand Alison was surprised to hear Noah was staying at Helens, if only she knew how and why he had ended up there, broken and mad. Helen was equally surprised to hear that Noah had seen Alison too, although she lied, as she did to Cole, that it was momentary to sign the divorce papers. Youre divorced from Noah, and so am I. Cheers, said Helen in a wry toast, before asking Alison a series of questions that struck at the heart of the show. These questions are surfacing after being possibly sexually assaulted by her husbandshe doesnt know that Alison endured something similar. Who was the real Noah, Alison asked: the mature, in command, ambitious man of Alisons memory, or the lazy, apathetic husband who always needed galvanizing of Helen to do anything? Maybe he was both: two different men with two different women. This split vision accorded to the shows split structure. As Helen said, I think people see what they want to see in other people. Helen thought Noah would go back to her, even after he married Alison. Alison apologized for having the affair with Noah. Helen told her it wasnt her fault: men need to feel important in relationships, and Noah hadnt. (And women dont?) And then, finally, Alison wanted to tell her the truth, from her point of view, of what happened the night Scotty died. Alison thinks she pushed Scotty into the path of a car driven by Noah. But the car was being driven by Helen, which explained why Helen did not want to talk about it. So neither woman realized the truth about that night. Back at home, a cop told Alison that Cole had been arrested for Noahs stabbing: His alibi hadnt worked out. In the second half of the episode, from Coles perspective, we saw Cole and Luisa talking outside the courtroom: Luisas change of heart toward Alison was down to Luisa supposedly being realistic about Alisons place in Joanies life. In Coles memory of Alison visiting him at the house project, she brought doughnuts, not muffins and instead of talking about Noah, he recalled them edging around the topic of sleeping together. That building project is based on an out-of-date survey, meaning a delay in the work. At home Cole didnt want to talk about a plan to adopt or find a surrogate (she cannot have children). Cole still loves Alison, of course. The next day another unexpected font of wisdom, Oscar (Darren Goldstein), guessed Cole had had sex with Alison, told him not to be a jerk, and stick with Luisa. Alison would screw him up. The lesson of his new life, said the apparently-no-longer-an-asshole Oscar, was to realize that marriage and being with someone was the recognition of the best partner offering the best kind of security. Luisa was that person for Cole, he said. Shut it down, was Oscars parting shota reference to Coles presently bylaw-defying home-building project, but also to his affair/lust for Alison. Coles memory of his meeting with Alison at the Lobster Roll after her encounter at the mental health facility was pretty much in accordance with hers, but the result was that he went home a little too enthusiastic to start a family with Luisa. She now wanted to go slower, probably seeing her husbands ties to Alison. Then the police came to tell him his at-home alibi for the night of Noahs stabbing hadnt worked out. They knew hed been in New Jersey. He was arrested. At the cellsaww, caged, just like Noah, but at the local police station, no obvious sadistsAlison went to see him. Cole told her he hadnt been anywhere near Noah, but had gone to the mental health facility to get a professional opinion about Alison. If he admitted that to the authorities, he would have to admit to the truth about still loving Alison, he said. No he wouldnt, this viewer thought. This made no sense in the scheme of the show, either. Cole was tired of pretending he didnt love Alison, but also wasnt Noah, he told her. He was a good man, and would not leave Luisa. Yes, Alison said, she was impulsive, depressed, she had mood swings, and was not an easy person to love. I love you. I always have and I always will, she told him. Back at home, Cole told Luisa that he went to the facility for information that would help in the custody case (which, presumably, he could have told thew authorities and no-one would have guessed he loved Alison, as he claimed). Luisa, rightly (as his wife and intimate, however), said, I think youre still lying. Then--and the writing of this episode really was just loopy and bizarre--Cole got out of bed in the middle of the night, without Luisa noticing, and went to meet Alison on a pier. More anguished, cul-de-sac conversation ensued. They keep going back to each other, but its all impossible. Hes impossible, shes impossible, everything is impossible. Alison, suggesting they be together, recommended he be the happy asshole by leaving Luisa, not the miserable hero by staying with her. This again made no sense, as Alison had just played the miserable hero rather than happy asshole by not deciding to be with Noah, as he had asked, and as she really wanted to do. So, Cole went home, and made eggs. This is my home. Our home. If youll still have me, he said to Luisa, righteous miserable hero that he is. She would still have him, though as they hugged his eyes to camera told us his heart was heavy with grief at the choice he had made. And us Affair fans? Well, were just baffled. One day in Chicago, a 16-year-old girl took a cellphone to school. This was against school rules, so school officials asked her to leave. When she didnt, they called the police to arrest her for trespassing. The officers said that as they began to arrest her, she flailed her arms. So they hit her with a baton and then used a Taser on her. According to a new report from the Department of Justice, this incident wasnt unusual. That report concluded that the citys police departmentthe second-largest in the countryhabitually violates Chicago residents constitutional rights. Whether its using Tasers on children, shooting at unarmed suspects who are fleeing, or singling out residents for arrest just because theyre black or Hispanic, the DOJ concluded that Chicagos police department has deep, systemic problems. If hes confirmed as attorney general, Jeff Sessions will be able to decide what to do about itincluding whether to use the federal courts to force the department to make substantial reforms. Justice Department experts expect Sessions to be less proactive about policing oversight than Obamas attorneys general have been. Sessionss confirmation is all but guaranteed, given that he has no Republican opposition in the Senate. The Senate will likely vote to confirm him in early February. Meanwhile, the city of Chicago will be negotiating whats called a consent decree with the Justice Department, based on the reports findings and recommendations. Consent decrees are enforced by federal courts and usually take months to negotiate. And as attorney general, Sessions would have the power to end themmeaning there wouldnt be a legal requirement that the Chicago Police Department reform itself. Samuel Walker, a professor emeritus at the University of Omaha and expert on policing, said theres a good chance Sessions will make that move. Thats a very real possibility, he told The Daily Beast. Of course, Chicagos police department can reform itself without pressure from the DOJ or federal courts. But civil rights advocates argue that the legal weight of a consent decree can make reforms more impactful than voluntary changes alone. Critics of consent decrees note theres little data to indicate they have long-term results (though that doesnt mean they arent effective). If Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the DOJ dont come to an agreement before Sessions becomes attorney general, then the citys police department may get off the hook. This is going to be a real political test for Mayor Emanuel, said Walker. If he wants to drag it out beyond Feb. 1, such that Sessions can then order it stopped, that could happen. That will say that Mayor Emanuel, despite all his words in the last year and a half, hes not really serious about police reform. Emanuel has said he will make changes in the department regardless of whether or not Sessions gets confirmed. Were going to negotiate, Emanuel said, according to The New York Times. I cant negotiate, assuming Jeff Sessions gets confirmed, I cant negotiate for him. But were going to be at the table. Conservative critics of consent decrees predict that the Justice Department will pursue them less frequently if Sessions becomes attorney general. Hans von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation, argued that the Justice Department uses consent decrees to bully police departments into making changes they dont want but cant afford to fight in court. All of this will end with Jeff Sessions, von Spakovsky told The Daily Beast. He will pursue violations of the law to the full extent but he is not going to go beyond the authority of those statutes. And the Left is going to no longer be funded through these nefarious consent agreements. Those kinds of corrupt practices will no longer be acceptable in the Justice Department. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch is another conservative critic of the Obama Justice Departments use of consent decrees. The process is abusive and part of the War on Police that Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions have highlighted, he said. Many taxpayers may be surprised to learn that they dont actually run their police departments anymore, that they keys of the police departments have been turned over to the Justice Department-allied activists and federal judges, he added. At his confirmation hearing, Sessions expressed skepticism about DOJ investigations of police forces. Those investigations have increased significantly under the Obama administration. I think there is concern that good police officers and good departments can be sued by the Department of Justice when you just have individuals within a department that have done wrong, he told Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono when she asked him about the issue. These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers and create an impression that the entire department is not doing their work consistent with fidelity to law and fairness, and we need to be careful before we do that. The DOJs new report on Chicago makes a pretty thorough case that the citys police department as a wholerather than a few bad-apple officersneeds an overhaul. But Monique Dixon, deputy director of policy and senior counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said she doesnt expect Sessions will look to use federal courts to force change troubled police departmentslike Chicagosto change. Its our expectation that we will not see the number of investigations and consent decrees that we have seen under the Obama administration, and thats troubling, she said. Time-honored actors always make for the best interviews. Theyre freewheeling, delivering honest-to-goodness answers in lieu of vague observations prebaked by an army of high-priced publicists. Susan Sarandon, her divisive political views notwithstanding, is one of these actors. And Morgan Freeman is another. Ive had the pleasure of interviewing Freeman, the Oscar-winning screen legend and star of countless cinema gemsfrom Street Smart and Glory to The Shawshank Redemption and Christopher Nolans Batman trilogyabout a half-dozen times, and hes always impressed me with his unique wit and good humor. During our chats, hes called homophobia the height of ignorance, branded the human race a parasite, and sang marijuanas praises (How do I take it? However it comes! Ill eat it, drink it, smoke it, snort it!). This interview was a bit different. We were discussing The Story of God, his highly rated National Geographic series that sees Freeman exploring various religions and cultures, but nearly all of my Trump and Obama-related questions were struck down by the shows publicist, who interjected on the actors behalf. And no, the 79-year-old icon hadnt seen Meryl Streeps Golden Globes speech because he wasnt watching the Golden Globes. The second season of The Story of God, which premieres Jan. 16, consists of three episodes following Freeman across the world as he speaks with members of various faiths, including a 9-year-old Minnesotan boy who Tibetan monks believe is a reincarnation of a lama; Kenneth Bae, an American Christian missionary who was held prisoner in North Korea; and several prominent Muslims in various parts of the Middle East who, despite experiencing hell on earth, maintain their belief in a higher power. Its about looking for answers to universal questions, says the shows executive producer James Younger. The reason were doing this show is were here at this time of strife around the worldstrife that seems to have a religious vein to itso people are very much thinking religion is pushing us apart, and were here to show that its not. There are far more similarities than differences, and people are manipulating religion to push us apart. Who is God? adds Freeman in that unmistakable voice. God is the question you cant answer. Despite the vexing interruptions, which were not the fault of Freeman, he was as charming as ever. Here is our chat. The second season of The Story of God contains many profound moments, from a 9-year-old who boy who Tibetan monks believe to be a reincarnation of a lama to a woman who believes she experienced heaven. What was the most profound for you? FREEMAN: I think when we went to Minneapolis and met this young lama, whose name is Jalue Dorjee and is believed to be the reincarnation of Taksham Neuden Dorjee. Hes 9 years old and hes got himself so in hand. Youre always amazed by how settled such a young person is with such what we would call responsibility. When I was 9 we were running around barefoot rolling tires, and thats what you think about! Man, when I was 9 years old this was nowhere near my abilities. There was also a young man we talked to who experienced God at the World Trade Center [on 9/11], and he says he did not hear God speak to him, he did not see God, but he knew that was the presence.In the first episode of this season, Mr. Freeman, you met with members of the Shia community, and witnessed their holiest night, Ashura. President Obama recently had a wonderful line in his farewell address about how we should all reject discrimination against Muslim-Americans. How do you feel about the way Islam has been demonized by Trump and members of the conservative right? I think that there are those areas among us that paint an entire group with the same brush, so thats whats happening. Right. Ive read statistics that have pointed out how the overwhelming majority of people in America who have unfavorable views of Islam have never so much as met a Muslim person. Exactly. Or never been to a mosque, dont know the Quran. What we found out is that Jesus Christ is a prophet in Islam. So the paths, they intersect! They intermingle! Thats how they see Jesus: as a prophet. Hes not something alien to their beliefs. The second episode is titled Heaven and Hell, and focuses on the afterlife. What are your views on the afterlife? Do you feel believing in the afterlife can be harmfulnot allowing people to appreciate theyre lives on earth when theyre promised paradise afteror beneficial because it encourages you to lead a good life on earth in order to gain entry? I think its an interesting balancing act. I think belief in the afterlife, as it is set up, is a good thing. I dont think people lose track of whats going on in this life in order to get to the afterlife. Most of the requirements to get in to the afterlife are to live a good life here. Amongst the Hindus, they believe in reincarnationbut you have to keep coming back until you get it right. [Christians] dont do reincarnation, but its the same where you have to get it right to get to heaven. You gave an interesting quote once where you said I am God, and it was taken a bit out of context, but I think you were trying to get at how God is within each of us. But Im wondering if you can expand on that quote you gave. Well, Im simply one of those who believes that God is what is the world I want to use hes aware of my everything. In The Story of God we had a wonderful interview with a monsignor and he made it very clear to me that God is us. So you live it, you got it. Just look around you: we see the manifestations everywhere, even in the world of technology. Theres this sense of being in the presence of something far greater. Is there a moment where youve ever had a crisis of faith, or reached a very pivotal fork in the road? And if so, how did you recover? Ive had a lot of fork-in-the-road moments, and when I came to a fork in the road, I took it. Theres not one that stands out for me, really. Im tempted to say my second marriage. [Laughs] No, I dont have anything in my background that jumps out at me with that. The show is quite positive and uplifting, and there a lot of people out thereparticularly young peoplewho are feeling down now and losing faith after a long year and a terribly long election. What do you say to those people to raise their spirits? Hmm. The same thing that everybody who has a positive outlook on life would: dont lose faith. Keep the faith! A lot of people use the Bible and organized religion as justification for homophobia. Weve discussed in the past how youre a big ally of the LGBT community going back to your early days as a dancer, and Im wondering if you could discuss the Christian communitys demonization of homosexuality. I dont understand it. I do not understand how you can go into the Bible and come out of it with this sort of attitude or idea about the gay community. I just dont know how that happens. Theres a childs prayer that sums it up: God is love. Throughout his campaign and presidency, President Barack Obama cited Dr. Martin Luther Kings precept that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The quote is so important to Obama that he had it literally woven into a rug in the Oval Office. The idea is not universally beloved. Some liberal activists fear it might be interpreted by some as a suggestion that hard work is pointless (since history is on their side), and conservatives have at least two problems with it. First, conservatives point out that bad ideas (Nazism, for example) are not predestined to lose, but rather, must be beaten back through violent force. Second, conservatives object to the notion that (in President Obamas world, at least) their policies are sometimes cast as being on the wrong side of history. But theres an even more fundamental problem with the quote: According to Michael Wear, who directed faith outreach for Obamas 2012 re-election and authored the new book Reclaiming Hope, Dr. Kings line has been taken out of context and used to bless a whole range of political solutions. The famous line, Wear notes, was originally intended as a spiritual truth, not a political one. Its very clear that, apart from Jesus Christ, the idea of a moral arc of the universe was inconceivable to King, Wear told me during a recent interview. It only made sense within the context of a declarative faith statement. Dr. King, Wear argues, never intended to endorse some sort of historical determinism. Theres no guarantee that things will get betterat least, not here on this physical earth. The good guys dont always win (not in this world, anyway). As evidence, Wear notes the full context of Dr. Kings quote. Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, Dr. King wrote, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Note: King has those words in quotes because he was actually citing 19th century clergyman Theodore Parker, who first coined the phrase.) In this context, it is clear that bad people often prevail in this carnal world where Caesar still rules. That doesnt mean that we shouldnt engage in political activism, but it does mean that we shouldnt assume some sort of magical force is inexorably leading us to some utopian progressive or liberal end of history. Politicians can do a lot to sort of give us a lot of things to hope for, Wear told me, but it has now lost its meaning. Its politicized and people apply it [as if to say] We passed tax reform and now its about the moral arc of the universe. Despite Wears belief that this line has been misconstrued, Wear is still a huge fan of President Obama, and during our conversation, he pushed back against those who cast him as anything less than a devout Christian. Ive prayed with the man, Wear said of Obama. Ive been with him when hes talked about his Christian faith in public and private settings. It has been disheartening for me to see folks that have no personal experience with him discount his profession of faith, based on criteria that they would never hold people in their own congregations to. Speaking of some of the speeches he heard Obama deliver over the years to Christian leaders, Wear told me: You would be surprised byI mean, hes talking about the saving grace of Jesus and what Jesus accomplished on the cross you have the leader of the free worldtalking about what Jesus accomplished on the cross and the fact that he was resurrected from the grave. But while Wear still has plenty of praise for his old boss, he was not so complimentary of Hillary Clintons campaign. Citing reports that the Clinton campaign refused to attend a St. Patricks Day event in Indiana at Notre Dame, Wear condemned her political strategy that ignored a sizable chunk of America (in this case, white Catholics) and also undermines the Stronger Together message. She had a history of speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast and being well receivedand having pastors she counted as a part of her inner circleand all of that was left off the table by a campaign that had presumptions and assumptions about what the electorate was going to look like and they were wrong, Wear said. But there will be plenty of time to relitigate the 2016 campaignand for Democrats to play the blame game. As we celebrate the last Martin Luther King Day that will occur during President Obamas tenure, it is altogether fitting that we set the record straight on Dr. Kings line and its numerous interpretations in the context of politics. Dr. King was talking about the City of God, not the City of Man. Lets render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Ebenezer Baptists charismatic pastor, taught his son not to hate the white man, but that it was my duty, as a Christian, to love him. The Reverend Martin Luther King fought segregation by riding the Whites Only elevator in Atlantas City Hall and marching against segregated water fountains. The Reverend Martin Luther King fought for equality, not just liberty, chairing the Committee on the Equalization of Teachers Salaries. And the Reverend Martin Luther King, aka Daddy King, did all this in the 1930s and 1940s, years before his son, Martin Luther King Jr., began campaigning for justice. Sometimes, you wonder how impressive children like Bill Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt emerged, despite alcoholic fathers. By contrast, the Nobel Prize-winning younger King, known in the family as M.L., so followed his father that the honorific Daddy King risks defining the elder King only by his more famous son. However, to the extent that the nickname reinforces Daddy Kings reputation as a guiding light of Civil Rights, it fits just right. More than his son, who grew up in a comparatively protective cocoon, the man originally named Mike King lived the American dream. Born in 1897 in hardscrabble Stockbridge, Georgia, this grandson of slaves grew up hard. Once, his mother thrashed a white man who beat himforcing his father, having then protected his wife with a rifle, to hide for three months until white tempers calmed. A teen preacher, King moved to the big city, Atlanta, to refine his style. He ended up with the training he soughtand more than he dared hopemarrying the daughter of one of Atlantas great preachers, the Reverend A.D. Williams, whose pulpit both Kings ultimately inherited. If it sounds easy; it wasnt. King courted his wife Alberta for eight years before marrying her in 1926. The happy marriage to the woman he lovingly called Bunch brought a grandness into their lives, he recalled. They had three children: Willie Christine in 1927, Michael Luther Jr. in 1929, and Alfred Daniel Williams in 1930. In 1934, he visited Germany and the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, when I saw with my own eyes the places where Jesus had lived and taught, a life spent in the ministry seemed to me even more compelling, King later wrote. The pilgrimage inspired King to rename himself and his oldest son, Martin Luther. Daddy King was old school. M.L.s friends feared his strict father, who administered the occasional whipping. But he also set what M.L. called a noble example. Once a policeman addressed him as boy. Pointing to his son, King explained: Thats a boy, Im a man, and insisted on being called Reverend. The flustered cop complied. Despite his earlier heroic stands against segregation, Daddy King often cautioned his son in the 1950s and 1960s. Although seeming softer than his father, M.L. refused to yield. After racists blew up M.L.s front porch during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in January 1956, Daddy King drove 170 miles to beg M.L. and his family to return to Atlanta. Better to be a live dog then a dead lion, the father advised. The son refused. Eventually, the father played second fiddle to the son. Daddy King hired M.L. as co-pastor in February 1960. This job preserved M.L.s credibility and salary as a preacher, as he ministered more broadly, to America. Like the Biblical forefathers, this great man wasnt always good. Daddy King played favorites and could be immodest, publicly admitting that the younger brother, A.D., was not his brother, and not his father either. And when John Kennedy reassured Coretta Scott King with a phone call during the 1960 presidential campaign after Georgias police jailed M.L., Daddy King proclaimed: Ill take a Catholic or the devil himself if itll wipe the tears from my daughter-in-laws eyes. When Kennedy and his aides marveled, Imagine Martin Luther King having a bigot for a father, JFK, aware of Joseph Kennedys anti-Semitism, said, Well, we all have fathers, dont we? As M.L. progressed, the elder Kings worried about their sons safety. Daddy King remembered: The sound of a telephone, our doorbell ringing, any call that brought with it some news, edged up on us like a series of loud, sudden, alarms. When James Earl Ray murdered their son, it started a string of tragedies that made the Kings Americas black Kennedys American liberalisms star-crossed stars. Daddy King would recall driving to church that awful April day in 1968, watching curiously as people gesticulated at him and his wife. Soon, they realized what passersby had tried conveying. He would remember crying out during the funeral: M.L.! Answer me, M.L.! A year later, on July 21, 1969, the surviving son A.D. died in an accidental drowning in his familys swimming pool. Some suspected foul play. Daddy King wrote: Later I realized that he had simply decided, sitting in the living room of his home one night, that he didnt want to be here anymore. His brothers death had been the severest kind of blow. Five years later, in 1974, a psychotic black man hunting Daddy King murdered Bunch, as she played the organ during church. She was shot right in that Ebenezer Baptist Church which Daddy King had led since 1931, and a hundred yards from M.L.s grave. Two years later, the late A.D.s 20-year-old daughter Darlene died suddenly of a heart attack. Nevertheless, Daddy King didnt stop. During the 1976 campaign, when Jimmy Carter stumbled by respecting particular neighborhoods ethnic purity, King held Carters hand on television, vouching for his fellow Georgian. As president, Carter would say: And the people all over the nation saw it, and it healed the wound that I had done to myself. Amid this barrage of pain, despite all the injustice, Daddy King never stopped loving either. There are two men I am supposed to hate, he wrote in his autobiographyjust re-released: One is a white man, the other is black. But King insisted: I dont hate either killer. Nothing that a man does takes him lower than when he allows himself to fall so far as to hate anyone. Americans in Trumps America need Daddy Kings faith in America and love for one another. King saw Jim Crows toxic America of Whites Only become the King familys America of We Shall Overcome. Despite enduring the stings of race hatred and the daggers of personal loss, he still believed America can change, that life progresses. He never excused his enemies, but he did love them. In appreciating everyones common humanity beyond the ugliest political differences, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Senior, offered an example we all should follow. FOR FURTHER READING Clayborne Carson, ed., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (2001). A well-edited compilation of the junior Kings writings that tell his story comprehensively. David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986). The Pulitzer-Prize winning classic based on 700 interviews. Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., An Autobiography (1980, 2017). Daddy Kings compelling life story, published four years before his death and being re-released this month by Beacon Press. On March 8, 1971 an anti-war activist group, the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania where they discovered a cache of classified documents, many bearing the cryptic code COINTELPRO. They leaked the documents to the press and on March 24, 1971, The Washington Post ran a cover story on the vast program initiated by the FBI in 1956 to neutralize suspicious persons and organizations. Although initially formed to target the Communist Party U.S.A., it was quickly expanded to include a wide range of groups considered subversive. No segment had been as central to COINTELPRO operations as civil rights activists. A wider scope of the FBIs actions, however, was not known until Congressional hearings five years later. What came to light was exceptionally chillingseeped in its own racism, without any checks or balances, the FBI devoted more resources to harming the Civil Rights movement than any other task in its purview. Fourteen years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed, Dr. T.R.M. Howard founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in Mississippi. An advocate of civil rights, Howard provided resources and assistance for Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old kidnapped and murdered in that state in August 1955. Since Tills family had received death threats, Howard secured them with a safe haven during the trial. When an all-white jury acquitted two white men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant in September, Howard denounced the verdict and widespread racial oppression and terror. Howard then traveled to other cities, including Montgomery, Alabama, where he spoke at the church of a 26-year-old new pastor, Dr. Martin L. King Jr. on Nov. 27, 1955. Like at other meetings, Howard detailed the great abuses, corruption and indignities regularly experienced by Black people. And Howard openly criticized the FBI for doing nothing to protect Black citizens in Mississippi. Local newspapers reported on these speeches and FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, incensed, wrote a rare open letter to Howard in 1956 denouncing him. Hoover also opened a file on Howard, putting him and the RCNL under COINTELPRO surveillance, along with communists groups (Howard was, however, virulently anti-communist). The FBI then recruited local Black citizens to spy on Howard and others. One of these included Ernest C. Withers, a celebrated photographer of the Black freedom movement who was granted access into intimate meetings and gatherings of civil rights leadership. He dutifully reported his observation back to the Bureau, where it developed schemes for disruption. Shamefully little was said during the endless presidential election season about the biggest challenge this country faces: our antiquated, fundamentally flawed education system. No matter what the future brings - technological unemployment, terrorism, global warming - the survival of our democracy depends upon an educated citizenry. This week, Donald Trumps proposed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, will face the Senate for her confirmation hearing. DeVos is the most prominent face of the proponents of school choice who dominate the new administration, and who are proposing extending and creating more voucher-like programs and increasing the number of charter schools. But putting all their eggs in the school choice basket will not reach the great majority of Americas children, many of whom live in areas where any kind of school choice will never take root. Most of those schools are located in cities because rural areas are not desirable enough to attract the human capital needed to start a charter or independent school. Heres the tale of the tape: After 25 years and several billion public and philanthropic dollars, there are approximately 7,000 charter schools in the USA educating an estimated 2.7 million students. And, over the same period, there are 400,000 students on some type of voucher. Yet, every day, over 50 million children attend traditional public schools. Even if all political barriers and human capital constraints are eliminated and the number of charter schools doubles in half the time, there would be approximately 14,000 of them operating in 2028 serving some 6 million students. But there would still be 47 million children in traditional public schools. Furthermore, the fact that some children are attending choice schools says nothing about how prepared they are to meet the challenges of the 21st centurys technological revolution. Reforming education along governance and parental choice lines means focusing on the adults. But what is needed is a transformation of the education system that focuses on the learners. Here is how the system is designed now for most of Americas children: It processes students clustered in age cohorts through a rigidly paced curriculum built around a non-existent average student. Time is the constant while learning is the variable. For example, in the fifth grade, what matters is how long Johnny is taught fractions, not whether he learns them. If he cannot do it in the time allocated by the pacing guide, the teacher is forced to move on, affecting Johnnys chances to learn algebra. And algebra is the gateway to college. Today, teachers and students operate in a system that is bureaucratic, top-down and compliance-based. Rules are set by several different layers of the hierarchy and sometimes contradict each other. They stifle creativity and innovation every step of the way. The system rewards those who best comply with it and ignores or even rejects those who do not. Until the end of the 20th century, the main purpose of education was the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. In the 21st century, knowledge is necessary but not sufficient. It is now a commodity that resides in the device in your pocket. Just as important is deliberately developing in children the skills and dispositions that will enable them to succeed in changing circumstances. Fortunately, technology now makes it possible to deliver a personalized learning experience for every student that combines the acquisition of knowledge with the ability to evaluate it and apply it. The most lasting and fundamental reform that Betsy DeVos and the new administration should champion is the elimination of the rigid, standardized, one-size-fits-all curriculum and its replacement with competency-based learning. In this model, students achieve mastery of competencies spelled out in standards that are translated into learning objectives. Mastery is assessed on a continuous basis so that timely and appropriate interventions can be provided as required. In such a system, Johnny will never be penalized for needing an extra week to learn fractions. When personalized learning becomes the basis for the education system, continuous assessments and improvements will be embedded in the learning experience. The emphasis on compliance essentially disappears because outcomes are self-evident and no credit is given for merely following the rules. Oversight will still be necessary for safety and fiduciary reasons but learning acquires an intrinsic value for the student and the system is designed to encourage that goal every step of the way. Heres the good news: Congress just passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and its framework allows states to pilot competency-based learning. The new administration should encourage this trend and add monetary incentives, much like the federal Charter School Grant program, to accelerate the creation of competency-based, learner-centered schools of all kinds. This revolutionary approach will have a much greater impact on the future of America than simply expanding school choice ever could. By Marisa Taylor and Christina Jewett - Kaiser Health News President-elect Donald Trumps Cabinet pick Tom Price counts among his top contributors a Georgia company and its CEO, who sent managers an email demanding donations IMMEDIATELY to a political action committee supportive of GOP candidates and causes, according to documents reviewed by Kaiser Health News. The PAC was operated by Georgia-based MiMedx, whose CEO Parker H. Pete Petit is among the top individual contributors to Price, a Georgia congressman and Trumps pick for Health and Human Services secretary. Federal campaign finance records show MiMedx, through its PAC, chief executive and his relatives, has contributed more than $40,000 to Prices campaign and joint fundraising committees since 2014. With combined PAC and individual donations, the company was ranked as Prices top contributor for 2015-2016 by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. A spokesman for Trumps transition said Price had no knowledge of internal issues at MiMedx. He acknowledged that Price has helped the company, which is based in his congressional district, but said he gave it no special treatment. Dr. Price assisted MiMedx in navigating regulatory waters, just as he would for any constituent, said Phillip Blando, who did not elaborate on how Price helped the company. Federal election law prohibits corporations from coercing employees to contribute to PACs. The May 2015 email reviewed by KHN showed Petit demanding contributions from managers as the PAC was shaping its strategy with lawmakers. Im going to ask one more time for our field management to send something to our PAC. And, IMMEDIATELY, said the email sent under Petits name. We have PAC business to transact, and we need at least 50 donors to do so. The same day the email was sent, text messages were sent out among some managers singling out certain employees who were expected to give. MiMedx officials did not return calls or respond to detailed questions. Experts in the law, who reviewed the emails language at the request of KHN, said it could run afoul of legal restrictions on employer coercion. The email arrived as Petit publicly pressed the Food and Drug Administration to change its stance on the regulation of MiMedx products, which could potentially affect the companys bottom line or lead to a product recall. Petit, a prominent businessman in the Atlanta suburbs, served as a Trump campaign finance chair in Georgia. Brett Kappel, a Washington, D.C. campaign finance lawyer who has represented both Democrats and Republicans, said Petits email would have to be reviewed by the Federal Election Commission for an official determination. But he said that a complaint could be filed with the FEC alleging illegal coercion. In 2014, the MiMedx PAC was formed by the chief financial officer for the company, which makes controversial wound-healing products that are sold to Veterans Affairs hospitals or billed to Medicare. MiMedx told investors it built a business with $247 million in revenue in 2016 and a 86 percent gross profit margin by salvaging discarded placentas, fashioning them into skin grafts, paste or injections and selling them to wound- and burn-care physicians, as well as podiatrists. The PAC contributed to a number of Republican causes and other members of Congress, according to a review of public records. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics show it gave $40,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and $30,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The FDA declined to say whether it heard from Price about the company or to answer questions about its review of MiMedx products. Price is scheduled to appear Wednesday before a key Senate health committee, but his formal confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee has not been scheduled. Price is among the Trump Cabinet picks targeted by Democrats, and in recent days he has come under attack for his 2016 stock purchase at a discount price in a small Australian company that wants FDA approval for its multiple sclerosis drug. In a statement issued to ethics officials in preparation for his confirmation hearing, Price has promised to divest himself of stock and recuse himself on matters in which he may have had a direct financial interest. As for how he will handle ethical questions involving former campaign contributors, Blando said Price will be providing those views at his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings. Kappel said that the matter raises legitimate questions for Price. Aside from the fact that he received campaign contributions from the same company, as the head of HHS hes going to have oversight over the FDA and he should have a view on what are inappropriate interactions between regulated companies and the agency. In 2012, the FDA began to review whether liquefied tissue products made by MiMedx should be regulated more stringently. A 2013 letter from the FDA questioning its products led to a decline in MiMedxs stock price and to shareholder lawsuits. A case was settled in April for nearly $3 million. The company continues to face uncertainty over draft guidance the FDA issued on tissue manipulation in 2015, potentially forcing the company to prove the effectiveness of its products or face tighter regulations. The company says its growing enterprise, which has received a small amount of business from the federal agency Price would oversee, caters to an estimated 6.5 million Americans with chronic wounds. Seeking to soothe investors concerns, Petit described his positive relationships with members of Congress during an October 2015 earnings call, according to a transcript. I have been personally involved, he said. I have walked the halls of Congress. [I have] been to FDA. Ive [had] numerous conversations as well. Two former managers in interviews with KHN said they felt pushed to contribute or to nudge their subordinates into giving money to the PAC. The former managers asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the company. On the same day the May 2015 email was sent under Petits name, another executive sent his own email to subordinates. So who hasnt donated? he wrote, according to a copy of the email reviewed by KHN. Federal records show that dozens of company staffers make regular payroll-deduction contributions to the company PAC, ranging from $15 to $100 per week. Experts said its unclear how the FEC would view MiMedxs repeated requests to its employees. Its clearly pressure. The legal question is whether its coercion, Kappel said. Theres a severe ideological split over what constitutes illegal pressure. Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat who serves on the FEC, said she couldnt comment on the MiMedx matter, but is troubled by this gray area and voted in favor of investigating whether another company, Murray Energy, improperly pushed workers to support its political fund in an unrelated case. You go to work and youre there to do the best job for your employer. Youre not there to support your bosss political views, Weintraub said. MiMedx has cited help from other lawmakers in its dealings with regulators. In the November 2015 white paper, Petit directed investors to a letter that Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, sent to the FDA. Murphy a psychologist served with Price on the House GOP Doctors Caucus. There is no record of donations to Murphy from the MiMedx PAC. Murphy, chairman of a House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, sent a letter to the FDA outlining the woes of an unnamed company and pressed the FDA to answer questions about its use of untitled letters to raise questions about products. The FDA sent MiMedx such a letter in 2013. Carly Atchison, a spokeswoman for Murphy, said lawmakers were raising concerns on behalf of stakeholders who complained about inconsistencies across FDA centers, an issue the agency she says later addressed. She declined to say whether the company referred to in the letter is MiMedx. The company white paper also highlighted a May 2014 letter sent to then-FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg by several U.S. senators, who wrote to express serious concern about the agencys use of draft guidance documents to explain policy. It did not name specific companies, but a MiMedx official spoke out during an FDA hearing last year on the draft guidance filings. One senator who signed the 2014 letter was Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who will introduce Price at his confirmation hearing. Political funds benefiting Isakson since 2010 have received more than $47,000 from Petit, his family and the MiMedx PAC, campaign finance records show. In the November 2015 white paper, MiMedx assured investors that it is clear there is significant interest by Senators and Congressmen in FDA regulations and of the potential dire impact of regulatory changes without proper oversight. Isakson spokeswoman Amanda Maddox said the senator has a long history of advocating for Georgians and Georgia companies that are seeking information from the federal government. She did not elaborate or respond to detailed questions. Elizabeth Lucas and Julie Rovner contributed to this report. Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation. MEMPHISWhen I first set eyes upon her, she was seated in the pulpit of a small red brick church surrounded by luminariesan ecumenical gathering of clergy and civil rights leaders from around the world. Then-President Bill Clinton delivered a rousing address as the congregation, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the freshly polished pews, repeatedly leapt to its feet with applause. They had come to celebrate the 67th birthday of her slain husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and it had only been 10 years since the recognition of a national holiday in his honor. His tomb, situated in an outer courtyard between the church and the King Center offices, is enshrined above an ever-flowing fountain and adorned with a flame that never goes out. GALLERY: Coretta Scott Kings Life in Pictures: Remembering A Civil Rights Hero (PHOTOS) As concerned as Coretta Scott King had been about eradicating poverty and advancing equal rights abroad, she never forgot that there was work yet undone here in the U.S. For her, the torch always burned bright. A posthumous memoir, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, was released by journalist Barbara Reynolds. The book, as told to Reynolds over the course of 30 years, sheds light on her life and gives new voice to a woman who had been anything but silent. It was in 1986 that she wrote a scathing nine-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which at the time was considering the nomination of an Alabama attorney general to the federal bench. In the document, unearthed by The Washington Post, Coretta denounced now Senator Jeff Sessions, saying, Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts. She had known men like Sessions, men from the Deep South, who worked to maintain systems of inequalityall the while smiling gingerly at their colleagues and constituents. That rebuke, including allegations from others involving racial epithets purportedly used by Sessions, sank his bid. Walking down Beale and Peabody streets, one can only image what Coretta might make of Sessionss current nomination to become the countrys chief law enforcement officer. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency might have evoked difficult feelings for the late civil rights leader. In the 49 years since she and her husband walked these same avenues, the nation remains divided in significant ways. There is a new Smithsonian museum devoted to African-American history in Washington, but workers across the country are still fighting for fair wages and the move to repeal the Affordable Care Act is already underway in both houses of Congress. Voter suppression and anti-immigration statutes are pervading state legislatures from sea to shining sea. Today, there are more black people in jail, on probation or parole today than were enslaved in 1850. Then too, even after a national outcry, lead continues to contaminate the water in Flint, Michigan, and it is unlikely that the officer who killed Eric Garner will ever face criminal prosecution. The police officer who shot an unarmed 12-year-old in a snowy park in Cleveland, Ohio, is a free man today. And there is a president-elect who once pledged to ban Muslims from traveling to the U.S. That same man, a former reality show personality, took to social media Saturday morning to deride and mock one of Corettas closest friends and allies in the movement. One has to wonder what she might have said about Trump describing Congressman John Lewis as all talk, no action and Atlanta, the city she loved so dearly, as falling apart and infested with crime. Seated in a center pew at the annual ecumenical service that January morning in 1996, jubilation filled the sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Dr. King and his father were both once senior pastor and I could feel the weight of the moment. For months or years, I did not know then, but Coretta would not be with us long. Despite her pleasant and approving smiles, a fog of loss seemed to surround her. Corettas father-in-law had been laid to rest on that very altar in 1984 and his wife Alberta was murdered a mere six years after their son Martin, in 1974, as she sat at the organ. I was invited by Dr. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin and Coretta, to address the 2016 King Memorial Service. I took the opportunity to laud the life of Brother Martin, but it was Coretta who was pressing on my spirit. They were married in 1953 and, today, Coretta is largely remembered as the wife of Martinthe First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement, a moniker that does not fully speak to her critical role both before and after Dr. Kings death. Even as she worked to ensure that his message would continue to be heard the world over, after his assassination Corettas own activism took flight anew. She was, after all, an experienced, surefooted organizer. It was here in Memphis, on April 8, 1968five days after his final sermon from the pulpit of Mason Temple and four days after Dr. King was felled by a snipers bullet at the Lorraine Hotelthat the grieving widow picked up her husbands baton. Coretta, joined by her four young children, led a silent march of 42,000 people through the streets in remembrance of her husband and in support of the ongoing sanitation strike. Negotiators sent by President Lyndon Johnson and led by Labor undersecretary James Reynolds struck an agreement between the city of Memphis and black sanitation workers, ending the months long, bloody campaign. An estimated 100,000 people attended memorial services at Ebenezer and Morehouse College, Dr. Kings alma mater. Coretta would later found the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Change and take up the fight for human rights around the globe. She became an advocate for women and LGBT rights, as well as one of the leading voices against South African apartheidbecoming a close confidante of Nelson Mandela. In 1994, Coretta led a delegation from the King Center to help monitor that countrys first free and fair elections. I wonder now what she might have said about this one. Then too, I wonder what she might have said about the scourge of gun violence on our streets and the notion that 13 million children still face hunger in wealthiest nation on the planet. I wonder, even now, what she would have said about the election of the first black president, Barack Obama, and his farewell speech after two terms in office. Coretta suffered a stroke in 2005, two years before the launch of the presidential preference primary. Already getting around in a wheelchair, she was paralyzed along her right side and lost the ability to speak. She passed away, five months later, of respiratory failurea complication from ovarian cancer. Four of the five living U.S. presidents descended on Atlanta for her funeral. Had she lived to see this day and had been able to speak, of this I am sure: Eloquent and imbued with grace, Coretta would have had something to say about all of it. She would have reminded us that her husbands dreamand hersremains unmet. She would want us to celebrate Dr. Kings life, not only with ceremony and song but with service. Today, as I walked along the same route she took in April 1968-- three months before I was born-- I know she would have pressed us forward with urgency and again locked arms with those who believe we are and can be better. OVERTON -- Active suty and military veterans are the focus of a free agriculture workshop Jan. 21 in Overton, sponsored by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, in cooperation with the Texas AgrAbility Project and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Coordinators said the workshop, "From Battleground to Breaking Ground: A Transformational Journey," while designed for active duty and veteran military service members, is open to others. The program will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 1710 N. F.M. 3053. Lunch is included and will be sponsored by Heritage Land Bank. "This program workshop gives current and former military with or without disabilities interested in farming or ranching the opportunity to get information on starting, developing and funding an agricultural business," said Cheryl Grenwelge, AgriLife Extension specialist in disability transition - family and community health in College Station. "While the program is mainly for current and former military, beginning farmers and ranchers, women, and small-acreage landowners are also welcome to attend and can benefit from the workshop information," Grenwelge said. Presentations will address how to develop an agricultural business plan, starting an agricultural business, possibilities and options for farming or ranching with a disability, resource networking and the National Farmer Veteran Coalition. There also will be a presentation by a military veteran involved in production agriculture and a panel discussion on funding resources and opportunities. The workshop will include a farm tour highlighting how aquaponics can be used in agricultural operations. "Texas AgrAbility focuses on connecting, assisting and empowering agricultural producers, their family members and employees with disabilities and chronic health conditions to stay engaged in production agriculture," said Erin Pilosi-Kimbrough, AgriLife Extension coordinator for family and community health in College Station. She said the program was developed with input from AgriLife Extension, AgrAbility, the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the National Farmer Veteran Coalition, Farm Service Agency, USDA Risk Management and Texas Department of Agriculture. To ensure adequate space, attendees should RSVP by registering online in advance at txagrability.tamu.edu/workshops/. A form also can be downloaded and mailed to either Pilosi-Kimbrough or Makenzie McLaurin at 578 John Kimbrough, 2251 TAMUS, College Station, Texas 77843-2251. For more information, go to the Texas AgrAbility website or contact Pilosi at 979-847-6185 or empilosi@ag.tamu.edu, or McLaurin at 979-862-1913 or makenzie.mclaurin@ag.tamu.edu. A flyer on the program can be found at bit.ly/2gvfFUW. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo A free "Battleground to Breaking Ground" program for current and former military service members and others will be held Jan. 21 in Overton. TWEET ME DISCLAIMER *COMMENTS, LINKS, AND CUT AND PASTE ARTICLES, ARE NOT ALL ENDORSED BY THE PUBLISHER. THIS BLOG claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to its respectful owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. MORE DISCLAIMERS This is a commercial free blog. Money is nice, but being able to speak my mind is better. "Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if youve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)" ~Philebrity~ "One of the most precocious and hilarious Black political minds on the net. Ive been a long-time fan!" ~Asad Malik~ "..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet." ~~Daniel Rubin, "The Philadelphia Inquirer"~~ "To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs." ~~Richard Fausset, "L.A. Times"~~~ ~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ "That's why I love the blog " Field Negro " so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the ( CowPuckey ) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."~Erik Hare, "The Twin Cities Daily Planet"~ 411 On The Field field negro Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Raised in the house, but field certified. Jamaica is the land of my birth, but I consider myself a citizen of the world. I currently practice law in the city of "brotherly love". View my complete profile "Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call the AfroSpear. Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslave and African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online." ~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~ "I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~ IF YOU ARE BRAVE ENOUGH TO FLAUNT IT. Come visit my store on CafePress! The consensus with the audience was that we face many unresolved challenges: How does social change happen? How do we scale up grassroots alternatives? How do we position ourselves in relation to capitalism? How would we envision a socio-ecological transformation in low-income countries? What are the obstacles? How do we make the welfare state sustainable? How do we avoid co-optation? And so on... Overall, the debate was to the point. I'm told it even continued at a pub later on, along the lines of the British cultural tradition. I unfortunately missed that. I found a nice balance among the panellists themselves, although I missed someone bringing in a feminist perspective. For example, I had a nice exchange of opinions on the role of democracy with Jrgen Randers. We were the youngest and oldest panellists, respectively. Randers brought in the experience and authority of someone that has been in these debates for almost 50 years, but who is somehow now disillusioned. I hopefully brought in the enthusiasm of the youth' (sic), and I was rightly reminded that we are not reinventing the wheel. The newcomers, like myself, definitively stand on the shoulders of our predecessors. However, during the debate I did my best to make the case for degrowth, and argue that we need to focus on degrowth and not just limits to growth, or moving beyond' growth. Let me explain how I understand degrowth. In the article What is degrowth?, we conclude that "Generally degrowth challenges the hegemony of growth and calls for a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialised countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice and wellbeing." Degrowth is not an end, but a means. The focus should be not only on less but on different (See accompanying image to this piece). Degrowth, as a term, was first used by Andre Gorz in 1972. It was then launched as an activist slogan in France at the beginning the 2000s in reaction to the failure of sustainable development, seen as an oxymoron. Degrowth is the hypothesis that we can live well with less. It is about imagining and enacting alternative visions to modern growth-based development. Alternative, better, or greener development is simply not enough - including sustainable development and all its reincarnations such as green economy, green growth or circular economy. Else, economic growth is not compatible with sustainability, no matter how you rephrase it. However, degrowth is not only about ecological sustainability. In London, I stressed that its prognosis (why degrowth?) includes a variety of sources, such as democracy, justice, meaning of life, spirituality and care. We shall not compromise on any of these. For example, the theory of degrowth rules out entertaining the possibility of an ecological dictatorship in the name of enforcing limits that people otherwise are not willing to voluntary impose upon themselves. The socio-ecological transformation has to come from the people, and to the people, or it won't happen. So any definition of degrowth must take into account all these concerns Degrowth as a word is an act of detournement (French for "rerouting" or "hijacking"); a technique developed in the 1950s by the Situationist International consisting in turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself. Today's most famous example is the work done by Adbusters in modifying advertisements in order to subvert their meaning. Some see degrowth as punk, but the battle will have been won when the ideas behind degrowth have become pop(ular) and changed the imagination and commonsense of everyone, not just the punks. This is hard work and people like Kate Raworth or Tim Jackson have done the most on bringing the degrowth concept to the mainstream, including into the Parliaments. But is such a political entry possible? Degrowth has certainly already had an impact, at least in South Europe, where prime ministers like Nicolas Sarkozy and Matteo Renzi felt at least the need to address it, even if only to dismiss it. Widely debated in the media, at the moment it receives the support of at least three contemporary European political leaders, including Juan Carlos Monedero of Podemos in Spain, Beppe Grillo of Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy and Benoit Hamon, ex minister of social and solidarity economy and current candidate for the French Parti socialiste presidential primary. Elsewhere it is happening too; for example the senator Cristovam Buarque praised degrowth at the Brazilian congress in 2010. This is not so much a new phenomenon, but a revival of the 1970s limits to growth debate. For example, in 1972 Sicco Mansholt, a Dutch social-democrat who was then EU Commissioner for agriculture, wrote a letter to the President Malfatti, urging him to seriously take into account limits to growth in the EU economic policy. Mansholt himself became President after only two months, but for a too short term to push a zero (or below) growth agenda. There is no doubt that there are numerous obstacles for degrowth to make headways to politics. However, the ongoing 2008 financial crisis has helped revive this debate, and has deeply changed citizens' opinion about the economy. A recent study by colleagues on the public views on the relation between economic growth, the environment and prosperity in Spain shows that although a majority still views growth and environmental sustainability as compatible (green growth), about one-third prefers either ignoring growth as a policy aim (agrowth), or stopping it altogether (degrowth). Only very few people want growth unconditionally (growth-at-all-costs). Difficult to determine what drives citizens' opinion, and whether Pope Francis pleading for degrowth helps. The question remains why if there is a constituency; of a sort that is willing to entertain the critique of degrowth, why are there so few politicians daring to speak to it? Last autumn, we organized a debate in Budapest on degrowth in the parliaments' with four MPs from different EU countries discussing the challenges they have faced promoting degrowth within their parties and parliaments (it can be watched here). There are also efforts of developing degrowth policy proposals, like the ones by the collective Research & Degrowth, to which I belong. I shall also mention the field of ecological macroeconomics, of which Tim Jackson is a prominent figure. For example, we - at Research & Degrowth - are working on a macroeconomic model based on Tim's models to explore the opportunities of generating employment in a post-growth scenario in the EU. Our book, Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, (now published in ten languages), explores some of those opportunities and also ideas around a basic income, debt audit, public money, work time reduction and work sharing. In conclusion, let me outline our hypothesis. If growth has been a central pillar of stability in wealthy countries throughout the 20th century, then it is reasonable to argue that its lack in growth-oriented societies might create instability. I propose to read under this light too, but of course not only, the recent emerging political conjuncture, from Trump to Brexit, including a generalized rise of the authoritarian right. Even the IMF argues that we might have entered into a new phase of low growth potential, especially in wealthy economies. This has been called New Normal, New Mediocre, or Secular Stagnation. The Wall Street Journal recently argued that: "In Europe, as in the U.S., voters are angry at political elites and frustrated by slow growth". This places the end of growth right at the centre of 21st Century politics - inside and outside the parliaments. For how long will we keep sacrificing everything in the name of growth, with austerity policies? How far will the mainstream be able to support growth's mirage? And how - and who - is going to challenge the discontent emerging out of slow growth in growth's societies? Can we give this frustration a new meaning and direction, other than that of closure and phobia? Welcome to the new era of post-growth politics. As Tim Jackson and Peter Victor argued in The New York Times: "Imagining a world without growth is among the most vital and urgent tasks for society to engage in." So we start a new year with the knowledge that degrowth has now entered into the Parliament, and hopefully it is here to stay. We have just started and we recognise the challenges remain huge and sometimes seem insurmountable. The degrowth community wants to face the challenges. And in the House of Commons I was pleased to see we share the challenges and the tasks ahead with powerful companions. This Author Federico Demaria is an ecological economist at the Environmental Science and Technology Institute, Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a member of Research & Degrowth, and co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, (Routledge, 2015; vocabulary.degrowth.org). There will be many obituaries published about this extraordinary Russian scientist, activist and human being, but I would like to briefly record a few words about the man I knew. And to weep a few tears. He was a strong a friend and fellow fighter for truth, and his recent death on the evening of January 10th means a lot for me - and (though we may nto know it) for us all on this increasingly contaminated planet. I first met Alexey in Oxford in 1996, shortly after publishing my book Wings of Death, which he had already read. What was clear immediately then, and increasingly through our work together since then, is that he, like me, saw the issue of radiation and health as one which was fundamentally a political one, and only secondarily as scientific. In 1998 we were among those few independent scientists invited by the Green Group in the European Parliament to Brussels to advise on the transposition of the Euratom 96/29 Basic Safety Standards Directive. This pan-European law permitted the dilution of radioactive waste into consumer goods, and we advised the Greens to try and block it. Well they could not, as Euratom cannot be blocked by the Parliament; though they did manage to introduce a suicide clause, one which we have recently begun to employ. Fateful words that led to the ECRR's foundation Also at this meeting was Jack Valentin, the Scientific Secretary of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). After we had all soundly attacked the ICRP for ignoring the effects coming out from Chernobyl, Jack Valentin huffily said: "ICRP is an independent organisation. It has no special status. You can listen to any committee you want!" At this suggestion, Alexey and I immediately saw the way forward. With Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Alice Stewart and (later) Molly Scott Cato we decided to form an alternative ICRP: the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR). [1] This needed an alternative radiation risk model, and we worked on this over the next five years to create the first ECRR report which was published in 2003 and rose upon the nuclear industry horizon with the brightness of a thousand suns. Alexey organised the translation into Russian, and it quickly appeared also in French, Japanese and Spanish. Alexey suggested we publish a series of books and ECRR reports, and quickly began to put together the first compilation of evidence on Chernobyl effects which we published together in 2006: Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. [2] A valiant warrior for scientific truth By then we had persuaded Michael Meacher to set up the doomed Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) and in 2004 we got Alexey over to Oxford, together with Prof Elena Burlakova from the Russian Academy of Sciences to dish the dirt on Chernobyl, which they did. British scientists have just discovered one of the richest stores of carbon on Earth: 145,000 square kilometres of peatland - an area larger than England - in the forests of the central Congo basin. The reservoir of compressed plant material holds at least 30 Gt (billion tonnes) of carbon. And this pristine and undisturbed sink of peat is the equivalent of about two decades of fossil fuel combustion in the United States. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is significant for three reasons. One is that it adds a substantial new component to one of the most head-scratching problems in climate science: the arithmetic of the carbon cycle, a cycle vital both to all living things and to climate machinery. The second is a reminder that, in a world combed by geographers and topographers, monitored for 30 years by dozens of orbiting satellites, and explored and exploited by more than 7 billion people, there is still scope for important discovery. Third, if this carbon store is opened up to development, it could end up emitting a massive volume of CO 2 with disastrous results for global climate. This is already happening in Indonesia, where huge areas of peatland swamp forest are being logged, drained, burnt and cleared for oil palm plantations, making the country the world's fifth biggest carbon emitter. 'The largest peatland complex in the tropics' "Our research shows that the peat in the central Congo Basin covers a colossal amount of land. It is 16 times larger than the previous estimate and is the single largest peatland complex found anywhere in the tropics", said Simon Lewis, a geographer at the University of Leeds, and one of the discoverers. "We have also found 30 billion tonnes of carbon that nobody knew existed. The peat covers only 4% of the whole Congo Basin, but stores the same amount of carbon below ground as that stored above ground in the trees covering the other 96%. "These peatlands hold nearly 30% of the world's tropical peatland carbon, that's about 20 years of the fossil fuel emissions of the United States of America." Working with Congolese colleagues, Professor Lewis and his co-author Greta Dargie discovered the peatlands in 2012, during a field trip to the swamps of the Cuvette Centrale at the heart of one of the world's last remaining great forests in the Republic of the Congo. Making a return to our two favourite summer locations, Mount Maunganui and Nelson in early January 2023, we've got whiff of the first release lineup and me oh my, yes boy The Franklin County Department of Public Safetys first fire academy class (Class #001) is looking forward to graduating next month and setting out to be of service to county citizens. The new fire academy, now in its pilot year, is an expansion of the current program and offers all the classes needed for cadets to begin fighting fires, said Captain Patrick Meeks, the fire training coordinator. Under the old regime, cadets took Virginia Department of Fire Programs (VDFP) Fire Fighter Level 1, which is the basic firefighter course and a course on hazardous materials. The new academy offers both of those courses, in addition to VDFP Fire Fighter Level 2 and courses in vehicle rescue, vehicle operations and basic pump operations. "The academy offers all the courses they need," said Meeks. "They will no longer have to wait to take the additional courses. This offers a way for them to take all the needed courses at once and be ready to go to work." The academy takes seven months to complete. "Were trying to make the firefighter courses more interesting and to entice people to come in and want to take the class," he added. Fire Instructors Bennie Russell, Steve Crook, George Tawles, Bill Meador, Brandon Gautier, Riley Peters, John Angle, Dempsey Moore and others are assisting 25 cadets who range in age from 17 to 65. Of the 25, all will remain on Franklin County fire squads but one. "For a pilot program, I think its gone well," said Meeks. "The camaraderie has been phenomenal with this class. They back each other up and help each other out." The academy adheres to strict guidelines similar to a boot camp, of sorts, said Fire Instructor Steve Crook. "We want our cadets to go out when they leave here and maintain that same demeanor and that attitude of customer service to our citizens," he said. "The structure is especially good for the younger group. No hats are allowed in class, and they need to keep clean shaven." Cadet Sarah Isley was a member of a city department in another state before coming to Franklin County. "The best part about the program is the way its structured," she said. "The instructors are very professional and it is run exactly the way a city department would be run. We are getting so much more out of it than we would from just taking the basic classes. And the courses are just rigorous enought to weed out the ones that arent passionate enough. These cadets are the future firefighters that will be fighting Franklin Countys fires." Final 2022 election Iowa Poll to be released on Saturday Iowa Poll to test Senate race with Chuck Grassley and Mike Franken, governor race with Kim Reynolds and Deidre DeJear, Congress and attorney general. When your business adds a new employee, one of the first steps is to provide work-specific training. This may be something as simple as acclimating the person to the policies and procedures unique to your organization or as complex as learning the set of tasks necessary to operate equipment or software. However, long after an employee has begun work, your business needs to invest in occasional training. If professionals can gain career traction through taking a particular course or getting certified in a certain area, your business stands to gain by signing them up for training. Its important to offer these opportunities equally, across all departments, constantly looking for ways to help each employee improve and advance. Here are a few ways employee training can boost your businesss bottom line. Related: How Investing In Employee Training Benefits Your Business Training improves retention. When any employee leaves, you have the not-so-desirable task of recruiting, interviewing and onboarding a replacement worker. You may think that the primary reason employees leave surrounds salary, but in actuality, the motivation for changing jobs goes much deeper. Many times they're looking more intently at the future career potential of a new position than the salary. For that reason, even an occasional course might make the difference between an employee leaving and staying. Many businesses fear that if they send employees to a type of training that will improve their credentials, those employees will simply leverage what theyve learned and find a better position elsewhere. In fact, that's proven not to be the case. Even if each course or certification costs your business thousands of dollars, that amount can quickly be recouped in replacement hiring costs if an employee stays rather than leaves. Training shows career investment. As businesses try to create a work culture that attracts top talent and keeps them on staff, theyre beginning to see the many benefits of investing in a persons career rather than merely waiting for the results of their daily work output. Businesses that take an interest in whether or not each employee has job satisfaction are more likely to keep those employees. This means learning what each employees career aspirations are and doing whatever it takes to help. Related: Will Training Help Improve Employee Performance? Training can be a large part of that investment. By first understanding each workers long-term goals, you can create customized training plans that help them get from their current positions to where they want to go. You dont have to send every employee offsite for third-party training, either. You can create branded training sessions and host them via webinar, record the results and offer past classes as part of a training library on your company intranet. This will let you provide consistent training to everyone on your team, whether theyre in the office or working from home. Training creates higher-skilled employees. When businesses go through economic slumps, sometimes training is the only thing they can offer to help their employees. While pay raises are always appreciated, employees have actually listed many other factors as more important. Appreciation for the hard work they do actually ranks at the top of that list, demonstrating the full value of caring about your workers. In a highly competitive business environment, businesses often find that if they dont invest in their employees, they may be easily won over by competitors trying to lure them away. When a business has a full staff of highly-qualified employees on staff, it can use those qualifications to impress clients, get funding and more. If you dont put that investment in and your competitors do, you may find they are winning the market in your specialty area. The qualifications of your team do make a big difference and when you invest in them, you boost your own businesss image. Related: 4 Secrets Behind the Best Employee Training If you havent sent your employees to training recently, it might be time to change that. For best results, sit down with each employee and outline individual career goals, creating a training plan that will get the best results. Related: Here's How Going Cheap on Employee Training Is Costing You 5 Tips for Dealing With Explosive Growth Will Training Help Improve Employee Performance? Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NORWALK The Brien McMahon High School music community has an unusual request for families across Norwalk. They are asking families to open up their homes to strangers this spring, if only for one or two nights. The request comes as the school, along with the city of Norwalk, will host the New England Regional Music Festival in March. The festival will draw to town more than 400 of New England's most gifted music students for the three-day concert festival and all of those kids will need a place to stay. So, members of the schools music community are asking families across the city to take in students March 16-18 in order to successfully host the prestigious festival for the very first time. As an educator I think it's very important to give these kids an opportunity to perform in a festival outside of school, said Ronald Secchi, band director at Brien McMahon High School. We have been used to the kids performing at Western Regionals and All State concerts ... its important to give our kids a chance to perform ... with students outside of Connecticut and Norwalk. The school community has so far been able to find housing for roughly 200 of the students, but with just a couple of months left until the event they are scrambling to recruit more volunteers. Host families will have to undergo a background check. They must provide overnight accommodations, local transportation and meals for their guest students. Students previously auditioned to earn a slot within the music festival. Only the top students from across New England were selected to partake in the festival. Brien McMahon High School students seemed thrilled at the opportunity to host the event. Its amazing that we get the chance to host this huge festival, said Gavin McGee, an 11th-grade bass and tenor chorus member who made it into the festival. Since freshman year, McGee said it was his goal to qualify. He achieved that goal last year and traveled to New Hampshire to partake in the festival. As a musician Ive grown significantly and Ive gotten a new love for choral music, McGee said of his experience with the festival. Ive never really been able to get this huge choir sound and it was really, really amazing to be able to come and have these professionals show us what they want in perfect harmony and perfect blending During the festival, the musicians come together to learn new music, rehearse and ultimately perform a concert. McGee said for choir last year they had a professional come in to teach new music she had written and give a master class on the material. We got to do all these different techniques that we never imagined before, McGee said. For last years festival, McGee walked to rehearsal every morning from his host family's house. There, he bunked with friends. Though, he admitted they were roughing it on mattresses on the floor and surviving mostly on delivered pizza, he said it was a great experience and it made him grow closer to his peers. It was huge for me, he said, reiterating the importance of working to get families to take in students. There is a likely chance that some kids will never be granted this chance again. To Daniela Flores, an 11th-grade clarinet player at the school who was accepted into the festival, the event is important because it has given her a new air of confidence. I wasn't very confident in my abilities and what I thought I could do, Flores said. After auditioning, I just feel more confident and I feel like I can do more things than I ever could've thought about before. She hopes families across the city will come together to help make the festival a success. KSchultz@thehour.com; 203- 354-1049; @kevinedschultz Anadolu Agency | Getty Images One of the newest McDonalds locations caused quite a stir when it opened its doors on Dec. 30. The restaurant is housed in a building owned by the Vatican, steps away from St. Peters Basilica, so perhaps its not surprising that several members of the Church werent super thrilled with the new addition. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate GREENWICH Chris von Keyserling, a member of the Representative Town Meeting and an outspoken commentator on town affairs, is facing a criminal charge of fourth-degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor. Von Keyserling was arrested Wednesday on a warrant issued in connection with an incident that took place Dec. 9 on Parsonage Road, according to the arrest report. He was arrested at Town Hall. His lawyer, Phil Russell, described the charge on Thursday as unrealistic. Von Keyserling, 71, of East Putnam Avenue, Cos Cob, was released on a $2,500 bond and given a court date of Jan. 25. Reached by phone, von Keyserling deferred comment to his attorney, Phil Russell. Its a sad situation, von Keyserling said. Russell said the incident in question, at the Nathaniel Witherell Home, could not be described as sexual or aggressive in nature. He said the charge stemmed from a jocular moment with a woman at a gathering at the town-owned senior facility. In almost 30 years of practicing law in this town, I would say Mr. von Keyserling is the one person I would never suspect of having any inappropriate sexual predilections, Russell said, noting his client is in his 70s. There was a playful gesture, in front of witnesses. It was too trivial to be considered anything of significance. To call it a sexual assault is not based in reality, the lawyer said. Von Keyserling will enter a plea of not guilty at his upcoming court appearance, his lawyer said. According to the arrest warrant on file at Superior Court, the incident began when von Keyserling had a brief political discussion with a 57-year-old female employee at the Witherell. The discussion turned acrimonious, according to the court papers, and the woman went to her office. The encounter continued in the office, and when the woman rose to leave, she was pinched on her rear end by von Keyserling, according to the affidavit. She later told investigators she detected an evil look in his eyes when they had a brief verbal exchange as she was leaving the office. The woman reported the incident to the administration at the Witherell. On Dec. 16, she decided to pursue the matter with police. Police reviewed videotape of the office. According to the affidavit, it was unclear where von Keyserlings hand was when the woman walked past him. The sequence of events documented on the video was consistent with the womans account, according to court papers, and she was seen pointing a finger at von Keyserling in a disapproving, agitated manner on the video. Robert.Marchant@scni.com It was a quick call for all four school systems in Grand Island to cancel classes for Monday. Grand Island Public, Grand Island Northwest, Grand Island Central Catholic and Heartland Lutheran High School announced on Sunday that there would be no school on Monday. Freezing rain began to coat Central Nebraska highways, streets and sidewalks with ice on Sunday evening, with the everything becoming even slicker on Monday. Central Community College also announced that there would be no classes at any of its three campuses or education centers. After initially refusing to cancel Monday nights Grand Island school board meeting, the meeting was postponed to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, with the agenda remaining the same. Marketing and Communications Coordinator Jack Sheard sent out an email late Sunday afternoon announcing the cancellation of school, with the email simultaneously answering a question that many students and parents might be asking: "Since this is the first day lost to weather this school year, it will not be made up." Northwest Superintendent Matt Fisher said he consulted on Sunday with Grand Island Public Schools Superintendent Tawana Grover, Central Catholic Superintendent Steve Osborn and Heartland Lutheran Principal Timothy Leech about whether those schools might also cancel classes on Monday. Everybody made a Sunday decision to call off school rather than wait until the early morning hours on Monday. "It looked like it was definitely going to be icy this morning," Fisher said. "In talking with the other superintendents, we all decided that it was probably going to be best to just not go today. We all four did some texting back and forth and made a couple of phone calls." Fisher said it makes it a little easier to call off school when he knows the other Grand Island school systems have also canceled classes for the day. Northwest and Heartland Lutheran are in a little different situation than Grand Island Public Schools and Central Catholic, because a good portion of their students drive themselves from rural areas to get to high school. "It (Monday) was one of those situations where, regardless of what we got with snow, it was going to be bad driving conditions today," Fisher said. Fisher said he did go to Northwest High School and noted that it was definitely slick, both driving and walking. He said another round of consultations with fellow superintendents would probably begin later on Monday afternoon on whether to hold school on Tuesday. He noted the precipitation is supposed to end Monday evening, with temperatures expected to be close to 40 degrees on Tuesday. However, Fisher said it will be cold overnight, which means he will probably have to see how well crews have done in de-icing highways and roads to make travel relatively safe in the morning. Fisher noted that Northwest usually makes a decision either to have classes as normally scheduled or to cancel them completely. Northwest rarely makes a decision to have a late start to classes because there are so many families where both parents work that it puts them in a bind to have a late start to school. That also has been the philosophy for Grand Island Public Schools, which also has a majority of families in which both parents have jobs during the day. But on Monday, that was not a problem with many Grand Island businesses also closing for the day, which meant that many parents or perhaps at least one parent could stay home with their children and avoid venturing out on the slick city streets and sidewalks. Donald Trump is right. (Ive been waiting weeks for a chance to write that.) Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, the president-elect tweeted last weekend. Only stupid people, or fools, would think that it is bad! Thats true; no sensible person wants a state of hostility with a nuclear superpower. But and you knew a but was coming Trump tweeted his foreign policy doctrine with an essential piece missing. The goal of American foreign policy is to protect U.S. interests, not to achieve a good relationship with any particular country much less a country as troubling in its conduct as Vladimir Putins Russia. Trump hasnt given a full-scale foreign policy speech since April, when he unveiled his America First slogan. He did, however, suggest during the campaign that he would focus on a few core goals: Defeating the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. Negotiating better trade deals to bring jobs back to the United States. Curbing Irans power in the Middle East, and canceling or renegotiating President Obamas nuclear deal. Putins goals conflict with U.S. interests more often than they coincide. Renegotiating the NATO alliance to force other countries to spend more on their own defense with a warning that the U.S. might not defend them against Russia if they dont. Heres the problem with Trumps bromance with Putin: Of the four items on that list, the Russian leader might be helpful with one, the fight against Islamic terrorists. Hes not so interested in the others. Bringing U.S. jobs back? Not his problem. Curbing Iran and scrapping the nuclear deal? Actually, Putins proud of the role he played in negotiating the agreement, and hes been busy selling advanced weapons to the ayatollahs. Renegotiating NATO? Putin may want to encourage Trump on that one but mostly to see if he can undermine the Western alliance. Putins priorities are different from ours. He wants to stay in power and stave off what he sees as Western pressure to democratize. He wants to restore Russias sphere of influence over the countries of the former Soviet Union, beginning with Ukraine, which he invaded in 2014. He wants to weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which he views as a hostile military alliance. In other words, Putins goals conflict with U.S. interests more often than they coincide. In addition, Russia experts believe Putin actually prefers to cast the United States as an adversary, because it helps him maintain his hold on power. The legitimacy of Putins system of repressive domestic controls depends on the existence of external threats, William J. Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, wrote last week. If he cant easily build Russia up, he can take the United States down a few pegs with his characteristic tactical agility and his willingness to play rough and take risks. Republicans including the ones inside the new Trump administration are divided over how much U.S.-Russian cooperation is feasible. Trumps nominees as secretary of Defense (James Mattis), CIA chief (Mike Pompeo) and national intelligence director (Dan Coats) have all described Putin as an adversary, not a friend. Meanwhile, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps choice as national security advisor, has long argued that an alliance with Russia is key to defeating Islamic terrorism. We cant do what we want to do unless we work with Russia, period, he said last year. And Trumps top political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has said he thinks Putin can be enlisted in a joint effort to contain the growing power of both Iran and China. Trump has already proposed a way to settle the question: Just give Putin a chance. Some say the Russians wont be reasonable; I intend to find out, he said in April. If we cant make a good deal for America, then we will quickly walk from the table. But he still needs to define what a good deal would be. Here are three specific steps Trump should take: First, he should reassure U.S. allies that he doesnt plan to walk away from NATO treaty commitments. (The three small Baltic states, which feel directly threatened by Russia, are already racing to meet their commitments on defense spending.) Second, Trump should announce that he wont support any relaxation of Western sanctions against Russia unless Putin withdraws from eastern Ukraine. Former U.S. envoy Stephen Sestanovich says the Russians are waiting to see if Trump will act without asking for anything in return. The other side never pays for something it expects to get for free, he wrote. Third, the president-elect should wait for the 90-day review of cybersecurity hes requested before tweaking any of the Obama administrations added cybersanctions. Until now, hes treated questions about Russian hacking as political attacks on his legitimacy; once hes safely in office, he might be able to consider them more calmly as a question of U.S. security interests. Trump should take his own advice: Deal with Putin from a position of strength, not weakness and seek good relations only in pursuit of a good deal, not as an end in themselves. There exists a famous photo of previous presidents gathered around Barack Obama in the Oval Office shortly before he began his first term. Its as though they all dropped by to wish him luck. What makes this photo such a gem is the positioning of the men: Obama appears to be chummy with both the Bushes, while Bill Clinton stands close by with that recognizable grin. But off to the side stands Jimmy Carter, seemingly singular and oddly out-of-place. Many regard President Carter, the first of the photographed group to serve as president, a failed leader. Consider that much of his proposed legislation never made it out of a Democrat-controlled Congress. And his image as a bullying micromanager, his mishandling of the nuclear debacle at Three Mile Island and the Iran hostage crisis are all most Americans think about when it comes to Carters legacy. Yet he may well end up being considered the greatest president ever given his involvement as a peacekeeper, his tireless effort to build homes for the impoverished and his stalwart commitment to human rights. None of his living peers can make the same claim: George H.W. and George W. have both slipped into an abyss away from the public eye, while Clinton has spent the last few years running from intense scrutiny deserved or not as a wheeler-dealer who may have improperly operated his familys foundation. The former presidents varied histories makes one wonder: What will become of Obama after Jan. 20? Like Carter, hes a former outsider who can extend his legacy well beyond his White House years. It would be a mistake, though, to cast Obama in the same light as Carter. After all, he was able to pass meaningful health care legislation and did manage to kill the most wanted terrorist in the world, among other major achievements. When it comes to a post-presidency, though, its clear to me the former law professor and community organizer would do well to follow Carters path. Just as Carter has plied his talent and energy to help transform Habitat for Humanity into a poverty-eradicating force and to ensure free elections in the worlds most dangerous countries, Obama could do the same in health care, using his powerful voice and committed base to ensure safe and affordable access for millions of poor Americans, especially children and the elderly. He could become a powerful voice for gun control, having witnessed some of our nations most tragic mass shootings Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Orlando while in office. He might even take up the cause of criminal justice reform and work to bring change to a broken system that houses the largest number of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders of any nation in the world. Whatever path he chooses, Obama will leave office young and with his health intact, a claim few former presidents can make. If he so chooses to employ them, the unbridled energy and ability to create consensus hes displayed throughout his political career will propel him to great things still. He can choose to stand idly with other former president, or, like Carter, he can choose to stand apart. Analysis: The elusive truth behind incendiary political mailers in PA Mailboxes around Bucks County will need a good delousing as a campaign season that plumbed new depths for negative advertising draws to a close. It was a packed house at Mt. Joy Missionary Baptist Church as members of the community joined parishioners in the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The service, filled with music, dance and worship, was highlighted by the keynote address from Pastor Troy M. Benton, St. Johns United Methodist Church. Bentons message to the public was aligned with Kings last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? In 1967, King isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, rented a house in Jamaica and labored over his final manuscript. In this book, King laid out his thoughts, plans and dreams for Americas future after passing of civil rights legislation. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. Bentons message asked the question What do we do now? Benton told the audience that today, 50 years later we are still asking the same question. He said all races are still questioning the political, economic and cultural systems and the questions remains, What do we do now? The election is over, Benton said. Comments have been made, both sides, good and bad, regardless of what side you stand on, no one has clean hands in this fight. The truth is we all have skin in this game. We must remember on this day we celebrate the life and legacy of one who at the centrality of his soul simply wanted to be a Christian preacher. Practice what you teach, not preach. Preaching is for fools who listen to the heart while teaching is for those who wish to learn the disciplines of life. On this day as we celebrate the life, legacy and times of this dream, we must look past our dysfunctions, look past our depression and lean forward to the dreams that are in us preaching is for Sunday, teaching is for Monday at some point we have to take on the lessons we have learned in this January season. We must transition into a new day and new hope. Those who have not practiced what they teach tie themselves up in heavy burdens, hard to bear and lay them on the shoulders of others but they themselves arent willing to lift a finger to move them. Benton also pointed out that there has been much discussion about Kings personal and psychological struggles, but reminded the attendees that Dr. King was human. Benton said with all of the fights and struggles King had, he averaged daily over 70 calls, 172 miles of travel, four speeches and an average of two to three death threats daily. He kept on keepin' on, Benton said. He dreamed and he loved and he shared and he cared because his God cared. At the end of the day King was resting on his faith and so he challenges us in this hour, if we are going to go anywhere, we have to learn not who we are but who we serve. Benton said the question of Where do we go from here? is yet to be answered. We dont have the courage to consider, much less take on, the question of where do we go from here. The answer is not a destination, but a revelation. He offered his reflections on the question. Benton said if we are going to abide by Kings dream we must treat each other as equal of value in word and deed while others reject us. Using a quote of Dr. King, We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools, Benton said. We need to stop judging on how we speak, how we use diction, it's not how you say it but where it comes from, treat people right, love people right and do right. And when its wrong, point it out. Right is right and wrong is wrong. He also said people must use honest and compassionate language and have unflinching integrity. Have one voice, one love. Walls are wrong, hate is wrong. We must say in an unflinching voice just because you dont like them doesnt mean they dont have a right to be here, Benton said. Look past the content of character and color, confront evil and say this is wrong! Benton also encouraged everyone to live life to the fullest. We must begin to live and not simply exist, Benton said. You have to get out and live. You have to have friends that dont look like you, some friends that are smarter than you, better than you, have more money than you. You need to get out the scratch pad and start looking at things and if you see something that you dont like the way it looks, you have to do something about it, get involved be active and live. Dr. King was the international pastor of the world and he took the time to go to Jamaica. If he can do that, surely you can take two hours to go see a movie. Benton closed by telling the audience that the most important thing to do to make Kings dream a realization is to communicate with each other. This is the tough one. We must talk to those who are willing to talk and pray for those who will not, Benton said. He encouraged people to have discussion with people who share different views. It's one thing to have conflict and another to not complete the conflict to reconciliation, he said. Dr. King spent three hours with a Klansman that tried to kill him. When was the last time you reconciled with someone in your house? Much less your neighborhood or your community. Benton challenged the audience to engage in conversation of compassion. Take the risk to be offended...you can still go home offended, but there is a big difference between being offended by conversation and offended by ignorance. DailyFX.com - Talking Points: Most Asian shares struggled with a stronger Yen, making life especially tough for the Nikkei However, the British Pound was the sessions major laggard, hammered by hard Brexit fears With the US on its Martin Luther King Jr day break, we may be stuck with these themes Shares in Asia started the new week on a sour note Monday, with a weaker US Dollar biting Japans Nikkei especially hard. The British Pound was the sessions major casualty however, clobbered anew by worries that the UK will walk away from the European single market, the hard Brexit that markets have long hoped might be avoided. Shares in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea were all under the cosh. The latters Kospi had the added problem of weakness in Samsung stocks following news that a special prosecutor in Seoul will seek an arrest warrant for group chief Jay Lee on charges in relation to an influence peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye. Australias ASX was the only index to buck the trend. It continued to climb on the back of ongoing strength in commodity prices and the shares of mining companies. Stocks in Chinas second-largest equity market plunged the hardest for ten months. The tech-heavy Shenzhen Composite Index sank as much as 6.1%, the biggest loss since late February, with 80 stocks falling by their 10% daily limits. The index has looked vulnerable ever since it was opened up to Hong Kong-based buyers last month. The Shanghai Composite Index dropped as much as 2.2 percent in minutes before paring losses. The session was really all about that British Pound however. It languished at three-month lows after UK Sunday media reports that London is prepared to make a hard exit from the European Union. This would involve losing free access to the European single market and the customs union. GBP/USD fell as far as 1.1983 in early Asian trade, a depth not plumbed since the so-called flash crash of early October. It has since retraced back above the 1.20 handle but looks far from comfortable there. The markets are now looking ahead with some trepidation to UK Prime Minister Theresa Mays next speech about Brexit, which is scheduled for Tuesday. Billed as her most important commentary yet on the subject, it must put plenty of flesh on the bones of her negotiating position if its going to live up to that billing. Story continues The gathering clouds over the Pound distracted investors from a few darker ones over the US Dollar, which had come under some rare pressure in recent sessions as investors wondered what to expect in terms of economic policy from Donald Trump. He becomes President, rather than President-elect, on Friday. The Euro and the Japanese Yen were the major beneficiaries of these transatlantic doubts, with both moving higher through Mondays session. With US markets thinned hugely by the Martin Luther King Jr Day break, European markets may have little to do save kicking over Asias themes. Scheduled economic news is thin with the Eurozones trade balance and Canadas new home sales figures coming up. Neither seems likely to be able to override markets rather febrile watch for anything Brexit-related. Over the edge: GBP/USDs dramatic gap lower Asian Stocks Wilt, British Pound Hammered By New Brexit Worries Chart compiled using TradingView Would you like to know more about financial-market trading? The DailyFX webinars are an excellent starting point. --- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research Contact and follow David on Twitter:@DavidCottleFX 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. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 16:17 2118 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bb50f54 1 Lifestyle Amazon,#Amazon,e-commerce,#eCommerce,India,#India,Mahatma-Gandhi,flip-flops,controversy Free The sale of pink flip-flops bearing the face of Mahatma Gandhi, Indias independence icon, by Amazon USA has sparked outrage. Twitter user Mayank Parmar posted the following on Sunday regarding the circulated screengrabs of the US$16.99 item, #Amazon should be banned in India. They have crossed the limit. This is ridiculous! Another user, Ashok Tanwar, posted, #Amazon must rollback its slippers with the face of Mahatma Gandhi on it. Respect our leaders and avoid controversy. (Read also: Amazon plans to hire 100,000 over the next 18 months) Amazon in danger again! Features Gandhi's picture on Flip-Flops After Tricolour Doormats! https://t.co/aJeKMWM2ei India Samvad (@india_samvad) January 15, 2017 Ironically, the flip-flops were described on the website as a product that will look great and make someone smile. According to AFP, Amazon could not be contacted for comment, but the item has apparently been removed from the companys website. Just a few days ago, Amazon was forced to stop selling doormats featuring the national flag of India, following demands for an apology as well as a warning of strict action against the company by Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj. Amazon has already made plans to invest $5 billion in the country after getting into the cut-throat, fast-expanding e-commerce market in 2013. A spokesman of the ministry reportedly commented that the Ambassador in Washington has been instructed to convey to Amazon that while providing a platform for third-party vendors, they should respect Indian sensitivities and sentiments. (nik/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Christopher Ross (Bloomberg) Mon, January 16, 2017 For a drink with only two ingredients, the martini inspires a disproportional level of disagreement. Its exact origins still a matter of dispute, the beloved combination of dry vermouth and clear liquor tends to attract purists who insist fiercely on their own particular dogma: gin over vodka; two olives, instead of a lemon twist; stirred, not shaken; don't you dare go overboard on the vermouth. But bartenders are beginning to push back against such rigid ideas about the 20th-century classic. My philosophy is, theres too many rules, said Alessandro Palazzi, bar manager at Dukes, the tony London mecca thats said to be where author Ian Fleming devised James Bonds martini order. Today, a section on the Dukes menu advises customers not to get caught up in custom and simply order a version that excites their taste buds. One variation in particular has been stealing the spotlight: the 50/50. Its a refreshing, easy-drinking take that calls for equal parts gin and dry vermouth instead of the two-parts-to-one specifications of the traditional recipe. For vermouth detractorssuch as Winston Churchill, who once said that all the vermouth his martini needed was a bow in the direction of France, where much of the product is madethis formula might seem like apostasy. Less alcohol isn't bad Modern drinkers, however, are trending toward lower-alcohol cocktails and showing renewed interest in fortified wines like vermouth. Whereas drier martini versions have that pronounced boozy burn, the wetter 50/50 conceals its ABV beneath a rich, flavorful botanical profile that evokes rose petal, dried herbs, and citrus. The higher proportion of vermouth gives it a lush textureand a clearer head in the morning. The 50/50 is how Palazzi himself often prefers it. Its a beautiful drink, he said, the closest he comes to an endorsement. His lone rule? Savor the flavors of your martini in the same way you would a glass of wine, no matter your recipe preference. You should take your time with it, he said. The 50/50 martini recipe 1.5 oz. gin (your preference, though philistines can also use vodka) 1.5 oz. dry vermouth (we recommend Dolin Dry) 1 lemon Combine in a mixing glass, fill with ice, and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe or martini glass, serve up with a lemon twist. Three other martinis to try in London Where: The Connaught Bar What to order: Gibson A Gibson, which comes with a cocktail onion instead of olives.(Bloomberg/Ted Cavanaugh) (Read also: What is a hop-free beer? And why is it so delicious?) If youre in the mood to seal the deal the old-fashioned way, go to this gilded Mayfair hideaway that has been designed like a glamorous 1920s lounge. As at Dukes, a white-gloved attendant mixes martinis tableside over a bar cart, or you can order from famed master bartender Agostino Perrone at the beautiful marble bar. Try a classic GibsonCary Grants order from North By Northwestwith Beefeater gin and a delectable cocktail onion, which lends the drink a savory character. Where: The American Bar at the Savoy What to order: Martinez The martinez, a martini with maraschino liqueur.(Bloomberg/Ted Cavanaugh) Said to be the oldest cocktail bar in London (it opened in 1893), this legendary Strand watering hole was where Harry Craddock held court and compiled his 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, still a standard reference for cocktail bartenders today. Frank Sinatra, who sipped and sang there, was a regular. Given the historical legacy, its a fitting place to order a Martinez, which is widely believed to be the grandfather of the martini: The mix of gin, sweet vermouth, and maraschino liqueur harkens back to a time when palates were accustomed to less-bitter drinks. Where: The Bar With No Name at 69 Colebrooke Row What to order: Dirty Martini A classic dirty martini.(Bloomberg/Ted Cavanaugh) This dark, underground bar from Londons mad cocktail scientist Tony Conigliaro serves up some of the most inventive spins on canon classicswith none of the attitude of U.S. cocktail dens. For his twist on the dirty martini, the bar staff replaces the briny flavor profile of olive juice with the bright, vegetal notes of caper berries, infused in Beefeater gin and garnished with a caper leaf. Enjoy as a pianist tickles the ivories in the background. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 10:52 2118 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bb434c6 4 Parents bed-wetting,children,#children,health,#health,parents,#parents,parenting,#parenting Free Child bed-wetting is normal at stages of early development, yet when it still happens when the child reaches school age or 7 years of age, medical and psychological factors might be contributing to the issue. Only one out of eight school-aged children experience bed-wetting or nocturnal enuresis, kompas.com reported. Studies still show that 1 out of 20 children age 10 still wet the bed, and approximately 1-2 percent of children up to the age of 15 still struggle with bed-wetting. (Read also: Top tips for flying with children) Causes Nerve, genetic and psychological factors play a part in bed-wetting. Writer of Waking Up Dry Howard Bennett explains that the childs brain does not send nerve signals to the bladder system while sleeping. Genetically-speaking, bed-wetting could have been passed down if three out of four of the childs siblings, parents, aunts, uncles or cousins have experienced it too. In terms of psychology, bed-wetting can be triggered by the childs disordered mental well-being that could have been caused by issues in school, parental divorce or even the birth of a younger sibling. Although quite rare, bed-wetting can also be caused by a bladder infection that disorders the function of the bladder, making it hard for children to urinate and defecate as well. (Read also: Why passive smoking is harmful for your children) Talking to your child Parents should note that a childs bed-wetting habit should not be brought up in a way that undermines the child's confidence; parents are supposed to understand the issue not punish or humiliate the child. Parents can gently discuss this with their child and tell their child that other children experience this too. Parents can explain that when asleep, the brain cannot control the bladder. Hence, bed-wetting is not intentional. The older the child gets, the less likely he or she is to continue wetting the bed, psychologist Lawrence Balter points out. (Read also: Hefty children do not equal healthy children) Prevention To lessen the frequency of bed-wetting, a childs consumption of food containing a lot of salt, sugar and caffeine should be limited. Prior to sleep, the child should also be encouraged to urinate first. (mra/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The Agus-Sylvi pair would win the Jakarta gubernatorial election if voting took place today, a study shows. A recent study by Jakarta-based PT Grup Riset Potensial (GRP) places Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and his running mate Sylviana Murni as frontrunners in the gubernatorial race with 46.4 percent of votes from 194 districts out of the total 267 districts in Jakarta. The study places the Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno pair in second with 20.9 percent of the votes while the incumbent Basuki "Ahok Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Syaiful Hidayat pair ranks third with 20.4 percent of the votes. GRP president director Satrio Wiseno explained that each of the contesting pairs had secured votes from districts with residents sharing similar identities with the candidates. He exemplified his point by noting how Ahok-Djarot were favored in areas with large numbers of ethnic Chinese residents, like in Glodok, West Jakarta. "It is clear that identity is a distinctive factor in the election," he said. The GRP's study recorded 12.4 percent of undecided voters who pay less attention to religious and racial considerations in making their decisions. The GRP conducted the survey from Jan. 2-7 and involved 2,745 respondents representing each district in Jakarta using a Mobile Survey Application (MOSAIC) technique. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Residents of Batu Merah subdistrict in Sirimau, Ambon, blocked Jl. Jenderal Sudirman, which spans the subdistricts central area, on Sunday evening in protest of the police's slow response to legally process a case involving a fatal clash that killed a high school student identified as Ibnu Kusuma, 16, last Friday. The residents blocked the street with iron bars and traffic separators at 10 p.m. local time. Passersby were also blocked off and told to turn around, kompas.com reported. The protest made residents wary and caused traffic congestion in the area. We want the police to immediately arrest the perpetrator, we also want the police to erect a permanent post at Gedung Putih because thats a troubled area, the residents, mostly young people, yelled. Gedung Putih is a neighborhood in the Pasar Mardika area in Ambon, Maluku. Hundreds from the National Police and Indonesian Military had secured the vicinity. The protest ended after Batu Merah figures and a police officer who is a Batu Merah resident, Adj. Comr. Muhamad Musaad, negotiated with the demonstrators. Ibnu died from a gunshot during a clash between residents. The incident was triggered on Friday by a Batu Merah resident having had his handphone stolen, where then Batu Merah residents accused Gedung Putih residents that the perpetrator came from their neighborhood. A clash ensued and then shots were heard. Ibnu died while another man, M. Yasin Syukur was shot on the arm. (evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The Financial Services Authority (OJK) and the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) are finalizing amendments to two IDX regulations on margin trading. Margin trading allows investors to purchase more stocks than they would be able to under normal circumstances by borrowing money from their brokers. The revised IDX Regulation III-I concerning stocks and trading in margin and short-selling transactions distinguishes between two categories of securities firms. (Read also: IDX eyes transactions from 250,000 active investors) Those with a net adjusted working capital (MKBD) above Rp 250 billion (US$18.7 million) will be allowed to engage in margin trading on all eligible stocks, while those with less working capital can only margin trade LQ45 stocks. IDX data from last Thursday show that only 28 of 105 active securities firms have MKBD exceeding Rp 250 billion. The revision also introduces several provisions not stipulated in existing regulations, such as the takeover of a customers obligations by another securities firm. Meanwhile, a revision of IDX Regulation II-H concerning margin and/or short-selling relaxes margin stocks criteria and enables more stocks to be transacted in margin trading. The relaxation is expected to increase the number of stocks eligible for margin trading to 179 stocks from 57. "We have already finished the draft and are waiting for the OJK's approval," IDX president director Tito Sulistio told a media briefing in Jakarta on Monday. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan Mon, January 16 2017 A drug ring controlled by inmates at Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, North Sumatra, has been discovered in another case revealing security flaws in one of the most crowded penitentiaries in the country. The syndicate was first discovered when an inmate was caught at a hospital outside the prison without any prison guards. It was later discovered that he was controlling a transaction of 10 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in front of Medan Grand Mosque. 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 Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The Financial Services Authority (OJK) expects to see 21 initial public offerings (IPO) this year, lower than the 35 that has been targeted by the bourse. "In deciding the target, we have to look at our achievements in recent years," OJK commissioner for capital market supervision Nurhaida said after attending the OJK's annual dinner in Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla attended the event along with hundreds of businesspeople involved in the country's financial services. The authority noted that the number of newly listed companies had been decreasing in recent years but it expressed optimism that with extra effort, the actual number could be higher than what was being targeted, Nurhaida added. A total of 16 IPOs were recorded last year, which was slightly better than the 15 in 2015. The number of companies going public stood at 30 and 20 in 2013 and 2014, respectively. "We will work with Kadin [Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry] to approach prospective companies and encourage SOEs [state-owned enterprises] to go public," she said, adding that her office would also approach private companies that won the OJK's annual report award to list their shares at the bourse as they already practized good governance. The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) is struggling to lure more private companies to float their shares on the local stock market. Previously, IDX president director Tito Sulistio paid a visit to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, asking the government to help encourage 52 companies that listed their shares overseas to also do so on the local bourse. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 More Indonesians have access to and are aware about financial services, a survey by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) shows. The latest results of the National Survey on Financial Literacy and Inclusion (SNLIK) revealed that the financial literacy increased to 29.7 percent last year from 21.8 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, the financial inclusion index rose to 67.8 percent last year from 59.7 percent. The authority hopes to achieve a financial inclusion rate of 75 percent by 2019, as targeted by the government, with a new program to be rolled out this year. "We will soon initiate an assistance program, involving society and academia in the regions," OJK chairman Muliaman D. Hadad said during the OJK's annual dinner in Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla attended the event, along with hundreds of businesspeople from the country's financial services industry. The program will include a public information campaign and educational events, Muliaman said. "This program will definitely require the involvement of financial services companies, too," he added. A lack of financial inclusion has been blamed for Indonesians relatively low savings. Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show that Indonesias gross national saving to gross domestic product (GDP) stood at a ratio of 30.87 percent as of 2014, compared to 46.73 percent reported by neighboring Singapore. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Hadi Utomo, the Democratic Party chairman from 2005 to 2010, passed away in Jakarta on Sunday. He died at the age of 71. The former House of Representatives member would be buried at the Pujo Utaman family cemetery in Klepu, Ungaran, Semarang regency, Central Java. Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife Ani Yudhoyono paid their final respects at Hadis residence in Condet, East Jakarta, on Sunday morning. They were accompanied by their sons, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, who is running for Jakarta governor, and Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono. Hadi was born in Semarang, Central Java, on Aug. 15, 1945. The retired military colonel was an alumni of the Military Academy (Akabri) class of 1970, senior to Yudhoyono who graduated in 1973. Hatta Rajasa, former coordinating economic minister under the Yudhoyono administration, said he was acquainted with Hadi as they were both active in politics during the same era. We both spent quite a long time in politics, said Hatta when he paid his final respects to the late inaugural chairman of the Dems at the latters house. Hatta said Hadi was really a kind person who had paid close attention to the development of democracy in Indonesia. Despite his military background, Hatta said, Hadi was highly interested in the countrys democratic development. It was no surprise that under Hadis leadership, the Dems became a party with high electability. It can be said he [Hadi] had contributed to the success of the Democratic Party becoming the number one political party in Indonesia [during previous administrations], said Hatta. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab says the group is calling for the dismissal of West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan due to the latters unfairness in mediating a conflict between FPI members and followers of the Indonesian General Society Movement (GMBI). Rizieq claimed that Antons position as head of the GMBIs supervisory body could have led to such unfairness. We are coming here to report Anton Charliyan to Propam [the police's internal affairs division] because he is not fair, Rizieq said at a rally held by FPI members in front of the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Monday. He did not elaborate further. (Read also: FPI rally demands dismissal of West Java Police chief) Attended by hundreds of FPI followers and supporters, the rally ran peacefully. Several female police officers and female military personnel were seen distributing water and candy to rally participants. The water was actually provided for officers who secured the rally but they eventually distributed it to the protesters. Please come and take it, a policewoman said to several rally participants who were standing near her. A clash between FPI members and GMBI followers occurred during Rizieqs questioning at the West Java Police headquarters last Thursday. He was questioned over allegedly insulting the state ideology of Pancasila. Following the clash, several people believed to be FPI members on Friday attacked the GMBI secretariat in Ciampea, Bogor regency, West Java. The police arrested 20 people allegedly involved in the attack, some of whom have been named suspects. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16 2017 The government has reiterated that local miners, particularly nickel, bauxite and copper miners, will be allowed to export their products should they express a commitment to build their own smelters and be able to supply domestic smelters with at least 30 percent of their input capacity. President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration issued on Jan. 11 the fourth revision to Government Regulation No. 23/2010 on the management of mineral and coal businesses, which allows miners to continue exporting copper concentrates, certain amounts of low-grade nickel ore and washed bauxite under certain conditions. Nickel and bauxite miners can export after supplying 30 percent of the input of existing domestic smelters. They also have to be committed to building their own smelters within five years, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said Saturday in a press briefing. 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 Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said she expects religious leaders to play a greater role in encouraging people to avail themselves of the tax amnesty. Sri Mulyani on Monday attended a public campaign event held by the directorate general of taxation and gave a speech in front of leaders and members of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI). A session for Muslims was scheduled for the afternoon. In her speech, Sri Mulyani said raising public awareness about the tax amnesty was the governments biggest task in making the country more prosperous and fair. (Read also:Tax reform team: Aim higher, the force is with you) This is a very heavy task to take on, and one of the important things to help [us succeed] is to collect sufficient taxes. Thats why we are using this opportunity to explain [the tax amnesty], she said. As the tax amnesty has entered the third and final phase, which will end on March 31, Sri Mulyani said the government would continue to raise awareness about the program among a wider scope of professions and practitioners in various economic sectors. Meanwhile, PGI representative Rev. Darwin Lumbantobing raised hopes that similar public campaigns could be held by tax authorities outside Jakarta, as the organization had millions of adherents across the country. PGI claims that its membership represents 80 percent of all Christians in Indonesia, as it has 88 churches with more than 15 million people, including a strong presence in North Sumatra and North Sulawesi. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16 2017 The Mie Ayam 88 ruko (shophouse) on Jl. Kyai Maja 77 in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, burned down on Sunday morning. Usman, Fire Fighting and Rescue Sub-Agencys Kebayoran Lamas First Sector head, said 14 fire trucks were deployed after the agency received the report at 5:25 a.m. The fire was extinguished by officers by 7:05 a.m. There are no fallen victims, Usman said on Sunday, as quoted by beritajakarta.com. 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 Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 President Joko Jokowi Widodo on Thursday opened the four-day Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police leaders meeting at TNI headquarters in Jakarta, instructing the two institutions to move fast to tackle any barriers that could hamper the governments national development programs in 2017. Jokowi asked the 184 TNI and 78 high-ranking National Police officials attending the annual event to be prepared to face social and economic challenges that could result from a long-lasting global economic slowdown this year. We need to implement the right policies to take on challenges we may face [this year], Jokowi said in his opening remarks at the forum. (Read also: TNI chief denies spat with Jokowi) TNI commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said the meeting was crucial to discuss efforts the TNI and National Police would take to face global challenges that could affect Indonesia this year. The global competition is tough now, with global players eyeing the energy and food as well as water potential available in countries like ours. This competition, if unchecked, could become a conspiracy by big countries that could pose a threat [for Indonesia], Gatot said. Before attending the TNI and National Police leaders meeting, Gatot took Jokowi and National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian to ride a new Anoa Amphibious tank by made by state-owned land system and weapons maker PT Pindad to cross a lake located inside TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta.(jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 President Joko Jokowi Widodo declined to comment on Monday on the controversy surrounding a book about him titled Jokowi Undercover, whose author Bambang Tri Mulyono has been arrested by the National Police for defamation. The President said there was no reason for him to read or to make a comment about the book, which he implied had been written without using valid data and without following academic rules on book publishing. If the data is not collected scientifically and there are obscure sources, then why do I have to read or comment about it? Jokowi said after meeting with Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police leaders at the TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta. Bambang has been charged with violating Article 207 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) concerning defamation of the government and state institutions, Article 28 of Law No. 11/2008 on electronic information and transactions (ITE) and Article 16 of Law No. 40/2008 on the elimination of racial and ethnic discrimination. (Read also: Police charge "Jokowi Undercover" author with defamation) Bambang wrote that Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf Kalla were elected in 2014 because of the success of press institutions in fooling the public. Bambang alleged that Jokowi had falsified data before registering as a presidential candidate. He also wrote that Giriroto in Boyolali regency, Central Java, was the base of the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). He wrote that Jokowis mother, Sujiatmi Notomiatdjo, was reportedly born in the village. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 President Joko Jokowi Widodo has received the names of three candidates from Indonesian Military (TNI) commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo to replace outgoing Air Force chief of staff Air Chief Marshall Agus Supriatna, whose tenure will end on Jan. 20. (Read also: Air Force chief to be questioned over British chopper purchase) The three candidates are National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas) deputy governor Air Marshal Bagus Puruhito, the Defense Ministrys inspector general, Air Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto, and deputy Air Force chief of staff Air Marshal Hadiyan Sumintaatmadja. Jokowi confirmed that Gatot had submitted the three names to him, but he was still reluctant to disclose which candidate he would pick to fill the soon-to-be vacant post. [The names] are in my pocket now. I will announce [the new Air Force chief of staff] soon, Jokowi told reporters after meeting TNI and National Police leaders at the TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Monday. Hadi is said to be the strongest candidate for the post. Presidential spokesman Johan Budi did not answer when asked whether Jokowi favored Hadi for the number one post at the Air Force. Johan said Jokowi had already picked one of the three candidates, but declined to disclose any further information about it. Yes, it is true that he [Hadi] is one of the candidates nominated for the post, but I am not sure whether he is the one finally picked by the President. The President has already made a decision on it anyway, Johan said. (jun) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16 2017 The Supreme Courts recent regulation introducing a detailed mechanism to take companies to court for various criminal offenses, including corruption and money laundering, has been lauded by many. The landmark decision, made in December, is aimed at providing guidelines for law enforcers in handling corporate crimes in their respective areas amid the absence of detailed mechanisms in the prevailing Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP). The new regulation details how to take companies to court and instructs judges across the country to proceed with such cases. Under the regulation, companies can be fined if they are found guilty of receiving benefits from a crime or allowing a crime to occur. Their assets will be confiscated should they fail to pay the fine. 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 Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The government expects the Patimban deep-sea port in West Java to help pave the way to boost Indonesias automotive exports in the future. Patimban Port is expected to boost Indonesias automotive exports as Tanjung Prioks capacity is already full, Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) chairman Thomas Lembong said over the weekend. The port, construction of which will begin in 2018, will have a container capacity of 1.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) once it is partly completed by 2019 and then 7.5 million TEUs by 2027, which is half the capacity of Jakartas Tanjung Priok Port, the countrys busiest port. (Read also: Govt wants to resolve spatial planning of seaport project ahead of Abe visit) Data from the Transportation Ministry also show that the government plans to build a vehicle terminal within Patimban Port with a capacity of 485,000 completely built-up (CBU) units. Last year, Indonesia exported almost 200,000 cars, seeing a slight decrease from 207,691 cars in 2015. Meanwhile, the country exported 248,065 motorcycles last year, up from 228,229 motorcycles in 2015. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The National Police and Jakarta Military Command have prepared 2,800 personnel to secure a rally by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) at the National Police headquarters on Jl. Trunojoyo in South Jakarta on Monday. "The Jakarta Military Command has sent us 800 personnel to help secure the rally, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. M. Iriawan said Sunday as quoted by tribunnews.com. We will accommodate the FPI if they want to voice their aspirations, he said. (Read also: West Java Police question FPI leader over alleged insult to Pancasila) The FPI claimed that about 5,000 people would take to the streets to demand West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan be stripped of his title because the FPI said he had allowed abuse of FPI members by another organization called Indonesias Little People Movement (GMBI) in Bandung, West Java recently. The two clashed when FPI patron Rizieq Shihab, also known as Habib Rizieq, was questioned by the West Java Police over allegations of insulting Pancasila, the state ideology. Later, a rumor spread on social media that an FPI member had been stabbed in a restaurant on Jl. Soekarno-Hatta in Bandung. West Java Police chief Anton denied the rumor, saying the police had checked and found no such case. The clash heated up when some unidentified men torched GMBIs headquarters in Bogor regency on Friday. The police later apprehended 20 suspects for the arson and said they suspected the mob was from the FPI, however, the FPI denied ordering their members to torch GMBIs office. (evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The police say they may question former Central Jakarta mayor Sylviana Murni, who is currently running as a Jakarta deputy gubernatorial candidate, in an alleged corruption case concerning the construction of a mosque worth Rp 27 billion (US$2.07 million). "She [Sylviana] could be questioned at any time the police require," National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Rikwanto said on Monday. However, Rikwanto said the police had not yet scheduled questioning of Sylviana, the running mate of Agus Harimurti, about alleged corruption in the development of Al Fauz Mosque at the Central Jakarta mayoralty office complex. "We haven't scheduled her questioning. Weve asked the polices anticorruption directorate to inform us about the further investigation this week," he said. (Read also: Police to question husband of Jakarta deputy governor candidate Sylviana Murni in treason case) He said that the police would not postpone Sylviana's interrogation until after the election. The corruption allegation surfaced after the polices anticorruption directorate issued official letters to investigate the development of Al Fauz mosque in late 2016. The construction of the mosque, which was inaugurated by then Jakarta governor Fauzi Bowo in January 2011, was started while Sylviana was Central Jakarta mayor. The police have questioned 20 people involved in the mosque development, including the current Jakarta administration secretary Saefullah, who was appointed to replace Sylviana as Central Jakarta mayor in November 2010. Sylviana has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Riau Islands Police have named five suspects in a foiled attempt to send 196 illegal workers from Indonesia to Malaysia. "So far, we have five suspects," said Riau Police detective unit chief Sr. Comr. Eko Puji Nugroho as quoted by Antara on Sunday. "We are continuing our investigation into the case to uncover the network behind the transportation of illegal workers from Batam," he added. Police found 22 workers at Hang Nadim International Airport, 74 at a shophouse at Gloria View Batam Centre and another 101 at a shophouse at Valley Park Batam Centre. The workers were from East Java, Madura, West Nusatenggara and West Java. The police also seized dozens of IDs, passports, cellphones, air tickets and boarding passes. Currently, all workers have been taken to a shelter belonging to the Batam Social Agency in Nongsa Batam before they are sent home to their respective villages. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Rikwanto has said the police are ready to examine evidence the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) has provided to refute accusations about it being involved in the burning of a mass organization's office in Ciampea, Bogor regency, West Java. Rikwanto said FPI representatives had given him written evidence and video footage related to the case. We welcomed their information. We will investigate it further, he said on Monday. During a protest in front of the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Monday, hundreds of FPI members demanded the dismissal of West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan, whom they accused of having been unfair in the handling of a recent conflict between the groups followers and sympathizers of a mass organization called Gerakan Masyarakat Bawah Indonesia (Indonesia Grassroots Society Movement, or GMBI). (Read also: FPI protests unfairness by West Java Police chief) To learn their demands, Rikwanto agreed to meet and talk with 17 FPI representatives at his office on the sidelines of the rally. He said the FPI called for Antons dismissal because they believed the police chief had let FPI members be recently abused by GMBI followers in Bandung, West Java. They stated that what had happened in West Java was a scandal; hence, they are calling on the police to evaluate the work performance or dismiss the West Java Police chief, Rikwanto said. Members of the two organizations clashed when FPI founder Rizieq Shihab underwent an interrogation last Thursday by the West Java Police over allegations he had insulted Pancasila, the state ideology. Following their clash, several unidentified men attacked and torched the GMBI secretariat in Ciampea the day after. The police later apprehended 20 suspects for the arson and said they suspected they were from the FPI, which denied the allegations. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 Hundreds of police officers and military personnel are on standby around the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta as members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) are holding a rally to demand the dismissal of West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan. Some of the police officers are fully equipped to handle mass riots, while others deployed to stand face-to-face with rally participants are just carrying shields. Heavy police equipment was seen around the headquarters. Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. M. Iriawan said earlier that around 2,000 officers and 800 military personnel had been prepared to secure the rally. (Read also: FPI members set to stage rally at police headquarters) Attended by hundreds of FPI followers, the rally has been running peacefully, despite some traffic jams on streets near the police building. Traffic police offices are striving to ensure the safe and smooth flow of vehicles. Representatives of the rally participants were allowed to enter the police headquarters to meet police representatives to convey their demands. The meeting is still ongoing. The rally was held to demand Antons removal from his position after violence broke out between FPI members and followers of mass organization Gerakan Masyarakat Bawah Indonesia (Indonesian Grassroots Society Movement, or GMBI) during the questioning of FPI leader Rizieq Shihab over a case involving alleged insults of Pancasila, the state ideology. Following the clash, FPI sympathizers attacked the GMBI office in Ciampea, Bogor regency, West Java, on Friday morning. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16, 2017 The political machines of candidates contesting the Jakarta gubernatorial election will play a crucial role in determining their fate as the Feb.15 D-day approaches, an analyst says. According to political analyst Ubedillah Badrun from the Jakarta State University (UNJ), only a few political parties are actually working although all had declared support for their preferred pair. As far as I have observed, political machines that have functioned well include the PDI-P [Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle], Gerindra and PKS [Prosperous Justice Party], Ubedillah said during the release of a recent study by Jakarta-based PT Grup Riset Potensial (GRP) in Jakarta on Monday. GRPs study revealed that the Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono-Sylviana Murni pair would win if the election took place today with 46.4 percent of votes, leaving Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno in second place with 20.9 percent of votes, while the incumbent Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama-Djarot Saiful Hidayat would come in third with 20.4 percent. Ubedillah cited the level of support for Ahok-Djarot as an example, attributing their poor polling to underperforming political parties. Those that have endorsed Ahok-Djarot dont work well. It is clear that their support is divided, he said. Besides the ruling PDI-P, the Ahok-Djarot ticket has also been endorsed by the Golkar Party, the Nasdem Party and the Hanura Party. Meanwhile, Agus-Sylvi supporters include the Democratic Party, the National Awakening Party (PKB), the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), while supporters of the Anies-Sandi ticket include the Gerindra Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Mon, January 16 2017 With budget constraints hampering plans for major infrastructure development, Indonesia has high hopes of securing support from the Japanese government and investors to save the day. Southeast Asias largest economy will need around Rp 5.5 quadrillion (US$412.9 billion) until 2009 to finance various infrastructure projects planned by President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration, including the construction of 5,000 kilometers of railways, 1,000 km of toll roads, 24 seaports and power plants with a combined capacity of 35,000 megawatts. 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) Mon, January 16 2017 Indonesia has reaffirmed its long-standing position supporting a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine peace process, lending support for Palestinian reconciliation as a prerequisite to achieving a united peace and just solution with Israel over the disputed territories. Speaking at the International Peace Conference hosted by France on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister AM Fachir offered three conditions under which lasting peace could be achieved. 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 Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Karanganyar, Central Java Mon, January 16, 2017 A joint team of the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Placement, Protection and Monitoring Agency (BP3TKI) Central Java has uncovered a house suspected to be a temporary shelter for illegal migrant workers in Karangpandan, Karanganyar, Central Java. During the raid, the team rescued 12 women hailing from several areas, including Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Magelang in Central Java and Kediri and Trenggalek, both in East Java, who had been recruited to work abroad illegally. Initially, the workers were scheduled to be dispatched to Singapore. They had been accommodated in the house belonging to a local resident identified as Alan Hermawan since two weeks ago. We had investigated that place since December. The dispatch of the Indonesian workers was illegal because it was not conducted via an official company but carried out individually and without proper permits, said BNP2TKI deputy chairman for worker placement Agusdin Subiantoro, who led the raid on Thursday evening. He said Hermawan was a former employee of PPTKIS, a private labor supply company in Karanganyar. Two years ago, PPTKIS closed its operation but Hermawan continued to dispatch Indonesian workers to Singapore and Taiwan by doubling up placement processes conducted by an official labor supply company in Jakarta, said Agusdin. He further said the government did not permit workers from being dispatched by individuals. A worker placement can be conducted only by a company, moreover if the Indonesian migrant worker will be employed as a domestic helper, he went on. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, January 16 2017 Stakeholders in the horticulture industry are intensifying efforts to introduce local crops to a wider market through various projects and cooperative schemes in marketing to improve the quality of local produce. Last week, Trade Minister Enggartiasto Enggar Lukita announced the governments appeal to importers to buy and market local crops. The request is voluntary but will be made mandatory if they are still reluctant to do so. 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 (The Jakarta Post) Tue, January 17 2017 Widely known as a moderate Islamic scholar, former culture and education minister, now a candidate to be Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan made headlines when he attended a discussion at the headquarters of the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI). During a recent visit to The Jakarta Post, Anies maintained that he had not changed his views on pluralism and democracy. During the interview, the founder of the Indonesia Mengajar (Teach for Indonesia) movement also talked about his candidacy and his key programs for addressing various issues in the capital. The following are the excerpts from the interview: 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 PARIS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso estimates it will produce 750,000 tonnes of raw cotton in the 2016/17 season, up from the previous harvest of 600,000 tonnes, the country's agriculture minister said on Monday. Jacob Ouedraogo told reporters in Paris that good production had been helped by good rain, but that quality was also better compared with previous genetically modified (GM) crops. He added that Burkina growers had reverted 100 percent to non-GM cotton for the 2016/2017 crop, and that talks were underway with U.S. seed maker Monsanto over compensation for crop quality problems blamed on GM cotton. (Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Vajra Reza Alam (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 17 2017 As journalist Kate Lamb points out in her Guardian article (Dec. 12, 2016) in the wake of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnamas blasphemy trial, Indonesia has seen rising religious intolerance, growing discrimination and attacks against religious minorities, as well as a wave of vitriol against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Aggravating intolerance has unleashed a deluge of hate speech on online platforms, and President Joko Jokowi Widodo himself expressed concern about the situation. In a number of occasions, the President said that social media were full of provocative remarks and hateful exchanges between those who condemn Ahoks controversial reference to the Quran and those who support the governor from a humanist and pluralist point of view. 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 Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara Tue, January 17, 2017 The Mataram Immigration Office in West Nusa Tenggara arrested five Timor Leste citizens on Monday for allegedly misusing travel documents and breaking Indonesian regulations. The five people allegedly used travel documents to enter Indonesian territory so they could later work in the country. Mataram immigration officers arrested them in Lembar waters, West Lombok, on Monday morning,Sevial Akmily, the office head of the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Law and Human Rights Ministry, told reporters. Separately, 162 Military Region Command/Wirabhakti Mataram commander Col. Inf. Farid Makruf said military personnel would continue monitoring the movement of foreigners within NTB territory. Farid said the military arrested 12 Chinese nationals in West Lombok recently. We have submitted the case to the immigration office to further process it. The 12 Chinese trespassers would be deported soon. Farid said destinations like Lombok and Sumbawa, also in NTB, attracted foreign tourists, but they also potentially misused tourism for other purposes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 17 2017 Wearing a life vest over his suit, President Joko Jokowi Widodo took a test-drive on the Anoa amphibious armored personnel carrier (APC), the latest advanced technology product from state-owned weapons manufacturer PT Pindad. Crossing the lake inside the Indonesian Military (TNI) headquarters compound into the main hall to attend a TNI leaders meeting, the president commended the performance of the APC, although he admitted the short trip had made him jittery. Everyone was tense when crossing the water, Jokowi said telling of the experience he shared with TNI commander Gen. Gatot Nurmatyo and the National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian on board the APC, which was produced last year. 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, January 17 2017 Indonesia has brushed off recent rhetoric from Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte suggesting that the loss of civilian lives is permissible in the attempt to flush out extremists who are abducting people at sea. Officials at the Foreign Ministry said there was no reason to believe Dutertes provocative statements, insisting that ongoing efforts between Indonesia and the Philippines would continue, without making light of civilian sacrifice. We believe that the Philippine government has [some reasoning behind] its policies and wisdom, said Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, the ministrys director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, 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 Man Critically Injured In Fire At Lower East Side Building https://t.co/nLUsKNW9Jy CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) January 16, 2017 An 82-year old man was badly burned in a fire at the Baruch senior apartments at 72 Columbia St. late last night. The fire broke out in Juan Reyes sixth floor apartment shortly before midnight. Camile Napoleon, a tenant association leader, told the Daily News, His window faces the street and I knew immediately it was him I saw paramedics take him out the building. He was moving but I didnt see him say anything. The fire was put out at about 12:25 a.m. Firefighters have not yet determined how it started. Roberto Napoleon, tenant association president, told the News that Reyes recently dismissed his home attendant because he suspected her of stealing. She was supposed to be replaced but its been at least a few weeks and no one has been sent. He has been getting around on his own, said Napoleon. Reyes family lives in Cuba. Camile Napoleon described him as a tough cookie, but a real good guy who participates in all of the community events at the NYCHA complex. She told Channel 2, He had burns on his side, he looked like, really bad burns. Were just praying that hes gonna be okay. Reyes was taken to New York Presbyterian/Cornell Hospital. And here's the difference between retirement age and re-employment age in Singapore. Singapore Press Holdings reported a 43.8 per cent drop in net profit in its fiscal first quarter due mainly to restructuring costs and a slowdown in its media business. Singapore Press Holdings Friday (13 January) reported a 43.8 per cent drop in net profit to $45.7 million in its fiscal first quarter due mainly to charges arising from a restructuring of its core media business and a decline in the segment. Read more here. Incoming islandwide retail supply significantly slowed in the past two years. According to URA, 2015 and 2016 (first to third quarters) saw approximately 0.6 million and 0.7 million sq ft respectively of net supply islandwide, versus 2.3 million sq ft in 2014. Major completions were concentrated in the suburban areas with the opening of Compass One in Sengkang and the retail space of Changi Airport Terminal 4. There was no completion on Orchard Road. Click here to find out more. Earlier this week, parliament passed the act to extend the re-employment age from 65 to 67. This will apply to all Singaporeans and permanent residents who turn 65 from July 2017 onwards. As with most announcements pertaining to retirement, the change gathered quite a bit of discussion. Many people including politicians and experts have differing opinions about it and what else needs to be done.With the topic gaining attention, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss some of the possible misconceptions that people have regarding the re-employment age. Get to know the difference of the two here. More From Singapore Business Review Fashion blogging rose to new heights in 2016, with the most influential style bloggers finding themselves miraculously entangled with the real fashion world: seated amongst the press and the stylists at high-profile fashion shows, these pinicles of street-style have finally been recognised for their ability to open up the coveted world of fashion to every-day fashionistas. With hundreds-of-thousands of followers, this new wave of trendsetters have begun to make their own mark on the fashion world, their style choices feeding through to their followers and influencing our own wardrobes. But, it's no secret that the blogging industry is blooming and, with no requirements other than a decent eye for camera angles and a personable media presence, it seems now that EVERYONE is wanting to have a go. It can sometimes be difficult, therefore, to sort the diamonds from the shiny plastic. So to save you trawling the internet in search of the serious up-and-coming fashion royalty, I've narrowed my favourties list down to my five top fashion bloggers to keep you inspired in 2017: Name: Lucy Moon Blogs at: I Am Lucy Moon ( I Am Lucy Moon ( www.iamlucymoon.com/ Lucy Moon, a SOAS graduate and popular Youtuber with more than 175,000 subscribers, has recently ventured into the world of blogging and is causing quite a storm. Although I Am Lucy Moon is not necessarily a style blog, the outfits she does capture as part of a wider post cause me to have serious clothing envy, my favourites including stylish jumpers and heels combos alongside classic staples. Lucy's daily outfits are perfect for lectures and socialising in the city come day or night, and it's due to this why I think Lucy's style makes her the one to watch. Name: Parie Joshi Blogs at: Class & Glitter ( Class & Glitter ( www.classandglitter.com Parie Joshi, one of my longtime favourite bloggers and a student at Edge Hill University, mixes style shots with beauty posts and updates on her daily life as a student. Whether she's wearing Topshop or Primark, Parie can pull off an effortlessly chic look for every occasion, and her recent photography makes every image look spectacular. Parie captures both relaxing daytime looks alongside beautiful evening dresses, and with her fabulous personality shining through in every post, reading her blog is the perfect way to spend a lunchtime. Blogger: Olivia Purvis Blogs at: What Olivia Did ( What Olivia Did ( www.whatoliviadid.com/ Olivia (Liv) Purvis is the most well known blogger on this list, with features in Look magazine and on Emma Gannon's Ctrl, Alt, Delete podcast. Her impeccable daily style would make every outfit look effortlessly chic on a high street budget, but coupled with stunning backdrops from Liv's many trips abroad and a professional photographer boyfriend to boot, Liv's blog is one to watch - if you're not watching it already. Blogger: Laura Potter Blogs at: Tiny Twisst ( Tiny Twisst ( www.tinytwisst.com/ Laura Potter's amazing hair styles and tutorials were what originally attracted me to her blog, but her outfits made me stay. Relaxing, chic and best of all, affordable - Laura's style snippets make me want to hop onto the Topshop site daily. Blogger: Rachel Simpson Blogs at: Rachel Nicole ( Rachel Nicole ( www.rachelnicole.co.uk Rachel Simpson mixes timeless outfits with travel posts from the likes of Majorca, London and her home town of Scarborough in a way that gives me more than just wanderlust. Whether it's Rachel's repeated style posts, her trips to Disneyland, or her chatty personality, there's a reason why Rachel's blog is a staple in my favourites bar and why it should be in yours too. The pound has lost a fifth of its value since the EU referendum and is currently at levels that havent been seen since 1985. But what does a weak pound actually mean and why does it matter? Heres a run-down on whats been going on and what might happen next. Whats the pound actually worth? Today sterling dropped to its lowest point for three months and its actually worse than that sounds. Back in October there was a flash crash, when the value of the pound momentarily plummeted thanks to a computer error. This was nearly as bad as that. So effectively, its at its lowest point since 1985. The pound dropped to below $1.20, so if youd changed 100 into spending money for a holiday in the US youd have got just under $120. Back in 2007, the same amount could have got you $200. On the Asian markets, the pound dropped to a two-year low against the euro to 1.13. Why is it so low? President-elect Trumps inauguration is on Friday and is likely to influence markets (Paco Anselmi/PA) Buyers hate uncertainty, and the Brexit negotiations combined with the Trump inauguration are making everybody very jumpy. The markets are also suggestible. The latest drop was likely due to British newspapers on Sunday widely reporting that Theresa May was going to declare this week that the UK was heading for a hard Brexit. Downing Street says Brexit may cause the pound to undergo a "market correction". Much as the Titanic underwent a "buoyancy correction". Mitch Benn (@MitchBenn) January 15, 2017 Shes expected to announce her tough stance on negotiations in a speech on Tuesday, before eventually triggering Article 50 in March. Also, Chancellor Philip Hammond just told a German newspaper that ministers might slash corporation tax rates if Britain was left out of the single market. He also said the Government would do whatever we have to to keep British companies competitive. What does this all mean? When the pound goes down, the FTSE goes up, which is good for the companies listed. Many earn their revenue abroad, so their value increases. Their shares also become cheaper for overseas buyers. The blue chip index, which monitors the performance of the best-performing companies, rose 13.80 points, and shares in Burberry and Marks and Spencer were amongst the top five FTSE winners. A weak pound can be a boost to exports for British firms, and increase domestic manufacturing in the long run as importing expensive foreign goods becomes less attractive. It can also make holidaying abroad more expensive. What will Theresa May say on Tuesday? Theresa May will speak at Lancaster House in London on Tuesday (Hannah McKay/PA) Weve heard politicians talk about a hard, soft, and a red, white and blue Brexit, but the markets are mostly concerned about the possibility of the UK leaving Europes single market and customs union. The European customs union is a trade agreement between the 28 EU member states (and weirdly, Monaco), where they agree not to impose import taxes on each other, and all set the same tariffs on imports from outside the union. Hopefully the first warning we'll get that May has started talking will be the sudden 'emergency broadcast' alert on all our TVs kadhim (@kadhimshubber) January 16, 2017 The single market is essentially the free movement of goods, services, wealth and, most controversially, people, between member states. May is expected to hint towards leaving both on Tuesday, although Downing Street would not confirm this. What we can be sure of is that the pounds value will react to whatever she says pretty quickly, which could mean another dive. According to three-time British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin: An Englishman is all right, as long as he is content to be what God made him an Englishman. he said Three generations later, another Worcestershire Tory Cabinet minister, communities secretary Sajid Javid, is more doubtful about our sense of identity. Writing in the Sunday Times,: Some minority ethnic groups are particularly prone to living in ethnic bubbles. He added that whereas he had been raised to embrace British values and play an active role in British life, now too many politicians have ducked the issue. introduced Citizenship education riots of 2001 urged Asians to speak English at home This cry, driven by fear of security threats since 9/11 and the rise of the far right, is nothing new. And nor are the problems it raises. Labours David Blunkettin 1999 with the aim of establishing acknowledged common social principles. Then, after the, as Home Secretary he demanded an oath of allegiance for immigrants and Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government published by Dame Louise Casey Therequired schools and colleges to teach the benefits of British Values, and now Javid has revived the idea of an oath to these values, this time for both immigrants and holders of public office. It follows the 2016 report on integration What is needed, Casey insists, is a reaffirmation of our national characteristics: Democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and [] tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. But are these definitively British values? And is it right to require public subscription to them? The answer to both questions is surely, No. the Civil War anti-democratic First, the claim that these four characteristics are distinctively and universally British withstands no scrutiny. Democracy belonged to the Greeks 2,000 years before its name was muttered by English radicals in. The most distinctively British institutions, meanwhile the House of Lords and the monarchy are quite unashamedly The Roman Empire has a good claim to the idea of applying the law uniformly. In any event, a country which cannot agree that the courts have the right to resolve which of our institutions makes treaties has relatively little moral altitude from which to boast about constitutionalism. The last two ideas, individual liberty and tolerance, are also as foreign as they are British. They also demonstrate the very obvious difficulty of treating these as simplistic, free-standing principles which never collide. rallying in the streets The French defended the liberty of Charlie Hebdo by publishing and purchasing the offending cartoon which led to the slaughter of the magazines staff, and by. The British endorsed the same principle but did not print the picture or protest anywhere near as actively, for fear of being intolerant of religious sensibilities. Theresa May believed The ethical calculus underlying our response to these challenges is a highly personal one. And even if there is a British tendency towards a solution, it cannot be one which satisfies all four criteria in a continuous and unmitigated fashion. Something has to take priority in each situation. Thats why the then Home Secretarythe Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary should not have been allowed freedom of speech on the BBC so as to protect the rule of law. Oath to self popular themes of Danny Boyles opening ceremony There are other values shared by most Britons, such as egalitarianism, solidarity, rights to health and education, and a sense of fair shares. These do not figure in the governments list, though they werefor the London Olympics in 2012. The very idea of forcing public servants to swear allegiance to abstract, ill-defined and partly contradictory political ideals is perhaps the most un-British part of all this. In wartime, we have issued ID cards, but in peace Parliament refuses. We have conscripted men to fight, but always allowed objectors to withdraw. And our greatest thinkers have recognised in the most beautiful phrases of our language, the futility of trying to change hearts by silencing voices. John Locke John Stuart Mill The philosopherwarned of attempts to compel the British into affirming beliefs, declaring: The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force.said of those who participate in religious chanting: They have an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from the words to the things signified. Wikimedia Commons John Milton Englands greatest poet,, warned his fellow Parliamentarians in the throes of civil war that no attempt should be made to compel obedience out of their opponents: Ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so. This is a Student Travel Writer 2018 competition entry On my visit to the community of Damanhur, you can check out my article here Temples of Humankind The temples were created under the direction of Falco Tarassaco, the founder, who said he had seen these temples at age ten from visions of a previous life. According to the Damanhurian recounts, it was a Saturday evening in 1978 when Falco and ten other Damanhurians sat around a fire and saw a flashing falling star, interpreting it as a positive sign, a good moment to begin to dig a tunnel into the mountain, towards the heart of Earth, to create a synchronic contact, to build a temple the likes of which had not existed for a thousand years or more. In 1991 the chambers were discovered and raided by the Italian police, as the villagers were getting suspicious. Although legislation was a bit sketchy to start with and, to the Damanhurians disappointment, the excavations had to cease. On October 9, 1992, the first press conference was held in Damanhur to announce the existence of the Temples of Humankind. In June 1996, with the support of the Beaux Art Authority, the Italian Government approved a change in the law to legalize the underground structure and the temples were finally saved. Temple Plan, by Damanhur Spiritual EcoCommunity. Although the Temples arent as majestic as the citizens had in mind, they are still more than just impressive, with rooms decorated centimetre by centimetre with astounding precision. What baffled me the most was how absolutely anonymous the entrance is: the temples are nestled under a small, tepid-looking house on the hill. You then open a tiny door that leads to a sort of basement and discover an intersection of chambers, trap doors, shifting floors, and vaulted ceilings woven with perfection. The walls, ceilings and floors are covered with paintings, sculpture, mosaics, stained glass, ironwork, and statuary. The Temples of Humankind are constructed to be experienced like a three-dimensional book narrating the history of humanity and occupies almost 300,000 cubic feet. The rooms included are the Hall of Water, dedicated to the feminine principle, and the Hall of Earth, dedicated to the masculine principle. Then theres the Blue Hall, for inspiration, meditation and reflection, and the Labyrinth Hall, depicted with small representations of faiths all over the world during the past centuries, which is actually the hall you enter the chambers from. Further into the undergrounds is the Hall of Metals, representing the different ages and developmental stages of people, and has metal attributed to each stage, as well as representations of our human psyche. And last but not least there are, in my opinion, the most powerful rooms; the Hall of Spheres, a room positioned where three synchronic lines merge, inviting planetary contact and transmission of messages, and the Hall of Mirrors, dedicated to the sky, air and light, solar energy, strength and life. Each room also has a key instrument around which it revolves, so during our meditations we listened to the sounds of the gongs and the calices in what was an honestly mystical experience that had me entranced by the stories we were being told. The Damanhurians do not worship a spiritual leader, but they meditate and operate on a very inclusive basis, so they accept many different religions and pay tribute to them with reverence for the natural world and celestial surroundings that make our existence possible. In fact, they live by eight quesiti, dynamic formulas and themes that are used both in everyday life and specifically in meditation, rather than biblical prophecies and such. Damanhurian phylosophy, Damanhur Spiritual EcoCommunity. In conclusion, due to its amazing architecture and very inclusive spirit, every year thousands of people from all over the world visit this large contemporary cathedral! An absolutely revitalising visit. Check out the virtual tour here. Death touches everyone at some stage during their lives, and usually more than once. It also triggers certain laws around what happens to the body after death and some glaring omissions. 1. Corpse disposal the basics Respect for the dead and protecting public health make burial or cremation an urgent task when someone dies. Certain aspects are heavily regulated such as the minimum depth of graves, the siting and management of burial grounds and crematoria but there are comparatively few laws governing actual bodily disposal. For example, there are no set time limits for disposing of the dead. woodland areas private land only in an enclosed building religious communities Burial in a churchyard or cemetery is not the only option. Natural burial in fields or, burial at sea, and even burial in(a family farm, or even the deceaseds own back yard) are permissible options. Cremation, however, can only take place in a licensed crematorium. The law has changed to allow funeral pyres but after lobbying by Hindu and Sikh buried at sea Theres also no legal requirement to use a funeral director, and English law does not insist on embalming unless, for example, a corpse is being repatriated or moved between countries. And while a corpse must be decently covered the use of a coffin is not mandatory: a shroud, cardboard box or wicker basket are suitable options. Thats unless the deceased is being(a specific type of coffin is needed here), or individual crematoria insist on one to facilitate handling the body. 2. Two new options Resomation Although burial and cremation are the most common ways of disposing of bodies, two new methods are emerging. already available in parts of the US and Australia is a liquefaction process which uses alkaline hydrolysis to dissolve the bodys organic matter inside a steel container. The result is a sterile liquid, and bones which can be crushed and given to the deceaseds family (similar to post-cremation ashes). Promession is at a more developmental stage, and uses liquid nitrogen to super-cool the body before the brittle remains are shattered using ultrasonic vibration. The result: an odourless, organic residue which becomes a dry powder when the water content is evaporated off, and turns to compost when buried in a small bio-degradable container. Neither method is commercially available yet in the UK, but would be a perfectly legal alternative to burial or cremation. 3. Your wishes dont really count Funeral instructions are not legally binding. My family can ignore specific directions set out in a will or prepaid funeral plan: it doesnt matter how many times I tell them whether I want to be buried or cremated, and what type of funeral I actually want. can trigger bitter rows Disputes over how to dispose of the bodywithin families. But where the deceased made a will, the executor is legally entitled to decide the funeral arrangements something which is not well known and may come as a surprise where the executor is not a family member. intestate If the individual died, without leaving a will, the highest ranking personal representative (the person legally entitled to administer the deceaseds estate) gets the final say. Under current English law, the deceaseds surviving spouse or civil partner is at the top of the hierarchy, followed by children, then parents and siblings, working down through the family. Cohabitants do not quality under this ranking, regardless of how long they were living with the deceased. my own research documented Where two people fall within the same category (for example, siblings fighting over the funeral arrangements for a dead parent, or separated parents fighting over a dead child), there is no hard and fast legal rule. English courts tend to decide on a case-by-case basis. In other countries, there is specific legislation. For example, as, in parts of Canada, the older parent or the older or eldest sibling has the final decision, while several US states prioritise the person who had the closest personal relationship with the deceased. 4. Digging up the dead exhumation on demand In August 2015, the Church of England spoke out against the idea of, with families increasingly wanting to relocate a loved ones grave when moving house. Exhuming a corpse or interred ashes requires legal permission. But, in England and Wales, the likelihood of securing permission depends on where the remains have been buried. Unconsecrated ground requires an exhumation licence from the Ministry of Justice, but consecrated ground requires a faculty (a grant of permission) from the Church of England, which is much harder to obtain. And given that many municipal cemeteries often have consecrated and unconsecrated areas, there can be different legal standards for exhuming corpses and ashes buried within a few metres of each other. Other religions can be opposed to exhumation as well and unwilling to sanction disinterment of remains within their own cemeteries. 5. Digital disputes Facebook memorials Gone are the days when the main type of memorial was a headstone or grave-marker in a churchyard or cemetery. The digital age has also reshaped how the living commemorate their dead, especially with the growth of. Instead of simply removing the deceaseds profile, his or her page can be converted into a memorial. The deceaseds existing Facebook friends have access, creating a virtual support network and leaving messages for the dead person. Questions often arise, not just about access, but the accuracy and content of postings. Effective legal solutions have yet to be developed, but in the meantime, company policies and user agreements with individual internet service providers are used to deal with specific complaints. Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. 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"They'll find top quality instruction, the world's finest gear, and a full service travel operation catering to those who want to book dive trips, or who just want to escape the winter chill." JoAnn Haack, the new facility's manager, is well known within the local scuba community. With eight years of instructional experience, she has taught over 700 scuba students both privately and through the University of Iowa. "DiVentures allows me to offer my students a wide array of gear for purchase or rental," said Haack. "Plus, they can bring their current gear here for servicing, too. Our team includes instructors and staff with thousands of hours of dive experience and the highest level of recreational dive training certification. Divers will feel at home here." Within the next two years, DiVentures plans to add an indoor heated pool for swim, fitness, and scuba training. Until then, DiVentures scuba certification programs will conduct in-water training at the North Liberty Aquatic Center on West Cherry Street. Click here to watch video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/53mfzdvwmxtv7k4/PR%20Video%20011117.mp4?dl=0 About DiVentures DiVentures operates scuba and swim centers in Omaha, Nebraska, and Springfield, Missouri, complete with heated pools ideal for swim, fitness, and scuba training; multiple classrooms with audio/visual capabilities for scuba certification programs; and full service travel operations offering group travel adventures with DiVentures dive masters or independent, private travel. With highly experienced instructors, DiVentures emphasizes safety and fun in the water and a lifelong passion for aquatics. Story continues Contact: Christine Hughey chughey@diventures.net 402-933-6251 www.DiVentures.com SOURCE: DiVentures Scuba & Swim Centers BEIRUT, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Fighting between Islamic State and the Syrian army has killed dozens since Saturday in Deir al-Zor, where the militant group has launched an assault to capture a government enclave in the city, a monitoring group reported. At least 82 people have been killed in the fighting, which is the heaviest in the city for a year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday. The dead comprised 28 from the army and allied militia, at least 40 Islamic State fighters, and 14 civilians, the British-based monitoring group said. Syrian state news agency SANA said the army had killed dozens of Islamic State fighters in attacks on the group's positions around Deir al-Zor. Islamic State has held most of Deir al-Zor and the surrounding area since 2015, but the government has retained control of the airport and neighbouring districts in the city, located in eastern Syria on the Euphrates river. A U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias and rival Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups have pushed Islamic State from much of its territory in northern Syria, but it remains embedded in the country's eastern desert and Euphrates basin. Last month it recaptured the city of Palmyra, 185km (115 miles) southwest of Deir al-Zor, from the government in an unexpected advance that demonstrated its continuing military threat. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; editing by Giles Elgood) I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Story continues It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. RELATED: FOR TOO FEW, DR. KING'S DREAM HAS BECOME REALITY But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" With the adoption last year of the Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) exemptions by the Securities and Exchange Commissionprivate companies can now raise capital from all 230 million American adults. Until now, businesses have been restricted to fundraising from only 8.5 million accredited investors -- anyone who makes $200K a year individually or $300K a year jointly with a spouse, or has a net worth of $1 million. While its only been four months, one thing is very clear -- equity crowdfunding, under the current rules, doesnt work. Or as some might say, the exemptions were dead upon arrival. Lets understand why equity crowdfunding doesnt work. Financial review requirement by third party CPA Reg CF requires that businesses raising more than $500K have GAAP Standard financials prepared and ready to share. While its important to provide potential investors with transparency into your business, the reality is that early stage companies generally dont have GAAP financials prepared. And spending $5-10K on a CPA to prepare them is excessive. Related: Equity Crowdfunding's First Report Card Form C Reg CF requires businesses to file a Form C with the SEC before they can solicit investors. A Form C is a 25-page document that can require upward of 50 hours of work to complete. Youre going to want a lawyer to review and help prepare some of it, so expect anywhere from $1-5K in legal costs, which most startups dont have. $1 million funding limit Reg CF caps a business at raising $1 million in a 12-month period. For companies interested in fundraising smaller amounts, this isnt a problem, but for many businesses who are interested in using Reg CF to raise more than $1 million, this becomes a non-starter. 12(g) rule This rule stipulates that if a business uses Reg CF to successfully raise capital and crosses $25 million in assets, theyll be required to begin reporting as a public entity. This potentially creates a situation where a company could be forced to go public whether theyre ready to or not. Story continues Post fundraising shareholder management Under Reg CF all investors must be included on a companys cap table. Often times when a startup has a large number of investors they use holding companies -- like Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) -- to clump them together and then assign a single manager to represent the group. This structure could be a great solution for companies equity crowdfunding from potentially thousands of people. Unfortunately, the SEC explicitly banned SPVs from Reg CF fundraising efforts. Related: $5 Million Raised Since Change in Equity Crowdfunding But there may be hope on the horizon. The Fix Crowdfunding Act (FCA) passed through the House of Representatives with a 394-4 vote on July 5, and now moves onto the Senate with major bipartisan support. This bill would work to improve the Reg CF exemption, hopefully resulting in rules that are more approachable for fundraising companies. The goal of Reg CF in the first place was to give early stage companies a new pathway to accessing capital. Under the current Reg CF rules, this doesnt appear to have happened, but with these new modifications to the law, there may be hope on the horizon. How would the Fix Crowdfunding Act (FCA) improve Regulation Crowdfunding? Allow for Special Purpose Vehicles The FCA would allow special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to be used for equity crowdfunding. Additionally, the number of investors that can be grouped together in an SPV was raised from 100 to 500 via the Supporting America's Innovators Act of 2016, which also passed the house on July 5. Similar to the FCA, it is still waiting for a vote by the Senate. 12(g) rule exemptions The FCA would allow for companies using Reg CF to be exempted from the 12(g) rule. This would alleviate the concern many companies have of being forced to go public prematurely. What still needs to happen to make equity crowdfunding work? Testing the waters If equity crowdfunding is ever going to work, companies must have the ability to attract interest and test the waters before they lay down thousands of dollars on lawyers and CPAs. The upfront costs currently required by Reg CF create too much risk for small businesses, which results in equity crowdfunding being an unrealistic option for most. Increase funding limit up to $5 million The limit a company can fundraise using Reg CF needs to be raised from $1 million to $5 million. This would make a big impact on the number of companies willing to use Reg CF, as many need to raise more than $1 million. Related: 5 Tips to Make Your Crowdfunding Launch Stand Out From the Crowd As the CEO and co-founder of FlashFunders, I clearly believe in the potential of Reg CF to help small businesses access capital efficiently, and connect with their customers in new and meaningful ways. While I fully understand the role of regulations and the important responsibility of the SEC to protect investors, the intent of the JOBS Act and Reg CF to inject new sources of capital into our small businesses is not being met. My company and other equity crowdfunding platforms will continue to fight for small businesses and hustling entrepreneurs who need access to capital to innovate and build the next generation of great companies. Without further revisions to Reg CF however, the unfortunate reality is that many small businesses will be left unfunded -- as banks no longer lend and venture capitalists are only looking for billion dollar ideas. How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day? FILE - In a Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 file photo, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario. Canada's ethics commissioner is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent family holiday at the Aga Khan's private island in the Bahamas. Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world's approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File) OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) -- Canada's ethics commissioner said Monday she is launching an investigation into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's recent family holiday at the Aga Khan's private island in the Bahamas. Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Trudeau may have violated the federal ethics code during his holiday with the Aga Khan, a family friend, philanthropist and hereditary spiritual leader to the world's approximately 15 million Ismaili Muslims. It's the first time the ethics commissioner has opted to investigate the actions of a sitting prime minister. In a letter to opposition Conservative lawmaker Blaine Calkins, who was among those who filed formal complaints, Dawson said she is looking into both Trudeau's stay at the island and his use of the Aga Khan's private helicopter to get there. The vacation included Trudeau, his family, Liberal lawmaker Seamus O'Regan and Liberal party president Anna Gainey, all of whom took part in the chopper flight from Nassau to get to the secluded island. Both the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau's own ethics guidelines bar the use of sponsored travel in private aircraft, allowing it only for exceptional circumstances. The guidelines also prohibit a minister or any member of their family from accepting gifts or "advantages" that could reasonably be seen as influencing government decisions. The only exception is if the person providing the gift is a friend. Trudeau has repeatedly called the Aga Khan a longtime family friend who was a pallbearer at his father's funeral. Late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the Aga Khan were friends. Trudeau has said he is ready to meet with Dawson about the trip. "As the prime minister said last week, we are happy to engage with the commissioner and answer any questions she may have," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. Kareena Kapoor, who has been the most consistent guest on Karan Johars talk show Koffee with Karan, on Sunday made an appearance in the 5th season of the show as well along with fashionista Sonam Kapoor. Both Kareena and Sonam made a grand entry and as the episode was shot before Kareena delivered her baby Taimur Ali Khan, the actor was seen with her baby bump. Although Sonam was a bit reserved, Kareena rocked the couch by being her witty self as she faced all the questions with too much sass. On being asked to choose between Deepika and Priyanka, she gave the coolest reply: They are both in Hollywood now so its fine. She went on to praise Priyanka who was once her arch nemesis. Answering the same question, albeit vaguely, Sonam said she didnt know Deepika at all and refused to rate any actress saying that she would only rate herself as the best. It also appeared that Sonam wasnt too comfortable in between Karan and Kareena who are quite close. Sonam did make some silly interventions during the show and on one occasion, when Karan got emotional about Kareenas pregnancy, Sonam interfered and changed the topic to her fashion sense. The highlight of the show was the when a video of Kareenas previous appearances on the chat show was played. In a particular clip, she was sharing the couch with her ex-Shahid Kapoor but Kareena wasnt perturbed. When Karan asked if she was stuck in an elevator with Shahid and husband Saif Ali Khan, she delightfully said, I think that will be great. Shahid and Saif share a great rapport and they are also working together in Rangoon. I think, it would be much cool if the makers had signed me as a heroine opposite these two. This only goes on to prove that both the stars have moved on and at least Kareena is willing to work with Shahid. Sidharth Malhotra, one of the most desirable men of Bollywood celebrates his 32nd birthday on Monday. From playing a high school student to a top shot villain, Sidharth has really come a long way. Although the actor has always been very guarded about his private life, here some facts every Sidharth Malhotra fan should know about him:- 1) Student of the year wasnt supposed to be his first film, it happened accidently. He was chosen long ago for the movie Fashion opposite Priyanka Chopra but due to his contract with Gladrags he couldnt take up the project. 2) Before becoming a model, Sidharth made his television debut on the hit show, Prithiviraj Chauhan along with Actor Rajat Tokas. 3) Sidharth had an extremely successful modelling career before joining the film industry. He has walked ramps in Paris, Milan and New York. He has even modelled for the famous fashion designer Roberto Cavali. 4) Other than being a great actor, Sidharth is a great artist too. He loves to doodle and sketch cartoons in his free time. 5) Alia Bhatt wasnt the only girl in Sidharths life. Before joining the film industry he was dating a South African model Natalie and he then dated Brazilian model Izabelle Leite. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said action would be taken against officials found guilty of dereliction of duty in connection with the boat tragedy that claimed 24 lives. "I have ordered an inquiry into the boat tragedy, it is already going on," Nitish Kumar told the media after holding his weekly Lok Samvad programme here. He said that the inquiry was being conducted from all angles. According to the information received by him so far, Nitish Kumar said that it appeared that there were lapses at three levels that led to the tragedy. "The government will not spare officials responsible for it," Nitish Kumar said. Admitting that the boats were operating in violation of rules, the Janata Dal (United) leader also said that from now on the concerned department would keep a close watch on the boats operating on the Ganga river. The opposition has blamed official negligence for the tragedy on Saturday. According to eyewitnesses, the boat that capsized was overcrowded and was returning from a kite flying festival that was organised by the state tourism department as part of Makar Sankranti, a harvest festival. The incident of a senior Uttarakhand Congress leader joining BJP robbed much sheen of the booth level interaction programme of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Rishikesh on Monday. Senior Congress leader and cabinet minister Yashpal Arya joined BJP to give dent to Congress in Uttarakhand. Interacting with party workers, Rahul Gandhi hit Prime Minister Narendra Modi for removing Mahatma Gandhis photograph and getting his snap published on calendar and diary of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). The issue of monetization, Modi government adopting anti poor and farmers policy figured prominently in the meet. On the KVIC calendar controversy Rahul Gandhi said, The photograph of the man, who took three bullets for the tricolour, was removed and Modi ji inserted his photograph. Rahul Gandhi last came to Uttarakhand on 23 December last year, for addressing a public rally in Almora. The Rishikesh event was the second poll related programme of RaGa in Uttarakhand. But, the booth level interaction at Rishikesh was overshadow by the Yashpal Arya incident. Congress workers were shocked and were engaged in discussing about it at the event venue. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) too came under severe attack from the Congress vice president. The RSS had not hosted the tricolour at the headquarters for 52 years. They used to host a different flag and now they preach about nationality. The gathering witnessed impressive number of Congress workers. They had turned out despite a chilling cold weather and light shower.The interaction programme witnessed many Congress ticket hopeful coming to the venue with their supporters to showcase their mass popularity. Congress workers were anxiously waiting for the Rishikesh event, but the Arya incident somehow affected it. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat and other Congress leaders had to answer more media query about Arya than the Rishikesh meet. Alleging Prime Minister Narendra Modi of running a solo show, Rahul Gandhi charged that Modi has murdered the Reserve Bank of India. These days everything is done by Narendra Modi. Next time when any Ramleela takes you will find Lord Ram missing. Even Lord Ram will wear the mask of Modi to play his role in Ramleela, said Rahul Gandhi. BJP has hosted a series of public rallies addressed by their top leaders- including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh Manohar Parrikar, Anurag Thakur, etc. The Congress has surprisingly hosted one public rally by its top leader, that too by Rahul Gandhi, in Almora so far. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday asked Indian Embassy in Riyadh to keep her informed about the case of a 32-year-old man from Hyderabad being sentenced to one year's imprisonment and 300 lashes by a Saudi court after being convicted in a robbery case. Swaraj's direction came after the family of Mohammed Mansoor Hussain, a resident of Malakpet in Hyderabad who holds an MBA degree, reached out to her through Twitter and told her that they are very poor and cannot afford a lawyer for him. "Pl do not worry. Our Embassy is doing everything," Swaraj replied to the tweet. "Right. Pl keep me informed about this case," she told the Indian mission in Riyadh. As per reports, Hussain is lodged in Wadi Al Dawasir jail in Saudi Arabia. He had been working as a marketing auditor at Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al Qahtani and Sons Limited in Riyadh since 2013. Hussains family claimed on August 25 last year he had gone to a bank to deposit nearly one lakh Saudi Riyal when he was allegedly robbed by some miscreants. When he went to a police station to lodge a complaint on the advice of his boss, he was taken to custody. According to reports, he has been sentenced to one years imprisonment and 300 lashes. Kyrgyz Emergency Ministry officials and firefighters work among remains of a crashed Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane at a residential area outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. The cargo plane crashed Monday morning, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the Manas airport as well as those on the plane. (AP Photo/Vladimir Voronin) European stocks closed lower on Monday as investors awaited more detail on the U.K.'s Brexit plan and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in the U.S. later this week. The pan-European Stoxx 600 (^STOXX) ended 0.81 percent lower with almost all sectors and bourses trading in negative territory. In corporate news, the Italian eyewear giant Luxottica (Milan Stock Exchange: LUX-IT) and Essilor (Euronext Paris: EI-FR) of France have reached a 46 billion euro ($49 billion) merger deal, Reuters reported. They both finished trade among the top of the European index, Essilor was up by more than 11 percent and Luxottica was up by more than 8 percent. Hugo Boss (XETRA:BOSS-DE) was also near the top of the European index, up by more than 7.7 percent, after reporting preliminary sale figures for 2016. Banking and insurance stocks were among the worst performers during European trade, down by more than 1.4 percent. Italian banks led the declines, ranking close to the bottom of the banking index, after the Canadian rating agency DBRS cut the country's grade to BBB from A. Auto stocks fell more than 1.3 percent on Monday, with the Italian Fiat Chrysler (Milan Stock Exchange: FCA-IT) near the bottom of the European index, down by more than 4.1 percent. The U.K.'s transport ministry said it would test the brand's Jeep Grand Cherokee on doubts over diesel emissions. President-elect Donald Trump said he would impose a border tax of 35 percent on cars that BMW intends to build in Mexico. BMW (XETRA:BMW-DE) was down by more than 1.4 percent. Retail stocks also ended lower on Monday. The Stockholm retailer H&M (Stockholmsborsen:HM.B-SE) reported a 6 percent year-on-year rise in sales, the slowest pace since last September and below expectations, Reuters reported. Its shares were down by more than 2.7 percent. Meanwhile, markets were closed in the U.S. as the country celebrated Martin Luther King Day. The pound fell to a three-month low on Monday as investor concerns increased after speculation Prime Minister Theresa May is poised to outline plans for a "hard Brexit" during a speech scheduled for Tuesday. Over the weekend, the U.K.'s finance minister Phillip Hammond told a German newspaper that if Britain doesn't keep its access to the EU's single market, London would pursue a new "economic model." Story continues Oil prices edged slightly lower on Monday amidst anxiety among investors that large crude producers would not adhere to OPEC's production cut. Brent crude traded at around $55.38 a barrel on Monday shortly after the European close, down 0.16 percent, while U.S. crude was around $52.24 a barrel, down 0.23 percent. Euro zone exports rose in November, exceeding the number of imports by 25.9 billion euros ($27.6 billion), the European statistics office said Monday. Monday signaled the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos , Switzerland. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. More From CNBC * Germany says Trump remarks lead to "astonishment and agitation" * European officials reassured by Mattis, Tillerson testimony (Adds European Commission deputy chief, paragraph 4) By Robin Emmott and Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - If Washington's European allies had any hope that Donald Trump would sound less like Donald Trump now that he is days from the U.S. presidency, his first European newspaper interview quickly buried it. Trump declared the NATO alliance "obsolete", praised Britain's exit from the European Union and gave his clearest hint yet that he would consider lifting financial sanctions on Moscow, which the United States and EU both imposed after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. His new remarks drew public expressions of dismay from across Europe. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said they had led to "astonishment and agitation" in Brussels, where Steinmeier was meeting EU counterparts. He said he had already met with the head of NATO to share his concern. The EU executive, however, voiced confidence that Trump would come round to seeing it as the key U.S. ally it had been for decades: "I'm sure that sooner or later everyone in Washington will understand that it's in the strategic interests of the United States to have a successful European Union," European Commission deputy head Frans Timmermans told CNN. And behind the scenes, European officials say they are still confident that the architecture of the Western security alliance will survive a Trump presidency. Many say they have taken heart from the more conventional foreign policy positions described by Trump's picks for defence secretary and secretary of state, General James Mattis and Exxon-Mobil ex-CEO Rex Tillerson, at confirmation hearings. They also point to the strong support for NATO and the firm line on Russia expressed by senators from Trump's Republican Party during the questioning. Ultimately, they expect the post-World War Two Western alliance to withstand a more sceptical approach from the White House, thanks to deep institutional understanding of its benefits on both sides of the Atlantic. A stepped-up schedule of summits and meetings will give early chances to clear the air. Story continues "We are working on the basis that Trump will listen to Mattis, Tillerson and foreign policy Republicans," said a senior EU diplomat involved in foreign policy planning in Brussels. "If we can cement a relationship based around the calendar of meetings, bilaterals and summits, we may be able to get beyond the headlines and the election campaign." FOCUS ON EUROPE Trump takes charge of U.S. foreign policy and becomes commander-in-chief of the military at a time when the 2014 Ukraine crisis has already prompted Washington and NATO to shift their focus from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq back towards the founding mission of defending Europe. Three years after the last U.S. tank left Europe, U.S. heavy weaponry is returning as part of a congressionally-approved $3.4 billion spending plan to increase Europe's defences against what NATO -- led by U.S. strategists -- sees as an increasingly aggressive Russia. Under that plan, the U.S. army will deploy thousands of troops in Poland and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which all fear that Russia could attempt a land-grab on the model of its operation in Ukraine. The head of the Latvian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Ojars Eriks Kalnins, told Reuters his country was reassured by Mattis's confirmation hearings last week. "If you listen to his testimony then everything fits with our positions," he said. The first big chance to solidify the alliance will come Feb. 15-16, when Mattis is expected to make his debut at NATO headquarters in Brussels for a meeting of alliance ministers. That will be quickly followed by the annual Munich Security Conference in the German city, normally attended by world leaders and cabinet ministers, at which EU officials can press Trump administration figures for their views. A second senior EU official working on EU foreign policy said there will also be a swift invitation for Tillerson to attend an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. "We obviously plan to engage with the incoming US administration, it'll be important to assess our common priorities." Trump himself could make his European summit debut at a NATO meeting in April or May, although it has not yet been scheduled and could wait until 2018. Otherwise, he will share a stage with the British, Canadian, French, German, Italian and Japanese leaders at a G7 summit in Italy in May. Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said the main strategy was to ensure lines of dialog are open between the new administration and allies on the continent. "I'm convinced it's about communication," he said. "Our role is to be active, it's not a wait-and-see strategy. For all of us, it's very important to address partners in this new structure and to start cooperation and exchange of views." European officials say they expect Trump to hear about the importance of the U.S.-European alliance not only from diplomats and generals, but from fellow businessmen who recognise the need for close ties with the world's biggest trading bloc. Trump "would be well-advised to ask his international American companies how much sense it makes to operate in a single market in Europe. Then perhaps a sense of understanding would prevail," said Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner in charge of the bloc's future expansion. Still, despite the reassurance Europeans take from Trump's cabinet picks, one EU diplomat said the conclusion in Brussels was that they were dealing with "a big unknown" in Trump himself. "Whatever Tillerson, Mattis and others say, it is not necessarily the new administration's policy." French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Europe could learn a valuable lesson from a sceptical Washington: European countries need to stick together to defend themselves. "The best way to defend Europe, that's what Mr. Trump is inviting us to do, is to remain united, is to stand together and not forget that the strength of Europeans is their unity," Ayrault said. (Additional by Robert-Jan Bartunek, Philip Blenkinsop, Alastair Macdonald and Tom Korkemeier in Brussels, David Mardiste in Tallinn and Gederts Gelzis in Riga; Editing by Peter Graff) Job Title: Assistant Field Officer Organisation: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Position No.: 10026804 Vacancy Notice: 001/2017 Reports to: Senior Field Coordinator or Field Officer or Head of Sub-Office/Field Officer Senior FieldCoordinator or Field Officer or Head of Sub-Office/Field Officer Duty Station: Uganda Post Grade: NOA About UNHCR: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCRs mandate under the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is to lead and co-ordinate action for international protection to refugees; seek permanent solutions for the problems of refugees and safeguard refugee rights and well-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate concerning issues of statelessness, as it is given a designated role under Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Assess the needs of persons of concern in the AoR and formulate project submissions in collaboration with district authorities and implementing partners. Actively promote and monitor the implementation of assistance projects. Report regularly on rate of flow of new arrivals and estimate expected influx based on interviews with persons of concern. Work in close co-ordination with implementing partners, assist with the reception, registration and provision of assistance to persons of concern to UNHCR. Keep track of cases of detention; register applicants for voluntary repatriation and family reunion. Offer support in the preparation of monthly sectoral reports and submit material for preparation of periodic project monitoring reports and year-end reports. Undertake other relevant duties as required. Key Performance Indicators: UNHCRs policies, standards and procedures are constantly and coherently applied in the area of responsibility (AoR). The needs of persons of concern in the AoR are assessed and analysed in a participating manner and using an Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) perspective to form a firm basis for planning. Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience: The ideal candidate for the United Nations UNHCR Assistant Field Officer job placement should hold a University degree in Law, Political Sciences or related fields. At least two years of previous relevant work experience. Excellent knowledge of English and working knowledge of another UN language. How to Apply: All interested Ugandan nationals who wish to join the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the aforementioned capacity are encouraged to click on the link below and follow the application instructions after reviewing the job details. th January, 2017 Deadline: 25January, 2017 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline BJP has expressed its willingness to form an alliance with Shiv Sena for the municipal corporation elections based on a common agenda, but has demanded 'transparency' in governance. An obvious indication is that Shiv Sena, while running BMC the richest municipal corporation did not follow the norms of transparency. Shiv Sena, on the other hand, has completely ignored the demand and has formed a panel of its leaders to discuss possible terms of alliance with BJP. Anil Desai (MP), Anil Parab and Ravi Mirlekar will discuss the alliance possibilities with Ashish Shelar and Vinod Tawde of BJP. Shiv Sena has reiterated its position that the discussions will not be held on the terms set by BJP. BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said, Mumbai needs to be free of mafia. They exercise control over water distribution, slums, solid waste management, roads construction. BJP will fight them out irrespective of the alliance. Earlier, Somaiya had squarely blamed Shiv Sena for all the corruption in the BMC. An outraged group of Shiv Saniks had even tried to attack Somaiya after his allegations. Uddhav Thackeray said, We have fought against leaders who ditched us and against relatives. But this time, we may have to fight against unfaithful friends. Ramdas Athawale, union minister & Republican party leader, has appealed to both the parties to form an alliance. He said, We want 25 seats if the alliance is formed, but we will fight 60 seats if the alliance is not formed. We will prefer to go with BJP if the bigger alliance does not happen. NCP has already announced its first list of 45 candidates while SP has declared 24 candidates. BMC, along with nine other municipal corporations, will go for the polls on the February 21. Congress party would stage a gherao agitations at Reserve Banka of India offices in Mumbai, Nagpur, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad on January 18 to protest against the demonetisation decision and the loss of credibility of the central bank. The interference of the government in the functioning of the RBI has increased too much due to a weak RBI Governor. Ordinary Indians are compelled to suffer, said former union minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who addressed a press conference in Mumbai along with former chief minister and PCC president Ashok Chavan on Monday. Earlier, a meeting was held at the party's headquarters Tilak Bhavan to decide the strategy for the protests. The meeting was attended by senior party leaders like Prithviraj Chavan, Narayan Rane and Balasaheb Thorat, and other office bearers of the frontal organisations. Prithviraj Chavan, while talking to THE WEEK, said, We will demand for the resignation of RBI Governor Urjit Patel. The autonomy of an institution like RBI is extremely important, and now its has become very clear that the very autonomy is at grave risk. Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee will hold a state level convention in Mumbai on January 29 about the decision of demonetisation and its after effects. Congress party plans to make this a central issue during its campaign for the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat elections scheduled in February. Deeply hurt by his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's recalcitrant attitude, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday shared his anguish with the party workers in Lucknow. Baring his heart Mulayam said, Akhilesh has become very stubborn, he is not ready to listen to me; these days he is not even ready for a dialogue, he is just following what Ram Gopal says. Though he is my son, has joined hands with my opponents. Mulayam revealed that he had called Akhilesh in the morning for talks at his residence but he did not turn up. Mulayam said that he would abide by the decision of the Eelection Commission. If Akhilesh would not listen to him, he would fight against his son, said the SP chief, who also urged his party workers to support him in the coming assembly polls. Mulayam accused Akhilesh of ignoring Muslim voters. He said, Minorities always helped us form the government, but Akhilesh is not at all concerned about their interest. When I appointed a Muslim DGP (director general of police), Akhilesh opposed that. Mulayam claimed that he had worked for the welfare of minorities and would keep doing so. He alleged that Akhilesh had removed many senior and important ministers who were not at fault, and said that the chief minister's decisions were wrong. An intense family feud has been going on between senior and junior Yadavs since September last, which resulted in a coup by Akhilesh and his camp against Mulayam. Both the factions have been trying hard to take the control of the party. However, Akhilesh enjoys majority support of his legislators and ministers in this tug of war while Mulayam seems to have been isolated. The selection of the new CBI director by the Union government has got mired in controversy after the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Maillikarjun Kharge is learnt to have given a dissent note to the three member selection panel chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi which met on Monday to pick the new boss of the probe agency. The three-member panel headed by the prime minister has Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, and Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar as members. While there is no official word on who the government is proposing as the chief of the premier investigating agency, it is learnt that the name of Delhi police commissioner Alok Kumar Verma topped the list of IPS officers discussed by the panel. Kharge had earlier sent off a strongly-worded letter to the prime minister protesting against the manner in which the second in command in the CBI and the main contender for the top job (according to seniority and experience) Rupak Kumar Dutta was moved to the home ministry days before the incumbent Anil Kumar Sinha completed his two year tenure on December 2. Instead, a Gujarat cadre officer Rakesh Asthana was appointed as the interim chief, triggering a political storm. However, it is learnt that Asthana may not be able to become the full time director of the anti-corruption agency as he has yet to be empaneled to the DG level. Meanwhile, uncertainty continues to prevail as to who will the opposition settle down with amongst the names discussed by the panel. For now, Kharge has put the government in a tight spot with his dissent note. The names proposed to the panel also include SSB chief Archana Ramasundaram, ITBP chief Krishna Choudhry, Mumbai police chief Satish Mathur among others. South Korean prosecutors, on Monday, requested an arrest warrant for Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Group's de facto leader, on charges of bribery in connection with an influence-peddling scandal that led to President Park Geun-hye's impeachment. Lee, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., was questioned by an independent counsel team as a bribery suspect on January 12, Yonhap News Agency reported. The country's largest business group is alleged to have given undue financial support to Park's jailed friend Choi Soon-sil in return for the state-run pension fund's backing of a merger of two Samsung affiliates. Samsung signed a 22 billion won ($18 million) consulting contract in August 2015 with a Germany-based firm owned by the woman who is at the centre of the scandal, and allegedly sent the company billions of won, which was used to fund her daughter's equestrian training, according to prosecutors. The group also donated 20.4 billion won to two non-profit foundations set up in October 2015 and in January 2016, becoming the biggest contributor among local businesses. The two foundations are suspected of being linked to Choi. Prosecutors suspect Samsung supported Choi in return for the National Pension Service's approval of the controversial merger of two Samsung subsidiaries on July 17, 2015. Moon Hyung-pyo, chief of the National Pension Service and former health minister, was arrested last month over his alleged role in the merger deal. Investigators are looking into whether President Park was involved in the process which they deem a bribery case. Park met with Lee privately on July 25, 2015. The business group has admitted to making contribution to the two foundations and her firm, but denied such contributions were related to the merger. Lee became a board member of Samsung Electronics last October and his father, Lee Kun-hee, has been hospitalized since suffering a heart attack in 2014. [COMMUNICATED CONTENT] Rav Mordechai Avromovsky has never missed a levaya in Zichron Yaakov since becoming the citys Chief Rabbi decades ago. When an elderly, barely-frum member of his shul passed away a few years ago, as usual Rav Avromovsky attended the levaya and then was menachem the aveilim at the familys home. Rabbi Avromovsky led the minyan there and even showed the niftars son, a secular man, how to put on tefillin and say Kaddish. At the end of the shiva, the secular son asked if he could come to shul the next day and continue saying Kaddish for his father there, and Rav Avromovsky said, Of course! Yes! The secular man joined the minyan for several days, and then one morning asked another member of the minyan if it would be okay if he davened from the amud. The secular man wanted to lead the minyan for the zechus of his deceased father. The member of the minyan pointed towards the shtender at the front of the shul, and the secular man led Shacharis for the first time in his life. Immediately after the last Kaddish, a visibly upset member of the shul approached the secular man and began rebuking him: How can you be the shaliyach tzibur when you are mechallel Shabbos publicly! Do you think you can be motzei us in your brachos?! The secular man stood aghast, feeling all eyes in the minyan were watching the public rebuke. He looked around, and he saw Rav Mordechai Avromovsky, his Rav, his friend, also watching. The secular man interrupted the shul member and said, Lets ask the Rav. The shul member turned, saw Rav Avromovsky watching, and said, Gladly! And the two men approached the Rav. The shul member made his case, and Rav Avromovsky responded powerfully, Of course he can daven from the amud! Of course he can be the shaliyach tzibur! He must be the shaliyach tzibur! The shul member was completely confused. Unable to understand the reason for the Ravs psak, but clear that the Rav permits this secular man to lead davening, the shul member just walked away. The secular man also shifted to depart, but Rav Avromovsky called him back and whispered, Do you know why I poskined you can daven from the amud? The secular man, who now realized that a mechallel Shabbos really cant lead a minyan, responded, No, Rav, I dont understand. Rav Avromovsky explained, When that man rebuked you and told you that you couldnt lead the minyan for the zechus of your father because you are a mechallel Shabbos, I saw your face change. I saw the regret you felt. I understood that for your father, you will never be mechallel Shabbos again. Since I knew that now you are a Shomer Shabbos, I poskined that you can and should lead our minyan. As he concluded recounting this story to the avreichim of the Center for Kehillah Development, Rav Avromovsky added: He was never mechallel Shabbos again, and for years he has been a frum member of our kehillah. That hanhaga is found only in the fifth chelek of Shulchan Aruch. The CKD trip to Zichron Yaakov in December was part of the programs shimush component, a component that brings the CKD avreichim into close, personal contact on a regular basis with some of the most influential rabbonim in Klal Yisroel. Rav Avromovsky, who also serves as the acting Chief Rabbi of Haifa and is in charge of Rabbanut Kashrus, then took the avreichim on a daylong tour of Tishbi Winery, the Beit El industrial food manufacturing facility, and Eden Hotel all of which are under his hashgacha and meet Bdatz standards. The avreichim learned first- hand the subtle but significant differences between ordinary Rabbanut hashgacha, Rabbanut Mehadrin hashgacha, and the various Bdatz hashgachos. Everyone knows from hearsay that their standards are different, said Rav Leib Kelemen, Dean of the CKD, but very few rabbonim really understand what those differences are and what the implications are for someone who is makpid on eating only mehadrin. Rav Kelemen explained that kashrus is not a game, and genuine psak cant be based on hearsay or politics. Youve got to know the facts on the ground, he stressed, and the only way to know those facts is real shimush, seeing what is actually happening in the field. After the tour, Rav Avromovsky sat with the avreichim for an hour, telling stories from his many years in rabbanus. He concluded with a story about one of the first drashos he ever gave on the Yamim Noraim: It was erev Yom Kippur, and the shul was packed. Secular Jews I had never seen before even filed in and filled up the back rows. I gave a mussar shmuess full of fire to try to wake them up from their slumber. When I was leaving the shul that night, a secular woman approached me. She was so upset. Rabbi, she said, We came. We are the ones who came. Why did you yell at us? I realized she was right. The next day I welcomed them all and tried to show them the beauty of teshuva. Everyone could hear that. I learned then that even with good intention, I make mistakes. Rabbis make mistakes. Rabbi Avromovsky looked out at the faces of the CKD avreichim, all of whom will soon be rabbinic leaders, and he concluded, Dont forget that even with the best of intentions, you can be wrong. Dont be afraid to admit when you are wrong. The Center for Kehillah Development is a five-year, post-kollel program for English speaking avreichim between ages 25-30 who are committed to serving Klal Yisroel. They are now taking applications for a limited number of spots for this coming Elul. To find out more about the program, visit www.c4kd.org, or apply by emailing [email protected]. Perhaps nowhere in America would so many people be as personally affected by the Republican-led repeal of Obamacare than Miami. Three congressional districts all represented by Republicans have among the highest number of Affordable Care Act enrollees in the country, offering an irony to those House members votes Friday to begin the process of dismantling the 2010 federal law that has extended health insurance to as many as 20 million Americans. Only nine House Republicans, none from Florida, dissented from the near party-line 227-198 vote. There are 96,300 people enrolled in the Florida district represented by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, the highest number in the country, according to estimates by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Her district is followed closely by Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Miami, whose southwest Miami-Dade and Monroe County district has 92,500 enrolled in the insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, who opposes rescinding the law, has the third-greatest number at 94,100, followed by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, whose Hialeah to Naples district has 83,300 enrolled. Ros-Lehtinen acknowledged the incongruity, noting that many in her district are worried about losing what she called the positive aspects of President Barack Obamas signature law, including keeping children on their parents insurance through 26 and covering pre-existing conditions. But Ros-Lehtinen argued that Obamacare which she has consistently voted to oppose has been in an unsustainable downward spiral since it started. She said the program needs extensive changes to sustain it, including eliminating the individual and employer mandates, which Democrats argue are key to expanding care to people who can not afford insurance. Ros-Lehtinen cited a plan authored by Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, as a potential starting place. But Democrats warn that Republicans, who have yet to coalesce around a replacement plan for Obamacare, are courting disaster in the insurance markets by looking to take apart the law. Democrats are planning a Day of Action on Saturday in various cities to mobilize grassroots opposition to the plan to roll back the act. While the Republicans may have an ideological opposition to the Affordable Care Act, they have to understand what it means in cost to their constituents cost in benefits, cost in quality of service, cost in access and cost in dollars, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Were hoping that they will listen. Diaz-Balart, who has also voted repeatedly to repeal the law, said he has been listening to his constituents and hears mostly complaints: Costs are increasing and doctors are increasingly unwilling to accept people with Obamacare, he said. You know why they come to see me? They come to see me when they have to actually go to a doctor, Diaz-Balart said. The deductibles are exceedingly high and then they realize, Hey, this is a bit of a fraud. He said tinkering around the edges, as Democrats have proposed, wont work: This concept that bureaucrats in Washington know best for the American peoples health needs, this central planning concept is failing one more time. President elect Donald Trump has pressured his Republican colleagues to move quickly on gutting and replacing the law, but Diaz-Balart said he hopes for a legislative process that involves public hearings something he accuses the Democrats of scuttling in their haste to impose Obamacare. Its going to take awhile, but I want to do it right, he said. And Republicans are aware of the political pitfalls, he said, contending that Republicans will ensure that current enrollees wont lose benefits. Curbelo, who didnt vote for Trump and whose Democratic-leaning district re-elected him but also went for Hillary Clinton, is similarly nonplussed by the vote. We want something better for all of these people, said Curbelo, adding that his office fields complaints about rising costs and declining choices. Curbelo was appointed last week to the influential House Ways and Means committee and said he plans to be engaged in writing legislation to replace the health care plan. He expected some replacement provisions could be enacted quickly and that no one would lose coverage because of the Republican repeal. This is our opportunity to offer Americans the health care system that we believe they deserve, Curbelo said. Freddy Balsera, a Democratic political consultant who is close to Curbelo and supported his candidacy, noted that many in the district viewed Curbelo as a moderate, willing to work across the aisle. He needs to be careful, Balsera said. If he votes to end a program that so many thousands in South Florida depend on, he better be quick to offer a solution. (Via; Miami Herald) German Chancellor Angela Merkel is stressing as she awaits Donald Trumps inauguration that the worlds problems need solving in cooperation, rather than by each country individually. Asked at a news conference Saturday about protectionist tendencies in the U.S., Merkel said she will seek a dialogue with the new president. I dont want to get ahead of that, but I am very much convinced that we as partners benefit more if we act together than if everyone solves problems for themselves, and that is a constant fundamental attitude on my part, she said. Underlining the importance of the Group of 20 industrial powers, which Germany chairs this year, she said that the international response to the financial crisis was not a response based on isolation, but a response based on cooperation, on common rules for regulating financial markets, and I think that is the promising path. Merkel has made clear that shes unhappy about the possible demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement as a result of Trumps desire to withdraw the United States. Trump has criticized Merkels decision to allow large numbers of migrants into Germany. Merkel said there are contacts at adviser level with Trumps team, though there was no immediate word on any plans for a meeting beyond the summits of the Group of Seven and G-20 in May and July respectively. Merkel will host the latter summit in the German city of Hamburg. Well wait for the inauguration and then we will talk about this, she said at a news conference. Trump will be inaugurated on Friday. Merkel is seeking a fourth term in an election expected in September. Leaders of her conservative Christian Democratic Union met Friday and Saturday in Perl, in western Saarland state, to kick off the election year which also features three state elections, the first in Saarland in March. Merkel has said she expects her most difficult election yet, though she was confident Saturday that a simmering dispute with her allies in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, wont get in the way of a joint conservative campaign. The CSU has demanded for the past year an annual cap of 200,000 on the number of refugees Germany accepts, an idea Merkel rejects. Germany saw 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive in 2015 and 280,000 last year. Merkel said leaders of her party agreed that we can live with such a disagreement. She renewed her pledge of improved security following last months deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market. We are making clear that every person has a right to security, and only those who are secure can live in freedom, she said. Germanys 16 states must have the same security standards, Merkel said, arguing that its not sensible for regions to have different rules on matters such as video surveillance. (AP) The Israeli military struck a Hamas post in the southern Gaza Strip Sunday in response to a Palestinian attack on an Israeli military vehicle, the military said. No one was wounded in the exchange but it marked a rare flare-up along the tense border that has remained largely quiet since a bloody 50-day war between Israel and Hamas terrorists in Gaza in the summer of 2014. Despite the cease-fire that has largely held since, terrorists in Gaza occasionally launch rockets toward Israel. Israel typically responds to any fire toward it and holds Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from the territory it controls. While neither side appears interested in an escalation, casualties could spark more violence. Sundays incident comes shortly after thousands took to the streets to protest chronic power cuts in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in one of the largest unauthorized protests in the territory since the Islamic terror group took power a decade ago. (AP) Irans deputy foreign minister says the nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers will not be renegotiated ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump taking office this week. In a press conference Sunday marking the one-year anniversary of the agreements implementation, Abbas Araghchi told reporters that the new U.S. administration cannot abandon the deal. Trump was critical of the nuclear deal during the presidential campaign and pledged to renegotiate it, but he hasnt offered many specifics on his plans since the election. Araghchi repeated an earlier warning by Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who publicly stated, If they tear it up, we will burn it, without elaborating. (AP) Some New York State lawmakers are hoping to halt an upcoming tax on plastic bags in New York City. The five cent fee for disposable shopping bags is scheduled to take effect on Feb. 15th. New York State Senators Simcha Felder, Martin Golden, and Tony Avella and Assemblyman Michael Cusick will join colleagues on both sides of the aisle at a news conference Sunday at City Hall to discuss their efforts to stop the tax. They say there is still time to stop the Mayor and City Council from implementing it. Critics argue the tax is a bad deal for working and middle class New Yorkers. The City Council passed the law to cut down on single use plastic bags, which are rarely recycled and end up as trash in landfills. (Via: ABC News) Congressional Republicans are trying to change federal guns regulations to make buying a silencer, or suppressor, easier. But critics dont agree with the argument that the proposed legislation is a safety measure to prevent hearing injuries. The Hearing Protection Act, introduced earlier this week in the GOP-controlled House and Senate, if passed, would still require a background check to buy a silencer, which muffles or suppresses more than silences the sound of a shot. However, buyers would no longer have to pay a $200 fee or wait for months after filing extensive paperwork with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Ive been shooting since I was a young child beginning with plinking with a .22 rifle and dove hunting with my Dad. My hearing has been damaged because of gun noise, South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan said Monday after introducing the bill in the House with Texas Rep. John Carter, a fellow Republican. Had I had access to a suppressor, it may have protected me, as well as millions of other Americans, from this sort of hearing loss. This is a health issue, Duncan continued. The National Rifle Associations lobbying arm supports the measures, saying suppressors are harmless and very rarely used in crime and that the joint bill would end the cumbersome and lengthy application process. A similar measure failed in 2015. But supporters are optimistic this time with Republican Donald Trump set Friday to officially become president. They point to the NRA having endorsed Trump and Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., a hunter, recently appearing in a promotional video for Utah-based SilencerCo. I believe in American manufacturing. I love your product, Trump says in the video, in which he also argues that European countries freely allow the accessory. Its a safety issue. The GOP lawmakers say the bill aims to cut through the red tape of owning a suppressor and, if passed, would remove the accessory from the scope of the National Firearms Act. They also say it would replace the outdated federal application process with the instantaneous National Instant Criminal Background Check. The bill calls for a refund of the $200 transfer tax for applicants who purchased a suppressor after Oct. 22, 2015, the original date of introduction. Critics point to a February 2013 situation in which fired Los Angles police officer Christopher Dorner killed four people in a series of attacks over 10 days that targeted law enforcement officials. They argue the fatal attacks might have been stopped earlier had Dorner not been using silencers. Theres no evidence of a public health issue associated with hearing loss from gunfire, Kristin Brown, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told The Los Angeles Times. There is evidence of a public health crisis from gun violence, and we think thats where legislative efforts should be directed. The bill is being introduced in the Senate by Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, and its co-sponsors include fellow GOP Sens. Rand Paul, Kentucky, and Jerry Moran, Kansas. (Via: Fox News) A motorcycle group led by a South Carolina chainsaw artist will ride into the nations capital on Inauguration Day in support of the 45th President of the United States. Bikers for Trump, a group of motorcycle enthusiasts, will likely be toeing the line with protesters, who are also expected to be at the event. The bikers are certainly used to being outnumbered and we are prepared to form a wall of meat, Chris Cox, the founder of the organization, told the FOX Business Network. However, Cox said he doesnt foresee any problems occurring during the event, especially after the groups experience at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where police successfully maintained order between Trumps supporters and protesters. Were anticipating a celebration here. We dont anticipate any problems. We have a strict code of conduct where we dont condone violence. But again in the event that were needed, you can certainly count on the Bikers for Trump, Cox said. He added: The backbone of the biker community is the veteran. So these are guys that arent really used to backing down. You certainly wont see bikers out there screaming, calling for destruction of private property or the death of police officers. Cox said he and other members of his group support the President-elect because he is not an establishment politician and also because of his outspoken nature on the issues that concern them most. [The bikers looked for] someone who was going to stand up and call it what it is, Cox explained. Radical Islam is one of the biggest talking points of Bikers for Trump. Illegal immigration and one of our sweet spots is getting behind the American veteran. We believe its incumbent upon all who understand the value and the sacrifice of our servicemen and women that we are there for them. And weve got to change these policies now. According to Cox, the bikers rally at John Marshall Park will begin shortly after Donald Trump exits the stage to go into the Capitol. And it will end shortly before the parade on Pennsylvania Ave. (Via: FOX News) Two senior aides to Donald Trump denied a report that his advisers had told U.K. officials the incoming presidents first foreign trip will be a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Reykjavik. Russian officials also derided the report. The Sunday Times of London reported that advisers to Trump had told U.K. officials the president-elect might meet his Russian counterpart at a neutral venue such as Iceland, potentially within weeks of taking office. The newspaper said, without providing details, that Trump planned to begin working on a deal to limit nuclear weapons. It cited an unidentified source for the summit plans, and added that Moscow is ready to agree to the meeting, based on comments from unnamed officials at the Russian embassy in London. That embassy also knocked down the report on its Twitter feed on Sunday, and demanded an apology from the newspaper. The Sunday Times cited an unidentified adviser to Trump that that the president-elect, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, will meet with Putin at a neutral venue very soon. That is 100 percent false, a Trump aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said late Sunday. The suggestion of a meeting in Iceland evokes the Reagan-era nuclear agreement between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, then general secretary of the Soviet Unions Communist Party. The pair held a two-day summit in Reykjavik in October 1986 to work on what eventually became a major nuclear disarmament treaty between the two superpowers in 1987. (c) 2017, Bloomberg Ros Krasny, Margaret Talev Vice President-elect Mike Pence denied Sunday that the Trump campaign had any contacts with Russia during the campaign. Repeatedly pressed on the issue on Fox News Sunday, Pence eventually answered directly, saying, Of course not. Why would there be any contacts between the campaign and Russia, he said. He added that questions about contacts with Russia during the campaign were part of an attempt to cast doubts on the legitimacy of Trumps election. This is all a distraction, and its all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election, Pence said. The American people see right through it. Pence also denied that Trumps incoming national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, spoke to Russian officials in December about sanctions that had been announced as retribution for Russian hacking in the election. I talked to General Flynn yesterday, and the conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to new U.S. sanctions against Russia and the expulsion of diplomats, Pence said. (c) 2017, The Washington Post Abby Phillip With eager anticipation, the Kremlin is counting the days to Donald Trumps inauguration and venting its anger at Barack Obamas outgoing administration, no holds barred. Careful not to hurt chances for a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have deferred questions about their plans for future contacts with Trump and any agenda for those talks until he takes office on Friday. Trumps open admiration of Putin has brought wide expectations of improved Moscow-Washington relations, but Trump has not articulated a clear Russia policy. His Cabinet nominees include both a retired general with a hawkish stance on Russia and an oil executive who has done extensive business in Russia. At the same time, Russian officials are blasting the outgoing U.S. administration in distinctly undiplomatic language, dropping all decorum after Obama hit Moscow with more sanctions in his final weeks in office. Moscow calls Obamas team a bunch of geopolitical losers engaged in a last-ditch effort to inflict the maximum possible damage to U.S.-Russia ties to make it more difficult for Trump to mend the rift. In a clear effort to avoid risking a rapprochement with Trump, Putin showed remarkable restraint when the U.S. expelled 35 Russian diplomats over accusations of meddling in the U.S. election campaign. Instead of a usual tit-for-tat response, Putin invited U.S. diplomats children to a New Years party at the Kremlin. Trumps national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and Russias ambassador to the U.S. were in frequent contact in recent weeks, including on Dec. 29, the day Obama hit Moscow with sanctions in retaliation for election-related hacking, according to a senior U.S. official. Moscow similarly refrained from retaliation when the White House last week added five Russians, including the chief of Russias top state investigative agency, to the U.S. sanctions list. On Sunday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence insisted the Trump presidential campaign had no contacts with Russia and denied that the incoming national security adviser spoke with Russian officials in December about sanctions. He added that such questions were part of an effort to cast doubt on Trumps victory. While Putin and his lieutenants hope Trump will open up to Russia, they know any attempt to fix ties will face massive obstacles, including possible strong resistance in the U.S. Congress. Any future contacts will have to be prepared quite accurately and thoroughly, as they would follow a tense period, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Fyodor Lukyanov, chair of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, a group of Russian foreign policy experts, said Syria is one area where a U.S.-Russian rapport is likely. During the call with Flynn, the Russian ambassador invited U.S. officials to a conference on Syria in Kazakhstan later this month, according to a transition official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. In an interview Friday with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he might do away with Obamas sanctions if Russia works with the U.S. on battling terrorists and achieving other goals. The Kremlin would be eager to embrace a U.S. offer of cooperation on Syria. Obamas administration had refused to coordinate action against the IS with Russia, saying Moscow was bent on shoring up Syrian President Bashar Assad. The complexity of the conflict in Syria where opposition groups backed by regional players are pitted against Assads troops and often fight each other makes hopes for quick progress elusive. Russia and the United States are important players (in Syria) but not the only ones, Lukyanov said. He noted that nuclear arms control is another possible area where Moscow and Washington could try to find common ground. While new arms control treaties are unlikely, the two countries may try to find ways to increase global stability, Lukyanov said. Putin has pushed for the U.S. to recognize Moscow as an equal global heavyweight and to acknowledge that Russias ex-Soviet neighbors are in its sphere of vital interests demands rejected by the West. Many in Russia hope that Trump could be more inclined to strike a grand bargain with Putin, carving up spheres of influence and helping cement Russias role as a global power. Alexander Lebedev, a multimillionaire Russian owner of Britains Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, believes that Putin wants a big deal that would envisage cooperation in Syria and possible cooperation in other spheres. $1 trillion a year is stolen by global banks and companies and moved offshore, Lebedev said, adding that Russia and the U.S. could launch a worldwide crackdown on corrupt business practices. U.S.-Russian relations have sunk to a post-Cold War low over Russias 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and support for a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. A 2015 peace deal helped end large-scale battles in eastern Ukraine, but clashes have continued. The U.S. and the European Union have slapped Russia with economic sanctions and made their lifting contingent on the Ukraine peace deals progress. While the Kremlin counts on Trump to roll the sanctions back, many observers are skeptical. In the current atmosphere, its very difficult to imagine how Trump could start canceling the sanctions, Lukyanov said. U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election top the list of irritants. U.S. intelligence officials accusations that Russian hackers acting on Putins orders interfered into the vote to help Trump win have put the U.S. president-elect in a difficult position. Trump has grudgingly conceded that Russia was likely responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee, but emphasized there was no evidence that hacking affected the U.S. election results. The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations and also hotly denied reports that it has collected compromising information about Trump. Aware that an open show of support for Trump would only make it more difficult for him to restore ties, Russian officials have mostly focused on blasting Obamas administration. Konstantin Kosachev, the head of foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, described the White Houses decision to expel Russian diplomats as an agony of not even lame ducks, but political corpses. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further. If Russian hackers hacked anything in America, there were two things: Obamas brain, and, of course, the report about Russian hackers,' she wrote on Facebook. Zakharova charged that Obama and his illiterate foreign policy team have dealt a crushing blow to Americas prestige and leadership and described his administration as a bunch of geopolitical losers, enraged and shortsighted. Obamas administration still has a few days left to destroy the world, Zakharova wrote. (AP) The Kremlin hopes that Donald Trump will move to improve badly strained Russia-U.S. ties once he takes office. Relations between Moscow and Washington are at their lowest point since the Cold War amid the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and other issues. It would be challenging to reach common ground on some issues even if Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin both want it, as the interests of Russia and of the United States differ sharply and many U.S. allies have a deep distrust of Moscows intentions. On some issues, however, there is a measure of agreement. Here is a look at some of the items on the Russia-U.S. agenda: RUSSIAN HACKING U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of meddling in the U.S. election through hacking, to help Trump win, claims that Russia has rejected. Trump last week conceded that Russia was likely responsible for hacking into Democratic emails, but insisted that didnt affect the outcome of the vote. He argued that the U.S. has been hacked by China and other countries as well. U.S. and EU officials also have accused Russia of hacking other Western institutions and voiced concern that Russia may try to influence this years elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands. The hacking issue is likely to weigh over Trump and could overshadow any possible attempt by his administration to improve ties with Moscow. THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS AND ANTI-RUSSIA SANCTIONS During the U.S. election campaign, Trump refused to condemn Russias annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and even hinted that he would consider recognizing it as Russian territory. Such a move, however, would trigger massive opposition in the U.S. Congress and rattle U.S. allies, so it appears highly unlikely. Led by Washington, the European Union and other U.S. allies have slapped Russia with several waves of sanctions in response to the annexation of Crimea and Moscows support for a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions, along with low oil prices, have driven Russias economy into recession, and Putin sees getting them lifted as one of his top priorities. Obamas administration and the EU tied rolling back the sanctions to progress in a 2015 peace deal for Ukraine, which has floundered. It would be difficult for the Trump administration to push for the sanctions removal while clashes in eastern Ukraine are continuing. Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed further ratcheting up anti-Russian sanctions. SYRIA Trump has said Russia and the U.S. should combine efforts to fight the Islamic State group in Syria. Moscow long has pushed for such cooperation, hoping it would help turn the page on the Ukrainian crisis and improve its ties with Washington. Obamas administration ruled out such an alliance, however, because of the Kremlins focus on shoring up Syrian President Bashar Assad. Chances for U.S.-Russian cooperation in Syria are higher now when Assads foes are weakened and demoralized following their retreat from Aleppo, the nations largest city. With Assads positions stronger than ever since the start of the conflict nearly six years ago, Russia may focus more on fighting IS, and would eagerly embrace cooperation with the U.S. if Trump offers it. NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL The New START nuclear arms reduction treaty signed by Russia and the United States in 2010 limited their nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads for each country. The treaty is set to expire in 2021, but they could agree to extend it as they both appreciate the measure of transparency the deal offers. The treaty doesnt prevent either side from modernizing their arsenals, which Russia is already doing and Trump has vowed to do. There have been frictions, however, regarding another arms control pact, the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which outlawed that entire class of nuclear missiles. Washington and Moscow have traded mutual accusations of violating the treaty. NATOS BUILD-UP IN EUROPE The deployment of U.S. and other allied troops and weapons in the Baltics and Poland in response to Russias actions in Ukraine has angered Moscow, which has described it as proof of Washingtons hostile intentions. Russia also has been sharply critical of NATOs U.S.-led missile defense plan, which includes a site in Romania and a prospective facility in Poland. Putin has described the program as an attempt to erode Russias nuclear deterrent, dismissing U.S. claims the shield is intended to fend off a potential missile threat from Iran. These issues are likely to remain a top irritant in U.S.-Russia ties. (AP) The outgoing CIA director called Donald Trumps comments about the U.S. intelligence community outrageous and suggested the president-elects attitude toward Russia reflected an incomplete understanding of the countrys intentions. The comments by John Brennan on Fox News Sunday came amid escalating tensions between the president-elect and the intelligence community following a series of insults and allegations by Trump in recent weeks. On Jan. 11 Trump accused the the national security apparatus of being behind the leak by BuzzFeed of unverified and salacious reports connecting Trump to Russia. The president-election, who is scheduled to be inaugurated in five days, asked in a Twitter post, are we living in Nazi Germany? What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany, said Brennan, who served in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I do take great umbrage at that, and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly. There is no interest in undermining the president-elect, he added. The information released had circulated in the intelligence community and within some news organizations for months and received occasional, scant treatment in the media, but it was only published in full by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10. Outgoing White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday that the intelligence community is staffed by an unbelievable cadre of professionals who have dedicated their lives, and in many cases put their lives at risk, to get really critical, timely and important information to policy makers. Brennan, who characterized the off-the-cuff style thats defined Trumps public pronouncements as not something that protects national security interests, also suggested that Trumps openness to friendship with Russia could originate from a lack of knowledge. I dont think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russians intentions, and actions that they are undertaking in many part of the world, Brennan said. The intelligence community has accused Russia of hacking top-level Democrats during the election to help Trump a charge that led to earlier insults by Trump. Brennan admonished Trump, whos recently suggested he might lift sanctions on Russia, to be mindful that he doesnt yet, I think, have a full appreciation/understanding of what the implications are of such a move amid Russias actions in Ukraine, Syria and online. He added that Trump needs to be very, very careful. I very much hope our relationship improves in the coming administration, especially on counter-terrorism, Brennan added, but there is a fair amount of responsibility on Russias part to change their behavior. Vice President-elect Mike Pence said in an earlier interview on the same program that cooperation on counter-terrorism was at the heart of Trumps willingness to explore the possibility of better relations with Russia. We have a common enemy in ISIS, said Pence, using another name for the terrorist group Islamic State. The ability to work with Russia to confront, hunt down, and destroy ISIS at its source represents an enormously important priority of this incoming administration. Pence also denied there were any contacts between Trump associates and Russia, as alleged in the unverified memo. He said incoming National Security Adviser Mike Flynns conversation with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak in December, on the day President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia for the hacking was not in any way related to new U.S. sanctions or the expulsion of diplomats. (c) 2017, Bloomberg Ben Brody Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday 17 Teves made reference to the opening of the French-hosted regional summit; labeling it useless. Mr. Netanyahu made his comments at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting in the presence of the media, stating, The conference convening in Paris today is a useless conference. It is being coordinated between the French and the Palestinians. Its goal is to try and force terms on Israel that conflict with our national needs. Of course, it pushes peace further away because it hardens the Palestinian positions and it also pushes them away from direct negotiations without preconditions. I must say that this conference is among the last twitches of yesterdays world. Tomorrows world will be different and it is very near. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) There were Eida Chareidis protests against the IDF on Nahar Yarden Street in Beit Shemesh and Kikar Shabbos in Yerushalayim on Sunday night the eve of 18 Teves with some participants working to block the streets to vehicular traffic. At least two arrests were made in Beit Shemesh. Protestors took to the streets after learning a frum girl was taken into custody. Apparently, she failed to make the proper declaration regarding her religious status to receive a deferment from military service and taken into custody. It is explained she refused to sign on the declaration for technical reasons, which are not detailed and this resulted in her arrest. MK Moshe Gafne has been working towards gaining her release, announcing on Monday morning that Bezras Hashem she will be released from jail sometime during the day. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The diamond industry is facing a period of consolidation, but one upstart jeweler is steadily carving out a reputation for himself in a sector that's becoming less dominated by major jewelry producers. In 2012, Zameer Kassam, a former McKinsey analyst with a family background in jewelry, made the leap from the business world into jewelry design. Armed with a Harvard MBA, Kassam told CNBC his business model is "the complete opposite of opposite of everything in the industry," and hinges on millenials currently the hottest demographic in business. "There's been a seismic shift in how millennials think about diamonds and rings," the 37-year-old jeweler said in a recent interview. "They don't want something that everyone has. They don't place the same value in traditional brands across hotels, vehicles. It has to be personal." After a tenure at De Beers Louis Vuitton and Angara, Kassam decided to commit his life to jewelry. His brand was born out of his passion for designing rings as well as working with clients, something he found difficult to do in a traditional luxury environment. Personalizing jewelry is exactly what Kassam is looking to do with his eponymous brand, Zameer Kassam Fine Jewelry. His own efforts coincide with a broad push by the diamond industry to spur diamond sales among millennials in a bid to revamp its image. Advertising to the demographic is less focused on traditional ideas, and more on the emotional bond represented by the gem. Kassam's model incorporates the personal background of a couple into the design of their engagement ring, which in some cases can sell for tens of thousands of dollars each. Kassam takes the client through three steps: a diamond tutorial, a casual conversation about the couple's story, and storytelling, where ideas and designs for the ring take flight. "It's not just, 'Oh she likes red, so here's a red stone inside,'" Kassam told CNBC. "This has to tell your story. 'It is truly made only for me and it's infused with details about him and me.'" Story continues Kassam's company, in partnership with the De Beers Group, is an exclusive retailer of Forevermark diamonds. Prices generally start at $10,000 for engagement rings and $5,000 for other pieces. "There was never an option like this before never had a jeweler who can know you so well that they can create your story in a ring. It sounds like something for royalty but doesn't have to be," Kassam said. Kassam said he has worked with many unique couples, and enjoys telling their stories. Sometimes, it's as simple as having the ring blessed by a clergy member, or having wings hidden in the prongs of the setting to evoke the symbol of a hometown. Affixing more personal stories to diamonds and infusing them with more meaning and emotion has become a way to help reheat a cooling industry, which recent data from Bain & Company show has only begun to rebound after a period of weakness. A sell-off in inventory during 2015 helped generate a 20 percent bounce in rough diamond sales last year, according to Bain. Still, major jewelry retailers saw a slowdown in sales during the first half of 2016, amid slow demand in China and the U.S. Meanwhile, even the holiday season didn't provide its usual lift for big brands such as Tiffany (NYSE: TIF) and Signet (OTCPK: SIGN). The diamond industry's challenges including continuing concern over the social impact of diamonds and the rising popularity of lab-grown gems are creating an opening for niche players like Kassam. Kassam told CNBC he was no fan of major jewelers' traditions, calling them "a stale experience" and the environment they provide "cold." To that end, his brand eschews brick-and-mortar stores. So how does he make his business work? "We believe that people are our greatest asset," Kassam said. "Referrals allow you to start from place of trust, and it helps that we have been connected by friends." A satisfied client who tells other people about Kassam's jewels "ends up being our internal referral engine," he said. More From CNBC TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2017) - Galane Gold Ltd. ("Galane Gold" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:GG) is pleased to provide an update on the commissioning of the Galaxy Project: Underground development on 17 level completed and stoping ready to commence. Slimes reclamation from the Hostel dump running as planned. Crushing circuit work not yet commenced, however the ROM bin has been refurbished and a new crusher sourced. Mill circuit refurbished and running. Leach / CIL circuit first phase complete with 5 tanks running and oxygen plant fully functional. Second phase to complete another 3 tanks is under construction. Elution, carbon regeneration and gold circuit to be completed. Tailings circuit running as designed. Gold has been extracted from the loaded carbon from the CIL, using a neighbouring mines elution circuit, with the initial estimate for December 2016 production being 26 ounces. At the current stage the Galaxy project does not generate positive cash flows and further capital expenditures are required to complete the full commissioning. The Company is committed to fund the commissioning and subsidize operations at the Galaxy project from cash flows generated from the Company's Mupane mine. Mupane continues to generate positive operating cash flows; however at the current gold price it is insufficient to fully fund the Galaxy project. With the decline in gold price in November 2016 and the continued uncertainty of the price of gold, management of the Company has decided to be prudent and delay full commissioning at the Galaxy project until the Company has sufficient funds available. Galane Gold CEO, Nick Brodie commented: "Reducing the pace of commissioning at Galaxy is disappointing, but it is the correct decision in the current environment to avoid shareholder dilution. Galaxy forms a key part of our plan to reshape the Company into a long-life and low-cost operation that can produce positive returns for investors across commodity cycles. The decision to delay the full commissioning highlights why it is essential for us to deliver this plan and the management of the Company will review its position on a monthly basis. We do not believe that the current low gold price environment will be long term.(1)" Story continues Galaxy Description The Galaxy Gold mine is located approximately 8 km west of the town of Barberton and 45 km west of the provincial capital of Nelspruit (Mbombela), in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa and covers an area of 5,863 ha. The Galaxy Gold mine comprises 21 east-west trending gold bodies and four prospects at 600 - 2,000 meters depth. The technical disclosure regarding the Galaxy Gold mine is reported in the technical report entitled "A Technical Report on the Galaxy Gold Mine, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa" which was issued January 4, 2016 with an effective date of September 1, 2015 (the "Galaxy Technical Report"), and was prepared by Minxcon (Pty) Ltd and approved by Daniel van Heerden, B Eng (Min.), MCom (Bus. Admin.), Pr. Eng., FSAIMM, AMMSA, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"). The Galaxy Technical Report satisfies the requirements to be a pre-feasibility study and was reviewed by the Directors of Minxcon (Pty) Ltd, specifically, Daniel van Heerden; Uwe Engelmann, BSc (Zoo. & Bot.), BSc Hons (Geol.), Pr.Sci.Nat., MGSSA; Dario Clemente, NHD (Ext. Met.), GCC, BLDP (WBS), MMMA, FSAIMM; and Johan Odendaal, BSc (Geol.), BSc (Min. Econ.), MSc (Min. Eng.), Pr.Sci.Nat., FSAIMM, MGSSA, all of whom are Qualified Persons as defined by NI 43-101 and independent of Galane Gold for the purposes of NI 43-101. The Galaxy Technical Report can be found under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and on the Company's website (www.galanegold.com). The Galaxy Technical Report covers the following mineralised bodies:- Woodbine, Giles, Galaxy, Golden Hill, Agnes Top, Pioneer & Tiger Trap and Princeton mineralised bodies; Ivy and Ceska Shaft Pillars; and Woodbine (East, North and South), Alpine Pioneer, Hostel (East and West) and Biox North historical dumps. Currently, over 75 historical adits exist within the mining area, as well as tailings storage facilities comprised of previously mined and processed material. Galaxy's existing processing plants are in need of refurbishment and consist of a south plant where crushing, milling, flotation, elution and smelting take place, and a north plant where biological oxidation and leaching of flotation concentrate takes place. The south plant is designed to have a total run of mine capacity of approximately 15,000 tonnes per month and can be expanded through refurbishment and the introduction of larger mills and flotation equipment. About Galane Gold Galane Gold is an un-hedged gold producer and explorer with mining operations and exploration tenements in Botswana and South Africa. Galane Gold is a public company and its shares are quoted on the TSX Venture Exchange and the Botswana Stock Exchange under the symbol "GG". Galane Gold's management team is comprised of senior mining professionals with extensive experience in managing mining and processing operations and large-scale exploration programmes. Galane Gold is committed to operating at world-class standards and is focused on the safety of its employees, respecting the environment, and contributing to the communities in which it operates. Note: (1) This is forward-looking information and is based on a number of assumptions. See "Cautionary Notes". Cautionary Notes Certain statements contained in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements". All statements other than statements of historical fact contained in this press release, including, without limitation, those regarding the Company's future financial position and results of operations, strategy, proposed acquisitions, plans, objectives, goals and targets, and any statements preceded by, followed by or that include the words "believe", "expect", "aim", "intend", "plan", "continue", "will", "may", "would", "anticipate", "estimate", "forecast", "predict", "project", "seek", "should" or similar expressions or the negative thereof, are forward-looking statements. These statements are not historical facts but instead represent only the Company's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from what is expressed, implied or forecasted in such forward-looking statements. Additional factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially include, but are not limited to: the Company's dependence on two mineral projects; gold price volatility; risks associated with the conduct of the Company's mining activities in Botswana and South Africa; regulatory, consent or permitting delays; risks relating to the Company's exploration, development and mining activities being situated in Botswana and South Africa; risks relating to reliance on the Company's management team and outside contractors; risks regarding mineral resources and reserves; the Company's inability to obtain insurance to cover all risks, on a commercially reasonable basis or at all; currency fluctuations; risks regarding the failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations; risks relating to project financing and equity issuances; risks arising from the Company's fair value estimates with respect to the carrying amount of mineral interests; mining tax regimes; risks arising from holding derivative instruments; the Company's need to replace reserves depleted by production; risks and unknowns inherent in all mining projects, including the inaccuracy of reserves and resources, metallurgical recoveries and capital and operating costs of such projects; contests over title to properties, particularly title to undeveloped properties; laws and regulations governing the environment, health and safety; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities; lack of infrastructure; employee relations, labour unrest or unavailability; health risks in Africa; the Company's interactions with surrounding communities and artisanal miners; the Company's ability to successfully integrate acquired assets; risks related to restarting production; the speculative nature of exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; development of the Company's exploration properties into commercially viable mines; stock market volatility; conflicts of interest among certain directors and officers; lack of liquidity for shareholders of the Company; risks related to the market perception of junior gold companies; and litigation risk. Management provides forward-looking statements because it believes they provide useful information to investors when considering their investment objectives and cautions investors not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Consequently, all of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and other cautionary statements or factors contained herein, and there can be no assurance that the actual results or developments will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, the Company. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect subsequent information, events or circumstances or otherwise, except as required by law. Information of a technical and scientific nature that forms the basis of the disclosure in the press release has been approved by Charles Byron Pr. Sci. Nat., MAusIMM., MGSSA and Chief Geologist for Galane Gold, and a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101. 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. Gold miner Acacia (ACA) has revealed it is in merger talks with Canadian rival Endeavour Mining. London-listed Acacia, which operates mines and exploration projects across Africa in Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso and Mali, said preliminary discussions had taken place but there was no certainty of a deal. Endeavour bought True Gold Mining for about 150m in March, giving it access to a low-cost gold mine in West Africas Burkina Faso. Acacia Mining IN talks with Canadian miner Endeavour about a merger that could create a 3bn worth of gold If the merger went ahead, the combination of Acacia and Endeavour would create one of the biggest gold names in London, worth about 3bn, and potentially producing more than 4m ounces a year. Gold prices are expected to rise in 2017 as political uncertainty drives investors to find a safe haven for their cash. Toronto-listed Endeavour, which confirmed the merger talks, is backed by Egyptian telecoms billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who in 2015 offered to buy an island to settle Syrian refugees. MBABANE - The South African beauty queen is ready for her Miss Universe as one of her outfit for the event is inspired by the indlamu design. In the year 2016, the Swazi flag colours and designs were spotted on some international celebrities outfits. The current Miss South Africa 2016 Ntandoyenenkosi Kunene, who will be representing her country in Manila Philippines on January 30, has decided to go for an indlamu design outfit. Her picture, where she is wearing her modernised indlamu, is already trending on the social media. The Miss Universe Pageant will be broadcasted live on FOX Television Network. The young beauty queen is scheduled to leave South Africa on Wednesday and she seems to be ready for the pageant. She was recently spotted on social media fitting one of the outfits she will be showcasing at the event which happened to be Swazi-inspired as it was a modernised version of the indlamu, which is a Swaziland traditional attire known to be worn by young maidens during the Umhlanga ceremony and other Swazi traditional events. The Swazi-inspired Miss Universe outfit was designed by South Africa famous brand known as Quiteria and George which is a brand owned by fashions next formidable pair Quiteria Kekane and George Malelu. - By Mayank Marwah General Motors (GM) and its joint venture partners in China sold 3.87 million vehicles in the mainland in 2016, registering yet another fantastic year for the automaker. This is an improvement of more than 7% despite witnessing a 2.3% fall in December sales. General Motors sold 434,799 vehicles in the last month of the year. The decline, however, could not stop the Detroit carmaker from posting impressive results for the year in the world's hottest car market. A look at the year General Motors manufactures vehicles in China in collaboration with SAIC Motor (600104.SS) , the largest automaker in the country. In addition, the American automaker has a three-way tie-up with SAIC and Wuling Motors (HKSE:00305). This is the fifth year in a row that China has been the company's largest market for retail sales. In 2016, the Asian economy made for more than one-third of General Motors' global sales. The Baojun brand recorded a massive 49% sales gain in 2016 to a record 688,390 units. Buick also gave an excellent performance last year as sales topped 1.18 million vehicles, a surge of 19% compared with 2015. Luxury brand Cadillac's sales volume may appear tiny compared with Baojun or Buick, but it saw a stunning year in terms of sales gain. Sales soared 46% to 116,406 units compared with 2015 in China.This is the first time General Motors' luxury brand has crossed the 100,000 unit sales mark in the mainland. For Chevrolet, General Motors' top-selling brand, sales volumes came in at 525,273 units in 2016. The automaker plans to launch 20 revamped Chevrolet vehicles over the next four years to boost its sales performance. SUV deliveries surged a stunning 45% to 673,409 units. SUVs are high-margin vehicles and if SUV sales continue to see such strong growth in the coming years, China may turn out to become one of General Motors' key profit drivers. Presently, the U.S. is the company's most lucrative market due to favorable pricing policies. Story continues Strong performance throughout the year China is a growing economy with a low car ownership rate. This coupled with the rise in discretionary income provides a solid long-term opportunity for the carmaker. General Motors has been quite effective in understanding the pulse of this market. The company continues to consistently launch new and revamped vehicles and is widening its low-cost offerings to tap the middle-class population. The company introduced 13 new and refreshed vehicles in 2016 in China, with plans to launch 60 models through 2020. In fact, 40% of these vehicles will be SUVs and MPVs. Not only will this help the company churn higher sales volumes, but will support it in maintaining a lucrative average transaction price with healthy margins. The overall automotive industry in China saw better-than-expected volumes last year. This was promoted by the tax cut seen in small engine cars. Demand for cars remained solid throughout the latter half of 2016, helping General Motors cement its dominance and continue to remain the most popular foreign carmaker in China. Disclosure: I do not hold any position in the stocks mentioned in this article. Start a free 7-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. EZULWINI Seasoned off-road races cyclist Retha Harding was a rose among the thorns in the torturous 60km Essential Hardware Ezulwini Mountain Bike (MTB) Classic. Harding joined the close to 10 men who took to the bushy trails to battle it out in the first race for 2017 at Mantenga Cultural Village in Ezulwini on Saturday. She was eighth overall, clocking 04:56:03 hours. She was relieved to finish the race after getting cold feet at first due to the bad weather. It was really tough. At times I felt like screaming and crying. However, the single track towards the end was good. I like to challenge myself all the time. I also work towards certain goals. I just had a child, said the audacious cyclist. Lesley Foss, who is also known for taking the bull by its horns, opted for the 35km event, alongside the equally forceful Lucinda Bride. Winner in the male category was youngster Muzi Shabangu with 03:36:33 hours. Sihle Dlamini was a champion in the second longest race. He clocked 02:21:13 hours to celebrate his first gold medal. MPOLONJENI They had lost all hope after enduring two years of a severe drought but now some Lubombo farmers, in areas that were hard hit by the drought, have ploughed their fields again and are confident of a bumper harvest. This follows the recent rainfall that has been received in many parts of the country since late last year. Cultivating fields that were unused at the height of the drought has brought a glimmer of hope for a good harvest. The fields are green with maize plants and other crops like sweet potato, as the situation has almost normalised due to the recent down pour. This publication visited some farmers under Mpolonjeni Inkhundla, which was one of the areas that were hard hit by the drought. Most farmers under this constituency took the risk and cultivated their fields when the first rains fell, at the start of the ploughing season last year. It appears the risk they took will pay off as it has been raining in the past couple of weeks and this has brought hope of a good harvest. One such farmer is Daniel Vilakati, who is also a community leader. Together with other farmers, with whom they have an association, Vilakati said they ploughed maize and other crops in their fields around October last year. He said they took the risk while being cognisant of the fact that the drought could persist. As a result, they only cultivated small plots. Now that it is raining, I have also ploughed maize in my large fields near my home. If it was not for financial challenges, I would cultivate more fields, he stated while standing next to some maize plants. Vilakati said he was grateful to the Lord for bringing the rain, stating that as farmers, they were struggling to make a living during the drought. He lamented though that the rains came very late, after many cattle in his area had died due to the drought. Antoine Dlamini, another farmer, said the recent rainfall had reinvigorated his desire to plough other crops like sweet potato. He said looking as the way it was raining, he was confident that the rains would continue until April or May. Meanwhile, Mpolonjeni Member of Parliament (MP) Jacob Siwela said most dams around his constituency were almost full following the recent rains. He said the vegetation around the area was also greener, better than how it was at this time last year, at the height of the drought. Siwela stated that some farmers in his constituency could not cultivate their fields because of financial challenges. MBABANE The high number of road traffic accidents involving public transport vehicles have been partly attributed to drivers who allow their conductors to drive the kombis while they go to engage in sexual escapades with their girlfriends. It has been revealed that kombi drivers allegedly abandon their duties to conductors to hole up in one roomed flats for sexual escapades. It is alleged that most of their targets are school girls. Mpolonjeni (Mbabane) and Fairview (Manzini) commuters have voiced their concerns over the drivers who allow conductors to drive. Commuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, said drivers often hand over vehicles to conductors even before reaching the intended destination. This is directly affecting us as customers because our lives are exposed to danger, the commuters said. They explained that regardless of voicing out their dissatisfaction for conductors to be behind the steering wheel, they were often brushed off and whatever they said fell on deaf ears. This bad practice, it was said, was prevalent mostly during the afternoon hours and it was getting out of hand. Late last year, a kombi driven by an unlicensed conductor rolled several times with seven U-Tech pupils on board, killing two while the others were badly injured. Recently, five passengers died tragically after a kombi they were travelling in rammed into a waiting room, causing it to collapse and literally bury them alive. Most of the commuters interviewed highlighted the recklessness of drivers who raced for customers while they were on board. Swaziland Local Kombi Association Chairman Sabelo Dlamini said they had received reports about some drivers who abandoned their duties to their conductors while they enjoyed the company of women in rented flats. Dlamini said they were also aware that some of the drivers gave the conductors the vehicles for practice. This is not acceptable at all. Conductors are not allowed to be behind the steering wheel at any given point in time, insisted Dlamini. He implored commuters who came across such incidences to report to the police by calling the emergency number 999. MBABANE The non-involvement of parents and pupils in the hasty implementation of positive discipline is what is making the whole programme a failure. Following the dismal performance of pupils in certain schools, the abolishment of corporal punishment has been fingered as the main reason why some pupils no longer care much about their schoolwork. There have been reports of wayward children who are engaged in drugs and threaten teachers with assault at school. All this has been blamed on the introduction of positive discipline. Government has somehow admitted that it did not go about the right way when implementing the positive discipline programme. Government is being blamed for sidelining other vital stakeholders when replacing corporal punishment with positive discipline in schools. As such, some stakeholders have attributed the poor performance of schools in the recent external examinations to governments failure to engage the vital stakeholders when the change was made in schools. Following this, the Ministry of Education and Training is in a mad rush to include sidelined stakeholders within the education system in the country following the introduction of positive discipline in schools. Dr Sibongile Mtshali, the Director of Education, revealed that the ministry was now aware that the initial roll out of the positive discipline programme was riddled with problems. She admitted that initially the programme sidelined parents and members of the community and concentrated mainly on the teachers who were being dragged to court as a result of all the incidents which were being reported to the ministry and the police on violence meted out at school on children. As such the director revealed that the ministry was currently rolling out another programme meant to inform parents and members of the community on the ambits of positive discipline. We have noted our mistake in not bringing in these stakeholders to the conversation when we first introduced the programme. Through our work, we have realised our mistake and have been quick to rectify it. She noted that the ministry was aware that some parents were not hands-on in the lives of their children and as such expected teachers to instil morals and respect in their children, which was not possible. Teachers were last year taken through frantic workshops meant to inform them of the new form of discipline being rolled out in schools by the Ministry of Education and Training through their Career Guidance department. Other stakeholders such as parents, the pupils themselves and members of the community are yet to be formally introduced to this new phenomenon. MAYIWANE If women were allowed to marry more than one man in society, Viyane Rebecca Mavuso would still be alive. She killed herself after her family denied her permission to marry her secret lover, who is a businessman. Her family rejected the customary meat that is taken to the brides family after she has been traditionally wedded. Rebecca, born Mashaba, had been married for many years to Dadalaza Mavuso of Matiwane when she was traditionally wedded by another man, *Dlamini, on the new year weekend. She was found hanging from the rafters inside her house at the Mavuso homestead a few days after she was traditionally wedded to the businessman at Ka- Ncesi, though her family rejected the customary meat, something which angered her. She later went back to her matrimonial home at the Mavuso homestead where she hanged herself. It is believed that Rebecca was in a dilemma after her family rejected the customary meat from the *Dlamini family. This customary meat, if accepted, means that the womans family approves of the marriage but a rejection is a sign that her family disapproves of the newly-established union. In an interview at his homestead, the deceaseds husband (Mavuso), revealed that his wife was discovered by her 16-year-old boy hanging from the rafters of her house last Friday morning. Mavuso said his wife had left her matrimonial homestead after her aunt requested that she joins them in performing a certain ritual related to her fathers undisclosed illness. Wacelwa ngumake wakhe lomncane watsi bayogcina siphorofitho seyise ekhayakubo mhla ahamba lakhaya, Mavuso said in vernacular. He said initially, his father in-law was being healed at his homestead but left after his in-laws decided to take him to other health practitioners. However, it could not be established whether Mavuso was a traditional healer or a prophet. I had a strange dream the first night she left on a Friday and I knew that something terrible would happen. When I called her the following morning, I could hear that there were many people around her, however, she said they were busy with her fathers ritual, said Mavuso. Mavuso said he suspected that the mumbling women he overheard were those who were involved in traditionally wedding her. MBABANE Dwalile Primary School pupils, who failed Grade VII, are faced with a dilemma as it is unclear if they will be allowed to do the same class for the fourth time. This is because the countrys Free Primary Education (FPE) Programme stipulates that government can only pay for a child in the same class twice and not more than that. Another dilemma is that some of the parents feel that the pupils who failed many times should go back to Grade VI in order to refresh their minds and further change psychologically. At the same time, there is a concern that most of them are now old and cannot be made to go to Grade VI. Dwalile was among the 20 worst performing schools in Grade VII after recording 41 failures last year and the Deputy Head teacher, Ernest Dlamini, blamed the poor results on previous cases where the school was accused of malpractice. After a malpractice incident in 2014, the pupils were made to repeat the same class the following year (2015) where most of them failed again. They then had to repeat the same class last year (2016) where 41 failures were recorded. Dlamini said the fact that the class of 2016 still had some of the pupils who were involved in the malpractice in 2014 contributed immensely to the performance last year. He said a meeting would be held with teachers and parents to discuss if it would be practical to have the pupils do the same class, in essence, for the fourth time. MBABANE Government is doing away with failures. This will certainly put the countrys education system to the test in the coming years as it is expected that there will be almost no failures among pupils who write internal examination. This is because the Ministry of Education and Training is working around the clock to introduce a strict normal progression policy that will almost eliminate failures in the countrys schools but this will not apply to external examinations such as Grade VII and the Junior Certificate (JC). The proposed policy will provide that only five per cent will be expected to fail in a school and not more than that. Information gathered by this newspaper was that the ministry actually alerted teachers on the plan way back in 2015 where the recommendation was 10 per cent. Inspectors visited different schools and educated the academic staff on the plan and that while some tried to introduce and implement the policy, they were not happy with the results. Other schools did not bother at all. The proposed strategy will apply to all classes in primary, secondary and high schools except Grade VII, Form III and V where they write external examinations and the discretion of passing lies with the Examinations Council of Swaziland. This means that for a class that has 40 pupils, only four will be expected to fail, which means that only special circumstances like absenteeism will make pupils not pass the grade and progress to the next class. Information gathered is that to ensure that the process is done perfectly by schools, head teachers will be expected to register with the different regional education offices where the number of pupils and those who progressed to the next class will be determined. BMW and other German automakers dont appear ready to surrender in a new battle between the President-elect and foreign car production. BMW and other German automakers dont appear ready to surrender in a new battle between President-elect Donald Trump and foreign car production. After taking shots at Detroits Big Three, Trump turned his fury to the Germans on Monday, calling out the countrys car industry. I would tell BMW if they want to build cars in Mexico and sell in the U.S.A. without a 35% tax, they can forget it, Trump said in an interview with German newspaper Bild, translated by The Wall Street Journal. They can build cars for the U.S.A. but for every car that comes into the U.S.A. they will pay a 35% tax. What Im saying is, they have to build their factory in the U.S.A. It will be much better for them and for our efforts. Unlike their American counterparts Ford (NYSE:F) and General Motors (NYSE:GM), German automakers are so far holding firm. BMW is standing by its decision to build a new $1 billion factory in Mexico, saying the facility will supply cars to global markets. BMW also noted that its assembly plant in South Carolina, where the company is spending $1 billion to increase capacity, is now the companys largest in the world. The issue is about commitment and BMW made a significant commitment to the U.S. when it began manufacturing vehicles in America more than 22 years ago, BMW said in a statement. BMW exports 70% of its U.S. production, according to company statistics. The Department of Commerce pegs the annual value of those exports at nearly $10 billion, more than any other auto company manufacturing in the U.S. For German producers, the United States is not only the second largest export market but also an important production site from which the world market is supplied, Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), said in a statement provided in German. One can only warn against the global rampant tendencies towards protectionism. In the end, all nations will be harmed, despite seemingly short-term benefits. Story continues One government official went so far as to needle American car companies. In comments cited by Bild, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel shrugged off Trumps tariff proposal, saying the U.S. should build better cars. Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, declined to comment on Trumps interview with Bild. Volkswagen didnt immediately respond to a request from FOXBusiness.com for comment. Mexico is the home of a large manufacturing base for most major automakers, who have sought to capitalize on cheap labor south of the border. Also, vehicles can be shipped to the U.S. and other top markets without incurring taxes. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW all have a presence in Mexico. In the U.S., Mercedes-Benz has expanded its Alabama plant to build more SUVs, and Volkswagen builds certain models in Tennessee. According to the trade group VDA, 59% of the vehicles produced by German manufacturers in U.S. are exported to other markets. German car brands, who currently employ 33,000 Americans, nearly quadrupled their U.S. production from 2009 to 2016, Wissmann said in remarks made at the Detroit Auto Show last week. Trump has been a frequent critic of the U.S. automotive industry, targeting Ford, General Motors and Toyota (NYSE:TM) for building vehicles in Mexico and shipping them into the U.S. tax-free. The soon-to-be 45th President has threatened to pursue tariffs of up to 35% on those vehicles. Some corporate giants have already bowed to pressure from Trump. After taking heat throughout the presidential campaign and after the election, Ford scrapped plans to build a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico. Meanwhile, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE:FCAU) is making a $1 billion investment in two U.S. factories, opening up the possibility that production of Ram heavy-duty pickup trucks will return from Mexico. CEO Sergio Marchionne said Trumps policies could play a role in the final decision. Both moves earned the automakers a positive thank-you tweet from the President-elect. Related Articles Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Mark Hallum A special guest at the Queens Village Republican Club meeting last week discussed the dangers lurking in sanctuary cities from the perspective of a former Immigration and Naturalization Services agent of 30 years. Mike Cutler, having retired, now uses his experience to write and talk about issues of immigration and terrorism on networks such as Fox News. Cutler asserted that the majority of issues affecting immigration law enforcement stem from the fact that most regulations are centered on maintaining the Mexican border since the majority of undocumented immigrants come through that port of entry. He also said sanctuary cities, which have offered safe haven to immigrants, invited acts of terrorism. Go after sanctuary cities, go after the mayors, go after the governors. Go after anybody who stands for that kind of lawlessness that encourages and induces fugitives, criminals and terrorists to set up shop in those towns. Its dangerous for public safety and national security, Cutler said, recommending peaceful discourse and debate as a solution for those opposed to sanctuary city policies. Sympathy and empathy is wonderful, but lets not misplace it. Lets make certain that we do it the right way and that we understand really why we have immigration laws. Money is another reason Cutler believes immigration laws need to be upheld in sanctuary cities. Referring to the crime centers along Roosevelt Avenue, deemed the new old Times Square by state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) in September in a call to clean up the corridor, Cutler said that while enforcement is costly, the currency flow to other countries starts with criminal enterprise taking place in the immigrant communities of sanctuary cities. Go down Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights drug central, he said. The solution to the issue, according to Cutler, is more agents and judges to monitor criminal behavior and ensure immigrants are obeying laws. Interior enforcement is lacking in terms of upholding immigration laws with borders and ports of entry being the first and often last line defense, Cutler said. There are 514,000 foreign students studying in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, which, according to Cutler, presents a danger to safety with immigrants gaining the knowledge to possibly build a weapon to be used against the United States. The men who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks were used as an example of how this occurs. Another reason he says foreign students learning in the United States is negative, is the likelihood they will simply take their skills home. Elected officials in the city have voiced support for the DREAM Act, which will allow undocumented students to qualify for financial aid and eventually assist them in attaining permanent residency, pending background checks. The DREAM Act has achieved bipartisan support in Queens with both state Senator Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing) and her Republican opponent in the recent election, Carlos Giron, calling for the bill to pass, among other examples. A champion for President-elect Donald Trump, Cutler argued that the billionaire-turned-politician is unpopular because he is a patriot in a globalists world. The speaker saw no flaw in showing preference to citizens in ones own country and showing immigrants the door if need be. I dont care what your color is, I dont care what your race is. The way I was raised, those are superficial, Cutler said. Are you American? Thats what I care about. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry The boroughs only dispensary of medical marijuana is set to launch home delivery. Vireo Health New York, which opened The Queens Patient Center at 89-55 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst last January, announced Monday it received approval from the state Department of Health to deliver to home-bound patients. The medical marijuana home delivery program was designed by a team of security experts, pharmacists and physicians to serve clients with life-threatening and debilitating diseases, like cancer and ALS. New Yorkers have increasingly come to expect home delivery and we plan on leveraging last mile supply chain technologies to meet and exceed patient expectations, Vireo Health of New York CEO Ari Hoffnung said. We are grateful to the states public health and safety officials for their help making this Compassionate Care Act program a reality. The Compassionate Care Act was signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, The deliveries will be handled by at least two employees, and company-owned vehicles will be outfitted with cutting-edge safety features, including GPS tracking. Day-in and day-out our goal at Vireo Health of New York is to provide the best possible care and service to our patients, Vireo Healths Chief Medical Officer Dr. Stephen Dahmer said. Home delivery will not only help us to improve upon current services, but also expand our reach to those patients who are unable to travel. Our team is excited to provide this service to all of our existing patients, and to have the opportunity to meet new patients in other parts of the state. Deliveries are expected to begin within 90 days to patients in an eight-county zone including the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester. ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek court of auditors approved on Monday the sale of Greece's railway operator TRAINOSE to Italian railways Ferrovie dello Stato [IPO-FERRO.MI], an official at the country's privatisation agency said. Under a bailout deal signed in 2015, Greece has agreed to sell TRAINOSE and other state assets aiming for total revenue of 5.8 billion euros (5.10 billion pounds) by 2018. Greece has earmarked receipts of 45 million euros from the TRAINOSE sale this year. Local media reported that the process was delayed due to some issues raised by the auditors. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said all the terms set by the court had been satisfied and that the sale would go ahead. Greece had to privatise TRAINOSE or shut the firm and return about 750 million euros to the European Union in state subsidies that the country extended to the company in the past. The official said that once the deal is signed, Greece and Ferrovie will ask the European Commission to write off this debt. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; editing by Susan Thomas) Lori Van Buren During the nights of Hanukkah, several public lightings were done at Monument Square in downtown Troy. We honored different agencies that serve the Troy community by helping to light the candles of the menorah each night. Their dedication to their jobs in helping our community takes a big-picture attitude as Hanukkah commemorates the time when the Jewish people re-established their temple and community in spite of overwhelming odds. That is the reason Hanukkah is the best time to honor the people who serve our community: This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Over the summer, SUNY Polytechnic Institute was in the process of launching a blockbuster, $800 million small-scale bio-pharma manufacturing development center at its Albany campus that would have included General Electric Healthcare and Albany Molecular Research Inc. as partners. Now, the program's future is in doubt. The Single-Use Biologics Innovation & Manufacturing Center, or SUBIMC as it was going to be called, would have taken place in SUNY Poly's NanoFab South building with several pilot drug manufacturing lines put into place and tens of millions of dollars in corporate investment. SUNY Poly was planning to spend $13.5 million in state funding on the project, according to documents obtained by the Times Union, with the rest coming from industry, including GE and AMRI. The program, if it had come to fruition, would have been one of largest efforts by former SUNY Poly president Alain Kaloyeros to expand into pharmaceutical manufacturing development using the model it used to partner with IBM decades ago on computer chip manufacturing. However, the fate of SUBIMC, like other SUNY Poly programs, is unclear following the Sept. 22 arrest of Kaloyeros and several upstate developers on state and federal bid-rigging charges. A former longtime aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Joseph Percoco was also implicated in a scheme that prosecutors say was designed to award development contracts to political donors of the governor. Cuomo has denied having any previous knowledge of the allegations. Kaloyeros, who like other defendants in the case has pleaded not guilty, did not return a call seeking comment. He resigned as president in October. The governor's office has since given Empire State Development, the state's economic development agency, temporary control of SUNY Poly's industry partnerships and construction projects as the school's operations are reorganized under interim president Bahgat Sammakia. An ESD spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment Monday, a holiday for many. Single-use drug manufacturing is a trend in the pharmaceutical industry in which drug companies use relatively cheap and disposable equipment to make drugs instead of using the traditional large stainless steel vats that must be cleaned between use. Biologics are drugs and therapies that use human or living proteins as opposed to the creation of synthetic drugs using chemical compounds. A GE Healthcare spokeswoman did not immediately have a comment when reached Monday morning but was looking into GE's potential involvement. An AMRI spokeswoman could not immediately be reached. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. It is unclear if ESD is still pursing the SUBIMC and if the program is still viable. In a couple of cases, some SUNY Poly research partnerships involving the computer chip industry have quietly been put on hold or abandoned since Kaloyeros left the school. And plans for the Austrian computer chip maker ams AG to operate a $600 million, state-owned chip factory in Utica also fell through back in November. The drug development center envisioned in Albany would have had an initial equipment and facilities budget of $55 million and and operational budget of $32 million. Over a ten year period the spending would total more than $800 million. Over the summer, the Research Foundation for SUNY was looking to hire a program support manager for the yet-to-be announced program, posting an employment notice on the SUNY Poly web site and elsewhere online. The job was supposed to begin January of 2017, according to at least one posting that hasn't been deleted yet. Peter Taubkin, the Research Foundation's spokesman, could not immediately be reached for comment. Testing assumptions about plant roots growth is particularly important in the Arctic, according to researcher Laura Radville (above), where more than 70 percent of plant biomass can be belowground and warming is happening faster than in other ecosystems. [January 16, 2017] Award-Winning Preschool Franchise Nearing 500 Locations Nationwide Goddard Systems, Inc. (GSI), the franchisor of The Goddard School preschool system, announces that 2016 was another year of successful expansion, opening 23 new Schools nationwide. With 27 Schools in planning stages for 2017, the leading early childhood education franchise system continues its path toward achieving a five-year development goal of opening 150 new schools by 2020. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005111/en/ The Goddard School in Marietta, GA (Photo: Business Wire) Since its inception in 1988, The Goddard School has opened 462 locations with a commitment to developing 156 more units within the next five years, giving 156 families the opportunity to take control of their futures and own their businesses. This rate of growth will result in up to 3,900 new jobs and will benefit approximately 20,000 new students throughout the ountry. In 2016, The Goddard School experienced a 100% franchisee renewal agreement rate, a major driver in The Goddard School's growth, indicating that current franchisees are satisfied and want to continue operating Goddard Schools. The Goddard School awarded more franchise license agreements to existing franchisees in 2016 than in 2014 and 2015 combined. These licenses represented 40% of total licenses awarded in 2016 compared to 24% of the total in 2015, signaling that franchisees have experienced first-hand a continued rise in demand for superior early childhood education in the United States. Key areas of growth for the brand in the coming year will focus on bringing The Goddard School's play-based curriculum to new markets across the country, including its first school in Arkansas, coupled with a continued commitment to open schools in major metro areas that will accommodate Millennial parents living and working in their respective state's city centers. "With more parents in the workforce than ever before, the need for high-quality childcare has never been higher. With this in mind, we continually seek enterprising, hard-working entrepreneurs to help expand our system across the country in order to provide premium early childhood education to more and more families," said Joe Schumacher, Chief Executive Officer of Goddard Systems, Inc. "The Goddard School experienced tremendous growth in 2016, and we plan on surpassing those openings in 2017 in an effort to ensure that more children have the opportunity to receive education that helps prepare them for success in school and in life." The play-based preschool franchise also plans to encourage more of its Schools to obtain P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Learning) exemplar status, which demonstrates that schools use exemplary 21st century learning practices in preparing students for success in college, career and life. In 2016, The Goddard Schools located in Concord Township, OH; Ladera Ranch, CA (News - Alert); Mooresville, NC; and Redmond, WA, were awarded P21 exemplar status. Other exemplar Goddard Schools include Cedar Park, TX; Cranberry Township, PA; Fort Mill, SC; Hendersonville, TN; and Rock Hill, SC. These nine Schools represent 75% of the nation's preschools that have earned this distinction. Long recognized as an industry leader, The Goddard School franchise has been consistently listed in Entrepreneur magazine's "Franchise 500" ranking as one of the top childcare franchises since 2002. For general information and franchising opportunities, please visit www.goddardschoolfranchise.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005111/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Growing to Serve Mexico's Expanding Economy HEXPOL Compounding, a leading global provider of elastomer compounds, held an open house on November 16, 2016, at the company's Queretaro, Mexico, location to celebrate HEXPOL's latest investment in Mexico. Over 200 customers, suppliers, and dignitaries of the Mexican government attended the event for the commissioning of a new, advanced 135 Liter rubber mixing line, at a cost of approximately $9.2 million dollars. The new, third mixing line includes significant building and infrastructure additions to the Queretaro campus. It replicates the successful HEXPOL layout used at other HEXPOL campuses, with in-line straining, a proportionally sized batch-off to ensure optimal product conditioning, time-tested proprietary in-line process control, and state-of-the-art equipment and compound mixing technology. The new line adds approximately 12,000 metric tons of capacity per year to the existing capacity of 41,000 metric tons provided by lines one and two, for a total of 53,000 metric tons per year. HEXPOL's other facility in Mexico, located in Aguascalientes, also has three lines, with 27,000 metric tons per year capacity. The company's total rubber compounding capacity in Mexico is now more than 80,000 metric tons per year - a 70 percent increase in mixing capacity in five years. Please be sure to take a look at the photos from our open house in Mexico on November 16, 2016 on our HEXPOL Mexico portal: http://hexpolmexico.com/Galley/index.html "We are here to celebrate another milestone achieved by our HEXPOL Mexico and HEXPOL NAFTA teams. But more importantly, we are here to celebrate all of you," Tracy Garrison, President and Chief Executive Officer of HEXPOL Compounding North America, told the audience as the open house celebration began. "We are very proud of the achievements made by the business community here in Queretaro and throughout Mexico, and certainly honored to be part of this growth and Mexico's progress to date. We look forward to years of mutual success ahead." During the past two years HEXPOL has invested significantly to the growth, development, and leadership of its technical team. In 2014 Queretaro had 90 associates; today there are over 160 at the campus. The investments in equipment, technology, laboratory and testing capabilities, as well as people illustrate the careful planning and timely expansion that has positioned HEXPOL to meet the growing demand for compounding in Mexico. HEXPOL was honored with a visit from Mexico's Secretary of Sustainable Development & Environment, Marco Antonio del Prete Tercero. While touring the Queretaro campus and the new mixing line, he cited the benefits for the community and country by thanking businesses for investing in Mexico, which continues to be a country of unique development opportunities. "The philosophy of HEXPOL, as shown by adding their third line to the Queretaro plant, is similar to the government philosophy in Mexico," the Secretary said. "Companies such as HEXPOL generate the investments for business growth and employment, and we in the government provide the necessary support." The HEXPOL team in Queretaro has the right expertise in all business and operations aspects of compounding and custom mixing and is recognized for high-end manufacturing capacity, as well quality and worldwide technical service support. Read more about our Mexico capabilities by visiting: www.HEXPOLMexico.com. About HEXPOL Compounding HEXPOL is the leading global developer and manufacturer of quality polymer compounds. The company provides proprietary and standard rubber compounding solutions to the automotive and transportation; energy, oil & gas; wire and cable; medical and pharmaceutical; general industrial; building and construction; water treatment; tire and toll, and consumer markets. Sixteen locations in North America include legacy names such as Gold Key Processing, Burton Rubber Processing, Chase Elastomer, Colonial Rubber Works, Robbins LLC, Kardoes Rubber, HEXPOL Silicone Compounding, and RheTech. HEXPOL capabilities include: Rubber Compounding, Rolls, Specialty Products, Tire and Toll, Retreading, Thermoplastic and TPE Compounding, Silicone Compounding, and Outsourcing Services. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005418/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] PBS SoCal KOCE Expands Early Childhood Education Services With Launch of New 24/7 KIDS Channel PBS SoCal KIDS PBS SoCal KOCE, home for PBS to Greater Los Angeles and Southern California, announced the launch of PBS SoCal KIDS - a new, free 24/7 channel and streaming service dedicated to award-winning educational PBS KIDS programs all day, every day. This is an expansion of PBS SoCal's robust early childhood education services whose goal is to help close the achievement gap for the more than 1 million children under the age of five living in Southern California, one in five of which lives in poverty.1 This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005115/en/ 24/7 PBS SoCal KIDS Channel (Graphic: Business Wire) PBS SoCal KIDS makes it easy for Southern California children to access educational PBS KIDS programs that have been proven time and time again to teach children, through a tested curriculum in literacy, STEM and social-emotional development. Now this valuable educational content is available to all Southern California children anytime - during dinner-prep and primetime hours, and on the weekends - when TV viewing is the highest amongst families. And it is available anywhere kids want to watch - over the air, online, and on their favorite mobile device. "Well developed educational media can have immense impact on a child's cognitive and emotional skills. This is a great strength of PBS KIDS content. That is why it's our priority to expand our early learning work in Southern California through PBS SoCal KIDS," said Andrew Russell, PBS SoCal President and CEO. "Our community's success in early learning defines our future for Southern California. Today's preschoolers are tomorrow's workforce and leaders, so we are deeply committed to ensuring they are prepared for school and life." The ages of 2-8 are a critical time in the brain development of children, as these are years when they are forming cognitive capacities necessary to succeed in school and life. Research has consistently shown that quality early education can have life-long benefits.2 But in Southern California more than 40 percent of children ages 3-5 are not enrolled in preschool.3 In this environment, the PBS SoCal KIDS service is particularly valuable, reaching more Southern California children in more ways, and at a critical time in their development. "We know PBS KIDS content teaches kids. We also know we can amplify its impact with our Ready to Learn initiative, through which we bring literacy and STEM activities, free apps, teacher training, parent workshops and more to neighborhoods all over Southern California," said Jamie Myers, PBS SoCal COO and VP of Education & Community Engagement. "Our dozens of community partnerships are critical in this effort, and have enabled us to help thousands of children across Southern California prepare for school." Broad access to this new service is especially important for young children living in working-class households, who are more likely to rely on television for educational content, and more likely to be under-connected, with mobile-only access and inconsistent connectivity to the internet. That's why the new PBS SoCal KIDS service is available for free over the air (channel 50.5), and via live stream at pbssocal.org and on the PBS KIDS iOS and Android (News - Alert) apps. Additionally, PBS SoCal will expand its educational efforts in the community, working with community partners like PACE and the Compton Unified School District to provide educational tools and training to parents, caregivers and teachers. "It has been a pleasure and a wonderful opportunity to partner with PBS SoCal to help prepare our scholars for academic success," said Jessicka Mears, Principal of Stephen C. Foster Elementary School in Compton. "Over the years they have provided teacher professional development, parent workshops, interactive hands-on experiences, and educational resources for our students. Their efforts have had enormous impact on closing the academic achievement gap and setting the tone for 21st century learning. It is clear they have a deep commitment to helping our community succeed." A recent survey by WestEd found that PBS KIDS resources can help narrow the math achievement gap for children from low-income families and better prepare them for kindergarten.4 That is because PBS KIDS content is educational by design - developed based upon curriculum that teaches kids. Additionally, new recommendations about media use by children from The American Academy of Pediatrics, which place greater emphasis on the quality of the media kids interact with, rather than the quantity, pointed to PBS KIDS as a leading resource for educational programming. PBS SoCal KIDS is located over-the-air on channel 50.5 (check channel listings) and available to stream at pbssocal.org/kids - reaching children on a platform at a time that works for them. This programming will air in addition to the regularly scheduled KIDS block on PBS SoCal 1 (ch. 50.1) and carry a different program line-up, offering families a variety of options. The new channel will include popular favorites such as Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Odd Squad, Wild Kratts, and Dinosaur Train; in addition to PBS KIDS' newest series Splash and Bubbles, Nature Cat and Ready Jet Go!. The full local schedule is available at pbssocal.org/kids. About PBS SoCal KOCE PBS SoCal is the home to PBS for Greater Los Angeles and Southern California. We deliver the full schedule of PBS programs, plus content that is for, about and by the people of Southern California. Our content is available free through four broadcast channels, at pbssocal.org, on PBS mobile apps, and via connected TV services. And we provide the community with early education resources and cultural and educational experiences through partnerships, events and grassroots outreach. PBS SoCal has offices in Century City, Costa Mesa, and Los Angeles. Connect with us at pbssocal.org and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. 1 U.S. Census Bureau, 2015 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates 2 Center for Public Education. (2008). The Research on Pre-K. 3 kidsdata.org, Population Reference Bureau, analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey microdata files (Mar. 2016) 4 Learning with PBS KIDS: A Study of Family Engagement and Early Mathematics Achievement, WestEd, 2015. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005115/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Rep. Wilson to Tour South Carolina 2nd Congressional District Schools U.S. Representative Joe Wilson will celebrate the National School Choice Week by touring multiple educational options Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 17-18. The tour will include Horse Creek Academy, a charter school in Aiken, from 2 to 3 p.m. Jan. 17. Rep. Wilson will also visit Aiken Area Home Educators, a homeschool group in Aiken, and Meadow Glenn Middle School in Lexington. These visits are closed to the media. National School Choice Week 2017 (January 22-28, 2017) will make history with more than 21,000 school choice events across all 50 states. Rep. Wilson will be in Washington, D.C. during National School Choice Week and will recognize it in his district the week before. "I'm grateful to recognize National School Choice week by visiting schools across the Second Congressional District," Rep. Wilson said. "Choice is critical in education-students and parents, not the federal government, should have te option to choose what is best for their family. I look forward to working in Congress to ensure that all parents and students have the opportunity to choose their education-whether it is homeschooling, public school, private school, charter school, or magnet school. I especially appreciate the value of educators, as my wife Roxanne is a retired school teacher." For more information, or for one-on-one media availability in the Midlands, please contact Leacy Burke at [email protected] or (202) 225-2452. As a nonpartisan, nonpolitical public awareness effort, National School Choice Week shines a positive spotlight on effective education options for students, families, and communities around the country. For more information, visit www.schoolchoiceweek.com, or visit www.facebook.com/schoolchoiceweek. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005682/en/ [January 16, 2017] Telia Carrier builds new unique route from Stockholm to St. Petersburg and upgrades submarine cables in the Baltic Sea STOCKHOLM and ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Jan.16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Telia Carrier today announced that it has established a new route stretching from Stockholm to St. Petersburg via Tallinn, and has upgraded multiple submarine cables to future proof its network, bringing lower latency and additional capacity. The new route further diversifies the wholesale carrier's network and the upgrade enables Telia Carrier to provide 100G+ services to carriers, content and cloud providers in the Baltics, Russia and beyond. The new network extension is the most direct route possible from Stockholm to St. Petersburg at just under 900 km. With a connection in Tallinn, Estonia, Telia Carrier's mesh network extends in different directions reaching multiple cities including Riga, Latvia or Helsinki, Finland. This added diversity and geographical reach extends the value of the top-two ranked global backbone, AS1299. As St. Petersburg and Moscow are important transit points for Asian traffic, the new route also allows Telia Carrier to service the increase in traffic coming into Europe from Asia via terrestrial cable routes from the East as well as directly from Russa. The subsea cables reaching across the Baltic Sea have been upgraded using the latest coherent Flex-Grid technology allowing Telia Carrier to offer 100G, and future 150G and 200G services leveraging the latest modulation formats. "As our network becomes more meshed throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltics, we are continuing to build out eastward to stay ahead of content demand and the resulting backbone traffic in the region," said Johan Godal, global product manager, wavelength and network outsourcing services at Telia Carrier. "By extending the route from Sweden to Russia and upgrading the submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, we can now offer high capacity and low latency services via a highly-meshed network throughout the region." Telia Carrier's global fiber backbone has grown organically, without acquisitions, and is the first to be 100G-enabled in both Europe and North America. It is also the first network to successfully transmit 1 Tb/s on its US network. According to Dyn Research's global backbone rankings, AS1299, Telia Carrier's global IP backbone is currently ranked top-two. Telia Carrier's rapid growth and ascension through the rankings was recently highlighted in Dyn's 'Baker's Dozen, 2015 edition' report. The company enables worldwide connectivity by connecting more than 220 Points of Presence (PoPs) across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East including over 70 PoPs in North America alone. Media Enquiries: Rickard Backlin, VP Brand & Marketing, Telia Carrier, +46-72-2368327, [email protected] About Telia Carrier Telia Carrier owns and operates one of the world's most extensive fiber backbones. Our mission is to provide exceptional network infrastructure and services empowering individuals, businesses and societies to execute their most critical activities. By working close to our customers, we make big ideas happen at the speed of fiber. Discover more at teliacarrier.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/telia-carrier-builds-new-unique-route-from-stockholm-to-st-petersburg-and-upgrades-submarine-cables-in-the-baltic-sea-300391057.html SOURCE Telia Carrier [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Zayed Future Energy Prize Announces Winners of 2017 Awards His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, presented the Zayed Future Energy Prize to nine winners during the 2017 awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi today. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005483/en/ HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and heads of state with representatives of the nine winners of the 2017 Zayed Future Energy Prize at the awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi, UAE (Photo: ME NewsWire) Nine pioneers in renewable energy and sustainability across five categories became the latest awardees to join the prize's growing international community of winners. The 2017 recipients of the prize span a wide range of industry expertise, from breakthrough photovoltaic manufacturing to government policy advisory. The Zayed Future Energy Prize has so far recognised 57 individuals and organisations since it was founded in 2008. Li Junfeng, Director General of China's National Center of Climte Strategy Research, won the Lifetime Achievement award for his unwavering commitment to the adoption of renewable energy in China. General Electric (GE) won the Large Corporation award for leadership in the wind and solar energy markets. GE's wind business alone has commissioned 41.3 GW of total generating capacity and installed more than 30,000 wind turbines to date. Sonnen, the German smart home and commercial energy storage system manufacturer, was awarded the prize in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) category for leadership in providing battery storage technology solutions. In the Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) category, UK-based Practical Action was recognised for its work in providing deprived communities with clean energy in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Joining them were the winners in the Global High Schools category, five schools spanning five regions of the globe. The five winners in the Global High Schools category are: Starehe Girls' Center, Kenya for the Africa region; Green School Bali, Indonesia for the Asia region; Bolivia's Unidad Educativa Sagrado Corazon 4 for the Americas; Belvedere College in Ireland for Europe; and Huonville High School, Tasmania for the Oceania region. Now in its ninth cycle, the Zayed Future Energy Prize has positively impacted more than 289 million people through its international community of winners. This includes providing over 25 million people in Africa and Asia with access to modern, clean energy, off-setting over 1 billion tons of carbon emissions, and ensuring 17 million children of school age can study at night using innovative solar-powered utilities. His Excellency Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Former President of the Republic of Iceland and Chair of the Zayed Future Energy Prize Jury, said: "Through the sustainable actions of its winners, the Zayed Future Energy Prize is a model example for how far the world has come in the last nine years. It is extraordinary that, through the impact of each winner and the lives they continue to improve, we now see a growing strength in being able to deliver a sustainable future." His Excellency Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State, said: "The Zayed Future Energy Prize continues to honour the legacy of sustainability advocated by the UAE's late founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. With each awards ceremony, the UAE leadership accelerates the pursuit of innovation, reinforces the significance of sustainability at the top of the global agenda, and gives opportunities and far-reaching benefits to communities around the world." The prize will open again for submissions and nominations for its landmark 10th year later this month. For more information go to www.zayedfutureenergyprize.com. *Source (News - Alert): ME NewsWire View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005483/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2017] DHL eCommerce launches new fulfillment center in Australia for simpler, less costly deliveries nationwide SYDNEY, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DHL eCommerce, a division of the world's leading logistics company, Deutsche Post DHL Group, today announced the launch of its Australian Fulfillment Center in Sydney to support booming purchase volumes amongst Australia's online shoppers. "Nearly 75% of total online spending by Australians goes to domestic retailers,[1] with the value of e-commerce purchases expected to grow by nearly 50% between now and 2020,[2]" said Damien Sheehan, Managing Director Australia, DHL eCommerce. "As demand rises, online retailers need to overcome the traditional problems associated with shipping orders Australia-wide particularly the significant distances between major cities that they need to traverse if they want to maintain their competitive edge." "The addition of our Australian Fulfillment Center gives our customers a far simpler, streamlined approach to managing inventory and last-mile deliveries, allowing them to focus squarely on satisfying their customers both during the check-out and shipment process." The fulfillment center will provide Australian merchants with fast, flexible shipping that consolidates inventory management and last-mile delivery from Sydney to major cities and regional hubs around Australia. The center also operates on the same service level agreements, management platforms, and customer support as all other parts of DHL eCommerce's global fulfillment network, allowing Australian e-tailers to expand their sales into markets like the US, Mexico, Hong Kong, India and Europe with minimal onboarding time and hassle. "E-commerce has gone borderless, and order fulfillment needs to do the same," says Charles Brewer, CEO DHL eCommerce. "Our Australian facility adds another node to our standardized global network of fulfillment centers, eliminating the need for e-commerce merchants to hunt for new logistics partners as they look to expand their global reach." The center's design accommodates front-end integration with a range of popular marketplace and web-shop platforms, as well as multichannel order management and last-mile solutions for immediate and highly-accurate deliveries all across Australia. All of the center's services operate on a pay-per-use model with no capital spend or fixed costs. "With cross-border e-commerce growing at an average of 29% per year until 2020,[3] cost-efficiency and scalability are the critical issues for Australia's online retailers," said Malcolm Monteiro, CEO Asia Pacific, DHL eCommerce. "Whether it's extending into new channels, offering more delivery options, or simply increasing inventory and warehouse capacity, Australian brands need fulfilment solutions that keep the operations lean no matter the delivery distances and volumes involved. "Australian e-tailers will find our latest fulfillment center offers them not only a simplified approach to nationwide inventory and last-mile delivery, but also a gateway to rapid and painless global expansion." Learn more: https://www.logistics.dhl/sg-en/ecommerce/fulfillment.html End Media Contact: DHL eCommerce Media Relations Cheryl Han / Monica Ng Phone: +65 6879 8012 / +65 6879 8011 Email: [email protected] / [email protected] http://www.dhl.com.au/en/press.html 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] http://business.nab.com.au/online-retail-sales-index-in-depth-report-january-2015-9980/ [2] https://www.accenture.com/t20160830T101949__w__/cn-en/_acnmedia/PDF-29/Accenture-Cross-Border-Ecommerce.pdf [3] https://www.accenture.com/t20160830T101949__w__/cn-en/_acnmedia/PDF-29/Accenture-Cross-Border-Ecommerce.pdf Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20150811/8521505246LOGO Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170111/8521700193 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2017] Aireon Announces Successful First Launch For Space-Based ADS-B Network Iridium NEXT satellites successfully launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base MCLEAN, Virginia, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aireon announced today the successful launch and deployment of the first ten satellites hosting its space-based automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) system. Part of the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation, Aireon's space-based ADS-B network will transform air traffic management capabilities, providing real-time air traffic surveillance and flight tracking across 100 percent of the planet. Currently, more than 70 percent of the earth, including oceanic and remote airspace, has no existing air traffic surveillance. Aireon congratulates Iridium Communications and its partners, including Thales Alenia Space, Orbital ATK and SpaceX, on a successful first launch of the Iridium NEXT constellation, and looks forward to additional successes. "Today is a landmark moment in history for global air traffic surveillance, air traffic safety and the aviation industry as a whole," said Don Thoma, CEO, Aireon. "This successful first launch brings us one step closer to changing the way the world flies by enabling the ability to track aircraft anywhere on the planet. Once our global ADS-B surveillance service is fully deployed, every ADS-B equipped aircraft can have its precise location accounted for 24/7." Iridium has partnered with SpaceX for a series of seven launches over the course of 18 months out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. All 81 Iridium NEXT satellites are equipped with the AireonSM payload. Once in orbit, each satellite will undergo extensive testing by the Iridium team. After approximately 40-60 days Iridium will hand-off the ADS-B payloads to Aireon for verification of on-orbit technical specifications. Aireon will then conduct rigorous independent testing and validation of the space-based ADS-B system for approximately 60 days. As part of this testing and validation process, Aireon's ADS-B receivers, which were manufactured by Harris Corporation, will provide air trafic surveillance data through the Aireon network to the Service Delivery Points (SDPs) at partners NAV CANADA, NATS, ENAV, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. "Few technologies exist today that by simply reimagining their implementation can have such a dramatic, positive impact on safety, efficiency and the environment," said Neil Wilson, president and CEO, NAV CANADA. "Aireon is poised to revolutionize air traffic management over much of the planet, and we're looking forward to an aviation industry where everyone will reap the benefits of 100 percent global air traffic surveillance." Aireon, formed by Iridium Communications and investors NAV CANADA, ENAV, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and Naviair, will be operational in 2018. The advent of space-based ADS-B is expected to show a remarkable ability to increase safety and efficiency while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as noted in studies conducted by the Flight Safety Foundation and Purdue University, in addition to signed agreements with many of the world's leading ANSPs. "This launch signifies the beginning of a new era in air traffic surveillance that would not have been possible without the incredible work of our talented team and the support of all of our partner organizations," said Eamonn Brennan, chief executive of the Irish Aviation Authority. "This is a transformational technology that will equip Aireon customers with the most advanced air traffic surveillance capabilities available." The network will also provide a new service known as Aireon ALERTSM, a free global emergency-aircraft tracking service that will be hosted and operated by the IAA. Earlier this year, Aireon also announced a partnership with FlightAware, and together launched the GlobalBeaconSM flight tracking service. GlobalBeacon is designed to help airlines comply with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Global Aeronautical Distress Safety System (GADSS) requirements, and will provide airlines with minute-by-minute flight tracking data. "Many congratulations to both Aireon and Iridium on the success of their first launch," said Juliet Kennedy, operations director for NATS. "We look forward to further successes with the remainder of the launch programme and what this will mean for operations over the North Atlantic, the world's busiest area of oceanic airspace." For additional information about Aireon, please go to www.aireon.com. For more information about Iridium NEXT, please visit www.iridiumnext.com. About Aireon LLC Aireon is deploying a global, space-based air traffic surveillance system for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) equipped aircraft over the entire globe. For the first time, Aireon will provide real-time ADS-B surveillance to oceanic, polar and remote regions, as well as augment existing ground-based systems that are limited to terrestrial airspace. Aireon will harness next generation aviation surveillance technologies and extend them globally to significantly improve efficiency, enhance safety, reduce emissions and provide cost savings benefits to all stakeholders. In partnership with leading ANSPs from around the world, NAV CANADA, ENAV, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and Naviair, as well as Iridium Communications, Aireon will have an operational, global, space-based air traffic surveillance system by 2018. For more information about Aireon, visit: www.aireon.com. PRESS CONTACT: Jessie Hillenbrand Aireon +1-703-287-7452 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170116/8521700269 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Glassbox will Help Mobile Operators Power their Digital Transformation with the Richest Session Replay and Game-changing In-Page Analytics at Mobile World Congress 2017 LONDON, January 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Stand SF81, Hall 5, Fira Gran Via, Av. Joan Carles I, 64 08908 L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona - 27th February to 2nd March 2017 Glassbox - an Amdocs partner - today announces it will be showing mobile operators how to power their digital transformation at Mobile World Congress 2017. On stand SF81, Glassbox will show visitors how its systems capture, retrieve and analyse every digital session exactly as it was experienced by the customer, no matter what device, browser or app used. COO and co-founder at Glassbox, Yoav Schrieber, commented: "We are excited and honoured to have been selected by the Israel Export Institute delegation to feature on the stand at this year's event. Mobile World Congress is the premier event for the international mobile and online communications business sector, attracting audiences from around the world and introducing them to the latest technology." Being able to fully understand the customer journey with a unified platform for both web and mobile applications, how customers behave online, provide contact centre agents visibility into customers online experiences and keep an accurate record of all transactions has become an essential requirement, as Yoav continued: "This ability has been desirable for businesses ever since the dawn of online commerce, but increasingly it has become a vital function forall digital businesses, especially with a raft of legislation being implemented across the world and the continual drive for digital transformation. We are working with some of the largest telecoms organisations to help them in their effort to accelerate these vital digital transformations." One such example is the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will affect all EU members' states and any organisation using data relating to its citizens. Being able to accurately record and search online transactions is now as important for legal compliance as it is for settling customer disputes and queries. Glassbox's solution provides cutting-edge technology which offers proactive insights, ensuring a business is automatically made aware of trends, performance issues or behaviours that could be of interest. It is also able to create reports based on free-text input, and allows tag-less in-page analytics which drives business users' self-sufficiency. Impressively, the solution can be deployed within a matter of weeks. The Glassbox technology is also truly scalable, catering up to the busiest of online traffic, matching growth as required. Business operators can also choose to host the collected data securely on-premise or in the cloud, with Glassbox using patented compression technology to achieve low TCO, along with full security and privacy protection. Yoav concluded, "If you are planning to attend Mobile World Congress 2017 make sure you visit the Glassbox stand to discover the benefits of full online customer recording and tag-less analytics. The team will be delighted to give you a full demonstration and to discuss how this technology can benefit your business and customers." Glassbox will join the Israel Export Institute delegation at Mobile World Congress 2017, on stand SF81 in Hall 5, Fira Gran Via, Barcelona - from Monday 27th February until Thursday 2nd March. For more details on Glassbox and its solutions, please visit http://www.glassboxdigital.com. About Glassbox Glassbox empowers organizations to manage and optimize the entire digital lifecycle of their web and mobile Customers. Leveraging unparalleled big data, behavioural analytics, session replay, free-text search and application monitoring capabilities, Glassbox enables enterprises to see not only what online and mobile Customers are doing but also why they are doing it. Most importantly, Glassbox informs and facilitates action based on those insights that can lead to enhanced Customer experience, faster Customer disputes resolution, improved regulatory compliance and agile IT troubleshooting. Glassbox's solutions are used by medium to very large enterprises mostly in the telecommunications and financial services and insurance industries and could cater to the needs of a wide range of verticals including healthcare, travel, hospitality and business services. Learn more at http://www.glassboxdigital.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Micro Speaker Developer USound Secures 12 Million Euro for Market Entry GRAZ, Austria, Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ARM founder Hermann Hauser invests via eQventure into the Austrian audio startup The Austrian micro speaker pioneer USound (http://www.usound.com) secures a growth investment of 12 million Euro. Lead investor is eQventure, an Austrian venture capital firm based in Graz, who also brought in ARM founder Hermann Hauser as a USound angel investor. The investment qualifies as one of the biggest financing rounds for an Austrian startup these past years. Double the team The new capital will serve to accelerate organizational growth and to hire additional staff. "Several well-known hardware producers have expressed interest in our product. First customer orders have been booked. Our current priority is the serial production, and for this we aim to increase our personnel from roughly 30 engineers to almost 50," explains USound CEO Ferruccio Bottoni. Smallest speaker in the world In a project that stretched across several years, USound developed the smallest speaker in the world. It is now ready for market-entry and safeguarded by numerous patents. This first digital version of a micro speaker is based on innovative MEMS technology (Micro Eletro Mechanical Systems) that enables the extreme miniaturization as well as highest levels of energy efficiency. The founders believe that the micro speakers can be deployed in a vast array of applications. "Headphones are only a starting point," reveals Bottoni, "our product is set to have an impact across all aspects of life as it enables a new paradigm for audio smart systems in portable devices." Bottoni concludes: "With the fresh capital we can swiftly start mass production." eQventure brings Hermann Hauser on board The lead investor eQventure offers USound financing, support in corporate development and a worldwide business network. It was through their doing that Hermann Hauser could be won as an eQventure investor. The entrepreneur, venture capital investor and ARM founder Hauser contributes capital as well as strategic industry know-how. There are several reasons for why this undertaking is attractive to Hauser. "The company is led by an excellent management team with a wealth of experience and impressive track record in microsystem technology. I am convinced that USound can soon lead the billion dollar micro speaker market into the digital age." USound USound GmbH is a fast growing audio start-up, founded with the mission of developing and producing the most advanced audio systems for mobile applications based on MEMS technology. The technological platform developed by USound is enabling the production of a revolutionary generation of MEMS micro speakers that are to be deployed in the world's top mobile applications. USound is a fabless company: process R&D and manufacturing operations are outsourced to world class industrial partners. Hermann Hauser The entrepreneur and venture capital investor Hermann Hauser has been active in the global tech industry for more than four decades. One of his biggest successes is the British chip developer ARM, whose chip design is nowadays found in every smartphone. In September 2016 ARM was sold for 31,4 billion dollars to the Japanese tech giant Softbank. eQventure eQventure is based in Graz (Austria) and offers young tech companies and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) financing, a strong business network and fast, dynamic support in all phases of corporate development. eQventure is driven by a group of successful entrepreneurs and angel investors. Press contact Thomas Reiter, Reiter PR Tel.: +43-676-66-88-611 Email: [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Displaydata Announces Availability of New Aura29F Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) for Grocery Store Freezers Displaydata, the world's number one supplier of three-color, fully-graphic ESLs, today announced the immediate availability of the Aura29F ESL, a new addition to the Displaydata suite of ESL products, designed and optimized for use in the frozen sections of retail stores. The new Aura29F offers the same features as the existing Aura range, with the added benefit of operating in the temperature range used in retail store freezers of between -13F and 32F. Displaydata also announced the availability of the Guard42, which protects its Aura42 and Chroma42 ESLs from moisture and other elements typically found in delicatessen, fish and meat counters of retail stores. The opening of the new support center and the extension of operational hours to 24 X 7 X 365 enforces Displaydata's investment in its North American business and extends its advantage in the region with more ESL experts and support staff on the ground than any other ESL supplier. Both the Aura29F and the Guard42, along with Displaydata's suite of industry-leading ESLs, will be on display in booth #4225 at the National Retail Federation's 2017 Big Show in New York City, January 15-17. "We are pleased to bring to market our new Aura29F freezer label, as well as the Guard42, to the world's largest selling range of fully-graphic ESLs," said Andrew Dark, CEO, Displaydata. "As the world's number one supplier of three-color, fully-graphic displays, we listen closely to our customers. Our tier-one customers wanted the ability to apply dynamic promotional strategies in their freezer sections, as they do in the rest of their stores, and we have answered their request. With the largest 3 color, fully graphic installed base in both North America and Europe, we continually look to provide innovative extensions to our category-leading ESL solution. The newly available displays are made available at the same time that our enterprise, control and monitoring solutions add more functionality to make managing hundreds of stores with millions of electronic displays even more automated and simple. This gives retailers more time to serve customers and improve sales in store, rather than printing, cutting out and inserting paper into shelf edge. Our new U.S. Support Centre in Atlanta provides round-the-clock service and enhances our operation in North America, which is already the largest in the ESL sector." Featuring the latest electrophoretic display technology (EPD), Displaydata's Aura29F ESLs are fully-graphic, black on paper-white displays, offering best-in-class readability with a near 180 viewing angle. The freezer label offers a freeform and flexible label design that enables any combination of text or images, including scanable QR codes and manufacturer's barcodes, to be displayed inside freezer cabinets. Additional features of the new Aura29F ESL include: True two-way communication. Each ESL features powerful two-way broadcast of price, product and promotional content to ensure 100% accuracy. Each individual Aura29F ESL can respond back to headquarters, confirming updates have been received and activated. Each ESL features powerful two-way broadcast of price, product and promotional content to ensure 100% accuracy. Each individual Aura29F ESL can respond back to headquarters, confirming updates have been received and activated. Remote and automatic update of firmware to ensure image quality is optimized using DisplaydataLUT . An exclusive technology to Displaydata, DisplaydataLUT enables superior image quality across all temperature ranges in the Displaydata product range. DisplaydataLUT An exclusive technology to Displaydata, DisplaydataLUT enables superior image quality across all temperature ranges in the Displaydata product range. Rich content for effective store promotions and improved store operations . The Aura29F delivers rich content digitally, helping to influence shopper purchasing decisions at the shelf edge. As well, each ESL has up to six pages in memory that can be used to quickly and centrally deploy new promotions from headquarters, provide store associates with merchandising information, and enable them to undertake customer service, replenishment and inventory management tasks more efficiently. . The Aura29F delivers rich content digitally, helping to influence shopper purchasing decisions at the shelf edge. As well, each ESL has up to six pages in memory that can be used to quickly and centrally deploy new promotions from headquarters, provide store associates with merchandising information, and enable them to undertake customer service, replenishment and inventory management tasks more efficiently. Low power, long life. The Aura29F includes bi-stable displays that require zero power to retain their image, enabling a battery life of three years with an average of three updates per day. The ESL comes standard with replaceable batteries to ensure extended display life. The Aura29F includes bi-stable displays that require zero power to retain their image, enabling a battery life of three years with an average of three updates per day. The ESL comes standard with replaceable batteries to ensure extended display life. Versatility and personalization. The Aura29F can be managed across the Enterprise by Displaydata's Dynamic Software Suite and in store is controlled by the same RF infrastructure as the rest of Displaydata's range of ESLs. The Guard42 enclosure is made with fish acid-resistant plastic and is easy to clean and disinfect. The enclosure, designed for the Aura42 and Chroma42 ESLs, offers a hygienic design that reduces areas on an ESL prone to bacterial growth and is the ideal solution for areas in a grocery store with misters. As well, the enclosure comes with a "notes" area on the back, providing store associates the ability to write information such as product expiration dates, open-on dates and promotions. The Guard42 adheres to the FDA-21 standard. Displaydata's dedicated support center, located in the Bank of America building in Atlanta, will open in Q1 2017, enhancing the existing global support network that Displaydata operates and will become the hub for worldwide operational support coordinating Displaydata's other worldwide support locations. Media who would like to meet with Displaydata at NRF 2017, please contact Kathleen See at [email protected] or 601.757.2625. To learn more about Displaydata or to schedule a product demo at NRF, please contact [email protected]. About Displaydata Displaydata is the leader in the design and supply of fully graphic electronic shelf labels (ESLs). We were first to market with three-color ESLs and continue to lead this category, having shipped millions of labels. We work in close partnership with many of the world's largest retail brands and have operations in the US, Europe, LATAM and Asia. We help retailers optimize revenues and margins by improving the customer experience at the shelf-edge, where most purchasing decisions are made. Displaydata's ESLs, with the option of integrated Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, enable retailers to control and drive in-store pricing and promotions with speed, agility and consistency. Fully graphic and available in three colors, the ESLs can display product, price, promotion, stock levels, social reviews, currency details and much more. Displaydata's ESLs are part of an architecture designed in partnership with retailers to be enterprise ready. The trusted platform is simple to install and needs the least amount of in-store hardware of any vendor. The wireless network is secure and the robust software enables the centralized management of any number of ESLs, across any number of stores. For more information, please visit: www.displaydata.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005029/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Lionbridge Announces GeoFluent on the Salesforce AppExchange, the World's Leading Enterprise Apps Marketplace WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. today announced that it has launched GeoFluent on the Salesforce AppExchange, empowering businesses to connect with their customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. The new app integration brings GeoFluent's real-time translation solution to Salesforce Service Cloud, allowing Live Agent customers to improve global customer experience (CX) and reduce costs by adding multilingual capabilities to their existing applications without hiring bilingual agents. GeoFluent will allow agents to communicate in real-time with customers in over 100 languages. Built on the Salesforce App Cloud, GeoFluent is currently available on the AppExchange at https://appexchange.salesforce.com/listingDetail?listingId=a0N3A00000DrzNkUAJ GeoFluent Key Features Consumer preferences are driving increases in digital channel usage while globalization and diversification are driving multilingual interactions. Research from Lionbridge and the International Customer Management Institute shows that the majority of contact centers expect the volume of non-primary language interactions to increase over the next three years. The GeoFluent integration makes it easy to support multilingual chat by: Adding language capabilities to existing Live Agent applications without hiring bilingual agents Reducing the time and cost associated with supporting customers across multiple languages and geographies Reducing language barriers by enabling the best agent for a specific interaction to communicate with that consumer, as opposed to the agent that knows the language Enabling proactive chat across languages to drive increases in conversions and revenue Working as a plug-in to Live Agent, there's no IT involvement required to enable the GoFluent functionality nor changes to how customers or agents use Live Agent Comments on the News "Companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees to thrive in the age of the customer," said Todd Surdey , SVP, independent software partner sales, Salesforce. "By leveraging the power of the Salesforce App Cloud, the GeoFluent solution provides customers with an exciting new way to communicate without having to hire bilingual agents." , SVP, independent software partner sales, Salesforce. "By leveraging the power of the Salesforce App Cloud, the GeoFluent solution provides customers with an exciting new way to communicate without having to hire bilingual agents." "Customers expect service that is virtually effortless, personalized and fast. GeoFluent helps contact centers deliver on these expectations with the highest levels of second-generation real-time translation quality," said Tom Tseki , Vice President and General Manager, GeoFluent at Lionbridge. "Lionbridge has built the integration to Live Agent based on customer demand, and we look forward to helping our customers grow their businesses and increase efficiencies by expanding the global reach of their chat services." , Vice President and General Manager, GeoFluent at Lionbridge. "Lionbridge has built the integration to Live Agent based on customer demand, and we look forward to helping our customers grow their businesses and increase efficiencies by expanding the global reach of their chat services." "Using GeoFluent with Live Agent allows our English-speaking agents to chat with members across Europe ," said Frank Buckley , director of RPM, project management & process improvement at RCI, a division of Wyndham Worldwide and a leader in vacation exchange. "This allows RCI to deliver real-time interaction options to our members without having to hire bilingual agents." GeoFluent for Salesforce Live Agent adds to a growing list of GeoFluent integrations with leading contact center, service management, collaboration and other communications platforms. About Salesforce AppExchange Salesforce AppExchange is the world's leading enterprise apps marketplace that empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With 3,000 partner apps and more than 4 million customer installs, it is the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, IoT and data science technologies for businesses. Additional Resources Like Salesforce on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/salesforce Follow Salesforce on Twitter: https://twitter.com/salesforce Salesforce, App Cloud, AppExchange and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc. About GeoFluent GeoFluent, a SaaS offering from Lionbridge, eliminates language as a barrier between organizations and customers. By providing omni-lingual support across the omni-channel, companies improve customer experience (CX), increase revenue and decrease cost and risk. GeoFluent plugs into leading contact center, service management, collaboration and other communications platforms to maximize customers' existing investments, enabling them to support over 100 global languages across any interaction channel. About Lionbridge Lionbridge enables more than 800 world-leading brands to increase international market share, speed adoption of products and effectively engage their customers in local markets worldwide. Using our innovative cloud technology platforms and our global crowd of more than 100,000 professional cloud workers, we provide translation, online marketing, global content management and application testing solutions that ensure global brand consistency, local relevancy and technical usability across all touch points of the customer lifecycle. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains solution centers in 27 countries. To learn more, visit http://www.lionbridge.com. Media Contacts: Aimee Jen Text100 [email protected] +1-617-399-4924 "Lionbridge" and "GeoFluent" are registered trademarks of Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. in the United States and other countries. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lionbridge-announces-geofluent-on-the-salesforce-appexchange-the-worlds-leading-enterprise-apps-marketplace-300390075.html SOURCE Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 16, 2017] Friends of Mosaic Academy to Raise Funds, Awareness during School Choice Week The Friends of Mosaic Academy will host its 2nd Annual Jubilee of School Choice to raise funds for the construction of a permanent educational facility for students. The festivities begin on Friday, January 20 at 7 p.m. at the Courtyard by Marriott in Farmington, N.M. The theme for this year's celebration is a Hollywood-esque "Reach for the Stars" motif, as the group continues to raise funds for the construction of a new permanent education facility for Mosaic Academy Charter School. Vangie Garza Neil of the Aztec Chamber of Commerce will act as Master of Ceremonies. Student performances, live Jazz music, and an elegant dinner are on the evening's agenda. The keynote speakers include Connie Dove of Dove Property Advisors, who specializes in charter school development and has located, secured, financed and developed permanent facilities for many New Mexico charter and private schools. Mosaic Academy is a public charter school in the Aztec Muicipal Schools district, serving 180 students in grades K - 8. The goal of the event is to celebrate great education choices in New Mexico and raise awareness among parents about school choice. The celebration is timed to take place right before National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2017), which will feature more than 21,000 events across the country. "Friends of Mosaic Academy is participating in National School Choice Week because we strongly believe that parents have the right to choose the best educational setting for their child and are looking forward to providing another option for New Mexico families," said Aleshia Raether, secretary for the organization. Held every January, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a positive spotlight on effective education options for every child. Through more than 21,000 independently planned events across the country, National School Choice Week raises public awareness of all types of educational choices available to children. These options include traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, online learning, private schools, and homeschooling. You can learn more by visiting www.schoolchoiceweek.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005710/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Desert View Elementary Performs School Choice Week Dance The students, parents, and staff of Desert View Elementary School will combine a Parent-Teacher Organization meeting with a choreographed dance performance to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling" to celebrate National School Choice Week. On Thursday, January 19 at 5 p.m. the meeting and dance performance will kick off, with fourth graders performing the choreography. The meeting and performance will take place at the school, located at 1508 10th Ave, San Luis, AZ 85349. Desert View is a public school that is part of the Gadsden Elementary District, serving 782 students in grades K - 6. The goal of the event is to celebrate great education choices in Arizona and raise awareness among parents about school choice. The celebration is timed to coincide with National School Choice Week (Jnuary 22-28, 2017), which will feature more than 21,000 events across the country. "School choice, at the end of the day, is about students," said Meredith Nelson, principal of Desert View Elementary. "What better way to spotlight the importance and impact of this issue than by demonstrating just how many families have something to celebrate during National School Choice Week." Held every January, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a positive spotlight on effective education options for every child. Through more than 21,000 independently planned events across the country, National School Choice Week raises public awareness of all types of educational choices available to children. These options include traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, online learning, private schools, and homeschooling. You can learn more by visiting www.schoolchoiceweek.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005715/en/ Harmony School of Advancement to Host STEM & International Festival during School Choice Week Harmony School of Advancement invites the community to attend its annual STEM and International Festival that is timed to coincide with National School Choice Week 2017. The event begins at 6 p.m. on Saturday, January 21 at the school, located at 3171 N. Sam Houston Parkway West in Houston. The annual STEM and International Festival features student science projects, experiments and demonstrations. The International Festival portion features food and cultural exhibits from Canada, France, India, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, Turkey and Vietnam. Sandy Barton, Vice President of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce will be speaking at the event. Harmony School of Advancement is a public charter school serving 605 students in grades 9 - 12. The goal of the event is to celebrate great education choices in Texas and raise awareness among parents about school choice. The celebration is timed to take place right before National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2017), which will feature more than 21,000 events across the country. "National School Choice Week is the perfect platform to celebrate our students and school families. We fully support choices in education in the Houston area," said Barbara Swift (News - Alert), campus outreach coordinator. Held every January, National School Choice Week is an independent public awareness effort designed to shine a positive spotlight on effective education options for every child. Through more than 21,000 independently planned events across the country, National School Choice Week raises public awareness of all types of educational choices available to children. These options include traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, online learning, private schools, and homeschooling. You can learn more by visiting www.schoolchoiceweek.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170116005728/en/ By Heru Asprihanto and Eveline Danubrata BOGOR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia and Japan have agreed to step up maritime security and start discussions on a major railway project to link the Southeast Asian nation's capital and second-biggest city, the leaders of both countries said on Sunday. Japan has historically been one of Indonesia's biggest investors, but was dealt a blow in 2015 when President Joko Widodo's government awarded China a high-speed train project linking Jakarta with the city of Bandung in West Java. Tensions around railway deals seemed to have eased on Sunday, when Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after meeting Widodo in Bogor, south of Jakarta, that Japan will cooperate with Indonesia to build infrastructure in the railway and other sectors. The two leaders also discussed North Korea, with Abe saying its development of nuclear capability and missiles has reached "a new level of threat". North Korea said last week it can test launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time from any location set by leader Kim Jong Un, adding the United States' hostile policy was to blame for its arms development. On South China Sea, Abe said that Japan asserts the importance of the principle of upholding the law and solving a dispute peacefully. "The issue of South China Sea has drawn the attention of the international community and directly affects the peace in the region," Abe said. Maritime security cooperation is of utmost importance for fellow maritime nations, Japan and Indonesia, he said. "Japan will actively encourage cooperation in maritime security and the development of the remote islands in Indonesia." China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion worth of trade passes each year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to parts of the sea. While Indonesia is not part of the dispute over claims in the South China Sea, it objects to China's claim to waters around the Natuna Islands. RAILWAY WARS At an estimated cost of $5.5 billion, the Jakarta-Bandung line was seen in 2015 as a coup for China, which is vying for influence in the region under its "One Belt, One Road" policy and has ambitions to be a global train supplier. The roughly 600-km (400-mile) Jakarta-Surabaya project is likely to cost less than the Jakarta-Bandung rail as the speed of the trains is slower and most of the land has been secured, according to Indonesia's transport minister. The minister told Reuters in October that the government had invited Japan to work on the Jakarta-Surabaya project, which is aimed at slashing journey times between the capital and the East Java city by more than half to around five hours. Japan and Indonesia also plan to develop the Masela gas block in Indonesia's Maluku Province and Patimban port in West Java, Widodo said on Sunday. On other regional issues, Abe said North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens is a very important challenge for his administration to resolve. Pyongyang admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens decades ago. Abe has made resolving the emotive issue a signature pledge of his political career. (Reporting by Jakarta newsroom and Heru Asprihanto; Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Clelia Oziel) WASHINGTON The Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee might have gone unnoticed if one of the two attacking groups hadn't made so much "noise," a security expert told the ShmooCon hacker conference here yesterday (Jan. 15). (Image credit: Scott E. Read/Shutterstock) Because that group, dubbed Fancy Bear or APT 28, was so sloppy, it was caught within a few weeks, said Toni Gidwani, director of research operations at Arlingon, Virginia, cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect. The subsequent investigation led to the discovery of a year-old, continuing penetration of the DNC's servers by a rival Russian group, called Cozy Bear or APT 29, that had previously gone undetected. The self-identified Romanian hacktivist who called himself Guccifer 2.0, who took responsibility for the DNC attacks, was simply a rushed attempt by Fancy Bear to deflect suspicion from both groups, Gidwani said. Yet because what appears to have been an overall Russian attempt to influence the U.S. presidential election apparently succeeded, and because both Russian groups are still actively competing with one another, she said, we can expect such large-scale Russian cyberattacks upon American targets to only continue. MORE: The Worst Data Breaches of All Time Fancy Bear is thought to be run by the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service. It has conducted rather brutal cyberattacks upon a French TV station, the German parliament and even the White House. Cozy Bear is thought to be run by either the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service, or the FSB, its domestic intelligence service. It has attacked the Pentagon as well as diplomatic and governmental institutions in many countries, but its methods are quiet and stealthy and focus on information gathering. Yet neither group seemed to be aware that the other had also penetrated the DNC's servers. "That may seem absurd to Western intelligence agencies," Gidwani said, "but the Russians have a competitive dynamic within their own intelligence community." Unlike the U.S.'s various intelligence agencies, which generally try to avoid getting in each other's way, she said, Russia's intelligence agencies are rivals, frequently go after the same targets and rarely inform each other of their activities. Both Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear were said to be innocent by Guccifer 2.0, the mysterious blogger who set a WordPress website and a Twitter account in the week after the news of the DNC breach broke in June 2016. He said he was a Romanian trying to spread the truth about government corruption, borrowing the online name of a real Romanian hacktivist. Guccifer 2.0 reached out to several U.S. news outlets in June to declare his guilt in the DNC attacks, but even those journalists suspected a Russian plot when Guccifer was found to speak poor Romanian. ThreatConnect went further it linked the registration credentials of Guccifer 2.0's website to previous espionage campaigns conducted by Fancy Bear. "The more Guccifer 2.0 talked about the breach, the less plausible he sounded," Gidwani said. "At this point, we assumed the point of the Cozy and Fancy intrusions was espionage." Subsequent developments changed that assessment. Guccifer 2.0 urged American journalists to examine documents posted on a website, DCLeaks, that had been set up in April 2016 and claimed to be the work of American hacktivists determined to reveal the truth about U.S. military officials and Democratic Party operatives. It was quickly linked to Fancy Bear. In late July 2016, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was found to have been hacked, apparently by Fancy Bear. Some of its documents were sent to Western media by Guccifer 2.0. Meanwhile, many of the documents from both of the breaches ended up on WikiLeaks, embarrassing Democratic Party operatives and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. At the same time, ThreatConnect found evidence of Fancy Bear spear-phishing campaigns against top Democrats. By this point, Gidwani said, the ThreatConnect team realized that the Russians, or at least the Fancy Bear group, weren't interested in merely espionage. Instead, the overall scheme appeared to be "an active attempt to interfere with the U.S presidential election, similar to attacks on the Ukrainian elections in 2014." "The aim was to damage individual politicians with embarrassing data," Gidwani said. "The Russians were trying to throw sand in the gears of the electoral process and undermine faith in the U.S. government and leadership." Furthermore, she said, Fancy Bear's blunt, personal attacks upon its targets crossed a line that other espionage groups had previously stayed short of. "There's a nastiness to this that we haven't seen in previous state-backed attacks," Gidwani said. "Dumping large amounts of personal data was deemed acceptable." But despite the mistakes Fancy Bear made, the overall Russian aims were apparently successful, Gidwani said. And because these methods worked, we cannot expect that Russian cyberattacks upon American institutions will stop. "How'd they do it? Breaching and leaking," she concluded. "Will they continue? Absolutely." AND WE'RE BACK!!! Kansas City Morning Impact Newsflash: Rain Can Be Slick Too!!! MLK Day Listicle Show-Me Walking Death Kansas City Artsy Update inspires our return to the work week given that she makes diversity within the Victoria's Secret model line-up a lot more fun . . . And these are the links we're checking to start the day . . .And this is thefor right now . . . Chuck: First Ladies Past and Present. It's wheels up on the Obama Administration. With the advent of the Trump Administration just days away and the 4th Estate assuring everyone that we will now be led up the path to Golgotha, it seems an opportune time, to assess our newest First Lady, Melania Trump and her predecessor, Michelle Obama.All First Ladies, like Caesar's Wife, are accorded respect by the Press, Politicians and we Plebes. During Obama's "Farewell Address" where for what seemed like days, he congratulated himself repetitively on his "Potemkin Village" accomplishments, he took a breath, and, in a heart felt moment, spoke to his love for his wife and family. It was touching and sincere, no mean feat for a narcissistic, luftmensch poseur, elevated far beyond his station.Michelle Obama, acerbic and vociferously opinionated, once said that she was "Never proud of America." (Perhaps she would have been more comfortable as the Queen of Kenya.) Never once in 8 years, convicted of dissimulation, her belligerence was duly noted and kudos from the press followed every utterance. She walked on water.All First Ladies are clothes horses provided from all the finest designers in the world, Michelle was no exception. She shouldered her gowns as an American Royal and to me, with the verve of violence. She is an impressive human being, who was to be considered in all matters of state. Any designer, to win her approval, must have known, they needed an element of Post Modern Stridence in order to be selected.A more anodyne First Lady will take her place on the throne this weekend. A Polygot who speaks 5 languages, Melania, a natural and effortless cynosure, will, I believe brings a more beau monde feel to the White House and a more sedate profile. The gowns, the state dinners, the "Affairs Of State" will be far more traditional. The fireworks, extemporaneous explosions and detritus from unexpected conversations and remarks will be the province of President Trump. At least we will know exactly where to focus.Michelle will no doubt, move on to many appearances on "The View" and other daytime TV programs where she and her cycle sisters can lament the ascendance of vulgarians to high station. Then, as did Hillary, she will run for office, be elected and initialize her quest to retake the throne.############## Citizens For Responsible Government - Kansas City: Steve Rose attacks CFRG, again. More FAKE NEWS from the editorial pages of the KC Star, under his byline! Citizens for a Responsible Government SECRET SECRECY Take a look at this important Kansas City battle over taxpayer subsidy and the current development agenda running City Hall vs.You decide . . .Once again Steve Rose writing for the Kansas City Star attacks CFRG with FAKE NEWS! Its is hard to comprehend why our leading (?) local newspaper would continue to print anything this guy writes. He is so out of tune with whats going on in KCMO. When was the last time he was in City Hall?CFRGs life would be a lot easier if we had politicians we COULD depend on to act in the best interest of the taxpaying voters. When you dont have the afore mentioned remember; All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for the good men (and women) to do nothing. (Edmund Burke).. CFRG is not taking credit for it but when we started speaking out and seeking the voters input and signatures on petitions, we were pretty much on our own. Now there are groups speaking up all over the city and this is good. We must hold our elected officials accountable. The voting taxpayers have the power, its our money not Mr. Roses.Sunday on the editorial page Mr. Rose laments: "Groups such as Citizens for a Responsible Government dont just want to kill a new airport. They also aim to make sure the streetcar routes are not expanded. They oppose the downtown convention center. They helped kill a relocation of a major architectural firm to the Crossroads District. And now they are trying to shoot down a major bond proposal in April that would repair infrastructure throughout the city. All this suffocating negativity limits progress across the metropolitan area.His article is probably not worth commenting on since I am the only one I know who saw it. However, he is so far out of touch we owe it to our CFRG partners to defend our position on the topics he mentions. Also Mr. Rose lives in Kansas so it is real easy for him to raise the taxes for KCMO taxpaying voters. He strolls around his Johnson County social clubs and talks down to the average folks, spouting the "politically correct lines which are fed to him.Heres our response:1.) "... want to kill a new airport. Mr. Rose has forgotten a recent survey conducted by City Hall determined over 70% on the voting public in KCMO prefer CFRGs position. Mr. Rose has never taken the time to look around at some or attend presentations of the remodel plans CFRG has brought forward. These remodel plans have been generated by some of the foremost airport design and construction specialists in the world. Presenting alternative plans which keeps control of the airport in the hands of the authority and not the airlines, saving the taxpayers $500,000,000 and maintaining the flexibility for unlimited growth and expansion, seem to me like CFRG is more than interested in fixing the airport; correctly. Honesty, transparency in a solid plan. CFRG is ready to move forward.2.) They also aim to to make sure the streetcar routes are not expanded. CFRG does not care if the streetcar routes are expanded or not. We do feel it is a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars but expansion should be up to ALL the voting taxpayers in KCMO, not just a few controlled voters as proposed. We oppose themanor in which City Hall tries to take these decisions around taxpayers and misleads us on the actual costs. In the streetcar we have a transportation method that cannot run if it rains or snows or there is an ice storm. How efficient is that? The busses run rain or shine, snow, etc. Streetcars are just not expensive to build and operate but they are inflexible. They do not take people where they want to go, they take people where developers, etc. want them to go. Our streetcars do not help the people who really need transportation to get to jobs. They are for tourists at the expense of needed repairs and projects vital to the health of our city. Has Mr. Rose talked to any working people on the Eastside of the city whos average water bill will be over $120.00 per month soon, partially because of utility relocations due to the streetcar? Wait till the other utilities get their rate increases into effect. All KCMO taxpayers will pay for any expansion, not Mr. Rose and his O.P. country club cronies.. Now how is that against streetcar expansion? Honesty and transparency in a solid plan.3.) They oppose the downtown convention center. DA? CFRG does not oppose the downtown convention center. Not sure what Mr. Rose means here? Out of touch? If he meant to say the downtown Hyatt Hotel .. then again we oppose thewith which City Hall is spending $170,000,000 of taxpayers money while refusing to show the taxpayers the financing arrangement term sheet. We are in the process of trying to secure the sheet. If it is the hotel Mr. Rose thinks we oppose; hes wrong again. We do not oppose the construction of a downtown convention hotel. We do oppose using taxpayers money for a project which will benefit a few connected individuals. A project statistics tell us we dont need. If this is such a great deal, investors should be lining up to invest. This is not the case, in fact we believe the developers will be back to City Hall for more money if they continue to try and bring this unnecessary project to fruition. Since the beginning of the project, over 1550 new hotel rooms have been constructed or are under construction in KCMO. Taxpaying voters do not need this expense, let the private investors foot the bill since they will reap the profits! CFRG doesnt oppose the project, just the mechanism paying for it.4.) They helped kill a relocation of a major architectural firm to the Crossroads District. Yes we did. We think TIF programs are out of control in KCMO. Who is paying off all the TIF bonds? If Mr. Rose was interested in serious journalism, he would look into this. CFRG had a hard time believing the Crossroads District (and the Plaza for that matter) is blighted. CFRG says, follow the law.5. And now they are trying to shoot down a major bond proposal in April that would repair infrastructure throughout the city. Again, CFRG is not against the $800,000,000 BOMB ISSUE. This issue will blow up the city budget as it is structured.This BOMB issue is not ready to be presented to the voting taxpayers of KCMO. There is not near enough transparency or detail, too much. CFRG and the voting taxpayers would like to see where the money is going. CFRG wants to see some. Why not? Again, its our money! Tell us what youre going to do with the money so we can measure your progress.Mr. Rose lives in a different world from the average KCMO taxpayer. He seems more than willing to spend other peoples money with no accountability. This is no way to run a successful business and KCMO is a business. Doing things the old way; "Business as usual in KCMO is over. The voting taxpayers are demanding more information and details before they rubber-stamp future city hall extravaganzas. CFRG wants accountability. Why not, its our money!If Mr. Rose considers us cranks he joins ranks with the Mayor and Steve Glorioso who defend their poor positions and agendas by calling others names in an attempt at intimidation.Citizens for Responsible Government############## As World War II was coming to an end, American Naval forces were quickly approaching Japan and unless something radical happened, Japan would be defeated. Their answer to turn the tides of war was a unique Navy unit called Tokubetsu Kogekitai, which means Special Attack Unit. But they were better known as kamikazes, which means divine wind. The division consisted of volunteers who would purposely crash into American warships. Here are 10 interesting facts about those men. 10. The Battle of the Philippine Sea One of the major naval engagements of World War II was the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which took place on June 19 and 20, 1944. The victor was the American Navy, which pretty much wiped out much of the Japanese fleet without losing too many of its own vessels. The Japanese problem was that their planes were the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, also called Zekes, and they were completely ineffective against the powerful American Navy. Mainly, they had a tendency to burst into flames when they were hit by machine gun bullets. After the battle, the Japanese lost 480 Zekes, which was 75 percent of their fleet. As the American forces neared the Philippines, which was occupied by Japan, the Japanese Navy knew that they needed to do something drastic. At a meeting with the top brass of the Navy, Naval Captain Motoharu Okamura said: In our present situation I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes. There is no other way. There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country, and I would like to command such an operation. Provide me with 300 planes and I will turn the tide of war. Amazingly, they agreed to his plan and gave him the planes he requested. Okamura retrofitted the planes to make them lighter by removing their machine guns, armor, and radios. They were also given bigger gas tanks and loaded with 550 pound bomb explosives. Now all Okamura needed was some pilots. 9. They Shamed People into Being Kamikaze Pilots The biggest question surrounding kamikaze pilots is: how did they get people to do it? Well, they simply asked men to volunteer. As for why someone would choose to die like this comes down to the culture of Japan. In Japan, shame is an important aspect of their society. So if a pilot was asked by a superior to volunteer and the pilot said, No, I dont want to die for my country, it wouldnt just bring shame to him, but to his entire family. Also, if someone did volunteer and he died, he would be promoted up two ranks. So while kamikaze pilots were volunteers they werent exactly given much of a choice. They could stay alive and shame themselves and their families in a prideful society, or die and be hailed as a hero who died for his country. 8. They Used Their Best Pilot For the First Run When the Japanese Navy decided to form a kamikaze squadron, the first person they chose to be a part of it was one of their best young lieutenants, Yukio Seki, a newlywed 23-year-old. When they told him about the plan in September 1944, he supposedly said, you absolutely must let me do this. However, he supposedly told a reporter later that he thought it was a waste of his talents. Over the next month, 23 other volunteers were gathered and trained. On October 20, 1944, Admiral Takijiro Onishi said: Japan is in grave danger. The salvation of our country is now beyond the power of the ministers of the state, the General Staff, and lowly commanders like myself. It can come only from spirited young men such as you. Thus, on behalf of your hundred million countrymen, I ask of you this sacrifice and pray for your success. You are already gods, without earthly desires. But one thing you want to know is that your own crash-dive is not in vain. Regrettably, we will not be able to tell you the results. But I shall watch your efforts to the end and report your deeds to the Throne. You may all rest assured on this point. I ask you all to do your best. Then the 24 pilots got into their aircraft and flew off to die. However, they didnt encounter any American ships until their fifth day of flying. Thats when they finally came across American naval ships near Leyte, which is an island of the Philippines. They surprised the Americans by flying directly into their ships and managed to sink one of the Navys most important vessels, an air craft carrier. After a plane hit the deck of the USS St. Lo it caused a series of internal explosions and it sank. The air craft carrier was carrying 889 men and out of them, 143 were killed or missing. Besides sinking the mighty air craft carrier, the kamikaze pilots also managed to damage three other ships. The Japanese took this as a sign of success and decided to expand the kamikaze program. 7. The Japanese Designed a Plane Specifically for Kamikaze Missions As we mentioned before, the Japaneses Zeke planes werent really effective war planes. They didnt exactly make the best flying bombs, either. Another problem was that you needed to train pilots to fly the Zekes and they had to be good enough pilots to even get close enough to a warship. Instead of just scraping the whole kamikaze program, the Japanese Navy decided to develop a plane that was specifically made for kamikaze missions called the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka, or Cherry Blossom. The Ohka was essentially a drivable missile; it was about 20 feet long with short wings. A problem with the Ohka was that it could only glide up to a distance of 20 miles. So each one needed to be carried by a Mitsubishi G4M bomber. Then once they were near their targets the Ohka would be released. Once the pilot got close to his target, he would start the three rocket boosters, and this allowed the planes to fly fast enough to avoid enemy fire and penetrate the armor of the ships. Besides being a better flying bombs, the Ohkas were easier to pilot than Zeke planes. Pilots didnt have to learn how to take off and land, they simply learned how to control the direction of the plane and once they got close, they would push the rocket boosters, so they didnt have to learn how to maneuver. The Ohka also had something that no other cockpit has ever had. That was a place behind the pilots head to place a samurai sword. 6. It Was Supposed to be Psychological Warfare Clearly, the most important task of kamikaze pilots was to sink warships. However, there was an added benefit that they thought would help them on the battlefield, and that was that it would give them a psychological edge. The Japanese wanted to come across as fierce warriors who had no limits and would rather die than surrender. Unfortunately for them, it wasnt that effective. Not only did the American Navy clobber the Japanese Navy, but when the Japanese unleashed the Ohkas, the Americans nicknamed them Baka or Baka Bomb, which is Japanese for fool or idiot. 5. Torpedo Kamikaze Pilots The Japanese fully embraced the kamikaze attacks and they didnt just limit them to the sky. They also manufactured drivable torpedoes called kaiten. How they worked is that the pilot would find a ship in his periscope. Then, using a stop watch and a compass, he basically had to blindly drive into the enemy ship. As you probably guessed, this wasnt very easy to do and it took months to train pilots. Another problem was that they were large and couldnt be driven over long distances, so they had to be transported using a larger submarine. The mother ship would have to transport six or eight kaitens to the battles where they were needed. On November 20, 1944, five kaitens were launched at the USS Mississinewa, which was an oiler. One of them struck it and the explosion was massive, as you can see in the video above. Since the explosion was so big, the Japanese thought they had sunk five ships instead of just one. As a result, the Navy considered the attack as a success and ramped up production of the kaiten. 4. The Nazi Suicide Squad The Japanese werent the only members of the Axis who were desperate to turn to suicide bombers as a way to turn the war around. Near the end of the war, Germany also formed its own suicide squad, called the Leonidas Squadron. The squadron was suggested by Hannah Reitsch, a Nazi test pilot. Reitsch was twice awarded the Iron Cross and she came closer than any other German woman to seeing combat. In 1944, while Reitsch was getting her second Iron Cross, she pitched the idea to Adolf Hitler. She wanted to put pilots into modified V-1 rockets loaded with explosives and use them as weapons. At first, Hitler didnt like the idea, but later changed his mind because he liked Reitschs commitment to the idea, so he agreed to have planes designed for suicide missions. The aircraft was the Fieseler Fi 103R, which had the code name Reichenberg, and they V1 rockets loaded with 2,000 pound bombs. Ristsch was assigned to the Leonidas Squadron and she was the first to swear its oath, which read, I hereby voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death. Altogether, the squadron had about 70 volunteers, but in the end the program was scraped before any of the Reichenbergs were used. As for Reitsch, she survived the war. Afterwards, she published her autobiography, and she was the director of the national school of gliding in Ghana. She died at the age of 65 in 1979 from a heart attack. 3. The Pilots Might Have Been High on Meth Methamphetamine was actually invented in Japan in 1893. However, it didnt become widely used until World War II by at least two members of the Axis. German forces used a form of meth called Pervitin and the Japanese used a drug called Philopon. During the war, the Japanese stockpiled Philopon and gave them to their soldiers when they got too tired or hungry. However, the drug became particularly useful for kamikaze pilots. They needed to be sharp and alert while facing certain death. So before the pilots were sealed into their flying bombs and flown several hours to their death, the pilots were given high doses of Philopon. This would have kept them focused until they were needed. Also, meth has a tendency to raise aggression levels. While this is one of the worst problems when dealing with addicts, this side effect would have been particularly useful in suicide bombers who had to fly through gunfire before hitting their targets and killing themselves. 2. The Last Kamikaze Pilot After the creation of the kamikaze unit, Admiral Matome Ugaki was put in command of it. Months later, on August 15, 1945, the Emperor of Japan announced Japans surrender over the radio, and Ugaki decided he wanted to die the same way as his men in a kamikaze mission. Before Ugaki flew out, he posed for the above picture, and then climbed into the plane. The problem was that Ugaki didnt know how to fly, so another pilot had to volunteer for the mission. En route to his death, Ugaki relayed the following message over the radio: I alone am to blame for our failure to defend the homeland and destroy the arrogant enemy. The valiant efforts of all officers and men of my command during the past six months have been greatly appreciated. I am going to make an attack at Okinawa where my men have fallen like cherry blossoms. There I will crash into and destroy the conceited enemy in the true spirit of Bushido, with firm conviction and faith in the eternity of Imperial Japan. I trust that the members of all units under my command will understand my motives, will overcome all hardships of the future, and will strive for the reconstruction of our great homeland that it may survive forever. Long live His Imperial Majesty the Emperor! Unfortunately for Ugaki, his mission was not successful and his plane was probably intercepted before it could reach its target. 1. It Wasnt Very Effective Clearly, the Japanese thought that kamikaze pilots were a good idea. However, in hindsight it was a pretty ineffective way to take on the strongest naval force of World War II. In total, kamikaze pilots were only able to sink 51 ships and just one of those was an aircraft carrier, which was the first major battleship to be sunk by a kamikaze attack, the USS St. Lo. Kamikaze pilots were also responsible for the deaths of 3,000 American and British men. However, when you compare that to the Japaneses losses, its hard to believe that Japan was doing offensive tactics. In total, 1,321 Japanese planes and submarines crashed into American naval ships and over 5,000 pilots were killed in attempts. Eventually, the American Navy simply overwhelmed the Japanese Navy because they had more men and superior planes and ships. Today, the kamikaze project is considered one of the biggest blunders of World War II. Robert Grimminck is a Canadian freelance writer. You can friend him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, follow him on Pinterest or visit his website, or his true crime YouTube channel. Other Articles you Might Like Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglus stance toward the EU at the conference on Cyprus in Geneva Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglus stance toward the EU at the conference on Cyprus in Geneva, does not reflect the culture of compromise needed, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said on Monday. ANA-MPA has learnt that an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, Kotzias discussed the Cyprus problem, and the conference held last week, which was attended by him, Cavusoglu, and the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as the three guarantor power representatives. EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker was also part of the talks on the security and guarantees issue, the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots were discussing with the guarantor power representatives. ANA-MPA also learnt that the Greek Foreign Minster noted the threatening stance the Turkish representation had towards the EUs Juncker. Asked about press reports he will not attend the next conference on Cyprus, Kotzias dismissed the media reports, saying they were squalor published by dirty press. On the side-lines of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting Kotzias also met with his British counterpart Boris Johnson. Source: ANA-MPA RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Syrian rebel groups have announced that they have decided to attend the peace talks backed by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan. President Bashar al-Assads, Russian backed recent victories, especially at the districts of eastern Aleppo set the new diplomatic effort in motion. The Russian attempt was joined with by Turkey and for the first time it seems that there might be a reasonable chance for peace in the area. What has not being clarified, though, is whether the US will be invited to the talks or not. Until now, there are contradicting information leaking from various sources. The ceasefire is still holding on, regardless of the various violations recorded so far. The rebel groups stated that one of the first issues they will address in Astana will be these violations by the Syrian Army, as they say. 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 An artists impression of the airport expansionto be operational by the third quarter of 2019. Plans to have a shopping complex, cineplex and a theme park as part of a $1.1 billion modernisation of Bahrain International Airport have been proposed, reported the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication. To read further, please visit GDNonline. Dubai-based global trade enabler DP World has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Government of Kazakhstan for the development of a special economic zone in Aktau, further boosting trade and logistics in the country. The MoU was signed by DP World Group chairman and CEO Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Governor of Mangistau Akim Alik Aidarbayev in the presence of First Deputy Prime Minister, Askar Mamin. It builds on DP Worlds present management advisory services contract with the Port of Aktau, Kazakhstans main cargo and bulk terminal on the Caspian Sea. DP World also provides similar services under a separate contract with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), Kazakhstans national railway company for the development of the Khorgos Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and Inland Container Depot (ICD). Both parties will be exploring opportunities to work together on the Aktau SEZ development project while adding shipping capacity on the Caspian Sea. The projects are part of Kazakhstan President Nazarbayevs five-year economic policy, Nurly Zhol, focused on the development of transport and logistics, energy and industrial infrastructure, as well as of small and medium-sized businesses. The partnership also includes the development of a range of existing and new projects to support the Government of Kazakhstans efforts to attract private investment for its transport infrastructure, including the Port of Aktau. Bin Sulayem said: Kazakhstan is an important location along the New Silk Way a trade corridor that will benefit economies of the world. New and efficient infrastructure is needed to realise seamless cargo movement with multi-modal transport links essential for profitable growth. To attract investors there is a need to find innovative ways of working together with a focus on infrastructure provision, developing financial markets, mitigating risks and eliminating red tape. The development of Special Economic Zone in Aktau will stimulate economic growth of the country, and more importantly it will make Kazakhstan the largest transport and logistics hub in Central Asia. We are delighted to have the opportunity to continue sharing our ports and logistics expertise with the government to develop the countrys modern logistics hubs as engines for economic development and to enable trade across the region, he said. TradeArabia News Service The real GDP growth in the GCC in 2017-18 is likely to remain weak by historical standards with an average of 1.6 per cent and ranging from 0.7 per cent for Saudi Arabia to 3.3 per cent for Qatar, a Moody's report said. The negative outlook for sovereign creditworthiness in 2017 in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) reflects continued headwinds from subdued growth and challenges to further fiscal and structural reforms, said Moody's Investors Service in its annual GCC Sovereign Outlook, published today. Moody's report, "Sovereigns -- Gulf Cooperation Council: 2017 Outlook --Subdued Growth and Fiscal Pressures Drive Negative Outlook," is an update to the markets and does not constitute a rating action, it said. "We expect real GDP growth in the GCC in 2017-18 to remain weak by historical standards with an average of 1.6 per cent and ranging from 0.7 per cent for Saudi Arabia to 3.3 per cent for Qatar," said Mathias Angonin, Analyst at Moody's. Furthermore, Moody's estimates the GCC's aggregate fiscal deficit will narrow to 7.5 per cent of GDP in 2017 and 4.9 per cent in 2018, from 8.8 per cent of GDP in 2016 and 8.7 per cent of GDP in 2015, mainly as a result of higher oil prices. Challenges to fiscal deficit reduction stem from potential slipping of fiscal consolidation measures in the face of social pressures, it said. Fiscal deficits will remain sizeable in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman given challenges to further consolidation from comparatively lower per capita incomes than in the higher-rated GCC members and potential social tensions. The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait will likely record relatively low fiscal deficits of 3 per cent to 4 per cent of GDP in 2017, it said. Debt issuance volumes will be lower in 2017 and 2018 compared to 2016, helped by the expected reduction in fiscal deficits. According to Moody's estimates, the debt-to-GDP ratio across the GCC will rise to 31.6 per cent by 2018 from just 10.5 per cent in 2014, adding another $154 billion in government debt in 2017 and 2018. Qatar and Bahrain will likely continue to rely solely on market funding whereas Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE and Kuwait will issue debt and make use of government reserves. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain will record the largest increase in debt between 2016 and 2018, with the government debt-to-GDP ratio rising by around 14 percentage points, Moody's said. For Oman and Kuwait, Moody's expects lower debt increases of around 8-9 percentage points of GDP. The debt burdens of the UAE and Qatar, on the other hand, are expected to stabilise in 2017 -- having pre-financed part of their 2017 deficits -- and decline in 2018. Moody's projects that GCC-wide government financial assets will decline to $2.1 trillion by the end of 2017, down from $2.4 trillion in 2014. This will lead to a weakening net asset position for all GCC sovereigns but most pronounced in Saudi Arabia and Oman. - TradeArabia News Service Petromin, the Saudi lubricants giant and the official Nissan Motors dealer in the kingdom, will build a major logistics service centre for Nissan vehicles in King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), just north of Jeddah. According to the deal signed by the two sides just before the start of the New Year, Petromin will lease 193,917 sq m of land in the Industrial Valley of KAEC to build the logistics service centre. King Abdullah Economic Citys efforts are focused on boosting the competitiveness of the Industrial Valley as a regional manufacturing and logistics hub, stated Fahd Al-Rasheed, group CEO and managing director of KAEC, as he welcomed the company into the city and the Industrial Valley. The unrivalled quality of our infrastructure, along with the continual reviews and enhancements of procedures and facilities presented to investors, are sure to attract national and global manufacturing and logistics giants, which, in turn, will give us further impetus to press on with achieving the strategic vision the government has set forth for this modern city. Petromin is one of the kingdoms leading producers of automotive lubricants and automotive service providers. The company is active in five major sectors: the mass production and retail sales of automotive and industrial lubricants; Petromin Express, the companys quick automotive service arm; automotive maintenance and repair; retail sales of automotive fuels through the companys gas stations; and automotive retail. Samir Nawar, chief executive officer of Petromin, underlined the importance of the two sides working together as a team and building robust relations that bode well for the performance and investments of both. This is why we have long-term investment in King Abdullah Economic City at the very top of our priorities, he said. There are so many favourable aspects that make the Industrial Valley the perfect place for us to expand our investments, including the citys strategic location, the commencement of operations at the hugely capable King Abdullah Port, and the sheer ease of doing business thanks to the record time in obtaining the necessary permits and licensing from the Economic Cities Authority. With more than 600 service centres throughout the kingdom, Petromin Express is the kingdoms biggest provider of quick automotive services. The company is the worlds eighth biggest automotive service network. Petromins operations in the kingdom date back to 1968, when it started production of high-quality oils. The company now has more than 4,000 employees, and exports its products to over 35 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, including all of the five other GCC member states. Expressing his happiness with the new partnership, Rayan Qutub, CEO of the Industrial Valley, said that the deal reflects the growing demand for space in the Industrial Valley from major national corporations and adds significant value to the automotive sector. The automotive sector, which includes vehicle dealers, distributors, spare parts suppliers, commercial vehicle assembly corporations and lubricants manufacturers, is a runaway success in the Industrial Valley, he said. It is a natural outcome that the Industrial Valley is developing as the primary base of operations for this sector, thanks to the Industrial Valleys strategic location on the coast of the Red Sea, its logistical access, the upcoming re-export zone, and the opening of the roll-on/roll-off pier at King Abdullah Port. - TradeArabia News Service Atkins, a global leader in design, engineering and project management consultancy sector, said one of its units has been awarded a key contract by state-owned Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP). As per the deal, Atkins Power and Renewables will provide technical advisory services for the development of the Power 2021 Procurement Cycle in the sultanate. The scope of work includes a site selection strategy to determine the projects optimum location, and drafting the project definition report and competition paper. OPWP, a member of Nama group, requires an expansion of the installed capacity of the power system by at least 800 MW to meet the forecast demand requirements of 2021, said a statement from Atkins. The current demand for power is in the region of 6,000 MW. This additional capacity represents a significant increase, it stated. The additional of at least 800 MW of combined cycle gas turbine generation (CCGT) capacity in the region draws on the experience and expertise of a number of departments in differing geographies within Atkins, ranging from power generation and interconnection, process and mechanical, civil and structural, environmental, water and planning specialists, said the company. The project is being managed by a team of engineers based in the power office in Abu Dhabi, with support from the wider Atkins community in the UK, Oman and Bangalore (India). It is expected to be completed within 18 months. Atkins said it is also supporting the evaluation of developer prequalification submittals, and will assist with agreeing on the final short list of developers through to bid evaluation and award of contract to the successful bidder. The development will provide additional security of supply to Oman and improve margin particularly during summer months when demand is greatest, he added. Callum McLaurin, the project director and head of business Middle East, said: "This is considered a strategic win as it provides us with exposure to a major client in the region with significant expansion plans and enables both parties to develop a mutually beneficial working relationship." "Furthermore, this win enables us to expand our Omanisation programme via additional recruitment and also enhances our corporate CV in the ME region and in Oman," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Nearly 3,000 people will converge on a small town in the Swiss mountains for the World Economic Forums Annual Meeting 2017, running from 17 to 20 January. What are they doing there? Who are they and what do they hope to achieve? Unless you have been living under a rock on Mars, you will be aware that 2016 was a turbulent time for global affairs, with a backlash against globalization leading to two surprising vote results and a rise in populism in the West. As the power balance in the world shifts, the theme of the meeting is Responsive and responsible leadership. How can leaders be responsive to the genuine frustration of people left behind by globalized market capitalism, in a responsible way that offers workable, fair and sustainable solutions? As Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, explained: The world around us is changing at unprecedented speed. At this tipping point, our traditional concepts of society, meaningful employment and the nation state are challenged, and many understandably feel insecure or even threatened. A new model of responsive and responsible leadership is needed to allow us to address the challenges the world faces, from security to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with long-term, action-oriented thinking and solidarity on a national and global level, he added. The meeting will focus on four key leadership challenges for 2017: strengthening global collaboration, revitalizing economic growth, reforming capitalism and preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution a huge leap powered by the digital age, which is transforming the way we live and work. It will do this through a programme where more than half of the 400 sessions focus on social inclusion and development. Davos revolves around the idea that the only way to address big challenges is to talk to all groups in society and all members of the international community. This is multi-stakeholder theory, and the Forum believes its as relevant today as it was in 1971 when the first Annual Meeting was held. This year, the meeting will include Shaping Davos, connecting leaders with young people from 20 cities around the world to address the concerns of the millennial generation, as well as 30 sessions dedicated to finding better ways to deal with humanitarian crises, and a number of sessions from social entrepreneurs people who harness the power of business for social good. Whos going? One-third of the 3,000 participants come from outside Europe and North America, while one-third will represent stakeholder groups outside business and government, making it the most diverse Davos yet. In addition to government delegations from over 70 countries, including all G20 nations, this years meeting will be attended by Antonio Guterres, the new Secretary-General of the United Nations. The meeting will be opened by President Xi Jinping of China, who will be accompanied by the largest delegation of Chinese officials since the country first participated in an Annual Meeting in 1979. What has Davos achieved in the past? In 1988, the signing of the Davos Declaration between Greece and Turkey avoided two nations going to war. In 1992, a recently liberated Nelson Mandela shook hands with South African President FW de Klerk, a key moment in the end of the apartheid era. GAVI, a global alliance to vaccinate children in the poorest parts of the world, publicly launched at Davos in 2000. While the Forum is proud of this history, its important to understand that Davos is meant to be a platform: a facilitator rather than a do-er. Its a way of getting all the people who can make a difference, who might not otherwise meet, in the same room. Whats more, Davos is just one event in a year-long calendar of regional and other meetings, as well as projects and initiatives that target everything from curbing climate change to helping business leaders push for peace in the Middle East. Why Davos? The average temperature in January is -5 degrees centigrade, its over two hours by train from the nearest major airport, but the Swiss resort town has a long history as a meeting place for the exchange of ideas. In the 19th century, Davos became well known for its sanatoria, where TB sufferers including writers sought a cure in the cool, clear air. Thomas Manns 1924 novel, The Magic Mountain, which explored the clash of ideas in a modernizing Europe, was set in Davos. In the same decade, Einstein lectured at a philosophical conference there. The isolated setting is supposed to help visitors to look beyond their everyday concerns. How can I follow the meeting? You dont have to be in Davos to take part. WEF shares ideas and insights from Davos via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube, and will be publishing over 100 blog posts on our writing platform, Agenda. This year WEF is encouraging its digital audience to leave questions for Davos participants taking part in its Facebook Live interview series. Ceri Parker is the Commissioning Editor, Agenda, World Economic Forum This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2017. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. As part of an ongoing upgrade across its portfolio of on-board products, Qatar Airways will introduce new amenity kits to Economy Class passengers from this month. With a focus on simplicity and functionality, the new kits include products designed to make the passengers journey more comfortable and relaxing. In keeping with the airlines tag line Going Places Together, the bags design features inspiring images of destinations on Qatar Airways route network. The exterior design will be refreshed every four months with new places from Qatar Airways network of more than 150 destinations. Inside the amenity kit passengers will discover comfort essentials such as an Institut Karite Paris lip balm and a Miradent dental kit alongside their eye mask, socks and ear plugs, adding value to their overall travel experience. Qatar Airways senior vice president of Customer Experience, Rossen Dimitrov, said: This will be a year of change for Qatar Airways travellers, with numerous upgrades to our on-board products and services, including our new Economy Class amenity kits. The refreshed kits have been designed to deliver an elevated customer experience by providing our passengers with products from world-class brands such as Institut Karite Paris and Miradent. We like to continually surprise and delight our passengers in every class of cabin, and we believe that anyone travelling in Economy Class will be truly delighted when they discover these new amenity kits on board. This latest addition to Qatar Airways on-board product portfolio follows the recent launch of new amenity kits for Business Class and First Class passengers designed by BRICS and Nappa Dori, with content provided by Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio. The new premium amenity kits are complemented by a new sleeper suit design from luxury brand The White Company. The airline also has plans to launch a new Business Class seat this year; highly anticipated by both the aviation industry and passengers, the new design will be patented to prevent any other airline from replicating the state-of-the-art seat concept, designed to revolutionise the premium cabin experience. Other initiatives recently launched for passengers travelling on board Qatar Airways flights include an updated range of plush toys, childrens activity kits and in-flight lunch boxes in partnership with Hasbro Inc, as well as a refreshed and refined premium in-flight dining service for First Class passengers on the airlines intra-Gulf services. - TradeArabia News Service A passenger travelling on an Oman Air flight from Jeddah to Muscat passed away on board, despite the flight being diverted to Riyadh following the medical emergency. The carrier made an emergency landing at Riyadh King Khalid International Airport and medical assistance was coordinated prior to arrival. However, the passenger 'succumed to his condition' upon arrival. The incident took place on flight 674 that departed from Saudi Arabia on Monday morning. After the passenger developed a "medical condition, the captain decided to land the flight at Riyadh, the nearest airport given the emergency, Oman Air said in a statement. Details about the passenger could not be immediately ascertained. The carrier has also expressed its heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. As many as 197 passengers were on board the Airbus 330 aircraft. - TradeArabia News Service Bahrain Duty Free has unveiled the latest addition to its upgraded departures retail outlet at Bahrain International Airport, with the opening of a dedicated premium watches boutique. The 64-sq-m space, which enjoys a prominent location on the main passenger promenade, is home to an exciting selection of international brands specifically chosen to appeal to both a travelling audience and collectors of luxury timepieces alike. Brands on display include Rolex, Omega. Breitling, Hublot, Tudor, Tag Heuer, Longines, and Raymond Weil. The store officially opened on Monday (January 16) with a ribbon cutting ceremony led by Bahrain Duty Free general manager Bassam Al Wardi and Bahrain Airport Company CEO Mohammed Al Binfalah. We continue to focus on enhancing the experience received by our customers in everything we do, and quality is a key pillar of Bahrain Duty Free operations. The addition of a dedicated personalised section for premium timepieces adds immensely to the value to the departures concourse offering, said Al Wardi. Commenting on the newest addition, Mohammed Al BinFalah, chief executive officer of Bahrain Airport Company, said: Bahrain Airport Company is proud of its association over the years with Bahrain Duty Free and are extremely pleased with the addition of this exciting premium watch store area. It is testament to Bahrain Duty Free continued efforts in contribute substantially to the passenger experience at Bahrain International Airport. According to Deloittes Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2016 report, the travel retail channel currently accounts for around 40 per cent of total global sector spend, and with positive growth forecasts for international air traffic through to 2020 and beyond, luxury goods are retaining purchase appeal within the duty free trading environment. Luxury very much has its place at Bahrain Duty Free, and by showcasing the most sought after watch brands, we are fulfilling our commitment to delivering simply better retail experience to our customers at Bahrain International Airport, remarked Al Wardi. The design of the new space combines sleek contemporary lines with a warm, inviting colour palette, which is designed to enhance the individual brand presence of the various watchmakers as well as support the customer journey through the departures retail experience. High-tech digital screens are also strategically located at the entrance to enhance brand visibility and enhance the retail environment. This latest opening follows on the heels of the success of the Q3 2016 departures concourse launch of Aer Rianta Internationals award winning Candy Cloud confectionery concept and the Q4 unveiling of the Middle Easts first Johnnie Walker House. Al Wardi confirmed that the 1,500-sq-m phased upgrading of the departures retail area is in its final stages with the existing confectionery section set to be completed in Q1 2017. TradeArabia News Service An airline company is offering $70 airfare to Europe, the lowest ever price so far. For travelers with Europe on their bucket list, this is the best time to travel! Europe is a fascinating place that most travelers would like to visit. It has an interesting history of the longest reigning monarchy in the world. It has attractions and structures tainted with and written in the annals of history. Most travelers, however, are discouraged to travel to Europe because of the cost. Recently, however, an airline company just answered one of the many wishes of travelers and offered their airfare to Europe at an amazingly low price. WOW airline is offering $70 trips to Europe. In a press release shared on Tuesday, January 10, WOW air, Iceland's super-low cost transatlantic airline, announced that they would be launching loads of flights with airfare starting at $69.99 traveling every day from the West Coast to Europe. Similarly, in the previous year, WOW offered the same deal, however, this time it has plunged to further by $30. WOW's promo is for limited-time one-way fares that are available from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bristol, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Furthermore, WOW air is also giving its one-way tickets to Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Frankfurt for only $149 and $129 respectively. These numerous deals are running on fares between January 15, 2017, to April 5, 2017. It looks as if most flights will also include a stopover at Keflavik International Airport, the main airport in Iceland. For travelers, it would be an additional place to tick off from the bucket list. Moreover, KTLA 5 reports that return flights for these European destinations are priced a little more than the discounted airfares at regular rates. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - January 15, 2017) - Eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, according to a new report by Oxfam. Here at home, just 2 people own the same wealth as the poorest 30% of Canadians. Oxfam's report, 'An economy for the 99 percent', published to mark the World Economic Forum's annual meeting of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, shows that the gap between rich and poor is far greater than had been feared. New and better data on the distribution of global wealth - particularly in India and China - indicates that the poorest half of the world also has less wealth than had been previously thought. It details how big business and the super-rich are fuelling the inequality crisis by driving down wages, using their power to influence politics, and dodging taxes. It calls for a fundamental change in the way we manage our economies so that they work for all people, and not just a fortunate few. It calls for a human economy where women are no longer rewarded with poverty wages, unequal pay, and a disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work. As Prime Minister Trudeau heads across the country this week, Oxfam is encouraging Canadians to tell the government that they want an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy elite. Lauren Ravon, Director of Policy and Campaigns for Oxfam Canada, said: "The Government has repeatedly voiced its commitment to shared economic prosperity for all Canadians. As Trudeau meets with Canadians in communities across the country over the next week, we urge him to keep issues of gender inequality and poverty top of mind. Women make up a huge proportion of people living in poverty, both here in Canada and around the world. They contribute significantly to the economy but are getting short-changed by economic growth." Oxfam's report shows how our broken economies are funnelling wealth to rich elites at the expense of the poorest in society - the majority of whom are women. The richest are accumulating wealth at such an astonishing rate that the world could see its first trillionaire in just 25 years. To put this figure in perspective - you would need to spend $1 million every day for 2738 years to spend $1 trillion. Story continues Around the world, women are over represented in low wage sectors, face high levels of discrimination in the work place, and take on a disproportionate amount of unpaid care work - they therefore find themselves at the bottom of the economic pile. At current trends it will take 170 years for women globally to be paid the same as men. In Canada, women are paid less than men in over 90% of jobs tracked by Statistics Canada. There is clear evidence that a new economic model is needed if women are to attain equality. Oxfam interviewed women working in a garment factory in Vietnam who work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and still struggle to get by on the $1 an hour they earn producing clothes for some of the world's biggest fashion brands. The CEOs of these companies are some of the highest paid people in the world. Ravon added: "The Government of Canada can take a first step to close the inequality gap by making a Federal Budget that works for women in 2017. A feminist federal budget would prioritize progressive taxation, increase the proportion of total government spending on public services and social protection to lift people out of poverty, encourage living wages, close the gender pay gap, and increase the international aid budget to make our global commitments to women's rights a reality." Public anger with inequality has been creating political shockwaves across the globe. Inequality has been cited as a significant factor in the election of Donald Trump in the US, the election of President Duerte in the Philippines, and Brexit in the UK. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, who will be attending the Forum in Davos, said: "Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions in poverty; their wages are stagnating yet corporate bosses take home million dollar bonuses; their health and education services are cut while corporations and the super-rich dodge their taxes; their voices are ignored as governments sing to the tune of big business and a wealthy elite." Seven out of 10 people live in a country that has seen a rise in inequality in the last 30 years. Between 1988 and 2011 the incomes of the poorest 10 percent increased by just $65, while the incomes of the richest 1 percent grew by $11,800 - 182 times as much. Over the same time period in Canada, the increase in incomes of the poorest 10% accounted for just 3% of the total income growth, while the increase in incomes of the richest 10% accounted for 29%. Oxfam's blueprint for a more human economy includes the following approaches: Governments must help to dismantle the barriers to women's economic progress such as access to education and the unfair burden of unpaid care work. In Canada, Oxfam is focusing its attention on the Federal Budget 2017, and calling for decisions and investments that make work paid, equal and valued for women. Governments should work together to ensure workers are paid a living wage and put an end to the gender wage gap. Governments should put a stop to tax dodging and the race to the bottom on corporate tax, and should increase taxes on both wealth and high incomes to ensure a more level playing field and to generate funds needed to invest in public services, education and job creation. The World Economic Forum has responsive and responsible leadership as its key theme this year. Business leaders can also play their part in building a human economy, starting by committing to pay their fair share of tax and by ensuring their businesses pay a living wage and pay women equally. Canadians can also join Oxfam's campaign to demand an economy that works for everyone at www.shortchanged.ca Notes to editors: Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland from the 17 - 20 January 2017 to highlight the urgent need for action to tackle inequality. For more information on WEF see www.weforum.org The following materials are available for download here: https://oxfam.box.com/v/an-economy-for-99-percent Full report and executive summary of 'An Economy for the 99 percent' A document outlining the methodology behind the statistics in the report VNR footage and shot list featuring the stories of people in Kenya, Vietnam and Brazil who face a daily struggle with inequality The world's 8 richest people are, in order of net worth: Bill Gates: America founder of Microsoft (net worth $75 billion) Amancio Ortega: Spanish founder of Inditex which owns the Zara fashion chain (net worth $67 billion) Warren Buffett: American CEO and largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (net worth $60.8 billion) Carlos Slim Helu: Mexican owner of Grupo Carso (net worth: $50 billion) Jeff Bezos: American founder, chairman and chief executive of Amazon (net worth: $45.2 billion) Mark Zuckerberg: American chairman, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Facebook (net worth $44.6 billion) Larry Ellison: American co-founder and CEO of Oracle (net worth $43.6 billion) Michael Bloomberg: American founder, owner and CEO of Bloomberg LP (net worth: $40 billion) Canada's 8 richest people are, in order of net worth: David Thomson, (net worth $23.8 billion) Galen Weston, owner of Holt Renfrew (net worth $9.3 billion) Garrett Camp, co-founder of UBER (net worth $6.2 billion) James Irving, owner of Brunswick News (publishing); and J. D. Irving Limited, a conglomerate with interests in forestry, pulp and paper, tissue, newsprint, building supplies, frozen food, transportation, shipping lines, and ship building (net worth $5.4 billion) Bernard (Barry) Sherman, created Apotex, Canada's largest pharmaceutical company ( net worth $4.9 billion) Arthur Irving, owner of Irving Oil (net worth $4.7 billion) Jim Pattison, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and sole owner of the Jim Pattison Group (net worth $4.5 billion) Emanuele (Lino) Saputo, owner of Saputo Dairy (net worth $4.4 billion) Oxfam's calculations are based on global wealth distribution data provided by the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data book 2016: http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=AD6F2B43-B17B-345E-E20A1A254A3E24A5 The wealth of the world's richest people was calculated using Forbes' billionaires list last published in March 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerenblankfeld/2016/03/01/forbes-billionaires-full-list-of-the-500-richest-people-in-the-world-2016/#10a1d6276c24 Experiencing a blend of Asian and Chinese culture in food delicacies, shopping stalls, beautiful sightings, traditional shops, markets and a lot more is one of the best adventures you can get from Singapore. Chinatown in Singapore is further a mixture of old and modern culture and tradition that reflects the history of the two places respectively. According to The Culture Trip, the best way to have an in-depth understanding of the influence of Chinese culture in modern-day Singapore is to visit Chinatown Heritage Center. Chinatown Heritage Center relived the scenes of houses and towns of Chinatown in the 1950s; stepping in the heritage center is like tracking back in history. It is located at 48 Pagoda Street, Singapore and is open from 9 am to 8 pm. A multicultural place of food and a blend of delicacies are offered Maxwell Road Hawker Center that has almost hundred stalls around Chinatown. They offer meals and snacks such as laksa noodles, Hainanese Chicken rice, kaya toast, dim sum, and a lot more. Depending on the stall, the opening hours varies and is located at 11 South Bridge, Singapore. Chinatown Street Market is the best place to look for a souvenir and shop for a low price. The opening hours may vary from the stall and is located at Pagoda Street, Trengganu Street, Sago Street, Smith Street Singapore. The stalls marketplace is in its full bloom during festivals such as; Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. Furthermore, according to Your Singapore, other must-visit places includes; Chop Wa On, Grassroots Book Room, Singapore Musical Box Museum, Chinatown Food Street, Tong Heng, the Club and The Disgruntled Chef. Singapore has a lot to offer to tourists apart from Chinatown. According to Time, anyone who visits Chinatown can go to side trips in the leafy Island of Pulau Ubin and the island's highlight called as Chek Jawa. Chek Jawa is a lovely marine paradise with sea creatures and wildlife. Meanwhile, let your health be checked and visit the best hospitals with best healthcare service. Click here for details. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 In the Northern Switzerland there is a city known for its beautiful landscapes, clean surrounding, great postcards and a unique taste of food called Zurich. It is a beautiful spot to visit but too bad if you are the first timer in the place because a lot will seem interesting to you. So as to assist the first comers in Zurich, a summary of best restaurants to eat or what to do have hereby been analyzed and will serve as your guide to Zurich. According to Forbes, located on the rooftop of the bar, perclard will make you the best cocktail for toasting to your arrival in Zurich. From there have a delicious meal called Luxemburgerli which is more like macaroni at the sprungli or you can go to Le Dezaley and enjoy a delicious fondue. For dinner, Volkshaus will do the trick. In this place, you will be dining as watching an attractive crowd down the road. For chilling and chatting Cafe Schober is the best and you should order for hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. The cream in designed in a style of a mid-century apartment. For late night snacks, Palestine grill will help. They serve the Middle East delicious snacks like sabich. And if you are a fan of dancing and drinking, Longstreet will easily turn your night to morning as you drink, dance and enjoy live performances. As reported by Timeout, there are some interesting things to do when you are in Zurich. Being an area with a great sense of electronic Music, club Zukunft will give you a chance to interact and dance with both local and international DJ's. You can also shop for designer clothes at the vestibule or get a tattoo from the best tattoo studio in the world Sang Bleu which has recently opened in Zurich. Other things you can do are night sledding on the mountains, spend a day in an artsy, visiting the west of Zurich and shopping at the holiday market during the holiday season. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Imagine having to call a few people to book your vacation. Imagine consulting a compass, a map, and a dictionary for directions. It'll be time-consuming, to say the least. So to help you out, consider utilizing these top 5 most useful Google Apps for your next travel escapade. Google Flights According to The Huffington Post, Google Flights is a travel search engine that can locate flights based on the user's preferences. What sets it apart from other apps is that Google Flights provide users alerts when prices for specific flights are about to go up. Google Flights also allows its users to compare prices of similar flights by providing a filter for the type of airline, flight duration, and the prices. It also highlights the best possible flight based on the user's preferences, shows the lowest flight prices for any given day, and monitors the price of the potential flight for the user. Google Trips According to Digital Trends, Google Trips is another useful app which allows its users to pull reservations from the user's email or add hotel bookings, among others. It has an offline mode that lets users store data or itinerary that can be accessed at any time. Users can browse Google Trips to see suggested and popular places to visit so that the user can plan their day. Google Translate As the name itself suggest, Google Translate allows users to translate spoken and written texts, or real-time video from one language into another. It can translate more than 100 languages to another language. While the app is not 100 percent accurate, it can help out weary travelers in foreign countries in a pinch. Google Maps Digital Trends, Google Maps has been widely regarded as one of the most reliable navigation apps for quite some time now. It provides local public transportation options in a large number of nations while allowing its users to utilize the app in offline mode. Google Hangouts Google Hangouts allows its users to stay connected to the online community. The messaging service combines the Google Chat function from Gmail with the video conferencing function that was launched with Google Plus. As with all the Google Apps state here, they are all available for iOs and Android. Armed with these top 5 most useful Google apps, your next travel escapade will be easier to plan and execute, allowing you to enjoy the moment as it happens. Did we miss out any of the best Google apps for traveling? Tell us what and join in the conversation by visiting our website! See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 "Yuri on Ice" Co-Creator Mitsurou Kubo recently visits Yuri Katsuki's neighborhood, seemingly Karatsu in Saga Prefecture is becoming an exciting tourist destination because of the anime. In the moment, hundreds of avid fans visit the place every day to get acquainted with their favorite animated characters. Accordingly, Karatsu Michelin Steak Restaurant Caravan's Akinori Kawakami is also the president of "Association to Connect Hasetsu and Karatsu." Definitely, his is one of the best places to start the anime pilgrimage. In the previous report by Travelers Today, it already gave a good cover about Yuri Katsuki's real-life hometown. Supposedly, the place is rich with amazing things to discover, not only about the anime but Japan's traditions as well. For now, "Yuri on Ice" Mitsurou Kubo's thrilling visit to Karatsu, Saga Prefecture and other facts about the place will be explored here. According to Anime News Network, Kawakami and the "Association to Connect Hasetsu and Karatsu" brought Kubo to Yuri's real neighborhood. Some pictures from their stay in Karatsu Michelin Restaurant Caravan were even posted on Twitter and Facebook. The visit was indeed short but sweet, further, it brought "Yuri on Ice" characters closer to its fans. Apparently, those who want to feel the anime's real hometown; they can also find Kubo's original illustrations of Yuri and Viktor at the restaurant. Surely, the paper drawing will be another good tourist magnet! Normally, those are what create more authenticity to any anime pilgrimages. Lastly, the fans will not only enjoy the latest growing "Yuri On Ice" merchandise on the location but they also have more for everyone to enjoy. As stated by TripAdvisor, things to do in the area are water and amusement park hopping, souvenir shopping, museum visiting, and landmark strolling. Doubtless! Camera phones will be an important handy gadget for the anime pilgrimage. In fact, it's the same with the cosplayers who dressed like Yuri and Viktor when they came with Kubo and Kawakami. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Tel Aviv's historic and cultural sites often overpower the retail tourism catering to both leisure and backpacking travelers. Just like its Southeast Asian counterparts, Tel Aviv's huge number of markets guarantee travelers can find huge bargains in these five top markets. Travelers -- especially those who are backpacking -- will want to stay somewhere where hawkers are offering their affordable street meals to taste the local cuisine while saving enough money. Levinsky Market is open from 8AM to 6PM local time and features difficult-to-replicate Iranian, Iraqi and Middle Eastern dishes. Travelers wanting to take home some spices to use for home cooking can find it here. Jafa Market has its strange local name as "Shuk HaPishpishim" but its contents are not quite strange. Travelers who fancy antiques or even second hand jewelry, plates, dishes, utensils and other items could find bargains -- even haggle for their prices -- in the flea markets of Jafa. The Craft Market of Nahalat Binyamin features mostly artisan clothes that feature traditional Israeli culture. But it lives up to its name according to Secret Tel Aviv. The shops handcraft their suits and furniture, jewelry, ceramics, and other items sold here. It may be a bit more expensive but experienced travelers know how to haggle their way into a good deal. Aside from Jafa Market, the Dizengoff Square Antique Market features other vintage items including items from the Second World War and ancient tomes. While their authenticity is slightly questionable, travelers can always have local museums or appraisers verify it for a small fee. According to Time Out, Neve Tzedek is a religious zone -- meaning it is sprinkled with plenty of specialty shops that open once the Sabbath approaches. Neve Tzedek is an old Israeli district but it features some high-end restaurants and shopping chains, which may appeal more to luxury travelers. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 In the ancient times, the Silk Road was the most used trade route that connected Asia to Europe. It was a famous road that wasn't only used to trade goods from different countries connected to it but also cultivated the exchange of cultures. Recently, the re-opening of the ancient Silk Road has been announced and it's the perfect opportunity for travelers to relive history. According to Forbes, the Chinese Government recently re-opened the Silk Road, but this time, it's by rail. It connects China to Great Britain following the ancient route that Chinese silk caravans used back then to trade goods to different countries in Europe. The East Wind will be the train used to bring different goods to Britain from Yiwu, China as reported by the Daily Mail. It will travel a 7456-mile journey in 16 days passing through different countries like Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Poland Belgium and France. The long journey is like reliving history because the locomotive will traverse through vast fields, deserts and high mountain ranges. It's the same route that merchants used back in the old times that brought about economic and cultural progress amongst countries. According to Travel China Guide, a lot of memorable and significant events happened in this ancient route. Diplomats, monks, and famous travelers crossed this path to accomplish their tasks. In fact, Marco Polo, one of the world's most famous explorers traveled through this route which made breakthroughs in the cultural exchange between Europe and Asia. However, the route is re-opened for economic purposes as of now to make trade among different countries cheaper just like in the old days. It's going to be half the cost of air freight and a lot faster than sea-freight. But it's not going to take long and travelers will have the opportunity to travel the Silk Road by rail as well. The re-opening of the Silk Road is definitely another big step for strengthening the relations amongst countries. Also, it's good news for travelers and tourists who want to travel across the different countries that are connected to the route at a cheaper price. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 In Austria, the town of Saalfelden in Salzburg is looking for a person "at peace with himself" to live alone in a 350-year-old hermitage built inside a natural cave. The occupation will unfortunately be unpaid and the amenities are scarce but it promises immense spirituality and experiencing life in a non-superficial manner. According to The Telegraph, the job posting is "an extremely rare job opportunity" highly coveted by the township. While part-time, the prospective hermit must have an earning job it will not provide any compensation. It would not provide basic amenities including running water or heat -- making it a great retreat for someone who loves adventure and embraces personal spirituality. According to the local cleric Alois Moser, the ideal candidate is someone who is "at peace with their self, and willing to talk to people, but not to impose." They also seek someone preferably of the Christian or Catholic faith as former hermits had been monks but they require no actual experience in hermitage. According to Travel and Leisure, the small town of Saalfelden in Salzburg is a great location for "anyone looking for solitude." The hermit's responsibility is to guide visitors and people occasionally into the chapel. Father Moser said there are "potential difficulties" but the clergy is confident it would find "the right man" for the job. The previous occupant of the hermitage was a Viennese Pastor and psychotherapist. He had found difficulties after a few months, prompting him to resume his regular life as a psychotherapist and local pastor. Before him was a Benedictine monk who lived in the hermitage for more than 10 years. The hermit, while living in solitude religiously, has the responsibility of occasionally listening to locals and outsiders as they enjoy the view from the hermitage -- one of the non-material compensations of the occupation. Despite the difficulty of the job, in 1970, the jealousy of an unsuccessful candidate prompted him to fire a shotgun at the doors of the hermitage. This prompted the hermit at the time to move back to his former home. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 There are more than 4,000 unnamed islands in Indonesia that have to be managed and the country's government plans on what to do with them. Officials are inviting foreign investors to manage the islands that will be designated as potential tourism areas. Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said, "They can give it any name they want, as long as they report to us." However, he noted that while anyone can manage the island, the organization must adhere to Indonesian laws. Though the government plans to open it to foreign investors, Luhut said that the islands are not for sale and it still belongs to Indonesia. He is optimistic that people would want to venture and name one of the 4,000 islands. Meanwhile, Japan has already invested in Indonesia. They have been permitted to manage an island named Morotai with the hopes to have it serve as a vacation site for the elderly. Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil said as long as there is proper planning and regulation, everything will be smooth. "If the island is for tourists-it's fine, as long as there are plans and regulations." Sofyan also added that only an Indonesian national can own the land. Foreigners can have a land-use permit but can never be a landowner. But they have the benefits of naming it after themselves. Agriculture is also another possible investment in the islands as that sector is also viable to improve the state of the nation. Sofyan said, "as long as the management is proper and the activities don't interfere with the state's security." According to the country's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, Indonesia has more than 18,000 islands scattered in the Pacific. However, the Indonesian government has only registered and named a little over 8,800 islands in which 900 of them are inhabited by their citizens. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Americans will travel more this year, according to survey released by AAA. Forty-two per cent of Americans are most likely to travel to warm-weather places in the U.S and abroad. It means less Americans will go "staycation" and the travel industry will enjoy a favourable hype. It will be a very busy year for the travel industry in general as 30 per cent of US adults signify their intention to take a vacation this year. Both novice and experienced traveller are looking for new kind of travel experience. Bill Sutherland, Vice President for Travel and Publishing of AAA, said that most Americans would like to have a unique and immersive cultural experience while traveling domestically or abroad. Top local destinations are ranked as follows: Orlando, Florida; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Anaheim, California; Miami, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada. On the other hand, top international destinations include Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Rome, Italy; Montego Bay, Jamaica; London, England; and Nassau, Bahamas. There will be an increase in travel bookings especially in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia; Cancun, Mexico; and Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. AAA expert predictions for this year reveals that travellers want to have an intimate and deeper connection with others country's culture, people and traditions. The survey shows that more travellers booked tours that will give them the change to dine with locals or learn hands-on training from local craftsman. Thanks to its close proximity, Canada will receive more tourists from America. This is great avenue for Canada to share its 150th birthday celebration to their neighbouring country. In Europe, Iceland and Ireland are enjoying great popularity among US travellers. River cruising will not just be for older travellers. Millenials are considering trying this experience. More families are also planning to visit National Parks this year. For more reading on the best travel destinations in the U.S., check this article from Travelers Today. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 The world's first hotel made of snow and ice has recently opened. Northern Sweden's Ice Hotel 365 is now accommodating visitors for the entire year. After 27 years of being erected and remodeled each winter, northern Sweden's Ice Hotel 365 will be the first frozen lodging to stay open the whole year round. Ice Hotel 365 infused a solar-powered cooling technology that will allow a portion of the renowned hotel, including a bar, art gallery, and 10 luxury suites, to host guests seeking for midnight sun as well as northern lights. Ice Hotel 365 is located 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in Jukkasjarvi. According to CNN, the hotel has been built to a new blueprint each year, utilizing 5,000 tons of ice from the nearby River Torne in the spring and stored cold during the summer. Ice Hotel 365 opened in November 2016 offer visitors a long-awaited substitute to the classic wintertime. Ice Hotel 365 has 9 luxury suites, each with a dedicated sauna and bathroom, and 11 art suites, all sculptured by hand-picked artists. The Icehotel 365 moreover has a large ice bar that serves champagne, as well as an ice gallery. The sophisticated design of the new building combines Ice Hotel 365's iconic arched architecture with traditional building methods, ensuring its exterior blends in well with the surroundings. The Ice Hotel 365's temperature will be negative 5C (23F) all year round in the newly built building. A solar cell facility currently under construction at Ice Hotel 365 runs the refrigeration unit that keeps Ice Hotel 365 cold during the summer. Jukkasjarvi is 200 km north of the Arctic Circle and in summer the sun remains above the horizon for 100 consecutive days. Bloomberg reported that Italian architect Luca Roncoroni traveled to the Arctic Circle to design a Victorian Ice Suite for the Ice Hotel 365 in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden. The rooms at Ice Hotel 365 can cost up to $1,000 a night. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Malaysia Airlines Press Release (TRAVPR.COM) UK - January 16th, 2017 - With cold weather conditions across the UK, Malaysia Airlines is offering travellers the opportunity to lighten their mood this Blue Monday and book a flight to the warmer climate of Malaysia, where the average temperature this Spring is set to be 28c. Between now and midnight on 18 January, the airline is offering savings of up to 45% off flights to key Malaysian destinations, with return fares starting at 379 for travel between 28 February and 31 May 2017. The journey begins at London Heathrow airport onboard one of the airlines twice daily Superjumbo A380s to Kuala Lumpur, from where a convenient and seamless connection will take travellers to our exciting destinations across Malaysia. Adrian Keating, Malaysia Airlines UK General Manager said: "On what is reckoned to be the most miserable day of the year, made worse by the cold weather conditions, we are delighted to bring some cheer to lighten the mood this Blue Monday by offering travellers even more affordable flights to Malaysia." Example Fares Kuala Lumpur: 379.00 (Direct from London Heathrow) Langkawi: 399.00 Penang: 399.00 Kota Kinabalu, Borneo: 419 Kuching, Borneo: 419 To enjoy this promotion, customers can book now at -ENDS- ### Hotel SPB 87 is one of the prominent budget hotels in Delhi. Situated in the Karol Bagh area, the hotel offers state of the art facilities and amenities to its guests. (TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - January 16th, 2017 - Hotel SPB 87 is one of the prominent budget hotels in Delhi. Situated in the Karol Bagh area, the hotel offers state of the art facilities and amenities to its guests. With such quality accommodation services, the guests staying at the hotel, be it corporate ones or leisure travelers, are happy to avail best services at most affordable price. The hotel stands up to the expectations of the visitors who often wish to come back to the hotel for their next stay. Business travelers love this hotel for it offers the best conference hall facilities in Delhi. Hotel SPB 87 is popular for it offers friendly environment and provides perfect experience to host Conference hall in Delhi Party hall, Birthdays, corporate meetings, Wedding and Events for all the levels from industry and commercial to academics. Responding to the reports, the Managing Direction of Hotel SPB 87 Delhi was quoted as saying We wish all of you a very happy new year 2017. We are looking forward to a successful and progressive year for our hospitality services and look forward to warmly welcome national and international guests. He also added, By introducing more comfy amenities for our guests, we are reforming our brand value, which not only focuses on quality services, but also ensures inspirational design, state-of-the-art culinary experiences and holistic wellness programs. Since business travelers have to do a lot of work, sometimes resulting in sleepless nights and in order to stay awake they need something like coffee. The hotel keeps such minute details in mind before serving the guests, thus making sure what they have been looking for and moreover what they deserve. The hotel makes its guests feel comfortable while hosting their business events and also they feel restful and comfy, in the hotel with the many comfort-giving facilities offered here. Know all about Hotel SPB 87: Hotel SPB 87 is a recently opened yet quickly getting popular hotel, which is fully Air-conditioned and equipped with International Standard 3 Star Luxuries. Located near the Karol Bagh Shopping Centre, the hotel stands fairy near to business hubs and is very popular with corporate travelers as well as leisure vacationers. The hotels stands competently and stylishly furnished with an aesthetical ambience, supported by a team of highly experienced professionals. Elite amenities presented by the hotel include Free Wi-Fi Broadband, Airport Pick up Service, 24hrs Room Service, Business Center, Theatre Style up to 100 persons, Classroom Style up to 75 persons, Multi-cuisine Restaurant, Cafe, 24hrs Generator Backup with AC Laundry Service, Banqueting Style up to 115 persons, and 'U' Shape style up to 65 persons. Other facilities available at the hotel include Meals (Veg & Non-Veg), Laptop with Wi-Fi, Sound systems, Slide projector with screen, Video conferencing system, Overhead projector with screen, Television with satellite channels, Notepad, Pen or Pencil, Telephones, and Photocopy & Scanner etc. With all these facilities, the hotel stands welcoming to its guests who come from across the world. Want to Contact the hotel? Here you go: Hotel SPB 87 17A/2, W.E.A. Karol Bagh, New Delhi Phone No: +91 11 45000 400 Mobile No: +91-9899145516 Email:-salesspb87hotel@gmail.com For more details please visit - http://www.hotelspb87delhi.com ### Tomar Holidays is getting more and more popular with each passing day. This admired domestic tour operator in Delhi is known for offering different and assorted travel tour packages. (TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - January 16th, 2017 - It was only recently when Tomar Holidays was ranked as Number #1 domestic tour operator in Delhi to offer best travel plans, packages, and tour suggestions to various travelers, be it business travelers, leisure travels, honeymooners, or even solo travelers looking for a peaceful vacation. Tomar Holidays is getting more and more popular with each passing day. This admired domestic tour operator in Delhi is known for offering different and assorted travel tour packages and plans for group, leisure, honeymooners and small business travels and holiday tours. Being a connoisseur of inbound tours, the company happily offers a host of tourism related services and travel packages to inbound tourists at attractive rates. Tomar holidays also offer option to choose from a variety of best quality corporate budget hotels in Delhi for business explorers from around the globe looking for cutting edge amenities. These Business Hotels in Delhi offer top class facilities along with offering some of the best Conference Hall in Delhi. It is suggested that you try out our tailor made travel packages that are made with keeping in mind your specific likes and requirements. Once you take a tour with this company, you will realize that there are many places on this earth to explore and thus while being in the capital, you will be allowed to experience the raw lives of the people. When asked about the transition and the success of the organization, the Director of Tomar Holidays, said We have tie-ups with best Hotels that offer completely prepared business focuses, which are carefully styled with best in class services and amenities. Guests can also opt for business offices proffered by best business inns in New Delhi that comes equipped with official administrations, secretarial help, documentation administrations, temporary office, meeting rooms, remote and broad-band web office, or free approaching faxes and so on. He further said, We also warmly welcome the leisure travelers to experiment with our appropriately customized travel package services that are made in view of keeping your particular preferences and necessities. Visit with us to investigate a portion of the top traveler destinations of India. Tomar holidays recently re-launched some of the best Tour Packages & Destinations in India like Goa Tour Packages, Kerala Tour Packages, Vaishno Devi Tour Packages, Amarnath, SriNagar Tour Packages, Shimla Tour Packages, Tour Packages, and Chardham Yatra 2016. About Tomar Holidays: Tomar Holidays is one of the best tour operator companies in Delhi, which is known for broad category of touring services that are preferred for group, leisure, honeymooners and small business travels and holiday tours. They are an expert of inbound tours and offer a host of tourism related services and travel packages to inbound tourists at attractive rates. The company is not only working for the tourists of India but we are also concerned to offer great services at best package to the travelers coming from different parts of the world. Their specialty lies in the tailor made packages and the tours to top tourist destinations of India. Contact Details 17A/2, W.E.A. Karol Bagh, New Delhi, Pin Code-110005 Mob:+91 - 9899145516 ### When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. These ingenious kitchen cupboards are mounted outdoors, and food and toiletries free to the public. A new type of food pantry is sprouting on American lawns. Called a Little Free Pantry, this outdoor cupboard is mounted above the ground, with a see-through, unlocked door that allows people to give and take food items at their leisure. The idea is to have a constantly-accessible, public source of food for anyone who may need it, and to enable generous-minded neighbors to share their bounty in a direct way. The name, of course, is inspired by the Little Free Libraries which operate on the same concept of "give what you can, take what you need," only with books. The Little Free Pantry, which only came into existence in May 2016, eliminates the need for a middleman or additional paperwork, which can be deterrents for some people when visiting public food banks. Its entirely anonymous and available 24/7, which is attractive to those people who do not want to be seen accepting donated food. Maggie Ballard, who installed a Little Free Pantry outside her home in Wichita, Kansas, says most people come between midnight and 7 a.m. She told NPRs The Salt: By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuanians on Friday commemorated the night in 1991 when 13 compatriots were killed by Soviet forces in an ultimately futile bid to crush their nation's new independence but U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has filled many with new fear for the future. Trump's praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and vows to improve relations with the Kremlin, his questioning of U.S. commitments to NATO allies and Russia's resurgent assertiveness have revived deep insecurities in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia more than two decades after their breakaway from Moscow's yoke. Lithuania's annual commemoration to honour the 13 unarmed civilians who died to defend its recovery of independence has always been both poignant and celebratory. But now it comes with unease about whether Trump's America will keep protecting the fervently pro-Western region in Russia's neighbourhood. On Friday's 26th anniversary, bonfires burned throughout the night, Lithuanians wore forget-me-not pins in their lapels, and many brought children to show where they stood their ground against Soviet troops on Jan. 13, 1991. "January 13 was a big lesson to anyone who thinks that freedom is a given," Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told Reuters. "I'm worried, although not yet scared, because I think foreign policy is not determined solely by a president," said Jonas Mikalauskas, 36, one of those who gathered on Friday at the memorial to those who resisted the Soviet crackdown. Lithuania proclaimed independence in March 1990, becoming the first Soviet republic to do so, and Moscow tried to foil the secession with an economic blockade. When that proved ineffective, Soviet troops still garrisoned in the capital Vilnius attacked its TV broadcast tower and sole TV station, killing 13 civilians standing as human shields there. HUMAN SHIELD AROUND PARLIAMENT On hearing the news later that night, thousands more flocked to parliament to ward off a feared Soviet attack. Moscow's forces returned to barracks and later withdrew from Lithuania after the entire Soviet Union broke up later in 1991. "The people were everywhere, around the parliament building and inside the building, very enthusiastic. And they were ready to die for independence," Jonas Zukas, Lithuania's Chief of Defence who was part of the ragtag volunteer militia that stood guard inside parliament 26 years ago, told Reuters. Last year, Lithuania started a trial over the 1991 deaths, charging in absentia dozens of former Soviet officials, including 92-year-old ex-defence minister Dmitry Yazov. Moscow refused to cooperate, calling the trial political.. In 2014, spooked by Putin's annexation of the Crimea region in Ukraine, Lithuania reintroduced conscription and began expanding its military, aiming to boost defence spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2018. The Baltic states' long-term security, however, is tied up with their membership of the European Union and NATO as well as the U.S. commitment to underwriting European security, something Trump questioned during his election campaign. U.S. troops have been stationed in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia since April 2014 to reassure them following Russia's annexation of Crimea. Up to 1,000 German troops will be deployed in Lithuania from next month, and U.S. troops and armour arrived in Poland this week, as part of NATO-agreed measures to create a more credible deterrent to any Russian military moves against eastern Europe. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Mark Heinrich) Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 16 Telecom major Vodafone today became the fifth player to launch 4G services in Punjab Circle. The service was launched by Olympian Padma Shri Milkha Singh. Starting with Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali, the company will shortly roll out its services across major towns and cities of the state by March. The services will enable customers to access internet via mobile with speeds across a range of smart devices including Mi-Fi & dongles. On the Vodafone SuperNet 4G proposition for Punjab, Rajat Avasthi, Business Head Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and J&K, Vodafone India, said, Punjab is a key market for Vodafone India. Our almost 5.2 million customers have a lot to look forward to. Beginning with Chandigarh and Mohali, we will soon expand our Vodafone SuperNet 4G services across the entire state of Punjab in a phased manner. The company said it will continue to invest in the Punjab Circle and has set up a robust network of 12,704 sites across 2G, 3G and 4G technologies. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 16 Air India today launched direct flights from Chandigarh to Pune and Mumbai. The first-ever flight from the city to Pune took off from the international airport in Mohali at 10.50 am while the Chandigarh- Mumbai flight took off from Chandigarh at 5.45 pm. With the new launch, there are now four direct flights from the city to Mumbai. With the first-ever flight from Chandigarh to Pune, both emerging IT hubs have been connected and the air link is expected to give a major boost to the industry. Both flights are receiving a good response and the inaugural flights went full, the national carrier said. To celebrate the commencement of the flights, cultural activities, including bhangra, were performed at the airport. Both flights will run five days a week from Monday to Friday. The flight AI 813 took off from Chandigarh at 10.50 am and reached Pune at 1.20 pm. The return flight AI 814 from Pune departed at 2 pm and landed in Chandigarh at 4.30 pm. The flight AI 642 took off from Chandigarh at 5.45 pm and reached Mumbai at 8.10 pm. The flight AI 641 from Mumbai departed at 7.20 am and landed in Chandigarh at 10 am. Last year, Air India had placed Chandigarh on the international map by commencing the first international flight from the city to Sharjah. Air India has successfully linked different corners of the country, under the Connect India programme. The two newly launched flights will not only boost connectivity from Chandigarh but will also cut down the travel time for passengers from Chandigarh to Mumbai and Pune, the official spokesperson said. Karthik Venkatesh A young life was extinguished a year ago, to the day! By all accounts, a beautiful mind, a thinking mind; equally, a sensitive mind. To what end, one may well ask. It is tempting to be pessimistic and sigh and shed a tear. When Rohith Vemula took his own life on January 17, 2016, he left behind a poignant suicide note and shattered friends and family. His note was a rumination on the state of being Dalit in India. It spoke of the fatal accident of his birth and his pain at the value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity. It was a searing indictment of Indian society and the skullduggery that is Indian politics. It was a statement on the death of hope. In the weeks following his suicide, that the powers-that-be squabbled over whether he was actually Dalit or not proved Rohiths point a hundred times over. A young man had taken his life on account of the doings of a craven and unthinking university administration. That alone should have bothered everyone concerned. Instead, a bureaucratic wrangle over his caste was conducted shamelessly in full view of an uncaring public. The irony was all too evident. But, in the past year, what has transpired? Have things changed since? Can we allow ourselves a modicum of hope? In the weeks following Rohiths passing came perhaps the most serious challenge to the governments credibility in the form of student demonstrations at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). An unlikely hero emerged in the form of Kanhaiya Kumar. A Ph.D. scholar like Rohith, Kanhaiya too was from an impoverished background and had come up the hard way. He too was of an inquiring disposition, prone to taking dissenting stands that rattled authority figures. In JNUs environment that looked favourably at such stances, he flourished. In Hyderabads stifling environment, Rohiths life was brutally stubbed out. Hyderabad is where a craven Vice-Chancellor, Appa Rao Podile, works. A few years ago, he thought nothing of plagiarising academic papers and passing them off as his own, and as the Rohith incident demonstrated, he also harassed and continues to harass students with impunity. Since then, both Kanhaiya and Appa Rao have moved on. Kanhaiya has campaigned in elections, spoken at several forums and published his life-story in book form. Appa Rao has, meanwhile, hung on to his post, done the bidding of his saffron masters, scuttled a fair inquiry into Rohiths suicide and been awarded a Millenium Plaque of Honour for his outstanding contribution in the field of biotechnology and also for his work in higher education, no less. Both trajectories are illustrative of the contradictions of India. Enough space still exists in this country for dissenters to continue to dissent and fight their battles. Kanhaiya is one example. He has continued to speak his mind despite all efforts by the administration to silence him. Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit activist from Modis own state of Gujarat, is another individual who has continued to cock a snook at the ruling dispensation. Post the reprehensible Dalit beating incident in Una in July, he was able to mobilise across Gujarat a considerable number of people who came out into the streets to protest Dalit atrocities. Soon, Jignesh had also emerged as a more thoughtful and erudite critic of the much-touted Gujarat model in a way that the likes of Hardik Patel, with his reductionist demands for reservation, can perhaps never hope to be. But equally, space has been created in institutions like Hyderabad Central University and JNU for sycophants to flourish. The award given to Appa Rao cannot be condemned enough. Equally, the actions of another parachute candidate M. Jagdeesh Kumar of JNU are just as terrible. His consistent efforts to club his students into unthinking silence are beyond belief. What rankles most of all are his efforts to introduce new admission regulations in the university with the unstated agenda of denying admission to students from impoverished backgrounds. No more Kanhaiyas is the goal. A sheep-like student body that silently marches to class every day is the purported final solution. Even as beacons of hope like Kanhaiya and Jignesh co-exist with the likes of the Appa Raos and Jagdeesh Kumars, the need for constant vigilance remains. The opaqueness of the demonetisation exercise and the suffering that it has wrought highlights this need more than ever. The danger of yes-men overtaking public policy and inflicting lasting damage to the body politic and the public at large are constant dangers. In no time at all, the RBI has been reduced to a lumpen institution with a spineless head who thinks nothing of crawling before his political masters. Now more than ever, the public at large needs to view every move that the government makes with all the attention that it can command. Party loyalties have to be put on the back burner. The issue at hand needs to be the locus of concern. Equally, the publics focus cannot be on the short term. It has to be on the long-term future of this country. That Kanhaiya and Jignesh have emerged as our conscience keepers is a wonderful thing. The middle-aged and senior citizens would also be well-advised to pay closer attention to these bold, young men. Its all too easy to be cynical and adopt a been there, done that attitude. But that is a cowards response. Rohiths death was not merely an indictment of the way that the current government and some of its higher-ups conducted themselves. That they deserve condemnation is not a matter of dispute. But equally, Indians of all shades of political opinion need to examine their attitudes towards the deprived. His death is a clarion call to reshape our attitudes and re-examine our prejudices. The countrys independence was won on the strength of high ideals and great sacrifice. Those ideals and sacrifices are worth being bought back... for Rohiths sake. The writer, an educationist, is a Chennai-based consulting editor with Westland Books. Sawraj Singh America should understand that Trumps understanding with Putin can be its greatest asset rather than a liability. Unfortunately, so far Trump has been criticised for having good relations with Putin. However, such relationship can provide America an opportunity to not only improve its relations with Russia but also with China because Putin has a very close alliance with China. If America has good relations with Russia then eventually its relations with China are likely to improve. Sooner or later, America is going to realise that Putin is too smart to fall in the trap that to become Americas friend he has to sacrifice his relations with China. Putin will continue to give highest priority to his relations with China and continue coordinating with it his policies. Once America realises that it is unlikely to draw a wedge between Russia and China, it will give up its policies of containing and confronting China. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America became the only superpower of the world. It could do pretty much whatever it wanted, whenever and wherever. This made America and Americans extremely arrogant. America even tried to make a virtue of this vice by promoting the concept of American exceptionalism. This concept tried to cover up and justify its arrogant and hegemonic behaviour. Such erratic behaviour not only hurt the rest of the world, but also proved very harmful for America. Because of this attitude, the US was unable to understand and properly respond to the changed situation in the world. The world situation, the equations of power and the balance of power have radically changed. Putin understood from the very beginning that if there is an alliance between China and Russia then the balance of power will tilt towards them. Therefore, as soon as he came to power, he gave Russia-China relations the highest priority. Putin knew that America and the West really had no option to counter the strength of the Russia-China alliance. Europe understood this fact better than America. The US has continued to counter the combined strength of Russia and China by adopting different measures such as trying to contain Russia in Europe and China in Asia. America tried to get exclusive control over the Mideast oil by toppling Saddam in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya and by trying to topple Assad in Syria. These American policies proved disastrous. America has tried to contain Russia by inciting countries such as Georgia and Ukraine against it. However, this policy too failed miserably. Similarly, America continues to contain China by inciting India against it and by promoting the idea of a quadrilateral alliance of America, India, Japan and Australia. However, instead of isolating and containing China, America is clearly losing ground to China in Asia. The Philippines is a good example of this phenomenon. One of the closest allies of America, it has moved closer to China. The Philippines is not alone, many other Asian countries are in a similar situation. These countries are closely watching the emergence of new power equations in Asia. One of the main causes of Trumps victory was the pressure from Americas major European allies to reconsider its anti-Russia policy. They were very concerned about Russias response to this American policy. Russias response to the economic sanctions hurt them more than the sanctions hurt Russia. Similarly, Russias military response, which could even include a nuclear strike, could prove devastating for them. Therefore, Trumps understanding with Putin proved to be a major asset in winning the election. Many in the West seem to feel that an understanding with Russia is now needed to maintain peace and harmony in the world. However, a similar understanding about China is still lacking. America still feels that it can draw a wedge between Russia and China and use Russia against China the way it used China to bring down the Soviet Union. This is the reason that Trump seems to continue to pursue an anti-China policy while advocating reconciliation with Russia. America should understand that the situation now is very different than at the time of the Soviet Union. The world was bipolar then, now it has become multi-polar. China has become the manufacturing hub and engine of the world economy. It is almost impossible to contain China. Putin understands these factors more than any world leader. Therefore an understanding between Trump and Putin can be very beneficial for America and the rest of the world. Putin can help Trump understand the changed situation better than anyone else. America should start seeing this relation as an asset rather than a liability. America has to accept the reality of a multi-polar world. The writer is chairman of the Washington State Network for Human Rights and the Central Washington Coalition for Social Justice. Pradeep Sharma Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 16 Senior Haryana Minister Anil Vijs comments on Mahatma Gandhi has divided the ruling BJP in the state. While several senior leaders, including Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, have termed the comments as personal opinion having nothing to do with the party, the firebrand five-time MLA from Ambala Cantonment yesterday found tacit support from a section of the party such as Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini. Left red-faced by Vijs comments, the central and state units of the BJP went into a damage-control exercise. While Khattar distanced himself from Vijs statement, the central leadership condemned it. Against the backdrop of political uproar over the new Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC) calendar featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vij had said the former was a bigger brand name than Mahatma Gandhi. Since the time when Gandhis name got associated with khadi...it could not progress. The day Mahatma Gandhi came on the rupee, its devaluation started. Gradually, he will be removed from the notes also. Its good that Gandhi has been replaced with Prime Minister Narendra Modi... Modi is a bigger brand name, Vij had said. Though Vij later retracted from his statement, the political damage was done to the ruling party. The Opposition INLD and the Congress got much-needed political ammunition against the BJP government. Even as the issue had started dying down, BJPs Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who had brought embarrassment to the party on several occasions in the past, revived the issue virtually reiterating Vijs stand yesterday. Echoing Vijs views, Saini asserted that Modi was a popular mass leader and there was nothing wrong in projecting Modi as an icon of the government-promoted khadi sector, he said. Saini said opposition parties demand for legal action against Vij was a political gimmick. Sainis utterances brought to the fore differing voices within the ruling party which had been trying hard to project a united front before public. Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service Faridabad, January 16 The local office of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) appears to be struggling on the financial front. With internal sources of income squeezing, HUDA is reportedly seeking a loan of several thousand crores to clear dues it owes to farmers of the district. Besides this, it owes over Rs 70 crore to contractors. HUDAs financial condition has worsened as the budget has been curtailed over the years and there is a sharp decline in sources of income. The budget of the HUDA office which used to be over Rs 400 crore per annum two years ago has got reduced drastically to around Rs 150 crore at present, said HUDA Workers Union circle secretary Naresh Kumar. Blaming HUDAs wrong policies and inability to change with times, Kumar said the local office stared at shutdown in future. He said HUDA was still procuring land at abnormally high rates, thus creating financial burden itself. With real estate already in crisis, the auctioning of commercial sites and resumed plots had been unattractive for many, he said, adding the department hadnt thought of multi-story housing schemes yet which could help in generating revenue. The HUDA Workers Union circle secretary said while HUDA had applied for a special loan of Rs 5,000 crore to meet expenses statewide, the local office only owed Rs 2,400 crore to farmers of several villages of the district whose land had been acquired in the past. The situation doesnt seem to be improving in near future. In Greater Faridabad, the internal development of new sectors has been pending due to shortage of funds. The civic upkeep of several residential sectors has been taken over by the Faridabad Municipal Corporation. Besides, HUDA has been asked to handover the construction and maintenance of sewerage, water supply and storm water drainage to the Public Health and Engineering Department. These developments have only led to shrinking of income avenues, which even HUDA Administrator Yashender Singh admitted. He, however, said he was not aware of the actual amount of loan sought by the department. Kuldeep Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, January 15 As many as 57 houses were reduced to ashes and 14 head of cattle killed in a fire in the remote Tangnu village of Chirgaon subdivision, 41 km from Rohru in Shimla district, late last night. As many as 48 families were rendered homeless. Property worth Rs 12 crore was destroyed. Children, the elderly and women were evacuated to a safer place. The fire broke out at 11 pm when the village was asleep, said Bhagat Chand, Tangnu panchayat head, who alerted Rohru SDM Anupam Thakur and the Fire Brigade at 11.30 pm. Residents of nearby Chantwari, Thaitwari and Diudi villages rushed to the burning village to help fight the flames that spread rapidly. We used water and sand to extinguish the fire but were only partly successful," said Kishan Chand, Diudi gram panchayat chief. At 1.30 am, a rescue team led by the Rohru SDM, DSP and District Forest Officer (DFO) arrived in the village. "With roads covered with snow, it took them more than an hour to cover a distance of 41 km. Trekking 500 metres, the team finally joined the fire-fighting operation and succeeded in saving 15 houses," said Bhagat Singh, who was all praise for the quick response of the district administration. Those rendered homeless were provided temporary shelter at the government senior secondary school in Tangnu. Residents of Chantwari, Thaitwari and Diud volunteered to provide accommodation to the fire victims. We provided ration, tents, blankets, quilts, bedding, gas cylinders, stoves and Rs 40,000 to each of the affected families, the SDM said, adding that the DFO had sanctioned timber for the fire victims to help them rebuild their houses. Rohan Chand Thakur, DC, Shimla, promised all possible assistance to the victims. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, January 16 Three local militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, spotted in a recent video that surfaced on social media, were killed in an 11-hour-long gunfight in a south Kashmir village in Anantnag district. The three militants were seen in the video a few days back in which at least six local armed militants were seen trekking on the snow-covered mountains and even seen throwing snow on one another. Sources said the militant group was tracked after the analysis of the video that was recorded in the Kokernag forest area. The gunfight at Awoora village, Pahalgam, nearly 80 km from Srinagar, broke out on Sunday evening when joint teams of police, Armys 3 Rashtriya Rifles Battalion and Central Reserve Police Force cordoned off the area after an input about the militants presence. As soon the village was being cordoned off, militants opened fire triggering a gunfight. Three local militants who were hiding in a house close to the forest were killed in the gunfight, Anantnag Senior Superintendent of Police Zubair Ahmad Khan told The Tribune. Three AK-47 rifles were recovered from the spot, he said. The three slain militants were identified as Adil Rishi, Abid Sheikh and Masood Ahmed Shah all residents of Bijbehara, Anantnag. The house where the militants were killed was also damaged in the gunfight. The three militants were active for the last few years. Two among them, the police said, were involved in an attack in Bijbehara in December, 2015, in which a Sub-Divisional Police Officer and a constable were injured. The killing of militants sparked protests and clashes in Bijbehara and some other parts of Anantnag. Many youths, including a photojournalist, were injured in the clashes. Like in the past, people had on Sunday evening tried their bid to help militants escape immediately after the gunfight broke. But the security forces ensured a tight cordon. After the bodies were handed over to families, a large number of people attended the funeral prayers of three local militants, despite heavy snowfall. The bodies of the militants were carried in huge processions amid chant of anti-India and pro-militant slogans. The security forces claimed the killing of the three militants was a setback to Hizbul Mujahideen in south Kashmir that was trying to recruit more local youth for militancy. Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, January 16 Three militants were killed in an overnight gunfight in south Kashmirs Anantnag district. The Army said the identity of the slain militants was being ascertained. We have recovered three weapons from the encounter site, an Army spokesman said. However, sources said the slain militants were local Hizbul Mujahideen cadres. They identified them as Adil Rishi, Masood Ahmed Shah and Abid Sheikh, all residents of Anantnag district. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The gun fight had erupted at Awoora village in Anantnag, 80 km from here, on Sunday evening when joint teams of Army, Police and CRPF cordoned off the village after receiving an input about the presence of militants. As soon as the village was cordoned off, militants opened fire triggering a gun fight, a police officer said. Protests and clashes erupted in many areas of Anantnag after the gun fight started on Sunday evening. Arteev Sharma Tribune News Service Jammu, January 16 Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today hit out at separatists and mainstream leaders for opposing the resettlement of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir Valley and questioned how their return would change the demography of the region. She also asked the people (obliquely referring to the separatist camp) to understand the depth of Article 370 that grants special status to J&K, saying: It (Article 370) is not only about special status of J&K but it is more about securing our culture and brotherhood. Everyone be it Pandits, Muslims or Gujjars can reside and settle in Jammu. In Kashmir, they say the return of Kashmiri Pandits to their land will change the demography. They provided education to our children and they are the part of our culture. How could their return change the demography of Kashmir? Mehbooba said while winding up the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the Governors Address in the Legislative Council today. She questioned, Where are we heading? Such things might happen in Afghanistan, Syria and Israel but this is not part of Kashmiriyat. Now, it appears that Jammu has become Kashmir as it has accommodated all sections of society. Jammu has espoused the culture and brotherhood of Kashmir. We are opposed in Kashmir when we talk about the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. Leave aside others, even mainstream leaders raise their voice that it would change the demography of the region. It is high time we understood the depth and real spirit of Article 370, the Chief Minister said, adding that Article 370 is not only about securing the special status of J&K but it is more about securing the culture and brotherhood. It (Art 370) is not any other entry in the rule book but it has to be understood in depth and with perspective. Tribune News Service Jammu, January 16 The Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) has found flagrant violation of norms set for meat sellers in the city. During an inspection conducted by the veterinary wing of the corporation it was found that unhygienic meat products are being sold to consumers with many of the shops running without licence. A drive was launched by the JMC following complaints by people. Despite several orders issued by the JMC, it has been observed that hygiene norms and practices are not being observed. Also waste parts are dumped in public drains alongside streets. The drive was launched in Bantalab, Janipur, New Plot, Subash Nagar, Rehari, CPO Chowk and Panjtirthi. We have imposed a fine of Rs 8,400 on shops in the city for selling unstamped and substandard meat to consumers. We have issued a strict warning to the shop owners, Dr Jaswant Singh, Municipal Veterinary Officer, said. As per the Jammu Municipal Corporation Act-2000, Food Safety and Standard Act-2006 and Licensing and Registration of Food Business Regulation, no meat shop is allowed to slaughter animals on its premises and it can only be done in a licensed slaughterhouse, but these rules are being openly flouted. Inspection also revealed the unhygienic conditions near shops selling and processing the meat products which could have negative effects on the health of people, said a municipal official. A few years back, the authorities had issued an order for stunning of the animals to be slaughtered, but no step has been taken by the corporation to implement the rules. Majority of the meat shops which have mushroomed in the city during the past one decade slaughter animals within the shop and waste items are dumped in the drains attracting stray dogs and spreading foul smell. This should stop, said Suresh Gupta, a resident of New Plot. In majority of the areas, meat sellers are throwing all the unconsumed parts and other wastes in nearby drains thus leading to blockade, foul smell and attracting stray dogs. It has become a nuisance. Tribune News Service Jammu, January 16 Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today advocated resumption of Indo-Pak dialogue process, saying better and friendly relations are in the best interest of Jammu and Kashmir. We have to find the issues of common interest and common benefit between the two countries and move ahead, she said while winding up the discussion on motion of thanks on the Governors address in the Legislative Council today. We cant alter our geographical and historical boundaries with the neighbouring country and will have to resume the dialogue process from where former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had left it. The dialogue with Pakistan was resumed even after the Kargil war and the attack on Parliament. This time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked an extra mile and visited Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the Pathankot airbase attack took place. Both countries have to find the issues of common interest and benefits, she said. Mehbooba Mufti also favoured sharing of resources with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and opening of trade and travel routes between the divided parts of J&K. Regarding the withdrawal of security forces from the state, the Chief Minister said the success of security forces depended on their ability on how quickly they could create conducive atmosphere for revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from the state. It will be the success of security forces as how fast they put an end to infiltration and militancy to pave way for revocation of the AFSPA. We are hopeful that it will happen soon. In the working group recommendations, everyone had favoured that all stringent laws need to be done away with, Mehbooba said. Highlighting the pluralistic ethos of the state, Mehbooba said this was evident during the unrest last year when despite curfew, Amarnath yatris injured in an accident were rescued and treated by local people, a Pandit marriage was solemnised by Muslim neighbours when nobody could dare to venture out or when many of Kashmiri parents sent their wards to Jammu for studying. Rehab of unrest-hit people The Chief Minister said a large number of those killed, blinded, injured or affected in any way during unrest in the Valley belonged to very poor families and many of them were orphans who had nobody to guide. As such, the rehabilitation of their kin or the injured lay with the government, she said. I announced setting up of Special Investigating Teams to probe these killings besides announcing ex ratia, she informed the House. Compensation announced Mehbooba said on a similar pattern, victims of the Amarnath land row in the state during 2008 would also be paid ex gratia and other financial compensation. Similarly, the kin of Chamail Singh, a civilian from the Paragwal area of Jammu province killed in Pakistan jail in 2013, would also be duly compensated. She said her government wont differentiate on the basis of caste, creed or colour when it comes to the rehabilitation of its people. The Chief Minister said only 138 persons had been detained by the police for questioning and 370 persons had been booked under the Public Safety Act. Their status was being reviewed on case-to-case basis. Saying she had directed the police not to re-arrest a person whose detention had been quashed by a court, Mehbooba said instead parents of the detainee should be taken into confidence while counselling him to shun the path of violence. Amend Wildlife Act Deputy Speaker, Legislative Assembly, Nazir Ahmad Gurezi on Monday directed the government to come up with the necessary amendments to the Wildlife Act regarding the man-animal conflict. The directions in this regard were given by Nazir during a debate on general discussion on Budget 2017-18 after MLA Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, supported by other members, raised the issue on the floor of the House. Arun Joshi tribune news service These are not the best of the times for the Army in Jammu and Kashmir in terms of the pressure it is facing from all quarters. The new Army Chief, Gen Bipin Rawat, has listed yet another challenge before the soldiers - to be prepared to strike Pakistan if it disrupts peace on borders. Obviously, he has hinted at the repeat of the September 29 surgical strikes, which are read as a counter to the September 18 attack on the Uri Army base that left 20 soldiers dead last year. Jammu and Kashmir comes in the picture because a majority of the Indian troops are stationed here, facing Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and China besides fighting militancy in the state. General Rawat in his address on Army Day on Sunday sent out two sets of messages. One, Pakistan should not take its misadventures for granted on borders. It is a clear reference to the borders in J&K, for a number of ceasefire violations took place along the Line of Control and International Border in this sensitive state in 2016. His second message was for the soldiers, who have recently aired their complaints on the social media and got widespread attention. The Army is known for its discipline and the Chief obviously thought that was a breach of discipline. General Rawats warning to Pakistan against any mischief on the borders should be seen as a military necessity, for somehow it has become important in the military narrative of India and Pakistan to underline the respective supremacy of their military strength. But peace on borders in Kashmir is incumbent upon the internal situation. The calm borders and normalcy in the Valley are interlinked as a single image in the mirror. On May 3, 1993, after the Army had disarmed the police mutineers in Kashmir, the Unified Headquarters was set up in which the Army was given control of all anti-terrorist operations across the Valley barring Srinagar district, which was placed under the BSF. The idea was to decimate terrorism. But the problem persists. The root cause was infiltration as 2,000 to 3,000 intruders were sneaking every year in the early 1990s. Most of them were unchallenged and undetected. The terrain was tough and the Army did not have sufficient equipment to quell the menace. Internally, there was massive support for militants because they were local boys returning after having received training in handling arms and ammunition. That kind of infiltration is not there, but it is there nevertheless. Now, the training camps have come up in jungles of Kashmir. Now, the militancy is ingrained in the psychology that all militants are our own and they need to be protected. The challenge is to find ways to change all this with soft power, not military might. General Rawat could have avoided his reference to the use of social media by aggrieved soldiers in his address. The soldiers are working in unimaginably hard conditions. They guard not only the frontiers in the most inhospitable terrain but also risk their lives in counter-terrorism operations. It doesnt come to mind as to when last there was a bada khana with jawans. All Army Chiefs visit the Siachen glacier, the highest battleground of the world, but the complaints about the low quality of food, clothing, and shoes go unheeded. There have been cases where officers have sold special food and clothing meant for troops on the black market in Leh. The need is to create responsive channels. Warnings will not lift the morale of the soldiers. Nonika Singh During her first trip to India, she was awestruck by the Indian eyes and the centuries-old history of the country, which she could see in them. Next time over, she was bowled over by Khajuraho temples and its architecture. As South-Korean artist MinJoo Lee comes to India (Chandigarh to be precise) for the fourth time to participate in a workshop organised by Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademy, she has read enough on Le Corbusier to correlate her works with him. Unlike some of her compatriots back home, who have traded artistic freedom for money, who employ their proximity with powers to be to earn megabucks overnight, Lee believes art is all about self-discovery. Not surprising, most of her works reflect on her inner being. As she puts it, Often, my creativity is the essence of my reality. Then I come out of my body to reach out for issues like say the Iraq invasion. Like her exhibition, War Peace, spoke out against the ceaseless war and was shown at the UN. Reflecting on the outer world or the inner, reflection in water is a recurring image in her creations, which often juxtapose man, animals and God. In Oriental philosophy, 12 is a significant number as are 12 animals. Earlier, all 12 would inhabit her canvasses simultaneously, but now its the horses energy and spirituality that she tries to capture. If horse according to her is a spiritual being, so she thinks are Indians. South-Koreans, with history dating back to 5,000 years ought to be so as well, but she rues, More and more artists now have little respect for their tradition. She is equally dismayed by the fact that when they live in foreign lands, they copy their art. In contrast, she asserts that Indian artists might be dabbling in contemporary mediums but never forget their cultural roots. Take Anish Kapoor for instance. Very contemporary modernistic style, but at the heart of it lies the Indian core. At the centre of her works are a mesh of lines or what she calls resonant lines drawn from her abiding interest and remarkable aptitude in calligraphy. Often with a long brush dipped in Indian ink she paints at one go, not lifting the hand even once. In the process, she creates images that are visually compelling and redolent with many meanings. God, animal or human beingany which can be dominant in her paintings. The human figure could be male or female. A self-styled feminist who didnt care about men not too long ago, an artist residency in Michigan brought her face to face with her past, death of her father and the liberal values he stood for. Alongside came the realisation, Whoever I am its half my father and half my mother. Thus animus became an integral part of her creativity. Another important lesson she learnt in the USA, where she had gone to study how do they teach painting, was how not to push but motivate artists. Barack Obama might be a fan of Tiger moms, she believes, Only self-motivation works wonders. Cultural exchange too can be wonderful, especially between Indians and South-Koreans who have much in common, including fight for independence. But she is a greater votary of workshops where, There is dissemination of creative impulses. If you just exhibit and leave, it can have little meaning. Art for her is seeking and striking resonance. How the artist within her finds an echo in her works, watch her and 16 other artists at work in a unique initiative undertaken by the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademy at Sector 17 today. That the date happens to be 17th of January is not a coincidence, but a well thought out strategy to synergize minds and numbers. nonikasingh@tribunemail.com Lt Gen KJ Singh (Retd) TWITTERATI and the electronic media is currently abuzz with accounts of self-appointed experts on food being served to troops in security forces. I also got caught in one such skirmish where considerable time was devoted to deciding if puris are beloed or rolled, with the former winning the debate. There was also a suggestion to have the word beloed included in the Oxford Dictionary. This debate has been triggered by Tej Bahadur, the langar crusader from the BSF, who, instead of keeping an eye on the Pakistanis across, seems to be focused on the dal and its ingredients. While the issue is being examined, it is simply not kosher to link a food-related complaint to his aberrant disciplinary track record. The simple maxim that I have learnt is that the bestest (sic) food has to be served to men, including prisoners. A defaulter has to be given good food and equally rigorous punishment. I am reminded of an incident during my command that I am very proud of and take it as a proof of a successful command. Two defaulters who were to undergo treatment at MH Patiala were asked the choice of unit for attachment. They opted for my regiment, 63 Cavalry, despite their unit people serving in my Brigade HQ, because food of my regiment was reputed to be the best in the entire station. Like they say, the Army marches on stomach and units take pride in their food and cookhouses, referred to as langars, as they have their own camaraderie, culture and even syntax. Now for an eternal lesson in secularism learnt in a langar, which relates to an old and famous regiment, 18 Cavalry. This regiment has three pure caste-based squadrons Alpha-Jats, Bravo-Musalman, including Kayamkhanis, and Charlie-Rajputs. Following a violent storm, the roof of the cookhouse of the Jat squadron collapsed and they had to share it with another squadron. In the Armoured Corps, Jats follow the logic of the movie, Dangal non-vegetarian food is not cooked in their cookhouse though die-hard ones manage to eat it on the sly in other langars, once in a while. Jats had traditional rivalry with Rajputs because of keen competition in sports, so they chose to share the cookhouse with the Musalman squadron. This obviously got my Commander worried and he deputed me, Brigade Major, to check if all was well. I went to the langar in the evening, on a meat-dish day, to take stock. I saw no problem with both squadrons cooking and sharing food under the same roof. When I asked the Senior JCO of the Musalman squadron if all was well, he told me not to worry as Islam had taught him to let everyone practise his own deen (religion) faithfully. He would ensure that the Jats remained vegetarian and followed their Vedic Dharma in the langar. Do we need any other proof of the Indian Armys secular ethos? Srinagar, January 16 Dangal girl from Jammu and Kashmir Zaira Wasim, who gave a sparkling performance in the Aamir Khan-starrer record-breaking movie, took to social media on Monday to post an apology for meeting state Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. After receiving accolade from the film industry and elsewhere, the 16-year-old met Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday, who enquired about her education and interest in other creative fields like acting. However, the Srinagar-based Zaira was trolled on social media when photos from the meeting emerged. She took to social media on Monday to apologise for hurting the sentiments of fellow Kashmiris. Without saying what she was sorry for, the actor wrote in her "open confession/apology" that she does not want anyone to follow her footsteps or even consider her as a role model. "I'm not proud of what I'm doing and I want everyone, especially the youth to know that there are real role models out there whether they be in this time or in our history." Hinting that the apology may have to do with her recent meeting with the CM, the post stated: "I know many people have been offended and displeased by my recent actions or people I have recently met..." "...I understand the sentiments behind it especially considering what had happened over the past 6 months." Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wrote in support of Zaira and tweeted: "A 16 year old shouldn't be forced to apologise & that too allegedly for meeting Mehbooba Mufti. What are we coming to!!!!!" "I've a problem with Mehbooba Mufti trying to usurp other peoples success to cover up her own failures but why punish/troll people she meets?" Kashmir has been in a state of unrest since the July 8 killing of a militant commander Burhan Wani. His death sparked anti-India protests in the Valley, leading to a curfew being imposed in the region for almost two months. IANS New Delhi, January 16 The BJP's campaign to wrest power from the Congress in Uttarakhand on Monday received a shot in the arm with former PCC president Yashpal Arya joining the saffron party in the presence of its president Amit Shah here. Apart from Arya, his son Sanjeev Arya and former party legislator from Yamunotri Kedar Singh Rawat, also joined BJP. Arya, a Congress veteran, lashed out at party leadership, saying it no longer represented the core values of the party and expressed his faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah's leadership. A six-term MLA, Arya has reportedly been upset with the functioning of Chief Minister Harish Rawat. Meanwhile, in Dehradun, Uttarakhand BJP hailed Arya's joining of party, saying it was a big jolt to the Congress ahead of state Assembly elections slated next month. "It is a big jolt to the Congress. It also vindicates our stand that the party in power was heading for a second vertical split after the first it experienced in March last year when nine party heavyweights deserted it," state BJP spokesman Munna Singh Chauhan told PTI. "It has now become clear that the Congress in Uttarakhand is a sinking boat which no one wants to ride," he said. Induction of all these leaders would definitely strengthen the BJP ahead of the polls, he said, adding Arya was a veteran with a mass support base in Kumaon region. "Arya wields tremendous clout not only in Bajpur, the seat he represented in the state assembly but also in Nainital from where he won several times in erstwhile undivided Uttar Pradesh," he said. Arya takes the number of sitting Congress MLAs joining BJP after the political crisis in Uttarakhand last year to 11, 10 rebels joining the party earlier who have already been disqualified from the state assembly under the anti-defection law. The former PCC chief had the longest tenure at the helm of the party's state unit. He was PCC president for consecutive two terms and a minister in Harish Rawat's Cabinet. PTI Tribune News Service New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan 16 With Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav wresting the cycle symbol from his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Congress, RLD and Akhilesh-led SP faction is likely to announce its alliance for state elections tomorrow with Akhilesh as its face. Like the UP Chief Ministers camp, the Congress too was waiting with anxiety for the EC orders, which came today paving the way for what Congress leaders described as a healthy and winnable alliance. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) In the wake of cycle, the original SP symbol going to Akhilesh Yadav, the feared confusion among state voters will no longer be there. The Congress, SP alliance can now be a formidable force in the state, a Congress leader said, indicating possibilities of announcement of a formal tie-up soon. It is learnt that Akhilesh and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi have discussed the alliance broadly and AICC general secretary for UP Ghulam Nabi Azad was fine-tuning the modalities. The Congress yesterday formed a screening panel for UP headed by Rajasthan ex-CM Ashok Gehlot to finalise the ticket. Sources said the party was ready with candidates on all seats to address any adverse eventualities that may have harmed the crafting of SP-Congress alliance. We are ready with candidates on all seats. But if there is a tie up, we will sit and discuss the seat arrangements, a Congress insider said, adding that Gandhi, Akhilesh and Jayant Chaudhary could build a potential momentum in favour of the alliance. Jehanabad, January 16 A 12-year-old student of a government school was allegedly gangraped by the principal and three teachers here, police said on Monday. Kako Secondary School principal Aju Ahmed and three teachers--Atul Rahman, Abdul Bari and Mohammad Shaukat--gangraped the girl on Sunday when she was alone in the building, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) PK Srivastava said. The accused took her to the roof of the school building and committed the crime, the SDPO said, quoting an FIR registered against the four based on a complaint filed by the girls mother. The victim was spotted by her mother, also a teacher in the same school, lying in a dishevelled state on the roof. The girl then narrated the incident to her, the SDPO said. The accused are at large and search is on to nab them, he said. Sunday, a holiday, had been declared a working day in the school in a verbal communication by the principal, who had ordered it to be closed on Friday, Srivastava said. PTI Legal Correspondent New Delhi, January 16 The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre, telecom regulator, Facebook and WhatsApp seeking their response to a petition seeking protection of WhatsApp users privacy. A bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar asked the companies and the government to file their response within two weeks. Appearing for KS Sareen and another petitioner, senior counsel Harish Salve pleaded that WhatsApp sharing data of its 155 million users with Facebook amounted to infringing on privacy guaranteed under Articles 21 and 19. It was also in violation of the TRAI rules. The government and TRAI were duty-bound to protect the privacy of citizens, Salve contended. At one stage, the CJI pointed out that WhatsApp was a free messaging service and the users were free to quit if they did not want to comply with the service providers terms and conditions. Nevertheless, it issued notice on the plea. The Delhi High Court directed WhatsApp on September 23, 2016 not to share its users data collected till September 25, 2016 under its old policy, but let the service provider to use the data collected after September 2016 for commercial purposes under its revised policy. The petitioner has come to SC challenging the HC verdict. SC on speed governors The CJI bench today threatened to summon the Chief Secretaries of the states which had not filed their responses to a PIL by Suraksha Foundation for installation of speed governors in public transport vehicles to prevent them from exceeding the cap on speed in order to prevent accidents. R Sedhuraman Legal Correspondent New Delhi, January 15 The Supreme Court has set aside an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) making the Dynamic Assured Career Progression (DACP) scheme applicable to commissioned officers of the Army Medical Corps (AMC). A Bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud noted that the AFT had passed the order on July 18, 2011 without considering relevant documents which the Centre had failed to place before the tribunal. The apex court delivered the verdict on the governments appeal. AMCs two doctors with more than 20 years of commissioned/ Group A gazette service had gone to the AFT seeking DACP. The doctors, including KP Singh, objected to the Centre relying on fresh documents which were not submitted to the AFT. Rejecting the objection, the apex court said it was essential to examine the core issue about the applicability of DACP to the commissioned officers of the armed forces in view of the far-reaching financial and structural ramifications for the defence forces and in larger public interest. The Centre pleaded that the Sixth Pay Commission had clarified that DACP was limited to civilian doctors and not meant for commissioned officers in the three services. The August 29, 2008 resolution of the Finance Ministry had confirmed this. The Defence Ministrys August 30, 2008 resolution had extended the benefits of other allowances (other than DACP) to the commissioned officers in the three services as recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission. If DACP scheme is extended to doctors working in AMC cadre, it would result in an anomalous situation, affecting commissioned officers in the Navy and Air Force, the Bench acknowledged. The apex court, however, sent the case back to AFT on January 12, asking the tribunal to reconsider it in the light of fresh material and deliver its verdict in six months. Jupinderjit Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 15 Away from the din of ensuing Punjab Assembly election and rhetoric on nationalism over surgical strikes, work is on war-footing near the Wagah Border to hoist the tallest national flag in the country. At more than 350 feet high, the flag would be around 100 feet taller than the Qutub Minar. The work is expected to be over by January 26. Local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi said the flag would be an additional attraction to the large number of tourists visiting the border. The cost of the project is Rs4.5 crore. The Improvement Trust, Amritsar, is funding it, he said. The work to lay the foundation, around 20 feet underground, for the giant pillar to hoist the flag is underway. The site is 200 metre short of the India-Pakistan border. Twenty-four extra flags will be given to the BSF so that there is no delay in replacing it if damaged, Joshi said. Earlier, a site closer to the border was shortlisted for the purpose but due to some restrictions on erecting high installations near the International Border, it was decided to install the flag at a distance. The project was first delayed as the initially chosen land belonged to the Defence for which the permission of the Ministry of Home Affairs was required. To save time, a piece of land of the State Tourism Department was selected and approved, Joshi said. He said earlier his ministry had funded erection of the 170-foot high national flag on the Wagah border. We thought it was the tallest but it was not. So, we decided to install a flag taller than the Qutub Minar, he added. Aman Sood Tribune news service Samana, January 16 Residents of hundreds of villages situated alongside the Ghaggar are fed up with the false promises made by leaders of various political parties over the past 25 years. Before every election, leaders come and promise that a mechanism will be put in place to check devastation caused by Ghaggar floods, but all those promises have remained unfulfilled, they say. While no solution has been worked out to tame the Ghaggar flood fury, the river has now turned into a hub of cancer spread by water pollution that has reached alarming proportions. Residents of remote Hashanpur Mangta village in the Samana constituency say the Ghaggar has become a river of sorrow for them. Neither the Shiromani Akali Dal nor the Congress has done anything for them, they allege. We have no option but to drink polluted Ghaggar water, use it for irrigation and feed cattle. Time and again candidates of various political promised to work out a solution to our problems, but that was not to be, they say. Our children cannot go to school as there is no bridge on the Ghaggar choe. My fellow villagers are dying due to various ailments, but no politician has done anything for us, says village nambardar Jhirmal Singh. As he talks to The Tribune, a rickshaw with Aam Aadmi Party banner crosses by. All our hopes are now hinged on them. What is the harm in supporting a new outfit when both traditional parties have done nothing for us, he says, as his fellow villagers, draped in shawls, nod in affirmation. Septuagenarian Niranjan Singh and his fellow villagers are quick to engage with any journalist who visits Shutrana segment. Leaderan waang tussi vi election weley his aunday hon (like leaders you also come only during elections, he says. I have spent almost my entire life in these villages and seen politicians making repeated promises, but they remained unfulfilled. Now, the situation has become alarming as cancer-causing chemicals continue to flow into the river. People are suffering from skin infections and dying of cancer. Polluted water is now flowing in our veins, says Niranjan, who worked as a carpenter. While AAP leaders acknowledge the gravity of the situation, SAD and Congress leaders often try to ignore the issue. The only words Congress and SAD leaders say on the issue is that they have done everything possible and now the Centre must ensure more funds. Originating from the Shivalik hills in Himachal Pradesh, the Ghaggar meanders though several districts of Punjab and Haryana to flow into Rajasthan from where it enters Pakistan. Embankments have come up and the riverbed dug up and widened at certain places, bringing some relief to the people of Sangrur and Patiala constituencies. We are happy at the erection of embankments, but it is not a permanent solution. The Ghaggar fury became a poll issue for the first time around 20 years ago, but no permanent solution could be worked out to it so far, says Mehal Singh from Dharmherhi village. Villagers allege the Punjab Pollution Control Board has miserably failed to check direct discharge of effluents from factories and sewage into the Ghaggar. It is high time that promise-breakers (politicians) are taught a lesson, besides being made to explain why they have failed to find a solution to the problem so far, villagers say. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 16 In a setback for the SAD just before the Assembly elections, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today brought to naught Bibi Jagir Kaurs hopes for re-contesting the elections. It dismissed her plea for stay on conviction in her daughter Harpreet Kaurs death case. The trial court had acquitted Bibi of murder offence while convicting her of abduction and forcible abortion of her daughter Harpreet Kaur. She is not competent to contest due to bar in Section 8 of the Representation of Peoples Act. Taking up her plea, Justice Ajay Kumar Mittal and Justice Ramendra Jain asserted: In our opinion no irreparable loss and injury would be caused to the applicant-appellant. Rather, if a public figure becomes entitled to hold public office and to continue to do official acts until he or she is judicially absolved from findings against him/her by reason of suspension of conviction, it would adversely affect public interest and even irreparably. Consequently, it is not considered to be a fit case for suspending the conviction of the applicant-appellant. The Bench added a person holding public office, like the applicant, was entrusted with powers to be exercised in public interest. The person holds the office in trust. Involvement in such a serious offence of a person holding public office amounts to the breach of trust. The Bench also made it clear that her case was distinguishable from Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sucha Singh Langahs case. The Bench asserted great emphasis was laid on Sidhus case. He, along with co-accused, was tried for murder and other charges before Sidhu was acquitted by the Sessions Court. But the High Court allowed an appeal before convicting and sentencing him to three years rigorous imprisonment for an offence under Section 304 Part II of the IPC. He was released on bail after a special leave petition was filed. Immediately after the HC judgment, he resigned from the Lok Sabha to maintain probity and moral values in public life. In his case, the incident took place in December, 1988, much before he entered public life in 2004, when he was elected MP. He had not taken any advantage of his position as MP in the commission of the crime. It was also observed though he was not required to resign, he adopted a moral path by resigning from his seat. Keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances, the apex court suspended the order of conviction. The position in the present case being distinguishable, no benefit is available to the applicant-appellant from the decision, the Bench observed. It added the legal and factual position in the present case was different from Langahs case. Nikhil Bhardwaj Tribune News Service Ludhiana, January 16 Punjab Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Jagmeet Singh Brar today said that he would confine himself to campaigning for party candidates and not contest the elections. I have decided not to contest elections. It might have affected the campaign of party candidates, he said after announcing four TMC nominees. They are former Youth Congress leader Jagdeep Goldy Kamboj from Jalalabad, English lecturer Lachman Singh from Budhlada, former BSP MLA Hargopal Singh from Balachaur and industrialist Harbans Singh from Ludhiana South. With this, the party has fielded 22 nominees. The party is expected to field at least 40 nominees. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee will address six rallies in the last week of January, Brar said. Asked if the TMC would field candidates from Lambi or Jalalabad, he reiterated that the TMC had not finalised any name from either of the seats. If no suitable candidate is found, the TMC will support the candidate of a party except for the SAD and the Congress. Brar termed Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh a coward on his plans to contest from Lambi and Patiala. On former BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu joining the Congress, Brar added Sidhu would not bring a major change in the political scenario of the state. New Delhi, January 16 Projecting a bright picture of tiger conservation, the number of big cats in the Terai region has grown significantly with at least 71 new adults roaring, say reports from the latest Phase-IV of monitoring. The highest rise so far has been recorded in Uttarakhands Western Circle a huge part of the vast Terai region of the state located outside the tiger and forest reserves where the figures went up from 79 in 2014 (last census) to at least 119 adults till last year, officials said. Meanwhile, at the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Dudhwa National Park of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, situated in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh bordering Nepal, the number of tigers has increased from 53 in 2014 to at least 79 adults. The number in Assams Manas National Park, also part of the Terai landscape, has also risen though the final results are awaited, officials said. The Phase-IV monitoring was conducted in a few forest divisions, including the West Circle of Uttarakhand and parts of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in 2016. The monitoring is under way in some reserve forests, including Corbett and Manas, and yet to be conducted in several other parts of the country. The number of tigers has increased significantly. Over 50 adults have been identified for the first time, Dr Parag Madhukar Dhakate, Conservator of Forests, Western Circle, said. A good number of cubs were also counted but officials requested that the numbers should not be disclosed. All tigers and cubs were healthy. It projects a good prey-predator ratio, Dhakate said. The western circle spreads over 2,573.6 sq km (from Haldwani to Ramnagar) comprising 60 per cent natural forests and 40 per cent plantations. The figure projects distribution of a breeding population of tigers living outside reserve forests in a complex landscape which also include agricultural fields and human encroachments. The Phase IV monitoring of the western circle is an independent census (self-initiated) and one of the firsts in the country conducted over a large area. It started in Janaury 2016, officials said. The monitoring was carried out for 214 days using 250 camera traps used at 393 locations. A total of 16,457 images were obtained, Dhakate said, adding that the mission included 500 people. Images obtained from camera traps were fed into a software, manual identification was also done to estimate the numbers. Like the finger prints of humans, every tiger has unique stripes, which is now the modern method for counting and distinguishing tigers. We now have a baseline... earlier we were not sure of the actual number of animals but now we know areas where tigers are present. This will help us modify the protection strategies, Dhakate said. Experts believe that the reason for such a boom is the heterogeneous and complex landscape of the western circle that supports the species better because of automatic niche construction. Niche construction or ecosystem engineering is a process in which organisms modify their environment for survival. In such complex landscapes, unlike homogeneous landscape of a typical forest, prey density for animals is good because a niche for different animals is automatically created, said Dhakate. Meanwhile at the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, a healthy tiger population, along with some cubs, was seen during Phase IV monitoring from October to December 2016. With 51 tigers in a small area of 227 square km, Kishanpur Sanctuary has one of the most dense populations of felines, Sunil Choudhary, Field Director, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, said. Narendra Upadhay, Wildlife Warden at Dudhwa, however, believes that the number of tigers in the national park is under-reported as its dense landscape minimises visibility. The Manas National Park in Assam has also seen a slight increase so far, as the number of tigers in two of the three regions of the reserve forests has gone up from 11 in 2014 census to at least 16 in November 2016. This time we are also doing census in the western division of Panvari, which was left out in 2014. We expect a good result in the final count, HK Sharma, Field Director, Manas, said. India is home to 70 per cent of the worlds free-ranging tigers, estimated at 2,226 in 2014, of which at least 640 dwell outside tiger reserves. The boom in population is believed to be a good sign for 2017, as 129 tigers died in 2016 due to poaching or accidents, the highest in a decade. The Terai arc landscape includes the fertile lowlands of the southern Himalayan and Shivalik foothills and north of Indo-Gangetic plains in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. It spreads over 49,500 sq.km and is home to 86 species of mammals, over 600 species of birds, 47 species of reptiles and amphibians, 126 species of fish and over eight million human beings. IANS What is Terai arc The Terai arc landscape includes the fertile lowlands of the southern Himalayan and Shivalik foothills and north of Indo-Gangetic plains in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. It spreads over 49,500 sq.km and is home to 86 species of mammals, over 600 species of birds, 47 species of reptiles and amphibians, 126 species of fish and over eight million human beings. A good sign The highest rise has been recorded in Uttarakhands Western Circle where the figures went up from 79 in 2014 (last census) to 119 adults till last year The circle spreads over 2,573.6 sq km (from Haldwani to Ramnagar) comprising 60 per cent natural forests and 40 per cent plantations India is home to 70 per cent of the worlds free-ranging tigers, estimated at 2,226 in 2014, of which at least 640 dwell outside tiger reserves. The boom in population is believed to be a good sign for 2017, as 129 tigers died in 2016 due to poaching or accidents, the highest in a decade. Sandeep Rawat Tribune News Service Haridwar, January 16 Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi tore into Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of undermining the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in Rishikesh today. He said the bank was informed about the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to scrap the old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 just a day before its implementation on November 8 last year. Is this the way for the Central Government to impose its decision on an institution like the RBI on a monetary matter? Crores of people have been affected by demonetisation only because of the autocratic style of functioning of Modi, he said, addressing a convention that was held for party workers of the state. He also flayed the RSS over its nationalistic agenda. Instead of hoisting the Tricolour, a saffron flag had been hoisted at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur from January 26,1950, till 2002. Its a disrespect to the Tricolour. The Congress has always put the nation before the party. The Tricolour is superior to party symbols, but the RSS-BJP resorted to hoisting the national flag at its headquarters and other events only after public pressure and media attention. During terrorism days in Punjab, more than 15,000 Congress workers were killed. Can the BJP-RSS show the list, if any, of their workers hit by terrorism? They cant. Its because they bank on divisive politics, he said. Rahul targeted the saffron party over the recent controversy involving Khadi and Village Industries Commission calendar wherein Mahatma Gandhi was replaced by Modi. Showing his worn-out kurta to party workers, the three-time Amethi MP accused Modi of wearing suit worth Rs 15 lakh. Modis commitment to khadi was fake as his Rs15-lakh suit and charkha couldnt go together, he said. In a lighter vein, he said if such things continued, soon Ramlila actors would be seen wearing Modis mask. Accusing the Prime Minister of imposing himself on people, he said Modi talked of democratic ethics but imposed Presidents rule in a haste in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh, which was overruled by the apex court. During the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, Modi assured people that black money deposited in foreign bank accounts would be brought back, but he demonetised old currency notes. It has made cash withdrawal a Herculean task for the common man, he said. Comparing the Congress-led UPA governments 10-year tenure (2004-14) with the current NDA government rule, Rahul said, Right from MGNREGA, OROP and Rs 70,000-crore loan waiver for peasants, the Congress tried help farmers, labourers, Army personnel as well as the common man. Urging party workers to reach out to voters, the Congress vice-president said under the governance of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, the Uttarakhand Government had done a commendable job, especially in the aftermath of 2013 Kedarnath flash floods. Harish Rawat, Kishore Upadhyay, Upper House parliamentarian Pradeep Tamta, state Finance Minister Indira Hridayesh, minister Braham Swarup Brahamchari, state political affairs in-charge Sanjay Kapoor and Congress legislators were present at the convention. Follow directions: Upadhyay State Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay urged leaders and workers to pledge to work sincerely for the party irrespective of whosoever got ticket. He said he would not contest the upcoming Assembly elections as he wanted to set an example of putting party before oneself, despite being the president of the state party unit. Give up personal ambitions and work towards making the party win. The Congress is not a company, but an organisation over 130 years old that took part in the Independence movement and also put the country on the path of development post independence, he added. Rawat recalls Rajiv, Indira Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who entered the mainstream politics in 1977 by defeating veteran Jan Sangh leader Murali Manohar Joshi from Almora when Congress was out of the power, referred to his association with Rahul Gandhis grandmother Indira Gandhi and his father Rajiv Gandhi. I have worked with your (Rahuls) grandmother and father. It is an emotional moment for me as a Chief Minister to welcome and hear you in Uttarakhand. They were committed to development, and sacrificed their lives for the country. In you (Rahul), people see their image too, he added. Kedarnath pilgrimage on foot, says Cong vice-president Rahul Gandhis twin visits to the revered Kedarnath shrine in Garhwal found mention in the speeches of both Rahul and Harish Rawat several times. Rawat said Rahul Gandhi was the first of the top national leaders to visit the Kedarnath flash flood affected areas in June 2013. He travelled in a car till Sonprayag from Rishikesh to visit the affected areas. Later, Rahul Gandhi said that he was asked by Rawat to again visit Kedarnath shrine in April 2015, when the Char Dham pilgrimage was restored. But I declined to travel in a helicopter as Lord Shiva pilgrimage cant be done in helicopter. So I travelled on foot to pay obeisance at the Kedarnath shrine, he added. Sandeep Rawat Tribune News Service Haridwar January 16 The Haridwar rural segment is hogging the limelight this time owing to Anupama Rawat, Women Congress national general secretary and daughter of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, speculated to contest from this segment making her debut in electoral politics. Though this has also resulted in resentment among some local leaders who are in hope of getting Congress ticket this time. Among them, last election loser from Congress Irshad Ali has also shown his displeasure over Anupamas candidature by resigning from the post of Uttarakhand Weaver Commission chairperson. Irshad had last time polled (21,284) votes while Swami Yatishwaranand emerged winner with total (25,159) votes. Bahujan Smaaj Party candidate Shesh Raj Singh bagged 19,158 votes while Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha candidate Shri Kant Verma came fourth with 6,452 votes. At many public meetings and media briefings, Irshad Ali has sought for ticket though making it clear that he is a dedicated party worker and is not opposing Anupama Rawat. A major issue on which sitting BJP legislator Swami Yatishwaranand had fought the last Assembly poll was on granting the status of tehsil to this rural segment which couldnt be achieved by the saint-turned politician in his five-year tenure. Opposition parties are raising this issue along with delay in construction of the Rawasan river bridge and the segment still lacking a full-fledged government hospital and degree college. Swami Yatishwaranand, who entered politics in capacity of being a student union president of Gurukul Kangri University, says that he made constant attempt to pave way for the teshil status for the segment but due to biased attitude of the Congress government, it cant be achieved. Assuring that if in this election, the BJP is voted to power, it will be his major priority to get the teshil status to the Haridwar rural segment. He cites granting of sub-teshil status to Lal Dhang, opening of a Industrial Technical Institute (ITI), recarpeting of several roads, flood embankments, upgrading of several schools and optimum utilisation of his fund for small development and infrastructure projects as his major achievements. Swami Yatishwaranand also said unlike other legislators, he remained in touch with the people of his segment and also resorted to agitation on several public issue like construction of the Rawasan bridge. Due to my efforts sanctioning of project for the Rawasan bridge fructified as I sat for several days on agitation with local villagers. We also staged an agitation which draw the major attention of people and state government was pressured to sanction the bridge project. Though its another matter that Chief Minister Harish Rawat laid foundation stone of the Rawasan bridge last year and I was not even invited for the function. Yet villagers of more than 12 villages who are suffering due to lack of bridge at Rawasan in community, know my sincere efforts done for the cause,said Swami Yatishwaranand. He added that his tenure was development-oriented and left over projects would be completed if people of this rural segment elect him for the second consecutive term. Irshad Ali terms Swami Yatishwaranands tenure as a failure, saying mass-scale illegal quarrying was done during his tenure which affected the local ecology. He even alleged the legislator being hand in gloves with the quarrying mafia and a majority of his election campaign funds was funded by it and this time too they were backing him as their interests were looked after by the BJP legislator. Sukhvinder Kaur, zila panchayat member of Lal Dhangt, said if Anupama Rawat was given ticket, she would win with a record margin owing to her mass appeal among all sections of society and no other Congress leader from the segment was in a position of winning the seat, while due to her active presence for the past seven years in rural segment, Anupama held major influence among rural voters The Bahujan Samaj Party has replaced Shesh Raj Saini with Mohammed Mukkaram Ansari, who is confident of opening the BSP account from the rural segment. Kumari Sonam, a BEd student, said lack of proper educational institutes and colleges in the area were a major concern for the youth. The youth have to either go to Haridwar or Roorkee for higher technical education and lack of proper local transport connectivity adds to the problems of students as well as local residents, said Sonam. Dhapura-based resident Vijay Saini and Badshahpur resident Nawab Khan said conditions of the road is in a dilapidated condition in their respective areas and the MLALAD fund has also been distributed in only pro-BJP pockets and also those close to the BJP legislator only. A total of 1,18,156 voters will cast their votes in this Assembly election with 54,852 female voters and 63,924 male voters. The segment comprises whole rural belts of Bishanpur Kundi, Panjan Hedi, Bhogpur, Bahadur Jat, Pherupur, Dhanpura, Badshahpur, Sherpur, Pherupur, Phoolgadh, Durgagadh, Shibragadh, Tanda, Mazada, Ramkhera of Haridwar tehsil with Muslim voters holding major say with approximately 40,000 voters. SMA Kazmi Tribune News Service Dehradun, January 16 The decision of Revenue Minister and senior party leader Yashpal Arya to quit the Congress, with whom he had been associated for the past 41 years, is a big jolt to the party ahead of the Assembly elections that are scheduled to be held on February 15. Yashpal Arya was considered as the Dalit face of the party in the Kumaon region. Yashpal, after joining the BJP in the presence of party president Amit Shah in New Delhi, has been announced as BJP candidate from Bazpur. His son Sanjeev Arya has also been given BJP ticket from Nainital (reserve) seat. Yashpal Arya, a protege of former Chief Minister ND Tewari, was the Speaker of the Assembly from 2002 till 2007. He was also made the president of the Uttarakhand Congress when Harish Rawat quit as state Congress chief after the partys defeat in 2007. It was under the leadership of Yashpal that the Congress won all the five Lok Sabha seats in 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the state. Yashpal was uncomfortable since Harish Rawat took charge as Chief Minister in February 2014 following the removal of Vijay Bhauguna by the party high command. Despite being a bitter political opponent, Yashpal remained a Cabinet minister and showed his displeasure on many occasions against the decisions of the Chief Minister. He was annoyed when Pradeep Tamta, another Dalit leader, was given Rajya Sabha ticket by Harish Rawat. He went up to the party high command to express displeasure on being ignored, being the senior most Dalit leader of the party. It was also expected that he would join the Congress rebels when nine ruling party legislators rebelled against Harish Rawat. But, at that moment, Yashpal Arya could not muster enough courage to quit the party. He was seeking ticket for his son Sanjeev Arya from the Nainital reserve seat but was unsure since Harish Rawat had reportedly been given all powers by the party high command to select candidates for the coming polls. The decision to quit was prompted by concentration of power in the hands of Chief Minister Harish Rawat who has been calling the shots. Yashpal also gave vent to his feelings after joining the BJP when he blamed Harish Rawat for his style of functioning. Earlier, 10 Congress leaders had rebelled making similar allegations against Harish Rawat in March last year. Reuters The Canadian dollar strengthened by the most in nearly three years against its U.S. counterpart on Friday as domestic data showed a surge in hiring, bolstering bets for another larger than normal interest rate hike by the Bank of Canada next month. The Canadian economy added 108,300 jobs in October, easily beating forecasts for 10,000 new jobs, with the blowout gain entirely in full-time work. Money markets see a 67% chance that the Bank of Canada would raise its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point at its next policy announcement on Dec. 7, up from about 50% before the data. Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 16 China today shrugged off suggestion by the US that it was the outlier in Indias bid to get into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Chinese response came to comments by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal, who had pointed finger at China for stalling Indias entry into the elite nuclear club. Clearly there is one outlier that needs to be addressed and that is China, she had said. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in Beijing today: I just want to point out that NSG membership shall not be some kind of (a) farewell gift (reference to outgoing Obama administration) for countries to give to each other. For China, the tricky question is that if India is allowed entry into the NSG, so should other non-NPT states like Pakistan. India has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the basis that it is discriminatory in nature but has argued that its clean record in non-proliferation makes it a fit candidate for NSG membership. China has now taken the stand that first rules need to be put in place that would be applicable to the admission of all non-NPT countries followed by discussions on admitting specific nations. The idea, of course, being that if India gets into the nuclear club, so should Pakistan be allowed in. Washington, January 16 The Indo-US diplomatic crisis that erupted in 2013 with the arrest of woman diplomat Devyani Khobragade was not only a low point in ties but both sides learnt very important lessons from it, a top official of the outgoing Obama administration has said. The diplomatic crisis that unfolded within weeks of my coming in, surely was a test for both countries. I think, not only it was a low point but more importantly it was a learning moment for both countries. We drew very very important lessons on both sides from that, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI. Sharing some of these lessons, Biswal said first lesson learnt was that one cannot allow for or afford for complacency to creep in to a relationship, which is as important for the US-India relationship. It requires constant attention to issues large and small. Two, you can't allow small issues to fester or go unattended. Three, you have to operate in each other countries in a way that is consistent with and in accordance with the legal and regulatory acts of that country, she said. PTI London, January 16 US President-elect Donald Trump will propose offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Moscow, he told The Times of London. Criticising previous US foreign policy in an interview published on Monday, he described the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as possibly the gravest error in the history of the US and akin to throwing rocks into a beehive. But Trump, who will be 45th US President, raised the prospect of the first big nuclear arms control agreement with Moscow since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. They have sanctions on Russia, lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia, the Republican president-elect was quoted as saying by The Times. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit. The United States and Russia are by far the worlds biggest nuclear powers. The United States has 1,367 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic missiles and bombers, and Russia has 1,796 such deployed warheads, according to the latest published assessment by the US State Department. Trump has said he will seek to improve relations with Moscow despite criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. TheUS and other Western powers imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. Asked whether he would trust German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Putin more, Trump said: Well, I start off trusting bothbut lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all. Reuters White House press briefing room may be relocated The incoming Trump administration may move the White House press briefing room to another spacious location nearby, prompting a sharp reaction from correspondents who said the plan would critically affect their ability to do their jobs. The White House press corps was stunned by reports of a proposal to eject reporters from the West Wing a move that, if carried out, would uproot decades of established protocol whereby journalists are allowed to work in the White House close to senior officials. NATO obsolete: Trump The NATO alliance is an obsolete organisation, US President-elect Donald Trump has said in an interview, complaining that the pact had not bothered about terrorism. I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago, Trump told the todays editions of German tabloid Bild and the Times of London. While he said NATO remains very important to me, he returned to a favourite campaign-trail complaint that some NATO allies werent paying enough. German carmakers get 35% import tariff threat Donald Trump warned German car companies of imposing a border tax of 35% on vehicles imported to the US market, a plan that drew sharp rebukes from Berlin and hit the automakeras shares. Trump criticised German carmakers such as BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen for failing to produce more cars on US soil. I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35% tax, then you can forget that, Trump said Washington, January 16 US President Barack Obama has said that Donald Trump was a change candidate and cautioned people against underestimating the President-elect, even as he acknowledged that it has been an unusual transition. He was a change candidate, Obama told CBS News in his final interview as the President of the United States. Asked if anyone could change Washington, Obama said, I think the American people can change Washington. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) But I think that it is not going to change, because somebody from high directs that change. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are motivated by all kinds of issues, the 55-year-old outgoing President said. Theyre sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing theyre interested in is getting re-elected. And if they think that its harder for them to get re-elected by cooperating with each other, then they wont cooperate, Obama said. Reflecting on the election campaign, the US President said Trump was clearly able to tap into a lot of grievances. And he has a talent for making a connection with his supporters that overrode some of the traditional benchmarks of how youd run a campaign or conduct yourself as a presidential candidate, Obama said of the billionaire-turned-politician, who will be sworn in on January 20. What will be interesting to see is how that plays out during the course of his presidency. We are moving into an era where a lot of people get their information through tweets and sound bites and some headline that comes over their phone, he said, in an apparent reference to the series of tweets that Trump writes every day, which very often are the main source of news. And I think that theres a power in that. Theres also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isnt the same as the process required to actually solve the problem, Obama noted. Obama also cautioned political pundits and others who are critical of Trump that they should not underestimate him. First of all, I think everybody has to acknowledge dont underestimate the guy, because hes going to be 45th President of the United States, he said. The one thing Ive said to him directly, and I would advise my Republican friends in Congress and supporters around the country, is just make sure that, as we go forward certain norms, certain institutional traditions dont get eroded, because theres a reason theyre in place, he said. Responding to a question, Obama acknowledged that this is an unusual transition. Describing Trump as an unconventional candidate, Obama said he did not think there is anybody who had run a campaign like this successfully in modern history. Not that I can think of. And, as a consequence because he didnt have the support of many of the establishment in his own party, because he ran sort of an improvisational campaign--, he said. However, Obama said he did not think Trump could run an improvisational presidency. PTI Since its launch in December 1970, the Tulsa Port of Catoosa has grown from 2,000 virtually empty acres at the head of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System to a vital economic hub for the entire region. And for the majority of that time the multi-modal shipping complex and industrial park has been linked to one man its aptly named director Robert W., or Bob, Portiss. At the end of January, after some 40 years with the City of Tulsa Rogers County Port Authority and 32 years as its director, the 73-year-old will retire. A typical land development project, you start out at a crawl, and then you begin to walk, and then you go a little bit faster, Portiss said. And at some point, depending on the alignment of the stars, you might start to run. And that is what Ive seen here. Portiss was hired as the ports manager of traffic and sales in March 1973, not long after earning his graduate degree in economics from North Dakota State University and straight off of a job helping small communities in southeastern Oklahoma put together financial packages for various grant and aid programs. I was just like a kid in a candy store because of the fact that heres 2,000 acres of land (and) there was nothing here, Portiss said. We had the main wharf and basically two warehouse buildings, and I thought, God, this is incredible. What an opportunity. Im just a young guy and this is a ground floor of an incredible project. I was really excited about it. Despite loving his job at the port, Portiss left in 1974 to take a job with a land development company to develop the skills that had come less naturally to him than the transportation side of the business. By the end of 1977, at the invitation of port director Harley Ladd the same person who hired him the first time Portiss was back in Catoosa. Seven years later, he became director. And hes been there ever since. You cannot talk about the port of Catoosa and not include Bob Portiss in the conversation, said A.H. Chip McElroy, chairman of the Port Authority board of directors. His passion for waterway commerce, his vision and his 40 years of leadership have created the leadership team, the community and the extensive developments that make the Port what it is today. Success despite storms Bolstered by an oil boom, the industrial park at the port experienced its first major explosion of activity in the early 1980s. People thought there was no end to the economic activity that was going on, Portiss said. We just exploded. It was almost like you were waiting in the lobby out there for us to cut the next deal with. Then, the crunch hit. The honeymoon was over, Portiss said. I said we have to find a way to be more diversified in our approach, Portiss said. Now did we try not to be diversified? Of course not. It was just what was happening. But we said, This really is an eye-opener for us. We need to become more diversified. And we did. There have also been the inevitable challenges with water level drops or excessive rain, including the rains of 2015 that put cargo movement on hold for the longest time in the ports history. The infrastructure of the nations inland waterway system which is owned and maintained by the federal government and seems to have an ever-growing backlog of needs with less money appropriated each year to address them has also been an issue, with Portiss among the most vocal advocates warning what could happen if part of the system fails. Last year Congress passed a bill to enable the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to accept assistance from ports and other entities to address critical maintenance. The biggest accomplishment, Portiss said, is fulfilling the ports mandate to the residents of Tulsa and Rogers County to operate in a financially solvent manner. They were promised prior to their 1967 approval of $21.2 million in bonds that backed the industrial complexs development that the port would operate as a business to spend a dollar, it would have to make a dollar. We have been able to operate in a financially solvent manner from day one and we have been able to take care of the infrastructure needs that this port needed to be able to reach a fully developed status, which is where were at now, Portiss said. From a land developers perspective, with what little acreage we have left, we could characterize ourselves as being a fully developed port. But the fact that weve been able to do that is incredible because we had that $21.2 million worth of general obligation bonds. If you take a look at the investments that weve been able to make over the past 40 years, the value of those investments today are worth $150 million. And that $150 million has been leveraged to attract over $2 billion of private investment. And when you look at the amount of money that we owe on the original 2,000 acres we dont. Portiss humility sets tone Portiss is adamant that it is the ports board of directors (all volunteers) and its team of employees and not he who deserve much of the credit for the success of the industrial park and shipping complex. Those qualities of modesty and unpretentiousness, current deputy director David Yarbrough said, are just the kind of person that Portiss is. Hes very humble, Yarbrough said. He treats our staff like were a team, and he sits down and asks for input. If you say I dont think thats right, he says, Why? Ive not been in a culture like that in my career. That culture of empowerment and humility is one that Yarbrough said he absolutely wants to continue when he succeeds Portiss by stepping into the port director role. Yarbrough said Portiss mentorship has helped him and even impacted his family. Yarbroughs children were watching a live stream of the October 2015 White House ceremony when Portiss was among those awarded the White House Transportation Champions of Change award. They remarked to their father how his boss ended up owning that room because of his sincere and enthusiastic interest in what the other honorees had done. Portiss was among the winners chosen by the U.S. Transportation Secretary and the White House for his advocacy for inland waterway issues and efforts toward forging a formal partnership between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Arkansas-Oklahoma Port Operators Association. He has a quality of owning the room because he relates to people and he cares about them and he knows their names and he usually knows if theyve got a new baby in the family or something, Yarbrough said. Hes just one of those people that remembers that stuff and asks about it. Personally and professionally, Ive just never met anybody quite like him. Its something to aspire to and to emulate. So yeah, would I change his culture here? No way. Local Afghanistan veteran Anthony Marquez is a true hero and skilled craftsman he creates commemorative wooden carvings for families of fallen and wounded soldiers (see PHOTO gallery). The 29-year-old served in the U.S. Marine Corps from June 2007 to March 2012, with his last deployment to Sangin Afghanistan in 2011. There, his unit 1st Battalion 5th Marines saw 17 killed in action and 160 wounded on the battlefield. To honor their service, Marquez made a promise to himself last summer to carve a memorial for each family that lost their son in Sangin. These carvings are very important to me, Marquez said, and my main goal is honoring those who sacrificed everything and ensuring the families that their loved ones are not forgotten. The dedicated veteran creates the carvings from his backyard and garage, where he hauls in large pieces of tree trunk that he forms into a battlefield cross a memorial consisting of a military helmet resting atop a machine gun anchored by combat boots. I just have (a) cardboard stencil, he said. Other than that, I have a dummy rifle and a pair of boots and a helmet that I look off of. Theres no sketches, theres no planning of it, you just start carving on it. Etched into the base of the wood is an XVII, signifying the 17 comrades Marquez lost in his battalion. He said he carves each sculpture what he calls XVII Carvings by hand with a chainsaw and takes around 16 hours over two to four days to complete the process. It has a lot of meaning to me, he said. I can put my full effort into it, because to me, its more than just a carving, its emotional When I finish the boots and the rifle, you just step back and you just start crying because you remember everything. The dedicated veteran completed his first carving last July with the help of a mentor and presented it to the Gold Star Mother of Robert Grenigers at his grave at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis, Minn., on the fifth anniversary of his death. Marquez also just completed his second carving for Sgt. Joshua Bouchard, a wounded veteran in Boston, Mass., whose house recently burned down. The sculpture will be auctioned off through the Boston Wounded Vet Run in February, with the proceeds going to help Bouchard. Marquez said for each carving he does, he has a close conversation with those family members receiving it to learn more about the kind of person their son was. He said this helps him have a one-on-one connection with them while creating it. Each carving is for a different person lost, he said. I have them send me a picture of their loved one that memorial piece is for, that way when I sit down to do that carving, then its more personal to me, its not just another customer and gone. Since his first carving in July, Marquez has decided to start his own business after receiving several requests from friends and families to create a memorial for them or their loved ones. Interested parties can visit xviicarvings.com to learn more and place an order for a sculpture. In April, Marquez will be traveling to Moxee, Wash., to donate his third carving to the family of Joe Jackson, who was the first in the 1st Battalion 5th Marines to be killed in action while in Sangin. There, he will pay tribute to Jacksons service through a dedication ceremony. Its taxing physically and its taxing emotionally but I feel like I should do them because I want the families to have something more, to have something genuine, unique, that lets them know their loved one (is remembered). A Princes Town homeowner says he believes a water leak is to blame for a landslip affecting their home. He tells our reporter Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh that his investigations reveal that it' a WASA leak, and although he's made numerous reports to the authority, they continue to ignore his complaints. The EE British Academy Film Awards 2017 will screen in mid-February. Held at the Royal Albert Hall, Stephen Fry is returning to host the ceremony as BAFTA celebrates its 70th anniversary. UKTV is claiming this as express but airing on Tuesday February 14, a day after being held in London (Feb 13 Australian time), is not particularly express when we are talking awards shows. Last years event managed to be held on the Monday night. In 2015 there was even a 7:30am screening, within minutes of the UK live event. The awards are renowned for welcoming and honouring an impressive line-up of stars and are regarded as an important indicator of the frontrunners for the Academy Awards. This years nominations reflect a stellar year in film, with La La Land leading with eleven BAFTA nominations; Arrival and Nocturnal Animals taking nine nominations apiece, and Manchester by the Sea receiving six. Australian film Lion, which follows the true story of a young boy adopted by an Australian couple on his search for his birth parents 25 years later, is nominated in five categories, including Best Supporting Actress for Nicole Kidman. This will be her fourth BAFTA-nomination, and she previously won the Leading Actress award for The Hours. 8.30pm Tuesday, 14th February on UKTV. UNHCR staff receive surviors at the dock of the Sicilian port of Messina, Sicily. UNHCR/Marco Rotunno UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has praised the rescue of some 1,500 people by the Italian Coastguard in coordination with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, from boats struggling in rough weather on the Mediterranean over the past three days. In the wake of at least one known shipwreck of an over-crowded and flimsy vessel off the coast of Libya, at least eight bodies were recovered by European authorities. According to the Italian Coast Guard, a French ship operating under the Frontex operation sighted and rescued four people in high seas on Saturday 3040 miles (4864 kilometres) from Libyan shores. Early reports from survivors say at least 100 people were on board a dinghy that collapsed some 3040 miles from the Libyan coast, between Tripoli and Misurata. Last night (14 January), the Italian Coastguard rescued another 34 people close to oil platforms some 55 miles (88 kilometres) from the Libyan coast. Italian authorities also report that three survivors from another rescue operation have since died from hypothermia, while another two had died on board a dinghy from suffocation. Survivors and victims from rescue efforts in recent days have already been disembarked on Saturday in Lampedusa and on Sunday in the port city of Messina, on the north east coast of Sicily. UNHCR staff assisted during the operations and during the mourning of the victims. In what is already a tragic start to 2017 on the Mediterranean Sea, I am really heartened to see the first priority of saving lives in action through the rescue efforts of the Italian Coastguard and Frontex who have braved such extreme weather to rescue so many people, said Vincent Cochetel. The survivors whether refugees or migrants have gone through unimaginable physical and psychological suffering, said Cochetel, adding that UNHCR will work closely with authorities to refer them to health services. Last year was the deadliest year on record on the Mediterranean Sea with more than 5,000 deaths recorded. This compares to the 3,771 recorded in 2015. This deadly start to 2017 highlights the urgent need for States to increase pathways for admission of refugees, such as resettlement, private sponsorship and family reunification, so they do not have to resort to dangerous journeys and the use of people smugglers. Media contacts: Nigerian refugees wait to be registered by UNHCR in Ngouboua, western Chad. Chadian Red Cross/H.Abdoulaye DAKAR, Senegal, January 9 (UNHCR) - The UN refugee agency on Friday reported that some 7,300 Nigerian refugees have arrived in western Chad in the past 10 days, fleeing attacks by insurgents on Baga town and surrounding villages in north-east Nigeria. A spokesperson said UNHCR teams in Chad were at the border and seeking more information on the new arrivals and their needs. The attack this week on Baga left hundreds of people dead, according to media reports, and forced most of its surviving inhabitants to flee. The newly arrived refugees in Chad are staying with local communities in villages around 450 kilometres north-west of the capital, N'Djamena. The Chadian government has requested the assistance of aid agencies to help the refugees - distribution of relief items has started. UNHCR is assessing the protection situation and coordinating aid delivery. "We're already providing plastic sheets, jerry cans, mats, blankets and kitchen tools. Other humanitarian organizations are distributing aid too," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards noted in Geneva. Chadian authorities visited the area on Thursday and asked UNHCR to help with the relocation of more than 1,000 refugees who are stranded on the island of Kangala on Lake Chad. The group arrived there recently after fleeing the general insecurity in north-east Nigeria. Chad is now hosting more than 10,000 refugees from Nigeria. Meanwhile in Niger, UNHCR has started to relocate refugees from the border area of Gagamari to Sayam Forage camp, deeper inside Niger's Diffa region. A total 336 refugees have been moved in three convoys since December 30. More convoys are planned in the next days. The refugees are among the thousands of people who fled to the Gagamari area in the past weeks following November's attack on the Nigerian town of Damassak. A second camp is scheduled to open in the next days in Kablewa, in the Lake Chad area of Niger, where thousands of people have found refuge in the past months. On arrival in Sayam Forage camp, refugees are being registered by UNHCR and the National Eligibility Commission of Niger. They receive identity documents and basic relief items. Drinking water is being delivered by trucks and emergency latrines have been built. Not all refugees are choosing to be relocated away from the border. Despite the proximity of the conflict in Nigeria, many are hoping to return to their home villages when the situation calms down. In December, the first results of a continuing government census, organized with UNHCR technical support, revealed that at least 90,000 people, including Niger nationals previously living in Nigeria, have found refuge in Niger's Diffa region since May 2013. In all, the conflict in north-east Nigeria has led to the exodus of 135,000 people - around 35,000 Nigerians to Cameroon and 10,000 to Chad - and the displacement of at least 850,000 people within Nigeria's Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. By Helene Caux in Dakar, Senegal and Benoit Moreno in Niamey, Niger Colt Paulsen, a student from the University of Nebraska in Omaha is currently majoring in broadcasting. And this lucky student is about to meet one of his idols. Paulsen, who is a 2014 graduate from Cozad High School, is cast as a fan on the new television show on ABC titled "Big Fan." In the show airing tonight, he is going to show up in an episode with Kim Kardashian and two other fans. After seeing a Twitter post from Kardashian encouraging people to apply as super fans on the show, he acted right away, as reported by the North Platte Telegraph. Currently, this University of Nebraska student is with the Develop Model Management. He has the experience of multiple photo shoots and has done the cat walk in Omaha Fashion Week. Plus, he is the first ever red carpet correspondent for the event. Which is why he is no stranger to show business and fashion. His background in modeling and broadcasting, as well as his audition video, is bringing him in front of the camera. In Cozad High School, he made a talk show focusing on celebrity gossip and school. It was called "Hay Haymakers." After receiving a phone call from California and a few interviews, he is in the show. Back in April 2016 he flew to Los Angeles for a full day of filming. He confesses that he did receive the "star treatment" on the show. Being a broadcasting major undergraduate, he found the experience behind the scenes fun. And he further says that meeting his celebrity idol is surreal. He dreams of being in front of the camera and moving to Los Angeles and start a career on show business. He already knows what he is going to do after he graduates from the University of Nebraska. He is planning an internship in L.A or even New York. Paulsen hopes that Jimmy Kimmel is going to hire him as an intern. "Big Fan" is airing on ABC, on Jan. 16, 9 p.m., as reported by the Lexington Clipper-Herald. Watch Colt Paulsen during the Omaha Fashion Camp below: Stephen Tegler, the chairman of Northern Arizona University, announces that the school is going to offer an Astronomy doctorate program. It has taken decades but it is finally happening. The university is going to feature a new emphasis on research. Northern Arizona University is known for its physics and astronomy research and opening this doctorate program will enable students to gain access to labs and observatories. This all started over ten years ago but it solidified after the research department has been discussing an additional doctorate program for years. It was only three years ago when the university asked them to write a proposal and business plan for the Astronomy doctorate program, as reported by the Arizona Daily Sun. The program's coordinator and professor, David Trilling, explains that Astronomy is quite important in the state and having research and training available means opportunities in progress and growth. This also allows the university to become viable for grant funding. According to Tegler, this is a huge expansion, as reported by The Daily Progress. Tegler explains that they are going to need five new faculty members. Maybe even more in order to fill faculty positions. This also includes an astrochemist. He also adds that both graduates and undergraduates are going to have the opportunity to work on astronomy research. The program will have different areas of specialty. It includes working to build a flight instrument designed to go to Mars. Trilling announces that four students have already enrolled and they are aiming to reach 25 students. For those thinking of enrolling, the first two years of the doctorate program (which usually takes five to six years to complete) will focus on understanding planetary sciences. The remaining years will focus on working on a research with mentors. The university hopes that their Ph.D. program explores the opportunities space has to offer and at the same time open discussions surrounding the field. They also aim to have the program recognized around the United States and even globally for its discoveries. Explore the mysteries of space with this NAU video below: Bitcoin is still a relatively new term. And it is being used by some for financial transactions. But not a lot of people understand what it is. Bitcon is a cryptocurrency and a payment system created by Satoshi Nakomoto. It is considered to be the first decentralized digital currency. Through the years, Bitcoin has already earned its popularity and has already been used by several merchants online. For those who want to better understand what Bitcoin is about there are university courses available, in the United States and abroad, that can help students understand the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The University of Nicosia This Cyprus school offers a course in Digital Currency. An online course is also available, as reported by The Merkle. There are already 5,000 students enrolled and the university expects it to grow in number. New York University NYU has opened classes since 2014. The university focuses on the legal aspect of Bitcoin at first. They also have a course focusing the "Revolution in Money and Payments," as reported by NYU Stern School of Business. Stanford University Stanford has launched courses on Bitcoin and block chain technology a few years ago. This is a full time Bitcoin course and one of the fewest available. It focuses on the bitcoin applications as well as other programs associated with the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Princeton University The course in Princeton, titled "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technology" can be taken through Coursera. It also has a book available on Amazon. For those interested to take the course on Coursera, a new class will start on Jan. 23. Duke University Duke is one of the first major American universities to offer a course on Bitcoin in 2014. The course is titled "Innovation and Cryptoventures." The course ran in 2015 and 2016. Schedules for 2017 have not yet been released because the school is still studying the demand for it. Watch the video below for an introduction to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies: Iraqi-led forces successfully seized Mosul University from the Islamic State. The public academic institution was said to have been used by the militant group as its weapon factory. Reuters reported that Iraqi Special Forces did a thorough check on the campus of Mosul University on Sunday. A spokesperson revealed that the inspection was done to verify that no Islamic State militants are in the vicinity. Troops were also confirmed to have taken another area near the eastern part of the Tigris River. This is a significant feat for Iraqi forces as they continue to regain control over ISIS' major strongholds. On Sunday, counter-terrorism service (CTS) spokesman Sabah al-Numan told the publication that Mosul University has completely been liberated and that they are clearing the area of militants. He also confirmed that the troops will continue to reclaim areas near the school. According to the Associated Press, the Special Forces entered Mosul University grounds on Friday morning. They were able to take control of a neighborhood in the northeastern part of the school compound as well as the technical institute in the campus. While this is a major victory against the militant group, there are still more battles to be fought. NPR noted that ISIS still has full control of the west side of the city which has over 70,000 civilians. CNN added that the Iraqi troops found massive amounts of supposed chemical substances. They also discovered a "bomb factory" at the university. Moreover, police revealed on Saturday that information from intelligence had led them to uncover a factory that was used to create chemical and toxic material for explosives. The facility was discovered on Friday in al-Bir, which is estimated to be 45 kilometers (27 miles) south of Mosul. ISIS terrorists have been able to use mustard gas for its chemical weapons. Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi also confirmed that their night raids have been effective in infiltrating ISIS headquarters. Oxford University accidentally revealed its list of rejected applicants. It included personal information of the candidates such as their names and addresses. Telegraph reported that the school unintentionally circulated a list of the names of rejected applicants. Hertford College sent the email to applicants informing them that they had been turned down. However, copies of similar letters to all 200 other unsuccessful candidates were attached along with it. The letters included information such as names, home addresses and the subjects they applied for. The error catapulted to a massive scale since applicants came from all over the world. Afterwards, the rejected applicants were sent a second email containing an apology for the mistake and urged them to delete the first message. One parent expressed disappointment over the blunder, saying that it was bad enough that they were turned down after days of intensive interviews. Now, everyone else knows about the rejection as well. According to BBC, Principal Will Hutton has apologized for the mistake and the distress that it caused. He has also confirmed that they are ensuring that this never happens again by reviewing its procedures. Metro noted that the letters were sent by Hertford College's senior tutor Charlotte Brewer. Alumni of the college include author Evelyn Waugh, Fiona Bruce, the BBC newsreader, and Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary. The mishap comes as British universities are debating on the effect that Brexit will have for the higher education industry. University experts warned that Brexit could lead to the "biggest disaster for the university sector in many years." University of Oxford's head of Brexit strategy Alastair Buchan said that Brexit would lead to high risks of damage on one of the nation's best industries. He described this industry as the "knowledge-based economy" in the country. Moreover, the exit would most likely lead to the cutting off of the flow of excellent people to Britain. As Oxford Brookes University's vice-chancellor, Alistair Fitt, phrased it: this may be the "biggest disaster for the university sector" in recent years. Huawei's Honor 8 is finally receiving Android 7.0 Nougat. The software update will come first to Japan users and head to the United States at a later date. Huawei Japan will begin rolling out Android 7.0 Nougat and EMUI 5.0 to Japan's Honor 8 on Monday, Jan. 16, Phone Arena reported. The software update will be released gradually, with all Honor 8 devices expected to have it in a month. Honor 8 users in the U.S., however, will get the software update a month later or in February. The update is 1.97 GB in size and Huawei advised users to back up their personal data before launching the software's new version. Also, the phone's battery level should be at 50 percent or above so it won't shut down during the upgrade process. Honor 8 needs the current FRD-L02C635B130 build to be eligible for Android 7.0 Nougat. If a device is on the build number FRD-L02C635B100, it needs to be upgraded to the latest build for the latest software version. The Android 7.0 Nougat can be installed to the Honor 8 via OTA notification and the official HiCare app. Android 7.0 Nougat comes with 72 new emojis along with a multi-window view, quick switch between apps, VR mode for Daydream-ready phones, the battery saver Doze and Data Saver, among others. On top of these features, Huawei also added some system optimizations, stability improvements and better app versatility to their mobile devices. The Honor 8, which was released late last year, is equipped with a 12MP primary camera, an 8MP front-facing snapper, 4GB of RAM, a 3000mAh battery and an internal memory storage of 32 or 64GB, GSM Arena listed. The device has a 5.2-inch display, with a 1080x1920-pixel resolution with 423 ppi pixel density. Huawei's Honor 8 has a close resemblance to the newly released Huawei P8 Lite, Phandroid reported. Check out the Huawei P8 Lite's appearance below. Huawei P8 Lite announced with Kirin 655 SoC, 3GB RAM https://t.co/z6Ej85dqhv pic.twitter.com/SniuNOKA8h Gizmo Times (@gizmotimestech) January 13, 2017 The Huawei P8 Lite comes with a better processor -- the Kirin 655 -- than its predecessors. The handset has 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal expandable storage, a 16MP primary camera, an 8MP front-facing snapper, 3000mAh battery and a 5.2-inch FHD IPS (1920x1080) display. The Honor 8 and Huawei P8 Lite are similar in how their fingerprint scanners are placed on the back. President-elect Donald Trump has met with Princeton physicist William Happer. The professor is known for being vocal about the pros of climate change instead of focusing on its cons. The Washington Post reported that Trump and Happer met on Friday. This raised a lot of concerns since the Princeton professor of physics is notorious for his claim that the benefits brought about by climate change outweigh the disadvantages. The Hill journalist Timothy Cama tweeted that William Happer was spotted at Trump Tower on Jan. 13. There are speculations that the meeting was to discuss about a government post for the Princeton physicist in the energy or science departments. In an interview with CNBC last 2014, via the Huffington Post, Happer likened "the demonization of carbon dioxide" to the "demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler." He clarified that CO2 actually has a lot of benefits that it can give to the world. He has argued that carbon dioxide brings increased agricultural yields which, according to him, outweigh any harm that it comes along with it. He also explained that the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide would cause just 0.5 or 1.5 degrees Celsius of planetary warming, which has been debunked by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Gizmodo added that the Princeton professor has not denied climate change. It's just that he has a radically different view of it as compared to the rest of the scientific community. Recently, the House Science Committee faced backlash for retweeting a post about a misleading and unscientific article that denied climate-change. The committee has 38 members. All of whom are in-charge of all energy, environmental, marine, civil aviation and astronautics research and development. This comes after Donald Trump continues to appoint climate-change deniers to office. He has previously tweeted that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." An event featuring Milo Yiannopoulos and Martin Shkreli at the University of California - Davis has been canceled. This came after it sparked protests on Friday night. The Los Angeles Times reported that protesters were shouting and became rowdy before the event. Police at the university had to place barricades and the event sponsor, the UC Davis College Republicans, opted to cancel the talk. Campus police have confirmed, though, that no violence or property destruction happened. There have been no arrests made as well. Milo Yiannopoulos is a conservative commentator who writes for Breitbart.com. He has been permanently banned from Twitter after he blasted "Ghostbusters" actress Leslie Jones on the social media site, which resulted to a harassment campaign. Ralph Hexter, the school's interim chancellor, expressed his disappointment over the protests and the subsequent cancellation. He said that the university's community is based on respecting and listening to all views; even those which they "personally find repellant." According to NBC News, Martin Shkreli admitted that he was there to have a debate with Yiannopoulos. He also deemed the cancellation of the event as "reasonable." Shkreli used to work as the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals last year. He stepped down after he was charged with securities fraud. He was sharply criticized after increasing the price of a powerful drug used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection. Protesters had carried signs with words like "Fascism, Hate & Bigotry Will Not Be Tolerated." Shkreli was ushered out of the area after a protester went near him and blew a whistle. Last year, DePaul University gained criticisms for refusing to let security remove protesters who rushed onstage and derailed an event featuring Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos. The school has also been blasted for its "free speech tax." DePaul University faced backlash for charging political student groups with fees for hosting discussion and lecture events. It has been referred to as "free speech tax," which is the unusual amount of money that the school has subjected student organizations during the planning of said events. January 16 2017 Glasgows student housing sector remains in rude health with the submission of plans for 100 studio apartments on the site of a former playground at Kelvinhaugh Primary, Gilbert Street, by Ryder.The resulting brick building will turn the corner to Teviot Street with landscaped amenity space over a no build area over the Kelvinhaugh railway tunnel.In their design statement the architects noted: The ground floor plinth acknowledges the adjacent primary building and is defined by a solid brick base. The ground floor at this level responds to the streetscape through enlarged bay openings reflecting the differing window cill heights.The main body of the facade is defined by recessed brickwork which have an assymetrical relationship to the windows.The fourth storey is set directly above the cornice datum of the former Kelvinhaugh primary.Prepared on behalf of Blocwork the scheme will complement a recent consent for a 607-bedroom project at Kelvinhaugh Street as part of a slow reinstatement of the areas urban fabric. (Repeats Friday story without changes) * Ukraine sold Russia $3 bln bond weeks before regime change * Moscow at odds with Kiev's now pro-Western government * Russia chooses public hearing over private arbitration * London High Court hearing starts on Jan. 17 By Karin Strohecker LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - A $3 billion dispute between two adversarial governments will come to a head in an English court on Tuesday when Russia and Ukraine meet for a first hearing in their legal battle over a politically charged eurobond. The debt at the heart of the dispute was sold in late December 2013 by then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich to Russia, less than two months before his Moscow-backed government was ousted by street protests that the swept ex-Soviet republic. Fast-forward through a pro-Western change of government in Kiev, Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and an International Monetary Fund bailout for Ukraine involving a restructuring of sovereign, hard currency bonds. Those bonds, restructured to pull the near-bankrupt Ukraine back from the brink, were chiefly held by private investors - aside from $3 billion worth held by the Russian government. Moscow insists the bond which matured in December 2015 is sovereign debt and should never have been included in the restructuring plan. Kiev refused to repay the bond, saying Russia should have participated in the restructuring. Russia, represented by Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP, filed a lawsuit in February 2016 demanding a full $3 billion repayment plus legal fees and interest, which according to Moscow's finance ministry amounted to $75 million a year ago. The case, which will be heard at the High Court on Jan. 17, is unusual in many ways, according to Mitu Gulati, a law professor at Duke University in the United States. "The most important big issue here is: Does Ukraine actually owe money to a country that basically ran it as a vassal state and invaded it and took its territory? And that is the kind of question that courts usually don't ever decide," said Gulati. Story continues The bond is unusual because countries do not generally lend to each other under a third country's legal framework, opting instead for direct bilateral agreements. Terms are often kept under wraps. If debt relief is needed, it tends to be agreed under the framework of the Paris Club of creditor nations, of which Russia is a permanent member. This bond however was structured under English Law, and both Russia and Ukraine had agreed from the outset that a British court ought to decide on possible disputes, Gulati noted. "Now a dispute is actually happening, and rather than negotiating and resolving it on their own, they are bringing it in front of a judge which means the judge is going to have to decide on matters that affect international law, not just commercial law." Both Russia and Ukraine's government declined to comment. UKRAINE SAYS BOND WAS ISSUED UNDER DURESS Ukraine's defence, managed by Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, centres around a number of arguments. First, that the bond had never been properly authorised by Ukraine's parliament and government, was issued under duress and was subject to a number of implied additional terms. Kiev should also be allowed to take "counter-measures" in response to actions taken by Russia, it argued, according to a defence document seen by Reuters. Russia's "illegal invasion and unlawful occupation" had deprived Ukraine "of the entire purported economic benefit of the transaction", the document states in its defence. The hearing comes after Russia requested a summary judgement, often used to speed up proceedings. This means the court will look at each of Ukraine's defence arguments and decide if they are likely to stand up in court. Following this, it could allow the case to go to trial, or not. Russia had the option of a private hearing at the London International Court of Arbitration, according to the bond prospectus, but the fact it chose to bring the case to a public court shows it is confident of victory, legal experts said. "Their choice was very interesting," said Peter Griffin at Slaney Advisors, an expert in international arbitration and foreign investment disputes. "Russia's case seems to me very strong. And Russia has played this one really intelligently from the beginning - it is almost like they have been two steps ahead of Ukraine and everyone else." (Additional reporting by Natasha Zinets in Kiev and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; editing by Mark Heinrich) A production line of Viet Hung Plastic Company in the northern province of Hung Yen supplying packaging to Samsung Viet Nam.-VNS Photo Vu Hoa A production line of Viet Hung Plastic Company in the northern province of Hung Yen supplying packaging to Samsung Viet Nam.-VNS Photo Vu Hoa Also, Samsung plans to raise the number of level-1 suppliers in Viet Nam to 29 this year, said Han Myoungsup, President of Samsung Complex Viet Nam. Several local companies were able to join Samsungs production chain, showing that Viet Nams support industry could be developed if domestic firms know how to take advantage of the opportunities provided by large enterprises. Samsung Viet Nams management board last week visited and surveyed the two companies, An Lap Plastic Co Ltd in Ha Nois Long Bien District and Viet Hung Plastic Co Ltd in Hung Yen Province. It also worked directly with three other suppliers, including PTE Company, Minh Nguyen Company and Viet Hung Plastic Co Ltd in HCM City. This field survey is part of Samsungs programme to provide experts to help Vietnamese vendors improve their capacity to join Samsungs supply chain. Samsung Viet Nam has also recorded a significant breakthrough in raising the localisation rate of products, from 35 per cent in 2014 to 51 per cent in 2016. This is a great contribution that helps made-in-Viet Nam products become popular worldwide, Han said. Samsungs five-vendor visit is part of the supporting programme of Samsungs experts for Vietnamese businesses. Accordingly, Samsungs experienced experts from South Korea have directly assisted the five enterprises in the past three months to improve their production process to assure they meet Samsungs criteria. They are also five of 14 Vietnamese vendors who have received Samsungs direct assistance since September 2015. This supporting programme has also confirmed a strong commitment of Samsung, in response to a call by the Government of Viet Nam, which is increasing the localisation rate and the presence of Vietnamese enterprises in Samsungs component supply chain. I do hope that, through Samsungs supporting programme, Vietnamese enterprises could gain the knowledge and experience to enhance their capacities. Samsung believes that if a product can be localised, we will maximize its localised content," Han added. Hoang Anh Tuan, President of Viet Hung Plastic Company, said their turnover has seen rapid growth since they have been supplying packaging to Samsung. Last year, their sales to Samsung accounted for half of their total VND2 trillion (US$88.9 million) turnover. Our largest advantage from Samsungs supporting programme is the change in mindset. We commit to always learning and changing in order to apply experience from Samsung in the best way, Tuan added. Being suppliers to Samsung could be a quality measurement to help local firms easily participate into other value chains. We are also a packaging supplier to LG and Canon, he noted. He emphasised that joining the supply chain for Samsung has been transparent and open to all businesses. Those seek to participate in the chain without sufficient capacity would be immediately removed. Truong Quang Khoi, An Laps director, said they have opportunities to modernise their company after joining the Samsung production chain. We have received support from Samsung to upgrade our workshops, equipment and technology, as well as to learn effective management models, he added. Samsung Electronics is one of the largest foreign investors in Viet Nam, with three manufacturing plants in Bac Ninh (SEV), Thai Nguyen (SEVT) and HCM City (SEHC). With an export turnover of over $37 billion in 2016, Samsung Electronics in Viet Nam contributed 20 per cent to Viet Nams exports. This year, Samsung Electronics in Viet Nam has set a target of 7-10 per cent growth in export turnovers. Samsung aims to not only turn Viet Nam into the worlds smartphones and electronic appliance production base, but also create more opportunities for Vietnamese enterprises in the field of supporting industries to become involved in Samsungs global supply chain. Ibaraki Day Festival The Ibaraki Day Festival takes place 11am to 7pm on January 14-15 at the Aeon Mall Long Bien, Hanoi. The event is organized by Japans Ibaraki Prefecture with the aim of introducing its specialities and tourism sites such as Hitachi Park, the Fukuroda Waterfall and the Ushiku Buddhist Statue. Guests at the event can drink Japanese sake, taste different kinds of cakes and experience traditional cultural activities like Origami, the art of paper folding and calligraphic writing. Lantern festival The festival is held on January 14-15 at the Leparc Commercial Centre in the Hoang Mai District of Hanoi. In addition to contemplating different kinds of lantern, guests at the event have a chance to get one of 10,000 scarfs emblazoned with the brand Song Hye Kyo the main character in the famous Korean film Descendants of the Sun. In addition, they can purchase Vietnamese and Korean cosmetic products and receive many attractive free gifts. West Town - Flying Umbrella Street Festival The event transpires January 14-15 at the Big C Thang Long Supercentre at 212 Tran Duy Hung Street in Hanoi. Hanoians and visitors alike can see magical shows with many multi-coloured, flying umbrellas. Inspired by Agitagueda festival, Portugal West Town-Flying Umbrella Street is not only an ideal place for people who love taking pictures but also a fair with unique products made by youth. There are a wide variety of activities during the event with some 50 booths selling products from popular shops in Hanoi at highly discounted prices, prints themed Year of Rooster 2017, street art performances by artists and musicians along with calligraphy demonstrations by Kieu Quoc Khanh. Hapu Village Festival The Hapu Village Festival takes place January 14-15 at the Hapulico Complex in Thanh Xuan Hanoi. It features cultural space in rural villages during TET. Visitors can enjoy special cultural art performances such as Chau Van, ceremonial songs and love duets and meet artists and musicians. In addition, they can play traditional games and learn how to make Chung cake. Many gifts are presented to lucky guests. French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault addresses delegates at the opening of the Middle East peace conference in Paris. (AFP/Thomas SAMSON) Around 70 countries attending the Paris talks called on the two sides to avoid steps that "prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final status issues, including inter alia, Jerusalem, borders, security, refugees." The participants in the conference "will not recognise" such steps, they warned. They also agreed that the basis for the negotiations should be the 1967 borders, before Israel occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told a press conference. France organised the gathering to reaffirm global support for a Palestinian state existing alongside an Israeli state - a scenario the Palestinians fear could be jeopardised by Donald Trump's incoming US administration. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians attended the conference, which the Palestinians supported but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as "futile". US Secretary of State John Kerry, attending the talks on his farewell tour, said he had negotiated to prevent Israel being treated unfairly. "We did what was necessary to have a balanced resolution," Kerry told reporters and confirmed he had spoken to Netanyahu during the meeting to reassure him. Kerry noted that leading Arab nations had endorsed the US outline of a solution which insists on the need for two states, one of them Israel recognised as a Jewish state. The Palestinians welcomed the closing statement, with Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Secretary General Saeb Erekat saying it had "stressed the need to end the Israeli occupation". Israel though said the conference, and others like it, made peace harder to find "since they encourage the Palestinians to continue to refuse direct talks with Israel". 1967 BORDERS Ayrault said the conference participants had set out the 1967 frontiers as the cornerstone of final-status negotiations. "The basis is the 1967 borders and the major UN resolutions," he said. The conference comes as Trump's campaign pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem sparks fears of a major escalation in the Middle East. Ayrault said such a move, which would support Israel's claim that Jerusalem is its capital, would be a "provocation". Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has warned it would "destroy" peace efforts. The Palestinians regard Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel proclaims the entire city as its capital. The status of the city is one of the thorniest issues in the conflict. "When you are president of the United States, you cannot take such a stubborn and such a unilateral view on this issue. You have to try to create the conditions for peace," Ayrault told France 3 TV. President Francois Hollande told the gathering that the prospect of two independent states coexisting side-by-side - seen as increasingly elusive - "remains the goal of the entire international community". But Netanyahu, who insists only direct talks with the Palestinians can bring peace, said before the meeting it was "a last gasp of the past". Abbas has accepted Hollande's offer to come to Paris to discuss the conclusions of the talks but Netanyahu has refused, French diplomats said. TRUMP PLEDGE The conference was mainly symbolic, but comes at a crucial juncture for the Middle East, five days before Trump is sworn in as president. Trump has said "there's nobody more pro-Israeli than I am" and his choice for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is a hardliner who says he looks forward to working from "Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem". The conference came a month after a landmark UN Security Council resolution criticising Israeli settler activity that outraged Netanyahu. The vote passed after the Obama administration - in a parting shot at Netanyahu - took the rare step of abstaining rather than using its veto to protect Israel. EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the Paris conference's conclusions on Monday. A European diplomat said it was uncertain whether they would issue a statement, with Britain and some central European countries reluctant to upset the Trump administration. Britain only attended the Paris talks as an observer and so did not sign the statement. Israeli-Palestinian efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014. Tensions have spiralled recently following a wave of Palestinian attacks and inflammatory rhetoric on both sides. Israel's ongoing expansion of settlements on occupied Palestinian territory is also seen as a major obstacle to a resolution. Abbas warned starkly on Saturday about the consequences of an embassy move. "Any attempts at legitimising the illegal Israeli annexation of the city will destroy the prospects of any political process, bury the hopes for a two-state solution and fuel extremism, in our region, as well as worldwide," he said. Some major SOEs will be equitised in this period, like the Viet Nam National Chemical Group, Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group and the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. The fact that this is the first time that a Prime Mister has assigned such a mission to his finance minister indicates Phucs determination to both speed up the process and make specific organisations and individuals accountable. Speaking at a recent conference on budget finance, where the PM called for speeding up the equitisation process and State firms divestment from non-core businesses, he said he wants a smaller public sector and every SOE to be strong. To achieve a breakthrough, I urge the finance minister to act as the commander, taking the key responsibility in this battle and coming up with policies and mechanisms to achieve the goal. He also instructed the finance ministry to improve the legal framework for the capital and securities markets to international standards. The ministry has been taking the charge of working out recommendations and offering consultancy to the Government on equitisation related issues such as corporate valuation and sticking SOE equitisation to listing (the equitisation followed by listing) on the countrys stock exchanges. Speaking about the equitisation process in 201115, the Steering Committee on Corporate Renovation and Development said despite certain accomplishments, it has yet to reach the desired quality or quantity. In the past 15 years the number of SOEs has fallen from around 6,000 to over 700. Between 2011 and 2015 almost 600 SOEs were equitised, or 96 per cent of the targeted number. But a mere 8 per cent of the companies shares were sold to the public and the State still holds 92 per cent, and this has been blamed on the small size of the IPOs. The Government recently announced a change in strategy. Prime Ministers Decision 58/2016/QD-TTg issued last month fixes the rate of State ownership in individual firms that are to be equitised rather than the sector-wise rate the Government used to fix earlier. Attached to the decision is a list of 103 SOEs in which the Government will retain 100 per cent stake and another 137 that will be equitised in 201620. Of the latter, the Government will keep a 65 per cent stake in four firms, 50-65 per cent stakes in 27 and less than 50 per cent in the remaining 106. Some major SOEs will be equitised in this period, like the Viet Nam National Coal Mineral Industries Holding Corp., Viet Nam National Chemical Group, Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group, and the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. 6.6% GDP growth forecast Viet Nams GDP is expected to grow at 6.6 per cent this year following a drought-induced slowdown in 2016, according to Standard Chartered Banks Global Research Briefing. Strong manufacturing growth and increased construction activity are likely to remain the key growth drivers in 2017. The report expects the 2017 global GDP growth to remain unchanged at 1.5 per cent and be driven by emerging markets. The year 2017 is shaping up to be an exciting but volatile year. The potential reflation of the US economy is fuelling optimism, but we think this is overdone, as tightening financial conditions may stunt growth before fiscal stimulus takes root. Tighter conditions are also likely to unleash further volatility, leading to re-pricing of risk in many emerging markets, Marios Maratheftis, the banks chief economist, said. But the bank remains upbeat about the outlook for Viet Nam, which it believes is getting back on track after the drought. Most macro-economic indicators in Viet Nam have improved in recent months, and progress continues to be made in establishing appropriate macro-economic stability, Nirukt Sapru, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Viet Nam, said. We believe Viet Nam will continue to be an attractive destination for investment. Chidu Narayanan, SCBs economist, Asia, said: We expect FDI inflows in Viet Nam to slow mildly in 2017 but still remain high, at close to US$10 billion. The country has benefited from its participation in regional trade pacts, which has helped to attract significant investment. We see minimal negative impact on Viet Nam from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) potentially not going through, as FDI in anticipation of the TPP had been front-loaded. The report expects Viet Nams exports to increase only moderately, capped by still-slow demand from markets such as the US and the EU. It also expects unchanged policy rates and a slight devaluation of the dong and neutral short- and medium-term foreign exchange weightings on the currency. Flexible legal framework needed State Bank of Viet Nam Governor Le Minh Hung has said he wants greater involvement of foreign investors in the process of restructuring the countrys commercial banks and handling their bad debts. He agreed at a recent banking conference on the need for a new law to assist banks in the two tasks. Existing regulations however require strategic investors to be financial institutions with a charter capital of more than $1 billion and total assets of $10 billion. Vo Tan Hoang Van, general director of Saigon Commercial Bank, said there is no need to restrict the participation to financial institutions. Non-financial players should also be considered since they would consult prestigious organisations and experts in the field on restructuring banks and improving the governance and risk management systems, he said. He also called for increasing foreign investors ownership cap in a credit institution from the current 30 per cent to 49 per cent or more. HSBC Vietnam CEO Pham Hong Hai said the Government should buy part of the bad debts, which would encourage foreign investors to follow suit. VIB general director Han Ngoc Vu said foreign debt buyers are discouraged since the law does not allow them to own the properties mortgaged for the loans they buy. He said foreign debt buyers should be allowed to set up a debt trading firm after the purchase of a mortgaged property, and the sellers should be authorised to manage the properties and sell them to repay the money to the debt trading firm. A Vietnamese delegation led by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) 2017 in Davos, Switzerland from Tuesday to Friday.-VNS Photo Themed Responsive and Responsible Leadership, the event will feature more than 300 sessions on improving global governance, coping with insecurity and crises, promoting inclusive and sustainable growth amid global economic slowdown, economic restructuring and social reform. Participants will also discuss WEFs initiatives in the fields of consumption, digital economy and society, natural resources and environment, finance-monetary, food security and agriculture, health care, investment and international trade. Nearly 3,000 delegates are expected to join the event, including leaders from China, Germany, Japan, the Netherland; representatives from the US President-elect Donald Trumps power transition team, United Nations Secretary General and executives from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and prestigious scholars. Since Vietnam and WEF established ties in 1989, senior Vietnamese leaders have frequently attended the WEFs annual meetings in Davos and East Asia. Both sides are working closely together in agriculture. Currently, 11 Vietnamese corporations and groups are WEFs members, including the military-run telecoms provider Viettel, FPT Group and VinGroup. Unionist and opposition official Din Puthy was released on bail on Saturday three weeks after he was arrested for allegedly ramming his car into an immigration police officer. Puthy was charged with intentional violence and sent to pre-trial detention late last month after being accused of deliberately hitting Chhean Pisith near a border checkpoint in Banteay Meanchey provinces Poipet town. The release of a video of the incident on social media prompted uproar and mockery as it seemed to show Puthys car stationary when the officer fell to the ground. Pisith came under renewed fire after footage was leaked showing the officer leaving a guest house in Thailand where he had gone for treatment - with a young woman on his arm, apparently unhurt. Immediately after the incident Pisith was shown on television in Cambodia wearing a neck brace. Kim Socheat, Puthys lawyer, said his client would plead not guilty to the charge, adding that he believed his client would be acquitted. Soun Bovor, the provincial governor, said Pisith had been removed from his position to calm things down and suggested the two parties should negotiate a civil settlement to the case. Sum Chan Kea, a local representative of rights group Adhoc, said the publics reaction would likely save Puthy from an unjust conviction. If there is neither complaints nor criticism from the public, nationally and internationally, calling out the judiciary, this decision would not have been reached, he said. SINGAPORE, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Commodity pricing agency S&P Global Platts will begin assessing prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) delivered to the Middle East and Pakistan, reflecting growing imports into a region better known as an exporter, the company said on Monday. Demand for LNG in Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and Pakistan has grown close to tenfold since 2010 to 20.8 million tonnes per annum in 2016, with Egypt taking about one-third of those imports, according to Platts, a unit of S&P Global Inc. "The Platts Middle East Marker (MEM) price assessment is designed to reflect the growing importance of the Middle East as an LNG import destination rather than just an exporter of cargoes," Platts' Global Director of LNG Shelley Kerr said. Egypt and Pakistan have recently launched or awarded huge tenders for short-term and medium-term supplies, looking to take advantage of a gas glut stoked by new output from Australia and the United States. "Our analysis indicates a greater tendency for new entrants in the region to use short-term purchasing strategies, which is creating additional liquidity," Kerr said. Egypt bought 60 cargoes of the supercooled fuel for 2017 through a tender last November and is expected to need a further 40 cargoes this year. Pakistan tendered to buy 240 shipments of LNG last November, under five-year and 15-year deals that are yet to be awarded. The Egyptian port of Ain Sukhna will be used as the main point for the Platts price marker. Deliveries into other ports will be assessed by applying a freight cost factor, Platts said. The MEM price assessments will also be based on a delivered ex-ship (DES) basis to ports in the Middle East that are able to receive shipments with a minimum cargo size of 135,000 cubic meters, the company said. The price assessment will be published at 16:30 London time daily. Platts has published the Japan-Korea Marker (JKM) assessment for LNG delivered into Asia since 2009. Platts competes with Thomson Reuters in providing information to energy markets. (Reporting by Mark Tay; Editing by Tom Hogue and Sonali Paul) For reasons of poverty, personal security and the long distances from home to school, a young indigenous girl like Ro Mamorn, has had to give up on school for a year before she could get back to class. Mamorn, 14, got a chance to resume her study after a community school was built nearby her house, which means she now spends just few minutes to get school. A grade three student at a community school called Yeun Jas Primary School, located in a remote northeastern area of Cambodia, Mamorn said without this community school she would not be able to resume her education as the state school is too far from her house. She told VOA Khmer, Im afraid something bad could happen to me along the way while going to school. Unlike children living in cities and towns, the poor indigenous children in remote rural areas are more likely to give up on their education because of the long distances they must travel. Mamorn, who comes from Yeun village, about 40 kilometers from the provincial capital of Ratanakiri, was just one among hundreds of Cambodias indigenous children who have dropped out from state school. However, since the establishment of Yeun Jas, hundreds of indigenous kids in remote areas who had previously dropped out of school like Mamorn have turned their education around. Initiated by Plan International Cambodia and local partnerships, Yeun Jas Primary School in Yeun village, Kak commune, was built in 2015 by local residents. Currently, there are approximately one hundred students studying at the school. Kvay Phaet, 41, a Yeun village resident who currently has two children and three grandchildren studying at the school, said that her children and grand children had given up on their state school for the same reason as Mamorn. She told VOA Khmer, The state school is too far. Its difficult for us. And we dont have money to support travel fees. Although Kvay Phaet didnt get a proper education when she was young, she wishes the younger generation could pursue higher education at least to grade nine. Education is very important. They could use their knowledge to work or run a business to support their living. Being poor isnt happiness at all, she said. According to UNICEF analysis, a child who starts at grade one in school has only a 31 percent chance of reaching the end of lower secondary school. Key barriers to learning include family migration and the hidden costs of education. Mann Bunchhoeun, 26, a teacher and board member of the school, claimed that having a nearby community school could reduce the number of illiterate villagers and help the indigenous children to return to the classroom. For those who are unable to afford sending their children to state school, they can place their kids at a nearby community school. They dont need to spend on any travel costs, so children dont need to abandon their study. Yeun Jas Primary School has two classrooms, one is a wooden classroom while the other is a temporary tent classroom, while educational slogans are painted in the courtyard. Phen Bunthoeun, Plan International representative in Ratanakiri, said his organization and partnerships came up with the idea that the local commune could build a school on their own and helped collect school supplies such as desks, chairs and blackboards. However, he added that the government paid for the teachers salaries. The villagers want their children to attend school. A single classroom couldnt cover all students, so we needed to build another temporary tent classroom. Bunthoeun said that the active participation of the local villagers in building their own community school for their children was a good example for other communities in remote areas to follow. Heang Sine, undersecretary of state for education, youth and sports, said he would propose the Education Ministry allocate a building budget for this community school. However, he said, the decision would be made by the ministry. Mamorn dreams of becoming a doctor in the future to help treat patients in her village. Going back to school in her community is a stepping-stone to pursue her dream, she said. For education, the higher I can study, the better. An American team of academics is racing to preserve millions of Cuban historical documents before they are lost to the elements and poor storage conditions. Many of the documents shed light on the slave trade, an integral part of Cuba's colonial history that was intertwined with that of the United States. David Lafevor, a history professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, and his brother Matthew, a geography professor at the University of Alabama, have worked since 2005 to make computer copies of millions of documents mouldering in damp storage spaces on the island. Their latest project is a partnership between the British Library Foundation and Vanderbilt University to capture almost 2 million documents in digital form, a treasure trove stretching back to the mid-16th century of documents about early island life and the slave trade. David Lafevor said there is nothing like Cuba's documentary record in the U.S. Though no less ruthless when it came to slavery than the Anglos to the north, the Spanish recognized the "personhood" of slaves once they were baptized into the Catholic Church. Their births, marital status, national origin and deaths were all duly recorded in the town records and stored in church archives, leaving a historical record of blacks and their lives far more detailed than that in the U.S. Churches became the repository of much of this history because of their central role in island life and because church officials were painstaking documentarians who often were the most educated in their communities, David Lafevor said in an interview. "The documents are not only pertinent to the Catholic Church because the church was often the most substantial building in town, so other documents were kept there as well," he said. For instance, while digitizing some documents in the town of Colon, a slave trading post in colonial days that is about 175 kilometers (about 110 miles) east of Havana, Lafevor discovered that a nearby town was founded by former American slaves who had fled Spanish-ruled Florida on the mainland. The town, Ceiba Mocha, was once known as Ceiba Mocha de la Nueva St. Augustine, a reference to the city that was the capital of Spanish Florida in the 18th century. None of the town's residents were aware of its origins. Cuba's Catholic Church has played a major role in the preservation project, granting access to church archives around the island and assisting in identifying important documents. Church officials like Deacon Felix Knight of the colonial Santo Espirito Church in Old Havana, tucked away in a warren of narrow lanes in the city's colonial heart, work with the academics to find and preserve old documents. "These books reflect life, aspects of the sacramental life of blacks, obviously of whites also," Knight said. "The important thing is to preserve as many of them as possible." It is especially important to preserve the history of the Afro-Cuban community, whose history has not been well documented in Cuba, he added. Slavery wasn't outlawed in Cuba until 1886, and American slavers had used the island as a transshipment point for African slaves destined for U.S. slave markets in the South. "We are working ... to maintain and recover that which is irreplaceable, a legacy. It's a patrimony, a way of seeing that is very personal," Knight said, holding a book from 1674 that contains records of black births, marriages, deaths and civil status. The process of digitizing the papers can be painstaking. Each ancient volume is carefully removed from storage and placed on a black cloth used for background. Then each page is slowly opened and photographed. An average book can contain hundreds of pages, all in various conditions of preservation, the writing faded from age and the elements. The leather-bound volumes are remarkably resistant to decay, considering that many are stored in wooden cabinets in places with little climate control. Knight said churches were built in the colonial era to maximize air flow in the heavy tropical climate. High ceilings and thick walls kept the interiors of the churches cool and dry, helping to preserve the paper and leather-bound records. Cheaper travel and more choices for accommodations have made the recovery project easier, Lafevor said, referring to a normalization process begun by the Obama administration two years ago. The Tennessee-based team can now fly directly to the island from the U.S., avoiding expensive third-country travel. But even more important, Lafevor said, the growth of "casa particulares," the private homes that rent rooms to visitors, gives them more and cheaper choices for places to stay, allowing them to work for a month at a time. Lafevor said no one knows how many millions of documents exist in storage, nor how many have been lost to storms, pirate attacks, war and civil unrest, but the project seeks to preserve as many as possible before more are lost to history. He said the current project will run until 2018 and hopes to digitize almost 2 million documents in four cities around the island. Still, he cautioned, the project is only a small step toward preserving a vibrant historical record, with millions of more documents spanning 500 years left to preserve around the island. Using a stone, Ahmed Ali Hassan scraped away at the side of the container truck until he made a small hole, and putting his parched mouth to it, gasped for air. The overcrowded truck carrying nearly 100 migrants, many from Africa, took turns to breathe in pockets of dry air as the truck rattled through rural Nicaragua. One man from Eritrea had badly swollen fingers, a sign of severe dehydration. "We all thought we were going to die," Hassan, a Somali, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as he recalled last month's journey. "We were not treated with dignity," said the 24-year-old university student, who declined to give his real name. As Europe tightens its borders to stem the influx of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, Hassan is part of a growing surge of people from African nations seeking new routes to flee poverty, war and persecution. Hassan had paid a human smuggler $1,000 to guide him overland through Central America to reach Mexico in the hope of crossing into the United States. He is lucky not to have suffocated. In October, immigration officials in Mexico's Veracruz state found four migrants dead in a truck that smugglers had abandoned. New route The routes to Europe have become more difficult, said Claudette Walls, head of the field office for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Mexico's city of Tapachula. "What's happening in the Mediterranean is that it's becoming more and more hazardous and difficult to take that route," Walls said. "Through Latin America coming all the way up to Mexico and then on to the U.S. has become another route," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Many migrants from Africa fly to Ecuador and Brazil where few visa restrictions allow an easy point of entry into the Americas. They join the hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants fleeing poverty and gang violence every year, and who have been using the well-trodden route for decades. Immigration officials first noticed African migrants arriving in Mexico in 2013, when around six trickled in a day, mainly through Tapachula along Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. Hundreds now turn up every day. Last year between 150 to 700 African migrants arrived per day at Tapachula with a total of 19,000 migrants arriving from Africa and Haiti in 2016 according to Mexican government figures. This influx is expected to continue this year, Walls said. Mexico has also seen a tide of Haitians coming through as they seek a better life in the United States. Thousands of Haitians who had lived in Brazil are leaving because of the country's economic recession. Experts also say the surge north reflects a push by migrants to reach the United States and reunite with relatives before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. During his campaign, Trump took a hardline position on immigration, including a pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. Dangers With few diplomatic ties with African nations, it is difficult for the Mexican authorities to deport illegal migrants from Africa home. As a result, many African migrants are given a temporary transit permit, giving them 20 days to leave Mexico. In practice this allows them to continue their journey towards the United States border without being detained by immigration officials. Like African migrants making the treacherous passage to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea where thousands die each year, the journey through Latin America is also perilous. Hassan reached Mexico in December, after a four month journey that included a flight from Somalia to Brazil, and then across seven countries on bus, boat and foot. He has spent $10,000 so far, hiding dollar bills in his underwear and socks. Most migrants say that at some point along their journey they have been robbed and or attacked by local gangs. Paying officials bribes starting at $20 to allow them to continue their passage is also commonplace, migrants say. Jose Ramon Cancino, head of migrant affairs at the human rights commission in Chiapas state, where Tapachula is located, said his office received 3,000 complaints last year from migrants, most involving extortion and abuse by police. Hassan said he and a group of migrants from Africa and Asia were robbed at gunpoint in Costa Rica by local criminals. "They checked us one by one. Even if we had anything in our mouths. They take everything," Hassan said. "I kept my shoes only because I'm a size 43 and the guy [thief] was a size 41," said Hassan, sitting on a bench at a budget hotel known as Mama Africa in downtown Tapachula, which has become a popular resting place among African migrants. Jungle crossing Most migrants say the worst part of the journey so far has been the gruelling six-day long trek across the Darien Gap a mountainous rainforest wilderness that straddles Colombia and Panama. Some die on the way. "I saw skeletons in the jungle," Hassan said. Another African migrant, Chofong Betrand and two friends from the Cameroon, also survived the jungle odyssey. They arrived in Tapachula last month. Betrand hopes to reach the northeastern United States to join his mother who already lives there. Betrand, who belongs to Cameroon's minority English-speaking people, said he was briefly jailed by state security forces. "We want independence. French Cameroon take everything for themselves," the 21-year-old university student said. "There's fighting. They don't want to give us our independence," Betrand said, as he queued for three hours outside the National Migration Institute hoping to get a temporary 20-day permit. The hardest bit of the journey is yet to come. Migrants still have to reach the United States border, and then cross it without getting stopped by border agents. "A mighty hand is guiding us," Betrand said. "No one does this journey twice." U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says "the international community" must stand up against Russian aggression and urged President-elect Donald Trump to be a strong supporter and partner of Ukraine. Speaking Monday in Kyiv alongside President Petro Poroshenko, Biden noted Ukraine is fighting both the cancer of corruption and the unrelenting aggression of the Kremlin." Comments by Trump in a joint interview with The Times of London and Germany's Bild newspaper suggested he is looking to cut a deal with Russia, ending sanctions on Moscow in exchange for an agreement on cutting nuclear weapons. Biden said sanctions against Moscow imposed in the aftermath of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue. "The Crimea-related sanctions against Russia must remain in place until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine," he said. Biden said other sanctions related to Russia's involvement in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine should remain in place until Russia fulfills its obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement on ending that conflict. WATCH: U.S. Vice president Biden on Ukraine Last official trip This was Bidens last official visit to Kyiv as vice president, during which he reflected the special focus Ukraine has received under the outgoing Obama administration. During his one-day visit, Biden also met with Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. The White House said Biden hailed the "remarkable cooperation" between the United States and Ukraine and the "consistent bipartisan support in the United States for Ukraine's progress." Biden has been the front man for U.S. policy towards Ukraine, visiting the country five times since the 2013-2014 uprising that ousted the pro-Russian government, and he has kept regular telephone contact with Ukrainian officials. The U.S. support for Ukraine, which has included the economic sanctions against Russia linked to the annexation of Crimea and a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, has contributed to a deterioration in U.S.-Russian relations to their worst since the Cold War. China state media blasted U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump after he told The Wall Street Journal the "one-China" policy is negotiable. The China Daily said Monday Trump is reinforcing the impression that he intends to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in relations with Beijing. It warned the result would be "a period of fierce, damaging interactions," as Beijing will have no choice but to "take the gloves off." Taiwan expert Bruce Jacobs of Australia's Monash University told VOA the Chinese reaction is what one might have expected. You would expect them to say that. One could argue thats a negotiating term. It depends on how the Trump government decides to move forward, he said. The arguments that the Chinese would use are that the breaking of relations with Taiwan was part of the deal that was done so the United States could establish relations with China. But in fact, it wasnt quite so clear cut and as Ive said Taiwan is now a democratic nation, which has never really being ruled by China; never been ruled by the peoples Republic of China, Jacobs added. The Global Times on Sunday dismissed Trump as a rookie who will meet strong countermeasures if he impairs the "one-China" principle. The paper said the mainland will be prompted to speed up Taiwan reunification as a result of this despicable strategy. Jacobs said mainland China today is nationalistic and pushing hard against Taiwan and in the South China Sea, which adds to global tensions and gives the Chinese military leverage to push for ever-higher defense budgets. I think he [Trump] is right in saying the one china policy should be discussed, because its based on false history. But there is also a couple of other things which were false about it such as saying the United States recognizes that Taiwan is part of China. Thats not true, Jacobs said. The United States, he added, recognizes that China claims Taiwan belongs to it. So in that aspect I think what Trump is done is raised an important issue that needs to reconsidered. But for him to say that Taiwan should be a bargaining chip in some training negotiations is completely wrong and illegitimate. Taiwan is a separate nation. Its a middle size nation. And it should not be coming a bargaining chip, Jacobs added. China flexed a military muscle and hit at Taiwans foreign relations over the past month as warnings against closer ties with the United States, a long-time protector of self-rule on the island that Beijing considers its own. But so far Beijing is keeping more extreme retaliation measures in reserve. In late December and again last week, a formation including the Liaoning aircraft carrier plied waters around Taiwan, which is 160 kilometers southeast of China. Last month, the African nation Sao Tome and Principe severed two decades of formal relations with Taiwan to recognize China. Last week Nigeria cut informal ties with Taiwan, saying its not a country. Warnings from China Those moves are meant to warn Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen against growing closer with the United States since her surprise phone call Dec. 2 to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and in light of her trip to the Americas Jan. 7-14, experts say. The United States sells Taiwan arms and has a law allowing it to help Taiwan defend itself. But China has spared the more salient threats of the past in case Tsai cools toward the United States and seeks talks with Beijing, experts say. International space was given to Taiwan, quote unquote, and as someone born and brought up in Taiwan we hate to acknowledge that, but space was given to Taiwan on the basis of understanding that there is no tension across Taiwan Straits, said Joanna Lei, chief executive officer of the Chunghua 21st Century think tank in Taiwan. Once that tension is increased, then its no denial that Taiwans international space will be reduced, and that will be something Tsai Ing-wens government has to grapple with and has to have a reaction to, she said. China sees Taiwan as part of China China sees Taiwan as part of its territory, despite the islands self-rule since the 1940s, and insists the two sides eventually unify. It worries that Taiwans autonomy will get a boost if Taiwanese leaders deepen relations overseas, especially with the United States. In 1995 and 1996, China fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait in what was seen then as an attempt to discourage Taiwanese from electing an anti-Beijing president. As late as 2005, senior Chinese officials threatened to use force against Taiwan if needed. People of Taiwan react But those measures fanned anti-China sentiment in Taiwan, helping to install presidents who vowed to stand up to Beijing. Tsai, in office since May, has frustrated China for her unwillingness to hold talks on grounds that both sides belong to one country. But she has kept her tone toward Beijing polite, avoiding words or actions to upset it. Beijing is expected to avoid more drastic measures, such as buying off a series of Taiwans remaining 21 diplomatic allies or testing missiles, but continue with milder threats. China waiting on Trump China must fear President-elect Trump because of Trump's unpredictability, said Coen Blaauw, executive director of the Washington-based, pro-Taiwan advocacy group Formosan Association for Public Affairs. They must feel they need to do something in response to recent signals from the Trump camp in support of Taiwan, but stopping short of conducting missile tests. So sailing the Liaoning aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait was probably the strongest signal they could think of given the circumstances, he said. It is hard to imagine China going beyond that. The cut in ties with Sao Tome and Principe still leaves Taiwan enough foreign allies to give it a voice in the United Nations, where China blocks Taiwan itself from participation. Nigeria did not have a diplomatic relationship and does not rank among Taiwans top trading partners. Tsais travels this month took her to four Central American countries where she tightened relations. The aircraft carrier, which passed through the Taiwan Strait Wednesday en route to northern China, entered Taiwans air defense identification zone, but avoided its territorial seas. Economic pressure The number of group tourists from China to Taiwan declined 27 percent from May, when Tsai took office, over the following five months. The trend, which first began around the time of Tsais January 2016 election, is seen as pressure by Beijing to pinch the islands economy without a more severe hit, such as cancelling trade or investment deals. Beijing may be watching now what follows Tsais meeting Jan. 8 with Republican Senator Ted Cruz. The encounter may have built a bridge with the party that won control of the U.S. Congress in November. Tsais 12-minute phone call to Trump in early December outraged China, which had grown used to U.S. leaders shunning contact with Taipei since the 1970s. Washington broke formal ties with Taiwan in 1979 in favor of the larger and faster-growing China. A stronger link with Trump following Tsais call December 2 could bring Taiwan more military exchanges and more access to advanced weapons for defense against China. Taiwanese leaders also want a free trade deal that would help local exporters. The warnings are seen as soft so far they have incited little sustained outrage or fear in Taiwan but could escalate if Taiwan's president does anything new that offends China. Shes not taking any chance, so thats why shes holding herself back. Its her view that its better not to really irritate China more, said Shane Lee, political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan. But some people in her Democratic Progressive Party, which includes a hard-line anti-China faction, hope for less holding back. Others in Taiwan want stronger China ties to boost trade and investment. She is facing a lot of pressure from both within the party and from the society in general, Lee said. Charter school advocate Betsy DeVos is widely expected to push for expanding school choice programs if confirmed as education secretary, prompting pushback from teachers unions. But Democrats and activists also are raising concerns about how her conservative Christian beliefs and advocacy for family values might impact minority and LGBT students. The wealthy Republican donor's financial and political clout will be on display on Tuesday as she goes before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has members who have benefited from her largesse. Committee Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said in a statement that DeVos "will work tirelessly to ensure every child has access to a high quality education." Critics say the choice of DeVos belies President-elect Donald Trump's promises to "drain the swamp" and bring new faces to politics and policy in Washington. "He is basically proposing a bunch of people to be in the Cabinet that are political insiders with lots of money and have used that money to buy politicians and DeVos definitely fits that description," said Carmel Martin, executive vice president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank. DeVos has long taken pride in her political and financial activity. "I have decided . to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence," DeVos wrote in a 1997 column in Roll Call. "Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return." She said wants to foster a conservative governing philosophy and respect for traditional values. DeVos, a former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman, heads the American Federation for Children, an advocacy group that promotes school choice and voucher programs. She and members of her family have given millions of dollars to Republican candidates over nearly three decades, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. She grew up in Holland, Michigan, one of four children of Edgar Prince, an engineer who made a fortune in an auto parts company. She met her husband Dick DeVos, an heir to the Amway marketing empire, while attending a Christian liberal arts college. Dick DeVos unsuccessfully ran for governor of Michigan in 2006. During that campaign he suggested that schools should teach intelligent design, a theory that holds that life was created by a higher force, along with evolution. The couple has four children, none of whom attended public school. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater, a private security company that the U.S. employed in the Iraq war and came under scrutiny when its guards were prosecuted in the deaths of 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. DeVos has donated to the political campaigns of at least four committee members, according to the financial questionnaire she filed with the committee. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, top Democrat on the committee, said she worries about DeVos' "extensive financial entanglements and potential conflicts of interest." In response, Trump's transition team said teachers unions have donated to Democratic senators on the committee and DeVos has given money to members in both parties who support her education goals. Republicans also point out that Penny Pritzker was a major donor to Democrats and President Barack Obama before he picked her as commerce secretary. DeVos spent the past two decades advancing charter schools - institutions that are run privately but financed with taxpayers' money. Her husband started an aviation-oriented charter school in Michigan. She also has pushed for providing low-income families with publicly funded vouchers to enable them to send their kids to private and religious schools of their choice. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said DeVos has an obvious antipathy to public schools and has "fought against any regulation that protected against cronyism and corruption." DeVos supporters counter that injecting healthy competition into the public school system will be to everyone's benefit. "The ability to shop around for education options that work best for your child is really key here," said Mary Clare Reim, a research associate with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Labor unions and civil rights groups also question whether DeVos' traditional beliefs may prevent her from championing the interests of LGBT students and other minorities. DeVos has donated to a number of conservative groups, including Focus on the Family, which calls homosexuality a "sin" and supports "sexual orientation change efforts." Her record prompted five openly gay senators to write to the committee saying she's repeatedly tried to undermine LGBT rights. But Greg McNeilly, a long-time aide to DeVos, said DeVos supports same-sex marriage and last donated to Focus on the Family many years ago, when the group was involved in character-building for children and "absolutely never" supported conversion therapy. McNeilly is gay. The founder of the World Economic Forum in Davos says it is time to favor "humanization" over "robotization and globalization." Klaus Schwab spoke Monday as political, economic, and social leaders gathered in the Swiss resort town of Davos for an annual discussion of economic and other problems. In remarks to royalty, prime ministers, CEOs, and other elites, Schwab said it is time to reinvigorate the global economy, create jobs, and recreate confidence in the future. He said the world is overwhelmed by cynicism and pessimism, and called on members to repair deficiencies in capitalism and restore the social compact. Angry, disillusioned voters recently surprised elites by moving Britain out of the European Union and electing political outsider Donald Trump to be President of the United States. Those votes come at the same time Schwab said the world is undergoing extraordinary transformations of business, economies, society, and politics. A global survey by the Edelman public relations firm, shows "the largest-ever" drop in trust of government, business, media, and NGOs. The company published its findings in advance of the gathering of Davos. The study shows more than half of survey respondents think the current overall system is unfair and offers little hope for the future. Only about one in seven people said the system is working for them. A separate survey of CEOs by a consulting company shows a slight majority plan to hire more people. The Price Waterhouse Coopers study, published just before Davos, also shows majorities of CEOs are worried about economic uncertainty, regulation, and finding enough workers with modern skills.Many also worried that protectionism could hurt international trade. French President Francois Hollande says Africa needs more international development aid in order to curb the flow of migrants from African countries. Speaking at a meeting of more than 60 leaders from both Africa and the European Union, Hollande said that unless the EU delivers in terms of aid, the migration crisis that has sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to Europe this year will continue. Hollande noted that a lot of the migrants are from Eritrea and Sudan. He said that in the case of Eritrea "maximum pressure" has to be applied to the country's leaders to mend a serious situation. "Nobody is talking about it. It is a country that is becoming empty of its own population with unscrupulous leaders who let their people go." The EU summit Wednesday and Thursday in Valletta, Malta, is focusing on addressing the reasons why people are leaving their home countries, better organizing legal migration channels, boosting protections for migrants, battling smugglers and improving cooperation with African nations on returning people who do not qualify for asylum. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel called for firm commitments beyond political declarations. "We believe we must both combat illegal immigration, combat traffickers, we believe we must also progress in the field of return and readmission policies. In exchange, the European countries must be mobilized for more economic development support, humanitarian support, and also more support to allow for, as an example, exchanges of students to enable the exchange of researchers, which is also important for the future," said Michel. Meanwhile, Sweden says it will introduce temporary border controls to stem the flow of migrants. Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said the border controls will begin on Thursday. Sweden is struggling to absorb tens of thousands of refugees. EU member Slovenia began building a barbed wire fence on its border with Croatia Wednesday, which prompted a meeting of negotiators from both countries, since, according to Croatians, the fence passes through its territory. Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, however, said the country is not closing its borders and that what he called "obstacles" were being put in place in order to direct migrants toward border crossings. As part of the effort, Europe is offering $1.8 billion in new aid to African countries. But critics are questioning Europe's response, saying the EU is trying to push people back to areas where there are serious questions about human rights and a lack of economic opportunities. About 800,000 people have crossed into Europe by sea this year, nearly four times the number in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration. Italy and Greece are the most popular landing points. More people have landed in Italy from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan than anywhere else, making up half of the 140,000 migrants who have arrived there this year. More than 3,400 people have died making dangerous sea crossings to Europe this year. At least 14 people drowned Wednesday after a boat sank on a trip from northern Turkey to Greece. The EU's Malta-based European Asylum Support Office released data showing a backlog of 800,000 applications for international protection through September. It also said almost one in three migrants has been waiting at least three months for applications to be processed, and said 200,000 applicants have been waiting six months or longer. The United States is giving Uzbekistan hundreds of military vehicles, says a top U.S. diplomat in an exclusive interview with VOA Uzbek. It is one of the largest equipment transfers by the United States to a Central Asian nation and a move likely to renew concerns over Uzbekistan's human rights record. Daniel Rosenblum, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, said Uzbekistan needs the vehicles for counter-terrorism and counter-narcotic efforts. The transfer includes 308 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) and 20 Armored Recovery Vehicles to Uzbekistan, as part of the U.S. government's Excess Defense Articles Program. New MRAPs cost about $1 million apiece, while armored recovery vehicles are priced at about $2 million each. "They will all be provided to the Ministry of Defense and can only be used by the Ministry of Defense," said Rosenblum. "These are definitely defensive vehicles, they are inherently defensive. Also, we consider them to be non-lethal. They are intended to protect personnel, crews and passengers in areas that there might be explosive devices, mines, so on." Rosenblum says the delivery began last December and the Uzbek government is covering the cost of transportation. He says the excess military equipment is offered "as is, where is." "That is the terms that are used, meaning in the condition that they are, good or bad," he said. "But we hope that it is good enough to be used obviously and wherever the location is. These MRAPs were at number of different locations. None were in Afghanistan by the way." He adds some of the vehicles were in the United States and some were in overseas locations. The top U.S. diplomat for the region says the Unites States has made similar offers to other Central Asian countries, and that Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have expressed interest. Rosenblum describes it as a two-way, transparent process, in which the United States assesses if they have excess equipment that is needed by others. A partner in Afghanistan Uzbekistan has been Washington's partner in the war in Afghanistan, providing logistical support to the U.S.-led coalition since 2001. Uzbekistan is seen as a key part of the Northern Distribution Network through which the United States transferred non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan as an alternative to unstable supply lines through Pakistan. As for direct military transfers, the U.S. Congress in 2004 restricted such assistance as a consequence of Uzbekistan's human rights record. The State Department and Human Rights Watch, among others, have repeatedly condemned documented, widespread use of torture, imprisonment of civil society activists and religious figures, and the use of forced labor in the Uzbekistans key cotton sector. But in early 2012, in a move widely criticized by Uzbek activists and human rights groups, the Obama administration exercised congressionally-granted authority to waive rights-related sanctions, and re-started military aid to Tashkent. Human rights record News of the current transfer is likely to anger international rights organizations and activists, who have argued that providing military assistance rewards an oppressive regime, led by President Islam Karimov who has held the post for nearly a quarter century. On the eve of high-level talks last year between Washington and Tashkent, Human Rights Watch called for the U.S. government to adopt a tougher stance on Uzbekistans human rights record, including a suspension of military assistance and consideration of targeted sanctions. It should be made clear to Uzbek officials that their governments continuing repression will result in meaningful, and if need be, punitive policy consequences, said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a November 30 statement. Knowing theyll be held to account for abusive conduct might make Uzbek authorities think twice. Citing the Uzbek governments responsibility in 2005 for the killing of largely peaceful protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, Human Rights Watch and other activists have also voiced concern that while classified as nonlethal, the military equipment being provided here could be used by Uzbek officials to quell domestic civil unrest or peaceful protests. Other experts and policymakers say that by strengthening the security relationship, Washington is opening up opportunities and new ways to work with a government that has long held on to an insular foreign policy distrustful of outside intervention. "We want to maintain a robust relationship, robust level of cooperation in all areas," said Rosenblum. "Security is an area where we do share interests and concerns. We also are worried about terrorist threats. We are very concerned about a narcotic trafficking that goes through the region and in those areas we want to cooperate." "At the same time, it is very much a part of our policy in the region and globally, frankly, to emphasize the importance of democratic development and respect for international human rights," said Rosenblum. "And that is not because of our values that drive a lot of this, but also because in the long term, that is the best guarantee of stability in all these countries." He describes engagement with Uzbekistan on such issues as democracy and human rights as well as security as robust. "We think it is possible to pursue both and try to maintain that balance in the relationship," he said. Rosenblum says America will work with whomever is elected president in elections slated for March and that promoting freedom and democracy will remain on top of the agenda. That is widely expected to be Karimov, for whom it would be a fourth term, despite a constitutional limit of two presidential terms. The Obama administration has recently renewed its ambassadors to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. There is a new Central Asia strategy in place, says Rosenblum, but no major shifts in policy are expected. Jan 16 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories from selected Canadian newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. THE GLOBE AND MAIL ** Some of Ontario's universities may have to reconsider their plans to expand master's and PhD programs as the province tries to encourage the sector to focus on training students who graduate with skills that are in demand. https://tgam.ca/2jrmviF ** The two richest Canadian billionaires own $33 billion between them, which is more wealth than the bottom 30 per cent of the Canadian population, according to a new Oxfam report. https://tgam.ca/2jr9Fkw ** Four firefighters will be put on trial before their union peers on Monday, charged with misconduct for also joining volunteer fire departments in the small communities in which they live, as the struggle over "double-hatting" spreads through Ontario. The four could be expelled from the union, which could lead to them losing their jobs. https://tgam.ca/2iDdjXU NATIONAL POST ** The federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has launched an investigation into the circumstances of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's New Year's holiday in the Bahamas, the National Post has learned, the first time a sitting prime minister has come under scrutiny by the independent parliamentary watchdog. http://bit.ly/2jr2V66 ** TVO has signed a deal with Twitter Canada to live stream on the social network daily. Beginning Jan. 16, The Agenda with Steve Paikin will be broadcast live every Monday through Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Twitter's Periscope, which also streams natively within Twitter itself. http://bit.ly/2jrkJhM ** Three candidates in Alberta's Progressive Conservative leadership debate told former Conservative MP Jason Kenney his plan to unite with the right-leaning Wildrose Party is cynical and shortsighted folly. http://bit.ly/2iYm38K (Compiled by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Paul Simao) Turkish media report thousands more soldiers will be sent into Syria, as Turkish forces struggle to recapture the strategically important town of al-Bab from so-called Islamic State. Last month, 16 Turkish soldiers were killed in one attack in al-Bab, where jihadists increasingly are using suicide bombers and truck bombs in the fight over the town. "The conflict is proving to be much more difficult; al-Bab has still not been captured," said Al-Monitor website political columnist Semih Idiz. He argued the battle for the town has become politically important. "Although statements from the [Turkish] president recently were suggesting it was imminent, it was a matter of time; it still has not happened," he said. "So what do you do? We know it from Vietnam, we know it from all over the place, the first reaction is to pour in more soldiers.That already shows you are being sucked in." The Turkish Army launched Operation Euphrates Shield last August, ostensibly to support the Free Syrian Army, or FSA, the rebel group fighting with Turkish forces in Syria. Retired Brigadier General Haldun Solmazturk heads the 21st Century Turkey Institute, an Ankara-based research group. He said the battle for al-Bab has revealed crucial shortcomings in the FSA. "An army has some kind of command chain; it has some discipline; it has some motivation; it has some kind of training; at least they give the impression that it respects the rules of war," said Solmazturk. "None of these can be applied to the groups that are associated with the Free Syrian Army, so this was a major mistake to involve the Free Syrian Army." With the Turkish military ravaged by ongoing purges of its ranks since a failed coup in July, there are questions over its ability to step up its commitment in Syria, warned Solmazturk. "In a country like Turkey, involved in actual military operations in more than one foreign country, as well as large-scale anti-terror operations with the country itself, to ... reinforce ... an existing Turkish unit in Syria around al-Bab itself, I doubt if such thousands are available or can be made available by the Turkish army." Analysts say a sign of Ankara's growing frustrations is the fact it chided Washington for failing to provide air support for the Turkish military operation in al-Bab. "it is realizing that it cannot do this on it own, that it needs support, wherever it ... comes from, even [the] Russian side or American side or some kind of Middle East power group," said Idiz. There is likely to be a price for that support. Operation Euphrates Shield targets the Syrian Kurdish militia the YPG along with Islamic State. Turkey says both groups are terrorist organizations; but, the YPG is seen by Turkey's Western allies and Moscow as important to fighting IS. "It [Turkey] needs international support," said Idiz. "And one of the ways to achieve this is to focus on Islamic State and perhaps leave the Kurdish element a little to the background in Syria." Last week, Moscow and Ankara announced they would coordinate their airstrikes in Syria. Sunday, military leaders from 14 countries in the Middle East and Africa offered support for Turkey at a meeting in Riyadh, but did not specify what form it would entail. Despite such steps, concerns remain over the ongoing Syrian operation. "If a country's military forces are involved in a foreign country, in major military operations, I would ask for a clear-cut political aim," said Solmazturk, "This does not exist. That is why I do not hesitate to say that Turkey, the Turkish army, is stuck in Syria." Turkey has been vague about its objectives in Syria, saying only that it aims to remove the threat of terrorism from its border. Analysts say the main motive of Turkey's military intervention in Syria could be to give Ankara a say over that country's future, but warn Turkey could end up paying a considerable price. Gambia's president has filed an injunction aimed at preventing the president-elect's inauguration on January 19 and also barring any party from swearing in the president-elect. President Yahya Jammeh said late Sunday on state television, "The so-called deadline of January 19, 2017 is not cast in stone and all parties shall await the outcome of the Supreme Court." Jammeh, who has ruled the tiny West African country for 22 years, was declared the loser in Gambias December 1 election. Initially Jammeh accepted the results, but his political party filed a legal complaint against the electoral commission about a week after the election, citing voting irregularities. Officials say it could be months before Gambia's Supreme Court makes a ruling on the complaint. The president wants to wait for the court's decision. Until then, Jammeh said in his televised remarks, "the status quo remains." The head of the electoral commission fled to neighboring Senegal after Jammeh said in his New Years address the elections chief had falsified results. Earlier this month, Gambia's army chief reaffirmed his support for Jammeh in a letter published in a pro-government newspaper. Opposition candidate Adama Barrow was declared the winner of the election. The French News Agency reported Sunday that Senegalese President Macky Sall accepted a request from Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to host Barrow in Dakar until his inauguration. The United Nations and several African leaders have asked Jammeh to step down peacefully. West African regional bloc ECOWAS has placed its military force on standby, if Jammeh does not step down on January 19. International military historian at the University Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan, Arthur Banga, says the Gambian military would likely be no match for ECOWAS forces. Presidential inaugurations are usually politically unifying events in the United States, but this year a record number of lawmakers plan to publicly rebuke the president-elect when he takes the oath of office. At least 40 Democratic members of Congress out of the 535 elected lawmakers are on the record saying they plan to boycott President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Friday. Trump's divisive political style, which delivered victory at the polls, enters a new phase when he becomes president. A new poll of American public opinion indicates Trump will take office with 51 percent of people in the U.S. disapproving of his transition, and a 40 percent favorable rating which is lower than his three immediate predecessors. That poll was conducted before the president-elect tweeted harsh criticism of respected lawmaker and civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, who said he did not view Trump as a "legitimate president." Trump hit back Saturday, saying the congressmen should spend more time helping his constituents than "falsely complaining about the election results." Political scientist John Hudak says the unusually contentious nature of this election, clouded by threats of foreign interference, have created an atmosphere for a boycott. It is not traditional for members of the opposite party to avoid a presidential inaugural even when someone loses or there is some contention, typically the elected officials of Congress attend, said Hudak, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Criticism Over Russian Interference The controversy began Friday when Lewis who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives for thirty years told NBC News he would not attend Trump's inauguration because he does not view the president-elect as a legitimate president. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, Lewis said. Trump struck back with two early-Saturday morning tweets criticizing the Democratic lawmaker for not spending more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not tomention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. Lewis represents a district that includes both wealthy and poor neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia. He commands an unusual level of bipartisan respect on Capitol Hill, due in no small part to his role in the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s. As a young man, Lewis helped lead the historic March on Washington in 1963, and was beaten and jailed for protesting segregation in the southern United States. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told CBS News on Sunday that he respects the sacrifice of Lewis, but added Donald Trump has every right to defend himself. Reince Priebus, Trump's incoming White House Chief of Staff, said Lewis' irresponsible comments had started a firestorm. Priebus called for outgoing President Barack Obama to step up and call-out the Democrats' treatment of Trump. The White House said it would not get involved in the controversy. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida who challenged Trump for the nomination in the primaries, said Monday that although he believed foreign governments had attempted to influence the election, he disagreed with Lewis' characterization of the election results as illegitimate. The debate over legitimacy figured heavily during Obama's two terms, as Trump and other Republicans questioned the validity of his birth in the United States. That set up a breakdown in norms that now Republicans are lamenting, Hudak noted, But eight years ago, they were happy to applaud in order to empower certain bases within their party. So what a lot of politicians need to realize [is] that the satisfaction of immediate political goals can often have long-term unintended political consequences, and that's what we're seeing right now. Democrats' protest In the hours after the president-elect's tweet, the number of Democrats confirming they would not attend increased. After reading classified Russian hacking doc & @realdonaldtrump offensive Tweets to @repjohnlewis I will not be attending the inauguration, Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, wrote on Twitter. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, told CNN in an interview the last straw in his decision not to attend were Trump's ad hominem personal attacks on an icon of the civil rights movement, someone who suffered beatings and almost gave his life for his country, Rep. John Lewis. But Hudak said Democrats would better serve their cause by fighting for their values and convincing other members of Congress to move in their direction. Ultimately the refusal to attend the inauguration of President Trump is meaningless, it is an empty protest, he said. It is something that is not going to change the course of history or of policy or of politics. With only days to go before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump ushers in a new era of trans-Atlantic ties, the Obama administration is working to reassure European allies that the fundamentals of the relationship remain unchanged. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Monday in London, the second-to-the last stop of his final foreign tour. Among critics of the outgoing administration on this side of the Atlantic, it has been a long goodbye and Kerry's visit appeared to be all but an afterthought on the agenda of British leaders as they focused more on looking ahead than reflecting on the past. Trump on Brexit A meeting with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was to be on Syria and other issues. Kerry also held a low-key meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in which the two discussed international reconciliation. For Britain's current leaders, however, the focus on Monday was more on the remarks that Trump has made in favor of Brexit, the British voters' decision to leave the European Union, and the new administration's assurances that new and better trade deals are on the horizon. We hear that we are the first in line to do a great free trade deal with the United States, said Johnson last week after getting those assurances during a trip to the U.S. ahead of the inauguration. The remark reflected new optimism following the Trump victory after outgoing President Barack Obama last year warned Britain it would go to the back of the line on trade deals if it voted to leave the European Union. Words of support for May The assurances are welcome words for British Prime Minister Theresa May, who on Tuesday is set to deliver a speech at parliament outlining her plan for Brexit. May is expected to announce Britain will leave the European single market and analysts said assurances that the U.S. would sign a quick trade deal with Britain would help compensate for a withdrawal. Whether Trump will make getting Britain to the front of the line his administration's top priority remains somewhat in question. When the president-elect was asked in an interview with Britain's The Times and Germany's Bild newspapers this week whether that would indeed be the case, Trump's reply was, I think you're doing great. I thought the UK was so smart in getting out, Trump said. Countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity but I do believe this: if they hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it entails, I think that you probably wouldn't have had a Brexit. Merkel waiting In the interview, Trump blasted the decision by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to call for Britain and other European Union members to accept migrant quotas and an open door policy in her own country. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking in all of these illegals, taking all of the illegals from wherever they come from and nobody really knows where they came from. You'll find out, Trump said. Asked about Trump's criticism of her migrant policy, Merkel told reporters, I am personally waiting for the inauguration of the U.S. president. Then of course, we will work with him on all levels. In remarks Monday, Kerry told CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour he thought it was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United States to be stepping into the politics in a quite direct manner. Kerry said Merkel has been extremely courageous in her response to the refugee crisis, which he acknowledged has had some problems. Civil rights leaders and activists are gathering at sites across the country to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. On the same day that Americans celebrate King's legacy, his son is scheduled to meet President-elect Donald Trump. Martin Luther King III will meet with Trump at Trump Tower in New York. The meeting comes amid lingering tensions between the president-elect and Congressman John Lewis. Lewis is the civil rights leader who called Trump an "illegitimate president'' and said he will not attend the inauguration. Trump responded on Twitter that Lewis is "all talk'' and said his Atlanta-based district is "falling apart.'' In Atlanta, a commemoration at King's storied Ebenezer Baptist Church will be headlined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Hundreds are expected to pack the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s home church in Atlanta on Monday to mark the federal holiday for the slain civil rights leader, amid political and racial rancor as the first black U.S. president prepares to step down. The commemoration of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, comes on the heels of Republican President-elect Donald Trump's inflammatory remarks about civil rights champion John Lewis, a Democratic U.S. congressman who marched with King in the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten by police. Political commentary is a frequent feature of the service at Ebenezer Baptist Church where King preached. He was assassinated in 1968 at age 39. Trump said in a weekend tweet that Lewis' congressional district, which sweeps through the heart of Atlanta, "is in horrible shape and falling apart [not to mention crime Infested]." "All talk, talk, talk no action or results. Sad!" Trump tweeted after Lewis vowed to boycott Friday's inauguration of Trump as the 45th president Lewis said: "I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president," on a segment of NBC's "Meet the Press" released on Friday. The Democratic representative said he believed that Russia interfered with the U.S. election to replace Barack Obama. Trump won the presidency with less support from black and Hispanic voters than any president in the past 40 years, only 8 percent and 28 percent, respectively, polling data showed. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a former Democratic presidential candidate and Trump critic, is scheduled to speak, along with King's youngest child, Bernice King, and a host of other speakers. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and social activist from Chicago, is the keynote speaker. The federal holiday is also celebrated with a day of service. Last year, the Obamas packed books for school children. It's a hot day here on the sidewalk outside Nairobi's St. Peter Clavers primary school, but the 20 or so people standing in line behind a small desk don't seem to mind. They are here to register to vote in Kenya's August elections. "It's our right to vote for the next president and our MPs and all of that," said 31-year-old laborer and first time voter Samuel Njoroge. This is the first day of the final mass voter registration drive being conducted by Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The other took place around this same time last year. The current drive will end in one month's time. And so far, IEBC communication manager Andrew Limo says things seem to be going well. "Yeah, I think the reports we're getting in are encouraging," said Limo. "Of course, [as] for any other exercise, there will be problems on the first day, in terms of deployment, some people may not have arrived at their centers in good time, and so they may have opened late. And things like that. But these are not major problems." The IEBC has faced its share of challenges in the past. Protests organized by Kenya's political opposition in mid-2016 resulted in the entire electoral commission being replaced. More recently, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed an amendment to the election law allowing for manual voting and counting should the electronic system fail. The opposition argues this latest move opens the door for vote rigging. Businessman Wycliffe Kafwa, 37, said he is not in favor of the manual system, and is unsure about the new electoral commission. "We are still in the process of weighing how it is," said Kafwa." At this time, it's still early to say, whether they are fine or they are not fine." But university student and first-time voter Ted Mwatha Ng'anga says he's not concerned that these issues could negatively affect next year's elections. "When the right things are happening, there always has to be challenges, so I think it will all work out. People also have to accept the changes that we're having," said Ng'anga. The IEBC's Limo said his organization is targeting the roughly nine million Kenyans over the age of 18 who have a national ID card or passport, but who have not yet registered to vote. Mass voter registration is scheduled to conclude February 14, but potential voters can register until 90 days before the elections, by going to their constituency offices or public service centers. WATCH: Kenyans register to vote For Barack Obama, there's a presidential library to build, hundreds of millions of dollars to raise, causes to champion and a book to write. And don't forget that long-promised vacation with his wife. Looming retirement is looking like anything but for the 44th president. Obama's next chapter starts Friday when he becomes an ex-president. He'll be freer to speak his mind, set his own schedule and make some money. Already, Obama is looking ahead to the book he wants to write, and has had talks with Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel about arrangements that could include speaking gigs. At 55, Obama will be a relatively young ex-president, with plenty of time for a second act. He's ruled out running another campaign for political office - so has his wife - but he has pledged to stay active in the national conversation. With President-elect Donald Trump headed to the White House, Democrats are eager for Obama to play the role of shadow-president, offering direction to those Americans who feel they lost their political compass the day Trump was elected. Obama has said he has plenty of ideas for how his party can revive itself, but after eight years as president, his role will be to offer guidance, not to micromanage. "I think it's appropriate for me to give advice, because I need some sleep," Obama told NPR last month. "And I've promised Michelle a nice vacation. My girls are getting old enough now where I'm clinging to those very last moments before they are out of the house." Obama is expected to keep a low profile for the first few months after Trump's swearing-in. Following some relaxation time with his wife and daughters in an unnamed location, the family will return to Washington, where they've rented a mansion in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood. Obama has repeatedly praised George. W. Bush for giving him room to operate without having the ex-president publicly second-guess him at every turn. Still, Obama has reserved the right to speak out against Trump if he pursues policies the president finds particularly odious, such as a ban on Muslim immigration or mass deportation of children brought to the U.S. illegally. "The party is in bad state and there are no clear, obvious voices for Democrats yet," said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. "If there's anyone who could stand up to a President Trump, it's going to be former President Obama." Obama may re-emerge in a more public way around the time he releases his book - probably sometime next year - and goes on a promotional tour. Obama's chief White House speechwriter, Cody Keenan, is expected to stay with his boss to help him craft the sequel to Obama's two previous best-sellers. Though Obama has yet to fully settle his plans, four individuals familiar with Obama's thinking said over the last year that he's discussed post-presidency arrangements with Emanuel, a leading talent executive. One of Emanuel's brothers is Obama's former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It's unclear whether Obama will sign with Ari Emanuel. But the discussions suggest Obama has been looking to Hollywood for inspiration about ways to engage creatively and on multiple fronts, such as digital media and television. Emanuel didn't respond to a request for comment. Whatever direction he chooses, Obama will not be pressed financially. He can expect to fetch an advance of more than $20 million for his book, said Keith Urbahn, a literary agent at Javelin DC who's handled best-sellers for top political figures. "Half of the country still looks at him as their leader," Urbahn said. "From a publishing perspective, he will probably end up with the highest advance of any ex-president in history." It won't be long until Obama and his wife start raising money for the Barack Obama Foundation, which is developing his presidential library and center in Chicago. The price tag is expected to approach half a billion dollars. The Obamas will have to hire personnel in the coming months as they engage more heavily in designing the center. While it will be several years before the library is up and running, the foundation has left open the possibility it might start some programming sooner. Former White House aide Amy Brundage, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said it would use 2017 to "build upon the work that has begun" to create a center that inspires people to take on big challenges. Obama also plans to stay involved in his My Brother's Keeper initiative, recently renamed the "Task Force on Improving the Lives of Boys and Young Men of Color and Underserved Youth." He is also teaming up with former Attorney General Eric Holder on the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new initiative to improve Democrats' hand when political districts are redrawn in 2020. The hub of Obama's activity will be his personal office, to be housed in the World Wildlife Fund headquarters not far from his rented home. For the first six months, he'll also have a government-funded office overseeing his transition to ex-president. Oman said Monday it has accepted 10 prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The names and nationalities of the prisoners were not released. When U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he vowed to close the prison in southeastern Cuba, saying the detention facility did not reflect American values, because many of the prisoners there had been held for years without trial, and some had been tortured. Observers say more prisoners could be released in the final hours of the Obama administration. However, last week U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said he did not expect any more Guantanamo detainees to be released. President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he would not close Guantanamo because he wanted to load it up with some bad dudes. Guantanamo has been on long-term lease to the United States since before Fidel Castro's communist revolution and was designated a detention center by former president George W. Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington. The camp was intended to house prisoners captured by the U.S. and its allies in the fight against al-Qaida and other terror groups in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Few prisoners left At its peak operation, 779 prisoners were held at Guantanamo; when Bush handed over control of the government to Obama the number had been reduced to about 500 detainees. Obama has sharply whittled down the number of prisoners, returning some detainees to their home countries for prosecution, sending others to third countries for resettlement and releasing others without trial. Fewer than 50 prisoners remain at the facility. However, Obama's stated goal of closing the detention center outright has been been thwarted by a variety of political and legal obstacles. A Turkish cargo plane crashed near Kyrgyzstan's main airport early Monday, killing at least 37 people, including children. The crash was caused by "pilot error," Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said at a briefing broadcast on state television. The Boeing 747 crashed into homes in Dacha-Suu village near Manas airport, about 25 kilometers north of the capital, Bishkek at about 7:30 am local time (0130 GMT), killing people in the residential area adjacent to the airport as well as those on the plane. In late morning, more than a thousand rescue workers were at the site where 15 houses were destroyed, Abulgaziyev said. Images from the scene showed the plane's nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. According to the airport administration, the plane was making a stopover at Manas on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul, Turkey. The Manas airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening at the earliest, airport authorities said. Troops from Chad and Niger pursued Boko Haram fighters across a northern Nigeria border area on Thursday, driving them out of a village they held there and causing some to flee into Niger, two senior Niger military officers said. Niger and Chad are participating in a joint offensive along with Nigeria and Cameroon aimed at ending the Nigerian Islamist group's six-year insurgency, which has spilled across Nigeria's borders to threaten regional stability. A column of troops left the Nigerian town of Damasak, which was retaken from the militants earlier this month, in the morning to capture the Boko Haram-occupied village of Gasheger, the sources said. A Reuters witness across the border in the nearby Nigerien town of Diffa, which has served as a staging area for the operations, heard explosions around midday as the sources said the coalition troops met resistance from the Islamists. We took back Gasheger, one of the officers told Reuters. During the clashes, Boko Haram fighters fired a mortar that landed in the village of Kalgueri, killing one woman, the sources said. After being driven from Gasheger, some Boko Haram fighters fled across the Komadougou River into the town of Guesseri in Niger where soldiers from Niger's elite American-trained anti-terrorist unit pursued them. More than 100 fighters were in Gasheger. They're now in an area with a lot of trees, the second source said. The regional offensive launched this year comes as Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and biggest economy, prepares to hold elections on Saturday. Nigeria's elections commission postponed the polls to allow the operation to go forward. The offensive has succeeded in driving Boko Haram from several towns and districts. But retreating Islamist fighters have slaughtered civilians and kidnapped hundreds of villagers, according to witnesses and residents. The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. Most are American, with one European and one Mexican in the mix. Several have pledged to give it all to charity. The eight tycoons' net worth, as calculated by Forbes magazine, was cited Monday by anti-poverty activists Oxfam in a report highlighting income inequality. As the world's business and political elite gathers in the Swiss town of Davos this week, here's a look at who these billionaires are. Bill Gates: $75 billion The man whose name is a byword for billionaire. He co-founded Microsoft in the mid-70s, growing it into the world's biggest software company and helping to make computers a household item. He quit as CEO in 2000 and pledged to devote his fortune to his philanthropic activities in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has gradually reduced his ownership in Microsoft to less than 3 percent, with the bulk of his wealth in a private firm. Amancio Ortega: $67 billion The richest person in Europe, Ortega opened the first Zara fashion shop in 1975. Now, the chain, part of Ortega's Inditex group, has 7,000 shops globally. Its boom in popularity is largely due to a low cost model that competes with the likes of H&M. As Zara and Inditex grew in size, Ortega held on to a majority stake of 59 percent in the company, which has a market value of over 97 billion euros ($102 billion). Warren Buffett: $60.8 billion The Oracle of Omaha, as he's known for the way his every investment decision is followed by thousands. He began investing as a teenager in the `40s and gradually grew his firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett, 86, is notoriously frugal personally and favors investing in companies with proven business models over new industries, such as in technology. He's said he will give away the bulk of his wealth to philanthropy and since 2006 has been donating blocks of Berkshire stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Carlos Slim Helu: $50 billion The Mexican tycoon owes his fortune to a major ownership in America Movil, a telecommunications multinational worth $42 billion. He personally owns about 7 percent in the company while his broader family retains a 37 percent stake. He was ranked as the richest person three years ago, but saw his net worth hit by a downturn in Latin American economies. President-elect Donald Trump's threats to scrap free trade deals and build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border have also hurt shares in his business interests. Forbes estimates his net worth dropped $5 billion in the four days after Trump's election. Jeff Bezos: $45.2 billion The founder and CEO of Amazon.com helped revolutionize the retail industry by popularizing online shopping. What was initially an online book shop now sells pretty much anything. Bezos has reached beyond Amazon, in which he holds a 17 percent stake, to try his hand in other industries. He's bought The Washington Post and set up an aerospace company, Blue Origin, that aims to make space accessible to tourists and paying customers. Mark Zuckerberg: $44.6 billion Founded Facebook in 2004 while a college student to connect Harvard students. The company went on to become popular globally and listed its shares publicly in 2012, making Zuckerberg, now 32, a multibillionaire. He's managed to make Facebook profitable where rivals like Twitter have lagged, and expanded it with targeted acquisitions. He and his wife have pledged to sell 99 percent of their holdings in Facebook _ over 400 million shares, worth about $50 billion _ to support philanthropic causes. Larry Ellison: $43.6 billion As a young programmer in the `70s, his first big client was the CIA. The name of the project was "Oracle." In 1977, Ellison and associates used the name of that product for their company, which creates software that helps manage databases and has since become an industry standard. Ellison has recently focused more on cloud computing, in which data is stored and managed across a network of computers. His fortune comes from the 27 percent stake he still owns in Oracle, currently worth $160 billion. Michael Bloomberg: $40 billion Created the eponymous financial information provider in 1981 after getting laid off from an investment bank. Bloomberg made it a lucrative business in particular by selling data terminals to financial services firms. The multi-screen terminals became essential tools in the industry, incorporating real-time market information with a news service. Bloomberg, who reportedly retains an 88 percent stake in the privately held company, turned to politics in 2001, becoming mayor of New York City for three terms. Syrian rebels say they will attend peace talks in Kazakhstan next week aimed at ending the country's nearly six-year-old war. Rebel officials said Monday the meetings in Astana, the Kazakh capital, on January 23rd will focus on the cease-fire, humanitarian issues and the violations by the regime. The talks are being supported by Russia and Iran, which back the government of President Bashar al-Assad, as well as Turkey, which backs the rebels. The opposition suffered a major setback in December when it lost the rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo. Also Monday, Islamic State fighters advanced around the key eastern city of Deir al-Zor, trying to cut it off from a nearby military air base. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors and reports on fighting in the war-ravaged country, said the attack has left at least 82 people dead. It said Islamic State fighters have cut the road linking the government's access to the airport. Fighting also continues outside the capital, Damascus, where government forces are trying to recapture a rebel-held area which holds the main water source for the Syrian capital. The fighting north of Damascus in the water-rich valley has raged since December 22, when Barada River water supplies to the capital and its 5.5 million residents were severely curtailed due to water contamination. The government accused rebel forces of poisoning the water with diesel fuel, while opposition leaders say the contamination began when government airstrikes heavily damaged a key water processing facility. Local officials said Friday that engineers had begun repairs to the plant as part of a broader deal that allowed the safe departure of some rebel fighters and a temporary truce with others while repairs were made. But the observatory said the deal fell apart late Saturday when gunmen shot and killed the head of the negotiating team overseeing the truce. Senior members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration say they are considering moving White House press briefings to a new location with more space, but reporters oppose the proposal saying it would hurt their ability to do their jobs. The briefings take place in a room in the West Wing of the White House, which has about 50 seats and work spaces for television, radio and print reporters who cover the president on a daily basis. Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC News on Sunday there were discussions about moving briefings to a building next door to the White House that could provide four times as much space. He cited the number of journalists who attended Trump's first press conference since his election, held last week in New York, saying if more people were involved, "that would be a good thing." Vice President-elect Mike Pence told CBS News that no decisions have been made yet. White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason met Sunday with Sean Spicer, who as Trump's press secretary will be the one answering reporters' questions at the daily briefings. Mason said the group has always advocated for "increasing access and transparency" to benefit the public, but that he made clear to Spicer a move out of the West Wing would be "unacceptable." "Access in the West Wing to senior administration officials, including the press secretary, is critical to transparency and to journalists' ability to do their jobs," Mason said in a statement. Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday that the media should apologize for reporting on unsubstantiated claims that Russia had a file of compromising information about Trump. He also criticized NBC News and the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live, which began its latest episode with a scene about Trump's press conference. Upcoming inauguration Trump takes the oath of office as the 45th U.S. president on Friday at noon in Washington, as President Barack Obama leaves after eight years as the American leader. "Inauguration Day is turning out to be even bigger than expected," Trump claimed in another tweet. On Sunday, military units staged a rehearsal for the event. Hundreds of thousands of people, some of them protesters against Trump's victory, are expected to crowd the capital city's National Mall to witness his swearing-in, his inaugural address and his afternoon parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. One Army band member, vocalist Greg Lowery, played the role of Trump in the rehearsal, saying he wanted to "look the part as much as possible" of the incoming president, even buying a red tie for the occasion, just as Trump often wears. As Trump assumes power, he faces a country still divided over his election. Already unpopular when he was elected, one poll showed Trump's approval rating on a variety of assessments has dropped even further since the November 8 balloting. Controversies surrounding the election are still consuming political Washington. Assorted controversies Debates fill news shows about the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the election through hacking of a key Democrat's computer to try to help Trump win, and a Justice Department watchdog's announcement last week that he would examine the role Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey played in his handling of an investigation of Clinton's use of an unsecured private email server while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. At least 18 Democratic lawmakers are saying they will boycott Trump's inauguration. Civil rights icon John Lewis said Trump is not a "legitimate president" because of the Russian hacking of thousands of emails of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. Trump assailed Lewis in a Twitter comment Saturday, saying he should spend more time working to improve life in his Atlanta, Georgia congressional district, "rather than falsely complaining about the election results." Vice President-elect Pence on Sunday called Lewis's comments questioning the legitimacy of Trump's election "deeply disappointing" and said he hopes Lewis will reconsider them. On Fox News, outgoing Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan criticized Trump's penchant for "talking and tweeting," saying it was not in U.S. interests. Brennan, likely to soon be replaced by CIA director-designate Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, said national security issues Trump will face are not "about him." Brennan said Trump is "going to have an opportunity to do something for our national security as opposed to talking and tweeting." U.S. President-elect Donald Trump says his plan to replace President Obama's healthcare program is "formulated down to the final strokes," and will be unveiled soon. In an interview with the Washington Post posted late Sunday, Trump said his goal was "insurance for everybody," but that he declined to provide specifics. One thing he did specify was wanting to bring down healthcare costs by publicly pressuring drug companies to lower their prices. Repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is a major priority for Trump in the beginning of his administration. The program passed Congress in 2010 when Democrats were in control, but now Republicans have majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and with Trump as president they can take action to reform a system they say is too expensive and does not work. Last week, Congress approved the beginning steps toward repeal, though Republicans have not made clear a plan to replace the program, which brought health insurance to more than 20 million Americans. Trump also told the Post his team is close to finalizing plans for what he called "great" tax cuts for the middle class and reducing corporate tax rates to 15 percent in a bid to boost job creation. The president-elect also gave a joint interview with The Times of London and Germany's Bild newspaper, telling them German Chancellor Angela Merkel erred in letting hundreds of thousands of migrants into Germany last year. Trump said, "I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking in all of these illegals, you know, taking all of the people from wherever they came from." Most of the migrants are Muslims who poured into Western Europe to escape war, terrorism and poverty in places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump hastened to add that he always had "great respect" for Merkel and called her a "fantastic" leader. But he said Germans "got a clear impression" of the consequences of her immigration policy -- a likely reference to the December Christmas market truck attack in Berlin that killed 12. The driver who mowed down the shoppers was Tunisian and came to Germany before Merkel opened the door to Middle Eastern war refugees. He fled to Italy after the attack and later was killed by police. Trump blamed the refugee crisis as the reason for Britain's decision to leave the European Union, calling it "the straw that broke the camel's back." "I do believe this. If they (the EU) hadn't been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many...I think that you wouldn't have a Brexit." But he still called Brexit a good thing, and forecast other countries bailing out of the EU, saying they, like Britain, want their own identity. "I do think keeping it together is not going to be as easy as a lot of people think. If refugees keep pouring into different parts of Europe...people are angry about it." Trump also told the British and German newspapers that NATO is "obsolete" because "it was designed many many years ago...the countries aren't paying what they're supposed to pay...it's obsolete because it wasn't taking care of terror." But he immediately followed that by saying NATO is "very important to me." Asias booming tourism industry, a key force driving the regions economies, has triggered calls for governments to boost investments in vital infrastructure to ensure the industry remains sustainable. Andrew Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), said Asias economic growth and rising local incomes had supported robust growth. But Herdman said the industry faces challenges in meeting capacity with additional infrastructure. The challenges are whether the infrastructure keeps up and by infrastructure we mean airports, runaways, terminals, slot capacity, and air navigation weve got congested airspace and there are some challenges around the region its a global problem, Herdman told VOA. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) says the industry employed 66.6 million people in the Asia Pacific region in 2016, adding $3.65 billion to the regions economies. By 2026, the WTTC says jobs directly linked to tourism are set to reach 81.7 million. WTTC President and CEO David Scowsill, recently called on Southeast Asian governments to ensure they have the infrastructure in place to cater to future demand from the region and China. Tourist arrivals in Southeast Asia have leapfrogged in recent years to over 100 million, well ahead of the 74 million in 2010, with almost half from within the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). A rising regional middle class, thanks to economic prosperity, is set to reach 400 million by 2020 from 190 million in 2012. Vietnam In Vietnam, tourism growth led the government to announce a major expansion of its Tan Son Nhat International airport in Ho Chi Minh City to cope with passenger growth. The airports capacity, currently at 23 million passengers a year, is to be doubled under present plans with an additional runway, two terminals and extra aircraft aprons. Tan Son Nhat needs to be upgraded to handle between 40 and 50 million passengers each year, Deputy Prime Minister, Trinh Dinh Dung, told Vietnam News Agency (VNA). Initial extension work is due to begin this year to boost capacity to 38 million passengers by 2019. In 2016, Vietnam marked a 25 percent increase in international arrivals to 10 million, as well as serving 62 million domestic tourists, with total tourism revenue reaching $18 billion. Laurent Kuenzle, chief executive officer of travel company Asian Trails, said the airport expansion in Ho Chi Minh City highlights Vietnams leading role in regional tourism. Vietnam is growing very fast. Infrastructure is improving everywhere, and new hotels are coming up everywhere. New tourist destinations are opening up domestic airports become international airports, - they make them bigger. So Vietnam is definitely heading Indochina in the development that is happening, Kuenzle told VOA. Cambodia and Myanmar The fast growth has also been evident in Cambodia and Myanmar. Cambodia recorded five million tourist arrivals in 2016, with 900,000 Chinese arrivals a rise of 20 percent from the year earlier. Cambodias Tourism Minister Thong Khon, told the Khmer Times, the outlook is to reach 7.0 million arrivals by 2020. In Myanmar, political progress in recent years has spurred visitor arrivals and more investment into hotel and tourism capacity. Kuenzle says after a tough year in 2016 with hotel room rates rising and room shortages, times have changed. Going into this high season it has changed and theres more capacity, more small hotels have opened up. So I dont think were going to face a capacity problem like the last two seasons this year, he said. Thailand In Thailand, the WTTC has forecast travel and tourism industrys contribution to national output (GDP), based on a growth of 4.0 percent, to around $83 billion, or 21 per cent of total GDP, and accounting for almost six million jobs. A crackdown on low cost package tours in Thailand that lure Chinese travelers to pay for high priced souvenirs and other services, have led to a sharp decline in arrivals, especially over the upcoming Lunar New Year. Chinese visitors account for around eight million of Thailands overall visitor number of 30 million tourists. But Phidel Vineles, a senior analyst at Singapores S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University, in a recent commentary, said for ASEAN to see further growth in tourism the region needs to invest in sustainable tourism infrastructure and implement a policy of easier access to travel visas. However, the overall upbeat outlook is set to be featured at this weeks ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) in Singapore, with a campaign to attract more than 120 million visitor arrivals to the region by the end of 2017, up from 109 million in 2015. Could the writings of a little-know leftist from a rural American state help to reshape the political structure of the nation that emerges from the Syrian civil war? That could be the case if the Kurdish YPG one of the most effective forces in the U.S.-backed struggle against Islamic State extremists succeeds in its goal of carving out a self-governing entity in the areas it controls in northern Syria. For decades, autonomy-seeking Kurds in Syria and Turkey have been deeply influenced by the published works of Murray Bookchin, Marxist-inspired writer who advocated a radical form of grassroots democracy. Libertarian socialism doctrine Though his work has received scant attention in the U.S., Bookchin is so revered by Kurds in the Middle East that memorials were held across the region following his death in 2006. Bookchins self-described libertarian socialism is taught today in Kurdish classrooms and is indoctrinated into Kurdish recruits of the YPG. Bookchin, who lived and wrote in the state of Vermont, was deeply sympathetic to the Kurds and their sufferings under a series of authoritarian rulers in the Middle East. I have a diary entry by him in 1991 in which he writes about feeling tormented over the massacre of the Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein, his daughter, Debbie Bookchin, told VOA, referring a chemical attack on Kurds in Halabja in 1988. He was very disturbed that the Kurds were so callously and repeatedly betrayed, she said. Bookchin's doctrine, sometimes loosely referred to as democratic confederalism or the democratic nation, has become a banner for the 2 million Kurds in Syria who have long sought autonomy from Damascus. Born in New York in 1921, Bookchin was influenced by his sufferings during the Great Depression and dedicated his life to leftist causes. The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Bookchin joined the Young Communist League in New York in the 1930s and was influenced by the writings of socialist philosopher Karl Marx and communist theorist Vladimir Lenin. He was a consistent anti-statist, said Janet Biehl, Bookchins biographer, who was also his partner from 1988 until his death in 2006. Grassroots democracy Biehl said Bookchin was most influenced by his grandmother who was a social revolutionary back in Russia. He thought that it was necessary for people to be empowered through decision-making at the grassroots level, the level of face-to-face democracy like ancient Athens, she told VOA. Beginning in 2004, Bookchin began corresponding regularly with Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Washington and Ankara. The PKK has battled Turkish forces decades and has engaged in deadly attacks in Turkey in its push for Kurdish autonomy. Lawyers for jailed Kurdish rebel leader made contact with Bookchin in 2004 and the two began corresponding. Ocalan had read Bookchins books while in prison and became captivated by the ideas of the American thinker. From then on, his writings were heavily influenced by Bookchins, prompting the PKK and other Kurdish parties to begin to incorporating Bookchins ideas into an already left-leaning ideology. Several months after Syrias civil war broke out in 2011, Kurdish groups took control of an area in northern Syria where they had lived for decades under Syrian rule. The Kurds set up a local government through the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of YPG. The PYD is ideologically influenced by Ocalan and considered by Turkey to be a wing of the PKK. With the rise of Islamic State in 2014, the YPG emerged as one of the most effective forces against the extremists, drawing the backing of the U.S.-led coalition. Kurdish military gains, largely made with U.S. air support, allowed them to declare a federal system of governance in 2015 in northern Syria largely modeled on the thoughts of Bookchin. Under a locally crafted constitution for the region, the powers of the central authority are strictly limited and the local population is assured of a voice in the decision-making process. Gender equality The YPG has also embraced Bookchins ideology of promoting equality between men and women. The YPJ, an all-female unit of the YPG, has fought fiercely against the terror group. My father would have been elated to see his ideas put into practice, his daughter told VOA. The Kurdish communalist movement serves as a model of self-rule that could help dramatically improve the lives of women across the region and that would guarantee freedom of expression to all cultures. However human rights groups say the local Kurdish government has not always lived up to its high ideals. Although it tries hard to market itself as a pioneer of a new movement in the region, the PYD has not been able to get rid of its oppressive Stalinist practices, said Hosheng Ose, a Kurdish affairs analyst who writes for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. Other analysts agree that Bookchins vision for an environment-friendly society and benign democratic institutions has not been fully realized by the Kurds in Syria. From abroad, the Kurdish experiment in Syria seems very attractive and unique, Ose said. But at the micro-level, there are many shortages that wont be eradicated overnight. As they do each year on the third Monday in January, Americans are celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., the iconic leader of the African-American civil rights movement who was assassinated in 1968. Across the country, parades, neighborhood events and community service projects were being held to honor the Baptist minister who won the Nobel Peace prize in 1964 for advocating non-violent activism. His widow, the late Coretta Scott King, once wrote that the holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. She noted the values he taught through his example of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service. "On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit," she said. Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to march Monday in parades and demonstrations in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns, emulating King's marches for justice in the 1950s and 60s. The holiday is designated as a National Day of Service as hundreds of community centers and volunteers across the country donate their time to make a difference in their neighborhoods. They pick up litter and trash along streets and in parks and empty lots, help repair blighted homes, and feed the poor and homeless. In his proclamation marking the holiday, outgoing President Barack Obama indirectly noted November's closely contested presidential election, saying, "We must live our values, strive for righteousness, and bring goodness to others. And at a time when our politics are so sharply polarized and people are losing faith in our institutions, we must meet his call to stand in another person's shoes and see through their eyes. We must work to understand the pain of others, and we must assume the best in each other." President-elect Donald Trump met Monday with King's son, Martin Luther King III, to discuss voting rights. After the meeting, King told reporters the talks were very constructive and that Trump promised to represent Americans. WATCH: King III on 'Constructive' Meeting with Trump Earlier, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said on NBC's Today show that Trump and King planned a conversation "about bringing more people into the system, the legacy of Dr. King, and how we can continue to pursue that under the Trump administration." Trump tweeted Monday, "Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for the great man that he was!" To love someone you cant be with, whether owing to circumstance or choice, is a special kind of pain. Its a pain that takes on greater resonance when home isnt defined by places, but by other people. For Alison and Cole, this sentiment is especially true. Despite the numerous wounds theyve inflicted on each other, they continue to be drawn together. More than any other place or person, they are home for one another. I dont think that will ever change. After several episodes that focused on Noahs unraveling mental state and the alarming turns in his relationship with Helen, The Affair gives us a much-needed respite by turning attention to Cole and Alisons perspectives. 308 is an episode of great beauty and heartbreak, a high-water mark that reminds us why this show works best when it focuses on Cole and Alison. Again and again, their relationship wrings big emotions from minor events. 308 starts off explosively, at the hearing thats meant to decide Alisons role in Joanies life. Mr. Gutman, as the judge notes, isnt acting as an impartial advocate for Joanie. If anything, he seems to get a thrill from cutting Alison down with incorrect information. She may not have a regular job, but being a partner in the Lobster Roll brings in all the income she needs. Shes officially divorced from Noah, as well. Unfortunately, the real trouble for Alison has always been Luisas opinion. When shes called to the stand, its obvious what happens next will decide Alisons fate and Luisas testimony proves to be in favor of Alison. This isnt about me, she says. She argues that Alison should have joint custody of Joanie, although that wasnt even on the table. Joint custody is the victory Alison has desperately wanted. However, this development also reveals the fault lines that still exist in such a makeshift family. Before her lawyer, Jessa (Deborah Ayorinde), returns with the good news, Alison watches Cole and Luisa argue outside. Although she cant hear them, theres an intensity to their movements that suggests Cole didnt know about Luisas testimony. His perspective begins at this very moment, confirming that Luisas statements were unplanned. Thats something Im not sure I fully believe. By solving the custody issue, Luisa obviously believes they can start their own family without Alison casting a shadow over their marriage. Later, she broaches the possibility of having a child through surrogacy or adoption. Cole recoils at first, until a tense exchange with Alison leads him to become excited at the possibility. Like so much of the episode, this sudden change suggests that Cole isnt holding on to Luisa out of overwhelming love, but as a reaction to Alisons presence. For Alison, the joy of joint custody quickly curdles in the face of Coles casual cruelty. You havent exactly become a model of consistency since youve come back. Youre still you, Cole says after she tries to thank him after the hearing. Coles words directly echo what Noah told Alison earlier: No matter how confident and strong she becomes, Cole will always see her as damaged goods. Later, when Alison returns to Woodlawn at the request of her former psychiatrist, Dr. Parry (Jo Yang), we see a glimpse of the kind of woman Alison once was. She still divorced from her grief, obscuring the other aspects of her personality. Dr. Parry asks Alison to talk to a young girl named Kendra (Hope Olaide Wilson), who recently lost her daughter and has been on suicide watch. With Kendra, Alison reveals a deep well of emotion, kindness, and a sharp sense of humor. What did you do? Kendra asks. I had an affair, she replies. Alison laughs at the sheer outlandishness of her answer, but its true. Her affair with Noah was always a reaction to her grief. Alison even opens up about wanting to kill herself, then offers a valuable outlook to Kendra in return. It is incredible to be alive, she says. Everyone assumes life is a given, we know its not. This brief scene shows just how much Alison has grown recently. It also makes Coles belittling of her mental-health struggles even more damning. The conversation with Kendra opens up a new possibility for Alison: working as a grief counselor. The logistics arent nailed down yet, but Dr. Parrys offer would allow Alison to use her own struggles to help others. When Alison shares this possibility with Cole, he can only see the logistical problems. He quickly cuts her down, seeing her interest in a new line of work as another sign of her instability. This is who you are, he says. Youre chaos. Helen would certainly agree with Cole. She makes a brief appearance in the episode by sitting next to Alison at a local bar, which is both awkward and unsurprising. After all, shes still trying to prove that she knows Noah best. It does bring up questions about the last episode and the logistics of Noah staying with Helen, but Im far more interested in the dynamics playing out between Cole and Alison. Despite some subtle differences between their perspectives, there is a seamlessness to how they look at the world that underscores just how much they are meant for each other. Long stretches of 308 take place in broad daylight, where the characters struggle to put attractive faces on their warring emotions. At night, everything unsaid flourishes, and Cole finally drops the mask hes cultivated to reveal what truly ails him. He tells Alison the truth: I built this whole life Im building a whole house just to prove to everyone I dont love you anymore. That I dont need you, that I dont want you, that I dont miss you. The truth is that I do [] Im tired of pretending I dont. Unfortunately for Cole, this declaration happens in a remarkably unromantic setting: a jail cell. After the New Jersey police return to Montauk with evidence that his alibi is false, Cole gets aggressive and lands himself in jail. He wont tell the police or Luisa his true whereabouts, but he tells Alison. He wasnt in New Jersey to attack Noah that night; he just wanted to talk with Dr. Parry. He needed to make sense of his emotions with Alison and find out about her mental state. Being an ethical doctor, Dr. Parry didnt give him any answers. After admitting what he did, Cole believes he also has to reveal he slept with Alison. She suggests he just stop pretending. They both know he wont. Im a good man, Cole says, as if hes trying to convince himself. Theres this idea that suffering is imbued with knowledge and nobility. Cole definitely believes it. He stands in opposition to every character on The Affair who indulged their desires with little regard to people they hurt. His need to be seen as good may be noble, but its no way to make a life. Why stay with a woman you dont love? Whose life are you really living? Nothing is as simple as Cole dropping his life with Luisa to return to Alisons side, especially since he admits he doesnt trust her anymore. After finishing this episode, I couldnt get Alisons words to Cole off my mind. Theres a haunting quality to them. Im always going to be impulsive and depressed with mood swings. I know that I am not an easy person to love, she says. But I love you. I always have and I always will. These words make what happens next all the more heartbreaking. Unable to sleep after lying to Luisa once he got home from jail, Cole finds himself on Alisons doorstep. It was then I knew he wouldnt leave Luisa. If you leave Luisa now, you cant play the good guy anymore, Alison tells him. Then youre an asshole just like me. But maybe youre a happy asshole, instead of a miserable hero. 308 brims with quiet sorrow. Its The Affair at its most emotionally honest, with wounded, yearning performances by Ruth Wilson and Joshua Jackson being a highlight. Despite the simplicity of this episode, there is so much to consider like Coles odd decision to confide in Oscar about his brief affair with Alison, which will come back to haunt him. Nevertheless, I cant help but keep coming back to Alison and Cole. Their story illuminates how timing, circumstance, and selfishness can ruin a great connection. In another series, they would be the couple who lived happily ever after. In The Affair, that is an impossibility. When Luisa finds Cole at home the next morning, shes tearfully surprised. This is the victory shes yearned for: Cole choosing his present over his history and love for Alison. Of course, it is a hollow victory. Cole looks quietly resigned when he embraces Luisa. Yes, he will start a family with her, finish building their home, and create enough distance from Alison to survive. But at night, when he has no one to face but himself, it will always be Alison he dreams of. No matter where he moves or what happens next, she will always be his home. Photo: Anna Webber/Getty Images Though Jennifer Holliday is just the latest performer to decline a gig singing at President-elect Donald Trumps inauguration, other Broadway legends have no qualms singing on that day, so long as the stage is roughly 220 miles north in New York City. The benefit show Concert for America: Stand Up, Sing Out! will feature performances from Tony Award winners Chita Rivera, Kelli OHara, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Betty Buckley, Jessie Mueller, Bebe Neuwirth, and Billy Porter, as well as other big names like Rosie ODonnell, Caroline Rhea, and Rosie Perez. The concert will raise money for human-rights and other nonprofit organizations, including Planned Parenthood, NAACP, Sierra Club Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Immigration Law Center. Mueller told Billboard, Hate comes from a lack of love, so we cant fight it with more of its own toxicity, we have to fill it with love. She then added, There are really big things at stake. Things we cant save or solidify or safeguard alone. We have to think bigger, we have to ask for help, we have to reach out to one another and band together. While the January 20 show at Manhattans Town Hall is sold out, the performance will be streamed live on Facebook at 3 p.m., and organizers hope to make this show into a monthly event. The sixth season of Showtimes Homeland follows a pattern in place since season four: It begins by jumping ahead in time, moving to a new location, and introducing us to an array of new characters while still anchoring the show to four familiar faces. Those faces belong, of course, to Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend), Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), and Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham). Fair Game starts in New York City, set against a backdrop that will carry an air of what-if poignancy for many viewers: A new president is about to be inaugurated, and she is a woman. The possibly troublesome transition of power should offer an interesting fun-house-mirror version of whats really happening in the country right now, even though it remains to be seen how Homeland will reflect the Trump administration or the changing face of international terrorism. Until that time, we have to catch up with our favorite characters. Despite saving thousands from a Sarin gas attack at the end of last season, Carrie has retreated from government work yet again, choosing to spend her time helping Muslim Americans harassed by law enforcement. Is she doing so in part because of what happened to Quinn? Does she feel responsible? That may be why she visits him every day in a VA hospital, where hes slowly recovering from his Sarin gas poisoning. Quinn has difficulty moving and thinking, but Carrie nevertheless visits him every single day. His treatment team suggests that some space might do him more good than her constant pressure to get better, however well-intended that pressure may be. Meanwhile, Saul and Dars plot arc takes place in a completely different arena in the same city. Theyre meeting with the new PEOTUS, Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel, familiar to fans of politically tinged television from her time on House of Cards) and the Powers That Be are concerned she wants to dismantle most of the U.S. presence in the Middle East. Keane basically says as much in a briefing with Saul and Dar, implying that she wants to bring home all military forces from that part of the world. We later learn that Keanes son died in Iraq, and although she didnt make it an issue during her campaign, Dar is worried that shell tear down everything hes worked to create. Saul is more optimistic that this new leader can be reasoned with. Again, an incoming president who wants to radically change the status quo Homeland could be the most up-to-date drama on TV this year. We also meet a few new players. First, the young man who appears to be this seasons Aayan or Numan, a.k.a. the guy caught in the middle of an international situation: Sekou Bah (J. Mallory McCree). Sekou lives with his sister and mother, but he spends a lot of his time making videos about terrorism and the plight of Muslim Americans in New York City. He uploads a ton of clips, like the one about the assassination of Meir Kahane, and his activity has grabbed the attention of the U.S. government. We also check in with Otto (Sebastian Koch), who ended season five with one of Homelands oddest moments ever, when he basically proposed to Carrie. We learn that Carrie turned him down, but hes back to pressure our heroine into using her notable political pull and espionage abilities once more. He wants her help overseas, working with refugees in war-torn parts of the world, and he even drops that hes met someone else. He hopes she finds someone soon. Could it still be Quinn? Its hard to say, since Carries possible true love is nosediving to rock bottom. He busts out of the VA hospital, gets a wad of cash, and goes to a drug den where he gets incredibly high. Hes zoning out when a dude comes in with a gun it was all a setup to get Quinns cash. As Quinn slowly reaches for his money, the robber hits him with his gun, knocking him out cold. Any hope that Quinn would return quickly to Jason Bourneesque form dissipates. Back in the city, the FBI comes for Sekou, which means his plotline intersects with Carries. As he sits in a holding cell, Carrie learns that Sekou was operating a website critical of America. When does criticism cross the line to hate speech? Its an important question for America in 2017. Can a young man like Sekou be openly critical of United States policy without being a criminal? We certainly like to think that were not a country that arrests people for what they believe, but what if espousing those beliefs might get people killed? Sekou is accused of radicalizing people through uploads like 39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad. It certainly doesnt help that he had a ticket to Nigeria, where ISIS-supporting Boko Haram operate, and a wad of cash under his bed. Over the next few episodes, Sekous arc should be an interesting window into how Homeland feels about hate speech and prosecution of those who incite violence without actually committing it themselves. After meeting with Sekou, Carrie finds out that Quinn is missing. She quickly tracks him down in the now-abandoned drug den, where hes passed out on a bloody, dirty mattress. He doesnt want to go back to the VA, and he freaks out when Carrie tries to take him there. She ends up bringing him back to an apartment in her building that she often rents out. Hell be right downstairs from Carrie and her daughter and he soon realizes hes locked in. Carrie is determined to fix him whether he likes it or not, but is Quinn past the point where he can actually be fixed? In the episodes final moments, Dar and several important power players hold a closed-door meeting. How will they decide to handle the incoming president? The ever-hopeful Saul is not present. Its probably for the best. Other Notes: Photo: HBO Drama. Intrigue. Ominous black smoke. No, Im not talking about the last season of Lost. With HBOs bonkers new drama The Young Pope, which aired on Sunday night, we know you have a lot of questions regarding the big guy in the red shoes. As Vultures resident Catholic schoolgirl, Im here to bring you Pope 101. How, exactly, does one elect a pope? Who chooses him? Why should I even remotely care? Grab your white robes and your gold crucifix, and Ill answer your questions below. Who can be elected pope? Lets start off simple. Ya gotta be a dude. According to the Vaticans Cannon Law, the pope has to be a bishop or must immediately be ordained a bishop upon his election, because technically the pope is also the Bishop of Rome. Only men can be ordained priests, so only men can be bishops, so only a man can become the pope. (Sorry, Diane Keaton.) There are only five requirements to becoming a bishop. Ill break them down for you in laymans terms: You need to be outstanding in solid faith (duh), of good reputation (again, come on), at least 35 years old, have been ordained to the presbyterate (a.k.a. priesthood) for at least five years, and have a degree in theology that is approved by the Vatican. At 47, our young pope technically could have been even younger. Idea for season two? Who elects the pope? The College of Cardinals. This is the fancy name for all the cardinals of the Catholic church. They range in age, but only cardinals under 80 years old are eligible to vote for the pope. Currently, there are 227 cardinals, but because a lot of them have been around since the era of Mussolini, only 120 could vote if a papal election were held today. For the past 700 years, the pope has been a cardinal, so its very likely that one of these bros is going to be your next papa. Where and when does the electing take place? Here is where the process gets a bit Skull and Bones. After the death or resignation of a pope, the College of Cardinals descends upon the Vatican to participate in whats called a papal conclave. This is a secret meeting held in the Sistine Chapel where the cardinals can cast their ballots for whom they think should be the pope. Theres even an oath of secrecy. The voting can go on for days, but once a two-thirds majority is reached, we have a new pope. How do we know when theyve reached a decision? Now this is the fun part. After every cardinal has cast his vote, the ballots are burned in a special oven inside the Sistine Chapel. If a decision isnt reached, black chemicals are added to the fire to create a black smoke that puffs out of a chimney and into St. Peters Square. If a pope has been selected, chemicals are added to create white smoke. Black, nope. White, pope. Eagerly awaiting the white smoke is one of the true joys of Catholicism, after Christmas and Stephen Colbert. Marty Rea and Ailsing OSullivan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, at BAM. Photo: Richard Termine/Photo by Richard Termine In a dank and grimy cottage in a small town in remote Connemara live the embittered fortyish spinster Maureen Folan and her spiteful mother, Mag, whose name rhymes with hag for good reason. Even in a local microculture defined by disappointment, vengefulness, lunacy, and complaint, they are egregious. Mag blithely empties her chamber pot in the kitchen sink every morning, despite constant instruction to the contrary and her well-publicized urine infection. Maureen seems even worse, at first, mechanically engaging in such pointless cruelties as refusing to stir the lumps out of her mothers nutritional supplement. Nor is this an undeclared war. When Mag tuts over news of a man who up and murdered the poor oul woman in Dublin, and he didnt even know her making a strangling seem like a faux pas Maureen is unimpressed. Sure, that sounds exactly the type of fella I would like to meet, she says, and then bring him home to meet you, if he likes murdering oul women. This is the hilariously grim, stage-Irish world of Martin McDonaghs The Beauty Queen of Leenane, now enjoying a bang-up 20th-anniversary encore run at BAM, in a production by the Galway company Druid. Astonishingly, Beauty Queen was McDonaghs first play, picked virtually off the slush pile in 1996 by Druid co-founder Garry Hynes, who directed then as now. What she found in Beauty Queen was not only something gorgeously playable but also something new and fully formed, as McDonaghs subsequent plays (including The Cripple of Inishmaan, seen on Broadway recently in a terrific revival starring Daniel Radcliffe) have demonstrated in ever more poisonous concentrations. In all of them, awful people do awful things to people only slightly less awful, which renders the doings funny. But his grotesques are just recognizable enough to make at least some of them worth your empathy, and his style is so lean you can see bone at all times. In Beauty Queen this means you are always aware that things will not end well, even as the play sets a trap you eagerly leap into. When Maureens neighbor Pato Dooley, a handsome man of about her own age, returns briefly to Leenane from his work as a construction laborer in London, he invites her to a party; even though Mag burns the invitation in the stove, Maureen finds out and attends. There follows a scene of such tender late-night pleasure shyness, boldness, doubt, reassurance that you may be suckered into believing that McDonagh has lost his no-hope nerve. But hes playing a long game. In this where-can-it-go courtship scene, and later when Pato writes a letter to Maureen that offers a viable way out of her misery (and, not incidentally, out of Ireland), McDonagh provides just enough rom-com thrill to hook Maureen and the audience before yanking the hook out again, as if through flesh. His is a dramaturgy of deprivation, which means first provisioning his characters with something he can take away. Dark comedy, its often called, but the phrase isnt nearly dark enough for this esthetic. Beauty Queen may be funny in the way a YouTube video of a man diving into a frozen pool can be, but its no comedy. Rather, it exists somewhat beyond our traditional genre definitions, encompassing many of them. Its a satire of Irishness and Irish drama of course, with its peat stoves and cow fixations and eejit chatterboxes. (Aaron Monaghan, in this case, plays the requisite local moron.) Its a horror tale, too, as the women, once Pato is dispatched, engage in a witchlike battle for supremacy of their horrid little realm. And for all its laughs its also a tragedy, in which even the satisfaction of Maureens prime objective she does, in the end, get free of Mag fails to make a difference. She just becomes Mag instead of fighting her. Or would if Hyness generally expert staging, with a new cast on a replica of the original set by Francis OConnor, didnt falter slightly in its interpretation of the women. Marie Mullen, who was Maureen in 1996, has graduated to Mag for this production, providing an apt meta-theatrical kick: We grow into our monsters. Still, she leans a bit too hard into some of the comedy, almost winking at the audience on occasion. (The late Anna Manahan, who won a Tony award as the original Mag, was unfalteringly ferocious.) Meanwhile, Aisling OSullivan, otherwise quite moving as Maureen, is hampered by a different kind of problem: Shes way too pretty for the role. (McDonaghs stage directions describe Maureen as plain.) When Pato (Marty Rea, heartbreakingly sincere) calls her the beauty queen of Leenane, the line is meant to reflect a lovers myopia; it thrills Maureen but also makes her doubt his sincerity. Even if you make a mental adjustment to recategorize her sense of ugliness as psychological, the visual truth shes inarguably sexy in a black party dress thats supposed to seem desperate flattens the layers of irony built into the title, and thus to a slight extent the drama. But those are quibbles, and perhaps a little nudge toward the comedy is not unwarranted in 2017. In any case, its not the kind of play I can imagine would ever really fail, whatever way you balance it. Like the best work in any dramatic genre, it is almost unanswerable, a block of life, however exaggerated, that fell onto the stage in one piece. Look underneath it and youll find a lot of crushed people. The Beauty Queen of Leenane is at the BAM Harvey Theater through February 5. Ava DuVernay. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Oprah Winfrey, Van Jones, and Ava DuVernay met to discuss DuVernays documentary 13th on Sunday night at the home of Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, and his wife, Nicole Avant, a former United States ambassador to the Bahamas. But Deadline reports Donald Trump quickly became the topic of discussion when Van Jones told Oprah he expects mostly bad things from the next four years. Jones said: I dont think I need to love the Trump voters to make them better. I think I need to love them to keep him from making them worse. But DuVernay argued, Im challenged by the idea that we are not holding people accountable for their votes. At one point an audience member suggested CNN have a psychologist discuss Trumps insanity, and Jones, a CNN commentator, agreed. The three were able to get back on topic and discuss the message of 13th and how to reform a justice system that is biased against African-Americans. 13th is on the Oscar shortlist for feature documentary, and nomination results will be announced January 24. Victoria Doll 123; Ladies in Waiting Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2 Editors Rating 3 stars * * * Previous Next Previous Episode Next Episode Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria. Photo: Justin Slee/PBS Have you been jonesing for a whiff of English aristocracy ever since Downton Abbey closed its doors for good? After binge-watching The Crown, were you left pondering how you might get another glimpse into a sweet Buckingham Palace life? Do you love strong, flawed women fighting the patriarchy while also wearing very pretty gowns? Welcome to Victoria. Youll feel at home here. The latest behind-the-scenes look at royalty has everything you could want in a British period drama: romance, group dancing, forbidden flirting, evil people with big scars on their faces so you know theyre evil, explanations of the inner-workings of Parliament, great costumes, people introspectively staring into mirrors, servants talking about candles, and lots and lots of hand-kissing. So much hand-kissing! The two-hour premiere picks up right at the start of the Victorian Era. King William IV has died, which means that his niece, 18-year-old Princess Alexandrina Victoria (Jenna Coleman), will ascend to the throne. Shes a little bit scared, but mainly pumped about this promotion. Others, however, do not share her enthusiasm. Shes very young and shes a woman which, in England circa 1837, is treated as an enormous handicap. Lucky for us, this iteration of Victoria is just the right mix of stubborn teen and regal lady boss to be believable. (Okay, so she leans heavily toward the stubborn side in Doll 123, but shes trying!) Coleman does an excellent job of showing Victorias attempts to assert herself, while also revealing the vulnerable girl who woke up one morning and found herself in charge of an entire country. Although Victoria doesnt encounter many allies in this premiere, there are two dudes who really have it out for the new queen. (They want that sweet, sweet throne, you see.) The first is Sir John Conroy (Paul Rhys), king of the glower. He, along with Victorias mother, the Duchess of Kent (Catherine Flemming), basically kept Victoria imprisoned in her own home throughout her childhood. They claim they did so to keep her safe, but it mostly just made Victoria extremely unprepared for the monarchy. Conroy runs the duchesss household and he also runs the duchess, if you know what Im saying. Just kidding: These two supposedly arent hooking up, but thats not for lack of trying on the duchesss part. Conroy is here for the power, and fights hard to convince anyone who will listen that a regent should be installed until Victoria gets her bearings. Thankfully, Victoria sees through Conroy, and soon after her coronation, shes yelling things at him like, If I require advice, I will ask for it! It is awesome. However, Conroy has an unlikely ally in his attempt to get a regency: the Duke of Cumberland (Peter Firth). Cumberland is one of Victorias uncles, and next in line for the throne. He also has a giant scar on his face, so you know this dude is up to no good. He knows that should there be a regency, so theyll need a co-regent with royal English blood. Needless to say, Cumberland is down to clown with Conroy. With all these nefarious types wandering the halls of Buckingham Palace, there surely must be one hero in Victorias corner, right? Oh, you guys, there is. Enter Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell), a man who puts the prime in prime minister, as it were. This Lord M is exactly what a young queen would want in an ally: He holds duty and love of country in the highest regard; he believes in Victoria from almost the moment he meets her; he guides her without seeming too manipulative; and, crucially, he rescues her when the Russian archduke gets handsy. He is, by all accounts, a certified dreamboat. Rather than dismiss Victoria, like most people, Lord M wants to help Victoria learn to rule. As her prime minister and her private secretary, he fills in the gaps where shes lacking knowledge and attempts to keep her calm when she starts acting like the teenager she is. Those attempts dont always work, and Doll 123 spends the majority of its time telling the story of two major scandals that plagued Victoria at the beginning of her reign. The first has to do with the Duchess of Kents lady-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings (Alice Orr-Ewing). Lady Flora seems like a decent enough person; though shes in the pocket of Conroy, she loves her country and the monarchy. To the new queen, however, Lady Flora represents another person whos been holding her back since her childhood, so when she sees Lady Floras swollen belly and hears a story about Lady Flora and Conroy getting it on, she pounces. Although advised by the Duchess and Lord M otherwise, Victoria forces Lady Flora into an incredibly humiliating examination, only to find out that the woman is not pregnant, but dying from a tumor. Word gets out and people are pissed. But not Lord M, of course. Although he may be a bit frustrated, hes never mad at his queen. When he finds Victoria too terrified to go out in public, he sits with her and tells her about his late son. After his son died, he thought he had no purpose and then he became Victorias prime minister. Until that happened, he had to muscle through it, and thats what she needs to do too. If you questioned the certified dreamboat status, just watch this scene again. The second scandal is a bit more complex and a bit more premeditated. After Lord M and the Whigs win an anti-slavery vote in Parliament by the narrowest of margins, he realizes his days are numbered and decides to resign. Victoria cant fathom having anyone else as her prime minister, and frankly, I cant either. When Victoria tearfully asks him, Do you really mean to forsake me? and then he tearfully responds, I have no choice, it is just the saddest. Sure, you know that they dont get together because, well, history, and you also know they shouldnt get together but maybe they should? In this extra-long premiere, the scenes between Coleman and Sewell are all we really need. No matter his personal feelings, Melbourne is a man of country first. Hes stepping down. The big problem? Victoria doesnt like the next man in line very much. Tory leader Sir Robert Peel (Nigel Lindsay) is boring and his eyes dont pierce the soul with just one look. Victoria is smart enough to know that if the crown demonstrates zero confidence in this new government, they wont be able to govern. She is not smart enough, however, to realize that this will trigger a constitutional crisis. With her little plan in place, she refuses to replace any of her ladies-in-waiting, who are all Whigs, thus showing partisanship and an alliance with Lord M. If people werent calling her Mrs. Melbourne before, they certainly are now. Of course, everyone tries to dissuade her even her ladies offer to resign! but Victoria stands firm. As she explains to the Duke of Wellington (Peter Bowles), these women are her allies and she wont go into war without them. This latest stray from royal protocol sends Cumberland and Conroy into a fit, which means its full steam ahead with their attempt to force a regency. They try to convince people that Victoria is out of her mind, much like her mad grandfather. Unfortunately, their biggest piece of evidence is Victoria screaming when she finds rats all over her birthday cake, so you know this plan is going to be a wash. There were so many rats! Not screaming would be the crazy thing. Melbourne, whos been trying his best to stay away until the Bedchamber crisis subsides, catches wind of this plan to discredit and remove Victoria from power. For that, he cannot stand. Even after his swoon-worthy speech about putting the constitution before his devotion to Victoria, he knows hes the only one who can stop this scheme, so he comes to her aid. If she asks him to form a government, hes all in. As if thats not enough for a two-hour premiere, Doll 123 also digs into some downstairs story lines. You know, for the Downton fans in the crowd. To be frank, these parts are pretty boring. Its mainly about a power struggle between Victorias frugal governess, Lehzen (Daniela Holtz), and head butler Penge (Adrian Schiller), who is entertaining but cant hold a candle to Carson. Theres also this whole thing about a mysterious assistant dresser named Skerrett (Nell Hudson), who apparently once worked in a brothel. All of this is fine, but its very unnecessary when theres so much drama and chemistry happening upstairs. Since we, like Melbourne, know his days as Victorias closest male companion are numbered, shouldnt we get all the Victoria and Melbourne while we can? MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - Jan 16, 2017) - Sama Graphite Inc. (TSX VENTURE:SRG) ("SRG" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that effective at the open of market today, the Company's common shares began trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol "SRG". The listing, following final approval from the TSXV, marks completion of the previously announced reverse take-over with Sama Resources Inc. Sama Graphite owns the Lola Graphite deposit, one of the largest surface graphite mineralizations in the world, with an area of 3.22 km2 of continuous graphite rich gneiss. The Lola Graphite deposit is located approximately 1,000 km east of Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea. The Lola deposit graphite mineralization is well exposed at surface along its entire strike length, with samples grading up to 20% Cg (large flakes) and can often be seen in higher concentration agglomerates. Additionally, the first 20 meters or so of the deposit are well weathered (lateralized), freeing graphite flakes from the silicate gangue, thereby allowing for easy grinding with an optimal recovery of large and jumbo flakes. The Lola Graphite occurrence was originally discovered by BUMIFOM ("Bureau Minier de la France Outremer") in 1951. BUMIFOM dug 309 pits in the oxide material, performed numerous metallurgical tests and drew up blueprints for a proposed on-site processing facility. Shortly after Guinea's declaration of independence in 1958, however, the project was abandoned and subsequently forgotten until Sama Resources "re-discovered" the deposit in 2012. "This is an important milestone for Sama Graphite," stated Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo, President and Chief Executive Officer. "The Company is fully funded with more than $2 million in cash and we are eager to begin development of the high potential Lola Graphite deposit. Our objective is to complete a preliminary economic assessment by the third quarter of 2017 and a feasibility study by mid 2018." Sama Graphite's management team and Board of Directors consist of many seasoned industry executives with exceptional track records of success including Messrs. Benoit La Salle (Executive Chairman), Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo, Marc Filion, Marcel Duchesne, and Rene Lessard. About Sama Graphite Inc. Sama Graphite Inc. is a Canadian-based company focused on developing the Lola Graphite deposit, located in the Republic of Guinea, West Africa. SRG is committed to operate in a socially, environmentally and ethically responsible manner. For additional information, please visit SRG's website at www.srggraphite.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains information that may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions and accordingly, actual results and future events could differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. You are hence cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional Information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in the Company's filings with the Canadian Securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The 51st Waco Citizens Police Academy will kick off from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Waco Police Department, 3115 Pine Ave. The class will continue to meet on Thursdays for 12 weeks. The class is geared to give citizens a working knowledge of the police department via lectures, demonstrations, tours and hands-on activities. The application deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. Applicants are subject to a criminal background investigation before being accepted into the academy. For registration information, call 750-1761. MLK Candlelight Vigil The 30th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. candlelight vigil will be at 6 p.m. Monday at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, 100 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Frank Jackson, Texas A&M University System assistant vice chancellor for governmental relations, will be the keynote speaker. The event also will include performances by the Toliver Chapel Missionary Baptist Church Combined Choir and the Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church Praise Team, Mime Ministry and Drill Team. Guests are asked to bring their own candles. For more information, call Coque Gibson at 722-1274. Free food distribution The Central Texas Food Bank and The Shepherds Heart will have a free food-distribution event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of Texas State Technical Colleges Industrial Technology Center, located at the corner of Crest and Airline drives. Participants will receive a variety of fresh food. Clients must provide a container to carry their food. For more information, call 799-8810 or 716-7064. Hewitt story times The Hewitt Public Library, 200 Patriot Court, will present story times for toddlers, ages 12 to 36 months, and preschoolers, ages 3 to 5, on Tuesday and Wednesday. The toddler sessions will start at 9:30 a.m. with a program about Cats and Kittens. Preschoolers will meet at 10:30 a.m. with a program about Painting and Creativity. For more information, call 666-2442. Seniors lunch talk Lake Shore United Methodist Church, 3311 Park Lake Drive, will host a free lunch-speaker program for senior citizens at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Ravonne McCray, with Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center, will speak about Safe Driving Tips for Seniors. Because of limited space, reservations are required by noon Tuesday. For reservations, call 754-7333 or 772-2506. Submit items for Briefly in printed or typed form to Briefly, P.O. Box 2588, Waco 76702-2588; fax to 757-0302; or email to goingson@wacotrib.com. Julia Walsh has packed more pain, suffering and traumatic experiences into a short time than most people would endure in several lifetimes. Raised in a neglectful Russian orphanage, the 25-year-old never felt comfortable after her adoption by a Texas family. She struggled with depression in school, dropped out of college and fell into abusive relationships and drug addiction. She was forced into prostitution, made to sleep in the trunk of a car and was held hostage in abandoned apartments. She was branded as the personal property of her traffickers and given a daily revenue quota, which she earned by having sex with multiple men a day. She also lost a child fathered by one of the pimps who raped her. Thinking she was running away from horrific situations, Walsh merely fell victim to other men who acted like they cared for her at first before forcing her back into the illicit sex trade. Four men trafficked Walsh for almost three years in multiple cities in at least four states before a caring Waco police detective and those on the forefront of the fight against human trafficking convinced her there was a way out. January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and Walsh thinks her harrowing, heart-wrenching story needs to be told. Shes a survivor and wants others to know they can be, also. I want them to know it is possible to get out, Walsh said. It is possible to find help, and there are people who will genuinely help you. There is a bright future, and they need to know they are not alone. There is hope for a brighter future. Look at me. I am a walking miracle. I have had so many angels in my life. Susan Peters, executive director of UnBound and leader of the Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition, said about 79,000 people ages 22 and younger are being trafficked in Texas, according to a recent University of Texas study. Peters, Waco police Detective Kim Clark and Waco attorney Robert Callahan, who volunteers with UnBound, were instrumental in helping Walsh escape the bonds of human trafficking after she and her pimp, David Ronald Mims, were arrested in June 2013 in Mobile, Alabama, and brought back to Waco. Clark, who started looking into the case after Mims also was linked to a runaway from the Waco Center for Youth, traveled to Corpus Christi, Kerrville, San Antonio, Lubbock and Leakey following Mims trail. Clark, Peters and Callahan all met with Walsh after her arrest with Mims. Authorities initially thought Walsh was Mims girlfriend and accomplice. But Clark said it didnt take any super sleuthing before they realized Walsh was very much a victim. While charges were dismissed against Walsh, Mims, the last of her four traffickers, pleaded guilty and is serving a 40-year prison sentence. Penchant to flee Still, it took time to break down Walshs street mentality and penchant to flee before they could convince her to trust them, Clark said. When we got involved with her, Julia was really emotionally beat down and on drugs, Clark said. To actually see her come out of that and be in a very positive situation and teaching others what she has gone through is incredible. For law enforcement, it is important to remember you do make a difference, even when you think you dont. It is a good motivational thing for us, too. You put forth the effort, and it really makes a difference in saving her life. I wont say change her life because it pretty much saved her life. Walsh knows that now and says she wants to spend the rest of her life helping others who are where she used to be. I was adopted from a Russian orphanage, and we were neglected there, Walsh said. We really didnt get the care we needed, and I had PTSD and a host of other problems that we didnt really know about. So relationships were pretty difficult for me. Being close to my family was difficult, making friends, those kinds of relationships. She grew up in Grapevine with her adoptive family, who loved her and did their best for her, she said. Growing up was difficult. Making friends was difficult. I had a rough childhood and didnt know how to cope with it, she said. Like many troubled teens, Walsh started self-harming when she was 14. She went to counseling, but nothing really seemed to help. She harbored suicidal thoughts, was depressed and felt isolated from everyone around her. Eventually, she was hospitalized on suicide watch and for continuing to cut herself. The doctors diagnoses included depression, anxiety and oppositional defiance disorder. But it wasnt until after she was rescued from more than two years as a human trafficking victim that doctors recognized that she also suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, she said. They were trying to find help for me, but they really didnt know where to start or where to look, Walsh said. They were just grasping at straws. I felt very isolated and depressed. Her parents sent her to a private high school in Flower Mound. She didnt have any friends there and was unhappy, so she transferred to Fort Worth Christian School in North Richland Hills, where she graduated. In August 2010, she enrolled in Angelo State University in San Angelo. I was just trying to get away from my family and put as much distance as possible between them and me. My parents didnt think I was going to make it because of the road I was on, but they gave me the benefit of the doubt and supported me financially, she said. The start of Walshs long, agonizing road inside the world of human trafficking started in her freshman English class. She met a man who seemed nice. They started dating, but soon he started physically abusing her and got her hooked on cocaine and pain pills. I hadnt dated much and I really didnt have much to compare it to. I didnt know what warning signs to look for or what makes it a bad or dangerous relationship, Walsh said. But as it turned out, I walked right into a domestic violence, abusive situation. She was flunking her classes, so she and her friend moved to San Antonio. Thats when her parents basically cut her off, she said. He was beating me up and taking my money, she said. One day he just decided that I was only good for sex, drugs and money. I tried to run away, and he saw me and beat me up again. He told me to never run away again. The man kept Walsh in the trunk of a car at times. Sometimes, she had to sleep there. He found an abandoned apartment and was trafficking her out of there while keeping her high on drugs. She was able to run away with the help of a friend. A friend of mine in the drug circle decided to take me in, Walsh said. He kept telling me he was going to heal me physically and get me back to health and make sure the first guy didnt come back to get me. But the man, a heroin addict, also was abusive and he also took her money. The harsh treatment progressed, and he eventually sent Walsh out on the streets to get drugs for him. Some areas where she would get drugs were run by gangs, and she was raped multiple times on these drug runs, she said. That lasted about a year until the man became more violent and she thought he was going to kill her. She called police, who helped her move into another friends apartment in San Antonio. She called her mother, who came to see her at her new apartment. She convinced Walsh to move to Euless to be closer to the family, and she got a job working at Whataburger. She said things were starting to turn around briefly until she created an account on an online dating site, and her second trafficker called her and tried to convince her to come back. She didnt, but she met a man online and agreed to go out on a date with him. He took her to a motel near Arlington and raped her, she said. He made himself out to be a sweet guy. After he raped me, he said, You know you are mine now, right? He drove Walsh to his apartment, and two other women were there. He trafficked Walsh out of a bar in Arlington. She also continued to work at Whataburger, but he had someone follow her to work to make sure she didnt run away, she said. Walsh stashed money so she could get away, and a man at the bar where she was working as a prostitute told her he knew she was not there willingly and helped her escape. He gave her money, and she bought a bus ticket back to San Antonio and moved in with a friend. But the friend didnt mention that she was being evicted, so Walsh soon found herself out on the streets of San Antonio. She was homeless, hungry and soon realized she was pregnant by the second trafficker, who had raped her. Back on the street She was on the street when Mims drove up. He noticed she was hot and dehydrated and offered to buy her something to eat. He gave her his phone number and said if she needed anything else to give him a call. She was back on the street when her second trafficker found her and took control of her life again. He took away her money, her ID, her keys and started trafficking her again. I told him I was pregnant so he wouldnt beat me up, and that kind of worked for a little bit, she said. But it got bad again, too, and I called David (Mims). He came to pick me up. Mims was kind at first. But he started trafficking Walsh from city to city and state to state along the Gulf Coast. That lasted more than two years before they were arrested and Walsh was rescued. She lost her daughter, Uliana Celia Walsh, at a San Marcos hospital. When I was pregnant, I was still using drugs and kept using drugs at first, she said. I stopped using the drugs, and at that point, I still had to work and make a quota. He said all that means is that the baby is his property, too. At that point, the safety of my child was pretty much my number one priority. She was not eating properly or receiving prenatal care. She went into labor early, but Mims would not take her to the hospital. Her girl was stillborn, and Walsh had a bladder infection, she said. After Walsh was rescued, Peters with UnBound helped her get into Redeemed Safe House near Houston, a facility that takes in survivors of human trafficking. Its a yearlong program and includes therapy, counseling and education to help survivors reintegrate back into society. UnBound also helped Walsh get in touch with The Phoenix Charity, which pays to remove tattoos, also known as brands. Traffickers often mark their so-called property with brands, not unlike ranchers branding cattle, Peters said. Julias story is very similar to thousands of other women out there who fall victim to human trafficking, Peters said. It happens over and over again. Once someone is trafficked the first time, without getting intense therapy and counseling, they are a pretty easy target for other traffickers. At that point, the loudest voice in their lives is that pimp who is telling them that is all they are good for. Walsh said her customers over the years came from all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers, police officers, pedophiles and even card-carrying sex offenders who showed her their government-issued sex offender ID cards. Walsh is attending college now in North Texas and has reconciled with her parents and twin brother, who was adopted with her from the Russian orphanage. He just graduated from college with an engineering degree, she said. Walsh is studying social work and is passionate about helping others, she said. I just really want to help as many people to get out and stay out and to bring awareness to human trafficking, she said. There were so many times I could have been offered help, but people didnt know the signs to look for. Callahan, the attorney who volunteers with UnBound, said he is proud of the strides Walsh has made. I am amazed at her resurrection out of the situation she was in, Callahan said. UnBound helps place people in aftercare after they have survived human trafficking, and very few people go through the program start to finish successfully with no snags. It is a very fluid process, usually because of all the trauma suffered by these people. Julia has dedicated herself to recovery from day one and to finding the resources she needed. That has been a consistent theme for her, and I am very proud of her. Winds estimated at 90 mph tore through Whitney and Clifton on Sunday night, resulting in tornado damage to homes, businesses and a marina. Jesse Gonzales, 24, fled his mobile home with his wife, son, niece and nephew before it flipped twice onto two cars. Luckily, we all made it out just in time, Gonzales said, reporting no injuries. Jason Dunn, of the National Weather Service, said EF1 tornadoes rolled through Whitney and Clifton. Such tornadoes have about 90 mph winds. Dunn said there may have been another tornado east of Gatesville. Jerry Anderson, who has owned and managed Lake Whitney Marina with his wife for 25 years, also escaped danger Sunday night. At least five rental cabins at the marina were destroyed, he said, as were three docks. Damage on the eastern shore of Lake Whitney is rated EF1, according to the National Weather Service. We got 10 roofs scattered half a mile or more, Anderson said. All of the houses around us were hit as well. Structures turned to debris and blown-down trees were a common sight in the area Monday. John Bass saw significant damage to his business, WildHorse Industries of Texas, on Timberline Drive. Calling it a total disaster, he lost his garage and office space including doors and skylights. Bass said at least 35 trees blew down in his area. In Clifton, more than 20 homes were affected, as 20 sustained minor damage, three suffered major damage, and two were destroyed, police said. A tornado developed about 6:20 p.m. in the southwest corner of the city and traveled northeast before it died out, police said. Police said another then quickly formed and went in the same direction. Winds stayed at rooftop level or higher, according to the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service said three tornadoes were confirmed in Bosque County: in Clifton, Mosheim and Laguna Park. Two businesses were affected, three sustained minor damage, and three sustained major damage, police said. Agencies assisting in the aftermath of the storms include Clifton Volunteer Fire Department, the Bosque County Sheriffs Department, Bosque County Emergency Management, North Bosque Emergency Medical Services, Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, Texas Department of Public Safety, City of Clifton Public Works, and Meridian and Valley Mills police departments. By Sumeet Chatterjee HONG KONG (Reuters) - Keeping the euro-denominated clearing business in London even after Britain leaves the European Union is in Europe's interest, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Simon Kirby told Reuters on Monday. The European Union is considering legislative measures to move London's euro-clearing business to the euro zone, but the changes would apply only after Britain leaves the bloc, an EU official said last month. "It's in Europe's interest that London retains euro clearing ... if you dismantle it, then you redistribute euro clearing, then it might end up in New York and then that's not in anyone's interest at all for that to happen," said Kirby, the economic secretary to the Treasury or "City" minister. "So, I am confident that we can keep euro clearing, and Brexit is an opportunity not only for us to get the best possible deal with Europe but also to build our global standing around the world," he said in an interview in Hong Kong. London dominates clearing of derivatives denominated in euros, mainly via the London Stock Exchange's (LSE.L) LCH.Clearnet business - a dominance that the European Central Bank has tried to reduce in the past, only to find its attempt blocked by the EU's top court. Talks to move the multi-billion-euro business to a euro zone city, such as Frankfurt, have gained new impetus since Britain voted in June to quit the EU, with advocates arguing that euro-denominated derivatives should not be cleared outside the EU. But industry lobby groups in Britain such as TheCityUK have said keeping clearing in London is vitally important and should be one of the government's core aims in negotiations on new trading terms with the bloc. On Britain's trade partnership with Asia after Brexit, Kirby said that there was enough evidence of continued investments into the UK from across the Asian region, as also from elsewhere in the world. "Particularly in terms of financial services we have a strong relationship with China and as China moves along its rapid journey of financial and economic transformation, Britain will be at the centre of it," he said. Story continues Kirby said new and growing businesses such as fintech and Islamic finance in Asian countries including in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia provided good opportunities for Britain and Asia to boost trade ties. He declined to comment on the possibility of Britain reaching new bilateral trade agreements with the major Asian economies, or whether Britain would offer any incentive to Asian investors to remain an attractive destination. "It's too early to speculate on the detail of the deals to be done, but as a general comment I am confident that we can forge a truly global Britain working with countries around the world, including America and China." (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Adrian Croft) The average price of unleaded petrol across Australia jumped by 6 cents to 134.3 cents a litre in the past week, representing the single biggest increase in two years, new figures show. Petrol prices shot up by 9.1 cents in NSW, 4.7 cents in Victoria, and 12.5 cent in Tasmania, according to Australian Institute of Petroleum's latest weekly report. Earlier this month, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission urged motorists to fill up their tanks, predicting prices would leap in the wake of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) agreement in December to cut oil production and with the Australian dollar falling against the greenback. CommSec senior economist Savanth Sebastian said there may be a reprieve in coming weeks. Don't stress if you didn't get around to making any New Year's resolutions. Or if you didn't keep them for more than five minutes. New Year's resolutions are so last millennium. Instead, it's time to embrace the post-holiday resolution. The calendar ticking over from one year to the next seems like a good prompt to review what's come before and throw out some wild wishes for the year to come. How often is it though that the resolutions made are forgotten before the celebration clean-up has finished? This is unsurprising, as one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve is hardly the ideal time for clear thinking. Everyone is too tired from Christmas, then the combination of alcohol and the lateness of the hour means that no one can remember their heart-felt declarations 24 hours later, let alone when review time comes a whole year down the track. December 31 doesn't allow for an essential ingredient for proper resolution; calm reflection and insight. Instead, try post-holiday resolutions. These have a more natural timing. They tend to come unbidden and are therefore more likely to be meaningful and relevant than those plucked out of the air to fit an occasion. Federal Parliament is set to conduct its first comprehensive investigation into the case for a national anti-corruption watchdog after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten threw his support behind an inquiry. Mr Shorten said reform needed to go beyond the independent parliamentary expenses system proposed by Malcolm Turnbull to also include "an open and honest discussion" about whether Australia should have a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). "For me, reform doesn't just stop at parliamentarians' expenses," Mr Shorten told reporters on Monday at his first press conference since returning from his summer holidays. "It must include greater transparency, greater accountability on political donations and no discussion about electoral reform and rebuilding the confidence of Australians in the political process can take place without having an open and honest discussion about a federal ICAC. Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies returned to the skies on Saturday with a flawless delivery of communications satellites into orbit, its first flight since a September 1 fireball destroyed a rocket and its payload on a Florida launch pad. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 Iridium Communications satellites rumbled aloft from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California's central coast shortly after 9:54am local time, amid clear skies and a majestic view of the Pacific Ocean. The rocket's first stage touched down upright on an unmanned drone ship miles offshore about 8 minutes later, a feat that SpaceX accomplished four times in 2016 and captured on the company's webcast. "Mission looks good. Started deploying the 10 Iridium satellites," said Musk, who watched from the control room with Iridium's chief executive officer, in a Twitter post. "Rocket is stable on the droneship." Musk later confirmed that all of the satellites had deployed, marking completion of the company's mission. The serial bank robber dubbed the "Postcard Bandit" has pleaded guilty to escaping from a Perth prison dressed in a fake guard uniform almost 30 years ago. Brenden James Abbott, 54, wore a suit when he appeared in person in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday, charged with escaping legal custody over his November 1989 breakout from the now-decommissioned Fremantle jail. Notorious 'Postcard Bandit' Brenden Abbott pleaded guilty on Monday to escaping from Freo jail in 1989. Credit:Channel Nine News Perth The court was due to hear a two-day application for a permanent stay of proceedings, but instead Abbott pleaded guilty. At the time of his escape, Abbott was serving a 16-year prison term for several offences including armed robbery, assault and unlawful detention. Fundraising via IPOs in the city-state hit $1.7b in 2016. Singapore is set to be 2017's hottest spot for initial public offerings (IPOs) in tropical Southeast Asia with sales of stakes in business and real estate trusts, while currency volatility and weak investor sentiment curb deals elsewhere in the region, according to a report from Reuters. Singapore's stock exchange has promoted itself as a centre for business trusts and real estate investment trusts (REITs), which offer stable dividends. That has helped it partly make up for a drop in major share sales as large Chinese firms favour the higher valuations and liquidity of Hong Kong. Fundraising via IPOs in Singapore hit $1.7 billion last year, up fivefold from 2015 when it slumped to its lowest since 1998, Thomson Reuters data showed. Click here to know more about the story. More From Singapore Business Review By Ju-min Park and Se Young Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's special prosecutor on Monday sought a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], the country's largest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of President Park Geun-hye. Investigators had grilled Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee for 22 straight hours last week as a suspect in a corruption scandal, which last month led to parliament impeaching Park. The special prosecutor's office accused Lee of paying bribes total 43 billion won ($36.42 million) to organizations linked to Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is at the center of the scandal, in order to secure the 2015 merger of two affiliates and cement his control of the family business. The 48-year-old Lee, who became the de facto head of the Samsung Group after his father, Lee Kun-hee, was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014, was also accused of embezzlement and perjury, according to the prosecution's application for an arrest warrant. "The special prosecutors' office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the country's economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence," special prosecution spokesman Lee Kyu-chul told a media briefing. Prosecutors have evidence showing that Park and Choi shared profits made through bribery payments, he said, without elaborating. Lee is due to appear on Wednesday morning at the Seoul central district court, which will decide whether to grant the arrest warrant. Samsung, whose companies generate $230 billion in revenue, equivalent to about 17 percent of South Korea's economy, rejected the accusation that Lee paid bribes. "It is difficult to understand the special prosecutors' decision," it said in an emailed statement. Prosecutors have been looking into whether Samsung's support for foundations and a company backed by Choi was linked to the National Pension Service's 2015 decision to support a controversial $8 billion merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries Inc. Samsung has acknowledged providing funds to the institutions but has repeatedly denied accusations of lobbying to push through the merger. "It is especially hard to accept the special prosecutor's assertion that there was improper request for a favor related to the merger or succession of control," it said on Monday. NPS chairman Moon Hyung-pyo was indicted on Monday on charges of abuse of power and giving false testimony. Last month he acknowledged ordering the world's third-largest pension fund to support the merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries in 2015 while heading the health ministry, which oversees the NPS. The special prosecutor's office said in its indictment of Moon that Park, through her aides, ordered Moon to ensure the merger of the two Samsung companies succeeded. Park, 64, remains in office but has been stripped of her powers while the Constitutional Court decides whether to make her the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office. Park has denied wrongdoing but admitted to carelessness in her relationship with Choi, a friend for four decades. Choi, in jail as she undergoes criminal trial and also denies wrongdoing. SHARES HIT Prosecutors opted not to seek the arrest of three other Samsung executives they had questioned, including Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung, a group veteran who is seen as Jay Y. Lee's mentor and a likely caretaker head of the conglomerate in the event Lee is arrested. Shares in flagship Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest maker of smartphones, flat-screen TVs and memory chips, ended 2.14 percent lower, underperforming the 0.61 percent drop in the broader market. Investors say that while key Samsung businesses are run by professional CEOs and would not be hurt on an operational basis if Lee is arrested, his absence would slow bigger-picture decision-making. The Korea Employers Federation, a business lobby, said arresting Lee would undermine confidence both in Samsung and the country's economy, Asia's fourth-largest, and called the special prosecutor's probe "very regrettable." South Korea has seen numerous corporate scandals over the years. Jay Y. Lee's father Lee Kun-hee was himself handed a three-year suspended jail sentence in 2009 for tax evasion. He was later pardoned. Public opinion has in recent years grown less tolerant of leniency extended to the heads of conglomerates, or chaebols, for the sake of the economy. POLITICAL CRISIS South Korea has been gripped by political crisis for months, with Park impeached in December. If the impeachment is upheld by the Constitutional Court, an election would be held in two months, with former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expected to be a candidate. Choi, in detention and on trial on charges of abuse of power and attempted fraud, again denied wrongdoing on Monday in an appearance at the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial. She also denied having any prior knowledge of the Samsung Group's controversial 2015 merger of two affiliates. "Even if I knew, I could not have passed on any information because I have no knowledge about mergers or hedge funds, anything like that, in the first place," Choi told the court. (This story was refiled to insert dropped letter "s" in headline) (Additional reporting by Christine Kim, Joyce Lee and Hyunjoo Jin; Writing by Nick Macfie and Tony Munroe; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore) Everest Re Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States, Bermuda, and internationally. The company operates through Reinsurance Operations and Insurance Operations segments. The Reinsurance Operations segment writes property and casualty reinsurance; and specialty lines of business through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies in the United States, Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The Insurance Operations segment writes property and casualty insurance directly, as well as through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents in Bermuda, Canada, Europe, South America, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The company also provides treaty and facultative reinsurance products; admitted and non-admitted insurance products; and property and casualty reinsurance and insurance coverages, including marine, aviation, surety, errors and omissions liability, directors' and officers' liability, medical malpractice, mortgage reinsurance, other specialty lines, accident and health, and workers' compensation products. In addition, it offers commercial property and casualty insurance products through wholesale and retail brokers, surplus lines brokers, and program administrators. Everest Re Group, Ltd. was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Fort Polk, LA (71446) Today Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 58F. S winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 58F. S winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jan. 16, 2017 | 04:43 PM | PADUCAH, KY Josh Franklin, the line technician for Jackson Purchase Energy who was injured January 6, died Monday afternoon.Friends and family members used social media to inform area churches and others who had been praying for him that Franklin died about 12:30 pm at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville.Franklin's family had posted on Saturday that consultations with two neurologists confirmed that his brain was injured due to depleted oxygen after the accident, and he was not likely to regain more than the minimal brain function he currently had. Family members then decided they would pull the ventilator on Monday.In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Dennis Cannon, President and CEO of JPEC, said, There are simply no words to adequately convey the profound sadness of our cooperative family. Our hearts ache for Josh and his family. We pray that they experience the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, as they endure this most difficult of times."Our focus remains on Joshs wife Christa, their two children and all of Joshs family and friends as we begin the long process of saying goodbye to him, Cannon says.Jackson Purchase Energy reminded the community that two fundraisers have been established in close coordination with his family. They are the Joshua Franklin Beneficiary Account established at Regions Bank, and donations can be made at any Regions Bank location. The secondary method is the Injured Lineman Josh Franklin page on the Go Fund Me internet site - https://www.gofundme.com/injured-lineman-josh-franklin.Franklin lived in Paducah with his wife, Christa and their two young children.Funeral arrangements are incomplete at this time. JPEC's statement said arrangements will be announced by the family. On the Net: By Kentucky News Network Jan. 16, 2017 | 04:57 AM | FRANKFORT, KY Governor Matt Bevin took to Facebook, to discuss Kentucky's non-compliance with the Real ID act. Bevin says Kentucky is one of several states not in compliance, so drivers licenses can't be used to enter military bases soon. He says he has been in contact not only with the Trump Administration on the issue, but with Homeland Security officials. He is also working with Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Jeff Hoover on a solution. Legislation to address Real ID compliance is before the House Transportation Committee. Last year, Bevin vetoed a bill that would have brought the state into compliance. This Sweet Potato Pad Thai is a fun twist on traditional pad thai. Here, spiralized sweet potato takes the place of rice noodles, making for a slightly sweeter and more colorful dish. Read on, or jump straight to the recipe HERE. Im pretty sure Thai food is my spirit animal. I could eat Thai food almost any moment of any day and be a happy camper. Now, I should probably preface this by saying Ive never actually been to Thailand, and I realize that Thai food varies a tremendous amount from region to region. I might not be qualified to say I love all Thai food. But what I do know is this: set me down with a bowl of curry, or noodles, or soup, and I will happily lose myself in those flavors. Admittedly, this recipe is not very close to real Thai food. (Im sure Im offending some people by even calling it Pad Thai.) But it is inspired by that classic noodle dish, with its tangy sauce and peanutty crunch, and when Im wanting a quick, homemade version, this is what I make. And oh, does it hit the spot. Making noodles out of sweet potatoes is easy peasy with the help of a spiralizer. If you dont already have one, this is the one I use. Ive had it for a couple years now, and Ive been really happy with it. In the summer I use it to make cold noodle salads like this Asian inspired cucumber salad, but in the colder months it mostly winds up sitting on a shelf in the basement collecting dust. Thats where this recipe comes into play. Its warm and savory, yet super light and healthy. There are very few dishes that are this light, but still satisfying enough that I crave them in the cold winter months. This sweet potato pad thai hits that magical sweet spot. Youre basically eating a few cups of veggies and calling it dinner, but somehow its still warm, filling, and feels indulgent. Do you have a favorite Thai dish? And if so, do you ever make it at home? Share in the comments below! 5.0 from 3 reviews Vegetarian Sweet Potato Pad Thai Print Prep time 10 mins Cook time 10 mins Total time 20 mins Author: Willow at Will Cook For Friends Recipe type: vegetarian, easily made vegan / gluten-free Serves: makes 2 large servings, or 4 small Ingredients For the sauce: 1 TBSP tamarind paste (this is the one I used) 2 TBSP water 2 tsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari) 2 TBSP palm sugar, coconut sugar, or brown sugar -1/2 tsp. Ground thai chilis, or cayenne pepper, or red chili flakes, to taste (or you can use fresh thai chiles, aka birds-eye chiles, for some real kick) For the veggies: 2-3 TBSP coconut or peanut oil, divided 1 large egg, lightly beaten (if you want to make this dish vegan, you can swap the egg for tofu) 2 large or 3 small sweet potatoes, peeled and spiralized (about 2 lbs, or 8 cups once spiralized) 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 TBSP water 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced 1 cup bean sprouts 3 green onions, chopped (green and white parts), plus more for garnish -1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped, plus more for garnish 1 cup roasted and salted peanuts, chopped, plus more for garnish lime wedges, for serving -- optional Instructions For the sauce: Stir together all the ingredients in a small bowl, and set aside. For the veggies: Heat 1 TBSP oil over high heat in a large nonstick skillet or wok. (I typically use a 12 inch pan). Add the egg (or tofu) and scramble quickly. Remove and set aside. Return the pan to high heat, and add the remaining 1-2 TBSP oil. Add the spiralized sweet potatoes, and saute for 2-3 minutes, tossing with tongs. Add the garlic, give it a stir, and then add the 2 TBSP water. Cover immediately to trap the steam, and let cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove the lid and check the noodles for doneness (you want them to be tender enough to eat, but not so soft that they're threatening to turn into mashed potatoes). If they're still a bit crunchy, cook for another 1-2 minutes with the lid off. Add the sauce mixture to the pan along with the cooked egg, bell pepper, bean sprouts, chopped cilantro, green onions, and peanuts. Toss gently to combine. Serve immediately with additional cilantro, green onions, and peanuts for garnish. (You can also add additional chili flakes, or sliced chilis, if you want some extra heat.) Optionally, serve with extra lime wedges for squeezing over. Notes To make it gluten-free, be sure to use a gluten-free tamari in place of the soy sauce. The spiralizer I personally use is To make this dish vegan, swap the egg for tofu. You can use soft tofu to mimic the scrambled egg, or firm tofu, cut into cubes. Whichever you like best.To make it gluten-free, be sure to use a gluten-free tamari in place of the soy sauce.The spiralizer I personally use is THIS ONE . I'm not sponsored by this brand, I just like 'em. 3.5.3226 LIKE IT? SPREAD THE WORD: Yummly StumbleUpon Pinterest This post contains affiliate links. That means if you follow a link to amazon.com and make a purchase, I get a small percentage at no extra cost to you. Im not sponsored by any of the products or brands I link to, they are just items I personally use or would recommend. Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) investors should keep their expectations in check ahead of the companys Q4 earnings report on February 20. In a new report, Loop Capital analyst Rick Paterson outlines a number of headwinds the railroad company is facing at the moment. According to Paterson, the potential impact that tormentor-in-chief Donald Trump will have on NAFTA is the primary near-term threat for Kansas City Southern. Loops Q4 numbers on the companys operations have been mostly disappointing. Terminal dwell times are up 17 percent year-over-year, dragged down by Mexico locations. In addition, weather events and civil protects unrelated to the company have been an issue in recent months as well. Paterson says the company has also done a lackluster job absorbing expanding Mexican volumes. Once again, the peso declined significantly in Q4 as well. After factoring in all the unfortunate circumstances, Loop is now projecting Q4 EPS of $1.17. While were clearly more bearish than bullish into earnings, the fact that the stocks P/E is the lowest in the industry should, in theory, limit the damage if the numbers disappoint, Paterson explains. Loop maintains a Buy rating on Kansas City Southern and a $98 price target for the stock. Latest Ratings for KSU Dec 2016 Stifel Nicolaus Upgrades Hold Buy Dec 2016 Aegis Capital Upgrades Hold Buy Nov 2016 Oppenheimer Downgrades Outperform Perform View More Analyst Ratings for KSU View the Latest Analyst Ratings See more from Benzinga 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. The Circus of Horrors celebrates its 21st anniversary and takes to the road with its latest incarnation The Never-ending Nightmare. The show features an amalgamation of bizarre, brave and beautiful acts all woven into an Alice in Horrorland type story. Each year the circus plays at more than 100 theatres across the UK and this year's tour has included festivals as far afield as Japan and Chile. The Circus of Horrors started its gruesome beginnings at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival which kick started its touring career including appearances with Alice Cooper, Eminem, The Manic St Preachers and Foo Fighters. The circus gained widespread fame in 2011 when they appeared on Britain's Got Talent making it all the way to the final with top dog Simon Cowell saying he loved it. Since then the circus has become somewhat of a household name appearing on a range of shows including The X Factor, Body Shockers, This Morning, with Ant and Dec and The One Show. Expect some nudity and language of an adult nature and, for this reason, the show is not suitable for children. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. wfpvideo:8QWwNQze:wfpvideo The second trial of a man once convicted of killing 13-year-old Candace Derksen began Monday with a promised focus on DNA evidence. Mark Edward Grant again pleaded not guilty Monday to second-degree murder as the retrial got underway in front of Court of Queens Bench Justice Karen Simonsen. Grant was convicted of killing Candace in 2011, but the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 2013 ruled the trial judge erred in not allowing the jury to hear evidence that could have pointed to a different suspect, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. At the end of the day, Candaces family remains emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually convinced, that Grant is responsible for Candaces death. If were wrong, we want to be told and shown, her mother, Wilma Derksen, said after Day 1 of the retrial. Crown attorney Brent Davidson presented an overview of what the judge can expect to hear over the course of the roughly six-week trial, including the three types of DNA analyses conducted as part of the investigation that pointed to Grant as a suspect and the ways in which police obtained samples of his DNA. The police officers who were involved in the investigation and one of the analysts who examined the DNA are set to testify later in the trial. Davidson told court the Crown believes Grants guilt is the only rational conclusion to be drawn after all of the evidence is before the court. Nearly 32 years to the day her daughters body was found frozen and bound in a shed a few blocks from their Elmwood home, Wilma Derksen sat in court with her family, taking notes on a thick blue steno pad. Outside the courtroom, she said writing is how she processes the evidence shes now hearing for a second time she also plans to blog her account of the trial. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wilma and Cliff Derksen outside the courthouse Monday afternoon. Weve been through it all and it just feels so clear cut, she said. It wasnt as emotional. She said she considers it a success that her family is juggling schedules and making time to be present at the retrial their busy lives are a signal they didnt dissolve into trauma in the past three decades, she said. But it doesnt take much for her mind to return to the day Candace went missing, memories surfacing of a teen who seemed happy talking to her mom on the phone after school because the boy she had a crush on had just playfully tossed some snow at her. Men tended to notice Candace when she walked into a room, even at 13, Derksen says now. Im not surprised she got noticed, and that was kind of my fear. David Wiebe, one of the last to see Candace alive on Nov. 30, 1984, was first to take the stand Monday. He recounted how he saw Candace on the phone after school that day and threw snow at her. He was about 15 at the time and admittedly had a bit of a crush on her. They chatted briefly, and she said she was going to walk a few blocks home. He remembered saying hed drive her, if only he had his drivers licence. He couldnt walk with her, he said, because he was on his way to a drivers-ed course. Later that evening, he found out from Candaces mother that she never made it home. Police didnt tell him directly at the time, he said in response to lawyers questions during his testimony, but he would be considered a suspect in the investigation. He gave police hair samples, and later a blood sample, to help with the investigation. He also took a polygraph test in 2007. Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press files Wilma Derksen, seen holding a picture of her slain daughter Candace, hopes Mark Edward Grants retrial will provide answers to some questions the family still has about Candaces death. Defence lawyer Saul Simmonds cross-examination of Wiebe focused on the time that has elapsed since Candaces death, which Wiebe agreed meant some details could have been lost from memory, and the DNA samples police collected from him. Wiebe said he was willing to give them whatever they requested because he had nothing to hide. Court also heard Monday morning from Frank Alsip, who in 1984 was the general manager for a construction supply company on whose property Candaces body was discovered on Jan. 17, 1985. All of the witnesses called to the stand on Monday Wiebe, Alsip and retired Winnipeg Police Service officers Gilbert Vance Clarke, Derek Blackman-Shaw and William Keith Cahoon had previously testified during the first trial, so hearing their evidence felt very much like a rerun, albeit one more tuned into legal nuances for Wilma Derksen. During cross-examination of the witnesses, the defence team focused on a familiar line of questioning: DNA protocol, whose DNA may have been present inside the shed where Candaces body was found and whether anyone may have entered the shed before police arrived. You didnt have DNA protocols in place in 1985, correct? Simmonds asked retired officer Blackman-Shaw, who confirmed there were none. Defence lawyers questioned each witness about whether police asked them to provide samples of their DNA to help with the investigation, establishing only Wiebe had been asked to do so. The other witnesses, who showed up on scene shortly after the discovery of Candaces body, were all asked 32 years later whether they could recall whether they had sneezed, coughed, deposited saliva or dry flakes of skin within the shed while they were confirming the presence of a dead body. All agreed they couldnt say for certain. Once again, questions were raised about what Candace was wearing when her body was found. Alsip testified he saw a parka covering the body when he looked in the shed prior to calling police. But Blackman-Shaw, one of two officers first called to the scene, said he focused on her clothing when he arrived. He remembered her wearing a maroon club jacket with a hooded sweatshirt underneath. Her hands and feet were bound with twine, and a layer of frost had crystallized on her body, acting patrol Sgt. Cahoon testified. That detail was particularly difficult for Wilma Derksen to hear repeated. Still, she said after court was adjourned that parts of Wiebes testimony brought back happy memories of Candace. Her mother had known about Candaces secret crush on Wiebe back then, and the feeling was mutual, according to his testimony. If Candace had returned home that night, Wilma said she felt sure she wouldve gossiped about him with her friends. Instead, seeing him on the stand again Monday brought back the awareness of time, and the what-ifs, Wilma said. Grants second-degree murder conviction was overturned after the first trial because the trial judge didnt allow jurors to hear evidence the defence argued could have pointed to a different suspect in a similar abduction case that happened while Grant, a convicted sex offender, was behind bars. In that case, a 12-year-old girl was allegedly abducted, bound with rope and left in an abandoned railway boxcar in the same area of the city, less than a year after Candace disappeared. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca A view shows the logo of BMW on a car in Moscow, Russia, July 6, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev BERLIN (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump has warned the United States will impose a border tax of 35 percent on cars that German carmaker BMW plans to build at a new plant in Mexico and export to the U.S. market. Trump was speaking in an interview with German newspaper Bild, which on Sunday released excerpts of his comments translated into German. A BMW spokeswoman said a BMW Group plant in San Luis Potosi would build the BMW 3 Series starting from 2019, with the output intended for the world market. The plant in Mexico would be an addition to existing 3 Series production facilities in Germany and China. Trump said BMW should build its new car factory in the United States because this would be "much better" for the company. He went on to say Germany was a great car producer, borne out by Mercedes Benz cars being a frequent sight in New York, but there was no reciprocity. Germans were not buying Chevrolets at the same rate, he said, making the business relationship an unfair one-way street. He said he was an advocate of free trade, but not at any cost. The BMW spokeswoman said the company was "very much at home in the U.S.," employing directly and indirectly nearly 70,000 people in the country. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber and Edward Taylor; writing by Vera Eckert; editing by Andrew Roche) Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. There was a time, not so long ago, when Twitter was a rather innocuous tool in politics. Elected officials started tweeting largely because they believed voters paid attention to Twitter, and used it as a measuring stick with which they figured out how to vote. Although there is a decided lack of evidence to support the notion social media has ever helped decide an election in a western democracy, it became standard practice for elected politicians to tweet, if only to show citizens that they were hip enough to know what a tweet was. The result is that to this day, politicians choke the Twitterverse with inane and insipid tweets. In the hands of most politicians, Twitter is part travelogue (Stopped by the community centre in my district and had a great bowl of chili!), part record of accomplishment (Bill to ban home rodent farming passed the house yesterday and will become law soon!), part avenue of shameless sucking up (Met with Mayor Joe Blow today and had a great chat about rodent farming!). U.S. president-elect Donald Trump Largely because social media is Kryptonite for common sense and restraint, politicians began to use their Twitter accounts over time to launch barbs at political opponents. Opposition parties attack governing parties, lower levels of government attack senior levels of government, leadership rivals within the same party attack each other. Slowly but surely, Twitter was becoming more partisan, more potent, more dangerous. Then we got Donald Trump. Long before he entered and changed American politics forever, the U.S. president-elect had earned a reputation as one of Twitters most notorious uncovered blenders, spewing noxious comments and visceral attacks with virtually no self-editing or concern for consequence. Now, as he prepares to take over the levers of power in Washington, Trump has taken Twitter to a place it likely never intended to go. In Trumps hands, Twitter now serves as both a real-time policy conduit to give Americans insight into whatever is knocking around his hyperactive mind, and poison-tipped spear that is launched at critics and political foes with lusty abandon. There have been many characters who have exploited the destructive power of social media. Still, Trumps attacks on military veterans, journalists, philanthropists, celebrities of all stripe and, of course, political opponents seem to take things to a new level of volume and vitriol. Trump has actually used Twitter to create an alternate reality, one where civility and factual truth are road kill. Because he never gives ground, never admits a mistake, never concedes a fact, he wins the hearts and minds of millions of Americans who are more concerned about his roguish tone than his grasp of truth. Like all potent and destructive political trends voter identification and suppression strategies come to mind the evolution of Twitter as a weapon of political mass destruction in the United States is starting to change politics in this country. And not for the better. Consider the firefight that dominated the Canadian political Twitterverse last week between Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Calgary Tory MP Michelle Rempel, a scrap that quickly reached Trumpian proportions. Rempel took to Twitter to share her innermost thoughts about a proposed business property tax increase being contemplated in Calgary. The tax increase was prompted by a provincially mandated re-assessment that hiked taxes on local businesses. The bump was significant because so many businesses have closed in the oil-bust cycle now in full effect in Alberta, leaving a smaller number of ratepayers to cover a growing municipal budget. Rempel ripped Nenshi and Calgary city council for delivering such a cruel tax decision at a time when so many businesses were suffering. Nenshi, a heavy user of Twitter, responded in kind, suggesting Rempel misunderstood the impact of city councils decision and basic tax calculations. Math is challenging, Nenshi said. Rempel lashed back with the force of a hurricane, accusing Nenshi of being sexist and trying to mansplain municipal taxes to a federal MP. Nenshi did apologize for the original comment, but pointed out he would have said the same thing to men in political discourse. Nenshi is effectively correct. There was nothing inherently sexist in his response to Rempel. He did not accuse all or most women politicians of being bad at math; he suggested that one particular Tory MP, who happens to be a woman, was bad at math. He is also correct in that Rempel effectively tried to turn a complex story about provincial property/business assessments into a debate over the mayors empathy. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi Meanwhile, the actual matter at the heart of the original debate complex tax policy and mechanisms has long been lost in a hail of allegations and counter allegations. This is largely what Twitter does to discourse, political or otherwise. An unedited conversation about or between politicians, critics and even journalists is fascinating stuff. But its not clear it has improved the quality of debate over public policy. In fact, as special-interest groups and professional provocateurs invent new and effective ways of using Twitter to bludgeon opponents and corrupt the truth, we should all be concerned we are losing our capacity to have an honest and respective conversation about anything. Most of the issues confronted by politicians and governments are complex, and social media is not. It is hard to debate the complicated mathematics around municipal property taxes in 140-character bursts. However, it is possible to light a fire and watch it burn indiscriminately, which is what happened between Nenshi and Rempel. Social media has always had the potential to mobilize and motivate citizens to participate in democracy and in fact it has in some countries like Egypt but in reality it has become much more effective as a tool of misinformation and manipulation. Social media has become a launching pad for deliberately erroneous information, some formatted to look like journalism. There is so much fake news floating around the interweb that it is becoming more and more difficult to discern real, professionally produced news from that which seeks to debase and derail democratic exercises and institutions. The collision of social media and politics is no longer innocuous. It makes me long for the not-so-old days when an appearance at a pot-luck dinner was the most pointed tweet in a politicians Twitter feed. dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/01/2017 (2119 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As the second murder trial begins for the man accused of killing her daughter 32 years ago, Wilma Derksen says the verdict wont matter much. I have a hope that we will get to the bottom of it this time, Derksen told the Free Press Sunday as she and her husband Cliff and their two adult children prepared to head back to court for what she described as a surreal re-run of a murder trial she sat through six years ago. The story is coming out in bits and pieces, but I guess the verdict doesnt really matter to us. I think well all have to come to a verdict of our own. And I think it will help us move on. Candace Derksen was 13 when she was found frozen and bound inside a shed after she went missing in 1984 on her way home from school. The man convicted of second-degree murder in her death had his conviction overturned four years ago based on an error made by the original trial judge. A new trial is set to begin today. Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press files Wilma Derksen, seen holding a picture of her slain daughter Candace, hopes Mark Edward Grants retrial will provide answers to some questions the family still has about Candaces death. The retrial of Mark Edward Grant is scheduled for 34 days in front of a Court of Queens Bench judge. Defence lawyer Saul Simmonds said he expected the trial to continue through the second or third week of February. Derksen said she doesnt have as many unanswered questions about her daughters death this time around, but she wants to respect the judicial process. Underlying all of this is that feeling that we are honoured that we live in a country that wants to know the truth. And we are going to pay attention to this. We are going to go the distance, she said. Her family has already spent more than three decades trying to get to the truth, yet she still showed sympathy for her daughters accused killer, saying its not fair to Grant that the legal process has dragged on so long. This isnt justice for him, either, Derksen said. Theres the little questions of what was that DNA about? But then theres, of course, the big questions of Why us? Why Candace? And what was this all about? Wilma Derksen, Candaces mother Grant wasnt arrested until 2007 for what was one of the citys most notorious unsolved killings. He went to trial in 2011 and was found guilty of second-degree murder. The Manitoba Court of Appeal overturned the verdict in 2013 based on errors made by the judge. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the appeal in 2014. The conviction was overturned because the initial trial judge didnt allow jurors to hear evidence the defence argued could have pointed to a different suspect in a similar abduction case that happened while Grant, a convicted sex offender, was behind bars. In that case, a 12-year-old girl was allegedly abducted, bound with rope and left in an abandoned railway boxcar in the same area of the city, less than a year after Candace disappeared. Derksen said she still has some unanswered questions about the mystery of Candaces murder all these years later. Theres the little questions of what was that DNA about? But then theres, of course, the big questions of Why us? Why Candace? And what was this all about? Postmedia Candace Derksen's class photo. with files from Mike McIntyre katie.may@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @thatkatiemay Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Abortion is one of the most difficult, heart-wrenching decisions a woman will ever make. It takes a physical, emotional and spiritual toll on her being that only she can understand. Apparently, Republican lawmakers and the religious right in America think otherwise. In the past two months alone, three states have passed abortion laws that find new ways to torture women. In January, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky signed a bill into law that requires a physician to perform a pre-abortion ultrasound, then describe and present the images to the woman. In the text of the bill, nothing prevents her from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images or requesting the volume of the heartbeat be reduced or turned off. But the doctor and patient must follow through with this charade. The point is to shame and humiliate women for their sins. In Texas this past December, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott sought an initiative for giving voice to the unborn. Controversial new rules would require abortion clinics to bury or cremate human or fetal remains. Although the reasoning behind the regulations was dressed up as a public-health concern the disposal of medical waste in landfills the real motive was religious. As Gov. Abbott noted, I believe it is imperative to establish higher standards that reflect our respect for the sanctity of life. Pro-life organizations, such as Texas Alliance for Life, assert that the key issue concerns the dignity of the fetus, not the womans health. The organizations executive director, Joe Pojman, elaborates: While the Supreme Court tragically does not allow states to ban most abortions, we believe that Texas law should be changed to assure that the bodies of the victims of abortion are not treated like medical waste. These proposed rules validate the dignity of those unborn babies whose lives are unfortunately lost to abortion. Somehow, the fetuss dignity is elevated or deprived, depending on how it is disposed. In December, Ohios Republican Gov. John Kasich signed into law a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy but vetoed a far more restrictive measure that would have barred abortions after a fetal heartbeat was detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Kasich had no choice but to veto the heartbeat bill since it was clearly contrary to the Supreme Courts current rulings on abortion. As with the Texas regulations, Kasichs rationale was religion-based. He called the 20-week ban the best, most legally sound and sustainable approach to protecting the sanctity of human life. Whats missing in these narratives is the real impact of abortion restrictions on womens health. The Kentucky bill undermines the doctor-patient relationship and the doctors oath to do no harm. Adding mental anguish to a female patient at one of the most vulnerable moments in her life can only be described as sociopathic. For Kentucky, its considered the new normal. Likewise, Texas lawmakers are bullying women by forcing them even if indirectly to participate in a mock funeral for a non-person. The Ohio bill is equally problematic. There are various medical conditions that require third-trimester abortions, one of those being anencephaly, a serious birth defect in which a major portion of the brain is missing. Babies with this disorder do not survive longer than a few hours or possibly days after birth. To ease the mothers mental anguish and to allow for a faster recovery and a quicker chance at a subsequent pregnancy abortions are recommended. Too often, Americans forget they are living in a country that prides itself on the separation of church and state. However, a religious principle the sanctity of life is being used either to limit womens access to abortion or to humiliate them. Its time to stop torturing women in the name of God. Stuart Chambers teaches in the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa. schamber@uottawa.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/01/2017 (2118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. ROLAND Genetically enhanced crops help farmers, consumers and the environment. Ive been a farmer for more than 40 years and have grown genetically enhanced (GE) crops since 1996. We grow corn, soybeans and canola, all of which are GE, and other crops that are not. Ive seen many benefits as a result of this technology through the years. I dont consider the crops I grow to be ready-to-eat food, such as apples, carrots or potatoes. My crops are more like ingredients to make food products such as margarine, flour and feed for livestock. But it all ends up at the supermarket one way or another. TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES A canola crop near Grunthal. Several studies show that genetically enhanced crops reduce food prices. Government regulators and scientists have questioned the safety of GE crops from the beginning. As a result, these crops have undergone testing far beyond that required for other new varieties. As many as 2,000 studies have been published on GE crop safety. The results say the GE crops now grown are as safe as any others and perhaps even safer. In addition, several studies show GE crops reduce food prices. Thats a direct result of the higher farm yields. GE crops help give North American consumers the safest, highest-quality and most affordable food in the world. Farmers have always been stewards of the land, wisely using the tools available to them. The adoption of higher-yielding GE crops has allowed great parts of the world to remain as wildlife habitat rather than being farmed. In addition, in a world facing a growing shortfall in farm production because of urban sprawl, higher yields are increasingly important. Every day, cities swallow up some of the most productive soils in the world. Every day, the worlds population increases. So farmers must produce more food on fewer acres, and thats not something we can do on our own. We need the help of plant-breeding companies to increase crop production. The discovery of the herbicide glyphosate and glyphosate-tolerant crops changed agriculture. These allowed farmers to control perennial weeds in crops instead of depending on summer-fallowing, which requires that no crop be produced on land for an entire year. Also, the new technology allows farmers to leave post-harvest crop stubble undisturbed, and this allows for more moisture retention and reduced soil erosion due to wind and water. And less fuel is used on the farm because of the reduced soil tillage. Insects have always been a threat to our crops and our livelihood. A naturally occurring gene (Bt) introduced to the corn we grow gives the crop genetic resistance to the European corn borer. We once used insecticides to kill the borer, but these also killed beneficial insects such as ladybugs. No longer. Bt is pest-specific it kills only the corn borer. No insecticide is applied, and thats another trip across the field saved. We strive to leave our land with the same or increased production capability compared with when we started farming. Carbon sequestering in farm soils through no-till and reduced tillage practices results in a reduction of greenhouse gas (CO2) levels in the atmosphere. So what, besides better prices, is in all these technological advancements for the consumer? Societys buying habits now lean toward being environmentally friendly and sustainable. GE crops lean the same way. Why? GE crops lead to better air and water quality due to reduced erosion and reduced tillage. This technology means fewer pesticides applied and less fossil fuel consumption, resulting in lower greenhouse gases. Crops are produced with less nitrogen and less water. Beneficial insects are protected. It turns out whats good for me as a farmer is also good for you the consumer and the land we all live on. And thats a win-win-win situation. Bob Bartley and his family farm near Roland, Man., and grow genetically enhanced corn, canola and soybeans. Troy Media ARCADIA, Wis. Its been more than 40 years since Glen Bawek moved from Stacyville, Iowa, to buy and operate an Arcadia shoe store. Baweks Shoe Store at 119 W. Main St. in downtown Arcadia has remained in business for so long by offering high-quality footwear and service, said Glens son, Craig Bawek. But many other independent shoe stores have vanished over time. Craig and his wife, Lynnelle, now own the Arcadia business, where Glen still works part-time. Craig, who is 56, has been selling shoes since the days when his father owned a shoe and clothing store in Stacyville. His family moved from that community to Arcadia in 1974 when Glen bought what had been Abts Shoe Store from two brothers who decided to retire. By the late 1970s, Craig said, Baweks Shoe Store had outgrown its storefront at 115 W. Main St. So his father demolished a former grocery store building and built the current shoe store there. The current store is 1- times as large as the earlier one, Craig said. Craig became part-owner of the business when he was 22, and purchased his fathers interest four years ago. Craig and Lynnelles three children also worked part-time at the store during their high school years. Baweks Shoe Store sells footwear for men, women and children, as well as 15 to 20 kinds of arch supports. It also sells belts, backpacks, socks and Arcadia High School caps and apparel. And it rents tuxedos, mostly for weddings and proms. The store draws customers from more than 30 miles away, including some from La Crosse and Winona, Craig Bawek said. Weve built a reputation for personally caring for people and personally measuring their feet to make sure they get the correct size, he said. Many customers have been referred to the store by chiropractors, podiatrists and other doctors. Many foot, knee and lower back problems can be caused by the footwear that you are wearing, Bawek said. The shoes can be misfitted, overworn or might just not be giving you enough support. Bawek said shoes available in some other stores arent worth buying. Many have no support, no cushion and might be made with uppers that dont allow your feet to breathe, he said. The same goes for arch supports, Bawek said. His store has an arch machine that allows customers to see the stress points in their feet and helps determine the kind of arch support they might need. The Baweks buys about 60 percent of the stores footwear from manufacturers at shoe conventions in St. Paul, and the rest from salesmen who call on the store. We try to sell only the quality shoes and brands that we truly believe in, Bawek said. Weve built a reputation for personally caring for people and personally measuring their feet to make sure they get the correct size. Craig Bawek A mix of freezing rain and sleet made for a treacherous morning commute and is creating additional headaches Monday afternoon. The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory in effect through noon Tuesday as conditions are expected to worsen this afternoon and evening. The Winona YMCA closed at 6 p.m. due to worsening weather conditions. Winona area public and private schools closed Monday in anticipation of hazardous conditions and canceled all evening activities. The Winona Police Department issued this cautionary: The roads are becoming slippery and accidents are being reported all over the county. Please drive slow and use caution if you have to be out. A snowplow slid into the ditch in northeast Iowa Monday morning, and icing has been reported across southern Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service. Sand and salt trucks were out covering city and county roads throughout the day. Freezing rain and sleet were to continued mainly south of Interstate 90 before tapering off in the morning, according to the Weather Service. A second round of precipitation hit in the afternoon. Some falling as rain resulting in accumulation of ice on cold surfaces. If not already icy roads will quickly go from slippery to hazardous, the Weather Service warns. Additional accumulation of ice, sleet and snow is possible Monday evening and icy travel conditions are expected to persist through Tuesday morning. By Guy Faulconbridge and William James LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will propose offering to end sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal with Moscow, he told The Times of London. Criticizing previous U.S. foreign policy in an interview published on Monday, he described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as possibly the gravest error in the history of the United States and akin to "throwing rocks into a beehive". But Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday as the 45th U.S. president, raised the prospect of the first big nuclear arms control agreement with Moscow since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. "They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia," the Republican president-elect was quoted as saying by The Times. "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit." The United States and Russia are by far the world's biggest nuclear powers. The United States has 1,367 nuclear warheads on deployed strategic missiles and bombers, and Russia has 1,796 such deployed warheads, according to the latest published assessment by the U.S. State Department. Under the 2010 New START treaty, Russia and the United States agreed to limit the number of long-range, strategic nuclear weapons they can deploy. Trump has said he will seek to improve relations with Moscow despite criticism that he is too eager to make an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States and other Western powers imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine. Asked whether he would trust German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Putin more, Trump said: "Well, I start off trusting both --but lets see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all." His relations with Moscow have faced renewed scrutiny after an unsubstantiated report that Russia had collected compromising information about Trump. The information was summarized in a U.S. intelligence report which was presented to Trump and Obama this month. The report concluded Russia tried to sway the outcome of the Nov. 8 election in Trump's favor by hacking and other means. It did not make an assessment on whether Russia's attempts affected the election's outcome. Trump accused U.S. intelligence agencies of leaking the information from the unverified dossier, which he called "fake news" and phony stuff." Intelligence leaders denied the charge and Moscow has dismissed the accusations against it. RUSSIAN RELATIONS In the interview with The Times, Trump was also critical of Russia's intervention in Syria's civil war which, along with the help of Iran, has tilted the conflict in President Bashar al-Assad's favor. "I think it's a very rough thing," Trump said of Russian intervention in Syria. "Aleppo has been such a terrible humanitarian situation." The war has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and aided the rise of the Islamic State militant group. On NATO, Trump repeated his view that the military alliance was obsolete but said it was still very important for him. "I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete," Trump told The Times, referring to comments he made during his presidential election campaign. "Its obsolete because it wasnt taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right." Trump said many NATO member states were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection. A lot of these countries arent paying what theyre supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump said. "With that being said, NATO is very important to me. Theres five countries that are paying what theyre supposed to. Five. Its not much." Trump said he would appoint his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to try to broker a Middle East peace deal, urged Britain to veto any new U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel and criticized Obamas handling of the deal between Iran and six world powers including the United States which curbed Tehran's nuclear program. On Britain's vote to leave the European Union, Trump said: Brexit is going to end up being a great thing and said he was eager to get a trade deal done with the United Kingdom. (Editing by Peter Cooney and Timothy Heritage) ITProPortal 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. The city of Baraboo will hire a law firm to represent it in a tax dispute with home products giant Menards. After a closed-door discussion Tuesday night, the City Council voted to hire Stafford Rosenbaum LLP of Madison. Menards has sued the city in Sauk County Circuit Court, alleging excessive assessment for its Baraboo store property in 2015 and 2016. The company claims the city assessor set the propertys value too high, resulting in excessive taxes. City leaders opted to hire Stafford Rosenbaum because the firm has handled many such cases for municipalities, including some involving Menards. Such cases are specialized, the council was informed in a memo before its vote, and have the potential to have a large impact on the other city taxpayers. In addition, the memo reads, many new cases have been coming out of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that are changing the landscape for disputing property tax assessments. Menards initially objected to its 2015 tax bill. In January 2016, the Eau Claire-based retailer filed a claim saying it was overcharged $40,000 in property taxes for its Baraboo superstore off U.S. Highway 12. Its attorney argued the city assessed the Menards store property at nearly $2 million more than its true value. The company says the propertys fair market value is no more than $6.1 million. Based on its analysis of the propertys value, Menards says its tax bill should have been about $145,000. The claim sought nearly $40,000, plus interest. Menards appealed its initial assessment of $8 million in property value to the citys Board of Review, which upheld the assessment. The Board of Review ruled the comparable properties used by the assessor were more similar to Menards local store than the ones the company presented. The council denied Menards claim, which City Attorney Alene Kleczek Bolin said has no merit. Menards responded by suing the city in Sauk County Circuit Court on July 11. According to the memo to the council, Menards 2016 taxes have become the subject of litigation, as well. Ownership of Cornerstone Gallery has changed, but the stores traditions havent. The downtown Baraboo store continues to carry jewelry and artwork handmade by local artists. And it remains owned by a female artist. On Jan. 1, former employee Rachel Rosenblum bought the business from Jeanne Panucci. Rosenblum is the shops fourth owner since it was founded in 1993 by glass artist Nancy Jo Dillman. Ive been looking for my right fit for many years, Rosenblum said. It was a very, very lucky landing. Panucci bought the store in May 2013 from art therapist Christine Kortbein, who had bought it from Dillman in 2006. Panucci sold because she needed to devote more time to her interior decorating business, Sophiablu. Thats my main focus, career-wise, Panucci said. She started looking for a buyer, and Rosenblum an employee and jewelry maker was an attractive candidate. I can sort of pass the baton to her, Panucci said. Rosenblum is no stranger to running a business she created Personal Prints to create and sell animal paw print-themed jewelry but still felt grateful to learn the finer points of day-to-day operations under Panuccis tutelage in recent months. Thats a way different kind of business than this, Rosenblum said. Theres a lot to learn. Cornerstone Gallery is situated prominently on the corner of Oak and Fourth streets on Baraboos courthouse square. The 133-year-old Italian Revival limestone building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The shop is full of unique gifts, from paintings to photographs to scarves and purses. Rosenblum said shes committed to showcasing the work of local artists, and may add some more funky things to shops inventory. We want to try to appeal to a young clientele, as well, but not exclude anyone, she said. I dont want anyone to come in here and say, There isnt anything for me. She worked at the store for a year-and-a-half before taking over. Rosenblum is considering holding introductory classes on weaving, crocheting and jewelry making. Were got a lot of things in the think tank that were working on, she said. I certainly welcome the communitys interests, as well. Panucci said she feels ready to turn her attention fully to interior design. I really enjoyed everything about the gallery. I will really miss the artists and the people who came into the gallery, Panucci said. Its time to move on. JUNEAU Two vehicles broke through the ice on two different Dodge County lakes Sunday evening. According to Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, at 5:43 p.m. a car broke through the ice on Lake Sinissippi near Hustisford. Two occupants, the 20-year-old driver and his 18-year-old passenger, both managed to escape the car and walk to shore where a family allowed them into their home until help arrived. Both of the occupants were from Washington County and neither was injured. According to Schmidt, the pair told officers they were just out for a drive and were not ice fishing. Schmidt said that inexperience on the ice and unfamiliarity with the frozen lake and its current conditions were factors in the incident. Shortly after 9 p.m., Schmidt reported, a 55-year-old rural Fox Lake residents pickup truck broke through the ice on Fox Lake after he had been fishing on the lake that day. The man and his dog were both able to escape the vehicle and sought help on shore. Schmidt said that truck went through the ice near Indian Point and close to the river channel. The man and his dog were warmed by Fox Lake EMS, but were not transported. Fox Lake Fire Chief Aaron Paul said the Beaver Dam Fire Department hovercraft was called, but was cancelled because it was not needed. Paul said the lake is opening up in the area of the jug and there is dredging in the lake near We Go Trail making the ice unsafe. The 55-year-old Fox Lake man was arrested by a sheriffs deputy for his fifth offense of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. The man was transported to jail. Schmidt reminded drivers that certain traffic laws, including operating while intoxicated, do apply to operating vehicles on the frozen surface of lakes in the state. Schmidt said that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be following up with the drivers who must remove their vehicles from the water within 30 days. Lebanon EMS, Hustisford First Responders and Fire Department, Wisconsin State Patrol and Fox Lake Fire and EMS assisted at the scenes of the incidents. RANDOLPH The National FFA Organization recently announced the names of its 2016 SAE Grant recipients, with 145 FFA members nationwide earning a grant. According to the National FFA website, 2,581 applications were submitted and judged, and 30 Wisconsin FFA members will receive a $1,000 grant. Nineteen of those 30 belong to the Randolph/Cambria-Friesland FFA chapter. All FFA members participate in a supervised agricultural experience, from creating and operating an agricultural-related business, working at an ag-related business, or participating in ag research. The grant allows FFA members to create and enhance their SAE. Agriculture teacher and RCF FFA advisor Keith Gundlach said the grant application requires FFA members to create a plan for how they would use the grant money, along with a budget and timeline. I use it as a teaching tool, Gundlach said. Grant recipients also have to check in halfway through the year, submitting a report by June 1 to update the National FFA on progress made with their SAEs. The SAE program gives students the opportunity develop skills, learn workplace behavior and gain exposure to different ag careers and occupations. RCF FFA members pursue SAES in landscape management, grain production, dairy production, beekeeping and more. RCF FFA chapter members who were awarded the 2016 SAE Grant include Cobey Alderden, Levi Alsum, Wesley Bancroft, Carter Beaulieu , Seth Cupery, Ashley Erdmann, Hailey Hendrickson, Jeremy Hoekstra, Makenna Koopmans, Cameron Krinke-Sauer, Lucas Miller, Mitchell Miller, Logan Paul, Joseph Pulver, Hanna Raley, Jacob Schreiber, Dillin Schulz, Abbi Schwark and Austin Syvertson. Gundlach said 11 RCF FFA chapter members earned the 2015 SAE Grant. Money for the grants is provided by businesses and foundations, including Caterpillar, DeWalt, Rabo AgriFinance, Exmark Manufacturing, CTB Inc., American Beekeeping Foundation, American Honda Motor Co., CCOF Foundation, Animal Systems, Krone North America, mikeroweWORKS Foundation and the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees. FFA members may apply for multiple grants. The grant is open to students in seventh through 11th grade who are current FFA members and demonstrate financial need, and requires approval from parents or guardians, along with a statement from their FFA advisors. The ladies of the auxiliary worked a three-hour shift at Culvers, serving customers and cleaning tables. In exchange, Columbus Culvers shared a portion of their profits with the auxiliary. Money was also collected in donation jars at Culvers. One hundred dollars was collected and sent to the American Legion Auxiliary headquarters in Portage, designated for homeless veterans. Items are listed under the day of the event only, running as space permits prior to the event. To submit items, call 745-3511, email jcutsforth@capitalnewspapers.com or visit www.portagedailyregister.com. Include name and phone number. TODAY Auditions: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. John Muir Elementary School, Portage. Portage Area Community Theatres spring show is a live radio show with audience participation; a flashback to the songs of the 50s and 60s. There are singing and non-singing parts. Rehearsals will be limited and songs will be karaoke accompaniments. People auditioning for singing parts should come with a song youd like us to hear. Actors will be provided a script to use. Performance dates are March 10-12 and March 17-19 at the Portage Center for the Arts, 301 E. Cook St., Portage. Blood drive: Randolph Red Cross blood drive, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. First Reformed Church, 406 S. High St., Randolph. Download the American Red Cross Blood Donor app, visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767 to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required. Clinic: 8 a.m. to noon, Columbia County Public Health Walk-In Clinic, Columbia County Division of Health, 2652 Murphy Road, Portage. Use door No. 4. Bring childs immunization record. Visit www.co.columbia.wi.us for more information. Clinic: 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Marquette County Immunization Clinic, Marquette County Health and Human Services Building, 428 Underwood Ave., Montello. Bring childs immunization record. Parents must accompany all children under 18 years of age. If this is not possible, call the Marquette County Health Department at 608-297-3135 prior to the clinic. Fundraiser: Portage Family Skatepark Project fundraiser at Papa Murphys Pizza, 2936 New Pinery Road, Portage. Mention the PFSP and 10 percent of your purchase will benefit the PFSP. Zumba/Zumba Toning: 6 p.m. Harrisville. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com. TUESDAY, JAN. 17 Auditions: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. John Muir Elementary School, Portage. Portage Area Community Theatres spring show is a live radio show with audience participation; a flashback to the songs of the 50s and 60s. There are singing and non-singing parts. Rehearsals will be limited and songs will be karaoke accompaniments. People auditioning for singing parts should come with a song youd like us to hear. Actors will be provided a script to use. Performance dates are March 10-12 and March 17-19 at the Portage Center for the Arts, 301 E. Cook St., Portage. Blood drive: Columbus Red Cross blood drive, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Columbus Community Hospital, 1515 Park Ave., Columbus. Download the American Red Cross Blood Donor app, visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767 to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required. Fundraiser: Culvers, New Pinery Road, Portage. Culvers will donate 20 percent of the sales all day for Carol Heisz and family. Please encourage your friends and family to attend. Lake Wisconsin Alliance: 6 to 8 p.m. educational meeting, Merrimac Village Hall, 100 Cook St., Merrimac. The program is titled The Merrimac Railroad Bridge: Past, Present, and Future. Virgil Kasper will talk about the railroad history in Sauk County, the current status of the Merrimac bridge and the importance of the railroad to the economy of Sauk County. In August, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation approved a $17 million plan to repair the bridge. For more information, call Melissa Keenan at 608-355-4838. Library event: 1:30 to 3 p.m. Tech Tuesday, Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. This is a drop in session where patrons bring their tablets, phones, gadgets, Overdrive questions, etc. for help. Library event: 10 a.m. Preschool Story Time, Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Open to children ages 3 to 5. New and returning families are encouraged to register in advance. Todays theme is Puppy Love and will feature dog stories, songs, activities and a craft. An adult is required to stay in the Program Room with their child during story time. For more information call 742-4959 ext. 211; registration can also be done online at www.portagelibrary.us. Zumba Toning: 4:30 p.m. Woodridge Primary School, Portage. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 18 Bingo: 5:30 p.m. 131 Restaurant, North Main Street, Pardeeville. Bingo will be played every Wednesday, except the first one of the month. Clinic: 8 a.m. to noon, Columbia County Public Health Walk-In Clinic, Columbia County Division of Health, 2652 Murphy Road, Portage. Use door No. 4. Bring childs immunization record. Visit www.co.columbia.wi.us for more information. Free blood pressure screenings: 1 to 5 p.m. Divine Savior Healthcare, 2817 New Pinery Road, Portage. No appointment necessary. Call 745-6405 for more information. Do not eat, smoke, drink caffeine or exercise for 30 minutes prior. Library event: 10 a.m. Preschool Story Time, Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Open to children ages 3 to 5. New and returning families are encouraged to register in advance. Todays theme is Puppy Love and will feature dog stories, songs, activities and a craft. An adult is required to stay in the Program Room with their child during story time. For more information call 742-4959 ext. 211; registration can also be done online at www.portagelibrary.us. Senior meal: 11:30 a.m. Portage Area Senior Citizens Group, Municipal Building, 115 W. Pleasant St., Portage. The meal will be provided by the Columbia County Nutrition Center. If you wish to have a meal, call Lois Williams at 608-697-5800 by noon Tuesday to register. The cost is a cash donation which will be directly put back into the nutrition program. The meeting will start at noon with cards to follow. St. Vincent de Paul free medical clinic: 9 a.m. to noon. Wilz Drugs lower level, 140 E. Cook St., Portage. No appointments needed. Information needed is name, date of birth and a contact number. A chiropractor is available from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesdays. A foot clinic is available every week. The clinic can do exams and prescribe medications. Physical therapist available. Discounted medications are available at Wilz and Walmart. Call Bonny Oestreich, RN, at 608-234-0159 for information. Writing workshop: 10:30 a.m. Portage Public Library Adult Services presents Palm of the Hand Memoir Writing Workshop, Heritage House, 2685 Airport Road, Portage. The public is welcome to join. This is a group that is all about memories and less about writing skills. We brainstorm ideas, share stories and spend some time in quiet reflection. This workshop runs on the third Wednesday of each month. More information can be found at: https://spiritblogs.uwc.edu/memoirs/. People of all abilities are welcome, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. Zumba/Zumba Toning: 5 p.m. Montello. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com. Zumba: 5:30 p.m. 1208 Northport Road (the former Freedom Carpeting building). This is a $5 drop-in class. For more information, contact Deb at DJMACK00001@yahoo.com or Rena at 697-6713. THURSDAY, JAN. 19 Author event/book signing: 6:30 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. James Campbell will talk about his book, Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey Into The Alaskan Wilderness. Campbell, author of The Final Frontiersman and The Ghost Mountain Boys, is joined by his daughter, Aidan, to talk about his latest book, a powerful and affirming story of a fathers journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of Alaska. Blood drive: Pardeeville Red Cross blood drive, 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. St. Faustina Parish, 318 S. Main St., Pardeeville. Download the American Red Cross Blood Donor app, visit www.redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767 to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required. Ice Age Trail Alliance Lodi Valley Chapter: 7 p.m. Lodi Medical Clinic, 160 Valley Drive, Lodi. Join us to learn more about what is happening with the Ice Age Trail. For more information, call Joanna at 608-577-9984. Library event: 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. Toddler Thursday for children ages 18 to 36 months, Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. This week toddlers will have fun with froggies! with books, songs, activities and crafts. An adult is required to stay in the Program Room with their child during story time. For more information, call 742-4959 ext. 211; registration can be done online at www.portagelibrary.us. Please pick only one time slot to attend. Museum: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Portage World War II Museum, 119 E. Cook St., Portage. Free tours for veterans every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The tours take 2 1/2 hours. For information, call 608-697-3690. Portage Family Skate Park public meeting: 5 to 6:30 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. All interested people are welcome to attend. Meetings will be held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Cancellations will be announced on our Facebook page. Call 608-742-4959 for more information. FRIDAY, JAN. 20 Hope House support group: 1 to 2 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Has domestic violence touched your life in some way? Find connections with supportive individuals who have similar life experiences as you at Hope Houses newest support group. All are welcome. Held on the first and third Friday of the month. For more information, contact Katie Fluger, outreach advocate, at 608-356-9123. Library event: 1 to 2 p.m. early release day from school Popcorn Celebration for kids in first through fifth grades, Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Whether you like popcorn or not, kids will get their fill of the fluffy white snack using it to play games, make a bird feeder and mosaic, and learning how to pop the corn in a variety of ways. After all that, kids will enjoy a popcorn buffet. Registration is not required. For more information, call 742-4959 ext. 211.Meet the Artist at Tivoli: Portage Center for the Arts at Tivoli presents The Paintings of Barb Sjoblom. Meet the artist and enjoy refreshments from 4 to 6 p.m. The exhibit runs through March, and is free and open to the public. Tivoli is located at 2805 Hunters Trail, behind Divine Savior Healthcare in Portage.Seniors Bowling Social: 1 p.m. Fireball Lanes, 817 E. Wisconsin St., Portage. Cost is $6 and includes three games of bowling and shoe rental. Unique Singles: 5 p.m. Asian Cuisine, East Cook Street, Portage. All single men and women older than age 50 welcome. The group is strictly social with no dues or officers. SATURDAY, JAN. 21 Community free meal: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 207 W. Pleasant St., Portage. Concert: 7:30 p.m. Performing Arts Series concert, Portage Center for the Arts, 301 E. Cook St., Portage. North Country Drifters will perform classic country and western swing. Reserved tickets on sale online, over the phone or at the office. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for students. Tickets will also be available at the door. Sponsored by Pointon Heating and Air Conditioning. Snowball Shoot: 10 a.m. Merrimac Conservation Rod and Gun Club, Merrimac. Religion class: 5 p.m. Deliverance ministry classes with Pastor Dale Smalley, Outreach Bible Church, 235 Northridge Drive, Portage. All welcome. SUNDAY, JAN. 22 Mackenzie Center Snowshoe and Hike: 1 to 4 p.m. MacKenzie Center, W7303 County Highway CS and Q, Poynette. Snowshoes will be available to use or bring your own. Enjoy hot chocolate by the campfire. Park in the lodge parking lot and dress for the weather. If there is less than six inches of snow on the ground, the Center will not be able to lend out snowshoes. People can use their own or hike. The event is free, but donations are appreciated. Call 608-635-8105 or email DNRMacKenzieCenter@wi.gov for more information. Zumba: 5:30 p.m. Rusch Elementary School, Portage. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com. The following companies are subsidiares of TE Connectivity: 999 Arques Corp., ABB ENTRELEC terminal block business, ACC Telecommunications, ADC Chile Limitada, ADC Communications (SEA) Pte. Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Holding Ltd., ADC Communications (UK) Ltd., ADC Communications Hong Kong Limited, ADC Telecommunications Equipment (Shanghai) Co., AMP Amermex, AMP Products Pacific Limited, AMP Taiwan B.V., AMP Trading B.V., AMP de Venezuela, Acalon Holdings Limited, Advanced Fiber Products LLC, Advanced Fiber Products Limited, Advanced Tube Technologies, AdvancedCath, AdvancedCath Technologies, Alpha Technics, American Sensor Technologies, Betatherm (R&D) Limited, Brantner Holding Company, Brantner and Associates, Butterfly Management SAS, C.S. Tyco Decisive Inc., C.S. Tyco Dependable Inc., C.S. Tyco Durable Inc., C.S. Tyco Reliance Inc., C.S. Tyco Resolute Inc., C.S. Tyco Responder Inc., CII Guardian International Limited, Cablotec GmbH, Carrier Kheops Bac SAS, Catheter and Disposable Technology, Celis Eletrocomponentes Ltda., Cima de Acuna S.A. de C.V., Clarebury Pty. Ltd., Codenoll Technology Corporation, Communication Expert International Investments Limited, Compagnie Deutsch Distribution SAS, Compagnie Deutsch SAS, Comtec Systeme GmbH, Connecteurs Electriques Deutsch SAS, Corcom, Corcom West Indies Limited, Cotsworks LLC, Creganna, Creganna Captial Holding Ireland Unlimited Company, Creganna Finance (US) LLC, Creganna Finance Ireland Limited, Creganna Luxembourg SARL, Creganna Medical Devices, Creganna Medical Pte. Limited, Creganna Medical Technology Unlimited, Creganna Medical s.r.l., Creganna Regulatory, Creganna Solutions Limited, Creganna Solutions Unlimited Company, Creganna Tactx Singapore Limited, Creganna Unlimited Company, Cregstar Bidco Limited, Critchley Group Limited, Crompton Instruments (South-East Asia) Pte. Ltd., Deutsch, Deutsch Connectors Hong Kong Limited, Deutsch Connectors Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Connectors Trading (Shanghai) Co., Deutsch Finance SAS, Deutsch GB Limited, Deutsch Group SAS, Deutsch India Power Connectors (Pvt) Ltd, Deutsch Israel Ltd., Deutsch SAS, Deutsch Servicios S. de R.L. De C.V., Deutsch Subco Limited, Deutsch UK, F.A.I. Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, First Sensor, Grangehurst Enterprises Pty. Ltd., Hirschmann Car Communication, Hong Kong Sensors Technologies Limited, Howard A. Schaevitz Technologies, Intercontec Connector System (Shanghai) Co., Intercontec Produkt GmbH, Intercontect Pfeiffer Industrie-Steckverbindungen GmbH, Jaquet North America, Jaquet Technology Group AG, Kemex Holding Company, Kenabell Holding Limited, LADD Distribution LLC, LADD Distribution Limited, LSA, MEAS Asia Limited, MEAS Europe SAS, MEAS France SAS, MEAS Ireland (Betatherm) Limited, MEAS Norway AS, MEAS Shenzhen Limited, MEAS Switzerland S.a r.l., MEAS US Holding, MP&E, Measurement Specialties, Measurement Specialties (Chengdu) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd., Measurement Specialties (China) Ltd. Production Branch, Measurement Specialties Foreign Holdings LLC, Measurement Technology (Chengdu) Ltd., Medical Engineering & Design, MicroGroup, Morlynn Ceramics Pty. Ltd., Nikkiso-Therm Co., PT KRONE Indonesia, PT. Tyco Electronics Indonesia, Pfeiffer GmbH & Co KG, Pfeiffer Verwaltungs GmbH, Polamco, Polamco Limited, Potter & Brumfield de Mexico, Precision Interconnect LLC, Precision Subsea AS, Precision Wire Components, Precision Wire Holding Company, Produxx, RAYCHEM-RPG Private Limited, Raychem (HK) Limited, Raychem (Shanghai) Trading Ltd, Raychem China Limited, Raychem Dominicana S.A., Raychem Industries BVBA, Raychem International LLC, Raychem International Manufacturing LLC, Raychem Juarez, Raychem Limited, Raychem Ltd., Raychem Pacific Corporation, Raychem Saudi Arabia Limited, Raychem Shanghai Cable Accessories Ltd, Raychem Technologies Limited, Rochester Wire and Cable LLC, SEACON Advanced Products LLC, Seacon (Europe) Limited, Seacon Global Production, Seacon Produtos e Servicos Opticos e Eletricos Ltda., Sensitive Object, Servo Interconnect Limited, Shanghai CII Electronics Co., Shenzhen Century Man Communication Equipment Co., Sibas Electronics (Xiamen) Co., TCN Holding (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., TE Connectivity (Barbados) SRL, TE Connectivity (Denmark) ApS, TE Connectivity (HKZ) Holding Limited, TE Connectivity (Kunshan) Company Limited, TE Connectivity (Netherlands) Holding S.a r.l. - Irish Branch, TE Connectivity (Schweiz) Management AG, TE Connectivity (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Argentina S.R.L., TE Connectivity Australia Pty Ltd, TE Connectivity Colombia S.A.S., TE Connectivity Connectors (Suzhou) Co., TE Connectivity Distribution (Thailand) Limited, TE Connectivity EMEA Holding GmbH, TE Connectivity Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity HK Limited, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen E-Finance branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Holding International II S.a r.l. (Ireland Branch), TE Connectivity Holding International S.A., TE Connectivity Inc., TE Connectivity India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A., TE Connectivity Investments Holding S.A. Luxembourg (LU) Schaffhausen branch, TE Connectivity Ireland Limited, TE Connectivity LATAM Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM I S.a r.l., TE Connectivity LATAM II S.a r.l., TE Connectivity Limited, TE Connectivity MOG Europe S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Holding S.a r.l., TE Connectivity MOG Inc., TE Connectivity MOG Sales GmbH, TE Connectivity Manufacturing (Thailand) Company Limited, TE Connectivity Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd., TE Connectivity Morocco SARL, TE Connectivity Nederland B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Poland II) Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Netherlands (Turkey) B.V., TE Connectivity Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., TE Connectivity Phoenix Optix Inc., TE Connectivity Seacon Phoenix Inc., TE Connectivity Sensors Germany GmbH, TE Connectivity Services India Private Limited, TE Connectivity Solutions GmbH, TE Connectivity South Africa Proprietary Limited, TE Connectivity Spain, TE Connectivity SubCom S.L.U., TE Connectivity SubCom Spain Holding S.L.U., TE Connectivity Technology Solutions Limited, TE Connectivity Tunisia Sarl, TE Connectivity ULC, TE Connectivity US Group Holding Inc., TE Connectivity Vietnam Holding Company Limited, TYCO Electronics Polska Sp.z.o.o., TYCO SUBMARINE SYSTEMS INC., TacPro, Tactx Medical, Taicang Speed & Spin Sensors Co., Taliq Taiwan Limited, Tappat Engineering Pty Ltd, TechDevice Costa Rica Limitada, TechDevice Holdings, TechDevice LLC, The Whitaker LLC, Transoceanic Cable Ship Company LLC, TyCom Holdings II SA, TyCom Networks (Peru) S.A., Tyco Electronics (AMP Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Holding Limited, Tyco Electronics (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics (Korea) Malta Limited, Tyco Electronics (Kunshan) Ltd, Tyco Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Tyco Electronics (Qingdao) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Schweiz) Holding II GmbH, Tyco Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Tyco Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Suzhou) Ltd., Tyco Electronics (Zhuhai) Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Guangdong Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Italia Products S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Italia S.R.L., Tyco Electronics AMP Korea Co., Tyco Electronics AMP Manufacturing (S) Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics AMP Qingdao Ltd., Tyco Electronics AMP Shanghai Ltd., Tyco Electronics Austria GmbH, Tyco Electronics Belgium EC BVBA, Tyco Electronics Brasil Ltda., Tyco Electronics Canada ULC, Tyco Electronics China (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Componentes Electromecanicos Lda., Tyco Electronics Corby Limited, Tyco Electronics Corporation, Tyco Electronics Czech s.r.o., Tyco Electronics Del Peru S.A.C., Tyco Electronics EC Trutnov s.r.o., Tyco Electronics EC Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Tyco Electronics Eta Limited, Tyco Electronics Finance Alpha GmbH, Tyco Electronics Finance S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Finland Oy, Tyco Electronics France SAS, Tyco Electronics Germany Holdings GmbH, Tyco Electronics Group S.A., Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (French Branch), Tyco Electronics Group S.A. (Ireland Branch), Tyco Electronics H.K. Limited, Tyco Electronics Hellas MEPE, Tyco Electronics Holding Corp., Tyco Electronics Holding France, Tyco Electronics Holding S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited, Tyco Electronics Holdings (Bermuda) No. 7 Limited Taiwan Branch, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 1 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 2 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hong Kong Holdings No. 3 Limited, Tyco Electronics Hungary Termelo Kft, Tyco Electronics Idento, Tyco Electronics India (Gibraltar) Limited, Tyco Electronics Industrial Y Comercial Chile Limitada, Tyco Electronics Integrated Cable Systems LLC, Tyco Electronics Ireland Limited, Tyco Electronics Israel Ltd., Tyco Electronics Italia Holding S.r.l., Tyco Electronics Japan G.K., Tyco Electronics Lambda, Tyco Electronics Latin America Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics Manufacturing Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Mexico, Tyco Electronics Middle East FZE, Tyco Electronics Motors Ltd, Tyco Electronics NZ Limited, Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Germany Holding) S.a r.l., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar China) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (Gibraltar India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands (India) Cooperatief U.A., Tyco Electronics Netherlands Holding B.V., Tyco Electronics Norge AS, Tyco Electronics Philippines, Tyco Electronics Precision Engineering Ltd., Tyco Electronics Printed Circuit Group LP, Tyco Electronics RIMC Holding LLC, Tyco Electronics RUS OOO, Tyco Electronics Raychem GmbH, Tyco Electronics Raychem Korea Limited, Tyco Electronics SIMEL SAS, Tyco Electronics Saudi Arabia Limited, Tyco Electronics Services GmbH, Tyco Electronics Singapore Pte Ltd, Tyco Electronics Subsea Communications LLC, Tyco Electronics Svenska AB, Tyco Electronics Svenska Holdings AB, Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Co., Tyco Electronics Technology (SIP) Ltd., Tyco Electronics Tecnologias S. de R.L. de C.V., Tyco Electronics UK Holdings Ltd, Tyco Electronics UK Ltd., Tyco Electronics UK Ltd. (Kenya Branch), Tyco Electronics Ukraine Limited, Tyco Electronics Uruguay S.A., Tyco Electronics Verwaltungs GmbH, Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems B.V., Tyco Electronics de Venezuela, Tyco Elektronik AMP Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Tyco Global Networks Ltd., Tyco Iberia, Tyco International Services GmbH, Tyco Networks (Argentina) S.R.L., Tyco Networks (Italy) Srl, Tyco Networks (Netherlands) B.V., Tyco Networks Iberica, Tyco Submarine Systems, Tyco Submarine Systems C.A., Tyco Submarine Systems de Argentina S.A., Tyco Telecommunications Ltd., Wema Americas LLC, Wema Automotive System Private Limited, Wema Environmental Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Wema Environmental Technologies Ltd., Wema System AG, Wema System AS, Wema System Hong Kong Limited, Wema System Production and Distribution HK Limited, Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Businesss, and motec Montage GmbH. Read More 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 Russia announces cancellation of Khmelnitsky agreement 16 January 2017 Share The Russian government has confirmed that its 2010 agreement with Ukraine on building a third and fourth reactor at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant has been cancelled. According to a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website for legal information on 13 January, the intergovernmental agreement was terminated on 12 May last year. The agreement was signed in Kiev on 9 June 2010 and ratified by the Ukrainian parliament on 12 January 2011. Under the contract, Russia was to provide financing for the amount required to design, construct and commission the two reactors, including for payments for services and goods supplied by Russia. Any components supplied from Ukraine for the project were to be financed from the Ukrainian budget. But in July 2015, Rosatom rejected the then Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's claim that the Russian state nuclear corporation had failed to honour the agreement on completion of the units. Ukraine subsequently cancelled its agreement with Russia and its parliament approved the decision on 16 September the same year. Ukraine generates almost half its electricity from its 15 operating nuclear reactors, all Russian-designed pressurised water reactors. Operated by state-run Energoatom, the reactors are sited at four nuclear power plants - Zaporozhe, Rovno, South Ukraine and Khmelnitsky. The 15 units include 13 VVER-1000s and two VVER-440s with a total capacity of 13,835 MWe. They include two units at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant, which is located in the town of Neteshin. Construction of Khmelnitsky 3 began in September 1985, while that of unit 4 started in June 1986. Work on the two units stopped in 1990 when they were 75% and 28% complete, respectively. The Ukrainian government announced in September 2008 that construction would resume in 2010 for completion in 2016 and 2017. Then in November the same year, Ukraine was reportedly considering the possibility of cooperation with China on the project. In July 2015, the Ukrainian government approved a pilot project, named the "energy bridge", to transfer electricity from unit 2 of the Khmelnitsky plant to the European Union. Energoatom president and CEO Yury Nedashkovsky said at the time this project would not only fund the addition of two reactors, but will also "open up new prospects" for the country to export power to European markets. In March last year, Energoatom, Ukrenergo and Polenergia signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the project. Energoatom said the agreement will make it possible to use all its available nuclear capacity and attract funds for the completion of the third and fourth reactors of the Khmelnitsky plant. In August, Energoatom and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power signed an MOU on cooperation in the nuclear energy sector, with areas of cooperation to include completion of Khmelnitsky 3 and 4 and the Ukraine-EU "energy bridge" project. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics EDF gets approval to restart nine units 16 January 2017 Share France's nuclear regulator, the Autorite de Surete Nucleaire (ASN), has approved the restart of nine of the 12 reactors affected by the carbon concentration anomaly in the steam generator channel heads manufactured by Japan Casting and Forging Corporation (JCFC). The approval, which followed ASN's examination of the results of inspections and technical demonstrations provided by EDF for the 900 MWe reactors, was announced on 12 January. In June last year, ASN said it had identified 18 French nuclear power reactors operated by EDF - of both 900 MWe and 1450 MWe capacity - whose steam generators could contain high carbon concentrations. Of these, 12 are equipped with channel heads manufactured by JCFC "liable to contain a particularly high carbon concentration". A high carbon content in steel can lead to mechanical properties lower than expected. The nine that can now be restarted are Bugey 4, Dampierre 3, Fessenheim 1, Gravelines 2 and 4, Saint-Laurent B1, and Tricastin 1, 3 and 4. All of these are 900 MWe units. The regulator had ordered EDF in October to carry out additional inspections on the steam generator channel heads of certain reactors, within three months. On 11 January, the company asked that the inspection deadline for unit 2 of the Tricastin plant be postponed by two weeks. "This request was explained by the risks posed to the electricity grid as a result of the wave of cold weather expected next week," ASN said, adding it considered this postponement to be acceptable from the safety viewpoint. It has set a new deadline of 3 February. EDF also asked that the inspection deadline set for Civaux 1 be postponed to the end of March. ASN said it is examining data provided by EDF for the 1450 MWe Civaux units 1 and 2, with the assistance of France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. On that basis, ASN will analyse the conditions for the restart of unit 2 - on which inspections have been carried out - and will shortly issue a position statement on the request for postponement of these inspections on unit 1. ASN announced in April 2015 the discovery of an anomaly in the composition of the steel in certain zones of the vessel closure head and the vessel bottom head of the Flamanville EPR reactor. The detection of this anomaly led ASN to ask Areva NP and EDF to "learn all possible lessons from this event". There are three processes currently under way, ASN said. Firstly, the search for technical anomalies on other EDF reactor components similar to those detected on the Flamanville EPR vessel, which has enabled EDF to identify similar anomalies on the channel heads of certain steam generators. Secondly, manufacturing quality reviews on parts at Areva NP manufacturing plants, which enabled Areva NP to detect irregularities in the manufacturing files from Creusot Forge. Thirdly, initiation of a review of basic nuclear installation licensee monitoring of their contractors and subcontractors, of ASN oversight and of alert mechanisms. Steam generators are heat exchangers between the water circulating in the reactor's primary coolant circuit - at a temperature of about 350C and a pressure of 155 bar - and the water in the secondary circuit that supplies steam to the turbines. Their domed lower head is part of the primary circuit and therefore has an important safety role in ensuring cooling water is always available. There are three steam generators in the 900 MWe pressurized water reactors, while the 1450 MWe reactors feature four. Researched and written by World Nuclear News Related topics Curtis L. Paige, Sheahonni Davis and Toriano Newson By: Mahesh Sarin WorldWideWeirdNews.com Two brothers of Syracuse, New York, were killed after a girl lured them to her friends so they can be robbed. The girl was charged with murder for the death of the two teenage brothers in what police believe was a robbery attempt. Court documents show that the suspects were looking to rob the brothersa marijuana. The two men and the girl were arrested and charged with murder and attempted robbery, Syracuse police chief Frank Fowler said. According to police, 17-year-old Sheahonni Davis contacted the brothers, 17-year-old Daniel Diaz-Marrero and Ismael Diaz-Marrero, 19, and asked them to meet her. When the brothers arrived, they were ambushed by 19-year-old Toriano Newson and 23-year-old Curtis L. Paige III. The suspects tried to rob the brothers before shooting them. Ismael Diaz-Marrero died at the scene, police said. His younger brother died at a hospital. Police said that the brothers had known Davis for a short time before she lured them to be robbed. The brothers, their father and younger sister arrived in the United States from Cuba, after their mother died about five years ago. Ismael worked to pay for college. He was a sophomore at Le Moyne College in DeWitt. His younger brother was a senior at a Syracuse high school. An evil man was taken off the street after raping a woman numerous times, according to police in the United Kingdom. Now, 30-year-old Christopher Moore of Dover, is facing up to life in prison after being convicted of nine counts of rape against the same woman. Moore previously pleaded guilty to one count of controlling or coercive behaviour and one count of putting someone in fear of violence by harassment. According to the criminal complaint, the victim moved away from Dover to Kent, in order to escape him, but he followed her to the area and raped her on a number of different occasions. After she reported him to the police, he embarked on what was described in court as a course of conduct clearly designed to intimidate his victim and make her fearful of further violence. Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South East Jaswant Narwal said: The victim in this case faced a horrifying ordeal at Moores hands. She was raped repeatedly by him and once she reported him to the police, he started to call, text and email her with threats. One text message the victim received talked about the only way they would ever be apart was when she was with her parents, who were both dead, while another spoke about following her and knowing where she was staying. It was thanks to the support of a friend that the victim came forward initially and Moore has now been brought to justice. Moore was also accused of punching and kicking the woman, as well as threatening her dog. (Scroll down for video) A mother tortured her son by denying him food for several years, and caused him to weigh just a third of the average for a boy his age, according to police in Utah. The Washington County Sheriffas Office said that they have arrested 36-year-old Brandy Jaynes, after being accused of torturing her 12-year-old son for two years. Jaynes has been charged with one count of aggravated child abuse. She was booked into jail, and her bail has been set at $20,000. According to the criminal complaint, Jaynes kept the 12-year-old boy in bathroom for about two years. The room was dark and was equipped with videos cameras and baby monitors. The boy got a very limited amount of food and water. When the boy was rescued, he weighed 30 pounds. The average weight for a 12-year-old boy is 90 pounds. The boys father, who is married to Jaynes but does not live in the house, found him locked in the bathroom. He found his son lying on the floor with a blanket. The father brought his son to the Dixie Regional Medical Center, where police responded on Sunday. A doctor told the police that this was the worst case of malnutrition he had ever seen. The child will be hospitalized for at least three weeks, as he cannot stand up on his own. During questioning, Jaynes confirmed that she kept the boy in the bathroom because he wanted to sleep there. The bathroom floor was covered with feces. The shower contained a few empty cans of beans and a spoon. Police found a video camera and a baby monitor in the bathroom. The boys two siblings told investigators that they had not spoken to their brother for 6 months. One child told police that the boy has been locked in the bathroom for at least a year. The boyas two siblings are in the custody of child protected services. The two children do not appear to have been abused. A student found himself behind bars after throwing a paper plane at a teacher during class, according to police in South Carolina. The Georgetown County Sheriffas Office said that they have arrested 17-year-old David Michael Elliott, after being accused of assaulting 74-year-old Edward McIver in class. The student has been charged with one count of assault and battery. He was booked into jail, and was released after several hours without bail. According to the criminal complaint, the teacher, who has surgery on his left eye, called police to his classroom to report the student who threw the paper airplane at him. The paper plane hit the teacheras left eye, and it was very red, according to police. The student was questioned, and he admitted to throwing the paper plane. The student said that he intended to hit the teacher in the head, but the plane went into his eye instead. Lawrence Crosby with his hands up By: Wayne Morin WorldWideWeirdNews.com (Scroll down for video) Police in Illinois, have released shocking footage, showing a black man being thrown to the ground and placed in handcuffs after they believed that he stole his own vehicle. The incident began in 2015, when a woman in Evanston, Chicago, called police to report that a man was trying to break into a car. The woman said that she saw the black man holding a metal bar while prying open the car. Many police officers responded to the call and they pulled over the driver, Lawrence Crosby, then 25. Crosby came out of his car with his hands in the air. Officers who had their guns drawn at him, ordered Crosby to get back into his car before he was tackled to the ground, beaten and handcuffed. When Crosby demanded to know why he was being detained, an officer explained that the car was stolen. Crosby told officers that he owned the car and that it was registered in his name. While he was still on the ground with many officers on top of him, Crosby gave officers his license plate number, make and model of the car and the name of the Chevrolet dealership where it was purchased. When the woman who made the call, learned that Crosby was the owner of the car, she began to cry and she told an officer that aI did not mean to racially profile.a The video was finally released after Crosby filed a lawsuit against the Evanston Police Department for excessive force and false arrest. A woman in the United Kingdom, was left red faced for reporting a trapped bird after hearing the noise of a smoke alarm with a low battery. Ossett police said that officers from the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) were called to the womanas home after she reported a beeping sound that sounded like a bird in distress. Officer Alan Farr said that he and his colleagues went over to the womans home and searched her roof for several hours. After being unable to find the trapped bird, Farr went into one of the bedroom in the home and noticed that the beeping sound was coming from the smoke alarm. The device sounded like bird in distress as the battery was low. The woman who was embarrassed by the ordeal, apologized to the officers and they left. Wrexham Schools to Receive Share of Funding From Welsh Government Scheme This article is old - Published: Monday, Jan 16th, 2017 Three Wrexham secondary schools which have benefited from a Welsh Government scheme are set to receive a further financial boost. Over the past three Ysgol Bryn Alyn, Rhosnesni High School and Ysgol Clywedog have taken part in the Schools Challenge Cymru programme a Welsh Government initiative which provides funding and support to 40 schools across Wales. The 20m project, which ends in April this year, will see all participating schools share an additional 200,000 to ensure advisory support remains in place for the remainder of this academic year. Ysgol Bryn Alyn, Ysgol Clywedog and Rhosnesni High School have all been taking part in the 20m Welsh Government initiative. Local Assembly Member Lesley Griffiths has welcomed the additional support and believes Schools Challenge Cymru has had a positive impact in Wrexham. She said: Having visited the three schools on several occasions over the past few years, I believe Ysgol Bryn Alyn, Ysgol Clywedog and Rhosnesni High School have all embraced and benefited from the programme. Capital funding has enabled general improvements to take place and advisors have been on-hand to offer support and guidance when required. GCSE results are steadily improving, with Rhosnesni School celebrating their best ever performance last year. Schools Challenge Cymru has certainly made a difference in my constituency and as the programme approaches its conclusion, I will encourage the Welsh Government to retain the successful elements of the scheme moving forward. Schools Challenge Cymru was a three year programme initiated by the Welsh Government in May 2014. Ysgol Bryn Alyn, Ysgol Clywedog and Rhosnesni High School were three of 40 secondary schools across Wales selected to take part in the multimillion scheme. As well as obtaining substantial funding, each school received individually tailored programmes of support. Extra assistance and expert advisors have been on hand to help deliver the priorities and actions required to make swift and lasting improvements. Although Schools Challenge Cymru is ending, the Welsh Government announced it is looking at what additional targeted work could be undertaken to continue to support and improve the schools in the future. Just days before his inauguration, US President-elect Donald Trump has provoked an angry reaction from China by again suggesting that his administrations recognition of the One China policy would be contingent on Chinese concessions on economic issues. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Trump declared that he would not commit to the policy until he saw what he considered progress from Beijing in its currency and trade practices. Everything is under negotiation including One China, he told the newspaper. The One China policy, under which Washington recognised Beijing as the only legitimate government of all China including Taiwan, has been the bedrock of US-China relations for decades. On that basis, the US established diplomatic relations with China in 1979 and formally broke off ties with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province. By placing a question mark over the One China policy, Trump is threatening a serious confrontation with China that could potentially lead to a break in diplomatic ties between the two countries. The Chinese foreign ministry hit back on Saturday declaring that the One China principle was the political foundation of China-US relations and was non-negotiable. Spokesman Lu Kang said: There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. Lu urged relevant parties in the US to fully recognise the high sensitivity of the Taiwan question, approach Taiwan-related issues with prudence and honour the commitment made by all previous US administrations. Beijing regards Taiwan as a critical core issue and has declared that it will go to war if Taipei ever declared formal independence from China. The Chinese government has routinely protested against US arms sales to Taiwan under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act which committed the US to defend the island against a forcible Chinese take-over. Trumps latest remarks indicate that he has no intention of taking notice of Chinas warnings. He made similar comments last month when he defended his decision to take a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on December 2the first contact between top American and Taiwanese leaders since 1979. In relation to Taiwan, Trump commented: We can sell them $2 billion of the latest and greatest military equipment [last year] but were not allowed to accept a phone call. First of all it would have been very rude not to accept the phone call. It is absurd to suggest that the phone call to Trump from Tsai had not been organised in advance by members of their respective staffs. High-level members of Trumps transition team, including his incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, have strong ties with Taiwan and advocate closer US relations with the island. Speaking on ABCs This Week on Sunday, Priebus said that there are no plans to change the One China policy. However, he then added: But certainly that policy is on the table if China doesnt come to the table and work with us on trade, work with us on the South China Sea and whats happening there. In his Wall Street Journal interview, Trump lashed out again at China over trade and currency issues. He dismissed Chinese claims that its currency was simply falling against the US dollar. Its not dropping. They are doing it on purpose. Our companies cant compete with them now because our currency is strong and its killing us. In the course of the election campaign, Trump repeatedly threatened to brand China as a currency manipulator but told the newspaper that he would not do so immediately. I would talk to them first, he said. Trumps remarks signify that his administration is preparing to confront China diplomatically, economically and militarily across the board. By suggesting that he will not be bound by the One China policy, he is threatening to recognise Taiwan as an independent entitya move that would provoke dangerous military tensions across the Taiwan Strait. The last major crisis in the Taiwan Strait in 199596 occurred after Washington reneged on its assurances to Beijing that it would not grant a visa to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to speak at Cornell University. After the Chinese military mobilised forces and held naval exercises, the Clinton administration sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the area and provocatively sent onethe USS Nimitz and accompanying warshipsthrough the Taiwan Strait. Trumps nominee as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a confirmation hearing last week that the US should deny China access to islets under its control in the South China Sea. Any attempt by the US to intercede militarily to block Chinese planes and ships would almost certainly provoke clashes that could rapidly lead to conflict between nuclear armed powers (see: Trumps China policy threatens nuclear war). The hawkish state-owned Global Times warned in an editorial on Friday that what would eventuate was a large scale war in the South China Sea and advised Tillerson to bone up on nuclear strategies if he wanted to force China to withdraw from its territories. In comments to Business Insider, Bonnie Glaser, an analyst with the Washington-based Centre for International and Strategic Studies, suggested that Tillerson had misspoken. If the US were to place a cordon of ships around one or all of the islands, and the Chinese flew an aircraft to one of their new islands, what are we going to do? she asked. Shoot it down? Wed certainly end up in a shooting war with China. Trump has also taken a belligerent stand towards China over North Korea, condemning it for not taking stronger action to halt Pyongyangs nuclear and missile programs. Responding to a North Korean announcement that it was preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, he declared that it wont happen, suggesting the possibilities of further US sanctions, strong pressure on China or a military intervention. Trumps threats of trade war measures as well as his remarks on Taiwan, the South China Sea and Korea are utterly reckless. All three are highly volatile flashpoints that have the potential to provoke war. FINEST KIND CLINIC AND FISHMARKET.... Discussing medicine, culture, and the joys of cooking Pansit. Prime Minister Theresa May and Conservative ministers have spent the last week denying that the National Health Service (NHS) is in an enormous crisis. Last weekend, two patients at Worcestershire Royal Hospital died after waiting hours for treatment in hospital corridors. At the same time, more than 20 hospitals raised alerts that they could no longer provide basic services to the public. In response, the British Red Cross said, accurately, that the NHS was facing a humanitarian crisis. At Prime Ministers Questions Wednesday, May said the depiction used by the Red Cross was irresponsible and overblown and claimed that the NHS was receiving 10 billion more funding from the government than it had requested. May was flatly contradicted just two hours later by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England. Stevens was giving evidence to parliaments public accounts committee on the financial sustainability of the NHS, and said funding was being substantially reduced. Over the next three years, funding is going to be highly constrained. In 2018-2019, real-terms NHS spending per person in England is going to go down, 10 years after Lehman Brothers [collapsed] and austerity began. He added, We all understand why that is, but lets not pretend thats not placing huge pressure on the service. Stevens gave his evidence after Chris Hopsonchief executive of NHS Providerssaid bluntly in his testimony that, We have reached the point in the NHS where we can no longer deliver everything that has been asked of the NHS. The dire situation in the NHS, which is a life-and-death issue for millions, has been deliberately created by successive government policies. Stevens, a former adviser to Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, is no friend of the working class. However, his reference to the austerity agenda enacted after the financial crash of 2008 is a significant admission. In order to enact a 1 trillion bailout of the banks and super-rich, the Labour government began a programme of mass austerity. Central to this was the acceleration of spending cuts to the NHS and the privatisationto the tune of billions of poundsof a huge portion of its services, resulting in the present crisis. In 2009, Stevens predecessor, David Nicholson, in alliance with the Gordon Brown Labour government, demanded that already struggling NHS Trusts deliver up to 20 billion in efficiency savings over three years from 2011 to 2014. This was enforced under the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition when they came to office in 2010. Following the re-election of the Tories in 2015, a further 22 billion in cuts is being imposed by 2020-2021, again under the euphemism of efficiency savings. As a result of this systematic underfunding, the breakdown of the NHS worsens by the day. On Tuesday, figures leaked from NHS Improvement, an NHS regulator in England, to the BBC revealed that nearly a quarter of patients waited longer than four hours in Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments last week. In one hospital, Weston Area, 44 percent waited more than four hours. The document revealed dangerously high levels of bed occupancy. In England 94.7 percent of beds are full, a figure well above the safe threshold of 85 percent. Those admitted to hospital as emergency cases face long, and as the Worcestershire deaths demonstrate, dangerous, waiting times for a bedin some instances well over 48 hours. In the first week of January, more than 18,000 people had trolley waits in corridors of four hours or more and 485 people had to lie on trolleys for more than 12 hourstreble the number seen during the whole of January last year. On Friday, the Daily Mirror ran a front-page picture of a 22-month-old boywith suspected meningitiswho had to lie in a waiting room for five hours on two plastic chairs pulled together as a makeshift bed by his mother due to a lack of beds at a hospital. The boys mother, Rose Newman, said, Theresa May said she accepted there had been a few instances where things like this happen. That is laughable. In that waiting room, there was a woman sitting opposite me, head in hands, I dont know what had happened to her but she had been there for eight hours. Another baby, younger than Jack [her son], had a big rash across her, had to be put on a drip, and theyd been waiting more than six hours. Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) reported this week that the situation in the NHS is the worst they have known. One nurse in charge of a major treatment centre in A&E, told the RCN, At one point our treatment area, meant for 20 patients, had 56 patients crowded in corridors and around the nursing station. Janet Davies, the RCNs chief executive, said nurses were told to discharge people from hospital even though they were unfit to leave in order to free up beds. Another professional body, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), demand the government provide funding urgently to help over-full hospitals with too few qualified staff. RCP President Professor Jane Dacre said, Our members fear that patients lives are at risk because they cant get round to see patients who arent in the emergency and accident department or are waiting for results to come back. The Royal College of Radiologists also demanded more funding and immediate and longer-term measures to address the issues. Central to the crisis is the mass culling of staff. According to a report issued last April by the NHSs Health and Social Care Information Centre, the NHS had 69,317 fewer staff than was being reported by the government, including just over 15,000 fewer nurses, midwives and health visitors and 3,000 fewer doctors. According to recent figures, there are 6,000 fewer nurses and 400 fewer doctors working in mental health. At Prime Ministers Questions, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn focussed on the NHS crisis in his allotted questions. While Corbyn addressed the lengthy waiting times and other aspects of the crisis, he said nothing about its origins and proposed nothing beyond the government bringing forward 900 million of funding due to reach the NHS by 2019. This amount is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the vast resources being stripped from the NHS and the profits reaped by the privateers. Moreover, Labour played a central role, as indicated by Stevens, in laying the basis for todays crisis. There have been repeated warnings about this state of affairs. Last year, 50,000 junior doctors mounted a wave of unprecedented strikes to protest the government plan to enforce an inferior contract on them. In the face of relentless and hostile propaganda from the government and right-wing media, the junior doctors warned that the contract was bound up with accelerating efforts to destroy the NHS. For that, they won widespread public support. Corbyn, in alliance with the trade unions, played a major role in the isolation and eventual defeat of the junior doctors. After first studiously ignoring the strikes, Corbyn belatedly made a face-saving appearance at a picket line in April, while calling for the government to reach a negotiated settlement with the British Medical Association (BMA) This allowed the government the time required to concoct a dirty deal with the BMAon whose junior doctors committee Corbyn supporters have leading positionsout of which the inferior contract demanded by the Tories was enforced last December. Public health care is a social right, not a privilege, and the working class must begin to organise a counteroffensive against the scorched earth programme of the ruling elite aimed at destroying the NHS. In 2012, the Socialist Equality Party launched the NHS FightBack campaign to lead this struggle, insisting that a fight back can be successful only if it is waged independently of Labour and the trade unions and on the basis of a socialist programme. For further information, contact NHS FightBack. As German academia shifts to the right, expressed in its support for the revival of German militarism, it is important to recall the role played by high-ranking German academics in the Third Reich. Max Weinreichs classic study, Hitlers Professors, first appeared in 1946, with a new edition published in 1999 by Yale University Press. The book presents a thorough account of the participation of leading German academics in the preparation, ideological cover-up and implementation of the murder of European Jews under the Nazis. Professors at Berlin Universitythe predecessor of Humboldt University, which has recently become an ideological center for the return of German militarismplayed an especially important role in the Third Reich. Max Weinreich was born in 1894, in what is Latvia today, and studied in Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic. Like many of his contemporaries, he was deeply shocked by the Gleichschaltung [Nazification of the state and society] in 1933. Large sections of the academic world voluntarily threw themselves into the arms of the Nazis and placed themselves at the service of National Socialism. Hundreds of intellectuals and academics of Jewish origin, along with those unwilling to adapt to National Socialism, had to leave Germany. Weinreich is known primarily for his work as a historian and a linguist of the Yiddish language. He wrote his book in Yiddish immediately after the war, on the basis of thousands of documents and publications collected by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. In this way, he was able to thoroughly document the complicity of well-known and influential German academics, coming from many different disciplines, in preparing the elimination of European Jewry. Weinreichs study shows that an entire layer of intellectuals placed themselves in the service of German imperialism, sharing responsibility for the greatest crimes in human history. At the beginning of his study, Weinreich states: This murder of a whole people was not perpetrated solely by a comparatively small gang of the Elite Guard or by the Gestapo, whom we have come to consider as criminals. ... the entire ruling class of Germany was committed to the execution of this crime. But the actual murderers, and those who sent them out and applauded them, had accomplices. German scholarship provided the ideas and techniques which led to and justified this unparalleled slaughter. (p. 6) Weinreich emphasizes that practically all academic disciplines were involved: Many fields of learning, different ones at different times according to the shrewdly appraised needs of Nazi policies, were drawn into the work for more than a decade: physical anthropology and biology, every branch of the social sciences and the humanitiesuntil the engineers moved in to build the gas chambers and crematoriums. (pp. 6-7) Most of the academics discussed by Weinreich were people of long and high standing, university professors and academy members, some of them world famous, authors with familiar names and guest lecturers abroad, the kind of people with whom Allied scholars used to meet and fraternize at international congresses. (p. 7) From the outset, Weinreich argues that the integration of these academics into the Nazi apparatus was by no means an accident. Many of them had already harbored right-wing nationalist and conservative views during the period of the Weimar Republic. He observes: German scholarship in the post-Versailles period played exactly the same role in supporting Germanys drive to world domination as in the days of the Kaiser (p. 11) Weinreich names several of the best-known examples of researchers with right-wing nationalist sympathies and National Socialist party membership credentials: The Nobel Prize winner for physics, Philipp Lenard, supported the failed Nazi putsch in 1923 in Munich, and was one of the best-known representatives of the so-called German physics, which militantly opposed Jewish natural science researchers and called the theories of relativity and quantum physics Jewish theories. Johannes Stark, also a Nobel Prize Winner in physics and a representative of German physics, became a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAPNational Socialist German Workers' Party) in 1930 and participated in the research and development of an atomic bomb for the Third Reich. The philosopher and sociologist Erich Rothacker was a member of the German Peoples Party (DVP) before he became a member of the National Socialists in 1930. Karl Alexander von Muller, history professor at the Munich Ludwig Maximilian University from 1928 to 1945, had been a Nazi supporter since the 1920s. He taught several of the most despicable Nazis and right-wing ideologists, including Hermann Goring; Baldur von Schirach, who headed the Hitler Youth; Hitlers later deputy, Rudolf Hess; and the Nazi historians Walter Frank and Wilhelm Grau. At Berlin University, there was an especially large number of well-known academics who worked with the National Socialists. These included: Eugen Fischer, rector of Berlin University and the most famous pseudo-theoretician of so-called eugenics, who was also an advocate of the Nuremburg race laws. Viktor Bruns, worked at Berlin University as well, and was one of the best-known international law experts of the Weimar Republic. Bruns represented the Nazi government before the permanent international court in The Hague. Theodor Vahlen, a mathematician at Greifswald University, had been a national socialist since the 1920s and is considered one of the founders of the so-called German Mathematics. Under the Nazis, he subsequently became president of the Prussian Academy of the Sciences and was yet another employee of Berlin University. He later joined the SS. One could add to this list Konrad Meyer, Professor for Agricultural Science at Berlin University, who played a central role in drafting the Generalplan Ost [General Plan East] which formed the basis for Germanys attack on the Soviet Union and for the Nazis occupation policies in the East. Researchers in physical anthropology, biology and law were, according to Weinreich, especially ready to embrace national socialism. Among the legal experts, Carl Schmitt was the most famous. As a legal theoretician, he provided the ideological foundation for legitimizing National Socialist legislation, and took part in numerous Nazi conferences on the Jewish question. During the Second World War his works were used to justify the German National Socialists claim for world domination. Research on the Jewish Question Weinreich spends several pages explaining in detail how the National Socialists made a conscious effort to connect their anti-Bolshevism with anti-Jewish propaganda and substantiate both with pseudo-research. In this, they were basing their views on those of anti-communist Russian immigrants, who fled to Germany after the October revolution and maintained close connections with right-wing nationalist and anti-Semitic circles. For instance, Weinreich quotes a secret memorandum written by the Jurist Dr. Eberhard Taubert on February 1934, in which he sketched the outlines of anti-Bolshevik and anti-Jewish propaganda. It declared: Any anti-Bolshevist propaganda is directly in our favor, especially if conducted along these lines: (1) Bolshevism is the gravest danger menacing the worlds security and culture; (2) we have saved the world from this danger; (3) our defense action against communism had to be directed against Jewry too, because they are allied (6) we are the pioneers of a real understanding of peoples on the basis of mutual respect of nations If this propaganda is consistently carried through, one must come to understand the new Germany abroad, particularly the authoritarian regime, the concentration camps, the regulation of the Jewish question (pp. 11314) Taubert, a member of the Nazi Party from 1931, provided the ideas behind the infamous Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew, and occupied a high-ranking position in Goebbels propaganda ministry. After the war, he became an employee and adviser of the leading Christian Social Union politician, Franz Josef Strau. Weinreich also documents the numerous institutes devoted to research on the Jewish question, which were founded under the National Socialists and ideologically prepared the Holocaust. In addition to Berlin and Munich, Frankfurt-Main became an important center for the ideological preparation of war and genocide. Among the most influential institutes, which often competed with one another, were: The Reichsinstitut fur Geschichte des Neuen Deutschlands, [Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany] headquartered in Berlin. This institute systematically supported and carried out pseudo-historical research to provide a theoretical basis for the Nazis antisemitism. Physics Nobel Prize winner Johannes Stark and Rudolf Mentzel, president of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [German Research Foundation], took part in its work and participated in various conferences that it sponsored. Institute conferences were also attended by such high-ranking Nazi officials as Julius Streicher, publisher of the infamous propaganda paper Der Sturmer, and Hans Frank, later governor general of occupied Poland. The Reich Institute published the widely-known series Forschungen zur Judenfrage [Research on the Jewish Question]. Alfred Rosenbergs Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage [Institute for Research on the Jewish Question], founded in 1939 shortly before the beginning of the war, with its headquarters in Frankfurt-Main. It quickly developed into a leading Nazi anti-Jewish institute. Its library of anti-Jewish literature comprised several thousand volumes. Despite wartime deprivation, the Institute received 160,000 Reichsmark during the war to expand its library. Members of the institute, most notably the expert on Eastern Europe, Peter-Heinz Seraphim, played a central role in the development of the Nazis political orientation towards the Jews in occupied Europe and in the Soviet Union. At a conference in May 1941, academics such as Seraphim and Walter Grau demanded a definitive solution to the Jewish question, even before its detailed planning at the Wannsee Conference in January, 1942. Alfred Rosenbergs journal Der Weltkampf [The World Struggle], one of the most important ideological organs of the NSDAP since 1925, published contributions from no fewer than 13 professors and 26 Doctors of Philosophy until its last issue in 1944. Among their number were Dr. Klaus Schickert, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Jewish Question in Hungary, and Peter-Heinz Seraphim, who took over the editorship of the journal. Recent research has revealed that Seraphims work on the Jews in Eastern Europe and their movement into ghettos had a significant influence on Nazi planning during the occupation, in particular on the founding and institutionalization of the infamous ghettos. The Nazis also opened various anti-Jewish institutes in the occupied territories of Europe. For instance, the Institut dEtudes des Questions Juives [Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question] was founded in Paris, France, in May 1941, and was led by Dr. George Montandon. It began semiweekly publication of La Question Juive en France et dans le Monde [The Jewish Question in France and in the World] in 1942. In November 1942, a chair for Jewish history at the Sorbonne University in Paris was founded, and handed to the right-wing historian Henri Labroue. Institutes were also established in Lithuania, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and Denmark. Based on the pseudo-research of academics at these institutes, guidelines were produced for teachers to use in Reich schools, along with literature for Wehrmacht soldiers, aimed at preparing them to carry out massacres on the eastern front. War preparations and the development of National Socialist occupation policy The geopolitical strategist Karl Haushofer, who had been friends with the Fuhrers later deputy, Rudolf Hess, since the 1920s, and had known Adolf Hitler personally since the mid-1920s, played an especially influential role in planning the war in Europe and against the Soviet Union. Haushofer was president of the German Academy from 1934 to 1937. However, in 1939 he distanced himself from the regime and retired. Nevertheless, his fundamental strategic conception, according to which eastern colonization by the German Reich was necessary in order to conquer colonies overseas, was adopted in the west alongside the General Plan East. At the universities, so-called military science, which was, in fact, nothing less than the science of war, was massively expanded. The Hochschule fur Politik [Higher School for Politics] in Berlinpredecessor of todays Otto Suhr Institute at the Berlin Free Universityplayed an especially important role in the war preparations. In 1937, after the majority of its instructors were forced to emigrate in 1933, the government turned it into a Reich institute. After the war began, it became directly affiliated with Berlin University, where it worked out the Nazis war policy as the Schule fur Auslandswissenschaft [School for Foreign Studies]. This was led by Franz Alfred Six, Adolf Eichmanns superior in the Reich Security Main Office and one of the central figures in the organization of the holocaust. Also active in Berlin was the Society for European Economic Planning and Greater Space Economy. It was founded in January 1941, in order to theoretically prepare and legitimize the Nazis occupation policy in Europe. Law professor, Carl Schmitt, mathematician Theodor Vahlen, and Dr. Fritz Rorig, president of the History Department of Berlin University, all participated in its work. The society was connected with the so-called Fuhrerring (a ring featuring a Nazi symbol worn by the closest NS collaborators) through several different Reich ministers. Hermann Backe, among others, belonged to the Fuhrerring. Backe was the author of the infamous hunger plan for the Soviet Union, which planned the murder and deportation of approximately 30 million Slavs. The president of the society, Werner Diatz, wrote in the Institutes first publication: The thing to do today is to overcome the mental and physical principles of the last two millennia, to revolutionize the European continent as a Teutonic-German continent and to strengthen and complete it as the bulwark of the new idea of national socialism. (p.126) To this day, Weinreichs study remains a standard work and helps explain the role that German universities played in the greatest crimes in the history of humanity. It is thus remarkable that it has never been translated into German, although it became available in English in 1946 and was reprinted, again in English, in 1999. Weinreich wrote the book during the Nuremburg trials, in the hope that the evidence he presented would aid in the pursuit of the Nazi academic criminals. However, there was never any reckoning with their Nazi past. Only in a few cases were Hitlers Professors forced to give up or change their positions, and even then only temporarily. A few convinced Nazis, like Walter Frank, committed suicide in 1945. In most cases, however, nothing happened. High-ranking Nazi academics like Johannes Stark were allowed to live out their retirements undisturbed. Even more, several of the worst ideological criminals continued their careers after the war in the German Federal Republic. Peter-Heinz Seraphim, like many employees of Rosenbergs Institute and the Gehlen Organization, joined the newly-founded Federal Intelligence Service (BND). Until the end of his life, Seraphim authored anti-communist pamphlets under the auspices of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In 1954, he became leader of the Management and Economics Academy in Bochum, an educational institution for Germanys economic elite. As already mentioned, Eberhard Taubert became an important ally of Christian Social Union (CSU) politician Franz-Joseph Strau and was active at the highest levels of German politics into the 1970s. After his forced retirement in the late 1940s, Karl Alexander Muller again became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, and received the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1961. Konrad Meyer became a member of the Regional Studies and Planning Academy, and his work continued to be fundedas it had been under National Socialismby the German Research Association (DFG). Paul Keating, Labor Party treasurer from 1983 to 1992, and prime minister of Australia from 19921996, has denounced the incoming Trump administration for threatening to involve Australia in war with China. While not advocating a break with the US-Australia military alliance, his intervention reflects the fears within Australian ruling circles of a catastrophic conflict. Keating issued his statement on January 13, following the confirmation hearing of Rex Tillerson, Trumps nominee for secretary of state. Tillerson stated before the US Senate that the new administration would demand that China stop reclaiming land around islets and reefs in the South China Sea, and that Chinese access to the islands is not going to be allowed. The only way the United States could deny China access to the islands and reefs it occupies in the South China Sea would be through military means. The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese regime, responded with an editorial declaring that Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if the US intended to try to force China to withdraw from territorya warning that clashes could rapidly escalate into the use of nuclear weapons. Keating stated that the Australian government should tell the Trump administration that Australia will not be part of such adventurism, just as we should have done in Iraq 15 years ago. That means no naval commitment to joint operations in the South China Sea. He declared: Australias prosperity and the security of the world would be devastated by war. No one from the governing Liberal-National Coalition, the opposition Labor Party, the Greens, or the various self-styled independents and third parties has publicly criticised Tillersons commentsand the prospect that if they are translated into action could trigger a nuclear war. Foreign minister Julie Bishop would only tell journalists that the government will not speculate on the possible policies of a Trump administration. Keatings concerns, however, are more broadly shared in ruling circles. The dilemma that has faced Australian imperialism for over three decades is that while it relies on its alliance with the US to assert its strategic and economic interests in Asia and internationally, its main export markets and trading partners are the major Asian states, with China now being the largest. Washingtons insistence that Beijing bow down to American dominance of Asia, combined with flagrant military provocations, has led to growing calls from within the Australian corporate and political establishment for Australia to use its influence to urge the US to back away from a confrontation. Keating is a vocal spokesman for this layer of the ruling elite. While supporting the continuation of the US alliance, they believe that the priority of Australias foreign policy has to be Asia. Keating has been a particular advocate of stronger relations with Indonesia and for Australia to join the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Instead, the Liberal-National government from 1996 to 2007 pursued an ever-closer alignment with the United States. Australian forces were sent to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan. In 2003, Australia was part of the coalition of the willingthe handful of countries who joined with Washington to violate international law and illegally invade Iraq. Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who came to office in 2007, sought to shift the orientation back toward Asia, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis underscored just how dependent Australia was on exports to China. Rudd angered Washington with proposals that the US concede greater regional influence to Beijing, at the very point the Obama administration was preparing its confrontational pivot to Asia. Rudd was removed as prime minister in June 2010 in an inner-party political coup, organised by a pro-US faction within the top leadership of the Labor Party and discussed in advance with Washington. He was replaced by Julia Gillard, who fully aligned Australia with the pivot, which has involved a massive build-up of American military force and diplomatic pressure against China. Labor agreed to sweeping new US basing arrangements in Australiaincluding marines and aircraft operating from Darwin; an expansion of the Pine Gap spy base; the establishment of a satellite-tracking facility in Western Australia; and increased naval visits and joint operations. After Labor was thrown out of office in 2013, the integration of Australia into US preparations for military conflict with China has continued and expanded under the Coalition governments of Tony Abbott and current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. There is no question that the overwhelming majority of the Australian establishment expected that Hillary Clinton would win the US election and that the concerted pressure being applied against China would continue to develop much as it had been under Obama. Instead they face Trump, with his promise to repudiate the Trans Pacific Partnership and threats to declare trade war on Beijing and ratchet up tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and North Korea. The heightened level of rhetoric from Trump and cabinet nominees has led to expressions of guarded concern over the extent to which Australian foreign policy and its military has been developed into an adjunct of Washington. Immediately following Trumps election on November 9, mild criticisms of his potential policies were made by Labor foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong. The Greens called for a debate in parliament on the future of the alliance, which the Coalition and Labor joined together to reject. Keating commented in a television interview: The foreign policy of Australia is basically we have tag-along rights to the US. Its time to cut the tag. Its time to get out of it. On December 22, Kevin Rudd spoke on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, warning against immediately following the US into a war with China. He declared: We should under no circumstances repeat, I think, the hideous mistake by simply being a cheer squad for what was then the Bush administrations determination to invade Iraq. Our responsibility is to say, Our friends in Washington, you cannot and must not do this, for the following clear reasons. For all the concern, however, Australias integration with the US continues apace. During a visit to Sydney in December, US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris announced that F-22 stealth fighters will be operating from northern Australian bases in 2017. The next deployment of US marines and warships to Darwin will begin arriving in April. In an interview conducted Friday for NBCs Sunday morning program Meet the Press, Democratic Representative John Lewis announced that he would boycott the inauguration of President Donald Trump because, I dont see this president-elect as a legitimate president. There are many reasons to reject and oppose the presidency of Donald Trump: he personifies the financial oligarchy that now dominates the US political system and seeks to subordinate all public policy to its mad drive to amass ever-greater wealth; he has filled his cabinet and White House staff with ultra-right ideologues, fellow billionaires and ex-generals; his government is committed to a program of drastic cuts in spending for education, health care and other public services, combined with a massive military buildup. Lewis, however, mentioned none of these things. He based his rejection of Trump on the report by US intelligence agencies about Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential election campaign. I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, he said. Thats not right. Thats not fair. Thats not the open democratic process. No evidence has been presented proving that the Russian government was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. The hue and cry over Russian hacking has two purposes: to conceal the actual content of the leaked emails, which showed the right-wing and antidemocratic character of the Clinton campaign, and to whip up public opinion in the United States in favor of political, economic, diplomatic and ultimately military retaliation against Russia. There is not the slightest genuine democratic content to Lewiss critique of Trump. He did not cite Trumps loss of the popular vote by nearly three million votes, or the impact of voter ID laws enacted by many Republican-controlled state governments to suppress minority voting. His attack on Trump consisted solely of embracing the CIA-led anti-Russian campaign in language reminiscent of the 1950s redbaiter Joseph McCarthy. There is a grim historical irony here. During the years of the most intense struggles for civil rights in the South, in the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI, the police in cities like Birmingham, Alabama, and the southern Democratic politicians all claimed that protests against segregation were the work of outside agitators, communists sent in to do the bidding of the Soviet Union. But John Lewis, who played a significant role as a student leader during those years and led the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, has remembered only one thing: denouncing your opponents as tools of Russia is a proven propaganda tactic. A congressman from Atlanta for the past 30 years, Lewis personifies the recruitment and corruption of a section of middle-class African-Americans to reinforce the domination of capitalist politics. Civil rights leaders like Lewis were co-opted as part of a conscious strategy of the US ruling elite to refurbish the Democratic Party and the state machinery as a whole. Dozens of major cities were turned over to African-American mayors, some of them veterans of the civil rights struggles, others merely cashing in on it. The Congressional Black Caucus expanded its number from a handful to more than thirty. With the assistance of programs like affirmative action, slots were created for black academics, government officials, military officers, corporate executives and ultimately CEOs. These positions were not very numerous, but they were well paid, politically symbolic and gave a cover of diversity for the depredations of American big business and the crimes of the Pentagon. US imperialism incinerated tens of thousands of defenseless Iraqi conscripts while General Colin Powell, the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed the press on the progress of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In similar fashion, Powell, as the first black secretary of state, and Condoleezza Rice, the first black female national security adviser, were at George W. Bushs side when he launched the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq. This process culminated in the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American presidentalso the first president to assert the right to assassinate American citizens, using drone-fired missiles, anywhere in the world. Obama, a creature of the military-intelligence apparatus, expanded the war in Afghanistan, launched a new war in Libya and engaged the US military once again in war in Iraq and Syria. He continued and strengthened the police state operations of the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency. It is noteworthyand characteristic of this corrupt layer of African-American Democratic politiciansthat John Lewis has never opposed the military-intelligence operations of the Obama administration. On the contrary, Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama in 2011, the same year Obama authorized the drone-missile assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen. Some 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. made a critical step forward when he sought to combine the struggle for democratic rights at home with opposition to imperialist war abroad, courageously coming out against the war in Vietnam. There is not a shred of such principle among those who today seek to wrap themselves in Kings mantle in order to cover their own right-wing politics. After Dr. Kings assassination in April 1968an event that was undoubtedly linked to his turn against the Vietnam Warhis acolytes made their peace with the establishment. Some of them, like Andrew Young, who had always stood on the right wing in Kings councils, became open apologists for US imperialism, with Young serving as US ambassador to the United Nations in the Carter administration. Others, like Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond and John Lewis, became political hacks for the Democratic Party, giving this party of big business a progressive cover as it moved further and further to the right. Lewis also served in the Carter administration, running several antipoverty programs, before winning a congressional seat in 1986. In recent years, he has cashed in quite literally on his role in the 1960s, with his Faith and Politics Institute selling seats to lobbyists for $25,000 apiece to his annual visit to Selma to reenact the 1965 march. The enlistment of Lewis in the warmongering anti-Russian campaign only underscores the political challenge facing the American working class. No section of the Democratic Party will conduct a genuine or principled struggle against the monstrous right-wing program of the Trump administration and the Republican Congress. The Democratic Party, like the Republicans, defends the profits and wealth of the financial aristocracy and the global interests of American imperialism. Racist clashes broke out in the northeastern Polish town of Ek at the New Year, following the murder of a 21-year-old Polish man. Several other cities in Poland have since also witnessed racist attacks. The riots are a result of the racist agitation fomented by the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), and an expression of growing social and political tensions in the country. The clashes in Ek began on New Years Day, after 21-year-old Daniel R. was apparently stabbed on New Years Eve by a Tunisian cook from a kebab restaurant. According to media reports, Daniel R. and a friend took two bottles of coke from the restaurant and left without paying. The cook and the restaurant owner, who comes from Algeria, then followed the pair. In the ensuing scuffle, the cook reportedly stabbed Daniel with a kitchen knife, and the young man died at the scene. To what extent alcohol and racism were involved in the confrontation is unclear in light of conflicting media reports. Later on, a mob of 100 to 200 people gathered in front of the restaurant. Both the kebab restaurant and another stall belonging to the same owner were demolished. The mob bawled anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant slogans. Bottles and stones were thrown at the police during the confrontation. For hours, there was not a single policeman in sight, according to a report by the liberal Polityka. When the police came, a violent clash with the rioters occurred and the police used pepper spray and arrested 28 people. Thirty-four people were injured in the clashes. The cook suspected of the killing was arrested by the police and charged with murder. The sister of the dead man spoke out against the riots. According to a report by Gazeta Wyborcza, members of the fascist organization ONR (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny, National-Radical Camp), wearing the Falanga on their sleeves, the symbol of Polish fascists, participated in the service for the dead and subsequent funeral. On Facebook, right-wing extremists called for lynch-mob justice. On Saturday, 7 January, the ONR and Modziez Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youth) organized a march in Ek under the banner of the fight against Islamic aggression. According to press reports, only a few dozen people took part in the march, several of whom are likely to have travelled from outside the region. The far-right has turned Daniel R. into a Polish martyr, who, like the Polish driver of the truck in the Berlin terrorist attack of December 2015, was murdered by an Islamist. Although there were no further riots in Ek, media reports suggested that the mood remains tense. Increased police patrols was still operating for days on the towns streets. A report in the liberal magazine Newsweek Polska said residents and witnesses to the confrontation in the kebab restaurant were afraid to talk openly to reporters about what they had seen. The sociologist Stefan Marcinkiewicz, from the University of Warmia-Masuria, told the magazine, People are afraid. There is a pogrom atmosphere. Since the riots in Ek, there have been a number of attacks on kebab stalls and immigrants in other cities. In the small town of Ozorkow near the industrial city of odz in central Poland, a 44-year-old man from Pakistan was attacked by a group of right-wing extremists who severely beat him. In Wrocaw on January 2, the window of a kebab restaurant was smashed. On January 3, a man from Bangladesh was attacked on the way to work by masked men and had to be hospitalized in Legnica. On January 5, a restaurant in Wrocaw, which is run by an Egyptian women, was attacked. An unknown attacker threw a lighted bottle of gasoline into the restaurant. Fortunately, however, the fire was quickly extinguished. All these incidents are fueled by the xenophobic and right-wing atmosphere systematically encouraged by the government of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) to channel social discontent in the working class and sections of the rural population in a right-wing direction. Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszak implicitly supported the racist riots by blaming the many years of multicultural politics, political correctness and open borders for the excesses. He also stated, We do not have the social problems with which you have to contend in Western Europe, where we have sizable enclaves of Muslim immigrants, who are not integrated into the rest of society. Blaszak reiterated that the PiS will not allow any Muslim refugees into the country. A council member of PiS in Ek, Micha Tyszkiewicz, had already whipped up the atmosphere before the riots with a post about the murder on Twitter, to which he added the hashtags New Years Eve, shock, immigrants, scythe in the back. The PiS has been systematically stoking racist resentments for years to poison the political climate and to boost right-wing forces. In their one-year reign, the PiS has strengthened ultra-right forces and worked closely with the Catholic Church, a traditional bastion of the radical right and fascist tendencies. This went so far that Polish president Andrzej Duda, together with the Polish Bishops, officially declared Jesus Christ King of Poland in a church ceremony in November. The PiS government has also deliberately encouraged anti-Semitic historical falsifications and resentments. It is no coincidence that this nationalist and racist propaganda led to riots in Ek. The medium-sized town with its 60,000 inhabitants stands at the centre of the social and political crisis in Poland. Ek is located in the northeastern region of Warmia-Masuria, by far the poorest region of the country, which is also most affected by the massive military build-up and war preparations against Russia. According to official figures, far more people live in extreme and relative poverty in Warmia-Masuria than the national average. The National Statistics Office (GUS) reports that, nationwide, about 7.4 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, i.e. they have an income of less than 545 zlotys (approximately $132). By contrast, the percentage is 14.8 percent in Warmia-Masuria. A further 26 percent in the province live in relative poverty, having less than 2056 zlotys (around $500) a month, compared to a national average of 16.2 percent. Moreover, the poverty rate has risen significantly in previous years, although the national average was declining. Ek is one of the larger towns in the rural region. It lies near one of 14 special economic zonesthe Suwalska Specjalna Strefa Ekonomicznaestablished in Poland since the 1990s. About 10,000 workers are employed in the Special Economic Zone, most of them at starvation wages. Social tensions are being exacerbated by the war preparations against Russia, causing much nervousness. The region borders on Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave in Eastern Europe, which is a focal point of confrontation between NATO and Russia due to its strategic location and the stationing of Russian troops there. Under the PiS government, Poland has become even more of an outpost of NATO re-armament against Russia than under the previous government of the liberal Civic Platform (PO). Last summer, on the eve of the NATO summit in Warsaw in June, the Polish government ended visa-free travel between the Polish border regions and Kaliningrad, which had been introduced in 2012. Last autumn, the Polish interior minister rejected the repeal of the measure, although it was deeply unpopular among the population from the beginning. Many people living in the Polish border region have relatives and friends in Kaliningrad, and were able to travel repeatedly to the Russian enclave under the visa-free rules. The region also benefited economically from the visa-free border traffic, since many Russians came across the border to shop in Poland. Moreover, the province of Warmia-Masuria, like the rest of northeastern Poland, is the main focus of paramilitary, right-wing units, whose build-up Polish Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has systematically encouraged over the last year. In November, the Sejm (parliament) agreed the creation of a territorial defence unit (WOT), comprising 53,000 men and to be concentrated mostly in the northeast and southeast of the country. Paramilitary organizations belonging to the radical right were explicitly encouraged to join the WOT. Among the forces the PiS wants to integrate into the state apparatus as part of this is the fascist ONR, which has sought to exploit the violence in Ek. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Senate Democratic Party majority leader Chuck Schumer were the headline speakers at a Sunday rally in Warren, Michigan, in suburban Detroit, as part of the kickoff of a media campaign against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The rally in Warren was one of dozens of rallies held Sunday in cities across the United States called by the Democratic Party to permit it to posture as an opponent of Trump and mislead the growing popular opposition to the incoming right-wing Republican administration. Congressional Republicans have set as their first order of business the repeal of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, without as yet spelling out any replacement. The Warren event was conceived of as a token protest against repeal of the ACA. The original venue was to be a United Auto Workers regional union hall, with a seating capacity of less than 1,000. However, so many people indicated interest in attending that organizers decided to hold the rally instead at an outdoor stage at a local community college. In the event perhaps five thousand people turned out, in subfreezing temperatures, speaking to the disquiet felt among wide layers of the population over the policies of the incoming Trump administration. In contrast to the sentiments of most in the crowd, the Democrats opposition to the incoming Trump administration was hypocritical and insincere. This was demonstrated by the lack of any concrete proposals advanced by speakers for organizing a fight. In fact the name Trump was only occasionally mentioned. Also speaking at the rally were a long list of Democratic Party notables including the two Democratic senators from Michigan, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, as well Representatives Brenda Lawrence, Dan Kildee, John Conyers and Debbie Dingell. In addition Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, and United Auto Workers Vice President Cindy Estrada were on the speakers list. The Democratic Party rallies against repeal of the ACA are largely a public relations operation to provide a facade of opposition to Trump. In reality the Democrats are maneuvering behind the scenes with the Republicans over a replacement for Obamacare that will preserve the profits of the drug companies, hospitals and health insurance providers. In particular they will insist on the maintenance of reactionary provisions revamping the reimbursement system to health care providers that cut costs by limiting availability. Any replacement for the ACA would require the vote of at least eight Democratic senators to secure passage because of the supermajority of 60 needed to end a filibuster. In the end it is likely that the Republicans will secure the votes needed for whatever reactionary bill is crafted with the Democrats cynically arguing that the alternative would be chaos. All of the Democratic Party speakers at the Warren rally, including Sanders, presented the ACA as a progressive reform of healthcare. The remarks of Schumer were particularly absurd. He hailed Obamacare as the virtual realization of universal healthcare. Before ACA our healthcare system was a mess, he intoned. Now, he claimed, we have affordable healthcare for all. In fact the ACA was an attack on healthcare dressed up as a reform. It was designed to cut costs for the government and the insurance industry, which played a central role in crafting the legislation. It contained an individual mandate requiring those not covered by insurance to purchase a plan or face fines, with some subsidies for those with lower incomes. The central thrust of the ACA was to undermine the system of employer-paid health insurance in favor of a system that forced workers to provide their own coverage through the private health insurance market. Huge premium hikes for private insurance under the ACA were announced just prior to the November presidential election, fueling popular anger. Trump and the Republicans were able to capitalize on some of this anger by demagogically posing as defenders of health care for working people. In reality the Republican proposal to abolish the ACA without a replacement threatens to leave some 20 million without any health insurance at all. Sanders, who judged by the audience response was clearly the main draw at the event, only spoke briefly. He engaged in empty tub-thumping against the Republicans while presenting the defense of the ACA as the first step toward establishing a system of universal healthcare. Our job is to tell the Republicans you are not going to throw 20 million people off Medicaid, you are not going to privatize Medicare, you are not going to defund Planned Parenthood, you are not going to raise the costs of prescription drugs for seniors. The prostration of Sanders before the Trump administration was underscored in his Sunday Morning appearance on the ABC News program This Week, on which Sanders confirmed that he would be attending Trumps inauguration along with the defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The electoral collapse of the Democratic Party in the November election, due to the reactionary and bankrupt policies it pursued, means the Democrats do not have the votes in Congress to block the repeal of the ACA. They are fearful however, that the provocative actions of the Republican majority could unleash a popular backlash that they might not be able to control. Indeed, Sanders offered friendly advice to his Republican colleagues declaring, What we are saying to the Republicans, if you want to improve the Affordable Care Act, lets work together. He continued, I say to Republicans that you will have to worry about [Senate and House Democrats], but that is the least of your worries. You are going to have to worry about millions of people who are standing up and fighting back and are demanding the day that healthcare be a right of all people. A World Socialist Web Site reporting team spoke to some of those attending the event. A number indicated repeal of the ACA would have significant consequences. Lynette Shine said, I know a lot of people in the arts, who are dependent on this because we do not provide sufficient support. They are freelancers, and they make money, but the ability to be covered is not possible because it is contract based. WSWS supporters explained that the ACA was not a step toward universal healthcare but was in fact a counter reform aimed at opening up a giant new market for private insurers while moving away from employer-based coverage. While there was universal opposition to Republican plans to repeal the ACA, a number of attendees expressed lack of confidence in the ability or willingness of the Democrats to wage a real fight against the incoming Trump administration. Brandon, a legal assistant, said, I am an independent, but I often vote Democratic. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary but I voted for Clinton in the November election. He added, I think the Democratic Party is in a real mess right now. I read that Obama has just expanded NSA spying, that is worrying. He continued, Trump is a monster. There is a real fear that people will lose their rights. I think if you repeal ACA it will have a ripple effect throughout the healthcare industry. He added, I think universal healthcare is the only way you get something that works. You look at every other country in the world. Another attendee, who said she had worked in broadcast media, said she was worried by the lack of any concrete proposals on the part of speakers to fight the Trump administration. I think they needed to be more specific action steps. They did not get us as energized as they should have. She said she was worried what would happen after the ACA repeal. My husband is delaying retirement so I dont lose my healthcare. I think the Democrats need more clarity in their message. In fact the ACA was based on the Republican plan. 25 Years Ago | 50 Years Ago | 75 Years Ago | 100 Years Ago 25 years ago: South Korean autoworkers seize giant Hyundai plants On January 15, 1992, 15,000 autoworkers seized control of the massive Hyundai complex in Ulsan, South Korea. The occupation was part of a bitter strike against Hyundai, the biggest industrial conglomerate in the country, that began in December. Hyundai management refused to negotiate, and on January 14 announced that it would close the companys five auto plants in the industrial city of Ulsan and impose a lockout. Fifteen thousand workers responded by seizing control of the plants, ejecting the bosses and barricading themselves inside. The workers armed themselves with pipes and other primitive weapons, and fought off an attempt by 1,000 foremen and managers to retake the factory by force on January 17. The South Korean government of President Roh Tae Woo surrounded the factory complex with more than 12,000 heavily armed riot police, and announced a 5 a.m. deadline for the morning of January 18 for storming the barricaded plants from air, sea and land. The police were equipped with helicopters, naval vessels and 34 mobile tear gas launchers, as well as live ammunition, all in preparation for a military bloodbath A few hours before the deadline, the 3,000 workers who were still engaged in the sit-down strike slipped out of the plants, vowing to continue their struggle. Hyundai management and the police launched a ferocious witch-hunt against the strikers in the wake of the abandonment of the occupation. Dozens of union militants were arrested. Virtual police-state conditions reigned in Ulsan. According to one account, The police have a list of all the wanted labor unionists. Those, especially men, who look anything like a car worker are being checked. [top] 50 years ago: Somoza massacres hundreds in Nicaragua On January 22, 1967, hundreds of protesters in Nicaragua were gunned down by soldiers of the Guardia Nacional of military dictator Anastasio Somoza DeBayle, as they peacefully demonstrated in Managua in advance of a national election. No official death toll exists, but estimates range from 200 to 1,500. Thousands more were arrested. The demonstration was called by a bloc of political parties calling itself the Union Nacional Opositor party (UNO or United National Opposition). It had nominated Doctor Fernando Aguero Rocha to face Somoza in the 1967 elections. At 5 p.m., as the demonstration made its way down Avenida Roosevelt toward the presidential palace, Guardia Nacional soldiers blocked its advance. At this point a lieutenant leading the soldiers, who were preparing to disperse the crowd with fire hoses and batons, was shot dead by an unknown assailant. The soldiers then opened fire on the crowd with automatic rifles. Somoza won the May 1, 1967 elections, carrying on his familys political dynasty, which was from the beginning an American puppet regime. It was founded by Anastasio Somoza Garcia (1896-1956), the US-educated son of a wealthy coffee planter. The US Marine Corps, after its two-decade occupation of Nicaragua that ended in 1933, created the Guardia Nacional and installed as its leader the elder Somoza, who ordered the murder of guerilla leader Augusto Sandino during peace talks that same year. Somozas dictatorship, and that of his sons, Luis and Anastasio, who headed the Guardia Nacional from 1946 after completing his education at West Point, continued until the Sandinista Revolution of 1979. [top] 75 years ago: US social democrats endorse World War II On January 17, 1942 the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, the American social democratic organization, reversed its position on World War II and gave support to the Allied imperialist powers under the slogan, A Democratic and Socialist Victory. Defending the national interests of American capitalism, the social democrats embraced President Franklin Roosevelts characterization of World War II as a war of democracy against fascism and dismissed rousing working class opposition to the slaughter. SP leader Norman Thomas, who had joined the America First Committee in 1940, working side-by-side with fellow pacifists, isolationist Democratic and Republican politicians and Nazi apologists like Charles Lindbergh, now declared, Most of us believe that it is romantic to think that Hitler and the Japanese can be stopped today by some mass rising of the peoples outside of the organized military forces which are locked in combat. American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon, in a statement issued after Pearl Harbor, denounced the claim that the struggle against fascism should be entrusted to the American and British imperialists and called on American workers to oppose the imperialist war. We were internationalists before December 8: we still are. We believe that the most fundamental bond of loyalty of all the workers of the world is the bond of international solidarity of the workers against their exploiters. We cannot assume the slightest responsibility for this war. No imperialist regime can conduct a just war... In this dark hour we clearly see the socialist future and prepare the way for it. Against the mad chorus of national hatreds we advance once more the old slogan of socialist internationalism: Workers of the World, Unite! [top] 100 years ago: Mass strikes and protests in Russia On January 22, 1917, hundreds of thousands of Russian workers participated in demonstrations marking the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Tsarist regimes brutal attack on a protest 12 years earlier, which had triggered the 1905 Russian Revolution. The demonstrations took place amid an acute crisis of the Tsarist regime. Russian forces had suffered massive losses in battles across the eastern front of World War I, while the war effort was producing food shortages and intense social anger, expressed in a developing mass strike movement among the countrys highly concentrated industrial working class. The Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin, who was then still exiled in Switzerland, was in the forefront of calls for a mass turnout on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The Bolsheviks called meetings and issued leaflets making the case for a political strike. Their slogans included Down with the Tsarist war! and Down with the Tsarist autocracy. The Okhrana, the regimes secret police, responded with panicked reports that the idea of a general strike was being discussed throughout working class areas. The government initiated a wave of repression, arresting prominent Bolsheviks, including the organizations entire Petrograd leadership. The demonstration nevertheless took place, and was attended by an estimated 150,000 in Petrograd, which constituted as much as half of the citys working class. Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary leader, later wrote of the mood of the period in his History of the Russian Revolution: Shliapnikov, a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, himself a former metal worker, describes how nervous the workers were in those days: Sometimes a whistle would be enough, or any kind of noisethe workers would take it for a signal to stop the factory. This detail is equally remarkable both as a political symptom and as a psychological fact: the revolution is there in the nerves before it comes out on the street. The growth in massiveness of the movement and in fighting spirit shifts the center of gravity from the textile to the metal-workers, from economic strikes to political, from the provinces to Petrograd. The first two months of 1917 show 575,000 political strikers, the lions share of them in the capital. In spite of new raids carried out by the police on the eve of January 9 [the date of the 1905 massacre in the Julian calendar then observed in Russia], 150,000 workers went on strike in the capital on that anniversary of blood. The mood was tense. The metal-workers were in the lead. The workers all felt that no retreat was possible. In every factory an active nucleus was forming, oftenest around the Bolsheviks. [top] UPDATE - One person was killed when their amphibious advanced Aeromarine Buccaneer plane dived into the Suwanee river. According to FAA documents, it appears that this particular plane may have not been "suitable for operation" and possibly was not legally registered to fly. The FAA has launched an investigation into the cause of the crash, and the identity of the sole occupant and victim of the crash has still not been released. --------------------------------------- LURAVILLE, FL (WTXL) -- One person has died after a plane crashed in the Suwannee River Saturday. According to Suwannee County Fire Rescue, a single-engine plane crashed in the western part of the county by Luraville. The Suwannee County Sheriff's Office and Suwannee County Fire Rescue were notified just after 5:00 p.m. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are currently investigating the crash and communicating with emergency crews on the scene. Units from neighboring Lafayette County and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation were also notified and are assisting. The individual has not been identified, and the cause of the crash has not been determined. *This is a developing story. WTXL will provide updates once more details become available. All signs indicate that the strike which took place early Friday morning near the Mezzeh Military Airport west of Damascus, according to Syrian reports, was aimed at destroying a shipment of accurate Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter This can be concluded from the claim that the attacked targets were near the airport and from the knowledge that Iran transfers the missiles it supplies to Hezbollah through cargo planes that land in the Damascus area, and mainly in the military airport which is located not far from the Lebanon border. The strike attributed to the Israel Air Force in the Damascus area Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior commanders of Irans Revolutionary Guards announced recently that the Lebanese organization was receiving missiles, and even accurate missiles, from Iranlikely satellite-guided missiles (GPS) that could reach central and even southern Israel and threaten most of the essential facilities and civilian and military airports in the State of Israel. They were likely referring to improved Fateh-111 or Fateh-110 missiles, and maybe even Zelzal missiles that are produced in Iran, which have a range of 200-300 kilometers (125-186 miles). Their warhead weighs about 400 kilograms (880 pounds). Hezbollah has already declared that it plans to use these missiles to attack the General Staff at the Kirya Base in Tel Aviv and other essential targets across Israel. The results of the attack near the Mezzeh Military Airport The accuracy of these missiles can hit targets within a radius of only several meters, instead of hundreds of meters with unguided missiles. For this reason, Israel is interested in reducing the number of such missiles in Hezbollahs possession. The higher the number of accurate missiles in the hands of Nasrallahs people, the greater Hezbollahs ability to target more and more essential facilities in a conflict with Israel and deal more losses on Israeli territory. According to reports from oppositional sources in Syria, early Fridays strike also included military facilities in the Jabal Qasiun area, the mountain range overlooking Damascus where many military camps and facilities are located. If facilities were indeed attacked on Mount Qasiun, they were likely, at least according to Syrian opposition sources, missile depots and antiaircraft systems intended to serve Hezbollahs aerial defense system. Fateh-110 missile. Accurate and lethal (Photo: AP) An interesting fact is that the Syrian general staff noted in its official statement that the strike was carried out by Israel Air Force planes which circled the Sea of Galilee area, but did not enter Syrian airspace. According to the Syrians, these planes launched accurate guided missiles at the targets near the airport in the Damascus area. The images from the area of the strike indicate that the attack was indeed carried out using accurate means, as there were many additional bombings in the area and maybe even casualties. The Syrians are interested in emphasizing the fact that Israel did not enter their airspace, so that they will not have to explain why the strike attributed to Israel was carried out successfully without the Syrians targeting the planes or disrupting their activity. On the other hand, if the strike was indeed carried out by the IAF, Israel has no interest and no need to enter Syrian territory in order to attack targets in the Damascus area, so as to avoid friction with the antiaircraft systems and the planes operated by Russia on Syrian territory. Its a known fact that very accurate air-to-surface missiles can be launched from distances of dozens and even hundreds of kilometers and hit the target at an accuracy of 1 or 2 meters. There are of course additional reports from the Syrian opposition about F-35 IAF planes which attacked for the first time, but its safe to assume that even if the IAF did use planes, the Syrian opposition sources had no way of detecting and knowing that. Damaging Hezbollahs abilities Israel, presumably, has no interest in clarifying the uncertainty, and so the IDF is keeping quiet. Apart from keeping operational information confidential, Israel is not interested in challenging the Syrians in a way which will call for a response on their part. While the Syrians specifically announced that the strike was carried out by Israel, as they have been doing recently, if Israel refrains from claiming responsibility the possibility of an escalation is reduced. Israel fears Hezbollah will receive more Fateh-110 shipments (Photo: AP) The Syrian general staff already announced in the past, in the assassination of murderer Samir Kuntar in a Damascus suburb, that Israeli planes had attacked Syria while circling the Sea of Galilee. It was. In that incident too, the Syrians claimed that the strike was carried out by missiles. The victory in Aleppo has instilled confidence in the Damascus regime and in its security forces, with Russian and Iranian backing. Today, they appear less sensitive and less afraid of an Israeli response, which is why Israel must take the Syrian general staffs promise to respond seriously. These may be empty words like in the past, but in light of the recent successes in the war against the rebels, its quite possible that the Syrian army will try to implement some sort of retaliation, whether in the Golan Heights or in northern Israel. The IDF is aware of that and is preparing for such a possibility. One thing is clear: The damage caused by the attack early Friday near the Mezzeh Airport appears to be big and will significantly harm Hezbollahs ability to target Israeli territory. Experts say this is part of the war between wars, in which the IDF is supposedly trying to minimize casualties among the civilian population and damage the essential facilities in Israel, in case a war breaks out. Its a Sisyphean battle which has to be waged constantly, as the other side is also finding ways and means to smuggle improved, high-quality weapons to Hezbollah. That is exactly what Israel is trying to thwart both vis-a-vis Hezbollah and vis-a-vis Hamas. In recent weeks, Israel has been intensifying its dialogue with the Russians, both on the diplomatic level and on the practical level, on Syrian soil. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu often talks to Russian President Putin, but at the same time Israel was accused over the weekend of striking near the Mezzeh Military Airport in the Damascus area . These two channels are directed at one place: The negotiations over Syria's fate, which will begin in Kazakhstan on January 23. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Israel has not been invited to this conference, but it wants its presence there to be felt. For that reason it is conveying, through all channels, that no agreement can be reachedespecially not on the future of the Golan Heightswithout taking Israels interests into account. The strike in Syria over the weekend (Photo: Reuters) For a long time, from the moment the Russians deployed in Syria in September 2015, the global media stopped reporting about Israeli strikes in the heart of the country. The silence ended last November, however, with a series of reports on attacks that lasted until the first week of December and were attributed to Israel. None of these strikes, which were carried out at the height of the Russian effort to conquer Aleppo, was mentioned in the Russian media and in the Russian armys reports. Aleppo falls, the Russians start organizing a summit in Kazakhstan, theres another report about an Israeli strike, and suddenly the entire Russian media are quoting the official Syrian statement about the Israeli strike. Moreover, for the first time, an official representative of the Russian government addresses the alleged Israeli strikes directly, and surprisingly he understands Israel. In the semi-official newspaper of the Putin's regime, Izvestia, Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on international Affairs Andrei Klimov is quoted as saying: Israel is using the armed forces to fight organizations which is sees as a danger to its security The latest Israeli strike has nothing to do with the current conflict in Syria but with the historical conflict between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. He also points an accusatory finger at the Hezbollah organization, without mentioning its name: Tel Aviv is, naturally, fighting the terror organizations that are participating in the fighting in Syria. This isnt a slip of the tongue or pen. Its an official Russian signal at the Iranians and Hezbollah, which are currently at odds with the Russians over the arrangements in Syria. Israel has one clear interest here: To curb the attempts made by the Syrian regime in recent weeks to return to the Golan Heights, both by fighting and through negotiations with the rebels. The Syrians are also trying to gain diplomatic capital from this strike. Unlike in the past, they are pointing at Israel, turning to the United Nations Security Council and leaking that the latest attack was carried out by F-35 planes. But F-35 planes have no advantage over the abilities that Israel has today to strike deep within Syria, and it has no need to use a plane which arrived a month ago and has yet to gain any operational experience anywhere in the world. The Syrians are likely trying to embarrass the American administration: You gave the Israelis a sophisticated weapon and now, here they are, using it immediately to inflame the conflict in the Middle East. Since 2006, Hezbollah has been making quite organized multi-year arming and power building plans. The emphasis in the past few years is on building strategic systems based on a shift from long-range rockets with large warheads to accurate surface-to-surface missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers. They could also be in the form of cruise missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles produced in Iran. Its unclear which of these weapons have already reached Hezbollah. The airstrikes attributed to Israel in Damascus are likely part of the attempt to curb this growing power. The Iranians and Hezbollah are trying to evade the Israeli intelligence, which is monitoring these shipments. Israel, for its part, reacts every time it detects a breach. For now, even the Russians understand us. Photographer Omer Shalev, 40, went out a week after work began on the Dizengoff Square to document the changes being made to one of the city's most iconic landscapes. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Shalev, a photographer and independent video producer, describes himself as someone who "lives and breathes" Tel Aviv. Bird'-eye view of Dizengoff Square (Video: Omer Shalev) ( : ) US President Barack Obama played down fallout from a US abstention on a United Nations resolution last month demanding an end to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and eastern Jeruslem, saying it did not trigger a significant break in relations with Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Relations between the United States and Israel, which have soured during Obama's eight years in office, reached a low point late last month when Washington, defying pressure from longtime ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump, declined to veto the UN resolution. After the December 23 vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the US move as "shameful" and accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the UN move against the settlements. The White House denied the charge. President Barack Obama (Photo: AFP) "I don't think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel," Obama said in an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" airing on Sunday night, according to a transcript provided by CBS. "If you're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahugot fired up, he's been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency," the president said with a a small giggle. Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel's capital despite international objections. Obama, who leaves office on Friday, said Israel's settlements had made it harder to imagine a contiguous, effective Palestinian state, seen as key to a long-sought two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War when surrounding Arab armies attacked, or were poised to attack Israel. Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. The last round of US-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes cant stand Benjamin Netanyahu, believes that Bibi is destroying the State of Israel and that he only has his best interest in mind. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, cant stand Arnon Mozes, believes that Noni is destroying the media and serving the left. Their deep mutual aversion began in the 1990s, when Yedioth Ahronoth published an investigative report about Sara Netanyahus behavior and about gifts received by the Netanyahu family. Sheldon Adelson. Closer than ever to fulfilling his vision (Photo: AFP) Knowing this, I am shocked when I read the texts of the conversations between these two , as presented by Channel 2 correspondent Guy Peleg. In these conversations, they both go out of their way to stroke each others ego, while completely disguising their real opinions of one another. Doesnt Bibi know that Noni is counting down the days to his downfall? Doesnt Noni know that Bibi is using all means to bring about the collapse of Yedioth Ahronoth? They know, and they know that they know. Nevertheless, they are both playing some kind of strange poker game whose purpose I fail to understand. After all, neither of them is capable of delivering the goods that the other one is allegedly hoping for. The fact is that all of their meetings did not lead to a change in Yedioth Ahronoths editorial content. Complicated? Perhaps, but its mostly terribly disgusting. Disgusting, repulsive and outrageous. As a citizen, my opinion is that Netanyahu is now harming the state I live in and want my children and grandchildren to live in. In order to save the state, Netanyahu must be quickly removed from the helm. As a Yedioth Ahronoth journalist, my opinion is that Mozes must announce that he is giving up his position as the newspapers managing editor. His conduct has badly damaged Yedioth Ahronoths reputation and worn out its credibility at a very difficult time. It would therefore be appropriate, in my opinion, for Noni Mozes to draw the required conclusion and stay away from the newspaper for now. Contrary to common perception, Sheldon Adelsonthe Jewish American owner of a chain of luxurious casinos whose fortune is worth about $31 billiondid not found Israel Hayom to glorify and praise the Netanyahu family. He founded his free newspaper to destroy Yedioth Ahronoth. I know that because I was told just that by Adelson himself (I didnt record him; I dont record people). And Im not the only one to whom he said that. He said the same thing directly to the newspapers publisher, Noni Moses. Adelson gave an ideological explanation for his plan to destroy Yedioth Ahronoth by distributing the free Israel Hayom newspaper. Yedioth Ahronoth, he said, is a leftist, anti-patriotic newspaper that is smearing the state. And that is why he, Adelson, decided to destroy it. Yedioth Ahronoths elimination, according to his plan, was aimed at paving the way for a hawkish-nationalist change in the Jewish public opinion in Israel. He saw Netanyahu at the time as an ideal politician to head a government that will lead the change. Adelson decided to fund Bibi a decade ago, just like he had recently decided to fund Donald Trump. The politicians he funds are just technical tools for the fulfillment of Adelsons hawkish-rightist-conservative world view. I am a billionaire with a world view, he used to say, and still does. Adelson, a businessman who does not pbother with pretenses, who puts his money where his heart is, not only spokehe poured. He poured hundreds of millions of shekels to start, fund and distribute a free newspaper that would promote his political-ideological goals. Today Adelson is satisfied. There is a clear, almost prefect correlation, between the time he began distributing Israel Hayom for free and the Israeli publics clear shift in the hawkish-nationalist-settlement direction. I am watching, therefore, the celebration of hate by alleged leftist newspapers and journalists against Yedioth Ahronoth in the past week and wondering: Has the option of removing a competitor from the market completely blinded them and driven them crazy? With Bolshevik enthusiasm, they are waging a campaign against a newspapernot against its publisherwhich, because of its independence and battles, has become a target for a casino magnate. Throwing dirt at Yedioth Ahronoth has become their obsession. Up until now, Yedioth Ahronoth has survived this assassination attempt through a tremendous journalistic-managerial effort. But this wont last forever. Yedioth Ahronoths financial means are nowhere near Sheldon Adelsons financial means. The economic cracks are widening, and the existential threat is more than concrete. At the same time, Adelson is closer than ever to fulfilling his vision: He currently owns one free newspaper and one newspaper, three websites and additional media organizations. And without affecting his fantastic wealth in any way, he can start and found a free television channel, as well. That is the reality of political media in Israel in 2017. Consider yourselves warned. The Yesh Atid party, led by Yair Lapid, announced Monday that it will support efforts to remove MK Basel Ghattas (Joint List) from the Knesset following the announcement at the beginning of January of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit that an indictment will be submitted against him in light of a scandal involving the smuggling of cellphones to terrorists in Israeli prisons by the MK. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter With the Isaac Herzog believed to have decided to give his party members a free hand in the vote at Knesset plenum on the matter, the required number for ousting Ghattas is expected to be attainted. The law requires the signatures of 70 Knesset members, and after those are obtained by the bill's initiator, Minister Ze'ev Elkin (Likud), they will be submitted to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who will hand the request over to the Knesset's House Committee, where a majority of two-thirds of the committee members is needed. MK Basel Ghattas (Photo: Yair Sagi) In addition to the support of Yesh Atid, there are also two Zionist Union representatives in the Knesset House Committee: MK Yoel Hasson and Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, with the former saying on Monday morning that the two would support the move. Given the 70 signatures that will enable the beginning of the dismissal process for MK Basel Ghattas in the Knesset House Committee, I wish to state before you my stance on the law and the removal process, wrote MK Hasson to committee chairman MK Yoav Kisch (Likud). The dismissal law from its origin is a bad law that did not need to be legislated. The law was born in sin and I am hopeful that the Knesset will manage to cancel it, to erase it from the law books of the State of Israel and legislate in its place a law that is more balanced and which will provide an answer to extreme cases like these, he said. However, Hasson continued, in the complicated reality that has come about following the legislation of the law, combined with the case of MK Ghattas who exploited his position as an MK to harm the Knesset, the State of Israel and the respect for Israeli democracy, and with the support of more than 70 MKs for the request for MK Ghattass removal, I am forced to isolate the aforementioned case from the democratic principle that has been damaged with the law's approval. MK Yoel Hasson (Photo: Gil Yohanan) From the very opening of the investigation against Ghattas, Hasson continued, numerous opportunities have been given to Ghattas to resign, opportunities that he chose not to take. For him, not resigning from the Knesset is a bargaining chip against the legal system, a chip he chooses to use despite the serious damage to the Knesset, to his constituents and the State of Israel. For its part, the Yesh Atid party promised that it would throw its weight behind the effort to boot Ghattas from the Knesset on the proviso that an indictment was issued against him. However, while the partys signature was delayed and an indictment has not yet been submitted, it is now expected to put pen to paper. After it is signed, the request will be transferred by MK Elkin to the Knesset House Committee chairman and will then be brought for approval before the committee in one reading only. At this stage, at least 90 MKs will be required to approve it. With Yesh Atids support, and at least some from the Zionist Union, the chances of Ghattass immediate removal are significantly increased. On Sunday night, Ghattas wrote a letter to MKs asking that they do not dismiss him from the Knesset. The tenuous and false leaks by the police to the media are continuing, he claimed. Yair Lapid (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Within a few hours, a media lynch was carried out against me and the courts presented me as a terrorist or a terrorist collaborator, as someone who passed encrypted messages and instructions for an attack and communication equipment to terror groups and of course, I had become a national threat before they invited me to be questioned, Ghattas continued. The lies and incitement reached an unacceptable peak when it was claimed that I went into hiding and that I was avoiding investigation at a time when it was easy to get hold of me. In addition, Ghattas appealed to Yair Lapid via SMS not to sign the initiative for his removal, to which Lapid responded: Basel, I suggest that instead of this, you do yourself, your party, the Israeli Knesset and Israeli democracy a favor and immediately resign from the Knesset. If you dont do so, we will sign the dismissal proposal. The heads of major UN organizations are calling for access to children and families cut off from humanitarian aid in Syria, saying the world "must not stand silent" even though the high-profile siege of Aleppo is over. Top officials from the UN's refugee agency, humanitarian aid coordinator OCHA, children's agency UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization are urging for "immediate, unconditional and safe access" to those civilians. They say that up to 700,000 peoplenearly half of them childrenlive in 15 besieged areas of Syria. Many lack "the most basic elements to sustain their lives" and face "continued risk of violence." The appeal came on Monday from Davos in Switzerland, where business, political and other elites are gathering for the World Economic Forum. The Shin Bet and the IDF arrested 13 Hamas activists in the West Bank overnight Sunday, including a member of the Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter During the operation, security forces found and confiscated thousands of shekels, a vehicle and Hamas propaganda material. In recent weeks, the Shin Bet exposed, also together with the IDF, a widescale Hamas infrastructure operating in Ramallah and the Binyamin region in which the headquarters of the organization were discovered. Illustration (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) The headquarters, consisting of an eight-tier hierarchy made up of dozens of activists, worked to strengthen Hamass grip in the West Bank as an organization and influential element throughout the area. Among a range of activities, the Hamas headquarters operated through social and economic channels and provided economic support to prisoners, families of terrorists and Hamas student cells. Moreover, the headquarters disseminated Hamas propaganda material and sponsored rallies. They were were continuously financed, according to the Shin bet, by Hamas officials abroad and in the Gaza Strip. Police received numerous false warnings via the civilian emergency line 100 on on Monday morning from an individual with an American accent claiming that explosive devices has been planted in schools across Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter After sappers were called to the various schools where the bombs were alleged to have been planted, it became clear that they were false alarms. In the messages received by the police, a woman with an American accent can be heard saying: you have a bomb in your school. Illustration (Photo: Raanan Ben Tzur) The moment that the reports were received, the principals of the schools were quickly informed, who in turn alerted the security forces of the city and the police. Among others, reports were received about two schools in Tel Aviv and in Ramat Hasharon. Recorded messages were also received by the secretaries of the Shezar elementary school in Herzliya where a bomb was purported to have been planted by the anonymous caller who warned that it was about to explode. Police forces and local security units were immediately hurried to the school to evacuate the students. Following a thorough scour however, no explosive was located and the students returned to their studies. Chairman of the Parents Committee for Shezar Elementary said: I was in the school when the report was received. The students...were evacuated to an open area. The students were relaxed and they were we not panicking. I hope that whoever did this prank is not a child. Whoever did make the call should take into account that he is causing unnecessary strain on the students and harassing the security forces that have to deal with this kind of situation. Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu provided testimony for the police Monday afternoon on the case concerning sexual assault complaints filed against MK Nissan Slomiansky (Bayit Yehudi). Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In recent weeks, Eliyahu has headed an independent team that he established to look into the claims, and collected evidence from two women claiming that Slomiansky assaulted them. Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Last month, Slomiansky announced his resignation from the position of director of the Constitutional, Law and Justice Committee in light of the claims made against him. I am aware of the weight of responsibility entailed in the job, but more importantly, I think the right thing to do is to allow a fair check into all the claims that have been made, Slomiansky said. After the announcement however, Slomiansky said that he had no intention of suspending himself from the Knesset. Nissan Slomiansky (Photo: Gil Yohanan) "MK Nissan Slomiansky has never harassed women. After a meeting with several rabbis, he understood that his warmhearted behavior, which is the same toward everyone, is sometimes interpreted in a different way, and for that he is sorry. MK Slomiansky has been serving the public for 40 years, including time in the Knesset, and he will continue to do so," said an official on his behalf. The statement apologized for hugging or shaking a hand or touching an elbow without any sexual intention. Fuel from Qatar arrived in the Gaza Strip on Monday, helping ease a crippling power shortage that has sparked rare demonstrations against the territory's Hamas rulers who responded with a crackdown on protesters. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Gaza's power authority said the Qatari-bought diesel would double the amount of power provided to Gazan households. The power plant in Gaza (Photo: AP) The lack of power has stoked anger and frustration, driving thousands of people to the streets of Gaza last week in rare protests against Hamas and its failure to solve the crisis. Hamdi Shaqoura, deputy director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, said Hamas arrested dozens of people and summoned dozens of others in a bid to prevent more demonstrations. The human rights group was still tallying the number of people arrested or summoned. Hamas, a terrorist group and political party sworn to Israel's destruction, has shown little tolerance for dissent since it wrested control of Gaza in 2007. One protest last week, in the Jebaliya refugee camp, was the largest unauthorized gathering in the coastal strip since the takeover. Other scheduled demonstrations have since been thwarted. Among those arrested was a local comedian, Adel al-Mashwakhi, who made a viral video lamenting the power shortages during the cold winter season. He remains in prison. The protests in Gaza (Photo: AP) Hamas' Interior Ministry said it would release all people who were held against a backdrop of "vandalism and sabotaging during the protests against the electricity crisis." Life has become increasingly difficult for Gaza's 2 million residents, who are squeezed into the tiny coastal territory. Hamas' violent takeover a decade ago triggered a border blockade by Israel and Egypt that, among other things, contributed greatly to the power shortages. Despite the hardships, anti-Hamas protests have been rare, in part because of fearHamas has routinely clamped down on criticsand because even disgruntled Gazans believe there's no realistic path to toppling the militants. KINSHASA -- At least two dozen people, most of them women, have been killed over the past week in ethnic violence between Bantus and Pygmies in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a U.N. human rights official said on Monday. The Luba, a Bantu ethnic group, and the Twa, a Pygmy people who inhabit Central Africa's Great Lakes region, have been in conflict since May 2013 in Congo's Katanga region, known for its rich deposits of copper and other metals. Referring to the expanding '2000 case' involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth owner and publisher Arnon Mozes, several government officials have spoken out Monday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit defended the decision to wait on an investigation, saying, "Waiting with an investigation was an informed decision. To make use of the recordings required a complex and careful legal review." Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit (Photo: Yariv Katz) Referring to the notoriety of the investigation itself, Mandelblit said, "This situation, conducting an investigation in the middle of a media, social and political frenzy has imposed on law enforcement and myself a tremendous responsibility to make sure that all investigative considerations are made professionally. "I want to publicly say that my people and I, as well as the Israel Police, will continue to act on cases such as this with professionalism and with our only goal being to arrive at the truth and continue the rule of law. There is no other option and we will not deviate from this." Yesh Atid Chairperson MK, Yair Lapid, addressed the investigation at a Knesset committee meeting, saying, "Everything that is really important has been pushed aside. We need to let the police conduct the investigation and the attorney general to examine the evidence gathered during the investigation, but it cannot take too long. MKs Isaac Herzog (left) and Yair Lapid (PhotosL Gil Yohanan, Yaron Brenner) "There is a country to run here. There are real problems and we can't allow a prime minister to spend too much time in investigation rooms and meeting with lawyers when he needs to be in cabinet meetings and discussing the economy." Head of the opposition and Chairman of the Zionist Union, MK Isaac Herzog, said, "These are difficult days for democracy in Israel, but also days of cleaning and exposure. There is no doubt that our democracy is strong and will withstand this. It is important to say and emphasize that the political system is not corrupt to the core and neither are journalists and the media, because there are good and powerful forces working to right these wrongs. "Yesterday it was revealed that Netanyahu decided to go to the polls, which cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of shekels, for his own personal interests and those of private commercial enterprises. Netanyahu has shown himself to be a merchant of Israeli democracy, which he treats as his private property. Every Israeli citizen should be concerned by the image of Israeli democracy and by Netanyahu's other exploits that have not yet been exposed." Following the initial examination of the body of the terrorist who carried out the Jerusalem truck attack , a senior IDF official called into question the so-called "Elor Azaria effect" and said, "I hope the police conclusions can help put an end to this sad affair." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Minutes after the attack in which four IDF officers were murdered, claims began to spread that the soldiers on the scenemany young commanders and cadets from the IDF's Officer Training Schoolfled and avoided contact with the terrorist. Scene of the attack (Photo: Reuters) Eitan Rond, the civilian who drew his weapon and opened fire at the terrorist, suggested that the soldiers were afraid to use their weapons as a result of the Elor Azaria verdict. "I don't understand why 40 soldiers that were there didn't shoot," he said. "I don't like to say it, but we could be less of a victim society. These soldiers have been in the army for two and a half weeks and all they tell them is 'be careful, be careful, be careful'." Yet, in the hours following the attack, it became clear that the outcome of the Azaria trial had no basis, as evidenced by the soldiers advancing on the terrorist and opening fire. Take for example Lt. Maya Peled, who while recounting the attack, said, "I got off the bus and opened fire at the terrorist while the cadets and provided covering fire." Lt. Maya Peled (Photo: Gil Nachshoni) Nevertheless, claims of the "Azaria effect" are still rampant on social media with many claiming that the verdict has harmed the willingness of IDF soldiers to act. However, proof refuting this claim has finally arrived. Shortly after the body of Fadi Al-Qunbar arrived at the Abu Kabir Forenic Institute, tests proved that the bullet that killed the terrorist was a 5.56 caliber M-16 round, as opposed to a 9mm pistol round from the handgun of Eitan Rond. This proves that it was the soldiers on the scene who killed the terrorist. According to an IDF official acquainted with the forensic tests, "We're fighting a fierce war against social media to explain what really happened. Unfortunately, we still haven't succeeded in refuting this false narrative. Not all of the soldiers opened fire at the truck. What did people want? 300 soldiers to stand there and start shooting?" The Israel Police's National Fraud Investigations Unit questioned MK Basel Ghattas (Joint List) on suspicion of forgery, fraud and money laundering. The questioning was done as part of an ongoing investigation into financial corruption within the Balad party. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The interrogation was conducted with the approval of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit. MK Ghattas arrives for questioning (Photo: Motti Kimchi) As part of the case, police are investigating senior members of Balad for offenses including illegal fundraising and hiding funds and their sources. For example, money is suspected to have come from Arab countries such as Qatar and was smuggled into Israel for use in political activities. According to police, over the course of an extended period of time, millions of shekels flowed into the party from various Arab organizations abroad and other countries. A portion of the money was smuggled into Israel in a variety of ways, including cash and suitcases. Protestors in support of Balad MK Ghattas said in response that the investigation into Balad and its leadership is nothing more than "political persecution with the object being to damage Balad's political image. The puzzling timing of this investigation is the result of police misconduct aimed at affecting my legal case by creating a hostile environment around me. This attempt will not work and neither will the political persecution." MK Ghattas is currently under indictment for smuggling telephones to terrorists in Israeli prisons. Earlier Monday, the Zionist Union announced that it will work to have Ghattas removed from the Knesset by impeachment. An IDF Skylark drone crashed in southern Lebanon Monday near the border with Israel. The IDF is investigating the circumstances of the malfunction that caused the drone to crash in the western area of the border. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Lebanese media outlets reported that the Lebanese Army is conducting searches for the lost drone. According to Lebanese news channel "Al-Mayadeen," the drone was reported to have crashed in the area near a village in the south. Additionally, Lebanese news channel "Al-Jadid" reported that the IDF has stepped up contacts with the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) in an attempt to locate the drone. Skylark UAV (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) According to Hezbollah's military propaganda site, the Lebanese Army did not succeed in locating the "spy plane" as a result of the rough terrain, but searches are expected to continue into the morning. The Lebanese Army has yet to issue a response on the matter, given that the drone has not yet been located. The drone belongs to the Artillery Corps and is designed for tactical use. IDF liaison officers informed UNIFIL of the crash. Dobra, k. Szczecina 900 m2 40 miejsc parkingowych Atut: Dodatkowe dochody z paczkomatow InPostu, a juz niedugo i z myjni samoobsugowej. Tradycyjny zakup nieruchomosci, mozliwosc wykupienia uzytkowania wieczystego. An up-to-date spot for library staff serving youth around Wisconsin to find relevant news, events, and resources. Links should be correct at the time of publication. If a link is incorrect, please contact the blog administrator within a month of publication. Links on older posts may have changed. Any YSS member wishing to write posts, please e-mail Marge Loch-Wouters at lochwouters@gmail.com. The last couple of weeks were the toughest of times for Indians. The terrorists, who wrought havoc in Mumbai, threatened to destroy the very idea of India.

The attack on Indias financial capital has really shaken the nation from its torpor. The incident has made common people take to the streets, cutting across lines of caste, creed, community and religion.

The consequence of the attacks has not even spared the sporting field. To be precise, it has turned India into a vulnerable cricketing hub where any foreign team will now give a second thought before planning a tour.

The terrorists launched their bloody battle in Mumbai when India had thrashed England five consecutive times in the seven-match ODI series, making a mockery of the English snobbery. Already shaken on the field, the Mumbai mayhem traumatized the British team and compelled them to leave the country midway through the series.

Some cricket pundits, administrators and former cricketers envious of Indias emergence as a new cricketing super power, started writing obituaries for India as a host nation for important cricketing events in the future. This sent shivers down the spines of cricket lovers and administrators in India.

Some feared that India is going the Pakistan way, which was robbed of several international cricket tournaments including the prestigious Champions Trophy in recent times due to security concerns. Nobody wants to be the guest of a person whose house is on fire. None should be blamed for being frightened.

But India is different in every aspect. The indomitable spirit of Indians is its greatest strength. In the past 60 years India has taken such beatings only to emerge as a much stronger nation. The largest democracy of the world may seem fragile on the face value, but has withstood several challenges in the past with resounding courage.

A nation, which braved four (1962, 1965, 1971 and Kargil) devastating wars, is on the threshold of becoming a super power. The nation is desperate to shed its third world tag. In every sector India as a nation has shown superb growth and improvement.

Its no difference in sports. Though in other sports India has only started doing well by securing its first individual gold in Beijing Olympics, cricket is the game the entire nation takes to with passion. Its all but natural that both as a cricket playing nation and international cricketing hub, India has emerged as a super power.

Our cricket team has emerged from a potential challenger, to becoming true champions by thrashing Australia 2-0 recently. Every cricket playing nation wants India to tour their country because it is the most followed team with plenty of charismatic players in its ranks.

Team India have the capacity to draw people out of their homes to the grounds. When India tour any country, people gather in huge numbers to catch a glimpse of the men in blue that ultimately proves to be a huge revenue generating factor for any country. So its all but natural that it will not be possible for any country to sever cricketing ties with India due to security reasons.

With a huge fan following and a powerful media, Indias emergence as the new cricketing hub cant be ignored. Its India which has heralded a new beginning in cricket by introducing Indian Premier League (IPL), a city-based rivalry everybody loves to take part in.

The snobbish England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) with ever-conservative MCC at its helm, seems to be losing its ground as more and more English players want to be part of this money making extravaganza in India. Some foreign players may not like this third world country, but they simply cant ignore the land which fattens their purses. So much so that the IPL and even Indian Cricket League (ICL) saw players including Adam Gilchrist, Stephen Fleming and Shaun Pollock taking early retirements to get a taste of this moolah.

Moreover, best of the players from England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa who generally get lukewarm response from their own people, get a sense of fulfilment when cheered by millions in India as they play for Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Superstars. Money cant buy adulation.

Indian people, despite having faced poverty, unemployment and terrorism, have always found solace in cricket in their hour of crisis. Even the greatest cynic of the game accepts its overwhelming influence on Indians. The game binds the whole nation on a common platform. It makes them forget their mundane sufferings.

A country in which cricket is considered as religion and its heroes as demigods, a handful of terrorists dont have the power to destroy the game or its spirit. Hello dearies! This is the Mistress of Spize, cooking up a lot of salt n sour, sweet n saucy stories and observations for you. Sniff! Can you smell, my preparation? Aroma is in the air and smoke is already rising from my hot pot.

Lets talk about eye-candy! The latest would be Hrithiks sword brandishing scene from Jodhaa Akbar. Man! how his muscles flexed as he challenged Aishwaryas defiance. That perfectly carved body language said it all without a word. It drew sighs from women across all ages. It was so amusing to hear a huddled group of aunty jis chatting about that perfectly chiselled body. And I was shocked to see the teeny-weeny teenagers just ogling. The sword-brandishing scene kind of bonded all females. And, let me tell you, it is that scene which will be remembered when all would be forgotten about Jodhaa Akbar.

For the male species, well, the latest eye-candy is the catty eyed Katrina Kaif and her sizzling item-numbers.

Dearies, I am sure you would be bursting with excitement to relate such stories and add on to the story-churning pot. Do interact and relate your rare observations through comments. Mistress of Spize is all ears!
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